#it is just hidden in his own head

[dapandapod]

Reaching

Hello there! You know when you have not an idea, but a mood, and you also have the words, but not the story, and you just wants the mood to translate into paper? Yeah, that is what happened here haha! Thank you very much @magdelanesingerin for helping me beta read <3 well needed! Please enjoy! <3 On Ao3 here

The fire shines like a beacon between the trees.

Most likely because it is, Geralt muses to himself, as he approaches their little camp through the woods. It is late in the eve already, the clouds hanging sullenly between them and the canopy of night sky that is his usual companion during these nights.

It is more gloomy than usual, though, and he has to take care where he sets his feet. Of course there are things he could do about it, but well.

The Cat potion washes out a lot of colors, and despite its usefulness he rarely drinks it. Geralt prefers to witness the midnight blues, the stars, the dusted purples and pinks stretching infinitely far above.

He enjoys watching how the fire gives their tent, their packs, Jaskier’s hair, all a golden sheen, how the sparks of the flames reflect in the bard’s eyes.

Not that he would tell anyone that is the reason.

It is a fairly calm night, almost no wind to speak of, so the smoke twists and curls around itself up between the branches. It’s a familiar smell, the burning wood, the wet leaves, the greenery and the somewhat humid air.

The light calls him home, and he feels himself longing for it, reaching with all his heart towards it. As if you can catch light with your fingers.

Geralt makes sure to announce his presence with some shuffling steps. He learned the hard way how Jaskier reacts to a fright, and as amusing as it is, that one light grey tunic of his will never recover from the fistful of stew that was flung at it.

“Better than gory innards, at least,” Jaskier had said later with a sniff, shaking his hand from the stinging heat of the stew. “Smells better too.”

This time there is no surprise, and Jaskier looks up from the book he is reading and smiles. The shadows and the flickering light gives his face strong angles, like the rough strokes of a painting, and there is a familiar something curling up in his chest, something warm and pleased.

Geralt enters their clearing, noting the slight tilt of the tent that Jaskier set up, and the canvas spread over the saddle and their bags. Roach stands a bit further away, working on the underbrush, her tail swishing away the insects preying on her.

Jaskier returns to his book, his bedroll spread out a safe distance away from the fire, but close enough to let him read comfortably in the golden light it casts.

Their habits are well practiced by now, there is no need to explain himself, no need to break the companionable silence.

Geralt sits down next to him, carefully extracting his finds from the foraging bag Jaskier got him a year or so ago.

Valerian, thistle, an assortment of roots, Yarrow, and other useful, human friendly finds he keeps picking up for Jaskier, although exactly how human he is is up for debate.

Some of them will be tied together to be dried, and some of them needs to be used immediately, so he leans back and reaches for the saddle bag with his mortar.

The heat of their little campfire warm his knees and his feet and the sliver of stomach that is revealed as his shirt rides up.

He already knows Jaskier’s eyes will be on him as he sits up again, and allows them both another few seconds, pretending not to know which pocket of the saddlebag it’s in.

Indeed, Jaskier is watching him over the edge of his book, eyes following the lines of the shirt across Geralt’s chest, the movement of his hands as Geralt rolls up his sleeves to work.

When Geralt pauses before picking up the first herb, Jaskier’s eyes meet his. For a long moment, they just look at each other, and Geralt pretends that the heat on his face is from the fire warming his skin.

The shadows outline Jaskier’s finger around the book, the dim depths plummeting down his neckline where his shirt is carelessly untied, the corner of his mouth, his brow…

“What?” Jaskier asks quietly, a smile tugging at his lips. For a moment longer, Geralt allows himself to look, the contentment and the longing for what is right there squeezing his heart.

“Nothing,” he says back, just as quietly, returning to his task.

He feels Jaskier’s eyes on him a moment longer, until he hears the flipping of a page. He knows that if he really listens, he will be able to hear the bard’s pulse. It feels like an invasion of privacy, but sometimes, like when he is on potions, he can’t help it.

There is something there, something in Jaskier that reacts to Geralt, even if he doesn’t show it. When he catches Geralt watching him, or when their hands brush, or when Geralt comes up to stand behind him, his back inches from Geralt’s chest.

Such is the dance of theirs, the reaching, but never catching. Like magnets, every move pulling them closer and every shift pushing them apart.

The book Jaskier is reading is not very thick, but well loved. They have both read it many times over, and even when the opportunity to trade or sell comes, this one always stays. A story of knights and wonder and hope and magic and loyalty, the longing for belonging and the home they make together.

A fantasy, but a loved one.

The first drops of rain fall just as Geralt is tying the last herbs together. With a swear, Jaskier hurries to put the book in the safety of the tent before helping Geralt to put their things away and dousing their little fire.

Back under the canvas the mortar and herbs go, and Roach shuffles deeper among the trees for shelter.

The small oil lamp is lit inside the tent as Geralt pours dirt and stomps on the remains of the embers, and the shadows of Jaskier moving about inside the canvas makes him stop and look once more.

Wherever Jaskier goes, he brings that beacon of light with him, Geralt thinks, drawing the witcher’s attention to him. He stands there a moment too long, the rain now picking up to a proper drizzle, quickly soaking his shirt, when Jaskier pulls the tent flap open.

“You coming?” he asks, squinting out into the darkness, spotting Geralt.

Instead of responding, Geralt thinks of reaching, and steps into the light spilling from the tent. There must be something in his face, because Jaskier stays where he is, watching him approach, watching him kneel, and with his free hand does the unthinkable.

Jaskier reaches forward and catches a drop of rain from his cheek, tracing the path down with his thumb as another takes its place.

Reaching and catching, Geralt thinks, finally being let inside the tent, kneeling too close to where Jaskier sits, still holding the tent flap open for them.

Jaskier is lowering the tent flap, shutting out the night and the rain and the dark, when Geralt, too, reaches. More truthfully, he is leaping forward, throwing himself over the edge that he has been eyeing for so long.

Leaning into Jaskier’s space, holding his gaze all the way, the smallest of sounds when Jaskier parts his lips to pull in a breath and reaches for him. Geralt, too, is reaching.

His hand is cold against Jaskier’s cheek, exploring where the shadows once were sharp and deep, they are now smooth and glowing in the lamp light.

Their noses brush together, then again with more intent.

“Why now?” Jaskier whispers, and indeed, why now?

“Haven’t we waited enough?” Geralt whispers back and Jaskier gives the smallest of smiles, resting his hand on Geralt’s leg.

“We have,” he agrees, but still they both linger in that between.

The rain is smattering against the canvas, the air in the tent warming up fast with the both of them in there.

“We should tie up the flaps,” Jaskier whispers, tilting his head and their lips touch by accident.

It sends electric sparks down Geralt’s spine, his other hand comes up to cradle Jaskier’s face, his neck, to brush a thumb along the shell of his ear.

“We should,” Geralt agrees, but instead stands a little higher on his knees, pushing a little closer into Jaskier’s space.

The kiss is soft, lingering. Just a press of lips, catching each other’s breaths as they kiss again.

It takes too long for them to notice that the rain is dripping onto the woolen blanket of Geralt’s bedroll, so they part to finally tie up the bedflaps.

The tent was never big, and the distance that felt unsurmountable before is shrinking into nothing now.

Jaskier lays his head on Geralt’s arm and reads out loud from the book they both love, with Geralt’s hand resting on his stomach.

Change is weird, Geralt thinks to himself as he presses his nose into Jaskier’s hair, enjoying the light shiver it causes, the hitched breath in the middle of his reading as he presses a kiss to Jaskier’s temple.

When the bard’s eyes droop closed at last, Geralt reaches over him and turns off their little lamp.

Jaskier turns into him, curling into his chest in a way that is familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

This, Geralt thinks, is where he always was meant to end up. The beacon of light that finally led him home.

[brainrotcharacters]

deadclaws being so attuned to each other that they have a conversation with facial expressions

[shakingparadigm]

In a modern au I think the wagyein would be like one of those gaint ass crocodiles that Ivan gets away with keeping because its technically a service animal. As long as its on a leash its all good and not a threat to the public!!

Ivan being rewarded with a more expensive and unique kind pet like a whole fucking crocodile honestly seems pretty in line for him 😭 especially since it adds a new "chic" flair to his photoshoots and his general aesthetic. Imagine Ivan's new photoshoot drops and he's in a suit posing with a fucking crocodile. Insane.

I really like the imagery of this large, scaly and dangerous looking reptile being tamed as Ivan's pet, something that could help boost his image and push that luxurious, enigmatic vibe. You know, like how stereotypical evil lairs have sharks or other rare and dangerous animals guarding the entrance or simply acting as accessory. That kind of vibe. I also like the imagery of this sharp creature being forced into submission and captivity. Forced to become a good, obedient pet, holding in its urges and keeping its teeth hidden. A being taken from the ruthless, grimy darkness, cleaned and maintained to perfection, forced to perform for the cameras. Ivan can empathize, he knows what it's like.

"Technically a service animal" is fucking hysterical. Ivan going Hello, sir! Please excuse my emotional support 12ft crocodile. Don't worry, he's very well-behaved.

I actually think Ivan would get along very well with his hypothetical crocodile. Just like the wagyein, he'd feel connected to it in a very personal way. Also just like the wagyein I think Ivan would be the only person it would never harm. In my head I have the mental image of Ivan petting and cuddling it as if it were a puppy.

[maddymoreau]

My Thoughts on Poppy Playtime Chapter 3

Ollie is ADORABLE!!!! "No ouchies or lost body parts?" HE'S A BABY I NEED TO PROTECT!!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!! (¬‿¬) I have ZERO evidence for this but my theory is he’s The Prototype.

I’m REALLY happy to see the phone Ollie calls the player on is identical to the one in Project: Playtime! It’s nice seeing stuff introduced in Project: Playtime finally appear in the main series.

( ⚆_⚆ ) ESPECIALLY DR. HARLEY SAWYER!!!! WOW THE TAPE FEATURING HIM TALKING TO THE PROTOTYPE WAS DARK!!!! I knew a man like Dr. Sawyer would be a sick and twisted individual since he created the Bigger Bodies Initiative.

Despite that I was NOT prepared to hear the joy in his voice to experiment on children. It was revolting.

This exchange:

Prototype: "You stick us. Beat us. Tear at flesh. Do you feel it?"

Dr. Sawyer: "There is a secret inside you, 1006. Valuable beyond all measure. I cut and prod and burn at it, and I get closer with each session . . . So speak, or don't. Fight, or give in. Regardless, I learn something new about you every day . . . (Laughs) It excites me!"

Prototype: "Thank you."

Dr. Sawyer: "You . . . thank me?"

Prototype: "Absolutely. I learn something new about you every day."

THAT FINAL LINE WHEN THE PROTOTYPE IS MIMICKING DR. SAWYER'S VOICE AHHHHHH!!!!

＿|￣|○ I WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO DR. SAWYER SO BADDDDD!!!!!! He wasn’t around for The Hour of Joy but I hope he suffered.

Leith Pierre: "Normally I'd have Dr. Sawyer do this but he's uhhh . . . out, let's say. So you got me until they find his replacement."

(o ´ _ ` )o The contrast between how Dr. Sawyer speaks to the experiments VS Leith Pierre the Head of Innovation at Playtime Co.

Both dehumanize the experiments in different ways.

Leith Pierre can’t even bother remembering Catnap's real name. He puts on this fake friendly facade. Referring to Catnap as his Pal and Buddy. It's so disingenuous.

Especially when he asks, "Heya Theo! How ya doin' bud?" Pierre could care less about how Catnap feels. It's only when Catnap responds, "The Prototype will save us." That gets Pierre to finally drops the corporate spiel. Admitting to what this place is. Catnap’s prison.

No wonder Catnap worshipped The Prototype after being save when this is what he’s told about his horrific situation.

Leith Pierre: "THIS is your life now. Get used to it."

I absolutely LOVED all the new features for the Grab Pack. The air jet looked SO FUN!!!! Watching people desperately shoot the flare gun against smiling critters in a cramped space WAS SO INTENSE!!! The smiling critter's small growls and whimpers made me sad.

(ʃƪ 〃’▽’〃)♡ The horror in this chapter was INCREDIBLE!!!! While I had fun playing Chapter 2 I remember feeling disappointed by the scares.

CHAPTER THREE HAD ME HORRIFIED!!!! EVERY JUMP SCARE HAD ME FLYING OUT MY CHAIR, THE ATMOSPHERE WAS AMAZING AND AHHHHH THE HOME ORPHANAGE SECTION!!!!!

It reminded me of PT ∑(; °_°) Especially with the radio informing us that in Elliot Ludwig's house it was discovered he HAD THE BODY OF A CHILD IN A DUFFLE BAG!!?!?!?!?!?!

ALSO THAT ONE RADIO'S REVERSE MESSAGE!!!

"8-8-1995 I find your presence intrusive. After all this time you return. You come in here and yet you kill and murder. You pilate and destroy. Your presence was demanded 10 years ago and yet you didn't show up . . . 8-8-1995 You were supposed to be here. Why weren't you here? You missed the event. You missed the meeting. You missed the party. You have no right to be here . . ."

AHHHHHH MOBGAMES KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING WITH THE LIGHTING IN THIS SCENE!!!!!

I thought I was going to see MY BOY 😭💔!!!!!!

Huggy Wuggy is completely fine.

Kissy Missy was so sad and adorable in this chapter. Seeing her stare at the picture and hug herself BROKE MY HEART ( o̴̶̷᷄ _ o̴̶̷̥᷅ )!!! She deserves the world.

Catnap acting like a child and avoiding school 😭💔

Miss Delight was a minor spoiler I knew about since people used her face in their thumbnail. However I was NOT prepared for her to act like a Coil-Head!!!!

Theodore being described as antisocial and having a peculiar relationship with an imaginary friend _(:ì」∠)_.

That “imaginary” friend being The Prototype. Who guided Theodore to help them both escape. Only for Theodore to get electrocuted since he was just a child who didn't know how to safely use a Grabpack.

The Prototype throwing away their chance to escape to save Theodore by bringing him to the staff. Showing The Prototype does care in some way.

Only for Theodore to be later turned Catnap.

THEN the player electrocutes Catnap the SAME way Theodore originally received his injuries. The Prototype comes to “save” Theodore once again but this time by making Catnap a part of him AND CATNAP ACCEPTS SO WILLINGLY (˃ ⌑ ˂ഃ )!!!!

It felt like I was watching a religious experience.

I love Poppy Playtime but I do think they show too much in their trailers. Dog day is a great example but even then his scene was *chef kiss*

All the smiling critters crawling inside Dogday as he desperately screamed in agony and for us to run away left me speechless.

I liked the detail of Dogday calling us angel. I'm excited to see all the AUs people create where we save him.

ALSO THE HOUR OF JOY WAS A BLAST TO WATCH!!!!!

I know Poppy is right that it was just senseless slaughter. How all that death didn't fix or help anyone. Especially when it didn't matter if those killed were innocent or not.

However imagining these characters being painfully experimented on and stripped of their autonomy. Going though years of hell and finally reaching their breaking point. It's hard to not feel good for them getting to release that anger. Even if I know it's wrong.

ALSO I GOT TO SEE MY SECOND FAVORITE CHARACTER BOXY BOO YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

THERE WAS SOOOOO MUCH HUGGY WUGGY IMAGERY IN THIS CHAPTER AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I'M GOING TO OVER THINK IT!!!!!! I HAVE NO THEORIES I’M JUST POINTING DETAILS OUT!!!!!!

When hallucinating Huggy Wuggy's face is on the employee training video:

“Join the Innovationists, where the bounds of science are continuously pushed. Or join the Counselors of Playcare, whose diligence and care for our children will help shape a brighter future, just you see.”

“Now every one of you has your part in that future, so should you come back tomorrow feeling unhappy for where you are, or what you’ve done . . . worry not, for your supervisor is here and happy to listen! And . . . should you come back . . . years later . . . your conscience finally getting the better of you. May you descend into the dark and the dust, finding all that awaits you are incomprehensible horrors . . . each hungry for your return, each eager that they might find you. Perhaps they’d smile at you from a shadow, their smiling mouths full of teeth and meat and plastic, watching and waiting patiently for their turn at a warm welcome. Or perhaps they won’t allow you such a time to figure your place in the world you’d left. A world that’s theirs now. Welcome home.”

The video transforms into a manifestation of the player's guilt. Not only for their involvement for whatever they did while working at Playtime Co. but for being gone and returning after ten years.

This is also paired with the player's possible guilt for killing Huggy Wuggy and their fear of him.

The hallucination version being a more exaggerated version of the Chapter 1 Huggy Wuggy vent chase.

When Catnap causes the player to later hallucinate:

Poppy: “Do you even know what’s real?”

Poppy: “No you don’t.”

THEN AT THE END OF THE HALLUCINATION IT SHOWS US THE DAY OF JOY!!!! Which is very odd when you consider two things. We've been told multiple times we weren’t there and during this scene we didn't know what the Hour of Joy was.

So the player hallucinating being in front of Huggy Wuggy’s podium during The Hour of Joy with a large Prototype hand reaching for us IS ODD!!!

ALSO THE TAPE IT SHOWS THAT’S WHERE HUGGY WUGGY WAS DURING THE HOUR OF JOY!!!!!!!

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?!?!?!

This is just speculation but perhaps the player's memories aren't as trustworthy as we think. After all we still aren't even sure who even sent us the letter or tape in Chapter 1.

"EVERYONE THINKS THE STAFF DISSAPEARED 10 YEARS AGO WE'RE STILL HERE FIND THE FLOWER"

It’s important to point out the characters from Chapter 2 made ZERO appearance during these hallucinations. Mommy Long Legs, PJ Pug-a-Pillar, Bunzo Bunny and the Wack-a-Wuggy.

Is the Huggy Wuggy imagery used because he’s who we encounter at the start of the game?

