#i think it’s pretty blatant with its timing alone

[before-it-felt-like-a-sin]

hiiii can you write about precrash nat and reader. reader moves to wiskayok and moves to nats trailer park. her and nat don't really talk much because reader attracts more of a popular crowd. reader hides the fact that she lives in a trailer park from her new popular friends. reader joins the soccer team and starts to become more friendly with nat. one day after practice nat offers reader a ride home and she accepts. nat and reader become closer after that. reader develops a crush on nat but doesn't like that either because she feels like its wrong. readers friends notice that shes been hanging out with nat and getting rides with her and they dont like that so they follow nat and reader and realize that reader lives in a trailer park. so the next day they bully tf out of reader and tell everyone. reader goes to nat for comfort and thats when reader reveals her feelings for nat

lololol this is my first time requesting so i hope its good

What a Shame

Natalie Scatorccio x Fem! reader

5.9k words

Warning(s): Bullying, drug use (weed), internalized homophobia, slut shaming, blatant homophobia, bi! Nat, ambiguously queer reader

Quick note that I know almost nothing about sports in general, let alone soccer (I haven't played sports in 4 years and I haven't even touched a soccer ball since 2nd grade)

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Moving right before your senior year of high school was not your idea of a good time. Moving to a trailer park right before the start of your senior year was your nightmare.

Sure, you knew why you'd moved. Your dad had lost his job, and your mom wasn't in the picture. So, moving it was. Hopefully, your dad would find a new job, and at least here no one would know what happened. You didn't have much going for you, but you had that.

The only downside was, in fact, the trailer.

But you were determined to make the best of it. Make friends, get good grades, and not let anyone, literally anyone, find out where you lived. You just had to make it through one year. How hard could it be?

One small hitch in that plan was Natalie Scatorccio. She knew exactly where you lived. Because apparently the two of you were neighbors. Which was... not ideal.

Somehow, though, you'd made it through the entire first semester without word getting out about your housing situation. Your friends had no idea, and somehow you even managed to be somewhat popular.

"I'm thinking about joining the soccer team," you say offhandedly at lunch one day.

"I mean, it's not a bad idea. You played at your old school, right?" One of your friends asks, looking at you.

"Yeah, I was the goalie. I've heard they already have one, but I don't mind being second string." You shrug, picking at your lunch.

"Doesn't hurt to try! Plus, the team's like, really good. Not like you have anything to lose. Besides, you're probably better than the current goalie. I heard she's a total d-" Before she can finish the sentence, the bell for the end of lunch rings.

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Two days later, you're standing on the soccer field, listening to the head coach go over the rules and expectations for tryouts. Nothing you haven't heard before, so it's pretty harmless when you tune him out to scope out the players already on the team.

And- Shit, was that..?

Natalie. Your Neighbor.

Because of course it was. Honestly, she didn't seem like the type to play sports, let alone soccer. But you knew that you probably didn't look like a soccer player either, so it wasn't the most valid assumption.

Soon enough, you're being ushered into groups based on the position you're trying out for. There's only one other girl trying out for goalie, so you're fairly sure that you'll make the team. If only to play backup to the redhead that you'd seen in a couple of your classes.

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Tryouts go about as smoothly as expected, and you're even more confident about making the team by the end. The poor girl who was also trying out had clearly never played soccer in her life. You almost felt bad for her. Almost.

You weren't the best at any sort of dribbling or shooting drill, but that wasn't exactly necessary for the position of goalie. What you lacked in those skills was made up for in agility and your goalkeeping abilities.

Officially, though, you don't know if you've gotten the position for another week. Which, fine. It's not like you needed practices to start immediately or anything. You were just kind of bored. And maybe a little sick of your friends. But you could wait. It would at least give you time to prepare to interact with Natalie at practice.

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Two weeks later, you find yourself on the soccer field after school. As expected, you made the team. Also as expected, you weren't a starter. Which wasn't the worst possibility. At least you had made the team. And Van, the starting goalie, seemed really funny. She wasn't a bitch to you, either. Which was honestly unexpected. since you were her backup. Certainly seemed nicer than your friends.

Honestly, the whole team seemed nicer than your current friends. Sure, you could already tell that Jackie was going to be a lot to deal with, and Taissa was a bit intimidating. But that's better than complete assholes. Even Natalie at least seemed indifferent to you.

You're standing out on the field, talking to some other new recruits. And by talking, it was more like standing there and listening to them talk to each other. Almost everyone else had moved up from JV, while you were the only new student on the team. Everyone else knew each other, it seemed. It was kind of expected, though, and you had gotten used to being the new girl.

None of the other seniors really talked to you, each of them already having formed friend groups. You could see the factions now. Lottie, Taissa, and Van were all talking together. About what, you had no idea. Shauna and Jackie were practically attached at the hip, so there was no way you were going to be able to get in the middle of that. Natalie was nowhere to be seen, which didn't exactly surprise you. Which left Laura Lee, a sweet, devout Christian girl. You could work with that.

Before you could approach Laura Lee, though, Lottie walks up to you.

"Hi, you're the new girl, right? I'm Lottie, the starting center back." she's smiling, which is a good sign. It's a bit odd that she's talking to you, though, considering her reputation as the richest girl in school.

"Oh, hi. I'm y/n. Second string goalie." You smile back at her, trying to appear more confident than you're feeling. Despite being somewhat popular, you weren't really a fan of trying to navigate talking to new people, which is why you stuck with your friends despite you not always getting along with them.

"No offense, but I kind of already know who you are. Not everyone transfers schools their senior year." Lottie seems almost smug, but it's more confidence than anything. She knows how to charm people, that's for sure.

It feels like she knows exactly why you moved to Wiskayok, which is odd. No one knows why you moved except for you and your dad. And you certainly didn't tell her.

Despite the weird aura coming from her, Lottie actually seems really nice. As much as you want to trust her immediately, you know its probably best to keep your guard up, at least for the time being. Maybe if you get closer, you can explain your living situation.

Suddenly, you wonder if the Yellowjackets soccer team knows that Nat lives in the trailer park. It's a decently small town, and you assume that most of these girls have lived in Wiskayok for their entire lives. How did they take it when Nat revealed where she lived, if she did? Do they care? Has everyone just always known?

Lottie's looking at you kind of weird, and you realize you must have zoned out for longer than you thought. Before you can say anything, though, Coach Martinez has everyone pair up for drills. Lottie grabs your arm before you even have a second to think about who you'll pair with.

"You're with me, new girl. Van and Tai always pair up and leave me to partner with Nat, but not today. You're stuck with me." She's smiling, which puts you at ease. She's not as intimidating as she seems from afar.

She starts passing you the ball, and you silently wonder if maybe you're not supposed to be doing this drill, since you're a goalie. But Van's passing with Taissa, so you don't say anything. Besides, it's not like you're the coach.

You spend the rest of the drills paired with Lottie, until you have to be separated for your respective positions. It's weird, only having Van there with you. She's really talkative, though, which is a good distraction from your general nerves surrounding practice

"You've played before, right?" She's talking to you now, as you're shuffling back and forth for agility training.

"Yeah, all through high school," you reply, trying to focus on your footwork.

"How's it feel being second string your senior year?" She's clearly not being mean or insensitive. She honestly sounds a bit teasing, and you can appreciate that.

"Better than nothing." She laughs at that, and you feel like you won something. All of these girls seemed so nice. Maybe you'd be able to start ditching your friends.

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An hour and a half later, you're starting on your walk home. Silently, you're cursing yourself for showering in the locker room. You had hoped your dad would be able to pick you up, but he was working late. Which you appreciated, of course. But it was a little annoying.

Suddenly a shitty, old Toyota pulls up next to you. One that you recognize from the parking lot at school and the trailer down the street. Natalie.

"Need a ride?" She's looking at you through the open window, looking simultaneously bored and smug. Part of you wants to refuse, tell her to fuck off and leave you alone. But she doesn't seem to be pitying you, just genuinely asking if you want a ride home.

So, instead of ignoring her and walking to your trailer, you get in the damn car. Its not like she doesn't already know where you live.

Natalie doesn't say anything as she puts the car back into gear and starts driving. You're grateful for that, not exactly wanting to make small talk with her. She wasn't exactly the type that you'd normally hang around. Too rough around the edges, has too much of a reputation. Your friends wouldn't approve.

Nirvana is playing over the car's shitty speakers, and it's so typical of Natalie. You barely know the girl, yet you couldn't have guessed her music choices with more accuracy.

She's pulling up next to your trailer, and she looks over at you as you get out of the car.

"From now on, I'll drive you home." Natalie leaves no room for arguing, and you're not sure that you want to. Sure, she's not exactly someone you'd choose to spend a lot of time with. But she's not terrible, and driving home with Natalie definitely beats walking home by yourself.

You just give her a nod in response, not exactly sure how to react to a statement like that. And she wasn't exactly giving you an opportunity to say no.

Nat drives off, down the street to her own trailer, and you walk into yours.

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A month of soccer practice and rides home with Nat after, and the two of you are actually starting to become friends. The first two weeks, neither of you spoke, opting to just listen to whatever was on the radio. That is, until you finally got bored and started talking to her around the third week. Nothing crazy, just stuff about the team.

At this point, though, you've started talking about yourselves. What you like to do, how you feel about certain people. Nat's funny, and sarcastic, and honestly just someone you really like being around.

"Jackie's been driving me crazy this week. I get that our first game is on Saturday, but come on. It's not like I'm slacking off on purpose." She doesn't seem genuinely pissed off, just a bit annoyed. You have noticed that Jackie puts more pressure on Nat than almost anyone else on the team.

"Did you do something to piss her off?" you ask, looking at Nat as she drives.

"I mean, I showed up to homeroom high on Tuesday. But that doesn't mean I'm slacking at practice."

"I mean, I guess I can see why that would piss her off. It is kind of unwarranted, though. You've been practicing just as hard as everyone else."

She nods at that, and you fall into another comfortable silence for a few little while.

"Speaking of being high..." Natalie trails off, and you get a little giddy, although you don't show it. You'd been hoping that she would want to hang out outside of your car rides.

When you give her a little nod, she grins, looking triumphant. Clearly, she wanted to be around you just as much as you wanted to be around her.

Instead of dropping you off at your trailer like usual, she brings you to hers.

"My mom's probably asleep or staring at the TV, so we won't have to worry about her." Natalie gets out of the car, gesturing for you to join her. She doesn't say anything about her dad, and you know why, even if no she hasn't told you. It was hard to avoid the rumors, how people would look at her sometimes.

Honestly, it didn't matter to you if the rumors were true or not. Natalie wasn't the sort of person to resort to violence without good reason. And from what you heard, she would've had a very good reason.

You climb out of the car and follow her through the trailer, into her bedroom. It's so Nat, with posters all over the walls, stacks of CD's on her desk and on the floor. A beat-up acoustic guitar sits in the corner, and you make a mental note of it. Clothes are in piles all over the floor, but you honestly couldn't care less about the state of her room. It felt good, to be somewhere lived in. To be around someone that understood your living situation

Natalie sits down on the edge of her bed, smiling at you. The gesture was enough to make you feel a bit more comfortable, and you found yourself sitting down next to her.

"Have you smoked before?" She pulls out an old Altoids container, opening it up to pull out one of the pre-rolled joints inside.

You shake your head no, pulling your legs up on the bed so you can sit more comfortably.

"No. Well, once I took a hit from some guy at a party, but it was shit and I couldn't stop choking."

Nat laughs at that, lighting up the blunt as the two of you talk.

"That's probably because you just took a hit and had no idea what you were doing. Watch what I do." She makes sure that you're looking at her before inhaling the smoke from the blunt, holding it in for a few seconds before exhaling. "You're gonna want to cough your first couple of hits. That's normal."

She held the joint out to you, and when you took it, your fingers brushed together. The contact you feel weird, but you chalked it up to the nerves of smoking weed for the first time. This kind of thing wasn't normally something that you'd do.

Tentatively, you brought the blunt to your lips and took a hit. The smoke burned your throat as you inhaled, but you managed to keep from coughing. Nat grins as she notices you holding back a cough, and she holds her hand out for the joint.

You pass it back to her, this time trying to keep your hands from touching. Natalie takes another hit, longer this time, and part of you wants to just stare at her.

As soon as that thought crosses your mind, you immediately snap out of it. You don't want to stare at her, she's your friend. People don't stare at their friends. Get a grip.

Nat holds on to the joint for a little longer this time, taking a couple more hits before she offers it back to you. This time, you get a bit bolder, taking a deeper pull. It takes you a little more effort to keep from coughing, but you manage it.

The two of you stay like that a while, passing the joint back and forth between each other, just enjoying the fuzzy feeling of being high, and enjoying each other's company. At some point, Nat puts a record on, something grungy that you recognize, but don't remember the name of.

You're lying flat on your back in the middle of the floor, and Nat looks down at you, clearly holding back a laugh.

"You doin' okay?" She lightly kicks your shoulder, trying to get you to have some sort of reaction. You nod in response, completely zoned out. The floor just feels so nice.

She looks good, you think. Something about the way she was a bit messy was so beautiful for her. You chalk these thoughts up to the weed, to never really being friends with someone that looks like Nat.

"Can you talk?" Nat's full-on laughing now, obviously finding your position hilarious.

"Do you want me to?"

"Just seeing if you could."

You're not egregiously high or anything, a nice buzz, really. Part of you knows that you should probably go home soon, make sure your dad isn't wondering where you are.

There's just something comforting about Nat's bedroom, about being around someone in the same situation as you. There's no judgement, no fear.

You do end up leaving, eventually. Once your eyes are no longer red and the smell of weed has mostly dissipated. Nat walks you to your trailer, claiming that she's better at defending herself. You don't have it in you to argue. Plus, it's nice that she still wants to spend time with you.

She walks you up to the door, and the two of you stand there awkwardly for a moment, waiting for the other to say something.

"See you tomorrow?" Nat almost looks nervous, like you're going to say no for some reason.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow." With that, you smile and walk inside.

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It had been a few weeks since you first smoked with Natalie, and it had become a routine for the two of you. Go to practice, drive to Nat's trailer, and light up.

You should've known your friends would notice at some point.

"How's soccer, y/n?" one of your friends stares pointedly at you, like she knows something. Something you don't even know.

"Oh, it's going really well! The girls on the team are all so nice, and we all play really well together." You stay as natural as possible, trying to gauge what's happening.

"That's sweet," she remarks, in a tone you know means she thinks it's anything but sweet.

"You've been hanging out with the slut a lot recently," another girl chimes in, "Is there something that you wanted to tell us?"

You nearly choke on your water when she says that, and you're sure that you must have misheard her.

"Who?" It takes a moment to compose yourself, looking over at your friend.

"You know who I'm talking about. The burnout? The slut?" When you still look confused, she rolls her eyes, h8uffing at your obliviousness. "Natalie Scatorccio? Pretty sure she's fucked half the school. And it isn't entirely the male half."

Now it's your turn to roll your eyes, but you don't say anything to defend Nat. You know that you should, that she's your friend. But fighting with these girls could cause them to turn on you. And you were hiding too many things for that to happen.

For some reason, your friends don't push further. Why, you're not sure. But you sure aren't going to push it.

Everyone goes back to talking about other things, boyfriends, movies, music. You aren't interested, though. You're too busy thinking about what your friend said. About Nat not just sleeping with guys. Was she gay? She hadn't said anything to you.

Did that mean you had a chance?

Wait. You didn't want a chance with her. You weren't into girls. That was weird. It didn't matter that you felt at home with her, or liked the way she'd laugh at your shitty jokes, or talk about her favorite musicians for hours. You weren't into girls. You weren't into Nat.

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Practice was weird. You kept fucking up, which wasn't at all normal for you. Coach Scott even started yelling at you, which was a blow.

It got so bad that Coach Martinez kept you after practice to run laps, and you expected that Nat would have left by the time you finished. Instead, you found her waiting by her car, looking concerned.

"Hey, are you okay? You seemed really out of it today," she asks, clearly worried about you.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. My friends just said some shit at lunch today, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it."

"What did they say?" And she looks so upset that you want to tell her, but you just can't. You don't want her to confirm that she's gay, but for some reason, you don't want her to tell you she isn't, either.

"Just being assholes. Honestly, I don't know why I'm friends with them. I don't like them very much. Or at all."

Natalie laughs at that, and you feel a little bit better.

"You could, I don't know, not be friends with them anymore?"

"I mean, I could. But you're my only friend besides them. Plus, if I piss 'em off too bad, they'll make my life hell. Not taking that chance."

Nat nods, seemingly understanding.

"Would just hanging out with me all the time really be that bad?" She's obviously joking, but you can't help but imagine, just being around Natalie all the time. Smoking, listening to music, making out-

Wait, what?

There's no way, right? No way that you want to kiss a girl, let alone Nat. Let alone make out with her. You're straight. Always had been, always will be. You were normal. You liked boys. Not girls. Didn't matter how pretty Natalie was. Kissing her was weird. And wrong.

You laugh, trying to shake that image from your head. One person says that Nat may be gay, and all of a sudden you're losing your mind. You aren't gay.

"No, It wouldn't be that bad. Could be kinda fun."

Your mood has lifted significantly from just being in the car with Nat, and you think about what could happen if you just... ditched your friends.

Today is one of the rare days where your dad is home in time for dinner, so Nat drops you off at your own trailer today.

"If they're dicks again, tell me. I'll kick their asses." She's grinning at you, and you stare at her for a moment before it hits you.

You're in love with her. Absolutely whipped. And there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.

Instead of a response, you give a tight-lipped smile before basically sprinting into your trailer.

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Going to school the next day might be the most difficult thing that you've ever done. Even more difficult than pretending everything was normal over dinner with your dad the night before.

At least today, your dad could take you to school, and you didn't have to face Nat. And you didn't have practice that afternoon, so you really didn't have to see her much. Which was ideal. You didn't know how you'd be able to deal with being around her. Especially being alone with her.

Your morning is uneventful, and for once, your friends are actually a good distraction. Talking about new movies, new music, being generally entertaining instead of annoying.

Unfortunately, Nat is still driving you home. And there's nothing you can do to avoid it, unless you want to walk. Which you definitely don't.

You're quiet the whole ride, and you know Natalie can tell that something's off. The good thing about Nat, though, is that she wouldn't push. She had her own secrets, and she didn't expect you to share yours.

"D'you want to smoke?" You want to say yes so badly, to just spend as much time with her as possible. Yet there's this fear that the weed will make you spill your secret, and you just can't do that.

You weren't supposed to like her. You weren't supposed to want her. And there was no way in hell she was ever going to know that you did. Never.

"Can't. I have to study." It's a bad lie, and you know it. Nat does, too. But she doesn't call you on it, even though you can tell that she wants to.

"Yeah, alright. See you, then." By now, you've pulled up to your trailer, and you thank her before getting out of the car. It almost hurt to leave her. There was just no conceivable way that you'd be able to act normal around her, especially if you were high.

As soon as you're in your room, you just lose it. You don't get how one girl can have you undone so quickly, but somehow Nat did it. And you hated it. You weren't supposed to want her like that. It was wrong.

Pulling your blanket up to your shoulders, you just cry. You have no idea how to deal with this, how to make yourself normal again. What would people think? What would your friends think? What would your dad think?

What would Nat think? Would she think you were weird for liking girls? Would she judge you? Would she be grossed out that you were into her, of all people?

Of course, there was the high possibility that she was queer. Sure, she hadn't said anything explicit, but there was a vibe about her. Not to mention all the rumors.

Despite the comfort of Natalie potentially being gay, you couldn't keep from crying. You knew mascara was staining your pillow, but you couldn't quite care.

The rest of the night was spent crying, until you eventually cry yourself to sleep.

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Two weeks.

Two weeks of pretending that you weren't in love with Nat, two weeks of pretending you weren't gay, two weeks of struggling by yourself.

You couldn't tell anyone, and it was absolutely killing you.

Sure, you thought about telling Van. You noticed the way that she looked at Taissa. But telling someone made it real. Telling someone solidified the abnormality of you.

So, you kept it to yourself. Sure, it was torture. But at least it was safe.

Nat was still driving you too and from school, and you had gotten the courage to smoke with her again. Things were almost normal, despite you knowing that they weren't.

Today was different, though. And you could feel it.

The weird part was that the difference wasn't with Nat. The ride to school was the same as always. Both of you quiet, still waking up.

