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whoreforsexymen · 5 hours ago

Note

Hi, love! This request is for prompt #34 on your list ("That's not nearly desperate enough."). I saw a post saying how Jayce gives off major girl dad vibes, and needless to say I've been thinking about it relentlessly. Because you cannot tell me that man does not have some form of breeding kink

So I was thinking, potentially in the middle of sex or not— your choice, Jayce says one thing or another about wanting a baby. It's the reader who basically makes him beg for it. Not because they need convincing, but because they are simply a little shit. Thus comes the "That's not nearly desperate enough." Upon a fine amount of begging and those damn eyes of his

Then, depending on which route you go with how this ensues, perhaps the following smut of the reader showing Jayce some mercy. Thanks!

Beg | Jayce Talis

Pairings: Jayce Talis x Fem!Reader

Pronouns: None used, but AFAB anatomy descriptions!

Rating: NSFW, 18+, MDNI !! You WILL be blocked!

Word Count: 2.2k

Tags: Breeding Kink, Sub!Jayce (kinda), Power Bottoming (kinda), Fingering

Summary: You make Jayce beg to cum inside you :)

Notes: Prompt List, (Prompts used below)!! Decided to combine these two asks!! Enjoy, my lovelies <3

1. “Stop looking at me like that or else I’m gonna cum too fast.”

9. “That’s a bold decision, considering how I’m balls deep in you right now.”

34. “That’s not nearly desperate enough.”

“Stop looking at me like that, or else I’m gonna cum too fast…” Jayce’s voice was low, trembling with strain as his hips faltered against yours. The heat of his confession spilled into the air between you, thick and heavy, like the tension that coiled in his chest and knotted in his stomach. His breaths came in shallow gasps, his control slipping with every passing second under the weight of your gaze—sharp, hungry, and devastatingly unintentional.

You smirked, slow and wicked, as though savoring the power you held over him. Leaning in, your eyes locked onto his with a deliberate, sultry focus that made his pulse thunder in his ears. The intensity in your gaze was an artful torment, a silent promise to draw him out, to unravel him completely. His admission had emboldened you, as though he had handed you the exact weapon with which to ruin him. You tilted your head ever so slightly, the subtle motion laced with playful cruelty, shaking it softly, as if to say you have no plans to ever stop.

Jayce’s breath hitched as he bit down hard on his bottom lip, his last-ditch effort to stifle the tidal wave building within him. The heat radiating from your body, the way your lips curved into that knowing smile, the way your eyes burned into his soul—all of it was too much. His hands gripped at the sheets like a lifeline, his knuckles whitening with the effort it took to hold back. But there was no sanctuary here, no reprieve from the way you looked at him.

Your eyes—Gods, your eyes—they were his damnation and his salvation. They held a power over him that was almost supernatural, stripping him of every wall, every defense, leaving him raw and exposed in their glow. They spoke volumes without uttering a word, a language of seduction that rendered him powerless.

It wasn’t just the way you looked at him—it was what you looked at him with. That simmering desire, the cruel teasing, the unspoken promise that you wouldn’t stop until he faltered, or crumbled completely. It tested him, pushed him to limits he never thought existed, made his composure feel like a delicate, fragile thing.

And as the pit in his stomach burned hotter, as his muscles tensed and his restraint frayed to the brink, Jayce realized that no matter how hard he fought it, he wasn’t losing to you—he was giving himself over willingly. Piece by piece, shudder by shudder, your gaze was swallowing him whole, and he couldn’t bring himself to look away.

”That’s a bold decision, considering how I’m balls deep in you right now,” he managed to groan out, his voice thick with strain as his hips stammered against yours. Each thrust was a testament to his unraveling restraint, his body caught between fervent need and the thin threads of control. He drove into you with everything he had, every ounce of strength dedicated to holding back the inevitable—keeping the essence of his soul from spilling over and claiming you completely.

“Might not have enough time to pull out,” he whined, his voice trembling with hesitation. The words were a warning, but they came coated in something deeper, something darker—a want he couldn’t quite mask. The cracks in his resolve were widening, and beneath his deceiving cadence lay a silent plea for permission to let go, to give in to the primal urge clawing at his chest.

