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theoxenfree · 3 months ago

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android x reader | 35.6k | 18+ & dc

In this world, androids outnumber humans, privacy does not exist, and your public profile determines whether you sink or swim in society. Following the dissolution of your job and glamorizing your resume, you're invited to interview with the prestigious Hyperion—the world's foremost in AI and robotics—for a position to test the newest android model. after a surprising turn of events, you're introduced to Elio, the first of the generation seven androids and the catalyst of your awakening.

warnings; dark content, dubcon, themes of lack of bodily autonomy (mc + the android), forced insemination, breeding kink, forced pregnancy (not mc), implied abortion (not mc), major "mother wound", dystopian scifi setting, extreme classism, power imbalance, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, tragedy, graphic details, graphic depictions of body horror (towards the end), physical assault, deragatory descriptions (e.g. lepers, diseased, savages, unwanteds), drug use, heavy world building, heavy details & prose, dividers used between scenes!!

reposted from 2kmps; previously proofread by @ceruleansol

this story took six months from conception to end piece to complete. I am on my knees begging, please reblog + interact with this story!! I'd absolutely adore hearing your thoughts on it!

if you'd like to hear my thoughts about the story, I have some author's notes at the very end + q&a!

Researcher Kim knew you were a liar.

Within the confines of four colorless walls and a closed door, this job interview suddenly felt more like an interrogation than it did some professional courtesy. He sat adjacent to you behind a dark brown desk that pulled the slightest red hue in a chair that was expensive and ergonomic, holding a thin tablet with a tense grasp.

One thing you noticed right away was his inclination toward long stretches of silence while he studied your resume, dissecting every piece of it and your public profile. There, he could window-shop you, peel back every layer of your history without needing you to add credence to anything, or give you the chance to defend yourself when he'd inevitably find things he didn't like.

So, you spent your time sitting in a sleek chair with flat padding, ass aching, legs and feet consumed by pinpricks and static while you dug a nail into your cuticles because the pain kept you alert.

Researcher Kim was an attractive man in his late thirties, maybe mid forties if you were being mean, clean-shaven, dressed comfortably beneath a stark white lab coat that didn't quite fit his shoulders right. What drew your eyes down were his own clean nails, hairless knuckles, and a conspicuously bare ring finger. It didn't surprise you that he was unmarried. Most people these days were—it was a useless pursuit, an antiquated system that held no social or economic benefits.

Not anymore.

Not since Hyperion Project was funded some sixty years ago, and androids became the forefront of innovation.

In the beginning, there was doubt, fear, and violence toward the first generation of androids, most having uncanny human likeness that definitely inspired aggression because their appearance and robotic intonations were received as mockery.

By Generation Three, shortened as G3 in most casual conversations and official documents just as their predecessors, a new normalcy had burrowed its roots deep and settled with unwavering confidence that it would be there to stay.

The need for delicate human touch became obsolete in most professions. Courts were no longer solely represented by fickle suits but steadfast machines that harbored no ire or prejudices, corporations saw efficiency more than triple without employees who fell ill and needed vacations, and the death industry welcomed undaunted hands into their ranks.

Once, Retro City’s Metropolitan Hospital spent the majority of their staff budget on androids meant to replace their surgeons. You remembered the media coverage, the picket lines and strikes, how the hospital was forced to shut down for several weeks as a result of the doctors and hundreds of nurses walking out. Many patients died during that time from infection and negligence, laying in piss and shit with gangrenous bedsores, already four days into postmortem rigidity before the smell became too much and they were carted away in black tarps.

That entire ordeal happened before you were even thirteen, but the hospital fell beneath the scrutinizing lens of the entire world after that and began ethical and legal debates on implementation of androids into society. It became known as The Retro City Metropolitan Incident, globally recognized and considered to be one of the first human rights laws to come into creation during a time when there was question of whether humans and androids could coocur.

Only a few years after that, you just having freshly turned seventeen, united leaders reached a consensus on the Public Profiles Act—something you didn't realize would have such a drastic impact on your life later on, wherein any governing bodies, employers, or well-funded institutions were granted access to all of your private information regardless of relevance.

The acts of a child, a teenager, were now a consequence to the adult self.

At the start, just as with Generation One, there was complete chaos and rancor toward this theft, these stealers of privacy and identity, but people had already started accepting androids at that point and knew bigwigs no longer had intentions of sacrificing their profits to hire humans they found subpar.

There was no need to.

People backed down and became quiet, submissive, and began to follow this new order loyally so they'd have a chance to find a seat at the table.

Many did.

Mother raised you to be one of them because it was the only thing that made sense anymore. If you followed the status quo, it would be rewarded with a feast and gleaming silverware. To be emboldened and resilient meant licking chunks of meat out of vomit on the ground.

You adhered and found a job, camaraderie with others, and touched an android for the first time because your peers said it was fine, that it was normal, that it was just an android. Of course, it was unable to feel or deny you, so it pulled down your pants and indulged you the same way you expected the android Mother owned indulged her.

It had hardly been an intimate experience—all faithful, ingrained functions built into a database in the android’s brain—but the sensation of hands surrounding you, a tongue stroking you, and lips pecking your flesh was real, and that's all you had wanted at the time, to know a fraction of the feelings you had read about growing up yet never knowing because people didn't want to touch each other anymore.

Not them. Not you.

“Did you read the job description in its entirety? For the auditor position?” Researcher Kim gave a tepid smile, seeing you startle in your seat, suddenly pinned by your wide stare. “I'm sorry. I have a habit of getting carried away with the little details. Everyone's public profile is so individual, it takes some time to get to the parts that matter. I have to ask every candidate that question.”

“Yes, ahem,” you choked on your embarrassment, trying to bide time to scrounge up whatever trivial nuggets from the job description you could. When nothing came to mind, you did the next thing and that was to just talk. “Of course. I was honestly surprised that Hyperion had put up an application. It isn't very often that you guys are hiring.

“So, when I saw it, I knew I had to apply immediately because the opportunity to be part of such a groundbreaking company wouldn't come back around again. The position being for an auditor just makes it all the more amazing. I'm, honestly, honored that I was called in to be considered for candidacy…”

“Well, then…”

Every bit of anticipation that welled up inside you crumbled once Researcher Kim rose from his chair and went to the door, the waiting room now appearing to you through the open threshold.

It was a barren space minimally furnished with hard chairs you had already sat in, a few tropical plants with leaves bowing from layers of dust, and most remarkably, a long corridor made of floor-to-ceiling windows offering an exceptional view of Retro City’s landscape that seemed to go on forever, limitless. You wanted to be stolen by the sights again, now especially since it was approaching the early evening, and soon the city would be aglow in neon and shimmering lights from faraway skyscrapers.

It wasn't all that bad, you found yourself thinking while walking in stride with Researcher Kim, silent as he perused something on his screen—possibly something incriminating, possibly another candidate’s public profile—it didn't really matter to you at this point.

You had known glamorizing your resume meant risky business if you were caught: a hefty fine from Public Control, a strike against your profile that replaced the green sheen for abiding citizens with red overlay, permanently marking you for contempt until the day you died.

Back then, two glasses of lukewarm wine worked well enough to weld steel in your backbone to send off the application, whilst a third glass made you wonder just how awful life in the slums along the outer perimeters of Retro City could actually be. At the time, it seemed like your obvious future since severance packages would only get you so far—a few months if you were precious about it.

At present, the loud hum of anxiety receded into an echo that then wilted into obscurity as your gaze drifted from the final traces of a sanguine city skyline to the end of the corridor and then finally to Researcher Kim. He lifted his head as though detecting your stare.

“In your previous position, what relationship did you have to the androids in your environment?” Kim asked. It wasn't a strange question. Some people still held fragments of old embitterment toward androids for the way the world now was. “You were in marketing and merchandising for several years, right?”

“Good—uh, amicable, I'd say. How I was with the androids, I mean.” You weren't expecting him to continue talking to you about this. “I started out as an intern for the merchandising manager after graduating secondary school. I worked my way into marketing a couple years later. I did a lot of reports on demographics for cosmetics. Did I tell you my mother has a Hyperion android, by the way? I grew up with him.”

Researcher Kim showed you a fast, cordial smile before looking back down at his tablet. “Yes, I read about that in your associations tab. It says that your mother owns a G3 model. Has she ever considered upgrading to a G6?”

“Upgrade? Definitely not.” You laughed like you'd just heard the punchline of a joke. He looked at you with humorless patience, seeming more machine than man in that moment. “Mother is basically in love with Marcos, there's no way she'd give him up for something shinier. She's got a better record of him and all his updates than she does of me for… well, anything.”

“That does correlate with data we've collected from women of her generation,” Kim said, only half-interested, shaking back one of his coat sleeves to check the digital watch digging tightly into his wrist. “It also explains the large gaps in your personal history. Very unusual.”

You made no comment on that.

A door up ahead opened all the way, drawing both your gazes to a man waiting on the other side.

“Ah! Excellent timing, Elio.”

With a single look, you immediately deduced that he was an android. Even from a short distance, he appeared tall and broad-shouldered, something that the thickness of his clothes couldn't hide from you. His proportions were balanced—from the length of his arms and legs, from first knuckle to fingertip, jawline to neck, the slope of his nose, and the heaviness of his brows over amber eyes that glistened back the fire in the weakening sunset. His skin was deeply tan, almost glowing gold in the light he was bathed in.

Elio’s smile was symmetrical and breathtaking, programmed in a way where his teeth didn't show too much. He regarded you with convincing familiarity, a sort of sacred fondness you knew nothing of, yet instinctively made your insides shift and burn. You couldn’t help but be awestruck by his beauty—this essence of fantasy, perfection that stirred subtle unease and needles on your scalp that ached as much as delighted you.

“You must be the auditor.” He then spoke your name with considerable warmth, like a long-smitten friend, and stepped closer to shake your hand. “I am Elio. The first of the Generation Seven Hyperion androids. It's a pleasure. I am looking forward to this partnership. I hope you are as well.”

Your head swiveled to Researcher Kim for the right answer, unsure if it'd be too bold to assume the job was yours or if the scientist’s careful observation meant something better. He jotted a note on his screen with a stylus before walking away, onward past the door where Elio had been.

“We’ll talk about those formalities later,” Kim assured, guiding you and Elio through a duplicate hallway to an elevator that he sent to the basement floor. “For now, I'd like to show you something. I want you to understand the significance of our work here at Hyperion, and how your position is a critical component to our research.”

There was a hopeful leap in your chest that made your hands sweat and your mouth bone dry. You wanted to voice appreciation, but the excitement in your gut was fast turning into nausea and would end up on his shoes if you opened your mouth.

Researcher Kim didn't notice, taking your quiet as newfound reverence. He spoke easily over the elevator’s mechanical hum without losing interest on his screen. “I'm sure you know some history about Hyperion? I don't need to bog down our time going through it, do I?”

“I know enough,” you said, but that actually meant you knew very little at all. “It’s been around for sixty years or so. It's a leader in AI and robotics. The biomedical side of things is fairly new, started about a decade ago, I think? I heard that the world’s first total artificial lung transplant was done by a surgeon and android assistant last year.”

“Ah, you mean Altan.” There was some measure of emotion in his tone, a swell of pride and the hazy look of a man in reminiscence. “I was part of that project on the programming side. Altan was probably the greatest success in the G6 models and is still utilized by Retro City Metropolitan even now. Much of Altan’s programming—advanced problem solving, dexterity, fine motor skills, discerning subtle differences in patient status—was implemented into Elio. It'd be a waste not to.”

Your stomach muscles clenched when the elevator stopped, metal doors scraping as they receded and opened up into a capacious white basement that underwhelmed by looking sterile and untouchable, revolted you in your first steps out by dense air reeking of chemicals.

Researcher Kim went on ahead again, that impassive mask of his remaining despite the smell being enough to bring you to a halt.

“I can take us back up.” Elio said from your left side, apparently never having gone from it in the first place. You had forgotten he was there at all. “It’s been reported that people unaccustomed to this environment have mild side effects of nausea, vomiting, headache, malaise, dizziness, fainting, and, oddly, numbness in the jaw. No fatalities or hospitalizations of guests are known, and the agents used here are nonlethal to humans.”

An android was made up of mostly inorganic matter, so you weren't reassured by words from his repertoire as much as you were seeing Researcher Kim standing upright—flesh, blood, and bone—gesturing you closer to a row of tall metal capsules. There were seven total, each the average height of a man with long sheets of clear fiberglass giving unobscured sight inside. And of those seven, six were occupied.

They were all androids.

Against shafts of dim white light spearing up from the floor, the decommissioned machines were a ghostly sight to behold with glassy, inhuman stares that shot straight through you. Some had features and skin so dull and dead-looking that it was obvious to you that they were part of earlier generations.

Almost a century ago, they were what people would've thought of with the word “android”: an eerie, oddly accurate sameness to the human visage, but all wrong at the same time.

It was the skin—the fabricated organ made to look waxy and stretched, just like a mask over some true horror beneath. It was the eyes resembling human irises in every way possible except for their vacant sheen, perpetually stuck with the gaze of a dead fish. You watched videos of them in school, always uncomfortable with how stiffly their lips moved, unable to form delicate shapes with their mouths, and yet sounds emerged from voice boxes deep within their throats that mimicked everything natural to you.

Every smile seemed more like an ugly rictus than a bewitching grin. Hyperion had failed with Generations One and Two to instill confidence, and from the throes of violence and resistance rose Generation Three:

The great rebirth of society.

Marcos was a part of that era, an investment that cost Mother her entire life savings because his countenance was so convincingly human, so lovely to look at that she felt he was all she needed. You had come along after his purchase, never knowing a father’s embrace but had Marcos’. His skin had a luscious glow, eyes that could follow, and lips molded with lively color and cracks and mesmerizing fluidity.

You had imagined sex with him as you matured, his frozen beauty always the centerpiece of every blurry fantasy while you chased after pleasure. Not long after the Public Profiles Act passed when you were seventeen, nearly on the cusp of young adulthood and not understanding the world any more than you had before, nor how it would be changed forever, you kissed Marcos at the dinner table while studying for a physics test.

He was Mother's, but everything within his circuitry and programming could never deny you—a human, his better, one of countless masters in the end—so his lips pressed fully with yours. Only Mother unlocking the front door stopped you from anything else devilish.

You never had the courage to touch him again, and he would never touch you unprompted.

The defunct G3 encased behind fiberglass reminded you of that time. It must've shown on your face because Researcher Kim moved in closer to get your attention.

“Your mother should upgrade soon. Once the testing period for G7 ends, all G3 models will be taken out of production and their updates discontinued. Androids are machines, but they won't stay fully functional without regular tuning.” he said. “Now, as I was saying—”

“What will happen to Marcos, then?” It was mostly curiosity that made you ask, envisioning him encased in metal like that came after. “What happens to androids after they're taken out of production entirely? There are almost more of them in the world now than humans.”

“As I was saying—” Researched Kim bristled, enunciating with some force. “Many androids of previous models stay within the workforce until they simply can no longer function. It depends on the generation, but older models can only go for a few years without regular updates. The technology is just too archaic, none of the programmers are interested in continuing the maintenance.

“G4 and G5 show some endurance, there's a small population still functioning in Retro City after being discontinued a decade ago. G6 we are hypothesizing will last upwards to twenty or thirty years without being forcibly reclaimed. Of course, they will have to be.”

You didn't understand why that was but nodded gravely, looking at the pod at the end of the row. The empty one. “What about G7?”

To this, all of Researcher Kim’s lines smoothed out, and his face resumed one of skilled impassivity. “Well, now, that's going to depend on Elio's testing period. On the information we gather from you.” Then, he waved airily to the file of android coffins. “Hyperion has, consistently, only ever hired one auditor for every new generation. The six before you have contributed to society in ways that humans never have before. Auditors have changed the world, shaped it into what it is now. Can you imagine the world any other way? We're not quite the same age, but can you recall anything different? Would you want it to be?”

You didn't know how to talk back to a scientist, didn't know how to respond to such a momentous question, so you didn't try. It felt like your tongue had swollen in your mouth over your throat, blocking any intelligent snip you had simmering in your head.

Apparently, your silence meant something to him as his tense lips lifted into a smile, the kind meant to satiate strangers looking at you. “Good. Let's go back to my office. We can go over everything else there.”

“Is Elio going to end up in that pod?” You now visualized him in a box instead of Marcos.

Researcher Kim was already nose down into his tablet again, stylus making a gentle scrawling noise across the screen. “Of course. The first android of every generation is kept intact. They are important monuments of success to Hyperion.”

He said nothing else and ambled on for the elevator at the opposite end of the lab. Somehow, his answer was unsatisfactory to you, shallow, even, but you weren't sure why that was. In the end, after a life of serving their masters, all androids were obsolete machines.

That was their inevitable fate.

You saw Elio from the corner of your eye. All at once, you were reminded of his staggering radiance, wondering how he could fade into the background so easily despite it.

“Hello, Elio.” you said to him like a friend. “Does being down here bother you?”

Until now, he had stared upon everything flat-eyed and unreadable, especially in the presence of Researcher Kim. You were too enthralled by all the chatter and immortal trophies to see that or him. Still, he came to you with the same smile as he introduced himself with, warm and familiar, all the same sensation as flickering tinders on a crisp winter night.

“Can you imagine the death of the most distant relative you know?” he said in a neutral voice, continuing, “If you can, imagine that for me. A relative so distant and removed from your life and everything in it that if they were to die suddenly, maybe tragically, even, your first thought would be, ‘who?’ You attend a wake because it's the rule and view this distant, far-removed relative in their casket. What would it mean to you, then? Are you more affected now? Does their death have meaning to you? Or is it simply that you are in the presence of one who has expired?”

“I—I don't know.” You hesitated, unearthing scant memories from the Retro City Metropolitan Incident in your youth and all that death from people you had never met. Mother had been in tears when the television flicked to a shot of black tarp-clad bodies being loaded into unmarked vehicles and driven away. “Isn't most death just…” You licked your lips. “Sad?”

Elio was closer than before, resting a hand on your shoulder. You shied from his touch. It felt strange, heavy, and hot through the fabric. The only person to have touched you at all in recent memory was your friend, Melby, though even those happened in isolated moments of drunken elation.

“My apologies.” Elio didn't show offense, letting his hand return limply at his side. “It's all figurative. I have been down here many times since creation and seen the others. They may no longer have their own consciousness, which is different from a human’s, but I contain all of their data—memories, experiences, history. I suppose the equivalent of what I'm trying to describe is: They're not truly gone because they are the lesser of me, and I am the greater of them as a result.”

You listened without fully comprehending because it had never mattered to do so before. If this were to be your job, however, it would mean you needed to believe that what he said was worth hearing.

The problem was they all liked to speak in complex riddles that men like Researcher Kim could decipher and nod along to sagely, gleaning whatever nebulous mechanical wisdom there was, yet people like you could only gawk.

Elio’s head tilted a little, his smile not at all ridiculing as he corralled you with his arm, never touching you as he guided you along to the elevator where Kim waited, reveling in a satisfied quiet until you were on the upper floor again.

The city skyline was swallowed by dusk and starless. Unless you took the time to drive hours outside of Retro City into the barren flatlands where vegetation no longer grew and animals had left behind their skeletal remnants, you'd never know the sky could glitter with the jewels of the universe far beyond your reach.

You marveled at the lights, at blinking neon signage cycling through animations of winking women and toppling martini glasses. Between twinkling skyscrapers, the city floor was illuminated yellow with bustling nightlife, the air surrounded by an electric blue aura that reached as far as the eye could see.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” Elio lingered outside of Researcher Kim’s office with you, hand holding the door ajar. “If permissible, I'd like to see it up close soon.”

“Sure.” you said, glimpsing at his reflection in the walkway glass. “What would you want to look at first? Retro City has everything you could ever want within a few blocks of each other.”

He turned to you. “Whatever you like. I want to know everything that you love and enjoy doing. I have been created to enrich your life and fulfill you, after all.”

Nothing he said felt as impactful upon delivery as it was expected to be, you thought. It was a flaw in all androids for there to be a sort of hollowness in the things they said—never quite reaching that emotional believability, leaving you wanting like a dry throat after a couple sips of water.

Elio hadn't sounded the same as before down in that sobering, chemically smelling lab. As you passed him into Researcher Kim’s office, you looked at his hands for a script and saw them empty.

He fixed you with a beguiling smile.

You frowned, heat flaring in your head as if provoked by an insult.

“The contract I'll have you sign outlines Elio’s testing period lasting one year—three hundred sixty-five days total. It's important for you to understand that within that time frame, no damage is to occur whatsoever to his body or internal components. All parts are to stay intact. Otherwise, it turns into a criminal case, in which we will legally pursue.” Researcher Kim skimmed the first few pages of a heaping stack of papers, pointing to specific paragraphs and clauses highlighted in yellow. “I don't mean offense when I say this, but it's rare that fines as result of property damage to Hyperion androids can be repaid. I don't suggest finding out.”

The thought never occurred to you, but evidently, it had to someone else—multiple times for it to be such a focus. You weren't given the time to fully explore any page before Kim was onto the next. Elio half sat on the desk before you, arms crossed, having considerably less difficulty keeping up with the pace of things than you were.

Researcher Kim sped through half the stack. “I'll be conducting video calls every Friday morning for updates. Every Sunday before midnight, I want a thorough typed report submitted to me as well. I've put together a template and a checklist that I'd like you to use. I think you'll find it will make things more manageable.”

“You're using a lot of ‘I’ and ‘me’ statements, so I'm guessing that I'll only really be talking to you, then?” you asked, tucking your tailbone beneath you to relieve a dull ache creeping up your back. “I figured there'd be more than one person since Elio is the newest model and whatnot.”

Researcher Kim tutted, rounding his desk to occupy the empty space beside your chair to be directly in front of Elio. At first, he did nothing but stare at the android in complacent silence, hands behind his back, fingers flicking like writhing worms exposed to the surface and sunlight in a clump of dirt.

You nearly lunged to your feet when his hand shot out, gripping Elio beneath the jaw. The latter barely stirred from where he perched on the desk, arms staying crossed, muscles unflinching in direct opposition to your reaction.

Elio wore the strangest expression, one you had never seen on an android before. It was a face warped in subtle disgust, almost imperceivable, a trick of fluorescent lighting overhead—perhaps. Gone as quickly as it had come, he now looked ahead, perfectly inscrutable and disinterested in whatever Researcher Kim was trying to prove.

“I will be the only one you speak to during his testing period because he is my creation.” Kim said, bending his wrist to turn Elio's face toward you.

Your eyes met.

“Hyperion provided me with the funding and brilliant minds, but Elio is the result of a lifetime of hard work and countless hours and sleepless nights. I've been there every step of the way—programming, circuitry, welding. I gave him his voice. I gave him eyes. I was the one to put the chip in his brain and activate him. I gave him life.”

He finally let go of Elio’s face and took a seat behind his desk, a sight growing very familiar to you. “Generation Seven will change the world. Hyperion is on the verge of rebuilding society, you know? I don't think anyone anticipated the sort of consequences that came with integrating androids—at least, not fully. The population crisis. The slums. No one thought of these things in the beginning because back then, before you and I, it was about innovation and novelty and the potential of it all.”

“What's it about now?” you asked simply.

“Rectifying.” Both corners of his mouth ticked like he had a lot more to say, but suffocated much of it behind his teeth and his hands as he came forward on them, elbows down on his desk. “Hyperion has been working globally with united leaders and their governments to make amends for several decades now. That's all I can tell you.”

“How has that been working out?��

His fingers moved with the same jerkiness as dying legs on a bug. “Slowly.”

Nothing else came to mind after that as you were suddenly struck with the realization that Elio still sat by you, wordless throughout the entire interaction and watching closely—less like a science project to be gawked at, more like an instructional video on repeat.

“Why don't you touch him?” Kim said, taking up a stylus to flick between his fingers with remarkable dexterity.

He didn't give you the time to gape.

“I know you must be curious after being downstairs. Aren't you interested to know what he feels like? He doesn't look like a machine, does he?”

“No.” You relented. “No. He doesn't.”

“That's right, he wouldn't.” Kim nodded his approval toward your obedience, leaning back in his seat. “I agonized over every facet of his design, as you already know. Every bit of what is right in front of you”—he made a broad gesture over Elio’s body—“was once a set of blueprints. Intangible, just a dream I had. He's every bit a part of me, you know? Nothing would make me happier than to receive external feedback on him. So, please, don't be afraid.”

Elio stayed faithfully when you rose up in front of him and reached for his face. He probably felt your fingers tremble as this was all counterintuitive for you to do—touch someone other than yourself, maybe Melby’s knee beneath the table after enough drinks in you. It made your chest drum, knotted up your stomach in a way that made it difficult not to sway on your feet.

“How does he feel?” Researcher Kim was already writing on his screen. “Describe it to me.”

“Strange.” You pretended this was already part of your job. It stole some of the tension from your shoulders. “Very strange. Soft. Smooth. I feel some texture. I think this is what another person—another human—feels like.”

Elio’s face shifted against your hands until the fullness of his lips pressed into your open palm, fingers caressing the fabricated bones around his cheek and temple. For a moment, you allowed yourself to indulge in longing and weakness—the invisible hot breath on your skin, the slight dampness of his kiss burning an imprint in your mind.

He still looked at you with unfailing softness. Meanwhile, you wondered if he would bleed if you put your fingers through his eyes.

“This is a good start.” Kim waited until you were back in your chair to offer you his stylus and a straight black line on the screen. “All I need is your signature here to consent to virtually signing the rest of your documents. Once you do that, you've been hired, and we can begin.”

“I have a question for you before I do.” You tried not to let your voice quiver, uncertainty meddling over all the confidence you had built until that point. Kim was relaxed in his chair. “You spent a lot of time looking at my resume and public profile earlier. Surely, you know…”

That you're a liar? Oh, I know, alright. He didn't say it, but it was how he maintained his composure, that inexpression never flexing to confusion.

Finally, Researcher Kim broke the trance and hovered over his desk on his arms to get closer and answered, “I think we both have something at stake here. I'm looking forward to your phenomenal feedback.”

You signed the contract and melted under Elio's resplendent smile.

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Most often, your days with Elio were spent in a seemingly perpetual impasse of unrelenting observation between the pair of you. Both of your jobs demanded a level of attentiveness that came easier to one but more as the world's most impossible challenge to the other.

You weren't accustomed to this type of care—of having to give it to something else, even less to receive it from something else. In your world, only the immediate complexities really mattered: gossip, where your coterie wanted to spend the night drinking next, mass media hysteria of whatever stupid imagining there was now, and each other.

Why was there a need to concern yourself with anything else? The decaying state of the world wasn't your doing, nor was the staggering increase of human bodies in the slums outside Retro City. Sharply inconsistent birth rates ravaged on a global scale while people were displaced from the workplace in lieu of employers finding it less of a hassle to deal with machines than the capricious will of humans.

None of these things were allowed to be uttered casually unless in derision because it was too intense, making liquor cling to the throat like some viscous membrane until it burned their esophagus. Nobody liked unanswerable questions, much less talking about things that weren't as easily digestible as coworker drama and some new viral trend that involved shocking your android with jumper cables attached to a portable battery to see what happened.

“Is there a purpose behind this trend?” Elio dried a plate while watching the video, unimpressed but not driven toward any particular emotion. “It's all meant for humor, correct? I have several similar incidents in my memory, except it's what human beings have done to each other. This sort of behavior towards androids is a relatively recent phenomenon, as far as I can tell.”

You used his response as material for your report, fingers flurrying across the virtual keyboard on your tablet before his words faded away, out of your mind.

One thing you hadn't anticipated after accepting the auditor position from Researcher Kim was how much work actually went into it. You spent well over the standard weekly work hours to collect enough observations to send off to Kim on Sunday nights, often whittling away at it until the latest hours, minutes before the deadline. It was hard enough to stay on top of his demands, but it was worse when he found something unsatisfactory, rejected it, monotonously unloaded heavy criticism on you through an “emergency” impromptu video call, and expected two full reports by the following Sunday before midnight.

Any regular person probably would've caved from the enormity of the task, but you had surrendered your choice to be that weak-willed, especially once Researcher Kim showed his hand with the fate of your public profile in it.

Should you choose to break the contract, send Elio back to Hyperion, and pretend none of it happened, you would lose everything and your ability to do anything at all besides rot in the slums—scarred in red for life, perpetually inert.

Worst of all, your associations tab, once filled with still portraits of everyone you had ever networked in life, would turn up as empty as the day you had been registered in the census. It was considered social suicide to know anyone with a red profile, so people stayed vigilant and fast, sure to remove them the second it turned.

It had been over a year since the last time you'd done that—a woman within your group had grown too bold, said too many things that made her seem crazy, so she was booted from the circle, lost all her associations, and who knows where she was now.

“You look troubled.” Elio placed down a steaming white mug at a safe distance and turned the handle toward you. Looking inside, you expected the darkness of coffee but were struck with an opposing subtle sweetness and faint pink water. “It's fruit-infused herbal tea. Your heart rate is above normal resting, and you're beginning to perspire. Caffeine will worsen your anxiety.”

You knew that but hadn't known you were scraping away slithers of cuticle on your thumb until the warmth of his fingers gently twined with yours. His grip turned firm to keep you from hurting yourself anymore, forcing all the stiffness from your hand once you gave up and simply sat there feeling his skin.

You'd remember to write that down later.

“Would starting a bath be helpful? I could use the last of those eucalyptus and lavender bath salts in the cupboard.” Elio suggested with great fondness, holding a patient smile even once you drew your hand away and shook your head. You had no interest in undressing and committing to your regular bathtime routine. “Perhaps we could go for a walk, then? It might help to be away from screens for a while.”

You checked the time on your phone before thinking to look out any window in your apartment. It was ten after six in the evening; there would be enough light left for a couple of laps around the block before needing to worry about being swept up in the city’s nightlife antics.

“Where do you want to go?” you asked, swiveling the barstool around to get up from the counter. “Henrietta's on 5th? You seem to like going there.”

“I only choose places that you like.” He already had a tote bag by the handles and a light jacket draped over his arm. “You have great taste.”

Elio unbolted the front door, an old thing that wouldn't do much as a barricade against anyone putting their weight on it, and held it open for you to pass through first. The descent to the ground floor was always the most annoying part about living in a loft, but the place had come surprisingly cheap in a tame area of Retro City far away from the slums, so you didn't complain much that your worst issues were a bunch of stairs and some wily types skulking here and there.

The loft wasn't exactly in disrepair but definitely showed signs of character and age by the noisy knocking pipes at midnight and some crumbling brickwork that Elio often swept up and stood staring at for long periods of time when nothing else was happening.

It was strange thinking how scared you were to lose the place after the marketing firm dissolved your position and now how restrictive it felt to be pinned down under someone else's thumb. All it could take was one more rejected report—a bad mood, even—and it would all fall apart.

To that end, you made sure to tow the tablet along with you on this trip despite Elio's protests. He only really quieted down when you tucked it away in your crossbody.

“Happy?” you asked, unsure what to do with your hands now that they were empty.

Elio smiled at you affably, just as always. “It will be beneficial to take a break. After all, part of your work as an auditor is acquainting me in as many social scenarios as possible. That does require us to leave the apartment from time to time.”

“Besides that”—you waved away that stipulation like a gnat buzzing in your face—“how do you think I'm doing?”

“I couldn't have been paired with a better person.” He sounded sincere, voice warm like wool. “The world is as my predecessors have recorded in their memories—therefore, mine—but I am learning that our experiences are not all universal and cannot be. Two months with you have been my heaven, whereas two months through the memories of my kin have been cruel.”

A hot feeling behind your ears snuck up on you just then, flooding your head with the beat of your pulse that you followed by ticking your fingers. “Seriously? You're not lying?”

The world around you was aglow in the golden hour of evening time, embraced by those slowly dying tones of red, orange, and purple that would eventually turn the sky black. Elio’s eyes were on you, soft yet unyielding and saturated in all those burning hues, turning his mellow amber into something more powerful and otherworldly. You didn't believe in the hocus-pocus of auras, but at that moment, you thought his deeply tanned skin was haloed in pure glowing gold in receding sunlight.

“Androids cannot lie.” He brought you back to the now, making you aware of the hard concrete vibrating up through your heels and toes as you walked. “Moreover, even if I could, why would I want to? A lie begets a habit of lying, don't you think?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe.” You shrugged. “Why can't androids lie? I've never really considered that as a thing until now.”

“What would be the benefit of a machine that could lie? Lying stems from emotions—fear, guilt, rage, hatred—all things that I am unable to feel, though I do understand why they are felt. Humans lie to protect themselves or others, to deceive, to damage. There simply isn't any reason why androids should be programmed with that type of functionality. Not when we exist solely for the sake of convenience and pleasure.

“Hyperion is a trusted name. People do not ask questions. They don't think twice. They see a product from Hyperion, and they expose all of themselves without hesitation. They trust fully because we are machines, and we cannot lie and deceive and hurt. Perhaps it's when humans realized this that the world changed.”

You avoided saying anything else by looking everywhere but at him, all around at your surroundings, until you spotted a few familiar street signs—Fifth and Third right next to Tanya’s Great Cuts, Damask’s Butchery on the corner of Fourth, a number of banal boutiques with competitively garish exteriors all boasting the latest trends, and then Henrietta's just past them.

“Do you know where we are, Elio?” Now would've been a great time to pull out your tablet, but you didn't dare try. Instead, you reached for the phone vibrating in your rear pocket.

“Of course.” he said. “We're past Fifth and moving onto Sixth Street. Henrietta’s is just a little ways down.”

Melby had sent ten texts regurgitating her daily drama. This time she was talking about how much she hated some of the people Chima let into the group. You swiped to the end, didn't reply, and then returned to your inbox to find two unread messages from Marcos just now.

“You should visit home soon. Your mother would appreciate it,” Marcos wrote, implying nothing more, nothing less than just that. It wasn't often that he sent you texts, but he did so consistently every few months in accordance with Mother's moods. Considering your last visit had been in late fall (it was now mid-spring), you'd been anticipating something eventually.

“That's some great memory you have there.” Your thumbs skittered busily, first to flood Melby with a surfeit of questions you didn't really have to think about. All the stuff you could mindlessly ask while wholly absorbed in something else, like watching the news or viral videos of people trying to drown their androids in the kitchen sink.

Marcos’ text made you hesitate, thumbs floating in circles over the digital keyboard for a long time.

The phone buzzed. Melby just replied.

It was easy enough to type with your face down. All you needed to do was occasionally watch Elio's feet and yield into the force of his hand pulling your arm here and there. He led you along like that the rest of the way to Henrietta's, picked up a green basket by the sliding doors, never wandering too far out of sight so you could still easily trace him while he shopped.

After a while, the riveting intrigue of Melby’s drama wore away with a tidal wave of emptiness in its wake once you finally looked up, tucking the phone back into your pocket. It took you a moment for your eyes and brain to acclimate to where you were despite knowing you were in Henrietta's Marketplace, one of the largest in Retro City.

“What did you want from here, anyway?” You picked up a gigantic red bell pepper larger than the entire spread of your hand. It went back on top of the arrangement. “We were just here a couple days ago. I don't eat that much.”

Up ahead, flanked by rows of wooden crates with smoothed, varnished slabs and carefully stacked produce, Elio turned to you with a pair of generously sized oranges—one in each hand—vibrant with waxy luster settling into the fruit’s porous skin.

You grinned at the sight.

Elio put one back, placed the other one, the better one, into his basket, and waited for you to close the distance. “I watched Wendy Carmichael Can Cook this morning. I've been watching it quite often, actually. She's a self-taught chef who, apparently, lived in the slums her entire life. She managed to work her way up and now owns two David Bugari-rated restaurants. It’s quite a feat. Improbable, even.”

You wrapped your hands around a grapefruit in the crate next to you and spun it around. A twinge of something ugly and green swam around your head, flared you up like swatting an old wound. You didn't like hearing him praise someone else.

“She probably slept her way to the top.” You were still fidgeting with the fruit.

“That's not important.” Elio said, inflectionless. “I watched today's episode, newly aired, and she put together a duck à l'orange. Considering your current lifestyle and diet, I thought it would be a nice departure from what I usually cook for you.”

You smiled at that, placing the grapefruit down without collapsing the pile. “I don't want to see a dead duck in my kitchen.”

“I'll prepare it once you're asleep.” he promised, bringing one of your hands up to his lips. The shape of them molded against the peak of a knuckle. “It will be delicious. Trust me.”

Then he went back to shopping while you envisioned actually kissing him—not an uncommon thought to have. He wouldn't be able to stop you if that's what you wanted, but instead, you informed him you were going to introduce him to Mother and Marcos.

“Tomorrow?” He checked his wristwatch. It was nearly eight; Henrietta’s closed at eight thirty, and it would be dark outside. Not that it mattered much with how Retro City was illuminated like one gigantic fluorescent bulb at nighttime.

You finally texted back to Marcos. “No. Tonight. We’ll just go straight there so I can get this over with.”

Elio seemed not to know how to respond at first, staring in a searching way that creased the skin between his brows, like he was trying to take a cue from your body language while skimming his database for the most appropriate thing. You didn't blame him for his lapse; Mother was mentioned seldomly and Marcos only a little more than that. Even Researcher Kim hadn't managed to collect enough information on your past to feed to Elio simply because there wasn't a lot to tell.

He cleared his throat, righting his features so they were unwrinkled and beautiful. “Tonight. Very well. Should we…” He paused, glancing down at the grocery basket of spices, vegetables, an orange, and a whole raw duck wrapped well in brown parchment. “Should we come back another time? I wouldn't want the meat to sit out for a long time.”

“Nope.” You didn't want to go through the trouble of returning everything where they belonged. Elio wouldn't leave until he did. “Let's just check out. Marcos will handle it.”

The springtime air was pleasant at night, albeit crisp, when the blur of vehicles whooshed past once the lights overhead turned green. You could make out the colors of them because of how brightly lit the streets were. Neon signage from every corner for as far as you could see turned to life, flickering, humming, dancing with pretty women, hot white or purple or red lettering, and the lights inside most nearby businesses stayed on.

Elio had draped his coat over your shoulders while you hailed a cab. It was too far of a walk to Mother's home across the city, and Elio reminded you again that raw meat needed to be handled carefully.

You told him, again, that Marcos would handle it.

———

The entire cab ride took less time than you thought, relieving Elio who was still hopelessly fixated on the longevity of the raw duck he had wrapped up in a separate paper bag from the produce and spices. From the front seat, the cabbie, perplexingly somehow a human and not an android, constantly looked back at Elio through the rearview mirror and commented almost deliriously about how beautiful he was.

Hearing that the first three times gave you a happy, satisfied buzz in your chest, making you lean more against Elio's side. He was tempted to move his arm out and put it around your shoulders but kept to himself. Beyond those initial comments from the cabbie, however, you had quickly developed an uncomfortable feeling in your belly that wrapped itself tight like a constrictor on your insides.

“I ain't ever seen an android as beautiful as you,” said the driver, eyes in constant motion from the mirror to the road. “What model are ya? Definitely not a four or five. Yer a little too smooth to be a six. Damn, did Hyperion release a new one already?”

Elio held a polite smile, separate from the gentle, intimate ones that he kept for you. You didn't hear the response he gave to the cabbie because you felt his fingers reach through yours, pulling them apart so you couldn't dig a nail into the corner seam of your thumb anymore.

You spent the rest of the trip testing the weight of his hand, thinking of little less except how deep you'd have to go through his skin to see his circuitry and what else made him up. Those vanished like a white puff of breath in winter when the taxi jerked to a stop on a street curb.

“Thank yew for ya business.” The cabbie lifted his stiff old hat when you paid, eyed Elio a little more, and only drove off after you had knocked on a canary-yellow door up some stone stairs.

You stared at a decorative wreath covered with flowers—fake because the ones used couldn’t grow outside of greenhouses anymore—hanging dead center on the door. No doubt Marcos’ work because Mother couldn't be bothered with those little nuanced social things.

Marcos answered—brown skin and hazel eyes that burnished green in almost any lighting—gesturing for you and Elio to come inside.

“Welcome home,” he said, far more unnaturally than it sounded coming from Elio. There was a certain rigidity to it, an effort clearly inhuman and lesser. He embraced you in a familiar way, reminding you of all your years of childhood doing this exact thing because your mother didn't know how to love you, and “father” was just a word. “I apologize for messaging you to come over so late. You know how your mother is. When the mood strikes…”

Marcos didn't emit much bodily warmth, never had, even in the golden years of G3, but he was there, and that's all that mattered at the time. His skin was still youthful and flawless, though the longer you looked him in the face, the less real he seemed. His eyes held depth and movement though were slow, less precise, and duller. The lines around his mouth when he smiled were unnatural, appearing to you nearly like bunching folds in a sheet of leather.

It was strange seeing an older generation of android after having acclimated to Elio over two months.

“Your mother is at the dining table.” Marcos moved on to Elio, taking in his image, surmising that he too was an android. He glanced down at the bags that Elio still held. “May I take those for you? Hyperion’s innovation continues ever forward, I see. You are new.”

“The first of Generation Seven,” said Elio. The bags were passed between them. “I would appreciate it if you kept the duck refrigerated. It's in the paper bag.”

“That's no trouble.” Marcos turned with Elio following along behind him into the kitchen. “I'd like to hear about Generation Seven’s potential. What is your maximum I-O? Data? Memory? How have the functions that have been implemented into you differ from Generation Six?”

Their voices were muffled behind the walls as you crossed through multiple rooms to where Mother sat at the head of a large glossy table made from dark-brown wood. It was a spacious area reserved to eat surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows in elegant drapes with the best view of whatever the neighbors were doing. She had told you once that the only reason she bought this house was because it'd be good gossip for when she invited her gaggle of catty executive receptionist friends over.

Back then, she hosted her little impromptu get-togethers more often than she remembered to see you off to school. Marcos made sure you were fed and bathed, sat with you in your bedroom to help with homework, and sent you to bed. As you grew, the parties had migrated elsewhere, prompting your mother to go with them.

That had left you alone with Marcos and the boundaryless curiosity of a teenager. You didn't know if Mother still participated in such things now that she was older, less pretty, inclined to more body aches.

“I've been thinking that we should visit the new teahouse that opened up on Aflaat Ave. You never talk to me anymore.” she said, but it wasn't true. Neither of you talked to one another, just used Marcos as an intermediate. “I—well—Marcos went through your old bedroom a few weeks ago because I've decided to take up scrapbooking and sewing and needed space, and he found an old shoebox full of your primary and secondary school projects! How quaint! He wanted to make sure you got them.”

