#here its settled in odyssey

[jasonnieadventures]

Jason in The Final Conflict: "He could hold entire nations hostage. And do who knows what with the rest of the mineral."

Makes you wonder what would have happened if Blackgaard had won. What would be the worst case scenario.

But still with possibility of hope and a good ending...

Turn it into a truly world conflict....

[nereidprinc3ss]

hourglass

in which spencer disappears from fem!reader's life entirely for three months, right as it seems they were finally about to make things official. when he comes back they reunite, all the while knowing things can't be the same as they were.

18+ (smut, angst) warnings/tags: oh god so many. NOT canon compliant in the slightest, i make shit up, softdom!spence, nipple stuff prob, fingering, oral f receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex, pet names, tara mentioned, depression, mentions of trauma cause its the prison arc duh, passing mentions of alcohol, mentions of spencer losing weight, reader mistakenly thinks spencer tried to kill himself BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND, where is diana reid, nobody knows or cares, probably filming glee, optimistic ending a/n: haven't posted smut in forever but this wip required it and the angst was so angsty i just had to finish it. it was started in jan or feb and subsequently added to and changed months apart and then edited so the writing quality varies from section to section which i apologize for. originally based on good guy by julia jacklin... also the odyssey by homer? can't really explain that one you'll just have to see for yourself anyway byeeee ilysm!!! PLS tell me if you liked it! or if you hated it! but preferably if you liked it! MWAH! wc <12k

It’s been about three months since you last saw Spencer Reid.

About three months since you had an early Valentine’s Day celebration (even though you weren’t a couple) complete with champagne (even though he doesn’t usually drink) and slow dancing (even though you swore you’d be terrible and he spent the first ten minutes laughing at you as you stepped on his toes.)

About three months since you finally settled your head on his shoulder and let the warbling vinyl carry you somewhere distant as the two of you danced slow circles on the parquet floor for what felt like hours.

You’d have liked him to stay later that night. You’d have liked him to stay all night if you were being honest with yourself, but at 11:45 he gently pulled away and told you he had to go.

“Curfew?” you joked, the corner of your mouth lifting a little and you hoped you were hiding your disappointment well.

“Actually, I’m going down to Texas for a few days to speak with one of the leading doctors in experimental Alzheimer's and dementia treatment. I’m going to see if he can get my mom into a clinical trial. I leave early tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Spencer! What are you doing still here? You should be at home getting ready to go!”

A rosy blush stains his cheeks and he looks down at the ground, laughing that little self-deprecating laugh of his. It makes your heart dance to see him so happy, makes you want to wrap your arms around him and never let him go so that he knows how much you absolutely adore him—but you settle for an affectionate squeeze where your hands have come to rest on his biceps.

“I wanted to see you tonight because I won’t be here for Valentine’s Day... but I still really wanted to spend it with you,” he admits meekly.

If before your heart was dancing, it is now melting.

The dreaded ‘what are we’ talk has been lurking in the dark corners of every conversation you have with each other lately—at least, in your mind it has. What you have with Spencer is not easily defined, and near impossible to explain to your friends—you act like a couple, you go out on dates, he introduces you to his team like you’re his girlfriend without ever putting it into so many words—but this validation that your pseudo-relationship might be evolving is better than any flowers he could have gotten you (although the peonies he brought will look very nice on your bedside table.)

“Four whole days... what will I do without you?” you whisper, brushing a hand along his face, and your chest aches with the heavy truth of it—despite the fact that he often is gone for stretches about that length. They don’t ever start to feel shorter.

“Well, you can start by reading that copy of The Odyssey I annotated for you.”

“Depressing,” you admit. “And a little ominous, considering you’re about to embark on a hero’s journey.”

“I think you’ll like this one,” he smiles.

You chew on your bottom lip, looking up at him as you think.

“Give me something to look forward to,” you say, earnestly.

“I—well, honestly, I just really want to kiss you and I’ve wanted to for a long time now and, you know, if that’s something you’re maybe also interested in then we could, uh, figure out a time to—”

“You want to kiss me?”

“Wh—you couldn’t tell?” Spencer says, like he can’t believe it.

As if on reflex, you lunge up and capture his lips with your own. It obviously catches him by surprise, but when you lower from your tiptoes he follows you, pulling you in closer and holding your face in his hands.

It’s too natural, too right, to be exhilarating. There’s no rush of adrenaline—it's more like stepping into a hot bath or warming your freezing hands at a fire. Like pieces clicking into place. It’s a relief.

You breathe into it, letting more and more of yourself melt against him. He keeps coming back to you deeper and deeper like a rising tide, and you want more than anything to keep getting closer to him—but then he stops. He stays close enough for you to breathe his air, but dodges your kiss gently before supplanting it with a gentle one to the corner of your mouth.

“I really have to go,” he breathes, before moving away from your mouth to kiss your forehead and speak softly against your skin. “If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all night.”

Which is exactly what you want, and the implication does little to make you want him less. But you care about him too much to be so selfish.

At some point, his hands found their way into your hair, and you gently grab his wrists.

“Incentive for you to come home.”

Nearly three months since that night.

At first when he stopped answering texts, you’d assumed he just had too much going on down in Texas. Which you could understand—you knew how stressful this situation with his mother was.

Even when four days came and went without even an alert from him that he was back in town, you thought, okay, maybe he’s been called away on a case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared because of his work. But even then, he’d at least text you enough information so that you would know he was alive. Now, radio silence.

So you tried not to be clingy. You tried to act like an adult, to focus on school and your life outside of Spencer, but when Tara Lewis cancelled your weekly meeting due to an “unforeseen work-related emergency”you called her immediately. Tara was something of a mentor, and it was she who had connected you and Spencer to begin with. You had met the other members of his team by that point, yes, but none who you knew as well as Tara.

When she had informed you that Spencer had been arrested in Mexico and was now facing prison time for murder, you laughed.

Laughed until you realized her end of the line was silent.

Realized it was not at all a joke.

In a catatonic state of tranquility, you asked her for more details. Beyond assuring you of his innocence, she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) provide them. Asked where he was now. Asked all the right things that made sense to ask.

Then you hung up and had a panic attack because Tara said something about 25 years and you saw Spencer evaporate from your future like an apparition.

Slowly, you felt him evaporating from your past, too. Those memories from the night he left, became visions of you swaying with a ghost. Holding nothing but light between your hands as you kissed the peony air of your apartment.

He doesn’t want to see you, she had said into the phone one night, her tinny voice cutting in and out. You’re not on his list of approved visitors.

“You asked him about me?” you had whispered, curled up on top of your made bed in the dark.

I tried. I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I know more.

All your days melded together like a muddied smear of paint. Suddenly you felt you had nothing to look forward to. No anchor, no goal. Yes, a PhD... and then what?

The only thing that punctuated one 24 hour period from the next was the time you spent crying because Spencer was in prison and he didn’t want to see you and by the looks of things you may never see him again. When you weren’t crying, you were thinking about how your life was a big cosmic joke. An unfortunate statistical anomaly that didn’t mean anything to anyone else, and that you couldn’t do anything about.

That copy of The Odyssey, which wasn’t even bound and instead was a thick stack of printer paper organized by a single black clip, became something of a manifesto for you—a tome that your poured over, reading and re-reading each note in the margins, each word beautiful and imbued with meaning because you knew Spencer had selected every single one specifically for you. You traced the letters reverently, because in a way this was the last thing he had said to you—about Lattimore’s faith to the original text, Merrill’s strict use of dactylic hexameter, the stylings of Wilson and Lombardo, and how he thought you would enjoy Hammond’s prose just as much as he did.

Day by day it was becoming more prophetic than fictional, and you allowed yourself to sink into madness. You would rather be a deluded zealot than be nothing at all.

He didn’t want to see you.

He might as well have been dead, for all that you were grieving him. And you started to hate him, because he wasn’t dead, but wouldn’t do you the kindness of proving it. Like a festering wound, scratched open day after day so as not to ever heal, you had to live knowing he was less than an hour away. So no, you weren’t exactly over it. You lived day by day, waiting for the occasional call from Tara to keep you updated on Spencer, but either she didn’t want to share much about how he was doing, or he had specifically barred her from doing so, because she was always sparse on the personal side of things. That thought actually lifted your spirits, because it meant he was at least acknowledging your existence in some tiny way.

But your routine was becoming more regular, and so you staid on top of your classes and your non-Reid related meetings with Tara once a week, and you learned to dip your toes into existential dread and the oily black pool of depression every night without ever fully submerging yourself. You learned hope, because it was pretty much all you had, and the BAU had confidence that they would get Spencer out one way or another so you did too.

So you didn’t really think about it when you missed a couple of calls from Tara some evening in May. You were preparing for finals and had way too much on your plate academically to think about anything else which was a welcome relief so you fully embraced it. I’ll call her back tomorrow, you think, as you clean up from dinner before going back to the living room where your textbooks and papers are completely covering every available surface. Maybe I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life after school, but I’ll be damned if I don’t even make it that far.

Hours later, well into the night, you’d all but forgotten about the calls. A knock at the door takes you a bit by surprise, and you frown as you stand again, tugging your Georgetown sweatshirt down over your shorts as you shuffle to the entrance of your apartment. You’re not expecting anyone, so you crack the door, peering around the edge of it.

And you couldn’t even consider trying to hide that shaky inhalation of dead air when you see Spencer standing on the other side.

Surely you’re hallucinating.

Surely this man in front of you who looks like he just got back from a day of work didn’t spend three months in prison pretending you didn’t exist.

He looks the same. Hair a bit longer, maybe—and gaunter even more than is normal for him. 

But it's him.

You can’t think about the apprehensive look on his face—you can’t think about the impossibility of him being here. You can’t think at all. Without your explicit permission, your body surges forward into his, and he’s real, and alive, and warm, and he is an anachronism in the hallway as he accepts everything you pour into the embrace, doesn’t flinch when you move your arms from around his waist to loop around his neck and back to his waist again with crushing force because you just can’t get him close enough.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer mutters into your hair, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry, he keeps saying, rubbing your back as you try to find a solid grip on the sleek material of his suit—try to gather all the pieces of him, already afraid he might fall apart and float away again.

“You—dis—disappeared,” you hiccup after an eternity, pulling away enough to look up at his pretty face. Tears blur your vision and darken the front of his jacket, bending the florescent lights so they form a kind of halo above his head.

Through the surreal haze you can see his throat bob.

“I know.”

He knows?

He knows?

You scoff.

“You have no fucking idea, Spencer. What the fuck is wrong with you? I—I'm—”

The hot anger is such a relief for a second, boiling the oceans of your despair into a wrathful, scorching fog, but as soon as you try to tell him how you feel, the barbed wire cuts into your throat again. You shove him away, skin burning where his hands had been.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, hands hanging uselessly at his side. There’s that kicked puppy look about him—and it’s familiar, but now there’s more damage. You don’t know anything about his time in prison, you haven’t heard a damn thing, but beneath the glassy desperation in his eyes there is an unfathomable void that seems to be preventing him from being fully present—and you realize for the first time that he is different.

It chills you.

Before, you and Spencer shared everything. There wasn’t one part of his internal machinations that you didn’t understand, nothing you kept from each other. But as you study him now from a few feet away, you realize there might as well be a yawning chasm between the two of you.

He is so different.

Those eyes look deeper. No gears turning just behind the slashes of gold and brown anymore—only an endless dark corridor that goes places you will never go.

Gone is the perpetual boyish up-turn at the corner of his lips that always made him look slightly vacant in a way that you found incredibly amusing. Something you had been so fond of, even if you teased him.

He seems to have aged ten years—if not physically, then in demeanor. And now you feel like a little kid throwing a tantrum.

You cross your arms, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

You’re embarrassed. And pissed. And relieved. Everything is worse and better. You want to fall back into his arms, but you have been jarred by the revelation that this might not be the same Spencer. It might not be the same relationship. You have no idea where you stand.

He says your name gently, with so much familiarity you’re briefly jerked into the past. It makes you wish you could look up to find him as he was three months ago. Wish this was just a bad dream. But that’s not fair to him.

“Sorry,” you mutter, studying the grey carpet fibers instead of looking at him.

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says immediately, “you’re right. I don’t—” he clears his throat— “I’m being incredibly selfish. I shouldn’t have just shown up, I’ll just—I'll leave. I’m sorry.”

A silent moment passes.

You don’t look up as he turns and swiftly begins to move down the hall toward the stairway, leaving as quickly and silently as he had come, like a few bars of a song sighed in and away on a fleeting breeze.

Your bare feet are concretely planted, imagining him jogging down the steps and speed-walking away from your building—

And suddenly you’re sprinting after him, feeling like you might puke because Spencer was just here and you let him go again—and even though you’re still so mad and confused and hurt, the realization that he is leaving again makes the entire building spin and lurch.

“Wait!” You yell, almost wiping out as you run down the stairs and whip around corners in your slippery fucking socks. “Please, wait!”

The lobby is already empty as you spill out into it, and cold dread tightens around your neck like a fist as you shoulder your way through the double doors and right into Spencer.

“Please don’t leave again, you just—I'm sorry, I really need you to not go—” you blabber, lachrymose once more, gripping onto his forearms for dear life.

“I’m not going,” he breathes shakily. “I tried to leave because I think you were right and maybe I should and maybe it would be better for you but I can’t.”

“You can’t,” you agree, more sob than spoken word. He cups your jaw, then your cheeks, wiping tears and brushing away hair like he can’t figure out how to hold enough of you between his hands. The wild kaleidoscope of his eyes, bright and alive and real as he scans you desperately captures your attention enough to slow the tears to a trickle. He notices this and stares back, entranced.

A silent agreement is made, or maybe an inevitable fate is accepted—either way, something was set in motion three months ago and it matters to see it through. Spencer kisses you and you’re ready for it. You don’t need slow or tender. You need to feel how he feels. You need to know what he knows.

You sling your arms around his neck and he pulls you closer until you almost tip backward, chasing the bruising kiss even as you regain your footing. You want to drink him in and you do your best, breathing deeply as he kisses you deeper, backing you inside and toward the elevator.

“Is this okay?” he manages, only after blindly reaching for and mashing the up button on the wall panel.

Ideally it wouldn’t happen like this, but the world you live in obviously isn’t ideal and your personal situations as they coincide are far from ideal, so this is how it has to happen. But it’s hard to explain, and you’d rather not admit that this is so far from what you wanted for both of you and follow up with the fact that despite that you need him like you need water. So you don’t say a word as the metal doors slide open promptly. Instead you pull him in and let him press you to the chrome wall as he hits your floor button, and that very hand comes back to grab your ass like you didn’t think Spencer Reid capable of. It almost aches as his fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s a good ache because it means he’s real and he’s there.

You gasp as he hitches your leg up, arching into him. The shorts that you’re wearing leave very little to the imagination to begin with, but they become downright indecent like this.

Quickly the elevator stops and the doors hiss open. You don’t hesitate to pull Spencer by the hand down the hall. When you notice you left your door wide open, you don’t even care. Neither does he, apparently—once you’re inside he slams it shut, flipping the deadbolt while his eyes are glued to you like you’re already naked. Now Spencer is shameless in the way he drags his eyes over every curve, every place your clothes and hair are disheveled from his touch and eye-fucks you so obviously it makes your face warm. Three months ago Spencer would have at least been bashful about it when he met your eyes again, but this Spencer is far from apologetic as he pins you with his burning gaze once more. His hand stays stuck to the door like he’s holding himself back.

“Is this what you want?”

There’s an undercurrent of sorrow below the gravely arousal, like this isn’t what he wanted for the two of you either. But you’re both at the mercy of fate. This is all you have, and it might be all you can do for each other anymore. So you don’t need to say that, because he understands.

“Yeah. Yes, this is what I want.”

For just a second more he watches you from his place by the door, and there’s an unexpected softness to it. He looks at you the way he would have looked at you before. Like as long as he stays there he can entertain the idea of being that person again.

Need wins out quickly, though, and he surges forward. Immediately you’re caught in the riptide of him, helpless as he kisses you all the way to your bedroom.

He’s never been in here before. You find yourself glad it’s relatively clean—one of the pastimes you’d picked up in his absence was keeping everything tidy. It was something you could control.

