#like smoke from a furnace

[wackus-bonkus-maximus]

YOU

How dare you? Make me so emotional at such a late/early hour

Of course Adrien is so in love with Marinette he goes as Cat Walker. Of course Marinette and Alya’s relationship becomes strained (thought I do hope its lessens now she knows).

This is perfect, fills the void of ‘what if’ from Kwami’s choice. Good job, thumbs up

ahaha I live for the emotionally gripped sizzle reactions! I knew the fic would work bc I could feel the emotions in my own body and that's when I know it's going to be A Lot.

interesting you say that about alya and Marinette's relationship! I think their dynamic in LSFAF could have been its own fic, or at least a relationship study. but I wanted to do the love square instead hehe.

ty sizzle for the praise 💕 as always it's a joy to know you liked my story!

[pseudowho]

Fire and Iron

Forced to stay the night with Nanami Kento, the town's blacksmith, after tending to his wounds, you find yourself smouldering in his irresistible flame.

Warnings: 18+, fluff and smut, loss of virginity

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Your boots cracked through the ice-topped slurry puddles scattering the mud path in the village. The shawl bundled over your shoulders was not enough, and the biting cold wind whipped your cloak back, stripping its usefulness off your shivering shoulders.

Townsfolk waved to you, nodding, smiling; greetings for a familiar face, many of them grateful for your travels to their icy town over the years, lacking even a basic healer of their own, let alone one so talented.

Passing by the blacksmith's hut on your way, you paused out the front, feeling the heat bellowing forth like dragon's breath. You tipped your head back, the smell of ash and steel filling your nose. As you paused, moments after, so did the clang of hammer on anvil.

You opened your eyes, stinging in the brutal cold and smoke. You, once more, like a hundred times before, had caught the eye of the blacksmith. He, whose name you did not know. He, who looked but never touched. He, to whom you had passed so many thousands of hours of your life, and his life to you, through gaze alone.

Stood proud at the anvil, shadowing the forge like the door to hell behind him, his broad shoulders wore only an open-chested white linen shirt, and a thick brown leather apron. With his ashy blond hair, and the lines of his face filled with soot, he was ageless and unknowable. He looked to you, his sharp face quiet and impassive; expression always somewhere between fury and tranquility.

Your lips parted once, as if to speak, and it jumped the blacksmith to life. With a barely perceptible nod, and a grunt, he swung his hammer back, brought down in beautiful accuracy, shaping smouldering steel. The clang rung through you, your chest jolting with a short gasp, and you collected yourself, stepping onwards. You were sure you could feel his cool gaze through the back of your head.

Another patient; another healed. Another grateful family; another life prolonged. The days were short now, and as you stepped out of the house of rough-hewn wood and stone, the forest pines were bathed in dying light, netting the low winter sun above the horizon. It was a punishing journey home, on foot, and the horses were long since put to bed.

The blacksmith's hut held its own sunset, the forge open but unattended. You heard stamps, heavy feet and cursing. You paused in the burst of warmth, illuminated, listening. Curiosity carried your feet into the hut, the heavy wet hem of your skirts collecting ashes, absorbing the blacksmith's domain.

"Are you...are you alright?" You called, uncertain, "Sir?" The footsteps, the swearing, had stopped. You stepped further in, feeling the forge belch at you, almost excruciatingly hot now.

"Get away from there!" The bark, deep and commanding, made you squeak and stumble. Darting through the side door, the blacksmith looped one thick arm round your waist before you fell towards the forge, effortlessly lifting you round, his back to the furnace, his face in shadow.

He was close; close enough that you could smell the soft sweat, the tang of fire and metal. He hissed as your hands dropped to his forearm, and you felt a cold dripping cloth draped over it.

"Do you often wander into places uninvited?" He snipped at you. You recognised the cadence in his low voice-- pain.

"I-- ...you're hurt," you insisted, voice barely above a whisper. Looking up, your eyes tried to gauge his unreadable face in the gloom. You felt him huff, warm air across your cheeks. His arm loosened, releasing you. As he stepped back, turning away to close the forge, you saw the blacksmith's mountainous shoulders tense, twitching.

"It's nothing," he retaliated, brisk. You stepped forwards again, placing a soft hand on his shoulder. At first, he flinched, then begrudgingly allowed you to turn him, and lift the damp rag covering his forearm. A thick welting burn, running the length of his forearm, lay weeping and angry on his skin, already nicked with so many little scars. You heard his teeth grit as the air hit his wound.

"Nothing," you scoffed, "this needs dressing. Let me help you." You felt him flinch beneath your hands, hesitant. He felt his skin prickle under yours, finding such curious pleasure in your touch alongside his pain. Your beseeching eyes took him the rest of the way, and he found himself accepting you.

"I...not here," the blacksmith toned, his eyes flitting to the town around him, "if they believe me injured, I'll lose business." You nodded, rummaging in your overburdened satchel, until he took you gently by the hand.

"My home," he began, hesitant, your hand so soft and small in his broad calloused palm, "you'll...you are welcome. It is clean. Quiet. I...I will not harm you. I promise."

Aware of his size and strength, aware of the air of mystery surrounding him amongst the townsfolk, the blacksmith was quick to reassure you. Your eyes softened, and his thumb brushed lightly over your knuckles at your words, electricity crackling up your arm.

"I know you won't," you assured. The briefest smile graced his severe face when you offered your name. You felt it warm you from the belly downwards. As he pulled encouragingly on your fingers, leaving the forge to die naturally with the approaching nightfall, you were led through the back of the hut, seeing a newly revealed sprawling cabin of wood and stone, at the edge of the forest. You felt the first kiss of snow upon your cheek.

"Nanami Kento," the blacksmith replied, welcoming you over the threshold. You smiled up at him, taking in his home; barely lit, at first, until he struck a lantern to life. You placed your bag upon a table, rummaging for salves as Kento began to build the fire, skilled and efficient.

You basked in the homely room; autumnal tapestries lining the walls, skin rugs on the floor and furs on the chairs, hanging herbs above a countertop, circled with hung skillets and pans. You relaxed easily into the sincerity of Kento's welcome. A frigid wind slapped the windows, rattling the door.

Before long, an enormous cast iron pot boiled with water, and you knelt before Kento, appraising his wound in the orange glow. Cleaning your hands, wetting a rag with clean water, you moved to clean the ash from his arm before pausing.

"This will hurt," you apologised, looking up to him. Kento's heart stuttered; how many hours had he spent, imagining those sweet eyes, those gentle fingers? Too long. Too many words unspoken over too many years. He was not used to such tenderness.

"I am used to pain," he hushed, smooth and barely audible above the crackle of flame, "my job has certain...hazards, after all." You hummed, swiping the cloth gently, removing dirt and debris.

"Still," you hummed, "I don't like to hurt a friend." Kento chuckled, and you felt yourself blush from hairline to toes at the rich mirth of it.

"We are...friends, are we?" His voice was low and conspiratorial, and you felt it stir a hunger deep within you. You smiled back, mulish as you dabbed salve onto his burn. His knees were parted, with you knelt between them, and your elbows rested on the thick muscle of his thighs. You felt safe, warm, held.

"All those years, passing back and forth," you sighed, teasing, "and not one hello? Just lots of nods," your stomach swooped as Kento laughed again, "and our friendship is just that. An accumulation of nods."

"Would we have stopped at 'hello'?" Kento retaliated. He caught the brief pause in your bandaging, before you continued. You spoke, uncertain again.

"Well," you hummed, testing the water, "offer me one now...and we shall see where it goes." Looking up, you gasped to find your face just inches from Kento's. He smiled at you, his eyes flicking briefly to your lips and back up again.

"Hello," he whispered, quiet and mischievous, "and thank you."

Your breath fluttered out; Kento could feel it against his lips, beckoning him.

"I...it's getting late," you started, and Kento blinked out of his reverie, glancing to the inky black outside his windows, "I should go."

Kento grasped your fingers once more, rising with you as he stood, your shawl shushing against his chest, barely covered by his soft linen shirt. Kento hummed, sounding grave, stepping to the other side of the room.

"It is night," he said, hands cupped around his eyes as he squinted out of the windows, "and the woods are barely safe in the day. I...I cannot allow you to travel. Alone, in the snow. You must stay."

His tone broached no argument, yet still you tried, packing your bag, your cheeks aflame.

"I...it isn't..." you stuttered, and Kento turned to you, chin inclined to the floor, one fine eyebrow raised. You took a deep breath, certain that if you didn't leave now, you may fall too deeply into Kento's insistent heat. Yet...you knew he was right. The path was treacherous. The snow would take you before the dawn.

"Would you like a bath?" Kento offered, turned away to save you your blushes; a gentleman.

"I-- please don't go to any trouble--" Kento swiftly ignored you, beginning to grasp the enormous iron pot, lifting it with stunning ease. His voice didn't even hitch.

"It's no trouble. I bathe every night. You can go before me." Kento carried the pan, stepping behind a folding wooden screen, and you followed him as if to argue, watching him begin to fill an enormous copper bathtub. Your hands shook as you began to remove your shawl, still blushing, so briefly overwhelmed before squashing it down.

Kento glanced up at you, pausing as he poured hot water, "This will take me some time," he said, apologetic, "please make yourself comfortable. I'll call for you."

You nodded, clearing your throat, hands twisting in your removed shawl. Kento chastised himself for admiring the soft curve of your breasts into your waist, the hidden delight of the swelling of your hips beneath your heavy skirts. He did not see how the steam rose fast, dampening his white shirt, how you could see all the way to his navel as he leaned over the bath. Neither of you knew how the other stirred within.

As you walked the length of the room, your fingertips brushing tapestries and grazing over warm furs, your curiosity drew you to a wide, flat trinket box, inlaid with mother of pearl, the colours an aurora in the rolling firelight. You stroked the box just once, before lifting the lid.

Your eyes crinkled immediately with joy at the treasures within; the box was full of lovingly crafted necklaces of gold, silver, pearl and gem, the chains finer and softer than any you had ever seen. You did not feel Kento approach as you admired them.

"I'd like for you to choose one," he offered, sincere, as you spun to face him. He raised his hands placatingly, a smile at the edge of his mouth, "not in lieu of payment, of course. A gift, I...made them with no real aim as to who should receive them."

"You made these?" You gaped, unable to fathom how such enormous hands crafted such intricate delights, "Kento, I-- they're beautiful, I couldn't possibly..."

If Kento had held any reservation, after hearing his name tumble from your lips, he was filled with the burning certainty that the jewellery should be for you, and you alone. His hand closed over yours as you moved to shut the box.

"Please," he breathed, so close, "choose one, or I shall give you them all." Swallowing, your hand hovered over a fine chain of silver and emerald, your fingertips brushing the gem. Kento hummed his approval, before picking it up, his calloused fingers all softness and grace.

"My favourite, too," he rumbled, brushing your hair off the nape of your neck as he clipped the necklace into place. You shivered at the feeling of his fingers on your neck, and almost ran as he whispered beside your ear, "Your bath is ready."

Stripping behind the wooden screen, hearing Kento amble around the room beyond, you sighed as the hot water enveloped you. Washing yourself with a soft sponge, cleaning off the grime of the day, your hand wandered absentmindedly downwards, fingertips grazing through your folds, naturally moving to relieve yourself of the building tension--

"I've left you a shirt." Your hand darted upwards with a guilty splash, Kento's voice only meters away behind the screen.

"Thank-- thank you," you squeaked, blushing, before climbing out, so naked apart from your exquisite new necklace. Drying on a soft towel, your hand hesitated over the shirt draped over the screen, before pulling it on over damp skin. It reached down your thighs, but left little else to the imagination.

Kento remained outwardly stoic, unreadable, averting his gaze as you crept out, arms holding yourself and squashing your breasts together, the colour of your nipples as faint as a ghost under the white linen shirt. He cleared his throat, coughing lightly before skirting past to the bath. You felt heat creep up your neck at the gossamer hush of his clothes hitting the floor, the shifting water as he stepped in, the way he sighed in relief, almost as if--

"I shall sleep in the chair tonight," Kento said, slow and considered, "and you shall have my bed." You felt indignation roll within you.

"Don't be ridiculous," you scolded, "you're injured, and this is your home--"

'-- and you are my guest," he grumbled.

"I won't allow it," you insisted, almost forgetting yourself as you approached the wooden screen, "I'll put some furs on the floor and--"

"You believe I would let you sleep on the floor?" He growled, furious at your suggestion, "I should rather you have me share the bed with you over that--"

"Fine. Then we shall share the bed. And there will be no more argument." You clapped a hand over your mouth as the words tumbled forth, unbidden. Mortified by your own suggestion, you removed your hand to speak again.

Kento stepped round from behind the screen, his towel draped lazily round his waist. You gaped up at him, stunned. He was...younger than you thought, his blond hair now soft and floppy, the ash removed from the lines in his face, taking ten years off him. You faced him, his towering form, the practiced rolls, peaks and planes of muscle belonging to a working man, his forearms so thick--

"Then...we should get to bed," Kento insisted, stepping past you, through a doorway to his bedroom, where you heard him rummaging for clothes, "it is late and I am up with the lark."

You hesitated where you stood, feeling your heartbeat between your legs, desperately curious, but paralysed.

"I don't bite," Kento called out, and you gulped down the sounds of soft fabric dropping over his body, still crippled with indecision and embracing yourself as he stepped out to put out the fire. You were lost momentarily in darkness before he stepped to you, the lantern between you, a beacon in the dark. You felt his hand close around your fingers again. You heard him whisper.

"It will become cold quickly, now the fire has died. Come. Stay warm."

You allowed yourself to be led to Kento's bedroom, hypnotised by the small swinging lantern. Kento led your hand downwards, placing it to the edge of the bed for you to feel your way, your fingers gliding through soft fur and cool sheets. With shaking hands, you crawled across to the head of the bed. Kento waited for you, flipping down the sheets, flipping them back up to your chin as you both slipped between them.

You heard nil but your own heartbeat. Kento faced you, the torch light embering behind him leaving him only just visible as your eyes adjusted to the light. The sheets had not yet warmed from your bodies, and you shivered. You felt Kento shift beside you.

"You...are cold," he stated as if in question. You remained quiet, gripping your hands to your chest lest they reach out for him.

"I'm...I'll warm up. Soon," you reassured yourself as much as him. You heard one doubtful grunt from him. Five minutes passed, and still, Kento felt you shiver against the sheets. Pulling a fur up to your chins, he felt prickles up his legs as one of your feet reached hesitantly out to touch him. He felt rather than heard you sigh.

"So warm," you whispered, your little voice soft with comfort in the dark. Kento's breath caught in his chest, feeling his cock twitch inside his soft trousers.

"Do you...need me?" He offered. He felt your other foot reach out in answer, cold toes wiggling against the downy hair on his leg. He felt a dangerous, needy arousal thread through him.

Reaching out his uninjured arm, he hooked it round your waist, chuckling as you squeaked when he pressed against you. You hummed in pleasure at the heat rolling off him, basking in his warmth, forgetting your awkwardness for a moment. Kento and you lay intertwined like that, with you softening like butter in his arms.

After a few minutes, you shifted against him, about to drift off to sleep. Kento must have been near sleep as well, groaning into your hair as you shifted, reflexively clinging you closer to him. Your bottom, completely bare with his shirt shifted up your body, pressed back to his groin. His clothed cock was hard and barely restrained in his loose trousers, and pressed between your thighs.

You felt a jolt run through you, feeling a warm trickle of arousal, so alien to you, seep out between your thighs. Kento almost saw stars as it dampened the trousers over his cockhead, and he frowned, his forehead pressed to your shoulder blade in apology and embarrassment.

"I-- I'm sorry, I--...it's been so long...since I've felt a woman-- shit, I'm--" Kento rested his nose against your neck, unable to stop himself from ghosting his lips there. You dropped your head back to him, and he growled in appreciation, nuzzling your neck, feeling your thighs clamp around the tip of his cock, your arousal seeping through his trousers and mixing with his own.

"I've never--" you whispered, blushing furiously, drunk on the feeling of his body against yours, feeling so curiously empty and aching to be filled. Kento understood immediately, and moved to pull back.

"No!" You squeaked, holding onto his arm, pushing yourself back to chase him along the bed, "Please, I-- I want--...you. I want you." Your words sat heavy in the air. Kento shifted behind you, at war with himself.

"You don't know what you're asking," he growled, fighting against you to remove his arm, "I am no boy."

"And I'm no girl, nor stupid," you reassured, "I'm not ignorant."

In an instant, Kento moved above you, on all fours, his arms caging you in, corseting you to his bed. He stared down at you, enormous chest heaving, eyes roving down your body, quickly intoxicated by your peaked nipples, beneath his shirt, the hem of it barely covering your sex, still feeling your arousal dampening his cock.

He leaned down, nestling his mouth against your neck again, tongue flicking out, tasting you. He felt you still under his lips, just a little mouse, in the jaws of a bear.

"And yet, all that knowledge is just academic, until you're crying out that my cock is too big for you," he growled, warning you away, barely able to stop himself. He felt you squirm beneath him, his head swimming with you. He was lost, then, to your tiny whisper in the gloom.

"Show me-- please." Kento shuddered, a drop of pre-cum seeping out of his cock, soaking through his trousers and your-- his-- shirt, to dampen your belly. You shivered, desperate to know Kento biblically, desperate for this fabled ecstasy.

Kento raised his mouth from your neck, reading your eyes, seeing such certainty in them. Tangling his fingers with yours beneath the sheets, he pressed the length of his body down against you as he kissed you, his other hand framing your jaw, gently encouraging it open to slide his tongue against yours. Your soft little moan was like music to his ears.

Kissing you deeply, learning your voice and your mouth, letting you learn the peaks and planes of his body with your free hand, Kento kept your other hand plaited with his own, fearful of leaving you to take this journey alone.

He felt himself shudder with the unbridled privilege of being able to worship you, jealously grateful that you had not been left to some boy. He was overwhelmed by the need to set your standards high at the first hurdle.

"Let me taste you," he murmured into your mouth, and you hesitated, unsure of what he meant. Swiping his thumb across your palm, Kento's mouth ventured downwards, sucking the skin of your neck, nipping before soothing the skin with his tongue, feeling you become pliable, supple as water. His fingers danced over the laces holding your shirt together, giving you opportunity to stop him, before untying them, freeing your breasts.

Laying his tongue flat over one nipple, Kento allowed it to curve to the shape of you, to know you, before drawing it into his mouth, sucking on your nipple while his hand toyed with and kneaded the other. He revelled in your whines, a high, keening mewl as you arched off the bed into his mouth. You felt his licks and sucks, curiously, between your legs, and you could not help but buck up against him.

Kento grunted at the feeling of your pussy pressing against his thigh, and moved one hand down to hold your hips still.

"Slow down-- let me show you," he ordered, gentle in his insistence. You trembled under his fingertips, your hips settling back to the bed. He rumbled his approval, rolling your nipple under his tongue again until you sighed, breathy and ecstatic, "Good girl."

In reward, his mouth continued to trail downwards, and your eyes fluttered closed, one hand coming to rest on the back of his head, your fingernails scratching through his damp hair. Kento shivered at the sensation, feeling his cock leap against his thigh.

When his mouth reached your mound, you squeaked out in alarm, flipping the blankets down to see Kento, illuminated in the orange light.

"What are you-- your mouth, Kento--" Kento's eyes crinkled up at you, and two arms came to loop round the top of your thighs, pulling you down the bed towards him, your shirt being rucked up against the drag of the mattress to completely expose your glistening pussy to him.

Maintaining eye contact with you, you trembled with anticipation as Kento poked his tongue out into a point, first grazing your folds, before stroking from side to side to ease in between them. The sound that broke out from you as his tongue stroked over your clit, hot and wet, was one Kento masturbated to for years to come.

You felt as though you had been lifted from earth and dropped amongst the clouds as he licked at you, sucking, stroking, tasting, the pleasure so otherworldly compared to what your own hand could achieve, that you felt yourself being rushed towards your peak at speed.

Twisting and squirming against his mouth, you reflexively tried to pull your pussy away from Kento's attentions. His arms tightened around the tops of your thighs, growling into you, pulling you back as you tried to scoot away. Your hand tugged at his hair as you arched, whimpering, coated in a fine sweat. As Kento groaned into your cunt, you watched his hips roll and hump against the bed, the sight alone enough to send your orgasm crashing through you, and you worshipped his name in a long, keening cry.

Kento let his laps and sucks become softer, languid, letting you float through the haze of your pleasure. Nuzzling at you, tasting you as you trailed lazy blissful fingers through his hair, Kento planted soft kisses to your inner thigh.

Moving back up, stroking his nose against your neck, Kento felt your hand move down his shoulders and back, before coming round to ghost over the front of his trousers. Kento shuddered, kneeling above you to remove his shirt, skin prickling with the need to feel yours against his own.

Gazing down at you, his eyes like whiskey in the flickering light, he grazed a palm from in between your breasts, down to the hem of your shirt, pulling it up over your head in one swift tug, exposing you completely to him.

Your hand still trailed over his groin as he knelt, and you were captivated, obsessed with the shape, weight and length of his cock in your hands, blissfully unaware of what you were doing to him. As you grasped the lace at the front of his trousers, undoing it, and squeezing the head of his cock between your fingers, Kento moaned, ragged, leaning one hand sideways to support himself.

"Fuck-- I haven't-- not for so long," he moaned, low and husky, feeling your inexperienced fingers explore his cock and balls in a way that felt almost abusively naive. As your thumb glided beneath his foreskin, collecting the wetness of his pre-cum, exploring his slit, Kento hissed, panting and grabbing your hand.

You broke out of your reverie, blushing with mortification, tears pricking in your eyes as you began to apologise. Kento interrupted, shushing you, one hand still gripping your fingers around his cock, the other coming up to cup your face, his thumb swiping across your cheek.

"Not you," he huffed, stroking your cheek, smiling down at you with fevered eyes, "me, it's-- I-- I'll cum in your hand if you carry on." Your eyes glimmered, hungry to see how he looked as you pleasured him, and you moved yourself, leaning close, squeezing him again beneath his own hand, and he cried out in pleasure. You felt another drip of his arousal across your fingers, and you gulped, your tongue darting out across your lips.

As you lowered yourself to his lap, Kento's eyebrows raised in shock, and desperate awe, as you licked the weeping cockhead sticking out from your joined enclosed hands.

A low rumble ebbed through Kento, his eyes suddenly dark and hungry as he looked down at you, wordlessly using your hand inside his own, to pump the length of his cock. Feeling the intoxicating glide of soft skin over woody hardness, you let him use your hand to masturbate himself as you took the head of his cock into your mouth, licking, tasting the musty pre-cum there.

Every instinct screamed at Kento to chase his orgasm, to press your head further down his cock so he could use your little hand to jack off into your mouth, and he felt overwhelmed by the innocent licks and sucks you gave him, eyes cast upwards to see what effect they had on him. Kento moaned desperately, twisting on his haunches, fingers in turn tangling into your hair and coming away, clenching and unclenching at speed.

He felt the approaching rush of divine ecstasy, thrumming up his back in waves, his balls tightening up against the base of his cock--

Snapping, Kento pulled your hand and mouth off him, heaving you up the bed and back onto the pillows, before pinning you down with his body, panting into your neck, trying not to spill his seed over your belly. You were thrilled, ecstatic with Kento's pleasure, eager to see more of it.

You crept your hips up to his, trying to ease his cock into you. Kento huffed, his hand shooting down to press your hips down again.

"--going to kill me-- I swear-- no idea...you have no idea what you're doing to me--" Kento panted, quaking above you, one forearm planted above your head. As his peak ebbed away, Kento plaited his hand with your own again, above your head. He felt his cockhead resting against the smooth resistance of your entrance, and he suddenly felt so responsible for you.

"I don't want to hurt you," he huffed, aware he was bigger than average, but knowing from the fevered look in your eyes that he could not dissuade you-- not that he wanted to, at this point, his cock throbbing with urgent need.

"Please," you begged, "please." You felt Kento's hips press forwards into your soaking wet heat, feeling a slight sting as it met resistance. Kento rested his nose to yours, his eyes still feverish, his body still smelling of iron and ash and smoke.

"On one condition," he pressed, authoritative as his cockhead pressed deeper against your stinging resistance, breaking past thin membrane, gripping your thigh up to his hip as you trembled, biting your lip, tears in your eyes as you nodded-- anything, you thought, anything.

"Marry me," he whispered against your lips, and you squeaked as you felt a twang of pain, his cock suddenly nestled deeply inside you. Kento rocked his hips gently, shushing you, soothing you, his thumb stroking your palm. Not moving, just holding you as you adjusted to feeling so full, Kento waited for an answer.

"Y--yes...yes," you mewled, and Kento growled his approval against your neck, slowly pulling out of you before rutting back into your wet, tender pussy again, so intimate and deep that you cried out for him.

Kento rolled his hips, like a boat on the waves, whispering into you, certain he wouldn't last long; "First-- I'll cum inside you-- then I'll treat you like a queen...haaah...for the rest of my days."

You clung to Kento, lost in the ecstasy of him plowing into you, delighted by his rumbling groans in your ears, blissfully proud of being able to make such an unflappable man fall apart inside you. When his grip on your hip faltered, his shaking hand dropping to stroke quick little circles around your clit, Kento growled and bit into your neck to feel you rock your hips upwards to meet his own.

The sting almost completely eased, you felt quick pangs of pleasure, rising with every beat of your fast little heart, completely carried along by the eroticism of Kento's frantic groans and mumbles into your ear.

"My love I-- you feel so good...so good...god, I need to cum, need you to cum I-- aahhhh, fuck--" Kento felt your pussy clench around him, and he came inside you as you drank down his moans, fascinated by how they matched up with the bounding twitch of his cock, how his hips juddered into you involuntarily, how his face contorted, jaw clenched, somewhere between rage and serenity.

You were famished, starved of him, immediately desperate for more, and you felt him crumple into you, caging you in, shoulders heaving and spent. Kento chuckled as you peppered him with kisses, gripping your thighs round him and rolling him over so you lay above him, straddling him as his cock softened within you.

