#he has to leave the house and go on a walk to calm down

[jtmportland]

Petals from cherry blossoms catch the wind and move like clouds of scented moths along the street. Living confetti. Blossoms cling to hair, skin, clothing. They outline rooftops and sidewalks with shaggy carnation. The entire neighborhood is traced and speckled like a child’s drawing done in pink chalk.

In the house Mike groans, vomits, makes small cries for hours, between bouts of pain and nausea he pleads with his body to “please stop.” On the whole he’s been responding well to chemotherapy but the last two days have been round after round of pain, sickness, and exhaustion. In a day or two he’ll be fine, almost as if he wasn’t sick. That’s how its worked out so far. We all wait.

The dogwoods are open. I’ve never seen them so lush. The flowers weigh down the branches, creating expanding and contracting arches. My mother loved dogwoods above all flowers. In past years I’ve sent her picture after picture when they bloom. Now she’s gone. Taking the photos even if they aren’t sent gives me a choice. I could grieve for her but instead the love she imparted to me for these trees makes me smile.

On the phone my Trans friends talk of ways to leave the country. My writer and artist friends who have openly supported Palestine speak of the same. I walk to calm down, to think about action that can be taken. No calm comes, no plan for the future, but my body relaxes and a sense of physical benevolence moves through me as the scent of Lilacs takes over the block where I walk. It feels like a betrayal on that part of my body. It feels good.

The protest takes place on the warmest day of the year. It feels so good to be among this number of people, to be part of a public action. To sweat and feel the skin grow warm in the sunlight. I’m asked to help push a wheel chair for an elderly woman who can barely be seen behind her “Trump Must Go” sign. She has voted Republican all her life until now. At some point the march merges with an outdoor market. The motion of the crowd, chants and shouts, signs with slogans and crude cartoons of Trump and Musk – all of it blends easily with coffee price signs, handmade dream catchers, tourist postcards, and stickers that read “Keep Portland Weird.” I wish it was weird, but this is Portland and this is America.

[nctcraze]

NCTDREAM as your boyfriend

(all jokes)

Drabbles/Headcanons

Don't take this serious 🤪

I'm making drabbles/headcanons instead of finishing my Chenle’s sister x Jisung fake texts cause I'm annoying 😕 sorry 🥰

Mark:

He would be the type of boyfriend who buys you gifts every time he sees you. He knows he is busy half the time so he tries to double the affection when he finally gets to see you.

He would be the type of boyfriend to rest his hand on your hand when sat down or standing around. Like interlocked on top if you get me.

He would be the type of boyfriend to constantly remind you how beautiful you are. When you are talking he would be staring into your eyes with a big smile and when you stop talking he will throw compliments at you. “Your smile is so gorgeous” “I love your eyes” “The way your face lights up when you talk is breath taking”

He would be the type of boyfriend to be quite cringe and sappy but you don't mind cause he is handsome and sweet.

Renjun:

He would be the type of boyfriend who showers you in compliments 24/7. Everytime he texts you its filled with “pretty” “gorgeous” and everytime you are with him he constantly reminds you how much he loves you.

He would be the type of boyfriend who holds your hand everywhere. Going forward a walk, going to sleep, etc.

He would be the type of boyfriend to send you lunch to your work. Maybe even send flowers or notes for you to put on your desk.

He would be the type of boyfriend to slowly open up to you. But once you are both comfortable together you are an unstoppable couple.

Jeno:

He would be the type of boyfriend to constantly be holding you. He will hug your waist if he is stood behind you. He will hold your hand if you are walking. He will hold your thigh when he is driving or sat down. He just wants to touch you constantly.

He would be the type of boyfriend who loves to hug you from behind. Like he LOVE LOVE LOVES your waist.

He would be the type of boyfriend to text you everytime he arrives at his destination. If he is leaving the house he tells you even if you mentioned it didn't bother you where he went. He just loves to communicate everything.

He would be the type of boyfriend to be quiet at first but is actually quite the yapper.

Haechan:

He would be the type of boyfriend to always be around you. Like he constantly wants you around. If he is playing videos games he would want you sat with him. If he is rehearsing he would want you in the practice room even if you are just sat out of view. He just wants you to always be with him.

He would be the type of boyfriend to have his hand on your thigh whenever he gets the chance. He likes when you put your other leg on top and his hand is hidden in between your thighs.

He would be the type of boyfriend to sit you in his lap when playing video games and help you with whatever you want. Even if it interrupts his game sesh because he prioritizes your happiness over his gameplay.

He would be the type of boyfriend to be super weird around you and playfully bully you. But if anybody else says anything mean about you he gets very possessive and aggitated.

Jaemin:

He would be the type of boyfriend to be obsessed with your physical touch. He wants you to constantly be touching him and sat on his lap.

He would be the type of boyfriend who always has his arm around your shoulder. If you are next to him he will throw his arm around your shoulder and pull you in closer.

He would be the type of boyfriend who would help you at the gym with anything. Even if it meant he would be distracted from his own workout. He prioritizes you and your safety before himself.

He would be the type of boyfriend who would be confident and sexy on your first date but as you get more comfortable and start dating he would become more calm and silly with you.

Chenle:

He would be the type of boyfriend who would love gifting. He would constantly spend his money on you. Anything you want he would get you without you even knowing. Window shopping turns into surprise gifts.

He would be the type of boyfriend who would always have his hand in your pocket or on your waist.

He would be the type of boyfriend who would call you “princess”. He treats you like one so he believes you are one.

He would be the type of boyfriend who acts serious and possessive in public but is soft and silly when you are alone.

Jisung:

He would be the type of boyfriend who would love just being in your presence. Even if you weren't actually talking or interacting. He just loves being around you and knowing you are safe and happy.

He would be the type of boyfriend who would constantly have his hands on your thighs. He would rub them when he is nervous and always squeeze them when he doesn't feel super secure with whatever is going on around you both.

He would be the type of boyfriend who would be super obsessed with you. Constantly brings you up with friends and family. Builds things for you in Minecraft and has a world dedicated to you.

He would be the type of boyfriend who is super shy at first but once comfortable he becomes such a weirdo around you. He always makes you laugh.

(Let me know what else you want to see! Fluff and Angst mostly cause Smut isn't really my strong point 🤕 and I always feel nervous writing smut headcanons LMFAOOOOO)

[lulublack90]

Prompt 30 - Calming Draught

@wolfstarmicrofic April 30, word count 611

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

It took them hours to go through everything. Dumbledore used a Quick Quotes Quill to take down everything they were saying. They’d had to take more doses of the Memory Potion to keep going. There was so much and, together, it was damning. 

Peter had been there for every single instance that particular information had been shared with the other side. 

It had been Peter who had put the thought that Remus was the spy into Sirius’s head. 

“Remus, I’m so sorry,” Sirius grabbed Remus’s hand and squeezed it. “I should never have listened to him. How did we not see that it was him all along? James is going to be devastated.” Remus squeezed his hand back. 

“He was always good at blending into the background. How many pranks did he play on us, and we hadn’t even suspected anything? He was sly when he wanted to be.” 

“At least he was not the secret keeper these last few weeks, as I assume Voldemort was planning on attacking the Potters, possibly on Halloween itself, perhaps before, but as Mr Pettigrew was unable to give him the secret, we must be grateful for that too,” Dumbledore added sadly. “Without your revealing to Remus that you were not in fact the Potter's secret keeper, you may have saved the lives of James, Lily and Harry.” Dumbledore held out two more vials of potion. 

“We’ve already been through everything,” Remus said, puzzled. 

“It is not more Memory Potion, but rather a Calming Draught. I thought you might be thankful of them when you return home,” Dumbledore explained. Remus was indeed thankful. He didn’t know how he’d cope with the revelation once they were out of the headmaster's office. 

“We need to tell James,” Sirius told Dumbledore. The headmaster leaned forward, and resting his chin on his steepled fingers, observing them both. 

“I suppose you must, but it is imperative that he not leave his house. The danger has not yet passed, and Lord Voldemort will stop at nothing to hunt them down. In fact,” His eyes flicked to Sirius. “I think it a good idea that you too go into hiding.”

“I won’t go anywhere without Remus,” Sirius said, his chin rising in defiance. 

“Mr Lupin's work with the werewolf packs is far too important to the cause,” Dumbledore said, frustratingly calmly. 

“I’m going with Sirius. The packs don’t trust me, and most want nothing to do with Voldemort. If he really wants them, he will get them. We haven’t offered them anything to make them stay on our side. They need true protection, which, let's be honest, no one wants to give them. I refuse to harass those wolves any more,” Remus put his foot down. He’d hated going to the wolf packs. Every time he tried to make contact with a new pack, he got attacked, and it took him longer and longer each time to get even a modicum of trust from them. 

“I assume you would hide with the Potters? What about the full moon, Remus? There is a baby in that house.” Remus hadn’t thought of that. 

“The woods at the back of the house are within the boundaries of the fidelius charm and all the protection charms. We can add extra wards, and he can transform in there. It’s one night every month, Dumbledore. We’ve managed before, and we’ll manage again. Now, if you want us, we’ll be at James and Lily’s. Oh, and here’s their address so you can find us,” Sirius slipped a scrap of parchment across the desk with the Potter’s address on it, took Remus’s hand and walked them out of Dumbledore's office. 

Part 10

[rainydayathogwarts]

mythical may m.list

✯ may 1 ✯ heir to the dark lord's empire - mattheo riddle

when you freak out and try to leave your first death eater meeting you've been forced to attend by your mother, Narcissa and Mattheo are quick to protect you, but in two wildly different ways...

✯ may 3 ✯ Phantom of the Opera: Chapter 6 - "Masquerade" - Remus Lupin

when harry sends you another owl claiming that professor snape has it out for him, you decide to pay them a short visit.

✯ may 5 ✯ spoken confession - art donaldson

when patrick can't come over to yours with art, leaving you two alone, the blond boy finally decides to make a move on you. but it seems as though you have the same plans

✯ may 7 ✯ heavy dresses, tight corsets - harry potter -> concussions and interruptions au

in the guise of having a sleepover with daphne, you go over to harry's house, where you can finally take this stupid dress off

✯ may 9 ✯ close friends - eddie munson

eddie munson is the type of guy with an empty instagram profile, never even opening the app. but when he suddenly starts posting on his stories one summer when he's two states away that include a mystery girl, his friends need to do some digging.

✯ may 11 ✯ Phantom of the Opera: Chapter 7 - "The Mirror" - Remus Lupin

when you walk into your father's office and discover the sketches of the house he's building you and Remus, you worry that your house will be cold and unwelcoming, like the one you grew up in. But luckily, Remus is there to calm down all your troubles

✯ may 13 ✯ smash - draco malfoy

draco malfoy? smash. except you say those words a little too loud.

✯ may 15 ✯ a certain malfoy - bill weasley

charlie can't wait to tell his mother about bill's encounter with you, and she reflects on you and bill's relationship when you were still students at hogwarts.

✯ may 17 ✯ sunscreen - steve harrington

you and steve share a tender moment before facing hawkin's chaos, barely disturbed by the annoying teenagers and adults around you

✯ may 19 ✯ people are watching - harry potter -> concussions and interruptions au

it seems that you begin to care less and less who gets to see the true side of your parents. and apparently, so do they.

✯ may 21 ✯ sirius black sighted- sirius black

'sirius black sighted' reads the newspaper on sunday morning, and you finally discover the name of the man who stole your heart the night before.

✯ may 23 ✯ Phantom of the Opera: Chapter 8 - Remus Lupin

TBC

✯ may 25 ✯ like kissing her - marlene mckinnon

the boys are shocked when they see the perfect, reputable slytherin pureblood sitting on marlene mckinnon's lap in the common room.

✯ may 27 ✯ dinner time - harry potter

you join harry in bed for cuddles, and whilst the boy is ready to sleep, you let him know it's barely dinner time.

✯ may 29 ✯ get used to this - remus lupin -> potter!reader secret relationship au

remus could really get used to the idea of spending summers with your family, cuddling with you on the couch until the early hours of the morning.

✯ may 31 ✯ there are worse things - fred weasley

when your parents finally send you off to hogwarts, things don't go according to plan, because in less that twelve hours, you've been sorted into gryffindor and made friends with your housemates. And even worse: Weasleys

[formerlympp]

a little soft lily and shirtless james for shirtless jp may

The warm September air swirled around her, throwing her light cloak behind her as she descended the large stone steps of the castle. The grass was a pallet of earth tones, dark green mossy patches gave way to light green blades, and some patches, for which the summer had not been kind, faded to brown. Her trainers crunched over those parts in her stride.

The familiar path she trod took her back to the previous year.

It all felt like a dream at times, but not the sweet kind of dream, not the kind that captivates and leaves a person disappointed when they awake from it.

It was the kind that felt like walking on eggshells, anticipating danger around every corner. They were foreboding and unsettling. That’s how the beginning of sixth year felt to her. Like the culmination of that day after OWLs, the growing unrest of the wizarding world, would all come to head, come crashing down on her in ways she couldn’t fathom.

It was easy to feel like she didn’t belong sometimes. And it was this thought that carried her away from the castle on the second Sunday of term.

The grounds were packed with students of all ages. The younger students chased after each other, teeming with endless energy, with childlike wonder still in their eyes that made her stomach drop. The older, like her friends whom she knew were somewhere near the lake, lazed about, basking in the sun as though enjoying the calm before the academic storm.

Her feet carried her to the Quidditch pitch, where the first practice of the season for Gryffindor House was taking place. She kept her pace until she was a quarter of the way onto the field, before lying down in the grass. She had never watched Quidditch this way, but quite enjoyed this new vantage point. It made her think that perhaps she was simply just looking at all the problems in her life from the wrong angle.

As the training session drew to a close—they had spent the majority of the time on flying practice, for which their captain had a very strict regime, but she wouldn’t know that at this time—she folded her arms behind her head and closed her eyes, allowing the warmth of the sunlight to blanket her.

“Interesting place to take a nap,” said a voice from above her.

She opened her eyes against the brightness and had to squint through the bright orange lights that surrounded him. She hadn’t needed to open her eyes to know who had approached her and she was fairly certain even if he had masked his voice she would have known.

He had his practice jersey still on, broomstick perched on his shoulder. It must not have weighed a lot because he stood tall and relaxed under its weight.

“How’d it go?” she found herself asking. “Your first practice as captain, wasn’t it?”

“All looked good from my perspective,” he replied, taking her question as an invitation to sit down next to her. They had not spoken much since the previous June. “But I’ve never watched people fly quite like you did. Have you done this much and I hadn’t noticed?”

“No,” she answered, though they both knew his question was rhetorical because she never would have gone unnoticed by him. She was still lying on her back, staring up at the cloudless blue sky. “I just...”

He fiddled with the grass next to him as he waited for her to go on.

After a time, or maybe no time at all, she quietly told him: “It sometimes doesn’t feel real. Like I’m... I go home every summer, and there is no magic there. Sometimes I wake up and wonder if I’ve just imagined all of this.”

He nodded along as she spoke, but they both knew, as a pureblood, he could not truly understand her.

“So that’s why I came here...to surround myself in something that is unmistakably real.” She felt the weight of his eyes on her and nervously added, “I know that sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t. No one in their right mind has ever mistaken anything you’ve ever said as stupid, Evans.” He cleared his throat, bringing his knees up to his chest before folding his arms around them. “Look about last year--”

“Forget it.”

“No, seriously—”

“Forget it. It doesn’t matter—”

“It does matter, though. I never properly—”

She perched herself up on her elbows now, and he twisted around to look directly at her. “You’re misunderstanding me. I want to forget it, James. It’s better this way.”

He studied her face, or what he could see of her features under the hand that was shading her eyes. “Okay.” He looked uneasily away from her, though it appeared to her that his shoulders slackened from the weight she had just removed, from the way the world had shifted around them.

There was fifth year James and Lily, and it was evident from this moment onward that sixth year James and Lily would be different.

Her feet carried her back to the Quidditch pitch. The first practice of the year for Gryffindor House meant flying conditioning, which she was well aware of now. She tossed her cloak on the ground and laid down to watch.

She closed her eyes as her hair danced in the breeze, tickling her nose and cheeks. Ridding her mind of the pile of homework that was already stacking up on her to-do list, she let the warmth engulf her as the practice went on above her.

“The tradition continues,” said a familiar voice that sounded light, as though laughter was at the edge of his lips. She opened her eyes and surveyed him. He discarded his Quidditch practice jersey and broomstick on the grass and he sat himself next to her.

She smiled as she turned to look at him. “And you just happened to be strolling by without a shirt on, were you?”

He laughed, eyes bright, with an all too familiar curve to his lips that sent her spiraling into another plane of existence. “Sweltering out here, isn’t it?”

She watched as he lay down onto the grass. His face turned toward hers, the grin widening as they lay there, eyes locked on each other under the bright summer sun. After a moment he unfolded his hands from where they rested atop his ribs and reached out to brush his fingers against hers. She responded by threading her fingers through his.

