#if any of that was explained somewhere. i apologize

[thewritetofreespeech]

First Bite

summary: after the incident at the brothel, Aegon sends his brother a gift to make amends. but who would want an apple after someone has already taken a bite?

tags: aemondxf!reader, fingering, hand job, m!oral, virgin bedding, brothel worker, aemond being kind of a bully but it's just aemond really, references to madam sylvi, mild references to voyeurism.

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You weren’t sure what you were supposed to be doing. Should you lay down? Sit alluringly amongst the furs? Should you be sitting at all?

It was your first time doing this, which seemed unbelievable for a woman who worked in a brothel. But everyone had to start somewhere, right? It had to be the first time some time. Yours was supposed to be some weeks from now. Madam Sylvi selecting your maiden bid date and starting to pass the word around to her most loyal, valued customers that you would be on the docket soon. The chatter was quite electric. Maiden bids, to be a lady’s first time, were highly sought after. Even in brothels. It had been sometime since the Madam had had one for a new girl; or a girl that was untouched.

Yet, despite the anticipation, the Madam appeared in your room one night and let you know that your services were needed. Next thing you knew you had been dressed in some of your finest attire and whisked away into the night for parts unknown. Coming to realize after your blindfold was removed that you were in the palace.

In the quiet dark you sit patiently. Picking at the sheer fabric of your dress. An odd whisper of cloth that covered yet left nearly all revealed. It was meant to be enticing and did nothing for the chill in the air. Perhaps you could wrap yourself in a blanket quickly. You could look alluring in a blanket, right? Surely blue skin was not appealing at all.

Suddenly, the doors open. The loud bang of the heavy wood startling you as your pulse quickened. The rush of adrenaline warming you up quickly.

A man came into the room as the doors closed behind him. His pace slowing as his gaze landed on you, the stranger in his bed. “How are you?”

“I…I uh…” You forget your own name for a moment as you stare back at the hard, fierce looking face of Aemond Targaryen. You recognize him from his visits to the Madam. Suddenly recognizing the gravity of the situation of her sending you here and what personal request might have had you brought to him.

Quickly, you remember your name and give it to him. Along with a note the Madam had given you before your departure.

The prince studied you for a moment with his single sharp eye, before he stepped forward quick to snatch the note from your hand and read it. “A gift from my brother.” He summarized with a sneer. “An apology. He sent you to me?”

“I…I don’t know…” Truly, you did not know until this moment under what circumstances brought  you here.

There was a sharp, quick sound of heavy boots across the floor, and suddenly your face was in Aemond’s large hand. Gripping it hard as he turned it up towards him. “And I am supposed to be impressed with this? Thrown his scraps and say thank you.” His fingers dig into your cheek hard enough to cause tears to prick at your eyes. “Who would want an apple after someone has already taken a bite?”

“N-No on has taken a bite, your grace.” Your words are muddled through the forced pucker of your lips, but the prince seemed to understand enough to let you go. You look up at him cautiously before explaining further. “Madam Sylvi selected me specifically for that reason, your grace.”

Aemond examined you again. Seeming to look for any hesitation or tick of a lie. “She did, did she?” You nod your head fervently. “And no one has touched you?” You shook your head.

He examined you again. This time more than just your face as he looked you up and down. His face was placid. His expression hard to read as you were taught because he barely had any. “Alright.” He finally said. “Turn around.”

You blink in confusion but then slowly turn your back on the prince. You stare at the intricate design of the headboard in the dark as you hear the rustle of clothing & buckles behind you. The bed shifts. You force yourself to stay put and cautiously to look over your shoulder to see what was going on. Stiff and frightened, as if looking back might turn you into a stone.

It does not, however, and the prince is now sitting beside you in the bed. His back against the headboard and pillows. His eye patch gone to reveal his sapphire catching the low light in the dark. Naked. “You are untouched but not untrained, I take it?” You nod again slowly. “Well then, get to work.”

You gulp softly and slowly crawl over to the prince’s side of the bed. Aemond was correct. You were untouched but not untrained. Madam Sylvi would not send her girls out into the world unprepared. Their safety and her reputation depended on client satisfaction. You had been trained in all manner of ways to please a man. Conversation, music, and of course your body. Every man is different, she told you once, what they need can change as quick as the wind blows. You must be prepared, she said.

As you get closer, the prince parted his legs, and you can tell what he needs now. Carefully you reach out to grasp him. Shy and tentative. His cock was limp but stirring at the touch of your hand. It was warmer than the marble phalluses you had to practice on. More malleable too. “You really are untouched, aren’t you?”

You turn to look at the prince at his question, that was not really a question, and blush in shame. “Am I…not doing it right?”

“No.” Disappointment filled you at his harsh criticism. “Your hand is clumsy, and too soft.” The prince sighed through his nose and pushed his hair back. “Try your mouth.”

Your blush deepened and eyes went a little wide at the blunt request. But you had been trained for this. You should feel lucky that he even asked instead of just shoving your head down there like some clients did with the girls.

Grasping the partially aroused shaft at the base you adjusted yourself down until you were eye to eye with it. The first cock you would have in your mouth. You gulp again and carefully flick out your tongue to lick the tip. Nothing happened. You do it again and again, nothing changes. So you wrap your lips around it fully and give it a suckle.

“You’re clumsy at this too.” Aemond criticized again by the time you fit most of it in your mouth. “You probably can’t even take all of me. And you don’t even know what to do with your teeth.” You whimper pathetically. Feeling ashamed and embarrassed. “What manner of whore will you make if you can’t even do this?”

You pulled back from the prince’s member. All wet and breathy. Not nearly as demure as the other girls made it look. “Do you wish me to stop…your grace?”

He looked at you for a long moment. His head lulling to the side to look at you with his good eye. “I didn’t say that.”

There was a flutter in your chest and stomach. Something that shouldn’t be there for a woman whose manner of profession this is, but you couldn’t help it. You lower your mouth back down on his member and get to work again. “You need practice.” The prince told you. His hand reaching out to brush the hair from your face. Pushing it to the side so he could get a better view. “But you’re not…terrible.” The small hitch in his breath as he spoke filled you with glee. Almost as much as the praise.

Joining your hand with your mouth you continue to work over the prince’s cock. It was incredibly hard now. Much like the marble you had practiced with. You taste salt and musk on your tongue, which you have been told is a sign a man is near climax, and you weren’t sure what to do. Were you supposed to pull back? Just use your hand to keep going. Should you ask?

It was a moot point as not long after the hint of salt hit your tongue the full wave burst against it. Your mouth quickly overloaded with cock and cum. It caught you by surprise. You weren’t sure what to do, so you just swallowed.

“Did you swallow that?” The prince asked as you pulled away from his cock. Wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

“Well…it seemed rude to spit it out, your grace.” Aemond scoffed at your bashful honesty but smirked.

“Lie down.” You do as you are told, and the prince came over to your side of the bed now. Looming over you in the dark. “Spread your legs.” You do as you are told again. The sheer fabric of your dress falling between them before Aemond pushed it aside and exposed your apex. “Sylvi taught me a few things as well.” Your breath caught and back arched a little as his fingers brushed against you. Soft at first. Then one long, thin digit sliding in.

“You really are untouched, aren’t you?” The prince seemed surprised as his finger worked inside you. “You can lie about your skills and be a poor actor, but you cannot lie about this.” You whine as another finger slid inside you to stretch.

“I…I wouldn’t lie your grace…”

Aemond scoffed. “Please. Your profession is lying.” You whimper and squirm as his thumb brushed against the bundle at the top of your sex. “But you cannot lie to me.”

His fingers continued to please you. The wet slick of your sex running out. Your breath quickening. Your nipples hard and pointed against the sheer fabric. You dare not look at the prince as your eyes twisted shut in pleasure. “Spread your legs wider.”

You force your eyes open. Looking at the prince and his hard body between your knees. The terrifying hard lines softening in your mind at the warm feelings swirling in your body to think of alabaster in the light. You shift your legs further apart and Aemond slid further into them. “Don’t be afraid.” He told you. You weren’t sure why. Maybe because so many people were afraid of him.

The head of his cock kiss your entrance, then pushed in past your opening. It hurt, but Madam Sylvi had prepared you for this. It hurt much less than you expected since Aemond had opened you; a blessing most women at their first did not receive. Still his member was much larger than his fingers and there was a burning stretch as he entered you fully.

“You’re a woman now.” The prince told you once he was fully seated in your cunny. “How does it feel?”

“G-Good…” Men liked to hear that it felt good.

“Liar.”

The prince pulled back and thrust into you. You yip at the pain of the movement, but it continues. A burning pain but not entirely unpleasant. The longer it goes on the less of the pain there was. You grip on to Aemond’s shoulder and try to roll your hips back against him. It was clumsy, like the rest of your practice, but he at least groans. “How does it feel now?”

“Good…” You weren’t lying this time or playing it up for his benefit. “Good your grace.”

“Good.”

He kissed you, which was not something you were supposed to do. Kissing was for lovers. Brothels were for sex. That was what you were told. But when a prince wants to kiss you, you have to abide, right? What the client wants after all….

You let go of Aemond lips with a moan as you felt his fingers on your nub again. “Have you ever cum before?”

“Y-Yes…mhm!” Part of your training was to be versed in your own pleasure. Though you were untouched there were other ways you could make money for the brothel. Self-pleasure shows were quite popular with some men. Eager to watch and pleasure themselves with their own hands.

“Has a man ever made you cum?”

“N-No.”

“Then I will be your first for that as well.”

His cock and fingers continue to ravage your sex. Overwhelming you with pleasure. Your writhe and buck against Aemond despite yourself. Awash in ecstasy before the seas finally crash on your body as you tremble violently. “My prince!”

There was a grunt from Aemond before his hips finally stopped. In your fog you feel something warm & wet spill out of you onto the fine bedding. His seed inside you. Would you get pregnant? You heard there were girls in the past who his brother had ruined this way. That they were carried off to parts unknown with their Waters. You were suddenly afraid. Would that happen to you?

“Do you know how you are getting back?” Aemond suddenly asked you.

Your thoughts return to the present and you realize that you are done. The prince sat with his legs off the side of the bed with his back partially towards you. His good eye on the opposite side.

You nod but realize he can’t see you. “Yes, your grace. I do.” There was a panel outside the hall you were to return to. Your escort was to be waiting there for you to take you back to the Streets of Silk and back home to Madam Sylvi.

The prince gave a grunt and sat there for a moment before he stood. “See to it that you are gone when I return.” He then walked naked into another room through another hidden panel, and you were alone again. The room suddenly felt colder than it had before all this.

Gathering yourself, you come off the bed with a little hop and wince at the pain between your legs. Nothing you couldn’t manage but noticeable. You then make your way back towards the secret panel, let yourself be blindfolded, and escorted home. When the blindfold was removed you were back in the warm low light of the brothel with the Madam standing there in front of you.

“How was it my dear?” She asked as she handed you a warm cup.

“It was…fine.” You tell her. Taking the cup and drinking it.

“Good girl. Discretion is the better part of our service.” She told you. “Now, drink your Tea and get a bath. You will have the morrow to rest and prepare. You will be on the docket come six suns pass.”

As you looked into your tea cup you now realized this was your life. Taking men into your service. Taking men into your body. You knew that before you came here but it all seemed so real now. You felt overwhelmed. You felt you might cry.

“Madam.”

The lady in question turned when a new man appearance in their enclave. Dressed as a pauper but doing a poor job of it. He handed the Madam a note and then left as quickly as he had appeared.

Madam Sylvi read the note, scoffed, and then seemed a little miffed as she turned to you. “Well, it seems your training was not all for naught.” She told you. “Prince Aemond has requested that you be his private paramour moving forward. How nice.”

“Private?”

“It means you will be the highest paid, least working woman in my employee, girl.” The Madam clipped and crumpled the note before throwing it into the fire. “Just don’t forget who got you here.” She then left with a flourish of her cloaks. Leaving you alone with your tea and a bath and presumably to get some rest.

You just stood there dumbfounded.

You were to be Aemond’s private paramour now? All of a sudden? The only one you knew him to frequent was the Madam herself, hence her ire. You grip your teacup and down the rest of it fully. While your stomach still had the nerve.

A tenday later you were dressed in another fine, sheer garment, waiting in a private room of the brothel when the prince arrived. “I’ve come to further your training.” He said as he took off his belt. “Let’s get started.”

[bloby-876]

This is actually so dialogue heavy be warned.

---

"Im leaving Camelot."

Arthur nearly chokes on his wine and Gwen openly gapes at him.

Merlin laughs lightly at the look on their faces and Gwen's heart melts just a bit because how long has it been since they truly spent a moment together?

He stood in front of their table and Arthur took a moment to look, really look, at Merlin. His eyes were dark and his shoulders were broader compared to when he first came to Camelot. His smile was something Arthur hardly got to see anymore. And as Arthur processed the weight of Merlin's words, a sick feeling of dread slowly began building up somewhere in his heart.

"What? How- What brought this on, Merlin?" Gwen spoke, her voice quivering slightly. Arthur knew that she was likely fiddling with a ring on her finger, a nervous habit she picked up from him.

"I-" Merlin hesitated. One of his hands grasped at his forearm nervously. He looked like he might tear up. "I don't know what to do with myself now."

He locked eyes with Arthur.

"Ever since I first came to Camelot, I've lived in constant paranoia. I could never fully trust any friends I made for fear of the pyre. And- and when you started changing into this-," Merlin gestured to Arthur, "-this selfless, kind, brave king- I did everything I could to protect that. When you started courting Gwen, I did all that I could because I wanted you two be happy. It changed me, Arthur."

They knew about Merlin's magic but he had never truly told them about what Merlin had gone through throughout the years. They were stuck feeling helpless as the light slowly drained from his eyes, doing whatever they could but it never felt like enough.

He went on explaining.

"I turned into a weapon. My hands are stained with the blood of hundreds and yet it never mattered to me as long as you were both safe. But- when you stopped needing me?" Tears were flowing down his pale cheeks as he wiped them helplessly. Gwen got up immediately, rushing to wipe at them with a handkerchief. Arthur was right behind her, a hand on both gwen and Merlin's shoulders.

"I don't know what to do with myself. Gaius has a new physician's apprentice who's way better at medicine than I am, you and Arthur have George, Morgana is an excellent court sorceress, and I'm still here."

Arthur wanted to interrupt. It pained him, more than anything, to hear Merlin talk like that about himself. Like there was no worth in him other than how well he could serve others.

Gwen cried quietly. She had been so busy with learning the inner workings of court life that she missed how her best friend has been feeling.

"Merlin-"

"I need to find myself Arthur, Gwen. And- I can't do that here anymore." He looked so pained as he spoke. Gwen knew how selfish of her it would be to ask him to stay anyway but she wanted to, so badly. And she ached.

"..Okay," the king started, "if that is what you believe is best. But Merlin-"

"You will always, always have a place in Camelot. And I'm so sorry we ever made you feel like you didn't." Her voice came out strong, for she knew that Merlin needed something more, and neither the king nor queen could provide that anymore.

Arthur let his tears fall openly now, and he tightened his hold on them both, on his most precious people, the two who taught him to be better, to truly be a king. He loved them both so, so much. And his heart hurt with how badly he never wanted to let go.

And the three stayed there for a long while, weeping together. Eventually Merlin had to leave. Arthur resisted the urge to pull him back.

And Gwen couldn't see him off at the courtyard properly because she knew she would crack, beg him to stay, apologize a thousand times. And she didn't because she knew that Merlin would.

So when he left and long after they lost sight of his horse and lantern, they stayed by the window. Eventually, Gwen let out a sob and rushed into Arthur's arms. She mourned and cried and sobbed as loud as she needed and pretended like she couldn't feel a patch on her shoulder getting wet.

They fell asleep with heavy hearts and the knowledge of a ring on Arthur's desk that will never meet its intended hand, a third of a coin on a braided necklace that will never be accepted, a speech meticulously planned to ask him to stay with the two forever, to rule alongside them.

Perhaps a lot of things were left unsaid.

---

AAASJEHAIDBOS S

I read pt. 1 of @mysticsublimeperson's mergwenthur au a lonng time ago and this thing has been running around in my head ever since.

[honeydixonn]

Back to Friends, Myung-Gi

one, salesman

first chapter to my new squid game story on wattpad!

also will be giving chapter trailers for each weekly post

The bold negative number stared back at her, the phone's illumination reflecting off her face.  Her bank account was now negative two million won. The shock was evident on her face.

Nari couldn't believe she truly had no money left. The automatic payments of bills took a toll on her bank statements and she couldn't bear to check her credit score.

Tears sparked in her eyes and her breathing quickened. All of this pain and debt from someone who couldn't even tell her goodbye. After his disappearance, some people who were now broke from the Dalmation Crypto found her.

Nari couldn't understand how they knew of her relationship with Myung-Gi, but they knew and they came for her. The three men forced her to pay them the money they'd lost from following MG Coin. Every last won she had to her name was given up to them for months until she paid them back.

It was as if for the last six months she'd been working for them, to pay them. When she wasn't able to bring their money on time they'd threaten her until she gave them anything she saved for one meal.

Her life was rough and she couldn't handle it any longer. Nari was tired of paying debts that were never hers, living each day alone-- bouncing from home to home with whoever could take her in. Yet, if you were to ask her if she hated Myung-Gi for the pain he left her to deal with, you would hate the answer she gave.

Truth be told she still loved him, the last six months all she worried about was if he was sitting in an alleyway dead somewhere because they somehow found him. 

One last conversation was all she wanted. To have him explain it all and let him know it was okay. She'd forgiven him months ago, Nari just wanted him to come home.

Yet, there she sat... 83 million won in debt to the three men who seemed to know where she was every second of the day. So there she sat in the busy metro station where they couldn't hurt her even if they found her.

It was entirely too public for the men to try anything, she knew she was safe. Her finger pressed down tightly on the power button, the light leaving her face as she closed her eyes with her head tossed back against the wall.

The small chatter and rushed steps filled her ears until she heard the stop beside her. A finger poked her bare shoulder causing her eyes to open seeing a man with a warm smile dressed in a grey suit.

"Hello, miss. Could I speak with you?"  Nari's eyes glanced down seeing his briefcase, assuming he'd be trying to sell her something. "Oh, sir. I'm so sorry, but I don't have any money on me at the moment." Her eyes were sincere as she apologized.

Feeling troubled in the moment he seemed like a nice man. "Oh, I'm not selling anything, miss. I wanted to know if you'd like to enjoy a quick game of Ddakji with me." The man clicked open his briefcase and showed her the contents.

It contained two stacks of red and blue folded paper and multiple stacks of won. "I'm sure you've played before, right? If you haven't we could do a practice round." Nari's face scrunched at the words as a humorous scoff left her glossed lips.

"I'm fairly well at ddakji, sir." A toothy smile flashed her way as he plucked one color of each folded paper and held it out towards her.  "Play a few rounds of ddakji with me and each time you win, I will pay you 100,000 won." The salesman smirked as he saw her eyes brighten at the invitation.

He watched the way her eyes flickered between him and the money, how her lip was taken between her teeth as she traveled into thought.

He noticed the short black dress she wore that complimented her makeup well. If she wasn't a client he might've asked her to accompany him at dinner.

"So, you would pay me... to flip your ddakji?" He chuckled at her expression, pulling 10,000 won from the briefcase.