With his chin on his chest to look down to you, and a lazy lopsided smile across his face, Kento played idly with your hair, stroking your nose, your cheeks. He proudly fingered the beautiful necklace, resting against your breasts, squashed and plush against him.

"You meant it?" He asked, eager, concerned.

You hummed in delight, pressing a tender kiss to his chest as you nodded; "You had me at 'hello'."

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Would the anon who requested Blacksmith!Kento PLEASE STAND UP so I can credit you for breaking my brain.

[mistyorchid]

Meet-Cute (Ch. 3)

Old Man Logan x fem! reader

summary: You and Logan relax during a particularly hot summer day, engaging in "parallel play" together. An innocent hangout quickly gets heated after he overhears a nsfw Twitter video blaring from your phone. Goddamn auto play. Ch. 1 Ch. 2 warnings: MDNI, no use of y/n, smut, established relationship, age gap, reader is 21+, oral fixation, praise kink, oral (male! receiving), light d/s, pet names (bub, baby, babe, daddy, good/dirty girl, princess), size kink, slapping (referenced + explicit), cum play. wc: 3.6k

Logan kept his promise. Well, you didn't go on a million more dates, but the time you spent together stretched the meaning of time itself. They started as singular outings; with early nights overlapping into early mornings. It didn't take long until your dates morphed into week-long "hangouts" at his place.

You willingly uprooted your life for Logan after a year of dating, packing your world into cardboard boxes and weaving it into the fabric of his home. The only thing you missed was the in-unit air conditioner that cooled your tiny apartment. It turns out that summers are unbearable when you live in a smelting plant.

The metal walls and poor insulation transform your makeshift studio into a furnace. Oil paint fumes waft upwards from the canvas, aggravating a migraine that slowly travels from the top of your head to your temples. In an attempt to preserve your sanity, you rapidly untie the paint-stained apron and storm out of the studio.

Beads of sweat trickle into your cleavage, gathering at the underwire of your bra. You tear it off somewhere between the kitchen and the living room; you can't be bothered to pick it up from the floor. Maybe Logan will stumble upon it and stash it away, an uncharacteristically pervy habit that he thinks goes unnoticed.

"I'm melting, Logan. Save me!" You slump into the couch, dramatically grazing your forehead with the back of your hand to mimic a damsel in distress. Logan lowers his newspaper to acknowledge your presence. Cigar smoke billows from his mouth; the inky tendrils momentarily fogging his glasses.

"Not much I can do, bub. Fan just died," He explains, tilting his nose towards the archaic floor fan. An annoyed grumble escapes your lips as you move to the end of the couch, relaxing your head against the armrest and stretching out like a starfish. Logan shifts the paper to one hand to lightly caress your ankle.

You stare at the ceiling, mentally conjuring metallic constellations by connecting the bolts and welds. It takes five minutes for you to snap your eyes shut in defeat. Although you normally accept boredom as a challenge—a testament to your imagination, the sweltering heat makes it difficult to think.

Logan quirks his brow, sensing your exhaustion. "You're such a baby. It's barely ninety in here." You shake his palm off your leg and draw your knees toward your stomach, creating a makeshift boundary against his feigned judgment. "Barely ninety? Don't piss me off," You laugh, reaching for your phone on the coffee table.

Parallel play is new to Logan. He tends to isolate himself, preferring to spend his leisure time alone. When you introduced the concept to him, he dismissed you with an eye roll that bordered on sassy instead of annoyed. "You getting this from your Tick-Tock-whatever the fuck?"

"Let's be alone together," You reasoned. He’s enjoyed these moments of domesticity ever since.

Your index finger lingers above the touchscreen, debating which app will distract you from the heat. The comforting feeling of Logan's hand returning to your ankle inspires you to open Twitter. Your body is slowly relaxing and you want your brain to follow suit.

Logan cherishes your laugh as you stumble upon a hilarious tweet. You scroll further, settling on a video that displays a pitch-black screen. Assuming it was an edit, you wait for a transition to reveal a montage from a show you liked, or an incredibly depressing edit of Kendall Roy. Those always seemed to invade your TikTok for-you page around 3 am.

Your jaw drops when it fades into the unmistakable sight of an amateur porn video. It depicts a woman on her knees, presumably filmed by her partner. The man slaps his cock on her tongue before slowly inching the tip into her eager mouth. "That's a good girl, drool on my cock," the faceless man praises.

The video had been relatively silent until that moment.

Nothing could have prepared you for the high-pitched moan that traveled from the girl's throat and out of your phone's speaker. You were ambushed. Logan pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and shakes his head, pointedly refusing to react to the noise. "I'm reading the paper, and you're watching porn?"

"I didn't click on it, I scrolled, I—" you threw your phone onto the couch, crossing your arms over your eyes to shield your flustered cheeks. "—Ugh! whatever." Your embarrassment provides Logan ample time to grab your phone as he quickly unlocks it and scrolls back to the source of the moan.

Auto-play resumes, suddenly filling the room with the sound of more slapping. "Please give it to me, Daddy! Promise I'll be good for you," the woman pleads in an exaggerated falsetto. Logan shoves the phone in front of your face, forcing you to acknowledge the video.

"You into this shit?" He asks, invading your mortified posture to push your arms away from your face. His knee slots in between your stretched legs, effectively caging you in. "I asked you a fuckin' question." His gruff tone would have scared you if it wasn’t accompanied by the slight upward curve of his mouth.

Logan's cock throbs as his eyes linger on your gaping mouth. You were reacting appropriately, dropping your jaw in shock. All Logan could think about was how your plush lips formed a perfect "o," similar to the woman on the screen.

"I plead the fifth," You huff, narrowing your eyes and reaching out to pause the video. Logan clicks his tongue while mocking you, shaking his head side-to-side. "It's in your feed. Doesn't that mean you are into this shit?"

Fuck. You regretted explaining social media algorithms to Logan. It was an act of charity, showing an old man how to use the "interwebs," as he first called it. He'd still have a flip phone if you didn't explain why only drug dealers and Y2K-obsessed tweens used them.

You push Logan's knee forward, making him momentarily lose his balance. He falls on top of you, the full weight of his adamantium-plated bones pressing you firmly into the couch. Logan's heart drops in his chest as he sees you shut your eyes in pain. "Oh my god, I-" He uses his elbow to twist away from your chest, landing on the floor with a comically loud thunk.

He groans with the force of the fall and immediately regrets landing on his back. The scarred planes had already been traumatized by decades of recklessness, but his old age further weakened their tenacity.

"I'm sorry, babe. You okay?" He slowly rises to his feet, grimacing when he hears his joints creak under the weight. Logan uses the edge of the coffee table to stand up fully. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks," You squeak, unable to meet his worried stare. When he fell on your chest, you could feel his bulge through the thin cotton boxers.

Two can play that game.

You fail to stifle a giggle as Logan waves his hand in a sweeping motion in front of your face. "You sure I didn't hurt you? Seems like you're in shock," He asks, genuinely concerned with your well-being.

"You're hard," You state, fixated on the prominent tent in his boxers. Logan is a cocky motherfucker; he rests his hands on his hips and slightly leans backward, emphasizing the bulge.

"Yeah? So what? I’m always hard when you wear those shorts. Makes me feel like a fuckin’ teenager." He smirks, clearly enjoying the sight of your flustered face. His nostrils subtly flex and you can tell he smells how wet you are for him. It's simultaneously embarrassing and empowering unraveling for Logan—you feel so timid under the heavy weight of his gaze, yet so brazenly sensual.

“Know what I think?” You drawl, shifting from your position on the couch to stand before Logan. His broad frame would be intimidating if he weren’t so gentle with you. Only you. Sunset filters through the lace curtains you installed last summer to soften the hostile industrial space. Soft, indeed. The living room is swathed in an amber glow, and so is Logan’s face. The light tenderly traces each wrinkle and scar—decorations gifted by the tedious passing of time. Your calves burn as you rise on your toes, lips grazing the shell of his ear.

You grasp his strong shoulders to stabilize yourself before whispering, “I think you’re secretly into this, too.” Logan turns his head away from you, closing his eyes to conceal how much your words affect him. He’s confused when he feels you rake your palms against his chest, only opening his eyes when your hand catches on the waistband of his boxers.

Logan’s a man of few words. Your unabashed look of adoration combined with your position on the floor stole any he could use to disagree.

“What’s the matter, Daddy? Cat got your tongue?” You lean forward, tenderly nuzzling your cheek against his leg. 

“Jesus,” Logan mumbles, tentatively reaching down to pet the top of your head. “You’re fuckin’ filthy. Don’t call me that.” The gravel of his voice triggers a dull throbbing in your core. It was easy to unravel for him because he never demanded your submission. He earned it by respecting your mind and body, nurturing it like a fragile orchid that could wither if handled without care. 

You strain your neck to peer into his eyes. He tugs on your roots before tenderly tracing your bottom lip—a silent betrayal of his plea. “Why, you don’t like it? I’ll stop if you don’t,” You reason, allowing him to admire your plush lips. A ragged groan escapes him as he watches you suck his callused thumb into your hot mouth before releasing it with an audible pop.

“It’s not that, I just—” His words die in his throat as you pull the hem of his boxers down, tugging the elastic until you can feel his hard cock bob on your face. You gently stroke his length before pressing your cheek against it, smiling against his warmth. “I don’t wanna ruin you any more than I already have,” He chokes. The doubt written on Logan’s face kills you. You’re suddenly on your feet again and Logan’s cock can’t help but twitch at the absence of your hot breath. 

“Stop it. I hate when you say shit like that.” Logan resists the urge to clench his eyes shut. He hates it when you look at him like he’s a puzzle you’re eager to solve. “All you’ve done is give me everything I’ve ever wanted,” You sigh, reaching on your toes to burrow your head into the crook of his neck. 

Logan wallowed in self-deprecation like it was his job. The age gap between you both was a recurring theme of past arguments. He often distanced himself whenever you begged to ride him, gazing sympathetically into his eyes as you felt his thrusts falter. 

You cherished it.

He could be bandaging your knee after a bad fall in the studio and then spanking your ass until it matched the deep purple and red hues mixed on your palette. The duality drove you crazy. Logan knew exactly when to nurture you and when to fulfill your desire to be taken, worn down; he masterfully chipped away at the facade of your resolve until you were pliant in his rough embrace.

“Besides, ‘Daddy’s just a term of endearment. Same as baby, doll . . . my girl.” You whisper, teasingly nipping his earlobe. “I love being your girl.”

Logan’s hesitation breaks at that, planting a chaste kiss on your neck and inhaling the comforting scent of your hair. You smelled like home.

“Can you get on your knees for me, baby?”

The subtle command ignites a tender ache in your bones—you’re suddenly slinking down his form and bracing against the cool concrete. This must be how people felt when the first skyscraper was built. The towering mass of his body is deliciously intimidating; you’re at his feet, worshipping the foundation of an idol that refuses to be honored.

His hips jut forward as you teasingly lick the head of his cock in short, cat-like strokes. You indulge in his flesh, roaming the hard planes of his thighs and caressing the black tendrils around the base. Something in Logan breaks when you pause to gently kiss the tip while peering up at him through your fluttering lashes. 

“Give me your phone,” He commands. You were too embarrassed to admit how much you craved this side of him. Your back strains with your sudden movement to reach behind you, knocking little knick-knacks on the coffee table as you fumble for the phone. 

Logan’s cock twitches as you hurriedly unlock it before presenting it to him like a pup offering its owner a bone. “I, uh—” His voice hitches when you place your hands on your thighs; your arched back pushing the swell of your breasts against his legs. “I need you to open the camera app for me.”

A teasing smirk overpowers your once coy visage. “Sure thing, Daddy.” You strain to reach the phone, quickly swiping to find the cute camera icon. He’s purposefully not bridging the distance. 

He’s making you work for it.

Logan reverses the camera before angling it in front of your face. “Repeat what she said.” His hooded eyes follow your dumbfounded expression, lingering on the inviting expanse of your lips. You stutter as Logan’s thumb traces dizzying patterns on your open mouth, dipping in quickly to collect your spit.

“Pl- please give it to me, Daddy . . . promise I'll be good for you,” You drawl, satisfied now that you could feel Logan in your mouth. Your face is inches away from his hard cock and you can’t help but admire how fucking pretty he is. When he’s worked up like this, his cock resembles an enticing red lollipop, shiny with the glaze of your spit. The line between your internal thoughts and external babbles blurs as you murmur, “Wanna suck you off so badly. Need to taste you.” 

“What was that, bub?” He props up your chin with his finger, helping you focus on his hazel eyes. He shifts the phone into his left hand before firmly grabbing the base of his cock with his right to lightly slap your cheek. “I asked you a fuckin’ question,” He growls, snapping you out of your horny reverie.

Your voice is meek and airy, a familiar sign that you’re falling further into a comfortable haze. There were no labels to describe your relationship, but you both fostered a nurturing pattern of dominance and submission—often smudging the lines whenever necessary. At this moment, all you wanted was to surrender to him.

“I need to suck your cock, Daddy.” You smirk as it bobs almost subconsciously, leaving dribbles of precum on your cheek.

“Good girl. Fuck.” The praise lures a wanton moan out of your throat that sends pleasant vibrations throughout Logan’s body. You slowly inch the tip in, eagerly spreading his precum around the head with your tongue. Heavy, thick, and wet. So unbelievably wet.

Logan’s stifled growls encourage you to grasp the heft of his cock with both hands. You often joked that jerking him off would give you arthritis in your right hand; the stamina needed to twist up and down his length utterly exhausted you.

His eyebrows knit together in pleasure, a silent love letter to your unabashed yearning to soothe him—in mind, body, and spirit. You adore Logan like this, all bark and no bite. 

“So fuckin’ needy, hm?” You peer up at him through your lashes, focusing on the subtle twitch of his nostrils. “Just the tip and you’re already a mess,” He chuckles. Although you’ve enjoyed each other’s company for a few years, a warm blush always manages to reveal how flustered you get whenever Logan smells your arousal. The strained moans that tumble out of his throat ignite a dull throbbing sensation in your core.

Logan opens his eyes when he realizes your hands have left his cock, eager to scold you (lovingly, of course.) He thrusts into your mouth as he’s greeted by the sight of you desperately toying with your clit, pausing here and there to slap against the sensitive bud. 

You can barely think. Pleasure transforms into a tangible gift, tied off with a voluminous red bow. The pressure to open the box is removed—you’re content with admiring the details of its exterior, swirling your fingers on the silky textile and getting lost in the feeling.

“Ah—Logan! I’m gonna— fuck, I—” You stutter, unable to string together words into a sensible arrangement. Logan slowly thrusts deeper into your hot mouth, reuniting your nose with the coarse hair around the base.

He pulls back slightly when you gag around him. Your pussy flutters as you feel his cock harden at the involuntary sound, somehow stretching your mouth even more. “I know, baby,” Logan sighs, gently wiping away your tears. “Shhh . . . you can take it.”

Every time your mouth swallows his entire length, you dart your tongue out to playfully coat his heavy balls with spit. You’re acting like a bitch in heat—as if the thought of living without the taste of Logan’s cock would be futile. Realistically, you knew that the masculine salt of him on your tongue served as a reminder of his tangible presence in your life, a presence that was meaningful, nurturing, and everlasting.

“That’s a good girl. Drool on Daddy’s cock,” Logan praises, adapting the line from the video.

Your release is sudden and impactful. The shaky tone of your cries corresponds with the shakiness of Logan’s hand. His knuckles turn white as he struggles to hold the phone upright.

“Oh my god, oh my god, mmmm!—” You moan, muffled by the delicious drag of Logan’s cock. “Ah—I’m coming, fuck . . .” Your swollen clit pulses as your thighs cave inwards, pushing you even closer to the hilt.

He comes immediately following your orgasm, finding your fucked-out expression unbelievably attractive and haunting. Thick ropes of cum flood your mouth and you can feel his cock twitch when your eyes meet. A rough cacophony of moans and grunts breaks free from Logan’s chest.

You look utterly ruined. Swollen lips still stretching around his girth, tears etched onto the flustered apples of your cheeks. “As beautiful as you look right now, I need to pull out, baby.”

You’re desperately trying to taste more cum from his weeping slit, but Logan manages to push away from you with a dramatic hiss. His jaw falls when he watches you emphasize the act of swallowing his cum.

“My dirty girl,” He drawls, pleased when you stick out your tongue as proof. You want the echo of Logan’s thick cock slapping onto your tongue to be ingrained in your mind. It doesn’t take long for him to explode again. You help him along, breathlessly stroking the plush stiffness of his cock and looking up at him with sinfully soulful eyes.

The first streak lands on your lips. Logan’s head rolls back as he mindlessly ruts forward, painting your entire face with hot cum.

He returns to earth when you press chaste licks to the tip once again. “Holy shit, there’s so much cum, I’m sorry—” Logan apologizes, stunned by the masterpiece he’s created. His release drips down the sloping facade of your cheekbones before landing on your cheeks and lips. You quickly dart out your tongue to taste him.

“Don’t be, Daddy. Can you give me some more?” You plead, batting your eyelashes. Logan pauses the recording and  tosses the phone onto the couch. Before you can process why, you hear a loud thunk on the concrete.

Logan kneels in front of you to match your position on the floor. He reaches out to brush your hair away from your face, studying the white marks adorning your skin.

“You’re so pretty with my cum on your face,” He sighs. Your eyes widen when he reaches down, dragging two thick fingers through your sensitive folds. Then, he swipes the same fingers through his cum before bringing them to his lips and sucking gently.

He closes his eyes, truly indulging in the delicacy of your love. “Mmm. We taste so good together, baby. Wanna try?” You nod earnestly, biting your lip to dampen your whimpers. Logan repeats the process, in awe of the way you lean into his touch.

Logan doesn’t register that you’re falling until he’s sprawled out on the cool concrete floor with your tits cushioned against his chest. He’s quick to check on you, stunned by the sudden movement.

“You okay, princess? What happened?” Worry is framed by the wrinkles between his brows.

“Mhm, Logan. Daddy. We do taste good together,” You confirm, feeling pleasantly overwhelmed yet supported against the solid foundation of his body.

Logan kisses you sweetly, wrapping his broad arms around you to stabilize your torso. “It’s a lot cooler on the floor, baby. Gotta clean you up, I’ll be right back.” You whine as he gently rolls over to lay you on the floor before walking towards the kitchen.

After picking up a nearby towel and wetting it under the faucet, Logan almost slips on something on his way back to the living room.

The familiar heart pattern of the bra makes the corners of his mouth turn upwards; it’s satisfying knowing that you left these out for him rather than randomly forgetting a thong here and a lacey bralette there. You were deliberately feeding into his desires and he loved you for it.

You both played the game of life together, and Logan wouldn’t want it any other way.

an: I heard it's someone's bday today . . . I hope they never read this but consider Meet Cute Ch. 3 my gift to all of you. Thanks for being so patient, I know it's been a while. FYI I imagine the character whenever I'm writing, not the actor. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

tag list: @bratscave @elflutter @fairiebabey @pointyxsole @scorpiosaintt @th3mrskory

[rebelliousstories]

Their S/O Walking in on Them Changing…

Fandom: X-Men

Request: Yes by Anon

Warnings: Suggestive themes, Brief Strong Language, Fluff

Word Count: 1,222

Main Masterlist: Here

X-Men Masterlist: Here

Leave a TIP: Here and Here

Logan Howlett/ The Wolverine

* Logan has been around a long time, and has long let go of any shame of someone catching him in that vulnerable position. That being said…

* He never likes anyone coming into his space unannounced. Clothed, or not. So, someone coming into his room, without knocking, while he’s sliding pants on, dressed only in boxers; he’s pausing and sniffing the air to determine if the claws are necessary. When he doesn’t smell an immediate threat, he’s still hunched over and stationary when he sees you walk in.

* “Hey,” he’ll grumble, “you okay, bub?”

* He’s not afraid of you seeing him like this, but the pausing is a little concerning for him. Logan gets his pants on, does his belt, and then comes over to you.

* Logan always smells like smoke and whiskey, coupled with what can only be described as an animal-type musk to him. But it’s not terribly overpowering. And his chest is so very warm when he crowds you in after catching you staring. Logan’s hands on your waist just fill you with warmth. He is a walking furnace, and definitely uses it to his advantage.

* “Everything alright in that head of yours?” He would just love to tease you when he caught you openly gawking at him. It makes him feel better about himself, and your relationship. Every version of Logan has enough trauma to fill several books, so reassurance is something he definitely needs every now and again.

* Safe to say that walking in on Logan is a wonderful chance for him to get the praise he wants, and maybe a pair of wandering hands across his chest.

Wade Wilson/ Deadpool

* Oh boy, walking in Wade is both a blessing and a curse. This man is well aware of his physique. He holds no illusions that his cancer ridden skin is not the most attractive thing in the world, but he made do with what he had. So catching him is near impossible. Before the mutation had wrecked his look, he would have gladly let you catch him in the middle of changing. Now, well, he didn’t want to make you lose your lunch.

* So, all that to say, catching him changing is very difficult. However, it has happened. It was just a regular day. Well, as regular as it could get into the household. Wade had just returned from an afternoon of Deadpool-ing around the city, and was trying to get changed before you came home. He knew that he was cutting it close as it is, but he still held out hope that he would be done. That wasn’t the case. The sound of a door coming open made Wade try and get out of his suit fast, but that only succeeded in getting him stuck in the suit.

* “Well, this is an interesting sight.” He flopped on the bed, and looked to the door. There you stood, with a shopping bag from your day out, and watching your boyfriend struggle with his suit.

* “I know. It’s like a golf ball covered in skin that went into a red leather condom. Can you just yank on that leg please?” It’s a much less funny event than you would expect. And when you don’t leave after getting him out of his suit? He’s utterly confused. Standing there in his boxers, Wade was patiently waiting for you to go. But you never did. Your eyes stayed glued to him, and he couldn’t help but make a comment.

* “You can’t honestly like this, you little freak?”

* “You bet your sweet ass I do.”

* He doesn’t believe you, but after a few rounds, he might come around to the idea.

Remy LeBeau/ Gambit

* My sweet southern gentleman. Let me tell you one thing that I said in the last headcanons; This man is so respectful. Remy LeBeau, walking in on you, is embarrassed about betraying your trust like that. However, Remy LeBeau that you walk in on, is a tease, sly, smug S.O.B.

* I can fully see where he would be changing too. He’d be a gentleman and allow you the first shower so you can have all the hot water and a longer experience. But Remy is burning up. It’s summer in New Orleans, the bug screen is up on the windows, but the breeze can’t cool him down enough. He figures that he could at least take off his shirt while he’s waiting. But his pants soon join the shirt on the ground as well because he still can’t cool down. He’s about to flop down onto the bed when he hears the bathroom door open and out you walk in just a towel.

* “See somethin’ ya like, cher?”

* “Go take a shower, you stinky swamp rat.”

* He might be a little cocky when he catches you staring at his figure that he usually keeps hidden under many layers, but when your face heats up n a fierce blood red blush, Remy is quick to get her his clothing and move in to go take his own shower. Once he’s out though, prepare for a menace to be on your hands.

* He’s constantly asking if you like his body, and will gently tease you for the rest of the night about you not being able to wait to catch him in such a state of undress. If you play along, he’ll keep going till the moment calls for it. But if you aren’t here for the banter, he’s genuinely asking if he made you uncomfortable. Your comfort is paramount with our swamp rat.

* But Gambit will tease you about it occasionally, especially in public, when it can almost guarantee a rise out of you.

Poly! Deadpool and Wolverine

* Much like the DP headcanons above, I feel like this is going to happen after a mission they go on. The two of the stumble home to the apartment, and already have their masks off, when they fumble and slam their way into the bedroom. They try to be quiet because they know that you’re asleep in the bed in the middle of the room, but it’s hard when the grunts of sore muscles and moving leather fill the room.

* “Stop making so much damn noise, mouth. You’re gonna wake up the beast, and I don’t feel like dealing with that right now.” Logan would grumble.

* “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that my quiet unzipping of my suit meticulously was overpowering your grunts and groans like you just got out of a cage match.”

* “Will the two of you shut the hell up and strip so I can have something to dream about?” Your voice startled the two men, who had assumed that you were sleeping peacefully.

* Let me remind you, these are fully grown men and they decided to spend the next fifteen minutes taking off their suit while putting the blame on the other for you waking up. Like a couple of children, but you sucked it up because it was worth the eye candy to help drift you off into dreamland once more.

* By the time they get into bed and quit their bickering, you have already fallen asleep to the dreams filled with Logan’s perfect sculpted body, and Wade’s side comments. But you wouldn’t have it any other way.

[bamfkeeper]

Beautiful Devil

RQ: 'Hi, I have a request: a fic about NightcrawlerxFem!Reader, Beauty and the beast AU, starting it like the fairytale (Reader decide to sacrifice herself for her father because the scared man THINK the mysteriuos blue creature ask him to bring one of his daughters in his place). Maybe in the finale you can add the mob attacking the castle like in the episode of the '90 serie, with Graydon Creed guiding the mob (you can't look at that man and don't think he's a variant of Gaston). Just don't turn Kurt into a human, I love our fuzzy Elf. Thanks!' - @historygirl93

Warnings: F!reader, some violence, minor character death. Unedited.

A/N: I think this is a cute idea, I love the story. I don't see how Kurt could ever be viewed as 'beastly' he's too sweet. The fairytale is a longer story and involving all the details would take me a long time to write, so I did what I could to get the idea of the story across. I did my best, it was slightly challenging, and I changed just a few details just because I thought it would be better for the story.

WC: 2.2k

The village held such a prejudice against the blue demon who lived in the abandoned church. Rumors of yellow glowing eyes and a shadow with a devil's tail flicking in the dark, crawling on the walls like a hellish insect. A monster, the children of the village feared him just as much as the adults, whom had weapons ready to kill if he dared leave the cathedral.

Your father was highly religious. He wanted to banish the devil from the church once and for all, to purify the holy ground, but believed that only a sacrifice would satisfy the creature. You were horrified at first, being so helplessly given away as a sacrifice, you were the lamb that was about to be beheaded for no reason.