A lamp glows at your bedside. You lean against the footboard of your bed, hands timidly behind your back and suddenly shy to have in him in your intimate space. Both of you set aside the heaving desperation long enough to catch your breaths, and for him to scan the room like he too is being forced to reconcile with the innate and unexpected intimacy of the moment. He cuts a harsh, dark gash in your sweetly decorated bedroom, radiating something wild and powerful and unsure of himself like a chained bull as he takes in the soft, pale bedding, the paintings and photos taped to the walls, the woven rug and the sheer drapery. His breathing slows as he studies it all—eyes eventually catching on something behind you. Looking is unnecessary. You’re sure he’s spotted the dried peonies in their ceramic vase. Or maybe the now worn stack of papers that is his Odyssey, marked up and soft around the edges from constant flipping-through.

Then Spencer looks at you, and that softness seeps in again. Along with something like... fear? Grief?

In some other universe your first time with Spencer is sweet and giggly and kind and he smiles at the decor in your room and looks around with wonder because it’s another way he gets to know you. It’s a different way to learn you from the inside.

You sense that he’s caught in between universes right now as well, painfully aware of what he would have given you that he can’t anymore.

He breathes your name like an apology, and foolishly you let a second go by in which you think he might offer you one. But he doesn’t. Not with his words, anyway. His eyes tell a different story.

“It’s fine,” you say unprompted on a whispered exhale, then a little louder as you push off the footboard, crossing the space until your hands are on his chest. You focus on his tie, not making eye contact as you rush to undo it. “It’s fine.”

He lets you do this for a few seconds before finally covering your trembling hands with his own. You still can’t meet his eyes.

“We don’t have to do—”

“No! No, please. I want to. I need—I need us to be okay.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, catching your chin and forcing you to look at him. “We are okay. Me and you are fine.”

It’s a pretty thought, but it’s not true. In fact, it’s a hideous and abject affront to the truth. Sure, maybe you’re fine in comparison to last week. Maybe anything feels fine compared to an eight by six cell. But it would be impossible for you and Spencer, for your relationship, whatever that relationship may be, to be fine. It’s especially impossible for him to make that claim, after all he did or rather didn’t do while he was gone. What you need is for him to stay anyway. What you need is to find a way to be with him, to exist with him, even when you are so clearly not fine.

“I just need you to stay,” you whisper, and he’s already nodding, wide-eyed like he’d do anything for you. You ignore all the bitter venom rising in your throat. You pretend this isn’t all happening after he cut you out of his life with a dirty switchblade. Instead you focus on his hands on yours, the familiar smell of him, which invites you to let go of each and every thought and worry. He must’ve showered before coming here, you realize. How long has he been out? What happened? 

“Okay. Okay, I can stay. What else can I do? How do I make it better?”

You sniffle and look back down.

“You can untie that for me.”

He hesitates, then nods some more, fingers working under yours to undo the tie around his neck.

“Okay.”

A moment goes by and after that final whispered word, the tension begins to build again. Spencer senses it in the way your fingertips linger on his chest and you step even closer, dragging them down to his belt. The metallic sound of it unbuckling, despite being your own doing, still manages to flip your stomach. How many times have you pictured this? When was the first time you realized you wanted it? You’re sure you haven’t stopped wanting it even once since then.

Spencer tosses the tie away and is shrugging off his jacket now, then before you see it coming he’s kissing you again, ducking down to do it. He feels taller this close up, and especially in your bedroom, where he just seems rather out of place. But you want him here. God, you want him here.

You break the kiss, forced to look down as you fumble with his belt.

“Sorry,” you gasp, embarrassed by your lack of dexterity. The light is barely sufficient to see what you’re doing, especially when he’s wearing black on black and your eyes are still bleary.

“You’re okay,” he assures you, and it’s so Spencer a fresh round of nerves electrifies the tips of your fingers. That thing is happening—the thing you’d hoped to avoid if you hadn’t lost momentum partway through, where you’re allowing your actual feelings for him to get in the way rather than getting swept up in the pathos of the moment and letting everything be easy and mindless. “Here, can I help you?”

But he doesn’t actually wait for an answer before he’s finishing off the belt for you, tugging it loose from his hips till it’s a leather coil in his hands. Your fingers brush the material and he lets you take it as if it were your prize. It’s heavier than you thought it’d be, and you just feel the weight of it in your hands for a moment, your dropped head brushing his chest.

You have a terrible feeling that if you do this now, it doesn’t mean everything will be alright. Because it can’t just go back to normal. Spencer has told you nothing of what must be an enormous trauma, and you haven’t spoken about it at all, but you sincerely doubt that after this he’s going to be ready to just jump into that committed relationship the two of you had been toying with for months before his absence. You’re almost... scared of him, now. Scared of where he’s been and what he’s endured—things you’re sure you couldn’t have taken. What that does to a person, you can’t imagine. He seems so solid and real in front of you now—but you know that’s not always enough. Maybe you’re just scared that somehow whatever he’s been through will have made him care for you less. That you were too far removed from the whole ordeal, and now you’ll never understand. If you could understand, maybe you could fix it for him. Maybe he’d stick around.

Still—even if you do end up pushing him further away in the long run—won't it have been worth it to have had him so completely, even just once?

You toss the belt to the ground, compressing all of these very complicated thoughts and feelings into a few seconds so short he can’t ask you any questions about them. Instead you find his top button, and just as you manage to undo it with relative ease he’s gently grabbing your wrists. You look up at him, immediately surrendering.

“If we’re going to do this I need you to relax a little bit.”

Gears grind in your chest. You feel need and anxiety comingling in every square inch of your body. It’s a sick buzz—a high on an empty stomach.

“I can’t,” you admit.

“Yeah, you can,” Spencer gently disagrees, slowly lowering your hands. When he’s sure you’re not going to try ripping his clothes off again, he releases, and his eyes lower to the zipper of your hoodie. His fingers follow, warm against the soft triangle of revealed skin at your chest as he grips the small piece of metal between barely shaking fingers. “You can.”

You match his eyeline, breathing shallowly and watching as he slowly drags the zipper down. You wonder if that sound has haunted his fantasies the way the sound of his belt has haunted yours. If he’s seen this hoodie on you and wondered what’s underneath, staring at you and daydreaming during movie night with you none the wiser.

Both of you have your eyes glued to the span of skin as the zipper parts. Spencer stalls with the zipper at your sternum, just below the band of your bra.

Right. No shirt.

You look up and find his eyes already on you, tinged with a curious kind of humor.

“I wasn’t expecting guests.”

The words come out shy. Spencer’s chuckle has its own nervous airy quality as he resumes tugging on your zipper, leaning down until your noses bump.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Then he kisses you again, a little sweeter now. Sweet enough to give you butterflies and for them to flutter right out of your stomach and spill from your lips in a little whimper against his.

It comes as a surprise when he pushes the fabric from your shoulders without looking or asking. Not that you’d have said no—you're just underprepared for how assertive he is in this foreign context.

Left just in your flimsy shorts and your thin bra, you feel quite exposed—but Spencer’s hands are as demanding and hungry as his mouth. They skim up your sensitive sides and sweep lower, suggesting less proper placement over your ass and pulling at your bottoms until you gently put a stop to their wandering.

“Wait. We’re... we’re uneven.”

It’s a struggle to get any words out at all when he keeps chasing your lips, nipping at you like he physically can’t stand not kissing you, but they catch his attention and he laughs airily, pulling back to let his gaze pour over your less clothed form. It lingers and catches and lights you up everywhere it touches, drops of heat soaking into your skin and making you feel all fuzzy and needy.

“We are,” he acknowledges, tone low and colored with the faintest smile. “You’re a lot prettier without your clothes on than I am.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The challenge comes immediately and thoughtlessly. Spencer’s golden eyes flash up to yours. He’s breathing a little harder than usual.

“You want me to show you what I mean?”

If that means getting him naked, then yes, absolutely.

You nod, but rather than immediately stripping, he takes your hand and holds his own open next to it. A thick pink scar bisects some pretty significant palmistry lines, but you don’t mention that. Instead you swallow—your thoughts, your words, your nausea.

“That’s new.”

You wonder how you hadn’t noticed it earlier.

He nods.

“A lot is new.”

It sounds almost like he’s challenging you—there's a kind of tremulous force in his voice, despite the perpetual softness there, like he’s inviting you to say it’s ugly. And you realize he’s referring to more than just the glowing scar cutting an asteroid trail against the flesh of him palm. The scars he obtained in prison must form a constellation over his body.

“I don’t care. I wanna see you.”

Spencer swallows, cupping your face with the scarred hand once more. You can’t feel it against your cheek but you know it hasn’t gone away.

“I’m sure you think you do,” he permits, and that’s where the conversation ends for the moment—with his hand on your face and his lips back on yours. “For now why don’t you let me worry about you?”

Obediently, you breathe, “okay.”

This is, for whatever reason, amusing to him. The brief levity dies as quick as it comes like a snuffed-out brush fire as soon as he lets his hands fall back down to your hips.

“I want... I want to give you slow. But...”

But slow is for people who didn’t lose three months of their life. Slow is for people who don’t know what it’s like to be starving. Slow is not for the desperate.

You understand the feeling.

“I don’t need slow.”

You’ll let him use you up like quick-burning fuel if that’s what he needs. You’ll go as fast and as bright and as hot as he tells you.

“But you want slow,” he murmurs, a secret acknowledged into your own waiting mouth. You’d keep it there forever. You could be the object he hides his soul in. “I know you do. You deserve to get what you want.”

“I can go fast. I want whatever you can give me.”

Spencer’s shuddering exhale is like a drug, dizzying as you inhale it and your eyes flutter at the high, pressed head-to-head with him. For so long you’ve needed him so badly. It’s overwhelming to have him now, all over you. If only your walls could breathe him in the way you are, if this room could remember what it feels like to hold him the way you will, if any inanimate object could bear witness to how you’ll give yourself, any part of yourself, over to him, so willingly.

“I’m going to try.” Spencer’s voice is hoarse as he walks backward to the bed, taking you by the hips as he goes. “I want to do it right. I want to do this the way I... the way I imagined it, before...”

Now he’s sitting, and you’re standing between his legs as he finds the clasp of your bra and undoes it, his fingers a comforting pressure where they ghost down the slope of your back. Your heart is pounding at the confession, at the way his tongue darts over his bottom lip and his fingertips journey back up to your straps, looking up at you with haloed irises as if he’d find anything other than the most dangerous kind of smoldering devotion in your eyes—the kind cult-leaders seek and spend years nurturing, and he’d earned with a mere brush over your bare skin.

The fabric slides down your arms, and as it falls to the floor, you watch something like despair flash-flood his eyes. It is a deep, distinctly human grief. The ineffable kind where something is almost too beautiful; so perfect it offends the mortal senses because it should be permanent, but nothing is, and the clash of divine beauty with unstoppable time which oxidizes copper and covers marble with vine is almost as grotesque as metal rending delicate flesh. It is the grief that drove the first poet to write and the first parents to press their baby’s painted hands to the walls of a cave. It is the desire to do the impossible—to capture ephemeral perfection and make it eternal, and the knowledge that it is hopeless. You recognize it because you’ve felt it for him.

“I thought about you all the time,” he whispers, doesn’t bother calling you beautiful but you don’t mind because he’s telling you with his hands and his eyes and the waver of his voice. “When I was gone, I thought about you—”

You’re just as quiet, just as soft.

“Don’t, Spencer.”

He doesn’t get to tell you about when he was gone. Not now. Not after he acted like you didn’t exist.

“Okay.” He swallows the things he’d wanted to tell you like you choked on the things you needed to tell him for three months. “I’m sorry.”

But his hands—his hands are perfect over your waist and his lips are perfect where they kiss your ribs like they’re his homeland. You could forgive a thousand wrongs for each kiss he puts to your skin. Light from the full moon stretches over the room like a blessing from the cosmos, and you have every intention of making the most of that gift, how the silver gilds the planes of his face and highlights curls like they were carved, and invites you to search for something in each shadow.

Some of his kisses land over the sensitive skin of your breasts though you doubt he has much intention or that there is any sort of end-goal with the trail he blazes—in fact, you have to root your hand in his hair and pull gently back when he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s making you wait again. His eyes are glassy and cheeks slightly pinkened—you weren’t expecting this wave of fondness to knock you on your ass but here you are, falling all over again.

“You don’t have to go that slow.”

A slow smile splits the heart of his mouth at your bashful tone and he’s emboldened to bring his hands higher for a moment, thumbs brushing particularly delicate though not downright indecent spots. Nonetheless, your breath catches.

“Impatient girl,” he scolds, and though it’s lighthearted it still inspires heat to dance across your face. Oh, I think I’ve been plenty patient, you itch to say, but you bite it back because it’s only sad and true and unkind.

Still, he gives you the beginning of what you want, really only the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your desire for him, by slipping his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down. His hands slide up the fronts of your thighs, tracing the trim of your underwear, and you’d swear he’s not even breathing. The moment one of his hand loops behind your knee and pulls forward until it’s pressed to the mattress and you’re half-kneeling, half standing, desire begins to truly cloud your mind. Manhandling never seemed like Spencer’s style, but when paired with how softly he reveals your hip, pulling gently down on the fabric of your underwear just to admire you up close, you don’t mind it.

More kisses are littered over your stomach, and he takes you by surprise a second time with a quick maneuver landing you on your back and him on top of you.

“I wasn’t doing you justice with my imagination,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t have known what?” you pant as he shamelessly digs his fingers into the plush of your ass. You almost hope it bruises.

“How pretty you would be,” he coos like he means it, and you dissolve, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. “You were holding out on me.”

It’s a tease, not at all serious, but you manage to hit him with a, “Was not, asshole,” and he chuckles, placating your little hurt with another sticky kiss, and you get another disorienting glimpse of some other timeline where you’re both a little less damaged. Where it’s a little easier.

But in this timeline, his touch becomes starving and ragged and urgent, and you accept the drag of his thumb up your thigh and between your legs, gasping when he runs his knuckles up the center of you. This touch is metal on screeching metal. It does not pretend to be anything more than what it is—brute, powerful, executed to elicit sensation. You get the sense that Spencer’s never touched anyone this honestly, and while you do envy the girls who got to have him gentler, you’ll take this as the compliment that it is. A kind of vulnerability that is nearing primal.

His lips, though—always his lips—are kind when they brush and land on your skin guided by some invisible map. A dip down your neck and chest and then a plunge, his tongue dragging over your hips, chasing the fabric of your underwear as he almost pulls it off and then reroutes, making room for himself between your legs and pushing lace aside to mark the hinge of your inner and upper-most thigh. Your chest heaves and you don’t dare move for fear he’ll stop leaving signs of himself on your body and you won’t be able to reassure yourself that it was real and he was here and it was not another dream.

Because something in you knows, if only consciously recognizing it for the first time now, that he will disappear again. That this may be your only chance.

The desire to make the ephemeral eternal. An impossibility.

He’s clearly losing himself to something, eyes shutting blissfully. You wonder when the last time he let his guard down even a  little was. You’re okay with being the thing he gets lost in, even if you’re not exactly okay with him—something you are becoming more acutely aware of as each touch makes a part of you want to cry. Maybe you still have some things in common. A strange pain that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to you, for one thing.

You slam back into your body as his nose nudges against you through fabric, and his lips catch on cotton as he drags himself up, eventually settling a kiss against the little bow at the waist of your underwear. There he stays, eyes closed, mouth pressed to you.

“Is this okay?”

You swallow, buzzing. Is this really what he wants? After everything?

“You don’t have to...”

“But is it okay with you?”

Nothing more than an airy whisper, you reply, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

Being emotional at this point seems wrong, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that you have thought about this before and it’s finally happening but it’s not exactly as you’d imagined it. There is an indelible sadness to it, to the way he’s so hungry for you because he’s been deprived, to the desperation with which he touches you because he’s had everything taken from him.

For a moment, before he tugs your underwear down, he pauses, and you wonder if he’s freezing one moment in time, this moment, and grieving all the other ways it could’ve been, and accepting that this is the way it is going to be. You are.

These higher realms of thought abandon you as he finally pulls the last barrier down your legs and encourages you to spread them further. You don’t have time or energy to be embarrassed, not even by his staring, or the way his eyes dart up to yours and back down again, wide and shining, as if to say, have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?

All you feel is the lack of him on you, the pull to have him closer so strong it’s almost sickening because he could be gone at any second. Maybe he understands that because he doesn’t waste anymore time before he’s kissing the most sensitive part of you. The drag of his tongue has you loosing a shuddering cry.

His mouth wanders, making connections you wouldn’t have realized the value of until you feel them on your skin. Your hips buck as he traces you and you’re unable to stop yourself from tangling your hands in his hair. Speech fails you—hell, you can hardly breathe as you watch his with a furrowed brow and parted lips, only expelling air from your lungs in the form of little cries and gasps and failing to hold your hips down to the bed.

