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wandasaura · 6 months ago

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CRUEL SUMMER

summary — maybe you were oblivious to the way you teased natasha with a cherry flavored popsicle, or maybe you’d known all along and you were just waiting for her to break

warning(s) — established relationship, married wandanat, temperature play, outdoor sex, nipple play, oral, degradation, food play (a popsicle and it’s never inserted), mild humiliation, semi orgasm control, daddy kink, dom/sub dynamics, brief domestic fluff, horrible popsicle stick joke, men/minors dni

authors note — a little summer snippet of our favorite couple! just wanted to expand on a little thought i had a few days ago!

you are in love

♥️⊹ ˚ . 18+, men/minors dni ⁺ 𓈒 ꒰💌꒱ ♡ ･ mommy maximoff ✧

The cherry flavor was tart as it spread across your tongue and tinted your lips the same color as Natasha’s hair, not your favorite flavor from the selection currently stashed toward the back of the freezer, but Wanda had mistaken it for strawberry when you asked so kindly for a treat. Your tongue swirled around the popsicle lewdly, catching each droplet of thawed syrup and ice before it had the chance to make a mess of your fingers. You had no desire to join your girlfriends in the pool, enjoying the stillness of the lounge chair that you made yourself comfortable against.

Despite your reluctance to plunge deep into the warm water, your body was covered minimally, triangular pieces of fabric concealing only what mattered most, although the visible swell of your breasts was undeniably tantalizing as rivulets of perspiration clung to you.

You waved at Wanda when she resurfaced, giggling softly at the disheveled appearance she sported despite her composed demeanor. The salt water had allowed kinks to form in her silky hair, and thin strands clung to her cheeks despite how she ran her fingers through her tresses and attempted to pull them taut behind her shoulders. She waved back, sending you a teasing wink before she was gone again, a blur of vibrant colors beneath the water as she kicked off the side of the pool and swam toward the deep end; her need for physical activity even on her days off boggled you, but a bored Wanda was not someone you wanted to deal with, so you watched her glide through the water with no outward commentary.

You sighed softly, eyes closing behind the thick frames of your sunglasses, tongue still working on the swiftly melting popsicle, savoring every ounce of tartness that dissolved on your tongue. You could always get up and retrieve another, but they tasted so much better when Wanda did the work for you, and you wouldn’t get so lucky if you asked her again. She’d just barely complied the first time, huffing beneath her breath about how she’d inadvertently turned you into a princess all while she disappeared into the house.

You frowned instinctively when something obstructed the warm sunlight cascading down against your face, inadvertently shielding your body from the gentle burn that was forming against your already tanned skin (this was not the first day you’d spent by the pool with your girlfriends, and it wouldn’t be the last until the cool days of September rolled around). The cloudless sky hadn’t provided anything more than a gentle breeze in hours, and curiously your eyes fluttered open, expecting to find a stray cloud to blame, though only to come up with a set of dangerous green eyes narrowed thinly in your direction.

Shyly, you peered up at Natasha, vibrant cherry popsicle still between your stained lips as you gazed at her sweetly. Droplets of salt water raced down her arms and perfectly toned thighs, sparkling beneath the sunlight she shielded you from. If you hadn’t been aware of how your movements taunted her before, you were now, realizing that her dazzling green eyes weren’t trained on yours like you’d initially thought, but rather watching closely as you lapped at the cool juices that threatened to dirty your hands and dragged your tongue slowly across the length of the frozen treat in an attempt to savor its subpar escape from the heat. Months ago, you would’ve apologized sheepishly, would’ve submitted beneath Natasha’s heavy stare the second it had fallen upon you, but now, with a refreshing confidence and security in your relationship, you moved the sunglasses up to the top of your head, holding her stare as you plunged the frozen treat as far as the wooden stick would allow, hollowing your cheeks only to suck in suggestively as you swirled your tongue around the treat.

“Parshivets.” She muttered beneath her in Russian, and while you were still learning her and Wanda’s native language, that single word was one of the few burned into your mind without translation. Brat. She’d called you that name for the first time only a few weeks ago, in a moment of intense connection that had both of your limbs trembling by the end, but somehow it had stuck just as easily as duckling had. You weren’t sure what you heard more of anymore, your name, or that single title that had wetness pooling in your panties instantaneously.

“Tvoy parshivets.” You rebutted, eyes narrowing challengingly as you glared up at her. Your defiance was the final straw, the last test of her patience, and within seconds, before you could even comprehend what was coming next, your beloved popsicle was in her hands and between her lips. “Hey!”

“Shut up.” She grumbled around the treat, slowly stalking closer, pressing her thighs into the edge of the lounge chair you laid across possessivky, making no move to press her body into yours like you’d anticipated, though the her simple presence was enough to assert ownership. When she pulled the popsicle away from her lips, she tilted it over your body, watching calmly as red droplets of thawed syrup fell against the exposed skin of your chest and belly. You shivered, a displeased whine filling the air that had been silent aside from the sounds of rippling water for so long. “I said: Shut. Up.”

“Why don’t you make me then!” You argued, kicking out in an attempt to rile her up, only to be captured by her strong grip before the sole of your foot could make contact with her thigh. You yelped in surprise when she pulled you down, your head falling onto the lower section of the lounge chair, your knees bent as your uncaptured foot remained steadily on the edge of the chair.

Her lips were on yours in a bruising kiss before you could recover from the abrupt change in position, her body hovering above yours as to not rub against the syrup slowly trickling down your body and staining your bikini top. Her lips were cold against yours, and as she descended down your body, shivers erupted across your spine, not only from the sensation of her icy lips against your pulse point, but in anticipation. Instinctively your thighs fell open, welcoming her body between them, which she appreciated and made sure to acknowledge. You moaned pathetically when her core ground into yours, her mound appling an addictive pressure to your clit.

“Daddy-” You whimpered, your bratty exterior melting away faster than your popsicle as her fingers worked to unravel the knot holding your bikini in place at the nape of your neck, her tongue following the trail of vibrant red syrup down your exposed breast. You gasped when the flimsy material was discarded, her lips wasting no time before they captured your nipple, her teeth biting down on the pebbled bud deliciously hard. A whimpered whine alerted Wanda of your current predicament, yet all the redhead offered was an amused laugh before she dove head first into the water again.

“Do you know what you were doing to me, utenok? Do you know how badly I wanted to come over here and replace that fucking popsicle? You’re all bark and no bite. The second Daddy’s lips are on those needy little nipples all you can do is whine. It’s pathetic.” She sneered, her tone laced with calculated mockery as she kept a firm grip on the stick of your treat, apparently not yet done with it.

Your bottoms were the next thing to go, leaving your body dressed in only a pair of designer sunglasses and red syrup. The last thing you’d been expecting was for her to bite the rest of your ice pop off the stick, swallowing it whole and attacking your unsuspecting cunt, but you watched it happen as if the world was in slow motion, felt the sensations creep into your bones as if they were merely in a movie, but all at once it caught up to you, and the sheer shock of her cold mouth against your hot center had your back arching off the lounge chair, inadvertently pushing your center farther into her face.

She lapped at your cunt with fervent motions. Her teeth nipped, her lips suckled, and her tongue; there were no words to describe the sensations her tongue provoked as she plunged it deep within your core, massaging your sensitive inner walls and your g-spot before she allowed it to soothe your clit with harsh stroke and flicks. Your moans were breathy as you grasped at her hair, pulling harshly at red curls that tickled your thighs as they fell over her shoulders, not sodden with water like Wandas, although for a fleeting second you wondered what it would feel like to have the saturated woman undoing you so passionately.

“Daddy!” You cried out when you felt the approaching pleasure of your orgasm building, your hands pushing at her head, unsure of what you craved more of and what was entirely too much. You whimpered when you felt the stretch of her fingers coming home to your pussy, allowing you no adjustment period as two fingers plunged deep into your cunt, replacing her tongue that instead sought out your tingling bud of hypersensitive nerves. “Daddy! Daddy!” Her name was a sacred mantra on your lips, falling into the air as you writhed beneath her strong grip, attempting to drive her farther into your body.

“You gonna cum? Are you gonna cum for me, parshivets? My filthy fucking girl, getting fucked outside, where anyone can hear you? Is that what you want? You want Agatha to hear you? I bet her windows open. I bet she’s inside, sitting at her table trying to read, but she can’t because all she can hear are your desperate fucking moans as your Daddy fucks you.” Natasha’s words sent vibrations through your core, pushing you closer and closer to the brink of pleasure, though she never permitted it. She never once gave you the answer you needed to fully enjoy it, and fiercely, you fought off your approaching orgasm because of that silent denial.

When her fingers curled into you, massaging that delicate spot that had you seeing stars, you almost begged for her to stop, to lighten up, but before you could, she gave you the one thing you needed. “Cum for me. Make a mess.” Natasha encouraged, rapturing your pulsating clit and spasming walls, drinking all of your pleasure before she pulled away, her mouth glistening, her fingers sparkling. You gasped for breath, chest rising and falling as you panted, the heat only heightening your breathlessness. “You don’t know how long I’ve been holding out for. Wanda thought I’d break the second you unwrapped that fucking popsicle.”

Sheepishly, you giggled softly, readjusting your sunglasses when Natasha stood up and moved aside, the sun falling over your body once more. “I didn’t realize until you came over here. I wasn’t even doing it on purpose.” You admitted, though Natasha had already known that.

“Oh, I know. You’re just too fucking tempting for your own good.” She giggled, kissing your lips sweetly, your arousal still coating her tongue as she licked at your lips teasingly. When she pulled away, she glanced down at the stick in her hands, a soft laugh falling off her lips. “Why did the book join the police force?”

“He wanted to be undercover!” Wanda bellowed from the pool, apparently honed in on your conversation despite how frequently she disappeared beneath the welcoming water.

“I’m all sticky now.” You pouted, realizing that the syrup, despite being licked off, had left a reside on your skin.

“I guess you’ll just have to join us then.” Before you could acknowledge her, Natasha had picked you up in her arms, your bathing suit still discarded on the grass in a messy heap of fabric, although the picket fence around the property prevented you from being seen, so it didn’t matter much if you out it back on or not. You shrieked when you realized what she was doing, but before you could plead for your freedom, she’d dropped you into the deep end.

“Nat!” You scolded when you resurfaced, your freshly washed hair now soiled by the salt water that dampened it.

“Oops?” Your girlfriend sang sweetly, jumping in right beside you, capturing you in her tight embrace with faux sympathy. “Go get Wanda.” She whispered in your ear, and that was enough to win her forgiveness, immediately seeking out your other girlfriend who pretended to despise the way you clung to her like a koala.

“I love you.” You mumbled against her lips, catching her by surprise though not an unpleasant one.

“I thought I got you strawberry. Sorry, baby.” She apologized softly, holding tightly to your naked ass, giving it a teasing spank beneath the water.

“That’s okay. Cherry’s Nat’s favorite.”

#wandanat #wandanat x reader #wandanat fluff #wandanat smut #dom!wandanat x reader #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff fluff #wanda maximoff smut #dom!wanda maximoff x sub!reader #dom!wanda maximoff x reader #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff fluff #natasha romanoff smut #dom!natasha romanoff x reader #minors dni ৎ୭ #series: you are in love #[ ౨ৎ ] — library

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cmaidaartworkblog · 3 months ago

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youtube

This video showcases my Blender model of the planet that the Scud aliens call home, the fourth and final world I've mapped out for @jayrockin's "Runaway to the Stars" project. A *lot* of maps were created in service of this final render, and also in service of presenting the special qualities of this planet. I intend to show you as many of these as I can under the cut, and also in subsequent posts focusing on some of the more interstitial, ancillary maps and figures that played a part in producing the primary maps you'll see in this main post.

Before I show the first maps I made for this project, what you see below are the satellite-style maps for the Equinoxes and Solstices, in order of (Northern) Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, the latter serving as the texture for the Blender object you saw in the video.

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With that matter covered, our next focus is this project's foundation: Geology. While I didn't spin as elaborate a tectonic history for this planet as I did for the Ayrum commission, I did work out as much detail as I could for the more recent geological activity, to set the stage for the elevation data - including a narrower focus on the coastal shallows that host the Scud populations.

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Once I could move on to climate, my first step was finding this planet's relative Insolation, which I managed thanks to @reversedumbrella's code and coaching. With an obliquity of only 16 degrees, this planet's yearly maximum Insolation levels stick close to the equator, compared to pole-to-pole oscillation we see on Earth

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Having a rough sense of where heat would concentrate seasonally and how the landmasses would deflect water in light of the planet's retrograde spin, I was able to set down the bi-annual ocean currents (Northern Summer above and Northern Winter below), then the monthly water temperatures pushed around by said currents, and finally -after factoring in many other considerations- the monthly land temperatures as well (combined in the second gif)

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Next came the seasonal air pressure maps and subsequent wind patterns (my first time creating those from scratch), which later factored into the precipitation maps. The incredible temperatures at the largest continent's interior make a desert of most of it, and the other interiors are fairly dry too, but all that heat on the equatorial ocean generates a *lot* of evaporation which ends up coming down elsewhere.

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With temperatures and precipitation mapped out for each month, I was able to find how the accumulation and melt of ice and snow played out, too. Given such a hot equator it's surprising to see freezing temperatures hold out in some places, but low obliquity and high elevation shield what areas they can, it seems.

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All this monthly data was then painstakingly combined and compared and plugged into equations to produce maps of discrete climate zones, using both the Köppen (left) and Trewartha (right) classification systems. The higher latitudes see some overlap with Earth's conditions, but the Tropics...

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I never really finished the map I wanted to make with my own loosely customized classification system, but I *did* get as far as this breakdown of the areas that sometimes surpass 56.7 degrees Celsius, Earth's record for highest surface temperature ever directly measured. And as you can see, that earthly record is broken by a *significant* fraction of this planet's surface, and far exceeded by the equatorial continent's deep interior

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The final phase of this project dealt with creating satellite maps of this planet's surface (which you saw at the top of this post), which started with a map of dry and submerged substrate, then a density map of the vegetation that sits atop it, then the colors of that vegetation under annual average conditions (demonstrating how they would appear in-person, rather than the area's appearance from orbit), and finally plant colors under seasonal conditions (same conceit as previous). In concert with the seasonal ice and snow maps, it was the four maps in the last sequence which were overlaid on the Substrate map, using the plant density map as raster masks, to produce the final Satellite-Style maps.

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This planet's sophonts being a marine species, it was then worth focusing on the conditions underwater, which included monthly seafloor temperatures (first gif), annual discharge of sediment from rivers (magenta in the 2nd gif), and seasonal upwelling of nutrients from deeper water (blue in the 2nd gif).

The creation of all my maps seen in this post was possible thanks to Photopea, which has been my go-to for several years now. The resolution kinda got crunched when I uploaded these here, so when I share them on Reddit later I'll add those links under this. These have also already been posted on Twitter, which you can see here if you like. Thanks for scrolling all the way down here!

#digital painting #Photopea #digital 3d #Blender #mapmaking #imaginary maps #Runaway to the Stars #Rtts Scuds #speculative planetology #speculative geology #speculative climatology #alien planet #major post #commission #christopher maida artwork #Youtube

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cumironi · 1 month ago

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BLACK AND BRUISE : RYOMEN SUKUNA

“feels like we had matching wounds, but mine’s still black and bruised and yours is perfectly fine.” you broke up with your boyfriend for four years and the day after you broke up you saw him already with another girl. you can’t stand the heartbreak so you choose to erase yourself from his life like you were never there, like you don’t exist, until a few years later.

warning. non-sorcerer au, angst no comfort, pregnant reader, yuuji is in his late 20

p.s i may or may not make this another part but from sumuna’s pov. ( previous part )

the gentle warmth of the sun poured into the room, its golden beams slipping past the half-drawn curtains and casting delicate patterns across the walls. the light crept over your face, its persistent glow teasing your lashes until they fluttered open. you groaned softly, shifting under the weight of sleep, when a firm nudge at your shoulder startled you awake. it wasn’t gentle, not in the least—it was rough, urgent, almost impatient.

“wake up.”

the words sliced through the haze of your slumber, low and commanding, like a distant thunderstorm rolling in. your eyes fluttered again, squinting against the blinding glow of the morning. a tall, shadowy figure loomed above you, its broad frame blotting out the sunlight. it was as if the room suddenly darkened, save for the faint illumination outlining his figure.

blinking rapidly, you tried to focus, your vision sharpening just enough to catch a glimpse of him. there he stood, Sukuna—towering, imposing, his body a canvas of intricate tattoos that seemed alive under the morning light. his crimson eyes bore into yours, their depths cold, unrelenting. the sharp lines of his face were cut from stone, handsome yet devoid of warmth, his expression as still as death itself.

a small smile tugged at your lips despite the unease blooming in your chest. your voice, rough and raspy from sleep, managed a soft, “good morning, baby.” your hand stretched toward him instinctively, seeking comfort in his familiar presence. but before your fingertips could graze his skin, he stepped back.

your smile faltered, replaced by a frown that deepened as the distance between you grew. the sheets crumpled around you as you sat up, your chest tightening at his rejection. the way his cold, crimson gaze lingered on you sent a chill down your spine, a feeling of vulnerability washing over you like ice water.

