#it hasn’t even been two months yet
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ultimateaclrecovery · 2 years ago
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I am so god damn smitten with this boy I hardly no what to do with myself.
I like him so much and he’s just so god damn perfect
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camgoloud · 7 months ago
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you ever just. become overwhelmed by a sudden out-of-nowhere wave of tenderness and affection and longing for reconnection directed towards someone to whom you no longer speak for Very Good Reasons
#‘out of nowhere’ she says like she hasn’t been doing a lot of reading/thinking recently about various tragic messy breakups#and the later regrets of the parties involved#anyway. tell me not to text her#it’s been over two years since the last time we talked… absolutely no reason to break that streak now. lord give me strength#she was really fucking mean to me! like objectively intentionally unwarrantedly cruel! it ruined an entire year of my life#and fundamentally changed me as a person on a deep level! there’s a lot of things i used to like about myself that i don’t think i’m ever#going to get back#and yet every once in a while we have to do the whole ‘maybe i could make things right’ song and dance 😔#the thing is most of the time i’m not even really angry with her anymore like enough time has passed since all the shit went down that#really i just sort of look at her behavior and feel sad. both because of the impact on me but also because of the ‘that’s really how you#felt you needed to act towards someone who cared about you? you couldn’t have just expressed your feelings in an honest and productive way#instead of just lashing out in the cruelest possible way and ruining the entire relationship beyond hope of repair?’#and i feel bad and sorry that it went that way and honestly i kind of pity her and hope she’s gotten some of her shit worked out#so i’m not like. actively pissed off at her anymore. but also i can’t think about her without thinking about the worst year of my life so 🙃#i don’t actually feel that trying to reopen that door would be very healthy for me at least#we did try a Reconciliation of sorts a couple of months after the initial falling-out and while it was kind of helpful for me in that she#like. apologized lmao. and affirmed that i wasn’t crazy and she did in fact On Purpose say the most hurtful things she possibly could have#said to me given the information she had at her disposal. and that i really had not done anything to her that could warrant that. etc.#it also left a sour enough taste in my mouth that i just don’t see a future where the two of us spending time together is enjoyable for me#and yet… the regret will always live inside me i think. maybe if i were a stronger person…#caseyposting
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emily-mooon · 7 months ago
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Me rn:
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designernishiki · 1 year ago
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im at the haruka + akiyama duo section of 5 now and i love it <3 both for the uncle/niece sort of dynamic they have and because i fucking love me a murder mystery baby
#weirdly very good choice of character to help haruka solve the crime and all that considering he#went to fucking law school amazingly enough#like. he’d actually know what the fuck he’s talking about despite how incompetent he seems on the surface fjddcjendgj#he’s actually got CREDENTIALS#anyway yeah also their dynamic is just very sweet and I’m so fucking glad two major characters finally got to meet like god I’ve been#WAITING#rambling#y5#im reserving my thoughts about mirei and that whole… situation…….until I have all the context possible at this point#cause imma be real I didn’t see what happened to her comin#so. god knows what else I haven’t seen yet that I’ll need to consider#so far though. as much as they’re emphasizing a lot right now her work ethic and dedication and etc for haruka to elevate her career and#etc etc etc and that being a very sentimental and kindhearted thing and whatnot. imma be real I still find it mostly bullshit#I mean. even mirei herself could’ve maybe believed she was doing all that for haruka’s sake alone but that doesn’t erase the fact that mirei#had a plan for haruka since day fuckin one (before that probably) and it had nothing to do with caring for her and her personal freedoms or#enjoyment in life or anything- she elevated haruka because she projected onto her BIG TIME and needed to redeem herself after failing#in the industry by living vicariously though a mini-mirei conditioned to think she wants all the things mirei wants#and so on and so on. like#it seems really sweet and giving of her that she’d do so much to take out that loan and what have you. but once you step back for a moment#and go wait a second. this isn’t what haruka even wanted in the first place. she hasn’t had personal freedom at all the past six months and#mirei taking her shopping and letting her choose between some clothes on her own (ONLY allowing designer brand though. obviously)#is an effective way of making haruka believe she has free will and is doing what she honestly wants to do#because god forbid she realizes that- yeah mirei has sacrificed a lot for me- but I never asked her to and becuase of it now I have massive#responsibilities and expectations to uphold. after all- how could she live with herself if she rejected what mirei worked so hard for#especially after mirei. you know. suddenly dies. (not saying that was part of her manipulation or something just saying that it plays into#it conveniently well- haruka REALLY couldn’t live with herself now if she didn’t win this contest and debut)#annnnyway. it’s very interesting. mirei is… very interesting#I said I wasn’t gonna comment on her yet but. oops
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lilgynt · 2 years ago
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gonna start crying bc my day off yesterday was taken up all by my dad and todays shaping up to be the same
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oncominggstorm · 5 months ago
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Mom just called after grandma’s doctor appointment. She’s down to 90lbs, the doctors think her kidneys & liver are failing, and they say she will not live thru the end of the summer & that we need to set up hospice immediately. Fucking fantastic.
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redgoldsparks · 6 months ago
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My Experience Buying eSIMs for Gaza by Maia Kobabe
instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my books
Full transcript below the cut:
Cover:
My Experience Buying eSIMs for Gaza 
Project organized by @ connectinghumanity_
by Maia Kobabe @redgoldsparks 
Page 1 
In Fall 2023, I saw instructions on instagram for how to purchase an eSIM card and submit it to be distributed to someone in Gaza. 
Download an eSIM app-> Select Middle East as the region-> Purchase-> Screenshot the QR code-> Do not activate-> send to [email protected] 
Image of Maia looking at eir phone. “That sounds easy, I’ll buy one.” 
I emailed an Airalo eSIM QR code to gazaesims on Nov 17 2023. 
Page 2
By January 2024, it hadn’t been activated yet. I bought a second one from Nomad and sent my new QR code and resubmitted my old one. 
Image of Maia looking at eir phone. “How long does this usually take, I wonder?” 
By February neither had been activated, but Connecting Humanity kept posting about needing more. I bought a second Nomad and resubmitted all of them on February 15, 2024. 
Page 3
The Nomad eSIMs are much cheaper than Airalo, but what I didn’t realize is that they expire even if they haven’t been activated. At the end of February I decided to try a third company, Simly. Here’s a price comparison: 
AIRALO: $39 USD for 3GB, never expires 
SIMLY: $22 USD for 3GB, never expires 
NOMAD: $16 USD for 3GB, expires after 8 weeks even if unused, only offers in-app refunds 
Page 4
Connecting Humanity asks folks to wait at least 3 weeks before resending a QR code that hasn’t been activated yet. On March 7 Mirna Elhelbawi posted: 
We send EVERY esim we receive. Bear in  mind that we are dealing with people at a war zone. They might take it and get killed before activating it, they might take it and their phone gets lost or destroyed. They might take it and search for days for stable internet connection to activate it, and some of them activate it unsuccessfully due to lack of knowledge and the horrific situations they are in. ~Connecting Gaza 
By early April, my first Nomad eSIM expired unused. I resubmitted my three remaining eSIMs. 
Page 5
Suddenly, two of my eSIMs were activated on the same day! The Airalo I’d purchased 4.5 months earlier and my second Nomad. 
Image of Maia looking happy and surprised. 
Image of Maia looking very intensely at eir phone. “I have to make sure these don’t run out!” 
I began buying top-up packages immediately. 
Page 6
I felt like I had planted a seed in the fall and waited all winter for it to sprout. Seeing it activated was like watching the first new leaves break the soil. 
Image of Maia with a watering can labeled “data”, sprinkling water on two little sprouts. “Watering my eSIMs!” 
Sadly, only .07 GB of data was ever used on my Nomad. It was never used again after that first day. 
Page 7
But my Airalo has been in constant use for over a month now. I check on it every day. 
I will never know the person I am buying data for and they will never know me. But we are connected by the same strings of hope and grief that connect us all. 
Image of two hands holding a phone, which is connected to a flying kite. 
Page 8
On April 5, 2024 Connecting Humanity reported they had sent more than 250,000 eSIMs to Gaza, equivalent to approximately $6.3 million donated! You can visit gazaesims.com for more info, instructions, and discounts. Here are my referral codes: 
MAIA5367 for $3 off Airalo 
MB772 for $3 off Simly 
MAIA66GF for $3 off Nomad 
If you need more incentive, the Cartoonist Coop is doing art rewards. Visit cartoonist.coop/esims4gaza 
Page 9
Image of Maia, weighing two options. “Buying an eSIM is easy and can make a very direct impact. It can also take a lot of patience and could get expensive over time if you commit to keeping the eSIM topped up indefinitely.” 
If an immediate one time donation is more your speed, I recommend Operation Olive Branch and Gazafunds, two places to find Gofundmes aiding Palestinian families. 
gazafunds.com
@ operationolivebranch on insta
linktr.ee/opolivebranch 
-Maia Kobabe 2024 
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seraphdreams · 5 months ago
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GOT MILK? | TOJI FUSHIGURO.
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𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — synopsis. what happens when you invite an unexpected guest into your home? lucky for you, this one cares about your health!
𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — cw. fem!reader / milkman!toji, smut, cliche porn trope, size kink, coercion, food play, a bit prey/predator dynamics, 1950s-esque setting, toji’s huge, unprotected “love-making”, mdni <3.
𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — word count. 3.3k
𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — dolled up! it’s been a while, hasn’t it? i’m so so sorry i’ve been away from writing :( but trust me, we’re so back !! this is actually my first full length toji fic n i’m so excited 4 you all to read it . . i wanted to keep it light and cliche for all of our pleasure. this took me about two months to write on n off, but !! if you like this n enjoy it, please comment / reblog ! i’ll make you all a glass of seraph’s special milk, thank u ♡ a big shoutout 2 @gh4ul for beta reading ! i love u so muchie!!
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fluorescent shimmers of the setting sun pierced through your living room window, beyond pastel curtains, and onto the curvature of your face as if the sun itself used you like its own canvas while you lounged upon the couch. soft murmurs of whichever television show you had fallen asleep watching hummed within the four thin walls of your flat, creating the perfect ambiance for a peaceful late afternoon nap.
it wasn’t as though you had done much during the day, aside from indulging in your boredom with the mundane baking of cookies, taking two batches to get right, alongside tidying your room.
although currently, you slept soundly in a way that came off as daunting to others; torso clad in a thin tank top paired with little pink shorts that could’ve been mistaken for underwear by any onlooker, with your hand rested just below your abdomen, chest rising and falling in the most harmonious synchronicity.
vulnerable, like prey unknowing of its predator.
fortunately, the neighborhood you resided in was safe. some sweet suburban city where everyone knew each other more than they knew themselves, and the thought of anything being remotely out of place sent residents into a frenzy. it was innocuous to assume that not much out of the ordinary took place. or that was the case, until —
knock, knock.
“delivery for y/n?”
stirring in your sleep, you prayed that the owner of the baritone voice that had woken you up was just some figment of your imagination, some effect of unintended lucid dreaming perhaps. yet, upon blinking open unfocused, bleary eyes, and the loud couplet of knocks on the door following soon after, you were pulled out of dreamland and into the vexing reality.
three more firm knocks paired with a gruff tone calling out flatly, “delivery,” was enough to have your body sashaying involuntarily to your front door.
whoever was outside was insinstently persistent. if they had thought to put even an ounce more strength into those compact knocks, your door would have been long gone by now.
“coming!” the dulcet tone of your voice was riddled with exhaustion and you were unsure if the sound had resonated with the stranger on the other end, your internal query being answered once the relentless abuse of your front door had ceased.
you had ignored the fabric of your meager top, not quite noticing the way the strap so slightly dropped from your shoulder, leaving such a beautiful expanse of skin exposed to, and for, anyone. swiftly, you had opened the door for your unexpected visitor.
there, stood some dark haired man, taller and bigger than any other man you’ve known in the neighborhood. he must have had to be over 6’0, with a stature so broad, chiseling muscles barely hidden underneath the thin fabric of his uniform. his white hat tilted upward, and as your eyes descended, you caught his matching suit worn just a bit too taut. it was as if the first two buttons of his shirt were hanging on for dear life to cover what massive mounds his chest was. not to mention, how his thighs were close to breaking free from their confines.
to the right of the struggling buttons, sat a little pin that read “toji.”
he didn’t put any effort into a friendly introduction, the only hint of expression you could trace was the furrowing of his brows at his forehead as he gave you an unreadable stare.
“was told to drop this off here.” toji spoke. he held out a small wired basket with two glass jars of white liquid, seeming to be milk. maybe it had been your fuzzy, half-awake mind, and what little thoughts were up there, but you couldn’t recall a time where you had placed an order for some strange fluid.
was it a thing the neighborhood would do every once in a while?
as you rubbed the sleep from your eyes and gave the handsome stranger a soft pout, you spoke airily. “what’s in the jar, sir?”
his demeanor shifted into pure displeasure, not fancying the query your hollow brain came up with. it remained undoubtedly clear that he wasn’t the most amiable of folks.
“it’s milk, darling.”
“i didn’t order any milk, sorry.” that same pout remained on your lips as you shook your head for the milkman to end a seemingly quick conversation, but just as you were about to close the door back, the pressure of his strong hand against the wood made your attempt futile.
to your surprise, a miniscule smirk was evident on his scarred features. “no?” his narrowed eyes drank you in from the bottom up as if you were lemonade on a scorching summer’s day. those same eyes skillfully darting from the spill of your breasts in your little top, up to your pretty pursed lips and doe-like orbs.
anyone could tell from a mile away what type of girl you were — the type that toji devilishly enjoys.
it wasn’t often he was presented with a doll such as yourself. sure, he could pick the mind of others increasingly well, could tell just when someone was planning to set him up (like some sort of off-duty criminal) but with you, it was as though not a thought could be lodged behind vacant eyes. everything about you was pure, untainted.
he stepped closer toward you, his foot conveniently placed between the barrier between your home and the outside. “try it for yourself. it’s fresh, and organic.” as he spoke, the glint in his deep gray eyes had overturned into a sly darkness. and when you shook your head at his advance, he only scoffed, peering in closer until he fully stepped foot into your abode.
“oh, c’mon,” vexation laced his tone. “don’t make my job harder than it already is.”
his hauntingly large frame eclipsed yours, the sun casting a backlit shadow behind his silhouette, like something out of a 50’s horror film. at that moment, you were in no position to deny his simple request.
it was just milk, perhaps he wanted an honest review.
your eyes met his, and you swallowed thickly as you hoped that courage would fill the void in the pit of your stomach. “how much for a glass?” softly, your question floated in tense air. a smirk upticks on his face as he reaches into the basket, holding up the larger jar of the two settled in the basket.
“for you, it’s free of charge.”
maybe you should’ve questioned the insubstantial value, for nothing in this economy was truly ever free.
you take the bottle from him, popping open the lid and taking a sip. the unnerving feeling of greedy eyes caused goosebumps to form over your skin. the liquid certainly had a thicker texture to it, possibly an ode to its organic nature; and as you sipped and sipped, you failed to notice the drippage that rolled amply down the side of your mouth to your chest. toji, however, caught sight of it — because, of course he did.
after you had your sample size, you took a manicured thumb to glossy lips, wiping your bottom lip to collect the remnants before taking your tongue to your thumb to lick up the remains.
in that moment, you reminded him of a kitten, some meek animal vastly trusting of the others in its environment.
his smirk grew wider and he closed the door behind him as he stepped closer, now merely a few inches away from your figure. “oh, but miss,” his voice full with anything but a genuine concern for you, he traced his finger along the trail of milk that lingered at your chest. “you missed a spot.”
his sudden touch startled you in such a way that shifted your body to jolt once you felt his cool fingertips. that same motion forced you to completely forget about the open jar in your hand, accidentally spilling an even larger amount of milk all over yourself in the process.
drenched in the liquid, your top became practically see-through with only the sight of your pert nipples showing underneath. it's candy for the eye, toji’s at least.
“you gonna keep that on, princess? you’ll catch a cold.” his voice feigns concernment towards you, as if he pitied the pathetic state he put upon you. in that moment, sheepishness clouds your empty head, and if you could cower away, you would; but instead, you took him up on his suggestion, turning your back to him and doing away with the thin barrier.
“gimme a minute to change.” you shyly said as you looked back at him with a hand barely covering your chest.
how cute you were, so willing to invite a stranger into your home and even strip for him — were you always this welcoming?
before you could scuttle to your room, you felt a firm grip on your arm. toji, now clearly having fun with you, had given you a menacing smirk along with a tsk of his tongue. “you’re still all wet,” he turned you back around to face him in one swift motion. “let me clean you off.” his hand slowly trailed up your arm and to the swell of your breasts where he cupped one in his large, calloused palm. the feeling of his rough fingertips over your bare skin caused you to break out in a shudder. “s-sir, i don’t think..”
he shushed you the moment his thumb rolled over your hard nipple, milk still dripping down your skin. with one hand, he pulled you in tight by your waist, and with the other, he aided himself in wrapping his lips around your nipple. you could only describe his touch as hungry, rough as if the opportunity to take advantage of your vulnerability would slip away into thin air. he locked steel grey eyes with you as he did so. once he got his fill of toying with your sensitive mounds, he switched his sucking motions into little bites.
his deep groans and your soft whines filled the space instantaneously. he’d rotate from one breast to the other until he felt you growing weak in his hold, the squeeze of your thighs telling him everything he needed to know about your desire. and when he felt satisfied with the level at which he teased you, he unlatched.
it felt as if all air had rushed out of your system from the raspy whines you had let out during his ministrations. you took a moment to catch your breath and regain composure as he stood up tall to his original position.
oddly enough, comfortability grew within you, possibly the adrenaline of a handsome stranger feeding your mind with illicit thoughts. “am i all clean now?” your voice comes out shaky, feeble with lust, and as your eyes scanned his formidable appearance, down to the bulge that left his sheer size to anything but the imagination, you grew greedier.
“squeaky fucking clean.” his response comes off as a growl. “how about some real milk as a reward, sweetheart?”
you tilted your head, as a confused puppy would, looking up at him with spacey eyes. “real milk? i thought i was just drinking it?” he smiled at your perplexity, finding you too cute to let go. “that milk,” he pointed at the bottle you set on the counter beside you. “isn’t as organic as it claims. you need the real thing in ya.”
toji fumbles with his belt buckle, unfastening it until he could comfortably whip his cock out. you had never seen something so large, so girthy that it instilled a blend of fear and excitement within you. “on your knees, pretty thing.” he demanded. “gotta make sure my girl grows big and strong.”
you complied, obviously. when someone as sturdy as him tells you to do something, it’s only natural that you do it.
with your weight now rested on your knees, your job was easy. you wrapped a feeble hand around the base of his cock, mouth agape in bewilderment that he could barely fit in the cusp of your hand. toji let out a hiss under his breath once your hand began to diligently slide up and down his shaft. slick dribbled into the rapture of your enclosed fist from just how turned on he was. as you continued to teasingly pump him, your tongue darted to place gentle kitten licks paired with tender kisses to his angry tip. “you’re real confident now, aren’t ya?” he goads, though not necessarily in a mirthful manner.
a soft pout forms at your lips upon hearing his words, urging you to increase your pace by a minuscule amount. once you had gotten familiar with the monster in your palm, you wrapped your lips around the head, slowly inching yourself down his shaft until your nose met the unruly hairs of his pelvis. he was heavy in your jaw, a telltale sign that you’d end up with a strong ache that’d take days to soothe; and the throb of his length only led to the gush in your panties.
as you began to bob your head, toji threw his head back, large hands gripping at your jaw to keep you nice and puckered for him. the sensation of his plush tip bullying the back of your throat causes you to moan, a sound, and a feeling, that toji doesn't miss. you pick up your rhythm, but shortly after, toji starts up his; slamming his cock into your unexpecting mouth with no remorse.
rough ministrations urged you to gag until you came to ignore the feeling and focus on his pleasure, innocent and teary eyes showing through a wall of thick lashes up at him. what a cocky bastard.
“c’mon, you can take more, can’t ya?” he goads, his vocables resonating in a choppy cadence underneath the guise of his groans. “dontcha want milk?”
the mix of saliva and his precum trailed from your mouth as his heavy balls slammed against your chin. you took notice of how his vigorous pace faltered, signally an orgasm just seconds away.
one thrust. two thrust. three.
he’d managed to hold your face to his pelvis as he fucked through his orgasm, a deep groan bellowing through the air while he painted your throat in his seed.
what a liar. he didn’t taste anything like milk.
slowly, he pulls away and spurts the last few drops of cum onto your swollen lips, where he took much needed amusement in your starry eyed gaze.
your heavy pants were like music to his ears, something he wished he could etch into his memory for years to come.
