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silkscream · 1 year ago

Text

possession

venom!peter x silk!reader

ੈ✩ synopsis: peter parker is not himself when he falls into your universe. it must be a curse that he finds himself tethered to you. the darkness inside him has never wanted anything more.

ੈ✩ genres: strangers to lovers, hurt/comfort, angst, slow burn

ੈ✩ cw: smut (18+ only minors dni), unprotected sex, slightly dubcon, biting, masturbation, violence, gore, self-harm, angst, codependent relationships, slightly ooc peter

ੈ✩ wc: 10k+

ੈ✩ a/n: this is post-nwh. i’ve been working on this for months and i finally feel comfortable posting it even though i still have a love/hate relationship with this story. hopefully i’ll muster up enough energy to make a part two because i certainly have more in store for them. (i miss peter so bad)

ੈ✩ playlist | ੈ✩ masterlist

Peter wakes up with a sharp, throbbing pain in the back of his skull. Maybe if he was lucky, he had completely knocked the wind out of his frontal lobe. Maybe he’d woken in the middle of a coma-induced dream state. As he blinks his eyes open, through the haze of the world around him, his environment pulls itself together. What he sees isn’t familiar.

This isn’t his room.

Maybe this isn’t his body, either. He hopes it isn’t, but he feels the sting of a side wound like an electric shock when he stretches his upper body slightly.

He scans the walls in search of clues. He knows he’s not in danger – at least, he doesn’t think so – considering that he’s in a girl’s room and not a cavernous dungeon. His vision is dreamlike, blurry, still. When he squints at his surroundings, he can see posters on the walls and books stacked in every corner. He shivers when he realizes he’s looking around the room without his mask. Where the fuck is it?

When Peter looks down at his body, he notices how it stings and frowns at the few rips of lycra on his suit that showcase bloody wounds underneath. The bruise on his cheekbone throbs along with the tension headache that plagues his temples. He can taste copper in his mouth from his split lip.

“You’re awake.”

The voice startles him. Everything is still sensitive, his joints and wounds and the act of occupying his body. The sound of someone else’s voice in the room triggers enough adrenaline in him to shoot out a web in the direction of the bodily presence that enters.

You frown, cringing at his attack, but you don’t look as startled as he would expect. He widens his eyes when he sees that you’ve dodged his webs completely. Sitting up, he winces from the sharp pain on his side.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Reflex.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

He doesn’t know what to do other than stare. Quite frankly, he didn’t expect to have to entertain a stranger tonight, nor did he think that his identity would be compromised in the presence of one. He’d barely remembered what had happened before he’d gotten knocked out. All he could recall was pain and the taste of blood in his mouth. Glancing at the slenderness of your fingers, he realizes that he doesn’t even remember your hands pulling him toward safety.

“You took my mask.”

“Wanted to make sure your face wasn’t broken. I didn’t take any pictures or call the cops if that’s what you think.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” he asks cautiously.

“I'm not particularly fond of them. Unless you want me to test how much ransom a loose Spider-man is worth.”

He blinks at the name, considering how ironic it is that you are the first person to see him in his most vulnerable state since his world changed for the worse. You, this unassuming stranger, who happened to have enough kindness to lug his body into your home.

He’s on edge. Of course, he is; he feels as if he’s been kidnapped, but the acuteness of his senses feels differently than they do when his body knows a threat is in front of him. Instead, it feels like the kaleidoscope of neurons inside him collects together in clear recognition. Like he knows you in his soul alone.

“How did you– how did you even get me up here? I was in an alley, and then–”

“And then I carried you back to my apartment.”

He narrows his eyes.

“Don’t see how that’s possible,” he mutters.

You surprise him by shooting a web from your fingertips to grab a water bottle from your desk and having it recoil into your hand without much effort.

Oh.

He asks you your name, and you tell him. When you ask him the same, he shifts uncomfortably and doesn’t answer you. You don’t take it personally.

Christ, he needs to leave now. But he’s transfixed by your big eyes and your curious stare, and he begins to wonder about you in the same way, as if you are the wounded butterfly he’d picked up on the street instead of the other way around.

You’re fucking weird, Peter’s decided, because, after this, you don’t ask him any more questions. Not anything that deviates from your concern about his wounded state.

You’re rather casual, which surprises him. You make him a cup of tea, lend him some of your oversized clothes (they fit him perfectly), and force him to stay on your bed so you can attempt to tend to his wounds. (He doesn’t let you.)

Naturally, he watches you wash your dishes and he plays the interrogation game, and you let him. You tell him that you’re in Brooklyn. You negate the idea of him swinging back to his house despite how much he insists. When he asks why, you’re hesitant.

“You’re probably safer here,” you sigh, almost impatiently.

He doesn’t argue when he feels the ache in his bones again.

“How is it that you’re like me?”

“I was also bitten by a radioactive spider.”

“Shit. There was another one?”

You don’t answer. God, your nonchalance freaks him the fuck out.

Why aren’t you fazed? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Maybe Peter will fake you out and flee, and he’ll forget all about you. He’ll never come near you again. But then there’s the warmth of your voice, and he stubbornly refuses to give in.

“I’m too fucking tired for all this interrogation, okay?” you exasperate. “You can take the bed. Or the couch. I don’t care. Just pick one.”

Why the hell are you letting a stranger crash at your place?

He doesn’t register it coming out of his mouth. You scoff.

“I’ve been through worse. And you’re barely a threat.”

Peter should feel offended, he thinks, but mostly he’s fascinated by you. He doesn’t blame you for your crabbiness once he sees the clock on your wall read 2:45 am. There’s a nebulous pause between the two of you now, so you make the first move by turning away from him and rummaging through your drawers. You throw an oversized t-shirt and sweats toward him that he catches immediately.

Without a word, you leave the room, which leaves him confused. He thinks that maybe you’re coming back eventually, washing up in the bathroom, but after twenty minutes of examining the knick-knacks and pictures on your wall, your absence is louder than ever. He frowns when he steps out and sees your sleeping figure on the living room couch. Shit. You were serious about him taking the bed.

He peers at you again, eyes adjusting to the room's pitch-black darkness until the window's blue moonlight allows him to see your face. You look peaceful, at bliss, almost.

Peter should just fucking leave. He contemplates this for over an hour as he lays in your bed, frowning at the ceiling because he’s not letting himself succumb to your weirdly kind offer of staying in your bed as a complete stranger.

Yeah, there had to be something wrong with you. You’d probably taken him in to use for human meat to sell on the black market or something. The whole girl-next-door thing was definitely a facade. It was.

Fuck you and your pretty eyes and pretty hair and how he could smell it everywhere in the room regardless of whether or not you were in it. Fuck you and your soft sheets and obnoxious amount of pillows.

Of course, once Peter is done ruminating, the sleep he has in your bed is the best he’s had in fucking weeks.

Your bed smells just like you. Like your sheets are fresh out of the laundry with a hint of something citrusy. Peter can barely open his eyes, but the sunlight from your window annoyingly beams onto his bruised face. The warmth licks his face.

He can hear the barely-there pattering of your light footsteps in the hallway. The hissing of a kettle. He emerges from your bedroom cautiously like a wild animal released from captivity. Your back is turned to him as you hum something nonspecific, some song he thinks he might’ve liked when he was in high school, but he doesn’t remember the name of it.

“Good morning, Peter,” you murmur, looking up and turning around when you notice his presence.

He furrows his brows. There’s a gleam in Peter’s eye that you can tell is untrusting. Like he’s expecting you to attack him.

“I never told you my name.”

Your gaze softens with sympathy. For some reason, you utter a soft apology.

“You already knew about me, but I didn’t know about you,” he accuses, arms crossed. “Why?”

You sigh. “Have you heard of the multiverse, Peter?”

No. No fucking way.

In a panic, he makes his way toward the front door of your apartment, but you beat him to it with two hands on his chest to block him.

“Peter! Peter, stop–”

“What the fuck is going on? Where am I?”

He doesn’t realize that he feels short of breath, chest heaving as he clutches you by the shoulders. He also doesn’t realize the extent of his super-strength, though you don’t complain or flinch from the contact.

“I’ll explain if you just calm down,” you reply, your voice still calm. Even in crisis, you’re still so fucking soft, so placid, and Peter isn’t sure if the fact is comforting or terrifying.

Something catches in his throat when you place your warm palms on his cheeks, an embrace too loving and nurturing for a stranger like him to deserve. The entire gesture rewires his brain instantly. Despite his ragged breathing, he stills and nods slowly.

“You’re on a different version of Earth. Okay? In this version, I’m the one who got bitten by a radioactive spider. I’m Silk.”

“I’m not supposed to be here.”

It comes out more like a question than a statement. You shake your head.

“No. I don’t know how you got here, but I promise you’ll be able to make it back. There’s a lot of us–”

“I know about the multiverse. I’ve– I’ve met other versions. Of myself.”

“You have?” you raise an eyebrow.

He hesitates. His brown eyes search yours, scanning your face until his gaze falls through you to fixate on your collarbone instead of your eyes. He blinks with a glassy scrutiny that bleeds with anxiety.

“I fucked things up on my Earth, and now no one knows who I am. No one knows who Peter Parker is, I mean. But why do you know who I am? How did you find me?”

“You know there are other Peters. I’ve met other Peters. After the multiverse nearly collapsed, the Spider Society was created. As a preventative measure, so that shit doesn’t happen again. All of us have the same story, and fucking it up fucks everyone else up, to put it simply. That can be something we can unpack for later. And I– I felt your presence. And I wanted to keep you safe, so I took you in..”

“There was something out there last night when I fell through. I don’t even remember how I got here. It was like waking up inside of a dream.”

The bewildered look in Peter’s eyes has you nearly as panicked as he is because you recognize it all too well. You’d seen it in the mirror yourself when you had first got bitten by that damn spider, however, at that time, you were fifteen and alone.

“What thing?”

“Something… dark. Amorphous. I don’t know.”

You frown. Your hands are still on him. His face feels like it’s on fire.

The thing inside his body screams at a frequency he can’t understand. It’s so loud that he can’t even hear himself think.

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

Shut the fuck up.

Peter jumps and takes a step back. When you try to move in tandem with him, he doesn’t let you. The voice in his head has a rasp unfamiliar to him, and it wants to overtake him. Fuck, is he hallucinating? Is he being fucking possessed?

Get out. Get out. Get the fuck out.

I don’t have anywhere else to go, Peter.

GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BODY.

Look at her. Fucking delicious. We have to devour her. Now. NOW. NOW.

He won’t remember it later, but he runs through your bedroom door to the window, fumbling on the hinges until he nearly falls off your fire escape. When you relay this to him later, he’s bewildered, shaking. Too afraid to touch you. Too afraid to be in your apartment at all. Unsure of his memory, considering his lack of ability to recall any of this.

And yet, the warmth of your touch drinks him in, and he thinks that if he’s going to be trapped in a different universe than his own, he’s comfortable being in yours, under your roof. After he blacks out, your face is the only thing he can remember when he dreams.

The nightmares wake him up this time. He remembers the horrors of the night before you had found his mangled body in the alleyway. He remembers the pain, the glitch in the atmosphere that had seemed to have his body bursting through the seams, and the black entity that consumed his skin and stuck to it like glue. He remembers what it felt like to be transformed. He just doesn’t remember by what.

When Peter’s lids flutter open, he sees that his environment is sterile and sanitized. You make eye contact with him, and his honey-brown eyes darken, almost spiteful. The longer you look at his face, the more you notice he looks like a child.

He attempts to get up from the bed, but he’s restrained to it. He groans quietly, sucking his teeth.

“You’ll be out soon.”

He doesn’t say anything, though the grimace on his face says a thousand words. Instead, he scoffs.

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

The voice in his head is faint and raspy, though, unlike the other times, it’s barely there – much more muted than before. It comes as a passing thought, so nonchalant and quiet that Peter almost convinces himself that it’s something he hears echoed from the hallway nearby.

Your expression doesn’t falter. You merely watch him with curious eyes. It makes his skin hot.

“What happened?” he finally asks.

“You don’t remember?”

Peter doesn’t shake his head, nor does he look confused. He stays neutral as if he’s testing you. His jaw clenches.

“You fucking scared me, you know,” you mutter. There’s an exhaustion to your voice. How long has he fucking been here?

“Tell me.”

“It’s like you weren’t in your body,” you breathe. “Your eyes were all dark and you were trying to run away from me. You passed out after trying to jump off the fire escape. I thought you were trying to kill yourself, Peter.”

He notices that the edge in your voice is languishing, full of a distinct type of worry that he hasn’t felt from anyone else in ages. No one’s known him in over a year. But here you are, from a different universe, sitting across from him in this room with a face that almost looks like it’s about to be ruined with tears.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know.”

“Why am I here?”

“I don’t know what happened. The tests they ran on you – it’s nothing we’ve seen before. Or yet.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We use a device to send our Spider-people home based on your DNA. Or the spider you were bitten by since that’s what tethers you to your Earth. We thought you might go home and transport back to your universe, but you didn’t. The system fucking went berserk after scanning you.”

Peter’s first instinct is to say I’m sorry, but he knows that would be stupid, and the parasitic thing in his body shuts him down. He clamps his eyes shut to find darkness under all the harsh fluorescent lighting, but the hint of something sinister shakes his body in a way he can’t explain. He briefly remembers the moments before he allegedly tried to jump off the fire escape of your bedroom. Your soft eyes. Your hands on his face.

Your hand touches his now, and it makes his whole body jerk.

(Your warmth reminds him of someone else’s, and for that, the thing in him wants to fucking kill you.)

Miguel doesn’t know what the fuck is wrong with Peter, either. He has other shit on his plate, like chasing misfits through the multiverse.

Peter gets tired of the tests. It’s not like they’re doing anything because every so often, the thing inside him is lecherous and makes him feel disgusting for reasons beyond him. You are the only thing that keeps him calm. It’s like a manifestation of some curse cast upon him, a plague of a punishment.

In between the tests, he stays at yours. You don’t talk to him much because of your hours at the office, and when you’re home, you mostly eat dinner in silence. Sometimes Peter cooks and has dinner warm for you before you get home because he’s impatient and knows how to make a few basic meals from living alone in that dingy apartment.

It’s mundane. Comforting. In some stupid, twisted way, Peter wants to keep it. Keep you. Even if he won’t admit it.

He doesn’t have to be Spider-Man on your Earth, and no one knows his identity. He almost feels like a housewife from how he dotes on you in small ways without you asking, this domesticity he’s adapted just because he can. His injuries have healed, and he works on yours instead.

You reject his help because you’re used to it. Still, he hovers by the bathroom door when you bind your wounds.

He watches you with bated breaths, bottom lip sucked in his teeth. You have no qualms about the pair of eyes on you – at least, you don’t show it.

“That shit’s gonna get infected.”

You roll your eyes without looking at him. Your nimble fingers work on patching up the cut under your breast instead.

“I know what I’m doing,” you huff.

“You didn’t even put Neosporin on it.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t have Neosporin in this universe?” he asks, an incredulous expression on his face.

You shrug.

“Again, I know what I’m doing.”

“Maybe I should be out there with you on patrol.”

Your head whips around then, studying Peter’s face. He stares back at you with a seriousness that doesn’t break. You narrow your eyes.

“We’re working on getting you home, Peter. I’m not dragging you into my shit.”

“You dragged me into your shit the moment you took me in.”

You grimace, saying nothing. Your lack of response annoys him, but more than anything, it chips away at his ego.

Maybe you regret rescuing him. The thought brings dread to his chest, guilt riding up in the caverns of the space he holds for you, which has grown bigger and bigger as the weeks go on. He thinks that if the two of you had met in different circumstances, normal ones, perhaps the two of you would be friends.

He’d been alone for far too long. The scrubbing of his identity already turned him into a shell. The old Peter would’ve been much more proactive about this situation. He certainly would’ve been less fucking moody. But he knows there’s no one to accuse him of not being his usual self because nobody knows him anymore, except you.

Peter is so fucking bored of staying in your apartment. He needs something to keep him going, whether it’s crime or college. Cooped up in your home, he feels like nothing at all.

Sometimes, that feeling subsides when you’re home with him all domestic. He agrees to your movie nights despite protesting your incessant preference for horror. He likes how you curl your lip in a smirk when you tease him for being so damn jumpy.

While your relationship is mildly symbiotic, the thought of you permeates him more and more, usually at night. He has dreams of you that he’d be ashamed to relay when he’s awake. The thing inside him lurches, wants with so much zeal that he has to take measures to calm it down.

One night, when you return from patrol, your Silk suit ripped at your bicep, hip, and the space that’s supposed to cover your ribcage. He lets you patch yourself up like you always do without words other than an annoyed gruff.

Peter can’t get the sight of your bloody wound out of his head, the exposed skin under your breast. Even the tightness of your suit allures him more than it should, which is fucking ridiculous. It’s nearing five weeks since he dropped into your universe. He should be used to you by now.

“You good?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh-huh.”

You know that’s not true. Peter looks like he’s seen a ghost. You don’t pry. You stopped doing that weeks ago.

The second he leaves your room, he runs the shower on cold.

You want it.

“Shut up,” he growls under his breath.

Peter has never wished for a lobotomy, and certainly not as much as he is now.

You want her. Take her.

Shivering does nothing for him. He turns the water up to hot, nearly scalding, just as he’s convinced himself to like it. The thing inside him is consuming him, getting closer and closer to his point of breaking, and he knows it. Every moment he can’t be around you for more than a minute, he knows it.

The only thing that satiates the feeling is to take action himself. To truly quiet that dark, venomous desire, he has to touch himself for release, and he’s ashamed that you’re the thought at the apex of it every single time. Each time he reaches his peak, he can almost make out the figure expanding over his own, a viscous black substance that seems to breathe over his veins. Once he comes to bed with you, it’s gone.

The stupid urges make him feel animalistic. It’s never been like this.

Images of you with your suit ripped at the seams and flashes of your bare skin reel in his brain constantly. It’s embarrassing. He’s not fucking sixteen.

You bother less with pleasantries now that it’s been nearly two months since he fell into your universe. After the initial shock of his situation, of course, he’d had a billion questions, to which you attempted to answer to the best of your ability. Proactive as ever, he’d opted to go to the Spider Society himself on several occasions without you, attempting to understand what could be keeping him tethered to your universe, and to no avail.

After those trials and tribulations, he’d become withdrawn.

“Wanna watch a movie?” you try one night. He shrugs. It’s an answer to most of your questions now. It’s starting to get fucking annoying.

“You mentioned you like Star Wars, right?”

“Sure,” Peter mumbles.

“I’ve never seen the prequels.”

It’s the only thing that brings light to his eyes in maybe a week, you notice. The only other times you see that lightness is when you catch Peter in secret moments cozying up to your cat, Ferris.

(Weird name for a cat, he’d remarked. You tell him you’d watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off the day you found him in the alleyway.)

Now Peter is settled on your couch with a soft black t-shirt clinging loosely to his frame. Maybe he doesn’t mean to be on the complete opposite side of the sofa, but the distance feels more apparent to you than it should. Ferris purrs in Peter’s lap. Traitor.

You pretend you aren’t fixated by the slight freckles that decorate his nose. Or his collarbone. Or the way that he smells just like you because he hasn’t bothered to ask you to buy him soap for himself.

You get bits and pieces of Peter’s personality over time. You learn that his favorite Thai dish is larb, just like you. He’s incredibly smart, which isn’t unlike you, but you certainly give less shits about the scientific aspect of the multiverse than he does. He has a guilty pleasure for sugary cereal. He loves the Velvet Underground. He has a freckle under his abs on the left side of his body. He’s annoyingly persistent in helping you patch yourself up.

When you hear the sound of your name in his voice, you wince.

“You zoning out already?”

“Huh?”

He gives you a look and you can’t help but giggle.

“You didn’t even hear anything I just said.”

“I was having flashbacks,” you shrug, blinking back at Natalie Portman on the television screen instead of Peter’s eyes. “To my Padme Halloween costume.”

“That’s stolen valor!”

“I was twelve, dipshit. It was on sale at Specter Halloween and there was nothing left.”

“Spirit Halloween?”

You furrow your brows.

“Oh my god. Nevermind.”

For some reason, this reaction makes you pull the fleece blanket from his body. You mumble a rushed apology to your cat, who scrambles off of Peter’s lap in an instant. Peter is quick to pull the blanket back immediately until the two of you end up in a tug of war. You see a flash of grinning teeth.

“Peter!” you squeal when he yanks the blanket so hard that you nearly fall off the couch.

“Why do you have so much energy– dude!” You’re almost in his lap but he’s faster than you. You are so close to using your webs on him.

A flush of heat spreads over your cheeks when he has you pinned to the couch, arms above your head with the blanket now forgotten on the floor. His knees are on each side of you, so squirming does nothing for your cause.

“Relax,” he gruffs.

You can’t tell if his eyes shift in darkness or if it’s just a trick of the television light. The warmth emanating from his cheeks matches yours. The way his legs are spread above yours is vulnerable, and so is the way you’re looking at him, and – fuck, can you stop looking at him like that?

You feel the grip on your wrists loosen as he shuffles to his feet, nearly tripping over the discarded blanket.

“We need more popcorn,” he mumbles.

Fixing the mess of your hair, you peer at him through the dimness.

“That was the last bag.”

“I can get some more then.”

He pulls on the hoodie that’s draped over the armchair – your oversized hoodie, in fact – and it’s clearly too tight on him.

“What? It’s late. Are you – are you hungry or something? I can make you food.”

“With what?” he snaps. “We haven’t been able to go grocery shopping yet this week.”

“Well, it’s too fucking late for that now.”

Silence permeates the space between the two of you. The seconds that pass feel so long. There is no void in Peter’s head, only the sound of a disgusting, gnawing desire. Grotesque wanting. He wishes you would just leave so he can scrub himself raw in the shower like he usually does.

She smells so good.

“I’ll get some stuff from the bodega. I need– I need air, anyway,” Peter stammers. “Should swing around and stuff. I’m holed up in here every goddamn day.”

The comment stings. It’s not your fault that he’s stuck here like a stray cat. He knows that, so he feels guilty when his words come out with more bite than he intends. He can’t stand to see the way your bottom lip trembles slightly as you look away from him, mumbling something of a useless apology even when you both know you have nothing to apologize for.

You flinch when the door slams behind him.

You don’t see Peter the next morning even though your keys hang right next to the doorway. The window by your bed is left slightly ajar, so you assume that it’s meant for him.

It’s fine. He had already expressed his cabin fever to you, so it makes sense that he’d be out exploring the city. (This is what you tell yourself throughout the day, even though you can’t stop feeling an ache in your gut.)

Your day is mundane, but they always are, you suppose. Maybe they haven’t felt as such since you had company every day. Peter’s absence is so much more apparent than it should be. You haven’t been without him in a bit. Even at your stupid day job, he occupies your mind, and the mere knowledge of his absence sears a hole in your heart. It feels pathetic. Maybe he’s home. Maybe he’d come back after you’d left for work.

When you get home in the evening, he’s nowhere to be found. You pretend that it’s nothing to you. You still make dinner for two.

Once you’re settled for bed, Peter is on the other side of town at a random bar. It’s a miracle he gets in without an official ID and all, not to mention his boyish face. A raven-haired girl who skips the line takes a liking to him, plus she seems to know the bouncer. She’s attached to Peter like a moth for the rest of the night.

She’s daring and touchy, with a sense of humor that’s too over-familiar to appear charming. Peter doesn’t have to do much except nod and smirk to seduce her, downing shot after shot just so he can feel a buzz instead of irritation whenever the girl has her hands on him. On the dance floor, the shape of her body slightly resembles yours, maybe. She reeks of over-saturated vanilla, like the inside of a Victoria’s Secret.

When he fucks her in her lavish penthouse, he can only think of you. He thinks her apartment is boring, lacks character, and looks soulless. It’s nothing like yours. It doesn’t even begin to contain the same warmth. Peter feels similarly about the girl, but he’d had enough shots in the bar to ignore that emptiness. For now, he feels full with his cock inside her, hearing her whiny pleas and soft moans as her face gets buried into the mattress. He only cums when he thinks of your face.

It’s not enough.

Shut the fuck up, Peter screams in his head. Shut up.

Though, we’re hungry, aren’t we?

No.

Peter groans, digging his teeth into the girl’s neck as his fingertips press into the curve of her waist. He shuts his eyes, breathing rapidly as his body relaxes on top of hers. None of her sweet nothings registers in his brain. He holds off the violence in his head until she’s fast asleep, to his relief, because then he can return to you.

___

You’re wide awake when Peter fumbles with your bedroom window at three in the morning. He nearly trips next to your bed, but he braces himself, landing his hands on the softness of your rug.

You hear him sigh. Maybe you’ve become too attuned to him. Every movement he makes is a small earthquake to you, so present and real as he unravels even when he’s just taking a few steps toward you. Maybe you’re imagining his breath behind your neck. Maybe you’re dreaming and you wish for it.

He assumes you’re asleep when he crawls into bed with you. This is only the second time. The first time, he’d had a nightmare on the couch and you had offered your warmth. At the moment, he’s inexplicably warm as he wraps his arms around your waist.

“Where were you?” you whisper.

“Out.”

“You smell like a high school girl’s locker room.”

He snorts, tightening the grip he has over your middle. You feel his breath tickling the nape of your neck.

“Okay.”

“You gonna answer me?”

“Why does it matter? ‘m a big boy.”

“It matters when I’m responsible for you and I don’t know where you are.”

“I was always going to come back.”

You don’t say anything to that. You think this is too intimate, but you can’t help but admit to yourself that it’s what you need. The touch of someone else. The feeling of warmth enveloping your body.

You haven’t felt him this close to you before, at least when you’re this hypervigilant. Stretching your back slightly, you decide to turn to face him. Your body curls naturally into Peter’s without a second thought.

You notice the way he bites the inside of his bottom lip subtly. It’s dumb, how rapidly his heart beats now that you’re looking right at him. You pretend you don’t feel it from being so close to him, but it makes your heart elate.

Peter closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see your face. It’s not like the action helps him calm his heart down, because fuck, you’re so warm and soft and pliant in his arms. He’s gotten good at quieting the voice in his head lately but he’s still afraid of it consuming him.

“Goodnight, Peter,” you murmur.

He pretends he’s asleep. It takes everything in him to keep up the facade until he knows for sure you’ve passed out inches away from him.

___

When Peter wakes before you, something primal pushes his senses into overdrive. You smell so fucking sweet. It’s like the universe wants him to eat you.

She’s right there on a platter for you. Just for you.

He’s good at restraining it. Sucking in his teeth, his eyes scan the curves of your waist to the soft edges of your lips.

Despite his restraint, he can’t be in the room with you right now. Certainly not in the same bed basking in your warmth. For fuck’s sake, what were you thinking, allowing him into your bed in the first place?

He already knows the answer – kindness is what fuels you—your altruism. When the mind gets the best of him, Peter curses at your character when he’s alone. Sometimes he’s on a random rooftop bombarded by thoughts of you. Sometimes he’s in your shower.

If anything, you were perfect, so perfect that Peter couldn’t stand it. So warm and pretty and pleasant that even the way he touches his cock doesn’t dirty the image he has of you in his head. You’re too pure, even when you use your nasty tongue against him, even when you fight him.

The slightest showcase of your bare skin doesn’t help the cause. Peter retreats to the couch again even though you tell him that you don’t mind the space he takes up in your bed. He can’t tell you he’s doing it for your safety.

Even so, he’s so attuned to you that he hears your midnightmare whines in the night as if you were right next to him. And when he guards your bed like a dog while you’re asleep, he tries not to focus on the shape of your collarbone. Of course not. He convinced himself that he was lonely, fucking pathetic. He tells himself that the mere sight of your exposed neck and the pout of your lips does nothing to him at all.

Peter comes with you to headquarters. The other spiders are sympathetic to him, often over-friendly. He sticks to you like a lost puppy.

“Did Miguel figure out anything yet?”

“Huh?”

“About getting me home.”

You raise your eyebrows in surprise, though your expression neutralizes once you look away. It was stupid to hold any value towards Peter. This is what you tell yourself, at least, so you must remind yourself that his questions aren’t out of left field.

You refused to face the reality that you’d grown attached to him, that his presence had felt normal to you after he’d stayed with you for more than two months.

“Still working on it,” you reply, giving him a sheepish smile.

You feel guilty despite telling the truth. No tests could decipher why Peter was immune to being sent off back to his universe. No updates to the technology had worked, either.

(You don’t really know what he’s still doing here, especially considering how quiet it is at headquarters today. You’re only really there to assist Margo in perfecting the gizmo that helps Miguel verse-jump.)

“I got you lunch, though. And feel free to leave whenever you want, I might stay late.”

You drop a paper bag in front of him. The contents reveal a Cuban sandwich, bread smooshed flat with extra pickles. His favorite. You’d remembered his long rant about missing Delmar’s.

The gesture is sweet. You’re sweet, even though you’re a hard shell to break.

The voice in his head is louder than usual today. Once you’re in a separate room, he feels immediately desperate for your presence, and he can’t tell if this is one of his usual emotions. The moment he fell into your world, besides feeling possessed, the emotions he experiences within his body are unlike him. Stronger, desperate, on the brink of detonation.

“I’m sorry you’re stuck here,” you stammer after clearing your throat.

“I’m lucky,” Peter shrugs. His eyes don’t waver from yours. “That you’re the one taking care of me, I mean. You’re kind for letting me stay.”

For keeping me. Do you want to keep me as much as I want to keep you?

The smile you give him is saccharine as you flush. He wonders if it’s fake, secretly full of vitriol. Perhaps he’ll find out when the both of you are home.

He decides to give you space for the rest of the afternoon. After boring himself with floating in and out of random stores in Manhattan, he returns to your apartment in the evening, jiggling your bedroom window open even though you had given him a spare key.

None of the lights are on except a glow emitting from behind the bathroom door, left open slightly.

Your eyes shoot open when you hear the creak of the door. In the dimness of your bathroom, the only thing that helps you see Peter’s face is the dozens of tealight candles you have around the bathtub.

He gulps, mumbling an apology as he looks away.

“You’re home earlier than I thought you’d be,” he murmurs.

“I was having massive brain fog all day so I came home early,” you tell him. He nods in understanding without saying anything. He doesn’t know why he’s lingering.