No, the weird part was your friends. As soon as you got to school, you could tell that something was off with them. Everyone was giving you weird looks, and they were all barely talking to you. It scared you, the thought of them finding out your secret.

Turns out that they did figure your secret out. Just not the one that you thought.

"Surprised you can afford food," one girl says as you sit down at your usual lunch table.

"What?" You're confused. Why would they think that you can't afford to eat?

"You know, it's just that usually people with your... financial status... get free lunch. That doesn't look like free lunch." She smiles, a sickly sweet sort of look that makes your stomach drop.

You're silent, not exactly knowing what to say in this situation.

"Oh, don't be embarrassed! It's not your fault that you're trailer trash," another girl chimes in, that same fake kind look on her face.

It takes so much strength to keep from completely breaking down, knowing that if you did, they'd just get worse.

"Is that why you never want to go shopping with us?" A different voice is added to the mix, and you hate that they have this kind of power over you.

They keep berating you, insulting your trailer, your clothes, your lack of a car. Even your looks get commented on, and you hate it more than anything.

How they even found out where you lived was a mystery to you. You were so careful, and Nat would never tell them. She knew how badly you wanted to keep your living situation under wraps.

Eventually, lunch does end, but you don't go to class. There's absolutely no way that you could face anyone. Not your now ex-friends, and absolutely not Natalie.

Instead, you hide in the bathroom, spending the remaining two class periods locked in a stall. You know that you'll have to see Nat when she drives you home, but being alone for an hour and a half will hopefully give you enough time to calm down before you have to see her.

You cry. Of course you cry. Your life is falling down around you, and you're sitting in a bathroom stall. There's nothing to do but cry. You cry over your friends being horrible, you cry about the trailer you're living in, you cry about leaving your old friends behind to move. Mostly, though, you cry about being in love with a girl.

It's midway through last period when you pull yourself together, and by the time your face is back to its normal color, you've got ten minutes to get looking like yourself.

It doesn't take long to fix your makeup, and by the time the final bell rings, you look normal. Nat won't be able to tell that you were crying in the bathroom for half the day.

When you walk out to her car, Nat's waiting for you. As soon as she sees you coming, it's like she knows that something's wrong. She doesn't say anything, but she changes the music to something that she knows you like, which is her equivalent to giving you a hug.

While you appreciate the gesture, it just makes you lose it all over again. You're in the passenger seat of Nat's car, sobbing for the second time today.

"Shit, are you okay? What's wrong?" She glances over at you, still driving. "Do you need me to pull over?"

You shake your head in response, urging her to keep driving. It's impossible for you to get words out through your tears, and Nat doesn't try to get you to talk anymore. Instead, she drives you to your trailer and walks you inside.

Natalie leads you to to your bedroom, sitting you on your bed. For the first time in your friendship, she wraps her arms around you and gives you a real hug.

The contact doesn't keep you from crying, in fact it almost makes it worse. But you feel safe in her arms, like the words from your former friends can't touch you here. You have the vague thought that your mascara is staining Natalie's shirt, but she doesn't seem to care.

Both of you stay like that until you stop crying, Nat holding onto you like you're the only thing in the world that matters. Its uncharacteristically soft for her, and it feels special. Like you're someone she trusts with softness.

When you're finally calm enough, you pull away from her and start to explain what happened. Her arm stays around your waist, and you don't attempt to move it.

"My- my friends, they, uh, they found out... where I live." You're stuttering and tripping over what you're saying, and luckily Nat gets it from just those words.

"And they were asses about it?" she asks, and you nod. Her grip on your waist tightens, and she looks pissed.

"You don't deserve that shit. It's not like you can control where you live. Not to mention you're twice the person any of those girls will ever be." Nat somehow pulls you closer, and you feel such a strange mix of emotions.

"That- isn't everything." Maybe it's the contact, maybe it's how sweet she's being right now. Maybe you're just sick of hiding.

"What else?"

"I think I'm gay." The words come out in a rush, and you're not sure Natalie even understood what you were saying. That is, until she responds.

"Why do you think that?" Her response isn't at all judgmental, and you feel a little better saying your next words.

"I like a girl."

Natalie laughs, and for a moment, you internally freak out. Is this where the judgment comes in?

"Yeah, I guess that'll do it."

You can't help but laugh at her answer, and everything feels so much better. As much as you're grateful that she's not asking who the girl is, you almost want to tell her that it's her. Almost.

"I thought you might hate me."

"For being gay? You know I'm bi, right? Bisexual?"

The confirmation doesn't exactly shock you, but it's still a bit of a surprise. How easily she says it.

"I didn't. Know that."

"Surprise, I guess. I'm queer too."

"Did you... feel weird about it? Like when you first... figured it out, I guess."

She nods, and you feel a sense of relief. That you weren't the only one who found your own queerness a bit jarring.

Natalie doesn't try to reassure you that you're normal, that there's nothing wrong with you. She knows it's not going to make anything better immediately.

You sit in comfortable silence for a while, just decompressing from the insanity of your day. That is, until you speak up.

"I can't believe I told you that." The panic had started to set in at this point, and you regretted saying anything to Nat.

"It's not like I'm going to tell anyone, dude."

"Yeah." That makes you feel a bit better, although you're still freaking out a bit. You look up at her, giving a small smile, and there's a look on her face that you can't exactly put your finger on.

For some reason, neither of you seem to be able to look away from the other. It's almost as if you're in a trance, or like someone put a spell on you.

Suddenly, the two of you were kissing. It happened so quickly that neither of you could say who initiated the kiss, but neither of you pulled a way.

Nat's lips were chapped, and a bit rough against your own. Despite that, the kiss was soft. Something you didn't exactly expect from Natalie. One of her hands is still on your hip, and the other moves to run through your hair. Your own hands cup her cheeks, feeling her soft, pale skin under your fingers.

Every thought of how wrong loving Natalie is leaves your head. It's like she's kissing away all of your fears, and you're so grateful to her.

Eventually, you break apart so you can take a breath, and Natalie looks so beautiful. Somehow even better than she normally does.

"So, the girl you like..?" Natalie's smirking, and she clearly knows that you were talking about her.

In lieu of a response, you roll your eyes and flip her off. She laughs, clearly enjoying fucking with you. You aren't annoyed, not really. You're too giddy for that.

Nat pulls you down onto your bed so that you're lying down next to each other, and you feel so content in that moment.

"You know those girls are the worst, right?" You can tell that Nat is both trying to make you laugh and being completely genuine.

"Yeah."

"Good. You deserve to be treated better than that."

You nod and press a quick kiss to her lips, as if to say "thank you." She grins, pulling you into her side.

"Feeling like smoking now?"

[azoosepted]

are you fucking kidding me

[avis-writeshq]

hi ! love ur fics <3

can i request reader as being a massive flirt publicly towards spencer but when its Intimate and Private, reader is suddenly Stunned and Speechless and Blushing and spencer kinda gets the confidence to Do Stuff

im sorry if that was the stupidest described ask ever achh but lov u !

pairing: s9!spencer reid x bau!fem!reader genre: established relationship, bombshell-ish(?) reader, fluff warnings: 16+ for kind of suggestive? he’s so in love UGH a/n: thank you for requesting !! wc: 1.22k

Spencer thinks that you are the most beautiful person in the world. He thinks that you’re glowing every time you walk into the room– no matter how upset or disgruntled you may be– and as cliche as it may seem, he’s certain that swarms butterflies fill his stomach and cloud his mind. In fact, he thinks that you have always had that effect on him, ever since he’s met you. You’re touchy, and despite Spencer’s general aversion to physical touch, he finds that he doesn’t mind your germs much. 

Very often he finds himself at your mercy, with the way your fingers brush against his face as if it’s nothing, as if that movement alone was something that you do with everyone (you’ve only ever done it with him). There are other instances where you’ve been very blatant in your attraction towards him, so much so that he ends up with his cheeks hot more often than not. A part of him is grateful that though you work in the FBI, it isn’t his division. He doubts he’d be able to see the end of it.

“Spencer,” you gush, curling your fingers into the ends of his hair. Or rather, lack of hair. “You got a haircut. You’re supposed to consult me first, you know.”

He laughs, looking up at you as you stand over him while he sits at his desk. “Is that what a good boyfriend is supposed to do?”

“Yes.” You speak with mock indignation, properly running your fingers through his hair from his fringe to the back of his head. “It’s so short.”

“Do you hate it?” There’s a momentary pang of unease that strikes at his heart. “Maybe I should have consulted you.”

“No, baby, it looks really good.” You smile at him, pressing a kiss to his hairline. “You’re warm. Do you have a fever?”

Of course I’m warm, Spencer wants to say while you continue to dote on him, your hands travelling to his collar next and brushing against his throat. You’re touching me in the middle of the bullpen. 

He opts to not say anything when he sees your knowing smile. You’re doing this on purpose. He clicks his tongue, squeezing at your waist lightly as you lean over him to kiss his forehead. He’ll let you win this battle; he’s going to get you back.

***

He doesn’t really know how to get you back. There are a few harmless things he’d thought of doing: sneaking into your department and hiding your mug on the top shelf (he fears that you’d ask someone, a taller more handsome someone, to rescue it for you), not wearing the tie you picked out for him that morning (he can already envision your disappointed frown and his chest aches at the imaginary you getting upset because of him), and putting toothpaste in your Oreos (he doesn’t want to die). 

All of these ideas go down the drain and he ends up not getting back at you for days. It doesn’t help that he’s been gone for a case while you’ve been stuck at home. It isn’t all bad, and a part of him wishes that he can hold himself to the same level of confidence as Derek when Penelope calls him with flirtatious motives. You do virtually the same thing. 

Your words are honey as you shower him with compliments, ending him with a simple “Hey, gorgeous.” 

It is enough to make his heart leap to his throat and his cheeks to warm to a pretty pink. There’s not much overlap between the Human Resources Branch and the BAU, especially considering that you assist more on the training and hiring side of things, so there aren’t many opportunities for you to fluster him when he’s out of the office. He finds that you always make an excuse.

“Hi,” he responds softly, avoiding the teasing gazes of Emily and Derek. “Is… are you okay?”

“Do I need to not be okay to talk to my lovely boyfriend?” 

You’re teasing him, poking fun at the way he so easily surrenders to you. He resists the urge to run out the room. 

“Stop,” he warns half-heartedly. He says your name quietly, tapping his fingers at the edge of the table. “Is there something you needed?”

He can practically hear you smile as you respond, the sound of your mouse clicking in the background. “Oh, yeah. My computer says that my storage is full. What do I do?”

“Your storage is full,” he repeats, smiling. “That’s why you called me?”

“It’s lunchtime in Santa Monica, right?”

He relents, cheeks hurting from how hot and stretched out they are. “Yes.”

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem.” 

He puffs out a breath of air, running his fingers through his hair. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You’re lovely.” He can imagine you batting your eyes, your smile saccharine. “Don’t you wish that you were here, gorgeous?”

He’s definitely going to get you back.

*** 

Spencer goes to your apartment once the case ends, his eyes dreary with sleep and the horrors that he saw only a few hours prior. Your apartment key hangs next to his on his keychain– a limited edition Tardis charm that you got him for his birthday. He huffs out a breath, unlocking your door and stepping inside. He’s met with you dancing around in your kitchen, headphones on whilst holding a wooden spoon. A part of him is concerned with how easily he could slip into your home without being notice, but the other part can’t help but smile at how carefree you look, and he leans against the wall to stare. 

He doesn’t get the opportunity to stare for long. It’s comical, the way you jump upon seeing him, eyes wide as you rip your headphones off. 

“You’re back! You scared me.” A smile stretches across your lips while you press your palm to your chest whilst taking steps towards him. “Don’t do that ever again.”

Spencer laughs, toeing his shoes off and resting his hands on your waist. His head dips down to meet your gaze, peering up at you with a soft smile. “You look beautiful.”

Your cheeks glow warm and you break eye contact. “Yeah?”

“Mm.” He hooks his pointer finger under your chin, pressing a soft kiss to your lips. “I missed you.”

He notes the way you don’t respond, in some sort of daze while your lips part in both surprise and flusteredness. He understands your sentiments– it isn’t often that he initiates affection. 

“Did you miss me, too?” Spencer asks softly, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear as he speaks. 

“Of course I did,” you croak out, heat building in your head. 

Spencer chuckles, a smug smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He’s doing this on purpose, flustering you to the point of no return. He kisses you again, one hand holding the base of your head while the other squeezes at the flesh of your waist. It’s dizzying, the taste of coffee on his tongue and the feel of his fingers in your hair. 

“Hey, gorgeous,” he murmurs once he’s pulled away. His thumb rubs a line from the back of your ear to where your jawline starts, and he can’t help but chuckle. “Where did that confidence go, hm?”

reblogs are always appreciated!

[ivypos-writes]

with my touch (i have cursed you)

— aemond targaryen

summary: His first touch plants a seed of desire, and it is only a matter of time before it blooms.

Or, all the times Aemond touches her, and the one when he lets himself be touched.

warnings: 18+, au—no dance of dragons, targcest, aemond being a tease and a little shit, mutual pining, unhealthy amounts of tension, first times, oral (f receiving), fingering, piv, multiple orgasms, aemond being pathetic (he whimpers), smut with plot (and the plot is just prolonged foreplay)

word count: 8.7k

notes: so. i wrote this thing. english is not my first language. all reblogs and comments are very appreciated! aemond girlies, we are so back.

(also available on ao3.)

The street is bustling with life.

She is little more than a dull spot against a variety of colours, and something about the thought of blending with the surroundings is more comforting than anything she has ever known. She tightens her hold on the large hood of the cloak and pushes past a gathering of haggling customers, giggling as they shout in indignation.

It is still early, though the skies above head are spotted with warm oranges and pinks. The air is different here. Sultry. She traverses the cobblestone paths and passes through alleys filled with shops and boisterous merchants, and her eyes grow brighter with each step.

She has known life in its subdued form—in gold and jewels, and soft-spoken words, and lullabies sung at nighttime. She has been sheltered, and dressed in gowns, and taught to wield practiced smiles and pretty countenance. It is the first time that she experiences havoc. There is dirt and dust, and curses falling left and right, and women dressed scarcely in anything, scraps of fabric falling down their shoulders without care for decency.

In these streets, life is fervent. Chaotic, unashamedly passionate, and lewd in ways that render her breathing shallow.

At once, she is filled with greed.

Led by impulse alone, she blurs into the masses of depravity. She forgets about her name and titles. Here, she is just a woman—not a silver-haired maiden, or a dragonrider, or her mother’s daughter. It is easy to forget duty when it is nowhere to be seen; when it is replaced with pure, unadulterated perversity.

Something flutters in her heart, and it must be freedom.

She passes by multiple stands, and because here she is not a princess, she catches the string of a flower pendant and snitches it from its spot. The trader doesn’t notice, too engrossed in his attempts to sell his goods for a too-high price. She is quick to hide it deep inside her pocket, and the smile that lightens her face is radiant.

Her feet ache, but she stubbornly speeds towards the nearest corner. It is right there, and she almost reaches its edge—

“Are you up to no good, niece?”

A gasp tears out of her mouth. She turns, wide-eyed and flushed, and finds a splash of silver-white strands shining against worn-out fabric. She scans the porcelain skin and the puckered scar that paints it in pinks; traces the leather of the eyepatch. He looks different in this particular light. Warm hues of the sky bathe him in a gleam that softens the curves of his features; there is an odd gentleness in him that she doesn’t recognise.

“Aemond,” she murmurs.

He seems pleased with himself. She catches a glint in his eye that whispers of carefully restrained mischief; his lips are curved into the beginning of a smile. She’s seen this particular expression only a handful of times, and always in the face of chaos.

It suits him. More often than not, and only ever quietly, she thinks he was carved for it.

“I didn’t take you for a little thief.”

Her cheeks burn. They must be scarlet red, and she inwardly curses both the humidity and the weight of his gaze that only fuels the onslaught of the tint. Aemond’s smirk grows. The blatant exhibition of her shame appears to have entertained him.

“A thief?” she repeats, eyes rounded with what she hopes is a convincing display of innocence. “Have you any proof?”

He breathes out a little laugh. It’s sharp and fleeting, and she drinks up the sound of it, oddly enthralled. She is not familiar with his laughter. Her skin prickles as its remnants linger between them.

Aemond moves closer, and soon the distance between them is so small that their cloaks brush against one another.

She is so caught off-guard that she barely notices the pendant dangling from his finger. Aemond swings it in front of her face, and when she reaches for it with a surprised gasp, he moves his hand away in the blink of an eye.

Her mouth twists in displeasure. His grin grows.

“Give it back,” she demands.

“It wasn’t yours in the first place.”

“I claimed it as mine.”

“Did you?” Aemond’s eye lights up in flames. From this close, she can almost sense the heat. “Is it as simple as that?”

“It is.”

She doesn’t expect him to truly return the pendant into her waiting hand, and her eyebrows furrow in surprise when he does. Aemond says nothing more. His expression is meticulously crafted—it is layers upon layers of riddles that she does not know how to solve. She imagines peeling them off one by one and finding him as he is—bare before her eyes. She wonders what she’d find written over his face when it is unspoiled by composure.

His fingers briefly tickle the skin of her palm before they’re gone. They leave a searing trail in their wake.

“It’s a poor disguise.” Aemond eyes the hood that falls onto her forehead, and the few curls that cascade down her face in silver streaks. “If you want to sneak out into the city, you ought to be more clever.”

She scowls. “And you, of course, know everything about it.”

There is contemplation in his eye. He rids himself of the smiles that she doesn’t recognise, and puts on a calculating face that she’s seen many times before. It makes him look more familiar. Most of the times that their paths cross, she finds him lost deep in thought.

“Come.”

She eyes his outstretched hand with scepticism.

He will likely drag her back to the Red Keep—to the judging stares and stinging reprimands and her mother’s burning disappointment. There is nothing she loathes more than being forced to endure interrogations regarding her behaviour. She will be scolded, as if it is a crime that she, a girl, has decided to experience something more than feigned propriety.

She thinks she would rather stay within the dirt and stench of the city.

Aemond hums in response to her silence, and the sound is so low that she needs to chase it through the clamour of the street. There is something akin to understanding that appears on his face.

His hand remains still.

“Do you wish to see the city or not?”

She blinks, perplexed, and it takes a mere moment for her fingers to lace with his. His are warmer than hers; heat engulfs her, and she unconsciously presses against him with doubled force.

When her eyes return to his face, Aemond is already watching her. He leans towards her. His breath tickles her cheek.

“Stay close,” Aemond orders. He stands in such proximity that they breathe the same air. “And don’t be a brat.”

She lets him tighten his hold on her hand, and soon they are walking the path side by side.

Aemond shows her the city in all its glory, and not once does his grip waver.

She spends the night tracing the remnants of his fingertips on her skin.

He smells of smoke.

It is a cloudless day, and she has decided to forsake the red walls of the castle in favour of the sun-soaked yard. There is only the scent of grass and parchment. It is why she senses him before he speaks. He permeates the air like he owns it.

“Shouldn’t you be with your septa?”

The skin of her palm tingles with the memory of his touch; she clutches at the silken fabric of her dress, if only to smother the sudden urge to hold something between her fingers. There is a large tome in her lap, and she flicks the pages absentmindedly, determined not to look at him.

She hasn’t seen him since their escapade through the streets of King’s Landing. It is not that she avoids him—only she does, because it feels as if the line between them that she’s known all her life became blurred. She searches for its remains and finds them long shattered. There is void space in its stead that she knows not what to make of

“Shouldn’t you mind your own business, uncle?”

She hears him snort quietly. There is a rustling sound that follows, and soon Aemond’s arm is brushing against hers. It is a feather-like touch, but she freezes all the same.

He smells of smoke. Fire. Scorching flames. Her skin burns beneath the sleeve of her dress in all places he has touched.

“The Seven-Pointed Star,” Aemond reads, blissfully unaware of her turmoil. “I didn’t take you for a woman of faith.”

Slowly, a little hesitantly, she turns her face towards him. His own is perfectly neutral, but she finds a glimpse of amusement playing at the corners of his mouth. She squints at him, feigning offence.

“Did you take me for a woman of sin, then?”

He doesn’t answer. She supposes it is an answer in its own right. Before she can think it through, her arm shoots forward; she elbows him in the side and smiles at the startled gasp that leaves his mouth.

It is a nice sound. Her cheeks warm.