“Then don’t,” you said simply, your voice calm, steady, as if the words were inconsequential. As if they weren’t coated in such hefty meaning. You delivered them with a quiet finality, as though their weight were nonexistent—like they weren’t a succulent worm on a hook, the chain pulling him deeper into you.

But they were. They hit him with a force that stole the very breath from his lungs, his hips sputtering for the briefest moment before resuming their feverish pace. The simplicity of your words belied their gravity, and yet, he felt it. Felt the command, the invitation, the absolution in them. You weren’t just permitting his surrender—you were demanding it, and he knew he couldn’t refuse. Not when the heat of your body surrounded him, not when the depths of your voice ignited something cardinal within him. Something fundamental.

Jayce let out a guttural sound, a jumbled mix of restraint and surrender, as his body moved on instinct, his mind clouded by the smoke of a blaze you’d set in him. There was no hesitation left, no question of what would come next—only the inevitability of his complete and outright submission in your arms.

“I… I don’t think I heard you right…” Jayce muttered, his breath ragged and uneven. He searched your eyes, desperate to confirm if he had truly heard those words—or if his mind was playing tricks on him.

“I said,” you murmured, your voice low and deliberate, leaning in until your lips nearly brushed his.

“Don’t.”

The word hung between you like a spark, igniting the air. You captured his lips in a searing kiss, neediness bleeding into every movement. Your legs tightened around his waist, the press of your bodies perfectly attuned to the rhythm you shared. Muscles flexed and tensed in harmony, a symphony of heat and tenacity that left no room for doubt.

Jayce had heard you loud and clear.

There was no mistaking your words.

“Are you sure…?” he asked, his tone laced with uncertainty. He needed to know if this was just a momentary impulse driven by desire, or if you truly meant it.

You raised a brow, curious about his sudden doubt. Why now, of all times? You had never given him a reason to question you before.

“Yes. But,” you said, a sly smile playing on your lips, “you’ll have to beg for it.”

The words stopped him in his tracks, his confidence faltering. Jayce had never once let himself slip into submission during your most intimate moments. The idea of begging was as foreign to him as Undercity culture.

“Beg…?” he repeated, his voice shaking slightly. A low, guttural moan followed as you rolled your hips to meet one of his thrusts, driving him deeper inside you, a skillful way of coaxing him further and further to the edge of his pleasure.

“Fuck—” he groaned, the sound crude and wanting as he lost his composure quicker than he had found it. His head dipped, his damp forehead pressing into the curve of your neck, seeking solace in the warmth of your skin.

“Yes. Beg,” you demand, your legs tightening their grip around his hips until they tremble under the strain. He’s reaching a depth within you that feels otherworldly, leaving your vision speckled with stars.

“Beg me to let you fuck a life into me,” you command, your voice a mix of authority and unrefined desire.

Jayce’s head snaps up, his gaze locking onto yours with a flash of realization. The unspoken challenge in your eyes—now or never—spurs him forward. Determination floods his features, transforming him into a man with the relentless resolve of someone who has just uncovered the treasure of a lifetime.

Jayce bit down on the inside of his lip, the hesitation lingering for only a cursory moment. This wasn’t a time for half-measures; it had to be all or nothing. Testing the waters now wasn’t an option—not when everything hinged on this.

The thought of you, brimming with his very essence, the force that gave life, shaped flesh, and coursed through veins, sent his mind spiraling. His muscles quivered, his hips ablaze from the unyielding drive he poured into them. Each movement was unyielding, a cycle of sharp thrusts and aching retractions, repeated with merciless precision.

“Nghh– fuck– please.” The words spilled from his lips, raw and desirous, betraying the composure he struggled to maintain.

A laugh bubbles out of you at his first attempt, the sound shaking and breaking as it’s overtaken by the relentless rhythm of his thrusts—each one harder and faster than the last.

“That’s… not nearly desperate enough,” you manage to tease, though your voice wavers, the confidence you’d mustered teetering under the intensity of his pace.

Jayce’s response is a whimper, low and raw, as his lips find your ear. He presses a kiss there, followed by a gentle nip at your earlobe, his breath warm and ragged.

“Please—fuck—please, my love,” he moans, his words trembling with need. The sound of him like this—a rare vulnerability, inherently submissive—sends a jolt through you, igniting something unfamiliar and electrifying.

