#now to never read through this post again after maybe eight months

[hunkydorkling]

Was originally going to compose this whole book review solely for @variousqueerthings in the hopes of them picking it up someday For Clear and Queer Reasons, but tbqh I've considered writing a full blog post about it. The latter's won, so if you're reading this and are looking for a worthwhile bisexual heartbreak rec, consider Milk Fed. Will tell you why under the cut.

I was randomly loitering around the interwebs sometime ago (which was... just last year) when I came across the website for 2022's Lambda Literary Award Finalists, which was where I discovered Milk Fed as part of the candidates. Having been a fan of So Sad Today, despite not hearing from Melissa Broder since the heydays of my Twitter use, I decided to pick this up and dig into it curiously because... duh. The cover's a tit. Wonder what that meant, they ask.

What you need to know (without me trying to spoil everything) is that the book immediately jumps into 24-year-old Rachel's thoughts as she details her woes—working at one of the biggest talent agencies in all of Hollywood, how many calories she can cut off, suppressing sexual fantasies about her coworker who could pass off as her mom. On a daily basis, she carefully-aggressively enters dangerous territory of intense-dieting-borderline-anorexia, often relying on nicotine gums, Splenda, and granola bars to get by. With those, she's perfectly capable of getting by. Oh, and she's a lapsed Jew, which is very important to note.

Per therapist's suggestion, she is recommended to do a 90-day fast from her mom, who's way up there on the Reasons Why Rachel's Got An Impaired Sense of Self Image. Through this fasting phase, she crumbles at the thought of tackling the mother problem this way, with much due fury at herself. On a random day, she decides to visit her favorite froyo place called Yo!Good and meets young Orthodox Jewish Miriam, the woman who's about to turn her whole life around (cheesy!).

It's no surprise how Miriam makes an imprint on her at that exact moment, too; Rachel has a very specific go-to order, Miriam doesn't listen and fills it all the way to the lip of the cup since it's "priced by cup size, not by weight". Melissa Broder writes with full visual clarity how Miriam is a plus-sized girl two years Rachel's junior, and from this encounter alone, Rachel realizes the starting effect that Miriam has on her debilitating views of her own form. What comes after is Rachel and Miriam's journey to Flavortown. (No, literally.)

"Above all, she was fat: undeniably fat, irrefutably fat. She wasn't thick, curvy, or chubby. She surpassed plump, eclipsed heavy. She was fat, and she exceeded my worst fears for my own body."

As I type this now, I tried to recall the exact feeling of wanting to own a copy right away, as there was simply no way I'd let slide a book that cycled between sexual thirst, body dysmorphia, and meaningful spiritual enlightenment, which are three things I'd probably lead with when going on first-time friend dates. I mean, it's textbook for me, but not textbook enough for confidence to suddenly rule over myself at any chance of introduction. The core of the book painfully deals with these three themes as they interweave through each other as needed, which in most cases are about Rachel's loose restraint on her calorie counting and her horny tendencies for Miriam, as brought on by food and their intensifying relationship. Sprinkled now and then are detailed Jewish rituals that are greater parts of Miriam than they were of Rachel's and how she decided to veer away from religion and spirituality in the first place, which in turn helped her realize the real-life impact it had during and after Miriam.

There are tabs that I've stuck on a couple of paragraphs, and reading them in retrospect helped me understand that most bisexual women (some whom I know and have read up about, as sample size lol) often feel strongly for all three cylinders, one much more casual than the other two on given days, and Melissa Broder takes all of these to certain extremes and couples them down as interdependent intricacies through not only hilarious narratives, but also in the rawest form that it possibly could be expressed.

I was inside a convenience station from a local gas station, waiting for my friends so we can go to a theme park, when I finished this book. While it doesn't bear the best ending—especially from the heights this novel had to go through—it's by far a couple of ways fulfilling, in that the act of simply letting people visit puts one's relationship with themself through a cathartic experience, especially if it's what one would otherwise bury deep into a pit. I think it was wonderful.

[writeonwhiskey]

the skz house: ch 1

a/n: As of 10/25/24 this fic is complete. If you’re finding this after that date, please read and enjoy. And don’t be shy, share your thoughts along this wild ride 💜 HAVE FUN & BUCKLE UP!

Summary: Welcome to Sigma Kappa Zeta, the most popular fraternity on campus. When you, down on your luck and looking for a place to live, see their ad for ‘IN-HOUSE STAY’, you decide to check it out. 

Chapter One: Of Breakups and New Housing

You’re sitting on the curb next to several suitcases and trash bags full of your belongings, feeling humiliated as cars pass by. You can’t fucking believe you thought it would be a good idea to rent an off campus apartment with your boyfriend—well, now ex-boyfriend, of three years. It’s not even a full two months into the semester and you both already decided to call it quits. Things had been rocky over the summer to begin with, but you hoped living together would fix it. 

You were wrong. And stupid for letting him put only his name on the lease.

So what are you gonna do now? You can’t call your parents, they told you this was a bad idea from the start. You can’t give them the satisfaction of knowing they were right. Your friends are all in the dorms and, sure, you can crash with them for a couple nights but you need to find something for the remainder of the year. 

You take out your phone, wiping the tears that fall from your eyes as you start looking for somewhere to live. A one bedroom apartment by yourself is completely out of the monthly budget your parents send. You’ll have to settle on a room or some sort of shared living environment. 

Your scrolling stops when you see a post that says ‘FREE IN-HOUSE STAY’. You click on it to read more. 

FREE IN-HOUSE STAY

It’s that time of year again. The members of Sigma Kappa Zeta (SKZ) have beds to fill. Stay will be free of charge, however there are stipulations. Further details will be provided in person. Send a direct message if you’re interested and we will provide the interview date.

You’ve heard of the SKZ fraternity in passing, but never participated much in Greek life on campus. The post feels a little sketchy, if you’re being honest with yourself, but you send the email anyways. If you can pocket the money your parents are sending and stay somewhere for free, maybe you can turn this shitty situation around in your favor. 

You receive an email the following day that advises you to fill out an NDA and an application complete with a picture of yourself. You also go to a nearby clinic to complete a drug test and various other checks. Your interest in the ad is piqued, but the night spent on the floor of your friends dorm encourages you to pursue it.   

Two days later you find yourself standing outside of the SKZ house with ten other women. The house is in a gated community and sits on a pretty large lot, enough room between it and the next that neighbors probably didn’t mind a bunch of college students staying there. It’s a three-story home and not too far from campus, maybe a thirty minute walk. 

At 1:00pm the door opens and a tall, kinda lanky boy with a slender face greets you all. His eyebrows and most of his eyes are hidden behind his bangs, but he dons a welcoming smile. He’s wearing jeans and a black shirt with ΣΚΖ written across the chest in green letters. 

“Please, come in,” he says, gesturing for you all to enter. 