“So how did practice go?” she asked, as though she had asked it hundreds of times before, as though nothing else mattered at this moment.

And, with him at her side, his hand warm and calloused and so alive in hers, not much else did.

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

satosugu get into very tense debates about what kind of animal you’re most like btw

[bruiisedfawn]

˙ . ꒷ 🍰 . 𖦹˙—

[yeyinde]

winter soldier au with John Price who was held in a gulag for three years and comes home wrong. comes back snarling and furious and threatening to rip apart the goddamn world if they don't give him what belongs to him, what's rightfully his, if they don't give him back his fucking wife, right this second—

the only problem is: John's ex-wife remarried. she's halfway around the world, and Laswell knows John enough to immediately squash that idea right away. but if not her, then who?

and then you walk into the room—a newly hired secretary that John has met less than a handful of times; a pencil pusher barely even a blip on the radar—but he pounces. snatches you up before any of them can react, tucking your bemused face into his chest, cradling you tight; possessively clutching at you as Kyle tries, and fails, to calm him down.

"you don't know her, sir. just let the girl go—"

it's met with a nasty snarl. all gleaming, bloodied teeth. a stranger in a familiar shape as John drags you further away from them. "this is my goddamn wife."

his declaration is met with shock. you're definitely not his wife. you barely know him much outside of a several, threadbare exchanges where he breathed down your neck about filing the wrong reports, and the cluttered mess of your desk ("a goddamn eyesore—"). you're not even friends. and in all honesty, you didn't even think he liked you that much. so. wife?

but he's beyond reason. his head a mangled, trenched mess of artillery fire and Makarov's torture. three years, Kate breathes. three whole years.

you can tell, almost immediately, by the look on her face that this—that you—will become a necessary loss in the grand scheme of things. and when John lets her close enough to whisper into your ear (having somehow convinced him that he can just walk out of here with you, his fucking wife, leaving for the marital home (and bed) that he demands from them for this brief stalemate)—she hurriedly tells you about their plot. this high risk, no reward scenario of playing along. not that you have much of a choice.

keeping John Price as close to them as possible was worth more than something as flimsy, as malleable as your agency, your autonomy. and if the way to do it was to let a brainwashed man play house with you, then so be it.

she, at the very least, offers a grim sort of smile even though you can see her working out the mechanics of it all as she makes promises on your behalf. things like, yes, John, you can leave with your wife. she missed you so much, John. she's so happy you're home.

"we kept your wife safe for you, John—" no one seems to react to the violent way Johnny has to be dragged out of the room by Ghost, kicking and screaming at the injustice of it all because th' captain wouldnae do this! don't do this t'him!

and John—if there's any part of that man still inside him, he doesn't let an inch of it show—just nods, lip pulling up into a snarl as he bullies you closer to his chest, and growls about finally getting you home.

"I'll keep you with me," he rasps, blunt fingers spreading wide over the fill of your body. a mad, twisted gleam of possessiveness, ownership, burning in bruised blue as he familiarises himself with this body he claimed as his. "right where you belong, wife."

(the word comes out in a bite. snaps around you and sounds just like mine.)

[ohbo-ohno]

animal, sick as they come

summary: Ghost has been starving his whole life. Never enough food to fill his stomach, never enough blood to cover his hands, always leaving him hungry and ready to snap. You’re the supposed solution to his problem, willing or not. (or: the kidnapped home chef au)

wc: 14.2k

cw: graphic nonconsensual sex, kidnapping but you’re lowkey chill about it, rough sex, pain play, dirty talk & light degradation, non-consensual spanking, rough/painful anal sex, gratuitous description of cooking/food written by someone who once lit a pot of boiling water on fire and is really just trying her best

read on ao3 - see the pinterest board

You may have never been kidnapped before, but you can’t imagine this is how it’s supposed to go.

The masked man looms in the doorway to the kitchen, shoulders so wide that he can’t stand in the opening properly because he wouldn’t even fit, the very top of his head hidden by the worn frame. He’s a beast of a man, hulking in every sense of the word, and you can’t help but wonder how he managed to sneak up on you in the first place. Surely you’re not that unaware of your surroundings? He’s easily 6’4, probably no less than three hundred pounds.

Not much time had passed since you’d woken in a dark room with a thudding pain between your temples, mouth dry and throat swollen. You were sure you’d been blindfolded at first, eyes dry and heavy, until ice-cold water splashed onto your face and your eyes flew open on instinct.

He’d just… been there. One minute you were walking home, trying to avoid large puddles and squinting through pouring rain, and the next you were shivering and scared, your captor towering over your crumpled and bound form.

You’d lost control of your bladder the moment the sight of him registered. He’d looked down, snorted, and lumbered away to find a hose. 

You’d been inconsolable when he told you to strip, shaking with your sobs and keeping your arms wrapped tight around your chest. Even when he’d grunted ‘m not gonna fuck you when you reek of fuckin’ piss, you hadn’t been able to calm enough to follow his demands. It was only when he’d reached up to run a hand over his face and his shirt lifted just enough for you to get a glimpse of the piece on his hip that you’d been snapped away from your panic.

You can see the shape of it now, tucked in its holster. You’re fucking terrified that at any moment he could pull it out and end your life, like that. It would take hardly any effort at all. Just a twitch of the finger and bam, you go from captive to corpse.

“How long’ll it be?” The man grunts, massive arms crossed over his chest, breaking you out of your fearful stupor. 

You blink at him, wide-eyed and silent. He’d given you clothes – clothes that fit, to your comfort and horror – so you’ve been spared the further indignity of forced nudity, but the extra layer doesn’t make you feel much safer. 

He dips his chin when you don’t answer, dark eyes boring into yours. That only makes you clam up more, joints stiff.

He huffs. “Dinner. When’re you gonna fuckin’ feed me, bird?”

You stare at him, baffled. “What?” It’s the first word you’ve said to him without sobbing, and your voice trembles, shrill and weak.

He steps forward, angling his shoulders to fit into the room, fuck, and you skitter back, pressing yourself to the wooden cabinets. They’re tall, taller than the countertops in any house you’ve ever lived in, and the lip presses into the middle of your back.

“There’s food in the fridge,” he grunts. “Get to work.”

You’re not sure you could move even if you wanted to, your fight-or-flight instinct having settled firmly on freeze. 

He rumbles low in his chest and plants one hand on the island in the center of the kitchen, leaning over it. He’s so tall that his head nearly reaches the other side of the counter, hardly a foot away from yours. The counters are the perfect height for him. 

“What’s not clicking, girl?”

You pinch yourself, a quick twist of skin to make sure that this is all real and you’re not just trapped in the world’s most confusing nightmare.

“I-I don’t… you want me t-to cook? For you?” You manage, voice strangled.

He looks spectacularly unimpressed with your lack of understanding, and a distant part of you recognizes that you should probably be worried about making your captor displeased so quickly. However, the far larger part of you hasn’t had a rational thought since he hosed you down with freezing water and is still almost entirely useless.

He turns to the side to open his fridge, hand dwarfing the handle, and drops a chunk of frozen meat on the counter. It’s wrapped in brown parchment paper, a little string holding it closed. The fridge rattles with how harshly he closes the door and you can’t help but flinch. 

If he weren’t closer to the exit than he is to you, you’d have bolted away the second he turned his back. But he’s close enough that he could reach out and grab you with one hand if you got to the doorway, and you can’t even bring yourself to think about what he might do if you were caught. 

“Cook it.” He nods at the meat, voice bored like this is simple. Like it’s obvious, and your lack of understanding is an inconvenience that he’s rapidly losing patience with.

You listen, because it is obvious. He’s the captor, you’re the captive. At any moment, at the slightest whim, he could shoot you, strangle you, beat you, or a dozen worse things you can’t imagine for fear of ruining his dinner with your bile. 

He has every advantage and you don’t have anything but the shapeless hoodie and sweatpants he gave you. Here, you are nothing and he is everything.

So with shaking hands and tears streaming down your face nearly the entire time, you listen. 

You find a pan – he doesn’t help you and it’s incredibly awkward to try and dig around in unfamiliar cabinets without turning your back to him, but you manage it – and get the burner turned on. He steps out of the doorway again, still watching you from the hallway, and that gives you just enough bravery to inch towards the fridge, snatching the butter from it like he might lurch forward at any minute. 

It’s a good cut of meat. A ribeye, think and with not much fat on it. You’ve worked in the resturaunt business for a long time and it’s obvious to you that this is cut by a local butcher, not some packing plant. This is fresh. 

You have to stand with your back to the counter beside the stove to keep him in your eyeline. He doesn’t seem to mind, though the black balaclava covering him from scalp to neckline keeps almost all of his expressions a mystery to you. 

“How do you want it?” You manage to ask, after what must be five minutes of psyching yourself up internally and darting your eyes between him and the meat. 

“Rare,” he says, and you find that you’re not exactly surprised by his answer.

Basting the meat is the hardest part, but you manage. You’ve watched your father do this since you were born, spent countless nights in the corner of your parent’s restaurant watching line cooks and chefs and dishwashers and paying them all far more attention than you ever did your homework, nodding off in class the next day because the restaurant was open until eleven and your parents never once left early.

You could cook this meat in your sleep. Even with his minimal ingredients (he just shakes his head when you ask where the garlic is, and you quickly realize the only seasonings you have to work with are salt and pepper), you’re confident that the meat has come out tender and juicy, if flavorless. 

There are no sides. No drinks. No dessert. If you’d made this meal for either one of your parents, they’d lecture you for so long that the steak would go stone cold. 

You don’t have a plate to serve it on. When you ask tentatively about the dishes, voice hardly audible to even you, the man doesn’t answer. 

He instead begins to stride towards you, sending you careening around the island to try and keep as far from him as possible, hips crashing into the sharp edges of the counter and socks slipping across the tile. He ignores you completely as he leans over the over, sniffing loudly. 

You’ve thrown yourself, completely unintentionally, to the side of the counter with a large and well-stocked knife block. Before you even really think about it, you’re gripping a carving knife with both hands and holding it straight out in front of you, like you’re hoping he runs into you and impales himself. It’s probably your best bet, considering your knees are nearly knocking and barely holding you up.

He is entirely unconcerned by you. He grabs an oven mitt that was either always black or has been scorched so badly that it’s been darkened, the back of it split with its thin lining peeking out, and grabs the cast-iron by its handle, turning back to the rest of the kitchen. 

He snorts when he sees you, the sound distinctly amused and unafraid. “You think you could hurt me? With that thing?”

You may be shaking in fear, the knife quivering in front of you even with your knuckles clenched so tight they nearly spasm, but you still manage to find yourself almost offended.

“I’ll stab you,” you threaten, voice quiet but the steadiest it’s been since you woke up in that damp basement. “I’ll do it.”

The cheeks of the balaclava pull up, the imprint of his lips clear throught the fabric as he smiles, an indent where his teeth must be. “Don’t think you’ll like what happens if you try, pet.”

He steps around the island again, striding for the door and completely dismissing you. At least, that’s what you think until he calls, “Follow,” over his shoulder, like you’re an animal being called to heel.

The dining room is visible from the kitchen, a section of one wall carved out so you can see into each room from the other. You only lose sight of him for a second before he reappears on the other side of the wall, heading to sit at the table. 

The room has a horrible dark red carpet, the walls the same old-fashioned panneling as the hallway he’d dragged you down hardly an hour earlier. He seats himself at the head of a small rectangular table. It’s the only chair in the room despite the fact that five more could easily fit at the table, one leg shorter than the other. There’s nothing on the walls, no decor anywhere, just one table and one chair for one man.

You linger in the doorway, shifty and nervous, halfway to rushing back to the kitchen if only for some deluded sense of familiarity you’ve already built. 

“Don’t make me chase you,” he warns, eyes narrowing into a brief glare before he drops the pan in front of himself, silverware already set at his place, cast iron still smoking. “Neither of us’ll like it if you ruin my meal, bird.”

Then, he digs in. 

You’ve seen a lot of people eat. More people than you can count, in fact. You’ve seen them eat good food, bad food, life-changingly good and life-changingly bad food. As a child you’d been fascinated by the expressions on customers’ faces when they tried something new for the first time.

A woman with her eyes squeezed shut and eyebrows raised high as she bites into a new chocolate cake recipe your mother spent weeks making you taste test, moaning so loudly her husband had blushed. A man nearly collapsing over his bowl of soup on a cold winter day, just barely keeping his tie from falling into it as he desperately shoveled another bite into his mouth. You’ve seen people cry over your father’s wagyu, pepper your mother’s face with kisses after tasting her dacquoise.

This man eats like none you’ve ever seen before.

He’s like an animal. It takes him just a second to push his mask up to his nose, revealing pale skin decorated with atrophic and keloid scars both, then he’s pulling the pan as close to his chest as he can and hunching over it like a predator guarding its kill. 

He seems entirely unworried about burning his wrists on the edges of the pan, instead focused on tearing his steak into barely bite sized pieces with his fork and messily rubbing it in the extra butter still pooling in the bottom of the pan. 

He doesn’t even pick the first piece up with his fork. He pinches it between two fingers and pushes it between thin, scarred lips, ignoring what must be a burn on his fingertips. He chews twice, then swallows. His digits shine under the low light of his dining room, juice from the meat dripping down his fingers to cover his hand, nails choppy and with a little piece of fat stuck under one until he digs it out with his tooth.

You gape as he does it again and again, pushing two, then three pieces into his mouth at once as he works through the meat. 

It was a massive steak. It took more than half an hour to cook, if the clock on his stove is right. It’s gone in less than five minutes.

He moans as he eats, nearly pornographic in a way that makes you shift in discomfort. The steak is rare enough that the juice dripping from it is pink, the meat itself a brighter color than the man’s thin lips. Juice sluices down his chin as he chews with his mouth open, bits of the meat caught between crooked teeth. 

When he gets to the last piece of the cut, half of it submerged in butter, he holds it in front of himself for just a moment. Then, he turns to you for the first time since he left the kitchen.

His lips are flat, expressionless, as he holds the piece of steak up in front of himself. His elbow is planted firmly on the table to keep his hand in his eyeline, and he looks at you expectantly, silent. 

Your stomach growls, loud enough for him to hear. His lips twitch up in a smirk before he smothers it. You glare. You have no idea how long the drugs knocked you out for, how many days it’s been since your breakfast omlette. Standing over the oven, smelling the steak as it cooked, has made you hungry. 

The two of you are silent as you inch forward, hardly daring to lift your feet from the carpet. It doesn’t take you very long to reach the table, not when the room is as small as it is.

You shift the knife to just your dominant hand, your now free hand reaching forward slowly as you keep your eyes trained on his. The steak is still so hot that steam is still curling from the pink center of it, right between his eyes. He’s still as a statue.

Then, the second your fingertips brush the meat, he snatches it back, slipping it between his lips. 

You flinch back as your mouth drops open, offended and startled by his sudden movement. Your fist tightens around the knife, no longer so limp at your side. 

He chews with his mouth open, smiling meanly at you. His teeth are stained pink from the juices, and you think for a moment that it almost looks like his gums are melting. 

“Forget your manners, pet?’ He asks, only swallowing once he’s finished talking.

You wince at the lack of manners, your p’s and q’s brow beaten into you with a stiff wooden spoon to the back of your hand when you were young, shocked to see someone ignore what you’ve always seen as instinctual and then ask you about manners. “What?”

He leans forward in his seat, greasy hand set on his jean-clad knee. “You didn’t say please.”

You blink at him, caught in some sort of trance that you have no idea how to pull yourself out from. “Oh.”

He sits, still and silent, for several long moments, belly rising and falling beneath his folded fingers, before speaking again. “You’ll call me Ghost while you’re here.”

Your brows furrow a bit but you nod, fingers trembling where they rest limp against your thighs, knife almost entirely forgotten in this almost-hypnosis he’s dragged you into. You can’t quite make your lips move enough to give him a verbal answer, but he seems to accept the nod. 

He snorts, eyes narrowed as he looks at you. He doesn’t even have to tilt his head up even though he’s the one sitting. The realization makes you sweat, something hot igniting low in your belly. 

Before you even register that Ghost is moving, he’s snatched the knife from your now-slackened grip. He drops it into the pan immediately, the handle and blade both becoming drenched in the butter. 

You’d nearly forgotten you even had the knife but the lack of it now drags the fear back up your throat, makes your heartbeat louder and your fingertips colder. 

“Don’t need that,” he grunts, leaning back and folding his hands over his belly, fingers sliding against the fabric and already staining. This close, you can see that it hangs over the hem of his pants just enough to cover the button. You swallow thickly. 

“‘S good,” Ghost says, looking you up and down. Just like in the kitchen, the chair and table here are taller than what you used to, like they were tailor made for your captor instead of bought from a store. You’re only barely taller than him even as he sits, but he somehow still manages to make you feel like he’s looking down on you. 

There’s something in you that keeps you from backing away, even though being hardly a foot away from him makes the backs of your eyes sting with tears. It’s like your feet have sunk through the floor, like you’re up to your knees in shag carpeting and you can’t even try to get yourself out until the behemoth before you looks away.

