#i’m really taking a gamble with this post

[mythallia]

shout out to colm greer

[ali3nboyfriend]

obviously “therapy talk” can be really annoying and patronizing when used incorrectly but i’m ngl there’s something very satisfying about hitting my friend who has a tendency to verbally self-flagellate when they’re having a meltdown with “how can we express these feelings in a way that’s more constructive?” and watching those thought patterns unravel in real time as they have to sit there and actually think about what they’re feeling and why without being mean to themselves

[aesculapiansnake]

i need you all to know that i referenced the piss poor post for a english graduate course discussion board today and entitled it “‘pissing on the poor:’ art, interpretation, and critique” okay that’s all thank you for your time

[cleo-fox]

Close Quarters

Part 1 of 2

Summary: “You don’t have to like it,” says Fury, “you just have to do your job.”

Your job, as it turns out, is to go undercover at a luxury resort.

The only problem? Your fake husband is Loki Laufeyson—the infuriatingly handsome Norse god turned Avenger who delights in making you flustered. What could go wrong?

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Warnings: Smut, 18+ (Minors DNI), dirty talk, praise kink, fingering, elevator sex, semi-public sex, multiple orgasms, a hint of dom/sub, Dom Loki.

A/N: there will be a part 2. Also have a handful of related one shot ideas, so if people like this, I may post those. This is also posted on AO3.

Your self-sufficiency has always been a point of pride for you, both personally and professionally. The highlight of your career was overhearing Nick Fury say that he didn’t need to send in a team of people for a mission so long as he had you on the payroll. You are calm, competent, and ruthlessly efficient; you are used to relying only on yourself.

So it comes as something of a surprise when Fury informs you that Loki Laufeyson will not only be accompanying you on this undercover mission, but will also be taking the lead.

It takes a lot to render you speechless these days, but this does it. You gape at Fury for a moment before you’re able to speak.

“You never send me in with anyone,” you say.

“This mission requires a unique skillset.”

You scoff. “He can’t do anything that I can’t.”

Fury raises an eyebrow and folds his arms across his chest. “Really? How’s your conversational Sokovian?”

There’s, of course, no argument to be made with this. Your lips press into a thin, hard line. “I still don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it,” says Fury, “you just have to do your job.”

*

Your job, as it turns out, is to play the part of Nina Pine.

Nina Pine is bubbly and vivacious, the sort of person you’d see in the society pages. She wears designer clothes and owns jewelry that is so ostentatious and expensive that it looks like it must be fake. She is not particularly bright or talented; she is the product of good luck and generational wealth.

Three weeks ago, Nina married Jonathan Pine, who she met six months ago at the home of a mutual friend. Jonathan does something in finance that sounds like it’s just a tarted up version of gambling, but with more complicated rules and less oversight. It is Jonathan’s higher tolerance for risk (and healthy trust fund assets) that has him considering an investment in KorolCo, a company owned by Ivan Litvinchuk. Litvinchuk uses KorolCo as a front to launder money from illegal arms deals.

Loki would be going undercover as Jonathan. Your new husband.

You are not particularly happy about this little detail (a detail that Fury mysteriously failed to mention when you met with him), in no small part because Loki has already started leveraging it to annoy the shit out of you.

“How are you already this annoying when we’re still in prep?” you say after a particularly exasperating meeting.

“I’m simply overcome by my love for you,” says Loki with a cloying faux sincerity that makes you yearn for the sweet release of death.

Fury, you note, is suspiciously unavailable during all of this. After ignoring three of your (admittedly lengthy) emails on the subject, he sends you a frustratingly short reply:

Do your job, Agent.

Maybe you’ll take up meditation.

If there’s a bright side to what appears to be a massive clusterfuck in the making, it’s that you’ll at least get a free vacation of sorts

The mission will be taking place at The Indigo, an absurdly expensive and exclusive hotel on a private beach not far from La Jolla Cove. The Indigo is the sort of place that you’d only read about—the kind of hyper exclusive resort that is only ever mentioned in damning Pro Publica reports about the questionable actions of high ranking public officials. Rooms start at fifty thousand a night and you are staying in one of the suites, which likely costs more. Your room information was included in your briefing materials and it all sounds too good to be true: a soaking tub and waterfall shower. Private terrace with an infinity pool. Private bar. In-suite chef and spa services by appointment. Ocean view.

One Norse god who delights in irritating you (non-negotiable).

You suppose you’ll try and make the best of it.

*

The first problem is your sleeping arrangements: there’s only one bed. Granted, it’s a big bed, but still—it suggests a level of intimacy that you had not thought about and are not at all prepared for.

“Well, Agent, this isn’t how I envisioned taking you to my bed, but I suppose it’ll have to do,” says Loki on your first evening there.

You chuck a pillow at him, which he easily dodges.

“Keep it up and you can magic yourself a pillow and sleeping bag and sleep in the hall,” you say.

“Even if that were an appropriate accommodation for someone of my rank and title, I rather think it would do some damage to our cover.”

He has a point and you don’t like it. You decide to ignore him and start getting ready for bed.

The pajamas that had been packed for you are a little fancier than what you’re used to—satin and lace instead of cotton tees and shorts. Normally, you’d relish the opportunity to feel a little fancy—it’s an unexpected indulgence, a splurge on the company dime.

But with Loki now thrown into the equation, you are suddenly hyper aware of the fact that the fabric will likely cling to your curves, that the hem of the skirt is just a little too high. You choose the most demure one of the lot—a pale rose colored thing hemmed with lace—and head to the bathroom to change.

Even with the matching robe, you still feel a little awkward and oddly nervous. You avoid looking at Loki—if his gaze is lingering on your legs or your hips, you don’t want to know about it right before you hop into bed with him—and go about your normal routine. You manage to have a relatively normal conversation about your plan for tomorrow and you read a couple chapters of your book before you start to drift off.

It’s a king sized bed with plenty of room, but somehow you wake up perched near the edge of the bed with Loki pressed up against your back.

He’s got one arm wrapped around your waist so that you’re pinned against him and the deep, even breaths brushing against the back of your neck tell you he’s still asleep. You’re pretty sure this must have been unintentional on his part: Loki doesn’t seem like the sort to willingly allow himself to be seen seeking out human contact. It’s too vulnerable, too soft for the sharp and sarcastic veneer he presents to the world.

He shifts slightly in his sleep, his grip on you tightening. Something hard pokes against the curve of your ass.

You can’t help the responding ache between your legs. You should feel embarrassed—and you do, just a little—but there’s a competing feeling of warm curiosity that makes you press your thighs together. It’s been a while and you miss being held like this. The silk of your nightgown is cool and slippery against your skin, and you feel oddly restless and alert despite the early hour.

You should put a stop to this—that is the professional and sensible thing to do. So you carefully lift his arm from your waist and gently extricate yourself from his embrace. You pad to the bathroom, leaving the light off to spare your eyes.

In the bathroom, you run the tap as cold as it will go. You cup your hands and drink before splashing some water on your face in an effort to quell the restless heat building between your thighs.

It doesn’t really work. You’re not entirely surprised—if you were by yourself, you would simply take care of it, but that’s obviously not an option now. Out of curiosity, you slip your fingers between your thighs to assess the state of things and you immediately regret it: you’re soaked and just the feeling of your index finger glancing against your clit is enough to undo the admittedly minimal effect of the cold water.

You splash your face again and shut off the tap, taking a few deep breaths and smoothing your hands against your hair.

You exit the bathroom and slide back into bed. Loki reaches for you in his sleep and you are only half surprised when you let him wrap his arms around your waist and pull you to him. The throbbing ache between your thighs intensifies and before you can think about it, your back is arching and your breath is hitching.

He pulls you closer and suddenly his breath is warm on your ear. “You know, if you wanted me, all you had to do was ask,” he says, his voice deep and smooth, only a little husky with sleep.

“This is a bad idea,” you say, even as your back arches again and you press yourself against him.

Lips press against where your neck and shoulder meet. “But you want it.” His fingers toy with the hem of your nightgown. “Yes?” he asks, his voice husky against your ear.

“Yes,” you breathe.

“Agent.”

“Yes. Please.”

“Agent.”

Your eyes flutter open. Loki is standing at the foot of the bed, hair wet, and wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist.

“It’s eight o’clock,” he says. “You need to shower and dress if we’re to make it to breakfast on time.”

It takes you a moment to process this information. Partly because he just woke you up from a sex dream about him and partly because wearing only a towel should be fucking illegal when you look like that. You try to keep your eyes trained on his and not let them drift to his flat stomach where you can see a faint smattering of chest hair that gathers in a line that trails directly to his cock. And definitely not to any of the muscles that are on tantalizing display and dotted by drops of water that are begging to be licked away. Nope. Not looking at any of that. Just at his devastatingly handsome face. 

Fuck.

“Agent?”

You shake your head. “Sorry. Bit groggy this morning. Finish up what you were doing and I’ll go jump in the shower.”

He gives you a bit of an odd look, but mercifully walks away without further comment. 

This gives you an opportunity to stare at his broad back as he walks away. Goddammit, even his ass looks good in that towel.

Fuck.

You have a feeling this is going to be a long week.

*

It’s only day one and it’s becoming clear to you that you are not really prepared for some of the practicalities of being Loki’s wife.

Specifically: being the primary focus of his flirtations and little gestures of affection. His hand on the small of your back, his fingers lacing with yours, the brush of his lips against the back of your hand or the shell of your ear—it’s all a little overwhelming in a way you don’t expect. It was one thing when he was razzing you in your prep meetings—he was quite clearly doing it to be irritating. But at The Indigo, he has to appear sincere for your cover and that particular detail makes it a different beast entirely. 

The fact that both his regular appearance and the blond-haired, blue-eyed glamor he’s adopted for the mission are both devastatingly handsome certainly doesn’t help. Nor does the additional baggage of your sex dream this morning.

Unfortunately for you, Loki quickly ascertains that he now has a great and novel way to fluster you. Equally unfortunate is the fact that he seems to find this as hilarious as he did back in prep meetings, which prompts him to be only more outlandish.

“Are you trying to sabotage this?” It’s later that afternoon and you’ve gone down to the pool with the plan of schmoozing with Litvinchuk and his associates. Loki has clearly decided that this needs to be more difficult than it is and has fully committed to the bit, as they say.

(You’ve also gotten very good at whispering threats under your breath and making it look like you’re flirting; the timing of this is not a coincidence).

“I don’t know why you’re so distraught about sunscreen,” says Loki, rubbing a generous amount between his palms.

“It’s not the sunscreen, it’s that you’re going to find some way to be inappropriate about it.”

“I’d never.”

“You are so full of shit.”

“You wound me.” He places his hands on your shoulders and begins rubbing in the sunscreen, going much slower than you think is strictly necessary. “Perhaps this trip is merely bringing out our natural chemistry.”

“You wish.”

“Is it the hair that does it for you, Mrs. Pine? Do you have a particular fondness for blonds?”

“Do you have a fondness for being murdered in broad daylight? Because that’s the fate you’re headed towards, buster.”

He tuts at you as his hands slide to the small of your back. “Temper, temper. You really need to work on that.”

“Have you considered working on not annoying the ever-loving shit out of me?”

His breath is suddenly warm against your ear. “Now where’s the fun in that? And before you answer, be advised that Tarasevich is looking right at us.”

Fuck. Tarasevich is the most suspicious and paranoid of the lot—years in the Sokovian mafia paired with recreational drug use will do that to a guy. You turn so that you’re facing Loki. He looks at you fondly, looking for all the world like a loved up newlywed just smitten with his new wife.

“One of these days, I’m going to drop kick you into the motherfucking sun,” you say in the sweetest voice that you can muster.

“Now, now, Mrs. Pine, let’s keep the foreplay in the bedroom.” He rests his forehead against yours, reaching up to stroke your cheek. “There’s such a thing as public indecency laws, you know.”

You sigh heavily. “Why are you like this?”

“Oh, because it’s so much fun.”

“Is he still looking?”

“Yes and I’m going to kiss you to put him off, so do try to contain yourself.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll manage.”

You catch a flicker of a smile before he leans in and brushes his lips against yours. You intend for this to be brief, but his mouth is so warm and inviting and before you know it, he’s gently coaxing your lips open and leading your tongue in a slow and seductive caress that has your mind drifting straight to the gutter.

His hand slides to your thigh and you can’t bring yourself to be mad about it.

“Ah, Pine. Mixing business and pleasure, I see.”

You pull back from Loki to find Ivan Litvinchuk standing in front of you, wearing the smug, congratulatory smirk that you often see men like him trading with one another when they think they’re getting somewhere with a woman.

“Normally I try not to, but I’ve found it rather impossible these last three weeks, haven’t I, darling?” Loki takes the opportunity to loop his arms around your waist and pull you into his lap, nuzzling your neck.

You give a good natured laugh. “You’re insatiable.”

“Oh, I don’t think anyone would fault me when I have such a tempting little wife.”

This, paired with the squeeze of his hand on your thigh, sends an unexpected rush of heat to your cunt. Fortunately, the effects of this are quickly tempered when you notice that Litvinchuk is eyeing you rather appreciatively. The wardrobe team has really outdone themselves with your clothes, but the swimsuits they’ve sent are definitely more revealing than you are used to—today’s choice is a bikini with a split sweetheart neckline that dips a lot lower than you’d like and a fucking underwire in the top. Underwire! The bottom is no better—it’s both low rise and high cut, the perfect way to ensure that half of your ass is exposed at any given time. Even in the matching translucent cover up—which of course you’ve left on the chair that Litvinchuk is standing in front of—you feel a little more bare than you’d like, a fact that Litvinchuk seems to be appreciating, if the path of his gaze is any indication.

“You’re a lucky man, Mr. Pine,” he says, his eyes flicking briefly to your cleavage.

You expertly tamp down your disgust and smile at Litvinchuk before turning around to bat your eyes at Loki.

“You are, aren’t you?” you say, twining your arms around his neck and planting a brief, chaste kiss on his lips.

He gives you a dazzling smile that’s so sincere it makes your stomach flip. “Very much so.”

Another squeeze of your thigh, more heat to your cunt. Fuck.

“Well, Pine, when you are ready to discuss more business—” Here he switches to Sokovian.

This is the part you dislike the most about this particular mission: whenever anything of substance comes up, Litvinchuk and his cronies immediately switch to Sokovian, leaving you in the dark.

To add insult to injury, Litvinchuk still seems infatuated by your cleavage.

Litvinchuk says goodbye a few minutes later and you manage to bite your tongue until he’s out of earshot.

“I really don’t love the fact that he spent half of that conversation sneaking looks at my boobs,” you say quietly.

“Well, to be fair, they do look spectacular,” says Loki. “I’ll have to send a thank you note to the wardrobe team for that.”

Heat stirs hopefully and unhelpfully in your hips at that comment.

“This is what I meant by being inappropriate, you know. Did he have anything interesting to say?”

“He’s invited me to a game of cards this afternoon.”

“Do you need me for that? I could go try and talk to the wives, see what I can find out.”

“Originally, I’d thought no, but since dear Ivan seems so enamored of your assets, it might not be a bad idea to have you come along.”

You sigh. “How am I now at the point in my life where letting an illegal arms dealer stare at my tits is a fucking mission objective?”

Loki laughs quietly. “We’ll keep that out of the final report.”

*

The card game ends up being a lot worse than you thought it would be. And not because of Litvinchuk’s wandering eyes.

They’ve set up the game on the pool deck tables and chairs. As best as you can tell, it’s a Sokovian twist on a combination of rummy and poker. You’re not the only woman at the table: a few of the other men have their girlfriends or mistresses draped over them like strange human scarves, though their roles seem to be largely decorative.

Loki makes a big show of pulling you into his lap, saying how he just can’t bear to be apart from his new wife for terribly long.

“Ah, young love,” says Mikhnevich. “I remember when my Irina and I were like this.”

“Now she begs for him to leave the house!” says Litvinchuk. There’s a hearty round of laughter—it’s not a particularly funny joke, but you suppose that’s one of the benefits of moving up in the world of crime: people will laugh at your jokes because they’re afraid you’ll kidnap their families or something. It’s all very dysfunctional.

Loki makes an effort to teach you the game, but Nina is not the sort who pays very close attention to that kind of thing, so you find yourself giggling and letting him steal kisses or whisper in your ear as he explains some strategy or another.

There are several problems with this arrangement. The first is that you are positioned on his lap in such a way that you can feel his cock nudging your ass or your thigh, depending on how he’s sitting. And it’s close enough proximity for you to ascertain that he is long, thick, and semi-erect.

The second problem is his thigh; specifically, how it presses against your cunt, how every time Loki leans forward to draw a card, he inadvertently rocks you against the firm muscle. Each time, it feels better than the last; each time, you clench and ache and talk yourself out of riding his thigh until you have a screaming orgasm right on the pool deck. Each time, the idea becomes more and more tempting.

The third problem is his hands. Specifically, where and how they are wandering. He plays it off like it’s unintentional, like he’s just absently fidgeting with the part of your suit that lays against your hip or idly drawing lazy circles on your thigh. You can’t help but think that it must be calculated. He’s spent the last twenty-four hours intentionally trying to drive you crazy–there’s no way that he would pass up an opportunity to play his little games without you scolding him or rolling your eyes.

The fourth problem is that the first three problems are turning you on a lot.

Your clit seems to swell with every pass of his fingertips on your bare skin, no matter how casual. It drags against the slick material of your swimsuit every time you shift on Loki’s muscular thigh. You can feel yourself growing slicker and slicker with every moment. Eventually, it becomes too much and you try to shift in his lap, crossing your legs to give yourself a little relief.

This does exactly nothing useful. Instead, your movement causes his cock to twitch against you, which only escalates your growing arousal. He hooks the elastic of your suit at your hip onto his thumb and pulls, letting it snap back against your skin. His expression is playful when you look up at him, but there’s a fire in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

You are throbbing, your cunt practically weeping with slickness. And you’re pretty sure he knows.