“baby?” you whispered, your voice laced with confusion, almost pleading. the light that once felt warm and comforting now seemed harsh and unforgiving, illuminating every crack in the fragile peace you thought you shared. your heart thudded heavily, the silence between you stretching unbearably.

what was wrong? why was he like this? the questions tumbled through your mind like an avalanche, threatening to suffocate you, but his expression revealed nothing. he remained stoic, a living fortress, impenetrable and unyielding. the golden morning light framed him like a phantom—beautiful, distant, and untouchable.

but he didn’t respond. his silence felt heavy, like a storm cloud looming overhead, ready to break at any moment. your chest tightened with unease, the warmth of the morning light now doing little to combat the cold sinking into your bones.

you sat up straighter, clutching the blanket to your chest with trembling hands. the soft fabric felt like a fragile shield, barely enough to protect you from the weight of his gaze. it wasn’t like this with him—never like this. the sukuna you knew could be sharp-tongued and cruel to others, but with you, there had always been something softer beneath the layers of his rough exterior. but now, as he stood there, unmoving and silent, it felt as if that part of him had vanished.

“baby…” your voice broke the stillness, trembling yet desperate. “what’s wrong?”

your eyes searched his face, hoping to find a trace of the man you loved, the one who held you close during your darkest nights and kissed your forehead like it was sacred ground. but his expression remained unreadable, carved from stone.

the light coming through the curtains illuminated the details of his tattoos, the dark, intricate patterns that wrapped around his arms and climbed his neck, a stark contrast to the vulnerability you felt in that moment. the tension in the air was suffocating, your pulse quickening as you awaited a response—any response.

his silence was deafening, and the distance between you felt more vast than the few steps he had taken away from the bed. your fingers gripped the blanket tighter, the soft material wrinkling under your grasp as you tried to steady yourself.

“please,” you whispered, your voice barely audible, breaking under the weight of your emotions. “baby, talk to me.” still, he said nothing, his crimson eyes watching you with an intensity that made your stomach churn. the morning light, once gentle and golden, now felt harsh and accusing, casting stark shadows across the room and magnifying the growing chasm between you.

his silence was an abyss, a vortex that threatened to pull you in and devour you whole. fear prickled at the edge of your consciousness, making your heart race. the man who used to hold you close, who used to whisper reassurances into your ear, now stood there like a stranger, his gaze as cold and distant as the frozen tundra.

you took a deep breath, desperately trying to steady your voice. “d-did i do something?” you cursed the quiver in your voice, loathing the weakness it betrayed.

sukuna stayed silent, his gaze unwavering as he studied you. for a brief moment, you thought he might finally answer, but instead, he scoffed—a low, derisive sound that cut through the stillness like a blade. he rolled his eyes, the sharp motion as dismissive as the scoff had been, before turning his back on you. the weight of his retreat felt like a physical blow as he strode to the wardrobe across the room, his movements deliberate, almost cold.

“why are you asking?” he said, his voice carrying that familiar edge of irritation. “i thought you already knew what was going on.” his words hung in the air, dripping with accusation, and your heart sank further. his tone was indifferent, like he couldn’t believe you’d dare to ask. he flung the wardrobe doors open with a sharp pull, the sound of the hinges echoing in the quiet room.

you swallowed hard, clutching the blanket tighter around you as if it could shield you from the storm brewing within him. his broad back was turned to you now, the muscles in his shoulders shifting under the patterns of his tattoos as he rummaged through the clothes, seemingly more interested in the contents of the wardrobe than in giving you a real answer.

your mind raced, trying to piece together what he meant, what you could’ve done—or not done—to warrant this reaction. the way he spoke, like you should already know, only deepened the ache in your chest. “i… i don’t understand,” you murmured, your voice trembling as you tried to make sense of his words. “what are you talking about, ryo?”

your words were like a whisper in the face of his silent storm. sukuna continued to rummage through the wardrobe, unbothered by your plea. each movement was harsh, filled with a restrained anger that sent a shudder down your spine.

his silence spoke volumes. as he sifted through the hangers, each rustle of fabric seemed to punctuate his irritation. sukuna’s shoulders tensed at the sound of his name. the familiarity of it, the way it rolled off your tongue like it belonged there, grated on his nerves. he clenched his jaw, the muscles flexing as he continued to rummage through the wardrobe, his fingers yanking clothes off hangers with a bit more force than necessary.

“you don’t understand?” he echoed, his tone biting, “or you’re pretending not to understand?” he didn’t look back, his gaze fixed on the row of shirts in front of him, like they were the most fascinating thing in the room.

then, without warning, he stopped. his fingers stilled, gripping the edge of the wardrobe door. for a moment, you thought he might say nothing more. but then he turned, slow and deliberate, the weight of his gaze crashing into you like a tidal wave.

his crimson eyes burned with an intensity that made it hard to breathe, and yet his expression remained unsettlingly calm. “you asked for a breakup yesterday,” he said, his voice low but firm, steady as a heartbeat. the words hung between you, heavy and unrelenting, as his eyebrows arched slightly, as if daring you to deny it. “remember?”

your mind reeled, his words slamming into you like a punch to the gut. the memories of the previous night stirred, rushing in like a flood you weren’t ready to face. you had called him, your voice trembling with emotion as you told him you couldn’t do this anymore. you’d said it so clearly, so desperately—“i think we should break up.”

you could still hear his response, as clear as the ache in your chest now: “i don’t do breakups.”

and then, like the cruelest twist of fate, the two of you had ended up in the kitchen, the place you’d shared countless meals and stolen kisses over the years. the intimacy of that moment had been almost unbearable—his hands gripping your hips as though trying to anchor you in place, his lips trailing fire down your neck, as if to remind you of everything you were trying to leave behind.

but now, standing before him, hearing those words fall from his lips, you were dumbfounded. your chest constricted, and you clutched the blanket tighter against you, as if the fabric could hold you together when everything inside you felt like it was shattering.

“ryo…” you whispered, your voice barely audible as you searched his face for some kind of reprieve, some trace of the man who wouldn’t let you go last night. “but you said…” but the words faltered, dying in your throat, because a part of you didn’t know if that was true. sukuna watched you, his gaze unwavering, silently gauging your reaction to his words. a twisted satisfaction coiled in his chest seeing the dumbfounded look on your face, the way your body seemed to shrink away as the reality of last night’s conversation dawned on you.

he let you struggle for words, relishing the way your voice broke mid-thought. “but i said…?” he echoed your phrase, his tone laced with mockery. his lips curled into a cold smirk, the edge of his canine peeking out as he took a step towards the bed, closing the distance between you. “but i said…” he leaned down, his face now just inches from your own, his breath warm against your skin as he spoke, his voice a low, dangerous murmur. “you’re not going anywhere.”

the words were a stark contrast to the gentleness of his movements. he reached out, his fingers tracing the edges of the blanket you clutched to your chest, as if they were caressing the fabric rather than you. the small touch still sent a shiver down your spine.

he took another step forward, his body now towering over you, caging you in with his presence. “you’re a trembling mess,” he continued, his gaze moving over your face, taking in every small reaction, every flutter of your eyelashes, every shake of your breath. “it’s pathetic.” a hand shot out, gripping your chin, forcing you to look at him directly. his fingers pressed into your skin, not enough to hurt but with enough firmness to make you feel constrained, as if he owned every inch of you—heart, body, soul.

you looked at him, eyes wide and glassy, the tears that threatened to spill over gathering at the edges but refusing to fall—as though even they were terrified of him, too. your chest felt as though it were weighed down by an invisible stone, each breath shallow, a laborious effort, as you struggled to process the poison dripping from his words. his tone, sharp and unforgiving, sliced through the fragile shell of your composure, leaving jagged wounds in its wake.

his crimson eyes locked with yours, but they were not the same as they once were. gone was the warmth, the fire, the spark that once breathed life into them. in their place was an emptiness, a coldness so profound it seemed to swallow everything whole. they were no longer eyes, but hollow pits, mere remnants of what had once been, as if the embers of some long-dead flame flickered weakly before finally expiring, leaving only ash and the residue of something lost.

his smirk widened, distorting his once-beautiful features into something cruel and alien. the face you had known, the face that had once smiled with a warmth you thought was reserved just for you, was now unrecognizable, a mask of mockery and disdain. his hand tightened around your chin, forcing your gaze upward before it was shoved away, not violently, but with such casual cruelty that it made you feel as though you were nothing—small, insignificant, a mere afterthought in his world.

“but i say a lot of things,” he murmured, his voice dripping with mockery, the words slipping from his lips like poison. he savored each syllable, letting them hang in the air, thick with bitterness, each one designed to wound deeper than the last. “you should know by now that you can’t ever really trust me.”

he bit down on his lower lip, as if he found some faint amusement in the scene unfolding before him, though it was a cruel sort of amusement—half-hearted, a shadow of something darker. the smirk that had briefly faltered now returned with a force that made your heart tighten, twisting the knife already lodged deep in your chest.

“isn’t that something you should’ve learned by now?” he continued, his voice almost playful, as though he were talking to a child who had failed to learn even the simplest lesson. his head tilted slightly to the side, a subtle gesture that made the room feel even smaller, as though the walls were closing in on you, bearing down on you with the weight of everything he was. “years of dating me, and you haven’t figured out even one or two things about men?” he paused, letting the silence stretch painfully between you, before leaning in closer, his breath barely a whisper against your trembling lips. “especially me?”

his tone softened, but it wasn’t kindness that softened it. it was venom, deliberate and calculated, each word a subtle stroke against your unraveling spirit. his presence enveloped you, suffocating, like a fog that had settled in, thick and unyielding. his form loomed over you, an oppressive force that seemed to stretch beyond the room, beyond your ability to comprehend, leaving you trapped in his shadow.

you blinked, the tears in your eyes now a silent threat, trembling on the edge of release, but you refused to let them fall—not yet. not in front of him. the ache in your chest deepened, like a weight pressing harder against your lungs, each breath becoming more difficult, more fragile, as though your very existence was being drained away by the sheer presence of his cruelty.

“ryo…” your voice cracked, the sound little more than a fragile whisper, broken and torn between the desire to speak and the fear of being heard. but he only watched, his eyes cold and piercing, cataloging each nuance of your suffering, waiting for the precise moment when you would shatter completely, when the pieces of you would finally crumble under the unbearable weight of it all.

sukuna’s smirk widened, a grotesque expression of satisfaction at the fragile crack in your voice, the soft, desperate pleading that trembled from your lips. his eyes, once drawn to the warmth and depth in yours, now found only the shimmer of unshed tears, a mirror of the suffering he had inflicted. yet, within the storm of pain that had settled in your gaze, there remained a flicker—a stubborn, defiant glimmer that refused to yield to him, that would not grant him the pleasure of seeing you utterly undone.

he leaned forward, his presence overwhelming, his face hovering just beyond the point of contact, his breath a searing, suffocating force against your skin. “you’re even more pathetic than i thought,” he whispered, his voice a languid mockery, each syllable dipped in contempt, the venom in his words thickening the air around you.

a warmth surged inside you, not the softness of vulnerability, but the sharp, sudden burn of fury. anger, that strange and alien force, slithered its way through your chest, cutting through the dull ache of your own misery, its heat rising in knots that twisted tightly within you. it was fierce, a sharpness that stung with every beat of your heart, and it fueled the fire of defiance that now began to smolder beneath your skin. how dare he? how dare he stand there, that twisted smirk still clinging to his face, as though his cruelty could diminish you?

your thoughts spun in a haze, a flickering montage of last night’s events, each image more jarring than the last. if he truly wanted to leave, to sever the fragile thread between you, he could have done so with honesty, in the silence of an agreement. no games, no theatrics, no bitter proclamations that left you questioning your place in a relationship that had, until then, felt like the ground beneath your feet. no promises veiled in intimacy, no sweetness masking the brutality of his indifference, no gestures that now felt nothing but hollow.

and now this? now, in the sterile light of the morning, he discarded you as though you were a discarded object, leaving you trembling, reduced to a mere echo of yourself? the cruelty of it gnawed at you, an unbearable weight pressing down on your chest.

your fingers dug into the blanket, the fabric biting into your skin, your knuckles turning pale as you clung to the familiar sensation, the only thing in the world that felt solid, that didn’t dissolve like ash at his touch. the anger, now a fire burning hot and insistent, pushed against the fragile walls of your composure, demanding to be released. you gritted your teeth, the tension in your jaw nearly unbearable, and as your gaze met his, a flicker of something defiant rose up within you.

“you’re a fucking asshole,” you said, the words tumbling from your mouth like venom, raw and jagged, cutting through the suffocating silence that had enveloped the room. they were harsh, brutal in their simplicity, a fleeting relief against the weight of the moment. yet, even as they left your lips, you could feel the echo of their truth linger, not in the comfort of release, but in the strange, hollow emptiness they left behind.

sukuna’s smile stretched wider, his crimson eyes glinting with a sadistic amusement, as though he found a twisted pleasure in seeing you unravel. there was an unspoken satisfaction in the way you looked at him, your glare, laced with fury, only feeding the darkness in him, stoking the flames of his amusement as if your anger were an exquisite form of entertainment.

he drew closer, his presence overwhelming, and the space between you seemed to disappear, his face now so near that you could feel the heat of his breath, thick with the scent of musk and spice, an intoxication that tangled with the weight of your emotions, making everything feel unbearably heavy.

“so, you’re finally showing some spine, are you?” his voice was low, a mocking rumble that curled around the room, his words almost savoring the moment. “how amusing. it’s almost endearing to see you so riled up.”

his hand reached out, fingers tracing a delicate strand of your hair, the touch light, almost gentle, yet laced with a quiet malice that made your stomach churn. “but, you’re still the same. still fragile, still breakable,” he whispered, as though examining the very essence of your being, reducing it to something delicate and fleeting.

the anger surged within you, a wildfire now, fierce and uncontrollable, and for a split second, the thought of smashing that smirk off his face crossed your mind like a fleeting, violent impulse. yet, even in your fury, you were still trapped, his towering form pressing in on you, your fingers tangled in the folds of the blanket, as though the fabric itself were the only thing anchoring you to reality.

his chuckle rang out, deep and unsettling, a sound that slithered through the air, sending a tremor through your bones. he tilted his head, studying you with the careful gaze of someone who saw your every nuance, as if he were cataloging each flicker of emotion, each broken piece of you. “so much fire, so much defiance,” he mused, his eyes narrowing, “and yet… here you are. still here, clinging to the futile hope that things might somehow return to what they were.”

his words hung in the air, suffocating, as though they carried a truth you had no choice but to accept—an unspoken acknowledgment that the past had long since slipped away, lost beneath the weight of his cruelty.

sukuna’s gaze locked onto yours, his crimson eyes dark and inscrutable. he was watching you, reading you, but giving nothing in return. sukuna was a master of concealment, his emotions tucked away behind a mask of indifference. no flicker of regret, no sign of pain—nothing to betray what he truly felt. and that made it worse. you couldn’t read him, couldn’t find even the smallest crack in his armor. he was impenetrable, a fortress of cruelty and coldness.

he finally pulled away, stepping back, the distance between you growing with every measured movement. the space felt suffocating and freeing all at once. “i have class,” he said, his voice flat, almost bored. “so, i hope you’ll be gone. from my apartment, my life… before i come back.”

the finality in his words hit you like a punch to the chest, knocking the air from your lungs. you stared at him, your lips parted, trembling, but no words came out. disbelief washed over you, followed quickly by a wave of pain so deep it felt like it might drown you. and then the tears came. they spilled over, falling in heavy streams, as relentless as rain desperate to meet the earth, drowning everything in its path. your body shook with the force of it, but your voice was steady, low and sharp like a blade as you spoke.