“Congratulations, girl,” he rumbles, lips quirked up into a mean smile. “You just bought yourself a life, right here with me.”

You can’t stop the tears from falling, shaking hands clapped to your mouth in a fruitless attempt to muffle your sob. 

Ghost leans forward, smile growing when you stumble back until the small of your back meets the half-wall. “What’re you cryin’ about, doll?” He lowers his voice, like he’s sharing a joke with you. “Think I won’t treat my new pet well?”

Your heart feels like it’s going to beat so hard it gives out, its galloping thump felt even in your teeth, gums numbing. Your tears blur your vision, but you can see enough to know when he stands from his set, the chair creaking as he scuffs towards you.

He comes into focus when he crouches in front of you, his knees hovering just above your naked feet, toes curling into the carpet in a futile attempt to get as far from him as you can. 

“I won’t,” he says lowly, hot breath gusting over your face and lighting your nerves on fire. “Not until you earn it. Y’hear me?”

Whimpers eek through your fingers at his words. There’s something in his eyes that still looks hungry, little drops of grease dripping from Ghost’s fingers to your toes, and it makes you feel like prey just inches away from the predator’s jaw. 

His hand darts out, smacking your clothed thigh and making you yelp. 

“Don’t fuckin’ ignore me,” he snarls, sharp and sudden anger upon him like a wave, your thigh stinging from his hit. 

You nod as soon as the chain of words connects in your brain to mean something, head bobbing up and down quickly in desperation to avoid any more physical contact.

His eyes narrow, unimpressed. “Repeat it, then.”

“I have to–” you cut yourself off, breath suddering out of you almost painfully. “I have to earn it.”

“Earn what?”

Exasperation mixes with terror, eyelids straining to stay widened, unwilling to miss another twitch from him.

Think I won’t treat my new pet well? He’d said. You have to earn it.

You can’t think of a way to distill that down into a singular answer, not quick enough for him, at least. 

“I don’t– I don’t know,” you sob.

His movement is slow this time, but it’s no more possible for you to avoid his touch than it was when you hadn’t seen anything coming. His hand drags into your hair, nails catching on scalp, and he tugs your head back, slamming it into the wall. 

“Everything,” he hisses, the fabric covering his nose brushing against yours, snot sliding down your fingers. “You earn everything here. You work for it all. Get it?”

You can hardly nod this time, his fingers tightening around the strands of your hair and pulling at your scalp, but thankfully it’s enough for him.

“Good,” he spits, leaning back and standing, dragging you with him. 

Once you’re standing, half crouched to try your best to ease the pain rippling from your head but pushed up on your toes so his hand isn’t practically lifting you, Ghost grabs you by the elbow instead and drags you out of the room before you can even fully realize what’s happening.

He grabs you in the exact spot he had when he’d dragged you to the kitchen in the first place, each finger laid precisely where there were already bruises emerging. His grip so tight you can’t even think of trying to rip away – you imagine your arm would come off your body before Ghost’s hand came off of you. 

He drags you from the dining room and down a small hallway. From what you’ve seen of the house, and what you can remember that isn’t clouded over by a haze of panic, the floor-plan is closed off, more claustrophobic than anything else. 

Every room seems connected by a new hallway and they're each thin enough that you couldn’t walk by the man’s side – the two of you might not even be able to walk chest to chest without somehow getting wedged between the wood-panneling, considering the bulk of him. 

Your toes drag, catching on the warped wood floor as he pulls you behind him. Your hands are wrapped around his wrist in a wasted but desperate attempt to keep everything below his grip from going numb, leaving your choking whines and sobs and pleas to rush out of you, voice bouncing off the panneled walls. 

Ghost ignores you entirely, doesn’t even seem to notice when you dig your nails into his skin and you try your best to yank. 

You start to grasp at the walls, trying to slow his stride in whatever way you can. You have no idea where he’s taking you, no idea what you’d do even if you did somehow manage to break free from him, but you try nonetheless. 

He doesn’t react, no matter how much you scream and hiss, no matter how much you claw and kick and make your body dead weight, nearly breaking your wrist from the way you yank and twist. 

It’s only when your fingers catch on the edge of something thin that you’re given a tangible thing to wrap your hope around.

You only realize it’s a picture frame once you’ve already yanked it from the wall, the photo itself a complete mystery to you.

It’s the adrenaline that makes you pull back and slam the frame glass-first into the side of his head, reaching up as high as you can to make contact. There’s a horrible crack when glass meets fabric, a screech when you drag it down the side of his face, glass catching on mask and skin and more glass.

Ghost doesn’t let you go but he does stumble into the wall, grunting like a bull and batting your opportune weapon like it’s hardly more than an annoying mosquito, sending it crashing to the ground despite your death grip. 

He falls back into the wall, tugs you with him with enough force to nearly knock you off your feet, your head a mix of fear and victory and adrenaline and pain and more fear, coherent thoughts a far-off dream.

“Little fuckin’ cunt,” you hear him spit, heavy boot smashing fallen glass into further pieces as he turns to press you against the wall with his body, heavy and hot against you.

His eyes are raging, scarred lips curled to bare his teeth and little pieces of glass sticking from his skin and balaclava. 

You only have about four drops of blood to speak of for your desperate attack, and with your kidnapper furious and holding you down all you can manage to think is why the fuck did I do that? What was I thinking? 

There’s no room for anything but shame when you’re staring down the barrel of God only knows what he’ll deicde to do to you. 

��Off to a bad fuckin’ start,” he hisses, spittle landing across your cheeks. “Thought I’d be nice to you. Send you off to sleep with hardly a damn scratch.”

Ghost snarls, shakes his head like a beast shaking off fleas. Glass goes flying around his head. You can hardly breathe.

“Tha’s not good enough for you, is it?” He says, hand coming up to lock around your throat. You’d cry out if he left you enough air, but he’s squeezing so tight you can barely get enough breath to stay conscious. 

“You need a heavy hand, ‘s that it, pet? Need someone to show you what happens when you fuckin’ misbehave?” He pulls your head a few inches away from the wall on the last word, slamming you back enough to rattle your brain in your skull, eyes unfocused and hardly seeing and unable to groan with his hand squeezing your airway shut. 

You try to shake your head, can’t manage to do anything more than shift with the grip on your throat. You think, briefly, about how he could snap your neck with one hand. His palm rests over your vocal chords, fingertips pressing against the nape of your neck. A flick of his wrist and you’d be dead. You think your heart may give out, overwhelmed and unable to keep up with everything Ghost is drawing from you, spitting at you.

Capture myopathy, a friend told you once, sitting beside you in a required biology class only one of you was interested in. When a rabbit is so scared that their heart gives out on them and they die. Just like that. Snap. Easy dinner for a fox. Isn’t that sick?

Sick. She’d said. This, you think, is sicker than anything a fox could do to a rabbit. 

“You’re lucky your meat was good,” he says, tone calming into something less rageful and more frustrated, hand loosening enough to let you breathe more easily but still keeping you from speaking. “Don’t mind trainin’ you up knowin’ you’ll be an investment. Just need some work, huh?”

You try your best to nod, eager to pick training over certain death any day. 

He hums, thumb stroking the crease of your skin between neck and shoulder and you can’t stop your shiver.

“Don’t worry, bird.” His teeth gleam when he flashes them, finally leaving your space. He practically throws you in front of him with the hand on your neck, letting it shift to wrap around your nape so he can guide you forward. “I’ve had pets before. All those tears tell me you’ll at least be easier to break in than the boy was.”

You only have a brief moment to wonder who the fuck the boy is, if he’s in this house, and what that could possible mean for you, before Ghost is nudging open a rickety door and nudging you down the stairs. 

He lets you go once you’re firmly on the narrow staircase and taking slow, tentative steps out of fear you’ll miss one in the dark. Ghost takes his hand from you, looming as you make your leaden-footed way down.

You can’t stop your sniffles or your tears, terrified of the nightmares that must be waiting at the bottom of the staircase and back in the basement you’d woken up in. You know some of what waits for you, what the room will look like and what will be in it – Ghost had been with you since he dragged you to the kitchen, there would’ve been no time for him to change anything – but you’ve got no idea what training means or what Ghost will do to you when your feet hit concrete. 

You don’t move any further into the room when you reach the bottom, Ghost easily stepping around you and choosing to ignore you in favor of looking for whatever he’s decided he needs. The sight of a small carabiner with keys latched to one of his belt loops makes your idea of running back up to the door leave as quick as it comes.

“Over here,” Ghost calls, back turned to you as he crouches down and fiddles with something at the wall.

You don’t move, feet anchored to the floor.

He huffs when he doesn’t hear you following him, shifting one knee to rest on the ground so he can turn over his shoulder and level you with an unimpressed look.

“You really want to make me come get you?” He rumbles, and the threat is enough to get you rushing forward then pulling to just as sudden as stop just out of his arm’s reach. 

It doesn’t matter much, you can’t really do anything to stop him when Ghost’s arm darts back to grab you by the knee, his torso leaning back to get a hand on you and tugging you forward. 

You can’t keep yourself from falling to your knees right at his side, nothing around for you to grab onto other than him and even looking at a face-full of concrete you know not to make any unnecessary contact with Ghost, not if you can help it. 

The weight around your neck is sudden and unexpected, his quick movements around your head even moreso. You don’t even have enough time to decide if it would be worth it to try and fight him off before there’s a resolute click, and he’s pulling back with something thick wrapped around his knuckles.

It’s a chain. Silver, hardly a hint of rust on it, thick and well-kept, and leading right back up to your neck.

You don’t put it together until shaky hands come up to press around the- the collar. Thick leather, two or three inches wide, just tight enough that you can feel it on every exhale. 

A collar. A collar with a chain leash, heavy enough that you can feel the hint of pressure pulling you towards Ghost, the length of the chain that’s not tight in his fist resting in loops by his boot. 

You can’t do anything but stare up at him, wide eyed and trembling, can’t begin to think of what to do before he’s standing and tugging you with him.

“Here now,” he grunts, not bothering to give you any time to get to your feet. You sort of stumble after him, knee scraping the ground as your head is jerked along. You can’t let yourself lag at all, not unless you want to get dragged along by your neck.

You feel like you’re moving through quicksand, every move only making things worse for you. Every forced step forward is another step closer to him, every jerk of your head pulls at the hair stuck in the back of the collar that he hadn’t bothered to move before locking it onto you, every panicked breath only serves to keep your breathing short and hitched.

Ghost drops himself onto the small cot pressed against the wall, it’s metal legs creaking under his weight. You can’t straighten fully with how short he keeps the chain, which leves you in a terribly vulnerable hunched position, eye-level with his stomach and bent at the waist, knee throbbing.

“Over my knee,” he rumbles, voice quiet. “Get this over with.”

You stare up at him with wide eyes, panting open-mouthed, drooling. A panicked animal with its leg caught in a trap, unable to do anything but stare up at the jaws closing around its body.

“Please,” you beg, voice hardly a whisper. “Don’t hurt me.”

His eyes are hard behind the mask, mouth a firm line as he looks down at you. You can feel your heartbeat in your throat beneath the thick leather. 

Ghost doesn’t give you another chance to obey. One quick jerk of his hand and you’re toppeling forward, choking on spit and holding your hands out to catch yourself. 

He manhandles you quickly – one hand on the chain yanking it further down, head forced lower than his knee while his other hand grabs you by the hips and hefts you on top of him, elbow jamming itself between your thighs while blood rushes to your head. 

You yelp, legs kicking out as you push at the bed with one hand, the rough ground with the other, throwing your head back and forth as much as you can with the leash giving you almost no room to move.

“Settle,” Ghost hisses. You don’t listen, can’t listen with the way panic alone rules your mind, and in response he lands a harsh smack on the center of your ass, enough to push you forward a few inches.

Your pleas come to a sudden stop, breath stuck in your throat as you absorb the pain, a noticeable sting even through the sweatpants.

“You’re gettin’ fifty,” he grunts when you’ve gone silent, tucking two fingers in the back of your pants and tugging them down, lifting up one knee to lift your torso so he can yank them to your waist. “Take ‘em, then we’re done.”

“No, no, please, God,” you choke, one hand flying to your mouth and pressing against it. Tears stream down your face, cheeks blazing with heat, a horrible mix of terrified and humiliated that leaves you all but limp over his legs.

Ghost snorts above you and you jump when you feel his cold hand make a pass over the fat of your ass. “Won’t be thinkin’ that much longer.”

You only have a brief moment to think hysterically is he making a joke right now? before there’s a horrible pain on your ass, the smack loud in the otherwise silent room.

It takes a second for the pain to hit you, but when it does you yowl. You push up on his thigh with both hands as another smack rains down, pulling as hard as you can against the chain.

“Stop, stop, stop it!” You screech, toes sliding uselessly against the cement as you writhe, all of your struggles doing absolutely nothing to stop his hand from falling again, this time right on the center of both cheeks. 

“Y-You can’t- you can’t d-do this!” You wail, throat filled with tears and snot as you realize you can’t even get close to standing, not with his grip on the chain as immovable as it is. “Stop!”

His next smack is his hardest, his grip around the chain loosening at just the right time to allow you to be sent sprawling over his lap, sobbing at the pain that lights up your backside. It hurts, and now your forehead is nearly pressed to the floor, leaving you completely off balance.

Ghost grunts as he shifts one of his legs, tucking your flailing limbs between his thighs and forcing you to be bent over just the one thigh, knees hovering inches off the ground.

“Stop your fuckin’ wailin’, Christ,” he hisses, peppering you with more spanks, each of them as hard as the last and forcing all the air out of your lungs. “Damn lucky this is all you’re gettin’. I should make you count ‘em, start over every time you get one wrong.”

You cry out at that, wriggling desperately and only serving to push your ass further into the air, trapped on both ends.

“We’d be here all damn night,” Ghost mutters to himself, hardly audible over your fit. “One picture ain’t worth bruisin’ my hand over.”

Your feet just barely brush against his thighs when you manage to kick up, but you’re embarrassed to find that you don’t have the strength to do much more than hang limply in his hold, one hand reluctantly wrapped around his calf to keep yourself from falling to the floor. 

Your tears and sobs don’t stop as he continues his assault on your ass, but there’s a part of you that almost… settles. Not into the pain, not when he’s smacking you hard enough to jolt your body forward and make you wail at every new touch, but into the steadiness of his smacks.

He doesn’t wait more than a second between hits, each spank no heavier or lighter than the last. It hurts, hurts worse than anytime you’ve burned or cut yourself in the kitchen, but after the first minute or so your body comes to expect what’s coming.

That doesn’t make it any easier to handle. You couldn’t stop your crying if you tried, like his hand is resting on your tearducts instead of your ass, squeezing every bit of moisture out of your eyes. 

He stops at some point, hand resting on your cheeks. He squeezes, nails digging in deep, and pulls your cheeks apart. You sniffle at the indignity, free hand covering your eyes as your face crumples.

“Half way through now,” Ghost says, ignoring the way you cry out. You can’t imagine taking one more hit, let alone twenty five. 

He shifts back on the cot and for a moment you have absolutely no idea what’s happening. It’s not until he not-so-gently readjusts your legs, his own laid out flat in front of him with his feet hanging off the cot, your body readjusted so you’re lying properly over his thighs.

It’s more comfortable, certainly, but you’re not sure you want comfortable right now. It feels impossible to imagine the brute above you as thinking of your comfort, completely analogous to his actions and leaving you a confused and weak mess. 

Ghost shifts his hand along with the rest of him, dropping the chain entirely in favor of resting a heavy palm on the back of your neck, equally as effective at keeping you still. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t comment on your heaving breaths or shaking thighs, just lets you breathe with your hands curled beneath your chest and your forehead pressed to the thin sheet covering the cot.

The next spank catches you completely off guard, your body having gone limp and leaving you unprepared for the sudden pain. It reignites your sobbing, your throat on fire from all the screaming you’ve done. You can hear your voice crack as you absorb the pain, shoulder shaking.

“Christ,” Ghost sighs, hand briefly leaving your ass. 

He’s lifting you by your hair a moment later, thick fingers laced through the tresses as he pulls your head back and stuffs something in your mouth. You whimer at the feeling, tongue working at the frankly disgusting taste, brows furrowed.

“Keep that there,” he orders, and you just barely get a glance of the side of his head before he’s shoving you back down, face-first. You realize, blinking slowly, that he’s shoved his mask in your mouth. “Can’t be bothered to teach you to shut the hell up, gonna hafta work on that once you learn how to behave.”

He spanks you again and this time your sob is muffled as you bite down on the fabric and grind it between your teeth. 

His pace is slower now, hand more thudding than stinging. It feels like he’s putting his weight behind every smack, each one delivered with what you’re sure is bruising force. Though truly you can’t tell much of a difference, not with your whole ass already feeling like it’s on fire. 

It gets harder and harder to differentiate between new and old pain as he lays brutal spanks over spots that are already hot and throbbing, varying the strength of each smack this time. You sink into the pain, limp and unable to do anything but take it.