Upon being abandoned at the cathedral, surrounded by the harsh cold and snow, you thought you'd freeze to death. To your initial horror and surprise, the devil appeared. He flashed in front of you in black and purple smoke, like they rose from the ashes of Hell. You were far too tired and exhausted, so before you knew it, your body was wrapped and you were inside.

You felt the warmth of the fire inside the stone furnace, you sat up and watched the orange flames dance quietly while the blanket remained wrapped around your drenched form. The snow melted away and left you wet and still somewhat cold. But you were at least inside...

Once you regained enough bearings, you looked around for the devil, wondering where he was and what he was going to do to you. You felt fearful, your mind having heavy thoughts invading your mind of horrific treatment. While you searched the dark room, you saw his eyes peering to you from the darkest corner, tiny irises of gold staring through your soul.

"It's you..." your voice muttered out quietly, "You're the devil." Your hushed tone made him tilt his head slightly, he slowly walked around the wall, the far shadows hiding most of him.

"Nein...I am no Teufel..." he spoke back, his voice was even and not nearly as intimidating as you thought it would be. "I was born like this. But I am no demon." He stepped closer as he spoke to you, his appearance becoming more visible in the firelight. He had blue skin and sharp teeth like the villagers said, a long tail with a devil's spade, sharp nails and pointed ears...

"You look like one," you shakily retorted, still on edge of what his intentions were and you weren't about to fall victim without a fight. He only chuckled back, empty and somewhat...sad.

"I know."

He sat down near you, a few feet away, looking at you and slowly giving a smile, trying to be friendly. "I won't hurt you, I wouldn't ever." He paused, then continued, "Besides, a demon cannot step inside a church." He reasoned, holding out a three fingered hand to you. "Hab keine Angst."

You were cautious, but after seeing he wasn't nearly as horrifying as the town made him seem, you reached out and touched his hand. His skin was warm, he was fluffy. He felt like soft velvet, not like cold scaled skin you had been told was the skin of the devil.

Over the following weeks, you became closer to each other. You warmed up quickly after his efforts to try to appear not so scary, and once you spoke more often, he was actually very sweet and kind. You watched him feed birds and squirrels, holding the seeds in his palms and speaking to the birds as if they could understand him.

His favorites were the blue jays.

He showed you the cathedral, leading you through the massive church and showing you around. He showed you the library with lots of books along the walls, the studio where old paints and canvases were. He gave you plenty of things to do, and he provided you with good food, a large space to sleep, he treated you well. He was kind and sweet and...attractive.

You couldn't help but feel yourself get pulled towards him. Feel yourself get swept up by his chivalry and charm. He showed off in front of you, entertaining you with his skills as an acrobat and swordsman, he even let you try to swing one of his swords.

It was much heavier than you thought, making his skills all the more impressive.

You got word that your father had fallen very ill, and you wanted to see him. Kurt didn't want you to leave, scared you'd never return again. He held your hands and looked at you in the eye, his worry etched on his face. "You won't abandon me, will you?" he asks softly, "I don't wish for you to go..." he brings your hand up to his cheek, rubbing his face into your palm.

Your heart melts and you sigh, "I promise I'll come back. I just...want to make sure my father is okay..." you whisper back. You knew how he felt, being abandoned was one of his biggest fears. All he had been in his life was abandoned, by his mother, this town, sometimes he felt as though God himself has abandoned him.

With great reluctance, he let go and you rushed back into the village, desperate to see your sickly father. You were still angry he left you to die, but he was still your father. When you made it back, you came to his bedside and saw how terrible he looked. You had no idea what he had, but he looked on the verge of death.

Word got loose that you were in the town, somehow surviving the 'demon' who resided in the abandoned church. The town's greatest 'champion,' Graydon, nearly stormed up to your home and forced his way in. His voice loud and demanding, he as angry and furious with you.

The vile man had attempted to court you before. You always denied him. Why would you want to be with someone as crude and hateful as Graydon?

"How did you escape that wretched demon?" he demanded, yanking you from your father's bedside. He held your arm tight and stared at you with fury in his eyes. "That beastly creature will invade our town because of you! You were his sacrifice! Leaving signifies that the deal is broken! You've doomed all of us!"

Your eyes were wide as he basically screamed in your face, his cool was gone and he looked like he wanted to hurt you. You tugged against his strong hold, grunting as you tried to get free. "He's not a monster, or a demon! He's just a man!" You shouted back, "He's kind, gentle, he wouldn't hurt a soul!"

Graydon laughed at you, yanking you closer again. "You are lucky you are pretty, girl...you are such a naïve little thing. That devil is evil, and you have succumbed to his incubi ways. Don't worry, I'll make sure I fix that little head of yours up and rid you of the corruption he has brought upon you."

He threw you down, you hit your head and everything became a hazy mess. You heard his footsteps leave, his heavy boots hitting the old wooden floors with anger. You tried to lift yourself up, but you hit your head too hard. The world was spinning around you, but you didn't want any harm to come to Kurt. Graydon was as ruthless as he was egotistical, and he was dead set on murdering Kurt. He always had been, telling tall tales of cutting off his head and hanging it over the statue in town square.

You could hear his voice, rallying the town and heading up the treacherous path to the abandoned cathedral. You felt your heart ache, your body fading to unconsciousness from the injury.

When you regained consciousness, your body ached but the thought of Graydon already at the church gave you a newfound form of energy. You jerked up, your father had been too weak and sick to help, while you worried for him, the memory of him giving you up to die was there. You had to make a choice, and your heart had been decided.

You needed to get to the church.

You stumbled out to the stables, your body staggering as your brain felt fuzzy and heavy. You probably had a concussion, but right now that wasn't important. You didn't have a horse of your own, you prayed that the one you made it to wouldn't buck you off. The stallion let out a soft nicker, you rubbed its neck, your hand weakly holding onto the mane and you forced your body to mount.

The horse moved a few steps, adjusting to your weight. No saddle, it'll have to do.

You squeezed your legs and held on, the horse moved forward and with your encouragement it began a steady gallop through the trail that led up to the church. The horse was fast and bareback was hard for you to hold on, especially with a head injury. the horse sensed your wavering weight and tried to steady its run.

Over the hill was the church, and the stallion ran you right inside the broken down doors. You heard loud shouting, men fighting, and the sight that came to view was horrible.

Most of the men were down, unconscious, and Graydon was shooting arrows at Kurt, who had been disappearing in puffs of smoke, reappearing in other places. His yellow eyes blazed and he hissed at Graydon, landing kicks and punches to the larger man. You shouted at them to stop, but your voice fell on deaf ears.

The torches the other men had been carrying caught the tapestries and the flames eagerly began to eat the fabric and grow. The horse reared up, and you fell off its back as it ran out of the church. You sat up and cried out at Graydon, "Stop it! Don't hurt him! Can't you see what you're doing?!"

Kurt's teleporting soon became predictable, Graydon memorized the pattern and he shot an arrow into Kurt's leg right as he reappeared again. Kurt let out a strangled cry, stumbling from the beams and to the ground. By now the flames had consumed the entire room, smoke became thick and Graydon towered over Kurt's body. His eyes reflecting the fire, his face red and his hair a mess. He looked like the devil now, the fire only adding to his hellish desires to smite out Kurt's existence.

"Die, I cast you down to the pits of Hell where you belong!" Graydon tore a blade from his sheath, raising it above his head. But Kurt's eyes were focused on the burning wood above him, and he managed to teleport from that spot right as the wooden beams fell from the ceiling. Kurt reappeared by you, his fuzzy arms wrapped around yours as he teleported you outside. The last thing you saw in the church were the large beams falling onto Graydon's body, crushing him.

When you reappeared outside, you saw Kurt was hurt from the fight. He had two arrows in his body, one in his leg and one in his back, several lacerations from fighting the others and some parts of him had been burned. He let out a deep cough and he laid beside you, unresponsive.

"Kurt?? Kurt! Wake up!" You shook him, gently at first but it became more frantic when you noticed his lack of response. "Please get up!" You felt tears prick your eyes, your head swiveled around, looking for anyone to help. You weren't sure what to do, you felt hopeless. After you thought he was gone, his tail twitched at your side, gently curling up around your thigh weakly.

"Kurt??" You asked quickly, glancing down at him. You could see the exhaustion on his face, the weakness, but he nodded back. He gave you a weak smile, his yellow eyes soft and pure.

"Liebe..." he whispered back, his hand held yours and he pulled you closer. Your body naturally obeyed and you let your lips find his, both weakly pressing together as the two of you kissed for the first time. It felt so right, his hand cupped your face and his tail wrapped around you, being so weak but loving all at the same time.

You hadn't noticed the other townspeople had been watching from the trees, seeing how gentle and sweet you were to him. They could see that Kurt didn't resemble a creature of Hell like they thought, while he did seem odd looking, he didn't look to be horrific as they predicted. Their imaginations took over and the tall tales took over their logic.

When you broke the kiss, he smiled up at you. "You....came back..." he rasped, he was hurt still, but he was okay. He'd live. That's all you needed to know.

"Of course I came back...I told you I would..." you whispered sweetly, guilt gnawed at your core, "If I hadn't left then..."

Kurt cut you off, shushing you, "Nein, liebe...do not worry...the church can be rebuilt...I am going to be fine. What's another small scar? My fur will cover it anyway." He added, giving you a playful smile.

You couldn't help but roll your eyes, "Oh, Kurt...don't make me laugh right now..." You muttered, some of the onlookers came to aid you in bringing him to the town to get treatment from the doctor there. You knew he'd be okay. The awful stories were debunked and the town appeared to accept him.

You had your love, safe and sound, and the real demon of the town had been snuffed to ash.

Thanks for reading.

*BAMF*

Dividers by @/adornedwithlight

[ceoofyearning]

Say Yes to Heaven - Lucien

Pairing: Lucien × Reader

Summary: You find the bed empty upon waking up. Bundled in your blanket, you head out to find Lucien and demand that he warm you up.

Tags & Warnings: Fluff, suggestive but nothing explicit (if i miss anything, let me know)

Word Count: 1077

Links: Masterlist

Sunight creeps languidly through the heavy drapes, heralding the persistent call of the waking world. The day has come, and in minutes, the entire room is bathed in golden light. You’re forced to relinquish the last dregs of sleep clinging to you. You roll over expecting to find Lucien beside you, only to see that his side of the bed is empty. You run your palm over the sheets and find them still warm.

With one last stretch, you pull yourself out of the bed and onto your feet. You wrap the blanket tightly around your shoulders, not ready to give up their warm embrace just yet. The manor is deathly quiet as you pad through the hallways as if the rest of the world is as reluctant to wake too. The persistent chill of winter remains in the air, the tiles as cool as ice beneath your feet. The blanket trails on the floor behind you, and you can already imagine the legendary scolding Jurian would give you if he were to catch you. You imagine Vassa would only laugh at you, if she wasn't too busy being a bird.

Thankfully, no such altercations occur, and you find Lucien sitting in the library, busy reading what you assume are reports from Prythian. He’s lounging by the fire, clad only in his rumpled, unbuttoned tunic and plain trousers. His legs are carelessly spread, his cheek resting on his hand - the picture of relaxed nonchalance. Lucien wears finery like a fine suit of armor, his bravado like a sword secured at his hip, and it’s rare to see him so unguarded, so candid. When he spots you, all bundled up, by the door, a bemused expression makes its way across his face.

“You left,” you sniff indignantly.

His only response to your complaint is a smirk. So you pad deeper into the room until you're standing in between his legs. The smug look on his face only seems to grow at the increased proximity.

“Why?” He asks. “Did you miss me?” Lucien’s eyes trail down your body with deliberate slowness, stalling over your exposed thighs. His hand comes up to grasp the side of your hip, a movement made instinctually, naturally, as though his existence only makes sense when you’re there, with him.

You don’t deign to respond, but you let him pull you onto his lap. He wraps his arms around you, tucking you under his chin as he continues to read. You sink onto him, enjoying the heat that perpetually radiates off his body. He’s basically a sentient furnace, your love. Your hands trail beneath his shirt and he jolts the moment your cold hands make contact with his skin.

“Mother’s tits, you’re freezing.” He exclaims, wiggling in his seat.

“Because you left,” you retort, running your hands languidly over his back. Goosebumps rise in the wake of your touch. “This is your doing, miscreant.”

Lucien cackles but recovers. “Apologies, my lady,” Lucien says with exaggerated gravity, his hand over his chest. “I’m adequately chastised. I’ll be sure never to abandon you in bed again.”

“You better,” you threaten, trying to fight the smile from emerging on your lips. “Or else I’ll find someone else to warm my bed.”

Lucien stiffens, holding you tighter against him as if readying to fight off anyone who dares to draw near. With his hand on your chin, he lifts your head to meet his gaze.

“What was that?” He speaks, something dangerous lingering in the depths of his words.

You raise your brow in challenge. “I said, if you keep leaving me I’ll find-“

He shuts you up with his lips on yours, but it’s a soft fragile thing. His lips move against yours like the back and forth of a waltz. Lucien pulls you tighter into his embrace, enveloping you in the scent of sandalwood, cinnamon, and smoke. You melt against him and think that you could stay like this forever, as long as you’re with him. You want to lay here even as the world cracks and burns around you, until the both of you are covered in ivy, moss, and memory.

As if sensing the direction of your thoughts, Lucien deepens the kiss. Your lips willingly part for him and he licks into your mouth, eager for a taste. His hands are molten against your skin, kneading the pliant flesh of your hips from where your nightgown has ridden up. You can feel his chest expand as he inhales your scent as if reminding himself that you’re with him, in this moment, and there you will remain until your body gives out from the force of loving him.

Eventually, the two of you have to break the kiss. Just there, his forehead on yours, breathing the other in. Idly, you tap your finger over the freckles on his chest, parsing them like constellations in the night sky. You wonder what prophecies you’d be able to divine in the shapes they take. You press a kiss on the freckle over his beating heart, and Lucien shudders beneath your touch.

You move to the wealth of freckles spread across his cheek, over his nose, then on his chin. Lucien pretends to be preoccupied with the reports, but it’s a losing battle. There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips, and you plant a soft, chaste kiss at the upturned corner. You kiss him like he’s an object of worship, and only your heart, your body, your whole being would be a worthy sacrifice.

“Is that the only thanks I get for being your sentient, walking furnace?” He teases, brow arched, but not unkindly. “Threats and a few kisses?” Beams of sunlight hit his face like a lattice of amber, accentuating his sharp features, and setting his russet eye ablaze. And it strikes you just how damn pretty he is, scars and all.

“I’d prefer it if my sentient furnace did not walk away at all,” you retort, raising your brow in turn.

“Ungrateful,” he teases, even as he begins to trail tender kisses over your neck. “You’re lucky I adore you, dearly.”

You huff, pretending his words haven’t set you aflame in a way only he can.

“I suppose,” you begin, tapping your finger over your chin. “I could be persuaded to thank you properly if you go back to bed with me.”

Lucien glances at the report and pretends to consider it for three whole seconds, before setting it down the table with finality. He smiles, as bright as the sun, beautiful, blinding, yours.

“Let's go then,” he says, as he easily carries you back to your room.

AN:

Hello! I’m new to this fandom & I’d love to hear your thoughts. 💙

i’ve been so obsessed with Lucien recently. I made art of him and I love how people kept mentioning his freckles so here is we are. + I hate the cold and had the thought that Lucien would be the perfect person to cuddle up to in winter.

[hitchyboi]

MK1 Boys- How they sleep with you 💤

Syzoth/Reptile

Syzoth prefers sleeping in his original form so he takes up A LOT of the bed

Even if he does try to sleep in his human form, he'll change back as soon as he falls asleep

Big big lizard man

Incredibly clingy

Will curl his body around you as y'all asleep

Partly to feel protective over you and partly because he is cold blooded and craves warm places when he sleeps

Bi-Han/Sub-Zero

Does this man sleep?

In his office perhaps, or in the dojo after training

Wants to hold you close but probably would sleep board stiff on the other side of the bed

Barely moves?

The combination of his low body temperature and lack of movement when he sleeps legit make him look like a corpse at times.

Kuai Liang/Scorpion

THE BEST TO CUDDLE

This man is a living furnace and would be so warm cuddled up against

His strong arms would wrap around you and hold you close to his chest securely as he sleeps.

Arm around his your waist and other is tucked under his head

Strong gentle man

Tomas Vrbada/Smoke

Okay probably second best to cuddle out of the Lin Kuei Siblings

Very gentle and very sweet

Big spoon or little spoon depending how the day went

If he's had a rough day he'll want to curl up and be cradled in your arms but would be too sky to ask outright

Also frequently pulls late nighters training in the dojo by himself until he collapses from exhaustion. Bi-Han has him convinced he'll never be good enough and desperately wants to be better

Other days he's more then happy to hug you close, nuzzling into your neck as they sleep

Havik

Again, does he sleep?

Also pulls late or all nighters plotting against Orderrealm and coming up with plans of attacks

If you do manage to get him in bed he would be the restless kind

Starts off with his arms wrapped possessively around you but will wake up to majority of the bedsheets and pillows on the floor from hid tossing and turning

Johnny Cage

Fuzzy robes, fuzzy slippers, embroidered personalized matching pajamas set and lavender pillowcase spray.

This man's got it all

He's gotta do his skin care treatment before bed, his partner is encouraged to do it with him

He's more then happy to share

The kind to watch a movie before sleeping or having it as background sound too sleep. One of his movies.

Y'all are pampered

Kenshi Takahashi

Takes a while for him to warm up to the idea but sleeping with another person

The Yakuza has him in a constant state of being alert however he is a romantic and loves the idea of sleeping with his partner curled up together

His touches are soft and gentle

Will lay halfway on you with his head against your chest, listening to your heartbeat

Takes his time running feather like touches along your body to memorize every inch in his mind

Always kisses your forehead goodnight

[pin-k-ink]

shadows // hoshina soshiro

tw ⇢ possessive!hoshina, strong sexual tension, semi public fingering, nipple play, biting, hair pulling, slight asphyxiation, dirty talking, making out

wc ⇢ 7.8k

a/n: this is for the lovely anon who loved my ruination fic <3

The acrid scent of smoke and kaiju blood hung thick in the air like a suffocating miasma. Hoshina's nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath, the familiar tang of ozone and charred flesh doing little to dull the thrill still thrumming through his veins. His body felt electrified, every nerve ending still fizzling in the aftermath of battle's adrenaline spike.

Lazily, almost meditatively, Hoshina's gaze traced the ravaged landscape - rubble and viscera as far as the eye could see. A hard-won victory once again, but one that came at a cost chalked up in the newly formed craters pockmarking the streets. His lips quirked faintly at the sight. Just another day's work.

Amidst the wreckage, a familiar figure stood out in sharp relief, their combat suit leaving little to Hoshina’s imagination. He knew the toned curves and compact power coiled beneath that sleek, form-fitting material all too well after countless sparring sessions. A slight hitch stalled his next inhalation as Hoshina’s mind forcibly recalled exactly how it felt to have that whipcord strength undulating against him, slick skin gliding along his, breath intermingling in harsh exhalations of exertion.

Shaking off the inappropriate reverie with a mental scoff, Hoshina returned his attention to studying you dispassionately. At least, that was the intent before his gaze snagged on the subtle sheen of perspiration beading along the elegant column of your throat, tracing a tantalizing path towards the shadowed hollows left temptingly exposed by your suit. He found himself unconsciously licking his dry lips as he drank in the tiny details - the way your chest rose and fell with each controlled inhalation, the part of your lips as you tersely relayed information, the furrow of intense concentration etched between your brows.

Completely and utterly focused on the task at hand, oblivious to your audience...or the heated direction his thoughts had abruptly detoured down. Again.

Shaking his head sharply, Hoshina wrenched his traitorous mind away from that particular path before it could wander any further. What was wrong with him today? This was his trusted squad mate - his friend, more like an annoying kid sister most days than anything else, if he was being honest. Continuing to blatantly ogle you like a piece of meat left a sour taste in his mouth, an unfamiliar itch of discomfort prickling at the back of his neck.

And yet, even as Hoshina pushed those inappropriate thoughts away, he found his feet carrying him inexorably nearer with that same lazy, rolling gait. Something underlying those reckless musings had taken hold, an ember burning with increasing intensity the closer he drew to your presence. By the time he sidled up beside you, an easy smirk was already curving his lips as he drank in the way your shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly before your spine straightened with rigid formality.

"Oi, [Y/N]-chan," Hoshina couldn't resist drawing out the affectionate lilt, purposefully exaggerating the syllables just to nettle you further. "Ya plannin' on documentatin' every grain o' rubble all night? Might wanna breathe between those reports."

True to form, you bristled at the half-mocking jab, eyes sparking in that fiery way Hoshina secretly reveled in provoking. Another tiny thrill licked down his spine at the brief lapse in your consummate professionalism as you sputtered with ill-concealed affront. The faint bloom of pink dusting your cheeks was an added dollop of sweet cream atop the taunting sundae.

A part of him knew he shouldn't bask in unravelling those tightly wound threads of control so gleefully. Not when years of tempering that internal furnace into an asset on the battlefield had clearly become an uphill struggle of late. Yet Hoshina found he couldn't quite muster any scrap of remorse for his relentless needling. Not when it provided such enticing glimpses beneath the rigidly professional veneer...

He felt his grin stretch wider, all cocksure bravado, entirely unprepared for the sudden flare of want—no, possession —that pulsed through his veins like a thermobaric detonation when your eyes finally lifted to meet his squarely.

You turned to him, eyebrows raised in surprise as if you'd forgotten he was there. "Vice Captain," you acknowledged with a quick nod. "I'm just ensuring all the details are properly documented. It's crucial for future—"

"Future missions, data analysis, blah blah blah," Hoshina interrupted with a dismissive wave of his hand.

The unconscious gesture drew his gaze downwards, pupils dilating fractionally as they traced the elegant lines of your neck, the hollow between your collarbones where a bead of perspiration had collected. He could practically envision the path it would take down your cleavage, trickling tantalizingly along the sensitive dip before disappearing beneath the sleek material hugging your chest. Hoshina swallowed hard, abruptly hyper-focused on the subtle rise and fall of your breasts, the nearly imperceptible sheen of exertion still lingering on your flushed skin.

"Ya sound like a broken record, ya know that?" he managed to force out, gaze skating back up to your face as he ruthlessly clamped down on the sinful direction his thoughts had begun meandering. Except his eyes instantly fell back to your lips, that full pout left slightly parted as you drew breath to reply.

Hoshina’s mind unhelpfully supplied a vivid recollection of those very lips a hairsbreadth from his own after one particularly intense spar session. He'd had you pinned beneath him, chests heaving with the lingering thunders of exertion as your eyes met and held in the electric aftershocks of battle's intoxicating thrill. Your lips slightly parted as you gulped down air, face flushed, pupils blown wide and dark as a solar eclipse. All it would have taken was the slightest tilt of his head and...

The memory scattered like optics glare dispersing as you huffed out an exasperated breath. Hoshina physically wrenched his gaze upwards, anger and frustration warring with the steadily smoldering embers of pure, undiluted want rapidly reducing his higher functioning to tattered ruins.

Just what in the ever-loving fuck was happening here? This was you - solid, stalwart, ever-reliable and determined [L/N]. The rock steady foundation his division depended upon, certainly, but hardly someone who made a habit of hijacking his libido so thoroughly. At least, not until recently.

When had that shifted, exactly? When had the sight of you begun igniting this strange, magnetic pull low in his abdomen rather than mild exasperation? Or was this driving lust something new, catalyzed by the smoke and viscera of combat and simply fixating on the nearest convenient target as an outlet?

Whatever the reason, Hoshina recognized that this unexpected thread of complication between himself and his most trusted subordinate could easily unravel into a tangled disaster if left to unspool unchecked. Especially with you still obliviously lecturing about protocols and debriefing procedures as if the very air didn't hum and sing with unreleased sexual tension.

"-thorough documentation is essential for—"

"For keepin' ya from actually livin' a little, seems like," he cut across your next torrent of words, fighting to reassert his usual laidback aloofness even as his pulse thundered like rolling artillery bombardments. Unconsciously, Hoshina invaded your personal space, not consciously trying to crowd as much as resorting to tactics long engrained. Pressing an advantage, denying the enemy ground...

Except there was no enemy here besides the jarring, elemental drive that had inexplicably roused itself within the eye of the storm that was your undivided attention. Hoshina felt his nostrils flare as your familiar, intoxicating scent enveloped him in palpable, tactile waves. Earthy and green, tinged with a faint smokiness and the slightest undercurrent of something floral that he'd never managed to put a name to.

"When's the last time ya actually relaxed, [Y/N]-chan?" The endearment rolled off his tongue without thought, honeyed and thick like a physical caress ghosting across your sharpened senses.

You blinked, clearly caught off guard by his probing question. "I... I relax," you defended weakly.

Even to Hoshina’s ears, the words rang hollow - a reflexive denial undermined by the taut lines of your shoulders, the minute twitches of muscle betraying your body's ingrained conditioning. He found his lips quirking upwards in a slow smirk, dark appreciation uncurling deep in his core at your admittedly pathetic attempt to deceive. As if either of you could be so easily misled after decades of coded language and subtle tells ingrained into your very bones.

"Oh yeah?" he purred, purposefully pitching his tone low to shave away any lingering aloofness. Letting you hear the silky undercurrent of challenge thrumming through each syllable as plainly as a physical strike. "Prove it. Come have a drink with me."

The flare of your eyes, dark pewter sparking to life behind those ridiculously long lashes, told Hoshina all he needed to know. He didn't bother suppressing his growing smirk, secure in the knowledge that he'd already landed a critical blow without raising so much as a fist. Your surprise was quickly subsumed by the familiar furrow of consternation overtaking your brow, mouth opening and closing like a landed fish as your mind instinctively scrambled for protocol, for procedure, for anything to deflect the utterly disarming idea he'd presented.

"Now?" You sputtered at last, sounding almost painfully young despite the steel undertones bred from years of combat conditioning. "But sir, the clean-up crew—"

"Can handle things without ya breathin' down their necks," Hoshina easily overrode your feeble attempt to reassert control over the situation.