The tip of his tongue teases around your entrance and he catches your leg as your foot rises off the bed, slinging it over his shoulder and consuming you more fervently until you have no choice but to moan though you’ve never been one for theatrics. Nobody has done this for you like he’s doing it for you. Locks of hair fall in front of his face and you hold them back for him, shuddering as he shifts his weight and presses the tip of his finger to your cunt.

“Ah—please,” you manage, your first words since he started. Spencer groans against you and the sound is so wonderfully unexpected, so much better than in your dreams. You cant your hips up in further invitation, chirping as he takes it, pushing two fingers into you at once. Your eyes screw shut and you bite back a whine at the slight stretch, unconsciously writhing your hips either to get further away or take him deeper, you’re not sure.

Spencer pulls back, kissing your hips and thighs and pumping his fingers very slowly as you adjust.

“’M sorry,” you pant, “it’s been awhile, I...”

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says like it’s simple, his own breath coming quicker. “How’re you feeling? Need me to stop?”

“No! No, it feels really good, I feel good.”

He holds your burning gaze, matching it with his own, and his hair is tousled and his cheeks are flushed as he continues to move his hand.

“Yeah?”

“...Yeah.”

This little show of obedience, of call and response, has him smiling before he occupies his mouth with something else once more. It’s a different smile than you’re used to from him, but you decide you don’t at all mind it.

Like that, with his tongue and fingers working tirelessly, your orgasm comes on quickly. The feeling is rare but not entirely foreign, and in that brief moment of utter disconnect between your brain and reality, of sheer white-hot pleasure, you don’t feel you’re missing out on anything at all. How could you be, when you are here and Spencer is here and for a moment all your neurons are lighting up and flashing neon? How could there be anything more to life than the searing feeling of him slowly withdrawing his fingers from you, than your hips between his hands like he’s cradling the world, and his lips, indiscriminate with where they kiss because every part of you is worthy of attention?

You’re reeling, and your legs are gelatinous as he so affectionately sucks the darkest mark yet onto your inner thigh like a parting gift, like he’s signing his trembling work. If you could clamp your legs shut around the almost painful aftershocks you would, but he’s climbing back up your body, so all you can do is wriggle against him and release delayed, stunted little moans. He stops to kiss your neck before he makes it to your mouth and drinks down all your sounds until you’re gentle and pliant for him like you haven’t been yet.

His voice is soft and sympathetic when he speaks. “Better?”

Wordlessly you nod, both comforted and unsettled by how well he knows you. What, exactly, has been made better, you’re not sure. Not trust. You don’t trust him anymore. Something cheaper, but temporarily effective. A sense of permanence, maybe, however fleeting it may be. You’ve completed something with him now, and he’s still here, still sweet.

He looks into your eyes, then, for a moment—and there is just enough light in the room for you to tell yourself that the shadows dancing there as he looks at you are love.

They morph as you watch into haunting, wild hunger. Pained even now.

He sits up abruptly and so do you, scooting back against your headboard and pulling your knees to your chest to protect your pounding heart as Spencer takes you in with darting eyes and quick breaths. His fingers find the collar of his shirt and he begins to unbutton.

“I need you to remember it’s all going to heal.”

He swallows, and you hardly have the wherewithal to study the way he unbuttons his shirt, a way he exists in the world that you had previously not been privy to. The words are too distracting.

“What?”

Sometimes he reminds you of a deer, with those big brown eyes that can’t help betraying anxiety. Moreso in those old pictures he’d shown you from his early days at the BAU—but it shines through occasionally even now. It’s reassuring to know that something inside of his has remained soft.

“Just...” his fingers don’t stop at their task, and you come to the disturbing realization that his knuckles are bruised. “Please don’t freak out, alright?”

Your mouth goes dry, eyes glued to the lengthening span of revealed skin.

And before he even has his shirt fully undone, something isn’t right.

He’s like a Pollack of bruises—starbursts and watercolor blots of discoloration blooming over his side and stomach.

You’re glad the light is off for two reasons: one, being that you don’t think you could handle the bruising in all its glory, and two, you hope the look of horror painted on your face is at least partially obscured from Spencer.

But you can’t. You simply don’t have the gas in the tank to freak out, as he’d said—at least not externally. Those bruises shouldn’t be there, but 96 days is a long time to be gone.

You drag your eyes back to his—nervous, deeply insecure and mistrustful. A deer. Just like those pictures of a 24 year old Spencer in an FBI jacket that was too big for him.

It’s enough to have you scooting on your knees across the mattress to him. Those big eyes stay glued to you as you draw near, falling as you carefully push open his shirt, cautious not to bump any tender spots as it falls to the bed. A flash of white gauze wrapped around his forearm that makes your stomach flip. How? You want to ask. Why?

He doesn’t seem to know what you’re going to do, and neither do you, until you’re grabbing his hands, bruised knuckles and all, and just... holding them for a minute.

“I lost weight,” he says quietly, as if that’s the most shocking thing about his current appearance, though it is noticeable.

“You’re still pretty.”

He smiles at this—a true Spencer Reid smile. Flattened lips, eyes tinged silver with sadness, voice quiet and anxious and wavering.

“I didn’t have a lot to spare.”

A moment goes by.

“I’m not going to ask you about them,” you promise, though you care so much and you want to know but you already understand that he won’t want to tell you.

Another moment. It doesn't surprise you to watch the shiny vulnerability in his eyes to freeze over completely. But he squeezes your hands once in thanks, and you know it’s still the same Spencer.

“Lie down.”

Oh. Right.

This.

You do as he says, taking a deep breath to try and exhale the concern twisting your stomach like a poison. Somehow your room feels so unfamiliar, so new with him in it. Even the whorls on your ceiling look different as you study them, trying to time the pattern of your breathing with the pattern of the paint and plaster and not let the sound of Spencer further undressing quicken your heartrate too much.

Soon he’s coaxing your legs apart again, reverently, and kneeling between them, studying every part of you—lingering not on the parts you’d expect. He traces the scar on your knee with his thumb, follows a line down your thigh to the freckle on your hip. The scrutiny is unnerving and warms you everywhere. Perhaps he senses the microscopic clench of your thighs as you imagine pushing them together, if he weren’t in the way.

“You alright?” He asks, still stroking your hip. Tender again. It’s so hard to keep up.

“I...”

Suddenly your heart beat is a deafening echo in your own ears. The tide of your breathing is too powerful, too in and out and whooshing, leaving you always too empty or too full but never comfortable.

Maybe he’s changed, and he’s harder to know now, but he is the same Spencer. He is the Spencer you’d fallen in love with. The hard part is knowing that now you may never get a chance to tell him that. You don’t know if he’d be able to hear it.

There are things you can’t have with him anymore. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. But you can have this. It will be different, but you’d rather him be different and here than the same and only in your memory.

You swallow.

“I’m good.”

Tangling your hand in his hair once more, you pull him down into a kiss. It’s hesitant, at first—maybe he can taste your thoughts, where they’d been balancing just on the tip of your tongue. But the uncertainty fades and he kisses you deeper, harder, in a way that is hard to keep up with. You like the messy overwhelm of his lips, teeth, tongue. That’s the only way he knows how to want you.

When you go to wrap your leg around his waist he catches it, running his hands over the soft plush of your thigh. The hard line of him presses against you like memory foam and you gasp and he breathes it in deeply as your brain short-circuits, as you realize this is really going to happen, that you’re going to have him like you’ve never had him before and in ways you’ve only imagined and immediately felt ashamed for.

“Spencer,” you whisper. He ducks to leave open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your eyes flutter shut, craning your neck but not losing sight of your objective as you reach down blindly. When you find what you’re looking for he freezes, groans against your neck at the same time as you breathe the tiniest whimper. Just in your hand he feels impossible, hot and imposing and hard. Your heart palpitates.

Without thinking, you angle your hips up and encourage him closer, until the tip of him is smearing through your folds, and you both go utterly silent like the breath had been stolen right from your lungs. The moment crystallizes, time around you hardening like preserved amber to keep you frozen there forever.

And then he rolls his hips, catching the underside of his cock on the crux of you, and then he does it again, and you choke out a moan and so does he, and it’s beyond perfect—it's nirvana, more than you could ever have conceived of, with his weight pressing you into the mattress, arms caging you in, his heavy breaths hot against your neck and vice versa as you twine together like serpents on a rod, your foot floating in the air as you widen your legs to make more room for him.

And you’re not even fucking yet.

“Oh my god,” you whine, just for him, barely audible under the heavy cloak of night, the thickened air in your bedroom and the sound of panting and fabric shifting. It’s like your heart is trying to reach through your chest to his own where they’re pressed together—that is how hard it’s beating.

Spencer only breathes a long, low curse and shifts so he can grasp himself. Your fingers drift down the shaft of him as he slots himself at your entrance, notching half an inch in and you hold your breath, and you brace yourself—and then he’s kissing you again, but gentler this time. Reassuring. You soften, you can’t not, releasing all your air in a soft gust through your nose, and then he’s pushing in.

Your lips part at the stretch as it fuzzes your mind, but he stays right there, nose pressed to your nose, lips ghosting over your own. He’s not going anywhere, you think, and you’re glad for it, when it burns ever so slightly, and the tiniest whine escapes your open mouth.

“Shh,” he soothes immediately, low and soft, only fractionally louder than you had been. “You’re okay.”

Spencer. Your Spencer.

For a moment, you’re living in that alternate universe. The kinder one. The flash of pain you feel then has nothing to do with the way he’s opening you up.

This is the closest you have ever been, and in some strange way, the furthest apart.

Together, fingers brushing, you guide him until he settles at not quite your deepest point. You can feel that he’s not giving you everything yet, but you’re okay with that, as you adjust to the full feeling. Spencer again senses your desire to close your legs against the deep intrusion, and gives you the best he can by encouraging you to wrap your legs around him.

“Good girl,” he whispers tenderly, nudging at your jaw with his nose and dragging kisses along the ridge of it. Your stomach flips at the moniker and your brain turns to warm sludge as your eyes flutter shut. It makes you feel all light-headed and you flutter around him. Spencer chuckles into the junction of your neck and shoulder and the vibrations send a chill down your arching spine. “I thought you might like that one.”

“Mhm.”

“Mhm. How are you? You okay?”

“’M ready.”

“You’re ready?” His tone is dripping sarcasm and faux-disbelief as he pulls back the slightest bit only to push right back in deeper, this time. Your toes curl, one thigh sliding higher up his waist as you cling to him.

“Fuck,” you manage, a pitiful, high pitched curse tossed to the wind. He echoes the sentiment.

“Oh, my god,” he groans, continuing with that slow pace, “you feel so good, angel.”

You grapple at his back, searching for purchase as your brow knits. “Faster.”

This inspires another breathy chuckle, but he obliges, and you cry out softly. It’s almost unreal, your head buried against his neck, drunk on his scent and the drag of him like a shock felt in the far reaches of your body, again and again.

There’s nothing you can say that will accurately demonstrate what you’re feeling, so you elect not to speak, to remain silent and try to get a grip on this cacophony of sensation and emotion. But it’s too much to be alone with. You feel you have to get it out, to seek understanding. You can’t do it alone.

“Spencer.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t know...” the sentence trails off into a gentle keen. He moves to kiss you, speaking against your lips.

“You don’t know?”

Shyly you shake your head. Spencer sighs wistfully.

“Do you know how much I missed you?”

It’s like he can sense your need for comfort. For something grounding.

And while this topic was off-limits earlier—you're softer now. The stone walls that form your boundaries have been chipped away and lowered.

Spencer continues unprompted.

“I thought about you every day. Every night while I was falling asleep. You were always on my mind, angel girl.”

You whine. Whether it’s pleasure or distress is anyone’s guess—including your own.

“You were gone so long,” you whisper, eyes shut.

At this, Spencer slows again, and the tension that was building settles back to a simmer.

“I know. I wish I could—I wish I could change that. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you.”

Then he makes sure you feel every last inch, and it takes your breath away. If your thoughts were any more coherent, they’d be something along the lines of: but for how long? How long until you leave again?

“You’re here.”

You say it like a mantra, once out loud, and then again and again in your head, timed with every clash of your hips. With each repetition he becomes more real. Every little ache, every tingling, head-emptying brush against that most sensitive spot inside proves to you that he could not be any closer. This can’t be faked. It can’t be another dream to wake up in tears from.

“You’re here,” you gasp as it hits you, as it truly sinks in.

“I’m here,” he breathes.

There’s so much you want to say—three months of words you need him to hear, of things you need to talk to him about, things you need to yell at him for and things you can only say crying in his arms and things you can only say laughing or whispering or drunk or half-asleep—and in this moment you can’t manage any of it. Every word condenses into one drop of salt water, drifting away from your eye and down your cheek. Spencer doesn’t tell you to stop crying. He only kisses the tear away, and murmurs I’m here I’m here I’m here over and over again against your skin until he’s not even speaking it out loud anymore. But you feel it. With every brush of his lips, every breath, every movement, you feel it.

Soon he’s adjusting his angle, gradually picking up the pace but retaining that unforgiving depth, and your nails bite into the skin of his back as your jaw drops. Spencer hisses, pressing impossibly closer.

“I’m sorry!” you squeak.

“Do it again.”

“Wh—what?”

“Please,” he begs, low and hot against your jaw, just beneath your ear. “Do it again, honey.��

Honey.

You’d do anything for him if it meant he calls you that again.

When he shifts his weight to one arm and reaches down between your bodies to play with your aching clit in exactly the right way, you don’t really have a choice. You arch and moan wantonly enough to feel embarrassed as your nails scratch down his back. At the same time he’s making noises of his own, and you almost feel guilty for marking him up like this only you think he likes it. The most perfect and troubling tension is building in your core, so taut you almost fear the inevitable rebound when it snaps. But you’re driven to be exactly what Spencer needs right now, and to let him try and be what you need. Even if it scares you. Even if you’re not sure how.

Spencer groans, head tucked to the bend of your shoulder. “I’m not gonna last.”

Any response you might’ve been about to muster is annihilated by a sudden, deep bolt of pleasure.

“’M gonna cum,” you mewl like it’s a secret.

“Are you?” he asks, coming up breathless. If your eyes were open, you’re sure you’d see him above you.

“Mhm.”

“Look at me. Look at me.”

It is unmistakably a command—one you fight to follow.

You cry out as you meet the intensity of his gaze, those shadowy corridors suddenly ablaze and alive. They are not unending, like you’d thought. They are a door thrown open to let the light in, or maybe to let the fire out. They’re open in this moment for you.

No more words are spoken after that—you cum hard, gasping as you fall and spin. Spencer follows very shortly after, like he was holding it together just for you, and your eyes are still locked though everything is a bit bleary.

“Fuck,” you whine as he continues to fuck you for as long as he can, despite your writhing hips, but you’re entranced by him, unable to look away now that you’re hooked. Until he slows to a halt, glances down at your mouth, and you just have time to pray that he’ll kiss you before he does. You whimper against his lips—a plea for understanding. A plea for him to stay, even though this is over. He kisses back so soft and sweet it’s like he can read your mind. Echoes of I’m here I’m here I’m here still buzz across your skin. His eyelashes tickle your cheek. Your heart stops beating quite so quickly, melting and warm like the rest of your body.

Soon the kissing ceases and you’re just breathing together, trapped and faced with the knowledge that it must end just the same as you had waited for it to start.

Eventually the air between you becomes mostly carbon dioxide and you let your head fall to the side, dizzy and giggling breathlessly as you nearly avoid asphyxiation. Spencer laughs too, letting his head fall to your shoulder once more, and you finally let your eyes flutter closed. To do something as simple as laugh with him again is its own small euphoria. It’s unexpected, and a soft landing once all that tension breaks underneath your combined weight.

It can’t last forever, you know that well. But the slow fade of it makes the next parts a little easier.

Spencer presses a kiss to your neck. “Is your bathroom through that door?”

You hum a confirmation and are only slightly disheartened when he pulls out and rolls off of you. You’re further disturbed when you see there’s gauze around his thigh, matching what’s around his arm, and you wonder how you missed that. Spencer scoops up his clothing and disappears into the adjoining restroom, assuring you he’ll be right back and leaving you alone with your thoughts and the whorls on the ceiling which have seemingly shifted into entirely new constellations.

He leaves the door cracked which is oddly reassuring—the sliver of warm light and the sound of the sink running. Only a few moments pass before he’s returning clad in boxers once more to sit on the edge of the bed, pushing away the sheet you’d just pulled over your chest and pulling one of your legs over his lap. Your face warms as he brings a washcloth between your thighs. As soon as he glances up at you and catches your eye you’re looking back to the ceiling.