You all huddle in the foyer and he closes the door when the last girl enters before leading you into the living room. There’s a large, navy blue sectional where you all sit. When he exits the room, you fold your hands in your lap and cross your legs, shaking your nerves out through your foot. as you wait for whatever is about to happen.

You hear footsteps coming down the hall and eight men enter the room. If your life were a movie (it most definitely isn’t, you’re sleeping on a floor, remember?), this scene would play out in slow motion. They exude an air of confidence and nonchalance all at the same time. They’re all of similar heights, with hair color ranging from black to blonde, some are lanky, some are muscular—one is flat-out buff, and they’re all Korean. They’re…handsome? The word doesn’t feel like it suffices, though. Each and every one of them are breathtaking in a way that feels completely unfair and makes you question why you’re even there. 

They spread out in a line in front of the TV mounted on the wall opposite the sectional. They’re all wearing the same thing—jeans and the black shirt with their fraternity initial across the front. 

“Thank you for coming here today, ladies,” one of them starts to speak with a light Australian accent. 

As your eyes focus on him, he looks familiar. He’s in one of your classes. He seemed rather quiet and reserved in class, but here he’s easily taking charge and leading the situation. His eyes meet yours for a brief moment and he offers a tight-lipped half-smile and nod. 

“I’m Chan,” he continues. “The is Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin and Jeongin.”

Each member waves as he gestures to them and says their name. Seungmin is the one who had opened the door. 

“We’re sure you’re curious as to what our post entails…let me explain.” Chan begins. “Here at Sigma Kappa Zeta, we strongly pursue the strongest version of ourselves. We work hard, study hard, and play hard. We want all of our members to be at their best at all times. We cannot achieve the goals and dreams we have if we are weak in any area. Which brings us to having you here today.”

Your eyes dart to the other men standing in the line, but it’s impossible to read their expressions. 

“We are looking for four women to reside in our home. Your duties will be cooking and cleaning for the household, and pleasing the members you are assigned to.” 

You can only blink as you stare at him. Assigned to? And did he say please the members? Does he mean fuck?

“We believe that with these essential needs met,” he continues without missing a beat. As if he hasn’t just uttered something completely scandalous. “Our members will be free to flourish and earn our spots next to our SKZ predecessors.” 

He stops for a moment and steps forward from the others.

 “I know how this sounds. Misogynistic. Throughout the many years of this tradition, it has proved to work in our Stays’ favor as well, though. You’ll have your needs met, less stress and many Stays have reported a boost in their overall happiness and confidence.” He says. “We know you are students, too, and we don’t want to impede on your education or your own personal goals. That being said, it’s not a position suitable for everyone, we know that. We also know, that should you choose to participate, you will have an invaluable sense of community throughout your time here. You will have free room and board, and be allowed time to focus on your own success. Any resources we have access to can be yours as well.”

He claps his hands together.

“Now that you know what this entails, please remain seated if you’re still interested. If not, kindly exit—but we would like to remind you of the NDA you signed.”

He pauses for a beat. Two girls stand and promptly exits the home. You stay rooted in your seat. You’re a decent cook. You can clean. You think you could be a good fit for the position. You’ve also been with the same guy since your freshman year, so the prospect of experiencing something new in any capacity intrigues you. And honestly, right now, a free bed sounds more tantalizing than the floor, doesn’t it? You subconsciously roll out the kink in your neck at the thought. 

“Eight of you still here,” he says with a nod. “We’ll call each of you up, you’ll introduce yourself, walk past each member, then take your seat. We will then leave to deliberate. When we come back, we’ll let you know which of you are staying and who you’re assigned to.”

You shift around in your seat and nod your head. Chan steps back in line and calls the first name. You watch as each girl walks in front of the men, wondering what’s going through their head—what are they looking for exactly? 

When you hear your name called, your heart begins to race. You stand and announce your name, your major, and year in school. You then walk towards Jeongin and slowly make your way to Chan. It’s quick, but not painless. It’s fucking nerve-racking as they each stand there, stone faced. 

When all the girls are seated on the couch again, the men exit the room. You’re all quiet as you wait for them to come back. It takes nearly half an hour. 

Chan announces the names. The first girl called is assigned to Jeongin and Han. The second is assigned to Felix and Lee Know. The third goes to Seungmin and Changbin. 

There are five of you left on the couch. You begin to feel nervous that you may not be chosen, but the next name that falls from Chan’s lips is yours. 

Your try your best to hide your surprise as you stand and step forward, hearing that you’re with Chan and Hyunjin. 

“Thank you, ladies, for coming today. If you haven’t graduated next year, we welcome you to come back again.” Chan says to the others on the couch before showing them to the door. 

When he returns, the eight of them shift around to stand in front of their assignee.

In front of you is Chan. You can’t help but notice the way the sleeves fit tightly around his biceps, and the veins protruding from his arms. Hyunjin is standing next to him—he’s taller than Chan, but a little more thin. His overall presence is softer. You try not to stare too much. 

“We’ll give you a tour of the place, show you where you’re staying and then you may retrieve your belongings and return by 5:00pm to prepare dinner. You will cook for whoever you’re assigned to, and get to know each other over dinner.” Chan continues to take charge. 

You’re then led on a tour of the house. The first floor has the living room, kitchen, and a bathroom. The kitchen has two separate stoves, a huge pantry and a ton of cabinet space. There’s even an island with bar stools along one side of it. They then take you all down to the basement where there’s a pool table, an old keg, a bar, TV, and beer pong table. 

On the second floor is four bedrooms. They tell you who resides on each floor, but do not allow you into the rooms unless it’s someone you’re assigned to. Hyunjin is on the second floor. 

He opens the door to the room and you peek inside. You see that there’s a Queen sized bed, dresser, and desk covered in art supplies. Next to his bed is a twin sized bed, bare of any sheets. Is that where you’ll sleep? You wonder. 

“The bathroom at the end of the hall on the second floor is strictly for you all to use,” Chan announces as you all make your way up to the next floor.

On the third floor, you’re allowed to see Chan’s room. It’s significantly larger than Hyunjin’s, with it’s own bathroom. He also has a queen bed, nightstands, a dresser and desk. However, the twin sized bed is further from his own, against the opposite wall. It, too, is bare of any sheets. 

After the tour, everyone breaks off into groups of whomever their paired with. You’re in the kitchen with Hyunjin and Chan standing on either side of you. You exchange numbers with both of them. 

“So you’re majoring in Biology?” Hyunjin speaks to you for the first time. 

You nod, unable to find your voice. Still somewhat in shock of what the hell is even happening.

“She’s nervous,” Chan says, easily able to read you.  

“Don’t be,” Hyunjin says with softened eyes. “It sounds more intimidating than it really is. This is a mutual thing, okay? We help each other.”

“Okay,” you reply quietly.

“Do something simple for dinner tonight,” Hyunjin continues. “Pasta? With shrimp?”