And you’re pretty sure you don’t mind.

You lick your lips.

He hooks his thumb back into your suit at the hip, and this time he leaves it there, his fingers splayed along the curve of your hip. It’s casually possessive and ridiculously hot and the polar opposite of helpful.

He definitely knows.

Your heart is pounding. Can you go into cardiac arrest from being too turned on? You wish you could use Google. At a minimum, some sort of visual equivalent of a cold shower would be helpful. Pictures of Henry Kissinger or something. Budget reports. Taxes. Anything to get your mind off your aching cunt and the mess that you’re making in your swimsuit.

“I think you could do with a bit of a lie down, Mrs. Pine.” Loki's voice is low in your ear. “You seem…warm.”

You would have thought that Loki knowing about your current state of arousal would be cause for humiliation, if not irritation. Instead, it only seems to add fuel to the fire, especially with the way he’s talking to you. You’re not sure how he’s doing this, but it feels like his fucking voice is vibrating in the cradle of your hips, sending a fresh wave of slick arousal to your dripping cunt.

“Yeah,” you say. “Very warm.”

It’s perhaps a testament to your current state of mind that you can only manage this sentence and not some smart remark.

���Would you like my help with that, darling?” he asks. The phrasing is innocent, but the question is loaded. And sincere. You take in a shaky breath. You know all the reasons why this is a bad idea, but you also can’t bring yourself to say no. He may be wildly irritating, but you suspect he’s likely a good fuck…and you really need to be fucked.

You nod. “Yeah…I’d like that.”

“We’ll go up to the room after this game ends,” he says. “And then I’ll take very good care of you.”

It takes everything in you not to whine. Fuck. You didn’t think it was possible to be this wet, this turned on. 

Loki shifts slightly, pulling you close against him, his cock now fully erect and pressing hard and thick against your ass. 

“Do you feel me?” he asks, his lips grazing your ear. “Do you feel what you’ve done?”

You nod and wiggle your hips slightly, partly to situate yourself and partly because you want a little bit of payback. His grip on your hip tightens.

“I’d advise you not to play games, little wife,” he rasps in your ear.

More heat builds in your hips. You can’t remember the last time you were this turned on. Maybe never. You throw a look at Loki over your shoulder. “It’s not a game,” you say. “I’m just very warm.”

His eyes are dark. “Burning up, I suspect.”

“You have no idea.” You lean back against him, turning so you can nuzzle your face against his neck. God, he smelled good. “Please,” You say it so quietly that only he can hear, “I’m aching.”

He sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth and you feel his cock throb. He clears his throat. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take my leave a little early—Mrs. Pine is feeling quite unwell.”

Fuck yes.

If Litvinchuk and his men suspect there’s anything untoward about your departure, they don’t say so—and you imagine you must look a little unsteady anyway. Loki slides an arm around your waist as you leave.

“Now Mrs. Pine,” he says once you’re out of earshot, “tell me exactly what ails you.”

You let out a shaky sigh. “Are you seriously going to do this?”

“I only want to ensure that we are on the same page,” he says with a smirk.

“Like hell you do. I already told you, you just want to hear—” You cut yourself off, realizing that you’re playing right into his hands.

He smiles like a cat with a bowl full of cream. “What do I want to hear, darling?”

You press your lips together. This is infuriating.

“I’m waiting…”

You blow out a shaky breath. Fuck it. “You just want to hear me say that I’m fucking soaked because you’ve been rubbing me against your thighs and touching me for the last two hours and if I don’t come soon, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind.”

He smirks as you approach the hotel lobby. “Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear you say all that.”

“You absolutely were.”

The air conditioned air in the hotel lobby feels extra icy against your sunwarmed skin and your sandals seem to clack particularly loudly against the marble floors.

“You have a smart mouth, do you know that?”

“You like it,” you say as you approach the bank of elevators. “That’s the reason why you pull half of this shit with me.”

“Perhaps.” He gives you a smile that feels a little dangerous and sends even more heat to your aching cunt. “But do you know what my favorite part of your smart mouth is, Mrs. Pine?”

“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

The elevator door opens. It’s empty and your cunt clenches at the possibilities this presents.

“My favorite part about your smart mouth,” says Loki in a low voice as you step into the elevator, “is that it will sound that much sweeter when I make you beg for me.”

The elevator door slides closed and you barely have a chance to react before he’s backing you up against the wall and pressing his thigh between your legs.

“You’re a disobedient, wicked tease, Mrs. Pine,” he growls, sending a thrill through you. “I think you could benefit from a firm hand.”

“You like it,” you breathe, rocking your hips against his thigh, trying to capture some of the same friction that was driving you wild earlier.

“Rutting yourself against my thigh in public like a common slut,” he purrs. “You must be desperate.” He slides a hand between your legs, slipping his fingers under your bathing suit. His expression changes the moment his fingers dip past the fabric—almost like he expected you to be wet, but not this wet.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he purrs as you keen. “You’ve made a mess of yourself, haven’t you?”

“I need to come so bad,” you gasp.

“I know you do.” He reaches over and slams the emergency stop button and the elevator shudders to a halt. “And you’re going to. Right now.”

“I can wait until we get to the ro—”

He spins you around and pulls you to him so your back is pressed against his chest.

“No, you can’t.” He curls his big frame over yours, sliding his hand back into your bathing suit and stroking the full length of your sex and making you cry out again. “You need it too badly.” He starts rubbing your clit with his middle and index fingers. “And I don’t think it’s going to take all that long, darling,” he growls, sucking your earlobe into his mouth, “because you’re already so fucking wet.”

There’s a small, distant part of you that resents the fact that he’s right about anything, let alone anything pertaining to your orgasms.

The larger part of you is focused on the fact that he’s right: you’re going to come and you’re going to come hard.

Your legs are shaking and you brace your arms against the elevator wall to hold yourself up. You moan loudly and arch your back as the feeling starts building in your hips.

“You need this so badly, don’t you?” He nips hard at your earlobe. “You’re desperate for it. I felt you tense up every time your sopping cunt rubbed against my thigh, every time I touched you just right.”

You whimper, pressure rising in your hips as you rock with his hands.

“You’re so close,” Loki purrs in your ear. His hips are thrusting mindlessly against your ass, like he can’t wait to be inside you.

“Fuck, I need to come,” you whimper.

“Oh, I’m going to make you come, darling, but I think what you really need is to be fucked.”

You moan as your orgasm starts to crest.

“You need to be fucked properly and hard,” he murmurs. “You need me to take care of your sopping wet, needy little cunt. You need to be filled to the brim with my cock and my come like the good girl that you are. You need to come over and over on my cock until you can’t take it anymore.”

This is what pushes you over the edge. The muscles of your cunt clench and then pleasure is blooming in your belly as the tension of the last two hours comes to a peak and you come hard. You cry out, your hips rocking against Loki’s hand, chasing the shimmery aftershocks.

“There she is, that’s my good girl,” he purrs. He holds you as you shudder and shake, his fingers still moving, still coaxing out those final waves of pleasure. But just when you think he’s about to pull his hand away, he starts massaging your clit again, one long finger slipping inside you.

“You don’t think you’re going to be satisfied with just one, do you?” he growls in your ear. “Not a needy girl like you, not when you’ve been dripping for hours. You need more, don’t you?”

“Oh fuck—” You can feel that pressure growing again and you know it’s going to be different this time.

“You’re going to come for me again, pretty girl,” he purrs. “And this time, I want to hear you scream.”

Everything is coiling up so tight and tense and suddenly two of his fingers are inside of you and they’re curling just right and the edges of your vision go white as everything inside you fizzes and releases and a sharp cry falls from your lips as you come.

“Good girl,” his voice rumbles low over the sound of your heart pounding in your ears.

His hand finally stills once the final aftershocks roll through you. Your legs are shaking, but his grip on you is still firm. Boneless, you turn to him and he presses his slick fingers past your lips. You suck and lick his fingers clean and then he’s kissing you, sucking your own essence from your lips and tongue.

“Fuck,” you breathe as the elevator shudders to life. “Fuck, that was so good.”

Loki laughs quietly and scoops you up into his arms as the elevator arrives at your floor.

“Oh, we’re nowhere near done, darling.”

Continued in Part 2

[hazelfoureyes]

A Doe in Fall (Part 3)

⟢HumanAlastor x FemaleBurlesquerReader - A Doe in Fall

Part 1 - Pretty in Red smut💦 Part 2 - Liar smut💦 Part 3 - A Tragedy smut💦 Part 4 - Enough Part 5 - Too Much Part 6 - Learning smut💦 Part 7 - Recognition smut💦 Part 8 - Trust sexual 🥵 Part 9 - Shiny Things Part 10 - Good Deeds Part 11 - Caught Part 12 - Eddie

Part 3 A tragedy 

So enraptured with Alastor, you forgot how you left work on Saturday. Tommy didn’t forget. And he made sure you remembered. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for you, your paramour made a habit of helping quicken karma’s balancing act.

「warnings/promises: immediate physical assault (let’s be up front about that), allusions to sexual assaults having happened in the past to non-reader characters, HumanAlastor x FemReader, penetrative sex, Protective Alastor, bruises, somewhat graphic descriptions of murder, mentions to coerced prostitution, sex near a corpse (words that have the FBI watching me), stabbing, knife, bad burlesque names, gambling, my own new HC for the Radio Demon’s origins, another deer reference thanks to @n-after-me , chin quivering, Tommy doesn’t know French and it shows, posted early for @jazzmasternot, wrath」

Minors DNI 🤺

You walked into the theatre for rehearsals with a pep in your step, body still humming. It was like the usual adrenaline rush Alastor brought couldn't fade this time.

But it did, when Tommy grabbed you by the hair out of your makeup chair and threw you into the wall. 

You couldn’t react, head ringing after it left a small indent in the drywall. Unlike before, you didn’t try to stand. Make him work for his second hit. And he did. Leaning down he yanked you off the ground by your arm and dragged you to your feet. 

“Do you think you’re funny?” He shook you, you were sure you could feel your brain jostle. It was rhetorical, but you replied anyway.

“No, Tommy.”

“No. Exactly.” He backed you up onto the make up table, head pressed into the mirror. “Mr. Wilson was not happy. He pulled his contribution. I know you don’t have that kind of money. Do you know what you’re gonna do?”

His fingers dug into your cheeks, “No.” You genuinely didn’t. He was talking to you like you had been in the loop on whatever it was he had been doing on the side. All of this was as shocking to you as your actions were, apparently, to him. 

“You’re gonna take whatever meetings I make until that money is back.” He let go of you and turned to leave but changed his mind. Coming back, he swung his fist and clocked you on the left side of your face.

You didn’t see it, but you heard the other girls running and pulling Tommy off of you, yelling and pleading for him to calm down.

“I worked really hard for you!” He shouted, jerking his shoulders out from under the hands of the other performers. What was he talking about? You hadn’t discussed any of this, asked for any thing from him. “I waited for a high roller for you. Real classy guy. Just wanted a private show! That was it!” He spit, “No, every Tom, Dick, and Harry is welcome now to ask for your time.”

You just held your face, unsure if you had the right makeup to hide the bruise before stage call. 

“Well?! Say you’re sorry.”

You considered not saying anything. No response. When you looked at him, you could see the half a dozen other girls staring back at you, just say it. We have to rehearse.

“I’m sorry.” Eyes cast to the floor.

“For what?”

It hurt when you rolled your eyes, “For being ungrateful?” 

He shoulder checked a few girls on the way out. A couple came to you.

“He’s got some gambling debt, he’s just using us to get ahead.”

“I have some stuff to cover that up for tonight.”

“He usually cuts us in.”

Tears stung your eyes, you were angry and humiliated. You could work elsewhere, with a little luck. Take a job at a diner out of the area where no regulars would stir up trouble. Maybe leave until Tommy got his debts paid off or whatever was motivating this recent streak of cruelty. But you didn’t want to run away. No one applauded waitresses. Maybe if you made yourself as unattractive as possible, no one would request you. Dirty your teeth, talk about other men, speak crudely. 

“What exactly was he talking about?” you asked no one in particular. The girls were quiet for a beat.

“Well ya know, private shows for clients who can afford it.” High pitched and nasal, Florence spoke as she searched her make up station.

“That’s it?” Incredulous.

“Sometimes. You know how it is… woman left alone in a room with a man who has too much money or ego or drink. Doesn’t always stop at a dance.” Minnie had much more experience than you, “It isn’t our jobs. It isn’t normal. But, well, ya heard about New York right? They’re trying to make burlesque outright illegal…”

“Gotta enjoy the art while it’s just misunderstood.” Florence wiped down your mirror before setting her supplies down for you. “Come on, let’s get you fixed up.”

By the time patrons began to stream in, you had blood staining the white of your left eye. Nothing you could do, but maybe at a distance it wouldn’t be noticeable. The bruise under your eye from his fist was easy enough to cover. The contusion from where your right cheek hit the wall was a little harder. 

Luckily, the stage offered a buffer of space and the rest of the room was dark. 

During your show, you tried to keep your eyes moving so the red sclera never stayed in one place too long. For the first time, the cheers did nothing for you. You felt your chin quiver, fighting back tears. You wanted to scream, to tell them to hate you and leave. Stop fucking clapping.

Ruth was naturally the first to come to you after your performance, “Want me to do the tour with you? Arm in arm around the hall.”

You took her up on the offer. It lightened the load, her taking charge of the conversation when people approached or bought you drinks. Luckily the bartender always poured the performers weak cocktails and watered down liquor to keep their heads on straight. 

Ruth’s companionship afforded you precious time to plan, to consider how quickly you could find new work or at least a way out of this.

“What a treat. Two for one. Can I buy you both a drink?” 

Ruth turned first to greet the customer, “Ooh yes sir! Gin and tonic, please and thank you. Autumn?” Your stage name drew your attention back to the world, turning finally.

“Alastor.” It fell from your mouth like a lead balloon.

He smiled down at you, his hand offering a little wave, “Hello. Surprise.” 

Your face fell, a frown pulling down your chin. It took you too long to recover, batting your eyelashes and turning the corners of your lips up unnaturally. 

“So you do have a beau!” Ruth slapped your arm, “I’m Skye, Skye Scraper. Pleasure to meet you, Alastor.” She extended her hand, Alastor planting a kiss on the back of it, concealing his smile at the name.

You tried to keep your eyes on the floor, head turned slightly away from him to obscure the neon sign of an eye shouting, ‘Weak!’

Unfortunately for you, Alastor wasn’t an oblivious man. Unless he was dancing or drunk. “May I have a moment alone with her?” Alastor asked Ruth. Ruth looked to you for your okay, and you just nodded. She gave a little nod of her own to Alastor and slinked away. 

“Are you unhappy to see me, dear? Did I overstep by coming by unannounced?” You hadn’t heard him worried before, it pained you. 

“No, no! I am… so happy to see you. I just had a long day.” You scanned the room for the darkest area to bring him. A booth would be best, you could keep him on one side of you. You gestured with a nod of your head.

“Ah, I kept you out too late.” Alastor didn’t move.

“Not at all, come on let’s sit down.” You reached back for his hand without looking at him, but when you pulled he still didn’t move. He remembered the way you pulled at the hand of that man in the alley the first night you met. Desperate to escape somewhere. 

“Is there a reason you won’t look at me?”

Lie. 

“Uh, no, I’m just embarrassed about this heavy stage makeup.” 

Alastor paused, hand slipping from yours to adjust his sleeves. It was a nervous action, an attempt to self soothe, but you didn’t know that. “I should have asked before coming.”

“Alastor, it’s not…,” you kept your eyes down at your hands.

“Then look at me.”

Would he think you were incapable of protecting yourself? His pity would kill you. Perhaps he would decide a second rate burlesquer wasn’t worth making time for anymore.

You could intentionally wound him, say you don’t want to see him so he leaves. But that sword was double edged and you weren’t sure you’d survive that either. You weren’t making it out of this.

You finally looked at him. He leaned in, “What happened to your eye?” A slender finger gently tilting your chin upward.

Lie. 

You thought too long for an answer. Why were you getting worse at lying? It used to be one of your best shields and swords but now you were so slow on the draw you were left defenseless. Vulnerable. His hand took yours, gently pulling you into the lobby and through the glass doors of the theatre.

Under the bright lights of the marquee and the street lamps, Alastor inspected your face. He reached into his pocket for his handkerchief, wetting it in his mouth before wiping the makeup off of your under eye.

“Alastor, people are staring.” 

His eyes fell down, soft hands lifting your arm where a bruise was already formed. You hadn’t noticed that one.

“What happened?” He wasn't looking at you when he said it, instead cautiously wiping the makeup off your cheeks in search of more marks.

“The truth or wh-“

“Always. Never give me anything else.”

You sighed, and explained, “Tommy, the manager, he’s been shifting tactics for bringing in money because he owes some big bads a lot of debt. Private shows with performers that sometimes get hands on…,” his hands stopped moving but his eyes didn’t meet yours, “I never asked to be included in it. I wouldn’t do it. I was rude to a man Tommy introduced me to and I ran off Saturday. Yada Yada. He got me as soon as I got to work.”

Alastor didn’t reply, just turned on his heels and marched back into the theater. You chased after him, “I don’t need you to fight my battles!” You tried to get in front of him but he walked right past you.

“Not about what you need, dear, it's about what he deserves.” 

Alastor asked the bartender for Tommy, who pointed to the short but stocky man talking to a group of guests. Alastor approached so quickly Tommy didn’t have time to greet him, instead just backing up until he fell ass first into a booth. Alastor boxed him in, one hand on the wall and one on the table, towering over Tommy as he sat.

“I hear you sell dancers by the night.”