“I want… No, I need to drench your cunt with my cum until it takes. Until you’re walking around our house, belly all big and round with our baby inside. The baby I put there. The baby I fucked into you.” His gasps grow louder, his chest heaving as his heart pounds, racing to keep up with the demands of his body. You feel every beat, every pulse, as he clings to you, desperate to maintain the rhythm.

“Please, my love. Please, oh please let me fuck this baby into you. Let me fuck it nice and deep into you. Let me fill you full of my cum and watch it drip out of you so I can fuck it back in over and over again.” When his cry breaks the air, it’s raw and guttural, his fingers digging into the sheets so tightly that they slip free from the mattress beneath him.

“I need it, my love. I need it so fucking bad,” he cries out again, his voice breaking as he sinks his teeth into the curve of your shoulder—a futile attempt to temper the overwhelming tension consuming him.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” he pleads, each word punctuated by desperate whines that blend with the raw sound of skin meeting skin.

You can’t hold back your own cries anymore; the relentless rhythm of his thrusts shatters your composure. He’s undeniably desperate now—there’s no question.

“Gods! Jayce! Fuck! Yes!” you scream, your head pressing deeper into the satin pillow beneath you. Your back arches instinctively, curving to meet him as he slams into that exquisitely sensitive spot, over and over again, driving you to the edge of reason.

Jayce knew you were getting as close as he was, but he was always ever-most determined to make you cum before him, or with him.

His teeth leave your shoulder, and he lifts slightly, just enough to slip an arm between your bodies. As his fingers find their mark, Jayce’s gaze locks onto yours. His mouth hangs open, his eyes dark and blown wide, filled with raw, unfiltered desire. Pure, unadulterated lust radiates from him as his touch pushes you closer and closer to the precipice.

He brushes the pads of his fingers against your clit, quickly and effortlessly rubbing tight circles around the sensitive bud. He could feel your walls clenching in response, desperate to milk his needy cock dry. Desperate to coax every drop his balls could spare.

Your breath quickens, chest rising and falling in a desperate rhythm, aching to press against his once more—but his arm remains a firm, teasing barrier. His fingers move with a slow, deliberate intent, tracing and circling your clit until pleasure borders on the unbearable.

Just as the sensation threatens to tip into numbness, release strikes like a missile—blazing, unrelenting, precise. It shatters through you, sharp and all-consuming, like a rock splintering glass. Your muscles lock, your body taut with the force of it, nails sinking deep into the firm, heated flesh of his arms.

Jayce’s thrusts grow erratic, each snap of his hips losing precision as desperation takes hold. Hisses and curses spill from his lips, laced with ragged gasps as he pounds into you with fevered urgency.

He’s close—so unbearably close—your walls gripping him like a vice, clenching and pulsing around his throbbing cock. The way you twitch and squeeze him sends his mind spiraling, pleasure coiling tight in his core, spinning his head like a top.

“Fuck,” he groans, voice breaking as he drives deep one final time. His cock pulses, spilling hot, thick cum inside you, filling you to the brim. Strands of it spurt and pool within, coating your cervix as he shudders through the intensity of his orgasm.

He stays buried inside you for a few lingering moments, your breaths falling into sync as the haze of pleasure slowly fades. His body stills, chest rising and falling as he collects himself, savoring the way you feel wrapped around him.

When you finally begin to settle, he pulls out—but before you can catch your breath, his hand drifts lower. Two fingers push deep into your slick heat, thrusting slow and deliberate, gathering every drop of his release and pushing it back inside you.

A cry escapes your lips, hands grasping blindly at the sheets as the pad of his thumb finds your clit once more, circling with torturous precision. Your head lifts, eyes locking with his—dark, hooded, full of wicked intent. A smirk tugs at his lips, lazy yet hungry, as his fingers drive deeper, curling just right, pulling another wave of pleasure from your already spent body. He opens his mouth to speak once more.

“I want a girl.”

#arcane smut #arcane #arcane x reader #arcane imagine #arcane x reader smut #jayce x reader #Jayce Talis #jayce talis smut #jayce x reader smut #jayce talis x reader #Jayce talis x reader smut

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canirove · 2 days ago

Text

Canary boy | Chapter 11

Previous chapter | Next chapter (coming out on Tuesday)

Masterlist

“Happy birthday!”