“You clearly haven’t figured out the concept of a front door.”

He blinks at the wet sheen of your collarbone, how the candles flicker an orange light across your face, and then he looks away again.

“Sorry. Force of habit.”

“Well, you should try it. You have a key,” you snort.

Peter’s heartbeat races. God, you smell so fucking good. Like citrus and sandalwood and sunlight. There’s no way he’s going to be able to sleep next to you tonight.

TAKE HER RIGHT NOW. FUCKING DO IT.

“Uh, I’ll leave you be,” he rasps, accidentally slamming the bathroom door closed.

He knows you’ll be annoyed about it later, but he unlatches your bedroom window again to get outside and feel the fresh air. He doesn’t know what to do with his energy, with the gnawing in his body, so he tries to get his breathing even on the roof of your building.

“Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off,” Peter mumbles in succession, straining his body.

On the concrete of the rooftop, he lies down and stares at the evening sky, trying to think of literally anything else, but he can’t. He knows that your existence isn’t a curse, that whatever it is that’s plaguing him is deep within his body, but he doesn’t know how to exorcize it.

In a frenzy, he rips his suit from his body because the thing inside him is begging for stimulation. Thoughts of you flood his brain. Every angle of you, every memory, every scent. You would be surprised to know how much he’s memorized about you considering how rarely he likes to make eye contact.

And God, your eyes. How would you feel if you were watching him right now? Would you be disgusted? Would you be as disgusted as Peter is with himself?

It takes a minute or two of palming his dick before he finishes just from thinking about you. He groans lowly, animalistic, and there still isn’t any relief despite the mess he’s made on his suit.

YOU’D FEEL BETTER IF IT WAS HER.

Fuck you.

Why is he so goddamn flustered? He’s literally slept next to you. And it isn’t like he saw anything when you were in the bathtub. Just your bare face, your wet shoulders–

Fuck, he’s hard again. Peter doesn’t think he’s been this hard in his entire life.

It doesn’t take long for him to cum again even with all the overstimulation. You’re probably wondering where he is, too. He hopes to God you aren’t in your room so he can sneak back in quietly and get changed, maybe throw in a load of laundry so he doesn’t give himself away.

This is so stupid. So, so stupid.

Luck is on Peter’s side when he crawls back into your apartment. He hears you humming from the kitchen and the smell of onions and garlic wafts under his nose. He strips quietly and changes into new clothes.

“Pete?”

Sighing, he follows the sound of your voice. The smile you give him is nearly blinding.

“Where were you?”

“Uhh, checking the mail.”

“For half an hour?” you raise a brow.

He shrugs. An excuse makes its way into his mind.

“And I went out to look for cat food. We ran out. I couldn’t find the, uh, brand Ferris likes, though. Sorry.”

“Wow,” you give him a hint of a smirk. The cat in question jumps onto your shoulder as you bend down to get a pot from one of the lower cupboards. “You hear that, Ferris? Seems like Petey cares if you live or die.”

You coo at the small tabby, who meows in response. Peter rolls his eyes, feigning annoyance.

“And you still haven’t figured out how to use the front door. Do you need a live tutorial from me or what?”

Peter bites the inside of his cheek as he sits down at the island, watching as you pour crushed tomatoes into the pot. The sight makes him awfully nostalgic. You’re the first person who’s cooked for him in years.

“Let me be,” he huffs, the hint of a chuckle in his voice. “And you’re gonna get cat hair in the pasta sauce.”

“No. Ferris is so well-groomed.”

“Not when he sheds all over my clothes.”

“You should be thankful he likes to roll around in your dirty laundry pile. That means he likes you, you know.”

Silence stews in the room, save for the sounds of boiling water. Peter takes the liberty to unlock your phone and put one of your playlists on the speaker.

He clears his throat. “You need any help?”

“Nah, it’s just pasta,” you shrug. “It’s the last we have, though. Wanna go on a grocery run tomorrow?”

“Of course. The fridge is pitiful.”

“I don’t need your attitude when I feed you every day, Parker.”

You smile in jest at him and of course, he avoids eye contact like he usually does. Over the weeks, you’ve been accustomed to him acting like another stray kitten, but sometimes, you wonder if there’s something about your presence or personality that makes him keep you at arm’s length. Not that you should care what a stray thinks about you.

Peter wishes he could act normal around you instead of constantly being on edge. Again, it’s not your fault. If there was a way he could make it up to you, to let you know how much he’s grateful for you, he would. Every time he thinks about it, his body takes over and shame is all that’s left.

The bowl of pasta you put in front of him smells heavenly and looks like a page in the cooking section of the New York Times.

“Help yourself to seconds, big boy.”

His eyes flash to your face, but you’re busying yourself with putting wet cat food onto a small plate for Ferris.

You both end up eating on the island together. You don’t take a seat next to him, choosing to stand up across from him. Instead of conversing, the music continues to play quietly from the speaker, and you scroll mindlessly through the emails on your phone.

“I can feel you staring at me, you know.”

“I wasn’t,” Peter replies, defensive.

“You were,” you snort. “Which is funny because usually you refuse to make eye contact with me.”

“That’s not true.” (He’s lying through his teeth.)

“It’s okay. I’m not offended.” (Okay, maybe now you’re the one lying through your teeth.)

Peter scoffs, looking away, of course.

“Thanks for dinner,” he mumbles.

He looks down, collecting his bowl and utensils. He decides to busy himself with the dishes, taking yours wordlessly without looking at your face.

“You don’t have to do that,” you say softly. He shrugs.

When you say his name, you’re right next to him and he feels like he might choke on nothing. Sure, he senses your presence in proximity to his own, but there’s nothing to stop you from getting close to him.

“You’re always on edge around me.”

He doesn’t reply, even though he knows the sound of running water from the kitchen sink isn’t enough to drown out the tension between you two.

“Peter,” you try. Ugh, now you feel whiny.

“Hm?” He feigns ignorance as he glances at you, turning off the faucet.

“I– I just want you to be comfortable around me.”

“I am,” he lies.

You don’t know what to say to break through the invisible wall he’s put between you two. He doesn’t know how to tell you that the distance is to keep you safe.

Your shoulders sag in defeat as you turn away from him and it conjures a new ache in his chest. Peter is often too caught up in his agony to notice how it might affect you. He can notice the frustration that radiates off of you – he’s not stupid. But the clear disappointment in your body language is so much more apparent than it ever was before.

“I think I might go to bed early,” you tell him, your voice just above a whisper. “Thanks for cleaning up.”

“Of course.”

The door to your bedroom shuts quietly.

Despite his constant uneasiness around you, Peter feels petulant now that you’ve left his side. Especially with the guilt of making you feel alienated in your own home. The trouble of explaining any of this to you feels like a burden more than anything, and you were already dealing with the burden of him staying in your apartment like he was haunting the place.

Ferris slinks between Peter’s legs, purring. He climbs up his legs the same way he does to you and Peter welcomes him into his arms.

“You shouldn’t be nice to me, either,” Peter whispers, stroking the cat’s fur slowly.

After Peter finishes cleaning up the kitchen, he settles on the couch for mindless television while Ferris settles on his lap. It doesn’t take him long to feel his eyes heavy-lidded, and although it should be easy to fall asleep on the couch, his body itches for your touch. Trying to sleep on your couch makes his limbs feel like they need to stretch every other second. So he surrenders and falls into your bed like he usually does. Like how you expect him to.

He dreams of you. He often does.

Usually, he never remembers once he wakes up, which is probably the safest option. At the moment, the dreams are too visceral to be considered dreams to his subconscious.

At the moment, he thinks the silkiness of your skin has to be real under his fingertips. It has to be. It would only make sense because your scent is so fucking strong, so alluring. It permeates the entire room, along with the subtle smell of sex and desperation.

Peter can see your pink mouth parting. The way your back arches. The way his name sounds when it comes from your throat, babbling its way out of your mouth, so sweetly. So fucking innocently.

It’s all rudely interrupted by the darkness that he’s attempted to keep away for so long. A black cloud that envelops the both of you, until the cloud is tangible, until it feels like a substance that could drown you.

Where his senses only uttered your name and acknowledged your sweetness is now replaced by an insatiable hunger. One that is partially his, partially from an entity that could break you in half without a second thought.

Now, the entity clouds him. Consumes his entire body until he’s nothing but a vast monster with sharp teeth with you underneath him.

The look on your face is full of horror. Your naked body shudders. Peter wants nothing more than to comfort you, but he knows he can’t, not when something black and viscous has obscured his entire body.

He is not in his body when his teeth graze the skin of your shoulder, biting hard enough for blood to trickle out of your skin. Your scream is the only thing that he can hear, maybe other than his own, once he sees your mouth spit out blood.

And then, darkness.

___

“No, nonononono, no, fuck, please–”

It all happens so fast. He doesn’t know what he does to you that makes you drop dead so quickly, and for fuck’s sake, his arms are still not his arms.

“Peter!”

A shake in his universe breaks him apart. When he opens his eyes, he sees yours, wide and shocked and bright despite the darkness of the night.

You’re in your bed and so is he. And you’re holding him, unscathed. There is no black gore adorning his arms.

“Peter, it’s okay,” you shush him softly.

One hand strokes his hair while the other is splayed with fingers stretched across his warm cheek. You’re more than concerned by how shaken he looks. Like he’s in shock. You’ve never seen him like this.

“You’re okay,” he says. It’s a whisper. It sounds like a prayer.

“I am,” you nod. “I’m fine. I want to make sure that you’re fine, too, okay?”

His lashes flutter when you stroke his cheek. His breathing is heavy like a newly discovered beast, but you know that you don’t have to tame him from the way he keens to your touch.

“I–I thought–”

“Shh, you don’t have to talk about it. It wasn’t real, okay? You just had a nightmare,” you coo.

You can feel the way he swallows sharply and the way he struggles to breathe through his nose. He winces when he realizes that you’re wiping away a tear from his cheek.

“I was– I was terrible–” he stammers, gasping for breath. “And you–”

“Peter, it’s okay. It was just a dream. It’s okay.”

“You aren’t safe with me.”

His eyes are wild. He’s so earnest when he speaks that maybe, just maybe he could be telling the truth.

You ignore it even though the way he says it breaks your heart.

“I am safe with you. And you’re safe with me, right here,” you try. The sound of his voice has tears brimming the corners of your eyes, too, but you don’t notice. You just want to get through to him. You swallow your anxiety. “We’re safe together, I promise. I would never let anything bad happen to you.”

He scans your face frantically until his eyes zero in on your lips. His senses are flooded with you, like he’s an animal ready to pounce on his prey, but he tries to hold back. His breathing turns shallow and he can’t help but stare at your bottom lip quivering, feeling the warmth of your palms against his cheeks.

TAKE HER. TAKE HER. TAKE HER.

He’s not sure what the motive is for him pressing his lips to yours, whether it’s the demon inside him or the desire festering in his body. Peter knows that they’re one and the same.

To his surprise, you surrender your mouth to him immediately. His tongue slots into between your lips without effort as his hands clasp your body with his innate strength, ranging from your hips to the undersides of your breasts.

You didn’t expect him to kiss you, but now that he has, you don’t think that you want him to ever stop.

Your hands graduate from his cheeks to the back of his head, pulling at his brown tresses as his hands roam your body with more fervor than anyone else has given you.

You’ve been intimate with other people before, but they were always so careful, so timid with you. Maybe sometimes they were rough, but your mind was too checked out to notice. But now, the mere touch of someone else’s fingertips on your hard nipples has you squirming in your bed, making your breath hitch. Already, you feel the warmth in your core.

Peter discards your shirt (nearly rips it off) with ease as you whimper, enabling him, neither of you saying a word at all. You grab at Peter’s shirt to tug off, which he does, but when you pull at the waistband of his sweatpants, he takes your hand and slams it above your head with fingers interlocked.

Look how fun this is, Peter. Don’t you want to ruin her? Fuck her pretty little face?

Peter groans at the thought of you gagged with his cum, but he can barely fathom even taking out his cock yet. Well, he can, and although he’s thought about you like that, he doesn’t want to move too quickly. In contrast, his body seems to be moving faster than his brain.

He never thought you would want it as much as he does.

You whine when you feel Peter’s fingers creep under the waistband of your shorts and underneath your panties, immediately feeling your wetness. It pools into the fabric as he rubs your slit incessantly, making you mewl eagerly as Peter’s teeth suck on the skin of your jaw.

“F-fuck–,” you whimper, limp in his arms, preening to the feeling of his tongue on your clavicle.

You’re so fucking wet, he could devour you in one bite if he wanted to. He could make it painless for you, but that wouldn’t be fair, would it? You wouldn’t feel any of it, none of the agonizing pleasure that should build up between your thighs from his touch alone, and he wants to see it all over your face so fucking badly.

Do not tease us. We have an appetite to fulfill, don’t we?

I’m fucking getting there, hold on.

Sure, the monster in him wants to devour you, kill you, swallow you whole in a snap. But Peter wants to enjoy it. Wants to enjoy you. So he attempts to quiet the deep voice inside of him.

He still has your wrists bound in one large hand while his other grips your thighs hard, discarding your bottoms in the process. When he opens his eyes, he sees you splayed naked for him with a wanton expression on your face, nearly drooling.

He also sees that somehow, he’d taken off his sweatpants and boxers, hard cock swelled up and aching as it grazes your folds slowly.

Peter thinks he’d like to finger you, go down on you, and see how his touch makes electricity spark within your abdomen while your face contorts. He wants to see all your features twist into a sweet expression of pure pleasure, but he’s too fucking impatient. Maybe that’s the thing inside him speaking, so hungry and urgent that he can’t tell if he’s suppressing a being or his desires at this point.

He doesn’t know what currently guides his instincts. They’re all blinded, flooded by thoughts of you. As if there’s nothing else on Earth he could want, ever.

That could be true. It probably is. But that’s something he can unpack later.

For now, he can only be influenced by the sound of your voice begging his name. He swallows down the sound of it with his tongue in your mouth, drinking in your whimpers as he bites on your bottom lip.

“Please,” you beg, lifting your hips to meet his length desperately as you squirm underneath him. “Need it— need—”

“Need me, huh?” Peter rasps. He touches his forehead to yours, hands still clutching at your wrists above your head.

“Yes.”

“So fucking clingy,” he mumbles against your mouth. You arch your back at the mere feeling of his cock prodding against your wet folds and it drives him fucking insane.

For once, the voice inside his head is only yours. He feels grateful for it.

“Were you planning this the whole time, huh? Wanted me in your bed from the beginning, didn’t you? Admit it.” He’s all teeth when he taunts you. He wonders if you’d let him spit in your mouth if you weren’t so busy pouting.

“Y-yes.”

“So fucking cute,” he sneers. “Pathetic, too.”

You don’t recognize the wrath in his voice — it’s unlike him. Even when he’s been pissed off with you. But you don’t have it in you to question it, because the darkness in it sounds like silk and crushed velvet, and the feeling of his hot breath against your neck makes you want him even more.

In the darkness, Peter’s eyes look otherworldly. Dark and bottomless, the devil incarnate.

You moan his name once more and whiplash meets the senses.

With a shaking exhale, you take the stretch of him, all of him, wincing the slightest bit as he bottoms out. It stings until he slides out just to thrust himself back in again, the resolve blatant on your face as your mouth falls in surrender.

Usually, you’d be embarrassed. It takes a bit for you to let someone in like this so intimately, and even when you’ve done it with other men, you were at least a little intoxicated.

Right now, you’re merely blissed from drowsiness, borderline euphoric from Peter’s proximity. You wouldn’t be able to admit it out loud — you knew the sweet sounds falling from your mouth were enough. Even when Peter had first settled into your bed tonight while you were asleep, you subconsciously curled into him like a moth to a flame.

Peter cups your breast in his hand harshly to latch his mouth onto your nipple, sucking and biting just to hear you whine. He’s rougher than any lover you’ve had before, so you aren’t exactly sure if he’s being sadistic with the amount of teeth he’s using. The feeling of his canines against your flesh is like nothing you’ve felt before. You’d never thought it would be a feeling you would get so fucking addicted to.

He fucks into you harder now, pulling up your legs so that his large, calloused palms are bruising the skin of your thighs. One leg ends up hitched over his shoulder so that he can thrust into you from a deeper angle, one that makes your eyes roll back into your head.

“So fucking good for me– so fucking good–”

Your hips shake when Peter inevitably reaches your sweet spot while his hand that isn’t propping you up is focused on stimulating your clit. You’re fucking brainless, listening to his filthy praises.

“Peter! Aah– oh my god–”

He’s obsessed with the way you’re rendered speechless, how you’re lifting your hips just to meet his, how you’re so obedient when you whimper his name. He’s obsessed with you. He thinks this might be another dream.

Sloppily, he nibbles at your earlobe and laves his tongue from your jaw down to your throat as he fucks into you with ease. His pleasure is a rubber band about to fucking snap. Your hushed breaths and whines nearly tip him over the edge, especially when he can feel you sucking in him so tightly.

“Cum for me, fucking cum for me,” Peter growls. “I know you can do it, baby. Can feel you’re close.”

He’s more intense with his thrusts now that he’s trying to coax your release, and truthfully, he can feel himself following you right after.

“I’m– I’m gonna–”

Your voice falls into a staccato of moans that dissipate into Peter’s wet mouth. Your nails dig into his back as he nearly melts into your body.

His frantic thrusts begin to slow, his hips sloppy against yours as he groans against your neck. His mind is in such a frenzy that he thinks he might just devour you. It starts with his fingers wrapped around your throat. He revels in the sound of your voice choking on your moans.

Peter nearly smothers you with his hand over your mouth, while he bites incessantly at your neck and shoulder. The sweetness of your voice, desperate and wanton for him, is quickly replaced by something darker in his mind. A voice dormant inside him that awakens with the threat of contamination. He’s in his nightmare again, but with the aid of your body to remind him of bliss. Of power.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, fuckfuckfuck–”

His body is so fucking heavy on top of yours, suffocating you with his desire. His teeth bite down hard enough on the juncture of your neck to draw blood, and he ignores your cry. The frenzy of war and lust and intoxication in his head is too fucking much. It’s his own personal eclipse.

His warmth spills into you. He feels his cum in between your bodies, overflowing out of your soaked cunt and onto the bedsheets.

It takes a moment for Peter to notice that you’re crying. He knows it should hurt him. He knows he can’t stand the sight of tears flowing down your delicate cheeks because of him. But he doesn’t feel anything at all.

In a way, both of you are changed.

You had leaped off of a precipice the moment you let him into your bed.

Peter furrows his brows at your tear-streaked face, body stilling with shallow breaths. He cups your face in his warm hands and kisses you sweetly like a lover would and not a monster.

For some hellish reason, you kiss him back.

#peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #spiderman x you #peter parker fluff #peter parker smut #peter parker angst #spiderman x reader #mcu!peter parker x you #tasm!peter parker x you #tom holland x you #tom holland x reader #tom holland smut #peter parker x you

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a-write-for-soreeyes · 1 year ago

Text

Yes, Chef [OPLA Sanji x Afab!Reader SMUT]

Pairing : OPLA Sanji x Chef (AFAB) Reader

Summary : Sanji is the only one you call 'Chef'. One night when you're the only ones working the late shift he finally confronts you about why.

Warnings : 18+ !!!!!!, NSFW/SMUT, Semi-public sex (kitchen), Oral (fem receiving), some slight dirty talk?, the apron stays ON during foreplay, Use of the term 'Chef' in a sexual way, Top!Sanji, Bottom!Reader

Word Count : 3685 (good lord)

A/N : I have never written smut before but I think this went really well! I had one quote (that quote from Fleabag the hot priest says) and a dream (sanji brain rot and my sexy playlist), so please feel free to leave your thoughts! <3

“y/n I think we’ve known each other long enough you can stop calling me ‘Chef’.”

“Yes, Chef I know” You said, carefully placing the garnish on the plate of steak and seared vegetables at your station. It was the last call of the night and of course a group had walked in right as you and Sanji had finished clearing your stations for the night.

Placing the final plate on the counter you hit the bell, one of the servers came through the doors to the kitchen grabbing the plate and turning on their heel pushing through back to the rowdy group of pirates in the dining room. Turning back to your station and beginning to stack your pots and pans, placing the used utensils inside the pot and carrying them over to the sink, ready to re-wash them.

A comfortable quiet had washed over the kitchen, only broken by the boisterous chatter from the last table of the night. “You can head out if you’d like. I’m going to put together a new dessert I’ve been practicing for these gentlemen, hopefully get them to tip better after coming in right before closing.” Sanji had called from across the kitchen while grabbing ingredients from the pantry.

“Chef, if you don’t like my company you can just say and I’ll get out of your hair.” You joked,

“Ay don’t you ever say that gorgeous, you know I love your company,” Sanji flirted pausing next to you, “Someone with good looks and good conversation, how could I not want you around?” He winked, continuing his stride back to his station.

“I think I’ll stick around once I’m done with these if it’s all the same to you, Chef. You know how much I love to taste whatever new recipes you put together.” You replied with a smile. You really did enjoy being able to be the first person to taste all of Sanji’s cooking, and you suppose being the only person in the kitchen late at night, with your criminally good looking coworker wasn’t so bad either. Rolling up your sleeves and plunging your hands into the warm water of the sink you began to scrub at your dishes.

You scrubbed in silence for a few moments, washing the grime and the stress of the day away. “Really y/n, you can go home I really don’t mind,” Sanji walked next to you leaning his side against the counter stacked high with plates and cups that would need to be washed during tomorrows slow hours, “You’ve already stayed late enough, just finish up your dishes and turn in for the night.” Out of the corner of your eye you could see him looking over your face,

“It’s fine, Chef you know I would probably be awake anyw-” Your sentence and scrubbing stopped as Sanji reached forwards wiping a smear of some ingredient from your cheek, letting his thumb linger on your cheek for just a moment, your face heating at the intimacy of the moment.

“Sorry love,” He said, pulling his hand away from your face and placing it back on the counter next to you, “Couldn’t focus on your beautiful face with something covering it.”

This has always been the game between the two of you. When you had joined the Baratie’ crew almost 3 years ago, Sanji had started working his charm on you from day one, flustering you everytime causing you to always avoid his flirtatious gaze. Although it had taken you about two months to get comfortable with the pleasure he takes in flirting with you, (leaving you mildly excited each time he had thrown a nickname your way) the day that you did start flirting back was possibly the best day of Sanji’ life, (although he wouldn’t be admitting that to anyone anytime soon) and possibly the worst of yours. The embarrassment you felt every time you gave a flirtatious response, effectively causing you to never have the guts to look him in the eyes.

And although his flirting was nothing new, something about being the only people in the quiet kitchen after a busy Friday night, had the soft way Sanji was speaking to you to have a new feeling behind it.

“Sanji, I’m fine really. I’ll finish these up and then I want to taste whatever you’re supposed to be cooking over there, for our lovely guests.” You softly broke the tension, not looking up at him from the murky water. Sanji chuckled and pushed off the counter, making his way back to his abandoned pastry mix. Resuming your washing the both of you working contently in each other's presence.

—-

Placing the last of your now clean dishes back at your station and wiping your hands on the towel you always had draped over the string of your apron. Slugging your way over to Sanji's station, you hiked yourself up onto the counter next to him, huffing out a quiet “Whatever you’ve got baking smells amazing Chef. I can’t wait to taste whatever it is.”

Sanji chuckled, continuing to whisk whatever he was whipping up for a “quick dessert”.

“They’re strawberry macarons, with an easy butterscotch drizzle on top.”

“Ah yes Chef, a very simple dessert, definitely not a complicated pastry that can take years to master.” Laughing, Sanji put down the bowl and grabbed his dish towel, turning towards the oven behind him, taking hold of the hot baking sheet in his covered hand. Turning back to you he gently swatted your side, placing the hot tray down where you had been sitting.

��For your information the pastry is not the hard part for me. It’s the filling that always gets me.”, Using his one hand to pull the macaron shells up from the pan, Sanji stuck his finger in the bowl on his right swiping up some of the filling he had been whipping up on his finger, and held it out to you, “Here give this a try, I know it’s missing something I just can’t quite place it.”

Seeing Sanji hold his finger out, covered in the pink buttercream filling, you made the conscious decision that this was going to be your winning move in this game of cat and mouse you and him had been playing for the past years. You leaned forwards and wrapped your mouth around his finger, the taste of the sweet icing flowing over your tongue. Swirling your tongue around his finger to get the last of the filling off of his digit.

“It’s good. Could maybe use a little more powdered sugar, get it to thicken up a bit more.” You shrugged.

Sanji was silent. Not even a flirtatious remark about how ‘you’re all the sugar I need sugar’ just silence. Looking at Sanji directly (for possibly the first time in months) you were shocked at the way he was looking at you. So gently, so full of love and something else you couldn’t quite place. Surprise? Uncomfortability? You weren’t sure, only assuming the worst, regret flooded your body immediately. Sanji opened his mouth to speak but you beat him to it, hanging your head,

“I-I’m so sorry Chef, I-I don’t know what I was thinking, I guess I just thought it would be funny considering how much we fake flirt with each other, but I’m now realizing that that was WILDLY inappropriate especially to someone who is a much better chef than I am- I’m so so sorry Chef-”

“Ah, fuck you calling me “Chef” like it doesn’t turn you on just to say it.” Your head snapped up to look him directly in the eyes.

“Wha-what?”

“You heard what I said.” He smirked at you, blond hair falling in front of his left eye, “The way you say it any moment you possibly can, ‘yes Chef’, ‘I’m sorry Chef’, ‘Of course I can Chef’. You think I haven’t noticed how I’m the only one you call that?” Sanji stalking around the counter, placed one hand on the counter at either side of you.

He leaned into you, his hot breath fanning over your neck, “Everytime you say that stupid fucking title,you know what it does to me. What it makes me think of.”

Shivering at the feeling of his breath you turned your face towards him, “And what does it make you think of, Chef?” A low rumble reverberated from Sanji’ chest, now pressing up close to you.

Sanji tilted his head, lips just barely ghosting over yours, “Would you like me to show you?” You gave an embarrassed nod.

His lips were soft against yours, tasting of cigarettes and the mint he used to try and cover the previous. Pushing himself up against you, you could feel your underwear beginning to slick. Teeth clashing together you ran your hand up Sanji’ back, neck and up into his blonde hair. One of his own hands wrapping around your waist, the other sliding up the front of your apron and giving your breast a soft squeeze. You gasped, and fast as lightning Sanji slipped his tongue into your mouth exploring it with a small groan at the feeling.

Using the heated kiss as a distraction Sanji began to unbutton your uniform, pausing every few buttons to bring his hands up to your face, deepening your make out before going back to his main mission of releasing you from your shirt.

Finally undoing the final button of your uniform Sanji reached into your shirt with one hand swiping over your tit, causing it to harden under his calloused hand, even with the fabric of your bra separating them. Although Sanji made quick work of that issue, easily reaching around you and unclasping the irritating bra pulling it down under your breasts, allowing them to bounce slightly with the force of your making out. Removing his other hand from your waist Sanji roughly cupped your breasts in his hands bringing them out from behind your apron. Squeezing them with his large hands, your apron roughly scraping against the soft flesh, you moaned into the unstopping kisses. Hiking you up onto the edge of the counter Sanji gave himself better access to your chest, leaning down to your right tit and taking it into his mouth, tongue swirling around the nipple, leaving kisses, nips and hickies all around. His left hand grasping at your other tit Sanji pinches at the bud for a few moments before switching. Moans leaving your mouth, you bit your lip nearly drawing blood, as you used one hand to pull his head closer into your chest, the other pulling off his ascot, apron and starting on the snap buttons of his uniform.

“Please, Chef please.” You whimpered, beginning to roll your hips on him, the feeling of his warm mouth on your chest with no friction on your lower parts starting to take its toll on you. Feeling Sanji groan and roll against the counter he pulled back looking at you, hair a mess, eyes glazed over in arousal he ripped the apron and top from off your body, bra following immediately after. During the moment of separation you ripped his now crumpled shirt off, tossing it somewhere in the kitchen out of your vision, which was now focused solely on taking in Sanji’ gorgeous figure.

Grabbing his face and pulling him towards you hungerly you continued to make out. Sanji began to press his body against yours reaching behind your figure to swipe the forgotten baking sheet off the counter creating room for him to be able to push you back into a lying position, the heat of the counter where the hot pans of pastries had just been only seconds earlier caused you to let out a gasp, arching your back to get away from the heat pressing your breasts right into Sanji’s hard chest, his hand going behind you to pull your torso as close to him as possible.

Pulling back from the kiss, Sanji gently laid you down fully on the counter. Running his hands down your sides he began to kiss his way down your body stopping to leave small nips around your chest and hips. Pulling away Sanji started work on your belt, unbuckling it and immediately going for your buttons. You begin to fuss at the feeling of his hands being so close to where you need him but he has yet to touch you.

“I know love, don't worry, I’m gonna make you feel so good.” he whispered out, pressing a kiss to your thigh as he finally slid your pants off, leaving you in just your panties. Groaning at the sight of you trying to hump the air to get any friction to quell the desire you feel, Sanji brought a finger up to your covered mound, gently ghosting it along causing you to let a loud whimper escape from your lips. “Darling you’re soaked. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you want me to make you feel good?”

Gripping the edges of the counter whimpered “Yes. Yes yes please Chef, please make me feel good.”

Sanji smirked up at you, already fidgeting and he hasn’t even started yet. “Well, when you put it like that. I guess I have no choice.” He pulled your panties down grabbing them in one hand and used the other to grasp your hip bringing your soaked pussy right to him, immediately beginning his assault, licking up your folds and once he reached the top starting to suck on your clit, swirling his tongue around the small bud. Your hand shot down for Sanji’ bleach blond hair, fisting it and using it to pull him right into you, wrapping your legs around his head when he stuck his tongue right into your pussy.

“Oh fuck! Yes, god please!” You moaned, at the sound of your moans and whimpers Sanji could feel the tent in his pants straining, he beginning to slightly hump at the air, getting pleasure from just the motions he made.

Feeling the knot begin to form in your stomach you started to pant and hump his face faster. Sanji getting the message stopped tongue fucking you to resume sucking on your clit bringing his right hand down to your entrance sticking 2 fingers in you easily between the slick and spit that had been pooling there. The pleasure assaulting your senses caused you to lurch forwards, nails scraping against Sanji's scalp causing him to moan against you.