When her eyes return to the book, she finds herself eager to continue the conversation, though whatever it is that urges her to do so remains unclear.

“Septa Marlow is under the impression that I lack virtue,” she says, voice dripping with venom. She glances at him, suddenly needing to add a rushed, “It’s a vile accusation.”

Septa Marlow is a cunt. Her mother will not say it aloud, but she knows that they both hate the woman with equal passion. The septa is stuck in her old ways, and no longer remembers youth well enough to comprehend it. Her teachings persist only for the sake of upholding etiquette, and only for as long as it’s necessary.

Not much longer. She is almost a woman grown.

Aemond chuckles. “Certainly.”

She shoots him a withering look. The corners of his lips tremble; he seems to be holding back another fit of laughter, and she narrows her eyes at the sight.

“Do you disagree?”

He faces her fully, and she can now see the scar marring his skin. It looks softer in sunlight; its edges blend with his flesh. She traces its shape and length; wanders through every inch. If she tried to touch it—to caress it with gentle fingers—would he move away? Would he give her his scorn, and his anger, and would the fire that they share turn deadly? Aemond keeps the scar out of sight for a reason. He must hate her for looking at it.

But Aemond doesn’t shy away from her gaze. He doesn’t seem to mind the way she is watching him; his body tilts towards hers, and now both their elbows and their knees touch.

He’s beautiful. It is a thought that never once crossed her mind, and yet it’s true. Sunny spells hit his face in all the right places, and the purples of his eye glow, and the sight of him steals her breath away.

When he speaks, it is closer to a whisper, as though meant for her ears alone.

“I wouldn’t dare question your virtue, sweet niece.”

Fire returns, stronger than she remembered it to be. It’s all she knows.

“Good.”

Silence befalls them again, and her eyes revert back to the tome in her hands.

They widen when nimble fingers grab the book. It is gone from her grasp before she can blink. She opens her mouth to scold him; to demand that he give it back, even though she doesn’t truly want it.

Words die on her tongue when the heavy weight of the old tome is replaced by softness in the hues of silver-whites.

Aemond’s head is in her lap.

Her heartbeat jumps.

She stares at him, and then around the yard, and then once again at him. They are sitting in a fairly private area of the yard, but she knows that they’re never truly spared from eyes that are hungry for controversy. Someone will see. Someone will see, and then talk, and soon they will become yet another spectacle for vicious tongues. Protests rise to her lips—numerous, and each of them quite rational. Surely, he will see reason.

But then he turns, and his eye reflects the sun, and she forgets what she wanted to say, or why she wanted to say it, or why it matters if they were discovered at all.

He looks so peaceful. She’s never seen an expression quite this soft on his face. There is a trace of pink on his cheek, and his lips are curved, and he eyes her with emotion she cannot fathom.

She couldn’t possibly disturb him when his face is smoothed with serenity. Just a little longer, she thinks. She wants to see him like this for a few more stolen moments.

“Go on, then,” Aemond says without a care. “Read to me.”

Her mouth is dry. She clears her throat and hopes that her face doesn’t betray her.

“My lap isn’t your spot to rest on.”

Except it is. She will not say it—she’ll never say it—but having him this close feels right. Like this, his softness is for her eyes only.

“I have just claimed it as mine.” His eye speaks in a language of pure intensity, and in response she burns. “Is it not as simple as that?”

She bites her tongue and says nothing else, and the stray strands of his hair tickle her arms. Her skin is on fire. She’s sure that her cheeks are, too.

When she reads to him, she prays that her voice does not waver.

The feast thrown on her name day is a boastful one. She weaves her way through crowds of faces she doesn’t recognise, and pleasantries fall from her lips as befitting the daughter of a royal household.

A woman grown. It seems half the realm had been eagerly waiting for her to come of age. She is mostly surrounded by men, and they all appear to be looking for excuses to touch her.

She is in search for any of her brothers, hoping for a moment of respite from the dancing. It isn’t that she dislikes it, but she has long since grown tired of foreign hands palming her body as though they owned it. She would rather dance with Jace, or even Luke whose clumsiness precedes him—or all by herself, uncaring for the crowds that wish to sink their claws into her.

Respite evades her. Just when she spots familiar heads made of brown curls, another stranger forces his way into her personal space. The man is twice her age, and she immediately finds herself repulsed by the leering expression that he cares not to veil for something more respectful.

His palms are clammy. They will surely leave stains on her skin.

The man leads her towards the centre of the hall, and his spine is straightened in a pathetic display of pride. His hands find her hips before she can protest; his grip is harsh, verging on bruising.

The dance couldn’t last longer. Her head spins from the force with which the man whirls her around, and she must steady herself by gripping his shoulders, even if the prospect disgusts her. She prays that Daemon sees them; that he comes with his sword in hand, ready to spill blood.

But it isn’t Daemon that grabs the man by the arm and sends him backwards. It isn’t Daemon that takes her hand into his own, shielding her from the eyes of the stranger.

She is at peace. Safe. Fire licks at her skin and sinks deep into her bones.

Aemond remains silent. He leads her away from the man, not sparing him a glance. As always, his hand is warm.

“Uncle.” She cannot help but grin. “It would have been more polite to wait your turn.”

He hums, quick to find the right steps. He is a good dancer. His body was made for it.

“Would you rather have him paw at you like an animal?”

She twirls, and the colours of her dress blur into a rainbow.

Aemond is a pitch-black spot against the canvas of vibrant hues. She is drawn to him; drawn to his darkness, and the violet of his eye that disrupts it. Her palm finds his, and she bites back a smile when he boldly presses his skin to hers.

It is not a dance meant for touching.

“What if I liked it?”

Once more, she spins.

They stand back to back, and her spine tingles from the proximity. He is close; too close. His scent is all she can feel.

He has corrupted her with his disregard for propriety. She knows it, because not once does she consider what their family would say if they saw them.

“Did you like it?”

Heat spreads from her back towards her chest. There are many things she has come to like, and none of them are quite related to some unnamed lords.

She could say it. Whisper every perversity her mind has conjured.

But more often than not, their short exchanges seem to be a game that none of them truly understands. She must keep playing. It is what keeps him returning for more.

She turns around to face him and shrugs. “I’m not made of glass. There is no need to handle me gently.”

There is a beat, and silence, and hands itching to touch. Suddenly, without any warning, she is pulled into Aemond’s embrace; a gasp escapes her throat when she feels his hand tighten around her waist.

His fingers dig into the flesh of her hip. He holds her firmly against his chest, and she imagines their bodies blending together into one.

There is nothing appropriate about this kind of proximity. She stands before him as a woman, and he holds her like a man would, and surely no one sees through the flames that have flared around them. This—whatever it is—belongs to them alone.

But her skin tingles.

“Uncle,” she pants, face scarlet red with something unspoken. It is not shame, but something of a darker nature. She is not yet ready to name it. “People are looking at us.”

“Let them look,” he says, and each word has his lips brushing against her ear.

They are so close that she feels his heartbeat. It is as quick as hers.

Not alone. They’re not alone.

“Aemond.”

“Do you want me to let go?”

She doesn’t. He must know that she doesn’t. There is something perverse about his hands on her body—right there, in a hall full of strangers and curious gazes. In the centre of everything. She would gladly let him hold her like this forever—until everyone in the hall understands that she is his, and it is his arms that she belongs in.

“I do,” she says instead.

In a rush of boldness, with utter disregard for her own words, she presses her chest closer to his.

She hardly knows where her body ends and his begins, and if she wanted to—oh, how she wants to—she could step onto her toes and reach towards his lips—

“You're not very convincing,” Aemond whispers into her hair, and then his hands are gone.

He leaves her amidst crowds, surrounded by dozens of onlookers, and yet she sees nothing but the lines of his shrinking silhouette.

It is hours later that she lays amidst silken bedcovers, a sheen of sweat clinging to her bared body, and furiously rubs the spot right between her legs. Her teeth are clenched, and her eyes are burning with vexation, and her hand is not enough. It’s not enough.

She is half-sprawled atop the wooden table.

Her braids have long since come undone, and her hair now cascades down her back like a shield. She plays with one of the strands, curling it around her finger. Her other hand flips the pages of whatever book she is pretending to read.

The library is quiet. It is located deep enough into Maegor’s Holdfast that she knows none of her siblings will find her. It offers the kind of solitude no other place in the Red Keep ensures. Dozens of shelves thrice her height have been installed within the walls, all filled with the oldest and rarest of volumes in the realm.

She cares not for the scent of parchment. It is not books that she came for.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

A small smile creeps onto her lips.

She knew he would come. His presence no longer takes her by surprise. Everywhere she goes, Aemond dutifully follows; no longer does she need to search for him in dark corners.

He is her shadow.

Every day, she breathlessly waits for night to come.

“Aemond.”

“Niece.” His footsteps echo through the walls. “It nears the hour of the owl.”

She rubs the tiredness from her eyes and swallows the yawn that has crawled up her throat. The book is now forgotten; she pushes it away, no longer interested in keeping up the pretence of studying its contents. When she turns, she does it slowly, if only to conceal her traitorous eagerness.

It is too dark. All she sees is a mark of silver painted on pitch-black canvas. His face is shielded from her view, and she bites back the bitter disappointment. She has gone the entire day without a single glimpse of him.

“Why do you care?”

Her eyes trace the outline of his silhouette. He strides towards the chair in front of her, and though she wishes he would sit beside her instead, she appreciates the closeness all the same.

The table is too large. She should have chosen a different one.

The air grows heavier, like it always does when she is with him.

“A princess shouldn’t be spending her time alone in the darkness.”

She wishes he could see her coy smile; wonders if he would offer her one of the private smirks she now knows by heart, or if he’d playfully scold her, or throw a comment that would induce a blush in response.

“It is a good thing, then, that you’ve found me.”

“Yes,” Aemond murmurs, and his voice is so guttural that she nearly melts at the sound. “It is.”

Then it is them, and silence, and darkness. It seems to have become a usual setting for their meetings, as though they required the shroud of night’s secrecy to conceal something illicit.

It isn’t wrong. Whatever it is—whatever looms above their heads—it is not wrong.

Absentmindedly, she reaches for the book; as always, he is quicker.

Their hands meet. There is nothing innocent about the touch, and she no longer desires to pretend that she is not burning. Aemond’s fingers trace the skin of her palm; tickle it, and she bites her lip at the sensation. It lasts only for a short moment—too short, never enough—and then his touch is gone, and so is the book.

She wishes he would forgo this restraint. She has long since grown tired of it.

“I was reading this,” she lies.

“Were you?”

She wants to tear the tome away from his grasp, if only for their hands to touch once more.

“No.”

“No,” Aemond repeats lowly.

If there was any light, she imagines that she’d find his eye intense and hungry; or maybe playful, betraying his endless desire to leave her breathless. He would look at her without a trace of shame, just like he always does. He would set her alight with one glance alone.

There is a thudding sound that cuts through silence. It breaks her out of reverie, and she flinches, squinting into the darkness.

Silver wisps cut through the air. Then they’re gone.

She straightens her spine, brows furrowed in confusion. It looks like he dropped the book and bent to pick it up, only she cannot see his hair. She opens her mouth, not quite understanding this particular game of his, until she feels it.

Something slithers up the skirts of her dress. Fingers wrap around her ankle, and then the other one, and suddenly her legs are forcefully parted. She gasps, and the sound echoes against the empty walls.

“Be quiet, niece,” comes Aemond’s muffled voice. “You’re in a library.”

This is madness. She cannot let it happen—cannot let him touch her like this, right there—

Aemond’s hands slide higher up her legs.

Her muscles tremble. He holds her with enough strength that she cannot escape his grip, forced to yield. Her vision swims, and there are only his hands—his hands—

He uses them skilfully. She has seen him hold a sword, and he now holds her skin with equal passion. His fingertips draw patterns down the length of her shins, and if she could—if she wasn’t possessed by a blinding desire—she would try to discern their meaning.

She feels his breath on her knee.

A small moan falls from her lips, and she clasps her hand over her mouth to cover it. It’s too late. He’s heard it.

Aemond’s grip turns vice-like.

He sears circles into her thigh. One of his hands is replaced by something softer, plushier, and she knows that it must be his lips atop her skin. He leaves fiery kisses on both her knees, and her heart gets stuck in her throat, threatening to jump out.

Higher, she thinks, and immediately bites her lip to prevent herself from begging aloud. If he moved his mouth higher—just a bit, only a bit—he would find out how much she needs him. Her desire has long since become choking. It takes a single brush of his skin against hers to get her slick and wet and ready.

Her skin is engulfed by flames. She must be touched, she must be touched—

Aemond’s lips are gone. She holds back a whimper when she feels fingertips brushing against her thigh in a parting gesture—little more than a caress, gone sooner than it came.

She closes her legs when Aemond’s head resurfaces from underneath the table.

Empty. She remains painfully empty.

“You should return to your chambers.” Aemond stands from the ground. He sounds cocky. “Who knows what lurks in the darkness.”

In the privacy of her bedchamber, she finds the mark that he left on her thigh. It is there for her eyes only. The mark haunts her, and she finds no sleep.

“I know you’re there.”

It seems that they only ever exchange words in darkness. Just today, she was seated opposite him during dinner, and he didn’t look at her once. She wonders if it is fear that holds him back in daylight. Her own fingers forever burn with the desire to hold him, and more often than not, she forgets about the reality of their relationship. Perhaps avoiding each other in the presence of others is safer. They were never meant to burn together.

Her steps halt.

“I’m beginning to think you’re looking for trouble.”

She bites back a grin. “What if I am?”

Finally, he emerges from the shadows. She looks at him without a hint of shame; traces the line of his jaw, and his nose, and the purples of his eye. His hair looks soft. She finds herself overtaken by the desire to grasp it with her fingers and tug.

“You’ve found it.”

“Have I?” she says, and her throat is oddly dry. She watches him, and he watches her, and flames arise. “You don’t look much like trouble to me.”

Aemond’s steps are slow. She has learned their pattern by heart. He has a habit of moving at a leisurely pace, and more often than not, she imagines that it’s yet another way of tormenting her. He knows of her impatience and aims to use it to his advantage.

When he stops, he is still outside of her reach. He raises an eyebrow challengingly.

“What about now?”

It is another game, and she shakes her head because she must.

Aemond hums. His eye wanders down her neck, and her skin prickles underneath his gaze. She holds her breath when he takes another step forward.

Still, he is not close enough.

“And now, niece?” Aemond asks. “Do I look like trouble?”

“No,” she breathes.

His scent wafts through the air, and she ravenously inhales it. Aemond’s eye darkens. He moves closer, and she laces her fingers together in order not to reach out for him.

Maybe she should stifle the last of self-control. Maybe she should grab him by the collar of his riding leathers; pull him as close as she needs him to be. Sometimes, it feels as though he is waiting for her to do it. To make the first move.

Before her contemplation turns into action, his fingers catch the skirts of her gown. She takes a gulp of air when he easily tugs her closer.

“No?” Aemond mutters.

He studies her mouth in silent deliberation, and it prompts her to take her bottom lip between teeth. His nostrils flare.

“No,” she repeats firmly.

His smile is pure sin.

“Good.”

Aemond’s lips claim hers before she can say anything else. Words die on her tongue, and she scarcely remembers what it was that she wanted to say at all. His skin is scorching hot, and his mouth is demanding, and when she gasps into his mouth, he swallows the sound like a man starved.

She throws her hands around his neck before he disappears; before once more he flees from her touch. He is both soft and solid, and her fingertips go alight from the fire flowing through his veins. Aemond pushes into her, and soon her spine connects with the stone wall. His hands wander over her body, tugging impatiently at the endless pieces of material that separate them.

His kisses are flames. None of her dreams have done them justice. Her tongue dances as led by his own, and her teeth graze his bottom lip, and she can no longer think straight when he whimpers into her mouth.

“Sweet girl,” he breathes, and she drinks up the words straight from his tongue.

She pulls him closer, closer, and he hitches her leg over his hip, and she thinks that there is no going back from it. She will forever be cursed with the memory of his taste.

Her lips are full of him even when he’s gone.

She is a woman possessed by madness.

An entire moon has passed, and he hasn’t touched her once. It is as though he forgot that she exists; as though her existence meant nothing at all. Distance stretches between them, sharp and thorned, and it cuts through her skin with vicious force. She burns with want. She burns until there is nothing left but ashes.

When she dreams, it is of his lips. Their taste has long faded, and though she chases the memory every night, she is left with emptiness. Sometimes, it feels as though she’s dying of hunger. She must taste him again. If she won’t, she thinks she’ll wither away.

She once thought that his teasing touch was torture. It’s only now—only when it’s gone—that knows it is the lack of it that elicits true torment.

It’s been three days since she saw him last. Even their last meeting was only in brief; he was gone as soon as her eyes found him amidst crowds of the Red Keep, his steps too quick for her to catch up with.

He has left her to burn alone. Now the flames have grown wild and lethal, and she succumbs to this insanity because she must.

She stays close to the stone wall.

It is nighttime, and most of the residents have retired to their bedchambers. The corridors are empty, guarded only in a few spots; her footsteps echo through the walls, accompanied by complete silence. She appreciates the semblance of privacy that has come with sunset. It is easier to slip by unnoticed when the lights are subdued.

Less than an hour ago, she caught a glimpse of Aemond in the courtyard, sword in his hand. He looked composed as ever, and by the end of the training session his forehead was sheen with sweat. It is what brought about this madness—the sight of him panting for breath.

It’s why she follows him now. He is quick on his feet, and so quiet that she cannot even hear him. All she sees is the broadness of his shoulders and silver-white wisps resting on his back.

She moves faster, determined not to lose him. Her pace turns unrelenting; she watches Aemond reach for the gilded knob. Just before the doors close behind him, she slips inside.

His bedchamber is swallowed by darkness. It is the first thing she sees; her eyes strain, eager to scan the entirety of the room. It looks pristine. His inclination for tidiness doesn’t astound her. She now knows that he keeps all his chaos leashed, preferring to build walls of purity around himself.

She sees through it all. Knows his vices by heart.

Aemond watches her without a trace of surprise. He must have known, then, that she was hunting him down.

It is different this time. The air is thicker. They are alone, and no one can enter his bedchamber without explicit permission. He must realise it. The purple of his eye is darker, and all she finds in it is desire.

Because it is him who has this time become prey, she is the first to make a move.

“I’m here, uncle. I came to you.”

It takes only one step for their chests to come closer, now on the verge of pressing together. Aemond’s face is a perfect image of indifference, but she knows better. There is something dangerous in his eye. She must push further than this to draw it out.

Her eyes go round with feigned innocence, and his own become hooded.

She wonders if his lips still taste the same.

“Won’t you touch me?” she whispers, never letting her gaze falter.

Aemond’s face remains carved in stone. “Perhaps you should ask nicely.”

It is as though he had struck her.

A beat passes, and she knows not what to say. Her mouth is dry. Her hands itch from the constant urge to sink into his flesh.

“Ask?”

He repeats without hesitation, “Ask.”

She bites her tongue hard enough to wince.

It was foolish of her to come. He must think her desperate; corrupt, with her displayed flesh pulsating from the desire to be touched. She is wanton and wicked, and shame burns her cheeks upon the realisation.

A woman of sin.

If he wanted to, he would have touched her already. He would take her into his arms, and breathe in her scent, and bury his fingers deep in her soul. If he wanted to, all hesitation would shatter into pieces, and there would be no need to collect them anymore.

And yet his hands remain still.

She must have been wrong. So, so wrong.

With her eyes stinging, stubbornly downcast, she moves towards the door. If she leaves quickly enough, perhaps he’ll forget she was there at all. Perhaps she’ll awaken the next day and it will all turn out to have been a nightmare. Perhaps she—

Aemond’s hand clutches her forearm. His touch is gentle but firm; she can feel his fingers slither around her skin, closing his grip to prevent her from moving.

She holds her breath. All air is gone.

“Ask,” he says again, “and you shall have it.”

He pushes into her from behind, and his heat engulfs her in wild flames. Aemond’s chest presses against the length of her spine; his hair tickles her skin. She bites her lip when his nose brushes her cheek.

Her heart beats in a wild tune. Does his own match it?

It must. Surely, it must.

“Ask.”

There is something desperate about him; something in his tone that whispers in a language she knows by heart. He is half-begging. She recognises it, because he has done the same in her dreams.

She yields. Utterly. Completely.