Shooting you a pointed look from beneath lowered lashes, he reached out with studied nonchalance and plucked the commlink from your fingers. You flinched minutely at the contact, whether from surprise or simple tactile overwhelm he couldn't tell. But it was enough to make something predatory lurk at the edges of his smirk as he brushed aside your instinctive move to protest.

Rotating the slim device between his fingers, Hoshiro made a show of reestablishing the open channel with base, keeping his deep timbre a study in pure insouciance. "Okonogi, change of plans. [Y/N] and I won't be needin' that transport. We're makin' our own way back."

It was only after ending the transmission, effectively severing your official tether to duty and responsibility, that Hoshina allowed the molten heat banked in his depths to bleed overtly into his stare. His gaze raked over you slowly, deliberately, as if peeling away every layer of propriety with surgical precision until only the panting core remained exposed and quivering in the open air between your parallel stances.

"Now then, [Y/N]-chan," he murmured, dipping his voice into a low, gravelled octave carefully cultivated to shave away the last vestiges of resistance. Of self-control. Hoshina didn't miss the minute bob of your throat as you swallowed shakily, nor the way your widened eyes became transfixed by the sweep of his tongue wetting his lower lip.

Yes...that's it, doll. Let go.

The endearment hung unspoken yet palpably present as he took a calculated step closer, near enough to feel the erratic puffing of your breaths ghosting across his jawline. Close enough to drown himself in the delicious, rapidly building torrent of heat and want and sheer undisguised awareness he could sense thrumming through you in increasingly apparent waves.

Close enough for Hoshina to see the wild thundering of your pulse in the hollows of your neck, the dilated slivers of your pupils rapidly devouring irises that had long since been swallowed into the deepest onyx in thrall to his physicality alone.

He could end this now, finally. Could close that last infinitesimal distance separating your parted lips and swallow your shocked exhale with his own. Finally slake this brutal, wild thirst he could no longer deny or contain with anything less than total possession.

Instead, Hoshina forced his features to smooth into an expression of wry geniality, a faint mockery of good humor crinkling the corners of his eyes as his hand lifted to brush away some errant speck of debris from your shoulder. The innocent gestured belied by the deliberate, searing trail his fingers trailed in their wake, lingering with irrefutable intent along the line of your clavicle before dropping away completely.

"What do ya say we go find out if ya even remember how to have fun?" Each word was carefully measured, deceptively light yet daring you to discern the subtleties of challenge, of promise , that danced like shimmering heat waves through every syllable.

At your side, Hoshina’s hands had fallen slack, utterly unthreatening and open in contrast to the rigid control with which he kept the rest of his body angled minimally away from yours. An intentionally decentralized posture, leaving you an option to disengage without any hint of menace or physical coercion.

Just words. Simple, innocent words to confuse the raging bonfire of pure, undiluted want scorching through his veins with every shuddering inhale of your scent, your aura, your presence.

The ball, as they said, was in your court now. All Hoshina could do was hold that burning intensity burning in the depths of his gaze and wait for your inevitable deflection...

Or surrender.

The walk to the nearby bar passed in a heated silence, the air thickening with every measured stride. Though Hoshina strode slightly ahead, his legs setting an unhurried pace, he couldn't quite shake the blazing awareness of your presence trailing just behind.

It prickled along the back of his neck in a shivering tingle of hyper-sensitivity, the fine hairs dusting his nape seeming to rise in anticipatory alertness with each scuff of your boots against the pavement in his wake. Shallow inhalations parted his lips infinitesimally, persistent wisps of your subtle floral essence intermingling with the metallic tang of combat's aftershock already coating his senses.

The juxtaposition was jarring - the visceral reminder of hard-won victory at odds with the gradually encroaching softness teasing the edge of Hoshina’s consciousness. Without even realizing it, his body had already recalibrated to a new, heightened state of somatic priming. One that shifted his senses onto an entirely different theatre of operations altogether.

One distinctly centered around you.

But he mustn't get ahead of himself, not yet. Not when there were still miles left to trek in this strange new territory you'd found yourselves navigating. So instead, Hoshina reined in those scorching impulses with a reflexive inhale, focusing on meticulously maintaining his usual front of casual aloofness as you stepped up beside him.

"Figured you could use a break from keeping those grunts in line all the time," he tossed out, not glancing over as you fell into step just off his shoulder. "Maybe even cut loose a little for once. You know, as a reward for not getting any of them killed back there."

It was a poor attempt at deflection through needling, Hoshina knew. But he couldn't seem to resist sliding a sidelong look at you through the shellac of his lashes, gauging your reaction to the barbed remark. Not that he had any delusions of you rising to the bait, of course. If anything, he fully anticipated you straightening your shoulders in silent rebuke before mechanically rebutting with some impeccably by-the-book rundown of proper conduct and procedures.

Which made the tiny smirk that began tugging at the corner of your lips all the more disarming.

"That all depends on how you define 'cut loose,' Vice Captain," you murmured without even sparing him a glance, tone laced with an edge of playfulness Hoshina couldn't recall ever hearing from you before. "For all you know, I could be an utter wildcard behind closed doors."

The words hung in the air, dangled like ripe fruit begging to be plucked from the vine even as your strides carried you onward in sync. Hoshina felt his brows hiking upwards despite himself, the vivid flare of surprise and interest alike crackling to life in his veins. Since when did you engage in this sort of shameless baiting? More importantly, since when had you mastered that particularly lethal combination of coy indifference and blatant suggestion?

He was gaping, he realized abruptly - standing slackjawed in the middle of the street like a minnow gulping at air while you continued on unhurriedly. As if you were utterly unaware of the punishing right hook you'd just landed squarely on his sense of propriety, not to mention his composure.

Snapping his mouth closed with an audible click of teeth, Hoshina hurried a few steps to realign himself by your side, shooting you a sidelong look rife with newfound curiosity. Up close, the slight curve to your lips was even more inscrutable, your expression carefully neutral save for the glint of challenge flickering in your lowered lashes.

Well, two could play at that game. Hoshina refused to let you rattle him that easily, refused to betray any outward sign of the conflagration you'd abruptly stoked somewhere south of his ribs. Instead, he pressed forwards in a silence that stretched just shy of uncomfortable, trusting his body to communicate all the unspoken implications and undercurrents his words could never fully articulate.

At least, not without shattering the gossamer threads of tension enveloping you both in that shivery, electrically-charged stasis entirely.

The bar he led you to was a familiar haunt, if not necessarily one you'd expect. From the outside, it looked like any other nondescript watering hole - a hole-in-the-wall tucked away on a side street just far enough from the main drags to avoid an excess of foot traffic. Shadows, the place was called. Though whether as a nod to the infernian faction or merely the dim, cozy ambiance, not even Hoshina could recall.

As you stepped over the worn threshold, however, a far different atmosphere seemed to permeate the very air surrounding you in a tactile weight of obscurity. Of anonymity.

The lighting inside Shadows was kept deliberately dim and muted, all flickering candle arcana and soft ambers that sculpted the contours of every surface into hazy, indistinct planes. Every solid edge blurred subtly into peripheral smears of suggestion rather than sharply delineated shapes, even the small crowd of patrons scattered throughout appearing more like roiling plumes of vapor saturating the air.

Perfect for shedding the concerns of the outside world in exchange for an altogether different existence - one fueled solely by pursuit of the senses and catered pleasures of the flesh in all their myriad forms. Hoshina had indulged in his fair share during the infrequent stretches of downtime his duties afforded, though tonight marked the first time bringing a...guest, so to speak.

He shot you a sidelong look as your steps slowed infinitesimally, no doubt drinking in the smoky, incense-tinged atmosphere for the first time. An alluring flush clung to the high arches of your cheekbones already, whether from the abrupt shift in ambiance or something more inscrutable. The tiny darts of pink flame dancing across your skin mesmerized Hoshina, widening his pupils further with each passing second.

Catching himself, he cleared his throat softly, careful not to shatter the sanctity of hush draped over the room. "Suppose it goes without saying, we aren't exactly in polite company here at Shadows."

His murmur pitched low, thrumming against the shell of your ear like a heated caress. Close enough to make you shiver minutely in response as he trailed a hand along the small of your back, guiding your steps through the swirling currents of muted sound and motion.

Hoshina placed a hand on the small of your back, guiding you towards a secluded booth in the corner. The simple touch seemed to burn straight through the thin material of your suit, raising goosebumps across your skin. You found yourself hyper-aware of the heat radiating from his palm, the slight calloused rasp catching on the fabric in a way that made your pulse kick up instinctively.

As you slid into the shadowed nook, the cushioned bench dipped beneath your weight, cradling you in a nest of dimly-lit intimacy. The flickering candles adorning the table seemed to cast Hoshina’s features into sharp reliefs and soft curves in turn, the constant shifting dance of light and shadow mesmerizing. One moment his jaw would be etched into harsh angles, only for the next breath to soften everything into a melted, honeyed mask of smoldering suggestion.

You swallowed hard, mouth abruptly dry as Hoshina settled himself across from you, movements radiating an unhurried sort of grace usually reserved for stalking predators. His gaze openly roamed across your form, hooded and lingering in a way that made you want to squirm under the weight of such unabashed appraisal.

"So, [Y/N]-chan," he rumbled after a protracted moment, the rough timbre bleeding straight through your sternum to resonate in hollow, thrumming echoes against your ribs. Hoshina cocked his head slightly, the simple motion shifting the play of shadows to cast his eyes into flickering hollows of smoky invitation. "What's your poison? And don't you dare say water or I might have to report you for insubordination."

The low purr of his voice curled through the air like a physical caress, silken promise roughened into wicked taunt by the rasp of his native Kansai burr. You couldn't quite stifle the shiver that traced down your spine in its wake, nor the way your lashes fluttered under the onslaught of such unabashed temptation cloaked by irreverent humor.

"I wouldn't dream of it, sir," you managed to murmur by sheer force of will, proud of yourself for keeping your tone level despite the sudden reemergence of that damnable flush heating your cheeks. "Surprise me."

It was a risky move to issue such an open-ended challenge, one your tactical mind instantly began dissecting and mapping out potential vulnerabilities. But the way Hoshina’s full lips curved higher at the corners in a quicksilver flicker of unholy delight instantly made the risk feel more than worth any imagined cost.

He leaned back against the low bench, forearms bracketing his sides as he stretched those long limbs out in an exaggerated picture of casual ease. The subtle shift in position drew your gaze helplessly to his broad shoulders and chest straining against the thin fabric, every metabolic shift of his body suddenly thrown into stark, intimate relief.

When Hoshina spoke next, his voice seemed to radiate directly from the iron-hewn column of his throat, scraping like rumbling granite scored across granite. "Now where would be the fun in that, hmm?"

The simple question hung in the smoky air between you both, lingering like an opiate fog made solid and potent. Hoshina held your widening stare easily, a tiny spark of challenge flickering to life in the lavender depths as his tongue stole out to wet his lower lip in a move of unconscious, blatant provocation.

You couldn't look away, utterly transfixed and helplessly pinned by the heavy-lidded heat singeing through his stare. Brief flashes of half-formed fantasies sparked in the hazy recesses of your mind - images of straining, bare flesh and ragged gasps intermingled with the roaring of your pulse thundering in your inner ear.

Then, as quickly as it seized you, the moment passed with the appearance of your drink gliding across the table's battered surface. Blinking rapidly, you broke free of the thick, headily-charged tension with a sharp inhale, refocusing your gaze to the bartender's retreating form while sternly marshaling your composure.

"Let's see if we can't loosen you up a little, [Y/N]-chan," came the low rumble from across the table, his husky timbre dripping with layers of unspoken implications and promises.

Shooting Hoshina a sidelong look through your lashes, you lifted the glass and took your first sip...

You savored the smoky burn of the liquor as it trickled down your throat, letting the pleasant warmth bloom outwards from your core. Across the table, Hoshina’s eyes seemed to smolder even brighter as he watched you with undisguised appreciation, his own glass forgotten for the moment.

"Not bad, right?" he murmured after you'd drained the last swallow. With a subtle gesture, fresh drinks appeared as if by magic, the dim lighting casting flickering amber highlights across the broad plane of his chest.

You tried not to let your gaze linger, though the way Hoshina lazily stretched and resettled himself made it extremely difficult. There was an edge of blatant satisfaction in his expression, a silent challenge sparking in the glint of his eyes that made you wonder just how premeditated this little foray truly was.

Lifting the fresh glass, you took another slow sip to buy yourself a moment's reprieve from those piercing violet eyes. The taste was richer this time, more complex notes of oak and spice unraveling across your tongue. You couldn't resist darting out to capture an errant droplet that clung to your lower lip, despite the way Hoshina’s gaze seemed to blaze even hotter at the unconscious gesture.

"Now," he drawled after a beat of heated silence, "how about we just...talk?"

You blinked at the unexpectedly casual suggestion, straightening a bit in your seat. "Alright. What would you like to talk about, Vi—" You caught yourself before letting the formal title slip, mouth snapping shut as a flush crept up your neck. "...Soshiro."

His name on your lips without any honorifics felt startlingly intimate, sending a shiver skittering across your skin. The way his eyes hooded at the sound didn't help matters, that perpetual half-lidded bedroom stare dragging you down into unknown depths thick with tension and secrets.

"First off," Hoshina rumbled, deep voice rolling over you in a velvet caress. "How about something simple?" One broad shoulder rose and fell in a languid shrug that made your mouth abruptly dry. "What d'ya like to do for fun, [Y/N]-chan?"

The innocent question caught you completely off guard, both from its disarming simplicity and suggestive undercurrent as he held your gaze steadily. Your first instinct was to rattle off details about your usual training regimens or combat preparatory routines. But something in the heated air surrounding you both made you reconsider revealing the full extent of your dedication to the Defense Force, at least for the moment.

So instead, you opened your mouth to offer some benign response about reading or meditating...only for the words to die unspoken as Hoshina’s tongue stole out to wet his lips again, slow and deliberate. Your attention zeroed in helplessly on the tiny gesture, watching the way his mouth glistened in the dim candlelight.

"Well?" His voice dragged your eyes back up with a start, the lids now heavy and hooded in a way that liquefied your thoughts. "I'm waiting for you to tell me exactly what gets ya excited, [Y/N]-chan."

You sucked in a sharp breath at the blatant innuendo laced through his words, the husky purr curling deliciously low in your belly. Hoshina cocked one eyebrow in a wordless challenge, his lips curved in the faintest of smirks as he leisurely swirled the contents of his glass.

The thickening silence stretched as you struggled to formulate a response through the heated fog rapidly clouding your mind. Just what exactly was his game here? And more importantly - did you even want to indulge this escalating provocation, consequences be damned?

One look into those blazing indigo depths, now glittering with naked hunger and keen intelligence, told you the answer even before your mind could catch up.

Your tongue stole out to moisten your dry lips, watching in satisfaction as Hoshina’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "You know," you began carefully, each word seeming to wrap around the both of you like layers of finest silk. "For all your talk earlier about loosening up...I'm not convinced you truly grasp what that means for me, Soshiro."

His name emerged rich and savored, a purring taunt of challenge issued beneath lowered lashes. You allowed the implication to hang heavily between you for a stretched breath before continuing in a lower, throatier tone, "—Unless, of course, you'd like me to show you?"

The muscles in Hoshina’s throat bobbed convulsively as he swallowed, hard. His free hand drifted up to rub along the stubbled line of his jaw, eyes burning straight through you with smoldering intensity. For a suspended heartbeat, he made no further movement, no affirmation of your thinly veiled offer save to simply drink in the sight of you with undiluted focus.

Then the hand dropped away, and Hoshina was leaning forward with leonine grace, braced on both forearms as he closed the distance between your bodies.

"By all means," he growled, lips curling in a slash of wicked invitation. "Enlighten me, [Y/N]-chan."

The challenge hung searing between you in the smoky dimness. You could practically taste the heated tension sparking in the scant space separating your bodies, a heady blend of whiskey and simmering desire. Hoshina’s eyes bored into yours with an intensity that stoked molten tendrils of want coiling low in your core.

"Well?" His graveled rumble sliced through the silence like a whipcrack, sending a shiver cascading down your spine. "I'm waiting for this supposed enlightenment, [Y/N]-chan."

You fought back a reflexive smirk at the undercurrent of impatience bleeding into Hoshina’s tone. So the great Vice Captain wasn't as unflappable as he pretended to be. Good...that just made this little game all the more intriguing to play.

Keeping your expression carefully neutral, you drew the moment out with a slow blink and even slower inhalation. You caught the way Hoshina’s nostrils flared infinitesimally as your subtle movements, dragging in the thickening clouds of arousal and sin swirling around your hushed alcove.

"Patience was never your forte, was it?" you murmured at last, letting your lips curve in the faintest of smiles.

You didn't miss the way Hoshina’s jaw tightened fractionally, another hairline fracture splintering across that impeccable veneer of nonchalance. Holding his heated stare, you brought your glass up in an affected sip, letting the smoky liquid trickle decadently over your tongue before swallowing with delicate care.

When you finally spoke again, your voice had dropped into a lower, throatier register thrumming with unspoken promises. "If you want me to...enlighten you, Soshiro, you're going to have to earn it."

His sharp inhalation was quiet yet clearly audible in the smothering intimacy of your nook. You watched in satisfaction as Hoshiro's pupils blew wide at your blatant provocation, feeling a lick of triumph at finally rattling him. Shifting slightly, you allowed one knee to brush against his beneath the table in a featherlight caress calculated for maximum impact.

Sure enough, Hoshina’s body reacted in a reflexive tightening, every tendon and sinewy muscle coiled like tripwires under his tawny skin. His eyes, however, remained locked on yours in a heated battle of wills, the irises now eclipsed into blazing amethyst embers ringed by inky black.

"Is that so?" he rumbled after a strained moment, the words seeming to shave against his clenched jaw. The hand braced on the table flexed minutely, fingers splaying in the barest aborted twitch before curling into a tight fist. "And just what did you have in mind, [Y/N]-chan? Some kind of...test?"

He somehow managed to imbue the final word with equal parts challenge and smug certainty of victory. As if you were nothing more than another combat scenario mapped out in his mind, every potential obstacle and pivot point already neatly dissected. As if there was no chance of you emerging the victor through sheer tenacity and underestimated resolve alone.

You arched a single brow at Hoshina’s boldness, feeling a frisson of mingled indignation and undeniable arousal sizzle through your veins. Always so confident, so unflappable in the face of adversity...until you thoroughly demolished those smug assumptions time and again.

Well, if the great Vice Captain felt so assured of besting you at your own game, you'd simply have to dial up the intensity. Push past the flirtatious banter and thinly veiled wordplay to a threshold Hoshina had yet to truly encounter.

"A test of sorts, I suppose," you acceded, letting your shoulders roll in an exaggerated shrug of nonchalance. "Though I'd ask that you refrain from treating this as just another playacted scenario, Soshiro. After all..."

Here you leaned forward until your lips were a hairsbreadth from his, near enough to feel the erratic gusts of his quickening breaths across your mouth. When you spoke again, your words emerged in a throaty purr that vibrated straight down to his very core.

"...I don't plan on playing by any rulebook's constraints tonight."

With that, you abruptly sat back, leaving Hoshina frozen and body taut as a live wire in the wake of your retreat. A muscle ticked in his clenched jaw, the only visible sign of how deeply those last words had scored. You didn't try to suppress your triumphant smirk this time as you reached for your glass once more, allowing a flash of devilish delight to dance across your features.

"So?" you prodded after a beat, thoroughly reveling in having the upper hand for once. At least for the moment. "Are you willing to put that ego on the line, Vice Captain? Or will you forfeit before we even begin?"

The molten challenge sparked and smoldered in the heavy air between you, undulating in tempo with the flickering candlelight. For one suspended heartbeat, everything hung in tantalizing suspension as the gauntlet was thrown down with audacious finality.

Then Hoshina blinked, tension shattering like glass scored straight through his formidable self-composure. His lips peeled back in a ferocious slash of a grin, eyes burning like banked amethyst fire.

"I'm going to make you beg before this night is over, [Y/N]-chan," he promised in a low, sandpaper growl. "And not for mercy."

A tremor of undisguised anticipation rippled through you at Hoshina’s low, graveled promise. You felt heat bloom across your skin, a delicious frisson of combined exhilaration and challenge sparking bright in your veins.

This was quickly evolving past the bounds of casual banter and suggestive badinage. No, you could both sense the unmistakable undercurrent of tension ratcheting up another notch entirely - a wildly spiraling game of provocations and reactions with no clear path or endgame in sight.

Just pure, unadulterated want slowly stripping away all remaining propriety and inhibition until only the raw, primal need remained.

You held Hoshina’s burning stare for a protracted moment, letting the heat shimmer and intensify between your locked gazes. Then, purposefully, you dropped your eyes in a slow perusal down the powerful column of his throat. Over the broad, heaving expanse of his chest just barely concealed by thin fabric. All the way to the junctures of his hips barely visible above the table's edge.

It was your turn to lick your lips, letting your tongue sweep out slow and deliberate while holding Hoshina’s focused attention. You felt a lick of satisfaction at his sharp inhalation, the subtle tightening along his jaw as his eyes followed the path of your mouth with undisguised hunger.

Yes, let him stew in the rapidly simmering heat for a while longer. Let him chase that high of anticipation, of wanting something badly enough to burn from the inside out. He'd had the upper hand for far too long with his usual nonchalant arrogance and deflective taunts.

Now, it was your turn to dangle the prize of satisfaction just out of reach, keeping Hoshina teetering on that razor-edge of control through every torturous moment.

Sliding one hand across the sticky surface of the table towards you, you tilted your chin down as if suddenly shy beneath the weight of that smoldering violet stare. You waited a beat, letting the heavy atmosphere condense further before darting your tongue out again to wet your lower lip.

Then, with exaggerated nonchalance, you started toying with the zipper pull at the hollow of your throat, giving the smallest of tugs.

The effect was instantaneous. Hoshina sucked in a sharp breath, the tendons in his throat jumping convulsively as the hand splayed on the table clenched into a tight fist once more. You caught the abortive shift of his hips beneath the concealing tabletop, the instinctive forward lean that his torso quickly aborted back to a slouch of feigned ease.

Still, you didn't lift your eyes to his, keeping your focus solely on your hand as you toyed with the zipper's metal tab. One infinitesimal tug at a time, incrementally revealing the barest tantalizing strip of flushed skin glistening with perspiration. You let out a tiny, breathy sigh of fake overstimulation, merely to ratchet the torment.

That seemed to be the final straw for Hoshina’s rapidly faltering restraint. With a low, visceral growl that sent skittering tremors racing across your hyper-aware nerves, he was abruptly kicking the table aside with enough force to rattle the flickering candles. In the next blink, Hoshina had maneuvered himself from across the table to directly at your side, one iron-banded arm snaking around your hips to haul you bodily against him.

You didn't even have a chance to so much as squeak in surprise before Hoshina’s free hand was clamped around your wrist, stilling the tortuous descent of the zipper with ease. He leaned in so close, surrounding and enveloping you with the scorching heat of his body and heady, earthy scent of combat sweat and man. When he spoke, his lips grazed the feverish hollow of your pulse in a blatant possession.

"I wasn't aware we'd reached that stage of the evening already, [Y/N]-chan," Hoshina growled, low and dark and dripping with unholy promises. His next words seemed to shred directly against your convulsing throat. "Unless you're simply making this too easy..."

With a twist of his wrist, Hoshina applied the barest amount of pressure on the trapped zipper pull. Just enough to ease it down another tantalizing fraction, revealing another sliver of feverish skin and the hint of lace lying just beneath. His touch was featherlight, yet it scorched a blazing path from your wrist straight down to your rapidly contracting core all the same.

A soft whine slipped free before you could stop it, a plea and demand all twisted into one soundless vibration. Hoshina’s only response was a low, rumbling chuckle vibrating against your cheek as he nuzzled closer still, thoroughly invading every single one of your precious personal spaces.

"Easy there," he rasped against the swell of your jaw, tongue lashing out to taste your thundering pulse in a blatant spark of possession. "Can't go havin' your pretty suit disintegratin' before the real fun's even started, now can we?"

Hoshina’s broad frame curved around you possessively as his fingers toyed with the zipper tab at your throat. You held your breath, trembling finely, as he deliberately inched it downwards with agonizing slowness.

"Look at you," he rumbled in a low rasp against the heated skin of your neck. "Already coming undone just from this..."

You let out a shuddering exhale as another tantalizing inch of feverish skin was gradually bared to Hoshina’s smoldering gaze. The metal teeth parted with a rasping whisper, allowing the barest glimpse of the lace-edged swell of your breasts peeking into view.

Hoshina growled something wordless and approving against your thundering pulse. You could feel the vibrations skittering across your hypersensitized nerves like tiny sparks, stoking the banked coals of arousal glowing brighter with each passing moment.

"Do you have any idea," he murmured darkly, "how long I've wanted to unwrap you just...like...this?"

Punctuating each word with another fractional descent of the zipper's path, Hoshina nuzzled his stubbled jaw over the exposed juncture of your neck and shoulder. His tongue swept out in a scorching, openmouthed caress that had your fingers spasming against his immovable frame.

"Soshiro..." His name emerged as a breathy whimper despite your efforts at control. You felt more than heard the low, thrumming chuckle vibrating against your stripped skin in response.

"That's it, [Y/N]-chan," he growled, the roughened timbre seeming to shave against your senses with delicious friction. "Let me hear how much you need this..."

Another scant inch of zipper parted with a whisper, baring the tops of your breasts in their lavender-scented swell. Your head lolled back against the solid support of Hoshina’s shoulder, eyes squeezing shut in a haze of white-hot sensation as his lips traced searing paths across your collarbones.

Desperate, needy keens were tumbling from your lips in a constant stream now as Hoshina’s wicked mouth blazed lower inch...by...scorching...inch. Soon you were trembling like a livewire amid the cradle of his corded arms, entire world contracting to each indolent sweep of his tongue and graze of blunted teeth.

Coherent thought was rapidly becoming nothing but ash and ember swirling in the bonfire engulfing your senses from within. You burned, burned with a wildfire of molten need unslaked no matter how Hoshina stoked the flames ever higher with each agonizingly slow pass of his hands, his mouth—

Just when you thought you would surely disintegrate into cinders, Hoshina wrenched his mouth away with a low growl that seemed to vibrate straight through to your core. You cried out at the loss, eyes flying open in a desperate, panting daze, only to be pinned by the endless depths of hunger blazing in his onyx-drowned gaze.