“i hope you have everything,” you began, your teeth clenched, your words dripping with venom. “everything you could ever want in life. i hope you get it all. and i hope you never feel satisfied.” his expression didn’t change, but his eyes—those crimson eyes you had once loved so deeply—stared back at you with a hollowness you hadn’t noticed before. an emptiness that made your chest ache, even in the midst of your fury.

your voice cracked, but you pressed on, the weight of your pain propelling you forward. “i hope you grow up. i hope you have a wife, a job that pays well. i hope you have beautiful children who adore you.” you paused, your voice dropping to a whisper that was no less deadly. “but i hope there’s a hole inside you that never goes away. a hole that makes you suffer every single day.” you met his gaze, the fire in your eyes burning through your tears. “i hope you have everything, sukuna. everything. and i hope it’s never enough.”

the words hung in the air, heavy and unrelenting, as sukuna stood there, silent and unmoving. for a moment, you thought you saw something flicker across his face, something like regret or sadness, but it was gone before you could be sure. and then he turned, walking away without another word, leaving you alone in the space that had once been yours together, now shattered and broken beyond repair.

sukuna clenched his jaw, his footsteps heavy as he walked away, the weight of your words clinging to him like an invisible chain. they echoed in his mind, taunting him with a cruel persistence—your curse, your wish for his endless dissatisfaction, for his perpetual hunger, struck him deeper than any physical blow ever could.

his hand rested on the doorknob, but he paused, his back turned to you, your sobs reverberating in the quiet space, each cry a sharp thrust to his chest. he longed to turn, to look upon your face, but he could not summon the will to face you again.

the following day, you found yourself standing outside his apartment, your heart heavy with the weight of everything that had unfolded. you didn’t want to be there—didn’t want to confront the aching void that seemed to consume you whenever you thought of him. you didn’t want to feel the raw sting in your chest deepen, yet you knew you had no choice. there were fragments of your life, scattered among the remnants of your shared past, and though you longed to leave them behind, you could not bring yourself to walk away entirely without reclaiming what was left.

your fingers hovered above the keypad, hesitant, the numbers embedded in your memory like scars. you pressed the code, half-expecting the door to reject you, to lock you out for good, sealing the end of everything. but it didn’t. the lock clicked open, as it always had.

for a fleeting moment, a thought brushed against your consciousness, a whisper of something you wished you could ignore. perhaps he had left it unlocked on purpose. perhaps, deep within him, he wanted you to return, hoped you might come back. but you dismissed the thought quickly. no. that was not him. not anymore.

you pushed the door open, and for a brief instant, the silence greeted you like an old, dissonant friend. the air was thick with the memories of laughter, arguments, love—each corner of the room steeped in the ghosts of your time together. everything was exactly as it had been, as if nothing had changed, the furniture, the faint scent of him still lingering in the stillness. it was a cruel trick, how the space could feel so familiar, yet so estranged at once.

then, a sound—soft at first, but unmistakable. moans, sighs, the low grunts of a voice you knew all too well, mingling with the sound of another. a woman’s voice. your breath caught, and in that moment, it was as though the ground had fallen away from beneath you. you didn’t need to see to know. the sounds painted a clear picture, a cruel and bitter one.

a hollow laugh rose from the depths of your chest, though it never made it past your lips. of course. of course he couldn’t wait. couldn’t even allow the ashes of what you had to settle before diving into someone else’s embrace. the realization struck you like a knife, sharp and unrelenting, twisting deeper as it sank in.

your feet felt frozen to the floor, as if the weight of the moment held you captive. the world spun around you, but you remained frozen in place. the pain was acute, raw, consuming. it wasn’t just the betrayal—it was the confirmation of what you had already known, but refused to acknowledge. sukuna was exactly who he had claimed to be, and you, in your foolishness, had convinced yourself you were the exception.

you swallowed, the burn of your throat making it difficult to breathe, the ache in your chest threatening to overwhelm you. your hands trembled as you stepped back, the door still ajar behind you, its silent invitation to leave hanging in the air.

you didn’t hesitate. you turned, your legs carrying you away from him with a sense of urgency, as though staying even a moment longer would suffocate you. the rest of your things, the remnants of a life you once shared, no longer mattered. you couldn’t bear to be in that space, couldn’t bear the thought of his voice—so familiar, so intimate—intertwined with hers. the love you had once shared, now belonging to someone else.

the door clicked shut behind you, and for a moment, the sound felt like the finality of a chapter ending. but it was not clean. it was not easy. the pain still clung to you, wrapping itself around your ribs, squeezing until each breath became a struggle.

as you walked away, your thoughts churned. it wasn’t fair. he was fine, wasn’t he? perfectly fine, moving on, living his life, while you carried the weight of this broken love. it felt as though you shared matching wounds—his had already healed, smooth and unblemished, as though it had never been. but yours… yours were still raw, still bleeding, black and bruised.

yet, you kept walking. one step after another, carrying yourself away from him, from the life you had once built together. it hurt more than you had thought possible, but beneath the pain, there was a quiet resolve. because this time, you were not just leaving the apartment. you were leaving him.

the sakura trees lined the streets like guardians of fleeting beauty, their delicate pink petals drifting down with the breeze, blanketing the ground in a quiet surrender. each petal lay still, crushed underfoot without complaint, their sacrifice unnoticed by the hurried world above. sukuna walked briskly through the scene, his long strides carrying him across the familiar paths of the park, his destination clear: the ice cream parlor.

his presence was as sharp and cold as ever, his crimson eyes glancing briefly at the cheerful chaos of the park. laughter and joy filled the air—children racing each other across the grass, couples walking hand in hand, families gathered beneath the blooming trees. it was all so ordinary, so unremarkable, and yet it gnawed at him.

the park hadn’t changed. not a single thing had shifted in all these years. the bench where you both used to sit still stood beneath the shade of a sprawling sakura tree. the open field where you used to spread out the red-and-white checkered blanket you’d picked out still invited picnics. he could almost see it—him sprawled on his back, you lying against him, your head on his stomach. the warmth of those quiet afternoons came rushing back, unbidden.

you had a way of making silence comfortable, he remembered. sometimes the two of you would just lay there, lost in your own thoughts, his fingers absently twirling a strand of your hair. other times, the quiet would give way to playful arguments, your voices rising in mock irritation before collapsing into laughter. this park was a haven for you both—a place where the weight of the world couldn’t quite reach.

but now? now it was just a park.

sukuna stepped into the ice cream parlor, his voice cool and detached as he ordered. “two ice creams.” he didn’t bother glancing at the menu. his eyes were elsewhere, scanning the park with a hunter’s precision, though he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. he was about to turn away when something—no, someone—caught his attention. his sharp eyes narrowed, his breath hitching ever so slightly.

pink hair. a bright smile.

his twin. yuuji.

sukuna’s brows lifted in faint amusement, his lips curving into a smirk. what’s that idiot doing here? he wondered, already imagining some clumsy attempt at flirting. his eyes followed yuuji, watching his every move with a predator’s patience. but then yuuji turned slightly, revealing the person beside him.

and sukuna’s world shifted.

it was you.

the air seemed to still around him, his smirk falling as if the weight of the moment had stolen it away. the color drained from his face, and for the first time in years, he felt truly unmoored. it was as if the ground beneath him had crumbled, leaving him suspended in disbelief.

you hadn’t changed. not in the ways that mattered. the curve of your back, the way you carried yourself, the softness in your expression—it all came rushing back to him, a flood of memories he hadn’t asked for.

he took a step forward, then another, each one slow and deliberate as if testing the solidity of the earth beneath his feet. but then he saw it—yuuji’s arm around you, the way his lips pressed to your cheek, the way you smiled up at him.

the world tilted further.

just as he was about to take another step, his eyes caught movement by the swings. a child—a boy, no more than a few years old. his pink hair shone in the sunlight, his laughter ringing out like a melody sukuna hadn’t realized he missed.

then the boy called you “mommy”, his voice bright and pure, as if it carried no shadows.

sukuna froze. his breath caught in his throat, his chest tightening as his mind raced. his gaze darted between you, the child, and yuuji, piecing together a puzzle he didn’t want to solve.

was he…? no. impossible.

the boy’s face was round, soft, bright—none of the sharp edges sukuna saw when he looked in the mirror. there was no darkness in his eyes, no coldness. just light.

“what the fuck?” sukuna muttered under his breath, his voice barely audible over the pounding of his own heartbeat. you and yuuji both turned at the sound, your eyes locking with his for the first time in years.

and in that moment, everything—the sakura trees, the children’s laughter, the warmth of the spring sun—seemed to fade away. it was just you and him, standing on opposite sides of a chasm neither of you knew how to cross.

you sat side by side on the bench, close enough that the sakura petals falling around you landed in your hair, yet the distance between you felt infinite, an ocean of memories and regret stretching wide. your hands trembled, curling into fists on the fabric of your dress as if the pressure could hold your emotions in place. you didn’t look at him. maybe it was the pain, still raw and deep despite the years. or maybe it was because you had moved on, and seeing him no longer filled the hollow space inside you.

no, you didn’t starve for him anymore.

he sat rigid, his long limbs folded in a posture too controlled to be casual. his crimson eyes, those piercing eyes that once held you captive, were now fixed on the child playing in the distance. the boy laughed brightly, running to yuuji, who scooped him up with ease, their matching smiles lighting up the park.

sukuna’s chest ached, the unfamiliar weight of it catching him off guard. he didn’t expect this—didn’t expect to feel anything. but watching the boy—your boy—he felt something sharp, something he couldn’t name.

regret?

his gaze lingered, tracing every familiar feature: the pink hair catching the sunlight, the laugh that rang like a melody, the wide, innocent eyes. it was all so achingly familiar, yet so far removed from him. and the way yuuji looked at the boy, the ease in their interactions, the warmth of their bond—he has everything, sukuna thought bitterly.

and yet, somewhere deep down, a selfish part of him wished it was his. his throat tightened, the unspoken words clawing at him. he didn’t know what to say, didn’t even know why he had stopped here, why he hadn’t turned away the moment he saw you. but instead, he let out a breath, low and shaky, before speaking.

“how are you?” his voice was softer than he intended, a hesitant tremor running through the words. you stiffened, your fingers clenching tighter on your lap. for a moment, you didn’t respond, the silence stretching unbearably between you.

sukuna’s jaw tightened, his gaze dropping to the ground. you’re fucking lame, he cursed himself, the words echoing in his mind. of all the things he could have said, this was what came out? after everything he had done, after all the time that had passed, the best he could manage was a shallow pleasantry?

he felt your exhale, slow and measured, before you finally answered, your voice quiet but steady.

“i’m fine.”

the words were simple, but the weight behind them was heavy. they carried years of hurt, of healing, of learning to exist without him. you didn’t look at him as you spoke, your gaze fixed firmly on the boy in the distance, on the life you had built without him.

sukuna felt your words pierce him like a blade, deep and cruel. fine. just fine. nothing more, nothing less. after everything, after all the destruction, all the chaos he had unleashed upon you—this was all you could say. ‘fine.’ it was a slap to his face, a reminder of everything he had lost, and the bitter weight of it suffocated him.

his throat tightened. he didn’t know what he had expected from you, what he had hoped to hear after all this time, but ‘fine’—that word felt like a finality, an impenetrable wall of cold distance. the silence that followed stretched between you, suffocating and heavy. his gaze flickered to you, lingering on your face, yet seeing you as if for the first time. the years had marked you, yes, but the angles of your face, the way your eyes held a spark of something that was undeniably you—everything about you felt the same, and yet it was so utterly alien to him. his fingers clenched at his side, the muscles taut with the desire to reach out, to touch, to trace the lines of your face as he had done before. but he could not. there was too much hurt between you, too many wounds that he had carved deep into your soul.

the silence became unbearable. sukuna was a man of words—of sharpness, of mockery, of heated arguments. but here, beside you on this park bench, he was mute. there were no biting remarks, no cruel barbs. just an oppressive quiet, a world of things unsaid.

his gaze drifted to the child, laughing in the distance, as yuuji chased him with exaggerated panic. a part of sukuna's chest tightened painfully, and his words came out fractured, thinner than he had meant them to be, choked by something he couldn’t hide.

“kid, huh?” he said, the words thick with a bitterness that didn’t come from the sarcasm he had intended. “and yuuji’s?” they were meant to cut, to wound. but they fell flat, weak, crushed by the vulnerability he had tried so hard to bury. his voice cracked under the weight of something he couldn’t name, a storm of emotions tangled within him.

you turned to him, lips parting as if to respond, but the moment was stolen by the sound of small, hurried footsteps. your son came stumbling toward you, his legs unsteady with joy. his laughter, pure and untainted, filled the air, and for a moment, the world seemed to stop. his eyes, shining with uncontainable happiness, locked onto you, and he collided with your legs, wrapping his tiny arms around you in a clumsy hug.

you chuckled softly, steadying him with gentle hands, your voice a whisper of tenderness as you murmured, “careful there.”

he grinned up at you, his little face lighting up with something he had to tell you. but then his gaze shifted, and he looked at sukuna, studying him with an intensity that seemed too thoughtful for someone so young. the child’s eyes widened. he blinked, his brows furrowing in a silent question. and then, for the briefest of moments, his gaze met sukuna’s—eyes of crimson red.

the same red that stared back at sukuna in the mirror every morning, that had stained his soul, that marked him in ways he could never escape. the breath left his lungs in a harsh, silent gasp. his body froze, a shiver running through him. it wasn’t possible. it couldn’t be. but there it was, undeniable and raw.

the boy blinked, confused, still staring at sukuna, but before he could speak, yuuji was there, scooping him up effortlessly, lifting him onto his back. “gotcha, kiddo,” yuuji said, his grin wide as he carried the child away toward the playground, the laughter spilling from the boy in a carefree squeal.

but sukuna remained frozen, his eyes wide in disbelief, his chest tight with something he couldn’t identify—something heavy, something ancient, something that churned and shifted deep within him.

you didn’t meet his gaze. your eyes remained trained on the ground, as though avoiding his stare could keep the truth from surfacing. “those eyes…” sukuna murmured, his voice barely a whisper, the words trembling as they left his lips. “those eyes are…” his breath caught, his chest tightening further as the truth settled around him like a cold fog.

he knew those eyes. he would know them anywhere. they were his.

your voice broke through the thick silence, soft yet heavy with the weight of what you were about to say. “i found out i was pregnant a month after… that day.” the words hung in the air between you like a thread ready to snap. you finally looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since he had appeared in the park. the wind carried the faint scent of sakura, making your hair sway gently. strands danced across your face, brushing your cheeks, which had turned a delicate pink from the cool breeze. your eyes met his, unflinching yet filled with a raw vulnerability that made his chest ache.

sukuna froze, his crimson gaze locked onto yours. he couldn’t look away, even if he wanted to. this moment, this version of you—standing against the backdrop of falling petals, the soft pink tint to your skin, the weight of years etched into your expression—it was something he would never forget.

he had always been good at reading people, at seeing through their masks, but with you, it was different. even now, as you stood before him, there were layers he couldn’t unravel, emotions he couldn’t pin down. all he knew was the sudden tightness in his chest, the guilt clawing its way up his throat, and the realization that no matter how much time had passed, you still held a piece of him that he couldn’t reclaim.

“and you didn’t tell me,” he said finally, his voice quieter than he intended. there was no malice, no sharp edge—just a quiet bewilderment, a pain he didn’t know how to mask. your gaze didn’t waver, but your lips pressed into a thin line as if holding back a flood of words. “what would it have changed?” you asked, the question soft yet pointed. “you told me to leave. to be gone. i just… listened.”

those words hit him harder than any curse ever had. he wanted to argue, to demand why you hadn’t fought back, but deep down, he knew. he had made you feel like you had no choice. he had driven you away, and now, years later, he was standing in front of you, realizing the depth of the consequences he hadn’t dared to imagine.

his gaze flickered to the playground, where your son—his son—was laughing with yuuji. sukuna’s hands clenched at his sides as he turned back to you, searching for the right words and finding none.

“he’s mine, isn’t he?” he asked, though the answer was already written all over the boy’s face. you nodded, the smallest of movements, but it was enough to shatter the fragile barrier he had been holding up. “why didn’t you—” he stopped himself, exhaling sharply. “why didn’t you tell me back then?”

“because you didn’t want me,” you said simply, your voice steady though your eyes glistened. “and if you didn’t want me, why would you want him?” the wind carried your words away, but they left a hollow ache in sukuna’s chest.

sukuna’s heart pounded against his ribs, the sound deafening in the silence that followed. how could he explain what was going on in his head, when he wasn’t even sure himself? all he knew was that finding out he was a father, suddenly, out of nowhere, was throwing his whole world off-kilter, turning his reality on its head. and the fact that you hadn’t told him, kept his own flesh and blood away from him—it was infuriating and yet, in a twisted way, made sense.

sukuna was silent, the park suddenly feeling too crowded, too noisy, yet incredibly empty all at once. his heart pounded in his chest like a drum, each beat a reminder of how much time he had lost, how much he had missed. he swallowed, the lump in his throat thicker than he had anticipated. he had been ready for a lot of reactions from you—anger, perhaps even indifference. but seeing you so calm, so unbothered, stung more than he ever thought it would.

sukuna’s eyes never left yours, studying your face, the small tics and twitches that spoke volumes. but behind the veneer of calm, there was something different—an undercurrent he couldn’t quite place. he could feel it, sense it in the air between you, in the tension that had settled in your shoulders.

“all those years,” he began, his voice a low rumble. “i had a son, and i never knew.” his eyes flicked back to the playground, where yuuji was now pushing the boy on a swing. the kid was laughing again, his little legs kicking up dust with each push forward.

sukuna watched him for a moment, taking in every detail. his hair, the same shade as his own. his eyes, those wide, innocent crimson pools that mirrored his own. the sound of his laughter, a sound he’d never heard before but recognized as his all the same. you smiled softly, your gaze drifting to your son as he soared higher on the swing, his laughter cutting through the hum of the park like music. for a moment, your expression softened in a way that made sukuna’s chest ache, a bittersweet mix of warmth and loss. when your eyes returned to him, they held no resentment, no anger—only a calm acceptance that he wasn’t sure he deserved.