“Bloody hell!” Pedri yells when he walks into the kitchen.

“Oh my God, did you see his face?” Fer laughs.

“We all did” their dad says, also laughing.

“My sweet boy” Pedri's mum says, hugging him. “I'm sorry we scared you.”

“It's ok, don't worry. But what is that thing in your heads?”

“Birthday hats!” Fer says. “Inés’ idea.”

“What?” Pedri says, looking at me.

“I saw them yesterday while running some errands and thought it would be cute” I shrug.

“Spider-Man birthday hats?” he smirks, knowing perfectly well why I had picked them.

“Yeah” I shrug again, trying really hard to hide my smile.

“She also bought this for you” Fer says, putting an “it's my birthday” crown on his head.

“Seriously, Inés?”

“We are a family. We all have to look ridiculous” Fer says. “Now come here. Let's take a photo with the birthday boy before we start eating, have to leave to open the bar and forget about it.”

“I am the one who won't forget about this” Pedri whispers in my ear when I move to stand next to him, his arm around my waist.

“Oh, stop complaining. You look cute.”

“No one can look cute with this in their heads, Inés.”

“You do” I smile.

“Lovebirds, I need you to look at the camera” Fer says while setting his phone on the table, suddenly making me very aware of the fact that we are in front of their parents. “Perfect” he says before moving to where we all are standing. “Say, Pepi!”

“Pepi!” we all repeat before Fer’s phone takes a bunch of photos.

“I'm killing him” Pedri whispers again.

“Can you please stop complaining? It's your birthday… Pepi” I say with a teasing smile.

“You know, when you say it it actually sounds better” he says while squeezing my waist, the feeling sending a wave of heat through my body that should not be allowed this early in the morning.

“Ok, let's sit down. We don't want our breakfast to get cold” his mum says. “Inés, here” she says, moving a chair for me.

“Thank you” I manage to say, Pedri giving my side one last squeeze before letting go of me. For now. Because he sits (or his mum makes him sit) next to me, his hand moving under the table from time to time and resting on my thigh, sometimes just staying there and others squeezing it, making staying still almost impossible.

“Inés, are you ok?” his mum had said after the first squeeze and my little jump, one that made me kick the table.

“Yeah, yeah. Just hit the table while crossing my legs” I had smiled, slapping Pedri's hand under the table and making him laugh.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“Presents time!” Fer announces once we have finished having breakfast. “Who wants to go first?”

“I will. This is from me and dad” their mum says, giving Pedri a big package.

“Thank you” he smiles while opening it. “Mum, is this…”

“It isn't my photo album, don't worry” she chuckles. “I found this one doing some cleaning a few weeks ago, turns out that I had bought the same one twice. And I thought, why don't I fill it with the same photos the other one has so Pedri can take it to Barcelona with him and check it every time he misses us?”

“Mum, I… This… You even wrote the same things under each photo!”

“My comments are the best part, they had to be there.”

“I love it, mum” Pedri says, getting up from his chair and hugging her. “I love you. And you too, dad.”

“We love you too” he smiles.

“God, mum. Now my present and Inés’ are gonna look like shit” Fer says.

“Sorry” she shrugs.

“Ok, my turn” he says. “This isn't something as cute as mum and dad's present, but I think you will like it.”

“We'll see…” Pedri says, unwrapping the box I went to pick up yesterday. “Fer!” he gasps. “Did you… Oh my God, Fer!”

“Were saying?” their mum chuckles while Pedri inspects the sneakers Fer has gotten him, the biggest smile ever on his face. I think I had never seen anyone smile like that because of a pair of shoes. Not even Carla, and she loves shoes.

“Do you like them?”

“I love them. How did you manage to find them? I've been looking for them everywhere” Pedri says.

“One has his contacts” he smirks.

“I freaking love them, Fer. Thank you” Pedri says, getting up again and hugging his brother.

“Then I guess my present is the one that will look like shit” I sigh.

“Inés, you've given me the best present ever by allowing me to be here today with my family” Pedri says, taking my hand on his and giving it a squeeze.

“Yeah, well…” I say, feeling my cheeks on fire. “I still got you something” I say, giving him my present. Or presents since there were two.

“Which one do I open first?”

