#it's very promising and also smells of woman's perfume

[blunt-force-therapy]

It's really A Feeling when your far right wing, selectively racist grandfather gives you a book by Isabel Allende as a gift. Pops, do you know who her uncle was?

[sleepinthrumyalarms]

— power plays, pillow talk

pairing: victoria neuman x fem!reader

warnings:: smut, lesbian sex, size difference, strapon referred to as cock

summary:: a bottle of good wine, homemade dinner, a sweet little thing warming up her bed – what more could victoria possibly ask for after a long workday?

word count:: 1.5k

a/n: wow i'm rusty, haven't written smut in a good long while. starting off a bit vanilla with vicky. also she would 100% talk you thru it. i don't make the rules

never in her life had victoria neuman ever felt the need to compensate for something. a woman in power, in more ways than one, she never needed to climb through the ranks, simply gliding through them, a casualty or two on the way.

she had it all – a big car, a big house, a big desk at the Congress.

so you suppose it’s fitting; the big, girthy toy she has strapped around her hips under the material of her dress pants.

it’s huge, actually – got to be six inches at the very least, and that’s without taking into consideration the fact that you’ve never had any eye at all – of a dark, wine red color, the thick, thoughtfully lubed shaft glistening under the dim lights.

that one image of a hamster chomping down on a banana ten times his size pops up in your head.

your throat bobs with a soft gulp — oh god. you’re the hamster.

but victoria is nothing if not considerate. a soft silky pillow is lying under the small of your back, angling you properly for her, and the bedroom you share smells distinctly of something dark and woodsy, heady but not enough to overwhelm, the scented candles a welcome sensation that serves to relax you further.

when her hands grab ahold of your hips, thumbs pressing into the hipbones, you buck into her touch involuntarily. you’re not sure if it’s anxiety or arousal.

“no-no, that won’t do, pretty girl…” victoria chides softly, gives a playful little squeeze as a warning. “you promised you’d be good."

well, that’s true. you did.

you’re almost embarrassed – two glasses of cabernet sauvignon in and you’re already unable to think of anything but how much you want her. your skin tingles with anticipation, the gentle pressure of her hands grounding you as they slowly map their way up and down your body, caressing the undersides of your breasts, your shoulders, the plane of your belly. the warmth of the room wraps around you like a comforting embrace, the scent of the candles mingling with the subtle notes of the woman’s perfume – victoria’s hands work your body like dough, and that combined with the sight of the powerful politician standing between your thighs, all veneer and perfect composure, dark brown eyes trailing over your naked form like a feast is enough for your legs to part further. she doesn’t even have to ask.

“just like that, sweet thing. open up for me,” her palms rest on your thighs and she leans in to press a few gentle kisses to the side of your neck.

it’s intoxicating – her touch, her scent, how tender she’s with you, loving. you’re so aroused it’s starting to hurt.

“vicky…”

“i know, i know,” she murmurs. “need to get you ready for me first.”

she slides her ring finger through the warm petals of your pussy, humming at the wetness gathered there, and she can’t help but indulge herself. she leans down, face level with your cunt, and licks a thick stripe through the dripping warmth, teasing another involuntarily buck of your hips and a whimper from you.

you should’ve known she’d be too greedy to waste all that sweetness on her fake cock — she laps and slurps at you with gentle vigor, palm squeezing your hip to keep you from bucking into her mouth again. it’s a soft, affectionate kind of pleasure — victoria doesn’t rush, doesn’t push you too much too soon, deliberately avoiding your puffy clit to keep from any possible overstimulation.

you sigh softly, leaning your head back against the pillows, but before you can enjoy the heavenly sensation any further, she pulls away with one last flat lick, guiding your thigh to press against her hip.

the head of the toy pushes tantalizingly against your entrance, its smooth surface just barely parting your folds before she pulls back, sliding the silicone along your slit once more – the motion is slow and deliberate, the toy gliding easily through your wetness, teasing you with its presence. every so often victoria lets the tip dip inside, a fleeting, electrifying intrusion that leaves you aching for more, before withdrawing it again. the sensation sends shivers up your spine, your body instinctively arching towards the source of pleasure – but you know she’s doing it to get you nice and ready for her, as if the sloppy little courtesy licks weren’t enough.

"fuck, you're so wet," she whispers, her voice thick with satisfaction. "so eager. it's almost too easy."

she presses her hips more firmly this time, her cock breaching your entrance and slipping inside with a smooth, deliberate motion. the sensation is overwhelming, your body accommodating the intrusion with a mixture of relief and intense pleasure. she holds herself there for a moment, letting you feel the stretch and fullness.

god, it’s big – bigger than anything you’ve ever taken before. for a moment an alarming thought of not being able to fit the intimidating girth inside you shoots through your lust-clouded brain, but the smile on victoria’s painted lips tells you that she will make sure you do.

you tilt your head back with a shaky breath, and she chuckles, leaning in to nose at your earlobe, “good?”

biting your lip, you manage a nod in reply, hiding your face in her neck as you try to process the sensation.

victoria sets a slow, torturous pace, pulling out almost completely before sliding back in, her thighs kissing the backs of your legs. her hand shifts from your hip to your navel, gently sliding along your skin and pressing against your warm, sensitive stomach for purchase – the action so undeniably erotic it has a broken moan tearing from your mouth.

“oh?” victoria quirks a thick eyebrow, perfect white teeth peeking out to worry a plump lip between them. “does that feel good, sweet girl?”

her palm presses just the slightest bit firmer, enough to heighten the pleasure of her silicone cock pushing deep inside of your cunt deliciously as her fingers sprawl over the flesh of your belly — it flutters under her hand, muscles struggling to accommodate the enormous intrusion.

“d’you feel me here?” she asks, voice a silky purr, dripping with control and a hint of amusement as her hips drive the toy deeper into you, each thrust deliberate, strong, unyielding. “such a pretty tummy, baby… so, so perfect.”

you can’t even speak.

victoria leans down, her breath warm against your ear as she whispers, “i love how you open up for me… how you take every inch like you were made for this.”

the pressure in your stomach intensifies as she slows her movements, dragging each thrust out to an agonizing pace. her thick cock feels impossibly full inside you, stretching you in a way that teeters on the edge of pain and ecstasy.

"such a good girl, letting me stretch you, fill you up. gonna make it the only size you’ll ever take. the only that can ever satisfy you.”

she shifts her hips, the change in angle making you gasp as the toy hits that sweet spot inside you, the pleasure so intense it almost hurts. victoria's other hand that isn't busy trying to feel herself through the thin wall of flesh of your belly moves to prop herself next to your head, caging you in with her presence, and you reach to desperately hold onto her bicep, fingers digging into the dark blue of her power suit she has insisted on keeping draped over her shoulders.

“there you are, pretty girl. so close. so, so close, sweet thing. need you to cum for me."

victoria's pace quickens, hips snapping forward, and with a final, shuddering breath, you let go, the pleasure crashing over you in waves, overwhelming and all-consuming. she guides you through it, soft, reassuring whispers as she follows you into bliss, a guttural groan escaping her lips – for a moment the world is nothing but the two of you, tangled together in a haze of pleasure.

with the waves of white ecstasy beginning to ebb, she slows her thrusts to a gentle rhythm before withdrawing slowly, the loss of her presence inside you almost as intense as when she was buried deep. you whimper at the emptiness, your body still trembling with aftershocks, and her warm hands soothe the feeling away, a small, amused smile on her full lips, “thoughts?”

as if that isn't obvious.

you groan in response, wrap your arms around the woman’s shoulders to tug her down and press your lips against hers hungrily. then you pull away, breathless in satisfaction, and grin up at her, “fucking amazing. i wasn't even sure it’d be possible.”

victoria hums, her palm caressing your thigh thoughtfully, “in that case… you think you can take more?”

not one for being patient behind closed doors, she grasps your hips, coaxes you onto your stomach with firm hands.

“what am i saying. of course you can take more. cock-hungry little slut.”

the degrading words make you whimper into the silky pillow, and victoria coos, her tone the slightest bit patronizing, “ohh, yes you are, sweet thing. no use denying it.”

her fingers dig into your soft flesh, and suddenly all the warm tenderness is gone from her voice.

“up. don’t make me repeat myself.”

[houpss]

𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝

soft and fluff, will be about all members (!), there may be hints of smut

Chan, who sees the meaning of life in you and wants to see you always in front of him all his life.

What do they say? People who truly love will die one day.

Chan, who promised to love you until the day death finds him, and even after that. He doesn't want to leave you.

The most tender dates, the most tender times. He will give you all his love and attention.

Chan, who tells the members so much about you, you are their “9th member”

Chan, who you're talking to video call with his family! and btw with yours too.

Chan, who, regardless of how busy the day is, will spend the evenings with you. Whether it's cooking or watching a movie/serials/k drama

Chan, who remembers every little thing about you and does what you don’t even ask for, but are clearly thinking about.

Meeting Chan was fate, maybe you were given each other by fate?

Oh..he looks at you like an angel, his eyes shine so brightly when he sees you!

Chan, who gives you a large bouquet of your favorite flowers every Friday.

He writes you songs, from the sad to the most vulgar... oh, the boy is simply overwhelmed with emotions for you.

Chan, who takes you on all his world tours because he finds it difficult without you.

He is the most gentle and sweetest with you! your heart literally breaks with love for him, you want to love and kiss this man.

Chan, who sits you on his lap while he works and holds your waist with one hand...babe, he has hot and big hands

Chan, who pays for ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING for you. seriously, even if you argue with him.

I wrote this situation, but...

"Channie, make me some coffee please"

"Ugh...I'm late, little mouse"

"So you won't do it? :("

"That means I’ll be late” and goes to make coffee for his beloved woman/man

His favorite terms of endearment for you are subtle but classic: “sweetheart” and “baby,” but on special occasions he will call you “sweetheart” with a matching saccharine expression. Or “little mouse”, which is also very cute

Chan, sometimes he can get angry and yell at you, but that's because he puts too much pressure on himself at work.

Oh..during your quarrels even plates and insults fly. After one quarrel, there were broken plates and you cut yourself, he noticed this and took you to the bathroom, where he treated the wound and apologized to you almost a hundred times. And the plates...buy new ones.

Chan, who practices flirting with you like you're in high school, but he learned it from STAY

Chan, who gives you all his hoodies and absolutely everything... for some reason you love to steal his shorts and walk around the house in them. Ooh, he thinks they fit really sexy on your hips.

He'll give you a bear hug when you sleep, he's a big spoon

He also always kisses your forehead when he leaves for work, because you are still sleeping, and he is already leaving.

but keep in mind, Chan makes sweet sex to you, but his stroking game is so crazy, even when he takes his time with you, he's so deep inside you that it drives you crazy, you're literally pray

Chan is an experienced and mature man, he is completely confident in himself and in you. He takes the leading position in the relationship, he is the one who leads.

Do I need to tell you that all his things smell like your perfume? What if all your things are in his perfume?

You sometimes help him with lyrics or with song arrangements when he gets stuck and doesn’t understand what’s best to add.

You, who pulls the vat out of the studio.

You, who always checks how he ate or how much he slept. You absolutely monitor his regime and make sure he doesn’t overwork.

You are flying to Australia together to visit his family! they will bless your couple.

Hannah will definitely say funny things about Chris, and Lucas is so shy around you.

Oh...Berry, baby Berry 🥹🥹🥹

How about date nights?

You really raised Chan's self-esteem, with you...he fell in love with himself, just as you love him.

He's just grateful that you exist.

First love is always last love.

“Home” is not a place, it is sometimes only a man, the man whom you consider your home.

When you come, all Chan’s problems and wounds heal, he wants to live next to you.

[kurogane2512]

A request about Natasha,himeko, Kafka when they are jealous, seeing FEM reader (trailblazer) with someone?

Game: Honkai Star Rail

Characters: HSR Himeko, Natasha, Kafka x fem! reader (trailblazer)

Type: Suggestive fluff (implied sex later, slight possessiveness)

Himeko

She won't get jealous very easily, she trusts the bond between you two a lot and knows you are loyal. She can look past a lot of behavior, especially since you come to her arms every time and promise your love with the most passionate kisses.

However, everyone has a limit. She hates having to continuously watch every woman you come across flirt and touch you, suggestively or not. A few even dared to invite you out, but she keeps her thoughts in as you always firmly deny. The way you look at her is exceptionally different from the way you look at those women, and that gives her enough assurance that you are hers.

But, Himeko is prone to loneliness. The more she watches and tolerates, the more distant she starts feeling from you. She hates thinking this way because she knows you'd never betray her but she can't help her thoughts.

Himeko was informed of your return to the train and immediately went out to greet you, only to be upset as she could smell sweet perfumes from your body, your clothes disheveled and spotted a faint red mark on your collar. Dan Heng and March had long returned to their rooms and only you two remained in the entryway of the train, staring at each other as an awkward atmosphere engulfed you.

"What....happened out there?" Himeko asked, almost in disbelief.

"Uh....i-it seems I accidentally wandered into certain....districts of the city."

Himeko squinted her eyes, "Again? This is the fifth time on your expedition here."

"I know but it's so confusing to navigate here! The women recognized me and pulled me inside, I denied so much and tried to come out but they kept surrounding me...."

"....And let me guess, March and Dan Heng had to save you? Just like every time?"

You nodded out of guilt, looking away. You couldn't meet your eyes with her even though you did nothing wrong.

"I-I'm sorry, I promise nothing happened....Uh, let me go get changed!"

You tried to walk away but she grabbed your wrist and pulled you towards her room, immediately pushing you on the bed and straddling you. It was a surprising action from Himeko, she would rarely act this way. Before you knew it, she dived in to kiss your neck and make numerous marks on your chest and face. You felt her tongue lap strips along your skin, her teeth sinking in your collarbone and lips wrapping to suck.

"When will you keep testing my patience?" she whispered in your ear.

"W-What?! No, I don't mean to! I'm really sorry, I never did anything there!"

"I know that! I know you wouldn't, I trust you. But....how am I supposed to help feeling this way?!"

She shouted as she embraced you and snuggled into your neck, you smiled and wrapped your arms around her before sniffing her hair.

"You don't have to do anything. It's my responsibility, I made you feel this way then I will also help you through it. I promise."

She gazed up at you with a pout then pecked your lips, "You have a lot of making up to do."

"Yes, ma'am~"

She chuckled before sitting up on your lap and sliding her dress down, the two of you spending an intimate and passionate night together.

"Hmm, perhaps I should accompany you from next time~"

Natasha

Similar to Himeko, she doesn't get jealous too easily either. Once again, she trusts the bond between you two. She knows you are naturally very caring and helpful; you helped her in a similar manner, after all. She is very sweet and motherly in general, loads of children flock around you and she gets a warm fuzzy feeling in her chest watching you with them.

Well, children are fine but what about their mothers? Natasha often sent you out to deliver medicines and other necessities to several homes, many of which had only a single mother and a child. You ended up helping the mothers more than required by taking care of some chores and babysitting their kids in emergencies.

You were simply helping out of goodwill as life in the Underworld was hard enough. Was it your fault when some of them became infatuated with you?

"Y/n, there's a package for you." Natasha called out to you and you came to her office to see a box wrapped in pretty ribbon kept on it, a small card attached to it which read 'For dear Y/n, thank you once again for helping around the house. I baked these for you. Come and see me again sometime~' The undersigned was a name you recognized, one of Natasha's longtime patients who often had her son checked up at the clinic.

You blushed slightly and opened the box to find handmade cookies inside. Natasha looked at you in amusement then smiled and patted your head, "Oh my~ These look really delicious. Looks like she has taken quite a liking to you, always sending a gift for helping her~"

You looked away in embarrassment, "I....I'll tell her to stop doing this, it's a waste of food and it's enough times now...."

"Oh, that reminds me. There was another letter for you in the morning while you were out on deliveries, it completely slipped my mind."

Natasha opened her drawer and took out a bright pink colored envelope with a rose seal, you nervously opened it and read the scented letter before quickly putting it back in.

"What does it say?"

"N-Nothing! It's just one of our patients thanking us!"

Natasha gave a small smile and stood up then swiftly snatched the letter out of your hand and skimmed through it before you took it back.

"I-It's not what you think it is! I have always rejected her, I—"

"Sshh~" her index finger brushed your lips before she leaned in to peck them.

"I know you are quite....attractive in their eyes. You help them so much and even take care of their children, it's no wonder they'd start liking you differently."

"N-No, but...."

She wrapped her arms around your body, "I trust you, my sweetheart. But....if someday you perhaps find someone better and want to leave then—"

"No! What are you saying?! Why would I?! I love you!"

