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afewproblems · 7 months ago

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Difficult Days Part Two

You can find Part One Here

CW: Homophobic language (F-slur), period typical homophobia, and anxieties about being perceived as gay by homophobes. The slur is used once in this by the main character in reference to the above anxieties.

***

It's solidified for Shawn in junior year that he's never had someone in his life like Gus.

It feels like it should go without saying, Gus has always been someone he could lay out his darkest truths to and his best friend wouldn't bat an eye.

Sure, there would be a joke to cut through the tension in Shawn's shoulders, something to make him laugh, nothing less than what Shawn would do for Gus in return.

This is what family is supposed to do.

This is what Shawn keeps repeating, over and over like a mantra, psyching himself up to tell Gus something he's only just now realized about himself.

They have the house to themselves this afternoon, luckily Henry is working late, and Gus has been talking for the last ten minutes, but Shawn hasn't taken in a single word.

Shawn nods as Gus continues, keeping up the appearance of listening while trying to find the words to begin his own conversation in stops and starts as Gus pops their rented tape into the VCR in Shawn's room.

Every Wednesday, no matter what, Gus and Shawn have a dedicated one on one hangout night. It’s one of the last traditions from their childhood, though they still haven't grown much beyond reading comic books, taking turns playing Donkey Kong, camping in the backyard, or grabbing a rental from Blockbuster with their allowance. No matter how busy either of them got with homework or extracurriculars, both admittedly would not have stopped Shawn, they made time to hang out.

So Wednesday nights are always Shawn and Gus time, even when one of them is hiding earth shattering news that could potentially ruin everything--

Gus crashes into Shawn as he jumps on the bed, slamming him and the vicious thoughts playing on a loop in his head back onto the mattress, whooshing the air from his lungs.

Gus crows out a victorious laugh, “in comes Gregarious Guster with the chair, taking out the villainous Supercilious Spencer from parts unknown!”

Gus cups his hands around his mouth as he sits up, “Guster, Guster, Guster--”

“I swear that spelling bee wrought absolute havoc on your vocabulary,” Shawn huffs from the bed, still flat on his back. He manages a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and that is when Gus finally seems to see how quiet Shawn has been.

“Okay, what's up with you?” Gus demands, poking Shawn’s side with a rigid pointer finger, hitting right smack in between his ribs and eliciting a pained squawk from Shawn.

He rolls away slightly, hiding his face and his bruised ribs, wracking his brain trying to find something to stay, because, how the hell does he even begin with something like this?

Because, hindsight being what it is, all the signs were there and for someone with his observation skills it was incredibly embarrassing to have missed this.

Around freshman year, right around the time the other boys in their grade started talking about girls and their smiles, about supermodels and their legs.

And it wasn't as if Shawn didn't notice these things, he absolutely did.

Abigail Lytar with her waves of brown hair flecked with copper, her heart shaped face and big brown eyes? Talking with her always made his hands clammy and his stomach feel like it was rolling in summersaults.

But when Anthony Llewellyn knocked Shawn's backpack out of his hands after slamming into his back freshman year and didn't stop apologizing until he had picked up the bag and given it back to Shawn, it felt like the earth had stopped spinning.

Anthony's warm hazel eyes, that were more green than brown, and crooked smile made Shawns face feel strangely numb and his chest fluttery.

Almost the same way he felt with Abigail earlier that month.

Shawn watches him leave, rendered speechless for the first time in his life, and finds himself waving stupidly as Anthony leaves for his next class with a dimpled smile stretched over his face.

It isn't long before Anthony becomes a fixture in Shawn and Gus’ life, hanging out at lunch, sitting together in class when their time tables do manage to match up.

The three of them get along like a house on fire…for the most part.

“Looks like they're pulling out all the stops for the next Governor debate,’ Anthony says in lieu of a greeting as Shawn and Gus arrive at their usual cafeteria table, he has a copy of the Santa Barbara Independent in front of him and is lazily flipping through pages as Shawn takes a seat beside him while Gus sits across from them both. “Why do you have that?’ Gus asks with a frown, ‘scratch that, how do you have that?” Anthony raises a single eyebrow at Gus, looking down at the paper and then at Shawn with a conspiratorial grin, “you're hilarious Burton, like you don't walk past the news rack on your way into the building every morning, besides, I need it for my Current Events unit. “See, Shawn here gets it,” he continues throwing an arm, heavy and warm, across Shawns shoulder, tugging him into Anthony's side. Shawn feels his ears burst into flames at the contact and can't quite stop the goofy grin from taking over his face. “Well, this isn't History,” Gus says, reaching into his backpack for his brown bag lunch that Mrs. Guster packed for him. Bologna on brown with an apple and Wagon Wheel, like they're still little kids. Shawn slowly reaches for his lunch bag, prepping to swap sandwiches with Gus, trying his hardest not to dislodge Anthony's arm from his shoulders. Gus continues, oblivious to Shawn’s herculean trial, “it's lunch time and I for one can't wait to talk about the new Evil Dead movie--” Anthony scoffs, “that slapstick gore fest?” he removes his arm from Shawn and closes the paper. Dammit. “Yeah, it's supposed to be the best one yet,” Gus takes a bite of his apple for emphasis, “I don't know how they're going to top the last one though--" Anthony snorts and starts to get up from his seat at the table, his chair scrapes loudly against the linoleum flooring, cutting off Gus. “As stirring as this conversation was I'm going to head to the library before class, see you in fifth Shawn,” Anthony salutes the pair of them, as he pushes his chair back in and slides the paper off the table before slinging his backpack over his shoulder and making his way out of the crowded cafeteria. Gus lifts his wrist to his face, taking a deliberate look at his watch before leveling Shawn with an unimpressed look, “I think Anthony set a new record for finding any excuse to bail on something other than school”. “Yeah, yeah,” Shawn huffs, reaching for Gus's saran wrapped bologna sandwich and sliding his turkey on rye across the table which Gus takes immediately. “Seriously,” Gus continues, “that guy needs to chill, Sam Raimi's no joke”. “Anthony's super chill, I'm sure he's got a test or something coming up, now where do we think that worm hole spit out our beloved chainsaw wielding Ash?”

Shawn does his best to try and make it work between his new friend and his best friend.

But, Anthony is usually busy after school, between studying and his debate practice he doesn’t have nearly as much free time as Shawn and Gus.

Which Gus seems to have no problem with whatsoever, something that baffles Shawn to no end.

It's only ever been something discussed exactly once.

“Anthony is funny and nice and smart and laughs at my jokes, sure he doesn't play video games but pobody's nerfect Gus!” “Nobody's perfect?” Gus snorts as they roll their bikes towards the racks just outside the mall. The Santa Barbara Plaza finally brought in new copies of Star Fox after the first shipment sold out nearly overnight, which the pair of boys had been waiting to hit the shelves for weeks. “I've heard it both ways,” Shawn grins as he locks up his own bike next to Gus who rolls his eyes. They make their way into the air conditioned space and breathe out twin sighs of relief as cool air rushes over them, before making their way into the heart of the Plaza. “It’s not like I hate the guy,” Gus tells Shawn after a beat. “Oh come on Gus, don't be the summer of 68," Shawn says, throwing an arm over his friend's shoulders, “you're still the only one invited to Thanksgiving, not many else get that honor”. “Well, you know that's right”, Gus smirks briefly before his face shifts into something pensive. “It’s just,” Gus says slowly, carefully, his eyes trace over Shawn’s face before he continues, “the guy’s a bit of a…” “What?” Shawn says sharply, wincing at the clear annoyance in his voice. Gus seems to chew the inside of his cheek as he takes a breath, “a bit of a--no, you know what he's a snob Shawn--” “No he’s not--” “He’s literally at debate practice Shawn, and it’s not even a school program!” “So what!” “So, why is it so important that I like him?”

And to that, Shawn doesn’t have an answer.

Over the next year Gus still doesn't warm up to Anthony as much as Shawn --which…it's, it’s fine.

Really.

He still doesn't quite understand why he wants Gus to like Anthony so badly, but the need claws against his ribs in a way Shawn can't quite pinpoint.

Contrary to popular belief, Shawn isn't stupid; a fact that his dad would use endlessly to hold him to a higher standard.

But it isn't until their junior year that the need begins to escalate, and the butterflies intensify until Shawn finally puts two and two together.

It’s at lunch, on a random Wednesday in February, that Anthony leans over to grab his backpack from underneath the cafeteria table, bracing his hand firmly on Shawn's shoulder, and Shawn is met with the overwhelming urge to kiss his friend.

Oh holy shit.

He wants to kiss Anthony Llewellyn.

It hits Shawn like a freight train.

This is why he's always a little flustered whenever Anthony is around, this is why he wanted Gus to like him--to approve of Anthony.

Oh god. Oh god, how was he going to explain this to Gus, how was he going to explain this to his dad.

Shawn’s stomach clenches at the thought of how Henry would react to having a--

Shawn shakes the word from his head, even as the echoes of it continue to reverberate.

No.

There aren't any other gay kids at their school, not that Shawn thinks he's…he still likes girls as near as he can tell.

But the apparent lack of gay kids doesnt seem to stop the rest of the student body from throwing the word faggot around, as though it will eventually catch someone out.

He swallows down panic at the thought of the accusation being thrown his way, if Tommy Decker and Marcus Boon were assholes when they were kids, they were nothing compared to some of the jocks in highschool.

Shawn continues to spiral through fourth period science, one of two classes this year he thankfully doesn't share with either Gus or Anthony, before the bell finally rings, releasing them for their final class of the day.

But Shawn detours, making a beeline for his locker, his heart in his throat the entire way. He dumps his textbooks and notebooks --there's no way he's going to be able to concentrate on homework tonight, slams his locker shut, making a few other teens startle and glare at him as they make their way to class. Shawn breathes out slowly and calmly makes his way to the side door before slipping into the muggy afternoon.

Shawn is wallowing faceup on his bed with a pillow on his face when he hears Gus calling his name downstairs.

Shit.

Because it’s Wednesday.

And Gus had excitedly bragged about picking up the last copy of Jurassic Park after waiting over a year for it to finally come to home video.

It's just one night, Shawn thinks as he hears Gus bound up the stairs two at a time, he can get through this without saying anything. He just needs more time to really think about how to phrase it, that’s all.

“Okay, what's up with you?”

Or not.

Shawn sits up from the mattress, rubbing at his tender ribs where Gus has jabbed his finger, “I don’t think that chair was regulation, did the commissioner sign off on that thing? Also have they ever explained where ‘parts unknown’ is supposed to be? How can I truly get into character without--”

“Nope,” Gus cuts him off midstream, “nope, you haven't made a face like that since they announced Alicia Silverstone wouldn't be in the Clueless TV show”.

“ABC is nuts if they think we'll accept a lesser Cher,” Shawn hedges, avoiding Gus's sharp stare.

“Shawn, come on,” Gus says as his eyebrows pinch in a worried frown, “what's going on?”

So much for trying to make it through today without spilling his guts, Shawn thinks to himself.

“Today has been,” Shawn says slowly, swallowing the next words he wants to say, stressful, panicked, hopeless, what if, what if, what if--

“Difficult,” he lands on eventually.

“Okay,” Gus says calmly, though his shoulders have tensed and his eyes scan Shawns face, worry lines intensify as puts the remote on the mattress.

“So, you know,” Shawn says haltingly, trying to breath while looking anywhere but Gus, “do you remember--shit, this is hard”.

Gus stands up from the mattress and Shawn immediately hates the distance, “just spit it out Shawn, how bad can it be? It's not like you have a thing for my sister or something right?”

Shawn winces slightly at the accusation and Gus freezes briefly before snatching at the discarded pillow on the floor with a groan and presses it into his own face.

“Please,” Gus says, the word muffled by cotton and polyester, “don't tell me you want to date Joy?”

Shawn grins a little at that as he pulls at a loose thread on the corner of his comforter, “uh, no, I mean you're sister's great and all, maybe in another life we'd--”

“Dude!”

“Right,” Shawn tries to take a deep breath as his heart rate begins to increase, it feels like the temperature of his bedroom has climbed ten degrees in the last five minutes, “that actually uh, helps me uh, explain this, sort of?”

Gus nods for him to continue. Well, in for a penny, in for a Kennel --or whatever the saying is.

“So you know how your sister is a girl?”

Brilliant.

Gus levels Shawn with yet another unimpressed glare, “yes Shawn, I live with her”.

Shawn tries to breathe out slowly but the words suddenly begin to fall out of his open mouth, strung together nearly incoherently, “okay, okay, well what if I think she's hot, but I also, I also think I might maybe think that--

“Shawn,” Gus sighs, pinching his nose with a heavy hand, he looks like he's ready to take his tape back, revoke their Wednesday hangouts and Shawn hasn't even confessed anything yet.

“You have to swear that this stays here,” Shawn blurts out. He swallows heavily as Gus’s eyes widen even more than before, “even if you never want to talk to me again after”.

“Shawn what the hell are you talking about?” Gus yells, his voice panicked now as he steps back to the bedroom door, looking around the hallway once before slamming it shut and whirling around, “explain now!”

“I like Anthony”.

The words hang in Shawn's small bedroom between them, the silence that follows swiftly after only punctuated by Shawn's breaths that come too fast, in and out.

“I-I think, I mean, I, god, I didn't realize it until now but I just…”

Gus stares at him, his normally expressive face completely unreadable now. Shawn can’t stop his lungs from stuttering, it’s like he can’t catch his breath.

“And I do still like girls but I--Gus can you just say something or shoot me so I stop talking, please”.

Gus brings his hands up to wipe at his face, it’s only then that Shawn can see the way they shake slightly.

“Okay,” he says between his fingers, before letting his hands drop to his sides.

Shawn licks his lips, “just…okay? Thats--you’re not--”

“I thought you were going to tell me you murdered somebody or you stole your dads car after which, you would be the murdered one,” Gus snaps, shaking his head with a long slow sigh. He makes his way back over to the bed and sits down beside Shawn.

“Look, I can't say I fully get it, especially the Anthony part of it all, but you're my best friend Shawn, and that trumps everything else”.

Shawn feels something in his chest that has been coiled tight around his heart since his revelation at lunch begin to loosen. He blinks against the sharp sting at the backs of his eyes and releases a punched out laugh.

“And I’m relieved Henry isn’t going to murder you” Gus adds, startling another bark of laughter out of Shawn which draws Gus in as well until they’re both laughing like idiots, flat on their backs on the mattress.

Shawn doesn’t want to think about what Henry’s reaction to this might be, not right now.

He pushes the thought away, locks it into a box of future worries, because he’s never had someone in his life like Gus, that will accept him as he is.

And Shawn wants to hold onto that for a little while longer.

After the credits roll and the sun has deserted the horizon, Gus nudges Shawn with his elbow with a raised eyebrow and a grin.

“So, which one’s hotter, Dr. Grant or Dr. Sattler?”

Shawn snorts out a laugh, his chest bursting with a warm mix of relief and happiness, “Tough call Gus, it might be a tie”.

Tag List: @adaed5 @drakkywolf @newgrangespirals @riverofrainbows (If you want to be removed or added to the tag list please let me know!)

Part Three

#afewproblems writes #psych 2006 #psych #psych fanfiction #shawn spencer #burton guster #cw bullying #hurt shawn spencer #henry spencer was not the best dad #hurt comfort #burton guster and shawn spencer friendship #burton guster is a good friend #difficult days #difficult days part two #childhood best friends #shawn spencer character study of sorts #families of choice #cw homophobia

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runwayrunway · 2 years ago

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No. 32 - Japan Transocean Air Jinbei Jets

Over the past two days, @lillybean730, @whatmorecouldapoorboydo, and @fungaloids have all tagged me in this post, which contains this image.

The link beneath is broken, but based on the text below, I would presume it was posted in response to the introduction into service of Japan Transocean Air's two "Jinbei Jets". ('Jinbei-zame' is the Japanese name for whale sharks!)

That's right, there are two of them! The Jinbei Jet actually comes with a matching Sakura Jinbei! They're both Boeing 737-800s delivered new to JTA (a JAL subsidiary based in Naha which usually just uses the JAL livery, hence the vestigial Tsurumaru logo on the tail) in late 2017; the blue Jinbei entered service in September while the Sakura entered service in December.

These are adorable, there's just no way around it. The low-sitting eyes, combined with the existence of the cockpits, does make it look a little like the plane has two sets of eyes, or one real set of eyes and one set of false eyes to throw off predators, but just - just look at her!

Her little eyelash! The little sakura blossom behind her ear! AAAH!

The methods used here resemble those Amakusa Airlines uses for their absolutely darling dolphin plane. The whale shark design is centered at the nose of the airplane and then allowed to diverge from there, which allows for the general shape of the shark to be expressed well. Together with a very clever use of negative space on the bottom half of the plane, this also very easily renders a white underbelly. Blank space is then left above the dorsal fins to write the name of the airline, and the tail frames the tailplane really nicely.

They're both very well-drawn and pretty designs. While I do wish there was something other than plain white in the background, like maybe a wave design or even just a light blue, I understand the choice, and it's not really what the point is here. The point is the whale sharks. Still, the white feels very sharp as a contrast, and I prefer the way Amakusa Airlines used a lighter blue and limited the white space. The Tsurumaru is also a bit busy. It's a gorgeous logo but I think on a plane like this the whale shark should be the only thing that really pulls any attention. The viewer's eye should be drawn right to the airplane's eye (the drawn on one) immediately, without anything directing it to the tail, like a big bright red logo. While the sharks themselves are incredible, the rest of the plane isn't a particularly good vehicle to present them with.

Again in contrast to Amakusa Airlines, this design is much more realistic and much less stylized. I don't think that's a good or a bad thing. In fact, I think they're both wonderful. Despite both being sea creatures they are very distinct-looking, which I like. One is a very cartoonish and delighted dolphin with two smiling dolphin engines, and the other is a set of two very charming elegant whale sharks with delightful big round eyes. Both of them make me very happy when I look at them. I feel like my job here is slightly redundant because I think my reaction is completely universal.

These are just a pair of really pretty and endearing planes, and I could not adore them more. I think I prefer the vivid pink of Sakura Jinbei, but I also do love the classic blue color. And I think the knowledge that these two are a pair improves each of them even more. They're simply lovely.

An A for Jinbei and Sakura Jinbei!

#tarmac fashion week #grade: a #era: 2010s #era: 2020s #region: east asia #region: japan #japan transocean air #japan airlines #aquairium #requests #special liveries

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altocat · 1 year ago

Note

the first trio go to nibelheim a few years before crisis core and do the same reactor mission. what happens?

AU Storytime!

Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal make their way into the tiny little town of Nibelheim after reports of strange monsters invading the area. They are to make their way up to the Nibelheim Mako reactor to examine the cause of the issue.

Genesis jokes that of COURSE Shinra would reserve such an incredibly miniscule, mundane task for their best and brightest. Angeal feels slightly uneasy though. Sephiroth doubly so since his final check-in with Hojo had the scientist behaving a bit sneakier than usual. What did he know that they didn't? Very odd.

Entering Nibelheim, Sephiroth is instantly perturbed at how FAMILIAR his surroundings feel. Almost nostalgic. Genesis tells him he's being weird. As for Angeal...Angeal isn't feeling so great. He'd had a HUGE headache on the ride over. It only seems to be getting worse the farther they go.

By the time they reach the reactor, all three are actually beginning to feel rather off, bordering on very ill. Angeal's headache has made him feverish. Sephiroth seems quiet and exhausted. Genesis is the only one who feels good enough to fidget, even though he admittedly feels less than his best.

Trudging through the darkness, the trio discovers the cause of the malfunction, Angeal wearily stooping down to close the valve while Genesis complains about their state of affairs. They really SHOULDN'T be here. Maybe the air is toxic from all the mako. How can they work efficiently if all three of them are falling ill from the fumes?

That's when they see it.

When the agonized creature comes sliding out of the ruptured tank, all three soldiers freeze in place. They watch as it writhe and twists in agony, its unnatural body contorting in pain before going still.

Genesis begins to shout frantically, going from tank to tank. What the FUCK is this? What's going on? What ARE these things? Beside him, Angeal tries to regain a sense of calm over the situation, stumbling back when another wave of nausea hits him. He falls to his knees, nearly collapsing as his world sways dizzily before his eyes, wondering if he's about to die, if the shock has become too much for him to handle. Genesis shakes him furiously, telling him to get AHOLD of himself, damn it! They have to get OUT of here!

That's when Sephiroth begins to scream.

The silver soldier's frenzied eyes flick from the rusty plaque that looms in the center of the doorway, to Genesis' hunched form at the bottom of the stairway. A ripple. A pulse. Some unfurling ricochet of memory. He holds his head, mouth agape, the noise coming out of him half strangled, almost inhuman.

Genesis tries to reach for him, but Sephiroth stumbles away in a panic. He can hear the foggy decompression of another tank in the dim light, the eerie wail of another dying monster in the sea of pain and terror. He flees before it has the chance to greet him, vanishing into the dark as the hazy protests of his friends fade behind him.

Genesis doesn't understand what's happening. And with Angeal close to falling unconscious, he's left having to drag his friend back into town, hoping and praying that Sephiroth hasn't gone far.

For days, he tends to Angeal at the inn, too anxious and exhausted to figure out where Sephiroth has gone. Angeal's condition only seems to worsen, his sickness rendering him nearly comatose, wracked with terrible fever. Genesis tries in vain to uncover Sephiroth's whereabouts but is continuously left empty handed. No one knows where he went. Or what's even happening.

A week passes. Angeal finally begins to stir. But his mind is still addled and his movements are very lethargic. Genesis worriedly helps him to his feet, telling him that he's made up his mind--they're calling in all the Turks in the area for backup and they're getting the HELL out of here. FUCK this shit. Genesis doesn't know what's going on, but he knows bad news when he sees it. They're going to head back to HQ where Angeal can recover. And Genesis himself will help oversee the search for Sephiroth.

No search will be required. By the time the chopper arrives and Genesis moves to load Angeal inside, Sephiroth emerges from the Shinra manor. His blade is drawn, his expression blank, eyes hollow and unblinking. Angeal has just enough time to direct Genesis' attention to the small ball of flame forming in Sephiroth's open palm, using the last of his strength to throw them both to the side as the chopper behind them explodes.

Genesis' blood runs cold, panting and clutching at Angeal for dear life, the world around him erupting into flames, panicked screams filling the air.

But Sephiroth does not go for the villagers. He is not interested in them. His movements are direct, single-minded, Masamune glinting against the firelight as he slowly raises his weapon and lurches towards the battered soldiers.

Genesis frantically calls to him but there is nothing there. No light in his eyes. No recognition.

It's too late now.

Far too late.

Mother has spoken.

Mother has made Her desires known to him.

He is a monster.

He is an experiment.

He is chosen.

And there can only be one true God.

#asks #ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #crisis core #sephcanons #genesis rhapsodos #sephiroth #angeal hewley #jenova #AU

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wifelivvyx · 2 months ago

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Face riding.

wlw, my ocs!! smut, face riding, minors dni!

Ripley sighed deeply as she walked through the front door of their apartment, the familiar scent of home washing over her. The dim light of the evening filtered in through the windows, casting a warm glow on the cozy interior. She glanced around for a moment, taking in the space they had carefully built together — a comfortable blend of their personalities.

The soft hum of the city beyond her window seemed distant in the peaceful atmosphere of their home. She slipped her shoes off with a quiet thud and placed them neatly beside the door, her shoulders sagging with the weight of the day. Her mind felt cluttered with the stresses of work and the bustle of life, but that was quickly forgotten as she walked toward the bedroom she shared with Jess. Her heart lifted at the thought of her partner, knowing she would find comfort and warmth there. As she walked down the hall, she could hear the faint sound of Jess moving around, maybe tidying up or working on something. "Jess, I'm home—" Ripley called out as she pushed open the bedroom door, her voice trailing off when she saw her partner. There, sitting on the bed, was Jess, dressed in a maid costume.

The frilly black-and-white outfit clung to her in all the right places, the apron tied neatly at the waist, and the lace-trimmed skirt just short enough to be playful. She looked up at Ripley with a mischievous grin, her eyes sparkling with an undeniable sense of fun. Ripley blinked, caught off guard for a moment. Her exhaustion from the day seemed to evaporate in an instant as she took in the unexpected sight. Jess's playful smirk widened, clearly waiting for Ripley's reaction, as she perched on the edge of the bed, hands folded delicately in her lap. Ripley was now insanely turned on. "This is why you're my wifey." She quickly said, then walked swiftly over to Jess and kissed her deeply.

Ripley's lips attack the exposed curvature of jess' neck, licking, biting, and rendering you speechless. She gives Jess no time to regulate her emotions, and she let out a soft groan she would’ve otherwise swallowed down. Just what Ripley wanted: less talking, more moaning. She attentively kisses the skin below the curve of Jess' jawline, her tongue making frequent warm appearances. It’s much more fervent, but rough in a way that makes her tremble. She always makes sure Jess feels her teeth gliding over when she moves to the next spot. Her legs move on their own, one leg curling up against her side. Jess is already pooling where she's seated, but now it’s getting uncomfortable to sit this damp. Ripleys hand travels to the waistband of Jess' skirt. “You’re going to have to move these for me.” Ripley asks.Jess hastily tugs off her skirt, throwing it across the room with a small 'thud'. Ripley's eyes search her body hungrily. Ripley quickly laid down. "Now," She continued, watching Jess' face eagerly. "I want you to sit on my face."

"I don't want to smother you! That would be mortifying." Jess said, her tone coming out far more defensive than she had intended. Ripley chuckled, shaking her head as she looked at Jess, clearly not even slightly worried about that. "Well that'd be a great way to die, then." Ripley retorted. "If we do this, and you can't breathe-." She cut Jess off, waving her off like her concerns for her own health were unimportant. "Obviously I will tell you, now come here, I can't wait much longer." Ripley insisted, making Jess shake her head even as she swung her thigh over Ripley's head, positioning her cunt over her face, pausing before Jess settled down.

"You're so needy." Jess said, and she nodded, looking up without any shame... she wasn't paying attention to a single word out of Jess' mouth. "Only because you're fit as hell."

Ripley mumbled, bringing her hands up so that she could use her thumbs to spread you open. Jess snorted, shaking her head. "Shut up." Ripley said quickly, trying to enjoy this moment in silence. "Funny, pretty sure you'll be the one doing-." Ripley pulled Jess down so suddenly, making her let out a gasp as she lapped her tongue over Jess' cunt. She gripped onto the headboard and sighed. She could feel her fingers dig into her thighs as she buried her tongue inside of jess, her nose bumping against her clit she moved her cunt against her.

She lapped her tongue over her frantically, like she was trying to map her cunt and remember each and every fold, every inch from taste alone. "Just like that, yes, just like that." She whined, feeling her tongue trace over her clit. She grinded down on her face with a shaky sigh, feeling shivers through her whole body. "Ripley... Please..." She wasn't even sure what she was asking for, all she knew was that her orgasm was coming fast. She could feel herself coming close, she didn't even have a chance to warn Ripley. As she shivered against her face, she reached down to tug her hair as she moaned out Ripleys name. "Shitshitshit..." She slumped against the wall, shivering as her tongue continued to move before she slipped off of her and gently pried her face from between her legs, wiping her mouth with your thumb.

#wlw smut #smut #wlw #fanfic

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sunshiline-writes · 1 year ago

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A Rose Amidst Thorns #12: The Beginning of the Nightmare

This chapter took me a while to write because I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with it. Well... I have a few ideas. Things are about to get REAL wild now. Thanks for reading!

CW: POC whump, Lady whump, Caretaker whump, deaf whumpee, mentions of hand whump, creepy/intimate whumper, sadistic whumper, crude language, guns, defiant whumpees, broken nose, blood, thoughts of death, fear of death, beat down, punching and kicking, bruised ribs.

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The cicadas sang in the heat, a loud communal hum. A coyote sat under the mezquite tree, blood coated its mouth. Its pelt was almost a sickly grey color twinged with yellow. It was emaciated, bones nearly sticking straight out of its skin. Underneath its paws was another coyote, and golden coat, well fed. Somehow the starving coyote had ripped out its throat, half of it on the dirt in front of it, the other half was hanging from the other's jaws.

The coyote opened its jaw, tongue hanging out, oddly shaped. It looked awkward but a voice came from its mouth, hoarse and raspy. Like it couldn’t quite get out the words.

Never underestimate a starving dog, Solomon.

Solomon woke in a cold sweat. Breath catching in his throat. His mouth felt like cotton. He sat up from his place on the floor, running a hand over the different indents in his braid. Counting them. Taking a few deep breaths. How long had it been since he had a dream like that? Something that had spoken to him, some sort of warning. It was still so clear in his brain. He still felt like he could reach and touch the coyote in front of him.

He stared at the ground for a moment longer before a sound made him look up. Miguel was watching him. His eyes were less far away and they were filled with concern. He was here, at the moment. Solomon wanted to keep it that way.

“I’m okay,” he signed quickly, offering him a small smile. “You’re awake early.”

Miguel frowned and simply shrugged. Solomon started to stand, pushing himself up, using the bed as leverage to help him stand. His body ached. His joints in his knees cracked as he moved them. He was getting too old for this.

“Would you want to come downstairs and eat breakfast with us?”

The boy shook his head. Swinging his legs over the edge and getting himself up. He’d been needing less and less help lately. Sturdier on his feet. His left hand was getting stronger, but his right was still splinted and in the sling. In order to communicate he was rendered to single handed signs and spelling out his answers. Which frustrated them both greatly. But one of his exercises to strengthen that left hand was to sign the alphabet. Some of the letters were easier than others. He was trying at least and at the moment, that was all Solomon could ask of him.

“I think you should join us for breakfast. It would be nice to have you there.”

Miguel stared at him for a moment, pausing from making the bed. He chewed on his lip and Solomon sighed softly. Lately, it had been frustrating dealing with Miguel. His mind was far away half the time and the other half, they spent arguing. Solomon was so tired. He was half sure that Miguel was arguing for the sake of arguing. Probably because he wanted some semblance of control back.

Most times when Solomon asked Miguel to join them at the table, Miguel refused. But today, Miguel nodded. Sitting down on the edge of the bed and looking up at Solomon. His hair was getting long again, waves going past the bottom of his ears.

“Hen?” the boy asked, shifting in his sling slightly.

“Yeah she’ll be down there too. Why wouldn’t she be?”

Miguel made a frustrated sound, rolling his eyes.

“Oh. About last night? She asked me to do her hair. I just did her hair.”

Miguel made a face, raising his eyebrows and then offered a small smile. Solomon couldn’t help but be endeared. He was still so young. To him there was no difference between platonic and sexual intimacy. He’d never really had a friend his own age that didn’t want something from him.

Solomon pressed his index and middle finger on his thumb, shaking his head. No.

“We aren’t like that. It’s.. difficult to explain. But we’re friends. She asked me to do her hair and she fell asleep. Nothing more.”

Miguel kept smiling, nodding his head. Solomon put a hand on his shoulder and gently shook him. He was at least getting his humor back a little. Which was a good sign, he wasn’t shattered. Well he had been, but Solomon was helping him piece together the broken parts. That was his job. Putting back together the people that Xavier broke. He wanted to do more. He wanted to be the person that could save them. But he was just as trapped.

Solomon nodded toward the door, and Miguel got up. They made their way down the stairs. Today’s breakfast was pancakes. The table was already set, Xavier at the head of it, and there were two more plates. Henrietta placed another one when she saw Miguel was with him. Smiling softly at him.

“Well, look who decided to wake up from the dead,” said Xavier, taking a sip of his coffee.

Miguel refused to look him in the eye. Sitting down in his seat quietly, shifting in it idly. Solomon rubbed the bridge of his nose and moved over to where Henrietta was preparing to give out the pancakes.

“Do you need help?” he asked, taking the milk that was on the counter and starting to pour it into everyone's cups. Xavier was the only one of them who drank coffee anyway. Solomon was more of a tea person himself. But still, they set the table together. Solomon served himself and Miguel. Xavier watched, the tension in the air thick.

“So, he’s feeling better then?” Xavier asked, looking pointedly at Solomon.

Solomon nodded, picking up his fork and starting to pick apart the pancakes.

“Yes. He’s sturdier now. Still weak, he's been doing exercises to strengthen his left hand. He should be out of the sling in a month or so. Then he would work on strengthening his hands more.” Solomon took a bite of the pancake, trying to ignore the growing anxiety pooling in his gut at the sight of Xavier’s darkened expression.

“Good, that's good,” Xavier said, sipping his coffee again.

Solomon didn’t say anything in response, letting the silence reign supreme. There was something different in the air today, it tasted stale and dark. Xaviers mood seemed to be in the same way. They ate mostly in silence. Until Henrietta stood up to take everyone’s plates.

“Leave them.”

“What?”

“Sit down Etta,” Xavier said slowly. “I want to talk to you both.”

Solomon shifted in his seat, hands placed on the table. Taking a deep breath. Wondering what this could possibly be about. What was it that he had done that could warrant such a foul mood? Solomon replayed the past few days. Could it have been his conversation with Henrietta the night before? It had to be. There was nothing else that could warrant this sort of reaction.

“Xavier.. What is this about?”

Xavier raised a hand, and Solomon stopped talking. Talking would do nothing here.

“I want to know how long.”

Henrietta spoke next, eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “How long?”

“Do not fucking act stupid with me. How long have you two been fucking each other?”

“We haven’t-” Solomon and Henrietta said at the same time. A fist slammed on the table, shaking the utensils, making them clatter. Miguel flinched, staring at the table. Not daring to look up. But he was starting to shake and Solomon looked at Xavier.

“We have never slept toget-”

Solomon should have seen it coming. He should have known better, but he was still surprised when Xavier grabbed Henrietta by the back of her head and slammed her face into the wooden table. The cutlery clanked again and Solomon heard her gasp. Xavier let go of her head and her head popped up. Hands going to her nose, which was now certainly broken. Blood streaming down her face, over her mouth, through her hands that were now trying to staunch the blood flow.

