#i've always thought it was thawing

[deathgasmic]

help me settle this work debate real quick

[lalunanymph]

KITTEN, BEHAVE ☆

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ there are consequences to teasing your biker boyfriend...

⋆｡°✩ semi-public s/ex, fem!reader, biker!sylus, reader wears a skirt, reader's a nasty gal <3, undertones of dom/sub (sylus is one kinky mf), finger sucking, finger gagging, petnames (kitten, baby), fucking on his bike (hehe), c/um countdown, unprotected s/ex (wrap it up babes), sylus matches our freak perfectly, based on this thot i had

⋆｡°✩ dawn says: i've been a nasty girl ive been a nasty girl nasty nasty (sorry zayne)

Sylus isn’t one to find beauty in the mundane but the wind whipping past his frosty locks and your arms wrapped tightly around him makes him feel like he’s on cloud nine.

“Kitten, are you alright?” he calls over the lashing breeze. 

His leather jacket is ridiculously thick, but even through the material, he can feel the heat of your cheeks seeping through.

You always flush whenever he calls you your favorite pet name, and Sylus forgets that just like a kitten, you can be just as playful. 

A slender hand tipped with French nails slides down his torso, leaving blistering heat in its wake. The thin compression shirt he’s wearing under his jacket can barely fight off the warmth of your palm bleeding past the material and onto his skin.

His heart doubles in speed, and in response, he revs the N-907 Ultrabike, its wheels kicking up more dirt and dust. Linkon City speeds into a blur, White Coves’ beaches in the distance and to his right, Bloom Forest spreads her velvety green arms open for adventurous outdoor lovers to play in. 

Your hand trickles down his abs, stealing his attention back to your whims, and he smirks behind his visor when he feels your dainty, pretty little palm resting on the front of his pants.

Looks like the little kitten wants to play a dangerous game.

Two can play the same. 

Sylus pretends to ignore you, and he can tell it only frustrates you more when he remains stone cold and unmoving; a statue you’re trying to thaw.

Your free hand creeps under the hem of his shirt, and thank fuck the wind is too loud because a groan slips past his clenched teeth—it would be absolutely embarrassing if you heard it. His mind works doubly hard to focus on not crashing the bike, maneuvering it down the winding steep roads.

“I thought you said you wanted to take me for a ride,” your voice touches his heated ears, innocent and alluring. 

“Isn’t that what we’re doing, kitten?” He tilts his head back slightly and hears your snort. 

Your antics will never cease to amaze him. Whatever possessed you to be bold also eggs you on to be audacious. Your hands travel further up his shirt, pressing right onto his broad pecs and you smirk when you feel the bike wobbling slightly under his control.

“Kitten,” he hisses. “Stop it.”

But, you don’t listen to him. You never do. 

This insolent prey. He tries his damndest not to buck his hips when you start to rub his bulge, merciless with your teasing. Your other hand reaches up to his neck, where his favorite leather collar sits prettily on his defined clavicles, and tug on it, earning another hiss.

The bike skids to a stop and you’re not sure how you ended up pushed against the pillion seat, Sylus looming over you. He kills the engine and kicks down the stand, the sudden deafening silence exacerbating your heavy breathing. 

“Wait,” you squeak, and he shakes his head.

“No more waiting. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” 

Looking around in a panic, you notice that he’s parked the bike under a secluded shade of trees, next to an empty strip of road. 

This was the same route you took to the edge of the N-109 when you were given the mission to retrieve Sylus a few months ago. 

“Familiar, isn’t it?” He reads your mind with a dark chuckle. 

Those ruby red eyes bore into yours with the grace of a predator provoked, and you, his favorite prey, will finally get what you’ve been asking for. 

“I think it’s high time we recreated some memories from the first night we both saw each other,” he drags his palm up your bare thigh, making you shiver. “It’s a good thing you’re in a pretty little skirt, kitten,” he hums, pushing the hem of your leather mini skirt—a gift from him—out of the way. 

Sylus inhales sharply when he notices the micro thong you’re wearing which barely covers anything, his nostrils flaring.

“Insufferable.”

“Sy,” you whine, unsure what he's waiting for. It's never like him to play with his food.

The press of his bigger body on top of yours cages you to the pillion seat, the friction burning when he unceremoniously drags you closer to him. 

Those intense eyes seem to devour you, and for the first time since you’ve been together with him, you see a shadow of his villainous evil in them. 

“Is this what you wanted?” 

Is this what you’ve been begging for? 

Sylus wraps a hand around your throat in broad daylight, not caring for morals or decency when he squeezes. Hard.

Your eyes roll back into your head, regret streaming in for how you teased him earlier. 

“A-ah—” you choke lightly. “Was jus’ tryna play around.” 

Sylus ignores your whimpers, a bored look on his face as he loosens his fingers, letting you suck in a wheezy breath. 

“Little hunters never learn their lessons, do they?” 

He smirks unexpectedly. 

“Remember that night you tried to tame me during our interrogation? In the end, I was the one who had you screaming, didn’t I, kitten?” 

You did remember—of course, you did.

The shine of your boots spreading his kneeling thighs apart. Leather collar around a pale strip of throat you just wanted to suck on and leave a mark. His smug leers, those glowing ruby eyes that shone like dying embers when he finally snaps off the handcuffs you placed him in and pins you to the ground for a taste of your own medicine.

As much as you hate to confront the truth, it stares you down with an impassive face and dark eyes—a truth that breaks the delusion that you were the one in control when it came to Sylus. 

He touches your thighs, spreads them further. Bright sunlight speckles through the trees, casting webs of shadows across his crooked nose and high cheekbones. 

Sylus takes his time to peel your thong off, and you bite down on your lip to muffle a whimper.

“What? Don't tell me you're all shy now?” 

He snorts in amusement at your attempts to be innocent, prying your lower lip free, stroking the curve of your plush mouth with his thumb until you relent and suck on his digit docilely. 

While you’re not inexperienced when it comes to such carnal submission, it’s the first time you’re doing it outside of the bedroom where anyone could stumble upon the both of you. 

The thought makes your thighs tense and your needy pussy clench down on thin air, something that Sylus doesn’t miss.

“You like this, huh? Being slutted out so publicly… it turns you on to be so open to me.” 

He continues to push his thumb around your mouth; pressing down on your gums, flicking the tip of your tongue, inspecting the ridges and juts of each pearly white tooth. Intentionally drawing out your humiliation. 

Satisfied with the oral inspection, he removes his thumb, swiftly stuffing your protests with two thick fingers. 

“You say ‘no’, but I can smell that sweet little cunt getting wetter,” he murmurs, flitting his dark gaze right to your folds flushing readily with need; right to that cleft which houses his favorite hole.

Lewd doesn’t begin to cover how Sylus can treat you in bed. Outside the sheets, he’s content to play the role of your partner and friend, tagging along on your adventures and explorations. 

But the second he has you trapped in his bed, he becomes a different person. 

Meaner. Assertive.

Downright cruel. 

“Do you want me to touch you?” He goads, locks of silver hair falling across his damp forehead. Sweat dews across your chest, and you feel the heat of shame rising in you.

Sylus, I was just joking, you try to argue, but he’s not hearing it. 

“Didn’t seem like a joke when you were pawing at my cock earlier, kitten,” your lover hums, unable to take his half-mast red eyes off of you.  

He slots a hand between your thighs, and you swallow a cry when he drags your thong to the side, spreading your wetness around roughly with his thumb. Sylus rubs tight circles on your aching clit, forcing you to slap a hand over your mouth to muffle your moans.

“Ssh,” he whispers when you give a tiny, choked cry. Sylus takes this chance to nuzzle your neck, inhaling your scent like a starved man. “We don’t want anyone to find us out, don’t we, kitten?” 

Evil, evil man. You bite on the inside of your palm to keep quiet when he lifts one leg to wrap around his narrow waist, effortlessly tugging his zipper down and freeing his cock. 

“One single sound and I will stop, do I make myself clear?”

There’s no choice but for you to nod. Sylus doesn’t waste a single second once he’s got you all nice and wet for him, grasping the base of his girthy and veiny length, stroking it a few times to make sure he’s hard and ready for you.

The thick tip breaches past your tight ring of muscle, and you bite down on a sharp gasp, squeezing your eyes close.

His breathing is getting heavier, and he curses the second he bottoms out in your tight heat. 

The bike begins to shake with every clean stroke, his thrusts making your toes curl and heels dig into his back. Luckily, the pillion seat is wide enough to accommodate your shaking bodies; never imagining for a single second that your lover would be boldly fucking you on it in the middle of a dangerous zone.

But, Sylus has always been like this—addictive, painful.

Dangerous. 

How he fucks you is no different. 

The blunt head touches the deepest spot inside of you, and you’re helpless to do anything but cling onto him like second skin, muffling your whines into his broad shoulder.

“Looks like the little kitten is enjoying her cream,” he murmurs, trailing his gaze down your body taking him so well. 

The veins on the back of his hands stand out, drawing your attention to him dragging the front of your blouse down, tucking your bra cups under your heaving breasts. 

Sylus’ mouth wraps around one turgid bud, sucking it till it’s shiny with his spit and throbbing from oversensitivity. 

He repeats the same motion on your neglected nipple, savoring your hitched breaths and muffled whines. 

Your thighs start to shake, and you turn your head to the side. 

Look at you, he coos and grabs your chin, forcing you to gaze at the spot between your thighs where he’s fucking into you. Look at how well you’re taking me. 

You’re so wet that droplets of white are trickling down your inner thighs, frothing into stickiness where his cock is rutting shallowly inside of you. 

“Sy,” you moan softly, eyes glossing over with tears of pleasure.

He loves how needy and pathetic you look for him with your swollen, parted mouth and tight nipples just begging to be pinched or flicked.

A furrow creases between his brows, drops of sweat trickling down his jaw. 

You surprise him by leaning forward, flattening your tongue and lapping it right up, shameless in your desire for him. 

“Naughty girl,” Sylus purrs, his red eyes darkening to an impossible black until you’re sure not a shred of your sweet boyfriend remains. Two thick fingers part your mouth open, sliding down your welcoming throat until he’s knuckle-deep in you.

Sylus chokes you out as his other hand trails down your body towards your clit, rubbing the flushed nub until your hips buck and you cry out; a master at bringing your body closer to the pleasurable brink. 

The tears beading in your lash line finally freefall down your face, triggering his devilish satisfaction. 

Returning the favor, Sylus licks them clean, chuckling cruelly at the arousal turning you cross-eyed. 

He loves it when you look this fucked out, and one day when you’re comfortable enough, he hopes you’ll relent to him taking a picture of that messed up, pretty face for his safekeeping.

Baby, you gurgle around his fingers. I’m close… 

Yeah? He goads. Gonna break for me? Come on this cock? Make a mess? Fuck—do it baby. Mess me up. Make me feel so good because that’s all you’re good for, huh? 

He grits his teeth, fighting back the cresting pleasure, needing you to come first.

Come on, baby. Come with me. Five… four… three… that’s it, baby. You’re so close, aren’t you. Don’t come until I reach zero. Fuck—that pussy’s so tight. Two… one… fuck, fuck. 

High strung keens are escaping past the cracks of his fingers stuffed in your mouth, your entire body shaking violently that Sylus thinks you’re being wrecked by an internal earthquake.

Zero. Zero. Fuck, baby. Come for me. Come on, give it to me. Give me that sweet cum. Yeah, that’s it, that’s it—

He grunts, his patience breaking, flooding inside of you in waves of heat; filling you up to the brim.

In this moment of weakness where anyone targeting him can put a bullet right through his head, Sylus thinks that if he dies right now, he would do so happily in your arms.

His forehead gently thumps onto yours and you must be as fucked up as him because you push his hair back, scratching his scalp lightly.

Your sculpted, 6’2 menace of a lover who’s seen death and destruction since the day he could speak, groans and nuzzles your cheek like a weak puppy. With every version of Sylus that you have seen before, this will always be your favorite one—where he’s comfortable enough to kiss you affectionately, bringing you down from the high.

He hums. “Satisfied?” 

Sylus would never say he loves you out loud—that’s not in his nature.

But, his actions scream louder than words when he adjusts your rumpled clothes and gives you a peck on your cheek.

“Do you still want to visit that mad scientist or should we scrap it for another day?”

The implicit invitation tempts you. 

A boring lecture or a whole day spread out on my sheets, kitten?

“Let’s go home,” you choose the latter, and Sylus tries his hardest to hide his smug smile when you refer to his penthouse as your own home.

“Of course. But, for the sake of not violating any more public decency laws, you better keep your paws to yourself until we get home, kitten.”

Proving your disobedience and your unwillingness to learn your lesson, you sink two fingers under his collar, dragging him close enough for your lips to touch. 

“That depends on if you can get us home fast enough, Sy.”

He takes it as a challenge, a grin touched with a hint of lunacy splitting across his face.

“Is that a challenge, sweetheart?” 

“No, I—”

He pulls you into a kiss, devouring your breaths until your lungs are filled with nothing but him, him, him. 

His fingers in your hair, an arm wound tightly around your waist so his favorite prey can never escape him. Sylus breaks off the kiss, ruby eyes like two bloody pools when he stares at your warm cheeks and puffy mouth. 

“You should know I always—always—win our petty bets.”

— feedback and reblogs are appreciated luvs <33

©️ lalunanymph. do not copy, repost, or translate to another site

[moonstruckme]

hiiiii mae. I was re-reading thawing out and I'm curious if you've ever considered writing about Sirius & reader getting Remus back out on the ice again? I feel like it has real cute and fluffy potential. love all that you do! <3

Thank you for requesting! I've been looking forward to this milestone for them for so long :')

Read the Thawing Out series here

cw: modern au, chronic pain references, some anxiety caused by traumatic events

poly!wolfstar x fem!reader ♡ 1.1k words

It was your idea to do this outside of the rink. You notice things that Sirius doesn’t, and you’d noticed that as much as Remus feels at home with the boards and the bleachers and hum of the Zamboni, they intimidate him too. So, you’re taking advantage of a cold Saturday to utilize the outdoors. 

Sirius frowns, spinning an idle circle on his blade. “This ice is shit.” 

“You’re just spoiled,” you counter, still lacing up your skates with Remus. You’ve slowed your pace to match him, whereas Sirius had laced up quick as always and gone out into the small rink without a second thought. Another way you’re simply better than him. 

To his credit, Remus doesn’t seem to be stalling. He tried talking you both out of this on a couple of occasions, saying that it wasn’t worth your time, you were giving it more importance than it was due, etc., but now that he’s here he simply seems to be taking a methodical pace. Preparing himself. Sirius can grant him this, considering he hasn’t had skates on his feet since his injury nearly three years ago. 

“Would you call a swimmer picky for wanting a properly chlorinated pool?” 

“Yes.” 

Remus glances over at you, that particular smile he reserves for your obstinance gracing his lips. Sirius’ heart melts a little. 

“Then fine. I’m picky. Just be careful, both of you. I’m telling you, this ice is truly—” 

“I know how to skate on unsmoothed ice.” You cut him off with a look. There’s fondness buried beneath it, and Sirius narrows his eyes back playfully as you knot your laces and stand up. “So does Remus.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Remus jokes. He stands with you, though, letting you onto the ice first. 

Sirius can see the hesitance in your boyfriend now. That bit of nervousness Remus is trying to ignore. The awareness of it balls up tight and uncomfortable in his chest. 

“Awe,” Sirius croons with overdone patronage, skating to a stop a few feet away from the entrance, “are we not sure? We’ll do it like with the littles then, darling.” He bends and pats his knees, making a show of it. “Come on, come to me.” 

Remus snorts and sets one foot on the ice. “Piss off.” 

That one foot is all it takes. Remus pushes off with practiced ease, gliding into the rink. Sirius beams. 

You look equally as awestruck, your eyes so brimming with love and joy they almost hurt to look at. 

“Well, would you look at that,” Sirius says, “he does know how to skate on shit ice. Give us a spin, handsome.” 

“I’m not your show pony,” Remus says, but spins nonetheless. It’s simple, and yet so incredibly graceful. So obviously second nature. 

“Remus.” You seem to have given up any hope of trying to play it cool, your voice shining with barely repressed glee. “That was so perfect.” 

Remus is doing a similarly poor job of repressing his own smile, though he only tsks. “If either of you did a spin like that, I’d make you redo it three times and then add a jump so you didn’t embarrass yourselves.” 

Sirius crosses his arms, nodding. “Go on, then.” 

It’s clear that Remus is happy to do it. He’s cautious for a while, testing his own limits as he adds complexities and small jumps and tries out different variations. Ordinarily Sirius might worry for his hip, but Remus has been especially diligent in his stretching in preparation for just this; and whenever he seemed inclined to skip it, you or Sirius were there to pester him (lovingly, of course).

Sirius’ heart swells to the point of bursting at how beautiful Remus looks. His posture shifts to accommodate the new range of movement, his arms coming out almost unconsciously, with a dancer’s grace. Sirius is well used to the symphony of skates on ice, but Remus’ have their own melody, their own beat and cadence. Even his face changes, the tension fading from his expression until it’s at once relaxed and utterly present. Remus was made for this. 

You and Sirius don’t do anything but watch, rapt. After a while, Remus seems to get sick of his audience, coming to a reluctant stop. His cheeks are pink from the cold and exertion—Sirius wants to cover them with both hands and kiss him dizzy—but Remus’ expression shifts when he looks at you. 

He lets out a breathy, nervous chuckle. “Sweetheart…?” 

Sirius turns, and your lips are pressed together, your eyes bright. “Sorry,” you say, giving a wobbly smile, “you’re just—Remus, you’re so lovely.” 

“Oh, you sop.” Sirius curls an arm around you, kissing your head. “Stop that.” 

“I’m sorry.” You laugh at yourself. Swipe away a tear that manages to escape. 

Sirius tuts. “Look what you’ve done,” he says to Remus, who appears caught between shock and fondness, his mouth hanging slightly open. “She’s completely right, you know. You’re too lovely; it’s torment for us both.” 

“You…” Remus shakes his head. He’s delightfully flushed now, nearly to the tips of his ears. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my idea to do this, though.” 

“No, but you sure do seem to be enjoying yourself now, don’t you? Come here.” 

To his surprise, Remus actually comes. Sirius is elated; rarely does he get to be this demanding with such gratifying results. 

He lets you go to take both of Remus' pink, hot cheeks in his hands, and plants a firm kiss on his lips. 

“Thank you,” he says, grinning. “Now, stop our poor girl’s crying by skating with her, please.” 

It’s not done before several kisses, but soon you and Remus are in the center of the rink, twining around each other like snowflakes in the wind. You and Sirius take turns teaching Remus the sorts of lifts and jumps he wouldn’t have learned in his solo career. Sirius can’t decide which he likes best; the up-close view of Remus’ face as the world whirls around them and Remus’ hand folds warmly around his, or getting to admire the two of you from the edge of the rink. He thinks more practice will be necessary to determine this. Much, much more practice. 

Sirius’ nose is near frozen by the time you decide to call it a day. Remus teases Sirius for his pinkened cheeks as though he’s not exactly the same, and you insist on buying hot chocolates for all three of you on the way home as though they’re going to let you. You walk out of the park with breaths puffing cold in front of you, three skating bags hanging from your shoulders.

[ginnsbaker]

All Of Your Pieces (13 - Mind If I...?)

Chapter Summary: You weren't the type of person to make easy assumptions, but you swore Wanda had been following you around ever since the mission in Turkey.

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Female Reader Chapter word count: 4k+ | Chapter Tags: Age of Ultron!Wanda, Enemies to Lovers (sort of)

A/N: I've been soooo busy lately, but as promised, here's a new chapter... // More author's notes here.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

You weren't the type of person to make easy assumptions, but you swore Wanda had been following you around ever since the mission in Turkey.

At first, it was subtle—a coincidence here and there. The mission in Turkey had thawed the ice between you, shifting from open hostility (mostly from your end) to a cautious civility. Wanda had saved your life, and you'd extended a fragile olive branch in return. But becoming friendly with someone had never come naturally to you.

In the weeks that followed, you began to notice her presence more acutely. At first, you chalked it up to coincidence. After all, the Avengers Compound wasn't endless. It started with her appearing in the training room at the same time you usually had it to yourself. You thought the schedules you had set for yourselves would stay in place—Wanda working out in the evenings and you having the facility all to yourself at dawn. Even if it weren't Wanda encroaching on your space, you didn't appreciate company. 

“Mind if I’d join?” she’d said, her thick Sokovian accent still clinging to every word. You couldn’t very well turn her away without seeming petty, so you'd just nod and stick to your routine, hyper-aware of her breathing a few feet off. 

Then she'd start frequenting the common areas—lounges, kitchens, even that quiet nook in the library where you liked to lose yourself in a book. Always with a plausible reason, of course.