“it’s all messy.” you mewled, licking at the seed that dripped to your lips. his hands were glacial as you felt them on your face while he leaned down to be eye level with you. “oh, i know. lemme take care of that.” he swiped his tongue against your bottom lip, drinking in his own orgasm before taking you into a heated kiss.
it was a brief moment, so brief you were too lightheaded to even realize how he manhandled you into the perfect position — bent over to touch your toes.
he pulled away, roughly tugging at your little shorts until they pooled at your ankles. you felt him slide his cock over your panties just before pushing them to the side to line it up with your slit.
all toji wanted to do in that moment was slide right in, but he knew he couldn’t. you just weren’t wet enough to handle all of him. and besides, he definitely didn’t want to deal with a whining princess suggesting that it “doesn’t fit.”
instead, he slid his sensitive cock between your folds. “gotta get you nice ‘nd ready,” he spoke while reveling in the way that his tip catched at your poor, neglected clit. “feel flattered, i don’t do this for everybody.”
each slide jolted your body as the slightest tinge of pleasure coursed within you. it wasn’t enough to get you feeling close, no, but it was ample in gushing more slick from your hole.
“t-toji, sir, please..” you had let out a soft, vexed sigh at the lack of feeling, wiggling your hips to create friction in any type of way.
it reigned pointless, as most things did with toji. he was too busy focused on the sheen covering his cock from just toying with your angelcunt that whatever nonsense you were spouting was irrelevant to him. he continued his motions until the tightening of your core and fluttering of your pussy told him everything he needed to know.
satisfied with the level at which he teased you, he halted. just before you could fucking cum. you let out a frustrated whine that didn’t mean much to him, agitated by the loss of sensation.
in mere moments, he was pushing himself past your walls, stretching you out while your little cunt struggled to accommodate his size. “w-what if it doesn’t fit..?” you managed to babble out in your pathetic state.
oh, if your nosy neighbors knew that sweet little princess down the street was getting her cunt stretched out by the milkman, they would have a conniption.
toji smirked at your concern, ultimately brushing you off while continuing to urge himself even deeper. “let’s just make it fit then.”
the feeling of being stuffed full was unlike anything you’d experienced in the past. your past partners weren’t much to moan at, but toji? he had you grasping at any surface to give you leverage. as soon as he bottomed out, you could feel the tip rubbing so deliciously against the hollow of your cervix, the tinge of pain going unnoticed from how riddled with desire you were for him. with confirmation that he was fully inside, toji began to set a rough pace, strokes deep and firm enough to have you jolting forward with every thrust.
you scrambled to hold onto anything for dear life, afraid that your knees would grow weak and give out underneath your own weight. though, he kept his hands taut at your hips, only speeding up his potent thrusts to taunt you even more for your lack of stability.
fucked dumb within the first few seconds, drool dribbled past your lip, your eyes rolled into the back of your skull as you tried to take everything you were given.
with the intense way your walls were hugging around his cock, he couldn’t help but let out something of a deep, guttural groan. you had reached behind you to press a feeble hand to his abdomen, hoping it would ease his ministrations, yet your adorable action only caused the opposite.
he took your wrists in his one hand, pulling you up to hit deeper within your walls. “fuck! ‘s too d-deep!” you cried out, that familiar coil of pleasure tightening within your being, and to your dismay, he only held you closer against his chest, other hand gripping at your jaw while his cock milked your gspot for all it’s worth.
“too deep? this too deep for ya?” toji taunts. “i thought you knew how to take dick, you sure looked like it.”
his grip at your face only tighten an ounce more as he waited for whatever nonsense you could muster out.
“i-i can..! i c’n take it!”
only seconds later did your high come crashing down, sending your body into a flutter of shocks. a sensation so perfervid, it had your mind hazy while you creamed all over his cock.
following suit, in a bout of thrusts, toji was painting your insides with his warm wet seed, only pulling out once he felt you go limp in his hold.
“don’t tap out on me now, you haven’t even paid for the milk.”
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andvys · 3 months ago
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You said you were gonna grow up (then you were gonna come find me) ⭐︎ S.H.
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⭐︎ Warnings: slight angst, mutual pining, idiots in love, childhood best friends to lovers, allusions to cheating (but not really), mentions of sex, mentions of unrequited love, hurt/comfort
⭐︎ Summary: You and Steve used to be inseparable, best friends since childhood, you shared something special, something rare. You promised each other forever but... promises are never to keep... right?
⭐︎ Pairings: Steve Harrington x fem!reader
⭐︎ Word count: 10k
⭐︎ Author's note: To my Steve girlies who have read (and still mourn) I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss -- in the middle of writing this little oneshot, I noticed that Steve and reader reminded me of someone, and then I realized that it's basically Steve and Cheer in a different universe (if Steve hadn't fucked up as badly as he did). This is... what they should have been.
Also shoutout to @hellfire--cult for inspiring me to finish this oneshot (finally) and @ghost-proofbaby thank you for picking a title for me, and for your sweet words about this little piece, you're both the bestest
⭐︎ my library
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divider by @saradika (I screamed when I saw the folklore dividers)
The smell of weed and smoke lingers in the air, music blares through the house and bounces off the walls, laughter and giggles come from every corner, conversations he couldn’t care less about yet listens in on because what else is there to do at a party? 
Steve once found himself at home in such gatherings, now he feels nothing but bored as he watches the people instead of interacting with them like he once used to do. 
He used to be on the dancefloor, at the keg stand, pressing some girl against the wall and kissing her neck before taking her upstairs into one of the empty bedrooms – but those days are long over and they are not to be missed, not in the slightest. 
Now he is sitting out in the backyard of some stranger’s house, sipping on a lukewarm soda and waiting for Robin to get sick of this party so he can take her home before going to his empty house and crashing out on his new bed. Seeing as she’s jumping around on the dancefloor with Vickie, it doesn’t seem like she'll want to leave anytime soon. 
 A sigh falls from his lips and he slumps his shoulders in boredom. 
He could be socializing, talking to girls, flirting with them, with the ones who keep waving at him and sending him suggestive, overly sweet looks – he isn’t interested. The past few months were wasted ones, disastrous dates, one or two meaningless hookups, girls who weren’t interested in him but only in sex – that was his reality and he didn’t want that anymore, he doesn’t want that anymore, he wants something real, he wants to feel something, he wants someone to want him for more than just that one thing, he wants a connection, a bond, he wants… you. 
Steve’s lips part, his eyes lighten up, glowing just like the stars in the night sky, he sits up straighter and cranes his neck to see you better, his heart skipping in a way it hasn’t in a long time, he forgot what it feels like… but of course you are the one to remind him of the way his heart can skip and flutter when he feels something, you have always been the one, the only one. 
Not even Nancy could make him feel half of the things you could make him feel. 
But he blew his chances with you – the only chances that ever mattered. 
He hears your laughter, your beautiful giggles that he missed every day since you left, even from all the way here, he can hear the voice that accompanied him throughout most of his life… until it didn’t. 
You were his best friend, the only friend that mattered until he found Robin. You were with him from the moment your mothers introduced you both to each other, joined at the hip, you went through it all together, different hobbies, different friend groups, first crushes and rough school days, arguments with so called friends, first parties, first drunken nights, you went through so much and you did it all together, you experienced everything together. 
Steve would sneak into your room, late at night, he would use the vines on the wall as a ladder, no matter how many times you scolded him, he still climbed up because he wanted to see you so desperately, even when he spent the whole day with you, it just wasn’t enough, you’d spent the nights whispering and talking about the newest gossips, sometimes he would paint your nails or braid your hair, sometimes you would just lie next to each other and listen to some new album and sometimes you would cuddle and fall asleep in each other’s arms, it was a regular thing, it was something constant. 
But then something changed, you both got curious, you both started acting upon feelings that have been there for a long time already, feelings that were no longer innocent and childish turned into something more. 
You were each other’s first kiss, it was nothing more than a peck at first… and then it was a second and a third before you kissed for real. And then, it was just another regular thing, you started cuddling and kissing every night, smiling and giggling through it all, holding hands and pulling each other closer and closer. 
Those innocent kisses turned into makeout sessions and those turned into your first time. 
It was his first time and yours, you shared it with each other, like you shared everything else together. 
It was filled with nervous giggles, blushing cheeks and shaky touches, you were both scared to do something wrong but you assured one another and you both did your best, he took care of you and you of him. It was slow, it was soft, it was perfect. A night he will never forget. 
Nothing ever came close to this moment, nothing came ever close to how you made him feel. 
Steve should have asked you out after that night, he should’ve, but he didn’t, he chickened out, he got scared and he left the next morning without saying goodbye. That was his biggest mistake. 
To this day, he doesn’t know how you felt about it all, you never spoke of this night again, you never mentioned it again, you both acted like nothing happened, you continued your friendship like you didn’t ruin it. 
He kept coming over, everything stayed the same… but it didn’t. 
You started slipping away from him and he was too busy to notice, he became captain of the basketball team, girls started noticing him, he started going on dates even though you were all he could think about, it felt wrong to hold their hands, to kiss them, to touch them, he felt as though he was betraying you but his new friend Tommy encouraged him, spoke lies into his ear about how you went on dates on the nights you canceled on him. 
He was hurt, he was angry, and it only was a matter of time before he invited a girl who wasn’t you into his sheets. 
He hated how he felt afterwards, but he didn’t stop, he kept going and before he could even blink, he was the most popular boy in school, he was King Steve, the guy who could have anyone but still only had eyes for one. 
Though your shared nights became less frequent, you still spent time with him, even when you weren’t fond of Tommy and Carol, his big parties or the way he treated girls, you were still there and it bothered him that he couldn’t have you. 
It was clear that you didn’t feel the same, despite the many signs that he had missed at that time. He was your best friend, just your best friend, just Steve. He could’ve made a move, he could've asked you out on a date, he could’ve finally confronted you about your night together and how you felt about it, how you felt about him, but he was scared and it was ironic really, because he was good with girls, very charming and cocky, smug and arrogant but not with you, no, not with you. You made him nervous, you made his chest feel weird, his stomach too, you made his heart race and flutter, you made his skin feel hot and his mind all crazy. 
You got him bad. 
You made him fall in love. 
But he was a coward when it came to his feelings for you, he really was, he didn’t even want to admit them to himself, so he watched you slip through his fingers instead of taking action and making you his. His feelings got stronger despite the distance that slowly grew between you.
You were still there, physically, but your mind was somewhere else and you seemed so far away.
He left notes in your locker, just like he did when he was a kid. 
And you did the same to him. 
You waved at each other from afar and shared smiles, you still drove around town and sang along to your favorite songs after an occasional trip to that one diner out of town, you sometimes slept over and left your sweet scent on his pillows, driving him crazy with it. You were still each other’s best friends. 
But then Nancy stepped into his life and that was it, at that point, it was already crumbling, your friendship was hanging by a thread and it earned its final blow when you moved away for college. 
Occasional calls and letters were all that existed between you at that point, it drove him crazy, it made him sad. He suffered heartbreak when you were gone and you weren’t there to mend it, you weren’t there to hold him, to wipe his tears and tell him that he would be alright – how could you? You were the reason for that heartbreak and Nancy was the one who gave him the final push to open his eyes to the feelings he kept pushing away and feeling so scared of. 
When he realized what a mistake he had made, it was far too late to fix it and he never stopped regretting the actions he took and didn’t take. 
But now you are here, you are back. 
He hasn’t heard your voice in so long, he hasn’t seen your beauty in forever, he missed your presence so dearly. 
One year, one whole year without you. 
Are you here to stay for the summer or are you back for good? He hopes it’s the latter, this town felt anything but home without you here. 
Steve stares at you, he stares and stares without shame. His lips are curled into a soft smile, his cheeks already blushing as he takes you in. 
You are so gorgeous. 
A confident smile is lingering on your lips, your makeup is a little bolder than it used to be, back then, but it suits you, your skirt is short, your top is tight, your cleavage is showing and your skin is glowing, your hair is much longer than he remembers it to be, a few highlights added to your pretty hair color and styled into waves. 
You have always been a sight for sore eyes, he was aware of your beauty from a young age, he called you his princess, his sweet, cute and beautiful princess. But you are more than just beautiful now, you are stunning, bewitching, you are heavenly. 
His heart jumps at the sound of your giggle, his skin heating up so rapidly that it catches him off guard. 
Steve watches you, he watches for what feels like forever, you’re here with friends, girls you used to hang out with back in high school. 
The smile never leaves his lips as he keeps his eyes on you, his heart fluttering more and more each passing second, eyes continuing to light up at every sound of your giggle. 
When you step away from your friends and walk back into the house, he wastes no time to follow, grabbing the chance that he once missed, he goes after you and leaves his drink abandoned on the floor. 
He brushes past a group of guys playing beer pong, dodging the dancing people on the dancefloor, keeping his eyes on your body as he follows. Your skirt is swaying, your waves are bouncing, your hips are shaking slightly, your sweet scent lingers in the air and he can’t help but inhale it deeply, it’s still the same scent that he missed on his pillows and the hoodies you used to steal.
With your back turned to him, you stop in front of the snack table and pour yourself a cup of the overly alcoholised punch. 
Steve doesn’t approach you right away, standing by the doorway, he decides to watch you for a second longer, feeling giddy and nervous now that he is so close to you again. 
You nearly choke on the punch, the bitter taste of alcohol overpowering the fruity taste, you scrunch your brows together and swallow it down in disgust, unimpressed by this drink after all the different kind of cocktails you have tried in the past months on your night outs to bars with your girlfriends from college. 
A sigh falls from your lips and you take a second, much needed sip. 
It feels weird to be back home in Hawkins, the town is much quieter than the big city you called home for the past year and you feel that weird tingly shudder on the back of your neck, knowing that he is so close somewhere. 
Steve. 
You miss him so much, you miss him everyday, but it’s been so long, you can’t even remember the last time you have talked to him. You know that he still works at Family Video and his friend Robin moved into his house with him after his parents moved away from Hawkins, for good. 
But that’s all, you don’t know if he is single or if he is dating – you fear your heart wouldn’t take the information very well, which is ironic really, you haven’t seen him in so long, all you have are your memories, some of which you kept in a shoebox under your bed, pictures, notes, letters and little presents from him. Steve was nothing but a ghost these past months and yet it didn’t stop your heart from falling deeper in love… even with just the boy in your memory, the one that will haunt you for the rest of your life. 
A sigh falls from your lips as you look down at the red beverage in your cup, you close your eyes and take another sip and swallow it but this time in delight, you welcome the burning in your throat. 
“You still make that cute face when you don’t like something.” 
The voice you have just been thinking about sounds deeper than it did when you left. 
Those shudders at the back of your neck, run down your spine and transform into heat across your whole body, your heart skips a few beats.
You turn to face him, sloshing the drink around in your cup, you nearly spill it on the white tiles beneath you. Your breath hitches in your throat and your chest tightens when you look at him for the first time again, those hazel eyes that you have missed so much staring back at you with excitement yet nervousness and you have no doubt that your own eyes match the look in his. 
Your lips curl into a shy smile, your cheeks heat up so quickly and you nearly crush the plastic cup in your hand when you let your eyes roam his body. He somehow got even taller, his arms look stronger and his shoulders wider, his hair got longer too, a spitcurl hanging over his forehead, his cheeks are rosy, a stubble covering his jaw and chin, your eyes move down his arm, stopping at the black hair tie around his wrist that momentarily steals your breath away and fills your chest with hope. You lick your lips and swallow as you stare at the veins in his hands. 
There he stands with his stupid, still perfectly styled hair and his Levi’s that are always way too tight around his crotch, looking down at you and reminding you of how much taller he is and always was. 
“Hey,” he breathes, nervously, happily. 
“Steve,” you say with a smile on your lips, “hi.”
Truthfully, Steve doesn’t know what to say, your heart is beating so hard, he can feel it in his throat, he feels so nervous, you make him nervous. His charm, his flirtatious side still fades into nothing when he is around you and the world around him still disappears when he is with you, some things truly never change. 
He wants to take a step closer and wrap his arms around you, he wants to hug you and never let go again but he doesn’t want to overstep so he forces himself to stay in place. 
“Y-You’re back,” he smiles, trying to hide his excitement. 
You nod, probably a little too quickly. 
“Yeah, I’m back,” you nod again, feeling awkward and tense standing here before him after all the countless nights you spent thinking, dreaming about him. 
He breathes heavily and fidgets with the hair tie around his wrist, “for the summer or…?”
You shake your head, unable to look away from his beautiful eyes. 
“No, I-I transferred to uh the community college here…” You scrunch your face up when you see the surprised look on his face. “I know, lame right? Moving away from Chicago and back to your hometown is uh not the.. move.” 
Not the move? He repeats in his head. 
This might be the best day of his life – the day he had been waiting for, for your return. 
Steve’s eyes widen, he purses his lips as he starts shaking his head, raising his hand a little, he steps closer to you. 
“No! No, I’m just surprised, that’s all, I didn’t think you’d ever come back… honestly,” he chuckles nervously and brings his hand up to scratch the side of his neck. “But I’m happy to see you back here again.” 
Happy is an understatement, the feelings in him can’t be put into words, they do not exist. 
Your eyes soften at his words, your smile transforming into a soft one, hope swirling inside of you. 
Did he miss you like you missed him? 
“I’m happy to see you,” he adds, his cheeks heating up at his admission and your beauty doesn’t help his case, his eyes roam your body, your pretty features, your soft skin, the chain around your neck that looks oh so familiar, his heart starts beating faster, his hands shaking from the giddiness lingering in him. “Y-You look…” Stunning, mesmerizing, gorgeous, sexy, adorable, like an angel or a goddess. “Amazing.” He breathes, blushing red.
Your eyebrows pull together as your wide eyes fill with emotion. 
You see the way he looks at you, you see the redness in his cheeks, the shyness in his eyes that surprises you the most. 
You take a shaky breath, cursing at the way your cheeks heat up and glow so hotly. 
“Thank you,” you say without stutter, to your own surprise. “You don’t look bad yourself, Harrington,” you smirk at him, smugness taking over your blushing features when you see him looking down in nervousness. 
Did you just make Steve blush? 
You open your mouth again, feeling the urge to compliment him again when a whistle interrupts you and wipes the smirk off your face, instead a look of disgust takes over your features when you turn your head to see Tommy Hagan looking you up and down with a perverted smile on his face. 
He pushes his way between you, earning a glare from Steve, whose face turned stone cold and angry. Tommy grabs a red solo cup and pours himself some of the punch while he continues to give you nasty looks, chuckling when looks at your cleavage, “shit, now I get why Harrington always kept his favorite toy to himself,” he smirks and takes a sip of his drink before he steps back to wink at Steve, wiping his chin and looking back to you, “you really grew up.” 
Your lips curl downwards, your brows pull together in a frown. 
“Dude, what the fuck,” Steve frowns at him, giving him a disapproving look. 
Tommy always made you feel uncomfortable with his comments and his weird looks, but it was something else back then. This is new, this is disgusting. 
“If I knew back then that you were hiding these behind your sweaters, I would’ve definitely hit it,” he chuckles darkly as he stares at your boobs. 
Bile rises in your throat and your grip tightens on your cup, the urge to throw your punch into his face growing strong. 
Steve rolls his eyes, a frustrated sigh falls from his lips and he steps towards his former friend, he places his hand on his chest and pushes him back as he takes a protective stance in front of you, protecting you from Tommy’s prying eyes. 
“Alright, that’s enough, asshole,” Steve mumbles angrily. “Leave her alone or I swear to–”
“You swear to what, man? You and I both know you can’t do shit,” Tommy laughs at Steve, his eyes crinkle in amusement, irritating Steve further. 
Steve might’ve lost most of his fights, but he wouldn’t lose one if it came to you. 
He clenches his jaw and glares down at him, feeling rage burn within him. 
“Seriously dude, get lost, alright?” He demands, his voice sounding deeper, more serious than before. 
You look over Steve’s shoulder, feeling safe and protected by him, the way you always did, just even more now. Your stomach flutters with warmth, your heart swelling in your chest. 
To your surprise, Tommy steps away without another word, continuing to chuckle at Steve and the glare on his face. He gives you another look. 
“Call me if you–”
“Fuck off, Tommy,” Steve says through gritted teeth, feeling hot rage flushing through him. 
Tommy takes another sip as he walks backwards, winking at you before he finally turns around and leaves the kitchen, allowing you to finally breathe. 
Steve runs his fingers through his hair and huffs, turning back to you, his features instantly soften. 