"Hard to believe, but yes. I'll even give you 10,000 won to start. Sound fair?" Nari nodded her head as she gently took the money from his hand, bowing her head in thanks as she put it in her hand wallet.

"Shall we?" The salesman stood, extending his callused hand out to her with a gentle smile.

She placed her hand on his standing from the bench as she straightened herself out. "How about you play first, darling? Pick the color you'd like." Nari took the blue ddakji from his hands and followed him a few steps away so they could play.

He studied the way her hips swayed at each step, the clacking of her heels echoed off the walls of the metro station into his ears.

He placed his ddakji on the ground backing up with his hands raised letting her know she was free to start. She let out a huff as she raised the ddakji before slamming it on top of his, quickly turning his over.

Claps came from him as she looked up with a smile. "Very, well." He reached into his pocket pulling out two 50,000 bills. "You've earned it." Nari took it gratefully placing it with the other bill he'd given her, the wallet no longer looking empty.

The salesman took his ddakji from the floor slamming it down with great power and turning hers over. "Oh." Her brows turned and her lips frowned as the excitement vanished from her.

"Do I give you the won back?" He noted the solemn looks dragging on her face before he explained the rules further. "Keep what you win. How about if I win, you pay with your body." Nari's eyes widened at him as she stepped back in disbelief.

"Excuse m-" Her words were lost in the air as her head was smacked to the side and a sting burned her cheek. "Sir..." Her eyes watered as she looked back at him in hurt.

The fun completely disappeared from her body.

"Sorry to shock you." Yet, the apology didn't seem as sincere as he wanted it to be. "This is how I play with everyone else I encounter." She nodded in understanding.

Her cheek stung, but she desperately needed more money so agreed to continue playing. As she went to pick her piece from the floor his hand stopped her.

"You are wearing a dress. I am still a gentleman, miss." She smiled with an ache of her cheek as the pain still littered. The games lasted until she'd come out with 510,000 won and a cheek three slaps redder than before.

The two sat on the bench as she organized the money in her wallet and tried to cover the redness of her cheek with makeup.

"You know, miss... There are other games quite like this where you could make even more money." Slowly turning her head to him she thought back to her situation, yet she didn't enjoy getting slapped.

"I'm not sure..." The salesman stood from his seat looking down at her with false sincereness in his eyes. "Miss. Ha. You are currently paying back debts that aren't yours. Your name is Ha Nari." Her eyes widened as his name was spoken from his lips.

Had they found her again?

Before she could speak he continued telling her information.

"You're twenty-seven years old. You studied at Ewha Womans University. You currently work at Jungsik Seoul as a hostess. You're paying back the debts of a few men who lost money from following MG Coin, a channel by a friend of yours. You work day to day to pay the men off with nothing left for you."

Nari shakily stood from the bench staring him in his eyes as she stepped back from his reach. "How do y- Who are you?" He smiled back at her as if the situation was humorous for him and reached into his chest pocket showing her a tan card embedded with black lettering.

"There are many spots left, but they will fill quickly. Think about it. Have a great night, Ha Nari." He took his briefcase from the floor and left before she could ask the many questions running through her head.

Her hand pressed against the soreness of her cheek turning the card over to see a triangle, square, and circle looping each other.

As she walked to the home she would stay at tonight, she thought back to the man with the briefcase and the card that sat in her wallet.

Nari pulled her dress down as the wind broke the warmth of her skin, the paranoia taking over as she continuously watched over her shoulders.

"I can't keep living like this." She pulled the small cellular device from her wallet, the wallpaper still being one of her and Myung-Gi causing her throat to close on her incoming breath.

"I'll help you, Myung-Gi." She quickly opened the dialing pad and turned the card over seeing the number printed on the back.

173-333.

The dialing tone rang in her ear as she placed the phone against her cheek. "Hello, who's calling?" A man's voice filled her ear, yet it wasn't the same as the salesman from earlier.

"Oh, is this the man from the metro?" She waited for an answer yet she was provided with instructions instead. "Do you wish to participate in the game? If you'd like to participate, please state your name and date of birth."

Nari took a sharp breath before clearing her throat. "Ha Nari, April 24th, 1993." She heard breathing on the other end of the phone as it filled the silence.

"Please meet at the time and location sent to your phone. Say the password at your arrival." Before she could say anything the line went empty and her phone buzzed as the message was sent.

She was meant to be at the location in twenty-five minutes and it was a twenty-minute walk. When she made it to the location a few minutes late a silver van pulled to the side of her.

Her arms were covered with goosebumps as the cold air blew around her frame. The window slowly rolled down to reveal a person in a dark pink suit and a weird mask.

"Ha Nari?" Her eyes laced with confusion, yet she still nodded her head in return. "Password?" Nari rubbed her arms to gain warmth as she stepped off of the curb towards the car.

"Um, Red Light, Green Light?" The click of the lock could be heard as the sliding door opened beside her.

The person no longer spoke as she stepped inside the vehicle and into the back away from him. "Is it a long drive?" However, her question went unanswered as white mist filled the air causing her to panic.

"Why? What's happening?" Her words grew groggy as the mist filled her lungs and her head lulled to the side of the window.

She should've never called the number.

[readyfreddy]

Pride night project update: Saturday, April 29th

I've put around two and a half months into this project, and I am beyond proud of the work that I've put into this. As of right now, I have not presented to anyone on the team. For this reason, I will be delaying posting my results, presentation, script, works cited, etc... I look forward to sharing a modified edition once I present and get confirmation (or a lack thereof) for my project.

In short, it's currently in limbo, and I have a lot of thoughts regarding it.

The team owners and management are currently discussing how they want to move forward with their "theme"(1) nights for the upcoming 2023-2024 season. If ownership decides to go forward (2), my manager and game day operations manager want me to present.

To be honest, it's frustrating. I've put 75 hours into this project, on top of work and school, for free. This is something that I'm genuinely passionate about, and as much as I would like to be paid for this, that is the least of my concerns.

One of the biggest risks that I've taken coming forward with this project has been indirectly coming out to many of the higher-ups of the organization (3). Although I have not experienced any discrimination regarding my identity, part of me fears that this may make things awkward in the future.

Not being out to my family also makes things awkward. They don't know about my project, how much I worked on it, and how proud I am of my efforts. I also can't reach out to relatives who work for other teams for connections with teams that had successful pride nights this past season.

I understand that many people think that "politics should stay out of hockey." The rights of millions worldwide shouldn't be politicized (although they are in many places), the rights and livelihood of the LGBTQ+ community are not political. Furthermore, I am aware that some countries have "anti-LGBT propaganda" laws; which include, but are not limited to displaying rainbow flags, and showing general support to the LGBTQIA2S+ community (4). I do not want to risk the safety of a player or their families. However, I do not tolerate homophobia and transphobia at the individual level (5).

My goal for this project is to help create a positive and meaningful pride night that promotes education, inclusivity, and representation of the queer community. I also want to show young fans (who may grow up queer) that they are welcome here and in hockey as a whole.

By showing younger fans that homophobia isn't tolerated at the professional levels, it will hopefully change hockey's homophobia problem from earlier stages of sport development to the top levels of the sport.

Once again, I am beyond grateful for everyone who has contributed. I could not have done it without you. I appreciate all the support that I've received over the past two and a half months. There is still a long way to go with this project, as well as tackling homophobia in hockey. I am always more than happy to discuss my project with those who want to learn more.

💛,

Kyle Carson 🏒🐴🏳️‍🌈

(he/they)

Footnotes:

(1): I understand that pride night is technically a theme night, it feels weird and mildly condescending to put it as "theme." Being LGBTQIA2+ is not a "theme."

(2): I have no idea what they mean by "go forward." They will be having theme nights regardless of what I do.

(3): I'm out to most of my coworkers, and I have had no issues. However, they are not the ones who sign my paychecks, decide who to bring back for the next season, etc. I hope that my project proposal will not impact future employment.

(4): This is a massive over-simplification of these laws. I do not understand the extent of these laws, and how they carry into other jurisdictions (such as an import player playing in North America).

(5): People may come from cultures and/or countries that are often viewed as "traditionally homophobic." People can also learn to be more accepting towards the LGBTQ community and are not constricted to their previous ways. I'm not asking for special treatment over others, I'm asking for equal treatment that I, as well as others, have not received in the past.

[yosh-iro]

wikihow to make people not hate you

[feyburner]

I ??? woke up at 3am with this scene fully written in my mind palace and quickly jotted it down in the Notes app

*

Clark’s shaking his head before he realizes he’s doing it, and feels a twinge of embarrassment at his own bad manners when Bruce stops mid-word to look at him, brows raised.

“No?” he says.

“No,” Clark says, again without thinking, and again with the reflexive urge to apologize. Somewhere his mother is tutting without knowing why. But he doesn’t apologize, because he’s already saying, “No, it can’t—it can’t be that.”

“Okay,” Bruce says slowly. “Can you elaborate?”

He is, honestly, having trouble taking his eyes off the screen. The mockup design of his new suit is there, dark and sleek, ridged like tactical gear. The blue is like the last shade of evening before you can’t call it evening anymore, the color of nine PM in Kansas in July, so exact there’s a strong chance Bruce color-picked it from a photo. The yellow accents are the cool fluorescent yellow-green of lightning bugs. The red is dark as arterial blood. Every aspect of the suit has been updated—the colors deeper, the angles sharper, the S extending to the corners of its frame—but Bruce has done it without changing the fundamentals. It’s immediately recognizable as the Superman suit, just… well, a little cooler, maybe. A little more of the times. Even the tailoring is modernized. The neckline. The shape of the boots. Where the belt hits at the waist. Clark can tell just by looking that Bruce has not only spent a lot of time on this in general, he’s spent a lot of time designing it specifically with Clark in mind, Clark’s needs and preferences and the small discomforts of his current suit, things he might have mentioned offhand after a mission but never with the assumption that Bruce was listening or filing it away. No doubt the next slides of this presentation will detail all the hidden features of the new suit, and they’ll all be incredibly thoughtful if not slightly overkill, and Bruce will pretend his sole motive here was practicality and risk reduction and respond to any thanks with a curt nod.

And Clark wants to thank him. He will. It’s just.

“It can’t be… cool,” he says, inane. Bruce is watching him with that steady look that used to feel clinical, piercing, and now mostly reads as attentive. “It can’t be—like yours. Tactical, military-grade.”

“Lightyears beyond, actually.”

“It has to—Ma said once, a kid should be able to draw it with crayons. You know? I can’t look like a weapon. I have to—I want to look like a friend.”

He can feel himself flushing. It’s rare that he speaks like this, and rarer still that he does so while being stared at intently. Bruce may think of himself as the darkness, but his gaze is a spotlight: unwavering and revealing and more a little sweat-inducing, for one reason or another.

“Sometimes, when I show up, people laugh,” Clark says. “If it’s somewhere out of the way, where they haven’t seen me before. I show up and I look like a festival performer. It’ll be the worst day of their lives, and they’ve got no reason to trust my face, but when they see what I’m wearing—it goes from ‘Who are you?’ to ‘Who is this guy?’ And that’s a good thing.”

“Hard to be afraid of a man dressed in primary colors,” Bruce says, almost to himself.

“Exactly.”

“I see. Thank you,” he says, “for explaining.”

Clark tries not to show how surprised he is to hear that. Judging by the crook of Bruce’s mouth, his success is negligible. “Of course. Sorry I didn’t—I mean, thank you, obviously, for going to such trouble. I didn’t mean to come in here and—I really do appreciate it, I can tell you put a lot of work in—”

Bruce’s eyes cut away. “No. No need. I didn’t ask, before I…. It was only a first draft. If you’re amenable, I’ll incorporate your feedback into the second one.”

“Oh! Yeah. Yes, of course, but you really don’t have to—”

“If you have any further notes, I would like to hear them.”

There’s something determined in the lines of his face. Clark has the sense that this moment is important, that it’s a turning point, even if he’s not sure why. It feels like striking out into a sea of ice, a blank white expanse under which something precious and vital is hidden, has been hidden all along, just waiting for him to find it. To want to.

“Sure,” he says. He looks back at the suit and swallows, and knows Bruce will see the flicker of his throat and take some meaning from it, and wishes he knew what the meaning was. Or maybe Bruce won’t notice or read into it at all. Maybe Clark needs to calm down, in fact. “Um. I don’t want to assume, but does it… do things?”

“It does things,” Bruce confirms, after the barest pause. “Let me show you the next slide.”

[nereidprinc3ss]

hourglass

in which spencer disappears from fem!reader's life entirely for three months, right as it seems they were finally about to make things official. when he comes back they reunite, all the while knowing things can't be the same as they were.

18+ (smut, angst) warnings/tags: oh god so many. NOT canon compliant in the slightest, i make shit up, softdom!spence, nipple stuff prob, fingering, oral f receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex, pet names, tara mentioned, depression, mentions of trauma cause its the prison arc duh, passing mentions of alcohol, mentions of spencer losing weight, reader mistakenly thinks spencer tried to kill himself BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND, where is diana reid, nobody knows or cares, probably filming glee, optimistic ending a/n: haven't posted smut in forever but this wip required it and the angst was so angsty i just had to finish it. it was started in jan or feb and subsequently added to and changed months apart and then edited so the writing quality varies from section to section which i apologize for. originally based on good guy by julia jacklin... also the odyssey by homer? can't really explain that one you'll just have to see for yourself anyway byeeee ilysm!!! PLS tell me if you liked it! or if you hated it! but preferably if you liked it! MWAH! wc <12k

It’s been about three months since you last saw Spencer Reid.

About three months since you had an early Valentine’s Day celebration (even though you weren’t a couple) complete with champagne (even though he doesn’t usually drink) and slow dancing (even though you swore you’d be terrible and he spent the first ten minutes laughing at you as you stepped on his toes.)

About three months since you finally settled your head on his shoulder and let the warbling vinyl carry you somewhere distant as the two of you danced slow circles on the parquet floor for what felt like hours.

You’d have liked him to stay later that night. You’d have liked him to stay all night if you were being honest with yourself, but at 11:45 he gently pulled away and told you he had to go.

“Curfew?” you joked, the corner of your mouth lifting a little and you hoped you were hiding your disappointment well.

“Actually, I’m going down to Texas for a few days to speak with one of the leading doctors in experimental Alzheimer's and dementia treatment. I’m going to see if he can get my mom into a clinical trial. I leave early tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Spencer! What are you doing still here? You should be at home getting ready to go!”

A rosy blush stains his cheeks and he looks down at the ground, laughing that little self-deprecating laugh of his. It makes your heart dance to see him so happy, makes you want to wrap your arms around him and never let him go so that he knows how much you absolutely adore him—but you settle for an affectionate squeeze where your hands have come to rest on his biceps.

“I wanted to see you tonight because I won’t be here for Valentine’s Day... but I still really wanted to spend it with you,” he admits meekly.

If before your heart was dancing, it is now melting.

The dreaded ‘what are we’ talk has been lurking in the dark corners of every conversation you have with each other lately—at least, in your mind it has. What you have with Spencer is not easily defined, and near impossible to explain to your friends—you act like a couple, you go out on dates, he introduces you to his team like you’re his girlfriend without ever putting it into so many words—but this validation that your pseudo-relationship might be evolving is better than any flowers he could have gotten you (although the peonies he brought will look very nice on your bedside table.)

“Four whole days... what will I do without you?” you whisper, brushing a hand along his face, and your chest aches with the heavy truth of it—despite the fact that he often is gone for stretches about that length. They don’t ever start to feel shorter.

“Well, you can start by reading that copy of The Odyssey I annotated for you.”

“Depressing,” you admit. “And a little ominous, considering you’re about to embark on a hero’s journey.”

“I think you’ll like this one,” he smiles.

You chew on your bottom lip, looking up at him as you think.

“Give me something to look forward to,” you say, earnestly.

“I—well, honestly, I just really want to kiss you and I’ve wanted to for a long time now and, you know, if that’s something you’re maybe also interested in then we could, uh, figure out a time to—”

“You want to kiss me?”

“Wh—you couldn’t tell?” Spencer says, like he can’t believe it.

As if on reflex, you lunge up and capture his lips with your own. It obviously catches him by surprise, but when you lower from your tiptoes he follows you, pulling you in closer and holding your face in his hands.

It’s too natural, too right, to be exhilarating. There’s no rush of adrenaline—it's more like stepping into a hot bath or warming your freezing hands at a fire. Like pieces clicking into place. It’s a relief.

You breathe into it, letting more and more of yourself melt against him. He keeps coming back to you deeper and deeper like a rising tide, and you want more than anything to keep getting closer to him—but then he stops. He stays close enough for you to breathe his air, but dodges your kiss gently before supplanting it with a gentle one to the corner of your mouth.

“I really have to go,” he breathes, before moving away from your mouth to kiss your forehead and speak softly against your skin. “If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all night.”

Which is exactly what you want, and the implication does little to make you want him less. But you care about him too much to be so selfish.

At some point, his hands found their way into your hair, and you gently grab his wrists.

“Incentive for you to come home.”

Nearly three months since that night.

At first when he stopped answering texts, you’d assumed he just had too much going on down in Texas. Which you could understand—you knew how stressful this situation with his mother was.

Even when four days came and went without even an alert from him that he was back in town, you thought, okay, maybe he’s been called away on a case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared because of his work. But even then, he’d at least text you enough information so that you would know he was alive. Now, radio silence.

So you tried not to be clingy. You tried to act like an adult, to focus on school and your life outside of Spencer, but when Tara Lewis cancelled your weekly meeting due to an “unforeseen work-related emergency”you called her immediately. Tara was something of a mentor, and it was she who had connected you and Spencer to begin with. You had met the other members of his team by that point, yes, but none who you knew as well as Tara.

When she had informed you that Spencer had been arrested in Mexico and was now facing prison time for murder, you laughed.

Laughed until you realized her end of the line was silent.

Realized it was not at all a joke.

In a catatonic state of tranquility, you asked her for more details. Beyond assuring you of his innocence, she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) provide them. Asked where he was now. Asked all the right things that made sense to ask.

Then you hung up and had a panic attack because Tara said something about 25 years and you saw Spencer evaporate from your future like an apparition.

Slowly, you felt him evaporating from your past, too. Those memories from the night he left, became visions of you swaying with a ghost. Holding nothing but light between your hands as you kissed the peony air of your apartment.

He doesn’t want to see you, she had said into the phone one night, her tinny voice cutting in and out. You’re not on his list of approved visitors.

“You asked him about me?” you had whispered, curled up on top of your made bed in the dark.

I tried. I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I know more.

All your days melded together like a muddied smear of paint. Suddenly you felt you had nothing to look forward to. No anchor, no goal. Yes, a PhD... and then what?

The only thing that punctuated one 24 hour period from the next was the time you spent crying because Spencer was in prison and he didn’t want to see you and by the looks of things you may never see him again. When you weren’t crying, you were thinking about how your life was a big cosmic joke. An unfortunate statistical anomaly that didn’t mean anything to anyone else, and that you couldn’t do anything about.