“Better,” Ghost says, the rough pads of his fingers rubbing your scalp when you jerk at the sound of his voice. His next hit lands on the crease between your thigh and your ass, but your whine is almost silent. “Can hear myself think now, for one.”

Another smack, and your body doesn’t even jerk this time. You’re not even fully present in yourself, mind floating. You don’t quite feel like an outside observer, more like you’re just a few inches removed from the situation. All your sensations feel dulled, and you bear the pain as best you can. 

“Can enjoy the sight too,” you hear him say, and suddenly there are pauses between each smack, a little break Ghost takes to rub your glowing ass and thighs as much as he wants before laying another handprint across your soft skin. 

“‘S too bad I don’t fuck where I eat,” he muses, and you groan into the mask at a particularly rough hit. “You don’t take much fightin’. I like that in a girl. Go down real easy with a firm hand, don’t you?”

You shake your head as best as you can, which really isn’t much at all. He snorts at your effort, tightens his fingers to keep your head still.

You’re sapped of all energy, unable to move even as his punishing spanks linger lower on your ass, and even when he bullies a hand between your thighs and spreads your legs.

“Look at that,” he says, voice low. You can feel it through his stomach, goosebumps racing from your ribs to the rest of you. “Dirty girl, are you?”

You’ve got enough wherewithal to try and squeeze your legs shut when his fingers prod at your center, yanked back into your body at the sharp turn from painful to… something else.

He strokes two fingers over your slit, and you groan at just how much slick you can feel him spreading. You have no idea when it happened, have no idea why it happened, but you’re drenched between your thighs. Your cunt feels as hot as your ass, and the realization yanks a horrible little whine from you.

“Guess that wasn’t much of a punishment,” Ghost muses, spreading your lips and letting cool air ghost over you. You feel him blow a breath across you and struggle more than you have since he’d laid you flat across him, knees coming to tuck up under yourself.

“No,” he says simply, landing a horrible, smarting slap to your pussy. It sends you flat to your tummy again, squirming against him and wailing through the pain. It hurts. “Down, girl. No strugglin’ now.”

He only continues to stroke you, now pushing the steadily dripping wetness from your clit to your asshole, making you tense and writhe where you’re pinned, his order ignored.

“Think I’ll do the last few here,” he says, landing another harsh smack to your center, this time focused on your clit. “Make sure you remember your lesson.”

He doesn’t wait any longer, just begins to lay quick, harsh slaps all across your cunt – your spread lips, your hole itself, your clit. Once, even, on your bottom hole, digging his nails into your stinging cheeks to spread you wide for him.

It hurts more than any of the smacks to your ass did, undeniably, but you’re sapped of all energy and find yourself hardly able to cry, let alone struggle. You’re too busy being swept away in a maelstrom of pain-pleasure you’ve never experienced before to even try defending yourself.

Your only option is to lie still and wait for him to finish with you. So that’s all you do.

It feels like it’s been an eternity when he finally stops. 

The hand near your ass gropes you firmly, pinching what you can already feel are tiny little raised spots from where his palm landed the hardest. 

You don’t have the energy to even think of struggling when he finally moves you off him, letting you flop uselessly to the cot as he moves out from under you. There’s the sound of metal clinking, the tension from the collar finally eased as he lets it go completely.

He doesn’t bother to pull your pants up, but he does nudge your legs closed. It’s a bit of decency you didn’t expect from him. 

You can’t do much more than blink wearily at him as Ghost reaches to tug his mask from your mouth, lip curling in disgust at the drops of saliva that fall from it. Good, you think. That’s just the start of what you deserve, bastard.

He crouches in front of you a moment later, bringing his face into full focus in front of you.

He’s… not traditionally attractive, that’s for sure. Even your defeated and exhausted mind can recognize that you would’ve avoided this man had you seen him on the street. Probably would’ve even risked being seen as rude and crossed to another sidewalk before he walked past you. Seeing as this is where you’ve ended up, your instincts wouldn’t have been wrong about him.

He’s got a square head and blond hair buzzed close to the scalp. The scars you’d seen across his cheeks and jaw extend further up his face, something textured across his temple that you can’t guess the cause of, eyebrows patchy and only half-grown in from burns, little bumps decorating his scalp.

But there’s something captivating about him. In his eyes, maybe, such a dark blue that you can only tell they’re not brown because he’s hardly a foot from you. There’s something about him that says look at me. Don’t forget where I am.

Though maybe, you think deliriously, you’re only thinking that because he’s the captor who just spanked your ass raw and dragged his fingers through your cunt.

“Rule one,” Ghost rumbles quietly, breath gusting over your lips. “You hurt me, I hurt you. Heard?”

It takes all the energy you have left to nod, eyes falling shut even as the little prey voice in the back of your head screams at the danger so near, never mind that you haven’t been able to do anything to keep him from you. You’re too loud to listen to the voice anyways, only a very distant part of you acknowledging it as you slip into a sort of half-sleep.

You don’t hear him leave.

From there you settle, bizarrely, into a routine. 

Every day begins with you waking up in the basement. Always before Ghost comes to get you, some primal instinct buried deep knowing that you need enough time every morning to brace yourself for seeing him.

He locks the chain, the leash, to a hook on the wall a couple feet above your cot every night, the key to the padlock always left on him. The chain is long enough to give you plenty of room to roll and shift in bed at night but it’s too short for you to reach the small bathroom across the basement. There’s no clock for you to keep track of time with but you spend what must be half an hour every morning just sitting on the cot, waiting for Ghost to come get you.

He’s always nearly stumbling when he comes down the basement stairs to fetch you, sleep keeping his bones heavy. It’s only in the mornings when you see him with his shoulders hunched, movements weighted down, any other time he’s perfectly alert. 

You think, at first, that your best shot at trying to hurt him would be in those early mornings when he’s groggy and slow moving, but Ghost never lets you off the chain when he’s like that. It’s always after he’s stiffened up, shoulders rolling back and permanent-scowl firmly back in place.

He’ll unhook the chain from the wall first, rarely saying a word as he half-drags-half-leads you over to the bathroom, doesn’t let you close the door while you do your business and shower.

(There’s a way he looks at you in the morning, when he’s at his rawest. Something animal and hungry in a way you don’t see even when you serve him his meals, pupils blown and lingering on your curves, unabashedly staring at your ass when you glance over your shoulder at him.

It had been terrible, at first, to get naked in front of him. He’d just stare, and most days you could see his hardness tenting his pants. Hell, some days he came down the stairs with his cock making itself plenty known, not a speck of shame in him.

You’d once listened to him jack himself off while you were in the shower. You’d had to step over the puddle of cum on the tile when he’d tugged you out of the room, nearly slipped into it when he’d pulled you just a little more harshly than usual.)

The chain stays in the basement, always unlatched from your throat along with the collar before he shepherds you up the creaky stairs, never much more than a foot or two away from you. 

Then, breakfast. 

It had taken a while for you to really believe him after he’d said you were only there to cook. What kind of person kidnaps a woman just to keep her as a private chef? But days went by where he never once touched you any more than necessary to get the collar on and off, his only reaction to your body a seemingly unintentional erection and usually ignored when you were naked. 

Days, weeks pass where all you do is cook. Three meals a day, snacks when he’s hungry (which seems to be always). 

Ghost’s cabinets were bare the first week of your captivity. He had enough meat in his freezer to last him months, but little else. There was a loaf of bread on the counter, a few condiments in the fridge with crusted lids and misshaped bottles, and some cans of soup in the pantry. Nothing else. He’d drop a cut of meat on the counter and expect you to work with it and seemed plenty content when you served him the blandest roast chicken of your life.

It took you three days until you worked up the nerve to ask him to go grocery shopping. It was the first thing you said to him that wasn’t a plea for your freedom. 

You’d been terrified that you’d end up face down ass up over his thighs again, your ass still bruised from his first punishment and his subsequent much quicker corrections. But he’d hardly reacted, had just given you a piece of paper and a short pencil with bite-marks on the eraser, told you to write what you thought you needed.

He locked you in the basement for hours (you tracked the sun through the sole window as best you could, left behind fear and anger for boredom around what you guessed was the three hour mark) when he left. Briefly, you’d regretted asking in the first place. If the bastard wanted to eat nothing but protein and die of a nutrient deficiency, who were you to stop him? It would serve him right.

But you have nightmares, sometimes, of being stuck in the basement. Your captor dead in his bed, fallen to the bathroom floor with his head cracked open, bleeding out in the forest one of the times he goes off hunting. And you, stuck here, chained to a wall. No key, no way out, no one to find you.

A part of you had breathed a sigh of relief when he came home, letting you up to the kitchen and supervising while you dug through the plastic bags and put everything where you wanted it.

He doesn’t… do much during the days, is the thing.

He goes hunting, sometimes. You find that that seems to be his most consistent outing. He’ll spend hours out there at a time, sometimes coming back with nothing and other times coming back with a twelve-point buck you watch him drain through the kitchen window. He also has to keep his weapons – his many, many weapons – in shape, and you find that it’s not rare to spend an afternoon watching him clean guns or sharpen knives.

You enjoy his hunting moods most. He’ll disappear for hours on end to even find his kill, then spend days skinning and preparing the meat, then doing whatever it is he does in his shed with the bits of the body he doesn’t bring you to cook. Those days spent in the forest or the shed for him guarantee you hours of time alone, which isn’t nearly so miserable when he doesn’t keep you in the basement. 

Sometimes he goes out after dinner. You’ll hear the front door slam shut after he locks you up in the basement, his truck’s old engine loud enough to be obvious when he revs it. You’re never sure where he goes, who he might even go with since he never takes calls, but you also have little interest in asking.

But most nights he watches TV. Almost exclusively old VHS recordings of The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, Password, and shows so out-of-date you’re sure you could count the pixels on the screen. He’ll roll himself a blunt and relax into an old recliner with cracked leather, eyes half-lidded and hazy.

(You watched him rest a hand in his pants, once. He hadn’t even been focusing on the TV, eyes far away and breathing heavy as he stroked himself slowly beneath his jeans. You don’t even think he finished, he was just… relaxing. You’d decided to just be glad he wasn’t coming after you for that job.)

Sometimes he’ll watch the same Manchester United games every night for a week straight, grunt approvingly or shout at the TV at the same points no matter how many times you’ve seen him watch it. By the end of your first month in his captivity, you could guess who scored every goal in the team’s 2012 championship game. You have absolutely no idea why he doesn’t just turn on the newest games.

You learn quickly that Ghost mounted a hook to nearly every wall in the house, and that he’s not shy about chaining you in the same place for hours at a time and leaving you to your own non-existent devices while he lumbers off. You spend the most time in the kitchen, undoubtedly, but you find that the horrible plush carpet in his living room isn’t too uncomfortable to sit on either.

It doesn’t take many days for your fear to turn to boredom, is the thing. Absolute, complete, mind-numbing boredom. There’s simply nothing to do but watch Ghost, and for a kidnapper he’s turned out to be spectacularly uninteresting. 

He’d laid out the rules in the first few days. You hurt him, he hurts you. Listen to his orders, don’t make him repeat himself. Don’t try to escape, you won’t find anyone to help anyway and he doesn’t want to chase you down. Don’t try to fuck with the food you make him, he expects good meals consistently.

It had been the third you’d struggled most with, though you could hardly blame yourself. You’d thought he was going to make you bleed when he caught you trying to throw yourself out of a recently-broken window.

He’d taken you over his lap a few more times for smaller infractions too. To make sure the lessons stick, he’d said. They did. Ghost hits hard, and even after just his first punishment you’d been plenty cowed. You don’t give him many reasons to punish you again.

The bright spots in your life are, as they have always seemed to be, food orientated.

There’s a part of you that hates how much time you think of ways to quite literally serve him, but you have nothing else to do. He may enjoy his shows, but after about two weeks you think you may go insane if you have to focus on much more Tom Kennedy in an other-wise silent house. 

You spend long hours staring out his windows at the foggy forest surrounding the cabin, running through the recipes you’d wanted to try before you’d been taken, notes for your parents’ dishes that were never listened to, plans on what you could make for Ghost himself with what he would provide.

And he does. Provide, that is. He provides plenty.

The fifth day of your captivity, he drops a chicken carcass on the wood island. Whole, unplucked, the blood from its neck still drying.

“I can’t…” You start, hesitating at the doorway to the kitchen as he moves further in. “I’m not a butcher. I can’t cook it like that.”

Ghost looks over at you, mask covering his expression. You find that it’s a fifty-fifty chance he doesn’t pull it on in the morning, dependent on some factor you’re not allowed to know.

“I’ll cut it up,” he grunts, turning his back to you and tugging a drawer open, digging around noisily. “Don’t need you to do anythin’ but cook it.”

You shift from foot to foot as he turns back to the bird, empty trash bag at his side and carving knife in his hand. 

For a man who you’ve always assumed to be inept in the kitchen, he handles the bird like a professional. He has it plucked in less than a minute, his mess minimal.

His butchering is less impressive, though no less effective. He’s a bit of a slob with his cuts, reckless with his knife in a way that has you craning your neck to see just how much breast is left on the bone. 

Ghost is slow-moving, careful in a way you’ve never seen him when he pops the thigh from the leg joint. It must’ve been a well-fed bird during its life, there’s plenty of meat for his thumb to dig into as he carefully rotates and pulls, not too much strength but not too little. A balance he seems to struggle to find before the thigh finally pops away from the body easily, and he moves on.

It’s… intimate is the wrong word, but it’s not far off. His hands – damp from being washed, something you’d been glad to see him do without you needing to draw his attention back to you – are shiny with the bird’s juices covering them, his thick fingers brutalizing the delicate, pale meat. The job is done quickly and cleanly enough to leave you plenty of meat.

He doesn’t butcher it completely for you. He leaves the wing connected to the breast, the breast and the tenderloin one large piece of meat when he lays his carving knife on the counter. His most precise cuts are around the oysters, each of them dug out and set to the side quickly. 

It’s not a quiet process, his knife cutting through bone and joint. But it feels particularly loud with the only other sound the soft humming of the fridge, the call of a bird outside the window. 

You feel squirmy for reasons you can’t quite place when he’s finished, bird butchered and glistening under the dim kitchen light. The look he gives you, heavy and stifling, doesn’t help. 

You make him get mason jars next time he goes to the store, mourning all the stock that goes to waste because you’ve got no way to store it. He praises the tenderloins you make for dinner that night, voice rough in a way that makes your cheeks heat.

Most of the food he buys for you to work with is store-bought, but the meat continues to be fresh. He enjoys the food most when he kills it himself – he moans when he bites into a piece of duck in a way that you feel no shame in calling pornographic – but you learn that he’ll settle for anything fresh.

There’s a calendar on the inside of the pantry. 

It’s an old military one, each of the pictures a dramatic shot of a soldier, covered in filth more often than not and staring across some sort of beautiful landscape. It’s from 2014, each of the pages worn and ripped where fingers have pinched and flipped. Each of the days is already marked off with an X in the box, some of them even with little notes written in different colors from over the years.

G birthday in Lancaster

S appointment - needs ride

L retirement on base

You know when he flips it to read June that you’ve been with him a month. You’re not happy, far from it, but you don’t spend everyday shaking in fear. 

You know what to expect from Ghost, he knows what he expects from you, and you’ve settled into an almost-peaceful cohabitation. 

He takes to ordering you prettier clothes about halfway through your second week. Sweatpants get traded in for sundresses and uncomfortably tiny shorts, sweatshirts exchanged for cardigans and low-back tank-tops. 

Some days, watching him feed the chickens through the window in your daisy-print sundress and flour-covered apron, you feel almost like a homesteader’s wife.

If not for the chains hanging from the walls, of course. 

You’re wearing one of those dresses when Ghost comes to visit you in the kitchen, nearly six weeks after he’d taken you.

He’d been letting you wander the house off-leash more and more, in small doses. Whether confident in his ability to catch you or your inability to get far from the cabin, you’re not sure, but you’re thankful nonetheless. You’re still a little sore from your last escape attempt, ass smarting from his belt, and haven’t quite gotten into your head to try again yet.

You’re leaning over the counter, tasting a fresh brownie from the middle of the pan while he smokes with his Wheel of Fortune on, having sent you off with a pat on the ass and a I want somethin’ sweet, doll. 

You’ve never been nearly as good at baking as you have cooking, and you’re not sure you’ve perfected your brownie recipe yet. But you’ve always had a bit of a sweet tooth, and Ghost keeps his house cold. Biting into a still-steaming gooey brownie, the top just enough of a crust to give the bite texture, the chocolate melting into your tongue, is one of the best things you’ve done since you first woke up in that basement. 

You don’t realize you’ve made a noise until there’s an echo behind you, Ghost’s groan so quiet it’s nearly drowned out by the TV in the other room.

You jerk back from the counter, hands braced on the rounded corner as you look over your shoulder, sure that there’s a pipe groaning in the wall.

Instead you see your kidnapper, already hardly a step away and boxing you into the counter, hulking body smothering you with ease.