OR SOMETHING MORE AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

[koukaaa-descent]

my freakass dog..... considering indigo's anatomy because. why your neck so strange boy

[genderjester]

Have so many thoughts abt geto but also i cannot articulate any of them

[rivilu]

see i'm not even opposed to the concept of canon/trickster Ellu surviving but the thing is in order for it to happen there would need to be a second vulnerable conversation regarding his side of things. where he couldn't lie his way out of it either. So basically he's fucked

[unriding]

very messy word dump below the cut + in tags :^) heh

okay it’s officially been a full day since reading this and i’m going to write down everything i remember feeling from day 1! and then in the tags im going to reread this (for the third time within 24 hours) and add thoughts that i didn’t put down here. SORRY FOR THE MESS & NO PRESSURE TO READ ALL THIS SJKDMF IT IS JUST A LOT OF WORD VOMIT BC IM INSANE OVER THIS FIC

okay i should start from the beginning. Wait I’ll use caps so it’s easier to read if you’re reading it bahahhaa OKAY. The way you write alpha / omega!!! It’s different from what I’m used to reading— and I mean it has a lot of a depth. The way you wrote reader being an alpha = being so protective over Aventurine fucked me up so bad /pos. Reader just wants him safe and they’re so real for that.

Going off on that, I LOVE HOW U WROTE THE READER. Understands Aventurine so well. Will literally do anything to keep him safe. Understands what sets him off and what he’s comfortable with. The part where Aventurine was talking about the next mission & reader seeing right through him ): are you serious /pos. WAIT I SKIPPED TOO FAR AHEAD. When Aventurine was trying to get reader to join the IPC? Dead. Evie DEAD. Reader saw right through him omg. Being able to notice the little changes in his scent, the way he tries to mask it etc etc. I love that so bad.

WHEN READER FOUND HIM IN HEAT FUUUCK. ARE YOU SERIOUS /pos. Fighting the urge to help him vs waiting to just make it better because reader has the power to ): I loved that so much. The struggle was so real. Literally bringing a doctor just to hear that he needs an alpha to help anyways omg. Lowkey when the doctor said that I was like PLEASE LET US HELP YOU PLEASEEEEEEE. But also. I didn’t want him to be scared either you know ):

I skipped over another scene sighs. THE part where reader said ‘I like your eyes because they’re yours” and then the end. Him saying he likes our scent because it’s ours. Are you serious /pos. Be so serious /pos.

Okay the scent gland scenes actually fucked me up so bad (I unfortunately did not dream about anything but maybe that is for the best because I’m still recovering from this scene). The part where he asks for just the wrist. Reader struggling when they FEEL HIS TEETH GRAZE THE WRIST IM GONNA EXPLODE OMFG. The immediate pulling away because we don’t want to scare him please. + the scent gland scene at the end. HE DIDN’T FEEL LIKE HE HAD TO BE ON TOP. We could lay side by side ): I was so happy that he was okay with that omg. Literally all giddy like aaaaa!!!!!! IM NOT A THREAT!! Actually that’s a lie I wasn’t giddy. I was literally in tears jejdkckckckk Aventurine 😭😭 ughhhhhhh /pos

I won’t comment on the actual scene (I am commenting on it right now actually) because I was literally so sad and my heart hurt so badly for him. I wanted him to see himself from our POV for just one moment so he can understand that we genuinely love him and treasure him & want to keep him safe. ):

ABOUT YOUR WRITING ITSELF : insanity. I will just say insanity. How should I put it in words….. just thinking about this fic again is taking all the words out of my mouth shejdjfjj (I say this as I type a 27738 page essay about it). I love how you write. I really do. Your writing style is so beautiful. I haven’t read the other tags under your fic but I’m sure many others have said the same thing!!! They word it better than me I’m sure bsjsjsjsjsk

I just love everything about it. How you add in little details (oh! Speaking of details— Aventurine’s reaction to reader cozying up to her husband in the other fic) HEJDJJDJDJ omg. But in this fic, the little signs of him being scared. Scared 24/7 actually ): I love how you conveyed his fear so much. And the way he tries so hard to hide it. HIM CRUMBLING DOWN TO HIS RAW SELF WHEN HES IN HEAT. AND THE FEAR THERE TOO. INSANE.

^^ How you wrote him so adamant about not needing help at first …. To him asking for the scent gland ….. to him agreeing to use reader. It was all so real. He didn’t just change his mind like oh okay! It took him a while to be okay with it and I love how real it all felt. You write dialogue & little details so well— it actually drives me nuts (/compliment /pos)

Oh this just reminded me. Your description of how Aventurine smells killed me /pos. And how you describe his scent as sweet. I’m really not okay /pos. It fits him so well. And … for reader…. the scent after rain ? Oh my god ???? I love that smell so much. It’s so comforting…. OMG. COMFORTING????????? BECAUSE. Oh wow. I’m really not okay now. I JUST LOVE ALL THE DETAILS LIKE THAT )))): it’s so clear you put so much thought into all these things because your fic has so much depth. I lowkey yanked out Notibility for your other Aventurine fic to highlight the parts I wanted to comment on ehdjdkkck I was annotating it like a book (I’m so sorry if this is creepy I promise I don’t do this on a regular basis. I don’t annotate fics normally. Actually please disregard this because I’m a bit red admitting this) (I just have the memory of a goldfish and can only remember feelings and not actual content) (That’s a lie because here I am remembering a lot of this fic MOST LIKELY BECAUSE I READ IT WITH MY EYES AN INCH FROM THE SCREEN PROBABLY I WAS LIKE O_O) /pos

NIGHT FLOWER: part i

Your place in the world was one of a tool. This was true of every slave: you were all things to be used. Kakavasha understood this about you, and he understood this about himself. It was how he survived all those years ago, and it’s how he survives now. And so, when Aventurine goes into his first heat in years and decides to suffer it alone, you can only think of one way to get him to accept your help: You offer to let him use you.

written for @/lorelune's spring fever collab & @ficsforgaza

13.5k words of omegaverse, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, angst with an eventual happy ending. gn alpha reader + omega aventurine (they each have both amab and afab genitalia). explicit piv sex, reader bottoms, the sex is consensual but emotionally complicated and deeply sad. cw slavery, racism, gendered violence, including very brief and non-graphic (but direct) references to sexual abuse during slavery. the sa and slavery are not eroticized. dead dove do not eat, mdni.

thank you to @acerathia, @minnaci, @owlespresso for all your help with beta reading and to @kosmiccarma for brainstorming omega aventurine hcs!

“I’ve alw███ l█ved ███, Ka██v█s███”

You knew it from the moment you met him.

Gaunt, pallid, weighed down by heavy chains. Irises that glowed like the auroras back in your world. Delicate features that made every passerby in the market stop to read the description on the placard. (Sigonian, it said, although you couldn’t read at the time. Avgin. Male. Omega. Sixteen years old. Sixty Tanba, no tax.) He had an all-consuming scent that was impossible to ignore—one that possessed you, made your heels dig into the dirt, every atom in your body resisting the impatient jerk of the chains at your wrist. Even through your muzzle, through the perpetual stench of carbon-steel and blood, you could smell it: honey and wildflowers. A fragrance that settled deep within you, flooded you with a warmth that felt like home.

Aventurine is not a spiritual person. He once told you this, his smile cold in the glow of an artificial moon. He'd been deeply religious as a child, but hasn’t since cared for fairy tales about fortune and fate, three-eyed goddesses or merciful rainfalls. Hasn't thought about anything like a destined love. He thinks the idea of a true mate is laughable, that no such bond could ever be forged between an omega and an alpha. That nothing so unconditional could ever exist.

You know differently, of course. You've known it from the moment you met him, from the second you laid eyes on him and thought, I need to help you, and I need to protect you, and I need you to be safe, and you’d never once heard the word ‘love’ in your life—slaves are never loved by their masters, after all, and you'd always been nothing but a slave—but every atom of your being knew that you loved him, that you'd always love him.

And when your master cradled your face that night and crooned that he owned you, that you'd always be his obedient, alpha pet—for the first time in your life, you knew that he was wrong.

You didn't belong to your slaver.

You belonged to him.

To Kakavasha.

These days, Aventurine does not smell like honey, and your jaw is not restrained.

Your muzzle was one of the first things that Aventurine threw away when he bought your freedom. According to the Amber Era system, it had been several months since the murder of your shared master. Ninety-five Star Calendar days after the Interastral Peace Corps had arrested Kakavasha. An entire rotation around the black hole at the centre of your wretched galaxy, all of which had been spent in the captivity of some new mistress. She picked you out because she liked your calming scent and the look of your face, but mostly she used you for the fighting pits just like your old master.

Aventurine had been sitting in the audience of your final match, then bought you out right after you won. “I’m in need of a fighter,” he’d said, smiling in his thick furs and jewels. He played the part of a slavemaster perfectly, his gloved hands wandering the span of your aching shoulders, touching the bloodied maw of your mask. “And I’d be willing to pay top credit for yours.”

She protested. You were her most prized possession, one of her greatest investments. Slaves from your planet were hard enough to come by—alphas capable of reproduction, nearly impossible. And you were so well-behaved, so poised, so endearing in a way that was rare for alphas. She was fond of you. Her omega slaves were fond of you too. They would be distraught if you left, and that would complicate her household affairs—and surely Aventurine, as a respectable owner of human capital like herself, could understand how inconvenient that would be?

Aventurine bared his teeth in a gracious smile. (You’d never seen Kakavasha make such an expression before—so disarming, so cunning, a crescent moon beneath snake eyes. He’d never smelt like this either, like an expensive cologne layered with bleach, and it left you feeling nauseous, wondering if he was ill.) He flirted his way into her good graces, made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, and then he brought you into the first-class ship on which he’d arrived. You were so stunned by its luxury—the handwoven carpets, the crushed velvet seats, the imported tea from several galaxies away and the custom-ordered outfit he had bought for you—that you nearly missed the tremble in his hands as he punched numbers into the remote control lock for your chains.

He had regained his composure by the time he pulled away your muzzle, though. He threw it carelessly to the ground—your titanium chains, too. Then kicked both away with his shined leather shoes.

“There,” Aventurine said, smiling cheerfully. “Much better, don’t you think?”

“Vasha—” you started, voice thick with wasted grief, and all you wanted to was reach for him, to double check that he was real, but he placed a finger to your lips and stopped you. You stiffened at the satin touch, but he seemed unbothered.

“‘Aventurine’,” he corrected.

You stared blankly. “What?”

“‘Aventurine’. Like the gemstone. That’s my name now.”

“You—” Your voice caught in your throat. You realized that you’d been holding your breath. You always had the habit of holding your breath in the luxurious, private rooms of very rich men, because you never liked what happened in them. Forcing yourself to breathe, you asked, “You gave yourself a new name?”

“No. The IPC gave me a new name. They gave me a job, too.”

“A job?” you asked, voice faint. Now that you were breathing again, you were noticing once more just how bizarre he smelled. Sterile and expensive and completely foreign. “You’re free now?”

“Well, I’m a freedman, but I don’t know if I’d call myself free. I’m a bit… indebted to the IPC, let’s say. But that’s fine. I can’t complain. I mean—look around. This beats the fighting pits, doesn’t it?” He gestured lazily at your surroundings, and you nodded.

“It’s nice here,” you replied, feeling absurd but not knowing what else to say. Once Kakavasha got talking, it was impossible to get a word in edgewise.

“You like it here? Good. This room’s yours. Mine is the next one over. You’ll live and work here, with me. I’ll make sure you’re paid well. Full benefits, vacation, salary, and overtime. The standard pay for your role is seventy-thousand credits per month, but I’ll see if I can get you more. HR is pretty strict about their hiring policies, but—”

“You’re hiring me?”

Aventurine went very still, his smile tightly controlled. His eyes remained fixed on you, but they seemed less snake-like, now. They looked more familiar. More afraid.

“I’m offering, yes,” he said neatly. “You’ll be part of my personal security detail. I don’t have the contract for you to review yet, unfortunately. I didn’t arrange one ahead of time because, well”—he laughed, as if this were polite conversation and he were making a joke about the weather—“I didn’t know if I’d find you alive. But things worked out in my favour. They always work out in my favour. I’ll make sure they’ll work out in your favour too, so long as you’re with me. So you’ll consider it, won’t you? Staying with—working for me, I mean.”

Your eyes went soft. Beneath the artificial fragrance, you finally caught a hint of his familiar scent—more wildflower than honey at that moment, the way it always is when he’s scared.

“Kakavasha—”

“Name your price,” he said loudly, “and I’ll match it.”

You sighed. “Vasha,” you said more gently, and his shoulders relaxed at the subvocal shift in your timbre, at the famed alpha Voice that necessitated your muzzle, “I don’t care about the money. Of course I’ll stay here. But—what happened? Why did you kill him yourself? Why didn't you let me do it? That was the plan. It was always supposed to be me.”

It was my job, you thought then, just as you had thought to yourself every night, curled up in your bed and trying to recall the scent of fresh honey, to keep you safe.

He shrugged and said, “It would have been too risky to involve you.”

“You were caught and sentenced to death. The risk was already too high.”

“But the stakes weren’t,” he replied simply, and before you could ask what he meant by that, he continued, “and it worked out, didn’t it? I work for the IPC. You work for me. We’re freedmen now. Whatever I've lost, it doesn't matter. Our gains far outweigh it.”

“And what have you lost, Vasha?”

He smiled at you, charming and distracting. A crescent moon beneath snake eyes. “Nothing of value,” he reassured you, and even though you could feel the calm of an omega’s voice washing over you, even though it released all the tension in your body, all you could smell was cologne and wildflowers, and you knew that he was lying.

Vasha once told you, curled up and quiet on the basement floor, that he despised his eyes. They were supposed to be a sign of blessing from Gaiathra Triclops, but they'd never brought him anything but trouble. They were the first thing that the slavers always noticed about him, the feature that made him such an alluring commodity. Their aurora glow, their strange beauty, their promise of a rare opportunity: a chance at owning a specimen of an exotic, endangered species, possibly the last of its kind. These are all things that you've heard in the parlour of your master’s house as he entertained rich company, the crowd of them gawking at his human curios.

Avgin are said to make the most beautiful slaves, he'd often say. And Avgin omegas are said to be the most beautiful among them. What do you all think? They'd all hum, peering closely at Kakavasha’s features, and inevitably someone would joke, I think I'd like to borrow him sometime, and then they would all laugh while your pulse ticked up and you imagined tearing at their throats. Vasha would search for your gaze in these moments, giving you a long, pointed look: Don't do anything stupid.

He’d always been so blasé about it, the way people fixated on his Avgin blood. You'll never understand how. He didn't react to any of the comments, the groping, the innuendos. He was, however, distinctly unimpressed at the way that your master liked to play him up as a rare and expensive acquisition, as a sign of his own status. It's embarrassing to watch, Kakavasha had remarked. Everyone knows that Sigonian slaves are uncommon but cheap—people always think we’ll bring them more trouble than our worth. This was how Kakavasha had ended up in the market in the first place: because his last master had been robbed, and he'd been wrongly blamed for it.

The blame, to this day, has never stopped. People—powerful people, politicians, businessmen, socialites—look at Aventurine’s eyes and immediately reach for their pockets. You've seen it for yourself, these spineless despots and scammers feeling for their wallets. Sigonian, you know they're thinking. Liar, cheat, thief, whore, worthless, worthless, worthless. Your hands tighten around your blade each time, a loaded gun with a finger on the trigger.

Alphas are said to be violent by nature. Aventurine has often called you the one exception to this rule: the most docile, good-hearted alpha he's ever met. But this is a lie. You do have a predator instinct, and it comes out in full-force whenever you’re around these particular types of men. These types who notice Aventurine’s eyes and see a thief; these monsters who see his irises and imagine what it would be like to bed him. You’d kill them if you could. It would be so easy, especially now that you are an IPC dog. The Company is already such a violent force; what would be one more murder?

But Aventurine has never ordered you to punish anyone. (Don't do anything stupid, he always tells you with a glance, smiling through every humiliation.) Nor has he ever seemed bothered enough by these meetings to try concealing his heritage.

A fellow Asset Liquidation Specialist once asked why he didn't just hide his eye colour—it would likely be better for fostering relationships, negotiating deals—but Aventurine had shrugged it off. I'm a gambler working with the IPC, he'd said. Do you really think a pair of coloured contacts would make anyone trust me? He'd laughed, and his voice had carried a threatening edge, and his coworker had shifted visibly at it. Being an Avgin is the least threatening thing about me, wouldn't you say?

You think that Aventurine likes being seen as a threat. Sometimes you wonder if this is why he doesn't mind wearing his eyes so much, but abhors keeping his scent. He washes his clothes until they're free of his disarming sweetness and then masks himself with an unsettling blend of ambergris, jasmine, and wood. And he is on suppressants all the time—hasn’t had a single heat since the day he killed his master. Hasn't smelled like himself, either.

At the end of the day, it’s manageable being an Avgin in this business, he often comments, spraying half a bottle of masking cologne on himself, but you can't be an Avgin and an omega. Wouldn’t you agree?

You'd know better than me, you reply, noncommittally—and truthfully.

But you're an alpha, he observes. Don't you have an opinion?

You don't pay me to have opinions, you always remind him, stone-faced. You pay me to stand here and look scary. And Aventurine always laughs at this, and he always wires you money and calls it a bonus as he pesters you for an answer, and he always gets distracted and starts scrolling through all his shopping wishlists instead. I saw this thing the other day and thought of you. And this too. Would you like either of them? Would you like them both? I’m a very generous manager, you know. I'll buy you anything you like.

But even though he always gets distracted, Aventurine never forgets. Sooner or later, he inevitably circles back to these questions—these anxieties about his scent, about his eyes, about his blood. He never cares for anyone else’s opinions, but he's always been curious about yours. Even when he was Vasha, he wanted to know what you thought.