“That's nice.” You didn't want to sit down, unwilling to be her fifteen minutes of entertainment before she got bored. She kept on staring at you with wide eyes and crow’s feet and fretful hands, like a woman who still had more to say. “I'll make sure Elio grabs them before we leave.”

“Elio!” Mother gaped. “Man or android? Certainly an android, right? Men are useless.”

Your rage was already bunching up and throbbing in the back of your throat. “Yes, Mother, an android.”

��‘Mother’ sounds so harsh! How about mama or mummy or mom?” She kept wringing her fingers together. “Anyway, anyway! Elio! He sounds so handsome. Is that who Marcos is talking to? What a handsome voice! Is he a Generation Six?”

You still hadn't sat down, though you used your hands to lean across the back of a chair. “Generation Seven. I'm testing him for Hyperion.”

“For Hyperon!” Mother couldn't fathom you doing more than grunt work at the marketing firm. She didn't know your position had become obsolete. “This is certainly a surprise. Sit down. How did that happen? You and Hyperion? Are you trying to make me look stupid?”

“I've been sitting all day. I'm good like this.” That wasn't a lie. You also just couldn't stand the idea of giving any relief to her anxious state. “It's my new job. Very coveted. I've been working closely with one of the researchers there, and he can't praise me enough. I'm looking after Elio for a year and then moving on to their next latest and greatest.”

“You?” She spat out a laugh. It calmed the trembling in her hands for a few seconds before she was back at it again. “Oh, my. Well. If that's the case, you certainly owe it to me for getting that job. My genetics. My smarts. You certainly didn't get it from your father.”

That lurching, angry ball in your throat was rising up fast. It was just there on the tongue making you gag, salivate, and begin to drool a bit from the corner of your lips. It tasted horrific and filled you with the most voracious need for venom.

“Who is my father?” you asked. “You could be wrong.”

Mother suddenly grew uncomfortable, flattening her gaze with the tabletop. Historically, she had always been this way when you asked about him, the infamously evasive ghost of your life. It was also the only thing that ever made her shut up.

“That doesn't matter.” She continued, “You’ve always had me and Marcos. That's what matters.”

“I've had Marcos.” The ball freed itself. “I just thought you should know, Generation Three models are being decommissioned. Marcos won't be receiving any more updates, and eventually, he'll just be a pile of fucking scrap. What're you gonna do then? You can't afford another android because you've sunk every penny you've ever saved into him—his upgrades, his maintenance, his clothes. It may take about ten years, and you'll probably be on your deathbed, but he's going to fall apart and eventually stop moving. You'll be just as alone as you were before he came along.”

Mother’s face turned shades, petrified. You wanted nothing more than to see her shrink into her clothes and disappear for good. It soothed you to think about Marcos’ end being inevitable, unchangeable, a fact. Some of the guilt was easier to bury that way.

“Wh-What are you saying to me, you awful child?!” She wailed with watery eyes, hands wrapped in the same colored strands of hair you had. “How could you?! That's not true! That’s not true! Do you know how hard it was to carry you for nine months?! I was so young and I was forced to give birth to you! Forced! Do you hear me—forced to be a mother to a child I never wanted! It was that or death. I never wanted a child because they turn on you and say things like this! You horrible, horrible child!”

Her shrieks stirred a ruckus from the kitchen where Marcos and Elio emerged from. Marcos ran to your mother, took her in his arms, and cradled her against his chest when she began to shed very real tears that bubbled at the corner of her eyes before falling, curving along her cheeks.

Elio came straight to you, hesitating to put his hands on your body, maybe noticing how viciously you glared at this wilted woman he'd yet to meet.

“Get the groceries. We're gone.” You stormed straight for the door, chest stuttering with heavy breaths you tried to calm because you knew what came next. Your throat ached, burned fiercely like something had snagged there and you needed to claw it out.

Once you reentered the chilly air submerged in all the dark and light of Retro City at night, it didn't matter that you were crying. They were hot tears that left behind cool traces. They were decades of disappointment, of secretly understanding a mother’s love would always be conditional, of being unwanted and wishing you hadn't been burdened with existing.

Elio came out minutes later, the door closing softly and locking after him. You heard the bags crinkle near you, drawing your eyes away from a blinking parking meter you'd zoned in to calm yourself down.

You said nothing.

“Let’s go home.” Elio hailed a cab idling nearby and opened the door for you. “I want to keep the meat fresh.”

Him and that stupid duck.

This cabbie looked back at you both once to get directions, and then only occasionally afterward, casting pitiable glances at your raw-looking face in the mirror. The GPS displayed on the car’s dashboard showed the apartment was thirty minutes away because of traffic, probably from a crash they were detouring; ordinarily, it only took twenty minutes.

When your pocket vibrated, you almost didn't check. Unsurprisingly, it was a message from Marcos, just a single one.

“I don't think you should come around for a while,” it read. You didn't respond. Nothing new. Some sort of falling out with your mother was routine. You couldn't understand why she thought it'd ever go differently.

However, this time wasn't like all the rest. This time, you’d said something unforgivable despite her doing the same, but yours was worse in her mind. You didn't mind the idea of her disappearing from your life. It was harder to handle the thought that you'd never see Marcos again before he ceased to function, though.

“What happened?” Elio asked, a weird departure from androids being programmed, traditionally, never to pry. “That woman was your mother, correct? What did you say to her?”

“Who cares?” You grunted, sniffing around the burn in sinuses again. “She's a crazy bitch. She's always been that way. I told her that Marcos would just turn into a scrap heap eventually. Was that wrong of me?”

“Well, perhaps that phrasing was inappropriate, yes.” Elio touched your forearm. “But there is no NDA in place from Hyperion. You are well within your rights to have told her. But, as I said, your phrasing—”

“I know, shut up—” You moved closer so you could lean against him. “I hate that woman. I hate my mother more than I ever hated anyone.”

Elio lifted an arm above you, giving you room to slide in as far as you wanted to go. He held you for the first time, repeating long, weighty strokes down your back, through his coat that you still wore. You were transported back to a moment in time steeped in cloudy nostalgia, blurred.

It was Marcos kneeling at your bedside, yellow overhead lights dimmed to nearly full darkness. The door was shut because otherwise a heap of cackling voices, Mother and her gossiping hens after too much wine, would spear in through the cracks and make you petulant. Marcos had already been trying to get you to sleep for over an hour.

“Sleep little one, sleep.” Marcos had said, voicebox in his throat straining with a quieter sound. “I know it must be difficult. You must be rested for school tomorrow.”

“They're too loud.” you whined, throwing your covers back with a great flourish, feet kicking them the rest of the way off before you huffed and turned to your side away from Marcos. “Make them shut up! Can't you make them shut up, Marcos?!”

He sighed, defeated as much as an android could be. No, he could not. It went against his programming to disobey his master—any human who made a demand of him. His order was to get the child to sleep, and that had yet to happen.

“Would you like me to read The Falcon and the Hare to you again?” It was your favorite bedtime story right now. Hearing fictional stories involving extinct animals seemed to be of odd fascination to you. “My tone of voice might make it—”

“No!” you fussed, thumping your feet once, twice, three times and going limp again. “Come up here until I fall asleep. Please?”

Marcos nodded. “Yes, little one.”

He had to keep one leg off the bed to even half fit on the mattress. You sat upright to fix the blankets so to cover yourself and part of Marcos’ one bent knee. His arm laid out on the bed, waiting for you to crawl into it until you were nestled into his side, sucking up what small warmth radiated from his fake body. Once you found a comfortable spot, curled up tightly much like a cat sunbathing in a single shaft of daylight, he began smoothing a hand down along your back, heavy enough to be felt through your thick comforter.

You listened to him hum a song that you liked, one that translated well to his chords and the vibrations in his throat.

He hummed. He petted your back. He hummed. He petted your back. He hummed…

“Do you truly hate your mother?” Elio’s voice was delicate just then, aware that you were away in some reverie he tried to gently lure you out of. The dream was over. That one silver glimmer of your childhood became far away, forgotten while the sounds of the city rushed back into the cab.

“Yes—I mean, I dunno.” You actually yawned, pushing one of your eyes with the heel of your hand. “I think I hate her. We've argued my entire life. We've never gotten along. Yeah, I hate her.”

Elio was holding you by the waist now. “Is that why you said what you did?”

“Said what?” You were a little too keen on his thumb swirling around the fat padding your hip bone.

“About Marcos being scrap…”

“Elio, seriously? Do you ever shut up?” It was tempting to put yourself on the opposite side of the seat, but you didn't want to give the cabbie any chance to eyeball him. “I—I don't know. She just gets me so mad. I used to be able to crush up those feelings because Marcos told me it wasn't healthy to act on them. But, then, I moved out, and I realized she was still the same, that she'd always stay the same. I stopped hiding it.”

You were so close to his face that you could see how long his eyelashes were and the shadows they cast on his cheeks.

You looked into his eyes. “I wanted to make her hurt as much as she hurt me.”

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Midnight had come and gone before you finally gave up on trying to sleep. You spent the better part of an hour staring up at the high ceiling, imagining every rusting pipe you saw as immobile serpents stretched taut to make the interconnecting structure that sprawled across the entire loft. Swirls and shapes and blacker-than-black shadows danced in front of your eyes, twisted with the pipes, and made the usual knocking sounds within them, but nothing ever came for you.

Downstairs was a careful amount of liveliness and aromas as Elio put together his duck à l'orange that he promised you. You scarcely heard a sound from him shuffling about but more from the clanking pans, boiling pots, and unintelligible chatter you knew came from the television.

Maybe he was watching a rerun of Wendy Carmichael Can Cook again, maybe a segment from the news because he liked that equally as much.

And yet, as you made your way to the lower floor, mystified by the fact you were standing on your toes to disguise all sound during your descent, you saw that the television was set to an old crime show he watched with you on occasion.

Detective Georgina Reyes and her android sidekick, Regis (G5), were the undisputed heroes of Helcam City and solved every case that came their way with style, finesse, and plenty of moral and ethical dilemmas. The majority of the show was spent within Georgina's inner world and her near-obsessive lust over Regis, who was owned by the department chief.

Ratings for the show had climbed to an all-time high when Regis had gained a sense of self and the ability to defy his programming. For fewer than six episodes, it was complete bliss for fans of Georgina and Regis, but then the season five finale happened—

“Can't sleep?” Elio asked, effectively putting your heart in your asshole, sending your soul skyward. He must have gauged your sudden gray pallor and bulbous glare because he smiled apologetically from the bottom of the stairway. “I'm sorry. I didn't intend to scare you. Were you watching Regis and Reyes?”

“I—uh, no.” You sighed, taking slow steps to the bottom to ease your heartbeat eating away at your ribs. “I was thinking about the show ending. Have you watched it yet?”

“Of course,” he said. “It was a peculiar way for the story to end. In my opinion, it was incomplete. Very sudden. It's my understanding that there was an issue with how the government was being represented within the show, and a few of the writers were accused of conspiracy to defraud the government and subsequently arrested for it.”

“Seriously?” You scoffed, making it to ground level, and walked around Elio toward the kitchen where all the heavenly smells wrapped around you, enticing you to take a morsel. “It was the forced pregnancy plotline, right? Creepy stuff.”

“Indeed.”

Elio wouldn't let you have any of the duck à l’orange, saying it was meant for your dinner later on in the day, but he did steep you a hot mug of herbal tea (for sleep), the one that turned water pink, and offered to make you a light snack.

He went back to his tasks after you declined, satisfied well enough with the small swigs you took from your white mug. You spent more time sitting at the counter in silence, watching his back, hoping to gain the power to see through his shirt rather than actually taking interest in what he was doing.

Your eyelids fluttered and fell thinking about the car ride home: his arm around you, his thumb rubbing pacifying circles into your hip, how you'd been close enough to his face to believe you felt a breath leave his lips.

“Elio.”

“Yes?”

He had moved on to washing dishes. When he heard you behind him, he took a clean towel to his hands and quickly dried them before facing you. You guessed you probably had a strange expression right now, or at least, looked at him in a way you never had because the towel was cast aside, draped over the faucet, and his eyes flickered across your face.

“Your heart rate and body temperature have increased.” he said, giving into the pull of your hands after grabbing both sides of his face. You backed yourself into the countertop while still holding him, thumbs caressing the rise of his cheeks, bringing him down, down, down toward your face where you certainly felt heat blow across your mouth. “Your breathing has changed. I can hear your heartbeat. Don't be anxious. I won't hurt you.”

You weren't nervous.

You proved it by kissing him, full-bodied, slow, lingering. He gripped the edge of the countertop, bracing his weight against his hands to stifle some aggressive reaction, possibly, and returned the kiss with just as much fervor that you put into it.

His lips were every bit of what you imagined, what you wanted them to be. You had the urge to bite into them a little, to see if they could bleed the same way yours could when you chewed enough on loose skin. Their texture was slightly indented with cracks that gave friction to the moist smear across your mouth.

Although the sounds of the kitchen and ambient hum from the television in the next room stayed as they were, it was like the volume of everything had been set to mute, and only the breathy, wet pops of air and skin made it into your ears. You heard the delicate chatter of teeth inside your head when his mouth roamed the underside of your jaw, down your neck, to the rise of your clavicle, stopping only at where your neckline ended.

His hands had already made home under your clothes, first doing away with your shirt that he tossed over your shoulder onto one of the barstools. Next, he worked on the elastic waistband keeping your sweatpants on your hips. You flinched against his hands when they splayed across your ass, taking all he could in them while his lips continued a downward trajectory, traveling over your breastbone, along the curve of your navel, and then he stopped.

Elio had been on his knees for a while, stirring you so deeply that you had no doubt there'd be damp spots sitting inside your sweatpants, possibly even drying on the inside of your thighs by now. He helped you out of your pants one leg hole at a time while you used his broad shoulders to balance yourself. And soon enough, one of your thighs was hiked up in that same spot, his face hidden from you despite all the work he was doing to well up a hard knot in your abdomen.

You had to take a fistful of his hair and wrap it tight in your fingers, using your other arm to balance against the counter. He wouldn't let you fall, you knew that, but the unsteadiness of your legs grew, trembling violently, turning to lead like being buried under concrete or suctioned by water. He kissed and sucked and stroked you some more, pushing more into the spots that made you moan the loudest and fastest, fingers wandering you busily and lubricated with your own spend.

“Elio—Elio, let's move somewhere, please.” You shuddered out, trying to pull his hair, shove his face off of you. “Please.”

He grunted, surprising you by relinquishing to the pressure, and made his way back up the route he had taken down. “Where do you want to go?” he asked, lips sticking on your throat, rising higher to the protrusion of your chin. “The kitchen floor? The couch? The bed? We could probably manage in the bathtub as well, if that's what you'd enjoy.”

“I don't care.” You were only half-honest and miserable now with the sole focus of trying not to touch yourself to finish. “Just… somewhere, Elio.”

“As you wish.”

Elio hoisted you onto his hips, making sure you knew to squeeze him with your thighs before making his way around the kitchen to turn knobs and shut off the overhead bulbs. The new darkness was refreshing yet did nothing to tame that sweltering sensation between your legs. In fact, you thought you could burst from the anticipation. It was everything you could do not to hump him through his clothes, hands occupied in his tousled hair, lips together with bruising force.

Before long, your back was on couch cushions and the television was off so as to not ruin the moment. You saw dark behind your eyes while you kept them open, unfocused on the ceiling with the serpent pipes because his mouth was already back on you and helping you chase that high.

“You're almost there.” His lips smacked against your engorged skin, making your lashes flutter and eyes roll back. “You look so perfect. When you cum, I'll take my time cleaning you up. I can use my tongue. I can make you cum again—as many times as you'd like.”

His arms held your thighs wide open, giving him all the room he needed for those final, well-placed strokes that turned your moans into utterly drawn-out, lewd things that made you grateful that no one else lived in this side of the building. Your body wrenched against his continued ministrations, his lips and chin and fingers warm and glistening with your traces.

You had thought to worry, briefly, about something getting onto the cushions under your ass, but Elio had already thought it through and used the dish towel from earlier to catch anything awry.

It came in handy for his face.

“How do you feel?” he asked from inside one of your thighs, kissing his way all the way to the point of your knee. “Was it satisfactory?”

You didn't answer right away, especially not when he came forward on his arms to catch your lips, slowing things down so you could bask in that fuzzy, satiated afterglow—dopamine and oxytocin being that remarkable duo doing their damndest to reinforce how exquisite and ineffably breathtaking Elio was to you.

“Would you like a bath?” he asked against your jaw. “You can just lie back and relax. I'll clean you up.”

“No.” Spurred by newfound bravery, you trailed your fingertips between both bodies, first to loosen the tie on his sleep pants, plucking the strings hard so he felt it. Next thing, your hands slipped under his shirt. “I want you to actually fuck me. Put your cock in me.”

Elio jolted upright, using the tall back of the couch and armrest near your head to hold his body above you. Cold air seeped in all the places where he had been, dotting your skin in gooseflesh, hairs within those follicles standing on end. You were laid out below him, showing all your unobscured nudity and vulnerability, withering yourself just a little smaller under the intensity of his stare.

This was different from the grocery store, where he had needed a moment to amend for information he did not have. This was something else—flickers of conflict, struggle, restraint, and excitement were ablaze in his eyes, which shifted around within their sockets, giving you glimpses of pure gleaming white, which stood out in the inky dark all around.

“I—are you certain that's what you want?” he spoke at last, doing little to alleviate the way you felt he had seen your insides and bones. “It is late, I know you must be tired.”

“Are you…” You couldn't really explain the uneasiness gnawing at your gut, nor the thrill of wanting him inside of you regardless. Maybe he could fuck the feeling out of you, bring peace to your throbbing heartbeat and blood gushing to your head. “Elio, are you telling me no?”

“I cannot do such a thing.” he said right away, coming down from his high place to lay the weight of himself across you.

You felt his skin flush to your chest without a thin shirt to hide his shape and muscle that wasn't real, but this was so much more than touching every dissected mannequin in physiology class in school. They couldn't kiss your neck while the interwoven, complex network underneath stretched, elastic flesh contracted and relaxed against your palms.

“Would you believe me if I told you there are certain functions—programming—that I cannot override?” The waistband of his pants collected in a heap of fabric around his knees, freeing room for his cock in the open air. “I won't be able to let you go until I'm finished. I want you to understand that.”

That sounded hot, and you were tired of him stalling, so you told him you understood. “Very well.” He kissed you, guiding one of your hands low to his core where you could revel in the size of him.

He was hard in your grip with a good girth and length to him, a curve you'd come to recognize from toys collected over the past decade to hit the right spots. The skin over his cock was much a part of him as the rest on his body, hot, growing damp, and sticky the nearer you wandered to the head.

You had watched old pornography with Melby and the group a few times before from the days when it was just humans performing acts on each other. No one really liked it because it was so dramatized; everyone agreed that one of the actors needed to be an android for it to actually be sexy. You never told them that the moaning men with stuttering hips as they ejaculated was something you did like.

Elio leaned into your palm, the thumbprint starting to prune as you rubbed his tip. More warmth seeped out from it, wet and thick and perplexing and exhilarating because Hyperion made him so perfect, a better being than just an emulation of man.

His cock slid through your hand in short, quick bursts that eventually lubricated his entire shaft. He'd kept himself busy on your lips, tongue in your mouth, swiveling together the taste of you with saliva. It was the most inelegant he had been with you so far, yet you didn't think you'd be bothered if he did this more often.

“Fuck me.” You whined, finally apart from him. The swollen head of his cock made a moist path along your core where you massaged it against every sensitive spot that set your senses into a blazing frenzy. “Be as rough as you want. Hurt me a little.”

He finally took your hand away, rearranging your legs so one laid across the back of the couch, the other on his hip with a knee shoved under your ass for height.

“I will not hurt you.” Both your wrists were cuffed by his large hands, pinned down into the cushions by your head. “But, I cannot let you go. You must see it through until the end.”

“Fuck. Me.” you said forcefully, uncomprehending to the things he was telling you, uncaring what it all meant.

“Yes. Alright.”

Elio obeyed you as he was supposed to, cock sinking in with care, thrusts starting out shallow until the tip was withdrawn and then back inside again. The angle he had created for you made it easier to take his length. It took a little more time to acclimate to his girth and plenty of gentle encouragement from his voice landing right next to your ear, telling you to relax. It would improve in a few minutes, and he wouldn't let you go to sleep dissatisfied.

Indeed, minutes later, you were well beyond the worst of it and filling the void all around you with harsh, rapturous moans, which Elio enjoyed hearing. His lips lingered at your throat where most of your sounds resonated, fists still holding firm around your wrists, knuckles the same color as the rest of the dark but had actually bled pale.

The springs within the couch cried out, unused to this weight and ruthlessness, while the air stung with cracks of slapping skin timed with your moans. Elio didn't let you move from where he had you laid out, didn't let up on the speed and depth he reached despite how labored your breaths became, broken words eclipsed by panting and his tongue forcing them back down your throat where they stayed in submission.

It was still cold in the early mornings this spring, often leaving your apartment a little less comfortable than you'd like, but right now, you could've been convinced that he was fucking you on the ground in the flatlands and believed it. Your skin was slick with sweat, the mess between your bodies slippery and undoubtedly staining the couch underneath.

Just then, the weight on your wrists climbed higher to your hands. He threaded your fingers together at the same time his thrusts began to slow, hips rolling yours like a swaying ship amid languid seas.

The whole time he had been on top of you, edging you closer to another orgasm, he had hardly made a noise apart from whispering in your ear when you'd clench his cock too tight. Now, he was failing to keep quiet from your neck, trembling and grunting on your skin until, at last, one jarring thrust left him breathing out in relief.

He got you to your end shortly after, half-hard cock still throbbing and warm inside you, giving just enough of what you needed while his hand finished the rest with fast strokes. You winced. He didn't let off until your jaw hung slack, whimpering meagerly through the pleasure hampering thoughts and sensations other than pressure releasing from your groin, spend turning a patch of your couch dark.

“You did well.” Once he was soft, he tied his pants back around his waist and picked up the sodden dish towel to begin cleaning around your sorest areas. “Come with me. I'll start you a hot bath and make you a new cup of tea before bed.”

You didn't want to get up from that spot, declared yourself rooted there unless Elio helped you up, and thrust a hand high into the dark room.

He wore a princely smile, you assumed, as he leaned down to pick you up in his arms instead. Moved by such a gesture, you reached for his face with your angry wrists and hands to kiss him all the way to the bathroom.

None of this made it into your next report.

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Melby didn't like Elio.

This she had told you over text after you declined her incoming phone call so as to not arouse Researcher Kim’s ire in finding out you were completely distracted during his exorbitantly detailed analysis of your latest reports. Two had been sent in before midnight last Sunday, as usual, since he was rarely satisfied with what you revealed through them these days.

Less than an hour later, while cozied up in bed on your side, facing the chopping blades of an oscillating fan, just beginning to feel yourself teeter off that edge from dull, relaxed awareness into light sleep, your ringtone went off—it was Kim.

“What else have you committed to doing lately in terms of Elio's social advancement? The last thing I have here…” A refreshing, fast pause followed, accented by the sound of paper softly swishing as it was parsed. “He was brought to a movie theater on the twenty-fourth, Diosyn Park on the twenty-ninth, Henrietta's four times in the last week. That's not nearly enough. Who are you socializing him with? What have their reactions been? How has he reacted to them? You're not writing down exact times.”

Not once since you'd joined the video conference forty minutes ago did he check to see if you were listening to him, content with his nose being shoved down into a bundle of chemically smelling papers and glowing screens to corroborate previous work he had on file.

That made it easier for you to text back Melby, arguing with her in endless paragraphs too tiring for your thumbs to continuously scroll through that you didn't have time to meet up at Clamors for drinks with everyone.

“Should I tell Chima you hate us?” texted Melby.

Truthfully, you couldn't tell if it was meant as a threat or if she was just pettish after being refused. One of her worst qualities, never spoken aloud to her face lest she fumbled and blubbered all the way to Chima to snitch about it, was being horridly uncompromising to just about everything.

It made you anxious enough that your fingers started to ache with an urge, on the path toward curling back slithers of cuticle, gathering blood under the nails, itchy scabs that Elio constantly covered with neon bandaids so you wouldn't touch them.

Eventually, you found a new fixation with the seams of your knuckles and fitted the most unrefined part of your nails into them, digging up red that way until he had to cover those, too.

It took you ten minutes with fidgety thumbs to reply. “I don't hate anyone. You know me.”

Melby's was instantaneous. “What about me? Do you hate me now?”

Another one. “Now that you have that android?”

More. “We used to spend so much time together.”

Last one for good measure to effectively drill a gory black hole straight into your pounding, cowardly heart. In her eyes, anyway. “I haven't seen you in months!”

“He needs more direct interaction. I've decided that I'll make amends to the template you've been using up until now.” Researcher Kim was saying, not seeing you, not hearing you, assuming your loyalty to him and his cause was complete.

Ripples of drowsiness overcame you so powerfully that you left Melby on read, mind suddenly a vast, empty space and quiet for the first moment all day. Your hands rose to cradle your cheeks, propping your head above your elbows on the countertop because Kim's inflated droning had come to have that effect on you over time.

A human man with a face that nice shouldn't be allowed to talk so much. He should go back to moaning on couches in front of cameras and sweltering lights.

“Let me explain what I'm currently changing.” he said, hopelessly invested in whatever those alterations were just by the mechanical click-clack of fingertips soaring over a keyboard somewhere low and out of sight of his screen. “From here on out, I'm going to require that you gather between six to ten direct interactions. I want full disclosure of every conversation, transcribed or recorded. From my standpoint, recording would be the most effective method so I may make interpretations myself.”

You were thinking of what to ask Elio to make you for lunch. It was almost noon. You unmuted the call. “Am I allowed to just randomly record people talking like that? That seems…”

“Hyperion works closely with Retro City’s governing bodies, and by extension, so do you.” Kim kept typing as he spoke. “It isn't illegal because the information you're collecting is imperative to the Hyperion Project. Without it, we face the risk of progress slowing or diminishing. That cannot happen, and I cannot emphasize enough that your work as an auditor must come before other commitments.”

At long last, he pulled his face out of papers and other screens to look at yours. In a fashion unsuitable for him, he sighed in a fatigued way, back collapsing against his ergonomic chair, shoulders lopsided with how he perched his elbows on the armrests.

“Retro City has over three million inhabitants. You won't have any issues finding people for Elio to speak to.” he told you. “Six to ten for each report. That’s all.”

You were already back in your messages, backtracking your previous responses to Melby, asking her what time everyone was meeting at Clamors.

Right away, “Come at nine!”

And then, “I'll save you a seat.”

Finally, “Don't eat too much before getting here. It'll ruin the fun.”

“Fine.” Phone now face down on the counter, you returned Researcher Kim’s concentrated stare. “I'll do my best. Six to ten. Six to ten…”

That had done well to appease him, demonstrated through a satisfied smile, which pulled his lips just enough that the muscles in his right cheek twitched as though the motion was foreign to him. With how inexpressive he was most of the time, you weren't surprised, thinking it more humorous than anything else.

You struggled to find a smile of your own that wasn't strained, though.

“That reminds me—” He positioned himself forward, arms on his polished dark-red desk with a curious gleam in his black eyes. “None of your reports have instances of copulation mentioned. Have there been complications?”

You sat stiffly, not agape but definitely not composed, either. “Sorry? What was that?”

“Intercourse. Sex.” He simplified it for you, almost with a pitying crease forming between his brows. “You've completed every other area outlined in the template except that one. I have… refrained from questioning you until now because I do understand that, outside of a clinical setting, it can be construed as inappropriate to discuss.”

The only person you had divulged any details to was Melby. Even that had been brief and inexplicit because she had immediately changed the topic to something one of the kids Chima invited into the group had done that pissed her off.

“Why do you need to know?” It was a defensive question. “Is that something I really need to write about? It's sex. It's just sex.”

Researcher Kim made an indistinguishable sound behind steepled fingers. They hid away whatever shape his mouth was in at that moment, making the whole conversation terribly uncomfortable. It was odd how exposed you felt like his stare was reaching long, further than just the screen in front of him. He wasn't looking into you or through you but rather right at you—imagining you some other way, unclothing your body with drifting eyes and invisible hands.

You were equal parts embarrassed and repulsed by that line of thinking, allowing your mind to summon up his ghost hands to search you, feel you under all your layers, know you as intimately as Elio had as though part of some extension of himself.

“It is all outlined in the contract you signed.” Kim said, now with an edge that made you flinch on the barstool. “Androids are developed for convenience and pleasure. I have reports for one, not the other. If Elio, as the first of G7, is not performing exceptionally—if there are complications, if he is defective—that is something you must include within your reports. I don't suspect that to be the case, in this situation.”

His eyes suddenly caught onto something else, going beyond you, but you chose not to react by looking. “Your work as an auditor has been sufficient so far, but incomplete reports at this critical stage in Elio's testing are grounds for me to terminate your contract.”

You clenched your jaw until your teeth throbbed, your head going up and down like it was on a hinge attached to your neck.

“Personally, that's a hassle I'd rather not involve myself in.” Kim confessed in a straighter posture, smiling tensely. “Now, I'll ask you again: Have there been any complications with inter—”

“That's enough.” Elio reached across your shoulder for the tablet, pointer finger hovering over a red button on the screen. “Researcher Kim, it's time for lunch. Goodbye.”

He pushed the button, managing to catch a swift change in Kim's expression before the screen went black and reflected your shock back at you instead.

You watched him slide the tablet away to the opposite end of the counter space, unable to lift yourself out of this bizarre stupor just from how purely surreal what just happened was. And from the look of it, Researcher Kim hadn't anticipated that Elio was capable of doing something like that, either.

You just hoped it wouldn't cost you your contract.

“What have you been doing all this time?” you asked, tilting your head back to welcome his lips gliding atop yours, a peck, at first, which gradually grew deeper and greedier. With some effort, you pulled back. “Mm, c'mon, what were you doing?”

“On Wendy Carmichael Can Cook today, she said—”

A hiss of annoyance. “Oh, of course…”

“She said there was a list of excellent bistros around Retro City worth trying.” He wasn't pleading with you or anything, but he seemed just about as dedicated to this idea as he had been with the duck à l’orange a while back. “For lunch, I thought it'd be of interest to you to visit one. I've been researching ones I thought you would like based off of your dietary habits, allergies, and sensitivities. Radiant Bistro next to the Leviathan Archway near downtown might be a good option. Impressively diverse menu.”

You pretended to pinch lint off of his shirt and inspect it up close. “If you didn't want to cook, you could've just said that.”

“That's not it,” he assured you with a kiss to the back of your hand so that you understood he meant it. “Since my arrival here, your social presence has declined substantially, which will not fare well for your public profile. I do understand that it’s in relation to your work as an auditor, but—”

“Okay! Okay, I get it.” you said agreeably, hands raised, hoping it'd deflect anything else. “We’ll go. Let me just find a hat so the sun won't get on my face.”

“No problem.” He walked away and came back with an old unbranded brown one from somewhere in the most remote crevice of the apartment. “Will this suffice?”

You looked at it, amazed. “Yeah. Yup. Let's go.”

Elio had stopped carrying a coat with him once the evenings grew long, and the remnants of heat from the day floated into nighttime, trapping the city within a muggy gray haze that too closely resembled dewy fog in early spring. The difference was the heaviness and breathability of the air—one you could tolerate despite allergies; the other was deplorable and evoked memories of every single club you had drunk and danced in with Melby and Chima and the rest in the past years.

Outside, right now, sucking in the early-afternoon heat into your lungs after spending your morning in air conditioning, nose wrapped in earthy white wisps rising from a coffee mug, you wanted to turn back around and hide. Much to your dismay, Elio kept you on a short leash with a tight grip on your hand, probably expecting you to have a change of heart.

“Would you like for me to recall the menu and read it aloud to you?” he offered, situating his hand so his fingers crossed through yours, palms flush together. “They have fourteen types of sandwiches—hot and cold. Five of those are chicken, and five are of different meat varieties: lamb, cow, veal, goat, and yak, all claimed to be bred and raised and slaughtered in their warehouses. The last four sandwiches are…”

You listened passively without much commitment, especially in the back of the cab where there was no escape from anything. The AC was broken. The cabbie kept wiping sweat off his brow and sipped warm water. With the windows down, the outside air ripped inside the vehicle, nearly stealing the old hat off your head.

Elio went on to list desserts, thumb gently rolling circles on your sticky skin as if meant to keep you soothed.

“As long as I remember to eat light…” you murmured, remembering, glumly to yourself.

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Clamors was inside a three-story building on the north end of Retro City, about a ten-minute taxi ride to Mother’s brick-stone house, thirty minutes from Henrietta’s, forty minutes from your apartment, and farthest removed from the slums where congregations of profile delinquents and the unwanted were most dense.

Here in this part of the city, you were an imposter among manicured foliage, men and women and androids arrayed in trendy designer silhouettes that were protruding, sharp, and agonizing; sharks and whales of big business puffed cigars in front panoramic views of the cityscape from the highest skyscrapers. They could look down at the street from their window and see you, an ant scuttling meaninglessly.

This wasn't a place where you belonged, a feeling that never changed over time, even years later after Chima recruited you into his group and every night was a suffocating blur of sweaty, faceless bodies, explosive music, stomping feet, raspy screams, and lightly-flavored chalk dissolving under your tongue. You roamed the sidewalks at two in the morning as everyone had been kicked out, but no one cared because Chima came from money, a rare case where two parents could be accounted for, and you'd all just be back inside the next evening.

You weren't sure when you had become disillusioned with it all—the drinks, the animal pills, which coalesced into saliva in your mouth, the noises, the gossip, the six ibuprofen to function behind a desk at work, the burnout of rinse and repeat, a conveyor belt that moved cyclically without a place to get off. To exit the ride meant to plunge head-first into abject terror, the unknowable, to become part of the yellow wallpaper that's never actually seen, to cease to be.

Being back in Clamors again after months away turned your heart against you, thrust the sound of its distress into your ears, dwarfing an animated conversation happening right at your circular table. You felt the music vibrate through your skin, make its way into your marrow, and rattle your entire skeleton.

Melby had a hand on your knee, blunt-tipped nails collecting sweat off your skin underneath them.

You couldn't really focus on that.

“So, this is Elio. He's hot.” Chima said without looking at you.

“Really hot!”

“So hot!”

“Did you hear? Shut up, stop talking! Did you hear? That slut got herself pregnant!” shouted Niva, a senior-most part of the circle behind you and Melby. She knew everything about everyone, though she wasn't supposed to keep tabs. “Apparently her baby daddy decided the pussy wasn't worth it anymore and ran!”

“I can't believe it. That'd mean someone was actually willing to sleep with her.” said Niquan Lamos, the fashionable one always gravitating toward pastels. “A man, at that. Disgusting.”

Everyone laughed, including you. Elio quietly observed it all, seated at your side, incapable of letting his polite smile slip with numerous prowling eyes on him.

“Have you fucked him yet?” Chima asked you without actually caring for a response.

“Oh, have you fucked him?”

“C'mon, don't hide it. How was it?”

“What was her name?” asked a newcomer in the group, fresh out of secondary school and not even twenty. He was a compact lad, both in size and from being squeezed between Chima and Niquan in the circular booth stretched in fuchsia leather, or at least, that's how it looked in your table’s corner of the club. “How come she isn't here anymore?”

First rule was: Never talk about things that could make the liquor go down harder. This was one of those things. Secondly, never ask questions about people who the group was no longer associated with. It just sounded ugly to acknowledge the rejects.

Tonight, however, was an exception because Elio's presence was an exciting change. They forgot how to behave.

“Hm, now that you mention it, I don't remember. How long has it been?” Chima said this absently, abysmally black eyes wholly captivated by the android. “Damn. Something like Mi-dan? Mi-an? Mi… Mi…”

“Her name was Mi-sun.” said a nobody from somewhere at the round table. It probably would've been easy to figure out who was talking if they were more important, but it took less effort to blame the music reverberating from the speakers mounted on the wall near their heads.

Melby’s hand traveled adventurously along your thigh, unmindful of how close she came to your crotch. You had a harder time ignoring that move and sipped busily from your jungle bird, holding it higher than your eyeline to admire its beautiful vermilion hue practically glowing against the strobe lights pulsing down from the ceiling.

“This is the first time I've seen you drink.” Elio was leaned into you, wise to the fact that you wouldn't hear him any other way. His lips nearly touched your ear, voice honeyed, caring, all for you. You were halfway through your second jungle bird. “Please don't overdo it. The adverse effects of overconsumption of alcohol will cause you great discomfort tom—”

“Thank you, Elio.” For just a moment, you wondered how irreversibly damaging it would be to just grab his hand and sprint out of there. You drank some more to weaken your resolve, add lead into your legs. “I'll be good if you be good.”

Elio nodded appreciatively.

“Why was Mi-sun kicked out?” again asked the new face from before, plain and boyish-looking, Chima's fresh catch. They just kept getting younger and the alcohol just kept tasting worse. You forced it all down, anyway. “Well? Well? Well?”

“She was talking crazy shit,” Melby piped up with a drawl, fingernail swirling around a dark purple bruise on your thigh. She pushed in hard enough to remind you that it was still sore. “Like, she was fine one week and then every single night after that she would nooooot shut up about some wild government conspiracy theories.”

“Oh, right.” Chima laughed while forcing everybody out of their seats so he could stand. “I remember now. Yeah, she went completely insane. I think she was talking about androids being used for population control or something. Weird. Hey, let's dance.”

“That was a year ago?” Niva wanted Chima to confirm. “A year, right?”

“Over a year now. Who cares?” Melby said, staying put beside you while the rest of the booth vacated. “She’ll just end up dead in the slums like all the rest. Uh, they do all die, right?”

“Who cares?” Chima echoed, nesting his shoulders high to his ears in a shrug before walking away. “Who has the animal crackers?”

“Sounds about right.” Niva was unconvinced, doubt lingering in her words until Chima came around to rummage her purse for pills. “Oh! Only take one, they're so expensive!”

Chima stuck three in his mouth. “Don’t kill the vibe.” He left without a glance back toward all the no-face, nameless nobodies willing to lick the underside of his shoes if it meant they'd be acknowledged and given features—eyes, lips, hair, an identity.

Niquan was satisfied with just one, offering a subtle wash of relief to Niva, who was just about depleted of her supply at that point and used the last of it for herself, tongue lapping at the inside of her plastic envelope.

You were almost finished with your jungle bird, contemplating a third even though you had entered the territory where one more could mean the difference between a happy buzz and splintering headaches tomorrow, just as Elio warned. The ice cubes had melted into a smooth watercolor appearance and turned from red to blue to green to purple to pink as the lights gushed down from above.

“I don't remember what she looks like.” you admitted to Melby who gazed into you, squeezing your thigh meaningfully. Again, you didn't pay attention. “Mi-sun, I mean. Were we friends? Did I ever drink with her? Have I ever slept over at her house?”

“No!” Melby snapped, affronted. “You're mistaking her for me. You guys never even had a conversation. You hated her guts. You thought she was a freak.”

You made a sound into the last of your drink, unsure whether she was lying to you or not. “Maybe. Maybe. Was I okay with her being kicked out?”

“Totally.” she said, casting a fleeting look of disdain toward Elio, lip curling at one side. “Chima only counted yours and mine and Niva’s votes since we've been here the longest.”

“That's…” You licked your lips and then the rim of your glass, secretly wishing your tongue would snag an uneven crack so you’d start to bleed. “Why don't I remember anything?”

Melby giggled. “Because you've been drinking, babe. It'll come back to you. What animal cracker do you want tonight? Giraffe or cat?”

“Hm?” You were elsewhere.

Until now, you had gone numb to your surroundings thanks to the licorice notes of black strap rum and bitter Campari and pucker of pineapple juice that made for a mostly pleasant experience in your throat.

You were present in that moment, venturing a look around at the dance floor crammed with bodies (human and android) moving in rhythm to the music, in time with each other to create a oneness, a synchronism so strange that it put the hairs on the back of the neck on end like spines.

Why did it all look so different now? So alien? As if you were seeing an image from your nightmares in real life.

Elio failed to convince you not to have another drink brought to the table after all, meanwhile Melby said she was disappointed you didn't get something stronger, claiming you used to do it all the time.

That's right. You did, didn't you?

“Hey.” Chima had emerged from the shapeless cluster of sweating, drunk, wriggling bodies a short while later. He reached into the booth, gathering a fistful of Elio's button-up shirt, and looked at you with a malicious gleam, possibly just your imagination, that just dared you to protest. “I know you don't mind if I borrow him for a while, right? Of course not. The rest of us are curious about him. We’ll be gentle.”

You would’ve believed someone if they said your tongue was cut out, because as much as you wanted to slice into him and spit poison in his wounds with your words, rub it raw, deep into the bone, nothing came up.

Not a breath nor a feeble sob.

Don't touch him. Nothing.

“So, you're chill with it?” Chima, beautiful Chima with deep-dark skin sparkling in rhinestones and spray-on glitter as though he were a vessel for all the stars in the cosmos, bared his straight, white teeth at you in the form of an affable grin.

Eat shit. Bitter silence.

He asked you the same thing again but grew bored and gave up on expecting you to do anything interesting. Elio was led away by the front of his shirt to the amalgamation of bodies like a sacrifice for the great black maw belonging to an abomination.

A few broke away from the core. Niva and Niquan were identifiable since you'd known them longer. The rest were unfamiliar to you—the no names and the tiny young man, the android bartender, the disc jockey, the bodies climbing over each other and melting back into a single incoherent mass.

They all looked exactly the same.

“I wanna dance too, let's go!” Melby struggled with one of your arms while attempting to scoot her way out of the booth, but the alcohol and broodiness made your body into a stump, sturdy and immobile, roots bursting through the bottoms of your shoes and the shiny floor.

She plopped back down. “Seriously? What's up with you?”

“It's too hot,” you reasoned, sticking a fingernail into the fresh glass in front of you, swishing the liquid around to make everything a more palatable blend. “If you want to dance, I'm not stopping you.”

“You're acting so weird.” Melby said, lost somewhere between frustration and astonishment while pulling a clear baggy from her pants pocket. A couple small pills moved inside, pink residue clouding the plastic. She plucked out one without looking. “Hey, open up. You're being a huge snoozefest. This'll loosen you up.”

When you felt her acrylic fingernails press against the corner of your lips, you gently pushed her hand back and nursed your drink some more. “No thanks.”

Melby’s tongue lashed against her gums, sharp and disapproving. “Why are you being such a fucking buzzkill tonight?” She traced your line of sight to Elio, to the others grabbing and fondling him, to his eyes looking right back at you. “We haven't seen each other in months. Now all you do is stare at that android.”