“I’m sorry about him.” 
You shake your head, your smile reappearing again, “it’s not your fault,” you shrug, “some people just never change.” 
“Yeah…” He mumbles, wondering if you changed at all, “did you?”
Did you change? You ask yourself. Maybe, surely college has shaped you in some way, being away from home, being independent and all alone, meeting new people and being pushed into situations you would have never allowed as a teenager, did change something in you. 
You got more confident, a little bolder too, you tried new things and did them without shame, something that was once impossible when you were still here and an insecure teen. 
You tilt your head to the side and give him a sly smirk, “why don’t you find out?” 
The anger Tommy left him with fades away, the flirtatious tone in your voice catching him by surprise and you take it even further when you take a step closer to him after placing your drink on the counter, you look up at him with your big eyes that still drive him crazy. 
He doesn’t remember you to be this flirty… this bold but he can’t complain, it makes the fluttering in his stomach feel so much more intense. 
Steve’s lips curl back into a smile, he blinks at you, looking into your eyes intensely, with want and need – nothing changed, if anything, the magnetic force between you has intensified, even when there was mostly only radio silence between you both in these past months. 
Steve licks his lips, a sliver of his confidence slipping back in when he sees the way you look at him, eyes roaming his face and his body. Though his cheeks are still burning and his heart is still racing, no matter how much confidence he can find within himself, you are still you, you are still the girl that holds his heart in the palm of her hand, the one who has him captivated in every way possible, the one who has had him wrapped around her finger, from a very young age. You aren’t just a girl to woo and impress for a single date, you aren’t someone he would forget if a conversation or a date went wrong, you are the one he always wanted to grow old with, to experience everything with, to spend a life with the one who is his everything – one wrong move and he loses it all… again. 
He doesn’t bother to ask if you are with someone, if you are dating and taken, the thought is disturbing to his heart. 
“Do you want to get out of here?” He asks as he slowly reaches for your hand and you allow him to take it when you slip your palm against his and give his hand a squeeze.
He nearly crumbles to his knees when he feels your soft touch again, it’s been too long. Your hand always fit into his so perfectly, like it was made to be held by him. 
You nod, whispering a sweet ‘yes, please’. That’s all he needs to hear before he pulls you closer to his body, pushing you in front of him slightly, keeping a protective stance right behind you as he never lets go of your hand, basking in the feeling of having you so close again, of being able to smell your perfume again and the sweet scent of your body wash. 
He rubs circles on the top of your hand, pressing his other hand on the small of your back as he pushes through the crowds of people. He leads you to Robin first, needing to make sure that she will get home safe without him. He finds her playing beer pong with Vickie and a few of their former bandmates from high school. He taps on her shoulder and when she turns around, Steve grows more nervous than before, because her eyes grow wide when she sees you next to him, excitement flashing in them and a big grin appearing on her face after a long moment of staring at you. 
She knows all about you. 
She knows all about his feelings and his regrets. 
She knows how much he missed you. 
She was there when he cried and never stopped talking about you. 
So after greeting you, probably a little too enthusiastically, she moves closer to Steve, raising her eyebrows at him and giving him a teasing, yet pointed look. 
“Go and don’t worry about me, Vickie can drive, she’s not drinking tonight.”
“You sure?” 
She nods, her waves bouncing as she moves her head a little too quickly. 
“Steve I’m fine, go and get your girl,” she winks at him, squeezing his shoulder before she moves back, giving him another look that says nothing but ‘i mean it, don’t fuck it up this time, this is your chance.’ 
Steve nods at her, smiling and feeling reassured by her. He holds your hand tighter and pulls you away before you can properly say goodbye to his friend that you only know from your days in high school. You look back at her to find her staring at the two of you, grinning from ear to ear, she raises her eyebrows at you, eyes glowing as she gives you a smirk and a small wave of her hand. 
You feel a little confused by the teasing look on her face but smile and wave back at her nonetheless before Steve whisks you away and out of the room.
It isn’t weird to hold each other’s hand, to be back together in his car like nothing ever happened, like you never stopped doing this, like things are still normal between you. He makes small talk, it’s not awkward or weird, it’s… nice, anything is as long as you’re with him, even the silly jokes makes or how he tries to quote Shakespeare but fails miserably, he makes you laugh and you… you make him smile. 
You stop by the gas station to grab a six pack and some snacks to share before you drive to the lookout, to the place you always went to when you wanted to be alone together. 
You get comfortable on the hood of his car, as comfortable as you can get on the rough surface. It’s a little chillier out here in the woods, the wind that blows through the trees makes goosebumps arise on your skin. Steve, of course, has to use the opportunity to throw his jacket around your shoulders, rubbing your arms to warm you up as he moves close enough for you to feel his breath on your skin. 
You feel something stir within you, something only ever he could make you feel. 
You grab the denim and pull it tighter around you, glancing at him through your lashes, you feel your cheeks heat up when you find him staring at you already, a soft smile playing on his lips that you can see, even in this darkness. 
“Thanks Stevie.” A grin tugs at your lips when his smile moves into a flustered one. 
Steve licks his lips, he removes his hands from your body and busies himself with opening the beer bottles for you and him, “you’re welcome, honey,” he whispers, winking at you. 
You look away from him with blushing cheeks, hiding the smile on your face as you tilt your head down but nothing goes unnoticed by him, he sees the flustered expression in your features, the cute smile you’re trying to hold back. 
He scoots closer to you until his shoulder is pressed against yours, he offers you the opened bottle. You glance at his hand, taking in the size of it, how big it is, how his veins pop, how long his fingers are – it makes you squirm and clench your thighs together and he notices it, he looks down and he almost regrets it, almost. Your skirt has ridden up, it nearly covers nothing, at this point. Your skin looks so smooth, thighs so soft, he wants to touch them, kiss them, feel them wrapped around his head. 
His skin heats up, his lower stomach tingles, he craves you, in every way possible, he just wants to… feel you, he wants to feel you close, he wants your skin on his, he needs to know that you are truly back. 
Your touch sends shivers down his spine, it makes his stomach flip. 
He blinks, looking down at the bottle he is still holding, watching the way your hand curls around it, fingers grazing his own. Your hand is so much smaller than his, the urge to compare the size of his own to yours growing strong. 
“Steve?” 
Your soft voice pulls him out of his thoughts, he blushes, cheeks burning maroon. He shakes his head a little, squeezing his eyes shut as he furrows his eyebrows, he removes his hand from your bottle, already missing the touch of your hand. 
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs as he runs his fingers through his hair, “I got a little uh… distracted.” 
He instantly regrets it when his eyes fall back on your lap again, your giggle makes him blush even deeper, he eyes you from the side, watching the way you press your lips against the bottle, you take a sip, trying to hide the smirk on your lips. 
He feels a sudden sense of nervousness rushing through him – here he is, in the presence of the girl of his dreams, the girl that slipped through his fingers, the girl that should be his and he is messing up. He begins to stutter, trying to distract himself once again, this time from your legs, from your soft skin, from how much he wants to touch and kiss you, from how beautiful you are but you make him stutter, you make it difficult for him to talk, you make it impossible for him to be smooth, to flirt with you the way he always did with other girls and suddenly, he is reminded of why he was always so scared of revealings his feelings to you, there was too much at stake, he didn’t want to lose you. 
He always felt so pathetic around you, like a stupid kid in love, one that can’t talk to his crush without blushing, without stuttering. 
And this is exactly what you always adored about him. 
But he doesn't know it, he doesn’t even realize it, he doesn’t even see the way your eyes always light up, the way they soften as you look at him, the way you admire him. 
Before he even takes a sip of his beer, he already feels like he is drunk, his skin is hot, his mind hazy, he feels happy, at ease, like he is floating, all because of you, you make him feel so… light. 
He is drunk on you, without having touched you properly, your presence is enough. 
He wonders how you are holding up, what emotions linger inside of you — you look so calm, relaxed. 
You fall into a comfortable conversation, catching up on the things you have missed in each other's lives, since being separated. And while your eyes stay glued on the night sky, only glancing at him every once in a while, he watches you, with a fluttering feeling in his chest and a smile on his lips. 
You laugh with each other, getting lost in the memories that you both start bringing up, joking and slapping each other’s shoulders softly as you start to tease one another about the stupid things that you both have done in the past. 
You have changed, not only physically did you get even more beautiful, you got something that you didn’t have before, a boldness that you always admired others for. You used to be so shy, anxious to ask the simplest questions, too nervous to hold eye contact for longer than two seconds, even with him, sometimes. But now, despite you choosing to look at the sky instead of him, he can tell that you are not that shy girl anymore, who was afraid to look into his eyes. You are confident, comfortable in your own skin, not afraid to be you, not afraid to gaze into his eyes when you tilt your head to look at him. 
He wonders what or… who caused it, the change in you. 
Was it just the circumstances? The big city that pushed you out of your comfort zone? 
New friends? Being on your own? Or… was it the experiences you have made in these past few months that have shaped you from an innocent, shy teenager into a confident, young woman? 
His stomach churns at the thought of the things you have done while being away from home, or better yet, who you have done them with. He has no right to be upset about it, he knows it, yet he can’t stop the sinking feeling inside of him as he thinks of the hands that have touched your body or the lips that kissed yours, if you had dated someone, if you are someone else’s right now. 
The question tumbles from his lips before he can even stop himself. 
“Do you have anyone?” 
The storm that was just raging in his mind, the string of questions that followed now silenced as he stares at you, waiting for your answer with a racing heart and clammy hands. 
The sound of crickets and the rustling of the trees are the only sounds now filling the space around you.
“You mean… a boyfriend?” 
He nods and you shake your head at that. You bring the bottle up to your lips, taking a much needed sip. 
“No, I don’t,” you murmur as your eyes roam his face, “why?”
You notice the frown on his face, the way his lips are curled down and his eyebrows are tightly scrunched together. 
“Just wondering… someone like you still single?” 
“What do you mean…?” You ask slowly.
Steve huffs, shaking his head with a smile on his face. 
“I mean… Come on, honey. You’re funny, you’re smart and you’re just… you’re amazing,” he sighs adoringly, hazel eyes running up down and your face and your body. “You’re beautiful, a fucking catch.”
You almost want to scoff at his words, you want to roll your eyes and look the other way. A catch, right. A catch he never wanted. Your heart betrays you when it flutters and prompts a girlish giggle to fall from your lips. 
“Stop.”
He nudges his shoulder against yours, grinning at your flustered face, “it’s the truth.”
Steve feels relieved to know that you don’t have anyone waiting on you, that there isn’t some guy out there that got the girl he always wanted. 
“You have to say that,” you shake your head and drink the last drop of your beer before you throw the bottle down on the grass, making a mental note to pick it up later. 
Because he is your best friend, because he was always your best friend, no matter what – so of course, he has to say these words to you. 
He rolls his eyes at you, huffing, “I’m not just saying that.” 
You try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach, the way his words can make you feel like that shy teenage girl again, you try to steer the attention away from you. 
You press your palm against the cold, almost icy hood, leaning back, you tilt your head to the side and gaze at him, loving how long his hair grew, how his features are more… manly now, though the boyish grin still lingers. 
“What about you?” You whisper, swallowing the bitterness on your tongue. “Got anybody, Stevie?”
He shakes his head quickly, almost frowning at your question. 
“Me? No… no one really… felt right.” He says with a look of longing in his eyes, the one that is only reserved for you. 
The tension in your chest disappears, almost instantly, you have an idea of what you would feel like had the answer been a different one. 
“I was seeing a girl… for a while but uh… like I said, it… she didn’t feel right,” he admits with a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. 
You nod, swallowing harshly. 
“Why didn’t she feel right?” You’re aware of how small, how shaky your voice sounds. 
You wait, wait and wait for him to answer your question, the answer he tries to find in your eyes as it seems because he won’t stop looking at you, it’s like he is searching for something, like he is trying to figure you out, like he is trying to make sense of the question you just asked. 
He doesn’t give you what you want, as always, Steve Harrington pretends like nothing happened, like nothing had been asked. 
But you know what he means, you know exactly what he means, you had someone too, back in Chicago. 
He was nice, he was good to you, in more ways than just one but no matter how much you tried not to think of him, you always failed. He was always there, always in the back of your mind, always ready to haunt you and remind you that he is and will always be the only one that your heart will belong to. 
Your relationship was only short lived, and you left him the moment you realized how unfair it was to stay with him when your heart was somewhere else, when you couldn’t stop thinking about Steve. 
Something rustles in the bushes, something echoes loudly through the woods, something that would have normally made you flinch, doesn’t even faze you now because he is here. You feel safe in his presence, you always did, not even the darkest night or the loudest storm could make you feel afraid as long as he was by your side. 
And yet, you scoot closer to him, not even noticing that you do until his fingers brush against yours and sparks shoot through your entire body. 
And through his. 
You clear your throat and take a deep breath, “yeah… I had someone… but he didn’t feel right either.” You say softly, vulnerably as you meet his eyes again. 
A soft ‘oh’ leaves his mouth and he nods, looking down at the bottle in his hand, he brings it up to his lips and downs the rest of it. He feels his stomach churning, his insides crawling at the mere thought of you with someone who isn’t him and it makes him feel awful, it makes him feel ridiculous because wasn’t that his own fault? He blew his chances with you. He let you go, hell, he didn’t even fight for you. 
He puts the bottle down, wipes his mouth and runs his fingers through his hair before he turns back to you to find you staring at him just the way you always did, with your big doe eyes, those pleading and begging looks you never stopped throwing at him. 
He’d have to be blind to not see it – he always did, he just never allowed himself to admit it, not even to himself, not even when you were all he ever wanted. 
“Why didn’t he feel right?” 
Steve watches the way your lips curl downwards, the way you squint your eyes at him, the softness fleeing as you glare at him instead.
And suddenly, the air around you feels different, tense for another reason, heavy and filled with something neither of you ever addressed before. 
While you take deep breaths, trying to calm yourself – Steve tries to mend the aching in his chest, the hammering that feels just too strong. 
“Why didn’t she feel right, huh?” You ask, scooting away from him and getting off the hood, placing your feet back on the ground, you don’t even bother to smooth down your skirt. You cross your arms over your chest and stand in front of him, demanding the answer you tried to ask softly before. 
Steve sighs, growing fearful and anxious, feeling like he is messing up yet again, like he is about to lose again. 
But you are close, so goddamn close, even through the anger in your eyes, you still stand in reach, your knees now brush against his. He straightens his back, fighting the urge to reach for your hands and just pull you into him, showing you why no one ever felt right. 
He promised Robin, he promised her that if you ever came back, he would go and get you, he would come clean about it all, he would make it all right again. 
“This goes both ways, Steve. You can’t just ask me and then–”
“Because no one is you.”
He won’t fail this again, no matter how scared he is, he just can’t. 
Your lips part in surprise, a painful look crosses your eyes, though the anger doesn’t fade away just yet. You uncross your arms, and shake your head at him. 
His words should bring you joy, shouldn’t they? 
But as you stand here before him, his knees brushing your own, his golden brown eyes staring at you with nothing but love, you can’t help but feel your heart aching because why now? Why not then? 
“So… it took me to leave town… go to college… for you to say this?” You whisper, holding back a choke as your eyes well up with unwanted tears. 
His own eyes panic when he sees just how much pain there is inside of you, how much you hid it. He reaches forward, taking your hand in his, he sighs in relief when you don’t push him away like he thought you would. 
“It was always there. Before our first kiss, before our first time, and then it never stopped. But you were… you were scary. Feeling love that strong at such a young age– it wasn’t in my plans. I was scared… I was scared of loving you and losing you. It happened before.” 
His parents. 
He loved them unconditionally, he loved them no matter what they did and didn’t do, he loved them and he lost them – they abandoned him and then they forgot about him. 
Your eyes show nothing but pain, your heart breaks, all over again, for him. 
And you’re stunned, so goddamn shocked because that word fell from his lips. Love. He loved you. 
You curl your hand around his, squeezing them tightly as he gets off his car, standing tall before you again. 
“You… still could have–”
“Risked it?” Steve interrupts you, furrowing his brows as he looks down at you. “No… I wasn’t going to risk it. Risk losing you…” He scoffs, shaking his head at himself, “now I see how stupid that was because I lost you anyways.” 
His eyes well up with tears, his voice almost cracks and you finally… finally get to see a glimpse into his heart, how much pain he was always hiding.
“No… I don’t think you lost me.”
“Honey, we haven’t talked in–”
“What you felt for me… Is it… Is it past tense?” 
Steve should see the hope in your eyes, he should hear it in your voice too, but he is so scared, so nervous at this moment. 
Everything he had always been afraid of was losing you because of his feelings and he can’t help but wonder, what if he confesses his love to you now and his saddest fear creeps in and he will lose you for good, forever? 
“Why do you want to know?” He asks, shakily. 
You hold his hands tighter, taking another step closer until you are chest to chest. You close your eyes for a moment and take a deep breath, you look up at him, begging with your eyes, yet again. “Because I deserve to know, Steve, do you still have feelings for me?”
He takes a long pause, feeling like his heart might explode, feeling like the ground might disappear beneath him if he doesn’t finally give you the whole truth. 
His eyes flicker down to your lips, the ones he craved to feel on his own for years, his body aches for you just the way his heart does, desire running deep but love taking full control, driving both his heart and his mind insane over you. He feels the pounding from his chest to his throat, his eyes glossy with tears he shed so many times over you, over his regrets. 
“Yes,” he whispers, already feeling his chest deflating as the pressure slowly sinks away, “like I said, they never stopped.”
Tears spill down yours and his cheeks, his shoulders slump in relief and you, you finally breathe. You sniffle and a giggle falls from your lips, one that makes him furrow his brows but smile because now he can see the happiness in your eyes, the joy from hearing this from him. 
“Oh, thank god,” you whisper and throw your arms around his waist, pressing your cheek against his chest, you hug him tightly, catching him off guard. 
It takes him a moment, it takes him a very long moment. 
His glassy eyes are wide, his heart is threatening to break free from his chest. He wanted this, he wanted you for so long, he feels like this is too good to be true but when he feels your tears seeping through his shirt and how you cling to his body, like you are afraid that he might disappear if you let go, he finally relaxes. His eyes close gently, tears spilling down his cheeks, he melts into your touch and curls his arms around you, cupping the back of your head, he holds you closely, tightly. 
“I missed you so much,” he whispers into your hair, pressing his lips to the top of your head, he gives a first kiss again. 
“I missed you, Stevie,” you murmur into his chest, holding onto his shirt. 
He moves even closer, burying his face in the crook of your neck as you rise to your tippy toes, wanting to feel more of him, as though he isn’t close enough already, not even when your chest to chest. 
Steve breathes in your scent, the one he used to sink his face into when it still lingered on his pillows, when he longed to feel you in his arms, when he craved you so badly but felt too cowardly to make the move he just made now. 
You cling to one another, like you never have before, not even when he held you during nights you needed him the most, when you were both so convinced that you were nothing more than friends… when just friendship was never something possible between you. 
Steve’s eyes are shut tightly, he is so lost in the feeling of you, feeling so warm, so safe, so loved in your embrace. 
How can his heart race so fast yet feel so… calm? 
You don’t know how much time passes as you stand there in each other’s arms, you are so lost in the moment, you couldn’t care less about anything around you, about the time, about your surroundings, about the world – only you and him matter, nothing more. 
He cups the side of your face when you begin to pull away to look at one another, glossy eyes gazing into each other, lips begging to be connected. His fingers brush through your hair, he tucks your front pieces behind your ears and caresses your cheeks. His hazel eyes flash with adoration. You are so beautiful. It makes his heart clench in his chest.  
You slide your hands up his chest, moving up to his neck and cupping his cheeks, your stomach growing with anticipation the closer you both move to each other. 
No words are spoken, there is no need for them, your eyes tell everything, just like your touch when your lips finally connect. 
Your hearts stop beating, time stops ticking, the world stops moving. 
Everything around you stops. 
Just absolutely everything. 
Your eyes flutter shut, just like his. 
A kiss you both never stopped craving finally happening, not only in your minds, but in reality. 
Steve sighs in contentment, a whimper following close behind, your lips move slowly, softly with each other, you savor each and every second, even when you know that this is only the beginning of it all. 
Nothing and no one could ever compare to this, no one could ever come between you, you are two puzzle pieces, ones that were made for only each other, no one else to match you both. It’s only you and him. Your hearts know, you know, he knows. 
The way he kisses you so gently, so sensually, makes your stomach flip in ways it never did before, not even back then when you shared first and second kisses. 