He’d been sixteen years old and delirious with heat the first time he asked you, face wrinkling with pain as he spilled his thoughts. It was so incoherent, so sad, you thought it must have been about a fever dream. Mama Fenge, he kept saying. Mama Fenge blessed me, She blessed me, I'm blessed, it rained when I was born—did you know that? My luck, I was lucky. The Katicans, they never caught me. They got everyone else, but not me. I was blessed by Her. I'm going to save my people. I will. I'll save my sister. My eyes are proof. My mistress liked them. Said they're beautiful. Worth sixty whole coppers. A blessing. He pulled you close, pressed his scalding face to your scent gland, and his whole body shuddered with relief. This was the first and only time he'd allowed you to hold him, and it was only out of desperation, out of his mind. Do you like them, alpha? Do you like my eyes? Why? Is it because they're beautiful? Because they're from Gaiathra?

“I like them because they're yours,” you'd replied, and Kakavasha had laughed deliriously.

This is when he told you he hated them: I'd close them forever, if I could.

When you were younger—dumber—you had a habit of squirrelling away every spare coin you came across. You collected them in a little purse that one of the omega slaves had sewn for you—a thank-you for always keeping the other alphas away from her—and you hid it underneath a loose floorboard. By the time that Kakavasha was arrested, you'd saved up twenty-nine Tanba. You’d wanted enough to buy Kakavasha’s freedom and then to set him up for a comfortable life.

It had been a stupid plan. An embarrassing one. If you ever confessed it to Aventurine, he'd laugh at you. Slaves can't buy other slaves, he'd say. Leave the schemes to me next time. You’re too good-hearted for it.

You’d already known that, of course. You knew that you didn't have the status to buy him or mate him or even just provide for him, but you wanted to. God, did you want to—you spent every waking moment thinking about it, every sleeping moment dreaming of it. It wasn't even that you desired him, though he was beautiful and fragrant and more delicate than anything that had ever touched you in your life, which was only your master’s hands and your muzzle and your chains. Aventurine would feel so soft in comparison, you’d always figured. It made your heart ache, thinking about getting to hold something so lovely.

But really—that desire came second. What came first was how mated omegas feel safe around their alphas, and you so desperately wanted him to be safe. Kakavasha had looked so frail, so grim, as your master took his chains and led him home from the market, and you could smell the fear coming off him in waves. And you could do nothing to stop it. You had nothing you could use to stop it—nothing other than your hands that could kill for him and your pheromones that could soothe him and your useless heart that wanted to collect sixty Tanba for him. That was all you had.

So you failed in the end. Of course you did. You didn't have the status to buy him or mate him or even just provide for him. You couldn't even do for him the one thing you could have done—which was to kill. And Kakavasha suffered for your incompetence. He had to dirty his hands with blood and gamble his way into wealth and then suddenly he was freeing you, not the other way around.

And now you are comfortable. You'll lead an easy life from now, Aventurine reassured you when he brought you onto his ship all those years ago, and he's kept that promise. What about you? you'd asked him then. Will you lead an easy life with me, if you're working for the IPC? And he had smiled and lied to you: Yes.

It had been a painfully obvious lie. If you were a smarter person, you'd have never believed it in the first place. Aventurine has no interest in leading an easy life, because an easy life would be less profitable, and less profit would mean less safety. And he is always, always worried about being unsafe. It is indiscernible to everyone but you—an alpha (his alpha, always his, even if he doesn't want you) who has watched over him for so long that you can detect every shift in his scent. No matter how much cologne he drowns himself in and no matter how strong his suppressants are, you know when he is afraid.

And here is the bitter truth, the ultimate proof of your shortcomings:

Aventurine is always afraid.

It is a beautiful day on Agnisahr, and you can tell that Aventurine is about to throw up from worry.

You're sitting in the middle of stunning wealth—Aventurine in his feathers and jewellery, you in your tailored jacket—in a lobby made from marble and pale sandstone, with a view of palm trees and rolling, scarlet sand dunes beyond the window. The waitstaff addresses him as Honoured Guest and they keep his crystal chalice filled constantly with water—one of the most expensive commodities on the planet. Aventurine has been drinking from it religiously, which is strange as he typically has the habit of forgetting to hydrate. A faint wildflower scent is drifting from his slender form. These are the only giveaway to his mood: he's otherwise as pokerfaced as ever, smiling calmly as he discusses his plans to sabotage the local government and acquire the planet for the IPC.

“This is a very dangerous mission,” you state flatly.

“All my missions are dangerous.” He takes a sip, one pinky up. “The IPC pays me well for a reason. As they say—”

“‘High risk, high reward.’ I know.” You try not to sound bitter, though you allow yourself to sound tired. “I still do not think the risk is worth the reward in this case.”

“I think over 5.6 million in credits is a great reward, actually. We could do a lot with that kind of money.”

You raise a brow. “What could an extra 5.6 million get you that you can't already buy?” It is—as Topaz would say—‘chump change’ in comparison to his current wealth, which sums to a number so vast that you can't wrap your head around it.

Aventurine pretends to miss the point. “Tons! We could buy a new spacecraft. Get another mansion. Or—we could take a vacation to Penacony. I hear it's quite nice there.” A playful smile. “I could get us a penthouse unit. With a featherbed.”

You frown. Sometimes Aventurine likes to flirt when you're being stubborn—not out of interest, but as a ploy to distract you. He’d developed the habit after he joined the IPC. It used to fluster you, but now it only makes you cross your arms.

“You could die,” you point out.

“You'll protect me.”

“No, I won't. You always find a way to get rid of me when things are most dangerous.” You give him an accusatory stare. “You never let me do my job.”

He's too shameless to deny it. “And it's worked out fine, hasn't it? I haven't died so far.”

“Yes. Just by dumb luck.”

“I beg to differ. My luck is quite reliable.” He sets down his glass. Glances back outside. A microexpression, brows knotting for the briefest second as he studies the sky. “I'm not worried.”

“You're a shit liar.”

That gets him to look at you, letting a small frown pass over his face. “No, I'm actually a great liar. You're just too good at reading me. It's very inconvenient, you know.”

“I can't help it.” You lean toward him, making a show of it as you sniff. An orchid-like scent—faint but unmistakable—has seeped into artificial ambergris and wood. “It's hard to ignore.”

He hums. He isn't frowning anymore—but doesn't look happy, either. “I should change suppressants.” He taps the side of his empty glass, fidgeting. Aventurine never fidgets: it's an amateur giveaway. “These ones clearly don't work well enough.”

“That won't help. I know you too well.” Your eyes soften. He's looking outside again, the blues of his irises distant. “You're worried, Aventurine. More than usual. Let’s back out of this—let Jade handle it.”

“The mission isn't what's bothering me,” he says patiently. “I just don't like this planet.”

“Because you can tell it's dangerous.”

“No. Well—it is, but nothing I can't handle.” He leans back. “I just dislike the weather here.”

You arch a brow. “...the weather?”

“Yes,” he says neatly, “it's too dry here. I'll break out.”

You open your mouth. Close it. It is possibly the most absurd thing you've ever heard, and certainly the worst lie that's ever come from him. For as long as you've known him, Aventurine has had flawless skin, marble-smooth, and ever since being freed, he’s never really cared much for looking handsome so much as looking rich. But he maintains his serious expression: all-in on the farce. “Did you know that outside the capital, this planet hasn't had any natural rain in a quarter of an Amber Era? And the stellar winds are terrible. I don't know how people live on a planet like this.” His eyes narrow at the cloudless sky. “The IPC is going to need to do a lot of terraforming if they want to make this into a merchant hub.”

“Aventurine.”

“It'll be a pain crossing the desert—the elements will ruin my clothes, you know,” he continues. “It won't be so bad while we're on the ships, but we’ve got to go outside from time to time. Can't make any friends otherwise.”

“Aventurine.”

“And there's nothing to do for fun when we’re not working.” He sighs dramatically. “I can't wait to get our 5.6 billion and leave for someplace else. I'm being serious about Penacony, by the way—”

“Aventurine.”

“—though not about the featherbed. I'll get you your own room, obviously. And I'll buy whatever dream experience you’d like. What kind would you want?”

Finally allowed a chance to speak, you say, “One where you retire.”

“Retire? Why would I ever do that?”

“I don't know. Maybe you decide you've made enough money.”

“No such thing.”

“Then you can settle down with someone.”

That makes him smile. It feels mocking. “Me? Settling down? With who?”

“Who knows. Someone who will treat you better than the IPC, I hope.”

“Anyone that nice would run in the other direction. But never mind me. This would be your dream experience. What happens to you in it?”

“I stop chasing after you and get to live out the rest of my days in peace,” you say dryly, and Aventurine blinks. “Please stop deflecting. The IPC gave you a suicide mission. We will both die if we stay here.”

He looks serious now. “I wouldn't let you die.”

“You can't know that.”

“Well, I do. And I've got decent chances at surviving too—at least one in ten.”

You feel like sighing—a deep, aggravated noise is heavy in your throat—but Aventurine doesn't enjoy it when you show anger around him. It's the one omega instinct that he can't ignore, you suppose: unease around an aggressive alpha. Voice tightly controlled, you say, “You’re going to bet your life on one in ten?”

  “Sure. My chances were worse on the last planet, and things worked out great. It'll be the same on Agnisahr.” Aventurine raises a hand, calls for the bill. The conversation is over. You lean back in your seat, watching sourly as he pays tens of thousands of credits just for water.

“You know, they say the royal family is backed by an Aeon,” you can't help but point out, once the waiter is gone. A last-ditch effort. Aventurine smiles at it, amused. Like you're a child.

“So what?” He glances outside, at the desolate landscape beyond the oasis—nothing but red sand, a blue, rainless sky, and two radiant suns shining above it all. “The protection of a god is nothing compared to the schemes of human beings. And gods abandon their people all the time, anyway.”

During your tenth day on Agnisahr, you realise that something is deeply wrong.

It takes you some time to understand what’s happening. At first you think that whatever political danger you’ve intuited is much worse than you thought, and that’s why Aventurine has been so pale, so discomforted, so exhausted. Then his scent starts changing—he switches clothes two, three times a day (because of all this heat during Agnisahran days, he tells his new business associates) and spritzes his nape with his cologne almost religiously—and you wonder if he is sick with something. If the food in this planet has something that disagrees with his Sigonian biology, or if he has picked up one of the local filoviruses, or if someone’s poisoned one of his meals because they’ve correctly identified him as a threat. Aventurine dismisses every single one of these theories when you bring it up, and—as if in denial—only attributes it to the weather. (I’ve never done well in deserts, he tells you, his eyes on his phone screen. I'm not used to them. It is above 300 Kelvin, and you do not see a single bead of sweat on his neck, and his cheeks are not even a little flushed.)

You only figure it out when he is too ill to get out of bed one morning and forbids all the IPC staff from coming near his hotel room. It sets off alarms immediately—Aventurine, no matter how sick, will work and see through meetings as long as he is mentally capable of it—and so you naturally ignore his orders and check on him, using the spare key to his sleeping quarters that you're given as a policy. And as soon as the door cracks open—as soon as you step inside only to be hit with a violent, cloying sweetness—you realise what’s happening and slam the door shut behind you.

“You’re in heat,” you blurt out, and Aventurine—a shivering, panting mess on the bed—groans in response.

“Why are you here?” He turns toward you, still lucid enough to glare at you through the tangled mess of his hair. His voice is weak, but no less self-possessed: “I was very clear—no company today.”

“I am your personal bodyguard,” you remind him mildly. Your voice is calm—both non-threatening and non-condescending. “Those orders don’t apply to me. If things feel suspicious, I look into it. And they felt very suspicious.” Your brow knits as you study his clothes. Mulberry silk clings to his form, soaked through with sweat. Thin, eucalyptus sheets are tangled up around him. There are only two pillows. No water bottles. No knotting toys.

Nothing.

“You didn't know you'd be in heat,” you realise. “What happened to your suppressants?”

“I don't know.” There’s a quiet, frustrated edge to his voice. Vulnerable too. It makes you think of when you were both still slaves, and Aventurine was confined to the basement of the manor—the one that all omega slaves were made to ride out their heats in. Either they would do it alone or were ordered to spend it with some alpha, usually either a friend of the master or an alpha slave he wished to reward. That's when they're most pliable, he'd tell his guests, or sometimes even you. They get so desperate they'll present themselves to anyone. Then amused laughter from the other party—How obscene!—as you looked away, blood hammering in your ears.

You had been your master’s favourite. His most obedient, most profitable pet—striking enough for his guests to admire, deadly enough for his audiences to bet on, docile enough for him to enjoy. Good enough for him to reward, and he often rewarded you with his most beautiful slave: his Avgin omega. Just don't mark him, he’d said, fastening the muzzle around your mouth. It'll ruin his market value. Who knows if someday he'd sell Kakavasha off to some alpha master who wished to claim him, he said. Though I don't think there's anyone in this star system who'd want a Sigonian for a mate, let alone a Sigonian slave. Then he’d paused, eyes scanning over you. As if contemplating. But maybe they'd try to get Avgin whelps out of him, he added, and you felt like throwing up.

You'd never mate him in those moments, your muzzle always prevented you from saying. You didn't even want to think about touching him, and he didn't want to think about it either. Even in the cruel grip of his heats, with nothing but the thin mat beneath him and his slave’s rags around him, Kakavasha hadn't wanted any kind of contact from you, rejecting any chance of solace. Don't, don't—not again, not again, he'd begged. Then as the nights marched on and his mind grew hazier, he’d start whimpering too: It hurts, alpha. It hurts. Help me. It hurts. Don't touch me. Not again. It hurts. It hurts. Stop it, please stop it.

It gutted you.

It went against every instinct, not to touch him. To let him lie there, in scorching, lonely pain, when all you wanted to do was to dispel it. It would be so easy to press yourself against him and let his skin cool against yours, do the one thing that your body was good at other than killing. But not again, not again, I can't anymore, I don't want it, I never wanted it, and all you could do was sit there, unmoving. Watch as the most delicate, precious thing you had in your life shatter.

And standing here now, watching Aventurine shatter before you once more—it is unbearable. He needs a nest, you keep thinking. He needs a nest and some water and some kind of touch, some kind of relief, but not again, not again, and you’re still a slave, still a worthless and stupid slave, and Kakavasha is still crying on a basement floor and you can't do anything for him.

“You need help, Aventurine,” you say, voice soft, and his whole body tenses. His scent dips, and the scent of florals overwhelms you.

“No,” he breathes, “I don't.”

“You do. You're sick.” You bite your lip. Your heart splits as you suggest it, but you say, “I can call a professional.”

“No,” he spits. The facade is gone. The poker face has cracked. The anger and the pain and the fear are all on full display, and his voice sharpens: “No strangers.”

No foreign scents, you realise he's demanding. A new scent would probably make him feel unsafe.

Then let me help you, you think of pleading, but not again, not again, and you're filled with so much shame at the thought that all you can do is look away.

“Then—can I do anything?” He goes still. “Not—not that, but something to make you more comfortable. I can build you a nest, at least—”

“No.” He takes a deep, shaking breath. “No nests. I don't need one—”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don't,” he says. His voice is wavering now, on the verge of crumbling with fever and pain. “I've never—I’ve never needed a nest, I don't—I don't want to—” He presses his face into his pillow. “I need—I need to be alone, fuck—”

He doesn't mean to whine. The cry for distress is instinct, something that all omegas are programmed to do in heat. You’ve heard that they’ve evolved to make this noise as a way of appealing to nearby alphas for help, but you think this must be a lie as you never once saw your alpha master giving mercy to any of his omega slaves. Still, whether it is your biology or not—the noise that Aventurine makes has your heart aching so much you can't help but step forward. But he shakes his head and inches away, shuddering violently, and then his voice echoes again in that cold basement—not again, not again, and don't touch it anymore, don't use it anymore, don't use me anymore, not again, and it's all you can do to back away until your spine is pressed against the door.

“I'm sorry, Vasha,” you say, strained. “I’m sorry. I'll leave you now.”

As the door shuts behind you, you catch a final glimpse him—face pressed into the pillows, shivering.

If you didn't know better, you'd think he was crying.

When you were both slaves, Aventurine hated seeing you during his heats.

Kakavasha was normally calm around you. Most of the time, he was even friendly (he was friendly to everyone whom he thought could be useful), but he was different during his heats. Sometimes he was vicious; mostly he was withdrawn. Nearly always, he wanted to be left alone. In those moments, all he could register was your alpha scent and his memories of what other people had done to him during his heats. And while you'd have hated to leave him, despised the idea of him being offered to another alpha—even more than that, you hated violating this boundary of his. Hated that you were allowed to do whatever you wanted to him. Hated being the reason he felt so unsafe.

Hated being an alpha.

Now that you no longer have the orders of your slavemaster hanging over you, it is the least you can do to respect Aventurine’s wish of being left alone. He has every right to privacy, and you have every obligation to give it to him. But instead you have been standing here, outside his door, for a full system-hour.

Every time you try to leave, your body is wracked with anxiety. The thought of other people—other alphas—coming near him in this state makes you seethe, your hands flexing at your side. The predator instinct comes out, and the people around you notice it. Every person unlucky enough to walk down this hall scurries away under your glare, even the other IPC staff wandering about to look for Aventurine: Must be their mate on the other side, they remark to one another, and then they're gone.

It is a hard thing to hear. You are not his mate. You are not even a heat partner. If you were, then he wouldn't be in so much pain. Not now, and not back then.

Aventurine has never had easy heats. You keep replaying your memories of all his past ones, each one a wound in your heart: the aching sweetness of nectar and honey; his withering body as he clutched his abdomen and curled up; the tears and sweat staining the mat beneath him. And above all: the fear. The scent of it, the sight of it, the sound of it in his voice. Stronger today than any other day.

By instinct, you know that he cannot persist like this. That this time is somehow worse than all those other times, and that he will become seriously ill if left alone.

After nearly an hour and a half, you finally open the door, fearing the worst.

“Aventurine?” you say quietly, but there's no response, and your stomach drops as you see him.

His body is pale, listless. If it weren't for the fragrance washing over you or the sweat on his temple, you'd worry that he was dead.

Tentatively, you reach out. Rest a hand on his forehead, and it scorches you. He stirs at the touch, doesn't open his eyes—but the quiet sigh of relief is unmistakable. His fingers twitch, as if wanting to reach for you.

“Aventurine,” you say gently. “Aventurine, I'm going to take care of you. Is that alright?”