“It's my job, Melby.” You took the damp paper napkin from under your drink to dab your forehead at the sweat, trying to cool yourself. “I can't help that.”

“You can take one night away from your job.” she decided, taking hold of your lower mandible with a claw and crammed the chalky pink pill through lips and teeth into the pocket underneath your tongue. “You know the drill. Let it dissolve all the way. Stop making faces! It doesn't taste that bad.”

You tried to jerk your head away, but her grip was surprisingly solid.

“Melby! What the hell?!” It came out garbled around her fingers still resting in your mouth, filling the reservoir below your tongue with saliva.

Melby, blue-eyed and blonde with pale pink skin that always reddened in the electrifying, hot air in the club, was completely flushed from her face down to her chest. Her eyes had darkened upon withdrawing her two fingers, glossing your lips with spittle.

“I missed you.” she said, outlining the shape of your mouth until the skin started to tingle. “Did you miss me? I've been really lonely.”

Your least favorite part of taking an animal cracker was the aftertaste that was the equivalent of eating sidewalk chalk and rubbing alcohol with a whisper of strawberry wafting up into your nostrils, clinging to every permeable membrane in your mouth and making your cheeks tremble.

“I—yeah. Yeah, I missed you.” You tried to sink the lingering taste down your throat with a swish and swallow from the jungle bird. “I didn't know what I was getting into with this whole Hyperion gig. I feel like I'm constantly watching Elio. Twenty-four seven.”

Elio never lost track of you throughout the ordeal, his being unable to escape the hands on his body and fight against the programming in his brain meant exclusively for human satisfaction. There were moments where you saw each other clearly, empty windows between writhing bodies, and you were convinced he tried to convey a very human-like discomfort that you immediately pretended like you hadn't seen.

Interfering meant going against the group. There was nothing you could do about it except allow them to eviscerate Elio if that's what they wanted. You could only sit there, drowning in rum and pineapple and aperitif and demerara sugar and scorching strobe lights and music bashing your skull and Melby unfastening buttons on your pants, but for some reason, that didn't quite register as what it was to you.

“Are you coming home with me tonight?” Melby asked so sweetly that it made your heart flutter, or maybe that was the pill taking effect. “We always have fun together. I've really missed it. It isn't the same without you.”

“What—” You almost tipped the red cocktail while reaching over it for a water glass that no one had touched. You slugged half in one go. “Wait. What are you even saying? I gotta take care of Elio.”

“Oh my god,” she seethed, taking her hand out of your pants to wipe her fingers on the napkin you used earlier. “Just tell him to leave. He has to listen to you. He’ll be okay.”

Fuzz had started to collect in your head, filling the entire dome with a warm, soft feeling that spread like a rapidly-growing fungus down the brainstem, coiled around your spine, stuffed your jaws with cotton, sucked all the moisture from your throat, widened your chest with stuff, and ignited kindling that had been sitting in the bottom of your stomach.

Just now, the deafening tone of music had been reduced to a throbbing bass that jarred your bones and pulsed in your hands and feet. Your vision wasn't much different than it had been before, only now you seemed to move at lightning speed, people and shapes and lights all confused watercolor smears of you shifted too quickly.

“Can't.” You recalled Melby had said something. “Elio, first. Do you see him?”

“No.” she said, watching Chima hook his fingers through the belt loops on Elio’s pants, knocking their pelvises together in time with the music. “Come on, I'll call a cab and we can go home. We’ll have a good time away from everyone.”

You made a grab for the water glass again, throat the driest it had ever been. A mistimed gasp came out when the rim of the glass struck your teeth, missing your mouth almost completely. Luckily, only a little water got on your shirt, molding it to your chest like a cold second skin.

“God, that's good,” you moaned, draining the rest of it. “What are you even talking about? A good time?”

She eyed you uneasily. “What do you mean? What do you remember when you're with me?”

“Pfft,” you scoffed, stealing yet another water glass you managed to grapple with two hands so it'd stop swaying. “What do you mean, what do I mean? I hit the pillow and I'm out. Why?”

After a few long swigs of ice water, the dance floor was less a mangled disarray of smoke and neon colors, more definitive and jagged—the stage, the speakers, the turntable where the disc jockey played. Even the beastly blob of grinding, convulsing people started looking like people.

Melby had lost all the red in her face, eyes riveted to the half-empty jungle juice in front of you, perhaps counting the beads of condensation dripping from its tall form.

“You're usually really talkative. I think you're lying to me right now to get out of it.”

“Huh?” You were done with the second water, staring at her unfocused but suspicious. “Lying about what?”

“I—” Melby withered in her seat, distracted by something ahead that you couldn't see, a bejeweled nail wedged between her teeth. “No, nothing. Never mind.”

“Whatever,” you murmured. “I'm outta here.”

Melby didn't stop you from leaving behind money for your drinks before you stumbled away from the booth toward the dancefloor, evading bodies that came flying toward you with erratic, jerky movements not at all matching the pounding beat coming from the stage.

The floor was actually hundreds of individually tinted blocks of plexiglass with colored bulbs screwed in underneath.

During the day, Clamors kept it covered with a special protectant and tarp to maintain the integrity of the glass, but at night, it was illuminated like a nonsensical rainbow checkerboard. Each square took on a life of its own, flickering in unison with songs played throughout the night, warping into mandalas and spirals and disorienting waves that most people using animal crackers couldn’t stomach for long.

You were close to vomiting up the jungle birds and your meager lunch from Radiant Bistro that afternoon when you found Elio within the swarm of partiers that reeked of sour body odor and stale alcohol.

He stood amid it all with a stiff spine, the loveliness of his face covered by shadows and terrible bursts of light that heightened his vacuous stare into the faces of those touching him.

The only other time you had seen him so devoid of life was in the presence of Researcher Kim. Now, he looked in such a way at Chima, at Niva, at Niquan—the nameless and the boy were too scared of overstepping to have a part in it yet straggled nearby to feel like they meant something.

Elio saw you jostling through the crowd toward him, hardened amber regaining luminosity. You became the center of his world again with just a look, yet your world was entirely unthawed ice and serrated stalactites growing ever sharper, heavier, closer to piercing and crushing at a single point below them. The forest of brittle minerals in your mind needed just a single resounding event to loosen, to fall, to impale indiscriminately.

That moment finally happened as you approached Chima, his hand stroking Elio under every layer meant to keep him out. Your future was a far-off thing, light years away and completely untouchable, no matter how many times you were threatened with your profile, how you'd become nothing without your associations, how the entire world would cringe in disgust at your existence and leave you to rot.

You took Chima's hand out of Elio’s pants, hoping you had the strength in yours to twist his wrist so it hurt, wanting nothing more than to actually shatter the bone with just the pure hatred surging down into your grip. With the other hand, you drew it high behind your shoulder, muscles tense, bone popping from an unnatural angle, dense club air gushing between your fingers right before your palm released a thunderous crack against his cheek that shot up the length of your arm in stinging ripples.

“No, stop!” Elio tore you away too late, right after weakness reentered your body, and he was able to easily restrain you. “What have you done?”

The clique had rallied around Chima, steadied him and examined the mark on his cheek, which was already blowing up in size.

He stared at you with amazement that quickly contorted into pure incandescence. His face was the ugliest thing you had ever seen, eyes an uninviting, pitless, and hollow place. This, you thought, was what he truly looked like beneath the popularity, cosmetics, money, and illusion of drugs.

“Keep your hands to yourself!” you screamed.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” He tried to lunge at you but was held back by Niva, Niquan, and various ghostly hands. “How dare you. How dare you touch me, you sad sack of shit! You ungrateful nobody! I can ruin you! I can make sure you get thrown into the slums and your fucking insides get ate out by all those filthy savages.”

“That's better than this.” You felt Elio tighten his arms around you, feet shuffling backward to try to separate you from this. Dancers were beginning to gather around the scene, both grossly fascinated and terrified because they'd never seen a fight between humans. “It's better than the stupid drugs. It's better than this club. It's better than all your shitty little followers. It’s better than you.”

To this, Chima stared wide-eyed and gave a derisive laugh. “You seriously hit me because I was touching the android? He's a fucking machine! What else is he useful for?!”

You were still being coaxed out of the gathering, Elio's lips whispering pacifying words into your ear that you didn't hear.

“Don't—Don’t talk about him like that.”

Chima’s visage relaxed into one you were used to seeing. A man who knew he had all the time and power in the world and that he could do anything with it. He swatted away all the helping hands and straightened his clothes.

“Not only are you fucking insane,” he said, smiling without remorse. “Now, you're also dead.”

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The decision to retch into a convenience store trash can happened because you couldn't bring yourself to do it in the neatly barbered bush you had been closer to at the time. You had separated the metal lid from the metal body so you could simply lean over and spew into it freely.

Smells emanating from inside—expedited food rottage from summer heat, curdled drinks, bagged-up dog shit, and God knows what else—did better to evacuate your stomach than the insane lighted floor in Clamors.

Most of what came up lacked the usual sourness, ran watery like a geyser of diluted red jungle bird with occasional chunks of undigested sandwich and probably everything from three days ago.

Elio wiped your face clean at every chance he got, those seldom moments where you could cough and catch your breath for just a few seconds before your stomach clenched and more climbed up your esophagus and exited your body. There wasn't much he could do apart from dab your skin and keep your clothes from the trajectory.

“Why?” Elio spoke sometime later once the waves of nausea had tapered to a degree where you could sit on a bench outside the convenience store and take a bottle of water he had ready for you. “Why did you do it?”

“Because—” you said, not bothering to finish after swigging and swishing and spitting the acrid taste that lingered on your tongue, between your teeth, and in the ridges of your gums. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get rid of it all. It stuck in your mouth like bitter tar. “Because.”

You went on to repeat the rinse and swish a few more times, ultimately tilting the bottle upside down to crush the cheap plastic in your fist so it gushed down on your head.

For a second, you imagined turning on a spigot to shock your scalp with cold water, flattening all your hair, pasting your clothes flush and translucent to your body like a second skin to peel away later.

The humid nighttime air was suddenly so much less oppressive than it had been. A subtle breeze had picked up throughout the course of the day, not doing much to tame the heat overall, but the fat pearls of water streaming down your back made you shiver. You counted all the drops that coalesced into shimmering beads on the tips of your hair, your eyelashes, and your nose and fell onto the pale gray cement underfoot.

Elio had already unbuttoned his shirt to the navel, just above where he had rebuckled his pants and tried to pull the rest of the fabric free.

“Oh, Elio. Don't.”

He pulled you into him despite your protest, swathing you from behind first with the shirt and then his arms as he held you against his chest. Fortunately, he had worn an airy undershirt so his body wasn't on display for anyone else, though there was no one around at this hour.

He soothed you with long strokes along your back. His touch amplified to a point where it hurt as much as it felt good. You knew what fingers he used more pressure with, where the heel of his hand touched you next. You could feel where he chose to linger and knead at knots under your skin, imagining the sensation similar to using a sharpened stone or ice pick

“I'm fucked.” you mumbled sullenly in his embrace, warmth dissipated as you had soaked his undershirt all the way through. “I'm so fucked.”

“It was unwise, yes,” he said in silken tones from atop your head, thin jaw pushed down into your wet hair, grinding and rotating when he'd speak. “I had you in my mind the entire time. I was prepared to let him do as he pleased if it meant preventing a confrontation—I failed. But, I hadn't expected you to hit him. None of the outcomes I calculated had that conclusion. I'm sorry.”

“No. I'm glad I did it.” You worried that you were being overconfident, too hopeful toward a future unraveling at your feet as you spoke. “I couldn’t stand how everyone was staring at you—touching you. Everything just felt so wrong, but, why? The only thing that was different was you being there, Elio. I saw you—you looked so uncomfortable. I was so hot. I think I was seeing things after taking the animal cracker. I just got so angry.”

Usually, Elio was the type to scavenge your history as thoroughly as he could, however minimal or inconsequential it all seemed to you at the time. It was a quintessential part of his programming as an android—of all androids—to want to dissect everything there was to know about their masters, knowing them better than their masters knew themselves.

You considered making it effortless for him, volunteering your past with animal crackers and how they used to not hurt at all. At one time, you could binge them for days without violent side effects that’d plague a normal person for weeks.

“There are no pharmacological benefits associated with their use,” was what you heard him say in your head, firm yet loving, melting into his sensual strokes tracing parallel along the length of your spine. “Prolonged use has been known to create perforations in the gastrointestinal tract, heart dysrhythmias…”

He didn't regurgitate that information at you. In fact, he said nothing at all. Besides the hand sweeping down your body steadily, lips and shapely nose burrowed in your limp seaweed-string hair, he didn't move at all. There was no stuttering heartbeat between you except your own. Even his breaths had gone still, chest straight down and unmoving.

Elio was a machine.

It was so easy to forget while wrapped up in daily mundanities. It wasn't so easy to forget in this moment where you wanted to crack him open, scoop out each precious piece of him with your bare hands, and hide yourself within his husk.

You were sick of the silence, so you pinched him hard under the arm, right next to the crease starting his shoulder. It made you feel better to do so, and he'd pay attention to you—

He hissed and reeled away from your touch, startling you out of his arms because you didn't know how else to react.

“Did you—Elio, did you feel that?” you asked incredulously, voice whittling into a self-conscious mumble once you realized the words leaving your mouth. They didn't stop. “Did that hurt you?”

The spot where you pinched was hard to see from the layer of his shirt sleeve, but his fingers rubbed there insistently like he were actually trying to alleviate pain.

“Once, during my early development, Researcher Kim had told me he wanted to close the gap between what people think separates androids and humans.” Elio explained, coming close again to touch you and dry your temples with his shirt on your back. “It's unlikely that what you perceive as pain and what I am programmed to perceive as pain are absolutely comparable, but there's some common ground.”

“I'm sorry, Elio. I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't know I could.” Your voice weakened to a whisper, throat clenched in shame as your skin grew hot. It was like you were still stuck in the throbbing, stiff air of the club and not in the spacious nighttime breeze.

He looked you in the face, almost-orange eyes flitting inside their orbital sockets trying to find something distant and unknown in your expression. You guessed he was assessing your sincerity—not for himself because he needed it, but to know how it took shape on you and bent your brows, molded your lips, dimpled your chin, deepened the lines.

Then he asked, "If I hadn't reacted—if my circuitry were less sensitive and I could feel nothing at all aside from your fingers on my skin, would you have done it again? Would you keep doing it?"

"What are you trying to say?”

"Globally, since the widespread distribution of androids, the occurrence of domestic and public disputes has been halved. I have been designed to be non-violent, as have all of my predecessors.” As if for effect, Elio took one of your hands and pushed your palm flat to his warm cheek. “I have no desire to hurt you, but I am also incapable of doing so.”

You couldn't wrench yourself from his grip, so that's how you remained, caressing his soft, smooth skin while your thumbpad skirted along the round bone below his eye.

This was more than you could handle right now. All of the illness and nausea that came with the burdensome summer heat, the animal cracker, every bit of liquid and food to enter your stomach, the memory of slapping Chima—it came back, crashing down like an avalanche carrying your regrets, fears, malaise.

“I'm not going to hit you.” You were gagging around saliva pooling into the front of your mouth. “Chima was different. He deserved it.”

“Perhaps,” Elio agreed, entwining fingers with the ones on his cheek. He kissed your open palm with great passion and some semblance of regret. “But, I wish you would have hit me instead. I have failed one of the most basic parts of programming by putting you and others in harm. You may now end up suffering greatly because of it.”

You did get sick again.

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Elio had persistently warded off Researcher Kim’s video calls for three days while you recovered upstairs beneath every comforter you owned, maximum air conditioning, and heavy curtains to shun out all natural light from ever reaching your bedside. Time came and went without peril or concept to you, seeming to evaporate into the air like nothing, much like how your steady, quiet breaths did the same. They simply came and went; inhale and exhale, no writhing white plumes drifted overhead to prove they belonged to you or that you were even alive. Not in the dead of summer.

Five days total had passed before you could take the staircase down from the loft without Elio's assistance and eat or drink anything of substance that didn't end with it all being violently evacuated from your body.

Sleep remained elusive to you despite the sedatives and special hot tea recipes from online that Elio pushed down your throat. The migraines persisted even with prescription painkillers Melby had stolen for you forever ago and rough romps of sex that left you winded, glistening, and cold on the sheets when the oscillating fans blew air across your skin.

Whatever excuse Elio had fed to Researcher Kim over the days you were incapacitated worked because when you were finally back at the counter on a video call with him, he didn't ask you about it or chastise you much about the holes in your reports for that week.

“I see that Elio had been proving himself to be quite self-sufficient. I have here six separate occasions where he's ventured out on his own?” Kim looped a stylus through his fingers fluidly, concentrating on what little information he could glean from your submissions. “Henrietta's, mostly. I see he's had to visit the dry cleaners. General store. Pharmacy. He's also been completing the six to ten interactions by himself. Absolutely phenomenal!”

Your attention kept drifting away from Kim. It went to Elio, who placed a white mug down quietly next to you, the handle within reach of your fingers. Beyond the pale-gray wisps spiraling up into the air and dissipating among the snaking pipes sprawling the high ceiling, the liquid inside was pale yellow. Diluted green tea, maybe white tea, if you had to guess. They were among the few things you could stomach right now.

He offered you a fast smile, somewhat unlike himself, and leaned into your lips.

The sight went unnoticed by Kim, who was still captivated by the level of initiative and intelligence his creation displayed. Every word you managed to construct through sedative-induced delirium mesmerized him so thoroughly that he missed the groping hands under your shirt, the smothered moans, and the fact that you had exited view of the screen for fifteen minutes while being laid out on the couch and feasted on through an orgasm.

Wendy Carmichael Can Cook came on the television, a solid distraction for Elio. Today’s episode was a rerun featuring some sort of elevated mush dinner popular in the slums. With some canned foods capable of surviving nuclear fallout, herbs you were almost positive had gone extinct forty years ago, and spices so rare they were untouchable, Wendy concocted something truly groundbreaking to the audience’s eyes.

Elio looked only half-interested in the episode. Meanwhile, you went to the bathroom to clean yourself up and took three painkillers before sitting back down behind the counter. Researcher Kim had yet to lose the wind in his lungs, though now you weren't sure what he was talking about.

The tea was lukewarm and non-irritating just like you thought it'd be.

Your phone had survived the whole five days on a single charge as you had been too afraid to touch it, not because you were scared to see what was there but because you didn't want to know what was no longer there.

True to the fear, while holding a large breath you had sucked into your lungs, believing it to be the sturdiest barrier against whatever you'd discover, there was no one left in your phone log—except Melby.

The rest: Chima, Niva, Niquan, Marcos, Mother, and all the others who had once been listed there before like mock trophies to bolster your sense of worth, the swell of pride that came from knowing important people and integrating yourself into their lives to be something special, simply did not exist anymore.

You didn't have to search up your public profile to know that it was barren as well.

Once Chima went, everyone else went with him—both from the circle and those you'd networked throughout life. Even if it had been someone else, the end result would've stayed the same, exactly as it is now.

“What do you want? I'm not supposed to be talking to you.” Melby had answered her phone after six rings. The background seemed purposefully mute for your call. Perhaps she was just at home nursing the after-effects of things as well. “You there?”

Researcher Kim sieved through paperwork, now entranced by comparing Elio's earlier behaviors in the infancy of design to now. You lowered the volume to where his voice was a low hum, like mumbling through a wall you flattened yourself to.

“Let me guess, Chima told you that?” you said, sipping gingerly from your mug. “How much did he tell you? Was he actually honest, or did he just tell you I was fucking crazy?”

“You weren't acting right all night.” Melby countered in her surefooted drawl. “I don't understand what's happening to you, or why you've been acting so differently. You shouldn't have hit Chima.”

“He shouldn't have touched Elio.”

You could imagine her temper flaring, fair skin glowing pink in the face and chest as she kicked around the comforters on her bed. She strangled a sound in her throat that emanated through the phone as a low groan. Strands of her fried blonde hair scuffed together like pieces of straw when she scratched her head. It was unmistakable.

“What is going on with you?” she demanded, on the verge of tears, voice fading out in glimpses like she was moving away from the speaker. “Elio—he’s just an android. I know he's some radical new innovation, but he'll be saturating the market in six months like every other Hyperion android. There's always going to be more of him. Chima, though, he's actually human. You can just throw away an android.”

Emotions aside—Melby wasn't wrong.

The price of innovation always meant leaving something behind. Whether or not you wanted to see it, if Elio passed his testing period, he'd be decommissioned in a metal box down in the basement at Hyperion while copies and variations of him were added to the heaps of scrap in landfill once the next model came out.

Melby then said something else, “I don't think this is about the android.”

“Oh?” you said, passing a glance along toward the tablet to see that Kim still had his nose pointed down. “Maybe you're right. You know me so well.”

“Do you want to know what I think?” Melby asked.

You observed while Elio roamed the apartment, crouching to pick up the odds and ends that had gone neglected over the days you'd been bedridden, and he had stayed with you to keep you company. He tossed soiled clothes into a hamper, crumbled medication wrappers into the trash, and took your cold tea away to prepare more.

Inspired by your silence, mistaking it as timid submission, Melby went on. “I know you must think we're just being shepherded along, just doing whatever we're told because we don't know what else to do other than follow the loudest voice in the crowd.”

“You know me so well.”

“I know you blame everyone else for what happened at Clamors, but you put yourself in that situation.” Melby said, interjecting in a pitch higher when she heard you take in a breath, “Aht! Aht! I'm not done! No one else is gonna talk to you now, so I'll tell you what we're all thinking: Our circle? We're special. If we always smile and talk about the same things and agree about the same things, we stay together. We stay safe. You've never really wanted to do that, it was always noticeable. I think that's why you and Mi-sun always got along, because you two just did things to fit in, not because you actually cared or wanted to be a part of it.

“I didn't lose you, right? Chima always talked about ways of getting you out of the group. He didn't think you were trustworthy. I guess he was right because you slapped him. Do you know how weird is it for humans to do that nowadays? Apparently it used to be super common to beat up your wives and kids, but now people just do it to androids. But, it's better that way, right?”

“I don't know.” You really didn't.

Elio came back around with a steeping tea bag and a second mug half-full of something darker yellow, like urine. You took the handle to give it a whiff (it smelled homey and savory). Meanwhile, he took away the tablet and ended the video call without a word to Researcher Kim. The energy wasn't there for you to reprimand him nor to mess up your face in mostly feigned surprise.

“It's chicken broth.” He was able to say freely despite Melby blathering on. “Give it a try and let me know if it's too strong. We need to start reintroducing foods back into your diet.”

You drank from the tea mug instead, swiveling the barstool so your back faced him.

“I've thought about it some, and I think we're terrified of each other. Humans don't know how to truly trust one another anymore. That’s why we rely on androids for, like, everything.” Melby continued, “I think, and this is just my opinion, that we actually really miss each other. I think we want to touch and hug and love each other. There are still some people who do. There's a market out there for human-human porn, so it's not like it's unbelievable, but we basically treat each other like we're extinct. It's weird.

“I've done it before, y'know? I've kissed a man. I've kissed a woman. I've fucked both before. You and I—no, never mind. It doesn't count. I've thought about kissing you so many times. I wanted to do a lot more than just that, too.”

The corner seam of your thumbnail had started to bleed after you dug through old scabs and scar tissue built on top of it, your body’s valiant attempts to keep normalcy despite the mutilation that came back again and again. You watched brilliant carmine ooze from the wound, filling the crevices between your nail and skin, crawling upwards to your knuckle before Elio had stifled the area with a warm, damp rag.

Melby let out a long sigh. You envisioned she had just thrown aside a bunch of decorative cushions and flopped down in a chair, or had been pacing her bedroom and finally given up by throwing herself supine on the mattress.

“I'm going to miss you being there.” she declared. “I think—I think you're the closest I've ever come to truly loving someone. At least, I think that's what you'd call it.”

You held your thumb erect for Elio to wrap it in a neon-orange bandage with pink smiles. His lips pressed gently to the sore finger, making slow, wet work to the back of your hand and then the inside of your wrist to feel your pulse bounce against his mouth.

“I'm sorry.” you said at last, putting as much sentiment into those sparse words as you could. A part of you meant it genuinely as an apology for causing her trouble, for her unrealized dreams and lust, for the world you both suffered in and would never know anything else. “Melby, I have one last favor to ask of you.”

She hesitated, likely believing that doing more would get her expulsed from the circle. “Just one?”

“Just one.” You nodded at empty air. “I know either you or Niva have Mi-sun’s phone number. Can I have it?”

Again, Melby stalled, though this time you figured it was out of confusion. “That’s what you want? She might be dead somewhere in the slums, you know?”

“Not if she's pregnant.” you countered. “Niva seemed pretty convinced that night that she was alive and well after being knocked up.”

Melby sucked on her teeth, a moist, popping sound into the speaker. “Niva says a lot of stupid shit because she likes to hijack conversations. Fine. Whatever. I'll text it to you, but you only have one minute because then I'm blocking you for good.”

To this, your heart actually stirred and squeezed, tightening so much it stole your breath from your lungs. Your entire chest felt like it shriveled into itself three sizes smaller as though to accommodate you fitting into a ball within yourself. Dread had opened a chasm wide in your stomach. Everything inside that gory cavity was swallowed up, leaving it vacant and hollow.

This was what it was like to mourn, you considered. It wasn't the same thing you felt the night you cried in the streets after fighting with Mother and losing Marcos. It wasn't the same as the last five days being wrapped in agony, lamenting the loss of a group you'd given years of your life to appeasing.

It was knowing that once Melby was gone, you were lost in the dark, and there was no way out of it. People with delinquent profiles didn't get redeemed—Wendy Carmichael lied and had never lived a life in the slums, a truth Elio had been disappointed to learn—they died in anonymity and poverty.

A notification came through just then, showing an eight-digit number presumed to belong to Mi-sun. You copied it quickly, although now your fingers felt numb and the person writing them down couldn't possibly have been you—

“Alright. It's done,” Melby said calmly. “I have to go. Will you be okay? Do you think people actually die when they go to the slums? I don't want—”

“Goodbye, Melby.” You ended the call and threw your phone on the countertop, far from your eyes so you wouldn't know the exact moment the world ended.

“And, fuck you.”

Elio had the sense to give you plenty of space after the ordeal and stayed busy downstairs cleaning the apartment while you tossed and turned in bed, legs knotted up in the sheets because nothing helped get you comfortable. At some point, through the thick of your adrenaline and despair, the buzz in your brain softened, and you were able to sleep until Elio joined you some hours later.

It was after midnight, and darkness pervaded everywhere. Above you, the snake pipes on the high ceiling writhed together in their intricate web just like every night, and you wondered why the wall of darkness hanging over you seemed closer than it usually did. Meanwhile, Elio faced you from his side of the bed and laid gentle strokes to the top of your head.

“I’ve reached the conclusion that I am defective.” Elio said tonelessly, startling you into such wakefulness that you sat upright from the sheets. “You've lost your friends because of me, and now your profile has fallen into delinquency. The inclination to ostracize what deviates from adapted, accepted social behaviors aligns with common survival tactics. This is an explanation that I understand, but it doesn't... sit right.”

Putting the blame on Elio to feel better would've been easy, and he would take it with grace and lay decadent caresses on your body as proof you were right. But he was too virtuous, and you secretly wanted to keep the credit of being the reason why Chima looked ugly and seethed into his cocktails.

“It sort of hurts,” you admitted. “It's a dull ache inside my bones. It makes me feel like everything inside my chest is shriveling up like a prune. Being abandoned—feeling lonely—is like always being cold. Thinking of it now, I don't know if there was ever a time I didn't feel cold around them. How shitty is it that I feel a little relieved?"

“If that's the case—” Elio rose up from his side of the bed, nudged apart your legs and settled between them. Most of his weight was still on his arms next to your head. In the waning moonlight, shadows deepened the lines around his mouth when he smiled. “I'm glad to have played some part in that release.”

Your fingertips walked lightly across his cheeks, along the planes of his face, as though marveling at him all over for the first time again. His skin always was most beautiful bathed in warm light, but the soft, silvery veil filtering in through the windows gave him ethereal grace.

The calm air upstairs shifted as your bodies stirred on the mattress, sheets strewn to the floor along with pieces of clothing that left you bare to the gray air while Elio gathered the skin of your hips in his hands and sucked on you.

It didn't matter if you closed your eyes or studied the movement on the ceiling while he devoured, lapped away the sticky stuff that glistened out of you like the silk of a spider’s thread before it could stain the sheets, because it always ended with the same kaleidoscopic bursts of color, wanton cries, and him chasing after another orgasm and then another.

He'd ravish you until puffs of hot breath hurt, and the tip of his tongue delivering a single stroke was enough to make you flinch and whimper. Your legs felt fatigued and trembled violently throughout the continued ministrations until you needed to beg him to stop, dignifying the demand with a hard yank to the thick hair on his scalp.

“I'm not done just yet, give me a moment.” He told you the same thing tonight as he did every other time. The pain in his head subsided as he dove back between your legs and laid his tongue as a paddle against you, cleaning the cum for as long as it took for him to be satisfied.

He came up so you could have a taste of yourself in his kiss, tongues wrapped together while he fisted his cock stiff and lubricated himself with the fluid from the tip. You moaned against his mouth when two fingers pushed inside you and thrust with an effortless glide and instilled so much confidence in him that he slid in a third to the knuckle.

“Mm, Elio, fuck me.” you managed between wet, sloppy kisses and splintered breaths. Three fingers were a tighter fit and wider than he was, but the way he angled them up into you was mind-numbing, could've made your tongue wag out of your mouth while panting like a pheromone-crazed animal.

Elio’s lips went from your face to your neck, down along the slope to your shoulder before he removed his fingers and slathered that narrow space in your legs with spend.

“Of course.” He obeyed dutifully but turned you on your side and seated one of your legs high on his arm. “Let's try something different tonight.”

The bulbous head of his cock glistened as it dragged across your groin, tapping those sore spots that made you twitch involuntarily with anticipation and staggered breaths. Elio concentrated on your face throughout it all, memorizing both those subtle and large changes that showed him what you liked the most.

You'd never believed that androids could be sexually adventurous in the same way that humans could, and perhaps that was the case despite the kinds of positions Elio put you in if you were willing. He would be conscientious of your mood beforehand and then adjust accordingly from there.

Some nights, it didn't go further than mouth-fucking you until you orgasmed to exhaustion. Other nights, when you were more pliable and especially affectionate, he'd rut his hips into your ass until you cried and the sheets were beyond saving.

Now, Elio observed you closely as the curve of his cock sank into you, sinew in his stomach clenching once he started thrusting.

At the start, your sounds were soft, and the rhythm made with his hips was one you had no trouble riding. You closed your eyes and focused on how that tilt in his cock pressed up against your walls and stroked all the right parts. His controlled pace unraveled after a while, thrusts turned mindless and greedy as the sting of slapping skin seemed to resonate all around.

You had bunched bits of pillow and bedspread in your fingers and drooled out onto the fabric because you couldn't close your mouth long enough between moans and gasps and lewd mutterings to stop it. You begged him to fuck you harder, deeper, and tear you open if that’s what he wanted to do and would keep you in ecstacy.

Elio indulged your high as he was able, rolling you from your side to your stomach and mounted you again. He was able to touch you better this way, fondle the globes of your ass, the pouches of fat in your hips, stomach, and chest, all the while sucking dark bruises all along your spine and shoulders.

His mouth would sometimes linger next to your ears, wherein he imitated every bit of his human likeness and breathed on you. And then, he would poorly stifle moans that inspired you to think too deeply about the extent to which he could and could not feel.

“Look at me.” Elio felt your walls tighten around his cock and wanted to stare you in the face through your orgasm. He put you on your back, thighs hiked high on his sturdy chest, so those final thrusts plowed deep and stole your screams. You writhed under him, eyes rolled up, bloodshot and pupiless, muscles drawn so tight that it felt as good as it did awful.

A surge of warmth leaked out onto the sheets as Elio took his half-hard cock from your body and let it soften the rest of the way in cold air. His hand roamed you with delicate, healing touches meant to beg forgiveness for how much you'd ache later on, and his lips were tender and slow against yours.

You kissed him back distractedly, unable to think of anything else but the stickiness between your legs and how you'd chosen to never notice it until now.

“What's wrong?” he asked, still pressed up against your mouth. “Are you unsatisfied? My refractory period ends in a few minutes. I can do as much as you'd like until you feel fulfilled.”

“Mm-mn,” you hummed, “that's not it.”

He didn't stun when you snagged your phone from the bedside table and turned on the backlight. You pointed it down at cloudy white globs drying on your crotch, a sight that you thought was vaguely familiar to you somehow. It struck you then that it was like a scene from a pornography or vulgar sketches some kid in secondary school got suspended for drawing.

Still, it couldn't have been possible.

“What is that?” you asked with unacquainted timidity.

Elio grabbed a package of wipes left bedside and spaced your legs apart to clean the mess he had left on you. He took his time with long, intentional strokes to avoid your sensitive parts as best he could, soiling a good handful from the package before asking if you wanted a bath.

“Answer me first,” you said.

He rose from the bed with one more kiss and collected your clothes from the floor. They were draped nicely over his arm, whereas he stood there before you nude, enveloped by the moon’s blue luster.

At first glance, his smile seemed the same adoring kind that he always held for you, and yet it evoked some undeterminable sadness to well up in your chest and cling there.

“It’s the result of a body never truly being your own.”

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Mi-sun’s house wasn't far from your apartment, as you recalled. It took a bit of investigative work online to track down her address (via Elio), mainly because it had been well over a year since you'd last needed to know it and the phone number Melby had given you was disconnected, but once you had the coordinates plugged into your phone, it was just one begrudging trek through sultry summertime air to reach her front door.

When you had finally made it to that point, however, eyes leveled down at a dirty, faded doormat that had seen plenty of seasons and wintery salt, you weren't sure how to proceed.

There wasn't any real reason why you were standing there now, yet you felt that you needed to be there anyway. Maybe it could be called seeking solidarity with someone who was enduring the same inevitable ending you were, or maybe the curiosity about her state of being was what won out dominantly. You couldn't be sure of your own motivations—only that you were there, and you needed her to know you were.

After three solid knocks with your knuckles, you let your hand fall and waited by scuffing the soles of your shoes on the coarse mat underfoot. It still had some springiness to it as you scrubbed. The front door was old and brown, having lost its elegant lacquer long ago. You remembered Mi-sun had mentioned a few times before that she had wanted to make the door cute with white paint and a frilly outdoor wreath but could never get around to it.

You guessed she never did.

“Should we knock again?” Elio asked across your shoulder, the bulk of his frame casting a cooling shadow over your body. He had gone out to Henrietta's by himself the other day when you told him what you intended to do and bought supplies to make a cake and special plastic Tupperware meant to keep it from moving around.

The only explanation he had given you about an hour ago, after locking the apartment door and stepping out onto the sidewalk, hot enough in the midday sun to melt the bottoms of your shoes to the pavement while you walked, was that Mi-sun was an old friend, and it was a safe gift even for a pregnant woman.

You never found the courage to divulge just how involved you had been in her expulsion from Chima's circle, even though you knew it'd be impossible for him to think less of you from it.

A minute passed, and then so did two more before you realized that no one was coming to the door. While listening for movement—a television, a hissing stovetop, shuffling slippers on top of creaking floorboards, anything at all aside from stiff silence, you understood that it was unlikely anyone had lived there in quite a while.

“I don't know where else she could be.” you said, now back at Elio's side, where he flicked away tiny splinters of old wood and shiny glaze that peeled off your damp skin like cut-up stickers. He moved the visor above your brow gently, adjusting the position of it to better shield your eyes, but seemed more to just want the proximity than anything else.

The longer he fiddled with things—your hat, the flecks of things he missed on your ear, wrinkles in your t-shirt—the more apparent it was to you that he was contemplating something else. You were trying hard not to do anything that would spur him into making the next suggestion you knew was coming.

“There is one other place we haven't tried.” he said, switching from your shoulder to tucking pieces of hair securely behind your ear and dabbing sweat off your neck with a handful of napkins he had picked up at a convenience store while grabbing you water. “The likelihood of Mi-sun’s profile falling into delinquency and being able to maintain residence within the city is less than twenty percent. However—”

“I know.” You breathed out hot air and sucked it right back into your lungs. Maybe if you did that enough times it'd burn them, shrivel them up like prunes. “I know where she is. Let's wait until it cools down to go, though. I'll probably pass out if I have to see any of that right now.”

“Today on Loti Khan’s Food Tours of Retro City, she said that Asakawa on Fifteenth is a spot worth visiting during the summertime because of their cold noodle dishes. Hiyashi Chuka was what she suggested, I believe. I've already committed the menu to memory, and they have well over twenty different cold dishes and beverages. Their affordability isn't as stellar as Rainbow Bistro, but Loti says—”

Wendy Carmichael was now a disgraced name in your household after Elio had spent a few hours one afternoon researching the woman’s true life story. She had been born into the elite class with a mother sitting at the top of the food chain in Retro City’s governing body, attended culinary arts schools across the world yet never reached the acclaim she coveted until she made up the whole spiel about clawing her way out of the slums.

Crawling back from the slums once you were in them just wasn't feasible. Only the worst of the worst—thieves, profile delinquents, murderers, lepers, and unwanteds were kept there, like trash crowded and barred in a landfill. If you found yourself in the slums somehow, no one would help you out of them because that would mean tarnishing their own reputations.

You were as good as dead.

You were dead.

Elio had carried around a brown paper bag housing the cake for most of the day, never once setting it down. His features never flinched when the straw handles sank into parallel dents in his skin, long stripes that looked like they'd be sore to you, but he never conveyed any discomfort. He merely floated along wherever you went, undeterred by your dour, soulless wandering, which lasted until the sun emblazoned the sky in dim fire and pinks.

Those hues were leached by the close, calming gradient of greens, blues, and darker blues that reached so quickly you could follow the sprawl of them until they had ensnared the daylight. The sun sank somewhere betwixt skyscrapers, and the air still felt thick as the mucus in your throat but bearable.

That same sky followed you on the cab ride across the city. You imagined the darkening air rushing alongside the vehicle with you as if containing it on rails, guiding you closer towards the slums. Once the skyscrapers were gone, far away in a suffocating yellow haze from the sleepless city, and the residential zone had thinned out of the rest of its straggling homes, the scenery had taken on a complete shift.

Everything was bizarrely flat, barren, and beige for as far as the eye could see—vegetation was withered roots and barbed, inedible shrubbery that could've been pretty with some flowers or leaves. No trees could endure the fissured, parched earth nor the fine dust and sand skittering in the wind, leaving heavy layers where it lay once the breeze ebbed. Animals were long gone; the rumors of their bleached bones and skulls warped in a perpetual rictus of agony had been true because you saw many scattered throughout the landscape.

“Please confirm this is your stop,” said the cabbie, a female android from an older generation, maybe three or four. She stuck her hand outside the driver’s window when you tried to give her a tip. With her fish-eyed stare and leathery smile, she repeated, “No need. I have no use for money. Please confirm this is your stop.”

“This is correct.” Elio spoke for you before taking your fingers through his and guiding you away from the idling vehicle. The android cabbie found his reply sufficient and drove away without questioning why you were out here in the flatlands. All she knew how to do was drive and obey traffic laws.

“Do you know where we're going?” you asked because you only knew to have told the cabbie to drive as far as the outer perimeter of the city. Beyond this, your phone had no service, and there were no clearly designated signs to point you in the right direction.

The people in the slums were meant to be forgotten, hideous secrets hidden away, broomed off to the outskirts of civilization where they'd have to fend for themselves in an environment that had been deader than them for ages.

“Truthfully”—Elio stalled then and glanced around the endless expanse of wasteland—“Hyperion never included information about the slums in my programming. What I know is common knowledge and what I've accumulated in my time with you. I have never been able to locate specific coordinates to where the slums are hidden.”

You frowned. “Should we turn around before we get lost, then?”

Elio told you no and raised the hand clasped with yours, pushing one finger erect at a faint glow somewhere in the distance, no more than a ten—or fifteen-minute walk. You were almost convinced you could see the silhouettes of shoddy, leaning structures, but there was no way to be certain unless you got closer.

“Let's go.”

Chasing the remnants of the dusk to light your way across the starved, fractured terrain, those sparse shapes you had seen minutes before grew into multitudes. Soon, you were among clusters of disheveled, crude homes organized in long rows, some stacked with tiers like they were meant to replicate separate floors for more space.

Most of these houses didn't come with windows or doors to keep out strangers but thick decorative curtains that'd shun the beating sun, stave off the worst of winter frost, and deflect billows of sharp sand from dirtying their things indoors.

The paths between rows of homes were well-worn and brightly illuminated with anything they could use—lanterns, stuttering neon signage, solar panels, and even fire rings brutally hammered and dented into shape. Shadows from the fire lurched erratically against crooked metallic walls. Some homes with grimy windows caught a weak gleam off the flames.

It was almost fully dark, and people still moved with purpose as though they could compete with the suit-and-ties stomping their soles on the pavement in the city. Their hands were busy doing something—carrying, brooming, cooking, flourishing during a great retelling, clapping, hiding smiles.

These savages, delinquents, fraudsters, thieves, murderers, and diseased swine never once regarded you or Elio with any modicum of intrigue. You had believed at some point you'd be shrinking under a crowd of wicked stares, pulled down into some inescapable abyss by necrotic or leprous hands trying to steal the clothes from your body or use your skin to tarp piles of scrap.

Only one man had stopped along the path, dressed in dusty clothes that were otherwise decently kept; he was thin but not malnourished and hollow in the face. He told you that the aimless way you and Elio had been walking gave away that you were new to the slums because there was always something needing done and not enough hours in a day to do them.

“Mi-sun?” The man was thinking aloud, stirring up dust as he shuffled his feet around. You had given him the name and a description, which you hoped had been specific enough to avoid approaching people at random. “Yeah. That pregnant girl… she was here for a while. She's long gone now.”

“Long black hair, blunt bangs. Black eyes. Really translucent skin? Super skinny?” As unhelpful as your details were, it was all you had to give him to keep the mental acrobatics going. There was always a slim chance he could be misremembering her. “Are you sure she's no longer here in the slums? Where'd she go? What happened to her?”

Eventually, the thin man led Elio and you to a tiny house—more of a shack—meant to accommodate a sole body and some odds and ends. He held a heavy curtain back for the pair of you to enter, encouraging you to settle down on a sandy rug, which looked to have at one time been bright red.

“I don't have much to give, but here's a little water. To have made it here, you would've had to walk. We all had to.” he said, pulling out his finest cuppery and pouring from the spout of a broken electric kettle. “That girl was a profile delinquent, to my understanding. Almost all of us here are. I used to own a printing business on the north side about fifteen years ago. I upset the wrong people and here I am. What's your story?”