And Steve, he feels like he is in a dream that he never wants to wake from again, he is too scared to open his eyes and find himself in his lonely bed, surrounded by the scent of you that he only imagines, that forever lingers like a kiss upon his skin. 
But your whimper is real, your lips are real, you are real, your lips taste just like they did before, sweet and peachy, like home. 
You only pull away to catch your breath, smiling when Steve chases your lips with his own, nuzzling his nose against yours as a soft giggle falls from his puffy lips, “god… I missed you, princess.” He murmurs against your lips, knowing that he will keep repeating these words, over and over again, he feels like he has been blessed by the universe. 
Your best friend’s eyes shine so brightly, the love in them that you always craved to see, is so evident, it’s all out in the open now, all in reach, all there for the taking – when not even a few hours ago, you didn’t even know where he was, if he still thought of you, if he still cared for you… 
Tears escape your eyes and he wastes not second to catch them, to wipe them away and kiss your wet cheek. 
“Please don’t cry,” he whispers, feeling like his heart might break, knowing that you have suffered just the way he did, when he thought that you moved on, that you had forgotten all about him just like everyone else did when that was never even the case, when all you did was long for him, love him, even from afar. 
“I love you,” he whispers in relief, feeling like the weight of the world is off his shoulders, “I love you so fucking much, you’re my–”
You cup his cheeks and pull him down once again, kissing him deeply. “You.” Kiss. “Don’t.” Kiss. “Know.” Kiss. “How.” Kiss. “Much.” Kiss. “I.” Kiss. “Dreamed.” Kiss. “Of.” Kiss. “This.” Kiss. “Moment.” 
Steve's heart flutters the way it never did before, butterflies go wild in his stomach, his eyes crinkle and he smiles so brightly, his cheeks hurt. 
“I love you,” you whisper against his lips, “I love you so much, Steve Harrington, you have no idea how much–”
His lips are on yours, pressed against them so strongly as he pulls you into another deep, passionate kiss before you can even finish your sentence. He kisses you in a way no one ever did before. 
His thumbs linger on your cheekbones, his tongue parts your lips so effortlessly, your own clashing against his as the softness of your feelings disappears and transforms into something needy, hungry. This kiss is much faster, much rougher, much more passionate than the first, you get lost in it so quickly. 
When he takes a step back and he sits back down on the hood of his car, he moves his hands down to your waist, pulling you in between his legs. 
Your arms move around his shoulders, your hands get lost in his hair, fingers gripping it tightly as moans escape you. The kiss makes you feel so hot, your stomach burns, your skin feels like it’s on fire as his hands move up and down your back, slipping underneath his jacket that is still around your shoulders, under your shirt and then, he touches your soft skin with his cold hand, something that makes you shiver yet lean closer against him. 
He moans against your lips, he is so intoxicated by you, needing more and more, like you’re his own personal drug. He could keep doing this, he could take you right here, right now. He could taste you, unravel you with his tongue, with his fingers, he could hold your hands and make love to you like he always wanted to, like he hoped he’d get to tonight – because he thought that this might be all he would get, a night with you, only that and no more, because how could you ever want anything more than this with him after all the times he messed up with you? After he let you slip through his fingers like it was nothing?
But this won’t stay a single night, this won’t be one that will haunt him for the rest of his life. 
This will turn into more, so much more. 
He doesn’t want to mess it up again, he wants to take it slow, he wants to give you everything you deserve, everything he craved to give you, all these years, everything he dreamed about, during the day and the night. 
So as much as he wants this, you, your bare skin on his and your whimpers blessing his ears, you deserve more, you deserve to be taken on a date first. 
“Hang on,” he whispers against your lips, cupping your cheeks again, his lips curl into an amused smile when he opens his eyes to see your smudged lipstick that is no doubt on his face now too, your hair a mess just like his own, “I want to… fuck… I want you so bad, I couldn’t stop thinking about this, about you. But I want to take it slow, I-I want to do it right this time, I want to take you on a date and–”
You cut him off with a kiss, once more. Pressing your lips against his plush ones, over and over again until it makes you both giggle. He grabs your waist and pulls you down on his lap, grabbing your cheeks, he presses his forehead to yours.
“Slow is good,” you whisper, caressing his cheek as his fingers run up and down your spine underneath the denim jacket. “I like slow.”
“Yeah?” He smiles.
You nod, though an almost sad smile makes its way on your lips, “you know, I kinda thought you forgot about me until all of this.” You wave your hand around, wiping at your wet cheek as a soft laugh tumbles from your lips. 
You weren’t the only one who stopped calling, who stopped sending letters, he did too, but not for the reasons you thought, clearly. 
A deep frown appears on his face, he tightens his hold on you, raising his hand up towards your face, he cups your cheek. Despite everything he just said, despite the kiss, you still don’t understand just how deep his feelings for you are, how his heart isn’t even his own because it is completely, devotedly yours. 
“I could never forget you,” he whispers with a sad smile on his face, “you’re all I ever think about, now and then, even when we were kids, even when I was… King Steve,” he rolls his eyes at the nickname he used to be so proud of. “You never once left my mind, not once.” 
The smile that makes his way to your lips makes his heart skip a beat, he kisses your cheek, letting his lips linger for a moment. 
“So please, let me make it right, let me fix everything… go on a date with me?” He asks with nothing but hope in giddiness in his voice. 
You squint your eyes and tilt your head, giving him a teasing smile as you pretend to think but his soft eyes make your teasing an impossible task at this moment, you wipe the lipstick off his mouth and nuzzle your nose back against his. 
“I would love to go on a date with you, Stevie,” you whisper, feeling your heart burst from joy and love. 
The one thing you always wanted, you always craved now finally happening, at a moment when you least expected it. 
Coming back home made you so nervous, knowing that you would see him again after all this time of being apart, knowing that your feelings will only continue to grow, no matter the tie between you, filled you with a sense of… dread, because you couldn’t help but wonder – does he even want to see you? 
But, to find out that he had spent every passing moment, thinking about you, about your past, wanting you back and willing you to come running back into his arms lights up everything inside you again – flames you have tried to put out, burning stronger than ever. 
Steve’s eyes well up with tears of joy again, he cups the back of your neck, his lips brush against yours, he can’t even describe his feelings with words, so he doesn’t even try, but he shows you the happiness you brought back into his life, the happiness that was just gone when you were… gone. He kisses you, once, twice… He keeps kissing you, over and over again, unable to stop himself from going back in for more, consumed by love, by gratitude and happiness to know that you came back. 
To know that you won’t haunt his what if’s. 
He won’t chase your shadows wherever he will go. 
Your scent won’t linger from just his memory alone. 
He waited and waited, and he let the lamp burn and now… now you are here, you came back, you came back to him. 
Here, at the lookout where you used to sit on your saddest days, you find your way back to one another again. 
As you embrace the future written for you, you know that the rings on your fingers won't only be imaginary ones like the ones from your childhood. 
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myrkulitescourge · 11 months ago
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the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me
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just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.
like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.
in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.
how am i supposed to act normal about this.
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lightblueminecraftorchid · 1 year ago
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I am. Very frustrated with how often I get sick nowadays.
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princessbellecerise · 2 months ago
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Baby Blues
Summary ✩ After six months of being married, you and Cregan are still struggling to conceive, leading to you becoming insecure and slightly jealous in your marriage
Warnings ✩ Angst, jealousy, mentions of infertility and pregnancy, self doubt, insecurity, happy ending though
Notes ✩ This is based off of a request and I hope I did it justice. I did put a little twist on it just to make it a little extra angsty but enjoy!
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Cregan pulled the covers back and grinned.
A little over a month had passed since your last moon blood, and now that a safe amount of time had gone by, he felt excitement fill him at the idea that you were finally with child.
The two of you had been trying ever since you got married six months ago, but it seemed that the Gods had not yet deemed you fit to be parents. It’s something that’s worried both you and Cregan, as it wasn’t like there was a lack of trying between the two of you, and the Maesters said that you both were healthy. Realistically, your belly should be swollen by now but it just hadn’t happened.
Now though, Cregan felt a sliver of hope rise in his chest. Beside him, you shifted and rolled over sleepily to see why your husband had taken the covers from you. You were cold, but once you saw what he was looking at you immediately warmed up.
“It still hasn’t come,” You realized, fighting a smile. Your heart beating a little faster as you saw the clean sheets.
“No. No it hasn’t,” Cregan, trying and failing to conceal his own grin, said. “It’s been next to two months now.”
“Which could mean nothing,” You chewed your lip, reminding him that sometimes a woman’s blood could be late. But Cregan chose to be optimistic.
“Or…”
You squealed as suddenly, your husband pulled you into his arms and peppered kisses all over your neck. Laughter filled your chambers as you tried to push him away, but Cregan held you firm, his hands gentle as they pressed against your belly. “Mayhaps my seed has finally taken.”
“Mhmm. Well, we’ll see about that,” You said cautiously, not wanting to get your hopes up until you knew for sure. More time would need to pass before you allowed yourself to truly believe, as the heartbreak of your moon blood simply being late would be devastating. You were already worried that something was wrong with your womb and the longer you went without getting pregnant, the more that worry grew.
Over the next few days, you held caution close to your chest as a way to shield yourself in case Cregan was wrong. In case this time was just false hope like all the others, but as the days went on and suddenly it became a month and two weeks without getting your moon blood, you caved.
You and Cregan couldn’t stop grinning the moment you finally revealed to the Maester what was happening. It was too early to be one hundred percent sure, but he assured you that it was a good sign and only time would tell. Despite this, Cregan insisted on celebrating the incident, claiming that there needed to be a feast held to honor the coming of a new heir. Your husband was so excited that you didn’t even have the heart to dissuade him, admittedly excited yourself.
As the Lady of the castle, you made the plans and collaborated with the Maester to send out invitations. And within two more weeks, all of the nearest houses in the North were gathered at Winterfell, happy and merry as they celebrated you and Cregan.
It was a lively feast, and definitely the most exciting event in the North for a while. Cregan had insisted on having the best ale present and the best food, as it was summer and their stores had extra to spare.
You had never seen your husband so alive; so filled with happiness and joy as he drank to his new heir. Of course, you were being moderate and only stuck to cider or water, but you didn’t mind. At least you’d be sober enough to remember this night, and the way that it filled you with such love to see everyone so happy.
To you, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted from your shoulder and the fear of disappointing Cregan and the North faded. You knew it was silly, as Cregan had reassured you many times that he’d still love you even if you couldn’t provide him with a child, but fulfilling your duty had been drilled into your head since you were born and now you could rest.
You were pregnant, hopefully, and your days of waking up and feeling like a failure were over. That night, you ate, you laughed, you toasted to your unborn babe and you held Cregan tight when later, he whispered to your non-existent baby bump.
“Helloooo thereeee. I’m…I’m your father,” He slurred while you laughed, unable to help yourself as you knew he was one hundred percent piss drunk.
“My love, I think we should be going to bed so you can sleep this off,” You told him, but Cregan waved you off and rested his head on your belly.
“Just…just a minute,” He told you, and he seemed to sober up a little as a small sigh left his lips. “I wanna…I wanna say a few words to our little wolf.”
He pressed a delicate kiss to the exposed skin and nuzzled your belly with his nose, pausing for a moment before continuing. “It took…it took a while for you to get here, didn’t it? Your mother and I…we were worried. I thought…I thought that maybe there was something wrong with me at first and that’s why you didn’t come, but I’m glad to know that me cock still works.”
“Cregan!” You were both amused and a little surprised to hear that it was him he blamed for such a wait, not you. You never realized that your husband felt responsible for not being able to conceive these past few months, and it both saddened your heart and made you feel less alone to know that he carried the same guilt on his shoulders.
“It was no one’s fault the babe took so long,” You reassured him gently, running a hand through his hair. Cregan sighed at your touch, leaning into your lap as he nodded.
“Aye. It just seems like our little wolf is stubborn is all,” He smiled.
He finished off his speech with a few more words of love to your belly, and the entire time you felt yourself smiling bigger and bigger. By the time Cregan had finished, finally stumbling into bed and grumbling about a headache, you were sure that your cheeks were going split from smiling so much. Words couldn’t describe how full your heart felt, how much you were overflowing from sheer happiness and joy. Everything you had ever dreamed of was coming true and it was all because of the little babe growing in your belly.
“Good night, my little moon,” You smiled as you placed a hand over it, almost as a way to protect them as you fell asleep. Sometime during the night, you felt Cregan’s large hand doing the same, and together your warm hands protected your little miracle.
The next morning, you woke up with the sun shining on your face. Yawning, you reached over to say good morning to Cregan, only to find the bed empty.
He must have gotten up early, you thought with a frown.
You thought about yesterday, about how carefree and happy your husband had been. He was so excited to know that he was getting another child, excited that little Rickon would have a younger sibling to protect. You were sad to think that he now had to focus on his duties again, but what could you do?
Duty never waits for anyone.
Trying to shake off your disappointment, you cradled your stomach and sat up in bed. After stretching and taking a small sip of water from the pitcher your maids had left you, you yawned again and threw the covers back.
Your eyes widened.
“Oh Gods. Oh no, no, no!”
You scrambled up in a panic as tiny dots of blood stained your sheets, your eyes wide and your stomach dropping to your feet. Horrified, you placed a shaking hand over your mouth as denial flooded your veins—but the proof was there plain as day.
“No. No, no, no! This can’t be happening,” You whimpered, falling to your knees as you touched the satin material.
How could this be possible? You hadn’t…you hadn’t bled for two months, and now all of a sudden your moon blood decided to show up? After everything…the feast, Cregan’s speech last night…
You shook your head as tears blurred your vision. Utter rage and devastation seemed to fill your heart as you sobbed, clutching your stomach as your whole body shook.
Both shame and embarrassment washed over you, knowing that the womb you cradled was empty. All those celebrations, all the toasts and the speeches that were given…it was for nothing.
You weren’t pregnant, and just like that you were back in the same position you were when you first arrived in Winterfell.
Scared. Heartbroken when your moon blood still came after the bedding. Terrified as the thought of being barren and unable to bare Cregan another child haunted you.
All of a sudden, those fears came running back to you and it made you want to throw up. It made you want to shout and scream, ask the Gods what they hated you so much as to allow this.
Why? Why have you all cursed me? Why won’t you let me bare my husband’s child? Am I not good enough? Am I just not meant to be a mother?
No, no. It couldn’t be true. Despite what the Gods thought, you refused to believe it. You didn’t want to believe it, not willing to accept that you had let Cregan down, again.
Gods, and he had been so excited to be a father again. You knew that he always wanted a big family, but sadly his first wife had passed away in childbirth. It had taken him two years to remarry, and now he was stuck with only one son and a second wife that was probably barren.
A cruel fate he had been dealt, really.
And now, as you stared at the droplets of blood staining the sheets, an ugly feeling crawled its way through your chest. Something that felt akin to jealousy, which you knew was ridiculous and borderline sinful.
It was an ugly, awful thing to envy a dead woman—and you swore to yourself that you never would. You knew how much Cregan loved you, and you were mature enough to know that one person could hold love in their heart for two people. Still though, you just couldn’t help yourself.
Arra might have died for it, but at least she gave him an heir. I cannot even offer him anything, You thought bitterly.
The realization just made you cry harder, wondering if when Cregan found out he’d lose his patience with you. You wondered if your husband would curse the Gods as you did; ask them why they’d taken his perfectly good wife away from him and cursed him with a barren one.
You knew that he wouldn’t, as deep down you knew your husband was not that kind of man. Grief however had skewed your mind, and it made you not think straight as you scrambled up.
Wiping your tears, you leaned over the bed and tore the sheets off with one pull. In a frenzy, and motivated by the desire to not let Cregan see them, you stuffed them deep within your closet and sobbed.
You don’t remember when you dressed yourself, or when you even left the room, really.
All you knew was that everything felt like a blur, the whole world passing you by as you aimlessly wandered through Winterfell.
You don’t remember what you were even looking for or why, but eventually you found yourself somewhere that surprised even you. In the hallway of an abandoned corridor, staring at the portrait of Cregan’s late wife.
You weren’t sure what possessed you to go there, or to even stay once you realized what it was. But something kept you rooted to your spot, and you found yourself entranced as you stared at the artwork.
Arra was beautiful, that was for sure. She had long dark hair, common amongst the Northerners, and big blue eyes that seemed to stare at you accusingly.
From what you’d heard from Cregan, she was his childhood sweetheart. Kind and generous, your husband had once reassured you that she’d love even you, when you were once worried that her ghost would somehow blame you for stealing her husband and child.
“Arra was a gentle soul,” Cregan explained, “And she’d love you for the simple fact that you make me happy, and that you are going to be a wonderful mother to her son and his siblings.”
Now, you wondered if that would still hold true. You had failed at the last part, and surely once Cregan found out, the happiness he once found with you would fade.
You wondered if then Arra would still be so accepting of you; a woman who had stolen her husband and her child and couldn’t even do anything to keep him happy.
It haunted you to think so. Sent a burning feeling through your chest. A feeling of failure. A feeling of jealousy, that this woman had given your husband everything you’d ever wanted to give him and more. A feeling of sadness when you realized that she had died for it, and now her place had been taken by someone as useless as you.
A few hours later, that’s where Cregan found you. Staring at the portrait of Arra Norrey, crying your eyes out over a dead woman, his late wife, and the babe that never even existed in your womb.
“Y/N?” Cregan approached you cautiously, alarm and panic in his eyes as he saw you sunken on the floor. You hadn’t know it yet, too caught up in your grief, but you’d been missing pretty much the entire day and no one had been able to find you since this morning.
The sun had long set, and just when Cregan felt like he was about to lose his mind, he remembered one last place he hadn’t checked. A place he used to visit all the time when he was a child, hiding and sneaking away with his now late wife. But he hadn’t had the heart to visit since she died, not until the possibility of you being in danger arose.
It was here that he found you, and immediately your husband rushed over to you, taking you into your arms and inspecting you for any signs of danger as you cried.
“What has happened? Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Somehow, you managed to force the word out, shaking your head as you tried to quiet yourself. You hadn’t meant for him to find you like this, honestly you hadn’t. You’d meant to go find him hours ago and tell him the news, but you were stuck to this spot and you couldn’t move. The entire day you’d been paralyzed with grief and it was obvious you weren’t okay even though you tried to convince him you were.
“I’m fine, Cregan. Really,” You told him, but of course he didn’t believe you.
He reached a hand out to touch your face, wiping your tears as he set his torch down. The new angle allowed you to see his face better, to see the worry and the panic and the grief.
You curled into yourself even more knowing that you had probably caused it, and knowing that you were about to add to it even more.
“Y/N, what happened?” Cregan demanded. He was perplexed. “Why have you been down here the entire day? It’s nearly midnight. We’ve been searching for you for hours. Everyone was worried, I was going out of my mind thinking that something awful had happened to you! And the babe—”
Cregan suddenly paused as you began to cry harder, his eyes wide as you cradled your empty womb. Something in his head seemed to click, an awful thought he’d never even considered before rendering him weak.
“Gods. Has something happened to the babe? Is that why you disappeared?” Cregan panicked, and you couldn’t stop the plethora of tears that slid down your cheeks.
“I’m sorry.” The dam broke, and you launched yourself into Cregan’s arms as his face turned to horror. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Cregan, I…there is no babe,” You explained to him, and you watched as his expression hardened.
“My love, what are you talking about? What has happened to our child?” He demanded to know. You held your head shamefully.
“The sheets, Cregan,” You told him softly.
He paused. “What?”
“I bled.” The confession left a bitter taste in your mouth, Cregan reeling back in shock. “My moon blood…it came this morning while you were out. I took the sheets…so you wouldn’t know and I…I wanted to tell you, I swear. But I just…I didn’t know how and I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me,” You whimpered. “I’m sorry.”
You looked away, afraid to see his face. Afraid to see the disappointment and the anger that was sure to come. Afraid to see the same accusing stare that Arra wore.
You averted your eyes, because you didn’t think you could bare watching the moment your husband realized that you were a failure. That it was you all along and not him that couldn’t conceive a child. It was your womb, your body that was preventing his happiness.
You didn’t think you could watch the moment all of it faded away.
“Y/N…”
You flinched as Cregan’s hand gently grabbed your face, making you look at him no matter how hard you tried not to. His rough, calloused fingers stroked your cheek, and he looked awfully gentle for a man that should’ve been angry beyond belief.
“My love, look at me. Look at me, please.”
You blinked, and all of sudden you were gazing into his eyes, one blue and one brown. Both of them looked soft and warm, Cregan sighing as he shook his head.
