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geekgirl-1717 · 5 months ago

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sanji x reader. 2.5k words. spoilers for zou/whole cake island. fem! reader, no use of (y/n). angst no comfort :)

“i promise i’ll be back.”

part 2 here

it wasn’t uncommon for you and your crewmates to end up in unusual situations, but this was too much to handle. there was so much to process that you weren’t sure what to focus on first.

vinsmoke? wedding invitation? big mom? the situation was becoming more and more confusing by the second, and you could only watch helplessly as sanji became more and more distraught. you don’t think you had ever seen sanji so beside himself, and it made your heart hurt in a way that was hard to explain.

you weren’t sure when your feelings for sanji had bloomed into something more than just a friendship between fellow crewmates. at first, sanji treated you the same way as any other woman who so much as looked his way: doting and flamboyant and perhaps a bit obsessive. though sometimes endearing, his extravagant displays of affection and sugar-coated soliloquies of praise often struck you as superficial.

you always felt there was more to sanji, something authentic and vulnerable buried deep beneath his womanizing facade. it intrigued you from the moment you first met him, and after you joined the strawhats, you endeavored to uncover this hidden side to the chef.

you started spending more time in the kitchen, making casual conversation with sanji and watching him cook. initially, he kept up his loverboy antics around you, much to your chagrin. you could hardly say a word to him without sending him into a spinning, swirling mess of exaltations.

but with enough patience and gentle coaxing, sanji began to slowly open up to you. it started with simple anecdotes he shared while cooking. the story of the first time he ever made a particular dish. the origin of a certain recipe. a fond memory of his time at baratie. you cherished any and every tidbit of information he shared with you.

from there, your bond with the chef only grew stronger. upon arriving on a new island, instead of shopping with nami and robin or exploring with luffy and usopp, you would help sanji with food and supply runs, browsing local markets and searching for exciting new ingredients. watching sanji in the kitchen turned into helping him wash dishes turned into him offering to teach you how to cook.

these cooking lessons were the first hint that your relationship with sanji was developing into something more, something new and exciting and terrifying all at once. you felt your cheeks heat up whenever sanji would stand behind you while you chopped herbs or vegetables, placing his hands over yours to guide your movements and mumbling encouraging compliments in your ear no matter how rough and uneven your cuts were. when sampling something you made, he would always give you a beaming smile, patting your head and complimenting your work in such a genuine manner, it made your stomach flip. you pushed these feelings aside, not wanting to ruin this delicate friendship you’d worked so hard to form, but it was getting harder and harder to hide your affection for sanji with each passing day.

upon returning to sabaody after the two-year long separation, you quickly realized something had changed between you and sanji, something you struggled to put into words. of course, all of your crewmates had changed during that time, accruing new skills and stories and battle scars to bring into the new world. and you were no different. you had spent the bittersweet time apart from your crew getting stronger and honing your talents to ensure you could always help your friends and your captain, no matter how terrifying a threat you faced.

you had nearly tackled sanji in a spine-crushing hug the first time you saw him again, squeezing your eyes shut and burying your face into the crook of his neck to hide the joyful tears that threatened to spill down your cheeks. you were immediately enveloped in the familiar scent of nicotine and cologne, and for the first time in two years, you felt truly at ease.

sanji was shocked initially, but allowed himself to sink into your embrace, returning the hug with equal fervor and running a soothing hand up and down your back. it was only after you composed yourself that you were able to notice just how much sanji had changed.

you pulled back from his grasp to fully take him in. he was taller, you noted, and the scruff on his chin had grown into a full, neatly-kept goatee. his hair was a tad longer, and you noticed he’d changed the way he parted his bangs. though mostly hidden from sight under the many layers of his suit, you could tell as you’d clung to him that he had gotten stronger, his lean torso now solid with sinew and muscle. you had always found sanji to be charming in a boyish way, lanky and wiry with soft, round cheeks that looked so squishable (not that you would ever say that out loud).

standing before you was no longer a boy, but a man, chiseled and toned and finally having grown into those long, powerful legs of his. the word “adorable” had often come to mind when you thought about sanji before, but that word no longer did him justice. now, he was strikingly handsome.

that notion pulled you from your thoughts, a flush spreading across your cheeks when you realized you’d been standing there for gods know how long, blatantly ogling sanji as you appraised his appearance. luckily, he seemed to be stuck in a trance of his own, looking you up and down and admiring all the ways your appearance had changed since you last saw each other.

you both had the decency to look somewhat ashamed when you finally locked eyes again, realizing what the two of you had just been doing.

from that point on, everything was different. you could dice an onion or peel a potato with ease, but sanji always insisted on helping you, pressing his chest against your back and brushing against your sides as his hands moved to gently wrap around your own. these once-harmless touches were more deliberate, lingering just a second too long. you weren’t even listening to his instructions anymore, distracted by his hot breath against your ear and wishing you could hear his whispered praises for more than just your vegetable-cutting skills.

with many of the great adventures the crew had came many experiences you wished you could forget, and unfortunately nightmares were becoming a more common occurrence for you. on those nights when you knew sanji was on watch duty, you instinctively sought his presence. he always welcomed you with open arms, pulling you close to his chest to protect you from the chilly night air and the terrifying images that plagued your weary mind. the smell of cigarette smoke once bothered you, but now it was one of your favorite scents, mingled with hints of spices and cologne in a blend that was so uniquely sanji. whether it was a snack, reassuring words, or just a warm blanket with a warmer hug, sanji would give you whatever you needed and more.

you never said anything about your feelings for sanji and if he felt the same way about you, he was similarly silent. for months, the two of you had been like celestial bodies, pulled in by the weight of your attraction and perpetually orbiting around each other, never wanting to get too close in fear of a catastrophic collision ruining this perfectly-orchestrated dance.

and now, you were losing him.

you started panicking, unable to remain calm for sanji’s sake anymore. you pulled at your restraints, the metal chains rattling and clanking loudly against each other. your voice was shaky and strained, but you couldn’t stop the frantic pleas that came pouring out of your mouth.

“sanji, please. i don’t- i don’t know what’s going on or what they’re telling you, but please.”

you knew you sounded utterly pathetic, but you couldn’t help yourself. you saw sanji’s shoulders tense before he stood up from the table.

when you finally saw the look on his face, tears poured from your eyes in earnest. he was smiling, but it was a sad, empty smile, like he was trying to convince you everything was alright even though you both knew it wasn’t. his gaze held a swirling hurricane of emotions; guilt, regret, hesitancy, bitter resolve, and… tenderness? love? you didn’t know.

the clanking of chains grew louder as you struggled harder against your bonds, uncaring of the strain it was putting on your wrists. the words were spilling out of you like vomit, fast and jumbled and out of control.

“sanji. sanji, it’s okay. it doesn’t matter- it doesn’t matter what they’re telling you. d-don’t listen to them. we’ll help you! we’re your friends! i-we care about you. we’ll fight whoever we need to fight! just please! please don’t leave.”

you’d been nearly shouting, but the last sentence came out quiet and soft, quiet enough that sanji may not have heard you had he not been slowly making his way over to you during all of your rambling. that sad smile never left his face as he kneeled down in front of you.

one hand came up to stroke your cheek, futilely brushing away the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. he leaned in so his forehead was pressing against yours, whispering so that only you could hear him.

“i’m so sorry, love.”

you hardly had time to process his words before he pressed his lips against yours.

the kiss was gentle, chaste and pure and perhaps a little hesitant at first, as though he were afraid you would pull back at any moment.

but you didn’t.

tears still streaming down your cheeks, you reciprocated as best you could, pouring all of your unspoken devotion and affection for sanji into the kiss.

suddenly, everything fell away around you. the fire-tank pirates were letting out groans of discontent, intermingled with the shocked gasps of your crewmates next to you. you heard none of it. as far as you knew, you and sanji were the only two people in the world right now.

sanji was always so selfless, putting the needs of his friends above his own and bending over backwards to fulfill any request given to him. but in this one moment, he was greedy. his hand slipped down from your cheek to the back of your neck, tilting your head slightly and kissing you like it was the last thing he would ever do on this earth. the sharp taste of menthol mixed with the saltiness of tears as you moved your lips against sanji’s, savoring every second of the kiss and dreading the inevitable moment when you would be forced apart.

“kissing another woman right before your wedding? vinsmoke, you dog!”

bege’s voice cut through the stunned silence that had permeated the room, replacing it with raucous laughter and jeers.

as if snapped back into reality, sanji reluctantly pulled away, giving you one last sad smile before turning his attention to the rest of your crewmates next to you.

you knew he was saying something to them, slipping some piece of paper into nami’s pocket and apologizing for how he’d hid all this from the crew. you couldn’t care less, though. you would gladly get caught in a web of lies spun by sanji if it meant you could be with him.

sanji pulled you and your crewmates into his arms, giving you all a final embrace. you wished you could tear off your chains if only to hold him one last time, but you settled for burying your face in his shoulder, basking in the smell of cigarettes and spices and cologne you’d grown to love so much.

it seemed the universe couldn’t allow you even the briefest of indulgences as you were ripped from your reverie, a sudden feeling of weightlessness shocking your senses. you and your crewmates had been sent flying, hurtling out of the strange entity that was capone bege’s body.

everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. you wouldn’t be surprised if the earth itself had stopped spinning in that moment. you were able to make out sanji’s expression in extraordinary detail. it was as if your mind knew this could be the last time you ever saw him, and you wanted to commit his every feature to memory.

he wore a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, one that you could tell was fake even if you hadn’t already seen him smile a hundred times before. it was nothing like the way he smiled while he was cooking for the crew, easy and contented and in his element. it was nothing like the way he smiled at you when you proudly displayed the dish you’d made under his guidance, toothy and beaming as the corners of eyes crinkled with joy.

it was nothing like the way he smiled when it was just the two of you in the crow’s nest late at night, gentle and loving and full of so much that was left unspoken.

no, now sanji’s smile was shallow, empty. his words were somehow even more hollow as they reached your ears.

“i promise i’ll be back. tell everyone i said hi.”

liar.

you’d didn’t even try to brace yourself as you hit the ground with a dull thud, now back in the forest of zou. your crewmates were talking worriedly around you, trying to make sense of what had just happened, but you couldn’t make out what they were saying.

your tears had all dried up now. you stared at the sky with an empty gaze. the chains were still digging into your skin, but even the insistent press of the harsh metal couldn’t compare to the anguish in your heart. sanji’s last words to you played over and over in your mind like a broken record, each rendition making your chest ache further and further.

“i promise i’ll be back.”

liar.

#reader insert #fanfic #one piece #one piece fanfiction #sanji x reader #vinsmoke sanji #one piece x reader #sanji #one piece sanji #sanji x you #vinsmoke sanji x reader #angst #angst no comfort #I finally got to zou/whole cake and this scene made me cry so I must share my sadness with everyone :)#consistent post formatting? what’s that?

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clovariia · 7 months ago

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we can FINALLY post our pieces for the @tohgrimoire zine!!! i wrote a fic about luz and her family visiting her father's grave. it's a tragic but healing time for all of them.

thank you so much to @astrolavas for drawing the devastating spot art and the zine's writing mod @taruchinator for helping with beta reading!!! all the zine contributors and mods were so sweet and encouraging. i'm so grateful that i got to be a part of this project! thank you to everyone for all the support!!!!!! 🦉💕

🔗 https://archiveofourown.org/works/58919038

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novantinuum · 8 months ago

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Fandom: Steven Universe Rating: Gen Words: 2.8K~ Summary: Not too long after making peace with Homeworld and sparking the start of Era 3, Steven wakes up one morning to discover some... notable changes about himself.

AKA: The one where Steven finally hits his growth-spurt. All at once. Because of course the half-Gem kid could never experience such a human thing like puberty in a "normal" way.

[Part 1 of 2]

Just a few seconds later, knuckles rap against the door in answer to his perturbed cry.

“Yo Steve-o, that you in there?” Amethyst calls.

“Y-yeah?” he stammers. His brows threading inwards, he delicately runs his fingers over the ridge upon his throat, very much thrown off by the distinctly lower tenor of the sound coming from his own mouth. He swallows hard, pushing himself to speak again. Come on Steven, he berates himself, think of something lighthearted. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. No need to completely freak out over this yet. “Who else would I be? It’s not like the whole town uses this bathroom…”

“I mean, I do sometimes. For fun.”

“Okay, fair point, but—”

“Dude, what’s wrong with your voice? Are you like, sick or somethin’?“

“No, it’s just—”

He squeezes his eyes shut, blocking out all the nebulous, spinning distractions of his mind and the world beyond. Deep breath. It’s okay. Tons of things about his form may be entirely different right now, but like… he seems fine. Right?? Nothing about his body feels tangibly wrong like it did when he willfully stretched himself out on his 14th birthday, or when he changed all his fingers into cats, or when he lost all control of his aging and morphed into an anciently old man and almost died, it’s just…

New.

New and wholly unfamiliar.

So what now? How can he bravely move forward with all this? What does he need to know?

“Have, uh… have you ever shapeshifted by accident in your sleep?”

“Not that I‘m aware of,” she says, and he can practically hear the shrug in her tone. “Shapeshifting is a conscious thing you do. It’s a choice, y’know? It doesn’t just happen.”

A good long moment passes as he drinks this information in. He runs his hand through the short curls at the back of his neck as he stands there in the pair of too-small banana yellow pajamas he fit in just fine last night, musing.

“Huh… I guess that makes things pretty simple, then.”

“What d’ya’—”

“Amethyst, I think I’m finally older,” he says, still absolutely mystified by this prospect as he gawks at himself in the mirror.

She gives a fond laugh. “Ch’a, right? You get older everyday, bud. Wild.”

“No, I mean I’m actually, physically older! Look!”

Steven whirls around and swings the bathroom door wide open to show her. Amethyst’s jaw drops.

“Whoa—! Dude!”

Chuckling nervously, he steps a few feet out, wriggling his bare toes against the wood floor. “I know, right?”

“What the heck, you weren’t kidding!” Before he can even move to say anything else, she spins on her heels and cups her mouth with her hands, hollering towards the temple door. “HEY, PEARL! GARNET! You gotta get out here and see this!”

His brows shoot towards his hairline, his heart hammering in his chest all the while at the thought of all the dumb show-and-tell he’s gonna have to deal with now. “Aww, come on, did you really have to—”

“Amethyst!” Pearl cries, scrambling through the still opening gap in the doorway with Garnet striding mere steps behind. She summons her spear from her gem and swings it to fighting stance with an artful flourish. “What happened? Where’s the threat? What do you need us for??”

Steven darts towards them, hands held up in a placating plea.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! There’s no danger! We’re fine. I just—”

“Oh, my stars—!” she gasps, allowing her spear to dissipate in a glittery flicker of light. “You’ve grown!”

“Nice look, Steven,” Garnet nods, a supportive smile gracing her lips.

“And you’re sure this is real this time? You’re not—?”

“No, no, I’m not stretching myself out, I promise. I just woke up like this.”

“B-but—” Pearl taps her fingers against her chin, appearing thoroughly puzzled— “I thought humans were supposed to age gradually, not all at once.”

Steven’s shoulders slump. “Well… that’s what I assumed too, but—”

“Come, sit with me,” Garnet says, walking around the warp pad to enter the living room. She sets herself down on the couch, patting the cushion in open invitation.

With a heavy, far too weary for his age sigh, Steven shoves his hands in the pockets of his too-small banana pajamas and plods his way over. The rest of the Gems follow suit. He settles himself right next to Garnet, with Pearl perched opposite to her and Amethyst happily lounging on the floor, leaning on the coffee table with her elbows.

“Steven’s aging hasn’t aligned with the norms of humanity for a very long time,” she observes, a glint of morning sun that’s beaming through the window catching on the edge on the edge of her star shaped visor. Then, turning to him: “I’m curious why you think this is.”

He hums, considering all the chaotic happenings of the past few years. Despite the rare query she poses, he gets the sense that… in her vast wisdom… she already knows the answer. Or at least, a small sum of it. It should be noted that her future vision— as far-reaching as it otherwise is with the vast possibilities of existence— can’t ever touch any knowledge that she won’t be conscious for or present to receive, let alone retroactively scry into the past.

(And honestly? Thank goodness for that.)

“I’m not sure,” he says, a half-lie.

He can think of one reason he might’ve started aging again. Though, it’s not something he’s ready to talk to the Gems about yet. It’s… far too delicate a topic to risk bringing up so soon after the start of peaceful Era 3. But after spending a whole childhood being constantly compared to and mistaken as various versions of his mom… let’s just say, having his gem torn from his body and getting to see it reform into a version of himself (and not her) was simultaneously the worst and the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him. While undeniably traumatic, this experience served as the ultimate proof that he doesn’t have to waste another second of his existence chewing away at some burgeoning identity crisis, that he can live his life however he wants. As Steven. Not as Rose, or Pink Diamond, just… Steven.