He looks over to Chan who shrugs and nods in response. 

“We’re not as demanding as the others—we won’t be expecting full course meals.”

“You got lucky,” Chan adds. 

Got lucky? Did you? Or did you just get yourself into an inexplicable situation? They didn’t mention anything about what should happen if you change your mind. Are you even allowed to? Perhaps you should have read through the NDA a little better. First the lease, now this…you’re not the best with contracts, are you? 

Chan produces a credit card from his wallet and hands it to you. 

“Return with your things by 5:00pm. You can get groceries and bedding with this. Two twin-sized sets.”

You take the card from him and put it in your pocket. 

“We’ll see you soon,” Hyunjin says in a sing-songy voice with a smile. 

“See you,” you say lightly and try to return the smile. 

You’re still feeling awkward about the entire ordeal, but you’re somewhat at ease at how respectful they all seem. You’re not sure if you’ll be forced to do anything you don’t want to…but as you think about how handsome every single man in the house is…will you eventually want to?

After going to get groceries and bedding (two sets), you get your belongings from your friends dorm then take an Uber back to SKZ house. 

You’re a little early, but the door is open. You place your personal things to the side and go to the kitchen to start on dinner. You’re thankful they chose an easy meal, but go the extra mile to make the Alfredo sauce from scratch. It’s one of the few recipes you remember by heart from your mother. You season the shrimp and cook it up with butter and garlic. 

The other girls start to arrive and space in the kitchen becomes severely limited, even with two stoves for you all to use. You start to wonder if they’ll all have dinner at the same time every day because that may prove to be quite a challenge. You all move around each other easily enough, but you don’t really say much. 

When the food is done and plated, you send Hyunjin and Chan a text that dinner is ready. 

They come into the kitchen moments later, grab their plates, then lead you down to the basement for the second time today. 

It’s definitely not a fancy or romantic environment. Sitting at a beer pong table and seated on fold out chairs, but you’re not uncomfortable. Nervous as shit. But not uncomfortable. 

You wait for them to eat first. They both nod appreciatively after taking their fist bite. 

“You must have a lot of questions,” Chan says, twirling pasta around his fork. 

“Ask us anything,” Hyunjin prompts. 

You’re silent for a moment, chewing your food. You have what feels like a million questions, and want to get the most important one out of the way first.

“Am I gonna be fucking you both?”

Hyunjin coughs on the food he’s eating and Chan let’s out a soft chuckle. He hands Hyunjin his glass of water.

“Well…yes,” is Chan’s blatant reply. 

You expect him to say more, but he doesn’t. 

“Like…at the same time or is there some sort of schedule or…?” You trail off.

Hyunjin, finally recovered from his coughing fit replies, “It’s really up to the three of us to decide specifics. You’ll be in either of our rooms, on a rotating schedule. We could do every three nights. Monday-Wednesday and Thursday-Saturday? Sunday will be your choice.”

You nod slowly, more in understanding than agreement at this particular moment. 

“This tradition works best when it operates like a well oiled machine,” Chan says. “Always be honest with us. Let us know if you aren’t feeling well, if you have your period—anything.”

“There’s actually an app we can all access if you’re uncomfortable telling us, we can use that.” Hyunjin adds. 

“And when it comes to cooking and cleaning, you and the other girls can work out whatever kind of schedule works best for all of you.” Chan continues. 

The absurdity of the arrangement starts to feel less worrisome as they talk. The situation itself is still quite insane, but they speak about it so casually that it seems normal. 

They allow you to pester them with questions as you finish up the meal. They’re all business majors, Hyunjin’s minor is Art and Chan’s is music. They’re all legacies at Sigma Kappa Zeta—meaning their fathers, and grandfathers for some, had been members too. They have all been on a certain career track since they were born to father’s that are successful business owners in Korea and Australia. They each came to the states in high school, studied at a prestigious boarding school and now here they all are, in college, together. 

You can’t fathom having your entire life planned out that way. Perhaps it would take out some of the things you stress about regarding your future, though. Clearly, their parents all want what’s best for them. 

They explain a few other rules like—you’re not allowed to date or have sex with anyone outside of the members, and that’s a rule everyone in the house follows. Failure to adhere will result in immediate removal from the home. 

After you’ve asked all your questions, you all head back up stairs. The others are scattered throughout the house, some at the dining room table, some in the living room. Through the sliding glass door leading to the backyard, you see a few of them out there too. 

“We’ll handle the dishes for tonight,” Hyunjin tells you, taking the plate and glass from your hands. 

“Take your things upstairs, make up your bed in each of our rooms. There’s some closet and drawer space in each for you.” Chan says. 

“Where am I sleeping tonight?” You ask. 

“It's Sunday. Your choice,” replies Hyunjin. “Don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s really just where you’ll sleep. It’s not like you won’t be able to interact with the other person or anyone else in the house based on where you sleep, okay?”

You nod. 

They take off towards the kitchen. You retrieve your belongings and head up stairs. In Hyunjin’s room you make the bed with the dark blue bedding set—it’s adorned with different flower types and feels fitting. You recalled seeing the flowers he was painting on his desk when you made this choice. You’re not sure how to divide up your clothing but decide to place a bit of everything in both rooms. 

When you make it up to Chan’s room, you put away the rest of your clothes then make up the bed here too. The set you chose for his room is black with teal and purple nebula on it. He has LED lights lining all four walls, near the ceiling. You thought it might look nice when they’re turned on. 

After making the bed, you sit down and allow yourself a break to think.

You now have to decide whose room you’ll be sleeping in tonight. 

[ read chapter two here ]

a/n: yeah, this was a random idea that i'm just gonna roll with. no idea where its gonna go yet, but this will be fun to write. have to set the scene with this first chapter, the smut is coming, don't worry :)

[lostintransist]

This Bunny Bites - Part 3

I managed to post part 4 before part 3 so that has been fixed now and updated. Enjoy!

When you finally settle into bed the clock on your nightstand reads four AM. It had been a relatively quiet night after Johnny and company left, only a few spilled drinks and one guy who got way too into the fact he could touch the girls. You would always be grateful that the owner paid for a cleaning service to come in every morning and deep clean the building instead of making you girls do any of the cleaning. You had a gig once that made you clean after all the clients had gone. It took one puddle of cum in the bathroom for you to leave and never come back to that job.

You set your alarm for one PM and drift off to sleep listening to the rain sounds from your phone.

When you wake you shuffle out of your room into the small kitchen of your condo, flicking on the coffee machine. You sit tweak the blinds in the living room just enough to let in some light and sit on the couch staring into nothingness. Once the sound of running water stops you stand and shuffle to the the kitchen. After adding just the right amount of creamer you head back to your room. You adjust the curtains in here too until you can see but not be blinded.

Placing your coffee on the bedside table you grab your phone and fire off a text to your best friend.

‘Guess who showed up at the club last night?’