“he’ll be four this december,” you said quietly, the corners of your lips lifting just slightly. “yuuji and i are planning a party for him. something simple, with his friends from kindergarten.”

your voice was steady, each word so matter-of-fact that it twisted like a knife in his gut. sukuna studied your face, searching for something—anything—that hinted at lingering bitterness or regret. but there was nothing. you looked… content. beautiful in a way that felt distant, like a piece of art behind glass.

his eyes flicked back to the playground. the boy—his son—was shouting something to yuuji, his tiny hands gripping the swing’s chains as he kicked his legs. the sight made sukuna’s throat tighten. he had missed so much. “kindergarten,” he murmured, almost to himself, the word foreign on his tongue. “he’s already in kindergarten.”

you nodded, your hands folding neatly in your lap. “he loves it there. he’s made so many friends. and the teachers… they always tell me how bright he is, how full of life.” sukuna could only watch, listening to your words as you spoke about your son. a part of him was proud—proud that his son inherited his own intelligence, his own vitality. but most of him was just lost, drowning in a sea of emotions he couldn’t fully comprehend.

he had missed all of it. the first words, the first steps, the first laugh—all because he had been so stupid, so blind to what was right in front of him. his hands clenching into fists. he didn’t want to hear about how the kid was thriving in kindergarten. how he had friends. how he was happy without him.

yet he could hear the pride in your voice, the undeniable love and adoration you had for your son. it was clear in the way your eyes sparkled when you spoke of him, the protective, motherly instinct that emanated from you like a force field. it was so foreign, yet undeniably human. “he never... asked about his father?” he asked, the question slipping out before he could stop himself.

you shook your head, your expression calm, yet tinged with a bittersweet sadness that sukuna couldn’t quite place. “no,” you said softly, your eyes drifting back to the playground where your son was now tumbling in the grass with laughter, yuuji playfully chasing after him. “he’s never asked. maybe it’s because he sees how much he and yuuji look alike… the hair, the face. he doesn’t question it.”

your voice was steady, but there was an undertone that lingered, a quiet weight beneath your words. sukuna stared at you, his crimson eyes narrowing as his mind reeled. of course, the kid wouldn’t question it—not when yuuji was always there, stepping in, filling the void sukuna hadn’t even realized he had left behind.

his hands twitched at his sides, his jaw tightening. “so that’s it?” he asked, his voice low, almost a growl. “he just assumes yuuji is his father?”

you looked back at him then, your gaze unwavering. “he doesn’t assume anything, sukuna. he’s just a kid. he doesn’t need the weight of complicated answers right now.”

the words hit harder than he expected, the implication slicing through him. you were protecting him—shielding him from the chaos sukuna’s presence could bring. and deep down, he couldn’t blame you.

but it still burned.

sukuna swallowed, the lump in his throat feeling like sandpaper. the fact that his own son didn't even know who he was, the fact that yuuji was taking over the role he should have had… all of it stung like a thousand knives.

he didn’t know what to say. didn’t know how to process the emotions swirling inside him. he could feel a storm brewing within, but for once, he didn't want to unleash it. not on you, not in the middle of the park where his son—his son—was playing gleefully.

sukuna’s jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing as he watched his son’s joyful antics. the kid was climbing on a jungle gym now, his small hands grasping the metal bars with determination. yuuji stood below, ready to catch him if he fell, a small smile on his face.

the sight should have been endearing—the carefree boy playing with his surrogate father. but all sukuna felt was a bitter mixture of anger, regret, and envy. he should be the one standing there, spotting his son, ready to catch him if he fell.

sukuna’s fists clenched at his sides, the desire to march over and rip yuuji away from his child overpowering. but he held himself back, a bitter taste in his mouth. that wasn't his place, not anymore. he had made sure of that. instead, he turned to you, his eyes locking with yours. “how can you just sit there?” he spat, his voice low and laced with anger. “how can you let yuuji play father to my own son?”

you held his gaze, unruffled by the sharpness in his words, your expression calm yet firm. you had always known how to stand your ground with sukuna, how to weather the storm of his anger without losing yourself. “and what would be the point?” you replied steadily, your voice soft yet unyielding. “to stir up confusion? to fill his head with questions he’s too young to understand? he’s happy, sukuna. he’s safe. isn’t that what matters most?”

your words were deliberate, cutting through his anger with a quiet precision. sukuna’s jaw tightened, his crimson eyes flickering with a mix of emotions—rage, guilt, and something far more vulnerable. “he’s my son,” he bit out, his voice low, almost trembling. “he should know who i am.”

“and he will,” you answered, your tone unwavering. “when the time is right. when he’s old enough to understand what it means. i’m not keeping him from you, sukuna. i’m protecting him—from the pain, the confusion, the chaos. i’m protecting him the way a parent should.”

your words hung in the air, heavy with meaning, and sukuna found himself at a loss for a reply. he wanted to argue, to fight back, but deep down, he knew you were right. it didn’t make the bitterness in his chest any easier to swallow, but it made him pause, his anger faltering.

you glanced back at the playground, your gaze softening as you watched your son laugh, his small body swinging from the jungle gym with unrestrained joy. “he’s all that matters now,” you added quietly, more to yourself than to him. “and i won’t let anything—or anyone—take that away from him.”

sukuna remained silent, the weight of your words settling over him like a heavy blanket. for the first time, he truly saw the depth of your love for your son, the lengths you would go to keep him safe. and it left him reeling, his emotions a tangled mess he couldn’t begin to unravel.

sukuna swallowed, the lump in his throat feeling like a stone. all the anger, the rage that had been brewing inside of him—it all evaporated in an instant, replaced by a bitter sense of realization.

you were right. as much as he hated to admit it, your words were true. you weren’t keeping his son from him. you were protecting him, shielding him from the chaos that sukuna’s presence could bring. the kid was happy, thriving, blissfully unaware of thecomplicated web of emotions surrounding his existence.

he gazed at you, truly seeing you for the first time in years, and in that moment, he recognized something in you he had never expected to find: the quiet strength in your eyes, the resolute determination etched into the curve of your shoulders. you had changed, morphed into something he couldn’t fully comprehend. you were no longer just the person he once knew—you were a mother now, shaped by a fierce love that had carved new paths in your soul. there was a wildness in you now, a power, a willingness to move mountains to protect the child you had brought into this world. and in some dark, twisted corner of his being, it made him love you more than he ever had before.

“i…” he began, the words choking in his throat, as if the very sound of them was foreign to him. he faltered, unsure, because nothing he could say could ever match the storm inside of him, the chaos that had long since swallowed him whole. he had no words for the depth of the feelings that tore at him, no way to untangle the mess of love, regret, and longing that knotted in his chest.

you offered him a smile, and for an instant, it was the same smile he had once known, so long ago—genuine, warm, and familiar. it was like the briefest glimpse of light breaking through the oppressive clouds that had settled over both of you, soft and fleeting, yet undeniable.

“i’m sorry,” you spoke, your voice unexpectedly tender, carrying a weight that caught him off guard. “for the things i said that day. wishing you everything in life but never being satisfied—it was cruel. it’s the worst thing i could ever wish on anyone. i wouldn’t want anyone to curse me like that, so i shouldn’t have done it to you.”

your gaze held his then, steady and unwavering, but gone was the venom and resentment that had once filled it. now, there was only warmth, a soft tenderness he had long forgotten. “i just… i just want you to have the life you deserve,” you added, your voice unwavering, as if the words were not born of this moment, but of something far deeper, something more enduring.

he opened his mouth, the words dancing on the tip of his tongue, but they faltered, suffocated by a weight he couldn’t name. for once, sukuna—the man who had always prided himself on his sharp tongue, his biting words—was rendered speechless.

before he could collect himself, you rose, brushing the coat from your shoulders as you called for yuuji. he turned at the sound of your voice, his eyes catching yours, and with a silent understanding, he scooped up your son and began walking toward you.

your son’s delighted giggles filled the air, his tiny arms wrapped around yuuji’s neck in pure joy. when they reached you, you glanced back at sukuna for the briefest of moments, your eyes meeting his. but there was no anger, no regret. only something unspoken, something that neither of you could articulate.

the image of you, with yuuji and the child in tow—so perfectly entwined, so whole—was a blade lodged deep in sukuna’s chest. he wanted to rise, to speak, to confront the weight of this impossible truth, but his body remained frozen, bound by the gravity of what had not been said.

you did not look back. without a word, you turned away, your son’s laughter echoing through the cold, empty air as yuuji carried him toward the car. sukuna could only watch, his gaze locked on the fading figures, as you disappeared down the path. and in that moment, he was utterly alone, left to drown in the silence he had created, swallowed whole by the dimming light of the day.

sukuna remained frozen, his crimson eyes fixed on the space where you had just stood, the weight of the silence settling over him like a crushing blanket. the world seemed to shrink around him, the laughter of the child, the warmth of the moment fading into a hollow echo that only deepened the emptiness inside him. the weight of his own solitude was unbearable, a crushing, gnawing feeling that clung to his bones and choked the very air from his lungs.

it was a solitude he had always known, yet never truly felt—until now. it was as if the universe had conspired to bring him to this very moment, to this precipice, and now that he stood at the edge, he realized how terribly alone he truly was.

his heart, which he had long since buried beneath layers of indifference, thudded painfully in his chest, each beat like a slow, agonizing reminder of his own failures, his own incomprehensible loneliness. he had spent years in a fortress of his own making, convinced that he could bear the isolation, that he could find solace in his own darkness. but now, as the light of your departure seemed to wash over him, he realized how false that belief had been.

it was as though the very ground beneath him had crumbled, leaving him suspended in a void that threatened to consume him. the void was cold, oppressive, and suffocating. he opened his mouth to speak, to call out, to demand something, anything—but no words came. they were swallowed by the silence, absorbed into the air that was thick with the weight of what had been lost.

he wanted to scream, to tear at the sky, to shatter the world around him until there was nothing left but the raw, bleeding truth of his own desolation. but he remained still, paralyzed by the overwhelming realization of how utterly empty his life had become without you.

the laughter of the child, now distant, reverberated in his ears like the sound of mocking, bitter fate. how had it come to this? how had he, who had once held so much power, so much control, been reduced to this broken thing, left behind in the fading light of a world that no longer included him?

his chest tightened with a suffocating ache, his hands curling into fists, nails digging into his palms, as though the pain might anchor him to something, anything, other than the suffocating void that stretched before him. yet, nothing could fill the emptiness, nothing could undo the damage he had done to himself, to you, to everything he had ever touched.

he had been a fool. a fool to believe that time would erase the wounds, that power would shield him from the consequences of his own choices. but now, with nothing left but the hollow echo of his own regret, he understood—the price had been far higher than he could ever have imagined.

and as you disappeared from his sight, so did the last vestiges of hope, the last thread that had held him to any semblance of meaning. he was alone. utterly alone. and the weight of that truth felt like an insurmountable mountain pressing down on his chest, each breath a labor, each moment a torment.

in that unbearable silence, he felt it: the deep, gnawing ache of his own heart, the loneliness that had been there all along, waiting for this moment to unravel him.

#sukuna x reader #sukuna x you #sukuna x y/n #jjk x reader #sukuna angst #ryomen sukuna #jjk angst #jjk #jujutsu kaisen imagine #jujustu kaisen x reader #anime angst #jujutsu kaisen angst #ryomen sukuna angst #ryomen sukuna x reader #jujutsu kaisen fanfiction

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buffaloroofers · 1 year ago

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theorist-fox · 4 months ago

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Fair trade

John Price x Reader

Cross posted from AO3.

This one shot deals with heavy topics such as emotional manipulation, emotional abuse from family, and self-objectification.

I'm begging you to read the tags before pursuing the story. Thank you so much for taking care of yourself first. 🦊

If you're looking for some aftersex comfort, recommending this by @/karlachismylife. 🧡

Summary: John helps you out of the toxic pattern your family has woven around you, and finds how utterly gorgeous you are behind it. He cuts your strings, and loves you the way you deserve.

18+

Word count: 10k CW: smut (cunnilingus, blow jobs, sex seen as a form of self-harm, sex seen as a way to feel useful), heavy angst, hurt/comfort, dubcon if you squint.

Masterlist 🦊

“No, we can’t come over, darling.”

To have a life planned out must be a dream. No worries nor fears, because everything is already outlined—a step-by-step guide, given to you at birth. A path, a purpose.

To give is your purpose.

It’s been ever since before you hit the eighteen mark; the birthday being only a threshold that signed your legal independence.

But you’ve always been, haven’t you? Shadowed by bigger problems ever since you were a small thing because there wasn't trouble that mattered less than you did.

The difference being that before you were shielded by your naïveté, by the bleeding heart they’ve carefully built for you, so you’d bend and break pliantly, even willingly at times, without ever realizing.

Now you're an adult, they'd implied.

Now they can use you at your full potential, and you won’t even put up a fight. You won’t set boundaries, because this is all you’ve ever learned. This is all they’ve ever taught you. Their perfect mold, kneeling in perfect obedience.

But how much can one take in a lifetime?

“Thanks for the help, love. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Will you?”

“Of course.”

But staring at the phone won’t make it ring.

When you’ve never had a moment for yourself but plenty of time to dedicate to others—where do you draw the line of this so-called purpose, then?

“Happy birthday sweetheart.”

“It’s next week, mum.”

“Oh. I must have mixed it up.”

This goal—this agonized prize, towering at the finish line you’re desperately running to, the one defined by your family the moment your first cry pierced the air—what is it, exactly?

It’s a cascade of praises. It’s a shower of love that reawakens you from your torpor like a bucket of ice-cold water. It's abrupt but somewhat needed until it slowly becomes fresh instead of freezing, and it hydrates your skin and soothes the thirst. You feel rejuvenated, coming out of your lethargy, and alive and thriving and—

It stops.

Your fifteen minutes of unbridled, limitless love just snatched away in spare seconds.

And you’re parched again. Sometimes, they leave you wanting until you’re on your knees. Sometimes, they never give it back.

And so, the questions arise—what happens when you’re not needed anymore?

What happens when the calls plummet?

When the visits diminish until there are none?

When you're a ghost haunting your own life because your purpose is slowly vanishing. When that prize stands in the distance as a rushing fountain of praises and kindness, but you've already given a hand, an arm, your legs, your voice, your heart. What then?

How do you move, exactly, if there are no limbs to which attach the strings? How will you speak, if they’re not shaping your voice?

How does your puppeteer lift you from the floor? Your ventriloquist—how will it force you to agree to every demand?

“You... met without me?”

“Sweetheart, we thought you were busy.”

“You could’ve asked.”

“You would’ve said no.”

But you wouldn’t have. You’re not even sure you can say ‘no’ to them.

Is there someone who will hoist you up, when you’re nothing more than a torso, and take you to the finish line?

“Uh, darling, mind calling later?”

“I’m not feeling fine, I was hoping—“

“I’m busy, love.”

A therapist for your mum.

A crutch for your dad.

An advocate for your brother, but you’re no one to them.

A child, once. A person, now.

A notification on their phone. A Google reminder of a birthday.

A missed call. An excuse.

A vacant shape in a family photo. A memory, then nothing.

Raised to serve. But what happens when there’s no one to serve?

“What you’re doing to me is not fair.”

“I don’t like that attitude. Don’t forget how much we did for you.”

Your hands are tight around the steering wheel. White knuckled fists and creaking leather. The car smells of stale tobacco, cigarettes you’ve smoked with your offhand limp out of the car window, then stubbed in the portable ashtray.

"We love you, of course we do. How could you ask that?"

It's raining but your window's rolled down, a ciggie snug between two fingers. Elbow propped on the car door, arm hanging out. The sleeve of your sweater is soaked, and the cigarette is sodden. You don't even notice it when you bring it to your lips and take a drag. Nothing fills your lungs.

It’s fine.

It's a habit. It's autopilot. You go. You exist.

“It really doesn’t feel like it. You haven’t called in weeks.”

“It’s just—we’re people too. We’re busy.”

“You’re not busy for my brother.”

“He’s—you’re different, darling.” You’re used. We’ve consumed you.

It’s a feeling of emptiness that spills out of every hole like heavy smoke, clouding your senses. A husk that billows dark tendrils from its eyes, moves mechanically like an alien imitating a human being.

It's fake. You're a dummy. Unhuman. A thing.

“I just need your help. I—I’m not fine. I’m not asking for much. Just an evening toge—”

"So much is happening right now. You can deal with it on your own, love.”

You close the car door once you've parked it in the garage. Up the stairs you go, dragging your feet on every step.

“Like you’ve always done.”

Would this world exist even if you weren’t in it? Would these stairs lead to your apartment, if you didn’t inhabit it?

Is your flat even yours? Sure, you’ve paid for it. The party you threw after your signature was placed on the contract is still a cherished memory.

But what were you even celebrating? Four walls. A roof over your head. A bed to kip.

It’s a lot, you’re aware. Not everyone can say they own all that. But do you?

They’re things. Can you own things?

Surely, you are owned. By them.