“You will never be a disappointment,” He said firmly. “Not to me. And I don’t want you to ever think such a thing. You are a good wife—”
“Who has failed you time and time again, Cregan,” You sniffled, “It has been six months, and I have yet to fall pregnant. You already have a son, so we both know it is me. I…I’m the one that keeps disappointing us. And I don’t know what to do anymore. I just…I just want to give you a child already. I want to be just as good as Arra was.”
Cregan had been stabbed before, cut from navel to collar and yet nothing in the world was as painful as watching you break down in his arms, desperate for the child you did not have.
It made him feel helpless to see you cry, and he hated that feeling. Hated that there was nothing he could do except for hold you, and offer you sweet words in hopes that it would soothe the ache.
“And you will. One day, you shall bare me another child, but if the Gods have decided that it won’t be today then so be it. We’ll try again and again until the time is right, and if that time never comes then I’ll still be with you every step of the way,” Cregan whispered.
He rested his forehead against yours and stared into your watery eyes. In the dying light of the torch, he could see the way they danced with a thousand emotions, each one more devastating to see than the last.
“You will be a mother one day my love, but please, do not compare yourself to her,” He continued. “Arra bore me a son, yes, but she gave her life for it. I would rather give Winterfell to my uncle Bennard than to see you perish for a child as well. I cannot…I cannot bare losing you too. Do you understand?”
You could hear the pain in Cregan’s voice, the unspoken truth that he’d rather you never be a mother than to have you leave him as well. It made your heart ache at the thought of never having your own child to share, flesh and blood and bones made from your love.
It would haunt you to the end of your days, but dying and leaving your husband alone in this world would destroy you even more.
You nodded. “I understand,” You told Cregan softly.
The warm fire light died down as you held one another in that corridor.
Nevermind that half the castle was still looking for you; in that moment, you only wanted your husband, his presence the only thing that could soothe the aches.
As Cregan’s strong arms and soft words comforted you, your eyes turned to look at the portrait of Arra. You wondered, if in her final moments she felt the same comforts as you did—content knowing that no matter what happened, she’d have a husband who would be there for her until the very end.
You hoped that she had.
In the morning, Cregan declined seeing off his most loyal bannermen, keeping his promise of being by your side whilst you visited the Maester.
You were shaking, undeniably terrified for what he was going to say, but you kept your head high and held onto Cregan’s hand the entire time he examined you.
You told him of your bleeding last morning, and how it had seemingly stopped today. You confessed that you hadn’t been feeling the usual symptoms of morning sickness or fatigue, but your breasts were sore and your appetite seemed to have increased.
Your body was an endless maze of confusion and it put you through emotions you weren’t even capable of understanding. You didn’t see how the Maester could either, really, but you supposed that he was used to these kinds of things more than you were.
After you had answered all of his questions, you braced yourself, squeezing Cregan’s hand as you prepared for the Maester to tell you what he thought.
And to your utter surprise, he merely smiled.
“Bleeding from the womb for a day or two is rare after conception, but possible. The fact that it’s gone away is a good sign, My Lady,” He reassured you.
You felt Cregan gripping your hand tighter as a flurry of emotions filled your body. First, you were shocked. Then you were relieved. And slowly, the grief that had been eating away at your heart faded, and you felt the tiniest bit of something else bleed through.
Hope.
“You mean…?”
You didn’t want to say it out loud, for fear of maybe being wrong, but the Maester seemed to catch on and nodded his head.
“Yes. Gods willing, there should be a new child of Winterfell in about seven months,” He confirmed. And then he added, “Congratulations, My Lady. My Lord.”
He bowed to you and Cregan before leaving the room, also sensing that the two of you might like some privacy.
And he was right.
As soon as the door shut, Cregan pulled you into his arms and let out a shaky breath. You didn’t even have to see his face to know that your husband was smiling, and when you hugged him against you—hard—you could feel warm tears wetting your neck.
“D’you hear that? We’re having a baby,” You laughed in disbelief while Cregan chuckled, sniffling as he kissed alongside your jaw.
“I never doubted that we would,” He said honestly, and all you could do was hold him tighter, your own tears slipping down your cheeks.
“No. No you didn’t.”
2K notes · View notes
xbinksc · 1 month ago
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DATING NICHOLAS WOULD INCLUDE:
⭒❃.✮:▹Nicholas Alexander Chavez
WARNINGS: nsfw included
✧༺༻∞
• ok let’s say you met nick through cooper who’s been tryna get you two together for MONTHS
• the second y’all locked eyes it was love a first sight
•the dates omg THE DATES nick is lowkey a romantic under his mysterious and cold persona (but don’t tell anybody)
•beach dates,fancy dinner dates,at home movie dates you name it
•he would literally do anything for you
•obssesed with you
•no seriously, it’s a clinical obsession
•always wants to share his passions with you
•supports EVERYTHING you do and is your number one fan
•always there for you whether it be letting u vent to him or simply sitting at home totally quiet and comfortable in each others presence
•he thinks your the funniest person on the planet and can listen to your dad jokes 24/7
•he’s so thoughtful and always remembers the littlest things u may mention
•SPOILS U TO HELL
•his love language is definitely words of affirmation and physical touch
•always has to be caressing ur leg or holding u somewhere
•”I’m so proud of u bby” HES A SUCKER I TELL U☝🏽
•PET NAMES PET NAMES PET NAMES does he even remember your name at this point?
nsfw
•k this may be controversial but……..he’s definitely into doing it in public spaces
•the idea of possibly being caught or seen gets him ooomf😵‍💫
•club/resto bathroom stall✅ beach✅ trailer on set✅ in the car✅
•choking.
•”you’re taking it so good for me baby” HELPPP RELEASE THE SHACKLES THIS MAN HAS ON ME
•yk how as teens we thought walking around with hickeys was cool? yeaaaa he hasn’t outgrown that phase yet
•he loves to pick u up against a wall or onto the kitchen counter type shit
•in other words the bed is rarely used
•worships your body you’re literally the most beautiful magical being on this earth
•very dominant but lowkey wouldn’t mind if u took on that role sometimes
•honestly who needs toys when ur fkg Nicholas
•but y’all are suckers for a little ice play here and there
•loves to go down on u
•ohhhh he likes to be edged but don’t tell him I told u
•lemme end this before I get carried away…moral of the story is he’s the best fk u ever had the end.
1K notes · View notes
saintobio · 3 months ago
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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃 & 𝐓𝐇𝐄 ���𝐎𝐒𝐓. (final part to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍 & 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑.)
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in the painful memory of what once was, sylus learns that love can't be bound where it was never meant to stay.
♱ pairings. sylus, fem!reader
♱ genre. angst, smut, boss/assistant, 18+
♱ tags. sylus's pov, reader is not l&ds!mc, sylus might be ooc, main story spoilers, razor's dance spoilers, nightplumes spoilers, lots of timeskip, fast-paced, unrequited love, profanity, petnames (kitten, sweetie), espionage, jealousy, brief smut, mentions of pregnancy/impregnation kink, mentions of accidents, suicide attempt, injuries, blood, usage of guns, usage of knife, killings, death, my own theories incorporated into the lore, sylus groveling bcos yall want him to
♱ notes. 9.5k wc. l&ds!mc is referred to here as 'diana'. THIS IS A REPOST of the original post i accidentally deleted. i already posted this several hours ago, so if you’re seeing this new one again, blame my dumbass 🤧 oh well life is life.
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Sylus had a part of him that wished things could be different. 
Ever since he turned away and left you that night at the alleyway, he didn’t really realize the chain of events his decision would set into motion. He simply underestimated how strongly your threats were backed by the grudge you had on him for bringing the hunter girl from Linkon into his base.
After all, you were just an assistant of his. And her, she was everything to him. It wasn’t just about the Aether Core, too—their bond stretched back into his distant past, into another planet where two of them ruled before the inhabitants of Philos came to ruin everything. Him and Diana had a connection he couldn’t sever no matter how much you had come to mean to him. And he spent years, centuries even, just to search for her. 
So, how could a mere assistant he had known for less than a decade have such entitlement to her role in his life? 
Eventually, days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. With your prolonged absence from the Onychinus base, Sylus’s business transactions and illicit deals had become increasingly unruly. He had grown too dependent on you as his right-hand woman, relying on your meticulous management to ensure all his illegal activities ran smoothly. Yet now, without your oversight, things were falling apart.
And while he was contemplating how to fill the void your absence had created, the office door slammed open. A subordinate soon rushed in, breathless and wide-eyed. “Boss, she’s betrayed us!” Luke exclaimed. “She’s gone to the Hunter’s Association. We got word that she was a high-ranking intelligence agent there!”
“A.K.A a spy!” yelled the other twin, Kieran, who looked equally hurt at your betrayal. “She fooled all of us. And here, we treated her like family.” 
That was how Sylus learned that you had left the N109 Zone, seeking refuge in Linkon City, and had exposed critical intel on Onychinus. At the time, rage naturally exploded within him. Didn’t he take good care of you while you were here? He had given you everything, trusted you, and you had thrown it all away. Four years of falling into his trap. Four years of being his partner in crime, his right-hand woman, his lover. People even saw you as the modern day Bonnie & Clyde. Sylus couldn’t understand the root of your betrayal, couldn’t imagine how letting you slip away from his grasp would cost him so much in return.
When you vowed to do everything in your power to kill Diana, was this just a part of your grand scheme? What other machinations were you orchestrating in your pursuit of revenge?
“She’s a wild animal on loose.” Sylus looked up at the twins, maintaining a calm yet ruthless mien as he sat on the couch. He might be idly tossing a coin like he didn’t care, but inside his brain was chaos ensuing. “Where’s she now? Any news?”
It was Luke who shrugged in response. “She hasn’t been seen anywhere, boss-man.”
“We suspect the Association is hiding her,” Kieran added. 
The hunter girl, Diana—the very girl you were jealous of, was sitting next to Sylus throughout the conversation. Their hands were connected by a strong energy linkage that was seemingly ignited by the Aether Cores in their bodies. They couldn’t separate themselves even if they wanted to. And God forbid you would have lost your mind tenfold had you seen their situation right now. 
“That g-girl,” gasped the hunter girl, eyes wide in bewilderment at what she was hearing. “Sylus, your assistant. She did all that? She was a spy from the Hunter’s Association?” 
Luke tilted her head at the girl, his beaked mask mocking her. “Oh, miss hunter! Haven’t you heard about the HIS? You should know them better than us.” 
“Well.. what is the HIS?” 
“Hunter Intelligence Services.” Sylus was the one who answered, releasing a deep sigh while rubbing his temples. “They’re top secret. Regular hunters wouldn’t have known about them, because they only deal with people like me.” 
Diana looked between him and the twins, rubbing her wrist before moving closer to the boss of Onychinus. Her close proximity allowed him to smell her familiar sweet scent. “Is she… after me? But I don’t understand. If she’s part of the Hunter’s Association too, then shouldn’t we be colleagues?”
Kieran cleared his throat. “Ever since you came—”
“Place a bounty on her head,” Sylus interrupted the twins, and also ignored the question of the girl next to him. She didn’t need to learn the history behind you and him, or why you chose to target her. “Make sure to bring Y/N back to me. Alive.” 
“Roger that, boss!” 
It was his last desperate attempt to draw you back to him. Now that you had the Hunter’s Association protecting you, Sylus knew that locating you wouldn’t be as simple. Otherwise, he would have easily captured Diana long ago. He convinced himself that the bounty was to punish you, but deep down, he knew it was because he couldn’t bear to lose you to his enemies completely.
~~
It took you a year to return to the N109 Zone.
Did you forget he had eyes and ears everywhere? He was the boss of that infamous No-Hunt Zone. Even if you leaked intel about his residences and the Onychinus base to the Hunter’s Association, Sylus still had a few tricks up his sleeve. He had hideouts in places that even you weren’t aware of, and the residents of the N109 Zone were loyal to him. Too loyal that they wouldn’t give any information to anyone no matter the consequences. 
And how foolish were you to forget about Mephisto’s existence?
“Caw! Caw!”
The mechanical crow’s eyes glowed with the same red hue as Sylus’s as it landed on his arm, projecting visions of you entering the underground fight club disguised in an Onychinus uniform. It was almost farcical that you thought you could infiltrate a place Sylus frequented unnoticed.
But then, the vision shifted to you speeding on a motorcycle with a truck in hot pursuit. Sylus quickly recognized the truck’s decals—it was the hitman he often employed for dealing with his enemies, now terrorizing you in a high-speed chase. Without hesitation, Sylus grabbed his leather jacket and mounted his own bike, racing to your location in sixth gear.
He arrived just a minute too late. And what was meant to be a dramatic reunion turned into a scene of you lying unconscious and injured on the road, while the hitman grinned nearby with an expression of triumph. If it hadn’t been for your helmet, Sylus would have been met with the gruesome sight of your shattered skull.
“Mr. Sylus!” the hitman exclaimed, jumping out of his truck with arms outstretched in petty victory. “Can I get the $500,000,000 in cash?”
As Sylus’s gaze fell on your unconscious, injured body sprawled on the ground, a surge of anguish overwhelmed him in ways he couldn’t understand. But it was quickly replaced by seething rage—rage that made him summon his black-red mist, enveloping the hitman in its dark tendrils.
“I said not to harm her,” Sylus growled, his red eye glowing ominously against the desolate highway backdrop. “You failed your task.”
“P-Please, Mr. Sylus! I thought you—”
Without another word, Sylus scooped you up in his arms while his mist dealt with the hitman behind him. The hitman’s desperate cries were soon drowned out by the expanding tendrils, which tightened around him until he was engulfed. Then, in a violent burst, the mist exploded, reducing the hitman and everything around him to dust.
Sylus brought you to his underground hideout immediately after. And an unfamiliar—or perhaps strange—pang tugged at his heart as he gently laid you in bed, his gaze lingering on the road rash you obtained from the crash. The injuries were severe, with patches of skin nearly stripped away in the most brutal fashion he could think of. He could only imagine the burning pain you had to endure as soon as you skidded along the gravel, and Sylus felt his own frustrations knocking at the door knowing that he didn’t have the power to extend his fast-healing abilities to you.
“Tch. My kitten’s reckless as always, riding without the proper gear,” Sylus grumbled, looking at your unconscious body. “You’ve never been one to follow the rules, have you?”
To make up for his inability to save you on time, he applied a potent medicinal ointment all over your body and placed you in an anesthetized state while you healed. His mist enveloped you like a protective shroud the entire time you laid in bed unconscious. Every single day, Sylus tended to your wounds, changing your clothes and bandages, and applying the ointments over your bare body. He even took special care to ensure the twins did not enter your room without his permission. 
Despite the care he showed, a persistent question echoed in his mind: Why am I doing this for you? You were his enemy, a traitor, and a woman who had betrayed him. It didn’t make sense. 
That afternoon, feeling suffocated from this internal conflict, Sylus decided to leave you in the care of Luke and Kieran while he went to Linkon. He knew he needed space to grapple with the feelings that were driving him to care for you in the first place.
He needed to see the real woman he should be caring for. 
Because you had not only exposed intel on Sylus and Onychinus to the Hunter’s Association, you also asked for them to isolate Diana so she would have no way to see or contact him. Who knew that mere feelings of jealousy would spark you to do such trivial things? 
Frankly, you were insane. You were dark and twisted like him. 
But in a way, it only underscored how similarly deranged the two of you were. Perhaps, in your madness, there was a strange compatibility—one that Sylus found unsettlingly fitting. The suggestion of you two being more a suitable pair than he and Diana gave him an unease that he couldn’t simply shake away. 
It should be her. Her. Just her and her alone. He dedicated his whole life into finding her, yet you came into his life to ruin the foundations he had built to meet the person he was supposedly destined for. He had repeated it over and over in his mind like a broken record—the voices in his head telling him to let you go, to hurt you, to make you suffer. 
However, as he stood across the pedestrian crossing, watching Diana from afar, a realization hit him like a cold gust of wind. There she was, oblivious to his presence on the other side, but the spark that once ignited in his heart whenever he saw her was gone. Now, his pulse remained steady and his heart stayed still.
With a wary glance around, mindful of any watchful eyes, he decided to pick up his phone and ring hers. It was a good thing he was able to seamlessly blend into the crowd, with his practiced nonchalance making him invisible among the throng of people. After all, he was Sylus Qin, the mastermind of Onychinus—disguise was second nature to him.
“Sylus?” Her voice came through the line, tentative and filled with a mix of emotions as she scanned the faces on the other side of the crossing.
“According to the conditions set by the Hunter’s Association, we shouldn’t be meeting again.” His voice was steady, almost detached, as he kept the phone pressed to his ear. “Or if not, you will be marked as a Tenebra.” 
Her eyes eventually found him amidst the walking crowd, keeping an expression on her face that showed both longing and forlornness. “Not the first time someone has been marked a Tenebra because of you,” she managed to slip in a snarky remark in her worried expression. “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?” 
“Are you worried about me?” he nonchalantly asked, watching as she stepped off the curb when the light turned green. Each step was a step closer to him, but nothing changed the pace of his own heartbeat like it should have. Nothing stirred within him as it once did.
“You have the audacity to use a phone when you’re right in front of me,” she snapped, frustration flaring as she yanked the phone from his grasp. Without hesitation, she grabbed his arm, dragging him along with her to escape the dangers of being seen in public. They ended up in an alleyway, a place hidden from prying eyes, an irony that made Sylus chuckle under his breath. The alleyway. Why has that become such a memorable place to him? “Sylus, what’s so funny? I was so scared something happened to you! You couldn’t even call me back or text me the past few days?”
He remained expressionless as he observed her outburst. Strange. In her frantic worry, she reminded him of you, and it was a discomfiting parallel that sent chills down his spine. “I said I’d need to disappear from your life completely, so I have to tie up loose ends,” he began, each word seemingly a dagger to her heart. “We haven’t been able to resonate either way, sweetie. There’s no reason for us to keep meeting.” 
“No!” she adamantly denied the thought, pulling him into an embrace. “No, you’re not allowed to disappear just like that! We need to find a way to get—”
“It’s a dangerous gamble to be caught in my world,” he said in a low voice. 
But she was stubborn. “I’m already caught in it! So, please, Sylus, take me with you. Take me to the N109 Zone or wherever you’re hiding. I want to be where you are.” And in spite, she uttered words that made Sylus think twice about his perception of you. “It’s her fault that this is all happening. She’s a traitor to you and to the Association. Her loyalty isn’t with anyone but herself, Sylus. She’s the one who needs to disappear!”
~~
Back at his hideout, Sylus was careful to ensure that Diana remained oblivious to your presence in another room. He was already grappling with how to manage the situation—torn between the woman he loved and the woman he had wronged who, ironically, were both now under the same roof. The thought of you two crossing paths was a nightmare he didn’t want to deal with, so he gave strict orders to the twins, notorious for their loose lips and loud mouths, to keep Diana far from you.
Because when Sylus returned to your room, he knew you were awake. The dark classical music playing from the vinyl record had likely stirred you from unconsciousness. It had been nearly a week since the crash, but thanks to his meticulous care, your wounds had mostly healed, leaving only faint scars behind.
“You can’t hide from me forever.” Sylus hovered over you to whisper into your ear, summoning his protective black-red mist to slowly release you. “Wake up, kitten. We have unfinished business.” 
When you finally opened your eyes after what felt like an eternity, Sylus told himself it was natural to feel relieved, that it was only right for his heart to soften at the sight of you returning to consciousness. But as you awoke, the voices in his head—the damned, relentless voices—grew louder, mocking him, provoking him, and luring him into darker thoughts. His right eye began to glow like a flickering candle, and when he saw the fear on your face, the words that followed weren’t his own. They were driven by the unforgiving side of him he couldn’t control, a side that thrived on your terror. The beast that couldn’t be tamed. 
She’s a traitor.
Punish her. 
Hurt her. 
Devour her. 
While in a heated, dramatic exchange with you, Sylus was spewing words he didn’t mean. He was doing actions without regard. He was mocking your pain. Your jealousy. Your heartbreak. The drive to hurt you was strong in his head, but he fought desperately against it. The demon inside him that tried to consume his every thought. He tried to battle his own self just to protect you. 
“I betrayed you because of her!” 
His laughter died down, but the amusement in his eyes only deepened, replaced by the wicked smile on his face that enjoyed seeing you suffer. “It’s always been about her, hasn’t it? You see me with her, and you can’t stand it. It eats at you, makes you act out.”
You tried to move away, but Sylus pressed his foot firmly on your wrist. She betrayed you, Sylus. Punish her. 
“I’ve seen your struggle,” he continued, his voice soft but laced with corrupt satisfaction. “The way you watched me with her, the way it gnaws at you. It’s almost poetic, really.”