He’s not exactly sure how all this mental weirdness translates into him staying stuck looking like a little kid for like… six or so years, but after he returned home from his latest escapade on Homeworld, he could sense that— despite all the messed up stuff he and Connie went through— his spirit was lighter, somehow.

So maybe, he thinks, he simply had to peel away at all the damaged layers of his identity to ready himself to move on to the next stage of his life. Maybe he had to stare death in the eye and pass through the heart of the storm in spite of all these hardships before he could piece the foundational truths of his story back together and learn to finally live again.

To start shifting his hopeful gaze towards the dawn of their bright, sunny future…

“I mean, I always kinda thought he stopped aging because we never did,” Amethyst says then, laying her cheek on the table. “Like, it happened around the time you moved in with us, yeah?”

He purses his lips, scanning his memory. “Uh… I think so? It might have been a year before. Two, even. But I was definitely hanging out with y’all a lot by then.”

She leans over and playfully slugs him in the arm.

“See, there you go! You always wanted to be just like us when you were a kid, so much that you even wore that same ol’ star shirt every day to match ours, ha! You must’ve wanted to be a Gem so badly that you subconsciously stopped becoming older at all.”

“That’s actually a pretty solid theory, Amethyst,” Pearl chimes in. “Good thinking!”

“We have seen you shift your form in response to your perception of others around you,” Garnet says with a nod. “This has caused you to temporarily age and shapeshift in the past, but for you to age in a stable way now, your perception of self must have stabilized, too. I’m very happy for you, Steven.”

She tousles his mess of curls with her gold ringed hand, a welcome little offering of affection that he eagerly leans into.

And then, out of nowhere, Amethyst starts cackling.

“Dude,” she blurts out between her peels of laughter, nudging his foot with her elbow, “I just realized— Greg’s gonna totally lose his shit when he sees this…”

Pearl’s expression scrunches inwards with prickly displeasure. “Language!”

“What, it’s true!”

He waves Amethyst’s comment off. “Pshhh, my dad’s seen way weirder,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Like, did I ever tell y’guys how the cat fingers incident ended?”

“No!” the quartz exclaims with intensive fervor, and leans forward in anticipation. “Gimme the juicy deets, m’man!”

Garnet adjusts her visor then, her features falling into a dutiful line. “Speaking of Greg… story time can wait until later. Steven— if you want to see your father this morning, you need to head over there now… or there’s a good chance he’ll fall back asleep until one and you’ll miss your window.”

Amethyst’s lips fall into a pout as she slumps back against the foot of the couch, her arms crossed. “Awww, phooey. Spoil sport.”

He swallows a grimace as he internalizes Garnet’s prediction. Yeah, that sounds about right. That’s become a bad habit for his old man lately, staying up super late and then sleeping in almost half the day on weekends. Ever since he received that ten million dollar residues check it’s nothing that can hinder his financials anymore, thank goodness, but then again…

“Yeah… I should probably go make sure he wakes up,” he mutters, pushing his tired body off his seat. “I’ll need his help finding new clothes, anyways.”

The second he’s up and moving again, Amethyst darts around him and snatches his spot with such swift and viscous drive that one might believe this ploy were her sole quest and purpose in life. She stretches out against the seat back with a big, dramatic yawn, crossing her arms behind her head as she speaks.

“It’s too bad you can’t just… I dunno… summon whatever clothes you want out of light, like us. That’s like the biggest bummer of humanity, if you ask me.”

“And when do you ever experiment with your outfit enough to have a strong opinion about this?” Pearl prods, crossing her arms. “It took you almost a decade to fix that asymmetrical shoulder strap.”

“Well, P… I like to think of myself as a Gem who would experiment with my outfit. One day. If I’m ever really, really bored. Consider it an Era 3 aspiration.”

Steven rocks back and forth on his heels, absentmindedly fiddling with the fraying bottom hem of his pajama top.

“Okay, uh… well, I’m gonna dress to leave now, so—”

“Yeah, see ‘ya.”

“Send a text if you need anything!” Pearl says with a casual wave.

“And don’t forget…” Garnet begins, the ellipses in her tone practically visible with the naked eye.

He pauses in his dutiful march to the stairs— (a somewhat unsteady march… as it turns out, shooting up about a foot and a half in height overnight tends to impact one’s sense of balance for the worst, go figure)— turning back to intercept whatever life advice or future vision she’s prepared for him this time.

She grins, flashing him a quick heart with her hands instead. “We love you!”

Steven trudges across the hot sands to his dad’s car wash sans his favorite flip flops, trying his very darnedest to wipe away the developing grimace on his face all the while.

A small segment of him felt overjoyed when he first saw his reflection this morning, eager to look his age and finally grow up alongside his human friends. But after struggling to find anything that fits him even halfway right in his wardrobe, his good mood has rapidly spoiled. There’s a decent few reasons for this.

Reason number one: his old sandals are at least two sizes too small. His heels stick out over the end now, and the plastic thong digs into his toes something terrible. He literally can’t wear them without giving himself blisters. Ergo, his bare feet right now.

Reason number two: none of his jeans sit right around the waist anymore, plus they make him look like he’s waiting for a flood. (Though thankfully, he found a stretchy blue skirt buried in one of his drawers that will do the trick for now.)

And perhaps worst of all… reason number three: with his newly increased height, every single one of his treasured star shirts have been turned into ill-fitting crop tops, putting his gem on full display. He’s not against the concept of a crop top, but it sure ain’t a look he’s passionate about for everyday wear. It just feels… too exposing. Like, what about winter?? He can’t bear his whole midriff in winter, he’d freeze, and like… get hypothermia, or something. And not only that, but the longer he’s awake this morning the more an inescapable, thrumming ache starts to settle within the deepest core of his body, like even his bones themselves— the stubborn things— dare to object to this abrupt growth spurt.

Just… ugh. What an annoying hassle all these changes bring.

“Stupid shirt,” he grouses, tugging at the too-tight collar, “stupid sandals, stupid Gem puberty! Why, oh why can’t I ever go through human stuff normally?”

His bare foot catches upon a sizable stone hidden amongst the beach. On any other day he would’ve successfully broken his fall, stumbling forwards a few awkward steps before regaining his balance and continuing on his way. But with his body now so different, and his center of gravity entirely off from what he’s used to, he head plants straight into the ground.

Wow, he thinks, spitting sand out of his mouth and pushing himself back to his feet. How elegant. Truly the shining paragon of coordination and grace.

Thank goodness no one was watching. Next time he’ll just have to remember to float.

He arrives at his dad’s van with no further incident. The rear doors are— following Garnet’s prediction- cracked open. Dad’s awake, at least for now.

“Daaaaaaaad,” he hollers, cupping his hands around his mouth to project. “A really, really weird thing happened, and I kinda need your help!”

A few spare seconds pass, seconds filled with the rustles of shifting blankets, the sound of a book being shut closed, and his dad’s low murmurs. The doors swing wide, though not as wide as Dad’s eyes when they wander around their bright, sunny surroundings and eventually land square on him and his new look.

“Wh— Steven, holy smokes! Look at you!”

With an awkward chuckle, he scratches away at an itch at the nape of his neck. “Heh heh, I know, right?”

“You’re almost as tall as your old man! When did this happen? How did this happen?”

“Some point last night, I guess,” he shrugs. “I just woke up like this. But Dad—” he clings onto his arm with mounting desperation— “I need your help to find some new shirts. Don’t you have like… whole boxes of your old tour merch stashed away somewhere? I don’t wanna have to get rid of my star, I just— I just need a bigger size, or something.”

“Hmmm…” Dad muses, scratching at the scruff of his beard. “Well, maybe, but…”

“But what?”

“But if any of it’s still around, then it’s probably in Amethyst’s room. All of the stuff from the storage unit ended up with her, remember?”

“Oh…” he says, brows furrowed, not quite able to parse this fact within his memory yet. And then…

Ugh. That’s right.

Two New Years’ ago. The huge mess of crates and mattresses and long forgotten belongings. All that ridiculous Little Butler nonsense. Amethyst’s fight with Dad.

“Oh,” he mumbles, crossing his arms. “Right. Well, then let’s go find it!”

“R- right now?”

“Yeah, why not? I need new clothes, and you could see if there’s any old junk in there you might want to keep!”

With that, he grabs his dad’s hand and yanks him along, spirit filled with renewed purpose and vigor.

“And you’re sure you need my help for this?” Dad asks, lagging a step or two behind him as they march back across the beach together. “The Gems, they… well, they don’t usually want me going into the temple—”

“Oh, Amethyst will be fine,” he says with a wave of his palm. “She never cares when I go in there to check out her trash piles. ‘Sides, I need your help to find the right box! I have no idea what your old band stuff was stashed in.”

His dad flashes a tight smile, the sort he always serves up when he’s nervous, but also too timid to tell him that he’s nervous.

“Well… if you think she’ll allow it…” he relents, and picks up his pace to match his.

[End Part 1... more to be shared later.]

#i finished the art for this finally so y'all get a lil comic/fic exclusive until i can finish up the rest of it to post to AO3 #still trying to decide if i want to split this up or post it as one huge chapter anyways #su #steven universe #amethyst #garnet #pearl #greg universe #su fanart #su fanfic #my art stuff #my writing stuff #i've been working on and off on this short comic since december lol #and i've had pieces of this fic wip since 2019

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spiritedstars · 1 month ago

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Spirit Meets the Bones XL [40]

Genre: Angst/Romance/Drama Warnings: physical abuse/triggering language. Author’s Note: Only the epilogue remains. Thank you for reading :)

thank you @riorsonxaden for always being my cheerleader <3

tagging: @climb-the-mountian / @gwynberdara / @positivewitch / @animezinglife / @zenkindoflove / @rosewood-cafe / @clockwork-ashes / @carnythian / @secret-third-thing / @runningwiththeoceans / @that-golden-lyre / @thedarkinmansfield / @readychilledwine / @goldenmagnolias / @mali22 / @readthelastpaage / @maidr-00 / @electromagnetic-waves / @moobell55 / @bibliophiliaxvignette / @devilsfoodcake22 / @weesablackbeak / @ladywhilemia / @alohaangels / @feysandfeels / @corcracrow / @dawneternal / @gracie-rosee / @mage-neve / @illyrianvalkyrie / @saint-stella / @carolynmezzosoprano / @rainbowsnowflake / @queenoftheworld1998 / @wolvesnravens / @lalaluch / @moonfawnx / @temperedink / @batboyslutt / @rcarbo1 /

Find it all here.

The High Lord choked and sputtered, trying and failing to spit out the liquid. But with Eris’s blade still buried in him, and Eris’s fist digging into his skull, the High Lord was held in place and the room seemed to hold its breath as his father’s fire weakened and then disappeared entirely.

A breath and then another as they watched the High Lord cough up blood, steam the only evidence that fire had run through his veins.

And it was now, that Eris could see the flicker of uncertainty in his father’s gaze. The very slight panic.

“Look at you now, High Lord,” Eris spat. “On the same power scale as a lowly human.”

The taunt made Beron’s eyes flash and he staggered back, trying to throw Eris off, swinging blindly but, nothing would get through to Eris now.

His entire body was vibrating and he felt a crazed smirk on his face. Even with his blade in his father’s back, the High Lord was swinging and Eris was eager to meet him hit for hit.

“Your crown is falling, father.” Eris breathed and slammed his fist of fire into the High Lord’s face. “It’s about time I caught it.”

No one stopped him. No one interfered as Eris battered every inch of his father with his magic and fists. Swing after swing. Hit after hit.

This was personal.

This was retribution and revenge. This was a score that had long needed to be settled and Eris was a volcano that erupted. Every terrible memory he had of his father – of his family being chipped away and pulled apart replayed in his mind.

He swung for the little boy he had once been. The little boy who had wished for a day when his father’s hand had been soft. Who had craved a world where his mother didn’t die a thousand deaths a day. Where the sounds of a whip didn’t haunt him. Where he didn’t have to hear his baby brothers suffer for breathing the wrong way.

He swung for the life he had lost, for the time that had passed, that had left him with a broken back, carrying this mountain of a weight.

Eris’s grin was maniacal as the sound of bone crunching became a symphony to his ears, the feeling of his father’s blood coating his knuckles a soothing balm, his father sinking to his knees, weak, as broken as he had made Eris feel, his fist collided again and again and again. Nothing would stop him. He would let his magic consume him as long as it meant he could end his father here. As long as he could make this fucker feel a drop of what he had made them feel. Eris would burn himself to a crisp to end this. He wouldn’t stop until —

“Eris.”

That voice.

The only voice that could say his name like that. That could pull him out of anything.

A gentle hand touched his shoulder and he knew it could only be the one person who would break through his flames, his flames that would burn anyone but her.

And the scene felt familiar as he paused, a hand gripping his father’s collar, his other fist posed to slam into the bastard’s face again. But he paused, breathing hard, and glanced over his shoulder to find his Iris standing by him.

Without using words, her expression said all that he needed to know, Don’t lose yourself now. This is not how it’ll end.

His gaze returned to his father’s face, bloodied, barely recognizable. He wanted to do more. He wanted to unleash his rage and pain more – return it to the bastard tenfolds. This was nothing.

But Eris also knew this vengeance wasn’t his alone. With his expression full of disgust, Eris spat at his father’s feet then released his his body, leaning to yank his sword out, relishing in the wet sound of the blade leaving the High Lord’s body and the grunt of pain.

Eris’s gaze landed on his mother. “Put him in his favorite place.”

Lady Enya had been waiting. The magic she had been taught to fear, the same magic he had smothered out of her, was now vibrating through her skin. Like a beam of light, her fire wrapped itself around the High Lord and slammed his body into the throne he had stepped on his family to keep.

Finn didn’t wait for a signal – twin daggers in hand, he leaped onto the dias and slammed a blade in each of his father’s arms, locking him in the throne. “This – this is for all the nightmares, you motherfucker.”

Emil’s bow and arrow seemed to appear out of thin air as he docked an arrow, then another firing both in succession, in each of his father’s legs. “May your pain follow you into the pits of the hell you’ll rot in.”

Izak’s steps thundered as he swung and then rushed forward to bury his sword in his father’s stomach. “I look forward to pissing on your corpse, you piece of shit.”

And Lucien – Eris watched as Lucien walked up to the High Lord’s bleeding body and with an expression of no remorse – buried his blade right into his father’s heart. “This is for Jesminda. I never forgave and I never forgot.”

Eris’s body shook as he watched his father’s whole being tremble, the attacks catching up all at once as the High Lord shook pitifully. He glanced at Iris once and she lifted her chin, a nod of encouragement that made Eris reach for the Made dagger on his side.

He’d been holding on to the blade, saving it for just this moment.

He spat blood as he made his way to the dias, his brothers stepping back as he reached it. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Eris had been on his knees here, locked in by his father’s magic.

Eris stood before Beron, bringing the Made dagger to his throat and the High Lord let out a ragged breath.

“Know that you did this to yourself and males like you will always be your own downfall,” Eris said, his voice like venom. “Rot in hell, father.”

Eris buried the blade in the High Lord’s throat and Beron could do nothing but choke – on his blood, his unspoken words, his rage. Eris stepped back, the garbling of his father’s life leaving his body like a melody to his ears.

He refused to look away from the High Lord’s struggling body as he allowed his mother to step around him, slowly climbing the dias until she stood in all her fiery glory in front of the male she hated most.

“You will die as you lived,” she began, and though her voice was quiet, it carried across the hall, which still held its breath. “A foolish male with misplaced arrogance, suffering the wrath of your cruelty. You will be missed by no one.”

“E-Enya –” Beron gasped and Eris’s fists clenched but his mother didn’t shift.

“You no longer have the privilege of saying my name.” she continued. “May pain follow you in every lifetime, you bastard.”

And the Lady of Autumn brought her hands together, eyes locked on Beron, and unleashed a burst of her flames straight into her husband, setting fire to the throne and the male locked in it.

With no magic to protect him, the High Lord’s body burned, his screams echoing in the halls he had haunted for as long as they could all remember. The fire that he had always used as a weapon, that had scorched everything for him, was now the very thing eating away at him.

The brothers stood and watched, bleeding and beaten, and yet could no one move away from this scene. Lady Enya took one step back and when the High Lord’s screams finally died down, she released her magic.

Eris swallowed hard at the sight of what was left of his father. Most of his body was gone and the bastard still wheezed. His body remained pinned by his son's weapons, half of Beron's face ravaged by the fire, yet his one brown eye fixated on Eris.

Eris’s expression was set, his footsteps firm as he moved to the dias. He would not be swayed by the sight and forced himself to feel nothing for his father. Not even an ounce of pity as he stood before the ruined throne, the crown meant to be his gleaming, unscathed upon what remained of his father’s head.

He didn’t let the sight of the decaying body deter him. The end was coming closer with every wheezed breath of the dying High Lord.

Eris only took another step closer, and with his fist aflame, he gripped the crown off his father’s head, careful not to touch the High Lord himself whose breaths had started to come in quicker, as though he was fighting against the final moments of his miserable life.