"Easy there, [Y/N]-chan," he rumbled after a steadying breath, the words seeming to drip like molten sin against your sweat-dampened skin. One hand came up to cup your jaw, thumb tracing your swollen, parted lips in a claiming caress you could feel throughout your entire body.

"We've got all night to relearn what makes you come undone..." Hoshina’s grin slashed across his features, dark and full of wicked promise. "...and beg for more."

You could only keen helplessly as Hoshina pressed his thumb past your slackened lips, sinking deep in a blatant parody of the things you both craved. The rough pad grazed the softness of your inner cheek, pressing down against your fluttering tongue in a silent command.

His eyes were utterly blown now, twin pools of midnight edged by the faintest ring of burning indigo. Your lips closed around the intruding digit, sucking and swirling with a moan of undisguised eagerness. Hoshina growled, low and primal, as his hand flexed in the cradle of your jaw.

"Gods, I'm gonna wreck you for any other man," he snarled against your fevered skin. You shuddered in a ripple of goosebumps at the dark promise, the sheer force of desire radiating from his every pore.

Then his thumb slipped free with a lewd, wet pop, only to be replaced a split second later by the scorching press of his mouth. You whined into the searing kiss, opening to the insistent sweep of his tongue. Your own curled around the hot muscle, suckling and twining in a filthy dance of lust and greed.

Hoshina swallowed your gasps, devouring them along with every ounce of resistance left in your trembling body. His hand shifted from cradling your jaw, sliding down to wrap around the column of your throat instead. He squeezed gently, applying just the slightest bit of pressure that made your head swim with renewed want.

When you finally managed to drag yourself up for air, you were trembling from head to toe, the zipper of your suit now pulled completely free of its metal tracks. The top half of your suit was gaping open, baring your breasts and torso in their entirety.

Your eyes slowly fluttered open to find Hoshina already watching you, his chest heaving visibly with exertion. His pupils were blown wide, a mere ring of smoldering amethyst eclipsed around bottomless black. The hand cupping your jaw slid lower, curling around the exposed curve of one breast.

He gave a gentle squeeze, drawing a keening whine from your throat as his thumb traced over your peaked nipple. His gaze never wavered from yours as his head dipped lower, until the rasp of his stubble scraped against your sensitive skin in an open-mouthed, possessive claim.

You moaned, loud and shameless, as Hoshina's teeth latched onto your nipple, tugging lightly as his tongue laved over the hardened peak. Your entire body trembled with the force of your arousal, the raw need throbbing low in your belly.

Hoshina growled against your breast, the sound reverberating straight through your sternum, as his free hand slipped down the gaping vee of the uniform. It danced over your stomach, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Then lower still, teasing over the top band of your panties.

You arched into his touch, desperately seeking more. But Hoshina refused to be rushed, his lips and tongue continuing their assault on your other nipple. When his fingertips brushed ever-so-lightly against the aching bud of your clit, you cried out, only to be immediately silenced by the bruising crush of his mouth on yours.

His tongue invaded with a savage growl, the fingers teasing at your folds increasing their pressure until you were writhing uncontrollably against his grip. Then, without warning, Hoshina's mouth ripped away from yours, the hand tangled in your hair yanking back sharply to expose the vulnerable curve of your throat.

"Be fuckin' quiet," he hissed in your ear, the words barely more than a ragged whisper. "Unless ya want to have an audience..."

Your breath hitched, a jolt of pure heat searing through your core at the suggestion. Hoshina growled again, the sound reverberating straight down your spine as his fingers finally sank home. You bit down on your lip to stifle a whimper, eyes squeezing shut as his thick digits stretched you mercilessly.

"Fuck, you tightened right up at the idea," he murmured, low and filthy. "What, you want the rest of the bar to watch while I fuck ya into oblivion, hmm? Wanna show them just how good I make ya feel?"

A fresh surge of liquid heat spilled over his fingers, prompting another low chuckle. "Oh, I see..." Hoshina leaned in close, his stubbled jaw rasping against the flushed curve of your cheek. "So, if I told ya to get on yer knees and suck my cock, right here, you'd do it, wouldn't you? You'd let everyone watch ya take me down that pretty little throat."

His words sent a wave of molten want spiraling through your veins, the mental image of being used, claimed, in front of an audience setting every nerve ablaze. Your inner walls fluttered around his thick digits, hips grinding against his palm as the coil of pressure building within tightened another notch.

"Maybe next time, then," Hoshina promised, low and husky. "For now, I want ya nice and quiet while I ruin this pretty little cunt."

His lips crashed into yours, swallowing your cry as he curled his fingers and sent you careening straight into white-hot oblivion. You trembled, writhing, as your release ripped through you, every single neuron set alight with the force of it.

Hoshina growled his approval into your mouth, working you through the shattering climax with unhurried strokes and nipping kisses. As the aftershocks subsided, he gently eased his fingers free with a lewd, wet squelch. He broke the kiss then, holding you steady against the broad wall of his chest as you sucked in greedy gulps of air.

You barely had a chance to catch your breath before Hoshina was hauling you back against his body, fingers tangling in your hair to pull your head back into a straining curve.

"I'm not done with ya yet," he growled against the curve of your exposed throat, stubble rasping deliciously against the oversensitized skin. You felt his cock twitch, heavy and thick, as it pressed against the cleft of your ass. "Not even fuckin' close."

[stargirlrchive]

Cock warming Ghost while smoking a cigarette on the balcony? 😙🤌🏼?

cw: simon riley x fem!reader, cock-warming, soft and domestic simon <333, praise, playful banter

i’m so sorry this took long, nonnie. i always get really nervous posting request cause im scared whoever requested is going to hate it lmaooo, but i hope you enjoy it! i love soft domestic simon!!

your body trembled beneath the blanket, curling into it deeper and shimming yourself as close to simon as you could.

it was freezing outside and he was a walking furnace.

always so much warmer than you and it gave you the perfect excuse to slide your freezing hands under his hoodie.

he hissed at the contact, tugging you closer as your body shook. “told you to stay inside while i smoked.”

you shook your head in protest, inching closer to him as your face tucked into his neck, “couldn’t let you be out here all alone. it’s s’cold.”

“yeah, you’re tremblin’ like a leaf, doll.”

he laughed quietly when you mumbled out, “no m’not.”

the cigarette smoke that clung to his clothes soothed you, mixed in with his scent caused warmth to lick at you from the inside out.

simon’s unoccupied hand gripped at your hips as he brought you closer. your nose knocking against the column of his throat as you inhaled his scent once again.

“you said you came out here to keep me warm, not to cop a feel.”

you grumbled as you heard the amusement in his voice, rolling your hips down onto his hardening cock, “you seem to like it.”

he just hummed softly, pinching the soft skin of your hips before his fingers moved down to squeeze the plush of your ass, “now who’s coping a feel?”

“can you blame me?”

you laughed, gently rocking your hips against his as you nipped at his neck.

simon took a drag from his cigarette once more, lazily guiding your hips before his hand moved up to cup your jaw. your lips parting into an ‘o’ and his lips brushed against yours. blowing the smoke into your mouth.

it caused a shiver to run down your spine, a soft whine leaving your mouth.

“you wanna keep me warm, hm?”

you nodded, kissing at his jaw after he let go of your chin. his thick fingers pushing down your sleep shorts, and as you raise your hips to slip them off your legs, his fingers dug into his sweats, pumping his cock a few times before pulling his length out.

you took his heavy shaft into your hand, rubbing the tip against the fabric covering your cunt. whining softly at the feeling before your pushed your underwear to the side and sunk down onto him.

you grunt softly at the stretch and his fingers move to massage your hips. his nose trailing against your jaw before he kissed your temple.

“you’re alright, love. jus’ relax, you always take it so well.”

you flutter around him at the praise, spearing yourself onto his fat cock. panting and breathless when he’s finally buried to the hilt.

simon is quick to tuck you into him once more, the blanket wrapped around the two of you as your eyes flutter shut. his warmth, and the fullness in your belly relaxing you.

there were many ways you two shared intimacy but this was by far your favorite. having him buried inside of you as he caressed your back. the two of you whispering softly about your day.

and when you hear the crackle of his cigarette light up, your head tucks away from under his neck, tightening around his cock as you refrained from rocking your hips against his.

he was just so handsome.

“so, how was your day today, hm?”

[mamayan]

oof your writing is so good 🙈 if your requests are open, would you be willing to write smth for dabi with a nervous virgin reader? Maybe some fingering and petting, lots of praise and encouragement if you're okay with that!! I also wouldn't mind if theres a little dubcon scattered in there for flavour😳 Thank you!🙏

Fuck it’s his favorite— absolutely I will Nonnie♥️ Dabi is nothing if not the perfect gentlemen… sorta. Am I gonna get sued for changing his words in this manga panel? I got carried away with this lol

Yandere Dabi x Virgin! Darling

tw: NSFW • Fem! Darling • Obsessive/Possessive Themes • Implied Mental/Emotional/Physical Abuse • Dubcon • Praise • Virgin! Darling • BDSM • Fingering • Oral • Sex (M)(F) • Denial/Edging • Overstimulation • Dacryphilia • Unprotected Sex • Creampie

The front door slammed loud enough to reverberate around the apartment.

You sat facing the small tv, the screen playing some sort of cartoon with the volume on low, unmoving even as the thuds of his boots against vinyl faux wood flooring became louder. You were curled around your legs, pulled to your chest as your bare feet seemed to absorb the cold around you, icy skin keeping you grounded. Only a thin ratty oversized t-shirt and tiny shorts covering your body, despite the broken thermostat keeping the apartment at almost freezing temperatures.

Dark combat boots entered your field of vision, you numbly let your eyes flick up to take him in. He smelled like cigarette smoke and whiskey, the burning scent making acid bubble up in your stomach to your throat, but you meekly swallowed it down and gave a wobbly smile. “W-welcome home…” it was said with all the enthusiasm of a man walking towards his execution.

He crouches down to face you better, forearms resting on his knees as he levels you with a… soft look.

It has chills shooting down your spine, your stomach rolling and clenching while your chest heaves with anxiety. He’s not a soft man. He’s never been soft, not really, only in strange sporadic moments does he gently do anything to you, but it’s always followed by something sinister. Always.

“Hey pet, you cold?” He’s sadistic and cruel even on a good day. His words immediately making your eyes burn as you try to stop the impending tears. You’re always cold, left freezing locked up until his return, your only source of comfort and warmth him. It was a nasty play, logically you knew it, but logic was what got you hurt so you nodded despite the itch in your heart begging you to hold out a little longer. “M’cold…” you assent, unable to see the defeated dull look in your own eyes, but he could.

“C’mere then,” his smile is so sweet, his staples hardly pulling and his usually vibrant eyes more subdued and gentle. You wanted him to stop whatever game he’s playing now. Whatever sick trick he’s got hidden to make your walls crumble around you. His arms spread open, his knees hitting the floor so he could straighten his spine, and his embrace looking so warm.

Like selling your soul to the devil, you caved. Pathetically nearly falling as you all but threw yourself into him.

The fire wielding psychopath was a lot of things, and sadly running warmer than a normal person was one of them. Just being close to him was like sitting near a furnace, heat radiating off him in waves it seemed. You had all the time in the world to hate yourself when he inevitably left you again to nearly freeze, for now you focused on getting feeling back into your limbs as you pressed yourself as close as possible.

His chuckle is breathy as he wraps you up easily, pulling you into his lap as he sits back on his ass now, your thighs on either side of his to let you be as physically close as possible. Well, almost as physically close as possible, because when you were so desperate for his touch like this, it’s hard not to think about you begging for him to really warm you up.

“Better?” He doesn’t really need to ask, not when you’re fighting to keep your hands from digging under his shirt and getting more body heat from him. Your little sigh of contentment adorable, and while his day was mundane, he did get to release most of his pent up frustration on some lowlife pieces of shit. He was in a good mood, but he’d be in a better one soon.

“Hn” your little affirmation quiet as you rested your cheek against the exposed skin of his collarbone, breathing him in and relaxing as your stiff muscles and joints soaked his warmth up greedily. You didn’t even fight when his hands began to smooth over your skin, up your calves and thighs to your ass where he gave a little squeeze. You put up no resistance, no screaming or fighting tonight it seemed. “You still cold?” His lips are right are by your ear, warm breath blowing over it and sending a shiver of something… different down to your stomach. The stale cigarette scent wasn’t as bothersome to you when he wasn’t being mean it seemed.

You let him pet and stroke your skin, warming you up gradually and shifting you both around until your core was against his stomach and he was flat on his back. He even lifted up his shirt and your own a bit to give more contact, the staples across his chest smoother than you’d initially thought.

This was all wrong and you were without a doubt being soothed into… something. Peace? A sense of safety? Whatever it was, you mentally kept yourself prepared. Even if his touch was soft and careful, you knew what lurked behind those pretty eyes.

“You stopped shakin’…” his observation was more of a statement, but indeed you had warmed up enough not to shiver anymore. He wasn’t usually so nice as to help warm you up like this, usually making you drop to your knees and cling to him while he heckled your behavior.

Your world flipped too quickly to react. Your back now on the cool floor with his body looming over you.

“You’re still cold though, aren’t you pet?” His smile isn’t nice anymore.

“D-Dabi please…”

“What’s wrong, you don’t want me to warm you up anymore?” It was a thinly veiled threat that had you nearly delirious with panic in seconds.

“N-no I do! I do, please don’t stop!” Your pretty eyes filling with tears made him bite down hard on his tongue, tasting blood as he struggles to keep himself calm. It’s you after all. You weren’t some cheap whore he screwed for a quick release. You were his.

That meant something. Whether it was good or bad was debatable and complicated.

“Then let me warm you up, it’ll be faster like this,” he’s not lying. Even as he laughs at the confusion and waring emotions on your face, he really isn’t lying to you this time.

His lips aren’t soft. The kiss nothing like the ones you’d sneakily shared with a crush under the school bleachers, that kiss was a bit too wet and slimy. This one was commanding. His tongue easily slipping into your mouth in your shock, happy to invade and taste you, to share the overwhelming taste of tobacco. Your hands are tangled in his coat, tugging lightly on the fabric as he devours your mouth. He pulls back when you start to struggle, and the sight of your swollen parted lips has his pants uncomfortably tight. His zipper digging into his cock now.

“Dabi—,” your voice is barely even a whisper, almost inaudible but he catches it and pauses as he looks down at you carefully.

The fact that he’s even being careful should be considered as a mercy.

“Please be gentle…” your lips twist into a grimace, the lame line the only thing your muddled mind can conjure. His snort of amusement not helping your wounded pride, but as he shrugs his coat off and looks down at you, his words give you pause.

“I’m going to make you forget everything bad tonight pet.”

He doesn’t elaborate. You don’t need him to. You don’t want this. It doesn’t matter though, because you never wanted any of this. His sanity not even in question, because he’s clearly out of his damn mind and has been for quite a while.

His shirt is next, revealing his chest in the dim light of the tv still playing quietly, the words not even registering as a language you understood. The damaged flesh leathery and colored a dark purple in contrast to his healthy skin. You lay limp and almost defeated beneath him, watch as his hands deftly remove your own shirt, and while it’s not the first time he’s seen you naked… this would be the first he’s touched you so intimately. Your breasts exposed to the cool air harden quickly, his smile predatory as he leans over your chest to flick one with his tongue.

The sensation shoots straight to your pussy.

“Pretty little pet, are you scared?” His question is rhetorical, but you hate how he just seems to know your thoughts and feelings. So much so you wanted to ask if he hide a second quirk. In a last act of defiance, you shake your head. You are scared, terrified of what else there even is to lose because this evil man seems determined to take and have all of you. He’s insatiable for whatever you have, like a vampire taking the life right out of you. Except he won’t kill you, even if sometimes you wished he would. To end this game.

“Pfft, you look so serious,” his face is filled with only hunger and amusement, as he lets his rough palms rest over your breasts, squeezing lightly as he lets himself just take you in. His hands drag over your much softer skin, looking at the odd scar here and there left by his flames during the early days of your readjustment period. He lets one hand rest just over the mound of your pussy, still covered by the thin shorts that hardly covered anything. He’s quiet, and so are you, as you breathe and struggle to stay still for whatever this was. You imagined it to be more violent, less pathetic on your end, as if you’d given up without a fight.

Your tears of frustration finally broke and trailed down your cheeks, your brows furrowed and cheeks puffed as you try to stay silent and uphold whatever amount of dignity you had left. You wouldn’t beg him to stop, it only spurred him on. When his eyes looked back up, the image of you nearly drove him feral as he grinned, giddy with excitement in lieu of you crying. His snicker of approval only making you flinch back as his fingers hook inside the waist band of the shorts and your underwear.

“Keep crying pet. Maybe a hero will come to save you?” His words drip sarcasm as he now roughly yanks your bottoms down and off your body in one swift motion. You’re left completely nude and shivering as the cold seeps back into your body as you lay on the floor. “I don’t think any heroes even patrol this side of town anymore. Too dirty and messy, they can’t be bothered to save people here. So I guess that leaves just you n’me.” He’s not looking at your face, though he’d be elated to see the look of crushed hope painting your features, instead his eyes were trained on your tightly shut thighs. The soft skin a bit distorted from how hard you squeezed them closed. His dark hair falling a bit into his gaze as he easily digs his fingers roughly into your flesh to pry them open.

“Hii!” You cry of pain and shock adorable to his eyes as he gets an eye full in the dim light of your wet pussy.

“Better keep these spread pet, if I gotta open them again for you, I’ll give you a real reason to cry.” His eyes are fierce and foreboding as they meet your gaze, and fear keeps you compliant as you obey and keep your legs open where he left them. He smiles in approval, humming to himself as he begins to undo his belt and open up his pants.

He shifts to one handedly yanking his pants down to free his aching cock, his free hand moving to his open mouth to layer on his own saliva to his fingers. The wet digits brought to your pussy as you whimper, gently spreading your folds and admiring it as he grips his hard cock in his hand. You make the mistake of looking at it.

He’s covered in piercings. His cock long and thick, more so in the middle, with a slight upward curve… but there’s two distinct barbs through his dick on both sides, with the tip sporting one prominent one that had you wanting to disobey and close your legs anyway. It looked frightful and painful if anything else, and you briefly wondered if he did this to ensure his victims were thoroughly tormented at every step.

“Fuck look at you baby, so pretty like this aren’t you?” He’s gently poking and circling your clit, loving each little scared gasp and unsure look you shoot his way. He can tell it feels good for you, but with the uncertainty and fear factor of his looks and his cock, you’re wound tight in apprehension. He thinks it’s a beautiful sight on you. Your little sniffles and pouty lips captivate him into leaning over you again, licking your lips until you open and let him kiss you again. It’s languid and lazy like him, proving how good his mood currently is by how he’s taking his time with you. Your hands stay by your side, gripped tight into fists as you feel a finger begin to push inside of you.

He breaks the kiss the time, looking down to see you take his finger.

“Not so bad is it pet?” He wiggled and pushes it as deep as he can go, loving how your back aches and chest juts out in his face for easy access. He’s nice as he works you open with one finger, lavishing your sore nipples with licks and bites. You keep the moans soft and low, struggling to hate this like you thought you would.

It didn’t hurt at all. It felt good. That was the problem. Dabi never makes you feel good, he torments you like a cat with a mouse. That’s why he calls you pet.

So when he squeezes in a second finger and you moan louder? You nearly knock a tooth out slapping a hand over your lips in embarrassment.

“No you don’t,” his fingers rip free from your tight cunt, both hands gripping your wrists and pinning them with one hand above your head. He grabs his jacket, using the arms to make a makeshift cuff to lock your hands together. “Keep’’em right there,” he orders, and by his stern features you know he means it.

Tired of just testing the waters, Dabi crawls down your body in favor of bringing his face directly before your pussy. “Dabi?” Your head lifted to try and see him as he wraps his arms under your hips to hoist you up higher towards his awaiting mouth. “Been thinkin’ of how this pussy tastes for months,” he grins, letting his pierced tongue run from your dripping hole to your clit, sending sparks of pleasure through your body as your legs jolt and snap around his head.

You realize quickly and apologize, opening them to avoid any punishment.

“Good girl~” you don’t like how his praise warms you up further, your shaking now less from cold or fear and more from arousal.

He repeats his first few licks, before beginning to truly lavish your pretty cunt with his tongue and skills. Dabi isn’t actually an experienced man, most women fearful or disgusted by him for obvious reasons, but it wasn’t hard for him to figure out your reactions and follow the flow of your pleasure. The way you twitched and moaned, struggled to keep your hands in the spot he ordered you to, to keep your legs spread, he loved all of it. When your moans became high pitched whimpers and whines, and your muscles spasmed, he knew you were close.

“D-Dabi I think I—,” you were so close, core wound so tight you could snap at any second, and for the first time you liked what he was doing to you.

Until he stopped.

“No—!” Your cry was embarrassing, as you shook beneath him in horror of your own reaction. Panting and trying to catch your breath as your pleasure faded by the second, his Cheshire grin soaking up your disappointment eagerly. Of course he would, you felt bitter, even as he returned to licking and sucking your clit. Only when the build up returned did you relax again, moving your hips up a little as you neared the crest once more…

He stopped again.

“Dabi—!” Your indignant tone telling as you huffed, sweat beginning to dot your skin despite the cool temperatures, Dabi’s warmth even removed like this helping.

Your stomach ached with the urge to cum. “Something wrong pet?” His face said he knew what was wrong, but it seemed he wanted you to say it. Instead you stubbornly pressed your lips together, his shrug of nonchalance following as he returned to kissing and sucking, slower and more gradually building you up again.

Even if you mentally prepared for it, he let you get much closer to coming than the previous times, so when he pulled away, your legs clamped tight around his head to stop him. “Fuck, please Dabi,” you hated yourself. Hated how he held so much power over you.

If you didn’t look so cute, he’d probably punish you too for not listening.

“Please what?” You watch as he lets a drop of his salvia drip into your pussy, your trembling legs pushed open again by his hands as he stares up at you.

“P-please…” you didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to give him anymore of yourself but… “—please make me cum.”

He looks like that cat which got the milk. His satisfaction palpable as he laughs. “Well why didn’t you just say so? Since you said please.” His teasing tone muffled again soon by your wet pussy, his aggressive approach now much more intense as he eats you out with the purpose of making you cream his face now.

It doesn’t take long before the string violently snaps inside you, your orgasm intense and nearly painful as you come apart.

“Ah, yes, oh—,” you try to shift away, his tongue still laving your clit as he looks up at you, narrow gaze teasing and telling as you whine. “D-Dabi I-I already—ah please!” You almost bite your tongue when he sucks hard on your clit, your panic building with another orgasm. You moan, your head thrown back as your fingers grip and tug on the binding of his coat, hips shaking as you come again.

His lower face is soaked, but he can’t find it in himself to stop as he licks up all your release and noses your clit. Switching his assault to inside of your quivering hole, letting his wet hot tongue slither in, licking and poking your walls. He moans with you now, relaxing as he lets himself get comfortable, leaning against your thigh he has propped up now with his arm keeping you locked in position. He’s lazily feasting as you come again, this time breaking his rule and trying to push his face away with your hands still bound.

He doesn’t even stop then, just uses his free hand to grip the fabric and anchor your hands to your stomach as he continues to work you into another frenzy.

“S’too much! Stop! Stop Dabi! Please fuck, I can’t, ugh, no more—,” your pleas are ignored as he laughs, eyes crinkling as he watches you twitch and jolt with even the tiniest amount of pressure to your clit now.

“I thought you wanted to cum? Change your mind already?” You can hardly manage a full sentence, gasping for air like he’s choked you or something. He relents though, only because his cock is close to shooting his load even though he hadn’t touched himself while playing with you. Using his coat, he lifts your hands back above your head and scoots forward to let his heated cock slap against your wet folds. His hips automatically jerking a few times as his dick feels the soft wet heat your cunt is soaked in.

“You want my cock pet?” You look delirious and exhausted, sweat making your hair cling to your face as you briefly almost admit to being too warm now. Your both chilled and overheated as your sweat dries. Your blurry vision glances down to his throbbing length peaking at you from below, the heavy rod sliding back and forth through your slick and causing your pussy to twitch as he nudges your clit with it.

“S’not gonna fit…” his lip nearly splits on his smile, the cute admission only making him wanna shove it in you more to prove it will fit.

“You don’t think so?” His eyes look inhumanly blue from the cast of whatever show played on the tv now. One hand stays to keep your own pinned, while the other travels down your soft body to grip his cock and line himself up. “‘Cuz I think it will,” then he’s pushing in. His tip goes in easier as it gets crushed by your tight convulsing cunt, the rest engorged by blood feels painful as you cry, Dabi moaning as your gooey walls try to force him out. “I think,” one sharp thrust sinks a whole inch in, your eyes opening wide as tears spill freely, “I’ll get my entire cock in,” he pulls out only a little before shoving in a little more again. “And you know what else I think?” He’s leering down at you, manic grin frightening with the added shadows cast. You can feel his piercings, tugging and forcing themselves inside as he shifts and pushes, nearly stealing your ability to breathe.

“I think you’re gonna like it.” You can’t talk and he knows it, as his tip kisses your cervix, and then it’s bruising it as he shoves himself to entire way in, gasping in pleasure he sees himself fully sheathed inside you. His groin flush with your ass. Your walls so tight it feels impossible to pull out now. It doesn’t matter to Dabi though, as he grits his teeth and rocks forward and back, creating delicious friction on his cock. You’re left to sniffle and cry, pussy stretched painfully wide and aching deep inside from how his rough entrance.

“Poor little crybaby,” he chuckles, leaning closer to lick the tears off your cheeks as he finally gets himself wet enough to begin a slow pace inside you. “You’re so fuckin’ tight,” he growls, burying his face in your neck for a moment while he ruts into you, quick short thrusts working him close to his orgasm. His hand works between you, thumbing your clit as you cry and writhe beneath him, pussy clenching and relaxing as you’re forced to cum with something thick, hot, and painfully heavy inside your cunt.