“Touch me,” she whispers.

He does.

Aemond grabs her hips and turns her around, and all softness she has come to know him for is gone. His eye is blown wide; it burns, it burns, it burns.

The kiss is bruising. His tongue enters her mouth before she can reciprocate; her spine connects with the surface of the door, and she welcomes the chill it provides with relief. Aemond’s lips are demanding and forceful, and he gasps into her mouth when her hands finally touch his bare skin. She digs her fingers into his neck, and tugs at his hair, and pulls him closer. It is not enough. She needs their mouths to mould into one—to never separate again.

He kisses her without his past control. She gasps for air, and Aemond breathes out into her skin, refusing to let go. His teeth nibble at her bottom lip, and she swallows down a whimper.

His fingers find her neck. The rings that adorn them are cold.

“Here?” he pants, breathless. “Do you want me to touch you here?”

She wraps his hair around her fingers, searching for an anchor. Her head swims, and all air is gone, and if it weren’t for his grip on her hip, she would crumble to the floor. Aemond groans when she pulls at the strands in her hand; she wants to bottle the sound and keep it as hers forever.

“Yes,” she whispers into his lips.

Aemond’s hand wraps around her throat; she sees stars.

Their tongues are at war, and she matches his tempo with determination. He tastes like smoke. Like the sun. Like oxygen. His thumb comes up to stroke her cheek, and the gentleness of this touch is a stark contrast to the way he devours her. She throbs with want. Now that she has touched him, she doesn’t think she could ever stop.

She didn’t know it could feel like this.

Because she’s possessed by greed, she breathes out a quiet, needy, “More.”

Aemond’s lips part with hers, and she immediately wishes to cry out in protest.

She burns under the weight of his gaze. Without once taking his eye off hers, Aemond’s hand leaves her throat, trailing down to her collarbone. His touch is feather-like; fingers tickle her skin. She sucks in air when his hand moves lower, playing with the lace neckline. One of his fingertips sneaks beneath the fabric.

“Should I touch you here?”

His hand boldly grabs her breast. She has never been touched like this. Her mouth dries, and she pushes her chest into Aemond’s grasp, flushing at the low hum he lets out in response. His lips find a spot on her neck that has her panting, and he sucks at the sensitive skin with such ardour that she’s certain he’ll leave a mark.

She moans when his fingers find her pebbled nipple and flick against it, and the wanton sound induces hot shame. He touches her through the fabric of her dress, and it is not enough. She needs more. She needs everything.

Embarrassed, she covers her mouth with her hand.

Aemond’s eye flashes with a wicked glint.

“Here?” he asks, pinching the nipple.

The sound that escapes her throat is smothered by her palm. Desperate, suspended on the verge of madness, she nods. Aemond’s lips curve into a smile, but his fingers refuse to give in.

Their lips touch when he whispers, “Say it.”

And because she’d do anything, anything, her hand obediently falls down.

“Please.”

“How prettily you beg.”

There is a tearing sound; she watches Aemond rip the corset of her dress apart, tugging it down so that her chest is exposed. She has no time to cover herself in scarlet shame, nor to complain about him ruining her favourite gown. His mouth finds her nipple, and she cries out when he sucks at it.

She knows nothing but his tongue that swirls around the nipple in torturous circles; nothing but his teeth when he bites down. Aemond presses her body further into the door, and there is not an inch left that separates them. They are one. Her arms hold him tightly. If she lets go, she will collapse.

His lips are gone. Before she can object, Aemond slides his palms lower—between her breasts, down her waist, over the curve of her hip bone. He sinks to his knees before her, and she watches, wide-eyed and unable to move. Aemond’s hand catches the skirt of her dress and hitches it upwards, bunching the fabric so that her skin is on display. His fingers find her bare thigh, and they are quick to wrap around its width. She whimpers when he pushes her legs apart, forcing himself in between. When he puts her knee over his shoulder, holding her upright with the sheer strength of his arms, she is gone.

“You have cursed me,” he murmurs into her skin, lips nibbling at her inner thigh. “I spend my days thinking of you.”

Her mouth parts; she gasps for air, chest rising and falling with increasing speed. Aemond’s hold on her thigh tightens when she squirms in his arms.

“I spend my nights dreaming of you.”

His sinful lips traverse the expanse of her exposed skin. They move higher, higher, and her muscles twitch with anticipation. He’s too slow, and her hips involuntarily push forward, seeking his touch. Aemond cruelly holds her still. She’s convinced that he’ll leave her skin bruised; convinced that before he reaches the spot where she aches most, she will have died from this torture.

When his tongue first touches her cunt, her vision blurs.

It feels nothing like her fingers. He is skilful and hungry, and the wet muscle laps at her clit in furious motions. Moans spill from her lips, and she has long since forgotten all about propriety. It means little when Aemond’s head is buried between her thighs; when the sinful act feels this holy. All thoughts dissolve into nothing, wiped away with his expert tongue. Aemond’s grip turns vice-like. There is nothing she can do but take whatever he wants to give.

Her clit pulsates from the onslaught. He spits, and then licks up the saliva, rubbing it in between her folds, and she nearly squeals at the sensation. It’s wet and filthy, and when he moans into her cunt, sending chills down her spine, she knows she won’t last much longer.

“Aemond,” she gasps, because his name is the only thing she knows anymore. “Aemond.”

Whines fall from her lips, and she no longer cares to smother them. Her hips rock, and his mouth keeps moving against her cunt, and she can’t, she can’t—

Right there, with his wicked tongue inside her, she erupts.

It’s like a storm. A wildfire. She shatters into thousands of pieces, and Aemond dutifully collects them all, drinking up everything that she offers. Her body rocks, and he soothes her with his touch and keeps her still. Their hands are joined, though she doesn’t recall the moment when they first touched. Aemond doesn’t stop until her gasps turn into cries. Before he moves away, his lips plant one more kiss right on her oversensitive clit.

Her body trembles. Aemond pulls her down, and she allows herself to be led by his hands. His touch is strong and gentle, and she cannot quite believe that he’s real. He puts her thighs around his waist; right there, on the cold ground, she straddles his lap. Aemond’s fingers weave through her hair, and he brushes them away from her face with such gentleness that she thinks she might weep.

“Pretty girl,” he murmurs, thumbs stroking her wet cheeks. “Such a pretty girl.”

For a moment, they just breathe. Their chests heave with equal fervour, and there is only silence and tender caresses. Her fingers trace the curve of his cheek; she follows its shape, searing it deep into her memory. She wants to remember this. Every detail.

Aemond’s mouth glistens in the spells of moonlight. He is wet with her. Her trembling fingers collect the moisture, and when she brings them to her lips and wraps her tongue around them, he groans.

Involuntarily, her hips rock. She sees him swallow down another sound.

Not once did he demand that she touch him. Aemond is hard beneath her, and yet he stubbornly clings to the restraint she thought to be long erased.

As though he didn’t think himself deserving of her touch.

“Take it off.” Her fingers reach for the eyepatch that separates them, tugging lightly. “I will see all of you.”

He eyes her with emotion she cannot name.

There is something achingly vulnerable about him. She watches as Aemond’s trembling hand reaches for the leather strap, brushing against hers in a feather-like manner. His good eye drops to the ground beside them, and she is quick to put her palms on his face.

She wants him to see himself as she sees him. To rid himself of whatever shame clings to his soul. She wants him to know that all she finds in him is heart-wrenching beauty.

“Aemond,” she whispers. Her fingers find the clasp, and she awaits his permission.

He hesitates. His gaze is dark. She counts the seconds, prepared to let go, but his voice stops her.

“Whatever you want,” he says at last. “It is yours. It is yours.”

Just like that, the eyepatch is gone. The scar stretches from above his eyebrow to the middle of his cheek, and although her hands are shaking, she reaches to stroke the mangled flesh.

Aemond wheezes. She catches the slightest trembling of his lips. His head drops, and for a moment she fears that he’ll move away from her, but he doesn’t. He pushes closer, as though seeking warmth. She will give it to him. She’ll give him whatever he wants.

He seems at war with himself, both touch-starved and unable to give in. But then he faces her once more. Her eyes trace the scar, and she bites back a gasp when she sees the sapphire in the place of his eye.

“You’re beautiful,” she tells him, because he is.

When he says nothing, she replaces her fingers with lips. She kisses every inch of the slash, and his sharp inhale is the only answer she receives. It is enough. She just needs him to know that she wants him as he is.

Aemond’s arms wrap around her waist, and it is enough. It’s everything she wants.

“I dream of you,” he tells her. “Of this.”

She opens her mouth, prepared to pour her heart out—to confess the lengths of her own desire, and the way it has rendered her mad. But Aemond grabs her hips, breaking them out of tranquility, and pulls the dress up so that it no longer sets them apart. She sees questions in his eye, though she doesn’t understand why he feels the need to ask them. Surely, he knows how deep the roots of her want go.

Wordlessly, she reaches for the laces of his leathers. It is enough of an answer; Aemond’s face softens, and then their lips collide again.

There are so many layers between them. Too many. She claws at his shirt, and he tears the last shreds of her bodice, and then they are skin to skin. She touches every single part of him, learning his shapes and curves. His body is toned, and his skin bears multiple small scars that must have come from a sword, and he is soft. Warm. Hers.

Aemond’s fingers find her entrance. She is slick for him—aching, pulsating, dripping. He circles her clit and swallows her moan, and then he is knuckle-deep inside her.

“Please,” she whines, though she knows not what she’s begging for.

His finger thrusts, and then it curls, touching a spot she never knew existed. She throws her head back, mouth open in a silent gasp. Aemond attaches his lips to her throat.

Release comes in waves, quicker than the previous one. It crashes into her body with full force, and she is helpless against the currents. Before she comes down, Aemond lifts her up and buries his cock in her cunt.

It hurts. It hurts, and he holds her close, and she whimpers into his mouth. Aemond is patient with her. He peppers her face with kisses, sighing into her skin, and stills his movements. The stretch burns, and she cannot help but clench around him. Her hips move on their own accord; her body chases what it inherently wants.

There is tenderness in his eye. It’s enough for her body to melt.

Aemond grunts and pushes deeper into her. The pace is slow, agonising, and she cannot take it. Her muscles spasm beneath his hands; she is completely at his mercy, waiting for each thrust. She tugs at his hair and whispers into his ear, demanding that he fuck her properly.

Time stills. Her clit throbs, and she aims to seek relief with her own fingers, but then Aemond pulls her hand away. The hunger in his eye has turned dangerous. It’s more black than purple.

“As you wish.”

She whimpers when he grabs her by the thighs and moves her body away from the door. He pushes her into the ground, spreading her dress beneath her back to soften the surface, and climbs atop her. His moves are frantic, and there is a glow on his features that must reflect her own. His hair tickles her face. She gives him a beaming smile, and his breath hitches.

His cock drives into her, and at the same moment his sinful fingers find her clit. She cries out. Her eyes roll back, and she tries to close her legs, trembling from the onslaught of pleasure. Aemond grabs her knees and holds them apart. Her dripping cunt is on full display; she sees him watch the place where they’re connected, his lips swollen and eyes glazed over. Aemond rubs her clit and thrust into her like a madman, and the bedchamber is bathed in sounds of clapping skin and wanton moans.

She makes no sound when she peaks. Her mouth falls open as she convulses beneath him, and Aemond pushes his fingers down her throat.

“One more,” he grunts. “Give me one more.”

Her body trembles. She can’t. No more, no more—

But Aemond’s torturous fingers keep flicking against her nub, and his rock-hard length twitches deep inside her, and she can’t stop. She can’t stop.

She is boneless. Her spine arches, and Aemond topples over her chest, and their orgasms come at once. They’re amidst clouds, suspended in the air; above turbulent waters; high enough to be scorched by the sun.

They burn. Together, they burn.

Their hearts beat in the same tune. Aemond puts his hand on her chest, in the hollow between her breasts, and she weaves her fingers into his hair. When he looks at her, all she sees is scorching affection.

He stays buried inside her, as though equally reluctant to let their bodies part. Purple and sapphire glow in the dark, and she watches him, breathless and enthralled, unable to look away.

“I have claimed you,” he whispers into the night.

Her eyes are soft. With her fingertips, she writes letters down the length of his spine. She knows the words, though for now they remain invisible to the eye. Aemond looks at her with awe, hands still warm against her cheeks as he holds her. She wishes she could hear his thoughts. Wonders if she’d find remorse and guilt, and the desire to turn back time.

There is no regret in her heart. This—their bodies woven into one—was fated. His first touch planted a seed inside her, and its destiny was to bloom.

“Then I’m yours.”

His hands find hers, and there is only fire.

[anantaru]

who do you think would be most likely to end up in a fwb arrangement (and catch feelings 🤭)?

including. kaveh & scaramouche

cw. [ex]plicit, friends with benefits, they’re idiots istg, fem! reader

— kaveh + will tell you he loves you during sex

kaveh's body was aflame and his frazzled chest heaves as he watches you go down on him, slowed movements and your touch bringing him afloat, as if underwater, and his eyes, they're aglow— purled with a dwelling pleasure when you squeeze him gently around his tip, your thumb patting over a thudding vein which was on the underside of his girth, embellishing his pretty, thick cock when your lips slant down at last, parting to wrap around his sizable dick.

"archons.." kaveh moans out the pleasure you set free in his frame, and he's licking his lips at the sheer sight of you, mouth watering as a heavy hand drops against the back of your head to move you up and down his bulging cock himself as you're eagerly running your tongue back and forth the sensitive skin to please him, make him cum inside your warmth, whilst the man was growing certainly impatient when you taste a couple droplets of his pre greatly overwhelming your taste buds;

yet then, it's when your entire ordeal of having this, so called, special relationship, which— let's be honest now, was fairly confusing in its own parts, came entirely crumbling down on you.

well, you occasionally fucked, yes, but that's about it, so when you suddenly hear it, the:

"fuck— i love you so much."

you instantly still your lips around his cock because wait. what.

your eyes shoot open at the words and you look up at kaveh as his own worried gaze meets yours immediately, in horror, both parties awkwardly staring at each other for what felt like hours as he was reminding himself about what he just said, and what he just ruined for himself.

you pull him out of your mouth, and kaveh hisses at the lost contact of your warmth sadly leaving his cock when he attempts to speak again and fix this bloody mess somehow.

"i mean this!" he panics, pointing at his still, very much, erected cock resting on his lower stomach, "i don't love you, i love this!"

you look at him in overwhelmed disbelief, because what the actual fuck, honestly defeated with this entire, confusing situation as you quickly grab your shirt off the ground, swiftly pulling it above your head and dragging it down to conceal your upper body because being fully naked right now, didn't seem like the best decision.

yet funnily enough the second kaveh contradicted himself, particularly when he stated the "i do not love you" part, something deep inside his stomach scrunches up viciously, so much it began to ache, as if his own body has caught him in a blatant lie, a big one at that, one he had ultimately hidden from even himself and he didn't realize until now.

yet, you rub your forehead, wishing you would've just ignored it and kept sucking the life out of his cock. although, you speak at last, a little overpowered, despite that keeping your cool.

"who says 'i love you' during a blowjob?"

you question but he didn't hear you, instead he did the unimaginable and made it worse, muttering the following to himself but loud enough so you could hear it, "or maybe i do love you."

"WHAT!"

— scaramouche + will stay in denial

"how's that?" scaramouche flaunts the brilliant smirk on his face as he taunts you, smacking his working hips against your cunt so fucking fast and strongly that the sound alone of your skin touching the other almost suffocates out your own moans and whines.

"—so good." you hiccup, the noises parting from your lips falling lower and lower, dripping with a high amount of lust and longing. and scaramouche certainly knew you were close, he can tell, immediately— after all, he's seen it plenty of times before, well, who knew having a fuck buddy could be so beneficial to him, he honestly didn't seem quite convinced in the beginning but grew into it relatively fast.

up till now at least, because for some reason, he cannot understand why he suddenly cares about how good he was fucking you, or if you're enjoying yourself wholly— if his hips were lurching forward correctly, if his thrusts were strong enough for you to desperately cry out his name or when the muscles in your core clench down for him to see literal, big, bright stars as you milk him dry with your pussy, taking him perfectly into your warm walls.

when did he start giving a single damn about you? obviously, not to be a completely malicious dick and an asshole— but it was fairly difficult for scaramouche to find meaningful, real relationships with another individual, and when you first hooked up with each other, it then repeating day by day as you ultimately decided to walk into this kind of relationship, hand in hand, he never once thought about catching any feelings for you, because quite frankly, he did not believe he was capable to produce such insolent emotions in the first place.

yet, there he was now, being happy and smiling from head to toe when you're affirming him, when he can make you cum on his cock before he was even allowed to cum himself.

because, here's the deal, he won't stop denying himself, not before you're climaxing all over his girth and soiling his skin with your liquids, until he can ease himself forward again and notices your tasty slick all over him as he's automatically wetting his lips at the sinful sight of your pussy clenching around, fucking himself into your cute, small entrance again that gnaws down onto every bump and ridge coating his entire shaft.

but no, again, he cannot possibly be in love with you, hah! those feelings, someone must be playing tricks on him, right?

©2023 anantaru do not repost, copy, translate, modify

[sanakimohara]

[ YOU ] PT. 2 B. C.

pairing: chan x fem! reader

summary: Stalker AU

playlist:

warnings: MDNI + NSFW + ANGST + SMUT + KIDNAPPING + STALKING + STOCKHOLM SYNDROME + CNC + MENTIONS OF MURDER + TRAUMA + CHOKING + SLIGHT EXHIBITIONISM

type: full fic / angst / smut / horror

a/n: thinking of putting this one on AO3…also did you guys watch their AMAs performance last night?

“Here, baby. It’s your favorite, just like you wanted.”

Chan’s smile stretched wider as he set the items on the table, his eyes full of obsessive warmth as he watched your every move….

Every expression you made.

Every ghost of a shiver that ran up your spine.

Three weeks into being safe and sound with him, you still hadn’t learned to trust him completely:

To completely twist yourself free from the gut-wrenching fear of him.

What would a man like Christopher Chan Bahng do if you made one wrong move, said one nasty word, or refused one of his heartfelt offerings?

You hadn't the courage to get an answer to the question.

Not yet, anyway.

Sitting there in a kitchen you’d only just learned existed down the hall from the room he’d kept you for the first week and a half felt oddly freeing.

It was one of the few places Chan let you roam around in his part-time abode -and only if he was present when you did so.

“There are rules,” he’d told you the first night, having coaxed you to listen to what he had to say if he agreed to unbind you from the bed and against your better judgment and the prying instinct to make a run for the unlocked door behind him…

You sat idly as he eased into a one-sided conversation.

“You have rules…here…with me,” Chan clarified, smiling small, but his voice still holding twinges of directness. “There’s not a lot, and I know you’ll be able to remember them. Responsible as you are…”

He trailed off, eyes softening on you as admiration clouded them.

That singular stare numbed your nerves in the moment. A blatant indication to you of how long and thoroughly he’d been watching you.

He'd been cataloging your life and all its highs and lows.

Chan knew you were responsible because he’d seen it from afar, observing how dedicated you were to keeping the shop in order when your boss wouldn’t. How you made it a point to check your surroundings every time you ventured from your apartment alone.

Now you realize you hadn't been as vigilant or responsible as you thought.

Chan intended to fix that.

Your heartbeat dropped its pace, slowing to a lowered thrum in your ears as you watched him watch you.

Expectations and boundaries spilled from his lips like all those fleeting compliments he’d given you in the record store.

“You have a beautiful smile. Adorable even…”

“Never leave this room without my permission. Everything you’ll ever need is already here, and if you don’t have it, I’ll get it for you. Just ask…”

“I like your taste in music. It’s refreshing to get someone else’s opinions…”

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you. Always. So I know you’re listening and understand what I’m telling you.”

“Sorry, this may be a little forward of me, but would you like to hang out sometime?”

“You will take care of yourself. Shower, get ready, get dressed, and eat every meal I give you. No exceptions. No excuses, princess..”

“It was nice to meet you, pretty girl. I’ll give you a call later! Oh, and thanks for the help..”

“I’m doing this for your good, Y/n. All you have to do is listen…don’t think… listen to me.”

Rules.

Sweet nothings.

They mixed when Chan spoke, blending as you swallowed the urge to sob aloud while he eyed you from the edge of the bed. “Tell me you understand what I’ve said, sweetheart.” The blonde tilted his head, voice warm but expression void of lenient compassion for the pain etched across yours.