‘Was it Satan?’ Cara’s reply comes right through.

‘Nope, worse.’

‘Worse than Satan, but your father is dead so…your grandpa??’

You laugh out loud at the grandpa comment, your mother’s father happened to be the sweetest old man two lived hours away from you in a nursing home.

‘My brother.’

The ringing of your phone doesn’t shock you. You slid it open and answered Cara’s call.

“Bitch what the fuck did you just text me? Your BROTHER came to the club last night? The brother that abandoned you to the scum-eating, walnut fucking, monster of a sperm donor?” Cara must not have been at work if she was using her favorite insults.

“Yep, that’s the one. He was there in a group and didn’t recognize me when I came by to get orders.” You slurp a sip of coffee, feeling Cara flinch across the line at the noise.

“God, what did you do?” she stressed the last word.

“I kicked him and his friends out, obviously. He acted all shocked when I told him to get the fuck out, claimed he hadn’t done anything. Took me full naming him and calling myself his baby sister before he recognized me.”

Cara doesn’t interrupt but adds whispered commentary through the whole tale.

“I have never seen a human go so pale before Cara. I almost laughed, but I kept it together. Told him to get out or get thrown out and then one of his friends stood up, threw some money on the table, and basically forced my brother out the door. The two other friends he was with also dropped some money on the table and followed him out. The weird thing though is that when I totaled up what they had left on the table it was eight hundred dollars.”

“Eight,” Cara choked on air. “They left you eight hundred dollars for kicking them out?”

You shrug despite knowing she can’t see you, “I don’t know man, that’s just it. I can’t think of any good reason they would leave such a big tip!”

Cara whistled, “Damn, that means your what a month closer to your goal of quitting right? My best friend going to become a world-famous author one of these days.”

You smile at her undying support. She had gotten out of dancing after her business degree had landed her a nice six-figure paying job. You pulled down more than that but with most of it in cash, you had to be careful with depositing your money into any bank account.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I doubt I will make much money off of writing which is why I need to have enough money so between the rentals and my savings I never have to dance for work or do anything I don’t want to again.” Your dream was to get out, maybe move to the south of France, or Austria, and live out the rest of your days in peace.

“You know I will buy all of your books as soon as they are published,” Cara reminded you.

“I know, I love you too.”

“Good, now I have to get back to work. You free for brunch on Sunday?”

“I will have to check my calendar so text me?”

“Can do doll, love you!”

“Bye,” you hang up feeling more cheerful than before the chat.

You finish your coffee, sifting through your feelings about your brother’s abrupt return, and hope he doesn’t show up again.

Part 2 | Part 4

Masterlist

[duskandcobalt]

Everywhere, Everything: Chapter Eight

Chapter Summary: Back in the same city once again, Azriel and Elain are no longer able to ignore what's simmering between them

Word Count: 7k

Warnings: smut. just smut. (18+ pls and ty)

Missed the first seven chapters? You can find the Masterlist for this fic here 🥰

A/N: hello again friends, i'm baaaaack :)

Once again, I must begin by saying thank you for all your lovely comments and messages on my fics and on my wip wednesday posts because they truly keep me going 💕 I hope you enjoy this next installment.

ENJOY XX

Read on AO3

Azriel couldn’t keep his foot from tapping against the linoleum floor of the Velaris airport as he kept an eager eye on the escalator that descended into the tiny arrivals hall. 

He’d picked Elain up from this airport a number of times when she’d gone on work trips or holidays with her sisters. But he’d never picked her up like this - waiting for her inside instead of on the curb. Waiting for her with this new situation between them ever present in the back of his mind just as it had been ever since the morning after Christmas when they’d unexpectedly gotten a little too carried away in his workshop.

He had the thought that maybe he should’ve brought some flowers with him today - if only to have something to do with his hands because right now he couldn’t decide whether to keep them in or out of his pockets and so he’d been fidgeting like a madman for the last fifteen or so minutes. It was a wonder airport security hadn’t confronted him for suspicious behaviour. 

The issue with bringing flowers was that they were headed straight to Nesta and Cassian’s house for the long weekend and the thought of explaining why he’d bought Elain flowers to her brother-in-law was enough to give him a headache. 

He’d already received a look from Rhys when he’d volunteered to pick her up under the pretence that it would make life easier for him and Feyre but maybe he’d been too eager given the speed with which he’d offered when they’d been discussing the logistics for this weekend. 

But Azriel couldn’t have possibly kept his cool. Not when the last time he’d seen her in person he’d had to drop her off at her sister’s house without so much as a kiss on the cheek because Nesta had been standing outside, waiting for her on the porch with a look on her face that hovered somewhere between worry and disappointment, as if Elain were a wayward teenager who’d snuck out for the night. 

It’d been months of separation and now she was once again back for her nephew’s birthday and though they’d been in near constant contact - texts, phone calls, hours spent on Facetime each evening - he couldn’t wait to see her again and he was desperate for a bit of time alone with her - even if it was just the forty five minute drive from the airport to Nesta’s house on the outskirts of town. 

Azriel raised up on his toes and then back down again - made note that perhaps he’d been spending too much time with Feyre because he’d clearly picked up that nervous habit from her - and then focused his attention back to the escalator again just in time to see a girl with brown hair cascading over her shoulders, a bright smile on her cherry red lips, and pretty eyes that were already set on him. 

There were no words for the way that first glimpse of her made him feel. No possible way to describe the rush he felt in his chest or the anxious itch of his palms. For all the slack he caught for keeping his feelings to himself and hardly ever letting his emotions show on his face, now his cheeks actually hurt from the way he was grinning as Elain not so casually rushed across the floor to him before abandoning her bags and launching herself into his arms. 

He caught her easily, lifting her up with his arms wrapped tight around her middle - savouring the feel of her hands as they wove through the strands of his dark hair. 

“Hi,” Elain giggled, resting her forehead against his. 

“Hi, Lain,” Azriel smiled back, carefully setting her back down on her feet so he could move his hands from her waist up to her face, tilting her chin up to him before he lowered his lips to hers. 

He felt the momentary hesitation, the bit of slight shock. He thought for a split second that maybe he’d pushed his luck with her, taken it too far, but the feeling was short lived because he soon felt her relax in his arms, melting into the kiss - melting into him. He knew what would’ve been going through her head. Knew that she’d paused for a moment because they’d never had this before - the chance to be so open, to put on such a display of affection where anybody in their small town could see them.

“Missed you,” she whispered against his lips, suddenly shy. Her face was flushed, eyes shimmering as she pulled back and looked at him. 

“Missed you, too.” Azriel whispered back, pecking her cheek once more for good measure. “Ready to go?” He asked, waiting for her nod of confirmation before reaching for her suitcase with one hand and taking her hand in the other because he simply couldn’t keep from touching her in some small way. 