You paced the lobby nervously. Would you be fired? What would Alastor say? Would Tommy hit him, too?

He re-emerged, “Come to my car, please.” He didn't stop walking as he said it. 

You followed a few blocks down to his car, parked on the street. He opened the passenger door for you and closed it behind you. You wanted to ask if you were going somewhere, but thought better of it. A tight u-turn, he pulled the car into the side street where you’d first met each other.

Wordlessly he got out of the car, you opening your door before he could. Popping the trunk, he set the folded canvas inside a paper bag. Checking first, he placed it inside one of the tin trash cans. 

You stood, waiting for an explanation.

Finally he stopped and made eye contact with you. “You have a date tomorrow, with me. Bring this to the apartment above the theater before Tommy and I arrive.” Opening your mouth to speak, he didn’t stop to let you add anything. “Preferably near the bed.” He closed the trunk, “Wear red, please.”

You searched his face for some kind of discernible emotion but found none. Those constricted pupils again, an animal staring back at you from behind a pair of glasses. There was no reason to ask him, it was obvious what was going to happen. Did you want to stop it? 

Did you want to see it? Alastor at work?

“Okay. On all the points.” You looked back at the trashcan, “Canvas hidden near the bed. Wear red.”

“The extra clothes can go anywhere out of sight.” He leaned down, kissing your forehead, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Your voice cracked a little, “Wait, you’re leaving already?”

He nodded, “I can’t stay here.” Before getting into his car he turned and added, “Don’t cover the bruises tomorrow. He should see them.”

You nodded in return, “Are you doing this for me?” So quiet you almost hoped he didn’t hear it.

He paused, one leg already in the car and his back to you, “No. I’m doing it for everyone.”

You watched his car light up and leave the alley.

It’s not that you felt abandoned, you felt…. Stranded. You had to go back in there, alone, and put on the normal act but under abnormal conditions. 

So it was happening. You hadn’t seen the first time. Just felt it. You didn’t see the second. You were going to actually see a man die. Not just a man, someone you knew. Someone you used to consider a friend of sorts. Before he got into whatever trouble was driving him to act like a flesh peddler. Could you do it? Could you watch a man be killed? Was that even what Alastor had planned?

Tommy found you the second you were back in the room, hand pressing too hard on the bruises he left on your arm. “You have a meeting tomorrow after your show. If you don’t show up,” he yanked you close, putrid breath of dead teeth you’d never been bothered by before this moment and bad booze assaulting your senses, “I will fucking kill you.”

You almost started laughing, bringing your hand to your mouth to hide your smile. “Okay Tommy.” 

Fuck it. He was going to die anyway, might as well make it a date. 

Ruth saddled up beside you as soon as Tommy was out of earshot, “Look at that smile. Quickie in the alley?”

Disgust, “Jesus, Skye, I was gone like, 5 minutes.” She shrugged. “Why does everyone think — is everyone fucking their daddies* in the side street?” She nodded. “Well, I’m not.”

“Prude.” She joshed before linking your arm in hers again, “We’ve got at least another hour of schmoozing. Tits up!”

Your smile came effortlessly that night, a thrum of excitement keeping you light on your feet. Not excitement for death, but for the very concept of being closer to Alastor. Would you see it happen, in front of you? Or would he have you leave? Either way, you were an active participant with a task list.

He trusted you, even if in a small way. Trust was so rarely given from the people who mattered. Men trusted you often; to be sweet when they tell you they were embarrassed about something, to lie when they ask if you orgasmed, to not steal their cash when they blacked out with their pants still on. Pulling it from strangers was one of your greatest pleasures. But it was easy. You were skilled. 

Yet again, like so often now, Alastor was the exception. He didn’t toss himself at your feet. He stood tall in front of you and on his own terms offered you the things you wanted. You didn’t have to pretend to be demure, you didn’t have sit on his lap in silence and nod and laugh. Just yourself, as much as you could allow yourself to exist in the world. No tricks. If his trust was presented wrapped in a bloodied bow, well, you would thank him dearly and wear the ribbon round your neck like a trophy.

Many men spoke to you, but luckily your participation in conversation wasn’t something they really cared about. As they spoke, your eyes were looking past them and into the future. 

However there was a sense of dread when you lied in bed that night. The excitement of getting closer to Alastor had melted into the fear there was no going back from this. 

Something in your chest stung, a thorn growing from somewhere unknown. Three encounters (that he knew of) and already it seemed your thoughts were more Alastor than yourself. No person had ever made such an impression before. You didn’t like it, but it made you happy. Which is why you didn’t like it. Tying your happiness to another person was a reckless thing to do. You’d seen your mother and half sister both use a man’s attention as a replacement for being happy with themselves and it made them brittle and hollow.

Thinking of what would happen the following night, oddly, you were reminded of losing your virginity. You were a “late bloomer” and were terrified you’d never be you again after. Like something would be taken from you. You fell asleep to that thought, of what you’d lose.

Then you woke, uncharacteristically early, feeling none the bit rested. No dreams. No nightmares. A few seconds of darkness and suddenly it was morning. With the extra time you had you wandered into a department store before going to the theater.

When a sales woman approached you, asking what you were looking for, you were too tired lie.

“A red dress.” You didn’t have the makeup at home to cover your marks, and gave up being worried about it. 

Unfortunately, it seemed it wasn’t so odd of a sight; a woman with a black eye.

“What’s the occasion? Apology dinner?” The woman fidgeted with the hangers while looking at you.

You grimaced, “No, a murder.”

She howled, “You are a hoot! Don’t we wish, huh? Let me pull you some options.”

You put the dress on the top of the paper bag, having hidden it under your make up table the previous night. Your fingers were trembling, applying your makeup needing deep breaths and concentration.

“Ruth, can you do my lips?” You turned and handed her the brush. 

“The eye looks better.” She took your chin in her hand and painted your mouth a pretty shade of red.

“Thank you.” You offered her a smile but she didn't let go, “What?”

“You ever seen a cornered raccoon? Like one got in the house and your mom boxed it into a corner with a broom?”

A nod, yes, actually, you had.

“Who’s got the broom?” She asked. You knitted your brow, not understanding. “Who’s got you in a corner? Is it Tommy?”

You took your chin back, deep breaths. “No brooms. No corners. Just rattled still from last night.” Not a lie, surprisingly. “You thought of a raccoon? Really? Is it because of the eye?”

When you took your bow for the evening and turned to escape the stage lights for the darkness of backstage, you found Tommy leaning just outside the dressing room.

“Get changed, doors unlocked upstairs. Room 504.” 

Grabbing the paper bag you ran through your mental checklist. Wear red, take off your make up, hide the canvas by the bed. An odd to-do list for murder.

The theater had two floors of modest apartments above it, the owners keeping two of the open for the theater’s use. One was for the owners should they ever visit New Orleans, and the other was multi use. Storage and a crash pad for performers or Tommy when he worked late.

The bag crinkled as you hugged it, looking over the small apartment. Boxes, decorations, a modest kitchen and a bed. The bathroom was quite large, a tub and shower head. Was this where the other performers went?  

Why hadn’t anyone said anything sooner? Why didn’t anyone leave yet?

Taking a second, you got to work. You opened the canvas and slid it under the bed, the smallest bit of edge sticking out for easy retrieval. Dizzy with the quickly settling reality of what you were doing, you sat on the floor for a moment. Trying to calm your breathing, you closed your eyes.

The fear of the unknown was suffocating you. There was a possibility Alastor failed and ended up hurt. Or, that he changed his mind and Tommy left you two to just hold hands on the bed for a sex-appropriate amount of time.

You patted your thighs and stood up. No time now for a panic attack. Alastor had a change of clothes in the bag, neatly folded and tied in twine. They were set onto the shelf above the closet.

And finally, yourself. Your dress was on and you stopped to wipe the make up off your face in the bathroom mirror. Still bruised, still nasty. The dress was nice though, carrying some of the weight for your battered mug. Red cotton, sailor neck and little gold buttons down the front. Flashy, brighter than the dark number you usually wore.

Would he like it? Most men looked for how a dress accentuated your curves (or hid them) but you had a feeling Alastor didn’t care so much about that.

You took your seat at the edge of the bed, thin mattress sagging from your weight.

The clock ticked, until finally the door opened and you saw something you hadn’t seen before and knew you’d never see again. Tommy and Alastor.

“Here she is. Autumn, this is Mr. Cerf. He's asked I stay in the apartment, apparently word of your attitude already spread among the upperclass.” Tommy wagged his finger at you in a playful way that was entirely out of place.

“Look at her. Pouting. Not very excited, is she?” Alastor smiled at you, softly. You felt for a second that maybe you entirely misunderstood. He looked calm, normal. Even peaceful.

“It’s always nice when they fight a little. But she won’t cause you any trouble.” Tommy patted Alastor’s back, who immediately shirked away.

“Do you like it when women try to fight you off, Tommy?”

A dry laugh, “Ya know how it is. They gotta act like they don’t like it so people still respect ‘em.”

A hum. Alastor’s smile falling entirely. A shadow settled over his face. “I see. That does make things easier.” He slipped on his short black gloves. “I always tell her she looks lovely in red. She rarely listens to me, but I’m happy to see she did tonight. It’s a special occasion.” 

Once, you thought. You didn’t listen once. 

Tommy nervously chuckled, looking from Alastor then to you, “What?” Alastor grabbed him by the back of the neck, pushing him to the ground and onto his knees. Hand fisted in his hair, knife pressing across his throat. 

Alastor dug his knee into the small of Tommy’s back, “Tommy, I think you owe the lady an apology.” You let your feet find the edge of the canvas and slid it out with a kick. It glided across the wood and stopped where his knees met the floor. 

“I’m sorry! Fuck, I’m sorry.” Tommy was staring at the waxed fabric in front of him. 

You felt your eyes sting with tears, a smile breaking out against your will. “For what?”

“I—,” his eyes searched the room for an answer, your words bringing a pulse of Deja Vu, “It’s about yesterday?” He seemed to relax a little, “Come on. I said sorry. ” Looking back to Alastor. “I didn’t know she had a guy.”

Alastor yanked his head back to look him squarely in his eyes, “Wrong answer.” He pushed him down onto his stomach, “Come on Tommy. I like when my victims fight a little, too.” Sensing the taller man towering over him with the knife, Tommy scrambled onto his back to look at Alastor. Tommy started shouting, “Hey!! Someone!” But there was no one to hear him. That was the beauty of the space he always brought his dates to; it was too loud to hear anyone scream. 

Funny how that works both ways.

Alastor shrugged, “Well that didn’t last long.” As Tommy backed up, trying to get traction on the slippery canvas and failing, Alastor straddled him. Tommy’s hands came up, one pushing against Alastor’s face, the other against the arm holding the knife. Alastor put both hands onto the knife’s handle, staring down into Tommy’s eyes as he inched closer to the man’s neck. “You look scared, Tommy. Are you scared?” 

The other man shouted, eyes trembling as he watched the knife come down.

Alastor pushed through, metal sinking into Tommy’s throat. No pause, he withdrew and sank it again and again. Tommy’s hands fell from Alastor’s face, flailing slightly at his neck before slumping down. He was frenzied, stabbing at his chest and upward with wide eyes. You recognized those constricted pupils. They made sense in this setting. Alastor was panting, taking a second to split the skin from ear to ear in the middle of his melee. 

You brought your knees to your chest, watching the crime unfold. Was this anger for you or truly for everyone? No one ever got so angry for you before, if you could be so conceited as to say this was for you. Your mouth opened and you spoke without thinking, no filter. “You look like an angry God. A jazz demon of wrath.” You smiled, the morbidity not lost on you.

Alastor stopped, frozen as he stared at you. For a second, he had forgotten you were there. He was always alone during these hobbies of his. Until recently. You looked like an angel in red and gold. Had he dyed your heavenly robes crimson? Or had you been made that way?

He dropped the knife, peeling his gloves off and stepping over Tommy’s decimated torso before kicking off his shoes.

You scooted back onto the bed and opened your arms, welcoming a strange after-kill cuddle. Your reward.

Alastor took off his bowtie, then his shirt. It took you a second, not realizing what was happening until he began to unbuckle his belt. “Now?!” 

He nodded, “Yeah.”

“What the fuc— okay,” your hands flew to unclasp your stockings and roll down your panties. You mumbled to yourself, “Jesus Christ.”

As he crawled over you, warm gloveless hands tracing along your legs, hips, waist, you looked at up him with your now dilated pupils, “It’s murder? You need murder?”

He laughed, embarrassing you a little, “No it isn’t that.” His face nuzzled into your neck, “You’d go to hell? For me?” 

You froze, you hadn’t really seen it like that.

“You’d damn your eternal soul,” his hips pressed into you, an unfamiliar hardness there that made you gulp, “just to spend time with me?”

How were you so heated over an erection? A dime a dozen, men practically threw them at women who offered them the slightest smile. Yet feeling him so hard against you, something you had been practically praying for, made you weak. A trembling virgin all over again. 

Don’t lie, he always told you to be honest so you decided to try it out even if it made you feel at risk of harm. Your hands slid up and into his hair, gripping gently, enough to elicit a groan from him, “Well I was worried heaven wouldn’t have jazz, so… yeah.” You had to always say something a little in jest, to hide from the vulnerability of honesty, “This seemed like a better option.” The truth was, if you had to state it plainly, you would dive head first into hell in exchange for his smile. To hear his laugh. To feel his breath over your mouth. You were quite sure hell was more your scene, anyway.

“I’ll be sure to fill your afterlife with jazz every day, dear.” 

How could he make hell sound so sweet?

“It’s a deal.” Fingers playing with his hair, basking in the warmth of skin on skin. 

He leaned up, eyes scanning your face as he always seemed to do in these intimate moments. The feeling spreading down his chest was one wholly foreign to him, one he was struggling to put into his own words. You hadn’t run away. You opened your arms for him even still, welcoming your own damnation in exchange for… affection? Attention? Him? The reason didn’t matter, not to Alastor, and not now to his growing need. You didn’t even push him for more than he wanted to give, not yet needled him for details, secrets, sex. Could you really just be there for Alastor? Take him for what he was and what he wasn’t?

His mouth was salivating at the thought you’d give him anything. Reality was, you already had. His finger caressed the purple welt on your cheek. You were given pain and he returned it ten fold to its owner. A demon of wrath. He felt his cock twitching, underwear tented around him. 

You smiled up at him, wiping a little streak of blood from his jawline, “You look quite pretty in red yourself.”

His head came to rest on your collarbone with a shaky sigh.

Had you said something wrong? 

“Please, you’re already pushing me to my limit.”

Making a show of it, you zipped your mouth and pretended to toss the key. You wanted to reach down and pull off his remaining bit of clothing, to rub yourself against his manhood. But, you weren’t sure if that was something he would appreciate. You didn’t want to ruin his experience, to make him regret offering you something he so clearly didn’t need to give.

He removed his underwear, watching you unbutton your dress and pulling your arms free. Your bra, garter, and stockings were still on. Somehow he found it more scandalous than if you were completely naked.

Your breath was shaking, uneven as the excitement took control of you. There was a not totally unfounded fear you'd black out from hyperventilating.

Alastor lined himself up with your heat and pressed in, making a hard to decipher face as his brow knit up and he bit his lip. You were already so wet, not a hand or mouth needed from him. He wondered if you shared more than an acceptance of justified homicide; your body so relaxed and welcoming to him. 

With a few shallow thrusts, he was fully sunk into you. You may have let out a cry. An emptiness you hadn’t clocked was suddenly gone. Was this what Zeus meant when he said the two souled humans were too powerful and tore them apart to weaken them? 

Was this sex, or love? The word made you nervous. But—- if he offered it to you in both palms, you’d suffocate yourself in his hands.

He began to move in earnest, thrusting in and out slowly. You had expected the frantic moves of a horny virgin. Instead he was moving with control, hips rolling into you like waves gentle and steady where the lake met land, not slamming like many men before him. 

Had it been any other dick, you’d whine and begin moving yourself against it for that needed speed. This was Alastor. Dripping pleasure into your open mouth like a drought-breaking summer shower.

You didn’t recognize your own sounds, already panting and moaning as a warmth spread from the place where his cock was sliding around inside you.

Alastor tried to keep calm. Even when his body was sensitive, he wasn’t used to the mental work needed to fight off his orgasm. Usually he had the opposite issue, struggling to stay focused enough to finish. Mind wandering to more productive chores. 

But you were so wet, so accepting in body and mind. He watched your eyes close, one hand gently clawing at the blankets, the other reaching down to touch his lower stomach every time he thrust back in. For the first time in a very long time you really truly wanted to remember who was at the other end of the dick you were enjoying.

Languid moves. Swollen cockhead hitting the bottom of your walls, the top, the end, pushing still a little further.

“I’m sorry,” Alastor leaned down over you, kissing at your jawline, “For making you wait so long for so little.”

His rhythm picked up then, burying himself deeper into your sopping cunt and dragging out enough to pull back that quiver of his release.

You shook your head, lips tingling. “Nothing little here.”

He attempted a laugh, losing his breath. He wanted to last longer, to make the experience worth your while but he could feel you dripping down his balls and it weakened him with alarming efficiency. Finally the frenzied speed you witnessed earlier was turned to you, you brought your legs up, holding at his sides. “Darling I need to-,” he moaned into your ear.

“Please stay.” You clung to his neck, nails grazing at his shoulders.

Alastor’s voice was soft and sweet, a small moan and a gentle grunt. His legs spread more, trying to get every centimeter of himself into you. Hips now grinding in a small circle, but not losing any of the comfort of your warmth. You felt him still pumping that welcomed heat into you, and you tightened around him, drawing out your own moan. He hissed, “Sensitive.” Your legs were shaking like leaves in a storm, no orgasm but the pleasure nonetheless intoxicating.