“Just grabbing a snack,” she’d say, foraging through the fridge as you nursed your coffee. Or “Looking for a new book. Do you have any recommendations?” her fingers trailing the spines on the shelf next to you. You’d nod mechanically, then busy yourself or wait a quarter hour before glancing at your watch and feigning a sudden memory of somewhere you needed to be.

One afternoon, as you were sifting through mission reports in the conference room, she walked in with a stack of files. “Steve asked me to go over these,” she explained, placing them on the table. “Do you mind if I work here?”

You glanced up briefly. “Plenty of room,” you answered, then turned back to your report. But your focus was shot. The shuffle of papers, the faint trace of her perfume—it was all too distracting. After a few strained minutes, you shut the folder.

“Something wrong?” she asked, picking up on your frustration.

“Just distracted,” you muttered, standing. “I’ll finish this later.”

Her face fell slightly. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to bother you.”

“It's fine,” you said curtly, already heading for the door.

That evening, you were in the gym again, pounding away at the heavy bag. As you replayed the day, you questioned whether you were being unreasonable towards her. Maybe it was all in your head.

“Mind if I join?” Her voice again. “I’m working on my form, maybe you could give me some tips?”

You turned to see Wanda at the doorway, gym bag in tow, looking hopeful. And pretty. Even though heavy eye makeup wasn't usually your style, you couldn't ignore that she was attractive, especially now that she was around so often.

Not that it mattered. Wanda wasn't your type, after all.

“Actually, I was just finishing up,” you said, reaching for your towel.

“Oh. Another time, then?”

“Sure,” you replied noncommittally, avoiding her eyes as you passed by.

Leaving the gym, you felt somewhat guilty for walking out like that. Was Wanda just trying to be friendly, or was there something more behind her constant nearness? Trust didn't come easily to you, and her persistent presence was suffocating you a little.

The next morning, you decided to test a theory. You altered your usual routine, heading to the training facilities an hour earlier than normal. To your surprise—and mild irritation—Wanda was already there, running through combat drills.

“Early start today?” you remarked coolly.

She glanced up, a small smile playing on her lips. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d use the time.”

You nodded slowly. “Right.”

Wanda stopped throwing punches in the air, clearly sensing something. “Is everything okay?”

“Just fine,” you said.

Her eyebrows drew together. “If I've done something to upset you—”

“Look,” you cut her off, sighing heavily. “Why are you always around?”

She blinked, taken aback. “I thought we were getting along better.”

“We are. But that doesn't mean we need to be joined at the hip,” you retorted.

Wanda’s cheeks flushed and she quickly looked away to hide the embarrassment and hurt on her face. “I didn’t realize I was that unwelcome.”

“You’re not,” you said, toweling off your sweaty hair. “I just need some space, okay?”

“Understood,” she said softly, gathering her things. “I'll leave you to it.”

Wanda was gone before you could take back all of it. You hadn’t meant to drive her from the training room. You just... you just wanted things to revert to how they were before—before she came in and upended your world—no matter how small your world may have been.

Over the next few days, Wanda gave you exactly what you asked.

—

Vision chose to knock on your door instead of walking through a wall to talk to you this time. 

You had been engrossed in a technical report for the past hour when you glanced at the clock—it was just past nine in the evening. Visitors were uncommon at this late hour, and you were hardly in the mood for company. Sighing, you set aside the tablet and stood, crossing the room to open the door.

“Yes, Vision?”

“Good evening,” he replied with a polite nod. “I hope I'm not intruding.”

“You were, but…” You stepped aside, gesturing for him to enter. “Come in.”

He entered with that effortless grace characteristic of him, his eyes briefly scanning your sparsely decorated room: a king-sized mattress at the center, a small wardrobe, and a sound box at the foot of the bed. You noticed he seemed more contemplative than usual.

“Is there something you need?” you asked, leaning against the door jamb.

He clasped his hands behind his back. “I wished to seek your advice on a personal matter.”

“My advice? On what exactly?”

“Wanda,” he said simply.

Why did everything seem to be about Maximoff lately?

You folded your arms. “What about her?”

Vision hesitated, like he was carefully picking through his words. “I've noticed a... growing complexity in my interactions with her. Emotions that don’t compute.”

“Are you saying you have feelings for her?” you asked bluntly.

“In a way, yes,” he replied, almost clinical, like he was reciting lines from his programming. It was harsh, maybe, to still see him as just an AI, but you couldn’t shake it entirely. “I find myself wanting to understand her better, to be closer to her. But I'm uncertain how to proceed.”

You let out a short laugh. “And you think I'm the right person to help you with that?”

He tilted his head, considering. “Well, you and Wanda are friends. I thought you might offer some insight.”

You shook your head. “We're not friends, Vision. We just work together. Like you and I aren't friends—we're colleagues.”

He seemed to process this for a moment. “Ah, I see. My understanding was that you shared a closer relationship.”

“What gave you that idea?” you asked, unable to hide the slight edge in your voice.

“Because Wanda talks about you more than she does about anyone else,” he replied matter-of-factly.

That stopped you. “She does?”

“Yes,” he replied, as if it was obvious and you were too dense to have missed it. “It seemed logical to assume you two were friends.”

You sighed, running a hand through your hair. “Well, maybe we're... getting there. But that doesn't make me an expert on how you should approach her.”

“Perhaps not,” he conceded. “But any guidance you could offer would be appreciated.”

You considered his request. Despite your reservations, you could tell that he sincerely wanted to have a real connection with Wanda. If Wanda was looking for a friend, Vision might just be what she needed. 

“Alright,” you relented. “First off, why are you interested in Wanda?”

He took a moment. “She has a depth I find… compelling. She’s new to the team, just like me. I think that shared ground could be a natural starting point for a bond.”

You weren't convinced by his answer. It struck you as a cop-out. You suspected he might have deliberately shielded his true motives behind a logical and boring reasoning.

“Is that all?”

Vision appeared regretful—an emotion you hadn't thought he could display. Seeing it for the first time, it gave you a feeling that whatever he felt for Wanda—it was as real as the human side of him.

“I believe she's... lonely,” he murmured.

The word drops between you like a stone, stirring ripples you'd rather ignore. 

“Lonely?” you repeated.

“Yes,” Vision nodded. “Given the recent loss of her brother and being in a new country after her home was destroyed, it's understandable.”

There was no denying that the life of an Avenger wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, despite how the media painted it. Captain America and Iron Man costumes flooded stores, kids wore them for Halloween, and posters of the team adorned countless bedroom walls. Occasionally, you'd be stopped on the street for a photo or autograph. To them, you're living the dream.

But the reality was far different. It was more isolating than people realized. The relentless pressure, the heavy burden of responsibilities, the perpetual cycle of threats—it all took its toll. You suspected everyone on the team experienced this to some extent, but there was always another mission, another catastrophe, leaving scant time to confront personal demons.

Thinking about Wanda, you realized Vision had a point. She'd lost so much in such a short time. Her brother's death was still fresh, her homeland in ruins, and now she was in a new country with people who hadn't fully accepted her. If anyone was the loneliest among you, it was probably her.

“Maybe you're right,” you said, looking down at your feet. “She's been through a lot.”

Feeling uneasy about the direction the conversation had taken, you steered it back to Vision's original reason for showing up at your bedroom door at this late hour.

“So, what's the problem with getting to know Wanda?” you asked.

Vision cocked his head. “Wanda doesn't take well to unasked-for advice. When I try to offer solutions or comfort from what I've researched, she pulls away.”

“Research?” you repeated with a grimace. “Vision, people prefer advice that comes from personal experience.”

“I’ve only been recently “born” into the world, Y/N. I don’t exactly have many human experiences to share,” he said.

“Fair enough.”

Vision sighed. “I'm quite resourceful when it comes to finding answers. I've accessed millions of articles on how to make someone feel better—psychology journals, self-help guides, even personal blogs. Now I know why none of them worked.”

“Have you tried just... spending time with her? Without trying to fix anything?” you suggested. “Maybe invite her to do something together.”

“Such as?”

“I don't know—watch a movie, grab a coffee, something low-key.”

He shook his head. “I haven't attempted that approach.”

“Well, maybe you should. What does she like watching?”

“She has a particular fondness for sitcoms,” Vision recalled.

“There you go,” you said. “Pick a show she likes and suggest watching it together.”

He seemed to consider this. “Do you believe that would help her feel less isolated?”

“It couldn't hurt,” you shrugged. “Sometimes, all you need is someone sitting next to you.” Surprisingly, the words felt foreign on your tongue. You wondered if you even bought what you were selling, given your usual preference for solitude.

“Thank you,” he said earnestly. “I will endeavor to apply this strategy.”

“Don't mention it,” you said, and then, off the cuff, you asked, “By the way, when I hinted that you had feelings for her and you said maybe, we’re talking just friendly feelings, right?”

Vision thought about it. He thought about it long enough that you almost retracted the question.

“She is objectively beautiful,” he finally said. “It’s something to explore once we've established a solid friendship.”

You hummed in response, neither confirming nor refuting his statement.

You walked him to the door. As he was about to leave, another thought occurred to you. 

“Vision?”

He turned back. “Yes?”

“Why did you really come to me for advice?”

He met your gaze steadily. “Because, despite what you say, I believe you understand Wanda in ways others do not. And perhaps, you understand yourself a bit less than you think.”

You opened your mouth to respond but found no words. Before you could gather your thoughts, he gave a courteous nod.

“Goodnight,” he said, and with that, he departed down the corridor. Your eyes wandered off to the door next to you, wondering if Wanda was already lost to sleep.

—

That week, the compound was uncharacteristically quiet. Missions were sparse, and the world seemed to take a collective breath. The team was left grappling with an unexpected lull, each member handling the abundance of free time in their own distinct way. Some welcomed the break—Clint retreated to his family, Natasha disappeared out of town with only a mumble of vague details, and Tony barricaded himself in his workshop. Only Steve kept busy, visiting schools and hospitals as part of an initiative to keep the Avengers grounded and engaged with the community. You, however, struggled with the sudden downtime.

One afternoon, after pacing the length of your quarters for the umpteenth time, you flopped onto your bed and stared at the ceiling. The thought of another movie marathon or video game session made you bored out of your mind. With a sigh, you pulled out your personal phone from the nightstand drawer—the one with a public SIM, not the encrypted devices issued by the team.

You unlocked the phone and opened a dating app you hadn’t touched in months. Swiping through profiles had become a sporadic pastime, and Natasha often berated you for it, reminding you that some of these girls weren’t just looking for a one-night stand.

You began absentmindedly swiping left and right, the faces blurring into one another. Matches were infrequent. Most assumed your profile was a fake, a catfish impersonating a celebrity. On the occasions when you did match with someone, they often turned out to be the imposters, hoping to scam or exploit. It was a frustrating cycle that usually led you to abandon the app altogether.

But this evening took a surprising turn. Just as you were about to give up and close the app, a new profile appeared. A certain Olivia. Stunning, huge green eyes and a great smile, with a bio that suggested a keen intellect and an interest in adventure. 

Your kind of girl.

It's a match! The notification popped, making you grin.

Surprised, you opened the chat. Olivia had already sent a message.

“Well, either you're incredibly good at Photoshop, or I've just matched with an Avenger.”

You chuckled, typing back, “Guess you'll have to meet me to find out.”

—

It had taken two nights of texting for you to convince Olivia to meet with you in person.

You stood in front of the mirror, deliberating over what to wear. Settling on a casual yet stylish outfit—a well-fitted white shirt and faded jeans—you gave yourself a final once-over in the mirror. Satisfied, you grabbed your jacket and headed out.

Descending the hallway toward the exit, you passed by the communal lounge. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a familiar figure sitting alone on one of the couches—a brunette with her back to you. Wanda. She was hunched over a book, and you recognized the cover—The Book Thief by Markus Zusak—the same book you had been reading a few weeks ago when she caught you in the library. 

Come to think of it, you hadn't seen much of her since you'd told her off in the training room. For a moment, you considered approaching her, perhaps to say a quick hello or even to apologize. 

But as you made a move, Vision came into the room, rattling off about some nearby restaurants Wanda might like. Wanda glanced up and mouthed a ‘thanks’ to him.

It sure had the makings of a date. Not keen on intruding, you quietly veered off, slipping out of the compound without announcing your exit.

—

You left the compound unusually early, intent on scouting the area to ensure it was secure and free of threats. Knowing the exits was crucial—in case things went sideways, you needed a clear escape route. Complacency wasn't an option. After all, the semblance of normalcy was just that—a façade. In truth, anyone linked to someone like you was never truly safe. 

It was also a good antidote for nerves. It had been ages since your last date, and chatting with Olivia over the past few nights had been a genuine pleasure. Her humor matched yours beat for beat, and she steered clear of the usual job interrogation. Instead, you both dove into discussions about literature and swapped stories of your favorite place you’ve been to.

It was Olivia who chose the restaurant. She knew enough not to bring you to a popular spot in the city, and picked a small establishment tucked in the quietest neighborhood of the city. 

You arrived five minutes early, only to find that Olivia had still managed to beat you there. She stood from a table near the window, greeting you with a warm smile. In person, she was even more captivating—confident, with that effortless, girl-next-door charm.

“Glad you made it,” Olivia said as you approached.

“Well, I did ask you out, so…” you joked, pulling out a chair.

You both slipped effortlessly into conversation. She did most of the talking, which suited you just fine—it meant you didn’t have to share much about yourself, something you were never quite comfortable with anyway.

“I've heard the beef stroganoff is supposed to be excellent,” Olivia said.

“Sounds perfect,” you agreed, looking over the menu. “Let's share a few dishes.”

You were about to signal a server when movement by the entrance caught your eye. Turning slightly, you spotted Wanda stepping into the restaurant. She glanced around as if searching for someone, then made her way to a small table near the back.

A wave of irritation washed over you. What were the odds? First at the compound, now here.

Olivia noticed your distraction. “Is everything okay?” 

You forced a smile. “Yeah, sorry. I thought I recognized someone.”

“Friend or foe?” Olivia joked.

“Neither,” you found yourself saying more honestly than intended.

Olivia chuckled, oblivious to the depth of your remark. “Well, whoever it is, they can wait. Tonight is about us.”

“You're right,” you agreed, pushing thoughts of Wanda aside. “So, tell me more about your trip to Prague.”

Olivia immediately launched into a story about a strange encounter she had in one of its historic streets but your attention wavered. Instead, you watched Wanda as she placed her order and then casually scrolled through her phone, resembling anyone else dining alone in a restaurant, passing the time while waiting for their meal. She seemed unusually pensive, and part of you felt a semblance of empathy, but you reminded yourself that it wasn't your job to worry about her.

Still, the coincidence was too glaring to ignore. Had she followed you? Was this another one of her attempts to get close to you, or was it something more vindictive—a way to retaliate for being so standoffish with her?

“Excuse me for a moment,” you told Olivia, rising from your seat.

“Sure,” Olivia replied, looking mildly puzzled.

Weaving through the tables, you approached Wanda's. She looked up, her face registering surprise as you stood there in front of her.

“Y/N—”

“What are you doing here?” you murmured, keeping your voice low.

She blinked, taken aback. “Having dinner.”

“Here? Tonight?”

She set her jaw at your tone. “Is there a problem?”

“It seems like you're following me,” you stated, the accusation slipping out despite your intentions. You weren’t entirely sure why you confronted her; it wasn’t to drive her out of the restaurant. It was just that not knowing her intentions was getting under your skin.

“I'm not. This is the only place around that serves Sokovian food. I come here when I miss home,” she said.

“You don't really expect me to believe that, do you?”

“What are you talking about?” Wanda demanded, standing up as well.

“I saw you with Vision at the lounge earlier tonight. He mentioned he'd found a few new spots for both of you to try,” you revealed, smirking. You wagered Wanda didn’t know you were there when she was busy planning evenings with her boyfriend—or so you assumed.

“Well, if you'd eavesdropped longer, you'd have heard me tell Vision I'd just go to my usual restaurant,” Wanda retorted calmly.

“Really?” You scoffed. “Then why are you here alone, at the same restaurant where I'm on a date?”

“You’re on a date?” Wanda’s eyes darted past you, landing briefly on Olivia, who threw a curious glance back. Her gaze took in Olivia’s features—a pair of green eyes, the shade more hazel than her own. A fleeting expression crossed her face before she turned back to you.

She sighed, her shoulders drooping slightly. “Vision doesn't eat food. Why would he come with me?”

“Because he's your... he's…” You stumbled over your words, realizing you weren't quite sure what to label their relationship. The assumption that Vision was her boyfriend felt suddenly unfounded.

“Vision’s my friend,” Wanda said. “He was making suggestions because he knows I miss home.”

Before you could respond, she flagged down the waiter. 

“Excuse me, has the chicken paprikash been started yet?”

The waiter checked his notepad. “It's still queued, ma'am.”

“Please cancel it,” she said, much to your surprise.

“Certainly,” the waiter said, and hurried off.

“Wait, where are you going?” you asked as she began gathering her things.

“I'm getting dinner somewhere else. Happy now?”

“Wanda, that’s not what I—”

She breezed past you but stopped a few paces away, turning to face you. “Not everything is about you,” she said softly, then exited the restaurant without another word.

You stood there for a while, heart beating fast, hands trembling slightly.

When you got back to your table, Olivia looked up, her brows knitted together in concern. It was hard to tell if she was worried about the scene with you and Wanda or if she thought you might bail on her.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

You managed a weak smile. “Yeah, just a little misunderstanding.”

Olivia studied you for a moment. “Do you need to go?”

“No, no,” you assured, though your mind was elsewhere. “I'm here.”

—

It was around an hour before Wanda heard a soft knock on her door. She was sitting by the window, absentmindedly strumming her guitar, playing an old Sokovian folk song from memory—the same tune her mother used to sing while doing housework. She couldn’t remember the lyrics to the song, but she could recall how it made her feel. It never quite brought her to tears, but the melody stirred a deep sense of nostalgia. She remembered being happy and content sharing a cramped apartment with her family. Wanda's voice trembled as she tried to hum along. For all she knew, the song might have been about mundane chores like dusting or laundry, and she might never find out. 

The knock didn't come again, so she continued playing. When she finished her song moments later, she set the guitar aside and walked to the door, wondering if she had imagined the sound. Opening it, she found the corridor dim and deserted. She peered up and down the hallway but saw no one.

“Hello?” she called out quietly, but there was no response. Just as she was about to retreat back into her room, she noticed a small package resting at her feet.

Picking it up, she felt the warmth seeping through the container. Attached to it was a folded note.

Thought you might still want that chicken paprikash. I'm sorry. —Y/N

Wanda stared at your hastily written note, allowing a small smile to creep onto her lips. Her stomach growled softly, reminding her that she hadn't eaten much earlier. Her stomach gave a gentle rumble, a reminder that the quick American cheeseburger she'd grabbed from a food truck, after leaving the restaurant earlier in a huff, hadn't really filled her. Nothing quite hit the spot like the flavors of home.

It really did upset her when you confronted her about being at the restaurant, and it felt like a miracle that the day ended on a different note. If you were back this early, it probably meant you hadn't gone home with that girl, and Wanda couldn’t quite understand why she felt relieved by that.

Your note remained by her side as she ate the paprikash to her heart’s content. Maybe someday, Wanda would gather the courage to tell you the rest of the truth:

That she had stopped trying to read your mind, but she could still sense your presence when you were near or in the room. That earlier tonight, she felt you in the commons and her curiosity led her to follow you, only to be pleasantly surprised when you entered her favorite restaurant. That her heart sank a little when she realized you weren’t alone as she walked into the restaurant. That she couldn’t explain why she felt drawn to you, more than anyone else on the team. That Vision had become a friend, but she found herself still wanting your friendship too.

Maybe one day she’d confess all of this to you. 

Or maybe she wouldn’t.

[doctorsilverhead]

How about a first intimate night for OP (bayverse tlk) and his f!human lover? If possible.

Steel and Skin (Bayverse TLK X Fem!Human Reader)

The night was quiet. Too quiet.

It was a rare thing, peace. The battlefield had long since faded behind them, and yet, war still raged within Optimus. It had been months since he had returned to Earth—since he had been freed from Quintessa’s grasp—but the echoes of Nemesis Prime still clawed at his mind. The guilt. The shame. The loss.

And yet… here you were.

Soft. Warm. Human. Everything he was not. Everything he had sworn to protect.

You sat beside him in the secluded Autobot outpost, your fingers trailing absentmindedly across the cool metal of his servo. It was a touch he never thought he could have, never dared to dream of. But when you looked up at him, eyes full of something so gentle—so unwaveringly devoted—he felt his carefully constructed walls begin to crack.

"You're thinking too much again," you murmured, shifting closer.

He exhaled a vent of warm air, the soft rumble of his spark echoing in his chassis. "It is difficult not to."

A sad smile played at your lips. "You always carry everything alone."

"I must," he whispered.

"No, you don’t."

You reached out then, pressing your palm against the center of his chestplate, where his spark pulsed faintly beneath layers of metal. He stiffened at first—fragile, human hands touching something so vital, so sacred—but he did not pull away. He couldn't.