“Shitttt,” his teeth sink into your neck, grunting as his balls draw tight and he pumps his boiling load deep into your womb, pushing even deeper as it twitched and spurts. Your legs locking and trembling as you see stars.

He stills for a moment, catching his breath quickly as he lifts up to look at your ruined appearance. Your face covered in tears as you pant, eyes nearly closed as struggle to stay awake. Your pussy even messier, slick and cum coating you both and the floor, a tiny bit of pink mixed too.

The thought that it was him who ruined your innocence, taken your first and last, has him hardening again inside you.

You can only whine, silently pleading for a break, but his answering smile is familiar and devious.

“C’mon pet, we’re just getting started tonight.” He chuckles, pulling his hips back before roughly slamming into you now. The shock woke you up fully, pussy protesting the rough treatment he sets as the room fills with salacious noises, your pussy squelching with each slap of his balls. The piercing on his tip hitting a new angle as he leans back and jerks your hips up off the floor.

“Oh!” Your vision goes black as you cum, and Dabi only laughs and fucks you harder as you pass out, loving the stupid expression on your fucked out face.

“That’s it pet, said I was gonna make you forget!” He’s emptying another load inside you not longer after, his own dick becoming a bit overstimulated but too engrossed fucking you to stop yet. With you half conscious, it’s easy to slip out and flip you to your stomach before sliding back in smoothly. “Fuck, you feel so good baby, taking my cock like you were made for it,” his words are slurred in his pleasure, his hips working against your ass as he drags his slick cock out of your pussy before working it back in. He’s even deeper like this, your belly and hips flat on the floor as he fucks you.

You can’t even remember why you didn’t want this anymore. The pleasure and warmth overwhelming and so perfect.

At least as he fills your pussy again, you don’t feel cold.

[wackus-bonkus-maximus]

shaking you. oh my god. that cliffhanger of an ending. i'm going insane!!!!!!! it's so sad. the atmosphere is just perfect. so melancholy & tragic & OUUUUGH!!!!! incredible.

🥰🥰🥰 i'm so happy you liked it! the idea got wedged into my brain when i first saw kwami's choice and i knew i would be thinking about it a long time after. it's a pleasure to make it get stuck in your brain too 😸♥️

[ai-manre]

Cant believe there are still people calling Arya unkind and implying she's somehow less moral and less heroic than other characters. When she is TEN years old and does this:

As they were running toward the barn, Arya spied the crying girl sitting in the middle of the chaos, surrounded by smoke and slaughter. She grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet as the others raced ahead. The girl wouldn't walk, even when slapped. Arya dragged her with her right hand while she held Needle in the left. Ahead, the night was a sullen red. The barn's on fire, she thought. Flames were licking up its sides from where a torch had fallen on straw, and she could hear the screaming of the animals trapped within. Hot Pie stepped out of the barn. "Arry, come on! Lommy's gone, leave her if she won't come!"

Stubbornly, Arya dragged all the harder, pulling the crying girl along. Hot Pie scuttled back inside, abandoning them . . . but Gendry came back, the fire shining so bright on his polished helm that the horns seemed to glow orange. He ran to them, and hoisted the crying girl up over his shoulder. "Run!"

Rushing through the barn doors was like running into a furnace. The air was swirling with smoke, the back wall a sheet of fire ground to roof. Their horses and donkeys were kicking and rearing and screaming. The poor animals, Arya thought. Then she saw the wagon, and the three men manacled to its bed. Biter was flinging himself against the chains, blood running down his arms from where the irons clasped his wrists. Rorge screamed curses, kicking at the wood. "Boy!" called Jaqen H'ghar. "Sweet boy!" [...]

Going back into that barn was the hardest thing she ever did. Smoke was pouring out the open door like a writhing black snake, and she could hear the screams of the poor animals inside, donkeys and horses and men. She chewed her lip, and darted through the doors, crouched low where the smoke wasn't quite so thick.

A donkey was caught in a ring of fire, shrieking in terror and pain. She could smell the stench of burning hair. The roof was gone up too, and things were falling down, pieces of flaming wood and bits of straw and hay. Arya put a hand over her mouth and nose. She couldn't see the wagon for the smoke, but she could still hear Biter screaming. She crawled toward the sound.

And then a wheel was looming over her. The wagon jumped and moved a half foot when Biter threw himself against his chains again. Jaqen saw her, but it was too hard to breathe, let alone talk. She threw the axe into the wagon. Rorge caught it and lifted it over his head, rivers of sooty sweat pouring down his noseless face.

Arya literally threw herself into a burning shed with falling roof, to rescue complete strangers. The worst she's risking here is not a beating or anything, she's risking her life and that too by making the active choice to go in and rescue people she does not know. Are you kidding me?? You see this and still Arya Stark isn't the kindest heroic character?

[eddie-stinks-munson]

Can't Keep My Eyes Off Of You- Eddie Munson

Prompt: “Being unable to keep their eyes off of them”  Eddie Munson x Reader Word Count: 723 There are some femme characteristics but readers gender isn't otherwise specified, no y/n I told myself I'd write at least one fic before my vacation was over, this is it ---

Eddie Munson was a lot of things, but a star student wasn’t one of them. School was a drag, and he could scarcely find a reason to tune into whatever bullshit the teachers were spouting that day. 

Mrs. Clicks class was the most insufferable by far. The high pitch of her voice was grating, and she was constantly droning on about how “America is the greatest country by far.” 

“Sorry I’m late,” came a voice from the back of the class, in a tone that said they weren’t the least bit sorry, “I overslept.”

Eddie, who had been told time and again that subtly wasn’t his strong suit, whipped his head around. He’d know that voice anywhere, rough around the edges with a hidden softness in the center. That voice filled his dreams, both day and night. 

His eyes met yours, and there you stood, in the back of the classroom. A vision of complete and utter perfection. Black makeup smeared bored eyes, and a grin of cherry red lipstick. 

“Good of you to join us. Take your seat before you further interrupt my lesson.” Mrs. Click responded, with a timbre of disdain she reserved only for a special few students. 

You rolled your eyes and gave a half hearted, sarcastic salute before making your way to your desk. It was one row in front of Eddie, and just to his right. He sighed heavily as you sat down, paying attention was hard enough before. But now with you sitting right there, he found it impossible to even try and look at the board. 

Class was half over and Eddie spent the grand majority of that time either counting the droplets of rain racing down the window, or watching the way your face scrunched up in disgust anytime Mrs. Click voiced an outdated, and flat out incorrect opinion. 

At one point, she’d said something so absurd you turned around and looked at Eddie. Brows furrowed dramatically, as if to say, “can you fuckin believe her?” 

Eddie just rolled his eyes and shook his head. If he was being honest, he hadn’t even heard what Click said. He was too busy watching the way your cutoff Dead Kennedy’s t-shirt rode up when you stretched. 

Any time Eddie tried to look at anything else, you did something to bring his attention back to you. He was half convinced you were doing it on purpose at this point. Like the way you moved your sleep disheveled hair to the side, showing off the curve of your neck/ It was such unmitigated perfection. There was no way it wasn’t a calculated attempt on your part to distract him. 

You were fidgeting with the rings on your fingers, and Eddie was absently mirroring you when the bell ripped him from his reverie. When you got up from your desk, you looked at Eddie and smiled. 

He was so excited when you started walking towards him instead of the door he had to remind himself to breathe. By the time you got to him, his heart was hammering so loudly in his ears he stupidly worried he wouldn’t be able to hear what you were saying to him. 

“I can feel you staring, you know.” You said, trying but very clearly failing to suppress a smile. 

“Sorry, Sweetheart,” Eddie replied, more sheepishly than he intended, rubbing the back of his neck, hoping against hope that it would keep the blush he felt creeping up at bay. “Subtly isn’t my strong suit.” 

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” you mused, playfully pushing his shoulder. 

“It’s a hard burden to bear, but someone’s gotta do it,” he said, as his face heated up like a goddamn furnace. He was red as the devil, and he knew it. 

“Shut up,” you laughed, then looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Want to skip second period? We can smoke in the woods, I’ll buy.” 

Eddie gently grabbed both sides of your face, looked you deeply in the eyes as his heart settled in his throat, and earnestly said, “If I EVER say no to that, I’m going to need you to kill me. Because I’ve obviously been replaced by a doppelgänger, and the real me is long dead and turning in his grave.”

[konigsblog]

it’s -11 c here ..💔 just wanna cuddle w older!Simon bc I swear that man is probably a walking furnace

WHERE ARE YOU THAT IT'S MINUS ELEVEN DEGREES CELSIUS... 😨

older!simon is a walking furnace, and his hands are heaters for you! he might sneak his hands up your shirt, chuckle when you sink into his chest further, whimpering at the warmth.

older!simon stinks of smoke though, so if you're willing to smell like tobacco, then go for it. :3 he'll hold you down on the couch, until you fall asleep from being too snug and comfy in his jumper and his large, warm body atop of yours -- crushing you! 🎀

“look at you, pretty’... all tired, yeah?” he teases, kissing your cheek.

just press your cold hand against his forehead and he's immediately enveloping you in a warm hug!!!

[hellishjoel]

let the light in

8.8k / pairing: dbf/neighbor joel miller x f!reader

hellishjoel masterlist | notifications blog | cinnamon girl masterlist

summary: Joel takes you on your first proper date, but there’s trouble in Houston. 

warnings/information: MA 18+ (minors DNI), NO OUTBREAK, dbf/neighbor!joel, age gap (reader is in their early 20’s while Joel is in his 40’s), cursing, use of pet names (kitten, angel, baby girl, etc.), daddy kink, unprotected p in v, a lil praise kink, a slight Table for Two crossover if you squint, daddy issues, Joel smoking cigarettes

A/N: the one time I was actually ON TIME to finish a Cinnamon Girl chapter, and I get slapped with covid - but here it is a week late! thank you to @saradika-graphics for the banners <3

Light leaks through the tattered curtains, slipping through the seams and highlighting Joel’s cheekbone. 

It almost scares you. Like you’re not in the safety of the motel room but rather in his bed or in your own at the summer cabin. Like your parents or Sarah could walk in at any moment and see you curled into Joel’s side, both naked from the waist down. It’s like a nightmare, your heart rate startling you awake. 

Your shoulders bunch as you recollect air to your lungs and settle, hazy vision settling on the motel room. Joel is sound asleep, a large lumberjack with large breaths in and large breaths out. You can’t help but watch him. He looks peaceful. Sound asleep, untouched by the problems of the outside works. 

Being this close to him feels odd. It still feels like you’re not supposed to be here, this damn close. In fact, you’re supposed to be at least fifteen feet from him, hiding. But you don’t have to hide, not here. There are no skeptical eyes, no nosey neighbors or parents. You can hold his hand, smile at him with real meaning, and sleep beside him. Enjoy pleasure with him. 

A sigh leaves your lips, and you gently rest your forehead against his toned shoulder. He’s warm. A furnace, really. Your eyes flutter closed, lulling you into slumber once more. The next time you wake, your arms are locked around his waist in a tight bear hug. Your head had found a place of safety against his side and tucked into his armpit. You were curled up in a ball, a strong hand skimming up and down your back peacefully. 

That pesky feeling surges you awake again, like you’re not supposed to be here. You shoot up with a bit more gust, your speeding heart rate sending you up again as your eyelashes flutter in panic. 

“Shhh,” a gentle, low voice hums. 

It’s not enough to calm you yet, your stomach lurches as you’re tiredly sitting up and pushing away from the safety you were once encapsulated in. 

“Joel,” you whisper with concern, feeling your shoulders lock up, sitting exhaustedly up on your elbows. You take in your surroundings, the old mini fridge and the aging television speckled with dust. Your backpack and Joel’s duffel bag on the spare bed. The pounding in your chest halts, falling weakly into his awaiting arms once more. 

“I’m sorry, I thought,” your speech falters, not able to string together a hazy thought. 

“I know,” Joel whispers, allowing you to rest beside him once more. You frown as you lay your cheek against his pec, finding comfort in twirling your finger around his longer chest hair. 

A comforting silence relaxes the two of you, the daylight casting more warmth into the room, and now it was highlighting a fuzzy rectangle along his abdomen. You trace the shape, humming softly as you turn your head and rest your chin on his chest, smiling softly at the sight of his messy hair. 

“You look like you slept well.” You tease, pushing your fingers through his faded dark hair, trying to relax the messy, knotted locks. His hand reaches for yours, interlocking your fingers gently. 

“You look like you just woke up from a nightmare.” 

Your smile falters, only now taking in that he saw you in a panic waking up beside him. 

“It wasn’t about you. This,” You clarify, soft eyes meeting his chocolate ones. “I’m not used to being with you. Just you.” 

Joel rests your clasped hands over his chest. You can feel his delicate heartbeat. 

“I know. S’okay.” 

You usually hate when he talks so little, a deadbolted door or a bank safe with his thoughts. But hearing his limited reassurance was actually soothing. No over-explanation is needed. 

“But it’s nice?” You ask curiously, bringing his calloused hand gently to your lips, leaving soft kisses in your wake along brandished knuckles. 

Joel’s lips quirk up in a fatigued smile.”S’more than nice. I haven’t slept that good in ages.” 

You roll your eyes playfully and sit up on your knees at his side, still holding his hand as you gently squeeze. “It’s the sex that got you to sleep so soundly, wasn’t it?” You ask with a smirk, gently biting down on the plush of your lower lip. 

Now with you sat up fully, Joel’s tired eyes linger on your taut nipples making peaks under your pajama shirt. He tuts tiredly and sits up on his elbows, releasing your hand to lock around the outside of your thigh, guiding it over his lap and allowing you to straddle him.

“Wasn’t the sex. Was you.” 

A shiver travels up your back, pursing your lips to dial down your growing smile, pressing your hips further down into his, and letting your ass lightly grind down into his morning wood. 

“You sure about that, cowboy?” You hum, taking his hand and guiding it up to your neck, weakly winding his fingers around the expanse of your throat. You hum, letting him feel the vibration. He likes it, you can tell by the way his fingers twitch just a smidge tighter and the way he swells against your core.  You drag him by his wrist lower, between the valley of your breasts, feeling the slopes even over your baggy short-sleeve tee.  

“Guide me.” You whisper, settling his hand to tighten around your hip as you continue to roll them at an agonizingly slow pace. “Guide me, Joel. However you want.” 

Joel’s eyes noticeably darken despite the light beginning to pierce the room. Something twitches behind his jaw, and the all-too-familiar feeling in your stomach ignites at his gaze. 

A wet spot sprouts between your legs, and you silently pat yourself on the back for not putting on the one last sacred pair of panties you had packed. You whimper weakly and let your eyes drift closed, settling both of your hands on the tops of his thighs. You’re now blindly aware that both of you abandoned wearing any sort of undergarments to bed. Thank god, you think. 

Joel grunts quietly as his hands tighten on your hips. You two are damn near perfectly centered because his cock is swelling perfectly between your wet folds. He’s impossible to ignore. 

You’re nipping at your bottom lip, throwing your head back in quiet bliss, arching your back, feeling your hair fan out as your nails dig into Joel’s meaty thighs. 

Joel’s persistent, patient, insisting on watching you crumble. You’re weak for him, heat creeping up your spine and growing tacky against your temples. 

“Guide me, Daddy.” Your hips twitch faster at the name, it slipped without you even thinking. But you didn’t regret it. Frankly, you liked it. But was it weird to him? 

You gulp and sit up properly, your hips slowing to a halt. “Joel, I-” 

“I didn’t say t’stop.” His chest rumbles, eyes piercing yours. 

Goosebumps blew across your skin like a cold breeze had settled in, lips parting in surprise. His voice was guttural, deep, sending a spark to your core. 

“I’m sorry,” you move to start again, but his large palms grip your ass, pausing your movements and making you whimper. You needed the friction, you needed him. 

“You’re sorry, what?” He probes, feeling a heat spread across your chest and down into your stomach. 

“I’m sorry… Daddy.” You whisper with a coy smile, moving your hands to his chest and forcing him to fall back into the bed, off his forearms. “Let me make it up to you.” 

Joel’s smirk is sick and twisted, a masterpiece. It thrills you like a rollercoaster drifting down, sending a lightning strike to your core and making you sticky with arousal, coating his dick in the process. A shaky breath leaves your parted lips, using the leverage of your one hand on his chest while the other fishes for his dick between his thighs. You wrap your hand around him and shuffle it up and down his length, feeling him fatten in your hand and leak drops of precum. 

Joel grumbles at the feeling, watching as his chest rose and fell at a quicker rate with the attention. He’s so sexy being handled by you. You can feel his thighs twitching below your own, little grunts of pleasure leaving his rosy lips. 

“You wanna ride me, princess?” He asks, coffee-colored orbs glowing with need. 

You pause for a moment, eyes landing on his with hesitation. You push down your nerves and swallow, lining his tip up to your entrance and feeling his tip slowly sink in. You flinch over his lap again, a little inexperienced with being on top. It just doesn’t quite feel right, and you don’t want to hurt him. 

A huff leaves your impatient lips, trying again to line him up, but he still doesn’t catch. You roll your eyes at yourself, cursing under your breath. How the fuck do you get it in from up here? You want to ride a dick, not solve a Rubix cube. Now, your arm was shaking from holding you up for so long, making you a bit unsteady. Frustration festered in your blood, jaw clenched as Joel watched you patiently. 

Joel’s trying not to snicker. It’s not you exactly that’s making him laugh, but your continued lack of wanting any sort of help. “Can I?” 

“No.” You say a little too fast, eyes meeting his surprised ones after a moment. “Sorry, but no, I’ve got it. Just- just give me a minute.” 

Joel cocked his eyebrow and watched with satisfaction as you tried over and over again to sit on his dick. He clasped his hands behind his head, biceps bulging at either side of his head. 

Your head was so fuzzy with need that your fidgeting hands kept losing the perfect angle for him to slip inside. You grunted in annoyance, having to take a break as you planted both hands on his chest again. Sweat clustered at the backside of your neck, shyly catching a glance at him. Cocky son of a bitch. Just watching you with a smile. 

“I offered t’help, darlin’.” He said with a light shrug, making you whimper quietly. 

“But I wanted to do it on my own.” 

Joel’s hands unwind from behind his head, guiding them to your back and gently adding pressure to allow you to rest over his front. 

“I know ya did, baby girl. Let Daddy help you.” 

You whimper but nod with a soft pout, feeling his calloused and rough palms coast lower to the flesh of your ass. You moan quietly and drift your eyes closed, nose nustling against his chest hair for comfort. 

“Your problem is always that y’not relaxed enough. Y’hold too much pressure on yourself to be perfect all the damn time.” You hide your frown, feeling unveiled to him once again. Vulnerable. Joel had a knack for always knowing what was going on in your head, even when you didn’t. “Breathe in, kitten.” 

Your eyelashes flutter, but you did as he asked, taking in a deep breath. His hand fists the base of his cock, guiding himself up and down your wet center. Just as you weren’t anticipating him, his tip nudged into your entrance, making you gasp. 

“Shh, shh,” he whispers again, his other hand lightly fisting your hair and swiping it off your shoulder and out of his way. You whine as you slowly sink over him. 

Reminded of his words, you took a few more deep breaths and allowed him to enter you fully. All the air left your weak lungs, broken mewls for more left your parted lips, and fanned hot breaths across his chest. 

Your head drops in defeat, forehead to his warm neck. “I’ve only done this like... once. It probably doesn’t even count, the guy came before I even got to ride him.” You bite back a smile as you peek your head up, feeling his abdomen contort under you, an effect of your walls tightening around him. 

Joel slowly nodded, jaw tight, eyes still as dark as night. “S’cause you were fuckin’ around with boys. Daddy’s here now. I’ll guide ya.” He assures, wrapping his large hands around your wrists and setting you up once again to lean on his chest. 

You sit up with newfound confidence, and he guides your body just like he prefers. 

“Which feels better,” he starts to ask as you sit up properly. You can feel every damn inch of Joel, but you’re attempting to focus on him, and not his dick piercing the air from your chest. You feel his hands on your calves, gently tapping. 

“You wanna roll your hips, bounce forward a little, keeping your hands here? Or,” he pauses again and guides your feet to settle in at his sides instead of your calves, putting your hands on his upper thighs again. Shit. This one you felt a little less confident in, less able to control your body. And the last thing you wanted was to fall off. 

Joel watches as you shake your head with a shy little smile. He observes you bring your hands back to his chest, planting them on his pecs. Your small little hands were adorable on the large planes of his upper half. 

Like this? You silently ask with your eyes. 

He nods, watching you move back down onto your calves. 

“You ready?” He asks, putting his own hands on your hips. 

Reassurance floods through his palms, and you give him another tight nod. He was swelled inside of you, whimpering weakly as you slowly leaned forward, following the nervous lump in your throat. You slowly push back, and he fills you again. You moan for him, telling him with little to no words how perfect he feels inside of you. 

You keep your pace, back and forth, using the leverage from your hands on his chest as he watches you in blissed-out amazement. He starts to grunt quietly with each of your bounces. You find a pace that suits you. Joel’s hands teach you how to roll your hips, not just bounce, and it lulls you into a haze. It feels like heaven. 

“Christ,” he mutters, groaning as your walls squeeze him. “Fuck me so good, pretty girl. Faster, now.” 

Your head lifts up weakly at his demands, whimpering loudly as your fingernails etch moon-shaped dents into his flesh. But you do as he says because you like when he calls you his pretty girl. His obedient girl. 

With a flush of heat flooding through your core, you sit up and continue bouncing, feeling your ass clap against the tops of his thighs. You take his hands off your hips and interlock them, whimpering loudly as you continue to ride his cock. He’s pulsing inside of you, being gushed with your arousal. You loved holding his hands, it was comforting, calmed your rattling nerves. 

“God fucking- Christ, Daddy, please,” you whimper out, jaw slack as you feel every vein in his cock, even his slight curve that had you mewling for more as he buried himself inside of you to the hilt. 

“That’s it, pretty girl, so good for Daddy, look so fuckin’ hot on top.” He smirks, making your head swirl.  You can’t help but expel desperate moans at his praise, feeling your head spin as your euphoria threatens the seams of your vision. Everything was a haze. You only knew to keep moving, keep satisfying each other. 

“Fuck-fuck-fuck,” you say with each bounce, your body keeping this faster pace as you clench desperately around him. He was so deep, kissing your cervix with each thrust and making your stomach twist. 

Joel was in awe. Couldn’t believe he had such a beautiful girl hopping in his lap first thing in the morning. This newfound confidence suits you, he thinks. His hands lose yours, but only for a moment, fed up with seeing your breasts jump under your shirt. He needs to see you bare, perfectly nude, for his liking.  

You aid off the material and quickly fling it aside, pausing for a breath to grind down against him, coating his balls in your wetness. The large expanse of Joel’s palms coasts up your stomach and to your breasts, squeezing and kneading at the pretty mounds. He pinches your nipples between his thumbs and forefinger, watching them get their color hot with attention. You whine at the harshness, but god, do you love it. It made you all the more sensitive, feeling your clit tingle with need. You were breathless now, panting his name in a dizzy heat. 

“Feels so good, Daddy,” you gulp, pausing your movements for a moment. 

“Getting tired, princess?” Joel asks, watching his girl grow winded at her first time riding. It was sweet, really. Just seeing her try was enough for him. 

You slowly smirk and shake your head slowly, continuing to grind your core against his. Your clit catches friction from his pubic hairs, whining like a needy brat. 

“I’m gonna make you cum like this, Daddy. Just wait.” You take a deep breath and start again, taking his hands in yours as you start bouncing once more.

Joel plants his feet into the bed, finding the new position a little easier to let you glide up and down his dick, even meeting your thrusts when you let him. He grunts, feeling a sheen of sweat glisten across his brow. His jaw tightens, eyes narrowing as he feels his orgasm approach. 

He instinctively reaches his hand forward, large thumb finding your swollen clit. It’s enough to make your hips twitch at the contact, hinting at the desperation of your own finish. He begins to circle you, making your jaw drop. It was a lot, all of it, perfectly too much. You were self-indulging yourself with Joel’s fat cock. 

“That’s it, princess, finish on my dick like a good girl, Daddy wants to see you come.” Joel’s own stomach couldn’t help but feel the high coursing through his veins, grunting as your pretty ass clapped loudly against his thighs, the sound echoing inside the room and back into his ears. 

You couldn’t hold on anymore; your head grew fuzzy, and your eyes began to see stars. This orgasm felt so different from any others, the build-up was enough to make your heart pump hard in your ears. 

Crying out weakly, you shift your hips faster, weakly grinding as you come undone over his cock. Your head hung low, shuddering your back and shoulders as you felt Joel pump rope after rope of white hot cum inside of you. He paints your walls in his name, marking you as his, finishing with grunts of your pretty little name on his lips. 

Collapsing on his chest, you let him stuff you. 

“Fuck, baby girl,” Joel said breathily, eyes closed, chest rising quickly as he regained his strength. You couldn’t care less about the mess between your thighs. You loved this feeling. Joel kept his warm cum stuffed inside of you, feeling it weakly leak whenever you shifted. You sponged kisses across his damp chest, smirking hellishly when you saw the effect you had on him. 

He scoffs at your goading face, weakly running his thumb across the rich color of your lower lip. 

“Told ya you could do it.” You giggle softly and press a delicate kiss to his chin, then his lips. “Thanks for the help.” You finally muster up, feeling him press another kiss to your lips. 

“Course, angel.” 

Sex in the morning was like a sugar rush. It filled you with energy. Joel couldn’t really relate. 

Getting him out of bed was damn near impossible. You were jumping off the walls, asking what today’s plans were, if he was hungry like you were, and if you could get up to shower together. Meanwhile, he just laid there and sort of… groaned. He barely let you get up, content with letting his softened cock stay inside you for eternity. 

You did manage to pester him enough to take a shower, noting that he smelled of cum and sex, to which he replied,  “Well… yeah.”

You munched on a Pop-Tart as Joel finished getting dressed, a dark pair of jeans and a navy blue t-shirt with a breast pocket, where he tucked his glasses and a pencil. You held back a snicker, thinking about how cute he was. 

“Are those glasses for spotting birds?”