Natasha looked at you wide-eyed then averted her gaze, "I....I just feel they treat you better than me. I'm very grateful that you chose me and love me but I'm used to people pushing me away so—"

"No! Stop it, I won't do that!" you pulled her into your embrace tightly. She was surprised for a bit then patted the back of your head.

"I won't deny I felt a litte....envious reading that and seeing all these gifts they send you...."

You leaned back and cupped her face before kissing her deeply, "Then tell me! I'll do something, I don't want you to feel that way!"

She smiled affectionately then suddenly pushed you down on the couch behind you and straddled your lap before you could react. You gazed at each other and shared a gentle kiss, no need of exchanging any words as her eyes told you everything.

Kafka

Oh, she definitely will have the most spontaneous reaction, and she will get jealous rather quickly as well. You are hers and she won't spare a moment to convey that. If she sees you being even slightly friendly or out of line with someone then expect to be immediately pulled away by her strings.

She is certainly possessive of you, it's not that she's insecure you'll leave her but she simply can't tolerate you being away and around others who act a bit too friendly with you. Maybe she'll lock you away in a room with herself and not let you come out before next morning~

"K-Kafka, I'm sorry—You misunderstand...." you pleaded out to Kafka as you sat on the bed, your arms bound to the bedposts by her strings while she straddled your lap and gazed at you.

"Hm? I misunderstand? Hehe, oh Y/n...you should choose your next words carefully~"

She tightened the strings as her eyes glowed, leaning closer to your body. She swiftly tore away your shirt, exposing you half naked body to herself before diving in and kissing you all over.

"You have been really out of line recently, you know that? We visited the Astral Express for a brief moment and you ended up befriending them....especially that woman, Himeko. Did she say some sweet words to sway you?~"

"N-No! She barely even tolerates me-mhm! You know s-she hates us...ngh~"

"She may hate us but she can certainly like you. And you don't even attempt to deny her, are you that desperate for attention?~"

"N-No, I'm sorry....I won't do it again..."

"Say that you are mine. Swear that you belong to me."

"I-I'm yours! I'm yours! I won't ever do it again!"

You shouted out desperately and she finally removed the strings, your arms falling limp out of pain and she placed an intense and passionate kiss on your lips.

"Good girl~ That's what I like to hear~"

[red-riding-wood]

Saltwater Tears

@runnning-outof-time K... Tumblr ate your ask when I saved it to my drafts so I apologise for the shitty screencap (I always take these beforehand in case it does this lol). And thank you for the request. <3 As I promised, I brought all the angst.

Also, while writing this, the character/reader reminded me of the song Dragonslayer by Lana Del Rey (Isa, you have ruined me) so I decided to use that as some added inspiration.

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x F!Reader

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

WARNINGS: Angst, sexual references, mentions of cheating, language

WC: 1816

Thomas’ words still echoed through your throbbing skull, no amount of his haughtiness lost on your memory as you trudged through the rain slicked streets. The coldness of his gaze was blazoned on the forefront of your mind, the flippancy with which he had dismissed you after the tense meeting with your father as if you were merely a trophy to flaunt before shelved to suffocate in a slow build of dust.

And with each step, your lungs seemed to constrict tighter. With each step, you remembered bits and pieces of the evidence you’d found of his infidelity – the unfamiliar hair brush on his bedside table, the smell of another woman’s perfume on his sheets. You hadn’t wanted to believe it, hadn’t found your suspicion to be unbearable until now.

He called your name past the roar of the storm, but it only drove the spike in your heart deeper each time, your tears mingling with the cold of the rain and your body shuddering from head to toe.

And yet, every time your name was uttered, you couldn’t help but falter, your bleeding heart beating for him and some cruelly human part of your mind urging you to turn back and let yourself fall into arms that would be so warm in the cold, that would soothe the bitterness in your burning veins.

You jumped back, a sheet of filth drenching the skirt of your dress. A shiver seemed to travel to the very marrow of your bone, and as you stopped, staring in shock at the car that sped by and the road you had nearly stepped across, your heart felt as if it were about to split your ribcage in half.

“Y/N.” A gravelly yet distant voice called to you so soft now, a warm breath on your neck sending another shiver to your aching bones. You turned, slowly, and swallowed your grief as you met Thomas’ piercing eyes. Once his touch grazed the bare of your arm, it was over. You weren’t going anywhere.

“Let’s talk about this,” he said, catching his own breath as his fingers travelled down the length of your arm and laced with your own that shivered, numb, from the cold.

That was the first time you had ever heard Thomas Shelby suggest you talk about anything, and it pulled at an aching heart.

“Okay. Let’s talk,” you breathed, voice nearly washed away by the roar of the storm. You blinked fiercely, lashes fluttering in the rain that struck them. “You never told me your history with my father.”

“It’s in the past,” Thomas said, and you nearly winced at his words. As his other hand reached to brush the hair slicked to your cheek, you flinched away. And like that, your bleeding heart came undone, and you said, “Really, that little pissing match was ‘in the past’? The entire purpose of that meeting was just to rub his nose in the fact that you fucked me.”

Thomas’ hand seemed to catch in the air, not used to this side of you. The side of you that was bitter, that was fed up.

And he didn’t say anything. But his fingers loosened from yours.

You choked back a sob, and your words came weaker now, and you stammered over them because you couldn’t believe what you were saying, didn’t want to imagine him answering. “Did you… did you ever… Do you really want me? Or is this your way of getting back at my father?”

All your life, you’d been taken advantage of by men who wished to grow closer to your family for their ties and their power. And while your father had many enemies – the Blinders included – you never could have imagined that someone would pretend to love you just to hurt him, let alone the one person who seemed to understand you, who’d offered you some ounce of reprieve in this unforgiving city.

You’d been used many times, but this, this was different. It would’ve hurt less had you stepped onto that road.

Thomas was still silent, chest heaving as he panted out his own breaths. Blue eyes twisted with grief, the bright of them taking your reluctant mind through memories of the pastel sky above the two of you as you rode through the countryside, of the dress he had bought you and had said did not compare to your beauty.

Your fingers bunched the drenched fabric of the very same dress, peeling wretched garment from your flesh as if it caged you to such memories. You tried not to think of all the times you’d worn it for him, that it had been discarded across the same bed that had been inhabited by other women.

“I know about her,” you added bitterly. “Or them. I know about them.” Your eyes bled tears, and your heart pumped venom. “I’ve lied to myself for too long,” you said, as you began to turn away. “Goodbye, Thomas.”

“They were just business.”

You halted, anger flaring from the raw ache of your heart, and you spun on your heel. “So you’re using them, too?” you snapped. “Everything is business with you, Thomas. Everything. Even me.”

“You’re not just business.” He took a step forward. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

It seemed as if your heart hadn’t broken enough. At his words, it shattered in your chest.

“Y/N, I want you,” he said. “And I don’t say it enough, but I love you. It was never about your father.”

“What was it about, then?” Your voice shook and you fought against every basic instinct to draw him in close, to press your chin to his chest and hear his own heart beating for yours.

He shook his head, lips parted but not speaking, as if at a loss for words. You were about to turn away again, when he took another step forward, his hot breath fanning against your cheeks. “That first time you asked me to take you to the ocean. And fuck me, I nearly didn’t say yes.” The faintest of chuckles broke his speech, the rare chuff of his laughter clawing at your aching chest. “But when you caught the wind in your hair it was like you came alive.”

Past the damp of the rain you could smell the sea, could nearly taste the saltwater on your lips when he’d kissed you that day. The last of your worries had melted away in the heat of that kiss, had been swept away by the breeze and carried far offshore. Or so you had thought.

“And you made me feel alive,” he said, his hands cupping your cheeks now. You were paralysed, at his mercy, leaning into his touch and inhaling the scent of horses and gunpowder past the rain. “For the first time since the war.” 

Breaths exchanged, and you tilted your head so that his lips brushed your forehead instead, and you said, “Why don’t you say things like this to me more?”

“I don’t know. But I can. Just come back to me.” His fingers wrapped around the back of your neck as if to trap you. You’d never heard him so desperate. It nearly made you do exactly what he asked.

As if that wasn’t what you yearned for. As if you wouldn’t do anything to forget all of this and go back to that day by the sea, or under the pastel blue sky on the back of a racehorse.

“I want to.” You could hear his heart beating now, thundering like the hooves of one of his horses as you uttered your truths into the dampened fabric of his shirt. “And I want to believe you. But I don’t know if I should.”

“Come back inside,” he breathed against your hair.

“I don’t know if my heart can take this, Thomas.” You tore yourself away, practically shoving him off while avoiding his gaze. “I don’t know if I can go through this again if you’re lying…”

“I’m not lying. Look at me. Look at me.” Firm fingers swept beneath your chin and forced your gaze to his.

“If I make you feel so alive, why do you keep killing me, slowly? Why do I keep watching you drift from me?” As if you were taken by that ocean. Your saltwater lips trembled around your words.

They were questions you’d been burning to ask for a long time now. Questions you’d buried beneath your own lies that you told yourself, like how you’d buried your anguish beneath the sands of the beach only to feel it slam once more against your chest, harder, more forceful than anything you’d known.

You couldn’t take it anymore, not as each second of silence that dragged by killed a piece of you. “You can’t answer. And if I come back to you, it’s going to keep happening.” You spoke past the rising sand in your throat until it came out as a whimper, and you shook your head helplessly, and you realised that it was your tears that you could taste on your tongue, not the ocean. “I’m so torn, Thomas.”

“I’ll flip a coin,” he said, digging into his pocket. “Heads, you trust me. Tails, you walk away.”

Those words might as well have been the last nail in your coffin. They’d sealed your fate, at one time. When he’d asked you to work for him. When you knew the moment the silver caught the wink of light that he would be your undoing no matter what it landed on.

“Not everything can be solved with a coin,” you protested, the bitter taste of betrayal on your tongue.

“Remember, it will tell you what you want. Remember when – “

“I remember, Thomas.” It was all coming crashing down on you just like the rain that pelted your shivering body, and you closed your eyes, your tears achingly warm as they bled across your cheeks.

“Watch.”

“No – “

The coin was a watery vision as it came down in the air, your lashes peeling open and lips parting in terror. Whatever it landed on, it was over. Either he’d kill you slowly or you’d die here, tonight; you’d never be the same. Your fate had always been sealed.

He snapped the coin shut in his hand. You met his eyes, your own fear reflected in their bright blues. And you realised that neither of you wanted to look. And so, tentatively, you asked,

“What is it?”

Slowly, he opened his hand. Slowly, you both looked at the coin. And slowly, the shards of your heart weighed so heavy in your chest that you felt as if you’d collapse to your knees.

But the answer wasn’t what crushed you. It was the realisation that, despite what the coin said, despite knowing what was best for you, you just…

… you couldn’t.  

A.N. I'm leaving the ending ambiguous and it's up to you if the coin landed on heads or tails!

MASTERLIST • REQUEST

Please let me know if you would like to be added/removed to any of my taglists and notified of new works!

TAGLIST: @eclecticwildflowers @emotionalcadaver @evita-shelby @minaethrym @shelbydelrey @zablife @runnning-outof-time @poisonedtruth

[martiandmichelle]

As is typical with me (as many of you know all too well), I started a story back on June 22 and just left it hanging. I'll draw it to a quick end here. (Here's the June 22 post: https://www.tumblr.com/martiandmichelle/753986784206127104/ill-get-to-this-photo-in-a-second-but-first-i).

The lady - I'll call her Valery - was, ummmm, unique in her sexual desires for me. The term objectification has negative implications, but it was part that. To her, I wasn't me, I was a physical thing, a body mostly, but there were lots of kisses to my face not so much to my lips. She glorified my physical form, in a way, as to be almost worshipful of it, heaping praises upon it. She spoke to me lovingly, like she would a puppy, a kitten, an especially cherished doll. Her touches were light as they gently explored every pore of my skin, never removing my panties or penetrating me. She used all her senses to soak my body into her: her eyes, especially, but also listening to my heavy breathing a slight moans, tasting the sweat beading on my skin, smelling the hints of perfume I wore. My body was a goddess to her.

The two days with Valery flew by. Not until it was over did I become a woman, a person, to her again. She thanked me as an equal, as a soulmate with whom she shared her deepest secrets.

She since moved to the mountains with her husband and I hear she is very happy. Of course, with promises that we will be alone together again soon.

[phoxey]

Is this what you dreamed about?

Professor!Bada x student!reader

CW: SMUT (18+) MDNI... porn without real plot, Dom!Bada, Sub!reader, fingering, choking, age gap, Dirty talk

AN: please enjoy this little treat to celebrate the end of 2023 ;) Happy new year guys and gals and nonbinary pals

From the moment you walked into that class on the first day of Uni, there was only one woman who occupied your mind. Bada Lee, your criminal history professor, a tall and intimidating woman. But she intrigued you, the way she smiled or looked at you sometimes, made your heart flutter. Your friends always teased you, saying that Professor Lee had a thing for you, which was why she always gave you good marks on all of your assignments.

That was until you got an Email one morning.

Dear Y/N, I attached your grade for your latest assignment to this Email. I am disappointed. Come to my office after your last class today. Best regards, B. Lee

Confused you clicked on the attached file, which summarized and explained the points that were given to you this assignment. You audibly gasped when you saw the total points. It was a failing grade! Impossible. You have never failed in one of your classes. Especially not hers.

After your last class, which ended late, you debated whether it was already too late to go to your professor. Also, you were nervous about what she was going to say. Until you stood in front of her office door, you still debated with yourself, but inside you saw light burning. It would be weird if you ran away now, so you dared to softly knock on her door.

“Come in.”

Shyly you walked inside and closed the door behind you. Only her desk light was burning in the otherwise dark room. When she looked up from her computer, she took off her glasses and set them aside. With a wave of her hand, she told you to sit, which you did, putting your jacket and bag down.

“How was your day?”, she asked.

“I was worried and scared because of your E-Mail, Professor Lee.”, you answered honestly.

She nodded. “Then let’s get to it. I must say I was very surprised and disappointed… usually you are better than that. But in the last few weeks…”

“I am a bit distracted…”, you admitted blushing.

“Say, what distracts you?”, she asked, her eyes piercing you.

“You.”, slipped past your lips and immediately your hand covered your mouth. Your ears felt so hot, they might as well be on fire.

Your teacher leaned back in her chair and smirked. “Really?”

“I am so sorry, Professor Lee, I didn’t mean to say that!”, you immediately rambled.

“But you really think that, do you?”, she asked.

“I… Professor Lee… I’m sorry, this was so inappropriate… I shouldn’t have…”

“You are not denying it.”

Your mouth shut and with your red face you looked down in embarrassment. You couldn’t deny what was true. That woman occupied your mind every day… and every night. It was simply not fair for her to be this attractive.

You didn’t even notice that she stood up, until two fingers lifted your chin and guided you to look at her. She met you with an indescribable expression. Dangerously dark eyes but a playful smile on her lips.

“You admit that you are distracted because you can’t stop looking at me?”, she asked.

You wanted to look away again, but she grabbed your chin between her index finger and thumb. The latter almost touching your bottom lip. She was so close; you could even smell her perfume. And lord, her scent was enticing.

“How about you answer this question and I promise to let you rewrite your assignment?”

As if your gaze filled with desire wasn’t enough of an answer. No, Bada Lee wanted to hear your pretty voice admitting that you fantasized about her.

Slowly you nodded. “I can’t stop looking at you.”

“Why?”, she whispered, her eyes falling to your lips, as her thumb pressed onto your bottom lip, making you open your mouth ever so slightly.

“Because… I find you attractive, Professor.”, you breathed out. You were almost in a trance, lost in her eyes and the feeling that stirred within you, the closer her face got.

“When you look at me, what comes to mind?”, she asked softly.

“Professor… I can’t…”

“Answer me.”

You swallowed hard and you could feel your lips tingle, hers were only inches away. “Your lips.”

A shockwave went through your body as you suddenly felt her lips on yours. Your mouth moved on its own and you kissed her almost desperately. A whine left your throat, when the kiss was over faster than you wanted.

“Like that?”, she asked.

Your eyes fluttered open. “I must be dreaming…”

“Oh sweetheart, this is so very real. If you’re good and tell me what your pretty head has been dreaming about, I just might be so kind to make it reality…”, she whispered and put some hair behind your ear.

“More… Your lips… everywhere. Your hands too.”, you admitted shyly.

She pulled you to stand and immediately into her embrace as her mouth crashed onto yours. She even seized the opportunity when you gasped, to slip her tongue past your wet lips, deepening the kiss. Your hands rested on her chest as hers roamed over your hips and back. A moan escaped when she moved south to kiss your neck.