Between the feeling of Sanji sucking on your clit, his fingers rapidly pushing in and out of you and the vibrations of the moans he was letting out you felt the knot in your stomach snap, shaking your felt yourself release all over his face, practically screaming out into the echoes of the kitchen,

“Yes, yes fuck, yes Chef! Fuck!” When the feeling of your first orgasm of the night finished and your clit started to become overstimulated you leant back against your arm, releasing your hold on Sanji's hair to run one hand through it and tried to pull yourself away from his mouth still licking up your wetness and kissing around your nub.

“Uhh, Chef- Chef please too- too much” Pulling himself off of you Sanji leant back on his heels, a string of spit and cum connecting him to you. You took a moment to admire him as he caught his breath. He looked beautiful, face covered in your cum with strings of it and drool connecting the two of you, hair sticking in all directions from your harsh pulling and his eyes, god his eyes he had a look in them you’d only ever hoped to see, he was so drunk on your pussy you’re not even sure he knew where the two of you were right now.

Grabbing his right wrist from where his fingers were still brushing against your pussy lips you pulled him up to you, locking your lips in another kiss, this one much more gentle and soft than the previous rough make out you had. Pushing your tongue into his mouth you could taste yourself on his tongue, occasionally kissing around his mouth and along his jawline to collect more of your slick from his face. Sanji let out a gasp as you kissed up his jaw and to his ear, giving it a slight nip before whispering to him, “You made me feel so good Chef. I wanna do the same for you.”

Standing to his full height Sanji started to work on his belt, hands shaking in anticipation at finally being able to feel you around him. You started work on the button on his bottoms, purposely brushing your hand against his erection feeling it twitch at every touch you gave him. Reaching your hands up to his waistband Sanji pulled down his pants and underwear in one swoop as he stepped out of the pool of fabric now at his feet. Cradling your face in his large hands Sanji ran his thumb down your cheekbone and swiped it over your lips.

"I wanna make you feel good, let me make you feel good.”, You looked up at him with half lidded eyes, your hand lazily wrapping around his hard-on, stroking him and running your thumb over his head using the precum that had begun to bead there as lube for your lazy motions. “Please Chef.” You felt his cock twitch at the title and his breathing hitch.

“We can feel good together love. Just let me take care of you this time.” At that Sanji guided you back to your lying position against the now cold countertop of his work station. Taking a moment to admire you splayed out before him Sanji ran his hands down the backs of your thighs pushing them up to give himself access to your wet cunt.

Rubbing the head of his cock against your folds he collected some of your slick before he watched his cock disappear into you. A growl coming from him as he felt you tighten around his shaft.

Keening at the feeling of yourself stretching around him, your eyes rolling back as he pushed further finally bottoming out. Sanji paused allowing you a chance to adjust to his size he could feel you tighten around him.

Slowly, he began to pull almost all the way out of you before rocking back in, the both of you groaning at the feeling. Sanji looked up at your face, eyes almost completely closed and mouth open gasping in pleasure. He reached forwards grasping your soft hand in his own rough one giving something for you to ground yourself on through the pleasure.

“Chef please-!” you whimpered at the feeling of his thrusts starting to pick up speed.

“Fuck love, you feel so good squeezing around me.” Sanji groaned into your ear, leaving sloppy kisses around your jaw and down your neck, his cock burying into you at a rapid pace.

Your moans and huffs at the overwhelming feelings you were experiencing getting louder with each thrust, to the point you were almost crying out in pleasure. Sanji captured your lips again roughly making out with you in an attempt to quiet you, although between your moans and the squelch of his cock pistoning in and out of you it was nearly impossible to do so.

Sanji could feel his high approaching with each thrust, “I-I’m close, fuck darling you feel so good-” he sighed pressing your foreheads together.

“I-I’m so close, please Chef. Please let me cum please!” You blubbered against his lips, tears beginning to form and run down your cheeks, you could feel every inch of him in you, stretching you, pressing against every part of you, his head kissing your cervix.

“Just a little more baby, just give me a little more.” Pounding into your cunt, slick running down both of you, you wrapped your legs around his back pulling him impossibly closer, the hand that was resting coming down to rub furiously at your clit, “come for me love, come all over my cock.” Your mouth opened in a silent scream as you felt yourself release all over his cock, your pussy clamping down, you cried out,

“Fuck! Chef!”

At the feeling of you cumming around him Sanji knew he just needed a few more before he to came undone, or- “Fuck Sanji!” your eyes rolling back, and that was his breaking point. At the sound of you crying out his name, his real name for the first time since you’ve met, not some title he’d heard a thousand times before, Sanji came. Ropes of his cum painting your insides with his release he shuttered, his vision blanking at the overwhelming bliss he was experiencing from cumming inside you for the first time.

The air between you two hot and heavy as you both stayed still just enjoying the intimacy of the moment. Sanji gave a few final sluggish thrusts to help you both ride the end of your pleasures before the feeling became too much. He pulled out gently being sure not to overwhelm you, the sound of your mixed cum quietly dripping from you both onto the tiled floor beneath him.

Basking in the afterglow of the scene, foreheads pressed together you tilted your head up locking your lips in a tender kiss. Bringing your hand that was not clasped in Sanji's up to caress his face, taking in the way the soft light reflected off his glistening forehead and the beads of sweat that dripped from his disheveled hair down the curves and lines of his face.

“You’re beautiful.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m the one who’s supposed to say that to you, Love.” He chuckled, allowing the seriousness of the moment to fade away into comfortable giggles. “I love you.” He breathed out, gazing at you, trying to memorize everything about you in this moment, from how your messy hair splayed out behind you to the dried tear tracks down your face. Looking back into his blue eyes,

“I love you Sanji.”

--------------------------------

#sanji x reader smut #opla sanji x reader #sanji x reader #opla sanji x reader smut #smut #opla sanji #one piece live action #one piece netflix

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trippinsorrows · 1 month ago

Text

looking through your eyes + twenty

authors note: consider this a part one. splitting it into two because way too much would be happening in one chapter if i stuffed it.

cw/tw: angst, some fluff, characters discussing mental health, brief discussion of past suicide attempt

song inspo: ‘looking through your eyes’ by leann rimes

masterlist +story playlist + taglist request form

words: 5k

“Look, daddy!”

Though the call was directed to Roman, Solana can’t help but also look up, ensuring she keeps her hands on her wiggly baby boy. He’s at the point in his development where he wants to explore anything and everything, and the last thing she wants is her son getting into something while they’re on their trip.

Roman’s gaze, however, is solely focused on the twins who are a few feet away looking over at him with the biggest, proudest smile on their faces. They’ve each created two pretty impressive yet different sandcastles, one finished, the other still a bit of a work in progress.

It’s interesting to both parents that right off the bat they know who made what. The twin who has taken after Solana and her artistic abilities having a castle that’s a bit more intricate, neater and most likely to survive longer.

“They’re nice,” Roman compliments, a small smile on his face. “Can I take a picture?”

His question makes all the sense in the world. If there’s one thing Roman is going to do when it comes to his family, it’s snap a picture. Solana doesn’t even know just how much footage he has of their family. She just knows that it’s a lot. That’s for certain. His collection starts as far back as her first pregnancy with the twins to where they are today, spending some time in Isla Mujeres for a brief, family vacation.

Not that Solana has any complaints. She loves that all of these moments have been captured either via photography or videography. Keepsakes that withstand all of time.

However, their girls are clearly opposed to unfinished projects being captured on camera. “Daddy, no. We gotta finish first!”

Roman chuckles, unsurprised that the twin most like him is the one to protest. “Just let me know when you’re ready.”

They don’t respond, but he’s certain that they heard him.

He and Solana redirect their attention to their son who’s sitting between Solana’s open legs, grabbing and banging one of his toys against the towel underneath them. It’s accompanied with his babbling, no doubt his way of expressing his desire to be freed.

Solana giggles, looking over at Roman with a tiny smirk. “The older he gets, the more I see of you in him.”

It’s true. Not even in just looks. All of the kids look like Roman to her, but especially their baby. His father’s looks, his father’s size, and even his short temper too.

Roman, however, wears a grim expression.“ Hopefully not too much.”

The delivery. The almost frown on his face. The quietness. All of it causes the smile on her face to dip a bit, Solana instantly knowing what’s happening. What he’s not saying.

“Here.” Lifting up her chunky nine-month-old and handing him over to Roman, Solana’s previous joy returns just a little at seeing the natural smile fall on father and son’s face, the younger making his happiness at being held by his favorite parent obvious in the babbling that grows louder.

Shaking her head, Solana reaches for her phone in her Louis Vuitton beach tote. “You better not tell them I showed you this. They don’t want you to know until it’s done.” Solana warns, swiping until she lands on the desired photo. Scooting closer to him, she reaches him her phone. “Look.”

Roman easily switches their son’s position so he’s sitting on his thigh, one strong forearm wrapped around him, securing him to his chiseled body. He takes the phone, and when his eyes land on the photo, Solana starts explaining. “They’re working on a project in school on who they look up to the most. Their hero.” Roman’s shocked gaze falls back on his gently smiling wife. “They both chose you.” Solana watches Roman closely. The brief flash of emotion in his eyes. The way he smiles. All of the nonverbals that point to him being moved by this. “Why do you think that is, Ro?”

She doesn’t wait for him to respond. “Because they love you. Because you are their hero. Because you’re the best dad they could have ever asked for.” Some of Solana’s words of encouragement are ripped directly from the brief paper that accompanies the drawing of the girls and Roman they’ve created for the project. The drawing that he’s looking at now on her phone.

“You’re amazing with them. You’re amazing with him.” She chews down on her lip, eyes twinkling with excitement. “And you’re gonna be just as amazing with the next.”

Roman’s gaze snaps over to her, eyes filled with shock and curiosity. “Are you…..”

Nodding with a big smile on her face, she lightly teases, “you always did say you could never say no to me.”

Roman scoffs, clearly in a slight state of disbelief. To all of it. “How far along are you?”

Solana brings her hand to her belly, answering proudly, “almost eight weeks.”

A small smile falls on his face, and right away, Solana knows. Knows that he’s just as happy and as thrilled as she is. This is just his subtle way of expressing it. “You weren’t kidding when you said you wanted more kids, huh?”

Rolling her pretty eyes, she uses her other hand to playfully flick his shoulder. “You weren’t exactly opposed to the process.”

“Never that.” Shaking her head, she reaches over to tickle her baby’s belly, allowing their soon to be second youngest to play with her finger as the announcement continues to settle in with Roman. “Damn, we’re really having another baby?”

She shrugs, voice so nonchalant as she hints at something else. “Or two…..”

“Christ, Sol.” She giggles at the way his eyes widen ever so slightly. “Are you serious?” Roman sitting up more and adjusting their son so he doesn’t fall over progresses her giggles to full on laughter. “Solana, is it really twins again?”

Calming down, she offers in a still amused voice, “I can show you the sonogram when we get back to the house.”

“Holy—” His reaction is really something she wishes she caught on camera. “How?”

Shaking her head, she throws back at him with a small smirk, “you’re the one who always said you’re good at a lot of things. I guess we should add making twins to the list.”

While there’s humor in her voice, Solana is more than certain Roman doesn’t find comedy in the repeat. He’s happy, yes, but most definitely still astounded. “Another set of twins….” Shaking his head, he starts off with an almost sympathetic voice. “Baby, I love you. You know I do. But, I’m getting a vasectomy after this.” Solana rolls her eyes, though a part of her wonders how serious he’s being. “Sol, we’re about to have five damn kids. That’s enough. You’re not about to have me out here, fifty-years-old, with a newborn.”

Taking her son from him who starts hitting at her chest, a sign he is ready for a nap, Solana offers a compromise. “We’ll discuss it more later.”

“Yeah, alright.” His fake irritated tone shifts to something else as he nods to the girls who are still laughing and giggling with each other while finishing up their sandcastles. “When you want to tell them?”

It’s a good question she thought of the minute the doctor confirmed her pregnancy. “When we get back home. Let them have this.” While the twins now love their baby brother just as much as they love each other, their initial reaction to the pregnancy was not….the easiest. And Solana doesn’t even want to think about how they might respond to finding out they’re no longer going to be the only twins in the house.

She’d prefer to push off whatever that looks like for later. Just wants to enjoy the now.

“Mommy.”

Solana is startled by the sudden presence of her girls. She never even heard them walk over. “Yes, baby?”

“You’re gonna protect us, right?”

Eyes crinkling with confusion, Solana adjusts her baby boy, lightly patting his back. “What–what do you mean, honey?”

Her oldest eyes watering only sets Solana off even more, as she looks to Roman for some assistance only to see he’s no longer there.

He’s gone.

Solana’s stomach drops as she turns her head, looking to see where he’s gone when her daughter moves a hand to the baby’s back. “You’re gonna have to fight for us.”

Solana is beyond confused right now. About it all. “I don’t—”

“Daddy’s not gonna be there. You have to do it, mama.” The quieter of the two taking a turn to speak, voice almost desperate and emotional only exacerbates the situation. Solana feels her own tears forming when her daughter reaches out her little hand, placing it on her shoulder. “And you can’t trust them.”

That’s when Solana really stills. Looking between the two who wear such troubled expressions, she asks, “trust who?”

With a loud, violent gasp, Solana shoots up from the bed. Breathing erratic, forehead covered in a light sheen of sweat, heart practically beating out of her chest.

It takes a couple of seconds for her to completely come to. She has no idea where that came from. She’s been having dreams over the past couple weeks of a future with Roman, an almost storyline that plays out and typically lulls and keeps her asleep.

But, not tonight.

Tonight, she can’t figure out just what the hell that dream means. If it means anything. A part of her wonders if it has to do with Roman’s text from Friday night and the fact that she hasn’t heard from him since then. Not a text. Not a call. Not a FaceTime.

It’s been almost three days.

A part of her is worried, but another part of her knows it’s because he’s working. The last thing he probably has time for is to entertain her. And even more, she told him not to worry about her. That she’d be okay. And, she is. She’s just worried about him.

As per usual.

Leaning over, she hits the lamp switch on her bed and grabs her phone, hoping to find a text or notification from him. But, when she presses the side button, all she sees is her lock screen. A photo of them taken on her birthday. She’s sitting on his lap, arms around his neck, the happiest of smiles on her face as she looks directly at the camera, while he’s simply staring at her with such adoration and care.

It makes her heart heavy. An emptiness she’s felt more profoundly in the past few days.

As much as Solana wants to text him, she won’t. She won’t because she knows that he’ll only think something is wrong and might even try to inconvenience himself by coming back home when he really doesn’t have to. He’ll make it about her when all she wants is to see about him.

Placing her phone back on the nightstand, she swaps it out for her journal, flipping to a blank page. Solana uses the pen attached and starts writing in a way she hasn’t done in some time.

Too long.

Dear Mom,

I can’t remember the last time I wrote to you, and I’m so sorry for that. A lot has happened. Some things I know you’d be proud of me for. Others, not so much.

I know the truth now, mama. I know that you’re gone because he wanted you gone. Wanted us gone. And to be honest with you, a part of me feels bad. He only did it because you were trying to escape with me and Wes. Because I always asked you why we couldn’t just run away. Not knowing if my constant asking was a part of why you did it will always haunt me. And if so, I’m sorry, mama. I’m so so sorry.

But, there’s something I need to tell you. A lot, actually. But, I’ll space it out for different letters. The most important thing though is that I’m in love. I never ever thought it could and would happen for me, but it did, and while the past few weeks have been rough, what hasn’t changed is my love.

I love Roman. He’s the best thing to ever happen to me since I lost you. He’s kind and patient and takes such good care of me. And……

I finally had my first time, and he made it so special. He is special to me.

I love him more than anything.

I wish you could have met him. I think you would have eventually grown to like him. He can be….a little rough around the edges, but it’s okay, because he’s mine.

My Ro.

—-------

This isn’t how Solana expected to spend her Sunday. Didn’t see it playing out like this, but one thing she’s been learning in therapy is the power of control. At the end of the day, she can control three things: what she thinks, how she feels, and what she does. Even when she doesn’t feel like it. Even when it seems impossible.

And that’s why she makes the call to do something she still doesn’t feel 100% ready for while acknowledging that 100% isn’t exactly a realistic, attainable option anyway.

‘Do it scared’

That’s what Gail always says, and that’s what she’s doing.

She’s doing it scared.

“Solana.”

Looking up from her lap, the first thing she lands on is the bouquet of flowers that partially obscure an expected, loud colorful look from Naomi. Bayley is holding the large teddy bear that holds a box of chocolates with several greeting cards slipped within the attached ribbon.

The warmest smile sets on Solana’s face.

Untangling her legs from where she sits on the sofa in the visitors area, she walks over to them, the two women seemingly looking confused on how to respond, what to say or even do.

So, Solana takes the lead. Carefully taking first the flowers and then the teddy bear, she places them both down on the coffee table and opens her arms for a group hug.

Neither woman seems to protest. In fact, they both move to accept the kind gesture with so much force that Solana loses her balance for a second. But, it’s when she gathers herself, she fully relishes in the innocent embrace.

Her eyes naturally shut at being so warmly greeted with two people who started out as strangers but have easily turned into family.

“It’s so good to see you,” Naomi murmurs against her, holding her just as tight as she’s holding them.

Bayley follows with an emotional, “we’ve been so worried about you.”

Solana sniffles, the tears pooling as she pulls back and looks between the two of them. “I’m so sorry I did that to you guys. I—I didn’t—”

“Solana, we’re sorry, we didn’t do enough to let you know how loved you are and how much you mean to us—” Naomi also gets choked up, shaking her head and fanning her face. “Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have worn this glitter eyeshadow.”

Solana laughs and wipes her eyes. Bayley shakes her head and takes Solana’s hand. “We’re here for you, Solana. Always.”

Nodding, she leads them both to sit on the sofa with her, again going back to her initial statement. “I know….I know you guys probably feel like I don’t need to say this, but I do want to say how sorry I am for….for putting you through that.” She knows what she’s been through on her end as being the person to survive the attempt, but there’s also another trauma that’s created for the people unlucky enough to witness that.

And those people are Naomi and Bayley. Solana doesn’t even want to think about how terrifying that must have been for them.

Naomi, however, is the one to speak first. “You know how this life is. We see a lot. We’ve seen a lot, but that…..that was rough.”

Bayley nods, swallowing. “And not being able to see and speak to you….and Roman wasn’t the most helpful.”

That’s not surprising, though a bit discouraging. Solana knows he blames them. Feels like they failed to watch her, and while it’s on her list to talk to him about it, to try to get him to eventually let it go, to forgive them, that’s not the priority right now.

They are.

She shakes her head, explaining, “I wanted….wanted to make sure I was in a better place before you guys spoke to me again. Before….before you saw me again.”

Because the last time they saw her, she was unconscious, being wheeled out on a stretcher after almost ODing. The least Solana could do was spare them any additional unnecessary trauma.

“Are…..are you better?” Naomi is the one to ask, trepidation laced in her voice. “I mean, I know you’re here, but—”

“I am,” Solana answers in a strong voice. “I’m here, but I just….I wanted to extend my treatment because I didn't feel ready to come home just yet, but everyday I’m here, I feel myself getting stronger. I’m….I’m going to be so much better.”

Bayley reaches a comforting hand on Solana’s knee. “You even look better, Solana.” Her smile is watery as she again affirms, “we’re just happy you’re okay.”

Me too.

Solana sniffles and wipes her eyes. She then directs her attention to the gifts. “What is all of this?”

Naomi makes a sound, a squeal almost. “You know we couldn’t come see our sis empty handed.” She then rolls her eyes, pulling out two of the cards attached to the box of candy. “Jimmy and Jey asked us to give you these. They’re mad we ain’t bring them with us.”

At that, Solana’s smile drops. “They’re not with Roman?”

Naomi is visibly confused. “What do you mean?”

Solana, also confused, shifts in her seat. “Roman text me Friday night that he had to go out of town for a work situation. I guess….I thought he’d take them with him.” Knowing that Roman doesn’t have his two right hand men with him makes Solana a bit more nervous about not hearing from him, and it must show.

“Hey.” Bayley offers a reassuring smile. “This is your husband we’re talking about. Roman’s got whatever it is. If he didn’t, he would have taken the twins with him. I’m sure of it.”

“I agree,” Naomi nods, also flashing a comforting smile. “Don’t worry, okay?”

Much easier said than done, but for the sake of not wanting to sulk or spiral, Solana makes herself focus on the conversation at hand. Taking the envelopes, she opens the first one.

It’s from Jey.

Sis,

Been praying for you and shit. Hope you doing alright, and we can’t wait till you get home. Big Dog been mean as hell with you gone. Please come save us.

Just messing with ya…..kind of.

Love you,

Jey

YEET!

His card makes her smile, laugh, and cry all in the same breath. Sniffling, she puts it back in the envelope and goes to open the next one from Jimmy, only for her, Bayley, and Naomi to jump as music starts to play.

It’s a musical card.

I'm a survivor

I'm not gon' give up

I'm not gon' stop

I'm gon' work harder

I'm a survivor

I'm gonna make it

I will survive

Keep on survivin'

Solana slaps the card closed as no one says a thing. Both Bayley and Naomi have their hands over their mouths in complete and utter shock, Bayley being the first to speak as she slaps Naomi on the arm.

“Why would you let him get that!”

“Girl, I didn't know! His ass always ordering shit off Amazon. I thought it was a regular card!” She turns toward Solana, eyes extremely apologetic. “Solana, I am so—”

But before she can finish, Solana literally falls back against the sofa, hand also over her mouth to hold back the abundance of laughter coursing through her body. It takes everything in her to manage to speak through her fit of giggles, “you guys, it’s okay. It’s….it’s actually pretty funny.”

Because it is. It’s so Jimmy. And she knows he means no harm, that he’s probably one of the funniest, sweetest men she’s ever come across.

Even if he does seem to be able to not read the room from time to time.

Blotting the tears away from crying so hard, Solana opens the card again and starts to read, ignoring the music that’s playing.

Lil sis,

Really been missing you. Roman been miserable without you too. Ole grumpy ass even meaner than usual. He ain’t even let us come over not one time! You gotta come get your man, sis.

Naw, but in all seriousness, I miss your lil ass and really been sending you all the positive thoughts and prayers. Can’t wait till you come home.

PS) What’s the first meal back gon be?

Love,

Jimmy

Finishing the both hilarious and heartfelt message, Solana is happy to see Bayley and Naomi also displaying slightly amused expressions. Giggling, she closes the card again, silencing the music. “I told you it was kind of funny.”

“I’m still going to talk to his slow ass.”

“I told you he’s challenged.”

Solana shakes her head, reaching for their hands, squeezing gently. “I really have missed you guys.” And that’s such the goddamn truth. Despite her reservations and feeling not ready to see them, she’s so happy she pushed past all of that.

In some sort of way, she feels like she needed this. Needed to see and speak to them again.

Needed to be around her sisters.

—-----------

Later that evening, as Solana is sitting in her room, working on a sketch she’s been playing around with since her birthday trip, her phone rings.

She halfheartedly switches her attention to the phone, expecting maybe Bayley or Naomi. But, that’s not who it is.

It’s almost embarrassing to Solana how quickly she drops her pencil and snatches her phone, pressing the green button with unnecessary pressure. “Hello?”

Her voice is clearly as excited as she feels, because he chuckles, “hey.”

Her eyes shut, an instant relief washing over her. “Roman…..” She can’t explain how good it feels to hear his voice, to be able to talk to him. “Are you okay?” Her tone easily switches to concerned as she remembers it’s been almost three days since she last spoke to him. “Are you safe?”

“I’m fine, Sol.” She’d feel infinitely better if he was standing in front of her saying those comforting words, but he’s not, so she just has to take his word for it. “How are you?”

“Fine,” she answers without much thought, because it’s the truth. But, she also knows he needs more than that. “Bayley and Naomi came to visit me this afternoon.”

There’s a pause on the other end. A response she more or less expected. “How was it?”

Solana leans back against the headrest. “It was…..it was nice. Needed. I—I missed them.”

She can practically picture the way he turns his head and strokes his beard, as he forces out a, “if that’s what you want.”

Solana sighs. “Roman, I—I know you still blame them.”

“And, I always will.” She swallows, hating the determination in his voice. Like nothing she says will change his mind. “You can’t fault me for that.”

She can, and she can’t. She has no right to dictate how Roman feels about what happened. That’s not in her circle of control. She just wishes he didn’t have such misplaced and displaced anger. Bayley and Naomi did everything they could. They had no idea about her past struggles with suicide. That she’d attempted before, and even if they had, Solana has realized through some heavy discussions and processing in therapy that even if they tried to intervene, she still would have found a way.

She would have found some type of way to try to kill herself that night.

But, she doesn’t want to drop that on Roman, not when she knows he’s already had a lot on his mind the past few days.

“How are you feeling?” She decides to change subjects, not wanting them to spend too much time on something that’s clearly going to take a while. “You sound less….distracted.” It’s the best word that she can come up with, Solana just now recognizing that while he still sounds like he’s carrying a heavy load, it’s a load that’s maybe gotten a little lighter.

“Yeah.” His answer is awkward, distant almost. “Been….been trying to clear my head.”

She doesn’t know what exact that means or how it works when he’s in the midst of working, but if it’s helped in some weird sort of way, and it sounds like it has, she won’t push or question it. She wants desperately to ask him about who he took with him, if he ran into any trouble, if he’s scratched up at all. Essentially, all the questions to make sure he’s not physically hurt, but she also doesn't want to bombard him. Doesn’t want to do anything to take away from the almost softness of this moment.

“Good,” she finally responds, wondering where the next thing out of her mouth comes from, because it’s certainly something she didn’t plan or anticipate. “Roman, when you—when you come visit again, can we—can we try—I mean—the doors don’t lock, but—” She hates all the stammering and stuttering, but it’s so hard to ask this when she can’t see his expression, see if he’s looking disinterested or annoyed or anything. It’s definitely something that would be better served discussed in person, and she’s annoyed that she even brought it up like this. “You know what, never mind, just—”

“Solana,” his deep voice cuts in with a chuckle that knocks her anxiety down a level or two. “Yes, if you want to.”

“I do.” There’s an almost desperation to her quick reply. A bit of embarrassment fills her and reddens her cheeks as she explains, “I know last time, I—well, you know, but this time, I’m—I’m good.”

And she knows this because in the past few days especially she’s found herself thinking about him, wanting him, almost needing him in that way. So much so that just this evening the longing was so prominent that her hand wound its way between her legs, fulfilling something Roman had once tasked her with.

But, she most definitely cannot tell him that over the phone.

Or ever.

“As long as you’re good, Sol.” The sincerity in his voice makes her smile, Solana wishing deeply she could be snuggled against his strong, protective chest right now. “You know that’s never something I’ll turn you down for. Ever”

Giggling, her voice softens as she turns to lay on her side. “Tell me something.”

“Like?”

She shrugs and remembers that he can’t see her. “Anything. I—” With an almost tenderness, she admits, “I missed the sound of your voice.”

It’s almost embarrassing to admit as such, especially as it’s barely been three days since they last spoke, but it’s just how she feels.

And Solana feels a bit better about her vulnerable admission when he shares in an equally low voice. “I miss you.”

There’s something about his tone. About his delivery. She knows he’s not referring to this work trip. He’s referring to her overall hospitalizations.

To all of it.

“I’ll be home in a month,” she whispers. It feels like so much longer though. For him, just as much as her, she’d bet. But, it’s all she’s got. “And then I’m not going anywhere ever again.” It’s an oath to both him and herself. “I promise.”

“Good.” It sounds like there’s more he wants to say, so much more. But, he doesn’t. And while she wonders why. Again, she doesn’t push it. Doesn’t push him. Just enjoys finally being able to speak to him, to hear his voice and know that he’s okay.

Solana stays on the phone for a good almost hour when exhaustion betrays her in the form of an escapee yawn. Roman chuckles on the other end. “It’s late. You should get some rest.”

“I’m fine,” she responds. “When will you be back here?”

“I head back tomorrow morning.” She wants to ask just where he is but decides against it. “Still want me to visit next weekend?”

“Of course.” That feels like a no brainer. “I always want to see you.” She exhales and shifts in the bed, feeling the sleep that she’s now realizing she was pushing back just to speak to him. “Maybe I will try to get some rest.” She has an early morning individual therapy session with Gail tomorrow, and they’re supposed to do some more trauma work, so she really should try to get a good night's rest.

“Good.” He genuinely sounds pleased at that. “I’ll text you when I make it back to the house.”

“Good,” she repeats with a small smile. “Goodnight, Roman.”

He seems to hesitate on the other end, an almost uncharacteristic emotion in his tone that she can’t really identify. “Night, Solana.”

Her stomach flutters with all the butterflies that are typical whenever she’s around, with or even speaking to this man who has changed her life in so many ways. Grabbing the phone, Solana taps the end button and places her phone on the nightstand, feeling an overwhelming sense of peace and comfort.

She moves to put away her sketchbook when a sound makes her jump a little. Looking to her left, she realizes she somehow didn’t hang up the phone and that the call is still going. Chuckling to herself, as well as the surprise that Roman also somehow missed that too, she reaches to actually and effectively end the call.

But, her stomach drops when she hears a voice. A voice that doesn’t belong to Roman.

“Was that your wife?” It’s a woman. That much is obvious, and while her tone is neither friendly nor cruel, it makes no difference because Solana is far too focused on the next thing that comes out of her mouth. “Where does she think you are anyway?”

Crushing.

Debilitating. Suffocating. Inconceivable. The words barely touch the surface of what Solana is feeling in this moment. Feelings that are only intensified by Roman’s response.

With a quiet chuckle, he answers, almost bitterly, “working.”

The woman on the other end makes a sound that’s similar yet different from a scoff. “Don’t you think it’s time to tell her the truth? You really want to keep lyin—”

Enough.

Solana has heard enough. Reaching for the phone, she jabs her finger against the red end button and tosses it back on the bed. It’s only then she realizes that her hand is trembling, that her entire body is shaking, her breathing is uneven, and her eyes are watering.