Because for the first time in centuries, he felt wanted.

And that terrified him.

"I don't deserve this," he murmured, optics dimming. "Not after what I've done."

"You do," you countered, firmer now. "You’ve fought, you've suffered, and you still chose to protect. You still chose to come back." Your fingers splayed wider, tracing the subtle pulse beneath the plating. "Let yourself have this, just once."

Something inside him broke.

His massive servos trembled as they came to cradle you, as though you were something too precious—too fragile—to be held by hands that had known nothing but war. He lifted you with reverence, bringing you closer, pressing you against the unyielding surface of his frame.

His frame tensed beneath your touch. A battle unlike any he had fought raged inside him—a war between restraint and the overwhelming need to feel you. To touch. To take.

"You are fragile," he rasped.

"And you are careful," you countered, moving closer. "I trust you."

A sigh escaped your lips as you nestled into him, your warmth seeping through the cold metal, thawing something deep inside him. He turned his helm, pressing the tip of his noseplate to your temple—a touch that, for him, was as intimate as any kiss.

His voice was hoarse, reverent. "You are my light in the dark."

Then he kissed you.

Or, at least, as close to kissing as a Cybertronian could. His lips were too rigid, too alien—but Primus, he tried. His mouth pressed against yours in soft, deliberate movements, his vents exhaling heated air between each kiss. His servos tightened around your waist, his massive frame shaking as he struggled to contain himself.

But you didn’t want him to.

"Optimus," you gasped against his lips, fingers gripping the seams of his faceplate. "Please, don’t hold back."

A deep snarl rumbled through him, a sound of raw possession, and then suddenly, you were beneath him—pinned gently against his plating as he devoured every whimper, every gasp you gave him. His mouth trailed lower, pressing heated kisses along your collarbone, over the thin fabric of your shirt. His servos, massive yet infinitely careful, slid along your thighs, parting them just enough for him to fit between them.

Your skin burned under his touch, electricity crackling in the air between you. A Prime. A warrior. A god among machines. And yet, here he was, unraveling for you.

"Tell me to stop," he growled against your skin, though he prayed you wouldn’t.

You pulled him closer, arching into his touch. "Never."

His optics flared, and the last of his restraint snapped.

And when he spoke again, it was no longer as a Prime or the last of his kind.

It was simply as Optimus.

And tonight, he was yours.

[yesimwriting]

Middle Ground

A/n i've been talking about exploring other iwtv time periods so this drabble is me branching out of my comfort zone a little and writing a fic set during the 1940's, coven paris era

(i'm writing this with the same dynamics as bestie-verse in mind so i guess this can count as a bestie!reader au, but the only context you need to understand this fic is that reader is best friends with louis)

Summary: When a quiet evening of reading with your best friend is interrupted by the only vampire you've ever disliked, Louis decides that the best way to thaw the ice between the two of you is to have Armand walk you home.

----

The stiff, grainy feel of the material beneath your fingertips is familiar enough to soothe you out of any uncertainty. Though, the growing frequency of your visits is making the small reminders of normalcy your mind once desperately latched onto less and less significant.

As if to prove to yourself that you've truly surpassed the need for subconscious sources of comfort, you shift in your seat, your shoulders relaxing against the sofa's cushioning. You tap your index finger against the edge of your book's hard cover as your other hand moves to turn to the next page.

Hm. The new page brings a new chapter, which is exactly where you promised you'd stop. However, reading ahead by a page or two wouldn't be unforgivable. If you're careful enough about it, you might even be able to get away with reading until the novel's protagonist gets past this particular problem without--

"Don't," the sound of Louis's voice derails your attempted plotting.

You straighten, spine pulling away from the couch as you turn your head enough to narrow your eyes at him. "You promised you'd stay out of my head."

"And you promised you wouldn't read ahead." Louis lifts his head away from his own book, the almost-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth making it clear that your attempted betrayal isn't as offensive as he's pretending it is. "We're both liars."

The underlying sentiment pressed into his words forces a sharp to settle between your ribs. It's a feeling you only really get when you're around Louis, a sense of total understanding, like you could verbalize every thought you've ever had or never speak again and still be understood exactly the same.

You grin, "Then I guess it's a good thing we found each other."

"I guess it is."

You allow the sentiment to linger there for a moment longer before turning your attention back to the book on your lap. "Is Claudia here? I think she'd like this story more than some of the others we've been reading."

The question gets to him more than you wanted it, the corner of his mouth tugging itself downwards. "She's at the theater, she's got a show tonight and they're probably going to have her stay after for a little while."

It's not a surprising response. While the pieces of information you've been able to gather about their coven and the Thèâtre des Vampires paint a less that perfect picture, Claudia seems committed to making it all worthwhile, and even if she wasn't, from the few times you've helped her study her lines before rehearsal, she does seem to find some genuine joy in performing. Besides, at least she's willing to seek out a greater sense of vampiric connection.

You press your thumb against the book cover's edge. "Why aren't you there, too?"

Louis doesn't exactly react, but something behind his gaze seems to close itself off. You should have expected the shift. Since the initial revelation of his secret, Louis has been open about the details that you've been willing to ask him about. However, the coven as an entity has always felt like a bit of sore point.

You don't mind his hesitancy as much as you used to. Meeting Armand and seeing the little girl costume they put Claudia in was enough to quell your curiosity about the theater's inner workings.

After a second, Louis relaxes his shoulders in a way that almost feels like an attempt at compensating for something. "I'm better off reading with you."

The sentiment, though kind, feels incredibly evasive. "But you can read with me anytime." You relax your hand, pulling your fingers away from your book and towards your lap. "And it might be good for you..." Louis gives you a look that feels much too amused. You didn't mean to stumble onto making an actual, serious point. "...To spend more time with people that are like you."

He shifts slightly, posture easing again. "You're like me." The words are said with a genuineness that you can't turn into anything else.

You let yourself smile. "You know what I mean."

"I'm around the coven enough." Louis speaks slowly, his voice even and flat the way it always is when you imply worry. "And I see plenty of Claudia's shows."

It's a response you don't feel the need to argue against. While your visits with Louis are becoming more and more common, you don't see him every evening, and while you are willing to stay up later than usual to spend more time with him, you don't exactly keep the same hours. He likely spends more time around the coven than you're aware of.

"Okay," you begin slowly, "I jus--" You're cut off by the gentle groan of hinges being pushed out of their resting position.

You move on instinct, your back pressing itself against the couch's cushioning as you turn to face the door. Louis made it sound like Claudia would be gone for awhile, but it's not so early in the evening that the thought of her return is inconceivable.

The door's pushed open further, revealing a tall figure in dark clothing. You press your lips together to keep from frowning.

Armand takes a step forward, firmly entering the space before shutting the door behind him. There's no hesitation in his movements, no indication that he'd ever consider acknowledging your right to the time you planned on sharing with your friend.

At the general sense of misfortune clouding your mood seems to be mutual, his gaze lingering on you for a moment too long before flitting towards Louis. "I didn't realize you were still entertaining your book club."

Louis lets out a small breath, a subtle attempt at dismissing Armand's exaggerated formality. "I told you she'd be here tonight."

He takes in the response in as he moves further into the room. "Even when you don't think to let me know, she usually is."

You lift your chin slightly in an attempt to seem steadier. "I'm not here that often." It's an honest enough argument. You and Louis have no choice but to build lives on opposite schedules and you do dedicate a fair amount of your time to the art classes you initially came to Paris for.

"Often enough."

The retort feels incredibly petulant for a being as ancient as he's meant to be. "What a biting argument."

Louis angles himself to better face you, mumbling your name in a tone that you've learned to understand as a warning. It's not uncommon for Louis to redirect you as a way of keeping the peace between you and Armand.

"Allow her to make all the comments she'd like." There's a tranquility to Armand's mock-defense that presses into your skin uncomfortably. "Perhaps they'll help her when she finally learns what it feels like to move through this world without the privileges I've offered her."

It's a threat that you've become relatively accustomed to. Armand prefers to remind you of the vampires whose existences are defined by Armand's influence rather than threaten you directly.

"Leave her alone," Louis's response is pointed yet not strained or overly concerned. You're not sure what to make of it. "You know she's no threat."

Armand tilts his head slightly. "Any mortal that knows enough can be perceived as a source of danger." His attention shifts onto you. "Even the fragile ones with terribly delicate features." There's a tension there, a hardness forced into the syllables that you can't make sense of.

You press your thumb into the corner of the hardback's cover. "I'm not that fragile."

He holds your stare. "I'm sure you believe that."

There's nowhere left for the argument to go, but the thought of looking away first feels too much like an attempt at retreat. You keep watching him, your mind noting the color of his eyes more than you'd like to. The shade of them seems to be impacted by the flat's lighting, the nearly amber color turning into something darker.

Before you can begin to dwell on the difference, Armand turns his head to look at Louis. You're more satisfied by the likely imagined victory than you should be. "I'm assuming that you'll be occupied for the rest of the evening."

It would be an easy thing to embrace your right to be here, but there's a good chance you've already significantly pushed your luck. Besides, for reasons beyond your comprehension, Louis enjoys Armand's company. If the two of them want time alone together, then they should get to have it. You'd likely have to leave soon anyway, staying out past a certain hour isn't appropriate, no matter how platonic your company is.

"Actually, you'll have Louis to yourself soon." You close the book on your lap as you angle yourself to better face Louis. "It's later than I meant to stay."

Louis frowns. "It's not that late."

While you have stayed over later than you should before, you do have to be relatively careful about the hours that you choose to spend out of the house. Your Aunt Celia was generous enough to not only fund your studies but to also allow you to stay with her, and she's a woman of older values. The last thing you need to do is give her a reason to concern herself over what you do during your spare time.

"I don't want to worry my aunt," you begin carefully, "You know how Celia is."

Louis responds with a suspiciously agreeable, "Alright." He moves slowly, marking the page in his book before shutting it. "We'll talk about the book tomorrow, then."

"Yeah," you nod, "Tomorrow."

Louis straightens, his focus shifting away from you. "Armand can walk you back."

What.

The thought of being left alone with Armand in any capacity leaves your mind reeling without direction. You're slowly growing accustomed to keeping your mental reactions in check, but manufacturing 'correct' mental reactions hasn't become much easier.

When you can't figure out an appropriate mental response, you decide to focus on the tangible. You bring your hands together on your lap. "He doesn't need to do that."

"No, but the two of you need to start tolerating each other better."

You're not sure why Louis thinks that spending more time around Armand will make him more likable, or why he particularly cares about the way that you and Armand interact with each other considering how little he seems to mind Armand's treatment of Claudia.

Maybe it's Louis's way of keeping you safe despite your physical limitations. Armand sees no point in your existence, ending your life would mean nothing to him. He doesn't even owe you the kind of inherent loyalty everyone owes to those that are like them.

"And Armand doesn't mind." The words are little more than Louis's attempt at placating you.

The false sentiment briefly blankets the room in a flat silence. Armand shatters the quiet with a tired sigh. "I do not."

His acceptance of the situation does nothing to ease you. For all you know, he's viewing this potential privacy as an opportunity to get rid of you peacefully. Still, you can't bring yourself to give him the satisfaction of your worry. "Okay."

Before you can dwell on what you've just agreed to, you push yourself to stand, your hand pressing into the couch's cushioning. Louis's palm settles against the back of your hand before you can fully straighten. "Be nice."

You finish pulling yourself away from the couch. "I'll try."

----

Silence has a way of magnifying darkness, of stretching dimly lit streets into paths not meant to be taken.

You push against the feeling, your gaze focusing on the stony pavement beneath your shoes. At least the weather's fairly nice, there's a slight chill to the evening air but there's no sharpness to it. The night's also a little cloudier than usual, but the potential threat of rain feels far away.

You turn your head just enough to see that Armand is still dutifully walking by your side. "It looks like it might rain before morning."

If he's surprised by your attempt at conversation, he gives no indication of it, his expression remaining flat. He hums once in acknowledgement of your words instead of actually responding. There goes the bonding opportunity Louis was hoping for.

"You dislike me." There's nothing tactful about his delivery.

You blink, unsure if you're more thrown by the suddenness of his voice or the bluntness of the accusation. While you've never been particularly warm to him, you're not cruel either. And even if you are, on occasion, harsher than you should be, it's only because you're drawing from his perception of your existence.

Still, it's one thing to make a snarky comment during a conversation and another to openly acknowledge disliking someone. You keep your eyes focused on the ground. There are only so many ways you can respond to that kind of comment, and most of them aren't applicable when you're conversing with someone that can read your thoughts. You don't even have the option of offering him a polite lie.

"I never speak ill of you to Louis." It's the closest thing to direct denial that you can manage.

Armand steps begin to slow as he digests your response. "How diplomatic."

You lift a shoulder in an uncertain shrug, "I can't think of another reason for you to care about whether or not I dislike you."

He briefly stills before angling himself to fully face you. "It's not about your opinion mattering."

The reaction is strange enough to get you to stop. You turn towards him. "Then what is it about?"

Armand blinks, pressing his lips together for a long second before responding, "You dislike me." He takes a small step forward, and even though the increase in proximity is minimal, it feels oddly tense. "You don't know me, but you dislike me."

There's a quality to his voice, a heaviness that's almost moving enough to make you wish you were capable of offering him some kind of comfort.

"I..." You begin uneasily, "I dislike the way that you and your coven have treated Claudia." There's something unnerving about being so open, so honest in front of him. "And don't--don't hold that against her, she doesn't complain to me." That's another truth. While you and Claudia have at times discussed and even joked about the little girl costume, she never lets herself seem to upset by anything in front of you.

"She hasn't?"

"No," you say firmly, "My disgust over the irony of an immortal forever trapped in a child's body being forced to play a little girl night after night is my own."

He takes another step towards you. "It's easy to be disgusted by my actions when you're unaware of the alternatives, but others in my position would have been much less kind to both of you."

Instead of remaining as neutral as you should be, you let out a tired sigh. The argument that he's not as bad as he might seem because at least he's not worse isn't as effective as he thinks it is.

"I also dislike the idea that a lesser cruelty should be considered a kindness."

He's quiet for a moment, his head tilting slightly as he regards you. Something uneasy roots itself in the pit of your stomach. "It's easy to be noble when nothing is expected of you." Armand takes another step forward. "There are things that have to be done to maintain order." Another step. "If I do not do them, someone else will."

The justification isn't enough to convince you that all of his actions are a sacrifice for the greater good, but it is a glimpse into his perspective.

You give in with a soft sigh, taking a step in his direction. The shift is an insignificant one, but you trust him to interpret the movement as the middle ground it's meant to be.

"I can understand that." You're not sure that the phrasing accurately portrays how you feel about what he's shared, but it's the closest you can come to explaining it. "Though I doubt my understanding of anything means much to you."

He watches you for so long a part of you begins to doubt if he's going to respond at all. Then, in a voice so low you're not sure if he's speaking more to himself than to you, he says, "It means something."

The gentleness of the phrasing is so consuming, you can't think of anything else to say. With no warning, he turns towards the path again. "Come on, if we stay out much later your aunt might decide that you're more trouble than you're worth and send you back to the states."

The threat of being sent back to America is a little too specific. Can he see past conversations in your head? Or is that something you think about often enough for him to have picked up on it? Deciding to not risk the destruction of your fragile piece, you let go of your questions and start to walk forward.

"Are you doing anything tomorrow evening?" The question is more shocking than anything else you've experienced tonight.

You blink, a part of you more relieved than you should be about the fact that he's no longer facing you. "Uh--Besides meeting up with Louis, not really."

He nods once, "You should come to our show."

You can't think of a response. While Louis hasn't been able to keep your existence a total secret, he seems happy to be able to maintain a certain level of distance between you and the vampires he's not as familiar with. Claudia doesn't seem to be nearly as wary, but she's never asked you to attend one of their shows either.

"If the thought frightens you, you don't need to attend." Armand offers you the chance for escape with a care that's nearly insulting. "I can understand why you might find the prospect unnerving."

"I'm not afraid." You don't realize how much you mean the words until after you've said them. You're not worried about being immediately torn to pieces by the others or what you might see, but...you are a little concerned about how Louis may react to your attendance. "I just--I wouldn't want to do anything to make Louis uncomfortable."

The silence that follows nearly feels like a challenge. "I think it would be good for Louis, he can only choose to spend time with a mortal over attending our performances so many times before the others begin to question his loyalties."

That, unfortunately, does feel like a fair point. Louis's never said anything about the coven to make you worry about how your friendship impacts the ways the others view him, but from what you've gathered, the coven can't possibly take kindly to how much time Louis spends around you. Louis might be worried by the thought of you being within the coven's proximity, but at least he'd be there, too.

You nod once, hoping the motion is enough to mask any uncertainties on your end. "Okay."

"You'll sit with me." Armand turns his head slightly, just enough to glance at you from over his shoulder. "It's the easiest way to keep the evening simple."

The explanation only amplifies the uneasy feeling settling in your stomach, but there's a lot of things you'd be willing to do before allowing Armand to know that you're nervous, "Okay. That makes sense."

----

armand: oh no you'll have to sit next to me all evening so that no one kills u 🫢

also keep in mind that this is a little experimental to me so pls don't judge it too harshly <33

[princezzleia]

𝜗𝜚˚⋆ A Special Treat ‧₊˚. ⸝⸝

sub!Art Donaldson x domfem!Reader

synopsis: Art was always be a good boy but when he was disobedient, you decided to punished him, however, he was enjoying it like a special treat.

warning: sub!male, dom!fem, edging, handjob (m received), mommy kink, public sex, MINORS DNI

words count: 1.7k

A/N: after watching 'challengers' i think i need to write this. 'that scene' of art and tashi made me convinced art is sub and i love sub!Art akjssjsksk. i hope you guys enjoy my work!

Tennis could be intense, edging, and climax. It was like sex, so they said. You had never doubted any seconds once you are watching your boyfriend, Art Donaldson, played for a countless times.

During the match, Art, occationally, tooks a glimpse of you beside the court. He always made sure that you were close to his sight, so every time he looked at you, he could saw your presence. Undeniably, you were his lucky charm.

The upper hand of watching your boyfriend closely was that you were able to observed his determined and eagerness, which you never saw while you were spending time together. Art always be your little boy; obedient and flimsy.

His intense eyes always made you feel the pulse under your knickers. The groaning voices that he made in every hits, it made you trusting your legs closer and closer. Every sets made you on the edge of your seat. Trusting, edging, and when the last hit made him wins, you reached the climax.

Later then, you visited your starboy in his locker room for a special treat. You've always been his motive to win in every matches, if it wasn't because of you; he would've quit tennis ages ago.

"Hi, my starboy," You knocked on an open door for his attention, then he dropped everything and instantly reached for your hug and that made you flinched and giggled.

Immediately, he shut the door behind you and possessed your voluptuous red lips that he had been staring for an hours but unable to touched, let alone possessed them. He missed your touch, your body, and especially your voice when they gave him an orders to followed. It was a punishments that he was enjoying every times.

"Uh, no, bad boy," You pushed him back to kept a slight distance between you. Art instantly pouted his lips and made a puppy eyes that mostly worked to made you thawed but not this time.

"Ain't I be a good boy today, mommy?" Art said with a pleading voice.

You tucked his curly blonde hair behind his ear and swept some sweats off of his soft face. "Of course, you are, until you kissed me without my permission." You pouted your lips in pity. Well, he almost be a good boy for you today.

"I feel sorry for you, I've been thinking of a special treat for you tonight—tsk, tsk, tsk," You furrowed your brows in reproach.

"Am I gonna be punished?" Art expressed an amusement expression at a blink of an eyes before he turned back to his puppy face but somehow you noticed it and that was when Art bends his head down.

"Do you find a punishment entertaining, darling?" You used an index finger to push his chin up to faced you.

"No, mommy, no" Art said in a murmured voice and shook his head a bit.

"Good, but anyways, you deserve a punishment" Art made a sorrowful face like he doesn't enjoy the punishment, on the contrary, this is a special treat for him.

"Let's see what we can do in..." You pretended to look at your watch. "Thirty minutes before the car arrives" Art looked at you in disbelief, he was not going to finished in thirty.

"Sit" Before he could thought any further, he had no choice but to obey the order. Well, thirty minutes was challenging. Give it a go.

Art sat almost immediately after your order. His sweaty looks made your pussy pulsed again. After all this time you never get used to it and you didn't want to. You made an observation before you noticed his boner, which was the result of the swiftly kissed. Art always easily to aroused, he was just like a teenage boy in post pubertal, which was always adored you 'cause he was already twenty-one but sometimes he looked just like a naive boy to you.

"Hard, already, hmm?" Art looked up with a puppy face that begging to be adopted. You made a couple steps before got down on your knees and touched his bulge. You fondled slowly along the bulge line under his short, he panted and trumbled while you touched him. Art looked down and catched your eyes.

"Harder," Art said with a shivered voice. You suddenly stopped your motion as Art catched a breath like he had been choked with pleasure.