He took the Pop-Tart out of your mouth so fast, making you whine in annoyance. “Enough with the damn bird jokes.” He said before taking a bite and handing the dry pastry back to you. 

“Ahh-howe.” You mutter, the dry crumbs making your words a bit muffled. 

Joel gathers a few papers from his bag, they look like etched-out designs. You crane your head to watch him, listening to him mutter to himself what he needs to get today. He explains in the truck that he found a supplier in the East part of Houston, wanting to choose someone local rather than online. He was looking for cathedral-stained glass, something transparent compared to opalescent or wispy. He had specific colors and textures in mind, it was all here on his scattered papers. Your fingers follow the smooth lines of graphite, smiling lightly at the design Joel had put so much time into and got approved by the church. 

“So.. you already have all the tools for this?” 

Joel hums and takes a left-hand turn down a small street. “They’ll have a glass cutter there for me, but I’ve got the rest back home at the tool shed. Grinder, soldering iron, solder, flux, the pattern template.”

“Well, what about gloves? Don’t want you to get cut.”

He scoffs playfully, biting down a smile. “Got those too, baby. Don’t have to worry about me.” 

You suck in the side of your cheek and look out the window, hiding your shy face. Of course you worried about him. The last thing you needed was to see Joel with a nicked-up hand running out of his woodshed. 

Joel parks in a small driveway by a sign labeled Lighthouse Glass. You shove your hands in your pockets and follow him through the front door. A bell gently chimes above you, alerting the workers to your entrance. 

The store is just filled. Stained glass lamps, panels, different art designs, and glass cases filled with the pricier pieces. The selection is wide and also included tools a glazier might need. Joel taught you that word in the truck, he was a stained glass glazier in training. 

The far wall was all shelving of various sizes, with smaller cubbies for small to medium-sized stained glass pieces and larger slots for the big, rectangular-sized ones. They were color-coded, too, starting with different shades of blue until they filtered across the rainbow to bright red slices. Small squares showed different samples for inspiration, you found a beautiful aquamarine one that looked beautiful in the summer light. The room was a rainbow hue because of all the art hanging up in the window. Everything sparkled. 

An older woman comes out from a back hallway with worn-in wrinkles at her eyes and a passionate smile. She wore long sleeves and jeans under a smock. Her hair was tied back, and a patterned headband wrapped around her strawberry-blonde hairline. 

“Joel?” She asks, to which Joel shoves out his hand from his jeans. 

“Nice to meet ya.” He cranes his head to you, jutting his chin out as a silent way of telling you to move up. “This is my assistant for the day.” 

“Oh,” she cooes with a kind smile, shaking your hand as well. “Nice to meet you both! We’ve been expecting you. Well, this is the showroom,” she extends out her hands to explain, walking through the aisles as you and Joel followed suit. 

This reminded you of antique shopping with your mother when you were younger. She scorned you not to touch anything. If you break it, you buy it. So you kept your hands to yourself, watching Joel’s boots as you kept your head low. 

It was a very creative atmosphere, to say the least. There were a few customers further inside the store, by the cutting and customization counter. Everyone was here for something a little different, but who else was working on a giant church mural like Joel was? 

He unrolled his planning maps to the woman, the name Jo etched on her nametag. She said you had the prettiest eyes she had ever seen and even pulled out a small stained glass square that matched the hue perfectly just from the top of her head. You smiled at the little piece she had given you that you held in your lap, fingers gently feeling up and down the opalescent stained glass. It had a few different shades, it looked like a Monet painting. 

Joel glanced over to the piece you held affectionately in your lap, smiling softly at the sight. You had a thing for trinkets, the small things. You lift your head, and Joel swiftly drifts his gaze, clearing his throat as he watches Jo examine his maps. Under the surface of the table, you gently curl your finger around Joel’s pointer. Your thumb gently swipes back and forth across his knuckle, butterflies cascading through your chest as he squeezes your finger affectionately. 

“Joel, you’re sure you’re an amateur at this? This is impressive work.” Her compliment made Joel grow a little rosy in the apples of his cheeks. “Everything you have drawn up is achievable. We can start picking out the colors and have them shipped either straight to your home or to the work site. Whatever you prefer.” 

As good as Joel is at drawing up the plans, he is terrible at colors. You and Jo worked as a team for another hour, finding the right colors that complemented the artwork as a whole. Joel somehow kept choosing very clashing pieces, but you just patted him on his arm and said this was a certain science, one that you had a rather good eye for. 

Jo was checking Joel out at the register, paying using one of the city’s cards since they were the ones funding the project. You had a hard time leaving the section filled with brown stained glass pieces. They were the bunch with the most supplies, everyone picking out the vibrant purples or the classy reds, but never the browns. They were nearly untouched, many covered with dust, each panel hidden behind another. You find a certain beauty in them, your fingers dancing along their edge. Chesnut, hazel, a beautiful amber, coffee to caramel, deep mahogany, sweet cocoa, auburn, and a tawny taupe. 

You were torn between burnt mahogany and mahogany brown. The first was a little too purple. Mahogany brown matched Joel’s eyes to a tee. You picked up one of the smaller sample squares and rolled it around in your hand, twisting your lips at the pretty piece. After Joel had preordered all of his cuts and colors, you set your two small squares on the counter. One for your eyes, and one for Joel’s. 

“These too, please.” 

Joel tilted his head curiously, eyes narrowing on your small hands fidgeting protectively over the two small stained glass sample squares. Jo packaged them up carefully for you and handed them over the counter in a small paper bag. 

“Thank you two for your business! Joel, if you need anything, the card for the shop is stapled to your receipt. Feel free to email us pictures of the final piece! We haven’t had anyone do such a large mural. Have a great day.” 

“Thank you, ma’am. Appreciate all your instruction.” He tips his head in typical Southern fashion and walks you out the door. 

Joel eyes the brown paper bag once you’re both returned to his truck. You immediately open it up and let the mahogany square glisten in the late afternoon light. You lay your forehead against the warm window, humming as you gently squeeze it in your palm. 

“Whatcha plannin’ on doin’ with that, buttercup?” He asks, securing his seatbelt. 

You angle your back to the truck door, holding up the square and squinting one eye closed, comparing the glass to the color of Joel’s beautiful eyes. 

“I don’t know yet. But it’s a perfect match.” You whisper as you move closer to him, over the center console as you hold the square beside his temple. His eyes glistened magnificently, but shied away from all the attention you were giving him. He gently shrugs you off and shakes his head. 

“Jus’ don’t cut yourself.” He pauses as he reverses out of the small driveway. “Besides, like the other square better.” He juts up his chin, motioning towards the paper bag. You dig out the other square, the one that resembles your eyes, placing them side by side in your palm. The light bounces off the glass, a harmonious balance between them. Joel’s warmth and comfort, yours strong and vibrant. They complimented one another. You cherished their likeness despite not being the exact same. Carved with love and care. A hobby of Joel’s, now sprinkled with pieces of you. 

You placed them gently back into the bag and secured them in the back of his truck, tucking them in carefully around a spare blanket. 

Joel worked up a hunger and drove you to a diner named Tommy’s Drive-In. It was quite barren, but again, you thrived being perfectly alone with Joel. You didn’t need much, you just liked being in his presence. And you assumed he, yours.  

The waitresses were wearing old fifty-style uniforms, the kind that looked like a dress with little white sneakers. The old maroon leather booths were warmed up by the sun shining through the windows, and you gently slurped up the soda you were given through your straw. 

“What’ll we do now that our big mission of this entire trip is done? Still have the afternoon. And Sunday morning.” You ask as your finger swipes slowly down the menu, reading the different options from salads to sliders. 

Joel is mysteriously quiet. You narrow your eyes on him and gently kick his shin under the table. His head whips up as he grunts, protectively gripping the area you had probably bruised on his knee.  

“Jesus- what the hell,” he gripes, jaw tight as he bore holes into your pretty little face. 

“What are you hiding?” You probe, to which he freezes. After a moment of silence, he sighs and sits up straight, eyes back to the menu. 

“Not hidin’ nothin’.” 

Your eyes narrow on him and his strangely shielded behavior. 

“I’m gonna find up what you’re up to.” 

“Mushroom Swiss burger looks good.” He derails, making you huff. 

Once you both were served your meals, Joel’s mushroom swiss with onion rings and your cheeseburger with fries, he couldn’t help but let out a quiet chuckle after you put in an order for a vanilla milkshake.

“What?” You ask, crossing your arms as you lean back in the booth. 

He shakes his head, soft smile silently admiring you.

“Y’do this little… happy dance once ya eat. When you’re hungry, ya sigh a lot and get real quiet. Tap your foot a lot when you’re real hungry. But then when you’re full, ya just..” Joel tries to mimic you, slowly swaying his body back and forth and shimmying his shoulders. You scoff and toss a spare fry at his chest. 

“I do not look like that!”

Joel only chuckles and eats the fry, shaking his head again with that gentle smile. One that he seems to only share with you. 

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. S’cute.” 

The compliment makes you pick up heat in your neck and face, looking down at your milkshake once it’s served to you. It’s served with a swirl of whipped cream and two cherries. You hum in excitement, absentmindedly doing a little shimmy as you pick up a cherry. It glistens a pretty reddish maroon in the light, splashed with a little whipped cream. You extend it out to Joel, and he looks at you dubiously. Finally, he leans forward, bares his teeth a little, and plucks the cherry from its stem. It stains his lips and tongue, his mahogany eyes on yours. 

His large fingers reach over for the remaining cherry, stealing it from your milkshake and offering it to you. No eyes to hide from, no reason not to be affectionate. If only you could live in this state of bliss forever. 

You part your lips and wrap your mouth around the cherry, only needing a little tug to release the fruit from its stem. Joel gives you an approving nod, feeling it gush sweetness between your teeth. You stick out your cherry-colored tongue, and Joel does the same, eliciting a giggle from you. 

“Share it with me?” You ask as you stick a second straw into the milkshake. 

Joel tries to playfully scoff, shaking his head with a compromising smile. “Haven’t done this with anyone in years. Not since high school, buttercup.” 

You coo and lean over the table to the milkshake in the center, watching Joel do the same. Your stomach flutters with butterflies, your foot gently nudging the ankle of his jeans as you slip your sneaker up and down his calf. 

His face hardens, pulling away from the sugary milkshake with a tense smirk. 

“Knock it off.” He grumbles. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You whisper as you inch your sneaker up higher, taking his jeans with it. 

“Don’t start nothin’. We’re headin’ out.”

You huff and take a few more sips of your shake. Joel settles the bill, opening his wallet and leaving a couple of bills at the booth before he walks you out to the truck. His calloused hand settles on your thigh, and your head rests gently on his arm. 

“Joel?” 

His chest vibrates. “Mm?”

“I’m really happy.” You don’t have enough nerve to look at him, hiding by digging your temple into the crook of his strong arm. He squeezes your thigh reassuringly, palm splayed out on your jeans and fingers lightly digging into the material. You wonder if he’s smiling like you are. 

“I’m happy to hear that, cherry.” He whispers soothingly, the gentle hum of the radio highlighting the baritone in his voice. “M’happy, too.” 

Your eyebrows furrow, noting how you are moving deeper into downtown and further from the motel. Head picking up, looking from left to right, confusion knits your brows. 

“Where are we goin’?” You ask, noting the skyscrapers looming larger and larger as you near the heart of the city. 

“You didn’t think I was gonna make you hang out in a motel room all weekend with nothin’ t’do, did ya?” He asks with a growing smile. Was this what he was thinking about back at the diner? You can’t conceal your grin anymore, it’s from ear to ear as he navigates the streets like he’s been here a million times. 

“Welcome to Downtown Aquarium. This magnificent six-acre entertainment and dining complex is a five-hundred-thousand-gallon aquatic wonderland home to over three hundred different species of aquatic life from all around the globe.” 

“Oh my god,” you whisper in excitement, listening to the aquarium guide who is walking the same path as you and Joel. You can’t help but excitedly take his hand and squeeze it. He holds it and doesn’t let go, even when yours slacks naturally. 

You look up to him and know you’re thinking the same thing. There’s no one we know here. We can be whatever we want, whatever we are. 

Joel ducks his head down and captures your lips in a swift kiss, squeezing your hand once more as they pass the entrance upon paying for your tickets. You pass a sign listing the different exhibits that are open right now, including Texas Bayou, Rainforest, and you were especially excited to visit the Stingray Reef, where you could touch live stingrays up close. 

The air was cool, even slightly salty upon walking inside. The soft hum and sputtering of the pumps and filters taking care of the different tanks played in the background of children laughing and giggling. The tanks were clear, supported by vibrant backdrops.  Your eyes skated from one attraction to the other, seeing fish of varying sizes as they glided smoothly like agents of the water. 

The further you walked into the aquarium, the farther you were away from the rambunctious children where you had more of the open glass to yourself. Joel’s own eyes were filled with a certain whimsicalness that can only be found in the eyes of a child, wonder and amazement all encapsulated in awestruck stares. No matter how old you get, there are the little things that fascinate just about anyone. For some people, it was fireworks or artwork that sparked that feeling in your chest. For you and Joel, perhaps it’s being this close to a giant fucking shark.

“Holy shit,” Joel muttered, your own eyes widening as a large, slow-moving shark swam in front of you and Joel. Their grayish-brown exterior caught your eye. They looked a little scary, snaggle-toothed with multiple layers of teeth. But they weren’t scary, they were actually kind of cute. 

“Aww,” you cooed as you stepped closer, gently bringing your hand up to the cool glass as another friend swam by. Joel wanders to the plaque for information, reading silently for a few moments before he decides to read some fun facts aloud for you to hear. 

“Found in temperate and subtropical waters around the world… known for their... unique reproductive strategy? What the f-...” a group of kids run by, halting Joel from swearing. Their light-up shoes make the hallway glow. 

You stifle a laugh and move closer, narrowing your eyes in the dark light. “Unique reproductive strategy called intra... intrauterine cannibalism? What the hell?”

“-Where the embryo consumes its smaller siblings in the womb, ensuring the strongest offspring survives.” Joel cocks his eyebrow like he’s impressed by the unbirthed shark's ferocity. “Damn.” 

“You two sort of look alike.” You sneer, which makes him whip his head in your direction. “Maybe you guys should grab beers after this. You’d have a lot to talk about.” 

Joel purses his lips and crosses his arms, shaking his head shamefully at you. “Looks like someone’s not pettin’ the stingrays no more.” 

“You would never.” You gasp playfully as wrap your arm around his waist while he settles his around the tops of your shoulders. You walk out of the shark tank hallway and back into the open aquarium. 

“I will if you compare me to that shark who eats its own siblings in the womb again.” 

The line to pet and feed the stingrays was long. It was easily the most popular attraction at the aquarium. The line was bustling with children tugging on their mother’s hands, impatient with the time it was taking to meet them. 

“Ocean pancakes.” You whisper, feeling your stomach swirl with nerves but also excitement.

Joel furrows his eyebrows, mouth flat. “What?” 

“Ocean pancakes. The stingrays. They’re the ocean’s pancakes. Flat boys. Cute grey flat boys.”  You’re close enough to the tank now that you can see the stingrays glide gracefully through the water. Your heart swells with eagerness, absentmindedly holding Joel’s hand tighter. 

He blinks a few times dramatically before looking around. “Are you having a stroke? What the hell are you talkin’ about?” 

“We’re next!” You say as you tug him forward. He has this look of hesitancy on his face and takes a step away from the line. 

“Joel?” You ask, and he shakes his head and shrugs, shoving his hands in the front pocket of his denim jeans. 

“No.” 

You scoff. “No, what?”

He shrugs again and juts out his jaw to the side in contemplation. You take his silence as an answer enough. 

“Are you scared?” 

A slight angry expression crosses his pretty features. You cock your eyebrow and cross your arms. You move to step out of line, but he quickly extends his hand out to your shoulder, stopping you. 

“Where you goin’? You’ve haven’t stopped talkin’ about the stingrays since we got here.” 

“I don’t want to do it without you. Want you to experience this with me. Joel, please.”

Joel holds his breath for a moment before he lets out a long sigh. He flares his nostrils but eventually joins you back in line. You couldn’t believe he was scared. You didn’t know him to be fearful of anything. 

“This is just how Irwin went.”

“What?” 

“Nothin’. I’ll give ‘em a little pet, but I ain’t feedin’em.” 

You’re the first of you and Joel to step forward to the attendant, who greeted you with a tired smile. Poor guy, he was probably here all day having to take care of the energetic children. You had to wash your hands before visiting the stingrays. They gave you these little fish to feed the stingrays. The attendant explained that the stingrays’ mouths were on the underside of their bodies. He dunks his hand into the tank and shows you how to feed them in a way that keeps your fingers away from their mouths. One hungry stingray comes right up and scoops it out of his hand, making you grin widely. Your heart raced with excitement, nodding your head as you demonstrated the proper feeding technique. 

With your hand shoved in the water, you and Joel waited patiently. They were a little shy at first, but soon, one started to swim in your direction. It was a beautiful little thing, grey and flapping its sides to skim closer to the surface. It nibbled on the fish before taking it with them, chomping on it in the water as it went. 

Joel smiled widely, his body hunched over the tank as he watched them. 

“Go ahead and pet this guy,” the attendant said as one affectionately came up to just below the surface. You flattened your hand and let your fingers skim its backside. It was cool and cold, smooth even. 

“Come on, Joel, you next.” You said as you brought your hand out and wiped it on a towel. Joel stared at the water for a few moments before he cleared his throat and put a hesitant hand inside. Your head nestles affectionately against his arm, watching the stingrays avoid Joel at first. 

“What did  you say about relaxing again?” You teasingly whispered, feeling his shoulders bunch as he sighed. Before all hope was lost, the same one who looked for pets from you came swimming towards Joel. It went slow, allowing Joel’s fingers to gently cascade down the glorious fish’s back. You watched his smile glow. The feeling was indescribable, doing something like that for the first time. 

“Thanks, folks, enjoy the rest of the aquarium.” 

After washing your hands of the fish smell, you and Joel toured the rest of the aquarium until the evening. You stopped at the small gift shop, and Joel bought you a stingray stuffed animal. You held it to your chest and smiled, adoring its soft fluffiness and the fat plush. 

“You don’t have to get me this. Stuff is so expensive here for no reason.” You whisper, running your thumb along its cheek. 

“Ocean pancake.” He mutters before paying for the overpriced stuffie with a little smile. 

Joel couldn’t stop gushing about the aquarium the entire drive back to the motel, specifically about getting to touch the stingrays. You watched with a certain twinkle in your eye from the passenger seat, the sun setting around your head, illuminating you like an angel. 

“My heart, it was racin’ back there. I mean, how often do ya get to go ahead and pet ‘em, y’know? It was so outside of my-my comfort zone, I never would have done that in a million years if it wasn’t for you.” He pauses and catches your eyes. He stares longingly for as much as he can before he has to turn his attention back to the road. 

There was that funny feeling. That maybe you guys were more. Like a couple. You flinch and look away, bombarded by your own thoughts. You’re only here for the summer. The years between you two were problematic at best. Imagine what your parents would say, what Sarah would think. You don’t have damn near anything in common. But you liked him. God, did you like him.  

You clear your throat as you open your phone for the first time all day. The last thing you had open was your message from Nathan. 

Heard you’re in Danbury for the summer with your folks. Wanna catch up?

Glancing over to Joel, your fingers hesitate over the phone’s keyboard before typing in a response. 

Yeah! I’m out of town this weekend, but maybe when I get back?

You suck in on the side of your cheek, finding yourself turning away from Joel to read over your messages. It’s been so long since you last saw Nathan in person. Your childhood was filled with him and your summers together in Danbury. 

From going to the county fair together and riding all the rides until you were sick from the fair food or watching the fireworks from the lake’s edge. The town barbeque that your mother spent weeks perfecting her dish to contribute. The fourth of July was only a week and a half away, the summer was breezing through so quickly. And this time, Nathan would be here for it, too.

Your phone buzzes once again. 

 I’ll see you then 

A burst of courage ran through your veins. You wanted to ask Joel what this was, if it was anything. Your time together had been so short, barely a month, but you’d known him forever. And these last few years, you had only grown closer. You part your lips to speak, but Joel beats you to it. 

“After this summer. What’s next?” 

Admittedly, you were now at a loss for words. Your uncertainty fazed him. What was he expecting you to say? What did he want? 

You sigh and drop your chin, stroking the stuffie in your lap for comfort. 

“I don’t know yet, Joel. Now that I’ve graduated, I can say I don’t really want to move back home.” You scoff playfully, an anxious feeling sitting in your chest. 

“Home with your parents or home as in Texas?” He probes, no warmth to his face, eyes centered on the road as you left the skyscrapers and high-rise complexes in the rearview mirror. A small pit festered in your abdomen. 

“I don’t know.” You say again, softer this time. 

Joel doesn’t seem content with your answer. He scoffs quietly under his breath and cocks his eyebrow. His thumbs fiddle against the wheel. He knows you want to travel, knows you want to leave. So why is he asking all of this? 

“Only so much of the summer left t’figure it out. I suggest you start thinkin’.”

Your lip snags in a snarl, face pinching as you stare at him. 

“You sound like my parents, Joel.” 

“Yeah,” he shoots back, quick as a whip. “‘Cause we care about ya. Wanna know where you’re headin’ with your life. Need some direction.” 

The muscle behind his jaw twitches, but he stares straight ahead while you stare at him. A pile of bricks rests on your chest, the seemingly safe temple you had built with Joel all came crumbling down around you. 

“You’re not supposed to put this type of pressure on me, I’m allowed time to figure it out.”

“You had four years of time at university. Now is when you should start having a plan.” His hand bangs against the steering wheel in frustration as he pulls into the motel’s lot. 

Emotions are high and they’re getting the best of you. You throw up your wall of defenses, just like you had used once upon a time with your mother on multiple occasions. 

“I’m not like everyone else, Joel, I need more time. And maybe I need to see a few things and experience more before I figure out what that is!” You snap, crossing your arms and staring out the window, your chest tight. “Such a fuckin’ hypocrite you are. You told me to trust myself, and I’m trying.” 

He scoffs quietly and shakes his head. “Not hard enough.” 

Hot tears brim the edges of your eyes. A perfect day spoiled by this hurtful conversation. Your sneakers scuff the pavement, slamming his truck door as you rush inside with the key. Shaky breaths leave you as you grab Joel’s duffel bag off the spare bed and toss it to the one you both slept in last night and spent the morning in. You change into your pajamas in the bathroom, face hot and filled with rage and sadness. You can’t seem to stop the tears that spill. 

Where did that conversation come from? Why did he have to ruin what felt so perfect? Just when you thought you were starting to feel something, Joel’s boot smothered the flames. 

He didn’t come inside, not right away. Gave you both some time to feel the weight of everything. You had your back to the door, your teary face buried into the pillow when he did finally return to the room. His boots thud against the carpet, nearing closer to where you lay. The bed dips where your knees are, his warm presence making you whimper. He smells like cigarettes and pool chlorine. He must have been sitting outside this whole time, filled with his thoughts like you were filled with your own. 

Joel’s hesitant hand rests on your hip, gently stroking his thumb across the material of an all too familiar Longhorns tee. You softly tug the covers up to your chin and sniffle, clenching your eyes closed tighter. 

His head drops, and he sighs weakly. “Never wanted t’make ya cry, sweet girl. M’sorry.” 

You shake your head weakly, eyes still closed, afraid to look him in the eyes. Afraid to feel for him. The moment you open yours, you know you’ll melt into his mahogany warmth and forget anything he ever did to make you so upset. 

He lets out a shaky breath, his hand moving up to gently cradle your head. Your lips part, bleary eyes finally opening to see his puppy dog face. His jaw shifts; he wants to speak but can’t find the right words. Your eyes plead for him. Say something, Joel. You’re losing me. 

A lump grows in your throat, and hot tears start to sting again. You thought you couldn’t cry anymore, that you had run dry. But seeing him again and all the tangled emotions you felt for him reignites the fuel. 

He can’t look at you crying. He focuses on your hand, your delicate fingers fisting the bedsheets that you cradled to your chin. The shield between you and Joel. He doesn’t want you to feel like you need a shield, he’s your shield. Sworn to protect you, care for you in times of need. Never let you down. 

“Please, angel.” He whispers, one of your tears meeting his warm palm as his hand moves to cup your jawline. 

With a shaky breath, you slowly sit up, messy strands tucked behind your ear as you reveal you’ve been holding onto the stingray stuffie under the covers. 

After a pause, seeing you sit up straight and face him. He forces himself to find his words. 

“I feel more for you than I know I should.” Joel stumbles, licks his lips, and continues warily. “And I know I'm not good at showin' it, but you make me wanna try. And I know ya might wanna leave. I don’t wanna stop ya. But I’m a selfish man when it comes to you. I like bein' with you.”

Your lower lip wobbles and your heart feels torn open to see Joel bare his soul to you, when to so many he's a tall stubborn oak. You let out a shaky breath as he continues.

“This thing between us, what I feel for you, it’s new. And I’m just a fool tryin’ to make sense of it all. I don’t know if you feel the same way,”

Your body slowly crawls into his lap, and you weakly cup his cheeks, stubble scratching at your soft palms. Losing yourself in his eyes, in his broken face, admiring all the little details up close. He’s torn, torn between loving you and letting you live.

You plant a chaste kiss on his parted lips and taste him slowly as the two of you melt together again. You wrap your arms around his neck and hug him tight, legs curled up in his lap as he holds you back just as tight. Your fingers weave helplessly into his longer curls. He’s so familiar, warm, gentle with you. He cares about you. He finally said it. 

After a moment, you find your voice. 

“If you hold me without hurting me, you’ll be the first who ever did.” It’s more whimpery than you had hoped, but it makes Joel hold you closer, yet with such delicacy. Like he doesn’t want you to shatter from his own devices.

Your face buries into his neck, smelling distant cologne and cigarettes. His large hand cradles the back of your head, keeping you with him, letting your racing heartbeats settle together. 

“I’ll never hurt you, angel.” It’s laced with promise. You hope it’s true. 

hellishjoel masterlist | notifications blog

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 11: Hephaestus, God Of Fire]

A/N: Only 1 chapter left!!! 🥰💜

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.4k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Here is our final interlude. Do you have the patience?