Feeling what’s about to happen, she places her hand over her heart and closes her eyes, trying to find the safest place in her body. The anchor within her, the place that can settle or at least manage her anxiety enough so she doesn’t end up having a panic attack. It’s a longshot, but it works. Solana eventually calms down enough to where that tightness in her chest is no longer present.

But, that’s only the panic being pushed away. The hurt, oh the hurt is still there. Blaring, raging, burning pain that’s more excruciating than anything she’s felt in a long time.

He lied.

Roman lied to her.

He’s not working.

He’s with another woman.

He’s cheating on her.

And reading in between the lines, it’s not the first time, he’s been cheating on her. Been lying to her.

Solana’s head is racing, revisiting every moment and interaction with him.

Roman had told her from the beginning. Told her that he could and would never care about her. That she’d be nothing more than a business transaction, but she….she thought that things had changed. That they’d changed.

That he’d changed.

Clearly, that’s not the case, and maybe, just maybe, she should have believed him the first time around.

#roman reigns x black!oc #roman reigns x black!reader #roman reigns fic #roman reigns #arisnotebook

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wosostories · 3 months ago

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Workload (Gotham FC x Teen!Reader)

Gotham x Teen!Reader

Summary: 16 year old reader has signed with Gotham FC and is struggling to find balance between school and sport with finals and the NWSL Championship both quickly approaching.

You sigh as you close your laptop for the night, you mean morning. It was just after 2:00 when you finished your history essay, calc assignment, and studying for your chemistry test the next day. Plus on top of that, starting to find all of your materials for your upcoming exams.

It’s not even that you were pushing it all off to the last minute. It’s just the course work that you get every night is impossible to get done that night on top of the training you have with Gotham FC and your ADHD.

You would put off doing your school work to get more sleep if you could, but your school has told you multiple times that they would revoke your work permit if you didn’t keep your grades up and get all of your assignments in on time.

You sigh again and finally head to bed to hopefully get a couple hours before morning lift. Your alarm goes off two and a half hours later and you drag yourself out of bed. It takes you half an hour to get ready and have your things together before Lynn picks you up for training.

When you get in the car Kristi and Lynn are already pumped up and jamming to Lynn’s playlist. You let them continue on as you tuck yourself in the back seat and try not to fall back asleep.

“You ok kid?” Lynn asks you turing the music down. “You look a little tired.”

“Ya, just didn’t get very much sleep last night. Had a lot of homework to get done after practice.”

“You’ve been saying that a lot recently,” Krisite pipes in, “You sure you’re getting enough rest.”

“Ya it’s just that time of year. We're coming up on exams and the NWSL Championship.”

“You can talk to coach. I'm sure he’d understand if you needed to miss a few practices.” They tried convincing you.

“No, it's fine. Nothing I haven’t handled before.” You all arrive at the training facility just in time to get into the lifting room.

“Alright let's get started.” They start with stretching and then pair up to go through their specialized lifting workout for the day. You end up with Jenna Nightswonger due to your similar workout needs.

“Are you ok Y/N. You’ve been yawning for the last 30 minutes. Which has been the entire time we’ve been here.”

“I’m fine. Just up a little later than I probably should have been getting my homework done.”

“If you’re sure.”

They finish the lift session another 30 minutes later and you leave the rest of your team to get to school on time. You are able to make your way through the day with a quick nap during lunch and eating while working on your revions during study hall. And as soon as the bell lets you out you are back on your way to the training facility for afternoon practice.

Your movements are slow and sluggish throughout practice as you try to keep up with the quick movements of your teammates. During all of your breaks you have an assignment out and are slowly making your way through them.

“Hey Y/N, come here for a second.” Ali calls you over with about 45 minutes left of practice.

“Ya hold on just one sec.” You call back as you finish up the last math problem on the worksheet. As soon as you are done you jog over to the older player. “Ya what’s up?”

“We're all just a little worried about you. You seem a little out of it today.”

“I’m fine,” you sigh out a little frustrated. “Will everyone stop asking me that?”

“Hey now, there’s no need for that. We're just trying to help.” You sigh again.

“I know. It’s all just a lot. I think that it might be getting to me a little.”

“That’s ok. When's the last time you got a full night of sleep?” You look down knowing that you will answer if you look at her. “Alright grab your stuff.”

“W-what?”

“Grab your things, I’m going to take you home. Then you’re going to finish anything due tomorrow then go to sleep. And you aren’t going to be coming to practice tomorrow.”

“But the championships are…”

“Not starting until next week. There is still plenty of time. But if you get hurt then it won't matter.”

You sigh. Ali leads you over to your things and you start packing them up as Ali goes to talk to coach. She comes back over with the ok from coach. “And he said if you show up to practice at any point tomorrow he will bench you for the first game of the tournament.”

You nod, “I won’t come tomorrow. I’ll get my work done and get a good night’s rest.”

“Good and next time it gets too much, just let us know. You’re still just a kid. It’s our job to help you so let us.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

#uswnt x reader #woso x reader #woso #teen!reader #Gothamfc x reader #woso x Teen!reader #woso fanfics

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thetriumphantpanda · 1 year ago

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it's new, the shape of your body | javier peña

Take The Weight Off His Shoulders - Chapter Five

Chapter Summary | A dead end following a lead at work leaves you tense, with Javi only too happy to help you destress.

Chapter Warnings | Mention of drugs, drug related violence and the drugs trade. Zero knowledge of how journalists find information in the 90s but we ride with it. Explicit smut, these two do some stuff in public that the lord wouldn't approve, fingering, Javi is a dirty talking menace.

Pairing | dbf!Javier Peña x F!Reader

Word Count | 3.5K

Authors Note | So, as well as being a sexy little dbf!Javi fic, this also has another overarching plot that I'm starting to introduce in this chapter - I really hope you like the addition of this other part of the story, as well as these two finally getting it on! Another huge shoutout to @undercoverpena who has been such a rock with this chapter, helping me smooth out the kinks to get it to where I wanted it to be. Thank you for the support so far. If you're enjoying this then reblogs and comments really do help and if you’d like to support me further, please consider a donation to my Ko-Fi.

I no longer use taglists. Please follow @thetriumphantpandanotifs to be notified of new updates.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Ko-Fi | Series Playlist

There’s a spring in your step when you walk into work on Monday. You’d spent all of Sunday is some sort of daze, thinking about what had happened with Javi and all the things that he’d promised you over the phone. You let your hand wander a little on Sunday night, bringing yourself off to his promise of showing you exactly what you’d been missing, so much so that the lack of sleep from keeping yourself awake didn’t bother you as you sat down at your desk, taking out your notes to start working on the piece for the newspaper about the drugs bust in town last week.

“You seem more chipper this morning,” Your boss muses, setting down a mug of coffee next to you like she always does each morning, “You sleeping better?”

The answer is no, not really, just that you’re awake for a far better reason that pining for your dad’s buddy, now you’re awake because he wants you just as much as you want him and those daydreams and the visions that come to you in your dreams are far nicer to deal with than the wondering of if you were going to make a fool out of yourself in front of him.

“Yeah, much better, thanks,” You smile, picking up the mug to take a sip, “I’m gonna start working on the bust story today, hopefully it’ll be ready by the end of the day.”

She places a hand on your shoulder and gives you a squeeze, “Nice work,” She smiles back at you, “Your stories have been really well received recently.”

She leaves you to it, letting you open your notebook, you rip the old pages out, lie them out on the desk in front of you, picking up a pen, putting it to the fresh page to start formulating the bare bones of the story.

It’s easy to start with the facts.

1. There’s a house in town had been involved in a police raid.

2. A large amount of both cocaine and marijuana had been seized.

3. The house had been empty.

4. The police had spoken to the neighbours.

You circle the last point on your notepad: no-one could figure out who would be responsible for storing that amount of drugs at the address. Staring at it, seeing it in a new order, your brain begins to think, wondering about how you might be able to dig deeper.

Something, the instinct that made all of this possible, tells you to start with who owns the house. Fingers typing, suddenly remembering that you’d overheard your dad talking with your mom a few days ago about how they’d tried that avenue and come up at a loss down at the station, but not why.

Opening the webpage for the public records for the county, your fingers drill in the address, clicking on the search result that pops up. Leaning forward in your chair, chin propped on your palm, you scan the information in front of you. There’s a list of everyone who had ever owned the address since it was built, starting from the first all the way down to the last, which is where you realise what the dead end is. The last owner was dead. Had been for almost a year, and the property was waiting to go up for sale again, which meant whoever had been storing the drugs in the house was squatting.

You let out a frustrated sigh, because if the police can’t figure it out from here then what makes you think you can. Except, when you sit there, tapping your fingers against the desk in frustration and realise you’d been there. You’d been in that house a few months ago with Liv, who had dragged you to some kind of party.

Almost automatically you’re reaching for the phone and dialing the number you’ve got memorized for her. She picks up on the third ring.

“Hello, this is Laredo insurance, you’re speaking to Liv, how can I help?”

You bite back a giggle at her customer service voice, it’s so unlike the girl you really know, “Hello bestie,” You greet, which has her gasping down the phone.

“Oh my god have I forgotten a lunch date?” She asks.

“No, it’s okay, don’t panic,” You say, “It’s a really random question, but you know that party we went to a few months ago, do you know who hosted it?”

You can hear her clicking her tongue in the background as she thinks, “I can’t even remember who invited us,” She sighs, as do you, “I think I just heard about it from someone, who’d heard about it from someone else.”

“God damn it.” You mumble, head in your hand.

“Is it important?”

“I don’t know,” You answer honestly, “It was the place that got busted last week, and I’m just trying to do some digging, but it’s okay, I’m sure if it’s meant to be I’ll figure it out.”

“I have every faith in you,” You can tell she’s smiling on the other end, “Listen, I gotta bounce, but how about we do drinks later on this week?”

“Sounds good, phone me later and we can sort it out.”

“Alright, bye bestie!”

You laugh and wish her a goodbye, deciding you’ve gone as far as you can with this for today. You save what you have of the story, thinking you could send it to your boss for approval as is, but deep down you know there’s something here you can pull on, something bigger than just busting a house full of drugs and taking them off the streets to be dealt, so you keep it to yourself for the rest of the day.

“I’m heading out,” Your boss speaks as she walks past your desk on the way out, “Did you get the story finished?”

A smile thrown her way in response, trying to cover the fact that you want more time, “Almost,” You speak, “Just a few more tweaks and a couple of things I want to check, but I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.”

She nods, seemingly pleased that you’re wanting to make it as perfect as possible, “No rush, we can hold it for a few days until you’re happy with it.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it.”

“Well, you have yourself a good evening and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You wish her the same, watching as she heads out, leaving you in the office alone. You sigh, annoyed that there’s nothing further you can really do. You save the document, gathering your things and deciding you can worry about what to do next tomorrow.

When you emerge from the front door of the office and look across the parking lot to your car, you’re taken aback to find Javier’s truck parked in the space right next to it. He’s leaning against the driver’s side of the truck, casual as anything, with his ankles crossed over each other and his arms crossed over his chest. He notices you stood still, motions you with his head to come over.

Your feet carry you across the parking lot, shoulders heavy with stress and that niggling feeling that you’ve been missing something all day, the one thing that’s going to make you realise what’s going on, but seeing Javi slip his aviators off his face and tuck them into his shirt, shooting a smile your way, you feel a little better.

“What are you doing here?”

He shrugs, in that cool, casual way that he always does, “Wanted to see you,” He reaches out, taking your hand in his to pull you closer, but does so whilst looking around, making sure no-one either of you know can see you, “Wanted to do this.”

Then he leans down, presses his lips to yours, one hand cradling your cheek. It’s different to the kiss at the ranch, it’s not rushed. He keeps his lips pressed against your own for a while, pulling away, but planting one right on your forehead as he leans back against the car.

You bite your bottom lip between your teeth, smiling a little as you feel the temperature rise across your face, “How did you know what time I finished?”

“Lucky guess,” He shrugs, “Thought if you didn’t come out within an hour I’d have just gone home, tried again tomorrow.”

“You would have waited for me for an hour?” You chuckle, leaning against your own car behind you.

“Yeah,” He nods with a smile, “Would wait a lot longer but you know how it is, things to do.”

You settle your back against the passenger side of your car, rubbing a hand up one of your arms, “You seem tense,” Javi observes, “What’s up?”

You consider telling him the whole story, but there’s something niggling in the back of your mind that this is something you should keep to yourself for a while, just until you can try digging for more information first. If you keep drawing up blanks then you can ask him, see if his expertise can offer any ideas, but for now, you keep it vague.

“It’s just work,” You shrug, “Deadlines and stuff, but I’ll be okay.”

You watch him look at you, those beautiful brown eyes looking directly into your own, his mouth pulled into a smirk, “You wanna take a drive?” He asks, head tilting to his truck, “Let me help with some of that stress.”

That familiar pool of arousal is settling in your tummy, excitement thrumming through your veins at what he means. He wants to touch you, and God do you want to touch him right back. But it’s getting late, and you know you’re parents are going to wonder where you are soon enough. There’s not enough time to go driving around, but you think there’s just enough time for something else.

You grin back at him, reaching to grasp his wrist in your hand, somewhat aware of how big he is when you can’t fit your fingers all the way round it. You drag him back across the parking lot, and down the side of the your office building. It’s a small alley, definitely not the most romantic spot, but at least it doesn’t smell, and unless someone is coming looking, you’re not going to be disturbed, most people having gone home from the offices on either side of you.

You go down just far enough that you’re in the shadows, far enough that even if someone did wander past, you’re going to be hidden as much as possible. You drop his hand as you lean back against the brick wall, staring at him as he takes a step closer to you, hands settling on your waist.

“You want me here?” He speaks lowly, bringing his face closer to yours, so close that you could reach up on your toes and kiss him, but you want to see if he breaks first.

You nod your head, tipping it back against the brick, shoving your hips off the wall as some kind of hint to him, “What do you want, hermosa?”

“Want you to touch me, Javi.” You breathe, leaning up just a touch so he can feel the breath from your lips across his.

“But I already am.” He smirks, eyes flitting to where his hands are resting on your hips.

With a roll of your eyes, you reach your own hand down your body, coming to rest of the waistband of your work trousers. You motion your head a little, dragging Javi’s eyes down to where your hand is resting on the button of your trousers, making sure he’s watching when you pop it open, dragging the zip down and then leaving it like that.

His own hand trails from your right hip, warm fingers brushing the skin you’ve revealed, but he doesn’t move them further, just lets his fingers rest on the skin as he brings his lips to your jaw, kissing softly from your chin, all the way up to the delicate skin behind your ear, “Want me to touch you here?” He all but growls into your ear as his hand sinks beneath your trousers, wide palm cupping you through your underwear, bringing a gasp from your throat, “Yeah, sounds like you do baby.”

You bring your hands up to rest on his shoulders – something to grip onto as his fingers trace along the seam of your pussy through the thin cotton of your panties. His touch is gentle, but the way his mouth is pressing hot and wet to the skin across your neck is anything but. It’s searing, and exciting, and wrong but in all the right ways.

“If I dip my fingers under here,” He asks, fingers toying with the elastic of your panties, “You gonna be wet for me, querida?”

“W-why don’t you find out?” You choke out, feeling him smile against the skin of your neck as his fingers dip just below the waistband of your panties, fingers dragging over the curls on your mound, down lower, until they’re so close to where you want them.

He dips his fingers through your folds, slipping them into you so easily. Your mouth drops open, his own so close to yours that you could feel his lips on yours as you moan, his fingers dragging out of you and up to your clit, where he starts gently circling.

“What’s got you all worked up, eh?” He asks, his other hand coming to grip your chin, forcing you to look at him, your mouth dropped open as he works his fingers across your clit, “Can’t just be from me right here,” He muses, “You been sat at your desk thinking about me?”

He presses his fingers more firmly across your clit, it feels so good, the way he’s working you, “T-think about you a-all the time.” You croak out from your throat, hips starting to move with his hand, needing something more.

“Naughty little thing,” He breathes into your ear, teeth nibbling lightly at your earlobe as his fingers drag from your clit back down to where you’re so slick for him, his fingers slipping back inside you, but curling up, finding a spot inside you that no-one had even shown you existed until now, “Feel good?” He asks, “You tell me what works, okay?”

You nod, two of his fingers working in and out of you. It feels good, but it’s nothing compared to the way he made you feel before, when his fingers trailed over your clit in little circles. You grip his wrist, “Outside,” You say simple, “Like how you were doing it before.”

He presses his lips to yours, dragging his fingers back up through your folds, using his middle finger to draw light circles over your swollen bundle of nerves, “Like this?” He asks, which is punctuated with a moan from your lips. It’s loud enough this time that his free hand is flying to cover your mouth with his palm, shushing you as he presses his body against yours, pinning you in place, his own excitement no longer hidden from you. You can feel the bulge of his cock through his jeans, pressing into your side as the movement of his fingers speeds up, just a touch.

Whilst it’s a familiar feeling – it’s the way you’re used to bringing yourself off, more often than not to the thought of the very man in front of you – there’s something so different about Javi being the one to have you dangling over the edge, teetering on the edge of pleasure just with his fingers.

“Tell me, bebita,” He coos into your ear, “Has anyone else ever made you come?”

His palm is still covering your mouth, so you can’t speak, so all you do is shake your head in response, watching as his eyes darken and he sticks his bottom lip out a little in a pout, “Poor girl,” He says, his middle finger speeding up just a touch again, pressing harder, “Shall we fix that?” He asks, which has you nodding your head so ferociously that it should be embarrassing, “Go on then,” He coaxes, “I know you’re close, just let go for me.”

If someone had told you months ago, before he’d reappeared in town, that Javier Peña would be the first man to make you cum, pressed against the brick wall of your office, with his hand clamped around your mouth to stop you from crying out, you’d have told them to get lost.

Your entire body shakes as your orgasm starts to ripple through you. White hot pleasure explodes across your lower body, your fingers dig into Javi’s shoulders, fisting the material of his shirt as he finally drops his hand from your mouth, gripping at your waist to keep your upright when the shaking of your legs threatens to topple you to the ground. His fingers are moving across you more slowly, but are adding just enough pressure to work you through those aftershocks, until it becomes too much.

Your forehead hits his shoulder, your hands wrapping around the breadth of his broadness as he drags his hand from your trousers, slipping both around your back to drag you into his body, “Did so good for me, querida.” He praises, rubbing a soothing hand up and down your spine through your shirt.

“Felt good.” You manage to mumble into the material covering his shoulder, pushing yourself back up and off him, hand trailing down his chest to try and touch him, return the favour, but he’s gripping your wrist to stop you.

“Not tonight,” He says, “Just wanted to make you feel good.”

“But-” You try to protest, but his grip on your wrist is strong and you can’t move it.

“I promise I’ll let you return the favour, but not tonight, okay?”

You nod your head. Javi brings his hands to your trousers, zipping them back up and pushing the button through the buttonhole. He tugs the hem of your shirt back into place, before he presses a kiss to the tip of your nose. He glances at the watch on his wrist, clocking the time, “It’s late, querida,” He sighs, “We better get you on the road.”

And it’s a strange feeling, that this tiny little bubble is bursting so soon. You know it’s important to keep this under wraps, you’re sure no-one would be pleased to find out that Javier Peña, your dad’s friend, had been pinning you to a wall and coaxing an orgasm from you with his fingers, and there’s something about the secrecy of it all that makes it more exciting, but as you walk back to your respective vehicles, Javi so far away that you can’t reach out to touch him, it stings a little. Stings a little that you’re not going to get to be normal with him, that for now, your relationship, whatever that might be, is going to be kept secret, clandestine meetings and stolen glances wherever possible, when all you really want to do is grasp his hand in yours and shout to everyone that he belongs to you.

“We going to make this a habit?” You ask, unlocking your door and sliding into the drivers seat.

Javi keeps a hang on the top of the door, keeping it open for a while, “What?” He smirks, “Pressing you up against brick walls?”

“Pressing each other against brick walls,” You correct, “It’s your turn next time.”

He runs a ringer over his bottom lip, a habit you’ve known for years is something he does when he’s nervous or stressed, “I need you to know if I didn’t have to keep you a secret, I wouldn’t, okay?” You smile up at him, nodding your head, “I promise it won’t always have to be like this, but just for now, okay?”

“Okay,” You nod, “Now give me a kiss goodbye and let me go home.”

He does just that, leans down and gives you a kiss, one that you would class as proper this time, where he opens his mouth against yours, licks into your mouth, the coarse hair above his lip scratching lightly at your skin. He pulls away just a touch, pecking you on the lips once, then twice, then a final time, when you grip the collar of his shirt to keep him there just a little moment more.

“Go home, Javi.” You giggle when you finally let him go, “I’ll see you soon.”

He gives you a final chaste kiss to your lips then shuts your door for you, walking around your car to get in his truck. You wonder for a while if there’s going to a weird stand-off between the two of you, but he turns the key in his ignition and drives off with a final wave, leaving you to do the same.

When you pull up outside your home, you pull the mirror down, make sure nothing on your face gives away what you’d just been up to, smoothing down your hair. You take a second to take a few deep breaths, before you step out, going back to being the innocent daughter your parents still believe you to be.

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houseofhyde · 2 months ago

Text

v. another man's legacy

pairing. aemond targaryen x fem!reader synopsis. prince aemond calls all with fire in their blood forth to dragonstone with promise of a grand announcement, unawares of the king's own announcement. chapter warnings. no use of y/n, brother-in-law!aemond, stark!reader, infidelity, purity culture, extended family drama, possible spoilers for events that take place in fire & blood! smut ( unprotected piv, creampie, [redacted]'s cum used as lube, fingering, exhibitionism? possibly? maybe? if you squint? ) please kindly notify me of any warning i may have missed. word count. 13k. hyde’s input. i ideally wanted this posted a week ago but i've unexpectedly had quite a busy month, sorry besties. lowkey hate how this turned out, wrote it in a rush, but hopefully you enjoy the chapter x ( if you see a typo, no you didn't )

another man's series. feast. comfort. pleasure. pain. legacy. jealousy. ( coming october ) read on ao3. listen to the playlist.

The ravens are put to work.

Daybreak, nightfall. Sunrise, sundown. Highwinds, dry air. Blue sky, grey storms. Between man’s certainty of life and death, a new one arises: the promise of feathered wings flying high over the streets of King’s Landing. Dark wings, dark words — a phrase your late septa had sworn by, fear in her eyes everytime a bird dared arrive at Winterfell carrying a message — it does not ring true to the ink that fills the recent parchments.

The guardsmen saw me home safely through the southron sands, past the Stormlands, and alas, to King’s Landing. I pray for safety in your own travels.

You had written it in a hurry and sent it with even more haste, the innocent intentions of wishing well to a man bound to you in marriage. You had awaited no reply, in truth, yet when the raven perched itself upon your window sill at the Hour of the Wolf, you felt your heart try to flee out of your chest.

Whispers travel faster than ravens, I knew of your arrival already. It is good to read of it in your own hand. You need not fret on my safe-being, for I sit upon a mount from where no man may harm me.

No name, no signature. A rule unspoken yet well-kept. Should words be seen by unintended eyes, there is no space for errors, big nor small, for errors lead to questions, questions lead to answers, and answers lead to exposure.

It is truly a bore to attend courts as of late. No one lends me the privilege of a dance and, the few who do, seem to possess two left feet. I fear for the health of my toes, crushed under the weight of misplaced steps.

Your days in Dorne have come to mark a significant shift in your life, moulding you into a different version of a woman who always existed within you. You returned to the capital not only wearing a new dress, but a new attitude. A life divided by two key phases: Before Dorne, and After Dorne. And, yet, all that has truly changed in your life is this: the letters.

We danced this evening, when you visited my sleeping mind. Naked, sweet, pliant. It felt so real. I could taste you, smell you, feel you. I woke with a most horrible discomfort in my loins. You have ignited a longing in me befitting a petulant child, not a man of my class. How am I expected to live with never having you again?

There is a creature inside you that wishes to collect his words, like a crow collects a shiny trinket. Assign them a drawer at your bedside, a place for them to live near your resting head and hopefully whisper themselves into your dreams, the only lands you are able to get a glimpse of his blonde hair, and lean arms, and soft mouth. That would mean danger, however, a trail of evidence for someone to find. Each parchment lives on as nothing more than a pile of ash in your hearth.

There is rumour of Lohar’s death. Assassination, they say. It ripped apart the triarchy, half of them fighting, the other half fleeing. I must be honest when speaking on the swelling of my own pride. You not only heed my warnings, but also took my advice. Perhaps my next advice will be that you meet me beneath moon and sky, and let only our bodies and the gods bear witness to what we do.

Words grow bolder as minds grow desperate. You find yourself in a rut, counting days as if it does not add to your own torture. Insatiable, a term you have scarcely used to describe yourself in past times, yet it is all that feels adequate since that night upon foreign sheets. Your husband takes you, like a hound takes its bitch, and you welcome him. Close your eyes, picture that same silver hair, but another’s face, hands, voice. It ends how all couplings end between you — an unanswered prayer between your thighs, a bud on the permanent precipice of bursting into bloom, only for Aegon to rip it out by its roots and spill his own seed in its place. But for a moment, while his hips beat relentlessly against the swell of your arse and his nails dig crescents into your skin, you feel it: a subtle, low-burning pleasure. Not much, but enough, more than before.

Give me cause and I shall give you no rest, my Lady.

“Are you not enjoying the boar, wife?” Aegon’s voice cuts through the fog of your thoughts and brings your surroundings back into focus.

The King’s chambers, a table set for two, a handful of maids carrying pitchers of wine, and a nervous harpist, plucking a disjointed tune with shaky fingers. You pity the man. It is one thing to play to a court of dancing bodies and chattering mouths, it is another to play in the privacy of the King and Queen Consort as they dine in one another’s company.

You cough out a denial, shake your head as if to emphasise, “it is as tender today as it was yesterday, my King.”

“You’ve hardly touched it.”

“My thoughts feed me tonight.”

“Any that you care to share?”

No. “Of course,” Aemond takes the centre frame in your mind’s eye, not so much an image as he is a concept. You push him aside. “I attended this morning. Your dealings with the smallfolk, I watched from the balcony that sits over the throne room.”

“I saw,” he seems to light up as the topic is brought forth. Intrigued enough to lay down his cup and rest his forearms along the table, leaning closer as if awaiting some great secret to spill from your lips. You wonder if he would be half as amused if your mouth followed through on his unspoken request. “Well go on then! What did you think?”

“What did I… Think?” Your husband nods his head with enthusiasm, his unruly locks of hair shaking as he does so. It is hard to picture him any other way than this, unkept and unbothered, nothing like the rest of his Valyrian bloodline, with their meticulous braids and their well pampered image. Were it not for the striking colour that grows out his scalp, you would hardly believe Aegon is a Targaryen. His dark eyebrows shoot up expectantly. “You did well. You were cooperative and understanding. Just, too. No matter the personal issue they laid at your feet, you truly tried to solve things as best you could. You were… Aegon, you were kingly.”

“Do not sound so surprised,” rose tinted cheeks, a splash of bloodrush upon his soft skin. The wine must be getting to him and yet… And yet you wonder if it is something more, a rush of excitement at praise. He had never wanted this — the crown, the throne, you — until push came to shove and he felt the sweet weight of the Conqueror’s legacy rest upon his head and the grip of Blackfyre in his fist. Whether driven by ego or a genuine wish to do well by the people of his realm, Aegon has taken on his duties as of late with a grace no one, not even his own blood, had expected of him. A mess made in times of war, he spears ahead to clean up what rubble and ashes remain of the land. “I’m sure you’re wondering what prompted my invite to sup here, alone.”

“You are my husband, I am your wife. Who else would I share my meals with?”

“I am sure there are names ahead of mine on that list,” the smile he flashes is jaded. “Sometimes I worry you wish to forget our marriage.”

“Aegon, husband, I would never do such a thing.” And yet, you have. Naked in the Dornish heat, another name upon your tongue, another man inside your cunt.

“Leave us,” two words, enough to send the serving wenches out in a flurry of footsteps. The drag of a harp across the floor, loud and resounding as the musician slips his way out the room, closing the door behind himself. And then it is truly just the two of you, inspecting the other under a gaze cold enough it reminds you of the snow that falls over Winterfell. “The letter,” your heart leaps to your throat, blocking the space and robbing you of your breath. He knows, he knows, he knows. He knows of the letters, and the deceit, and all those complicated feelings you hold for- “That I sent to you during your time with my sister. I have not forgotten it. I expect you haven’t either.”

Air fills your lungs, your heart settles back down in the cage of your chest. The shake in your hand remains, and so you fill it with the weight of your other hand, clasp them both into stillness. “No.”

“Wonderful. Then you’ll recall my mention of a chat we’re overdue. There is no time like the present,” the little of your dinner that sits in your stomach stirs. Flips. Threatens to claw its way back up and out of you, spill itself all over the table. That would not rouse any suspicion, surely. It would be a perfectly rational response to your husband, bound to you in cloth beneath the Seven, requesting to chat with you. Aegon continues, as if unaware or simply unbothered by the distress bursting out of your seams. “It is not lost on me, you know? The looks you cast my way, the disdain that has slowly wiped itself over our union, a permanent stain that hovers over every interaction we share. I believe it is time to admit to-”

The chamber doors burst open anew.

“Your grace,” Maester Orwyle, out of breath, sweat lining his brow, and his chain hanging heavy from his neck. Never has his face been such a welcomed sight.

“I believe I ordered that my wife and I be left alone.”

“Apologies, your grace, but this is a pressing matter,” the maester holds up a scrap of paper, the edges curling in on themselves. “I carry word from the Crown Prince, Aemond Targaryen.”

You sit up a little straighter at the mention of his name. Days of private correspondence, nights of fantasised meetings, you have forgotten just how commanding his name sounds when spoken aloud.

Aegon sinks deeper into his chair, a boredom taking over his features as he waves his hand, “well then, go on, spit it out!”

“Prince Aemond has requested the presence of all members of House Targaryen at Dragonstone,” his sandal-covered feet make gentle pitter-patter against the floor as he approaches the table, laying out the note for Aegon to grab at and inspect for himself. “The letter brings promise of an announcement from the prince.”

The great Targaryen dynasty.