"What do we say?"

"Please, mommy,"

"Good boy," You began to took his short out of the way, left only his underpant on and stroke his cock along the bulge shape. Art flinched by your sensitive touched, he grabbed the edge of the bench hard as you could see the veins accordance with his hands and arms. He thrown his head back and shut his eyes in pleasure. You could feel his pulsated cock against your hand.

Art shuddered and panted whenever you stroke along his sensitive area. You reiterated your touch on his vulnerable part until you heard his breathing intensify.

"Yes, there, like that," You instantly stopped again and looked up to face Art's weary figure.

"Excuse me, did you just tell me what to do?" Art looked down and shook his head in denial.

"No, no, please continue" You continued your movement and Art got back into his position. You stroked along his sensitive part for a couple minutes until panting sound changed into moaning and groaning. Art grasped his shirt up and bite the hem of it to hid his voice. His abdomen rippled up and down according to your touched and it gave you a noticed of his orgasm but he won't get what he wanted, not now.

You ceased again. Art catched his breath in disbelief, he gazed down and saw a smile on your face. "Take off your clothes and stand in the shower." Art followed your instructions immediately, he swiftly took off his underpant and t-shirt before going to the shower as you followed, and stood behind. Art was tall and had a muscular body like any others sports men, but when he was with you, those are just a clothes he puts on because his inner side was absolute opposite. You saw the soul inside his athletic body like no one else does.

You reached to opened the faucet and let the water ran through his body. You walked closer until your chest touched his back, then you tracked your fingers down the waterline passed his chest, abdomen, and the final destination, which was as hard as a rock. You teased him by traced its head in circle, he let out a whimpers and grasped the hem of your skirt. Art turned his head to the right and kissed the top of your head then he reached down to whisper in your ear.

"Please," You tilted your head to kissed him on the lips, it wasn't a passionate kiss. Your lips traced up to his aquiline nose and up to his forehead, where you gave him a second kiss as your hand did its initial job.

"Face the wall and don't do anything that I didn't tell you to do." Art turned his head to face the wall while you began to stroked his shaft slowly. He let out a mewl voices while he pushed his left hand against the wall as a support and the right hand still grasped harshly on your skirt's hem.

You began to escalate the rhythm, examined Art's interactions. Once he was about to reached the climax, you ceased; it made him looks pathetic, and you both took pleasure in it. Who was going to imagine the picture of the dominant tennis player in those particular world, begging to cum in the most piteous way.

"Shit!" Art said deeply in his throat, you alternate a slow and a fast pace, made him whined and shuddered in pleasure. A couples minutes later, Art tighten up his grasped and tenses up his abdomen. A signals of his orgasm.

Art tilted his head to looked at you and said in struggled. "Can I- Can I cum, please?"

"Not so soon, it has been only five minutes." Art turned his head back before there was a knocked on the door, suddenly he looked at you again in shocked but you didn't stop your motions.

"Donaldson! Donaldson! You there?" It was his coach who knocked on the door, Art didn't know what to do but he wasn't resist you to continue, which was quite entertaining to you, your little white man was too horny to stop as if he get caught, it doesn't matter, if he cum first. Naugty boy.

"Don't answer." Art still panicked, adrenaline rushed through his entire body, and it made him nearly on the edge. "Oh, my god, I'm gonna cum, please, please" Feeling of fear to be caught made him cum quicker. That's new. Even though, you and Art have had an experience in public sex before, but you never experienced an interfere by others.

"Look at me." You picked up the pace as Art tried to looked at you but that made him more sensitive as your tits was poking out of your fabric as a result of the shower.

"I can't- I can't-" You teased him by twirling around his nipples and made him shuddered. "Yes, you can" you fasten your pace for the last time and this time was faster than the others. Art nearly on the edge of the climax as the voice of his coach still played on.

"Don't you wanna answer him?"

"I'm coming!, coach. I'm coming!" Art cry out with a groan in the back of his throat. "Fuck!, thank you, thank you, thank you, mommy-" His last word was faded by the result of his cum at the end. His cum was covered all over the wall. Art catched his breath as he loosen his grasped and looked at you before you smirked at him.

"Ok, hurry up!" Art realized his coach still at the other side of the room. He wouldn't have heard anything, would he?

You still used your thumb to twirled on his head in teasing. "Well, I think you enjoy your punishment too much, did you?"

"No, no, no, mommy," Art shook his head back and forth.

"Anyways, you will get a special treat tonight as promised because you're win, today." Art grinned like a Cheshire cat. "Clean up, I will meet you at your dorm, tonight."

You walked out of the shower and meddle in his bag before you grasped one of his shirt and a short out and changed your clothes. "You need help?" Art cry out while he was cleaning up his mess in the shower room.

"No, if you help, we won't have any dry clothes left." You smirked with yourself and thought you caught him off guard but you wasn't expect his response, which was strike back to you.

"Aren't you wet your clothes already, sweetheart?" And he didn't mean after you got into the shower room with him. He noticed your wet pussy when you walked in.

Oh, god. You hated him so much that he knew you too well and that made you love him so much.

[doumadono]

Synopsis: The BNHA boys confess their love to you for the very first time

MASTERLIST

Izuku Midoriya

Izuku had been feeling his heart race whenever he was around you, his girlfriend, but he was nervous about expressing his feelings.

One evening, you were sitting together on a bench at the park, watching the sunset after a long day of hero training. The colors of the sky reflected in your eyes, making you look even more beautiful, in his little opinion.

Izuku took a deep breath and, mustering up all his courage, he gently took your hand in his. He looked into your Y/E/C eyes and said, "You know, being with you makes me feel like I can do anything. You've always believed in me, and I can't thank you enough for that. I… I love you."

Your eyes widened in surprise, and then a bright smile spread across your face. You pulled him into a warm hug, replying, "Izuku, I love you too. You've always been my hero."

Katsuki Bakugo

Bakugo had never been great with words, especially when it came to expressing emotions. But he knew he had to tell his girlfriend how he felt because keeping it inside was driving him crazy.

You were spending a day at the city center, and Bakugo had been trying to build up the courage to say those three words all day long.

As the sun was setting and the sky turned shades of pink and orange, you were walking down the street, hand in hand. Bakugo suddenly stopped and turned to face you, a faint blush on his cheeks.

"Listen, dumbass," he began gruffly, "I… I care about you a lot. More than I thought I would. Hell, I… I love you, okay? So don't go getting any ideas about leaving me or some shit like that."

Your eyes softened, and you hugged him tightly. "I love you too, Katsuki. And I'm not going anywhere, my fierce warrior."

Shoto Todoroki

Shoto had always been reserved, and expressing his feelings was a challenge for him. But his girlfriend had shown him what it meant to love and be loved, and he wanted to reciprocate that.

You were at a peaceful park, sitting on a bench and sharing some ice cream after another day of your internship at his father's agency. Shoto was staring at the ground, trying to find the right words.

Finally, he looked up at you, his heterochromatic eyes filled with warmth. "You've brought so much light into my life," he said softly. "I never thought I could feel this way about someone. But I do. I love you."

You smiled, and a tear of joy escaped your eye. You reached out and touched his cheek gently. "Shoto, you have my heart. I love you too, with all of it."

Hawks (Keigo Takami)

Despite being a pro-hero, expressing emotions didn't come naturally to Hawks. But his feelings for you were undeniable, and he wanted to be sincere in his confession.

He decided to write a heartfelt letter, expressing all the things he admired and loved about you. He left it on your doorstep with a bouquet of your favorite flowers (yes, deep inside, Keigo was a true romantic at heart).

Later that day, he received a call from you. You were thanking him for the beautiful letter. Hawks asked if you liked it, to which you replied with a teasing tone, "Well, Mr. Hero, you're supposed to be observant, right? What do you think?" Hawks couldn't resist the playful challenge and responded, "I think… I think you did. Y/N, I love you." He felt the weight of his heart lifting as he admitted his feelings.

Dabi (Touya Todoroki)

Dabi had always been distant and reserved, but his girlfriend saw through his tough exterior and understood the pain he carried.

One evening, you were sitting together on the rooftop of LOV hideout, watching the sunset. The warm colors of the sky seemed to ignite a spark of courage within him.

Dabi turned to you, gently intertwining his fingers with yours, and whispered softly, "You know, I've always believed that my heart was frozen, but you… you've been thawing it all along. I never thought I could love someone so deeply, but I love you, Y/N."

Your eyes widened in surprise, but you could see the sincerity in his words. You reached out and gently touched his cheek, "Dabi, you don't have to say more. I can feel it too. I love you too."

Shigaraki Tomura (Tenko Shimura)

Shigaraki had always been awkward with emotions, but as he grew closer to you, he found himself wanting to be more open with you about his feelings.

You had just finished a long and eventful day of planning their next move as villains. With everyone else occupied, Shigaraki and you found a rare moment of peace in the dimly lit common room.

As you sat on the couch, your head resting on his shoulder, Shigaraki felt a mix of comfort and vulnerability, something he rarely experienced. He could feel his heart pounding as he debated whether or not to share his feelings. His fingers absentmindedly traced patterns on your arm, and he finally gathered the courage to speak up. "Hey... There's something I've been wanting to tell you," he began, his voice unusually soft. "You mean a lot to me. More than I ever thought someone could. You're always there, supporting me and understanding me. And... I love you."

You leaned in to press a gentle kiss on his cheek. "Tomura, I love you too."

dividers by @cafekitsune

[dtrghost]

closeness and proximity

Side note: This is my first ever tumblr fic, so uh, be gentle!! moving on!

pairing: ghost x f!reader

synopsis: callsign is sunshine, because you're anything but. team 141 thought ghost was bad? at least they could crack a smile out of the guy from time to time, you? you were stone faced, all day, every day. until one day you're not, not with a certain someone anyway.

warnings: inaccurate military language and sequences, violence, angst, descriptions of interrogation and torture, INTENSE gore (imo), cursing, allusions to mental illness (reader has sociopathic tendencies) you get the gist. If you have a weak stomach or faint heart, please do not read this, like please.

I'd also like to start this off by saying that the mc is not a good person, and that is on purpose. I've seen a lot of the angel fics where ghost falls for his antithesis, so I decided to try something new. So here, please forgive any mistakes.

if this does become a series there will most likely be smut because,,, yes.

(update it's becoming a series so if someone wants to be tagged for that lmk cause i have so many ideas for this)

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

Word count: 3.4k

"Sunshine how copy?" Ghost's gruff, static filled voice called through coms, scope checking the parameters of the building she found herself held up in. She didn't respond at first, busy fighting for her life in a basement underneath the building they weren't aware of.

The deeper she went the harder it was to understand what was being relayed to her, so she settled on doing it on her own. He listened to a man grunt, their body dropping to the floor under her boot as she took a deep breath.

"There's a basement underground, coms are cutting out. I'm taking charge on clearing the basement. I'll report when I get to the surface. Sunshine out." She loathed her callsign with a passion. To speak it caused a burning hatred to spark in the lowest depths of her heart and made her cringe horribly. However, she knew it was better than letting everyone know her real name, so she dealt with it.

Ghost sighed, knowing she couldn't be stopped once she started. She had been on a few missions together in the past few years, he knew she was uptight and lacked the emotional capacity to make friends with others. It made him wonder why, what could've been that bad to freeze her heart over and shrink it to the size of the pebble he was crushing under his foot as he shifted uncomfortably. People would try and try to thaw her out, yet always failed.

He waited, taking out strays that attempted to heed the possible rescue requests that came from that basement, and patiently waited.

"This is Sunshine, basement cleared. Might wanna come take a look at this." His eyebrows furrowed, affirming the request and making his way down quickly, not wanting to stay in the open for too long. He made his way to the basement, eyes widening at the various bodies that trailed to wherever she was down there.

Had she done this all by herself?

He followed the bodies all the way to her, lights flickering, casting a bland white light on the concrete walls. seeing her digging through an opened trunk in a room filled with them.

"Weapons. American." Sunshine reported, glancing at him as he took his place next to her, seeing the American flag painted onto the inside of the lid. She turned at the sound of a groan, a soldier she left alive rousing to consciousness.

"Fuckin' hell. This mission was to take out ultranationalists." Ghost sighed. She didn't respond, the task force member watching her turn on her heel and grab the soldier by vest, throwing him against the wall with impressive strength. Blood flowed out of the back of his head, smearing against the wall as he slowly slid to the floor. He had never seen her in interrogation, but he had heard from those who have.

Brutal, heartless, some had to exit the room.

He wouldn't. He's witnessed plenty of torture tactics, even had to rely on some himself to get information necessary for national security. But this is another reason why they called her 'Sunshine', because to others she didn't feel remorse for what she did, some said she enjoyed it even, that her eyes brightened like the sun peaking over the horizon. Whether that was true or not he'd figure out now, as eager as he was. He watched her take out her knife, flipping it in her hand as she crouched to the soldier's level.

"Where'd they come from." She asked simply, keeping an even tone that surprised Ghost. He expected something more fierce, intimidating, but it was as if she was starting a conversation with a normal person. The victim attempted to spit in her face, but with a quick turn on the head it landed on the floor behind her. Her knife dug itself into his foot, his cries of pain echoing in the basement as she twisted it. The sounds of his bones cracking made Ghost shiver.

"Where'd they come from. Who sold them to you." She persisted, her face void of all emotion as she ripped the blade out of his foot. She sighed, turning to ghost who stood in the back, surveying the action. His eyebrows furrowed as she pointed to the door with her knife.

"Wait outside. This might take awhile." At first he didn't move, but the hint of impatience in her eyes spooked him out, for reasons unknown to him, but instinct told him to listen. So he slowly retreated and stood watch outside for anyone either getting up or rushing down the stairs. Y/N turned back to her victim, seeing two loops with chains hanging off of them imbedded into the wall. She tied his arms up, leaving his body sagging down.

Ghost listened to her repeat her questions, and when she didn't get an answer, a shout would follow. But those shouts turned to ear-piercing screams very quickly. He listened to pleads and begs of mercy to understand him, that he couldn't say anything out fear to what they'd do to him.

"Imagine what I'll do next if I don't get the response I want." She'd respond.

The bones cracking, the retch of vomiting, blood splattering onto the cold concrete.

"If you think you can outlast me, that I'll get tired of this and stop for the night to let you regain some of your humanity, you're wrong. Because unfortunately for you sweetheart." The blade tore through his skin, another bellow of pain emerging from his throat as he squirmed in his place. They were both coated in blood, her eyes dull and her ears tuning out the noise. To her, it was as if he was silent, his screams didn't penetrate through to her, and talked and talked until it drove him mad.

"I don't have all night, and I'm getting impatient. You won't die, I wouldn't allow that. I went through med school, graduated top of my class with a doctorate in Neuroscience. I know how to break." Which was evident as his leg was broken and facing different directions from the knee down to his toes.

"And I know how to fix. I'll keep you alive a lot longer than the night, and I'll do a lot worse. So if you want this to end, start talking, or you're in for a long week." Simon wondered what she was doing. His mind went over the possibilities until her victim finally cracked after the final scream he unleashed into the empty basement. He detailed a secret arms trade between an ally of the United States' and another country, which would lead to the likeliness of intentions for them.

War.

Y/N huffed, ripping off a piece of the soldiers shirt that wasn't soaked in sweat, blood, or vomit, which was a very small one, and wiping her hands clean as best as she could.

"Could've said that 10 minutes ago. Now, you'll bleed out within the next 5. Shame." Ghost listened to his anguished sobs as footsteps approached him, turning around from the entrance to see her, covered in blood. His eyes widened slightly, noticing a piece of...

Her eyes followed his to her vest, noticing a very small piece of flesh sitting between her shirt and gear before flicking it off to the side.

"Hopefully he didn't have HIV." She joked, but there was no humor in her voice, no sign of her finding it funny at all, as if she said it to just say it. Ghost didn't respond, he wasn't sure how. He slowly moved to look inside the room, the curiosity of what she did to the soldier eating him alive, until she grabbed his roughly.

"Don't." The word sent shivers down his spine, and he knew better than the disobey as she had operational command authority, and would likely court martial him if he had. So he took a step back and maintained eye contact, radioing in to Price.

"Captain, this is Ghost. How copy." He called, his gruff voice bringing a smile to her lips that he couldn't see due to her mask which was just a boring black one, decorated with blotches of drying blood that lightened up enough to see. "This is Price."

"We found weapons and gear, they're American." He went onto explain the situation, being weary of his mission leader walking around him in circles, waiting impatiently as he reported their findings.

"Copy that. I'll transfer this to Lanswell. Good work, report back to base for debrief."

"Copy, Ghost out." He connected his radio back to his vest. She took out her pistol, leading him to pull out his own. The behavior she exhibited was one he hadn't seen often, and it led to a deep mistrust he couldn't shake. She smirked, turning around, walking back in the room, and confirming her kill with a bullet between the eyes before reappearing in front of him.

He looked at her suspiciously as she gestured to the stairs, wondering who trained her, who made her into what she is now. She wasn't normal, not like the rest of them, she had no signs of remorse, care, or empathy for the people she killed, and she killed them with ease. Over 30 soldiers in one cramped basement and she came out unscathed, in tip top shape. He followed her out and made it to the landing zone where a helicopter came to pick them up.

She was silent the whole way back, Price being there to greet the two before they sat through debrief.

"Sunshine, we have orders from headquarters to have you join Task Force 141. Ghost is to watch over you. An official introduction will be made tomorrow." Price announced, not missing the tightened grip of Ghost's fist on the table.

"Copy that captain." She responded in her usual tone, only fueling Ghost's anger as he turned to glare at her, though she only ignored him, keeping her gaze unwavering on Price.

"Hit the showers soldier." Price dismissed, Y/N being the first to leave. But before she did, she turned to look down at her new partner.

"Happy to be on the team, Mr. Riley." It took his everything to not jump to his feet and knock her out, holding his breath to calm himself down as she walked away, the door shutting behind her. He hated that she had power over him, and worse that she rubbed it in his face.

"There's no chance in hell I'll stand for her being on my team." He immediately threw at him, standing up in his seat with his finger pressing firmly on the table in front of him.

"First, it's my team. Second, It's not my choice, orders are orders." Ghost growled lowly, clearly upset over the lack of fighting to keep her off, to keep her away to those he held near and dear to his heart, even if that wasn't too close to begin with. He saw her as a danger, an immediate threat, someone who belonged in an institution before they saw the battlefield.

"Then send an appeal. She's a war criminal. Tell em that!" He snapped.

"Bloody hell we're all war criminals. Then we'll be stuck in prison with her and you'll complain some more." Price groaned, rubbing his forehead, clearly irritated by his soldier's insistence.

"Not like that. Not how she is. She'll kill one of us before we get the next mission, hell she parade around our bodies like a joker and hail-" Price's hand slammed on the table, cutting his lieutenant off.

"Quiet." Ghost went silent, sighing deeply as he waited for Price to gather the right words, to somehow ease his mistrust in her, though he doubted she could do that. He watched as he shut the door and locked it, keeping his voice hushed, standing closer to his comrade.

"This is classified information, what I say stays in this room and is to never be discussed with anyone else. Is that understood lieutenant." Ghost's eyes widened for a moment before nodding in affirmation, waiting for his captain to continue.

"She- she wasn't brought up normally. As a great many soldiers weren't, hence why many of them join the ranks in the first place. She was a prodigy, she became a seal at 17, and on her second mission she was set up, deserted, and kidnapped. Nobody knows what happened to her in there, a search team was sent out, but she wasn't found til a few months later, and when she came out after she was different."

She was a child.

That's all Ghost could thing about. God knows what happened to her in there, and he didn't want to think about it.

"She exhibited sociopathic tendencies, she was closed off, didn't speak for a very long time. She failed psychological evaluation requirements, depression, ptsd, ecetera. Even then they sent her back out on missions a couple months later." Simon's eyes blew open, Price nodding glumly.

"Missions? Fuckin' hell, she needs help not special ops." He sneered, not at Price, but his anger was seeping through at rates he couldn't control. He was angry, how could they do that to someone? Did they not care, not even a little bit for her life? Her wellbeing?

"I know. But they're not taking her out any time soon, and now that she's on our team the least we can do is try to help her. I knew her before she became this. She was a kind soul." His voice dropped to a whisper, as if reminiscing, and he was. Her bright eyes, so full of potential when they met for her first mission, how she wheezed when she laughed. She was a kid, and it hurt his heart thinking about what she turned into over the last 6 years. Ghost nodded, silently agreeing to his motives before Price simply waved him off.

Simon hit the showers, scrubbing off the dirt and gunpowder that clung to his skin, watching the water turn black as the face paint drizzled down into it. The captain's words ran through his head over and over, the words going in one ear, through his brain, and out the other in a constant circle. He knew firsthand how corrupt his line of work could be, but that didn't make him any less angry when it revealed itself to him in the ways it did.