“Xavier, stop! We haven’t done-”

“Shut up Solomon,” Xavier said darkly, now focusing on Henrietta. “How long Etta?”

“You asshole! We haven’t” “Then why were you in his room last night? Why were you there?” Xavier said, grabbing one of her wrists and wrenching it away from her face. Twisting her wrist and Henrietta whimpered.

“I didn’t do anything wrong! We were just talking!”

Xavier growled and Solomon started to stand. The click of the gun stopped him in his tracks. His eyes glanced down to the gun in his other hand. The simple revolver that was cocked and ready.

“Don’t fucking move, you stay right there Solomon.”

“You’re a big man aren’t you?” Henrietta said, voice nasally and tense with pain, “Threatening him with a gun? What are you? Afraid of him?”

Xavier laughed, dark and loomed over her, changing the gun's position from pointing at Solomon to pressing it against her forehead. Solomon felt like his breath was in his throat, choking him. He only stared, terrified, as Xavier grinned manically down at Henrietta.

“What is it darlin’? Cat got your tongue?”

Henrietta growled slightly, it sounded gurgly like blood was inside her throat. Solomon's hands twitched. Eyes glancing at Miguel who was watching the scene unfold in front of him with a blank expression. He was far away again, that was probably for the best. It meant Solomon could focus on what was in front of him. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heartbeat.

“Xavier put the gun down,” he said calmly, surprised at the way his own voice didn’t even shake, “You don’t need it. Hen asked me to braid her hair, she wanted it out of her face.. Please. Just.. the gun..”

Henrietta whimpered as the gun pressed harder into her skin. Then the gun uncocked and Xavier put it back in its holster. His grin died. His grip on her braid lessened and he instead ran his thumb over it. Staring at it.

“You know.. I never quite liked the idea of braids,” Xavier said, untying the hair tie at the end and undoing it. “I do like the smell of her hair though. Even if it does smell like you, Solomon.” He ran a hand through it idly.

“I just did what she asked..” Solomon said cautiously.

Henrietta still had a hand covering her nose, even though the blood had slowed, it still dripped onto her blue dress.

“Fucking,” the hand fisted her hair again, and he pulled Henrietta close to himself, nuzzling his face into her jaw, “Just shut the fuck up Solomon. Stand up Etta. Stand up.”

“Xavier you’re going too far okay.. It wasn’t anything like you’re thinking. She fell asleep. I didn’t want to wake her.”

“I saw that. I saw it. She was asleep in your arms like that. Fucking stand up,” he shoved her forward, and she stumbled to stand. “Clean yourself up.”

Then he looked at Solomon, working his jaw, as Henrietta took a rag and pressed it to her nose with a soft whimper. Solomon laced his fingers together and squeezed, as if the pressure would help. Their gazes met. Xaviers eyes were filled with hatred, burning with fiery rage. He leaned forward to Solomon, grabbing a hold of his jacket, and pulled him forward. Their faces almost touched, he could smell the coffee on Xaviers breath.

“If you ever touch her like that again, if I even think that you two have talked without my permission. I’ll cut out your tongue,” Xavier pressed his forehead against Solomons, making Solomon shiver. “I don’t think a doctor needs his tongue to do his work. Yeah?”

His stomach was pressed into the edge of the table, and one of his hands was on a plate. Solomon wasn’t sure if he was supposed to respond to this. He was actually quite sure that it was a rhetorical sort of question. But Xavier didn’t release him yet. The man sighed softly, and coffee and shit wafted in his nose, and Solomon fought the urge not to gag. His world spun as he was thrown to the ground. He tried to scramble backwards, but Xavier was on him in seconds.

Pain exploded in his cheek bone as Xaviers knuckles connected. Solomon raised his hands to cover his face as more punches were thrown. He heard Henrietta scream at Xavier to stop, but Xavier kept going. His vision went blurry as the assault stopped for a moment, his entire face was pulsating. He realized that Henrietta had tried to stop Xavier by grabbing him, but she was thrown to the ground too. Hitting her head against the cabinets. Her eyes glazed over slightly as she groaned.

“Xavier.. Please stop. Just stop. I’m sorry.. I’m sorry.”

A fist connected with his mouth and Solomon tasted blood. He choked on it as he was hit again and again. He was going to die here. Beaten to death by Xavier for something he didn’t even do. It was bound to happen eventually. He’d do something wrong and Xavier would lose it.

A crash interrupted his thoughts and Solomon attempted to open his eyes. Only his left one would open. A plate was shattered on the floor around them. The assault stopped, Xavier stood up slowly. Turned around and Miguel was standing on shaky legs. Had he thrown the plate at Xavier’s head?

Solomon groaned and turned to the side to spit blood on the floor, tongue going over his teeth. He had surprisingly not lost any. His head was filled with cotton and his world spun as he tried to push himself to his knees. A kick to his ribs knocked the wind out of his lungs, and he coughed. Falling to his side and curling up, hands over his stomach.

“Please..” he begged.

Xavier laughed, “You’re lucky Solomon. I think someone wants me to stop. Guess he’s feeling good enough to throw things at me. He has to be feeling well enough to sleep in his room now. And to take a punishment.” Another well placed kick to his ribs had him wheezing. There was the sound of more cutlery clanking as it bounced off Xaviers back.

“Enough, Miguel.”

Solomon didn’t look up, but Xavier was walking away. Solomon didn’t have the strength to stand or try to stop him. It was useless anyway. He couldn’t save him. Solomon couldn’t save either of them.

Time flowed differently when someone was in pain, Solomon realized. His body ached and he barely registered that he was alone in the kitchen, surrounded by the broken plate. He didn’t try to get up or move. Solomon was unsure as to what was broken or bruised.

It wasn’t long before Xavier came back and put a hand on his head.

“You know, if you just minded your business instead of stickin’ your nose where it doesn’t belong, this wouldn’t have happened. You should have just left her alone. Next time.. You know better right?” Solomon groaned and Xavier grabbed his face, which throbbed, and clicked his tongue. “Hey, hey, look at me.”

Solomon opened his eyes as far as they would allow him. Xavier was a blurred mess and he winced as Xavier squeezed his thumbs into his cheeks.

“Now you know better right? You don’t touch Henrietta without my permission. Yeah?” Xavier was grinning at him. He looked wild. Like a coyote.

Never underestimate a starving dog Solomon.

“Ye..s” he slurred, and Xavier released his face.

Solomon was unconscious before his head hit the ground. ***

Taglist:

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@flowersarefreetherapy @badgerwhump @whumpbees

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littleobelia · 1 year ago

Text

editing of nurserry2

He walks in the direction of his bus stop. There is a bus approaching, but he can’t make out the numbers. Too late he realises that it’s his bus. There’s no-one at the stop, so it blasts ahead and passes Harry, blowing black exhaust into his face. There won’t be another one for an hour. The Sunday timetable is the bane of his existence.

Someone he knows could drive past and see him near to crying. As soon as he thinks it he sees Martin Lee gunning past and hooking into the parking lot. Tardy Marty. He waves feebly in the direction of his colleague’s pale gold Astra, but he doesn't see him. Harry is invisible in his plain clothes. Out of scrubs he could be anyone. He walks on. He wants to see something extra-ordinary, an antidote to the misery, something to reinvigorate his faltering conviction that life is worth the pain. A man died in the night; had a fall at his council flat, brought it by ambulance, quickly acquired a UTI that wrought havoc to his kidneys, then whoopsy-daisy he was dead. Bed four, Mr Solomon Yeameni. His name was like a cryptic crossword clue. Solo – many. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Maybe religion is the answer? Our Lady of Sorrows. Her doors are open to the street. He steps into the dim vestibule and already the traffic is muffled by an invisible membrane of solace. In the vestibule there is an automatic hand sanitiser dispenser on a purpose-built plinth. Out of habit he cups his palm underneath it. The machine senses his hand; he is not invisible. The machine knows he is there, he machine knows he is doing the right thing. The machine seeks to reward him, whirrs, purrs, deposits a dollop of alcohol mixed with glycerin on his hand.

Harry rubs it in and feels sanctified. When their ward was audited two years ago he received a special commendation for his outstanding adherence to the hand hygiene protocol. He remembers with crystal clarity the euphoria of being singled out for doing something right, for a change. Praise is thin on the ground.

On the other side of a trestle table covered in pamphlets, there is an identical automatic dispenser on an identical plinth. Tacked on its face is a hand written label, which says “HOLY WATER”.

It’s the first thing to make Harry genuinely smile in at least the past week. It’s a sardonic smile, but a smile none-the-less. He offers his hand to the sensor. The machine senses him, but it seems to hesitate, sizing him up. After a judgemental pause, it grinds and sputters disdainfully. Nothing comes out.

Harry shrugs. He has satisfied his desire to see something novel. It’s extraordinary that such a thing even exists, such a wretched example of modern faith. It was probably full of pathogens; consecrated amoebae floating around in their stagnant bath.

Through the creaking door into the cavernous interior of the church. The first thing he does is look up at the ceiling. When ceilings are tall you must look up and appreciate how tall they are. He learnt that from Grand Designs.

The great oaken beams arch over him, protecting. There are six of them, like a giant rib cage. The emaciated body of Christ looms over the altar, his eyes downcast. Regarding him, Harry feels a faint impression of suffering, and then he feels merely faint. He has not eaten since yesterday evening. Portions of the host are stacked on the paten like so many poker chips and a silver platter holds dozens of little sips of wine in plastic thimble-sized cups, like raspberry jelly shots. His stomach growls miserably. He didn’t eat during his shift. The upside of this is that his bowels are minimally occupied, available to be filled from the other end. He’s a pragmatic self-harmer.

He treads silently down the outer edge of the room between the pews and the rendered walls, past the Stations of the Cross in their gaudy frames, then he sits in one of the centre pews and closes his eyes, swaying slightly in his seat. Harry is early, the first one here. A man in white glides in unhurriedly and genuflects, then across the floor and out the opposite door, his feet nearly silent and invisible beneath his robe; it gives the impression that he is a prop on track, or perhaps something like a dalek.

Hushed footsteps echo as the pews fill. The sound accumulates, proliferates, like incense smoke filling a shrine. His ears are suffused with whispers. He begins to fall asleep and his heavy head rolls to one side, pinching some nerve or other. He starts and winces, rubbing the affected part.

He is not alone on his pew any more. He stands when his pewmates stand, and he sits when they sit, but he is too heavy and weary to bother with communion. The priest at the lectern has a prominent black beard, reflecting tiny filaments of light from the candles on the altar. It covers half his face, framing his moist little mouth in neatly combed and parted whiskers. He looks more like a lumberjack than a priest. Harry is so absorbed in the observation of this glossy, oily facial hair, that it takes him a while to realise the mass is not in English.

He understands nothing. He thinks it might be Polish. Sibilant, slithering words, they trickle into his ears and fizz like vichy water, cleansing and soothing. When it's over an hour later he is catatonic.

The sunlight greets him in the street, meek and docile. “You ought to be in bed, lad,” the sun murmurs, slipping behind a cloud. He wanders down the road to a bus stop, then pulls out his phone and books an uber to his address, 14-18 Hartwell Street. The screen goes black, and he is faced with his own decrepit reflection. He jostles the screen back to life. These days the phones wake up when they are jostled. The phone analyses his features, his puffy eyes, his swollen nose and his chapped lips. “You look worse for wear,” thinks the phone, unlocking.

Lent 2022 Harry types into the safari search bar. Google informs him that lent started a few weeks ago. That’s a shame; he was tempted to give something up. Meph. Or booze. Or porn. He opens a bookmarked site and looks at gifs of small, hairless men being fucked by larger, hairier ones. He pretends he’s small and hairless and unwrinkled. A spring chicken. Lately the follicles on his temples have packed up and migrated to his lower back. He’s sprouting little short and curlies right there at the top of his arse-crack. If his lumbar spine weren’t so stiff he’d be able to twist his torso to shave them off.

He can’t do what this spring chicken in the gif is doing, arching his back like a cobra. He dims the screen to minimum brightness, though there is no one else around. The trembling, grainy moving images occupy his over-tired brain. He understands human mating, finds it comforting, though he doesn’t do it as often as one would like. He scarcely has the energy to masturbate. He’ll go home and have a long nap, and then maybe he’ll try. And if he can’t, he’ll get on the apps and find someone who can get it up and enjoy the vicarious sexual gratification.

#i dont think i can use any of this sadly #cutting room floor #my fic

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secondbookofthesoftera · 1 year ago

Text

It Tastes Good

Content tags: nsfw, fluff, oral sex, sweetness and stupidity, praise {be kind and heed the tags}

Wordcount: 1.2k

Written with love for █████ x

In the sidemirror I watch a churn of brick red-dust kick up behind the car; a shiny green pebble skating across desert. The road spools out underneath the wheels, and not the other way around, here you can go anywhere. When I roll down the window and put out my hand the air cuts warm and smooth around it like a surfboard cutting through a wave.

You brought me here because I said it looked so sunny. At three pm it still seems like noon this time of the year – or maybe it’s not the season, just the place, or the idea of the place. For us the sun stays still.

I look over at you and smile. Your hands rest with ease on the old-fashioned steering wheel. You look more at ease than I have seen you look in a long while, there’s nothing much for your hands to do. It takes you a second to notice me looking. You smile.

Put the window up sweetheart.

I do it without hesitation. Your left hand rests on my knee, tucking up slightly under the light blue hem of my sundress. I think less, I know almost nothing but the light grip of your touch. I like being this way. Your grip tightens just a little. I can feel the strength in your hands, see the way the muscle in your forearm flexes.

I have even less thoughts. A paper bag is kicked up in the breeze on the side of the highway. We are the same.

Are you hungry?

Yes. I can only manage the word, enthusiastic, singular and stupid. That makes you laugh, not unkindly. Your smile is another sun on me.

Let’s get you something to eat.

You open the car door for me, the parking lot is huge. The diner is a cool teal dot on the red landscape. I run ahead of you across the tarmac. My trainers are springy and I feel easy, like I weigh nothing.

When I push open the shiny glass door and skip inside, I don’t think about it like I would have before – I don’t think about people and protocol and what a person is or isn’t supposed to do in a restaurant. That’s all gone from me. The bar is the same colour as the exterior, curved and shiny. To my left a row of low booths sit flush to the big plate glass window.

There are two other people in here, one at the bar and another down the far end. The sound of something quiet and melodious hovers around in the airy interior. It seemed smaller from the outside: Inside, the soft sun slices through the plate glass, falling across the pale formica tables, rendering them expansive. It smells like coffee.

No one looks at me as I jump into a booth. The warm faux leather creaks. No one finds my exuberance strange or noteworthy. I watch you cross the parking lot and open the door, looking at me with that smile.

You sit opposite me. I’m fascinated by how the table feels under my palms. Every nerve is interested. Your fingers brush over mine and I turn my own to catch them, leaning down to rub my face on your hand. That makes you laugh. The fingers of your free hand run through my hair while you read.

How hungry are you?

Very.

You know I always say that. You go up to the bar to order without asking me. I don’t need to worry about it. You know best. All I know is touch, smell. The absolute benevolence of sensation. The lady behind the counter with the pretty apron and red lipstick is writing down what you say on a little spiral bound notepad.

The straps of my dress rub tightly but gently over my shoulder blades, the booth is warm against my back. My mouth feels wet. I giggle.

What are you laughing at stupid?

The statement is soft. I look across the booth at you, still smirking.

I feel nice. I’m hungry.

Food is coming.

I drum my fingers on the tabletop, eyeline drifting out over the vacant parking lot.

Can we go back to the car?

I ask it furtively.

…Why?

I’m hungry.

…We can’t do that in the car.

Why not?

Do you remember we talked about this?

No.

For some reason that makes you snort a laugh particularly. You pour coke into a glass from a bottle I don’t remember you bringing to the table. I see you looking at my mouth, it’s slick from where I’ve been chewing my lip. You take a sip from the glass, set it down, cast your gaze around the diner.

You step out of the booth, holding your hand out to me. I fold mine into it. No one looks up when the men’s room door swings shut behind us.

The floor is a chessboard of blue-green tiles, and it’s cool under my knees. In the stall you cradle the back of my head easily in your hands. My mouth is a slick, wet, easy hole. I don’t need my hands; they lay folded loose and naïve as a pair of lovebirds in my lap.

Good girl, is that nice?

I nod with my eyes half shut. I don’t know anything but the warmth and fullness of you. Spit begins to string from my bottom lip onto my sternum.

Are you hungry?

You know the answer, you don’t need to wait for it. But I still nod as you grip my jaw with one hand, the other wrapping the back of my head.

Good girl…Good girl…

The world goes bleary as you pump in and out of my mouth, dipping into my throat. Your cock sliding over my bottom lip makes something deep and honeyed creep all the way down my throat to the soles of my feet.

Water streams from my eyes and my gag reflex jumps but my hands never move; all I want is more, more, more. You. I start to moan loudly.

Shh. Shh. Here you go, good girl.

When you flood my mouth I gulp unthinkingly. Warm, syrupy. You hold me there to keep me from flopping onto the floor. In this moment my body has never known tension. All I do is swallow, and swallow, and swallow.

I push open the bathroom door and half run the little corridor back to our booth. The food arrived while we were gone.

There’s a bowl of golden french fries and a sundae on my side of the table. I pick up my fork and spear a mouthful, ravenous. My mouth fills with the crunching, humming taste of salt and oil.

I don’t notice you smirking at the stain on the neckline of my dress. You don’t mention it, taking out the toothpick which holds your burger together.

The record changes on the jukebox at the far end of the diner with a plastic click. The sun has still not moved in the sky.

After a minute I stop with my fork downward and look at you across the table. The bubbles still glimmer in the half bottle of coke by your elbow.

My eyes are dilated pools that want everything, because everything is good, and tastes good, and feels like love. Especially you.

#fluff #smut

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gretavanlace · 2 years ago

Text

Adoration

Jake Kiszka x reader

18+ only! Minors do not interact!

Warnings: graphic sexual content, language, dirty talk, denial, masturbation (m), voyeurism, etc

*Just a short little blurb-type deal I cooked up today in light of last night’s nonsense. We all went through it, and it wasn’t cool.

Another giggle you can’t stop bubbles up out of your chest and Jake groans beside you, throwing an arm over your waist. “You’re so loud, baby. Too early. Less sound. More shhh.”

“Sorry.” you whisper, stroking your palm soothingly down his forearm as you scroll through your phone…and you do a wonderful job of stifling yourself, until you come across a particularly hilarious post. A trilling laugh sounds out of you, pulling a disapproving hum out of his chest.

“Seriously?” he huffs, annoyed and frustrated in a way he almost never is with you. He takes his beauty rest very seriously…not that he needs it. “What’s your deal? It’s like minus zero o’clock in the morning and…” he trails off sharply, discovering the culprit, and yanks your phone out of your hand. “Screen time is over, missy.”

“Missy?” you poke his side and roll in to face him. “And it’s all your fault. They’re going insane waiting for something to drop. It’s like you guys have edged the whole fandom…they’re feral, and they’re fucking funny. I hope you all realize your fans are way cooler than the four of you ever thought of being.”

“Well that’s fuckin’ rude.” he feigns anger with his rasping, sleep-drenched tone. “Joke’s on you anyway, darling, because we realized that a looong time ago.”

“Where do we go from here?” you sigh, “Straight to hell for fucking around with their emotions, would be my guess.”

“They secretly like it when we tease them.” he pulls you in closer by the hip. “Me especially, in my most humble opinion. They all want to fuck my lights out and then make me a snack. I should let them.”

“Oh yeah, Jakey.” you peck a kiss against the bridge of his nose. “Very humble.”

“What are they saying?” He reaches out, feeling around in the covers for the phone he just snatched from you, but you knock his hand away.

“Screen time is over, remember? Go back to sleep.”

“No…” he sounds slightly pouty, and it’s very sexy. “I want to know. I’m curious now.”

“You know what curiosity did to the cat, babe.” you taunt, pulling him in so he can’t get his hands on the phone.

“Yeah…about the same thing I did to yours last night. Killed it.”

Your eyes widen with a shake of your head. “You’re right, you really do need some more sleep, because that was terrible. Gross.”

“Can’t disagree with that.” he shrugs. “Not my best work. Seriously though, are they excited?”

He sounds a little unsure, and you find it hopelessly charming. “Of course they are.” you reassure. “They’re also a little pissed, but in a sweet way. They want the goods, baby.”

“Do they?” he croaks in that soft, morning voice that renders you defenseless. “Interesting. How about you? You want the goods?”

“I always want the goods.” you purr. Maybe you should be ashamed of how easily he can switch you on, but you’re not. “Can I have them?”

His gaze shifts to the ceiling, as he feigns thinking it over, until finally… “No, you can’t, actually. I quite like this edging thing. I think I’ll have my fun with you, same as them.”

“Well, I’ve heard the song about a thousand times already, so…”

“Who said anything about the song?” he interrupts, pulling you over as he rolls to his back. “Right here, darling…” he pats his bare thighs, “have a seat.”

Without hesitation, you hike your t-shirt up around your hips, straddle his legs, and reach down to wrap your fingers around his pretty, stiffening, cock, but he waves them away. “No touching, baby. Hands behind your back like a good girl.”

You do as you’re told and stare down at him, so warm and pretty…hair a tangled nest splayed out over his pillow, eyes half-lidded, lips still puffy from sleep. “You see,” he begins quietly, walking his fingers up and down your thighs “I’m sort of addicted to it, all that adoration…being watched. The way they look at me. The way their eyes track me all over the stage. The way they stare. The way they want me. All that need. I fucking love it.”

Your hips begin to rock, searching in vain for friction, but he puts a stop to that with a stern glare.

“And now…” he continues, musing as if lost in thought. “you’ve gone and described it as ‘edging’, talked about them ‘wanting the goods’, about them being all excited for whatever I’m hiding in my little deck of rock and roll cards…now I’m craving it. All that want and need…wanna feel eyes on me, wanting what that can’t have.”

Nodding slowly, you tamp a slight twinge of jealousy down inside you until it dissipates. “Jake…”

“Hush,” he sinks a gentle pinch of a warning into your thigh. “You keep your hands where they are. Understand? They stay behind your back or you won’t like me very much. You’ll like your punishment even less.”

A sharp, urgent nod brings your chin to your chest, you’re eager to please him, as you almost always are.

“That’s my pretty little baby.” he sighs up at you, stroking his thumb over your bottom lip until you can’t resist having a lick. “You listen so well for me, don’t you? You’re such a sweetheart…my best girl.”

“Jakey…” your hips buck on their own accord, eliciting a blip of a frown across his beautiful features.

“Stay still and sit pretty.” he orders in a whisper as he takes hold of his gorgeous, aching cock. “You’re going to watch. You’re gonna watch and want just like they do, because that’s what I need right now.”

“No,” you whimper, “Please, Jake, I need…”

“It’s not about you this time.” he interrupts. “You were the one that couldn’t shut up about how desperate they are, and now I want to be adored…so fucking adore me.”

His hand begins a slow drag, pumping lazily up and down his length as a languid groan shudders out of him. Your eyes squeeze closed, you can’t handle him already…he is a god beneath you and your body is on fire. Throbbing and pulsing, desperate to slip his cock inside of you.

“Look at me.” he demands, sounding strangled, but authoritative.

You shake your head and wring your hands behind you.

“Look. At. Me.” he repeats in a tone so menacing your eyes flutter open as if he has willed it so.

“Oh, baby girl…” he breathes when your stare locks in on him. “I can feel it…how badly you want me. It’s just like when I’m up there with my amps pumping all those pretty sounds into the air. Do you feel it too? The way I slip every note right straight inside them just like I slip my cock into your pretty cunt afterward?”

“Yes…” you pant, staring down as he jerks himself harder, faster, rougher. “I feel it. Fuck, Jake…I want you. Want you so fucking bad. Please.”

“Nope…” he tilts his head back, exposing his throat as he thrashes his head slowly back and forth. “You just stay right there and want me. Fucking want me.”

You can’t help but bend down and lick across his adam’s apple as it bobs with each gasping pull of air he draws into his lungs. He hisses through his teeth, but scrunches his face, determined to stay in control. “Up you go,” he pushes you back into a sitting position with his free hand. “Keep that pretty mouth to yourself. Hands off the talent, love.”

His brow is furrowed and tilted upward, mouth parted to reveal the bubble gum pink of his tongue, chest heaving and panting, betraying how close he is as he nuzzles rhythmically into the pillow, rocking his head against it in the exact same way he does when he falls into his Les Paul on stage.

“So pretty…” you gasp in quiet wonder, tilting your hips to brush the soft lips of your cunt over his knuckles on his fist’s downward pull. “So fucking pretty. Come on, baby, cum.”

He nods frantically, rolling his body beneath you, totally lost in it now, until everything comes to a sudden, grinding halt as his teeth click together, jaw clenched tightly until a growling rumble of a cry tears out of him.

His left hand digs into your hip as pearlescent ropes of cum paint abstract lines across his stomach. You reach forward to sweep the hair off of his dewey forehead, and he allows it as he groans and curses his way through his release.

You murmur adoring words of praise and pet at his breathtaking face until his body stills and he blinks up at you, blurry-eyed and satiated.

He watches, with sluggish, sleepy attention when you make your way down to lick away the mess he’s made. Cleaning him with loving laps of your tongue, swallowing him down, worshiping him…and even once there is none left to be had, you stay. Kissing and tasting his skin until he drifts back to sleep with his hands tenderly laced into your hair.

Taglist: @gretasintrees @greta-van-chaos @gardenofgreta @theweightofstardust @celestialfauna @s0livagant @groggyvanfleet @kiszkathecook @dvrkblooms @paintmyhouse @brokenbellz @llightmyllovee @doodle417 @kdarling1 @seventieswhore @jake-kiszkas-smirk @weightofdreams-gvf @imdepressedaf1996 @alisonwonderland29 @agirlwithmanytastes @gretavanfleas @gretavangroove @sparrowofthedawn @xserenax-13 @avagvf @greta-flanveet-admin @joshkiszkas @tbagggvf @obetrolncocktails @tripthelightjaketastic @jakeslovehandles @loofypoofy @70sgroupielovr @heatmyfleet @age-of-nyahh @sammiboo162 @spicedandicedtea @jakekiszkasleftnutsack @saoirsemaeve @mywickeddivinity @calumspretty @gretasmokerising @tripthelight-fanfic @mckenna4 @tripthelightfandomtastic @sarakay-gvf @theweightofjake @dakotadovato @joshsmama @sammysvanfeet

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rebrandedbard · 4 years ago

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The Chain

Slightly horny drabble. Geralt has a thing for Jaskier’s neck and a chain he wears around it. Reverse bath shenanigans. Non-explicit.

WC: 1900

Geralt had noticed it on many occasions: on hot days when Jaskier opened his chemise a little wider than usual, when Jaskier stripped for a dip in a river or tub, when he stripped for the night and bundled himself into bed. It was unusual considering the ornaments Jaskier usually hung himself with, shiny rings with etchings, engravings, and gemstones. But these were for parties and grand affairs. Day to day, he did not primp and preen like a peacock with a fat purse. He wore only his signet ring. It was a tool as much as an accessory, though it was still something with detail.

The thin chain around his neck served no purpose. It was not silver, nor iron, which at least would offer some barest form of protection. It had no enchantments. It could not even be said to bring luck. It was dull, unfashionable, and did not have so much as a single charm hung from it. It was just … there. A short, barren chain wrought of plain steel.

Perhaps it was the fact that it was so plain, so thin, flimsy, and pointless that drove Geralt to distraction. At the very least, Jaskier might put something on it. If there were a locket or a pendant, something for the eye to focus on, that would be enough. But leaving the chain bare only seemed to draw attention to Jaskier’s neck itself. It was … a handsomely long neck. When Jaskier turned his head, the muscle stood out in an attractive line. Objectively.

Geralt wished he’d put something on the damn chain. Before he volunteered his own teeth to the task. It was a fantasy that had come to him one night. Jaskier had a rather distracting habit of nibbling the ends of his shirt laces. The chain was too short for him to reach. But Geralt could. And he nearly had before he’d come to his senses, leaning too close into Jaskier’s space. He clumsily reached past Jaskier to collect his empty bowl from the ground, floundering for an excuse. That had been a week ago when they’d been out in the woods. He’d had plenty of space then to breathe and forget about it.

But now? He was suffocating. Trapped in their little room above the tavern, Jaskier stripped of all his things, sighing as he leaned with his torso above the line of water in the bath, his head dangling back over the rim, neck elongated, exposed, and Geralt saw that damn chain glisten in the firelight. Jaskier had even taken off his ring, but the chain remained.

Jaskier hummed pleasantly, a damp washcloth over his eyes. “You’re awful quiet, even for you,” he said. He lifted the washcloth from his eyes and smiled at Geralt, catching him staring. “Cat got your tongue, witcher?”

Geralt looked away immediately. “I was just thinking,” he grumbled.

“Is that something you’ve learnt to do? Oh, I’m so very proud,” Jaskier teased. He dropped the cloth back over his eyes and put his hands behind his head, sinking further into the water. “Do indulge me. Pray tell, what has those ancient, rusty gears clinking and turning tonight?”

Geralt glared at him, the effect rendered less than effective by the washcloth. “Nothing,” he said. He finished unbuckling the last of his armour and sat to clean it. There was nothing to wipe away but dust. Even so, he was looking for an excuse to stay. To linger. Or perhaps to distract himself, having little else to do but turn in for the evening.

“Hm, that’s the Geralt I know. But come, some thought is rolling around in that head of yours; I heard it clink against the walls just now when you did your curious little head tilt. Won’t you share it with me?”

“You’ve been soaking for nearly twenty minutes,” Geralt replied. “You haven’t even begun to wash up and the water will be getting cold.”

Jaskier waved a hand at him. “So it can be reheated. A little snap-snap of Igni and I’ve got another half hour of relaxing ahead. Besides, cold water is good for the skin.”

“You’ll keep me up all night tending your water if you had your way.”

“Ah, if I only could have it my way,” Jaskier sighed. “I’d have you tend to me hand and foot, hanging on my every word. What fun! Providing hot water would only be the start; I’ve got a long list of things I’d do.” He chuckled fiddling with the chain, twisting a length of it between his fingers where his hands supported his neck.

Geralt tracked the motion with rapt attention. He cleared his throat began to pack his armour up after all. As he walked behind Jaskier, he plucked the cloth from his eyes. “You’d better hurry up and wash. I’m not reheating the water for you and I know you hate when the water gets cold, never mind what good it does your skin.”

He dropped the cloth back down on Jaskier’s face with a wet plop and Jaskier slipped back with an indignant yip, splashing beneath the water’s surface. It was a satisfying sound.

Jaskier wiped his face clear and wrung the cloth out again. He huffed and began to lather the cloth with soap. “Always so gruff,” he complained. “Here I help you selflessly scrub monster guts and foul muck from your hair day in and day out, but you can’t even be bothered to heat up a little tub water to warm my icy bones. By rights, you ought to at least return the favor once in a blue moon. I’m not asking you to scrub me head to toe—I only think a little reciprocation would be nice.” So saying, he scrubbed his face and ears, rinsed, and patted around for his oil.

Geralt sighed. Depositing his armour, he turned back to the tub. He scooped up the oil and pushed away Jaskier’s hand. “Fine,” he said. “Sit up.”

Jaskier beamed at him. He wiped his eyes and turned around. “Will you really? Surely I’ve fallen asleep, dozed in the hot water, and tumbled into some fantastic dream. Who is this courteous stranger before me? You couldn’t possibly be my witcher. My witcher would never!”

The hairs stood on the back of Geralt’s neck, tingling at those words. My witcher. Jaskier said them so often, so casually, and yet they never failed to get a rise out of him.

Geralt turned Jaskier’s head roughly. “Face forward or you’ll get soap in your eyes,” he said.

“O-o-o, so forceful. Always straight to manhandling with you.”

“Give you something to handle,” Geralt grumbled.

“What was that?”

Geralt poured a bit of the oil on his hands. “I said it smells like sandal. Sandalwood.”

Jaskier settled once more against the rim of the tub and tilted his head back. “Got some new supplies. Do you like it?” he asked.

Geralt did, but then he liked most of the scents Jaskier wore. They complimented him. Not that he would ever dignify that with a response. Instead, he simply began to massage the oil into Jaskier’s hair, working his way from the crown of his head down, fingers lightly scratching his scalp the way Jaskier often did.

“Oh, that’s heavenly,” Jaskier sighed. He leaned into the touch, his eyes closed as he relaxed beneath Geralt’s ministrations.

Up close, Geralt had a perfect view of the chain. He watched it shift as Jaskier spoke. The chain reflected the flickering light in an almost hypnotic fashion. Slowly, his hands worked down to the nape of Jaskier’s neck, still massaging as he stared, his mind drifting. Jaskier made an odd little rumble in the back of his throat. Geralt massaged the place harder, hoping to hear that sound again.

“Soap next,” Jaskier said. He passed the cloth to Geralt, not bothering to open his eyes.

They’d never said anything about soaping or scrubbing, but Geralt was in no position to refuse. Not with Jaskier’s neck angled so enticingly, and here, the perfect excuse to reach out and touch. He lathered soap in the cloth. In a moment, it was touching the side of Jaskier’s neck. And yet …

“Your, uh. Your chain,” he said.

Jaskier cracked one eye to look back at him. “Oh. You may remove it. Just be sure to put it back when you’re done.”

Geralt swallowed and set the washcloth on Jaskier’s shoulder a moment. He reached for the chain, only to find no fastening in the back. He had to turn it, had to watch the drag of it against Jaskier’s skin as he searched. The chain was warm and wet and it was difficult to get a solid grip on the clasp when he at last had found it. But it soon came free.

He hesitated. Now that he had it, where could he put it? There was no stool, and it felt improper to put it on the floor. He looked at Jaskier, wondering if he might offer to hold onto it, then he was again distracted by the line of his neck.

He’d been wrong. After wearing the chain so long, it was now, perhaps, more indecent to see his neck without it. Geralt watched a drop of water roll down the side of Jaskier’s neck and felt the impulse to chase it with his tongue. To prevent himself from following through, he succumbed to another impulse which might go unobserved and placed the chain between his teeth.