The front of your brain felt like static, perhaps from the lack of oxygen as you had uncharacteristically lost your breath under Alastor. 

Like losing your virginity, after the fear faded and you were able to find a moment for introspection, you found yourself larger than before. The edges of your canvas expanded out, new parts of yourself unfurling for you to explore. Nothing had been lost, only gained.

Alastor kissed at the dark circle under your eye, at the bruise of your cheek, he lifted your arm and kissed gently at the purple and blue spots there too. He had lied, and he wasn’t sure why, but maybe he’d find the will to admit it to you someday.

He had left yesterday to keep from strangling Tommy in the center of the theater, finding himself in a rage. He rarely felt anger. His killings always about retribution, about karma, about righting the scales. He needed to leave to keep from losing his composure.

He lied to you in the alley, unable to look you in the eye when he did it for fear you’d see it. You always seemed to see him with a clarity others didn’t despite such a short time together. He struggled to hide from you and it was as exciting as it was frightening. A testament to your similarities.

He hadn’t done it for everyone. No. His personal moral code fell to pieces when he saw your bloodied eye and bruised skin. He would have killed Tommy even if he had been a good man, even if you’d been the instigator. None of his murderous rules mattered. And it scared him. 

(Next Part Next Week, orz)

*slang for boyfriend, often a rich one

༻Masterlist༺

∰ Summoning the Horny Little Deer Cult (general tag list):

@cxrsedwxrlds , @nonetheartist , @tsunaki , @janchei , @wettiny-in-smutland , @moonmark98 , @hoebihoeshi , @pansexual-opera-house , @polytheatrix , @lorddiabigmommymilkers , @backinthefkingbuildingagain , @harley2223-blog , @coffee-colored-hopeless-romantic , @poinappel , @midnightnoiserose , @spookieroz , @missmidorima , @ivebeenthearchersstuff , @downbadforfictionalppl , @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx , @sleepylittledemon , @aether-th3-enby , @dontfuckbutimfab , @breathlessaura , @aperfectidiot , @certainlygay , @jth12 , @star-kujo-platinum ,

@ivebeenthearchersstuffn, @rubyninja1 , @simphornies , @alleystore , @readergirlstuff , @berry-demon , @chirimeimei , @fairyv-ice , @olive-frog , @thonethatflies620 , @tiredkiwiii , @ilikemyteawithmilk , @whateverlololo , @psipies , @howabouticallyou , @roxxie-wolf , @ive-no-idea-what-to-call-this , @fizzled-phoenix , @fjorjestertealeaf , @phobophobular , @surusurusuru , @mariaclarade-la-cruz1 , @whateverlololo , @simplyonehellofanotaku , @xixflower , @i-am-nonbinary-bean-deal-with-it , @roxxie-wolf , @a-case-of-attachment , @multifandomfanatic02 , @watereddownmilk , @raynerrold , @crazii-saber-wolf , @valkyrie-expeditions , @bontensbabygirl , @sillyb0nez , @oo0lady-mad0oo , @jazzmasternot , @pseudobun , @fraugwinska✨, @alitaar , @straows , @alastorssimp , @angelicwillows , @b-o-n-e-daddy , @one-and-only-tay /

🏹Alastor stalkers: @celestial-vomit , @amurtan ,@valkyrie-expeditions

[extremely-judgemental]

[Really, really long post.]

Every time I see ‘let my girl be happy’ tag and the post is about canon Nessian, it infuriates me as much as breaks my heart. Sometimes I wonder those who romanticise Cassian’s behaviour are speaking from a place of privilege or ignorance because admitting that calls for addressing real life abuse that misogyny forces them to endure.

I’m an Indian living in a highly patriarchal, misogynistic society where women are still required to marry someone out of convenience for the sake of their families. This is not the cute arranged marriages you read in books or watch in movies. Most women have to sacrifice everything they are and they stand for to ease the family’s burden. Let’s not start with dowry or DV. Sure our society has progressed in many ways, this is still reality of most women when it comes to marriages and having a family. No matter how well off you are, no matter how successful you are in your career. It’s more nuanced than you can imagine where the parents meddle with children’s life at every step and our lives are more intertwined with our families than in western society. So I simply can’t read Nesta’s story and delude myself that she got a happy ending with Cassian or the IC. I try to keep my emotions out of most of the criticisms to help people see the situation objectively. That’s hard to do in this case but I’ll try.

Nesta is the eldest child who ‘fails’ her sisters when it is her father’s responsibility to take care of three young girls. Being groomed to be a housewife all her life, Nesta contributes as much as she can by doing the chores and nurturing her family the only way she knows how. She seeks help from relatives and friends while the ones in position to do so ignore her. And when the time comes, she finds the way to be of use to her family by marrying Tomas. Despite all this, Nesta is a failure of a sister simply because Feyre made a choice. These only come to light in Nesta’s book and even the few instances where Feyre realises this, there’s no real appreciation for her efforts. They are dismissed and only mentioned to highlight Feyre’s empathic tendencies and her general awareness of her sisters’ plights rather than uplifting Nesta’s character itself. None of these are acknowledged as these aren’t the typical masculine ways that’s glorified throughout the series.

As Nesta navigates her life as a recently transformed fae, she partakes in a war she has no part in. She has no obligation or need to risk her life for Night Court, or any other court, or even the mortals. These are the same acts that make Feyre a hero in the first book. But when it comes to Nesta and she rises to the occasion, it’s downplayed as she deals with PTSD from her death, the Cauldron, the toll of war, and her father’s death. None of her sacrifices or her attempts to protect her sisters are given an ounce of importance or due respect that it deserves. It’s turned into Nesta’s duty as the eldest sister or the sister of Night Court’s High Lady instead.

When Nesta deals with her trauma, everyone takes great pleasure in controlling how the situation pans out. She goes as far as to live alone to spare her sisters, yet Feyre and Elain who have the choice of when and how to regulate their emotions, don’t grasp the concept of personal space. Her actions are self-sabotaging at best and have no real consequence on any of the other characters. Still, they are amplified to an extent that it’s made into a court affair. And the reason for this is Nesta isn’t coping in the right way. Gambling, drinking and sex which are common activities for the IC become a question of their reputation the moment she does it in her pain, emphasising that these are only acceptable when she does it with them. Spending Feyre’s money on gambling may seem like a reasonable cause for the IC to interfere but if we factor in how Nesta’s rightful wealth from Tamlin or her father was lost because of the direct consequence of IC’s actions, along with the fact that she’s still owed money for her contribution in the war, Nesta is deliberately stripped off any monetary agency to trap her.

If this isn’t punishment enough, Nesta is locked in an inescapable tower with a man she wants no part with. And when she fights, she is lied to about laws and threatened to be thrown among people who consider her a threat. She has no interest in training to fight or work for the Night Court but she’s forced to. She’s not compensated for any of this labour either. Nesta is known to starve herself after the war to the point that she’s all ‘skin and bones’. Cassian, an established gym bro in the series, weaponises food against her when she doesn’t eat what is offered and when. The moment she shows any interest in eating, he judges her for being picky and brings up her latent guilt that leads her down that path in the first place. And later on, knowing she’s not fit enough IC insists on training her right away and in freezing conditions without proper clothing. Nesta soon learns that she has no choice but to comply, goes on to train with Cassian, work in the library, and accept the food the house gives her. This is the first step in breaking her.

Nesta has no one to rely on or even talk to in the house except for Cassian. The relationship that develops between them is not circumstantial but a well orchestrated one. Even for small talk, her only choice is Cassian. After finding out Nesta was SA’d by the kelpie and was on the verge of death, no one (including her sisters) cares for her as much as they should. The one person who checks on her is Cassian and even he’s so overcome with his desire and lust that he has sex with her instead of comforting her. It’s a common knowledge that sex is a coping mechanism for her, and has been SA’d twice which something only Cassian knows. This perpetuates the idea that even when a woman is hurting and in pain, she has to be appealing, her trauma should be sexually gratifying and desirable for the man. A woman can walk back from the doors of death but she has to look pretty while doing it. There’s nothing empowering about that.

Feyre looks down on Nesta for contemplating selling her body to take care of her sisters. But the same is expected from her when she serves Night Court and seduces Eris. It’s almost glorified and revered by Cassian himself. During their conversation in River House, he lets Nesta believe that she has to earn his love and her sisters’. Not once does he contradict any of her fears or insecurities. For the first time, Nesta has sex with him without it being an escape and the next morning Cassian abandons her enforcing the idea that she indeed earned the sex and love for what she did in CoN.

When Nesta reveals the truth about Feyre’s pregnancy, her true feelings are swept under the rug with how she ‘failed’ her sister again. Nesta has the right to out Rhysand and his plans. And even if the situation isn’t the most appropriate, Nesta is locked in a tower and only ever talks to anyone when IC choose which limits her options. Besides, when will the timing be perfect for such conversation? Nesta is again vilified for being the only one honest to her sister and punished. Her intentions are warped to cover up others’ mistakes. Cassian is again the one who punishes her for it. Nesta is suicidal and Cassian recognises the signs. He insists on taking the hike, also using silent treatment to enforce the idea that Nesta is the one on the wrong. His interactions with Feyre proves none of them dwell on Nesta’s actions as much as she believes. While Nesta is having a guilt trip edging her closer to suicide, Cassian is laughing behind her back with Feyre, almost enjoying her fears. At the end of this trip, Nesta talks about her trauma for the first time, Cassian swoops in with his own sorrows and how he overcame them. Instead of making Nesta feel seen and heard, she’s again lectured on what she should do and how.

Lastly, Cassian and Morrigan have a mildly, if not completely, inappropriate relationship which Nesta is expected to accept. If she expresses jealousy or anger, it’s not because of the bond or their relationship but will be seen as an inherent quality of Nesta. She can’t fight it as everyone else has accepted it as a normal relationship. If Nesta shows any displeasure, her past of sleeping with other men will be brought into the conversation and she will be scrutinised. This is very similar to the ‘men will be men’ narrative where the man can flirt with whoever he wants and it’s harmless but the woman has to behave.

Throughout the series, everyone is against Nesta. Her family is her responsibility. She has duty to protect them and serve them no matter the circumstances, no matter how it costs her or how much pain she is in. Her own sisters will side with her in-laws saying it’s how things are and she ‘doesn’t have to be so miserable’. Her life is forever bound to a man she initially wanted nothing to do with and her everyday life is dependent on him. She is trapped with him until she learns to accept her fate. He doesn’t lay a hand on her but he psychologically and emotionally abuses her until she complies with his family and behaves to fit their image. He even gives her silent treatment, withdraws sex/intimacy from her, leaves her alone in the tower, cuts her off from everyone she loves and cares about if she misbehaves. She has no financial independence leaving her at the mercy of her sister and her family. Even when she’s hurting, she has no choice but to risk her life for them or go to wars when they demand. She goes as far as to change her body for her future child. Her life is threatened by her in-laws but no one bats an eye at that forever leaving her fearing for her safety.

If you believe it’s just fiction and all this is exaggeration of something in a fantasy book, you really need to look around you. This is a real nightmare for most women all over the world. Your girl Nesta isn’t happy. She settled. She has accepted a life where she’s treated less than a dog and is used as a weapon. She’s been beaten down until she learnt not to step out of line if she wants to live. She is still with Cassian because she doesn’t see a life other than that as an option and has come to accept whatever scraps her sister and her family have decided to throw her way. And I sincerely hope if you ever come across a real life Rhysand or Cassian, you have the wits to protect yourself and run the other way.

[judesmoonbeauty]

Miss Fairytale Keeper, Come Have Fun With Us: Jude vs. Nica - Chapter 1

Translations will not include screenshots or CGs as mentioned here. Fan translation only. Not 100% accurate. Please expect grammatical errors. Cybird owns everything. Feel free to re-blog, but please do not post my translations elsewhere. Thank you, for you support! ☾.

Ftn: [1] Guten Abend = Good evening, [2] Rotkehlchen = Robin

We were on a mission at a casino where illegal gambling was rumored to take place.

Jude: Since I’m the only one placin’ bets, don’t get in my way.

Kate: Okay, I’ll just watch from the background!

When I replied to the words he had repeated over and over to me, he smiled crookedly.

Jude: ‘N it’s a good chance extort money.

In this casino, anything from money, land, medicine, people and even organs can be used as a wager.

(The mission this time is to stand out in the casino, and gather evidence.)

In order to do that, we need to come into contact with a man, Viscount Smith, but he only approaches those who are good at gambling.

Jude’s plan to lure him out is to win A LOT, but he prohibited me from gambling…..

(This is probably due to some kind of expectation.)

(Besides, I’m sure Jude will yield better results than I would if I messed up.)

Jude: C’mon.

Kate: Coming!

Just as I placed my hand on the door -

???: Guten Abend. What a nice night. [1]

Kate: Huh?

When I heard the voice behind me, I turned around and saw Nica standing there.

Nica: What are you doing here?

Jude: …What’re you doin’.

-Jude’s expression turned grim as he took a step forward.

Nica: Don’t sound like that, I was just out for a walk.

Nica: This looks like a Crown job, guess I’m right.[2]

Jude glares at Nica who’s smiling happily.

Jude: Even so, it’s none of yer business.

Nica: ….Come on, I just wanted to gamble.

Nica looked at the casino door, and then back at me,

Nica: I won’t get in the way, so let me come with you.

Jude: Huh?

He spoke sweetly, as if to seduce me.

Nica: Hey, rotkehlchen, bring me along. [2]

(Since we don’t know their intentions, it wouldn’t be wise to expose Crown’s mission.)

Unsure about how to respond, I look to Jude.

He furrowed his brow even more, and let out an exasperated sigh.

Jude: …..Do whatever ya want.

I turn on my heel and quickly follow after him.

[The scene transitions to inside the casino.]

Inside the casino, people from all classes, both nobility and commoners, were gambling with a odd excitement in the air.

Kate: Is this okay?

I stretched up and whispered into Jude’s ear,

Jude: It’s fine, we ain’t got no right to restrict their movements.

Jude: As long as it doesn’t even interfere with my mission.

Nica: Casinos are great, they’re the ultimate place where money and power rule.

I shut my mouth as Nica follows me from behind, humming.

Jude: Well then, to sta-

Nica: Ah, I have an idea.

Nica smiled suspiciously as he interrupted Jude.

Nica: Have a game with me, Jude Jazza.

Jude: What?

Jude furrowed his brow deeper.

Nica: I hear you love money, don’t you?

Nica: Apparently, you like making money by collecting debts on the large sums you lend.

Nica: I get it. It’s fun stealing from idiots.

Watching Nica under the shining lights, he rested an expensive-looking necklace on his finger.

Jude: How disgustin’. Can ya join me?

He snorted a laugh and then looked away from Nica.

Jude: Toldja not to get in my way, so go away.

Jude walked over to a poker table, when I tried to follow him, I was prevented by my shoulders being grabbed.

Kate: W-what is it?

As soon as Jude had turned away, he grabbed my chin and forced me to look up.

I gasped at our lips almost touching, and Nica smiled.

Nica: So, how about a kiss from rotkehlchen for the winner?[2]

Nica didn’t miss that I was shaken by his words.

Nica: What’s this? It looks like you want to be kissed now.

Kate: No, that’s not true!

Nica: It’s important for you to lure out Viscount Smith, isn’t it?

(We never spoke to him about the mission….)

I freeze as his lips approach me -

Jude: ….You’re really a troublesome guy.

Before I knew it, I was pulled away by my arm and into Jude’s chest.

Nica: My my, what a shame.

Jude: Why’d ya freeze?

Kate: I didn’t freeze!

My relief was short-lived when Nica approached us.

Nica: Perhaps you’re afraid of losing.

Jude: ……Hah?

Nica: It’s true that I’m good at gambling and I’m good-looking, so it’s no surprise you’d lose.

For some reason, Jude bit at the obvious provocation -

Jude: Sure, if ya say so, I’ll play ya.

Kate: Jude?

Jude: It’ll be faster to swat away those annoyin’ flies buzzin’ ‘round.

Nica: Haha, that’s the spirit.

Nica: The winner gets a kiss from rotkehlchen. It’s a promise.

The battle for my lips had begun.

[Master List] [Next] Dividers: @.adornedwithlight

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[straylightdream]

collateral damage

part one: you’ll never leave me

feat: artist!hwang hyunjin x f.reader

↳ “He was left out in a sea of debit drowning. His only chance at surviving was marrying you. ”

arranged marriage au

warnings: mentions violence and death, gambling and drinking, dealing with past heartbreak and angst, unprotected sex, oral (both receiving) body worship, mentions of pregnancy. More warning to come in each chapters.

an: this is a part of my arranged marriage series I’m working on. I’m going to post this in short chapters and then when it’s finish post it all together.

series masterlist

𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰. Please fill out this form.

𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐬.

A young talented artist with the world at his fingertips, had one major flaw. He loves to gamble. That wouldn’t be an issue if he kept winning, the real problem is he kept losing. Each loss pushes him further and further underwater. He was left out in a sea of debit drowning.

A rough night at a poker game left him tied to an overpriced Italian leather chair fearing this was the end of the line for him. With a blackeye and a busted lip, he was waiting for the end to come. The door to the dark office opens and the one man he feared most walks into the room with a bodyguard on each side.

“Hwang Hyunjin, why do we keep meeting like this?” The man dressed in an extremely expensive black Dior suit walks in front of him.

Hyunjin winces looking up at him slowly. The man had a wicked grin playing across his lips. Hyunjin’s eyes travel to the gun the man holds in his hand. He doesn’t respond, he just stares at him. He knew whatever happened to him was his own fault. He was the one who couldn’t stop gambling. He would be his own undoing.

“Answer him,” one of the guards shouted, kicking Hyunjin's already broken rib. Hyunjin gasps in pain, closing his eyes trying to stay with it. The beating he took before being tied up was already taking a toll on him.