When he exited, fully dried and clothed with his mask back on, he passed by Y/N's room, noticing the light peaking out from underneath the door. He sighed quietly, his hand coming up and knocking on the door.

"It's open." Her cold voice responded, though it sounded more distant than before. He twisted the knob and let the door open, seeing her laying on her cot in deep thought. He went to question her, until he realized that she probably listened in on their conversation.

"You were listening." She nodded once, curtly and formally before sitting up and turning to look at him. Her eyes narrowed for a moment, analyzing every aspect about him. He felt like he was being stripped naked just by her look, his soul bare for her to look into.

Her eyes drifted over his exposed arms, the sleeveless tank he wore leaving them on display. He was a big guy, his arms were veined and muscled, tattoos filling up a majority of the space, combined with scars that passed through some of them. The top he wore was a bit tight, outline his chest in an attractive way, but she forced her eyes away, knowing he already caught onto what she was staring at.

"Price is right. I wasn't always like this. And I think he was the only one to notice, or at least point it out." She began, drawing attention away from the fact she just checked him out shamelessly.

"Wasn't right, what happened to you." He replied stiffly. She snickered, standing up. He watched her pace the room, twisting a knife in her hands, causing him to tense. She noticed.

"I'm not going to stab you lieutenant." She reassured, though it didn't help at all as she went on. She wasn't sure what she felt, confused for sure, as to why she was unable to emotionally process her emotions or evaluate the information she heard, as if her mind was barring her from contextualizing her state of mind. She knew she wasn't normal, but she couldn't bring herself to accept it and label herself.

"I was 17 when I was taken, you know that. Had a rough upbringing, I won't explain that to you now." She wasn't sure where she was going with this, and neither was he, but he'd listen for a bit to try and understand her more, maybe to trust her more now that she was his teammate. "I can feel emotion you know. Only to a certain degree, I can empathize. Fleeting, but it's there sometimes. I do feel some remorse, but you know how we are in this field. Weakness will get you killed, so you internalize it, you keep it buried underneath everything else, and because my everything else was stripped away with me, it just sits in here." She tapped her temple and shrugged. He understood what she meant, he did that too. He withheld his shame, his guilt, and his remorse, remaining a stone cold figure in the field. He saved the emotional crap for his time alone where he could deal with it in the way he knew how.

"You just let it sit there then?" He pressed, crossing his arms over his chest. She nodded.

"Don't know what to do with it. Lost my sense of self and all I know is this job. I do try though, I try to force some tears like I've seen others do, but the only time these.. feelings present themselves is on my missions, which is why everyone thinks I enjoy it. But I don't, for the record, I just can't control it like you guys do. And I envy you for that." His eyes widened slightly.

"Envy, huh."

"Mhm. You can talk to each other, find common ground and relate, make friends and connections. I can't because I don't feel like you guys do. And then you demonize me and outcast me more than I already am, so. Oops." He thought she was getting upset, but she wasn't, there was not a hint of anger or sadness or negative emotion in her person whatsoever, none that he could see anyway. Her arms were loose and carefree as she swung them around every time she turned her heel to pace back in the direction she just walked in.

"We can help you." Her first sign of feeling was an eye roll with a steady irritated gaze. But she didn't say anything. The idea of needing help repulsed her beyond anything else, made her want to punch a wall and scream, her eyes widened. Anger. There it is, outside of a mission too. She hummed, looking back at him.

"Alright Casper." He grunted, displeased by the new nickname which made her smile widen cheekily. She searched his eyes for a moment, finding entertainment in the small flames in his amber eyes, how they flickered and danced when he found something humorous, how they died out when he found something unamusing or boring, how they raged when he grew angry or determined to finish something with a newfound passion.

She liked to think he had that burn in his eyes when Price spoke to him about the notion of helping her, hoping that he'd care that much even if she didn't want the help, or perhaps she did, that would explain the want would it not? That was a thought for later. For now she'd do her job the way she knew how, she wouldn't change, not yet, not that she knew how anyway.

"We're going out for a drink tomorrow night, care to tag along." He offered, jousting his chin up at her in a heads up manner.

"I don't drink." She replied, monotone as she laid down on her cot, shutting her eyes with a sigh. He watched her body sink into the bed, all stress and tension releasing, and he took that as his dismissal. He shut the door behind him, releasing a breath and walking back to his room, confused and tired where he slept on the day's events.

Though he was curious on how tomorrow would turn out.

And that's it! If you want a series out of this let me know!! It's my first fic and I'll probably binge a bunch because I feel like writing. I'm still trying to figure out the whole border thing I wanna make everything aesthetic or whatever but yeah.

See you guys next time!!

[mydogatemymotivation]

I've always thought of Kallus as a very water-coded character. People underestimate the destructive power of water but a flood can wipe out a village, a diverted stream can leave a city abandoned. Poisoned water can kill if you drink it, water damage can grow mold and poison the air. But as dangerous and destructive as water can be, it's most often associated with healing. Kallus helps Zeb heal by returning his people and homeworld to him through the Lasat prophecy and helps himself heal by turning his back on the Empire and being honest with himself about the system he was a part of. By reflecting. Another feature of water. Water also has a way of cementing its own path by digging into the earth where it flows. This makes it nearly impossible to change its path unless some other force acts on it. This fits with my interpretations of Zeb as a very earth-coded character. A rockslide, an earthquake, a boulder, etc., can all shift the flow of a stream more suddenly than natural erosion.

When we first meet Kallus, it's on Lothal, in Capital City - a coastal city. And it makes sense that his transformation takes place in a tundra (snow and ice) and from there he starts to thaw. (This is also bolstered by my Estonian!Kallus thought, "The surname Kallas has its roots primarily in Eastern European and particularly in Estonian culture. In Estonian, “kallas” translates to “shore” or “bank,” indicating a geographical connection, likely referring to families that resided near a riverbank or coast.")

Destruction, reflection, transformation, and healing are all attributes associated with water. Plus the combination of earth (Zeb) and water (Kallus) creates and environment for growth, be it literal (Kallus' garden on Lira San) or metaphorical (his defection from the Empire).

Water is also closely associated with emotion, and I think Kallus is an incredibly emotional character, even if he doesn't show it. Nobody takes the extreme measures he took if they don't truly care about something. Committing treason, betraying his entire life's work, even though it was the right thing to do, it's an extreme step to take and nobody would take that extreme a step if they weren't moved, not just by logic, but by emotion as well. All we really see as an audience is his sarcastic, stand-offish exterior but there's a whole emotional underbelly to him that we only see on a handful of occasions.

Idk maybe it's just me but he's so interesting I wanna shake him.

[caffeinatedmunchkin]

Nourishment, Beyond the Physical

Emmrich Volkarin x Fem!Rook ✦ Rating: M (MDNI!) ✦ 11.7k words

He almost didn't recognize the sound that came from him as his own; a whimpering, pathetic noise. Sick. The closest comparison to the feverish hue that rushed his clammy skin. The most apt identifier to the brutal, qualmish onset. He was a lot for her to take, though she'd have it no other way. The first time she laid with Emmrich he left her ruined, and never before had she submit to ruination with such abandon. He had the tendency of holding her needs paramount to his own. Now given the chance to return the favor, she offered herself to his exigency, unconditional and absolute. If he lost himself in her, so be it. She'd light the way back, like a beacon to ships in the night. And she'd piece him back together again. Such messy business - love.

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Crossposted to AO3!

I had an out of state wedding, a death in the family, and double-shifts at work all week long, but none of that could STOP me from finally finishing whatever the hell this is. Inspired by the beautiful and wonderful Cole’s post here, this was one of the realest things I’ve ever read everyone say thank you Cole for being correct and being vocal about it !!

I honestly have nothing to say for myself, other than this was supposed to be no more than a quick and dirty drabble with a double shot of angst at best. Before I knew it, this thing grew legs and booked it. I hope you're as exhausted by the end of reading it, as I am now having finished writing it. I've been working on this one for a minute.

I love you all so much, and I pray to whoevers listening that you like it !!

The last gasp of winter stained his high cheeks, and nipped his nose. Blistering gusts whistling past his ears, the frigidity cut through the wool of his coat with icy talons; swiping at any and all that strode along in it's wake. Spurred by desperation it to cling to it's dwindling reign, as it slipped from it's clutches a little more with each day.

An early evening that marked the start of Wintersend, the suns retreat came later and later, yet the chill in the air refused its dismissal.

Emmrich was but one casualty of few who walked the thawing domain this time of night, having traced this exact path through Nevarra's streets many times.

An ordinary stroll home, after an unassuming day back within his classroom. During the middle of a week that was decidedly without note.

No stranger to the Necropolis's unforgiving temperatures, the elements outside it's walls throbbed bone deep. The bitterness raw, whereas the former was tempered.

A flush of nostalgia was quick to warm him, as he passed the storefront of the florist he had seen prior to his escapades with the Veilguard, Safeia.

She was delicate and attentive with their romance; he felt tended to, like one of her prized blooms. While their affair was as lovely, it wasn't meant to last. Just as the crisp of spring wilted to summers swelter, the annual that was their courtship neared it's end.

They wanted different things out of life, out of their partners. Gentle as she was considerate, their release of one another saw her wistful, but to the same end of her understanding. Their parting amicable, they sometimes bumped into one another around the city. Only ever having gratefulness to offer, in their exchanged nods, and kind smiles.

It allowed him to appreciate the flower shop every time he passed it by, more anxious than ever for the approach of springtime. To see budding greenery overflow through doors she liked to prop open, inviting the mellow sweetness of the air, and prospective patrons alike. His memory of her, just as the woman herself, was always perfumed by fresh soil, and Freesia.

A pleasant smell for a pleasant recollection, Emmrich held nothing but fondness as he thought back to his time with her, however brief.

Spring his favorite season, no one's anticipation for its arrival was greater. Though winters stubbornness held firm, he had his own, personal little slice of spring every day. Waiting for him back home, to where he was en route.

Yet as he strode past, the gentle smile that crept across his face was not for the florist.

Nor was the accompanying tightness in his chest for the anticipation of her floral arrangements that would soon line the windows.

It was for his destination, and his newfound eagerness to reach it. Eagerness that quickened his gait along the paved walk.

All for the woman who awaited him there. Milk and honey in her kiss. Petal curved, and satin soft.

The one who gave him reason to return at the end of each day, instead of idling at one shop or the next, stalling the loneliness that used to receive him.

The one he wanted to be back to, even more than he wanted to stop and admire Safeia's blossoms.

The one who made his house a home.

It was their first of this holiday spent together, and as a couple proper. Far away from the horrors of the blight, and genocidal elven gods that sought the worlds destruction. Though it was a morbid little thought, he couldn't help but pay due credit to those horrors. Stowing aside that guilt and selfishness, it was what brought he and Ariadne together, after all.

Without that interference - be it fate or coincidence or dumb luck - he may have spent the rest of his days without ever knowing the resplendence of her affection. Fierce and unbridled, just like the young necromancer was herself.

Many months had passed since then. Returned to Nevarra, he brought Ariadne back home with him, and brought her back for good.

After the expected reluctance, and no small sum of bluster, the order had agreed to reopen the case of her transgressions. All at his insistence, of course.

Insistence that expressed in no uncertain terms the thorn he'd pose in the sides of not only his colleagues, but the nobility whose favorable relations they prioritized, in the event it fell on sudden deaf ears.

It was almost comical, the utterance of Watcher Ingellvar shifted from the air of an ill-favored black sheep, to one of high esteem in but a blink.

With impressive restraint, Ariadne waited until she was given a formal pardon - as well as an invitation to return to their fold - before taunting with flippant indecision. Exaggerated hemming and hawing, as to whether or not she'd deign to grace their ranks with her presence once more. All through a cloying simper.

Emmrich expected no less.

Prior to his sabbatical, the right of Emmrich's predominant dwelling belonged to the Upper Mortuary, though he owned more than one property.

The Volkarin Estate in the heart of the Nevarran countryside made for an exceptional holiday retreat, and little else. It's distance from the obligations and responsibilities of his day to day made for an impractical primary residence.

It only made sense to whisk her away to his town home, tucked within the city walls on the upper-east side.

Accessible to both the Necropolis, and the tamer portions of the city he frequented, his private niche sat adjacent a sprawling botanical garden. A regular haunt of his, he now had a beautiful young blonde to steal away with amongst the orchids and delphiniums upon their return.

The space of this lodging was always meant for more than just one. Three spacious stories that boasted multiples rooms, each spanned a near obscene amount of square footage, when compared to its occupant; a single, lone necromancer.

So she came to live with him. No theatrics, or pondering. Just emphatic agreement, in the form of the arms she threw around his neck and wound tighter than a copper coil.

All that remained was for them to begin again, anew. To lay the foundation for the life they'd share; and theirs was a quiet one. Their mutual appreciation for that stillness the axis on which they thrived.

Ordinary strolls home, after unassuming days, and weeks without note.

Taking full advantage of her new status, she'd slink through the Necropolis' halls whenever the mood struck, otherwise her appearances were to surprise him. Luring him to the memorial gardens to share the lunch she'd prepared.

True to her reputation, she caused quite the stir amongst his pupils, much to the chagrin of their fellow superiors.

Legs folded beneath her in the grass while her lap cradled his head, his lank stretched along the ground beneath him in comfort. Rattling off the adjustments to his syllabus he was entertaining for the next semester. Or reading aloud to her the poetry of the late Nadia Ulpius, his possession of such rarity all thanks to their dear Neve.

During which she'd hum, and comb her nails through his hair, mindful to go with it's styled pattern, so as to not muss a single strand. Halting his prattling only to lift a strawberry, or wedge of clementine, to his lips for a bite.

Believing themselves to have ample privacy situated behind their preferred tomb, he had made the mistake - for the first and last time - to suck the juice from her finger-tips. Damning impropriety for long enough to indulge a throaty rumble, his tongue lapped the pads of her fingers and lacquered nails in suggestion.

Only to bolt upright once the giggles from some of his first year students burned his ears, rigid with mortification. Clustered and whispering to one other with fervency a little ways off, their distance suggested a discretion that didn't match their prying eyes, and craned necks.

From then on their lunch dates never went behind the walls of his classroom. Door shut and the shades drawn.

Of course it didn't deter Ariadne from trying her best to persuade him back. His romantic involvement with her was every bit as tantalizing as one would expect, and she delighted in the scandal of it all, the wretched little vixen that she was.

It had been only a few days since her last drop-in, but already he'd been spoiled by her presence there, natural as it was familiar. Though she had dashed any hope of the sort for that day, with the litany of errands she recited over breakfast, it didn't prevent his longing for her little figure to saunter through his door all the same.

Before he knew it he was rounding the corner of his block, spotting the lit candles that dressed the south facing windows of their home; the glow combating the dreariness with soft glints through the glass. Beckoning him back to her, like a beacon to ships in the night.

As Emmrich approached their front door, the steady thrum in his chest then soured, no longer weightless with his reminiscing. A once placid heartbeat, it jerked with every step he took that closed the distance.

No warning, no immediate trigger made obvious, as he thought of his little Watcher, and their home together.

They were now on the other side of the insurmountable odds they bested. Together at long last, and happy. The sap in him liked to attribute such things to fate, their story mirroring that of the fairy-tales Bellara had introduced to their book club.

He got the girl in the end. Even though she wasn't promised to him.

Nothing of their future was.

But if his experience with fate taught Emmrich one thing, it was that she was nothing if not a cruel mistress.

Simple, unadorned contentedness appealed to him more and more in his later years. He appreciated the little things; the magic in the mundane. Now having achieved such fortune, it only increased his anxiety that he would lose it.

Just as his fear of death had slithered it's way in when he was at his most unsuspecting, this startling new and very unwelcome loathing had roused when he lost her to the Fade, all those months ago. Her return should have seen it snuffed, but it continued to flicker, faint yet undying.

While he couldn't deny the predictability of such a turn, that was a beast he kept caged in the dark.

He tried to quell it by the way he hugged her a little tighter than he did before, and for longer than either of their full schedules would permit.

He thought to soothe it by staying up later than her, if only to watch her eyes twitch, and her lashes flutter in dreams. Tracing her clavicle, before resting his palm above her heart, stilling himself to it's mesmeric beating.

Able to take a breath in their bed; knowing that the heart that pulsed against his touch was indeed right there alongside him, to be cherished. To be held.

Foolish habits of a foolish man.

He blew in through the front door with an energetic burst of the cold, it's final stab at domination. Pulling the knob with a firm hand, he shut it out, denying it further infestation.

"Emmrich?"

Her call to him echoed the latch as it tumbled with a click. Surmising her to be in the kitchen, if the sugared aroma that tickled his nose upon entry was any indication, it returned his smile.

As did his fears subside. A flaming torch thrust into the snarling face of the beast, banishing it back into the fetid depths from whence it dragged itself. Back behind lock and key.

He was home.

"-Only me, darling." He called back, dropping his shoulder to let the strap of his satchel fall down the length of his arm. Beginning to shrug out of his coat, light foot falls pranced the distance of the hall runner behind him before he pulled out of the first sleeve.

"I missed you today." Ariadne then at his side, she pinched his coat sleeve to help it the rest of the way off.

"And I you." The elf poised on the very tips of her toes in a wordless request for a peck, one that Emmrich was already stooping down to steal. "How did your day treat you? Did those errands keep you very busy?"

"It was all wonderfully dull, thank you for asking." She beamed, relishing mundanity's pace. "What about yours?" Grasping his coat collar, she shimmied it from around his shoulders. "All went well?"

"Very well indeed. My junior apprentices have made remarkable progress, and their aptitude for psychometry continues to astound." He watched as she collected his jacket and bag, and left him for only as long as it took her to hang them up for the next morning.

His look of pride then struggled. "Though, while the subject presents, some have developed a worrisome habit of... oh, how shall I phrase this... enquiring on matters most private. In regards to myself, and my amorous displays with a certain elven Watcher."

Ariadne's lips pulled into a grin, and though her back was to him, he could hear it hugging her words. "Sounds like their fantasies have been piqued."

Back on him twice as fast, she knotted her fingers into the ends of his scarf to coax him back down to her. And he allowed himself to be, her fiendish simper spreading. "Surely you, least of all, are no stranger to some smitten pupils."

His grimace taut, it strained his usual velvet timbre to loose gravel. "They look at me as though I'm some roguish heartthrob straight from a pulpy Minrathous serial."

"Well, I can hardly blame them," she sighed with a bat of her long lashes, chest pressed to his abdomen as she continued to sag against him. "You really are quite dreamy."

"I've no doubt that my stunt in the gardens will shadow my academic career to an indefinite end."

She leaned back for a better view of the grave face angled down at her, one that didn't crick her neck so. For all his lamentation, his eyes sparkled.

"My perfect gentleman, assuming all the credit?" Her tease curled through a wicked pout, the saccharine purr of 'my perfect gentleman' dripping from the tip of her tongue like caramelized sugar, sticky on his teeth and heavy in his stomach. "I played a hand in that one myself, need I remind you."

"Your culpability needs no reminding, my dear." Rocking back to her toes, he seized the opportunity to snake an arm around her waist, sweeping her back into him with a wickedness all his own. "Nor does your insatiability."

A spot of flour dusting her nose caught his eye, it's placement looking purposeful. Spidery digits cupping a rosy cheekbone, he reached forward to brush it away with his thumb, though not before she squeaked from his frozen touch.

"You're as cold as death." She tsked, a flurry of fingers reached up to swipe across his cheeks and temple. He couldn't fight his smile if he wanted to. Emmrich leaned into her, savoring the infectious spread of her body-heat. Her nose crinkled in just the way he adored, murmuring as she fussed. "I'll go run you a hot bath."

"Lovely of you to offer, my darling, though unnecessary. I'll warm up before long." Without breaking their gaze, he turned to lay a kiss into her palm, as it continued to rub the chill from his blushed skin. "That aside, I'm much too interested in that exquisite scent wafting from the kitchen."

"Hmm? Scent?" Expert coyness he was now practiced to poke straight through, her efforts were all for naught, betrayed by the creep of her own sly grin. "What scent?"

Contentedness weighing as heavy on his lips as in his eyelids, he hummed in thought. "What ever are you up to?"

She wrinkled her nose; believable offense feigned, her grin persisted. "Do you always believe me to be up to something?"

Voice kicked into his chest, the abrupt lower in octave had her sway in his hold. "Not at all, my love. Only when you look as though you're up to nothing, is when I begin to suspect you're up to something."

"Wouldn't Neve be proud." Tittering as she slipped from his grasp, she gathered one hand in both of hers, toes planted behind her heel. "Come with me then, and close your eyes."

"Such secrecy." He mused, allowing her to disappear from sight as his eyes fell shut.

Spinning around, Ariadne began to coax him forward with a bounce to her bare step. Flitting a glance over her shoulder to make certain he followed instruction, her timing was precise enough to find his left eye slitting for a peek, only when he knew he'd get caught.

"Ah-!" She chided through a cheeky smirk. "Absolutely not, young man."