Jaskier hummed once more as Geralt’s hands returned to their task. It was meditative, Geralt discovered. He moved the cloth in small circles, covering every inch of Jaskier’s neck twice. He cupped water in one hand, let it trickle down and wash the suds away. With gentle fingers, he flicked away a stray bubble, his touch lingering only a moment more to appreciate the soft skin beneath. And then he was washing Jaskier’s shoulders, his hand dipping only a little to feel the breadth of his chest.

“Geralt,” Jaskier said.

But Geralt was distracted. He was busy running the cloth once more between Jaskier’s shoulders, running the tip of his tongue across the links of the chain.

“Geralt,” Jaskier repeated. He reached back, raised a hand up to run along Geralt’s cheek. His fingers touched the end of the chain, slipping against the corner of Geralt’s mouth. He tugged it, pulling it link by link from between Geralt’s teeth. And then Geralt felt something warm and wet lightly touch the opposite corner. A kiss. Just barely.

Geralt’s breath caught in his lungs and his eyes fluttered shut. He felt Jaskier’s teasing touch disappear, fingers curling beneath his chin and sinking once more beneath the water. He opened his eyes and saw Jaskier smiling back at him, the chain dangling in his hand.

“The bath is getting cold,” he said, a salacious tenor to his voice. “Feel like warming me up?”

And before Geralt could answer, Jaskier had a finger curled around the silver chain of his medallion, pulling him in.

Jaskier smirked up at him. He took the washcloth from his hand and replaced it with the chain. “I’ll wear yours,” he whispered, “if you’ll wear mine.”

And now Geralt indulged a new fantasy. Yes, Jaskier’s chain needed something after all, he decided. It needed only one simple ornament to make it complete.

It needed a wolf.

#witcher #the witcher #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #my fic #the chain fic #drabbles #I was bored and saw a pretty picture of someone wearing a chain necklace #got me thinking

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rae-gar-targaryen · 4 years ago

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loved you once [angel reyes x fem!reader]

A/N: So, this is NOT the Angel fic I previewed the other day. That one (and the EZ fic) is STILL COMING, I PROMISE! This just jumped into my head and wouldn’t leave. And I wrote it with a speed I am heretofore unfamiliar with (heretofore? Did I use that right?) I invented a tattoo and an ex-girlfriend for Angel, and I fudged the timeline a bit. So, apologies in advance for that.

As always, if you want a tag in anything I write for Angel, EZ, the Mayans fandom (or anything else), please feel free to send me a message or an ask, or add yourself to the taglist (link in profile).

Pairing: Angel Reyes x fem!tattoo artist!reader (as always, the appearance is ambiguous, but the reader is described as having female pronouns/parts. Also, the reader here speaks a bit of Spanish. I’m half Mexican, so I do imagine a latinx reader, but I hope I’ve written this so you can imagine yourself with no restriction.)

Word Count: 15.3K (HAHAHA WHAT THE FUCK all for a TWO AND A HALF MINUTE SONG, ARE YOU KIDDING ME????) of ANGST! (SERIOUSLY THIS IS SO ANGSTY) lyrical nonsense and the remnants of sticky, cotton-candy sadness … fluff that makes you feel empty.

Warnings: ANGST, non-explicit references to infidelity, sexual references and sexual content, oral (male receiving), fingering and other nastiness -- so 18+ ONLY, please! Canon-typical douchebaggery, references to a past relationship, song references and poetry. (It is me, so yeah, poetry.)

Summary: You and Angel may as well be strangers now. But why? After all, you loved him once. And he loved you, right? Based on the song “Loved you Once” by Clara Mae. Listen here.

We don't need to be best friends, we don't need to hang again. But tell me why we have to be strangers because I loved you once?

What were you doing here? You haven’t been back to the clubhouse in months. Not since -- well, you know. You hadn’t talked to him since then, either. But that wasn’t your own doing.

No, Angel had erected a veritable wall of silence, and you respected him enough not to breach it.

That was what relationships were all about, anyway, right? Mutual respect of the other’s needs? So when Angel had told you in no uncertain terms that your relationship was over, you were … upset. Understandably. You wanted to sit with him, talk about where this sudden insistence that you depart his life had come from, but he was resolute. With the absolute air of authority that comes with either a great deal of thought, or borne of virtually sudden external influence, with nothing in between. He clearly didn’t want to sit and talk about it.

And so you didn’t.

Ever mindful of his wellbeing, and when he was and was not receptive to communication.

"It ain't working," he had said. You had settled for merely imagining the faraway look in his large, oilslick eyes, since he was much more interested in staring at his boots and the grooves in his floor, his forearms laid over spread thighs, unmoving and resolute from his spot at the end of the bed. Refusing to meet your eyes.

From your seat next to him, you made to brush the arm closest to you with your fingers. When you touched, he gave no indication that you were even there. That he even felt you. Which you knew was bullshit. He always felt you.

"Angel, what --" you hated the way your voice cracked as you tried to ask him what the hell was going on. You hated how you had sounded so small and quavering to your own ears. That wasn't who you were. You were clear, outspoken. It was always one of the things Angel said he loved about you. Loved.

You didn't know this, of course, but Angel hated it, too. How you’d sounded in that moment. Hated that his words had taken the fire out of yours, your voice unfamiliar in its timidity.

"It ain't working," he repeated. "I can see it. Not my fault you can't."

That was it.

No "I'm sorry, querida."

No "I hope we can stay friends."

Not that you would expect an apology, or anything as cliché as a "let's be friends," from a steadfast man like Angel. Predictable in his volatility.

You should have pushed back. Demanded an answer. You hated that you didn’t, the shock and sudden sadness morphing you into a silent, crystalline girl you didn’t recognize. Your eyes welled with tears, turning your head away from where Angel sat -- at least you wouldn’t let him see you cry. Even if you knew he knew the tears had spilled over your lashes and down your cheeks were of his own doing.

You had arrived back at his place a day after your tense "conversation" to discover that your items you had come to reclaim were tossed into a box and left outside of the door.

You had knocked once, in the hope that if Angel was home, he’d at least come to the door to shout through it, or, heaven forbid, would open it so you could look him in the eyes just once more while he shattered you. Your knock was met with silence, though you could have sworn you felt Angel on the other side of the door.

In the months since then, you had cried (obviously), you had questioned (it was sudden, it wasn't just you; your friends were surprised, too), but most importantly, you had persevered.

You had taken a bunch of new clients and inked some pieces you were incredibly proud of. You had gone out with your friends a few times, always with a wary eye on the door of the local dive, ya know… you never knew who would walk in.

Santo Padre is a small town, after all. And the cracks in your soul were nowhere close to healed. No molten gold to spill in and repair the fissures of your heart, rendering metamorphosis of something broken to something flawed, but beautiful. You sat, alone, still just… flawed. You had never felt less beautiful. Even after all this time.

And your friend Aneesa, ever the supporter, would stop at nothing if it meant hyping you up enough to leave your cave of blankets, sheet masks, and comfort movies. Your only rule? All nights out with Aneesa were strictly girls’ nights. She was gracious and understanding of this rule, of course. She and Gilly had been together a touch longer than you and Angel.

And if Angel had ever asked Gilly to ask Aneesa about you? Well… you never heard about it.

Not that Angel would do any of that. Shit like that was so middle-school.

So, here you were. Back at the clubhouse after months of self-imposed exile for the sake of self-preservation.

Coco had texted you -- the first you’d directly heard from anyone within Angel’s circle, inviting you to a patch party for some nameless, faceless newbie. The invitation had a string attached to it, of course -- the tattoo artist’s chair in the corner of the clubhouse needed a resident for any partygoers jonesing for new ink. Certainly, the new patch would need something decidedly “Mayan” to show off his new status.

You had hesitantly agreed -- Aneesa would be in attendance of course, and offered herself as a human-sized buffer to separate you from people you were otherwise hoping to avoid.

Now, perched near the tattoo chair, you busied yourself with setting out your portfolio of completed pieces, sketches and most-requested designs. You wiped down the chair a few more times than strictly necessary, but you wanted to be ready for anyone who might plop themselves down for a new piece of art.

The main room of the clubhouse was sweltering -- a familiar blend of desert heat, cigarette smoke, citronella, and the smell of citrusy, foamy beer. The dim lighting and thundering bass giving everything a slightly blurry edge in your party-periphery. You glanced across the room at where Aneesa and Gilly sat together on a corner couch, thighs pressed together. Aneesa tossed her head back in a full-bodied laugh at something Gilly had whispered into her ear, swatting his arm -- Gilly’s reciprocal smile demonstrating his pleasure at having garnered such a reaction from his girl.

A wave of cheers and noise accompanied the thwack of the clubhouse door swinging open -- more Mayans pouring in, jostling one another's shoulders, slapping each other on the arms, and good-naturedly cajoling.

There was Coco, mid-pull of the cigarette between his lips, quicksilver eyes flashing around the room, taking stock of who was where. EZ followed, million-watt smile on full display as he gently guided a pretty girl with long, inky hair through the bottleneck at the entryway.

If EZ was ambling his way in, then, surely, not far behind ...

With an arm around a tall, broad guy you hadn’t seen before, was Angel. Midway through a joke with the guy you assumed was the new patch, you took the opportunity to study the man you had once considered the moonlit orbit of your entire world.

You hated to admit it to yourself, but he looked good… His arms still replete with thick, corded muscle. His hair was a tad longer on top than you remembered, slicked back and belied with cleanly-cropped sides. His smile as warm and blinding as the cruel light at the end of your better dreams, only for you to awake each day alone.

As you continued your silent study, you were surprised to see -- still adorning his left arm … the tattoo you had given him on the day you had first met. You had thought he would have blacked it out by now … a cover-up on top of a cover-up.

But there it was --- the soft, leafy greens creeping down his forearm on sharp vines, abutted with bursting blooms -- small, ornate gladiolus buds and a sprig of purpling rosemary. Such a flowery piece on the arm of someone like Angel might have been laughable. But if anyone dared, he would simply stare, stone-faced, with burning eyes and a set jaw, ready to ask just what they thought was so fucking funny.

To you? It was perfection. It was remembrance.

‘Cause I loved you, once…

---

You had moved to Santo Padre from Oakland. Hardly an axis-tilting move, but significant enough to you.

Your friend Oliver had offered you a seat at his tattoo shop. And you? You were positively itching to get out of the city. A few too many bad nights with a few people you could no longer in good conscience consider friends.

So, here you sat, resident of one of two chairs in this corner parlour off the so-called “main” drag in sweltering, dusty Santo Padre.

Your books were pretty clear … Not that you attributed much logic to the ebb and flow in any conceivable pattern of the tide that was tattoo shop patrons, but January seemed an agonizingly slow month. You filled the idle time with keeping the shop neat, disinfecting and re-disinfecting every surface, and organizing Oliver’s books.

And if you weren’t dreaming up new sketches and designs for the more adventurous prospective client, you were jotting idle lines of lyrical poetry in the margins of your sketchbook.

If the month dragged on like this, you were sure you could publish an entire book of moody, mid-winter prose that would make Charles Bukowski want to drown himself in stiff Cabernet.

The dinging of the bell above the parlour door yanked you from your doodling stupor. You looked up to see who had come in, your gaze met with a towering, golden-skinned man donned in a leather vest, his boots squeaking on the shop’s linoleum floor as he made his way to the front desk. He leaned over it and rapped his silver-ringed hand against the top with the ease and comfort of someone who had been in many times before. If the ink trailing his arms was any indication, he may as well be a regular, though you hadn’t seen him in before. There was no way you could forget that jawline, and those shoulders.

“Yo,” he called in greeting, eyes flashing to where you stood, walking to meet him at the counter. You swore you saw his gaze dart over your form, giving you the old up-down. An easy smile graced his full lips as he made himself comfortable leaning against the counter.

“Oliver here?”

You shook your head, the action serving to answer his question and --hopefully-- clear your head of the foggy spell this man was casting over you with his presence alone.

“Nah, sorry. He’s guest-chairing at his buddy’s shop in L.A. Did you have an appointment?”

“I look like the kind of guy with a datebook?” He chuckled at his own joke. “No appointment, corazón.”

“Walk-in? Always a risky strategy,” you lilted.

“What can I say? I’m a risk-taker,” he replied with the practiced ease of breezy flirtation.

You smiled softly, grabbing Oliver’s calendar from the desk, flipping to the following week. “He’ll be back in next week, if you want to wait?”

“That’s no good for me, babe, I’ll be out of town.”

“Ah.” You huffed a bit through your nose “Bike rally?” You asked, gesturing at his worn leather kutte, cringing internally a little at the teasing edge your voice had taken on. Were you always this bad of a flirt?

The man looked at you shrewdly for a beat -- seemingly trying to discern just how much fun you were making of him before taking mercy on you and peeling back the slight layer of awkwardness the conversation had taken. He scrubbed the back of his neck before confirming,

“Uh, yeah, actually,” he rumbled a chuckle. “Why? You wanna go?” He raised a full brow at you in a mild challenge.

Your eyes widened at his seemingly-serious invitation. You took in the quirk of his lips, causing the slightest crinkle at the corner of his warm eyes -- the look of a man borne of good humor and who smiled often. It was endearing, and if you were honest, made you melt a little. Even if you now realized he was teasing you.

“Sorry, guapo,” you cracked a smile of your own, gesturing at the empty shop. “As you can see, I’m a very busy girl. Highest of demand.”

“Claro,” he replied. “So, I better get in while the getting’s good, huh? Your chair open now?”

“Uhm,” you chewed your lower lip, now slightly nervous at the prospect of spending more time with this man. “¿Quieres esperar para Olí? I won’t be offended. You haven’t even seen any of my pieces.”

A beat of silence passed between you both, the man seemingly weighing his options.

"I mean," You broke the silence and leaned forward, lightly tapping a fingernail against his bicep. “What if my art style doesn’t suit the king of the bikers?”

"Something tells me you'll suit me just fine." His smirk was full-bore now. He didn't miss a beat, did he?

You were silent, probably for a few moments too long. Was he actually flirting with you? You blinked. He probably flirts with everyone ... get over yourself, you internally chided.

"Angel," the man said, recovering the moment and holding out a large, ringed hand for you to shake. You gave him your name, shaking his hand firmly.

You nodded your head over your shoulder, toward your chair.

"Well, come on back, Angel, you can tell me about what we're doing today."

Angel followed you back to your station, and you could swear you felt his dark eyes on your form as you walked, the thought that this man was looking at you with any kind of discerning attention made your cheeks warm a little. He folded his long body into the chair you gestured toward, and you took the rolling seat next to him. He proffered his left arm to you, tracing down a spot on his forearm.

"Just wanna cover this up," he paused, letting you observe the offending ink. "It's about time."

"'Clara Forever,' huh?" You took in the faded, loopy lettering down his forearm. "Who's Clara?" Your tone was gently teasing by nature, but he seemed to clam up a bit at the question, regarding your sharp tongue with sharper eyes.

"Well, it wasn't forever," he finally bit out, shoulders now a little more tense than before.

"Aw, cariño," you sighed in good-natured taunting. "Didn't anyone ever tell you the number one rule of tattoo? 'Forever' is a certain jinx. And a name is almost never a good idea… unless it's your dog's."

You made a sweeping hand gesture over the rest of his person, your eyes noticeably cataloguing the ink adorning most of the real estate on his arms and what little you could see of the top of his chest.

"How did anyone let you get this far without telling you the rules?"

He relaxed at the humor in your soft voice, comfortable now that he had confirmation that you were teasing him rather than seriously ridiculing. His posture relaxed once more, he waggled his eyebrows at you, also teasing,

"Le sorprendería saber que nunca fui uno para seguir las reglas?” He asked. Would it surprise you to learn that I was never one for rules?

"¿Tú?" Your eyes widened in mock surprise. “Para nada.” Not at all.

"Hey," he swatted your arm gently. "Cuidaté, niña. Insulting your customers? I can see why your chair is empty." He chuckled at his own little jab as you busied yourself gathering your supplies.

You turned and reached for him, holding his arm in one hand and running your now-gloved thumb over "Clara Forever."

"So?" You queried, "What are we doing with this? How do you want to cover it?"

Angel shrugged, the leather adorning his shoulders creaking ever-so-slightly with the movement.

"Figured I would just black it out. I've been putting it off long enough. To hell with her anyway, yaknow?"

"Hmm…" you considered his proposal. "I could do that, if that's what you really want. Easy enough. But…" you trailed.

He shifted in the chair, arching an eyebrow at you.

"But?" He pressed.

Now it was your turn to shrug. You released his arm from your grip and gestured to the booklet containing photos of your most prized work.

"Why waste the opportunity to give yourself something you really want?" You handed him the book. "Besides… from the looks of things, you have limited real estate left on this arm. May as well fill it with something… more you?” You made to hand him the scrapbook. “You can see what else I've done. See if anything sparks an idea."

Angel regarded you for a moment. Leaning forward in the chair and slightly more into your space, eyes never leaving yours. He took the edge of the book, deliberately brushing his fingers over yours as he did so, making you hold your breath a little. If Angel noticed, he had the decency not to say anything.

“Why not?”

You exhaled softly as he leaned away again, flipping his way through your book.

As he scrutinized the photographic renderings of your pieces, you took the chance to really take him in. His strong jaw and full lips were objectively pleasant, abutted by deliberately-shaped facial hair. He had a prominent brow, something that would surely give away his feelings, even if he decided not to verbalize them. There was no hiding a frown or a smile on that face. You fiddled with your fingers as he flipped through the pages.

“This is some seriously top-notch shit, querida,” he voiced his approval, followed by a warm smile. He flipped his way through your minimalist renderings, floral pieces, lines of script, and one particularly involved piece with a burgundy phoenix and lifelike flames...

“Yeah?” You couldn’t hide the pleasure in your voice that he might think of you in a positive light. “Which one do you like?”

He flipped the book to you, gesturing at a geometric planetary canvas piece you had etched down a prior client’s thigh.

“Did you think of that one?”

“The client had their ideas, I just execute, I guess… That was a fun one.” You shrugged, glancing at your shoes scuffing at the linoleum, suddenly feeling very shy under his scrutiny.

“Hey, don’t do that,” he leaned forward once more, his fingers gently brushing along your chin to bring your eyeline to his. “Don’t downplay your talent. You’re a badass. Own that shit.” He gave you a soft wink, releasing your chin from his grip.

Um, wow.

Was it always this hot in the back of the shop? Or were you just spontaneously combusting? Did that seriously just happen?

All you could do was nod.

“Aight,” he crossed his legs at the ankles, making himself comfortable in the chair. “I’ve decided.”

“Yeah?” You breathed, “What’ll it be?”

As if he was doing nothing more complicated than ordering fries, Angel pointed at your book. “Dealer’s choice.”

“Excuse me?” You couldn’t believe he was just going to trust you to cover up his ex’s name etched into his arm. “¡Oye! Did you hear nothing I said earlier about walk-ins being risky? Nothing about the rules?”

Angel scoffed. “About as well as you heard that I don’t give a shit about rules, babe,” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You like rules, huh?”

Oh. The rumbling tone his voice had taken on with his last question did not go unnoticed by you. If there was any heat to spare in this shithole desert-town, it was now one hundred percent flooding through your body.

But you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d had that effect on you… (although, let’s be real, he probably, definitely, already knew).

“Fine, Angelito,” the mocking tone had returned to your voice. “But unlike Clara, this one’s gonna be forever. If I find out you cover up my art, I’m gonna blacklist you at every shop in Southern California.” You raised an eyebrow at him in a challenge. “Can you live with that?”

Angel nodded.

“Do your worst, Vince.”

You wrinkled your nose at the moniker. “Vince?”

“Yeah,” he seemed so assured in his own cleverness. “Like Van Gogh?”

You rolled your eyes.

“Van Gogh!?” You feigned offense, hand-over-heart, lashes batting. “Not even Frida? Come oooon, Angelito.”

He chuckled. Shifting in the chair and offering his arm to you so you could get him ready.

“You gotta earn ‘Frida,’ dulcita.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” you sigh, shifting your focus and taking stock of the space on Angel’s arm and what you had learned of him so far.

Someone who was seemingly confident and breezy, whose rough exterior belied something softer that was just out of reach. Someone who clearly cherished things and people he adored, if the tribute you were now covering was anything to go by. And, by the same token, more than a little impulsive. He wore his heart on his sleeve, apparently literally.

You gathered your inks and began to work, your playlist and the buzzing of the tattoo gun filling the silence.

It’s not like you had any reason to know it, but Angel considered you as you were working, admiring your focus and the intensity with which you afforded your art. Was he a little nervous about the fact that you were free-handing a design for him off the top of your head? Maybe... But what was life without a little risk? And he certainly wouldn’t mind a little risk with you. You were, it was obvious to him, very pretty. It was more than a little off-putting how easily you traded quips with him, seemingly unaffected by his presence and everything that came with it. If it wasn’t for the little hitches in your breath when he gently flirted with you, he wouldn’t have anything to go off of in terms of your interest. Something that was both respectable and maddening to him.

He reached his other arm over to the side-table, grabbing your sketchbook and idly flipping through the etchings.

Not only was the book filled with little designs, splashes of watercolor mixing with pen and charcoal, but he noticed the cramped words in the margins, perusing at his leisure and ignoring the itching buzz of the needle on the skin of his other arm.

“So, not only a Vince, but a Frost,” he broke the silence.

You paused your work, wiping your brow with the back of your hand and looking at him with a question in your eyes.

He tapped his finger along the lines of prose in your book. “A poet,” he said.

“Ah,” you said. “Uhm, more like a bad poet,” you chuckled, embarrassed. You made to begin again, when Angel gently gripped the wrist of your free hand.

“The fuck did I just say?” He lightly tugged, forcing you to look into his maddeningly honey-dark eyes. “Don’t brush off your shit. Would Frida do that?”

You regarded his eyes for a moment longer, darting your gaze to his pouty lips, resolutely set in their mission of imparting some of his confidence onto you.

“Point taken, Angel,” you pulled your hand from his grip, which he released, trailing his fingertips over your hand as he did so. “I’m the greatest poet who ever lived, you’ve convinced me. Fuck William Shakespeare.”

“Yeah,” Angel boisterously agreed, pleased to be bolstering you but surprising you with the little barking shout, “Fuck that dude!”

You chuckled, shaking your head and silently returning to your work, the silence filled once more with the pleasant buzzing as you drew away.

When you were finished, you released Angel’s arm, allowing him to inspect the clean lines of the greenery that you had drawn out of his former-love tribute. What were once loopy, cursive letters were now vines creeping steadily along his forearm, soft, yellow and red gladiolus buds emerging from where Clara’s name had once sat, neatly finished with the clean lines of the purpling sprig of rosemary along the edge of the piece.

Angel was speechless, leaving you to marinate in your nerves.

“It’s …” he started, “... flowery,” he supplied, lamely.

“No shit it’s flowers,” you shot back, feeling a little defensive now, but wanting to make a quick recovery. “And they’re for you, Angel.”

He seemed puzzled.

“Gotta say, Vince, this is the first time a chick’s gotten me flowers,” he chuckled, “Guess they won’t die?”

“They won’t,” you assured. “They really are for you, you know? Look at you, the rest of your ink. What it covered. You’re clearly a man formed by your experiences. It only seemed right, si? Gladiolus? They’re for remembrance. Rosemary? Symbolizes thoughtfulness and memory.”

You continued as you began wipe the piece clean before wrapping it in new saran-wrap, “Your memories and choices make you who you are, sure. But you never know… something good could bloom from them, through the cracks."

His silence at the end of your little soliloquy was deafening. He hated it, you were sure of it. Fuck. Why did you have to get so fucking clever with him? You should’ve just done some black ink in something tribal, something masculine. What the fuck was wrong with you??

You dared to sneak a glance at his face, only to find that he was already staring at you, lips softly upturned in the hinting bloom of a smile, tarpit eyes twinkling with a good-natured mirth he would come to reserve just for you.

“Fuck Shakespeare. That was damn beautiful, Frida.”

The heat had returned to your cheeks, standing quickly.

You stripped off your gloves, and made to turn your way to the counter, gathering the aftercare sheet and balm for Angel to take with him.

You spun back toward him before he could get up.

“Oh! Can I take a picture?” You held up your phone, shaking it lightly. “For the ‘gram?”

“Sure thing,” Angel dutifully held his arm under the lamp you had used to work, letting the fresh ink and colors pop against the golden dunn of his skin.

You took a few photos, deciding to scroll through your camera roll later on and post your favorite. You made quick work of wrapping his arm in a sheet of clean plastic wrap before relinquishing your hold on his arm, turning to walk back to the counter.

“Uhm,” you trailed … the telltale squeak of Angel’s boots on the linoleum indicating he was following you back to the front of the shop. You assembled everything into a bag for Angel to take with him, grabbing one of your cards from the front card-holder, and quickly jotting your number on the back next to your where the instagram handle for your art page was neatly printed, hoping he didn’t notice your sneaky little move.

Angel resumed his comfortable lean against the counter, turning and tilting his forearm, scrutinizing your work.

“It’s gonna be a clean one-fifty, Angel.”

He looked slightly surprised at the figure, a light frown dusting his features.

“You sure about that? For the size, and the color, and time and everything? It’s been, like, hours.”

You shrugged.

“We’ll call it the friends-and-family rate.”

He gave you a long look, very clearly looking you up and down now, a prolonged edition of the greeting he had graced you with when he had entered your shop mere hours before.

“And is that what we are now, querida? Friends?”

How was it even possible for his voice to reach such a low register when he said these things to you?

While your insides flip-flopped at the flirtation, you hoped your face was the impassive mask you were trying to school it into. You subtly brushed your slightly-sweating palms against the frayed hem of your shorts before bringing an elbow up to the counter, resting your chin in your palm, lightly batting your lashes at him before responding...

“Sure,” you replied. There! Easy, breezy, cool-as-you-please. How does it feel, Angel?

“One day with you and friends already?” He rapped his ringed hand gently against the counter. “Can’t wait to see where we’re at tomorrow.”

He swiped the bag off of the counter, tossing a few crisp bills onto the countertop and a wink over his shoulder before exiting the shop.

You counted the bills on the counter, watching as Angel left the building.

Holy shit.

Three hundred bucks. He had tipped you 100 percent of what you charged him.

Cheeky.

Maybe Santo Padre wasn’t so bad, after all…

---

Now, staring at him from across the room made you feel like you were drowning in the sickly-sweet cotton candy of sugared dreams, now lost to time. The saccharine balm melted to acrid wax, leaving you with only the tinge of bitterness.

You were jostled out of your reverie by the sudden appearance of EZ’s blocky frame, ambling toward you with the same girl from before on his arm.

He greeted you with a slow wave and a soft smile.

“Hey, girl,” he greeted, clearly unsure of how much friendlier and closer he should approach you.

You took mercy on Angel’s sweet, (big) little brother, opening your arms slightly for a hug. EZ took to the gesture like an over-excited golden retriever, scooping you up and spinning you once, before putting you back where he found you, slightly dizzier than you were before.

He offered your name to the girl by his side, who looked pleasantly amused at the spectacle before her, her amusement melting to recognition at the name EZ had imparted to her.

Ah. So she knew who you were.

You tried not to let that realization sour your encounter, easing a practiced smile onto your features and offering your hand to the girl to shake.

“Oh!” EZ chuckled. “This is Gaby -- er, Gabriela.”

“Encantada,” you eased, gently shaking her hand before having a realization of your own. “Gaby, as in Leti’s friend?”

She nodded, a warm smile illuminating her already sunshiney features. You could see why EZ obviously liked her. She had the practiced social grace of a debutante, but the friendly aura of someone you had known for your entire life.

“I hope you’re keeping Ezekiel out of trouble,” you teased gently.

“Only as well as I can,” she replied. EZ rubbed the back of his neck as you two gossiped about him like he wasn’t standing right there.

“Listen, hermanita,” EZ began, swirling the dregs of his beer around the bottle clutched in his hand as the conversation lapsed into comfortable silence, “About Angel --”

That was a hard no.

“Coco!” You called as you spotted the lithe man prowling through the crowd after obtaining a drink from the bar, effectively shutting EZ up.

Coco sidled over, slinging an arm over your shoulder and nodding in greeting to EZ and Gaby.

“Wassup, chiquita? Over here with all the cool kids?”

“You know damn well I was never cool enough for the cool kids,” you knocked your shoulder into Coco’s good-naturedly.

“Dunno about that, pequeña,” Coco took a drag of his cigarette, sighing as he exhaled. “I’ve got some pretty cool body armour thanks to you.”

“All in a day's work,” you mock-saluted. You were doing great. Keep it light, keep it friendly. You may be able to make it out of this unscathed, after all.

Gaby and EZ were speaking softly to one another just to your side, as you and Coco continued your conversation.

“So, who’s the new guy?” You asked, nodding over to where Angel and the still-unnamed newbie were tossing back shots. You tried to ignore that each one had girls placed on each of their laps. Well, mostly you were trying to ignore one girl placed on one lap; tried to ignore as ringed fingers trailed up and down her thigh hypnotically as he howled in laughter at something the new guy had said.

The longer you stared at the way he was touching her, the more You thought you could feel it on your own skin. And you knew all too well how that touch felt. Memories, make you, right?

You blinked harshly, turning your face back to Coco’s, only to find his hawkish eyes trained on you as he continued to smoke. Now you were certain he had seen everything you had, and more. And you cursed yourself for slipping. Because nothing slipped past Coco.

He took mercy on you nevertheless.

“Andres. He’s aight. You may not remember him from before, when he was just a prospect.”

“Guess not,” you agreed, shrugging amiably, suddenly very interested in toying with the hem of your flowy little summertime skirt.

“Mierda,” you heard Coco hiss, glancing up to see none other than the new guy -- Andres -- walk over, his arm around the waist of the girl from his lap, accompanied by none other than Angel Reyes, furnished with his own lap-turned-arm candy. She was giggling in his ear, popping her gum and bumping her hips against Angel’s as she walked by his side.

You felt EZ stiffen from your other side.

Great.

The easy smile you’d had when conversing with Coco now felt positively screwed into place, settling unnaturally, a stranger's face made up of your own features.

Andres smirked at you in greeting, eyes trailing over you -- the most unwelcome iteration of that gesture in this context to-date.

“I hear you’re the girl to see about some ink.”

You bit back the snarky response that rose to your tongue. You see anyone else here, tonto?

“Sure am,” you replied, cool as you pleeeeaseeee. Maybe a little too cool. The ice in your voice was obvious to everyone except the strangers before you.

You really were doing great, weren’t you?

“Great,” the new meat brushed the girl off from his side, plopping unceremoniously into your chair. “You did that right?” He pointed behind you to where Angel was standing, gesturing at his arm and your miniscule mural of memorial greenery.

“Cierto.” You nodded, sparing Angel’s arm the barest of glances.

“Aight, well, none of that girly shit, alright, sweetheart? Angel may have had the good grace not to say anything, but flowers ain’t really my style, yeah?”

What the fuck.

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Coco visibly tense next to you, obviously displeased at the uncalled-for critique of your work. Of a piece he himself had often admired. He would never admit it, but he thought the story behind it was even better. It’s like you had walked out of some shitty romcom Leti watched with her tittering friends and into Angel’s dreams, sinking yourself beneath Angel's skin like a dream he would recount to all of his friends. Coco knew the most about you by nature of Angel's second-hand stories when you were together. Although Coco thought, once he had met you, Angel's stories didn't do you justice. How wonderful and talented you were. How warm and welcoming.

Angel watched the exchange silently, clearly none too keen to defend the piece you had designed for him. That had come to mean so much to you.

That stung.

You winced, almost imperceptibly. But you were certain Coco saw it, not much escaping his sniper’s eyes. EZ, with his owlish perception and photographic memory, certainly would have seen it, too. If Angel saw it, it’s not like he was going to say anything now.

Where the fuck was Aneesa? Wasn’t she supposed to be heading this kind of shit off? You glanced over at the couches in the corner where your friend had previously been sitting with GIlly, and was now nowhere to be seen. Fuckin’ typical.

“Aight, no más flores." No more flowers. “What were you thinking, then?”

That was you, ever the professional.

Andres showed you his phone, a rendering of an old-style beastly cat, like a panther from an old folktale, pulled up in his image search.

“Something for a warrior,” he puffed his chest slightly. “I was thinking here,” he shrugged out of one side of his new kutte, tugging the button-up to expose one side of his chest.

“You got it.”

You set to work, cleaning the area to be inked and getting your tools ready. The rest of the group drifted as the project progressed, clearly not feeling the need to stand there for the entire duration of a tattoo.

You were acutely aware that Angel hadn’t stepped as far away as the others, circumventing the periphery of yours and Andres’ space, not close, but not far. And he still had yet to even look in your direction. Or acknowledge your existence.

You tried your best to ignore the icy shard of Angel’s indifference that was currently wedging its way between your ribs and lodging itself firmly once more into your heart. At this point, you guessed it would never heal.

“Sooooo,” Andres lolled his head to the side of his chair to face you, slinging back the beer from the bottle dangling in his free hand. “I haven’t seen you in a while. You were around a little bit when I was prospecting.”

You opted not to respond, aware that Angel was likely listening, and you would need to choose any words carefully. Andres had no such reservation, clearly uncaring about who might be listening. He pressed on, each word more infuriating than the last.

“You were Angel’s little sidepiece for a while, right?”

You tried to keep your despairing sigh to a quiet little nothing.

“Sure.” You offered lamely. “Sorry, man, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really work better when I’m not talking.”

“S’alright, jaina. I can talk enough for the both of us.”

You hmm’d nonchalantly at that, lip imperceptibly curling over your teeth in distaste at the moniker. You chose instead to focus on the piece. You wouldn’t give a shitty tattoo, even if this guy was a douchebag. And the pleasant buzz of the tattoo gun. Maybe you were etching the lines a little sharper than strictly necessary. If he noticed, Andres gave no indication, continuing on with his diatribe:

“So, what happened? I mean, Angel knocked that other chick up? Ouch, right?”