“I should’ve asked first,” he says quietly as he cleans up the mess he’d made of you.

You speak just as softly, like you’re both afraid of disturbing some peace, of waking some sleeping giant. “It’s okay. I would’ve told you if I didn’t want it.”

His reticence, his unreadable face, make you nervous.

When he’s done, he rises to toss the dirtied cloth in the laundry bin, and with his back to you (as scratched up as it might be) you feel braver.

“Are you gonna, like... hate me now?”

It was a mistake. That’s clear by the way he turns around, brow knit deeply and grimacing slightly like even the suggestion offends him.

“Am I going to hate you?”

Again you pull the sheet up, and again you look away, studying the pattern of moonlight stretching out over the floor and scooting to make room for him when he steps in it.

“Not hate, I just...” the bed dips beside you and you are indescribably glad he’s not immediately running out the door. “I’m not dumb. I know what this was.”

He pulls you into him and you settle against his chest. It feels good. “I never thought you were dumb.”

This is your first real conversation since he’s gotten back, you realize. And how quickly you’re falling into familiar patterns, familiar syntactical beats. You know when to speak. You know when to bite your tongue and keep him talking.

The silence goes on longer than you’re used to. Maybe he got good at not speaking while he was away.

Eventually your eyes wander, falling to the white strip over his thigh where it is parallel to yours on the bed, only over the sheets.

“What happened?”

You said you wouldn’t ask, but that was then, and you’re upset again. You almost want to hurt him. To piss him off. You don’t know.

But it doesn’t work.

“Do you really want to know?” There’s a note of something heavy in his voice, and you look up at him. It’s a privilege to have him this close—his beauty is a constant surprise that you’d become unaccustomed to over the months. You say nothing, and he takes that as the yes that it is. “I... I did it to myself.”

He may as well have reached down your throat and grabbed for fucking heart for all its clenching. Tears well almost immediately, though they’ve been waiting in the wings all night.

“What? Did you—were you trying to—”

His eyes widen.

“No! No, honey, no.” You wilt as he gathers you closer, a deeply confused frown still contorting your features, too heartbroken even to cling to him, or to appreciate the ease with which honey slips past his lips again. “No. I was—it's complicated. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, but I had to—I had to do it before someone else did something worse.”

The bruises covering his abdomen.

You sniffle and pull back enough to look up at him tearfully. “Why would they want to hurt you?”

Mist fills his eyes even as he’s looking down at you, a layer of separation, as if he’s two places at once. Even as he goes to brush your hair behind your ear, to stroke your cheek.

“I’m... not... the same, as I was.” It’s not an answer to your question—but it’s the beginning of the answer to a question you’d been too afraid to put into words.

“Don’t say that,” you beg, because you know where this is going. He keeps smoothing your hair like it’ll make this easier.

“But it’s true,” Spencer says gently, the slightest waver betraying his own emotion.

“You’re just going to leave again.”

And you’re losing to the tears.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you will,” you insist, like a child crying to a parent come to comfort them after a bad dream.

“Not right now. Right now I’m here.”

I’ll stay until you fall asleep again.

For now, maybe that has to be enough. 

You cry on his shoulder. He kisses your head and doesn’t tell you to stop. 

Eventually, you sniff and wipe your eyes. 

“We were so close. Before you… we were almost there.”

You’re sure of it. You’re sure that if he hadn’t gone when he did you would’ve been a real couple. You would’ve told him you loved him. 

“We’ll get there again,” he promises, rubbing your arm. “I just… I need a little bit of time. I think you do too. But we’re going to get there again.”

Maybe it will never be like it was. 

But as so often is the case—Spencer is right. Difference doesn’t mean it won’t ever be good again. 

You have to believe that, just as you had to believe you’d see him again. 

You look to The Odyssey on your bedside table. 

The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. 

But the sun has a habit of rising, time and time again, after the longest nights, after the darkest storms. 

You feel the beginnings of its rise, see the golden tips of it lighting the room as he holds you. Even now. 

[mostly-imagines]

Scenes From an Afternoon Odyssey

jason todd x fem!reader

aka a day in the forest

4 in 1 blurbs

warnings: reader wears a bra

middle picture art by spaceboykenny

You’ve nearly reached the peak of the slope, the uphill trek putting quite a toll on your legs. Jason insisted on holding your hand because his longer stride tends to put him several steps ahead of you. The sun beats down on your backs, the uptake in the heat of the day actually feeling quite nice compared to the chill that’s swept over Gotham recently.

Upon arriving at the flat plane, you take in a pretty array of sunflowers and a thoughtfully placed bench.

Jason halts his steps, looking back at you. “You need a break?” He asks, noting the way your breathing has become a bit labored.

You hum, taking a deep inhale. “Just for a second,” you say, plopping down on the bench.

He reaches behind him to fish the water bottle out of the pocket of his backpack. “Drink some water.” he says gruffly, holding the bottle out to you.

You don’t particularly feel like you need water again just yet, but you know better than to try and fight him on something related to taking care of yourself. It’s a losing battle and he’s proved it time and time again.

You take the drink from him, taking a couple sips. He eyes you with disapproval, bringing his hand up to tilt the bottom of the bottle up more. You down a few gulps, trying not to smile.

He takes the bottle back from you, taking a couple gulps of his own. Once the water returns to its pocket, he sits down next to you, hand massaging your thigh. In turn, your hand moves up to the nape of his neck, playing with the short hair there.

Despite your claim, you sit for longer than a second, listening to the birds chirping and the leaves rustling in the wind. It really is a beautiful day and Jason knew a great trail that’s hardly ever busy. It’s aways away from Gotham, but any excuse he can take to get the two of you out of the smog filled city, he’ll take.

Between the serenity of the scene in front of you and the warmth of his touch on your thigh, your breathing steadies pretty quickly.

You peer at the path ahead, taking note of how level and easy it looked. Your hand flattens on the base of his neck as you turn to him, “I could beat you in a race.” You say decidedly.

He huffs out a laugh, meeting your eyes with a glint of amusement shining in his own. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” You smile, nodding, “Been waiting for a chance to prove it.”

You stand up, turning around to take his hand and pull him up with you. He does most of the work for you, pulling his weight up himself.

“You wanna go?” He smiles, looking down at you.

“Do you wanna go?” Your smile grows impossibly, and Jason decides right then and there that he’d do absolutely anything to see you light up like that again.

You figure a sprint is your best chance, you’re not willing to bet that you can beat out a vigilante when it comes to endurance. Especially considering the uphill incline almost took you out.

You settle on a finish line about 30 feet away, and as you position yourselves to start, you feel your overconfidence begin to cave back in on you. His stature swamps you out, and it's becoming clear that you’ve got no real chance here. In any case, you’ve committed and this is happening.

“Ready…set…” both of you have the idea to start before you say go, taking off with haste.

You’re laughing as you run, which isn’t doing you any favors with keeping ahead of him, though you’re able to maintain a pretty neck and neck match.

Did he let you win? Yeah. He’s a gentleman, of course. He’s right on your tail though, and lifts you up from under your arms as you cross the finish line, nipping at your neck as you giggle.

He sets you back down gently, “Alright, fast girl. You need a drink?” He tucks some stray hair in your face back behind your ear.

“No, I’m...” You pause, scanning around. You point at a big tree along the side of the trail ahead. “You see that tree right there?”

He glances over, “Yeah?”

You take off sprinting for it without another word. And apparently cheating is a quick ticket to him dropping the act and beating you without an ounce of mercy.

You’re sitting on a relatively level branch in a tree next to Jason, one of your legs resting on top of one of his. You swing your free leg back and forth, biting into your sandwich.

There’s a couple juice boxes balancing in the small space between you, both half empty. He’d laughed at you when you picked them up from the store on the way there, but he drinks it all the same.

He holds your ziplock bag of chips out to you and you take a small handful, popping them into your mouth. When your hand moves to return to your side, he takes it in his own and presses your knuckles to his lips gently.

With a sly smile, you watch butterflies dance around each other and listen to birds singing their offbeat songs. And you think about Jason. You think about how he held you in his arms last night so you could fall asleep while he read. How on the way up here he’d held your hand as you balanced across the stones, forcing him to walk at a much slower pace than he’d probably prefer. You told him he could walk a little ahead, but he’d insisted on holding your hand so you didn’t “slip and bust your head open” in his words.

You wouldn’t know it, but he’s combing through his own set of memories of you too. It’s a bit silly to spend so much time dwelling on these warm memories about someone that’s only right next to you, but you’ve both found it’s hard to stop.

It used to scare Jason, how often you occupied his whole mind. He’d never felt such intense adoration and devotion before that he’d nearly mistaken it for fight or flight. It was foreign and strange, and it felt like danger. But it didn’t take long for the effects of his love to kick in like a drug, and now he can’t get enough of you.

But you don’t feel like a drug, you feel like a cure. You make him feel like himself again, like death never got a hold of him and like he’s an innocent soul anew. You treat him like it, at least.

Maybe it’s silly to fall into such a deep pit of thoughts about you when you’re right there, smiling so bright over at him and gleefully pointing out a couple of squirrels that are fighting over an acorn. But he’s happy to let you take up as much space in his head as you want.

You sit with your legs dangling off the pier, shoes cast aside so you can enjoy the cool water. Jason sits a few feet behind you, laying down against the wood of the dock, the sun beating down on his face.

The water is a beautiful blue marble reflection, and the sun radiates down on your skin, sending warmth throughout your body which combats the light breeze handily. You lean down and dip your hand into the water, letting it run between your fingers like thread.

“Can we swim?” you pipe up, looking over your shoulder at Jason.

He raises his eyebrows at you, “You didn’t know there was a lake up here.” He means he knows you don’t have a swimsuit under your clothes.

You shrug, “There’s no one up here.”

He scans around mildly, before looking at the water. “Yeah, okay.” He tugs his shirt off his back, coming to a stand.

You grin, pulling up the material of your own shirt from your waist. Once it’s swept over your head, Jason’s left in just his boxers and not a moment later you’re in a similar state.

He smiles at you, wrapping his arms around your waist and it takes you no time at all to realize where he’s going with this. He lifts you up off the ground and dives off the dock, submerging you both in the water.

You bob back up out of the water, not even trying to suppress the glee on your face. And somewhat to your surprise, neither does he.

You’d had dinner at the manor with his family last night and you were still a bit attuned to Jason’s closed off, stoic mood that he gets in around them. He feels something akin to insecurity when he openly emotes around them. Vulnerability, maybe. Either way, you know he hates the feeling and will avoid it at all costs so it’s nice when it’s just the two of you and he gets to act like himself.

Unlike Jason, you can’t quite touch the floor of the lake, so you tread with the water wavering at your neck. The water barely reaches the start of Jason’s shoulders as he stands before you.

He closes the small space between you before his arms make their way under your thighs, lifting you up out of the water slightly. He looks up at you with a lazy smile as you wrap your legs around his body. Your cheeks warm and you hold his face in your hands, leaning down to kiss him with heat.

He deepens the kiss, thumbs rubbing at your thighs as his head tilts back. Your thumbs stroke at his cheek in turn, smiling against his lips.

He actually whines when you pull away, chasing your lips. You rest your hands on his shoulders, simpering down at him.

“Alright, slow down, hotshot. We’re not doing anything in a lake.” You laugh, pushing the dripping white streak back with the rest of his wet hair.

He huffs, “If there was anyone around here I promise you would not be half naked right now.”

You push yourself off of him, dropping back down into the water. “Other people are the least of your concerns,” you say, grinning and splashing him in the face, backing away with haste.

He blinks the water out of his eyes, laughing. “That’s how it is?”

You bite your lip as he approaches and you continue to retreat. “Can’t have you losing focus.”

He raises his brow at you, wearing a smile that says that you should know that was a mistake. He proves it as he dives after you, lifting you up over his shoulder and tossing you into the water with an unfair amount of ease.

You’re a bit hidden away in the tall grass, the scent of lavender flowers placing you in repose. You’re laying with your head in his lap, eyes closed as he pages through his book.

He’s reading out loud, though if you’re being honest, you haven’t fully processed a single word he’s read in at least ten minutes. He’s good at making you relax with his voice, and the amount of exercise you’ve gotten in today is doing nothing to slow it down.

You can’t think of when he started playing with your hair, but it feels soothing and frankly it’s making you very sleepy. Between the gravelly lull of his words and the rustling of the flora throughout the field you’re about to pass out.

“I’m gonna fall asleep.” You mumble, eyes shut.

His hand stills and he extends his book away from his body so he can see your face. “Sweetheart, there’s not a chance in hell you were awake that whole time.”

“I was,” you say, blinking up at him blearily. “I was just resting my eyes.”

He looks down at you skeptically. “How long have we been here?”

You click your tongue, “Like fifteen minutes.”

“It’s been an hour and a half.” he says simply, flipping his book shut from the last page as proof.

“It has n—” you look up at the sky and notice the sun is in a wildly different spot than it was when you’d first laid down. You’re almost completely in the shadows of the trees now. “Wh—why did you let me sleep for so long?”

He hums lowly, “You looked peaceful.” He pauses, “Pretty.”

He looks at the sky, squinting. He nudges you off his lap gently, coming to a stand. “Come on. The sun’s gonna start going down soon.”

You groan and he pulls you up to join him, your fatigue tailing after you. You lean your weight against him and rest your head on his chest, closing your eyes again. “Let’s just stay here.”

You feel him shake his head. “Can’t stay here, sweetheart. Who’ll feed the strays back home?”

He’s right. You can’t leave them to dumpster dive again.

You groan louder as you pull back and stand up straight. “You did not mention that the trail was so long.” You look down at your sore legs and try to stretch them out a bit to get energy back in them.

When you look back up at him, he’s swinging the backpack on, but he stops midway, dropping it to his side again.

He slugs his backpack over your shoulders, turning his back to you and bending down a bit. You take the hint and jump up. He catches you with ease, hoisting you up higher.

He starts down the grassy path out of the field, sidestepping flowers and bumblebees as he goes. Your head lulls to the side and ends with your cheek resting on his shoulder.

He bobs you up, “If I’m carrying you all the way back to the car you have to stay awake.”

“If you’re carrying me all the way back to the car, what difference does it make?” you grumble, eyes fluttering.

“Keep me company.”

You pick your head up and press a kiss to his neck. “I can do that. What do you want to eat tonight?”

He hums thoughtfully. “You wanna get pizza?”

You nod, pleased. “Big day for us.”

You have one arm draped loosely over his shoulder and the other lags by your side. “Are you going on patrol tonight?” You ask him.

He peers back at you haphazardly, “Uh, no—will you hold onto me, please?”

You’re nowhere near falling, but you know that’s not why he wants you to hold onto him. You’re happy to oblige though. You wrap your arms around him, crossing them over each other so you can hold onto his shoulders.

Seemingly content, he continues, “No, I’m not. Wanna stay in with you.”

“Aw. Going soft on me?” You rag.

He hums deeply, “Or maybe I'm just sick of being around Dick.”

You scoff, “Well, if you’re gonna be mean.”

“I’m literally carrying you right now.” He shrugs you up a bit in emphasis. Fair enough.

You look up and can see the pinking hues of the sky in between the leaves of the trees, glowing down softly on you. Your mouth twists into a contemplative frown. It takes you a moment to piece together where you’re at, but you eventually realize you’re only halfway back to the car. “I don’t think we’re gonna make it back before sunset.”

“That’s okay.” He tells you.

You rest your chin on his shoulder, a bemused pout on your face. “You hate it when I’m outside after dark.”

“I hate it when you’re alone outside after dark.” He corrects.

“Ah.” You nod, thoughtfully. “But now I’ve got my strong boyfriend to protect me, right?”

He scoffs but you’re just upset you can’t see the flush on his cheeks that you’re certain is there.

Though he shows no signs of struggling, you’re beginning to feel guilty that he’s spending his day off lugging you around.

“I can walk.” You offer, pushing yourself up a bit, ready to jump down.

“I know.” He says simply, shrugging you up higher.

[spicyllewyn]

Kinktober 1. - Accidental stimulation.

Marc Spector x F!Reader.

Tags & warnings. Accidental stimulation + semi-public. (+18)

Word count. 1.4k

Summary. The only space in the car is on your best friend's lap.

Kinktober masterlist.

Dragging Marc out of his apartment was undoubtedly always an odyssey for anyone who tried it. Fortunately, you had a little something hidden in your pocket called 'the best friend privilege' that always resulted in him fulfilling your whims.