“Have you dreamed about this too?”, she whispered against your skin and you could feel her smirk.

Eagerly you nodded, which caused her to chuckle.

“May I leave my mark?”, she asked gently, as her hands slipped under your shirt.

“I have dreamed about that too…”

As soon as you gave your permission she began working on a rather sensitive spot of your neck. She sucked right over where she could feel your pulse. Teasingly she bit into your skin only to apologize by licking over her mark. Bada leaned back to admire her work, but she was caught off guard by your look. Eyes half closed and unfocused, your lips deep red and kiss swollen. She almost lost her mind then and there when your tongue poked out to catch a drop of spit from falling from your lips.

She cupped your chin again to hold you while she savored a slow but deep kiss. Emboldened by her hungry gaze and your own lust, you took her hand and placed it a little further south, around your throat. She smirked down at you as she helped you sit on her desk. Her hand was just around your neck, she wasn’t applying any pressure at all, no matter how much you hinted that you wanted it.

It was only when she pulled you into another kiss by your throat, you got what you wanted. The pressure making you lightheaded, so that you couldn’t even form a coherent thought anymore. Her other hand ghosted up and down your thigh, sending shivers that went right into your clit, when she was only remotely close to slipping her hand under your skirt. Your hips rolled forward over and over in an unsuccessful attempt of creating friction. She noticed and her evil chuckle was swallowed by the kiss you shared.

“Please…”, you managed to get out.

“Beg for it.”, Bada smirked and bit your lower lip.

“Please… I need you to touch me.”, you really gave your best to get the words out. In response her hand left your throat and cupped your breast. You whined, that was not the touch you had wanted.

“Patience is a virtue, sweetheart.”, she muttered into your ear and kissed your temple, before her other hand came up and her long slender middle finger pushed past your lips. It was almost pathetic how obediently you started sucking on her finger and swirled your tongue around it.

“You dreamed about me being knuckledeep in your pretty cunt, hm?”, she asked then.

Again you eagerly nodded and she pulled her finger out of your mouth. You watched curiously as she pushed your skirt up and your panties to the side. At first her slick finger rubbed your throbbing clit ever so slightly. Bada took a mental note, that prepping her finger with spit wouldn’t have been needed, not when you were dripping wet like that. Her finger slipped into you almost too easily, and you exhaled a soft moan. Bada captured your lips in another kiss.

“So warm, so wet…”, she whispered. “So perfect.”

You moaned. You didn’t even know if it was because of her praise or her finger that was thrusting deep into you. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Your breath hitched when she added another finger, as she decided that you were not moaning enough. She wanted to hear your beautiful voice when you would come undone on her fingers. And it worked perfectly. Your breaths got quicker and your moans louder, just how she wanted it. She grinned self-sufficiently against your neck as she worked on another hickey. Curse words left your lips when she started to curl her two fingers within you and you grasped her shoulders, holding on for dear life, as she toyed with the most sensitive spot that existed within your body.

The tingly sensation in your legs and the knot in your stomach announced the bliss that was approaching slowly. That was until you felt her thumb on your clit, while her other fingers pressed against your G-Spot. An overwhelming orgasm washed through you and a silent scream got stuck in your throat. You clawed into her shoulder and buried your face in her neck, as she helped you ride your high and dragging it out as much as possible until you were pulling away with overstimulation.

Gently she pulled her fingers out and she stepped back to look at her work. You pussy clenching around the phantom feeling of her fingers that still lingered. You sat there, on her desk, panting and your eyes were still delirious. Your skirt was still pushed up and your hair stuck to your face with sweat, while a few tears rolled down your face after the overstimulation.

“Is this what you dreamed about?”, she smirked and put her two fingers into her own mouth.

[auiciqa]

Marriage Counseling With Miguel O'Hara 😵‍💫

Pairing-Miguel O'Hara x fem!reader

Warnings-not many just soft angst(kinda soft angst 😰) and cheesy

*a/n-this is my first drabble so keep in mind that this is my very first one and pls tell me if I made any mistakes😔💔

Miguel was a...very confusing man.you couldn't help but grow suspicion on the fact that he came home from work really late.I mean could you really blame the man? He's one of the lead geneticists in Alchemax which can honestly can be very stressful considering that he's also Spider-Man.

It wasn't till he got home from work really late with his hair all over the place,his blouse being smothered in wine red lipstick and the smell of cheap perfume from TJ-Maxx or Ross or something.Your mind knew exactly why he came home as such late hours.You weren't surprised at all,when you payed your credit card bills you could see purchases made at Tiffany's and co,Pandora,Sephora,Dior, Cartier,etc.. When the most he had gotten you was a full charm bracelet from James Avery?

You didn't have the words to confess to him so you just kept it to yourself.It even scared you that your own 5 year old daughter understood why you and her father were so distant.

The day you confessed to him he was mad.. like really mad. Mad to the point where could just slap you across the face right then and there. "Hija de ty puta Madre I knew I should've told you this sooner or later!"."Well you didn't,instead you went and fucked your sorrows into a 20 year olds pussy!". You felt your throat tighten like there was a piece of barbed wire wrapped around it,hell even your words came out almost broken."Well at least it was better than yours!"."Miguel.. don't you remember you said that you would love me forever? You aren't the man I feel in love with 10 years ago."."Well maybe I broke that promise alright why can't you just shut the fuck up already!".You cried into your pillow that night while Miguel left, probably to go to the other woman but you couldn't stop thinking about the promise he made to you,he said he'll love you forever,right? Right.....?

As soon as Miguel came home from work you had told him that marriage Counseling was going to be the best option the fix your marriage."Why can't we just get a divorce you stupid bitch it won't even work out!" He yelled but you just kept a straight face."Well I just don't want Gabby to grow up switching houses every week,the girl isn't even 12 and she already understands why we've been so distant it even scares me on how much she understands what we have..!". You both loved Gabby very much but Miguel couldn't help but think about his own daughter,how could have he forgotten about how his own daughter would feel if her parents separated her opinion matters too."Only for Gabby's sake.".Took awhile for him to agree his face said otherwise,he looked like he was defeated meanwhile you were scheduling an appointment with the counselor.

"Good morning Mr and Mrs O'Hara what seems to be the issue here?". It was that question that both of you guys wanted to avoid answering,yet again you felt that same feeling of ur throat feeling tight."Um..well this son of a bitch just cheated on me yet he promised he will love me forever and I just think that promises should last forever don't you think Mr.Anderton? Miguel couldn't help but roll his eyes at what you just said but felt a sense of relief because he wasn't the one to answer that question."Well that seems to be the case for most couples,but let's just start off on things that we can change and things we can't, starting off strong Mr O'Hara what is something you would like for your wife to change?"There was a long pregnant pause, because Miguel was distant from you he didn't notice anything that bothered him or that could change so he just had to make something up."Uh..she's always complaining on how I get home late.?"Did this bitch really just lie? Y'all are here to repair your relationship for the sake of y'all's daughter and he just sits there and lies?"Not true!" You yelled, Miguel couldn't help but argue back and so did you,this went on for about 30 seconds till Mr anderton stopped you guys."Ok that question might be something you both don't want to answer, I fear that y'all are here to repair you're marriage not fight." you turned to look at Miguel as he does the same and y'all both look back at the counselor."Let's just go with something easier,Um Mrs O'Hara have you ever thanked your husband for having a roof over your heads and to have food on the table every day?" Miguel could feel himself smirk and so did you feel it you were just left speechless,"Uh.. no.." "Ok now Mr O'Hara have you also thanked your wife for cooking,cleaning, washing laundry and for taking care of your child." Right back at you bitch, you couldn't help but giggle a bit as Miguel frowns at the question."no."

The session went on for another hour or two untill "I can't help but say that you both need some serious help.."You and Miguel both looked at each other knowing that this won't work out.

Okkk guyssss hope y'all liked this I think I could do some improvements but overall I think this came out good!

[slafkovskys]

jack x oldestnorris!sibling is too good. he would have to try so hard to win her over

oh, jack hughes is late.

he is so late and she isn’t answering any of the calls he’s screaming at his car to dial. they go straight to voicemail. his pleading texts he had sent before flying out of the practice facility also remain unanswered. he had the brief, fleeting thought to call dalton (her undisputed favorite brother, her baby much to his dismay) but that quickly passed.

why?

because dalton would call josh who would then find jack and end his career prematurely before he even had a chance at a decent playoff run. so no, he would handle this one himself.

oh, how could he be so stupid?

he’s flying down the michigan streets in the direction of the norris family home like a mad man. he curses laws as he tries to stick them because they don’t understand that he finally got a date with the woman he’s been crushing on since he laid eyes on her when josh’s family came to watch their brothers’ first ntdp game eight years ago.

and he’s fucking late.

the sight of the norris’ driveway is a relief and he’s sure that if it were loose gravel, he would have flung half of it based off the speed he was turning in. he catches sight of her, well the back of her, walking up the stairs and she has a hand on the front door when he opens his door and shouts, “y/n, wait! please!”

she looks at him, a look of annoyance and obvious hurt present across her features. she’s dressed up while jack is still donning the same clothes he had worn to train in, not even bothering with the suit he had brought that was hanging in his back seat neatly pressed by his mother for the occasion. his shoulders fall, “please let me explain. i know that i’m late-”

she scoffs, “only by about two hours.”

“i know, but if you would just hear me out,” he’s pleading with her. she stares at him for a moment before leaning against one of the beams on the porch, arms crossed over chest. a breeze sweeps over the two of them, carrying the smell of her perfume to jack. this one’s different then the one she usually wears, the one he had grown to love, to crave. this one was better even and after a whiff, he straightens up and clears his throat, ready to plead his case, “we finished training earlier than we were supposed to and everybody knew about tonight, i swear. they knew how important it was- is to me and that i couldn’t be late.

“one of the trainers for the younger guys asked if we could stay behind a few extra minutes and talk to them. quinn was down and they said it would only take a few minutes and because we finished early, i stayed. i didn’t know they would want us to do some exercises with them, or else i would’ve left. i swear i tried to get out of there every chance i could, but they kept stopping me.

“i know that we’ve already missed our reservation, but if you give me another chance, i can make a mean chicken parm. quinn’s not going to be home tonight and we would have to stop by the store first to get some things because i have nothing to make chicken parm, but i promise you that i can make it worth your while and then some,” he watches her expression the entire time, trying to gauge her reaction to his very true rendition of events. he’s confused when her lips curl up into a smirk.

“quinn called earlier and vouched for you. even got the trainer that held you back on the phone in case i didn’t believe him,” she says as she adjusts her bag on her shoulder. jack’s face falls and she grins, “called the house phone and everything begging me not to cancel on you. said you’ve been talking about this all week?”

jack nods quickly because it was the truth. he’d barely shut up about his plans since she’d agreed to them, “that’s right.”

“well, hughes, i would hate for you to go home to an empty house and no food,” she as she pushes away from the beam, making her way down the steps towards him, “but i do have one condition.”

“anything,” the ball was in her court and he was about two seconds from dropping to his knees and begging right in the middle of the subdivision. if that’s what she wanted, jack thought, he would do it.

“you have to take a shower when we get to your house because not even your cuteness can excuse the smell of sweat coming off of you right now,” she raises an eyebrow, “do we have a deal?”

“let’s shake on it, norris,” his hand shoots out and hers meets in the middle. he takes note of her manicure and grins, so she did pick the color he chose. “after you, m’lady.”

he leads her to the car with a light hand on her back and as soon as he shuts her door, there is the sound of someone clearing their throat rather loudly. jack turns his head towards the garage, which is now open and standing in the middle with a hockey stick in hand, looking as menacing as jack had ever seen him, was dwayne norris.

he doesn’t say a word. he doesn’t need to, the look he gives jack was enough to convey everything that her brothers already had. jack nods his head quickly, “yes sir, i understand.”

dwayne gives him a curt nod before shooting a puck into the practice net and jack scrambles to the driver’s side, eager to get away and finally start the night he had been waiting almost a decade for.

part two coming soon!

[somber-sapphic]

Doctor vs. Lawyer

〘Prompt 9- White Coat Syndrome〙

〘Notes- This doesn't exactly fit the prompt, but I think it's close enough. ALSO. I'm going to throw in a TW for anxiety, I projected a bit in this one. Aaannndd I made Reader a lawyer because it was the most stressful job I could think of.〙

〘Summary- Your wife being a doctor doesn't make you fear them any less.〙

〘Word Count- 700〙

〘Pairing- Carina DeLuca x Sick Reader〙

〚Main Masterlist〛⌶〚Sicktember Masterlist〛

You sat on the edge of the cot in the ER, your knee bouncing rhythmically against the cold tile floor. You didn’t want to be here, in fact, the hospital was the last place you wanted to be. You didn’t even enjoy coming here to bring your wife lunch, let alone when you were actually ill.  

It wasn’t that you disliked Carina’s coworkers, in fact, you got along with them all very well. But that was outside of the hospital. Here, you were something to be poked and prodded at and studied. You were helpless, out of your element. You weren’t in control.

A painful cough ripped through your chest, and you ducked your face into your shirt, doing your absolute best to suppress and quiet the fit. That cough was the reason you were here. You’d been talking to Carina on the phone (she hadn’t been home in days), and the young doctor had ordered you to come in.

“Car, I want to go home. I’ll be fine at home, please.” You whispered, turning pleading eyes on the OB/GYN who was staring at the floor.

“No, bambina, you need to be here. I can only do so much at home. I cannot help if you need antibiotics.” She explained firmly, rubbing her knee with a free hand while texting with the other. A quick glance over her shoulder showed you that she was texting Amelia, presumably in relation to your nonexistent treatment.

“I want to go home.” You said again, coughing into your shoulder. The cold you had woken up with a week ago hadn’t gone away, instead it had gotten 10x worse. Carina had been doing her best to monitor your symptoms but, in the end, she couldn’t legally treat you.

“I know. If you had done a better job at taking care of yourself maybe, we wouldn’t be here.” The brunette snapped, glaring at you. She loved you, she did, but she had also been working nonstop for weeks, barely leaving the hospital. She hadn’t been home to sleep or have a proper meal for eight days. The last place either one of you wanted to be was Grey Sloan.

“I-I’m sorry.” You whispered, tears filling your eyes. More than you hated being here, you hated making the woman you loved angry. You knew that you should’ve taken better care of yourself, but you’d gotten distracted. It was hard being a lawyer, you often worked just as many hours as Carina.

The physician sighed and ran her fingers through her silky hair, tossing the long locks over one shoulder. She turned to face you and smiled a little, shaking her head.

“No, I’m sorry. It is not your fault that you got sick, I apologize for biting.” Now it was your turn to smile. Her little slip ups in English were always adorable.

“Snapping babe, not biting.” You corrected, putting your head on her shoulder. The mix of exhaustion from your illness and the nonstop bouncing of your leg was getting to you. Another wet cough tore through your body, followed by a sound you didn’t know that you could make. Now you felt anxious, sick, and pathetic.

“Oh, amore. I know you’re nervous, but I promise it will all be okay. We will make sure it’s someone you feel comfortable with, yeah? No one gets to touch you unless you’re okay with it. And as soon as it’s done, we will get you back home and into a warm bath, then bed.” She said, placing a featherlight kiss to your sweaty hairline.

You couldn’t fathom why on Earth she’d want to be kissing you right now, but there was no way that you’d be complaining. You leaned into her side, resting your head in the crook of her neck.

If your nose hadn’t been so stuffy you probably could’ve smelled her calming vanilla scent, the perfume always a comfort. You sprayed it all over the sweatshirt that was saved specifically for when she was gone.

“There she is, see, just Amelia. We like Amelia, no?” Carina said with a smile, running her thumb across your cheekbone. You nodded, still apprehensive. The neurosurgeon was great, you loved her as a friend, but still. Doctors.

“It will be fast my love. I promise.” Your girlfriend soothed, kissing your earlobe. It was a strange place for a kiss, but you weren’t about to object to a little extra comfort. With a final deep breath -and subsequent coughing fit- you steeled yourself, ready for whatever Amelia would throw at you. As long as Carina was there, you could do anything.

〖Join My Taglist!〗@lovelyy-moonlight, @bloomingflowersthings, @lots-of-pockets, @asiangmrchk13, @scrambled-brain-eggs, @juststuckhereforever, @chairhere, @goldenempyrean

[possum-quesadilla]

The last chapter of Time is a Flat Circle is up! So sorry in advance. (No I’m not.) Be sure to read the trigger warnings and tread carefully! This one is a doozy!