“I don’t know Sir,” he finally says, groaning in pain.

“Hyunjin, you're such a promising artist, with such a nasty habit for losing money,” the man in the suit walks towards him. “You know how much money you owe me right?” he crouches down so he’s eye level with Hyunjin.

“A lot Sir,” he groans.

The man reaches forward, grabbing Hyunjin’s jaw tightly. “You have no way to pay me back,” he growls. The look on the man’s face let Hyunjin know death was closer than he expected.

“I’ll figure it out sir,” Hyunjin had been trying to figure out for a while how to crawl his way out of debt. Every option he could think of still left him drastically short on money.

“I’m feeling overly generous today. I have a one way ticket out, you either take it or you have twenty-fours to figure out how you’re gonna pay me,” he lifts Hyunjin’s chin so he’s looking at him. “Every single god damn penny you owe me.”

“What is it sir?” No matter what it was he knew he had to take it, because there's no way he could get all the money he owed him in twenty-four hours. He’s as good as dead if he doesn’t take the offer.

“Marry my daughter, and all is forgiven,” he releases Hyunjin's jaw before gently smacking his cheek lightly.

Hyunjin’s eyes grow wide as he tries to process what he was just offered. He didn’t even know the man in front of him had a family let alone a daughter.

“How old is she?” he asks without really thinking of anything else.

“She’s your age,” he lets out a laugh.

“When will I marry her?” It didn’t matter who she was. He had no choice but to marry her. His life was hanging on the line.

“Is that a yes Hwang Hyunjin,” he walks away from him and takes a seat at his expensive oak desk. “If you’re wise you’ll marry her.”

“Yeah, I’ll marry her,” he had never even seen her, but she’s his only chance of surviving.

-

Laying in bed you’re awoken at four in the morning to your fathers phone call. Frantically you answer the phone worried something is wrong. Your father simply tells you to open the front door. Walking through your house in a robe wrapped tightly around your body you open the door to find your father and two of his guards standing on the other side.

For the longest time your father went out of his way to protect you from the evils of his job, but as you got older you saw what his job was truly like. You always tried to distance yourself from him, and had even tried to run away once but you were quickly found less then a week later.

“Hello darling,” your father says casually.

“Dad, what’s going on?” you say completely confused.

“I’ve brought you something,” one of his guards Minhyuk pulls a man with dark hair that reaches his shoulder in front of him. The boy immediately winces in pain, grabbing his side.

“What?”

“Darling, say hello to Hwang Hyunjin, your soon to be husband,” your father says as Minhyuk pushes the boy towards you. He can barely stand on his feet and you catch him before he falls.

“What the hell are you talking about?” you hold the boy up as you look at your father completely confused about what he is even talking about.

“He has a large debit to pay me, and that can only be paid by marrying you,” your father says too casually. As if forcing you into an arranged marriage is completely normal. “If you don’t want to marry him it’s fine. Tae will take care of him.”

Your heart sinks knowing exactly what will happen if you tell your father no. You literally hold this man’s life you’ve never met before in your hands. If you say no, Hyunjin most likely won’t even see the sun come up.

“Why?” you can’t help the tears that are threatening to fall as you stare at a man who has been clearly beaten by one of your father’s men.

“You’ll never leave me again, if you have him with you.” The older you get the tighter the grip your father fights to hold on your life. He tries to be in control in any possible way he can. You can’t do anything without him having a say. Your father made sure that when you opened your flower shop he had full control over the building, and clearly this is his way of having control of your romantic life.

“I’ll marry him,” you look at the beautiful man and see a guilt ridden expression on his face. Hyunjin is nothing more than a pawn in your father's game that is your life.

“I’ll have Yeji plan your wedding this week. Expect an extravagant wedding in two weeks. Oh and Hyunjin, and my darling daughter if you try anything funny to try to get out of this. Just know Hyunjin, I have no problem permanently removing you from this or any situation ever.”

Minhyuk pulls the door shut and you’re left standing there holding up a boy you’ve never met before. He steps away from you and stumbles over to the couch. You rush over to him, dropping to your knees trying to examine the damage your father left behind.

“I’m so sorry,” you say as you start to cry.

“Why are you sorry?” he groans, reaching up to brush away the dried blood from his lip.

“He’s just using you to make sure I can’t leave again,” reaching you to rest your hand on his cheek. You finally take a good look at him and realize how handsome he is.

“We’ll figure this out. I guess we’re a team now,” Hyunjin sighs. He reaches up resting hand on yours.

-

You realize your apartment isn’t really set up to have a second person living in it. You live in a one bedroom apartment with nowhere to put a second bed.

“My place only has one room,” you look into his warm eyes.

“That’s fine I can sleep on the couch,” he groans holding his side.

“I should probably clean up your cut,” you stand up holding your hand out. You don’t even know this man that is supposed to be your husband, but all you know is you want to help him.

Rushing off to your bathroom you pull out a first aid kit. You pause for a moment and look into the mirror at the site of your tear stained cheeks and puffy eyes. You knew your father went out of his way to control your life but you never thought he would arrange for you to marry a man you’ve never met. You couldn’t help but suddenly feel completely trapped by your father and he was making Hyunjin a pawn in his game.

Regarding taglist:

If you aren’t interacting with my writing outside of liking the new post I’m gonna have to remove your name from the taglist. You will also be removed if I try to tag you and your blog is listed as "invisible". If you've changed your URL and didn't let me know I will also be removing your name. I’m sorry for the inconvenience but my interactions outside or likes feels like it’s nonexistent right now. All of my taglist are still open though. If you request to be added to one via this form, I kindly ask for interactions in the form and feedback and reblogs. To be quite honest, those really encourage my writing.

[nalyniavadelletargaryen]

[ HOTD - Aegon Targaryen ]

HeadCannons SFW + NSFW

First Post…I have 3 other accs for 3 whole different interests. I think I’m going crazy atp. Anyway enjoy my PERSONAL thoughts on The Usurper King.

{ WARMINGS }: SFW + NSFW + MDNI + HIGH VALRYIAN

{ PRESS ▶️ }:

SFW

Aegon is a pleaser. Not in an “I’ll do whatever you want me to” way. More in the “I want you to love me, so I’ll do what it takes to keep your attention on me..” sense. It’s manipulative, but he’s grown up in an environment where love is withheld constantly, so he gives to take from you. Toxicity is his form of affection, and he’s aware of it but struggles to let you go…

Aegon tends to hold you on a pedestal. You aren’t to be touched by anyone but him. He can’t stand the thought of you being exposed to the sins he commits or has committed without his explicit intent to do so. You’re his greatest treasure, and with that title comes the burden of being kept close to him. Your innocence belongs to him; he will defend or defile it as he sees fit.

Aegon has a surreal weakness for his hair being played with. He immediately softens when you run your fingers through, ruffle, or swipe fallen strands from his eyes. More than a few times, he’s fallen asleep just because you are playing with his hair. If you ever bring it up as a weakness, he will deny it til his dying breath.

He will not sleep unless you’re in his bed. Aegon will purposefully preoccupy himself with drinking and every other deviant activity to keep from going to bed alone. You chalk it up as a cute habit of his at first, maybe even a sign of his protective nature, but in reality, he tends to be restless without the sound of your soft breathing and the feeling of your warm skin against his. Your presence eases his mind to a point he can’t always reach when sober.

Aggressive Protector. He has to have a say in your safety. Aegon can not stand when you leave without informing him of your whereabouts. He practically loses his mind when you refuse guards trailing your every move. His sanity momentarily slips when he awakes in the middle of the night to find you gone for a mere second. He’s overbearing in his approach to protect you and is vicious to anyone who implies harm your way.

Aegon will never actually apologize. He tends not to immediately snap at you during arguments, harboring a bittersweet wit for every conversation, but when he does snap back, it’s harsh and unforgiving. You take his words to heart every time, not speaking to him for days on end, and eventually, he breaks, but not in the standard way of admitting one’s wrongdoings. No, Aegon prefers to give you gifts and a semi-thoughtful gesture to regain your favor. “I apologize..” will rarely leave his lips but “You’ll forgive me, right?” Is a constant phrase he finds himself saying to you as a replacement..

He loves to chase. The thrill of playing a cat-and-mouse game through any means feeds his impulsive nature without fail. You can string him along anytime and in any way you prefer, and he will entertain the game with the intent to win by all means necessary. The very knowledge that you put up a fight against his charm to lose to it in the end makes his head spin with pride.

Games. Aegon loves to engage in tedious matches of the mind. It’s not his well-known trait or talent, but he is skilled at logistical gaming or gambling. He will not often put you up to a bet, even over the most minor things, just for the thrill of it. Whether you lose or win against him never really matters. He enjoys the stakes and risks of a challenge.

Physical touch is his primary love language. Second to this is acts of service. Aegon prefers to express himself through action rather than words, feeling as though he can be too harsh in his approach at times, and therefore, he resigns gentle shows of affection to touch. It’s easy enough to get used to him having a hold on you, and he delights in seeing others envious that you’re his and the only one he has. Most of the time, Aegon is somewhat tender with you, with an arm around your waist, kissing your temple or lips, or simply having you sit in his lap whenever he pleases. Then there are the moments where he can be brave with you, gripping your face when he speaks to you so your eyes never leave his, marking your neck with deep bruises just for the whole of the kingdom to see what he does to you.

Likes to be….” babied” but in the sense of “being cared for without explicit reasoning to do so.” The small things you do for Aegon catch his attention at first, simple tasks you don’t think much of in the moment, but for him, they heal a wound he never acknowledges. Bringing him something to sober up with after a long night of drinking and mending his clothes if they tear. Straightning up his appearance whenever you see fit. All and any of those actions touch the Usurper‘s fragmented heart.

NSFW

Innocence/Corruption: Aegon enjoys taking what he can’t have. That includes semblances of purity around him. Finding out you’ve never been touched or fucked will strip an urge in him. It’s primal and dark, but he’s addicted to being the first man to show you absolute pleasure. Aegon's favored approach is teasing you, toying with you whenever he can, to tear you apart under the guise of wanting to teach you what desire means.

Power Dynamic: He is very aware of his status and will use it to his advantage. Knowing you can’t refuse a command he’s given, realizing you’ll obey anyway, and using this information for his gain keeps him on edge. Of course, you’ll fall to your knees and milk him dry. He’s your king. If your sovereign tells you to come undone for the third time in one night by his hand, then you have no right to refuse him. It's as simple as that.

Slight Mommy Issues: When Aegon desires to be under your control, he gives in so quickly. He can be defiant, playful, and challenging to control, but it only makes you relentlessly take him. He adores it. Your soft gaze hardens on him, the steely edge to your tone when you tell him to kneel for you, and the gradual roughness you inflict on him as the tension builds. It’s a little too easy to dwindle The Pretender down to a whimpering and whining mess, but you succeed when the opportunity presents itself.

Praise/Degradation: Aegon doesn’t lean to either. He can balance his words and their effect with little effort. A backhanded comment to you always has an underlying adoration. He’s a skilled charmer, knowing when to push you with words of encouragement and when to belittle you until tears creep down your cheeks. “Don’t tell me you’re so ignorant to believe I’ll let you come undone so soon, sweetling.” “Morbidly pathetic little slut aren’t you?..” “You’re doing so well, sweet girl. “ “Keep your eyes on me..just like that..” “You’re not half as talkative with your mouth so full now…what a shame?..”

Aegon is a master at posing false sympathy and an even better expert at mocking you. Whether he means well by what he says is always the furthest concern in your mind when the pleasure they inflict is forcefully automatic.

Oral Fixation/Enthusiast: He adores your mouth. The softness of your lips, how warm it is, and even the silliness of your tongue when you use it on him has Aegon in a perpetual trance. He discovered the little obsession with your mouth during a tenuous family gathering. You kept nibbling at various fruits, sucking, and licking the juices that leaked from them with little attention to those who noticed you doing so. Aegon certainly noticed, his cock twitching with need when your kitten licked your fingertips, picked another small fruit to sink your teeth into, and swallowed down with a quiet hum. Later that evening, you couldn’t stop him from slipping his fingers past your sticky lips, quietly gagging as you sucked on them gently and moaning quietly as he watched you intently. The slight smile tugging at his mouth when you choke and whine as his fingers fuck your mouth drives him to push you down on your knees a moment later, replacing his hand with his cock with little protest from you. He shouldn’t like the sight of you crying as he fucks your face so much, but oh, does Aegon love to see you indulge in him with nothing but your pretty and supple lips.

Pain: Aegon will leave his mark on you one way or another. He’ll never raise a hand to you out of pure anger, but in the thralls of lust, you’ll endure an affliction or two. He’s pretty handy with you, able to manhandle your more petite frame without much thought, and seemingly forgetful that not all your dresses will cover the evidence of his roughness with you. “Let them see…let the gods see if they must…” He insists that no other opinion is of consequence, and you always fall for it. The next day, you’re left to endure people whispering about the bruises on your exposed skin and the lingering red imprint of his hands around your throat. You leave your marks on him as well, scratches on his skin, little bites on his neck, and the rouge you use for lips staining his collar.

Overstimulation: seeing you writhe and shake under his touch stimulates Aegon. The quick rush of your breaths as you try to contain yourself, tears streaming down your face, with the urge to come overpowering you. He drinks in the sight with a smile, forcing the high from you to reach his own. Seeing your face fall and confront with various expressions as you visibly can't take him anymore drags out Aegon’s demented nature. It's nearly otherworldly how much he loves seeing you come violently, on his cock, in his mouth, on his hand…? It doesn't matter as long as you are physically struggling to stay sane.

Exhibitionism: Aegon chases thrills constantly. Whether it be to disrupt his mother’s peace of satisfy his own desire for fun he ropes you into his ‘harmless’ schemes often. Fucking you to the point of tears in the throne room is a favored past time of his. He knows very well how terrified you are of being caught in the act, of any servant, lord, and lady alike happening upon him having his way with you. He knows and he holds that knowledge over your head, enjoying the way you try to quiet yourself, and prideful of the fact that you fail miserably.

Titles/Pet Names: Aegon is careful with the way he addresses you. Though it varies upon his mood in the moment he’s partial to more affectionate titles. “Sweetling” “My Queen.” “Darling.” “Sweet girl.” “Kēlītsos” (Kitten) “Byka mandia” (Little Mouse) “Hāedar” (Younger sister) & “Dōna mandia” (Sweet sister). You exchange the pet names from him with equal contentment; “My love.” “My King.” “Aeg.” “Rōva lēkia” (Big brother) “Lēkia.” (Elder brother).

This took me way too long to finish but I’m glad it’s my first post. 💚

{ SEALED CONTENT }

[missredherring]

Wrong Until You Make It Right

Joel Miller x Plus Size!F!Reader

Rating: T

Word Count: 3k.

Summary: After a long day when his kitchen sink starts leaking, there's only one person he thinks to call. You make a house call and Joel gets a wake up call.

Contents: no outbreak!AU. No kids!AU. Co-workers to lovers. Power imbalance (contractor/subcontractor). Reader is nicknamed "Patches."

A/N: This is a Secret Santa gift for the lovely @covetyou!!!

I hope you like this, Lo. All of your prompts were great and I had a hard time passing up Dieter giggling about butt plugs, but I couldn't resist Joel pining over his pretty subcontractor plumber.

I was going to try and wait to post this closer to Christmas but I'm so impatient to give it to you!!

I know nothing about plumbing except for what Google told me. Not beta'd; all mistakes are my own. Divider by @saradika-graphics.

Joel’s feet are wet. Why are his feet wet? 

He blinks his eyes back into focus from where he’d been staring blankly at the dishes and looks down at the floor. There’s a small puddle at his feet which explains the deeply unpleasant sensation of wet socks, but not why or where it came from. He opens the cabinet under the sink and a few more trickles of water rush out to settle around his feet too.

He sighs, and for one sweet second he considers going out to his truck, getting the sledgehammer, and just smashing through the whole damn kitchen. But then he thinks of the work and money it’d take to fix everything after his temper tantrum and sighs again. He turns on his phone’s flashlight and looks under the sink. There’s the usual pipes and nothing is obviously broken, but there is a puddle at the bottom of the cabinet to match the one on the floor. He hears another drop of water fall as he closes the door. 

His head hangs between his shoulders and he squeezes his eyes shut for just a moment. His phone is in his hand and ringing before he really knows what he’s doing. Your name is on the screen and his gut is mixed between the flutter of anticipation to hear your voice, and the sick twist of ‘oh shit.’ He shouldn’t be calling you this late after an even later day, but he has a plumbing issue, and you’re the one he always calls for plumbing issues. Ok, not always, but for the past year and a half you’ve been his plumber of choice. 

Your tiny voice is yelling at him by the time he makes up his mind to not hang up on you.

“Did he butt dial me or something? Man…” You’re talking to yourself and it sounds like you’re moving your phone away now so it’s his turn to call out your name.

“Patches, uh, hey. I meant to call you.” He says quickly. He grabs a kitchen towel and throws it on the floor, soaking up as much of the water as he can, moving it around with his already wet foot.

“What’s up?”

“I have a problem at the house. Kitchen sink is leaking.” 

“I just checked the kitchen pipes yesterday. Did something–”

“No, not at the site. At my house. There’s water all over the floor and–” He can feel the need to explain himself mix with the nerves in his gut and it’s an effort to stop the words. “Could you come over and take a look at it please? I know it’s after hours. I can call someone else.”

“Don’t worry about it, Miller. I’m leaving the site now, so I’ll see you in a bit.” You say and end the call. 

He’s left looking at his phone’s clock and rubs at the back of his neck, suddenly aware of his sore back and arms and the weight of tiredness behind his eyes. Joel takes the gamble and finishes the remaining dishes in the sink. He can give you the curtesy of a cleaned up workspace at least. When he’s done he goes under the sink again and turns off the water valve. 