Built on the ashes of burnt kingdoms and the man-shaped collateral damage of one family’s lust for control. Centuries of legacy, an infinite amount of tales that better fit the stuff of legends and scriptures. Lavish castles, luxurious clothing, Valyrian steel. A puritan bloodline, a family tree that circles itself. The smell of a dragon’s breath, the shine of silver-blessed hair. And this is what it has been reduced to.

Four dragons. Two crippled by war, wings with crooked bones and punctured skin. One a mere hatchling, no older than three, with a sickly pale colour and an unhealthy disposition that keeps it curled around its bonded rider’s shoulder, unwilling to stray far. And then there is the eldest of them, unchanged by the war, already well-versed in the age-old Targaryen tradition of burning enemies to a crisp.

The Martells are the first to arrive. A small boat, with a handful of guardsmen, two ladies in waiting, a wet nurse, Princess Helaena, and her two children. The Prince of Dorne has remained at the seat of his house, unwilling to leave it defenceless in the early hours of peace.

The Hightowers arrive next. Three great ships, stuffed to the brim with armed men, and mute maids, and shy squires. Amongst them, the lowly Garmund Hightower stands at command, but it is his wife who’s presence has truly been requested: Rhaena Targaryen. The last time you had seen her, no war had transpired and she had been betrothed to another. If only Aemond had not taken to the skies that fateful night…

Above the Hightower fleet, another representative of House Targaryen flies, sat atop the blue beauty, Tessarion, the left side of her still marred with scars and puncture wounds littering her left wing from the battles she had endured during the war of kin. Daeron had insisted she fly, however, having not taken to the skies in moons, since the wedding at Winterfell.

The Velaryons do not answer the summoning. It is said Baela Targaryen, infuriated at her cousin’s request, had to be shackled to her bedpost, ranting and raving threats of greeting Aemond Targaryen in Dragonstone — with a sword down his throat.

And then, at last, the King’s fleet arrives. An outlandish six ships, with more guards than dare fit on the island, enough chamber-maids to fill the Great Hall, and the main figureheads of the Green Council. Up above flies Sunfyre, a watchful eye amid the clouds, yet his back remains riderless. The King, instead, stands at your side aboard the ship, his mother and grandsire on the opposite end of him.

At last, you step foot on Dragonstone, and that is when you notice her.

Vhagar, a mass resting atop a hill, too large to nest within the caves, too lonesome to answer the call of her kind, the excited screeches taking place on sand as Tesarion and Sunfyre circle one another, jostling against the keepers who attempt to wrangle the pair into the mouth of a cave. You watch as the giant she-dragon merely lifts her head, peering at the antics, before laying back down, uninterested in the commotion of everyone’s arrival.

To tell the truth, you are not all that interested in greeting everyone either, too many heads bowing in your direction as you smile and exchange pleasantries by your husband’s side. The commotion of an extended bloodline retracing the halls of its ancestral home, unwanted as it may have been, only makes it all the more easy to slip away once you cross the threshold of the castle, however, letting your feet sneak off to your own private summoning.

Once you arrive, I recommend you find your way to the library. Alone.

The raven had arrived hours before you departed the capital, shaking out its feathers as you awoke from your slumber. You barely had the time to read over it once before the doors to your chambers came barreling open, an army of ladies waiting to grab all your loose threads and sort them back into place. Wash your hair, scrub your skin, rouge your lips. Tighten your bodice, clasp your necklace, rest the dainty tiara atop your head.

Running your thumb over the dried ink, you trace the words he wrote to you, before tucking the note safely back into the sleeve of your dress.

The library is miniscule in comparison to the one living within the Keep, yet it still manages to steal your breath away, stumbling through the door. Rows of dark oak bookcases, stuffed full of colourful, aged, leather-bound, cloth-bound spines of books. The smell of old, the smell of history, with a hint of spice and a flare of cinnamon. Candles with their wax melting into the surfaces they rest upon. Chairs, cushioned by green leather and detailed with dragon-like carvings. A table littered with scrolls, and ink, and feather quills, signs of life having been here. But no sign of Aemond Targaryen.

Boredom brings your feet to a halt within the row of bookcases furthest from the door, curiosity leads your hand to pulling at the spine of an aged book. Dragons: A Record of the Hatched. The smell of dust infects your nostrils as you flick through the wrinkled pages, from end to beginning.

Morning has yet to be listed. You let a few pages flick past, find yourself staring at the sketch of a familiar creature. Syrax. A splotch of ink covers the name of her rider. Turn to the next page, and there sits the Blood Wyrm, with Aemon Targaryen followed by a splotch of ink listed under his riders. Page after page, dragon after dragon, sketch after sketch, the names of the Black Council sit hidden behind stains of black ink.

An uneasy feeling stirs in your stomach and a sadness burns at your eyes, staring down at how easily their existences are being erased from history. How long, you wonder, until Rhaenyra Targaryen is nothing but the beggar Queen in a folk song, another name lost to time and another life lost to the throne? How long until the stories of the Black Council are more myth than fact?

How fickle of a thing, life. Order dictates that a name promises a legacy, a memory, a marking in a family tree to be listed until the end of time. And, yet, so easily man picks and chooses the scraps of history that will remain, when time has long passed and all who lived through it have perished back into the ground.

The sickening feeling wells inside you, uncomfortable and heavy, and so you turn another page, and another, and another, until you find yourself faced with Vhagar. The sketch does no justice to her sheer size, cramped within the page, but your eyes do not linger long enough to care. Instead, they are reading over the list of riders to find the one they seek. Aemond Targaryen. You lift a hand off the edge of the book, fingers skirting forward to trace over the lustrous A of his name.

The weight of the book shifts, resting carefully in the palm of your left hand, teetering on the edge of slipping, when something grabs at you. With a great smack, the book crashes to the floor, a cloud of dust bursting out as its pages snap shut. Arms wind around your waist, loose yet firm in their hold, and a spread of warmth blankets over your back.

“They just reached the crypts. We have less time than I had hoped.”

The voice is a whisper in your ear, a fleeting kiss against your neck, the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. Gentle, soothing, delicate. Something given only to you, meant only for you. It warms a chill within you, melts away the frost encasing your heart, heating you to the bone and soothing the uneasy feeling in your loins. It is the feeling of tired limbs sinking into soft sheets, it is the feeling of stepping through the familiar gates of Winterfell, it is the feeling of home. It is Aemond.

The arms that bind you to him pull a little tighter, a momentary rob of your breath. Your hands claw at his wrists, squeezing down to feel the firmness of bone beneath skin, skin beneath leather. No ink, no paper, no written promises. Tangible, tactile, sentient. Him, him, him. Firm at your back, calm in your heart, forgiving in your ear. Your tongue itches to tell him you have endured that longing, the very same he confessed to, head deep in his cups, mouth stained in the strawberry jam of your tarts.

“You erased them. Their names, they no longer exist,” the words are an accusation, your tone is not. It is just — sad, empty, disbelieving. The mourning of strangers, a family you met once upon a time, a table set in honour of a dying man, a family feud brushed falsely aside. Until the tension snapped, until Aemond raised his cup. Final tribute.

Final.

Tribute.

“Traitors have no place in our history,” fingers tug at the green velvet of your dress, moulding the golden stitching of a dragon out of shape. You resist his call to turn, not when his words feel so cold compared to his touch. “By order of the King.”

“They were your family, your blood,” you say, willing it to mean something, willing him to show a moment of vulnerability, like his confession amid tangled limbs and wrinkled sheets. A rusty chain in need of oiling, his remorse sits buried beneath layers of oxidised irony, a faux coldness the sorrowful look in his eye so often contradicts.

You turn, at your own will, and find that very look staring back at you. Momentarily, it bleeds with something, the sharpness in his stare softening as he takes in the features of your face, as if he needs reminding of how you look, to tune his imagination more deftly to your true image.

“They tried to kill you,” it is a whisper yet the prince almost seems to spit it out, as though it is a struggle to let the words form on his tongue, his eye widening as if the memories all come barreling in, the sight of blood on your skin, blood on your sleeping gown, coin beneath his table. “Do not ask me to mourn them.”

“And what of it, if I do ask it of you?” It is daring, to straighten your back and tighten your grip on his wrists, only to drop them and grab for his face, instead, as he tries to flee from your eyes. You hold him there, thumb smoothing over scarred cheek. “Would you mourn them?”

His mouth does not answer.

Instead, it kisses you.

Everything melts away under his lips, all thoughts, and questions, and pleadings. Words drift away, your mind rids itself of all the letters that do not belong to him. Aemond. Why would you ever need more than those six letters?

It is the seventh time the prince has joined his mouth to yours. You know this not because you have tried to keep count, but because each one is as striking as the last, as utterly world-bending, and fear-ending, and noteworthy.

There was the night in your chambers, from sudden kiss, to hesitant lips, to sinful tongues. Two nights later, the weight of Helaena’s teary eyes still heavy on your shoulders, you fell tangled amongst sheets with him once more. Breaths exchanged, whimpered names, a carnal hunger that only grew the more you both fed it. Twice, with no respite between, as the moon hung stars in the sky. And when the sun began to paint an orange hue, he woke you just to have you once more, eyes barely departing from sleep, bodies laying on their sides, a leg thrown over his waist, and a hand cradling your mouth against his own.

The last kiss had tasted of sorrow and longing. In the early hours of the morning, a flurry of soft knocks at a door opened to him, wide awake and dishevelled.

“I could not do it,” he had muttered, cradling you closer with each step he took into the room. “Not again.”

Though the matter of this it had never been clarified, you knew, you understood. You agreed. Not again could you see yourselves departed from another, without so much as a proper goodbye. Suddenly, that momentary longing you had to return to the Keep had been nothing but a bout of insanity, and all you wished was to fall asleep one more night in Dornish sheets. Instead, you would later count sheep whilst attempting to ignore the turning of wheels and the whinnying of tired horses.

That kiss came with no warning, his mouth on yours in one blink of a teary eye, and lingered longer than either of you dared acknowledge. Each time one seemed ready to let go, the other pulled closer, pressed harder, kissed deeper. An ending, no pause. No see you later, only goodbye. A picture-perfect ending to an affair already gone too far with, left behind by both of you as you raced to return to reality, abandoning the whispers, and the sighs, and the unspoken vows to bury themselves beneath layers of sand and silk.

But this kiss, the one that has your back pressed against the wooden bookshelves and all sense bleeding out of your ears and spilling onto stone floor, is no goodbye. It is hello. It is I missed you. It is welcome home.

It is a kiss for the simple sake of a kiss, like true lovers do, meant nothing more but to fulfil a craving for one another’s taste.

“You look lovely in green,” he brushes the compliment against your lips, eye slipping shut and unaware of how your own trace down the healing flesh atop his eyepatch, no sign of the thread of your dress still embedded in his skin. You should be happy he has healed up, yet there is a twist in your gut that longs for the return of something belonging to you being threaded into him, a physical marking of your place in his life, no matter how small a space it occupies. “Have I ever told you so?”

A sting in your eyes. You try to recollect the last time anyone had told you such a thing, paid you such an earnest compliment, and come up empty handed.

You shake your head.

“What a coward. I should have told you, everytime,” he gifts you an eighth kiss, a fleeting peck against your mouth, yet the tingly feeling lingers on, a reminder that he has touched you. “I thought it, each time I saw you wear it.” A ninth kiss. “Each time I saw you wear anything,” a tenth, eleventh, twelfth kiss. “Each time I saw you.”

“Aemond,” you pull back from him, in hope of remembering what you had been saying before he laid his mouth on you.

The brush of a hand up your thigh has you forgetting all over again, head falling back against the books with a gentle thud and a subtle sigh. If he notices the way your legs slip open with no resistance, or how the left one hooks itself so easily over his hip, the prince says nothing.

A trail of goosebumps, following the path of his palm up the length of your inner thigh, tugging at the layers of underclothing and smallclothes, meaningless scraps of cotton that only waste time.

Time.

“We don’t have much time,” you hate yourself for saying it, and even more when he reminds you of the bliss of his kiss down your neck. “You said it.”

“Then we make do and act with haste.”

It takes you longer to register what Aemond says than it does for his fingers to make good on his promise, slipping wordlessly beneath garments and meeting warm skin, wet skin, a buzzing bud of nerves that lives between the apex of your thighs.

In a pathetic display, a singular circular rub against you, followed by a gentle stroke between your lower lips, has you biting the inside of your cheek, noise stifled in the act. Satisfaction crosses through the prince’s eye, a quirk in the corner of his razor sharp lips. Teasing, playful, he is watching you writhe over his touch.

A harrowing memory dawns over you a moment too late, when Aemond has already gone and spoken his thoughts aloud.

“Eager, Lady Stark?” The tips of two fingers, long, and lithe, and a welcome intrusion in your cunt as the prince curls them, pressing against an eye-roll inducing spot within you. “Tell me, your grace, was it the taste of my tongue or the ludicrous act of sneaking off to meet me, under the very same roof as your husband, that has you soaking my fingers?”

Your lips part. You try to speak, no words are produced.

The prince must mistake it for bashfulness, a challenge to best, for he slowly thrusts his fingers, back and forth, brushing a little deeper each time, curling a little more sinfully against the soft walls of your core, the occasional brush of his thumb over the warmth of your pearl.

No longer biting your cheek, a traitor’s moan, gentile and heard only in the space between you, bursts out your mouth. You speak his name, trying to get the words right, trying to warn him of the unknown spoils he is knuckles-deep in.

Aemond mistakes it for just another call of pleasure.

And then, all by himself, the realisation seems to fall over him.

Hand slips out from under cotton smallclothes and green velvet, fingers that shine wet, shine white beneath candlelight. You stare at them in a mixture of horror, shame, and ruined dignity, apologies already rushing off your tongue before the prince can even speak a word of the seed that drips down his knuckles.

“Aegon, he- Gods, I am sorry,” his silent observation of the white fluid only makes your loins tangle in their own web, a twisted sickness creeping to the back of your throat, the blood draining from your face. “He insisted on coupling, this morning. I did not think-”

Your rambling is interrupted by the sudden intrusion of Aemond’s soiled fingers, thrust against your tongue and coating it in your husband’s flavour.

It should disgust you. It should bring a wave of shame, flooding over you and dragging you beneath its unforgiving surface, drowning you in its overwhelming currents. Remains of an act of marriage, mixed with the taste of your act of passion, and the taste of his skin, beneath it all.

But it is hard to feel shame, when Aemond looks at you with so much approval in his eye, when he’s feeding his fingers deeper, till they bump the palate of your mouth and trigger that teary-eyed effect you remember, all too well, from his chambers’ floor, your knees bruising into stone, his hips fighting against the urge to buck up into the warmth of your mouth.

“It seems I owe my brother some gratitude,” the clink of metal, a belt tugged loose. Somewhere, beneath where your eyes dare stray from his hypnotic gaze, his free hand works himself free from the confines of his breeches. Shooting under your skirts and dragging them up the length of your legs as you lick one last time at his fingers, watching how they slip out your mouth and shine once again beneath the candlelight. Not a trace of Aegon remains, except for between your thighs. “He’s gotten you prepared for me, whether he be so aware or not.”

With one leg hooked around his waist and the layers of your gown bunched around your own, the prince pins you between the bookcase and a hard place, a hard thing, notching at your centre and reminding you of the pleasures of the flesh, the pleasures of Aemond’s flesh.

With one roll, then a second, and a third, of his hips, the prince’s cock sinks slowly inside your cunt. There is a small ache, a sensitivity left behind by Aegon’s earlier frantic motions over the edge of a table, the corner of it digging into the meat of your thigh over, and over, and over again with each uncoordinated thrust. The wince escapes you before you can even try to correct it. The prince stills, instantly, a hand cupping at your cheek and a kiss pressing against the tip of your nose.

“I do not wish to hurt you,” he whispers. Gentle, earnest, reassuring. Tears well at your eyes again, you try to blink them away, and scold yourself for getting so wet in the eye, so often. A tear escapes you regardless, charting its own course down your cheek. Aemond catches it with the tip of his tongue, warm against the cold of your face. “Tell me, it will not cause me anger. Tell me if you do not want this.”

Memories of those same words, that same voice, the same body. But a different room, a different position, a different state of undress. Naked, denial, hesitation, then. Clothed, touching, anticipation, now. The prince, buried deep inside you physically, is still giving you the option of an end, of an exit, of pushing him away and repositioning your clothing and leaving, like nothing has ever happened.

It only serves to reaffirm what you do want.

Him.

Somehow, the surety of this threatens a new wave of tears that you almost shed. You want to collapse into him, sink into the vessels of his arms, let yourself be lost to eternity within his hold. You want to tell him the truth, to tell him what Aegon had wanted of you in his letter, in his chambers, to tell him what Helaena had prophesied. The Stranger. The truth feels too complicated a thing, however, and the sin of lust is a more pleasurable subject to get lost within. You do not have much time, the prince would not wish to waste it on silly things, like feelings, and fears, and where your relationship with your husband stands.

The leg at his waist holds him closer, reaffirming your grip at the first sign of him stepping back. You don’t let him, won’t let him, “it’s fine. I’m fine. Please, don’t let me go.”

The prince proves he can listen well, no more questions falling from his lips, movement resuming in his hips. Slow, smooth, back and forth gyrations, a remedy to the dull ache below your womb, the lubrication of Aegon’s seed aiding in the slide of his cock within you.

A back that digs into the surface behind it, yet you ignore it in favour of the delightful thrill of Aemond working into you each time a little faster, a little harder, a little less restrained. A hand that finds cause amidst his Targaryen tresses, tangling in the locks as the prince’s forehead lays itself to rest upon your own. A set of mouths that hover inches apart, a single breath of air exchanged back and forth in sync with the rhythm of his thrusts.

Time. Time. You do not have much time.

But who is counting the seconds while the pair of you merge into one against the spines of books carrying the words of history? It is best it all be forgotten — the duty, the King, the announcement Aemond has promised his kin — in exchange for just another moment here, pressed one to the other, forgoing titles like Prince, and Queen, remembering only the shape of mouths, and the burn of skin.

The prince’s fingerprints carve out bruises along your thigh, gripping, and pulling, and kneading at the skin, a leverage to grasp onto as he continues to fuck into you. Sweat drips down your neck like wax drips down lit candles, disappearing beneath the lace atop your dress’ bodice and slipping between the valley of your breasts. Warm all over, you crave no refuge from it, from him, tugging him closer, arching your back, losing yourself in the feeling of friction. One foot still pressed to the floor, perching on your tip-toes, your composure buckles alongside your knee and, if not for Aemond’s fast-moving hands, quick-thinking mind, you would be moments away from crashing, elbow first, down to the floor.

Instead, you feel the prince hoist your leg around his waist, ankles locking behind his back with a reinforced grip as he takes on the weight of both your bodies. The effort he puts into fucking you manifests in a series of grunts, clenched teeth that hold back words, bite back filth.

One hand still tangled in his hair, the other stretches up, reaches behind you, scrambling to find purchase on a panel of wood from the bookcase. It finds, instead, the top of a book, slipping down its leather spine. The book falls, crashing to the ground near the one you had been reading with a great sound. A domino effect, in which two, three, four more heavy, bound by string and wrapped in leather, books fall from the shelves. Thud after thud, after thud, no doubt heard from anyone passing by.

The prince does not flee. If anything, he appears almost spurred on by the scandal and mess, a hand sliding from your waist to pull and bunch the layers of your dress higher, as if wishing to unveil to the naked eye the sins transpiring beneath the green of it, the repeated plunge of his manhood into your core, soaked in a vile mixture of your own pleasure and Aegon’s spend.

“This is what you wanted, hmm? What you needed, Lady Stark,” his voice is a whisper, his teeth biting at the lobe of your ear and pulling a shocked gasp from you. “To be filled by a man’s seed, the kind that knows how to get the job done. Not the King’s poor excuse. No. No, not Aegon’s. Mine.”

Time, and how little of it you both have, feels all the more unimportant, that familiar feeling — of everything warm, and soft, and delightful — begins to tighten at your loins, poking and proding at your dizzied conscious as you feel his cock bullying itself deeper, and deeper, impossibly deeper inside of you. The end is near, within your grasp, waiting for the right thrust, or the perfect grind, or the best friction, to finally let the thread snap.

A knock, loud and forceful, at the wooden doors to the library, is followed instantly by a voice. “Is someone in there?”

Movement stops, both of you frozen, bodies tangled in a crucifiable state.

The handle turns, you gasp, Aemond slaps a hand over your mouth.

For a moment, you feel a weight fall off your shoulders, that ever-looming fear you have dragged along with you — a ball and chain attached to your heart, ever since your return to the capital — that all your guilt sits written upon your face and, soon, someone will read it and see the treason you have committed, the adultery you have engaged in. For certain, they will have your head separated from the rest of you. Perhaps, the King will find enough grace in his heart to forgive his brother. After all, what blame does he truly possess? He is a man, unmarried and unburdened by the threat of a bastard’s life ever swelling within him. At the very least, you will die swiftly and be able to put all your lamenting to rest at last.

Then, the door fails to open and the prince’s voice is in your ear.

“I locked it. Do not worry.”

Mouth still covered, all you manage is to continue staring at him, eyes wide with fear, heart beating against the confines of your ribs. As if to worsen things, you watch as something flashes behind his eye, and he pulls his hips back only to thrust right back into you, the bookcase rattling softly behind you.

“Who goes there?” Aemond calls out, voice steady, unwavering. Even as he repeats the movement, the slow pull-back of his cock, the quick refilling of your core. “Announce your intentions to your prince.”

The golden handle goes still, a throat clears, and metal clinks, as if a knight were straightening his posture. “Forgive me, Prince Aemond, I did not mean to interrupt, I know how dedicated you are to your studies,” the voice is familiar, something that strikes deeper fear within you and more daring in Aemond’s features.

“Do you think he knows,” the prince croons against your skin, a sickly sweet, well-deep sound that entices you to throw yourself, head first, into it. The dull pleasure between your thighs is slowly rebuilding itself into something monstrous, something you lost sight of at the echo of knuckles on wood, with each thrust the prince drives into you. “Just how dedicated I am to studying you?”

“I was sent in pursuit of the queen,” the man at the door continues when he receives no word from Aemond. Your nails dig scratches into the bookcase. Your heart doubles, triples in speed with each beat it takes, yet you do not push Aemond away, you do not shake your head, you do not so much as move an inch away from him. Your ankles tighten their grip on one another at his back. “Have you seen her?”

Aemond nods, a cheeky grin taking shape upon those lips. As if staring right into your soul, the prince reads you effortlessly, watching as the seconds pass by and sanity slips surely out of your reach, the haze of lust fully overtaking the fear that fights against it.

Another book falls from the case. The man outside is too consumed by the sound of his own voice to notice. At least, you hope. “I’m her sworn shield, you see. Ser Arryk Carg-”

“Have you tried any of the guest chambers?” He cuts the knight off, confident in his words, as if he does not stand mere inches from your face, manhood buried to the hilt inside of you. “Perhaps Lady Stark grew tired of our Graces’ company and desired some much needed respite?”

With a rush of flustered agreements, and a couple of apologies, Ser Arryk clinks away, a mass of metal that grows further away with each step he takes. Not a moment too soon does he leave, for at last the tension snaps and you’re crying out into the prince’s palm, eyes rolling back into your skull as you reach your peak. He follows not long after, a series of grunts that follow the pistoning of his hips before he stills, as deep within you as either of your bodies allow, spilling himself inside your walls.

A few laboured breaths pass between the culmination of your coupling. Your feet meet the ground once more, the aid of Aemond’s hands guiding them down from their pedestal. Weak in the knees, you sink forward, sink into him, hands reaching for any inch of him. The prince meets you halfway, mouth finding your own once more, lips melting together in a fleeting kiss.

Time. You don’t have much time.

“Aemond,” you whisper, half to grab his attention, half to savour the shape of his name on your tongue. Now is the time to tell him, even if it is rushed out amid heavy breathing and on shaky legs. He needs to hear of it from you, before the threat of Aegon grabs ahold of him, thrusts the news upon him off-guard. “Aemond, there is something you must know-”

He cuts you off, a chaste kiss against your forehead before hands shift your weight backwards, resting you against the bookcase. The same hands adjust the skirts of your dress.

“Turn left down the hall and up the first staircase you see. There you shall find some guest rooms,” he steps back and takes the warmth of him too, leaving goose-skin to bloom along your neck as cold air bites at sweaty skin. “You will need to move with haste, before your sworn shield reaches that wing of the castle.”

The door to the library shuts gently at his back, and there the prince leaves you, chest heaving, lips parted, heart racing. An ache blooming between your legs and the stain of his seed sliding down your thigh.

The very same state Aegon had left you in, hours earlier.

Never has the castle been so full of life.

The flicker of candlelight brightens every hall, painting shadows over slate walls. Voices of men, women, and children carry through the space, ring through every corner. It reminds him, momentarily, of hosting an army of soldiers, mind dragging him back to the dark days and darker nights lived within Harrenhall, echoes of haunted shrieks and unpleasant sleep, men huddling under the crumbling ceiling, mere leagues away from the charred bones of a House that no longer stands. Beneath the molten breath of a dragon, it truly does not matter what name a man wears, he will never be Strong enough to endure the skin-splitting, blood-boiling, eye-popping heat.

In truth, Aemond loathes the sudden company.

Moons now he has lived at peace, Lord to the island and Prince of Dragonstone, waiting idly for the day to come where his duty as heir at last calls upon him. But then he just had to go and open that damned letter, answer a call that never should have been laid at his feet, and fly out to the dusty lands of Dorne. The new warmth in the air to blame for all his impropriety, landing him tangled with you in his own muddied desires. Since then, the prince has known no peace: his bed now too quiet, his castle now too empty, his… you now too far away.

The restlessness is what drove him to act, hours spent with his nose thrust between the pages of books, wrist cramping and fingers aching as they wielded a quill, delicate swirls filling empty pages. When he ran out of things to read, and history to recount before sending it off in ravens to the maesters at Oldtown, he took to the courtyard, determined to make men out of squawking squires, so puppy-eyed and pink-cheeked, they seemed to have hardly lived a day away from their mothers’ teats. And when that became a bore, a lost cause he dumped back on the shoulders of the master of arms, the prince took to exploring. A lonesome activity, peaceful enough to find an emblem of rest for his soul in the echo of his own footsteps bouncing off cave walls. It was there, deep in the dark corners of the island, he stumbled upon a discovery, a reason to call upon the King, an excuse to see your face. After all, where the King goes, the Queen is expected to follow.

Were matters left in his hands, the only raven sent would have been the one flying out to King’s Landing. Unfortunately, the rational words of a maester had him agreeing that this was too momentous a thing to not include all those of his bloodline, no matter if that blood be thick or thin.

And here he now stands, seeking out that quiet his castle had lost the moment their ships all docked ashore. Falsely, he had believed he would find it hidden away in the hall that houses the throne of Dragonstone, away from the rapidly filling dining hall. The unwelcome sight of a crown sitting lopsided on a head of silver hair halts his step.

“Tread carefully, brother,” Aemond watches how the other man’s shoulders rise with a jump, startled by the sudden sound of his voice announcing his arrival. No guards stand nearby, no guests watch on. It is just them, the King and the Crown Prince, and the heavy presence of Dragonstone’s seat, currently being warmed beneath Aegon’s rump. “Your throne is in King’s Landing. That one belongs to your heir, to me.”

Propped upon his throne, the King swings both legs over its side. Aemond ponders over the man’s distasteful care for grace, an image that so wholly encapsulates his attitude towards ruling the Seven Kingdoms, and feels himself fighting off a frown. How can it be that the gods chose Aegon to man the task of carrying on the dragon empire?

He, a drunken fool, a boy more interested in spreading a whore’s legs than a book’s pages. He, a graceless soldier, a threat to his own safety each time he wields a blade. He, a useless husband, a leech draining the life out of a wolf-pup, locking her away in a kennel with not a lick of water nor a stroke of affection.

Aemond could recite the pages of every book, back to front.

Aemond could thrust his sword through the chest of his uncle with one hand, while the other steered Vhagar free from plummeting through the surface of the God’s Eye.

Aemond would keep the wolf at his heel — morning, noon, evening — close by and content for eternity, free to roam beyond the four walls of a castle.

“Worry not, I just wanted to make sure you’re keeping the seat warm.” As if to make matters worse, Aegon gives him one of those smiles, the kind that flashes half of his teeth and accentuates how foolish he looks, unkempt hair swaying as he rises off the seat. The crown slides a little closer to the left, his ear caught beneath the band of it.

“The others are taking their seats at the table,” he shifts his weight, one foot to another, one hand clasped over the other behind his back — just like your ankles had been. The pommel of his sword pokes out the opening of his leather coat, pointing ahead at an approaching Aegon. Strapped to his side for nothing but purely decorative reasons, the younger brother suddenly feels the hackles rising in his neck, a need to unsheath the steel itching at his palms. No one would have to know, no one would see him hold a blade to the King’s neck. “And here you are, hiding away in a damp room, sitting in my seat, and-”

“A seat I gave you,” Aegon cuts in, a smug lilt lifting his words and delivering them harshly into Aemond’s ears. Where the younger of the two delivers accusations with the seriousness they deserve, the older brother has always thrown a blanket of humour over every argument, debasing the sentiment, luring his opponent into a false sense of safety.

“You have no child to call heir. As the eldest of your male siblings, I am next in line, by right. You have given me nothing.” Nothing but a dull ache in the head.

That respite he had come searching for, now so out of reach. It has the prince longing, wishing he could travel back in time to being burrowed between the shelves of books and the warmth between your thighs. He should have stayed longer, kept the door locked and you close, for as long as you would allow him.

But he had been spooked.

First by your sworn shield, a confirmation that your absence had been noted and the two of you were far away from the lack of watchful eyes of the Water Gardens. Then, by that look that came over your face, the words that left your mouth. Hesitance, vulnerability, shame. Aemond, there is something you must know. If this something was the reason for your shift in demeanour, he did not want to know. For once, he wanted to taste just how sweet ignorance could be.

A laugh pulls him back to the present.

A cackle, in truth. Shoulders shaking, cheeks wrinkling with the stretch of Aegon’s lips, eyes reflecting the dull flames that remain on the candles. The King paints an unsettling image, the mixture of lighthearted laughter lit beneath the growing darkness of the hall, the echoes of noise bouncing off the walls, swirling atop Aemond’s head like a murder of crows, each one waiting to spot something shiny to dive down and peck at.