Here are the details for this specific chapter! Time is a Flat Circle as a whole will have a “post mortem” itself before Part 2 comes out. If you have any questions you’d like answered, send them my way!

- The lyrics from this chapter’s title is from “This Woman’s Work” by Kate Bush! Heavily inspired by a scene using a song in “Our Flag Means Death”, I listened to this song endlessly while writing this chapter. I believe it fits it so well for obvious reasons.

- “His senses weren’t overly reactive, recently. It was easier to spend more time outside, or among the humans’ excited chatter. It was nice. It made them feel… not peace, but a lack of unease.” - he is experiencing overstimulation less and less due to the humans helping him have access to accommodations!

- “(where the hell even was “Miskatonic University”?)” - This is a reference to H.P. Lovecraft’s work, since it inspired Beetlejuice’s last name, but also more to the movie “Re-Animator”! It kicks a lot of ass if you can stomach it. Check the trigger warnings before watching. Highly regarded in the trans autistic community.

- Beej’s favorite pizza toppings being pepperoni and mushrooms is a reference to That Beautiful Sound!

- “one of the “fidgets” she was particularly fond of; a singular key of a keyboard.” - This is based on my favorite fidget!

- “Can you even blush?” - He can!

- “ the gaudy floral wallpaper.” … “the tackily patterned yellow wallpaper. (How repellent. How dull.)” - The appearance of the wallpaper and the way Beetlejuice describes it is taken straight from one of my absolute favorite horror short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman!

- “I promised I’d get you all out of this, and ‘m a… thing of my word.” - Taken straight from my own vernacular. I’m not a man or a woman of my word, so I say “thing” as a joke!

- “Hot damn!” - this is a reference to one of my favorite “Brooklyn-99” cold opens.

- The TV show Barbara and Lydia start while the boys are busy with the model is “The Fall of the House of Usher”, which is one of my absolute favorite shows ever. It is an amalgamation of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories! Lydia would go nuts, I think.

- As Adam states, Beetlejuice has very sensitive eyes! They’re built for darkness, so they don’t know how to handle an abundance of light properly. Also, the sensory nightmare of ‘sun in your eyes’ sucks.

- “Gardening with Barbara was like a short dream conjured up from a summer afternoon nap.” - Although altered, this comparison is taken straight from my absolute favorite story Stephen King has ever written: “Laurie”. It is phenomenal. Highly recommend you listen to MrCreepyPasta’s reading of it.

- The soup Beetlejuice helped make was loaded potato soup! One of my favorites.

- “It should be a comfort, shouldn’t it? No one else got a chance like this, to have the precious moments mapped out, to have their time left set in stone.” - This is taken straight from my own thoughts. As someone with many chronic illnesses and a projected shortened lifespan, this is something I often tell myself.

- “after he’d wrapped her up in blankets and tossed her onto her bed.” - Fun sibling activities! My older brother used to love to wrap me up tightly and toss me across the room onto my bed. I also loved it.

- “I don’t keep anything strong on me after Adam freaked out about my flask.” - My version of Adam has trauma related to alcoholism/substance abuse. Beej took his concerns seriously and stashed away most of his ’goods’.

- “ “There is no… other side for me.” He gently squeezed her hand. “This is it.” ” - This is, of course, one of the hardest lines ever written, from “BoJack Horseman”. Made me bawl my eyes out when I first heard it, and I bawled again writing it into my fic.

- The various smells!

- Black tea and perfume - this has already been addressed! Beetlejuice mentioned how Barbara smells like iced tea and perfume a few times before.

- Isopropyl alcohol and tung oil - aftershave and woodworking materials!

- Vinegar-y chemicals and formaldehyde - Lydia has traces of photo-treatment chemicals on her. And she likes taxidermy things.

- Beetlejuice’s reaction to being called sweet is a direct mirror of my own. I have no idea how to respond to being called kind and such and act all grumpy.

- On the “diagnosed” conversation - everyone but Beetlejuice knows that that’s about. Lydia has been diagnosed with a few things as well! Perhaps we will get into it in Part 2?

- “The evening passed at the speed of a dream. Dinner, dishes, laughter. Pajamas, blankets, rounds of Clue and tossed game pieces.” - This is meant to parody General Gibson’s speech in “Asteroid City”. Specifically when he says, “twenty years passed at the speed of a dream. A wife, a son, a daughter, a poodle.” This movie literally altered my brain chemistry, no hyperbole. It will be referenced again.

- “Eric is returning to his grave.” - This is meant to be foreshadowing for Beej’s plan!

- “Lydia suggested they watch “The Exorcist”. Despite the Maitlands being terrified of the film, they stuck around to watch it. But the humans did not make it to the ending. They fell asleep huddled together, all pressed up against the demon’s sides. “God damn you, take me!” It wasn’t so funny this time around.” - This has a few layers; it’s referring to how movie Beetlejuice has seen “The Exorcist” 167 times, and says it gets funnier every time. The scene that is being quoted is when the priest character, Karras, tells the demon to take him instead of the girl it’s possessing. He then jumps out the window to kill the demon along with himself. For obvious reasons, this is not quite as funny to Beej anymore. (And, I mean, it’s about an exorcism. And he is dreading an upcoming exorcism. Not fun!)

- “How exquisitely stupid. How perfectly splendid.” - These are both references to two of my favorite pieces of horror media. The first is from “Nope”, the second is from “The Haunting of Bly Manor”.

- “They tried, desperately, to hold it all within their grasp, to savor it, to hold it close. But it’s hopeless. The last day with their BFFF passes like sand through his fingers.” - This is meant to be a reference to “So Long” by Tokyo Elvis, which was the song for one of the previous chapters!

- “7pm arrives like a thief in the night, sure and swift and inevitable.” - the phrase “like a thief in the night” is from “The Masque of Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe. Lydia’s love of the poet is rubbing off on him!

- “He empties out their belongings from his hammer space and leaves them in tidy piles in the basement.” - this is a reference to a line from Mitski’s “The Last Words of a Shooting Star”, which was almost the song for this chapter. The lyrics it references are “And I am relieved that I'd left my room tidy, They'll think of me kindly, When they come for my things”

- The scene where Lydia calls Beetlejuice “BugBeverage” is meant to parallel the goodbye hug they exchanged at the end of the musical, just somewhat reversed!

- “Of all the billions of breathers that coulda seen me and said my name, I’m so glad it was you.” - this is meant to be a homage to a very impactful scene in “Fantastic Mr. Fox”. Shout out to all my fellow autistics that this movie made cry.

- “W-Wiggog Y-” - This is a cheeky reference to Wiggly from the Hatchetfield Universe! I have my own Tickle-Me-Wiggly!

- “I bid you, full foul in your fury, to smother this profane blight with your icy cull,” - This is a rephrasing of one of the best monologues ever from the best movie of all time, “The Lighthouse”. (I have seen it 103 times. I am not joking.) The original lines were, “rise from the depths full foul in his fury!” And “smother this young mouth with pungent slime”

- “His feet shifted, teeter-toter- Deep breath, it’s time.” - Taken from “The View from Halfway Down”, a poem read on “BoJack Horseman” from the same episode as the other quote in this chapter. It is a haunting, distressing poem from the perspective of someone who has jumped off a bridge to commit suicide, but regrets it halfway down. I thought it was extremely thematically relevant here.

- “Morning Frost.” - Morning Frost is a creation of my own. It’s a play on the ‘Morningstar’, or Lucifer, the original demon. The original head honcho of the Netherworld. Not much is known about them by Beej, so we are too for now! The only way to kill a creature born of hellfire is to freeze out that fire.

- “Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves.” - This is taken from a similar scene in “Slay The Princess”, one of my favorite games ever!! A horrific timeloop, a twisted romance. I won’t spoil anything, but the character saying this is doing so to keep his body from shutting down, like Beetlejuice. I say this to myself over and over again sometimes when I’m having a panic attack and it’s helped!

- “They hope it’ll lull them safely into a gentle goodnight.” - this is a reference to a famous poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas.

- The feeling of warmth returning is a bad thing, which is why Adam freaks out more when he notices! One of the last stages of hypothermia is feeling incredibly warm and stopping shaking. There’s also disorientation and confusion, hence why Beej can’t talk or think quite straight after this point.

- A fun little lesson on treating hypothermia from the Deetz-Maitlands! Warm the neck and core with blankets, get heated blankets if possible, and give them warm, sweet beverages. Starting to shake again is a great sign.

- “… he couldn’t let them see him as he was) and stepped forward to greet the pair, shaking on his humanoid illusions and Ghost with the Most persona.” - Beeltejuice is afraid that he can’t take anything back now. He wants to make a good impression on Charles and Delia. Sucks to suck, buddy!

If you’ve made it this far, wow… thank you! This monster of a fic wouldn’t be possible without the serotonin boost every like, comment, and FANART (still can’t believe that one) sent my way. Thank you so much. Can’t wait for Part 2! I will add hints and teasers for what’s to come in the Post Mortem. I’m going to keep working on my crochet sandworm now.

[alexanderlightweight]

Happy Wednesday!

What about trophy husband/sugar baby alec for a prompt? (I know it's not too far off what you just posted, so I hope it's different enough to interest you)

Have a good one

Hey! Thanks I did in fact have a good day! And lots of fun prompts like this one: I hope you enjoy it!

—

Alec frowns as he contemplates the pendant, though he doesn’t bother looking at the price. Magnus has plenty of mundane currency and Alec has a great deal of the Lightwood fortune and his own money.

“Oh, something catch your eye?” Magnus asks him and Alec nods without really thinking about it. “That one.” Alec says because Magnus is being very sweet and patient but Alec also knows Magnus gets antsy if they don’t find at least one thing Alec likes in each store.

It’s like Magnus doesn’t understand that Alec derives pleasure from seeing Magnus enjoy himself; not actually shopping himself.

But it’s not Alec’s job to judge Magnus, it’s his honor and pleasure to support Magnus and show him that Alec loves him, everything else is just a bonus.

A bonus that also involves a lot of mundanes.

Unfortunately.

“Sir, this pendant is five thousand dollars in its current form and you want to… rework it?” Alec sighs and is about to give up when an arm wraps around his waist and a chin hooks over his shoulder.

“Mr. Bane!” She gasps out and gives Alec a confused look, “and this is your—?” She trails off leadingly and is clearly surprised, though Alec doesn’t get why when she recognizes Magnus.

“Just his.” Alec says because he can’t deal with the exhaustion of mundanes knowing him. There’s a dark chuckle against his ear and Alec doesn’t get why the woman is suddenly stuttering and blushing and grabbing the pendant and going to the back.

“Is this yet another necklace you’re going to slip into my jewelry despite knowing I can tell each time?” Magnus rumbles against his back and Alec leans back, trying to chase away his pending headache with his boyfriend’s presence.

“No.” Alec mutters because his head feels tighter the longer they stand there, in a room that smells too strongly of perfume and the stench of prey.

He turns and wraps his arms around Magnus, burrowing into Magnus’ neck to hide from the migraine burrowing into his skulls

“My poor darling,” Magnus soothes and he presses cool, magical kisses to Alec’s jaw. “I’ll get you home soon, alright?”

“Lunch—“ Alec mutters because they canceled yesterday due to a sewer rift and he wants to sit with Magnus in a country far from the one they’re in.

“Alexander, I’m not sure—“

“It was a promise, Magnus.” Alec reminds him, because it was a promise and Alec couldn’t keep it but Magnus is too generous sometimes. “We’re going to Italy. Tonight. Or I’ll call Cat for a lift and go without you.” It’s an empty threat because Alec is going nowhere without Magnus, but it does the job because Magnus laughs and kisses his forehead again.

“Alright, my Alexander. I’ll take you to Italy tonight.” Magnus says and Alec nods against his chest, because good.

Magnus is much better at keeping promises. So Alec is sure they’ll get there. And Magnus has been craving that one shop’s ossobuco and bread.

“But if you make me eat pasta while I’m this tired and then judge my noodle skills I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“Isn’t that just self-punishment?”

“You always end up carrying me into bed once I’m asleep anyways Magnus, does it really matter?”

“Oh my god.” Alec hears and he ignores it because it’s not a demon it’s a mundane and the deal is that Magnus gets the… honor of dealing with them.

“Wrap it for me.” Magnus says in a politely cool tone. There’s no danger but Alec can tell he doesn’t like something but then Magnus adds, “what was it for darling?”

And Alec murmurs, “it matches your eyes. I’m going to take it to that little stall in the Brooklyn shadow market, the one that does commissions. I need something that reminds me of you to deal with clave meetings, Magnus. And they won’t let me bring you.”

And Magnus snorts and says, not to Alec, “the bracelets on that rack as well, and the order I put in a month ago, if you please. And then we’ll be leaving.”

—

Alec doesn’t think anything of it. Magnus kisses his headache away and hand feeds him food in a private courtyard so that there’s no need for Alec to fail at eating this tired.

They go back nearly a month later and there’s more employees, a lot of customers and a complete and utter silence when Magnus walks in, his hand on the small of Alec’s back.

And then they converge like a school of uneducated piranhas.

“Oh for—“ and Alec ducks away from Magnus’ hand and goes over to the champagne counter and takes a whole tray.

The server starts to say something and Alec looks between the server and Magnus, and then snorts when the server just nods.

Alec drains three of them and takes the last two over, one in each hand. He passes one to Magnus and gives his best, politically bland and false smile that he can.

The one he used on Lorenzo.

“Babe—“ Alec says, letting his hand linger like he’s refusing to give the drink until Magnus leans forward and kisses him.

And Magnus magicks the drink into something more potent under the protection of their joined hands.

“Thank you my love.” Magnus says and that causes a bunch of gasps and titters and Alec nods and leaves again.

Except this time he’s being followed by several young men — Magnus calls them twinks — and some girls who look even more delicate than Simon when Alec first met him.

“Can I help you?” He asks from where he’s looking at an amber ring that looks like the color of Magnus’ unglamoured eyes when he’s angry.

“Spill!”

“What’s it like? How did you bag him?”

And Alec frowns because he is not going to spill anything and he did not bag Magnus. That would require Magnus needing a body bag and Alec is going to die before he lets that happen.

“What?” Alec asks, hoping to somehow interpret what’s being said.

“Where did you meet?” One asks and she’s staring at Alec like Magnus sometimes stares at steak when he’s running low on magic.

“His club.” Alec says; because that’s true enough and Pandemonium has a mundane section.

And Alec is really unsure how much he can tell mundanes. This isn’t supposed to be his problem.

“My brother‘s girlfriend had a problem and they both kind of lost their common sense? And Magnus had part of the solution and was part of the problem, so it sort of just—“ and Alec waves a hand, “worked out.”

He’s given several wide-eyed looks and he doesn’t get one dude’s murmur of, “oh my god.”

It’s like they’ve had a realization.

Alec had no idea what they think they’ve understood.

“I’m going to go look at—“ and he squints across the room, “garnets. Nice to meet you.” He gets the last lie out of his mouth and hurries to the garnets.

Magnus has been expressing his enjoyment for Alec wearing jewelry and Alec aims to please… and avoid mundanes.

—

“How did he read that from here?” Isley asks, her eyes lingering on the tall, delectable man walking away on long, long legs.

“No idea.” And Jamie is also looking at Magnus’ Bane’s sugar baby wistfully. “Is it bad if I don’t know if I want to be him or fuck him?”

“Oh mood—“ Isley says even though she’s perfectly happy as a lesbian. “It’s the Magnus Bane effect, though normally his flavor-of-the-month isn’t so… permanent. Or doted on.”

“So what, you think his family got mixed into something shady? They made a deal with Bane for a better ending and Bane decided to go with the brother when they couldn't pay up?”

“I don’t know, Bane doesn’t seem quite the type. But what do I actually know about the guy?” Jamie huffs sulkily, “I wonder if Bane and his boy do threesome.”

There is a shattering of glass and they look over, paling to see Bane there.

Far closer than he used to be and inconveniently in ear range.

There is a cold, dark look on his face as he accepts the silk cloth hastily taken from a display by an attendee and casually wipes the glass from his hands.

Litter crystal shards are pulverized about him on the floor, and there isn’t a scratch on him.

“We do not.” Bane is saying and his voice is the temptation of molting coals. Danger is there and you know it but you want to lean closer and touch. “No one touches my boy, as you called him. Because he is mine.” And as Bane’s sugar baby comes over with a scowl and a stack of boxes they all see how the deadly rage swirls into an inferno of dangerous adoration. “And I am his.”

And they watch as Bane’s boy kisses Bane’s check, his scowl softening until he sees them and then he rolls his big hazel eyes and mutters something.

“Yes I agree.” Bane is saying, “I think we have rather overstayed. Lunch in Paris, darling? Or perhaps dinner by the time we get there?”