But Eris paid him no mind and turned back to face the room.

The fighting had ceased, and all who remained stood facing him, watching as the current High Lord took his final breaths, the ending of the blood duel clear. He saw that his sentries had flooded the room, holding down the traitors. His hounds were scattered among the bodies, teeth bared as they waited for his command. He saw his remaining General, Serphan, alongside Henry Adler and the rest of his rebels.

Forcing himself to take another breath, his eyes found his family, scanning his brothers and mother and finally, his gaze landed on the most important person in the room.

His wife.

His Iris.

Standing there, looking as exhausted as he felt, battered and smeared with blood as he knew he was but she had been there. Through this whole ordeal, she had been here. And they had both made it.

The thought slammed into him so suddenly and Eris sucked in a breath.

They had made it.

And it was like Iris could see the thought on his face because her lip trembled and she gave him that same encouraging nod that had spurred him through this fight.

They had made it and the Autumn Court would be given the chance to bloom in different hands.

And it was like the magic of the court heard his thoughts. He felt the ground beneath him thump.

Glancing one final time at the nightmare of a father that had plagued his life, he didn’t break his gaze as the High Lord took a final breath and Eris fought the feeling of pity. For the male who had lost it all and would die hated. Who would be mourned by no one.

He didn’t want to allow the feeling and yet, his father was the one who didn’t acknowledge emotions – who beat them out of his sons. And Eris was not his father.

So he allowed the pity he felt to be fleeting. Only for a moment, as a reminder of what would become of those who succumbed to the dark.

Eris waited, as they all did, as time stood still. No one dared to move.

One final breath and then – he felt it. A slight shift in the very air that surrounded them.

His father…was finally dead.

The High Lord of the Autumn Court was gone.

Eris’s grip tightened on his father’s crown as he turned to face the room once more, a deafening silence surrounding them. He looked to his family – to his wife.

He glanced at the people of his court now watching him with bated breath and his gaze dropped to the gleaming gold in his hand before holding it up, his fist still aflame.

Eris swallowed, his mouth bone dry as he spoke, calmly, in a quiet tone that vibrated throughout the room, “I take this crown by blood and only by blood will I abandon it.”

A breath – a heartbeat and Eris who was as ready as he’d ever been for the title he had coveted, felt the ground beneath his feet thump again. He felt it in his head. In his heart. He felt his entire body begin to beat in time with a magic they couldn’t see – a sacred power he could sense flooding the earth beneath him, traveling at the speed of light and —

A shuddered breath slipped from the Crown Prince’s lips as the ancient magic of the Autumn Court line slammed into him.

He gasped as the glorious magic of his court rushed through him and Eris felt his body become weightless. He was everything and nothing all at once as the magic filled his veins, his very blood singing at the sensation of power rushing through him.

He was the Autumn Court – the High Lord who would bring a new dawn. He would change it for the better. He would be good and just and someone who cared. He would be the High Lord his people needed.

The High Lord his family had needed. A leader he had needed.

And the magic seemed to hear his thoughts as fire burst out of him, engulfing him and Eris felt himself leave the ground, his body floating as flames licked every inch of him and buzzed beneath his skin.

The Autumn Court would be reborn and like a phoenix that rose from the ashes, so would this court and it would be his hand that led the way.

Wings of flame burst out of his back and a small sound of surprise slipped from Eris’s lips as the crown in his head burned hot. He released it and before his eyes, the crown shifted then changed shape – no longer resembling the crown his father had worn.

No, this royal adornment was his, made for him and he would carry the weight of this court in his crown.

Slowly, the magic that had lifted him released him to the ground and he stood aflame, the entire court watching as the ancient magic settled the newly formed crown on his head.

Eris no longer had power. He was power.

Power that would serve. Power that would protect. Power that would lead.

And power that would give them all a fighting chance against anything that was to come.

All the exhaustion he had felt, his well of power that had been depleted – all of it was gone. Replaced with the magic that he had been born for. He felt renewed. Reborn. As the thought crossed his mind, his eyes found his light that had helped guide him to the end of the road.

Iris stood next to his mother, her expression filled with awe and Eris wanted nothing more than to run to her. He wanted her in his arms where he could breathe her in and kiss her senseless but the ancient magic hadn’t fully released him yet and as Eris took him in the room around him, he knew his next step.

He straightened and addressed the room. “Our court’s magic has chosen me as your new High Lord and by this magic that I have been blessed with, I vow myself to this land and its people. I ask you all to follow as I lead.”

Without a second of hesitation, his brothers sank to their knees one by one, each thumping a fist against their chests. He watched as his sentries and the rebels who believed his vow for change followed, pledging themselves to their new High Lord.

A wave of mixed emotions unfurled in his chest as his mother gave him a warm smile and bowed her head to her son and finally, Iris stood alone, glancing at him with such pride that it made him want to vomit.

She moved closer to him and when she was a few feet away, Iris bowed with a hand to her chest.

And Eris couldn’t take another moment where he didn’t touch her. He closed the distance between them and gently lifted her chin, aware of all the eyes and ears around them.

“Never you,” he whispered and as Iris slowly stood, she gave him a dazzling smile that had his chest tightening. And what a pleasant surprise for him to find nothing but pure joy coursing through his veins as he looked at her. A feeling he wasn’t particularly familiar with and yet, expected nothing less every time he glanced at his mate.

They now had a lifetime to find more of it.

Taking his hand in hers, Iris shifted so she stood by his side as he faced the crowd. Eris gestured with his hand for his people to raise and as he moved, the flames from the ancient magic dimmed but did not extinguish as he addressed his court.

“Many changes will unfold in the days to come and there is much work to be done.” he began, his gaze sweeping the hall as he licked his lips. “I trust I can count on your cooperation and continue earning your loyalty.” He allowed the weight of his words to settle before his tone hardened, for everything spoken here would be echoed throughout the land. “And those who decide to foolishly cling to the old way will find out just how swiftly the Vanserra line will be thrilled to eradicate them.”

At the threat, the room stilled once again. Eris had fulfilled this vow many times as the Crown Prince. As High Lord, the consequences of this promise would be far greater.

It was Finn who spoke first. His second brother grinned, the fresh scar their father had given him adding to the menace in his expression as he thumped his fist to his chest again, and exclaimed loudly, “To the High Lord. May he live long and prosper with our court.”

The hall echoed the words and Eris was grateful for the flames hiding the shaking in his legs, bowing his head as graciously as he had been taught.

As he glanced around the room at the noise – the cheers, Eris took a shaky breath. This was it.

His father was dead. They were all, by some incredible miracle, alive. And quite suddenly, Eris was overwhelmed. As much as he had longed for this moment, he hadn’t allowed himself to believe in it. He hadn’t let himself get too hopeful. His eyes swept the room again and he was filled with a sense of relief so vast, it almost made him stumble.

There was much to be done. Find that troublesome daemati, free Mikel, clear out the traitors –

And though Eris hadn’t allowed himself to be too hopeful, he had not wanted to go into a new regime without a plan. He had his new processes ready to go – but gods he could barely believe it. Barely breathe as the magic of High Lord thumped through his veins. He soaked in his people before him, in the various states they were in. His people. His court.

He watched as Izak ran up to Lucien and crushed him in a hug that had Lucien clearly struggling for air, a surprised expression on his youngest brother’s face. He saw Emil and Finn exchange – of all things – a fist bump and then his eyes found his mother again, standing with silent tears streaming down her face, surveying the court she was no longer the lady of.

She met Eris’s gaze and smiled. “I am so very proud of you, my son.” she said softly. “I can’t wait to see what you do.”

A warmth that had nothing to do with his flames spread across his body, a small smile on his face. “And I look forward to showing you,” he said then nodded towards Lucien. “But I do believe there is someone very eager to see you and your escort is already here.”

His mother flushed lightly, a small smile blooming on her face. “So quick to ship me off.” she teased, wiping at her face. As though they weren’t all aware of how desperately she had wanted to leave this prison. Even if her jailer was no longer here to haunt her.

Eris couldn’t help his very tired chuckle. “I’d rather Day didn’t storm my court so soon after I took it.”

Lady Enya laughed softly, her eyes on Lucien as she said, “No, I’d rather we didn’t have that either.”

Eris could already hear Izak rapidly making plans to join Lucien and his mother to get to his wife but no sooner had he tried to tune into the conversation than he saw Emil run towards the hall entrance.

He had Cosette in his arms faster than Eris had blinked and his brother who never showed his hand was now cupping his lover’s face reverently, as tears streamed down her face.

Behind Cosette was Theo, his eyes scanning the room wildly, looking for Finn, who for once in his life, stood quietly, almost frozen to his spot. His brother had barely taken a step when Theo launched himself at Finn and it took his brother a few moments of shock before he finally wrapped his arms around the blacksmith and buried his face into his neck.

Eris felt himself about to collapse.

The vulnerability in the air seemed to stun everyone in the room, especially its new High Lord.

This was unprecedented. A territory no one in the Autumn Court had ever ventured into.

All these disgusting feelings surrounded them and Eris wondered what everyone in this fucked up court would do when they didn’t have to be as repressed as they had been.

But despite that, Eris knew what a lasting image this would leave. He knew this was what they had bled for. This was hard won and this joy was heavily made. He could lead them forward and show them how a blade could be of steel or silk and how both would help this court prosper.

He would make sure of it. And as he watched everyone around him forget about their new High Lord for a moment to rejoice in this new sense of freedom, he couldn’t stop himself from blinking rapidly, his throat suddenly tight –

“This is real, right?” he rasped to his other half, his mate, his love, and Iris squeezed his hand until he allowed himself to glance at her.

“It is real. He’s gone.” she reassured him and Eris allowed himself another breath.

“And everyone is –”

“Everyone is alive. We are alright.”

Eris shook his head almost helplessly as he soaked in the sight of her, as if seeing her for the first time. He had almost lost her. He could still see the blood and bruises that had adorned her body. His hands began to shake again. “But you –”

“I am here. I am alright. What you see is real.” Iris confirmed again, feeling her heart break at his expression, squeezing his hand once more.

“I’m –”

“The new High Lord.”

“Because –”

“Your father is dead. You all won the blood duel against him. You took the crown.” she calmly stated. “The Autumn court is yours.”

“The Autumn Court is mine.” he repeated faintly and Iris’s expression softened.

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Wife.” he said and the word was so soft, so heartbreakingly tender that Iris felt herself the one about to crumble.

“Husband.” she whispered back and the bond between them sat there, bright, holding steady as they watched each other, the chaos around them going quiet.

“I’m going to throw up.” he whispered and Iris couldn’t help her teary-eyed laugh as she took his other hand and held both tightly in hers.

“No, you most certainly will not,” she warned. “You’ll have to wait until we’re alone to do that. For now…let yourself soak it in.”

“Soak it in?” he repeated, almost in a daze and Iris couldn’t help allowing her feelings to finally get the better of her as tears filled her eyes and began to fall.

“Eris.” she began in that tone that always made his wretch heart tremble. “I have never in my life been as terrified as I was watching you today. Nothing could have prepared me and if I spend the rest of my days never seeing you fight again, it’ll still be too soon.” she said and gave him that smile she only ever reserved for him, gently touching his face. “But you kept your promise. You were the one left standing and you were extraordinary.” Her lips trembled and Eris’s heart wanted to cave in on itself, especially when she added, “I am proud of you and proud to be next to you as you move forward.”

Eris’s hand brushed away her tears, the corner of his mouth lifting as every part of him deflated with ease at her presence, at her words. “I told you, nothing would hold my body from crawling back to you and I am grateful to have you with me.” he murmured, nuzzling into her hand, pressing a kiss into it. “My wife. My friend. My mate.”

Iris’s hand didn’t move from his cheek, the other resting on his chest as she finally, finally said the words she’d been holding onto for him. “Eris,” she began and when his expression shifted, Iris knew he was bracing himself for her next words. The ones he had wanted to come back to. “I love you. I love you and I am proud of you and honored to be here with you,” she whispered, her eyes locked on his. “You are my friend, my husband, and my home. With everything that I am and will ever be, I love you.”

He let the words wash over him and for the first time in a long time, Eris felt his lips tremble, his face heating, the words he had craved to hear from her echoing through his bones.

She loved him and gods, did he love her. Eris yearned for nothing more than to be standing here, with her hands touching him, her words warming him, and for the rest of the world to fade away.

He wanted to kiss her senselessly. Eris wanted nothing more than to sink into his wife and everything else be damned. He wanted to taste her and love her – to cherish her with everything he had. But not here. Not now.

When he kissed his wife, he needed them to be alone. Because the moment Eris’s lips touched hers, he would shirk all his duties and nothing would pull him away. It would be filthy, just the way he liked it.

As if she heard his thoughts, Iris’s face flushed beautifully. “Scoundrel.”

Chuckling, Eris allowed himself to rest his forehead against hers, closing his eyes to do as she suggested – soak it all in. “Careful wife, you sound like like you’re obsessed with me.”

Iris smiled, her hands clinging to the front of his tunic. “How embarrassing, I think you found me out.”

There was so much to be done. So many tasks to be handled. His mind was already creating list upon list of things to be managed. The next few weeks – months would be full of trials and for anyone else this might seem daunting but for Eris, it was all he ever wanted.

He had everything he had ever needed. He could handle anything that was to come.

They were all safe. They could have a moment of peace.

And with that thought, and after the many years of holding his breath, Eris met his mate’s smile and finally, released his first real sigh of relief.

#eris vanserra #eris vanserra x oc #eris x oc #eris vanserra fanfic #acotar fanfiction #gfics #smtb chapters #I can't believe I finally posted this lol.#Technically the last chapter but the epilogue will be posted on friday and then...that will be it lol.#thank you all for reading.#Your comments/tags/reblogs make my day.#previously: lucienarcheron

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flickeringquip · 2 months ago

Text

Convince the Fighter abstinence is bad for his health. There may be consequences(?) <<

Part 2 of this post, feat. @thedolmainblog's Blythe

(smut continues below the cut + link for the full nsfw aster pic)

(full & uncropped picture here)

(1) Arrive at Blythe's flat.

It's only when the engine cuts out from beneath you that you realize you're shaking, clinging to Blythe as tightly as you can. It would be easy to assume it was from some manner of fright or nerves from the reckless ride—

But it was certainly not fear that had your face burning beneath your helmet, caught somewhere between dazed by the experience and mortified at the very real worry you'd left a stain on the leather seat of Blythe's bike.

Blythe who disentangles himself from you with little difficulty despite your death grip, dismounting in a smooth, practised motion before turning sharply back in your direction. A few seconds later finds you free of your helmet — and realizing all at once that he hadn't worn one.

"You shouldn't ride one of these things without a h—" The concerned admonishment slips free of you before you even really think about it, but your scolding is interrupted when the Fighter hoists you onto his shoulder like a particularly prized sack of potatoes, your voice pitching high as you cling to the back of his shirt, "—elMET!"

(1) And once again you're along for the ride as Blythe makes for his apartment with the same single-minded focus as before.

You expect this ride to be much shorter than the last, and it is, but you can't help but be a little confused when you aren't set down as Blythe steps into his apartment like you'd been expecting.

It's a confusion that only grows when you remain slung over his shoulder as he locks his door. As he crosses the length of his apartment. As he steps into what you assume to be his bedroom.

He only lets you down when it's to drop you the short distance to his bed, leaving you to blink up at him as he whips his shirt off and tosses it somewhere out of your line of sight.

(1) Get a little distracted ogling Blythe's chest and biceps.

Look.

The man is shredded.

You may be a little restrained compared to some other residents of this hell hole, but you do have eyes. Eyes that are all too happy dip as Blythe shoves his trousers down his hips, and you aren't sure if he had simply skipped on boxers or if they went down with the pants, but it's a question that'll have to wait, because—

(1) Turns out Blythe was very proportional.

In the span of time it takes for you to force yourself to stop gawking at him, Blythe closes the distance between the two of you once more, stripping you from the top down with the same ruthless efficiency he'd rid himself of his own clothes. The last to go are your own pant and panties, tugged off in one go that leaves you splayed on your back on his bed, more exposed in front of someone than you've been in a long time.

"It's-" Your tongue sticks to a suddenly dry mouth as you push yourself into a seated position just in time for the Fighter to lift one knee to the bed — your voice pulls his attention up from your body so fast it almost startles you, the intensity in his gaze more than enough to have you squirming a little beneath his attention, "It's been a bit for me, that is, since the last time I, y'know— I mean, not as long as it's been for you of course—"

After transitioning to working for Landry full time, you had seen no need to continue doing sex work on the side; working for the Criminal had proven more than profitable enough, and you didn't even have to see Bailey's stupid face anymore thanks to automatic deposits. And without that pressure to constantly have to make more money, you simply had found your interest in sex greatly reduced.

You weren't unhinged about it like someone — and besides, you weren't part demon, so it's not like being abstinent would've even hurt you the same way — but it wasn't uncommon for you to go months and months between your little dalliances. You'd never experienced sexual attraction quite like most of your peers, and you found that now that it wasn't a transaction, you generally needed to get to know the person before you'd even really think about sex.