You were now seeing red, the edges of your vision blurring slightly with angry, pinpricking tears. Thank fuck you were just about done with this.

“But that’s the life right? I mean, we’re not exactly known for being steady with just one chick. You know how it goes ...” He eyed you up and down again, lingering a little too long on your legs before finishing his thought with a smirk “... Clearly.”

You hated his use of “we,” like he was in any way, shape, or form worthy to be in the class of man EZ, Coco, Bishop, or, hell, even Angel, was. None of them would talk to you like this. No matter what Angel had done.

You shut off the gun, pushing back from the space with Andres, spinning in your chair, and grabbing the clean wipes for Andres’ fresh ink. As you dabbed the area and made to bandage it, the oblivious biker grabbed your wrist. None of the teasing fun or gentleness in the same gesture that Angel had imparted when you had first met. No, Andres’ grip hurt. It was all bruising possession and entitlement.

“I think we would have fun, you and I.” He leaned forward and far too into your space, the stale stink of warm beer heavy on his breath.

You wrenched your grip from his, standing quickly and offering him a tight smile, cheeks flaming with your anger and embarrassment. How dare he speak so trivially of your relationship with Angel. How dare he think you were so easily won with his kutte and shitty attitude.

“Uhm,” you tugged your fingers agitatedly through the ends of your hair, chewing your lip. “You’re all set, Andres. Aftercare sheet is on the table next to you. It’s on the house. Happy patch party!” Your voice sounded so shrill and fake in your own head, but you just didn’t have it in you to care at the moment.

With that, you quickly whirled on your heel, in a distressed flurry past the Angel-shaped blur who had been watching the entire encounter, and out of the clubhouse door into the cooler late-night air.

Getting heavy to breathe in this room together. It’s so awkward, we can’t seem to do it better. Can’t we just fake a smile and put our shit to the side?

---

Angel had waited a whopping 18 hours to text you after your clandestine tattooed meet-cute.

You were in the middle of exchanging consultation e-mails with a prospective client when your phone had buzzed.

“Vince?” The text read.

You bit back a smirk before responding,

“Vince? No Vince here. This is Frida’s phone.”

You watched as the little bubbles appeared in the corner, disappeared for a second, and then reappeared. You were grateful for the little manifestation of Angel’s hesitance. It made him seem more human. And it made you appreciative that he was clearly trying to choose his words with you, when words had seemed to come so easily to him when you had met.

“My bad. Oh, beautiful, talented Frida.”

You couldn’t hold back the smile on your features now. Grateful it was still you and only you in the shop so that no one could see your “obviously-texting-a-cute-guy” face.

“It’s nice to hear from you, Angel. Good thing you didn’t throw away the card.”

“That card was clearly a gift, querida. Much like the pretty flowers on my arm.” He snapped you a picture of his tattoo, the healing process underway.

“Looks great!” You sent, cringing at your lack of ability to effectively flirt via text. It was something that your friends had teased you relentlessly about back in the Town -- your notorious lack of game. No! New home, new you! Be cute. Be cute.

“So, if I’ve given you all the gifts, what do I get?” You sent with a “thinking” emoji.

Angel at least had the decency to wait a minute or two before replying, either thinking about his response or keeping you in suspense… you weren’t sure. But you were grateful for the little opportunity to catch your breath. How did he make you so speechless when he wasn’t even in the room with you? Some things just weren’t fair.

“Niña, I paid you for this ink. What more could you possibly want from me?”

Tricky Angel. Zorro. Like a little fox, he had effectively maneuvered the conversation back to you -- the ball was in your court. Would you tell him what you wanted?

You chewed the end of your fingernail thoughtfully before responding.

“You texted me, boy. Are you sure it isn’t you who wants something?”

If only your friends could see you now. That was damn smooth.

“Boy?”

You snorted to yourself. Trust a guy like Angel to get hung up on something small like that. The bubbles reappeared.

“I was thinking about this pretty girl I met the other day. Hell of an artist. But a shit poet. Thought I would see if she was free sometime?”

Angel was merciful. You could kiss him. Had he seriously just taken all the weight out of this conversation? Your heart felt a million pounds lighter in your chest, knowing he was asking you. The wave of relief that he wanted to see you again crashed through you, replaced in the tide with the backdraft of a feeling of mischievousness. You wouldn’t let him off so easily.

So you waited before responding. Let him sweat a little, right?

Only… you weren’t sure Angel was sweating as much as you were, fingers itching with the desire to text him back and accept immediately.

When what had felt like an eternity (but in reality had only been about seven minutes) had passed, you picked up your phone, opening the conversation with Angel.

“She’s free next Thursday … After your bike week, el rey de los bandoleros.”

You put your phone back down on the counter, grinning like an idiot, feeling like you had just swallowed a bunch of bubbles. You entertained the notion that if your combat boots weren’t keeping your feet weighted to the floor, you would have floated away.

Your phone dinged once more.

“See you then, mi reina.”

Time passes slowly the more you want it to go quickly. And whenever you have a deadline you’re dreading, it gallops ahead. Time really is that bitch, and she does not give a fuck about your feelings.

The following Thursday felt like it took a year to arrive. But it found you closing up the shop, your stomach fluttering with butterflies and pop rocks, adorned in your favorite pair of jeans and boots, a clean, flattering tank top that showed off your own ink. You hoped it was fine for whatever Angel had in mind.

Honestly, he hadn’t said anything about your date. A few flirtatious texts here and there? Obviously. You sent him photos of the pieces you had done for new clients. He sent you ridiculous selfies and a couple of group pics of him and his friends at the biker event. One guy who kept popping up in the photos, Angel had told you, was his “little” brother. But there was nothing “little” about that dude.

You loved seeing all of Angel’s goofy, smiling faces. Treasuring the photos in your small moments of quiet downtime.

The rumbling of a bike engine greeted your ears, like the seductive purr of a large cat. You glanced up, a full Cheshire grin alighting your features at the sight of Angel’s gorgeous, deep forest green bike, and the man of the hour looking very at home on the seat.

He rolled to a stop in front of you, unclipping his helmet and dismounting with his winning trademark smirk, ambling over to greet you.

“Frida,” he scooped you into a hug, his tall frame causing you to lift, your toes now barely brushing the ground as he brought you to his height. He pressed a soft kiss to your check, setting you down gently and letting you get your bearings, chuckling pleasantly at the obvious, dizzying effect his greeting had had on you.

“Angelito,” you returned. “Back in one piece?”

“Hail to the king, baby,” he countered.

“Yeah, yeah,” you teased, scuffing the toe of your boot into the gravel of the lot. “So, where are you taking me, o benevolent one?”

“Just gonna hafta find out.” He handed his helmet to you, helping you clip and tighten it beneath your chin. “Ever ridden before?”

“Uhm, well, sure” you replied too assuredly, quickly realizing your slip. “I mean, no. Not like that. I mean, yes, like that. But not on one of these.” Fuck. Could you be more embarrassing?

Angel released a full-bellied laugh at your response, his head tossing back a little.

“You’ll have to tell me more about alla that later, cielo.” You put your head in your palm willing the embarrassment to go away. Angel quickly pried your hands away, cupping your cheeks with his own warm hands, long fingers brushing your cheekbones reverently. “In the meantime, just hang on, okay?”

You nodded, still cursing your idiot-brain that had partnered with the dirtiest corners of your mind to take over your mouth. Shut the fuck up, dumb-dumb.

You clung to Angel as he drove, your hands roaming his firm torso probably a little too-familiarly. You enjoyed the way the wind whipped around you, tugging at yours and Angel’s clothes as you made your way up the canyon overlooking the desert that was Santo Padre.

Angel parked his bike on the ridge overlooking the town, the sun beginning its descent in the desert sky in swirling hues of pastels and cotton candy pink-purple-blue overtaking the orange hue.

You had never been up here before, and you told Angel as much. He looked pleased at that, pleased that he was the one to show you the best view of the Santo Padre sunset.

Angel busied himself unpacking the bags on the side of his bike while you enjoyed the scenery. Pulling out a couple of wrapped sandwiches and bottles of water, he handed yours to you, coming to stand next to you on the ridge.

"Thanks," you acknowledged, looking at the offerings. "What, no beer?"

Angel chuckled a little at that.

"I ain't tryna liquor you up, niña. Besides, you want warm beer that's been rattling around on my bike all afternoon?"

You crinkled your nose a little at that. "No," you decided. "Never mind. Besides, I'm more of a whiskey girl."

Angel glanced at you, sipping on his own water idly.

"Really?"

"Really," you confirmed. "Don't tell me you're one of those guys who thinks it's impressive when a girl drinks whiskey because it's such a 'man thing.' "

Angel held up one hand, defensively.

"Nunca. Just took you for more of a… dunno? Maybe a rum kinda girl?"

"Don't think so. For now, though? Water and sandwiches do me just fine. Whiskey can come later." You took a bite of the now-unwrapped sandwich. "This is good," you confirmed around a slightly-full mouth. "Did you make this?"

"Of course. Pop owns the butcher shop down the street from your parlour. Sliced the meat myself, an' all," he said, a little proudly now that he knew you approved of his sandwich-making skills.

"Bueno," you giggled. "Thank you for this, Angel. Really. This is one of the nicest nights I've had since moving here." You shuffled a little closer to where he was standing, looking in his eyes as you thanked him.

"Bah," he waved away your compliments, "it ain't alla that. This can't be the most exciting thing you've done since getting here."

"Maybe it is," you pressed. "I dunno. Maybe I'm too boring for the king of the bikers?"

"I doubt that very seriously, querida," he turned his body so he was facing you now, sandwich long gone, fiddling with the water bottle in his hands. "You play your cards right, I'll introduce you to the rest of the club. Then things'll get really exciting."

You blinked. One date and he already was thinking about introducing you to his friends? Your inner shy romantic (okay, not so "inner," right? You're pretty clear about who you are) was doing little somersaults in your chest.

You must've been silent a beat too long because Angel was quick to supplement, "Only if you want."

"I'd like that," you confirmed, nodding and smiling gently.

"So, are you gonna tell me what brings an East Bay girl here?"

You raised a brow. You didn't remember telling him where you moved from. He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck nervously, realizing you'd caught his slip.

"I maaaay have scrolled your Instagram?"

You finished your sandwich, thinking about how much you wanted to tell him.

"Just time for a change of scenery. Olí is an old friend, and he offered me a job. I think he wants to travel more." You shrugged, "It just felt like it was time. Plus, I dunno… I like it here. Much quieter."

Angel nodded at that, not having the heart to tell you that his club was not at all quiet and was the source of the disruption in the otherwise-quaint town.

You kept talking, telling him about the friends you'd left behind, your old shop, weekends spent in the park surrounding Lake Merritt, and going to Raiders games. Angel took in your features as you spoke, the golden light of the sunset making you glow like something out of a dream he'd had once. Your eyes sparkled as you talked about things you loved, the books and art that inspired your poetry. How you'd gone to art school. You were something.

"-- Sorry, I'm rambling," you breathed in a rush, flush with the amount of talking you'd been doing in a record amount of time. "What? Do I have something in my teeth?"

Angel realized he'd been staring as long as you'd been talking.

"No, querida. Nothing in your teeth." He gave you a dazzlingly white smile.

"Oh thank God," you returned his smile with a small one of your own, shying a little under his gaze, and wondering how long he had been looking at you like that as you'd talked.

He leaned over you now, his height giving him the definite advantage as he'd -- not unwelcomely-- invaded your space. He brought one hand up to cup your chin, his dark eyes revealing flecks of sparkling gold in the pastel wash of the sunset as his gaze once again met yours.

You saw his quick glance down at your lips, you unconsciously giving a small nod before his warm lips met yours.

Oh.

You had obviously been kissed before, been the recipient of past romantic attention. All of that paled in comparison, melting away as Angel's full lips maneuvered over yours, both of his large, calloused hands gently brushing your cheeks as he cupped your face, sliding one hand down to rest on the side of your neck.

You sighed lightly, one of your own hands twined into his shirt, the other resting on the side of his firm torso.

Angel took the opportunity to slide his tongue past your lips, your own brushing against his as the kiss deepened.

You were in no hurry for the kiss to end, enjoying the way everything about Angel was so warm, something that was surprisingly welcome, despite the ever-present desert heat of Santo Padre. You could get used to this.

You had only known Angel a short time, realistically. Your one meeting spawning a series of flirtatious texts and snaps, and now this date that, while low-key, felt almost too perfect to be real. He made you feel safe, desired.

You could already feel him slipping beneath your skin to rest in a special place in your heart. And while you as a person were generally reticent to share that part of yourself with anyone, you had a feeling Angel could take up permanent residence there. If he wanted.

You dropped from your tip-toes, effectively breaking the kiss.

Angel blinked, looking down at you and noting the pleasant glow on your skin, lips now slightly swollen from his kiss. He could get used to this.

The rest of the evening passed in a pleasant blur, trading quips and stories as the sun went down. Angel told you about his club, his brothers. About his pop and Ezekiel, and how at one time, he enjoyed being the bigger brother, teasing, pranking and lording over EZ until EZ had hit his growth spurt and could (and would) definitely hit back.

As he drove you home, you snuggled a little bit against him, pressing yourself into his back and enjoying the way you swore you could feel his heart pounding through the kutte and over the rumble of the bike and the road.

He'd dropped you off with a parting kiss and the promise of another date.

Another date turned into several. Time you weren't at the shop was now spent with Angel, showing him what you were working on, inviting him over for dinners and to watch mindless television while he told you what he could about his day.

The both of you were slowly peeling back the layers around your respectively guarded hearts, revealing more of yourselves only to be met with pure acceptance by the other. Even blindados had to take off their armour at some point.

You cherished your time with Angel, and he quickly found himself stumbling, head over his own biker-booted heels for you.

After a few months had passed, he had brought you to meet the club. You had manifested nothing but general acceptance of his lifestyle and were eager to meet the people Angel had so obviously cared for. Who had helped shape him into the brash but conscientious person he was with you.

And one sunny afternoon had found you bringing lunch you had made for the entire club over to the scrapyard, Angel agreeing with your plan. You never were one to show up empty-handed.

As you walked across the yard, past the gate, and into the clubhouse, your eyes adjusting to the dim interior from the blinding sun outdoors, Angel bounded over to greet you. Taking the bag full of homemade goodies from your arms, he pressed quick kisses to your cheeks, and one to your forehead.

He turned, met with the pleasantly-surprised stares of his brothers. He announced your name to the room before turning to you, pointing at each man and supplying a name. You nodded, smiling and offering a warm wave to each.

The man you knew to be EZ from all of Angel's initial texts and photos quickly strode over to you, shaking your hand in his impressively firm grip before bending down to press a quick kiss to your cheek with a,

"Bienvenido, hermanita. Angel's told me a lot about you. Won't shut up, really," giving you a sly wink as Angel swatted EZ's arm in annoyance at his brother's revelation.

Boys.

The smaller man with the sharp eyes and full curls you knew to be Coco made his way over to where you were now seated as Angel went to get you both drinks, the other men digging into your offerings as you made yourself comfortable.

He sat next to you, tossing you a, "You mind?" Lighting his cigarette after you’d shaken your head.

He studied you through his own plumes of smoke before leaning across the table and speaking to you, lowly and with an almost conspiratorial rasp to his voice,

"You did that cover-up for Angel?" He asked on a smooth exhale.

"Mhmm," you nodded. "He gave me free reign. I was nervous he'd hate it."

Coco seemed to chew over your words for a dragging moment. You shifted in your seat. He was definitely sizing you up.

"Bold move, pequeña, giving the secretario of a biker club a sleeve of flowers."

"I suppose it was," you sighed, more than a little uncertain now. "But it felt meaningful, right, I guess. I just sort of… started drawing. I… think it worked out, though?" You trailed off.

Coco nodded. "It's a fuckin' good piece, mami. Angel told me what you'd said about memories making you who you are." He snorted lightly through his nose. "It's funny. We've never even met before, and you're already sounding like me."

A small smile played across his lips, returning it with one of your own.

"I'm glad you approve," you nodded. "Angel's opinion obviously matters, and don't tell him I told you this, but it means alot coming from one of his family."

And that's what they were. His family. You could see it. The obvious camaraderie and care underlying each of their actions with the other. You admired the system of support, cushioned by good humor, despite being flung regularly into harsh reality. It was clear -- they were there for one another.

Coco's voice broke your train of thought,

"Maybe you got space for me in your books one-a these days?"

Your small smile was a full-blown, sunny grin now.

"Of course. Anytime you want to drop by, you're more than welcome."

"Gracias, chica." Coco leaned across the table and patted your shoulder before getting up and taking his leave.

And so it went. The boys would filter through your shop. Olí teasing you about his offense that all of his most lucrative, inked clients were now going to you.

You enjoyed the time working on pieces for them afforded you -- offering you a glimpse into their inner workings, what they felt was important enough to take up permanent residence along their skin. Making idle chit-chat with you while you worked. And always, always sharing embarrassing little anecdotes about Angel.

The months passed with you and Angel, finding comfort in your unpredictable, but welcome, respective routines.

One night in particular found Angel wrapped up in your embrace, the physical embodiment of your gradual and growing trust in one another.

He had arrived home more than a little rattled, his eyes wildly darting to the corners of the room before settling in you, exhaling a shaky breath before striding the length of the room and crushing you to him, pressing a bruising kiss to your lips.

You understood he probably couldn't tell you what had happened, but you asked anyway, needing him to know you would hear him.

"Angelito, everything okay?"

He shook his head softly in the negative, but didn't elaborate.

You pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"Okay. We don't have to talk about it," you wound your arms up and around his neck, pulling him impossibly closer to you. "But it's going to be okay. I've got you. I won't let go."

He gripped your wrists, pulling your hands from his neck and sliding your arms down, bringing them to rest around his waist. Once he had positioned you where he wanted, he brought his hands to cup your cheeks, eyes heavy and dark with the weight of his stormy thoughts.

He nodded at what you had said before bringing his lips back to yours.

You brought one hand up to meet his, where it rested along your cheek. You twined your fingers through, joining your hands while breaking the kiss. You lead him through the apartment, bringing him to the bedroom. You had music softly playing from your speaker in the corner, candles lit to bathe the room in ambient glow and a warm, honey smell, all in anticipation of Angel's eventual arrival home.

You silently gestured for him to sit on the edge of the bed, where you took your seat next to him.

You tugged the leather kutte from his shoulders, folding it reverently and placing it on the chair near the bed. He exhaled in relief, shoulders sagging once the leather manifestation of his obligation to a darker world had been removed. The weight of the world a little less on the mantle of his shoulders.

You turned your attention to his feet next, unlacing and tugging off his boots. Then, his belt.

Once he was just in his jeans and his t-shirt, you resumed your seat at his side, bringing him back into your embrace and carding your hands through his hair, as his head rested on your shoulder.

Angel spoke, voice cracking as he broke the seal of silence in the room.

"It was… it was awful, Frida." He sighed. "I do everything they ask. It's my job … Fuck. Sometimes I wonder how much more my heart can take. But then, I get to come home to you."

His breath was shuddering now.

And while you didn't always know what to say -- it was a rare sight to see Angel so rattled. But you were a caregiver by nature, ready to give him the pieces of yourself that would make him feel whole.

You guided him down so that he could recline, you came to rest at his side, winding your arms around his torso, your face turned into his neck, cuddling him as he came down from the mania of his emotional high.

The moments passed, Angel's breathing leveling again as you stroked his hair in time to the soft music.

He turned his head to look at you, admiring the flutter of your lashes as you blinked at him, your gaze warm and adoring, full of twinkling fairy light and starshine.

"Te amo, querida," Angel breathed. This was not the first time he had said it to you during your months together. But each time felt as momentous as the first, each declaration of love felt like the slip of something sweet, and you were determined to store it in your heart and mind forever.

"I love you too, Angel. More than anything," you murmured. "I love your smile, your sense of humor, your strength." You pressed kisses to his face and neck with each admission. "Mostly, I love your strength. And that you trust me enough to tell me when you don't always feel it."

He sucked in a shuddering breath before whispering to you,

"I love your mind. How creative you are. How you see everything so beautiful, just like you," he hmm’d. "Mostly I love your trust. And that you choose to give it to me."

You kissed him again, leaning over him with your entire body, pressing your palms gently into his shoulders.

As your kiss deepened, you each began to tug at the other. His hands carded through your hair, tugging gently, but firmly. You lifted his shirt from his torso, the kiss breaking so you could peel it away.

You divested one another of each layer, baring yourselves to the other, body and soul. Again, this wasn't the first time you had done this. But this felt momentous nonetheless.

Angel skimmed his hands over your form, running his hands softly down and over your breasts, loving your soft sigh at his touch.

You leaned over him once more, reluctantly removing his hands from you, and placing them gently down at his sides.

"Your heart is mine, mine to protect," You hummed softly, invading his senses and placing kisses down Angel's neck and to his chest, trailing your lips lovingly over Angel's heart, and pressing one last deliberate kiss there. "And I take my job very seriously."

As you kissed him, you lightly trailed your fingers down his torso, coming to rest at his hip.

Your declaration was met with silence; you glanced up at Angel through your lashes only to find him already looking down through heavy-lidded eyes at you, his now swirling with some unnamed, weighted emotion.

You trailed your hand across his hip, not breaking eye contact as you took his hardening length into your hand. He inhaled sharply at the sensation of your grip, but refused to look away as you began to pump him slowly, still pressing kisses to his hips, torso and thighs.

"Please, querida," Angel gasped.

"Please, what?" You murmured back, your voice taking a throaty register you reserved strictly for private moments with your beloved.

"Please… use your pretty mouth?"

You nodded.

"Relájate, baby, I've got you," you assured. Sweeping your hair back, the action washing Angel with the sweeping comfort of your scent as you made your way lower down his body.

Angel slumped back against the bedspread, glittering galaxy eyes still trained on you as you lavished him with attention.

You took the opportunity to flatten your tongue, licking a broad stripe up the length of him, one hand braced against his firm thigh, the other holding him gently at the base of his cock as you worked.

You swirled your tongue around the tip of him, delighted at his throaty moans, feeling the effect they had on you, making you feel like you were burning from the inside, feeling the slickness from your own center as your thighs rubbed together.

Taking Angel wholly into your mouth now, you bobbed over him, relishing in the heavy feel of him in your mouth and the throaty groans you received from Angel in response.

Before you could spend too long lavishing him with attention, Angel tugged on your hair at the base of your neck. Following his grip, you lifted your head and released him from, watching (a little greedily) as his thick length bobbed against him when you relinquished him from the confines of your mouth.

He guided you up his body, hand still knotted in your hair, pushing his mouth onto yours, uncaring of the saliva on your lips and chin, and the taste of himself on your tongue.

You straddled his hips, surging the rest of the way up his body and effectively deepening the kiss. The hand that was once in your hair now made its way to loosely grip at your throat, the other skimming his way down your breasts, across your ribs and toward your center.

As his fingers traced through your folds, you involuntarily rolled your hips into his hand, alight at his touch, and desperately seeking more.

Angel touching you was like the shock of a live wire. Every time felt just as electric as the last, goosebumps erupting across your flesh as his fingers traced across your skin.

He chuckled through your fused mouths, drawing back at your reaction and the wetness he found between your legs.

"Eager, amor?" Every word fell that fell from his lips sounded like a dangerous purr.

You nodded, drunk on the way Angel's hand gently squeezed your throat, while the other was teasingly making its way to-and-fro across your wet folds, occasionally making his way up to lightly circle and press his thumb over your clit, making your eyelids flutter. Your hips continued to rock against his hand, silently begging for more, his teasing touch making you more than a little crazy.

"Yeah?" Angel asked, his voice thick and syrupy, the timbre like dark clouds. "That shit turn you on? Sucking my cock?"

His words combined with his touch made another rush of heat flood through you. You were certain you would pass out, that your knees would buckle. And you were doing so well, holding your place up and over his hips while he played with you.

The hand on your throat gripped a little tighter, causing your eyes to flutter shut.

"Nuh-uh, baby," he shook you lightly, all mirth gone from his eyes, no more pleasant, smiling crinkles at the corners. His full lips pressed firmly together. "I asked you a question. You answer that shit"

He pressed two fingers teasingly against your entrance, refusing to insert them, despite the little roll of your hips.

"Y-yeaahh," you sighed, head tossed back, "I-I fucking love it -- love you, Angel."

He rewarded you by sliding a long finger into you, allowing you to ride his hand. The hand still around your throat guiding you forward, over him, allowing him to press hot, open-mouthed kisses, first to your lips, dirty and raw, like an exposed nerve in his unabashed want for you.

He relinquished his hold on your neck, allowing him to trail his lips and his tongue there, kissing you softly behind your ear, down and around your neck to your collarbones, all while his fingers continued their earnest treatment inside of you, his thumb now pressing to your clit, your warming crescendo building.

Using his height and the fact that you were straddling him, Angel encouraged you to lean forward, allowing him to capture one of your breasts in his grip, his mouth following. His warm tongue swirled around your nipple before he sucked the bud into his mouth, grazing his teeth ever so gently over your sensitive flesh.

Angel's attention was rewarded with your gasping sighs and breathy moans. How anyone could make you feel this good was beyond you. Angel had an uncanny ability to elicit responses and feelings like no other person before him.

You felt the thrumming hum and warm, sticky wave of your orgasm building as Angel worked his fingers inside of you, stroking that particular spot from within that he knew would be your undoing.

"O-oh," you whined, keening noises caught in your throat. "Please, baby, I n-need you. Need you inside."

The room was sweltering. Or was it just you? Angel withdrew his fingers smoothly, not sparing you the chance to be disappointed at the loss of feeling as he smoothly flipped the two of you, guiding you down to the mattress and hovering over your trembling form.

"Yeah?" Angel asked. "You ready for that, querida?"

You gazed up at him through your lashes, longingly. He would give everything, anything, that he had in the world if you only looked at him like that forever, gaze full of warmth, heat, and unfiltered, starry adoration.

"Mmm," you nodded, "Please? Angel?"

He was only a man, after all. Who was he to refuse when you asked so prettily for him?

He gently turned you over so that your back was to him, running his hands down the slope of your back and guiding you to your knees, propping your hips up.

Positioning himself behind you, Angel resumed his grip on your throat, using it to guide your head around so that he could kiss you again while he guided himself inside of you. You moaned into the kiss at the sensation, never tired of feeling every ridge of his thick cock sliding into you like he belonged there.

Angel groaned, breaking the kiss and shaking his head, chuckling darkly, his eyes flashing as he swore,

"Never fuckin' get tired of that shit," he began to move his hips, using his other hand that was gripping your hip to guide you along his lengthy, meeting his thrusts. "Never tired of your pussy … You're so … good."

Angel's words coupled with his thrusts were driving you crazy, causing you to eagerly meet him with the momentum of your own hips, the heat in the room spliced with the distinctive noise of his skin meeting yours.

Angel, leaning over your back, crowded your every sense, the taste of him, of his kisses still lingering on your tongue. Your ears met with the harmony of your two bodies and the filthy words and sounds coming from Angel's mouth. The sight of him was as intoxicating as ever, as you looked over your shoulder at him, the shadows of the room playing across his tawny skin, glimmering in the low light with the sheen of sweat you knew was also present on yours.

“Say my name,” Angel pants into the slick skin on your back, kissing a line down your spine, his body covering yours possessively.

You were too caught up in everything Angel, failing to respond quickly enough for his liking as you gasped at every thrust.

A crack of heat flashed across your ass, Angel swatting you there once. You should be annoyed, but you couldn't lie -- you fucking loved it when he was like this. Only for you.

"A-angel," you sighed, the crescendo of your orgasm climbing, threatening to burst any second, you tightening around Angel.

"Bueno," he purred. "You close? Yeah, you fucking are," Angel snarled, taking in the way you threw your hips back desperately to meet him, squirming one hand beneath you to touch yourself. "You can have it, baby, I'll make it good. You just gotta ask pretty for me."

You deepened the arch in your back, flexing your hips back toward Angel, and gripping the bedspread before you in your fingers, face pressed flush with the sheets, your other hand still pressed to your clit.

Angel tilted your head, leaning over further and gripping your jaw, squeezing to pucker your cheeks. He kissed you, sucking your lower lip between his. He kissed you gently, a deceptive contrast to the hand gripping your face, his hips snapping into yours at a now-brutish pace. He pecked another light kiss to your lips, followed by another, gently biting your lip and dragging it lightly as he drew his face from yours.

He released your lips as you whispered another plea into his mouth.

"Come on then, baby."

Your orgasm washed over you, pinpricks of striking matches splintering across your skin, followed by a euphoric wave of white-heat, blissfully soothing every nerve it had just lit.

Angel followed, emptying himself into you with a few final thrusts, groaning at the way you tightened just so around him.

He withdrew gently, collapsing next to you as you both caught your breath.

Your lashes fanned your cheeks as you blinked hazily at the form of your love through the soft glow of the room.

"I do love you, Angel," you told him, leaning across the sheets to rub your nose back and forth against his, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, grazing your soft fingers against the lines of his forehead, easing them away into an expression of soft serenity. "Always."

---

Now, you walked out of the clubhouse, around to the side of the porch, a quiet corner away from the noise. Willing yourself to calm down as small, hot tears trickled their way, uninvited, down your cheeks.

Your thoughts were moving a million miles a second, the battle of luck you were waging with the universe saw you quickly losing.

The year you spent with Angel replaying itself in your mind. Every word, every touch, that goddamn tattoo. Remembrance, my ass. How you would hold him when he came home too high-strung and strung-out emotionally for words. How you would save the best leftovers for him when you knew he had been away and would be craving the Chinese food from the place down the block when he got back. How he felt inside of you on the coldest nights and in the most tender mornings. How he would whisper enchanting endearments into the shell of your ear as he rolled his hips into yours, your mind and body completely his. How you would wear his shirts and overly-large socks around his apartment, leaving doodles and scribbled poems on sticky notes for him to find in his moments alone. How he kissed you warmly, his tongue sweeping into your mouth like syrupy possession that you never wanted to end.

How it did end. How he had thrown out your world, crumpled it into a crushed paper ball and tossing it away with the carelessness of a child. Ending things with seemingly no spare thought for your feelings. How EZ had let slip when he saw you in town that Angel was expecting a kid, the timing of everything suddenly making a little more sense. How it made you feel, now that you knew you were wholly his, but he was never entirely yours. How you had kept to yourself in the months that followed, the cracks in your heart widening until you felt like you would drown in them.

The pulse of your feelings for him, always strong; they warm you. But it was still you they all left behind.

Your thoughts were still swirling when, off to the side, you heard the porch door open and close again, and you prayed that whomever was coming outside was going to have a smoke out front, or that they were on their way out. That they wouldn’t find you.

But of course, these things never worked out how you wanted them. You cursed any god you could think of for just how un-fucking-lucky you were sometimes.

Because, really, who other than Angel was making his way around the porch to you? Taking in your hunched form as you leaned over the railing, looking anywhere but at him.

Of fucking course.

You kept your eyes down, focused in your clasped hands as you leaned over the railing, refusing to look at him.

And now? Now he was looking at you, and it's the one time you wished he wouldn't.

One thing you wouldn't do, now that he was here, was break the silence first. He didn't want to hear what you'd had to say, so why would you grace him with your thoughts now? Petty? Sure. But you weren't the one in there with your hands on some ass while a so-called friend harassed your ex.

A few uncomfortable beats dragged on before Angel broke the silence, shattering it like glass with a verbal hammer.

"What'd he say to you?"

You remained silent.

"What the fuck did he say, Frida?" His voice angry now, demanding. The same tone he used to break your heart.

"It ain't working. Not my fuckin’ fault you can't see it."

You rolled your eyes, another shard of icy glass painfully wedging into your heart at his use of the name. Still refusing to look in his direction when you replied, softly but sharply,

"You know exactly what he said. What I'm trying to figure out is why, exactly, you care."

"I care, Frida," was all he offered.

You snorted in response. Undignified, sure. But couldn't he see this was killing you? Where was his mercy?

"I do," he insisted, the thud of his boots across the wood of the porch indicating that he was crossing to you, coming to stand a ways behind you.

"I'm not going to do this with you. He said some shit. It's over. We move on. What more could you have to say about that?"

Keep it simple, keep yourself safe. You gave him nothing to say back. And then…

"And if I told you I wanted you? I wanted you back?"

You whipped your head around to -- finally -- meet Angel's eyes, which you did for a fleeting moment before zeroing in once more on your shoes, staring resolutely at the ground. You were not going to let him see you cry again, godfuckingdamnit.

The fleeting glimpse of his face, of his eyes meeting yours once more after all this time, was enough. He looked more tired up close than he had before. Still unfair in his striking beauty, his midnight eyes still enough to pull you in, drown you in their oceanic depths. You hated it. Hated that he still had that power over you. But try as you might, you couldn't hate him.

Your silence was killing Angel with the precision of a thousand miniscule cuts. Each deeper than the last. Until he couldn’t take it any longer. He reached through the space between, for where your hand rested on the railing. You saw the gesture coming, and whipped your hand away at the last moment, cradling it to your chest like he had burned you. You faced him fully now.

You chuckled softly, wryly, and devoid of any humor before you muttered, "You don't want me, baby. Please don't lie."

“And how do you know that’s a lie?” Angel mumbled thickly, working his tongue around the words, through his own emotion.

You scuffed your toe into the hewn wood of the deck, shrugging before you responded, simply,

“If I was what you wanted, you wouldn’t have gone looking elsewhere. And you certainly wouldn't have found someone else. You wouldn’t have said what you said, ended it like you did, with everything on just your terms.” You sighed deeply, with the rattle of tears lodged into your chest before you spoke again, “You made up your mind and never even let me say a word. If you wanted anything to do with me, you could have at least given me a word.”

Angel blinked, hard. The familiar pressure of real tears building behind his eyes. You were right of course. And fuck, weren't you always? You'd always told him like it was, harsh truths that only you could cushion in your gentle, empathetic way.

"Please, querida, just let me explain what happened--"

You held up your hand, shaking your head firmly, effectively silencing Angel.