Your spine goes ramrod straight, brownie abandoned in its pan as he presses himself into you, hard chest pushing against your softer back. You’re silent, stiff, too surprised and scared to do more than wait. 

“‘S got you moanin’ in here?” Ghost rumbles, heavy against you. “Thought I said I wanted a treat.”

“I–” You gasp, arching when he presses his hips into you. His sweatpants don’t do anything to disguise his length and you can feel every inch of him against your back. “I–I made brownies.”

“Hm…” One hand comes to rest on your hip, his head lowering enough that you can see his profile in your peripheral. “Let’s have it then.”

You don’t move at first, fingertips tingling and lips pressed tightly together.

He huffs, smacks your ass once. He pushes the fabric of your dress up just enough to clip your skin, simple granny panties doing little to soften the blow. You gasp and jerk forward, soft stomach pressing into the counter.

“Give me one,” he says, hand rubbing where he’d just spanked, fingertips just dipping under the edge of your underwear. “C’mon, bird, I want a bite.”

Your fingers quiver as you lift the brownie in your hand to his lips, holding it just over his shoulder as he feels you up with both hands, roughly kneading the cheeks of your ass as you try to stay as still as possible.

Ghost gives you more of his weight and bites the brownie, the sharp edges of his teeth scraping your knuckles. You jump at the feeling, unwittingly grinding yourself against him. 

“Fuck, pet,” he moans, face dropping to rest his forehead against your temple. You can do nothing but stare at the cabinet. “That’s fuckin’ delicious. I need another bite.”

You’re reaching towards the pan to cut him another piece when you realize he’s shifting to his knees behind you.

“Ghost,” you whine when he takes your hips in his hands, hefting you up so you’re fully resting on the island with your toes unable to even skim the tile. Your eyes are wide as you stare at the backsplash, unable to quite believe what’s happening.

“Hush,” he scolds, and you get a smack to the thigh for your trouble. “I want my sweet thing.”

Ghost eats your cunt the same way he eats your food: voraciously, messily, and shamelessly.

He gives you no warm up, no time to prepare for something he’s only hinted at wanting to do before. There’s one broad swipe of his tongue across your sex, then his lips wrapping around your clit and your eyes rolling back into your skull.

You’re not sure that he cares about your pleasure, but he’s certainly giving you plenty. He licks from cunt to clit again and again, tongue quick and stiff against where you’re sensitive and drawing breathy moans from you, nails scratching uslessly at the counter.

He focuses mostly on your hole, licking up your slick like it’s the best thing his tongue has ever touched and leaving you pushing back for more unconsciously, wanting more than just the tip of his tongue inside you. 

“Greedy,” he huffs when you nearly slip off the counter. He slips two fingers into your leaking hole and you squeal at the stretch, noticeable even with his mouth working you over. “This is for me, not you, pet. Settle down and let me eat.”

You cry out when he laps at your clit, quick, broad licks over the bud and just enough pressure to make your mouth hang open. He gives you almost too much suction, your brain rattling around between your ears when he crooks his fingers and tugs.

He uses just one hand on your thigh and two fingers in your cunt to shove you up the counter, giving him more space to have you practically sitting on his face. He laps around his own fingers, fucking with you just enough to coax more slick for him to drink, your knees knocking against the cabinet.

Eventually, what feels like it must be hours later, you come. The combination of Ghost’s fingers pressing at just the right spot, the suction on your clit and the sound of his mouth against you making you feel insane and finally pushing you over the edge.

It’s heaven, to have him lick and suck you through your orgasm. Your limbs feel tingly, bright white starbusts flying behind your eyes as you go limp across the counter, head pressing against the backsplash.

It isn’t until he doesn’t pull out his fingers, doesn’t pull his tongue away, that you start to feel truly gone, a puppet dancing to his tune, a piece of fruit squeezing whatever juice he wants into his mouth for as long as he wants.

“Not done with you yet,” you hear him murmur, the rumble of his voice against your cunt making you moan from overstimulation. “Gonna drain you dry, pretty thing. Shouldn’t have made yourself so sweet if you didn’t want me taking it all.”

You want to growl that you can’t make yourself taste like anything, but he slips a third finger into your hold, curls his fingers and rubs his knuckles against your g-spot, and you’re coming too hard to even attempt a protest.

By the time he pulls your dress back down and pets your ass, taking a brownie from the pan without even bothering to use the knife to cut himself a piece, there’s nearly as much drool dripping from your mouth as there is your cunt.

From there, your life centers around two things: food and sex. Both of them exist only because of and with Ghost, him your constant companion as you unwillingly grow more and more comfortable in his house. 

You cook him a stew made from cow leg he’d dropped on your counter that morning. Small russet potatoes float in the broth, popped into his mouth whole and swallowed almost as completely, pieces of carrots he chews to mush and celery he avoids, wine soaked meat leaving grease stains down his shirt. 

Ghost puts you on your knees beneath the table, feeds you his cock while he feeds himself your food. You suck him as well as you can, trace your tongue over the thick vein up the side of his cock, ignore the throbbing in your jaw and try to push his foreskin back to suckle on his head.  He wraps his fingers around the base of his cock, doesn’t let himself come until he’s finished with his meal. You can’t tell if his groaning is for your work on the stew or your work beneath the table.

Fuckin’ heaven, that mouth. Want me to send you off with a full belly, huh? Bet you like your meal as much as I like mine.

Half a dozen eggs, scrambled, served with enough bacon to make you feel sick from the smell alone and half-soaked in maple syrup. 

You, needy and desperate, grinding your cunt across his thigh. You lean back as far as you can with your hands carefully resting on the table at your back, desperate to avoid his syrup-sticky fingers, and end up with a view of his cock lancing you. He scoops your slick up with his clean fingers, picks up another piece of bacon and rips it in half, offers you the bit he doesn’t take.

Please, please, Ghost, I need it so bad, it hurts and it’s supposed to, love, I said I wanted a show with my breakfast, didn’t I?

A rack of lamb, sliding off the bone, bites of it shared between Ghost and you as three of his fingers work slowly in and out of your ass, leisurely and for his viewing pleasure more than your own orgasm. Red juices smeared across your lips and face, dripping down his chin and staining his fingers. A thumb on your clit, meat shoved between your teeth as you come. 

Gonna fuck you here too. Gonna make it hurt, listen to you cry a little when I eat. Oh, hush, you’ll be fine, don’t get yourself worked up. Not yet, at least. My cock’ll spread you out at least twice this much, save your tears for when you’ll need ‘em, pet.

Sticky fruit laid across your stomach, cantaloupe and watermelon and kiwi and banana. His fingers picking them off you piece by piece, savoring them as he fucks you hard. You laid flat to the table, legs spread why and throat sore from your cries, the stark difference between the way he relishes the food and the way he fucks you like an animal making you feel wanted in a way that threatens to drown you.

You need it bad, don’t you? Slut. Pretty, tasty, perfect little slut. Fuckin’ squeezin’ my dick off, goddamm, honey. Gonna fuck you full, gonna fill you up and feed you plenty. 

Stir fry you make with hog maw, a recipe you’d never tried before given to you by a girl in cooking school who was set to inherit her parent’s restaurant. His face moving between your cunt and his meal, your whines about a UTI and cross-contamination go ignored, and he holds his bowl beneath your cunt while he strokes your g-spot with two calloused fingers. 

Tightest fuckin’ cunt in the world. Pretty little thing and her pretty little meals, just made for me, huh? ‘S that right, pet? You’re made just for me and my mouth and my cock, hm? Gonna give me a nice little dressing for my food?

A night spent in his bed, after you make him angel-food cake from scratch. Waking up to a cock pressed against your ass, chain leash and collar heavy around your throat and locked around the headboard but the sheets soft under your skin, pillows thick and his own body warm in a way the basement never gets. 

Ghost isn’t awake yet. He’s snoring like a freight train, completely unaware of the way you stare at him in the blue-dark of the early dawn hours. 

The chain is heavy in your hand, cold against your soft palms. You feel almost like you’re in a trance, the world still hazy around its edges as you shift to kneel over him. 

You don’t know how much strength it takes to strangle a person, but evidentially you don’t use enough. 

You wrap the chain tight around either knuckle, press your hands hard into the mattress on either side of his head, and hold your own breath. His snores quiet, his breathing shudders. He coughs once, twice, you feel his hips and legs begin to shift beneath you and you really put your body weight behind your hold. He goes still.

Then, his eyes fly open. 

There’s hardly time for you to think fuck before he’s flipping you onto your stomach, harsh hand shoving you into the mattress while another rips the chain from your hands and pulls.

You wail a breath as your head is pulled back, scalp nearly touching your spine as Ghost forces your back into a steep arch, ass pushed into the air.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he hisses. You can’t tell if the heat in his words is rage or hunger or some sick mix of both, have even less of an idea which one you should be hoping it is. “You tryin’ to fuckin’ kill me?”

You can barely breathe through the anticipation, the fear that’s been gone for so many days suddenly wrapped around you as tight as the collar, but you find enough breath to shout when he lands a horribly heavy hit across your ass. 

“Ghost!” You shout when he only follows it with several more, eyes squeezed shut as he overwhelms you in pain and discomfort.

“What?” He snarls, fingers clipping your cunt and making your squeal. “What, now you don’t like pain? I watched you cream my cock without a single finger in your cunt last night, girl, but this?” Another spank, harder than you’ve ever taken and burning. “This too much for you?”

You huff, squirming as much as you can in your strained position. 

“You wake me up with a goddamn chain around my neck and bitch when I beat your ass for it?” His voice is nearing a shout now, thick with what you’re sure is anger. “You’re gonna try and kill me in my own fuckin’ bed and pitch a fit when I make you sorry?”

You can’t find it in you to do anything but cry, chest tight and eyes squeezed tighter while he doles out punishment, bruising slaps landing anywhere from your cheeks to your cunt to your thighs to your hole, his hand spreading you wide for him.

“Spread,” he grunts eventually, a harsh hand shoving your knees wide. “Need to get to that hole.”

You don’t get to listen, he makes you do what he wants without giving you a chance to, and then lays a dozen terrible, painful smacks to your asshole.

You’re nearly screaming through them all, feet slamming into the bed as the pain rushes through you. He yanks the chain hard when you try to pull forward and bury your face in the pillow, forcing you to keep the tortuous pose he’s holding you to.

You feel the bed rocking with the force of his hits, spit and tears dripping down your face as you can do nothing but lay there and take it. 

“Naughty, naughty fuckin’ thing,” he spits, two rough fingers pushing into your cunt with little care for your cry. “My own little chef tryin’ to strangle me, I can’t fuckin’ believe it. I bring you here to feed me, give you a load in your stomach anytime you need it, and you wrap your leash ‘round my throat?”

“I’m– I’m sorry!” You wail, inconsolable as he roughly rubs a palm over your clit, your cunt quickly getting slick. You’re still damp from the way he’d bent you over earlier, a mix of his and your cum wet between your thighs.

“Not good enough,” Ghost hisses. He quickly fucks his fingers back inside you, once twice, then pulls them out again.

You go taut as a board when those slick fingers move up, towards your far, far tighter hole.

“No,” you gasp, struggling even pinned as you are, a sense of panic shrouding your mind. “No, no, nonono, you can’t, oh God, please, Ghost, don’t–”

Ghost drops the chain in favor of grabbing you by the throat, tearing you back so violently that you’re staring at his sneer upside down. 

“Shut the fuck up.” His spit is tacky when it lands on your cheek, mixing with your tears, and his smile looks evil as he glares down at you. “Gonna make sure you don’t even think of that shit again. Gotta make it hurt if you’re gonna learn a lesson.”

You sob as he lets you go, head finally falling limp to the bed as you turn your face to the side so you can still breathe. You watch as he reaches for a half-full bottle of lube on his bedside table, the label peeling and stained. 

“Gonna cry for me some more?” He coos, laughing when you jump at the cold feel of the lube on your ass, thighs tense with nerves. “You know I like it when you make yourself look silly, pet. Go on, cry all you want. Still gonna fuck you.”

One finger pushes the lube into your ass, then two, then three. He gives you no time to adjust, only one thrust from each digit before he forces you to stretch further, lands slaps across your ass seemingly whenever he feels like it.

“Ghost, pl-ease,” you cry when you feel the hot head of him press against you, sure that it’ll be excruciating. 

He threads a hand into your hair, pulls you up enough that he can bend to speak into your ear.

“You’ll call me Simon while I fuck your ass,” he says, voice low. “I wanna hear you scream it when I hurt you, pet.”

You listen to him against your will, the scream he wanted tearing from you and echoing the sheer pain of being fucked by someone as massive as Ghost with such little prep.

Your hole feels like it’s on fire, the pain racing through the rest of your body and leaving you limp and panting, only able to close your eyes and endure as he mercilessly pushes forward, uncaring of your pained hiccups and cries.

“Simon,” you whine when he bottoms out, warm balls settling against your neglected cunt. “Hurts…”

His laugh is mean, nasty in your ear. “Good, fuck, say it again, girl. Tell me how much it hurts.”

“So bad…” is all you manage, even just those words warbling off into nothing as he pulls out, fucking himself back in with a harsh thrust that nearly chokes you. 

“Can’t believe you tried it,” he huffs, bracing himself over you as he sets a ruthless pace, no consideration for your comfort. You can see the chain in his right hand, feel the way it just barely tugs at your neck with how viciously you’re moving along the bed. “Been waitin’ for you to give me a chance to do this to you, to fuck you up.”

Your fists clench in the sheets as you do your best to breathe through the pain, the slide of the lube only making his thrusts marginally easier to endure.

“Been waitin’ to get my cock in this hole. Wanted to watch you cry and make you put your tears in the food, gape your little hole and make you ride me while I smoke, shit. Tightest ass I’ve ever felt, love, goddamn. ‘S that feel good?” A slap to the side of your face, rousing you. “You feel good with my cock drilling your little ass?”

“No,” you moan, miserable.

“Good,” he hisses, thrusts quickly becoming uncoordinated as he stares down at your ruined face, his eyes gleaming. “You’re so much sweeter when you’re hurtin’, girl. Wanna keep you like this all the time.”

You sob at the idea, already unable to imagine how excruciating it’ll be to sit tomorrow with your ass covered in welts.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Ghost pants, staring at you ravenously. “Cry a little more for me, attagirl…”

You feel his cum shoot deep inside you before his thrusts slow, the heat spreading as he fucked you through his orgasm, face twisted in pleasure. Your tears haven’t slowed, even as the pain lessened and lessened throughout your fucking.

“Fuck, fuck, that feels good,” he breathes, grinding himself against you as he empties the last of himself inside you.

You feel nearly catatonic as he pulls out, only able to whine when he slips free from your hole and then again when he rearranges you on the bed, limbs sore and neck stiff as he continues to hold you by the leash.

“Took it well,” he grunts, shifting to lay on his back again and tossing the lube to the table beside him. “You gonna pull that shit again?”

You sniffle shaking your head no, only verbally answering when he cocks an eyebrow. “No, Simon.”

He smirks. “I’d love if you did,” he whispers, like it’s a secret. “Would love if you gave me another chance to ruin you. Just go ahead, love. I’ll tear into you whenever you want.” He tilts his head, considering for a moment. “Whenever I want too. ‘Cause you’re mine to do whatever I want with, aren’t you?”

You nod, hands tucked beneath your chin as he tugs you closer by the hip, fingers pressing into rapidly developing bruises and making you whimper.

“Yeah, gonna fuck you ‘til you cry as often as I want. And you’ll gimme those tears every time, won’t you?”

All you can do is nod, a part of you calmed and feeling safer as you watch the predator’s teeth pull away from the prey’s neck when he nods.

The plate you balance is larger than your face and still nearly overflowing with food.

It’s filled to the edges with steak, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and rolls. You have a bottle of wine tucked under one arm, a corkscrew held between your lips and one glass in your hand as you saunter towards Simon.

“Smells good,” he grunts. You’ve learned that his compliments are concise but rare, and you greedily take in the praise from him. “Enough for us both?”

You snort. There’s enough food on your plate to feed five people, easily. But Ghost’s stomach is never-ending, and you’d made sure that there would be no way he’d go to bed hungry.

He spreads his thighs as you approach, pats one of them like you’re not already lowering yourself to him. He takes the glasses while you lay the plate, setting his silverware to the side as he opens the bottle and fills the glass nearly to the brim.

You hum as you take in a breath of the food, that familiar sense of pride from a meal well-made settling in your chest.

Ghost cuts the food while you lean back on his chest, watching his thick fingers work. 

He lifts one of the little pieces of steak to your mouth once he’s cut it, swiping it through the potatoes and guiding you to look at him with a finger on your jaw.

He presses the tender, rare meat between your lips and you take it greedily, letting your eyes slip shut as you savor the taste. He kisses you almost immediately after, passes his tongue over the food before you can even swallow, but lets you keep it.