That copy of The Odyssey, which wasn’t even bound and instead was a thick stack of printer paper organized by a single black clip, became something of a manifesto for you—a tome that your poured over, reading and re-reading each note in the margins, each word beautiful and imbued with meaning because you knew Spencer had selected every single one specifically for you. You traced the letters reverently, because in a way this was the last thing he had said to you—about Lattimore’s faith to the original text, Merrill’s strict use of dactylic hexameter, the stylings of Wilson and Lombardo, and how he thought you would enjoy Hammond’s prose just as much as he did.

Day by day it was becoming more prophetic than fictional, and you allowed yourself to sink into madness. You would rather be a deluded zealot than be nothing at all.

He didn’t want to see you.

He might as well have been dead, for all that you were grieving him. And you started to hate him, because he wasn’t dead, but wouldn’t do you the kindness of proving it. Like a festering wound, scratched open day after day so as not to ever heal, you had to live knowing he was less than an hour away. So no, you weren’t exactly over it. You lived day by day, waiting for the occasional call from Tara to keep you updated on Spencer, but either she didn’t want to share much about how he was doing, or he had specifically barred her from doing so, because she was always sparse on the personal side of things. That thought actually lifted your spirits, because it meant he was at least acknowledging your existence in some tiny way.

But your routine was becoming more regular, and so you staid on top of your classes and your non-Reid related meetings with Tara once a week, and you learned to dip your toes into existential dread and the oily black pool of depression every night without ever fully submerging yourself. You learned hope, because it was pretty much all you had, and the BAU had confidence that they would get Spencer out one way or another so you did too.

So you didn’t really think about it when you missed a couple of calls from Tara some evening in May. You were preparing for finals and had way too much on your plate academically to think about anything else which was a welcome relief so you fully embraced it. I’ll call her back tomorrow, you think, as you clean up from dinner before going back to the living room where your textbooks and papers are completely covering every available surface. Maybe I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life after school, but I’ll be damned if I don’t even make it that far.

Hours later, well into the night, you’d all but forgotten about the calls. A knock at the door takes you a bit by surprise, and you frown as you stand again, tugging your Georgetown sweatshirt down over your shorts as you shuffle to the entrance of your apartment. You’re not expecting anyone, so you crack the door, peering around the edge of it.

And you couldn’t even consider trying to hide that shaky inhalation of dead air when you see Spencer standing on the other side.

Surely you’re hallucinating.

Surely this man in front of you who looks like he just got back from a day of work didn’t spend three months in prison pretending you didn’t exist.

He looks the same. Hair a bit longer, maybe—and gaunter even more than is normal for him. 

But it's him.

You can’t think about the apprehensive look on his face—you can’t think about the impossibility of him being here. You can’t think at all. Without your explicit permission, your body surges forward into his, and he’s real, and alive, and warm, and he is an anachronism in the hallway as he accepts everything you pour into the embrace, doesn’t flinch when you move your arms from around his waist to loop around his neck and back to his waist again with crushing force because you just can’t get him close enough.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer mutters into your hair, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry, he keeps saying, rubbing your back as you try to find a solid grip on the sleek material of his suit—try to gather all the pieces of him, already afraid he might fall apart and float away again.

“You—dis—disappeared,” you hiccup after an eternity, pulling away enough to look up at his pretty face. Tears blur your vision and darken the front of his jacket, bending the florescent lights so they form a kind of halo above his head.

Through the surreal haze you can see his throat bob.

“I know.”

He knows?

He knows?

You scoff.

“You have no fucking idea, Spencer. What the fuck is wrong with you? I—I'm—”

The hot anger is such a relief for a second, boiling the oceans of your despair into a wrathful, scorching fog, but as soon as you try to tell him how you feel, the barbed wire cuts into your throat again. You shove him away, skin burning where his hands had been.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, hands hanging uselessly at his side. There’s that kicked puppy look about him—and it’s familiar, but now there’s more damage. You don’t know anything about his time in prison, you haven’t heard a damn thing, but beneath the glassy desperation in his eyes there is an unfathomable void that seems to be preventing him from being fully present—and you realize for the first time that he is different.

It chills you.

Before, you and Spencer shared everything. There wasn’t one part of his internal machinations that you didn’t understand, nothing you kept from each other. But as you study him now from a few feet away, you realize there might as well be a yawning chasm between the two of you.

He is so different.

Those eyes look deeper. No gears turning just behind the slashes of gold and brown anymore—only an endless dark corridor that goes places you will never go.

Gone is the perpetual boyish up-turn at the corner of his lips that always made him look slightly vacant in a way that you found incredibly amusing. Something you had been so fond of, even if you teased him.

He seems to have aged ten years—if not physically, then in demeanor. And now you feel like a little kid throwing a tantrum.

You cross your arms, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

You’re embarrassed. And pissed. And relieved. Everything is worse and better. You want to fall back into his arms, but you have been jarred by the revelation that this might not be the same Spencer. It might not be the same relationship. You have no idea where you stand.

He says your name gently, with so much familiarity you’re briefly jerked into the past. It makes you wish you could look up to find him as he was three months ago. Wish this was just a bad dream. But that’s not fair to him.

“Sorry,” you mutter, studying the grey carpet fibers instead of looking at him.

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says immediately, “you’re right. I don’t—” he clears his throat— “I’m being incredibly selfish. I shouldn’t have just shown up, I’ll just—I'll leave. I’m sorry.”

A silent moment passes.

You don’t look up as he turns and swiftly begins to move down the hall toward the stairway, leaving as quickly and silently as he had come, like a few bars of a song sighed in and away on a fleeting breeze.

Your bare feet are concretely planted, imagining him jogging down the steps and speed-walking away from your building—

And suddenly you’re sprinting after him, feeling like you might puke because Spencer was just here and you let him go again—and even though you’re still so mad and confused and hurt, the realization that he is leaving again makes the entire building spin and lurch.

“Wait!” You yell, almost wiping out as you run down the stairs and whip around corners in your slippery fucking socks. “Please, wait!”

The lobby is already empty as you spill out into it, and cold dread tightens around your neck like a fist as you shoulder your way through the double doors and right into Spencer.

“Please don’t leave again, you just—I'm sorry, I really need you to not go—” you blabber, lachrymose once more, gripping onto his forearms for dear life.

“I’m not going,” he breathes shakily. “I tried to leave because I think you were right and maybe I should and maybe it would be better for you but I can’t.”

“You can’t,” you agree, more sob than spoken word. He cups your jaw, then your cheeks, wiping tears and brushing away hair like he can’t figure out how to hold enough of you between his hands. The wild kaleidoscope of his eyes, bright and alive and real as he scans you desperately captures your attention enough to slow the tears to a trickle. He notices this and stares back, entranced.

A silent agreement is made, or maybe an inevitable fate is accepted—either way, something was set in motion three months ago and it matters to see it through. Spencer kisses you and you’re ready for it. You don’t need slow or tender. You need to feel how he feels. You need to know what he knows.

You sling your arms around his neck and he pulls you closer until you almost tip backward, chasing the bruising kiss even as you regain your footing. You want to drink him in and you do your best, breathing deeply as he kisses you deeper, backing you inside and toward the elevator.

“Is this okay?” he manages, only after blindly reaching for and mashing the up button on the wall panel.

Ideally it wouldn’t happen like this, but the world you live in obviously isn’t ideal and your personal situations as they coincide are far from ideal, so this is how it has to happen. But it’s hard to explain, and you’d rather not admit that this is so far from what you wanted for both of you and follow up with the fact that despite that you need him like you need water. So you don’t say a word as the metal doors slide open promptly. Instead you pull him in and let him press you to the chrome wall as he hits your floor button, and that very hand comes back to grab your ass like you didn’t think Spencer Reid capable of. It almost aches as his fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s a good ache because it means he’s real and he’s there.

You gasp as he hitches your leg up, arching into him. The shorts that you’re wearing leave very little to the imagination to begin with, but they become downright indecent like this.

Quickly the elevator stops and the doors hiss open. You don’t hesitate to pull Spencer by the hand down the hall. When you notice you left your door wide open, you don’t even care. Neither does he, apparently—once you’re inside he slams it shut, flipping the deadbolt while his eyes are glued to you like you’re already naked. Now Spencer is shameless in the way he drags his eyes over every curve, every place your clothes and hair are disheveled from his touch and eye-fucks you so obviously it makes your face warm. Three months ago Spencer would have at least been bashful about it when he met your eyes again, but this Spencer is far from apologetic as he pins you with his burning gaze once more. His hand stays stuck to the door like he’s holding himself back.

“Is this what you want?”

There’s an undercurrent of sorrow below the gravely arousal, like this isn’t what he wanted for the two of you either. But you’re both at the mercy of fate. This is all you have, and it might be all you can do for each other anymore. So you don’t need to say that, because he understands.

“Yeah. Yes, this is what I want.”

For just a second more he watches you from his place by the door, and there’s an unexpected softness to it. He looks at you the way he would have looked at you before. Like as long as he stays there he can entertain the idea of being that person again.

Need wins out quickly, though, and he surges forward. Immediately you’re caught in the riptide of him, helpless as he kisses you all the way to your bedroom.

He’s never been in here before. You find yourself glad it’s relatively clean—one of the pastimes you’d picked up in his absence was keeping everything tidy. It was something you could control.

A lamp glows at your bedside. You lean against the footboard of your bed, hands timidly behind your back and suddenly shy to have in him in your intimate space. Both of you set aside the heaving desperation long enough to catch your breaths, and for him to scan the room like he too is being forced to reconcile with the innate and unexpected intimacy of the moment. He cuts a harsh, dark gash in your sweetly decorated bedroom, radiating something wild and powerful and unsure of himself like a chained bull as he takes in the soft, pale bedding, the paintings and photos taped to the walls, the woven rug and the sheer drapery. His breathing slows as he studies it all—eyes eventually catching on something behind you. Looking is unnecessary. You’re sure he’s spotted the dried peonies in their ceramic vase. Or maybe the now worn stack of papers that is his Odyssey, marked up and soft around the edges from constant flipping-through.

Then Spencer looks at you, and that softness seeps in again. Along with something like... fear? Grief?

In some other universe your first time with Spencer is sweet and giggly and kind and he smiles at the decor in your room and looks around with wonder because it’s another way he gets to know you. It’s a different way to learn you from the inside.

You sense that he’s caught in between universes right now as well, painfully aware of what he would have given you that he can’t anymore.

He breathes your name like an apology, and foolishly you let a second go by in which you think he might offer you one. But he doesn’t. Not with his words, anyway. His eyes tell a different story.

“It’s fine,” you say unprompted on a whispered exhale, then a little louder as you push off the footboard, crossing the space until your hands are on his chest. You focus on his tie, not making eye contact as you rush to undo it. “It’s fine.”

He lets you do this for a few seconds before finally covering your trembling hands with his own. You still can’t meet his eyes.

“We don’t have to do—”

“No! No, please. I want to. I need—I need us to be okay.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, catching your chin and forcing you to look at him. “We are okay. Me and you are fine.”

It’s a pretty thought, but it’s not true. In fact, it’s a hideous and abject affront to the truth. Sure, maybe you’re fine in comparison to last week. Maybe anything feels fine compared to an eight by six cell. But it would be impossible for you and Spencer, for your relationship, whatever that relationship may be, to be fine. It’s especially impossible for him to make that claim, after all he did or rather didn’t do while he was gone. What you need is for him to stay anyway. What you need is to find a way to be with him, to exist with him, even when you are so clearly not fine.

“I just need you to stay,” you whisper, and he’s already nodding, wide-eyed like he’d do anything for you. You ignore all the bitter venom rising in your throat. You pretend this isn’t all happening after he cut you out of his life with a dirty switchblade. Instead you focus on his hands on yours, the familiar smell of him, which invites you to let go of each and every thought and worry. He must’ve showered before coming here, you realize. How long has he been out? What happened? 

“Okay. Okay, I can stay. What else can I do? How do I make it better?”

You sniffle and look back down.

“You can untie that for me.”

He hesitates, then nods some more, fingers working under yours to undo the tie around his neck.

“Okay.”

A moment goes by and after that final whispered word, the tension begins to build again. Spencer senses it in the way your fingertips linger on his chest and you step even closer, dragging them down to his belt. The metallic sound of it unbuckling, despite being your own doing, still manages to flip your stomach. How many times have you pictured this? When was the first time you realized you wanted it? You’re sure you haven’t stopped wanting it even once since then.

Spencer tosses the tie away and is shrugging off his jacket now, then before you see it coming he’s kissing you again, ducking down to do it. He feels taller this close up, and especially in your bedroom, where he just seems rather out of place. But you want him here. God, you want him here.

You break the kiss, forced to look down as you fumble with his belt.

“Sorry,” you gasp, embarrassed by your lack of dexterity. The light is barely sufficient to see what you’re doing, especially when he’s wearing black on black and your eyes are still bleary.

“You’re okay,” he assures you, and it’s so Spencer a fresh round of nerves electrifies the tips of your fingers. That thing is happening—the thing you’d hoped to avoid if you hadn’t lost momentum partway through, where you’re allowing your actual feelings for him to get in the way rather than getting swept up in the pathos of the moment and letting everything be easy and mindless. “Here, can I help you?”

But he doesn’t actually wait for an answer before he’s finishing off the belt for you, tugging it loose from his hips till it’s a leather coil in his hands. Your fingers brush the material and he lets you take it as if it were your prize. It’s heavier than you thought it’d be, and you just feel the weight of it in your hands for a moment, your dropped head brushing his chest.

You have a terrible feeling that if you do this now, it doesn’t mean everything will be alright. Because it can’t just go back to normal. Spencer has told you nothing of what must be an enormous trauma, and you haven’t spoken about it at all, but you sincerely doubt that after this he’s going to be ready to just jump into that committed relationship the two of you had been toying with for months before his absence. You’re almost... scared of him, now. Scared of where he’s been and what he’s endured—things you’re sure you couldn’t have taken. What that does to a person, you can’t imagine. He seems so solid and real in front of you now—but you know that’s not always enough. Maybe you’re just scared that somehow whatever he’s been through will have made him care for you less. That you were too far removed from the whole ordeal, and now you’ll never understand. If you could understand, maybe you could fix it for him. Maybe he’d stick around.

Still—even if you do end up pushing him further away in the long run—won't it have been worth it to have had him so completely, even just once?

You toss the belt to the ground, compressing all of these very complicated thoughts and feelings into a few seconds so short he can’t ask you any questions about them. Instead you find his top button, and just as you manage to undo it with relative ease he’s gently grabbing your wrists. You look up at him, immediately surrendering.

“If we’re going to do this I need you to relax a little bit.”

Gears grind in your chest. You feel need and anxiety comingling in every square inch of your body. It’s a sick buzz—a high on an empty stomach.

“I can’t,” you admit.

“Yeah, you can,” Spencer gently disagrees, slowly lowering your hands. When he’s sure you’re not going to try ripping his clothes off again, he releases, and his eyes lower to the zipper of your hoodie. His fingers follow, warm against the soft triangle of revealed skin at your chest as he grips the small piece of metal between barely shaking fingers. “You can.”

You match his eyeline, breathing shallowly and watching as he slowly drags the zipper down. You wonder if that sound has haunted his fantasies the way the sound of his belt has haunted yours. If he’s seen this hoodie on you and wondered what’s underneath, staring at you and daydreaming during movie night with you none the wiser.

Both of you have your eyes glued to the span of skin as the zipper parts. Spencer stalls with the zipper at your sternum, just below the band of your bra.

Right. No shirt.

You look up and find his eyes already on you, tinged with a curious kind of humor.

“I wasn’t expecting guests.”

The words come out shy. Spencer’s chuckle has its own nervous airy quality as he resumes tugging on your zipper, leaning down until your noses bump.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Then he kisses you again, a little sweeter now. Sweet enough to give you butterflies and for them to flutter right out of your stomach and spill from your lips in a little whimper against his.

It comes as a surprise when he pushes the fabric from your shoulders without looking or asking. Not that you’d have said no—you're just underprepared for how assertive he is in this foreign context.

Left just in your flimsy shorts and your thin bra, you feel quite exposed—but Spencer’s hands are as demanding and hungry as his mouth. They skim up your sensitive sides and sweep lower, suggesting less proper placement over your ass and pulling at your bottoms until you gently put a stop to their wandering.

“Wait. We’re... we’re uneven.”

It’s a struggle to get any words out at all when he keeps chasing your lips, nipping at you like he physically can’t stand not kissing you, but they catch his attention and he laughs airily, pulling back to let his gaze pour over your less clothed form. It lingers and catches and lights you up everywhere it touches, drops of heat soaking into your skin and making you feel all fuzzy and needy.

“We are,” he acknowledges, tone low and colored with the faintest smile. “You’re a lot prettier without your clothes on than I am.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The challenge comes immediately and thoughtlessly. Spencer’s golden eyes flash up to yours. He’s breathing a little harder than usual.

“You want me to show you what I mean?”

If that means getting him naked, then yes, absolutely.

You nod, but rather than immediately stripping, he takes your hand and holds his own open next to it. A thick pink scar bisects some pretty significant palmistry lines, but you don’t mention that. Instead you swallow—your thoughts, your words, your nausea.

“That’s new.”

You wonder how you hadn’t noticed it earlier.

He nods.

“A lot is new.”

It sounds almost like he’s challenging you—there's a kind of tremulous force in his voice, despite the perpetual softness there, like he’s inviting you to say it’s ugly. And you realize he’s referring to more than just the glowing scar cutting an asteroid trail against the flesh of him palm. The scars he obtained in prison must form a constellation over his body.

“I don’t care. I wanna see you.”

Spencer swallows, cupping your face with the scarred hand once more. You can’t feel it against your cheek but you know it hasn’t gone away.

“I’m sure you think you do,” he permits, and that’s where the conversation ends for the moment—with his hand on your face and his lips back on yours. “For now why don’t you let me worry about you?”

Obediently, you breathe, “okay.”

This is, for whatever reason, amusing to him. The brief levity dies as quick as it comes like a snuffed-out brush fire as soon as he lets his hands fall back down to your hips.

“I want... I want to give you slow. But...”

But slow is for people who didn’t lose three months of their life. Slow is for people who don’t know what it’s like to be starving. Slow is not for the desperate.

You understand the feeling.

“I don’t need slow.”

You’ll let him use you up like quick-burning fuel if that’s what he needs. You’ll go as fast and as bright and as hot as he tells you.

“But you want slow,” he murmurs, a secret acknowledged into your own waiting mouth. You’d keep it there forever. You could be the object he hides his soul in. “I know you do. You deserve to get what you want.”

“I can go fast. I want whatever you can give me.”

Spencer’s shuddering exhale is like a drug, dizzying as you inhale it and your eyes flutter at the high, pressed head-to-head with him. For so long you’ve needed him so badly. It’s overwhelming to have him now, all over you. If only your walls could breathe him in the way you are, if this room could remember what it feels like to hold him the way you will, if any inanimate object could bear witness to how you’ll give yourself, any part of yourself, over to him, so willingly.

“I’m going to try.” Spencer’s voice is hoarse as he walks backward to the bed, taking you by the hips as he goes. “I want to do it right. I want to do this the way I... the way I imagined it, before...”

Now he’s sitting, and you’re standing between his legs as he finds the clasp of your bra and undoes it, his fingers a comforting pressure where they ghost down the slope of your back. Your heart is pounding at the confession, at the way his tongue darts over his bottom lip and his fingertips journey back up to your straps, looking up at you with haloed irises as if he’d find anything other than the most dangerous kind of smoldering devotion in your eyes—the kind cult-leaders seek and spend years nurturing, and he’d earned with a mere brush over your bare skin.