President Lyndon Baines Johnson has halted all U.S. attacks on North Vietnam: no bombs from the air, no infantry on the ground, no artillery shells launched by destroyers cruising in the South China Sea. The election will determine what happens next. If Nixon wins, military operations will resume until the South Vietnamese are in a sufficiently advantageous position to defend themselves from the communists. If Aemond is the victor, troop withdrawals will begin shortly after he is inaugurated on January 20th.

Regardless, it will not be until almost a full year from now, in October of 1969, that it becomes illegal for employers to reserve positions for men; the common practice of refusing to hire women with preschool-aged children will not be outlawed until 1971. Unmarried people will not be guaranteed access to contraception until 1972. Abortion will not be legalized across all fifty states until 1973. Women will not have a right to their own bank accounts or credit cards until 1974. It will not be illegal to exclude women from juries until 1975. The first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, will be appointed in 1981. There will be no female president of the United States, not for at least half a century after our story ends.

Each night on CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite recaps the latest poll numbers. Nixon appears to have a slight advantage, due in large part to pulling ahead in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and his home state of California. Aemond has comfortable leads in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. George Wallace will likely sweep the Deep South: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. From their hovels, the racists rejoice. From her grave, Lurleen Wallace rests uneasily, scratching at the lid of her coffin with the bones of her fingers, entombed in dark oblivion like all the rest of the world’s discarded wives.

~~~~~~~~~~

You go for the door, but Aemond is faster; he catches you just as your hand is twisting the handle and the hinges creak. He throws you against the wall so hard the paintings rattle: replicas of Monets and Warhols, Almond Blossoms, The Birth of Venus. You fight, clawing at him, ripping off the eyepatch that Alys must have at last convinced him was no defeat to wear. The hollow, gore-colored abyss of his left eye socket beckons you to fall in and be burned: Hestia’s eternal hearth, the volcanic forge of Hephaestus. He’s fire all the way down, hunger and fury, bones charred black and brittle. You think of the uninhabitable furnace of Jupiter’s moon Io, lethal radiation, poisoned air, lava bubbling up like blood through a bullet wound.

“You can’t hit me,” you gasp. “You need me for photos—”

His knuckles are in your belly, crosshairs made of scar tissue. The air collapses out of your lungs; your vision dims like twilight, like an eclipse. You’re on the floor and trying to crawl away from him. Aemond’s fingers hook into the fabric of your robe; it matches the silk nightgown you wear beneath, a pale anemic pink, something soft and young and desireless, something eternally at others’ mercy, something to be guarded or gutted. He’s dragging you towards him.

He’s going to hit me again, he might even kill me.

“Stop, stop,” you plead, still struggling to breathe. “What if I’m pregnant?!”

You almost certainly can’t be, but Aemond doesn’t know that. Yet his lone eye glints like metal, like coins, no weak mortal compassion. “I would have no way of being sure it was mine.” And then he tries to cover your mouth as you scream for help. You bite at his fingers; your bare feet kick the wall. Your hair, long and loose and wild, flows around you like a bride’s veil.

Too late, Aemond realizes that the door is still open a crack from when you grabbed the handle. There are footsteps and a voice that crescendos as it approaches: “What on earth is going on in here…?” Fosco appears in the threshold, yellow tweed jacket, tight olive green trousers. He stares thunderstruck down at where you and Aemond are entangled on the floor.

You beg: “Fosco, help me.”

“No, no, no,” Fosco says, jolting from his paralysis and holding a hand out towards Aemond. “No, you cannot do this, whatever has happened, you cannot touch her like—”

“She’s not your wife,” Aemond says. She’s not your property. Fosco hesitates; his large dark eyes shifting between the two of you from behind his glasses.

“Aemond, brother, listen to—”

“Get out.” Aemond’s voice is low, searing, malignant.

“Fosco, please don’t leave me,” you whimper. You try to pry Aemond’s fingers off your robe; they dig in deeper, bruising the flesh underneath. “Don’t leave me, don’t let him hurt me.”

Abruptly, Fosco turns and sprints out of the room.

“No!” you shout after him before Aemond grabs your face, his hand like a claw, fingernails leaving half-moon indents in your cheeks, crushing pressure on your jaw.

“You’re trying to sabotage this campaign.”

“I didn’t see the reporters, I swear to God.”

He knocks the back of your skull against the wall so hard that you see momentary flashes like stars, that all the words vanish from your throat, that words cease to exist at all. “You’re a traitor. Do you know the penalty for treason? The U.S. Army would have you executed by firing squad. Zeus would chain you to a rock so your liver could be carved out.”

“You betrayed me first,” you hiss through clenched teeth, your head pounding hot and maroon.

“I have been working for this since before you were born. You can’t take it away from me. I won’t let you.”

“I did everything right and you still couldn’t love me.” You swing at Aemond and he catches your wounded hand, squeezes it, digs his thumb into the spot where the doctors stitched you closed. The pain is excruciating, incapacitating. You wail as scarlet flowers bloom through the white of your bandaged palm.

Now the door flies open again and Aegon collides with Aemond, sends him sprawling, crouches over you. He’s screaming something at Aemond, gripping your shoulder to keep you under him, his too-long hair hanging in his face, black turtleneck sweater, one of Daeron’s frayed army jackets thrown over it, ripped jeans, bare feet. Aemond grabs his brother by the lapel of his army jacket and draws back his fist. His golden wedding ring flashes in the grey November sunlight that streams in through the windows. Aegon doesn’t flinch. He’s taken knuckles to the face before; you remember cleaning blood off his skin under a streetlight in Biloxi, you remember not wanting to wash him away.

“Don’t you see what it will look like?!” Fosco is saying, trying to coax Aemond to relent. “If he is photographed with a busted face after that story comes out? If she has bruises or a black eye? By harming them you are confirming what your enemies have printed, and the voters will believe it is the truth.”

“They already know it’s true!” Aemond snatches the Wall Street Journal off the table and hurls it at Fosco. Then he paces back and forth through the room, glaring at where you are still crumpled on the floor, sobbing, cradling your bleeding hand to your chest. “It’s right there, three goddamn photographs, and that’s all it will take to bring down a lifetime of work!”

Fosco studies the pictures again, shaking his head, one hand covering his mouth. At last he offers weakly: “It could be worse, Aemond.”

“How could it be worse?!”

Aegon scrambles to Fosco to rip the newspaper out of his hands, then returns to you. He hasn’t seen the front-page story yet. He skims it frantically. “This? This is what you’re losing your mind over? It’s dark, it’s blurry, they can’t even see what’s going on!”

“I have one fucking eye and I can see it!”

“So come up with another explanation, this doesn’t prove anything.”

“If she costs me the election—”

“If you lose, it won’t be because of her!” Aegon roars back. “It will be because the Democrats have held the White House for eight years and the world has gone to hell on our watch, it will be because of Kennedy, and Johnson, and Vietnam and the riots and the hippies and the drugs and the assassinations, it will be because Nixon is promising law and order in a time when nobody is safe, it will be because you just weren’t good enough. But she has given more to your cause than anyone. You hit her and you’ll lose your other eye.”

“They were in conversation,” Fosco says, meaning the photos. The four of you know that’s not true; it is a lie for the rest of the world, it is hope for Aemond’s campaign. “On the beach. They were whispering, comforting each other. Because of Mimi. That is all.”

Aemond scoffs, his remaining eye fierce and wrathful as it lands on you again. Aegon grips your shoulder, still crouching over you, still shielding you. “You bitch. I should have left you at that party in Manhattan to be the dope-smoking whore you were when I found you.”

“I shouldn’t have helped save your life in Palm Beach.”

And Aemond blinks at you, not hurt but bewildered, like he doesn’t understand your words, like what you said is impossible. He doesn’t believe you saved him. He believes it was God’s will.

Otto storms into the hotel room and takes in the scene: you and Aegon on the floor, Aemond pacing furiously, Fosco attempting to mediate. “Nobody says anything,” Otto commands, deep booming voice, black suit like he’s going to a funeral. “The Wall Street Journal hates Aemond. Everyone knows that, they’re probably the only national publication that would run the story. Our newspapers are already pushing the counternarrative, that this was a shameful, deceitful, desperate attempt to discredit Aemond right before the election. Our supporters will insist upon an innocent explanation. Nixon’s will use the photos as evidence of our degeneracy, our amorality, us immigrants with our strange faith and our progressive politics. Everyone else in the country will be warring over this headline. We will say nothing. We will conduct business as usual. The best thing we can do now is go out there and keep our schedule as planned.” He looks meaningfully at Aemond. “And your wife must be at your side. Smiling, unscathed, devoted.”

“I lost my composure,” Aemond says to you, more collected now, businesslike. He is smoothing any wrinkles out of his suit jacket. “I was wrong to put my hands on you. I apologize for that. It was beneath me.”

You reply: “Very little is beneath you, I’ve learned.”

“You have been.” A trace of a grin, crooked and cruel. “Plenty of times. And you will be again.”

Aegon is watching is brother, seething but terrified, sheltering you with power that is only illusory, never real. It is a mirage that Aemond or Otto could punch through at any moment. It is glass that would shatter into crystalline dust.

“If I win, you will beg on your knees for forgiveness,” Aemond tells you. “You will beg in private, you will be perfection in public, and I will magnanimously overlook this indiscretion in which you were taken advantage of by my notoriously dissolute brother. There was no affair. There was a fleeting moment of weakness on your part and depravity on Aegon’s. We will put it in the past. I will be the president of the United States and you will be my first lady. You will spend every second of your existence in service of my career, my country, and my legacy. You will give me children. You will obey me entirely. And you and Aegon will never be in a room alone together for the rest of your lives.”

“You can’t keep me away from her,” Aegon says.

“I just did. I make the rules here, I am the heir to this empire. If you wanted that responsibility, you should have seized it. You squandered it, you cursed it. It’s mine now.”

A whisper: “Aemond, it’ll kill me.”

“Then have the dignity to die quietly. It will be the most useful thing you’ve ever done.”

“Aegon must be seen in public too,” Fosco says, trying to sound like he isn’t defending him. “If you appear to be punishing or excluding him, it will be used as evidence of his guilt.”

Aemond nods, then turns to his brother. “As soon as the election is called, whichever way it goes, I want you gone. I don’t care where you go. I don’t care what happens to you once you’re there. You will disappear. We will say it was your choice, and if you comply you can keep your children and receive a modest amount of severance pay to get you started. And as long as you abide by my terms, my wife will not be harmed.”

Aegon doesn’t reply. His large Atlantic-blue eyes glisten, his lips tremble, his hand is still on your shoulder. You think through the throbbing pain of your bleeding palm: Is this the last time he’ll ever touch me?

Otto grabs Aegon, wrenches him away from you, drags him yowling and clawing at the carpet through the doorway.

~~~~~~~~~~

Your hand is freshly bandaged, pristine white gauze that people in the crowd jostle to touch like the relic of a saint, to pray over, to kiss. Men tell you how brave you are to bear the pain without weeping. Women give you komboskini, stained not with their husband’s blood but with only the clean, colorless ether of hope, faith, reverence, love.

Fosco and Helaena have been dispatched to accompany the children on a tour of the Franklin Institute, one of the oldest centers of science education in the nation. Aemond is giving a speech in front of the Liberty Bell at Independence Hall. You and the others are arranged around him like a starving crescent moon. You are standing immediately on Aemond’s left side, Aegon placed at his right. He looks drunk, he looks drugged; you aren’t sure if anyone else can tell, but you can. His cheeks are flushed. His eyes are pools of murky, desolate indigo like the night sky between stars. A few attendees give the two of you curious glances, but no mention is made of the accusations in the Wall Street Journal. You get the sense that if someone took it upon themselves to ask a question on the subject, they would be jeered, reviled, banished like President Johnson, who is currently besieged in the White House by the ghosts of Vietnam.

When you look to Aemond, you see his scar, his prosthetic eye, fierce and stoic determination in the lines of his face. He is quoting the inscription on the bell: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof…” The bronze metal has a crack in it like one of Zeus’s lightning bolts. The smile on your face is frozen, demure, humble. Aegon’s eyes accidentally catch on yours—a childlike vulnerability, a deep raw woundedness—and then swiftly dart away.

“America is the Land of Opportunity, but some have forgotten that,” Aemond says into the microphone, and vengeance creeps into his voice like a spider up a wall. “Unfortunately, for as long as new communities have arrived at our shores, vile and prejudiced lies have been used to demonize them. Greek immigrants have been crossing the Atlantic for over a century. In 1909, rioters violently expelled them from Omaha, Nebraska. In 1922, an anti-Greek initiative was launched by the Ku Klux Klan. In 1924, Congress drastically restricted my people’s entry in favor of migrants from Northwestern European nations like Britain and Germany. Greeks have been condemned as unintelligent, immoral, and unworthy of the glorious opportunities of this country. We have been barred from jobs and universities, we have been used as cannon fodder in the World Wars. Discrimination against any group is antithetical to the American Dream. I have given an eye for this nation, my wife has bled for it, my brother has—even in the midst of personal tragedy—uprooted his life and the lives of his children to fight alongside me for a better America, and I will not stand by silently as the Targaryen name is tarnished by bigoted falsehoods…”

Now you can no longer hear him over the thunder of the applause, and you remember all the other faces in all those other cities, their eyes illuminated as if by fire, as if by the sun. You imagine devotees of the Greek gods bowing low in temples of white marble and flickering torches, bringing offerings of gold and livestock, grain and blood, murmuring prayers, bargaining for miracles. Did the gods hear them? Do the gods love anyone but themselves?

Alicent and Criston are watching you and Aegon with the same eyes: large, dark, shimmering, a curious combination of horror and profound sympathy. You can feel yourself becoming a ghost, a legend, a myth. One day people will read about you in textbooks and academic journals, in plaques erected at Aemond’s alma mater, Columbia University, and your own, Manhattanville College; and they will know only the fabled version of you. Who you really were will fade into nothingness like Echo, like Icarus into the waves, like Eurydice when her lover Orpheus dared to glimpse back at her.

That night in your penthouse suite at the Ritz-Carlton, you get out of the bathtub—dewy with steam, donning your pink robe—and then go to your side of the king-sized bed and slide open the top drawer of the nightstand. The card Aegon gave you at Mount Sinai isn’t there. Your heartbeat quickens; your stomach lurches.

“What…?”

You get down on your knees to reach into the back of the drawer, to see if the card has snagged somewhere. You hear footsteps and whirl to see Aemond standing in the doorway between the bedroom and the living room. He is holding the card. The cartoon cow beams jubilantly at you. You recall what Aegon wrote inside after crossing out the manufacturer’s message: I thought this was blank…congrats on the new calf! As your eyes widen, Aemond rips the card down the middle.

“Don’t!” you scream, rushing for him. “Please don’t, it’s all I have from—!”

Aemond shoves you back and then, with a grin more like a wolf baring its teeth, tears through the remnants again and again until the card is nothing but shreds. He opens the sliding glass door that leads out onto the balcony and throws them into the cold night wind, where they scatter in a flurry like snowflakes, like bones turned to splinters by cluster bombs in the swamps of Vietnam.

The paper fragments spiral down thirty stories towards the zooming headlights on South Broad Street, and you think about following them. Then Aemond pulls you into his arms as frigid air blows through you and whispers: “You don’t need Aegon anymore. You just need me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Monday, November 4th, and you are walking alongside Ludwika on Broadway in Astoria, Queens, the part of New York City known as Greektown. She chats about the modelling jobs she did here before meeting Otto, her Louis Vuitton stilettos clicking on the sidewalk, her Camel cigarettes smudged with red Yardley lipstick. It is an act of kindness; she is trying to distract you. A few yards away, Fosco is telling Aegon about how he just won $500 by betting on the NASCAR Peach State 200, held at Jefco Speedway in Georgia. Aegon nods along, preoccupied, miserable. He has dark shadows around his eyes and is smoking one of his Lucky Strikes. He is wearing a green knit cap, windblown curls of his blonde hair escaping from underneath. You’re not supposed to stare at Aegon, but sometimes you can’t help it. You miss him. You’re worried about him.

The Targaryens have suites reserved at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, where the family will stay through Election Day to witness the results as they are tallied on the evening news. The children are there now, enjoying pizza from Little Italy with Helaena and the nannies. But you and the other adults are being photographed by flocks of journalists as you head for lunch at one of the oldest Greek diners in the United States, paying homage to Aemond’s ancestry. The candidate himself is locked in a fraught conversation with Otto and Criston: polls gaining here, polls slipping there, Nixon inching further ahead in Florida, the state you were supposed to help Aemond win.

“What should I order?” Ludwika asks you. “Not spinach pie, oh, horrible, worse than Hitler. Something else. Why can’t we go to a Polish restaurant for once? I will take you sometime. You will see. You will try a pierogi and never look back. We invented bagels, you know.”

“Beagles?” Fosco says. “What an accomplishment! They are so cute!”

“Bagels, stupido.”

“Do not bully me. I am suffering too. I should be back at the hotel eating a prosciutto pizza.”

As you pass an electronics shop with stacks of televisions in the windows, all turned to NBC news, the journalists begin to gasp and chatter excitedly amongst themselves. The flashbulbs strobe madly, shutters clicking and reporters shouting for Aemond to give them a comment. The youngest Targaryen brother has appeared on the screens, bruised and gaunt and missing teeth. He looks twenty years older than he is. His once-golden hair is turning white.

Otto sputters: “What…what the hell is that?!”

“Oh my God, Daeron!” Alicent howls, and then bursts into the shop so she can hear what her lost son is saying. The rest of you hurry after her, locking the front door behind you so the journalists can’t follow. Through the windows, they take photographs until Fosco and Ludwika lower the blinds.

Inside the maze of electronics, three adolescent employees gawk at the presidential candidate and his retinue. “Out,” Otto instructs them, and then, when they are too stunned to immediately vacate the premises: “I said, get out!” The teenagers scurry into the backroom and slam the door.

“Daeron,” Alicent moans in front of a Zenith color television. Tears flow torrentially from her huge, horrified eyes. Criston holds her, arms circling, his cheek pressed to hers, and you are reminded of how Aegon touched you in your hotel room in Houston, in his basement at Asteria, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

Daeron is saying: “The United States has committed war crimes in Vietnam. I am ashamed of the actions my country has taken here. We have burned children with napalm, executed innocent civilians, and interfered in matters that we have no legitimate jurisdiction over…”

“He is reading from a script,” Fosco says. “You can see his eyes following the words.”

“Shh,” Otto snaps.

Daeron continues: “The only honorable course of action now is to immediately withdrawal all American soldiers from Vietnam…”

“I think this will help us, actually,” Otto says. “People will know he’s being forced to make propaganda for the communists, and they will have sympathy for him and the family. They’ll want to rescue him and all the other servicemen too. He’s obviously…under duress.”

Aegon drops to his knees and puts his palm against the screen over Daeron’s face, just like the shadows of your fingers once fell over Ari as he fought for his life in an incubator in Mount Sinai Hospital. “Do you see what they’re doing to him?” He turns to Aemond with tears in his eyes. “What you did to him? You left him there, you abandoned him, and now he’s being tortured.”

Alicent looks to Aemond, puzzled, petrified. “You tried to get him out, didn’t you?” Aemond doesn’t answer. Otto averts his gaze, counting the tiles on the floor.

“Dear lord,” Ludwika mutters, lighting a fresh Camel cigarette and puffing on it anxiously.

“Was it worth it?” Aegon demands. “Selling your soul?”

Aemond is steely, resolved. “It’s almost over.”

“You were all right.” Aegon stands, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his green-striped sweater. “I don’t have what it takes to win the presidency. I couldn’t do something like this. Me, the perennial fuckup. Me, the godless degenerate.”

“Aegon,” Alicent whispers. “Please…please don’t…”

He turns to his mother, insurmountably sad. “Mom, I tried to stop him.” Alicent sobs and covers her face with both hands as Criston embraces her. She can’t even look at Aemond. She can’t believe what he’s become. Her long coppery hair flows like blood.

You reach for Aegon, your fingertips brushing his ruddy cheek, and immediately he folds into you, burying his face in the curve of your neck, breathing in your warmth as you inhale his smoke and rum and pain and terror. “Daeron will be home soon,” you say, not knowing if it’s true. Your bandaged hand aches; your throat burns.

“I should have gone instead. It should have been me.”

“No, Aegon. Your children need you, I need you. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

Then Aemond yanks you away, his grip on your wrist like an anchor, like chains.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Dad, play us something,” Orion says; and it is the first time you can remember him calling Aegon that. Aegon smiles. He’s sitting on one of the couches in the penthouse suite you share with Aemond, the Gibson guitar he bought back in July lying across his lap as he strums it absentmindedly. The television is on and turned to CBS News. It’s just before midnight on Tuesday, November 5th, Election Day. The children are thrilled. It’s the one night they’re allowed to stay up as late as they’re physically able to. This allowance is not purely altruistic; Aemond wants them awake and ready for photographs as soon as the winner is announced.

“What should I play?”

“Frank Sinatra,” Fosco says. He is beside Aegon on the couch, smoking a cigar and flipping through the Sports section of the New York Times, which he’s not really reading.

“Marvin Gaye,” Ludwika suggests. They are both on your side of the room. Aemond, Otto, Sargent Shriver, and a number of campaign staffers are huddled around the television, transfixed by the ever-updating vote totals. Alicent and Criston are between your factions, murmuring back and forth to each other, flutes of golden champagne in their hands. Helaena is on the floor entertaining Violeta, Daphne, and Neaera with Crayolas and coloring books full of scenes from gardens. You recall how eerily calm Helaena had been the night Aemond was shot in Palm Beach, like she somehow already knew he’d survive. Now she is nervous, looking fretfully around the room, wringing her hands, filling outlines of butterflies with ten different shades of blue.

“The Beatles,” Orion tells Aegon, casting Fosco and Ludwika a judgmental teenage glance.

“Any particular song?”

“You can pick.”

Aegon sips at his rum, ice cubes clinking in the glass. He looks over to the coffee table, where you are embroiled in a game of Battleship with Cosmo. He’s getting better; he’s genuinely sunk your destroyer and submarine so far. Then Aegon’s eyes drop to his guitar strings and he plucks the opening notes of In My Life. His voice is soft and low, almost secretive.

“There are places I’ll remember

All my life, though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain…”

Cosmo turns to watch his father. Orion, Spiro, Thaddeus, and Evangelos are gathered around Aegon’s feet, gazing up at him with admiration, with love.

“All these places had their moments

With lovers and friends, I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life, I’ve loved them all...”

Cheers erupt over by the television; Aemond has just won Michigan. But then tense, indistinct deliberations follow. Florida is still too close to call, a bad omen. You wonder where Alys is as she watches the results come in. There must be some part of her—however small, however smothered—that fears Aemond will win. If he captures the presidency, she could be separated from the man she loves for the better part of a decade. You drink your Pink Squirrel, wishing it was stronger. You think of sea sponge divers down in the depths and imagine what that first gulp of air tastes like when they resurface, when they shed their rubber suits and brass helmets and step back into sunlight, warmth, freedom like Persephone returning from the Underworld each spring.

“But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you

And these memories lose their meaning

When I think of love as something new…”

You wear a sapphire-colored gown that Aemond chose for you, strings of silver around your wrist and throat, diamond teardrops hanging from your ears. Your hair is up, your fingernails painted a tasteful opalescent shade, the aching of your bandaged hand dulled by booze and Vicodin.

“Though I know I’ll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I’ll often stop and think about them

In my life, I love you more.”

More triumphant shouts and applause across the room by the television: Aemond has won Washington state. From his own suite at the St. Regis Hotel a few blocks south on 5th Avenue, Nixon’s people must be celebrating that he just secured Ohio’s 26 electoral votes. He needs 270 to be the next president of the United States.

Florida, you think. If Nixon can take Florida, I think he’ll win the whole thing.

As Aemond and Otto are distracted, as Fosco and Ludwika watch with pitying, knowing eyes, Aegon sets his guitar aside and walks by you with his rum in hand, taps your shoulder, disappears onto the balcony. You wait a few minutes—Cosmo wins Battleship and goes to color on the floor with Helaena—and then follow Aegon.

Outside the night sky is moonless, starless, thick with clouds. Rain is beginning to fall, soft hushed pattering. Far below taxis and limousines are still rushing and blowing their horns on West 59th Street. You can see the vast forested shadow of Central Park and streetlights like constellations. In apartments and office buildings, windows are illuminated as Americans sit numbing their fears with beer, wine, shots of liquor, smoldering hand-rolled joints.

Aegon is cross-legged at the ledge, one hand on the iron bars of the railing, staring out at the nightscape of Manhattan. His hair lashes in the cold November wind. His nose is pink, his eyes wet and faraway. He passes his Lucky Strike cigarette to you as you join him and says: “I don’t think Aemond can win without Florida.”

“No,” you agree, taking a drag.

Aegon snatches a rattling orange bottle from the pocket of his olive green army jacket, pops it open, and swallows three pills with a swig of straight rum, dark amber poison.

“Don’t do that,” you say, you plead.

“I need it, babe.”

“I want you to still be alive in ten years.”

Aegon smiles and reaches over to pat your cheek twice. “I think that ship might have sailed, little Io.” Can decades of self-destruction be undone, uninflicted, nullified like Heracles becoming immortal? Can the Underworld be escaped? “Come with me. No matter what happens tonight.”

“Aegon, I can’t.”

“I’m in love with you.”

“If I leave, he’ll hurt you. He’ll hurt me worse.”

“It’s not fair,” Aegon says, his voice breaking.

“Nothing is.”

There is an uproar inside the hotel room, screams that could be horror or triumph, realized dreams, breaking bones, bullets through flesh. You and Aegon are on your feet, hauling the balcony door open, stepping through the threshold into the rest of your lives.

Glasses are being toasted until champagne rains down onto the carpet. The telephone is ringing so Nixon can concede. On CBS News, Walter Cronkite is reporting that Aemond has won Florida and thereby accumulated 270 electoral votes. The blue text on the screen reads: Senator Targaryen will be the 37th president of the United States.