It wasn’t until you reached for the gun on his nightstand, pointing it at yourself, that Sylus snapped out of his dark trance. The horror in his eyes was a stark contrast to the sorrowful shine in yours as you stood there, sobbing in front of him. Each word you spoke was tailed with the pain of a heart shattered by everything he had done and said. 
“...All I wanted was your love,” you choked out with tears cascading down your face, “I j-just wanted you to love me. I turned my back on the H.A. for you. I left all my friends and family for you.” Your breathing was still for a moment, but your heart had already been blown into smithereens. “All I had was you. I loved you. I devoted all my body and soul into loving you, Sylus. Why c-can’t I have even a little bit in return?”
Even as his gaze softened and a flicker of regret passed across his face, you had already made your decision when your finger tightened on the trigger. The recoil jolted your wrist, but before the bullet could find its mark, Sylus’s hand shot out and expertly deflected your aim. Instead of ending your life, the bullet shattered a window, ricocheting off the glass and disappearing into the night.
“Are you out of your mind?!” Sylus roared, his voice a thunderous mix of fury and disbelief.
You were barely responding to him as he cupped your cheeks and forced your lachrymose eyes to lock into his crimson ones. It was as though you had already resigned yourself to reality, that ending your own life would have been a better option than being with the man you hopelessly loved. 
“Y/N,” Sylus tried to shake you awake, desperate for you to look into his eyes. “Y/N! Enough. Let’s end this game.” 
“...I was never playing one with you.”
Sylus was overwhelmed by a profound, indescribable pain that pierced his chest. It was a pain that mirrored yours but was infinitely more intense. “I warned you many times before to never fall in love with me,” he said in a low, softened voice, “It’s for the best, and it’s what will keep you safe. Why don’t you listen?” He longed to pull you into his arms, but the crushing reality was that he only now realized how deeply he cared for you. It was devastating that his awakening had come at the cost of your near-suicide, forced by a love he was unable to return.
Was it truly too late for him to come to terms with his feelings for you? Was it too late to accept that he had fallen in love with you rather than the woman he believed he was meant to be with?
His answer came in the form of a gut-wrenching realization. It manifested in the frantic voice of Diana—the woman he believed he loved, piercing through the haze of his thoughts by yelling, “Sylus, step back!”
“No!” he shouted, his black-red mist swirling to intercept the bullet.
But his efforts came too late. The bullet had already been set in motion, and it tore through the side of your head. 
It penetrated your skull with a cruel precision, not just once but twice. And the warmth of your blood seeped through his fingers as he caught your head before you fell onto the floor. 
Sylus’s mind raced with the enormity of what had just happened. His face grew ashen as he looked at your bloodied head and lifeless eyes, a wave of acid welling up his chest until he couldn’t breath. But the reason for his suffocation was because of his own guilt and grief. It was at the force of a sledgehammer when he was hit with the admission that he had always been in love with you. All along, despite your tangled mess, it was you who had captured his heart in this world.
His chest tightened, his breaths coming in ragged, broken bursts, while he held you close in his arms. And your last three words, your very last words of “I… love… you…” as you stared despairingly at him was icing on this bitter cake. 
No… no! 
He couldn’t fucking accept it. He was losing his mind, he was going insane. He was plunging into madness. Utter hysteria. “Y/N, please,” he begged, his voice breaking as your eyes, once full of life and light, were now glazed over with the sheen of death. “Don’t leave. No, I can’t let this happen!” For the first time in a long time, he once again felt hot tears leaving his eyes. It was an emotion so rare it only ever showed toward the people he deeply cared about. “I love you too,” he struggled to say. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said back there.”
Sylus held you close, disregarding the blood staining his clothes while he was consumed by agony and regret. He had driven you to this, pushed you away, and then drawn you back into his orbit only to lose you forever. 
Though he may have conquered your heart, in doing so, he had only destroyed the both of you. The memory of your love and the warmth of your touch would haunt him for the rest of his days. And as he held your lifeless body, he knew that he would never be whole again.
But it shouldn’t be too late. No, it shouldn’t! He didn’t know if it was the hysteria or adrenaline kicking into him, but he had thought of an idea—no matter how immoral—that would return you back to him. He just couldn’t weigh which strong emotion he had to deal with first; should he grab the gun and shoot Diana out of anger? Or should he ignore her presence entirely and just focus on you?
Sylus chose to proceed with the latter as he carried you through the corridors of the base, his steps heavy with guilt and his shirt drenched in blood as you remained unconscious in his arms. The hunter girl had followed him in his spiritless steps, her eyes wide with confusion over his anguish.
“Sylus, why are you doing this?!” she demanded, grabbing his arm to halt his progress. “She would’ve killed you. That girl’s a traitor!”
Although he stopped in his tracks, he couldn’t really return her gaze. His eyes could only look at your lifeless ones. “That girl you shot in the head,” he spoke low and in despair, “is my woman.” 
Diana was horrified. “But… but you never said—” Before she could finish, the twins intervened, holding her back from pursuing Sylus further. “What about me?”
He had already turned away. “I’ll fulfill my promise to protect you from afar, but this is where our paths part. Do not come near me again.”
~~
Sylus stood over your unconscious body, his eyes bloodshot and tears-streaked, while his heart pounded with a mix of grief and desperation. He had summoned Philip and the finest surgeons he knew to his hideout, where you lay in a medical bed, exposed and vulnerable, as if you were a subject in a desperate experiment.
Philip arrived with a grim expression, his eyes scanning the scene with both skepticism and professional detachment. Sylus could barely contain his desperation as he demanded, “Do everything you can to save her. Even if it means infusing a high-grade protocore in her brain.” After all, he had plenty of that. Sylus had all the resources, protocores of the highest grade, each with their own purpose and capabilities.
Yet Philip hesitated, his face contorting with concern. “Mr. Sylus, you know I can’t do this. She’s gone. The best thing to do is accept—”
That was when Sylus’s composure cracked. He kicked the nearby chair out of rage, tears streaming down his face as he begged, “You’ve done it before. Do it again! Please, I need her to live!”
The sight of Sylus, usually so imposing and dominant, breaking down in front of him was shocking. Philip felt a pang of sympathy toward the Onychinus boss who was willing to do everything for a woman who was already dead. His hands trembled as he spoke, “I-I can try. But I’m warning you, Mr. Sylus… even if she survives this, there’s zero chance her memories will be the same. They may even become altered, and it will be out of our control.”
Sylus’s gaze never left you. “I don’t mind. Just do it.”
~~
Weeks later, Sylus found himself in a secluded alleyway, meeting with a deepspace hunter who was also an enemy of his from another planet. Of course, the atmosphere was tense as both men stood in front of each other, eye-to-eye, carrying a defensive stance from one another. 
They were never friends. But that day, they weren’t enemies either. 
“How’s she?” Xavier broke the silence first. 
Sylus answered with a low voice. “She hasn’t woken up, but she’s stable.”
“Why’d you ask to meet?”
“I want you to look after her,” the Onychinus leader began, his voice steady but carrying an undertone of desperation, “Speak to the Association about taking Y/N back and forgiving her for her betrayal. In return, I’ll step away from Diana’s life. She’s all yours. I just want Y/N to return to her normal life.”
Xavier’s expression was serious. “You’re forgetting you still have a bounty on your head.”
“And you’re forgetting you and your backtrackers destroyed the planet where I was living,” he replied in equal disdain, but only enough to trap Xavier into a wall of guilt and obligation.
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Lumiere—or, in his current form, the deepspace hunter, Xavier. “The HIS will be easy to convince. But what if she wakes up and wants to go back to the N109 Zone?”
Sylus felt a tug of deep sadness pulling at his heart. “She won’t. Her memories of me are gone for good.” 
~~
If this was his karma for hurting you, then it was definitely the worst kind. 
Sylus maintained a distant watch over you after you returned to Linkon, observing from afar as you rejoined your life with the support of the Hunter’s Association and former colleagues. Each day, he sent Mephisto to monitor your whereabouts, carefully tracking your interactions and daily activities. The mechanical crow often returned with glimpses of your life, which Sylus scrutinized with intense focus as if he were watching a movie. Each glimpse offered him a sense of relief, happiness even, at knowing how easy you were settling back into your old life. 
You had been officially dismissed from the Hunter’s Association due to a medical condition that rendered you unfit for duty, but they continued to cover your pension and provided free lodging—likely thanks to Xavier’s persuasive influence over the Association. The official story was that you had been sent on a dangerous mission where a Wanderer had placed you in a life-threatening predicament. The narrative praised your honor and dedication to the end. There was no mention of Sylus, Onychinus, or the N109 Zone. No hint of the life you had once led or the truth behind your memory erasure. 
Yet, in a bitter twist of irony, perhaps the story you were told may not actually be farther from the truth.
After all, Sylus was the dangerous monster that sent you to that life-and-death situation.
But at least now, you were well cared for. So much so that Sylus fought to contain his jealousy whenever Mephisto’s eyes relayed visions of you sharing lunch with a physician named Dr. Zayne. He struggled to mask his irritation as he saw the man drape an arm around your shoulders while guiding you out of the hospital or wrapping a scarf around your neck to keep you warm. He would often even drive you home and send you gifts that were masked as tokens of “recovery.”
Bullshit.
Sylus clenched his fist, his thoughts of jealousy consuming him. My girl, he thought in despair, my beautiful girl is cherished by other men, while he remained imprisoned in the desolate shadows of the N109 Zone, longing for you.
Eventually, Sylus felt an overwhelming urge to see you in person. After discovering that you had taken a job at a café in Bloomshore District, he convinced himself that observing you from a distance wouldn’t cause harm. He just wanted to be near you, to ensure your safety, and to protect you from any potential threats.
As he sat on a nearby bench, Luke joined him with a comment. “Boss, you said we needed to disappear from her life.”
Kieran, taking a seat on Sylus’s other side, added, “Do you think she’d recognize us if we walked into that café? If she doesn’t, I’ll give her a hard time with my orders ‘til she remembers us!”
“Ha ha! Let’s do that!” 
“Boss, let’s go!” 
“Leave her be.” Sylus took a deep breath, adjusting his sunglasses and setting aside his newspaper—part of his disguise—as he watched you through the café window. He noticed the subtle traces of familiarity in your actions, but the connections that once bound you were now distant memories. “...I’m just here to make sure no one’s bothering her.”
The truth was, he wrestled with his emotions each time he visited the café you were working at. He wanted to approach you, to speak to you, but he hesitated each time because of the fear of rejection and the pain of seeing you not remember him holding him back. There were so many what-ifs in his head that it drove him insane to think about. 
Because if anything, what if you were already seeing someone else? What if you were already in a relationship with that scumbag doctor from the Akso Hospital? 
It was petty jealousy that drove Sylus into stepping into the café. And the first time your eyes met since you resurrected, his heart initially froze, then raced uncontrollably. His heart swelled with hope as you looked up at him, but it was quickly replaced by the lack of recognition in your eyes the moment you spoke from the counter. 
“Hi. What can I get you?” you asked, treating him no differently than any other customer. 
Sylus was caught off-guard, but he knew he had to play the part. “I, uh, I’ll get an Americano. Large.” 
“Alright, sir. And your name, please?” you asked, following your routine without any real interest in the man before you. 
But in a way, this was a relief for Sylus. It confirmed that the protocore embedded in your head was functioning as intended, and that any dark memories from the past had been completely erased, even if it meant he was no longer part of your life. 
“Skye,” he said with a soft smile. “That’s my name.”
~~
There wasn’t a single day Sylus missed visiting the café. 
At first, he worried that his constant presence might seem odd, or that you might think of him as a stalker. But as the days passed, seeing you became an essential part of his routine. A day without catching a glimpse of you felt incomplete, almost maddening. Seeing you was like a drug he couldn’t get enough of.
Initially, you found his regular visits a bit strange, but gradually, the small interactions between you two evolved. Sylus began to appear at the café just when you needed him most—whether it was fixing a broken coffee machine, addressing rude customers, or simply offering a helping hand. These acts of kindness somehow transformed your view of him. What started as a customer-service relationship slowly became more personable, and in recent days, you often greeted him warmly and smiled whenever he walked in. If only you knew how badly it warmed his heart that he got to do things for you without making him feel like he was intruding in your life.
And to be honest, Sylus even felt like he might be—as Luke termed it—foolishly ”crushing” on you. 
“Who knew our boss-man could be a hopeless romantic~?”
There was a time when he visited the café, only to find out from your manager that you called in sick from work. Sylus knew where you lived, but going to your place uninvited was a different story. He had to put some boundaries no matter how worried he was for you. But that was when Mephisto became useful; the mechanical crow would simply fly off to your place and observe you from outside. Then, an idea to drop a box of medicines and chocolates at your balcony was something he had thought of at the last minute. 
Back in the N109 Zone, Sylus anxiously looked at his crow. “Are you sure she didn’t see you?” 
“Caw! Caw!” 
“Did she eat the chocolates?” he asked, exhaling a deep breath he didn’t think he was holding.
“Caw! Caw! Caaaw!” Mephisto responded, fluttering its wings as if to reassure him.
~~
And then, that day happened. 
The day Sylus finally gathered the courage to ask you out, fate had other plans. And what began as a simple gesture to offer you a ride home during a stormy night quickly escalated into something far more intense.
Because one moment, he was offering you a ride. The next, he found himself in your bed, having the most passionate sex he had ever had with someone. He wasn’t even sure if he could call it that, because it felt more like he was making love to you, even if to you, he was probably just an attractive guy you unexpectedly hooked up with. 
So, he had to make himself known. He had to hear his real name leaving your lips. “Sylus,” he breathed into your ear, hands tracing your curves, “Call me Sylus, kitten.” 
That night, he was an insatiable man who could only be satisfied by his woman. 
When he was buried far too deep inside you, he enjoyed the sight of ecstasy on your face and lavished at the sounds of your titillating moans with his every thrust. Not only did he miss the feeling of your walls tightening around his shaft, he also remembered how badly you used to want him to cum inside you. 
And so, he did just that. At his climax, he released hot spurts of seed into your womb, fulfilling a wish from the past that he used to deprive you of. 
But as the night progressed and the heat of the moment faded, the conversation shifted to a more profound and emotional terrain. Sylus wrestled with the urge to reveal the truth about his true identity—every painful detail and the secrets he kept from you. Yet, he knew that doing so would only complicate matters further and risk causing you more pain. The idea of hurting you again, after such a meaningful connection, was unbearable to him, especially now that you were still fragile as glass, ready to shatter at any moment. 
“Why do I get the feeling that I was the one who experienced a one-sided love before?” 
“No, you were loved. You were very loved. There was no one else,” he pressed, forcing you to believe the narrative with his rueful eyes staring back at you. “I was the one who wasn’t worthy of you… But I’d like to try and win your heart again this time. If you allow it.” 
“Sylus… I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry for not recognizing you before. I just… I lost a chunk of my memories, and I don’t know if it’s been altered or what, but…” He caressed your back as you took a deep breath. “I’ll try to remember, okay?”
“Please don’t.” He shook his head, crestfallen as he thought of the past that was rightfully erased. “And there’s no need for apologies, sweetie. There wasn’t anything you did wrong.” 
~~
Your relationship with Sylus remained unclear since that night. And it seemed as though the roles had reversed—now he was the one left wondering where he stood in your life. Because on the surface, it did seem like you were willing to work on building a relationship with him again, but every encounter you two had were always physical rather than emotional. 
Sylus found himself at your apartment frequently, three or more times a week, engaging in intense, passionate encounters. He had lost track of how many times you two could do it in a single night, exploring every possible position, in every corner of your home. He had tried his hardest to make you feel like he was the only man who was more familiar with every inch of your body than anyone else. Yet, despite the physical closeness, he sensed that the emotional barriers between you remained intact.
No matter how deeply intertwined your bodies became, the walls around your heart remained firmly in place, and Sylus knew that there was a part of you he still couldn’t reach.
That, and the fact that he was still seeing you interact a little too closely with that doctor from Akso. 
It somehow didn’t surprise you when Sylus’s car showed up outside the hospital to pick you up, and you got on with a guarded look. 
“How’s it for my kitten today?” Sylus asked as he secured your seatbelt, his lips brushing against yours in a quick peck. “You didn’t mention you’d be at the hospital.”
You shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his gaze. “Oh, I just... didn’t think I needed to inform you of my whereabouts.”
Dammit. He knew you weren’t officially together, but it hurt more than he cared to admit. And it didn’t help that Sylus’s pride couldn’t naturally take it, so he probed more. “That doctor. He’s not your neurologist, is he? It seems a little inappropriate for him to always be around you like that.”
“Well, I’ve known Zayne for a long time,” you merely replied, eyes focused on the view outside rather than the driver of the car. “I’d also appreciate it if you'd be less territorial over me, Sylus. I know you said we have a history together, but I don’t remember a thing, so… I hope you won’t rush me.” 
The Sylus you knew back then would have been enraged. Who were you to order him around? Who were you to tell him what he should and shouldn’t do over someone he rightfully owned? But he was a changed man now, and it was all because of you. You were the beauty that tamed him into a powerless beast.
“I understand,” Sylus replied, swallowing his pride as his hands tightened around the steering wheel, focusing on the road ahead. “I apologize.”
He heard you sigh beside him, and a part of him wondered if it was out of sympathy. But before he could dwell on it, you spoke up, your tone more serious. “I was at the hospital today because I had a pregnancy scare.”
Sylus hit the brakes at the red light a bit too abruptly, his heart racing in excitement. “Are you?”
“No, thank God,” you breathed out in relief. “But... can you please stop doing it inside? I really don’t like it. It’s not smart for me to get pregnant by a man I barely know.”
His chest tightened in a way he couldn’t describe. The old you nearly begged him for a baby so he could be yours forever, but he was aware that this version of you right now was not the same. It never would be, and that was the price he had to pay for love. 
“I won’t do it again.” Once again, swallowing his pride. “I’m sorry.” 
You still invited him to sleep at your apartment that night, and your reason being to work on the memories of him you had lost. Time and time again did Sylus tell you it was better you didn’t remember them, but he could also understand your dilemma when you told him that you always felt like a piece of you was missing ever since that “accident”. 
“And this ugly scar on my temple,” you pointed it out, settling into your side of the bed. “What kind of Wanderer did I fight for me to get a traumatic brain injury?”
Sylus placed a tender kiss on your scar. “Perhaps it was a heartless monster more terrifying than a Wanderer.” 
Like me. 
“Oh, well.” You pulled the sheets over your body, suggesting you two would have no action tonight. “Good night, Sylus.” 
“...Sleep tight, kitten.” 
You didn’t need to worry, though, because he wouldn’t have touched you even if you had explicitly asked him to. After hearing your words that afternoon—about not wanting to get pregnant by him and asking him to stop being so territorial—Sylus felt the need to pull back and be more cautious in his actions toward you. Your words had cut deep, but he understood you were only protecting yourself from a man who was, essentially, still a stranger to you.
And despite the sting, he had promised himself that he would be patient for the only woman he cared about.
~~
However, that same night was a different story. 
No, it was actually way past midnight when Sylus woke up from an agonizing scream that pierced the silence of the night, chilling him to the bone. Instinctively, his hand reached out to the side of the bed where you should have been, but the sheets were cold and empty. And then panic gripped him, forcing him to leap out of bed, his mind racing with a single horrifying thought: the protocore.
He darted outside of your bedroom and deeper into your apartment space, his eyes scanning every shadow, every corner. The image of you, eyes wild and frenzied, ravaged by the effects of the protocore, haunted him.
What if it’s happening now? What if I lose her for good?
The horrifying thought of the protocore making you berserk like a wild Wanderer was always there.
His heart nearly stopped when he saw you on the kitchen floor, curled up, your body wracked with sobs. Relief washed over him to have found you, but it was fleeting, replaced by a deeper, more insidious fear. He tried to approach you cautiously, his voice soft as he placed his hands on your shoulders, “Sweetie, are you okay?”
You flinched at his touch, and when you turned to face him, the sight made his blood run cold. Your eyes, usually so warm, were now wide and filled with tears—tears of terror, of anger. And in your trembling hand, you held a knife, its blade gleaming in the low light as you pointed it directly at his throat.
“Don’t come any closer!” you cried, your voice breaking at every word. Sylus froze, his breath catching in his throat as your sudden hostility surprised him. The knife’s tip hovered dangerously close to his skin, but it wasn’t the threat of violence that shook him—it was the raw, unfiltered pain in your eyes.
“Kitten, let’s talk about it calmly.” His voice was laced with cautiousness. 