The fabric slides down your arms, and as it falls to the floor, you watch something like despair flash-flood his eyes. It is a deep, distinctly human grief. The ineffable kind where something is almost too beautiful; so perfect it offends the mortal senses because it should be permanent, but nothing is, and the clash of divine beauty with unstoppable time which oxidizes copper and covers marble with vine is almost as grotesque as metal rending delicate flesh. It is the grief that drove the first poet to write and the first parents to press their baby’s painted hands to the walls of a cave. It is the desire to do the impossible—to capture ephemeral perfection and make it eternal, and the knowledge that it is hopeless. You recognize it because you’ve felt it for him.

“I thought about you all the time,” he whispers, doesn’t bother calling you beautiful but you don’t mind because he’s telling you with his hands and his eyes and the waver of his voice. “When I was gone, I thought about you—”

You’re just as quiet, just as soft.

“Don’t, Spencer.”

He doesn’t get to tell you about when he was gone. Not now. Not after he acted like you didn’t exist.

“Okay.” He swallows the things he’d wanted to tell you like you choked on the things you needed to tell him for three months. “I’m sorry.”

But his hands—his hands are perfect over your waist and his lips are perfect where they kiss your ribs like they’re his homeland. You could forgive a thousand wrongs for each kiss he puts to your skin. Light from the full moon stretches over the room like a blessing from the cosmos, and you have every intention of making the most of that gift, how the silver gilds the planes of his face and highlights curls like they were carved, and invites you to search for something in each shadow.

Some of his kisses land over the sensitive skin of your breasts though you doubt he has much intention or that there is any sort of end-goal with the trail he blazes—in fact, you have to root your hand in his hair and pull gently back when he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s making you wait again. His eyes are glassy and cheeks slightly pinkened—you weren’t expecting this wave of fondness to knock you on your ass but here you are, falling all over again.

“You don’t have to go that slow.”

A slow smile splits the heart of his mouth at your bashful tone and he’s emboldened to bring his hands higher for a moment, thumbs brushing particularly delicate though not downright indecent spots. Nonetheless, your breath catches.

“Impatient girl,” he scolds, and though it’s lighthearted it still inspires heat to dance across your face. Oh, I think I’ve been plenty patient, you itch to say, but you bite it back because it’s only sad and true and unkind.

Still, he gives you the beginning of what you want, really only the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your desire for him, by slipping his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down. His hands slide up the fronts of your thighs, tracing the trim of your underwear, and you’d swear he’s not even breathing. The moment one of his hand loops behind your knee and pulls forward until it’s pressed to the mattress and you’re half-kneeling, half standing, desire begins to truly cloud your mind. Manhandling never seemed like Spencer’s style, but when paired with how softly he reveals your hip, pulling gently down on the fabric of your underwear just to admire you up close, you don’t mind it.

More kisses are littered over your stomach, and he takes you by surprise a second time with a quick maneuver landing you on your back and him on top of you.

“I wasn’t doing you justice with my imagination,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t have known what?” you pant as he shamelessly digs his fingers into the plush of your ass. You almost hope it bruises.

“How pretty you would be,” he coos like he means it, and you dissolve, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. “You were holding out on me.”

It’s a tease, not at all serious, but you manage to hit him with a, “Was not, asshole,” and he chuckles, placating your little hurt with another sticky kiss, and you get another disorienting glimpse of some other timeline where you’re both a little less damaged. Where it’s a little easier.

But in this timeline, his touch becomes starving and ragged and urgent, and you accept the drag of his thumb up your thigh and between your legs, gasping when he runs his knuckles up the center of you. This touch is metal on screeching metal. It does not pretend to be anything more than what it is—brute, powerful, executed to elicit sensation. You get the sense that Spencer’s never touched anyone this honestly, and while you do envy the girls who got to have him gentler, you’ll take this as the compliment that it is. A kind of vulnerability that is nearing primal.

His lips, though—always his lips—are kind when they brush and land on your skin guided by some invisible map. A dip down your neck and chest and then a plunge, his tongue dragging over your hips, chasing the fabric of your underwear as he almost pulls it off and then reroutes, making room for himself between your legs and pushing lace aside to mark the hinge of your inner and upper-most thigh. Your chest heaves and you don’t dare move for fear he’ll stop leaving signs of himself on your body and you won’t be able to reassure yourself that it was real and he was here and it was not another dream.

Because something in you knows, if only consciously recognizing it for the first time now, that he will disappear again. That this may be your only chance.

The desire to make the ephemeral eternal. An impossibility.

He’s clearly losing himself to something, eyes shutting blissfully. You wonder when the last time he let his guard down even a  little was. You’re okay with being the thing he gets lost in, even if you’re not exactly okay with him—something you are becoming more acutely aware of as each touch makes a part of you want to cry. Maybe you still have some things in common. A strange pain that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to you, for one thing.

You slam back into your body as his nose nudges against you through fabric, and his lips catch on cotton as he drags himself up, eventually settling a kiss against the little bow at the waist of your underwear. There he stays, eyes closed, mouth pressed to you.

“Is this okay?”

You swallow, buzzing. Is this really what he wants? After everything?

“You don’t have to...”

“But is it okay with you?”

Nothing more than an airy whisper, you reply, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

Being emotional at this point seems wrong, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that you have thought about this before and it’s finally happening but it’s not exactly as you’d imagined it. There is an indelible sadness to it, to the way he’s so hungry for you because he’s been deprived, to the desperation with which he touches you because he’s had everything taken from him.

For a moment, before he tugs your underwear down, he pauses, and you wonder if he’s freezing one moment in time, this moment, and grieving all the other ways it could’ve been, and accepting that this is the way it is going to be. You are.

These higher realms of thought abandon you as he finally pulls the last barrier down your legs and encourages you to spread them further. You don’t have time or energy to be embarrassed, not even by his staring, or the way his eyes dart up to yours and back down again, wide and shining, as if to say, have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?

All you feel is the lack of him on you, the pull to have him closer so strong it’s almost sickening because he could be gone at any second. Maybe he understands that because he doesn’t waste anymore time before he’s kissing the most sensitive part of you. The drag of his tongue has you loosing a shuddering cry.

His mouth wanders, making connections you wouldn’t have realized the value of until you feel them on your skin. Your hips buck as he traces you and you’re unable to stop yourself from tangling your hands in his hair. Speech fails you—hell, you can hardly breathe as you watch his with a furrowed brow and parted lips, only expelling air from your lungs in the form of little cries and gasps and failing to hold your hips down to the bed.

The tip of his tongue teases around your entrance and he catches your leg as your foot rises off the bed, slinging it over his shoulder and consuming you more fervently until you have no choice but to moan though you’ve never been one for theatrics. Nobody has done this for you like he’s doing it for you. Locks of hair fall in front of his face and you hold them back for him, shuddering as he shifts his weight and presses the tip of his finger to your cunt.

“Ah—please,” you manage, your first words since he started. Spencer groans against you and the sound is so wonderfully unexpected, so much better than in your dreams. You cant your hips up in further invitation, chirping as he takes it, pushing two fingers into you at once. Your eyes screw shut and you bite back a whine at the slight stretch, unconsciously writhing your hips either to get further away or take him deeper, you’re not sure.

Spencer pulls back, kissing your hips and thighs and pumping his fingers very slowly as you adjust.

“’M sorry,” you pant, “it’s been awhile, I...”

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says like it’s simple, his own breath coming quicker. “How’re you feeling? Need me to stop?”

“No! No, it feels really good, I feel good.”

He holds your burning gaze, matching it with his own, and his hair is tousled and his cheeks are flushed as he continues to move his hand.

“Yeah?”

“...Yeah.”

This little show of obedience, of call and response, has him smiling before he occupies his mouth with something else once more. It’s a different smile than you’re used to from him, but you decide you don’t at all mind it.

Like that, with his tongue and fingers working tirelessly, your orgasm comes on quickly. The feeling is rare but not entirely foreign, and in that brief moment of utter disconnect between your brain and reality, of sheer white-hot pleasure, you don’t feel you’re missing out on anything at all. How could you be, when you are here and Spencer is here and for a moment all your neurons are lighting up and flashing neon? How could there be anything more to life than the searing feeling of him slowly withdrawing his fingers from you, than your hips between his hands like he’s cradling the world, and his lips, indiscriminate with where they kiss because every part of you is worthy of attention?

You’re reeling, and your legs are gelatinous as he so affectionately sucks the darkest mark yet onto your inner thigh like a parting gift, like he’s signing his trembling work. If you could clamp your legs shut around the almost painful aftershocks you would, but he’s climbing back up your body, so all you can do is wriggle against him and release delayed, stunted little moans. He stops to kiss your neck before he makes it to your mouth and drinks down all your sounds until you’re gentle and pliant for him like you haven’t been yet.

His voice is soft and sympathetic when he speaks. “Better?”

Wordlessly you nod, both comforted and unsettled by how well he knows you. What, exactly, has been made better, you’re not sure. Not trust. You don’t trust him anymore. Something cheaper, but temporarily effective. A sense of permanence, maybe, however fleeting it may be. You’ve completed something with him now, and he’s still here, still sweet.

He looks into your eyes, then, for a moment—and there is just enough light in the room for you to tell yourself that the shadows dancing there as he looks at you are love.

They morph as you watch into haunting, wild hunger. Pained even now.

He sits up abruptly and so do you, scooting back against your headboard and pulling your knees to your chest to protect your pounding heart as Spencer takes you in with darting eyes and quick breaths. His fingers find the collar of his shirt and he begins to unbutton.

“I need you to remember it’s all going to heal.”

He swallows, and you hardly have the wherewithal to study the way he unbuttons his shirt, a way he exists in the world that you had previously not been privy to. The words are too distracting.

“What?”

Sometimes he reminds you of a deer, with those big brown eyes that can’t help betraying anxiety. Moreso in those old pictures he’d shown you from his early days at the BAU—but it shines through occasionally even now. It’s reassuring to know that something inside of his has remained soft.

“Just...” his fingers don’t stop at their task, and you come to the disturbing realization that his knuckles are bruised. “Please don’t freak out, alright?”

Your mouth goes dry, eyes glued to the lengthening span of revealed skin.

And before he even has his shirt fully undone, something isn’t right.

He’s like a Pollack of bruises—starbursts and watercolor blots of discoloration blooming over his side and stomach.

You’re glad the light is off for two reasons: one, being that you don’t think you could handle the bruising in all its glory, and two, you hope the look of horror painted on your face is at least partially obscured from Spencer.

But you can’t. You simply don’t have the gas in the tank to freak out, as he’d said—at least not externally. Those bruises shouldn’t be there, but 96 days is a long time to be gone.

You drag your eyes back to his—nervous, deeply insecure and mistrustful. A deer. Just like those pictures of a 24 year old Spencer in an FBI jacket that was too big for him.

It’s enough to have you scooting on your knees across the mattress to him. Those big eyes stay glued to you as you draw near, falling as you carefully push open his shirt, cautious not to bump any tender spots as it falls to the bed. A flash of white gauze wrapped around his forearm that makes your stomach flip. How? You want to ask. Why?

He doesn’t seem to know what you’re going to do, and neither do you, until you’re grabbing his hands, bruised knuckles and all, and just... holding them for a minute.

“I lost weight,” he says quietly, as if that’s the most shocking thing about his current appearance, though it is noticeable.

“You’re still pretty.”

He smiles at this—a true Spencer Reid smile. Flattened lips, eyes tinged silver with sadness, voice quiet and anxious and wavering.

“I didn’t have a lot to spare.”

A moment goes by.

“I’m not going to ask you about them,” you promise, though you care so much and you want to know but you already understand that he won’t want to tell you.

Another moment. It doesn't surprise you to watch the shiny vulnerability in his eyes to freeze over completely. But he squeezes your hands once in thanks, and you know it’s still the same Spencer.

“Lie down.”

Oh. Right.

This.

You do as he says, taking a deep breath to try and exhale the concern twisting your stomach like a poison. Somehow your room feels so unfamiliar, so new with him in it. Even the whorls on your ceiling look different as you study them, trying to time the pattern of your breathing with the pattern of the paint and plaster and not let the sound of Spencer further undressing quicken your heartrate too much.

Soon he’s coaxing your legs apart again, reverently, and kneeling between them, studying every part of you—lingering not on the parts you’d expect. He traces the scar on your knee with his thumb, follows a line down your thigh to the freckle on your hip. The scrutiny is unnerving and warms you everywhere. Perhaps he senses the microscopic clench of your thighs as you imagine pushing them together, if he weren’t in the way.

“You alright?” He asks, still stroking your hip. Tender again. It’s so hard to keep up.

“I...”

Suddenly your heart beat is a deafening echo in your own ears. The tide of your breathing is too powerful, too in and out and whooshing, leaving you always too empty or too full but never comfortable.

Maybe he’s changed, and he’s harder to know now, but he is the same Spencer. He is the Spencer you’d fallen in love with. The hard part is knowing that now you may never get a chance to tell him that. You don’t know if he’d be able to hear it.

There are things you can’t have with him anymore. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. But you can have this. It will be different, but you’d rather him be different and here than the same and only in your memory.

You swallow.

“I’m good.”

Tangling your hand in his hair once more, you pull him down into a kiss. It’s hesitant, at first—maybe he can taste your thoughts, where they’d been balancing just on the tip of your tongue. But the uncertainty fades and he kisses you deeper, harder, in a way that is hard to keep up with. You like the messy overwhelm of his lips, teeth, tongue. That’s the only way he knows how to want you.

When you go to wrap your leg around his waist he catches it, running his hands over the soft plush of your thigh. The hard line of him presses against you like memory foam and you gasp and he breathes it in deeply as your brain short-circuits, as you realize this is really going to happen, that you’re going to have him like you’ve never had him before and in ways you’ve only imagined and immediately felt ashamed for.

“Spencer,” you whisper. He ducks to leave open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your eyes flutter shut, craning your neck but not losing sight of your objective as you reach down blindly. When you find what you’re looking for he freezes, groans against your neck at the same time as you breathe the tiniest whimper. Just in your hand he feels impossible, hot and imposing and hard. Your heart palpitates.

Without thinking, you angle your hips up and encourage him closer, until the tip of him is smearing through your folds, and you both go utterly silent like the breath had been stolen right from your lungs. The moment crystallizes, time around you hardening like preserved amber to keep you frozen there forever.

And then he rolls his hips, catching the underside of his cock on the crux of you, and then he does it again, and you choke out a moan and so does he, and it’s beyond perfect—it's nirvana, more than you could ever have conceived of, with his weight pressing you into the mattress, arms caging you in, his heavy breaths hot against your neck and vice versa as you twine together like serpents on a rod, your foot floating in the air as you widen your legs to make more room for him.

And you’re not even fucking yet.

“Oh my god,” you whine, just for him, barely audible under the heavy cloak of night, the thickened air in your bedroom and the sound of panting and fabric shifting. It’s like your heart is trying to reach through your chest to his own where they’re pressed together—that is how hard it’s beating.

Spencer only breathes a long, low curse and shifts so he can grasp himself. Your fingers drift down the shaft of him as he slots himself at your entrance, notching half an inch in and you hold your breath, and you brace yourself—and then he’s kissing you again, but gentler this time. Reassuring. You soften, you can’t not, releasing all your air in a soft gust through your nose, and then he’s pushing in.

Your lips part at the stretch as it fuzzes your mind, but he stays right there, nose pressed to your nose, lips ghosting over your own. He’s not going anywhere, you think, and you’re glad for it, when it burns ever so slightly, and the tiniest whine escapes your open mouth.

“Shh,” he soothes immediately, low and soft, only fractionally louder than you had been. “You’re okay.”

Spencer. Your Spencer.

For a moment, you’re living in that alternate universe. The kinder one. The flash of pain you feel then has nothing to do with the way he’s opening you up.

This is the closest you have ever been, and in some strange way, the furthest apart.

Together, fingers brushing, you guide him until he settles at not quite your deepest point. You can feel that he’s not giving you everything yet, but you’re okay with that, as you adjust to the full feeling. Spencer again senses your desire to close your legs against the deep intrusion, and gives you the best he can by encouraging you to wrap your legs around him.

“Good girl,” he whispers tenderly, nudging at your jaw with his nose and dragging kisses along the ridge of it. Your stomach flips at the moniker and your brain turns to warm sludge as your eyes flutter shut. It makes you feel all light-headed and you flutter around him. Spencer chuckles into the junction of your neck and shoulder and the vibrations send a chill down your arching spine. “I thought you might like that one.”

“Mhm.”

“Mhm. How are you? You okay?”

“’M ready.”

“You’re ready?” His tone is dripping sarcasm and faux-disbelief as he pulls back the slightest bit only to push right back in deeper, this time. Your toes curl, one thigh sliding higher up his waist as you cling to him.

“Fuck,” you manage, a pitiful, high pitched curse tossed to the wind. He echoes the sentiment.

“Oh, my god,” he groans, continuing with that slow pace, “you feel so good, angel.”

You grapple at his back, searching for purchase as your brow knits. “Faster.”

This inspires another breathy chuckle, but he obliges, and you cry out softly. It’s almost unreal, your head buried against his neck, drunk on his scent and the drag of him like a shock felt in the far reaches of your body, again and again.

There’s nothing you can say that will accurately demonstrate what you’re feeling, so you elect not to speak, to remain silent and try to get a grip on this cacophony of sensation and emotion. But it’s too much to be alone with. You feel you have to get it out, to seek understanding. You can’t do it alone.

“Spencer.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t know...” the sentence trails off into a gentle keen. He moves to kiss you, speaking against your lips.

“You don’t know?”

Shyly you shake your head. Spencer sighs wistfully.

“Do you know how much I missed you?”

It’s like he can sense your need for comfort. For something grounding.

And while this topic was off-limits earlier—you're softer now. The stone walls that form your boundaries have been chipped away and lowered.

Spencer continues unprompted.

“I thought about you every day. Every night while I was falling asleep. You were always on my mind, angel girl.”

You whine. Whether it’s pleasure or distress is anyone’s guess—including your own.

“You were gone so long,” you whisper, eyes shut.

At this, Spencer slows again, and the tension that was building settles back to a simmer.

“I know. I wish I could—I wish I could change that. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you.”

Then he makes sure you feel every last inch, and it takes your breath away. If your thoughts were any more coherent, they’d be something along the lines of: but for how long? How long until you leave again?

“You’re here.”

You say it like a mantra, once out loud, and then again and again in your head, timed with every clash of your hips. With each repetition he becomes more real. Every little ache, every tingling, head-emptying brush against that most sensitive spot inside proves to you that he could not be any closer. This can’t be faked. It can’t be another dream to wake up in tears from.

“You’re here,” you gasp as it hits you, as it truly sinks in.

“I’m here,” he breathes.

There’s so much you want to say—three months of words you need him to hear, of things you need to talk to him about, things you need to yell at him for and things you can only say crying in his arms and things you can only say laughing or whispering or drunk or half-asleep—and in this moment you can’t manage any of it. Every word condenses into one drop of salt water, drifting away from your eye and down your cheek. Spencer doesn’t tell you to stop crying. He only kisses the tear away, and murmurs I’m here I’m here I’m here over and over again against your skin until he’s not even speaking it out loud anymore. But you feel it. With every brush of his lips, every breath, every movement, you feel it.