That, and the slight feeling of jealousy that invaded him when you spent time with friends who weren't him.

It was a good day for both of you, after all, no matter how big the group of people you went out with was, it was as if you were always in your little world, just him and you. Chatting alone, walking behind the others, and always taking a few minutes to take photos at your request.

In the end, the rest of your acquaintances had already gotten used to it, and as distant as you might seem, they still loved and included you two. So it was no surprise to either of you that after lunch, the arcade, and the movies, they were relentlessly urged to take you back to one of your apartments.

"There's no way we'll all fit in your car." Six people in a car meant for five. You leaned a little after saying it, your eyes calculating the space in the back seat.

"Sit on Marc." The owner of the car shrugged as he jingled the keys in his hand, waiting for a response. It was a lost battle; both he, Marc, you, and the other ones knew that there was no way out other than simply accepting the offer.

"I'm not sure how safe that is." You hummed, pursing your lips before turning to Marc. "What do you think?"

He shrugged too.

"It's a short ride from here to my apartment."

You sighed; if he was convinced, it meant you were being the difficult one.

In a matter of minutes, everyone was squeezed into the car, you on top of Marc, the others having to shrink their bodies to avoid invading each other's space.

"Sit properly," he murmured, irritated by the way you were sitting almost on his knees to avoid bothering him. Because yes, both of you were basically inseparable, but Marc was a bit of a cat when it came to his relationships – sometimes he wanted physical contact, sometimes he wanted to push you into another room so that he could have some space.

He slid an arm around your waist and pulled your body until your back was leaning against his chest. Of course he didn't think through his actions and the consequences they could bring, or at least that's what he realized when the car passed its first stop and he felt you jump on his lap.

He gasped, low enough that you wouldn't hear it.

“Did you have a good time today?” You whispered as your fingers softly caressed his forearm until you reached the only bracelet Marc wore on his wrist. A gift from you.

He only could hope that you wouldn't see how the hairs on his arm stood up at how delicate your fingers were, causing chills to run down his entire spine.

“Mhm.” It was hard to concentrate with your ass pressed against him like that.

The music in the car wasn't loud enough to be annoying, but it was loud enough to cover your conversation as well as any curses that left Marc's lips. Next to him, one of his friends was dozing, the other was scrolling on her phone lazily.

Marc pretended to settle into place and mentally prayed that you wouldn't feel something between his legs starting to wake up, right against the inside of your thighs.

Was it necessary for you to wear that sundress specifically today?

Another small bump in the road and it was enough for Marc's cock to completely harden while you looked out the window and continued making those imaginary drawings on his arm. Of course you felt it, but there wasn't much you could do about it, especially with the way he held you to his body with his arm.

“Fuck.” He muttered, breathless as you shifted in your spot, returning to sit on his hip after the movement of the road caused you to slide down a few inches.

You could feel his hardness pressing between your legs, at one point the clothes being the only thing stopping him from fucking you mercilessly until your legs wouldn't work. His arm tightened around you and you swore the air was escaping your lungs, not knowing exactly if it was because of the way he was crushing you against him or because you could already feel your underwear becoming damp, a heat that you recognized perfectly in your lower abdomen and between your legs.

He pushed your entire body down with his arm, seeking to satisfy himself with that same friction that the pressure of your body gave him, until, of course, that was no longer enough. He pushed his hips up, a discreet movement, somehow, but you could feel it perfectly.

The fact that you weren't facing him gave you the chance to bite your lower lip and silence any noise that Marc tried to snatch from your throat with his actions.

The second push was less discreet, more desperate. He buried himself between your legs as if he wanted to tear both of your clothes and dig into you once and for all.

“Are they ever going to fix these damn streets?” The boy mumbled from the driver's seat. Small cement bumps provoked the car to make an almost vibrating movement for just a few seconds.

Marc almost fainted.

You knew it was too much for him when his forehead rested against your shoulder, his curls tickling your cheek and making you smile with how agitated you both were. You raised the hand that was on his arm to stroke his hair, pushing a few strands away from his forehead.

That would be the perfect position for both of you, or at least that's what he thought. Plunging into you to the hilt, your walls milking him as he listened to you moan his name loudly, with you pulling his hair and moving your hips to your liking, maybe he'd even let you keep that beautiful dress on, just lifting it up and moving your panties just a little to the side.

But for now, he'd have to settle for this. For the playful way you pulled at his curls as if it would bother him.

On the contrary, he almost made his lip bleed by having to silence the groan that was stuck in his throat. At this point your juices were wetting his pants and that was what gave him the clue that maybe this wasn't bothering you much.

Or nothing at all, he himself could feel you putting pressure on his erection as you pushed your ass down. As well as the way you spread your legs almost imperceptibly to let him settle between your thighs.

“You are going to make me cum on my fucking pants.” He whispered right in your ear, and you swallowed hard.

His left hand, which was between the car door and your body, slid under your dress, where he squeezed your thigh, his nails digging into your skin. You looked to the opposite side to verify that neither of the two guys had their attention on you and without looking away you moved your hips slowly.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

By the fourth movement you felt Marc's arm tighten around your waist to keep you still, he scratched your thigh, you could feel it. He let the air out of his lungs in a sigh of relief.

You felt the warm liquid against your skin making his jeans wetter and stickier.

“Was it left or right on this corner?”

"Left." Marc stammered, his voice slightly breaking as his forehead remained on your shoulder. The rise and fall of his chest moved your entire body now that you were comfortably leaning against it.

You chuckled.

A few more seconds of silence and you trying to ignore the way Marc's body shook as the car went over a couple more bumps.

His poor cock was too sensitive and he was getting over stimulated.

"See?"

You and Marc looked back at him in the rearview mirror. You smiled, he didn't.

“It wasn't that much of a problem.” He unlocked the car from the driver's seat. “You have to learn to accept favors.”

“Well, tell that to Marc.” You cleared your throat as you opened the car door. “He had to carry me all the way, he must be exhausted.”

He pinched your thigh and you chuckled again.

tag list. @ninebluehearts If you want to be tag please comment it, i'm not adding the usual tag list since i don't know if you want to be tagged on nsfw stuff 👀

[slu7formen]

just imagine Luke taking care of his girl all the time because she decided to join him at Princess Andromeda.

slu7formen’s masterlist | luke castellan masterlist

warnings: possessive!luke

lil taglist 🫶🏻 @captainremmington-13 @saffronwritesstuff @elltheawkward @lixzey

The salty spray of the ocean stung your cheeks as you leaned against the railing of the Princess Andromeda. The once vibrant blue sky you used to wake up to everyday was just a memory now. The setting sun bled vibrant hues of orange and pink across the sky, a stark contrast to the dark ship that cut through the waves. Camp Half-Blood, with its comforting scent of pine trees and the familiar faces of your friends, felt like a distant dream, a memory from another life.

A pang of loneliness tugged at your heart. You missed the camaraderie of the fellow campers, the warmth of the Aphrodite cabin, the strawberry field you spent hours at, even the grumbled complaints of the Ares cabin during mealtimes. Now, it felt like a comforting echo of a simpler time. But here you were, on Luke's rebellion-fueled odyssey, a choice driven by a love that burned so bright it blinded you… well, almost blinded you.

A sigh escaped your lips, barely audible over the rhythmic groan of the ship's monstrous engine. The decision to leave camp, to follow Luke on this dark path, had been fueled by a love so fierce and strong that you were convinced you would never experience again. You knew the consequences, the darkness that clung to Luke's ambition. But seeing the pain simmering beneath his brooding exterior, you understood it all. He was a boy scorned, abandoned by the very gods he was sworn to serve.

Just then, a strong hand settled on your waist, pulling you back against a solid chest. You turned to see Luke, his face etched with a familiar intensity, his dark hair ruffled by the evening breeze. He looked different here, the playful boy you once fell in love with replaced by a brooding leader burdened by a new purpose. Yet, his eyes still held a spark of the warmth you knew, he only looked at you with.

He placed a kiss to your left cheek. "Lost in thought again, sweetheart?" he asked, his voice was a gentle murmur, a stark contrast to the harsh commands he often barked at his soldiers.

You forced a smile. "Just looking at the sunset" you replied, "Reminds me of the ones at camp."

A flicker of anger crossed Luke's face, quickly replaced by a strained smile. Camp Half-Blood, a constant reminder of the life you'd left behind, the life he wished you would forget, but knew you couldn´t. He hated that you missed it, hated himself for taking it away from you, hated that it represented a world he was determined to destroy now.

“The past is just that" he said, his voice low and clipped. "We're building a new future here."

You understood the resentment he felt, but a tiny voice inside you whispered doubts. Was this future worth all the darkness you saw in him? But, however, you remained silent, your love for him a shield against the growing unease.

Luke tightened his arm around you, pulling you even closer. You couldn’t help but lean back to his shoulder, finding comfort in his warmth.

Luke, unable to deny his possessiveness, traced his fingers along the exposed skin of your arm. He secretly wished you could forget about camp, about the simpler times, but you were the only flicker of light in his growing darkness. You hadn't joined his fight against the gods, you never will, and he couldn't blame you. He wouldn't force it on you. You were his escape, and he, in turn, was determined to protect his girl from the ugliness of his plans.

You both stood in silence for a while, the only sound the rhythmic groan of the ship and the crashing waves. Luke leaned his head down, his lips brushing the exposed skin of your shoulder, burning like fire against your skin as the sudden touch sent shivers down your spine. He started a slow descent, trailing kisses up your neck, his warm breath tickling you as his hands tightened around your hips. Each kiss was a whispered confession of his love and dependence on you.

"Thank you" he murmured against your ear, his voice husky with emotion.

You turned to face him, placing your arms around his neck, your eyes searching his. "What for?" you asked softly.

He met your gaze, a flicker of vulnerability flashing within his hardened eyes. "For staying" he whispered. "For choosing me even when you didn´t have to. I know this life isn´t yours, you don’t belong here"

You offered a gentle smile. "Maybe I don´t" you conceded, "but I belong with you, Luke. No matter where that may be."

His gaze softened, the tension momentarily melting away. He brushed a stray strand of hair from your face, his touch a fleeting tenderness amidst the growing darkness clinging to him. "You don't deserve this" he said, his voice laced with a hint of guilt.

"I wouldn't be anywhere else" you countered, your voice filled with a quiet conviction. "I choose you, Luke. Every day."

Luke stared at your face, his sudden concern replaced by a possessive shine flickering in his dark eyes. He seemed to catch his breath, as if he got struck by a sudden realization. He lowered his head slightly, his gaze lingering on your lips. Then, with a slow, almost seductive movement, he pulled down on your bottom lip, a possessive intensity in his eyes. It left you wanting more immediately, a spark igniting in the pit of your stomach.

"You're mine, aren't you?" he murmured, his voice low and intense. It wasn't really a question, but a possessive statement.

Your heart was pounding frenetically inside your chest. The darkness that surrounded him, the whispers of doubt that had been growing within your insides, all faded away in the face of his love. For you, he was just Luke, the boy you'd fallen for at camp, a boy broken by the gods. Your boy.

"Always" you breathed back, voice soft like a whisper.

"Good" he breathed, the word a possessive sigh against your lips, and gave your whole body goosebumps. "Because not even the gods are gonna be able to take you away from me."

And then, as the last rays of the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in fiery hues of orange and red, Luke pulled you into a desperate kiss. So good to him, that it felt like his first kiss in a thousand years. It was a kiss that spoke of possession, of a love that burned bright even in the dark night. It was a kiss that sealed your fate, binding you together on a path that stretched towards an uncertain future.

You had your doubts, your fears, your nightmares, but you trusted him. You trusted in his love, in his determination, in his care; you had nothing to worry about as long as you were by his side.

to the ones on my taglist and other readers, thank you so much for supporting my writing 🥹

[gotstabbedbyapen]

Hyacinthus Iceberg Meme EXPLAIN (P3)

Part 1 ✿ Part 2 ✿ Part 3 ✿ Part 4 ✿ Part 5

It's time for me to answer your questions about this Hyacinthus iceberg meme. There is a lot to tackle, so I'll divide it into 5 parts for the sake of my sanity.

Quick disclaimer: I am NOT an expert in Greek mythology, just a fan of Hyacinthus who wants to learn about him and anyone related to him. Most of the things I'm about to discuss are just theories and speculations of a passerby on the Internet, so do not take them as valid facts!

Daphne is Hyacinthus' sister

There is only one poet who wrote about Daphne being Hyacinthus' sister. Well, it's not explicitly stated but he claimed Daphne was a daughter of King Amyclas and lived in Laconia, so it's not hard to piece it all together.

"This is how the story of Daphne, the daughter of Amyklas (Amyclas), is related. [...] But she got together a large pack of hounds and used to hunt either in Lakonia (Laconia) or sometimes going into the further mountains of the Peloponnese." - Parthenius, "Love Romances"

I have a joke headcanon that Apollo loves Hyacinthus because he looks like Daphne (Hya's sister) and Hyacinthus loves Apollo because he looks like Thamyris (Apollo's grandson).

Some K-drama angsty level of romance, eh?

The accurate hyacinth flower???

This has been a debate for quite a while now. Is the flower born from Hyacinthus' death the modern hyacinth or a different flower?

Even though most of us settle for the widely-known purple hyacinth (the flowers above), many argue that the flower can also be a larkspur, an iris, or a martagon lily.

I admit I prefer Hyacinthus' flower being the purple hyacinth or at least a similar ancestor. It's because Athena used to give Odysseus a curly hairstyle like the hyacinths, and that description is similar to the modern flower.

[...] Athena poured beauty on [Odysseus]— her abundance made him taller and more robust to look at. Then, on his head, she transformed his hair, so it flowed in curls like fresh hyacinths in bloom. - Homer, "The Odyssey"

Here is a detail that got me pondering.

In the "Abduction of Persephone" myth, when Persephone is returned to Demeter, she tells her mother about the abduction and we have this:

"[...] we were playing and gathering sweet flowers in our hands, soft crocuses mingled with irises and hyacinths, and rose-blooms and lilies, marvelous to see, and the narcissus which the wide earth caused to grow yellow as a crocus." - Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter

So Persephone is collecting flowers when she is taken, and one of those flowers is the hyacinth. It's unexpected to think Apollo and Hyacinthus got together before the seasons were a thing.

Zephyrus wears hyacinths on his flower wreath

There is one account I can find that talks about this detail.

"You can see [Zephyrus], I think, with his winged temples and his delicate form; and he wears a crown of all kinds of flowers, and will soon weave the hyacinth in among them." - Philostratus the Elder, "Imagines"

It might be a simple thing, but it had me thinking. Does Zephyrus wear hyacinths in his flower crown as a reminder of his former lover (like Apollo wears laurels from Daphne's tree)? Is it out of the guilt he has later or a sadistic triumph?

We'll never know.

Chloris creates the hyacinth flowers

For those who don't know, Chloris is the goddess of flowers and the wife of Zephyrus.

We all agree that Apollo created the hyacinth flower in the memories of Hyacinthus, but Ovid claimed Chloris (or Flora, her Roman counterpart) to be the creator.

"I (Flora) first made a flower from Therapnean blood [Hyacinthus the larkspur flower], and its petal still inscribes the lament. You too, narcissus, have a name in tended gardens, unhappy in your undivided self. Why mention Crocus, Attis, or Cinyras' son, from whose wounds I made a tribute soar?" - Ovid, "Fasti"

I don't like this version not because it's a Roman source, but because having Flora/Chloris creating the flower will reduce the heart-wrenching of Apollo and Hyacinthus' myth. Apollo lost his beloved to the hands of death, so having him make the flower as a tribute to their love and to always remember him will have a bigger impact.

Apollo is Hyacinthus' uncle/granduncle/great-grandfather

Look, almost all Greek mythology couples are related in some way. Apollo and Hyacinthus are no exception.

If we have Amyclas and Diomede as Hyacinthus' parents, Apollo will be Hyacinthus' granduncle on his father's side and great-grandfather on his mother's side.

Lacedaemon (Hyacinthus' grandfather) is a son of Zeus and Taygete.

"[Eurotas] left the kingdom to Lacedaemon, whose mother was Taygete, after whom the mountain was named, while according to report his father was none other than Zeus." - Pausanias, "Description of Greece"

Lapithes is a son of Apollo and the father of Diomede.

"Lapithes, the son of Apollon and Stilbe, the daughter of Peneus." - Diodorus Siculus, "Library of History"

"Amyclas and Lapithes' daughter Diomede had Cynortas and Hyacinthus." - Pseudo-Apollodorus, "Bibliotheca"

If we have Clio as Hyacinthus' mother, Apollo will be his half-uncle because the Muses are the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the Titan goddess of memory.