But you’re not even sure you need things. You can’t need, because things don’t need. And what are you, if not a thing? Because things are used, not humans. Humans fight back, eventually. Humans hold their pride dear, it's the only character that separates them from animals, from meat. You never bit back, not once. So what does that make you, if not theirthing?

Your purpose is not a choice you made, it’s theirs. You have to give—that is why they made you.

You own, so you can give them.

You earn, so you can give back.

Because who’s given you a roof when you couldn’t afford it yourself? And the food in your belly?

Darling, it wasn’t for free. You were expensive to raise. You were costly to craft, to mold, to perfect.

But they haven’t called. No one has. No one will.

The master left the strings—and what of you, now? Do you just lie limply on the floor, waiting for the next hand that'll hoist you up?

And if they don’t call to ask from you, how do you know you’re doing fine? How do you know if the finish line is close when they took your eyes already? How do you ask for help, if you don’t have a voice?

But that was the point. Their goal. They own you, and without them, you’re nothing but a heap of wood, infested with termites. Wooden rods on the floor, nylon strings cut short. You’ll grovel and beg, they’ll croon at you in mockery, bleeding you dry, but it will be enough for you—anything would be enough for you.

You unlock the door. John hears and his head peeks from the kitchen.

“Hi love,” he rumbles, and you feel it shaking your heart.

Does he need you?

John Price is a captain of the special forces who has gone through hell and back. He's witnessed things you've only heard from the mouths of journalists or read in black-and-white papers, and he came out of each one of them unscathed. Strong. Resilient.

He doesn’t need you.

“Sortin’ out dinner,” he adds, and returns behind the wall that separates the living room from the cooking area. “You’re gonna love this pasta, I’m telling you.”

Of course, he doesn't need you.

The house is pristine. He takes care of it while you’re at work since he’s off deployment. He’s going to be home for a while now, a handful of months. That’s a good thing, you miss him when he leaves.

It’s you who needs him. But you can’t need, so how does this work, exactly?

How do you explain that hole in your stomach that relentlessly craves to be filled? That makes you want to curl on the floor. Turn into dust and seep through the cracks of the hardwood.

Disappear. Invisible. Paper-thin.

Because maybe you're tired of being needed. Perhaps you want to break through that mindset and start needing something.

You chastise yourself for even concocting the thought.

You stand stock still at the door. You hear nothing but the blood rushing in your ears and John moving pans around the kitchen.

You see his head at the doorway again.

“Love?”

Your eye twitches, but you don’t answer.

He doesn’t need you. Then why is he here?

There are plenty of people out there who’d love to bend for him. Mouths he can kiss. Holes he can fill.

That’s what people are, no?

No. That's what you are.

You’ll make him need you. You’ll show him that you’re fundamental, not just another hole. That you cannot be replaced, because you can't afford to lose him. You can't.

It’s selfish, it is.

You cannot be selfish, it’s not what you were taught. But you will. Just today, just now. The first apparent tear into the careful pattern threaded by your family.

But it's not really a hole, is it? If you're carving it to escape a trap, only to fall back into another one of your own making.

You hurriedly toe off your wet shoes and walk with purpose to the kitchen, dropping your bag on the floor as you do. He quirks a brow at you and your silence, but his face soon morphs into sudden confusion when you come to stand in front of him and drop to your knees.

You know how to do it—how to make people smile.

Your empathy is unmatched. You read people's tics, their quirks. Gauge them from the way they move their lips, the words they use, the way they look at you.

And John—oh, he loves how you work with your mouth.

And if he needs your mouth, then by extension, he needs you.

Your hands palm his thighs as you flutter your lashes up to him. He's forced to lean back against the kitchen counter, but he's not looking at you the way he usually does—not with his lidded blue eyes, heavy and wanton.

John looks dubious instead. Even flinches when you press your cheek to the crotch of his jeans, stroking the fabric to your skin. Denim’s rough, and it especially hurts when the plump of your cheek catches the zipper’s teeth.

Good.

Let him take. And let it hurt.

“What’s goin’ on." He states, doesn't ask.

Please, take.

You’re already working through the button and the zipper when you answer, fingers shaking as you do. “I wanna suck your cock.”

Now, John wouldn’t normally complain, but you sound much different from the other times in which you actually do want to suck his cock.

He hums, allowing you to palm him through his briefs, gently but firmly pressing your hand where he’s still soft. You nose him through the cotton, flattening your tongue against his dick—you can feel it twitch under the muscle. Good, means his body is responding how you want him to.

His hands curl painfully tight around the lip of the counter.

It’s so silent except for your heaving breaths warming up his length and the buzzing fire on the stove.

You place tender kisses as you feel him harden under your lips.

He's looking at you to try and gauge the reason behind all this. It's clear to him that you're not being your usual self, there is something in your eyes that tickles him in the wrong place. You know he knows—you know he's gathered something's wrong. He’s ever so attentive, capturing every minimal change in the wrinkles of your face.

You're so akin to him when it comes to that.

You don't give him time to ponder for long, though. You take his cock out of his briefs and force it into your mouth.

John knocks his head back against the cupboard and fixes his eyes to the ceiling, wide open. A heavy breath leaves him languidly. His cock chubs up as it sits heavy on your tongue, and you can feel it fill up your mouth.

“Christ.”

Yes. It’s what you want, to hear him lose himself in you.

You start slowly, pumping your hand at the base along with the movements of your lips, mindful of keeping your teeth out of the way. Tilting your head sideways, you let the tip of his cock push against your cheek while your tongue lavishes the malleable skin around its length.

Your eyes swivel upward, and you're met with the view of his corded neck, tight and straining as he refuses to look at you.

No.

He needs to know it’s you.

He needs to understand that you can give this whenever he wants, that you're not just another mouth. That no one else is as versed as you are when you eat him up. Your tongue knows how to follow the vein along the velvet of his skin, all the way to the slit on the tip. Your hand knows how to cup his balls and brush the seam in the middle—how he shudders, each time you do.

He needs to know that.

He can’t let you go. Not him too.

He has to hoist the limbless torso that you are towards the finish line, where you’ll get your caresses and your praises and your prize: the crumbs of love you’ll lap until your famished heart stops rumbling.

So, you drift your free hand upward and thread your fingers through the curls on his pelvis, gently grazing the skin with your nails. Then, you drum the pads on his soft belly, feeling them dip into the flesh and hit the harder muscles underneath. You splay your palm in the middle of his stomach, where you can feel the blood rushing madly as his heart pumps all the same.

It’s enough for you, the bodily reaction to the softness of your mouth.

But why isn’t he looking at you?

Recognize that is me. That I can make you feel good. That you need me, that you still do.

In the desperation of the moment, you opt for the best you can do: you take him deeper. The hand at the base of his cock moves to flatten on his thigh, and you carelessly widen your jaw to take more, and more, and more.

You flatten your tongue against the underside of his shaft and then twirl it around, all the while hollowing your cheeks without ever daring to take your eyes off him. That way, if he decides to look down at you, he'll find you teary-eyed and wanting—perfectly on your knees, like a devotee, no matter how artificially placed.

Your lips slide so easily up and down his cock, coating it with saliva, teardrops and precum. They swell so beautifully around it like a plump peach being ravaged; he always flatters you for it. Calls you beautiful when you suck him off so fervently, eliciting choked moans from you as you drink up the praise.

You dive in and the head tips at the back of your throat, causing you to gag around it. The muscles of your neck clench and he curses under his breath. Your eyes water in joy and overexertion when he looks down at you at the sudden change in pace. You don’t care if it hurts, let him bruise your throat.

You can give him more. You can give him everything.

You push even further until you're nuzzling against the coarse hair on his pelvis. You choke around his cock, a weak and wet cough that causes drool to dribble at the corners of your mouth. You pull back then, to take a wet gasp around his length, and then push forward to flush your nose to his crotch once more.

The tips of your knees hurt; the tiled floor in the kitchen is hard and merciless against the bone. It'll leave your joints aching and rough. They'll pop when you stand up, they'll hurt tomorrow when you go to work.

Good.

The knot in your stomach is ever so tight, seeking to be released and let go. It contorts in wantonness and, you’ll realize later, mortification. Just because you’re used to giving yourself so freely in exchange for crumbs, it doesn't mean it gets easier every time—to watch yourself bend on a whim, to see your pride shatter into even tinier pieces.

You feel his hand thread through your hair and tears fall down your cheek because yes, now he’s going to fuck your face like you want him to.

Use me. Treat me for what I am. Become the fucking puppet master. Take my fucking strings now that they’ve dropped them and guide me through this fucking shit I was left in.

But instead, he pulls you back, his cock escaping your mouth with the same ease you got it in.

A ragged breath, thick and wet, leaves your lips as soon as they’re free. Your coughs turn into a hack, as you stare at the glisten of your spit coating his shaft. A string of thick saliva tethers your mouth to it. Tears roll down your cheeks as you recollect your breath, nostrils flaring in the attempt to take in the air you’ve deprived yourself of.

“What’s this.”

You swallow down the liquid pooling in your throat, salty precum and viscous saliva like tar, gluing your tongue to the roof of your mouth.

“Let me.” You croak. The thought that you might sound pathetic doesn’t even cross your mind.

His brows twitch, but he keeps his voice even. “No. What’s going on? Spill it.”

Your pleading look morphs into a glare. Bloodshot eyes, tears, and snot. Spit and cum. Clumped lashes and runny mascara.

Whore.

Your chest heaves, not from the strain, but from being caught red-handed, and you don't know how to behave.

No one ever asks why you do it, they’re simply glad you do.

You’re helping, aren’t you? It’s what you were crafted for, brick by brick, bone by bone. Made to change like a chameleon based on other’s necessities.

It’s what you are—so let me do it.

“I want to suck your cock.” You say as crudely as you can manage. “I want you to come down my throat and then I want you to bend me over the table and fuck me until you’re empty.”

He runs his tongue over his teeth, still holding your head by a handful of hair. His fingers aren’t tight, but your scalp stings nonetheless.

“Can do.” He shrugs. “Need to know why, first.”

You’re a heap of wood once again, piled up at his feet. Your limbs are jointless, just lying there, waiting to be thrown in the fire to rekindle its flame, so everyone else can be warm at your expense.

A broken puppet can still be used for other purposes until it's ash.

There's nothing in you, if not how wonderfully soft your mouth would be if only he'd let you wrap it around him again.

“Because I want to.”

He curls his nose, mustache following the stretch. “Hardly.”

“I do.”

He tugs at your hair and says your name in such a commanding manner that you can’t help but deflate. The glare in his eyes snuffs the defiant flame in yours.

"Please let me," you plead, and the way you sound is nothing short of degrading.

You don't care. You don't care if you reduce yourself to a puddle of pleas. You know you're not supposed to need anything, but you need this.

Your hands are sticky with dried spit and precum when they grab his cock again. You start pumping it fiercely, trying to make his orgasm hit earlier than what you had planned. He holds your head out of reach, meaning you can't wrap your lips around it—you'll have to make do with your hands.

Slut.

But it’s okay, you’ll be a slut, if it helps him realize that you can make him feel good with everything you have to offer. That he won’t find another as pliant and willing as you are. That if he wants to be served, you will be his thrall.

Everything you own, it’s so you can give him.

Everything you earn, it’s so you can give back.

He can mold you. He can break you and put you back together the way he likes. He can craft a new puppet out of you, you’ll hand him the strings. He’ll take you to the finish line and love you, then.

Only then.

You see his mouth curl, bile on his tongue, as he reins in his own lust. There’s something wrong about you tonight, and he’s starting to understand what it is.

And so, he leaves your hair, favoring the softness of your cheek. He thumbs the plump of your cheekbone and then rubs a line along your lower lip.

It's then that you take your chance and rush forward, planting a kiss on the tip of his cock. Tongue out to leave kitten licks at the drops of precum you are squeezing out of him with your hands, knowing he likes those tiny shocks it sends up his spine.

And just when you think he’s relented to your pleas, just when you have your lips plump and shiny, ready to wrap around the flushed head of his cock, he takes ahold of your chin and tips your head back.

“I love you,” he croaks.

Words he’s said already, but not as often as he should’ve. It’s his fault, he grievously considers, if you think you have to be on your knees to receive them.

He realizes it when you shock into a stop. When your eyes widen a tick too much.

Blind idiot he is.

"I love you," he says again, more firmly this time.

Your face screws up as if you're trying to wrap your head around this language you don't know. You haven't done much to reach that prize—if anything, you’ve done the opposite. You’ve edged him until the head of his cock has turned an angry red that must be aggravating to handle, impossible to quench without the welcoming warmth of your mouth or that of your cunt.

You blink up at him. Tears fall down your cheeks. “But you need to come.”

If you’d have shot him, he would’ve handled the ache much better than this.

"I need nothing." He supplies gently, tracing the corner of your lips with his thumb, getting rid of the mess he's inadvertently made of your mouth.

His statement hangs in the air, stale and musty and threatening, not as sweet as he thinks. It clogs your nose and tightens your chest, curdling your blood into frozen lumps. The noises around suddenly feel deafening: the bubbles popping on the surface of the boiling water, the wet sound of your skin unsticking from his cock as your hands leave it, their thud as they fall in your lap.

If you’re not needed, then what are you?

Carefully, he tucks himself back into his briefs as he kneels to your level.

He whispers your name and cups your cheek as he does. "I love you.”

You know he does, but stuck in the web woven by your family, you always thought it was a purely transactional sentiment. A fair trade.

He loves you because you kneel prettily in front of the sofa.

He loves you because you let him stuff you up and fill you to the brim with his come at the snap of his fingers.

He loves you because you're a lovely addition to his arm when you doll up for his work ceremonies or other functions.

He loves you because you cook a mean Sunday roast when he comes back from deployment.

And you love him because he's John, because what's there not to love.

With gentle blue eyes framed by bushy eyebrows, and droopy eyelids that give his often scowling look a gentler feel to it. The honey smatter of freckles on his nose, and the sharply trimmed beard on his jaw. Plump rosy lips, how soft they feel when he places them on yours, juxtaposing with the prickly ends of his mustache.

His encompassing heart and the way he's enlarged it for you to fit better, so you're all comfortable and warm in his life.

John gently presses his lips on your forehead as he speaks softly, "I love you."

Your eyes flutter closed. A heaving breath again, one that stutters as you try to inhale it. Fat tears fill the cracks in your lips and flow down your tongue.

John brushes the back of his knuckles across your cheeks. “Don’t need all this to love you.” And then he looks in your eyes, searching for any sign of skepticism, and regrettably finds a considerable amount of it. “You knowthat. Right, love?”

No, you don’t know.

But you don’t have the gall to tell him. Suddenly, it hits how pathetic you look. On your knees, begging for him to stuff your mouth with his cock so you can feel useful, so he can shower you with love once you give him a reason to keep you.

You kneel there helplessly, deflated.

Useless.

You gesture with your hands at him, feeling how limply they hang from your wrists as if you've never used them on your own in the first place.

There is very little you can do to humiliate yourself further, and yet you manage.

“But you need me.” You cry, as your face scrunches in a pain so deeply settled that John has no clue how to work around it. “I need you to need me.”

However, he tries. He tracks your tears with his thumb, stopping their fall right above your cheekbone.

"Don't need you, love." He says tenderly. "I want you.”

He shifts a little closer and cradles your face in both hands so that you cannot avoid his eyes even if you tried.

“Want you.” He breathes hoarsely, “Ain’t with you ’cause I need someone. I don’t need anyone, and I don’t want just anyone—I want you. ‘Specially when you’re not on your knees.”

Your nose is stuffy, and you can’t breathe right. Suddenly, you feel so unbelievably tired. Your face plops in his hands, and the humiliation feels ten times worse. It's hard, however, to interject with a word that would make him understand how deep this pattern runs.

He doesn’t let you, but only because he knows already.

"Like you when you get all chuffed ‘bout your plants sproutin’." He drawls. "Love it when you hop into bed and shove your cold feet against my thighs ‘cause I'm much warmer. Or when you make love to me. But not when you—when you pull this."

His voice is heavy. Your heart aches because you're so tightly wrapped in deadly silk, stuck in your family's cobweb, that you've never noticed how it must pain him as well, to see you reduce yourself to this.

"Bloody hell, love." He sighs, furrowing his brows. "I love you, yeah? I don't need—whatever this is. I don't want whatever this is.”

John's eyes close, his face screwing up in that way that tells you he's thinking. He shakes his head subtly, and you're afraid you've gone and done it now. He's going to go because he already has so much shit to deal with that your puzzled self would only be another broken case to add to his file.

But alas, dread doesn't even manage to settle on your heavy heart that he locks you in place with his blues.

One of his hands drifts to the back of your head. He leans in, enough for you to smell the tobacco on his breath.

You swallow dryly, lips parted in shaky pants. Eyes lidded and tired, nose scrunching in sniffles.

John presses a gentle kiss on your lips, no more than a peck. And then another one, and another, and another, until you can’t discern whether it’s the salt of your tears or that of his skin.