Another hanging kitchen towel catches his eye as he straightens up and he tells himself that he might as well dry and put away the dishes while he waits for you to get here. Right after he changes his socks.

Headlights flash through the front windows and his phone chimes with a text. He checks it even though he knows it’s from you, and a moment later you’re knocking at the door. 

Joel saw you just this morning, passing you in the site’s upstairs bathroom as he left to meet up with the materials supplier. He already has the urge to give you a wide berth, to leave the room you haven’t even entered yet. As he opens the door he knows, deep down, that being alone with you is a bad idea.

You’re standing on his doorstep, still in your preferred work uniform of a t-shirt branded with your plumbing company’s logo and a worn pair of overalls. Sturdy boots are on your feet and you’ve got a tool bag in one hand as you shove your phone in a pocket with the other.

All of a sudden he regrets everything. Calling you was a mistake. You shouldn’t be here, all round and soft and looking like you’ve walked out of every dirty dream he’s had since he was a teenager just learning what to do with a stiff dick only steps away from his bedroom, his couch, his kitchen counter. Hell, he’d happily deal with his back and knees aching tomorrow if you let him fuck you on the stairs right behind him, or up against the door after he closes it.

You raise your eyebrows at him when he doesn’t say anything and just stares at you. “You said you’ve got some busted pipes? You’re gonna have to let me in if you want me to look at them, Joel.”

He nods and moves out of the way. His hand is fidgeting at his side, but he's happy to let it go, relieved that it hasn't done something dumb like reach out for you instead. “Thanks for coming over so late. I appreciate it.”

“You know, there’s a porno that starts out like this,” You say as you pass him, a teasing grin on those lips he does his best not to think about. “The genders are usually flipped –which is just a ridiculous waste of potential– but don’t worry, all I have in here are my work tools. I left my other tool bag at home.”

You laugh and it’s all he can do to force some kind of sound out of his mouth that he hopes to God sounds like a laugh instead of a groan at the thought of you watching porn. 

“I promise I can pay, no need for a trade of services.”

You click your tongue and give him a look over your shoulder. “Shame.”

Joel finally closes the door behind you, pointing the way to the kitchen. It’s the only other room on this floor with the lights on, so you find it easily and Joel follows you, watching the shift of your hips as you walk. He’d always thought the overalls looked good on you, hugging the lines of your belly and ass and making him want to pop the buttons at your hips to see how far down your shirt went today. He's seen it ride up your sides, revealing skin and rolls that his fingers itch to touch. 

They’re covered in stains and patches, just like every pair you own, but he recognizes this pair and that patch on the back of your leg. It was one of the first jobs you'd worked together and he was still keeping an eye on you, getting the feel of how you worked and how well you fit into an established crew all trying to get the job done on schedule. 

The denim had gotten caught just at the back of your knee on a nail that had been sticking out while you checked a pipe fitting. You didn’t care much, just glad the skin underneath hadn’t been caught as well. The next time he saw those overalls there was a patch over where the hole had been, the stitches neat and straight in a way Joel knew his mother would’ve admired.

He glances away from that same patch and the others that have since joined it when you set down your tool bag on the counter. 

“You said the sink was leaking?” You ask him with a curious tone. It was the same one you used when triaging plumbing issues. There's what the client thinks the problem is and what actual problem is, you'd told him when he'd asked about the obvious ‘customer service’ persona you used. He was good enough dealing with customers, but you had a way with them that made him wonder just how much patience with stupidity you had. He hopes it’s a lot because he’s feeling really stupid right now, as you give him another look.

What the fuck is wrong with him? He’s been in a hundred different kitchens, bathrooms, and houses with you, but somehow you being in his own home, in his own kitchen feels different. He likes to savor a pot of hot coffee at that table when his schedule allows for it. That counter is where he dumps his stuff from the day and shakes off his responsibilities as head contractor for a few hours before he has to do it all again. 

Now you’re here in the middle of it, and all his brain can do is wonder how you’d fit in those scenarios. Would you join him at the table, watching the sun come over the trees while you both wait for the coffee to cool down? Would you want something to eat first, needing something in your stomach instead of having caffeine first thing in the morning? Would you lean against him as you tug your boots off and take a moment to rest there, pressing your face into his shoulder tenderly before making a face and moving away to tell him he stinks? 

Joel’s done his damnedest to keep things professional with you, despite the attraction he feels, but now those lines are blurring. There's a familiar curl of desire starting in his gut and he knows he can't let his thoughts wander much more or he'll just make it worse. When he'd changed into sweatpants after getting home, he certainly hadn't thought he'd need the camouflage jeans could provide. He swallows and falls back into the safe zone of work.

“Yea. I was washin’ up and water was coming straight outta the cabinet underneath.” 

You hum and pull out a small flashlight from your bag. Clicking it on, you open both cabinet doors and go down on your knees. After a second you roll back onto your bottom to sit on the floor. He watches as the extra fabric of your overalls stretches over your thighs and the denim creases and pushes into you, and when you readjust to get more comfortable he can’t stop the thought of taking you down to the floor himself. The way you’d laugh at him as he’d wrestle with your clothing, trying to get his hands on any part of your warm skin he could until you took pity on him and helped, lifting your hips up into his as you move them out of the way for him. 

You’re up to your shoulders in the cabinet by the time he blinks the fantasy away and he catches the tail end of what you’re saying. 

“-- you aren’t trying to fix this yourself. Most guys think they can do it.” You say, your voice muffled and echoing at the same time somehow. 

He scoffs. He’d been hired to clean up the aftermath of underqualified “Mr. Fix-it’s” plenty when he was starting out and building up a client base to branch out into contracting. 

“I know enough to shut the water off and call someone who knows what they’re doing. I don’t mess with plumbing or electric, you know that.”

“Right,” There’s a pause before you speak again. “I’m surprised you called me actually, Joel.”

His brows pull together in a frown you can’t see. “Why’s that?”

“I get the impression that you don’t like me much. You’re always scowling at me.”

“I scowl at everyone.” He says, but you’re not wrong. He often finds himself scowling when he catches sight of you on the job. It’s not because of anything you’re doing, it’s because he has to remind himself to stop ogling you while you’re both at work.  

Instead of saying anything else you motion to the faucet. “I can’t tell much right now. There’s no giant holes or disconnected pipes. Turn on the water and let’s see what’s going on.”

He nods and after stepping around you he flips the faucet handle all the way back. 

It happens all at once. The only warning they get is gurgling and the interrupted flow from the spout before something breaks and it’s no longer a drip but a full spray of water coming from where it shouldn’t.

The handle is slammed back down and he’s standing there with his hands held up and a driving need to do something to fix the mess. You’re still leaning into the cabinet, taking a final look at things before he hears the squeak of the water valve being turned off again and you emerge.

You’re soaked. It’d splashed some onto his pants, but you’d gotten a direct hit. Your hair, your face, and down your chest: it’s all wet, dripping onto his floor. 

“Shit, Patches,” He’s all out of kitchen towels. “Hang on.”

You’re where he left you when he comes back, towel in hand. He can see how tired you are in the tight lines around your mouth, the dark circles under your eyes, and the way you’re slouching over your lap. He hands you the towel and you nod in thanks.

It’s a brisk rub down that leaves your hair even more of a mess and the way you hold the towel to your chest in an attempt to draw out some of the water that’s seeped into the denim makes him regret giving up the towel. He holds a hand out to you and helps haul you up to your feet, both of you grunting with the effort. 

“Well,” you start. “From what I saw it’s an easy fix. Just needs some new fittings and fresh tape. I know I’ve got the tape on me, but I’m not sure about the fittings. I can definitely take care of it tomorrow though.”

He nods and is trying to think of something else to say, to keep you longer, when you do it for him.

“Could you get something from my truck for me, Joel? I’ve got a bag of clothes, behind the driver’s seat.” 

“'Course.” He says and you pull out your keys from one of the numerous pockets in your overalls. He wouldn't have minded having to find them himself. Your truck is somehow neat and dirty at the same time and the bag you mentioned is easy enough to find. 

He’s jostling the duffel bag, shuffling the handles in his hand, back and forth as he comes in when he’s stopped in his tracks. You’ve unhooked your overalls and taken off your shirt. The denim is bunched at your waist, held up by your round belly and leaving your chest bare except for your bra. Joel doesn’t know what he’d do if you’d taken that off too, even though it must be wet.

There are red marks on your ribcage and indents on your shoulders where the elastic has pressed into you throughout the day and he wants to soothe them, rub his thumbs and fingers over the marks on your sides as he kisses your shoulders. 

You’re leaning so casually on his counter like it’s something you do all the time. Like you’re just waiting for him to come back. He knows you’re doing just that, but the domesticity of the scene you make is too strong deny and to keep blaming it all on the strong physical attraction he has for you. The thought is clear in his mind and it breaks through all the bullshit he’s been telling himself for the past year in a half: this is what he wants. To come home with you after a long day and spend the rest of the night relaxing together. 

His heart trips over itself and he understands that this is it. He can’t avoid it anymore.

“Here.” He says and you jump a little at his voice. He hands over the bag and doesn’t speak again until you pulled a shirt on. “I like you plenty and that’s the problem.” 

You're in your underwear in front of him with one leg in your own pair of sweatpants. You're bent over, your breasts swinging a little with your movement. There is no shy turning away, just a grateful shucking of wet clothing and he’s only looking at your face and eyes now. 

“You’re damn good at your job and I’ve been trying to be professional around you,” He pauses and rocks his jaw. Then he says your name, not the nickname he gave you or your surname or anything else. Just your name. “I like you a lot, as more than a coworker and these feelings haven’t gone anywhere in the time I’ve known you. If you’re not interested, this won’t change anything at work,” He promises. “But I’d like to see if there’s something there, with you. If you want to.”

He shuts his mouth with a click and almost winces as what he said comes back to him. If Tommy heard about this, he’d never hear the end of it. Hell, he might not have the smoothest lines out there, but he said what he needs to.

You pull your arms into your shirt and there’s movement under it before you’re pulling the wet bra out from an arm hole and tossing it on the pile of clothes. The sigh you let out is gusty and full of relief. 

“Thank fuck it’s not just me. You’re one stubborn man, Joel Miller, but I’m glad we’re finally talking about it.” You reach out to him and smile when he takes your hand. It looks small in his, and he can feel the calluses on your palm catch on the calluses on his fingers. “I’d really like that.”

It’s Joel’s turn to sigh in relief and he squeezes your hand. “I was gonna order a pizza. D’you want to stay for dinner?” 

You narrow your eyes at him and take your hand back to poke him in the gut. “Feeding me won’t get you out of paying for work, you know.”

Joel shakes his head and gets his phone out. “Not even if it’s from Ty’s Place?”

Your lips purse in consideration and it’s with a giddy feeling that Joel realizes that he doesn’t have to push down his urges anymore. He gives into it and leans down to kiss your pretty mouth.

It takes a second for you to reply. “...maybe if you get breadsticks too.”

He chuckles and kisses you again.

[featherandferns]

gamble (alternative ending)

after some feedback from the original fic, I've decided to share the original ending to gamble that I had to change/cut because of Tumblr's post-size policies!

gamble - a jj maybank x fem!kook!reader 22k word fic - can be read here!

BBBRRRINNNGGGG. BBBRRRINNNGGGG. 

You startle awake, shooting up in bed like you’ve been electrocuted. It’s one of those feelings when you don’t remember where you are or when you fell asleep. As you rub at your eyes and let them focus on your surroundings, illuminated by the soft glow of your bedside lamp through the darkness, you remember. You’re in your bed, in your room. Your mom must have left you to sleep after you nodded off, finally at some semblance of peace to get some rest. The sleep you fell into was dreamless and well-needed. 

BBBRRRINNNGGGG. 

Blindly reaching for your vibrating phone, you squint at the bright screen and make out Kie’s contact picture and name. You swipe to answer. 

“Hello?” you mumble, half-asleep. 

“Hey! Can you hear me okay?”

“Yeah,” you yawn, rubbing at your eyes again. “What time is it?”

“I don’t remember. Like ten, maybe? Eleven?”

“Hmngh.”

“Are you busy?”

“Not really,” you sleepily reply. 

“I think you need to come over,” Kiara says. Something about her tone has you awake like a shot of espresso. You push the covers down off you. 

“Is everything okay?”

She sighs and that does little to ease your worries. “Look, I know you and JJ are in a bit of a fight-thing right now - I don’t know, maybe that’s why he’s acting the way he is, at least partially but–”

“Kie? What’s going on?” you interrupt. 

“I just…” She sighs again, then finally says, “I just think JJ really needs you right now.”

“I’m on my way,” you reply, hanging up. You climb out of bed and don’t bother getting dressed past pulling on a sweatshirt. The clothes on your body are three days old; you changed once since the conversation with JJ. A pair of mac and cheese stained sweatpants and an old tank top. Ranger wakes as you make your way down the stairs and you decide to let him join. It’s disorientating as you sneak out the house into darkness, considering that you fell asleep in the daylight. The two of you load into your car and you’re leaving your house in record time. In the rearview mirror you check your hair and cuss, trying to smooth it down. Your skin is makeup free and body empty of jewellery, save from the bracelet that twins JJ’s. It makes you feel somewhat naked. As if he heard the whole conversation, Ranger whines from the passenger seat. You murmur reassurances and pet his head as you drive down the deserted roads. The Chateau beams into sight from your headlights. But there’s something else. Some other light, bright and illuminating, from the yard that wasn’t there before. You park your car and climb out, Ranger quick to follow, and walk into the yard. Your eyes widen as they land on a hot tub. 

“What…the…fuck?”

“Oh, thank God,” Kiara exhales in relief, appearing in the doorway of the porch. She rushes down to you and wraps you in a hug, and you’re happy to return it. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t want to get involved in whatever it is going on with you and JJ, and I never really know if we’re friends or just circumstance friends but–”

“Kie! It’s fine, it’s fine,” you interrupt with a small laugh, a tad concerned. You pull apart, hands on her shoulders, to meet her gaze. Your smile melts with unease, eyes heavy with worry. “What’s going on? Is JJ okay?”

She sighs and shakes her head. She takes a step away from you and rubs at her head. “He got in a fight with his dad. Some stuff went down after you two had your…talk. I don’t know…It might just be better to ask him.”

You purse your lips and nod slowly, contemplatively. 

“He’s inside,” Kiara tells you. With that, you make your way up the porch stops. At the front door, you falter and stop. Would he even want to see you? Was this somehow breaking the rules of your ‘non-break’; not giving him the space he needs to think and function away from you? You recount the past three days of your side of the non-break. How you’ve spent them hiding in your bed, crying at the oddest moments, feeling the lack of JJ’s company like you lost a limb. Ranger rubs at your leg, whining, and you decide to trust your gut. If he wants you to leave, all he has to do is say, but you’re certain Kiara wouldn’t call for just any old thing. 

The spare bedroom door is shut. Ranger whines and whines and scratches at the door. Your hands wrap around the handle and you take a steady breath in. The rickety handle creaks as you slowly push it open, the hinges protesting loudly. One of your hands leans down to grab at Ranger’s collar to keep him by your heel. On the bed is JJ, slumped as he sits, his back to the door. 

“Kie, I told you to jus’ leave me alone, a’right? I’m fine,” he mumbles. His voice is thick like he’s been crying. You swallow. 

“It’s not Kiara,” you quietly confess. JJ whips around. His lips part and eyes gape and he stares at you as you stand awkwardly in the doorway. You probably look just as much of a mess; days-old clothing, unruly hair, make-up free and irritated skin. Funnily enough, a diet of purely Reese’s Pieces is not the best for keeping spots and blemishes at bay. 

“What are you doing here?” he says in a tone that you can’t quite decipher. 

“Kiara called me,” you reply, shrugging as you add, “she’s worried about you and thought I should come over.”

“Oh, uh, right.”

His head slumps and he stares at the blanket atop of his bed. You purse your lips and feel the awkwardness and unease consume your entire body. Contemplating leaving, you glance behind you, into the silent hallway. But then Ranger somehow manages to slip from your hold. He races over to JJ like a rescue dog in the mountains, clambering onto the bed, ambushing JJ. He laughs at the onslaught of slobbery kisses, letting Ranger imitate a lap dog. His fingers scratch into the coarse fun on Ranger’s neck and he chuckles. 

“I missed you too, boy,” he murmurs. You smile at the sight. JJ glances over at you. 

“I figured you might need a puppy-pick-me-up. He missed you like crazy.” You then take a shaky breath as you go on to admit, “we both did.”

A look flashes across JJ’s face then. His smile lessens as if in thought, and he nods. “I missed you too.”

“I can leave if you want me to leave,” you tell him. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“No,” JJ blurts, quick like a cat running from a loud bang. “No, don’t…don’t leave. Please.”

You nod. You’d stay forever if he asked you to. You’re not sure there’s many things JJ could ask of you that you’d protest to. Closing the door behind you, you wander over to the bed and sit sort of opposite to him, on the side nearest the door. Ranger settles half laid in JJ’s lap, appeased now that he’s in the company of perhaps his favourite person in the world. Your eyes survey JJ’s face for new injuries and am relieved to find none. The old have healed completely now too, thank God. That’s a relief at least. He’s unharmed. Or so you thought.

“Do you, uh…Do you remember when we went fishing, just last week? I don’t know, it feels like a lifetime ago now but…” you cut yourself off nervously with a laugh. JJ nods vaguely. “D’you remember what I said to you?”

“That you’re an armed woman, now?” JJ wonders, quirking a brow, that cute, playful smile trying to break out. 

You laugh quietly, shortly, and dip your head for a moment. “Not just that though. D’you remember that I told you that you can always tell me anything, and that I’m always gonna be on your side?” 

JJ nods again. 