(1) Which was really all to say: you weren't fitting him anywhere without some prep first.

The moment you opened your mouth to offer to handle it yourself (look, you'd never really gotten the hang of the whole 'rely on others' thing), a yelp stole free of you instead. Why?

It probably had something to do with how Blythe grabs your thighs and yanks you towards the end of the bed, looking for the world like he'd heard the words you'd been about to say and found them truly, deeply insulting.

And then his gaze dips between down to your legs as he hoists each of your thighs over one of his shoulders, you, well—

(1) You're not sure what's going to kill you faster: the sudden shocks of intense arousal or the overwhelming embarrassment.

And you just wanted it on the record that you're hardly some blushing virgin, and while you have far more experience giving oral than receiving it, you had been eaten out before. It was just. . . a long time ago. By a client you really hadn't liked much.

And yeah, fine, you are blushing, but it's because this is Blythe, who you'd formed something resembling a friendship just by proxy of co-existing in the same spaces long enough for you to get a little attached — even if you hadn't really thought he felt the same. It had never bothered you, if the people you cared about reciprocated the feeling; you'd managed to shake the guilt over the years, but the caretaking habits had held fast. And it had been nice, knowing someone else who had clear, simple loyalties — him to Aiden, you to Landry. You didn't have to really worry about navigating weird backstabbing bullshit, and if down the line your respective employers' relationship turned sour, well. . .

. . .There wouldn't have been hard feelings, at least.

(But wow, that's an anxiety that's gonna haunt you later, isn't it?)

Which was ALL to say, you think you have a pretty solid grasp on what's about to happen as Blythe yanks you a bit closer, close enough that the feel of his breath has your thighs jolting a little overtop his shoulders.

(1) It only takes one lap of his tongue for those confident expectations of yours to Go Out. The Fucking. Window.

Because you were so wrong, holy shit, you were so wrong it's not even funny, you hadn't even come close up realizing what you were in for—

But how could you have possibly known he'd be this good? That it would only take a couple minutes for you to be squirming something fierce in his hold, mewling as his tongue laves through slick, sensitive folds to flick against your clit. That it would take barely a few minutes more to find yourself cumming embarrassingly fast, hips jerking fruitlessly in his hold as he keeps your climax going for as long as physically possible, pausing only when you slump in his hold, breathing hard.

". . .Why on earth are you so good at that?" The words spill out of you as soon as you have enough air for them, an arm tossed up and over your eyes because you aren't sure you could survive whatever sight he must make between your legs right now, "You've been abstinent for like— Ack!"

The startled squeak that leaves you is far from dignified, but that's a hard thing to maintain when Blythe slides your thighs off his shoulders — only to push them up towards your chest instead, making use of your flexibility to all but remove your ability to squirm and wiggle as he holds you in that position with just his hands.

. . . It's both a little insulting and incredibly enticing how little effort it takes him to keep you pinned down like this.

(1) That's the last coherent thought you have for awhile, because—

Blythe isn't satisfied with only making you cum on his tongue once. The man eats you out like a man posssessed, and each new noise he pulls from you only seemed to encourage him. And when he closes his lips around your clit with a moan that you feel all the way to your core and you're all but thrown into your next orgasm, he works you through it and keeps going until the next one, until your thighs are trembling in his grasp and you keen loudly enough for the sound to echo throughout his room. It's only then that he at last pulls away, and even the groan that escapes him is enough to have you whimpering from sensitivity.

Your legs feel like jello when he finally releases them, pleasure long having robbed your limbs of any semblance of strength. For all that you haven't really done anything, you feel like you've run a marathon, flushed and panting. Blythe's palms are rough against your skin as he smoothes his hands down the backs of your still faintly-trembling thighs, a soothing gesture—

And one that is very at odds with the salacious way he licks his lips and the ravenous glint in his eyes.

(1) Which is obviously a great time for you to realize that you had yet to even really touch him, let alone help him release all that pent up stress form his abstinence.

"Do you want—" A true seductress you are, truly a vixen to be feared, your words winded and blurted as your hand meets his thigh and sweeps upwards, "I could suck you off—?"

Your fingers don't quite get to brush against him before you find your hand caught in his grasp, a full-body shudder rolling down your spine when Blythe growls and guides both of your hands above your head, pressing both wrists hard into his sheets with one hand in clear command — stay — before letting go.

You- you stay.

"Next time," His voice is even rougher than usual, guttural in a way that would've made your thighs clench, had he not already reduced them to jello — he splays a hand over your belly that feels hot enough to brand, something in you coiling hot and tight beneath your skin, "Only place 'm gonna cum tonight is inside you."

(1) This man was going to fucking kill you.

A fact you become more and more sure of when Blythe hits you with that fucking bombshell and does not immediately fuck you into next week, because first he has to loosen you up a little first.

Any attempts on your end to convince him you probably don't need any more prep are utterly ignored as he works one, and then two fingers inside of you — and, to his credit and despite your assurances, even with you all but dripping off his wrist thanks to his earlier affections, there's just enough of a stretch to it to make you shift in discomfort.

And for all that you might have expected him to call you on being wrong about how ready you might have been, Blythe seems to instead throw all of that energy into actually accomplishing that goal. There's a level of meticulous care to the careful way he works you open that you wouldn't have thought possible for someone in his state, and it does things to you, things that have you clenching around his fingers with a shivery little moan.

(1) The sound seems to chip away at the remnants of restraint you're not even sure how he's been hanging onto.

Blythe fingers you through two more orgasms — once with his thumb pressing sinful circles around your swollen clit and another by fucking his fingers and curling them into a spot that makes your legs shake with every stroke — before you start to crack.

Like you'd been the one who'd had a decade-long stint of abstinence.

"—Please," There's just enough desperation in your voice to bring Blythe to a pause as he teased a third finger against your entrance, one trembling leg hooked over his forearm to keep you spread wide for his touch, "I'm ready, I-I promise I am, please Blythe, I want- I need you to—"

Blythe seems to freeze above you, but you keep pushing, because you're not sure how much more of this you'll possibly be able to survive but you know you have to at least accomplish the singular thing you'd set out to when you'd kissed him.

(1) "I need you to fuck me, Blythe, please—!"

Even if you hadn't already been spread too thin to have room for embarrassment, you simply wouldn't have had time to even feel things like that with how fast Blythe sets upon you. The words have barely slipped past your lips when you find them claimed, the kiss as ravenous as the man himself as he hitches your thighs up around his hips, the heavy weight of his cock a brand against your dripping sex that has you both moaning in tandem.

Blythe doesn't leave you in suspense, driven by a lust you barely imagine as he lines himself up and pushes forward with a groan so deep in his chest you can feel it through him and it's—

It's a lot.

Your arms twine tight around his neck as your legs squeeze tight against his hips, needing something to ground you against the almost dizzying sense of fullness as Blythe sinks deeper inside of you inch by agonizing, amazing inch. You realize at once why he thought to prep you to three fingers, but it is not pain that has your nails scrabbling against his back as you cling tighter to him.

It's the way every inch he sinks deeper has you pulsing around his cock; the way his weight above you presses you down into his sheets like he never wants to part from you; the way his lips suck bruising marks into your pulse; the way he sounds, the shuddering gasps and broken groans breathed right into your ear—

(1) And above it all it's the words spilling from him like the sweat across your brows, rough and breathless and adoring.

"Fuck, you feel—"

"You're so—"

"Perfect, fuck, Aster, you're perfect—"

And it's his fault, it really is, it's his fault because you're already so sensitive, so hyper-aware of his everything, and what right did he have to say your name like that? To talk to you like that? Of course you find yourself pushed to the very edge just as you feel him press flush against the back of your thighs, and realizing you'd taken every last inch of him does things to the both of you.

"Blythe—" Your voice quivers alongside the rest of you, his name nearly a keen as tension winds tighter in your middle, eyes squeezing shut as you tried to hold yourself together just a little bit longer—

(1) Only for them to fly open with a yelp at a stinging smack to your hip.

"Eyes on me," Blythe chooses then to begin to pull back, establishing a rhythm that's slow but deep as you shiver and squeeze around his cock, his words half-groan, half-command, "Want to watch you— cum."

His hips snap forward with a force that steals the breath from your lungs, feeling what scant control you'd mustered beginning to slip as you turn your burning cheek to the side despite his demand—

Only for the sound to taper off into a whimper when strong fingers catch you just under your jaw and turn you back to face him with a strength that brooks no room for argument and the barest little squeeze that sets your already racing heart beating even faster.

Your lashes flutter unsteadily, vision blurring as you desperately try to hold your pleasure at bay when every slam of Blythe's hips threatens to send you careening over the edge.

"Aster," One of his hands slips down from your hip, and your whole body jolts beneath with a stuttering cry as his thumb presses into your clit with tight, devastating little circles, "Cum for me."

(1) And damn him, you do.

A pleasure crashes through you that blinds you to all else; light splintering through a prism as waves of heat burn through your veins. Some distant part of you is sure you're going to be mortified by the noises you're making right now, sure to wake his neighbors, but you cannot stop them anymore that you could the climax currently shattering you to pieces.

And throughout it all, Blythe's rhythm only grows more desperate, the sordid sound nearly as loud as you as he fucks you deeper into his bed — and beneath it all, you can hear his voice, a strained mantra of curses as his fingers squeeze and shake around your hips.

(1) And all at once, even beneath the all-consuming tide of your climax, you're filled with a fierce, singular desire: make Blythe cum — isn't that why you'd come?

(a few times, at this point.)

"Blythe, p-please—" It's all you can do to mewl the words, your voice raw from all your cries and still shuddering through your own release; it takes everything you have to focus up on him with blurry eyes, to keep them on him like he'd wanted because you want to be good for him, "You p-promised— wanna feel you cum i-inside, please—!"

"Fuck—" He tenses above you, every muscle taut as his his hips slam into once, twice more—

Before a scalding heat bursts inside of you as Blythe makes a noise so relieved he sounds almost pained by it, fucking you through his orgasm while the feel of him has you whimpering a new, aftershocks of your own pleasure skittering up your spine.

(1) You all but melt into his sheets, feeling well-fucked and accomplished.

Blythe's lips meet yours in a kiss sweet enough to make your chest warm, hands rubbing up and down your sides as he breathes praise against your lips; how well you'd taken him, how perfect you feel, how perfect you are for him — and you ride an altogether different kind of high, a euphoria that has you shuddering as you coast along cloud-nine.

Before you can sink too deeply into the afterglow, all soft-limbed and sleepy-eyed even as the slow drag of Blythe's cock from inside of you, the spill of his cum making your face flush anew—

(1) You're startled back into full-alert as Blythe rises to his knees and rolls you onto your belly, pulling your hips back towards himself and pushing back inside of you with a groan.

"Blythe?" You shake and squeak below him, twisting to look over your shoulder in time to watch and feel him tug your hips higher, trembling thighs unable to support your own weight but so easily supported by his strength, "D-didn't you just—"

He does not start slow this time, setting a rough pace that quickly finds you keening into his pillows; you're just so sensitive now, pleasure bringing tears to your eyes as you squirm, only to yelp when Blythe answers your wiggling with a spank that makes you squeeze around him for reasons you aren't going to think about.

And then you hear a word you've heard once before tonight already, a pattern he's spent all night establishing as his fingers slip over your hip to find your clit, still flushed and swollen from his loving abuse—

"Again, love."

(1) And for the first time this evening you begin to realize the predicament you'd gotten yourself into. Good luck!

#I DIDNT EXPECT THIS TO BE SO GODDAMN LONG #this might the filthiest thing ive ever publicly posted but i am POWERING THRU THE EMBARRASSMENT #because Blythe Deserves It!!!#the world conspired to stop me by starting my period and rendering me bedbound for like 2 hrs immediately after work cuz #anemias a bitch all the time but gives me wicked headaches that make me hella light sensitive until i take some iron #but tylenol + iron + coffee FINALLY got me able to look at a screen again #and my determination to get blythe laid and aster absolutely wrecked handled the rest #this was very fun!!#i think im gonna do more of these aster pov 2nd person things #for when i wanna be creative but drawing is a little too much Brain #aster the gutsy #blythe the scrapper #aster the agent #blythe the fighter #degrees of lewdity #dol fanfic #flicker writes

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tokkiasficlets · 1 year ago

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The soft, cushy surface of Lucy’s thighs has Natsu fading in and out of consciousness as he rests his head on them. It feels like he’s sleeping on a cloud; only this cloud has the same comforting smell as his best friend, and that’s what makes it all the better.

It’s a position he frequents when they’re travelling and he has to do all he can to try keep his innards from becoming outtards, so he’s never really had the chance to appreciate it until now.

Now that he’s had the chance, he never wants to leave.

Thankfully, Lucy makes no protest.

Instead, a hand makes its way to his scalp, and he feels it gently tangle through his hair, nails running softly against his skin, and the feeling practically jolts him awake in the best way possible.

Something about her touch makes him want to purr in her lap. She has him like putty in her hand, and he’s never felt this way about anyone else before.

If anyone else were around, he might have been mortified for them to see just how soft and mushy Lucy makes him, but when it’s just them, he doesn’t mind.

“Keep doing that,” he murmurs, his voice muffled as his lips brush against the skin of her thigh, but he knows he can hear her when it’s the only sound in the room. At the last moment, he remembers his manners and speaks up before Lucy can remind him of them. “Please.”

He can practically hear the smile in Lucy’s voice as she softly laughs at him, looking down adoringly at her napping partner in her lap.

“Of course I can,” she replies, and Natsu knows he’s about to have the best nap of his life.

#nalu #natsu x lucy #fanfiction #nalu fanfic #mya writes things #tada i am finally editing and posting my discord warmups

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simply-smitten · 1 month ago

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So much to gain (but much more to lose)

Chapter 1 Ao3 link

Chapter 1 Wattpad link

Dnf - 36k - rated T - secret identity AU - uploads every Monday and Thursday - 1/10 chapters

Summary: "Men in suits look very successful, until you realize they work for the man in a T-shirt and jeans."

---

Dream, a self-made millionaire, owns a luxury resort off the Florida Keys. After returning from his business in Orlando, DreamTech, he sees the manager hired a new bartender, George, in his absence. Through a tangled web of half-truths and white lies, Dream finds himself falling for the bartender who has no idea he owns the resort. Now, all he has to do is find a way to come clean before George finds out the truth from someone else.

#smitten fics #dnf fanfic #dnfblr #i love sassy george he’s my favorite #RAHHHH OKAY IM SO EXCITED THIS FIC IS FINALLY BEING POSTED

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catsushinyakajima · 3 months ago

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baby, i'll rock your world | by AsterikaMay

What a foolish sentiment to get hung up on. Keith, brave and hot-tempered pilot of the Red Lion, Paladin of Voltron, couldn’t decide how to give a Christmas gift. Never mind that. He didn’t have the time for this. No really—it was difficult enough for him to fit three meals into a day, Keith didn’t have the extra leisure time to go window shopping between evading blasts from enemy ships. - When Keith overhears Lance talking about Christmas, he makes it his mission to get him a Christmas gift. He will soon find out that gift giving is not his forte.

Merry Christmas to @leenfiend!! I was your secret santa :D I hope you enjoy the fic I wrote for you. I do not know you very well but I've come across your content many times- including your comic "What's Your Type?" Your storytelling is fluid and enjoyable and the way you draw truly brings characters to life. I hope that you enjoy creating for however long you choose to pursue it. Your art is a gift to all :D

Thank you to @klance-daydreams for organizing secret santa! Lots of love to you for your hard work of arranging this.

A secondary fic dedication to my buddy @shatterinseconds you're a real one for yapping w me so much LOL

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE HAPPY DECEMBER EVERYONE HAPPY EVERYTHING EVERYONE!!

#voltron fanfic #vld fic #vld fic rec #klance #klance fic rec #klance christmas fic #klance secret santa #keith kogane #lance mcclain #the way I finished my eight am final yesterday and busted out the end of this fic before proceeding to clean my whole house for my bdaypart #I was on a roll #also people alr started posting their secret santas and I was like WHAT???? ALREADY?? IM LATE??#I was not late you guys are just incredibly punctual #love that for you guys #voltron legendary defenders

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anto-pops · 2 years ago

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Beseech Me - Ominis Gaunt x Female! Reader

Summary: Ominis works too much, and your neediness results in you adamantly refusing to go to bed without him. He comes up with a torturous compromise.

Alternatively summarized as Ominis tormenting you while he works until you can't take it anymore. Hot and frantic on-the-desk antics ensue.

Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, explicit sexual content, rough sex on a desk, Dominis if you squint

Full fic can be found here on Ao3 as per usual !

“Please, Ominis,” you whined breathlessly, pinching your eyes shut as you fought the urge to writhe in his lap. “Please move– please.”