“Stop calling me that!” You swallowed hard, your grip on the knife tightening. “You! I had a nightmare... about you. But it felt real, like a memory. You were torturing me at your base, laughing... and then, you shot me in the head.”
Sylus’s heart dropped into his stomach at hearing your altered memory. He felt his soul tear apart at the edges as he stared into your tear-streaked face. “It was just a dream. It wasn’t real, kitten.”
But you weren’t listening. “But is it also not real? That you…” You uttered each word with a threatening voice, “are the boss of Onychinus?”
The question hit him like a physical blow. He opened his mouth to answer, but the words were stuck in his throat and refused to form. He was trapped. The situation felt like a dead end—he could deny that your dream was a real memory, but admitting he was the leader of Onychinus would only validate that lie.
His silence alone was an answer to you. And your expression crumbled into one of betrayal at that. “You lied to me! You’ve been lying to me this whole time. How am I supposed to believe anything you say now?”
The anger in your voice enforced the stillness of Sylus’s breath. He knew he had no saving grace from this situation, but still, he took a step closer, his hands raised in a placating gesture. “Y/N, I never wanted to hurt you—”
“Get out!” you screamed, the knife shaking in your hand. The sight of you so broken, so shattered, tore him apart. “Get the hell out of my sight! I don’t wanna see you ever again, you monster!”
But Sylus couldn’t leave—not like this, not when you were hurting because of him. So in his desperation, he lunged forward, grabbed your wrist, and forced the knife into his own chest. The sharp pain radiated through him as he plunged the blade in and stabbed himself repeatedly, his face twisted in agony, but not from the physical pain. This was nothing compared to the torment of knowing he was the source of your suffering. Again. 
“Even if I can’t die,” he choked out, his voice ragged as he tried to absorb the stinging ache in his chest, “I’ll take all of this pain away from you.”
His own blood soaked his fingers, staining your hands as he released his grip on the knife. It fell on the floor as he stepped back, his heart aching more than his wounds ever could, but those wounds easily healed. The pain of losing you again, on the other hand, would never heal.
He looked at you one last time, seeing his monstrous reflection from your frightened eyes, before turning away. Sylus walked out of the apartment with heavy steps, feeling his soul crushed from your antagonism. He knew he had lost you—perhaps forever—and the realization was more than he could bear.
~~
A haze of cigarette smoke and the clink of glasses filled the air of the bar. Sylus sat alone at the counter, his new glass of whiskey untouched as he stared blankly into the amber liquid. The sting of alcohol was nothing compared to the numbness that had settled in his heart after that agonizing night with you. Every swallow of the hard liquor was a desperate attempt to drown out the torment of recent events, but the pain lingered, and it was damn persistent and unforgiving.
As he poured himself another drink, the muffled sounds of conversation around him blended into a dull roar. That was until a familiar voice cut through the haze—someone he wished he hadn’t come across.
“Sylus?” 
He looked up, squinting against the dim light, to see Diana standing before him. He hadn’t seen him for the past year or so. And surely, her presence was unexpected, but he felt a sudden tinge of irritation at the sight of her. While her, she looked both apprehensive and determined, as if she had just made a hard decision to confront him. 
“H-How have you been?” she asked the question as a conversation starter, but Sylus could see the faint hint of unease in her eyes.
He then straightened up, and his posture became stiff and defensive. “I told you it’s not wise for us to cross paths,” he said curtly, his voice slurred from the alcohol but still holding a note of finality. He didn’t want to engage, not with her, not tonight.
On the one hand, Diana’s eyes flickered with an emotion he couldn’t quite place—regret, perhaps. “I… I wanted to say sorry for what happened with Y/N. I didn’t realize how much she meant to you. Xavier… told me everything. About you and her.”
The apology was genuine, but the mention of your name was a fresh wound, and he felt the anger and sadness surge again, bubbling beneath his carefully maintained exterior. He wanted to lash out, to blame her for everything, but he swallowed the words, knowing it wouldn’t change a thing. In the end, this was all his doing and he couldn’t point fingers over the mess that he alone had created.
Sylus tried to stand up, the room spinning slightly as he steadied himself. “I’m leaving.”
But Diana stepped closer, her hand reaching out as if to stop him. He simply brushed past her, his movements unsteady but undeniably distancing from her. The desire to remain composed was slipping away, replaced by the harsh reality he faced every day since you were taken from him.
He made his way to the exit, pushing through the bar’s heavy door with a forceful shove. Sylus’s next move was to lean against the wall outside as the cool winter breeze blew on his face. 
“Boss.” Kieran’s voice held a note of concern as he and his twin steadied Sylus by wrapping his arms around their shoulders. “We’ll take you home.”
Luke glanced at his brother with a sad glint in his eyes before leading Sylus toward the car. “Maybe it’s time to let her go, boss.”
~~
February nights were the coldest. And it was supposedly the day for lovers, too. 
Unlike the couples that littered the riverside, Sylus stood alone, his breath forming small clouds in the frigid air. His dark coat offered little protection against the biting wind, but he stayed committed, his gaze fixed on the empty expanse before him. Four hours had passed since he had sent you the message, and each minute he stood there waiting for you felt like an eternity. The biting cold gnawed at him, but he was determined to wait even if he’d end up getting frostbite. It was the least he could do.
The frozen river’s surface glistened with a thousand points of light as the moon cast its silver glow over the landscape. And for the next thirty minutes that passed, he was still alone. 
She won’t be coming, said the voice in his head. Give up. 
As he prepared to leave, the ache of disappointment settled in his chest, and his heart skipped a beat as he recognized you, standing cautiously across him, your eyes wide and filled with both curiosity and trepidation. The sight of you, despite waiting in the cold for hours, instantly warmed his freezing body. 
“Thank you for coming.” He took a deep breath, his voice trembling slightly as he spoke. “I won’t keep you long.” 
You maintained your distance, wary of his next move. “Why did you want to meet?” 
With a slow, deliberate motion, he began to peel the scarf from around your neck, and he felt a prick in his heart seeing you flinch. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
He waited until you allowed him to proceed, his fingers brushing against your skin in a touch that was both gentle and reverent. You looked at him with confusion, the chilly air fought by the warmth of your breath. Sylus was just carefully replacing the scarf with the necklace he had given you long ago, the red Beryl crystal catching the light and sending soft, radiant glimmers into the night. 
Do you even recognize it? 
“I’m just returning a gift, kitten.”
As he fastened the clasp behind your neck, he pressed a tender kiss to the nape of your neck, his lips lingering for a moment before he straightened. That small gesture of his was actually carried by the depth of his affection and regret. And, if you may, it was his silent apology for all that he did to you.
“Sylus…” 
His red eyes shimmered, intensified by the bloodshot whites. Sylus stared at your face with a mixture of love and ruefulness clouding his expression. He was looking at you like you were the most precious thing in the world. And he struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to spill, with his voice breaking as he feathered the snowflakes that rested on your hair. “Take care of yourself. Always lock your doors at night and stay warm.” He took the scarf Zayne gave you, and pulled out a new one from his coat. It was a silly scarf with kitten prints all over it, that he soon carefully wrapped around your face and neck. “Wear that whenever you can.” 
Your own eyes were large and rimmed with tears as though you were also hurting inside. “Why are you saying this?” you asked, keeping the weakness inside. “You sound like you’re saying goodbye.” 
Sylus’s gaze was suddenly directed back to the river, but it was only because he had to avoid looking at your eyes or he would lose it. “The Association managed to track me here in Linkon and they’re still after me. I just managed to escape, but I can’t stay here,” he explained calmly, “I only came back to this city because of you… But now, I have to disappear, so don’t worry about having me around. I won’t bother you anymore.”
Your eyes widened in shock, and the tears that had been pooling your eyes finally spilled over. “Are you crazy?” you cried, seemingly unable to comprehend the words he was spewing. “You’re leaving me?”
Sylus’s heart broke at the sight of your tears, but he had to restrain any weakness by giving in. Instead, he reached out, and his hand trembled as he wiped a tear from your cheek. “I love you, Y/N.” He wanted to be the first one to say it this time. “Even if you regain all your memories of me—good or bad—I want you to know that I regret every pain I caused you. Even if you hate me, I’ll still love you. Today, tomorrow, and in our next lives.”
Sylus took one last, lingering look at you, his eyes filled with a sorrowful haze that nearly blinded his vision. He turned slowly, walking away from the river’s edge, with each step causing distance from the love he was leaving behind.
And you, you stood there, the necklace around your neck feeling heavy as you watched him disappear into the night. A surge of emotion overwhelmed you, and without thinking, you sprinted towards him. You took quick, long strides just to reach him, pulling him into a tight embrace, and crashing your lips against his in a bittersweet kiss.
Both of you cried as the kiss deepened, and you were encasing each other’s lips in a tight lock. The intensity of your emotions poured out in this poignant, intimate moment. And frankly, Sylus had never been this emotional. No one had ever seen this fragile side of him that he had always kept hidden. After all, what dominant, cruel boss of Onychinus would spill tears over a woman?
But they wouldn’t understand it. They never would. 
When you finally pulled away, your eyes were red and swollen from tears. “Be careful,” you sniffled, barely unable to catch the breath you needed for the next. “Keep in touch if you can. And when I’m ready, I’ll find you.”
Sylus’s eyes were also filled with tears, but he managed a forlorn smile as he nodded. He reached out to brush a strand of hair from your face, his touch gentle despite the heaviness of the moment. “I’ll wait,” he promised softly, his voice breaking slightly. “I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it takes.”
“Until we meet again.”
As he stepped back, the distance between you seemed impossibly vast, but the promise in your eyes and the love in his heart made the separation bearable, if only just. And when Sylus turned away, his heart was heavy but full of the hope that one day, you would find each other again. That one day, this distant love would become a cherished memory that you would look back on as you grow old and wrinkled, yet insurmountably happy and content with the life you had lived. With or without him.
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PREVIOUS PART
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nereidprinc3ss · 3 months ago
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please don't say you love me
in which fwb!spencer reid and fem!reader get into an argument about the nature of their relationship.
18+ (implied intimacy) warnings/tags: friends with benefits arrangement, it goes bad, reader is so clearly anxious avoidant, reader is so me-coded, self-loathing, difficulties with emotional intimacy, arguing, derek and penelope make an appearance woo, a little dramatic, no happy ending (a nereidprinc3ss first!) a/n: it happened guys I stopped writing for a few days and last night randomly was inspired to finish this fwb piece and it essentially turned into a vent and went a completely different direction than i thought it would but here we are!!! i hope you enjoy, I loved writing, ilysm
“Are you reading it? Did you get to the part yet?” You ask, buzzing as you peer around Spencer’s arm to see where he’s at in the book you’d handed him. Sometimes you think it takes him longer to flip the pages than to read them. 
He doesn’t answer, but you see the flickering quirk of his lip like something is amusing him. It’s been a few minutes and he’s maybe halfway through. He has to have seen it by now. 
You’re clinging to his arm, eyes darting pointlessly between the text and his face, searching for a reaction. It comes in the form of a furrowed brow, a disbelieving smile, and something between a barking laugh and an exclamation of, “what?”
“You read it?”
His eyes narrow and he flips back a page, taking a bit longer to reevaluate. 
“Our moans and grunts drowned out the screams of the dead and dying only a few hundred feet away.”
You giggle furiously, clapping a hand to your mouth when you snort, and you feel Spencer’s focus shifting to you, even with your eyes screwed shut. 
“And you read this whole series?”
At that you sober up some, still hiding the bottom half of your face and brows drawn sorrowfully as mirthful tears well. You’re slow to admit your guilt with a nod, and his expression is somewhere between horror and fascination. 
Your cheeks heat and you cover your face, laughing again and shaking your head shamefully as he ridicules you. 
“Why? Why would you do that to yourself? I don’t even know if I can be seen in public with you, that’s—” he’s haphazardly tossed the book back on its display table and grabbed your wrists, pulling gently and laughing too. “No, show me your face. This is—you need to explain yourself. This is unforgivable.” 
“No! I swear it was a morbid curiosity, I didn’t like it, I’m sorry! I—”
“Reid?”
You both freeze. 
It’s not the most dignified position, admittedly—hidden among the shelves in a bookstore, pressed too close to be friendly, his hands around your wrists. 
So you don’t mind when he drops them like hot potatoes and gives you a few inches of breathing room. 
“Hey! Uh—you’re—”
Spencer is looking between you and two other people at the end of the aisle—a quirky bespectacled blonde in a flouncy polka-dot dress and her taller companion, ripped and head shaved, sporting some impressive eyebrows. Right now they’re conspicuously raised—his eyes are also pinballing between you and Spencer. 
For a moment, everyone is just sort of… looking at each other. 
It’s a little bit… awful?
Finally Spencer clears his throat. 
“Um, what are you guys doing here? Just… looking at books?”
Something is off, and you feel like shrinking or running, but you just stay glued to your spot. 
In sync, they hold up copies of the same book—and it takes you not a second to place the author’s name, in imposing red font at the bottom like it’s important. Rossi. 
The pieces click into place. These must be Spencer’s co-workers—Penelope and Derek, if his descriptions of the team have served you well. Part of you is starstruck. Part of you is embarrassed. They’re clearly shocked to see Spencer with a girl in the wild, so you know he hasn’t told them about you—and why should he, you think, why should he tell his friends about the girl he’s been sleeping with for months now? 
Finally, the blonder half of the duo speaks. 
“You’re—this is a girl. That’s. Who is that? Hi! Who are you?”
She’s literally pointing at you, eyes drifting between you and Spencer like it just doesn’t make any sense. Derek gives her a look and gently pushes her hand down. 
“Hey. That’s enough.” Then he offers you a polite smile, though you sense a bit strained, and his eyes too keep wandering back to the man next to you. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, no! You’re not… interrupting…” Spencer trails off and you sense he’s looking at you and gauging a reaction but you’re just smiling idly at his friends and waiting for this to be over. He finally thinks to introduce you by name, and you offer a shy wave and a smile to your new acquaintances. 
Penelope points (that damn finger again) but this time it’s less accusatory, and stays below chin level. 
“Cool shirt. I love that band,” she offers genially. Your brows raise and you look down, trying to remember what shirt you’d tossed on before leaving Spencer’s apartment an hour ago. 
“Oh! Thanks,” you smile, and you’re relieved to mean it this time. 
Another frosty silence begins to descend, but Derek doesn’t let it settle so much this time, to everyone’s satisfaction. 
“Alright, well. It was nice to meet you. Enjoy your date.”
There’s too much weight on the last sentence, and Derek gives Spencer a eyebrows-raised-meaningfully look you don’t understand. You’re just glad Spencer keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t immediately insist that it’s not a date, because it’s not, and that’s fine, but the vehement denial would bum you out. 
The pair walk away in the kind of clenched silence that means they’ll start fervently whispering as soon as they are out of ear shot. You watch their retreating figures and chew your lip, sensing that the carefree and playful energy of five minutes ago will have evaporated by the time you turn back to face your companion. 
“Strange,” you murmur, mostly to yourself, and you’re slightly jarred when Spencer replies from beside you. 
“Which part?”
All of it. 
Turning to face him, you smile, and it doesn’t reach your eyes but it doesn’t need to. 
“Oh—nothing, sorry.”
For a moment, he doesn’t respond, only stares at a point somewhere above your head and narrows his eyes like he’s thinking unpleasant thoughts. 
“Was I an asshole, to you, just now?”
It’s unexpected. You don’t have an answer prepared, so you say something that feels like a lie because you can’t prove that it’s not the truth. 
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“I just… I don’t know. I get weird around them, sometimes. I don’t always know what to say, like, when my personal life and my work life intersect, because for a long time I didn’t really have a personal life. And I think they still think I don’t know how to talk to girls, so…”
“You don’t know how to talk to girls,” you remind him. “Let’s go look at the puzzles.”
Maybe you spend too much time with Spencer Reid. Maybe that’s the problem—too long in his presence and he’s eating away at your neural tissue like you’ve got cysticercosis and he’s the T. solium (a terrible thing he had explained to you a few weeks ago.)
Maybe you need a break from him, to stop breathing his air and sleeping in his bed and wearing his clothing, because you’re forgetting that he’s not the entire world and that is a very bad thing to forget in a situation like yours. The entire world cannot be the size of his apartment. 
But you also just like him so much. As a friend, of course. That goes without saying. You like his strange sense of humor, and the way he lights up when you ask him an obscure question. You like your legs across his lap while you watch his old shows. You also like being kissed by him, and hugged by him. You like being taken care of like no one has ever taken care of you, and you like the way he always touches you, soft and kind and so on purpose. 
You never meant to like him so much. 
This affection—it has grown, insidious and parasitic, and now that it’s been pointed out to you like a lump in your side, it’s impossible to ignore. 
What you and Spencer have works precisely because you’ve kept things platonic and casual. That way, there’s no worrying about emotional baggage or arguing about feelings because there are none to be found and no precedent that any such things should or need to occur. You can’t hurt each other’s feelings if your feelings aren’t on the table. 
So why can’t you stop thinking about earlier?
Why can’t you help caring that he’s been keeping you a secret from the people he loves most?
“So, essentially the book is his first deep dive into meta-fiction. It was pretty revolutionary at the time, and while not his most celebrated novel, I’d argue it was his most relevant and culturally pervasive. I’d actually love to hear your interpretation of the story—it’s truly different for everyone. It’s a little like… like a literary Rorschach test. Do you wanna borrow it?”
You’re a tangle on his bed—arms, legs, sheets—it’s hard to tell where you end and he begins. All you’re sure of is his hand, tracing his fingers in chaste lines, feather-light up and down your inner thigh in the way he knows you like. Usually it’s so soothing you melt and fall asleep within minutes. Right now it’s only stoking some sparking electrical fire in your chest—the buzzes and bursts from which have you on edge. Ready to cave in at any second. You wish you could relax. You’ve been trying.
Spencer is in no hurry for you to respond, and so doesn’t seem to mind when it takes you a long while to find your answer. 
“I think I need to go home.”
It comes out too scratchy, as you haven’t really spoken for several hours. Not as casual as you were going for. He angles his head down toward you and his hand stops and you realize it’s actually worse like that. 
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah! Everything is fine, I just… I wanna sleep in my own bed tonight, I think.”
It’s late and you shouldn’t be making him drive you across town, but he’s always amenable to what you want. This is the longest you’ve ever stayed at his place, after all—a rare long weekend—and before that a few weeks had passed with no cases to speak of, during which time you’ve been staying with him more and more. Spencer seems to be completely content letting you eat his food and use his shower if it means you don’t leave. 
“I know the feeling well,” he admits, and your heart twinges with the care he takes to not bump or bend you or pull your hair as he shifts. He’s already been out of bed, and so is more dressed than you. Really, most people on the planet are more dressed than you, and you pull his nice sheet higher up your chest as he sits on the edge of the mattress, looking down at you and with a sort of worry in his eyes. He finds your knee through the fabric. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been quiet.”
Stop paying such close attention, you want to tell him. And in the same breath, please don’t ever look away. 
“I’m… good.”
It is easily the least convincing performance of your life. Either you’re self sabotaging or you want him to push you further, and you don’t know which is worse. 
When his brow ramps just the slightest bit, you know you’ve fumbled it. 
“I don’t believe you.”
You shrug. “I don’t need you to.” And then you sit up, still holding the sheet to your chest. “Can you hand me a shirt?”
Enough clothing has accumulated around the room recently that he could pretty much reach out in any direction and find something for you to wear.  He grabs a sweatshirt hanging from the bedpost and holds it out for you, and you pull it over your head, before dropping your feet onto the cool wooden floor and grabbing the first bottoms you see—a pair of floral pajama shorts. How have so many of your clothes ended up at his apartment?
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
You scoop your bag up from a chair and flit around the room, haphazardly stuffing away discarded clothing to take back home. It’s true that it’ll be nice to get back to your stuff—your shower products and your closet and your silk pillow cases. You shouldn’t be spending so much time here. It’s not your space and you’ve been sacrificing your own needs to be closer to him, which is something you’d rather not do for any man. 
“You can drive me home. I’ll send you gas money.”
“You don’t need to send me gas money,” he says, tacking your name on to the end of the sentence in a way that raises your hackles instantly. 
“Yeah, I do. You drive me around constantly. I’ll pay you back and start taking the metro, or something.”
“I don’t want your money,” he scoffs. 
“Fine. Then I’ll call a car.”
“That’s unnecessary. I’m happy to drive you.”
“Why?”
Silence hangs. Spencer has by this point stood up, and he’s watching you with a furrowed brow and slightly parted lips like he doesn’t understand where this animosity has come from. Honestly, you’re not entirely sure either. You didn’t realize you were harboring so much of it. 