He doesn't respond. You grimace, pulling away to fetch things for him: several spare pillows from the closet, an extra blanket too. From his suitcase, you grab a few of his sweaters, all thick cotton and fleece. He’d had a sense that Agnisahr would be cold at night. Deserts always get cold after sundown, since sand doesn’t retain heat, he'd told you while he was packing. Or I think so, anyway. Don't know why. Must have read it somewhere. Then he’d given you a long, unreadable look before saying, Make sure to bring a jacket. The warmest one you have. The elements on a planet like Agnisahr can kill a person—even a person like you.

I’m sure I’ll be fine, you’d dismissed him. I can survive anything. Any kind of weather, any kind of illness, any kind of pain: these are all things your species is known for being able to endure, the trait that made you such a prized slave in your master’s eyes, such a useful agent at the IPC. You hadn’t given Aventurine’s warning any thought and hardly paid attention to what you’d thrown into your own suitcase.

It surprises you, then, that you find one of your sweaters in his luggage. Made from Sedanian cashmere and heat tech designed by the Intelligentsia Guild. Cloud-soft and warm to the touch. Aventurine had bought it for you before you were deployed to Jarilo-IV to collect intelligence for Topaz. Warmest thing in the known universe, he’d commented. One of a kind, too. Remember to wear it, alright? Don't let my money go to waste, now.

You stare at it, kneading the fleece between your fingers. You hadn’t mentioned wanting to bring this sweater. You’d lost it in your closet some months ago and forgot about it. Aventurine must have remembered and gone looking for it, because—why? You aren't sure. Probably because it’s warmer and softer than anything he owns, you guess. Of course he’d want to wear it.

You throw it into the pile of things you’ve collected for him.

You take it all to his bed, the mattress dipping as you sit next to Aventurine. One by one, you scent each item with your wrist, watching him carefully the whole time. You’re quiet as you lay them out around him, leaving him undisturbed as you build a nest. You order water and electrolyte drinks too, and you’re quick about going to the door when you hear room service knocking—with how feverish he is, he probably badly needs it.

Aventurine is awake when you come back. His breathing is still laboured, pained—but calm.

“I said I didn’t need a nest,” Aventurine says, though he doesn’t sound angry. You wonder if he’s too weak to be. His voice is faint, and his eyes are barely open—focused on the pile of blankets and clothing around him.

“You’re welcome.” You open a bottle of water, hold it out to him. “Drink.”

Aventurine pauses, stares at the offering like it's some kind of foreign object. But he accepts it eventually, sitting up and taking it from you. He winces with the movement, which he tries to hide. He ignores your frown as he drinks, and he doesn't stop until the bottle is empty.

“There are more,” you say, pointing at the several additional bottles on the nightstand. “And some food and some painkillers. I don't know how well they’ll work. This isn't a normal heat. If you're alright with it, I'll call a doctor and—”

“Everything smells like you,” he says quietly, and you stop.

“...yes. Unless they’re mated, nests usually feel most comforting to an omega when they smell like an alpha.” You swallow, looking away. “...you don't have a mate, and you didn't want a professional, so this was the only option I could think of. I'm sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says. He picks out one of the sweaters that have made its way into the nest, the Sedanian one. “I don't mind it.”

“Oh.” You let out a breath. “Then—can I call a doctor?”

His grip on the sweater tightens. “No.”

You frown. “Aventurine—”

“I’ve never needed a doctor before,” he says. He sounds unbothered, but he's fidgeting with the sweater now. “I don't need one now.”

A lie. He almost certainly needed a doctor in some of his prior heats, but you don't push the matter. “Maybe you don't need one,” you say instead, “but it would help.”

“I don't need help,” he says, and you look at him in disbelief. He catches your expression, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Not more than you've already done, I mean.”

“I’ve barely—”

“Contact Topaz. Tell her I'm incapacitated. Tell her…” He hums. “Tell her I have food poisoning. The personnel too. It's not time-sensitive, our business on Agnisahr, so it shouldn't matter if I need a few days off.”

“You really need—”

“Give my regrets to our Agnisahran friends. Deliver it in person. They see you as my right hand, so they’ll most appreciate it coming from you. Topaz can help you with the verbiage. And—try to socialise with them a little, won't you? I think that little omega princess of theirs likes you. Some of the courtesans too, and they have surprising influence.”

“I do not want to be around any omega other than you right now,” you say before you can stop yourself, and Aventurine stops, blinking. His expression is blank, if perhaps a little curious—but his scent shifts. You can't identify how. You add quickly, “I’m not leaving you alone when you’re this sick.”

“Ah. Right.” Aventurine looks away. His voice sounds strange, and his heat must be getting to him again, because it carries a hint of pain. “But you have to. The IPC’s goals take priority.”

You frown. “Your life is more important than the IPC,” you say, and he laughs. Loudly.

“What? This is just a heat. I’m not going to die.”

“You don’t know that without seeing a doctor.”

“I do. I’m willing to bet money that I won’t die.” He cuts you off before you can reply: yes, you're always willing to bet on your life. “And even if I do, that would still be less important than Agnisahr. Do you know how many resources are on this lifeless rock?” His mouth slants. “If we mess up here, I’m dead anyway.”

“I wouldn’t let them touch you.”

“Yes, you would—because they would kill you too.” Aventurine sighs. His eyes close, and his brow creases—a sign that whatever reprieve he was lucky enough to get is about to end. “Go do what I asked. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll… see a doctor if you do.”

You stand immediately. “Alright. I’ll be back to check on you.”

“I know.”

You stop at the door, giving him a long look. Seeing him like this—lying on a proper bed, cradled in a warm nest, with water and food and medicine nearby—you feel a little better. This is leagues beyond what he’d been afforded in his days as a slave, at the very least. Even if he isn’t free, at least he isn’t trapped.

But it still doesn’t feel good, having to step away. The last thing you want to do is talk to other people, pretend to have interest in other omegas. There are an astonishing number of them who are interested in you on this planet—that princess, and some baron’s son, and one of the prince’s favourite paramours—but you can’t bring yourself to care even for business purposes when Aventurine is like this. You can't act as if you are enjoying yourself when you know he is in pain.

You wonder about telling Topaz the truth. You wonder if she’d be worried enough about Aventurine to let you neglect this mission and cover for you instead, without letting Jade or Diamond or anyone else dangerous know. Not that you think that anyone at the Company particularly cares about Kakavasha—it’s only that he’s valuable. Aventurine of Stratagems is valuable. How many worlds have fallen because of him?

But he seemed unwilling to bet on his worth to them. Which is startling, given how often he's bet on it in the past.

“What’s so important about this planet,” you can’t help but ask, “that the IPC would rather you die than lose it?”

He’s silent for a long moment. His eyes are closed—hidden—but you can see his knuckles whiten as he clutches the Sedanian sweater.

“Copper,” he says. “They want it for the copper.”

When Kakavasha first suggested a friendship to you, it had felt like something in between a proposition and a threat:

Go ahead, he'd said. Use me as you wish. You can even stab me in the back if you want. Just be mindful of this: I don't make deals that don't pay off.

It might have been a strange way of making friends in any other circumstance, but in a house of slaves, it was a natural one. You had not been a clever person—still aren't—but you understood that your place in the world was one of a tool. This was the place of all slaves: you were all things to be used. Your body was a thing to be used. It was valuable for its strength, for its hardiness, for its threat in the arena and for its convenience in your master’s bed (or in a dark basement, or within a heat house, or inside whichever omega your mistress ordered you to calm down). It did not surprise you that Kakavasha wanted to use it as well. It did not surprise you that Kakavasha expected you to use him in return.

You never would have, of course. Kakavasha was not a thing to be used—he had always been a mate. Though you were happy to let him use you, because all you were was a tool anyway, so it was really all you could offer him: to be used.

None of this has changed for you. You don't think any of this has changed for Aventurine, either. With each new friendship he makes, he repeats those familiar words: Use me as you wish. And with each person who accepts, this is exactly what they do: they use him, and they use him, and they use him until suddenly they notice he's tricked them and they've got the losing hand.

You damned gambler, they always spit. You Sigonian wretch. All you know is how to manipulate people. Thief, liar, cheat, whore. Despite all these insults, Aventurine always smiles at them. Cry as they might, he’s won his bet and has their world in his palms.

Winner takes all, he sometimes gloats.

Winning and losing. Using and being used. Exploitation and treachery. This is all Aventurine knows; these are his great guiding principles in life. (He's told you this point blank, stacking up chips in his favourite gambling dens with a self-satisfied grin.) You often find yourself coming back to these conversations, particularly when you need to convince him of something.

And right now, you very badly need to convince him of something.

Aventurine is ignoring his doctor’s advice. His suppressants are unstable in extreme temperatures, he's been told. During travel on Agnisahr, they'd degraded, and now he’s experiencing his first heat in several years. Of course it's going to be painful, his doctor had said. I can prescribe you some medication to ease the symptoms, but really—nothing will work better than a heat partner. It doesn't need to be a mate. Any alpha will do.

The doctor had been an alpha. You had asked for a beta or omega, but alphas tend to dominate in Interastral Medical Schools, so they're in short supply. Aventurine had been still the whole time, face unreadable, but you could tell he wanted to throw up at the stench of an unfamiliar alpha. You had stepped between the two of them, not bothering to hide the animosity in your voice. We’ll take the medication, you had said, and the doctor had sniffed the air and nodded at you in approval.

Probably won't need it. An alpha like you could sort him out with just a few rounds, he told you, and both of you stayed quiet as he left.

You still aren't talking, or even looking at each other. Aventurine has lay down in his nest again, closing his eyes, while you stand as far away as physically possible—at the door where you'd just shown the doctor out. With the room shut off again, windows closed and door locked, Aventurine’s scent is starting to flood your senses once more. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch him shivering.

“What do you want to do?” you ask.

“Nothing.” He swallows. “I'll be fine.”

He's afraid. You can tell he's afraid. And you can tell he’ll be more afraid if you take even a single step closer to him, so you nod and say, “I'll go pick up your medication, then,” and Aventurine doesn't stop you. You can see him curling up in his nest, face pressed into the cashmere sweater.

But he still doesn't stop you.

After a few more days, Aventurine finally breaks.

There is a rare sag to his shoulders when he calls you to the room, along with a taste of dread in the air. You haven't seen him so vulnerable in years. Aventurine is not an open person, so cunning and self-possessed in his wealth—but Kakavasha was more brittle, more powerless, flayed raw and open even though he didn't often get the whip. (It would ruin his value if he ever scarred—his looks were his greatest selling point, your master said.) He was especially defeated when forced to spend his heats with an alpha he didn't want. You wonder, a vice grip of pain around your heart, whether this entire situation is simply an extension of that. Whether he is calling you here against his will, this time compelled by his pain, rather than his master. Whether this luxury suite feels like that wretched basement to him.

He doesn't look at you when he talks, nor does he sit up. He remains curled in his nest, nearly clinging onto the blankets and clothes.

“That stupid medication,” he pants out, sharp even in his heat, “isn't working.”

“I can tell.” Your brow knots. He’s in so much pain, it is palpable. “I”—you hesitate, voice dropping. “Can I help you?”

He goes quiet. As both Aventurine and Kakavasha, he has always been disinclined to accept help from other people. There is no such thing as unconditional help in his mind—only leverage and weakness. He hates it when people have leverage over him, and he hates being weak. Both are things that can be exploited, and Aventurine always needs to be the one doing the exploiting. He always needs to be in control.

Even like this, the last threads of his sanity about to snap, with every circuit of his omega biology trying to drag him into insensible lust, he fights viciously to be in control.

Winning and losing. Using and being used. Exploitation and treachery. Control and being controlled. This is how he's always lived. This is how he's always survived.

This is the only way to let him maintain control when he is most afraid of losing it.

“I don't mind,” you say quietly, “if you use me.”

Even through the haze of heat, Aventurine’s eyes sharpen. “What?”

“I don't mind if you use me,” you repeat, voice neutral. Unfeeling. The proposal might sound cruel to someone else, but not you. After all—your place in the world is one of a tool, and this is what you've always done as an alpha and a slave: sleeping with people to take care of their needs, or sometimes just their desires. It did always make you feel strangely hollow, but you think it will feel just fine with Aventurine. All you've ever wanted to do is keep him safe, and surely, this will do that, but—

“I'll only help if you want. I don't want to force it.” You lower your eyes. “But if you do want it, I'll be careful with you. You can lead. I promise.”

“...I know.” Aventurine’s voice is weak, cracks with pain, but you can tell he's speaking with clarity. “I know you will be.”

You look up. “Then you'll let me help?”

Aventurine looks away—a sign that he cannot adopt his usual smile. He’s clutching that sweater again, pressed close to his chest.

“Just your wrist,” he says quietly.

You listen carefully. “What?”

“I just—I just want your wrist.” He looks away. “Your—your scent gland. Only that.”

“Okay.”

You get up, then falter. When it was your job to comfort your mistress’ omega slaves, you were told to enter their nests—no permission needed from them, no permission needed from you, because only her permission ever mattered for anything. The omegas were usually too delirious to care, often had even begged for it with the state of mind that they were in. But Aventurine is different. He's not like you, and he's not like them. He's never bent to any of his masters’ wills. And even if he did, you wouldn't want to have him bend to yours.

Instead of climbing into his nest, you ask, “Can I sit on the bed?” He doesn't answer. “Just the edge of it,” you add, and you hear him exhale.

“Fine,” he says, breathing measured.

“Thank you,” you say, and he gives you a confused look. But then you're reaching out with a hand, offering it, and he is quickly distracted.

Aventurine drops the sweater, grabs your hand almost immediately. He turns over your palms, fingers tracing your heartlines—as if testing you, as if mapping out territory. He runs his thumbs along the veins of your wrists, too, right over your scent gland, and you have to force yourself not to shudder at the feeling. You only stay still, letting him explore the contours of your hands, letting him acclimate to the feeling of your skin. He laces his fingers with your own, a latticework trap, and he finally drags his wrist along yours.

Both of you inhale sharply.

You can't react. You know it'll scare him if you do, but it's hard to keep still. The way his scent blossoms, the way it mingles with yours, the way it all washes over you—what you're doing can hardly be called touching, but you feel like you're going mad. Especially when he flushes like that, his vibrant eyes fluttering shut. Especially when the sweetness of honey overtakes your senses. Especially when you can smell the way his body is reacting, all that wetness and heat and slick dripping between his legs. You don't miss the way his thighs rub together, nor the hard outline of his cock straining against his pants.

Aventurine shudders. He brings your hand up to his face, rests his cheek in your palm. His skin is flushed and burning with fever, and it's no wonder that he's sighing with relief at your touch. You try not to stare at the way his mouth falls open. He looks at you for a moment, his gaze a hazy violet and blue—before he closes his eyes again and presses his lips into your wrist.

Fuck.

“Aventurine—” You have to stop, voice strangled, when you feel the full softness of his lips working against your skin. He’s panting now, laboured breaths sweeping over your veins. Then you feel his teeth catch, a gentle nip on your flesh, and when he groans into your racing pulse—deep, relieved, desperate, a noise that makes your gut flare with heat—you realise you can't do this.

You pull back your hand, and Aventurine startles.

“Aventurine,” you say, voice strained. Maybe we should stop, you want to say, but he cuts you off.

“I need”—a shaky breath—“I need more.”

You watch Aventurine carefully. His pupils are dilated, blue irises nearly eclipsed. His cheeks are rosy, and he can't stop panting. You can fully smell his arousal now, even through his silk clothes. He's desperate, needing to be filled.

But he also looks torn. His brows are knotted, and you can taste a faint hint of fear in the air now. His knuckles clutch at the sheets, almost white, and he stares at them. He can't look up. He can't look at you. His whole body is tense, like he wants to bolt—and if he weren't so weak, you think he might actually.

“Are you sure?” you ask.

He doesn't nod. He also doesn't shake his head. His arms clutch at his midsection as he winces. He doesn't look like Aventurine. He looks like Kakavasha. It makes your heart ache as you watch him give into his body’s demands, wearing the same expression he did on the day your master bought him.

“...don't use your Voice on me,” Aventurine—Kakavasha—says quietly.

It takes you a moment to realise what he's asking. “I won't.”

“And”—his eyes somehow grow even more evasive, hidden by his long lashes— “don’t touch my commodity code.”

His commodity code. His commodity code that is seared into his scent gland. His code that, if you kiss, will ease his agony instantly. His code that, if you bite—will chain him to you irreversibly.

“Of course I won't,” you say instantly.

He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath.

“And—” Aventurine looks away, jaw tight. His voice is quiet but wrought with tension: “—I don't like when people put things inside me.”

Something claws the walls of your heart.

“That's fine too,” you reply. “I don't mind doing it the other way.”

Aventurine’s sigh is nearly inaudible, but unmistakable. His scent shifts a little bit, the wildflower fragrance fading ever so slightly. But he doesn't come to you. He merely sits there—waiting. Expecting. Maybe dreading. Even in the senseless daze of heat, he’s too anxious to move.

You approach slowly. Though you're overwhelmed by the bouquet of his scent, though you feel a curl of heat in your belly in response to it—you are slow. Alphas are supposedly victims of insatiable lust whenever around an omega in heat, absolved of every action they take, but you are convinced this is a lie. You have never once wanted to handle Aventurine with such cruelty. You think that inflicting violence on him, more than anything else, would go against your biology. Every molecule in your body would reject putting him in such pain or inciting such fear. So you are careful when you approach him, slow as you inch up to him—but you do not think it helps.

Aventurine lies down, his face turned away from yours. His eyes squeeze shut, like he's expecting this to hurt. Uncertainty gnaws at your gut as you lean over him, draping your body over his—the only position you've ever taken an omega in, other than mounting them from behind.

(You do not want to mount Aventurine. You never have. It is an impersonal position, a position that omega biology supposedly would force him to enjoy, a position that alphas have likely dictated him to enjoy. You think there is nothing you would hate more. In your weakest, most selfish moments, in your worst ruts, when you’ve allowed yourself to fantasise about mating Kakavasha—you are always facing each other, and he is always looking at you with his eyes you've always loved, and it always feels intimate. Never impersonal. Never dictated. Never forced.)