The walk to the car was quick, quiet words exchanged about the flight as they walked - turbulent to start but otherwise fine. He knew how much she hated landings and so he’d given her hand a squeeze when she relayed with a small laugh the way she’d gripped the armrest, wishing he’d been there to hold her hand instead. 

There’d also, much to his chagrin, been a slight moment of embarrassment when Azriel started his car only for music to start blaring from the speakers - a bass heavy club track with female vocals that featured on his rotation of music he listened to whilst at the gym. He’d been listening to it on the way to the airport at top volume to keep his mind distracted.

Elain had looked over at him, a teasing grin on her lips and one sharp eyebrow raised as he sheepishly lowered the volume and quickly picked up his phone, switching to an indie folk song that was more indicative of the style of music he typically listened to throughout the day. “I see your club rat days aren’t completely behind you, after all.” 

Azriel chuckled as he threw an arm around her headrest and put the car in reverse, looking over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking spot. 

“Only within the constraints of this car and the gym, I’m afraid.” 

“Shame… I was hoping to see you with some glow sticks in hand again. It’s been awhile.”

Azriel shook his head at how much amusement she was getting out of this moment. He’d had a reputation in his college days for enjoying a good night out and while Elain had only witnessed him in his prime party days a couple of times, she’d never let him forget it. “Don’t worry, I keep the glow sticks in the glove compartment and pull them out at red lights to entertain myself sometimes.” 

“Very funny,” Elain rolled her eyes, settling into her seat and looking out the window as she quietly hummed along to the song that was now playing. 

Azriel watched her out of the corner of his eye, enjoying having her as a passenger in his car once again, happily chattering away about what they’d been up to and what this weekend had in store for them. It wasn’t until they were on the last five or so miles to their destination that he noticed how quiet she’d gotten a little over halfway into the drive, the conversation dying down into what he believed to be a comfortable silence. 

But the more the silence continued, the more suspicious he got.  He’d caught her twice now not-so-subtly sneaking long glances at him while she fidgeted with her necklace and shifted repeatedly in her seat, legs crossing and uncrossing as if she couldn’t get comfortable. It was dark out but he could just about spot a little crease between her brows - a dead giveaway she had something on her mind. 

He’d just opened his mouth to ask about it when she looked over at him. 

“Could you pull over?”

“What?” Azriel frowned, looking over at her as he slowed down, approaching the end of the long, dark road they were on. “Are you okay?” 

His own forehead creased in concern as he scanned her from head to toe. He didn’t know what he was looking for, could barely even see her properly now that the sun had fully set behind the mountains. 

“Yeah, I’m fine… I just… I… can you turn down here?” Elain gestured to the left where the paved road turned to dust and gravel - no street lights to be seen. They were supposed to go right and over the train tracks before turning into Nesta and Cassian’s neighbourhood. 

Azriel turned left as directed, driving a little further down the road before pulling to the side and putting the car in park. He twisted in his seat to face her, the dim lights from the dashboard doing little to help him see her.

“Lain, what’s wr-,” Azriel didn’t get a chance to finish his question because Elain was unbuckling her seatbelt and was halfway over the centre console of his car a second later - her lips fused to his neck, her hand skimming the waistband of his jeans. 

“Can we,” her hand slid along his jaw, turning his face toward hers. Her lips were inches from his. “Please, Az. Let me…”

The other hand that settled low on his waist slid down further, fingers gently palming him where his body had begun to catch on far quicker than his mind. 

“Fuck,” Azriel let out an involuntary groan, his hips keening upwards into her touch. “Jesus, Lain…here? Now?”

“Mhm,” she nodded, tucking her head into the crook of his neck. She breathed in the scent of him, tracing a path with her mouth to his ear where he felt her teeth just barely graze his ear lobe. “Been thinking about it all day long… this whole drive, on the plane, when I was at home. Want you in my mouth.”

Azriel cursed again under his breath, so caught off guard by her uncharacteristically brazen words to even notice that she’d undone the button and zipper of his jeans until he felt her fingers wrap around him, lightly dragging up his quickly hardening length. Just a tease of a touch that had him breathless.

He shouldn’t be surprised that she was acting like this - so out of her mind with the need to have him that she’d gone as far as to make him pull over when they were mere minutes away from seeing her family.

She’d been so eager a time or two on those late night calls, after all. Had only vaguely pretended to be shy when after hours of exchanging increasingly salacious texts, he asked if she’d undress for him. She’d nodded, a pretty blush creeping up her neck as she slowly took off her clothes and propped her laptop between her legs, dutifully following his instructions - lower, slower, yes, just like that… good girl -  until she was coming for him, rapid breaths, his name muttered into her pillow, the light from her computer screen casting her perfect skin in hues of blue.

“Come here,” he groaned, suddenly impatient, overcome with the need to have her - wanting to give her what she was begging for. He unbuckled his own seatbelt and pushed his seat back as far as it would go, helping her over the console and onto his lap, chuckling when her ass hit the horn. She maintained her focus, kissing him once, twice, then shifting down - squeezing herself into the space between his legs, her knees on the floor of the driver’s side, her hands on his thighs, her lips tracing a path around the head of his cock. 

It was like something out of a wet dream. It was every filthy fantasy he’d ever had. Elain on her knees, signature deep red lipstick staining his skin like a map of all the places her lips had explored. Heavy lidded eyes watering as she took him into her mouth - deeper, then deeper still, until he felt the back of her throat, heard the soft choking sound of her taking just a bit too much.

“Careful,” Azriel whispered, gathering her long hair in his fist and holding it back so that it stayed out of her way and gave him the view he was after.

Elain drew back, taking a deep breath as she smiled up at him - eyes glazed over with lust. “I’ve wanted you like this for so long,” she dragged her tongue over his head, her fist tightening and twisting around him. “For years.”

“Yeah?” It’s all he could manage because she was back to it, that torturous mouth making him see stars. The way she hummed around him in confirmation brought him right to the edge. Only a few minutes and she already had him there, thighs tensing as he tried to hold back just a second longer. “Elain… I’m gonna,” he tried to warn her. Tried to give her the option. But she kept going, nails digging into his thighs, almost smiling around him as he tugged at her hair so her eyes were focused on his as he spilled into her mouth with a loud groan.

He watched in a daze the motion of her throat as she swallowed, taking everything he gave her in stride until he was completely spent. He released her hair,carefully tucking it behind her ear as she dragged her tongue over him one last time.

Azriel reached down after she pulled off him, thumbing at her full bottom lip - now slick with spit. “This mouth… all I’ve been thinking about is your mouth. These lips, that lipstick - thought about it on my cock.”

“Hope I lived up to your expectations,” she smiled, shy once again.

“Exceeded them,” he slipped his thumb further between her lips, shaking his head when she playfully dragged her teeth over the pad of it as if she just couldn’t help herself. He had to pull back, keep his hands to himself before he abandoned all plans and hauled her into the back seat of his truck to return the favour.