You giggle when he pulls back, swiping a thumb over the potato on your lip. He picks himself up another bite, pinches a bit of carrot with his steak and swallows without chewing, a moan slipping from his lips. You feel yourself dampening against his thigh, breath hitching.

“Happy Valentine’s day,” you say, voice quiet and held just between the two of you.

He snorts, ever unromantic. “Eat up, doll. Wanna have you for dessert after a meal this good.”

You smile softly at him, opening your mouth willingly when he lifts a bite of food to your lips.

[soapcloth]

CW: soap x reader, brief mentions of past bullying, religious soap, pushy soap - dividers @/cafekitsune

The mortifying case of Soap having been one of your childhood bullies.

You spot him for the first time in years when he tugs open the door to the corner store just down the street from your parent's house—blissfully unaware of your presence as you duck away behind an aisle in hopes he won't spot you.

Despite being years older, its impossible not to recognize his face.

Last time you checked he had fucked off into the military. Why was he back in town at the same time you were? He never had been before.

Grabbing the last thing your mom needed, you wait until he's preoccupied at the fridge to sneak over to the till, ignoring the odd look from the cashier—of course John's grabbing the same old drink he used to make you steal for him. You can still remember the taunting bark of his laughter when you would sniffle and sob after delivering the beverage, absolutely sure you were going to spend the night in a jail cell if they caught you.

Bastard.

Placing the change on the counter you nod and hastily take your leave, about ready to cry tears of joy once you've made it out the shop door.

It's hard to believe he still has that much of a grip on your psyche all these years later.

Heavy breath billows from your lips as you take the crumbling road back to your parent's place, plastic bag smacking against your hip with each step—always the errand runner around here.

Even if the entire world shifted on its axis, you'd still wager that this town would manage to stay as is.

Three more days until you could go home—your real home; the spot on earth you had carved out for yourself, miles away from this unfathomably deep pit. Your scratchy childhood sheets give you a new found sense of appreciation for the set you had bought for yourself shortly after moving out; soft and well-loved atop your real bed, awaiting your return.

A large hand clamps down on your shoulder.

"Christ! Almost missed ye!" John coughs out, panting from his mad dash to catch up to you.

"Me?" you sputter out, spinning towards the towering man as you calm your racing heart.

The new angle gives you a clear look at the angry scar healing on the side of his head.

He beams, pupils a little out of sorts as he drags you in under a thick bicep. His scent is distinctly more man than you recall and his arms remind you of the sturdy branches belonging to a tree; limbs bigger than the ones you remember reaching for you when he used to chase you around the woods—you had thought them impossibly large then... what were they feeding him in the military?

"O'course! Who else but ye? That f'yer Mum?" he asks, grabbing your bag and taking a brief, distracted peek.

You don't get a chance to reply as switches his attention, nudging his nose into the top of your head to practically inhale your hair. he rumbles happily. "Thought I'd ne'er see ye' again."

you forcefully dig your heels into the gravel and wiggle out of his grip.

"Why would you want to see me? Don't you hate me?" you spit, frowning as you snatch your bag back.

You watch confusion eat away at him for a second before his thin lips press into a frown that mirrors your own, dark lashes trembling a bit as he glares a hole through you.

"Hate ye? Ye think ah hate ye?"

You weren't going to do this—not with the boy that had gleefully isolated you from everyone in your age range during the most important social years of your early life.

"Yer daft!" he suddenly laughs, slipping back into his jovial grin. "-Gave me a fright there for a second!" he pulls you back into him with embarrassing ease and begins to walk again, knuckles grinding into your head before he grabs the bag from you, a satisfied chuckle leaving his lips. "Cannae believe ye thought ah hated ye—Had the biggest crush oan ye,"

No.

"-Thought ah was makin' it obvious!"

No—not this.

"Ah was a jealous wee git, detested ye hangin' out with yer pals. Likely made a right fool o'maself." he rubs at your arm with his large, bear-like palm and sighs contentedly. "No matter, Ah'm no a teenager anymore. How long ye in town for?"

you tug your gaze away from the tight-fitting grey hoodie straining pathetically over his muscles, letting it land on your shoes. he notices your reluctance and laughs, giving you a squeeze

"-God gave me a second chance, ahm no lettin' ye slip away—Full steam oan till we’re wed this time, alright?"

[enhani-ki]

snitch - reader x ni-ki

warnings: very suggestive content, making out, cursing, etc...

you stared out the window of the bus. your legs were bouncing uncontrollably while your hands gripped the strap of your bag.

ni-ki's sister sat next to you with phone in hand but her focus kept drifting back to you. she raised her brow, leaning a little closer. "hey, are you okay?"

you snapped out of your thoughts, blinking rapidly. "huh? yeah, i'm fine."

"no, you're not." she nudged your arm with hers. "you've been weird ever since we left the house. you're quiet, and you're acting… i don't know, nervous or something. what's up?"

you opened your mouth to respond but ended up just sighing as there are no words coming out.

because earlier that day, you were just in ni-ki's room sitting cross-legged on the floor, flipping through magazines while his sister searched his desk drawers.

the room smelled faintly of his cologne. fresh and manly which is a scent that always remain whenever ni-ki's nearby.

"i swear, he never keeps anything organized." she muttered while tossing random things in the room. "i just need to find that charger and then we're out of here."

"uhm, you're invading my space." ni-ki showed up, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed and wearing a smirk in his lips.

"well, i know for a fact that my charger is here." his sister shot him a glare. "why don't you make yourself useful?"

"i am." he said smugly. "i'm supervising."

you snorted while flipping a page in the magazine.

his gaze snapped to you and you regretted even reacting. ni-ki's smirk widened. "what? jealous i'm not paying attention to you for once?" he teased, stepping into the room.

you scoffed, looking up at him. "don't flatter yourself."

his sister groaned, annoyed that she knows exactly where this is going. "both of you, shut up. i found it." she held up the tangled mess of cords then turned to you. "be right back! i'll just to grab my bag in my room."

"take your time, sis." ni-ki said then stepped aside to let his sister pass.

the door shut behind him with a soft click. suddenly, the room felt smaller. the sound of ni-ki's footsteps creaking of the floor and the faint rustling of the magazine pages are the only thing you could hear.

slowly, you lifted your eyes to look at him and the look on his face just made your heart jump.

"looks like it's just us now." ni-ki said then he bit his lip.

you felt nervous but you did your best to keep your tone calm and steady. "and?"

ni-ki crouched in front of you, so close you could see the faint freckles scattered across his nose.

"and i've been dying to do this."

you blinked... confused, and before you could ask what he meant, his hand cupped your cheek.

the warmth of his touch sent a jolt throughout your body and the next thing you know is that his lips were on yours.

it wasn't soft or gentle. ni-ki kissed you like he couldn't hold it back anymore, like he'd been waiting for this moment and wasn't about to waste it. his thumb traced your neck as his lips moved against yours, leading you into a kiss that's leaving you both breathless.

the magazine slipped from your hands as you melt under all the intensity. your heart is pounding so hard it's drowning out every rational thought.

ni-ki made everything else fade away.

then the sound of footsteps echoed, making ni-ki pull back immediately. his lips were swollen and his breathing has become uneven. he stood up then covered his mouth, casually leaning back against the wall again like nothing had happened.

the door creaked open and his sister walked in, holding her bag. "ready to go?"

you looked down to hide your face and wiped your mouth before looking at his sister. slowly, you stood up and glared at ni-ki but he didn't even look at you.

"yeah." you answered, standing up with shaky legs.

"good. let's go!" his sister said cheerfully. totally oblivious to what happened in the room just a few seconds ago.

and as you followed her out, you dared one last glance over your shoulder. ni-ki was still leaning against the wall, his arms were crossed and there's a faint smirk playing on his lips.

now, you're on the bus and you can't seem to forget the feeling of making out with ni-ki earlier, the way he touched you, the smug smirk he had thrown your way when you're about to walk out... it all played like an endless loop in your mind.

"i'm- i'm just tired." you said finally, forcing a weak smile. "didn't get much sleep last night."

ni-ki's sister didn't seem convinced and her eyes narrowed slightly as she studied your face. you avoided her eyes, trying to focus on the passing buildings outside.

"okay, but you're literally anxious." she gestured toward your legs, which were still bouncing uncontrollably. "is something bothering you? that stupid ni-ki said something dumb again, didn't he?"

your heart jumped when she mentioned ni-ki's name. you clenched your fists. "no!" you said quickly, a little too defensive. "why would you say that?"

she shrugged, leaning back against the seat. "i don't know? he loves annoying you and i know you can't stand him most of the time. i just thought maybe he said something that offended you or made you angry."

you bit your lip as the truth bubbling dangerously close to the surface.

it's not what he said, it's what he did.

"really, i'm fine." you said, trying to steady your voice. "just tired, that's all."

ni-ki's sister watched you for a moment, then she sighed. "alright, if you say so. but seriously, if something's bothering you, you can tell me. you know that, right?"

you nodded while the guilt were slowly growing inside of you. she had no idea what had happened and the thought of telling her made your stomach twist.

how could you admit that her brother, her annoying, unpredictable brother had kissed you and you didn't even push him away?

the bus reached to a stop. you stood up, slinging the bag over your shoulder. "come on, this is us."

you followed her silently, your legs were still shaky as you stepped off the bus. the chill air hit your face but it did little to clear your spinning thoughts.

and as you walked side by side, ni-ki's sister chatted about something that had happened at school but you're barely hearing her words. your mind was still stuck to what happened in ni-ki's room, replaying the way he had kissed you.

fed up, she stopped abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk, turning to face you. "alright, that's it. spill. what's going on with you?"

you shook your head but she continued. "you're acting so weird and i know it's not just because you're tired."

you froze and her stare pinning you in place. your heart pounded in your chest and for a moment, you considered brushing it off again.

"your brother kissed me."

her jaw dropped and she stared at you like you'd just said the most ridiculous thing she have ever heard. "he, what?!"

you swallowed hard, struggling to talk as you felt your cheeks burning. "back at the house. before we left. he… he kissed me."

her mouth opened and closed as she also struggled to form a response. "i-" meanwhile, your heart felt like it might beat out of your chest.

few days later, you and ni-ki's sister agreed to hang out at her house again, though you had to admit, the idea of going back was not easy but when she told you niki that wasn't home, you eventually agreed. you can't see him. you needed a break from everything that had happened, especially after that one hell of a kiss you still couldn't quite process.

you sat into the couch, trying to distract yourself with some random conversation but it wasn't long before her phone starting to buzz like crazy.

"you said he wouldn't be here!" you hissed, glancing nervously at the front door as ni-ki's sister grabbed her bag.

"i didn't know either! he said he wasn't coming home today." she said apologetically. "i'm so sorry, but i really have to go. it's an emergency. you'll be fine, okay? just ignore him or fucking push him."

and before you could protest, she was already out the door. you exhaled, dreading the thought of being alone with him. of course, it was only a few seconds before ni-ki sneaked into the living room.

"well, well, i didn't know there was a rat here." he said with a smirk, dropping onto the couch comfortably.

you rolled your eyes then crossed your arms.

he tilted his head, his smile widening. "you know, i didn't think that you'd actually snitch on me." he added. "you liked it, don't you?"

"oh, please. you're not funny." you scoffed, already annoyed.

he scooted closer, leaning in just enough to invade your space. "honestly, i'd do it again." he said quietly, low tone and teasing. "but i guess you don't like it."

problem was, you did like it. too much.

"can you get off me?" you snapped, trying to push him away but he was quicker. his hands grabbed your arms, holding you in place as he turned you to face him.

ni-ki's grin turned mischievous as he leaned in closer. "relax." he whispered, burying his face in the crook of your neck. his presence making it impossible to think.

"i'll stop, okay?" he said with his voice muffled against your skin. "just... let me stay like this for a minute."

he then eventually shifted, releasing you from his hold. he stood up slowly and instead of walking away, he crouched slightly to bring himself eye-level with you as you sat frozen on the couch.

his hands reached out to gently cup your face, thumbs are brushing against your cheeks and his stare roamed all over your face.

neither of you spoke for a moment. ni-ki's usual teasing aura is gone and replaced by a soft longing look. "sorry if i made you uncomfortable, y/n." he said, voice unusually quiet and sincere. "i won't do it again."

but just as you opened your mouth to respond, ni-ki leaned in. his lips met yours in a kiss that was quick yet impossibly long at the same time. it was firm and deep, stealing every thought from your mind as his hands held your face gently.

the world seemed to stop again and the only thing you could feel is the way his lips molded perfectly against yours.

his lips stayed close for a fraction longer than they should have, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to let go. ni-ki's hands falled from your face then cleared his throat after he straightened himself. for a second, he just stood there, looking at you with an expression you couldn't read.

"that's the last time." he softly then continued. "i promise."

without another word, ni-ki turned and walked away, leaving you stunned, dizzy, with your lips tingling from the kiss.

then the next few days were… strange.

ni-ki didn't tease or corner you, he wasn't smirking at you from across the room and he didn't even invade your space with his confidence. he barely even acknowledged you.

at first, you told yourself this was exactly what you wanted. after all, you'd spent so much time annoyed by his constant teasing. but as the days stretched on? the silence started to hurt you.

and ni-ki was just there, of course. passing by, sitting on the couch when you're coming over to visit his sister. yet, he acted like you didn't exist. no exchanges, banters, no comments, not even a glance in your direction.

it was unsettling.

you found yourself watching him more than you should, waiting for him to say something, anything. but he didn't.

and it drove you crazy.

why isn't he teasing you anymore? why isn't he leaning close, crowding your space, making you breathless, annoyed-

you hated how much you noticed the absence of his attention and you hated it even more when you realized how desperate it made you feel.

it didn't make sense. you had told yourself you couldn't stand him and that his antics were irritating at best. you always want to punch him in his face. but now, without him, your chest felt hollow and your body felt colder than usual.

it was quiet in their house as you leaned against the kitchen counter, scrolling through your phone. you had just been talking to ni-ki's sister before she left to grab something from the store, leaving you alone again.

you heard soft sound of footsteps behind you, and when you turned, there he was. ni-ki, looking handsome as ever.

"where's my sister?" he asked you, eyes briefly flicked to yours.

you gulped after hearing his voice. "she just went to grab something at the store." you replied, trying to keep your cool.

"oh." he nodded and turned to leave.

your heart raced as you watched him about to walk away, something inside you were screaming to do something, to stop him and before you could stop yourself, his name slipped from your lips. "ni-ki..."

he paused, turning his head slightly to look at you over his shoulder. "what?"

you hesitated, looking at his eyes. "it's… nothing." you whispered, immediately regretting it.

ni-ki let out a soft sigh and turned fully towards you, his hands now resting on his hips, inhaling deeply then exhaled slowly before speaking. "just say it." he said, his voice was steady but anticipating.

your throat felt tight but still, the words blurted out before you could overthink them. "i miss you, ni-ki."

for a moment, he froze and internally, he was screaming.

he is screaming.

pure joy rushed through him and it's so loud in his head he could hardly think.

because you missed him. you actually said you missed him.

ni-ki wanted to jump, to shout, to do anything to release the excitement surging through his body but he kept his composure.

he knew he would play this perfectly... the lack of teasing, the distance, he knew you'd miss him, and he would make you realize it yourself.

his calmness contrasts the whirlwind he's feeling inside, ni-ki stepped closer and smiled as soon as you locked eyes, his expression was unreadable again.

and when he reached you, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders, pulling you into a tight yet gentle embrace. he didn't say anything, just leaned down to press a kiss on top of your head.

then without letting go, he kissed your temple. then your cheek. then your forehead.

the sweetness of his kisses made you chuckle softly, "ni-ki…" you giggled, your hands moving to rest on his arms to feel the warmth of his skin.

you felt his lips move across your face, pressing soft, long kisses in a way that felt both comforting and possessive, as if he was silently claiming you, telling you without words just how much he wanted this.

how much he wanted you.

"stop laughing." he murmured and smiled against your temple.

"i can't." you whispered, your fingers lightly gripping his arms. "you're..."

"perfect?" he teased, finally pulling back slightly, his face hovering close to yours with a grin on his lips.

you rolled your eyes, giggles softening as you looked up at him. "maybe."

"what? maybe?" he echoed, his grin widening as he leaned in to press another quick kiss to your cheek. "you're so lucky, i'm in a good mood right now."

you smiled, tip toeing to give him a kiss. your heart fluttering as ni-ki stayed close with his arms never loosening their hold.

a/n: play shinee - replay ><

マスターリストm.list

[dollishmehrayan]

# “MRS. WAYNE I THINK THIS IS FOR YOU!” ── .✦ ( bruce wayne wife headcannons )

a/n: this was request by a anon (here) so yeah but anyways I Lowkey used to be OBSESSED with like batmom stories but like I genuinely then lost all care for liking anything bruce wayne but this might just like help me (jason todd girly converts into a batmom Stan😭) tags: (bruce wayne x fem!reader)

CHAOTIC HEADCANNONS ── .✦

“No, Bruce. That’s Not a Normal Thing to Do.”

You frequently have to remind him that billionaire habits don’t translate to normal life.