Your tongue felt drier at the moment, your head spinning, and your blood cold as you refused to speak to him.

Chan’s eyes narrowed an inch; his slight change in expression made you withdraw.

“I said tell me you understand.”

Your lips parted before you could pull your subconsciousness from the grips of instinctual survival. “Y-yes I under…under..stand…” you croaked quietly, curling in on yourself when he let his lips settle into a minuscule smirk.

“Good girl… learning so fast already…”

A knot of pure hatred mixed with an unfamiliar emotion twisted in your chest upon hearing him casually utter such a demeaning phrase.

It still rang in your head every time he was near you. That same unnamed gut feeling rooted itself in your core with each day you remained entangled in his version of contentment.

Trapping you in his sick and twisted version of a happy home.

A happy life with him and only him.

Chan sat next to you at the kitchen island, twisting his barstool to face yours. He pushed the familiar brown bag and plastic cup to you, inching closer.

“…. Just for you, like I promised.”

You didn’t move, frozen in place by practiced stubbornness and conflicted with your thoughts as you stared at the treat you’d been craving for what felt like half a lifetime…

But if you were doing your math right, counted the hours he was away, and constructed them into the time he spent with you, then that meant…

It’d been three Sundays since he’d taken you from that brick alleyway.

Three…long…tense…suffocating, and confusing …weeks.

The air under your nose wafted with the crisp tinge of warm pastry puff and strawberry filling. Your eyes settled on a dollop of whipped cream melting into the drink.

Your mouth watered, having been stripped of anything overly sweet for weeks, all thanks to Chan’s intentional and well-balanced meals for you.

What he ate, you ate.

The same went for almost anything else you’d experienced in his care.

What he laid out for you to wear, you wore.

What he watched, you watched.

What he said, you obeyed.

Weeks of falling into a nearly sunless state of compliance, unsure of how to feel about it, and even more affairs of becoming entirely comfortable with it sent your mind into a leveled frenzy.

You were beginning to feel odd…

Longing to hear Chan’s keys jingle from down the hall, and his footsteps echoing closer to the locked door of your room, rather than fearing the sounds.

You looked forward to seeing him after hours of being kept alone in a room with only a stack of books to read, a pad of paper and pen, and a strange amount of various stuffed animals to keep you company. Once or twice, you caught yourself beginning to smile when you saw him slip into your room after unlocking it. He greeted you every time, inviting you out of the room for two hours until dinner -which promptly occurred at 10 PM every night.

A twisted sense of security wrestled itself into your psyche. Your heart switched between racing in fear and slowing from unconscious infatuation. Your breaths came easier, and your body relaxed a tad more in his presence.

It was…

Alarming.

So much so that the moment Chan stopped mid-step on his way out of your room for the night before to ask you a question, your sensible train of thought nearly reignited.

Unfortunately, that trickle of sense fizzled back into a fog of conscious paralysis, hearing his voice envelop the room.

“Anything in particular you want tomorrow?”

You swallow hard, slipping underneath the heavy duvet before answering him quietly.

“What..? What do you mean?..”

That is a fair question.

Chan didn't blame you for asking it and was unsure whether to proceed with his offer.

But the pure, unguarded curiosity in your eyes and expression made him continue. “Is there anything special you’d like to have?..” he clarified.

You still said nothing.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair before showing a tender smile as if he’d become embarrassed of having to explain his sudden thoughtfulness.

“Think of it like a gift from me to you, princess. Something special since you’ve been so …”

He paused, eyes lowering from your face for a moment, momentarily distant as they settled on the cover pulled over your knees and to your chest.

The straps of the cream-colored chiffon night dress he’d picked out for you that night lowered from your shoulder as you shifted, waiting to hear the rest of his reasoning, and Chan reluctantly drew his gaze back up to your face.

“Good for me…” he clarified under a heavy breath, glad the door partially hid the hardening in his crotch from your wandering eyes.

“I can have..anything?” You pried for options, having narrowed the most apparent forms of escape or attempt at communication with the outside world out of the realm of possibilities.

Chan was an intelligent man.

A highly intuitive one at that.

A man who paid attention to the most minor details. Obvious or not.

Getting anything past him felt like running into a cement wall and hoping it’d eventually vanish and let you pass.

It wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

When you caught his slow nod of approval at your question, you decided that asking a small, harmless question would be a safe decision.

“I want something from the cafe….please…the one I used to. “

“Yeah, no. I remember which one it is, sweetheart….” Chan cut into your response, mind wandering to dangerous places, watching you sink further into the corners and set your doe eyes on him as you did.

It’s sickened him to some degree how hot his blood ran seeing you vulnerable and comfortable all at once in his presence.

There wasn’t a chance in the world he’d be able to keep his hands off you for another week if you kept affecting him this way. Chan purposefully attempted to avoid the feeling, but there was only so much he could do before everything you did affected him.

Called to him…

Begged for him…

God, he wanted to hear you beg for him…

Scream for him…

Chan sucked in a quick breath, head leaning on the doorframe as he shut his eyes and mumbled back to you, “I’ll bring you something from there in the morning. Night, princess..”

And then he was gone again.

You slept a little easier last night, hoping his gesture of intentional goodwill was a sign he was starting to regret his actions. Still, now that hope died in your chest, seeing the pure content on his face as he observed you tentatively reaching for the pastry and latte he'd brought back just for you.

Chan was never going to feel guilty.

Not when everything was perfect between you, especially for him.

The pastry melted on your tongue, warm and sweet but barely easing the weight in your chest, sensing Chan’s gaze on you. Every bite you took was less and less soothing, hardly washed down any more accessible with the few sips of cold caffeine you took between each one, but you refused to give him any more signs of your distress.

If you did, it always seemed to go straight to his head.

Chan fed off of it.

You’d learned that much about him in less than a week.

Despite his constant attempts at heartfelt kindness, your fear of him was his fix.

What a sick bastard…

You swallowed the last bite of the pastry as the thought crossed your mind, crumpling up the parchment it was wrapped in before dropping it into the bag but leaving the half-full cup alone.

“Thank you,” you forced a smile, hints of genuine gratitude coaxing the pleasant expression onto your face, but it was short-lived as Chan shook his head. “Finish all of it,” he instructed, nudging the cup closer to you without glancing at it. “Don’t waste what I give you…”

You stiffen in your seat, “I’m fine. I've had enough, really-“

Your lips immediately pressed shut when he stood, closing in on you until your head lulled back to keep him in your sight. Chan stared down at you, right hand raised to brush across your cheek, and the left picking the latte up from the counter. Every nerve you had spanned to life, chills rising on your skin as he invaded your space and fixed you in place with a void glare.

Chan exhaled slowly, reducing the anger he felt when you refused his demand and replacing it with a controlled ease. “I took time out of my day to get you something special, and I expect you to appreciate it. Open up…” his hand falls to cup your chin, grip tight and promising. You swallow hard, eyes dilating with anxiety as he applies more pressure, progressing until you utter a whine of pain and let your mouth fall slack. “Atta girl…” Chan praises under his breath, caging you in the seat and easing the drink to your parted lips.

Your stomach drops, feeling helpless as he forces you to gulp down the remaining half of the cold caffeinated drink. Your legs twitch and shift between his, nails clawing at the sheer stockings covering your thighs underneath the sweater you wore, and your breaths struggle to remain constant as the liquid pours down your throat and from the corner of your lips.

His hold on your jaw is painful but not as tortuous as the thoughts racing through your mind as you peer up at him through teary eyes.

It hurts, but it feels so…

Why won’t he stop…? Do I want him to…stop?…

You choked as the last drops of the latte drizzled onto your tongue, gasping for air quietly as he released your jaw and tapped your cheek gently. A phantom of pain blooms on your skin, disappearing seconds after the tender slap occurs but snapping you back to reality to hear him speak.

“I need you wide awake for me today. Can’t have you looking too tired when Bin comes over for a visit.”

You stare at him, half dizzy and confused, hearing him mention another’s name.

He hadn’t mentioned his friends, family, or acquaintances before…

Though your throat still burned and your eyes had yet to un-blur completely, you asked, “W-who’s Bin?”…”

Chan smiled, gently kissing your nose since you weren’t in any shape to reel away from him like you had before. Your face warmed from the gesture, your heart fluttering a bit as the distinct feeling of his lips brushing your skin was mildly delightful.

“He's a good friend of mine. Someone I work with often, too. I think you’ll like him a lot.”

Your lips twitched into a timid smile, a mix of relief and desire hanging over your head. “I…I can't wait to meet him. " You shifted around, swiping the back of your right hand across your damp lips to wipe away the coffee left on them and swiftly cover the vague happiness that begged to show itself.

Maybe this ‘Bin’ could be your way out of all of this - a saving grace from the hell you were beginning to settle into.

“Good. Now, get cleaned up. He’ll be here soon.” Chan lifts you from the chair, steadying your drowsy weight against him for a moment before you give him a solemn nod and carefully step past him. An array of ideas starts to cloud your head, gathering traction and precedence over any other thought you have, but they're shattered to pieces when Chan calls out to you from the kitchen.

“Y/n..”

You freeze, hand pressed to the corner of the hallway for support as you peer at him over your shoulder.” Yes?...” you breathe out, uneased by the pleasant smile he flashes you before leaning against the center island. " Don't try anything cute when he's here. Asking for his help won't change a thing.”

“I won’t…”

God fucking damn it-

The sound of another’s voice from down the hall catches your attention, melting into laughter and warm words toward your captor a moment later.

‘Bin’ must be here…

You sniffle at the realization, dabbing the damp white cloth over your mouth several times before rinsing and wringing it out into the bathroom sink. Droplets of caramel coffee swirled down the drain, disappearing like your will to escape began to. Chan’s warning to you was a simple threat—a nicely put one but still a promise of consequences to your preemptive attempts for escape.

A lump settled in your throat as you stared in the mirror above the sink, silently trying to convince your reflection that everything was fine.

That you’d find a way out of this soon.

You wanted to believe the determination written across your features would remain, but it consciously vanished when you quietly stepped out of the bathroom and down the dim hallway. You came to a stop at the hall's edge, peeking from behind it to glimpse at the man Chan seemed to be enjoying a conversation with.

He had black hair, and he was around Chan’s height, too, but a bit more muscled than him. And he sounded pleasant, but by now, you’d learned that assuming a stranger's length of kindness by their words was never a good idea.

With pursed lips and a soft gulp, you shifted to hide behind the corner again, unnerved by the prospect of meeting anyone who took to Chan’s company and afraid of having to endure meeting them yourself without the chance to beg for their help to get away from him.

“Shff..*

Your stockings brush along the floor, catching Chan’s attention and bringing his conversation with Changbin to a sudden halt. He glanced at the corner you hid behind, watching Changbin do the same before saying anything. “Baby, come here. Could you introduce yourself to my friend? Don’t be shy..”

You swallow a groan, peeking around the corner again as if he hadn’t caught your presence already, “H-Hi…” you greet the man sitting across from him in the living room.

Chan shakes his head, eyeing you intently. “Don’t be rude, princess. Come out here and meet him.” Changbin laughs, smiling warmly as he shifts in his seat to see your hidden form better. “I swear I don’t bite:” he joked.

Oh…

He seems harmless, but still...

Your heart jumps with a sense of joy you thought had been snuffed out weeks ago. Warmth floods your cheeks, and seeing him stretch out a hand for you to shake is an added sign of goodwill from him.

“Okay…” you mumble, slipping from the hallway to tentatively shake his hand before repeating your greeting upfront. “Hi.”

Changbin chuckled, his brows raising a bit. “I’m Changbin, and you are? " He seemed genuinely intrigued, glancing between you and Chan before the latter cleared his throat.

“Bin, this is Y/n, the girl I told you about…”

“Oh,” Changbin grinned, holding your hand longer than needed as he stared up at you. “She is cute. No wonder you talk about her so much. " He met your lowered eyes, offering a warm smile you barely returned before retracting his hand from yours. “Wait, how long did you say you’ve been together?”

Chan sighed, shrugging at the question despite knowing its exact answer.

Three weeks, sixteen hours, and forty-three minutes is how long you’d been trapped in his sick fantasy.

He’d been counting every second, and now you were, too.

“Six months next week, Bin.”

“And you've already moved in with him? Must be love at first sight…” Changbin looked between you both, ignoring your aversion to looking at Chan directly or oblivious to the tension between you two.

You didn't answer him, lips pressed shut, and your hands nervously twiddling behind your back. Chan answered for you, rising from his spot on the couch to pat Changbin’s stout shoulder as he came to stand by your side. “Must be. Right, sweetheart?” The skin of your lower back gathers goosebumps, feeling his hand firmly plant itself there, thumb tracing the trial of your spine as he eases you closer to him. Your tongue falls flat in your mouth, your body weak and tense all at once from the weight of his touch. Afraid to use your voice without letting out an unseemly sound, you give a gentle no, eyes fluttering between Changbin and Chan, who smile at your silent agreement.

“Are you always this quiet around strangers?” Changbin chuckles, and you embarrassingly shake your head, pressing against Chan’s side as he speaks for you. “Or maybe you're just really loud,” he retorts, inwardly brimming with pride, feeling your body shift towards his for comfort.

Finally.

You were learning to trust him.

To depend on him.

Changbin rolls his eyes, his mouth ticking into an unaffected smirk. “I'm the right amount loud. Otherwise, your tracks would only get so far.” Chan’s body goes rigid at the teasing jab, startling you when his grip on your lower back shifts to your hip to knead the soft skin. You whine quietly as his fingertips bare down on the muscle. The hold grounds him but unnerved you.

He was upset.

That much you could tell, but Chan didn't let anger cloud his features, shrugging off Changbin’s usual innocent jabs at him, “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Bin. “

Said man huffs, staring at Chan for a few seconds before returning to you. “Want to join us for a little bit? I know Chan says you like to spend your free time alone doing your own thing, but since you're here-”

“I’d love to!” Your mouth moves before your mind computes a careful response, growing into a sheepish smile as Changbin laughs at your impulsive reaction. Conversely, Chan seems stiffer by the second, not angered but vaguely displeased.

You ignored it, forcing your nerves to settle despite feeling the air around him thicken with masked tension. “So, what were two talking about earlier? From what I heard, it sounded like a fun conversation.” You smile at Changbin, hoping he'll see the desperation hidden in your eyes as you slip away from Chan and hurry to sit beside him on the sofa.

You're too close to him.

He's too close to you.

That's your first strike, and you don't even realize it.

Chan makes no move to point out your blatant mistake, either. His expression slips into a hardened glare as the two of you converse without him. His eyes burn into the side of your head, fixated on every fluctuating reaction you have to Changbin.

The spark of yearning that returns to your pretty eyes as they focus on him.

The gentle nods you give while he speaks.

How you are a bit closer to him when an intriguing topic extends itself.

Every little thing begins to irritate Chan.

You'd been huddled close to him only a minute ago like a trapped mouse, scared of a stranger and seeking his protection...

And now, here you are, eating up anything and everything his Changbin did or said.

Ungrateful.

Disrespectful.

A little liar is what you were.

Chan couldn't look past it, even as the hours ticked by. He joined in the pleasant conversations that dwindled into laughter over several shared take-out dishes, but he refused to give you the benefit of the doubt any longer. Barely tempering his envy of the attention and comfort you shared with Changbin when he'd done everything for you to earn such things for himself.

So ungrateful.

So fucking needy for another man's attention…

Chan counted down the seconds until Changbin’s phone rang half past one in the morning, vibrating on the glass coffee table you sat in front of with him.

“Hold on. Let me get this real quick,” Changbin said, snatching his phone from the table. He offered you a kind and apologetic smile to make up for shortening your moving conversation. “It's okay,” you mouthed, hands raised to wave off his unneeded reasoning as you watched him stand up to take the call in the hallway. Changbin ruffled his free hand through your hair, giving a silent ‘thank you’ on his way out of the room, flashing Chan a cheeky grin as he disappeared around the corner.

You stared at the empty spot next to you, still reeling through ideas of how to gain Changhins help or at least convince him to let you use his phone without Chan knowing…

But the blonde hadn't left you alone or taken his eyes off you and Changbin for a second the entire time he was there. If anything, Chan watched you painfully closer, looming like a shadow in every interaction and a little too good at insulating you had a healthy, willing, and established relationship with him.

Even if that was the furthest thing from the truth.

Nonetheless, Changbin hadn't shown any signs of recognizing the reality of your unwanted arrangement. You had no chance to subtly hint at it to him, aware of Chan’s vigilance even when he wasn't directly involved in the friendly exchanges.

You'd more than once caught him staring you down, arms folded over his chest, and his jaw set into a tight angle. A shiver ran up your spine every time you caught the look in his eyes.

How cold those brown irises turned, filling with deepening jealousy.

If you hadn't felt trapped and endangered before…

You felt that way now.

Your gaze refused to shift from the carport you sat on, hands twiddling in your lap as your heart raced a little faster second by second.

“You think I'm stupid, baby girl?”

You immediately shake your head ‘no’ as he speaks under the distant sound of Changbin’s ongoing phone call.

Chan scoffs, his head ticking once, and bites back with a wry smile. “Hm. So, she's a fucking liar too…”

It's a statement—an observation he's made, and you cannot deny it.

Your heart drops to the pit of your stomach, lodged there as you shake your head again and finally set your eyes on his.

“Chan, please...I’m not-“

“Shut up.”

Silence.

The moment his command hits your burning ears, a cold, heavy, and suffocating silence blankets the room. He lets it settle, holding your doe-eyed stare with a sharp glare. “Come here.”

Your hands freeze, tears welling in your eyes, but you blink them away.

Crying never works on Chan.

Never.

Your head lowers as you shift onto your knees and grip the coffee table's edge to stand up, a tremble catching your fingers as the cold glass amplifies the heat of anxiety taking over you.

“No,” Chan seethes out, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees, head resting against his left hand as the right beckons you toward him, familiar veins contracting through them from the subtle gestures he makes.“Crawl.”

You swallow like he's shoved a lead pill down your throat by voicing the command, frozen in thinly veiled hesitancy as he waits for you to follow it.

The last remnants of pride and brimming hope melt away from you, drained out of your body as it shifts back from the edge of the table and onto the floor again. Chan watches you lower down to be on your hands and knees, your soft cheeks dampening with a few stray tears as you crawl towards him with timid caution in every move you make. The heat you feel rises to your face, painting it a solemn red when you settle between his legs. Chan plants his feet, making room for you and quickly locking you in his range.

“Turn around,” he whispers, left index finger making a small circle to emphasize the instruction. Slowly, you shift to face away from him, pleading with an invisible force to ease your panic, unable to see what he will do and anticipate when he’ll do so.

Chan hadn’t raised a hand to you. Not once.

He could be rough, drag, and move you with pointed strength when he felt you needed a firmer guide, but hitting you?

Never.

Him showing any sign of brute physicality towards you?

Never.

You’d begun to realize Chan didn’t need to exert force, always expressing it in his words, expressions, and acts of service rather than using violence.

So, your fear -that swirling and dizzying uncertainty you’d felt for weeks- stemmed from a much deeper and deranged concept your mind had conjured up.

You weren’t afraid of Chan.

No…

You were terrified of just how far and how many demented things you’d be willing to let him do to you…

Even if he’d cornered you into them.

Forced you.

You wanted him to do that on a certain level of consciousness. To give up fighting his insistence on loving you his way and bask in it for as long as he’d let you.

You’d begun dreaming about it day and night. Constantly fantasizing about him when you should hate him with every breath you take.

God, you wanted to hate him, claw at him, make him feel the pain you felt sitting alone in the room he kept you locked away in.

But the moment Chan’s breath spanned the nape of your neck, warm and slow as he breathed you in from behind, your head was empty of malicious intent towards him. All you could focus on was him: the smell of his cologne, the heat from his body, and the quiet hum of his satisfaction that seeped straight through your reddened ears down to the space between your legs.

His voice alone made you ache in a way you refused to acknowledge.

You pressed your thighs together, praying the steady pulse in your core would vanish if you tried hard enough to hide it.

You should’ve known better than to hope for any small triumph of self-control being near Chan because the second he saw you tense up and circle your hips, he tugged you back into him.