Elain pressed small kisses to his thighs and his chest as she did her best to make him presentable again before settling back on his lap with her arms around his neck, her face once again tucked into his neck. “Thank you.”

Azriel couldn’t help but laugh as he leaned back to look at her, hands cupping her face. “Think I should be thanking you.”

She shook her head, smiling at him. “Needed that.”

All he could do was grin at her stupidly, tracing her cheeks and then her lips, before he kissed her. Slow. Deep. In no rush. 

To hear that she wanted him like that, needed him… he could almost come again just from the thought of her feeling that way. He was so in over his head, so deeply gone for her.

“Az,” she swallowed, biting down on her lip. “We should go… before the girls send a search party.” 

“You’re right,” he nodded, hands squeezing her ass once more before helping her back over the console and into her seat. He righted himself, readjusted his seat, and turned the engine back on. He started driving back towards the train tracks - his hand on her thigh, a satisfied smile tugging at the corner of his lips. The memory of a moment on a dirt road now a secret just between them - nothing but the stars in the night sky as their witness.

…

Filthy. 

It was downright filthy the way Elain felt about him. Filthy the way she walked into her sister’s house knowing her lipstick was on Azriel’s body, crudely smeared under his jeans. Filthy, the way she could still feel his fingers threaded through her hair - the gentle tug of his fist until her eyes were on him so he could watch as she swallowed. Filthy the way she wanted to avoid eating or drinking if only to keep the taste of him in her mouth just a little bit longer. 

She’d wanted it from the second she’d gotten ready for the airport, slipping on her favourite underwear while imagining him taking it off her. She’d wanted to make him feel the way he’d made her feel a time or two now - knew that he wouldn’t be keeping count but still, she’d been itching for it and she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold out as soon as she first spotted Azriel upon arrival at the Velaris airport. It was a miracle she’d even lasted that far into the drive. It was even more of a miracle that she’d been able to stop after all was said and done considering that now, hours later, there was a persistent ache between her legs the begged to be attended to. 

Arriving at Nesta’s house had been a much needed distraction. She’d checked her appearance in the visor mirror just to make sure there wasn’t any incriminating evidence of what they’d done lingering on her skin and then climbed out of the car just in time for the front door to swing open and her nephew to appear at the top of the stairs, shouting her name in excitement. 

From there, she’d been dragged into the house - taken on a tour of the toys and books he’d forced his parents to drag along for the weekend - before he finally handed her over to the adults when the excitement faded and the sleepiness took over. 

She was happy to be back in this house with her favourite people. It was so different from the last time she’d been here, when Graysen had been glued to her hip, his eyes carefully keeping track of her every move. The last time she’d been here, she’d told Azriel that they couldn’t be friends - at least not like they had once been. 

She couldn’t believe just how much had changed in such a short span of time. She couldn’t wrap her head around just how differently everything had panned out. Now she was back in one of her favourite places, no overbearing boyfriend in sight. And yes, she and Azriel weren’t friends, certainly not like they had once been. But it was true in a much different way than she’d anticipated and she couldn’t possibly be happier about it. 

It had been so easy to fall back into old patterns with him - the comfortable ease of their long friendship rekindled as if the year or two of limited communication had never happened. But while those first few weeks after Christmas were just like old times - friendly conversations talking about everything and nothing - at some point their daily phone calls escalated, certain things slipping out with the darkening of the sky and a couple glasses of wine. 

They’d sp0ken about their situation a few times over the phone. She’d confided in him about Graysen - about the mistakes made and the lessons she’d learned. About her hesitancy to jump straight into another relationship. So they’d agreed to keep things casual, to not label anything just yet. Still, it was evident by the constant tension between them, that they were undeniable more than just friends.

Perhaps that should’ve been obvious, given that the last time she’d seen him in person he’d had his head between her legs and it would’ve gone further had Nesta not rudely interrupted. 

She’d hated leaving him like that and had been so eager to see him afterwards but the New Year's rush had been hard to avoid at work for both of them and so they’d ended up agreeing to see each other when she visited for Nyx’s birthday - and to keep this new development just between them- until they could plan their next steps. 

That’s how they ended up in this house - Elain unable to look Azriel in the eye for more than a few seconds while surrounded by their family and friends without thinking of everything she wanted to do with him. She’d been more than happy to entertain Nyx and to help prep dinner. To do absolutely anything that would keep her busy so that she didn’t have time to think about the way she could feel him sneaking looks at her every time they were in the same room. With the distraction of other people, she could push aside the desire coursing through her for just a moment. 

Somehow, Elain had made it through the night successfully. She hadn’t raised any suspicions. Had managed to interact with him in a way that was just the right amount of friendly. But now, laying in the bedroom she always stayed in at Nesta’s house, all she could think of was him. Of what they’d done in the car on the way here just three or four hours ago. 

She wanted him again. Wanted his hands on her body. Wanted his tongue in her mouth. Felt like she needed him in a way that was borderline embarrassing. 

She picked up her phone, opening their text thread. She typed and deleted multiple messages before locking her phone and putting it face down on the nightstand. It felt too desperate to text him like that. Juvenile almost. But it was torture - each shift of her legs, the soft touch of the sheets, the feel of her t-shirt twisting around her sensitive skin - it all added to her incessant need. Her nipples were hard peaks and there was a thrumming low in her core that was becoming impossible to ignore. She’d never in her life felt frustration like this, pinpricks of sweat gathering at her hairline. 

She knew this wasn’t something that she’d be able to work away herself like she did when she was alone at home and desperate for him- in bed, her fingers stroking between her thighs.

Elain sat up, swinging her legs over the side of her bed. She needed air. A glass of cold water. And if she walked by his room… if she happened to see the glow of a light underneath the gap in his door, then that would be the sign she needed. Maybe then she’d knock. And if he happened to be awake, if he happened to open the door, then she’d feign ignorance - was just going to the kitchen and saw your light was on… 

With her mind made up, she slipped on her robe and padded to the door with the intention of venturing to the kitchen but she didn't make it far at all, pulling the door open only to almost walk face first into the solid wall of Azriel’s chest.

“Oh,” she swallowed, dragging her eyes up to his face. 

He looked just as dishevelled as she felt, his hair tousled as if he’d been running his hands through it. 

“I was just going to the kitchen because I needed some -”

“Save it,” he shook his head, voice low as he stepped towards her, forcing her to retreat back into her room. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything, too distracted by the look of determination in his eyes as twisted her around and quickly closed the door behind them.

Her entire body sparked to life, burning as he reached for her again, both hands firm on her hips until she was completely pressed up against the door with nowhere to go, his hips flush against hers, not even a single inch left between them. It was that movement that made her snap out of the daze, it was the feel of him hard and heavy against her stomach that left no room for questioning what he was here for or that his intentions matched exactly what she’d had in mind while she’d been tossing and turning in her bed. 