Bruce: “I thought I’d buy out the café you like so you wouldn’t have to wait in line.”

You: “Bruce, we’re just getting lattes. Calm down.”

The expensive car Dilemma: He’s tried picking you up in one of his expensive cars once, and you’ve never let him live it down.

“Bruce, we’re not running a car dealership we’re going to Target.”

Tech Mishaps: Bruce likes to show off his gadgets, but they always malfunction around you. Once, the Batcomputer locked him out because you accidentally spilled coffee near it. You took a picture of his shocked face and made it your phone wallpaper for weeks.

The Disastrous Cooking Attempts: Bruce insists he can cook. The truth? Alfred banned him from the kitchen after he tried to “surprise” you with pancakes and set the stovetop on fire.

“I’m Batman, but I can’t handle pancake batter.”

OVERPROTECTIVE HUSBAND™ ── .✦

He’ll interrogate any new friends you bring around like they’re suspects in a heist.

Bruce, shaking someone’s hand firmly: “And what do you do for a living?”

You, glaring: “Bruce, they’re not applying to join the Justice League.”

GOSSIP FINAL BOSS ── .✦

He pretends not to care about gossip, but he secretly listens to you rant about gala drama. Sometimes, he’ll even chime in with hilariously accurate observations.

You: “That woman was glaring at me all night.”

Bruce: “Because she kept seeing her husband looking at you’re instagram posts. Trust me, Alfred told me.”

ROMANTIC HCS ── .✦

Constant Gentleman Mode: Bruce is always opening doors for you, carrying your bags, or pulling out your chair. You tease him about being old-fashioned, but it’s clear he loves taking care of you.

Private Dance Lessons in the Manor: When you’re stressed, Bruce will put on some music in the empty ballroom and sweep you into an impromptu dance. He’s a surprisingly good dancer, but the way he looks at you mid-spin? That’s what makes your heart race.

Personal Love Notes: Bruce doesn’t text much, but he leaves little handwritten notes around the house.

“Don’t forget, you’re the best part of my day.”

“Coffee’s ready downstairs. So is your husband, who can’t stop thinking about you.”

The ‘I’m Watching You’ Look: At galas, Bruce can’t stop staring at you. When you catch him, he gives that little smirk that says, Yeah, you caught me, but I’m not sorry.

Soft Batman Moments: Even in the Batcave, he has moments where he’s just your Bruce. When he sees you waiting up for him late at night, he’ll silently take off his cowl, walk over, and hold you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.

Protective, but Not Controlling: He worries, of course, but he respects your independence. If you’re ever in trouble, though, the Bat is out faster than you can blink. “No one touches my wife.”

Gift Giving Expert: He puts serious thought into gifts. One time, he recreated your childhood bedroom in the manor when you were feeling homesick. “I just wanted you to feel at home,” he said, completely nonchalant.

The Morning Ritual: He wakes up early to watch you sleep for a few minutes (in the least creepy way possible) because it’s his quiet reminder of how lucky he is. When you stir awake, he presses a kiss to your forehead and whispers, “Good morning, love.”

Subtle Public Affection: In public, his affection is subtle—hand on the small of your back, thumb grazing your hand, or an almost imperceptible wink across the room. But behind closed doors? He’s all cuddles and kisses.

Always Puts You First: Whether it’s cutting a patrol short to spend time with you or risking everything to keep you safe, Bruce’s priority will always be you. “The city can wait. You can’t.”

MIX OF CHAOS AND ROMANCE ── .✦

When Bruce tries to be romantic but Alfred bringing him back to reality: Bruce, holding your hand: “You’re the light in my dark world.”

Alfred, walking in: “Sir, you said that to the last woman, too. Shall I fetch your script?”

You once jokingly wore a bat-symbol T-shirt to tease him. Bruce didn’t say anything, but later that week, he wore a matching shirt that said, “I <3 My Wife.”

[hughes-your-daddy]

UH OH!

paring: quinn hughes x fem reader

warnings: swearing, labour, pregnancy

summary: your summer trip to the lake house ends in one extra person coming home with you.

it all started with a movie night. the whole family together for the first time since everyone made it out to michigan. jack, luke, quinn, ellen, jim and you. all bundled up on the l shaped couch, drowning in blankets and snacks.

quinn lays to the side of you on the l - shaped section, head resting on your chest, unconsciously tracing his fingers over your swollen 8 and a half month stomach.

one of the jurassic movies plays in the background, your eyes starting to droop, ready to fall asleep until a sudden quench of thirst hits you.

slowly, you peel off of quinn, a small pout forming on his lips as you giggle at him.

“you alright sweetie?” ellen asks, as quinn helps push you up from the couch.

“oh, yeh all fine, just need a drink. anyone want anything?” you ask, looking over to the others as they all decline.

you make your way into the kitchen, moving to open the cabinets and grabbing a cup to fill up with some orange juice. opening the fridge, you see some pickles which automatically catch your eye, completely forgetting about the orange juice and grabbing the jar instead.

you move around the kitchen to grab a plate before placing a few pickles on it, moving around to rest your elbows against the island.

so far, your pregnancy has been smooth sailing, all scans were prefect, any tests done came back clear. the nursery was set up at your shared apartment back in Vancouver, jack and luke even coming over for a few days to help paint and build furniture.

you had even gotten close to a name, but without knowing the gender yous didn’t want to commit to anything right now. saying that, yous also haven’t found the right options for a girl or boy, none of the names seeming to sit right with yous.

your eyes float back over to the empty glass, groaning when you remeber why you came here in the first place. pushing yourself off the island you move back over to the fridge leaving your 2 pickles to sit on the counter.

you go to open the fridge, startled by a sudden release of liquid between your legs. frozen, you slowly look down seeing a off-coloured liquid leak down between your legs. you snap back into reality just as you hear

“hey y/n, your nearly done-“

the sound of your fiancés voice rounding the corner of the island, freezing at the sight.

“quinn,” you say meeting his eyes, “i think that’s my waters.” your voice wavers slightly, a twinge of panic settling in your chest.

“shit shit, umm ok,” he mumbles rushing over, taking your hands and walking you over to a bar stool at the island, “your ok, just take a breath yeh?” he settles you on the stool, gently pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“i-it’s still going, why’s it still going? i thought it came all at once? do you think-” you begin rambling, only to be cut off by lips on yours.

“breathe baby. you’re ok,” he repeats, pulling back to look directly in your eyes, “i’m gonna get my mom and we’re gonna go to the hospital ok?” he says, voice calm and smooth. you manage to nod, feeling speechless.

you hear quinn call out to his mom and footsteps plodding down the hall, as all thoughts and panics swim your head.

“quinn it’s too early, im only 8 months, i-i don’t even have any contractions.” you ramble once again only to be cut off by a different voice this time.

“hey honey, you need to take some deep breaths for me,” your eyes focus to see ellen stood infront of you with her hands on your shoulders, “it’s not too early trust me, i’ve done this three times and none of them were anywhere close to their due date.” she sends a soft smile over to you, your eyes wandering over to see jack and luke mopping the floor with paper towels.

“i’m so sorry about the mess-“ you start, ellen interrupting you by clearing your throat.

“the least we can do for you, your bringing our little niece or nephew into the world.” luke smiles up to you, jack agreeing.

“do you have your midwife’s number y/n?” ellen asks, you nodding as quinn goes back into the living room to grab his phone, dialling the midwife.

“quinn, you need to tell her y/n’s waters have broke but there are no contractions yet ok? she’ll probably contact the hospital here to ask whether to send yous over or not.” she instructs quinn with a calming voice,he hands gently rubbing circles over your shoulders.

“why isn’t it stopping?” you ask, feeling a slow but growing puddle in your stool.

“that’s completely normal sweetie, not like the films where it all comes at once.” ellen answers, moving across the fill up a glass of water, “ but you have to keep hydrated ok?” she asks and you nod, hearing quinn back beside you on the phone to the midwife.

“yeh.. ok.. thank you so much.” quinn finishes slipping his phone into his sweatpants, “she said it should be alright to go to the hospital. she rang and they said they have plenty of room.” he says sending a soft smile your way.

besides the panic and worry filling your whole body, there’s a warmth and joy, knowing your going to finally be able to hold your little baby.

“do you think i could change clothes?” you ask, knowing your (or quinn’s) sweatpants are soaked and most likely your hoodie too.

“of course honey, i’ll try and pack a few things for you, i know your hospital bags back in vancouver.” ellen smiles, pressing a small kiss to the top of your head before disappearing.

“you think you can walk?” quinn asks gently, as you nod. quinn takes one of your hands, while jack takes your other arm, weary of the still, very sloppy, wet floor.

“thanks jacky.” you giggle as you can sense he is so confused right now.

“just make sure my little niece is alright yeh?” shoots back, smiling at your chirping.

“we don’t even know the gender yet jack.” quinn says as you get back to the carpeted floor.

“i just have this feeling.” jack smiles before heading back to finish mopping with luke.

“ok, just up some stairs honey.” quinn softly says, the two of you slowly making your way up the flights of stairs to the room yous are staying in.

you make your way across to the bed and quit gently sits you down moving across the room to the set of drawers beside the window pulling out some clothes.

“are these ok?” he asks holding up a pair of his flannel pyjama pants. you match his small smile, knowing they’re your favourite before he pulls out one of his canucks training hoodies and making his way back over to your bed.

he gently pulls your hoodie off, the hem at the bottom slightly wet and throws it into the en-suite to deal with later.

“you wanna keep this on?” he asks, referring to the small cropped tank top underneath, you shake your head knowing it’ll come off anyway, leaving you in your bra before he slides the new hoodie over top. he then starts on your sweat pants peeling off the now soaked one, throwing them also to the bathroom before moving away to grab a towel and dry down your legs.

“your incredible you know,” quinn says, as he dries down your thoughts, you giggle at the random comment making him look up at you, “just wanted to let you know.” he smiles, tossing the towel aside and pulling on the new pants, before helping you back to your feet.

“any contractions yet?” he asks, gently pulling you into his arms and swaying the both of you gently side to side.

“mmh no don’t think so, i think it’s all still braxton hicks.” you mumble feeling that exhaustion come back to you.

together the two of you (mostly quinn) move move around the room only packing essentials into his backpack like phones, chargers and some extra clothes.

“you ready to have this baby?” he asks wrapping an arm around your waist the holding holding his bag.

“i think so?” he hesitantly nod, a small smile appearing on your face.

making your way back downstairs, ellen has managed to pack a few things that she had buggy as presents for the two of you like a few baby grows, nappies etc.

“i think this should do you to for now, we gonna head straight into town first thing tomorrow morning to get you guys a temporary crib until we can figure out how you guys will get home ok?” she asks and you’re set back speechless as she hands another bag over top quinn.

“oh guys, you really don’t have to-“ you start only to be cut off by jim.

“we love you y/n your carrying pur grandchild, yous two only deserve the best.” jim smiles moving around to give you a small hug followed by ellen, jack and luke.

“you got this alright?” luke whispers as you nod.

growing up the new kid in town was hard when you were younger. moving at the age of 12 had a lot of issues with school and friends, but luke made it his personal mission to make sure that wasn’t a problem for much longer. yous two became inseparably quickly before jack joined and finally quinn, you were the same age as jack so you fit in with the brothers easily, getting out in goal when they practiced hockey even though you didn’t.

they became your second family, until you fell for the older brother one summer.

now your being loaded into his car, as the family get ready to follow in their own.

quinn slowly pulls out of the driveway, offering his hand for you to hold to try and ground yourself. he turns the radio on, soft music playing considering it’s around 11:30pm, the streetlights making the road barely visible.

he starts to get closer to the town, seeing the hospital in the distance when a massive contraction hits you out of nowhere.

“quinn.” you let out almost in a whine, gripping his hand tighter, as he rubs his thumb over your knuckles.

“your doing great honey, we’re just pulling up now, keep breathing for me.” he says, pulling into a car parking space before turning the car off and getting out to come round to your side.

your hands move to your belly, gently rubbing underneath to try and soothe the pain.

“you ready baby?” he asks opening the door and reaching over to help rub your belly.

“give me a sec.” you mumble, trying to catch your breath after that contraction, it knocked you right over, “ok, yeh i’m good.” you smile slightly, taking a deep breath before letting quinn help you out the car, both bags already over his shoulders as he grabs on of your hands his other snaking around your waist as you slowly make your way into the hospital.

you manage to get checked in and settled rather quickly due to how quiet it is, the nurse already checking your dilation.

“your already about 5cm which is great, hopefully it won’t be too long of a wait. i’ll be back in around an hour to check you again. if you need anything before then just shout and ill come over.” she smiles, binning her gloves before leaving the room, silence taking over as quinn stands beside your bed, hands in pockets looking like a lost puppy.

“quinn baby,” you smile gently, his eyes locking with yours, concern written all over his face, “c’mere.” you mumble, putting your hand out for him to grab, as his cautiously makes his way over taking your hand and setting himself down in the small chair by your bed.

“you ok? an hour ago you were the one calming me down, but now you look like your gonna cry hun.” you say gently, hand unconsciously rubbing your bump, which is now hooked up to lots of monitors, quinn holding your other with both his hands.

“trust me, the only tears that you’ll see are happy ones,” he lets out a small giggle before looking up to meet your eyes, “just feels like this is happening so quick.” he mumbles, his finger drawing shapes on that back of your hands.

“it is, but just think, it might be nice learning how to do all this,” you say gesturing to your belly, “with your whole family with us. it’s less stress.” you smile, as he brings your hand up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the back of it.

“i’m so glad we have my mom and dad,” he lets out a happy huff, seeing your smile, before a knock interrupts you, “speaking of.” he smiles moving to get up and answer.

you adjust the light blanket over your lower half as you are now completely naked, only having your bra still on due to how hot your getting.

“hey guys,” quinn welcomes them, all of them here as they promised, ellen moving across the room to give you a hug.

“feeling any better now?” she asks pulling away as you give her a small smile and nod.

“said i’m 5cm and hoping it should go quick, so we’re just waiting.” you smile as they find seats around your bed, quinn moving to perch on the side of it, so his mom could have a chair.

hours pass from laying in the bed, bouncing on a yoga ball and now walking around the ward. the pyjama pants back on, hand low under your bump, now wearing quinn’s zip up hoodie over your bra as you hold onto your iv drop stand for support as you walk. quinn’s hand lays on the small of your back, slowly guiding you around the ward.

“i thought she said this would be quick.” you mumble slowly waddling along.

“they’re just being a little stubborn baby, wanna stay in your belly forever.” he smiles, moving to gently rub your bump with his other hand coming round to press a kiss against your temple, only for you to pull away, leaning against the wall with a hiss as another contraction hits.

“keep breathing baby, your doing so well.” he whispers, moving behind you to rub small circles on your back under his zip up.

“god it hurts quinn.” you whine, a tear falling down your cheek.

“i know, but your doing so well honey, not long now.” he says pressing a kiss to the back of your neck.

“ok, ok, i wanna go back, this isn’t helping.” you sigh, gaining composure after the contraction. he nods, guiding you back down the hall into your room, where jack and luke have crashed out on the small bench, jim out getting some coffees, leaving ellen on her phone.

“hey sweetie, did that help?” she asks as quinn sets you back down in the bed, putting the iv back by you.

“don’t think so.” you sigh, letting your eyes close for a moment.

soon the nurse drops by again, now 5:20am, as she checks your dilation once again.

“at 9cm now, not long sweetie, i’m gonna get the doctor ready as you should be able to push within an hour.” she smiles, moving to update your chart before leaving.

“it’s really time?” you ask looking up at quinn, as he pushes the hair off your forehead, placing down a kiss.

“yeh, baby, and then after you can get some rest.” he smiles causing a small chuckle out of you.

doctors and nurse begin filling the room, as family are ushered out leaving you and quinn, as they set up the stirrups.

he helps pull the pyjama pants off of you before the nurses get you in position.

“ok hun, when you feel that contraction you’re gonna push for me ok? i’m gonna count back from ten and once i reach zero you can stop but you gotta keep going for those 10 counts ok?” she asks, as quinn hand slips into yours, his other holding the back of your leg as he presses a kiss to your lips.

“you got this.” he whispers before you look back at the nurse, nodding.

as soon as that contraction hits, you begin pushing, pain radiating throughout your whole body, screaming and squeezing his hand to try and subside it.

“incredible job y/n, give me another big one.” the doctor calls out, as you catch your breath, small beads of sweat developing on your forehead.

once again you push and push and push until it feels like you’ve got nothing more to give.

“i can’t quinn, it hurts so bad.” you cry out, quinn coming down to rest his forehead on yours.

“you can baby ok? one more and then the head will be out and the rest is easy.” he says stern but soft, before moving to wipe a few stray tears from your cheeks.

so that’s what you do, keep pushing until you hear the cries of your newborn fill the room, tears of relief falling down onto your cheeks, as they’re placed into your bare chest

“that’s it baby, all done. you are absolutely incredible.” quinn laughs, a few tears on his own cheeks, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips.