And Isley wonders what she has to do in life to get someone like Magnus Bane.

“We went to Paris last week—“ Bane is told, like it’s normal to say no to sporadic global trips, “I’d rather go back to Hokkaido. I didn’t get to see pikas last time, Magnus. I was promised pikas.”

“Then pikas you shall have,” Bane says like denying Paris to go look at whatever a pika makes sense. Perhaps we’ll stop by Germany first, I think you’d like their brats.” And then under his breath they all hear Magnus add, “and if not we’ll just go to Sweden instead.”

Isley gives up and abandons Jamie and the others and goes and face plants in the lovely, cushioning embrace of her partner's chest.

“It’s not fair.” She wails, voice thankfully muffled, “I don’t even like men!” And her hair is being petted as the woman comforting her laughs.

[jamneuromain]

Mr. & Mrs. Levinson

Ari Levinson x Original Female Character (Anna)

Warning: Angst and Smut, Eventual Smut, Graphic Depiction of Violence, Domestic Violence (sort of), Cursing, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex.

A fusion of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Word count: 11k.

Summary: Being enemies saved their marriage.

3 p.m.

"How long have you been married?"

"Six years." "Seven years." They said at the same time, not forgetting to glance at each other when they heard the other's answer.

"Six or seven years." Ari chose what he thought was a compromising answer and cleared his throat, "Actually, we've been married for so long that this is just a routine checkup, you know? Similar to changing the oil, parts, or whatever for an airplane."

The marriage therapist kept his unchanging smile, gazing at the man as strong as a bear - and as hairy as a bear - and the petite woman beside him, "Sure, so let's pop the hood." He flipped open the notepad for his records and wrote something on it, "Let's start with the basics. How would you rate your marriage on a scale of one to ten?"

"Eight." "Uh, is ten is the highest score or...?"

Ari frowned and looked at his wife, who had been with him for six or seven years, sitting by his side: "He said one to ten, honey."

Anna leaned unhurriedly on the couch pillows, the very direction away from Ari: "I was just making sure. Don’t want to give the wrong answer, sweetheart."

The therapist cap the pen and snapped both of them back to attention, "That's okay, let's try again. Ten is the highest score. Are you ready? Three, two, one..."

"Eight." They both answered in unison.

"How is your sex life?" The therapist asked the next question.

Anna rubbed her fingers at the tip of her curly hair and paused for a moment upon hearing the question, "I'm sorry, is this a one to ten question or...?"

The therapist explained, "Just this week, how is your sex life? Oh, and feel free to rate it or just say how you feel about it."

Ari and Anna were uncharacteristically silent.

"Including weekends?" Ari asked, his furrowed brow not loosening.

"Including weekends."

Anna nodded thoughtfully.

They didn’t have sex this week. Neither did they last week. Nor did the week before.

How is one supposed to rate something non-existent?

She tried to remember the last time they'd had sex, which was about a month ago, and they'd both been drinking a little. She remembered they stopped midway. Why did they stop midway?

She remembered that she had gone to the training room to practice boxing before that and accidentally bruised her rear end. She asked him to turn off the lights in between kisses, and he thought it was no big deal, it wasn't like they hadn't seen each other naked. In the end, a simple question of turning off the lights made them break up the kiss and lose the passion to continue.

Ari always ripped orgasms after orgasms from her. It was all about passion and crude rough sex and it was fun.

It was.

Until the passion faded. And he lost his interest over a little question whether to turn off the lights.

Anna returned home, took off her silver wedding ring and put it away on the nightstand. She was fucking tired of everything. She promised Ari to try to see a therapist to salvage their marriage, but she also wanted to throw the fruit bowl in his face and tell him that marriage maintenance is not something she could do alone. She was tired of playing the good housewife at home while he came home some nights smelling of booze and women perfume and God knew where he had been fooling around. The only thing this jerk did well was that he never came home to her with signs of cheating on her: no hair, no lipstick marks, no nothing, as if the escort grinded on him and nothing more. She was tired of him always being the one making decisions, telling her what to do, even including this ridiculous therapy, which she thought was absolutely useless.

She wrinkled her apron, tossed clean frying pans and dishes into the sink to get them wet, then sat up on the bed and called for takeout.

She basically hadn't cooked in seven years of marriage, and she wasn't going to today.

At 7 p.m., Ari came home on time.

"Good evening honey." He greeted her without looking up as he returned the steady stream of texts with one hand. On the other end of the phone was his DHS supervisor, sending him some key information for his next mission.

Anna had the frilly apron on her and spatula in hand, wanted to open her mouth to greet him, but was furious at the way he greeted her without even lifting his head. She turned temporarily back to the kitchen and sprinkled more sugar and salt on one of the steaks frying in the pan to make sure it was cooked until it was overcooked.

Ari hung up his coat and wondered if the kitchen noise was too loud to muffle his greeting. He stowed his phone properly in his pocket and leaned against the kitchen doorway, raising his voice slightly: "Good evening, honey."

Anna flashed him an impeccable smile, "Good evening. Go wash your hands, dinner will be on the table in a minute." Only when he was completely out of sight did the smile on Anna's face collapse, the meat cleaver in her hand stabbing an inch into the wooden chopping board. A greeting without even looking up? Did his mother ever teach him manners?

At the dinner table, Ari and Anna engaged in some routine small talk, such as Anna asking him how his day went and if he encountered any tough problems; Ari asked Anna back if she had a good day in Wall Street.

Anna was a financial analyst on Wall Street, at least, that was her cover. True, her workplace was located in a tall building on Wall Street, but that floor was used for surveillance, analysis and operational planning by the NSA, of which she is a member. After years of hard work, Anna had successfully risen to the position of chief of operations for the NSA's New York State Division. Most of the time she sat in her office facing the computer as she would if she were a financial analyst, but there were times when she needed to be on the ground to solve some variables during missions.

Across the table, Ari sliced off a piece of beef with some brute force and popped it into his mouth. The sweet and salty flavor instantly overwhelmed all his taste buds and he choked and coughed. He spat out the unchewable beef and wiped his mouth with a napkin: "Honey, the beef is too salty."

Anna tugged her lips into a light smile, a smile she felt a bit sorry for Ari: "Really?" She immediately added, "I'll put less salt next time."

Ari was tempted to say you should stop cooking, you haven't cooked well in the past six years. But for the sake of marital harmony, he chose to swallow the words along with the sweet and salty taste in his mouth. He made do with a barely palatable selection of vegetables and mashed potatoes and ate his dinner swiftly. Barely palatable. That was his euphemistic comment.

Ari's long, thick fingers lingered on the keyboard for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. Honestly, he wondered how much longer their marriage would last. Two months? Three weeks? Four days? Their passion was no longer there, replaced by endless tedium. He believed they still loved each other, yet every day of marriage life was a wear and tear on that love. What they need was not novelty, which no longer had any place after the first six months of marriage. What they need was something that will sustain their relationship for a long time, the glue that will hold their broken lives together. He had to admit that the lack of togetherness was also a reason why their marriage was coming to an end, but there was no way he could make his schedule change. After all, the mission wouldn't pick his “supposedly” working hours to show up. He had to find one excuses after another: a temporary plane breakdown at the airport, a nice weekend with his fellow mechanics, a farewell to a fellow who was leaving.

This fake identity of an aircraft repair mechanic was not solid enough, but it's the best he can do. Ari sighed and tapped down two or three lines of a mission report.

"Hi, sweetheart. I got your coffee."

Anna appeared silently in front of his computer with a steaming cup of coffee: "What are you working on?"

"Jesus." he was startled by her sudden appearance and hit Alt and Tab simultaneously, "Nothing, honey, just the schematics."

"Oh, okay," she walked around the mahogany table and put her coffee in his hand, her eyes glancing at the computer screen. "Yeah SURE." Her big brown eyes lost that glint of smile, "I'll leave you alone."

Ari stiffly turned his head to look at the pornhub interface he had fumbled to place on the main screen, which contained the video of a topless woman bouncing up and down on a rubber dildo. Ari had no fucking idea why it was here, nor had he any interest of watching a woman fucking herself with a toy - apart from Anna.

This is definitely one of his most embarrassing moments. He lied to her about work, only to let her “find out” he was watching porn.

Great.

Just fucking great.

He rubbed his face with his palm: "Wait, Anna-"

Anna left the study without looking back: "You’ll sleep in the second bedroom tonight."

Less than half an hour later, Anna answered a phone call.

"Sorry, some shareholders in Wall Street is holding an emergency meeting, I need to go check." She calmly packed her handbag, put on her coat and left in a hurry.

Only after she left did Ari remember the party at Gray's house next door in an hour. They had promised to go last week.

The text he sent instead seemed cold and indifferent: "Don't forget Gray's party at nine."

"Okay."

Her reply was even briefer.

"Your man?" Jennifer, dressed in plain clothes, joked about it before Anna pressed the lock button on her phone.

Anna tied her hair up, avoided the question:" Do you know any divorce lawyer?"

Jennifer thought for a moment, "I remember Natalie from the other department almost got divorced," she took out her work tablet and cross-referenced everyone's schedules, "I'll set up a meeting for you with her tomorrow at 10:30, I think she's free at that time. "

"Jenni-"

Anna hadn't actually thought about finding a lawyer. Marital property, prenuptial property, real estate ...... Gosh, they didn't have a prenuptial agreement. Now that she thought about it, it was an unforgivable mistake for them to get married.

At least not signing a prenup accounted for eighty-nine percent of the mistake.

She made that number up, but she quickly made up the remaining eleven percent.

Ten percent was his frequent disappearances.

One percent was their size difference.

"It's already booked." Jennifer arranged it without a word, "Besides, what could go wrong with just talking?" They spoke as they made the final adjustments before the mission began.

"The target is Friedrik Karls Vogelbaum, male, sixty-five years old. Our mission is to transfer a flash drive from the target containing information of a new biological virus, sufficient to destroy a half of the Earth's population. Note that Mr. Vogelbaum has just lost a deal with an international arms dealer Morian, so he will do everything in his power to protect the case containing the flash drive, and there may be multiple parties coming to seize it. I expect everyone to cooperate properly in recovering the high-risk item, understood?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Everyone in the tiny camouflaged van responded in unison.

"Very well." Anna sat in the middle of the chair as electronic screens lit up around the perimeter showing various street-level surveillance, Anna adjusted her headset, "Agent Weiss, do you copy?"

"Very clear, Agent."

Anna switched the headset channel and methodically gave one order after another, "I want the traffic lights at 15th Street and Northwest Avenue locked so the target can't cross the street; standard follow up, one up front and one behind the target, don't draw any unnecessary attention. Do we have eyes across the street? Good. "

Inside the tiny van, the four mission support members of the operation team held their breath.

The plan was to set an agent to attract Vogelbaum's attention, followed by a second agent to switch the case.

Unfortunately, Vogelbaum held the case so tightly the entire time, that the team had to improvise a surprise by having someone on a bicycle run Vogelbaum over and then take advantage of their distraction to swap the case.

The mission went very well overall.

Except for Anna, who pretended to be a passerby to help the bike-riding agent out of trouble, which wasn't exactly pleasant. She had to pretend to be surprised by asking Vogelbaum if he was international movie star Mads Mikkelsen, asking him to pose for a photo and sign a napkin. Otherwise, judging by the way Vogelbaum grabbed the cycling agent and looked him in the eyes, it would not end well.

She took off the beanie she'd pulled off randomly on the street and Jennifer's big black-rimmed glasses and returned to the van. Jennifer handed her a tissue to help her wipe away the fake freckles and moles, temporarily dotted with a marker on her only mere seconds ago.

"Thanks." Anna smoothly put the marker in her pocket and borrowed some water to clean her face.

Agent Weiss and two others circled back to the NSA's New York headquarters and opened the case as the entire ops team watched.

The case was empty.

Max Grey is one of those typical neighbors you want next-door. If Max lives in some lucky neighborhood, then everyone not only enjoys a barbecue party every month or two, but also receives the occasional cake, cookie or pie from his wife.

Max and his wife, Loreen Gray, don't have any noisy children yet. Admittedly, they are preparing to have one, but not yet. That's something that makes them better neighbors.

The Levinsons showed up at Gray's door with smiles on their faces, even though they were late. The Grays were kind enough to let them join the house party, and Max shoved a cold beer in Ari's hand and invited him to sit on the ���men's side”. Sometimes, Ari wished he wasn't so big. He looked like he's the boss of some notorious biker gang in his form-fitting leather jacket. And some obvious male psychology suggested that all the men in the room were trying for the Alpha position in the crowd. This meant most of the men would be hostile to him from the moment he entered the room. But his years as a secret agent have allowed Ari to blend in like a fish in water, picking up a few jokes, clinking glasses (or bottles, in this case) with the men around him, and showing a funny but not overly standing-out profile to the others.

He raises his beer bottle to his lips and looks across the living room to the "ladies' side," where Anna was with Loreen, sat among all the ladies with bubbly water. She looked a bit overwhelmed, he thought as he swallowed his cold beer.

Anna was indeed very overwhelmed.

For the love of the computer gods, moms and soon-to-be moms all around are fucking talking about having kids and raising kids and nursing kids. Anna was an only child and had very little contact with her bloodsucking relatives, and she was surrounded by partying and clubbing women - in short, no one had children, not her friends, not her family, certainly not herself. She also did not know how to raise children, this kind of topic she naturally did not have the slightest clue.

Mrs. Brown, who lived across the street from the Levinsons, needed to go to the bathroom. She handed Anna Teddy Brown, her one-year old son and rushed off. Loreen, however, gave Anna a chance to be a mom, which included ideas on how to hold the little one and how to make him laugh. The more she listened, the more Anna suspects that Loreen was partly encouraging her to become a mother. Anna's hand was free to poke Teddy's fleshy cheek, but Teddy flattened his mouth, lost interest in the toy and the stranger, and turned around to cry for his mom.

Fortunately, Mrs. Brown came back in time to take the hot potato away from Anna.

So much for having a kid and enjoying the domestic life.

"Why are you home late today?" Ari asked as they washed up before bedtime, spitting out a mouthful of toothpaste foam.

Anna put on a hydrating mask, smeared essence on her neck and said carelessly, "The shareholders were arguing about the final investment decision."

"So they finally agreed?"

"Can't tell you that, sweetheart," Anna braided her medium-length hair and her tone grew vaguely impatient, "I've told you. The BRC prevents people working in finance-related industries from disclosing relative information."

Anna's impatience stemmed not only from something Ari could never remember, but also from the fact that she had been scolded by her boss at the end of today's mission. Of course, she excused her team and took the blame for the problem. They had repeatedly gone over the surveillance footage of the mission, and found that every step of the mission was accurate, so it could only be that their intelligence had been faulty. Looks like another organization had targeted the highly dangerous biological information Vogelbaum was carrying and taken the flash drive before they did.

Her boss, Mr. Samson, also knew this. Yet the loss of the flash drive was concluded as the major failure in their mission, whether it was in the damn case in the first place or not. From that moment on, everyone had to work overtime to review frame by frame how and when the flash drive was lost.

If she hadn't said she had to go back to a neighborhood party and insisted it would help her keep her fake identity, Samson might have let her stay on this floor all night watching surveillance with everyone else.

"Go back to that party of yours, and next time don't let the your life get in the way of work." Samson waved his hand and dismissed her.

She muttered under her breath, "Soon it won’t be."

2:30 a.m. Ari tossed and turned in the second bedroom alone, unable to sleep. Not only was the bed here harder than the master bedroom, but there was no Anna nestled in his arms. He cursed in annoyance and got out of bed to try the master bedroom. Anna used to let him sleep in the second bedroom when she was angry with him. Although she would lock the door every time, Ari would quietly use the backup key to open the door in the middle of the night and go back to Anna's side in the master bedroom before he could sleep peacefully.

He unlocked the door with a click, but the next second the smile on his face faded when the door wouldn't budge at all. He got down and peeked at the bottom of the bedroom door and found a small door stopper taped to the inside of the door. Six years ago, when they were first married, Anna and he had a falling out. Using the key to open the door, he had unfortunately knocked over her bottle of expensive foundation in the dark. The next thing he knew, she yelled at him to fuck off.

 Shit. He thought to himself that there was no way he could get back to Anna without her noticing.

He tried the bedroom window for the next hour, but also hit a wall. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he hit the lock, as the window was locked up. Even if he chose to break the window, he didn't think he'd be able to get back to Anna tonight. Shit.