Your breathing becomes heavier and it mingles with his own when he comes to rest his forehead on yours.

"I love you," he murmurs tirelessly.

The hand on your nape guides you to him, and he kisses you again. Unlike the previous ones, this is bolder, yet tender all the same. He holds you in place while the rest of the world falls into impeccable silence.

The gentle smacking of lips is all you can hear, and even if only for a moment, it manages to silence the voice in your head—a mimicry of your family’s cries, their lying coos, their grating, consuming, plastic love.

You feel yourself uncoil under John’s touch and the deft work of his tongue on yours. Hands in your lap, you abandon yourself to him, but it's a different type of surrender; your eyes close and all your feelings, all your energy, flow into that kiss.

“I-I love you,” you venture, breathy voice brushing his lips.

John inhales sharply, and he realizes this might be the first time you said it because you wanted to and not because you had to.

His hand drifts from your cheek to your shoulder, down to your stomach and he guides you to lie with your back against the kitchen floor. His palms flatten next to your head.

Normally, John would have you on a fort of pillows and blankets and would never compromise about it—constantly making sure you’re as comfortable as they come as he ravages you. Beforehand, you'd get ready in the bathroom, having prepped yourself to a T. Shaved and moisturized and seasoned like a prized pig for him to consume, wearing the prettiest, skimpiest lace to frame the petals of your perfectly waxed pussy.

Because it’s a fair trade; he treats you like a princess, so you can be his pretty whore.

Yet tonight you think he won’t do any of that. There is a gentleness in his kisses that, while not uncommon, certainly feels unique. Your hands hover between your chest and his, unsure of where to place them. You hope he’ll guide you through this too, manhandle you into position like he always does.

But again, he doesn’t.

He barely feels like John at all. His behavior is so different that if you closed your eyes, anyone could be in his place right now. But that is only your perception, isn't it? Because John has always been tender with you, you were just too busy thinking about how to repay his kindness instead of living in the moment.

His lips leave yours only to busy themselves with the skin on your cheek, then down your chin and to your neck. You gasp at the goosebumps, and he stops.

His face comes into view and it is so flushed you think he must be collecting all his blood right in the apples of his cheeks.

“Okay, love?”

You blink. Your mouth tastes more like his cigars than tears and precum. It makes you feel less dirty, even if what you did (and have been doing your whole life) hasn’t changed.

You swallow thickly as he gazes into your eyes.

“Y-yeah, just—” A crease forms between your brows, “I should—I left you like that, and—”

He hushes you.

"No need to bother 'bout me." He reassures you.

He presses a kiss between your brows, smoothing the lines your concern has formed. You close your eyes, focusing on how warm he is in contrast to the tiles pressing against your back.

“Tell me what you want.” He breathes. As if you have an answer for that.

His kisses trail down your face and your neck, turning more open and wet. The rising gooseflesh, however, does nothing to stop your mind from running miles ahead.

What do you want?

You must've been posed that question before because it's such a basic one. You try to think of contests in which one might ask that, such as your birthdays, or celebrations, or a teacher wondering what is it that you desire in the future: a career, a husband or a wife, a family.

But to desire is to choose, and you don’t think you’ve ever been given that possibility.

Hence why you're rattled, aghast. On your back on the floor, with John sucking love bites on your neck.

You give the answer you know will make him content.

“Fuck me.”

You’ll moan like a porn star. You’ll dig your pretty nails into his back so he can show off the marks you left on him with pride. You'll pretend an orgasm if yours is taking too long, so that his ego will be kept fed and full, and he’ll still find you appealing. So that he can go tell his friends and comrades how good you are, in and out of bed. What a gem. Wife material.

He’ll doll you up and tie the strings around your wrists. Make you dance and you will—coy smile, pretty eyes and all. A new puppet out of you, just for his sake.

John stills, and he shifts uncomfortably above you. His mouth is suddenly next to your ear, and he leaves a kiss at your jaw hinge.

“You don’t want me to fuck you.” He murmurs, and you swear there is a hint of guilt in the way he says it.

You feel dizzy at the thought of being caught. It’s scary to have your thoughts so out in the open after having spent an entire lifetime locking them up.

John nips at the shell of your ear. You venture with your hands and place them on his chest, still unsure of whether you want him closer or far, far away.

"Can I make you feel good?" He asks hoarsely. Your body responds naturally and it makes heat pool in your lower stomach.

You suck in a breath, eyes fluttering closed at the idea his words have instilled in you.

You reply the only way you know. “You don’t have to ask.”

“Yes.” He says forcefully, almost as if he wanted the answer to stick to your brain for the days to come. The switch is so abrupt your heart skips a beat. “Yes, I have to ask. Of course, I have to ask.”

He props himself up, hips snug between your thighs. He could roll them against yours and seek the friction his chubbed up cock must physically need after you teased it.

But he doesn’t, and it makes you feel both inadequate and nervous.

“So, answer me, love.” He rumbles, as his pupils dance between your eyes. “Can I make you feel good?”

You’re not sure why, but it makes your eyes water and your heart hurt. Your brows draw together in a frown that rips at John’s chest.

“Y-Yes,” you stutter, voice strangled in your throat. “Yes, please.”

John leans in to kiss your eyelids as you snap them closed.

And then he kisses your cheek, your nose, and your lips. His hand trails over your sweater. A gentle tug at the hem makes tears fall down your temple and into your hair.

You give an imperceptible nod at his silent request and he thanks you by pressing his lips to your jaw. He lifts it above your breasts, sitting atop the plain, skin-colored bra you're wearing. You haven't shaved, there's regrowing hair under your armpits and you're flushed to the bone.

You're not the doll you allow him to see. You haven't prepped yourself for consumption this time, and it almost makes you squirm, as you force your biceps flush to your ribcage.

He can't see that you're not the perfect little puppet you've always shown him. If you aren't perfect, willing, and breakable, then he can find a thousand more like you—better than you.

But he presses a kiss to your sternum, ignoring sweat, squirming, and whatnot.

“Beautiful.” He murmurs, tongue out to trace the line of the bone. “Pretty fucking girl.”

You sob. It doesn't deter him, as he lines the plain fabric of your cup until his fingers meet the clasp conveniently placed to the front. With a quick snap, he undoes it, and your tits spill out to the sides.

He hooks your attention back with a look, and you understand he’s asking, once again.

He’s seen you naked a thousand times but you realize he’s never seen you this raw. Your cheeks are flushed and his eyes have never looked so gentle yet hungry.

You nod again and he dives in, wasting no time.

His hands grab the fat of your tits. Push them together. Thumbs teasing nipples as they pebble under his pads. Lips kissing anywhere they can land, latching on flesh until it darkens. His teeth graze the peaks of your breasts, and your back arches off the floor.

Each grunt that escapes him has your spine vibrate. You can't fathom the thought that he likes this, not when you’re tasting like a long day at work and wet rain, instead of buttercream and mango.

You try to snake your leg between his own, to give back what he’s giving you. Carefully, you stroke the curve of your foot against his hard length, but he pulls back with his hips and gently guides your thigh to rest once more around his waist.

“Don’t need tha’, sunshine.” He grunts, a murmur lost as his lips mouth at your nipples. "This 's more 'n 'nough."

His hands hold you by the waist now, fingers gripping the flesh with tenacity. His beard scrapes at the soft skin of your tits as he travels downward with his mouth, following the path lined by your sternum to the gap between your ribs.

He licks stripes as if your skin were covered with cream. His teeth sink softly where your flesh is plumper, causing you to writhe against him, and he chuckles under his breath as he remembers you’re ticklish.

Such tiny things he knows about you, you almost forgot it’s been years he’s known you.

His bites turn kisses, and they're chastely pressed on the line of your stomach, over your belly button, and to the seam of your jeans.

John looks up at you when his lips reach the zipper, and by doing so you notice his brows arching up, causing lines to wrinkle his forehead. Pretty blue eyes take you in and the mess that you've made of yourself. Runny makeup, bitten lips.

You know he can see how undecided you still are. Brows pinched in both pleasure and discomfort because this is so new to you.

But you nod a little sharply for him to go on, as your mouth curls down in the hopefully non-futile attempt at muffling your sobs.

John unbuttons your pants and shimmies them down your hips to your ankles in such an agonizingly slow manner you can’t help but think he’s doing it to give you time to rebut, in case you change your mind.

You don't.

He takes them off together with your socks and brings your foot next to his face. Places a kiss on the side of it, sending tingles up your legs that tip to the apex of your thighs. He leaves small pecks down your ankle and your calf, closing his eyes and sometimes brushing his beard against your skin.

You look away, cheek flat to the tiles, now wet with your tears and the rain soaking your hair.

It doesn't deter John in the slightest, not even when he slowly comes down to a crawl, chest to the floor and nose on your mound. He tugs with his teeth at the cotton of your panties, nothing more than plain white cheeky underwear. So different from the way you always present yourself to him, with your expensive lace and your silks and your soft skin—painfully waxed so it could mimic the feel of your babydolls.

Gingerly, you reach down with your hand and thread your fingers through his hair, smoothing them back from his forehead. You cup the side of his face and brush your thumb to his flushed cheekbone. He leans into your palm and kisses it, uncaring of the stickiness left by your previous activity.

You feel something inside of you crash and break, then, like a glass vase falling from a height. You’re not sure whether it’s a good thing or not, because it makes more tears collect at the corners of your eyes and those are never predictors of a good ending.

He digs the tip of his nose against your slit, following the wet stripe that inevitably formed the moment you dropped to your knees for him.

“Can I?” He asks, sending little spikes of electricity up to your chest when his lips brush against the sensitive skin covered by flimsy cotton.

You feel your chest get so tight someone might as well be curling rope around it.

You feel so pathetic for crying just because you’re being asked about what makes you comfortable and what doesn’t. You’re such an advocate for your friends to go out there and demand for their needs to be met, that you can’t help but wallow in your hypocrisy when someone asks for yours.

He waits patiently for your consent, even if he's a breath away from your private parts, with his hands caressing the back of your thighs. Even if he's done this to you a thousand times already, with your squirming body giving him a show worthy of the cameras, had they been there.

He makes everything around you look so soft, even the tiles of the floor that are uncomfortably sticking to your skin feel like plush cushions.

You wonder briefly if this is how it should’ve always felt, had you allowed yourself to recognize your needs instead of seeing your body as a means to make others happy.

It comes out of your lips as a breath that’s followed by a wet sniffle, your head nodding softly, contrastingly to how tight you’re biting your own teeth.

“Yes.”

No amount of pressure on your jaw could stop the sob that escapes you afterward.

John closes his eyes and a warm shuddering sigh brushes your skin. You’re starting to realize that maybe you’re not the only one who’s being affected by this sudden change in your and his intimacy.

His fingers hook at your panties and he slides them to your ankles, letting them hang down one foot. You swing it carefully and kick them off as he returns his attention to the apex of your thighs, hooking your knees on his shoulders.

He starts tenderly, pressing kisses on the soft flesh of your vulva, paying attention even to the smallest bits you weren’t even aware could feel good. He latches on your outer lips, feeling how puffy they get at the slight suction.

Your thighs are corded and stiff under his grip, arms hooked around each plush leg, and palms flat on your skin.

John’s eyes are closed, although you wish he’d look at you as he travels with his lips along your slit. A kiss on your hole without probing too much, then one along the middle of your slit, which was getting impressively wetter as time passed, and the one on your hooded clit.

It sent jolts up your spine, causing your hips to buck against his mouth. His fingers tighten around your thighs in response, as if he’s trying to rein it in for you.

You appreciate it more than he thinks. You don’t think you’ve ever been placed on top of the queue so blatantly in your entire life.

The tip of his tongue darts out, but it’s obscured from your eyes by the regrowing hair on your mound and from his thick mustache. So, it takes you by surprise when he all but licks a thin stripe over the protruding part of your clit.

You hiss, and your head goes dizzy. You feel tiny pinpricks tingling in your brain, making you lightheaded and more than a little breathless.

During the whole relationship, you’ve been so focused on appearing like a full meal to his eyes, that you forgot how good it felt to be that meal on his tongue.

He laps at you again, eyes now wide open to gauge more of whatever you were giving him. You feel them as bright spotlights aimed at your face, but you can’t find it in yourself to display the act you’ve always given him.

You're already too different from the woman he's so used to seeing. You wonder if he likes you anyway; or if he likes you less, or more. When your eyes lock with his own, a dark flash tells you to go back to your ways. To flutter your lashes and pout your lips in small pleas, whimpering moans that always make his eyes roll to the back of his head.

And just as you’re about to give in to those old habits, John flattens his tongue against your cunt and licks all the thoughts out of your head. You tilt it back in a groan that has never, not once, left your lips in his presence.

He seems more than excited to hear it and starts eating you out like you’re his first meal in a century. This time, there is no plasticity in the ways you move. You’re not squirming away and acting coy about it, meeting his eyes to make sure he realizes that you're his pretty doll.

This time there’s you and the pleasure he gives you. There’s a hand in his hair that shyly tries to keep him still, as he puckers his lips around your nub and sucks it in his mouth. There’s the subtle canting of your hips to press your cunt closer to him, and the way he makes sure you don’t pull away from his tongue with his thick arms coiled around your thighs.

It’s so strange to allow yourself to feel so much. All this time you’ve been oblivious to all this as it happened in your same body because you were too busy focusing on how you appeared to his eyes. Even as he tongued your hole, your head told you it still had to be about pleasing him—because nothing in this world could ever be exclusively about you.

It hits you sharply that your beliefs about yourself, instilled by the callous teachings of your family, had bled through every aspect of your life. You already knew that, of course, but you never realized they had seeped into your intimacy as well.

Yet now you have proof of it, because you're sure John has not changed his tactics, it's you who's finally allowing your body to feel all this.

He twirls his tongue around your clit and you’re seeing stars. It’s such a strong sensation that you think you might have lost a marble or two in the process. Each grunt he emits from his lips vibrates through you and elicits similar sounds from your own mouth.

You’re not even looking at him, and you don’t care. It’s too good. He feels fucking heavenly and you’ll probably end up apologizing later for not having included him more, for not having paid enough attention to him as you should’ve.

But now—fucking hell, now—there's only how his tongue toys with each and every nerve ending of your sodden cunt.

You let him manhandle you, then, like he did so many times in the past. But now he positions you in an unflattering angle you would've never allowed before. He sits up on his knees, carrying your pelvis with him, close to his face.

To help yourself up, you place your hands on your haunches, propping your elbows on the floor. The tiles press harshly against the bone, much like they did on your knees when you’d knocked them down to suck him off not even twenty minutes prior, but now that pain feels so fickle compared to the pleasure he’s giving you.

He locks his arms around your lower belly, soft thighs pressed to his ears, and he dives in again.

Like this, you’re sure he can see every stupid, unflattering thing about you. But there’s the catch—it’s stupid. You’re sure you’re going to rethink all this eventually, but now everything that isn’t John and his lips on you is so unbelievably, fucking stupid.

“Taste like honey, y’ do.” You think you hear him say, as he nuzzles your cunt for all it’s worth.

He delves his tongue into your hole, plunging as deep as he can until he’s nosing your clit too. Facial hair scrapes the inside of your thigh raw, but that only enhances the opposite bliss happening thanks to his mouth.

You whimper, but not for show; it feels criminally good, and John knows it's real because your thighs shake so fiercely his vision goes wobbly too.

He chuckles, but it’s not derisive. His eyes are incensed, the light blue barely a rim around enlarged pupils. He looks in utter awe as he takes you in; face flushed, hair still wet from the rain and now from the sweat too. With an expression he's never once seen before, not on you. The sheer discomfort of the position but also the complete bliss that makes you forget you could have this on a more comfortable bed.

“Look at you—fucking beautiful." He murmurs with his lips to your cunt. "Criminal to hide this from me, love."

Your lips part into an oval, and your eyelids tremble, fighting the need to close your eyes and just feel. But he looks so unbelievably stunning you refuse, categorically, to take your eyes off of him.

And he apparently thinks the same, because his gaze never falters, not even when you tighten the grip your thighs have around his head. Nor does his tongue, as he plunges it again in your cunt, nose nudging your clit just right.

He might be fucking you with his mouth, but he sure is doing it with his eyes too.

And you’ve never felt so seen in your entire life. You’ve never felt so beautiful, so worthy, as right now. You wonder if he’s always been looking at you this way, but you were too lost in your own ways to notice.

You feel tears trickle down your temples again, mingling with your hair.

Jaw clenched tight, you breathe it out with all the strength you’ve got left in you.

“I love you.”

And John breaks into something different. You must have given him some final blow because his eyes shut closed and his brows knit together. An expression you've never seen, equally as pained as delighted.

He doesn’t answer, using his tongue for other purposes, keeping the stimulation both inside and out of you. Strong arms hold you still to his face, squeezing painfully tight around your hips. Thick palms flat against your lower belly, with his thumb tugging at your mons to unhood your puffy clit.

He goes on until you can’t hold yourself up anymore, arms giving out from under you. But he catches you anyway, hooking your legs better above his shoulders. The fact that your thighs are pressing against his ears gives you some sort of relief, knowing his hearing might have been muffled by your flesh.