Azriel wasted no time, hands deftly undoing the tie of her robe, reaching up to slip it off her shoulders until it fell to their feet. His fingers were under her t-shirt a moment later, fingertips skimming the soft curve of her breasts. 

“Az, wait…” Elain breathed, trying to put a bit of space between them if only to clear her head a little. “Feyre and Rhys…”

“Don’t wanna hear names that aren’t mine right now,” he said gruffly, rolling his hips against hers.

“It’s just that they’re right next door. I share a wall and they could hear…” 

Azriel only smirked down at her, thumbs circling her sensitive nipples. “Guess you’ll just have to be quiet then won’t you. Do you think you can manage that?”

She knew he was being smart with her, knew that he remembered just how not quiet she’d been the last time he’d had his hands on  her like this. But her rational brain had seemed to vacate the premises and so instead of offering some sort of rebuttal back, Elain was muttering something like I can be so quiet, I promise I’ll be so quiet as she turned them around, tugging him down towards her and pulling him to the floor. 

“Right here?” Azriel raised an eyebrow, hands travelling up her legs and under the hem of her oversized t-shirt, leaving goosebumps in their path, until his fingers curled into the straps of the lacy underwear she wore.

“Yes,” Elain nodded, not bothering to explain that the headboard would likely be an issue for them. She lifted her hips up to make it easier for him to tug her underwear down her legs. “Here. Now. Need you.” 

“I know,” Azriel soothed, hands pushing her shirt up her torso before lifting it off her head, leaving her sprawled out underneath him - naked on the carpet. “I know, angel.” 

Elain bit down on her lip, watching as he quickly stripped out of his own clothes before lowering himself over her. One big palm was placed on her thighs, calloused hand spreading her wide in a way that would’ve made her blush if she wasn’t so focused on the blissful feeling of his weight settling on top of her and pinning her to the floor.

That same hand maneuvered in between their bodies, fingers easily parting her and slipping through her center - teasing and testing. He cursed under his breath, clearly pleased with what he found there. “You’re so fucking wet already, I think you could take me just like this but I’d like to taste -”

“No,” she shook her head quickly, blindly reaching between them to grip his cock, guiding it to where she was wet and ready for him. “Please.”

The feeling of him settling against her entrance was divine, and her back arched in search for more.

“Wait, fuck.” Azriel stopped all of a sudden. “Condom… they’re in my room. I can just go and…”

Elain locked her legs around him, nails pressed into his shoulder blades to keep him from moving any further away. She couldn’t bear for him to leave. Couldn’t possibly waste one more second with him when they were already so short on time. “It’s okay, I’m on the pill and I haven’t… there’s no one else so if you’re good then I’m good.”

“I’m good, Lain.” Azriel nodded quickly, relaxing a little as he once again situated himself, dragging his cock through her once before he pushed in just the tiniest bit so she could feel that beautiful pinch of initial pressure. “You sure?”

“Yes, fuck, pl-” her words were choked off with a gasp as Azriel pushed into her so slowly, each incredible inch of him sinking into her until there was nowhere else for him to go. 

His lips skated over her jaw until they found her own, kissing her sweetly as he withdrew out almost all the way before sliding in again. “There’s no one else, Lain. Just you.”

“Yeah?” Her eyes fluttered open to look at him as he sank into her. 

“Yeah, that’s how it’s gonna be now. Isn’t that right, angel?” He whispered as he plunged into her over and over again - slow, decadent drags of his cock that had her whimpering beneath him. “Just you for me and me for you.”

“Yes,” Elain nodded frantically, hips bucking up against his, desperate for more.

“You’re mine, aren’t you?” Azriel read her signs and lifted her knee, pushing it up and out to the side, allowing for a deeper fit that had her biting down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. 

“I’m yours. Fuck, fuck, I’m yours.” Elain moaned, lips seeking his mouth for another kiss. 

She didn’t know what had gotten into him but she relished in it. Body growing taut at the suggestion of belonging to him. Maybe it was the distance for him as well, the time spent apart, that had him just as crazed as she had been. Just as feral. 

It was so good. So fucking incredible to have him like this, so deep inside her, making her feel so unbelievably good that she couldn’t even think straight. It was undeniable that this was more than sex. Despite the carnal urge they’d both felt, this had to be more than just physical desire between them. She couldn’t get enough. Wanted even more. 

“Az?” Elain raked her nails up his back, tugging lightly at the hair at the nape of his neck until his eyes were on her. “Will you fuck me?”

She could see the look of confusion in his eyes, the little crinkle on his forehead as if he was trying to figure out if that wasn’t exactly what they were currently doing. It took a second but she could pinpoint the exact moment he caught on to what she meant because his eyes darkened and his lips twitched.

“You want it a little harder, hm? A little rough? I’ll give you whatever you want.” He pulled out of her, kneeling back and nodding as he looked down at her. “Turn over. Get on your knees.”

Elain bit down on the inside of her cheek, nervous anticipation coursing through her as she flipped over as directed. Her hands and knees were on the floor as she turned back to look at him, watching as he knelt behind her, hands kneading her ass . He gave her no warning before lining himself up and pushing into her in one rough, hard thrust - knocking the air clear out of her. 

She hadn’t even noticed that she’d made a noise until his chest pressed into her back, his hand covering her mouth as he nipped at a spot just below her ear. “Thought I told you to be quiet.” 

She loved him like this. Loved the authority. The dominance. The control. She needed it sometimes and she loved that he did as she wanted, fucking her properly without making her feel like any of the other men she’d been with had made her feel in moments like this. Because for each rough movement, there was praise. 

You’re doing so well, angel.  Azriel told her as he gripped her hips hard enough to leave bruises.

You feel so fucking good. As he placed a hand between her shoulder blades, pushing her down into the rug to create the perfect arch of her back.

Look how pretty you look when I’m fucking you. So beautiful when you’re taking me. As he fisted her hair, roughly turning her head until she caught their reflection in the mirror hanging on the closet door beside them.

“Az!” Her voice was muffled slightly by the carpet, her eyes hazy as she watched him fuck her - the measured snap of his hips, the flex of his arms as he gripped her hair, her hips, her ass. He was so strong, so assured in his motions as he easily positioned her just how he liked. 

She hoped and prayed that these walls were solid enough to block out noise because while she was doing her absolute best to stay quiet, there was nothing to be done about the sound of his skin hitting hers each time he fucked into her. Nothing to be done about the sinful, slick sound of his cock sliding in and out of her given how wet she was.

“What is it, Elain?” He asked. “Tell me what you need.”

“More,” she begged. She didn’t even really know what she wanted but she knew she wanted more of him. More of his touch. More of his words. Just more of him. “I’m so… I’m so close, please, I just need more.” 

Azriel slowed his thrusts, pulling gently on her hair until she was up on her knees, her back tight to his chest. Her head fell back onto his shoulder, her lips were on his neck tasting the salty skin there. 