Emmrich did as he was told, though not before barking a deep chuckle.

Eyes shut, no so much as twitching to sneak a peep, he allowed his tiny elf to lead him by the hand from the foyer and down the main hall, into the kitchen that they shared. The fragrance strengthened the nearer they drew; something sweet, and still warm from the oven. He could lift the aroma of toasted hazelnut through a haze of fresh sugar paste.

It ghosted across his lungs in bittersweet familiarity, before it spread throughout the breadth of his chest at an alarming pace. Pooling around his heart, it roused an old, dull ache to spasm throughout the muscle. One he knew well, he hadn't felt it in quite some time.

Emmrich didn't need to open his eyes to know what it was.

A chair positioned for him at the table, she guided his tall frame down to take a seat. Traipsing to stand behind him, he felt her breasts against his back, as she gathered his tapered upper body into her arms. Linking them around his neck with fingers dangling against his buttons, her cheek came to rest at his temple.

"Alright." She cleared her throat, the words cracking under her anxiousness. "Now you may look."

The sight of a dessert came into view. A cake, propped up square in his field of view. But not just any cake, if his nose was to be believed.

His mother's hazelnut torte.

It's presentation was pristine. Centered on a black crystal server, the sides were smooth with the whipped silk frosting, though pebbled with crushed hazelnut, just how he liked. Swirled peaks dotted the circumference of the top, dusted with cardamom, and flecks of what appeared to be orange zest.

Both assembled and decorated with a diligent hand, Emmrich could scarcely believe it was crafted by the same one that blurred in a lackadaisical whirl when extending a whisk. Whose 'pinch's and 'dash's were more akin to 'handful's.

Baking was a precise art, and Ariadne, by her own admission, was an imprecise woman.

Mother Volkarin's Nevarran Hazelnut Torte was every bit the labor of love she feared, one that consumed the lion's share of her day.

The hands that brought one of her gods to his knees before her, were the same that shook as she folded the egg whites into the batter. Emmrichs written instruction to 'do so gently' so heavy in it's emphasis, she could hear the ink admonish her from the page.

The cakes almost cracked during the transfer from pan to cooling rack. She drizzled the espresso into the icing before it was whipped, curdling the chocolate in the process, so she had to make it twice.

An adept cook, that skill was much looser with the rules. It allowed for improvisation, and fudging. She could afford to be distracted, and make substitutions without worry.

They often alternated the role of cook, unless it was a shared evening off, in which case they did it together. A testament to their complimentary opposition, seamless cohesion while preparing a meal was not a feat just any couple could boast. But they could.

Baking allowed no room for error, and would punish even minor offenses without discrimination. So much as one under performing ingredient would see the whole suffer. Baking would sooner bite the hand of the uninitiated than show it grace. Not dissimilar to how a beast snaps at one unfamiliar, one that approached with unease.

It required focus. Dedication. Her full, undivided attention.

Judging by it's looks, she had done just that. Having gone through the endeavor for no other reason than to surprise him. To do something special for his favorite time of year. To let him know her adoration of him was boundless, and what she was willing to give went without limit.

Even if it meant baking from scratch.

The length of ring adorned fingers closed around her wrist almost twice over. He stroked the knob of bone there with brisk thumb strokes, as if to quell her doubts through touch, while he was too overcome that moment to speak.

"I know you're not one to spoil your dinner, but your secret'll be safe with me." She pulled away, lips curling to a kiss against his forehead. Tugging the scarf from his shoulders to fold in half, she peered at him sheepish and sidelong. Unwilling to rush him, but anxious for his validation in the same breath.

Those bright eyes of hers boring into him in impatient wait, Emmrich shook himself free of the beginnings of his spiral only as her gaze began to burn.

Finally inclined to speak, the words snagged against his throat, strangling his inflection with what what of his voice managed to escape.

"Forgive me my discourtesy, dearest, I'm... at a loss for the proper words."

Draping his scarf over the back of an empty chair, she came to his side again. "How about your improper words, then?" Taming her nerves, Emmrich clasped her hand and lifted it to his lips.

A soft snicker misted into her skin, before molding his pout to the valleys of her knuckles. Spine then erected, he intoned through an easy smile. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather get on with spoiling my dinner."

She left him sitting there, alone with the torte, to fetch a plate and utensils. Shifting in his seat, Emmrich arranged himself over the side of it, one long leg crossed over the knee of the other. Turned away from the table to instead face her, she returned as if she had never stepped away.

He then eyed her as she placed the setting before him. Counting one plate between the two of them with a knit brow.

"Won't you join me?"

"I'll sneak a bite of yours." She teased, sinking the knife down in two clean, angled lines. Forming a neat triangle, she divulged where her motivations for such an act of service stemmed as she did.

"Lucanis told me when you gave him the recipe. I've been holding onto it for so long, I'd almost forgotten he'd given it to me." Lifting the wedge free, she plated it for him with ease. "It's only taken me so long to get around to because I saw you specified that your mother made it for you every Wintersend, and I wanted to do this properly."

Satisfied with the slice, she then passed it to him, trying to mask her shyness by babbling over it.

"I'm sure you could just make it for yourself perfectly well, but it's... different, I think, when it comes from someone else. Made for you, by someone who loves you." She continued to explain, and he continued his stunned silence. Willing himself to nod when appropriate, all else he could do was swallow hard against the cold lump in his throat.

A heaviness settled around him, but one that posed a comfort. Shielding. A hearty glass of mulled port on a frigid, lonesome night. That warded against the chill, and wrapped the heady spice of cinnamon and anise around his weariness, until it all melted away. An embrace of care. Of affection, and devotion.

For him, by one who loved him.

It patched another of his holes, one leftover from the accident. Another one of his empty gaps tailor-made for her shape, greedy to receive her. Left cold and open until she came along and filled it. No longer having a mother's doting, having been deprived of it at the tender age of old enough to suffer it's absence with appreciation.

Ariadne propped her hip against the edge of the table alongside where he sat. Arms folded, they then fell to twist her fingers at her naval.

Severing a piece with his fork that was both modest yet polite, Emmrich slid it between his teeth. Woefully heedless.

Until the taste settled.

Her fidgeting next balled fists at her hips, before dropping to hug herself around the middle.

Whipped frosting dissolved against the grooves of his tongue, and the airiness of the confection yielded to his thoughtful chewing in a slurry of rich mocha, coffee, and cream. All culminated with the barest hint of a crunch from pulverized hazelnut. With the first bite swallowed, he stilled.

Fingers knotted to keep still, she gnawed at her lower lip. Brows furrowed with an intensity that contrasted against her inhibition.

His stoic features twitched with pain, one that he fought to keep quiet.

Searching him for any signs of encouragement, he stared either directly into her - or through her - she wasn't certain. But it made little difference.

He didn't see her, or whatever it was he zeroed in on. Ever alert and keenly observant, Emmrich's look of foggy displeasure sank her heart to the pit of her stomach.

"That bad?" She offered in hesitation, as she steeled herself. Working her inflection gentle and light, he flinched against her words, as if her doubt struck him across the face. Her panic spiked.

Shutting his eyes, a harsh exhale flared his nostrils. And then nothing. Wound so tight and rocked stiff, not even his broad chest rose and fell with the rhythm of breaths.

She had tempered expectations.

Of course it would pale in comparison to his mother's, but surely her efforts would be appreciated, no matter how amateurish her attempt.

However he remained tensed, and aloof.

It bubbled resignation up her throat to spill between them, like a pot boiled over. Rushing to distance herself from the flicker of hope that she succeeded, only to retreat to forgone failure. Much more familiar to her, she burrowed in that experience, and sought it's shelter. "I know its not quite the same, but I did tr-,"

Breaking himself out of the reticence that held him captive, without addressing her - or even glancing back her way - he turned in his chair to face the slice head on, before he mauled it.

Wolfing it down like a man starved, he hunched over in his seat, no different from how a hound seeks to hide their bone from prying eyes before they gnaw it to shreds and marrow.

Ricocheting the fork back and forth between his mouth and the plate, not a hint of deviation, or break, in his ferine.

His heart throbbed by a chest that squeezed against it, intent to cave in. He didn't come up for air, not that his lungs would be able to suck it in against his body's constricting. Every part of him felt heavy and tender; the sore fatigue of succumbing to grief, after ignoring it for longer than it would tolerate.

The clinking of metal against the china was all the noise between them.

"Oh-," squeaked from her. One so quiet, he recognized it wasn't meant to be playful. He had startled her, just as he had himself.

Emmrich felt himself surrounded by her intent gaze, swelling with his every hurried inhale. Little muted whines were shook loose, before they were able to be strangled by his rabid mastication. With every one that groaned from the cavernous need he rushed to fill with her, the wider her eyes grew.

And the hotter her cheeks.

She couldn't fight the allure of when he presented so unrefined. To witness such vulnerability meant that she, and she alone, withheld the privilege of the one who he lowered his walls for. Ariadne offered to him her heart for his consumption, and he accepted. Selfish and with voracity, he took all she had to give, and it worsened his body's demand for more. It pulsed and twitched around a hollow hunger. One that would never be satiated, so long as she was near.

His teeth ground through her meaning behind the torte, as though the more earnest he was in savoring it, the closer he'd bind himself to her. The stronger the hit would be. The more potent the sense memory would cement itself, should he never get the chance for it again.

Should he ever lose her again.

A fool he was, to believe he reconciled the pain of being made to go without her.

Throbbing low and dull, it shared the space with his heart, and presented like an old scar. His body's hasty work to patch it saw it numbed and gnarled, stitched closed with a ragged touch before he bled out on the spot.

Unbothered to make it clean, or pretty. To lay nice beneath the skin so he wouldn't feel it there. To eventually fade away with time, like all the rest.

This picked it back open. Confronting him with the blood, and the mess. The beast found a weak spot in the cage.

And Emmrich kept eating.

His throat felt thick, and his molars buzzed. Head clotted and hazy from the rush of sugar, it wasn't enough discomfort to keep him from going in for more.

Until every crumb was devoured. Until his fork scratched empty plate. Only to then use the flat of it to scrape the smears of leftover frosting, he sucked it clean from the tines.

He didn't indulge in sweets often, not in a long while. And never like this.

It was like just his mother's, and it wasn't.

So different from how he remembered, yet it warmed him from the inside out, just as it did when he was a boy.

He detected her use of both rum and coffee in the icing, in place of the orange liqueur. A personal preference of his mother's in which her faithfulness was strict.

It tasted like Ariadne. Her bite. How she burned down his throat and boiled in his stomach. An addictive delight, tinged with the inescapable aftertaste of regret that plagued a treat. Something that tasted too good to resist, though he knew better.

Her heavy-hand, and decadence.

Her affection for him, overwhelming as it was unapologetic.

He didn't need his mother's torte. He needed hers. And now that he got a taste, he was ravenous.

It awakened something so deep-seeded within him he didn't recognize it at first. He didn't know how to appease it. Dredged from his depths, it ordered his acknowledgment with the same loud insistence that begged her consolation.

All he could do was reach for her.

He clawed at her hips with too much strength behind his nails, and yanked her into him. Blossoming a squeal that reached his ears, but went no further.

All but snatching her off her feet, Emmrich closed in to curl around her like a sniveling child. Burying his face in her abdomen, he wrapped himself around her in a plea for security only she could give.

He was the small and frightened boy, and the man he worked so hard to become in order to leave him behind, all at once.

Too tall and long-limbed to hide himself in her, it didn't stop him from trying.

The precious trivialities on which they'd built a life upon teased behind his squeezed lids.

Her call of his name through the door when he got in. How she hung herself from his neck, and gazed up at him with those soft brown eyes, like there existed an additional lifetime just for them to admire one another.

How he'd come into their bedroom from his morning bath, to her choice of his cuff links, or ascot for the day, laid out and ready for him. How serious she contemplated his wardrobe whenever he desired her input. A regular occurrence, as he delighted in the perk of her pointy ears when deep in consideration.

Cooking together. Wine blushing her cheeks and loosening her grin. Throaty giggles echoed into her glass at some-off hand remark of his that wasn't meant for laughs, but adoring it had done so.

Eating their meal in silence shared, for even their lack of conversation was a comfort.

Her nimble fingers gliding over the curve of his rump in a playful, yet possessive squeeze as she slipped past to goose him. Her preferred method of getting his attention.

How effortless she could communicate to him, the very same sentiment she spoke aloud just as often.

I love you.

The beast was loose, and it lunged straight for his weakness, snapping at the vestiges of his composure with it's slobbering maw. No longer would it be ignored.

Vision speckled and swimming, Emmrich blinked against it in hopes that would return his acuity, while his fingers curled their way around the waistband of her pants. A thin, clinging material, they goaded his ferocious weakness for the curvature of her hips and thighs. Soft, supple, full. Fecund. What of his faculties persisted, it was not near enough to stop him from yanking them down her legs.

Needing no further clarification of his needs, one of her hands hand grabbed for the meat of his broad shoulder to steady herself. Helping him pull her leggings the rest of the way in hurried accommodation, before kicking the pooled material from her feet.

Having forgone her underthings, a keening whine rattled his teeth at the discovery. Had it been any other time, he would have better expressed his appreciation for such boldness. Her womanhood bared to him, pink and puffy, he gazed at her and began to salivate, sugar still coating the inside of his cheeks.

Another time. When he didn't feel like he might have been ill if he didn't push himself inside her that very moment.

Naked from the waste down, he knocked the chair out from under him with a squawk of its feet skidding across tile. Clutching at the little elf, he sank to the floor, and dragged her down with him.

Scrambling to mount her, he insisted she lay down and open herself up to him; beyond mere words, but begged by way of how he pushed and pulled her.

Emmrich had weathered many romances and heart break, all of which conditioned his hands with an expertise that now failed him. Gifted with unspeakable adroitness with the body of a lover, those hands now shook and misfired, and with his own trousers, no less.

Directionless, he pawed her with brutish fumbling, grabbing at her everywhere and touching her nowhere. Breaths too tattered for blush-worthy adulation. Trembling with such force he was unable to free himself as quick as he needed, much less still himself long enough for a kiss, even one chaste.

Embarrassment had set for a myriad of reasons, though the feud with his clasps whipped him back to his first time - that sweet classmate of his, all those years ago - flushed and inexperienced.

A gangling lad on the edge of seventeen, not yet acquainted with his new height fresh off a growth spurt. Navigating his hormones and fledgling manhood with tragic ineptitude, that was, until Julian.

A strapping young man with the vibrancy of a midday sky in the blue of his eyes. The same height as Emmrich, he carried it so much better, having hit his metamorphosis much earlier. He moved with confidence, an attribute that both attracted Emmrich, and made him green with envy.

Julian kissed him sweeter than his perpetual mischievousness hinted. A biting wit softened to moaned praise. Assertive hands with an exploratory touch over Emmrich's wiry, virgin body. It was romantic in the way that young, puppy love often was; affection warm and dewy as early morning grass in mid summer, their romance carried through that season to the following.

Their end reached it's natural conclusion. He missed his companionship as he did the intimacy. But more seasons came and went, missing him a little less with each one. Dulling the sharp edges of his longing to rosy remembrance, like sand and waves to fragments of glass.

In that light, he held no pain, or grudges. How could he, when he had been left with something so beautiful from his first love? A memento forever treasured.

One shaking hand pulled himself through his slacks, having at last slipped the buttons free after much fervent appeal. Unable to take the time to fold the flaps out of the way, let alone remove his clothes, for his flaring need forbade any further delay.

Her breaths were just as uneven as his own. Hazelnut eyes full of assurance, and all for him, the sight had him twitch with a vengeance against the crease of his palm. Buried beneath his furious desideratum, he was almost appalled to feel himself erect with such ferocity. The sensitive flesh hot and angry grasped within his ringed fingers.

He shifted himself further up her body, seeking to align their sexes. Taking care not to rest too much of his weight atop her, the first nudge of his swollen crown to her folds saw him hiss at the sensation. She was ready for him. Despite the absence of proper foreplay, rubbing his length at the apex of her thighs, it came away puckered raspberry and drooling.

He found his little elf always seemed to be just a little primed for him, an affect of his presence he hoped would never calm with complacency.

A reality he accepted with shame, he could spare her no further attention, or prelude, driven mad with the urgency to be inside her.

His bruised head resting heavy at her entrance, he dropped himself between her spread thighs, and crammed himself in with a stuttered cant. A choked gasp ripped from him while he ripped his way through her, wet and guttural. Shuddering against her frantic contractions to his abrupt intrusion.

Ariadne arched up off the ground as far as the cage of his body allowed. A harsh yelp shot through her lips. The ringing in his ears deadened the blow, as it did the breathless cry of his name that followed, fragile and tumbling. Fingers grabbing at his drawn shoulders, she twisted the cotton of his shirt to anchor herself.

Time was on pause. A hush fell over them as he stalled on top of her, his thumping heartbeat nipping the heels of her own. Only once her dainty hands swept up and down his back, a pressure deliberate to stroke him still, did he realize he was trembling.

He almost didn't recognize the sound that came from him as his own; a whimpering, pathetic noise. Sick. The closest comparison to the feverish hue that rushed his clammy skin. The most apt identifier to the brutal, qualmish onset.

He was a lot for her to take, though she'd have it no other way. The sweet sting of his brunt hilted inside her was ecstasy unlike any she had ever tasted. The first time she laid with Emmrich he left her ruined, and never before had she submit to ruination with such abandon.

He had the tendency of holding her needs paramount to his own. Now given the chance to return the favor, she offered herself to his exigency, unconditional and absolute. Thrust as deep as her body's accommodation could withstand, with widened thighs and a nurturing caress, she welcomed his struggles as she did his prowess.

If he lost himself in her, so be it. She'd light the way back, like a beacon to ships in the night. And she'd piece him back together again.

Such messy business - love.

A quavering sigh seethed through grit teeth, her flutters were almost too tight to be comfortable. Emmrich began to rock himself in and out to stretch her to better fit his girth. Beginning slow and shallow, his thrusts were stilted, unwilling to peel himself away from her embrace long enough for proper gyration.

Their mismatched heights made for an already awkward coupling on the floor even more difficult. Her face tucked into his chest, the top of her head bumped into his chin with her every jostle forward. Steadied by forearms planted along either side of her, he shifted his weight to his lower body, throwing as much into the momentum of his frenzied canting as possible.

The otherwise respectable kitchen now invaded by obscenity, the slap of flesh drowned only by the cacophony of their sighs, and the shrill clatter of his grave gold against both itself, and the tile.

It wasn't romantic, or impassioned. It was distressed, and sloppy. A fast-spreading sickness of which this crude joining was medicinal. Her honey, her heat; the strength and tightness of muscle, that ushered him inside her plush depths. Seeking to knead him to better health.

All of his finesse - his artistry - when it came to making love abandoned him. Exiled to flounder in a shallow pool of desperation. An aspect of all his relationships of which his confidence was unshakable, he then felt like he was laying with someone he was unfit to touch.

Beautiful, dexterous fingers clawed at the floor in front of him until the tips blotched white from the pressure. Afraid to sink them into her, he knew the scratches left behind would taunt him for as long as they'd last.

Locking her ankles at the small of his back, she wrapped her arms around his back to hold him. Her furrowed brow twitching above eyes screwed shut, as he chafed her backside against the edge of tile bared from uneven grout.

"It's okay-, it's alright-," lilting in breathlessness, she fought his attempts to steal them with every snap of penetration. "Y-you're okay."

He hadn't felt such helplessness since his Orlesian artist, Anastriana. Lissome and mystifying, she was the first woman he'd ever seduced that made him feel as though he had to prove himself in order to keep her. Or rather, she was the first woman who'd seduced him.

She liked to claim conquests instead of lovers, and he managed to hold on to her for longer then she planned to string him along. Endearing her with his eagerness to please, his devotion to her needs.

Emmrich would have pried himself open with nothing but blunt finger tips in servitude, all to pluck a rib from its cage, if it might have won her approval. But her approval wasn't equal to her love.

He proved himself a dutiful marionette, one too amusing to put back in the cupboard.

Until the next came along, and he was no longer a befitting muse.

More a heinous co-dependency than it was a relationship. To think he'd been such a willful accomplice of his own heartbreak, when he disregarded the obvious, and asked for her hand. A request denied, and none too gently.

It ripped him apart. Leaving him bitter with wounded pride, and sullied by wild jealousy. Yet, even with how thorough his dismantling by her fickle whims, he remained the same. That pain, visceral as it was, fizzled and faded. Swept away by time, the sting a distant memory.

He had gained better sense alongside self-respect as he matured. Far more guarded with his partners thereafter, Emmrich offered them a scrupulous love. He didn't know any other way to be. If what he had to give wasn't enough, then it simply wasn't meant.

"E-Emmrich-," Her moans brought him back, puffed against his collar bone as she squeezed her thighs against his hips. Her pelvis pinned under his, it wriggled in attempt to match his rhythm, but she couldn't follow a lead he didn't provide.