The man in question only chuckled under his breath, gliding his fingertips lightly up your spine as he maintained his charmed hold on his dictation quill. He made no move to heed your request, instead opting to keep working as if he weren’t buried balls deep inside of your tight heat. When you had asked him to take a break to spend time with you earlier, this was the absolute last thing you had anticipated. The only reason you’d agreed to entertain his idea was because you had convinced yourself that his restraint wouldn’t last– that he would cave and take you on top of the desk in the way you were desperate for him to– but evidently his self-control was unbreakable.

You’d never been proven so wrong in your life. He was clearly deriving some sort of sick, twisted pleasure from toying with you in this manner, and it seemed like the more you begged, the slower his quill moved across the parchment. At this rate, you were certain you would be forced to sit on his cock until dawn.

“You’re hardly in any position to be telling me what to do,” his warm breath ghosted over your neck, the barely there feeling of his lips against your skin making your head spin with arousal. “You were the one who couldn’t wait until I finished my work. Besides, I think this is a perfectly reasonable compromise.”

Swallowing thickly, you dug your nails into his clothed shoulders in a bid to keep yourself still. The urge to rock down into his lap was insatiable, but you already knew that doing so would set you back irritatingly further.

“Don’t move, or you won’t get anything from me,” were Ominis’ exact words. You didn’t doubt for a second that he would follow through on that promise if you let your impatience get the best of you.

You wet your lips and cracked your eyes open to stare at the wall over his shoulder, trying and failing to ignore the pulsing of his shaft within your walls. “It’s just– you’re always working. There’s always more for you to get done, and I get lonely. Please take a break– please fuck me, Ominis, I’m begging you.”

The blond’s fingers skirted down your back once more before moving to squeeze at the curve of your waist, as though he were about to relent. He didn’t, though, and instead opted to press a hot, chaste kiss to your pulse. “I do so like it when you beg…” he mused thoughtfully, dragging his free hand away from the desk to grip the other side of your waist. You couldn’t see his dictation quill, but you heard the scratching of its tip against the parchment slow down some, and your heart skipped a beat as you contemplated whether or not he was finally giving in. “You make it incredibly difficult to focus on important matters, you know that?”

You opened your mouth to reply, but the sudden feeling of Ominis’ teeth sinking into your neck stole the words from your throat. He bit fervently against your flesh, sucking a proprietary mark into your skin with a throaty hum, and your shaky moan reverberated off the walls and caused your lover’s cock to twitch enthusiastically inside of you.

Ominis would be lying if he said teasing you this way was easy. On the contrary, when you had walked into his office to ask him to come to bed earlier, he naturally wanted to agree immediately and forgo finishing his report for the Ministry entirely. Denying you the first time was a necessary evil, but then you had come up behind him to wrap your arms around his shoulders, and he’d been made aware of the silk bathrobe you wore with presumably little underneath. That revelation had shattered the majority of his restraint, and he knew then and there that he wouldn’t be able to pay attention to a lick of his work after that.

You’d been all too eager to take him up on his offer of warming his cock, but little did you know he’d made the suggestion more for himself than for you. Beyond the euphoric sensation of being sheathed in your clenching heat, Ominis relished in working you over the edge with little to no effort– and Merlin, had he succeeded. Your labored breathing in his ear for the past half hour was like the finest of music, and your breasts pressing against his clothed chest was as intoxicating as Firewhiskey.

In truth, he hadn’t gotten much work done for the duration of time you’d been sitting in his lap; he didn’t need sight to know there was a series of meaningless scribbles in the corners of his report, put there entirely to play up his charade. Everything about you was that distracting, and he huffed out a sigh as his baser urges finally won out against his responsibilities.

Ominis laved his tongue over the freshly bruised bit of skin, leaving crescent shaped marks on your hips as he held you tighter to ever-so-slightly grind up into you. The feeling had you gasping into the crook of his neck as your forehead fell against his shoulder, clinging to the fabric of his shirt as you allowed the blond to maneuver you however he pleased.

It took every ounce of willpower in Ominis’ body to keep his voice low and controlled when he murmured, “I suppose you have been well behaved… a little needy, but that’s nothing new.” He pushed your hips back before steadily pulling them forward again, and his eyelids fluttered shut at the sheer bliss the friction offered him. “I’ll fuck you, but you have to wait to come until I say so. Understood?”

The mere thought of having to wait a second longer for him to move had you nodding brainlessly into the crook of his shoulder, and you ardently wound your arms around his neck to hold him closer as you cautiously rocked against him. At this point, you were willing to promise him anything if it meant getting what you wanted.

One of his hands left your waist to wind through your hair, and when he tightened his fingers around the strands to pull you away from him, you couldn’t stop the surprised yelp that tumbled from your parted lips. “Use your words, darling, or I’ll leave you waiting for another hour. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” you gasped breathlessly, forced to address the ceiling since Ominis’ hand in your hair had your head tilted back. “I understand, I won’t come until you tell me to. Please, Ominis, I promise–”

“That’ll do,” he cut you off quickly, releasing his hold against your scalp to grip your hips once more. His lithely muscled arms held you flush to him as he stood straight, and the legs of his chair scraped loudly against the floorboards as he kicked it away to give himself more space. In one swift motion, Ominis deposited you on top of the desk and firmly pushed you down so you were draped on your back across the oak surface, his cock still inside you. His clever fingers set to undo the buttons of his shirt as the hand against your sternum trailed lower to tease around your wet folds, and a keening sound resonated from deep in your chest as he grazed his thumb over your sensitive clit.

Much like his shallow grinding earlier, it wasn’t enough. Your voice was airy when you asked, “C-Can I touch myself?”

His hand stilled momentarily before retreating, and he nodded down at you with a coy smirk on his face. “You’re a good girl for asking, so yes. Remember your promise though.”

Your hand flew off the table to rub tight circles against the hyper-sensitive nub, and the relief that washed over you then was tantamount to perfection. It was the stimulation you’d been after since straddling Ominis earlier, and your eyes jumped up to watch as the blond shrugged his shirt off his shoulders and dropped the attire unceremoniously to the floor. His eyes closed momentarily when the attention you bestowed upon yourself caused your walls to tighten around his cock, and a shameless moan ripped from his throat at the same time he leaned forward to brace his arms on either side of you.

“Fuck– you’re greedy for it, aren’t you?”

The clipped edge to Ominis’ voice betrayed just how much he wanted this too, and your breathy laugh filtered up to him as you teased, “Am I to believe you’re not?”

Those milky blue eyes of his narrowed as he processed your remark, and your mouth dried up when his expression shifted into something far more domineering than before. He lifted one of his hands to run the appendage up your stomach, then your chest, before eventually settling against your throat, and your eyes widened when he squeezed gently to convey his feelings on the snide comment.

“Are you sassing me right now? Bold words from the woman who beseeched me to take her on the desk. Just for that,” he started to say, reaching between the two of you to grasp the hand you’d been using on yourself, “no more of this. You’re mine to play with now, darling.”

In a flash, Ominis pinned your hand against the rough wood above your head, holding you firmly in place by the throat with the other. You whimpered pitifully, opening your mouth to stutter out a string of apologies before he forbade you from coming entirely, but a hurried thrust of his hips interrupted your efforts. The force in the action had your shoulder blades scraping deliciously against the desk, and you moaned wantonly as Ominis worked to set a brutal pace.

He spread his legs to accommodate his low hanging trousers before pounding himself roughly into your tight cunt. “Calling me greedy when you’re the one under me getting fucked senseless,” he growled with a gruff tone, squeezing around your windpipe to pull you harder onto his cock as he plunged in and out of you without mercy. “You couldn’t wait– didn’t want to wait. You’re as demanding and needy as they come.”

His head tipped back and sent strands of his blond hair across his forehead as he bucked desperately into your overwhelmingly slick walls, and after being sheathed in your tight heat for so long without moving, he felt himself growing closer to his release as you clenched tellingly around him. Ominis abandoned his hold on your throat as he bent over you, raking his nails down your chest to pinch one of your nipples into a stiff peak, and your back arched off the desk for all of two seconds before the imposing man jerked your head to the side by your hair to sink his teeth into your shoulder.

“O-Ominis, fuck–” you cried out abruptly, the combined feeling of his bite and the slap of his hips against your ass enough to make you see stars. The fire that ignited in your blood had you flushing from head to toe as you frantically sought more stimulation from him, but the whispers of your earlier promise haunted the far reaches of your mind like a ghost. You bit your lip and writhed brainlessly underneath him, fighting your looming orgasm with every ounce of restraint you could muster up. It was easier said than done; between Ominis’ frantic pace, his possessive hold on your hair, and the guttural, animalistic sounds he was making, you wanted nothing more than to finally fall over the edge into white bliss.

Ominis knew it too, but he wasn’t about to give you what you wanted without a little more effort on your part.

Releasing your hair to loop his arm under your rounded spine, Ominis mouthed wetly down the column of your throat before breathing his request against your sweat-slick skin, “Tell me what you want, love. Say the words.”

“I-I want to come– please let me come, Ominis, please.” Your breathless noises grew louder as Ominis licked a broad stripe along your collarbone before kissing and sucking another love-bite right below your clavicle. When he suddenly hauled your waist against him and slammed his cock up into you, your eyes crossed as you gasped for air and let your head fall back against the desk. The blond buried the cacophony of sounds falling from his lips against your skin, groaning at the way you arched hard and tightened perfectly around his throbbing member, and your thighs trembled bonelessly on either side of him.

All you could do was let Ominis hold you, giving yourself over to him completely as he fucked incoherent pleas from your swollen lips and chased his own pleasure. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you fought your climax, and when your lover turned his head to bury his face in the crook of your neck, his pace quickened immeasurably further. His thick cock nailed you perfectly, each thrust he gave you pulling out almost entirely before he stuffed you full again, and the hand he didn’t have pinned to the desk flew up to grip his bicep as your body quaked with pleasure.

It was too much to bear– you needed to come– almost as much as you needed to breathe. The overstimulating sensations were driving you insane, and when Ominis moaned long and loud next to your ear, you almost caved without permission.

Almost.

Ominis knew you were close. He could feel you fighting your finish as you writhed and angled your hips to meet his, and he could hear your cries of his name growing louder and louder until your voice was cracking on the end of your pleas of, “Please let me come, please Ominis– can I come?” He grazed his teeth up your throat towards your ear, and his fingers dug into the bones of your wrist as his grip turned irontight. The arm he had coiled around your waist followed suit, and after a few more hurried thrusts into you, Ominis acceded to your begging.

“Come for me, darling,” he moaned directly beside your ear. “Be a good girl and come for me, let me feel you.”

You didn’t even give him the chance to repeat himself.

Arching clean off the desk, your breathing stopped entirely as you tensed in Ominis’ arms, and a strangled gasp caught in his throat when your sopping wet heat clamped down on his cock to seemingly suck him in deeper. His hand on your wrist fell away in an instant to slip between your flush bodies, and those nimble fingers sought out your clit with a practiced ease that sent your composure careening into oblivion.

The added stimulation was damn near unbearable, but you had no way to escape his unrelenting hands as he held you through your climax. Your voice was a raspy, sinful melody in his ears, and Ominis knew he wouldn’t last much longer. “Merlin, you feel so good, love. So perfect for me– I’m close–”

“D-Don’t stop,” you stammered in between gasps, your nails clawing into the wood of the desk in a bid to find purchase. “Gods, don’t stop Ominis, cum inside– please, please–”

He was all too happy to oblige you. With a throaty groan, Ominis lowered you so you were laying across the desk once again, then slipped his hands under the bent crooks of your knees to push your legs against your chest. Still hyper-sensitive from your ebbing finish, the new angle allowed you to feel more of your lover’s cock inside of you as he began thrusting into you harder and faster. The blond’s head tipped back as he shamelessly moaned your name into the open air, and before long the sound was drowned out by the slapping of his hips against your ass as he pounded into you.

With your thighs nearly pressed together, Ominis felt impossibly thicker as his manhood reached deeper. Everytime he pulled back, the blunt head of his cock rubbed past your sweet spot perfectly, and your toes curled as you gasped and moaned, your senses completely overwhelmed by the overstimulation. Ominis’ grip on your legs turned bruising as his pace grew rougher, steadily losing the fight to maintain his rhythm– especially when your hands flew from the desk to brainlessly claw at his forearms.

“Fuck, darling– fuck,” he grit through his clenched teeth, and with one final thrust into your pulsing core, Ominis came with a husky cry of your name. His hands slid to the front of your legs to pull you back against his hips to better grind against your rear, milking every thick bit of cum from his twitching cock. Hot spurts of his seed painted your insides and brought you higher than before, and your nails dragged down his arms as you keened breathlessly beneath him, wriggling back into his shallow grinding the best you could.

The two of you stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity, but realistically could only have been a handful of minutes. You blearily blinked up at Ominis when he released your thighs to brace his arms against the desk, his chest rising and falling as he sucked down deep, shaky breaths, and you brazenly wound your trembling legs around his waist to keep him exactly where he was. The wet sound of his load squelching out around his cock had him groaning unabashedly— not-so-secretly in love with the sordid noises your cunt made when it was filled to the brim with his cum— and your eyelids fluttered shut as streaks of the white fluid dripped down your ass onto the desk.

When he lifted his head to gaze down in your direction, your stomach flipped at the lustful glimmer in his hazy eyes, and his hands skirted across the oak surface beneath you in search of your face. You angled your head to the side to meet him halfway, and he followed his arm as he bent down to capture your lips in a hungry kiss that said more than words ever could. He still elected to speak, however, amusement lacing his tone as his fingers traced the outline of your jaw.

“I suppose you’re feeling rather pleased with yourself right about now,” he murmured softly against your lips, gently rocking his hips against yours and smearing his sticky seed across your rear. Thus far he had made no move to pull out, but you weren’t about to start complaining. Your current arrangement was beyond preferable to the torturous waiting game you’d been playing with him earlier.

You tried and failed to fight the smirk that stretched across your face, and you chuckled coyly under your breath. “What makes you say that?”

Ominis’ eyes darkened when he pulled away, and his hands trailed higher up the desk to wind in your unruly hair once again as he gathered the strands in his fists. Your eyes widened and your breath halted as he inhaled deeply– as though he were committing your scent to memory– before he nudged his nose against yours and grinned wickedly. “Because now I have every intention of stretching this ‘break’ well into the morning,” he vowed, and the revelation had your heart soaring while your stomach simultaneously flipped on itself. “How many more times can I fill you before it gets to be too much… let’s find out, shall we?”

Swallowing around the lump in your throat, your hands splayed against his pale sternum as you cautiously asked, “Shouldn’t you sleep? You have work in the morning…”

“To hell with sleep,” Ominis tutted disapprovingly at you, tightening his hold against your scalp. “You started this after all. I’ll make sure you’re the farthest thing from lonely tonight, darling.”

If the way his cock seemed to revive inside of you was any indication, you knew with the utmost certainty that he definitely wasn’t lying. You didn’t know whether to be excited or afraid as you realized exactly what it was you’d inadvertently signed yourself up for.

Merlin’s balls— you were in for it now.

#ominis gaunt #ominis gaunt x you #ominis gaunt x reader #ominis gaunt x female! reader #ominis gaunt smut #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fanfic #ominis gaunt oneshot #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #dominis #I keep saying 'if you squint' but nah this is fr dominis there's no way around it #my writing #finally posting this to commemorate the resolved DDoS attack on my beloved Ao3 #I did not in fact touch grass while the site was down I just produced more content for it LMAOOO

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pastafossa · 11 months ago

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Haunted (Matt Murdock x TRT!Reader, Fic, SFW)🌧️

Right, so close to 3 years ago, I had an ask in my box: 'what would happen if TRT!Reader/Jane Hind lost her memory just before returning to Matt after her three months away', aka: just before point where they both confessed their love and got together in mainline TRT. So I wrote up a fairly angsty, no happy ending sort of fic about it, which you can find here. But there just felt like there was more to the story, and the idea of a sequel wouldn't leave me alone, so I've worked on it in little bits and pieces over the past few years and I'm finally ready to unleash that into the world now that it's been edited to my satisfaction.

This will have a happy ending and hurt/comfort, once we swim through a lot of Matt Suffering. <3 Ship: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Chapter Summary:

Leaving him like that shouldn’t have bothered you as much as it did. You didn’t know him. This man should have been nothing more than a stranger on the street, one you wouldn’t glance twice at, much less feel some ridiculous sense of attachment or obligation to. Yet the memory of walking out of his apartment still left you shaken whenever you allowed yourself to think too long on it. He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow. There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting. Matt was alone. You’d left him alone. It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back. So… why did you feel so very sick?

Wordcount: 11, 805 words so, hilariously, about 3 times the length of Part 1

Warnings for this chapter: angst, alcohol, matt spiraling fairly badly, he throws some things, LOTS of TRT references and spoilers so I wouldn't do this one unless you've finished the Miami arc in TRT.

Sad Matt gif as a reminder that the angst is pretty heavy here because I'm really going to emotionally beat on this poor man for a bit.

At Ciro’s insistence, you gave yourself one month in Hell’s Kitchen.