Ari rubbed his overgrown hair and paced back to the study. His supervisor had just sent him a video of the street surveillance, asking him to carefully screen it for suspicious people. The overall blue-gray-toned video was watermarked six hours ago, about the same time when Anna went out for a meeting. He was also out, to carry out his mission.

His mission was to use the opportunity created for him by the other agents to steal a flash drive from the case of an old biology professor. The professor was sitting in the hotel lobby an hour ago after his deal with arms dealer Morian fell through, and DHS engineered a clumsy waiter to break six glasses on top of the hotel tiles while he entered the deciphered code to open the case, took out the flash drive, closed it and retreated. The whole mission took less than ten minutes, but he didn't tell Anna he went out. Sneaking out when she had something to do was not something honorable, yes, he would admit that. But Ari did not want to lie either, at least not to her hopeful eyes.

Ari casually pulled on his pajama pants and went to the study to open his laptop. He didn't bother to turn on the light, otherwise, it would have woken her up. Now, he didn't know the reason behind not turning on the light was whether he was afraid he would wake her up and they would fight, or he was afraid she wouldn't react at all to his outlandish behavior. He squinted against the harsh light of the computer screen, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sifted through suspicious characters.

He paused the video at the spot where Vogelbaum had been hit and stumbled on the sidewalk. Here Vogelbaum's suitcase was knocked off into the blind spot of the surveillance, not even a shadow could be seen. And the cyclist wore windproof glasses and a scarf covering his mouth and nose, so tightly covered that he simply could not get the technician to zoom in and extract the facial data. Vogelbaum grabbed the bicyclist and demanded an explanation, from the look of the video, and someone handed the furious old man the case from the blind spot. But the hand only appeared for a moment, while all other angles of the surveillance were high and fuzzy.

Another dead end. He sighed.

Pedestrians bustled past Vogelbaum, nothing out of the ordinary ...... His argument with the bicyclist lasted a few seconds, when a girl came from the other side of the street, grabbed Vogelbaum by the arm, pulled out her black cell phone, and took out a napkin and marker. The bicyclist took this moment to slip away.

Ari paused the video again by intuition. This beastly instinct had saved his life many times before in a hail of bullets. The girl wore large black-framed glasses and a beanie, and had a conspicuous black mole on her face. She showed at most half her face to the surveillance, but it was enough for picture refinement. There was a strange familiarity about this girl. It seems that the coat she wore was very similar to the one Anna owned. Ari's eyes fell on the corner of the surveillance video, where there was a small flash of light.

Ari reassured himself that he was overthinking it, and that Anna's phone was milky white. But he got up and went downstairs anyway. Tonight, Anna came back from a meeting and they went straight to Gray's house, where, as usual, her coat should be hanging by the door. As if to reassure herself, and to prove herself wrong, Ari quietly went to the door where the clothes were hanging.

He first saw the shiny pin on the collar. Nothing about this pin was fancy and delicate like everything else in this house was. He remembered that pin, he hand-made it as a gift for wedding anniversary. And then the bulge caught his eyes. It was unethical to look into his partners’ pockets, he knew that. But he reached his hands inside, and discovered a marker and a napkin.

Anna couldn’t sleep tonight. This wasn't her first failed mission, however, it was kind of her most frustrating one. It didn't feel good at all to have the drive taken away from her one step ahead of time. She got up and checked the new messages on her work phone in the faint moonlight.

"Jenni?"

Looking at the messages and ten missed calls from an hour ago, not the least of which was from her boss, Samson. She hesitantly called Jenni back.

"Anna, we checked the security footage from the hotel where Vogelbaum stayed a few hours ago." Jennifer's words had a shudder that was not easily detected, "We suspect he was hired by Morian when Vogelbaum's deal fell through. Ari Levinson is a false identity, Anna--" her phone was taken from her by Samson, his cold voice echoed her brain, "You have twelve hours to bring back Mr. Levinson to our New York headquarters. If you can't bring him back alive, interrogate him about the whereabouts of the flash drive. If you do not respond to our message in twelve hours, and not bringing back Levinson or the flash drive, then the NSA will use extreme measures against you. Do you copy, Agent?"

"Yes." She replied mechanically.

"Very well, I'll be waiting to hear from you." Samson hung up the phone forcefully and ordered the two agents beside him, "Put Agent in our holding cell." His indifferent face seemed to be a formulaic execution of the Agent Defection Manual, "Please understand, Agent., hand over your badge and sidearm."

Jennifer spread her badge and sidearm on the table, and before she was taken away by the two agents she said to Samson stubbornly, "I trust Anna. She's loyal to the NSA."

"That would be wonderful." Samson said grimly, "Then killing Mr. Levinson wouldn't be a problem for her if she had to, would it?"

Jennifer bit her lip. That was something she couldn't guarantee. She glared at the agent who shoved her and spat out, "I can walk by myself."

Anna rolled out of bed and removed her sidearm from the secret safe in her closet. Inside the safe laid her NSA identification badge, but she let it stay there. If Ari really was an enemy agent or a mercenary, it would be more dangerous for her to give him leverage.

There were also pistols strapped under the kitchen sink downstairs and at the bottom of the couch in the living room, both of which she'd better take for protection before confronting Ari. At this point, her mind was muddled: Ari? She had seen him fixing locomotives and trucks and planes. Was that a fake identity? Just his cover? She only had 12 hours, how could she subdue Ari, and get him to reveal the location of the flash drive? Or did he have the flash drive on him?

She opened the bedroom door as quietly as she could, not even noticing the second bedroom door was opened. Anna held her gun ready to fire. She never thought she would feel unsafe in her own house. She smiled bitterly, perhaps it would save the trouble of divorce. She stepped cautiously down the stairs one step at a time, the bright moonlight shining through the living room window on the Persian rug. The light brown, hard-to-wash, easy-to-stain Persian rug had been bought the year before when they had done a minor remodeling of the house. Their relationship wasn’t so bad then.

She took a deep breath and cleared her head. There's plenty of time for grief after this bullshit.

Geographically, with the kitchen pistol closer to her, she stepped down the last step of the stairs and turned toward the vast darkness of the kitchen.

"Good evening, honey."

Ari sat wide open in her usual spot, his right index finger firmly on the trigger of a pistol, the muzzle pointed right at her. He had put on his coat, but his unbuttoned coat could not cover his hairy chest.

At the sound of his voice, Anna's hair stood at the back of her neck, her whole body screaming for her to get away from the danger as soon as possible.

"Good evening, sweetheart." She tried to be as calm as she could, "Why are you awake?"

He seemed to find her question very amusing and cocked his head, "I was going to ask the same question."

Anna approached him step by step, but stood at a distance of nine feet from him. She hadn't even changed her clothes. DAMN IT. She was still wearing her nightgown, yet the bottom half of his body was likewise in pajama pants. Maybe that meant he'd just found out his own identity had been revealed not long ago, too, so he'd only had time to pull on his outerwear.

Ari's eyes flirtatiously glided over the lace-trimmed cleavage at the top of her nightgown that barely covered it. He would never admit that he had just been attracted to the view there for a second, it would be too unprofessional. His wife was going to kill him, he had to be professional.

"Did you take Vogelbaum's flash drive?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that." He threw the subject back at her as it was, his index finger tightening on the trigger. Anna saw the black muzzle and the dark silhouette of the gun and was beyond sure the bastard had removed the safety from the gun before she came downstairs.

He got up with a tight grip on the pistol, and Anna's aim followed his movements, aiming at his forehead or the bridge of his nose, a shot that would basically make his brains burst out. He spoke slowly: "Look, honey, I didn't mean for things to get this bad. Tell me who your employer is, and maybe I'll consider sparing your life."

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing. Whom do you serve?"

Ari was almost exasperated; his cute little wife was such a tough talker as always. Focus Ari, she had a gun. The flared hair made him basically a brown lion, retaining the ferocity of that predator hunting. He grinned. A jackal-like grin hung on his face as if he planned to tear someone to pieces the next second, "What, you want me to say, Jesus Christ?"

Anna knew exactly what was going to happen next, or the next few scenarios that could happen. In scenario number one, she succeeds in subduing Ari and escorting him to the NSA, five percent chance. In the second scenario, she dies in the process of subduing Ari, the probability is 20 percent - she knew very well that her fighting skills were only above the standard passing line, and she could say that she has no chance against Ari. In the third scenario, she is injured and captured in the process of subduing Ari, 60 percent chance- God knows how blood and violence will happen after this episode. In the fourth scenario, she is slightly injured in the process of subduing Ari and manages to escape, returning to the NSA and having them send agents after Ari, a fifteen percent chance, and her best option at this point.

Considering all four possibilities and her probability of survival, she chose the fourth one.

The place she was standing was close to the front and back doors, and if she could run into the garage, she could hot-wire a car and escape. It seemed like a good choice. But right now, she couldn't compete with Ari on who could fire their gun faster.

"Don't make me do this in the hard way." Ari furrowed his brows. He really didn't want their marriage to end this way, much less with a few rounds of ammunition and an interrogation room. If Anna had cooperated, he might have said a few kind words about her to his supervisor, even though he knew they would carry little weight, and even his supervisor would have called him “out of his fucking goddamn mind”.

It seemed that both Ari and she had chosen not to take the preemptive strike. She was curious if Ari would set up his own escape plan - focus, Anna, you no longer have a husband who argues with you because the meat displeases his taste. What else did she need? For hot wiring a car she'd still need a knife, to the kitchen then. She could break out the window with a knife in her mouth if she had to.

The kitchen was behind Ari, which was a bit of a problem. She gradually distanced herself from Ari.

Ari half-heartedly persuaded her to submit to him before more damage was caused. When he said "our marriage", the tears that had been building up in Anna's eyes finally fell. A beam of moonlight from above the stairs poured hazily over her face, and her tears seemed to glisten with light.

"Let's not fight, okay?" Ari meant it when he said this, reaching out a hand to Anna to hand in her firearm.

She lifted her head, her furrowed brows stretched, and a cold light flashed in her eyes: "FUCK YOU." She fired instantly, then rolled and ducked behind the couch. Ari's reaction was also very fast, as he switched his left hand to hold the gun and hit the couch with a couple of shots, but the dull sound of bullets penetrating the cotton of the couch and embedding themselves in the carpet meant that none of the shots hit her, and Anna has taken the opportunity to change her hiding place.

"You disabled yet, sweetheart?" Anna asked.

There seemed to be a flash of something in the dark shadows, and Ari emptied a clip, but only the sound of glass shattered. "To your dismay, honey, I fire better with my left hand." He cursed in secret as Anna's shot grazed an entire patch of skin on the outside of his right forearm. A five-inch wound that looked bloody and messy. Such a large abrasion, if not treated in time, could have ended with an amputation. He yanked off the covering cloth on the couch and wrapped it around his arm, tying a knot to prevent extensive bleeding and infection. But she was right, this wound was very effective in preventing him from shooting with his right hand.

Ari treated the wound and quickly switched magazines, loading all fifteen rounds into the pistol. It was so silent that only his own breathing could be heard, and the dark shadows enveloped the kitchen and half of the living room, so that nothing unusual could be seen. How come he hadn't noticed before that his little wife was so good at the game of hide and seek? He was careful not to let the moonlight shine on him and walked slowly against the wall.

Ari thought he had a vague idea of Anna's method of attack. If she was right, she was inclined to attack by sound, consuming all his bullets and energy before showing herself.

"Give up, Anna, surrender." He shouted.

"In your dreams." An unfamiliar voice ghosted behind him, and he twisted around to pull his gun, two rounds having been fired before he realized it was Siri reading a text message. But he already shattered the phone by then.

The sudden whistling wind made him take a few steps back to avoid whatever it was that was sharp enough to strike. He couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air as the shiny knife embedded itself in the door frame behind him. Anna let out a laugh as he dodged the knife, but the backward movement sent him into the moonlight. The ensuing flying knives cut his left arm in varying degrees and one small blade pierced his thigh.

Ari's face turned white with pain, and he ducked into the shadows, gritting his teeth and tying another piece of cloth around his thigh. She had avoided major blood vessels, but it was enough to make him less mobile - if that wasn't the explanation, then he'd gotten lucky. Given his greatly weakened combat ability, he needed to make this quick. Wasn't she hiding in the kitchen? He fired three tentative shots in anticipation of her hiding place. The china under the counter shattered inside the cupboard. There was no expected sound of hitting human flesh, and she did not make a sound.

Anna, who was hiding on the side of the counter, was very glad she had her chopping board covering her head and upper body, and the first of Ari's three shots hit her chopping board. Her heart was beating frantically, and rarely did training make her heart beat this fast. Calm down, Anna, she told herself. Cautiously, she picked up a piece of broken glass that had crumbled to her feet and used it as a mirror to look behind her.

There was nothing to see.

Of course, it was as dark as if the room spilled with ink.

The back door to the kitchen was close. So very close. In just three seconds, she could open it and escape.

Come on, Anna, fight for your life. She summoned up the courage to rush to the back door and turned the knob as fast as she could in her life-- and she did.

Except for the fact that the knob wouldn't turn.

It was fucking locked up.

The sound of the lock twisting caught his attention, and bullets came crashing in behind her, and Anna only had time to drop to the ground with her head in her hands and the knife in her hand. The bullet penetrated the upper part of the door glass, and shards of glass fell on her arms, thighs, and cheeks, cutting trails of blood.

"Can't let you get away, honey, I locked the front and back doors before you came downstairs." He closed in on her, the shards of glass shattering beneath his feet with a bursting sound.

She tried to get up and run, but it was too late. The warm muzzle of the gun pressed against her forehead as Ari pulled the restraints from his coat pocket. His eyes lowered as if a lion was sizing up his prey, "Get your hands in there, honey, and don't make this any harder than it has to be."

She let out a breath and sat upright on the floor, “Okay. Can I stand up first?"

"No funny tricks, honey." He gestured for her to first tie the restraints around her wrists. It was much less likely to break free than the handcuffs.

Anna rested her hands on the edge of the kitchen counter and propped her knees up, "I've got my hands where you can see them, didn’t I?”

Ari was distracted from looking at her hands when Anna jerked the counter drawer open and let the wooden drawer hit his cheekbone. Ari let go and the gun fell to the floor, Anna saw the opportunity to kick the pistol away, but she wasn't fast enough to remove the taped gun under the sink before he pulled her by the ankle. The popped-out drawer was hanging outside and struck heavily under her ribs.

Damn, that's going to leave a bruise.

Both of her fists were stopped in mid-air by Ari. His large palm wrapped around her fist to reign in her force with ease, and he used the opportunity to force her arms behind her back. The corners of his mouth were cut and his cheekbone was red and swollen, but he didn't seem to care, flipping his hair out of his sight instead, "Come on, let's talk."

"Fuck your talk."

Anna squeezed the words out from between her teeth as she stomped between his legs, and Ari fell backwards, covering his crotch. She thought that would be enough for her to escape Ari's clutches, but Ari's pain tolerance proved to be much better than she had anticipated. Ari pulled her ankle again, but this time Anna was prepared, she wouldn't be caught up with the same move twice. She elbowed his spine and neck, until Ari was so concussed that he was dizzy and let go of her. Not even slightly relieved, she clenched her fist and punched him in the jaw. Even if it didn't dislocate him, it was enough to relish her anger.

She escaped his grasp and didn't feel safe until her back was against the kitchen corner. She didn't forget to pull off the gun stuck to the bottom of the sink and pointed it at his head.

Ari swallowed the rusty taste of blood and his lips were stained red. He grabbed the knife she had just dropped on the ground, and the hilt turned in his hand, forming a backhanded position with the knife. His jaw joint was vaguely painful, needless to say, came from her last punch. He was half crouched on the ground, his blood-soaked hand smoothing his long hair to the back of his head. A few strands of brown hair dripping with blood slipped down the side of his face, but he had no time to care whether he was decent now.

Ari could slit her throat if he lunged, or he could be pierced by a bullet a few times before he touched her. His dark blue eyes looked at the crimson glass shards that cut through her skin lying on the ground. They looked a bit like the blood diamonds he'd tracked down when he'd first joined DHS. Those blood diamonds were actually see-through and had been swallowed into the bowels of some poor man, staining themselves with the bright red blood of their victims. Since then he had some physical discomfort at the sight of diamonds again, which was why when Anna suggested the diamond ring and he persuaded her to buy the more expensive white gold ring. He deliberately came home at 7 p.m. sharp in order to maintain his cover, so she had to cook dinner for both of them, just because she came home a little earlier. Even the Persian carpet she complained about, which was hard to clean during the annual cleaning, was bought by him to cover up a piece of the floor he had pried up to hide the evidence.

He hesitated and distanced the marriage first. Her detachment was just a natural reaction to several unsuccessful attempts to win him back.