His left hand grasps the tousled hair at the back of your head, pulling and twisting, while the right grips your throat. A soft gasp of pain and moderate shock left your lips as he reared your head backward with a rough force on your hair, muffling the surprised sighs you let out by pressing the pads of his fingers directly against the nerves of your neck. Chan left you no choice but to inhale sharply through your nose, eyes trained on the twists and turns of your expression while his own remained inches wholly and away stoic.

You clawed at his right hand on intuition, longing for the burning need for air to settle into your lungs. Helpless abs, afraid of your excitement, you struggled against his hold on you, eyes shut tight when he choked you harder and grazed his nose along your cheek until he reached your ear. His lips pressed into a smile, lingering over the sensitive skin as he spoke to you. “I don’t want to hurt you…but,” he exhales, something kin to a groan falling from his mouth before he continues, “…I can’t keep letting you get away with this, baby girl.”

You shudder, stifling a frustrated whimper as Chan places a chaste kiss on the tip of your ear, nuzzling your head with his own as his proper slips under your ankle and forces it apart from your left one—immediate defiance courses through you being put into a new, compromising position.

Held tight against him, barely able to breathe, and legs now spread for him to see what you’d been trying to hide for nearly two weeks.

Clear evidence of how badly you wanted him.

How far you’d fallen into craving him.

Your heart stopped dead in its tracks as cool air enveloped the forming wet patch on your sheer rose pink underwear, barely hidden under the hem of your skirt. Chan whistled lowly at the sight, staring down at the evident mess you were making of yourself.

“Get a look at that, Princess…” he taunted you in a daze, watching your hips twist and buck as you tried to close your legs again and break away from him, but Chan held you steady the more you fought him.

The tears you fought so hard to hold back began to slip past your flutter lashes, dampening your burning cheeks and drizzling down to coat the veiny hand, practically suffocating you. “No…stop…I-it’s not…“ you stumbled to find an excuse, something to say that’d convince him and yourself that your arousal wasn’t natural.

But it was.

And it was thriving by the minute.

Chan bit into his lower lip, glancing over at the corner Changbin had yet to come walking around.

You could faintly hear the other man still speaking to whoever had called him but instantly pushed his princes to the back of your mind, hearing Chan’s voice melt through the air around you. “What am I going to do with you, pretty girl?” He muses, formulating answers to his question while you shiver at its implications. “You’ve been so good, too..” his praise warms your core, numbing your mind as he builds upon it.

“Doing whatever I tell you…” Chan smiles, gaze trained between the hallway entry and your vulnerable position. “Treating yourself better..”

You whine at that, feeling picked apart and full of yourself all at once by him.

“Being the good girl I knew you could be for me,” Chan mutters, his voice warm as new honey and his hand slowly shifting downward in your hair.

Past the nape of your neck, over your shoulder, down to your chest. You tense under his traveling touch, unconsciously arching up against the palm of his heavy hand as it gently kneads your left breast before attending to the right in the same manner.

Your head leers into his shoulder relaxed against the tight muscle he keeps hidden by a black shirt. A soft moan escaped your lips as they parted to attempt to catch a new breath, muffled by the crook of his neck as you inched closer to him the longer he shamelessly groped your chest.

Chan tongued his cheek, feeling your breathy moans fan over his skin, sending rivers of heat down his back, urging him to slip his hand under the hem of the lacey white camisole you wore. “I was so proud of you, baby girl…” he chuckled, eyes cutting towards the hall again before he pushed the half excuse for a shirt up above your perked breasts. You flinched, startled by his intent to fully expose you when his friend was just down the hall, but Chan wasn’t the slightest remorseful or cautious as he palmed your chest. He took his time, thumb rolling over around each of your nipples, slipping to knead your stomach when you arched for more.

“So…so proud,” he mumbles, studying the quick rise and fall of your chest as you try to breathe normally, hands moving to grip your forearm and wrist for a sense of support as he tortures your resolve. “Chan…Chan…please… sorry…I..” you give up speaking, too all over the place mentally to get a coherent sentence out, and ready to accept your fate in any way he gave it to you.

“But I guess even the best of girls need a little reminder, yeah?” Chan peers into your eyes, smiling softly and vaguely playful, but his tone is the furthest thing from it. You shake your head, brows knitting together in desperation. “No!” Chan, please…please, I promise…I’ll be good… I-I promise..”

Your pleading sinks into the room in hushed whispers, scarcely heard by anyone but him, and you watch his expression soften hearing it.

Was that…

Pity…?

Guilt?..

You couldn’t quite place the look on his face as he stared at you, but seconds later, it vanished, replaced with a smile you knew meant nothing good for you.

“I wish I could believe you, baby. I do, but you’ve earned exactly what’s coming to you.”

Chan exhales slowly, letting the hand he has splayed across your stomach inch further down to firmly cup your covered cunt and press his palm against the patch of cum spreading in the thin fabric covering it. You gasped loudly at the contact, hoping Changbin didn’t hear the lewd sound as it dwindled into a low whine.

Chan soaks in your visceral reaction to being touched indirectly, pressing his middle and ring finger into your underwear until he can feel the warmth of your cunt cover then and leak with pent-up arousal. You bit back a strangled scream at the intrusion, reveling in it and greedily rolling your hips forward against his hand for more. The tips of your toes curled through the thigh-high socks you wore because he seemed to like seeing you in them.

Your legs fell further apart, trembling with pleasure as he pumped his thick fingers into your fluttering cunt, soaking them and your ultimately useless panties in cum, and only stopping when the sound of Changbin’s footsteps came from down the hall.

Chan huffed, openly disappointed by the oncoming disruption but content with the state he’d put you in.

“The minute he leaves, you’re mine.” He groans into your ear, releasing you from his hold and readjusting your skirt and shirt before he helps you sit up straight. You blush, rightfully speechless, while he runs a hand through your hair to fix it just as Changbin rounds the corner.

a/n: I have such an intense migraine and it’s killing meeee

other links: n/a yet…

[ BONUS CONTENT + ]

Sluttiest thing this man has ever done is that dammed teaser skit with that obnoxious ass stare and deep voice combo. He looked way too fine with that mask on and he knew it!!! 🖤 credits to creator!

[gyuslvrr]

[ᴋ.ᴛʜ] | 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: interviewing your boyfriend during his recent promotions has you realising how long its been since its just been you and him

ᴀ/ɴ: gn reader ; THIS IS SO BAD IM SO SORRY IM LITERALLY DROWNING IN STRESS FROM SCHOOL AND WORK

THIS IS SO OLD IM SORRY I DIPPED FOR 2 YEARS

— idol!reader x idol!txt masterlist

It’s awkward. It’s awkward to interview your boyfriend and acting as if you’re both strangers who only know each other because of your popularity in korean media.

It’s especially awkward when his band members stare at you with wide, teasing eyes and prolonged answers that sound a bit odd to the audience.

“Cut!” The director yells out and simultaneously the studio erupts into meaningless chatter. You can’t help but feel a bit flustered as your co-host stands up to walk away, meaning that he’s left you alone to speak to the members. The prolonged silence has you cringing as the tomorrow x together members stare at you expectantly, waiting for you to start up a conversation.

It’s like they do it on purpose.

“Why were you guys so awkward?” You whine, hiding behind the cue cards to hide your embarrassed expression. The boys laugh heartily, spewing out their excuses as they begin to speak happily without the restraint of being filmed.

“Because it’s so funny when our Taehyun’s girlfriend is interviewing us!” Beomgyu teases as he cards his hands through Taehyun’s black hair with a cheesy smile on his face.

You can’t help but frown - lightheartedly! - at Beomgyu’s teasing. Taehyun can’t help but giggle playfully, but the act looks so odd when his face is covered in fake cuts and scratches to fit the concept of his title track.

“Yeah. Well, get used to it, Beomgyu” You retort friskily while jabbing your cue cards in the direction of said boy “‘Cause I’m gonna be interviewing you lot every other day” You emphasise the last three words for dramatic impact.

Beomgyu fights back but his voice turns into background noise as Taehyun takes you by the wrist to pull you away from him. Knowing Beomgyu, he would have you arguing with him until the sun set and moon rose that night.

“Beomgyu will hog you if you keep talking to him” Taehyun mumbles as he weaves you between the sea of idols and Inkigayo staff. You exhale with a puff of your chest at the blatant truth, but also in admiration of your boyfriend's face. Peering up to him from his side has your heart fluttering all over again as if it were the first time you had crossed paths with him.

The first time you saw Taehyun, he had fluffy blonde hair and was wearing pastel clothes but now with his shaggy black hair and grunge clothing it’s almost as if you were dating a different boy. But you weren’t. No matter how Taehyun looked, he would always be the same Taehyun you fell in love with.

“You look pretty today, by the way” Taehyun smiles compassionately as he flickers his gaze back down to you. It’s as if he read your mind but the act has your stomach flipping nervously and you can’t help but look away from unusual bashfulness.

Being caught up in your own thoughts you don’t realise how quickly Taehyun had found the empty corridor idol couples would usually escape too. Luckily - or unfortunately for others - the corridor never had a lot of traffic in it as couples would rarely be promoted at similar times.

“You’re too quiet. Why are you shy?” He asks as he uses his right hand to tuck a piece of your curled hair behind your ear. The act causes a warmth to race to your cheeks.

“Just thinking” You start as your hands begin to toy with the buttons on Taehyun’s shirt. Taehyun watches curiously with his usual sparkle in his wide eyes “Just thinking about how when I first met you… You were so different”

Taehyun peers quizzically and with his head titled to the left, you can picture a comical question mark above his head.

“Is that bad…?” He trails.

“No! It’s not bad but I was thinking how when I first met you… it was during blue hour promotions and you were so different on the outside?” You almost cringe at your words and Taehyun breathes out an airy laugh as you begin to spill out any words that would come to your head.

“But even with you being so.. emo?” You giggle with Taehyun “You’re still Taehyun… You know?”

Taehyun blinks slowly as he processes the spew of backed up thoughts that had clearly been sitting in your mind for a while now.

“I mean, just because my hair is black now I’m not gonna change my personality” Taehyun teases as he brings his thumb and forefinger to your cheek to pinch it facetiously. A grumble leaves your mouth as you pull away from Taehyun timidly.

“Hey..”

“I feel like this is more than just me changing hair colours, isn’t it?” Taehyun questions softly. With your back against the wall ( both physically and metaphorically ) you can’t help but feel like you should clear the air.

“I miss you a lot, Tyunnie” The pout takes place on your face as soon as you finally spill the truth. Taehyun mirrors your expression almost immediately as he pulls you towards his chest.

Relaxing into Taehyun helps your heart rest a little. Having not spoken to your boyfriend about serious things since his schedule had been so packed, you felt as if a weight had been lifted off of your shoulder - but also a sense of anxiety after revealing the truth.

“I promise as soon as I’m done with promotions I’m taking you on the best date ever” Taehyun declares with a determined look on his face. The expression causes you to laugh heartily to which Taehyun smiles genuinely.

“You know I’d be happy to go to your dorms if it meant I got to spend time with you” Your flirty confession has Taehyun scoffing as he nods his head away from your face.

“You just want to see Odi” He shakes his head dismissively.

You smile “You caught me” You joke as Taehyun laughs once more.

[seredelgi]

Sweet Punishment

fandom: Attack On Titan/ Shingeki No Kyojin

pairing: Dom!Levi Ackerman x Sub!Fem!Reader, Levi Ackerman x You

summary: Reader's relationship with Levi is everything she could've asked for, he's very sweet and never gets mad at her. There's only one little rule she needs to follow, and when she fails to, then he'll have to punish her.

rating: Mature, 18+

warnings: dom!levi, sub!reader, smut, like a lot, fingering, sex, vaginal sex, dubious consent (she enjoys it tho, believe me), spanking, blood (just a little cut on the lip, but still), unprotected sex (don't try it at home lol), penetration, manhandling (just a tiny bit, she's totally fine) vulgar language?, oh yeah, choking (no passing out), orgasm denial, slight degradation?, idk, this man has me feral, NO SPOILERS

word count: 4.6k

a/n: alright alright, last episode is out, and I'm just in love with Levi so I went down a rabbit hole of smut before deciding to write something down. It's just a scrap, I haven't put much thought in it so keep it in mind. Also, English is not my mother tongue, so go easy on me. Thoughts are in italic

tags: @imlevisoneandonlywife

Part 2

Your boyfriend is just so very good to you that it often makes you question how in the world have you gotten so lucky.

He’s known to be a man of few words, a true soldier, the best in what he does. You’ve never seen him in action, of course, but you’ve heard the stories and the way they’re being told. His subordinates tell them with a glimpse of ecstatic excitement in their eyes, his colleagues with a blatant silent respect. It’s honestly mesmerizing to see the effect he has on people.

But it is nothing compared to the effect he has on you.

You don’t need to see him slaying Titans to know he’s the best. He carries it wherever he goes, whatever he does, he has an aura to him that just draws you in.

And even though he’s perceived by everyone to be just a grumpy man, you get to see his sweetest side. Once Levi gets someone close to his heart, he becomes so severely attached to them that it’s almost suffocating. He showers you with his love and attention, compliments, gifts, simple little signs of his undying devotion towards you. And even though infamously ruthless on the battlefield, you’ve never seen him upset in your regards. Not that you’ve ever given him any reason to be, it’s pretty simple to please him. He’s not even the jealous type, maybe ‘cause he’s way too confident for his own good.

There’s only one little thing that he won’t compromise on.

Since the first time you two have had sex, he’s firmly stated that he wanted to be the only one to pleasure you, that not even you were permitted to relieve the tension on your own. It took you aback a little, but since he’d just managed to make you see stars you agreed.

Honestly, that decision has never truly bothered you that much, he was definitely worth the wait.

But now, as you're home alone waiting for him to get back home, you can’t stop thinking about him, about how good it feels to have him slide inside of you, and pump in and out with that effortlessly relentless pace he usually reserves you so kindly.

You try to focus on each chore you’re on at the moment, but anytime you try your mind seems to wander on its own, and you find yourself aching for him, catching glimpses of the clock hanging in the kitchen, counting down the hours that separate you from seeing him again.

You must be ovulating, ‘cause you feel so damn empty just thinking about him, needing to be filled so desperately it’s almost funny.

“ Just hormones” you huff quietly as you finish washing the dishes “ breathe, y/n”

You’ve never actually considered breaking Levi’s rules, you wouldn’t like lying to him about it. But right now his request just seems so unreasonable.

You eye the door of your bedroom from afar.

He doesn’t have to know.

It’s just one little slip, one little sin to remove a bit of the tension and be able to ease your mind.

For some reason your heart’s racing as you tiptoe silently towards the bedroom, sitting on your bed and sighing as you remember what happened in it the other night. Thinking about it makes you feel incredibly hot between your legs. You can feel your juices stain the white cotton of your panties.

You bite your bottom lip, considering if maybe you should just get up and get back to your chores, maybe put something up in the oven for dinner.

But it’s impossible when all it takes is for you to close your eyes and you can see him, holding you in his arms, leaving humid kisses down your neck, whispering huskily in your ear all the things he wants to do to you.

“ Fuck it” you click your tongue in surrender and place yourself laying back on the center of the mattress.

It’s his fault honestly, for being so ridiculously hot and impossible to wait for. And anyway, he’ll never know. You’ll make it quick. It’s still an hour before he comes back. Plenty of time for you to get off even more than once.

So you lean back and relax.

You close your eyes and he’s there again, looking down at you with hungry eyes, touching you all over your naked body. And as you imagine his touch upon you it’s easy, almost like following his orders, scanning your hands upon the warm skin of your breasts, your fluttering stomach, all the way down between your thighs.

You get rid of your panties, breaths quickening as you can feel his tongue sucking on your hardened nipples. Your whole body is aching so bad just thinking about it, yearning for his hands on you so bad it’s almost bruising.

As you part your legs and gently slip your middle finger between your folds a sudden cry of arousal breaks free from your throat. You just wish it were him touching you, his fingers sliding silently inside of you as you're doing now, gathering your juices before slipping out of your entrance again to bring them toward your clit.

You’re so incredibly wet. He’d surely comment on it if he were here, mocking you for how desperate you look for him. It would be embarrassing if it didn’t turn you on even more. And now that your fingertips are finally massaging your bundle of nerves, that agonizing tension you’ve been feeling all day just gathers in your lower abdomen, ready to let loose.

You’ve been horny all day, so it figures that you’re already so close.

It’s shameful, but it’s true.

Your free hand grips your sheets so hard you think you’ll have to iron them again if you don’t want Levi to notice. But that’s not your concern now. You’re lost in your lust, eyes shut picturing your man sliding inside of you with his cock, whispering all kinds of dirty prayers into your ear. It’s almost as if he’s there.

“ What do you think you’re doing?”

You take a few instants to realize that it’s really him asking you that, flesh and blood in your room, standing by the door and looking at you with the kind of gaze that you’re sure would send any reasonable man a shiver running down their spine.

“ Fuck- Levi” you pant, your hand coming off of you in a spurt, hoping in vain that he won’t comment on it, that he’ll let it slide “ I didn’t hear you come in”

His silver-grey eyes don’t come off of you as you sit at attention, closing your legs and trying to gain some composure. Your mind spins so fast it takes your breath away, your heart stammering loudly in your chest as he clenches his jaw.

He’s standing there, mere meters away from you, his uniform still on, a severe expression darkening his beautiful features.

That’s impossible not to find hot.

“ Yeah, that much was clear” he hums, and by the tone of his voice it’s difficult to determine how actually mad he is, being it the first time you ever break that rule “ So this is what you do when you’re home alone, huh?”

“No it’s not like that, I was just-” you don’t know why you’re so fast at trying to justify yourself when you know full well you haven’t done anything wrong.

You should tell it to him straight. That he doesn’t own you. He might be the best fighter in the known world, a Captain of the Scouts Corp, but that doesn’t give him the right to exert control over your God damn body.

But the words die in your throat. It’s suddenly really hot in there, and you’re still very fucking horny. You’re ashamed to admit that you find yourself quite attracted to this side of him, one you’ve never had the pleasure to fully unravel.

“ Just what? Trying to have fun without me?” he’s finally moving, walking towards the chair in front of your bed, getting rid of his jacket and placing it tiredly upon it.

“ Just warming up for when you came home, honey” you sound so out of breath, and you’re trembling.

You don’t actually think he would do you any harm, and yet his eyes suggest otherwise, his demeanor exudes danger from every pore. If that’s just a hint of the coldness he carries himself into battle with, then it’s no wonder fucking Titans fall at his feet.

“ You know that’s not how it works” his voice is low, steady “ But maybe you need a little reminding”

A hint of mischief lightens up the tension, and he starts walking towards you, slow and lethal like the man you know he is.

“ I didn’t even finish, I swe-”

But you’re cut off by his sudden movement, a quick dash to get a hold of your face, squishing your cheeks together with a hand, he gives you the kind of look that shuts you the hell up and gets that familiar tickle go wild between your legs. You subtly squeeze your thighs together to give your pussy some kind of attention, disobeying right in front of him kind of getting you off now.

“ I’m the only one that can give you pleasure” he almost growls at you, and his hold is so strong it’s bruising you now “ Understood?”

“ Yes, Sir” it’s all you’re able to reply, mind too foggy to gather anything else.

But it looks like he likes it, ‘cause he lets you go, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

Levi Ackerman doesn’t smile easily. So you guess you’ll call him that in the bedroom more often.

He sits on the edge of the bed, and you’re almost disappointed, thinking he’s already done with you.

“ Over my lap” he instructs instead “ Now”

You’re kind of confused about what exactly he’s got in mind. But it doesn’t look like a great idea to ask out loud, so you find yourself complying, crawling towards him, legs a bit shaky from the missed orgasm you almost managed to give yourself.

You get within reach of him, not sure how he wants you to position yourself.

“ How do I-”

But you’re cut off again by his hand reaching for your wrist, tugging you forward, and having you stumble upon him, ending up stomach flat against his thighs. You resist the urge to whine in protest, sensing he’s not keen on you speaking up right about now.

You feel the light fabric of your sundress being roughly lifted up your ass, revealing to him your nakedness.

He sits in appreciation of the view in front of him for a few instants, and you’re feeling every nerve-ending on your body standing at attention for what he’s gonna do next.

The first slap makes your heart skip a beat, you hold your breath and close your eyes shut, and somehow you still manage to hold in your cry of pain. It’s sudden and disconcerting, and it kind of feels wrong to stay silent while he takes such liberties with your body, and yet it makes you squirm in your place to feel more.