A month wasn’t much time, granted, but it would hopefully be enough to see if there was a chance of bringing back the memories you’d lost: memories of friends, of your life here, and of… of whatever it was that you’d had with Matt Murdock. Based on his grief over the loss of Jane Hind—not you, but her surely, the role, the mask you’d worn while here—his attachment to her had been deep and fervent, and those feelings appeared to have been at least partly reciprocated. The dangerously intimate photo you’d found in your memory box was all the proof you needed of that.

Your past self had already been accustomed to his touch when the photo was taken, based on the way she’d allowed him to press his head tenderly to her temple, his dark eyes warm and fond as he'd smiled in her direction even if he couldn't see her, his arm draped over her shoulders. She should have been put off by the proximity, by such a blatant show of physical intimacy, but instead of looking distressed, she’d been relaxed and comfortable where she’d confidently tucked herself up against his side. Try as you might, you hadn’t been able to find any hint of discomfort, any clue that signaled the obvious affection she’d felt was an act, her shoulder angled in a way that made you think she’d wrapped her arm comfortably around his waist, her grin bright and so very real.

This couldn’t be you.

When was the last time you'd looked that happy?

When was the last time you’d let someone hold you close?

And when was the last time someone had looked at you like… like they might…

“Did I… love him, Ciro?”

“I believe that… you might have, yes. Him, and this city. That is why I encourage you to stay, for a time at least. See if the memories return to you. Even should you leave, it would be wise to know of the life you led here.”

Ciro had sent a check to your office, booking you for the month and clearing your schedule. Just like that, you were free to focus on looking for something that might trigger the return of your memories. Though what that something might be, you weren’t really sure. A more thorough examination of the apartment had been your first step. Unfortunately, there’d been nothing there that seemed familiar beyond the same cheap decor and calculated set pieces you’d always used. You’d quickly ruled those out. They were meaningless distractions meant to reinforce the lie of whatever pre-planned identity you’d taken on. In this case, that identity was Jane Hind—practical, professional, detached, likes sailboat paintings and the color grey. Based on the fine layer of dust you'd found coating everything but the kitchen counter and a neat stack of mail, no one else had spent much time here during your months away. That, at least, fit your pattern. You weren’t in the habit of making friends or putting down roots. There was no point in doing so when you’d just wind up cutting them loose and running again.

What had unsettled you far more were the hints of connection you’d found quietly tucked away:

A fleecy stuffed bear holding a plush crystal ball, the threads connecting the two uneven as if hand-stitched. That kind of time and effort wouldn’t have been spent on anyone but a friend, and the bear’s prominent position on the counter lent it far more importance than any of the other decorations.

A tacky ‘Handsome Devil’ coffee mug, the curling red script and clichéd devil horns design bizarrely out of place amongst the rest of the plain white mugs in the cupboard. An identity like Jane Hind wouldn’t have been caught dead drinking from it, which meant someone else was here with enough regularity to have a mug of their own. Further digging revealed a second decorated mug, this one adorned with the name of the law firm co-run by Matt. You could have written off one mug, but two? Two was a pattern.

An entire drawer in the dresser devoted solely to a pile of dangerously soft shirts that clearly didn’t belong to Jane Hind, the fabric threadbare and worn. They looked about the right size to be Matt’s, though, the faint traces of scent a match for him. The fact that they took up an entire drawer indicated he’d visited often enough to need a space for his clothes.

You’d… made space for him in your false life. That wasn’t something you did.

Or had you been the one wearing them?

Maybe…?

You’d spent a long moment holding one of the shirts in your hand, rubbing at the fabric in hopes of stirring something. When that hadn’t worked, you’d even brought it up to your nose to inhale slowly, just in case the traces of scent brought some memory back.

Clean soap. Salt. Copper. Faint cinnamon.

All it had done was remind you of holding a grieving Matt in his kitchen after he’d realized your memories weren’t coming back. It was a gloomy enough memory, but ultimately unhelpful.

You'd tossed the old shirt on top of the dresser and moved on.

While you didn’t know who exactly you’d been here in New York, the longer you searched, the more it became clear what had happened. You’d started to slip, your years of isolation forming a crack in your layers of armor. That fracture had allowed an attachment to form, an insidious connection worming its way in through the open gap like poisonous roots through crumbling pavement. You’d grown weak, and careless. There was no other explanation for why you’d broken so many of your rules, dominoes tipping one by one until it cascaded into a waterfall of mistakes. You’d slipped before, of course—loneliness was natural and expected, which was why you had so many contingencies—but you’d never let yourself get in this deep. Not until now.

What you didn’t know was…

Why?

Why here?

Why these people?

And why the fuck hadn’t you followed your rules and run?

If there was an answer to be found in Jane Hind’s apartment, you couldn’t seem to find it, no matter how hard you look, no matter how many of her belongings you dug through. Even your memory box had failed you, the photo of you and Matt at the back of your stack of pictures an outlier you couldn’t explain, this fruit of an as-yet unidentified poisonous tree. You had no real leads, no faint ringing of memory to guide you beyond a vague sense that, somehow, this started with Matt. You didn’t even know where to begin.

At least, not until some shaggy-haired guy named Foggy—what the fuck kind of nickname was that?—showed up entirely and rudely unannounced at your front door, dressed in a cheap suit and wearing a bizarrely determined look. Despite your doubts, you reluctantly allowed him in. He made it pretty clear he knew you, and if you were lucky he could tell you more about your life here.

“So I know you usually skedaddle when things get uncomfortable, which I imagine they are at the moment. How long are you trying to stay?”

“One month.” You shrugged casually, a cover for just how warily you were watching him as he paced in your—in Jane Hind’s living area. He knew far more about you than you knew about him, a reversal you were uncomfortably aware of. That vulnerability was almost enough to trigger a retreat beneath that cold, brittle shell you’d used long ago, though you quickly caught hold of that instinct and buried it back down deep where it belonged. Still, you couldn’t quite hide the cool clip to your voice, your walls firmly in place. “Leaving after that. Don’t see the point in staying if the memories are gone. Truthfully I’m not sure why I stayed in the first place, especially once it was clear I was getting attached. No offense.”

“None taken, my hopefully-still-friend-when-your-memories-come-back.” He abruptly swiveled on his feet to face you, squinting at you thoughtfully. “How badly do you want your memories back?”

You thought of out-of-place mugs and hand-stitched psychic teddy bears; of faint cinnamon and a worn photo frame; of the way you’d held a broken Matt in his kitchen until he’d carefully pushed you away and asked you to leave, his face closed off and distant despite the tears on his cheeks and yours.

You’d… been someone here. Someone cared for. Someone whose loss was mourned.

Even if you left, you needed to know just who that someone had been, if only so you could make sure this never happened again. Not until you reached your island in the sun.

“Badly enough to stay for the month,” you said quietly.

“Then put some shoes on. We’re going on a memory hunt.”

Over the next few weeks, Foggy took you all over Hell’s Kitchen.

You visited Jane Hind’s office, abandoned warehouses, and empty rooftops covered in thick blankets of snow. He reintroduced you to Karen, to your upstairs neighbors, and to a bartender who didn’t seem all that inclined to be introduced to anyone. You drank crappy beer and slightly less crappy vodka, played pool, and went to the zoo to stare for far too long at penguins, which Foggy refused to explain no matter how much you pressed. He had you focus on sights, on smells, on sounds that might trigger a memory. He joked with you in between, and he was just funny enough, friendly and clever enough, that for the first week or so, you were consistently cracking a smile. Hell, you even laughed now and then, much to your surprise. He really did know you, enough so that you gradually began to relax around him, just a little. He was likely hoping the addition of a friend’s voice would bring back what you’d lost, especially when paired with all the other sensations.

But no matter how much you both tried, your memories remained lost.

God, you hadn’t thought this would… would hurt as much as it did. Yet with every day that you failed to find your way back to who you’d been, the more that fierce ache, that old longing inside you grew. Your smiles became brittle, your laughter fading, until both finally dried up like withered, crumbling leaves beneath a bitter frost. You couldn't help pulling away really, not when your soul curling up in the dark might protect you from the agony of knowing that maybe, just maybe, you’d finally found what you'd always wanted. How fitting that it had been ripped away from your bloodied, desperate hands like so many times before, one more square for the filthy patchwork quilt of shredded lives and possibilities you’d been forced to leave behind. What was worse: even your memories of that seeming joy had been stolen, too, leaving you with nothing left to carry but the tattered scraps of a ghost and the photograph of a stranger wearing your skin.

It shouldn’t have been possible to miss what you couldn’t remember. Yet here you were missing it all the same.

It didn’t help that Matt was avoiding you in every way that mattered. You’d thought about calling him if only to ask him questions about your life here, but you could never quite work up the courage to do it. He must have felt the same since he hadn’t reached out to you, either. And why would he? He knew as well as you did that your memories likely weren’t coming back. It made sense to cut that connection, tear it away like a weed before the roots could do more damage—something you should have done sooner, for both your sakes. What you hadn’t expected was just how good he was at dodging you, somehow absent no matter how many places Foggy took you to, places he swore Matt frequented with you when you’d lived here, as if Matt’s mere presence might be enough to trigger some memory in you. Had he been that important? Either way, it didn’t matter. You hadn’t seen Matt once since you’d walked out, doing your best to ignore his hitched breath as you’d opened the door. You’d forced yourself to ignore, too, the broken, agonized sound of grief that he’d let out as you quietly shut the door behind you, leaving him alone.

He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow.

There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting.

Matt was alone.

You’d left him alone.

It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back.

So… why did you feel so very sick?

Sympathy.

That was all you were feeling. Matt was grieving a woman he’d cared about, one who’d died and left a cold stranger in her place. It was normal to feel for someone in that much pain, and no one should be alone while grieving. Maybe this was for the best. The sooner you were fully out of his life, the sooner all his friends and family could step in, and the sooner he could move on. He wouldn’t be alone, then. And even if he was, his loneliness wasn’t your goddamn problem. You had more than enough troubles of your own.

Protect yourself.

Protect what you might one day have.

All else was irrelevant.

You just… hoped he was doing alright.

He did his best to avoid you, but that only grew more difficult once your ghost began to haunt his every step.

Even Josie’s quickly became off-limits—something he discovered one night when he stepped through the front door where he was promptly met with the familiar, comforting scent of you floating like a haze beneath the smell of cheap beer and sour sweat. His body went rigid the moment he recognized it, your presence across the room a sharpened knife that only widened the wound carved into him by your death. And if the scent of you was a knife, then your bark of laughter was a cruel twist of the blade, one that left him gutted and shaking there in the doorway. He drank in his apartment after that, waiting for that blessed moment when he would feel nothing, waiting for the very second the glorious shroud of night fell. Only then could he finally escape to the streets and drown himself in a far better kind of pain, taking his rage and his grief out on whatever piece of shit had the misfortune of falling into the Devil’s path.

But Foggy seemed determined to shove the specter of you directly into his face.

“You need to talk to her!” Foggy snapped, his voice only just shy of a shout. Matt ignored him as he headed for his office, desperate to retreat from your scent lingering on Foggy’s clothes. Foggy had taken you to a coffee shop that morning, one you’d frequented when you’d lived here, and now each inhalation was a vicious torment. It felt like breathing in shards of glass, the sharp pain of it throbbing with every stuttered, choked breath he drew in. If Foggy noticed, he didn’t seem to care. “Christ, Matt! You love her and we both know it. If you talk to her, it might trigger something—”

“Stop,” Matt grit out, reaching up to scrub his hand angrily over his face. He stalked his way over to his desk, still desperate to escape somehow, even if it was into his work. “Just stop, Foggy. I did talk to her, and you know what happened? Nothing. She didn’t remember anything at all. She’s gone, and you dragging this out is just making everything worse for all of us.”

“So what, you’re just gonna roll over?” Foggy scoffed, crossing his arms as he planted his feet in Matt’s doorway. “Are you sure you actually loved her? Because I’m pretty sure she loved y—”

Matt slammed his fist down on his desk, the furious crack of it echoing through the office like a gunshot as he shouted, “Don’t you fucking dare!”

Tension hung thick in the air as Matt’s chest heaved, his teeth bared, blood and adrenaline running hot in his veins as if Foggy were some sort of-of threat. Everything in him shook with rage, or maybe unshed grief, the burden of them both impossibly twisted and tangled beneath the sea of his guilt and his self-loathing until he couldn’t tell which was which. He just couldn’t—how was he supposed to force it all down when Foggy had just come so close, so dangerously close to shattering what few pieces remained of Matt’s crumbling armor?

It was bad enough loving you the way he did only for you to slip through his bloodied, desperate grasp like whispering grains of sand. What was worse, this entire disaster was one of his own making, a series of mistakes whose snarled, winding paths led inevitably back to him just like they had so many times before in his life. This loss of someone who’d truly understood him, accepted him, cared for him had already broken something inside him he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to repair. But that fracturing inside him would surely rise up to consume him if Foggy were right, if you’d truly cared for him that deeply before your memories were taken, so deeply that you might even have…

I miss you, sweetheart.

…loved him the way he loved you.

Abruptly Matt’s surge of rage drained away and his head fell, leaving him feeling all the more empty and broken. He braced his arms weakly against his desk, drawing in a shaky breath as he forced himself to confess, his voice gone hoarse and ragged with grief. “I loved her, Foggy.” He lifted one shaking hand to his face. “God, I loved her so, so much. I can’t… I don’t know what to do without her now that she’s gone.” “I know, Matt,” Foggy said gently. “I know.” “I loved how she always smelled a little like coffee, and the way she always managed to wind up climbing into the oddest places for a case. She had one of the foulest mouths I’ve ever heard, but I swear she could use it to talk her way out of almost anything or to bring someone up out of whatever dark hole they were trapped in. She was… far kinder than she’d ever admit.” His lips quirked, but there was no humor in it, the expression miserable and gutted. You’d have likely argued with him about how kind you were if you’d been here. But there was no chance of that now, no matter how much the scent of you on the air told him otherwise. “Some days it felt like she was the only thing holding me together, like the only time I could breathe was when she held me in her arms. She was always there when I fell apart, or when it all… when it all started to hurt too much. And I tried to give her whatever pieces of me the Kitchen hadn’t already taken, to be there for her like she was for me, to keep her safe. We were finally going to make our relationship official when she came back, her and me, even if there’d… already been something there for a while now if I’m honest.”

And it had, it had been there, this soft, tender thing that had developed slowly but surely between the two of you, a tangling that came by degrees rather than all at once. It had sprouted, grown, and blossomed so gradually that even now he struggled to point to any one moment where it had truly begun—the night he found you in the warehouse, maybe, or that first game of Devil Hunt, or when you’d both almost taken the leap before he’d realized you were drunk. But the question of where it began didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it was there, something nameless yet still so good and warm and perfect, a connection nurtured in the low light and the blood-soaked soil of the Kitchen. You’d felt it just like he had, and you’d been willing to take that chance with him despite the baggage he carried behind him like an anchor destined to drag him down. You never would have agreed to kiss him when you came back otherwise. Now that chance was gone.

“How much did she know before she left?” Foggy asked quietly, leaning against the doorframe.

”She knew that I-that I wanted to be with her, but I never told her that I loved her.” Matt blew out a slow, heavy breath. “I was too scared of chasing her away, I guess. I thought maybe when she came back, if she still wanted me, I would… I decided that I would tell her. But I waited too long. Now she’s gone and I’ll never be able to tell her. All because of me.”

He finally lifted his head, tipping it at Foggy. Neither of them dared mention the wetness on Matt’s cheeks. Even speaking about this—about how much he’d loved you only for him to ruin it—was almost more than he could bear, the edges of the wound still fresh and raw. Then again, maybe he deserved that pain after how miserably he’d failed you, just like everyone else in his life. “I miss her. And what’s worse is even when she’s right there in front of me, she’s not. She’s not, Foggy. Because I-I fucked up. I’m the reason the woman I knew, the woman I loved, died. I’m the reason she’ll never remember what we had, why I’ll never hold her again, and why she’ll leave New York at the end of the month like she does whenever she’s afraid of forming a connection.” He let out a bitter laugh, waving towards the windows, towards the place you’d once held dear. “I couldn’t even keep her here before. She almost ran last summer and the only thing that stopped her was being kidnapped. That was what slowed her down long enough for our thread to turn red, not me. She won’t let that happen a second time, not now that she’s seen what happens to people I care about. Do you understand?”

The door to Nelson and Murdock creaked open, Karen’s voice making its way in first. Her voice was followed only a moment later by another’s, one still so familiar.

“—I mean, winding up in a pool while chasing a kid sounds about right for me, so even if I don’t remember, I won’t argue—”

“I had to keep you here somehow.” Foggy’s voice remained quiet, but there was no disguising the ferocity in it now, the fervent belief. “Get out of your own head and talk to her, Matt. Fight for her. She would want you to.”

No.

No, no, no.