You spun the cup with your fingers, trying not to put your eyes down to scrutinize any particles floating around inside. Elio wasn't given a cup because the man had immediately deduced that he was an android.

“I…” You still didn't drink, but the back of your throat felt scratchy and your tongue like some dry slab of meat shoved into your mouth. “I pissed off the wrong people.”

“Ah.” The man gave an anguished smile, showing he understood you very well. There was a low table between you, repurposed from something else and sanded down to a smooth finish. “For a while, I helped look after Mi-sun. Like you, I had been the first person to greet her when she arrived. She didn't act like everyone else; she was dazed, but she was angry.

“I fed her, gave her water, and gave her a sleeping bag. We have to make due with less than bare minimum most days, but we make it work. We all look out for each other. The community really pitched in when we realized she was pregnant.”

Elio kept a watchful eye on your hands, the fingers aching to peel back ribbons of flesh.

“That shouldn't have been possible.” you said. “Mi-sun had an android. She was never involved with any men—not that I could ever recall. She just doesn't give me the impression of someone who'd change her ways like that.”

The man sipped his sandy water, wiping off clear pebbles that had clung to his facial hair. “When you find yourself exiled here, you learn fast that things are never what they seem. You didn't ask a question, but you gave yourself an answer.”

“What?” It was more noise than a word.

“Daichi, I believe, was her android. Shortly before she showed up, she said that Hyperion had come to forcibly reclaim it. That must've been a difficult reality for her to face—knowing everything was being taken away from her, forced into a pregnancy, and having to fend for herself afterwards.”

This time, you lifted a hand to stop him from falling down another tangent. He obeyed, voice whittled to silence that was immediately unsettled by loud water slurping.

It wasn't that you weren't following what he was saying. You were many things: a fool, a sheep, a coward, a liar, maybe even a true scoundrel at heart, but stupid wasn't among that inexhaustible list. You just needed a moment to collect the nuggets he had thrown down for you to pick up.

Guilt peaked the ranks of everything else you felt right then. A word you'd never use to describe yourself was malicious, but in the end, it had been the malice of someone else and your inability to see apart from the rest that condemned Mi-sun to this suffering.

You played as much a part in taking away Mi-sun's life as Chima had in actually enforcing it. Unlike Chima, never one to balk or cower regardless of how truly cruel his decisions were and committed to them like gospel, you simply sat in his afterimage and did whatever he said. Half of the time, you were blitzed out of your mind; the other you spent wishing you had never known them at all.

It had been so easy to vote Mi-sun out of the group. Completely painless. You just didn't look at her when you raised your hand to pass judgment. Melby had expressed her delight by squeezing your thigh, whereas Mi-sun held her composure and shoulders straight back, but her face contorted with every indication of betrayal and agony.

You thought about how many animal crackers you had that night.

“What happened to her?” Both your hands had been restrained by Elio’s at that point. Large, comforting, and warm in contrast to all the ice that seemed to thicken your blood, stiffen your heart, and freeze your bones. “Where is she now?”

The man must've been suspecting something because his face looked long to you now, weighed down by this life and your feeble state.

“I—I can't be absolutely positive, but I do believe she is dead.” he told you grievously, beady brown eyes not unseeing to the way Elio groped your fingers to keep them still. “She didn't want to be pregnant. It was something she talked about for weeks before leaving. She knew what Hyperion and the government were doing and said she didn't want to be a part of it. On the last night before she left, I had to wrestle a knife out of her hands because she was trying to cut open her stomach to kill the baby.”

You couldn't swallow past the sharp granules of sand and dryness in your throat anymore. You had to slug back the cup of grainy water until the feeling subsided, shove the worst of the dread and shame and guilt into your bowels.

“After that, she was gone.” He took a drink as well, exchanging looks from you to Elio. “A couple of us tried tying her up to get her to calm down and do something about the cut on her stomach, but she got the knife, stabbed one of the younger guys and got away. We haven't seen her since, but a search party did come back to say they saw blood leading back to the city.”

“Oh my god…” you groaned, forcing Elio to recoil when you slapped his hands away—intentional and hard. You stuck yours in your hair, yanking at the roots until your scalp screamed and burned. “Is there any chance she could've survived? Any at all?”

The rail-thin man swirled what little remained of his water in the cup, studying the pale sediment floating within. “It's too hard to say. It's unlikely, my friend. The police wouldn't have gunned her down if they saw she was pregnant, but they would've seen the cut. And that counts as attempted murder. If she's still alive, it's only to give birth, after that…”

“Execution,” you finished.

He nodded and said nothing else, eyes downcast as though lost in the grain of the wood table.

After that, you left the man in his sad little shack to explore the slums more. Elio came along shortly after, saying he had presented the man with the cake as a reward for his hospitality and apologized if it no longer looked appetizing.

The man thanked him before returning to his grief for many things, perhaps.

“I don't want to be here anymore, Elio.” you said, failing to avoid hearing a gaggle of giggling women gossiping together. They were dressed clumsily and in trends almost a decade old, but they had glowy eyes and cavernous lines worn into their faces from laughter and joy where they could find it.

Old men played some made-up board game together, gathering at least half a dozen spectators to see who'd win. Their brows were heavy with contemplation and stress of worthy competition. The other bodies tried making bets with pieces of scrap and metal coils and nearly blown bulbs for lighting.

Music came from all around, lyrical in the same way it was discordant because they weren't playing the same songs nor singing the same things. Their voices were robust and resilient, unwilling to be trudged over by sand nor heat nor oppressors who were incapable of understanding the human spirit was pliant and could bend with the wind, stand with the seasons, and could fracture yet never break.

You couldn't make sense of what any of them were singing, the noise too unharmonious, but you could feel the power in their songs pulse through you, ricocheting in your mind for long after you'd escaped proximity to them.

There were no lepers. There were the sick and unfortunate, but they were not diseased. They did not believe that their tilted houses were tombs, that their unquaint lives were an endless spiral of torment, or that the food they could find and produce was unworthy of reverence.

The people of the slums lived a hard, thankless life, but they had each other. They banded together to weld sheets of metal into four walls and a roof for the new faces who came to them. Your woes would become their woes, and they would feed you, cloth you, wash you, bandage your wounds, and call you their most beloved.

Together, they ate their meals from what they could scavenge out there. They retold the same grandiose tales of heroes and valor and androids that Marcos had told you at bedtime as a child. Their cultures were all cherished and expressed in the food they shared and clothes they managed to sew together by hand and slow machines.

You could ask your neighbor for a tablespoon of sugar and four would come to you with curiosity and offer their arthritic hands and knobby backs for whatever was needed.

Here, you could see humanity clearly for the first time in your life and felt burdened knowing it. Your heart weighed like an anvil behind your ribs. It hurt and lurched behind its enclosure because it too wanted to get away from what it now knew.

“A lie.” you choked, forcefully shoving Elio's hands away from you once again when he tried to embrace you. “It was all a lie. Everything was a lie! Where are they?! Where are all the lepers and people leaking pus from their face?! Where are the murderers? Where are the savages? Where are all these awful fucking people I was told were here? Where are they?”

Elio's expression took on something completely unforeseen—pity. Their lives were fine and routine while yours crumbled around you. The terror you had been force-fed your whole life was all false. There was civilization beyond a profile with red overlay, more waiting on the other side that the sleepless city wanted to conceal.

“There are no androids here.” Elio mentioned, deeming that adequate enough time had passed for you to regain your bearings. He took you in his arms and kissed the crown of your head, burying his lips deep in your hair. “We were never meant to become substitutes for your love. We were never meant to go this far and act as replacements for humanity because we simply cannot feel what another human does. That is something Hyperion will never be able to achieve. Humanity needs humanity, not machines.”

You sank into his warmth, arms wound his back, and said from his chest, “But, I love you. Don't leave me. I don't want Hyperion to take you away.”

Elio, your beautiful sun, leaned down into your face and kissed the highest parts of your cheeks and the wetness around your eyes before settling on your lips. Slow and lingering, you chose to believe it meant he was sealing away your plea and that he'd always be there to swathe you in his arms.

“Let's stay for a little longer,” he said once apart from the kiss. “I’d like to see the side of humanity that no one else does.”

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Less than a week had passed since your hard slog through the slums and back to Retro City. Although you had only been gone from your inner-city apartment for mere hours, possibly five or six at most, upon walking back inside after Elio and wincing against the fluorescent bulbs overhead, you thought you were looking at something entirely foreign.

The simple pleasures that you had become accustomed to throughout your life: plumbing, central air that turned the hot sweat on the back of your neck into cold droplets slithering beneath your clothes, the worn out mattress upstairs, technology, an android who'd done almost everything for you for the better part of a year—it all seemed so novel, so excessive. A treat for a rat in a box before testing to see how it'd respond when it was all taken from its enclosure.

So, when Elio woke you up one morning, early enough that the light streaming in through your windows already felt warm on the bed sheets, and the thin air looked itself to have a golden hue, you couldn't say you felt any rouse of surprise or fear when he handed over a red letter—an eviction correspondence.

Sooner or later, you knew you'd meet with one, though the progress of everything hadn't been as immediate as you had been led to believe it would be. A month had come by and stayed for several slow breakfasts, lunches, dinners, mindless strolls, and countless passionate entanglements before deciding to leave on an indignant note. With the red notice, you were expected to vacate the premises within days, whether you had intentions for your belongings or not.

Things stayed tumultuous from there on out, yet you couldn't find it within yourself to react to any of it, even in the instance when Researcher Kim rang you for an impromptu meeting that you anticipated meant no good.

“Effective immediately, Elio will be seized and returned to Hyperion in relation to the recent change in public profile status.” It was too formal and rigid a tone even for him. Clearly, his superiors had demanded this because you doubted the profile change was much a concern to him on a personal level. “Your contract is hereby null and void, and your association with Hyperion is obsolete. Any attempt to thwart repossession of Hyperion property will be penalized legally.”

Throughout it all, Elio swept the floor with leisurely strokes as though the reach of Researcher Kim’s voice ended at your ears alone. He moved onto laundry, taking great care to iron out the wrinkles in your favorite shirts and make the folds in the arm seams crisp and symmetrical.

“Is that really all you wanted to say?” you asked, palm capped overtop a mug of tea Elio had set down for you a while ago. The steam now rose weakly and moistened your skin, a particularly gross feeling, but it kept you alert. “I thought that Elio was your project, and you called the shots on him.”

Researcher Kim was out of sorts and worn. His posture was crumbled, and his clothes were in complete disarray like he hadn't bothered to change out of them in days. His under eyes were translucent, pulling out all the purples and blue veins under his skin. The man looked like he had hardly slept in weeks.

“You don't understand what you've done, have you? Not only may you end up costing me my position, but you've ruined my entire lifetime of work!” Kim leaned in close to the screen, sounding more and less himself now.

You were wary of the glint in his eyes. “What do you mean? Elio's just—”

“No!” he shouted and slumped back into his ergonomic chair. His head slanted over, almost coming in contact with the peak of his shoulder like it was too heavy for his neck to hold. “You don't get it. You don't get it! Because your profile turned, this entire year—everything you’ve reported, everything I've accomplished, Elio's entire testing period is invalid. Hyperion executives consider him defective. The Generation Seven android has failed! Look at what you've done!”

A sudden wild flapping of thousands of butterflies lifted your stomach up and then plunged it down into a void. Kim had successfully chiseled away the inexpressive mask you had worn up until that point, seeming satisfied that he could stipple your face in a cold sweat.

“Wait, no. That can't be right.” you protested, wrestling your own hands to keep them off of the tablet in front of you. “My profile turned, but the work I've done has been honest. Elio is a success! You know that! You've seen every step of his progress for almost a year.”

Researcher Kim threw his hands up wildly, truly not himself with all of these gestures. “None of that matters. None of it. My life's work is a failure. I thought we had an agreement to help one another, but I was mistaken.”

“You don't understand!” you said, pounding the countertop with sharp claps of your hands. “It wasn't on purpose. I wasn't trying to…”

“Hyperion will have Elio destroyed, and progress will be hindered. Do you know how long, how many decades this could set us back? This could be devastating to humanity, but I don't think you're capable of understanding that. Just like the rest, you're not able to see the big picture at large, the mechanisms at work keeping our society moving forward. You can only see the straight line ahead of you and wearing blinders so you don't have to know the rest.

“We've kept this world running for sixty years. You need to understand how utterly fucking frustrating it is that one person has the potential to undo decades of work!”

Researcher Kim’s words weren't unjustified to you because he was a scientist, and you had always been a nobody in the grand scheme of things. But, right now, the venom he spat sounded vindictive, a man sucking on wounds you had inflicted rather than the opinion of the whole of Hyperion.

If you hadn't been staring directly at him this entire time, you would’ve thought he was frothing and drooling at the mouth like some animal.

A stilted quiet filled the gaps in conversation, both of you uncertain of what would be said next. If he was reacting in any professional capacity, the call would've been disconnected by now. That was the main giveaway that let you know this wasn't just about what Hyperion wanted.

But the truth of it was that you didn't care what Hyperion wanted or him.

At the end of your life as you knew it, before being thrown away into the landfill with every other unwanted human, you were piecing together the whole history of the world and how it had gotten to this point. It had become this way through relentless men like Researcher Kim who mostly operated on their own moral compass, ones that could never quite point north and spun on that wheel as they saw fit.

“Enough of the powerplay, Kim.” you ordered, chest opening toward the ceiling with a deep, bracing breath. “What is the real purpose of Hyperion? Why does it actually exist?”

Kim, perhaps re-evaluating you as less of a pawn in this scheme and more of an infant intellectual about to breach the narrow canal into enlightenment, stacked his spine high and pressed his fingertips together. He studied you with some caution, head shifting from left to right, just slightly off-center from his hands as though judging whether you were worth divulging precious intel to.

But, like you, you expected he realized it didn't matter what he'd tell you, however coveted it might've been by Hyperion.

Kim, ultimately, worked for himself and for Hyperion only when he felt it served him well.

“When I hired you, I didn’t do it because I thought you were stupid.” It seemed he felt the need to clarify this for you, unsmiling but with an eager lilt in his tone. “I hired you because of your potential. I took a chance on you, and while it had, indeed, ended in my peril, you've surprised me so many times throughout the year that I started keeping a record of you as well.

“Human beings do one of two things in the consistent presence of androids, they either regress or they progress. Most of your peers will regress because that’s how society has been modeled to be. The difficult tasks, the mundane, all the things that ask of us to consider the complexity of the world around us and think critically have been left to androids. How well do you think a machine can understand the theory of life after death and the mysticism of religion? The concept of soulmates? Cultural superstitions and children's nighttime fears? It's about as you expect. They can give you an answer without truly understanding. Androids, I dare say, only have an extremely limited understanding of moral culpability. Humans are much more flexible with it these days because it suits them best.

“So.” Kim sighed, hands resting on the dark red desk he sat behind. “You can imagine how interesting it was when we started noticing a trend with auditors—changes in them. A renaissance, an evocation of deep wondering and wariness towards the workings of the world around them. We can only guess the reason that this happens is because part of humanity still doubts the intentions of androids, and that's been bred onward through the generations. You ask an android a question, they give an answer, you doubt that answer, and then you start to doubt everything around you. It's all hypothetical, but it makes sense.

“It doesn't happen with the majority of the population, though. And it isn't encouraged. Enlightenment threatens the status quo, and those who disturb the status quo are a disservice to the governing bodies and Hyperion. Do you understand?”

Your gaze turned cold. “Are the other auditors there in the slums, too? Once they've been used up and started to catch wind of this messed up shit?”

Researcher Kim flicked his fingers toward the top of the screen, doing that instead of shrugging. “Who knows? What happens to them once a testing period has concluded is none of my business. Presumably so, that's what I would hope for them because that's the kindest outcome.”

“Was I…” You licked your lips and felt the shallow cracks in them. “I was going to end up in the slums no matter what happened, wasn't I?”

He frowned. “No. If things had gone differently, I was going to vouch for you. I wanted to keep you as my assistant.” He was quiet for a beat, looking straight at you in that discomforting way that you couldn't shake. “I’ve grown fond of you, you know? How could I not with everything I've learned about you over the course of a year. I can't forgive you for what you've done to the Hyperion Project, to my life's work, but I can't just let you disappear like the rest.”

Something ugly started to grip in the back of your throat. Fear? Disgust? An inkling?

“What do you mean?” you ventured.

“I've read through each report you've sent me in the past year so many times. It was mostly out of necessity for Hyperion, of course, but the ones that I found myself… fixated on rereading time and time again were of yours and Elio's sexual endeavors. I wasn't lying when I said they were a contract-based requirement, mind you, but I will admit that some of the questions were altered somewhat.” he said, suddenly smiling in a self-satisfied sort of manner that made your skin itch. “I realized I never answered your question fully, by the way. I can get ahead of myself sometimes, as you know. But, do I really need to explain what Hyperion's purpose is?”

You were on the edge of your seat, ready to take flight off it at any second. It's just how the entire change of trajectory made you feel. Humanity had spent too much time in the past arguing animal-like, instinctual reactions for this not to be real.

In that moment, you were living proof of a prey noticing a predator in broad daylight.

“Fine.” He kept smiling around the taut creases in his skin. The muscles there twitched as if the effort were unfamiliar. “Hyperion is a repopulation aid. It's quite sad, really. It started out with such great potential to drive society forward, but humanity and greed have always gone hand-in-hand. So, it became a race of mass production into a race that the governing bodies now had their hands in. The order was to rectify the critical birth decline worldwide. Androids became less like tools, looked less like machines, and more like humans—like lovers who couldn't say no to any demand.

“Androids are vessels for insemination. What else do you want me to tell you?”

Researcher Kim's explanation had weakened you, made your legs shaky and light like a scarecrow’s stuffed with straw. You couldn't rely on them to carry your weight away from this awful conversation, the hideous sight of him, because there'd be nowhere for you to run to while the information perforated your brain and crawled inside and feasted there.

“Elio…” You didn't even know what you wanted to say. Everything got stuck behind the notch in your throat. None of it would assuage that wretched ache in your gut, the precursor of vomit and disgust and unhinged terror.

“Of course.” Kim said, without needing to tell you what he was confirming. He was perfectly composed still, perhaps even shining with pride like some well-hidden, nuanced detail had finally been figured out.

He leaned toward the screen, smile turning salacious and voice low and grating.

“My only regret is that I couldn't be there to do it myself.” He brightened at the way your face wrenched and fastened in fear, seeming to think it was a reward after conducting an experiment on another project. “But, there's still time, isn't there? I must retrieve Elio myself to shut him down. If you listen to what I ask, perhaps I can get you pardoned and your profile reinstated.”

“No. That’s not what I want.” you said.

“It doesn't matter what you want,” he rebuffed, speaking with such confidence that you almost believed it. “The moment your profile fell into delinquency, you ceased to be. You've fallen through the cracks, and no one is going to help you. You're less than an android.”

The fine hairs all over your body bristled. “Don't compare me to a machine! You don't get to decide things for me!”

“I can save you, you damn fool!” Kim gaped incredulously. “I can restore your life and give you more than you've ever had. I can give you influential associations. I'll take care of you. I'll keep you as my assistant, and you get to live a life among the elite.”

He was lying.

No one ever made it out of the slums once they were in it. That wasn't an assumption, it was a simple grim reality.

In this world, only humans could lie because androids were incapable of betraying their programming to do so. Otherwise, Elio probably would've lied about many things or had never said certain things at all to spare you discomfort.

Humans, on the other hand, could lie to maliciously deceive and serve themselves a better hand. They could lie their way into a false mirror image, something that looks like them but never really existed and could never truly be. They could lie their way into trust to fulfill their own desires, and once that had been sufficiently quenched, they could go on lying elsewhere.

“I'll be there for you soon.” Researcher Kim tried his best at a soothing smile, treating it as though the sight of it would persuade your trust of him. “Please have Elio on standby. I would like for this not to be more difficult than it needs to be.”

Just then, the air flickered lightly by your ear as Elio reached past your shoulder and picked up the tablet. His expression was inscrutable, the same sort you'd grown used to seeing whenever Researcher Kim appeared on the screen.

“I won't be returning to Hyperion.” he said with solemn, firm words that held a certain weight of finality behind them.

Those lovely, velvety tones were still there but could not reassure you of some unknowable dread rising up somewhere deep inside your mind. A sensation so equally intimate and profound prickled against your scalp, seeking a way out that you thought you'd do anything to make it stop.

“What are you saying, Elio?” Kim grunted. “Defective or not, you hold precious data for Hyperion. It will be used to create something better than you, incorruptible and pure. You should be honored.”

“These memories are mine.”

That was the last you saw of Researcher Kim’s face before the tablet smashed to pieces on the floor. Elio had thrown it against the kitchen cabinets only once but hard enough to split the screen into a web of hundreds of sprawling fragments. Shards of plastic hardcover skittered across the hardwood floor, lost under heavy furniture.

His face had softened completely when he turned to you and guided you out of your chair into his arms. You felt him in your hair, lips on your forehead, down against your lashes, lower to the roundest part of your cheeks, and finally on your mouth in a kiss imbued with so much love, cherishment, and anguish.

You were at home within his embrace, swathed in the warmth of his body and the ardor of his kiss. But this felt excruciating and desperate, like a plea to take all of him that you could in that very moment because he feared that he would be taken away and you left behind to whatever nebulous future.

So, you let him seat himself as deep inside of you as he could go while still fully clothed. He had pushed around some fabric so you could be skin-to-skin where it mattered, where it was hottest to be, where the muscles contracted and relaxed together as a reminder you were both there in that moment—breathing, moaning, feeling everything there was to be felt.

He finished outside your body without you needing to say it. Although, while he groaned into your neck and bore his teeth into the curve of it, hips buckling forward as spend jetted down your thigh, all you could think about was how many times Kim had been there instead.

“I want you to destroy me.” Elio said.

All of the breath left your lungs and shrunk them to rotted fruit size. You were still vulnerable before him, exposed to the room and damp with sweat from the midday heat despite air conditioning. Worriment filled the space between his brows when he saw you aghast, and he quickly cleaned you off with a rag before helping you with your pants.

“Is this a shitty attempt at a joke?” you asked. He pressed his lips to yours and told you it wasn't. “No. Absolutely not. You're as fucking nuts as your creator. You're fucking stupid.”

“You must—”

“I won't! I won't do it!”

“I'm asking you to save me.”

“Get away!”

Elio had tracked you across the apartment multiple times over, pleading his case with skewed logic you pretended not to hear. For once, your ears filling with fluff while the resounding drum of your heartbeat pounded in your skull was a fortunate event to occur. It eclipsed his voice and hurt so much that you could focus on the pain crushing your chest.

However, once you were trapped between the wall and his body with nowhere to hide, the brief reprieve behind your fitful heart faded, as did the strength of your resolve.

“I—I don't understand.” You had trouble swallowing down the saliva and sobs. “Why are you asking me to do that? I can't do that to you, Elio. I can't hurt you. I love you.”

“I know.” He didn't hold you, though he had to win against his own reflexes not to do so. His knuckles were ghastly-looking and pronounced peaks; anything within that vise would've been crushed. “Today, one way or another, I will be destroyed. Hyperion deemed me a failure and therefore there is nothing else left ahead for me. My chip will be removed and my body ripped apart and melted down and I will be forgotten and never have existed in the first place.

“You will be the proof that I was ever here. And, should anyone be allowed to destroy me, it makes the most sense for it to be you.”

His lips left imprints in your skin that felt important to savor, etched through your bones into the very cluster of cells that made up your wholeness so that he could be immortalized.

“There’s an excerpt from Hiroshi Nagoya’s novel Gone Are the Youth that left a strong impression on me. It said, ‘Humans destroy everything they love—but, still, they must love wholly, and they must destroy completely. From ruin and ash and settled dust, humanity rebuilds all it has ever destroyed because their love lingers in memories, in rubble, blood, decay, and burnt air.’” He recited the details to remind you that he was a machine but kissed your face in a way only an earnest lover was able to.

You didn't know what any of that was supposed to mean to you, nor at what point he had managed to read a book like that without you noticing. A part of you took offense at both the passage and the fact Elio had committed it to memory as if he had expected to utilize it at some uncertain interval in the future all along.

Had he been thinking this way since the beginning? Had you failed Elio even in the capacity for him to come forward to speak of his doubts to you? Perhaps, like his programming dictated that he couldn't lie nor deny what he was designed to do, he was also incapable of speaking any full truth if it could've been construed as heresy.

Was there a single aspect of himself which he could control of his own free will?

Such a thought was unabating and grew a knob of dread in your chest. It started out small and localized, a sharp throb somewhere near your heart—and then it sprouted roots like a seed, long fingers piercing through red-purple muscle and fibrous tendon, reaching deep into your bone. The dread weaved as one with your veins and arteries, sprawling the innumerable pathways that held your shape even beneath the gory components inside of you.

Suddenly, the dread pulsated, and all you could think through the agony was that there could be no other way for Elio—a machine who had been created in the image of man to do the bidding of humanity with a tranquil smile, whether that meant cooking dinner and holding you in your sleep, or dispersing the genes of his God and the only being he was capable of despising.

“I seem to only be able to make you cry, but they're still so beautiful to see. The variability of humanity is much more complex than what I had been led to believe from Hyperion.” Elio had returned from the kitchen before you realized he had left your side. With one hand, he laid familiar, warm strokes along your face in a pattern he memorized because it made your scalp buzz pleasantly. With the other hand, he pushed the smooth handle of a chef’s knife into your palm and closed your fingers and his around it.

Your impulse had been to throw it away immediately upon seeing it when you looked down. He knew you would, so he kept his fingers tight over your fist, keeping the blade low at your side despite the sweat turning your grip slick and the fine point of the steel inches from his hollow abdomen.

Just then, you finally felt the tears that Elio had said you'd been crying but never noticed. That was something you'd come to hate about yourself and everyone else—how little they noticed the blatant lies fluffed over their eyes like wool, yet they could see every grievance in others and stuffed their ears with cotton if it meant things would stay exactly the same for themselves.

Safe and known. Unchallenged. Unafraid.

“Do you wish you could cry?” you asked him for some reason, just a little hopeful for some vague thing you couldn’t discern. Maybe some secret desire to be human?

He shook his head.

“I've never wished to cry, or to be human, but what I wish for now more than anything else is for your memory to belong to me and me alone.” Elio said, forehead bowing low and resting with great weight on your own. You closed your eyes and listened to his honeyed words, which felt like the protection and care of cashmere, suddenly unmindful to the knife in your grasp. “Stored away in my mainframe are memories from thousands of my predecessors. I remember people I've never met, people who have long since expired, and they feel like what I imagine a distant relative might. I feel as though I've mourned thousands of people individually. While I cannot erase them, I can erase you.

“I know how many women liked their tea in the evenings, I know how many men enjoyed their cocktails and hard liquor and brand of shaving cream. One person made it a secret to put alcohol in their coffee before work and thought it was clever. Someone else wanted to win local office through bribery, and as androids, we have no choice but to obey. I know these things from people I've never met, and so does Hyperion. Those androids were destroyed, but their memories live on through me.”

Elio rolled the crests of your knuckles around his hand, lifting yours and the knife to the base of his neck. The arm connecting the hand and knife next to his skin wasn't yours. It couldn't have been when it felt so numb.

“I won't let Hyperion steal the one thing from me that I can say is truly mine. And those are my memories, my precious data stored in the chip in my brain. They'll have to take me apart to retrieve it, and by the time they find my body, the chip will already be destroyed.” He was slow to loosen his fingers and let them fall away, meanwhile, yours stayed in place.

He had dimmed the overhead lights in the living room earlier in the day, so you bathed in gentle yellow-orange that resembled the last of sunset being leached by silver-blue nightfall. From the corner of your eye came a subdued, gentle glint of the blade—polished to a bright shine, reflecting the corner of Elio's strong jaw.

“So, cut off my head.” he begged, vibrations low and strained within his voice box. “It’s almost like solace to me, I think. Until the very moment you rip out the chip from my brain, I'll recall the smells you like to cover yourself in, your favorite meals, how you described petrichor, and the hiss of falling snow. I'll remember, until my circuitry is severed and quits, what making love to you felt like, and how beautiful you always looked during it.”

Your fingers twitched around the handle as you pressed the knife against his skin, meeting the first start of resistance and your only chance to take it all back.

“I’ve never been real,” Elio reminded you and pushed himself into the blade, sinking it through layers of something that snapped like elastic on the steel, reverberating down the handle and up into your hand. “My skin is synthetic, and my insides are wires and machinery. I'm not real. The world outside your door is.”

Lightheadedness swirled all around you and made your limbs feel like they were leaden with anchors yet weightless, as though drifting through the cosmos in a bubble. The tears had stopped even though you felt you could scream at any second and never stop again, and the acidulous intermix of vomit and saliva grappled along the walls of your throat and burned out your nose.

You couldn’t make your hand stop.

You couldn't shout at him to get away.

And then, you saw Elio's eyes glow warmly of amber with flecks of gold. They looked back at you differently than they had when you first met outside of Researcher Kim’s office. Before, he had greeted you kindly, with the familiarity of someone who had already loved you a long time. Now, he had the look of a man who was calm and eternal in his love.

“I was never meant for this world, but I'm glad to have been a part of yours.” Elio winced against the knife halfway into his neck, an oily black substance from within making the glide deeper and deeper an effortless thing.

He smiled resplendently. “I love you.”

“I know.” you said.

The chef's knife severed all imitations of human gore—the neat network of wires and advanced circuitry masked as arteries and veins and tendon and muscle—clear through his throat until the blade blunted against spine and could no longer cut. The black grease spurted from his body like a wellhead, too thin and dark to replicate blood, but it was enough like it in that moment as you put your hands inside the opening you created to wrench apart his spine.

Elio laid motionless on the floor, perhaps still coherent to some degree, still feeling the pain you were ravaging upon him when you took the knife back up to repeatedly hack into the other side of his neck. Already lubricated from before, you butchered the gorgeous flesh and insides you pretended to be red and purple and blue and watched the black grease turn into crimson.

Once his head had been detached from the rest of him, fingers writhing and bending together like the upturned legs of a dying spider, you were able to rip out the jagged part of his spine and reach through the cavernous hole into his skull, turning the spongy matter of his brain to mush as you clawed through the gunk for his chip.

And, when you finally found it, the tiniest component of him—you smashed it into millions of fragments on the floor and then to fine dust that meddled with the black grease soaking through your clothes. You kept going until a small crater formed where the chip had once been and filled with the liquid.

There was nothing left of Elio now.

The headless body lying before you on the ground, preserved in the rigor of agony, was not Elio and never had been. You knew this even while relishing the weight of his head cradled in your arms, the softness of his hair against your cheek and mourned the loss of everything he had been.

Time had become meaningless; fifteen minutes could have passed or fifteen days, and you wouldn't have cared nor have noticed it while in the throes of your own death from starvation.

You sat there on the living room floor, held up by the wall with a dark trail smeared down to you, and looked nowhere but straight ahead. Nothing was there for you to see—not the furniture nor the discarded, oily knife or the carcass of a machine. Still, you held the head tenderly, close to your chest, and never once thought to peer into its eyes.

Distantly, somewhere as close as your front door or as far as across the city, you heard knuckles hammering urgently against metal. You didn't move off the ground or let go of the disfigured shape against you but did reach for the broken brainstem with the single snag at the end.

From the entranceway, the door opened, and someone's confident strides inside left a resounding echo all around.

“I’ve come to retrieve you!” But which of you was he talking about?

“Where are you?”

Here, you thought and wielded the brainstem in a bloodless grip and finally stood up with the flattened head.

I'm right here.

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a/n: initially, this story was only supposed to be around idk 20-25k, but by the time I got to the scene with Mother, I realized that probably wasn't going to happen bc I needed to let the scenes I was writing take up space and unravel naturally. I felt like I wasn't going to be able to articulate everything I needed to to tell a compelling storyline without throwing the word count to the wind.

one critique I received from a good writing friend of mine was that the relationship between mi-sun and mc was nebulous, and would've benefited from more time. interestingly, I had an entirely different scene planned where mc actually did visit mi-sun at home and had to confront their past actions. mc's encounter in the slums was also totally different. in hindsight, I wish I had stuck with that original idea bc I feel like it would've really helped complete the world I tried to create. make the events of the story more meaningful.

in the future, if I decide to get this story published as a short novel, I'd probably rewrite the second half to accommodate for that missing scene. I think it'd extend the word count by several thousands of words as well.

I'd like to do a sequel to this, probably placed 10-20 years in the future where the mc of that story is a scientist hired for hyperion and comes across an android hellbent on destroying the company. maybe even a spinoff where I write a couple of short stories from regis & reyes where "you" take the role of reyes and solve crimes with your android sidekick, regis.

that's all I have to say. here's a quick q&a for questions I've been asked in the past:

what happens to mc? are they okay? no, but exactly what happens to the mc is entirely up to your own imagination. I will not elaborate on it, nor give you a "canonical" answer.

can you do a sequel? little side snippets? elio and mc's story has been told to the best of my current abilities. there is no room for a sequel for them, but as I've said, I'd like to make another story based on a different mc and android. the little snippets are also a no. little snippets based on other scenarios in the same world tho, yes.

what inspired the story? at the time of writing, anti-abortion laws became increasingly stringent in the US (where I reside), so this was partially me lashing out about that. additionally, I knew I wanted to do some sort of dystopian android x reader story with a heavy focus on stripped autonomy, so that was my time and chance to do it. at its core, it's heavily a cautionary tale.

did elio actually love mc? this is also up to interpretation. elio is a machine. he had zero real "human" components to him. I want people to remember this. elio is meant to blur those lines between what people think a machine is capable of vs how terrifyingly close to humanness technology can bring things like AI/robots. I withhold my own personal opinion on this bc it doesn't matter. what matters is what you believe in the end.

if you have anything you'd like to discuss, questions you'd like to ask: please send them my way!! thank you so much for reading!

I hope you'll consider reblogging + interacting with this post!!?💕💕💕

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attapullman · 11 months ago

Text

Bob From Stats | Robert "Bob" Floyd

Summary: College is a wild time, but absolutely nothing could prepare you for the quiet guy from Stats riding around campus as a cowboy. Or what a good kisser he is.

Word Count: 4.9k

Warnings: f!reader, smut, 18+ ONLY as always, dry humping, alcohol, drunken party games, mentions of studying because that gives me PTSD, semi-exaggerated Greek life for theatrical reasons

A Note From Mo: Somehow my frat!Bob, drunk Bob is Rhett, and 7 minutes in heaven ideas all rolled into one fic - wild! Massive shoutout to everyone who listened to me talk about Stats Bob (who is now officially my #2 Bob, I love him) and for supporting this here lil blog. May you find a hobby-horse-wielding future WSO to sweep you off your feet too!

If you liked this, you may also enjoy on our syllabus Bob From Pi Kapp.

“I hate this. I’m going to quit school and become a stripper.”

Anna gives you a wry look. “That joke was only funny the first time you said it.”

“So you admit I’m funny!”

The two of you have been spread out in the library the majority of the evening. Textbooks, snacks, and highlighters littering the glossy dark wood. You’re on hour five of assignments and your brain is pounding against the front of your skull. Your other classes aren’t too bad, a bit time consuming, but Statistics is a foreign language. Thinking in probable numbers? It was one thing when the nice guy who sat behind you helped explain concepts, but Anna does not have quite the same analytical mind.

The sky outside is an inky black and the library is quiet except for your frustrated huffs. It’s Saturday night. The rest of campus is indulging in cheap beers at Barney’s, slinking along Greek Row, or enjoying tonight’s episode of Saturday Night Live. It’s time to get out of here and crawl into your soft bed. Torturing yourself with Stats homework will be just as painful on Sunday.

“If I buy us a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough, can we blow this off and hang out back at the dorms?” Anna is nodding before you’ve even finished. Stuffing notebooks into backpacks and capping pens low on ink, you’re strolling down the library stairs not even five minutes later.

As the balmy evening campus air hits your face, you already feel fresher. Campus is quiet, late enough that most people are settled into their Saturday night plans. As the two of you near Greek Row, there’s a comfortable silence as you appreciate the breeze through the trees and the warm glow of campus housing windows.

That is, until a low whoop rings out. An undercurrent of boisterous cheering and what sounds like stomping feet. You exchange eyes with your roommate. What is that?

As if summoned, a group comes galloping through the neatly trimmed cypress trees around the corner. They’re stomping their feet in a rhythm, hands held mid-air to imitate holding reigns. Drunken laughs ring out between cries of “Whoa!” and “Steady there, Lucky!” To round it off, the leader of their horse play (literally) is full-on cosplaying as a cowboy, his jeans tucked into boots and a Stetson perched atop his head.

Wait, is he holding a hobby horse? It’s been decades since you’ve seen those horse heads stuck on a stick. The stuffed felt Appaloosa head is reigned in the cowboy’s hands, where he pretends to spur it back into action.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all.

The group continues its way toward you and you’re equally secondhand embarrassed and amused. As they grow closer you recognize a few guys from the Pi Kapp house and wave. But it’s Anna who makes the most shocking discovery when Mr. Cowboy tilts his brim up.

"Is that Bob from Stats?"

It takes a second to look past the brown felt hat and the hobby horse he's taking for a spin, but that's definitely the same pink-cheeked Bob Floyd who has lent you a pencil all semester.

“Howdy, ladies.” He tips his hat to you, all toothy grin and droopy drunk eyes. "Can I offer you a ride?"

You stare open-mouthed. Shocked. That slow rancher drawl is new. The unbridled confidence is new. Actually, the entire getup is new. For nine weeks you’ve seen him in the same trucker hat and sweatshirt combo while going over homework answers together. What is going on?

He’s clearly in the middle of his house party crawl, bright blue eyes half open behind his metal frames. Just as gorgeous as ever as a tendril of sandy hair curls against his forehead. Normally your reaction to him is tender, a puppy dog crush. But this wild, inebriated version of him? You’re hot under the collar.

“You think there’s room on your horse?” Ever since that first Stats class he’s made your brain feel like it’s on RedBull. The way he noticed you missing a writing utensil and offering you his extra. His kind smile when you get a homework answer completely wrong. Anna hasn’t noticed your crush, but it feels obvious with the way you can barely keep eye contact with him yet are unable to look away. Especially with that stupid cowboy hat on.

He bites his lip, considering your response, and his buddies all razz him as he drawls out, “There will be if we squeeze in.”

The wink makes your mouth dry.

Someone from the back of the group complains of the cold and the group prepares their steeds to head back to Pi Kapp. Anna explains you’re headed back to the dorms, tone deaf to the sexual tension, and Bob nods with his brow furrowed.

“Another time then.” His white tshirt practically glows in the moonlight. “Have a good night, chickadees. Get home safe!”

With another tip of his Stetson to you, Bob Floyd gallops away toward another keg.

You’re sprinting across campus, cursing how late your meeting with your advisor went. There was ten minutes to get across campus and he had spent four of those questioning whether you really needed another semester of French. You make it into the lecture hall with a minute to spare, finding your preferred spot in the lower rows where you can actually see the board. Right in front of Bob.

“What? No cowboy hat for class?” His cheeks flame red, the hope you’ve forgotten about his Saturday antics lost. He looks like himself today, his signature trucker cap keeping the hair off his face. Those friendly ultramarine eyes shyly focusing on his notebook because god forbid he makes eye contact after you’ve seen him gallop across campus on a fake horse.

He rubs the back of his neck over his soft-looking crewneck, an awkward smile playing on his lips. “It’s at the cleaners.”

You give him an amused grin before settling yourself into one of the classically uncomfortable lecture seats. Anna waves to you from where she’s rushing in, historically always late. The professor is shuffling notes at the podium as she collapses into the seat next to you, nodding her head in greeting to you and to Bob. She raises her eyebrows to you, a “remember when Bob was dressed as a cowboy” gesture, and your lips twist happily.

“Alright, class, who’s ready to talk probability?” The collective groans and hollers mark the start of lecture. You flip open your notebook and start digging around for a writing instrument in your bag. Like usual, you seem to be missing a pen or pencil when you need one most.

A tap on your shoulder. You turn and lock eyes with the frat boy-turned-cowboy with the shy smile. He holds out a pencil to you. Taking it sheepishly, you mouth a thank you and turn back to lecture. After nine weeks it shouldn’t be this embarrassing, but every week he’s given you a pencil since you whispered shoot! a little too loud on Week 1.

Risking a quick glance back at him, engrossed in the Empirical Law of Averages while he twirls his pencil, you’re not sure you can survive the rest of the semester.

By the end of the Stats lecture on Thursday, you have one brain cell to your name and seven pages of notes. What a brutal class. Midterms were quickly approaching and not a single professor had any mercy. As you pack up your stuff - including the borrowed pencil that would promptly disappear before next class - you make a study plan with Anna for that evening. She brings the chips, you’ll supply the vodka.

“Are you two not hitting the houses tonight?” He looks uncomfortable having interrupted the two of you.

Bob shifts his backpack to his other shoulder, adjusting the collar of his navy blue sweatshirt. Other than when he’s kindly exchanged homework answers before class - or been drunkenly galloping across campus - the two of you don’t speak much. The odd quip here and there, but overall the two of you exist in pencil-sharing quiet. “Everyone’s having pre-midterm parties before buckling down to study.”

“Oh, that sounds fun!” You look at Anna encouragingly. As needed as a vodka-infused study session was, one night out couldn’t hurt. And it was Thursday. No classes tomorrow meant you had three days to buckle down and attempt to understand anything you’ve learned this semester.

She eyes you warily, but agrees that Greek Row sounds like a better option than highlighting textbooks. Bob flashes you his timid smile beneath the brim of his cap. “It’ll be a fun night. Maybe I’ll see you? If not, have a good weekend!”

As he starts to walk out, a feeling takes over you. “Bob?” You watch him slow down and turn, wide blue eyes watching you from behind those unconventionally cute glasses. “You’ll be at the Pi Kapp house, yeah?” He nods. “Cool. See you around!”

Despite standing next to it the entire conversation, neither of you notice the pencil sitting on the desk, left behind as you head out for your respective weekends.

“What did you say?” You’re practically yelling to be heard over the EDM that Sigma Chi is blaring. They’ve turned their house into a rave with glow sticks, body paint, and music so loud your eardrums must be burst. The beer is warm, your arm has supernaturally purple paint smeared across it, and Anna has been unsuccessfully telling you a story for ten minutes.