An arm is thrown over his shoulder, five tight fingers clamping a grip on the back of his neck. Can you feel your wife’s fingerprints, singed into the skin you are touching? His brother fortunately cannot hear his inner thoughts, too busy bending himself at an awkward angle, his shorter stature struggling to turn the prince towards the door.

“Lighten up, brother!” With a clenched fist, Aegon delivers a weightless punch into his bicep, the hand at his neck squeezing him even closer, the King’s chest pressing into the prince’s elbow. Reluctantly, he follows in the footsteps of the elder, letting himself be led over and out of the hall. The door thuds shut at their backs, neither of them sparing at it. Out in the hallway, the world seems brighter, louder, a distant hum of chattering voices coming from the left. In sync, uncomfortably close, the pair move towards the noise. “Is the lack of whores in this decrepit place leaving your cock so lonesome you now see it as a weapon? Say the word and I’ll have your favourite madame shipped over. Or better yet, come home. We’ll visit the streets together, just like when we were boys.”

Boys. The word makes Aemond feel sick, empty stomach twisting up inside him. His older brother had never grown out of that mindset — boyish, foolish, reckless. At times, Aemond had wondered if the King had robbed him of his boyhood, kept those years for himself and left the younger nothing but the misery of being a man — grown, wise, calculated.

Two sets of guards stand at either side of the double-doorway, swords hanging at their sides, armour fixed to each inch of skin, floor-length spears clenched in their right fists. One after the other, they bow their heads as the Targaryen men pass by them.

A table stands in the centre, set with the shiniest of tableware and topped by pitchers full of wines, meads, and baskets spilling fruits down their sides, and assortments of breads and cheeses. He counts a total of six birds, roasted and sitting on silver platters up the length of the table. In the very centre, an entire pig shines pink beneath the light, an apple clamped in its mouth and a bed of leaves cushioning it upon the platter. And, gathered around it all, any guest with a name worth mentioning.

Children, cousins, siblings, wives.

Martell, Hightower, Targaryen, Stark.

Across the room, standing at her husband’s side, with a stiff-lipped smile and a barely-there attempt at engaging with the woman dishing out congratulations, stands Rhaena Targaryen. Grown a head and a half taller since the cousins had last crossed paths all those years ago, sat around a table not so different from this one, her white curls cascade down the back of her black dress, denoted with the shine of red rubies and golden stitching. In a sea of Hightower green, she stands out like an aching thumb painted in colours of her dead queen. For her audacious bravery alone, Aemond feels a smirk twitch at the corner of his lips. It falters the moment you come into focus.

A vision wrapped in green, you stand before his cousin, smile a blinding light that pulls him into its vortex, numbing him to all else that surrounds him. The emerald gowns, the mustard robes, the golden chains, the auburn hairs, it all grows mute, a dull grey beside the colour you wear, possess, exude, a rainbow that strikes its mark across dark clouds.

Your lips are moving. You are talking, with both hands clasped at your front and fingers that fidget with the rings housed upon them. A pause in conversation, an exchange of laughter. There is an air of hesitance in everything you do, standing before Rhaena Targaryen and the small bump that protrudes out her midriff. The desire to swoop in by your side, to snake his hand into your own and give those nervous fingers a solid squeeze of reassurance, to watch the stress flood down the length of your spine and melt away to torment some other body, it burns at Aemond.

But, he does not move. He cannot move. And, even in a world where he can, he doubts his presence would do any good at diffusing the tension that swells in the air around his cousin. Quite the opposite, truly, his face alone may be what drives her to at last snap and drop the forced smiles.

“She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?” Aegon’s voice cuts in, and the room bursts back into colour. The hall grows loud, a renewed noise the prince had unknowingly blocked out the moment his eye found you. The same eye he drags away to look at his brother who has just caught him unapologetically staring at you like you are the only person in the hall. Humour still dances over his features, a daring grin spread upon his mouth as he glances between you and Aemond. “She’s even prettier on her back,” the hand at Aemond’s neck slips down, a sharp smack delivering itself upon it. “Maybe someday I’ll let you try her, brother, let you get a taste of how it feels to be king for the night, between her thighs.”

Visions of you, head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, lips dropped open, burn behind Aemond’s eyelid with each blink. In the library, legs clinging to him, sweat slipping under your dress. On the bed, bare to his mouth, hands tugging him deeper by the hair. If that is what it feels to be king, he can die happily without ever knowing the weight of the Conqueror’s crown upon his head, because how could that possibly feel better?

“I was not aware you were so fond of her,” he finds himself retorting, stealing any excuse to look at you.

Helaena has reached your side, one arm linked with yours, and he can see how visibly relaxed you are in her presence, shoulders back down where they belong instead of pointing up to your ears.

“Perhaps I was not. But let’s say I’ve had a revelation of sorts.”

“Oh,” the sound escapes him dripping in… something. Envy, disappointment, confusion? He hates to give his brother any chance to pry into his own mind, if ever Aegon possessed the wits to do so, and finds himself clearing his throat, fixing his neutral expression back on, reopening his mouth. “And what would that revelation be exactly?”

Both you and Helaena part from where his cousin stands, arms still linked and eyes too caught up with one another to notice the way you both almost smack into two members of the Kingsguard, Giggling, like two young girls who share the biggest secret, you make your ways further down the length of the table, searching for the little cards that hold your names, mark your place along the table. He itches to follow after you both, to pull back your chair and offer it out to you. Maybe he could even lie, switch your card around with his brother’s to have you just that little bit closer.

“That I enjoy being king. And I want to continue being one, for as long as I like,” the reply has Aemond’s head snapping immediately back to his brother. No longer is he painted like a fool with humour, but something different. Something Aemond has never seen reflected on his features. Determination, it almost seems. “I do not want to just be king. I want to be good at it,” he continues speaking, head turning to where their grandfather stands, smiling politely back at you as he pulls out your chair. “And, if I want to be a good king, I need to be a good husband.”

Aemond wishes he never inquired about the revelation.

Is this what you had wanted to tell him? Is this what he must know? That no longer are you a pair split in two, but a union. A united force. A marriage. A good husband, and a good wife, and absolutely no one else in between. Had the only reason you had even gone to the library been to put an end to the madness transpiring between you and the prince? Aemond had given you an out, but had he given you enough time to truly think your answer through, before he put his hands on you once more?

“I do appreciate all the… kindness you have shown my wife,” your name curls over Aegon’s tongue and the sound is a poison to Aemond’s ears. Wrong, out of place, he does not deserve the grace of speaking such a pretty name. “Over the years, dancing with her at feasts, and even keeping her safe on that boat up north. I think I’ll do those things myself from now on, however, take that burden of mine off your shoulders.”

He wants to protest. Wants to say you are far from a burden. Wants to insist on his usefulness, on how he can keep you blissfully busy upon the ballroom floor while Aegon sneaks off to mess around with women of coin and drown in his cups. Wants to use Aegon’s own words against him, that a King should not waste his time travelling sea, or dirt, or anywhere else you may be, when he has the skies at his disposal.

But his tongue is made of lead and he is too weak to speak, frozen as he watches you speak across the table to his mother. Suddenly, the fact that all but himself and the King have taken their seat strikes upon his conscience. That hand claps against his back again and, though it is weaker than the last, Aemond wavers under the impact, swaying slightly.

“Come, brother,” Aegon whispers, a chuckle sneaking out. “Let us sit. Your King is eager to hear what announcement you bring.”

Seventeen.

That is the number of times your eyes have betrayed you and turned to sneak a glance at him.

He crests the top of the table, sitting by himself and staring down at his summoned guests. Power suits him, especially the kind that rolls off him in waves, pride in his eye at the way everyone is looking at him, hanging on to every last one of his words, patient anticipation for the why and the what of Aemond’s ravens. He is close. Close enough you can swell the spiced freshness you have come to recognize on his skin. All that sits between you and the prince is Aegon.

Aegon, who currently has a mouthful of pork and a hand resting, possessive, at the back of your chair. It is a distracting fact. One that robs you of the ability to pay Helaena and your good-mother the attention they deserve, only half hearing their exchanges of mutual flattery, complimentary words on dresses, and hairs, and smoothness of skins. Every so often, a young girl tugs at Helaena’s sleeve, seeking her mother’s help with cutting the food on her plate.

Otto Hightower sits across from your husband, engrossed in conversation with his three grandsons and Ser Criston, who you barely recognize out of his armour. The hand’s pendant sits pinned to the leather jerkin he doubtlessly has borrowed.

Further down the table, guests sit entranced in their own bubbles of conversation, a hollow chatter that buzzes throughout the room. The table is no longer the picture of perfection it once had been, platters of half eaten carcasses, and stains of spilled wine, and sparse grape vines housed in empty fruit-bowls.

All it takes is the clink of a knife against a glass for the bubble to burst.

Silence befalls the table as every head turns towards Aemond, expectantly, only to find him frozen and with equal question in his eye. Down the other end of the table, someone clears their throat, a chair scrapes back, and Rhaena Targaryen stands up.

Her lips are stretched wide, so far up her cheeks you can almost hear the way her skin cracks under the pressure of it. You half expect the corners of her mouth to split open. She reaches a hand down towards the table and, where you think she is going to grab at her goblet, she reaches for an empty plate and a fork.

“Pardon my intrusion,” she calls out with not a hint of apology, smug satisfaction candying her voice. All eyes follow as she steps away from her seat, yet none seem as panicked as those of her husband, who borders somewhere between scolding her and dashing after her. He remains seated, however, as the Targaryen girl travels slowly up the length of the table, plate and fork gripped tightly in her hands. “But I cannot sit still with the joy this all brings me.”

Eighteen times now.

To unsuspecting eyes, you are certain the prince appears unbothered, unshaken. The way his finger twitches over the wood beneath it tells you a different tale.

It would be so easy to reach out and intertwine your hands. Just a simple stretch of your arm, you would not even have to scoot your chair closer. If only your husband were not between you, a boulder in the shape of a man unbothered by his cousin’s display, shovelling up another mouthful of food.

“To sit here, at this table, surrounded by so much… family,” Rhaena continues her advance, coming to a halt halfway up the table. Turning her attention towards the glistening pig — or, better said, what remains of it. With no apology, she squeezes a space for herself between two seated bodies, the subtle swell of her expectant womb bumping at the shoulder of a woman you scarcely recognise — a hightower, no doubt about it, wrapped in green and the emblem of their house denoted across her left breast. “Such a beautiful site we all make. Why, I wonder, has it taken us so long to gather like this?” She pauses, only a moment, and you watch how her piercing gaze zeroes in on the man who sits at the head of the table. “Ah, that’s right. The last family feast ended in fisticuffs and.. Strong accusations. But we were just children back then, weren’t we, cousins? We have grown. I do hope so, at least. It would be such a shame to learn there is still someone among us who cannot take a mere�� Joke!”

A stomach-turning noise fills the hall as you watch Rhaena stab her fork into the pig’s eye.

The left eye.

Nineteen times. Aemond’s jaw sits impossibly clenched, so much that you fear for the survival of his teeth.

Back by the pig, Rhaena raises her fork to the air in a sickening toast, eye secure in its prongs as she smiles a little wider and loudly proclaims, “To House Targaryen! Long may she reign!”

Heads shift, back and forth, no hands moving for their cups until the King himself does so, laughter bubbling out of him followed by an obnoxious, “Hear, hear!” Within an instant, glasses rise and heads tilt back, welcoming the burn of wine down their throats.

Twenty, and you see that even Aemond follows suit, though his eye remains glued on Rhaena’s back as she carries herself triumphantly to her chair.

No sooner than she scrapes herself back into place, another clink rings out. Once again, all heads turn to the prince and, once again, he greets them with his own confusion. Close by, it is Daeron who’s legs stretch to a stand, hand clasping at a goblet.

With a clearing of his throat, the youngest of the siblings commences. “I hesitated on whether I wished to deliver this news at the table, however, cousin, you have inspired me.” Ever the polite man, it would not be hard to take his words towards Rhaena as true, as honest, as appreciative. The fierce loyalty that exists for his Green family, on the contrary, has you believing it is nothing but a means for peace at the table. “After the many happy years I have spent living in Oldtown, I have decided it is time I take my leave. It is time I return home,” he pauses, glancing over at his mother. “To King’s Landing. And, if the King finds place for me, I would like to do so as a knight of the Kingsguard, under the command of the very man who taught me to wield my first blade, Ser Criston Cole.”

Without a pause for silence, Aegon is shooting out of his chair and rounding the table, pulling his brother into his side and clapping a hand over his chest, “I’m sure I’ll find a space for you! Seven hells, we can hang one of the other six and have his armour melted down and reworked to fit you. Can’t we, Ser Criston? Pick amongst yourselves, whoever’s the weakest link.” There’s an eruption of laughter, and you take it as an excuse to sneak a twenty-first look. The doubt on his face matches your own, a worry that the poor fools at the table think the King speaks in jest.

Cups raised, wine sipped, seats refilled. Aegon returns to your side a ball of energy, hands fidgeting without control. First, one lands on your thigh closest to him and clamps down on the meat of it. The same hand shoots up, fingertips brushing over your cheek, tangling in a loose thread of hair and tucking it behind your ear, pulling a little tighter than you think he intends. At last, he returns it to the spot behind your chair, fingers drumming a nervous energy into the carved wood, and a third knife meets a glass.

This time, it is Aemond, and you have your twenty-second chance to look at him.

And keep looking at him, just like everyone else is, eager ears awaiting to hear what brings them all to the island.

“I will not waste your time with unnecessary words,” but you wish he would, if only to listen to the soothing lullaby of his voice enough to memorise it a little better, refine how your sleeping mind tries replicate it when you are drowning in the waters of dreams and his is the only face you want to conjure by your side. “I have already taken enough of your time, dragging you all out here.”

Pause for laughter. And for him to shoot a pointed look down the table at his cousin and her plate-full of pig’s eye. See, he seems to be saying, I can joke.

“It is no lie that our house is half of what it used to be. War is a god, however, and it demands a sacrifice in the shape of death. The dragons we lost are not a stain on our hands, but all of those who dared mount them with treacherous intentions.”

No sound has ever haunted you as deeply as the screech of a dying dragon.

It is a memory you do best to suppress, the screech of Helaena’s she-dragon struggling to escape her attackers, horrific shrieks carried from the Dragon Pit all the way up to your window at the Keep. The momentary burst of freedom, the flash of Dreamfyre rising out the crumbling roof of the Pit, only to crash back down in one final scream, the city turning silent moments after. Your good-sister had been inconsolable for days, a mess of tears, that bond between princess and beast lost forever to the rioting of smallfolk.

“But, we can rebuild what they took from us. That is what I wish to show you all,” Aemond continues. He nods his head towards a serving wench and, with a screech, the doors of the hall open, making way for two men, a heavy chest carried between them, and a man carrying the chain of a maester around his neck. The chest travels up the hall, all the way to the prince’s side, before coming to a rest gently on the floor. With ease, he twists a key, tugs off the lock, and throws the lid open, hands disappearing within. When they emerge, it is with an oval shaped rock in each one. No, not rocks. Eggs.

The maester at Aemond’s side holds out two more eggs. Each a different colour of scaly, rough surface. There is a golden one that reminds you of Sunfyre’s own scales. A black one that, as Aemond turns it in the light, undertones of a dark green shine through, and a pale lilac egg that appears near white. The most striking of the four — and the one you feel your eyes drawn to the moment it is unveiled — a bright, sapphire blue colour.

“A clutch of four,” he says, a look of pride on his face as he stares out at expressions of amazement. “I found them in the depths of the caves. Our maester has already confirmed to me they show promise of hatching, with time and patience. We will have a new generation of dragons.”

The first to move is Alicent, who rises out of her chair, hands clasped over her heart as she makes her way over to her son. Careful of the eggs in his hands, she wraps herself around his slim waist. “Aemond,” she speaks so softly, you doubt the other end of the table hears her. Hesitant fingers reach out, halting, only to let themselves brush down the length of the golden egg at the prince’s insistence. “This is wonderful news! You have… Oh, my sweet boy, you have saved us, ensuring the future of your house.”

Those words are enough to send the room into a ruckus of applause. Voices cheer, hands bang down on the table, cups are toasted and emptied. But you pay them no mind, not even a single glance over your shoulder.

All you care to look at is Aemond, and the earnest smile that takes over his face. Happiness looks good on him. It warms the tips of his ears, the apples of his cheeks, the length of his neck, a rosy hue blooming beneath porcelain skin. He deserves to look like this all the time, radiant beneath the spotlight of people’s praise, the validation of being recognised for the things he does on behalf of his family. The rug is ripped from beneath his feet, however, with the clearing of a throat and a fourth clang of a knife.

Celebrations cease and chairs are refilled as their king comes to a stand.

“I’ve never been one for speeches. In truth, I find them to be a bore,” Aegon laughs at his own honesty, and the others are quick to follow. “But, listening to you all, well, it inspired me to give it a try. First, I want to thank all of you in this room. It’s no secret the trials and tribulations that have tested our family since my coronation. You, who fought for my claim, are the true heroes of our realm, and your king is proud of you all. If only my father were still here, I’m sure he’d feel the same, pride for those who defended the heir he chose with his dying breath,” a choked back laugh echos from down the table as Rhaena saws her steak knife through the eye. “If any doubt still remains towards my claim, I believe my dear brother’s discovery is a sign from the gods, the gift of more dragons. And, for that, I thank you, Aemond.”

“It is I who must thank you, brother,” the prince interrupts, eye looking just past where the King stands, cup in hand, and at where you sit, hand tugging at your husband’s sleeve and an unspoken pleading furrowing your brows. It seems I owe my brother some gratitude, Aemond’s voice replays in your mind, so real you can almost feel the shelves at your back, the smell of dust and books in the air, the sound of Ser Arryk knocking at the door. “For naming me as your heir and gifting me Dragonstone.”

“I’m glad you see it that way, brother. These dragon eggs are the dawn of a new era for us all, one of prosperity,” heads that nod in sync, radiant joy still beaming from Alicent’s face. The smile on Aemond’s face, however, is gone, stolen by Aegon. “But they are not the only gift the gods have favoured my reign with.”

The urge to drag your husband back down into his seat spikes at those words. You want to shovel food into his mouth, fill his stomach with wine, sew his lip shut. Anything, before he says something foolish, something he should not.

But as you tug harsher at the sleeve of his doublet, the King misunderstands. He turns to you, fingers twisting themselves in an uncomfortable grip with your own and pulling you to stand at his side, that same hand curling around your back and holding you tight against him.

“Apologies, it seems my wife wants to help me do the honours,” you shake your head, shooting Aegon a look he does not even notice, too busy smiling out at the table full of his family. Too busy pulling you that little closer, both of your sides smushed together. Too busy smoothing the hand that still houses his glass down the golden embroidery of your dress, an honour to his own dragon. Too busy bringing his hand to a stop atop your lower stomach, knuckles brushing against the green velvet. “After many years of marriage, the gods have at last blessed my wife’s womb with a child of our own. A new heir.”

If anyone cheers, if anyone raises their glass alongside the King, if anyone congratulates you, you do not hear them. You do not see them.

All you see is Aemond, frozen in his chair, face a mirror for anger, and white-knuckling his grip on his chalice, refusing to drink, refusing to toast.

Refusing to look anywhere else but your sorry eyes.

You send a letter, the eve of your return.

I did not wish for you to find out like that, from him. You must believe me.

By morning, no reply arrives. By noon, no reply arrives. By evening, no reply arrives. As a day turns to two, and two turns into a moon, no reply arrives.

The ravens no longer perch upon your window.

+ extra hyde !

this week, a new bombshell has entered the villa! so aegon bestie is trying to be a better king/husband. how are we feeling about that, chat? definitely don't see this being a point of contention.

in completely unrelated news, rumour has it that taste by sabrina carpenter can be heard on dragonstone at full volume, on repeat, 24/7. sources say the noise is coming from prince aemond targaryen's room.

my irl bestie is reading this fic on ao3 & now i'm so hyperaware of any smut i write. hopefully, i rectify my own apprehension towards writing the filth these two deserve in time for next chapter, because they're supposed to fuck, no more of the silly couplings they've done so far. thankfully my bestie and i are long distance right now so i won't have to look her in a the eye for a while.

see you next month <3

#aemond targaryen smut #ewan mitchell smut #house of the dragon smut #aemond targaryen x reader #ewan mitchell x reader #aemond targaryen fic #aemond targaryen series #aemond targaryen fanfiction #house of the dragon fanfiction

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lucid-loves · 10 months ago

Text

Taste Like Venom ~ Simon "Ghost" Riley Part 3

Pairing: Ghost x assassin!reader (fem!reader, no use of y/n, callsign “Hex”)

Word Count: 3.7k

CW: angst, violence, blood, strong language, scars, enemies to friends to lovers trope, slow burn, fluff, clear attraction and sexual tension, smut later on, reader POV and ghost POV, minors dni, Soap lives in this AU

Let me know if I missed any CWs.

Story Synopsis: After Makarov gets away once again, Laswell decides to force a favor from you, the world’s greatest assassin and best-kept secret. You are now expected to help the 141 with taking down Makarov in addition to playing nice with them. It’s hard to play nice when you have always worked alone. It doesn’t help that one of the team members, Ghost, gets curious about you in each interaction.

Chapter Synopsis: The great 141 road trip is fine in the beginning, but being on the road for eleven hours clearly gets to everyone, especially you. For once, Ghost tries to show you some genuine compassion without any ulterior motives.

A/N: Thought that this would not only be a fun part to write, but also a breather to get to develop more character dynamics. Feel free to comment what you think each member of the 141 favorite music genre is! Including your own~

Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Part 10

Such a long drive was new territory for the boys. They were so used to helicopter rides, armored cars, and jets to take them where they needed to go fast. For their size and stature, the minivan was cramped, slightly rough on the road, and just plain weird. It took a few seat adjustments before everyone was as comfortable as they could be. Save for Gaz. He just prayed that a pit stop was coming soon and someone would be willing to switch seats with him.

For the first hour, the ride was noisy with conversation. Conversation that tried to reel you in. Price, looking through the front windshield, asked you a question. “How do you know where you’re going, Hex?”

“I’ve spent time memorizing road maps around the area. We’re taking a back road. A scenic route. Any other cars on the road would further see this minivan as a family road trip through the country.” You elaborated, your eyes steady on the road ahead. There were a lot of twists and turns on this route, but you knew that it would pay out in the end.

“Hidden in plain sight.” Soap added, his tone showing that he was a bit impressed with the logic of it all. Perhaps you knew what you were doing after all. Without you meaning to or doing anything extraordinary, the group was slowly starting to trust you and your judgment as evidenced by your creative planning. You were becoming quite the leader as well. But, you weren’t completely out of the woods yet. They still kept some of their guards up, just in case.

“There’s a method to the madness. Don’t underestimate the power of assumptions.” You advised, a word of advice that would hopefully stick with them after all of this was over. If they listened, perhaps some problems the world was facing could actually be solved.

Soap pulled out his phone with the intention of making this trip more enjoyable. Making sure that his VPN you required was turned on, he began to browse through songs using his music app. Once he added his favorite songs, he passed it to his captain. “Whatever you want, Cap. No genre limits.”

Price took the phone and rubbed his chin for a second in thought, his brick-brown beard moving with his fingers. Eventually, he added some songs to the playlist. Once he was satisfied, he passed the phone to Gaz who lit up at the idea. “Now it’s gonna feel like a real road trip!”

A few more songs were added before the phone was passed all the way up to Ghost. Hesitantly, Ghost added his own favorite songs. His teammates knew him decently well. They’re even seen his face before under the mask. However, there were still things they were learning about when it came to his personal life. One of which was his favorite kind of music. Thankfully, he was willing to share that information, trusting his team more and more with each passing day.

He looked at you when he was done, wondering if he should even offer. Having watched the interactions from the mirror, you decided to stay out of it. When Ghost was done, you just shook your head for a silent “no.” Simon imagined that you were rejecting the idea in your mind based on the warning look you gave him. Don’t even try. That made him really wonder what kind of music you liked. The records back home were incredibly diverse. But what was your favorite? Jazz? Metal?

The phone was passed back to Soap. It was quite a diverse playlist. He didn’t realize that his team had such different tastes, but it just made him excited to give it a listen. He connected it to the car’s bluetooth and hit the shuffle button. Ghost went ahead and switched the car to bluetooth mode for him. Almost immediately, the car filled up with music, starting with one of Price’s songs.

Instead of tuning out, you tuned in. Very much so. Small details, even favorite songs, could say a lot about a person. You were learning about the men now. Not for the sake of potential friendship, no. For the sake of information for potential future manipulation if things went sideways. You always prepared for the worst, even when times seemed like the best.

The discussion carried forward, now with the ease of real music in the background. Gaz decided to take the plunge and ask you a question. “So. . . Hex. . . You lived a long time out in the woods. How did you survive on your own? There doesn’t seem to be a grocery store for miles around.”

You adjusted your sitting position, trying to get comfier in the driver’s seat. If you were going to deal with this for most of the trip, you might as well get as comfortable as you can. You answered, one hand on the wheel and one arm resting near the window. “I have an acquaintance who’s a farmer that gives me whatever I need. In return, I pleasure his wife, which helps save their marriage.”

His eyes got huge, not expecting the answer. He nearly tripped over his words. “Really?!”

“No, Kyle. You really think I would do such a thing?” You scowled. Internally, though, you were cracking up at his bewilderment. Soap and Price began chuckling in their seats. Even Simon was cracking a smile that no one could see. Kyle’s embarrassed blush that matched the falling red leaves outside made them even more amused. Who knew you had a sense of humor? A crude sense at that.

He muttered an apology. At least he was a good sport about it. A part of him found it quite funny too. After the chuckles died down, you answered his question truthfully. “Kate does supply drops for me. Not all the time, just when I need more meat than the woods can provide. Everything else I grow.”

It was an answer that made sense and didn’t reveal much about yourself. Nothing too fascinating about it. At least, to everyone save for Ghost. He took note of your truth, pictured you growing fruits and vegetables, hands in the dirt and sweat dripping down your temple. He imagined you hunting too. A heavy rifle and camo. Patience, aim, fire. He thought that some of the foods he had from your kitchen tasted a little gamey.

“Didn’t you ever get lonely being out there all by yourself?” Soap inquired, not afraid to ask the question that was on everyone’s mind. All eyes were on you as you took a deep breath.

“No, Johnny. Never.”

This was partially a lie as well as partially the truth. There were times where you did feel alone. Like the only human left on the planet. Kate’s calls every now and then help curb it a little, but it wasn’t the same as actually being in the same space with someone physically. Yet, when you were surrounded by people on a classified mission or watching disaster after disaster on TV, it made you glad that you weren’t a part of any of it. The flurry of different emotions coming from all different sides when with civilization was often too much for you. You needed control. More control than what you could usually get when you were on the outside again.

Simon was watching you carefully now, trying to pick up any indication of a cracked resolve. A twitch, a change in breathing, anything to read into further. There was no way you never felt lonely. Yet, you said it with such conviction that it startled everyone. Ghost just couldn’t believe you.

Having killed the conversation, the boy awkwardly tried to change topics. Now excluding you. Good. You preferred it this way.

A few hours in and the car was quiet. Light, easy music played now from the car speakers as everyone took a nap. Except for Ghost, of course. Fortunately, he did keep himself occupied by reading the book you lent him. The first couple of chapters were a miss in his opinion. After a couple more, it started to get good. It didn’t take him long to actually get invested in the story, reading between the lines as you had done when you read. You had good tastes.

Enjoying the quietness of the trip was something you didn’t think you would be able to do. Especially with Simon in the front. Surprisingly, he was being good which you hoped would like for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, you jinxed it in your head. Out of the corner of your eye, he bookmarked his spot and took a break. Now, he wanted to talk to you.

“You didn’t play your own music.”

“So?” You shrugged, wondering where he was going with this. Nothing good probably.

“Why not?” He simply asked, himself not knowing what the big deal was. It was just music. You could have even lied. Picked out music you hated. Instead, you just opted out, not even willing to risk three minutes of any particular melody.

You suppressed an annoyed groan. Not this shit again. “What part of ‘leave me alone’ do you not understand, Simon?”

There you go again, saying his name with such disrespectful ease. It still made his heart beat faster hearing it from you. It still made his muscles tense in vexation as well. You noticed this from how the grip on his arms got tighter, his arms crossing his chest. “How much could music taste actually reveal about you as an individual?”

“A lot! God damn it, when are you going to drop this stupid shit? Quit playing your stupid fucking game?!” You spat, trying to keep your cursing at a low volume lest you wake up the rest of the team. Your knuckles were turning white with how hard you were gripping the steering wheel, desperately trying to keep your cool.

However, he didn’t drop it. He didn’t want to, so he wouldn’t. Simon could be just as stubborn as you which made you want to punch him. Have his teeth fall out of his mouth and get caught in his skull mask. “You mean to tell me that you’ve learned a lot about us based on our favorite songs alone? That’s just ridiculous, Hex.”

He could use your name as a curse too. Anything to get you to keep talking to him. Anything to keep your attention. To figure you out. As much as you didn’t want to give him what you wanted, you did anyway out of sheer aggravation. “It’s called Music Psychology, you fucking ass! Do they do anything besides tell you what to shoot in that god forsaken military?! Do they really keep you all fucking braindead?!”

“Watch your mouth, Hex! You don’t want to say anything you don’t mean.” Simon warned, his voice low like a bass about to snap its strings. He had to remind himself that you weren’t like them when it came to combat approach to cool down. The 141 employed leadership, strength, swift execution. An assassin like you employed other values, one being the art of psychology apparently.

He wasn’t going to let you badmouth his team and those back home that don’t deserve your slander, though. Many people back home were plenty capable with their own skill sets. It wasn’t fair to put them all in one box just because they followed the orders of the government.

“Watch my mouth?! Have you even heard the shit that’s coming out of yours?! Or is your head so far stuck up your own ass that you can’t hear what you say?” You antagonized further, making the situation worse with each passing insult.

“Why are you so fucking defensive?! You cracked a joke earlier, but now asking about your music tastes is too much? You don’t make any fucking sense, Hex. What the hell are you so afraid of?” His own voice was rising with volume as he spiraled out of control as well.