"No!" Much softer now, "No. I- I'm sorry, Angel, I don't mean to be rude. But, no." Your voice small, but clear, as you'd finally gotten your opportunity to say something back to him. "I, uh, I don't want to hear any explanation, and you really don't have to?"

You lilted the last part like it was a question, but continued on.

"You, um, you've had a lot of time to tell me something, anything, about what the fuck happened. And you didn't. You left me with nothing. Just confusion and hurt, and I've made peace with that. It's taken a while, but … I just… I don't need that from you. I gave you space, always respected your decisions and opinions, and now you won't do the same. You're still trying to take from me. Offering me an explanation now?" You scoffed. "That isn't for me, and don't fuckin’ act like it is -- it's for you. And I understand that, that's fine. I'm not angry at you for that, but I'm also not going to humor it."

You exhaled shakily, you couldn't believe you'd said all of that, that you had made it through.

Angel was speechless. It made your heart feel even sicker -- all of this silence from him for so long, and he'd offered to explain himself and you'd (gracefully) told him to fuck off. Why had you done that??

It was about time you'd stood up for yourself, that's why.

An explanation would be nice, sure. But where Angel's words, whispered affirmations and heady declarations of love, had once made your soul swell and sing… now, you knew, anything he'd had to say to you would only serve to do the opposite.

And your heart, perpetually bruised by nature of you being a hopeless romantic, just couldn't take it.

You hopped off the porch, spinning around to face Angel, finding his eyes on you still. Hadn't you wished for him to look at you? To really see you once more?

"I'm out," you tossed a thumb over your shoulder toward where you'd parked your car. "Sorry, I don't mean to abandon the old post, but uh, I'm sure you guys have someone to fill in. I'll text Aneesa to grab my stuff, don't worry about it."

Like he would, you thought.

You were mostly rambling to yourself, and not really to Angel, as you backed away, fleeing to your car.

Angel watched you go, the resonant ache in his chest that had been ever-present since tossing your stuff out, amplified when Luisa had left him, and now sure to be permanent, buried in cement beneath the weight of his every decision, and every word.

You looked good, he thought. Your hair was longer than when he'd seen you last. Your little skirt flouncing as you strode away. Your skin still glowed, full lips still twisted into that wry smile of yours that he had seen from across the room. All of that was true, but your eyes were also tired, and your smile never quite reached them.

The thought that he was responsible for dimming that sparkle made him feel sicker than he already had. The way you had brushed off Andres, despite his obnoxious insistence, and the things the cocky new patch had said to you -- may as well add those to the ever-growing pile of things stained and tainted by Angel's guilt.

And he was left alone with that guilt as you left the lot. He turned back to the party. His cool facade slipping back into place. Not ready to face the wrath of EZ and Coco, surely waiting inside to proverbially beat his ass.

What would you say if I come over? And we stand face to face now that we're older?

---

Angel shuffled into his apartment, the late hour catching up to his weary form as he ambled over to his bedside, flicking on the lamp.

Rubbing a large hand down his face, he sat on his bed in a huff of exhaustion. Your first encounter in months since he'd all-but tossed you from this very room was pricking him with a kind of nauseating nervous energy. But all he wanted to feel in that moment was you, whether he deserved it or not.

He'd still had it, didn't he? Where was it?

He pulled open the drawer of his nightstand, fishing through its contents for what he hoped was still in there.

His fingers curled over his prize -- a slip of paper adorned with your handwriting. Scrawled lines of poetry on a neon pink Post-It note, curled with age and disuse, something you had left for him while he slept in one morning.

“I was thinking of you,” you had said when he had asked you about it later, shrugging as if it were the most matter-of-fact thing in the world.

Your love for him was clean in its simplicity and forwardness, whenever he could wade his way through the mire of your shy demeanor. You had stuck the Post-It to his nightstand while he was sleeping and you made your way to work. Your words were cramped and crunched into the small paper square, but ready to greet him with the shining light of a sunny new day.

“I see your ardor through a pearlescent lense, and all is pleasantly pink and blurry with you-- Resplendent in your love's solar hope. You are so warm beneath the brush of my fingertips, and I burn. So in love with you, as I am and as I do."

Now, his eyes scanned the words for the millionth time since you had written them. He had committed it to memory by now, wishing he could hold you instead of this crumpled piece of paper, mocking him with its annoyingly bright pink hue.

But how could he? Angel was the kind of man who simmered in his emotion -- burning slowly, lowly, only to reach a pitch. He kept to himself until he couldn’t any longer -- and then it was all bleeding hearts on a very crisp sleeve.

He had done what he had thought was right. Cutting you out with all of the brutality and finesse of a battleaxe, to focus on Luisa and his unborn son. He thought she was what he wanted. But now, he didn’t even have them. He had nothing to show for his decisions but the lonely, sick feeling ever-present in his chest.

The you at the beginning of your relationship would have kissed each bruise in his soul, one by one, until they were better. Would have gifted him with the warmth of your time and attention until he was made whole again with the molten heat of your gracious heart. But the you now?

Angel could never, would never, cover the tattoo on his arm, though he had thought about it. Blacking it out once and for all, so the piece of you he wore on his sleeve would finally match the pitch, and emptiness inside. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was, as he’d said all that time ago, your gift to him. And he’d made you a promise that he wouldn’t.

All he wanted was to look you in the eyes so he could remember that he loved you once.

And not that he had any reason to know it, but across town, you had made it home. Your phone shoved to the bottom of your bag, lighting up with texts from Aneesa, EZ, and Coco. But the only person on your mind was Angel.

How much of what he had said was true? You weren't sure. But you were sure that you knew where you stood, still painfully alone and in love as ever, the cracks in your heart only fillable by the very person you had brushed off earlier.

And, while Angel readied himself for bed, snapping the lights off and attempting to cut through the oppressive darkness by staring at the ceiling with his own penetrative gaze, the empty side of the bed had never felt more cavernous, but more weighted. Mocking.

If Angel was being honest with himself -- something he was never too keen on being in his more sobering moments -- he didn't love you once. He still loved you.

Thinking after all this time, I just wanna meet your eyes so I can remember why... Why I loved you once.

Tagging:

@themarcusmoreno @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa @steeeeeeeviebb @qveenbvtch @mxsamwilson @ifimayhaveaword @huliabitch @pettyprocrastination @phoenixhalliwell @flightlessangelwings @cinewhore @velvetmel0n @moonlight-prose @rebeccasficrecs @videogamesandpoorlifechoices @aerolanya @djvrins @jenrebloggingfics @ciriswife @justanotherblonde23 @superhoeva @witching-hour @luckyharley1903

#angel reyes fic #angel reyes x reader #angel reyes x fem!reader #angel reyes x you #angel reyes x oc #angel reyes angst #angel reyes smut #angel reyes #clayton cardenas #mayans mc #mayans fx #mayans #mayans mc fic #my writing #rachel writes #holy shittttt this boy is long #it just got away from me #sorry #loved you once

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inkykeiji · 4 years ago

Text

all she want is payback for the way i always play that shit

characters: dabi | todoroki touya

genre: smut + angst

notes: aaaah yikes, sorry it’s so long???? the first part of a companion piece to i can take you there but baby you wont make it back; touya + reader have been fooling around for just under six months, our innocent lil good girl reader is the teeniest, tiniest bit more firm now. jealousy makes people crazy, yk how it is. touya is marginally softer for like, a second or two. | title credit: save that shit by lil peep

warnings: 18+, pseudo-incest (stepcest), public sex, cheating, drug use, generally toxic relationship (possessiveness, jealousy), size difference, dubcon if u squint i guess???, the tiniest bit of cumplay

words: 11k

synopsis:

Why can’t you just be mine? You want to ask, the words searing into your tongue, refusing to leave your lips.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick, angel,” he chastises softly, brushing your hair away from your clammy forehead as another shuddery sob rips through your chest.

��I want you,” you say instead, words garbled.

“You have me, baby,”

“All of you,”

His chest heaves with an exasperated sigh, head turning away and gazing up at the ceiling. “You have all of me, princess,”

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

In early February, your parents finally tie the knot.

“Now it’ll be official,” you remember Touya whispering in your ear, the night before. “I will officially be your niichan,”

The wedding is gorgeous—elegant and classy, just like Rei herself. A wintertime wedding is so beautiful, you tell Rei as she’s busy being fawned over by several stylists, adding the finishing touches to her hair and make up. She’s absolutely stunning, a lacy ivory dress clinging delicately to her small frame, accentuating her natural curves. It glitters gracefully in the pale sunshine streaming through the large bay windows, sparkling any time she moves.

Touya doesn’t sit with his family. Their eyes sear into your flesh, although Touya keeps his stare pointedly in front of him, glaring at the alter. But you can feel their gaze on your skin, can feel their eyes travelling up your body slowly, critically, sending shivers skittering up your spine. It makes your skin crawl, both of your hands curling around Touya’s, a tangled knot of fingers resting in your lap.

You’ve never seen his other siblings before. Rei talks about them sometimes, but never when Touya’s around. You know that once every month, the three of them join Rei and your father for a family dinner, but you’ve never had the pleasure of attending.

You’d missed the first family dinner by fluke, held up late at the library studying for midterms. But every occasion after that, Touya had made absolute certain that you weren’t there. You hadn’t thought much of it the first time it happened, too enraptured and tangled up in Touya to care, grinding desperately against him in the backseat of his car as his tongue forced its way down your throat. But then it happens again, and again, and it becomes too coincidental to ignore.

“Why do we never go to those dinners with your siblings?” you’d tried to bring it up subtly the third time you guys skipped out on dinner, heart thudding in your chest and gentle voice quivering slightly.

Touya sighed, raking a hand through his hair roughly, eyes not straying from the road ahead of him. It’s complicated, he told you in a quiet voice, and you were so startled, so shocked by his sheer, unadulterated honesty, that you couldn’t find your voice, rendering you incapable of replying. Touya didn’t bother looking over at you, didn’t need to, to know that his response surprised you.

The other Todoroki’s are all strikingly beautiful—not that you expected any less. The one with pure snow-white hair and gunmetal grey eyes captures your attention the most, looking as if he’s around your age. He smirks at you when he catches your stare, giving you a small, polite nod—though you can see that tiny glint of mischief in his eye, the same glint you’ve seen in Touya’s a thousand times before. Choking on a surprised gasp, you rapidly avert your gaze, eyes snapping back to the pile of hands in your lap.

Touya notices, of course, because Touya notices everything. He doesn’t say anything, but his hand squeezes yours tightly, just a little too tight to be comforting, as his eyes dart to his siblings across the aisle, glare losing most of its heat when it meets his brother’s stare.

Tense shoulders relax, falling slowly with the measured breath he exhales as he turns back to glower at the alter.

You know other guests are staring at you—you can feel their eyes, too. You know the pair of you look more like a couple than siblings, know you should both probably put some distance between yourselves, at least try to keep some semblance of normalcy, some masquerade of a typical sibling relationship.

But Touya’s knee is bouncing, and he seems…unsure. It’s unsettling, really—Touya always seems so confident in himself—and you can almost feel the tense anxiety rolling off of him in heavy waves. So instead of scooting away from him or untangling your hands, your other palm finds a spot high on the thigh pressed tightly against yours, small fingers beginning to knead the flesh.

Sapphire eyes find yours, and he gazes down at you with an odd sense of fondness in his stare, the tiniest smile ghosting across his lips. It makes your chest swell with pride, makes you want to grab his face and crash his lips against yours, forces a tingling warmth to spread through your veins. It shouldn’t, but it does.

He barely lets you leave his side that day, keeps you glued to his body, an arm wrapped tightly around you. He’s a constant, looming, protective presence, glaring at anyone who dares to look at you for more than a second.

“Touya-nii,” you laugh a little while leaving the ceremony, watching as one of your cousins immediately averts their eyes. “That’s my cousin,”

“And I’m your brother,” he says flatly.

You suppose he has a point.

The two of you find your parents and the rest of Touya’s siblings—yours too, now, you guess—standing around a limousine, beckoning you over.

Rei begins to explain their protocol for pictures—and yes, you both have to come—but you aren’t listening. Their eyes are on you again, you can feel them, gliding up your skin, taking sharp note of the way Touya has you pressed flush against him, the way your arm is wrapped firmly around his waist, little fingers twisting in his suit jacket as your heart begins to speed up.

Touya can feel it, too, and he looks down at you in concern, his thumb caressing your shoulder, before he meets the stares of his siblings with a glare so ferocious you’re surprised it doesn’t turn them to ash on the spot.

They offer for you to ride in the limo with the rest of them, Touya cutting them off as he curtly declines their offer—no thanks, you’ll take his car instead and meet them there.

Rei tries to reason with him, but the pointed look he gives her causes her to trail off mid-sentence, holding his eyes for a moment before a sad smile settles on her face, nodding once.

✰ ✰ ✰

Shinjuku Gyoen is nothing short of stunning in the wintertime. It had snowed this morning, around six AM, blanketing the garden in a soft layer of pure white powder, glittering delicately in the early afternoon sun.

Wide eyes drink it in as your face presses against the glass of the car window, your breath fogging it up. There’s something so whimsical and dreamy about snow, you think, about the way it softens even the sharpest of edges, the way it makes everything look prettier.

“You’re so cute,” Touya remarks, watching you from the corner of his eye, a hint of teasing in his voice.

“I’ve never been here during the winter,” you murmur in response, still captivated by the grounds.

Rei and your father are immediately whisked away by several photographers to do their photos alone, leaving the rest of you to litter the parking lot.

But the moment they disappear from view, Touya’s got you trapped between his body and the cold metal of his car, lips moving against the shell of your ear as he whispers filthy promises, things that force soft whimpers from your lips, things that make your legs feel like they’re about to give out as heat pools deep in your belly. He knows, of course, smirks and teases you even more when he feels you squeeze your thighs together helplessly, tells you you’re his perfect little slut and vows to reward you for being so good as soon as he can.

His other siblings are staring, you try to tell him in a quiet, broken whine.

“Oh yeah?” he breathes, pushing his hips harder into yours, practically grinding his hard cock against your waist. “Let ‘em. I bet they’d love to watch me fuck you stupid, huh? What do you think about that, baby? You want them to watch?”

A pathetic sound hitches in your throat and you bury your burning face in his neck, a low, wicked laugh rumbling deep in his chest.

He doesn’t let up on the absolute filth spilling from his mouth until he can hear your father hollering in the distance, calling for the kids and waving the five of you over.

✰ ✰ ✰

Pictures take too long, and Touya’s antsy by the end of it, picking anxiously at his cuticles as his knee bounces. He’s hauling you out of there the moment you’re officially released, a strong hand wrapped tightly around your wrist. You can hear his mother calling for him, and you look back at her desperately, mirroring her worried frown.

He doesn’t even wait for the rest of them to pile into the limo and leave, immediately rooting through his pockets the moment he’s in the safety of his own car, pulling out a little baggie of white powder. He can feel your wide eyes on him, watching his every movement, but his hands are beginning to shake, and panic is starting to rip viciously at his throat, and he just needs it all to fucking stop.

“There’s no way I could endure this shit sober,” he explains as he searches for something in the powder, cursing when he doesn’t find whatever it is he’s looking for. Frantic cobalt eyes dart around the car, landing on the glovebox, and he leans over you, hastily pulling a reflective object from the compartment.

It’s a mirror.

A tiny, circular mirror that he uses to tap out a line, fingers unsteady and breathing slightly laboured. The gentle sounds of his platinum credit card colliding with glass echo throughout the car.

Hovering over the small mirror, he pauses, a finger pressed to his nostril. He almost wants to tell you to look away, almost does, but he knows you’d disobey either way.

He doesn’t like doing drugs in front of you—you’re too precious, too pure and innocent and he doesn’t want you around anything that could potentially tarnish that. But he also can’t stand that look you get in your eyes, almost like you’re scared of him, on the rare occasions that you have caught him.

He nearly snaps at you when you quietly ask if you can help, if he needs someone to hold the mirror steady, currently balancing on the center console compartment, but you’ve got that goddamn look in your eyes, wide and terrified.

No, he says sternly, telling you that he doesn’t even want you near this stuff, much less touching it.

But cocaine highs don’t last long, he explains to you when you ask about the little round white pills clacking together in his pocket. You’re positive he shouldn’t be mixing drugs like that, positive that your apprehension and disapproval are written clearly across your face, based on the simmering look he shoots at you.

Don’t fucking start.

So you don’t. You swallow down your worries and sit nice and pretty and good for him, just like you’re supposed to.

✰ ✰ ✰

He only leaves you twice, briefly, throughout the entire night. The first is almost immediately after you enter the reception venue.

Depositing you near the head table, he tells you to stay put before he hurries away. You know where he’s going, what he’s about to do, an odd ache taking root and throbbing deep in your chest.

He’d scold you if he could see you, able to read your expressions like a fucking book, would tell you not to cry for him—he doesn’t need your pity. The words cut through your mind in a snarl, and you work hard to rid your face of the frown marring it; he’s already having such a difficult time today, and the last thing you want to do is upset him more with your concern.

Distraction, you need a distraction. Wide eyes scan the extravagant ballroom, all shimmering golds and beiges and crystal chandeliers, searching in a frenzy for something—anything—to rid your mind of images of pretty boys with inky hair and white, white, white.

You swear you hear your name, then Touya’s, hissed out in a sharp whisper, and your gaze lands on a small group of people not too far from you, with snow and fire for hair—the other Todoroki’s, huddled in a loose circle.

The air around you just feels off, you catch his sister saying in a low but frantic voice, eyes darting between her brothers. She sounds worried about you, you think, and it makes you feel weird. She shouldn’t be worried about you; Touya takes fantastic care of you. It isn’t any of their business anyway, you can almost hear Touya sneering in your head, and he’s right. You know he’s right.

Her brothers don’t look too keen on discussing the subject, especially the youngest, who keeps pulling at his collar and fidgeting with his cufflinks.

“Well, why don’t you go and tell her that yourself,” the one with white hair says, grey eyes connecting with yours. She whirls around quickly, mouth snapping shut when she finds your face. Her lips morph into a smile half a second later, and she waves you over.

You avert your eyes, hands tangling nervously in front of you. No. You shouldn’t go. You really, really shouldn’t go. Touya told you to stay put, and you can’t bear to think—don’t even want to consider—how furious he’d be if he found that not only had you moved, but you had moved to talk to his siblings.

You must spend too much time deliberating, though, looking back up to find them advancing towards you, only a few feet away. Your heart’s pounding almost violently in your chest, breath accelerating with each step closer.

“Hi,” she’s saying warmly as she reaches you, causing you to subconsciously take a step back. “We haven’t had a chance to meet. I’m Fuyumi,”

You want to say your name, to introduce yourself politely, but your lips are sealed shut, only able to manage a small sound of affirmation.

“Shouto,” the youngest says, cold heterochromatic eyes glancing at you for a moment before looking away. “M’Shouto,”

“I’m Natsuo,” the man with white hair smirks down at you, eyes burning into yours.

Some of your anxiety melts away as you meet his stone eyes; there’s something comforting about the way that he has Touya’s smirk, Touya’s mischievous glint to his gaze, Touya’s playful lilt to his voice.

You feel like you can breathe again when you’re looking at Natsuo, so you keep your stare directed at him as you stutter out your name, gazing up at him through your lashes.

“You always miss the family dinners,” Natsuo accuses with a knowing smirk, raising his eyebrows suggestively. “Y’know, eventually, our parents are going to catch on,”

Your blood turns to ice in your veins, chills crawling on your skin. He knows?

And he says it so nonchalantly, so casually, as if he’s discussing the weather and not the fact that Touya deliberately kidnaps you to fuck your brains out in his car every single time they gather for one of those dinners. Fuyumi and Shouto look over at him with brows furrowed in confusion, but you choke on a gasp, coughing a little and nodding.

Touya returns then, saving you from having to respond.

“What’s wrong?” he’s asking immediately as his hands find purchase on your hips, pulling you back against his chest and wrapping his arms around you. A soft sigh leaves your lips as you lean on him, heart finally beginning to slow.

“N-Nothing, niichan,” you wrap your arms around his, hugging them to your chest, and he squeezes you in reassurance.

“You sure, baby?” Sapphire eyes search your face as you tilt your head back to look up at him, scanning for any sign of distress.

He shouldn’t be using that pet name here, not in front of his blood siblings, not loud enough that any of the passing guests can hear him with ease.

He shouldn’t.

But that doesn’t stop it from sending sparks skittering up your spine, heat beginning to coil in your tummy. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t love it, if you said you didn’t get some sort of twisted satisfaction at the loud gasp that leaves Fuyumi’s chest, or the sharp intake of breath Shouto chokes on, coughing as he tries to cover it up, all at the drop of that one, simple, four letter word.

Touya loves it, too—you can see it in the way his smirk grows into a full smile, a grin big enough to crinkle the edges of his eyes, can see it in his gaze, in the way his cobalt eyes almost sparkle at their reactions.

Your gaze flits back to the three people standing in front of you—your step-siblings, your mind corrects—eyes gliding over their faces slowly.

Natsuo looks thoroughly entertained, a stupid little grin stretched across his face, amusement dancing in his eyes. Fuyumi and Shouto, on the other hand, look thoroughly uncomfortable, shifting a little in place, their faces screwed up with poorly masked disgust.

Touya’s smile drops the moment he looks back at them. Azure eyes scan the faces of his siblings cautiously, giving Natsuo one quick, sharp nod of acknowledgment before his gaze lands on the youngest. And the glare Touya gives him is nothing short of terrifying, practically snarling at the boy, a rough, dangerous sound that gets lodged deep in his chest. It makes the boy cower away, shuffling ever-so-slightly closer to his sister, who shakily glares back.

Lips tugging down into a frown, you look up at Touya, forehead creasing in confusion. He’s still glowering at the kid, eyes narrowing just a little before he huffs and turns away, leaving without speaking a word to any of them.

“Don’t you ever talk to them again,” he’s murmuring as he whisks you away, something malicious in his voice. “You’re my little sister,”

You nod obediently, promising him that you won’t, reassuring him that you didn’t even want to as you relay the entire situation. But he can see it, the curiosity swirling in your eyes, a question dancing on your tongue.

Because although Touya appears to be on seriously awful terms with his younger siblings, Natsuo seems to be some sort of exception. From the interaction you just witnessed, you’re able to deduce that something, some line of communication, must be present between Touya and Natsuo, evident in their shared looks and swift, discreet nods.

He sighs, irritation coating his voice as he demands that you spit it out already.

It makes you jump a little, but the words come tumbling out of your mouth the moment he commands them to, powerless to disobey a direct order.

“Does that include Natsuo?”

Your voice is so tiny that he barely hears you, brows knitting together. There’s an odd look in his eye as he observes you—something that isn’t quite jealousy, but close to it—nose twitching a little as he considers.

“Alone, yes,” he finally says. “With me around it’s fine, I guess. But you are not to speak to him alone, do you hear me?”

Yes, niichan, of course, niichan.

✰ ✰ ✰

Dinner is absolute torture, and the two of you can barely keep your hands off of each other. It starts innocently enough, discreetly enough, with palms on thighs, fingers brushing down arms, hands interlaced under the table. But the need to touch grows, and grows, and grows, these simple actions too teasing to satisfy that dull burning in the pit of your stomach, flaring a little more each time his fingers press into your thigh, or his thumb runs across your knuckles.

And you shouldn’t, you really shouldn’t start acting up now, not while the two of you are seated at the head table, looking out amongst the guests—a few months ago, you would’ve never thought to do something so indecent, so dangerous, in such a public place. But you just can’t help it, you’re getting restless now, brain going hazy with thoughts of him as your fingers trail up his thigh and ghost over his lap.

“Getting bold, are we, princess?” his hand catches your wrist, holding your palm in place and grinding up into it. His voice is low, head tipped towards you, sapphire eyes dark. A breath catches in your throat and he smirks, an evil little quirk up of his lips, raising an eyebrow at you in expectation.

You’re lucky they’re seated in a straight line instead of a circle, he murmurs in your ear, Natsuo snickering beside him. “Imagine what your daddy would think if he could see you, acting like such a desperate little slut in front of all of these people,”

A soft, broken moan escapes your lips without your permission, thighs squeezing together in an attempt to combat the heat pooling in your panties. Someone down the line of the table says something, but you’re too enticed by Touya to hear them, your father writing off whatever the remark was with an easygoing smile.

“Oh, those two are always in their own little world,” you hear him dismiss, voice sounding muddled and distant.

“Be a good girl and sit still,” Touya growls in your ear, grip tightening to near bruising.

“But niichan,” you whine, much too loud, gazing at him with glazed, blown eyes. “Niichan,” you repeat, leaning forward to whimper in his ear, fingers flexing around the bulge in his trousers. “N-Need you,”

“If you can’t behave, niichan won’t let you cum later,” he breathes, though his voice is stern, heavy with the weight of the threat.

A pout forms on your lips as he releases your wrist, firmly placing your hand back in your lap and holding it there for a moment, a silent warning for your wandering fingers to stay put.

But he’s up and out of his chair the instant dinner’s over, moving so quick his seat wobbles a little as he grasps your hand tightly in his, practically yanking you up and dragging you along behind him.

The best thing about these fancy venues, he’s telling you as he strides through the halls, cerulean eyes searching for something, is that they have single person washrooms.

The granite is cold on your cheek as Touya shoves you up against the wall, head bouncing a little as it whacks against it.

You whine and he laughs, a cruel, piercing sound echoing off the walls.

“Aw, baby,” he coos contemptuously. “Did that hurt?”

“Y-Yes,” you whimper, eyes squeezing shut against the throbbing pain radiating through your cheek.

“Poor little thing,” he hisses, lips against your ear as his hands begin to bunch up your dress, gliding over your silk covered thighs, hands fisting in the material as he goes. Pushing it up around your waist, he leans back, hands travelling over the globes of your ass and kneading hard enough to make you cry out.

“You’re a slutty little brat, y’know that?”

Deft fingers hook in the waistband of your thong, all delicate baby pink lace, Touya snickering about how much of a whore you are, wearing such skimpy, slutty panties, as he lets the elastic snap back against your skin.

A little shocked gasp escapes your lips as he begins tugging the dainty fabric down your thighs—you had expected him to merely push them to the side, but he forces you to take them off entirely, stuffing the soaked material in his pocket.

“You think you can just tease niichan like that and get away with it?”

“No,” you whisper, shaking your head against the wall.

“No,” he murmurs, hips grinding against your bare ass. “Good girls don’t tease their niichans without delivering, do they?”

“No,”

“On your knees,” he orders, spinning you around and stepping back just enough to allow you to sink to the floor. “Get my cock wet,”

Little fingers work quickly, eager to obey, as they undo his pants, practically salivating as you free his cock from its confines.

“Your cock’s so pretty, niichan,” you breathe, eyes glittering with pure, potent desire as you take it in your hands, tongue darting out to trace the prominent veins.

“No teasing,” he growls, a hand knotting in your hair. “I wanna see you choke on it,”

You nod as best you can, mouth instantly falling open, reduced to nothing more than a wet, warm little hole for him to stuff.

And then he’s shoving it down your throat, the hand fisted in your hair holding your head still, and you gag around it almost immediately, working to force you jaw open even more.

“That’s it, that’s my good girl,” he rasps out, voice echoing off the walls of the washroom.

The praise has your heart soaring, has you sucking hard around him as he thrusts into your mouth, coating his cock in thick saliva and desperate to hear more. It’s intoxicating, every quiet moan you manage to pull from him, every breathless good girl that falls from his lips, makes you feel lightheaded and heady and dizzy for more.

His hips pump a few more times before he’s pulling you off his cock completely, devious smirk forming on his lips at your whine of protest, and commanding you to go bend over the sink.

Calloused hands are bunching your dress up around your waist again, toe of his shoe kicking at your inner ankles and forcing your feet further apart.

He doesn’t bother stretching you out, not because he doesn’t have the time to, but because he simply doesn’t want to. It’s truly one of his favourite things, to see tears fill your eyes while his cock stretches your cute little pussy, and he knows you love it too, don’t you?

Yes, niichan, of course you do.

His cock glistens with your saliva, sufficiently wet that it slides in easily enough, with minimal pain for him. And the soft groan he lets out as he watches your little hole struggle to take him, paired with your sweet little whimpers of his name, is nothing short of gorgeous.

It has your pussy fluttering around him, pulling a breathless chuckle from his lips as he fills you to the hilt, hips pressed against your ass.

And then doesn’t fucking move.

Your brow furrows, eyes meeting his in the mirror. You try to fuck yourself back on him, but he’s too quick, hands stilling your hips immediately and tutting in disapproval.

“Niichan,” you whimper. “N-Niichan, please fuck me,”

“Do you think you deserve it?” he’s asking, tongue tracing the shell of your ear as he holds your gaze through the mirror. “After the way you behaved at dinner?”

“M’sorry,” you whine, wiggling back against him, his fingers digging into your flesh as he stops them, grip tightening. “Couldn’t help it, wanted you so bad,”

“Of course you couldn’t,” he smirks, hips starting to move slowly, teasingly, stilling after only three simple thrusts. A hand reaches down and finds your clit, forcing a gasp from you as his thumb brushes over it, back and forth, back and forth, featherlight grazes that have you arching back into him, trying to press further into his touch.

“Think you can cum just like this for me?” he asks, beginning to thrust shallowly again, just enough to have the head of his cock dragging against that spot buried deep inside your cunt, that spot he knows so well, then nudging your cervix. “Hmm?”

“Mhmm,” you nod, breath starting to come out in short little pants.

“Then do it,” he demands in a whisper, eyes still holding yours. “Show niichan how pretty you look, cumming all over his cock,”

And the combination of his deep, rough voice rumbling against your back as praises tumble from his lips, his thumb and cock, and the fact that anyone within a fifteen foot radius of this washroom could probably hear you, has you cumming within minutes with a sharp cry of Touya-nii!

Touya laughs at how pathetically quickly you came, about how easy it is to have you creaming on his cock, heat seeping into your cheeks as you try to look away.

“My turn,” he breathes, yanking your head back up by your hair, fingers finding root in the intricate updo that has begun to fall apart. “And I wanna see your face as I fuck you, so keep your damn head up,”

And then he’s slamming into you with enough vigour to propel you forward, face pressed against the mirror, toes barely touching the ground. Every moan and whimper and mewl he forces from your throat fogs up the glass, leaving tiny glistening drops of condensation as they fade.

You’re trying so hard to keep your eyes open, to watch him as he fucks you, because he always looks so damn pretty.

He’s stupidly attractive, with his shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his forearms, first few buttons undone and collar popped, revealing his sharp collarbone, smooth ivory skin stretched taut across it. Ebony hair clings to his forehead and neck delicately, coated in sweat, and he’s emitting the most glorious noises, heavy pants and little broken whines, peppered with praise.

Nails bite into your flesh as he holds you in place, hips snapping relentlessly, your fingers curling around the porcelain sink.

“You want niichan’s cum?” he growls in your ear, eyes burning into yours. You whimper in response, nodding against the mirror. “Yeah? Then fucking beg for it.”

Pleads are spilling from your lips immediately, nothing but senseless babbling as he pounds into you.

“Please, niichan, please, need it, your cum, stuff me with your cum,”

“That’s it,” he gasps, voice hoarse. “I want every single person in this godforsaken hall to hear you, I want every single person to know how much of—” he cuts himself off with a shuddery curse. “—How much of a slut my baby sister is,”

“Pretty please,” you whine out the words, eyes rolling back in your head. “Fill me up with your cum, niichan, I-I want it,”

His hips still just as your cunt clenches around him, cockhead pressed tightly against your cervix as he fills you with hot, thick ropes of cum.

He pulls out a few moments later, and you uncurl your fingers from around the rim of the sink, wincing at your appearance; lips bitten raw, hair beginning to fall from it’s elegant style, body covered in a thin layer of sweat.

You look back at him to find him already staring at you, expectantly, impatiently, hands jittery as he quirks his head towards the door.

“We can’t leave together,” he says, as if it’s obvious, even though you stumbled into the washroom together twenty minutes ago.

He needs more.

You nod, slow and dumb, staggering a little on your trembling legs. Grasping the doorknob you pause, turning to look at him again.

“What?” he asks as he searches through his pockets, not bothering to glance at you. He can feel your eyes on him.

“Um...” you shift nervously from foot to foot, lip caught between your teeth.

He looks over at you sharply, brows rising as if to ask why are you still here?

“M-My panties, niichan,”

Oh.

A wicked smirk spreads across his face, eyes twinkling, brows relaxing.

“What about them?”

“Well, I—I can’t return to the reception without them,”

“Oh, and why not?”

You pause, blinking a few times, at a loss for words. Why not? Because you can feel his cum beginning to trickle out of you, mixing with your juices and dribbling down your inner thigh?

“Exactly,” he says, when you take too long to reply. “Now be a good little girl and go. I’ll be out soon,”

✰ ✰ ✰

You don’t go back into the ballroom, terrified that you’ll be ambushed by his—your—siblings again. Collapsing in one of the plush chairs, you cross your quivering legs tightly in a desperate attempt to keep the cum oozing out of you from getting on your dress.

People are looking again, probably think you’re drunk based on the way you teetered over to the seat, or the way your hair’s begun to come undone from it’s intricate updo, wispy strands framing your face.

He returns from the washroom only a few minutes later, eyes finding you immediately. There’s a stupid, smug smirk on his face, thinks it’s so cute that he fucked you so good you can’t walk, can’t even get up, that you need your niichan to help you.

A pout forms on your lips, eyebrows furrowing. “Not funny,”

“Very funny,” he chuckles as his hands snake under your armpits, hauling you to your feet. You stumble a little, bumping into him and he laughs again, wrapping a sturdy arm around your waist and propping you up against him.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,”

“Oh, niichan,” you murmur and he pauses, glancing over at you. You reach up, your thumb swiping across his nose to collect excess white powder.

“Thanks,” he breathes, winking at you. You hum noncommittally, about to rub your thumb across his white dress shirt to clean it when he catches your hand, bringing your thumb to his lips and licking it instead.