He didn't regret marrying her, but it seemed she had always been the one to back off in the marriage.

"I give up."

He said softly.

If she hadn't seen his lips twitching in his beard, Anna would have thought she imagined him saying that.

Ari tossed the knife into the sink and spread his hands, "I can't ......" His voice lowered, "Anna, I can't do this to you."

He looked straight into her eyes, and only her eyes were illuminated by a sliver of moonlight. Forgotten memories came to mind like a tidal wave: her smiling eyes when they first met, her happy tears when she got married, the temperature in her eyes lowered to the freezing point as she gave in again and again.

He was dying before he understood the failure of their marriage - no, he screwed up big time in the marriage.

It was too late when he understood. A faint red ring mark on her finger already spoke volumes about his failure.

He closed his eyes and waited for his end, whether it was a bullet in the head or endless interrogation and torture. He should not have given up as an agent until the last moment. But he chose to give up for the sake of his conscience and her future, and he only hoped that she would somehow spare him for the sake of his submission. For the first time in his marriage, he truly put the choice in her hands and waited for her decision.

Anna went through a million endings possible in her mind, but none of them involved him surrendering voluntarily and putting the choice in her hands. What would happen next? Would she interrogate him about the location of the flash drive and turn him over to the NSA, or would she ask for it and let him go? Or would she just hand him over to the NSA? Or let him go without further questions?

"Where's the flash drive?"

"It's in a safe place right now, but I don't know exactly where it is," Ari answered honestly. He was only responsible for stealing the flash drive, and he handed it over to his superior as soon as he got it. If his boss had heard what he said, Ari would probably have been benched for thirty years.

"You IDIOT!" Anna was so angry that she wanted to punch this idiot, "That thing can kill people if it got into the wrong hands!"

Ari looked at her confusedly, "Of course, that's why I stole it."

Anna was silent.

She was storming through her mind to calculate the possibility that she had married a dumbass.

"Wait, wait, wait," Ari held up his hands in surrender, "can I ask a question?"

"Yes," Anna said with no intention of answering him.

"Don’t you work for Morian?"

"I thought you work for Morian?"

Ari and Anna stared at each other for a while. At this point in time, there was no need for either side to lie. They both knew that the other was telling the truth, and they were sincere in their questions.

Ari couldn't piece things together for a moment: "Whom do you work for?"

"NSA, I'm the chief of Ops in New York. What!" She snapped.

"Why didn't you say so earlier!"

"You didn't ask! No, whom do you work for?" Anna asked rhetorically, her right eyelid fluttering, always with a bad feeling.

"...DHS, I belong to the Terrorist Activity Monitoring Squad of the Secret Service."

The National Security Agency bumped into the Department of Homeland Security. What are the fucking chances?

"Then why did you say Jesus Christ??" Anna went into a major meltdown, "We wouldn’t have to fight, genius!" She tried to clear her mind, putting the pistol behind her with the safety on, "You just said 'a safe place', you gave it to your boss, right?"

"Yes."

Anna looked even angrier than when they fought earlier, "Why don’t you just say so!"

"I thought you worked for Morian." He explained, a lame excuse, but one that was true, "Optimistically, we -"

"Then why didn't you ask!!!" She was so angry that she yelled at him, her cheeks flushed red - visible even in the hazy moonlight.

"I-"

"ARI LEVINSON you are the most fucking stubborn, stupid, egoistic maniac I have ever met!" She picked up the pistol behind her and threw it right in the center of his chest, followed by a melon and a pear straight at his body.

"Don't hit the wound, honey-"

"Don’t HONEY me!" Anna was shaking with anger, his pitch soaring two octaves higher: "You arrogant, self-absorbent little shit!!! We are getting a fucking divor--" Tears welled up from her eyes.

The familiar warmth gathered around her body, allowing her tears to soak through his coat.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, sounding a little pitiful.

Anna sniffled, her fists striking haphazardly against his back and shoulder. A number of them landed his wounds. On the one hand, she wanted to shoot Ari, but the pistol hit him just now and fell on the floor; on the other hand, she wanted to sink into the warmth of the embrace and never get up again.

She said reluctantly, "Your badge."

"What?" Didn't she say she was divorcing him for one second? Or he thought he would say at least something as cruel as "I hate you". He knew he deserve it though.

His word alone was surely not enough. She needed to see his ID badge, and she needed to call Samson to confirm the situation, as did Ari. "We need to record each other's ID badges and report to our respective supervisors." She kicked his calf, the tear not quite wiped from her face, but she was already thinking about what she was going to do for the next twenty-four hours.

Ari believed for a moment that they were going fuck. But she was right. Indeed, they had more pressing matters at hand that needed to be concluded.

4:30 a.m. In the car on the way to NSA's New York State headquarters, Anna looks at Ari, who has just finished a phone call to his boss, and smiled sweetly: "Have fun, Mr. Husband, you'll have to go over this whole story with my supervisor, Mr. Samson, later." Without even hearing the specifics of the call, she could imagine the shocked look on the face of Ari's supervisor when he heard Ari say that he had been subdued by his wife and the even more astonishing fact that she was an NSA agent.

But she could just as easily imagine that both the NSA and DHS would taunt each other with the other's failure to uncover the false identities of their own agents - or simply keep their mouths shut and put skeletons in the closet, which was probably best for both organizations.

Ari chuckled, choosing to let Anna have her moment of complacency.

"I feel like I should tell you, do you remember that old car we had?" Anna thought for a long time, tapping her fingers on the leather-covered steering wheel, her eyes glancing at Ari, whose long hair covered half of his face.

"Yes, why?"

"I didn't have a car accident. Drove it to the scene during a mission and ended up getting totally banged up by a dumb agent trying to put on a show of Fast and Furious. NSA even helped with a full news blackout at the time."

Ari's expression went from disbelief at first to gradual acceptance, "I told you that injury wasn't serious at all! You could have waltzed out of the hospital and still acted like you need a gurney at any second!"

"But NSA did pay for it, that's why we bought this car." Anna shrugged and took pride in her honesty (and in asking NSA for an extra amount for the damage to the vehicle).

"Fine. A bunch of terrorists once tracked down my, uh, our home address a few years back and started a mass shootout while you were at work - that's why I insisted on renovating the house, or you'd have seen the bullet holes sooner or later."

"You son of a bitch!" She exclaimed, but her tone wasn't quite angry, "You were the one who said that termites had infested the house that time. I was so scared I almost had to put pesticide under my pillow for a month."

"The lawn mower was a little crooked. I grabbed it when I was beating up those guys. I’m surprised you didn’t notice." He sighed.

"To be honest, you've been in charge of mowing the lawn, so I haven't paid much attention to it." She said bluntly, her pale fingers curling up and scratching the steering wheel slightly nervously, "I haven't done much cooking."

"You don't-"

"They’re mostly takeout."

"Fuck." It was Ari's turn to have a slight breakdown, "I never doubted it, just thought your cooking really sucks."

Anna looked into the rearview mirror, "You actually ate something I cooked once. I baked the cookies after the charity sale about four or five years ago."

"...You told me they were from the neighbor next door."

"Yes, after you thought it was too sweet. So I never made them for you again."

Ari caught the gist of the words and straightened his upper body from the car seat: “For me? You still make it yourself?"

"Occasionally, I make myself baked goods when I'm in the mood. But you don't have a sugar tooth, so you won’t touch it even if it's in the fridge." She glanced at him before adding, "My mom's a baker, and I've been helping her in the kitchen ever since I was a kid."

"You told me your mom died when you were a kid."

"Sorry, she's still healthy and very much alive. I think she’s sunbathing on whatever beach she's on. The guy holding me down the aisle at the wedding was an actor I hired - my parents divorced early on and I pretended my dad was dead."

"I told you I thought that guy looked familiar on Law & Order. I actually invited my own parents to the wedding." Ari felt deeply offended by the deception, "I was married once."

He immediately received a few slaps on the shoulder from Anna.

"What's her name and social security number???" She barked at him.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Ari had to raise his arms in defense, "She and I got drunk in Vegas back in the day. We signed divorce papers immediately when we were sober!"

"That's not a good reason either." She mumbled darkly, "I'm starting to regret being honest with you."

"It's too late, honey, you've opened Pandora's box." There was an unconscious note of mockery in his tone. He immediately regretted saying this, "I'm sorry, that's not what I meant, Anna."

"It's Diana. mom thought it sounded good when she gave me the name, but then needed to pick a less noticeable name for missions, so my fake identity became Anna. What about you?"

"Levinson is my mother’s maiden name. I used my father's name until I was eighteen, then I joined DHS and needed to completely cut myself off from my old life. One last question, do... did you love me?" He asked calmly, feeling an unmistakable chill burrow into his heart.

"Did."

Ari turned his head to look out the car window, a watery glow already piling up in the corners of his eyes.

The AC blew a whirring cold wind that settled to the floor and gathered at the ankle. Anna looked at the way his goosebumps cover his arm, reached out and turned off the central air conditioning, and opened the windows to balance the temperature inside and outside the car, "still is. Probably will continue to love the idiot who always forgets to turn off the air conditioning in the future."

The chill dissipated.

She slowly pulled the SUV up to a building on Wall Street, the car door unlocked but no one got out.

"Say, you don't have an evil twin brother or anything, do you?"

The slightly sad atmosphere was broken once again by her skeptical question.

"No!" He answered in surprise, raising his eyebrow, "Where did you get that from? I'm an only child."

She pulled out her car keys but didn't forget to close the window, "The plot of 365 Dni. It's always good to be careful." Anna picked up her phone and checked for messages, luckily NSA hadn’t rushed her yet, "That book has been sitting in the middle of the study in the very center of the shelves, haven't you noticed? I bought it last year."

"You speak Polish?"

"No. I purchased an English translation of the book."

"My God, the stuff you read..." He couldn't help but sigh, "It's a novel?"

"I just love dramatic cliche romance novels." She didn't forget to add fuel to the fire before she got off, "Aren't you an agent? You don't even know what novels your wife reads at home?"

At 6 a.m., Ari Levinson and his wife Anna were finally released by the NSA and DHS after an exhausting hour of cross-interrogation and simple wound treatment by the accompanying doctor. With assurances from both superiors, they managed to keep their badges and sidearms. The flash drive problem was handled entirely by the NSA and DHS, which was beyond their pay grade. Jennifer, who was unfortunately caught in the mess, was also released, and Samson gave her a two-day vacation. But Anna had reason to suspect that he didn’t like Jenni's behavior of standing up for her.

Natalie heard that Anna almost killed her husband and secretly slipped her lawyer's business card into Anna’s hand and gave Anna two thumbs up. Anna didn't really want to know what she heard, but according to Jenni, the word around the department now was that Anna beat her husband to ED, and several colleagues claimed that the version they heard was that Anna beat Ari to his knees begging for mercy.

On his knees, well ... pretty much; begging, true. Ari thought silently, draping a thin quilt over Anna's sleeping, curled-up body. She had done too much mental and physical activity overnight, and was so sleepy after leaving NSA that she fell asleep in the passenger seat. He drove home and carried her to the main bedroom. She was disturbed several times, but did not wake up.

Fortunately, the damage they did was not extensive to reach the upstairs bedroom and study. The kitchen was half ruined, as were the living room and entryway. The storage room under the stairs wasn't in great shape either, so he was going to talk to her after she woke up about whether to call in the renovation team. Or maybe she'd wake up and he'd have to deal with their divorce papers and the divorce lawyer with the gold-rimmed glasses.

Ari walked down the creaking stairs and sat down on the couch to pour himself a glass of whiskey. He preferred it on the rocks; however, the fridge was shot through last night. The spicy liquor warmed up his throat and stomach, but the darkness had passed and the temperature would only continue to rise as the sun rose. He leaned back against the couch, the lack of support from the soft fabric always made him feel like he was not lying on his own sofa.

Miraculously, through the thin layer of the floorboard, both of them coincidentally thought about their first meeting. As for Anna, she dreamt about it.

Six or seven years ago, in a rainy and misty southern Argentina, such uncommon precipitation weather naturally gave the intelligence agencies opportunities to take advantage of. Anna was an intelligence analyst at that time and was ordered to come to Argentina to assist a criminal informant to get out of trouble, but more importantly, to get information from the informant about the operation of an international crime syndicate. Something neither she nor her superiors anticipated were that the desperate informant first gave her false information and then defected to the crime syndicate, offering Anna as his proof of loyalty.

Anna had no choice but to shoot the renegade informant. The sound of gunfire brought her trouble, as the police in Cordoba, on the payroll of the crime syndicate, started to investigate who killed the man. They were focused on foreign tourists who were traveling alone.

A few policemen tried to shake down some female tourists, and Anna was one of them. When they questioned Anna loudly in Spanish if she had company, she was relieved by Ari, who called her honey and helped her out. Ari said he was a pilot on a flight from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, even though he actually poisoned an Argentinean military official in collusion with terrorists before the police riot. He felt sorry for Anna's entanglement and bought her a drink. One drink soon turned into two and three, and then the pair soon fell in love and spent a few more days in Cordoba, kissing, dancing, and laughing.

They both returned to the United States. After a few more dates and three weeks of knowing each other, they announced to everyone around them that they were getting married.

Anna finished her nap and stretched in bed, but almost twisted her back out with the "good morning" from the doorway. Ari leaned against the door frame and grinned at the look on her face. He walked over to the bed and leaned down to kiss her forehead, "Good morning, honey." His warm kisses landed on her brow and the bridge of her nose, his lips eventually lingering for a moment above hers, his crystal blue eyes searching her face for any sign of resistance.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close for a deeper kiss. The kiss quickly ignited an unfinished flame between them that began with their anger but was not entirely made up of pure bottled-up emotion. The mutual revelation of their identities did not quench their thirst but only temporarily stopped the further spread of the flame that now swept through their souls and bodies, burning down almost everything.

He took off her pajama and took hold of her slim waist, brushing the patch of bruising skin with his thumb unintentionally, earning a soft whine from Anna. Ari regained a moment of sanity from the kiss and his eyes followed the strange touch beneath his fingers. The underside of her ribs was slightly swollen, no doubt from their chaotic encounter downstairs a few hours earlier. He had no strange fetishes, he had to admit, but Anna's bruised and battered body only made him pity her more and his desire to fuck her higher than ever.

"I'm sorry." He whispered his apologies, kissing every tiny cut and bruise beneath, a profound way to remind himself of the mental and physical damage he had inflicted on her. Ari's long hair fell down the sides of his face, sweeping over her body along with his beard. Anna's hands convulsed with his hair, slightly removing some of the itches, yet his soft beard left her squirming under him. There was nothing she could do. He lifted her legs and held her scratched legs over his shoulder, burying his head and kissing the soft flesh on her inner thigh. His ringed left hand rested on the outside of her flesh, the silvery-white ring touching her skin and bringing a cool sensation.

His overly exuberant hair brushed her pussy through her panties, which were soaked with her own juices, and the sensation of being tickled caused her to express her displeasure in a somewhat frustrated, thin moan. Hickeys crept up her inner thighs to the groin where they met her belly. She tried to keep her legs together, but his head was in between and she was afraid of crashing his skull. If he didn't do something to her soon, she really would do something to his skull.

"May I?" His blue eyes darkened. The heat in her body collided with the hot breath across her skin, burning the knots in her lower abdomen.

She lost her strength after just one look at him. Not to mention taking off her panties, these beautiful eyes could have made her tie herself up and edge her ten times over and she’d gladly obey: "Please."

Her panties were flung to God knows where, and that was probably the least thing on her mind right now. He started with a long lick at her slit, then the tip of his tongue went in to seek out the swollen, almost painful clit. "Fuck." His tongue slid around the edge of her entrance, muffled by the abundance of her juices. The vibrating sensation beneath her made Anna clench his hair, running her fingers on his scalp, stirring a few strands into one.

Six years of marriage had given him a good knowledge of the sensitive spots on her body. Ari rubbed his jaw over her mound, making her squirt and come all at once as she whimpered. "Cream on my face, honey." His brush-like whiskers gave her a tingling, intertwined sensation, the delicious beard burn generating soreness she could feel even days later. His whiskers glistened with her crystalline juices, and with a slight gasp, he moved up to kiss her lips, giving her a taste of her own.

Her fingers left the ends of his messy hair and peeled off his tank top and shorts, exposing his thick shaft. It took little time for Ari to get his cock at her entrance and penetrate her effortlessly, his arms gripping her thighs so that her pussy met his shaft without breaking the stitched wound on her body. Her warm, wet channel fluttered upon his intrusion. Her pussy was a constant supply of juices for lubrication, dripping out of her body, yet he felt strong resistance every time he thrust in. She was so tight that made him suck a breath.