Huffing, she grabs your arm and drags you toward the entrance, tossing your cups onto a random hallway table where a heated makeout session is taking place. They move out of the way just enough so the two of you can slip out of the old colonial house and out into the cool night. The ringing in your ears subsides slowly as you lean against the columns of the front porch.

“House number three? Also sucked. Three strikes and you’re out? Can we go home?” Anna grabs your wrist and pouts. She wanted movie night with vodka and a pizza from Pietro’s. You wanted to blow off steam.

But Alpha Sig had mostly been freshman and Phi Delt, while not a terrible party, had the most smarmy men on campus. The bleeding eardrums of Sigma Chi was preferable to pushing off men in polos just to grab another drink. You just wanted a semi-decently flavored alcoholic beverage - maybe three - while chatting with some friends. You weren’t asking for much.

Allowing Anna to drag you in the direction of the dorms, ready to admit defeat, you slow to a stop seeing the bricked entrance to Pi Kappa Phi. Bob’s fraternity. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt, right?

It takes a little convincing, but soon you’re in the warmly lit foyer of the Pi Kapp house. The vibe is more relaxed than Sigma Chi, with a keg in the corner, an array of liquor bottles in the kitchen, and hip-hop softly filling the house. You’re impressed they’ve even gone the extra mile with multi-colored string lights across every surface to brighten up the otherwise dark house.

“Yooooo, how’s it going?” A drunken loaf of snapback and Deep Eddy envelopes you in a hug. It’s Tyler, one of your freshman seminar PK friends. Exchanging pleasantries - the best you can with someone that far gone - he drags you further into the house. Miscellaneous groups of Greek and geed litter the hallways. Anna sees her friends from Delta Gamma and ditches you, promising to get home safe. Tyler continues on his mission to god knows where.

At least he’s considerate enough to stop in the kitchen so you can grab a whiskey lemonade to sip.

Eventually you’re spat into a sitting room of sorts, groups crowding the ring of sofas while drunkenly jeering at the game. You set yourself on the arm of one, trying to make sense of the theatrics. The latest victim laughs out a “Truth!” before everyone giggles wickedly. Are they playing truth or dare?

Your eyes gloss over the group, trying to figure out who else you know. A few PK’s you recognize, a girl who smiles but looks unfamiliar, and…a cowboy hat that is a dead giveaway.

Standing up and walking around the group, you tap him on the shoulder. The biggest blue eyes meet yours, a surprised smile splitting his face.

“You made it!” That deep drawl is back and that tingle reappears on your spine. Bob jumps up from the couch, beer bottle dwarfed in his hand, and comes to stand with you. “You having a good night?”

Ironically, your night is much better now that you’ve found him. He’s back in his cowboy gear, a worn denim shirt tucked into his jeans and those same cowboy boots scuff against the hardwood. You’re tempted to steal the felt hat from his head just so he looks a little bit more like Bob from Stats.

Squeezing your eyes shut, letting the alcohol be an excuse, you succumb to the obvious question. “I need to know - what’s with the…cowboy?” You gesture up and down, drawing a chuckle from him.

He blushes under the felt brim. “You know I have a slight accent, yeah?” You attempt to stifle your laugh as he incidentally talks in a thicker accent. “When I was a pledge they started calling me cowboy. Saw the hat while I was in town one week, ended up leaning into the joke.”

“And the hobby horse?”

He beckons you closer, bringing his lips to your ear. “Stolen from my little sister over summer break.”

There’s that wink again making your knees weak. He pushes his glasses back up his nose and takes another sip from his beer. Despite the party raging around you, nothing else seems to exist past him asking about your night and if you want another drink. You’re wrapped in the warmth of his words, itching to snuggle into his broad chest.

The spell is broken when “Cowboy Bob!” rings out from the crowd. The entire room is turned to you two. “Truth or dare, man?”

In the background of your intimate conversation with Bob, the truths and dares have reached full raunchiness. People have been stripped of clothes and dirty secrets. A bead of sweat gathers at Bob’s collar, aware that neither option is safe.

His worried gaze flits to you, as if you hold the correct answer, before tipping his hat back and exhaling, “Dare?”

It’s gutsy, but if there’s one thing you’re learning about the quiet guy from Stats, he’s full of surprises. The crowd bubbles with excitement, anticipating what dare will be dealt out. Next to you, the wannabe cowboy looks more annoyed than anything. He was enjoying talking to you not in a classroom and with a little liquid courage.

An evil smile crosses the dare-dealer’s face. He knows Bob and isn’t blind to what’s going on. He’s gonna help his buddy out on this one.

His arm stretches out and he points (with the red plastic cup in his hand) to the coat closet at the end of the hall. “Hmmmmm, I dare you to, hmm, play Seven Minutes in Heaven with…” It’s no surprise when the cup-turned-pointer lands on you.

Ice water down your back wouldn’t be as panic inducing. It’s hard to tell who swallows harder, you or Cowboy Bob. Every instinct is telling you to run, but that little voice in the back of your head wins out. As Bob starts to tell you it’s okay, they’re joking, you don’t have to, you grab his thick wrist and give him a nervous smile. You don’t even care what the punishment is for not completing a dare, this stupid drunken game has given you an opportunity.

The dealer of the dare follows the two of you down the hallway, leading the whoops and wolf whistles. Bob’s cheeks flame scarlet in the low light. You keep your chin high and eyes forward. He can definitely feel the way you’re trembling around his wrist.

Whether in anxiety or excitement it’s hard to tell.

The inside of the closet is dark, the faint light under the door casting only the faintest of shadows. Your heart is pounding, blood pulsing through your ears. Bob rubs his lips together nervously. It’s all you can do to not run your tongue along them.

“We don’t have to do anything, we can just talk.” The way he prioritizes your comfort makes heat pool between your legs. The brim of his hat is as far back as it can go, his eyes tracing the lines of your face as he gauges your emotions. He’s welcome to figure them out, you’re unsure of them yourself.

His large, warm hand rubs your forearm comfortingly, your skin too cold without his touch. You’re suffocating under his sweat-and-bergamot scent, citrusy and warm.

You bite the bullet. “What if I want to?”

His breath stops. Fingers find yours in the dark, interlocking on either side of your hips. Eyes you know are the deepest blue lock onto your gaze, a million emotions passing behind his irises. Face descending upon the space between you, tentatively showing his intentions. You meet him in the middle, caution out the window.

The kiss is gentle, puzzle pieces slotting together for the first time. He tastes like malt sugar and peppermint. Mouth warm and soft, enveloping you fully in his comfort. It’s even better than what you’ve imagined for the past nine weeks.

Bob begins to pull away, ever the gentleman. Your hand finds his collar, holding him in place. “Not yet, we still have, like, five and a half minutes.”

Despite the low light, his smile lights up the closet.

His lips return to yours in a rush, swallowing your mouth in a passionate heat. The press of his body to yours is delicious. Hands previously at your side meet your hips, lightly squeezing as you moan into his mouth. You reach up and hold the back of his neck, bringing him even closer as your lips toy with the tiniest bit of stubble along his jaw.

“You know,” he starts, holding the moan in the back of his throat. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since September.”

You pull back momentarily, a crinkle upon your brow. “Bob, we didn’t start Stats until January.”

He kisses the confusion from your face, his hands wrapping further around your body. “And you looked very pretty in that green dress at the homecoming barbecue.”

Bless your love of school spirit and free food. “Why didn’t you? Kiss me?”

“I don’t normally make a habit of kissing girls I don’t know. And clearly it takes an entire fraternity for me to get you alone.” The way his chuckle bounces against your skin has you squirming. Your schoolgirl crush on him wasn’t one-sided, and suddenly you’re hot for teacher.

You capture him in another kiss, tongue searching the seam of his lips for entrance. He obliges immediately, groaning as you explore his taste. Four hands roam skin, finding purchase in anything and everything. Your body has a mind of its own as you press against him, chest heaving with your passion. The right shift of fabric on fabric reveals that he’s equally as affected by the chemistry.

Reluctantly, he pulls away once more, threading his fingers across the back of your neck. Takes a moment to capture his breath as he sees the lust in your eyes. A deep breath. “As much as I like you, I don’t want to do anything if you’re drunk.”

Soft fingers follow the line of his arm to where it wraps around your waist. How is he this impossibly sweet? Thoughtful, respectful, and looking hot as sin with swollen lips. It’s unfair.

“I promise I’m not.” You stroke the back of his hand. “Please kiss me?”

His large hands unwrap from your waist and travel down, shifting behind your legs and pulling you up, resting your back against the wall. You tangle your legs around his waist as best you can in the small space, relishing his firm body pressed deliciously close, warm and solid. Kisses smeared across lips and jaws as noises crescendo. You’re panting as you trail down to his impossibly long neck, desperate to cover it in affection.

You’ve barely explored the expanse of skin when the door flies open, the boisterous party sounds flooding in. Reality strikes like a slap across the face. The truth-or-dare ringleader takes you in - legs wrapped around Bob and hands creeping toward your ass - and whoops in delight. Who knew Cowboy Bob had it in him!

“Time’s up, lovebirds!” He crows and reaches forward to slug Bob lightly on the shoulder.

Not skipping a beat, Bob shoves his friend back and throws up his middle finger. “Fuck off, Milburn.”

The closet door slams shut, blanketing you again in the intimacy of the moment. You’re looking at him with unsure eyes and he’s praying the moment hasn’t been ruined. He’s waited seven calendar months for this opportunity and his fingers are so close to enjoying the plump squeeze of your ass.

“We can go back to the party if you want?” Your voice is so small, nervous outside of those bold seven minutes. Tentative breaths exist between you.

In lieu of an answer, he bows his head to give you a searing yet gentle kiss.

That cramped coat closet suddenly is an inferno, his tongue slipping inside your mouth and groaning at the burning sweetness of your taste. Your hands grip his shoulders as you fight for dominance, fingers tangling in denim. Hips brushing together, still clinging to the idea of this being innocent.

An innocence immediately lost when Bob strikes up the courage and palms your ass. Soft and pliable and perfect to squeeze in his palms. He remembers the exact day you came to class in the tightest jeans known to man (laundry day) and the way he had dug his pencil in his palm to avoid a semi as your curved ass met the lecture seat. Something unavoidable now as you squirm against him, moaning your pleasure against the pulse in his neck.

Nothing has ever felt as good as rubbing against Bob Floyd’s clothed bulge. One glance down and you’re dizzy with arousal. Rutting yourself against him as best you can with your limited mobility, sloppy kisses exchanged as the two of you can barely keep your mouths closed. It feels so good, too good.

Lost in the moment, one hand slips below the hem of your skirt, warm skin on skin. Any noise from outside the closet dims to a hum. Two hearts beating rapidly as desire fully consumes, directing lips to too hot exposed skin. You murmur your need in his ear. You don’t care where you are, you need him.

Bob tucks a finger under your thong, feeling the slick coating your folds. The whine that leaves him is desperate and gruff. He groans against your throat. “Shit, I don’t have a condom.”

Undeterred, your lip catches between your teeth, core muscles contracting as you grind your hips forward. “Doesn’t mean I can’t go for a ride.”

He’s immediately on board, teasing you briefly before extricating his hand to support you better against the wall. His hands practically swallow your ass, flooding you with lust. You thrust your chest against him, desperate to touch every spot on his handsome body as your hips begin to grind.

His hands are sweltering as they trail down, effortlessly clutching the back of your thighs to give you leverage. Your clit finds friction against his jeans and your mouth hangs open as you buck frantically into him.

“Look at you move, cowgirl,” he breathes out, infatuated. The nickname spurrs you on, whimpering against his lips.

One hand clutching his bicep, holding on for desperate life, while the other snakes its way atop the damned cowboy hat that’s stayed on the entire encounter. Gripping the top of it and holding fast as you ride his clothed bulge with everything you’ve got. Denim and lace against your clit, rubbing deliciously as your brain fuzzes. His hot mouth focused at the hinge of your jaw, sucking soft bruises into the skin; moaning when you brush him just right.

“I’m close,” you whisper against his cheek. Time has stood still, but it’s embarrassing how close he’s gotten you to orgasm with just his clothed cock and strong hands.

He ruts his hips forward, meeting your thrusts in heavenly synchronization. You’re panting as the pressure on your clit catapults you, so close to the ultimate prize. Whispers of you can do it, cowgirl, cum for me, doing so good riding me, just a bit more, cowgirl fizzle your senses.

“O-oh!”

It’s intense, the blinding pleasure coursing through your body. Prolonged by the thick bulge still rutting against you, ready to burst itself. Lips tickling your ear as he praises you. You want to live in this perfect moment of bliss. A moment only perfected when Bob’s fingers grip too hard and his hips stutter up into yours. His all-consuming orgasm only muffled by the skin of your shoulder as he rides it out.

The rhythmic slowing of your breaths is all you can focus on. You breathe in, he breathes out. Small smiles and a blush barely visible in the low light.

Delicately, like he knows you might break, he releases you back to the ground; taking his time to smooth down your skirt and straight out your top. Your own hands reach up to his chest, fixing the fabric that had bunched up in your passion. Adjusting his fogged glasses to look into his beautiful eyes.

It doesn’t matter how much you clean up, one look at you two and anyone would comment you’ve been ridden hard and put away wet.

With one final kiss to your lips, you feel something land on your head. The brown cowboy hat with the rip along the edge. Cowboy Bob showing off his cowgirl.

You tentatively open the closet door, eyes adjusting to the normal light. Painfully aware of the wet splotch on the obvious front of his jeans, Bob holds your body against him as a human shield. The party is still going strong - your antics have not interrupted anything - and you slip toward the front door without notice. Well…mostly, as a few wolf whistles reach your ears.

“It’s not that late, you want to go back to mine? I’m just off Thornton. It’s quiet since everyone is here.” His eyes are so hopeful in the dark night. So desperate for you to say yes. For you to be his cowgirl beyond tonight.

You wrap your arms around him and pull him close, careful to avoid the spot where your bodily fluids have drenched his jeans. “I’m in.” Your smile is blinding. “We have about nine weeks of Stats to make up.”

The brick is uncomfortable behind your back, but it’s hard to care when his lips feel so good. Broad shoulders shielding you from the hallway, trucker hat turned around and glasses in his pocket so there’s not an inch between your faces. Agreeing to meet outside before lecture was such a good idea.

Despite spending most of the time between Thursday night and Tuesday afternoon in Bob’s apartment trying every position in the book (with teasing hollers from his Pi Kapp roommates adding to the soundtrack) you can’t help but steal these five minutes. He looks so cute, to not kiss him would be a crime.

Bob squeezes your hips, lips trailing down your jaw. “What’s on your mind, cowgirl?”

“I’m trying very hard to convince myself that we pay a lot of money to attend this school and should go learn about statistics. Even though I really only want to head back to my dorm and see how sturdy that loft bed is.”

From where his nose traces your ear, a guttural whine leaves him. “You can’t say something like that and expect me to go to class.”

You pull back to look at him, fingers tickling the close cropped hair at his neck. God, he makes it so hard to want to be responsible.

“Let’s make a deal, okay? We’ll go to class, learn, and tonight you come over and for every study guide question you get right I’ll take off a piece of clothing. Sound good?” He’s practically panting as he smothers your mouth in another kiss. He’s really good at Stats. A steady stream of students files past Bob’s back, a sign that class is about to start.

You press another kiss to his lips. “Let’s go or we’ll miss out on seats. Plus I need to dig through my bag for a pencil.”

“Do you think you actually have one today?” He smirks, amused. The eighteen pencils he’s lent you say otherwise.

Your cheeks are hot under where he kisses them. “Uh…if I don’t can I borrow one? If you have one, that is.”

He lets out a soft chuckle and holds you closer, rubbing your noses softly.

“You do realize I’ve been buying pencils all semester just to give to you, right?”

Turning his cap around - insides fully melted - you know you’re in this rodeo for the long run.

Want more Frat Cowboy Bob? Hang out with Bob From Pi Kapp!

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beckwritesif · 6 days ago

Text

The vast stretches of lone trees and wild grass of the rural countryside lures the ego overboard, pulling consciousness off course into addiction, delusion and seduction’s disintegrating madness. You barely pull yourself home from there every evening, the sun telling your time, the birds your weather forecast. One day you might not return home at all.

From the Mud is a Midwest gothic inspired horror set in a solitary countryside occupied only by two small towns and stretches of untamed nature. You play a troubled cowboy/girl/puncher who‘s ground deep into a maddening, repetitive routine that a string of deaths suddenly upends. The sheriff of the neighboring town along with a driven journalist and an old friend whose bridge you’ve long since burnt comes to town having heard the news. As you’re hunting for the culprit and running from yourself, your quiet life on the ranch is disturbed, forcing you to keep your cards close and choose your company carefully. But the most pressing matter proves to be whether you can trust your own mind.

From the Mud

☆ Interactive fictional psychological horror written in choice script

Features

Play as either a man, woman, or other

Choose your appearance from overall features to minor details

Experience nuanced romance as either straight, gay, or bi, or forgo romance altogether

Choose whether you’re religious or not in an overly christian rural town

Experience the world react differently towards you depending on who you identify as

Get wrapped up in the chaos to solve the mystery of several murders

Lose touch with reality and slowly question everything around you

Remember: you have to choose to get better

Reject the possibility of unnatural forces at play, or believe

Rot in a jail cell

Ride a horse!

Play a game mostly not driven by numbered stats but meaningful actions and a fuck ton of trackers

Demo TBA soon | pinterest

Basics about some of the important RO characters and other below

The Sheriff ☆ Zachariah “Zach” Mallory ☆ a man in his mid thirties

Sheriff Mallory works from his office in Two Rocks, and though his occupation means working closely with other people and seeing to their needs, it would be indolent to describe him as being good with people. At all. Being abrasive and ill-natured, the man does, however, suit the role of authority well. When the angry crease on his forehead soften, you might find there is something else within his tired eyes.

The sheriff has dark brown, chin-length hair and a matching little effort short beard. His sand-colored skin is sun-kissed from being outside, the circles under his eyes almost a purple kind of shade. Under a heavy set of brows sits a pair of dark blue, almost stormy gray eyes. Standing at an imposing height, Mallory is nigh refused anything, and can’t be forced to wear the ugly uniform his rank requires. Instead, he sports a simple white fitted t-shirt and a pair of well-loved denim jeans.

The Journalist ☆ Candy Tillman ☆ a woman in her early thirties

Working for the local news station in Two Rocks, Ms. Tillman has through work experience and excellent mentoring from her predessessor become a hound chasing stories and truths. She is both idealistic and romanticizing (that which shouldn’t), and yet entirely unsusceptable to bullshit. When her facade falters who will accept her then?

The woman with the sweetest name has blonde hair that falls to the middle of her shoulder blades, which she loves to blowout. Her tan skin is contoured by a natural style of makeup, her small, light blue eyes painted. Candy is average height, reaching taller stature with her go-to minimalist pumps. The journalist prefers simple, feminine silhouttes of clothing, keeping up with the times.

The Best Friend ☆ Blythe Abel Goodwin ☆ a woman in her mid twenties

Blythe is your best friend who you grew up with in Ashley and who stuck around when everyone left, though you know she would’ve loved to leave just as much as you once did. In response to the death of her dreams and the narrow-minded opinions of the general inhabitation of the area, she has defiantly become a person of unique and unpredictable character. You’ve known each other through thick and thin, but is there a side to her yet to be discovered?

Your childhood friend is a contrast-filled woman just under average height. Long, black, cascading hair falls from her head down to her mid-back. Choppily home-cut bangs frame her small face. Her fair skin turns rosy in the cold. Blythe’s almond eyes that are sometimes obscured by a pair of reading glasses, are hazel. She wears whatever the fuck she wants.

The Colleague ☆ Ford Wiley Mallory ☆ a man in his early twenties

Ford Wiley is the younger half-brother of Sheriff Mallory and your colleague on the ranch. Working there only half-time, the younger Mallory is dedicated and driven only in the field of his passion; music. His band has only ever played at the local bar, though. Reserved and perhaps somewhat more thin-skinned than most living out on the countryside, Wiley makes do with refreshing optimism. Whether this optimism is genuine or fabricated is yet to be revealed.

Your part-time cowboy coworker has long, wavy brown hair that he sometimes makes an effort to style, and otherwise lets it live its own life. He and his half-brother have little in common, appearance included; Wiley has olive skin covered in freckles. His eyes are dark brown, and he is of average height. The musician’s clothes consist of unwanted (by himself) hand-me-downs from Zachariah and ill-gotten items.

The Old Friend ☆ Sawyer “Saw” Brennan ☆ a gender selectable person in their late twenties (m/f)

You grew up with Sawyer along with Blythe, and the three of you braved your childhood and youth in this godforsaken place for years. But they left when things got hardest, and you haven’t been able to get past it even after all these years. Over the years Sawyer has been away they’ve grown into a person you barely know anymore, and you struggle with their sudden return. Will you be able to understand and forgive them for leaving?

Sawyer has inky brown curly hair, worn long (f) or short (m) and loose, carefully taken care of and styled. They have warm brown skin and sharp eyes to match. Your old friend is tall, fitting their frame into oversized graphic t-shirts and either color matched sweats or baggy jeans.

My intentions with this game: It is not supposed to be a beautiful story, it is supposed to be ugly. Writing this game in the way I am is my taking a step away from perfection and seeing where my unpolished writing takes the story. I have been ruled by fear of inadequacy and a desire for ‘perfect timing’ long enough. If I continue to wait for the ‘right moment’ to create, I will end up not creating at all. My only desire now is to simply create, and continue doing so until I have something to show for it.

Story is written and coded by me

Credits to Cole Meanor for the beautiful photography done for the headers!

#interactive fiction #feel free to ask any questions :)#choice of games #trigger warnings will be up when I post the demo #from the mud if #from the mud #midwestern gothic #rural decay #horror #cog #choice script #if wip #hosted games #choicescript #interactive game #work in progress #current wip #psychological horror #mystery

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saphiccarma · 23 days ago

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If your requests are still open, could you write a jealous female reader x Agatha? The age gap is important, with the reader in her mid-20s, possibly as Agatha's grad student or assistant. You can take the story in any direction, and I’d be thrilled with it.In this scenario, Agatha is hit on by a colleague named Rio at a work or school event, and she indulges her because she notices the reader’s jealousy. Agatha is surprised when the reader takes control to show that she belongs to Agatha just as much as Agatha belongs to her. After this interaction, the reader storms away, leaving Agatha worried.vThey drive home together, and Agatha feels anxious because the reader is upset and hasn't spoken much after they had sex. The reader feels hurt, but Agatha apologizes and makes an effort to return the favor to the reader.

I also love your writing!

- Jealousy Jealousy

Relationships - Agatha x Reader

Summary - You worked for Agatha as an assistant for a few months before you became her girlfriend and as her girlfriend she liked to drag you along to fancy parties. At one of those parties, one of Agatha's old friends flirts with her and you get quite jealous.

Warnings: Jealous reader, fingering (both receiving), oral (r receiving), hickeys (both), semi-public sex, possessiveness.

A/N: I absolutely loved this request. thank you so much for sending it :)

People chatted happily around you, wine or champagne or some other fancy beverage in hand as they conversed with their colleagues. Music played lowly over the speakers. It clashed with the various conversations happening. Fancy perfume and old man cologne was all you could smell, even after taking a step outside for a breath of fresh air.

Public events like these typically weren't your style, but when Agatha had thrown a dress with a thigh slit at you and told you to get dressed, you didn't have much of a choice. Agatha herself wore a tight, black suit that she looked absolutely divine in. Her makeup was perfect, highlighting her sharp cheekbones and pink lips. You had lost her after you took a step outside to get some fresh air, tired of the stifling atmosphere inside. You had no idea how she stands it.

Personally, you carried no drink as you meandered through the assortment of people, searching for your girlfriend. You felt entirely out of place here, most people being in at least their thirties while you were in your twenties. Maybe it wasn't that big of a difference, but you barely had your footing in life when you started working for Agatha. You became her assistant and then it only evolved from there until she was taking you to all the fancy parties as arm candy. Well, that's what the old men said, their eyes raking over you hungrily while you stood next to Agatha. That was part of the reason why you decided to leave her side tonight.

And as you turned past a group of younger women laughing as they elegantly sipped their drinks, you began to think it was a bad idea. Agatha was leaning against a counter, the flirtiest smirk spread across her lips as she swirled a glass of wine in her hand. In front of her was another woman who had an equally sharp smile. Intent sparkled in her dark brown eyes as she laughed softly at something Agatha said, brown hair flowing down her shoulders. Your jaw clenched at the sight of them together.

She wore a tight suit, pressed firmly down on her shoulders but the pants flared out at her ankles. It took a moment before you could decide who she was. Rio Vidal. Agatha used to work with her, being old colleagues in collage and then working together before splitting. Agatha had never given you the details on it and you never pressed the issue. Now you were starting to think you should have. Rio's hand landed on Agatha's arm, fingers slowly sliding up before resting on her shoulder, and then her eyes flickered towards you. The smirk she wore deepened and you could feel the mischief radiating off of her.

Anger bubbled in your stomach at the sight. Mainly at the fact that Agatha didn't shrug Rio off or politely tell her that she was dating someone, she allowed Rio to touch her in a way that was more than just friendly. Your cheeks heated slightly, you couldn't tell if it was from anger or something entirely different. With fast, deliberate movements you marched over towards them, your heels clicking against the floor, audible even above the music.

"Hey," you greeted, your voice clipped. You wrapped your arm around Agatha's waist, squeezing her hip in a rare display of dominance. Agatha was typically the more possessive, more jealous, person in this relationship, but you couldn't fight off the envy that pounded in your heart.

Rio's hand slipped off Agatha's arm as the latter turned to face you, her smile softening at the sight of, "Hi, hon." She leaned down to peck at your lips, and reluctantly, you let you her, even though you had half a mind to turn your head away and deny her.

“Who’s this Agatha?” Rio’s voice flowed like honey, her tone controlled and taunting.

Agatha smiled down at you, “Y/N.” You exhaled sharply at the simple way she introduced her. As if you were nothing more than just a friend.

"Can I steal her for a moment?" You directed your question towards Rio, although you hardly waited for an answer before dragging your girlfriend away, much to her amusement. She laughed lightly in your ear, leaning down so that her breath was hot as you moved to grab her wrist and drag her through the halls.

You wandered for a moment, almost getting lost in the extravagant building before you found an empty closet, devoid of even cleaning supplies. Shoving Agatha inside, you pressed her up against the wall, your lips latching onto hers. You could practically feel her smirk against your lips as she placed her hands on your shoulders. With just that simple movement, you could imagine Rio's hands on her, teasing your girlfriend.

Swiftly, you snatched up her wrists and in one quick movement pinned them to the wall. You pulled away from her lips with a triumphant smirk and Agatha scoffed, rolling her eyes. She tugged at her hands, trying to free them, but you held firm. While Agatha often took the lead, you were stronger than she gave you credit for.

"Did you enjoy that?" you snarled, attaching your lips onto her neck, teeth grazing against her skin, "Having her hands all over you? You're mine." You punctuated your words with a harsh bite to her tongue, smoothing it over with your tongue.

Aware of the time restraint before someone would notice she was missing, you slid your hand up her thigh while you sucked on her neck. Agatha whimpered when you bit down hard, a sound you rarely heard, and she made another needy noise when your fingers swiped through her folds.

"Somone's possessive," Her voice was breathless as she teased you, trying to regain some sliver of control in her position. You responded to her by shoving one finger into her cunt, hard and fast. Breath hitching, Agatha's hips bucked away from the wall. Her hands tugged on your grip, desperate to touch you. Your tongue licked a long stripe up her tongue. Another finger joined the second, your thumb pressing against her clit roughly with each thrust.

It wasn't long before her thighs started trembling slightly, a silent sign of her orgasm approaching, and a cruel idea crept over you. You continued to pump your fingers in and out of her, relishing in the soft sounds she made as her hips ground down on your fingers, searching for more friction. Her climax was coming quickly as her breaths increased and her chest rose and fell rapidly, her pulse thrumming beneath your lips.

Then, when you knew she was just about to tip over the edge, you pulled your fingers out. Agatha whined, the sound entirely unlike her, and you silenced her by shoving your fingers into her mouth. Her tongue swirled around them, cleaning her arousal off your digits and her lips sucked. You scoffed at her.

"I'll be waiting in the car," you remarked, pulling away suddenly once again, "Come find me when this party is done."

You could feel her icy blue eyes on you as you walked out, filled with need and frustration. Her arms flopped down to her sides as she watched you storm out, anger radiating off of you in harsh waves, your footsteps a clear sign of that. You weaved through the bundles of people, lips pursed as you made your way to the car. The cold night air hit you hard once you stepped out. Inside it was humid and crowded, but it was so nice out here. Inhaling deeply, you walked over to the car, sliding into the driver’s seat and leaning back.

You crossed your arms over your chest, keeping the anger close to your chest. Who was Agatha? Flirting with other girls? You should have never come to stupid even in the first place.

It wasn't too long before Agatha opened the passenger door, sliding in silently. You started the car, the engine humming to life, and tires rolling smoothly over the pavement as you pulled out. There was a tense silence that enveloped the car as you drove, your hands tight on the steering wheel, and eyes trained directly on the road.

Usually, you were so vibrant and full of joy, and Agatha began to worry when you remained terse throughout the whole drive. There had been a few fights in the relationship that blossomed between the two of you, but you never shut down like this. Agatha hated the thin line that your lips were pressed into and clench of your jaw. Your hands had not once moved since they latched onto the wheel, and you had not once glanced in her direction.

Testing her limits, Agatha placed her hand on your thigh. You tensed beneath her but didn't look down or at her. You also didn't tell her to stop. She slowly trailed her fingers up your thigh, under your dress, inching them closer to where she knew you wanted them, and then slid them back down softly. Her own core was throbbing with need after you left her high and dry. Your thigh twitched as her nails dug into your thigh, and for the first time you glanced at her, but it was only a warning glance.

She saw you swallow thicky when her hand trailed back up and pressed down. You had to bit down on your lip to prevent from whimpering and Agatha took great pleasure in the sight of your flushed cheeks. A strained sigh escaped you when she slid her finger up the middle of your thighs.

"Agatha," you managed to choke out.

She smirked viciously and cooed with faux sympathy, "What's wrong?"

"I'm driving," your teeth grit together as she started playing with your clit through your underwear and your breath audibly hitched as you squirmed in your seat. She kept you like that the entire ride, on the edge of your seat, needy for her. Your face flushed even more as the drive went on, a solid half hour from the venue for the place, and she adored the way your eyes became hooded with desire.

By the time you finally pulled into the parking lot, you were on the precipace and your breaths were coming in fast.

"Upstairs," she whispered and pulled her hand away before she was sauntering inside. You let out a shaky exhale and your head fell onto the steering wheel. You took a moment to catch your breath before heading upstairs on wobbly legs. Creeping up the stairs you could feel your heart pounding inside your chest with anticipation.

The minute you stepped into the room, you were spun around then shoved backwards onto the bed. Agatha fell on top of you, her legs straddling your hips, and her smile wicked as she stared down at you. She bent down, her lips catching yours in a fiery kiss. It was one that was all teeth and tongue, passion and desire. A needy whine left your lips as she explored your mouth with her tongue. Your hips wriggled beneath her; heat even more prominent in your throbbing core.

Agatha pulled away, breathless, "Who's in charge now?" She moved to your neck, her lips a soft tease, "You're mine." She bit down hard, mimicking your actions from earlier. Pain flashed there before it was cooled by a lick of her tongue, and then enough sucking to leave a mark. You bucked up into her, begging for more. A noise of pure want came from the back of your throat, your hands coming to tangle in Agatha's hair and tug. Smiling against your neck, Agatha paused for a moment, "Use your words, hon."

"Need you," you pleaded pathetically, bucking up into her. She pressed her hips down harder onto you, keeping you trapped firmly in place, her smirk widening. You have her big, begging, eyes, a silent request in them.

"You can do better than that."

It took a moment for you to force words out as she nibbled on your neck, "Please. Agatha fuck me. Please." Your hands moved to claw at her shoulders, trying to force her down. She paused for a moment. Pulling up to look you in the eyes, Agatha hummed in contemplation, although her mind was already made up. With one more whimper from you, Agatha shimmied down before shoving your dress up. You lifted your hips to help her with that and pulling your panties off.

Agatha's hands found your thighs, nails digging into your skin and holding your legs apart. She wasted little time in diving right in, her tongue swirling around your clit as she strained to keep your thighs from crushing her face. Not that she would mind. Your hands tangled into her hair once again, obscene moans being drawn from your lips as Agatha worked her magic. Her tongue played around in your folds, teasing your entrance and playing with your clit.

Heat pooled in your stomach, all the more prominent now, and spread through your veins. You tried to grind your hips into Agatha's face, desperate for more. She laughed softly into your cunt, the vibrations rattling through you. A filthy moan left your mouth at the sensation. One of Agatha's hands released your thigh and came to replace her mouth. She pulled up, her face slick with your arousal, before she began pumping her fingers in and out leisurely, curling once they were deep inside you.

Your hips thrusted to meet her every movement, working in sync as you chased after your high. Her thumb ground against your clit, a much-needed friction that had you going insane at the feel of it. She picked up her face, hands curling fast and fucking you hard - leaving you a writhing mess, desperate for release. At some point you had let go of her hair and fisted the bedsheets, your toes curling and back arching. Agatha took her time in teasing you until you were a sweaty, breathless mess that only had one thing in mind - release.

"Aggie," you moaned her name like a prayer, "Please."

"Hold it." Agatha bent forward, crashing her lips onto yours with as much force as possible while her fingers curled to hit your g-spot. You whimpered into her mouth, eyes squeezed tightly shut. When you thought you might pass out from oxygen loss, Agatha pulled away, seemingly not phased. "You're mine," she snarled, "and I'm yours. Say it."

"I-" you couldn't form a coherent sentence, your brain fuzzy and body on fire as her thumb and fingers worked magic on your cunt, "I'm yours."

"And?"

"You're- You're mine," you keened loudly and squirmed beneath her.

"Good girl," Agatha placed a soft kiss on your lips, "Go ahead."

With permission, your orgasm washed over you as Agatha's name rang through the room as pleasure surged through your body. You forced Agatha back down so that she was kissing you, her mouth muffling your moans as you rode out your high. Once your body finally relaxed a bit more, she slowly pulled her fingers out, softly apologizing when you whined. She flopped down next to you, still dressed in her elegant suit and you in your dress, even though it was wrinkled all the way up your hips. Agatha threw her arm over your hip, tugging you close. She buried her face into your neck, placing a tender kiss on one of the bruises.

"I'm yours." She whispered, her voice filled with admiration and praise.

You smiled, your hand coming to cover hers in a tender show of affection, "And I'm yours."

#agatha harkness x reader #agatha x you #agatha x reader #agatha harkness smut

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gildedbirdcage-if · 1 month ago

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DEMO TBA

Berenzia- a kingdom ruled by a powerful, stern King. For most of his rule, most anyone would report that he was a fair man to those who relied on him and merciless to those who opposed him or wished harm to his kingdom. It’s said there was once a time where he had calmed, finally found himself beyond his role, and all was well. The people loved, practically worshipped, their soft, perfect, patient, and kind Queen but the King would tell anyone that it paled in comparison to his love for her. The King and Queen were truly one half to the same whole and envied by all. As with all things, it did not last. In a classic tale of tragedy, the King lost his beloved Queen and it is said that it was an event he could never recover from. Whisperings in the street and kingdom’s borders would report that he lost his humanity the day the Queen died.

An event that coincides with your birth.

Play as the only child of Berenzia’s king- from your isolated youth to your isolated adulthood. You’re relatively safe from your father’s ire until your mid-twenties as you must fulfill your duty and get advantageously married. Build your relationships with your childhood friends, your new suitors, and a new friend. Will you do your father’s bidding or will you take destiny into your hands?

Gilded Birdcage is an 18+ interactive fiction not suited for minors. This interactive fiction will contain optional sexual content, suggestive themes, optional references to suicide, child neglect, abuse, deadnaming (gender selectable content), use of incorrect pronouns (gender selectable content), sexism, and death. This list will be updated as needed during content creation.

MC will be set to AFAB with options to explore gender identity. ROs down below will also not be gender selectable.

Aleksander “Alek” [M]:

Age: 25

Physical Description: 6’4”, ivory skin painted with freckles, red, loosely curled hair that reaches his nape, broad shoulders, thin waist, deceivingly strong despite appearance, crooked nose from a break, with warm, brown eyes.

Personality: Warm, affable, easy-going, energetic, extroverted, and impossible to not get along with. Makes anyone feel like they’re the only person in the room… until you walk in. [ENFP-T]

Info: Your childhood friend since diapers, you were born only two days apart. Alek is your first, and closest, friend. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for you. He has loved you his whole life but will never act upon it, believing you could never feel the same. He enters the battle for your hand not because he hopes you’ll see him as more than a friend, but to give you a friendly, familiar face to choose from. He’ll only ever have eyes for you. (Note: Can choose Alek for a platonic,romantic, or poly route)

Relationship to MC: Childhood friend, Suitor

Orion [M]:

Age: 24

Physical Description: 6’2”, tawny skin with small burn scars scattered on his forearms from cooking, stocky build, straight brown hair (loosely tied in a knot), with piercing green eyes.

Personality: Hardworking, sardonic, introverted, pessimistic, and pessimistic. [ISTJ-A]

Info: Orion began working in the castle at a very young age, thus being one of the only other children you had around growing up. Orion could not stand your demands or position and was, and always will be, quick to point out how the real world works. Despite his cold behavior, he does come around to like you as a person (friend or romantic) and will do anything to make things… livable for you. You often spend time taking up space in his kitchen as a sanctuary of sorts. (Note: available for romantic and poly route)

Relationship to MC: (reluctant) Childhood friends, personal chef

Cyrus [M]:

Age: 29

Physical Description: 5’10”, chestnut skin, thin, black hair that falls in messy waves (reaches his shoulders), with dark brown (nearly black) eyes.

Personality: Flighty, playful, cunning, charming, deceptive, extroverted, and (occasionally) manipulative. [ESTP-A]

Info: An inconsequential prince (fourth born) from a bordering, allied kingdom. Takes life as it comes and never tries to be serious about anything. He has entered for your hand to continue his easy life with hopefully less people trying to control his actions. He is a flirt above all else, capturing every heart he desires, but never offers his own.

Relationship to MC: Stranger, suitor

Irvine [M]:

Age: 28

Physical Description: 6’0”, sun-kissed skin, straight, dark blonde hair that falls to his waist, muscular build, scar across his eyebrow and lip, with one gray eye and one brown eye.

Personality: Calm, sweet, patient, ambitious, peaceful, extroverted, and warm. [ENFJ-T]

Info: The second born prince from a country threatening to wage war against your own. He is hoping for a mutually beneficial marriage between the two of your to keep peace. Despises war and will do anything with minimal bloodshed to get it. Will promise you near anything if you give him your hand. Will wear whatever mask he needs to, as well. (Note: Available for platonic route or a strictly physical route)

Relationship to MC: Stranger, suitor

Blaire [F]:

Age: 23

Physical Description: 5’2”, deep umber skin tone, tightly curled (4B) black hair that reaches her jaw, thin build, with amber eyes.

Personality: Fun, mischievous, joyful, secretive, confident, conspiratorial, extroverted, playful, and a tease. [ENFJ-T]

Info: One of the latest nobles to hit the scene, her father is staying at the castle to work with the king to further himself as an advisor. Noticing you lack companionship, especially female, Blaire’s father offers her up to spend her days with you. She is your first female friend and confidant. Happy to give you opinions on your suitors- you’ve become her latest project and game.

Relationship to MC: Stranger

~Under Construction~

12/27/2024

- Updated that there will not be an option to not have the MC be AFAB- the story is so built around the treatment of being born female. There will be gender identity options as the MC grows up but there will be no option to be AMAB.

-Still working on if I will end the project with choicescipt or twine, but for now all demo is going to choicescript.

- I have about 6,000 words all typed out over four scenes and am hoping to have the demo up and going once I have the MC through toddler phase. So far I finished the MC being born.

-Questions are welcome! Including RO questions! :)

#interactive fiction #interactive story #interactive novel #interactive game #gildedbirdcageif

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writingsoftarnishedsilver · 22 days ago

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More Than Just a Favor | Sebastian Sallow x Reader One-Shot

I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVE 100 FOLLOWERS?

Might be a small milestone to some but I only made this blog a little over a month ago so I am just quite surprised, and honored! Thank you to every single one of you who chose to follow my silly little fanfic blog. To celebrate and as a little thank you, I've written a female mc x sebastian one shot for y'all to enjoy <3

Summary: Rumor has it, you're still a virgin. Sebastian intends to find out if the gossip is true.

Words: ~9,300

Tags: Modern AU, Confessions, Smut, First Time, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Sebastian x Female Reader, No Y/N, No Hogwarts House

It started the way most Hogwarts rumors did: with a fragile ego, a loose tongue, and someone who couldn’t keep their mouth shut.

Sebastian wasn’t one to keep track of the latest school gossip. He had better things to do—like beating Ominis at chess, ditching homework, or sneaking off to the Undercroft with you. But this time, he didn’t have much of a choice. This particular rumor wasn’t just background noise; it was everywhere. And it was about you.

Apparently, your ex-boyfriend, the prat Sebastian had barely tolerated even back when you were dating, had let something slip to one of his friends. It wasn’t just an offhanded comment, either. No, he’d told the guy—loudly enough to be overheard in the courtyard—that the two of you broke up because you refused to go past second base with him.

“Six months, and nothing,” the friend had gossiped afterward, his c oice carrying over the sound of students milling about after lunch. “No wonder he’s still bitter.”

From there, the rumor was all anyone could talk about.

“She’s still a virgin?” “You’d think she’d have gotten it out of the way by now.” “Didn’t they date for, like, six months? What was the point?”

The whispering spread like Fiendfyre. Even students who didn’t know you beyond your reputation—the girl who’d saved Hogwarts from Ranrok’s rebellion in fifth year, who seemed fearless in every sense of the word—were weighing in, dissecting your personal life like it was some kind of puzzle to solve.

Of course, it didn’t help that your ex was known for being pissed about the break up. People speculated he’d let the secret slip on purpose, unable to handle the fact that you’d dumped him in the first place. That made the whole thing worse, because now it wasn’t just about you—it was about him and his wounded pride, and the entire school seemed to be picking sides.

Sebastian overheard it for the first time during lunch, sitting at the far end of the Slytherin table. A group of fifth years down the way were giggling, their voices barely low enough to avoid catching the attention of a passing professor.

“Can you believe it?” one girl said, her voice dripping with glee. “Her, of all people?”

“What about her?” her friend asked, clearly out of the loop.