“The one with the blue wrapping paper.”

“Ok” he smiles, carefully opening it to not ruin it. “No way!” he laughs.

“More Spider-Man?” Fer says. “What do you two have going on with that? First the hats, and now… an apron?”

“I saw it yesterday and couldn't help myself.”

“I love it, Inés” Pedri laughs again. “What do you think, mum? Should I wear this at the bar?”

“Yeah… no” she says, making everyone laugh.

“I'll keep it for special occasions, then” Pedri says before opening his other present. “What… Inés.”

“Another one?” Fer asks with an even more confused look than before.

“This is the nice apron. One you can wear when you come over to my place and cook for me, for example” I say.

“Oh, so this gift also is for you” Pedri smirks. “You want me to properly look like a chef.”

“Maybe” I shrug, my cheeks back to being on fire.

“She even got your name embroidered on it” his mum points out.

“I love it, Inés” Pedri says. “I love both of them. I can't wait to be back in Barcelona and wear them while making you dinner after a game.”

“That sounds like a date” Fer giggles.

“Oh, shut up!” Pedri says, giving him a little push before moving to where I am. “Thank you, Inés.”

“You're welcome” I smile as I stand up and hug him.

“Looking forward to our date” he whispers in my ear.

“Same” I whisper back.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“But wait, if Inés is a football player… Does that make you a wag?”

“Oh my God!” one of Pedri's friends laughs.

“What? Isn't that how they call the footballers’ partners?”

“Wag stands for wives and girlfriends. Pedri is a boyfriend. So he would be a…”

“Bah” he says.

“What?”

“Boyfriends and husbands. Bah” he shrugs, making everyone laugh.

After having breakfast with his parents and Fer, we met with his childhood friends, and I honestly don't know who was more nervous about it, me or him. But we actually had nothing to worry about, because the moment he introduced us, we instantly clicked and it felt as if we had known each other for as long as he has known them. And even though we tried to explain to them many times that we weren't dating, that we were just friends, it was like talking to a wall like had happened with his family the day before.

“You don't know how many times we've teased him about you having a crush on him, Inés” one of his friends said. “All those Instagram likes? You couldn't be any louder.”

“And we knew he fancied you too” another one added. “He has always liked football, but I have never seen him so invested in it as when you play.”

“So we just knew it was bound to happen. He just had to see the light and say goodbye to Barbie nurse.”

Barbie nurse was the nickname they had for Nerea. A couple of them had met her while visiting him in Barcelona, and neither of them had liked the other.

So here we are now after an amazing meal they organized to celebrate Pedri's birthday (birthday cake with candles included), laughing and chatting while playing card games, the people at the restaurant definitely wondering when the hell we are going to leave.

“Both sound bad, but I think I'm sticking to calling you Inés’ wag” his friend says.

“Should we drink to that?” another one asks.

“I think we'll have to save that drink for my next visit” Pedri says.

“What? Why?”

“Inés and I are leaving tomorrow morning, and there is a place I haven't shown her yet.”

“A place? What place?” I ask.

“A very special one” he winks. Why does he have to do that in front of people who will notice my face turning bright red? Why? Aaahhh!

“Oh, I know where he is taking you!” one of his friends giggles. “Sunset?” she asks him.

“Sunset” he smiles.

“Urgh, you are gonna love it, Inés. You'll see.”

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“And?”

“I love it” I smile.

I've seen many sunsets over the years, Barcelona has some of the best. But none of them compares to this one. It is like someone has painted it, the colours being so vibrant despite being almost winter that they don't feel real.

“I can tell” Pedri chuckles.

“What?”

“Your face, Inés. You have it written all over it.”

“That I'm loving this?” I laugh.

“Yep. Here it says I” he says, writing the letter on my cheek with his finger, my skin burning where he has touched me. “Here love” he continues, now writing the word on my forehead. “And here it” he says, moving his finger over my other cheek. “I love it.”

“Uhm.” That's the only thing I'm able to say. Uhm.

“This has been an almost perfect birthday, you know?”

“Almost?” I manage to say, my face still trying to recover from his touch.

“Almost. Because for it to be perfect, there is one thing that needs to happen, and it can't without your permission.”

“My… what?”

“May I kiss you, Inés?” Pedri says, moving his whole body to face me, his fingers back to caressing my cheek.