Aventurine is so honeysweet beneath you. More fragrant than any omega you’ve ever been with. You glance at his commodity code, trying to ignore the scent of his branded skin, then lean down to press your face against the other side of his neck, where a faint scar mars the otherwise flawless slope of his nape. Like every other omega slave you've ever slept with, the scent gland there has been excised: a precautionary measure to reduce the risk of an unwanted mating bite.

(Not unwanted by them—the wants of a slave never matter—but unwanted by their owners. A mating bite would ruin the code seared into their neck, claim an omega more deeply and permanently than any titanium collar or carbon steel chain. It would hurt their resale value. Only owners are allowed to claim slaves in such a permanent way—and the wants of a slave have no relevance there, either.)

It's a funny thing, this surgical scar. Even with their gland missing, you've noticed that most omegas like having their neck scented by you anyway, probably from some vestigial instinct. You guess that Aventurine won't be any different, that maybe it will comfort him. But when your lips skim the scar left on him by his owner, his entire body stiffens beneath you. His fragrance cuts into your lungs, sharp.

You recoil, as if burned by the touch of him.

“Sorry,” Aventurine is quick to say. He tries to glance at you, but his diamond pupils quickly avoid you again. “Don’t worry about me. Just do whatever you need to do.”

“But you're scared,” you point out, and you see his brow twitch. “You’re scared when I touch you.”

“Not scared,” he lies. “Just…”

When his eyes finally look at you—land on your lips—you understand.

A bite would claim an omega more deeply and permanently than any titanium collar or carbon steel chain. If you lost your mind—give into the insatiable lust of an alpha whenever around an omega in heat—you might bite him, and then you would own Aventurine.

And Aventurine would rather die than be owned by anyone again.

He doesn't need to finish his sentence. You already know what you need to do.

“It's okay,” you say gently, and his brow knots. “I have an idea.”

Aventurine is always afraid.

This is a fact that has haunted you since the day you met him. You've wondered about how to fix it—the bare minimum as his mate (always his, even if he doesn't want you)—and you’ve never quite pinned down how. Because when someone has spent their life in perpetual fear, how do you make them feel safe? When their life is constantly at risk, how do you ever make them feel calm?

You still aren't sure of the answer. But after seeing Kakavasha become Aventurine, you now have a good guess.

It is clear from his scent that Aventurine does not feel remotely safe right now. Not when you leave to fetch something from your own room, and not when you return. The anxiety thickens when he sees, in your hands, a very familiar muzzle.

Aventurine stares. He is not smiling, but he also does not reveal his discomfort on his face, even as beads of sweat line his temple. But his voice is too controlled, too calm, when he asks, “You kept the mask.”

You nod.

“I told you to throw it out,” he points out, “when I freed you.”

“I know. Sorry. I don't know why I kept it.” You remember how tightly you clutched it before the incinerator, thinking about how strange it would feel, discarding something that you'd worn everyday since you presented—but you don't tell him this. Instead, you say, “But it’s convenient.”

Before Aventurine can say anything, you toss him the remote.

“You’re afraid of my bite and my Voice, but you don't have to be with this,” you explain. Your tone is gentle, soothing. Probably disarming coming from an alpha, with how he is in heat. Perhaps that's why he’s studying the remote rather than chucking it away. “You'll be in full control if I wear this.”

Control. Mere seconds after you say it, you can smell his fragrance change again, mellowing. It's only a brief moment of calm that fades when you latch the mask onto your face, but he doesn't smell as nearly as stressed before.

Aventurine watches you carefully as the carbon steel swallows your maw, its old and familiar edges biting into you. For the first time in years, you cannot tell what he is thinking—truly poker-faced even to you.

“You aren't bothered by wearing that thing while we do this,” he says—asks?—and you shake your head. The muzzle was part of you for years. You were wearing it when you killed someone for the first time. You were wearing it when you went into rut for the first time. You were wearing it when your master had sex with you for the first time. It doesn't bother you that you’ll wear it when you have sex with Aventurine.

If you could speak, you would ask him, Why do you think it would bother me? But all you do is gesture for him to sit up. To switch places with you. You lie down—something you've never done with an omega—and wait for him to get on top.

Aventurine stares at you for a long, quiet moment. It's followed by a sigh of relief. Disarmed, he—for the first time in any heat you've witnessed—finally relaxes. His scent wafts over you as he climbs between your legs, and you can feel the heat radiating from his hands as he parts your thighs, almost scalding.

He doesn't bother getting you ready, too needy to think rationally, but he doesn't have to anyway. You've been wet ever since you felt his mouth touch your wrist, hard ever since you heard him groan into it. You're equally desperate to get some relief as you feel his cockhead sliding against your opening, leaking all over your entrance as his slick drips onto your thighs. His breath shakes as he enters you, and he can't hear it with how you're muzzled—but you groan just as deeply as him at the tight stretch.

You hear him swear when you clench around him, watch him lean over you. His arms shake as he supports himself, refusing to succumb to his heat even as he chases his relief. You seek out his gaze (just as in your dreams, facing each other, intimate), and his neon eyes catch on your eyes for a brief, breathtaking second—

—before he looks away.

There's a flash of—you don't know what, maybe pain? Or fear?—in his irises as he does. A twitch of the brow, a tell he'd normally rather die than let slip. You have the realisation, as Aventurine moves inside you, that even while you're muzzled, even while he has complete control over you—he still can't stand having sex with you. Probably because he can't stand being in heat in general, you tell yourself. Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't use it anymore, don't use me anymore. He'd have this reaction to anyone.

Still—you didn't expect him to have this reaction to you.

Your hands twitch, possessed by an old instinct to cover your eyes. But you'd probably scare Aventurine if you moved your arms, so all you do is dig your fingers into the sheets and squeeze them shut. You tell yourself again and again that he'd hate having sex with anyone in these circumstances—not just you. And then you tell yourself, as a desperate, broken moan leaves his branded throat, that he would also come inside anyone in these circumstances, caught within the cruel grip of his heat.

Aventurine stills inside you as he finishes. He pants, sweat dripping down his temple as he shudders in his ecstasy, his spend hot and thick inside you. You can feel his fever break as he comes down from his high, the heat coming off his body easing into a manageable warmth.

Do you feel better, you try to say, but you can't move your mouth while your mask is on. So you wait patiently for Aventurine to come back to himself, watching him carefully as he pulls out and rolls onto the mattress beside you. He finally glances at you then. His eyes narrow once they land on you, confusion flicking through them. Then displeasure. He reaches for the remote.

To your surprise, he immediately punches in the code to unlock your muzzle. Aventurine has apparently remembered the numbers after all these years, as if the moment he freed you has been since seared into his memory.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing you say, and Aventurine gives you a confused look. He’s still panting, dazed, so you ask, “Can I check your temperature?” And when he nods, you confirm your suspicion: he's still much too warm.

There is an ache between your legs and a strange hollow in your gut (because you aren't very experienced with receiving, you think—your body likely just isn't used to the feeling of it), but you quickly forget them. All you can think of is Aventurine, and how he’s still unwell, and how you need to comfort him. The instinct is so strong that you don't even say anything as you get up, straightening out your clothes.

“Are you leaving?” Aventurine asks. His voice is neutral, completely unbothered, but the thought is so horrific to you that you turn back to him with wide eyes.

“Of course not. I'm going to get you water and medicine.” A beat. You stare at Aventurine’s eyes, then think about how he hid them from you during sex. The hollow feeling comes back, but it's mostly eclipsed by your anxiety at the next thought: “...do you want me to leave?”

“Do you want to?”

“I—” I'd rather die, you think. Being forced to leave him right now would feel like tearing out a piece of yourself. You don't know if there's an alpha in this world who could leave their mate in the middle of a heat. And even if he is unmarked, unattached to you—you still think of yourself as his mate. (His, always his, even if he doesn't want you.) “I would prefer not to. I am your heat partner. I'm supposed to take care of you.”

You hear a quiet breath. “Right. Of course. You're always so conscientious.” Aventurine nods, as if convincing himself of something. “Try not to take too long.”

“I’ll come back soon,” you promise, and the air sweetens. Encouraged, you add, voice gentle: “I’ll bring that medication, and then we can have sex as many times as you need after I come back. I'll make sure you're not in any pain anymore.” You pause, studying him. “Is there anything else you need to feel better?”

His fragrance changes once more, this time in a way you don't totally recognize. “No.” His voice sounds strange. His scent is still foreign, fluctuating, possibly hinting at some kind of pain. The heat must be getting to him again—and of course it wasn't enough, what you just did, what you can provide. He likely needs to be filled to get any kind of lasting relief, but you left him empty. “No, that's all I want.”

You nod, forcing yourself to look calm. Ignoring the emptiness in your gut. It didn't feel bad, but you hope it'll feel better next time you have sex. You think it will. Alphas are supposed to be filled with an insatiable lust near omegas in heat, after all. And even though you’ve never felt that before—never felt anything sleeping with all those omegas in your mistress’ house—you are sure you'll eventually feel it around Aventurine.

But the feeling never comes. Even though you can tell that his heat has returned by the time you're back—sweat beading his temples, laboured breaths at his lips, his bottoms now discarded, with full evidence of arousal between his legs—you don't feel much of anything as you reach for your mask again.

“Don't,” Aventurine says, before it can clasp around your face. You give him a curious look. He explains, “Don't. I don't want to have sex again. Not yet.”

You stare at him, shifting. Uncomfortable. Uncertain. Not knowing how he wants to use you. “What can I do?”

He gives you a long look. “Come here. I… I want your scent gland.”

It's a sensible request. If there's a way to seek relief without fucking someone—without fucking you, which he clearly hated doing—you're sure Aventurine would prefer it. So you climb into his nest, holding your wrist out for him, and—

“No.” His voice is quiet. “I want the one on your neck.”

“...oh.”

You stand there, not sure where to move. If he wants you in his nest again, or if he’d rather do this standing. You’re relieved when he demands, “Lie down.”

You expect him to get on top of you when you do. Assume that he wants complete control—but he instead lies down beside you. Presses his body into yours, and then his face into your neck. His nose and lips brush against your scent gland, a full-body shudder running through him, and—

—and now you know for a fact that it is a lie that alphas want nothing other than to fuck an omega when they're in heat. Because even like this, with his lips sweet on your neck, with the sheets soaked with his slick, with his spend leaking out of you—you do not want to have sex with Aventurine. You only want to hold him. You only want him to keep scenting you. You only want to scent him back.

You only want him to feel safe.

You breathe in deeply, lungs flooded by honey. You think of what it felt like to hold him in that cold basement, when he was delirious with fever and pain, and you think about how different his scent is now. How much sweeter it is. How much calmer he feels.

“Do you feel better?” you ask, and he doesn't respond, but you know the answer. His hands come up to dig into your shirt, and he presses into you like you're a sweater in his nest. Silence blankets over you both, calm and warm. His laboured breath starts to improve.

He does eventually speak.

“Has anyone ever told you,” he says, “what you smell like?”

You stare at him. Your master used to say that you smelled good, but he'd never elaborated, and you hadn't wanted him to. “No.”

Aventurine breathes in.

“You smell like—” A little sigh, shaking and feverish, leaves him. “You smell like rain.”

Your eyebrows tick up. “Rain?”

“Yes. Or not just rain, but”—he pauses, next words quiet—“more Iike after it rains. You smell like the desert after a rainfall.”

“Oh.” You don't know what to say to that. Feeling distinctly like it's a silly question, you ask, “Is that a good scent?”

“Some would think so. Especially to people from the desert. You probably smell like a blessing to them. Although…”

Aventurine goes quiet again. You stare at the chandelier above you, all crystal and white gold, and wait.

“Although?” you prompt.

“...although I wouldn't really know,” he says. “It’s just a hunch. I bet it's why so many omegas on this planet like you.”

You couldn't care less about those other omegas. All you care about is Aventurine. “And?” you say. “Do you like my scent?”

His reply never comes. He just breathes deeply again, seeking relief from your neck—not intimacy. Any alpha’s scent would work; that doctor told you so. Any alpha’s touch would work, too. There are no special feelings involved here. Your place in the world is one of a tool, and tools are never especially liked nor disliked. Their value exists only in how they can be used.

You don't know why you even bothered to ask the question.

But then something strange happens: Aventurine curls against you, pressing even further into you. His lashes flutter against your pulse again; it ticks up in response, beating fast against his lips.

“I do,” he says quietly. “I do like it.”

You swallow. “But I guess that's because you're in heat. Any alpha would smell good to you, wouldn’t they?”

“No.” His fingers dig into the fabric of your shirt. “No, I like it because it's yours.”

You know better than to read too much into his response. Aventurine had already said it earlier: No foreign scents. He's only tolerating this whole arrangement because you don't smell unfamiliar to him. Only able to use you because you are the least threatening option.

But the words break something in you—break the thing that made you unable to throw out that little pouch of copper coins that you were saving up for Kakavasha’s freedom, the part of you that made you wear that carbon-steel mask for him. It is this part of you that has your eyes squeezing shut and your arms wrapping around him. You know he’ll recoil, reject you, but just this once—you need to try.

Aventurine doesn't push you away.

He melts into you instead, inhaling deeply. Your scent gland tingles with the warmth of his breath, the feeling of his lips. He seems—comfortable.

You can't fathom why he’s staying in your arms. Perhaps he's simply desperate for some kind of relief from his heat, just like when you held him in the basement while he was delirious from pain. But Aventurine had spoken to you with clarity just now, and his skin doesn't feel scalding so much as warm, and his scent is so different than from that moment. So sweet and so gentle, without a trace of fear. It makes your heart squeeze. As much as you've always wanted Aventurine to feel safe, you'd never imagined that his scent would be so beautiful when he is.

It makes your heart ache. You've never held anything so lovely before, and you’ve never felt so warm before, and it all makes up for how badly it hurt to let Aventurine inside you. How hollow it made you feel to let him use you. How none of that matters as long as you can keep him safe like this, because you belong to Kakavasha. You'll always belong to Kakavasha, in a fate that was chosen for you on the day you met him.

You're his, always his—even if he’ll never want you.

end part i

thank you so much to lore for hosting a fantastic collab and to my sponsors who funded this fic and got it over the finish line! please go check out @ficsforgaza to find other amazing hsr writers you can sponsor in order to help fundraise! here is my own wip list, if you are interested in seeing more from me!

and thank you most of all to YOU! I appreciate you so much for reading this chapter. thank you so much for sticking it through.

additional end notes

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

All I can do until we see what happens with this election is hope, distract myself, and try to get others to vote, because if I think too hard about it my anxiety and depression gets worse and the voice in the back of my head that tells me to hurt myself and go hide in the woods or something gets louder

[cuteniarose]

It’s almost 6 a.m and I can’t sleep because I’m being plagued by thoughts of The Latest OC

[s0dium]

𝐖𝐄𝐈𝐑𝐃 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐏𝐔𝐒𝐒𝐘

A/n: For all my weird tumblr smut AO3 girls Synopsis: No one expects the weird girl to have such a good pussy. Warnings: Male whimpering, squirting, pussy drunk men, pervert y/n, unprotected sex

No one suspects the weird girl to be a perverted fiend.

No one suspects the weird girl who reads AO3 and Tumblr on the bus and has key chains of their favorite chibi anime guy. No one suspects the girl who fumbles over their words during a presentation, the girl who goes to classes in sweaters and sweatpants, the girl who spends her time daydreaming about fictional scenarios. No one suspects the girl who always seems shy and sweet, only to have a secret stash of explicit fanfiction hidden on her phone, the kind that would make even the most confident person turn red.

And of course, no one expects the weird girl to have such good pussy.

So when the confident, smooth-talking guy gets you in his bedroom, how the hell is it possible that he is trembling from pleasure just from slipping his tip in?

"Fuck, I c-can’t—" he groans, his voice breaking as he stumbles over the words. His usual cool demeanor is completely shattered, replaced with breathless gasps and desperate sounds. His head is thrown back, neck taut, and his eyes are screwed shut like he’s trying to hold onto every ounce of composure, terrified that if he opens them, the mind-numbing pleasure coursing through him will slip away. Every time your pussy squeezes around his aching dick his body trembles uncontrollably, muscles tensing and relaxing in waves as he tries to keep himself together.

"Look at me," you coo, your voice steady despite the pounding of your own heart. You may be practically a virgin, but you're by no means an idiot. Hours of reading smut, scrolling through Twitter porn threads, and indulging in endless fantasies have taught you more than you'd ever admit. You've spent too many nights alone, lost in stories and scenes where you imagined yourself in control, learning every filthy detail in your mind until it felt like second nature. So now, laying here with him unraveling over you, you're anything but inexperienced.

He locks eyes with you, big and desperate and you cup his perfect face with trembling hands.

"You're mine tonight ok?" you whisper, bringing him in just enough for your breath to tickle his lips, your voice low and dripping with confidence you didn't know you had. "Every sound, every breath—your mine."

"F-fuck, y-yeah I'm yours" he groans, accentuating his words with a sharp thrust right into your cervix, knocking the wind out of you.

"Mmm!" You cry. It’s painful, but in the pain is so much pleasure. He presses his forehead against yours as he slides in and out of you, gripping the sheets with his supporting hand as your hot, wet entrance swallows his cock. Instinctively, you're cunt squeezed around the foreign intrusion, trying to push it out, making him let out a low groan of his own as he thrusts even deeper into you. 

“Y/n I-I can feel you doing it to me,” he says hoarsely.

His fingers gently press into the skin of your hip, guiding and steadying you as he pulls back and thrusts into you. The sudden friction and collision with your G-spot makes your brain go fuzzy. Ticklish pleasure courses through your veins and you immediately throw your head back against the wall as he rams into you.

"Hnghh, s-so good~~" You whine. It was dizzying, the curvature of his dick digging itself against your g-spot, scraping against your vaginal walls every time he backed his hips up.