Soon he’s adjusting his angle, gradually picking up the pace but retaining that unforgiving depth, and your nails bite into the skin of his back as your jaw drops. Spencer hisses, pressing impossibly closer.

“I’m sorry!” you squeak.

“Do it again.”

“Wh—what?”

“Please,” he begs, low and hot against your jaw, just beneath your ear. “Do it again, honey.”

Honey.

You’d do anything for him if it meant he calls you that again.

When he shifts his weight to one arm and reaches down between your bodies to play with your aching clit in exactly the right way, you don’t really have a choice. You arch and moan wantonly enough to feel embarrassed as your nails scratch down his back. At the same time he’s making noises of his own, and you almost feel guilty for marking him up like this only you think he likes it. The most perfect and troubling tension is building in your core, so taut you almost fear the inevitable rebound when it snaps. But you’re driven to be exactly what Spencer needs right now, and to let him try and be what you need. Even if it scares you. Even if you’re not sure how.

Spencer groans, head tucked to the bend of your shoulder. “I’m not gonna last.”

Any response you might’ve been about to muster is annihilated by a sudden, deep bolt of pleasure.

“’M gonna cum,” you mewl like it’s a secret.

“Are you?” he asks, coming up breathless. If your eyes were open, you’re sure you’d see him above you.

“Mhm.”

“Look at me. Look at me.”

It is unmistakably a command—one you fight to follow.

You cry out as you meet the intensity of his gaze, those shadowy corridors suddenly ablaze and alive. They are not unending, like you’d thought. They are a door thrown open to let the light in, or maybe to let the fire out. They’re open in this moment for you.

No more words are spoken after that—you cum hard, gasping as you fall and spin. Spencer follows very shortly after, like he was holding it together just for you, and your eyes are still locked though everything is a bit bleary.

“Fuck,” you whine as he continues to fuck you for as long as he can, despite your writhing hips, but you’re entranced by him, unable to look away now that you’re hooked. Until he slows to a halt, glances down at your mouth, and you just have time to pray that he’ll kiss you before he does. You whimper against his lips—a plea for understanding. A plea for him to stay, even though this is over. He kisses back so soft and sweet it’s like he can read your mind. Echoes of I’m here I’m here I’m here still buzz across your skin. His eyelashes tickle your cheek. Your heart stops beating quite so quickly, melting and warm like the rest of your body.

Soon the kissing ceases and you’re just breathing together, trapped and faced with the knowledge that it must end just the same as you had waited for it to start.

Eventually the air between you becomes mostly carbon dioxide and you let your head fall to the side, dizzy and giggling breathlessly as you nearly avoid asphyxiation. Spencer laughs too, letting his head fall to your shoulder once more, and you finally let your eyes flutter closed. To do something as simple as laugh with him again is its own small euphoria. It’s unexpected, and a soft landing once all that tension breaks underneath your combined weight.

It can’t last forever, you know that well. But the slow fade of it makes the next parts a little easier.

Spencer presses a kiss to your neck. “Is your bathroom through that door?”

You hum a confirmation and are only slightly disheartened when he pulls out and rolls off of you. You’re further disturbed when you see there’s gauze around his thigh, matching what’s around his arm, and you wonder how you missed that. Spencer scoops up his clothing and disappears into the adjoining restroom, assuring you he’ll be right back and leaving you alone with your thoughts and the whorls on the ceiling which have seemingly shifted into entirely new constellations.

He leaves the door cracked which is oddly reassuring—the sliver of warm light and the sound of the sink running. Only a few moments pass before he’s returning clad in boxers once more to sit on the edge of the bed, pushing away the sheet you’d just pulled over your chest and pulling one of your legs over his lap. Your face warms as he brings a washcloth between your thighs. As soon as he glances up at you and catches your eye you’re looking back to the ceiling.

“I should’ve asked first,” he says quietly as he cleans up the mess he’d made of you.

You speak just as softly, like you’re both afraid of disturbing some peace, of waking some sleeping giant. “It’s okay. I would’ve told you if I didn’t want it.”

His reticence, his unreadable face, make you nervous.

When he’s done, he rises to toss the dirtied cloth in the laundry bin, and with his back to you (as scratched up as it might be) you feel braver.

“Are you gonna, like... hate me now?”

It was a mistake. That’s clear by the way he turns around, brow knit deeply and grimacing slightly like even the suggestion offends him.

“Am I going to hate you?”

Again you pull the sheet up, and again you look away, studying the pattern of moonlight stretching out over the floor and scooting to make room for him when he steps in it.

“Not hate, I just...” the bed dips beside you and you are indescribably glad he’s not immediately running out the door. “I’m not dumb. I know what this was.”

He pulls you into him and you settle against his chest. It feels good. “I never thought you were dumb.”

This is your first real conversation since he’s gotten back, you realize. And how quickly you’re falling into familiar patterns, familiar syntactical beats. You know when to speak. You know when to bite your tongue and keep him talking.

The silence goes on longer than you’re used to. Maybe he got good at not speaking while he was away.

Eventually your eyes wander, falling to the white strip over his thigh where it is parallel to yours on the bed, only over the sheets.

“What happened?”

You said you wouldn’t ask, but that was then, and you’re upset again. You almost want to hurt him. To piss him off. You don’t know.

But it doesn’t work.

“Do you really want to know?” There’s a note of something heavy in his voice, and you look up at him. It’s a privilege to have him this close—his beauty is a constant surprise that you’d become unaccustomed to over the months. You say nothing, and he takes that as the yes that it is. “I... I did it to myself.”

He may as well have reached down your throat and grabbed for fucking heart for all its clenching. Tears well almost immediately, though they’ve been waiting in the wings all night.

“What? Did you—were you trying to—”

His eyes widen.

“No! No, honey, no.” You wilt as he gathers you closer, a deeply confused frown still contorting your features, too heartbroken even to cling to him, or to appreciate the ease with which honey slips past his lips again. “No. I was—it's complicated. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, but I had to—I had to do it before someone else did something worse.”

The bruises covering his abdomen.

You sniffle and pull back enough to look up at him tearfully. “Why would they want to hurt you?”

Mist fills his eyes even as he’s looking down at you, a layer of separation, as if he’s two places at once. Even as he goes to brush your hair behind your ear, to stroke your cheek.

“I’m... not... the same, as I was.” It’s not an answer to your question—but it’s the beginning of the answer to a question you’d been too afraid to put into words.

“Don’t say that,” you beg, because you know where this is going. He keeps smoothing your hair like it’ll make this easier.

“But it’s true,” Spencer says gently, the slightest waver betraying his own emotion.

“You’re just going to leave again.”

And you’re losing to the tears.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you will,” you insist, like a child crying to a parent come to comfort them after a bad dream.

“Not right now. Right now I’m here.”

I’ll stay until you fall asleep again.

For now, maybe that has to be enough. 

You cry on his shoulder. He kisses your head and doesn’t tell you to stop. 

Eventually, you sniff and wipe your eyes. 

“We were so close. Before you… we were almost there.”

You’re sure of it. You’re sure that if he hadn’t gone when he did you would’ve been a real couple. You would’ve told him you loved him. 

“We’ll get there again,” he promises, rubbing your arm. “I just… I need a little bit of time. I think you do too. But we’re going to get there again.”

Maybe it will never be like it was. 

But as so often is the case—Spencer is right. Difference doesn’t mean it won’t ever be good again. 

You have to believe that, just as you had to believe you’d see him again. 

You look to The Odyssey on your bedside table. 

The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. 

But the sun has a habit of rising, time and time again, after the longest nights, after the darkest storms. 

You feel the beginnings of its rise, see the golden tips of it lighting the room as he holds you. Even now. 

[femd-archive]

Please more on sub Kenji PLEASEEEEEEE😭😭

why of course (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

BIRTHDAY BOY

pairing: ultraman: rising — kenji sato x fem!reader

word counting: 2.4k

content warning: not proofreader | sub!kenji | maybe an occ kenji but who cares | pegging | use of toys (strap-on) | fingering (male recieving) | dumbification (kenji wants to get pregnant woops) | mention of pregnancy | breeding kink | hands-free cumming | maybe too cheesy. i just love this man TT lots of kisses and praises | aftercare and maybe other content that i'm forgetting about :/

summary: after discussing about pegging with kenji, he purchases something on his birthday. a strap-on!

side note: english is not my first lenguage, so i apologize in advance for any grammar mistakes

"Ta-da!"

[Name] glances at the gift-wrapped box that Kenji had just placed on her lap before looking up again, finding her boyfriend's excited face looking at her right back.

"A gift? For me? But it's your birthday" she reminds him, taking the box and starting to tear the paper anyways.

"Uh-huh. It's a gift for you, but technically it's still something that will be used on me" Kenji explains, making [Name] look up again, confused, before looking back at the already unwrapped box. She looks at the object with a surprised face.

'Sexy fantasy. Silicone strap-on' was what the box said, showing a picture of the product inside.

To be completely honest, it wasn't a surprise at all. For almost a month now, [Name] herself had brought the topic of pegging to the table with Kenji, excited to try it out, but also understanding if it was something he wasn't comfortable with. From Kenji's face, she could tell that he was scared, maybe even a little bit upset? But two days after he had said that he was going to think about it, one night before going to sleep, Kenji had said yes when he was already in dreamland.

After confirming it again the next day -becuase [Name] thought that he was just talking in his sleep- they began with small sessions to prepare Kenji. The first one was full of nerves.

"Is it going to hurt?" Kenji asks as he watches his girlfriend climb onto the bed after bringing the bottle of lube from the bathroom.

"Maybe a little, but I'm going to do my best so it doesn't hurt too much. I promise" she reassures him, caressing her arm as she looks into his eyes with her pupils dilated with love. "Besides" she continued, "we'll stop if you want to, just say the word. We don't have to finish this in one day. So if you feel uncomfortable, just say it, okay?"

"Won't you be angry?" he asks again, taking his girlfriend's hand in his, stroking her knuckles with his thumb.

"Of course not" she responds quickly. [Name] cradles Kenji's face between both of her hands, making him look into her eyes. "This is to make you feel good, okay? I don't want any more than that, and if you don't feel good about this now, we'll stop, okay? No problem" she nods her head at him and then leans in to leave a kiss on his forehead.

After a few more moments of reassurance, they finally began. Kenji's underwear was discarded somewhere in the room, leaving him at the mercy of his girlfriend who only looked at him with adoring eyes.

"You look very pretty, Kenji" she praised him, placing a kiss on his inner thigh. Kenji breathes raggedly, feeling the sensations of his girlfriend's caresses with every fiber of his body.

The insertion of [Name]'s index finger was slow. She looked up all the time, analyzing the gestures on her boyfriend's face while her finger sank deeper and deeper into him.

"It's all in" she announced when it really was, taking her boyfriend's hand with her free hand. She gave it a small squeeze and moved it to heer lips to place a kiss on his knuckles. "How do you feel? Did it hurt?"

Kenji lifts his head from the fluffy pillows to look at his girlfriend with dizzy eyes. "I'm fine, I'm fine" he reassures, "it only stung a little, but it was fine"

[Name] smiles, caressing his knuckles lovingly. "Okay, I'm going to stop for a bit until you get used to it and then I'll move, okay?" she watched as Kenji nodded his head. "Words, baby"

"Yeah, yeah… okay" Kenji responds, giving his girlfriend a small smile.

For his first session, Kenji managed to take 2 fingers quite well. After that, the next sessions became looser and Kenji became more vocal about the places he liked to be touched. He even almost came without hands!

So yes, the subject about pegging was nothing strange for the couple, but [Name] never thought that Kenji would buy a strap-on on his own. She looks back at her boyfriend.

"Are you sure you want to do it today?" she asks, feeling a little nervous.

"What better day than today?" Kenji asked with a teasing tone. Noticing his girlfriend's nerves, his eyes softened and he walked over to sit next to her. "Hey" he calls, cupping her face with both hands, "I trust you, okay? And I trust that you'll not hurt me and you'll make me feel good, like you always do" he reassures, smiling at her. He kisses her lips softly, condoning all of their love in that kiss. "I love you" he whispered against her lips after breaking away from the kiss.

[Name] smiles, placing another small kiss on Kenji's lips. "I love you too" she whispers. "Now come on, I have to make the birthday boy feel good" she stands with the box in her hands, and Kenji is quick to follow her with a smile.

"Wooow!" he cheers with is arms uo, before hugging his girlfriend from behind and walking together to the bedroom.

Kenji spreads kisses all over his girlfriend's abdomen, hips and thighs, while she tries to fasten the strap-on on her hips.

"Excited?" she asks with a teasing tone. Kenji rests his chin on her stomach, hugging her legs.

"Yup" he replies, placing another kiss next to [Name]'s navel. "I can't wait to have you inside me" he purrs, watching her from below with half-lidded eyes.

[Name] was about to say something, until her words were trapped in her mouth when she saw how her boyfriend took that silicone dick and began to caress it as if it were a real one.

Leaving kisses along the toy, Ken looks up again, making eye contact with his girlfriend as he runs his tongue from the base to the tip of the fake dick, making [Name] shudder

"Shit, baby…" she reaches out her hand, running her fingers through Kenji's hair.

Placing another kiss on his girlfriend's hip, Kenji speaks again as he masturbates the silicone cock. "I learned a thing or two while you were away" he declares, before -much to [Name]'s surprise- taking the entire length of the toy into his mouth.

"Ken- Oh dear. Kenji" she cups his cheek, looking at him with admiration as he begins to bob his head. "You never cease to amaze me"

"Please, baby" Kenji begged between licks and kisses, "fuck me good" he whispered, looking at her with begging eyes. [Name] smiles, amazed at how bold Kenji could become.

"That I'll do" she whispers, bending down to catch Kenji's lips on a feverish kiss. They fall into the sheets, [Name] on top on Kenji as she takes his briefs off without looking, freeing Kenji's hard cock into the cold air.

He keeps on spreading kisses on [Name]'s body as she stretchs to grab the lube bottle from the night stand. She kisses his lips once again. "How do you wanna do it, birthday boy?" she asks, uncapping the bottle and squeezing some of the lub on the plastic dick, spreading it with her hand on a jerking motion.

"I wanna see your face" he says, propping on his elbows to see her better.

"Then we'll stay like this" she shrugs, smiling at Ken.

[Name] slips three fingers with ease inside of Kenji, thrusting them in and drawing moans from his lips. "I forgot how good they feel" Ken sighs, moving his hips to slightly ride your fingers.

"Yeah? Do you like them more than my cock?" [Name] teases.

"I'll have to try it first to figure that out" he teases back.

They share a wet kiss as [Name] takes her fingers out and position herself between Ken's legs again. Aligning the dildo with Kenji's hole, she looks up at him. "Are you ready?" she asks, concern back in her eyes.

Ken props in his elbows once again, pulling [Name] closer with a hand behind her neck. "I've been ready since I said yes" he reassures, leaving a short kiss on her lips, "now please, put it in?" he reaches out his hand, taking the dildo and putting it back on its rightful place. [Name] cooperates and moves her hips to push it in, slowly. Ken throws his head back, hitting the pillows. "Mmh" he mumbles, looking up at his girlfriend with adoring eyes.

[Name] bottoms out, and her hands run up and down against Kenji's long legs, caressing them to bring some comfort at the strange intruding sensation. She moves her hands all up Ken's body, bending down to litter his stomach and chest with kisses, finally reaching his lips and kissing him softly.

"You're so pretty Ken. So good for me" praises fall from her lips as she follows her kisses on his shoulder, caressing his hips with her thumbs.

After a few moments being cuddled up, Ken kisses [Name]'s cheek to gain her attention. "You can move now" he whispers, smiling softly at her.

Without wanting to make him wait more, [Name] obeys and start moving her hips slowly, eyes fixated in the way Ken throws his head back in the pillows and moans softly at the movement inside of him. Soon, she starts picking up her pace, going faster and faster.

Ken's mouth opens, moaning without shame. He grabs [Name]'s arms that are on each side of his hips, searching for support in the sea of pleasure he just jumped in.

"Does it feels good?" [Name] asks between whispers, erratic breathing due the constant thrusting.

"So good, baby, nnngh- Please! Faster, fuck me faster!" he whines, getting a hold of his girlfriend and hugging her from her shoulders.

[Name] took a grasp of Ken's hips and did as he asked, fucking him faster. The bed moved below them, hitting on the wall softly, but who cared about that now? Definitely not Kenji, who's eyes were way back as he hugged his girlfriend, strong body easily bouncing on her hips.

The room was filled with his moans and the sound of skin slapping. His harden cock, poorly neglected, was rubbing in between their bodies, pre sprouting from the tip and making it more slippery.

After so many position changes, [Name] had finally found Kenji's prostate. He had gone silence, hugging one of the pillows as the tip of the toy hitted that spot again and again on a loop.

"You close, baby?" [Name] asks with a kiss on his shoulder, her hips never stopping.

"Yes" he drags the last letter. Ken makes an effort to prop on his elbows to look back, looking at his girlfriend with pleading eyes. "Please..." he whines, "please fill me up, nngh ~ fill me up with your babies. Please..." he keeps on begging, even reaching for [Name]'s wrist to hold onto, looking at her with those pleading puppy eyes.

[Name] gets shocked for a second, and with that, her movements also halt, making Kenji whine. "Baby, you know I can't do that-" another of Kenji's cries interrupt her.

"You can, I know you can!" he whines. "Only you can breed me...please...stuff me with your cum. I promise I'll be a good mama...please?" he babbles, tears already falling from his pretty eyes and moving down on his cheeks.

[Name] stares at him in awe. Something inside of her also changing. All of a sudden, the idea of Kenji bearing her children wasn't so bad. She smiles, resuming her thrusts back on her boyfriend as she hovers over him. "Yeah? You want my cum so bad?"

Ken nods desperately, pouting. "Yeah"

"You'll be a good mama, Ken, I'm sure you will be" she assures, hips moving faster and harder, making Ken fall into the pillows once again. He calls out his girlfriend's name between cries, hugging on the pillow like it was gonna save him from the immense pleasure he was feeling and he couldn't control it.

"Cummin'...nngh, 'm cumming" he mumbles.

"Let's cum together, hmm?" she leaves a kiss on his neck.

Ken moans out loud as he shots his cum into the sheets, dirtying them with ropes and ropes of thick cum. [Name] makes the last thrusts a lot harder, grunting in Kenji's ear, as she had just emptied herself inside him. And Ken could feel it, he swear he could! His girlfriend's hot semen filling him up, it was only a question of time for him to be swollen with her babies! He can't help but smile at the simple thought.

She falls on top of Ken, on his back, and they stay like that for a good couple of minutes before [Name] decides to get up and start cleaning up. She leaves a kiss on Ken's back and neck, whispering lots of praises and "I love you"s.

"You feeling good?" she asks, smiling once Ken had moved onto his back on his own. He smiles up at her, resting a hand on his stomach.