It isn’t discreet. It’s slow and deliberate, tongue sticking out of his mouth, flattening it against your thumb and dragging it up, from base to tip. You’re sure someone saw that, but you can’t be bothered to care, not when another bout of intense heat rushes to your core, forcing you to squeeze your legs together, trying in vain to keep Touya’s cum from seeping out, from your juices traveling down your leg. A soft whimper leaves your lips, breathing beginning to accelerate as your eyes bore into his, now half-lidded and dark. He holds your gaze for a moment before something snaps.

“We need to go,” he says, voice firm with no room for negotiation. “Now.”

And, God, his voice is rough and raw and fucking dripping with desire. It’s got you nodding before he’s even finished speaking, a flock of butterflies invading your stomach at the downright sinful grin he gives you in response. Such a good girl for him.

Despite the fact that you’ve barely recovered from your previous orgasm, you nearly moan at his look alone, the urge to kiss him burning through your veins and alighting your entire body in direct juxtaposition to the shivers his eyes just sent rippling across your skin. The insatiable need overwhelms your senses, and it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous, how captivated he has you, entirely wrapped around his slim finger and hanging on his every word, how you’re positive that, in that moment, you’d do anything he asked.

You wobble awkwardly in your heels, legs still shaking and having trouble keeping up with Touya’s swift pace. You’re about to ask him to slow down just a little so you don’t break an ankle, when you bump into your father.

Who just so happens to provide you with the perfect excuse to leave early. You can practically see the gears clicking into place in Touya’s mind, sapphire eyes glittering as a sinister smirk spreads across his face.

Your father’s eyes widen as he observes your appearance, strands of hair sticking to your clammy face and eyes half-lidded, chapped lips beginning to crack, leaning heavily against Touya and seemingly too weak to stand on your own.

“Hi dad,” you greet hoarsely, wincing a little at how grating your voice sounds.

He frowns immediately. “Jesus, sweetheart, are you feeling alright? You look…” he trails off, forehead wrinkling with worry.

“Oh, she’s not feeling too good,” Touya says softly, smoothly, just the right amount of concern and compassion in his tone.

“Oh no,” your father breathes, frown deepening. “That’s terrible,” he clicks his tongue with a shake of his head. “Do you think you’ll be able to tough out the rest of the reception?”

You begin to croak out an answer, but Touya speaks over you.

“She’s burning up, sir,” he informs him, and it isn’t a lie—not exactly, anyway. Technically, if your father were to feel your forehead, your body temperature would be above average, a result of Touya fucking the absolute life out of you a mere ten minutes ago.

Touya looks down at you with painfully sympathetic eyes, but you can still see that little glint of mischief, buried under all of that artificial benevolence.

“Maybe I should take her home?” Touya muses, looking back at your father, mimicking his anxiety effortlessly.

“Mm,” he hums in agreement. “I think that’s the best thing to do,” his eyes dart to yours. “You really don’t look well,”

Oh, you’re sure you don’t. Resting a little more against Touya, you play up the symptoms a bit, whimpering quietly as little fingers twist in his shirt, nuzzling your face against his side. A soft noise of endearment sounds at the back of his throat, large hands readjusting your body to support you better.

Another whimper falls from your lips, but this time it isn’t from pretending you’re ill. You can feel his cum leaking out of you, slimy and cool as it drips down your inner thigh, and a sick thrill shoots through your body, abused cunt throbbing greedily.

Rei comes up behind your father then, wrapping her arms around his midsection and resting her chin on his shoulder, eyes flitting between the two of you carefully.

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“I’m gonna bring this little princess home,” Touya explains, nodding his head at you in indication as he speaks. “She isn’t feeling very well, poor thing,”

And it’s scary, scary how terrific he is at lying, how easily he slips into that niichan role, the one painstakingly crafted and flawlessly maintained around your parents, the one he’s perfected at this point.

Rei doesn’t say much, only cooing in sympathy, remarking that it’s such a shame, but your father’s eyes soften. “Such a good big brother,” he praises, clapping a hand on Touya’s shoulder.

Touya has to consciously work to smother the smirk playing at the corners of his lips as he responds.

“You have no idea,”

✰ ✰ ✰

Your parents don’t come home that night, opting to go straight to the airport from the venue, embarking on their honeymoon immediately.

It’s nice, playing house with Touya, having the entire place completely to yourselves. He’s been home an awful lot these past few weeks, more than he ever has in the past, and you get to experience things you never could before.

Every morning and every night, you cook breakfast and dinner together. You go grocery shopping together, wash the dishes together, fold the laundry together, all while stealing kisses in between; little domestic things you didn’t really do with your parents around.

You spend every night that they’re away in his bed, being fucked into his mattress, surrounded by the smell of him—campfire and Marlboros and expensive cologne—absolutely full of him in every sense.

You wake up in the mornings with his hand between your legs, playing with your cute little clit, or his cock pressed against your ass, grinding until you wake up. You have sleepy, slow morning sex while you’re both still half asleep, and it’s the most gentle he’s ever been. It consists of lazy, sloppy, messy thrusts against each other, hips meeting halfway—just grinding until he gets too impatient, though he usually lets you cum two or three times before he finally flips you over, trapping you under his body and slamming his hips into you, growling and grunting, your legs pushed up and folded on either side of you.

You get to fuck in the kitchen—not that you hadn’t before, but this time you get to take it slow. He eats you out while you sit on the counter and then fucks you into oblivion and it’s nasty, it’s disgusting, it’s so good. He cums so much that it’s leaking out of you, onto the counter, his chest heaving as he observes it with an odd little smile and a soft “fuck,”

And you get to fuck in the bathtub, that big jacuzzi in your parents room, water and bubbles sloshing around as you bounce on his cock, loud cries echoing off the walls.

It’s going great, until the last weekend of the honeymoon, a mere few days before your parents are supposed to return.

✰ ✰ ✰

A party.

Keigo tries to talk him out of it, tries to at least talk him out of letting you stay.

“She shouldn’t be here,” you hear Keigo hiss under his breath as guests begin to fill the house, Touya snorting in retort.

Keigo doesn’t think you should be around any of this at all—there’s no reason you should have to witness this shit, you catch him growling, gold eyes blazing. No, not a poor innocent babygirl like you, this isn’t the place for you.

But Touya’s too stubborn, too selfish to let Keigo take you out for the night. He knows he’s right, would rather not have you around these people, but he doesn’t have a fucking choice. The thought of you being out of his sight, out with another man, has anxiety rising in his throat, panic clawing at his chest.

As a result, you spend the entirety of the party being passed between Touya and Keigo. There are so many girls here, so many people you don’t know, wide eyes scanning the living room as your fingers twist in Keigo’s hoodie.

Niichan’s busy, Touya tells you, when you ask why you can’t just stay with him, when you ask where he keeps disappearing off to. Niichan’s working, don’t you know? Be a good girl and stay with Kei.

You can tell that Keigo isn’t happy about it. He coos softly when you timidly ask if he’s upset that he’s stuck babysitting you all night, in the middle of an apology when he cuts you off.

“It isn’t your fault, songbird,” he murmurs, gentle fingers tracing the curve of your face.

He’s even angrier at Touya when he takes that first girl back to his room, because the look on your face—the way it crumples accompanied by a soft, hurt sound caught at the back of your throat—kills him.

And it isn’t like you don’t know about his side whores. You do. They’re customers, he had snapped at you, the only time you had ever asked about it. But it’s an entirely different thing to actually have to witness it with your own eyes.

You can’t help the flare of jealousy that rises in your chest every time he takes a girl by the hand and leads them to his bedroom. It stings, burns, feels like a fire’s been lit in your chest, filling your lungs with dense smoke and making it hard for you to breathe.

Keigo tries his best to distract you, gentle fingers on your cheeks turning your face towards him, golden eyes softening in sympathy. He keeps you as preoccupied as he can, but it still isn’t enough. Your eyes are drawn to Touya every time he’s in the room—an automatic, instinctual reaction you couldn’t control even if you wanted to.

And every time you watch a girl giggle into his ear, or hop up with him, that fire smoldering in your chest blazes, rages, has you wheezing and hissing and pressing a palm flat against yourself, a desperate attempt to get the pain to stop.

Tomura’s here, too, though he’s sitting in a shrouded corner on his phone, the light from the screen reflected on his pale face, colours flashing intermittently. He looks absorbed with whatever he’s doing on there—probably playing a game, Keigo tells you, but why are you interested, anyway?

You don’t know, you aren’t sure, you can’t exactly put it into words. He terrifies you, but he sparks a morbid curiosity in you, too. He’s so silent, private, almost inobtrusive; and yet Touya never lets you anywhere near him. Your eyes keep flitting his way, as if trying to will something to happen, staring at him longingly and hoping he’ll look up from his phone for a split second and catch your gaze, that he’ll somehow magically get the hint that you’re desperate and dying to talk to him, and take the first step.

But it doesn’t happen.

Touya is thoroughly unimpressed each and every time he finds you sitting on Keigo’s knee or lap, leaning back against his chest as he speaks with that easygoing lilt that is so distinctly him, but there isn’t much he can do. The third time he returns to take you from his friend he can tell you’re beginning to get tired, can see it in your eyes, in the way you’re cuddling into a warm chest. He debates sending you to bed right then and there, but you protest, little hands tangling in Keigo’s hoodie.

“Aw, she’s alright for a little more, isn’t she?”

Touya’s sharp jaw clenches twice and he exhales slowly through his nose, eyes darting between your faces.

“Fine,” he says, although it doesn’t seem fine.

And you are exhausted, straddling Keigo’s hips, face pressed into his shoulder and hot breath evening out softly against his neck. Fingers ghost up and down your spine nonchalantly as Keigo talks softly to the people around him, his laugh vibrating against your chest and filling you with an odd, tingly sensation, a warmth that seeps through your body. You snuggle a little closer to him and he coos, readjusting you in his lap and wrapping an arm around your waist, holding you tightly to him.

“Don’t wanna go to bed with him,” you whisper, words muffled by his skin.

Keigo hums in question, squeezing you once. “Who, songbird?” he presses his lips to your ear as inconspicuously as he can, lidded gold eyes lazily scanning the room for your brother. “Touya?”

You nod sluggishly, little fingers curling in his hoodie, a silent plea not to let you go.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Keigo says softly with a small chuckle, but it sounds off to your ears—sad, even.

“Don’t wanna,” you repeat, pout evident in your voice. “Wanna stay with you,”

You wouldn’t have noticed the way his chest hitches at those four words if you weren’t pressed flush against it. But you feel it, feel his breath getting caught in his throat, reverberating against you as he clears it quietly. Unexpected guilt sours your mouth, makes your stomach turn to a block of heavy lead, weighting your body down.

“You know you can’t, sweetheart,” he finally responds, voice cracking just a bit, right on that last word. “Don’t hurt your niichan like that, he loves you,”

No he doesn’t, you want to say, but you can’t seem to force the words from your mouth, opting to shake your head instead, eyes shutting tightly against the burn of tears.

“He does,” Keigo says, more sternly this time. “Don’t doubt that,”

But you’re not so sure. If Touya loved you—really loved you—would he have disappeared no less than three times tonight, each with a different girl, leading them into his bedroom with those dark glittering sapphire eyes while they gaze up at him like he hung the fucking moon himself?

Honestly, is that even a question you want answered?

You keep your face buried in Keigo’s chest to block it out, to keep yourself from watching your big brother as he flits around the room, handing out discreet baggies in exchange for ridiculous wads of cash and talking in hushed voices, in code, to men who look much too old to be at a house party.

Eventually, Touya returns to retrieve you, bending down and speaking softly.

“It’s time for bed, princess,” A hand pets your head, and you flinch away.

“Hey,” you feel the couch dip beside you as he sits down. “Look at me,”

You’re shaking your head, trying in vain to press even closer to Keigo, but that doesn’t stop Touya from reaching out and gripping your chin, forcing you to face him.

Crystal eyes search your face carefully, wide and alert—he always works sober, you found out. He can tell you’re upset, can see it written plain as day across your face, eyes glassy with your lips set in a deep pout, eyebrows pushed together. Exhaling harshly, he closes his eyes, fingers rubbing at his eyes in exasperation.

“C’mon,” he says lowly, wrapping a hand around your bicep and tugging as he stands.

“No,” you nearly growl, shaking your head and viciously pulling your arm from his grip.

Touya stares at you for a moment, like he cannot believe you just had the audacity to tell him no, before he speaks, an incredulous laugh bubbling up from his chest. “What did you just say?”

Keigo’s sitting up straighter now, more alert as your body subconsciously curls into his chest, cowering away from your big brother. “Y-You heard me,”

Snorting in disbelief, Touya raises his eyebrows as his tongue runs along the front of his teeth, huffing out the remnants of a chuckle before his smile drops completely, blue fire blazing in his dark eyes.

“Get up,” he snarls, hand in a vice grip around your arm as he yanks harshly. The force of it has you practically falling off Keigo’s lap, though Touya catches you roughly before your knees hit the hardwood, hoisting you up by your arm to stand on unsteady feet.

“Move.” He instructs, giving you a shove in the vague direction of his bedroom. “Now.”

His chest bumps into your back and you stumble forward, yelping softly. He keeps pushing like this, strong hand clasping your shoulder so tightly you’re sure you’ll have five little bruises in the shape of his fingerprints in the morning, driving you to walk with the sheer force of his body.

“No,” your whispering, trying desperately to turn back and look at him as you approach his door, tears flooding your eyes, frantically shaking your head and trying your damnedest to plant your feet, heels digging into the floor in an attempt to stop him from pushing you forward.

“You really gonna say no to me a second time tonight? In less than fifteen minutes? You think that’s wise, baby?”

You don’t—of course you don’t. It’s probably one of the stupidest things you could do, in this situation.

But even though you know, know this isn’t a smart move, know you shouldn’t be testing him like this—challenging him like this, especially in front of so many people—you’re powerless to control the words that tumble from your lips next.

“I don’t want to sleep in a bed that’s been infested by your whores,”

They come out as a hiss—you don’t mean for them to, but they do, voice quivering under the combined weight of your fury and fear.

That gets him to stop, entire body going rigid. Icy dread rushes through your veins, panic clawing its way up your throat, forcing uneven breaths through your parted lips. Squeezing your eyes shut tightly, you brace yourself for the impact of his bellowing voice, shoulders tensing in anticipation for the blow, for him to really snap.

Except then he starts laughing, his hand relaxing around your shoulder, spinning you around to face him as he backs you up against his bedroom door, caging you in with his body.

“That’s what this is about?”

Eyebrows furrowing, you blink twice in disbelief, prompting hot tears to finally spill over. “I—Wh-Why are you laughing?”

“Because you’re being silly, princess,”

It hurts, stings like three massive spikes just shot through your heart, causes a tiny whimper to sound from deep in your throat, chest hiccupping with pathetic little half-sobs.

“Sil…Silly?” Time feels as if it’s slowed, your sluggish brain having trouble comprehending the situation unfolding.

His lips pull down into a frown, eyes narrowing slightly as he regards you with extreme precision. “Yeah,” he says, but his voice sounds far away, muffled, like you’re underwater and he’s speaking to you from above the surface. “Hey—”

Your head’s shaking again, in slow, delayed motions from side to side. “No,” you whisper. “No.”

You feel nauseous, and the proximity of his presence is only making it worse, making you feel like you could hurl at any moment. Little hands find purchase on his chest and push, stomach lurching painfully as your head spins.

He catches your wrists easily, holding them together in one large hand, his other coming to grip your chin and force you to look at him.

Thick silence settles between the two of you as Touya’s eyes study your face slowly, noting the tears flowing steadily down your face, the way your breath stutters with sobs you’re so desperately trying to hold back, the way your entire body trembles.

“Are you seriously upset over this?” he asks, laughing a little.

Your gaze holds his, tears casting a thick, gleaming screen across your eyes.

“Yes, Touya,” you whisper, wishing your voice didn’t sound as small and weak as it does. “I’m seriously upset,”

That’s the first time you’ve used his first name—just his first name, void of any honorific—in a long, long time.

It gets him to pause again, his usual and well-worn mask of passivity melting away for just a second as shock crosses his face. Then his features are hardening again, brows knitting together and creasing his forehead, eyes narrowing into near slits.

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” he spits harshly, the words cutting into your flesh. “You know none of them mean a thing,”

“Then why do you fuck around with them?” you shoot back almost immediately, voice fading into a whisper.

He glares at you, as if you’re wasting his precious time with such childish questions when he’s told you this already, and you can see the blue fire simmering in his eyes.

“It’s late,” he says curtly, voice sounding off to you. “You need sleep.”

You try to fight him on it, but he’s too quick, reflexes too swift, and he shoves you into his room, door slamming shut less than a second later.

Tears obstruct your vision as you stumble around, finally finding his desk chair and collapsing heavily. You don’t even bother trying to open the door, know it’s locked without having to hear that soft click! as the lock turns into place.

He’s right—it is late, well past three in the morning, and you are utterly exhausted, drawing your knees up to your chest and curling up in the plush chair.

But no matter how tired you are, you absolutely refuse to sleep in his bed. The party’s dying down, you can hear Touya’s muffled farewells as guests begin to leave while you fade in and out of consciousness.

You think you might’ve heard Keigo say something, might’ve caught the word stay, might’ve detected the annoyance laced in Touya’s voice as he responds, but you’re too worn out to reflect on it.

At some point in the night, Touya reenters his room, chuckling a little at your antics and carrying you to his bed.

The move wakes you, and you weakly protest—no, you don’t want to be in this bed, please, just let you go sleep in your own bed—but Touya ignores you entirely, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you tightly to his chest.

It’s then that the tears start up again, salt staining your puffy cheeks, head beginning to throb from dehydration.

“Shh, baby, shh,” he hushes you, nimble fingers combing through your hair. “I’m here, right here,”

If there’s one thing you’ve learned about Touya over these past few weeks, it’s that he becomes marginally softer in the middle of the night. Your fingers twist in his t-shirt, trying in vain to pull yourself impossibly closer, Touya making a soft noise akin to a coo in the back of his throat.

“I’ve got you, niichan’s got you,”

You hate it. You hate that he’s the only person you want comforting you right now, as you lay in his bed, surrounded by the smell of cheap perfume and clinging in desperation to him, needing him close, needing his body heat warming you and his hands on you. You hate the way your sobs come harder the more he soothes you, the heavy ache in your chest almost bruising, crushing your lungs and making it near impossible to breathe.

But you crave his comfort nonetheless. It’s a special kind of comfort, one that’s difficult to describe, one that only comes from the love and adoration and protection of a big brother.

Why can’t you just be mine? You want to ask, the words searing into your tongue, refusing to leave your lips.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick, angel,” he chastises softly, brushing your hair away from your clammy forehead as another shuddery sob rips through your chest.

“I want you,” you say instead, words garbled.

“You have me, baby,”

“All of you,”

His chest heaves with an exasperated sigh, head turning away and gazing up at the ceiling. “You have all of me, princess,”

There’s something in his voice that makes you stop, pause, his words reverberating in your mind. He sounds almost like…like he’s upset over this fact, like he wishes that you didn’t have all of him.

You want to press for more, to probe and prod and pick away at it, but exhaustion finally claims you, rendering you incapable of speech, your tongue moving sluggishly in your mouth as you desperately try to form words.

✰ ✰ ✰

It’s grey when you wake, only a few hours later, eyes sticky and dry from lack of sleep. Your head is pounding, feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton, lips cracked and dry from dehydration, and a painful lump forms almost immediately in your throat when you get a whiff of sickly sweet artificial vanilla, then another of intense, synthetic citrus.

The tears are starting up again, collecting in your eyes and clouding your vision. It makes you nauseous, makes your skin crawl and your chest burn as your throat fills with acid. The tears sting, but you blink hard to keep them at bay. You will not cry, not in front of him, not in his bed surrounded by the remnants of those other girls, not again. You refuse to give them the satisfaction.

You spring up quickly, halfway through climbing over Touya’s body when a strong hand latches onto your wrist.

“No,” Touya mumbles, face half buried in his pillow. “Stay,”

“No,” you whisper, pulling yourself free from his grasp and hurrying out of his room. You can smell them on your clothes, on your skin, and it makes you want to scrub your body under scalding water until it’s raw.

Everything hurts—it hurts so much it feels like your chest is collapsing in on itself, like you can’t breathe, gasping for air as you stumble onto the porch, nearly tripping over your own feet as you stop and realize you have nowhere to go.

Touya has cut you off from all of your friends at this point; any spare time you had was now claimed by him.

And that’s exactly why he doesn’t bother rolling out of bed to follow after you, isn’t worried about you going anywhere, knows you can’t leave him, no matter how badly you want to. No, not a precious little girl like you, with nowhere to find refuge.

You sit down heavily on one of the front steps, vision so blurry with tears you’re barely able to make out the figure advancing towards you. They’re finally escaping your eyes, rolling down your cheeks as you blink twice, trying to clear them. Your chest stutters under the force of a sob you’re desperately trying to hold back, clapping both hands over your mouth in an attempt to silence it.

“Hey—oh no,” Keigo breathes the moment your watery eyes look up at him. You squeeze your eyes shut, causing more tears to leak out as your shoulders shake, whole body trembling from the force of your sobs, poorly muffled by your palms.

“No, no, no, sweetheart,” he’s saying as he rushes to sit down next to you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders tightly.

Keigo’s the closest thing you have to a friend now. And really, you should be embarrassed by the way you practically fling yourself into his arms, burying your face in his chest as your hands form fists in his t-shirt. He’s a little startled by your borderline violent reaction, but he recovers quickly, arms encircling your body and pulling you against him.

“It’s okay,” he says softly, one hand rubbing your back while the other pets your hair. “Hey, it’s alright, I’m here,”

And you hate the way his words almost directly mirror Touya’s, the way his low sultry voice turned gentle and soft as he carded deft fingers through your hair echoing almost painfully in your head. But Keigo lets you cry, lets you stain his t-shirt with salty tears and saliva until you’ve got nothing left, never stopping his compassionate motions.

“You…Stayed the night?” you pull back a little, the fact that he’s still here, blonde hair all mussed up from sleep, finally dawning on you.

“Well, yeah,” he says, a little bashful as he looks away and ducks his head. “Wanted to make sure you were alright, s’all. Last night was…” he trails off, frowning. “What happened?”

Golden eyes search your face, his forehead crinkling in concern. A beat of silence passes.

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but…” kind fingers move to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “You’ll feel better if you let it out, promise. And, not to brag or anything, but I’m preee-tty good at this kind’a stuff,” he chuckles a little.

“Got in a fight,” you whisper, eyes staring intently at the brick wall behind his shoulder as your chin trembles slightly, memories of last night flashing through your mind.

“A fight? With Touya?” Keigo moves his head a little, forcing his face into your field of vision and catching your face with tender fingers when you try to look away.

“Yeah,” tears are beginning to well up in your eyes as you think about it, the sheer fact that you’re in a fight making your heart feel like it’s ripping itself to shreds. A chaotic storm of emotions brews in your chest, switching mercilessly and swirling together so quickly that you can’t even tell what they are. Your insides feel all jumbled up, and trying to decipher what the heck’s going on only makes your head ache more.

They torment you, a deep sense of anguish finally settling at the core. You’re confused, livid at Touya for being such a jackass; jealous, because you want him all to yourself; heartbroken, because you want—need—his approval, desperate to hear him tell you that you’re his good little baby girl.

You want to be his good little baby girl.

But it isn’t fair. Life isn’t fair, sweetheart. Get used to it, he had told you once, when you had complained about something so silly, so simple as him eating the last ice cream cookie sandwich (he made it up to you, of course, telling you he wanted to taste your cream—such a cheeseball—and making you cum three times before taking you out to buy more).

No, it isn’t fair, but you don’t care. You want him to be yours, too.

Keigo tsks, bringing your attention back to him, mouth set in a hard line as sad eyes watch you. “What was it about?”

“I-It…H-He—” a shuddery breath cuts you off, and Keigo draws you into his arms, holding you against his chest as the sobs start up again, sobs that make it feel like your body’s about to tear apart, desperately clutching Keigo to try and keep yourself together.

“Oh, songbird,” he coos, rocking you gently. “Is it…Um, the other girls?”

“Yes,”

“But you know you’re his favourite, right?”

“D-Does it even matter, if he’s still fucking them anyway?” you ask, pulling back suddenly as hot anger flashes through you. “Why does he need them? Am I—” a sob cuts you off, but you swallow it, persevering. “Am I not good enough?” your voice breaks on the last word, fading into a whisper, big teary eyes scanning his face almost frantically, seeking an answer in his expression.

Keigo blinks, surprised by your sudden brashness, then gives you a small, sad smile. “Only he can answer that, sugarplum,” he whispers, using the pad of his thumb to catch a stray tear and wipe it across your cheekbone. “But just because he’s fucking around, doesn’t mean that you can’t, too,”

Your head tilts to the side, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”

“Give him a taste of his own medicine,” Keigo shrugs, leaning back a little. “He definitely deserves it, for making an angel such as yourself so upset,”

You sniffle a little, wiping at your nose with the paw of your sweater as you consider the prospect.

“Y’know, it technically isn’t cheating, since you guys aren’t in any sort of official relationship to begin with,” Keigo reminds you gently, nudging just a tiny bit more.

It isn’t right—you know it isn’t. You’ve never been one to fight fire with fire, often preferring to avoid conflict and drama, but you’re so hurt; you’re so angry at him—angry at the way he reacted, as if it was you in the wrong, angry at the fact that he doesn’t even seen to care about your feelings on the issue, because he knows you’ll come running back either way, angry because he’s right, as evident in the way pathetically clung to him last night—that all you want to do in that moment is cause him a shred of the pain he’s causing you.

It’s an impulsive decision that has you pulling out your phone, quickly scrolling through your contacts, thumb jabbing at Tomura’s name—Touya had given you his number for emergencies only—before you have time to think it through, before you have time to regret it.

Tiny thumbs fly across the keyboard, your heart pounding in your chest as adrenaline accelerates your breathing.

Hey. Let’s hang out.

Keigo inhales through his teeth next to you, and your eyes dart to him in surprise, as if you had forgotten he was there.

“Well,” he begins, though his voice sounds odd to you—unlike his usually nonchalant, happy-go-lucky manner. “That’s, uh, definitely one that’s gonna hurt him, songbird,”

You look back down at your phone to see Tomura typing a response.

Yeah, definitely. Pick a day.

“Good.”

#dabi x reader #dabi x you #dabi smut #todoroki touya x reader #todoroki touya #no idea how this MONSTER grew so much???#big apologies #part two is DARK and it is coming tomorrow!!!#tw pseudo-incest #tw toxic relationship #tw dubcon #tw drugs #tw cheating

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calaofnoldor · 4 years ago

Text

What’s Mine

Characters: Sam x F!Reader, Dean

Words: 7,595

Summary: The secret you and Sam are hiding from Dean is threatened by your inability to keep your hands off each other.

Warnings: 18+ no actual smut but plenty of implied smut, pre-smut, and smut adjacency lol, secret dating, enemies to lovers, jealousy and possessiveness (exhibited by both sam and reader), slight obsession with sam’s big ass hands (i blame this largely on @walkerboy290‘s glorious hand porn gif sets), and language

A/N: inspired by and written for @thinkinghardhardlythinking bc she’s been bugging me to write smut and using her birthday as a bargaining chip, so i hope you’re happy sai. happy (belated) birthday babe! i suppose in my subconscious need to truly honor you, this became the longest one shot i’ve ever written... that and this is now also a little birthday gesture for the brilliant and beautiful @sams-sass (damn your close birthdays!) even though she never asked for smut (if you hate it, i’ll write you something else!) happy birthday to you too, darling!

also written for @superbadassnatural‘s 333 badass followers celebration with the prompt “___ and I are together.” “Yeah, right, and I’m Santa.” and @writethelifeyouwant‘s 300 follower fic challenge with the prompt “All the pretty girls like Samuel” (both prompts are bolded in the fic) i’m sorry i’m so late! congratulations to both of you and thanks for letting me enter your challenges!

[basically i have a lot of people to blame for this disaster 😂]

Square Filled: Secret Dating for @spnfluffbingo and Enemies to Lovers for @girl-next-door-writes Make Me Feel Bingo

MASTERLIST

The waffles on your plate are surprisingly good for a sketchy, 50’s-themed diner, but unfortunately your attention is elsewhere. In fact, the two distinctly masculine voices behind you have been obnoxiously impairing your ability to savor the buttery, syrup-doused carbs since their owners sat down in the adjoining booth. It’s the topic of their discussion that disturbs you, and nips at your conscience until you realize you can no longer take off without imparting a few words to your oblivious colleagues.

Turning your head subtly to the side, you try to catch a glimpse of the men you’re about to confront in your peripheral vision. From what you can see, they’re both rather burly, a little rough around the edges, and from what you’ve heard, recklessly cocksure. You know the type all too well. Being a lone hunter of the fairer sex for most of your life means you’ve long since learned that the best way to combat their kind is with a steadfast façade of thick skin and unwavering confidence.

So you sigh and put on your best smile before turning around, crossing your forearms along the top of the booth seat, “Listen fellas, I hate to interrupt, but I really wouldn’t bother with the bamboo dagger and Shinto priest if I were you.”

“And who the hell are you?” the one with shorter hair demands. He’s a bit stockier than his companion and has a face that looks like it was designed by Abercrombie and Fitch - well that explains the arrogance.

“I’m the person who’s about to save your asses evidently,” you respond with a smug grin, trying not to let their absurdly good looks deter your act.

Abercrombie’s partner, the Fabio wannabe, releases a quiet scoff, “And how are you gonna do that?” he questions dubiously.

“By letting you in on a little secret…” Throwing him a tight smile, you lean forward and lower your voice, “That ōkami you’re after? It’s not an ōkami, it’s a ghoul.” Sitting back, you await the outrage.

“What?! But that’s not possible, I checked the lore. And it’s obviously got a type.” Fabio’s glossy chestnut locks fall across his delicate features as he shakes his head in disbelief, and you almost snort out loud. How did this amateur expect to hunt with hair like that?

You look him over, taking in the broad shoulders and muscled arms, as well as the obvious height advantage he’s got over Abercrombie even whilst they’re both seated. To be honest, you’re surprised he’s referencing lore at all. Guys his size always assume they can either outman or outgun whatever obstacles cross their path, and they almost never take women like you seriously, despite your ample years of acquired knowledge and invaluable experience. It’s this experience that surmises a bit of antagonism here is inevitable, so you might as well get a head start.

“Yeah well maybe you should check again, big guy,” you glance down at his hands, your first mistake as their sheer size render you speechless and subsequently agitated at yourself for the momentary lapse of visceral lust, but the show must go on, “Make sure those giant, lumbering hands of yours don’t fumble over anything important or you might miss the connection to Isabelle Harding. You see it’s not ‘a type’; it’s revenge.”

“Wh- Bu- I looked through the files. I wouldn’t have missed that,” Fabio insists.

“Oh yeah? Why don’t you type ‘Isabelle Harding’ and ‘1987 school bombing’ into your search bar and see what comes up?” you gesture towards the laptop on their table with a raised brow. Minutes later, both men are dumbfounded by the revelation on the screen, staring between it and you with their mouths agape.

You chuckle silently at their faces, “Don’t worry, there’s no need to thank me. Although you rookies might wanna go home and let the more experienced hunter finish up here.” As you’re about to bid them farewell, you dip back in to add, “Oh and a word of free advice, maybe don’t discuss supernatural monsters quite so loudly in public spaces next time. It might invite unwanted attention.”

With that, you turn around and slap some cash down next to your unfinished waffles, before grabbing your jacket and strutting out the door.

Sam is left in utter confusion. The sudden animosity you had spouted his way seems completely baseless and unwarranted. Had he somehow offended you? Sam generally considers himself a highly respectful and fairly easy-going guy, not quite as hot-blooded as his brother, and thus not as likely to provoke such antipathy from a complete stranger. To make matters worse, he certainly can’t deny that something about you had registered within his subconscious as inexplicably attractive, despite the way you’d embarrassed him. In his flustered and slightly aroused state, it had been all he could do to remain awestruck in his seat and stare blatantly at your ass as you walked away.

The next time Sam sees you is only twelve hours later and no less humiliating. You’re mid-swing in the killing blow against what you had accurately predicted to be a ghoul as he and Dean tumble in. Despite the low lighting, Sam is once again stupefied by your raging beauty, augmented by the incredible skill you’re displaying in a much more physical sense this time around. Before he can drag his eyes away, there’s a collective shout of “watch out!” and suddenly you’re right in front of him. In a blur of events, you somehow manage to push Sam out of the way and successfully decapitate the unexpected second ghoul that had been sneaking up behind him, with only a slice across the arm to show for it.

“Didn’t I tell you two to go home?” You’re panting from the exertion and Sam’s gaze lands on the neckline of your shirt, skewed from the fight and revealing a good amount of cleavage. He quickly averts his eyes. What is happening? Sam can’t remember the last time anyone had evoked such a staggering reaction from him. He feels as if he’s a mere spectator in his own body.

Across from him, you press your hand against the wound and curse when it comes back covered in blood. At your groan of pain, Sam finally finds his voice again, “Shit. I’m so sorry! I don’t know how I missed that other one. I- that normally doesn’t happen.”

“Yeah, I bet that’s what you say to all the girls, huh?” you reply offhand, still a bit out of breath.

It’s easy for Sam to dismiss your mocking given that he feels terribly guilty for being the cause of your injury. From where he’s standing, the cut looks deep. “Here, at least let me stitch it up for you. It’s too awkward a position for you to do it yourself,” he offers, holding out his ginormous hands to you like he’s waving a white flag.

“I think you’ve done enough damage for one day, haven’t you, big guy? At this point, I’d rather Abercrombie over there be the one behind the needle.”

“Who- what?” are the first words Dean speaks since the action has died down.

You turn to face the shorter guy, “Oh don’t look so surprised. You might as well be the model for a slightly older Ken doll. Are you up for it or not?”