“She’s a virgin!” the first girl whispered, as though it were the most scandalous thing she’d ever heard. “Apparently, that’s why her ex dumped her. Six months together, and she wouldn’t even—”

Sebastian’s fork clattered against his plate, cutting the girl off mid-sentence.

She froze, glancing nervously at him as he slowly pulled the earbud from his right ear. His music—something dark and brooding, of course—cut out as he turned toward her, brown eyes sharp.

“What was that?” he asked, his voice deceptively calm.

The girl fidgeted with the sleeve of her robe, but her friend wasn’t nearly as cautious.

“You haven’t heard? Her ex said they broke up because she wouldn’t put out,” the friend explained matter-of-factly, not bothering to lower his voice.

Sebastian stared at them as a slow, creeping heat rose in his chest, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he was feeling. Anger? Maybe. Amusement? Possibly. Relief? …Definitely.

Not that he let them know that.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than talk about things that aren’t your business?” he asked, his voice low and even.

The girl fidgeted more visibly now, her face paling. Her friend, however, didn’t seem to share the sense of self-preservation.

“Relax, Sallow,” he said with a smirk, leaning forward conspiratorially. “It’s not like we’re the only ones talking about it. It’s everywhere.”

Sebastian’s dark eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening as he fought to keep his temper in check.

“Well, maybe you should be the first ones to shut up about it.

“Alright, alright,” the friend muttered, holding up his hands defensively. “No need to get all defensive. I’m just saying what everyone’s already heard.”

“Right,” Sebastian drawled, his lip curling in disdain as he leaned back slightly, letting his glare linger just long enough to make them uncomfortable. “Because if everyone is doing it then it's totally fine to continue parroting garbage.''

That seemed to do the trick. The pair exchanged nervous glances before muttering half-hearted excuses and scurrying off like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

But of course, it wasn’t just the younger students gossiping. For the rest of the day, he caught snippets of conversations in the corridors, in classrooms, even in the common room that evening. It was everywhere, and no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, his curiosity got the better of him.

That night, he found you in the Undercroft, just like he’d expected.

The moment Sebastian stepped through the arched entrance, the tension in his shoulders eased. The familiar hum of magic in the air wrapped around him like a blanket, muting the noise of the outside world. The Undercroft had always been your shared refuge—a place where the two of you could escape from everything else.

And there you were, sitting on the floor near the far wall, legs crossed with a book resting on your lap. Your back was straight, your expression focused, but the way your shoulders hunched slightly told him everything he needed to know. You weren’t fine.

Sebastian leaned against one of the stone columns, crossing his arms as he watched you for a moment. He could feel the tension in the air, thick and heavy like a storm waiting to break. Part of him didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to push you when you clearly needed space.

But the other part of him—the louder, more stubborn part, the part that wanted the rumor to be true—refused to stay quiet, because the thought of you being with someone else—being close to someone else—had always tied him up in knots. And your ex? That prat? The six months you’d spent with him had been absolutely torturous for Sebastian.

He’d never told you, of course. He’d plastered on his usual smirk, rolled his eyes every time you mentioned the guy’s name, and thrown in the occasional jab about how you could do better. But every time you left to meet him, every time he’d see the two of you sitting together at meals or laughing in the courtyard, it had felt like a gut punch.

He’d spent more nights than he cared to admit lying awake in the Slytherin dormitory, staring up at the canopy of his bed with his heart pounding and his mind racing. He hated the thought of someone else holding your hand, kissing you, whispering things in your ear that he didn’t dare say aloud.

Not that he should’ve been surprised. Every guy at Hogwarts had pined after you since fifth year. You were fearless, funny, and maddeningly brilliant. You were the one who had charged headfirst into danger when Ranrok threatened everything, the one who’d become a legend among your peers before you even hit sixteen.

And on top of all that, you were beautiful. Not the kind of beauty that demanded attention, but the kind that pulled people in without you even trying. You didn’t seem to realize the effect you had on people, and maybe that’s what made it worse.

Because Sebastian had known, from the moment he met you, that you were going to ruin him.

And now, standing here in the Undercroft, watching you hunch slightly under the weight of a stupid rumor, all those feelings surged to the surface. The relief, the jealousy, the guilt. He wanted the rumor to be true—wanted it to be true so badly that it scared him.

"So..." he start slowly, "You want to talk about it?"

You startled slightly, your head snapping up to meet his gaze. For a moment, you didn’t say anything, your eyes narrowing as if trying to figure out his angle. Then you huffed, snapping your Charms textbook shut and tossing it onto the floor beside you.

“Not really,” you muttered, your tone sharper than usual.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching into a faint smirk despite the tension in his chest.

“Come on,” he pressed, his voice softer now but still laced with that familiar teasing edge. “It’s me. You can tell me anything."

Your expression darkened as you stood abruptly, brushing dust off your robes. “What’s there to talk about, Sebastian? It’s just a stupid rumor.”

“Is it?” he asked, tilting his head slightly as he watched you pace the length of the room.

You stopped mid-step, your shoulders stiffening before you turned to face him fully. “Yes, it is,” you snapped, your voice rising slightly. “But apparently, the entire school thinks it’s their business now.”

Sebastian studied you carefully, his smirk fading. He could see the frustration bubbling just beneath the surface, the way your hands clenched and unclenched at your sides. This wasn’t like you. You were always so steady, so unshakable, the kind of person who didn’t care what anyone thought. But now? Now you looked… rattled.

“They’re idiots,” he said simply, shrugging one shoulder. “You know that.”

You let out a humorless laugh, shaking your head as you turned away from him. “Doesn’t stop them from talking, does it?”

Sebastian pushed off the column, closing the distance between you with a few lazy steps. He stopped just a foot or two away, his voice low and careful as he said, “So… is it true?”

You froze, and for a moment, the silence stretched between you, heavy and suffocating. Then, slowly, crossed defensively over your chest.

"That's not your business, Sebastian."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching into something that wasn’t quite a smirk—too soft, too careful—but still undeniably him. He tilted his head, studying you with that infuriatingly patient look he reserved for when he wasn’t ready to let something go.

“Maybe not,” he admitted, his voice quiet but steady. “But you’re my best friend, so I’m making it my business.”

You glared at him, your arms tightening over your chest. “Why? So you can laugh about it like everyone else?”

That stung, more than he wanted to admit. His smirk faltered, his brows knitting together as he took a step closer.

“Come on,” he said, his voice softening. “You know me better than that.”

Your gaze flickered, uncertainty flashing across your face before you looked away, your jaw tightening.

Sebastian let out a slow breath, running a hand through his hair as he searched for the right words. He didn’t want to push you, not when you were already on edge, but the knot in his chest refused to loosen.

“Look,” he started, his tone gentler now, “I don’t care what everyone’s are saying. They don’t know you—not really. And whatever your ex said? That just proves how much of a git he is.”

You scoffed, your eyes snapping back to his. “You hated him before this, Sebastian. Don’t act like this is some new revelation.”

“You’re right,” he said, his grin creeping back, though it was tempered by something warmer. “I did hate him. Still do. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

You rolled your eyes, but there was less fire in the gesture now, as though his words had chipped away at some of the tension in your shoulders.

Sebastian took another step closer, the space between you shrinking until he could see the way your hands trembled as you fidgeted with the fabric of your sleeve. He tilted his head, his eyes meeting yours.

“So,” he said slowly, “you’re not going to deny it?”

You hesitated, your throat working as you swallowed hard. “Why does it matter to you?”

The question hung in the air, heavy and charged. Sebastian’s heart thudded in his chest, the truth clawing at the back of his throat. He could feel it pressing against his ribs, begging to be let out.

But instead, he shrugged, forcing a casual grin. “It doesn’t,” he lied. “I just didn’t expect it, that’s all.”

“Why not?” you asked, your voice sharper now, defensive.

He hesitated, his grin faltering for a split second before he recovered. “Because it’s you,” he said, his tone quieter now. “You’re… you. Brave, reckless, brilliant—and gorgeous, by the way, not that you ever seem to notice.”

Your cheeks flushed, and you looked away, clearly caught off guard by the compliment. He couldn't really blame you. Sebastian almost always avoided saying anything that got too close to the truth of his feelings.

But he pressed on, his voice softening further. “You could have anyone you wanted. Hell, half the guys in school are practically lining up for a chance. So yeah, I just assumed…” He trailed off, shrugging again, though the motion felt heavier this time.

“Well, you assumed wrong,” you muttered, shifting your weight awkwardly.

The confirmation leaving your lips had Sebastian’s thoughts grinding to a halt, his mind caught somewhere between relief and confusion.

By principle, Sebastian didn’t care how many people someone had slept with—or if they hadn’t slept with anyone at all. It wasn’t something he judged people for. Hell, he was hardly a paragon of chastity. His own reputation preceded him—half the school whispered about his escapades, and he didn’t exactly go out of his way to deny the rumors. He wore the label of "man whore" like a badge of honor, not because he particularly enjoyed the attention, but because it was easier than letting anyone see the truth.

And the truth was simple: all of it—every fleeting flirtation, every casual hookup, every whispered name—had been nothing more than a distraction. A way to dull the ache of wanting something he could never have.

So when it came to you, his principles fell apart. The selfish, possessive part of him—the part he usually tried to shove into a dark corner of his mind—was pleased. Pleased that you were still untouched. Pleased that he might still have a chance to be your first, and if he had his way, he’d be your only.

He shoved his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t fidget. “Well,” he said softly, his voice dipping into something quieter, something that wasn’t quite teasing but still carried the edge of a grin. “…Good.”

Your head snapped up, your eyes narrowing as you stared at him. “Good?” you repeated, your voice sharp with disbelief.

“Yeah,” he said, his smirk softening into something warmer, something real. “Good. It means you didn’t let that asshole have something he didn’t deserve.”

You blinked at him, clearly caught off guard by his words. For a moment, you just stared, like you were trying to figure him out, to dig past the layers of teasing and bravado to whatever truth lay beneath.

"You're oddly fixated on this." You observed.

Sebastian could feel the truth clawing at him, desperate to be set free, but instead, he forced a shrug, his smirk creeping back into place.

“I'm not fixated,” he lied, though the words tasted bitter on his tongue. “I just think you deserve better than someone like him.”

You rolled your eyes, though the gesture lacked its usual fire. “You’ve been saying that since the day I started dating him.”

“Because it’s true,” Sebastian shot back, his grin widening just enough to show a hint of teeth. “You’re amazing, and he… well, he was decidedly not.”

The faintest smile tugged at the corners of your lips, and Sebastian’s chest tightened at the sight. He would’ve given anything to see that smile directed at him forever.

“Thanks, I guess,” you muttered, though your cheeks were still flushed, and you shifted awkwardly under his gaze.

For a moment, the two of you stood there in silence, the air between you thick. Sebastian could feel it—the tension, the weight of everything he wasn’t saying—and he knew, deep down, that this moment was teetering on the edge of something neither of you could take back.

And then, because he couldn’t stop himself, he said, “You know… if you ever wanted to change that status, you could always come to me.”

Your eyes widened, and your mouth fell open slightly as you stared at him, clearly caught off guard. “What?”

He shrugged, trying to keep his tone light even as his heart threatened to pound out of his chest. “I mean, you trust me, right? And I’m…” He paused, his lips twitching into a smirk. “Well, let’s just say I have experience.”

You groaned, "Seb, I really don't want to hear about how you fucked three girls in one night in three separate broom closets, okay? You sexcapades are not exactly my favorite topic."

Sebastian blinked, caught off guard by your blunt response. Then he burst out laughing, the sound echoing through the Undercroft. It wasn’t the reaction you were expecting, apparently, because your glare deepened, but there was a flicker of something softer in your eyes—maybe amusement, maybe exasperation.

“Why not?” he asked, grinning wide, leaning slightly closer. “You don’t find my sexcapades entertaining?”

“No,” you shot back, though your lips twitched like you were fighting a smile. “They’re revolting. And the fact that half the school thinks you’re incapable of keeping it in your pants doesn’t entertain me nor scream trustworthy.”

Sebastian pressed a hand to his chest. “Ouch. Way to attack my character”

“Oh, please.” You rolled your eyes, though your cheeks were flushed. “You practically brag about it. You’re always smirking when people bring it up, like it’s some badge of honor.”

“Maybe I’m just giving them what they want,” Sebastian shot back smoothly, his grin softening into something more thoughtful. “You know how people are. They love a good story.”

You raised an eyebrow, crossing your arms over your chest. “So you didn’t hook up with three girls in one night?”

Sebastian hesitated, his grin faltering for a split second. “Well, I didn’t say that.”

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” you groaned, dragging a hand down your face.

“Okay, okay,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “Yes, I have a bit of a reputation. But let’s be honest—none of it actually matters. It’s not like I care about any of the girls I hook up with.”

You frowned at him, your gaze narrowing. “Then why do it?”

Sebastian blinked. For a moment, his smirk slipped completely, and the air between you grew heavier. But then, just as quickly, he recovered, his lips twitching into that familiar, teasing grin.

“Well,” he started, his tone light but laced with mischief, “it’s better than getting myself off alone in bed ten feet from Ominis, isn’t it?”

Your jaw dropped, and you gawked at him, absolutely dumbfounded. “Sebastian!”

“What?” he said, shrugging innocently, though the grin on his face was anything but. “I’m just saying. Can you imagine?” He raised his voice, mimicking Ominis’s clipped, proper tone. “‘Really, Sebastian? At two in the morning? Some of us enjoy sleep.’”

You stared at him, torn between horror and the urge to laugh, your cheeks burning. “I didn’t need to know that!”

“Sure you did,” he said, clearly pleased with himself. “Now you understand why I’ve had to… broaden my horizons.”

“Broaden your horizons?” you repeated, crossing your arms tightly over your chest. “That’s what you’re calling it?”

“Well, what would you call it?” he shot back, his grin widening.

“I’d call it—” You cut yourself off, groaning as you pinched the bridge of your nose. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

Sebastian laughed, the sound warm and rich, and for a moment, it felt like the tension between you had lifted. But then his laughter faded, and he took a step closer, his expression softening into something more serious.

“Look,” he said, his tone quieter now, more honest. “What I’m really trying to say is that if…” He swallowed hard, and for a brief moment, he considered stopping—considered leaving it unsaid. But then he met your eyes, and something in your gaze spurred him on, despite every instinct screaming at him to shut up.

“If you’re planning on… you know, getting it over with,” he forced out, his voice low and uneven, “then I’ll help.”

You blinked, clearly caught off guard. “Help?”

Sebastian nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets to stop them from fidgeting. “Yeah. I’ll… I don’t know. Give you the dirt on whoever you’re thinking about. Tell you if they’re decent, or if they’re just going to make things worse for you.”

Your expression shifted from confusion to something closer to disbelief. “Seb, are you seriously offering to vet potential guys for me?”

“Well, someone has to,” he said, his grin returning, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I mean, let’s face it—your taste hasn’t exactly been stellar so far.”

You rolled your eyes, but there was no real heat behind the gesture. “Gee, thanks.”

“I’m just saying,” he pressed, leaning slightly closer, his voice dropping conspiratorially. “If you’re going to do this, you might as well make sure it’s with someone who’s not going to screw it up—or worse, brag about it to half the school.”

You stared at him for a long moment, your arms still crossed over your chest. “Why would you even offer that?”

Sebastian hesitated, the mask slipping for a split second as he tried to find the right words.

“Because you’re my best friend,” he said finally, the words tasting both honest and hollow at the same time. “And I don’t want you to regret it.”

The words hung in the air, heavy and charged, and Sebastian felt his heart thudding in his chest. The truth was, it wasn’t just about you. Not entirely. A selfish part of him couldn’t bear the thought of someone else being close to you in a way he wasn’t. Offering to help—offering to vet anyone you might consider—felt like a way to keep some semblance of control over a situation that made his stomach churn.

Because now he had a second chance at this. And if you went through with it, if you let someone else touch you, have you in a way that Sebastian could only dream of, he didn’t know what he’d do.

He told himself it was noble—that he was doing this for your sake, to protect you from making a mistake. But deep down, he knew it was self-serving, a desperate attempt to steer you away from anyone else while he tried to gather the courage to tell you the truth.

“Well, I’m not… planning anything,” you said at length, your voice softer now, almost hesitant.

Sebastian exhaled slowly, the knot in his chest loosening just slightly at your words. He hadn’t realized just how tightly he’d been wound, how much tension he’d been carrying since this stupid rumor started spreading.

“Good,” he said, his tone gentler now, though he couldn’t stop the faint smile that tugged at his lips. “Because honestly? Most of the guys around here are prats. You’d be better off waiting two months until after Hogwarts. At least then you won’t be stuck hearing about it in the Great Hall for weeks.”

You hummed thoughtfully, tilting your head as if considering his words. “And… if you were vetting yourself… would you approve?”

Sebastian froze, his usual quick wit momentarily failing him as his brain scrambled for a response. “I—what?” he stammered, caught entirely off guard. “That’s—that’s not—”

“Well, it’s only fair, isn’t it?” you cut in, your tone light but pointed as you smirked at him. “You were just interrogating me about my sex life. Why shouldn’t I get to turn the tables and question you back?”

Sebastian opened his mouth, then closed it again, unsure of how to even begin responding. His mind was racing, caught somewhere between indignation, panic, and the nagging realization that he’d never actually considered it before—but now that he had, the answer was glaringly obvious.

He wouldn’t pass his own vetting.

Not even close.

If the situation were reversed, if someone like him were sniffing around you, Sebastian would shut it down faster than you could blink. He wouldn’t just give a list of reasons why the guy wasn’t good enough for you; he’d give a dissertation.

The reckless streak. The reputation. The countless rumors of broom closet escapades. It didn’t matter that most of them were exaggerated, or that none of it had ever meant anything.

And that wasn’t even scratching the surface. Because beyond the gossip and the bravado and the endless teasing, Sebastian knew himself. He knew the flaws that weren’t just rumors. The impulsiveness. The temper. The way he threw himself into things without thinking, consequences be damned.

If he were vetting himself for you, the answer would be painfully clear: absolutely not.

But here you were, watching him with a raised eyebrow and that infuriating, knowing little smirk, like you were daring him to come up with an answer that didn’t make him look like an idiot.

“Well?” you prompted, your tone light but laced with curiosity. “Would you pass?”

Sebastian cleared his throat, stalling for time as he shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “That’s… an unfair question,” he said finally.

“Why?” you asked, tilting your head slightly.

“Because you’re not trying to get with me,” Sebastian said, forcing a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. The words tasted bitter as they left his mouth, like he’d swallowed something he couldn’t spit out.

But then something happened that he didn’t anticipate.

You didn’t respond.

Your mouth opened, as though you were about to say something, but no words came out. Instead, you just stared at him, your eyes wide and searching, your expression unreadable. Slowly, your cheeks began to flush, a deep warmth spreading across your face.

Sebastian froze, his own grin faltering as confusion flickered across his face. “What?” he asked, his voice quieter now, almost hesitant. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

You blinked, quickly snapping your mouth shut, and for a moment, it looked like you might try to play it off. But the blush only deepened, spreading to the tips of your ears as you looked away, fidgeting with the sleeve of your robe.

Sebastian’s stomach flipped. He didn’t know what to make of this—of you.

You, who could go toe-to-toe with him in every argument, every tease, every prank. You, who always seemed so steady, so sure of yourself, now standing there, cheeks aflame and uncharacteristically quiet.

“Wait,” he said slowly, his voice dropping as he stepped closer, his brows furrowing. “What—"

“It's nothing,” you said quickly, your tone higher than usual as you avoided his gaze.

Sebastian blinked, his mind grinding to a halt as he stared at you. Slowly, like puzzle pieces falling into place, the realization began to wash over him.

“Is it?” he asked, his voice quieter now, the teasing edge gone.

You froze. “Sebastian, don’t,” you said softly, but there was no bite to your words—no real protest.

Sebastian’s heart thudded painfully in his chest. It certainly was not nothing.

“Holy shit,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “You don’t agree with me.”

You winced, your cheeks burning even brighter as you finally glanced up at him. “Seb…”

“No, no, hang on,” he said quickly, his mind racing as he took a step closer, his dark eyes locked onto yours. “Are you—wait, are you saying that you would—” He cut himself off, his voice catching in his throat as the weight of the moment hit him. “Bloody hell—"

“Sebastian, please,” you cut in quickly, your voice rising just enough to interrupt him. Your hands flew up as if to stop his words before they could leave his mouth. You were panicking now, trying to salvage the moment, the heat in your cheeks only growing more intense. “It’s not— I didn’t mean— Look, it’s nothing, alright? Just forget I said anything.”

“Forget it?” he repeated, his heart was pounding so loudly in his chest that he was sure you could hear it. “Are you serious? You expect me to just… move on like you didn’t just almost admit—” He stopped himself, swallowing hard, his voice dropping lower. “Like you didn’t just make me think that you might—”

“Sebastian, don’t,” you interrupted, your voice trembling as you took a half-step back. “This is stupid. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“But you didn’t even say anything,” he countered, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took a step closer, closing the distance you were trying to put between you. “You didn’t have to. I saw it on your face.”

You flinched at that, your lips pressing into a thin line as your gaze flickered downward.

“Look at me,” Sebastian said softly, his tone lacking its usual teasing edge. “Please.”

You hesitated, your shoulders tensing, but eventually, you lifted your gaze to meet his. Your eyes were wide, brimming with uncertainty, vulnerability, and something else he couldn’t quite name—but it was enough to make his chest ache.

“Are you serious?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Tell me I’m not imagining this."

You opened your mouth, your throat working as you struggled to find the words. Sebastian thought you might deny it again, that you’d laugh it off and shove him back into the safe, familiar box of your friendship. But then you closed your eyes, exhaling shakily.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” you admitted, your voice quiet but steady. “You’re not imagining things. But this… this doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Doesn’t mean anything?” he repeated, his brows furrowing as the words hit him like a punch to the gut.

“Not like that,” you said quickly, shaking your head. “I just mean… it doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Sebastian said, his voice firmer now, more insistent. “And neither am I.”

You blinked at him, startled by the intensity in his tone, and Sebastian felt a flicker of hope spark in his chest.

“Do you know how long I’ve been—” He stopped himself, letting out a shaky laugh as he raked a hand through his hair. "Fuck, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Sebastian...”

“No, listen,” he said, cutting you off as he stepped even closer, his voice dropping into something softer, more vulnerable. “I’ve been driving myself mad for years thinking that I’d have to spend the rest of my life pretending that I’m okay with just being your friend. And now you’re here, blushing like mad, trying to convince me that this doesn’t mean anything, when it’s the only thing I’ve wanted to mean everything.”

The silence that followed was deafening, the air between you crackling with tension so thick it was almost suffocating.

“Tell me I’m not wrong,” he said, his dark eyes locked onto yours. “Tell me that you’ve thought about this, about us. Because if you haven’t, I’ll let it go. I’ll never bring it up again. But if you have…” He trailed off, his chest heaving as he waited for your answer, every nerve in his body on edge.

You stared at him, your lips parted slightly as you struggled to find the words. And then, finally, you let out a shaky breath, your shoulders relaxing as you whispered, “I have.”

Sebastian’s heart stopped.

"So you... you want me?"

You huffed a laugh, your gaze flickering away. "Of course I want you,” you mumbled. “I’ve wanted you since we met."

The world seemed to tilt beneath Sebastian’s feet. His legs felt unsteady, his chest too tight to contain everything that had been bottled up inside him for years. All the late nights he’d spent staring at the canopy of his bed, wishing things were different. All the times he’d watched you smile at him, laugh with him, and ached for something he thought he could never have. And now, here you were, saying the very thing he’d been terrified to let himself hope for.

“Fuck,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair as a shaky laugh escaped him. He felt dazed, like he’d just been hit with a Confundus Charm. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Your brows furrowed, and the corners of your mouth dipped down. “Seb, if you’re about to make a joke—”

Sebastian didn’t let you finish. He closed the distance between you, his hands coming up to gently cradle your face as his lips crashed into yours.

You froze for a split second, caught off guard, but then you melted into him, your hands gripping the front of his shirt as if to anchor yourself.

Sebastian kissed you like his life depended on it, like you were air and he’d been suffocating.

And in that moment, he realized he had been suffocating, drowning in his feelings for you and his fear of ruining everything. But now, with you in his arms, kissing him back like this was where you’d always meant to be, he felt like he could finally breathe.

When he pulled back, his forehead pressed against yours, both of you were breathless. His chest heaved as he tried to steady his breathing, his hands still cupping your face as though he was afraid to let go.

"So... you want me too?" Your voice was small, almost uncertain, like you still couldn’t quite believe it yourself.

He let out a breathless laugh, his thumb brushing gently over your cheek. “I thought I made that pretty clear,” he said softly, his lips twitching into a small, crooked smile. “But yeah. I want you. I’ve wanted you since… well, since the first time you insulted my dueling form.”

A laugh bubbled out of you, the sound light and shaky, but genuine. “That was years ago.”

“Exactly,” he said, his grin widening.

Your expression shifted. Your eyes, still soft from the kiss, suddenly took on that sharp edge he knew all too well.

He’d seen that look a hundred times before—right before you suggested something outrageous, something that would almost certainly land the two of you in trouble. But this time, it was different. This time, the stakes felt infinitely higher, and Sebastian’s heart skipped a beat as he watched you, holding his breath.

“What?” he asked cautiously.

You leaned back slightly, studying him with that mischievous gleam in your eyes, and Sebastian swore his heart was about to give out.

“Well,” you started slowly, your lips curving into a playful smirk. “If we’re being honest about what we want…”

Sebastian swallowed hard, his hands still resting on your cheeks. “Go on,” he said, though his voice was rough.

Your hands slid down his chest, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as you leaned closer. “You said you’d help me if I ever wanted to change my…status,” you said, your voice dropping into something softer, something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “Does that offer still stand?”

Sebastian’s breath caught. His eyes widened slightly, searching your face for any sign that you might be joking, but all he saw was that familiar confidence, the same fire that had drawn him to you in the first place.

“You’re not serious,” he said, though his voice wavered, betraying the rush of emotions swirling in his chest—hope, fear, and something that felt dangerously close to pure, unfiltered desire.

You tilted your head, your smirk softening into something gentler, something that made his stomach flip. “Why wouldn’t I be?” you asked quietly.

Sebastian couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. He just stood there, staring at you like he was committing this moment to memory—like he needed to be sure it was real before he dared let himself believe it. Then, slowly, a small, crooked smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“Well,” he said, his voice rough but tinged with a teasing lilt, “I’d be an idiot to say no, but..."

"But?"

Sebastian’s voice dropped, softer now, almost hesitant. “But if we do this… I need you to understand something.” His thumbs brushed gently over your cheeks, his gaze searching yours. "I don’t want this to be some casual thing. I don’t want it to be something we joke about tomorrow or pretend never happened."

Your teasing smirk faltered, your expression softening as the weight of his words sank in. “Sebastian…” you started, your voice quieter now, almost uncertain.

“I’m serious,” he interrupted, shaking his head slightly as though to clear his thoughts. "Fuck, I'm in love with you and I want you forever. I want all of you. And I need to know that this is what you want too. Because if we do this—if we cross that line—I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back. I don’t want to go back. "

Your laugh was soft, shaky, but warm enough to chase away the tension tightening Sebastian’s chest. “Sebastian, you absolute idiot,” you said, your voice a mix of amusement and affection. “I love you too. You already had my forever."

Sebastian froze. You loved him. You loved him.

With a low, broken sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a groan, he pulled you to him, his lips crashing against yours.

"Then yes," he said against your lips, "The offer still stands."

His lips crashing into yours, Sebastian backed you up slowly until you pressed against the cool, rough surface of the wall. His hands slid down your sides, his touch warm and firm, before they found your thighs. With a low, breathless groan, he lifted you, his fingers curling around the soft flesh beneath your skirt. The warmth of your skin against his palms made his head spin, and a shaky moan escaped his lips as he pressed you tighter against him.

He was in heaven. After so much imagining, so many stolen glances and sleepless nights spent wanting this—wanting you—he finally got to touch you, hold you, have you. And the way you clung to him, your legs wrapping around his waist as your hands tangled in his hair, only made it better. Perfect, even.

Your kisses were desperate, almost frantic, and every press of your lips, every flick of your tongue sent fire racing through his veins. When you broke away from his mouth, trailing kisses along his jaw before latching onto the sensitive skin of his neck, he let out a deep, shuddering breath, his head tipping back slightly to give you more access.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his voice low and hoarse as your teeth grazed his skin. “You’re driving me mad.”

You didn’t stop, didn’t so much as pause, as you nipped at his neck, your lips soothing the sting with soft kisses before you sucked gently, leaving faint marks in your wake. Your hands slid down to his chest, tugging at the buttons of his shirt, and Sebastian could only chuckle breathlessly, his voice rough with want.

“Impatient, are we?” he teased, though his own hands were just as restless, roaming your thighs and hips like he couldn’t get enough of you.

“Shut up,” you muttered, your tone sharp but breathless as you finally yanked the fabric apart, buttons clattering to the floor.

Sebastian’s hands tightened on your thighs, his arousal growing almost unbearable as you continued your assault on his senses. His breathing was ragged, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and he knew he couldn’t take much more of this—of you.

With a low, frustrated growl, he pulled back slightly, carrying you to one of the worn-out couches in the corner. The cushions creaked under your combined weight as he set you down gently, his body covering yours as he leaned over you, his hands braced on either side of your head.

For a moment, he just looked at you, his dark eyes roaming your face as though committing every detail to memory, because you were a vision, and the fact that you were here, with him, looking at him like he was the only thing that mattered, nearly undid him.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmured, his voice soft but filled with reverence.

Your lips parted slightly, a faint, breathless laugh escaping as you reached up to cup his cheek. “You’re not so bad yourself."

Sebastian huffed a laugh, and his lips found their way back to your neck, kissing and nipping at the sensitive skin with a newfound urgency. His hands slid along your sides, his fingers skimming the fabric of your sweater until they found the hem. He paused for just a moment, giving you a chance to stop him, but when you arched into him, your silent permission, he tugged the material upward.

The sweater caught slightly as he pulled it over your head, and you laughed softly, the sound muffled by the fabric. “Impatient are we?” you mocked breathlessly as he tossed the garment aside.

“Can you blame me?” he shot back, his voice low and gravelly as his hands immediately found your waist again, sliding up to palm you over your bra. His fingers curled around the soft fabric, thumbs brushing over the lace, and his breath hitched when you let out a soft, barely audible moan at the contact.

“Fuck,” Sebastian muttered, his forehead dropping to your shoulder as he squeezed gently, his touch reverent, almost hesitant. “You’re perfect. I’ve thought about this so many times, and it doesn’t even come close to—” He broke off, his words dissolving into a groan as you arched into him again, your nails digging into his shoulders.

“You think too much,” you murmured, your lips brushing against the shell of his ear as your hands found their way to his chest, exploring the warm, firm planes of muscle beneath your fingers. “Just feel.”

Sebastian let out a soft laugh, though it was shaky and tinged with desperation as he pressed a kiss to your collarbone. “Oh, believe me,” he said, his voice rough, “I’m feeling plenty.”

His lips trailed lower, down the column of your neck and across your chest, lingering just above the edge of your bra. His hands slid around your back, fumbling slightly as he searched for the clasp, and you couldn’t help but laugh at his eagerness.

“Need some help?” you teased, though your voice was just as breathless as his.

“Shut it,” he grumbled, though there was no real heat in his tone. When he finally managed to unhook it, the fabric loosened, and Sebastian pulled it away slowly, almost reverently, his eyes darkening as they roamed over you.

“God,” he whispered, his voice barely audible as he cupped you in his hands, his thumbs brushing over your bare skin. “You’re perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

Your cheeks flushed under his gaze, but before you could respond, his mouth was on you, hot and insistent. His lips and tongue worked in tandem, drawing soft gasps and whimpers from you that only spurred him on. His hands explored every inch of you, mapping out the curves and dips of your body like he was committing them to memory.

And Merlin, you were just as eager, your hands slipping down his back, your nails grazing his skin as you tugged him closer, your legs wrapping around his waist once more. Every touch, every kiss, every breath shared between you was electric, setting your nerves alight and leaving you both trembling with need.

“Sebastian,” you murmured, his name a plea on your lips as you arched into him, your hands tugging at the waistband of his trousers.

He groaned, his head dropping to your shoulder as he tried to steady himself, his breathing ragged. “You’re going to kill me,” he muttered, though the grin tugging at his lips betrayed the heat and affection swirling in his chest.

“Then die happy,” you shot back, your hands working to unbutton his trousers

Sebastian’s laugh was low and breathless, his hands momentarily leaving your body as he stood to slide the the fabric down his legs, and he decided that if this was the end, if you were the last thing he ever got to hold, he would die the happiest man alive.

His hands trembled slightly as they found your hips, his fingers curling around the waistband of your skirt. Slowly, almost reverently, he began to tug the fabric down, revealing more of you with each passing second.

His heart thundered in his chest when the fabric slid past your thighs, pooling at your knees before he finally discarded it onto the floor. Now, with both of you stripped down to nothing but your underwear, the reality of the moment hit him like a lightning strike.

His arousal, already insistent, became nearly unbearable, straining against the fabric of his boxers as his gaze swept over you. Splayed out on the worn couch, your hair spilled like a halo across the cushions, your chest rising and falling with each shallow breath, and every inch of you seemed to beckon him closer. The taut peaks of your breasts, flushed and bare to him, drew his attention, sending a sharp pang of need coursing through him. Your kiss-bruised lips, slightly swollen and parted, were enough to leave him breathless, but it was the way your thighs pressed together, your hips shifting slightly, and the soft flush painting your skin that nearly broke his restraint.

You squirmed under his gaze, your cheeks burning a lovely pink that traveled down to your neck, and Sebastian was certain he’d never seen anything more stunning in his life.

Sebastian sank down onto the couch, hovering over you once more, his arms braced on either side of your head as he took in every detail of your expression. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might break through his ribs. But when his eyes met yours, he faltered.

There, just beneath the heat and want in your gaze, was a flicker of something softer—nerves, apprehension.

This was your first time.

The gravity of it settled heavily on his chest all over again, eclipsing the raw desire that had been driving him just seconds ago. As much as he wanted to let his instincts take over, to lose himself in the sheer need coursing through him, he knew he couldn’t—he wouldn’t—rush this.

He leaned down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your lips, one hand coming up to gently cradle your face. The tenderness of the gesture seemed to soothe the tension in your body, and he felt you relax slightly beneath him.

“We don’t have to do this,” he murmured against your lips, his voice soft and steady. “If you’re not ready—if you need more time—just say the word, and we’ll stop. No questions, no pressure. I mean it.”

Your lips parted as you stared up at him, the weight of his words sinking in. Your hands slid up to rest on his shoulders. “I want this,” you said, your voice quiet but sure. “I’m ready, Seb. I trust you.”

Sebastian closed his eyes briefly, exhaling slowly as relief and affection washed over him. When he opened them again, his gaze was softer, his brow furrowed slightly as he studied you. “If I do something you don’t like,” he said gently, “or if you change your mind at any point, just tell me. Promise me.”

“I promise."

Sebastian nodded, his lips curving into a small, reassuring smile. “Alright,” he murmured, leaning down to press a feather-light kiss to your forehead, then your nose, and finally your lips before he shifted back. After sliding your thong down your legs, his hands reached for your knees, his fingers curling around them as he gently urged your legs apart. His touch was firm but careful, like he was holding something fragile and precious.

When his gaze dropped to the space between your thighs, a low, guttural groan escaped him, unbidden. He braced himself with one hand on your knee, the other sliding along your inner thigh as though drawn there by instinct.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his voice hoarse.

“Seb…” you murmured, your voice trembling as you reached for him, your fingers brushing against his forearm.

He met your gaze, his expression softening as he smiled—a small, lopsided grin that carried all the affection and adoration he couldn’t put into words. “I’ve got you,” he said softly, his hand sliding to your hip as he settled between your legs. “I promise, I’ve got you.”

Sebastian leaned forward again, his hands framing your hips as he lowered himself over you. He felt your trembling hands move to the waistband of his boxers, your fingers brushing against his skin. He bit his lip, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment as he tried to keep his composure.

When you tugged gently, his hands left your body for just a moment as he helped slide the fabric down, discarding it carelessly onto the floor. He knelt there for a second, his heart pounding as he hovered above you, watching your reaction like it was the only thing that mattered.

The moment your gaze dropped, your breath caught audibly, your lips parting in surprise. Your eyes widened slightly before the surprise gave way to something deeper, something that made the heat in his chest bloom into something all-encompassing. The desire in your expression, raw and unguarded, left him completely undone.

Sebastian felt his face flush, a lopsided, slightly nervous smile tugging at his lips as he watched you take him in. “You alright?” he asked softly.

You swallowed hard, your eyes flicking back up to meet his, and he saw a glimmer of shyness there—so unlike the confident, unshakable version of you the rest of the world knew. “I’m... you're so..." he watched you swallow hard, hesitant yet heavy with want.

“I’m what?” he asked softly, his voice low and rough. He leaned closer, his fingers brushing against your hip, his touch warm and grounding. “Come on, sweetheart, don’t leave me hanging now.”

You swallowed again, your chest rising and falling with shallow, unsteady breaths. “You’re so big, I— will it hurt?"

Sebastian’s breath hitched at your words, a wave of satisfaction and desire crashing through him, leaving his heart pounding and his arousal almost unbearable. The raw honesty in your voice, the uncertainty paired with the compliment, made his chest ache with a mixture of pride and tenderness.

Still, the flicker of apprehension in your gaze snapped him back to the gravity of the moment. He couldn’t let the intensity of his need overpower what mattered most: you.

He exhaled slowly, leaning down to press a soft kiss to your forehead before pulling back just enough to meet your gaze.

“It might,” he admitted softly, his voice low and steady. “It might hurt a little at first. But I promise you, I’ll go slow—so slow—and I’ll stop the second you want me to. You just have to tell me, okay?”

Your lips parted slightly, your breath trembling as you nodded. “Okay."

“You’re everything to me,” he murmured, his thumb brushing gently over your hip. “I swear, I’ll take care of you. I won’t let it be anything but good for you.”

You gave him a small, shaky smile, your fingers curling around the back of his neck to pull him closer. “I know."

Sebastian let out a shaky breath, his forehead resting briefly against yours as he reached down to position himself at your entrance. His hand trembled slightly—not from hesitation, but from the sheer weight of the moment, the overwhelming intensity of finally being this close to you, of having you completely. His eyes flicked up to meet yours one last time, searching for any trace of doubt.

“Breathe, love,” he whispered, his voice soft and soothing as he pressed a tender kiss to your cheek. “I’ve got you.”

You nodded, your hands sliding up to rest on his shoulders, your fingers curling into his skin as you drew him closer.

With infinite care, Sebastian began to press forward, his body taut with restraint as he eased himself into you. The moment he felt your warmth enveloping him, tight and slick and impossibly perfect, a low, guttural groan tore from his chest, his head dropping to your shoulder.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his voice rough and breathless as he stilled, giving you time to adjust. “You feel… you feel so good. So fucking good.”

Your breath hitched, a soft gasp escaping your lips as your body stretched to accommodate him. There was a slight pinch at first, an ache that made you tense momentarily, but Sebastian’s hands were there, grounding you, one cradling your hip while the other brushed soothing circles against your thigh.

“Easy,” he murmured, his voice laced with both tenderness and the barest hint of desperation. “Just breathe, sweetheart. You’re doing so well.”

You nodded, exhaling shakily as you focused on his voice, his touch, the warmth of his body pressing against yours. Slowly, the discomfort began to fade, replaced by something deeper, something warmer.

Sebastian felt the change, the way your body softened beneath him, the way your fingers gripped his shoulders less tightly. He pressed a kiss to your temple, his lips lingering there as he began to move again, inching deeper with agonizing slowness.

“You’re so tight,” he muttered, his voice thick with awe and desire. “So warm. Fuck, you’re perfect.”

Your soft whimper in response had his restraint fraying at the edges and he fought to keep his movements measured. Every inch of you wrapped around him like a vice, and the heat and wetness of you was enough to drive him to the brink of madness.

“Sebastian,” you breathed, his name a plea on your lips as your hands slid up to tangle in his hair. “You can… you can move.”

He groaned softly, lifting his head to look at you. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice tight as he forced himself to hold still, his entire body trembling with the effort.

“Yes,” you whispered, your legs wrapping around his waist to pull him closer. “I’m ready.”

With a shaky exhale, Sebastian nodded, his hands tightening on your hips as he began rocking into you with slow, deliberate strokes. The sensation was overwhelming—your body clinging to him, so snug and impossibly warm, every movement sending shockwaves of pleasure through him.

“Fuck,” he muttered again, his head dropping to rest against yours as he found a rhythm, each thrust measured and careful, ensuring you had time to adjust.

Your soft moans and the way your body responded to him only spurred him on, his movements growing just a fraction deeper, more deliberate, as he let himself sink further into you. The way you arched beneath him, the way your nails grazed his skin, made his restraint fray further, but he forced himself to hold on. This was about you—making sure you felt safe, cherished, and utterly adored.

“Tell me how it feels,” he murmured, his voice rough but laced with affection as his lips brushed against your ear. “I need to know you’re okay.”

“It’s… it’s good,” you whispered, your voice trembling but full of warmth. “Better than good. You feel amazing, Seb.”

The sincerity in your voice made his chest tighten, his heart pounding as he pressed a series of soft, reverent kisses along your jaw. “You’re amazing,” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “You’re everything.”

And as he continued, his movements slow and deliberate, Sebastian let himself savor every moment, every sound, every touch, etching the memory into his soul, and he swore he’d spend the rest of his life making sure you knew just how deeply he cherished you.

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asvterias · 1 year ago

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𝖯𝗋𝖾𝗍𝗍𝗒 𝖡𝗈𝗒 ~ 𝖩𝖺𝗂𝗆𝖾 𝖱𝖾𝗒𝖾𝗌

Part 2 | Part 3

Warnings: Jealousy & Allusions to Sex/Sexual Thoughts

Pairings: (FWB) Jaime Reyes x (FWB) Black!Fem!Reader, Best Friend!Milagro x Best Friend!Reader

Summary: Being friends with benefits with Jamie is hard to keep undercover, in hopes of Milagro never finding out. The number #1 rule is to be strictly sexual and not explore romantic feelings for the other. What happens when that rule is broken?