“You… I…” I'm collapsing. My brain has shut down. My body has forgotten how to move, what it has to do.

Because Pedri has just asked me if he can kiss me.

Oh… my God.

“That's all I need for this birthday to be perfect, Inés. To finally kiss you.”

To finally kiss you. Finally. He's said finally, which means he has wanted to kiss me before and…

“May I?” he whispers, moving closer. “I'm gonna need you to say it, Inés. A nod isn't enough” he smirks when that's the only thing I'm able to do. Just nod. Because he wants to kiss me in case you hadn't heard. Pedri wants to kiss me.

“Yes” I whisper, my voice sounding so low I can barely hear it myself.

“Louder, Inés” he says, his lips brushing against mine.

“Yes. Kiss me, Pedri” I say. How have those words left my mouth? I wish I knew.

“My pleasure” he smiles before kissing me.

Finally.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“Wait, let me… There we go” Pedri says after closing the door of his house with his foot while I just giggle. “Where were we? Oh, yes. Kissing” he smirks before pushing me against the wardrobe and more than kissing me… devouring me.

Back at the spot where we watched the sunset it had all been soft and kind of shy kisses, but the moment we made it to his building and the doors of the lift closed, the kisses turned into fire, passion, need. And bloody hell.

“Pedri… Pedri!” I gasp when he bites my neck. “I have training tomorrow when we make it back to Barcelona, behave yourself.”

“Sorry” he says against my skin, sending waves of heat everywhere. “But I can't help myself, Inés. I can't” he says, pushing me a bit more against the wardrobe. That wardrobe.

“Aren't you scared?”

“Scared of what? Of being caught? I already told you my parents and Fer won't be home until midnight at least, today they close late. But if you want to stop...”

“No, no. I meant if you aren't scared of what is behind me.”

“What?” he says, lifting his head from my neck to look at me.

“The wardrobe, Pedri” I say, trying really hard to not smile… and failing.

“The… Fer?”

“Yep.”

“I'm killing him. I swear I am.”

“Don't be mad at him” I say, moving my fingers up and down his neck. “I think it's cute.”

“Yeah, well. Cute isn't what I want you to be thinking about right now.”

“Then what do you want me to think about?”

“My lips on yours” he says before kissing me. “And my hands all over you. Touching you, caressing you… or doing this” he says before lifting me in the air.

“Pedri!” I giggle again as I wrap my legs around him.

“What? Thought I couldn't carry you because I'm on the small side?” he smirks as he walks us to his room.

“I've seen your arms. I knew you were able to do it” I smirk back.

“And this is just the beginning of all the things I can do” he says, the way he looks at me when he says it making me melt in his arms.

Once in his room he doesn't bother to close the door. He just walks straight into his bed, letting me fall on it before taking off his sweatshirt and t-shirt all in one go since they get tangled together. Though I don't mind it, because it allows me to see him properly and… Dear lord. I had not noticed he had those V shaped things on his hips that have always driven me crazy when I see them on a man and…

“Liking what you see?” he smirks before joining me in the bed.

“Very…” much. That's what I would have liked to say if he hadn't stopped me with a kiss, one that almost leaves me out of breath.

“So many clothes…” he says as he moves his hands under my jumper. “We must do something about it.”

“What… Pedri!” I laugh when he lifts me up, sitting me on his lap.

“Arms up… Good girl” he smirks when I do as he says. “This is so nice…” he says, his finger following the shape of my bra. “Did you pick it thinking of me?”

“You wish” I reply with a teasing smile. Oh, wow. Who is this woman? Though maybe I did pack my best underwear for this trip, the one that is all lace and that according to Carla leaves no room for imagination.

“Rude” Pedri says before pushing me down on the bed again and going back to his kisses. First it is my jaw, then my neck, one shoulder, the other… And then he starts moving down on my chest until he is kissing me between my boobs, the feeling making me gasp. But he doesn't stop there. He keeps going down, taking his time until he makes it to the hem of my jeans. “Again, Inés, too many clothes. May I?” he asks, his chin resting under my belly button.

“You may” I manage to say.

“Then bottoms up” he says, making me laugh as I lift my hips, allowing him to easily get rid of my jeans and shoes. “You are so beautiful, Inés.”