Dean’s mouth hangs open as he tries to determine whether he should feel flattered or insulted.

“Uh- actually, I’m better at stitches than my brother,” Sam butts in.

“With those jumbo, fumbling hands? Yeah, sure you are, big guy,” you decline skeptically.

“It’s Sam,” he states through a clenched jaw.

“OK, Sam. Since I just saved your life, you mind making yourself useful and burning those bodies while your bro puts my arm back together? You know, as a ‘thank you’ perhaps?”

Sam is stunned for the third time that day. No one has ever belittled him (whilst gratuitously attacking his size) insofar without any apparent reason. It seems as though his very existence upsets you and the arbitrariness of your contempt has caused an anger to stir beneath him, but beyond that lies bewilderment and irritation. How had he managed to accomplish two such massive mistakes in front of you in the span of so short a time? Perturbed and bitter, Sam silently sets to work on the bodies.

Meanwhile, you’ve come to a surprising realization as Dean begins to cut the fabric of your flannel away from your damaged arm, the name ‘Sam’ and the words ‘my brother’ resounding in your head, “Wait a second- there’s no way… you’re not… the Winchesters, are you? Sam and… Dean?”

“The one and only, sweetheart.” He sends you a dazzling smile that is as perfect as you’d expect, but within his eyes is an underlying poignancy that you recognize as clear as day: an indication of a traumatic past and a lifetime spent plastering on tough veneers. You notice as well how gentle his touch is and how his stitches are practiced and prudent. Perhaps you had judged him too hastily.

Through an incredulous chuckle, you retort, “Well I can’t say I didn’t expect more from you, but at least this’ll get me a free round of drinks at the hunters’ pub tonight.”

Dean laughs with you before sobering at the thought of how his baby brother must be feeling, “Hey listen, take it easy on Sammy, alright? I don’t know what’s gotten into him today but he’s not usually like this. He’s actually the smart one, believe it or not.”

Scoffing, you can’t help but smile back at Dean and soon find an easy rhythm with the older Winchester, despite your awkward introduction.

From several yards away, however, Sam looks wistfully back to see you smiling lightheartedly at something Dean’s said, the two of you huddled in close proximity as his brother’s hands drift across your bare skin. Something akin to envy bubbles within his chest although he’s aware it makes no sense, so with a frown, Sam does his best to shake it off and get back to work.

But it’s not easy to forget you. And just as Sam is beginning to think he’s rid that awful day from his memory, you pop back into his life three months down the line.

“Well, if it isn’t the overgrown hunter extraordinaire Sammy Winchester.” The sarcasm that oozes from your otherwise beguiling voice has him gritting his teeth in no time.

“It’s Sam.”

“So you here to mess up my hunt again, Sam?”

Although he wishes he could have been the bigger man instead of surrendering to the resentment you roused within him, after a couple repeated hatchet burying attempts fall through, Sam just can’t resist the little game you’ve started.

Over the next few months, you and Dean form a fortuitously close bond and the older Winchester develops a habit of calling you up when faced with a troublesome hunt, and vice versa. Despite Sam’s fabricated displeasure, a show he puts on mostly for Dean (since any other emotion would seem illogical given the way you treat him), Sam is peculiarly and begrudgingly excited to see you every time. But the match never ends. In fact, Sam lets it intensify each time you work together, always astounded by how you manage to get him so worked up.

“I’m telling you, it’s a rugaru!”

“Right, because the last time we listened to you, things worked out so well,” you remark sardonically.

“The lore says-“

“Ooh, quoting the lore again now are we, Mr. Know It All?”

At this point, Sam is about as huffy and puffy as the big bad wolf and if he were a cartoon character, there’d surely be steam erupting from his ears. “Look, Y/N, this isn’t about who knows more or who’s right; this is about saving those people’s lives!”

“You think I don’t know that? Was I not the one who saved your life the first time we met?”

“OK, alright, just shut up you two!” Dean finally shouts above you, “Would it kill you to just get along for two seconds?”

“No,” Sam admits.

“Probably,” you say at the same time, causing Sam to shoot you his overly perfected bitch face.

SIX MONTHS LATER

“What the fuck?!” Dean’s booming voice echoes throughout the bunker and moments later you and Sam come flying into the kitchen to answer his call, guns at the ready.

“What? What is it?” you ask while Sam scans the room.

A whimper is the only the way to describe the sound of Dean’s reply, as he points toward an unseen object on the floor. Edging toward him, you lower your gun in the direction of his finger until you discover the source of Dean’s distress.

With a sigh, you look toward Sam who is also exhaling in relief at the sight of the entity in question. The two of you share a moment of wordless conversation before simultaneously dropping your guns with a conclusive nod.

“Why does this feel like déjà vu?” Dean’s tone is still timid and appalled, and you nearly laugh at the idea of a grown-ass man looking so aghast because of a used condom.

“Because it kinda is…” you supply unhelpfully, earning yourself a small glare from the man beside you.

“Dean,” Sam begins with a deep breath, “There’s something we have to tell you… Y/N and I are together.”

The snort that escapes Dean is full-bodied and borderline psychotic, “Yeah, right, and I’m Santa!”

You wait till his snickering subsides, “No, it- it’s true.” Your voice is hesitant yet hopeful, “We’re not joking. We’ve kinda become… a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Yeah, well you know, I don’t wanna have to put a label on it or-“

“Y/N’s my girlfriend,” Sam declares with conviction as he reaches out to curl his long fingers around your waist and lasso you towards him.

“-Buuuut, that is the one I’d use if anyone asks,” you quickly affirm with a stiff pat to your boyfriend’s abdomen, wincing at the unversed attempt of PDA and missing the dimpled grin that crosses Sam’s amused features.

“Well, I don’t buy it. I don’t believe either of you.” Dean’s sturgeon face comes on strong as he shakes his head and points a challenging finger at you, “Kiss him, right now,” he dares with perked brows.

The eye roll you respond with is so dramatic your entire head moves with it. But then, without a moment of pause, you turn your body into Sam’s, reach up to grab the back of his neck and pull him down for a searing kiss. Now this is something you’re well-versed in. The reunion of your lips starts off relatively slow, but it doesn’t take long to escalate into something more fiery that involves tongue, the eager push and pull movements of your bodies, and Sam’s enormous hands cradling your head.

After a moment of shock, Dean objects, “Alright, alright, I get it! That’s enough of that!”

Unwilling to recede just yet, you linger in the kiss for a little longer, delaying your separation by nibbling down on Sam’s lower lip and tugging gently, only releasing it as you pull away torturously slow. When the two of you finally open your languid eyes, it’s to stare into each other’s dilated pupils and ponder the moment for an indiscernible minute.

“What th- I said, I get it! Now could please stop ogling each other before my lunch comes back out the wrong way?!”

But the way Sam’s smiling at you is addictive and you can’t bring yourself to look away until he forces a break by leaning in to plant a tender kiss upon your forehead before tucking you into his side as he faces his brother again.

Dean’s face is covered by his hand, “I’m gonna need a minute. I just-“ His features leap through a range of expressions as he tries to find the right words, “When the hell did this start anyway? I thought you two couldn’t stand each other?”

“Yeahhh, that was mostly an act. Although we bought it at first too,” you explain with a shrug.

“We weren’t pretending the whole time. It just kind of happened and we didn’t really know how else to act around each other by then,” Sam adds.

“Right, basically it turns out there’s a fine line between love and hate... and that line is hardcore yearning.” Your words bring a chuckle to Sam’s lips but his brother still looks out of sorts.

Shaking his head with closed eyes, Dean sighs, “Alright, can someone just explain to me exactly how this happened, because I’m still not computing here. But spare me the details and try to keep it PG-13,” he emphasizes with adamant hand gestures.

“How do you know it’s not PG-13?” you inquire with a held-back laugh.

“Ha. With the way you two were playing tonsil hockey just now, I can tell you’ve been around the bend way more than I wanna know. My little brother doesn’t kiss like that on the first date.”

It’s impossible to hold back a giggle at the memory of your ‘first date’ and the way Sam had kissed you, “OK well, that would be hard, considering the story involves a lot of sex... You wanna give it a go, big guy?” you pass the ball over to Sam with a quirked brow and lowered voice, to which he responds with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, a little warning glance that you’re well aware means ‘save it for the bedroom’ but you simply smirk up at him.

‘Big guy’ used to be a term you called Sam in contempt, but when the feelings between you evolved and a sexual relationship developed, it became an innuendo, such that calling him ‘big guy’ in front of Dean or in public almost always results in glorious sex. In fact, sometimes you believe the nickname has held a slightly obscene connotation for you since the beginning.

Afterall, your carnal longing for him has been present from day one, although at the time you had believed it to be purely physical. Sure, you had dreams about having him in various positions in your bed, but you figured those were merely betrayals of your subconscious mind. That was until one day, a heated argument in a rare moment alone had ended up in a violent make out session, after which the two of you had just barely gotten the last of your clothes back on before Dean walked in. One look at your worked up and frenetic states alongside the disordered condition of your surroundings, and he immediately assumed you’d been fighting again (which wasn’t terribly far from the truth), chortling as he asked if you would have killed each other had he returned a bit later.

With a clearing of his throat, Sam begins to recount the tale, “Uh, well it started in that motel in South Carolina, while you were out getting food…”

“Look, all I’m saying is there is no way he’s using the hospital as a dump site! It’s just not feasible!”

With complete disregard for the peace and quiet of the other residents within this thin-walled motel, you and Sam once again find yourselves in a shouting match.

“Oh right, I forgot! You’re Sam Winchester! How could you POSSIBLY be wrong?! Mister ‘look at me, my IQ and LSAT score match my fucking height! Oh and I also happen to have the physique of an Adonis without even owning a gym membership!’” you roar bitterly, gesticulating with your hands to help better communicate your pent-up indignation.

“Right and you’re Y/N Y/L/N, so how could YOU possibly be wrong? Miss ‘look at me, I never went to college but I’m a genius AND I can kick ass! Oh and I also happen to look effortlessly stunning through it all!’” Sam suddenly seems bigger than ever as he towers over you, that panty-soaking deep voice emanating from his diaphragm and infusing itself throughout the entire room until all you can see, hear, and breathe is Sam.

The fury takes over and you don’t notice your feet taking you closer to him, “Oh yeah because you don’t make EVERYTHING you do look so unnecessarily hot and make me wanna rip your clothes off all the damn time!”

“Fuck! And you don’t always drive me crazy when we have these stupid arguments and your chest starts heaving and you look so insanely delectable I just wanna pick you up and fuck you against the closest surface!” By now, the distance between you is essentially nonexistent and your brain is no longer run by reason.

“So why don’t you then?” are your famous last words, prompting Sam to grab you wildly by the back of a thigh, lifting slightly and driving you to climb up him like a spider monkey fleeing from a grounded predator, while his other hand pushes your hair aside to gain better access to your face. Your mouths clash in a fierce battle and before you know it, Sam’s huge hands are cupping your ass as your legs wrap around his waist and you rut into him, hands flying from his shoulders to his hair. Those divine chestnut locks that you’ve always dreamed of running your fingers through. They’re somehow even softer than you imagined and the revelation, in conjunction with the way Sam’s tongue is becoming increasingly aggressive causes a fresh surge of libidinous energy to rocket through you. As a result, you give his silky strands an irresistible tug and drink in the moan he makes, the sinful sound reverberating straight down to your core as you clench around nothing.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Sam groans as he grudgingly forces himself to pull back as much as he can, “Are you sure? Is this what you want? Cause I can’t- Y/N I won’t be able to stop myself if we keep going.” His eyes squeeze shut as if the notion of stopping or the act of keeping his lips away from yours is causing him genuine pain, and the entire gesture moves you.

“Fuck, you really are the opposite of everything I thought you would be,” you make a quick mental note to apologize later for your initially presumptuous behavior although you can’t find it within yourself to feel any remorse right now, “Yes, please Sam, fuck me. I want you so bad… I think I have since we met and I saw those gorgeous hands of yours,” you confess, biting your lip lightly.

Sam breathes out a low incredulous laugh, “What, these?” he asks, removing one of the aforementioned hands away from your butt to bring it into your line of vision.

“Yes, fuck they’re so big and beautiful and strong and-“

“Alright, I don’t need to know about your weird hand fetish!” Dean hollers abruptly, rubbing his fingers across his eyes as if he could somehow erase the image of you and his brother together out of his retinas. “OK, but that was like… four months ago. You mean you’ve been sneaking around behind my back this whole time?”

“Well at first we didn’t want to tell you because we weren’t even sure what it was ourselves,” you divulge.

“Yeah, we didn’t want to try to explain something that we didn’t understand yet,” Sam supplements, hoping his brother will understand the motive behind your secrecy.

You nod along, “But then… it got a little harder to hide.”

The apprehension behind Dean’s emerald eyes is unmistakable as he reluctantly inquires, “That’s why this felt like déjà vu?”

It’s with a grimace that you reply, hesitantly, “Remember the time you found those panties in the backseat of the Impala?”

Dean’s eyes grow comically wide and Sam ducks his head in preparation of what’s to come.

“Yeah, there’s a story behind that…”

The click of her heels against the porcelain-tiled foyer irritates you as the three of you stride through her front door. You’re posing as detectives sent to question this overdressed young woman about her late husband, but the moment she lays her eyes on Sam, you reckon she’s forgotten her beloved’s damn name.

“Oh my… lord and savior. Well aren’t you a tall drink of water?” she beholds breathlessly with a seductive bite of her painted ruby lips.

You cough loudly and Dean sniggers, thinking you’re annoyed about Sam getting such commendation and attention during a serious case.

“I know this might be the grief talking, but I would climb you like a tree,” she purrs, sauntering up to Sam with an exaggerated sway of her hips. With her half-lidded doe eyes adorned with dark, fluttery lashes and low, sultry voice, you have to admit she’s quite attractive.

Grinding your teeth as your nails dig into your palms, you glower at the woman unreservedly. She, however, takes no notice, running her hands along Sam’s forearms before gripping at his bicep to lead him toward her living room. “Please, come have a seat, detective. You can ask me whatever you want.” The wink she appends is somehow the final nail in the coffin.

It’s with zero hesitation that you feign the reception of a notification on your phone before declaring, “Oh would you look at that, the uh… Sheriff needs us back at the station, Sam. He says it’s urgent.” You try to keep your tone even, thankful that you all maintained your real first names for these aliases, “Dean, you’re good to conduct this interview on your own, right?” Without waiting for an answer, you trample over to snatch Sam’s other arm and ignoring the horny widow’s gaping mouth, proceed to haul him away.

Dean sends you a strange look but relents, “Uh, yeah I guess, OK.”

As soon as the door closes behind you, your hand shifts down to lace your fingers with Sam’s, marching him towards the Impala with a staunch and mighty purpose. Even Sam’s elongated legs stumble to keep up.

“So uh… when did you give the Sheriff your number?” There’s an edge in his voice that normally disappears when it’s just the two of you.

“Wha- I didn’t. Sam, I just made all that up,” you tell him as you reach the car and open its back door. Pushing Sam inside, you climb in swiftly after him, wasting no time as you straddle his thighs and begin to undress him, only pausing when he looks up at you in adorable, puppy-like confusion.

“Wait, what? Then what are we doing?”

That’s when it finally dawns on you, “Hold on a sec, were you… jealous?” You can’t help but smile, finding it amusing that he’s stewing in his own envy after what you just witnessed.

“No, I just- He was kinda all over you this morning.”

“You mean like the way Mrs. My-Husband-Just-Died-But-I-Wanna-Climb-You-Like-a-Tree was in there?”

“Oh, that’s what this is about?” Sam perks up, the hint of a smug grin ghosting across his lips.

“She was practically holding your hand!”

“That’s what bothered you the most?” He dips his head to catch your eyes and those variegated irises burn into you with an intense, questioning gaze, alight with mischievous curiosity.

“They’re my hands to hold,” you contend with a pout, subconsciously clenching your thighs around his as you seize one of his large hands with two of your much smaller ones, “Just like you’re my tree to climb.”

Sam’s head falls back in bright laughter, “I thought you said they were ‘oversized’ and ‘ungainly’?” he teases, quoting your previous slights.

“You know I only said that cause Dean was there.”

“I’m pretty sure you called them ‘fumbly’ and ‘lumbering’ the first time we met.”

Staring at his fingers as you play with them, you shiver at the memory of how they feel all over you. “That was cause I used to think all hunters with a Y chromosome were cocky, misogynistic assholes who needed to be knocked down a peg or two.”

“But I proved you wrong, right?”

“Fuck yes you did. So, so wrong. And now you’re mine, and I don’t like seeing other people touch what’s mine,” you growl before returning to your earlier task of removing his clothes, pouncing on him when your fingers finally land on bare skin. You kiss him fiercely, swallowing his surprised grunts with glee, and as his hands start travelling from your hips up to your back, holding you tight against him, your lips move down to his pulse point, sucking, licking, and nibbling, “Mine.”

“Fucking Jesus Christ on a cracker! You goddamn rabbits!” Dean squawks in protest as he begins to pace the floor, “Have you no decency?! And in my poor Baby! While I was busy doing all the work, saving lives!”

You roll your eyes at his melodramatics and can feel the tension in Sam’s abdominal muscles as he attempts to restrain his laughter. As if Dean had never taken a break during a case for a stress-relieving quickie before, or hadn’t been at least somewhat grateful to be left alone with a beautiful woman.

His next comment confirms your point, “Although, if I remember correctly that lady was a fox.” After a brief pondering pause and an introspectively appreciative smirk, Dean’s whining resumes, “But seriously! I can’t believe you two! Here I was feeling bad for forcing you to work and live together, hoping you’d eventually learn to get along when this whole time you were shacking up like animals and casually defiling my Baby just because what? Some girl touched Sam’s hand?!”

Feeling emboldened by the catharsis of this long-overdue airing of your dirty laundry, you decide to add to Dean’s exasperation, “Yeah and in the spirit of honesty, that might’ve happened more than once.” Sam tries to hold back his snort as he gives your hip a playful cautionary squeeze while Dean’s feet come to a full stop as he turns to give you a death glare. “Hey, it’s not my fault all the pretty girls like Samuel! And I’m pretty sure we wiped her down after.”

“I don’t even-“ Dean purses his lips and quirks his head with a dynamic expression of unbearable vexation, “You better be getting me pie every day of the week for what you did.“ He takes a deep breath before circling back, “Wait, OK so you’re telling me that a used condom ended up in our kitchen because- what? You two couldn’t keep it in your pants long enough to find a bed? You know what, forget I asked. I don’t wanna know. Did you at least sanitize the place after?? No, of course you didn’t, you left a fucking condom on the floor… I think I’m gonna throw up.”

But you hardly hear Dean’s rambling because you and Sam are far too wrapped up in each other, smiling as you recall the events of that morning.

Your eyes slowly drift open to find the most exalting sight in all the world: Sam Winchester’s sleeping face, blissful and serene. Lifting a hand to gingerly cup his cheek, the corners of your mouth curl up when he leans into your touch. It’s moments like this that make you wish you could wake up next to him every morning.

Only after you’ve traced his every feature and planted a soft kiss where his dimple would be if he were awake and smiling, do you carefully peel yourself from his side, slipping out of his hold as you quietly climb out of bed. Sam rolls over a bit and you freeze with bated breath, watching as his big arm extends out in your direction as if trying to reach for you in his sleep, before stilling again.

Mornings like this are rare and you want him to soak up all the restful sleep he can. Once you’re sure you haven’t woken him, you scan the room for something to cover your naked figure, until your eyes land on the flannel he’d worn the night before. Picking it up, you bring it to your nose and inhale deeply to revel in the residual scent of Sam. Another glimpse at his peaceful, sleeping form has you smiling fondly. God, you are such a goner for that man. It’s becoming hard to reserve your soft looks toward him for private moments alone.

You can barely remember how it happened, but over time, you’d come to learn that Sam is nothing like you originally imagined him to be. He’s kind-hearted and open-minded, the type of soul that can find hope and beauty in even the darkest of places, a far cry from the shallow macho man silhouette you’d expected him to fill. In fact, Sam routinely defies the expectations others have enforced upon him, proving his worth time and time again as he’s persisted through some of what must be the toughest challenges to ever face a single human. Yet through it all, his spirit remains intact, never once yielding to cynicism or resentment or apathy or even the building of walls as you and Dean have resorted to. He is truly the bravest man you know and infinitely more competent than your first fluke of a hunt with him had mistakenly suggested, both in the field and in bed.

Shaking the thoughts from your head, you wrap yourself in plaid and head out the door. Dean never questions your use of Sam’s shirts because ever since Sam firmly insisted on giving you his flannel after your second encounter with them resulted in Dean cutting your own top apart, you’ve grown into a habit of borrowing Sam’s clothes. You always claim they’re more comfortable than your own and Sam’s feigned annoyance over you ‘stealing’ his belongings tides Dean right over.

Half an hour passes before Sam approaches the bunker kitchen to find you with your back towards the entrance, busy prepping breakfast in nothing but his plaid. He pauses in the doorway to stare at you for a minute, licking his lips with an irrepressible smile. For some, this may seem like a stereotypical morning after, but for a couple of hunters, it feels like a dream come true.

After finally returning to the bunker last night following the completion of a series of successful hunts, you’ve got no solid obligations and very little on your to-do lists today, although Sam’s got more than a few ideas about how to pass the time, and a couple more come to mind when you stretch up on your toes to reach for something, causing the hem of his shirt to glide up until its corner reveals just slightest hint of your incredible ass. Sam can’t suppress his little grunt of approval, which catches your attention and makes you turn your head, peering back at him over your shoulder.

You smirk at the blessed view of him standing there in nothing but the pair of thin grey sweatpants you’d bought him a month ago when you discovered the viral online phenomenon, “Hey, big guy. You just gonna stand there and gawk or do you wanna make yourself useful and grab another plate from the top shelf?”

Chuckling at your false animosity, Sam stalks toward you, “Good morning to you too.” One of his vast hands falls upon your hip as he presses the maximum possible length of his body into your back side, while his other hand reaches up over your head to snatch the plate you’d asked for.

“Good morning indeed,” you concur with a silent gasp when you feel the generous bulge in his pants.

“Oh that’s not morning, baby girl,” Sam husks into your ear, “That’s all you.” His powerful arms slink around you and his lips find their way down the side of your neck, lingering in that tender spot just behind your ear whilst you tilt your head and close your eyes, contentedly surrendering yourself to the moment. “I ever tell you how good you look in my shirts?”

Wiggling your butt back to tease him a bit, you’re pleased with the hiss it elicits. “No, but you made it very clear how bad I look in Dean’s,” you counter playfully.

The man behind you scoffs, “I didn’t say you looked bad; you could never look bad. I just… don’t like seeing you wear his clothes.”

“Oh, I know,” you turn around in his arms, “I just don’t understand how Dean doesn’t know yet. I mean, I think you’ve been very obvious.”

“And you haven’t?”

“I’m not the one who leaves hickeys in very visible places all over your body!”

Sam’s eyes glaze over in lust, an idea clearly forming in his head as he glances down at you. “Dean’s a hot-blooded guy; he needs to know you’re off-limits,” he alleges before attacking your throat with his mouth.

“So why don’t we just tell him?”

Without pausing his efforts, Sam reminds you, “Because you said you thought it was kinda hot, all the sneaking around. Mmpf, and because you said you wanted to see how long it would take him to figure it out.”

You nod while running your fingers through his silken strands and leaning back to give him more purchase, “That’s true. But in my defence, we always have this conversation when we’re doing stuff like this and I can’t think straight when your hands and mouth are on me.”

“Kinda like how I can’t think straight when you’re wearing nothing but my shirt?” His kisses travel down from your neck to your collarbone and shoulder as he slides his loosely buttoned flannel off to one side, “Fuck, you’ve got me so hard.”

Without warning, Sam seizes your waist and hoists you into the air as if gravity were an absolute joke, before plopping you down on the edge of the steel counter, his thumbs digging lightly into your ribcage.

“Sam! This is where we eat!” you protest with a laugh.

“Exactly. Which is why I’m gonna devour you here.” He dives back into your neck, continuing his work on a little pink mark that’s already beginning to form.

“Oh fuck… Wait, what if Dean walks in?” It’s through a great struggle that you manage to push him back an inch.

“He’s got a date with the Impala. He’ll be in the garage all day, trust me.” Sam’s gaze sweeps over your body suggestively, “Now are you gonna let me taste what’s mine?”

With an equally lewd survey of his extensive frame, you reply, “As long as you let me impale myself on what’s mine later.”

His eyes darken and the way he’s looking at you like you’re the only person he’s ever wanted ignites a confidence within you, so in a rather swift motion, you grasp him by the shaft through his sweatpants – the delicious groan he emits at your touch is enough to turn your pussy into a slip and slide – and pull him back towards you until the clothed length of him is resting against your folds and your noses brush, while his hands settle naturally on your thighs.

Shivering, your breath stutters and for an instant you can do nothing but bask in the closeness of him. Sam seems to enjoy it too because he closes his eyes as he rests his forehead against yours with an elated sigh. For the second time today, you marvel at his beauty, whispering a string of gasping kisses along his lower eye socket and exquisite cheekbone, simply dying to breathe him in. All of him is so immaculate and sublime. Each time the two of you reconvene, you want to savor every fucking inch of him, but there are a lot of inches, so the task often overwhelms you. Still, you must try. Locking your ankles behind him, you use your legs to pull him even further into you and the friction makes you lose your mind.

“Fuck, baby girl, you keep that up I’ll be making a mess in my pants,” Sam grunts with his lips upon your cheek.

Your breathless laughter fills the air, thinking of the stain you've undoubtedly already left on his charming grey sweatpants. Nimble as he is, Sam takes advantage of your open mouth and plunges his tongue inside. After so much preamble, the kiss is heavy and full of need. When the pressure of his lips pushes your head back, your hands fly to his wrists for the sake of your balance.

From there, they journey upward across his vascular forearms to his bulging triceps, fondling his massive shoulders before sliding along his traps and up the gorgeous length of his perfect neck, until you finally reach the treasure trove of his impeccable locks. You tangle your fingers into the lush mane and yank, gently but zealously, making Sam growl into your mouth. His voice is the hottest thing you’ve ever heard and the sounds he makes always drive you insane.

Never breaking the kiss, Sam’s colossal moose paws roam up to your back as he slowly lays you down on the counter, his member somehow still notched at your entrance and the new angle rousing a quiet moan from you. When he ultimately pulls away, you pitch forward to chase after his lips, but Sam only grants you a devilish grin and a quick peck to the corner of your mouth before moving down to your jaw and neck. While one palm kneads at your breast through his shirt, the other begins pushing and pulling at fabric to uncover more of your skin for his wandering lips.

“Sam! Augh!” you cry out as your head falls back.

“I got you, baby. I’m all yours. Gonna make you feel so good.” As if to attest his words, he rolls his hips into yours and a needy whimper escapes you. With your fingers still twisted in his hair, Sam leaves no part of you untouched as his mouth travels down your body. But upon reaching your navel, he pauses, those vivid, color-changing eyes peeping up at you to check for any signs of discomfort or objection. Finding none, his thick tongue pokes out to lick a deliriously winding path from your belly button to your exposed clit. Then, pushing down tenderly on the insides of your knees to open you up to him, Sam directs you one last look that is both hungry and reverent, “I still can’t believe this is mine.”

Dean had stopped you halfway through your recollection, but it appears that was still too much for him, “What did I do to deserve this?! I feel like I need to go bathe in holy water for a week.”

You and Sam both open your mouths to respond but Dean cuts you off vehemently, “Ba-da-da-da!” His vocalized outcry is complete with animated gestures featuring an accusing index finger. “OK, before you two tell me another traumatizing story, that’s enough of the who, what, when, where, and how… I just need to know why. I mean, is this- are you- …?”

Sensing the protective wheels turning in his head, you decide to put Dean out his misery, “I’m not just with Sam because he’s an incredible lay if that’s what you’re wondering. We can skip the fatherly ‘what are your intentions’ talk. Yes, Dean, I am in love with your little brother… although ‘little’ is not exactly the word I’d use to describe him.”

“Sammy, could you please control your woman?”

“My woman?” Sam sounds mostly amused but you’re almost certain you can hear a hint of pride in his voice.

“Yeah, I admit I’m surprised I didn’t see it until now. You two are kinda oddly perfect for each other, you know, in a weird, kinky way.”

“To be honest, we’re pretty surprised too. I mean, he doesn’t look it but this guy is kind of territorial,” you quip whilst cocking a thumb in Sam’s direction.

“I don’t need to- Wait a minute, so all those bruises you told me were from hunts?” Dean’s eyebrows soar towards his hairline.

Chewing on your lip, you confirm his hypothesis with a miniscule nod.

“Yeah well that time you saw my back,” Sam chimes in vengefully, casting you a handsome grin full of mischief as he reveals, “that wasn’t a werewolf, that was Y/N.”

With eyes as round as dinner plates, Dean frantically shuts you both down, “OK, that’s it. Torture Dean time is over. I don’t wanna hear any more about your depraved sex lives! Look, I guess I’m happy for you guys, although mostly cause I don’t have to play referee anymore, but I’m gonna need you to follow some ground rules around here. Like rule number one! No sex in public places!” he starts counting with his fingers, “Always put a sock on it when you’re busy! And most importantly, no sex in Baby!”

Your laughter follows Dean as he wearily saunters out of the kitchen, an exhausted expression on his face. Turning to your newly outed boyfriend, you petition excitedly, “Does this mean we can have shower sex now?”

“Not while I’m around!” comes Dean’s snappy answer.

In contrast, Sam gives you the same look he did on that dreamy morning, “Oh trust me baby girl, I’m gonna get you wet somehow.”

“Still within hearing distance! I think I liked it better when you guys were at each other’s throats.”

As you’re giggling, Sam leans down to whisper in your ear, “For the record, I’m in love with you too.” And just like that, you’re tempted to re-enact your previous kitchen escapades.

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bitsandbobsofwriting · 4 years ago

Text

Something in the woods is stealing peoples’ Souls;

Merlin learns the hard way that he's a little more... fragmented, than normal people when he tries to solve the issue himself.

Part 2 (final part)

All of the Physicians in the town are being overrun.

Bodies keep showing up, still breathing, still perfectly functional, all seemingly unharmed... but they won’t wake up.

None of them will even twitch, as if, whilst the physical bodies were in perfect condition, there was something lacking somewhere, stopping any sort of higher brain function.

The King, his Knights, and even the Court Physician and his (newly titled) Co-Worker (as opposed to Apprentice), were baffled.

Medically, they had nothing to go on, all they could do was keep the bodies alive as best they could, and hope that some sort of solution could come about after some good old fashioned detective work.

Thankfully, it only took five days, and twelve comatose patients, for The King’s best Knights to realise that all of the... victims(?) had been found in a specific area of the woods just outside the city limits.

With such a distinct, and unexplainable issue, it was assumed (rightfully) that magic was involved somehow; whether it be some sort of creature, or yet another evil sorcerer hell-bent on revenge.

Which of course led to Merlin, one of the Court Physicians, and also (Secretly)TheMostPowerfulWarlockEver™, putting on his warmest clothes and sneaking out in the dead of night under the worried gaze of Gaius.

He did not come back.

Not that anyone but Gaius knew.

Early the next morning, King Arthur gathered his best Knights, Sirs Leon, Lancelot, Gwaine, Percival, and Elyan, to go and hunt down whatever it was that was rendering his people permanently unconscious.

Gaius and Merlin had explained the previous day, when these plans were conceived, that Merlin would have to stay behind; Camelot’s Physicians were so overwhelmed with not only normal patients, but now twelve comatose bodies as well; they needed every pair of hands they could get. For once, Arthur was happy to leave his manservant behind.

The man cared greatly for his people, and whilst he would love nothing more than to have Merlin at his side all day, every day, he knew that he was safer, and more needed, in the city.

It was meant to just be in case Merlin got injured and had to hide it, but Gaius did well to hide his worry when he waved them off, and didn’t mention that Merlin wasn’t even in the city, that they could be finding Merlin’s comatose body next.

It took the Gang barely half a day to get there, and they had supplies to last them a few days in the woods, if that’s what it came to, but they were all still tense.

They hadn't seen anything like this before. They had no idea what they were up against; there were no physical injuries to assess, no eye-witness accounts, nothing found in their blood or on their person. Just unconscious bodies that showed no sign of waking.

Thankfully, they found no more bodies as they methodically searched the forest, but they also found no sign of what was wrong.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary: nothing attacked them, there was no blood, no destroyed areas, not even a scrap of evidence that something had even happened.

They finally stopped to make camp at sundown, dejected. Their mood definitely worsening with Elyan’s terrible cooking.

Gwaine was, of course, the most talkative:

“I know he’s needed or whatever, but are we sure we can’t go back and get Merlin? I’ve eaten a lot of gross shit over the years, but I’m not sure if I can take this for four more days.”

Elyan grumbles in embarrassment as the others snort, amused, and he throws a twig at Gwaine. It snaps in two across the knight’s face with a satisfying crack.

Arthur ignores the childish behaviour (something he can’t believe he has to do in the first place), shaking his head as he replies:

“No. The health of the people comes before your stomach. If Gaius says he’s needed in the city, then he stays in the city. Though I was surprised that he wasn’t there to wave us off.”

Gwaine smirks knowingly, and Percival puts a warning hand on his shoulder, but it does nothing to deter the knight as he waggles his eyebrows at The King.

Arthur flushes slightly, but he covers it quickly, not having time to retort before Gwaine opens his mouth again:

“Missing him, are you? Perhaps next time you should request that he stand on the battlements in a dress, and wave a handkerchief at us as we heroically ride out?”

Arthur throws a much larger twig (it’s more of a branch, really) in Gwaine’s direction, and this one knocks him off his seat, but before anyone can even snigger at him, Arthur loudly announces the watches and tells everyone to get some sleep.

The next day went much the same.

That is, until late-afternoon.

The Knights were continuing their methodical search of the woods, once again finding themselves somehow tense and bored, when they came across a clearing that had clearly seen a gruesome battle.