“it’s a girl.” the nurse smiles as you cradle her close.

“hiya baby.” your voice wavers as your shaky finger comes to gently stroke her cheek, “she looks just like her daddy.” you whisper, before looking up to quinn who’s eyes are red and brimmed with his happy tears.

“gorgeous like her mama.” he smiles down before being called to cut the cord and having your daughter taken away to get cleaned and deliver the after birth.

the room quietens back down to a comfortable silence, only you, quinn and your newborn baby girl, cradled in your arms as quinn perched on the side of you bed, arm around your shoulders.

“what should we name her?” he asks, gently bring his hand down to brush the small tuff of hair out of her face.

“i did have an idea,” you mumble, quinn’s eyes meeting yours, “elleanor lucien hughes.” you smile seeing tears once again form.

“that’s beautiful baby. absolutely beautiful.” he whispers placing a small kiss onto the top of your head.

“but i guess now we’ll have to have another so jack doesn’t feel left out,” quinn mumbles causing a glare from you at the fact you’ve spent the last 7 hours in labour, “well wait a bit though, yeh?” he says hesitantly causing a smile to tug on your lips.

“i’d love that.”

[eddiazx]

buck wild - evan buckley x reader

Buck has always been beautiful. Over the past year though, he had an even bigger glow up, which you didn’t even think could be possible.

His golden hair had furled into soft little coils, his stomach was fuller, his arms were so muscular that you were slightly concerned he was going to rip through his all of his T-shirts, and his thighs. Lord, his thick thighs were built like tanks. All in all, Buck looked comfortable in his own skin, in being himself, and in being enough, and you were obsessed with it.

Of course, you might be biased, but you think the general public can agree with you that your boyfriend is a smoke show.

The 118 and their families were currently gathered at Athena and Bobby’s house. It was one of those rare weekend nights where everyone was free, so the couple had invited everyone over for a barbecue.

Dusk was falling, and the kids were planted in front of the downstairs television watching a horror movie. The adults were sitting in the backyard, chatting over drinks. You were sitting sideways in Buck’s lap, one of his hands bringing a beer bottle to his lips every few minutes, while the other rested on your leg. Both of you were immersed in the story that Karen was recounting about an incident that happened in her lab.

When you decide that you needed a sip of water, you shift yourself up from Buck's lap and the comfortable position you were in. You put your feet on the ground, lean forward and oh-

Your legs were on either side of Buck’s thick left thigh, and whether it was due to the booze or the angle or the solid muscle underneath hitting you just right, arousal zips through you.

You gulp and get up on shaky legs with Buck’s help. You make a beeline to the kitchen and grab a water bottle, pressing the cool plastic to the side of your neck in attempt to calm down.

“Hey, you okay?”, you hear Buck behind you. You turn around to see your sweet boyfriend who had trailed after you in concern.

“Yeah... but do you mind if we go home?”

“Of course. Are you feeling sick?”

“No, but I am feeling hot.” You say, trailing a nail down Buck’s chest to his tummy, biting your lower lip.

Buck, quickly understanding, smirks, and takes your hand in his, guiding you back towards the group to bid your hasty goodbyes before walking out the front door. You don't quite catch the knowing looks and smirks that Eddie and Hen give Buck.

Buck's warm hand never leaves yours, except to help you into his Jeep. He buckles himself in, and starts to drive, but not before asking,

“So, what was it that turned you on?”

Your cheeks warm. You look pointedly at his thighs, and he chuckles. He eventually pulls the Jeep into park in front of your shared apartment.

You move to open the passenger door, but Buck pulls you back. He brings you in for a kiss and shuffles you over the centre console to make you straddle him, adjusting his seat back to make room for you.

“Buck”, you pant breathlessly into his mouth, before sliding your tongue over his. His big hands caress your back and down your butt, before you feel him guide your legs so that one of his thighs was between them.

“Okay, baby. Ride me. Take what you need.”

He didn’t have to tell you twice. You hold onto Buck’s shoulders, grinding your hips back and forth over the corded muscle. Buck looks up at you like this is the hottest thing he’s ever seen, his own dick straining against his jeans. He bounces his leg up into you experimentally, and when you react positively, he continues to do so in an unrelenting pace. Buck can tell by your whines and breathing that you were close, so he finally grasps your hips and pulls you down hard onto his thigh. Within seconds, you’re shaking with white-hot pleasure.

Buck coos and rubs your sides, grounding you after your high. It's unspoken between you two, but this was most definitely not the last time you'd be doing this.

[sunni-stuff]

Three days had passed since Jellybean, your rescued stray, vanished. Though an outdoor enthusiast at heart, she'd never missed a meal. Now, your phone tracker beeped, signaling proximity. The crafty runt had escaped, but you were closing in. Jellybean's street-smart ways usually brought her home, yet this time felt different. As you followed the signal, hope and worry battled within.

You traveled alone as none of the townspeople were brave enough to help with your search. The mere mention of the North Woods shook them to the core, earning your request swift declines and slammed doors in your face. Whispers and rumors follow you with every interaction 

Secluded and untraceable, his cabin lies tucked away, invisible to prying eyes.

Rumors swirl of his territorial fury. Trespassers beware—this hunter stalks from afar. His domain is unforgiving, and his presence is a constant threat. The lucky ones spot the warning sign; others never see him coming.

Even the butcher, renowned for his toughness, said no, unwilling to even hear you out.

“There’s a man in the woods,” he said, voice unwavering. “You’d be smart to forget the idea.”

The boom of the door closing makes you flinch, jumping back a bit. A man in the woods? Surely not.

Even more absurd than some creep in the woods was the thought that the big, bad butcher was scared of him. This was a man who walked you home at night, who sneered at men and pulled you close to his side when you became uncomfortable. You knew him for a long time and you’d never seen him so much as flinch, but suddenly he was all squinted eyes and hushed tones at the thought of even stepping a foot off the beaten path. It couldn't be true, right?

Well, there was only one way to prove him wrong, and it was the only way you were gonna get Jellybean back. You’re going in that forest, urban myth or not.

Shadows lengthen as you exit your truck. The door closes with a hollow thud. The townsfolk's warnings replay in your mind, urging caution. You scan the area, heart racing. Drooping leaves cast an ominous veil over the forest. The murky depths seem to whisper, both alluring and forbidding.

Anxiety grips you as you take a step further. "Bean?" You whisper, voice trembling.

Silence answers. Twigs crack underfoot, and each snap creates an ominous echo. You cringe, the sounds amplifying your unease. Yet you press on, searching the quiet forest.

Minutes stretch like hours as you quietly call Bean's name, doing your best not to attract any unwanted attention, as the woods loom, hiding unknown dangers. Glancing down, your phone shows her location, unchanged, since she first wandered off. Jellybean's absence at this late hour is unsettling. She never stayed out of the house this long, and not so still, either. You can't help but think the worst, deciding to hurry closer to her, praying to find her safe.

Venturing deeper, the terrain grew wilder. Massive leaves parted, revealing fallen trunks and tilted trees. The more you looked around, the more it became clear that the uncharted wilderness wasn't made for humans.

There was no possible way.

The forest gave little leeway to those travelings through its domain. Predators strayed barely out of sight, lurking in hopes you'd be their next meal. A howl in the distance has you on edge, skin crawling, the feeling of being watched running anxious edges.

"Just keep walking. It'll be okay. The tracker says she's near." You reassured yourself under quite murmurs, trying to will your heart calm.

Then it appeared without warning.

A wolf lurches from the woodland gloom, baring his jagged canines, poised and ready to pounce. He circles you in a slow, menacing loop, foam pooling from his parted jaws. His eyes blaze with a frenzied gleam, wild and driven by something beyond hunger. Some dark, unseen force propels him, and you feel it tightening around you.

You turn and run.

Run as fast as your legs can carry you, tearing through the thick underbrush. Foliage slaps your arms and face, and the weeds clutch at your ankles like skeletal fingers desperate to drag you down. You ignore the stinging scratches, the pounding in your chest. If you fall, if you falter for even a second—you know it’s over.

Run.

The untamed beast snaps its jaws inches behind you, hot breath searing your calves, each bite narrowly missing as he hounds you with ruthless, single-minded determination. You crash through a thicket, branches clawing at your arms, tearing through your clothes, until you stumble onto a barely visible trail where weak shafts of light seep through gaps in the trees.

There’s no time to think. No time to process the sting of cuts or the burn in your lungs, nothing beyond the raw, primal instinct to get the hell away from the rabid creature on your heels.

Then you see it.

A cabin.

Really, a dilapidated shack, its sagging roof overrun with twisting vines, looms before you, barely held together by rotting beams and splintered boards. The whole structure looks one hard gust away from collapse, yet it’s the only shelter in sight. You don’t hesitate, heart hammering in your chest, and charge toward the door.

In your frantic rush, you miss the glint of watching eyes, shining like dark coals from the shadows behind, tracking your every move.

You burst inside, slamming the door shut with a desperate shove, then lean your back against it. Your chest heaves, each ragged breath scraping your lungs as you struggle to catch your breath, the weight of dread pressing down on you even harder than the beast’s pursuit.

The aroma of simmering soup wafted through the air, warmth enveloping you. A cozy scene unfolded: a bubbling pot atop a wooden stove, a modest desk tucked away, and a solitary lantern casting a soft glow. The space exuded an unexpected warmth, soft light pooling over worn furniture and the faint scent of old wood calming your frayed nerves. Your pulse slowed as the familiar coziness settled around you. Then, a gentle brush against your leg pulled you from the haze of adrenaline.

You glanced down—and there she was. Jellybean, her eyes wide and radiant, a few telltale crumbs clinging to her brown fur from some long-forgotten snack.

A rush of tenderness overtook the fading remnants of panic. You reached down, catching the elusive little troublemaker as she gave an indignant squirm. “You little—” The half-hearted scold fizzled, replaced by a sudden, overwhelming need to hold her close. “How—How did you end up here, huh?”

Holding Jellybean close, you feel the weight of your situation settling over you—a stranger in a cabin far from familiar ground, with the last of the sunlight slipping away, trapping you inside until dawn. Outside was darkness thick and impenetrable, the forest itself a living maze you dared not attempt at night.

“Shit,” you mutter, voice barely above a whisper as if speaking too loudly might stir something in the shadows.

Slowly, you move deeper into the space, eyes sweeping over the bare walls and spartan furniture. There’s something unnervingly sterile about the place—no photos, no knickknacks. Not a trace of personality or life. Who would live here? The rumors of some reclusive figure haunting these woods flash through your mind.

No. You shake your head, brushing off the thought. This was probably just some hunter’s shack. Or a place someone from town stayed now and then, just a shelter, nothing more.

Your foot presses down on a loose floorboard, and a loud creak echoes through the stillness. You freeze, heartbeat stuttering. Jellybean’s ears twitch, but she remains calm. Before you can step back, a low groan seeps from somewhere within the cabin, rolling through the floorboards, shivering up your spine.

Your grip tightens on Jellybean, and you hold your breath, listening.

“I-Is anyone there…?” Your voice barely steady. The words hover in the silence, as though the shadows themselves are holding their breath, waiting.

Then, clear as day, you hear it.

“Help… me…”

The voice is thin and broken, barely more than a whisper. Instinct screams at you to ignore it, to sit tight until morning. But something tugs at you. The sound is weak, desperate—human. The cabin feels suddenly smaller, its walls pressing in, urging you to run.

“Please… someone help me…"

A shiver races down your spine. Curse your altruism. You clutch Jellybean tighter, swallowing back the fear rising in your throat.

“U-uh, where…?” The question slips out before you can think, shaky and uncertain.

Silence stretches taut, pressing against your ears. Then, faint and low, a whining sound rises from beneath the floorboards, almost like a wounded animal. Every instinct screams at you to turn back, to stay safe. But you find yourself edging closer to the noise, heart hammering against your ribs.

Your gaze lands on a small, almost-hidden door near the far wall—the entrance to a cellar.

The pleas are louder here, wavering but persistent, each whisper curling up from the depths. “Help… please…”

You should walk away. This is a bad idea. A terrible idea. But, against every sliver of common sense, your hand reaches out, fingers trembling as they brush over the handle.

It turns with a rusty groan, and you pull the door open, revealing a narrow staircase descending into shadow. At the bottom, you catch the flicker of ember light, glowing faintly as if from a dying fire.

The cellar stretches out before you, a vast, dimly lit space far larger than should exist beneath such a modest shack. Shadows cling to the walls, the only light casting a faint, sickly orange glow that barely cuts through the murk. You step cautiously, heart-pounding, but then you glance to your right—and freeze.

The scene hits you with a nauseating force. Men hang suspended from thick meat hooks, bodies bruised and broken, some barely clinging to life, others unmoving, their faces blank and eyes empty. Their battered forms twist slightly in the air, like grotesque puppets left to dangle and rot. You swallow hard, stomach twisting as bile rises in your throat.

But then the horror deepens—recognition dawns. One face after another, familiar, each one seared into memory. The delivery driver who refused to take no for an answer, the lawyer from the pub whose relentless advances wore you down, the pizza guy who loitered outside your job, watching, waiting. All here. Hung like slabs of meat in this nightmarish cellar.

Your mind spins, the details piecing together in a sickening realization. The butcher. He’d warned them off, told you they wouldn’t bother you anymore. But this? This was something beyond any threat, beyond any punishment you’d ever imagined.

How? How had they ended up here? How did any of this exist beneath an unassuming cabin in the middle of the woods?

You weren’t supposed to see this. This was something that should have remained buried, hidden in the depths where secrets go to rot. The enormity of it presses down on you, making it hard to breathe, hard to think.

But then, one of them stirs. The pizza guy, his head lolling weakly to the side, lifts his face. His eyes, clouded and bloodshot, light up with recognition—a desperate spark of life in his hollow gaze. “Help! Please, before he comes back!” he rasps, voice cracking.

He.

The word rings in your mind, cold and jagged. He? Who could do this? Who would do this?

Your voice trembles as the question slips out, a thin whisper in the oppressive silence. “W—who… who are you talking about?”

The cellar door slams shut behind you, the echo reverberating off the cold stone walls, trapping you in the silence that follows. Heavy, methodical footsteps descend the rotting stairs, each step creaking beneath his weight. His breathing is deep, ragged, each inhale and exhale marking his slow, purposeful approach.

Don’t turn around.

Your body locks up, instinct screaming to flee, but your legs refuse to move. You clutch Jellybean tightly to your chest, but suddenly, she squirms, thrashing in your arms in a way she never has before. Confusion twists through your terror—Jellybean has always clung to you, never trying to escape. What was she doing?

With a leap, she slips from your grasp, landing soundlessly on the floor. She pads past you, moving behind you, and the silence is filled with soft, delighted purring.

You don’t want to look. You hold still, desperately hoping that if you don’t move, you’ll disappear, fade into the shadows. But you can feel him standing just behind you, the weight of his presence pressing down like a storm cloud.

And then, a voice. Familiar. Deep, smooth, and thick with a British lilt, edged with something that both chills and soothes you.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, a note of affection clear in his tone as he addresses Jellybean.

Recognition strikes you like a blow. That voice—you’ve heard it a thousand times. The same voice that always offered a warm “good evening” when he walked you home at night. The same voice that laughed as he handed Jellybean her treats at the butcher shop. The same voice that warned you, with a peculiar intensity, to avoid these woods.

The butcher.

---

A/N: I don't usually do long writing stuff... but I've had this one in the drafts for too long and wanted it out. I kind of like how it turned out but I can def improve!

[my-castles-crumbling]

summer - @black-brothers-microfic - word count: 262

"Sirius," Regulus mumbled, too afraid to look up from his fidgeting hands and into his brother's eyes.

"What's up, Reg? Everything okay?" Sirius's voice was full of concern, which didn't help.

And no, he was not okay. Nothing was okay. His life had turned upside-down and he was confused, not only because everything had changed but because he wasn't completely upset by it. But Sirius was probably going to be angry and leave him, and-

"Just tell me, Reg. Whatever it is, we can deal with it," Sirius said, his voice calming but still with an edge of worry. "I mean, we already both got out of that hell house, what could be-"

"I fancy James."

Regulus didn't look up, but judging by Sirius's silence, he knew his brother was furious. Fuck, now what could he do? He'd have to leave the Potters' for one. Maybe go to Dorcas's? Or Andromeda's? Or-

"Merlin, that's it? Fuck, you had me worried! James has been obsessed with you since before the summer, it's right awful, maybe if you kiss him, he'll shut up!" Sirius said, and Regulus look up to see happiness and sincerity in his eyes.

"Really?" he asked, completely disbelieving. Sirius wasn't mad? Wait...James liked him? "You're not mad?"

"No!" But then Sirius's tone switched again and a frown fluttered onto his face. "Oh...shit. Wait, if you kiss him, is he going to go on and on about that? Eurgh, what if I walk in on- ugh! Fuck, I haven't thought this through. Maybe this is bad. Are you sure you like him? Merlin..."

Regulus, though, couldn't help but smile.