“It’s kinda ironic cause I think that’s when you started putting up these walls,” you say. Another small breath in and then you continue, “and I don’t blame you for it, JJ. In fact, I think I understand it.”

His brows tug together, unclear, and you’re not sure you’ve ever known him to be this quiet before. 

“I can’t relate to you, JJ. I have my own struggles with trivial kind of stuff but I don’t know real struggle. Not like you do. So, I don’t blame you. I mean, why would you let a rich, stook-up Kook into that?”

“I ain’t mean it like–”

“--No, no, I’m not mad. I’m not saying that to be all ‘woe is me’ or whatever. I mean it. Like…I get it,” you interrupt, fighting to hold his eyesight. “It just hurts, y’know? Cause the thing is, I love you. I love you no matter what. No matter the ‘bad decisions’ and the stupid choices, like the Midsummer’s fiasco or whatever. But I can’t love you, JJ, if I don’t know you. If I don’t know these things about you. I don’t like being left on the outside. It makes me feel like I don’t matter to you, and I don’t know if I can take that feeling, y’know?”

JJ licks his lips nervously and clears his throat. He nods, glances around the room, uncomfortable by your candidness. JJ doesn't come from a place where conversations like these were encouraged or common and so, as if to reassure, your hand finds his on the blanket. You softly envelope it with your warmth. He stares at that small gesture for a long while. 

“I just don’t want you to think less of me,” JJ confesses quietly. “I’m a scumbag, a’right? I make dumbass choices and get myself into dumbass situations and I’m not good for you.”

“Yes, you are, JJ. You’re a good person.”

“No, I ain’t,” he quickly dismisses, meeting your gaze once more. And he means that. It hurts you so bad because he means it. “I ain’t a good person.”

“Don’t say that,” you whisper. “You’re a good person to me, okay? I don’t care about all that other noise–”

“--Well, you should, alright?” JJ snaps, losing his tether. His hand slips from your comfort to flail out into the air in a wild gesture. “I mean, Jesus! I just fuckin’ robbed a drug dealer and blew the money on a hottub, for Christ’s sake - and you’re sitting here telling me I’m a good person?”

You look down with that. JJ catches his anger and sighs, shakes his head, disappointed. “I’m sorry, I just…This is what I mean. I can’t let you get that close to me.”

“I get it,” you mutter. “You don’t love me, JJ, that’s okay. That’s not your fault.”

“No, hey - what? I never said I don’t love you.”

“You never tell me that you do,” you whisper, eyes stinging with tears yet again. You look at him and offer him a shaky smile. “I don’t want to force someone to be with me, JJ.”

“I don’t want you to tie yourself to me,” JJ out-right states. As if surprised by his own truthfulness, he’s spurred on. “I don’t want you to say you’re okay with these things now and then look around in three months time or whatever, and realise just what a fuck-up you’re with.”

“I’m never gonna think that,” you tell him. “I’m never gonna think you’re a fuck-up.”

JJ looks unsure of whether to believe you or not. Your hand finds his again, the other landing on his thigh. “I mean it, JJ. I’m in love with you. I don’t care what batshit, crazy stuff you get yourself involved in, as long as I’m in it too. I’m in, okay? All of it. I’m in. You just gotta stop shutting me out, yeah?"

JJ shakes his head slowly. But he’s easing up, coaxing open like a conker from its spiky shell. His tone is joking, lighter like buttercream, as he says, “You’re insane.”

“Maybe,” you say, smiling sweetly. “But I’m your baby.” 

He smiles at that. 

“So, will you tell me? All of it? Please,” you request.

And he does.

It’s hard at first, like he’s forcing the words out syllable by syllable, but then it gets easier. The stories. The reasons. The motives. It starts with the hurricane - hurricane Agatha - and then with the white boat that they found. That’s where he got that gun - the same gun that you used to save him from Rafe and Topper - and you distantly recall his story. Then bits and pieces continue to crop up surrounding the Royal Merchant: the compass, the package…Then comes the grocery run and the jump on Pope, and the revenge. How Pope sank the boat, not JJ. That’s when the scruff up happened at the outdoor theatre, with you wielding the gun and saving their asses. Soon after came the arrest, originally intended for Pope but JJ gladly taking the fall. The pictures in the interrogation room of those men, bludgeoned and killed with a fishing spear before being left for shark bait. How JJ was terrified of that happening to John B but, more importantly, of it happening to you. First Rafe's ever-looming threat over your head and now this, and JJ felt like it was all because of him.

So he started to shut you out of it. Wanted to keep you at arms length. You couldn't get wrapped up in the Royal Merchant madness if you knew nothing about it.

"Cause I have to keep you safe," JJ mumbles, gazing into your eyes. "You're the most important thing in the world t'me, y'know? If something happened to you...and it was because of me..."

His voice trails off as if he can't bare the thought. Your heart swells. You squeeze his hand reassuringly and it prompts him to go on. JJ returns to the story. To how his dad beat him when he came to pick him up, and that’s why he was black-and-blue when he came to your house for dinner with your parents. God, if only you knew. After, with Midsummers, with John B dating Sarah Cameron (hence the secret note) and the meet-up at Rixon’s surrounding the Royal Merchant and the gold. How you weren’t invited because above everything else, JJ had to keep you safe. Then, they found it. They actually found the gold, under the Crain house, and they were going to be rich. Stinking, fucking, stupid rich. That brought them to today.

“So we melt the gold down,” JJ recounts, petting Ranger’s sleeping head. “And go to this pawn shop, a’right, way up town in like dodge-ville. I’m the one who’s gotta pawn this hunk of crap ‘cause I’m the best at bullshitting, so I go in and spin this whole yarn about my dementia-crazed mom or some shit. The pawn broker sends us out to the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, and we get jumped by this random guy with a gun. He held it to our heads and made us give up the gold, but John B got the upper hand, right? You following? And I lost my shit, okay? Like things just felt…With you and the whole ‘break that isn’t a break’ thing, and the gun…I lost me shit, and I wanted to get even. An eye for an eye and all that crap - I mean, you know, you’ve read the bible. So we go to his shitty ass trailer and I steal the twenty-K that I owe for that boat Pope sank. But the others weren’t, uh…they weren’t super cool with that, so I went off alone, a’right? Cause I don’t need anybody but me, yeah? And I go to my dad and give him the money to settle up with the cops. But…But he don’t wanna do that. So this whole…thing starts and…”

JJ loses his momentum. His lower lip starts to tremble and this infuriates him. Huffing, he presses his hand over his mouth. You frown, worried, brows so closely knit they might as well be one. A shuddering breath that’s so deeply unfamiliar to hear in JJ lets slip. A tear trickles tellingly down his cheek. 

“Oh, JJ,” you murmur. 

“I nearly fuckin’ killed him,” JJ gasps. More tears fall. He stares you down as he repeats, “I nearly fuckin’ killed him and I-- I just couldn’t take it anymore, y'know? I couldn’t take it–”

You throw your arms around his shoulders and pull his shivering body into you. JJ rests his head on your shoulder, burying his face in your collarbone, and he sobs. Your own eyes well at the feeling of his pain leaking onto you, and you press your nose against the collar of his shirt, breathing in the only smell that can bring you calm. Your own personal brand of nicotine. His arms raise to cradle your back, holding you close just as you do him, and you let him cry. With every tear, it’s as though another brick has been pulled free from the walls he’s been building in the past two short weeks.  

Even when the headfirst sadness has passed, you hold him. It’s safe here, in this corner of the world, once again lapped in moonbeams and darkness. 

“I do love you,” JJ says against your skin. His breath is warm as it fans across the flesh. “It’s jus’...my family, we didn’t do the whole talking thing. I’m not used to really tellin’ anybody anything, let alone how I feel. It’s easy enough saying it to my friends but with you, like that…It scares the crap outta me.”

“Why?” you breathe, pulling back to be able to meet his gaze. Your head shakes as you gently say, “why is it so hard when I say it to you all the time? You know I’m never gonna turn you away or shoot you down for saying it.”

“I don't’ know,” JJ admits. “I don’t know, I guess I just have this thing that tells me I shouldn’t ever tell anybody.”

“In case you ever want to take it back?” you wonder. 

JJ swallows thickly like taking medicine. He shakes his head. His eyes look so sad you could weep. 

“No. In case you ever want me to.”

Lips parting, something clicks in your head. You think about the past two weeks. How your parents welcomed JJ into their house with open arms, whereas JJ is lucky if he can stay in his for a week without a blow-up. How you lean into your mom for comfort, whereas JJ can only find that in the bottom of a bottle. You’d only ever been met with love and grace and forgiveness. JJ? He knew betrayal and abandonment and disdain. You said you understood before, the first time he told you that he loved you, way back after the fight at the outdoor movie, but you didn’t. Not until now. 

“I drove past your house everyday, y’know?” JJ mumbles. “I wanted to call you so bad but I know you wanted this space and that I'd already fucked it up with the whole Ashley thing. I don't know...I guess I just didn't wanna push you. But I wanted to come over, so bad.”

A laugh bubbles up your throat and you can’t swallow it back. Shaking your head, you admit, “I thought about you everyday.”

JJ smiles, then starts to laugh under breath. “Wow. We’re really good at this, huh?”

“You should’ve come over,” you tell him, a teasing smile on your lips. “That’s what the guys do in the movies.”

He scoffs, shaking his head, grinning. “Now that just ain’t fair!”

The two of you sit in your laughter. It’s heavy like it holds stones in the pockets, but with each giggle you feel yourself becoming lighter. When the humour dies down, the two of you are left with sated smiles, gazing at one another. But JJ’s smile begins to fade. That same look of sorrow comes over his face. 

“I don’t wanna lose you,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I shut you out. I just...I just never wanna lose you.”

You shake your head. “You’re not gonna lose me, JJ.” 

“You promise?”

“On Ranger’s life,” you say with a flicker of humour. He smiles, small, and nods. His hair is still damp and sits sticky on his forehead. 

“I should’ve told you about Ashley. I thought I was maybe saving you, or somethin’, by not but…You deserve to know. You’re entitled to know,” he affirms. “I’ll tell you anything you want. I swear.”

“I don’t need to know about the others, JJ,” you reply, meaning every word. Your hand squeezes his tightly. “I trust you.”

Both of your gazes drift down to your interlocked hands. On yours and JJ's wrists sit your handmade bracelets; the beads of your initials press against one another as if embracing. 

“Fuck,” JJ breathes out in a dying laugh. “I love you so fuckin’ much.”

Your head darts up. The words hang themselves in your head like bunting. A girlish, giddy smile breaks out on your lips. JJ begins to mirror it. 

“You do?” you giggle. 

His head bumps against yours. The smell of chlorine and prosecco comes and goes like the tide. Your lips want to chase his but something keeps you at bay, waiting for him. You found him first: now it was his turn to find you. 

“I can’t promise that I’m not gonna keep fuckin’ things up. But you came into my life and fuckin' turned my world of grey into colour. And I don't...I don't know if I can see those kinda things without you."

And somehow, someway, that's deeper than 'I love you'.

"Promise to let me in, now?"

Despite your closed eyes, you can see JJ's smile clear as day.

"I promise. You're officially a Pogue."

JJ’s lips find yours like a migrating bird returning home, and you feel as though you can finally breathe right for the first time in three days. Your fingers slip into his hair, combing through the strands, and JJ’s palms and fingers caress across your figure, as if tracing your body back into his mind. 

And as the two of you kiss, you realise that this was all it ever had to be. It was never that complicated, never that layered, because all that mattered was JJ. Wonderfully, recklessly-imperfect, Pogue through-and-through JJ. 

[rapunzelbro]

Imagine Husk Finding Out You Relapsed

Im going to be on a hiatus and post here and ther. My mental health is causing me to not be as inspired. Anywho this is kinda a comfort fic and was hard to write so sorry in advance

Masterlist Taglist

When you started your path to redemption it meant having to stop your addcition that you carried over from before you were dead

It was a struggle to say the least but Husk was there to help you through all your shit.

He knew of all your nervous tendencies that led you towards reaching out for the drugs and offered alternatives which really helped

He constantly checked your room for drugs and when he found them, he never yelled

“What’s got you feeling like you need them?”

“I don’t know who I am without them”

That was always your excuse and he helped you but you just couldn’t let go of your struggles no matter how hard you tried

You and Husk making a deal that he would stop gambling in exchange for you to stop which was a major deal on his end

You agreeing and it going well up until you suddenly just loose it entirely.

Snapping at Angel Dust over some shit you two get in an argument about and leaving the hotel

Husk leaving to find you later at the bar that was packed. And you were with a bunch of others doing drugs before you followed behind before leaving from the back

You instantly regretting it when someone takes you and leads you out of the bar using his arm to support yourself

“Oh fuck no”

Husk quickly shooting the man before he could try any bullshit on you when you two made it outside and you falling from no support side he just died

Husk catching you instantly

“Doll.. why?”

You just not responding not having an answer for to as he takes you back to the hotel. And to your room

Angel glancing over at you, knowing exactly what you did and he feels slightly guilty to cause you to reach back towards her past

Husk placing you on your bed

“Y/n I’m not mad but why?”

“I don’t know.. I really don’t know”

You ending up crying trying to explain to him your best while he just listens to you, it breaks him hearing you like this.

“I’ll stick by your side until this is all resolved okay?”

“You.. you promise?”

“Yes doll I promise”

He keeps his word and this time you keep yours. And you finally have someone who is more important than your past

Husk

Husk Taglist: @saturnhas82moons @mixplara @aphestina @brithedemonspawn @vendetta-ari

[bxriles]

On Rhysand and Eris:

I saw a post that said Rhysand and Eris were the same exact character and it low key implied that it’s hypocritical to like Eris while hating Rhysand (among other things lmao), so I wanted to give my two cents as someone who fucking hates Rhysand with every fiber of my soul but who also likes Eris. No hate to the person who made that original post. I’m just using it as an excuse to ramble and avoid the work I should be doing right now.

More below the cut:

I’ll start off by saying that Eris and Rhysand are DEFINITELY similar characters. I wouldn’t say they’re the same though. I would say they’re foils of each other instead. They both wear masks, but one of them has a support system while the other is completely isolated. But I want to go deeper than that.

I think the key difference between Eris and Rhysand lies in the reason they both wear a mask.

Rhysand. I cannot for the life of me understand why Rhysand wears a mask. Amarantha maybe? But that doesn’t make sense. He’s been wearing that mask for way longer than 50 years if his treatment of the Illyrians and the CON is anything to go by. Is it because he wants to seem powerful? Well, he already is, isn’t he? He’s ThE mOsT pOwErFuL hIgH lOrD eVeR. So it’s not that. Maybe he’s wearing the mask because he wants to keep a tight leash on Illyria and the CON? Fine, but I don’t think he’s wearing a mask at all when he interacts with Illyria or the CON. I think he actively hates them and treats them as such. If he actually gave a shit about the Illyrians, he would enforce the wing clipping ban. If he actually gave a shit about the CON, he would work harder to find the “dreamers” who are trapped down there. What does he do instead? He has Cassian bark orders at the Illyrians and actively torments the CON by torturing Keir and parading Feyre around as his own personal, glorified slut. (And no, I don’t think that’s what Feyre is, but it CERTAINLY is what Rhysand portrays her as when they’re in the Hewn City. Especially in ACOSF where he fetishizes her pregnancy…) So it doesn’t seem like he’s wearing a mask when he interacts with 2/3rds of his court. It reads like he straight up hates them.

Okay, well maybe he wears the mask to protect Velaris from outsiders? No, that doesn’t make sense. Velaris was already hidden from the rest of Prythian. No one was going to discover it. The only reason it got discovered was because Rhysand made a gamble on telling the human queens about it and it backfired.

Fine, maybe he wears the mask around the other High Lords to seem more intimidating. That seems plausible, but I don’t understand why he would do that. Coming off that way means the other HLs will never want to ally with him (as we saw in ACOWAR). And if we’re being honest with ourselves, Rhysand’s actions while wearing his mask do not do him any favors with the other HLs. In all likelihood, he killed those Winter Court children (and no, I’m not taking arguments on this point. If this mysterious other daemati really did exist, why didn’t they out Feyre and Rhysand’s alliance UTM? That daemati may not have been able to get into Rhysand’s mind but they easily could have gotten into Feyre’s or Clare Beddor’s mind instead), he stole an ancestral artifact from the Summer Court when he could have just asked for it, he allowed his wife to burn the Lady of Autumn (I know Beron didn’t gaf about that but if we’re talking alliances, hurting Beron’s wife is a great way to make sure they never work together for the greater good), and he regularly gallivants around the Spring Court when he has NO BUSINESS being there. Sooo wearing the mask around the other HLs may make him more intimidating, but it hasn’t yielded him any positive results. If anything, his behavior should have alienated him more.

So then what’s the reason for Rhysand wearing a mask? Because I haven’t figured it out. He’s just… Wearing one for shits and giggles, I guess? (We all know the real reason he’s wearing that mask is so SJM can justify him sexually assaulting Feyre UTM and twisting her broken bone.)

Eris. Eris’s reason for wearing a mask is a lot less convoluted than Rhysand’s. If Eris doesn’t wear the mask, then Beron will kill him. It really is that simple. In the HL meeting, Feyre notes that when Eris spoke up, he chose his words very carefully, which clearly implied he was trying not to provoke his father. It was even confirmed in ACOSF that Beron tortures Eris. So if Eris doesn’t wear a mask, he gets murdered. The difference is that he doesn’t have the IC sucking him off and telling him what a good guy he is because he’s wearing a mask. Eris has nobody.

I also want to note the other MASSIVE DIFFERENCE between these two characters. Consequences.