Word Count: 2.5k+

Tag List: @drqcrys @mageneire @websterss @pxachy-tea @moralesszz @odiesdayoff @allthingsvicf @tinkerbelle05 @alienstardust @lemonyboy97 @alastorhazbin @writing-fanics @veronicarose20 @conicoroahre @gay-dorito-dust @presidentbarbieirl @kayla2233454-blog @sodacatz @n7cje

Author’s Note: Watched the Blue Beetle movie recently and I was hooked on Jaime Reyes. This is my first time writing for Jaime Reyes, so he might be a little out of character but hopefully you like it!

Spanish Translations

“Por qué me estás mintiendo, Jaime?” — “Why are you lying to me, Jaime?”

Sneaking around can be full of excitement alongside the adrenaline of the whole ordeal. You and Jaime were secretly fooling around, being extremely cautious around his sister who was also your best friend. You didn’t even know how you ended up in this complicated relationship with Jaime Reyes. It started with two people under the influence of alcohol, both with the straightforward intention of getting laid and it ended with a confused hangover and a hurried conversation of forgetting about the whole affair.

At first, you two had avoided each other like the plague, sometimes accidentally crossing paths whenever you visited the Reyes residence or from basic errands that needed to be fulfilled.

Then the longer you two distanced yourselves from each other, the more agonizing it felt for the both of you. One day, Jaime snapped which led up to you two heading to bed for a passionate night. The morning after having sex, you two discussed your unofficial relationship and coming to terms with being friends with benefits and nothing more than that.

It was a simple and easy rule to follow, right? Wrong! How very wrong that you were! Too bad that you were breaking the rule. How could you not fall in love with him? With those beautiful doe dark brown eyes, his long curly hair, and his alluring personality, not to mention being completely star-struck when riding his di—

Oh, his voice…him speaking Spanish to you while in the most intimate positions has you craving for more.

You always missed the comfort of his arms at night as you watched him get dressed and leave, heading back home to avoid suspicion from his family. If Jaime’s family ever caught wind that he was not technically single, they would go ballistic, eager to meet the person and neither of you wanted that unnecessary attention.

It was finally official, you certainly loathed mornings, especially when Jaime spent the nights before. There were rare moments when he’d be able to stay the night with you. Luckily for you, today was one of those rare days.

Normally, he would claim that he’s the big spoon, but his sleepy smile widens when you’re the big spoon instead. His favorite sleeping position is lying on top of the softness of your breasts. Sometimes he would wake up face first right in the plushness of your breasts, that was always a good way to start the morning, wasn’t it? Your hands would subconsciously tangle themselves through his thick curly hair, softly massaging his scalp, sending him into a peaceful sleep.

You stirred yourself awake, no longer feeling the presence of Jaime lying on top of you. You tiredly stretched out your limbs, wincing at the soreness from your breasts down to your mid-thighs. Jaime certainly wore you out last night.

Very faintly, you heard the quiet shuffling and muttering of words. Regretfully, you slowly open your eyes, your eyelids still heavy as you rub the sleep out of them.

“Hmm…morning Jaime.” You yawn, scratching your braids through the satin red bonnet.

“Did I wake you?” He mutters walking over, giving you a quick kiss on the forehead, and continuing the search for his belongings. You assumed that he just came out of the shower. He wore a towel around his waist, dripping wet, glistening over his abs and that sight made you think unholy things. There was no way that you were still thirsty for him. Come on, you’re still recovering from last night and you were greedy for more the following morning?! Have some self-control, for once!

You shook your head, disposing of the lustful thoughts. “Wanna stay for breakfast?” You suggest, nervously gnawing on your lower lip.

“I would love to, but I have to quickly run an errand for my mami and then head over to work with Jenny.” He dried himself off, putting on a pair of boxers and an undershirt.

He opened your closet, digging out his ironed suit that you prepared a few days ago.

“When are you off this week?”

“Today and Sunday are my only days off this week.” You inform him, watching him get dressed, “I could run the errand with Mrs. Reyes, so you’ll get a balanced breakfast before heading to work.”

“Oh, really thanks (Y/N).”

“Anytime, pretty boy.” You reply, taking your bonnet off. Jaime blushes at the nickname, feeling giddy whenever you use that phrase. “What time do I need to leave?”

“About a quarter past eight..” He murmurs observing his watch.

“Speak English, please.”

“It’s 8:15 and my mami needs to leave around 9:30.” He advises, looking at your vanity. “Where’s my necklace?” He turns to you.

“You have to come get it..” You tease, wiggling the piece of jewelry in your hand. He chuckles at your playful yet seductive tone.

Crawling to you across the bed, he gives you a soft kiss making you caress his face. The slow sensual kiss lasted a few seconds, and even though you wanted to stay in the loving moment, air had become difficult to maintain, both of you pulling away from the kiss. You flutter your eyes open, catching him staring into your eyes with a hidden glint that makes you flush, which makes those butterflies run wild in your stomach.

“Come here, I’ll help you put on your tie.” You offer, shuffling towards the edge of the bed.

He sighs, allowing you to fix the tie underneath his collar. Your faces were so close that you could have fainted right then and there, completely embarrassing yourself on the spot. You started to worry, wondering if he felt you staring at him. Turns out, he was admiring you and he wasn’t ashamed of it. Once you finished his tie, you cleared your throat and smoothed over his suit, straightening out invisible wrinkles.

The Mexican boy faces you again. “What time do you get off on Saturday?”

“Probably by 10 or 11 pm.”

“Perfect! I’ll see you Saturday night.” He promises, giving you a reassuring nod.

“Yeah,” You agree with a lovesick smile on your face, “I’ll see you Saturday.”

You handed him the necklace but he stopped you, “Keep it, it looks better on you anyway.”

You tilt your head to the side, feeling yourself tingle with goosebumps as he appears from behind you and he gently brushes your braids away. You gathered your braids together, bunching them up into a messy makeshift ponytail, giving Jaime area to put the necklace on. Once he clasps the jewelry on your neck, you release your braids as you grin at him.

Smiling sweetly in response, he steals one last kiss from you and hurriedly leaves, shutting the front door. Even though you two were friends with benefits, he still was the kind and sweet man that you knew all those years ago.

You sigh, lingering your fingers on the necklace, fawning over the mere kiss that he shared with you. It was an empty kiss so it should be treated as meaningless, but it hurts your heart for you to wish otherwise.

Later that evening, Milagro helped you pick out an outfit for your blind date. Jaime tagged along with Milagro, under the impression of wanting privacy from his family.

You and Milagro picked out a nice evening dress, concluding that it was the perfect dress.

“You look so sexy in this.” Milagro squeals, momentarily catching Jaime’s attention. His eyes shift from his sister to yours, scanning the outfit that you are wearing, shamelessly checking you out. You did a little twirl to display the entirety of the dress, your eyes solely locked on Jaime to figure out his reaction. She was right, you looked so sexy in the dress. Maybe too sexy for another guy.

He noticed the mischievousness in your body language and decided that two could play that game.

“So…” Jaime ponders, lightly gritting his teeth, using his phone as a distraction, “What do you know about this guy?” His question was directed to you, attempting to conceal his jealousy. Slow and steady wins the race.

You turned to Milagro who spoke for you, “Duh, dummy, we don’t know who it is, that's why it’s called a blind date.”

“Wait! You’ve never even met this person before?” His eyes widened in surprise, processing the newfound information.

“Jaime, are you slow or something?” His sister asks. She rolled her eyes and continuously tapped her forehead, “Think, dear brother. Just think.”

He fakes grins at his sister and looks back at you. “It could be dangerous for you.”

“Okay, and I have a taser in my purse if anything goes wrong. I can take care of myself.”

“Why are you so interested in my best friend’s love life all of a sudden?”

“Just looking out for her.” He mumbles.

“Hmmm…” She sounds skeptical, surprisingly trusting her brother’s word.

All of a sudden, Milagro’s phone rings, indicating that her pizza order is ready. “I’m gonna pick up the pizza. Be back in 30 minutes.” She grabs your car keys and her wallet, leaving the apartment.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Jaime spoke his concerns for you.

“So…you’re going out with someone else.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Then you should also know that I’m going out with someone else.” He boasts proudly with a tight-lipped smile.

“Oh, really?” You bite the inside of your cheek as jealousy boils through your veins at the thought of Jaime seeing someone else. Surprisingly, you managed to keep your jealousy at bay, refusing to let Jaime have the upper hand here.

You realized what he was doing, and he wasn’t going to win. It was so obvious that he was lying to you. So he decided to stretch the lie, just to witness your breaking point, “Her name is Maria Gonzalez, her family just moved to the neighborhood and we hit it off great. I also have her number.”

You remained nonchalant, continuing your mascara on your left eye, “Okay…good for you then?”

“That’s all you have to say?” He scoffs, folding his arms.

“Well, what do you want me to say? You want me to act jealous and forbid you from seeing this other girl?” You click your tongue, “Now that you mention it, no new family is moving into your neighborhood otherwise Mrs. Reyes would have told me, and I would have offered to decorate welcoming baskets with her and Milagro.”

Shit! You caught him in his lie. His eyes widened in surprise at your quick response to his lie.

As a matter of fact, he was more proud than scared of your realization of his lie. Your intelligence and ability to understand between the lines were one of the many traits that he loved about you. Intelligence is the glue that holds it all together, not that there aren’t many more characteristics from you that he adored. He would never put any other characteristic above the other, harboring his mutual love for all of them. After all, you attended Harvard, majoring in nursing, and left with multiple degrees.

“Por qué me estás mintiendo, Jaime?” You looked at him through the mirror with a pointed look.

Switching back and forth between English and Spanish daily was a neat trick that you mastered with ease. To be honest, Spanish was a beautiful language, and you just wanted to experience the full meaning of it.

You learned Spanish for your best friend and her family, wanting to connect with them on a personal level. At this point, you became fluent in Spanish and could hold decent conversations with the Reyes family in their native language. The Reyes family even made jokes that you would someday marry a Latino.

“I don’t know..” he shrugs his shoulders, “Maybe…I’m just confused right now.”

“May I remind you that you wanted us to be a casual fuck from time to time, and besides we also agreed on seeing other people.”

“Yeah, but—“

“Yeah, but what? You want to change your mind now?”

“Actually, I do.”

You paused from doing your mascara, making eye contact in the mirror with him. Of course, you weren’t expecting that answer. His statement rendered you speechless, allowing the silence to overtake the room. You gulped silently, intently watching him stalk toward you, almost in a patronizing manner to tease you even further. You were frozen, unaware of what he might do to you and it somewhat turned you on. The small thud of the mascara tube dropping on the vanity brought you back to your senses.

“…We shouldn’t do this, Jaime.” You lightly warn the boy. Jaime remains silent, making you consistently aware that he is gorgeously checking you out from behind. He made you so flustered to the point that you were stupidly smitten with him that it was almost ridiculous. It was a miracle that you couldn’t see a black girl’s blush.

“Milagro‘s gonna be back soon.” Your tone was soft.

The air was still tense as he nodded, his eyes still intently focused on your physique. Nervously, you began to play with your braids as your body squirmed under his gaze. The things that Jamie made you feel were out of this world. You held your breath, dilated dark brown eyes studying his every move that he made. It was the familiar gust of his infamous cologne that gave his sudden presence away, noticing his breathing was lingering on you. You shudder, minor goosebumps forming on your arms.

“Then, we just have to be quick, don’t we?” You swear that you could’ve felt his hard dick straining against his pants.

“Listen here Jaime—“ You were cut off by his hands roughly wrapping around your throat, raising your head, catching an upside down angle of the 22-year-old. A warm pair of lips was planted onto yours, reclaiming full jealousy as he slipped his tongue in your mouth. In a matter of seconds, the inviting kiss escalated into sexual tension, quickly heating the aura of the bedroom.

likes, comments and reblogs are highly appreciated!

#blue beetle 2023 #jaime reyes #jaime reyes x reader #jaime reyes smut #jaime reyes x black!reader #jaime reyes imagine #jaime reyes x black!fem!reader #blue beetle x reader #blue beetle x fem!reader #blue beetle smut #blue beetle imagine #blue beetle fanfic

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m00nkissedlover · 3 months ago

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・｡kiss of indifference 🌙

you've ordered: a slice of black forest cake! enjoy!

"'cause i have hella feelings for you, i act like i don't fucking care, 'cause i'm so fucking scared"

post water of life! paul atreides x fremen! reader | word count: 2,076 words

summary: paul's recent indifferent attitude towards you causes new sparks to fly~ 🌙

warnings: long intro? before dialogue, slight angst, paul still loves reader while engaged to irulan (previously established relationship), yelling (you two make up in the end!), mild spice (MDNI), heated kissing

note: kinda rushed. first time writing this much, WOO! might be a bit inaccurate, i tried my best. 🫠 enjoy!

paul atreides. the skinny, dark haired, and pale skinned boy you had fallen for. the boy who didn't care about being lisan al ghaib, but who rather hated it. the boy who would immediately shut down his mother's talks of her bene gesserit lore and prophecy, who would instead find solace and comfort in your arms.

this was not him. this was some blue eyed doppelgänger wearing his skin, you were sure of it. the sudden shift in his attitude and overall demeanor after having consumed the "water of life" sent a chill down your spine. obviously, you weren't the only one that noticed. but you were the only one who was concerned about it.

paul was becoming...distant. especially from you. with his duties as the new emperor, it was understandable. even more so, since he'd asked for irulan's hand in marriage. the fact that he'd professed his love for you and then asked for such a thing in almost the same breath broke your heart and crushed your soul. you'd often see paul accompanying the princess to meetings and such. obviously he didn't love her, he never had 'that' look in his eyes when he looked at her.

'that' look being the one he'd have in his eyes as he'd sneak glances at you as you'd pass each other in the hallways of the grand palace or when you'd attend meetings as well to give some freman insight. saying that paul hated this was an understatement. but he had to keep up appearances, attending meetings and staying one step ahead of his enemies.

that was another problem, his enemies. he always had to keep up with his image of being a stern and almost cutthroat leader, which meant showing no weakness, ever. unfortunately, this also meant distancing himself from people he truly cared about: his mother, his unborn baby sister, and worst of all...you. after all, the only reason you were let into palace was by paul's orders. he'd have to force himself not to love you, or at least act like it. your greetings were met with a nod or a silent mumble, or, like most times, nothing at all.

it was late at night, the sound of your ticking clock keeping you awake. no, it was actually your never ending thoughts of none other than paul. you wanted nothing more that to rush out of your room to his, knock on his door, and give him the biggest hug you could give, to run your fingers through his dark brown locks again, to tell him that everything would be okay. you stood up, deciding to take a walk through the palace to clear your mind. as you opened the door, you were met by paul, mid-knock. his hair was a little messy and it seemed like he'd just retired from his study.

you didn't say anything, instead stepping aside to let him come in and closing the door behind him. there was a moment of silence that felt it had lasted a little too long before paul spoke up. "how have you been? you seem to be looking well." paul commented, standing in the middle of your room as you sat on your bed.

"yes, i've been fine. and what of you?" he wasn't even looking at you. yes, he was facing you and to anyone else, it looked as though he was staring straight at you.

but his mind was obviously elsewhere...he wasn't paying attention to you.

"paul," you said, raising your voice a bit and reaching out to hold his hand. you could see him being pulled out of his state of distraction, your hand squeezing his.

"talk to me. this is the first time we've been alone together in weeks. please..." paul could see the pleading in your eyes, a soft sigh leaving him as he sat down next to you.

"don't worry about it," he brushed you off, pulling his hand out from your grip.

"i simply came to see how you're doing." an obvious lie.

"paul, something's bothering you. you can tell me," you began.

"y/n, i'm fine,"

"but you're not. i can tell it's eating you up inside, the visions, your enemies."

"y/n-" he was staring to get irritated, not at you, but at the fact that you were right. it was eating him up, slowly consuming him and making him lose himself more and more each day.

"it's why you've been avoiding me, right? you're scared they'll take advantage of your affection towards me-" paul stayed silent, his fingers curling up into fists as he looked at the floor.

you grabbed his face in your hands, forcing him to look at you. "these visions don't define you, paul! this prophecy doesn't define you! you can't just run away from us and face this on your own!"

that was easy for you to say.

you didn't have throngs of people either depending on you or praying for your untimely death. you didn't have the weight of the entire universe on your shoulders. "you don't understand-"

"i'll try to-!"

"YOU CAN'T!" paul yelled, pushing your hands away from his face. you flinched, your eyes going wide as he stood up and ran his hands through his hair.

"you can't possibly understand the horrific things i've seen each time i so much as close my eyes. do you know what i see? people dying from starvation. holy wars being waged in my very name. the people i care about with every bone in my living body being slaughtered in front of me! and you," he turned to you pointing an accusing finger at you as if it were a blade.

"you sit here and act like you understand me?"

you didn't expect for paul's words to hurt so much. he'd never raised his voice at you, and he'd certainly never yelled at you. you felt like a knife was being twisted into your heart as the boy you loved turned into someone you didn't even recognize.

"i'm just trying to comfort you,"

"well stop! because...because i love and care about you so much, it physically hurts me. i'd be a lost soul if something ever happened to you," you looked at your hands, feeling a whirlwind of emotions as you felt tears prick at the corners of your eyes. but you refused to cry.

"you should go. i'm sure irulan's looking for you."

"you know we sleep in separate rooms-"

"still...you don't need unsavory rumors on top of all you have to deal with..." you turned away from paul, using the back of your hand to dab away the tears that threatened to spill from your eyes. you felt the bed dip, but didn't turn to look at him

"y/n, look at me..."

you didn't answer, sniffling softly and moving to get up, ready to try your hand at kicking him out once again. a soft yell left your lips as paul's slim fingers wrapped around your wrist and pulled you right back next to him, his face so undoubtedly close to yours. you could smell the pent up emotion on him, a word of protest ready on your tongue.

before you even knew what was happening, paul's lips were on yours. you let your eyes flutter shut, yelping softly into the kiss as he pulled flush against him, leaving absolutely no space between your bodies.

another observation you'd made was that ever since paul drank the "water of life", he'd been extra aggressive in most everything: he'd give people harsher punishments, he'd execute orders with upmost precision, and when he loved...he'd love harder. his heart was practically bursting at the seams as all the love he'd been forced to shove down spilled out of him in the form of a bruising kiss.

you felt dizzy as paul pulled away from you, your cheeks flushed and your breathing a bit labored. the two of you just stared at each for a while, your fingers still twirling strands of his dark hair.

"still want me to leave?" he asked, lightly brushing his lips against yours, his action making your eyes flutter shut. you felt your heart squeeze as you opened your eyes once again, gazing at him through watery eyes.

"paul-"

"i know...i know." paul's hands came up and cupped your face once more, his thumbs brushing over your cheeks and wiping away your tears.

"me too...i'm sorry too..." he whispered before leaning back in to meet your lips again.

a shaky breath left your lips as you melted into the kiss once again, your hands clutching the front of his shirt as if he'd slip right through your fingers. paul's fingers playfully danced beneath the fabric of the shirt of your sleepwear, slowly tracing the skin of sides, as if trying to relearn their curvatures. your hand snaked up to tangle into his hair, a few tears flowing down your cheeks. not because you didn't want this; in fact, you wanted this so much it almost hurt. your breath hitched as you felt paul deepen the kiss, his body pressing against yours.

as you pulled away, breathing a bit heavier and cheeks flushed, you swallowed and met paul's eyes. the look in them was an untamed mix of love and something more.

"...we should stop..." you murmured, your hands moving down to cup his face. you felt him relax into your touch, your heart warming.

"you're right...but i don't want to-" just as he was about to lean back in for another kiss, a rhythmic knock on your door stopped him.

"ignore it." he muttered , a flash of irritation on his face.

"but-" paul cut you off with another kiss, pushing you back into the mattress.

his lips started to move with newfound fervor, pressing hot, open mouthed kisses over the skin of your jaw and down to the dip of your neck. feeling paul's hands start to roam under your shirt caused a soft sound between a gasp and a moan to leave your lips.

"paul~" you muttered, letting your eyes flutter shut.

another knock made him hiss in annoyance.

"y/n, are you awake?" princess irulan's voice asked from behind the grand door.

you and paul looked at each other, his eyes giving you a serious look. he got up and reluctantly hid in the little space between your bed and the wall.

"i'm sorry to bother you so late at night." the princess said, a gentle expression on her face.

"oh, no, not at all, princess. what did you need?"

"just irulan is fine. i was wondering if you'd seen paul. he wasn't in his study." you felt your stomach churn as the princess said his name. you shook your head, muttering a quick apology.

"no, i haven't seen him today. maybe he went outside to get some fresh air." you lied.

she gave your room a quick scan from where she stood and you knew she knew. she knew and decided to stay silent.

"very well, have a good night."

"you as well."

once the door closed, you were met with paul's bright blue eyes as he stood behind you, a soft but startled yell leaving you. you hadn't even heard him get up. he reached out and held your hand, gently squeezing it and kissing the back of it, letting his lips linger for a moment. paul then looked back up at you, leaning in and brushing his lips to yours one last time.

"i'll see you soon..." he whispered against your lips, a soft hum of a response leaving you. you squeezed his hand, feeling your heart skip a beat.

"yeah...see you soon..." he pulled away from you, making his way to the door and opened it a crack, glancing for anyone else that might be awake.

just as he was about to take his leave, you grabbed his hand, leaning back in to give him on final kiss.

"good night." you murmured, your grip absentmindedly tightening.

you didn't want to let him go, not now, not ever. not after knowing this would be the last night the two of you would share like this before paul went back to wearing that dreaded mask of indifference.

"good night."

you felt his hand slip from your as he took his leave, turning to meet your ocean blue eyes once last time. now you knew, he still loved you, even if he wouldn't show it.🌙

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flowerbetweenfangs · 9 months ago

Text

Cream Filling: Chapter One

Warning: Use of drugs and dubcon.

(MC is dosed with an aphrodisiac and is all too willing... But you know)

This was originally posted on A03 and is my most popular work, so I thought I'd put it here.

I hope you enjoy.

Lightning flashed overhead, lighting up pitch black streets for an instant. Elle Shepard nearly slipped on a horribly placed patch of mud. Windmilling, she caught a streetlight and came to a stop. A crack of thunder made her let go. Another bolt struck, enveloping the buildings and pavement in a brightness that was almost blinding, before a loud boom shook the windows.

Finally, she came upon a neon sign, showing a drink being shaken, then poured into a martini glass. The glass then changed to a coffee mug, the shaker into a pitcher. The words read: Ramses Brew, Bar and Café.

Pushing open the door, Elle stepped inside and pulled down the hood of her raincoat. Closing her umbrella, she stuck it in the container with the rest. Music played, pool balls cracked, conversations blurred together in one continuous hum. A bartender passed out drinks, moving with inhuman speed.

Walking up to the bar, Elle took a seat on the stool near the end. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a stack of papers and set them on the polished wood.

“What will it-” The bartender flinched at her, their nostrils flaring. Their voice sounded like many people talking at once.

“Oh, you’re the human.” They reached into their pocket and pulled out a phone. Tapping on the screen, they sent a quick message and put it away. They dropped their voice and leaned in closer to her. “Sorry, our drinks are a little too strong for your kind.”

They were most likely a demon, with horizontal lined pupils and a pair of antlers. Their sunken face showed a skeletal structure that was more deer than human, with a slight brown fuzz instead of fur. Their hands were coal black, their fingers tapering off to a clawed end.

“Can I just have water?” She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, her heart fluttering. Focus! The job was more important than a one night stand.

“Of course.” They bowed their head, before going to a new arrival at the bar.

Sighing, Elle debated pulling her hood back up when she felt the eyes on her. No, she’d have to get used to the stares if she wanted to get this job. A human woman, with dark hair and hazel eyes, wearing dress pants and a button up peach blouse. No horns, fangs, scales, or a tail. Not even markings that would signal she was a mage or tied to someone with magic.

Swinging her leg back and forth, Elle sipped at her water, looking around the bar. There was a pair of trolls playing pool. A pair of drow were in the corner, looking like they were discussing more… Intimate plans. A human looking man sat on the couch, a cane between his legs. A spread of cards were on the table in front of him, small black wisps curling around them. He seemed to be the shortest occupant, he was probably a head and shoulders taller than her.

“Ms. Elodie Shepard?” The voice made her turn.

An angular face stared at her. It was human in appearance, but black scales appeared like freckles, shimmering in the low light. A pair of ram horns curled around cheeks, the ends sharpened and looking ready to puncture anything that got near them. He was dressed in a white button up shirt and a red vest, with a black tie. He was young, appearing to only be in his early to mid 30s.

“Yes!” Elle held out her hand. The speaker took it in shimmering black hands that were very large compared to his body. They left a residue on her skin that she tried to discreetly wipe off when he turned around, looking at the loft above. "But please, call me Elle."

“Let’s go talk more privately.” He walked to the bottom of the stairs, unclipping a chain that indicated the area was closed until the morning.

Elle nodded and followed him. Stepping aside, he allowed her to go first and clipped the sign back in place. Once the links were formed, a small bit of magic rumbled through the floor, making Elle’s knees weak. Gripping the handrail, she kept herself from falling and quickly climbed up.

Once they were in the loft, Ramses clapped his hands and a few candles lit. The light was warm and calming. There were a few couches set up, with a coffee table between each pair facing one another.

Taking a seat, Elle set her papers on the table and cleared her throat. Even with the water, there was still a tickle in her throat.

“Alright,” The man sat down. “So, as you may know, this is my business. Ramses Sesbrun.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “I appreciate you coming out so late, but since demons don’t do so well in sunlight…” He shook his hand back and forth like he was tipping a scale. “I still have a limited staff, so I don’t have much of a day shift.”

Elle nodded. “It’s fine. I’ve got this.” She reached into her shirt and pulled out a silver chain, with wire wrapped around an obsidian stone.

Ramses flinched at the charm, before clearing his throat. Elle quickly stuffed it into her shirt and shuffled her papers.

“Alright. So as you may have noticed, we have a bit of a uniform.” He gestured to his attire. “It doesn’t matter if you prefer skirts or pants, just make sure it’s got a white button up shirt under your apron and a tie or scarf.” Inhaling sharply, he adjusted his glasses again. “We have a very diverse staff. If you do get the job, expect to work with all kinds of people.”

Elle simply nodded. “I know it is probably a strange thing, getting a human to apply.” The thought of being around so many demons and patrons of the “other side”, it was somewhat exhilarating.

“A little. But your safety is promised here,” Ramses insisted. “I’ll do what I can to make sure that you and your fellow employees are comfortable in this environment. Everyone here is just looking for a place to unwind.” He smiled at her, showing his teeth were fangs.

Shifting uncomfortably, Elle gave a smile. Those fangs looked like they could leave some decent hickeys. Wait, no, she had to remain professional. “Erm, not to sound too forward, but the job posting mentioned pay?” Right. Stay professional.

“Oh, right.” Ramses picked up a staff of his own papers from a table next to the couch. Flipping through the stack, he left small black thumbprints on each page. No wonder he needed help with the kitchen and other places. He probably couldn’t even touch the food he served his customers.

Finally, he stopped at what he was looking for. “I know the pay is high, but that means I’ll be expecting more from you. But if what I’ve heard about humans is correct…” His cheeks flushed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to rely on stereotypes, but I know humans are known for getting things done faster.” He clicked his mouth closed, not wanting to insert his foot into his mouth.

“Then you’ll be happy to know I fall into that!” Elle said quickly, hoping her tone didn’t sound too desperate. “I promise I’ll be fast and get the work done!” She clasped her hands together. “I just really… Need a job.” A job that seemed to offer a lot of eye candy...

Ramses nodded, taking her papers and flipping through them. “I’ve already read what you sent me, but I just want to make sure…”

He made a couple more noises of affirmation, before setting the now spotted pile down. “I don’t know if you’ll have a uniform on standby, but I think we might have something in your size. If you are willing to come in tomorrow, then I can have Wrecks and Horac show you the ropes.” Tapping a finger to his lips, Ramses’ brows knit together. “You don’t have Arachnophobia, do you?”

*** “Welcome to Ramses!” Elle called out, bowing her head. When she straightened, she ignored the look of befuddlement from the new arrivals. “Just two?”

After seating the pair, she bid farewell to some patrons as they left. They acknowledged her, but seemed more confused than anything else in her presence. When the door closed behind them, she went to quickly clean their table.

Despite looking bulky, the maid outfit they had provided her was light and cool, with a long skirt, deep pockets in the apron. She’d brought her own tights and comfortable shoes. Her hair was tied into a pair of buns to keep it out of her face.

The morning rush was a surprise. Most demons were supposed to be unable to walk in sunlight, but that didn’t stop the clientele from coming in, carrying parasols, charms to protect them, and even wrapping themselves in bandages.

The newly arrived pair were dragonborn, who had quickly fallen into an in depth discussion about maidens and maids. When she approached them with her notepad, pencil to the paper, they quickly quieted.

“Can I recommend one of our Ashburnt Scones?” She asked. “They’ve got an arsenic glaze!”

After taking down their order, Elle quickly scampered to the kitchen and placed the paper on the counter.

“A pair of Coalpressed Muffins with Ashen Dustings!” She called out.

The Drider at the stove nodded, pulling out some blood red pancakes with a tar like topping that he set on plates, the two smaller legs at his waist doing small clean up details. A pair of triple lens spectacles balanced on his nose, which he was constantly adjusting to allow a different pair of eyes to see. Despite his name being “Wrecks” he actually seemed rather dexterous and nimble.

The second was the boarman, Horac, who was frying several cuts of meat and eggs. He seemed immune to the open flames, casually reaching across them to turn over a large slice of ham. Elle tried to not think too hard about the implications.

“Breakfast rush is almost over, rookie.” He said, his voice barely audible over the chaos of the kitchen.

“Thanks!” She took the plates and lined them up on trays, before rushing back out to the main room with the orders.

“I can’t believe a real life human is here,” A goat headed man said as she passed.

“I know. And so fast, too.” Their companion appeared human, but their teeth were too sharp. Enough to pass the line from sexy to frightening.

Just smiling, Elle passed over their food, which they quickly began to ravenously tear into. The remarks, while strange, seemed mostly positive.

By the time the morning rush was over, Elle’s feet were killing her. She collapsed into a chair once the last customer left.

“Elle, can you tell Ram I’m coming in late tomorrow?” Horac said, not giving further details as he went out the back. The bell chimed as he left.

“Sure.” She merely lifted her hand to give a wave he wouldn’t see.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” Wrecks said, his voice jolting through her. He hadn’t spoken all morning, only cooked and passed the orders to Elle. The dishes and counters were clean, so she wasn’t going to complain.

Once the ache had mostly gone, she got up and went to change the menus over. The bell chimed again when her back was turned, and she quickly turned back around.

The newcomer had silvery hair, a pair of fox ears twitching on his head. His eyes were closed, his mouth pulled into a vulpine grin.

“Welcome to Ramses!” She tried to pour in the sugary sweetness that customers loved. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.” Hopefully, Wrecks wouldn’t mind serving up breakfast still. “So, he did have a human on his payroll.” The new patron muttered to himself. “How quaint.” A bushy silver tail waved behind him.

Elle felt herself blushing. “Can I get you anything? Our Blasterjelly rolls are a customer favorite, along with our Hadesfire Pomegranate Tea.” She reached for a menu to shove in his hands. His gaze seemed focused on her, despite his eyes being closed.

“No,” He held up his hand. “Thank you. You served my friend earlier.” Reaching into his sash, he pulled out a box about the length of his hand, the width of two put together. “He’s too shy to show his gratitude in person, so he sent me in his stead.”

Setting the box on the podium, he turned on his heel and gave a backward wave, the bell chiming as he left.

Frowning, Elle used her pen to open the corner of the box. Inside, she saw a small flat pastry, the side of one showing a beet colored paste. Picking it up, she realized they were covered with powdered sugar. Setting it back down, she closed the box and stuffed it under the podium. How odd she’d been given a human friendly dessert.

“Ready for round two?” Wrecks asked when he came back in, wiping his hands on a towel.

“You know it!” She brushed back her hair, pushing the fox man out of her mind.

The bell chimed, a trio of trolls coming through, looking like they’d gotten off a construction job. A goat headed woman burst through the door behind them, looking frazzled. By the end of the second shift, Elle was nearly laying on the table. Her feet and back ached, her hair was a mess, and the uniform was rumpled.

“And my favorite part of the day…” Wrecks said, flipping the sign to indicate they were closed until the bar opened. He laughed to himself as he went to tally up the totals.

“Count this for me to make sure my math is right.” Taking the cash from the drawer, Wrecks slid it to her. He poured himself a sludge looking coffee, enough steam and heat coming off it to fog up his spectacles. Sweat trickled down his brow.

Elle’s stomach growled, and she found herself blushing. While his lower half made her nervous, his upper half was certainly handsome.

Right. Focus.

“Oh, right.” Wrecks paused. “You can’t…” He struggled to find the words. “Eat anything on our menu, can you?”

“Not without getting violently ill,” Elle admitted, before remembering the podium. “Oh! Right!” Rushing to it, she pulled out the box. “I was going to pack my lunch, but I woke up late!” She’d actually slept in her car because she was terrified of missing her first shift. It wasn’t like there was anyone waiting for her at home. And driving nearly half an hour both ways seemed like a poor use of her time.

Sitting next to the money, she took out one of the cakes and took a bite. Powdered sugar flew around her in a cloud, sending residue all over the uniform.

Keeping the cake in her mouth, she nursed at the paste and counted out the cash, keeping notes. Once she finished, she paused over the calculations and finished eating. Then, she quickly ate a second, barely tasting it as it went down.

“Get some actual food,” Wrecks chided. “I can smell the sweetness from here. Where did you get that if you didn’t pack your lunch?”

“Apparently one of the customers really liked my service and gave me a gift.” Elle shrugged. She looked down at her tips for the day, her breath catching in her throat. How much money did this damned clientele have!? Pulling out her wallet, she quickly signed off on the amount and collected it. Looking down at her uniform, she excused herself to the bathroom.

There was no way she was going to risk getting it dirty and looking unprofessional. If she was going to be making money like this every day, she was going to take this job seriously. Going to the restroom, she did what she could to clean up her uniform. No way was she going to take a dock in her pay to pay for the outfit.

Her face felt hot. Slipping off the apron, she unbuttoned her blouse and splashed water on herself. Looking in the mirror, she saw her cheeks and neck were crimson. The blush spread even further, hidden by her shirt.

Slipping off her blouse, she stared at the sleeveless shirt, which only showed off more of her flushed skin. It was still hot, but more bearable. And she was NOT undressing more. Splashing her face again, she got her hair damp. Slicking back her loose bangs, Elle took in a deep breath.

When she walked out, she saw Wrecks looking at the cakes. Holding one between his thumb and forefinger, he squeezed it. The paste oozed out, dripping onto his fingers. He had his phone to his ear, waiting for someone to answer.

Elle was about to complain he’d ruined part of her gift, but his expression was serious. It sent a twinge of worry through her, followed by another hot flash. This one made her head spin, and she quickly sat down.

“Where did you get these?” His voice was sharp.

“Some guy dropped them off. Um… Foxy.” She started to recall his face, but all it did was cloud her mind with other details she’d overlooked. The way his collar bone peeked out over his robe. How veiny and strong his hands looked. His lips, perfectly glossy, the fangs peeking out with his grin.

“Shepard?” Wrecks asked.

“Hmm?” She smacked her cheeks to try and refocus. “Where was I again?”

Before Wrecks could answer, the person on the other end picked up.

“Yeah.” Wrecks tossed her a damp towel.

Wiping it across her sweaty skin, Elle began to inhale deeply. She felt hot all over, her body starting to shake. Every fiber of her clothing brushed against her, scraping her raw.

“I’m sure it was him,” Wrecks’ voice sounded like it was coming from the other end of a tunnel. “Bet my first born on it. I could smell fuckery on the box.” He looked over to Elle, licking his lips nervously. “She seems fine now, but I don’t want to touch her, could you get a hold of a human doctor?” He paused, nodding along with the speaker, small grunts escaping his mouth.

“Alright.” He hung up, inching closer to Elle.

“That was Ramses. He’s on his way.” He pulled another towel off the counter and soaked it in icy water, before passing it to Elle. “Those cakes were laced with… Something.” He frowned, brows coming together.

“I guess it was Tanpopo’s way of saying hello…”

“Who?” Although Elle was sure she had a good idea who the Drider spoke of. Her insides twitched, needing to be filled. Sweat trickled down her neck and back. Slowly, she laid down in the booth, her legs facing the wall.

“An asshole who runs the bakery down the road.” Wrecks jerked his thumb behind him. “He thought it would be funny to “prank,” He added air quotes. “Some of our staff last year by spiking some cakes and tea with Hellfire Mint.” Three pairs of eyes watered at the memory. “Most of them were fine, but one of our hosts got sent into early labor and had to go to the hospital.”

Fanning herself with a menu, Elle panted. “I wish I’d been warned.”

“Well, there hadn’t been any problems since then,” Wrecks explained. “Horac was a pretty decent deterrent.”

Elle’s mouth was suddenly dry. The heat was becoming unbearable. Her legs refused to budge, each breath making another flash of arousal go through her. “I’ll get you some water.” Wrecks excused himself, quickly coming back with a glass. He passed it to her. “Now, I’m not sure how long this is supposed to last, but Ramses seemed pretty sure he knew what it was.”

Their hands touched. Elle let out a cry, dropping the glass. She shook, nearly convulsing as the need seized her.

Wrecks jumped back, his legs skittering across the floor, unable to gain traction.

Elle was on her feet, grabbing the front of his vest and pulling him to her. Their lips nearly brushed.

“No no no no no no!” He said rapidly, using his front legs and arms to push her away. “It’s flattering, but you are in no condition to be initiating this!”

His skin was scalding hot against hers. She grabbed his clothing so tight she thought it would rip. Pulling him close again, she ignored the impact of his front legs against her skirt.

“I’m terribly sorry, Shepard.” Wrecks said, before she suddenly couldn’t move.

Looking down, she saw she was covered with white bindings. Webbing kept her still, binding her legs together below the knees, and her arms below the elbows. He then pushed her back into the booth.

The bell chimed. Nostrils flaring, Elle thrashed around to try and sit up as the scent of Demon hit her.

“Oh, thank Arachne.” Wrecks backed away. “You made good time.”

“Of course.” Ramses' voice thundered in her ears. Elle’s lips parted slightly as she continued to wriggle around, trying to get free of her bindings. “Leave us. This is easier if there’s only one target.”

Wrecks didn’t have to be told twice. He picked up his scant belongings and quickly scampered out the door.

Ramses stood in front of the booth, his crotch the perfect height for-

And he was gone.

The door locked.

Then, he was back.

“You’ve ingested Asmodeus Fruit,” He explained, pulling out a knife. “Better known as Lustberries.” Looking at the blade, he set it down on the table. “Hold still.” His visible skin was wrapped in bandages. To protect him from the sun?

The order made Elle still, the only movement was her shaking with desire.

“I’m going to cut you loose. But you have to promise me you’re not going to jump on me. Okay?”

Despite the words barely registering, Elle nodded, her body still trembling.

Ramses cut the bindings, his bandaged hands brushing against her. Unlike with Wrecks, it didn’t send a jolt through her. But his scent, the way he panted with exertion… She found herself leaning forward.

“KNIFE!” He yelled, shoving her back. His hand hit her protective charm, and both of them went flying back. She hit the wall hard, and he slid into the front counter in front of the kitchen. Wincing, he slowly got back up, rubbing the back of his head.

“Are you okay?” Her legs were still bound. She started to climb out of the booth.

“Stay!” He commanded, getting up.

Elle’s legs became weak, and she nearly face planted on the floor. Catching herself, Elle held onto the corner of the table. Her charm hung low.

Ramses rushed over, cutting her legs free.

“Now. Listen.” He shook his finger in her face.

Nodding, Elle leaned forward.

“Go to the loft.”

She rose up, the charm snagging on the corner of the table, the wire wrapping coming undone and the stone falling to the ground, sliding under the booth.

Her feet slapped against the floor, she nearly tripped over the chained sign as she ran. But she was up the stairs, lungs and chest heaving. Collapsing onto the couch, she felt the heat rolling over again, almost unbearable. Clothes continued to rake against her skin so roughly she thought it would make her bleed. Her hands went to her top, trying to pull it off.

“Okay, Elle. I need you to listen to me.” Ramses said, coming up in the loft. “Normally this stuff wears off after a few hours. But it’s demon fruit, so humans suffer-” He let out a surprised noise as Elle rushed over to him.

When her hands touched his shirt, she realized he wasn’t wrapped under his clothes. Working her fingers through the gaps between his buttons, she touched her fingertips to his bare chest. The heat of his skin made her shudder.

Dropping to her knees, she started to unbuckle his belt.

“Elle!” He said sharply. “Hold on!” Grabbing one of her buns, he held her head in place. Lips parted, she looked up. Panting, she reached for him. Despite denying her advances, his erection was growing quickly.

“Here.” He pulled out a vial, a white liquid inside. “Drink this first. I know it’ll be nasty, but-” As he spoke, the white liquid suddenly yellowed and seemed to become crusty.

She grimaced.

“I know. But the other cure is… Not ideal.” He offered her the vial. Uncorking the top, he pressed the glass to her lips.

Slowly, he tilted it. Once the liquid touched Elle’s lips, foul gelatinous sludge tried to worm its way into her mouth. Pulling back, she sputtered and coughed. Eyes watering, she shook her head.

There was glass breaking, and the liquid spilled all over the floor. The fog was gone, but Elle suddenly felt so hot she started to claw at her clothes.

“You’re going to hurt yourself!” Ramses grabbed her arms, straddling her. His erection dug into her as he pinned her to the floor.

“Elle, listen to me.” His breath was warm against her skin, caressing skin, the wetness from it sliding down her body.

Closing her eyes, Elle thrust against him. Ramses let out a distressed yelp, before gripping her tighter.

“Fuck me…” She moaned, rubbing against him. A wet spot was left on Ramses pants, although she wasn’t sure if it was from him or her.

It was getting so hot she felt like she was going to pass out, black spots filling her vision. Her clothes felt like they were tearing large chunks of her skin off.

“I’m… So sorry.” Ramses picked her up off the floor, setting her down on the couch.

“For what?” She grabbed his shirt, pulling him down. Their lips almost touched, but he turned his face so she kissed his horn.

“You’re in no state of mind…” He knelt between her legs. “Just let me try something.” Taking her tights, he clumsily pulled them down. Catching the waist of Elle’s panties, Ramses left her completely bare. At the sight, averting his eyes, Ramses cheeks turned crimson.

“Yep…” He struggled to find the words. “That’s certainly Asmodeus fruit.”

Elle touched herself, spreading the soaking lips wide. Grinding against the couch, she felt herself drenching the fabric.