I guess the only way to remove incest from Apollo and Hyacinthus is to have Clio as his mother but use the version where the Muses sprang into life from four rivers made by Pegasus.

Hyacinthus is the relative/ancestor of other heroes (Perseus, Heracles, Helen, etc.)

I used to make a family tree for ten generations of the mythical Spartan family (and an additional one for Perseus and Danae).

And since Perseus is the great-grandfather of Heracles, this means Hyacinthus is an ancestor of Heracles as well.

Here are some sources to back me up:

"[...] Lelex, an aboriginal was the first king in this land, after whom his subjects were named Leleges. Lelex had a son Myles, and a younger one Polycaon. [...] On the death of Myles his son Eurotas succeeded to the throne.." - Pausanias, "Description of Greece"

"On the death of Amyclas, the empire came to Argalus, the eldest of his sons, and afterward, when Argalus died, to Cynortas. Cynortas had a son Oebalus." - Pausanias, "Description of Greece"

"[Oebalus] took a wife from Argos, Gorgophone the daughter of Perseus, and begat a son Tyndareus, with whom Hippocoon disputed about the kingship, claiming the throne on the ground of being the eldest. With the end of Icarius and his partisans, he had surpassed Tyndareus in power, and forced him to retire in fear." - Pausanias, "Description of Greece"

"To Acrisius and Eurydice, Lacedaemon's daughter, was born a daughter Danae [...] When Acrisius later learned that she had given birth to Perseus, not believing that Zeus seduced her, he cast his daughter out to sea with her son on an ark." - Pseudo-Apollodorus, "Bibliotheca"

Apollo and Hyacinthus in the Trojan War???

Oh boy. This is the part many of you are screaming for me to explain.

I'll have to disappoint you because there aren't many texts about Apollo/Hyacinthus in the Epic Cycle (at least, I can't find all of them yet). But if we bust our brains, we can draw out some shower thoughts.

1) Was Hyacinthus alive by the time of the Trojan War, and did he participate?

The timeline is shaky and depends on which source you're looking at. Euripides' play "Helen" mentions the Hyacinthia festival, meaning our prince was born, died, and immortalized before the Trojan War.

"They will be gathered in a dance, at long last, or in games, or in all night feasts, in honor of Hyacinth, whom Phoebus Apollo killed during a discus throwing contest." - Euripides, "Helen"

On the other hand, Lucian's "Dialogues of the Dead" said that Hyacinthus was still in the Underworld after the Trojan War.

"Menippos: Where are all the beauties, Hermes? Show me around, I am a newcomer. Hermes : I am busy, Menippos. But look over there, to your right, and you will see Hyacinthus, Narcissus, Nireus, Achilles, Tyro, Helene, Leda - all the beauties of old." - Lucian, "Dialogues of the Dead"

From Lucian's work, either Hyacinthus will be resurrected much later after the war or never at all.

If we go by the version that Hyacinthus was deified before the war, I'm sure he will side with his homeland. Hyacinthus is a favorite hero-god of Sparta and great-granduncle to Helen, so there is no reason he won't participate in the war.

That leads us to the next point:

2) Can you imagine the angst potential for Hyapollo???

National pride is a big thing for Spartans. You know how Spartans mock other city-states and uphold their people. Hyacinthus must feel utterly betrayed when Apollo is revealed to be siding with the people who stole from his homeland. He loves the god, but he loves his homeland more.

However, unlike the previous point where there are sources to draw from, we got zero records of how Apollo and Hyacinthus interacted during the war. So it has to be up to our imagination.

When Apollo sent a plague on the Greeks, did he purposefully spare the Spartans because of Hyacinthus? Did Hyacinthus tell his men to not kill the children, lovers, or favored mortals of Apollo?

Did they avoid each other when the Olympian civil conflict broke out? Did they even talk to each other at all?

And most importantly, how would they heal after the Trojan War?

3) Do the Spartans celebrate the Hyacinthia in Troy?

Now, this one is funny. The Spartans worshipped Apollo and Hyacinthus together, yet Apollo is now the enemy of Sparta.

In history, Spartans did form truces and leave the battlefields to attend the Hyacinthia festival.

"Now the Lakedaimonians (Lacedaemonians), as the festival of Hyakinthos was approaching, made a truce of forty days with the men of Eira [in Messenia]. They themselves returned home to keep the feast." - Pausanias, "Description of Greece"

But this isn't the case in the Trojan War. No sources say the Spartans desert the battlefield in Troy to go home for the festival (makes sense because they have to travel across the sea, and their queen is still trapped in Troy)

So the question is: how do they celebrate them in Troy instead? Do they even celebrate the Hyacinthia when one of the honored gods is siding against them?

Food for thought...

TO BE CONTINUED

[alexa-fika]

Little Gardener's Pirate Odyssey Chapter 1

Female child!oc x reader!

A/N I have been doing drabbles and writings for a long while and even longer character and world-building, but this is the first time I have gone out and published them, so let me know what you guys think; these are the results of maladaptive daydreaming

Please let me know what kind of warnings I should add or overall anything I could improve on

Ivy dividers by @firefly-graphics and @sweetxmelody

Chapter 2, Chapter 3

The sounds of cooking rang through the Baratie kitchen, the scent of freshly baked bread, the sizzle of fried meat, the mouth-watering aroma of stew, and the inevitable sound of another fight brewing among the kitchen staff, the shouting overriding the muffle sobs coming from one of the cabinets.

Alexandra could hear the cooks quarreling among themselves; she glanced at her familiars teary-eyed, unsure what to do.

"It's okay, sweetpea. I'm sure it will settle down eventually, and then we can sneak out," A small fairy softly says, caressing the young child. Alexandra's other familiar, Rogue, offers no comforting words, attention glued to the cabinet doors for any incoming danger. A sudden slam above her causes her to shriek, and the kitchen falls quiet. Alexandra's eyes widen at the sound of approaching footseps as she grabs Rogue and quickly scoots into the cabinet as far as she can.

Light flows into the dark cabinet as a blond young man slowly opens the door. The young man's eyes widen, the cigarette in his mouth falling to the floor. The sobs of the girl snap him from his shock as he gently approaches her.

"Hey there, little lady, don't be scared; what are you doing there?" A threatening hiss from Rogue causes Sanji to still; he raises an eyebrow, a slight twitch in his frown as he hears him hiss, now standing between him and the young child.

"Im sorry, what's that?" he asks the girl.

"Is that your pet?" He tilts his head, unsure what to think of Rogue hissing at him.

"Get your hands away from her; I won't let you hurt her," a deep voice growls from the shadow entity. 

 "Look, I'm trying to get her out so I can actually help her." He keeps his hands on the floor and doesn't move close to Rogue.

"I know how she's feeling. She's scared, confused, and doesn't know what to do." He keeps his voice calm and measured,

 "And I'm trying to help. Don't you think coming out to talk with me would be better so I can at least try to help her? Do you have a better idea?"

"Rogue, he doesn't mean any harm. Please give him a chance; we can step in if anything happens," Viridi states.

"Please don't hurt him," the four-year-old whimpers

"I'm sorry"

His attention was quickly directed back to Alexandra at this.

Hey, it's okay. I'm not here to hurt you or that little creature. What's your name, little lady?"

"Alexandra," she manages to get out between sobs.

"Where are your Parents, Alexandra?

"I don't have parents," she sniffles.

Sanji frowns at the information.

'Poor thing must be terrified,' He thinks, watching how the small girl makes no move to get out from the far corner. He tries to move closer to the girl but sills as she scoots back even more, her ears flattening against her head and her tail wrapping around herself. He sighs as he sits in front of the cabinet to look less menacing.

Viridi and Rogue both watch the scene unfold, virii whispering comforting words to the girl and Rogue sitting in her lap, providing her silent comfort.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, there was so much noise and people started fighting and I got scared; Im sorry," her words barely decipherable between her cries.

"Hey, hey, its okay, no need for apologies. You didn't do anything wrong; I'm Sanji. Would you like to get out of that dark corner? he says, gently reaching her hand out towards her

She stares at his hand, sniffling.

"I want to help you, okay? But I need you to come out of there; I can take you somewhere you'll be safe, alright? Will you come out and talk to me?" His voice is gentle, patient, and kind; his friendly smile is reassuring

She slowly nods her head, grabbing his hand hesitantly. He gently pulls her out of the cabinet and picks her up. She looks around and shrieks at the sight of all the chefs standing there looking at her and Sanji. Sanji notices and turns around with a scowl.

"Don't you guys have anything more important to do? We have a full restaurant. How about you worry about yourselves and take care of the customers?" he growls. Reactions from the kitchen vary from turning around, ashamed at being caught, to rolling eyes to grumbles, but eventually, the chefs fall back into their routine as Zeff, who was among them, turns around and starts screaming at them as well.

"Lil eggplant, take that one upstairs and help her settle in," Zeff grumbles, turning around to face Sanji.

"I was already going to, old fart, lay off' he mutters, walking upstairs with the trembling girl in his hands. Viridi and Rogue trailing behind them.

"You're safe now; it's just us now, little Lady; it's okay," he reassures her. Alexandra lifts her head her sensitive ears registering that they were now far away from the hustle and bustle of the kitchen.

"Im sorry," she whispers, sobs still evident in her body

"Hey, it's okay, no one is mad a you; you are safe here," he reassures her as he sits down, placing her on his lap and bouncing her.

She lets a small teary giggle, Her. white eyes changing to a vivid and happy green.

With the soft and reassuring voice of Sanji, Alexandra's mood slowly lifts, and her sobs recede to slow sniffles as she looks up at Sanji with a content sigh, realizing she is safe with him.

I'm still working on decorations and outlines so let me know what you guys think.

[daisyful-gvf]

touch // by daisyful

18+

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tags: pwp, masturbation (m), drinking, overstimulation because it’s josh so i mean, lol that’s it

word count: 1.5k

summary: josh gets some time to himself in his hotel room

notes: just a short little thing bc this week was rough and this is all i could summon lol. i’m not mad about it

*********************************************************

As if his natural inclination towards touch was not enough, wine always made him so physical.

Gripping the shoulders of his brothers at the restaurant, or reaching out and touching the hand of his date too frequently after a glass or two—anything, he just couldn’t help it. There was something about a soft touch that was so grounding, so human.

So after nearly finishing off the bottle, even alone in the hotel room, it shouldn’t surprise him that his hands are seeking out the warmth of skin.

His eyes are a little heavier than they were at the start of the movie—2001: A Space Odyssey, a comfort film. He usually tried not to do it an injustice by half-paying attention, but that’s what ended up happening this time.

The white t-shirt hugs his torso in a familiar way, yet another source of comfort amidst all the travel, all the constant change.

He toys with the hem of it, trailing two curious fingers along the skin between the shirt and the waistband of the sweatpants. It feels nice, a little ticklish, so he continues.

With his other hand he’s fumbling for the wine glass on the nightstand, not bothering to peel his eyes from the screen as he grips it. He pours the rest of the sweet wine into his mouth, enjoying the warmth in his cheeks from the alcohol.

While he briefly wishes he had someone here to run his hands over, to explore and caress, the solitude is nice in its own way. He can reach his hand under his waistband and cup himself languidly as the movie plays on, and just exist that way.

But after a while, one hand gently over himself, the other under his shirt, splayed across the warm plush of his stomach, it’s inevitable—the craving to touch himself a bit more intentionally.

He indulges, letting out a soft sigh and grinning briefly to himself. This was nice. So much nicer than being cooped up in his bunk, curtain drawn, trying to stifle every noise that may escape him, never feeling like he can really enjoy it.

Yes, much nicer; the wine is warm in his veins, there’s a gentle heat in his belly, and his fingertips are hungry.

His eyes flutter shut as his head sinks back into the soft hotel pillow. He grips himself loosely, welcoming the slow rush of blood. Soon, just from the teasing, he’s hard and warm against his palm.

“Mmm,” he hums quietly, giving the first real stroke over himself. His exhale feels loud in the room, even with the movie playing.

With another genuine stroke, he groans, fully in it now. He realizes, then, that it’s been two days since he last did this. It had been so hectic, as fun as it was, and the need hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Coming to, eyes opening and adjusting to the light of the room, he takes a deep breath and slips his hand out of his pants. As the fabric hugs him, his hips push up into the barely-there pressure.

“Fuck,” he sighs, so soft it’s hardly spoken, as his hand briefly grips the sheet.

If he’s going to do this, he wants to do it right.

Standing up, he makes his way to the curtain and draws both of them, darkening the room significantly. The lamp doesn’t give off much of a glow, and he never cared for overhead lights, so those were left off.

He fumbles through his luggage, humming to himself along with the film soundtrack, until his fingers find the small bottle of lube.

The last bit of wine in the bottle stares him down, so he pours it into the glass and takes another sip as he heads into the bathroom to grab a washcloth.

Finally, he settles back on the bed, shifting until he’s comfortably reclined against the pillows.

Eyes lazily fixed on the television screen, his left hand wanders under his shirt and over the soft part of his stomach. His fingers splay out, and the hand rests there, warm skin on skin.

His right delves lower down, palming his erection through the sweatpants. It pulls a soft whimper from him, again, barely audible. Perhaps if he was with someone, he would let a bit more noise out, but there’s no obligation for that now.

After only a few moments of squeezing himself through the pants, he shoves them down to the middle of his thighs and takes himself into his hand. The white comforter is so soft on the backs of his legs, it makes him shiver.

For a brief moment he lets himself just lay there, hips easing up into nothing, observing the way he’s hard and flushed, resting on his stomach.

He reaches for the lube, and his breath stutters in anticipation. He squeezes a generous amount into his palm and flips the cap closed as it warms with the heat of his skin.

The first stroke, slicking the lube over himself to the point where it drips down him, makes his jaw go slack. It’s wet and warm, and he can’t hold back a soft whimper.

After he’s coated in it, he works over himself with slow, firm strokes. His hips push up into it when his fist reaches the base each time, just slightly. When he gets into a rhythm, with a light twist of his wrist near the head, his stomach grows warm.

It’s been two days; he’s sensitive, and now, with the pleasure in reach, a little needy.

His left hand trails down to his thigh, gripping at it absentmindedly as his right hand quickens its pace.

There’s a flash of heat in his stomach with a particularly firm movement, and it punches a short groan from him. He slows down, then, taking a breath so deep it stretches the muscles of his abdomen with the swell of his lungs and makes him almost dizzy with the exhale.

He makes an “O” with his pointer finger and thumb and slowly, but with a nice pressure, he teases the head, sliding his fingers up and down just below it. His eyes roll back—it’s not enough, not even close, but it makes his stomach flutter.

It’s not every time he likes to edge himself. Sometimes he wants it quick, and after only a minute or two of working, he’ll let himself have it. Not now, though.

Now, in this gentle daze, he can feel every pang of pleasure, every goosebump, every shiver. It’s delectable, the build.

So he keeps at it, as the skin on his neck grows hot enough that he’s almost sweating. A choked moan makes it way out of him, and finally, he decides to let it wash over him. He tugs his shirt halfway up his stomach in anticipation before returning the hand to his thigh.

Several quick, fervent strokes elicit a low groan from him as he cums on his stomach. He watches it rope across his skin, and for whatever reason, the sight makes his skin feel even hotter.

He takes a stuttering breath and grips himself firm, just holding, watching the head flush deep red.

With what is undeniably a whimper, he begins to stroke himself again. He steals his own breath with the first one, and as he works through the overstimulation, his head falls back with a force against the pillow. He draws more whimpers from himself, and staccato gasps, but he can’t help it at this point.

The overstimulation is making his brain fog in such a delicious way; there is nothing else to think about besides the way his spine is tingling with the hope of another, even harder, orgasm.

“Oh—fuck—”

It’s abrupt in the mostly quiet room, but he doesn’t care. He buries his left hand in the sheets and grasps. The muscles on his right arm begin to ache, but again, it doesn’t matter—he’s working quickly, causing his thighs to shake just slightly as his head still thrashes into the pillow.

It approaches brighter and hotter in his stomach than the first one. At the very start of the sensation, it’s enough to push him along to the breaking point. Too tempting not to chase.

There’s a sheen of sweat on his shoulders and the back of his neck as he works his slick hand over himself rapidly, crashing into the second orgasm with a loud, drawn out moan.

His eyes roll back so hard, blacking his vision, that he wonders if he’ll be able to see at all when he comes to. He can, but it’s blurry for a moment until he catches his breath.