Trees were uprooted, the ground was covered in deep holes and scorches, and there were even the occasional splashes of blood.

Which honestly raised more questions that it answered.

After thorough searching, they were hopeful. It looked like it had been some sort of fight between a sorcerer, and something... not human, some sort of creature. BUT, going by the tracks, the sorcerer had survived, and wandered off.

Was the sorcerer injured, or was the creature injured? If the sorcerer had walked off, injured or otherwise, where was the creature? Surely they should find the body of one or the other?

Another question that no one really wanted to ask: was this even related to the bodies?? Or had the Knights just stumbled onto something completely unrelated that they would inevitably get dragged into dealing with anyway?

Either way, they couldn’t ignore it, and with new-found motivation, they followed the tracks deeper into the woods, instead of setting up camp, like they had intended.

Whoever it was seemed to be wandering aimlessly. The blood trail slowly came to a stop, and it seemed that every step was stronger; as if whoever it were was gaining more energy from walking, as opposed to becoming more tired.

Still, whoever they found at the end of the tracks would be able to provide some sort of answer.

Eventually, after around two hours of diligently following the footsteps through the woods, Arthur signalled everyone to stop.

He wordlessly dismounts his horse, and gestures everyone to quietly do the same, before silently pointing ahead.

The knights look carefully to where he gestures, to see a man stood in the centre of a clearing, facing away from them.

They, still silent, draw their swords and sneak closer, but the man doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was stood upright, they would think him dead.

Arthur steps into the clearing, about twenty feet from the man, and furrows his brow. That looks like.... no... it can’t be, can it? He shakes the thoughts from his head, convinced that he’s just imagining things, but before he can make his presence known, the man turns around, as if he sensed them stood there.

All of them gasp and take a step back, immediately recognising Merlin.

But he’s... different.

He stands scarily still, unusual for a man who was constantly fidgeting or on the move.

His face is blank, and if he hadn’t been staring straight at them they would think he hadn’t noticed them at all, and whilst he stood as if uninjured, his tunic is ripped and blood-soaked.

But what draws everyone’s attention, was the bright golden glow of his eyes, highlighted especially by the quickly descending darkness of the evening.

Arthur brings his sword up slowly, taking a cautious step forward as he calls Merlin’s name.

Merlin simply tilts his head slightly, otherwise staying still, before stutteringly beginning to speak:

“Mer... lin... Merlin....... Merlin is... Merlin is...... Merlin is gone.”

It’s clear that something is deeply wrong with the manservant, but the way he spoke, as if he knew how but had never actually done it before, like he was still figuring it out, creeped the hell out of everyone.

His words as well, “Merlin is gone” do nothing but fill them with dread.

Lancelot steps forward quickly, moving to stand in front of Arthur, sword unsheathed but pointing at the ground. He was unsurprisingly less fearful of the golden irises, and recovered the quickest:

“What do you mean, “Merlin is gone”, gone where? Who are you?”

Merlin... or... not!Merlin, tilts his head further:

“Merlin is... gone. I... I... I want him... back.”

Lancelot gulps but before he can reply, Arthur breaks out of his stupor, and growls:

“What have you done with him?! Whatever you are, give him back!”

Merlin moves his gaze from Lancelot to Arthur, and takes a step forward, before bowing his head slightly, as if out of respect:

“You are... The Once and Future King... I want him back... you... you... you need him... back.”

The rest of the knights are fully freaked out now, but they hide it well, and gather slowly around Arthur. Lancelot scowls at them, holding a placating hand out. He really doesn’t want any of them to get jumpy and skewer Merlin. He takes another step towards the golden-eyed man:

“We all want Merlin back. The bodies, the same thing happened to you? Happened to Merlin?”

Not!Merlin nods slowly once again, looking back to Lancelot:

“It... took him... from me. I... I... I want him back.”

Lancelot returns his nod, letting out a deep breath:

“And who are you? What are you doing in Merlin’s body?”

Not!Merlin frowns slightly, as if confused, the first actual expression he’s pulled this whole time. It takes him a few moments to respond, and Lancelot is getting desperate; he can feel the knights behind him getting more and more jumpy, especially Arthur:

“I am... I... I have always been here... I am... I am... I am me. I am Merlin’s... and he is... mine... I want him... back. He is... mine.”

Lancelot tenses slightly. He has a feeling he knows what’s going on. Merlin talks about his magic sometimes, talks about it as if it’s... sentient. Described the way it’s always desperate to reach out to Arthur and the Knights and Gaius and Gwen, how it sometimes does things without his permission.

Lancelot gulps. This is bad. Merlin’s magic is walking around in his body without him there to control it. They were going to struggle to explain this away, as much as Merlin claimed Arthur was an idiot, it wasn’t completely true. Lancelot bit his lip, glancing back at the others as he re-sheaths his sword.

He knows there’s no way to get them to relax... unless... this might backfire terribly, but it also might be the only way to get them to calm down a little.

Lancelot frowns thoughtfully, and just before Arthur works up the nerve to say something else, he turns back to Not!Merlin:

“Do you mean us any harm?”

Not!Merlin once again tilts his head and frowns as if in confusion:

“No... Merlin is... Merlin is fond of... you. I.. I was made for... for The Once and Future King. I am... unable to hurt him.”

Lancelot nods, before saying slowly:

“Do you have any reason to lie to us?

The golden-eyed man shakes his head slowly, the glow seeming brighter as he replies:

“Why would I... I... lie? I could kill... you without a... second... second thought. I want Merlin... back.”

The knight nods one final time, looking back to the others to gauge their reactions. Their swords are still unsheathed, but lowered, their faces tense and concerned, but not angry. Lancelot supposes that’s the best he’s going to get at this point.

He lets out a rough sigh, running a hand through his hair as he looks back at the Warlock:

“You’re not Merlin. What do we call you, until we can get him back?”

Not!Merlin lets his gaze wonder to the knights, before finally landing on Arthur. His speech had been getting better with use, but he speaks slowly and keeps his stare on The King, as if curious to his reaction:

“I am... I am... I am part of him. I don’t... have a name. Call me... me... Emrys.”

Lancelot grits his teeth, and his eyes whip to Arthur, to see if he recognises the name.

With The King’s gasp, and widening eyes, Lancelot knows that he does recognise the name.

“You... you’re Emrys?? I thought Emrys was some all-powerful sorcerer, what are you doing in Merlin?”

Arthur is too distracted to notice Lancelot’s panic, but Leon, ever the observant one, is not, and frowns at the sudden fear on his fellow knight’s face.

Mer-... Emrys had already admitted that he wouldn’t lie, if Arthur keeps asking questions, he’ll figure it out. But before Lancelot can think of a solution, Emrys replies:

“Emrys is... is... our other... name. But I am not... Merlin. Not on my own. I want... want him back.”

Arthur looks taken aback, but before he can ask another question, Gwaine steps forward, giving Lancelot an unreadable look before:

“Right, well that’s all fine and dandy, but we need to set camp up and figure out what we’re going to do about... this.”

He gestures vaguely to Merlin’s body after sheathing his sword.

Arthur looks about ready to argue, but with another pointed look from Gwaine, Lancelot jumps into action:

“Gwaine’s right, we need to gather the horses and set up for the night. Here is probably alright, then we can come up with a plan to get Merlin back, and presumably, all of those other people.-”

He turns to Arthur, a sufficiently subservient expression on his face:

“-If you think that’s best, Sire?”

Gwaine rolls his eyes and scoffs at that, heading back to gather the horses from where they’d been left without further prompting. Arthur’s argumentative expression drops after a moment, and with one more mistrustful glance to Emrys, he nods, instructing the others to gather wood and get started on dinner.

Lancelot lets out a breath, but flushes slightly and tenses his jaw when he sees Leon giving him an inscrutable look. He turns away after a moment, under the pretence of helping Gwaine.

The moment Lancelot reaches Gwaine, a few metres into the treeline, the other knight quickly turns around and grabs his shoulders. He glances desperately back towards the clearing, and when he establishes that they’re the only two within earshot, roughly whispers:

“Please tell me you figured it out?? Because I’m not sure how the hell I’m going to keep Arthur from finding out on my own.”

Lancelot’s eyes widen, but his shock keeps him silent for only a few moments before Gwaine shakes his shoulders. He blinks away his surprise, whispering his response:

“You know?? Does Merlin know that you know?”

Gwaine shakes his head, finally letting go of Lance’s shoulders:

“No. I worked it out like twenty seconds ago, I’m sort of hoping that Arthur isn’t as quick as me. How long have you known?”

The other knight nods his head understandingly:

“About as long as I’ve known him, but I’ll explain later. This whole thing is... terrible. I don’t think our odds are good. Mer- Emrys won’t lie, and we won’t be able to stop Arthur from asking questions. He’s probably asking them now. We need to get the horses and get back.”

Gwaine nods roughly, and without another word, the two of them gather the reins of their six horses, and quickly make their way back to the clearing.

They had only been gone a few minutes, and in that time, firewood had been gathered and arranged. Elyan pulls a flint out of his pocket, and Lancelot widens his eyes as he sees Emrys tilt his head (still stood in the same place), moments before waving his hand casually.

The wood bursts into a roaring flame, and Emrys suddenly has four swords on him. Lancelot and Gwaine rush forward, standing in between Emrys and the other knights, holding their hands out as if in surrender. Gwaine speaks first:

“Hey! You might be freaked out by all of this, but that’s still Merlin’s body, and he needs it, so lets not poke holes in him, alright??”

Everyone bar Arthur lowers their swords, but before Gwaine can growl something out, Lancelot turns back to Emrys:

“Look, they’re all a little... unnerved, by magic, so maybe stop using it for now, yeah?”

Emrys tilts his head and furrows his brows again, and everyone stares at him in shock as he replies, not quite knowing what to make of his response:

“But I am magic. I am magic... incarnate. If I stop... I... I cease to exist. And Merlin... Merlin needs me. He needs me like... like... like humans need to breath. I can not just... stop. He would... would... we would die.”

Lancelot tightly shuts his eyes. There is officially NO way to explain this one away. Gods, Merlin is going to be so scared when he finds out.

After a few moments of shocked silence, Arthur finally squeaks out a:

“What??”

Gwaine quickly responds, before Emrys can reveal anymore:

“No. It's cruel to take Merlin’s secrets from him when he isn’t even here. We find Merlin, then you can ask your questions.-”

Arthur looks angry, like he wants to argue, but Gwaine takes a threatening step towards him, resting his hand on his sword at his hip as Lancelot and the other knights look on the scene with panic in their eyes. Gwaine growls out:

“-I said no, Princess. Everyone here knows I’m more loyal to Merlin than you, and that doesn’t stop just because he’s not here and you’re about to throw a temper tantrum.”

Arthur huffs, but lowers his sword as Gwaine glares at him, and Lancelot lets out a breath. The other knights follows The King’s lead, sheathing their swords and settling tensely around the fire.

Lancelot goes back to the horses, tying them down and removing saddlebags, with Leon’s help (and constant stare, which was an odd mix of concern and suspicion).

Gwaine points Emrys to a spot on the floor, and tells him to sit. The knight settles next to him protectively, his sword across his lap as he glares at Arthur on the other side of the fire.

The evening passes awkwardly, food being cooked and eaten in silence, no one quite sure what to say.

Arthur spends the whole time with a pinched look of frustration on his face, but the knights look to him as he takes a deep breath, his expression morphing into an odd mix of concern and accusation in the blink of an eye:

“How do we even know that the... Merlin, part of... part of you is alive? What happened to hi- to you? How do we get him back?”

Lancelot wants to be annoyed at his tone, but he poses valid questions. They still had no idea what actually happened or why or how they fixed it.

Emrys tilts his head, aiming his golden stare at Arthur:

“It is one of... of the Manducan, or The Eating Ones. They... are very rare, they steal... steal souls. Bodies can survive a short while.... a short while without them. Hence your... comatose patients. I am... we are, a little more... fragmented... than most. I contain too... too much power, so The Manducan took... only the human... human part.”

Everyone looks extremely worried at that, but Arthur’s face turns desperate as he rushes out:

“What do you mean, human?? What are you??”

They all stare at the raven-haired man as he speaks, his eyes focused on the King:

“We do not... know. Some call us a Lord, or a King. Others call us... call us... a God. In moments... of power, we... we hear prayers. It can be... disconcerting.”

The camp is silent for a while after that, everyone processing what had been said. Merlin heard people praying to him... not even Lancelot knew that, Merlin had never told him.

After around half a candle-mark, Leon breaks the silence to ask the questions that had been pushed to that back of their minds:

“How do we kill this creature, and what happens if we do? Can we get the souls back, undamaged?”

Emrys turns his golden gaze to the curly-haired knight as he replies:

“It is already... weakened. The Forever King needs to... strike... strike it with Excalibur. They hibernate for.... for centuries... and only return to this plane of existence to... collect food. If you... if you... if you kill it before it leaves, the souls will... will return...naturally.”

The knights all let out breaths of relief, but Arthur looks at his sword oddly, before muttering:

“What’s so special about my sword? And why do you keep calling me strange titles?”

Lancelot gulps, and Emrys tilts his head:

“You know of Emrys, but not of the... the prophecies?”

Arthur nods his head slowly, but Lancelot interrupts before Emrys can start the complicated process of explaining his and Arthur’s destinies:

“Perhaps that’s a... story, for when we have Merlin back in one piece. How do we track the creature?”

Arthur gives him a glare, before lowly saying:

“Do not think I do not notice you avoiding the subject, Sir Lancelot. You know of these prophecies?”

Lancelot grits his teeth, but gives a slow nod:

“Bits and pieces. Merlin isn’t fond of talking about it.-”

He raises a challenging eyebrow, still staring Arthur in the face, and everyone is take aback. Lancelot was never anything but respectful and polite to his King; this defiant look shocked them all:

“-You see, he’s spent his entire life in Camelot absolutely terrified that someone will overhear him, and have him burnt.”

Arthur took in a deep breath, hiding his guilt behind a blank façade, but before anyone can say anything, their gazes are drawn back to Emrys, who looks almost... mournful?

He nods his head slightly, and the sad look on his... on Merlin’s face, looks so out of place for someone so normally upbeat:

“He is... we, are constantly frightened. It is exhausting. I try to... to reassure us but... Merlin is... is... is always so scared, despite our power. We used to... to love flames, fire. Now it is... terrifying to us.”

Lancelot had kept his gaze on Arthur, and when The King looks back at him, his despair badly hidden, the knight simply shrugs one shoulder and nods slightly.

Arthur lets out a breath, and looks to his lap, whispering so quietly that the group barely hears him:

“He’s scared of... of me.”

Gwaine growls out an “Of course he is, you’re a Pen-.”, but he’s interrupted by Emrys:

“No. He would allow you to... to kill us. But we couldn’t bear to... to lose you.-”

He finishes his statement quietly, and Arthur looks up at him, tears in his eyes:

“-We don’t want to be sent away. Camelot is... is... is frightening. But it is also our... home.”

“I would never send you away. When we get Merlin back, you... you tell him that. Tell him he’s safe with me, with us, and always will be.”

Emrys tilts his head yet again:

“And my people? Will we be an... exception? Will you make us watch you... continue to persecute our people, whom we... we... we should be protecting? Merlin does... does not want to make a... hypocrite out of you.”

The knights look at him expectantly, and he blanches slightly as he looks away. The King gulps, before taking a deep breath and looking back, straightening his spine and looking confident:

“The laws will change. Crimes committed with magic will be judged the same as crimes committed without; it’s about time I faced the cruelties of my father.”

The corner of Emrys’ mouth tilts up briefly as he nods, but says nothing. Gwaine smirks, Leon and Lancelot give The King proud smiles, and Percival and Elyan look taken aback, before they relax into fond smiles of their own.

The evening had passed quickly, and with all of them exhausted, it’s decided that any further discussion on how to track this... Manducan, would happen in the morning.

All of the knights fall asleep quickly, finding the protective golden glow of Emrys’ unsleeping eyes both comforting and unsettling.

They all woke the next morning oddly refreshed, but the relaxed atmosphere didn’t last long when, one by one, the knights noticed Emrys sat unnervingly still, in the exact same spot as last night.

Only the occasional blink and shallow breathing proved that he was in fact alive, and not some sort of incredibly life-like statue.

Food was eaten, and camp broken quickly; the golden eyed not-quite-a-servant staying in his spot the whole time.

Despite Emrys saying that the souls would be fine as long as they got there in time, they were still full of nervous energy, and wanted to get this over and done with as soon as possible. Not least of all because they had a lot, and I mean a LOT, of questions for Merlin... or... all of Merlin.

Emrys was pointed to Lancelot’s horse, and once he mounted in front of the knight, everyone looked at him expectantly. He simply tilted his head, and Arthur huffed:

“Well? How do we find this... creature? Can’t you-”

He waves his hand vaguely, and Leon is the only knight able to hide his snort at The King’s impression of magic.

Emrys nods in understanding, and extends his hand in front of him. A thin stream of light, like a glowing string floating in the air, extends from his palm, snaking through the trees.

He nods, this time in the direction of the light, and the knights urge their horses to begin a quick paced journey.

Conversation is sparse, but eventually the question on all of their minds is asked by Percival:

“If you could do that the whole time, track the Manducan I mean, why didn’t you?”

Emrys doesn’t look towards him, but the horses noticeably slow as everyone bunches together, curious about his answer:

“They are of a different... different plane. Magic can harm them but... but... but not kill. I was waiting for The Once and Future King to bring... bring Excalibur.”

Percival nods in understanding, but Leon frowns:

“Well... what about us? Will we not be able to harm it with our swords?”

Everyone copies his frown at that. They’re valid questions, and Arthur is silently grateful that Leon had the tactical mind to think of them:

“No. It will be safer for... for... for you to... wait. I can distract and injure it further until... The Once and Future King can... kill it.”

The knights looks worried at that, but Elyan is the first one to pipe up:

“We’re meant to just stand back and watch? Can’t we set a trap, or help distract it?”

Emrys shakes his head:

“It can not be trapped. Being too close would... would have adverse effects on... on... on your souls.”

Arthur looks back from his position at the head of the group with a frown on his face:

“Well what about my soul? I’m presumably going to have to get close to it in order to stab it?”

Emrys fixes his golden stare on The King, and tilts his head slightly in confusion:

“Your soul was forged through magic, it is marginally... immune. It will take a little... longer for... for... for your soul to react badly.”

Arthur nods, looking back to the front, muttering something about “having a time limit before my soul implodes or whatever. Great.”

Once the knights finish snickering at Arthur, Gwaine asks:

“Wait wait, if Excalibur is the only thing able to kill it, what are you doing out here?”

Emrys tilts his head, looking back to the knights:

“We were... unaware of that at the... the time. We only figured out what... it was, when we fought it.”

Everyone nods, all of them wondering just how many times Merlin had snuck out to take care of something, with none of them knowing about it. The list of questions they had for when Merlin was back in one piece was getting longer and longer, and no part of this conversation was helping the anxiety swirling in Lancelot’s stomach.

After another hour or so of silence, Elyan pipes up:

“I’m surprised no one has asked yet but... what does this thing look like? I know we’re following a trail or whatever, but what are we actually going to find at the end of it?”

“They shift sizes, though they always take... the form of a thick-”

Emrys is interrupted by Arthur pulling his horse to a sudden stop, and pointing through the trees ahead of his, harshly whispering:

“Black shadow??”

Everyone stops behind him and their gazes dart quickly to where Arthur gestures. Through the trees they see a large mass of deep black smoke.

The black tendrils seem to writhe in the air, and the knights can see vague impressions of limbs tipped with impossibly sharp claws darting out occasionally before retreating back into the fog.

The creature looks like evil in semi-corporeal form, and the usually strong-willed warriors take in stuttering breaths at the overwhelming instincts of “Unnatural, run run RUN!” screaming at them with every passing second.

The shadow doesn’t seem to have any front or back; being in a constantly shifting state, sometimes seeming to freeze, sometimes darting through the trees in a blur.

The knights have lost all colour in their faces, and their breath comes shallowly and quickly. Arthur gulps, tightening his grip on his sword as he whispers:

“Horse, or on foot?”

The sound of Emrys’ feet softly thudding on the undergrowth gives The King his answer, and he dismounts his horse slowly, trying to stop the shaking in his hands and legs.

He takes a deep breath as Emrys moves to stand behind him. His voice is shaking and desperate, as if he were a child reaching for help after a nightmare:

“How do I... what do I do, Merlin?”

Emrys tilts his head, but doesn’t say anything of the The King’s mistake:

“You need only get close enough to... deeply slice it. It is fragile in this... this realm. Cover your eyes when you... you do so, the light will be blinding. Do not let it... touch you. I am reluctant to admit that, after what it did to... to... to our soul, I do not know what it will... do to yours.”

Arthur takes another deep breath, and clears his throat slightly as he gives a firm nod. Time to be brave now, for his people, for Merlin.

The King can hear his knights dismount behind him and tie up the horses, ready to jump in and help at a moment’s notice, in spite of... whatever will happen to their souls. None of them are really sure they want to know, so none of them ask for details, and Arthur is unendingly grateful for their silent loyalty and bravery.

Emrys walks forward, past Arthur, and towards the creature. The King gulps before silently slipping off to the side; he doesn’t know how the creature sees (not having a head, or even eyes, as far as he can tell), but Emrys said he would distract it so... splitting up makes the most sense?

The knights can tell the exact moment the creature notices Emrys walking towards it.

The tendrils of shadow seem to writhe even more frantically, and the fog bulges and retreats again, somehow giving the impression of anger, fear.

Emrys plants his feet strongly and raises a hand, summoning vines and roots from the ground with nought but a gesture; Arthur only gives himself a second to be distracted by the sight of Merlin so effortlessly doing magic before focussing back on the creature.

Everyone bar Emrys winces, and covers their ears as the beast lets out an ear piercing screech, moving judderingly towards the Warlock. The trees shake with the noise, and a few of Emrys’ magical attacks disintegrate into the air. He summons more, and snarls in concentration as the beast whips towards him.

Emrys rushes forward to meet the beast, and they clash in a burst of golden light and black shadow, each trying to take over the other. The shadows try to sneak around the Warlock, reaching towards the knights behind him, but they’re quickly halted in their tracks as cracks open in the ground, swallowing the fog before it can do any damage.

The golden light emanating from Emrys pulses brightly, and the creature is pushed back, the edges of its smoke disintegrating slowly into the air. It lets out another high pitched screech, and Arthur takes that as his cue; rushing silently forward, on the opposite side of the creature to Emrys, and swiping down precisely with Excalibur.

The knights see his attack coming, and step even further back, heeding Emrys’ warning and covering their eyes, Arthur doing so with his free hand as he brings the sword down.

Excalibur cuts through the shadow with no resistance; the screech getting impossibly louder as the blade leaves a blindingly golden trail in it’s wake.

Emrys simply stands back to watch, but the pitch of the beast’s screech forces the knights to the floor, eyes tightly shut, and hands clamped over their ears.

Suddenly, the noise stops, and the shadows of the creature seem to disintegrate into nothing as the golden light of the wound takes over. The light recedes in on itself, before exploding outwards and fragmenting into pieces. The bulk of the fragments fly in the direction of Camelot, golden blurs through the trees, but one, the smallest and dullest (due to being only part of a soul, they assume) flies with speed straight towards Emrys.

The knights and their King finally look up, feeling oddly exhausted, to see Emrys take a staggered step back and grimace in pain as the light forces it’s way down his throat.

He falls to the floor, and the knights rush towards him as his muscles spasm and he begins to scream. His eyes are shut tightly and Lancelot quickly lunges forward to grab his wrists as his hands go to yank at his hair.

Everyone gathers around him, Lancelot yelling for them to hold him so he doesn’t hurt himself. They can only hope that Merlin is an exception, and this isn’t happening to the other victims back in Camelot. Lancelot keeps a hold of his wrists, and Arthur discards Excalibur in favour of holding down Merlin’s shoulders, whilst Elyan, Leon, and Gwaine hold down his hips and legs, and Percival wordlessly stands guard.

Merlin’s screaming dies down, and he stops thrashing so much (but stays tense), but the knights don’t let go just yet. He opens his bleary eyes, and whispers, so faintly they barely hear it:

“... Lance?”

The knight lets go of Merlin’s now limp wrists gently, and strokes a hand through the man’s raven hair:

“Yeah, I’m here Merlin. All back in once piece?

Merlin closes his eyes again, and goes fully slack as the others let go of him fully, nodding slowly as he gulps before groaning:

“Yeah, that fucking... hurt.”

Lancelot huffs out a gentle laugh, but before he can reply, Merlin gasps and quickly sits up. When his wide, panicked eyes land on the rest of the knights huddled around him, his breath deepens and he scrambles back frantically, only to run into Arthur, who grabs his shoulders.

Merlin whips his head around and rips himself from The King’s grip, stumbling to his feet and rushing back, away from the knights and into a tree.

His ears are deaf to everyone’s gentle reassurances that he was safe, and his eyes are blind to the hands held up in soft surrender. He sinks to the floor as his breathing gets even more frenzied and tears gather in his eyes, but before he can process that he was safe, the mix of memories triggers a blinding pain behind his eyes.

He gives a pained yelp and shuts his eyes tightly, bringing his hands to grip the sides of his head as he curls up on the floor. Merlin begins to groan again, and Lancelot desperately gestures for everyone to stay back as he kneels by Merlin’s side, pulling his hands away from his head again:

“You’re safe Merlin, no one’s going to hurt you, do you remember? We said that to the bit of you that was left.-”

Merlin doesn’t seem to hear him, but squeezes Lancelot’s hands painfully tight as he continues to groan, arching his spine:

“-Ok, ok, what’s wrong Merlin? Your head? We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s wrong. Is it your... your soul?”

Merlin shakes his head slightly, groaning dying down, but still struggling to draw breath, still gripping Lance’s hands:

“Your magic?”

Another shake of the head has Lancelot beginning to panic a little; none of them have dealt with anything like this before, and he doesn’t know what’s wrong with his friend. He continues to try and comfort Merlin as he struggles to think of what else it could be, when Merlin begins forcing himself to take deep breaths, and stuttering out:

“Mem... memories.”

Lancelot takes a fortifying breath, and the others crowd a little closer, panicking for their friend:

“Memories? Ok, which ones? Memories from the bit of you that was wandering around, or memories from the bit of you that was in the creature?”

Thankfully, Merlin’s pain seems to be dying down slightly. His breath comes easier, but his eyes stay tightly shut and his muscles still spasm periodically as he grinds out:

“Both. Two sets of memories from... from the same time. Hurts. My. Brain.”

Lancelot huffs out another gentle laugh, rubbing his thumbs softly over the back of Merlin’s hands, and the others relax at the sight of Merlin’s pain lessening. Gwaine kneels down next to Lancelot, and quietly announces himself before beginning to run a gentle hand through Merlin’s hair.

This goes on for a few more minutes; the servant’s pain dwindling and his breathing evening out as his mind sorts the two sets of clashing memories and stitches the two pieces of his soul back together, Lancelot and Gwaine not stopping their soft ministrations for even a moment.

He finally relaxes fully, opening his eyes but not moving from his position on the floor as he gazes tiredly up at Arthur’s worried face, over Lancelot’s shoulder. His words comes out timidly, and Arthur has to stop himself flinching at the hint of fear in his voice:

“Did you mean it? Am I... safe?”

Arthur forces a soft smile on his face, hiding his worry, and gives Merlin a firm nod:

“I promise Merlin, you’re safe. None of us will hurt you.-”

Merlin smiles back at him, before nodding, and closing his eyes, drained from the ordeals of the last few days:

“-though you need to make sure your head is on straight at your earliest convenience, I’ll need your help to write that repeal.”

Arthur says it with a weak, teary grin, and Merlin chuckles slightly, nodding softly once more before drifting into a deep sleep, exhausted.

Lancelot mutters that he’s asleep, and the smile drops from Arthur’s face, his brow furrowing in worry as he crouches between his two knights, putting a hand to Merlin’s forehead:

“Will he be alright?”

Lancelot shrugs, biting his lip, and sporting a similar expression to The King as he replies:

“I’ve no clue. His soul was split in two, his magic was pushed to the limit in that fight, and his body didn’t rest at all or eat much for at least a day; he’s probably just exhausted, but we should get him back to Gaius.”

Elyan, Leon, and Percival move back to gather the horses without prompting, and within minutes the gang is racing back towards the city, Merlin’s unconscious form being held protectively in front of Arthur (his excuse being that Lancelot’s horse had already held the extra weight for half a day, and he’s The King, so he can do what he wants).

Thankfully, the creature had been between their camp and the city, so it only takes them around a day to get back. They took few breaks, and ate whilst they rode to save time. Despite not waking up the entire journey, Merlin’s breathing stayed alright, and he occasionally mumbled nonsense to himself, so the knights weren’t panicking too much.

They didn’t stop when night fell, and so finally pulled into the castle courtyard at around midnight. A guard was immediately sent to wake Gaius, and Percival wordlessly took Merlin from Arthur’s horse, only after The King had given him a short nod of approvable.

They got to the Physician’s chambers to see Gaius wide awake and bustling around the room, clearing a cot and gathering various potions and ingredients.

Percival gently set the manservant on the cot, and Gaius firmly demands that they all leave the room to give him space to work, choosing to ignore the fact that he had told them that Merlin was in the city, and that they definitely shouldn’t have come back with his exhausted, unconscious body.

Arthur notes that Gaius doesn’t react at all when Lancelot stays behind, but has to temper his frustration (and jealousy) when the Physician shoots the knight a concerned look when Arthur himself also refuses to leave.

Lancelot sighs, but gives Gaius a reassuring smile:

“It’s fine, Gaius, they all know about Merlin’s magic, he’s safe. We said we’d explain when we got Merlin back in one piece.”

Gaius sends The King a curious look, hiding his concern well before he seems to catch up on what Lancelot said:

“Back in one piece?”

Arthur moves closer as Lancelot nods and begins to speak, content to let the knight explain as long as he got to stand near Merlin:

“He said it was Manducan?-”

Gaius widens his eyes in surprise, but nods, continuing to mix together various herbs as he listens:

“-Apparently, Merlin’s power was too much for it to handle, so it took the non-magical part of his soul. We found Merlin’s body being controlled by his magic. It was... odd. He was still Merlin, you could hear it in the way he spoke, or the words he chose, but it wasn’t... all of him. Just the magic part. He wouldn’t lie to us, and was desperate to get the “Merlin” part of his soul back. Unless we spoke to him he just... sat there, blankly.”

Gaius hums thoughtfully, and he and Lancelot politely pretend not to notice Arthur reaching out to gently grab Merlin’s hand.

Finally, the physician finishes mixing his potion, and gently pours it into Merlin’s mouth, holding his nose shut and massaging his throat so it goes down properly. He sits back on his chair, glancing at Arthur quickly, before looking back to Lancelot:

“The other victims began to wake just under a day ago, so I’m assuming that the creature was... dealt with?-”

At Lancelot’s nod, he continues:

“-Did Merlin wake at all when his soul came together?”

Lancelot nods again, speaking quietly, feeling oddly like he doesn’t want to disturb Arthur softly rubbing his thumb over Merlin’s hand:

“Hmm. Briefly. He screamed for a while, whilst his soul... I don’t know, stitched itself back together? Then he panicked, because he knew his magic had been outed, then he was in pain again. He said having two sets of memories from the same time hurt. Then he was just exhausted, he passed out a few moments after the pain stopped.”

Gaius nods, and Arthur finally looks up, knowing that the explanation was over, and a conversation was about to happen. The Physician speaks:

“Humans are not made for that, it would have been painful for his mind to try to comprehend and organise two separate sets of simultaneous memories.”

Arthur speaks, his voice quiet, but obviously worried:

“Will he be alright? How long until he wakes?”

Gaius looks to him once more, giving The King an assessing gaze. When he spies no anger or deception in Arthur’s face, he relaxes his shoulders slightly, and sighs:

“He will be alright, he just needs rest. Both his body and his soul have been through a great deal, it will take a few days to a week for him to fully recover physically, though I can’t speak for his mental state.”

Arthur looks panicked, and Lancelot worries his lip between his teeth as Arthur asks:

“His mental state??”

Gaius finds himself sighing yet again as he asks:

“How lucid was he, between the bouts of pain?”

Lancelot rushes to answer:

“Very. He understood what I was saying, I think, he asked a question and understood our answer. He just seemed tired.”

Gaius gives the two men an exhausted smile, before softly saying:

“Then I imagine he will be fine. Go and get some rest, I will send for you if anything changes, though it’s unlikely that he’ll wake up at any point in the next two days or so.”

Lancelot nods, and moves towards the door, but Arthur stays put. Gaius raises an eyebrow, but moves forward and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder:

“He will be fine, Sire. And... everything he has done, every lie he has told, has been to keep you safe. He couldn’t bare to lose you.”

Arthur nods absentmindedly, before looking up to the Physician, and whispering:

“I couldn’t bare to lose him either. You... you promise he’ll be alright?”

Gaius nods and smiles, noting with relief the tearful desperation on The King’s face:

“I promise.”

Lancelot smiles fondly from his place stood at the door, but wipes it from his face as Arthur turns towards him. The two men leave out of the room, Gaius’ assessing eyes following them all the way.

The door shuts behind them softly, and Gaius lets out a breath he hadn’t even realised he had been holding, before running a hand gently through Merlin’s hair, and moving to settle in his own cot.

Of all the ways Arthur could find out about Merlin’s magic, out of Merlin’s control, Gaius never saw this coming, and though the pain Merlin felt was regretful, The Physician is grateful, that it went so well.

End of Part 1!!

Part two is already almost finished. It’s much shorter than this, and will be out at some point in the next few days!! Sorry this took so long lads, I’ve been really busy atm.

EDIT: I’ve actually just finished writing part 2!! It’s queued to be published at 12:30PM GMT tomorrow (09/05/21)

EDIT 2.0: PART 2 IS UP!!

Also I couldn’t find any mythical creatures that fit what I wanted, so I straight up just made one up ✌️

Head over to This List to let me know what you want me to work on next! :)

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