Your body may have been here, whole and real, but the woman who’d known him wasn’t. The song of your voice, your sweet scent, the flames of heat and stirred air currents around you flaring into a familiar shape: all of it was nothing but a lie, a snare for his senses, a ghost of his own making, and he wasn’t about to be caught by it again.

He darted back around his desk, shoving his way past Foggy on the way toward the front door, his heart racing. If he was quick, if he just put up enough of a front, he could get out before they trapped you here with him like they’d planned. He wouldn’t relive this grief again, he couldn’t, not without falling apart. The moment he’d had with you in his apartment had been enough agony for one lifetime.

“Hey, Matt.” You cleared your throat, shifting awkwardly on your feet where you’d stopped by the front door. Your stance was cautious and guarded, almost wary of him. It was just one more reminder of how uncomfortable he made you now. “Are you—”

“Heading out,” he said stiffly, only belatedly remembering to trace one hand along the wall as if his heightened senses hadn’t given him a clear map of the room the moment his adrenaline spiked. That spike was a curse all its own. It made the scent of you so much stronger, the lie of it fresh and present as it twined around him. His chest hitched just once before he forced himself to breathe his mouth. But that route of escape had been cut off, too. All it did was shift his focus to the taste of you on the air, and the taste of familiar fabric once so tenderly given.

You were wearing one of his shirts.

He fumbled for his cane, his hands starting to shake before he finally found it where he’d left it against the wall. He couldn’t let you see him like this. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t remember him, nor was it your fault that he’d lost you. He’d done enough damage without adding a layer of guilt to what you were dealing with, too. But despite his attempts to hide what he was feeling, his face a hard mask, your fingers still brushed gently against his arm a moment later. It was an offer of help, or maybe an attempt to reach out, to slow him down, to connect. It was a kindness, a sympathy he didn’t deserve. Even now, you read him far too well, this touch the same as it had been that first night he’d met you when you’d gently brushed your hand against his arm. “Hey, do you need… I could walk you home.”

He shied away from your touch, finally managing to roughly unsnap his cane before going for the door. “I’m fine. I just—I have things to take care of. Excuse me.”

He went straight home and showered, but no matter how many times he scrubbed, he couldn’t seem to wash the ghost of your scent away.

You slowly wandered around Matt’s office, taking it in. This was another place you’d supposedly frequented, a place that should have been familiar, and one you'd avoided until now.

Even though Foggy had assured you it was alright, it felt… almost wrong to explore a stranger’s space like this without them present. But you couldn’t help but brush your fingers across the battered desk and the small labels in braille you couldn’t read, run your hands along the chair for clients that you might have sat in once, and trace curiously the small seashell next to Matt’s laptop. The base scents of Matt were stronger here where he spent so much time, only partly erased by the smell of coffee and paper. The room was clean, cared for, and well-organized despite how rundown the office was. Important to him. You could tell that much, even if the scents and sights had failed to spark any memories.

Maybe… knowing his space wasn’t enough.

This was about more than just figuring out who you were, now. For some reason, you needed to know who Matt was, too: this man Jane Hind had cared so much about and who’d cared so much about her. You told yourself it was practical. Matt was your best bet when it came to remembering who you’d been. But some part of you deep down recognized the lie. No, there was something in you inescapably drawn to him, a pull you couldn’t quite explain. Maybe that strange, unnatural gravity was what had started this whole mess in the first place. What was it about him that was so different, that had driven you to break every last rule you’d lived your life by for over a decade?

And why… did you spend so long wondering if he’d ever climbed out his office window?

It had been twenty-nine days, and not a single memory had returned.

Oh, there were beats now and then when you thought that maybe, just maybe something was coming back, but those moments were painfully few and far between. Even in those moments, you couldn’t say remembered anything, exactly. It was more a frustrating sense of deja vu, a fleeting little itch at the back of your mind like you’d forgotten something important, flashing road markers to warn you of the dark, empty gaps in your memory. That sense was probably driven at least in part by Foggy’s growing desperation as he frantically hunted for something that might trigger a return of your memories.

But the rest of that feeling… the rest was all you.

There was no denying a traitorous part of you wanted to remember no matter how ill-advised it might be. You wanted to remember this bizarre little family you’d stumbled into and then lost, just like in Los Angeles. You wanted to remember the love you’d had for this place, this city, this taste of mutual affection that had grown up around you after going so long without. After endless ages and ages of drought, of starvation, you hungered for even these bare crumbs of connection, something to tide you over until you found safe haven on the distant horizon. What a tempting thought it was to slither back into the life of this woman who’d been so cruelly murdered and replaced by a stranger wearing her skin.

Was this what a demon felt like when it took over a body? To walk around with someone else’s face, to speak with the unnatural voice of the dead, tormenting the loved ones that remained?

That, ultimately, was why it didn’t matter what you wanted. Your presence in this city only spread rot and suffering. It would be better for everyone involved if you left like you should have long before now. Then they could all grieve without you tainting the very soil around them.

Especially Matt.

You’d seen him once or twice in passing as your time in New York wound down. Even at a distance, you’d marked the growing circles under his eyes, dark enough to be visible despite the glasses he always wore. The rest of him wasn’t doing much better. It seemed like every time he crossed your path, there was another bruise, another cut across his face or knuckles, a shifting canvas of pain painted across skin grown pale and drawn. He didn’t just look tired—that wasn’t what this was. This was something far worse, a haggard exhaustion, a weariness that couldn’t be solved with sleep, if he slept at all. This was someone being haunted.

Probably because the ghost of Jane Hind kept crossing his path. But that would be solved soon enough.

You’d already packed up your things, not that you had much to take. Just your bag and your memory box. You’d be leaving the next day. Foggy was still convinced he had a few more days, but you had other plans. You couldn’t give Matt back the woman he’d lost, nor could you give him a body to bury, a grave to lay flowers across, but you could give him what Jane Hind had carried with her until her dying breath.

“I thought you might… want these before I left tomorrow,” you said quietly. “I… sorry, it’s… it’s a bag with my—with her things.”

Matt took it carefully from you, the motion mechanical and stiff. He hadn’t really invited you the rest of the way into his apartment, the two of you now stalled out in the hallway just beyond the closed front door. He hadn’t taken his glasses off, either. It made it harder to read him, his face closed off and impassive, a wall of red glass placed firmly between you. Come to think of it, you hadn’t seen his eyes even once since that day you’d first come back, and you didn’t blame him. You didn’t like feeling vulnerable, either, though that was just a guess when it came to what he might be feeling.

“It’s the shirts from her apartment, which I think are yours. And the stuffed bear.” You bit your lip and released it slowly, shifting uncomfortably on your feet. “And the… the mug, which Nelson said was yours, too. The one you used at her place. I also put the hoodie in there, the one she had with her while she was traveling. And…” You reached into your pocket, fumbling for a moment. God, you were bad at this, unsure of just how to do this without hurting him any more than was absolutely necessary. It wasn’t a concern you usually dealt with since your goal was almost always the exact opposite, a precaution meant to destroy any threads of connection they held with you. Unfortunately, he wasn’t giving you much to work with, though you didn’t miss his subtle flinch when you drew the key from your pocket. “I thought you might want this, too.”

You cautiously edged forward, daring to breach the ring of radiant heat that surrounded him, the closest you’d come to him in almost a month. He went stiff as you approached, his jaw growing tight as the gap between you both closed. Another step, and his head cocked as if he were listening to your footsteps, or maybe… maybe he was just waiting to find out what you had to give him. But he wasn’t telling you to fuck off or just set your gift aside, which was a good sign. So you hesitantly reached out and brushed your fingers lightly against his bicep, a signal so he knew you were about to pass him something.

A breath.

He remained absolutely still amidst the sudden, crackling tension in the air as your fingertips skated gently down and around his forearm, stirring all the little hairs, his skin shockingly warm. All you’d intended to do to take his arm and guide it up so you could place the key in his hand, but you quickly found yourself distracted by a ragged scar along the back of his forearm, one your fingers seemingly made their way to on instinct. It was a deep scar, the original cut likely made by some sort of blade, the edges of it rough and uneven from messy stitching. Your curiosity got the better of you, so much so that you missed the way Matt had begun to hold his breath.

“Who fucked up the sutures on that?” You furrowed your brow, your thumb smoothly marking out the jagged line of it. “They did a terrible job. No offense.”

Matt’s face fell and you only realized too late just who it was that must have patched him up.

Before you could blink, he’d yanked his arm out of your grip as if your touch had burned him. “Don’t,” he grit out, his chest heaving as he put a few steps distance between you both. “You can—just put your key on the bench.”

“How did you know—” “Because there’s only one thing left it could be.”

You nodded weakly, taking a few steps back towards the little bench beside the door. That unfamiliar ache, that sense of wrongness was back, the weight of it settling uneasily in your chest like a stone until you almost wanted to retch. It didn’t help that Matt was just barely holding himself together while you were here.

Best to say what you’d come to say and leave him be.

You gently set the key down, and the quiet click of the brass against the wood seemed to echo in the hallway, a graveyard bell tolling with a looming sense of finality. What you were about to tell him would hurt, you knew it would, but maybe one day he’d find comfort in it. This—a sign of what she’d felt—was the real gift you’d truly come to give, the only true token of her you could offer. Your words, when you spoke, were almost as hoarse as his. “I thought you should know I… she wore it. The key. I asked them. She wore your key and she never took it off. Not once. Whatever you both had, she treasured it, and all she wanted was to get back to you. She didn’t leave you by choice, Matt. I hope that… that helps.”

Of all the things you’d said and done, it was this that finally seemed to break him. His face twisted in a sudden wave of grief, and regret hit you all at once. You quickly took a step towards him, one hand out, though you weren’t sure what you’d do if he reached back—it wasn’t like you knew how to comfort him, and you sure as hell didn’t know if he’d tolerate you holding him again, nor whether he was someone that needed some sort of touch when he was hurting. But before you could take another step he’d flinched away from you, retreating quickly back into the darkness of his apartment, his voice ragged. “Just go. Get out.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, backing away towards the door. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

It shouldn’t have hurt as you closed that door one last time. But you cried all the same.

Somewhere within the apartment came the sound of splintering furniture and a hoarse scream wracked with grief.

“Look, Nelson.” You tiredly adjusted the strap of your duffle bag over your shoulder, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of your nose as if it would stem your growing headache. “I know it’s a day early. But another twenty-four hours isn’t going to make a fucking difference.”

“I don’t need another day!” he pleaded, his arms spread wide where he’d blocked your front door, ensuring you couldn’t leave your apartment until you’d heard him out. You’d had no idea he even had a key until today and, not for the first time, you cursed Jane Hind’s apparent lack of common sense. You did not give out keys, or at least, you hadn’t before coming here to this ridiculous fucking city. “Just five minutes. That’s all. I’ve got one last thing to try.”

“Maybe I don’t want to try one more thing!” you snapped bitterly, dropping your hand. That anger was a good cover for the way something sharp and prickly had begun to catch in your throat, the incident with Matt still fresh in your mind. “I’ve tried for a month, and it’s gotten me nothing. Fucking-fucking bars and random rooftops and a shitty little duck, goddamn penguins and keys, and none of it did shit! Jane’s gone, ok? She’s dead. And I’m sorry, I know you all cared about her, but I’m done—”

“Have you climbed inside a thread?”

“...What?” you asked in sudden bewilderment, your rage abruptly faltering in the face of pure confusion. “What the fuck does that even me—”

He let out a whoop, practically dancing on his feet. “Yes! I knew it! I can’t believe no one told you!”

“Told me what?!” You chucked your bag back onto your couch in sudden exasperation. If this was thread-related, at the very least you could stay long enough to listen. “There’s nothing to climb!”

“Ok, so stick with me.” He rubbed his palms together eagerly, a bright light in his eyes. “Because I’m about to get really metaphysical.”

It took you what felt like hours to climb inside the shimmering honey-colored thread that lay between you and Matt—a thread that sang with his sorrow and your reluctant sympathy.

It wasn’t right having your soul constricted like this, all of who you were narrowing down into something so small as you squirmed through a barrier that tasted and felt like dirt and earth, chasing after the sound of trickling water. There wasn’t supposed to be anything on the other side. It was an emotional connection, nothing more.

And yet here you were, standing in a place that had no reason to exist.

“Holy shit,” you whispered in amazement, spinning on your heels to examine your surroundings. “Holy shit, he was right.”

Despite the late hour, the air was full of a muted light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, tinting the world a hazy, eerie green. High up above you roiled thick, sullen black storm clouds, silent flashes of red lightning carving their way between swirls of charred smoke. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough to see by.

And what you saw was heartbreaking.

You stood in a dry, stony riverbed. The ground beneath you was cracked and brittle where the water had receded, leaving behind nothing but dust and broken branches. The river itself remained though just barely, the thin trickle of flowing water down the center of the riverbed a far cry from whatever immense force had carved its way through the landscape until the banks were a good ten paces from one side to the other. The terrain beyond the river didn’t look much better, wilted, drooping cattails dotted up the bank before giving way to endless forest that stretched farther than your eye could see. Like the cattails and scrub, the pine and fir trees stood withered and brown, casting their empty branches up toward the sky.

If it had been beautiful here once, whatever had happened to you had destroyed that beauty.

“Jesus,” you whispered.

“Can you hear me?” Foggy’s voice sounded distant and far away, tinny like he was talking through a long tunnel.

“Yeah. Can you hear me?”

“...Ok, if you’re trying to respond, I can’t hear you. But according to Matt, whenever you were here, it felt like memories. So poke around, see what you can find.”

You sighed and started down the riverbed. “Not super helpful, but ok. Let’s give it a shot.”

The water was the most obvious place to start, and you made your way over to the thin stream that ran raggedly across the parched soil. Much to your fascination, you quickly discovered that what you’d thought was one current was actually two, one layered over the top of the other, each flowing in the opposite direction. The first of those currents hiding on the bottom was fairly calm, steady if a little restless, swirls of pale color that almost felt like curiosity, though how you understood that translation was a mystery. The second current seemed far rougher where it roiled atop the first, its section of the stream cloudy and thick with swirls of black and the red of an open wound. You hovered over the second current for a long moment, working up your courage, before you finally knelt and hesitantly brushed against it with one finger. It was just water. How bad could it be?

The moment your skin made contact, your chest seized on a sudden swell of agony. Your mouth filled with the taste of grief, with the sound of an empty home, the lack of some familiar scent that meant affection and warmth and softness and safety, the ache of an old wound reopened just when it had started to heal. Alone, always alone, I deserve it, so many gone, he was right, when will I learn? There was no hope for comfort from that pain, no escape from the darkness into tender arms that could hold you just right when it all hurt. All you had to look forward to was more—

You threw yourself backward, scrambling away from that terrible current as if what you’d felt might rise up and chase after you, snapping its teeth the whole way. You didn’t stop retreating until your back slammed against the dry soil of the riverbank. Only then did you stop, panting, your eyes wide in shock as you cradled your hand against your heaving chest.

Emotion. It’s emotion.

That was what the water was. Matt’s emotion. Which meant the other current—one now shifting back to yellow despite a momentary surge of twisting, roiling black—was… yours.

Right. So you could rule the water out. But if that was emotion, where was memory?

Examining the rest of the river was the most obvious next step now that you’d ruled out the water. Based on what you could see, the original riverbed had been a mix of silt and stones of varying sizes, a firm foundation beneath a once-powerful river. Now, though, the grey, dried-out silt was covered in a strange sea of divots and dips, as if something—a lot of somethings—had been plucked up and removed. You traced one of the indents in the soil curiously, lifting your hand back up to consider the grit as you rubbed it between your fingers. Another glance around revealed the answer.

The stones.

There were still plenty of stones remaining in the riverbed, but the divots in the dry silt told you there’d once been far more. If that was what you’d lost, then maybe…

You rocked up eagerly to your feet, pacing around breathlessly as you searched for a promising stone to start with. Eventually you made your pick, plucking up a stone just small enough to fit in your palm, flat and smooth save for a little groove in it as if someone had run their fingers over it endlessly. Strangely, it smelled like honey and herbs, the surface oddly warm against your hand like the brush of a thumb against your mouth. You waited for a long, impatient moment, and when nothing else happened, you tapped it a few times.

Still nothing.

And something inside you… cracked.

“Fuck!” you screamed, hurling the stone back down the river in a sudden rage. The pain and the loneliness you’d been suppressing for the last month, the last year, the horrible, endless eternity since leaving your family in Los Angeles began to claw its way up your throat, the clouds churning wildly above you in response. A wild rain came next, each droplet sharp and cold and edged like the blade of a knife, bitter and biting as it beat against your skin. You grabbed another stone, one that tasted like shitty beer—Josie’s beer. You threw that rock, too, then another and another, throwing stones that smelled and tasted and felt like your shriek of laughter as he grinned and caught you against his chest, like torn flesh and a needle held by tender hands, like your face nuzzling fearlessly against Matt’s throat as he whispered comfort into your hair and held you close, like synced breathing and hearts and dances between binary stars as you both fell into sleep, fell into safety, fell into one another, phantom sensations that only made the fierce ache in you grow stronger because with every stone you snatched up it became clear that…

You’d been loved.