Simultaneously, his other hand sought yours, finding it with a purposeful tenderness. His fingers intertwined with yours, locking them together in a grip that was both a clasp and a caress.

"Were we doing it like this in your head baby?" He grunts, his Adam apple bobs as he groans from the pleasure of how fucking heavenly your pussy feels. "Because this is how we were doing it in mine." He felt good? Try euphoric. How could it be possible that pussy feels this good?

You can't even open your mouth to respond. The friction of his dick against your walls is just too good and as his pace intensified, a dizzying warmth spread through you, filling every corner of your being with a euphoric haze. The sensation of being completely enveloped, utterly connected, sent electric flesh arrows of pleasure through your body, making your eyes flutter and roll back slightly in sheer bliss. Every motion he makes, every time his fat tip collides with your cervix, leaves behind a trail of sparkling heat that seems to light you from within.

And of course, no one expects the weird girl to be a squirter.

You don't know whats happening and you don't have enough to warn him. Release washed over you in an all-encompassing wave, radiating out from your core to the very tips of your fingers and toes. It swept through you like a storm, leaving a trail of starbursts in its wake. Your body arched instinctively, clinging to him as the wave crested, then gently, slowly, began to ebb.

He stills his motion and watches through wide eyes as clear liquid sprays onto his abdomen and you tremble and moan. As you floated back down from the heights of bliss, your breath came easier, softer, the lingering aftershocks of pleasure pulsing gently through you.

"Why did you stop?" You whisper.

Sukuna, Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, Toji Fushiguro

#weirdgirlpussy

[tonycries]

SOOO ANXIOUS

Synopsis. When he’s a 10 but the pulI-out game is non-existent.

Pairings. [SEPARATE] Gojo x Reader, Sukuna x Reader, Choso x Reader, Geto x Reader, Nanami x Reader, Toji x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! reader, creampíes, breéding, breaking the condóm, overstím, Gojo’s powers going haywire, spítting, cúmplay, NÉEDY BOYS, marathon séx, chokíng, SLIGHT dàddy kínk (Nanami’s), jealousy (Sukuna), first times (Choso), limitless, exhíbitionísm (Sukuna), true form! Sukuna, dp, pet names, swearing.

Word count. 5.9k (wild omg)

A/N. Ty to that one anon for reminding me of Gojo and his limitless, I just had to. Hope y’all have a lovely day <3

♡ TOJI FUSHIGURO - When life gives you…

Dammit, Toji knew he should’ve looked over your shopping list closer. He knew he should’ve spent just a little longer at the convenience store searching for that special brand the two of you always used - the only one that could fit his massive size - instead of rushing home like a madman to fuck you sloppily into your silken sheets.

He knew. 

But, well, feeling that thin excuse of rubber that was once coating his achy cock snap open - crashing his raw, leaky tip right against the bottom of your syrupy pussy, bruising - he certainly didn’t have any regrets either. 

“Whoops.” you hear Toji’s ragged, unapologetic huff against your ear. Lips quirking up into a smirk when you’re looking up at him in question with those cockdrunk eyes of yours. “Broke the condom again.” he explains. 

And as if to confirm, he’s sliding a calloused palm right down to the bulging area of your slit, sliding his eager fingers along the edge of that glossy piece of tattered rubber, “Now what do you suppose we do about that, ma?”

What?

And it’s all you can do to whirl your glassy gaze down at where he was already admiring. The sinful sight of your ravaged pussy winking lewdly up at you - puffy lips spread to bulge about his angry, red cock. Beading a sheen of your sweet sweet juices down his length, being swallowed up greedily. His raw length. 

“Toji–” you hiss, digging the balls of your heels at those dimples down the bottom of his spine, making him hiss in delight. “You bought the wrong ngh- brand of condoms? Again? This is the fifth time this week.”

And oh he found it so cute when you’re mad at him like this, pretending like your absolute slut of a cunt didn’t just get wetter at the feeling of his cock throbbing against your walls. Milking him so good that he can’t help but let his addicted hips move in lingering thrusts, jamming into your g-spot over and over like a little apology. 

He’s humming, “Accident- ouch!” 

The thick head of his cock pulses even deeper inside you when you give his muscled pecs a bratty smack. “Fine fine- I may have uh- rushed jus’ a bit.” As if to wipe away that tiny bit of guilt in his words, Toji’s hips are thrashing harder into you, merciless. “But heyyyy—” he leans down to drag his lips against your own in a messy kiss. “Y’know what they say, when ngh- l-life gives you the wrong pack of condoms, give her a creampie.”

You narrow your eyes, “Y-you’re such a-”

But within a millisecond, he’s dragging his swollen cock out of your snug cunt - barely, just enough to pull off those flimsy dredges of whatever was left of his condom after those bullying thrusts he’d been planting on your poor pussy. 

“I’m jus’ being resourceful, woman” Toji chokes out when you bite down on his collarbone at the audacity. Before plowing on, words dripping with faux-apology, “Ahhh what to do, such a shame I forgot to get the r-right condoms. Whatever shall we do, ma?”

Before diving straight back into your heavenly entrance, purposefully taking his time to rub against every hidden nook and cranny of your walls. Toji throws his head back, defined abs bowing into you, “I know. How about this time insteada pulling out, you finally let me cum inside?”

And you knew Toji had such a mean cock, and fucked you even meaner. But fuck this was ridiculous. 

“Ngh- T-Toji!” you’re keening with every heavy smack of his balls against your stinging ass, being rocked further and further up the drenched mattress with the force of his sharp jabs. “You’re lucky you feel too ngh- good this way.”

“Heh, see? What did I tell ya? Now fuckin’ come-” Thick fingers wrap around your hips, pulling your back down, down, down - deep to spearhead his cock into your sweet spots. “-here-” Rendering you unable to escape, unable to do anything but be splayed out like such a slut while he’s molding your cunt to the shape of his length. Frenzied. Crazed. The complete opposite of the smugly gentle kisses he presses to your teary cheeks, “-and take my actual cock like a good girl, doll. Lemme make you a mama.”

The thought has you letting out such pitiful whimpers, thighs quivering. “Hah- m’gonna cum. M’so close, Toji-”

Gripping him so tight you could feel the outline of his prominent veins, the sensitive spots along his shaft. Toji’s brows furrow in concentration, letting out a sultry drawl of words, “Yeah? Is this pretty pussy gonna cum?” He reaches down to toy a long index around your neglected clit, sending your eyes rolling back with a moan. “Gonna be stuffed full of my seed like she’s supposed to?”

You can only get out a few bleary nods, and usually Toji would tease you a little more - have you begging and crying. But right now he’s so fucked. 

The feeling of your squeezing walls too tight, the crashing of his sensitive tip against your spongy g-spot too much that the only thing he can grit out is a low, “Then cum- cum f’me, doll.”

 He feels it before you realize you’re cumming, just running on wave upon wave of pure electricity running down your spine while Toji ruts into you so animalistically. Reeling back only for a few sloppy, solid half-thrusts - because you couldn’t bear to separate too much from your cunt - before spilling into you.

And - oh, he was only mad he didn’t do this sooner.

“Oh this is the stuff- fuuuuck this- is- what I needed- take it.” Thick rope upon rope of his hot cum, decorating your saturated walls. So much that it was gushing out of you with each pump of Toji’s hips fucking it deeper inside you - the thought of pulling out not even daring to cross his mind. Oozing. Messy. “Take it all. Make me a daddy again, why don’t ya.”

After all, he did pick the wrong brand for a reason, right?

♡ NANAMI KENTO - Family matters!

The office can be loud - given, it’s hours past everyone’s shift and you and Nanami were the only ones cooped up in his office working overtime right now. 

But still, the office can be loud - which is why Nanami Kento isn’t exactly sure he hears you correctly the first time. Not until you keep looking at him with that sultry, determined graze, spit-glossed lips moving to repeat, “I want a baby, Ken.”

It only takes three seconds for him to lock the door and shove you against the cool mahogany of his desk, bunching up that cute pencil skirt of yours at the waist. Which, Nanami thinks, unbuckling his expensive pants to swipe his angry tip between your slobbering slit, is three seconds too late in his opinion.

“You really wan’ me to disrespect your cute cunt this way, my pretty lil’ wife?” he’s purring into your ear, just a soft reassurance before he absolutely fucking ruins you. “Because m’not going hah- easy on you this time.”

And maybe you’re a genius, maybe you’re an idiot who doesn’t know what’s good for her - because you flash him a grin, “So are ya gonna fuck me or not?”

Soon enough, that grin was turning into your jaw sagging open lewdly, drool trickling down the corner of your lips with every bullying squeeze of Nanami’s massive cock inside you. Stretching out every inch of your gummy walls around his swollen girth. 

“Oh God—” you’re moaning, eyes rolling to the back of your head with each harsh ram. Wiggling hips mindlessly torn between running away and fucking yourself back onto your husband’s bludgeoning cock for more. 

He’s shutting you up with a gentle suck on your candied lips, humming into the kiss, “Jus’ ‘Ken’ works fine, my love.”

And it takes you a few seconds to register his remark - a few, dizzying seconds of being spearheaded by Nanami’s fat tip. Roaming, heavy balls smacking the fat of your ass when he angles his hips just right to ruthlessly kiss against that one sweet spot he knows you love so much. Swirling his furious tip around to find-

“Oh fuck!”

There.

Merciless. Nanami Kento is absolutely merciless. 

And all you can do is scramble your jittery fingers towards his desk, his forgotten work documents, him - your body is moving before your heated mind when you reach behind to drag Nanami in closer by his yellow, speckled tie. 

All the way until his plump lips were mere millimeters away from yours, “I actually think ‘daddy’ would work better, no?”

Oh. Oh, fuck.

He was completely and utterly fucked. 

It takes the both of you by surprise when a large hand comes up to your neck, thick fingers squeezing hard around your pretty throat. The cold metal of Nanami’s wedding ring burning into your skin when he shuts up those filthy words of yours. 

“Ken-”

“Shut up. Sh-shut up, darling I’m- fuck I’m-” is all Nanami’s able to stutter out before his hips grow sloppy. And you could feel the way his twitching cock massaged at your plushy walls, the wet sounds of skin-and-skin becoming more and more languid before-

Nanami doesn’t think he’s ever cum this embarrassingly fast in his life. Never did it only take him a few more mean, calculated thrusts into your heavenly cunt until he’s spurting thick wisps of his seed. Coating your poor pussy in a sheen of his cum - of him. 

He whimpers, bending his long legs at the knees to grind up deeper into your, feeling the warm slosh of his own seed inside. 

“Fuck Ken–” you wheeze, throat raw from the unforgiving hand still around it. Vision spotty and you feel like floating - or maybe that’s just the way Nanami had you lifting off the ground with each relentless ram. “Gonna be the ngh- fuckin’ death of me.”

“Hah, you’re gonna be the hngh- death of me.” he groans, free hand coming up to slide his glasses further up his nose. Shit, if Nanami angled his head just right he could see that sinful, sinful trail of cum down your legs. Glistening under the dim office lighting, forming a little pool right at that crevice between your thigh. “Yeah oh fuck- m’not getting out of this alive. Not with you, darling.”

And oh you should’ve known. Should’ve had an inkling at the way Nanami was still achingly rock-hard between your legs. At the way he innocently grazes a thumb across your sloppy hole, pooling the heady mix of cum and slick on the pads of his fingers - before shoving them right back in. Skirting around that depraved shaft of his to squeeze whatever dredges of seed he could get his hands on back inside you.

It was making such a mess - with each bullying pump of Nanami’s fingers at your dripping cunt, cum was gushing out of your wrecked hole. Slow, and torturous. 

Exactly the way he was moving back inside of you now, reeling his toned hips back to smash right into your sweet spots. Dragging that orgasm out of you - out of him, “Gotta make sure it takes, right?”

Suddenly, you have the feeling that it’s going to be a long, long night working overtime.

♡ GETO SUGURU - The egoist

“C’mon, gorgeous.” that low, satiny purr has your cunt quivering traitorously. “You’re really gonna hold out on me like this?”

It takes every bit of willpower in you to tear your eyes from the absolutely sinful sight below you - because Geto Suguru was so unfairly pretty - even with his wrists tied helplessly below you to the bedposts. So delicately flushed a cute pink from his high cheekbones, right down to his thick, sobbing tip. Looking up at you through half-lidded, glassy eyes, peeking from under his long hair. 

Hair you thread through to gather in a harsh grip, “Mhm, Sugu, if you’re gonna be so cocky when m’letting you cum inside me then I jus’ hafta- ngh!”

Your foolish little threat is dying in your chest when your beloved boyfriend is wrenching his hips up. Having you teetering precariously, clinging onto his sculpted abs when he uses them to fuck his cock up into you slobbering cunt. 

“Hah!” his dark eyes widen in delight at the sight of how readily your slutty cunt was making way for him. Puffy folds being split apart to swallow every fucking inch he gives. “Just look at what a filthy lil’ cunt you have, my girl. So needy despite all your talk.”

“Th-that’s cheating.” you tug on his soft silky restraints. Eyeing the way they were firmly digging into his milky skin. “Maybe I ah- won’t- let you-”

Another ragged jut of his hips, the thick curve of Geto’s swollen cock spearing into you, pulsing against your sensitive spots until you couldn’t think. He’s gasping, “No!” Letting out such a pained grunt when your spongy walls cling onto him like a second skin. “No no no no- jus’ fuck m’gonna have you begging for my cum.”

And if Geto had his hands untied you just knew he’d be gifting your sobbing cunt a punishing smack! So that’s exactly what you do - letting out such a teasing whine of his name when you slap the pads of your fingers down across your sopping slit. Stopping right below your clit - exactly the way he does.

“Still real cocky, aren’t you?” you purr, so sultry and low, sending a fresh wave of precum painting at your bruised cervix. 

“Fuuuck- you little minx. This won’t- ngh-” he hisses. “You’re gonna fuckin’ regret holdin’ out on me.”

There it was again - that little accusation. The same little mantra that’d been falling from Geto’s glossed-over lips ever since you tied his wrists together and straddled him after a few too many goading comments on how you won’t be able to “handle him” if he came inside.

Scoffing, “Yeah yeah that’s what a sore loser-”

Fuck, it seems he’s well and fully intent to not have you run your pretty mouth. 

Pushing past your feeble little ring of resistance to draw at your honeyed walls. Running his angry tip along each and every sweet spot he’d so meticulously mapped out before.

“I warned you, gorgeous.” His breaths are wrenching out so strained, low groans leaving him with how your plushy walls were trying to suck out something delicious. “Warned you it was- ngh was gonna be too much. And now look at you.” He’s chuckling, so utterly unapologetic. “Fucked dumb and taking my cock like the slut you are. How’d you feel about that, huh?”

It’s so embarrassing. 

Embarrassing how good you were feeling, stars behind your eyes every time Geto is smashing deep into your core. Embarrassing how you can barely even hold yourself up at this point, instead collapsing right into the valley between Geto’s pecs, lips drooling with need. 

Embarrassing how you can’t even answer his question.

And this is what makes him smile - full and content. Craning his head down to kiss softly at your slack lips, “That’s what I thought. Now beg for it, beg for my cum.”

“Wh-what?” you snap your eyes open. Moaning lowly at the drag and pull of his fat shaft, stretching out your narrow channel with each ram of his hips. Angling your boneless body just right for those tufts of black at his toned base to rub against your clit so obscenely. 

“You hear me. Or you can’t hear as well as- ngh- speak now, huh? Beg for it.”

“No.”

Geto falters his hips slowly at this, “Beg for it.”

“No.”

Of course, this only makes him stop completely. Rolling his eyes in such a languid way at your clear disappointment, “Then fuck me yourself if you wanna be so mouthy.”

The result is - for Geto - the hottest fucking thing he’s ever seen. With you whining, tears springing to your eyes as you try to ride him as best you could. Yearning, craving for those bullying thrusts he’d been planting on your sweet spots. Ass jiggling when it smacks against his pelvis lazily, hips stuttering up and down his veiny cock, weeping your needy juices as you sob, “No- please I take t- ngh- back. I want your cum, Sugu. Please?”

“That’s more like it.”

And no sooner are the words out of your lips before Geto’s thrusting up into you haphazardly. Brows furrowed, abs screaming with the strain of just how hard he was pounding you. Again. And again - more to teach you a lesson, more to drive the two of you insane. Again and again and-

It only takes a few more of those lingering, ruthless kisses of Geto’s leaky tip against your g-spot for the two of you to be cumming. 

Your gummy walls convulsing, sucking up every wet glob of cum shot against them, against your womb. Geto’s full, heavy balls filling you up in mere seconds with how much he was painting your poor cunt white. Dripping down the side of your pussy lips, creating such a mess all over his base that he just can’t help but-

RIP!

Your back is hitting the mattress before you know it, Geto’s large figure looming over you- how? When did he-

“Ya really thought those would stop me from-” he takes the time to spread open your trembling legs, spying down at the mess of cum leaking out of your gaping hole now. Thick, gushing dredges of him - all him. He’s shuffling down, hot breath hitting your abused cunt, “-having my favorite meal?”

♡ CHOSO KAMO - Made for this.

Slam!

You’re both jolting - you at the deafening sound of your best friend’s hand slamming down on the headboard, making it creak at the sheer power. Him at those sultry little words that had just left your glossy lips, sending all the blood in his body right down to where he was buried between your shaky legs. 

Before you can react, Choso’s looming his face closer - eyes wide, jaw sagging open, voice just a whisper when he asks, “What did you say?”

And through it all, it’s a wonder you’re managing to catch your breath. Because Choso’s unforgiving cadence was barely letting up, pushing in long, solid strides of his hips to drag his fat cock against the plush of your gummy walls. “I-I said since it’s your first time n’ I wanna make this special, you should-” Looking him right in his pussydrunk eyes when you say, “-cum in me, Cho.”

Just like before, that honeyed request pulls out such a visceral reaction from him. His dewy eyes scrunch shut, thick tip kissing so deep inside your womb when he twitches animalistically. Sliding across to mark you from the inside out. 