"Better than ever" he replies, looking up at her with adoring eyes as she cleans him up with some wet wipes. "Thank you...for all of this" he suddenly speaks, making [Name] look up at him, finding Ken already looking at her like she's his world -and she, indeed, is-. "You made this the best birthday ever. I love you"

[Name]'s heart swells with love. Bending over, she peppers his face with lots of kisses, making Kenji gigle, and finally, she leaves one on his lip, but Ken grabs her from the neck and kisses her back, slowly and softly. They pull apart, and [Name] is also looking at him like he hangs stars in the night sky. "I love you more, and I'm glad you enjoyed yourself; I loved seeing you like that. We can do it any other day, if you want"

"Uh, yeah?" Ken scoffs. "That was mind-blowing, of course I wanna do it again!" he speaks with enthusiasm, and with a lot of energy for somebody that's been fucked for an hour.

"The neccesary amount of times that it would take me to get you pregnant?" she asks with a teasing tone, laughing her head off when she sees Kenji's expression.

"Oh my god...what did I say?"

After cleaning up the bed, the bath time was filled with laughter and embarrassed grunts from Kenji's part, his cheeks and ears red because of how embarrassed he was at the replays of what he had said. Though, he had to admit...it sounded hot.

[catgirlwizard]

.

[goldsbitch]

Four times I bumped into you and the one time I fell

There is no such thing as right time, wrong place. Once the timing is right, the world will spin on its axis to bring two souls together.

fluff, no warnings

Running late to the airport was an absolute no go for you - well, that was until you met Lando, with whom you somehow lost all the travel anxiety. But this was good twelve years before you'd officially meet. While neither of you were aware, it was him who quite literally crashed into you, as he was rushing to catch a flight he was characteristically late for.

This was your first long trip alone, so to say you were anxious would be an understatement. Airports were designed to be understood quite easily, but there you were, unsure where you were suppose to go after the security check. With head turned up to all those signs, you tried to make out where in hell did this place wanted you to go to. Just like a thunder, unexpected and attention-grabbing, Lando bumped into you from behind, full force. He wasn't expecting someone to be just standing there in the middle of the busy pathway.

"Shit," he cussed, already being late to his gate. He quickly checked whether you were ok, mad at you for standing there like a post and a bit angry with himself, for being unable to follow a normal timetable. Your left shoulder received quite a big blow, so after your squirted with pain, you looked at your left arm, before you sought the culprit. When your eyes met, you forgot about all of the pain. In front of you stood an absolutely gorgeous boy. He must have been around your age, boyish looks lacing his face. That sort of cheeky innocence late teenagers have. He was taken back, just like you were, and immediately forgot why he was angry in the first place. Both of you were shy as could be in that moment. The only thing he managed to get out of himself was a little sorry. You smiled and then looked down at your feet. Not knowing what to do, he just uttered another quick apology and set on to continue with his journey to the gate.

"Wait, sorry," you managed to get out of yourself, just as he was about to disappear into the distance. He stopped and turned.

"Yes?" he answered, sheepishly.

You swallowed and tried to speak without getting your tongue twisted. "Can you please show me which way I'm suppose to go?"

You had a true desperate look on you, one that a boy raised like him could never resist. A shot of guilt went though him once he saw you holding your shoulder, probably still bit in pain.

"Sure," he said and proceeded to look at your flight ticket. As he leaned over you, your heart stopped. His proximity was making you almost shiver. Strong perfume, or possibly deodorant given his age, hit your nose. But it wasn't like when other boys were wearing it in school. You wanted to soak yourself in it and drown. He told you some words, explaining where you're suppose to go, but you didn't get any of that. Full on panic from being attracted to him overtook your brain. You nodded, as if you'd understood, and looked him in the eyes again. Both of you held on longer than what would be considered appropriate.

"I gotta go," he muttered and made his exit once again. Didn't turn back, because just like you, he was panicking just a bit.

Once he left your eyesight, you looked at the board again, confused, perhaps more than you were before asking him for directions.

//

"Still nothing?" your friend asked, having no choice but becoming fully invested in your newest crush, guy you shared one lecture last semester. You checked your phone once again, but both of you knew what your answer would be.

"Nothing," you replied after not seeing his name on the list of people who watched your story on Instagram.

Funny, how you can go on an amazing backpacking trip with your bestie, live life to the fullest - and none of it matters if he doesn't give a fuck. In fact, it was infuriating. You were sitting nearby a lovely canal somewhere in Amsterdam, meeting new people every day, having the time of your life. All while checking your phone every five minutes.

Your bestie could tell you were more than annoyed. She herself found it pretty exhausting, because sometimes, it felt like this guy was on the trip with both of you.

"I gotta get him out of my head," you said finally after few minutes of silence.

"Yup. You do realize he is a loser, do you?" your friend said and you laughed because at that time, you just did not see where she was coming from. Years later, you'd be laughing about it.

"I do, yeah. I mean, fuck it, I'm in Amsterdam. This is so cool!" you said, trying to pump yourself up to some enthusiasm.

"That's more like it," your friend replied, more than ready to start talking about anything else than that guy. "Let's just, you know, look around and get inspired. We might find someone for you tonight!"

You laughed. "What, like on the street?"

She just shrugged her shoulders. "You never know..."

You observed the people walking on the other side of the canal. "What about that one?" you pointed to a guy smoking on a bridge, hoping he didn't see you.

"Could work...but there is better material around."

Few moments passed. "Uh, what about that one?" your friend pointed to nice looking guy, who was casually jogging around.

You tried to zoom in, not really sure what to make of him. "Yeah, maybe..."

And then, Lando decided to check his phone, while running, and immediately found himself on the ground, as he managed to miss a hole in the street.

Both of you people-watchers couldn't help but laugh out loud. He couldn't hear you and nobody else apart from didn't seem to notice his fall.

"Ok, maybe not that one," your friend jokes, not knowing she just marked off your future husband.

//

The immigration office. Dreaded place where no one is ever happy. It's also the one place where you can't send someone to just "do it for you". Lando would pay anything to be able to get out of this.

He was sat there for a good half an hour, even though he had a pre-booked appointment. He couldn't recall last time he was this bored. His recent success run had many perks, the best of them being the fact he could often jump lines and get many shortcuts. Not the immigration office. These people just don't care.

It stopped being important the moment you walked though the door and sat across from him, failing to pay any attention to your surroundings. The moment you were sat, you started frantically going through your papers, most likely worried you forgot half of the information these people wanted from you.

"First time?" Lando was not usually chatty with strangers unless they addressed him first, which had been happening a lot lately. But there was something about .you Something in the way you shuffled so nervously.

His voice was thick with British accent, which was usually the thing that made you swoon. When you first looked at him, it overcame you a bit. He was undeniably gorgeous. One of those a bit out of reach. God, he could be a model. Knowing this city, he probably was.

"Yes, first time. There was a mistake done at my embassy, so now I have to try to fix it so that I can come home."

He nodded and you wondered why a guy like that would even care to speak to you. "Home, where is that?" he asked, cheeky look burning holes into you.

You chuckled. He knew where to aim to make it count. "Funny question...I'm currently on crossroads. If I say yes to a job offer, it could pretty much be on a different continent." Lando sensed you were avoiding specific answers and found it smart actually, many creepy people everywhere.

"Well, good luck with your decision. I'm sure that what is meant to be will come to you in the right time."

"Thank you...So what do you call home?" you returned the question.

"Huh. Probably my car," he said, surprising himself in the same way you got. "Yeah, that'll be it."

A nervous laugh escaped your lips. "Are you like homeless or something?" Wave of awkwardness rushed through you, but left as soon as he chuckled at your question.

"No, not really. Just on the road a lot," he said and leaned back in a relaxed way.

"Interesting. Never thought that people on road have to deal with visa."

"More than you'd think."

His number was called in from the office shortly after that. You glanced at him a gave him a small smile. He debated for a moment whether or not he should ask for your number. In the end, he didn't. The interaction was too brief. He was on the move constantly and found everything a little too overwhelming. Hadn't learned yet how to deal with it all. Took him two weeks to stop beating himself over chickening out. But then again, it would be another eight years before he learned your name.

//

Flashing lights, body on body, light smoke that helped to cover the tracks and the latest electronic track to cut through it all. You were in Ibiza, on a bachelorette party for one of your friends. Truth be told, you were not keen on tagging along. You weren't exactly besties with the bride to be, more a friend of a friend. But your big break up was almost seven months ago and the fact you were counting only proved you were not doing well. In fact, it was absolute torture. A trip to Ibiza seemed like a decent distraction from the emptiness that haunted you back home.

You'd separated from the group, perhaps the shots were little stronger than what you were used to. In the middle of the packed dance floor, you found peace. People swaying back and forth, heavy air making sure you all stayed intoxicated. The world was spinning when a pair of hands found you. You could only wonder whether he was as drunk as you were or more. But at that moment, you didn't. Your body reacted to his arms holding you and it was nice to actually feel another person so closely. Perhaps that's what you came for to this island, to find the inner passion for other people again. You weren't searching for love. And of course, you hadn't found it. Because, just when you finally turned around to lock your lips with the handsome, toned guy, Lando had just walked past you, trying to push through the crowd. While he searched for his friends, you searched for the anything that random guy might have had left unspoken on the tip of his tongue.

The headache that followed was more bearable than the heartbreak that pained you before. It's probably for the best you hadn't found Lando that night. You were not ready, not for another three years.

//

It's been quite some time since you loved someone with the kind of intensity that makes dancing in the rain sound like the best idea ever. The kind of love that people write albums about. There was still a glimmer of hope, but with every failed situationship, the hope was harder to search for. Maybe it was just not meant to be - and truth be told, life was actually pretty good. You had great friends, fun job and late twenties were looking great on you. You lost yourself in your thoughts for longer than was probably socially acceptable when one is at a wedding so prestigious as this one was. How you got there was also such a random coincidence, but suddenly you found yourself around a celebrity wedding, where there could have been around five hundred people.

It was a lot to handle in one evening and if you were completely honest, you did feel a little out of place. To regain some peace of mind and avoid a panic attack, you snuck out into the depths of the garden adjacent to the venue.

You walked for minutes, peace and solitude uninterrupted. That was until he spoke to you "for the first time". Neither of you remembering your previous encounters.

"Look, I know this is gonna sound cheesy, but hear me out," said the voice of a person, who at that time had no idea they would go on a disturb your peace for the rest of your life. You turned around, bit surprised someone also made it this far away from the rest of the attendees.

Lando took a quick breath and spoke again. "This is a really good light you have on right now, can I take a quick photo of you?" he said and waved around with his analogue camera. You examined the guy standing in front of you. One would have a hard time looking for someone more handsome than him. He stood there, giving off rather impatient vibe.

"Photo of me?" you asked, not believing you heard him correctly.

"Yes, please. The light is perfect and it'll soon be gone."

He was right about one thing, the sunset was making the sky and the whole garden shimmer with tones of pink one rarely sees in real life. You locked eyes with this strange person and saw a demanding look, begging you to allow him to capture the moment.

"Okey," you said in a low, unconfident tone. He smiled and it was like he just had a shot of espresso, energy flew right through him. His arms shot up and he started looking for the perfect frame.

"Wait, I don't know what to do..." you protested, not being used to getting photographed. For Lando, the occurance of a camera was so common, he didn't even think about it. He found your hesistance refreshing. He quickly snapped a picture, hoping it would capture your unease. Then he looked up from his camera to you again.

"You're perfect like that, don't worry," he assured you and looked for another angle. He was quickly becoming obsessed with the way how the light made your hair shine and a shadow highlighted the contour of your face. There was something he saw in you that night, something he would spend years trying to get into a picture and never getting it fully, at least in his opinion.

Lando found his perfect angle, but by that time your face became stiff, showing you really were not used to modeling. Once again, he looked up from his camera to courage you.

He smiled at you and the two of you locked eyes for longer than strangers usually do. "I'd love to see your smile," he said, hoping he'd loosen you up.

You were beyond nervous. Whatever you were was far apart from normal heart rate.

"Well then you're gonna have to tell me a joke," you said, not knowing where it came from.

"Don't worry, we can talk about my love life after the sunset," he said jokingly and to surprise of anyone who might have overheard, you laughed.

From that moment on, history wrote itself pretty quickly.

[archangeldyke-all]

I feel like Sev is a total dad in that any time she gets into an argument with one of The Kids (tm), she will absolutely never verbally apologize. She will, however, appear with ten crates of a fruit that they mentioned they liked approximately one time in passing or just randomly decide to take them somewhere fun. Just randomly…Totally not because she feels bad or anything…

AD:FAS:DF:ASJDF this is so sweet okay

men and minors dni

it's easier for her to apologize to isha.

the kid's so tiny, and her big gold eyes are so cute, and she doesn't have much ...history... with isha-- so when she accidentally steps on isha's fingers, or eats the leftovers isha was saving for herself in the fridge, or farts when isha's standing right behind her-- a quick "oh, my bad, isha" or "sorry, kiddo" slip off her tongue easily.

of course, this doesn't change the fact that she'll feel guilty as hell for the rest of the day and spoil isha endlessly. but still, it's a little easier for her to actually say sorry when it's baby isha.

it's different with jinx.

for one thing... jinx talks. and jinx talks back. sevika's good at a lot of things, but quick comebacks are not her strong suit. usually, she gets flustered and gruffs out a 'shut the fuck up' which leads to an even bigger argument.

for another thing, jinx and sevika have been squabbling for years. and sometimes those squabbles were... intense, to say the least. the recent familial feelings sevika and jinx have formed for each other have not always existed.

so... it's a little harder for sevika to apologize to her.

she always knows when she's gone too far. she's incredibly intuitive, she's able to read jinx's micro-expressions like an open book. so it's not like she needs help in realizing her mistakes.

it's just the apologizing for it that's hard for her.

about three months into the girls moving in with you, jinx and sevika get into their first real fight as family.

you and isha watch with cringes as they both fling insults and soft objects at each other-- fighting in the way people fight only when they've known each other forever.

it ends with jinx fleeing to her room and sevika reaching for her emergency cigarette stash. she only allows herself a pack a year, so you know she feels horrible when she grabs two.

isha rushes to comfort jinx. you rush to comfort your wife.

"you alright?" you ask as you step onto the back porch. sevika just shrugs.

"i'll get over it. she'll get over it." she mumbles. you wrap an arm around her shoulders, and sevika groans. "shit, i feel so bad. i shouldn't lose my shit with her like that anymore."

"...probably not." you hesitantly agree. sevika huffs and elbows you, and you just kiss her cheek. "but mistakes are alright, babe. we're still learning. both of us. yesterday i caught isha playing with one of our vibrators. she was using it as a mini bazooka in her game of doll wars--" sevika cuts you off with a burst of surprised laughter, and you smile. "point is we're figuring it out as we're going. and nobody's bleeding, so i'd count that as a win."

sevika sighs and agrees with you, stubbing out her cigarette and kissing you soundly.

you think that's the end of it until you're at the store with jinx the next day.

"did sevika say anything to you about... like... robbing a convience store or something?" jinx asks. you blink.

"what?"

jinx shrugs. "this morning she woke me up by shoving, like, an industrial sized box of flamers onto my bed. like fifty pounds of flamers!" jinx giggles. you smile. that explains her and isha's red stained mouths this morning-- and why sevika was out so late last night. "so i dunno. i'm just trying to figure out where she got 'em from."

"she bought them, jinx. she's saying sorry to you."

"...sorry for what?" she asks.

"for the fight you got in last night!" you giggle.

jinx blinks again, like she's never been apologized to before. it's likely that she hasn't. you sigh and wrap an arm around her shoulder. "...sevika's never apologized to me before." she says. you nod. "at least, not without silco threatening her job, or something."

"you weren't her kid back then." you say.

a smile ticks up at the corner of her mouth, and jinx giggles.

"why didn't she just say 'sorry?' she musta spent at least a hundred on that box--"

"she's not the best with her words, jinx, you know this." you say with a laugh. jinx cackles and nods.

taglist!

@fyeahnix @lavendersgirl @half-of-a-gay @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner

@kissyslut @chuucanchuucan @badbye666 @femme-historian @lia-winther

@sevikaspillowprincess @emiliabby @sevikasbeloved @hellorai @my-taintedheart

@glass-apothecary @macaroni676 @artinvain @k3n-dyll @sevsdollette

@ellieslob @xayn-xd @keikuahh @maneskinwh0re @raphaellearp

@iamastar @sevikitty @mascdom @nhaaauyen @annesunshiner

@mirconreadzztuff22 @veoomvroom @lushh-s3vik4s @katyawooga @lesbodietcoke

@lavandasz @strawberrykidneystone @sevikasfan @fict1onallyobsessed

[nxuvillette]

“I PROMISE, IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.”

GENSHIN MEN COMFORTING YOU AFTER A FIGHT

synopsis: you and your boyfriend hardly ever fight, so what happens when you finally have one?

❥- including : tartaglia (childe), cyno, kaeya, wriothesley

❥- note : hi guys !! sorry if this post is kind of shit, i kind of rushed it. i hope you guys enjoy regardless <3 reblogs are appreciated !!

content warnings : sfw, fem!reader, ageless + blank blogs dni, angst, arguing, hurt with comfort, use of pet names (baby), fluff, dumb fights, lots and lots of fluff at the end.

♡ TARTAGLIA (CHILDE)

you and childe hadn’t spoken for much of the day, and this was due to an argument that happened between you two just before you sat down for some breakfast.

it was stupid, genuinely. 

childe had completely misinterpreted something you had said that morning. you were talking about one of your friends and their relationship. for some reason, childe thought you were comparing your relationship to the one your friend had, and it made him question if he was doing enough to make you happy. one thing led to another, and the two of you bickered over the encounter. you tried to explain yourself, but your boyfriend, being the stubborn man he was, didn’t bother to listen and went off on his own accord.

you and childe hardly had any fights. they would usually resolve after an hour or two, but you hadn’t seen him all day. part of you began to grow worried from his sudden absence. did he go out and do something to hurt himself? was he with somebody else? no, there was no way childe would ever cheat on you. he didn’t even look in another woman’s direction when he saw you that day. 

it wasn’t until sunset when childe had finally returned home to you. he had a few scrapes on his arms which seemed like they came from him battling another enemy, but regardless, he seemed to be in one piece. you were very relieved to see that he was fine. it made you run into his arms the moment he came into the door, which took your boyfriend by surprise. he was under the impression that you were still pissed off at him for the shit that he had pulled early on in the day. he knew he was wrong and he should have apologized, but he didn’t know how to put it into words. sometimes he wished he wasn’t so air headed. 

his arm went around your waist, bringing your body closer to his. the smell of his skin made you calm down. “i thought something bad happened to you..” your eyes didn’t move from the floor. 

childe could sense the worry that was in your voice. he shouldn’t have done that to you. he would never want to make you feel scared or put you under the idea that he would leave you. he wasn’t going to ever leave like that again, ever. “i’m sorry, baby..” he whispered, running his fingers along your backside. “i’m such an idiot.. i shouldn’t have said that shit. i love you way too much to hurt you..” 

you lifted your head to meet his ocean blue eyes. he had this frown on his features. you could see how guilty he felt for putting you in such a position. no matter what, you would always be in love with childe. no small argument would make your feelings for him shift, ever. you knew he could be stubborn at times, and honestly, so could you. all that mattered to you in the end was that you two made up and forget the whole thing. “it’s okay.. i still love you, okay?” you smiled at him, which made his heart skip a beat.

childe couldn’t help but smile, too. he leaned towards you and planted a kiss on your lips. he didn’t ever want to see you frown again. he would do anything to see a smile on your pretty face. “let me make up for it.. how about we take a bath together, hm?” he questioned, raising his eyebrows. 

you nodded your head. “sure..” you grinned.