“Thank you” I whisper. He is now kneeling at the end of the bed, his eyes slowly scanning my body while I try to remember how you are supposed to breathe.

“Beautiful” he repeats, lifting one of my legs and starting to kiss my ankle, my calf, the inside of my knee. “Every inch of you is beautiful, Inés.”

And every inch of me is burning because of him. For him.

“Pedri” I gasp when he moves to my other leg and doesn't stop at my knee, as he keeps kissing my inner thigh all the way up. And when I think he is going to kiss me there… He suddenly moves and is back to devouring my mouth, now one of his hands being the one that goes down, his thumb caressing my nipple through the fabric before squeezing my boob and making me moan. And he keeps moving down, caressing my stomach while still kissing me, and then…

“Inés…”

“Yes, you can” I say, not allowing him to ask for permission. I need him to touch me there.

“Thank you” he smirks. “But first…”

“Pedri!” I complain when he moves his hand to rest next to my head.

“Patience, Inés. Patience” he says, kissing my nose before lifting me up again and sitting me on his lap. “I'm going back there, but first we need to get rid of this” he says, nodding towards my bra.

“Fine” I sigh. But as I move to unclasp it…

“No” he says, stopping me. “Let me do it.”

“You will do it slowly.”

“I will” he smirks.

“I don't want you to go slow.”

“Are you sure?” he says, moving his hands up my back, his fingers easily unclasping my bra before caressing my shoulder blades. “Doesn't this feel good?”

“It does, but…”

“And this?” he continues, kissing my shoulder and slowly pulling down one strap.

“That too. But Pedri…”

“Shh” he says, doing the same on the other side, my bra leaving my body as he pushes me down on the bed again.

And the moment I touch the mattress, the gentleness is gone.

His mouth and tongue are on one of my nipples, his fingers doing the same on the other, and I find myself moaning his name, my body arching against him.

“Does this feel good, Inés?” he says against my skin as he moves his mouth to my other nipple.

“So good.”

“Told you moving back here would be worth it” he smirks as we lock eyes. And what does he do? He winks. He fucking dares to wink before going back to torturing me. And in response, what do I do? Grab his hair, maybe pulling a bit too hard judging by the way he grunts. But I don't let go. I keep running my hands through it, sometimes pulling a bit. Like when his hand lets go of my boob and starts moving down to where I wanted him earlier.

“Pedri” I gasp when he finally touches me.

“Is this what you wanted?” he whispers, moving until we are face to face.

“Uhm” I nod.

“Use your words, Inés” he teases me.

“Yes. That's what I… fuck” I moan in his mouth when he kisses me again, his fingers still touching me, my hands tangled on his hair as my body stars to lose control.

“Let me make this be even better” he whispers in my ear, his hands moving to my hips, pulling down what was left of my underwear until I am completely naked in front of him. I'm… holy shit.

But I don't have too much time to freak out. He's back to being on top of me, to touching me like I wanted him too. Though this time he's adding something else. One of his fingers is going inside me, another following not long after.

“Pedri… Fuck, Pedri.”

I'm close. I am so close. I can feel it in every single fiber of my body... until I can't take it anymore.

“Are you ok?” he whispers.

“Yeah” I manage to say while catching my breath. That was… Woah. And it was just his fingers. Like… Woah.

“Do we keep going, then?” he says, brushing his nose against mine.

“Yes.”

“Good” he smiles before kissing me again, this time more gently, kind of allowing me to relax before the torture starts again. Though it really doesn't happen. The torture, I mean. This time he is all about caressing my skin and leaving soft kisses, about touching and feeling each other. And when he gets up from the bed to get rid of his joggers and his underwear… “You can look, Inés” he chuckles.

“Sorry, I just…”

“Gone shy now?” he says with a teasing smile.

“Yep” I reply, my face burning as I try to focus just on his hands, on how they are looking for a condom on his bedside table. But then I start thinking about what those hands and those fingers just did to me and… Bloody hell. If I didn't look too lame by doing it, I would cover myself with the bed sheets and hide from him.

“It's ok, don't worry” he says once he's finished and has moved back to the bed. “You have no idea how beautiful you are, Inés” he says again, kissing me one last time before his hand goes down to…

“Pedri, wait” I stop him.

“Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, I just… I…” C'mon, Inés. You know you can tell him. You know you can. “I… I've never done this and I… I…”

“Inés. Inés, look at me” he says, gently grabbing my chin and making me look him in the eyes, the thing that I was avoiding to do. I know I can trust him, that he isn't a jerk. But he also is a man and… “There is nothing to be ashamed of, Inés.”

“What?”

“It's ok if you've never had sex before. It is nothing to be ashamed of. And if you don't want to do it, if you want me to stop…”

“No!” Woah, that sounded way too eager. “No, I mean… I want to do it, Pedri. With you. I want my first time to be with you.”

“Are you sure?” he says, caressing my chin, my cheek. “I don't mind stopping now, we have all the time in the world to do it.”

“No. I want it. I do. With you.”

“Ok” he smiles. “But you have to use your words, Inés. If you don't like something, or are uncomfortable, or…”

“I will let you know.”

“Promise?”

“I promise” I nod.

“Good girl” he smirks before kissing me.

A kiss that is the opposite of that smile that is all playfulness and cheekiness. A kiss that is the softest and most caring one we have shared yet.

#pedri #pedri gonzalez #pedri x reader #pedri gonzalez x reader #pedri fanfic #pedri gonzalez fanfic #pedri imagine #pedri gonzalez imagine #football fanfic #football imagine

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unriding · 4 months ago

Text

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

#彡 favorites.#cw slavery #cw racism #cw violence #cw sa mention #the first sentence with the block letters ): it says I’ve always love you ??? gonna go cry now (I already did last night)#‘your eyes went soft. beneath the artificial fragrance / you finally caught a hint of his family scent’ ‘the way it always is when he’s #scared.’ THIS LINE BROKE MY HEART. his facade is not facading . WE KNOW. WE WILL ALWAYS KNOW #‘nothing of value’ god dammit aventurine i want to shake his shoulders so bad. this is killing me #OMG THE COIN PURSE PART. THE READER IS SO SWEET )))))): OMG. I remember the face I made at that part /pos and I did tear up quite a bit #‘you never let me do my job’ YEAH. what’s up with that ????????? aventurine u turd. I WANT HIM TO LET US LOVE HIM SOOOO BAD HGGGRRRRRRRRRRR #‘no im actually a great liar. you’re just too good at reading me. it’s very inconvenient you know.’ okay i don’t know how to explain how i #feel. but can I say I heard this perfectly in his voice ? and it made me react some way. like jaw fell open kind of way. your characteriza #UGH I HATE THE TAG LIMIT characterization** IS SO GOOD I CAN HEAR EVERYTHING IN MY HEAD it’s like a movie is playing in my brain mhm mhm!!!#also the part where we keep repeating aventurine over and over and he keeps talking about what he could buy ): LISTEN TO MMMMMEMEEEEEEEHHRH #‘it went against every instinct not to touch him’ THIS IS WHAT I MEANT in my word dump )): trying so hard but so conflicted because #as an alpha you can make it better for him. but he doesn’t want that so u respect it. but he’s in so much pain ): UGHHHHHHHHHH #the sweater part . are you serious /pos. this is such a cute little detail ): I’m gonna start sobbing again can we give him the world #‘everything smells like you’ im sorry 😭 we don’t have much to work with mr aventurine BUT HE SAID ‘I don’t mind it’ SO🥺🥺🥺#‘copper’ ‘they want it for the copper’ the way I started laughing because r u serious . I’m actually a little . brow twitched. BROW TWITCHE #oh okay the copper! right. the copper. (the table flips over) be so fr rn /pos #the entire wrist scene I read with one hand over an eye and also hidden under my blankets because I was so tense HEJDKCKJCKD #‘aventurine would rather die than be owned again’ my heart shattered into pieces at this btw #him still remembering the pass to the muzzle ): and the ‘are you leaving’ im literally gonna cry all over again /pos #the neck scent gland fucked me up so bad. and the rain scent. and he likes it because it’s ours . x _ x / T_T #i have thoughts about your other fic but I will probably write them tomorrow because now I would like to re-re-re-read this one 😅#I’ve always loved * for the first tag dammit I can’t imagine how many typos are in this whole thing #TLDR : great work !!! loved this > < <33

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