The stinging that comes from the second one is even better, ‘cause you’ve expected it, and the high that comes next is kind of inebriating to your drunken senses.

Oh God, you’re so down bad for this man you’ll let him treat you like a disobedient child.

With the third one you can’t help yourself, you cry out in pain as the burning sensation gets your insides in a twirl, while the aching between your legs won’t stop growing desperate by the second.

“ I told you couldn’t do it” his voice is hoarse now, the sound of lust tainting it so clearly it only makes you hornier “ Don’t I give you enough pleasure? Enough attention?” he slaps you hard, and yet it’s not hard enough for you to feel the vibrations of your thighs giving you some kind of relief from the tension you’re holding up between your legs “Are you really that needy?”

You muffle a protest, almost crying from how much you feel desperate for him to touch you, but you don’t dare ask.

Luckily it’s like he’s in your mind, ‘cause you feel his hand suddenly stopping from imparting you that sweet punishment, only to make its way between your reddened thighs, finding your liquids covering their insides, and it’s so good to hear a falter of genuine stupor in his voice as he appraises how wet you are from what he’s doing to you “ Fuck, you really are, aren’t you?” he murmurs, and you can almost feel him licking his lips as he comes to touch your hole now, finding it drenched with your juices “ You’re a fucking mess”

You really are. Your liquids are audibly enveloping his fingers as he sinks them deep into you without much effort, your walls sucking him in. You let go of a sigh of pure ecstasy as you finally feel him fill you up as you’ve longed for all day long. It’s not enough, you want his cock balls deep into you, but you don’t think you’re in the position to make any requests right now.

His desire is undeniable at this point, you can feel it poking at your stomach as he starts pumping his fingers into you, so slowly you’re sure he wants to kill you with this fake kindness. Having his erection pressing into you like that is torture too. He must know that’s what you want. Heck, he seems horny enough to give it to you now, and yet he refrains. What is he up to?

“ You’re so fucking spoiled” he comments as his fingers start pumping at a much higher pace, getting to that spot inside of you that he knows how much you like “ Can’t even wait an hour for me to get home, huh?”

You’re so undeniably turned on, and yet some kind of rebellious part of you hates to let him know so blatantly, and has you trying to refrain from making too much noise. But it’s almost impossible. It would be so much easier to say you’re sorry and have him shift back into his normal tender self, but you’re high on this, and it feels like a waste to have it stop right now.

“ What’s this?” he asks, his tone slightly irritated by your sudden attitude, and you have to put all your efforts into stopping yourself from whimpering when his hand slips out of you so suddenly it makes your whole body shiver “ The silent treatment?”

He reaches for your lips with his other hand, the one that’s not covered in your liquids, and he parts them slowly. You’re too slow to realize what he wants to do, and before you know it you’ve got his thumb inside your mouth and the rest of his fingers holding your neck, lifting you from where you lay on top of him, making you look into his dark grey eyes.

“ Apologize now, and I’ll be gentle”

You don’t want gentle. Not anymore. And neither does he. You can see it in his eyes, he’s hungry for more, he just keeps it together better than you ever could.

“ You fon’t- owm’e” your muffled words were meant to sound challenging, but your eyes, you’re sure, they’re begging for him to fuck you, and this facade of yours is practically ridiculous.

You know ‘cause his smirk is chilling, amused by your pathetic attempts at making this interesting, when really, all he wants is for you to beg him to give it to you.

“ We’ll see about that”

He shoves you back down on the mattress, slipping his thumb out of your warm mouth before getting up with his knees pressing down on the bed and going for his belt, and you can’t help your eyes from lingering on his hurried movements as he lowers his pants and boxers just enough that you can see his cock finally popping out, and it’s so hard it’s almost threatening.

You knew he was just as impatient as you were, finding you getting off on your bed with his name probably escaping your lips must’ve been a treat he wasn’t expecting to stumble upon. But seeing it made you even more eager to feel it inside.

He crawls on top of you so that he’s all you can see, but he’s all you can ever see when you’re this horny.

You lunge up towards his lips. He still hasn’t kissed you, and by now it feels natural to want to, but he dodges you, making you almost pout in response.

“ There are no kisses for bad girls”

That’s so unfair you almost give in on the spot, the apology nearly rolling off your tongue so that you can be able to taste his inside of you.

Instead, you start kissing his neck, but he takes you harshly by the throat and presses you hard into the mattress.

Fuck him, he’s playing dirty.

He presses a knee down between yours and has you part your legs so easily it’s freaking frightening. If it weren’t for the fact that he lowered himself upon the skin of your neck, pressing his cock on the center of your cunt you would be complaining to yourself about how much control he has over you. But you like it too much to really care.

He starts kissing your neck slowly, so slowly it feels like torture, and his hips start rutting against your dripping core at the same dangerous pace. He can kill you with all of this, gentle when you want hard fucking and bites and marks to last for days. And yet it’s enough pressure, enough contact to leave you on the edge, enough to feel like crying with frustration. He’s already brought you so close with his hand before, and you almost came on your own before that, you’re practically holding on for dear life at this point.

“ Levi-” you can’t help but sob in his ear, feeling his breath grazing upon your warm skin as he answers you, his voice a delicate purr:

“ Yes?”

“ Please- fuck” you beg, dignity be damned. You’re a whore for this man, who are you even kidding?

“ Please what?” his tip is slowly pushing inside of you, only to slip out again as he teases you, and you think he’s never been so damn cruel to you in bed. It’s intoxicating how much you’re liking it.

“ Please, please, Levi, fuck me” your voice is so distorted by need that it’s practically unrecognizable, and the kind of chuckle that he ghosts upon your skin when he finally decides to stop playing with you would have your blood run cold, wouldn’t it be for the hotness of being surrounded by him with so much desire.

“ As you wish” he only says, before finally sliding his whole length inside of you, one deep thrust and you’re fucking screaming into the void of the room, clinging to his back and begging to the Gods above for it to never stop.

He’s finally fucking you as you wanted, deep thrusts crashing against your aching clit, your juices dripping down on the freshly clean sheets of your bed to create a pool of delicious wetness beneath you two.

He raises, towering over you, and he’s just so damn beautiful that he looks unreal.

“ Apologize” he orders again, this time you can hear the slightest little falter in his voice as he pumps in and out of you without mercy, still holding you down against the mattress by the neck.

Heck no.

You can’t risk this stopping now that you’re finally filled with him, now that you’re so close to getting what you’ve wanted all day.

You find the strength to shake your head no.

You catch a glimpse of indignation glinting in his eyes, something so fleeting it’s gone in an instant, but it’s impossible to feel scared when every single movement of his is sending shivers down your spine, and each thrust against your clit brings you one step closer to fucking paradise.

You’re already so close, and you’re so drunk on pleasure that you’re way past feeling shameful for it. You’re a babbling mess and you just love it.

“ Don’t you dare come” he threatens. His voice rasp, his breaths quicker and you feel something twist inside of you. He can’t do this to you. He can’t play with you like this. It’s simply evil.

“ Please” you whine, your voice a whisper, your eyes teary, his hold on your neck starting to limit the amount of air being able to reach your lungs. You feel like passing out like this would be heaven on earth. But you want to cum first.

He can’t rob you of it, not after all that you’ve let him do to you today. So you’ll come and hope for dear life to be able to refrain yourself from making it obvious.

You can feel your walls clenching around his cock, any thrust of his could be the last one, before-

Fuck. He can’t be serious.

He slipped out while you were almost there.

He’s nuzzling his nose against your neck, leaving little bites on your impatient skin as you cry, only able to complain.

“ I know you too well by now, love” he murmurs silently on your skin, his hand on your throat finally coming off, making you able to breathe in properly “ I can feel when you’re close, you can’t fool me”

He raises his silver-grey eyes upon you, and they’re filled with dark intents, so dangerous that your heart skips a beat.

“ Now apologize” his voice is firm, and his tone is so low it almost feels like a threat. This time, you know, if you don’t he’ll walk away on you. And you can’t have it.

“ I’m sorry” you finally give in, tears running down your cheeks, a pathetic mess, desperate to feel your man filling you up with his cum “ I’m sorry, Levi, please”

He sighs as if annoyed by all of this.

“ Will you ever disobey me again?”

“ Never, fuck- I swear” you’re too fast to shake your head no to that, giving him up any control he wanted over you and your body “ I will never touch myself again, I promise, Captain”

Much like the ‘Sir’ you had uttered before, this too sends a proud little sparkle flying in his irises, and at that he falls apart too, kissing your neck violently and sinking inside of you again, revealing himself just as lost in his desire as you are.

“ You’re so hot when you beg me” he chants upon your skin and you shiver as he bites your neck and sucks onto your tender skin, making you moan his name so loud you’re glad you don’t have any neighbors “ I love it, fuck- I love you”

It’s not often that Levi throws those words at you, and any time he does it feels like you’re golden in his hands, like you’re the last meal for a starved man.

His pace has become relentless, and it’s breaking you apart.

You meet his eyes, and this time around there’s no more coldness in them, no more anger or attitude of any kind, his features have softened underneath the burden of pleasure, and his eyes are so full of love it makes you hold your breath and cross your legs around his waist, keeping him so close you can feel his heart beating underneath his chest.

At times like this you can’t believe he’s yours, can’t believe you get to be fucked by the best soldier humanity has ever seen. You’re blessed. So what if you can’t touch yourself? All of this is just so worth it.

“ Can I kiss you now?” you ask, breathless.

He looks down on you with a hint of stupor, as if he were surprised that right now, a step away from your orgasm, you still look for his lips. And then he crashes down upon you, kissing you as if he hadn’t in years, as if there is no one else in the world.

You’re washed over by a sense of ecstasy, it runs throughout your whole body as you chase your relief, and when you finally break apart, you start shuddering against him, crying his name in his mouth, thanking him for everything he’s making you feel.

“ That’s it” you hear him in the background of your pleasure, praising you upon your feverish skin “ my good girl”

And then he kisses you again, this time violent, ravenous.

As you slowly come down from your high a sudden pain makes you realize he’s bit your lip, and by the drops of red staining his mouth when he parts from you you think he’s cut it, his hand clasping around your neck again, his brows furrowed, his eyes upon you.

“ You’re mine, yeah?”

He asks it with a verge of doubt, a vulnerability he rarely grants himself, usually when it concerns you.

It makes your heart ache and you kiss him again, the ferrous taste of your own blood corrupting the delicious one of his lips. You find it astounding that he even feels the need to ask you this, especially after all that has just occurred, the way you’ve let him dispose of you. Whose else would you ever be?

“ Only yours, Levi Ackerman, always”

“ Fuck- I’m so close” he pants.

“ Cum inside of me” you beg him quietly, and he sets you free of the hold on your neck and crashes down on you, slipping his arms under your shoulders and keeping you so close to him he could probably break you.

“ You want it in your pretty pussy, huh?” he asks, his voice croaking with pleasure, it almost breaks from how close he is.

“ Yes, Sir”

That seems to do it, ‘cause he lets out the kind of groan you’ve learned to recognize as he holds you to him, his movements erratic, his breaths hot and heavy against your neck, through your hair. He slams a hand on the headboard to keep himself steady, and you see his face twist deliciously as he’s overcome with pleasure.

“ Fuck” he swears as you feel his hot seed springing into you, filling you up as you’ve longed for, and it’s just perfect. You love feeling him emptying inside of you, it makes you feel fulfilled. It drives you.

He towers above you for a few more instants, his heavy breaths crashing down on you, lips still red from your blood. Then he comes collapsing beside you, still dressed in his uniform, even though some of his buttons have accidentally been undone in the heat of the moment.

You lay silently for a while, the high of passion slowly taming as you both wrap your heads around whatever has just happened. You’re kind of shocked. You honestly did not think you would be into any of what’s just occurred, but he’s just too hot to be denied.

“ Maybe I should try to masturbate more often” you casually throw the words in the silence of the room, hoping to elicit a laugh from him.

Long shot.

“ Don’t you dare” he threatens instead.

[pastafossa]

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. 

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? 

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. 

[spxllcxstxr]

Fair Winds and Following Seas • R.R

(Gif not mine)

Request: That Roman soulmate fic was sooo good 😭😭😭 argfhh biting my pillow rn. May I request a scene rewrite of your choice of them already in an established relationship? They’d have cute bickering and lots of casual physical contact all the time. Maybe theyre on a yacht together like that one episode and theyre just so intertwined all the time that its hard to tell where roman ends and reader starts 😣-- anon

Summary: Roman seems to like casual intimacy, even in front of his family

Warnings: fem!reader (she/her pronouns used), based on 2x10 “this is not for tears,” established relationship, alcohol, ken suicide joke (one line, nbd), roman jokingly calls something 'domestic abuse' it certainly is NOT that, normal Roman shenanigans

Word Count: 1.1k

A.N: guys, I usually write fantasy so this dialogue may just suck ass im SORRY LMAO, lemme know what you think!!! Hope you guys enjoy! Roman is so bbg

•

The Mediterranean sun warms your exposed skin while the sea breeze keeps you from getting uncomfortably hot. The Roy's certainly knew how to take a vacation.

Roman lazily drapes his arm over your shoulders, the small act of casual intimacy in front of his siblings something you still can't really get used to just yet. The family, you learned pretty quickly, was not a clingy one, so Roman's constant need to be touching you in some way in front of them was unexpected.

You sigh happily at his side, ignoring the boring work talk the siblings had already immersed themselves in.

The weather was just too divine for you to focus on anything other than the free vacation and your boyfriend.

Shiv's piercing blue eyes peer curiously over her dark sunglasses. Her gaze causes you to straighten your back and shift ever so slightly away from Roman. You've noticed that her and Tom were never exactly touchy, but then again her and Tom were barely a loving couple.

The harsh scrutiny of her stare doesn't go unnoticed by Roman, who immediately pulls you back closer to him. Your cheeks flush at his blatant display of affection.

"Something the matter, Siobhan?" Roman asks, his voice slightly higher than usual with a British twang to it. His fingers absentmindedly trace odd shapes across your back. He sips at his cocktail, eyebrows raised waiting for her retort.

Shiv’s intense gaze slowly slides over to Kendall. Their older brother offers your group a half-assed shrug.

"Nothing at all, Roman." She offers you both a tight-lipped smile, swirling her white wine in front of her.

Awkwardly you lean back into him as he sarcastically grumbles something under his breath, unconvinced. Roman’s body in tense beside you, but stays firmly pressed next to your own.

Sounds of waves crashing against the yacht and distant conversations almost lure you to sleep though the three sibling’s chatter keeps you just conscious enough that you don’t completely drift off.

You hear Kendall get up from his seat, his joints popping.

"I'm gunna go check on dad," He says, voice low though he knows you're not actually asleep. "I'll catch you guys later."

"Just don't jump off the boat, Ken. We're not turning the ship around just for your old-ass." Roman jokes before yelping at Shiv's slap to the shoulder.

You hide your tiny grin with a fake yawn.

"Very funny, Rome," Ken mutters before leaving the three of you.

It's awkward, just the three of you alone; the tension is so thick it could be cut with a knife. Shiv clears her throat and you can only imagine the patronizing look she has on her face. Roman shifts, and most likely flips her off, but otherwise he's silent.

Moments later you hear the thud of expensive yet tacky yachting shoes against the floorboards, which could only mean Tom.

"Shiv, uh," The man stutters, obviously distracted by something. Slowly you open an eye, peering over at the man. "Why don't we go and uh, discuss that thing from before, huh?"

Tom's eyes can barely settle on one thing, he looks between you and Roman before only briefly settling on his wife. His cheeks are a little red, but with a man that pasty, it's sure to be a light sunburn.

"Oh yeah?" She asks, almost seductively, blue eyes twinkling with some hidden secret.

Tom's lips tilt down into a frown, now no longer even looking in your direction. He's jealous, you figure, you've never seen him and Shiv cuddled up like this, at least not comfortably so. Someone is always tense and irritated.

After sparing her husband a glance, you see her eyes narrow and her lips drawing into a tight line.

You offer them a smile while Roman once again gives a rude gesture.

Swiftly, Shiv rises from her seat, empty wine glass in hand. She barely gestures a simple goodbye before walking away with Tom. You watch as she says something to him, which makes him recoil from her.

You could only imagine what that was about, but you figure it was you and Roman.

You press your cheek even harder against Roman's chest, almost like you're trying to burrow your way under his skin. The fresh white linen shirt he's wearing is soft underneath you. His uncalloused fingertips continue to dance across your exposed arm.

He's no longer tense, you notice; his muscles are more relaxed now that his siblings are nowhere to be seen. Logan wasn't around either, which eased the thick and looming tension that usually hung around the family.

Roman chuckles, tangling his feet around yours.

"What's got you all giggly today?" You ask, closing your eyes as you soak in more of the warmth.

"I'm not giggly, thank you very much. Giggling is for school girls and wine drunk single moms."

"Yeah, ok," You snort, smiling.

"You're just all over me like a fucking uh--"

"Koala?"

"Nah, more like one of those bigass fucking boa constrictors, y'know the ones I'm talking about?"

"A boa constrictor?" You gasp, jokingly offended at his words. Shifting from your position you eye your boyfriend. "You asshole!" Grabbing a small pillow from beside you, you hit him square in the chest repeatedly.

You're hovering over him, knees on either side of his hips, pinning him to the couch below him.

"Hey, hey!" He laughs, attempting to grab your wrists. "This is domestic abuse! ABUSE! ABUSE! Greg call the cops, she's beating me!"

Somewhere in the distance you can only faintly hear Greg stutter something, but your laughter is too loud to actually make it out.

Roman finally grabs the decorative pillow out of your hands and flings it somewhere.

His brown hair is messy, strands dangle in front of his eyes, no longer slicked back and proper. The laughter dies down but his bright smile remains, melting your heart.

"You're an absolute prick, Roman Roy, y'know that?" You whisper, lips lingering right over his.

"Oh I know," He smirks, irritatingly handsome like usual, eyes flicking between your own and your lips. "And you fucking love it."

Surging up, his lips connect with yours, traces of coconut and pineapple left on his tongue. The sweetness of rum mingles with the fruity aftertaste.

Humming in satisfaction, you close your eyes and place your hands on either side of his face, leaning into the kiss. Roman's light scruff rubs against your palms.

Eventually you pull back in order to breathe in the salty Mediterranean air. Roman's lips chase after your own, hoping to continue and subsequently never stop again.

"Yeah, I do." You sigh, gazing at his eyes as they turn into a molten shimmering gold hue in the afternoon sun.

•

[hareofhrair]

Edith Finch and the Unreliable Narrator

Oh you thought I was done losing my shit over that game? Nah I’ve just been letting it ferment a while. This is just part one because I need to sleep, I’ll hit you with the rest later.

What Remains of Edith Finch has been analyzed pretty thoroughly through the years since its release, but none of the analysis I've seen has ever quite done it for me, in part because I think they are all overlooking an incredibly crucial element of the story.

This is a story about unreliable narrators.

It's not just a cheeky reference that House of Leaves is one of the books found throughout the Finch house. It too is about nested unreliable narration, and I believe is there to draw attention specifically to this element of the game. Edith is not telling us the truth. The stories she reads are not telling her the truth. The result is a matroyshka doll of contradictions and carefully unexamined clues.

Here's a few of the more blatant contradictions, just to prove my point.

Grandma Edie is wheelchair bound. Yet in the retelling of Edith's final night in the house, she sees Edie standing unassisted on the porch. But eh, it's difficult to see. Maybe she had a walker. (Edit: nah that's totally a walker forget this one)

So how about this little nugget.

We are given explicit dates for when Lewis died, when Edith and her mother left, and when Edie died.

Actually, we're given two explicit dates for when Edie died.

We have Lewis's date of death from his tombstone, as November 21, 2010. Edith specifies it was exactly a week after this (November 28) that her mother informed Edie they were leaving, and that same night they fled the house, leaving Edie alone. Edith claims Edie was found dead by nursing home carers the next morning, November 29.

The date on Edie's tombstone is December 5th. A solid week after Edith claims she died.

Here's one of my favorites. Walter is hit by a train that should not exist. The real life Orcas island does not have a train, but in most games I would simply write that off as artistic liberty.