With a final deep breath, he milks the last drop gently from the tip, before resting his sticky hand on his stomach. He smiles softly to himself as he feels his muscles unwind, relaxing fully into the soft bed.

Reluctantly, wishing he could just drift into sleep, he cleans himself off with the washcloth. He takes the last sip of wine from his glass and tugs his sweatpants back up, smooths out his shirt, and tucks under the blanket.

With his favorite movie on, and in a blissed-out state, he drifts off to sleep easily.

fin.

—

taglist <3

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[aurelim]

On That Day: A Maddox

It was another job for Captain A Maddox. They had been hired by a private trading company to bring various goods to the kingdom of Rhodyllen, who share excellent trading connections with Oceanic. The travel was far—at least five days' worth of sailing across the Laguape Sea. But it took a lot more than that to discourage them from taking the job. They needed every coin they could earn.

Captain Maddox departed from the Oceanic port on a crisp, sunny afternoon, confidence settled in their chest. They had no crew on their ship, the Odyssey, besides their lonesome self. They had no need for extra hands, and they preferred to sail alone. It allowed them to breathe openly and clear their thoughts, and it was cathartic to hear the crashing waves against the wooden shell of the Odyssey without the chatter of men.

The first three nights had been smooth sailing and starry nights. A knew the ins and outs of their ship, manning the wheel, sails, and lookout at once. The Odyssey was no small ship, but it was just manageable if the sailor knew it well.

On the fourth day, the captain was startled awake by a frightening clash. Their heart had leaped to their throat as they threw their cabin door open. There was no time to grab their navy blue coat—A ran up and hurried to the upper deck.

The sun had been replaced by dark clouds looming ominously over the ship. The ropes they had tied to the wheel have loosened, but A quickly teared it off to regain control. They were not sure how far the Odyssey had veered from its course—right now, they had to focus on the humidity in the air, the wind picking up and the coldness that numbed their body.

A bolt of lightning brightens the clouds, followed by the rumbling of thunder. The ocean has become rougher, throwing the ship about in a vain attempt to destroy it. The only problem is that Maddox is the one behind the wheel. And they are not going to let that happen anytime soon.

Seawater splashes onto the deck, pooling around their boots. Rain comes down in heavy spurts, matting their hair as their clothes stick to their skin. They curse the storm and it appears to respond with more rain and tougher waves.

The steering wheel becomes their lifeline as they grip onto it, their teeth grinding as they try to fight back. The sails are whipping, and if they had people helping perhaps this situation would have been much better. Alas, it appeared they had to deal with the storm alone.

The magnitude of the storm finally dawned upon them once they heard a faint voice. Immediately their eyes were drawn to the water, looking for the source of the sound. Through the chaos, the sound a gentle melody that settled in their bones, muscles relaxing. The captain swooned and nearly let go of the wheel before the Odyssey jostled with a sudden bump.

It was enough to break them out of whatever spell they were under. They had to get out of here. This was the only thing on their mind.

Maddox had nothing to cover their ears, so they resolved to think about other thoughts and focus on avoiding the huge waves that rose to swallow them whole. They hoped the goods were not ruined after this...they would have to check later. Their mind buzzes with a need to jump into the rocky waters, but they manage to push down the impulse.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the wind dialed down its intensity. The rain slowed and the thunder lessened. Despite these signs, A Maddox continued to hold their breath until they were out of the storm.

The gloomy clouds have made way for the sun, rays of warmth splaying over Maddox's figure. The wind calmed down and the sea took a deep exhale of relief.

In that moment, they allowed themself to relax.

Breathe.

The storm is over. The voice is, too.

With this, they returned back to their normal routine. They went back to retrieve their coat, shouldering it on, and returned to manning the wheel, sails and lookout at once.

Maddox was still shaken from the storm and the voice. The melody repeats in their head, slowly driving them insane. But they soldier on. There is nothing else they can do about it.

The rest of the journey went without a hitch. Luckily, none of the goods had been destroyed and A was paid handsomely for their work. The job was done.

On the journey back home, they kept a close eye on the waters. No storm occurs again, thankfully.

But it seems that they are lucky.

In the dead of night, as their eyes are half-closing, they spy a glimmer of pink amongst the darkness. Suddenly their senses come alive and they get closer to the edge of the ship. And they see it—the shadow—as it disappears.

Holy mother of...they lean closer to the edge, hoping to get another glimpse. It is long gone now under the depths of the deep blue sea.

But it was there. And that was all A needed to know.

Mermaids. Actual mermaids.

Rejuvenated, the captain gets back to the wooden wheel, gripping it with their calloused fingers. It would be another day before they reached port.

The longer Maddox stays awake, the faster they will get there.

Gods, do they have a story to tell.

[dndads-worst-ending]

The Son of the Businessman

Terry Junior does not sleep peacefully anymore. The horrors that find him when he closes his eyes take the form of memories he'd much rather forget.

For some reason, it always starts in the car. He's yelling at his father again, this time about instant oatmeal. He'd kill for Ron's instant oatmeal these days. Ron doesn't reply, and Terry Junior is certain it's because he can no longer remember his voice.

The dream warps, and the scenes blur together. Being kidnapped from the van, being bought by the man in the cloak. The process by which the vampire turned himself into something that looked like his biological father... And then Ron again, fighting the vampire, killing him, and his mouth moves again but no sound comes out.

The dreams always linger on Ron. Every kind thing he said, even the stupid things he did. All the moments that Terry Junior wished he could live through again come back to haunt him. He tries to talk to Ron, tries to tell him he's sorry, that he loves him, but Ron's mouth only moves silently and Terry Junior can never figure out what he's saying.

And then Terry Junior is back in the car again, but it's different. He's in the backseat now, screaming in panicked chorus with three other voices as the Odyssey is lifted into the air by the curling roots of a tree. He's fighting with his seatbelt, trying to follow Sparrow and Grant as they jump out the doors, but he's trapped inside.

He's not sure when he managed to slip away. Was it when the trees were trying to put Grant back in the car, or were the trees trying to get the kids out of it? Terry Junior remembers running, not really sure where to. The battlefield is pure chaos, and it's a miracle he isn't decapitated by the stray swing of a sword.

He's tired and terrified by the time he finds Ron, as he's stepping toward Willy with his arms out. What is that idiot doing? Is he giving that asshole a hug? He doesn't get the chance. Willy's hand buries itself in Ron's chest. Red sprays freely as Willy rips Ron's heart out.

Terry Junior is running toward them, as if he'd be able to change anything now, as if he can still save his dad. Ron's gaze shifts from Willy, and he meets Terry's eyes with a smile. For the last time, he says something that Terry Junior can't hear, and then Ron collapses in the dirt. Willy turns, smirking, and approaches Terry Junior. With a toss over his shoulder, the crumpled heart is discarded.

"Hey there, kiddo," Willy says, and Terry's skin crawls. "Looks like you'll be calling me dad from now on."

Terry Junior wakes, biting back a scream. His skin is cold and damp, and he pulls his cloak tighter around himself. Shakily, he pushes himself upright and blearily looks around at the dark campsite constructed amidst the ruins of a once-bustling town. The only buildings that partially remain here are those of stone, and even those rarely have roofs intact.

His eyes glance over to where his allies lay, locked in their own slumber, and he lets out a small sigh. Every day they stay here is a risk, but they have nowhere else to go.

Terry Junior settles himself back into his sleeping roll. It seems that sleep won't come easy tonight. His fingers reach into the folds of his cloak, finding the small pocket where he keeps the one thing he's managed to hold onto for all this time. It's paper, ripped and crumpled at the edges, stained by water, and nearly decomposed by age. It's falling apart, but he knows what it is, and what its words used to say. Closing his eyes once more, he drifts back into his fitful rest while clutching the worn business card.

[voraciouskingdom]

In the depths of your journey, you have traversed treacherous terrain - scaling the craggy cliffs of self-doubt, wading through the turbulent waters of ancestral wounds, and braving the scorching fires of your own inner critic. Yet here you stand, a cosmic dancer adorned in the jewels of hard-won wisdom and resilience.

As you pause to catch your breath, feel the weight of gratitude settle upon your shoulders like a sacred mantle. For every obstacle has been a teacher, every challenge a catalyst for your becoming. The shadows you once fled from have revealed themselves as friendly allies, guiding you towards the wholeness you now embody.

Gaze back upon the winding path that led you here, and give thanks for the lessons that fortified your soul. The heartbreaks that cracked you open to vulnerability's tender strength. The failures that humbled you into radical self-acceptance. The betrayals that birthed unshakable boundaries and sovereignty. Every step, no matter how arduous, was a sacred initiation into your truth.

Let gratitude be the balm that soothes your battle-weary spirit. For you are not a solitary wanderer on this path, but a cosmic dancer woven into the great web of a universe conspiring towards your wholeness. The guides and ancestors who illuminated your way through the darkest nights. The soul family who reflected back your radiance when it felt dim. Give thanks for their divine presence and unwavering faith in your becoming.

Invoke the spirit of gratitude, and feel it ripple through your being like a gentle wave caressing the shores of your soul. Where there was once resistance, let there be an allowing and a receiving of the gifts this journey has bestowed upon you. Resilience. Compassion. Radical self-love. These are the jewels you have unearthed from the depths, shining beacons to light your way forward.

Affirmation: "I give thanks for the lessons, the initiations, the gifts this journey has bestowed upon me. In radical gratitude, I receive the wholeness I have embodied."

Ritual: Place a hand over your heart and another on your belly. Take a deep, cleansing breath. As you exhale, send tendrils of gratitude through your body, letting it ripple into every cell. Give thanks for your breath, your life force, your ability to feel and experience this human journey in all its richness. When you feel complete, blow a kiss of gratitude up to the heavens and out towards all those who have held you through your becoming.

With this ritual of breath and presence, you honor the truth that gratitude is a homecoming - a sacred return to the wholeness that has been patiently awaiting your embrace all along. Let it wash over you like a warm rain, nourishing the roots of your authenticity and self-acceptance.

The path will grow smoother with gratitude as your compass. Where there was once jagged terrain, you will find soft meadows of self-compassion. For in giving thanks for your journey, you alchemize the shadows into gifts and the wounds into wisdom. You are not a battle-weary wanderer, beloved one, but a cosmic dancer whose every step sparks ripples of transformation across the universe.

Call on your spirit guides and ancestors, to join you in this symphony of gratitude. Let their celestial voices merge with yours in a chorus of thanksgiving for the sacred work you have undertaken. For in embodying your wholeness through radical self-love, you become a beacon lighting the path for other wanderers to find their way home.

May radical gratitude be the prism through which you view your extraordinary journey - an odyssey crafted by a universe that has always conspired towards your wholeness and radiant blossoming. You are the cosmic dancer, and this moment of grace is your dance.🔥❤️‍🔥

[muse-matrix]

"Miss Library, tell us the long and detailed odyssey you traveled to arrive here in Gensokyo."

"Well... 'long and detailed' would require several hours. I can elaborate, if you wish... But I'll start with a summary."

"The city I grew up in once lie deep underground, far below the earth. My people lived there for some thousands of years, until one day, they were wiped out by a... divine intervention, let's say. It came swiftly, out of nowhere, and left only a few handfuls of survivors, myself included. I can only imagine we all escaped in different directions, and have either wandered ever since, or found new lands to settle down in. To my knowledge, I'm the only one who... ever came back to this world."

"When my home fell, I ventured to the surface and began a new life as a writer and a book-keeper. There were a few times I was run out of the settlements I had made my dwelling, its inhabitants dubbing me a 'witch' or some such, and I had to watch the libraries I had built burn to the ground more than once. So I kept venturing east every time, crossing land and sea until I wound up in this country."

"By that point, I had already authored a number of... what do they call them here... 'demon books'? The 'Night Parade' scroll among them- I originally came to Gensokyo in search of the thing, in fact. I had written many, but some of them were scattered the last time I had to make an, ah... abrupt relocation."

[djmandin]

Ticao Island in Masbate, Philippines, is a hidden gem boasting pristine beaches, vibrant marine life, and a rich cultural heritage. As you step onto its shores, you're greeted by crystal-clear waters and powdery white sand. Explore its underwater wonders through snorkeling or diving, where you'll encounter colorful coral reefs teeming with tropical fish, sea turtles, and even majestic manta rays. While writing this travelogue, I can feel the butterflies on my stomach remembering all the core memories I built on the paradise island. Now, allow me to tell you the very reason I love beaches now… 

I am beyond blessed and I could not thank the Lord more as my mother was born and raised on the Island, giving me a “VIP” access to visit the place once in a while. I can vividly remember my first-ever visit to the Island— a core memory that will live in my mind rent-free. Imagine a seven-year-old girl in awe of the scenery her mind could not even process. It was my first time to travel places outside the city I was born and raised in. So, here’s how it goes— setting off on our journey to Ticao Island, we start our adventure from the bustling streets of Caloocan City. Laden with anticipation and excitement, we made our way to the Cubao bus terminal, the “gateway” to our island paradise. Navigating through the vibrant chaos of Cubao, we finally reach the bus terminal, where a sea of vehicles awaits to carry travelers to their destinations. Amidst the hustle and bustle, my parents were able to secure our tickets for the long journey ahead — a ride to Pilar, Sorsogon, the launching point for our island escapade. As we boarded the bus, I remember settling into my seat, brimming with a mix of eagerness and patience for the voyage ahead. The engine hums to life, signaling the beginning of our 17-hour odyssey through picturesque landscapes and winding roads. With each passing hour, I find myself drifting in and out of sleep, lulled by the rhythmic motion of the bus and the gentle hum of conversation among fellow passengers. Along the way, we pass through beautiful countryside, quaint villages, and majestic mountains, each scene providing a look into the varied fabric of the Philippine archipelago. Finally, as dawn breaks on the horizon, we arrive at our destination — the Pilar Pier in Sorsogon. Stepping off the bus, I was greeted by the salty tang of the sea air and the sight of fishing boats and ferries bobbing gently in the harbor. There, at the edge of the world, our journey to Ticao Island truly began. With a sense of anticipation building in my chest, I take a moment to savor the thrill of exploration and discovery that lies ahead. For beyond these shores lies a paradise waiting to be explored, where azure waters and pristine beaches beckon with the promise of adventure and wonder. And so, with hearts full of excitement and wonder, we set sail towards the sun-kissed shores of Ticao Island, ready to start on the adventure of a lifetime. 

As the ferry glides across the azure waters, I find myself struck with the sight of Ticao Island's rich foliage and craggy coastline. When I step ashore, I am immediately surrounded by a sensation of calm. Our lodging, Lola’s delightful home in the municipality of Monreal, is the ideal place for us to unwind from the polluted air and busy vibes of the City. For the first day, we decided to just rest and stay at Lola’s home. Oh! I almost forgot Barangay Real has no water line but the Lord is not cruel after all as He blessed the barangay with a flowing cold water spring in which people can have water for free— may it be for taking a bath, drinking water, washing clothes, and many more! For our whole stay there, we always took a bath and did laundry in the water spring or what the locals call “matang tubig”. It was a nice summer because of the water spring. We also climbed Lola's rubber plants from the neighboring peak to her house. It was a completely new experience for me to trek a mountain and find so many different flora and herbs. Hiking my Lola's rubber plants was a wonderfully enriching experience, as it allowed me to immerse myself in nature's wealth while also interacting with family. Trekking across the beautiful mountainside, surrounded by thick greenery and the earthy aroma of plants, must have been a sensory delight. Exploring the many plants and herbs along the journey undoubtedly inspired a sense of surprise and interest, strengthening my connection to the natural world. While the last thing I can remember from the trip was the beach we visited! The salty wind, the sun-kissed white sands, and the rhythmic music of the waves breaking against the shore all work together to provide the ideal setting for relaxation. And oh the joys of beachside activities! Building sandcastles became an art form, with each grain of sand meticulously sculpted into turrets and moats, a testament to our boundless imagination and creativity. The laughter of my cousins and I echoed along the shoreline as we splashed in the glittering seas, our joy contagious as we reveled in the freedom of the open waters. I also remember how we got very sentimental as the day drew to a close, painting the sky in hues of pink and orange. We gathered together for one last embrace before bidding farewell, before going back to reality, to the beachside. Though separated by distance and time, the memories we made on this idyllic shore will forever bind us together, a treasure trove of moments to cherish until we meet again. The sands beneath my feet bore witness to the depths of my heart's embrace of that unforgettable moment, capturing the essence of pure joy and bliss in their golden grains. Even now, the mere thought of sinking my toes into the soft, warm embrace of sand fills me with a sense of longing and nostalgia. 