“Am I supposed to see you as an inconvenience?”
“I’m not your responsibility.”
“No. You’re not. We have a relationship and I don’t mind doing things for you.”
“You’re not my boyfriend.”
You didn’t mean to say it, but you sure as hell were thinking it. 
It feels good to say, like stretching a sore muscle beyond its limits or pressing into a bruise until you get past the ache. Sometimes when things hurt, it’s best to feel the pain and move on. 
He looks absolutely perplexed, the lines between his brows only ditching deeper. 
“Is that what this is about?”
“Oh my god, Spencer, no, I don’t care—”
“Because earlier at the bookstore I asked you if I was being an asshole and—”
“I do not give a fuck about earlier at the fucking bookstore!”
It’s too late to be yelling, but he doesn’t scold you. He just sort of looks at you, like you’re something mildly unpleasant. It makes you feel worse. 
A long moment goes by. 
“Fine. I’ll take you home.”
You let him brush past you, nothing more than a breeze on your shoulders as he disappears from the darkened bedroom. For a moment, you can’t follow him. All you can do is stand there and try to contain that sour, stinging, crying feeling in your eyes and nose because there’s no reason for you to be crying right now. 
From the living room, he calls, rather abrasively, “Are you coming?”
“Yes,” you huff, and it is as wavering as it is insolent, so obviously the only word holding back a full-fledged deluge of tears. 
One minute. One minute to sniffle and take deep breaths and wipe abashedly under your eyes because you refuse to be dramatic about this. Refuse to get over-emotional. You will not let it matter this much to you. 
When you decide you can show your face without making a scene, you march out of his bedroom and straight past where he’s leaning against the kitchen counter, keys in hand, to the front door. 
He doesn’t move. You burn smoking holes into the dark wood of the door with your eyes, and the two of you are apparently at an impasse. 
“I’m ready,” you eventually snap, always the impatient one between the two of you, casting a sharp glance over your shoulder. 
“I’m not.”
“You said you would—”
“I know what I said,” Spencer cuts you off and shuts you up, “and I changed my mind. I’d prefer to talk about it before I take you home.”
By the time he finishes the sentence you’re already wrestling your phone from the depths of your bag in search of a ride sharing app. 
“Okay, well I’m done talking because I don’t think there’s anything to talk about, so—”
“No, you’re done talking because this is what you do. You can never admit it when you want something because that would mean acknowledging that you’re a human being with emotions, and that’s too scary for you.”
Surely you misheard him. You turn around, a deep frown contorting your features. 
“Excuse me?”
He only looks at you in that expectant, knowing way of his. 
“It’s too scary so you run away. You’d rather burn your relationships to the ground and rebuild them with a new person every time than actually let someone in.”
“You don’t know me!” You yell.
“Do you actually think that’s true?” Spencer says, pushing off his perch against the counter, voice shrilling and raised slightly as he gets visibly agitated. “You think I’ve spent hours upon hours with you and I don’t know you at all?”
“You have no idea what I’m like in a relationship because this isn’t one. You have no fucking idea what I want, so do not presume to,” you seethe. 
“You want a relationship. You wanted my friends to know you and you didn’t tell me that because you’re fucking terrified of the fact that I do know you. You can’t stand the idea that regardless of how many times you tell yourself it’s just sex, you have been vulnerable with me, and you’ve told me things you’ve never told anyone before, like why your last three relationships really ended, and how you constantly self-sabotage when you’re on the verge of getting what you want because you think you don’t deserve it.”
“Shut up!”
“No. I’m not just going to let you walk away from me like you did everyone else who could’ve ever cared about you because I know once you walk out that door you’ll stop responding to my calls and texts and I’ll never see you again, which is a juvenile pattern and completely unsustainable if you don’t want to keep pushing people away for the rest of your life!”
“God, Spencer, stop!” You sob, staggering back like you’ve been stabbed. 
The urgency, the raw, desperate scratch of your voice, stops him in his tracks. 
Every place an arrow penetrated a chink in your armor aches, and it hurts so much worse because he knew exactly where they were. You don’t know when or how it happened, but he’s right. Despite your most valiant efforts, Spencer Reid knows you. Somehow he crept in and grew over every limb like ivy. It’s crawled over your feet and up your legs and it’s keeping you there, rooted in place in his apartment, sobbing silently into the crook of your arm because you feel utterly paralyzed with fear. 
Just as he’d said. 
It’s silent for a long stretch of time, unquantifiable the same way the distance between the beach and the horizon is unquantifiable. It’s sprawling and infinite and desolate. The only relief from the drowning quiet is the occasional gulp of air or gasp from you which furthers your humiliation. 
“I’m sorry,” Spencer finally whispers, soft and unsure like rays of weak sunlight over staggered tides, in the grey morning after a raging storm. It’s an attempt. It’s earnest and afraid. 
The energy radiating off of him is so tangible that you can sense his desire to come near. To hold you. But that would be your worst nightmare come to fruition. This—this warbling and crying in front of him in silence in his dark apartment is god-awful enough. But to be comforted? For him to bear witness up close and personal to your humility and your ugly, jagged pieces—that inspires true catatonia. That is everything he said you were afraid of, and he was right. 
You resent your human nature, and the fact that you care how his friends look at you and that it stung when they did so with little more than apathy. You hate that you care that he hasn’t told them about you. You hate that you feel so unimportant—because more than anything, you want to be fine with being unimportant. 
You want to be fine. Constantly. 
You hate that you feel. You hate that you care. 
But you always have. And so fucking deeply. 
Somehow, Spencer Reid is the only one who has ever noticed. 
Eventually, his self-restraint snaps and he surges forward at the same time as you take a shuddering inhale and step back. 
“Please don’t touch me,” you whisper. Afraid that if he did, his fingers would only sink into your flesh like decaying fruit. That you would disintegrate in his hands, and he’d finally see you’d been rotten the whole time. 
He speaks softly, holding his hands up to show you he’s not a threat. 
“Okay. I won’t. I’m sorry.”
“I need to go home.”
“I’ll—”
“No. I don’t want a ride. I’ll get a car.” You speak quietly. Efficiently. There’s no point in pretending this doesn’t feel catastrophic anymore. 
His brows furrow. Like a moth to flame, like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, he draws nearer again. 
“I’m not comfortable with you on the street at this hour.”
“I’ll wait in the lobby,” you insist, pleading, a wounded animal, because he doesn’t seem to understand how every casual notion of kindness is a violence, how he’s ripping into you and making it so you’ll never be able to put yourself back together. He can’t be kind like you’re easy to be kind to. 
If you’re easy to be kind to, you are just as easy to hurt. Accepting that kindness is a sort of vulnerability you feel you can’t afford right now. 
Another moment of silence, of stillness, as if you’re both bolted to the ground where you stand. 
When he speaks it’s a blow to the chest because you’ve made him cry too. 
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, quietly, and a venomous self-hatred drips down your throat. Because you’re doing it again.
Maybe this is all you will ever be. 
You fail to stifle a sob and Spencer steps closer still, saying your name desperately and so quietly like it’s his last rite. 
And you try. You try harder than you ever have to stay in one place, to get a hold of your vibrating and to swallow all those slithery feelings and ignore every alarm telling you to panic when he reaches out to touch your arm because it’s never safe to let people in. But when his hand finally brushes you, it’s like a cow prod. You jolt backward. 
“I can’t, I’m sorry,” you whisper all in one harrowed breath, and there’s so much you’d like to say—you’re right, about everything, you do know me, you know what I want, I tried, I’m ashamed—but none of it matters. None of it is enough. He’s backed you into a corner of your own making, and the only way out is by pushing him aside even if it hurts you both. 
So you don’t say anything else. You leave him there, in the dark of his own apartment, and you disappear down the hall. 
Maybe this is all you will ever be.
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sh1-n0bu · 3 months ago
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♡︎ 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙮 𝙥𝙩3 ♡︎
characters: sub!dragons x dom!gn!reader
warnings: established relationship, dragons have vent that hide their two cocks anatomy, eating out, fingering, handjob, squirting, light mind break, exhibitionism, biting, blood/injury mention
notes: part 1, part 2 is here respectively. genuinely didn’t think this idea would be liked so much it would have two more parts lmao. wasn’t really thinking of writing part 3 since i was all outta thoughts but here we are. dividers from benkeibear
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it had been a while since the relationship between you and your beloved dragon had become official. of course, there were bumps along the way and you two still wished to keep your relationship a secret. who knows whatever the hell the court of elders would say or how people would react to you once they find out that it was you who was chosen by the dragon himself specifically to be his mate and not some higher ranking diplomat or a royalty. mainly, it was to keep you safe.
the dragon could give less than two fucks about his title or fame. title be damned, he could care less of society’s judging eyes and open ears on him. he could care less about how the courtiers would argue against his decision. all he cared about was you and he wanted to keep you safe and away from harm. the courtiers included. most specifically the courtiers; he dealt with their shit for long enough on a daily basis, he didn’t wanted them to find out about his most favored treasure and meddle with his personal life.
but mostly, it gets annoying when he wanted to keep his beloved by his side yet his beloved is away on a business trip. a very long one. it has been what? over a month and a week and the poor dragon was desperate to have you by his side again. every moment he catches himself recalling of past moments with you, he finds his tail swishing side to side, a low pleased purr in his throat. or he would recall of moments of comedy; such as when you tripped and fell down the stairs in front of him at your first meeting, how you stuff your face full of your favorite treats like a chipmunk, or when you accidentally drank a cup of hot tea, mistaking it for a cold one and burning your tongue. the dragon finds himself chuckling at that, snorting, turning to his side as he calls out your name to recall said events out loud. only for his wagging tail to droop and a sad whine escape him when he remembered, right; you were away on a business trip and hasn’t returned yet.
his mood was noticed of course. it’s easy to be noticed when all eyes have always been on you since the very beginning of your life. the courtiers asked him of what has been weighing on his mind lately, the soldiers that guard his grand office bowing in respect as their eyes look over him with concern, how the people have already started a rumor amongst themselves.
“the great dragon found a mate they said”, “the great dragon perhaps lost a loved one recently”, “the great dragon’s mood downing reason is his nature. he is a dragon after all, he would surely miss his kin” great dragon this, great dragon that — all he wanted was you. finding himself stuck in the middle, he could barely find the time to even focus on his work. words on the paper in front of him meddled and meshed together into a white and black mess. he could read the words but it wouldn’t register in his brain. instead, what occupied his mind and heart was you with your bright smile that was like the warmth of a sunlight on his skin after a millennia of snowstorm. letting out a sigh for the nth time this past hour, he turns to look at the calendar hung on the wall of his office. a bright red marker circling the 23rd of the next month, making his tail droop as a defeated whine escapes his lips. how could he ever wait patiently for your return?
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walking through the long corridors of the grand building where the dragon stays seated for work, you whistle a few tunes as you pass by some of the workers or nod your head in greeting when a guard walks by. the workers of this place knows you by now; or at least have memorized your features. you were a common visitor to the dragon, either called by him or coming by your own accord to tend to some matters. whether it be your lazy work ethnics or the large contracts you’ve struck — no one really knows. no one is yet to suspect that you two are in a relationship. not yet.
knocking on the grand oak doors with dragon symbols carved onto the outside, you push the door open as you saunter inside. the moment the door closes behind you with a soft click! you were nearly tackled over onto the floor as a scaled limb tightly wraps around your thigh. wet kisses trail from your neck down to your collarbone, the tail on your thigh squeezing harshly enough to the point it nearly cuts off your blood flow. laughing, you return the death squeeze, running a hand through his hair as you kiss the base of his horn that had materialized.
“i’ve missed you too, my love” you manage to breathe out, voice nearly a gasp with the way he was about to topple you over with his bigger frame. you could see the shine of his scales on his jaw and chin, the hardened skin having grown vastly in number due to the sudden shift in his mood. and if the room were any but darker, you were sure that his eyes and horns were pulsing a soft glow. just like the thrumming of his heartbeat you could feel over the material of his clothes.
before you could tell him to get off and allow you to breathe, his lips met yours in a manner that was as if he was trying to smash his skull with yours, merging the bones together. he must have been lonely, hands cupping your cheeks tenderly while he desperately kissed your lips over and over as if trying to merge your bodies together. his usually cold veneer be damned, he had missed your scent, your lips, the warmth of your body — you.
the great dragon had missed his beloved mate.
forked tongue licking at your lips, he impatiently pushes the wet muscle inside your mouth. licking at the cavern, messily slurping on your tongue and dismissing your choked noises, your dragon pushes his tongue deeper into your mouth, preening his scales with a low whimper. pulling his tongue out, seeing the saliva connecting you together, he lets out a drawn out whine, grinding his crotch against your own.
“missed you… missed your scent and everything… so bad” he mumbles, a low rumble in his chest as he drags you towards his desk by the tail that was hooked around your thigh. you let out a grunt, almost loosing balance but following along. sharpened claws fumble with his belt and pants, eager yet impatient as he leaves a few tears and holes into the material. disregarding his clothes half heartedly, he lays down on the desk, claws grasping at the edge of the wood as he props his legs up, showing you the weeping slit of his vent. he was already so wet and aroused, acting like he was in heat as his tail tugs you closer to himself.
“look at you, my love. we just shared a hug and a kiss and you’re already dripping wet” you tease him, fingers spreading his vent open as usual. like an excited puppy seeking for validation, his two cocks slip out, reaching for your hand.
“mhm. all wet and eager for you, mate♡︎” he nods enthusiastically, claws leaving the desk to spread his cent open further for you to stare at. just seeing him like this, in a compromising manner with slitted pupils blown wide; it was enough to make your mouth salivate. the fuzzy end of his tail tap against your calf, already telling you to hurry up and bury your face into his vent, take his cock into your mouth, any cock, anything — he doesn’t mind it. the poor pent up dragon just wanted your touch, craving for the high that you deliver so expertly, knowing his body better than he does.
“my my, thank you for the meal” you coo, patting the inside of his thigh gently. hooking the beck of your leg into his chair behind you, you pull it close to yourself before plopping down. the soft cushions felt like clouds to your tired body that was cramped into the workers’ ship, inviting you to sit on it and eat out its owner to your heart’s content.
placing tentative kisses to the small bundle like clit on top of his vent, you flatten your tongue, licking a stripe up the soft scales of his vent and the base of his cocks. just a token of affection and he was already squirming in his place, bucking his hips into your mouth. but he needs yo learn patience when it came to you, something you showed with small little licks to the side of his vent, collecting his juices into your tongue and tasting them. he lets out a punched out whine at that, spreading himself open more to try and entice you. he smelled like a freshly brewed maple syrup, tasted like the nectar of the forbidden fruits on your tongue, sounded like your favorite song in loop.
“hurry it uppp—! aaah♡︎ j-just like that... deep♡︎ deeper♡︎ wan’ your tongue deeper inside my vent♡︎!!” a surprised squeal comes from him, legs jerking in place as if wanting to wrap around your head. reaching a hand out, you push two fingers inside his mouth, muffling his noises and making him choke on the digits. the poor thing tries to make a noise of protest, only succeeding in a meager choked moan.
pushing apart his vent open further with your fingers, you push your tongue inside as far as it could reach. not deep inside to reach that soft spot inside his vent, but certainly deep enough to make him gasp around your fingers. you can feel his forked tongue come up, the long limb slithering around your fingers and between them to try and wet them. his attempts sometimes ended up futile, making the dragon choke on the accumulated saliva on his tongue and your fingers. sometimes, he would get a little too excited, his thighs warming your cheeks and ear until you slap them open again.
he tasted delicious, like a fruit mix syrup that was left in the perfect condition for you to feast on. a nectar of both sin and sweetness, coupled with his cute noises that ask you for more like the greedy dragon he was. dragons were naturally possessive, it didn’t surprise you that your sweetheart pulled you in for a quick fuck inside his own office in broad daylight. flattening your tongue, you ease the muscle in and out smoothly on the soft scaled base of his cock inside his hole. slimy liquid drip down your chin, forcing you to slurp some while the ones you couldn’t taste dirty your jaws and the floor.
“ummgh! s-sho guwd… deeper♡︎ wan’ iwt deeepeeerrr♥︎♥︎” he chokes out around your fingers, rocking his hips back and forth to make your tongue thrust inside his vent more forcefully. your poor pent up dragon, so needy to the point he was fucking his dripping folds into your mouth. taking one of his hands that tried to hold his vent open for you, you guide one of his fingers to rest over the small bundle on top of his slit, making him rub the muscle slowly. it acted like a clit, a tiny muscle that came out when he was aroused, sensitive to the touch.
after a few messy flicks to the clit like muscle, without even having you properly touch his angry red cocks, he was spurting cum into his shirt. it will be a mess to wash them out later but right now, all you focused on was the cute flush of his face and the way his pupils dilated into hearts when his eyes met yours. making a show of his debauchery, the dragon pushes your fingers out just enough to make you watch how he drooled around them, long tongue slithering between the two digits. the hand that was over the small clit like muscles stroked his bigger cock a few times, letting the last few drops of his cum spurt into his chest. just like how you guided his hand earlier, he did the same to yours. letting your wet fingers scoop up the mess on his skin and shirt before wiping them clean with his tongue, suckling on the tips of your fingers as if he was suckling on your cock. were your eyes deceiving you or were the corners of his lips turned up into a smug grin?
taking your fingers out of his mouth, making the dragon whine at the loss, you push your saliva coated fingers into his hole. all the earlier smugness of his face disappears in an instant, throwing his head back with a loud wail as his vent clenches around your tongue. claws that were scratching at the wood of his desk weakly paws at your head, fingers fisting at your scalp as he couldn’t decide between fucking into your tongue deep into his vent or the fingers now scissoring his hole open.
“angh—! ah ah guhhn♡︎♡︎ [n-name]! mmng eengh—♥︎ aah... so gooddd♡︎ m-missed you, missed this—♥︎!” the dragon weakly bucks his hips, wiggling in place unable to decide what to do. all he could do was paw at your head or at his shaking legs that were propped up on the desk, mind melting away into a soft mush. there were nothing in his mind, filled with cotton as he could only hyperfixate on the feeling of your fingers and tongue fucking him open like he was a cheap whore in a brothel and not the great dragon inside his own office.
“ummgh!! umgck— kuhng♥︎♥︎!” a sharp wail of his gets muffled as your place your free hand over his mouth, forcing him to stay quiet. in his own greed for pleasure that your provided, he had forgotten where you two were. not like he could care less. he was disgustingly possessive and his tail refused to budge from its place that was snugly wrapped around your middle. the fluffy end consistently patting against your thigh whenever your fingers pushed deeper, curling up to hit his prostate.
it was dizzying; the pleasure, your tongue squeezing into his vent, the way you roughly fucked into his prostate with your fingers as you force him to muffle his noises. if only he could moan and shriek to his heart’s content and not force himself to shut up.
slipping your fingers out of his hole with a lewd shlick! your hand pumps his smaller cock at an agonizingly fast pace. his smaller cock was more sensitive, another new discovery you used to your heart’s content as his legs thrash around, the dragon’s tail squeezing around your middle painfully. bot that you cared, you were just trying to get him to cum again quicker. if you were correct in your assessment, in half an hour, he had a meeting.
unable to help himself, the dragon bites down on your hand, making you grimace as the sharp fangs in his maw pierce through your skin. he could taste your blood as it trickles into his mouth, making him whine in concern for hurting you before his legs jerk violently, wrapping around your head tightly. back arching on the desk so beautifully, screaming into your hand, his smaller cock spurts out more cum than the one before, his slick juices squirting onto the warmth of your tongue from his vent. slurping up as much as you could, you finally ease your tongue out as his cocks go soft in your hand. the small clit like muscles on top of his vent soften back inside as you push his legs open slowly. taking your hand away from his mouth, you couldn’t help the smug grin that crawls onto your face as you see your cute dragon.
pupils blown wide, covering the color of his irises, a small smear of blood on his lips with his cocks wearily slipping back inside his vent. once safely tucked back inside, the glistening folds of his scaled vent flutters, clenching around the phantom feeling of your tongue showed up inside it. pulling over a pack of wet wipes from one of his desk drawers, you place kisses to the pulsing scales on his chin as you wipe him clean to the best of your ability. satisfied with how he finally had you by his side, his tail weakly pats your leg, a pleased rumble of a purr in his throat as his claws hook into your shirt to yank you down onto the desk on top of him. as quickly as you fell, his arms were around you, keeping you caged in his grasp. huffing out an amused laugh, you decide to indulge in his wishes for cuddles.
only until the doors will be knocked of course.
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