So, you let go.

You moan loudly, fuck the neighbors, and whatever the world has to say. Fuck your head for sabotaging you, and taking you away from him.

You feel it build up slowly but suddenly; one moment it’s just fully encompassing pleasure, the next there’s a vine that stems from your ravaged cunt and curls around your belly, up to your neck.

Your throat blocks off, breathing shallow and sharp.

And then everything snaps.

John fights against the bucking of your hips just so he can keep his mouth on you and fuck you through it.

Your groan is so guttural you don't even think that was your voice. You don't even think, period. Your mind blacks out. A scorching heat develops from your sternum and coils around your chest like ivy in bloom.

You’ve had orgasms before thanks to his mouth, or his fingers, or his cock.

This, however, it’s so different you might consider yourself reborn.

It’s liberating. It’s new. It’s free and only, completely yours.

You don't even notice, as his tongue slows down, that your eyes are staring at nothing on the ceiling. That they fill with tears. And that you're crying.

You notice nothing, but just how good your body trembles, from the tips of your toes to the conscience in your head.

You don’t notice the sobs that leave your lips, as John gingerly places your body back down. Nor the way your chest heaves as if you’ve just learned how to use your lungs, while he hooks his arms behind your shoulders, and lifts you up to sit butt naked on the floor.

He holds you to his chest and you painfully sob against it. Not a thought about whether this is the right time to cry crosses your mind.

He cradles your cheek to his heart, while wet lips press against the crown of your head.

“Let go,” he murmurs, voice hoarse. “’M here, love. Let go.”

You cry so hard you think you might crack like porcelain on that floor. Your heaving sobs echo against the walls of the kitchen like the cries of a newborn child.

And John has no intention of letting you go through it alone. He is there with his hands, with his lips, with the strong, steady heartbeat against your ear until your wailing abates. Only then does he cup your cheek to lift your face.

You weep under your breath when you notice the bloodshot whites of his eyes and the clumped lashes. The dampness on his cheeks and the redness of the skin.

He smooths your hair back. Kisses your forehead with such intensity that he just might suck away the self-hatred your family has seeded in your brain with his lips.

He looks at you, then. Lips pursed in a tight line.

“You’ve never looked more beautiful than you do now, love.”

It’s inevitable the way your lips stretch in a smile that quivers and shakes in a breathless, wet chuckle.

You dig the heels of your hands in your eyes, sniffling painfully hard to get some air in your lungs. Your mouth is pasty and God, you must smell like proper shite.

But John leans down anyway and kisses your lips, uncaring of the salt of your tears, the snot, and the taste of you still lingering on his tongue.

And you kiss him back, this time threading your fingers through his hair, arms looped around his neck in an embrace you never want to break.

Noses flush against each other’s cheeks, lips parting only for you to take breaths because your nostrils are currently too stuffy for you to use them properly.

You sniffle and kiss and tug at his hair and hold him until you're both sated, but never enough. It won’t ever be enough.

A few beats of silence reign the kitchen as you sit on the floor, tangled in each other’s arms. The water in the pot must’ve boiled away, forgotten on the fire that still buzzes silently. John’s chest is your tiny alcove as you rest your head against it, and he holds you until your heart’s content.

Everything you’ve ever learned shakes before your eyes. Every thread that knitted the pattern carefully woven around you is slowly unraveling. The fabric wears down the more he shows you love without asking for anything in return.

He's making you regrow your limbs, returning the eyes they stole, allowing you to see that at the finish line, there's nothing but lies.

Nothing but missed calls, skipped appointments, and neglect. Honeyed words, saccharine pet names to render you soft as dough, willing to offer yourself to their exploitation. Sucking on every last drop of your sap, until only a hollow marionette is left.

John hasn't refilled you with energy; he made you realize you were never empty to begin with. Helped you see that they never smothered your fire to ashes, but only dimmed it to a flame, one you can rekindle easily.

One he cannot wait, for the life of him, to see ablaze again.

He’ll fight with you, give you the wood you need to keep yourself warm and your heart safe. Cut your strings once and for all, until you can get back on your feet again.

He thrives at the idea of seeing you glow like you did moments before, in your most raw and real form; a woman he's yet to meet.

However, being human, he does feel a temporary disappointment at the thought that you had put up such a blatant front for so long. Anger that he’d never noticed, thinking you were just this pliant little thing.

But he should've never thought of you as a thing. Never should've seen you as this obliging, pretty doll hanging from his lips. He should've dug deeper, like he always does even on the field, instead of falling for lies.

He’s often asked himself how you’ve never seemed to need anything, often pegging the behavior to self-sufficiency. You always took care of everything by yourself and promptly refused any aid when he tried to give it to you.

His mind reels with memories of the times he’s offered a helping hand, and you’ve politely declined it. It shatters him to think that you did it because you were afraid you had to give something back and maybe were too tired to offer anything.

It’s then that his mind deep dives into a place that sickens him.

How many times did you have sex with him and see it as a bargaining chip? Or as a way to repay him for something he’s done for you just because he loves you?

He shuts his eyes briefly, forcing the bile down his throat and deciding to dwell on the subject later. This moment comes first. You come first. So, he takes you in, blinking his eyes open once more.

He blindly reaches back to turn off the stove, before returning his arms around you. He brushes his lips to your temple, and your muscles soften under the way his breath tickles your skin.

You tilt your head back to lock your eyes with his own, gauging the earnestness swimming in his blues.

“I love you,” he breathes for the umpteenth time, that day.

No ventriloquist forces you to say it back. No strings move your arms to loop around his neck, as you lift yourself on your knees to be level with his eyes.

It's you, who rests your forehead on his own, brushing your nose to his in a butterfly kiss.

You feel like flesh and bone, more than polished wood tied to nylon strings. No voice box if not your vocal cords vibrating when you decide it, asking and giving all the same.

“I love you,” you whisper back.

There is no hunger for love, no finish line to reach. It’s not a race, not today.

And with John, you don’t think it’ll ever be again.

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bookwormjust · 3 months ago

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Shadows in the Sun (established relationship with Azriel, sunny day with the IC, Overprotective mate, teasing by Cass and Rhys)

It was the perfect summer day by the Sidra, the sky a brilliant blue with not a single cloud in sight. The Inner Circle had decided to spend the afternoon by the river, taking advantage of the warm weather. Feyre and Mor were lounging nearby, laughing and talking, while Cassian and Rhys splashed around in the water like a pair of overgrown children, their wings sending up waves as they wrestled with each other.

You were stretched out on a soft towel, basking in the warmth of the sun as the river's gentle breeze rustled through the trees. The heat on your skin was soothing, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you could fully relax. The sounds of your friends' laughter mixed with the rush of the water, creating a perfect atmosphere of peace.

But you knew peace wouldn’t last for long with Azriel around.

You sensed him before you saw him—the familiar whisper of shadows lingering in the air, brushing against your skin as if trying to warn you. A soft chuckle left your lips, knowing exactly what was about to happen.

Moments later, you felt a cool shadow fall over you, blocking the warmth of the sun. You opened your eyes, squinting slightly as Azriel stood over you, his wings stretched wide, casting a protective barrier between you and the sun’s rays.

"Azriel," you groaned with a laugh, playfully swatting at him, "I’m trying to tan."

He raised an eyebrow, his lips quirking in that way that made your heart flutter. "You’ve been in the sun long enough," he said, his voice calm but laced with that overprotective edge you knew so well. "You’ll burn."

Before you could protest, he knelt down beside you, the dampness from his swim causing droplets of water to fall onto your skin. His wings curled slightly around you, shielding you from the bright light. You could see his brothers behind him, still in the water, casting knowing glances your way.

Cassian yelled from the river, voice dripping with teasing, "Az, let her get some sun! Stop being a mother hen!"

Azriel ignored him, his attention completely on you as he reached for the bottle of sunscreen you’d left beside your towel. His gaze softened as he met your eyes, and without asking, he popped the cap open and poured some into his hands.

“You’re impossible,” you muttered, though you couldn’t help but smile.

Azriel’s lips twitched in amusement. “I’m taking care of you,” he replied, his tone leaving no room for argument.

He started with your shoulders, his touch firm but gentle as he massaged the sunscreen into your skin. The feeling of his hands on you, combined with the coolness of the lotion, sent a shiver down your spine despite the heat of the day. His fingers trailed over your arms, making sure not to miss a single spot, his eyes focused intently on his task.

“You’re overprotective, you know that?” you teased softly, your voice laced with affection.

Azriel’s wings shifted slightly, creating a cocoon of shade around you. His gaze flickered to your face, a small smirk playing on his lips. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I didn’t say that,” you said with a soft laugh, tilting your head back as he moved to rub sunscreen along your legs. “But you do know I’m capable of putting sunscreen on myself, right?”

Azriel’s smile widened, though his eyes were serious as they flicked up to meet yours. “I know. But I like taking care of you.” His fingers lingered a little longer than necessary, his touch filled with tenderness as he continued his task.

You couldn't help but melt under his care, your heart swelling at the softness in his voice. Even as a formidable warrior and shadowsinger, Azriel was always gentle with you, always showing his love in these small, protective ways.

Rhys called out from the water, clearly amused by the scene playing out in front of him. “Azriel, I think she’s good! You missed a spot on her elbow, though.”

You rolled your eyes, and Azriel shot his High Lord a half-hearted glare before returning his focus to you. Once he was satisfied with his work, he leaned back on his heels, his wings folding slightly but still providing you with shade. “You can tan later,” he said, his voice quieter now, softer. “I just don’t want you to burn.”

You reached out, resting your hand on his forearm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you,” you whispered, letting him know how much you appreciated his protectiveness, even if you didn’t always admit it out loud.

Azriel’s expression softened, his thumb brushing lightly over your hand before he leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. “Anything for you,” he murmured, his breath warm against your skin.

As he stood, you could see that familiar glint of mischief return to his eyes. “Now, stay here where it’s safe,” he teased, his wings flaring slightly as he turned back toward the river. “I’m going to deal with my brothers.”

With a wink, he stalked back toward the water, his shadows trailing behind him as he approached Cassian and Rhys, who were still laughing at his overprotectiveness. But from the look on Azriel’s face, you knew they’d be on the receiving end of his payback soon enough.

And as you lay back down, smiling to yourself, you knew that no matter how overprotective your mate could be, you wouldn’t trade him—or his giant, shade-casting wings—for anything in the world.

#azriel x female!reader #azriel x oc #acotar #azriel x you #azriel x reader #azriel x reader fluff #azriel fanfic #acotar reader imagine #acotar x reader

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cressidagrey · 3 months ago

Text

Stars all aligned - Chapter 16 (The End)

Summary:

If there was one thing that both Azriel and Zahra Archeron had in common, it was that they were both very good at blending into the background.

They just never thought that their family were going to be the ones who never saw them at all.

Warning:

Penultimate chapter! Bashing of like...every IC member, though we have now reached the point where Rhys and Cassian are the good guys, discussion of chronic pain, discussion of Infertility, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Underage Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Accidental Baby Procurement

If any of this triggers you or makes you uncomfortable, please, take care of your own mental health and don't read it.

(Lovely dividers thanks to @sweetmelodygraphics)

Which one of you blabbed? he seethed mentally to Rhys. Guess who came to a visit.

Azriel was seething with rage. He could sense Zahra's hurt, her anger, the emotional turmoil simmering beneath her calm exterior. She was protecting him, defending him, shielding him from her sisters...and it only fueled his anger further.

He wanted to step in, to shield her from everything, to protect her from the harm her sisters were capable of causing. But Zahra was standing tall, her gaze steady, as she faced her sisters. Let her have this moment, Rhys' voice whispered in his mind. Cassian and I are on our way.

"We don't want to take anything from you," Feyre broke the silence, her voice wavering. "That's not..."

But Zahra shook her head sharply. "No. It doesn't matter what you want," she said coldly. "What matters is what you have been doing. You have spent the last few years ignoring me. You have all but disowned me. You have constantly reminded me that Ia m nothing to you. The constant reminders that I am nothing to you. You have all but disowned me. And now, you come here and expect me to give everything up? For what? For you? For the family that never once treated me as one of them?"

The words hung heavy in the air. Zahra's voice was unwavering, her gaze unwavering. Azriel's chest ached with the need to protect her. His hands itched to shield her, to hold her, to comfort her. But he stayed back, his body rigid with restraint.

This…This she had to do on her own. He knew that she was strong enough for it. Zahra was so strong. So utterly strong. So resilient. She could do this on her own, she needed to proof to herself, that she could do this on her own.

Elain's eyes were watering, her hands clutching at the fabric of her dress. "I...I didn't know," she whispered.

Azriel really wondered what Elain was thinking to keep insisting on this. He didn’t believe for one moment that there hadn’t been signs. That Zahra had succeeded in hiding away every single bruise, every single injury so well that her sisters couldn't have noticed if they actually cared about.

Zahra snorted at that moment, the sound harsh. There was no true amusement in her voice as she answered: "Of course, you didn't," she said dryly. “I did everything so that you wouldn’t find out. I was willing to take that secret to the grave with me.“

“Why?” Nesta demanded

“Because I shouldn’t have to sacrifice myself to make you act like you care,” Zahra snapped.

It was so obvious from her tone…the pain, the anger…a wound that had cut deep, that had never healed.

Zahra stepped towards her sisters, her eyes burning with a fire that Azriel had never seen before. "You never once asked," she said, her voice rising. "You never once tried to even act like you cared about me. You buried your heads in the sand while I went through hell alon.."

Her words echoed in the silence that followed, the weight of her pain and her anger palpable in the air. Elain was openly crying now, soft sobs escaping her. Feyre was pale, her hands trembling. But Zahra's gaze was fixed on Nesta, a glare laced with bitterness and anger.

"You have absolutely no idea what I went through," Zahra continued, turning her gaze upon Nesta. "The pain, the shame, the humiliation. You never once even wondered why I should have an affair with him. Instead you made fun of me. Instead you treated me even worse. You never once wondered where I got the money from. You should have known that Feyre’s hunting wasn’t enough to sustain us! If I didn’t do what I had to, we would have all starved!“

Azriel's heart ached with each word that came out of Zahra's mouth. The pain, the anger, the years of pent up emotion was finally coming out, the dam broken.

She was not holding back, her words sharp and scathing, aimed directly at her sisters. The air was thick with tension, the silence broken only by Elain's soft sobs.

Nesta's mouth had dropped open, her eyes wide with shock. "You...you did that for us?"

Zahra laughed bitterly. "Who else, Nesta? Who else would it have been for? I did what I had to do to keep the rest of you alive."

Elain's sobs had escalated to loud, hitching gasps. Feyre's face was ghost-white, her hands twisted together in a white-knuckled grip. But Nesta looked as if Zahra had slapped her, the words a blow to her very core.

“Even when you never treated me like your sister, you are mine.”

Everything wrapped up neatly in one single sentence. It was a death knell.

A killing blow.

And he loved her all the more for it. He couldn’t help but marvel at the strength she possessed. She was the strongest, bravest person he had ever met, and the knowledge that he was hers filled him with a sense of possessive pride.

Elain was openly weeping now, tears streaming down her face. Feyre was silent, her eyes wide, her hands clutched to her chest. But Nesta's face was a mask of shock, pain, and shame.

"I did it all for you," Zahra continued, her voice cracking slightly, "and yet, not once did you show me a shred of care. You never once even asked if I was alright."

Her words echoed in the silence, the truth of them hanging in the air like a thick, suffocating fog. The pain, the loneliness, the rejection. It was all there, laid bare for her sisters to see. And it was clear from their stunned, guilty faces that they were seeing it all for the first time.

No one spoke. No one moved. The only sounds were Elain's sobs and Zahra’s ragged breaths. Azriel wanted so badly to cross the room, to hold her in his arms, to take away the pain he knew was coursing through her.

So he did.

Just in time to feel more than hear the arrival of Cassian and Rhys.

Azriel's eyes met Cassian's, and he saw the surprise and concern written on his brother's face. Rhys' expression mirrored the same emotions, his eyes darting between his mate and Zahra.

Azriel pulled Zahra against him, wrapping her in a tight embrace, shielding her from her sisters' gazes. He could feel the tremors running through her body, the aftershocks of the emotional storm she had just weathered.

“I thought I told you to leave her be,” Rhys said, his voice even.

Azriel didn't loosen his hold on Zahra, his arms still tight around her. He felt her sag against him, weary and emotionally drained.

“We just wanted…” Feyre protested weakly. “We were worried."

“Zahra was with Azriel. What was there to be worried about?” Cassian said drily.

“She’s our sister,” Elain burst out, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “We were just worried for her.”

Azriel’s jaw clenched. Worried for her, now? After all these years? It was too little, too late.

"Now you're worried," he growled, his voice a low rumble. "And where was this worry all those years when she was suffering?"

“Az…” Zahra murmured, her voice soft and broken and he pressed a kiss against his wife’s head

Azriel's anger faded slightly at the sound of her voice. The vulnerability, the sheer rawness of emotion in her words made his heart ache. He held her tighter, his eyes still fixed on her sisters.