And somewhere in your fucked-out mind, you register the snap! of wood breaking above you, Choso’s biceps flexing with movement. “Fuuuck, baby, you can’t hah- s-spring that on me like that.”

It was true - a few too many bad sex scenes on movie night, and a few too little lingering touches left you wanting more. Wanting to steal away your cute best friend’s virginity once and for all, and then some.

“Why not?” you bat your lashes so deceivingly innocently up at him. Making his poor jaw drop even further, hips stuttering forwards sloppily. “No no no no, Cho. You’re my best friend and you deserve the best.” you’re tutting, tightening your legs around his sculpted waist. Preventing any escape - as if he could ever want to run away from this heaven. “I need you to cum in me.”

It happens too fast for you to even register - before you know it, two large hands of Choso’s are hoisting your limp legs up onto his toned shoulder. Upper half bending down, down, down until he had you folded in half in such a mean mating press. 

“F-fuck don’t-” he gasps out, eyes rolling to the back of his head at the lewd change in angle. The curving divot of his head brushing up against that hot g-spot of yours, raw with so many hits. Greedy eyes locked on the way your puffy cunt was swallowing him whole. “-don’t say that! Was enough havin’ you offer your pretty lil’ cunt f’me to fuck.”

Smirking, “Cum in me, Cho. Please?”

And fuck Choso was sure he was going to pass out this very second. Collapse on top of you like an utterly fucked ragdoll. But, no - and he doesn’t know what’s more embarrassing - instead, his heavy balls are squeezing sloppily, making such a mess of you inside when he streams out thick spurts of cum.

Eyes ringing, vision spotty when he’s pouring such heavy amounts to paint your cunt white. It’s all he can do to breathe, “Fuck- fuck fuck fuck m’cumming m’sorry m’cumming m’cumming- ah- ngh-”

“F-fuck yeah give it t’me.” you murmur heatedly, drool dripping down the corner of your mouth with each pump inside reaching your lungs. Sending dredges of seed slobbering down Choso’s throbbing length, forming a pool at your inner thighs. “Give it all to me, you’re doing so good for your first time, baby.” 

Your honeyed praises stick to him like a veil of sin, having him shudder out little whines of your name. “No m’not!”

“Hm? What’re you fuuuck right there- what are you talking about? Yes, you are.” you thread your fingers through his long, damp locks. Pushing away the dark strands sticking to his forehead to connect it with yours, “Doing so good f’me.”

Choso’s breaths come out in feverish puffs, and despite having velvety strings of his cum sloshing inside your walls right now, he was still hard. Still painfully hard with each overstimulated shove into your dripping cunt. 

“Dreamt of this for so long.” he drawls, ragged. A soft thumb coming down to draw on your clit, “Been wanting you for so long n’ you have no idea. M’ jus- fuck your pussy is just too perfect, my girl.” That little confession has you clenching around him so tight. Forcing Choso to hike up a knee to stretch your thighs so far apart it burned, letting him accelerate his hips. “Too much that I can’t keep it- hah- together. S’like she’s made f’me. Jus’ wanna fill you up until you can’t take it- ngh-” 

A particularly harsh kiss to your sweet spot has Choso’s seed oozing out of your puckered hole even more. So slutty in the way that you were still clamping down to milk the soul out of him all through it. 

His pretty pink lips fall into a soft oh! at the sight. Movements languid, hypnotized when the erratic, slender fingers on your clit move down. Swirling at the treacled ring of cum around his hilt, where your pussy lips were mashing against his toned pelvis. 

You have half the mind to wonder if Choso even realized what he was doing - whether he was even breathing - as he raises those fingers to your mouth. Immediately parting your kiss-bitten lips to suck his glossy fingers clean.

The eager, lewd squelches from above and below have him pushing your body up to thrust even harder - hissing, “Oh you really ngh- made f’me.”

“Well then…” you start, muffled. And your tone already has Choso gulping. Waiting on your every word. “Why don’t you cum inside me again to make up for it and the broken headboard?”

♡ RYOMEN SUKUNA - HEIR

Now, it’s not often that Ryomen Sukuna feels threatened. Him? The infamous king of curses? Don’t make him laugh, everyone knows that you’re his pretty lil’ slut, his favorite human.

But it’s times like this, with your pretty self sat where you belong - right on his fat, achy cocks, your limp legs dangling off his luxurious throne, crying and begging for him to just move - he’s reminded that maybe not everyone knows. 

“Pleeease, Kuna.” you’re dragging out of your throat, voice wrecked with need. “Jus’ need to- to cum!” And he thinks it’s so adorable how you’re trying to fuck your hips up and down on his lengths, matching tips so thick that they rut against your sweet spots without even trying. 

It’s useless, with the tight, black-nailed grip he has on your stuttering hips. Making such a mess slobbering down his cocks.

“Hmmm, I dunno if you deserve it, brat.” his smug facade is laced with something else - something dangerous now. “After all…” he’s nosing down your racing pulse, breathing in as if he could smell the lust in your blood. “-you looked real cozy with that minister from earlier.”

You’re gasping - whether from his words, or from the way his curved shafts twitch so furiously inside you, you’re not sure. 

“Wh-what?”

He scoffs, “You know what m’talkin’ about.”

And you did - unfortunately. Hazy mind showing off shreds of memories from that meeting you accompanied Sukuna to earlier today. The one where, despite being dangling off his arms the entire time, one unsavory new minister managed to throw a few crass remarks your way. Something about how good you must be and how he’d give you an-

“Heir.” It’s all that Sukuna is spitting out before thrusting up into you. Deep, slow. Like he knew you were thinking about that little altercation today and wanted to fuck out every thought of it out of your pretty lil’ mind. “That little scum had the audacity to talk to my woman about how he’d have an heir by now. As if I’m not fucking you right.”

Two thick fingers come up to smush your cheeks together into a pathetic pout, spitting into your open mouth, “I’d have killed him if you didn’t fuckin’ stop me, human.”

“B-because-” you’re crying out, eyes rolling to the back of your head with each smash of his fat tip against the bullseye of your g-spot, the other marking up your cervix. “I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of-”

“So what if I caused a scene?” Sukuna’s sharp canines are nipping down on your wobbly lower lip. The curve of his dicks stretching you so thin. Taut. Until your clingy walls molded to his shape. “Do you deny me the right to defend my woman? My future heir?”

The sopping wet sounds of your poor hole being ravaged are almost too loud for you to hear his last words. Almost.

You gasp, face lolling up from where they were pressed up against his sculpted pecs. “Wait- future heir?”

And oh how Sukuna loved the sound of that on your lips. A raw groan curling up from his throat, biting his lip while he fucks you so thorough. So purposeful. 

At this point the only thing you’re managing to get out are pitchy whines, being bounced up and down like some sextoy on the king’s cocks. His massive girths tattooing your walls with each and every twin vein and ridge.

“Mhm, ya like that?” Sukuna grins, slacking down the throne to jut his muscled abdomen upwards. “Wan’ me to breed this cute cunt with my heir?”

The only response he’s getting are your nails raking red, angry marks down his tan skin, which clearly wasn’t enough for him.

“I asked you a question, brat.” This earns you a sharp smack! to the fat of your ass, his nasty cadence only speeding up. You’re barely even lucid anymore, just being slid along his towering lengths. “Use your words n’ fuckin’ tell- me-”

“Hngh!” you’re screaming out at a particularly harsh jab against your g-spot. Big fat tears rolling down your cheeks when you mewl, “Yes! Yes I wan’ it so bad, ngh- for you to fill me up. Breed me until- ngh until everyone knows.”

The honeyed grin you’re given is something you know doesn’t bode well, Suknua’s eyes darting somewhere behind you. But that’s the last thing on your mind while he spits a thick glob of saliva on your cunt. Goading, “Well if you’re that desperate, woman.”

And it’s dizzying - if you thought Sukuna was fucking you thoughtless before then you weren’t ready for right now. 

“Fuck.” he grits out. “Yes that bastard got one thing right- I just wanna- oh-” And then he’s spitting, another steady stream of saliva right on your struggling cunt. “Wanna breed this pussy- until they know m’the one that fucks you right.” He’s rubbing a palm along your stomach, drawing a line where he could feel the bulge of his swollen cocks. “Have you round and glowing with my heir.” Moving up, up, up to cradle your bouncing tits into his greedy mouth. “Have these hah- filled with milk. And have you filled with me. They’ll all see you and see me. I did this.” 

Sukuna’s red, glowing eyes are the last thing you see before everything flashes white. And then you’re cumming - barely having the capacity to give a fair warning other than, “Oh- f-fuck Kuna m’gonna.”

It takes you a moment to realize that he is as well. The squelches from your delicious cunt only increasing twofold when he’s gifting you with thick spurts of his seed. Too much. Both fat heads throbbing in staccato with your high, so furiously before they’re erupting in a gush of pure white. Too much. 

“Ahhh yes, s’where you belong.” Sukuna breathes, voice a few octaves higher with how much he was still cumming. Hips thrusting to force such filthy movements to pump his potent seed deeper and deeper - sure enough to mark you from the inside out. “Fucked dumb on m’cocks and hah- ready to make me an heir. One to kill off all the trash I can’t.” Letting it slobber down onto his abs, pooling at the muscles. Hot loads overspilling from your tight pussy now. Shit, it’s a sight so sinful that Sukuna has to tear his eyes away to look at that slightly ajar door, brows quirking at the aghast face outside he meets. “Won’t you agree, minister?”

♡ GOJO SATORU - “Do you hate me?”

“Huh- what?” you’re blinking, unsure if you even heard that correctly. Eyes darting from Gojo’s pouty pink lips to the way he was still bludgeoning his aching cock inside you, “Of course I don’t, Toru? What’s with the- hah-”

Apparently, your answer wasn’t good enough for the great Gojo Satoru, and it’s not long into your bumbling, half-drunk sentence before he’s smashing his fat tip purposefully against that honeyed g-spot he loved so much. Dragging out such cute moans from your throat while he babbles, “Then why are you- hah telling me to pull out?”

It takes everything in you to wrench your eyes open to meet his dead-serious expression, “What?”

Gojo scoffs at how fucking long it was taking your cockdrunk mind to comprehend him. Pushing your knee back further to spread your sopping cunt, squeezing his thick girth inside like some cocksleeve. “Why-” he cuts himself off with a bullying little thrust. “-are you telling- me to fuckin’ pull out.” And he sounds so genuinely devastated, voice a pitch higher than normal, breaking ever-so-slightly at the end. “Do you hate me now, sweetheart?”

“You fuckin’-” you’re spitting. Nails digging into the sides of Gojo’s pale neck when you’re pulling him closer, hissing into his panting mouth, “-idiot. I told you to- ngh- to pull out because I don’t trust that limitless of yours to work.”

“But, my girl—” he whines, burying his face to lick up the crook of your neck. “Don’ wanna leave to ah- get condoms right now. M’the strongest, when has it not worked?”

And it’s like the sole reminder of this fact is enough to spur your boyfriend on even more, because with a ragged growl he’s falling back onto his thighs - taking your boneless body right along with him. Greedy pussy sat so pretty and needy around his cock, sinking deeper and deeper down every long inch.

You could barely even feel it - limitless. Just a slight, steady pulse of jujutsu, atoms standing at attention all around your tangled bodies.  

“Oh!” you keen at the feeling of Gojo’s heft veins making their mark all along your gummy walls. Gravity sliding you down his swollen cock until your puffy folds were meeting his sharp pelvis in a messy kiss. “Y-you’re really not fuuuck- backing down, huh?”

As if to prove your point, a large palm comes up around your back, wrenching your two hands behind to pin them behind your back. Leaving you completely bare and helpless under his obscene will. 

“Nope.” Gojo hums, popping the “p”. Flashing you a fucked-out grin - and oh he looks so pretty, so wrecked with his snowy locks disheveled, cheeks a blushing pink, lips spit-glossed and worried. “How could I be when my girl- hngh feels like this?”

“S’not gonna-”

“It is-” he’s interrupting in a syrupy tone, so drunk off the way you were complaining about his limitless but taking every thrust he gives so well. “S’gonna work- it will work hngh- trust me, sweetheart.” Thumbing apart your bulging swollen folds even further to toy over your pulsing clit, “Shit- love it when you squeeze me like that. Hah- and you expected me to leave this n’ go get condoms fuckin’ right.” With every hungry thrust he’s gifting your poor pussy, Gojo’s mouth is running a mile a minute against your racing pulse. Heavy tongue lolling, eyes rolling to the back of his head with every passing millisecond you’re sucking the ever-loving soul out of him. “As if I’d wanna hah- leave this. It’ll work-”

Somewhere in-between the lingering ruts, a hand of yours runs through Gojo’s damp tresses, tugging on it to make him look. Difficult, somehow. 

“Toru…” you grip harder on his soft strands, dragging him away from his little hiding spot. Relenting, he’s slowly raising his eyes to look at you and- “Why are you-”

Oh. Shit.

If you thought Gojo was ruined before then you weren’t ready for this - his half-lidded eyes glowing, crackling with power, babbling lips sagging open in ecstacy. And if you didn’t know any better you’d have thought that the lights in your bedroom flickered dangerously just a bit. He gasps, eyes boring into yours, “What- what was I sayin’ again?”

Oh he was so fucked - and you were, too. 

Because your mouth is moving before your mind, feeling so dirty when you muse, “Told me how you were gonna- ngh- drop limitless n’ fill me up, Toru–”

Your jaw is prying open with his mean little tempo. Fat, greedy cock messing up your insides with how haphazardly he was spearing inside in weighty, animalistic thrusts. Leaving just enough time for that divot on his angry tip to peck at your sweet spots, before shoving his entire length back in and out again. Over and over and-

It only takes a mere split-second of Gojo’s limitless faltering, of him being enveloped in all your dripping heaven, before he’s cumming. And cumming so hard, gushing out so much in thick, hot streams of his heady seed.

It’s filling you up from the inside, stretching your walls taut. Sloppy. Sinful. And you can do nothing but reach your high as well, flashes of white-hot pleasure behind your eyes. Or maybe that was Gojo.

His creamy white cum kissing you inside, drooling out of your ravaged hole with every mindless push of his hips. Forcing it deeper and deeper and oh fuck, he could do this forever. Fuck condoms. Fuck limitless. He tells you that - rattles it off into your open mouth a little over fifteen times watching the coating of his cum pool a glossy sheen down your legs. Sloshing down in thick, lewd globs.

“Told you so.” you scoff. 

“That- that was just the practice round! Best out of three?”

“...”

A/N. Picked the title out for no purpose other than self-indulgence I’m ngl.

Plagiarism not authorized.

[nezuscribe]

being married to gojo is probably such a weird limbo to be in. he doesn’t talk much, but he watches you a lot. the way you move, the way your head tilts back as you laugh unapologetically, the little way your nose scrunches up when you’re confused.

he’s aware of your past, the way you were raised. he knows how much of a black sheep you are, and the more he spends time with you the more he realizes how much you try to hide that.

the way you joke through awkward moments, or the way you tried to hide your expression when somebody doesn’t laugh at something you hoped to be funny are all things gojo has noticed about you.

he knows how you sometimes come down to the training yard, hiding behind a pillar as if a group of men who are trained to be aware of their surroundings wouldn’t spot you from a mile away.

but a part of him likes having you there, puffs his chest out a little more when he disarms someone, his grin a little cheekier when the men praise him of his talent.

though you never really seem to be there for him, despite gojo being your husband. it almost seems like you don’t even want him to know you’re there, making sure to duck your head if he sees you.

until one night, when the men file out and into their quarters, gojo stays behind, in one of the rooms that lead out into the yard, still cleaning up.

his ears prick up when he hears the sound of footsteps, leaving the sword room, expecting to see on of his men, when instead he sees you, looking at the bows littered on the ground.

gojo watches as you pick one up, looking around to see if anybody were there, missing the way gojo was hidden in the shadows, and sees you look around for an arrow.

he wonders what that feeling in his chest it, the one that contracts and loosens whenever you’re near.

he goes back into the shed, picking out some arrows for you and walks to where you were.

“here,” he calls out, and you whip your head around, a look of surprise and embarrassment on your face.

your lips slightly part, shocked that it’s your husband who caught you, and you duck your head a little bit as you quickly go to set the bow back down on the ground.

“sorry,” you quickly say, your eyes trialing at the arrows in his hand in a curious sort of way, “i just wanted to, um, hold one.”

gojo snorts, rolling his eyes at your lie as he picks the bow back up from the ground, wiping some of the dirt from earlier from his hands on his pants as you slowly accept it.

“do you know how to shoot?” he asks, his sturdy figure towering over yours as you stare at him, squinting your eyes a little, and finally shake your head no.

he nods, expecting this as he picks up a bow that was resting on the wall, cocking one of the arrows in the as he shows you what he’s doing.

you’ve spoken to him a bit more as of recently, but never enough for you to think he’d be willing to show you how to use a bow.

“line up your arrow with the bowstring,” he demonstrates, “use your non dominant hand to hold it,” you watch silently as he grips it with his left hand.

you do the same thing, the arrow clumsily sliding around until your able to cock it, holding it loosely with your non dominant hand like he said.

“your dominant hand should hold the string between three fingers,” his slender fingers take it in between and he stretches it, “but make sure your wrist is aligned with your fingers.”

you do the same thing, feeling the resistance from the bowstring as you pull it back.

gojo looks over at your legs and clicks his tongue, clearly not liking what he’s seeing. he sets his own bow on the ground as he comes up from behind you.

“your legs should be like this,” his voice is deep, breath hiting the back of your neck as he nudges your legs apart, separating them until one is in front of the other.

your heart is pounding so loudly against your chest your sure the bow is about to vibrate along with it.

his hand cups your elbow, carefully pulling it back as the string groans under the pressure. you feel like you’re sweating your entire body weight in water off right now.

his eyes are focused on your wrist, holding it gently as he lowers it slightly, and you feel his nose slightly brush against the side of your head.

“don’t focus on the tip of your arrow but the target,” his voice comes out barely audible, but you swallow thickly, nodding.

you try your best to focus on the target that’s in front of you, trying to center the bow with the middle.