Rhysand. This mf does not face any consequences for his actions. Ever. He steals an ancestral artifact from the Summer Court? Yes, he gets the blood rubies, but those are rescinded one book later. He barges into the Spring Court all the time (Specifically ACOTAR, but also ACOFAS and ACOSF) and Tamlin never whoops his ass for it even though he would have every right to. He locks Nesta up in a house with a man she DOES NOT WANT TO BE AROUND after he crucified Tamlin for doing the same thing to Feyre? He’s NEVER challenged on this. He straight up lies to Feyre about her life-threatening pregnancy and then has the entire IC lie to her as well, and that’s that. He’s never held accountable for those lies. He sexually assaults Feyre, defiles her body with paint (the thing she LOVES), and twists her broken bone when she’s likely already septic and what happens? Nothing. It’s never brought up again. He gets away with all of it.

Eris. Eris is a great example of talk shit, get hit. He makes some hateful ass comments to Mor at the HL meeting and what happens? Azriel beats the ever loving fuck out of him. He leaves Mor on the Autumn Court border (he did NOT nail the note to her womb, as a lot of this fandom likes to pretend) and the Night Court holds a grudge bigger than the state of Texas against him for it and they bring it up every single chance they get. Eris goes after Lucien and Feyre in ACOWAR when they (illegally) cut through the Autumn Court? He gets his shit clocked by Azriel and Cassian. If there is one thing about Eris that I like, it’s that while he may dish out a lot of shit, he can also take it.

So is it hypocritical to like Eris while hating Rhysand? I guess you could say that if you still believe they’re the same exact character, but I personally don’t think they are. I also wonder if the people who think it’s hypocritical to like Eris while hating Rhysand also think it’s hypocritical to hate Eris while loving Rhysand. Just some food for thought.

[shrimp-buffet]

LARRY AND LAWRIE HEADCANNONS #2!!

Because holy crap the first one got so much positive attention- (again, headcannons after cut cuz I’m gonna yap for a sec)

Thanks to everyone who enjoyed the first one! It’s my most popular post ever and I’m glad it was so well received. I really hope this is a good follow up! Feel free to let me know if you want more Brawl Stars headcannons going forward cuz I’d be happy to make them.

Anyway it’s finally headcannon time!

Larry focused, Lawrie focused, Both

• Larry’s favorite music genre is literally elevator music (Lawrie likes rock!)

•Both of them hate the Cops theme song, they think it’s very annoying. Doesn’t help that park guest and other brawlers (*cough* Nita and Leon *cough*) tease them with it

• At first, Lawrie didn’t let Larry have a weapon since “they’re dangerous and you don’t need one” but Larry managed to craft his ticket wheel into an explosive weapon somehow and Lawrie was just too afraid/impressed to not let him have it

•They both live in the park’s security station. Specifically, Larry took an unused storage closet and made it into an actual little bedroom, while Lawrie just sleeps in their office (if they sleep at all)

•Lawrie collects bobble heads. They make him smile

•Larry really likes baking! Not to eat the sweet treats (since he can’t even if he wanted to), but he just loves the process of making them. He often bakes cookies with Pearl

•He has no clue that Pearl is related to the Gold Arm Gang somehow. They’ve seen her with them but it just somehow has never clicked and probably never will

•Lawrie does know, but they just think Pearl is harmless enough. The second any other Gold Arm member even gets close to Larry though, they’re ready to strike

•Larry is a hypochondriac even though he can’t even get sick. Lawrie is kinda similar, but they’re just a neat-freak. Either way, everywhere the two go is getting deep cleaned and disinfected

•Lawrie gets a ton of coloring books for R-T since they see R-T as like a little kid and don’t know what else to get them.

•Larry is really good at engineering, and makes elaborate “mouse trap” like contraptions to try and catch criminals. They also make little mini robots! Those don’t have any consciousness but he treat they like his children all the same

•Lawrie pretends they don’t like the little robots, but they will protect those little guys with their life if they have to

•Lawrie’s idea of “fun” is challenging Larry to little games that test their knowledge on all the parks rules (Don’t worry cuz Larry thinks it’s fun too)

•If you bring it up to them, both Larry and Lawrie the living embodiments of anti-smoking/drinking/gambling ads

•People will often sneak up behind Larry and put stickers on them to poke fun at him. He never notices until Lawrie takes them off. He keeps them in a sticker book because they think it means people like him

•No one puts any stickers on Lawrie because he’s just impossible to sneak up on and will punch someone if they try

•They own a cat! Larry found a little Calico kitten and went annoying little brother mode until Lawrie agreed to keep it

•Lawrie hated the idea of having an animal around, but much like a middle aged dad they’re now the one who spoils the cat the most

That’s it for now! Hope you liked it and thanks for reading this!! Again, show some love if you’d like more!

[irisintheafterglow]

Until You Come Back Home (gojo x you)

summary: you call his name enough times that he does, indeed, come back home.

wc: 1.76k

cw/tags: angst/comfort, happy ending !!!, lovesick reader and lovesick satoru, mentions of suguru and riko so anime spoilers, pet names (sweetheart, angel, babe)

note: RAHHHH HERE IT IS HE'S BACK last part of "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" !!! this is my coping mechanism before, during, and after shibuya cuz i plan ahead, yk? anyways hope you like it :D

likes, reblogs, and feedback is always appreciated !

It’s quiet in your room, too unsettling for it to be considered peaceful. You toss around in your covers and count sheep until you’re well past 200 to no avail. It just felt like something was missing and you couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. The room felt humongous and claustrophobic at the same time, too hot to wear blankets but too cold to have your skin exposed. Every single one of your senses was irritated to its limit and you settled for taking a walk to get water. However, you’re surprised to find that you’re not the only one feeling restless. 

“Satoru?” 

You see him tilt his head to look at you in the darkness of the teachers’ common area. His legs are crossed over each other and he rests his chin in the heel of his hand. Rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his half-unzipped jacket, he gives you a tired smile as you sit on the coffee table in front of him. The bags under his eyes are deep enough to bury a treasure chest. You don’t ask if he wants to talk, instead reaching out to take his hand and running your thumb over his knuckles. It’s just something friends do, you reason. No feelings involved with this kind of physical touch, right? After a moment, he shrugs a lean shoulder with a ragged breath, once-vibrant eyes now dulled. 

“Bad dream woke me up. Thought it’d be better to have a change of scenery.” His voice has none of its melodic lilt that you’d grown to love since you both were students, and it makes your face fall. You had very limited knowledge of his nightmares, but to find him staring off into space at the earliest hours of the morning was especially concerning. It was frightening, sometimes, to be Satoru’s closest remaining friend. Witnessing the strongest sorcerer at his weakest was a frequent occurrence for you, however much he tried to appear unbreakable to the rest of society. It was even more frightening to walk this line with him between friends and lovers, to gamble your feelings on a human with the powers of a god. “Do you remember Riko?” 

“Of course I do. As vividly as I remember him, too.” You don’t speak the name of his best friend turned murderer, for your sake and for Satoru’s. It was a stab to the heart you weren’t ready for. “The dream was about them?”

“Mhmm. Just reliving it all again.”

“You’re sort of doing that now, sitting here like a guard at his post.” 

“That’s the point, babe.”

“The point is hurting you, Satoru.” His hair seems almost iridescent in the moonlight when he shakes his head. 

“What are you doing awake, anyway? Missed me so much you couldn’t sleep?” He was baiting you to change the subject and, to your dismay, you bite. 

“Bold of you to assume I miss you at all,” you state flatly, dropping his hand dramatically. He exhales a quiet laugh, leaning his head on his hand to stare at you with those stupidly pretty blue eyes. 

“Liar. You’re the first one I see after every mission, even when I’m not looking for you.” Your mouth quirks at his slip. 

“You search for me after missions?” It makes your heart a little lighter to see some of the twinkle come back into his eyes when he smiles softly. “You’re lying now. Look at your smirk,” you say, flicking his knee lightly. It’s purposeful, you think, when you feel the fabric of his sweatpants brush your hand. He never turned on Infinity if it was you. 

“Believe whatever you want to believe; but, fact is, we’re really good at running into each other.” He leans back in the armchair, raising both hands in surrender. He sighs, looking out at the moonlit courtyard below. “Even right now.” The corner of his mouth quirks teasingly and his eyes flick back to you. “Guess you always know when to find me when I need you, huh?” What is usually a heated face and a rapid heartbeat is replaced by a comforting warmth enveloping your entire body as you nod in agreement. Your mouth opens into a large yawn and you’re reminded how early it is. “I'm fine. Go back to sleep.”

“No.”

“Why won’t you listen to me?”

“Would you listen if I told you to go back to sleep?” He frowns, staring out the window again in reluctance. Before you speak again, he gives the tiniest shake of his head, imperceptible if you weren’t already staring at him. I can’t. He’s scared to fall asleep again, you figure, like when Megumi was younger and would crawl into your bed in the middle of the night. You huff, running your tongue over your top lip thoughtfully before plopping onto the couch perpendicular to his armchair. He glances at you, puzzled, and you settle into the cushions determinedly. “If you’re anxious of what can happen while you’re asleep, I’ll keep watch and wake you if something happens.” His face contorts to protest but you’re quick to cut him off. “Please, rest. I’ll be right here if you need anything.” 

You don’t really remember much after that. In the morning, you find yourself in Satoru’s bed with his arms curled around you. His face is buried in your shoulder, the blankets are twisted around your legs and his, and you have to blow a few white hairs from your face, but it doesn’t matter. It’s peaceful, and he’s asleep with his forehead against your neck. When you absentmindedly run your fingers through his hair and rub his back with the other hand, he sighs and melts more into your body. It’s a position you became much more familiar with when you officially started dating. It was natural to hold him, to wait for him, to love him. Sometimes, when he returned from a mission and you were already asleep, your body would move on its own to embrace him as he slipped into the sheets. Over time, his name fell from your lips as easily as breathing. 

You would whisper it sleepily, in a hazy trance between sleeping and waking. “Hi, gorgeous,” he replies against your temple, pressing feather-light kisses to your skin. “Miss me?” 

You called it over and over, slightly out of breath after you sprint from one end of the school to the other, Shoko texting you that he was returning after a months-long mission. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you,” he murmurs in your ear, picking you up and spinning you around like a romcom movie. 

You’ve screamed it, occasionally, on the days when being in love with a fallen god became too much to bear and he told you to leave, if you couldn’t stand him that much. The romcom side of your relationship certainly appeared during those days, as it seemed to rain the hardest when he was standing outside your door and begging you to come back to his room. It wasn’t perfect, being with Satoru, but neither was he. That alone kept you coming back and calling his name like a mantra.

It’s the only thing you’re able to say when you see him for the first time since his unsealing.

You see him with Yuuji and Yuta in the courtyard, the same courtyard he looked at all those nights ago. Your breath catches in your throat when you finally register the afternoon sun glinting off of his hair. Though your brain was firing off a million signals in a span of seconds, it feels physically impossible to form words, to breathe, to run. Your body and mind push against each other for control, one completely frozen while the other is running so many trains of thought they’re all crashing disastrously. You swallow and take a few cautious steps down the stairs. His head snaps in your direction. 

“Satoru?”

Before you can blink, he’s in front of you, alive and breathing despite the newly healed scars. You cup his face in your hands ever so gently, as if he’d shatter if you weren’t careful. The warm feeling of his skin beneath the pads of your fingers told you that he was real, that he was here. He’s there to catch you when your legs give out and you sink to the ground with him, inhaling him for the first time in weeks that felt like centuries. His arms were just as strong as you willed yourself to remember and just as firm as if you were the one who came back from a lethal assignment. 

“My angel,” he murmurs into your skin. Devotion drips from his words like honey. “How did you know where to find me?” You choke out a half-laugh, half-cry and smile against his chest, more at ease than you’ve felt in your entire life. 

“We’re just really good at running into each other.” He laughs, genuinely laughs and it feels like a thirty pound weight is instantly lifted from your shoulders. 

“We are, aren’t we?”

“Can we have that rager wedding now?” You were beaming at him, basking in his light and slowly tracing your fingers over his scars. It was just another part of him for you to memorize. 

“I thought you denied me my rager wedding.” His accusation is whispered right into your ear and the hair on the back of your neck stands up from the close proximity. “I was heartbroken, truly.”

“If it means keeping you forever, I’ll have a hundred rager weddings,” you promise. In true Satoru fashion, however, he still likes to push your buttons whenever he has a chance. 

“What if it’s two hundred?” He smirks and you roll your eyes, unable to stop smiling nonetheless. 

“That’s pushing it.”

“Fine,” he concedes, pressing one more kiss to your cheek. “One will do. We don’t even have to buy a house.”

“Why not?”

“Because wherever I’m with you, I’m–” 

“Already home. I get it.” He draws his mouth into a frustrated grimace. 

“You didn’t let me finish my sappy line.”

“You’ll have to come up with better than that if you want to truly have that rager wedding.”

“It’s good that I like a challenge, then,” he states before picking you up clear off the ground, one arm slung under your legs and the other supporting your back. He calls out something to his students behind you that you can’t hear, escorting you back to his bed and resting, truly resting, for the first time in ages. 

[transmutationisms]

I was reading your porn addiction post, and I just wondering what you consider addiction if not some sort of disease? I also think porn addiction and stuff in that vein is fake but I also can’t think that addiction is just people choosing to be that way even though they hate it. I say this as someone who was actually addicted to substances like I feel like there was something going on there that can’t be explained by the idea that addicts just choose to be like that. (I don’t think you think addicts just choose to be like that I just don’t really know any alternative schools of thought lol) I don’t mean this in an accusatory way I’m sorry if it comes off that way, I am genuinely curious what you think cause your posts are always so enlightening.

first of all you have to keep in mind that 'addiction' has no singular meaning. even if we confine ourselves to talking about psychoactive substances, 'addiction' can range from the 'classic' case of increasing, compulsive, self-destructive use, to cases where a person's usage may actually be stable in the long term but they're chemically dependent on the substance (think: the way doctors talk about chronic pain patients who are dependent on opioid painkillers; then compare to how they talk about psychiatric patients who are dependent on SSRIs. for example). you can get dx'd with a 'substance use disorder' purely on the basis of how much you take/consume, even if you don't feel it's causing impairment in your life, particularly if you let slip that someone else in your life has expressed concern or tried to stop you. race and class contribute to distinctions here as well, where certain people have leeway to be seen (even in a psychiatric setting!) as 'experimenting' with substances, or using them 'recreationally', where the same usage pattern in a person who's otherwise marginalised might be flagged as 'addictive' and in need of intervention. all of this gets even messier when psychiatrists and physicians try to justify applying discourses of 'addiction' to eating, gambling, sex, social media, and so forth. recall that 'addiction' in the roman republic and middle ages had contested legal and augural meanings that could be positive as well as negative, and that by the seventeenth century it was largely used as a reflexive verb with a predominantly positive meaning—as in, "we sincerely addict ourselves to almighty god" (thomas fuller, 1655) or, of plato, "he addicted himself to the discipline of pythagoras" (thomas hearne, 1698). it was not until the twentieth century that "addict" came to be widely used as a noun defining people who were passively suffering on a medical model.

i don't mean to be evasive here but to point out that asking "how do we define addiction besides a disease model?" presumes already that the disease model is the singular and inescapable way of understanding addiction in the first place—this is not true historically or presently. addiction is a muddled concept and has always involved moral discourses; attempts to present it as a 'pure' or 'objective' medico-scientific judgment are in fact recent and still unstable.

to the extent that it is useful to talk about addiction as a disease—that is, as a state of suffering that is imposed upon the sufferer, that is a disruption of a desired state of health and well-being—i think it is critical to keep in mind that such a disease is social as much as biological. you can start here by pointing out that substance use is often precipitated by the necessity of withstanding miserable life conditions (ranging from extreme poverty, domestic abuse, social marginalisation, &c, to the 'standard', inherently alienating and miserable conditions anyone endures in capitalist society). but there are other social factors that contribute to the presentation of substance use as compulsive, escalating, and self-endangering. eg, lack of a safe, steady supply is a huge factor here! when people are forced to rely on inconsistent, unregulated supplies to get high, this contributes greatly to drug 'binge' behaviours and endangers users. there is also the fact that drug users are often already marginalised (esp along lines of race, class, ability, &c) and are then further marginalised on the basis of being drug users. what would substance use look like in a society where using didn't relegate people to the social margins, or render them socially disposable? what if people had social supports, and weren't forced to toil away their entire lives at jobs that make them miserable for pay that's barely enough to live on? what sorts of patterns of substance use would we see then? so then, is it the drugs themselves that are the problem here, purely neurobiologically? or is there a larger story to tell about how people come to exist in such a state where substance use is increasingly hard for them to engage in with safeguards; where being a substance user causes them to lose whatever degree of social connection and support they may have had, which was often insufficient already; where they are often unable to integrate substance use into a full and connected life because they are told they must either give up enjoyment of a substance entirely, or be continually branded 'relapsing', 'non-compliant', 'dangerous', &c &c.....?

at the end of the day i don't think it's helpful or accurate to talk about addiction as a disease because it decontextualises drug use from all of these factors: why people do it, why it becomes harmful for some, why it's assumed we must simply 'stop' and 'resist' in order to 'get better'. disease explanations blame the substances themselves on a reductive bio-mechanical level (& again, this becomes especially untenable philosophically when we think at all about 'behavioural addictions'). the point here isn't to say that addicts are just blithely waltzing into addiction—or, indeed, to say that drug use is intrinsically a bad thing that should be avoided! it's a pretty typical feature of human existence that many of us enjoy consuming substances that alter our mental and physical states, and that's not inherently bad. when i push back against a disease model of addiction, i'm not invoking a model of personal responsibility or individual choice. i'm asking how we can understand drug use within a much broader social and historically contextualised frame, and how that can help people who are in many different states wrt drugs, from 'currently engaging in patterns of usage that feel compulsive and terrible' to 'never done a drug in their life'.