“I said it before and I’ll say it again,” Rhys said sharply. “She doesn’t owe you anything and respecting her choices is the least you can give her, if you ever want her to actually talk to you again. If you truly, actually want to try and make amends.”

Elain and Feyre looked stricken, their eyes filled with guilt and remorse. Even Nesta was looking at Zahra, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“But we…we never meant...” Feyre started, only to falter under Rhys’ glare.

“You never meant?” Rhys repeated, his voice hard. “You never meant to hurt her? You never meant to ignore her existence, to never once show any care for her? You didn’t meant to disrespect her choices? Again? For cauldron’s sake, Feyre!”

Zahra flinched at Rhys’ raise voice.

She’s waking, the shadows whispered at that moment.

Given her an out that she needed desperately.

“Go take care of Azalea,” he whispered in Zahra’s ear. He could nearly feel some imperceptive tension in her frame ease at the sound of their daughter’s name.

She nodded, giving him a quick squeeze before gently slipping from his embrace.

The tension in the room felt like a physical weight, the air thick with it.

Azriel couldn't help but watch as his wife walked out of the living room, the door of their bedroom closing behind her.

Silence descended again after she left, the room seeming suddenly empty without her. Azriel turned his attention back to her sisters, meeting their gazes with a cold glare. His gaze lingered on Nesta. The oldest sister, the one who should have protected Zahra, the one who should have seen and understood her struggles. Instead, she had been the most hurtful, the most dismissive.

“How could you?” he said finally, his voice a low rumble, “How could you just ignore her? Your sister? For two decades you just…you just acted like she didn’t exist. And she believed it. She believed she was nothing to you.”

Silence met his words, all three sisters looking guilty and distraught. Even Cassian was quiet, his face grave as he looked at the aftermath of Zahra's emotional upheaval.

Azriel wanted to shake them, to make them understand the depth of the pain they had caused, the damage they had done. He had seen it for himself, the way Zahra had believed she was nothing, the way she had resigned herself to a life of being invisible, of being nothing to her own family.

"How can you say you care for her now," he snarled, his voice sharp, "after you let her suffer alone for so long? How can you pretend that your worry means anything to her after all these years?"

Elain was still crying openly, her hands clutched to her chest. Feyre looked like she was struggling to hold back her tears. But it was Nesta who finally spoke, her voice quiet but intense with emotion.

"We…we never knew…" she whispered. "We should have seen it…should have asked her, should have realized what she was going through…"

Azriel's anger flared again. "You should have," he agreed. "You should have cared enough to ask, to notice, to remember that she was your sister. But you didn’t. You just ignored her, left her alone, abandoned her."

He sighed, the anger embering in his gut.

“And you know what’s the worst part?” he asked Nesta sharply. “She’ll forgive you. One day, she will forgive you, because you are her sisters. Because she loves you more than you ever deserved her to. Because she’s good right to the bone. And I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure that people don’t take advantage of that part of her,” Azriel said sharply.

The sisters flinched at his words, the truth of them a blow. Feyre looked at him, her eyes pleading, her face wet with tears. Azriel held her gaze, his expression stern.

He knew that Zahra would forgive them one day. He knew that because he knew her heart. And that was what angered him the most. They didn’t deserve her forgiveness, they didn’t deserve her love.

But he also knew that Zahra's forgiveness would not come easily. It would not come without effort, without remorse, without proof that they truly regretted their actions. And even then, he knew it might never truly heal the wounds they had inflicted.

"Zahra will forgive you," he said coolly, "because she is good and kind. But do not take her forgiveness for granted. Do not presume that she will give it without you earning it."

Nesta nodded, her face white, her gaze fixed on the floor. Azriel could see the guilt, the pain etched into her features. But he knew that it was not enough. Not yet.

"It will take time," he said quietly, "and effort. And you will have to prove, again and again, that you understand the depth of your actions, the harm you caused. And even then, it might not be enough. Because she is my wife now, and she and our daughter are my first priority."

“”From where exactly do you have a daughter?” Feyre blurted out. “She wasn’t…Zahra wasn’t pregnant, was she?”

“The shadows kidnapped her,” he said drily. “They have moral issues with keeping babies in dungeons.”

Feyre's eyes widened, her mouth dropping in shock. Elain gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Even Nesta looked taken aback.

He couldn't help but feel a small pang of satisfaction at their dumbfounded expressions.

***

Zahra had retreated to the safety of the small bedroom, the door tightly shut behind her. The pain, the anger, the years of pent up emotions had all come bursting out in a wave that had left her trembling.

She laid down on the bed, burying her face into the pillow. The sobs came again, a shuddering, bone-deep release of emotion.

Her mind replayed the words she had said, the emotions that had spilled out, the hurt and the pain laced through her voice. It had needed to be said, the truth needed to be laid out. But the aftermath was…messy. The look on her sisters' faces, the shocked expressions…

She couldn't bear to think about it, not right now. All she could do was sob, sobbing into the pillow, her body shaking with the force of her emotions.

A soft coo next to her, and she looked up to find Azalea sleepily reaching out for her.

The sight of her baby girl made her throat constrict. Azalea was blinking up at her, her little hand reaching out for her. The sound of her soft coo only fueled the emotions churning in Zahra's chest.

She reached out, picking up their daughter and cradling her close against her chest. Azalea snuggled against her, her tiny body warm and familiar.

Azalea never screamed. Or cried. Or demanded attention unless she could see them… then she sometimes gave a questioning soft coo, wanting them to interact with her.

Zahra found comfort in the familiarity of her daughter's presence. Azalea was quiet, always quiet, yet always observing, always needing to be part of the action.

She held her tight, her cheek pressed against the soft, downy hair. Azalea cooed again, her hand coming up to pat Zahra's face, almost as if she knew her mother needed comfort.

The tears continued to fall, sliding down Zahra's cheeks and disappearing into Azalea's hair. The pain and the hurt still burned deep, but holding her daughter helped blunt the raw edges.

She sat there, rocking back and forth gently, her eyes closed, focusing on the weight and warmth of her daughter in her arms, the steady rhythm of Azalea's breathing. Slowly, slowly, her sobs quieted, her racing heart slowing down its panicked pace.

“Come on, let’s go see Daddy.” She said softly.

Azalea cooed in response, her big, innocent eyes looking up at her. Zahra couldn’t help but smile, as she lifted her in her arms, settling her against her hip.

She stood up, holding Azalea close against her, and made her way towards the door. The silence in the rest of the house was stifling, as if the whole building was holding its breath. Zahra paused outside the door, her heart pounding.

What was happening out there? What were her sisters thinking? What was Azriel thinking?

She took a deep breath, steeling herself, and pushed open the door.

The battle lines had clearly been drawn.

Azriel was standing by the kitchen, his back to the door. His shoulders were tense, his hands clenched into fists. Her sisters were on the other side…Cassian and Rhys right there in the middle, clearly ready to throw themselves in the fray if something did happen.

The silence seemed thick enough to cut with a knife.

Zahra stepped into the room, her heart in her throat. All eyes turned to her, Azriel the first to turn around. His face softened as he took in her appearance - Azalea in her arms, her eyes red and puffy, her face streaked with dried tear tracks.

He held out his hand for her and she fitted herself against his side. His eyes were soft, full of concern and love, but there was a hardness to his features, a flicker in his gaze. He reached out to brush his knuckles over her cheek.

“Are you alright?” he murmured, his voice low. His hand moved to the baby in her arms, gently touching Azalea’s soft hair.

“I will be,” she whispered, looking up at him. The warmth of his touch, the understanding in his eyes eased some of the remaining pain, some of the hurt. “I just...I needed to hold her for a bit.”

Azriel nodded, his eyes lingering on her face for a moment longer before turning to her sisters and the High Lord and Cassian. His expression hardened, his protective instincts clearly flaring at the thought of what they had done to her.

They remained silent, their gazes shifting between her and Azriel. It was Feyre who finally spoke, her voice hesitant.

“Zahra...we -”

“Don’t,” Zahra interrupted, her voice weary but firm. She didn’t want to hear their apologies, not yet. She couldn’t stomach that. Not right now.

Azriel’s arm slipped around her waist, supporting her.

“I’ll need time,” Zahra said weakly.

“And you’ll have it,” Azriel said firmly, his arm tightening around her. He met the gazes of her sisters, his eyes hard as steel. “As much time as you need.”

”I am so sorry,” Feyre breathed, her eyes fixed on Azalea.

Zahra couldn’t help herself as she pulled her daughter nearer to herself.

Azriel tensed beside her, his arm around her waist like a vise. The sight of her sister’s apology, the look on her face...it was too much, too soon. Zahra took a ragged breath, trying to calm the rush of emotions in her chest.

“I need time,” she repeated, somehow managing to keep her voice from shaking too badly. “I - I just...I need time.”

Feyre nodded, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I understand,” she choked out. “I just...I never wanted to hurt you, but I did and I…”

Zahra felt Azriel's grip on her tighten, his body rigid with barely controlled anger.

She placed a hand on his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart under her palm. “It’s alright,” she repeated, more for his benefit than her sisters’.

She couldn’t look at Feyre anymore, the sight of her tears making her own heart ache. She turned her gaze to the other two, her eyes locking with Nesta and Elain.

They were watching her silently, a mix of guilty sorrow and regret on their faces. Elain’s usually soft features were pinched with shame, Nesta’s cold expression betraying a hint of remorse.

And they were staring at her baby. “What’s…what’s her name?” Nesta asked, her voice shaky.

“Azalea,” Azriel answered, his voice hard. Zahra felt a flicker of satisfaction at his cold tone. He wasn’t going to forgive them easily, not after witnessing the pain they had caused her.

Elain looked stricken, her eyes wide. “She’s beautiful,” she whispered. Nesta simply nodded, her eyes glued to the baby.

Zahra felt a small pang in her heart at Elain’s words. She knew the compliment was sincere, but there was also a pang of hurt, a reminder of the years of silence, the years of being ignored.

She pulled Azalea closer, her grip instinctive and protective.

Azriel’s hand was rubbing circles on her hip, grounding her, reassuring her.

“Thank you,” Zahra brought out.

“She looks like Azriel,” Nesta said suddenly.

“She is biologically his niece,“ Cassian said flatly. “But she is Azriel’s and Zahra’s daughter.”

There was a moment of silence, the statement echoing through the room. Azriel’s breath hitched beside her, his grip on her hip tightening for a moment. The implications of the words hung in the air, a stark reminder of the unconventional ways in which Azalea had come to be.

Zahra, however, felt a strange sense of calm. The words were merely stating a fact, a truth that could not be denied. “She’s ours,” she agreed with Cassian, sticking out her chin, daring her sisters to say something. But they didn’t.

Nesta swallowed. “Congratulations,” she said softly, much to Zahra’s shock. “She’s adorable.”

Zahra blinked, surprised at the unexpected well wish. The words seemed almost genuine.

“Thank you,” Zahra murmured, her voice soft. Azriel’s hand tensed on her hip again, his protectiveness on full display. Zahra could see the muscles in his jaw clenching, his eyes flicking between her sisters and their daughter.

The room was filled with a strange sort of tension. She should have known that it was gonna be Cassian that had absolutely no problem with breaking it with a bright grin, waggling his fingers in Azalea's direction who immediately reached out for him.

“She likes me,” the general chuckled, his usual easy smile plastered on his face. "I am clearly the favourite uncle."

Rhys rolled his eyes, the tension breaking somewhat. “She just want to grab your fingers, you oaf.”

“Nah, she’s smart, she knows who the cool uncle is,” Cassian retorted, reaching out to hold Azalea’s little hands in his bigger ones. Azalea cooed, grabbing hold of his fingers with a serious expression, her tiny hands looking laughably small in his grasp.

Azriel rolled his eyes but the tension in his shoulders relaxed a little, his gaze fixed on their daughter. It was hard, even for him, to stay completely serious and protective when the Lord of Bloodshed was making funny faces at Azalea and she was giggling like a little maniac.

Zahra couldn’t help but smile at the scene, the tension in the room slowly easing.

Azalea’s giggle was like a ray of sunshine, bright and pure. She was usually quite reserved, her emotions more often than not kept hidden, but she was clearly enjoying the attention.

Cassian, meanwhile, couldn’t resist the temptation to start pretending he was eating her fingers, making exaggerated ‘nom nom’ sounds and grinning widely when Azalea shrieked with delight.

Even Azriel couldn’t help but smile at the sight, the corner of his lips curving up. It was impossible not to be charmed by Azalea’s infectious happiness.

Feyre chuckled, her earlier tears wiped away now. Even Rhys and Nesta looked less tense, their gazes on Azalea as she continued to pull on Cassian’s fingers.

There was a part of Zahra that wanted to hold on to the good moment, to bask in the relief provided by Azalea’s laughter and Cassian’s antics. But the elephant in the room was still there…

She knew there was more that needed to be said, more that needed to be discussed. The pain, the hurt, the years of silent isolation… She couldn’t simply ignore it all now just because Azalea was being cute.

Despite this, she didn’t know how to start, how to voice her hurt without the pain and the anger taking over again.

Azriel seemed to sense her turmoil, his hand on her hip moving to the small of her back, gently rubbing soothing circles.

“We need to talk,” she said, her voice steeling. "We will talk. Soon. But not now. When I am ready. And not when you decided that you need to apologise because you feel bad."

Her sisters nodded, their expressions solemn. It was Feyre who spoke up, her eyes wide and sincere.

“Of course,” she said, her voice low. “We will wait until you’re ready, just… just know that we do want to change, to fix things…”

Nesta and Elain nodded silently, their gazes fixed on Azalea who was still grabbing at Cassian's fingers.

Azriel’s hand on her back began to rub soothing circles again, his silent support grounding her. She took comfort in his presence, in the knowledge that he was right behind her, ready to back her up.

“We understand,” Nesta spoke up suddenly, her voice more firm than it had been before. “We will be patient. We will wait.”

Even Elain, who was usually the more soft-spoken sister, nodded emphatically.

Azriel's hand on her back tensed, but he remained silent. His whole body was taut with suppressed anger and the need to protect, but he held himself in check, letting her handle the conversation.

“Thank you,” Zahra said quietly, her voice a little stronger now.

Feyre smiled softly, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “We won’t try to make excuses or to justify our actions,” she said, her words firm like a promise. “We messed up, we own that. We’ll wait until you’re ready and then we’ll listen. No interruptions, no excuses, no defenses.”

Zahra would believe that when she experienced it.

Azriel's hand on her back continued rubbing soothing circles, as if sensing the scepticism in her mind. He was still wary of her sisters, unwilling to trust their word so easily.

But he was also willing to take her lead on this.

Azriel was many things, but he respected boundaries and choices. He would always give her the space and the time she needed to deal with things her own way, while still being a steadying presence, a quiet strength by her side.

Despite his reservations, he was trying hard to keep his own anger and opinions to himself. But she knew him well enough to sense the tension in his body, the way his muscles kept clenching and unclenching, evidence of the restraint it was taking him to keep quiet.

The others in the room likely noticed it as well. Nesta and Elain were both discreetly watching him, their expressions wary. Even Cassian, who was usually oblivious to these things, was stealing quick glances in his direction.

“Just… just give me some time,” she said quietly, her eyes flickering to each of her sisters in turn. They all nodded, their faces solemn.

Cassian was the next to speak, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "Take as much time as you need, Zahra.”

It was strange, hearing a tone from the usually brash and boisterous general she hadn’t thought him capable of. But his words were genuine, his expression sincere. And coming from Cassian, saying that was just one more reminder of how much her relationship with her sisters had been damaged.

Azriel's hand on her back squeezed briefly, a silent signal of his agreement.

The others remained quiet, their gazes flickering between her and Azriel. It was a strange dance they were all doing, a careful balancing act of emotions and words left unsaid.

But it was something. Something closer to peace than she ever thought she would have.

"Whatever you need," Rhysand promised, fiercely. The High Lord’s voice was firm and unwavering, the power evident in his words.

Zahra could sense the sincerity in them, the genuine regret and determination. It wasn’t enough yet, not nearly enough after all that had happened, but it was a start.

It was something.

The support from her sisters, the promises from Rhysand and Cassian…

They were something. A foundation to start rebuilding on.

The road to forgiveness would be long and rocky, she was sure of that.

Azriel's hand on her back squeezed again, silently reassuring her.

Her eyes met his for a brief moment, the look in them speaking more than any words could.

In the warm, deep hazel of his eyes she saw worry, determination, a hint of anger and a lot of love. She saw acceptance and support, understanding and patience.

And she knew that no matter what she decided, no matter how long it took her, he would be there with her. Always.

***

Notes:

I could probably write another 16 chapters in this story, but I do feel like right now it's an alright space to stop. A bit of an open ending, with a kinda hopeful look in the future.

#acotar fanfiction #azriel x oc #azriel x reader #azriel fanfiction #azriel fanfic #Azriel x Archeron!Reader #Stars all aligned

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