Withdrawn fully into himself, huffing and grunting as he rut her into their kitchen floor, still she sang for him, as if he were worshiping her the way he should. "F-feels so nice-," she sobbed, perhaps just as far gone herself. Toes curling and heels dug into his low back, her whimpers broke against his ear, finding him through the thundering of his blood, and the roar of his heart. "You're perfect - so perfect-,"

The haughty, bejeweled visage of Anastriana was exiled back to the cobwebbed annexes of his psyche where she belonged. A ghost of his past that deserved internment for what of his mind she saw fit to besiege.

He no longer looked to dissect himself, and discard the more unsavory bits. He'd never again rearrange his parts for a lovers favor.

But for Ariadne?

She'd sooner clap him against the cheek for daring to suggest such a thing, though his inescapable truth remained. The deeper in love he fell, the more certain he was of his unworthiness to have her.

Not with all his flaws. The very same unsavory bits he had been so self-righteous of before her.

Be it by shame, or neediness, he wanted to hide. Sheathed inside her as he was, the urge was demanding.

He couldn't bury himself at her neck in their current position. Stopping just long enough to shift to his knees, the joints bruised and aching from the press of the tile, she stuck to him like a leech. Refusing to detach for even that terse beat of readjustment, claws sunk and legs like a vice.

The first time he glimpsed her face since before they began, her eyes watered above cheeks smeared rogue. Loosened tendrils of silvery blonde clung to her forehead and wrapped around the front of her throat, she mewled up at him like a submissive kitten. The luster of her sex drunk haze heightened by how her pupils spilled across the irises.

Hoisting her up with him to keep her hips flush in his lap, his palms slid up along her back to grip her by her traps. Hunched over, he retreated within the crook of her neck, before rolling his hips in earnest.

His pants huffed against her throbbing pulse, the fingers he had been so worried about hurting her with prior, now bit down into her shoulders to hold her still. To keep her steady as he overwhelmed her with his gluttony.

Messy and without coordination, his heft pushed at the velvet confines of her channel, the ridges clenched tight around his every spear.

Wetness then leaked against the spot on her where he nuzzled. The gallop of her heart was all that protected it from breaking.

Though it was he who helmed this onslaught, Emmrich twisted himself around her with staggering necessity. A needful, clinging tender spot, and no more. Afraid the moment he eased up, she'd fade to nothingness beneath him. Ripped from a dream, the most beautiful he'd ever known.

"Darling, please-," He rasped into her skin, slick with perspiration and stray tears. "Don't- don't leave me."

His inner torment had been plain, but to hear it thicken his tone; so small and despondent, alarm sheared through her like cold wind.

"W-what?" Battling her own disorientation, bleary eyes blinked up at the ceiling, her grasp on him curled tighter. "What are you-t-talking about?"

Ariadne didn't make his townhouse their home. She was home. His home. A home that was taken from him long ago.

One he didn't have the stomach to lose. Not again. Never again.

And he almost had.

But not that dread. That only metastasized.

The sour taste at the back of his throat. Shaking and sweat-dampened in the middle of the night, pawing at her side of the bed to make sure she was still there.

The very thing he wanted most of all had been snatched away from him the moment he received it, and all before he could even recognize it for what it was. Their last argument echoing inside his head without end, his weaknesses and insecurities blinded him from what had been waiting there for him all along. Yet there he was, trying to reject what he had craved all his life. Perhaps the beast had been there from the start.

He could have drowned in that thought if he stayed in it any longer.

Grief was funny that way.

Unpredictable as it was unavoidable. The first week she was gone, Emmrich remained strong. Focused on what he needed to do in order to get her back, he busied himself with optimism, however contrived.

Neve began to visit him those nights in the beginning, when sleep refused them both, and cast each away.

She touched his shoulder as if the company was for his sake, but the bags beneath her eyes conveyed her struggles equaled his own. Telling him that burden was one shared.

"How are you holding up?"

"About as well as your estimations, if the look on your face is to give you away. Though truth be told, I fear I'm faring not even half as well." He attempted a chuckle, but the mirth that would have lent to it's credibility refused to surface with it, rending it a scratchy, parched wheeze. One he hadn't the bandwidth to smooth over, or excuse by that time of the night. "I'm... well."

Whether he said it to convince her, or himself, neither were sold.

The ice mage peered up at him with a tilt of her head. An invitation for him to unload. "And you know it's alright... not to be?"

"Of course..." He declined her lifeline with a tired smile, the sheen of his gaze intensified as it unfocused. "Though it would be of use to no one should I pander to such selfishness, to waste precious time wallowing. Least of all to... her." His throat closed around the acknowledgment, as if speaking about her would jinx her return.

Neve uttered a small noise of agreement from the back of her throat, before gesturing towards the spiral staircase. "Shall we, then?"

The two would set out on his balcony like weary sentinels amidst the starry night. Solemn in their silence, they were each granted a moment in the company of a friend, simply just to be. A break from having to pretend.

She'd offer her cigarette each time, and each time he abstained.

For about the first three evenings.

Catching his stolen, longing glances, and interpreting them as curiosity. An oversight she fast rescinded, for when he accepted it from her, he pulled the burn into his lungs without hesitation. His fluidity betrayed a practiced ease that hinted to an old - or secret - habit. With a taut bob of his Adams apple, he shut his eyes and tipped his head back.

Neve watched with a smirk, as Emmrich blew it back into the night a steady, flattened stream from between his lips, the smoke tugging with it a noise from him. A hum that bordered on a groan, and throaty with relief. It was one she knew well.

"I see you've met before."

"Oh yes, my dear, we're well acquainted. An admission I scorn the taste of almost as much." A hoarser edge snagging his signature silk, he rushed his next drag, and the acridity furled to mild retaliation within his rusty throat. Waving away the quick burst of a cough, he shook his head at himself with a smirk that more earnestly wanted to be a sneer. "Old friends turned adversaries, I dare say."

So became their ritual. Most nights saw them together on his balcony, passing her quellazaire back and forth about as often as their weak words of conciliatory encouragement. Whenever one would find it within themselves to proffer to the other.

Ever tactful, Neve opted to continue sharing hers, to perhaps lessen the blow of his relapse. He was as grateful for her discretion as he was her empathy.

The first week was like wading through wet cement. Every step forward a battle, he held tight to his vigilance, if only for Ariadne.

The second week was when it began to harden.

They had been moving at a break-neck pace, careening down their path quicker than they could formulate the next plan of attack. And then she was gone, and everything halted. Now idle, he had a little more time to think. To dwell.

It smothered him. Everything did. Waking, walking, breathing. A constricting pressure seeking faults so that it may get him to crack, in the form of steady, unhurried fear. The fear that no progress had been made. That she still wasn't back.

His presentation deteriorated a little more each long day that bled into the next. The circles around his eyes darkening, his stubble grown out from days unbothered to shave it. Though he held himself together with little more than threads of the hope, he held tight to them still. Regardless of how tattered.

Neve shortened the time between her visits to his balcony.

Before long, the length of those days strung him right along into the third week.

That milestone a bitter one to accept, the beast then came knocking.

Before it's arrival, he loathed being in his room at the lighthouse alone; for the whispers of their argument slithered through the air in suffocation whenever he opened himself to that vulnerability. With the beast taking that place, he would have welcomed those taunting echoes back with open arms.

It reached for him like a shadow stretching across the ground, its inevitability lurking in his periphery. In the dark corners of her quarters, when he ventured there to sit alone, and breath in her smell.

It sunk its claws into his feet and dragged him down, down, down. Into himself, into self-destruction, into agony so old and familiar it hurt just to look at it. A malignancy he believed to be bested rearing in spite.

It knew Emmrich, and knew him well. It had been a long time, but they had a history. The longer and harder Emmrich looked it in the eye, did the horrified realization dawn.

I know you. And it can't be you. It cannot be. You only come when... and she can't be...

To say he looked haggard from thereon was a kindness. Iron scruff covered his jaw, sunken in and hollow with starvation. He raked fingers through his hair over and over again, leaving it to stick up in erratic tufts that he never tamed back into place, no matter how often he threaded them through it.

By then, when Neve came calling for their regular commiseration, she discovered he'd taken to starting without her.

Perseverance no longer saw fit to bestow him it's mercy.

He turned to face her with bloodshot eyes. His tall height halved as he bent at the waist and slouched over the rail, his perfect posture disintegrated along with his nerve.

The stub of his second consecutive cigarette dangled from his shadowed frown. Without a word uttered, he snapped fingers out towards her, producing a spark between them, as a small flame appeared. Hovering above his fingertips, at the ready to light her up.

Heavy lidded eyes, they were glassy with the tears he denied himself. The top few of his buttons yanked loose, while his waist-coat hung wide open. Just so he could breath.

He had been doing so well.

Having spurned fate at numerous points throughout his life, childish as it now seemed, the frequency of the habit across all his combined years paled in comparison to those dreadful weeks.

And then, as vicious and greedy as it was; as much as it took from him, it at long last returned.

She was back.

One unassuming day. During the middle of a week that was decidedly without note.

All he could do was hold her close, and steady himself to the beat of her heart. Sighing into the top of her head how relieved he was she was back, over and over again. And he was.

They hadn't the time then for proper acknowledgment, or the right words. Already on borrowed time, and he'd squander none of it on dwelling over his anguish.

She was given back to him. And there was a god to kill.

So Emmrich laid to rest the horrifics of how he suffered in a shallow grave, one neither visited.

Why now, after all this time, after she was returned to him for a life shared, a life just beginning - why now did he see fit for its desecration?

Why couldn't it stay buried?

Somehow she managed to draw it out from him. That wound gaping once more, all either could do at that moment was let it weep. For where there was blood, coagulation would soon follow.

And then the sting would dull to an ache. An ache could be ignored, could be carried. Could be learned to live with.

That grief stripped him to his bones, weary and frail. And she cradled them. Shielding them from the hard floor, and using the heat from her own body to warm them. She looked at him no different from how she did when he was at his suavest, at his strongest. At his best.

The tragedy of his parents death shaped him, an inevitability in his story.

But those weeks where he never knew if he'd see Ariadne again, the fragmented echoes of their argument left unresolved, hers would be a loss that would define him.

And then she was back. Safe in his arms. Constant in his heart.

Emmrich spoke firmer, almost a growl. Sharpened with indignation, the words still shook with the tenuous resolve of agony just barely held at bey. "Don't ever leave me, ever again."

She laid there for him, clutching the hair of his nape her fingers thread through. Thinking to assuage him, the act of speech was was a challenging one. The mass of him stuttering into her, every time she opened her mouth, all that knocked from her were gasps.

As though she were fighting against the waves of a sea as they broke over her head, cold and unrelenting. Pushing her back, pushing her away. She hushed into the air in hopes he'd be able to hear.

"I'm-here," choked it's way out against his rutting. "I-It's alright-Emmrich- I'm here."

It wasn't enough. Unconvinced, his thrusts met her harsh and jagged. "I can't lose you, not again I-I'm not- I'm not strong enough, I-"

Far more stubborn than the two of them combined, she pulled him from his hiding place and down into a hug. Forcing him to feel her sincerity through the strength of her embrace.

Shielding him from the beast that snarled in wait.

"Not even death could keep me from you." Bruising him with the weight of dedication too heavy to hold, she begged for his trust. "I promise you, I'll never leave you again."

Usually just before release he quickened, and his movement became focused. Purposeful. This time he slowed, trying to savor her, or stall himself from too quick a release. But it was too late. Rigor had settled. He could feel the little tremors throughout his muscles as they burned. That coil seated behind the root of his cock began to un-spool with the finality of an over-tensioned wire then clipped.

"Ari-," somewhere between a hiccup and a sob, it was low and needful, and unexpected in the best of ways. If she wasn't darling, or love, or my dear - she was Ariadne. Proper, and with much reverence. He had never before called her just Ari.

Deepening the rosy hue that prickled over her every inch, it wound him tighter in her arms. To say that she knew. She understood.

As quick as it mounted, it all toppled over.

A harsh prickle behind his eyes that swept from left to right, the spasms held his lids shut. Not that he would have wanted her to look into them, even if he could fight his body to hold them open.

He emptied inside her, unable to hold it back. A sluggish release, one that seemed to worsen his inner malady as it oozed. Shaking like a wet dog and growing nauseous with the dawning of what he had just done, Emmrich didn't wait for his breath to return before falling over himself in apology.

"Oh, my darling, I-I... -forgive me, I-,"

"Don't you dare." Her tone as firm as the adoration that imbued it. "Of all the things you've sought forgiveness for, that is about the most foolish."

Emmrich felt as sensitive and needled as a nerve rubbed raw, and looked twice as battered, struggling for breath that stuck to the air too humid and thick for his lungs. He had just crashed through the final stage of grief, knotted inside her as he was. Right there, on the kitchen floor.

He thought to roll them to the opposite position, but he feared movement. He still felt everything, and entirely too much.

"Foolish habits of a foolish man." He winced upon hearing himself without the tinnitus to muffle it. Gruff beyond recognition, a raw voice belonging to someone else. In that suspension of sobriety, he very much wished he was.

"Mmm, my foolish man." Her correction loving, her arms draped lazily around his neck, peering up at him glossy eyed and meek.

Humiliation digging at his back, he peered down at her with too grim an expression for all their common vulnerability. "May I... make a confession?"

Her own face fluttered a little as it softened. "Please do."

A palm at her cheek, her crystalline gaze was alight with sincere infatuation. His tongue stalled, hesitation slithering back in. The beast heeled, but still breathing down his neck.

Would he tell her of how he couldn't eat when she disappeared? That scarcity rivaled only by his lapse in personal hygiene? Would he crush that blinding acceptance she basked him in, as he told her how often he had lost his temper with Manfred?

Or that in his withdrawal of her, he thought the dry bitterness of tobacco a worthy substitute for her sweetness? That he replaced one addiction with the other, as if his relapse reduced her to no more than a vice. One he was forced to quit, one he had to reconstitute.

No, he couldn't allow her to visualize him in such a way. Though the jaws of the beast would not unlatch until it was appeased, lest he be left with those punctures for the rest of his days, hot and festered, like wounds that wouldn't close. With a deep breath, he lowered his gaze to the space of her chest that covered her heart. Trained to it's rise and fall, instead of looking her in the eye.

"All this time I thought ill of fate; thinking it cruel to have lead me to you so much later in my life. But I was wrong. It wasn't cruel, but merciful. I've been left behind to live on in the absence of those I loved most. I could not... do that again. Not with you." His utterance just above a whisper. "Not again."

The dour severity of his words flustered her. "That's very sweet."

"Rather disconcerting of you to perceive that declaration as such." He shook, eyes wide and head hung in defeat. The ruefulness of his inflection cut through them both. "I'm a weak man, Ariadne. A coward."

"And I'm a horrid little woman." She all but groaned.

He drew back with a blink. A more familiar, perplexed look settled into the lines of his face, one she was ever grateful to see back on him.

She hadn't meant to snap, but it startled him out of self-loathing long enough to allow for reason. At the very least, their eyes had finally met. "While we're exchanging confessions I have something of my own, if you'll hear it."

Emmrich urged her on, wordless. The pallor in his face receding.

"If I died tomorrow, I'd haunt you for the rest of your days." The mischievous twinkle was unable to mask her honesty, one she was none too proud of. "I know I'm supposed to say that I'd want you moved on and happy, but I'm viciously jealous."

To what she offered, he scoffed, though not one of contempt, or ridicule. That candor of hers brought him solace, one he was gracious to accept. A fullness in his heart, a balm to that nagging ache that throbbed low and steady when she was gone. A piece of it missing in the shape of her, he was then strong enough in acceptance that it was back.

Steadfast, and unequivocal.

As was a different nagging he had been trouble by on and off, in the months following their homecoming. It was far less monstrous, though it frightened him much the same.

Though the way she gazed up at him with those big, brown eyes confronted him with a decision then made. That his rationale for its evasion was unfounded.

He could think of no better time than now, tangled in one another on the floor, as bared to her as he'd ever been.

True to his creed, he didn't dissect himself to rearrangement. He ripped himself open and let her see it all; the ugliness, the cowardice, the unsavory bits. The parts of him that begged recoil, the parts to be shunned. He bared it all. A soul laid naked and plain in oblation. All he had to give.

Should she accept, it would be hers. Forever and always.

And Emmrich knew better than most the rot of things left unsaid, how they lingered like a restless spirit when their time came to an abrupt end, and it was too late to voice them.

"Marry me?"

Clawing it's way through a tight throat that sought to cage it, the blurted plea left him breathless. Hanging between them, tender and exposed.

There was no grand romance. No honeyed poeticism, or candlelight dinner. Not the way Emmrich had expected it might be. Not the way he felt she deserved. It was coarse and raw, just as she made him feel.

Then again, he knew the little Watcher better than that.

She'd always prefer unrefined sincerity, to overwhelming sentimentality. Perhaps this was just as it should be.

No matter the dressing, whether there were dozens of candles - or not one - the promise was the same. The words themselves were the heavy lifting. She trembled beneath them.

"I-," her words caught, and she winced. A blush pooled outward from the bridge of her nose, and moisture webbed across her eyes that only broke over her lashes when she tried to will it away. She continued to blink, looking to hide her face as fresh tears welled to replace the old. "You want a horrid little woman for a wife?"

"Does she love the weak, cowardly man?"

"Point that man out and she'll tell you." She sniffed, allowing for silence to coalesce between them as she collected herself. Though the importance of the request was one that ordered immediate response, he felt weightless as she kept him waiting for it.

"Ariadne Volkarin." Her breath hitched at the taste of the title in full, the flutter of her heart kicked to dizzying thumps with every syllable, every press of her tongue to her teeth. Trying it on for size.

A name she'd be honored to bear.

The first name she'd been offered. And not because there was simply no one else for her to be, but because he wanted her to be no one else.

"Ariadne Volkarin." He repeated, a hoarseness to his deep inflection. "My love... I must burden you once more with a confession, one I'm far more hesitant to impart."

Eyes widened to saucers, they glistened with delicate tears she did well in blinking back. "Oh?"

"I... I don't have a ring." Brows bowed, frown sheepish, resignation muddled his cadence.

Her gaze still blown and shining, it fixed on him, unflinching.

And then she laughed. Breathy, gentle, and blessedly reassuring.

"Does that mean I can't accept your proposal?"

A pressure closed around his heart and squeezed. Unbearable, he could have lived a lifetime in that heartache all the same. "Do you?"

"Yes." Her touch light and trembling, she guided his head down to rest his forehead against hers. When next she spoke, it was no more than a whisper, and a reflection of his frailty she handled with such care. "I do."

Tagging as per request: @pinkuranium @goddessnyx216

[runa-falls]

Hi em! Could you please recommend some Miguel O'Hara fics?🤤 (I've been watching the spiderman movie for the third time and omg each time I find him hotter than before

OF COURSE BABES!!!

one shots:

impatient - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

summary: miguel needs to see you in his office, immediately

thaw - @campingwiththecharmings

summary: being a leader isn't easy, and sometimes even spider-man needs someone else to take the lead

touch-a, touch-a, touch me - @dimepdf

summary: no matter how many times you try to convince yourself that Miguel is the bane of your existence, the way you react during training proves otherwise.

sex pollen - @xbellaxcarolinax

request (by my baby mona): okay but imagine sex pollen with miguel fucking you on your back and then even when he cums he just keeps going and it’s spilling out and refractory period who and you’re overstimulated and he’s like no no you’re not allowed to tap out and he — and he —!!!!!

honey-sweet - @fettuccin-e

summary: you're far too sweet for him. he's determined not to ruin you, despite the fact that he seems to ruin everything, and everything about you just seems to make his fantasies worse. but one night can change everything, apparently, when miguel finally sees how completely not sweet you can be.

size kink - yours truly

summary: miguel is so big, he could only slide against your pussy during the first few months of dating you 😵‍💫

(pumpkin) cream pie - most recent fic out

summary: miguel + whipped cream. what could go wrong?

ANGST + SMUT:

if you liked my (high key upsetting) angsty smut

check out this fic by @cherryberry-sugarandspice

series:

always yours, never mine [DARK] - @melodygatesauthor

summary: in every universe there's a version of you that exists. in some of those universes, you're in love with me; in others, you don't even know my name. none of it matters though, because when i find you, i will have you, i'll make you love me, and i will never lose you again.

halo pt 1 + 2 - @missdictatorme

summary: you are an AI designed by miguel. he gave you a unique voice, one he knew he would like listening to. he didn't really gave much thought to how you looked like when he made you a hologram form, he just choose a random picture of a woman from the internet. what happens when you ask for permission to design your own look?