♡ CYNO

you didn’t expect cyno to get upset earlier. 

cyno was in a bit of a rush that afternoon. he had a lot of things to tend to as the mahamatra, so he typically had a busy schedule. at the time, you had no idea that he had to be somewhere at a certain hour, so when you saw your lover wandering around aaru village by himself, you decided to go and talk with him to ask how his day was.

he kept his responses to you a bit shorter than usual, but that’s how he usually was. cyno was more the type of man to listen more than he did talk, but the more you kept speaking, the more he grew somewhat irritated. he had to meet with candace and discuss something that had occurred on his way there. he had to return as quickly as possible, though, because there were several people who needed his help out there. 

cyno had accidentally snapped at you, which in turn made you fire back at him.

it was very out of the ordinary for him to ever get angry with you. cyno was very patient, and he was especially with you. he was never the kind of man to be rude to you or yell at you, ever, so this threw you off completely. before he could even apologize, you left and went back to the place you two shared together. 

he didn’t return home until later that night. he had been thinking about what he had done all day, and it made him feel guilty for being that way towards you. you were his girlfriend. he loved you more than anybody else, and he managed to hurt your feelings because he was unable to control his very own. cyno hoped you wouldn’t want to leave him. anxiety plagued him the entire day. he wondered if he would return back to you and find that you deserted the home you two stayed in. 

much to his relief, you were lying in bed. you were turned on your side that was facing the window which exposed the vast desert outside. he sat down beside you and watched as your eyes fluttered open at the sudden weight taking over the bed. 

“i’m sorry..” cyno whispered, looking down at you with amber eyes. 

you sat up, crossing your legs on the mattress. you didn’t think he would come back being so apologetic, but you couldn’t help but forgive him. it did hurt your feelings a lot, but he was dealing with so much. it didn’t excuse what he did, but you two never fight. he wasn’t argumentative everyday. “it’s okay.. i just felt like shit for bothering you. i should have considered your schedule..” you didn’t want to look at him, but he tilted your chin to look into your eyes. 

cyno leaned in and hugged you, which took you by surprise. “no need.. i was an asshole for not controlling myself. you didn’t deserve any of that..” he squeezed your body. “i love you.. i hope you can forgive me.”

your hand rested on his shoulder blade. his skin felt warm from the blazing heat of the sun that he was under constantly. “i love you too..” you spoke. “i can forgive you, no worries.”

♡ KAEYA

you and kaeya had been dating for quite a while. since you were his girlfriend, there were some things that you needed to get accustomed to in the relationship.

especially kaeya’s drinking habit.

you didn’t mind that he would go off to the bars some nights to have a few drinks with his friends. hell, you did it a few times yourself with your own friends, but it became an issue when he would come late to your dates due to him being hungover the next day. you knew he couldn’t help but sleep an extra hour or two through the morning, but it had happened a few times and it led up to an argument occurring between you. you claimed it was a bother to you and he wasn’t being considerate of your time and energy.

what made it worse was kaeya usually was the one to make these plans, so for him to just not show up, it felt unfair to you. if he knew he was going to drink a lot, why would he continue to make plans with you the next day? it didn’t make any sense to you whatsoever, and you were tired of him either not showing up or having to go to his house to wake him up.

when you stormed out of his house and the door slammed behind you, kaeya felt immediate regret plaguing his chest. he did everything for you in the relationship and you did the same for him. he felt like he was an idiot for letting his drinking habits get a hold of your relationship. he didn’t have a drinking problem by any means, but he knew when he had too much he wouldn’t want to do anything the next day. you were right. it was unfair of him to miss out on spending quality time with you. he didn’t want to make you feel unimportant or a second priority. kaeya loved you more than life itself. how could he hurt the one person he poured his heart and soul into?

he gave you a bit of time to blow off steam. he knew chasing after you could escalate things further, so he decided to leave you alone for the rest of the day. however, he wasn’t about to let you both go to bed angry with each other.

so, when he showed up at your doorstep with a bouquet of flowers, you were quite surprised. you didn’t think kaeya would even bother making an effort to talk things through with you, but he was standing there with an apologetic expression. “can we talk? i understand if not.. but i just don’t want you going to bed pissed at me.” he clutched the flower stems in his hand, hoping you would hear him out.

you nodded your head, inviting him into your home and watching him step inside. kaeya then turned to face you, handing the flowers in your direction. they were your favorite, lamp grass. you loved the way they glowed in the dark. “kaeya.. i’m-“ you started, taking the flowers from him.

“i’m sorry.. i didn’t mean to keep missing out on our dates. i was a shitty boyfriend for keeping up with my behavior, and i shouldn’t have been doing that in the first place.” he cut you off, shocking you. “i love you, (y/n), and i don’t want you to think otherwise.”

you stood there for a few moments in silence. you weren’t sure what to say to him, but you could sense his genuine energy in his voice. “i forgive you..” you said, lifting your eyes to meet his. “i don’t want it to happen again, okay? i love to spend time with you and i don’t wanna feel like you dislike my presence.”

he took your free hand into his, placing a soft kiss on the top of it. he had been a gentleman since day one and it seemed like that attribute of him never left his personality. “i love seeing you more than anybody else, please don’t think you’re a burden. i’d do anything to spend any waking moment with you by my side, okay? i won’t ever do it again.” kaeya replied, stepping closer to where you were standing.

you smiled, pressing a kiss on the side of his cheek. he loved how soft your lips felt against his skin. “i appreciate that..” you sounded much happier, which relieved him.

kaeya wasn’t going to do that ever again. he could never lose you, ever.

♡ WRIOTHESLEY

wriothesley was quite a busy man. it was something you knew you were signing up for when you started to date him a few months back. his job was tiring, exhausting even. he had a huge responsibility on his shoulders to carry, and sometimes it stressed him out more than he would like to admit.

it seemed like that stress began to reach its breaking point, because wriothesley hadn’t been acting right over the last few days. you assumed he was just dealing with his job, so you decided to try and see if venting would have any relief to your boyfriend. you two had done it many times before when things got a little hectic in your personal lives. plus, you both trusted each other greatly. you didn’t think he would have an issue with it.

well, you were wrong, unfortunately.

when you made the attempt to speak to your boyfriend about what was wrong, he had a serious attitude, and things escalated to you two both having a fight. you didn’t like the way he was speaking to you and he was becoming upset with you for no reason at all. all you had asked him was if he wanted to talk, but it seemed like that question alone must have ruffled his feathers. 

you two never fought, so this had completely blindsided you.

wriothesley then left for work, leaving you by yourself in the apartment you lived in. it wasn’t your intention to make him angry with you. all you wanted to know was what was troubling him to make him feel so overwhelmed. that fact crept up on wriothesley immediately after he entered his office at the fortress. he shouldn’t have snapped at you that way. it wasn’t right, nor was it excusable. he was the one person who was supposed to make you happy, not hurt.

a few hours later, he returned home a lot earlier than usual. things were slow at the fortress, so he decided to leave early and try to patch things up with you. he found you sitting on the couch with a book in your hands, seemingly trying to read away what had happened earlier between you. you were a bit taken back to see him standing in front of you, but you didn’t know what to say to him. 

“i’m sorry.. i was out of line earlier.” he broke the silence between you. it was like popping a balloon. “i get it if you’re pissed at me.. i can give you space if you’d like.”

you sat there for a few moments. you closed the book in your hands and placed it on the wooden table in front of you. wriothesley was right. he shouldn’t have been that much of an ass to you. you didn’t deserve such treatment, but you loved him. he was never like that towards you and your friends had told you before that random fights are normal. “it’s okay.. i forgive you.” you replied, standing up to go in front of him. “please.. just promise me you won’t do that again.” 

his hands went to cup your cheeks. his thumbs brushed against your smooth skin. you could see how guilty he felt for doing what he had done. “i promise.. i swear, (y/n), i’ll never do that again. i could never hurt you like that, ever again.” he looked down at you with sincerity on his features. 

you leaned in to hug him. wriothesley inhaled the fresh scent of your shampoo and felt immediately calmed from your touch. he loved you, dearly. he could never do that to you again and he vowed to never pull a stunt like that with you ever again.

© NXUVILLETTE ┆ all rights reserved, do not repost, translate, or claim as your own.

[cottonlemonade]

Dating You For A Bet [Part 3]

word count: 2145 || avg. reading time: 9 mins.

pairing: University AU!Matsukawa x chubby!Reader

genre: angst, comfort

warnings: like one time swearing

[part 1] [part 2]

As soon as the dorm room door closed behind you, your shoes were practically flung off your feet. With a deeply satisfied sigh you stretched and wiggled your toes, slowly feeling the numbness subside. You weren’t used to wearing heels but thought that a third date called for the occasion.

“How was it?”

Confused, you turned around as if your roommate could have possibly meant anyone else. She hardly ever spoke with you so this was absolutely a first.

She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, computer on her lap, and brushed her headphones from one ear.

“The… date?”, you asked cautiously, standing frozen in front of the wardrobe like a deer caught in headlights.

The other girl nodded.

“It was… nice?”

“Just nice?”

“He was sweet.”

“That was your second one this week, right? Are you gonna keep seeing him?”

“I’m sorry. I’m still trying to figure out why you’re talking to me.”

She shrugged.

“Because I’m curious.” When you still didn’t say anything, she explained, “I’ve heard all over campus what happened, and… it sucks what your ex did. And I saw how sad you were about it but I’m also really impressed with how you’re handling it now. I guess I just wanna say that at first, I thought it was a really dumb rumor because you were both so obsessed with each other. It didn’t make any sense.”

That brought you out of your stupor. You turned to put your jacket back in the closet and tossed the shoes carelessly into the void somewhere to other disregarded things.

“Yeah.”, you said after a small pause.

“Do you think you’ll get back together?”

Now it was on you to shrug.

“Why d’you ask?”

Your roommate turned the laptop so you could see. It was a live feed of the current varsity volleyball match. Issei was just being switched out and the camera stayed on him as the coach kept talking very fast and gesturing towards the court in an unmistakably urgent manner. Issei simply bowed his head and nodded to his shoes, kneading the pads of his fingers against the water bottle like he always had done when he was anxious. The clip was only about five seconds long but it was obvious that when he turned around to look at the stands behind him he was searching for someone.

Your roommate moved the laptop back so that the screen was facing her again.

“He has been off all game.”

“Well… too bad.”, you said and grabbed your towel and shower caddy.

With three days left until Christmas, the first snow fell. After your tear-filled kiss with Issei at the bench two weeks ago he had left you alone. No more notes, no more loitering around waiting to talk to you and you wondered if this was really how it would be from now on. You figured that finding out you were dating someone else had spooked him into hiding. However, just as you were sure you would never speak another word with him you heard a commotion outside your door. Calls and hollerings were echoing through the hallway from the girls on your floor and you and your roommate both looked up from your essays to then exchange a questioning head tilt with each other. The large pizza carton between you was pushed aside and, brushing your greasy hands off on your washed-out sweats, you got up to see what was going on. When you opened the door you saw four guys hunched over with their heads ducked between their shoulders looking as uncomfortable as can be. Issei, meanwhile, was pushing a fifth down the corridor toward your room. You recognized them now. It had taken a few seconds without their usual sneers.

Your ex had them stand in a row in front of you and then all but one knelt down. Issei gave the last one a tap with his foot on the back of the knee to make him match the others. Heads hung low and hands resting on their thighs, one after the other bowed in deepest apology with their foreheads almost touching the linoleum. The middle one, whom you remembered as the idiot who suggested the bet, began to speak as Issei stood behind them all, arms crossed, a smirk on his lips.

“Y/n-san,”, the middle one said, “we’re very sorry for… for the whole thing.”

Issei cleared his throat. All the girls from the surrounding doors giggled and kept their phones focused on them to film while you were gaping like a fish.

“- for making the bet about you. It was terrible and immature and you didn’t deserve to be treated like that. We ask for your forgiveness.” A general murmur of apologies went through the row of kneeling guys.

“Here.”, the middle one fished a crinkly envelope from his hoodie and held it up to you with both hands, “This is the money from the bet. Please accept it.”

“No, why would I want your money?”, you replied in disbelieving disgust.

“Okay.”, your roommate weighed in quietly and slipped past you, snatching the envelope, “I’ll be taking that.”

You frowned at her.

She raised her hands in defense. “Pride and integrity are great and all but we are still students at the end of the day. This will at least fund next month’s pizza parties. I’m just saying.” And she retreated behind you, adding, “Carry on.”

“Just leave me alone and don’t ever talk to or about me ever again. And the sooner you realize that you are nothing but pathetic worms that peaked in high school the sooner you can go to therapy which you obviously need.”

The boys seemed to wait for something, then Issei said, “You heard her. Fuck off.”

All five scrambled to their feet and pushed through the audience of sniggering girls to get away.

Incredulously, you looked at Issei who was very obviously very satisfied with himself.

“How did you even…?”

He chuckled and shrugged as the surrounding crowd slowly dispersed and went back into their rooms and about their days.

“You didn’t beat them up, did you?”

“Worse.”

He walked over to you and leaned casually against your doorframe.

“I called their moms.”

Your roommate snorted and went back to her essay.

There was a pause in which Issei realized that for the first time since the breakup, you didn’t regard him with the previous hurt or anger. His smirk faded into a small unsure smile and he switched between glancing at you and his hands, “You look pretty.”, he muttered, then pushed himself off the doorframe, “Have a good night.”

The clip of the five guys kneeling in front of your door (from varying angles) was all over the campus forum for days giving you finally a different sort of spotlight and leading your fellow students to turn their attention and energy to hackling the bet-makers rather than you. It was a welcome change of pace.

On Christmas morning then you were bundled up tightly in your coat and scarf and trudged through the freshly fallen snow on your way to the library where you would pretend to study while in all honesty, you would just be scrolling on your phone. All just to escape the omnipresent merriment. You had to walk past Issei’s dorm, something you had avoided doing for weeks and instead had taken the much longer route.

“Y/n!”, you heard a shout from overhead and when you looked up into the soft flurry of snow you spotted Issei waving from his window, “Wait there for a moment!”

Two flights of stairs later, Issei jogged through the lobby towards the glass front door to hold it open. “Could you come up for a second, please? - It’s nothing weird, I promise.”, he added when he saw your skeptically raised brow.

You followed him silently until you reached his door.

With a flourish, he opened his room and was met with a wall of smell from a whole bunch of different essential oils. He coughed and flitted into the room to open the window again, using a notepad to fan the air. The whole room was decorated with candles and garlands and even a small fake Christmas tree that obviously had needed a bit of persuasion to stand up straight on the bedside table.

“Sorry.”, he pressed out in between coughs, “I went around the whole building for candles but they all just had scented ones.” He kept feverishly fanning the icy cold air into the room, ignoring the thick snowflakes landing on and soaking through his pillow. A long dead plant in a pot on the windowsill caught the flame of a candle as he waved around the notepad and began to slowly burn to a crisp. “Oh!” He tossed the notepad onto the bed and grabbed the mostly empty can of an energy drink to pour over it.

“Anyways.”, Issei turned around as if nothing had happened and cleared his throat, “You once told me that you were kinda dreading Christmas because you couldn’t go see your family and I promised that I would spend Christmas with you and make it fun, so!” He jumped to his dresser and retrieved a red tin containing slightly burned, painstakingly decorated sugar cookies and handed them to you. Then he turned around and rummaged under his bed until he pulled out a Santa hat and reindeer antlers that he placed on top of the tin in your hands, “I also have your favorite Christmas movies -”, he waved toward his laptop, “you don’t have to watch them with me, of course, but they’re there if you like - and”, he picked up a note from his desk, “here is the list we made of all the Christmas activities that you wanted to do. We can go through them one by one.” You noticed how the paper shook slightly in his hand and how he swallowed a lump that seemingly had formed in his throat while awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “Mistletoe is kinda inappropriate now but I guess you can… slap me instead if we’re both under it. But the snow is good for a snowball fight and to build a snowman and make snow angels and-“

“Issei!”, you said firmly to stop his ramblings, “This is really nice of you but I’m not in the mood to play in the snow right now.”

“Right… uhm.”, his eyes darted back to the paper in his hand for another idea, “We can go to the coffee shop for that holiday drink I told you about.”, he suggested excitedly instead.

“I… already went and tried it last week with my roommate.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah.”

“Did you like it?”

“It was nice, yeah.”

“Good. Good.” After a short pause, he followed up with, “I’m glad.”

He then hesitated, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again and put the list back on his desk.

You looked around the room - the leftover paper shreds next to the trash can from the cutout snowflakes, the wonky bow on top of the cookie tin, the over-laden Christmas tree. All the effort and genuine thought he had put into everything at the very least made you want to accept his peace offering.

“I wouldn’t mind having it again, though.”, you heard yourself mumble.

“Really? You sure?”

You shrugged.

“Alright, lemme grab my jacket.”

“You should put out the candles.”

“Right!”

“Alright, order placed.”, he announced when he sat down across from you, holding up the little buzzer that would let you know about your drinks.

“How have you been?”, he asked.

“Good. Better. I aced that exam I was so worried about.”

“Knew you had it in your pocket.”, Issei nodded and turned the buzzer nervously in his fingers.

“Let me just tell you that I know there is no excuse for what I did. But know that I am not done apologizing for it. You are everything to me and I am kicking myself every day for not realizing it the moment I saw you. You deserve nothing but the best and I’m glad you found someone who can make you happy.”

“Thank you.”, you allowed yourself to smile, “I appreciate that.”

“So… what’s he like?”, he asked, trying very hard to sound casual.

“Who?”

“Your new boyfriend. Do I know him?”

“Well uhm, he isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Oh?” His fingers turning the buzzer slowed ever so slightly.

“Yeah it just…”, you sighed and shrugged, “didn’t work out.”

You would under no circumstances ever tell him that it was because you had called him Issei while he kissed you. You would take that to the grave.

“Aw, that’s too bad.”

“You know this would be a whole lot more convincing if you weren’t grinning like an idiot.”, you smiled.

taglist: @samoankpoper21 @reikashe @jasminelee324

[part 4]

[selineram3421]

*slams alarm clock against the wall*

Hissy Kitty

Part 4

Part 3

Alastor X Reader

Warnings ⚠

⚠ mentions of alcohol, all caps for shouting/yelling, our deer man in denial, cussing ⚠

"What just happened?", Alastor asked.

He looked around with furrowed eyebrows, confused.

"Are you ok? What was that?", you got his attention with your questions. "Why did you threaten Sir Pentious?"

Then he noticed how close you were, and the hold he had on you.

"Alastor?"

Ripping himself away, he took a large step back. Looking you up and down in a panic before taking a step into the shadows, disappearing from your sight.

You stood alone in the hallway, wondering what had caused such a reaction, both the anger and the panic. Then you walked to the lobby, seeing your brother working at the bar and you took a seat on a bar stool with a sigh.

"Never thought I'd see you come up to the bar like that.", Husk quirked a brow. "Need to talk to the bartender?", he asked, getting a cup ready.

"No.", you sighed and crossed your arms on the counter, resting your chin on them. "I need to talk to my older brother."