You were practically yelling at this point like the rest of the world didn’t exist except for you and Simon. A personal bubble where you could really try to rip him a new one. You didn’t hold back. “I’m not afraid of anything, Ghost! I just want you to leave me the fuck alone! Why are you so desperate to know me?!

“You’re part of this team, whether you like it or not! Whether you want to be an enemy or not! Part of that is trusting us with your life. All of it!” He argued, trapping himself in this conflict bubble with you.

Your temper was boiling over to the point you could cry. Why was he doing this to you? Why couldn’t he just let this go? “Why can’t you understand that I am never going to be part of your team?! I never can and I never will!”

At that he paused. There was something about your last retort. Never can? It was oddly specific. What did that mean?

Just then, the light for gas lit up on the dashboard. You clenched your jaw, cursing more profanities that would have anyone blush. A couple miles down was a gas station. A wave of relief washed over you. Now you had an excuse to exit the car to get away from Simon.

You didn’t realize it before with how provoked you were, but the 141 in the back was awake and clearly heard the two of you bickering. The tension thick enough to choke on made it hard for them to interfere. This pit stop would hopefully let things settle down again.

As soon as the car was parked near an empty pump, the doors slid open to let the men out. It felt good to stretch their legs and breathe in some fresh air. It was about time Gaz was relieved of the back seat too. Price, Soap, and Gaz headed into the convenience store for a moment to pick up drinks and snacks, something that was essential for their road trip experience. You leaned against the car, waiting for the gas pump to finish. The entire time, Ghost sat silently in the front doing his own breathing exercises to get his temper under control. God, you were venomous. Troublesome, irritating, infernal, a million other words. Yet, you were beautiful when you were pissed. He couldn’t understand it.

Finally, the car was loaded up once again, now complete with drinks, snacks, and a full tank of gas. The seating arrangements changed, Price now in the back to allow Gaz a chance to let his legs stretch out more. Besides that, he didn’t really want to be up front with all of the conflict. He would normally break it up, but he still didn’t know enough about you to feel comfortable doing so. It was better for this to just play out. It wasn’t like Ghost couldn’t hold his own.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, Soap ripped open a bag of chips followed by a joke. “Looks like mom and dad are fighting again.”

The smirk on his face was quickly wiped away as a pair of keys jingled right near his ear, embedded in his head rest. You had turned from your seat as soon as you registered his distasteful joke, thrown the car keys like a knife, and narrowly missed pinning his ear against the fabric. The car was dead silent as you stared daggers into him. Despite being a strong man with plenty of experiences with danger along with close calls, this experience had Johnny near pissing himself. If looks could kill, he would have been six feet under already.

What was worse was the fact that you missed on purpose.

“Shut the fuck up! You are not to insinuate that again. Ever! Now, I don’t want anyone trying to talk to me or talk about me for the rest of this fucking trip. Talk to each other, I don’t give a shit. But no more dragging me into any conversation. Are we fucking clear?!”

You were met with quick, obedient nods followed by Soap gingerly handing you back your keys. Before you all knew it, you were back on the road like you didn’t just nearly kill Soap.

Simon was speechless, not expecting you to be so. . . dangerous. His feelings about what just happened were conflicting. On one hand, he wanted to fight you to defend his trusted sergeant that meant no harm, even if he didn’t really like the joke either. On the other hand, he’s never been more attracted to a woman in his life.

The car ride was silent for the next several hours.

Your muscles ached from your stiff position. You’ve been driving this whole time, only allowing gas breaks to be your time to stretch out. The boys have rotated seats every stop, now including Ghost who was finally giving you some space by being in the back. Last stop, though, he moved right up to the front with you once again.

You were getting the dreaded road trip tunnel vision. After so many hours of driving, you couldn’t see anything except for the road ahead. You weren’t so much as driving anymore. You more like just looking out the front windshield, barely keeping up with the surrounding area that passed by. What you normally would recognize as trees, road signs, and roadkill were now just a big blur.

“You’re tired.” Simon commented, treading very carefully. He didn’t want to start another fight. Far from it. He just couldn’t bear to see you so exhausted from driving.

“I’m fine.” Your voice strained, having lost some of it from the screaming match earlier in the trip. You weren’t used to talking so much as you have been for the past week, let alone fighting with words. A warm cup of tea with honey sounded so good right now.

Ghost took a deep breath in before he gently settled his hand on your shoulder. The fact that you didn’t shrug his touch away was very telling that you were really out of it. “Come on, Hex. Just for a bit. Pull over and I’ll take over the drive. We can switch back after you recuperate.”

It took you a minute to agree. Pulling off to the side of the road, you switched places. The room to stretch out in the passenger side was very much needed. Your bones cracked as you really gave yourself time to take it easy for a moment. “Just an hour. Then, we’ll switch.”

He nodded, finally agreeing with you on something out loud. “Just an hour.”

You ended up dozing off for longer than intended. Despite the agreement, Simon let you rest. The trip was already almost complete anyway. What was two more hours to add to your much needed rest?

When the car slowed to a stop, the gang woke up out of their naps, eager to exit the minivan and head into the average-looking hotel you had designated as the new checkpoint. It was nearing dinner-time, the city bustling with people heading to enjoy their meals. Price was ready for something other than chips. Soap and Gaz were already discussing potential food spots as if they were tourists.

As they unloaded the car to carry their things into the hotel, you stayed asleep. Dead asleep. The deepest sleep you have had in what felt like a lifetime. The men were careful to not wake you up as they unloaded luggage after luggage out of the trunk. When everything was squared away with checking in as well as bringing luggage up to the rooms, you were still snoozing away, much to their surprise.

Price opened up your door, ready to wake you up to get a move on. However, Ghost stopped his hand from touching you. “I’ll take her up. Just go ahead and grab some grub.”

Well, John wasn’t going to say no to that offer. He would rather not be bit by such a feral woman. Though, he did feel like he had to warn Ghost of what he was really doing, having observed just about everything he was trying to do in regards to you. “You’re playing with fire, you know.”

Ghost unlocked your seatbelt and picked you up out of the minivan in a princess carry. Miraculously, you still didn’t wake up. “I know. . .”

The hotel staff were concerned with him carrying you into the hotel. A large man with a skull mask carrying an unconscious lady certainly didn’t look good. In order to avoid interference, Simon had a lie ready for when a bodyguard approached. “I know the mask is scary, but it hides some burn scars. I’m just taking the missus up to the room. She fell asleep in the car.”

Not being paid enough to question the lie, he allowed the both of you to pass by.

You were heavy in his arms, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He could feel the softness of your skin, the firmness of your muscles. He could make out each individual eyelash that just barely kissed under your eyes. As much as you drove him crazy, you truly were beautiful.

The ding of the elevator reaching their floor knocked him out of his trance. Using a room key, he headed into your space for the next couple of days. The room was pretty basic. A bed, a dresser, tv, bathroom, nightstands, a desk. The only thing that really made it stand out was the original art of the wall made by local, Italian artists.

He settled your sleeping body down onto the queen-sized bed, brushing your hair out of your face as you settled into the mattress. Looking at you like this was a breath of fresh air for him. He didn’t think he would be able to see you like this so soon.

Sleeping around others was a sign of trust. Were you just really that exhausted? Probably. Ghost would still take this as a sign of victory anyway.

For a few moments longer, he studied your features. The sound of his stomach grumbling for a meal encouraged him to leave you be for now to which his brain protested. Then again, you probably wouldn’t like it if you found out that he watched you sleep.

Before he left, he took one last look at you, burning the image into his mind. “You said you didn’t sleep, kitten.”

294 notes · View notes

warabidakihime · 4 months ago

Text

Rules and Roses Chapter 4

★ characters: kibutsuji muzan x reader x akaza

★ plot summary: Kibutsuji Muzan has finally decided to expand his empire, and the way he intends to do so is by running for the highest political position. With you, his darling wife, at his side, he believes he can achieve and have everything the world has to offer. He is, after all, the Phoenix of Phario.

★ fic playlist: sometimes, same day, as time stops, wolf’s song (this is also the vision board for the fic).

★ content warnings : implied violence and abuse, profanities, toxic relationships, smut.

★ Previous Chapter

a/n:

hello!

just want to hop on here and say thank you to everyone who has been giving their likes and reblogs. huge thank you to those who are taking the time and effort to read my story as well. i've been wanting to continue this story for so long but i'm just so busy with work, but i'm glad i am able to find the time to write and update as regularly as i can.

hopefully someday i can hear your thoughts through your comments though haha i would really love to hear what you think about Rules and Roses and the way i write the characters as it is my first time. tbh, i am extra curious to know if i'm giving muzan's character justice HAHA but yeah, it never hurts to leave comments so feel free to send them my way.

i also would like to give those people who have not read the manga a heads up, that in this chapter and in the succeeding ones, there will be minor to moderate manga spoilers, so ready with caution.

also, moving forward, things will steadily pick up, so get ready HAHA!

enjoy reading everyone!

The sun had barely risen over Areswood, its golden hues taking its time enveloping the sky, but Muzan and Douma were already up and busy at Obelisk Kibutsuji, going over their next course of action for their campaigns for the next few months.

Muzan stood at the center of his spacious office. A large map of Phario's electoral districts sprawled across the narra table in front of him, dotted with colorful pins representing key areas of support.

Douma, on the other hand, leaned over the map, his eyes narrowing as he assessed their next move.

"We need to double down our efforts in the southern districts," Douma said, twirling his fan languidly. "The latest polls show we're losing ground there, but it is the opposition's home turf, so I'm not surprised," he added with a hint of mirth.

Muzan nodded, rubbing his temple as he processed the information. He'd been up since dawn, reviewing speeches and strategies. The weight of the campaign was beginning to show in the faint lines on his face and the dark circles under his ruby eyes.

Unlike Douma, Muzan couldn't afford to make light of the situation. Keeping a straight and serious face, he continued to rack his brain for strategies. After a few minutes, Muzan finally spoke, catching everyone's attention.

"Let's schedule a town hall meeting in Azudellin. We need to connect with the voters there and show them we're listening to their concerns."

"Today?" Douma asked.

"Yes, why? Do we have other agendas for today?"

Douma quickly checked his calendar on his phone.

"We have an interview with the Areswood Times in an hour, then a fundraiser lunch at noon, followed by debate prep, and a gala dinner with key donors tonight."

Muzan sighed, his frustration evident in his voice. "We can't afford to delay this. Azudellin is slipping away from us."

Douma, feeling a bit depleted himself, shrugged. "The earliest we can fit it in is next week. It might be too late by then, but who knows? Maybe a miracle will happen."

In the midst of a very important meeting, a knock separated everyone from their own thoughts. One of Muzan's executive assistants, Nakime, walked in with a stack of freshly printed leaflets, oblivious to the tension in the room.

"Sir Kibutsuji, Sir Hashibira, these just came in. The design team finalized the new posters and pamphlets for the campaign trail."

Muzan barely glanced at the leaflets, his mind racing.

"Thank you; just leave them on the table."

Nakime quickly left after obeying his orders, clearly sensing the gravity of the moment.

With mindless eyes, Muzan continued to rack his brain for any backup plan or anything that could be of significant help to the predicament they currently have. Letting out a resigned sigh, Muzan finally opened his eyes and turned to everyone.

"We'll have to make do with what we have," he said, turning to Douma, who's listening intently. "At our interview with Areswood Times today, maybe we could give Azudellin a special shout-out—say something that can please their ears. This is your specialty, so I leave this to you."

Douma nodded, a peculiar smile present on his face. "I'll handle it. I'll make sure our message is loud and clear in the interview today."

Muzan merely nodded at his running mate before turning to the rest of his party.

"Let's deploy a few of you to Azudellin today; get some boots on the ground. We'll organize smaller meet-and-greets throughout the week to keep our presence felt until we can hold the town hall altogether. Take this chance to highlight your own platforms and campaigns as well, but don't oversell yourselves and turn off the locals. Understand? We can't afford any missteps."

A chorus of 'yes, sir.' and 'understood' rang in the room after listening to Muzan's orders. As usual, his commanding voice and his overall demeanor exuded charisma and extreme strictness, which made everybody in the room yield to him so easily.

Muzan scanned the room, making sure everyone's conviction matched his own. Technically, his party has been dominating almost all polls across the entire country, and it's safe to say that he is the number one candidate to win the elections, but he didn't want to remain complacent.

He doesn't want to attribute his victories to silly things like fate or destiny. He did that before and miserably paid the price; after learning his lesson, he vowed to never rely on foolish things ever again and will do everything in his power to ensure his indisputable victory.

Taking a deep breath, Muzan felt assured again.

"Alright. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everyone."

"Oh, really? That's good to hear, darling. I'm happy for you," Muzan said softly, followed by a fond chuckle as you continued to share what happened during your hair appointment.

You were at the salon, enjoying your usual 'pamper time.' While you were getting your hair done, an A-list celebrity approached you. Initially, she only intended to have a small chat, as you are technically an A-list celebrity yourself. However, as your conversation continued, Ume confided in you that she recently got engaged but hasn't announced it to the public yet.

She personally requested you to be her wedding planner, and of course, you gladly accepted.

"Ahh! I'm so excited. I'm still preoccupied with Ms. Rivera's wedding, but so many ideas for Ms. Ume's wedding are already flooding my mind," you told your husband gleefully.

Muzan chuckled again, his eyes turning into crescent moons as a smile spread across his face, a total contrast to the serious expressions he had earlier.

Muzan prided himself on being level headed even in the most dire situations, but all that bravado would always melt away whenever he was with you. He couldn't help it. Your energy has always been contagious, and when it came to you, he was nothing but a man hopelessly in love with his wife.

Douma, seated in the backseat with Muzan, looked at his running mate with pure intrigue, watching him transform into a lovesick puppy while talking to you.

"Ah, yes, the meeting went great, my love. There were a few bumps here and there, but we managed," Muzan said to you. Knowing you, he anticipated your worry and was proven right when he heard the concern in your voice.

"I see... well, if there's anything I can do to help you guys, you know I'd be more than willing," you said from the other line.

Muzan smiled softly, clearly touched by your investment in his endeavors as much as he was in yours.

"Well, if you're free next week, you can tag along to our town hall at Azudellin," he proposed.

You smiled, having left the salon and decided to go to the mall for some much-needed retail therapy. Akaza wasn't with you today, as he had something to take care of, so Gyokko, one of your security guards, was accompanying you today.

"I don't have anything planned next week. I don't mind joining—wait, can I also do my own charity event there? I haven't done one in a while, and don't you think this is the perfect time? It could help your campaign."

Muzan immediately smiled at this. "You're more than welcome, darling. I'll have my people assist you with your preparations. Just let me know what help you need."

"Aww, you don't have to! But thank you. Let's talk more about this at home later. Maybe we could tailor this with your own community outreach initiatives. I believe you have a couple, right? We can make it a joint one, hitting two birds with one stone."

Muzan was listening intently when Douma reached out to let him know they had reached their destination. Muzan gave him a curt nod before returning to you.

"That's right. Alright, let's talk about it later, Y/N. I need to go; Douma and I are here at the studio already. Take care on your way home, okay? Call me if you need anything."

You nodded with a happy smile on your face. "Okay. See you later, my love. And good luck today. I love you," you said with passion.

Muzan replied just as passionately, "I love you too. Mhm, yes. Goodbye. See you later."

After ending the call, he turned to Douma; his whole demeanor had already changed. "Let's go."

Douma complied, climbing out of the car after him.

As they walked inside the building and toward their dressing room, escorted by a handful of media staff, the vice presidential candidate subtly nudged his running mate.

"It seems like that phone call improved your mood, Pres ."

Muzan smirked, his strides toward the TV studio exuding confidence and pride. "My first lady is quite the wonder woman."

Douma chuckled softly, amused by Muzan's demeanor. "It seems like she has quite an effect on you."

"She does," Muzan replied, his tone unapologetically confident. "She's not just my wife; she's a force to be reckoned with and my equal."

Douma raised an eyebrow, intrigued by Muzan's unabashed praise. "You sound almost unbeatable when she's on your side."

Muzan merely nodded, the cocky smile on his face still present. "Indomitable."

Douma chuckled softly. "You've really got it bad, haven't you?"

Muzan shot him a sidelong glance, a hint of amusement in his eyes. "Do you not feel the same about Shinobu?"

Douma chuckled again. "Hey now, don't underestimate me. My wife is a force of nature herself."

The proud CEO of Obelisk Kibutsuji and Phario's leading presidential candidate simply offered his running mate a rather shallow chuckle as a response and a nod to convey that he agrees with him.

Finally, they reached the TV studio, and the two of them noticed that it was a full house.

"Are you ready?" Douma asked Muzan.

Muzan's gaze swept across the room, his presence commanding attention.

With a confident smirk, he declared,

"To make history? I was born ready.'"

He made his way to the stage, greeted by applause and camera flashes, projecting an aura of assured victory as he took his seat on the couch.

The day was finally coming to a close. After spending the entire day at the mall shopping, you were exhausted and hungry.

Initially considering Italian cuisine, it suddenly occurred to you that the downtown burger joint you and Akaza had visited a couple of days ago was nearby.

Opting for convenience and familiarity, you decided to head there and also decided to order takeout for both Akaza and Muzan, as well as Kokushibo and the maids and guards.

Surely, both had returned home by now or were on their way. Muzan's jam-packed schedule guaranteed he would appreciate indulging in fast food after such a long day, and Akaza would undoubtedly welcome the gesture.

And it wouldn't hurt to treat your house staff every now and then. It is something you do every now and then, as it's one of your ways of showing appreciation for the services they provide you.

For Muzan, you chose to order the same as yourself, knowing he preferred healthier options but trusting he would enjoy something you approved.

You already ordered Gyokko to prepare the car, so when your orders are ready, you can just hop in and make a beeline home. As you waited at the counter, you hummed to yourself, glancing around the familiar surroundings of the burger joint.

Once again, a sense of déjà vu struck you, from when you entered earlier and throughout your stay. It's honestly starting to worry you.

"It's nice to see you around here again, my dear."

You turned to the voice—a kindly old lady. "Excuse me?" you asked politely.

The old lady smiled warmly. "It's been quite a while since your last visit."

"Oh, I've been busy these past few days," you replied with a smile. "I really enjoyed my first time here last week."

Confusion crossed the old lady's face at your response.

"Aren't you one of our regulars?"

You frowned, puzzled. "I'm not sure I understand..."

"You've been coming here for years , haven't you? Or am I mistaken?"

Your unease grew visible. "I'm sorry, but I think you have me confused with someone else."

Before you could finish, the old lady turned and retrieved a photo from the wall behind her, returning to you with a smile.

"This is you and your fiancé, right?"

She handed you the photo.

In it, Akaza had his arms around your waist, both of you beaming happily.

Your eyes widen in sheer shock.

"What..."

Turning the photo over, you saw a note scribbled on it:

Hakuji Soyama x L/N Y/N - Just got engaged! (03/03/2015)

taglist: @bffrrufr @unadulteratedhandsbanditdreamer @unlikelybananawerewolf

63 notes · View notes

vettelsdarling · 1 year ago

Note

Youre one of my fav f1 writers on here and I would really love it if you could do a instagram au with a Brazilian model reader x Max!!! Its like their relationship is known and stuff and it’s just a bunch of fluff

𝐌𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭

Lissie note… Hi, thank you so much for the kind words. You’re too sweet! I actually really like this prompt, as I have a specific model in mind. Thank you for this!

Things to note:

Fc: Adriana Lima

Reader and Max have been dating for a few years

Reader is a world-renowned supermodel

Pairing: Max Verstappen x Fem!Brazilian model!Reader

Warnings: Nothing but some cursing

Taglist: @drugged-kitkat, @allwaysalleyway

Playlist recommendations: 𝐅𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟💗, 𝐌𝐕𝟏

yourusername

Liked by charlottesiine, francisca.cgomes, bellahadid and 2,384,288 others

Tagged: victoriassecret

yourusername Fun fun fun! Loved this walk💙🦋

View all comments

charlottesiine Gorgeous❤️

francisca.cgomes Lindaaaa💙💙💙

user1 Okay but how is anyone THIS pretty

user2 EXACTLY😩😩

user3 STOPPP THIS IS THE BEST WALK YETTT😩

user4 Literally

user5 Okay but any F1 fans here to say that Max is extremely lucky👀

user6 Fr. I would do anything to be him ughhh

user7 He stole her from me

user8 @ user7 us*

user9 Why Max and not me😔

user10 MOTHER😫

user11 She’s so amazing like istg

maxverstappen1

Liked by yourusername, danielricciardo, fernandoalo_oficial and 684,738 others

maxverstappen1 Lovely win here in Miami!

View all comments

yourusername Amazing❤️

Liked by maxverstappen1

user1 He wins in Miami, he wins the girlfriend lottery

user2 She’s so supportive too like where’s my gf?

user1 @ user2 Fr

user3 Hopefully he wins the championship🙏

user4 Okay but he will def win the next few races

user5 Yes. I just KNOW it will be like last year

user4 @ user5 I hope

user6 I’m so jealous of him. He keeps winning and he has the best gf ever like wtaf

user7 Exactly😭😭😭

yourusername posted a story

yourusername

Liked by maxverstappen1, charlottesiine, francisca.cgomes and 2,744,372 others

yourusername 🪽✨

View all comments

maxverstappen1 ❤️

yourusername ❤️❤️❤️

charlottesiine Never fail to impress❤️

yourusername Ah stoppp❤️

francisca.cgomes Linda girlll🔥

yourusername No you🔥

user1 Once again, mother worked the scene😩

user2 Nobody will ever be able to replace her

user3 Max is literally the luckiest man alive rn

user4 The way I NEED her so much

user5 She wants me so bad.

user6 @ user5 Say that to Max🤡

user7 She served breakfast, lunch, dinner, AND MIDNIGHT SNACKKK

user8 Mother will always be mothering like this

user9 Anyways, I’m manifesting my wedding day with her.

user10 Relatable

user11 I love that she’s happy with Max, but I can make her happier fr

user12 Delulu is the solulu

maxverstappen1 posted a story

maxverstappen1

Liked by yourusername, danielricciardo, landonorris and 463,739 others

Tagged: yourusername

maxverstappen1 Life lately…

View all comments yourusername 💕

maxverstappen1 Gorgeous❤️

yourusername Handsome❤️

Liked by maxverstappen1

landonorris Life lately but there’s no pic of your raging sim racing moments… okay👀

maxverstappen1 Shut up

user1 They are literally MADE for each other.

user2 If they don’t last, how could anyone ever???

user3 Okay but how did they even meet

user4 You must be a new fan if you don’t know

user3 @ user4 and so what if I am? I just want to know

user5 They met at a gala in Brazil where she presented him an award. It’s like a few years ago or something.

user3 @ user5 Ohhh ty. That’s really cute though🥰

user6 They are the definition of a perfect couple

user7 I need them to get married ugh

user8 Manifesting they stay together forever😩❤️

user9 I love them together sm

user10 She is literally my fav wag EVER

user11 Her>>>>

user12 Her and Kika fr

user13 I love her paddock fits too. I hope they post some soon

user14 They prob will

yourusername

Liked by francisca.cgomes, gigihadid, maxverstappen1 and 2,893,199 others

yourusername Fun little outtakes from today’s shoot!

View all comments francisca.cgomes Should’ve kept these in because you are GORGEOUS🔥 Liked by yourusername

charlottesiine Such a beauty Liked by yourusername

user1 Mother will never stop being an icon

user2 She is literally TIMELESS

user3 I’m literally so in love with her wtaf

user4 She’s mine, so Max can back off now🥰

user5 Ummm I think you mean mine.

user6 You guys are completely wrong, she’s literally mine

user7 She belongs to NO ONE😩 She’s a national treasure

user8 How can someone literally be this gorgeous and say that these are outtakes???

user9 I literally do not get it

user10 She’s so ughhh❤️😩

maxverstappen1

Liked by yourusername, landonorris, charles_leclerc and 347,294 others

Tagged: yourusername

maxverstappen1 Surprisingly good at tennis🎾

View all comments yourusername I don’t know how this works, but I should totally go to Wimbledon

maxverstappen1 If that ever happens, I will be there.

yourusername ❤️❤️❤️ Liked by maxverstappen1

user1 Can we just appreciate the amount of support that they show each other

user2 Power couple🔥🔥🔥

user3 Model and soon-to-be world champion in tennis🫶

user4 Mimicking Max

user5 It would actually be so cute if she became a world champion and they’d both be world champions😭❤️

user6 @ user5 I mean, she is technically world champion in the model world. Literally one of the most popular models in the world sooo

user5 @ user6 which is why they’re already so cute together

user7 Ugh I’m so jealous😭 I want what they have SO BAD

user8 No bc same

user9 I don’t know if I’d rather be max or her

user10 ikr? They’re both just 😫😫😫

wagsf1

23,738 likes

wagsf1 Max hugging @ yourusername after winning this weekend🤍

View all comments user1 Literally so fucking cute AHHHH

user2 He’s so lucky

user3 They look so cute together😭😭😭

user4 all-time fav wag tbh

user5 Him at her shows too>>>

yourusername

Liked by maxverstappen1, charlottesiine, fransica.cgomes and 3,747,260 others

Tagged: maxverstappen1

yourusername Little break from reality❤️

View all comments charlottesiine 🤍

yourusername 💕

user1 AHHHH OMG😭 They’re so cute

user2 I bet she drives better than Max on the road lol

user3 lmaoo yes

user4 So pretty in the 3rd pic😩

user5 Why is Max this lucky like wtaf

user6 Wtaf I’m sitting in my bedroom with a shitty romcom and they’re out here actually enjoying life😭

user7 Lmfao relatable

user8 I second that

user9 I’m so in love with them

user10 They’re textbook perfect. I swear.

maxverstappen1

Liked by yourusername, danielricciardo, landonorris and 473,882 others

Tagged: yourusername

maxverstappen1 Appreciation post for my love, @ yourusername

View all comments user1 He really won the lottery like actually

user2 They are THE couple of the century.

user3 She’s literally gorgeous ugh😩

user4 Does anyone know how many years they’ve been dating?

user5 I think it’s like 4 years? Give or take a year??

user6 Yeah it is

user7 Fav couple on the grid

user8 Agreed. I LOVE THEM.

user9 Anyways so when’s the wedding?

user10 Literally

user11 Weddings aren’t EVERYTHING

user9 I’m just rooting for them that’s all smh

user12 They will grow old together. I’m manifesting it.

𝗥𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻...

𝘾𝙝𝙚𝙘𝙠 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙪𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚!

𝙃𝙚𝙧𝙚’𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

𝙃𝙚𝙧𝙚’𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩! (𝙄𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙤𝙣, 𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨, 𝙙𝙢𝙨, 𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙨: 𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙙𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧(𝙨) 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙩𝙮𝙥𝙚(𝙨) 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣.)

255 notes · View notes

corvid-language-library · 4 months ago

Note

I see you talk about shadowing as a language learning method. I understand it had something to do with YT videos? Can you tell a bit more about that, how does it work and how did you come up with it?

Hi there!

Shadowing is where you listen to a language and simultaneously attempt to repeat what you hear - mimicking sounds and intonation - even if you don't understand it right away. By mimicking native speakers this way you acquire more native-like pronunciation while also (ideally) absorbing vocabulary and sentence patterns and grammar structures. I think this article explains it a lot better than I probably can!

The recommended way to do this is using audiobooks or podcasts with transcripts, but the reason I started doing this is because I would watch YT videos about useful phrases for daily life or videos about my target grammar, but I'd forget the sentences almost immediately and then have to find the motivation to sit down and rewatch an entire video, sometimes multiple times. "If only there were a way I could listen to the target sentences constantly and just practice parroting them back!" I found myself thinking. "It'd be so much more efficient than looking them up every single time or having to rewatch a whole 20-minute video!"

And then I realised I could literally just use Audacity (free audio recording/editing software!) and record from my laptop speakers myself.

So, I've been going on Youtube, watching various grammar videos and then recording sentences I want to learn from those videos. I record at natural speed first, then at 0.5x playback and then again at 0.75x playback. I then edit it together with two seconds between each recording and a repeat at each speed (plus one final repeat at normal speed). So an audio looks like:

1) Normal speed 2 second break 2) 50% speed 2 second break 3) 75% speed 2 second break 4) Normal speed 2 second break 5) 50% speed 2 second break 6) 75% speed 2 second break 7) Normal speed

Sometimes for shorter sentences, I don't bother to slow the audio down, so I'll just have it repeat 5-6 times at normal speed.

Once I've recorded everything and edited it together, I put the mp3 on my phone. I have a few different playlists (each one around 10-15 minutes in length) - some for specific grammar, some for specific situations (eg shopping, izakaya) - and I usually just stick one on repeat while I'm walking somewhere or doing some kind of menial task that doesn't otherwise engage my brain (doing dishes, ironing, making materials for work etc). And then I do my best to mimic what I'm hearing just behind the speaker (or along with the speaker). Usually the first few times I listen to a track I just try to speak along with the slower versions, or maybe just mimic the specific target structure. As I hear it more and more, eventually I can speak along with the audio word for word and focus more on my intonation.

I've found it helpful so far because it helps me learn sentences while building the muscle memory of how to say certain words/grammar. I can much more easily recall a sentence I've heard on repeat/practiced saying a hundred times than one I've heard in a video once and written down in a notebook somewhere. And if I can recall a sentence, I can substitute words using correct grammar rather than trying to figure out how to say something from scratch (and hopefully choose the correct option on the JLPT when the time comes!)

Hope that answers your question! Feel free to send more 😊

#what does the jay say #nutcracker nihongo #there are actual shadowing audio courses for japanese too and probably other languages if you don't want to do the recording yourself #no doubt they're higher quality than the recordings i'm making for myself lmao #but i'm poor and not fussy so i'll deal with it

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bettyfrommars · 2 years ago

Text

I'm on Fire

older!biker!Eddie Munson x fem!artist!Reader

90's au//Part 6

🚨18+ Only, MDNI, smut, dry humping, thigh riding, squirting (not reader), implied smut, mild violence, jealousy, alcohol consumption, reader feels betrayed (not by Eddie), smoking cigarettes, mention of tattoo placement on reader, biker gang, mention of poverty, loved one in hospital, fear of loss, mention of sex with people other than reader and Eddie Word count: 6.8k

In the aftermath of the adrenaline rush of Fight Night, Eddie disappears again to take care of a family emergency. The two of you share another intimate moment and have a nice night together just before everything starts to unravel. The connection you two share, and everything in your little world, is about to be tested.