[nightunite]

mhmmm forehead kisses between reader and konig

- half-asleep noona 🫶🏻

Hewwo Noona! This gave me the chance to write something I've been itching to add but haven't had the time to (curse needing a paycheck). Fair warning, my ass does NOT know how to play piano! @beloveds-embrace

Konig gently rolls his neck, looking at the clock ticking away on the far end of the music room, the crackling fire interrupting the sound of the steady movement of the clock's hands. Glancing out the window, he sees the snow coming down in fat flakes, covering up the signs of the servants' playful fights from yesterday and painting it all a serene white once more. A quarter after three, and a quarter after their lesson should have started. Ah, no matter, there's always tomorrow. He stands from the piano bench, turning to leave the room when he hears the sounds of socked feet drawing closer. Thumping over the hardwood, closer and closer, until his ricke appears in the doorway, out of breath and panicked. "Apologies sir! I didn't mean to oversleep, I-" Her hair is a mess, strands tossed to and fro, and he can't help the way his fingers twitch to card them back into place. "Nonsense, ricke. You are carrying a baby, you need your sleep." He walks over to her, trying to fight the blush he knows is desperate to make it's way across his cheeks as she looks at his bare face. His shroud had been cast aside shortly into their language lessons. After all, how was she to know how to shape her mouth for correct pronunciation if she couldn't see his example? That didn't make it any easier when she looked up at him like this, always so nervous for his approval. Clearing his throat, he holds out his arm for her, guiding her to the piano bench for the start of their lessons. She had come to him shortly after the others had taken her under their wing for language lessons, hands clasped in front of her. He had been sat here, gently playing the lullaby his mama would hum to him and that he was guilty of repeating when lost in thought... "You play beautifully, my lord. I wish I could play as well." "Would you like to learn?" "Of course!" And so, in much the same way as she was learning his native tongue, she now was his piano student. Of course, none of the other maids knew how to play, so he would be taking this task on by himself. If it made the spots of his heart that had chilled when their lessons had been overtaken thaw once more, that was no one's concern. He merely wishes to broaden her horizons and be a good employer. Besides, it allows him more opportunities to speak with another and keep his own language skills sharp. He helps her sit down, mindful of her and her bump. Ever since she had told him, he couldn't help but look after her. What if she fell, or tripped? As her boss (and perhaps her friend, though he hesitated to speak it aloud, the mere thought reddening his ears and highlighting them further), it was his responsibility to ensure the safety of his staff. "We will start with the warm ups, then move to the steps from yesterday, ja?" He tells her, watching her set her hands on the piano. Before she plays a single note though he's reaching from behind her, fingers sliding along the inside of her wrist to set her hands in a better position, one where they aren't curled like claws and causing cramps later. "Remember, loose." He murmurs, pulling back from her. "Thank you." She says back, taking a breath. She sets to work, playing a few notes slowly, careful not to make them overlap. They had only been at these lessons for little more than a week, so she knows not to expect to immediately be a maestro, but she can't help her disappointment when she makes mistakes. He watches over the top of her head, bent down at an angle that she's sure is bad for his back, but he assured her this is the best way for him to observe and correct her.

She makes her way through the scales, growing frustrated as she fails to move her fingers correctly. Chewing on her lip, she tries again, hitting the wrong notes in the process. She speeds up in an effort to force her hands to play better, but it just results in more errors, notes tumbling out of sequence. Before she grows too irritated though, Konig reaches for her hands again. "Too stiff. You have to move your hands like a dance." He gently sets his hands over hers, fingers moving across the keys. When it comes to the part where she struggles he gently tucks her thumb, so focused on teaching that he doesn't realize he is essentially holding her hand in his, his words whispered into her ear and making her fight a shiver. They're warm like they always are, so careful with how they move against hers, a cradle that keeps her hands safe from the harshness. It stokes something in her, the part of her that craves connection with another, craves closeness. "Step, step, step. All the way through." He guides her up and down the scale, showing her how to move her hands to produce a smooth transition. After a few more repetitions of it, he gently releases her hands, still hovering over the top in case she needs further guidance. "Go on ricke, you can do this." Slower than him, and with a bit of shakiness, she moves her hands, hoping not to embarrass herself after all of that. Each note comes out clear, and when she successfully makes it up and down the scale by herself she can't help but beam. She glances up at him, smile bright, to find him looking down at her with a similar expression. She's not expecting what follows. "Good job ricke!". Without thinking, he presses a soft kiss to her hairline as a reward. He pulls back, not processing what he's just done, while her expression changes to one of surprise, big doe eyes blinking up at him. When it finally hits him, he can feel the heat flood his entire face, blistering his ears and trailing down his neck and chest. His little student also flusters, and the two immediately look elsewhere, the chaste kiss still enough to set their hearts racing. Oh scheisse, how he wishes he still had on his mask. Clearing his throat, he regains his composure as best he can. "Apologies. That was crossing a boundary. I meant to say, you are learning well." If his voice is slightly higher pitched, it is only because he must be coming down with some illness. Same for the knot in his stomach, most likely the result of the cooks using bad potatoes for that day's lunch of stew. "Thank you sir." She murmurs shyly, fighting the urge to touch the spot his lips touched, the skin tingling. Just like his hands, his lips were warm, if a bit dry. The flutter she feels in her stomach must be from the baby, the racing of her heart causing them to get fussy. "Now, on to the next scale..." So they spent the afternoon, with the snow outside and the warmth inside, both the room and the people residing in it aglow as new paths were tread. TRANSLATIONS: Ricke - Doe Scheisse - Shit

[str4ngr]

knock knock [ john price ]

theres been too much price on my mind

idea from @sky-is-the-limit❤︎❤︎

cw: suggestive [a little more than suggestive], foul language, age difference [as always, hes like 40...], cheating, high sexual tension, voyuerism?, fem! reader.

Your boyfriend was a sweetheart, as a boyfriend, but he was definitely not a pleaser. Your night-time rendezvous were never quite successful, nor were they satisfying in any way. Your boyfriends knew your favorite flowers, but he didn't know how to fuck you to make you scream. 

Thought, it seemed there was another option. When you first saw him, the feeling that grew in you stomach caught you off guard. But instinct is instinct right? Every morning, you see the man next door, that sweet smile making you sweat after your morning shower, the small wrinkles around his eyes making him addicting to look at. Like a poppy, he became irresistible as his cold formality was grounded down, thawing to reveal his astute, bold charm. His eyes flickering from your eyes to you body, all-knowing to the perky flesh that peaked from the low cut of your tight top. 

You knew what you were doing, especially when you waved so sweetly after he was gone for a weak, welcoming him back with an arm around his neck, letting the gruff of his chin and lip press against your cheek as you kissed his, his lips returning the favor. You pulled away, looking up at your neighbor with fictitiously innocent eyes, smiling sweetly as you speak gently, jejune, absurd tone inking your voice, arms interlocking around his neck,

"Captain Price!" Your hip presses against his teasingly, your head tilting in temptation as you move your hair to reveal your supple neck. "How are you? It's been a week since I've last seen you!" You pout, enjoying the lavish touch of his hands holding your waist, not resisting your advances. With the charm of the devil, his husky voice filled your mind like velvet wine, 

"Lot better after seein' you, love" His alluring lips smiled, observing your delicate features, obsessed with the soft curve of your cheek, your blushing lips, the breasts that you went out of your way to show, the waist his fingers squeezed. You really made his day better, gave him something to think about that night. 

That night was the same as always. You sighed at the ping of your boyfriends text, wishing it was that absolute provocative man that you called your neighbor. Soon enough you were in bed with your boyfriend, hot breath shared between wet kisses that dragged down flushed skin. The problems arose with the inconsideracy of your boyfriend, who didn't bother to tease your little cunt, the lubrication lacking as he pushed himself inside. You whimpered, ignoring the discomfort provided as his hips rocked. 

Albeit your boyfriend was completely heedless to your pleasure, your dear neighbor was otherwise. Mind filled with thoughts of you as he sat on the couch that shared the wall of your two apartments, listening as your moans warmed up. His mind flooded with your body, your silken voice that tempted him at every minute of the day. He knew you knew, you knew he could hear your desperate yearning for pleasure he knew that you pathetic excuse of a boyfriend couldn't provide. 

Hazy thoughts of what he thought of your boyfriend turned into dirty words he whispered into his collar, his hand matching the pace of your sweet sounds, stuttering in edged pleasure. He visualized the way that begging whine for more that always escaped your lips would never ring in his ear if it was him, how that whine would turn to squeals of his name. Not as though it was hard, you voice easily breaking through the walls, which grew more evident to be quite a purposeful action.

His hand pumped wildly, his neck craning as he panted, blurry vision enveloping his mind as he imagined his hands on your hips as he held you up, rutting into your plump flesh, the skin rippling with his harsh movements as he flipped you onto your back. His groans struggled to escape his sealed lips, coming as hushed sounds that were inconceivable, easily confused with your dramatic voice. 

When it ended, he never felt more disgusted. Not at himself, though maybe he should for just maturating to the sounds of his cute little neighbor, who was definitely doing this on purpose. But regardless, because that pathetic man you called your boyfriend couldn’t make those doe eyes ripple with tears of pleasure. Hearing the murmur that spilled through the shared walls, he stood up, pulling his zip up as he washed his hands off, your face still lingering in his mind, almost getting him riled up again. 

The next day was silent, much to the Captain’s dismay. As much as he detested that boy, he can’t say he felt the same about hearing you moan through the walls. Though, that chagrin would soon dissolve. 

God, you had just seen your dear Captain Price while in lazing in your car. His fitted shirt accentuating his sculpted, military physique peaking through the tight, long sleeves. Your eyes followed him like a hawk, glazing around his body, his, unbeknownst to him, seduction drawing you in like a trap. A temptation. So how could you not resist it as you waited for him to return, patiently waiting in you car for an untimed 25 minutes, scheming as your panties got sticky with each idea. When you decided, you felt like a greedy succubus as you followed behind him two minutes after, your mind playing tricks with you as you desperately rushed to your apartment. 

Inside, you found yourself alone, your very choreographed bedroom, where the side was pressed against the wall that you were blessed to share, you sat down, skimpy shorts sat on your hips, lacy bra covering your tits. Barely. You heard the heavy footsteps of the man you knew to be your neighbor, feeling the lust boil viciously in your stomach as you leaned back, letting your eyes close as the murmur of television leaked through your walls. 

Just the idea of him had you a mess, clit throbbing as you delicately dragged your fingers over your shorts, nothing but that soft cotton protecting your clit from what you wished were Price’s fingers. The thought of him made you whimper, trembling and panting as you gently traced circles around your clit, the sloppy flesh only getting more saturate at each image of him In your mind. You gently prodded a finger at you entrance, the memory of his wide, rough hands filling your mind as you imagined it was him, your slender fingers transforming into his large ones. You gasped, eyes squeezed shut, not darling to let go of your dream, pressing the finger, your but to your pretentious mind, his, into your sopping cunt. 

His volume turned down in suspicion. Was he deranged? The sound came again, his ears honing into the luxurious sounds of your soft whimpers. Too enough, his apartment was dead silent, focused on nothing but the heavenly sounds of your moans, with none to accompany them. His throbbing dick was begging to be released from his loose sweats, mis mind hazy as he hears soft murmurs, gasps, moans, everything he wanted to hear without the irritating sound of your boyfriend. He rushed to shove his sweats down, pumping his erection as he leaned his head back, the tip of his skull pressing against the wall. Each noise became louder, making him groan, not bothering to hold himself together. He wanted you to hear.

He needed you to hear

You mind freezes when you hear it, lips curling into a pleased smile as you let yourself go, hearing Prices moans of pleasure through the wall. Your plan was working, now all he needed to do was break though that wall. 

Well, maybe not that dramatically, it would be a little hard to persuade insurance to cover that. 

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

defo gonna post the full on ao3 once i finish up and some more... details for kinktober

directory 

[mae-lou-ron]

A Friend Indeed

Summary: Two years into settling on Pabu, Crosshair reluctantly finds solace in some familiar places.

Warnings: hurt/comfort, cute brotherly fluff, descriptions of PTSD, descriptions of sleep paralysis symptoms, recurring nightmares involving medical trauma (nothing described), heightened anxiety around dates, grief processing, mental health probs, just wrecker and crosshair being adorable brothers with their emotional support animals.

Word Count: ~1,800

A/N: this is the first work I've ever posted. It started as a completely self indulgent drabble of Crosshair bonding with a scrungly stray island cat (still in progress), but I loved writing this brotherly exchange between Crosshair and Wrecker so much it kinda turned into something else entirely by the end? This story falls in line with my HCs that Wrecker is the mediator middle child, Tech is still alive and on Pabu with his family, and that he's an awful snorer. Proofread by me.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"And how is this supposed to help?" Crosshair seethed, looking down at the plush tooka doll his brother just shoved into his hand. "I don't need this, Wrecker."

"Oh come on, Crosshair, don't pretend like you didn't borrow Lula when we were younger...like that time you had nightmares after falling off the--"

"Stow it," Crosshair growled, throwing the doll back at his brother, but Wrecker, being used to his brother's temperament, dodged it easily. It tumbled to the floor and Batcher, who had been eyeing the tooka during their entire exchange, didn't hesitate to scoop it up and wiggle her hind quarters, hoping one of them would start a game of chase.

"Listen, I still get them too..." Wrecker said quietly as he took a step towards Crosshair, his hand resting on the sniper's shoulder with a gentle squeeze.

"Want to tell me about it?" He was no stranger to navigating Crosshair's anger. Especially now, after two years of them living on Pabu, two years into recovering mentally and physically from their experiences with the Republic and the Empire, two years of healing the bonds between one another. Wrecker knew that it was always a cover for something more nuanced. So, he was quiet and let Crosshair percolate with his thoughts before he spoke about what was bothering him. After a few moments, Crosshair grumbled, resisting the urge to shrug his shoulder free, but the wall he put up cracked just enough.

"It's just..." Crosshair’s hand clenched into a fist at his side. Batcher flopped down on her bed dramatically at being ignored, still holding the tooka gently in her mouth. "It's not just the nightmares..." he mumbled. Wrecker took a half step back, eyes soft and trained on his brother's deep furrowed brow and scowl at opening up like this. But Wrecker was patient.

When Crosshair continued, his voice was barely a whisper, "Sometimes when I wake up I'm still stuck there and...I can't...I can't move..." he trailed off, his mind flitting back to that morning.

He'd woken from the dream, or so he thought. Tantiss' medical droids were still swirling in his periphery, the smell of disinfectant still sharp in his nose. His nervous system immediately reacted, seeking to lash out, to escape, but his body didn't respond- for a horrible moment he thought he might be strapped down again but no, nothing was biting into his skin, he simply couldn't move. He tried to speak, but the words remained on his tongue.

No. He thought bitterly. They're not here. I'm not there.

He kept repeating this in his head, almost like a mantra as the panic coursed through his body. The droid never came close enough to touch him, but still close enough to be a threat. It felt like an eternity until his tunneled vision brightened slightly, the bits and pieces started to fade, and his bedroom in his Pabu home came into the forefront. He could finally feel his limbs thawing, the weight of the blanket on his feet, the rising sun casting speckles on the wall, the sound of seabirds calling in the distance. These things helped ground him enough to remember his training, he slowed his breathing in an attempt to quiet his pounding heart. It worked, but it didn't quiet completely, not until he could feel his toes wiggle.

Wrecker's warm hand gave his shoulder another squeeze, gently bringing Crosshair back to the present moment. Crosshair glanced up at his brother's scarred face, into his concerned, mismatched eyes for a fleeting moment before shaking his head and casting his eyes back downward. Wrecker was always a good listener despite his boisterous demeanor. He never tried to talk Crosshair out of how he was feeling, or suggest solutions unless asked. He was content to be an ear to bend and a shoulder to lean on.

And Crosshair would rather be slowly digested by that massive tentacled sea creature in the bay than have all of his family members concern be directed towards him. Hunter watched and hovered too much and it only frustrated Crosshair more. Tech would listen and be sure to provide the most annoyingly practical solution. Echo was his first choice to go to about this specific issue, but he was away again and difficult to get a hold of these days. Omega, his heart softened a little thinking of her. She would drag him to the cliffs and insist they meditate, look at him with those kind, concerned eyes. His eyes.

No. Absolutely not. Wrecker was his best option at not driving Crosshair back into himself. And he was so tired, so the wall came down a bit further. He looked up quickly again to make sure Wrecker was still listening. He always was.

"And they're...often," The sniper's lips pressed into a thin line. "Almost every morning this past week," Crosshair continued. "And sometimes in the middle of the night, which are the worst," he spat out so quickly it took Wrecker a second to process what he said.

"This happened last year around this time too," Wrecker thought out loud. Crosshair cringed at the realization he'd already known, but grunted in affirmation. He had learned that sometimes this is how it goes, especially around dates with any significance, and they returned from Tantiss for the last time on this day two years ago.

Wrecker looked thoughtful for a moment before his face brightened at a sudden idea. He strode around the room and started gathering the cushions and pillows, tossing them into a pile in front of the couch.

"What are you doing?" Crosshair drawled wearily, his eyes following Wreckers movements. He was already regretting his decision to speak more freely about this.

"I'm getting comfy," Wrecker said plainly as he settled down amidst the pile of pillows, leaning back against the couch. Batcher took this as an invitation to dig out her own spot at Wrecker's side, Lula in tow, settling down with it under her chin. "See?" he said, his tone light. "Let's camp out here!" He said spreading his arms wide before returning his hands to the back of his head. "You know like back on Kamino in the training storage room whenever Tech would snore too loud?" He grinned at the memory. "Hunter would always find us and act all annoyed but he just always wanted to know where we were...and get away from Tech's snoring,"

"Still does," Crosshair snorted, one corner of his mouth curling up slightly. Admiration for his brothers pulled him out of his resolute melancholy a little more. He settled down on the other side of Batcher, resting his arm over her back like he'd done a thousand times before. The hound grumbled at him when he lifted her chin gently to retrieve Lula.

"No." Crosshair said firmly. Batcher's eyes still followed the doll but she settled back down. He held Lula before him, taking in the tattered fabric, the stains, the patches added to mend rips and burns. One of her ears was almost completely gone.

"This thing is...disgusting," Crosshair scoffed quietly, it was almost a chuckle.

"Yeah, it is," Wrecker laughed heartily. "But she's been with us the whole time. Look..." he said pointing at the burn across the doll's back. "That's from when those clanker disrupters I made for your fire puncher went off in the barracks, remember?" He smiled widely remembering how angry Tech was at them for setting his bed on fire, while he was still in it. And Wrecker's, but that was nothing new back then. He continued regaling Crosshair with anecdotes about how the blemishes were made over the years.

Wrecker suddenly yawned, stretching and settling further into the nest, "Alright if I sleep here tonight," he said drowsily, more a statement than a question, his eyes still bright. Stars, he was a terrible liar, but Crosshair appreciated his attempts to not wound his pride. To give Crosshair the choice for his company without having to ask for it.

He was working on it.

"I suppose," he drawled. It was already late when his brother came by to check on him— and it's not like Wrecker would be easily moved at this point anyway. 

Crosshair, resigned but thankful for the company, studied the tooka for a while longer. The knot in his chest loosened slightly at the reminder of the joyful and chaotic moments they've shared. Bright moments poking through the darkness like the stars studding the night sky. Instead of tucking the doll under his arm or clutching it to his chest, he stuffed it behind his head before settling back onto its familiar softness.

Crosshair folded his arms over his chest, closing his eyes and tuning in on the sounds of the insects chirping softly outside, the distant waves were harder to hear now that the tide had retreated, but still added to the calmness that now descended upon the island. Batcher grumbled in contentment, and soon Crosshair's breathing matched Wrecker's, lulling him into a more peaceful sleep than he'd had all week.

The next morning when Crosshair opened his eyes, the frightening things he may have dreamt about didn't follow him. They stayed where they belonged, far out of his periphery. The bright orange morning creeping over the horizon chased away some of the shadows from his mind. Not all of course, but, some. Wrecker and Batcher were still right beside him, both very real and sleeping soundly. He wiggled his toes experimentally. Pleased when the joints flexed on his command. He could move and get up if he wanted, but it was still far too early to rise and start the day. Instead, Crosshair did something he hasn't done in weeks- he went back to sleep.

Maybe he was still right, he thought as he drifted off again, Lula still tucked under his head. Maybe he didn't need this, but he had to admit, it helped.

[twopoppies]

I've always thought the hate narrative is ridiculous, but it's just horrible considering what happened to Liam. Like that's seriously what those people are focusing on? Even if there was any hate before this (which I don't think there was), I think Liam's death would've thawed all of that. As you say, they all arrived so close together, and because of that I honestly think their teams must've communicated. I don't think it's just a coincidence. It was also lovely to see Louis and Zayn together as tragic as the circumstances.

People are reacting to this funeral as if it’s an episode of some TV show. The comments about what they’re wearing, or who hates who, or making fun of fans because we didn’t get a particular photo, or being angry about who drove with whom is honestly disgusting. I’ve never seen so many people lacking absolutely all empathy.

These are real people who lost someone they loved in a really fucking tragic way. Their grief isn’t for your entertainment. Some of you really need to get off of the internet and have face to face interactions and learn how to treat people.