Not your identity.

Not the image you showed to the world.

Not the walls you’d put up in front of him before he’d found some way past them.

You.

And he’d loved you with every part of him.

You weren’t sure when you started crying, a violent, vicious stream of tears that was just as much a product of rage as grief. Here was someone who’d loved you fully, loved you despite every asterisk and bit of baggage and sharpened edge that came with being a broken hound, with being a former experiment still on the run. But you barely noticed your tears, spitting up at the unforgiving clouds and the howling wind, because you could howl, too, just as violent, just as much a threat as any storm in this place. “I want my fucking life back! I want him back!”

You hadn’t wanted it before, or maybe you had and you’d just been too afraid to ask for it. But now? Oh, oh, now you were furious, furious and hurting and screaming, because you’d denied yourself connection all these years only to find it in the last place you’d expected. That was what this had been—home, family, love. That had to be why you’d stayed in New York, why you’d risked everything for these people, for Matt. You weren’t an idiot. You’d have run the numbers and the math, made your calculations.

You couldn’t bear to lose this. Not… not again.

You threw stone after stone, hunting frantically as your fingers bled dry, desperate fury into the air, reddened drops disappearing before they ever hit the ground. The trickle of water in the center of the riverbed had churned itself into a frenzy, but you ignored it. There had to be something here that would trigger a memory, something that would let you remember being loved again, something big enough, important enough, so you grabbed and you grabbed and grabbed and grabbed and grabbed until at last, you found a stone the size of your fist. You snatched it up with a ragged sob, cradling it greedily against your chest as if doing so might let you carry it out of here, because you wanted it, you wanted him, wanted to remember more than anything in the world.

“Let me have it!” you snarled, snapping your teeth at the howling winds of the storm as if you might catch this place between your jaws and tear it open until you at last found what belonged to you. “Give it back!”

And with a blink—

He tore one of his bloodied gloves off, his hand shaking as he reached out to you.

You stilled the moment his fingertips brushed tenderly against your cheek, so very gentle, affection layered over blood and earth and hurt. And god, your skin was so terribly dry and cold, the beat of your heart uneven as it struggled to pump blood through your body, but he could feel you react to him, the barest parting of your lips as you dragged in a startled breath. He didn’t want to startle you further or risk you fighting him, so he let his voice drop into a whisper, soft as the brush of a feather.

“It’s me. I’m here.”

‘I heard you,’ he tried to say. ‘I heard you. I’m here.’

And your weakened heart… skipped.

He wasn’t sure if he reached for you or if you reached for him. All he knew was it was the sign he’d been looking for. In a heartbeat, he scooped you up off the floor, stealing you back from that dry, filthy cement and crusted blood that had tried to take you from him. He cradled your cold body against his chest, then, held you there where it was warm and where you were safe. You made the softest little noise, the sound choked and dry, but there was no disguising the heartbreaking relief in it. He pulled you in further, pulled you up until you were curled up in his lap, not an ounce of air left between your bodies, your head laying against his shoulder.

He would never let you touch the floor of this place again.

“D…” you mumbled, not one hint of fear in you despite what he’d just done, the blood on his hands and the burning heat of violence that still lingered in his bones. You wearily slid your head over, inch by inch, until you’d buried your face against the sweat-slick line of his throat, nuzzling in against him with a hoarse sigh that only made him hold you tighter. You inhaled slowly then, heedless of the blood and dirt and sweat that coated his skin, your fingers coming up to hook weakly in the collar of his shirt. “You came.”

And you… smiled.

He buried his face against your hair and let out a shaky breath. As he did, he dug down past blood and dust and dirt, dug and dug until he found the sweet, familiar scent of you, a scent he never wanted to leave him again.

The stone fell from your limp hands, a ringing in your ears you could barely hear beneath the sound of the water nearby, frothing and wild.

The increased sensory feedback had been bizarre, and there was… there was no reason he should have been covered in so much blood, his body burning as if he’d been fighting before coming to you. But…

“Hey, you in there?” Foggy called.

“D.” The letter felt strange, and yet… natural, as you cradled it on your tongue. “D?”

And you knew what came after that letter, shaping the word again in your mind.

You knew.

You… remembered.

“Always,” he’d said.

“Always,” you whispered, casting your eyes up the riverbed towards another large stone. “Always, D.”

He didn’t know what you were doing or why you’d climbed inside the thread.

“Always, D.”

All he knew was that it hurt.

“You’re stuck with me, unfortunately for you.”

He’d thought catching your scent, hearing your laugh, being forced to take back the key he’d given to you had been the worst of it. But no. It was far, far worse having to relive these memories of your time with him over and over and over without pause, his senses filled with you: with your touch, with your scent, with the taste of you on the air. He heard you whisper, laugh, and sigh; felt the brush of your fingers in his hair and your body shaking with laughter when he snatched you up during a game of Devil Hunt and the safety of you as you’d held him so tenderly after his fight with Foggy. All of it was a reminder of what he’d lost, what he’d never get back.

“Don’t you give up on me, Matt. Ok?”

He was in agony. There was no blocking you out like this, no escaping your memory no matter how much he tried to push back or retreat, until he wound up trapped and spiraling in his kitchen.

“Kiss me when you come back.”

On and on it went, memories snapping at his heels until all he had left to hide behind was rage. He swept his arm across the counter, glass shattering as he screamed himself hoarse. Eventually he found himself backed up against the wall, sinking down as he hitched out something like an agonized groan, his hands over his ears, his eyes shut tight. “Don’t do this to me, sweetheart, please—”

“Adoringly yours, because I do adore you, you ridiculous man...”

“Leave me alone,” he whispered. “Just leave me alone.”

“...Remember that. if nothing else.”

In hindsight, it was a really bad idea to give back your key.

“Matt!” you shouted, pounding frantically on his front door. “Matt, let me in! It’s me, I swear, I can-I can—”

Silence.

And you weren’t willing to wait any longer. This wasn’t something you could explain through the door, out here in the hall where the neighbors could hear. You needed to get inside. You knew he was in there somewhere.

Red threads never lied.

You wiped the blood away from your nose and took off for the stairs. It was only one flight up to the roof, and sometimes he left the rooftop door unlocked. Even if it wasn’t unlocked, you’d use the key under the mat. You didn’t remember everything. But you remembered that. And if the key wasn’t there? You’d break that fucking door down.

He sat unmoving in his meditation pose on the floor, the sound of your attempts to get into the apartment distant and far away. Meditation had been the only thing left he could think of that would allow him to escape the pain and the memories of you that had flooded his thoughts. Like this, with his mind and his focus withdrawn until it lay deep within himself, he’d hoped he’d be far enough away from the world that the ghost of you couldn’t reach.

Yet even deep in meditation, his instincts were set off by the crack! of his rooftop door slamming open.

He was on his feet in a heartbeat, his heart racing as he bared his teeth, his body prepared to face whatever threat had just broken in. The sensations of you, at the very least, had quieted during his meditation, which should have left him enough space for some small margin of peace as he threw himself into a fight. But that peace was nowhere to be found, because you were here again.

He recoiled from that thought the second it crossed his mind. This wasn’t you, that much had become painfully clear. You’d passed away somewhere far beyond his reach, away from the home, the life you’d lived here. The woman that stood on his landing now was nothing but a ghost, a fading memory and a terrible reminder of what he’d had and lost, what he’d earned by daring to reach for something good. There was no undoing it, no washing away the blood on his hands. If anything, how he felt for you had doomed any hopes of you staying long enough for him to reform that connection with you. He knew how you operated—hell, you’d tried to run on that hot summer night so many months ago after seeing just how much he’d cared, even if you’d ultimately changed your mind. At the time, he’d thought it was Destiny, the hand of God ensuring you remained in the Kitchen where Matt could keep you safe from the Man in the White Coat, here in this place where you both might… might shape something good out of all the broken pieces you’d both been left with. He knew better, now. Even the hand of God couldn’t break the curse Matt placed on those he loved. You would leave, leave like all the others, and he deserved it.

The only question that remained was why you seemed so, so fucking determined to make him suffer.

“Matt.” Your voice cracked as you stumbled down the stairs. “Matt, I—”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone, sweetheart?” he grit out, reaching up to fist his hands tightly in his hair. He’d never known you to be unnecessarily cruel, but there was no other explanation. “God, I-I can’t—you can’t keep doing this to me.”

“Matt, just let me—”

“Do you even care how much you’re hurting me?” He hitched out a broken laugh, something bitter and tormented, the sound absent all humor as you made it down the stairs. “All those months, all I wanted was for you to come back. I begged. I prayed to God, over and over again, that he would bring you back to me. And now that you’re gone, you just won’t leave. I can’t get away from you no matter what I do. Do you know what that’s like? To lose someone you love only for their ghost to haunt you every time you turn around?”

A soft intake of breath.

There it was. Now that he’d said it, you’d leave. There would be nothing more frightening to the You he’d first known than a word like love.

“I just…” His breath hitched again, something thick building in his throat. It was just another sign of his weakness, the same weakness that had gotten you killed.

‘I warned you, kid,’ came Stick’s voice, so smug that Matt bared his teeth. ‘I fuckin’ warned you the night I opened up her eye. But you didn’t listen.’

He started to pace wildly, ignoring your voice as he hunted for some opening through which he could escape, flee from Stick’s voice hiding in the corners of his thoughts, from your ghost. With every step his movements grew more frantic, more furious as his rage built like a rising wave: rage at himself, at God, at the monster who’d taken your memories and the possibility of a life for you here with Matt, and at you, too, because you just didn’t get it. “I just want to grieve, and God can’t even give me that much, can he? Is that what this is? Punishment? Revenge? Congratulations. Job well done. You can go.”

You tilted your head as you watched him pace, the same cock of your head you got when considering your potential routes forward. As far as he was concerned, the only route he’d give was a route out the door.

“I don’t know why you came back, and at this point, I don’t fucking care,” he told you hotly, nothing but burning smoke and thick venom in each word. “We don’t have a red thread anymore. There’s nothing to keep you here. Leave. Now. I’m not asking.”

Your soft response was a single letter, one that struck directly at the open wound inside his chest.

“...D.”

He snatched up an empty beer bottle from the kitchen counter in a sudden rage, turned, and hurled it past you.

You didn’t so much as flinch as the bottle came within inches of your head. Nor did you react to the distant shattering of glass, the sound of it barely audible over his anguished roar.

“Leave me alone!”

And then he froze in sudden horror at what he’d done, his heartbeat almost drowning out the soft sound of your steps. All he’d wanted to do was scare you away, frighten you away so he could break where you couldn’t see, because it had hurt, it had hurt to hear you call him—

Wait.

You’d… you’d called him…

“My Devil Man, my Saint Matthew,” you whispered, the touch of your hands cool and endlessly gentle as you cupped his face. His skin was wet, damp beneath your thumbs as you swiped them across his cheeks, when had he started crying? You brought his head down until you could lay your forehead against his, the taste of salt hanging in the air. Your voice grew achingly tender, so longed for that he swayed helplessly on his feet, wanting nothing more than to be held like you’d held him so often before when he was hurting. “I’m so sorry, D. I’m so sorry I left you alone, sweetheart.”

He closed his eyes tight, his breath growing shaky. You couldn’t know that he was two steps away from crumbling in your arms, fractures widening with every breath. He had no energy left to fight your touch, your misplaced mercy, but giving into the lie was another thing entirely. He couldn’t bear to hope again, not when it would crush him if he were wrong. “Foggy told you to… he told you to call me that, didn’t he? To see if you’d remember. But I can’t—you’re going to leave me, you’ll—” “Do you remember what I said before I left? Because I do.” You swiped your thumb gently against his cheek, your uneven breathing skipping and falling into rhythm with his as his hands shakily rose. They hovered hesitantly a few inches away from your face, terrified that you might vanish beneath his hands like a ghost. “I don’t leave my box behind, and I won’t leave you behind, either. I told you that you were stuck with me after Nobu. I meant it. It’s really me. I know you’re tired and hurting, sweetheart, but listen to my heart. What does it say? Truth or lie?”

…Steady.

Truth.

Could it really be you?

He held his breath as he dared at last to touch your cheek, stirring the fine hairs as he stroked his way along the familiar shape of your face, one he’d traced so often in his dreams. Your skin was damp with tears just like his, another sliding down to bump against his thumb as your lips quirked up into a brilliant smile. And the moment his trembling fingers passed your lips, you kissed the tip of each with a warm fondness, a mirror of that night you’d held his broken, torn body and he’d kissed your fingers and palm.

“How much do you… do you remember?” There was a ringing in his ears as the world beneath him seemed to roll beneath him. “Everything?” “Not everything. Some pieces are still missing, with Foggy and Karen and my job, but I-I remember enough. I remember you, and what I had with you.” Your voice grew fierce and fervent then as you drew in a sharp breath, preparing yourself. “I remember you, D. And I remember that I love you. I love you, Matt Murdock, all of you, so, so much. And I will never leave you alone again.” You loved him.

You loved him.

The weight of it—being forced to let you leave the city, the ensuing months alone, the agony of the past few weeks thinking he’d lost you entirely, and now this, this, knowing you loved him like he loved you—hit him all at once, and with a sudden groan he started to drop. You caught him in your arms, the two of you sinking to your knees as you held him tight and he wound desperately around you in return. Only then did he start to fall apart in your arms, shaking in your hold, his grief, his hurt, his relief spilling out in choked gasps where you’d tucked his head down against your neck. He fisted his hands in your shirt as you both rocked, and a ragged moan tore free from him, spilling against your skin when you lifted your hands to trail your fingers lovingly through his hair. You knew, you remembered just how to hold him when he was hurting, a balm across every last wound. His shivering, touch-starved body remembered your touch, too, drowning beneath the sudden surge of good, warm, safe, soft after months of nothing but pain, so much so he couldn’t help but gasp out your name.

“I’ve got you now, D,” you whispered, burying your face against his shoulder until he could feel the heat of your tears against his shirt, too. “I’m here, now. You’re not alone. I’ve got you, Matt.”

“I thought you were gone.” There was no way for him to truly sync his breathing with yours, not with the way you were both crying, but still his body tried on instinct, tried and failed over and over again. He closed his eyes tighter, burying his face deeper against your throat as he pulled you in even closer, until there wasn’t an inch of space between your body and his, where he could feel every beat of your heart against his skin, as if to make up for the way he’d almost… almost chased you away. “I thought you’d left me and I was alone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder, and that I didn’t-I didn’t go with you, but I couldn’t—I’m so, so—”

“Hey, hey, it’s ok.” You kissed shakily at his hair, his shoulder, and whatever other parts of him you could reach, your breath, your tears, your absolution washing over him like rain. “It’s not your fault, D. It’s not your fault sweetheart. None of this was your fault.”

“But—” “Hey. Listen to me, before you get any further down in that hole.” You lifted his head from your shoulder, cupping his tear-stained face in your hands again. For a moment you both simply breathed with one another, your forehead to his, soaking in the contact, the affection that you’d both dearly missed and needed. “What happened to me outside New York, my memory loss… all of that is not your fault. It never was, D. There are-there are a lot of things we’ll have to deal with in the future, things I need to tell you. Consequences of what we’ve done, and—but this isn’t one of them. Never this. You’re what helped bring me back.” “How? I didn’t…” He let out a breathless, watery little laugh. “I didn’t do anything but try to chase you away.” “Some part of me couldn’t help but be drawn to you. I remembered, deep down, I think.” You gave an amused little huff. “And once Foggy showed me how to get into our thread, all your memories are what brought me back, helped me remember, because I could feel it, how you loved me. That was the key. Speaking of which…” You leaned in to nuzzle up against his cheek, your voice lowering to a whisper. “I think I made you a promise, you ridiculous man. And it’s one I intend to keep.”

And with one small tip of your head, and a single slow breath…

“Kiss me when you come back.”

…your lips brushed against his for the very first time, tender and achingly soft, and so full of love that it would have stolen his breath away if he’d had any left at all.

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d envisioned months ago just before you left, something triumphant and wild. Nor was it anything like the first kisses he’d imagined before that, the first kiss he’d thought this journey with you might lead to. And God only knew he’d considered kissing you for the first time more than was healthy.

Your first kiss with him was, instead, shaky and gentle, tasting of salt and tears and the fading shades of grief retreating like streamers of night before a welcome sunrise. Slowly, and then more surely, his lips began to move against yours, finally allowing himself to truly taste you for the first time, his eyes slowly falling closed as your fingers ran fondly through his hair, you, it was really you, you remembered. With a quiet moan, he breathed you in deep, calling your grace, your love deep into him until it settled there against his heart, knowing that, no matter what else might come, he would never lose it again, one of his hands rising to tenderly wind around your throat, his other hand finding yours so he could lace his battered fingers tightly with yours.

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d expected, but it felt perfect all the same.

Because all that was left was him…

And you.

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