But having a train on an island that small at all does not make sense. Furthermore, even if there were a train, why would the tunnel pass directly under a residential home? Having lived near train tracks, if it were that close to the house at all, the entire family would have been very aware of it, and yet it seems to have caught Walter by surprise. And where is it now? Did they shut it down after Walter was hit? And why would Walter take a sledgehammer to a random wall in the inexplicable tunnels below his already subterranean secret bunker, instead of just going up stairs? Was he afraid of going back through the house? And more importantly:

How does Edith know about any of this?

She had no idea Walter was down there.

("After Barbara died he got as far away as he could" is another lie btw. Walter didn't enter the bunker until he was 16, eight years after Barbara's death, the same year Dawn was born)

So what did they tell her when he died, in 2005, when she was about six years old? Maybe they hid it from her, she's a small child, maybe she just didn't remember. What did they tell her at literally any time after that when she presumably asked about Walter's grave in the family plot? She knew Walter existed, she played in his bedroom. Did she never ask where he was? What happened to him? She has a mysterious uncle she's never met, and then one day out of nowhere there's a new grave for him out back, and she doesn't ask for any explanation about that?

Walter's letter doesn't say he was hit by a train.

I bring this one up not because it's a particularly blatant contradiction, it's actually a pretty fuzzy one with a lot of weird, circumstantial explanations. But it leads into one I think is really important.

When Edith arrives at the house, she informs us the power has been cut off.

But after she leaves the bunker, lights begin turning on.

Eventually culminating in Edith's room being fully illuminated.

This is also the point at which she stops talking about investigating and wanting to find out the truth and switches to "Maybe there is no truth, actually! Maybe it was all just a self fulfilling prophecy and none of these bizarre situations mean anything! You should definitely NOT come here and dig deeper into it."

This is the point at which I think Edith switches from more or less honestly repeating unreliable stories she has no way of verifying, to straight up lying to us, in an effort to discourage her son from ever coming here. There's no answers here, she assures him. Stay away.

People who try to handwave this as a mundane situation, either caused by hereditary mental illness (some real ableist takes about that out there btw yall, yikes) or simply a string of unrelated tragedies highlighting the randomness of death, the complicated ways we grieve, and how sometimes when people die they leave behind unanswered questions that we simply have to live with— Are neglecting the aspects of the story which are blatantly fantastical.

This "string of unrelated tragedies" has been haunting this same family for over 500 years. To the degree there are multiple books written about the curse, by presumably non family members. A man sailed a house across the Atlantic for pete's sake. Even looking at just the deaths since the Finches arrived in America, you cannot tell me that's a normal amount of tragic, unnatural deaths. And Finches have apparently been dying this way and at this rate since the 1400's. You're really going to tell me that's just bad luck? If nothing else, the fact that the family hasn't died out yet with a death rate that high is proof of something unnatural.

How about the fact that Edith's mother was SO alarmed by Edie trying to give her that history of the family, that she got into a physical altercation with a 93 year old, then fled the house, literally just grabbed her kid and booked it, abandoning literally everything she owned, including mementos of her dead husband and children. And then she never came back for them.

If this was a simple case of Dawn and Edie having a personal disagreement, even a pretty intense one worth cutting someone off for, you would think at some point in the seven years following Edie's death, she might have wanted to come back and pick up her stuff!

What was it about Edie trying to give Edith that book that made Dawn change her plans from "we're going to move out" to "we are leaving immediately with the clothes on our backs and never coming back?"

Why does Dawn think Edie's stories killed her children?

And why does Edith never enter the library?

Once we're shown that final evening in the house, it's clear that Edith has known the secret passage into the library from the start. And yet, in the "present" of the game, she never enters it. We only see the inside of the library during her flashback.

You would think, of all the answers Edith might want, the biggest might be what was in that book Edie tried to give her. And if it's anywhere, it's probably still in the library.

But it doesn't come up. Edith, very carefully, I think, completely avoids the subject.

Let's talk about Milton for a minute.

Milton's story is the shortest and contains the least actual details about what may have happened to him. He simply disappeared. Important note, he's not the only one. Barbara's boyfriend also "just disappeared." If I had a nickle for every mysterious disappearance that's happened in this house, I'd have two nickles! Which isn't a lot, but hey, I think maybe any mysterious disappearances are unusual, let alone two.

According to the writers, Milton is the king in their other game "The Unfinished Swan," which is a surreal fantasy that takes place in a magic kingdom. Kind of rules out Milton having just fallen in the lake and drowned during a mental health episode, doesn't it? Kinda makes it explicit that something not normal is going on here, doesn't it?!

Milton's murals are in every secret passage in the house. He knew them all. He knew the house better than maybe anyone.

And when he disappeared, his mother's response was to seal the doors of all the bedrooms. Why? What did she think happened to him? What was her rational for this?

And even more bafflingly, Edie's response to this is to drill peepholes.

Dawn's response to her son's disappearance is to turn her dead relatives bedrooms into sealed tombs. Edie's response is to insist she be able to see into those tombs. And this was apparently an acceptable compromise to Dawn.

Notably, the one exception is Walter's room. There's a peephole under construction in the garage that was presumably for this room. But why did Dawn save that one for last? What made it such a low priority? The fact that there wasn't a memorial in there, because Walter was under the house instead?

Hey, I actually misled you a bit back there. I said she sealed up the bedrooms. That's not completely accurate.

She also sealed the library.

The library where Edie tries to give Edith the family history, that final night in the house.

How did Edie get into the library? I somehow doubt a wheel chair using 96 year old crawled through that secret passage.

Among the bedrooms Dawn sealed, one of them was Edie's. She didn't seal her own or Lewis's or Edith's rooms, so she clearly didn't expect them all to abandon the rooms they were using and sleep in the living areas. So where exactly was Edie sleeping?

Hey, so I actually misled you a bit there, when I said the library was the exception to Dawn only sealing up the old bedrooms.

There's a cot in the library.

Someone was sleeping in there.

During the flashback, Edith doesn't acknowledge it, so why is it there? What is it meant to imply? Was Edie sleeping down here instead of her bedroom upstairs? Sure, I could buy that, stairs are clearly an issue for her.

Except, remember, the door was sealed. Only accessible by crawling on all fours through a cabinet that's maybe 2ftx2ft.

The only remotely plausible scenario is that there is another, more elderly-accessible passage into the library, presumably (since there's no space for it anywhere else) somewhere in the HUGE portion of the third floor we never get to see, and which Dawn and family decided to build a shanty town on top of instead of live in. And that in the couple of minutes between when we hear Dawn and Edie arguing in the dining room and when Edie appears in the library, she booked it up two flights of stairs and down again. Plausible!

But Occam's Razor provides a much simpler explanation.

Edith is lying.

I think it's time to talk about the books.

The books that fill the Finch house are a constant, looming presence. And I do mean constant. There is nowhere in the house that they are not. They're in the secret passages, they're in Walter's bunker, they're in the basement— Literally everywhere.

A lot of the titles are repeated, over and over, and I think this one can safely be chalked up to the realities of making a video game. The amount of work it would take to make that many unique books, the hefty chunk it would add to the game's file size-- The impact it would have on the framerate alone, trying to render all the damn things! So I don't think it's surprising or particularly meaningful that the books repeat as often as they do.

But see, the thing is, they didn't just make one set of books and copy paste it into every room in the house.

Instead, every room gets its own, bespoke book collection, featuring a mix of repeated titles and books seen literally nowhere else.

You go back and read that paragraph up there about how resource intensive and insane it would be to make all the books unique, and then tell me the fact that they DID make them all unique (albeit in a slightly more practical fashion) doesn't mean anything.

So let's talk about some of the titles on display in the Finch house.

I already mentioned House of Leaves, a story about unreliable narrators and a house that grows an impossible hallway that can't physically fit in the space it occupies. I'm gonna talk some more about that later when I get to the maps, just you wait. It's one of the books that appears repeatedly through all rooms.

Other books seen throughout the house include: the Necronomicon. The King in Yellow. Infinite Jest. Gravity's Rainbow. The Weird. And three separate stories by Jorge Luis Borges.

The Necronomicon and The King in Yellow, as well as being allusions to the eldritch mythos of Lovecraft (which is its own whole bag of cats) have something in common with Infinite Jest. They all feature what you might call cognitohazards. Meaning, something that poses a danger to any person who has perceived it. By reading the Necronomicon, you irrevocably bring yourself into the awareness of Lovecraft's eldritch beings. The King in Yellow features a play, which when seen induces madness. Infinite Jest features a film which when viewed causes the subjects to lose all interest in anything other than watching it, eventually leading to their deaths. Additionally, they are all three named after the cognitohazard they feature, meaning it's impossible to tell if the books on the Finch's shelves are the stories that feature these things, or the things themselves.

Gravity's Rainbow and The Weird are two of many books featured in the house which are experimental and surreal or straight up part of the genre known as weird fiction. Defining weird fiction is sort of a debate on its own, but it's a relatively modern genre, applied retroactively to stories as far back as the 1930's but which experienced a resurgence (called the New Weird) in the 80's and 90's. To try and roughly describe it, it's a genre of supernatural fantasy and horror which features transgressive, experimental, and non traditional elements. Lovecraft is considered a writer of weird fiction. He described it thus:

"The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space."

What Remains of Edith Finch is, itself, a work of weird fiction. And that's not me talking out of my ass, the writers have said as much in interviews.

Which would then imply, by it's very nature, an element of the supernatural.

Just an element that you don't dare look at.

[vaspider]

Hey, you reblogged something a little while ago from a blog called jewishlivesmatter which seems to equate advocating for Palestine with antisemitism and regularly posts misleading images of protests to paint pro-Palestinian people in a bad light, and I mean…. The name alone is enough to be suspicious of, since it’s appropriating the Black Lives Matter movement. Just wanted to let you know in case you weren’t aware.

If you're going to follow Jewish bloggers, you're going to have to get used to the idea that interacting with someone doesn't mean that we agree with everything that person says. Interaction does not imply endorsement of everything someone's ever said.

Jewish tradition encompasses and indeed makes essential the concept of disagreeing fervently with people on extremely vital issues and remaining in community with them. I know that this is extremely at odds with the online leftist position that you have to dig through someone's entire archive and remain "mentally pure," but yeah. We do that. Again: interaction does not imply endorsement of everything someone's ever said.

The rabbi who oversaw my conversion, with whom I am very good friends, is an ardent Zionist. I have a lot of Israeli friends. A lot of my local Jewish friends are deeply non-Zionist or anti-Zionist. I don't agree with any of them 100% about anything. We argue about a lot of things pretty much all the time. Interaction does not imply endorsement of everything someone's ever said.

But I'm wondering which of the two things of theirs I've reblogged that you find objectionable:

Is it this one talking about blatant antisemitism and pogrom language on the left?

Or is it this one documenting exterminationist graffiti in our nation's capital?

Because, uh. ... yeah.

Plus, that blog is a group blog run by multiple Jewish women per its header. On any given subject, I guarantee the runners of that blog have at least five different opinions. You aren't going to get Tumblr-leftist-approved levels of orthodoxy (in its literal meaning of "right thought") out of any group of Jews.

At the point when we're talking about posts dealing directly with documenting extremely antisemitic language at protests and graffiti saying, "Hitler had a point," this ask comes off as concern-trolling, and if that's not what you intended, well, I guess that's something for you to think about, but this is the end of this conversation.

[Note to the hate-stalking weirdos out there: there are no hidden meanings in this post about what my "real" feelings about I/P are. I'm still not telling you, and if you think you know, no, you don't.]

[valentine-cafe]

May I have a berry crumble please?

[Afab reader]

Just thinking about being angel reader again!! That gets all jealous whenever someone flirts with Jingyi! Little wings behind your ears fluttering and stomping your foot on the floor because can't they see your feather around his neck? It's the same color as yours!!>:[ So the next time these customers come in, the hickeys you left all over his neck are more obvious to them! You're also there hanging onto his arm, huffing and puffing with fluttering little wings. Giving them your best glare through your pout!!

-🍄

˖⁺. ﹙ the greedy demon alchemist  x afab reader. ﹚ .𖹭 ݁

. . . why should i look at them when you are here? !! 🍒 :  demon ˖ alchemist﹙ verseless jìngyí. ﹚

being his little angel assistant has its perks

“Head alchemist. . . who would this be?” The demon to the left asks, with the clearest hints of disgust on their face.

Mere sightings of angels within the abhorration makes most of it’s denizens wish to barf up yesterday’s dinner and today’s hunt meals.

“My assistant and partner,” he replies with no interest in the customer.

He rarely does show any interest, what is the point of doing so? There is work to be done and potions to be made. Though there is a deep mutual understanding for your agigtation when demons cannot catch the hint.

Power hungry, that is what they are. They see his position in rank and believe they have a chance to rise in demonic hierarchy.

It is a blatant thought to have. As if he would even let them try.

With a loud scoff from the demon on the right, you look over at them. Eyebrows knitted together, while angelic eyes stare back with wide irritation.

“What?” You snap quietly, cocking your head to the side.

Unfortunately, there is no fight to erupt. All it takes is one flick of his hand and the two demons are forced to leave. Feet dragging across the ground. They whines and cries for him to forgive them following them out of the door.

Deep breaths sound from your lungs as you watch the scene unfold and end as quick as it was put on. A clawed hand wrapping around your chin delicately to make you look up at the demon next to you.

“My pretty little darling bird.” He mutters, dipping his head down to meet your lips. Taking away your breath again and pushing you into the counter.

“I am yours.”

A whisper full of such love. Back in the day, you would have believed fully demonic descent would be incapable of displaying such emotion. Let alone feel it.

Yet you realised it was very much not what you had thought when you first met this charming man during your fall.

“And you are mine.” He groans against your lips, pulling you close by your collar with the claw of his index. Tearing away at the fabric of your shirt.

You let out a small squeak at the sting that meets the feathers behind your ears as he bites down. Hands roaming possessively.

“Now.” He tuts, pulling away and gazing back at you with half-lidded eyes.

“Get back to work hm? We have a busy day ahead of us.” The sight of your wings drooping slightly left the already boiling cauldron from within his heart spilling over completely. Such a beautiful sight to admire. The frown on your lips and the desperation in your eyes growing.

“And please wake Alessio up too, baobei.”

[ballsbalb]

ibr, the ter stegen hate is wild to me.

maybe it’s just because i’m a keeper and it’s how i was raised in the footy world, but it’s wild how quick fanbases (cough cough barca fans) forget

a year and a half ago, people were calling him the best keeper in the world, and within the year people were calling him washed & saying he had to leave

imo, barca fans (of which, again, i feel i need to clarify every time i say something about this club, I AM ONE) are just spoiled. for decades, we had the likes of messi and ronaldinho and xavi and iniesta and victor valdes, and now we don’t, and people seem obsessed with finding a singular scapegoat for it all when it’s a systemic issue that has been building for years

first its Frenkie, then its Lewa, then its Araujo, then its Gundogan, then it’s Ferran, then it’s Ter Stegen, it’s an endless loop of people pointing fingers and yapping about “arggg get out of my club arggggh” like any of that would actually change anything

realistically, who is a keeper that is not only available on the market, but experienced enough to be a leader in a squad of a lot of youngsters but also young enough to stay at the top for at least a few more years, a strong enough character to be an important component in the dressing room, has the mental and psychological capability to play for a club like Barca where players are crucified for the smallest of things by press, fans, and coaches, is great at playing out of the back whilst also being a good shot stopper, and is responsible enough to be a role model for the younger guys on the team? cause i can’t think of one, and i fuckin doubt any the morons throwing a fit on twitter could, either

its wild to me how insane some people’s mindsets are, where saying shit like “tragic: ter stegen found alive in monaco” and screaming “get out of my club” at their tv and on twitter to their fellow mush-brained fuckheads

MATS has never been a perfectly consistent keeper, sure, and he has his shortcomings especially when it comes to shot stopping, but the guy’s given a decade to the club, and he’s been pretty damn great in that time- he’s one of, if not the best ball-playing keepers i’ve ever seen. the speed with which fans & press will turn on their own players is insane to me, especially at a club like barca where everyone boasts of being “more than a club” and then spams “ARR GET OUT ME CLUB” the second anyone does anything wrong

the blatant entitlement & hypocrisy among so many barca fans online, especially here & on twitter, is just wild to me, because you can call out bad performances all you want but when you’re making nazi jokes and saying that you’re fantasizing about shooting a footy player, let alone one that’s given ten years of his life you your club i’m sorry, but you’ve lost your fucking mind

[blkkizzat]

Kalliiii girrrrrl. I saw the most jaw dropping mofo at the gym. He was a white man BUT he had Bodddyyyyyyy. And really pretty hair. Like...he could hypothetically get it. He could be my hypothetical baby daddy... and I'm just thinking...Gym Crush Sukuna.

He is there every. Single day. He is shirtless...every. single. Day. Tattoos on display. Sometimes he brings his Nephew who you've heard him call Yuji and shows him how to do certain machines. You are drooling. You've adjusted your schedule to match his times. You're doing workouts you hate so you can see him a bit better. He's everywhere. And then you're in the steam room. Alone. And he walks in hot and bothered. And you think there's no way he sees you staring. Surely the steam is covering up you're blatant ogling but then he says, " you gonna stare all day or do you wanna touch? "

And you're done for. You're lucky no one walked in on you getting absolutely railed in the in the steam room. You're clothes are only half off as he pounds into you from behind. His hands are up your work out shirt with your sports bra lifted. You have no idea how people didn't hear you outside. Little did you know Sukuna had put up a out of order sign down the hall to give you privacy.

From a fantasy I had about hottest at the gym when I saw him shirtless in the Sauna- 🧠

🧠 nonny! oooh gurrrrrrrl the way i would RUN to the gym every day to see gym rat Sukuna (and from the way you describing him id run to see that white man too).

ahhhh steam room sex! ive always wanted to try that, you would need insane breath control not to pass out but i think it would be fun. I wanna write about that now.

you making me want to go back to the gym! they are about to open up a Equinox where I live finally and i think im gonna sign up. Its literally going to cost an arm and a leg but its going to be worth for the quality of man that rolls through dfdhdshjfdsjk. I went when I lived in NYC cause I worked for a company that owned the building they were in so we got a discount to make it worth it but I need to find a man soon so I just might suck it up and joint so i can find a baby daddy kjfhdjkfhvdkfj.

me rolling up to the gym like "Where da hoes?!!?":

[yearningaces]

Meet cute slime in dungeon? It’s after Valentine’s Day here but I know my time zone is usually ahead of lots of others.

Love your writing by the way 💕

I gotcha

Idk why but the slime came out far more flirty than anticipated... Do with this as you will

Adventuring is far harder work than anyone says. It's not just fighting monsters, it's learning the different body languages and mannerisms and then learning the customs of intelligent monsters so you can be civil if trying to avoid a battle and yet in some cases it's a boon more than it is a burden, mostly because-

"-Really though the first adventurer to come here without swinging their weapon around like some scared baby, and you're a cutie? Didn't I strike out with you~" what was once a blob of slime you'd helped out of the pond deep in this cavern, had enlarged in size, mimicking a humanoid form with many differences. A gelatinous texture made up the creature leaning against the cave wall, peering at you with a crooked grin a bit too wide for a human, but understandable for a slime monster.

"Well-" you cough slightly, trying to ignore the rising heat in your cheeks and ears. "You haven't done anything malicious, I don't see any reason to be aggressive without purpose."

This makes the slime hum, leaning closer, it's purple hue shimmering with the subtle cyan glow offering a rather pretty color across its surface. "Oh, how lucky I am indeed-" it moves across the cave floor, leaving a faint trail behind it, the substance similar to grease you'd see some crafters use for their tools. "And what horrible group of adventures decided to leave such a precious cutie like you all alone, hmm? I thought you'd run in packs?"

It's growing closer now, close enough to lean forward with a Cheshire grin, less than a foot away as it does so.

"u-um my group got separated in the storm, that's why I went to the cave here." You stumble over your words slightly at the blatant flirting of the slime in front of you, glowing eyes watching you with all the more amusement.

"oh, such a shame," it pouts sympathetically with no real sorrow to its tone as the smile quickly returns to its face. "Well, I make for very good company for cuties like you. Why don't I stick around so you're not left all alone by those mean adventures you travel with. Many dangers are in caves and caverns you know, I think it best I stick around just to be safe."

You nod your head silently as the cool and surprisingly solid texture of the slime reaches a fabricated hand out to grasp your own, its body tilted lower so it could look up to your eyes with your head being tilted down. "I'm so glad you agreed, sweetie~"