Series Masterlist here

A/N: This is turning into the biker!Eddie Munson soap opera I didn't know I needed. I have lots of storyline ideas ahead for this, hopefully I can execute them as well as I want to. As always, thank you for reading ❤️‍🔥 It's difficult to catch errors when I edit myself, but I do my best. Spotify playlist: here

Eddie was holding your face between his hands, kissing you deep, his tongue flicking in every so often to make contact with yours. This is really happening, you tell yourself, sliding one hand up into his hair, the roots damp with sweat, jaw muscles stretching to take each other deeper. He pulled back a few times to plant kisses on your mouth, the tip of your nose, and then he pressed his lips to your forehead and hovered there while your hands slid up his slick chest, his body radiating heat. The DJ played something by Jane’s Addiction and the world seemed to continue on around you, and then your finger began to trace the intricate bat tattoo on his chest, the mouth of it was ancient, feral, and dripping blood.

He leaned back to make eye contact with you and he winked, brushing his thumb over your cheek. “Damn, you’re so beautiful,” and then he cleared his throat and dropped one hand from your face as Steve stepped up near him.

“Sorry to interrupt, man, but I need a minute,” Steve Harrington said, cocking his head to the side.

Eddie squeezed your hand and told you he’d be right back while he motioned for Steve to walk with him. “Follow me back to my place. I need to put a shirt on.” He turned around when they were a handful of steps away to look at you again, and of course you were still staring at him; he stifled a smile.

Even though the fights and the entertainment were over, the crowd hadn’t thinned out very much. The music had started back up and groups were headed back for more beer. You took the opportunity to go over to the fence and spit out some of the blood still in your mouth, and Katie came over to ask if you were okay, her hand rubbing your back.

“Let me see,” she said, referring to you your mouth injury. She winced when she noticed that the lower part of your jaw was swollen. “Not a dull moment in this friendship. Sip of beer?” She asked, holding her cup up.

The thought almost made you gag for some reason and you shook your head. “Where’s Robin and Jeff? Are they okay?”

Katie tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and fixed the neckline of your shirt. “Jeff is somewhere with that young biker stud, and Robin went to bring the jeep around. You have everything you came with? The clown car is leaving.”

You hesitated, because you didn’t want to leave, but you had to be at work early the next day, and you needed to get some ice on your face to keep it from getting worse. “Sure,” you looked across the parking lot. “Just let me find Eddie and say goodbye to him.”

By the time the two of you took a few seconds to look for Jeff and made it through the crowd, Eddie was no longer at the compound.

“Munson? He left,” one of the Hell’s Belles with short black hair told you, a cigarette bouncing between her lips.. “He took off a few seconds ago. Like a bat out of hell.”

To say you were disappointed would be an understatement, but there had to be good reason. Plus, you knew the guy was exhausted; he wouldn’t just take off on a joy ride for the hell of it.

Steve had no clue where Eddie went.

“But, you were the last one to talk to him, right?” Your tongue licked out to feel the rawness of your lower lip. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing,” Steve bleated, arms out in a shrug. His hair was usually slicked back and tight, but because of the brawl, it was adorably messy with a strand hanging down over his eyebrow, “Nothing that would make him bolt. I was just telling him which guys still owed money from the fights, but he didn’t really give a shit.”

You wondered if he lived the double life of a super secret agent: the 007 of bikers.

“He did get a phone call,” Steve offered. “But I didn’t hang around to hear who it was.”

Parked out at the curb, Robin honked her horn, and it looked like Jeff was already in the jeep with her.

Erika and her friends walked by, throwing you dirty looks as they went, but you really didn’t give a shit about them in that moment.

“Why is Robin in such a hurry all of a sudden?” Katie asked Steve, arms crossed over her stomach as the three of you shuffled to the gate at a trot.

“We hired a babysitter for tonight, a neighborhood girl, really nice, but Robin’s always annoyingly nervous to leave Ollie with new people.”

Robin honked again, even though she could see that you were all moving in that direction, but clearly not fast enough. You turned in a circle, taking one more look around for Eddie before you got in the jeep, but he had officially evaporated.

-------

By the next afternoon, you still hadn’t heard from Eddie, and so you had your other assistant watch the front of the gallery while you hid in the back room to call his place, only to find that there was no answer. The first unromantic gift you planned to get for him was an answering machine.

Robin, Katie, and Oliver showed up to the gallery event looking adorable, after you encouraged them with talk of fresh crab legs and expensive goat cheese from France you could barley pronounce. Steve was working at the tattoo shop, but Oliver looked extremely dapper in red trousers, a black, short sleeve button down shirt and a red bow tie. He was still getting used to you, so he was on the quiet side, but he showed an intense amount of interest as you explained the mediums that were used in some of the artwork.

“Ollie loves to paint and draw, don’t you Ollie?” Robin asked him, but when you made eye contact to hear his answer, he shyly tucked his chin. Toward the end of their visit, though, there was a tiny finger tap on the side of your leg, and you looked down to find two big brown eyes like saucers staring up at you from under long, dark lashes. The boy was irrefutably Steve’s clone.

He curled his hand a few times, motioning for you to bend down, closer to him. “That one is my favorite,” he told you, pointing to one of the really loud, colorful abstract pieces.

“That’s my favorite too,” you whispered, in all seriousness, which afforded you an impish smile and a few consecutive nods of the head before he traveled back to take Robin’s hand.

Katie held her wine glass to her lips to muffle her words as she leaned closer to you. “Judith is looking exceptionally MILF this evening, in a Morticia kind of way.” She was referring to the owner of the gallery, who only popped in once in a great while to boast her importance in the community. Just at that moment, Judith, with her black hair styled in a short, severe asymmetrical bob, made eye contact with you and offered one of those unreadable, passive-aggressive expressions that always made your mind scramble to figure out what you had done wrong. Nothing, you reminded yourself, you’d done nothing wrong. Except, maybe, steal a lover away from one of the wealthiest women in the state, who also just happened to be one of Judith’s country club pals. Had Charlene put the pieces together and realized who you were and where you worked? It wouldn’t be a herculean feat; it was a small town and there were only a handful of galleries in the area. But suddenly, it dawned on you, that it probably wasn’t the brightest career move to make, being that much of your current livelihood depended on the support from people in Charlene’s circle.

All the same, who sits around fretting over a reputation or a career when you could be with Eddie? Definitely not you.

“Still no word from Batman?” You asked Robin as the three of them headed for the door.

Robin pressed her lips together so that her mouth became a thin, pensive line, the silver ball from her lip ring sliding to one side, and she shook her head. “No, and I haven’t been able to get a hold of Wayne either, so we’re going to drive by his place once we leave here.”

You’d be at the gallery for another hour after the event was over to clean up, and so you gave Robin one of their business cards with the phone number on it. “Please let me know what you find out?”

When you said the final goodbyes, it was dusk, and you poked your head out the door to watch them trot off down the sidewalk: Oliver in the middle, with Katie and Robin on either side, holding his hands. At one point he jumped and they swung him a few feet, giggling as he went. You weren’t much of a crier, but for some reason, the sight made tears well up in your eyes.

Jeff had the weekend off, but you found out from your other assistant, Holly, that Judith had gone home, and the news made your shoulders drop with relief. The sidewalk was bustling when the two of you locked the doors, busy with couples and friends coming in and out of the various bars and restaurants on your street. There was that buzz of spring time excitement in the air; people coming out of their caves after a long winter, ready to shake off the cobwebs and show off their pedicures.

You told Holly to take home whatever she wanted from the leftover spread of food. “You can head home, I’ll finish the rest of this up,” you assured her. Holly had just turned 21 recently, and you knew she was aching to get out and enjoy her active social life. You, on the other hand, were daydreaming about a quality night stretched out on the sofa after the events of the previous evening. Holly went out the back door, and you stayed to watch and make sure she got to her car safely before locking yourself into the building, and that’s when the phone rang.

The floor was extra smooth in the back hall, and you slipped a bit as you quickly spun around, pushing yourself off the wall, arms pumping to gain momentum as you bolted for the beige landline mounted on the wall in the office.

“Thank you for calling Moon River Gallery, this is----”

At the other end was Robin. “Wayne was rushed to the hospital last night,” she said with a sniff, as if she’d just been crying. “He’s okay now, but I’m pissed that Eddie didn’t tell anyone.”

Your heart sank as you leaned your hip against the table. “Oh, no, what happened?”

She sniffed again. “I’m not really sure. I guess they put him on some different meds, and he got lightheaded and fell...and hit his head on the...on the….” her voice trembled and she couldn’t get it out, and so Katie took the phone.

“Hi, it’s me,” Katie said. “He hit his head on the kitchen counter as he went down and he’s banged up. It looks worse than it is though, he’s going to be totally fine,” you could tell she was saying it more to Robin than to you. “Sorry it took so long to call, we just got back from the hospital. He was sleeping, but we got to see him.”

“No, you’re good, I’m so glad you called,” you flicked the light switches that turned off all of the artwork spot lights and the main over head, so the only illumination was in the front windows, the back room where you were, and the deep blue glow from light strips on the main floor. You had not yet officially met uncle Wayne, but you knew how much he meant to all of them, especially Eddie. “What about Eddie? Was he at the hospital?”

“Eddie left when we got there,” Katie sounded confused. “He said he was going to find you.”

------

Getting a call like that from the hospital put Eddie’s head in a dark place. It sent him into survival mode; he couldn’t deal with anything else until he knew that Wayne was okay. He stayed by Wayne’s bed that night, wide awake, eyes bloodshot, knee bouncing, thinking about loving people only to lose them in the end. Fear curled its icy hand around his heart; Eddie had already lost so many people he cared about, he worried that one more would break him.

And then his thoughts rushed to you. The two of you were barely a thing, and already the idea of losing you made his eyes go black with the idea of an emptiness that had the potential to gut him beyond repair. His first instinct was to distance himself from you; he was eerily adept at closing himself off, blocking the world out, and pushing people away. In his life, whenever something good happened, he was always very suspicious about what type of disaster was right around the corner.

Yet, all he wanted in the world at that moment—besides someone to tell him that Wayne’s cancer was miraculously cured---was for you to be there with him in that dark, lonely hospital room. Machines beeping, the smell of antiseptic and bleach and dread. If you could be in his lap, he’d wrap his arms around you and close his eyes and put his head to your chest, and you’d promise him in that sweet voice of yours that nothing bad would ever happen to you, and you’d always be his. You couldn’t promise those things, and he knew that, but the idea of resting his face against the side of your neck did help him to get an hour of sleep in a very stiff chair that was too small for him.

Wayne woke up early in the morning, and Eddie was able to talk with him a bit, and get an idea of what to expect from the nurses. Once he knew that Wayne was in good hands, and he could stop spinning his wheels, he had to go back to work and take care of the three tows that were already lined up. There was one other driver, but business had been growing, and he almost needed to hire a third. Now, he also needed to find an office assistant, even though Wayne kept protesting the idea. No one could replace Wayne, but the part time help would lessen his burdens.

He should’ve called to let Robin and Steve know what happened, he realized that now, and he should’ve called you, but the day got so damn busy so fast, and since Wayne was okay, he didn’t want to alarm anyone needlessly. He’s lucky Robin didn’t slap him across the face, because she looked like she was about to.

By the time he finished up at the garage and went over to check on Wayne one more time, it was late---but he needed to see you. He had to see your face before his heart exploded.

--------

You had just hung up from the phone call with Katie and Robin when you jumped at the sound of a soft tapping noise. At first, you didn’t know where it was coming from, and your ear prickled as you tried to use it as an antennae to guide you to the sound. The main floor was full of shadows; only dark blue atmosphere lights that made you feel like you were in an aquarium, and the illumination from the front window.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

You stepped around one of the big, freestanding artwork dividers, just as you realized the sound was coming from the front window.

And then you saw him.

Shrouded in the residual purple darkness of a sunset, standing at the front door with one knee out to the side, hand down low, knuckle casually but repetitively hitting the glass. Wearing all black; jeans, leather, shirt, the only color peaking out was from his tattoos. Your eyes found each other at the same time, just as you came into view, and it was all you could do not to start giggling and skipping along at how happy you were to see him.

You tried to wipe the smile off of your face as you headed for the door. “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re closed,” you were shaking your head, frowning, trying to act like you didn’t know who he was.

The stern look on his face slipped a little at the corners of his mouth, but he maintained intense eye contact with you, continuing the tap...tap…tap, with the hand that said “H-E-L-L” across the knuckles while the other knuckles spelled out “F-I-R-E”, until you got closer and there was nothing but a pane of glass between the two of you. You broke eye contact just long enough to twist open the double locks, and then he stood there in the doorway bit longer, bracing his arm high on the frame; shirt and coat rising to show the hint of a tattoo at his hip.

“Can I take you to dinner? Are you hungry?” He asked as you motioned him in. He was reluctant because he didn’t think he’d be allowed in there. Much like a vampire, he had to be invited.

“Sure, but, it’s late,” you said as you secured the door again. He turned to you, about to say something else, but then you closed in on him, grabbing onto his jacket with both hands, hips coming together, and he brought his hands to rest on the top of your shoulders. “I’m really glad Wayne is okay,” you whispered, regarding him with the utmost sincerity.

He played with a wisp of hair at the base of your neck. “I should’ve called you, but I--”

“You’re here now,” you beamed. His left eye was swollen, with a bit of bluish black discoloration, and there was a tiny butterfly band-aid over the small cut above his eyebrow.

“I’m here, sweetheart,” he returned in a low voice, bending down to kiss your lips, gripping one side of your neck as he did, his thumb stretching up over your jaw. You moaned against his mouth and the sound made his brow clench, stretching his other hand down to casually adjust himself in his jeans.

He moved his hand around the back of your neck as you pulled apart, his eyes trained on your mouth. “How is your tongue?” He almost couldn’t even talk about it, the idea of you getting hit in the face—even accidentally—made him want to start punching walls.

You raised your eyebrows a few times. “I could still eat, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“There’s that all night diner down a couple streets,” his voice a low mumble. “They have those vegetarian burger things, I checked.”

For some reason, that thoughtful gesture sent you even further over the moon about him, and you slipped one hand into his back pocket while the other one played with his wallet chain. “And what will you have? A big, fat steak?”

“The bloodier the better,” he said, running the tip of his tongue over his lower lip.

You planted another quick kiss on him, and then, “here, follow me. I just have one more thing to finish up and then we can go get some blood in your mouth again.”

The front desk against the wall was long and rectangular and came up to your waist. You pulled one of the stools out from under the alcove and placed it next to you so that he could have a seat while you finished sorting some invoices under the dim blue light. Eddie sat with his back against a filing cabinet, legs spread wide, one hand on his hip, the other forearm on his thigh, the hand with the digital wrist watch hanging down between. He tilted his head to watch you as you bent over several times to scribble something on a piece of paper.

“Hey, baby,” he whispered, and you threw him a bashful look over your shoulder. “Come to me,” and he slapped his hand on his leg a few times, directing you where to sit. “You’re too far away.”

He probably meant for you to side-saddle him like he was Santa Claus, but instead, you slid your skirt up your thighs and straddled his whole leg, facing him, like you were about to ride his thigh like a horse, hands braced on his chest. Eddie smirked at how you crawled onto him, he cupped one palm under your butt cheek and popped his knee a few times so that you were, indeed, riding him.

“I like it when you call me baby,” you told him as he brought a hand up to either side of your face, tucking hair behind your ears, brushing his thumb across your skin, metal rings cool as they scissored your ear.

“Yeah?” He asked, dark eyes searching yours. “What else do you like?”

You brought your hand up and ran your finger down his full lips, gently pulling the bottom one open as you went. “I like your mouth.”

He kissed your finger, said a quiet, “you can have it,” and then, with both hands, pulled your face to his, lips parting, tongues exploring, faces turning to avoid noses and lick deeper, hungry moans rising. You slipped a hand around the side of his warm throat, dipping your fingers into the downy hair at the base of his skull, his tiny silver cross earring grazing your hand.

It was only then that you became aware of the grinding you were doing on his leg, and by the time you were aware of it, you didn't want to stop. You needed it, you were drunk on the sweetness of his mouth, the spicy pine and leather of his scent. It was one of the first warm nights in a while, and so you weren’t wearing nylons or tights, and the thin material of your underwear was the only barrier between his denim and your cookie box.

Eddie knew what was happening from the first twitch of your pelvis, and one of his hands slid down to your hip, locking you there, encouraging it. You started to push off of the balls of your feet to deepen the friction as the need for stimulation increased.

“That’s my baby,” Eddie growled as you put your forehead to his. He slid his hand around to make a fist in your hair, pulling your head back so that he could have access to your throat. He sucked at your pulse point, groaning as he did so, while your other hand clung to his jacket for dear life.

The hair tug made you whimper. “That,” you breathed. “I like that too.”

He tightened his grip, taking control of your head, forcing your lips back to his for another deep kiss. He was lifting his leg to meet your needs now, anticipating the rhythm. “Good girl, I got you,” his voice was barely a murmur, lips grazing yours. You started to saw faster back and forth on his leg, slipping one hand down to his other thigh to anchor you, caught unaware at how good it felt and how close you were.

Outside, people were still passing by on the sidewalk, finishing up with their dinners and heading home, or to a bar, but the desk blocked you from view so no one could see that you were rocking like a cowgirl bound for hell.

Your underwear were soaked now, seeping onto his jeans; your cunt swollen and aching against the perfect mix of friction against his denim. You were breathless, mumbling the answer to an unasked question, “uh huh uh huh oh god,” as he put your forehead back to his, one hand still clenched in your hair. You were whispering incoherent parts of words, saying his name, and then you started to feel a spring bounce open inside of you. Eddie could feel it too; you trembled and choked his name one more time, and then you fell forward, curling against him with quickened thrusts.

He tilted his head so that your mouth could find his neck to use as a muffle for your scream, your tongue melting on the salt of his skin. His strong arms secured your body to his as you continued to grind on his leg. “I got you, baby, cum for me…” he coaxed, bracing your hip and the back of your head.

But it wouldn’t take much coaxing, because suddenly you were there: stiffening up against him, letting out a sharp cry just below his ear, one hand holding the other side of his head as if you were feeding on his jugular. His grip on you tightened as your body shuddered, going blind for a second, whimpering against his throat.

Eddie let out a guttural curse as the wetness from your warm pussy penetrated the skin beneath his denim, pre-cum soaking the tip of his cock inside his jeans in response. You let your full weight fall against him, safe, knowing he wouldn’t let you fall, pussy contracting in the afterglow, face buried in his neck and hair.

“Damn, what was that,” you gasped once you were finally able to speak, shoulders trembling in the afterquake. Should you be embarassed? You’d never cum like that before in your life.

He gave a throaty chuckle, his hand rubbing up and down on your back. “I won’t be washing these jeans for a while.”

You were starting to sit up, smoothing your hair back and licking your lips, when you noticed the cherry red glow of a hickey appearing on his neck surrounded by some teeth indentations. “Oops,” you ran your thumb over it, thinking it might be lipstick. “I marked you, now I guess that means you’re mine.”

“I’m fine with it,” his serious eyes found yours from under hooded, sleepy lids.

You were both starving by the time you locked up the gallery, and Eddie’s bike was parked close, so you agreed to ride with him, and then he’d bring you back to your car after. You had brought a change of clothes with you, as you always did so that you could get out of your fussy gallery clothes as quickly as possible, and now you were comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt with your black converse. You hadn’t thought to bring a change of underwear, but you would from now on.

Out on the sidewalk, you eyeballed the big beast of a bike with only a tiny space on the seat for a second rider. He lit a smoke and passed you the helmet that had been hanging on one of his handlebars.

You looked down at it. “But, don’t you need to wear this?”

He shook his head, cigarette pressed between his lips. “I only have one with me, and your head is more important than mine.” He zipped up his jacket and swung one leg over, mounting it.

He could tell you were hesitating. “We’re only going a couple blocks,” he assured you. “If you hate it, you never have to get on this thing again.”

“No, no, it’s not that,” you scrambled to find the right words as you strapped your bag across your body put the helmet on, tightening the chin strap. The helmet was way too big for you and you worried you looked like a real dork. “I’m just not sure...how to do this.”

He hitched his chin at you, planting his feet on either side to hold the chopper steady. “Grab onto the back of my jacket, put this foot here...and then swing the other one over.”

Once you were on, you adjusted your bum on the seat and held onto the sides of his leather, fingers clawing at him nervously, letting him know that you were ready.

Eddie kicked the beast to life with a hop and a twist of his fits on the handlebars; it growled its obedience loud and fierce. People stopped on either side of the street to turn and see where the noise was coming from, and most of them stayed to watch as Eddie walked the massive, menacing bike out to get a clean shot in through the passing cars.

He took one of your hands and brought it around so that it was at his stomach, your chin at his shoulder. “Hold on tight, baby,” he called to you over the roar, and then he lifted his feet and the two of you shot into the night, his discarded cigarette bouncing to the pavement in a dance of orange sparks.

A few cars away, down at the dark end of the street, a white Jaguar idled with the headlights off, and the blonde woman behind the wheel cursed under her breath as she watched the two of you go, anger and jealousy tightening her face. Charlene Gregson was smoking a cigarette, too, and on the exhale, she hissed, “I’m going to make her regret she ever met you, Edward Munson.”

---------

Katie’s eyes rolled back in her head as Robin’s fingers worked her in the perfect spot, “fuck, right there right there,” and then Robin put her other hand over Katie’s mouth to keep her quiet as her orgasm mounted. Oliver was asleep across the hall, and Steve was having a beer in front of the TV after just getting off work. Her cries properly muffled, Robin curled the fingers of her other hand deep in the honey pot and bent her head to find Katie’s nipple with her mouth.

Katie was trying to tell her something, heels digging into the bed, her body gyrating against Robin’s hand. Robin thought she was just really vocal in bed, but then she felt the warm spray coat her hand in bursts, and that’s when she found out, in a moment of awe, that Katie was a squirter.

--------

On Sunday, Katie was working on lessons plans for the first day back after break, but you convinced her to let you take her out to dinner. Later on, you showed up at the tattoo shop Steve worked at just as he was bent over inking a big lower back butterfly for a woman. You flipped through the flash in the tattoo books, talking about maybe getting matching ones. Katie had a tattoo on her ankle, and you had one on your shoulder blade in honor of your grandmother, but neither of you were close to the quantity and quality of work that Steve, Robin, and Eddie had, but you had to start somewhere.

“Did you know that Robin has had two of her girlfriend’s names tattooed on her?” Katie asked you, loud enough for Steve to hear.

Still focused on what he was working on, Steve joined the conversation. “Hey, I didn’t put those names on her, but I was excited when she let me cover them up.”

Robin was at work that afternoon; at one of her side gigs as a maid at one of the fancy local hotels, and it was optimal because she was always able to bring Oliver with her. He loved taking home the tiny shampoo bottles and soaps.

“I can always draw up a design for you girls, if you have something in mind,” Steve announced, looking up briefly as the two of you came up to the counter to say goodbye.

“What do you think?” Katie turned to you, one eyebrow up. “Maybe a dotted line across our throats that says ‘cut here’?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I did that one,” Steve mumbled.

---------

On the opposite side of town in the industrial district, Eddie had a guy by the throat and was sliding him up a brick wall in an alley, holding him there, his feet off the ground, trying to kick out feebly.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” Eddie asked him with a tilt of his head, voice calm but eyes narrowed.

The guy was struggling for air, spitting, face going blue, and all he could do was bare his teeth in a slobbery grimace.

“Check his pockets,” Eddie told the other two bikers that were with him, bracing the guy against the wall like he weighed nothing.

The object of Eddie’s chokehold was a weaselly snake of a man named Rollo who borrowed a large sum of money under Eddie’s name from the Coffin Kings, gambled it all away, and tried to split town. Eddie was supposed to bust his knee caps, but scaring the actual piss out of him, and taking his wallet was punishment enough, he felt. Eddie could be a very violent man if he wanted to, but only on his terms and never at anyone else’s command. Rollo’s two other friends were on the ground; one was unconscious and the other one was doubled over in pain.

“Look in my eyes,” Eddie told Rollo as the other guys found Rollo’s wallet and continued digging around for whatever else he had on him. “The next time you see these eyes, you won’t be able to walk away on two legs, do you understand?”

Rollo nodded a few tiny nods, and Eddie released his hand, letting his body slump to the ground against the wall, coughing, trying to swallow. He was stocky with a beer belly, but short, bald with a goatee.

“Now, get the fuck out of here,” Eddie grumbled as he turned on his heel. “Get the hell out of this town if you know what’s good for you.”

Eddie released a heavy sigh as he mounted his bike, pausing just for a second to remember how tight your body had been pressed against him the night before, the way you had clung to him for dear life, screaming a little when he turned corners. At dinner, you held his hand across the table, right in front of everyone, as if being with a grease monkey and a thug like him didn’t bother you at all. He didn’t know you’d grown up poor, with an alcoholic mother, and you had to learn to be scrappy as hell to get the things you wanted—nothing had been handed to you. He assumed that the two of you had grown up on opposite side of the tracks, in a sense, that you were perfect and polished, and one day soon, you’d realize that he was far from it.

He should’ve been on top of the world knowing that he had you to look forward to, but Eddie had a bad feeling in his gut that he couldn’t ignore. That ominous, invisible tug reminding him that something was about to go wrong was ever-present.

-------------

There was a downpour on Sunday night, and you were just about to check the answering machine to see if Eddie called while Katie started her yoga practice in the living room, when Jeff showed up at your door unannounced. The frantic knocking on the front window made you both jump, and then, there he was in a big, clear poncho with a hood over his head. He shook himself out on the porch before he came in all the way, unbuttoning his slicker to hang it on one of the coat hooks. Jeff had never been to your place before, so you were amused at how he just made himself at home. He took his shoes off before he stepped onto the carpet, even though that wasn’t something either of you required of your house guests.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” He demanded, clearly distraught, looking around as if to check and see where the phone in question was.

“We just got home a little bit ago,” Katie told him, sitting up on her mat to pull her knees to her chest. “What’s going on?”

“Did you listen to the message I left?” He pressed, eyes wide and blinking dramatically at you.

The light was flashing on the machine and your finger was on the button to play the messages back, but you hadn’t pushed it yet, and you flipped a glance at Katie, your heart racing a little.

“Jeff,” you sighed, exasperated. “Please, you’re here, just tell me.”

Jeff puffed out a long breath, hang high on his hip. “First, tell me why you’re leaving the gallery. Is it because of me?”

Disbelief took hold of you initially; you were sure Jeff had just overheard something wrong or made a mistake.

Jeff continued. “If it’s not because of me, and you’re just going to a better gallery, please, take me with you?”

“Hold on,” you put your hand up, trying to make sense of what he was saying as you sat down in the wood chair by the phone. “What made you think I was quitting?”

Jeff’s disturbingly bright blue eyes softened as they found yours and he realized that you didn’t know what he was talking about.

He went over and took a seat at one of the padded bar stools next to the kitchen island, and then he looked down at his hands, suddenly wishing he would’ve waited for you to check your messages.

“I had to go in and get my check late today because I was gone Saturday,” he paused almost as if that was the end of it, but then he lifted his head, an apologetic look on his face as he looked at you. “Judith said I needed to come in for a couple hours on Wednesday to train with the new manager because you were leaving.”

You froze, letting that sink in. Still an element of denial present, you wondered if maybe Jeff heard Judith wrong---perhaps another manager from a different gallery was visiting? But, if so, why wouldn’t you know about it? Why would Judith tell Jeff about it and not you?

“Hunny?” Katie called to you because you weren’t saying anything, your mouth was just hanging open. You snapped it shut abruptly and swallowed.

Jeff shook his head, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be the one to---” sure, Jeff loved a good gossip train, but he genuinely did not want to be the one to inadvertently break it to you that you had been fired without a warning. “I thought you quit, and you just didn’t want to tell me. I thought you already knew.”

Your mind went to Judith’s face at the art show on Saturday, how she had been throwing you dirty looks while simultaneously avoiding you. You were already fired then, and you just didn’t know it.

“I’m fine,” you breathed a forced laugh, hoping to calm everyone else in the room even though your stomach clenched with fear of the unknown. “Everything is fine, I’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”

Jeff and Katie exchanged a look, and then they both turned back to you, but your eyes were focused on the floor, the tip of your tongue hovering on your top lip, pensively. Outside, a blast of thunder boomed so hard, there was the equivalent of a light bulb flash in the front window, and a few of the neighborhood car alarms went off, bleating like ominous warnings in the distance.

-------

Later that night, long after Jeff left and Katie had gone to bed, you sat out in the dark of the living room, alone, playing back the messages at low volume while rain continued its lullaby on the windows.

There were four: two from Jeff, one from a credit card company, and...one from Eddie. You had already played it several times, but you played it again, this time with your head tilted, ear close to the speaker of the machine, and your eyes closed.

“...hey, it’s me,” his deep voice wavered a bit and then he cleared his throat. “...damn, you know I hate these things….but I got home and wanted to tell you…that I was thinkin’ about you.”

You’d been holding the stress of the past few hours at bay, letting the knowledge of your abrupt and back-stabbing dismissal tighten in your stomach, but then the sound of his voice broke you a little, and your chest hitched a few times, a single tear making its way down the bridge of your nose.

There was a long pause where it sounded like he was stretching. “...you can call me...or not…I hope you had a good day. Mine was shit,” you could hear him whistle a bit and click his tongue, wondering what to say while simultaneously feeling stupid for talking to a machine. “Let me know if we’re still on for Tuesday night…I’d really like to...to see you again. Okay, later.”

And then, he was gone. You played it several more times before you went to bed, angrily wiping tears off your cheeks. You couldn’t talk to him just yet; you were still too confused and blindsided to get into it with anyone. Plus, you were exhausted, and triggered by rising feelings of abandonment and worthlessness. After you dealt with whatever lame excuse of a conversation Judith had in store for you when you went into work the next day, maybe you’d just stop by the garage to see him for a bit. Maybe he’d be able to fuck the pain away.

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Part 7

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