“let go when you’re ready,” gojo says, his lips near your ears.

you give it a couple seconds, trying to aim as best as you can, before your hand lets go of the string.

you both straighten your backs up, watching as it flies into the target.

the arrow nearly hits the wood around it, so far away from the target itself that it’s almost comical, and you laugh, tilting your head back as shake your head in embarrassment.

“it’s your first time,” he says, trying to help but you shake it off, missing his warmth from behind you as you set the bow back on the wall.

“and my last,” you promise, missing the way he seemed to deflate.

you turn back to gojo, only to see his eyes it filled with the mirth they had only moments ago, this time focused on your left hand.

you look down, trying to figure out what was wrong.

suddenly, you remember that you had taken off you ring a couple days ago, not finding any use in wearing it.

gojo swallows thickly, a strange lump in his chest as he stares at the arrow you had shot and then back to your face.

“i just figured…” you trailed off, biting your lips as you tried to find the words, “you know…” you motioned to his own left hand, void of any ring.

his eyes are a different hue, as if a storm was brewing inside them.

you watched as he dug his hand inside his tunic, tugging something out. your eyes fall to a delicate gold chain, his wedding ring hanging off of it.

“i don’t want it to fall off during training,” he bites out and suddenly your mouth feels dry.

you nod once, eyes fleeting away from his as you nod again, at nothing and everything, and silently leave.

[yuki-world]

秦彻 | SYLUS ; PLAN

summary | sylus sets a time limit for you to retrieve the brooch from him. unfortunately, you don't get it in time no matter how hard you try, but fortunately, it's sylus you're dealing with.

tags | nsfw (smut), fem!reader, mention of handcuffs, vaginal penetration, creampie, 2.9k words

a/n : inspired by his affinity lvl 15 story (?) aka the one where he gets handcuffed to the bed

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

“oh,” sylus raises a brow, clearly finding this whole situation amusing. he’s handcuffed to his own bed with you straddling him, teasing him by tracing your index finger over his body. just how cocky were you?

sylus takes a deep breath in. “so you think you’ve got me now, is that right?”

you hum in response, stopping your finger near his abdomen. “think? no, i know,” you reply confidently, letting out a slight scoff. there was no way he could move, so you could find it freely as you pleased. this was the best scenario, and luckily you didn’t fumble it as this was your last attempt before the deadline reached.

unbeknownst to you, it’s not that he couldn’t un-cuff himselfー it’s actually quite offensive that you think that. it’s more of him wanting to see how far you would go if he wasn’t going to intervene, because it’s fun. how adorable you look thinking you’ve won, how eager you look to finally win against him in something. and so, he watches. eyes locked onto your every action and reaction as you try to find the hidden brooch.

you start at the top of his robe near his neck, your hand making it’s way down, slowly feeling for any small and hard object. you pat at the material rested on his chest, but still no sign.

sylus gives you a small smirk, and you narrow your eyes. you didn’t exactly trust him per se, even if he promised to keep his word. what if this was just a trick? what if he was just toying with you? what if he didn’t have the brooch?”

“are you sure the brooch is even on you?” you questioned. his growing smirk was only making you more suspicious by the minute.

“accusing me, kitten?” he asks, feigning disappointment. “you haven’t even finished looking.”

you roll your eyes at his words, mumbling a small whatever under your breath as you continued looking for the brooch. you smoothed your palm down his robe, patting around his waist. still nothing.

you were getting desperate at this pointー you were almost there. this was the best effort you’ve made so far, and you weren’t going to let your plan fail so easily. you swallow, trailing your hand further down his robe, albeit hesitantly. your hands were at his thigh, the thin material the only thing separating your skin with his.

mentally shaking your head to snap out of your thoughts, you continue feeling for where the brooch might be.

suddenly, you feel something hard. it’s hard, no mistake, but it was far from small.

…that’s definitely not the brooch.

“i’d be careful where you’re touching,” sylus speaks, his voice almost making you jump as you retracted your hand quickly. a tinge of red spreads across your cheeks, and you try to defend yourself.

“shutー quiet,” you stuttered. “i didn’t mean to, okay? sorry,” you apologized, breathing out as you tried to maintain your composure. focus on the goal, you repeated to yourself over and over again. you meet his eyes for a split second, and god, you want to wipe that smirk off his face.

he lets out a breathy chuckle, watching you get distracted as you panicked to look for the brooch.

you finally get to the bottom of his robe, but you find absolutely nothing. where else could he have hidden it? he had to have it with him… that was a rule, right?

“i swear, you’re playing with me,” you accused, defeated. how was this possible? you set everything up perfectly, and the one thing you couldn’t do was find the broochー despite being able to check him freely? “be honest, is it really on you or not?” you asked, squishing his cheeks together with your hand so he looks at you.

“oh, look at that,” he states, ignoring your question before tilting his head up slightly, glancing at the clock, then back to you.

“time’s up.”

you hear a soft click, your head snapping to the sound of the handcuffs unlocking as you let your hand fall.

your body moves instinctively, feet touching the floor as you push yourself off his bed to make your escape.

…only for him pull you back and throw you onto the bed, landing with a soft thud against his pillow. you try to lift yourself up again, but your wrists get pinned by his larger handsー all the more making it hard to move. you start to squirm a little, but decide it’s of no use.

“you really are naive,” sylus sighs, shaking his head in disappointment. how you thought a pair of poorly made handcuffs were supposed to restrict him was beyond comprehendible. “since you didn’t find it in time, i get to have my way with you.”

“whatever, justー just get on with it.” you roll your eyes, trying to act nonchalant, but you can’t help the sudden wave of pleasure that shoots through your body at his words.

complying, he slams his lips against yours, the kiss filled with hunger and greed. the kiss was far from sloppyー he made sure you felt everything, both physically and emotionally, very calculated. his tongue darts out to swipe against your bottom lip, and you gasp.

he takes this opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth, the wet sounds of making out filling his room as he continued to french kiss you.

removing his hand from one of your wrists, he opts to grip your waist instead, subtly pushing your shirt higher and higher, until your bra was exposed.

you shouldn’t be enjoying this. yet here you were, squirming under him as your thighs rubbed against one another, eager to feel any sort of stimulation. his mouth felt so warm as he continued kissing you, and so did the atmosphere.

feeling the movement of your thighs, he lets go of your other wrist, spreading your legs apart before slotting himself in between them, his crotch flushed against you. he doesn’t break the kiss once, letting you grind onto his hardened bulge to relieve yourself.

“sylus,” you breathed out, pushing him away gently to catch your breath. you panted softly, a string of saliva connecting the both of your lips as he pulled back.

“what, kitten?” he leans back smugly, admiring how red your lips were. all his doing, of course. “you can’t even handle a bit of kissing?”

“that was not a bit of kissing,” you retorted, looking away. you noticed your clothes were starting to stick onto your skin, presumably from the heat. you start to slowly unbutton your shirt one by one, but he’s not having any of that.

he smacks your hand away, ripping open the shirt like it was paper, some buttons popping off. you couldn't even protest as he pulled your bra down, exposing your tits.

"what the fuck, sylus! that was my favorite shirt," you scolded, furrowing your brows. it was one of the few shirts you decided to splurge on after contemplating for a long time, and the fact that he just tore it like that...

"how much?" he questions, squeezing one of your tits.

"what? like, a little over a hundredー"

"insignificant," he cuts you off, latching onto one of your nipples. he already knew whatever value you said wouldn't matter much to himー he could buy you a million of those shirts and there wouldn't be a single dent to his bank account.

he continues to suck and fondle, alternating between each tit to give them equal attention. he bites occasionally, each time making you gasp. you thread your fingers through his hair, pulling every time he sucked or bit too hard.

after what felt like hours, sylus finally pulls off you with a pop, staring at the red marks, shining with his saliva around your tits. even better that it's from his doing. he lets out a satisfied sigh.

"don't... look at me like that," you whisper, covering his eyes, feeling slightly embarrassed.

he lets out a breathy chuckle, bringing your palm to his lips to kiss it. "you're getting shy now? you weren't earlier when you were touching me all over," he points out, pulling your pants and underwear off in one clean motion.

"and don't think i forgot when you brushed against my..."

"that's 'cause i was looking for the brooch!" you argued, letting out a defeated sigh. "...just fuck me already."

"it's interesting that you think you're in any position to make demands." he flips you over onto your hands and knees, giving your ass a loud slap, resonating throughout the room. "ass up, don't take your own sweet time."

you clicked your tongue at his attitude, but did as he told anyway. as much as you didn't want to admit it, you were eager. the last time the both of you had sex, he fucked you until you were on the brink of tears, moaning and drooling into his pillows that he had to change them after. it was amazing, to say the very least.

sylus shifts behind you, undoing his robe and getting rid of his boxers quickly. his cock stands erected, large obviously, and it's clear he's already been hard since the beginning. even if you don't turn around to look, you knew just how much pre-cum was leaking from his cock as he rubs the coated tip between your embarrassingly wet folds. so much so that you didn't even need any preparationー not even his fingers to spread your pussy open.

he gives your ass another slap again, before guiding his cock into your tight entrance. your pussy stretches around him to accommodate his girth, instinctively clamping down the moment it entered.

"ngh, sylus," you moan, fingers gripping onto his sheets, pillows, anything you could grab on to as he pushed more of his inches into you. you'll never get enough of how big he feels inside you, the empty space previously now filled to the brim with his cock, stretching you out to mold your insides to the shape of him.

"fuck... always so fucking tight, huh?" sylus exhales, bottoming out inside you. though, there was still some of his length left that your cunt couldn't take in. "this cock is too big for you."

you whined in response, spreading your legs further to take more of him in comfortably, but you could barely do so from how filled you were. there was simply no space inside you.

"aw, too much for you, kitten?" he mocks. pulling back to leave only his tip in, before slamming his entire length back into you.

"shutー ahー up!" you cry out as you jerk forward from the sheer force of his thrust. his hands were wrapped around your waist, pulling you back to meet each thrust of his cock. you should've known he was only going to go faster, his seemingly sweet and slow pace disappearing the moment he starts pounding into you at rapid speeds. his balls were hitting your clit every time he pushed his cock in, sending jolts of pleasure through you.

your sounds get louder and louder each time he fucks into you, so much so that you have to bury your face into the pillow to muffle your moans. it was going to happen againー his pillows stained with drool.

he slammed his hips against your ass harder, hoping to elicit more sounds from you. "sylus... mmph!" you moan, his name coming out unclear from how muffled you were.

"hmm?" he hums in question, pulling your hair to lift your face off the pillow. "who said that you could hide your pretty sounds?"

sylus pulls out before flipping you over again, this time taking a few seconds to admire your fucked out state. your face was flushed, half-lidded eyes and drool dribbling down the side of your mouth. he doesn't think he's ever seen a prettier sight.

"you're drooling," he points out, using his thumb to wipe some of it away. well, you knew that, but you don't care, because at this point, all you can think about is his cock. you've never been more grateful to him, more thankful that you met him, as he pushes his cock into you once more.

your walls feel so good around him, he has to take a brief breather before starting to thrust. such a tight cunt, he thinks again, because it's trueー he's never fucked this good of a pussy. wrapping around him so warmly, clenching onto him in all the right ways. he could die happy like this. he could die happy with you.

"fuck me, fuck meー fuck me," you beg, snapping him out of his thoughts. you push up against him, trying to move on your own, to take more of him in, to just do something. the lack of stimulation was killing you.

"stop," he hisses, gripping your thigh to stop you. "you're going to hurt yourself. let me do it."

and then he starts again, fucking you with so much vigor that you mentally question just how much stamina he actually has. he never lets his pace falter from then onwards, railing you as the bed starts to move along to his movements.

with no pillow to bury your face in, you couldn't hide your moans even if you wanted toー exactly what he wanted. you were screaming, "harderー fuckー yes! right there!"

"so noisy in bed," he groans, hands reaching up to intertwine your fingers with him. a small and sweet gesture, the complete opposite of how roughly he was ramming his cock deep inside you. repeatedly, at that same exact spot that had your eyes rolling backwards. if anyone was outside his doorー hell, not even outside his door, maybe even at a few rooms away, they would definitely still be able to hear you.

you wrap your legs around his waist tightly, feeling your orgasm approaching sooner than you thought. "sylus, i wannaー make me cum, please!"

no, he wanted to say. this wasn't your reward, you didn't even find the brooch. but he couldn't. because he was close too.

sylus wasn't going to deny you even if you didn't ask so nicely, even if you demanded him to. he knows the exact look on your face as you cum, and it's the same, perfect, expression that he loves so much each time. at your request, he lets go of one of your hands, dipping his fingers into your mouth before trailing down to rub circles around your clit.

unnecessary? yes, you were already soaking wet. just for good measure, he thinks. besides, you looked sexy with your mouth wrapped around his fingers, almost struggling with how much larger his digits were.

you start squirming, squeezing his hand tighter as he continues thrusting while rubbing, a deadly combo. "fuckー thaaat's it, be a good girl and cream on my cock."

"oh myー sylus!" you scream out his name as your orgasm hits you, eyes rolling back, nails digging into his hand, and your back arches off the bed. your pussy starts tightening and spasming around him like a vice. he feels you get so much, so much wetter that his cock almost slips out of you as he pulls back.

"such a sweet expression," he groans at the sight, pushing your legs back as he tries to angle his cock deeper into you. you try to close your legs from sensitivity, but he simply won't let you, not when he's so close to cumming.

"ohー yes, fuuuck..." he throws his head back with a final snap of his hips, his cock pulsing inside you as he pumps your pussy with cum, his thick load of semen coating your insides with warmth.

coming down from his high with a few more weak spurts of cum, he lets his head fall back down, a contented sigh as he pulls out slowly with a loud squelch. you whimper at the sensitivity, but also at the loss of his cock. his load takes a few seconds to dribble out, thick and creamy, leaving a trail down to your ass.

"satisfied?" he tilts his head, letting your legs down. "seems like you're done for tonight."

"yeah," you breathe out in exhaustion, feeling his hand caress your cheek. "the brooch," you paused, suddenly remembering.

"where is it, and... what's the actual punishment?"

sylus looks at you amused, reaching over to his robe tossed somewhere on the floor, unpinning the brooch before holding it towards you. "looking for this?"

you widened your eyes. how could it have been in his robe? you literally searched everywhereー

"i know what's going on in that little head of yours," he sighs, opening your palm to put it in your hand. "you got distracted, remember? you brushed past it and didn't even notice, kitten."

you groaned in frustration, mad at yourself that you didn't even notice. you basically just accused him for nothing.

"...and the actual punishment? for not getting the brooch in time?"

"no punishment," he states smugly, watching your lips part in disbelief.

"seriously? i put in a lot of effort into these plans, you know!" you smack his chest lightly. "i can't believe you."

"i'd say you gained a lot more than you lost," he says as a matter-of-factly, eyeing the white mess oozing out of your cunt.

"...shut up."

ー @yuki-world

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Ways I can think of that “DanDaDan” differs from other shonen series:

* Female MC is as important as male MC

* Canon romance gets consistent development through the series. I think that’s part of the reason why the MC ships with the rivals (Aira, Jiji) aren’t as popular with the fandom for once. The main ship is actually getting good development, so the fanbase doesn’t have to make up headcanons to fill in the space.

* Flips the found family trope on its head by having the main group despise new people whenever they show up and they even actively try to kick them out. The new people only end up staying because they keep lingering around to the point that the main group just gives up and lets them stay.

* The rivals aren’t emo or angst-ridden. Aira is a delusional tryhard popular girl while Jiji is a himbo drama queen. I’d even go as far to say that the MCs are the ones who are emo and angst-ridden.

* Supporting cast is more than just important, they become integral to the story. I’d say that the further you read into DanDaDan, the more it becomes an ensemble cast where everyone is a protagonist in their own right.

* World-building is all over the place, but in a good way. Most other shonen are pretty consistent with what kind of world their characters live in. MHA is superhero-based, Naruto is ninjas and magic, Bleach is spirits, and so on. DanDaDan feels like the author just throws whatever cool shit they can think of into the story. That’s actually the reason why I wrote in a different post that DanDaDan reminds me more of Marvel/DC than any other shonen series, it manages to capture the catch-all insanity of those comics.

* Doesn’t rely on hidden power-ups. The main characters either have to outsmart the villains or they have to train to get better with the powers they already have.

* The pervert comic relief guy is actually endearing for once. Not because of his pervert tendencies, but because he’s so oblivious to how socially inept he is that it’s kind of funny. This is gonna sound strange, but he sorta reminds me of Thor in Thor Ragnarok. Full of himself and oblivious to how dumb he can be. He’s Thor without the good looks lol.

* Flips the “nerdy outcast loser somehow gets a harem” trope. Instead of making Okarun cooler than how he actually is, the story emphasizes that the women who fall for Okarun are as weird as him. Momo is a weird outcast, Aira has main character syndrome, Vamola doesn’t understand how to human because she’s literally not one, Rin thought Okarun was a vampire (and wanted him to be).

* Flips the “elderly figure in charge of the teenagers” trope. I don’t really get motherly figure vibes from Seiko Ayase, I get more “cool wine aunt who is stuck with her niece” vibes. In fact, there was the arc where Okarun showed up to her in spirit mode to get her help with fighting off the alien invasion and Seiko’s response was, “Well, I’m not in the area and I have other shit to do, so you kids figure it out.”

* The series takes the piss out of the trope of mystical/magical items that the group acquired to get their powers. I mean…the main mystical MacGuffin in the series are Okarun’s balls.

* Okarun was about to go into an “I’m weak / I wish I was stronger / I want to get stronger for my friends” breakdown, but Turbo Granny told him to shut up and keep fighting.

* Not afraid to put the “cool girl” in as many funny situations as possible. Off the top of my head, the series built up Momo as this cool, tough girl who doesn’t take shit from anyone…then several chapters later, Okarun found out she got a job at a maid cafe.

(Feel free to add to the list!)

[feyburner]

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

*

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

“No?” he says.

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

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

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

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

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

“Lightyears beyond, actually.”

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

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

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

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

“Exactly.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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