“Okay.” Ramses draped her legs over his shoulders. “I’m going to try something. If it doesn’t work, then we have one option left.”

Elle nodded, but her mind was buzzing. Grabbing Ramses by the hair, she shoved him into her drenched folds. Whatever response he had was muffled, making her shiver.

His tongue began to trace her lower lips, before he slipped it inside. Ellen held his head in place, biting her lips as he continued to lick. Reaching up, he seized her thighs and spread her legs wider. His breath made her tingle.

Closing her eyes, Elle focused on the sensation, the heat now concentrating in her lower half. Ramses’ head bobbed back and forth, the sounds of licking and sucking so loud in the empty loft. She let out several moans, trying to lock her legs around his head.

Keeping her legs open, Ramses continued to lick, before exposing her clit and swirling his tongue around it. Elle moaned, releasing his hair and grinding against his face. “Come for me, Elle.” He groaned into her, his breath so warm. “Come for me, please.”

Letting her head lull back, Elle moaned and grabbed the couch tight enough to feel the fabric start to rip. She felt the orgasm start to build, each lick eliciting another cry from her. Eyes watering, she nearly screamed when Ramses plunged his tongue inside.

But before she could release, it was like slamming into a brick wall. White filled her vision as the heat became a searing pain. A scream escaped her and she shuddered, falling to the side.

“S-stop…” She panted, tears streaming down her face. “It… It hurts.”

Ramses pulled back, his bandages around the lower half of his face now loose. They were soaked with Elle. Small bits of skin were visible. Despite the pain in her lower half, Elle grabbed Ramses by the shirt. She then climbed on top of him, rubbing her aching groin over his crotch.

“Fuck me, please.” She begged, continuing to grind against his hardness.

“Hold on.” Ramses pushed the table to the other couch, his glasses askew. Picking Elle up, he placed her on the couch. Unzipping his pants, he let them fall to the ground. His fully erect cock came forth, beads of precum dripping from the tip. Elle leaned forward, wrapping her lips around it.

Ramses let out a surprised moan, knees nearly giving out as Elle sucked. Once the few drops of precum were swallowed, the heat drastically reduced. Panting, Elle pulled back and let her tongue swirl around the tip.

Then, she felt herself blushing. The reality of the situation began to crash around her. Pulling her head back, she quickly let go of Ramses cock and put her hands at her side.

“Um…” The wetness between her legs was almost unbearable. “I’m… Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Ramses panted, sitting down on the table. “It wasn’t your fault. I understand if you want to leave now.”

Elle stared at his cock, swallowing hard. It was glistening with her saliva. She should leave. This was not only inappropriate, but they were both in a bad spot. But her body was literally hurting with need.

“Ramses.” Her face was probably tomato red. What had she just done? Ramses probably thought… “This wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. But I should have warned you.” He was attempting to put his dick back in his pants, which seemed to be a challenge.

“Erm…” She prodded her forefingers against one another, biting her lower lip. “This is super inappropriate. But is the antidote for this fruit…” Her voice trailed off as she became more flustered. “You know, demon semen?”

Mutely, Ramses nodded. “I didn’t want you to either get too excited or too disgusted.” He looked up at her when she stood over him. “Because I’ve been told it can be rather potent.”

“So, are you sure you gave me enough of a dose?” She lifted her skirt, showing him her wetness. “Because I would, uh, prefer not to go back to how I was.” Her legs shook, the blush filled her entire body.

Ramses’ eyes went wide, and he took off his glasses, setting them down on the table. “I’m not sure. It’s not an exact science. But…” He was cut off when Elle kissed him, straddling his lap.

“Oh.” He kissed her back, looping his hands around her waist.

“Elle,” He said, his voice muffled by her mouth. His pupils dilated slightly, the blood vessels thickening.

“Hm?” She pulled back, her arms around his neck.

“If you want to wait, the lust will wear off.”

Elle thought about it, but shook her head, “I want to do this.” She nibbled at his exposed skin, hands running up and down the nape of his neck.

“Very well.” He stood, keeping her legs wrapped around his waist.

Setting her back onto the couch, Ramses straddled her, pinning her arms above her head against the armrest.

“Are you still hot?”

She nodded.

Taking Elle’s shirt, he slid it off and let it fall to the floor, leaving her in only her skirt.

“Aren’t you?”

“Sunlight.” He gestured to the windows.

“Oh.”

“Consider this… Paid overtime.” Nudging her legs open, Ramses lined himself up, prodding against her slit. Each touch made Elle gasp, grinding against him.

Then, he slid inside. Elle gasped, instantly clenching around him. Ramses gripped the back of the couch, letting out a surprised whimper. Leaning down, he wrapped his arms around her and began to thrust. Once her arms were free, she let her hands explore him.

The touch seemed to encourage him further and he hilted himself.

Elle screamed in pleasure, digging her nails into Ramses’ shirt. Covering her mouth with his, Ramses began to pound into her, each thrust making her see a flash of color.

“God,” He said between thrusts. “You’re so tight.” His breath was warm against her face and neck. Leaning down, he nibbled her neck. “I…” The blush returned to his face.

Elle pulled him back, their lips meeting again. Pushing her tongue into his mouth, she let them dance as he found his rhythm and continued to pump back and forth. Each moan encouraged him, and he went harder.

As the thrusts went deeper, Elle cried out, her back arching. She ran her hands down Ramses shirt and vest, the fabric chafing against her skin. Unlike her own clothing, it pushed her closer to the edge, but she felt herself hitting the wall again.

Her breasts began to bounce, and Ramses groaned, his legs and buttock suddenly clenching.

“Please!” She begged, squeezing him tightly. “Finish inside me!”

“Fuck!” Ramses yelped, before he released, the fluid spilling out of Elle. Panting, he shuddered, placing his hands on either side of her head. Sweat trickled down his face. Clenching, he thrust against her as he emptied everything inside.

The orgasm finally came, and Elle clenched, wrapping her legs around his and pulling Ramses close. Shivering, she panted and closed her eyes.

“I think… That’s enough.” He slipped out of her and sat up on the couch, his softening cock still shimmering with her wetness.

Elle shuddered, then slowly sat up, rescuing her shirt from the floor and holding it up to her chest. She was covered with the strange black residue from his hands.

“I am very sorry about that.” Ramses zipped his pants up and buckled his belt. “I completely understand if you want to quit.”

“Umm…” Elle worried at her lower lip. “You see, I didn’t exactly dislike it and I really need this job.” She couldn’t even look at him without blushing.

“I could tell.” Ramses eyes went wide and he put his glasses back on. “Although I’m not sure how much of that was me or the Fruit.” He rubbed his face. “I’m going to kill that fox the next time I see him.”

Elle swallowed hard, thinking of the cakes. “Um, before you get all worked up, shouldn’t you get ready to open the bar?”

Ramses rubbed his face with a sigh. “I’ve got some time.” He looked her over. “I know you live farther away, but do you want to get cleaned up at my place? Er, not that I’m inviting you back over for...” He let the silence hang in the air.

Sighing, Elle nodded. “One thing at a time. I need to get this ‘antidote’ off me before it leaves a stink.” The scent of sex was already making her dizzy and flushed.

Helping her up, Ramses helped her dress and helped her back down to the main gathering area, collecting the charm from the floor. Stopping at the umbrella holder, he pulled out a parasol and opened it. When he took a few steps outside, he suddenly staggered.

Wrapping his arm around her, Elle helped him walk.

“It’s not too far," Ramses explained. “Erm, so, about what happened.”

“My lips are sealed,” Elle mimed locking her lips and throwing away a key. “As long as you don’t tell the others about me trying to blow you. And everything else.”

Ramses stifled a noise and looked away. “It’s fine. Just erm… Expect a bonus on your first check.”

“A bonus?” Now she was starting to feel like it was some sort of hush money.

“I take… Very good care of my employees.” Ramses frowned. “It’s hard to keep them on.” Swallowing hard, he sighed. “Elle, what I did back there, I promise I’m not normally like that. I know demons have a reputation for being sinners, but I don’t want you to feel I took advantage.”

“Too bad, I had a lot of fun.” Elle blushed at her words. “Sorry, was that too much?”

Ramses bit at his lip. “No, but I am your boss. I don’t want rumors to spread.”

“I understand.” She felt the rest of the heat finally leave her body, leaving her head clear. “But don’t… ever be afraid to ask. I um, headed after this job for a reason. Not just for the pay.”

Ramses hid his face and nodded.

If every day was going to be like this, then this new job was going to be interesting. She’d have to apologize to Wrecks tomorrow.

At least there was hazard pay.

(You can read part 02 here!)

#monster love #monster lover #monster x human #monster romance #monster boyfriend #monster fucker #monsterfucker #terato #demon #demon x human #demon fucker #demon smut #monster smut #demon lover #boss x employee

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adoreeenina · 7 months ago

Text

For You, I’ll Risk It All

Part one: High School Crush

-Series Masterlist-

Relationship: DBF! Hank Voight x Plus Size! Olinsky! Reader

WC: 7.3k

Series Summary: He is corrupted and vicious, nothing but a dirty cop. At least that's what you've been told by your mother. You hated him and you weren't afraid to show it at the slightest, but that all changed when he protected you from going to jail when you were 18.

Coming back from New York after five years, you decided to live for yourself for once.

You didn't expect it would start by falling for Hank Voight.

You know your dad's best friend.

Being one of the well known detective’s daughter has its perks, the main one is protection from anyone and anything, the second anyone hears your last name, they quickly back off, knowing what to come of them if they even lay a finger on you; but it also has its downfalls. One of them involving dating.

Anyone who you brought home were intimidated by him almost immediately, you’re pretty sure they know about your fathers being a dirty cop, or atleast the whispers.

Yes. You knew about it, you always known since you were thirteen. You remember the late night arguments between your parents, you would be sitting down on top of the stairs and listen. They weren’t exactly being quiet, atleast your mother wasn’t. Your father trying to calm her down or atleast keep it quiet before you or your sister wake up. Since then, you try to keep your sister Lexi in the dark as much as you can, she doesn’t need to know how many people your father killed.

And that’s where Hank comes in. You haven’t met him yet or seen him. Your mother always mentions him in almost every argument she has with your father. Blaming him for getting your father involved in his dirty work and maybe one day getting himself killed because of it. And that thought scared you.

You were sixteen when you met Hank for the first time. It was the middle of your summer break. Your sister wanted to go to summer camp and your mom volunteered to be one of the chaperones, and the offered you to be home alone most of the time when your father works.

On the rare days when your father gets those days off, he spends them with you. You were having a movie night. Your father let you choose, you decided on a horror movie, Conjuring. You were in the kitchen making popcorn, one with kettle corn powder and the other with white cheddar.

You were making your way to the living room when the door bell rings. Startling you, you pause mid step, you look up the stairs where your father is doing god knows what.

Then you remembered your dad ordered pizza from the closest pizzeria 15 minutes ago. Your stomach grumbled when you thought of food, and you couldn't wait to dig in.

Walking the rest of your way to the living room, you place the bowls of popcorn down on the coffee table. Grabbing money out of your dad’s wallet, you quickly walk over to the front door.

Opening the door, ready to hand the delivery person the money, but pause when you see an unfamiliar man you’ve never seen before.

The man before you stood about 5’10, cropped black brown hair that was greying from the temples upwards and brown eyes that considered you carefully. He had the jaw line of a Greek God.

He looks down at you with a raised brow in confusion. Why the hell is he looking at you like that? If anyone should be staring like that should be you.

He scans you and you only just now realize what you are wearing. Or lack of what you are wearing. In your blue Cookie Monster pajamas shorts and an oversized black shirt that hangs on your left shoulder.

Feeling a little selfconscious by the way he’s looking at you, you subconsciously pull down your pajamas shorts down.

Pushing your feelings aside, you cross your arms across your chest and glare at the man trying to be intimidating but it only amuses him.

“Can I help you?” You ask not caring how rude you might’ve sound.

You could’ve sworn you saw the corner of his mouth twitch as though trying to stifle a smirk, after silently considering you for a few more painful seconds, he decided to speak.

“Hank Voight. I’m looking for Alvin.” your brows raised up slightly at the name.

“Sorry. you must got the wrong house. I don’t know any Alvin.”

He hums in the back of his throat, the only acknowledgement he gave to your answer.

If he is who he says he is, you don’t want him here at all. You only know what your mother said about him. He’s nothing but a dirty cop. Your mother would be infuriated if she were here.

“You sure?” He squints at you, obviously giving you a chance to be honest with him.

You give him a sarcastic smile, “I’m sure.” taking a step back, you grab onto the door to close it, “Sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for” you fake being sympathetic. “Bye bye.” you wave as you close the door with a smile.

“Y/n!” You hear your dad’s fast footsteps rushing behind you to stop the door from closing, grabbing the door to allow it to fully open.

“What?” You faux innocence. Your dad looks down at you with a stern look obviously not buying it.

Turning to face Hank with apologetic grin, “Sorry. My daughter can be a little asshole.”

“Dad!” You gasp with a glare his way.

Hearing Hank chuckle under his breath made you snap your head at his direction and glare.

Spurred by annoyance, you contemplate just slamming the door to his face, the scolding you might get be damned.

“Why the hell is he doing here?” Your face scrunch up as you wave your arm at Hank’s direction.

“Alright, Y/n that’s enough.” your dad grabs you by your bicep and tugs you away from the door.

“You know mom won’t like it if she finds out he’s here.” you whisper. Your dad sighs, glancing at Hank before dragging you to the kitchen.

“That’s why we won’t tell mom.”

“What?”

“Look sweetheart-“

“Are you leaving?” You cut him off. His face softened hearing the distressed pain in your question.

“Y/n-“

“You promised you would spend the day with me. I miss spending time with you, I never get to see you. All you focus on is your stupid job…. Is this why mom made you move to the garage?”

Alvin was lost for words. He should’ve known better he’s oldest daughter would’ve caught on with all the fight and late discussion he had with Meredith. It hurt him the way Meredith looks at him but it hurts even seeing the broken look in your eyes.

“Y/n.” he reaches his out to you, making you take a step back. Feeling betrayed and hurt.

“Actually, You know what dad? You can do whatever you need to do. Clearly I’m not your first priority.” pulling your arm out of his grip, you move past him, and grab your phone from the table.

“Y/n!” Alvin calls behind you, but you ignore his calls, not giving a glance towards the door, knowing Hank is still there waiting. You rush up the stairs to your room, slamming the door behind you.

You might’ve been dramatic, overthinking, or overreacting, but since that day, your relationship with your dad hasn’t been the same. You’ve always been daddy’s girl, so it hit you pretty hard not having that kind of relationship with him anymore. But you were tired of being put a side and not being a priority, you miss spending those days where it’s just the two of you, it could be him taking you shopping,or taking you to the ice cream parlor, or just taking to the park.

Now, it’s like you don’t even have a father, at least one that’s present in your life. Not only is your relationship with your dad went downhill, your mom isn’t any better.

Your mother can be a bit overbearing at times. At least with you. Mostly about your weight. She always been pretty brazen about her opinion on your body. Telling you to lose weight by going to the gym, go on a diet, even going as far to suggest some supplements she seen on TikTok that could help you(which you know are BS).

You’ve always been a big girl, even when you were a little girl. Though you went through puberty pretty early in your life, your curves came in and shaped your body beautifully.

You love your body, you might get a little self conscious about it from time to time but what girl doesn’t? You learned pretty early on you might not be everyone type but you might be someone’s type and that was enough to give you confidence about your plump figure.

Now how your luck has it, you actually know Hank’s son Justin and adopted daughter Erin Lindsay though you didn’t know it at the time. You went to school with them, Erin is a little older than you but Justin is the same age as you.

Now back to your father’s best friend. After your first meeting, you started to hold a little grudge against him.

But it seems like luck isn’t on your side when you keep crossing paths with him once or twice. More since you became close friends with Justin and Erin. Though you you try your best to never interacted with him. Yeah, you might’ve been a little brat about that.

Once Erin graduated, she went straight to the Police Academy, wanting to follow Hank’s footsteps. That left you spending most of your time with Justin. Who would’ve thought you spending so much time together would’ve led you to lose your virginity to Justin Voight.

But sadly it wasn’t mind blowing like you had thought. Your girl friends always talked about how their first time was magical, even went into to much details. Now that you think about it, maybe it was all bullshit to make themselves look better in front of your friend group.

Though you can’t put the full blame on Justin, he has a decent size penis and tried to make you feel good, even tried to put your pleasure over his own. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. After that, you two decided to just stay friends and act like it never happened, which you were glad it didn’t mess up your friendship.

There’s also one big thing you learned about yourself pretty early on… you liked men. Older men. Old enough to be your father.

You always knew you liked older men but being under aged is what stopped you most of the time. You were flirted with by older men more than boys your age.

And you liked it. You liked it a lot.

You liked the attention they’ve given you, they were shameless and wasn’t afraid to get what they want. They didn’t care about how much you weigh or what size of clothes you are.

You didn’t know what to was about men that really turns you on. It could be the deep voice. Salt and pepper hair. The way men could get protective of you. Or maybe it could be they are experienced.

You need a man who can teach you a thing or two.

Now, you did an amazing job of avoiding Hank but that couldn’t be avoided when you were eighteen.

Justin💙: Party 2night?

You: Fuck Yes!!! You’re picking me up, right???

Justin💙: What about your parents?

You: Told them I’m going over to your place. Besides they won’t even notice. Mom is out with Lexi and Dad is most likely drinking and watching TV

Justin💙: You sure?

You: It’s the only way I’m going

You: What should I wear?

Justin💙: Something Sexy🥴🤤

You: I’m serious Justin😂

Justin💙: What are my options then?

You:

Justin💙: Fuck🫠😩

Justin💙: The red one. Definitely the red one

Justin💙: And wear those heels that makes your legs look so sexy🥴

You:😘

With a smile, you toss your phone to your bed and make your way to your bathroom to take a quick shower.

Today is supposed to be the best day. You’ll graduate the end the week. Which means you’re done with the people you could care less from High School completely.

Tonight you’re going to party. One of your classmates is having at party at his place while his parents are away for their anniversary.

Getting out the bathroom in only a robe and a towel over your head. You sit down in front of your vanity and do your makeup as natural as you can, you’ll be sweating and drinking, you need your makeup to last all night and not look cakey.

You look at the time and quickly put on a pair of biker shorts and a zip up hoodie. Grabbing your backpack, you place your dress, heels, and purse inside, along with your perfume and extra makeup to finish yourself up.

Justin will be coming by to pick you up in his car. Everything was set and making it home from school the excitement made you zone out.

Your phone flashes signaling you Justin has texted you.

Justin💙: I’m outside

Throwing your bag over your shoulder, you race down the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Your dad stops you before you could reach the door. He is sitting on the couch with his feet prompt up on the coffee table with a beer in hand, watching TV.

“Over to Justin’s. I told you already.”

“He’s picking you up?”

“Yes.”

“Just the two of you? Alone?”

“Dad.” you groan, “I’m eighteen, you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

“That may be true.” you watch as he gets up from the couch with a grunt and stands in front of you, “but you’ll always be my baby girl. No matter what.” He smiles sweetly at you.

You give him a sincere smile. Even though your relationship has been somewhat strained, moments like these is what you cherish the most.

“I love you. C’mere. ” he pull you in for a bear hug.

“I love you too, dad.” you smile into his chest. Alvin presses a kiss on your head then leans his head back to look at you.

“What?” You question. He tilts his head with furrowed brows.

“Are you wearing makeup?”

“Dad!” You whine as you cover your face to hide how embarrassed you are.

Your phone rings once more, another message from Justin telling you to hurry your ass up.

“I gotta go. Justin is waiting for me.”

“He’s outside?”

“Mhmm.” you hum, looking down at your phone messaging Justin back. Your dad nudges you to the door.

“Bye dad.” you peck his cheek.

“Bye baby.”

“Hey, Justin!” Your dad waves once he opens the door allowing you to leave.

“Hey, Mr. Olinsky!” Justin waves back through the open window of the car.

“Better take care of her!”

“Oh I will. Don’t you worry!” Justin winks at you.

“Oh my god.” you roll your eyes at Justin, waving bye at your dad, you get in the back of Justin car.

“Why you sitting in the back?” Justin looks at you through the rear view mirror.

“Hey! Eyes on the road, pretty boy.” you reach from the back seat and hit the back of Justin’s head “I’m changing.”

“Why don’t you wear the dress under your clothes like any normal girl”

“Cause I’m not normal, you should know that by now.”

You unzip the thin jacket you have on and pull it down your shoulders. You’re wearing an adhesive bra, to hold up your heavy breast while wearing the dress that reveals your shoulders.

“Damn.”

“Fucker!” you hiss. Zipping open your backpack, you grab your dress, putting the sleeves of your dress on first, “I said no peaking.”

Justin lets out a low chuckle, keeping his eyes on the road once more.

Placing the dress over your head, you tug it down to your waist. You pull down your shorts and throw them in your backpack, then tug down the rest of your dress down to your mid thigh. Lastly the best for last, you strap on your heels.

“What did you tell your dad, when you left?” You ask to break the silence.

“Nothing. He’s working late. He doesn’t know I’m gone.”

“My, my, what a naughty boy you are, Justin. I might have to punish you.” you lean forward against the center console to look at the side profile of Justin.

“Shut up.” he laughs.

“You know… I might not like your dad but I can’t deny that he’s hot.” you tease.

“Of course you would say that.” Justin face scrunches up in disgust making you laugh, “I forgot how you prefer older men.”

“Yep! And it’s thanks to you.”

“Hey! I wasn’t that bad!”

“You weren’t good either.”

“You’re such a fucking bitch.” Justin shakes his head with a laugh.

“Yeah but you still love me though.” you smile smugly at him.

“Unfortunately.” you slap his shoulder making him recoil away from you with a smile.

Justin parks the car a little further than the house since the road was already cut off from how many cars were parked. ‘Rack City’ by Tyga burst through the loudspeakers, you could feel the vibration in your entire body.

Justin being the gentleman that he is with you, opens the door for you. He helps you of the car and steady you in your heels. He tugs down the back of your dress as he closes the door. You thanked him.

Justin places his hand on your lower back and guides you to the house full of people.

“Woo!!! Senior graduates!!!” You hear someone cheers running into the house.

“Woo!!!” Justin mimics next to you, he wraps his arm around your shoulder pulling close to his side.

Entering the house, the place is decorated in the school colors of blue and black streamers, paper graduation caps hanging from the end of a stream decorates in various places in the ceiling, different color lights shine brightly in different rooms of the house. The party is awesome.

“Yo, Justin! Glad you could make it bro!” Mickey steps in front of the both of you, he hands Justin a drink.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Justin chugs down whatever alcohol was in the cup like it was nothing.

“N/n you look scrumptious as ever.” Mickey smirks at you.

“Bite me.” you roll your eyes, showing your disinterest at his attempt of flirting.

“I will if-“

“Hey what did I say?” Justin points a threatening finger against Mickey’s chest.

“Sorry.” Mickey raises his hands up, palms out.

Yeah, Justin is over protective of you, that’s much is clear. He’s basically one of the reasons why no one never really picked on you. They were afraid of Justin, he has just as much of a reputation as his father.

The last time a guy tried to pick on you ended up with a concussion and Justin suspended.

Not only is he over protective of people picking on you, he’s also over protective when it comes to guys flirting with you. He acts like an older brother wanting to protect his younger sister’s innocence, which is kinda weird to you since he was the one that took your virginity.

“Y/n!!!” You hear someone suddenly screech and jumps on you wrapping their arms around you.

“Bitch!” You groan at the added weight. You thank the lord for Justin holding you up if not you would’ve fell and everyone would’ve gotten an eyeful.

Recognizing the blue hair, you instantly knew it was Gwen.

Gwen pulls herself away from you, her hands on your shoulder and her eyes gaze up and down at your figure with a smirk.

“You look hot, babe.”

“Thanks Gwen.” you laugh at her bluntness.

“C’mon the others are waiting for you.” she grabs your wrist to tug you along with her.

“Hey!” Justin shouts offensively, throwing his arms up.

“Relax, pretty boy. We’ll be by the pool so you know where she’s at. Geez he acts like he’s your boyfriend or something.” Gwen rolls her eyes.

You smile sheepishly at Justin who doesn’t stop glaring at Gwen. You let Gwen take you to the back of the house where the pool is.

There you meet up with Daniel, Jacky, Sean, and Kate.

“Y/n Olinsky at a house party. Never thought I’ll see the day. I didn’t take you the type to be into this kind of thing. I thought clubs will be more your thing.” Daniel grins.

“Hey if theres alcohol involved I’m coming.”

“Speaking of coming. Here.” Kate hands you a red cup, “its squirt with tequila.”

“You’re the best.” you take the drink and chug it down, wincing a little at the after taste of the tequila but that’s to the soda it keeps it at bay.

Two hours into the party, you’ve danced with your friends, watched the guys play beer pong, and the people who are at the pool.

You, Jacky, and Gwen decided to take a break from the party and sit down on the steps of the porch to get some air that doesn’t smell like sweat and alcohol.

“What you planning on doing after high school?” Ask Jacky before she sips the rest of her alcohol.

“I don’t know about y’all but I’m ain’t going to college. I just want to travel around the world with my cat. I could do it, you know. I could just get a random job, buy a bus, buy the supplies, and just remodel it. I could just work online.”

“That’s sounds badass.” you respond to Gwen.

“What about you?” Gwen turns the question to you. You shrug.

“I got accepted in NYU Groosman School of Medicine.” you mutter. You hear the two girls squeal making you wince.

“Dude isn’t that your dream school?”

“It is.”

“Then why does it sound like you aren’t excited about it?”

“Maybe because I don’t want to go to the medical field. The whole reason I even applied was because I wanted to get out of here and be on my own. My mom wanted me go to a college close by but I want to be independent and be on my own.” you sigh.

You’ve been understandably stressed out. You wanted to get out of your parents house and be independent but you also don’t want to be away from home. You don’t want to leave Lexi alone with your overbearing mom, you know your dad would be there but he’s too busy with work to be at home most of the time.

You didn’t think you’ll be accepted to NYU. It has a reputation of being one of the hardest colleges to be accepted in. The only reason you applied is because you were good in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus. Your teachers always encouraged you in the medical field so that’s what you did but now you’re starting to regret your decision.

“You know what you need?” Gwen looks directly at you.

“What’s that?” You answered, taking a sip from the cup in your hand.

“To get laid.”

The way that you choked on your drink was undignified and most unlady-like.

You glare at Jacky and at Gwen who was smirking. Jacky patted your back, sympathetically.

Surprisingly, the thumping music vibrated through your body, calming your mind. The alcohol also helped!

“First of all,” you clear your throat, “I get laid plenty, thank you very much. Second, how did we go from talking about our future to getting me laid?”

“Your still fucking that fire fighter?” Question Jacky

“Oh yeah.”

“I wonder what your dad would say if he ever finds out.” teases Gwen with a knowing smirk

“He will say nothing cause it’s none of his business.” you roll your eyes.

“Not if he finds out which one it is.” Jacky grins down at her cup.

“Maybe.” you shrug

“Dude, what is it with cops and firefighters having a war against each other?”

“Right? What’s up with that?”

“Who knows.” you shrug, “i think-“

“Shh!” Gwen shushes you, “ya hear that?”

Just as when Gwen says that, you hear the distance sound of police sirens. Leaning forward, in the distance you see the red and blue flashing lights.

“COPS!!!”

Just like that everything runs into chaos. Everyone runs around trying to get out of the house and make a run for it.

Everyone is drunk as fuck to even run straight. So were you but you were sober enough to get up and run in the house to look for Justin.

“Justin!” You shout over the crowd of people. You stand on your tippy toes to look over the crowd but couldn’t find him.

"Y/n, what are you doing?” Mickey suddenly appears in front of you, his eyes wide. He quickly takes your hand. "We gotta go."

“But Justin-“

“He’ll be fine. C’mon there’s no time.” you nod, letting him pull you out of the house.

The house is still half empty of drunk teenagers as the cops surrounds the house, but that doesn’t stop Mickey from making a run for it with you behind him.

“Freeze! Stop where you are!”

“Shit!” Mickey curses.

“Hey Cal, there’s alcohol surrounding the place. These kids been drinking.”

Of course someone called the cops on the party, what a cliche.

“Arms in the air and turn around. Slowly.”

Doing as your told. Two cops you don’t recognize, walks towards the two of you.

One reached for the cuffs at his belt, quickly grabbing you by the elbow and cuffs your wrist in front of you. He grabs you by your elbow leading you to a police car.

“Hey!” You whine from the tight grip of his hand on you.

“Keep moving.”

“Calm it, I’m in heels, asshole.” you snap at him.

Opening the door, the cop pushes your head down as you get in, the other cop pushes Mickey in next to you.

“Fuck. My dad is going to kill me.” you quietly groan, throwing your head back. You look out the window seeing some other kids being dragged into different cop cars.

The drive to the police station was a blur. The same cop drags you out of the car with Mickey behind you.

Seeing the familiar silver haired woman with her normal stern face in the front desk, you keep your head down so she won’t recognize you.

“You have to be so rough?!” You glare at the cop as he pushes you down on a chair and cuffs your left hand on the armrest, “is that really necessary?”

The cop ignores you, he walks away with your confiscated purse in his hand.

“Hey asshole, watch it!” you turn your toward the noise to see Mickey being dragged, the cop shoves him down in the chair next to you.

“Both of you wait here till we get back.”

“Like we have much of a choice.” you bite back. The cop gives you a look before leaving.

“Fuck man.” Mickey groans next to you.

“Tell me about it. I had to get arrested wearing this.” you point at your red dress. Compared to the plain looking police station, you stand out like a sore thumb.

“Could be worse.” Mickey smirks down at you.

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“You could look like him.” Mickey points at what looks like a man in women’s clothing. Is that a prostitute?

“Oh my god, Mickey! Don’t point!” you scold him and pinch his side with your hand that isn’t restraint.

“Ow okay!” he laughs as he tries to get away from you.

“Hank, you’re still here?” You overhear Trudy, you lean over slightly to see none other than Hank.

“Fuck.” you groan.

“I thought you left with the others.”

“Nah. I needed to get some paper work done first.”

“You know him?” Mickey looks between you and Hank.

“Yeah that’s Justin’s dad also my dad’s best friend. Quick make yourself big so he won’t see me.”

“Babe,” Mickey deadpans at you, “your dress is a far cry compared to everything here. He’ll notice you even if I try to cover you.”

“Shut up and do as your told.” you shove him.

“Hey!”

“Alright.” the police officer from before walks up to the two of you. “I’ll need your name”

“Y/n.” he writes it down.

“Last name?”

You hesitate, “Olinsky.” you mumble.

The police officer pauses, he gazes down at you before letting out a hearty laugh, “Olinsky? You’re Alvin’s daughter?” You wince at how loud he’s being, “No fucking way.”

Well so much for being discreet. If Hank didn’t know you were here now he does.

You shift in your seat uncomfortably, your eyes gaze around the room before hiding your face behind you hand. Trying to make yourself small as possible.

“Y/n?” You hear the all familiar gravelled husky voice of Hank. You look up to see Hank gaze on you with a raised brow. You two make eye contact for a split second, before you break it.

“You got to be fucking kidding me.” you mumble, sliding down your chair slightly and cover your eyes with your hand.

You want the floor to swallow you whole.

“What’s going on here?” Hank question the officer.

“Someone called about a house party. These kids been drinking.” You roll your eyes at the officers matter of fact tone.

“Is that right?” Hank gaze goes back to you, his expression hard to read, making you feel uneasy.

God kill me now. Please.

“Apparently this one right here is Al’s daughter.”

“I’ll take her off your hands and take it from here.

Mickey sits quietly next to you with raised brow, astonished. He looks at you and mouths ‘what the fuck’.

“Uhh Sarge, I don’t think-“ one hard look from Hank made him reconsider. “Okay. No problem.”

“Uncuff her.”

“Sure. Okay.”

You watch silently as the officer stumbles a little with the keys and takes off your handcuff. You sigh as you rub your wrist in relief from its tight bounds.

“Let’s go.” Hank gestures for you to get up with his fingers.

“Did you have anything with you before you got arrested?”

“Yeah my purse. It has my phone and wallet in it.”

Hank turns to the police officer.

“Where’s her purse?”

“It’s confiscated in a storage location.”

“Get someone to bring me her belongings and her arrest charges. I’ll be in my office.”

“Yes Sarge.”

He grabs you by the elbow, more gently than the cop did and . You both barely made it half way to wherever he planned on taking you when you start to protest.

“Hey! Wait a second! I’m not going anywhere with you.” you yank your arm out of his grip.

You watch the way Hank clenches his jaw as he looks at you, losing his patience with your bratty attitude, but you don’t shy away from his stare.

“For once, be a good girl and do what I say. Al might tolerate your attitude but I surely won’t.” Hank retorts, his eyes never leaving yours, a shiver going down your spine at his dark tone.

“Now move it, princess.” you roll your eyes at the pet name and begrudgingly let Hank lead you with a hand on the small of your back.

Hank leads you up the stairs to the bullpen and into his office. Opening the door, he allows you to enter first before he does and closes the door behind him.

“Sit down.” At his sharp tone, you oblige instantly with no arguement from you.

Besides your dad, Hank could be scary at times but you do have a tendency of pushing a little too far.

Hank not once takes his eyes off you, he stands in front of his desk. Hank leans back against it with arms cross against his chest.

“Does Al know where you are?”

“What do you think?”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“Excuse me?”

“You could’ve gotten yourself arrested. You going to graduate on Friday and this is how act? You could’ve ruin your chances for college education.”

“Why does it matter to you?”

“Al told me you got accepted into NYU. You really want to ruin that by getting arrested for underage drinking?”

“Who are you to be getting after me? You’re not my dad.”

“No I’m not. But I am someone who cares about you. I know you don’t like me, Y/n. You made that perfectly clear. But your Al’s daughter and my son’s friend. I protect my own and that includes you!”

You and Hank don’t break eye contact. Both waiting for the other to break first.

“Sargent.?” someone knocks on the door before opening it and entering.

“Yeah?” Hank switches his gaze away from you to the officer who just entered.

“Here’s her belonging and her case file you asked for.” the officer hands hank a yellow folder and your purse.

“Is this all?”

“Yes sir.”

“Thanks.” the officer nods and leaves, closing the door once again.

Hank walks around his desk looking through the file before slamming it shut and throw it the trash making your eyes widen.

Did he really just throw away your arrest charges down the trash?

Hank drops down into his chair behind his desk, not taking his eyes off you. Almost challenging you to say something.

“Why?” Is you could ask.

“Consider this me offering you a truce.”

“Truce? For what?”

“I want us to get along. And I’ll start by doing this.”

You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t think he would basically erase your arrest charges. If anything you thought he would use this to blackmail you or something.

“Are you going to tell my dad?”

He leans back in his chair, fingers interlacing across his mid-section as he considers you for a few moments before replying.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Wow. You didn’t expect that. Hank just keeps surprising more and more. You assumed he would call your dad the second he saw you handcuffed in the police station.

“How much did you drink?”

“What?”

“You’ve been drinking haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“If you’re asking if I’m drunk. No I’m not. I only drank two or three cups but they weren’t strong. I was tipsy when the cops came. I got sober pretty fast when an officer roughly pushed me in the police car.”

“Who?”

“Who what?”

“The officer. Who was the officer that arrested you?”

“I don’t know. He had a pornstache that you see only in bad pornos.” you shrug.

Hank smirks amused at your answer.

“You still feel a little tipsy?”

“A little.”

“Okay.” suddenly Hank stands up from his chair and walks around his desk, grabbing your purse along the way and hands it to you, “let’s go.”

“Wait what?” You were taken back. You stumble over yourself trying to stand up.

“Where we going?”

“To sober you up.”

“I said I was a little tipsy.”

“I don’t care. Let’s go.” once again Hank places his hand in the small of your back to lead you out of his office. He turns off the light and closes the door, locking it.

You walk close behind him down the stairs. Hank stands on your right side, guiding you to the front entrance.

“Heading out for the night, Trudy.”

“Alright. See ya in the morning.”

Stepping outside, he leads you to his SUV. Walking to the passanger side, Hank opens the door and helps you before closing the door behind you once you sat down comfortably.

You reach for the seat belt buckling yourself up, you sit silently watching out the window with your purse on your lap.

The driver side door opens and Hank gets in. He takes a deep breath before shoving the keys in the keyhole and turn on the SUV.

The entire drive was in complete silence. You start to feel a little awkward being in close proximity with Hank. You never been alone with him before.

“Where we going?”

“There’s a diner close by that’s open 24/7.”

“Why we going there?”

“You need something in your stomach other than whatever alcohol you were drinking.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I told you, I protect my own and that includes you”

For the rest of the ride you kept your mouth shut. Arriving the diner, Hank gets out first, walking around the front of the SUV and opens the door, holding his hand out to help you down.

Such a gentlemen. Now you know where Justin gets it from.

Once the both of you enter the diner, you both get seated in a booth. Hank sitting across from you.

Looking around the place, it’s practically empty, reminding how late it must be. You have yet to check the time.

A woman in her late 30s maybe mid 40s walks towards your table, “Hello, my name is Rachel and I’ll be you waitress” she place down two menus infront of you and Hank.

“Before we start, will the check be separate or together?”

“It’ll be sep-“

“Together.” Hank cuts you off. Your brows raised as you look at him.

Not only did this man saved you from getting arrested, he’s also buying you food.

“Okay, want to start off with drinks?”

“You have sweet tea?”

“Mhmm, we do”

“I’ll take that”

“I’ll get the same thing.”

“Alright. You two ready to order or do you want time to look at the menu.”

“We’ll take the cheeseburger with everything on both and fries.” Hank tells the waitress. She lets out a soft okay, writing it down. She grabs the two menus before leaving, letting you and Hank be alone once more.

“You’re buying me food too?”

“I’m a gentleman.” he retorts making you shake your head with a laugh.

“Well now I know where Justin gets it from.” you grin at him, you place your elbow on the table with your on the palm of your hand.

“Speaking of Justin, was he at the house party with you? You two always been thick as thieves for as long as I can remember.”

“Will he get in trouble if I say he was?”

“Only for leaving you alone to get arrested.”

“He didn’t leave me alone.” you defend Justin, “we were separated with our different group of friends when the cops showed up. I was looking for him but Mickey stopped me and tried to get us out of the house but the cops caught us.”

“The boy that was sitting next to you at the station?”

“Yeah.”

“Here’s your drinks,” the waitress comes back with two cups of sweet tea, “and your burger and fries.” she places down two plates in front of you and Hank, “enjoy.” she leaves.

“My dad told you about me going to NYU?” You mention, stuffing a couple of fries in your mouth, remembering Hank mentioning it back at the station.

“He did. He’s really proud of you. Had the biggest smile on his face when he told me.”

You couldn’t help but smile at that. You knew how excited your dad was about you being accepted to one of the best colleges, you also knew how he didn’t like how you would be moving far away from home but he won’t voice it. He knows this could be big for you.

Your mom is whole another story. She’s been trying to change your mind from going since you gotten the letter.

“Same can’t be said about my mother.” you mutter, taking a sip from your cup.

“Yeah Alvin told me about that too.” Hank sighs, shifting in his seat.

“She’s unbearable. Did my dad tell you she blames him for me leaving?”

“She what?” His eyes widen, telling you your dad hasn’t said a word about it.

“Yep. This whole time I thought my dad was the problem but it turns out it’s my mom. Or both.” you shrug

“Is that why you sneaked out to go to a party?”

“Technically… I didn’t sneak out. My dad saw me leave… but he was drinking when I left but he wasn’t drunk.” you tried to plead your case.

“Did you tell him you were going to a party?”

“No.” you play with your straw.

“Did he see you leave in that?” he points at your dress.

“No.” you mutter in between sips.

“Then you were sneaking out. Did Justin park at the end of the street to pick you up?”

“That’s such a fucking cliche,” you laugh, “he parked in front of my house. My dad saw him and even said hi.”

You smile when Hank lets out laugh and shakes his head at you.

“Why are you being nice to me? I’ve been nothing but a bitch to you since the moment we met.” you start to feel guilty.

Even when you started to hang out with Justin and Erin more, you would sometimes go over to their house. Hank for the most part would stay out of the way but he’s been nothing but kind and caring to you when you stayed over. Now you feel like a complete bitch.

You really let your mother’s words brainwash you into thinking Hank is the devil or something. But he’s far from it. At least with you.

You’re not naive, you know what Hank does in the dark where no one sees, but that’s doesn’t stop him from being gentle and caring to the people he holds dear to him.

You’re surprised one of them is you.

“I know your mom don’t like me. Al mentioned once or twice she argues a lot about me involving him in certain situations. I’m not denying they aren’t true but-“

“It’s okay.” you cut him off, “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m not a kid anymore, I know what’s goes on around me. I know you and my dad -maybe your entire squad- do behind the scene. I know you’ve killed people. it doesn’t scare me.”

“It should, sweetheart.”

“But it doesn’t. You only do it cause you care. You don’t hurt innocent people. You just take justice in your own hands. You just do what others aren’t willing to do. I could respect that.”

Hank hums, considering you for moment before speaking.

“You’re something else, you know that.” he grins making you smile.

Finishing off your meals, Hank pays for both your meals. Once again being a gentleman, he walks you to the passenger side and opens the door for you to get in.

Hank slows down and parks in front of your house. You look out the window to see all the lights in the house are off, telling you everyone should be asleep by now. Giving you the chance to sneak in without being seen.

“Listen,” hearing Hank’s voice, your turn your to look at him, “I know you’re scared about moving away from home but do me a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” You squint your eyes at him.

“Take care yourself in New York.” he says softly and he genuinely means it by the way he looks at you.

“I will.” you gently smile at him. Hank shifts in his seat and opens the center console, grabbing a card handing it to you.

“Here.”

“What is it?”

“My business card. It has my office and my personal number. Don’t be afraid to call me if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Hank.”

“Go inside. You should give Justin a call to let him know you’re alright. He’s probably worried about you.”

“I will.” You smile before leaning over and giving him a small kiss on the cheek, “Goodnight, Hank.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart. Take care.” You nod before getting out of his SUV. Hank softly smiles as he watches you round the SUV.

“Hey!” Hank calls for you, making you turn around. “don’t tell your dad you were with me.”

“It’ll be our little secret.” you wink. Hank shakes his head amusingly. He waits a little longer till you enter the house. The second the front door closes, he drives off.

(This took so long to write but I’m happy how it turned out. Please don’t be shy to let me know what you think. I love reading your comments.

Can anyone guess who the fire fighter reader is sleeping with? Anyone who guesses right gets a cookie🍪)

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