I miss my Lola and her cooking, and my cousins back there. I hope we can come back soon. 

-beach-lover

[daimonclub]

Ezra Pound the best craftsman

Ezra Pound the best craftsman Ezra Pound the best craftsman as Eliot called him, an article that synthetically explains the linguistic art and poetics of this great poet, with some examples of his writing style and deep literary meaning. I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn't irascible. Ezra Pound I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them. Ezra Pound A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him. Ezra Pound The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people. Ezra Pound I could I trust starve like a gentleman. It's listed as part of the poetic training, you know. Ezra Pound No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents. Ezra Pound For Ezra Pound il miglior fabbro. The dedication is drawn from The Divine Comedy, the 14th century epic poem by Dante. The Divine Comedy is divided into three parts - Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso - describing Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and finally Paradise. Eliot returns to this poem throughout The Waste Land. Here, the dedication translates as “the better craftsman,” a reference to Canto 26 of the Purgatorio. Dante refers to the poet Arnault Daniel, but Eliot passes the compliment on to Pound, who helped edit The Waste Land. Eliot returns to the same canto in line 428. More context, from the Cotter translation of the Purgatorio: “O brother, the one I point to with my finger,” He spoke, and pointed to a soul in front, “Was a better craftsman of the mother tongue.” This information is based on a footnote from North (2001). For more on Pound's contributions, see the annotated manuscript of The Waste Land in Eliot (1971). Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet, critic and intellectual who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in early-to-mid 20th century poetry. Born in Halley, Idaho, (1885-1972) Pound spent most of his life in Europe. In 1908, in his mid-twenties, he went to London because he wanted to meet the greatest living poet, W.B. Yeats, settled there and became a central figure in the literary and artistic world. He founded and led a poetic movement called "Imagism", which reacted against 'Romanticism' and contributed greatly to the development of "Modernism". For some time he was also involved in "Vorticism", an art movement initiated in 1913 by Wyndham Lewis, which combined cubism and the celebration of the energy and speed of the machine age, very much like Futurism in Italy. In 1909 he published Personae, a collection of poems after the manner of the Victorian poet Robert Browning, whose dramatic monologue technique he employed to speak through the voice of others. A "persona" was the mask worn by Roman actors, and Pound used the mask to avoid subjectivity, which the imagists objected to in Romantic poetry. Gradually, Pound started moving away from the constraints of Imagism, and translated from Anglo Saxon and Chinese verse to explore different forms. In 1917 he also started writing the Cantos, a series of poems inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy and Homer's Odyssey, which he would work on for the rest of his life, while Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920) perhaps the first great modernist poem, attacks the destruction of the First World War and initiates one of Pound's main themes: the relationship between civilization and its economic and social basis. From 1920 he lived in Paris with his wife and became part of the new literary scene with expatriate Americans like Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. In Paris he also met James Joyce, then an obscure writer, and helped him publish Ulysses, which had censorship problems in England.

The art of Ezra Pound In 1929 Pound settled in Rapallo, Italy. He became increasingly concerned with the decline of Western civilization and with the social basis of art in what he believed to be a degenerate economic system. He studied the history of Italian Medieval and Renaissance states and found that Italy had in the past created the ideal conditions for the flowering of great art, while he associated modern credit capitalism with the social and spiritual decline of the present. Unfortunately, Pound's dislike of capitalism led him to Fascism and to Mussolini, who was himself anti-capitalist and who persecuted the Jews, associated with money-lending since the Middle Ages. During the Second World War he made a series of propagandist broadcasts over Radio Rome for which he was later tried in the United States, and confined for 12 years in a hospital for the insane. When he was released, he returned to Italy and died in Venice in 1972. With the Imagist movement, Americans poetry became international, and its leaders, the American Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, also became the leaders of European poetry. Imagism as such had a short life-span. But it was to become the most influential poetic movement of the century, just as Pound is now considered one of the most influential Modernist poets. Pound was also a generous encourager of other poets and writers; he edited The Waste Land and published Joyce's Ulysses. Through his translations and essays he made known to English-speaking readers Provencal poetry, the Italian poets of the Stil novo, Japanese dramatic literature and Chinese classical poetry. Finally, his critical essays con-tributed to the definition of 'Modernism' as a movement and introduced new standards of objectivity in the evaluation of literature. The Modern Age Cantos Imagism When Pound went to London he made common cause with a small group led by the philosopher T.H. Hume. They called themselves imagists and announced a new kind of poetry, which Pound summarized in a Manifesto: 1) To use the language of common speech, but to em-ploy also the exact word, not the merely decorative word. 2) To create new rhythms - as the expression of new moods. We do not insist on 'free verse' as the only method of writing poetry... We do believe that the in-dividuality of a poem may often be better expressed in free verse than in conventional forms. 3) To allow absolute freedom in the choice of subject. 4) To present an image (hence the name 'Imagist'). We are not a school of painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. 5) To produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred or indefinite. 6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is the very essence of poetry. A multicultural collection of poems The following poem by Pound has become famous as an example of the principles declared in the Manifesto. The poem describes a moment of intense emotion at seeing beautiful faces in a station of the Paris underground. The images condense the emotion in two parallel pictures with great economy of words, and using the language of common speech: In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. From "Poems of Lustra", 1913 In 1914 Pound abandoned the movement. Imagism was only a step on the way to Modernism, because images alone offered too limited possibilities for poetry. But its insistence on economy and free-verse continued to be valuable. Starting in 1917, Pound worked on the Cantos for the rest of his life. The Cantos, 140 loosely connected poems, have their source in Dante's Divine Comedy, as their name declares, and on the Odyssey, a model for Pound's exploration of contemporary civilization. Some of Dante's persons, like Brunetto Latini, figure in them, while many episodes have the Odyssey as a starting point. Pound shows a vivid awareness of the past. Like most great modernists (Yeats and Eliot), he looked into the past for useful literary material, for principles of conduct and for comparison with the present. As a result the Cantos are a multi-cultural work: besides the references to Dante and the Odyssey, there are also references to the Old Testament, Rimini in the 15th century under Sigismondo Malatesta, whom he considered the ideal, benevolent despot, Confucius, the United States at the time of Jefferson, Medieval England and Provence, to mention but a few. One of the main preoccupations expressed in the Cantos is economic. Pound believed that usury was at the basis of contemporary credit capitalism, which he considered the source of cultural and social disintegration. The usurer, be it an individual money-lender or a bank, charges interest, and interest, which is not worked for, creates false values, not just in economics, but also in life and art. The groups of cantos concerned with usury were written in the 1930s, when Pound was in Rapallo. In Canto XI of the Inferno, Dante asks Virgilio why usury is considered one of the most serious crimes against nature. Virgilio answers that nature takes its origin directly from God's mind and art (doings). Humanity imitates nature and art (work), like a schoolboy imitating his master. But usurers despise nature and art and refuse to live by the fruits of nature and of work. They live by the rates of interest that come from money-lending: "Filosofia, mi disse, a chi la' ntende nota, non pure in una sola parte, come natura to suo corso prende dal divino intelletto e da sua arte; e se tu ben la tua Fisica note, tu troverai, non dopo molte carte, che l'arte vostra quella, quanto pote, segue, come'l maestro fa'l discente; si che vostr'arte a Dio quasi e nipote. Da queste due se tu ti rechi a mente to Genesi dal principio, convene prender sua vita e avanzar la gente; e perche l'usuriere altra via tene, per se natura e per la sua seguace, dispregia, poi ch'in altro pon la speme." Philosophy, he (Virgil) told me, for those who understand it, explains in more than one place, that Nature takes its origin directly from God's Mind and from his Art (doings); and if you read Aristotles's Physics, you'll soon discover that your (human) art imitates Nature as it can, like a schoolboy his master. So that your art can be called God's grandchild. From these two (Art and Nature) if you remember the beginning of Genesis, man should get his bread and promote prosperity to all. But the usurer chooses another way; he despises Nature and Art because he places his hopes elsewhere. With usura Canto XLV With usura hath no man a house of good stone each block cut smooth and well fitting that design might cover their face, with usura hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall harpes et luz or where virgin receiveth message and halo projects from incision, with usura seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines no picture is made to endure nor to live with but it is made to sell and sell quickly with usura, sin against nature, is thy bread ever more of stale rags is thy bread dry as paper, with no mountain wheat, no strong flour with usura the line grows thick with usura is no clear demarcation and no man can find site for his dwelling. Stonecutter is kept from his stone weaver is kept from his loom WITH USURA wool comes not to market sheep bringeth no gain with usura Usura is a murrain, usura blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo came not by usura Duccio came not by usura nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura nor was ‘La Calunnia’ painted. Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis, Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit. Not by usura St. Trophime Not by usura Saint Hilaire, Usura rusteth the chisel It rusteth the craft and the craftsman It gnaweth the thread in the loom None learneth to weave gold in her pattern; Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered Emerald findeth no Memling Usura slayeth the child in the womb It stayeth the young man’s courting It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth between the young bride and her bridegroom CONTRA NATURAM They have brought whores for Eleusis Corpses are set to banquet at behest of usura. N.B. Usury: A charge for the use of purchasing power, levied without regard to production; often without regard to the possibilities of production. (Hence the failure of the Medici bank.) Pound's The Cantos contains music and bears a title that could be translated as The Songs - although it never is. Pound's ear was tuned to the motz et sons of troubadour poetry where, as musicologist John Stevens has noted, "melody and poem existed in a state of the closest symbiosis, obeying the same laws and striving in their different media for the same sound-ideal - armonia." In his essays, Pound wrote of rhythm as "the hardest quality of a man's style to counterfeit." He challenged young poets to train their ear with translation work to learn how the choice of words and the movement of the words combined. But having translated texts from 10 different languages into English, Pound found that translation did not always serve the poetry: "The grand bogies for young men who want really to learn strophe writing are Catullus and François Villon. I personally have been reduced to setting them to music as I cannot translate them." While he habitually wrote out verse rhythms as musical lines, Pound did not set his own poetry to music. You can also read: Ezra Pound quotes and aphorisms Ezra Pound thoughts and reflections T.S. Eliot quotes and aphorisms T.S. Eliot thoughts and reflections Quotes by authors Quotes by arguments Essays with quotes Thoughts and reflections News and events Read the full article

[chateautangerine]

@godpyre asked: [ 𝐑𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐄 ] ― sender and receiver see each other again after a period of being apart and [ 𝐂𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐑 ] ― sender bites receiver hard enough to draw blood (between thumb and pointer finger, specifically) 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐒 (accepting)

By eleven, most of the East Coast had already tucked themselves into the cotton safety of their rumpled beds, the stores all black-out emptied, the streets vacant save for late-night troublemakers. The yawning graveyard shift. So when Cliff, slicing at lemons and hearing the color blue, caught the sound of his doorbell going off, he thought he hadn't. 

He walked to the front and turned-click the deadbolt. 

He stood still, and realization came slow with a crawl. 

"Where did you run off to…" Cliff whispered around a cigarette, sweet and wispy, eyes pillowy. A second trudges by. Then, through his nose, "Come in."

Now it’s ten to twelve. 

He hasn’t seen Andrei in nobody knows. Andrei is an anomaly. Armand, all black against the white, dingy walls. Armand, a storm at sea. Armand is a shadow that hides everything inside of it, and in the stew of neurons and cranial fluid of Cliff’s soupy mind, he unconsciously thought of everyone in the Tangerine as a dream, gone in the morning; a thing that doesn't exist.

Armand is bleeding into his waking world. Maybe he's a hallucination. 

“I ran away once,” Cliff brings up, deeply airy, sunken into his couch. "Very often." Lemons spill into his plate. It fills his nose. “I did indeed.”

Did Andrei run from home? That's why he's here? Colors are brighter. Everything sparkles. Cliff’s set gin down on the table, in front of them a dinner-plate ashtray, and near that, a coffee grinder, powdered white. He might have a movie playing on the old cathode-ray TV. Space Odyssey. 

The screen is off. 

“I never told you where I live...” he sighs, then, windy. Cliff picks up a slice, dropping it into his glass. 

He watches red smear inside of it, head tilting.

“Why don't I remember that?"

Red and warm, a stream dripping down his hand. He must have cut himself with the knife, but he remembers none of it—neither the sharp, stinging pain of splitting himself open nor the burn that should have come after. He remembers none of this, either: Armand settling into the empty space beside him, the couch moaning with added weight. Armand watching him, eyes black, ink in milk, and if he'd opened his mouth to say anything at all, Cliff perceived little as this dark-haired thing in all its nighttime cruelty, open-mouthed and all teeth, bites his hand. A pinch. A second.

Twelve midnight.

He may have dug against the arm of his couch, grasping at the fabric until his bones trembled like a man pulling himself from the edge of a mountain, his eyes wide open, every thought stolen. Cliff is nowhere. Cliff is everywhere. Cliff has tripped and fallen upwards, crashing through a galaxy of constellations and mescaline, and in the warmth of this own home, a victim within these four white walls, he knows he would surely die for his own technicolor rainbow of half-consciousness, his primordial, vicious need to be anywhere else.

Armand, a hallucination. Armand, the aftermath of an extra dose. Armand is a thing that doesn't belong, and the moon is glowing and the TV screams.

In the sunny hours of the morning, the cherry-red numbers of his clock flickering, Cliff stirs in his mass of tangled bedsheets, slowly forgetting the contents of his dream, his head fuzzy static and mouth cotton dry.

He stumbles into the bathroom not remembering where he is, turning the knobs to the sink.

He can't scrub the dots off his hand.

[bethanythebogwitch]

More poorly-drawn Fakemon!. These for for a hypothetical region based on Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, though the ones I drew today are all Australian. See also starters and Johto starter variants.

Can't do Australia without Emus so here's Emuay, the Drab Pokemon, fighting-type. I took inspiration from how emus have very powerful kicks and looked for a kick-heavy martial art to base them on. I settled on Muay Thai as the martial art they are based on. Its name comes from "emu" and "Muay Thai". Emuay uses a unique fighting style that focuses heavily on kicks while also using its head and neck to strike foes. It loves collecting shiny objects and will attack anybody who keeps it from them.

Emuay evolves into Cassonak, the Vain Pokemon, fighting-type. It is based on a cassowary, a realtive of emus that is also a powerful kicker and has a dangerous claw on its feet that can rip open predators. Its name comes from "cassowary" and "Nak Muay", the term for a Muay Thai practitioner (please correct me if I got the terminology wrong). Unlike the drab Emuay, Cassonak is very colorful and is very proud of its appearance. It attacks anyone who insults it with its deadly toe claws. Trainers of a Cassonak must be prepared to help it groom itself.

Next up is Minufo, the Fairy Light Pokemon, fire/fairy-type. It is based on the Min Min lights, strange lights reported to appear in the Australian outback. Of course, one proposed explanation for the lights is they they are UFOs. I went with this idea for Minufo, whose name comes from Min Min and UFO, and also added the folklore of the similar Will-o-the-Wisp from European folklore. Minufo always appear in threes at night in remote desert regions. People who follow them will go missing, only to turn up later with no memory of what happened to them. Some people theorize they are drones sent to Earth by aliens.

Minufo evolves in Pleminides, the Pleiadean Pokemon, fire/fairy-type. Its name comes from "Min Min" and "Pleiades", a star cluster that a lot of UFO folklore has as the home of some aliens. It looks like a flaming alien suspended beneath a black triangle UFO. I specifically based it off of the star child from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I wanted the design to look bizarre and unearthly. Pleminides is a very rare Pokemon that seems to appear before major scientific discoveries. The black object above its head is made of an unknown material that absorbs all forms of radiation. Some think that the black triangle is a drone from a distant star system and the flaming body is manifested to interact with the world.

Finishing up today is Dunizen, the Dune Pokemon, ground-type. It is a living sand dune made of red sand. I based it off of the famous red sand of Australia. Its name comes from "dune" and "denizen". Dunizen has a body made of red sand and rocks for eyes. It is indistinguishable from a sand dune when not moving. It can lay motionless for years, waiting for prey to step on it. Because it spends so much time motionless, small plants will grow on it. In real life, small plants like this help hold sand dunes together.

Dunizen evolves to Dustyghust, the Dust Devil Pokemon, ground/flying-type. It is based on dust devils and its name comes from "gust" and "dusty". Part of the inspiration for its design comes from me wanting to make a flying-type that represented an air elemental rather than a flying animal. Dustyghust draws air into its body and releases it in the form of two dust devils. It can send these dust devils off to pick up small prey and bring them back to it. It is a mystery how it controls its dust devils, as scientists have confirmed it does not use telekinesis to do so.