A drink was placed in front of you before there was another one next to it, then your brother walked out from behind the bar and sat on the bar stool on your right side.

"Alright kit, lay it on me.", he said and got his drink to take a sip.

"It's just been weird.", you started off. "I know Alastor is around me to bug you, we've established that.", you gestured to each other. "But the others think that he's trying to court me?"

"Pffffft-!", Husk sprayed out some of his drink.

"Which I know is not true, because that isn't what's been happening but Charlie and Pentious think that. And the weirdest part just happened a few minutes ago.", you continued.

Your brother coughed before wiping his mouth.

"What happened?"

"I was talking to Pentious and then all of a sudden Alastor appeared behind me.", you gestured as if someone was behind you now. "Pulled me away from my conversation with Sir Pentious and threatened to cook him."

Your brother was quiet, holding his cup as he thought before placing it down on the counter. He turned his body to face you and placed a hand on your shoulder.

"I need to know every detail of what happened, this doesn't sound normal but I can't be too sure.", he says. "That smiling fuck is not normal in general."

"Ok.", you nod and start over. "Sir Pentious had stopped me in the hallway.."

.

Alastor teleported somewhere far away from you within the hotel.

He couldn't go back to his tower, you were too close by and he needed a moment to think, to not worry about being found by you. Then he remembered that you held his face, the lingering feeling of your touch on his cheek made his chest tighten.

"Alastor? Is everything ok?", he heard the familiar voice of the Princess.

Somewhat surprised, the deer demon takes a good look around of where he is. He had teleported himself into Charlie and Vaggie's room.

"Apologies dear, I was in a bit of a rush to notice where I was going.", he says with a tight smile and fixes his coat. "I shall be off.", he turns to face the exit.

"Oh wait!", the Princess gets up from her seat and walks over. "Let them know that their clothes are finished. Niffty sure works fast."

Not paying any mind to it, he glances at the blonde.

"Who exactly?", he asks.

Then she says your name.

He stands still like a deer in headlights.

"Why would I let them know?", he turns to face her with brows furrowed slightly.

"Because you're always around them, I assumed that you were going to see them again.", Charlie explains.

"HA!", the Radio Demon laughs. "Do you think me a lovesick fool? Following them around like some dizzy-"

"Love?", she says confused. "I never said anything about love.."

He stares at the Princess for a moment, seeing her make the realization before quickly making his way towards the door.

"¡'m |€@v¡n& Ω¤￦."

"Al! What's so wrong with being-?", Charlie followed behind him.

"Being in love?", Alastor stopped walking to finished her question, turning around to face the Princess.

"Yes! Why is that a bad thing?", she continued.

So many reasons. He thought.

"It makes a person ￦€aK.", he replied instead. "It clouds one's thoughts, blinds, consumes, ruins.", he shook his head. "I could never allow myself to fall so low."

The Princess looked at him with a sad glare.

"I don't know if my word on love means anything but to me love gives strength, it inspires, encourages, protects-"

"IT DOES NOTHING TO HELP PROTECT SOMEONE!"

Feeling the ends of his smile start to turn down, he looked away and made his way to the door.

"I'm leaving.", he said, voice void of static, deciding to use the shadows to escape from the conversation quicker.

Teleporting to his Radio Tower, he sees the mess of glass was cleaned up.

"Good, now I can get to work and forget about this whole th-"

The trap door slammed open, causing Alastor to snap his head around to see who had dared to enter his tower uninvited.

"You've got five fucking seconds to explain yourself.", Husk growled as he stood in the room.

"What are you going on about?"

"You touched my sibling again but this time you were pissed off.", the cat demon stomped his way over to the deer demon. "Why would some other demon touching them piss you off so much, huh? I told you countless fucking times that they aren't yours."

Husk jabbed at his boss's chest with his claw.

Alastor grew taller, letting his anger show. "D¤ Ωo+ toμ©h m€ aΩd ¡ wiL| dθ a$ I pL€a$e."

The two glared at each other until the cat's eyes widened.

"Holy shit.", Husk lowered his hand.

"￦hAt?", the Radio Demon hissed, ready to teach the ex Overlord a lesson.

"You're in love with them.."

*glares at the morning sun* No.

~Seline, the person.

Part 5

Taglist@

@c4rved-pumpk1n @scary-noodlesblog @stolas-thebirb @naelys-the-aster @biromanticboba @lbcreations-blog @ducky-died-inside @kiraisastay @pooplyface1423 @line-viper @117s-girl @spiderlegsling @alastorsgoldie @repentant-repeller @kcsketches @lofasofabread @kotaleee @im-coolrat @superzombiewho @speckle-meow-meow @jammcookie @dilucragnvindr-my-beloved @trashbin-nie @koioli @fatherlesschild2 @mmik3yy @just-here-reading @nealeart @hudiexiaoying @crystal-multiplefandomlover @+?

🔪The other tags in the comments.🔪

ML for Alastor🎙 | HK ChL😾

[gatorbites-imagines]

Kinktober day 23

Ryomen Sukuna + Power Bottom

True form Sukuna my beloved. I want him so bad. Had a lot of fun writing this, I miss Sukuna so much. Gojo clan reader, cuz hehe. Uh, mentions of cannibalism in this, cuz its Sukuna. Takes place during the Heian era.

2024 kinktober masterlist

It was difficult to breathe, feeling the sheer weight that was Sukuna pressing down on you. Or maybe it was the fact that one of his four hands was wrapped around your neck, his hand so big he couldn’t even fit the entire thing around your fragile neck.

Your arms were pinned above your head, pulled taught just enough to ache but not break, another of his hands easily holding your wrists with just his thumb and pointer finger. Your chest shuddered as Sukuna ground his hips down on you again, pulling a whimper of overstimulation out of you around the fingers he had inside your mouth.

It was hard to keep track of where his four hands went at all times. You knew one was choking you, one was trying to bruise the back of your throat, and a third was holding your arms. But, where was the last one?

A muffled yowl forced its way out your chest as you felt a sudden pinch of pain in your ballsack, tear filled eyes shooting open to look up at Sukuna as if begging him for an explanation. His grin was feral, like it always was when he wanted to “use his favourite toy”. It brought him some kind of thrill to have someone from the Gojo clan under his bulk, bending but not breaking under his strength, and wrung dry until you couldn’t feel your legs.

“What? My ass not good enough for you? why are you thinking about something else Brat” he snarled, the one arm you hadn’t kept track of moving behind him, followed by a cruel squeeze of your sensitive sack. You couldn’t apologize or explain yourself, nor did you want too, since you knew Sukuna loved to see you cry. His face might be stuck in a sneer, but the mouth on his stomach was smirking and licking at your abdomen, showing his true emotions.

You wanted to shake your head, you were here, you just couldn’t help but float off somewhere else after Sukuna had been riding you all night. He always got extra excited after slaughtering sorcerers, you had an inkling he must have killed some of your former clan members with how hard hed ridden you.

For the most part you didn’t even understand why he liked you enough to keep you alive. You were nothing like your clan. You didn’t inherit any of the clans known abilities, and you were even the result of one of the higher ranked women spreading her legs for a no name sorcerer with no clan, leaving you with a bloodline that left you near indestructible.

Maybe it was the fact that you had successfully killed one of your younger cousins, one who had been born with the six eyes, out of nothing but hate for your clan and jealousy. Maybe it was the fact that you had fled to his territory, carrying that younger cousin’s corpse like some sick trophy. Or maybe, it was because you had offered him the corpse, knowing it would anger your clan more than anything else you could have done.

It wouldn’t have been strange for him to have killed you right then and there. But instead, Sukuna had grinned big and feral, with the same glint in his eyes he got when he was about to wipe out a village of innocent non-sorcerers. The mouth on his stomach had licked its lips, and at the time you had imagined it was because of the priced corpse you had given him. When in reality, it was the sight of you, with that dark look in your eyes, covered from head to toe in the blood of your so-called family.

There hadn’t been much to live for, there never was, so swearing your loyalty to Sukuna didn’t mean much to you. Uraume had been quite suspicious of you for a while, until you had proven yourself enough for him. Sukuna had simply been entertained, sending you on trips to kill more of your clansmen or allies of your clan, just to see how far you would go.

The first time he decided that you would be more than just a simple tool had been out of your understanding. You were a sorcerer, but you had never been trained to the same level as those around you, which meant you didn’t notice the flicker of cursed energy unfurling inside you.

It was familiar to Sukuna, and enough to make him salivate. He had been human once, and he knew what to look for when it came to someone turning into a curse. The hate you had festered for your clan and all the abuse they put you through had put you on the right path, and you starting to eat human flesh to please him only watered the seed you had always carried.

You had been stunned at the time as Sukuna invited you to join him in his personal bath, but who were you to turn your lord down. You had seen Sukuna naked multiple times before, having seen him strip down from his hunts and killings, you had even helped Uraume in scrubbing him down, but this was different.

It was even more shocking for you when he shortly told you to wash him, the curse sitting back with his thighs splayed apart and his arms resting behind him outside of the pool of water. You couldn’t truly say no, and you really didn’t want too either, so the choice was easy. You ended up dropping the sponge though, when Sukuna rose out of the water, just to bend over the edge of the natural spring, as he told you to use your mouth to clean him with one of his hands pulling himself open.

From then it was like a fountain had opened. Sukuna had many men and women passing through his chambers, most sacrifices or those that thought they could curry favour with the king of curses, but none of them ever left alive, instead ending up as meat stuck between his teeth.

But you, you survived, even if you felt like he had drained the very life out of your cock with his hungry mouths and ass. If you thought the mouth on his face was lethal, then you hadn’t expected just how skilled the mouth on his stomach was.

Sukuna regularly enjoyed just pressed down on top of you, the mouth on his stomach licking and sucking until you were sobbing from overstimulation. That was never the end of it, of course. He wouldn’t be the king of curses if it was. Instead, Sukuna used cursed energy to get you hard again, just so he could ride you.

A sharp pain in your taint forced you back to the present again, a warbled keen passing your lips as tears ran down your face, what had to be your tenth orgasm of the night rolling through you. your toes curled against the floor, kicking uselessly under Sukunas muscular body.

You heard him tsk above you, his rocking hips coming to a stop on top of your own, his plush muscular ass pressing against your bruised hips and thighs. “Hey, Brat” he grunted, pulling his fingers from your mouth to pat at your tear-stained cheek, strings of spit still hanging from his fingers to your tongue.

Even without his clawed fingers inside his mouth, it still wants impossible to speak. Your tongue felt too thick and heavy, useless and limp and impossible to curl into letters to form words. It was hard to even see his face from how blurry your vision was, a pleasant ache running through your body. You may be half Gojo and near indestructible, but you truly were nothing against someone as powerful as Sukuna.

He gave a huff above you as you turn your head, nuzzling against his palm like an affectionate puppy, which was as close as you could get to express your feelings right now. Sukuna sighed out a longer breath, his hands releasing you, allowing you to take a deep shuddering breath, your arms staying above your head as you felt too weak to move them.

“Guess I can’t expect more out of you” he grumbled, sounding almost annoyed but there was an undercurrent of something softer and warmer. The ache of overstimulation shot through you body as Sukuna rose off you, your poor abused cock falling limp against your stomach. “Oh, shut up, it’s not so bad” the curse rumbled, sounding closer to a purr than his usual growl.

The mouth on his stomach licked its lips hungrily at the sight of your dick, clearly wanting to lick up all the fluids still covering it, or the many streaks of cum, blood, tears and what other bodily fluids covering your body. The thought of that large tongue running over you made you shudder again, part of you yearning, another part wanting to shy away.

“Come here” the curse huffed, picking you up with ease, your body limp in his hold as his two bottom arms held you against his torso. The world felt like it was running together around you, your legs still felt limp and useless, continuous shudders running through your body as you melted against him.

It sounded like Sukuna had called for Uraume, but you couldn’t be sure, as even your hearing felt muffled. Maybe you really had cum more than ten times, you normally didn’t float this far away with just that.

One of Sukunas free hands ran through your sweaty hair, letting you arch into it as he carried you towards his personal bath. You were the only toy who entertained him and that he couldn’t break, so he had to take care of you. that was it, no other reason. The king of curses couldn’t care about anybody, but Sukuna did hate you less than everyone else.

[0x-cinder]

GN!Reader gets lost for a night. Law isn't very happy when they find their way back to the Polar Tang the next morning....

Content Warnings: mentions of alcohol, angst, a bit suggestive if you look hard enough.

"I would have torn that town to pieces"

You strolled through the town on your way back to Polar Tang, your head throbbing, an after-effect of the night before. You couldn't remember much after Ikkaku handed you your 6th shot of the night. I thought you remembered dancing with her? Or at least…Dancing with someone? The next thing you knew, you awoke hidden inside a hay wagon with no clue how you got there. You chuckled to yourself and vowed never to drink again…At least for the rest of the week. 

As you approached the rocks that served as the hiding place for the yellow submarine, you sighed in relief to see that it was still there. You'd half expected them to have left you there. Law preferred everyone to be present and accounted for on the Tang by nightfall. That said, you were undoubtedly in for a stern talking-to from the Heart Pirates' captain once you boarded. 

Weaving your way around the rocky shore, you spotted Bepo standing on the deck of the Tang and waved. 

The Bear's paws rushed to his mouth in a gasp, and he scrambled to lower the ramp, "They're back!" He called behind him before rushing towards you, trapping you in a tight, fuzzy hug. 

"Bepo…I can't breathe…" You wheezed, squirming to free yourself from his arms.

"Oh!" Bepo gasped, releasing you, "Sorry." 

You stepped back, brushing yourself off. Then you noticed the anxious look painted on the Bear's face as he looked you up and down.

 "What? Is something wrong?" You asked. Had something happened while you were gone?

"You- are you okay?" The bear questioned, still scanning your body for any sign of harm.

"Yeah? I think so? You're making me nervous, Bepo." You replied with a chuckle.

"You were really drunk last night. I turned my back on you for one second to get you some water and you disappeared! No one saw you leave the tavern. The Captain-" Bepo started to ramble. 

Guilt began to creep its way into your consciousness.

"Look who finally showed up." A rough voice resonated from the Tang. 

You peered over Bepo's shoulder to see a very pissed-off Trafalgar Law descending the ramp toward you. Shit. You thought. You'd wanted to at least take a nap before facing the captain's wrath.

"My office. Now." He ordered.

Bepo gave you a sympathetic look as you strode past him to follow Law. "I'm glad you're okay." 

You nodded with a sheepish smile before following your fuming captain onto his ship and into his office, passing multiple crew members who watched you with relieved looks on their faces.

Law opened the door for you. Once you were inside, he followed and closed the door behind him. He then walked to his desk, still completely silent, his back turned to you. You felt the anxiety start to rise in your chest at the uncomfortable silence. 

"Law I'm-" you started to apologize.

"Are you hurt?" He interrupted, clenching and unclenching his inked hands, as though he was trying to release some of his pent-up anger. You'd seen Law angry before, but never this angry. 

You were in some serious trouble. 

"No. I mean, I have a crazy hangover, but-" you began to explain before he cut you off again. 

"Where the hell were you?" 

"Well, I woke up in a hay wagon…I think I may have blacked out. Oops."

Law tensed, balling his hands into tight fists. "You're telling me you were wandering around. Alone. After dark. Drunk out of your mind. Are you insane?" His calm demeanor was starting to scare you. 

"I didn't mean to wander off…At least I don't think I did? I don't remember much from last night." You chuckled nervously, fidgeting with the tips of your fingers.

He spun around to face you, and the pained expression he wore on his face startled you, somewhere between intense worry and seething anger. You stepped backward, but your back hit the wall, preventing you from putting any more space between you and the furious man in front of you.  

"You think this is funny?" Law asked, still maintaining that eerily calm tone, "What if something happened to you? What if someone tried to hurt you or-" he cut off, his voice cracking slightly. He was slowly losing it.

Guilt shot through your body once again and you looked away, beginning to crumble under the pressure of the captain's intense gaze. 

"I guess you'd have to patch me up again then, huh, doc?" You joked, rubbing your arm awkwardly in an attempt to ease the tension that engulfed the room.

Law exploded. In seconds, he moved from the center of the room to hover over you. "This isn't a fucking joke." He seethed, his jaw clenched tight.

You squeezed your eyes shut and pressed yourself against the wall as if you could fall through it and escape this situation. You didn't. He was so close you could feel his rapid breathing on your hair.

"I-" you stumbled over your words. Taking a deep breath before continuing, "I didn't think anyone would-"

Law cut you off by slamming his hand into the wall behind you, making you jump. "Fucking look at me, god damn it!" 

You winced and opened your eyes, slowly bringing your gaze to meet his. His brows were creased with anger, but the vulnerability in his eyes shot a dagger through your heart. 

"You didn't think anyone would what?" he continued after a moment, "That anyone would care? Ikkaku didn't sleep last night. Neither did Bepo. Penguin and Sachi were out until 1AM looking for you, and I-"

He choked.

The doctor's anger softened ever so slightly as he brought his hand up to cup your cheek gently, "I would have torn that town to pieces until I found you if Penguin hadn't-" He paused, taking a deep breath.

Your eyes widened at his words. "Law.." You breathed, "I'm fine- you didn't have to-"

The man cut you off by running his thumb across your lips, his eyes darkened. Your heart pounded as they flickered down to your lips and then back up to meet yours, calculating. Questioning. 

He swallowed. "I'm just.." he trailed off. You could feel his shaky breath against your lips. He leaned closer, bringing his face centimeters away from yours, "terrified of losing you.." he finished.

Then his lips brushed against yours hesitantly. As if he was testing you. Making sure this was okay. 

You closed your eyes and pushed your lips to his, giving him your approval.

That was all Law needed.

Releasing the breath he was holding, he moved his lips against yours desperately, bringing his other hand to the other side of your face, caging you between his calloused hands.

He tilted his head to the side, deepening the kiss as you melted into him, running your hands up his chest to rest around his neck.

The doctor let out a muffled groaned as one of his tattooed hands wove its way into your hair while the other slid down to your hips, his thumb slipped under the hem of your shirt igniting a fire that spread throughout your whole body. 

The captain flinched as if something had shocked him. Hesitating for a moment. You bit down on his lip softly, wanting more. He recovered instantly, pulling your hips against his while his other hand grabbed a fistful of your hair. You felt your knees grow weak beneath you, stumbling as they gave out entirely.

Law caught you, sliding his whole hand underneath your shirt to settle on your back, holding you tight against him as his mouth devoured yours; slowly, full of desire and self-indulgence. 

Everything other than him melted away and you moved your hands to rest on his jawline, holding his face, his lips, exactly where they were as you responded with a passion that almost rivaled his.

Eventually, you both remembered you needed to breathe and reluctantly pulled away, your bodies heaving together as you waited for your lungs to catch up. 

The reality of what just happened dawned on you in an instant. You'd just kissed the captain. Heat rushed to your face as your widened eyes met Law's. His cheeks were flushed, and his hair was a mess. The sight made your stomach flutter.

He touched his forehead to yours. "Now do you understand?" he asked breathlessly, his inked thumb drawing small circles over your cheek.

"I think so.." You gave him a nervous smile. "Are you still angry with me?"

"Yes. But I'll get over it." He sighed. "Just don't ever disappear like that again."