"You are so fucking tight, honey, might come just this second." His teeth took her soft earlobe in and whispered filth in her ear, along with his muffled grunts burnt Anna's face. She pulled him down and bit his lips to shut him up, but Ari's hand somehow rested on her tits, pinching her nipple and making her scream. The tingling from her nipple, the warmth coming from her earlobes, her pussy split open by his demanding cock, the squelching noises, the lips grinding and chasing, the rising heat in the room, and the salty taste of sweat on his chin... she was lost in the multiple sensations and soon came.

They made love three times until they both lay exhausted on the bed, panting heavily, unwilling to lift another finger. It wasn’t fuck. The process was gentle and caring. And Ari, for the first time in his life, didn’t thrust into her like a horny teenager, but rocked slowly, allowing her to float in the blissful post-orgasmic fuzzy feeling, rather than passing out the second she had her orgasm. He came three times inside her, stuffing her pussy with so much cum dripping out of her entrance and smeared with her juices. She didn’t particularly enjoy orgasms ripped out of her body, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like to be stuffed full either.

Anna rested on his arm, keeping her back close to his warm chest. His firm arms wrapped around her upper body like chains from behind, while he pressed kisses (and tickled her with his beard) to her shoulder.

After a long time, when the sunlight peeked into the gap between curtains and landed on the dark floor and both of their ankles, Ari finally asked the question that was bothering him for hours, "What are we going to do next?"

A week later, at 3 p.m., the marriage therapist was very pleased to see the couple from last week back here. Many people didn’t make it through a session, but that was a topic for another day.

"Have you made any progress in the last week?"

"Sure." The Levinsons smiled from the bottom of their hearts. Ari caught one of her hands and rubbed her ring finger. Anna gave him an annoyed look but didn't pull back. It was a good sign that they had communicated well in the previous week, as they did not resist physical contact. The therapist took notes in his notebook.

Ari's eyes unconsciously glued to her face: "We ... ahem, we communicated, and we both recognized our shortcomings in the marriage."

"And we are fixing the problems in the marriage," Anna added, leaning slightly in Ari's direction, but only a little. Anna straightened her face, but could not stop smiling, "Oh, and we redid the house."

The therapist listened very carefully to their answers and nodded approvingly, "That's going very well. Marriage is all about communication, constant improvement, and constant bonding. It's a long-term process."

Ari agreed: "I'm not going to lie, I still sometimes want to …" his eyes are glued to Anna again, swallowing the few words that could get them back into trouble, "but uh - couldn’t take the shot. "

"Me too."

They looked at each other and then grinned. Both were a bit smug.

The therapist cleared his throat to regain their attention, "Remember it's the two of you versus the problem, not you versus the other person. So how will you rate your current relationship?"

"Ask us that sex question again," Ari interjected, causing Anna to slap him on the back of the hand with a disapproving look. Ari just shrugged and intertwined their fingers. Anna shook her head as if dealing with a 5-year-old, considering Ari’s smug smile and his clinginess, it wasn’t a bad metaphor.

"Well, -"

He held her hand and raised his smile triumphantly, posing "1" and "0" with his fingers and mouthed: "Ten."

Notes: I wrote this in June to celebrate Chris Evans' birthday. And it took me five days to write this stuff, in English, no less, which is not my first language. No beta'd, so there's gonna be typos and grammar errors. But anyway. Always appreciate comments and feedbacks / reblogs!

[my-little-loverboy]

Chores

Kinktober day no. 6

Her smile widens, the anxiety crawls from your diaphragm up into your throat.

Pairing: Yae Miko/cis fem sub reader

CWs: Manipulation, dubcon bc of coercion, power imbalance, a sprinkle of gas lighting

AN: Reader is explicitly referred to as a girl, and I reference afab anatomy more than once. Also I did some looking into what irl shrine maidens do and it’s a lot of menial stuff like cleaning and running any shops in the shrine.

Kinktober Masterlist

Yae Miko is a fascinating woman; understatement of the century I know but still.

So it was both horrifying and incredibly interesting when she started personally overseeing your day to day activities as a shrine maiden

Most of what you did was keep the place tidy, not that you were any good at it. At least that’s the conclusion you’d came to with how often Yae would come “teach you to do the chores correctly.”

Said teaching often involved her very, very close to you. The ends of her soft hair tickling your face and the light, airy smell of her perfume filling your senses.

“You summoned me, Guuji Yae.”

“Yes, thank you for your swift arrival.”

Yae sat perched on a bench within a secluded part of the shrine. Passively toying with the gohei she often carried with her as she looked at you, disappointment written on her face as she sighed and stood.

“Join me on a walk, we have… Much to discuss.”

You nod and follow behind her. It was strange in a way, she kept a respectful distance between you both as you left the shrine and made your way down the mountain. Her behavior was in no way strange, but after the close proximity of your lessons with her and the easy smile she had worn during them; her distant smile and the newfound distance stirred an anxiety deep in your chest.

The walk down the mountain felt agonizingly long. But when you did eventually reach the north alcove yae was the first to speak.

“I’m sure you’re aware of why we’re here, no?”

You blinked owlishly at her, besides making sure the little cave was tidy you’d rarely been down here. She appears shocked at your lack of knowledge, and the anxiety digs it’s roots deeper into your diaphragm.

“I see… It's because of your inability to correctly see your tasks done without my assistance. I’d be more understanding if you would accept the help from other shrine maidens. I understand that some people tire quickly. But the others I’ve asked to help you say you’re unwilling to help with your tasks.”

She sighs as you wrack your brain trying to remember ever neglecting your tasks.

“If this behavior keeps up… I can’t promise you can continue working at the shrine.”

You feel tears well up in your eyes, someone had to be lying about you to her! You can’t remember ever deliberately neglecting your duties.

Yae smiles sadly at your little outburst.

“I wish I could agree but there has been enough other shrine maidens speaking against you I can’t defend you anymore…”

You pick up on the “but,” that she doesn’t say. And jump at the opportunity to try and fix this whole situation.

“Guuji Yae there needs to be something I can do to fix this. I promise I’m not deliberately neglecting my tasks.”

She stills and looks you over, something flashes behind her eyes and despite everything you know about the woman, a chill squirms down your spine. She looks away and you release a breath you didn’t know you had been holding.

“I can technically vouch for you. With my word there’s little anyone could do to touch you.”

She looks to you with a coy smile, the discomfort returns with a vengeance, you get the sense you’re not going to enjoy whatever she has you do… but you value your job, and you enjoy the shrine despite how little you seem to do for it.

“What do I need to do? I’m.. open to just about anything.”

Her smile widens, the anxiety crawls from your diaphragm up into your throat. She steps closer and you physically resist the urge to step back.

“Seeing as you prefer my company, I’d like you to assist me personally. I’ll see your usual tasks get completed in exchange.”

That’s… so much less than you’d expected? You nod enthusiastically and she steps closer yet, looking down at you through her fluffy hair.

“I’m glad. Meet me here this evening after the maidens stop selling fortunes and I’ll start training you.” Her smile doesn’t falter as she leaves you in the damp cave.

Yae is already there when you arrive. But she is missing the top most layer of her typical outfit. Leaving very little covered.

The anxiety that had finally settled returns tenfold as you try not to let your mind wander about the true reason Yae summoned you here. It’s obviously just her casual wear, why are you being weird about it?

It was not in fact just her casual wear, and somehow Yae went even further than your brain had hoped guessed she would

Forcing you to bury your face between her smooth, plush thighs and eat her out until she decided she was done. Long after your knees had gotten sore from the uneven rock below you.

Yae pulls you away from her by your hair. She looks at you with the same sly smile she did when she cornered you with this idea, the only thing pointing to her having enjoyed you at all is the blush on her cheeks and the ever so slight glossiness in her eyes.

“Good girl, stand.”

You scramble to your feet, trying to fix your own very disheveled outfit as she talks.

“You’re lucky you’re amusing. I want you here at the same time every night. I don’t recommend disappointing me, little one. We both know what’s on the line here.”

© pvbbyboy •• 2023 •• Please do not translate/repost. reblogs are appreciated and requests are open!

Part of the @enchantedforest-network

~~

Taglist: @yarnnerdally • @starrry-angel • @yeonpm

Wanna be added? Send me an ask off anon and lmk if you want to be on the sfw only list!

[ozimagines]

(Got a request involving him so I figured I’d post this first just to lay the groundwork for what I think of him.)

Dating Nikolai Stanislavsky would include…

Want a man who’s Russian, from Russia, and was born in Russia? Have I got the man for you lol

Dude strikes up a conversation with you on the street. He thinks he’s more suave than he is.

Prides himself on being a gentleman. He offers you his seat on the bus.

“So, what is nice girl/guy/person such as yourself doing in a place like this?”

You can’t help but smile at the cliche. You tell him you’re just going to get groceries. He asks if he can come along, showing you his bag as well.

You go shopping, and he compares them to the shops in Russia, missing his home a little but also excited that he can get green apples year round at Walmart.

He’s charming, letting you enter anywhere first and holding the door for you. Making sure he walks in front of you to clear the aisle. Reaching things on shelves you can’t.

He’s old fashioned.

You thank him for everything, and he asks for your humber.

“Might need someone to show me around the city.”😘

He texts you “good morning” and “goodnight” every single day.

You flirt at first. He’s cute in a gentlemanly way.

You don’t start getting serious until he takes you out one day, and give you diamond jewelry that he can’t tell you where he got it from.

You start to understand why he’s so sparse in his details of his background.

When he feels he can trust you, he mentions that you may not want to mention his name to any police. You take the hint but are understandably a little freaked.

He promises you that he’s not there for violence, and you take him at his word.

He takes you in classy dates; bookstores where you get coffee and read, sushi bars where he surprises you with his knowledge of world cuisine, and art galleries that he gets early access to.

You decide to surprise him for a change. You find out there’s a famous Russian pianist in town doing a small concert.

You take him, not telling him what you’re taking him to.

First song is Romance by Dvorak. There’s a violinist there too, and the piano and violin almost seem like they’re talking to each other. Like the romance is between them.

His eyes are closed for the first song, he’s transported back to his home in Russia, when shit wasn’t going sideways, practicing the piano for his mother. 🥰

He grasps at your hands, holding them for the duration of the concert.

He thanks you profusely afterwards, holding your hands, face in your neck, kissing it softly.

He takes you back to his to make love that night.

Stanislavsky doesn’t fuck very often; he makes love.

Candles and soft music and silk sheets.

He kisses all over your body, lips touching every sensitive point, thrusting firmly but gently into you. 🥲

You cohabitate pretty quickly. I think Stanislavsky is pretty domestic.

He can cook like a BEAST.

Memorizes different recipes around the world.

His draniki (дранікі) are seriously orgasmic tho.

His kartoshka (Картошка) are also quite delicious but it’s literally impossible to fuck up anything chocolate.

Reads the paper every morning even though phones exist.

Not big into social media. Like really really on the outs.

When you send him videos you have to text him a link. 😂

Often wears jeans in casual mode. American jeans. Feel way different than the knock offs he’s used to. (Based on my non-American exs’ opinions)

Recreates that photo with you of the solider coming home and kissing that woman in the streets ⬇️

Exceedingly and disgustingly romantic

Like very Eastern European views of love and traditions

Insists on holding the door for you. Will genuinely be butthurt if you don’t let him.

His favorite place to kiss is right behind your ear. It’s intimate and it lets him smell whatever fragrance you’re wearing that day.

Gifts you with things you can use together; pajamas he’d like to see you in, perfumes/colognes for him to smell, puzzles you can work on together.

After dinner every night, you sit on the couch and read together

Not a big TV guy

Often turns on music so he can dance with you; simple waltz’s and such🎵

When he loves you, truly, he tells you.

He’s European, he doesn’t consider it weird to express love that way.

“I have something to tell you. Just sit. I love you. More than all else.”

He gets protective over you too

Not a super violent dude, but he does what he has to for you

Will put himself between you and anything he considers to be a threat.

He calls you Russian pet names, but in English so you can understand: “my beloved”, “little sparrow”, or “mousy”

You call him “Nikki”. He doesn’t like it but he knows you do. ☺️

“Nikki?”

*sigh* “Yes, my wondrously beautiful?”

Has cold feet in bed. I’m sorry, he just does. 🙃

He enjoys being kissed on his collar bone. Turns him on more than anything.

Enjoys going to bed early and waking up early. Loves to see the sunrise.

He proposes to you during a sunrise. You two are having coffee, and you bring him his just right.

Two hits black cane sugar and a splash of goat’s milk (lactose intolerant boi)

While the sun comes over the horizon, he leans in, kisses you, and slips something into your finger

It’s his great great grandmother’s engagement ring, a beautiful starburst emerald in the center.

“Ready for another adventure?”❤️

“I love you, Nikki.”

“I love you too, Y/N”😘

Bonus: I think he’d genuinely be interested in Native American culture. Like genuinely enthralled by their history and resilience. That’s the only way you can get him to watch TikTok is if he’s learning something, but he follows Tia Wood and Shiva Nova. (Or makes you follow them, lol)

[monstersinthecosmos]

stealing your question as promised: what authors do you think shaped your writing the most when you were first starting?

-mothmage

sdjkgas in middle school my favorite authors were Anne Rice and Francesca Lia Block and I think they have SENSUALITY in common even though their writing styles are SO opposite. As a teen when I was first writing I think I learned so much from both of them, like the seriousness and drama of AR but at the same time, FLB is so concise and punchy and sometimes her books are like these waterfalls of adjectives and I tried to think in that way too! Like I'm a very visual person so FLB books were like fucking crack for me, just heaps and heaps of descriptions of color and glittery and starry night skies and flowers growing where they shouldn't and it feels like poetry!

(I opened a random FLB book off my shelf and this is what I mean: We walked up and down the hills until our legs ached, then rode the trolley car to feel rushes of salty, misty air. We had picnics and fed the swans on the lake under the flowering terra-cotta arches, drank tea and ate pastries in rooms with cupids and rosebuds painted on the walls, strolled through the park, green-dazzled, fragrance-drunk, gasped at treasures gleaming gold in the half-lit glass cases of the museum. Then we'd return with spices, fruits and vegetables from Chinatown, seafood and baguettes from the wharf.

Her writing is so simple but it's just like heaps and heaps of sensory details !! And it's an interesting spectrum between her & AR to see how much you can say and like what type of efficiency you can find, because both of them give me that same feeling and feel so sensuous to me. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT EVERYTHING LOOKS LIKE AND SMELLS LIKE AND SOUNDS LIKE, TAKE ME THERE!

So as a teen I think I was learning a lot from them both and like I remember a fic I wrote with someone at a mall and it was like my FLB moment, I was like OMG I MUST MENTION THE TACO SMELL IN THE FOOD COURT AND THE PERFUME KIOSK AND THE HOUSE MUSIC BLASTING FROM A HAT SHOP AND THE CRUNCHY SUGAR ON A PRETZEL! And that's something that's stuck with me a lot, I think. I always want to tell you how things feel and smell like we're going on a journey, okay!

They both also have a way of treating cities/locations like characters--FLB actually does this quite literally by describing cities as if they're women (like LA is a blonde woman with big sunglasses and NYC has dyed black hair with severe red lipstick that stains on her cigarette butts, etc something like that) and it feels really specific and made me think a lot about locations and settings and how they affect the characters and story! They were also both the first books I ever read with queer people! FLB's short story Dragons in Manhattan was the first story I ever read with a trans person back when I was like 12 or 13.

AND THEN as a final nail in the coffin LOL I read I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb when I was in 9th or 10th grade and it just really like !! IDK broke my head open for character voice. I don't think I'd read it so well done before, or maybe not noticed before. LIKE I MEAN this entire concept is like asking what did WE discover as kids or whatever, like so much of it is happenstance and if it hadn't been these authors it would've been someone else, and it's not like I stopped reading LOL like I still learn things from reading all the time! But Wally Lamb really brought this home for me. Like the way he writes Dominick's narration is just so like cynical and rugged and full of hurt and it made me think a lot about like how to profile a character with the language we use. I don't think FLB does this too much bc her writing is so breezy anyway and AR is so wordy that I don't think I could pick up on it as a teenager. I get more nuance now and see it better but it's there's a base level of like fanciness and purple prose that can be hard to see through on the first try, at least for me as a teen.

ANYWAY SORRY THAT WAS A REALLY LONG RESPONSE I JUST GOT REALLY EXCITED but Anne Rice + FLB + Wally Lamb wombo combo for emotionally torturous sensory overload cynical guttermouth style.