“Feel like you were made for me.” His arms wound around her. One arm snaking up between her breasts to put slight pressure on her throat as he held her up. The other arm drifted down her torso until his fingers found her throbbing clit, his thumb smoothing quick circles there as he continued to push into her with deep, powerful thrusts. She pulsed around him, her stomach pulling tight as her desire reached a precipice with each stroke of his cock and each tap of his thumb. “There you go, Elain. That’s it.”

“So good. You feel so good.” She murmured, so pleased with the intensity this new position brought. “I’m so close.”

“Come for me, baby.” Azriel urged, his thumb still working her beautifully. “Be a good girl for me and come on my cock, Lain. Can you do that?”

Elain made a small noise of agreement, pushing back onto him to match his thrust, amplifying the feeling of him so deep inside her that she felt him in her belly, stretching her in the best way. It was like he was made to fill her. Made to fuck her. 

In the end it was his words that did it - the gentle praise coupled with the rough motion of his hips and his hands. It was Azriel whispering about how well she was taking him that tipped her over the edge. She collapsed back into him with the force of her orgasm, her teeth buried into his neck in a halfhearted attempt to muffle the way she cried out his name.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Ride it out. Take what you need.” His fingers continued to stroke over her, wringing out every last drop of pleasure until she was utterly boneless - absolute putty in his arms as he maneuvered them so that she was on her back again with him between her legs. “Just a little more, okay? I’m right there with you.”

When he dipped down to press his mouth to hers, Elain accepted it greedily as she spread her legs apart and welcomed him in. She was so sensitive, aftershocks of her orgasm still pulsing through her as he entered her again. She savoured the way their tongues slid together, moaning quietly as he lifted her hips and fucked into her quickly until his own hips started to falter. 

“Where do you want it, Lain?” Azriel asked, voice gravelly as he attempted to hold himself together.

“Anywhere. Wherever you want.” Elain told him, meaning every word. He could do whatever he wanted and she’d let him. He could come on her stomach, her breasts. Even her face if that would please him. But there was really only one place that felt right at this moment. One place that caused her to tense around him as if to wordlessly suggest the idea. “Inside me. Come inside me.”

She heard him groan at the suggestion, a string of low curses flying out of his mouth at her words. “Want it inside you? Want me to fill you up?”

“Yes,” Elain wrapped her legs around him, pulling him further into her. Showing him exactly how much she wanted it. “I’m yours, Azriel.”

He said her name as he came, hips stilling as his forehead pressed to her chest. She could feel it, the warm sensation, the jerk of his cock as he gave her everything he had until there was no room left for it all. Elain felt it on her thighs, felt it seep out of where they were still joined. 

“God,” Azriel moaned in disbelief, head still buried against her chest as he attempted to regulate his breathing. “That was…”

“Yeah,” Elain agreed, threading her fingers through his hair as she gently untangled her legs from his waist. He grabbed his t-shirt from where it was laying next to them, dabbing it against her thighs as he pulled out of her - ensuring nothing spilled from her onto the rug beneath them.

There were no words for what just happened. No possible way to summarise everything she felt in that moment. She’d never felt like that before. It was almost too good to be true how unbelievable it was. How incredible he’d made her feel. She couldn’t believe how much time they’d wasted not doing that.

They laid there for ages, neither of them able to find the energy to make it to bed. Instead, Azriel reached up and pulled a couple pillows to the floor along with a blanket, draping it over their naked bodies before pulling her into him. Her breasts against his chest. Her legs entwined with his.

They exchanged kisses in between whispered conversation- slow and heated - hands tracing and grasping until it was inevitable that somehow neither of them were ready to stop. It wasn’t long until Elain was on top of him, breathy moans slipping from both their lips as lowered himself onto his cock, riding him slowly. Grinding against him, taking her time drawing out their pleasure until they couldn’t possibly take it anymore and they both finished with stifled moans. 

“Az?” Elain broke the comfortable silence that had settled between them afterwards, her finger stroking along his jaw as his own fingertips traced soothing patterns down her arm. 

Azriel hummed, sleepy eyes fluttering open. 

It made her heart skip a beat - how beautiful he was like this - sex tousled hair and tired hazel eyes. Lips swollen, the dim moonlight illuminating his sweat slicked, tan skin. He was like a piece of art and she couldn’t believe how lucky she was to be the one to see him like this. To be the one that had messed up his hair and bitten his lips. 

“My necklace,” she forced herself to focus, swallowing nervously before she continued. “I never asked when you gave it to me but I’ve always wondered… the letter on the back…”

Elain trailed off, watching carefully as Azriel tilted his head back further into the pillow sandwiched between his head and the floor. She bit back a smile as a warm flush of colour crept up his neck and seeped into his cheeks. He’d caught on quick to where she was headed with this inquiry and his reaction was enough to hint at what his answer would be. 

“The ‘A’ on the back isn’t for my last name is it?”

“No,” Azriel answered quietly, his hand drifting from her arm. “No, it’s not.”

Her breath hitched in her throat as his fingers smoothed over her sternum, sliding in between her breasts until he reached the pendant. He flipped it over, thumb pressing into the small letter hidden there like a secret.

“Do you engrave your initial onto all the jewellery you make?” She asked.

“You know I don’t,” he answered. The initial signs of embarrassment were gone from his face and in its place was an unabashed, earnest honesty. “That was just for you.”

“Why?”

“You really don’t know, Lain?” He shook his head, tugging on the pendant gently. “I knew I couldn’t have you the way I wanted. Didn’t think I’d ever get the chance… so I thought I’d give you just a little piece of me. I suppose I liked the idea of my initial being right here. Against your skin. Close to your heart.”

As if to punctuate his words, he did just that - pressing the oval into her skin just as she’d done time and time again over the years in an attempt to steady herself in moments where she needed comfort. 

She knew. Of course, she knew that the letter on the back hadn’t really been for her last name. She’d seen the way his eyes fixated on it each and every time he saw her since he’d first put the necklace on her. Noticed the way he’d relax when he saw that she was still wearing it year after year.

It was a relief to know that all this time, what she’d secretly hoped to be true was actually true. 

“You’ve got a possessive streak, huh?” She didn’t know what else to say so she settled for the safe option of making a joke. Everything else that fought to leave her mouth would be too honest. Far too much, far too soon. “All that talk earlier about being yours…”

“I meant it,” he slipped his hand further up her neck, up to her jaw. His hold on her was loose but still, her blood heated with the suggestion behind the action. “We don’t need to put a label on anything. We can keep this quiet, keep it between us. But if we’re doing this then there’ll be no one else. Not for me. Not for you.”

“So we’re doing this, then?” she asked, finally breaching the question that had been hovering between them like a grenade over the past few months. “We’re… exclusive?”

“Yes, Elain.” Azriel laughed, lips hovering over hers as his thumb smoothed over the expanse of her throat. “We’re exclusive.”

She closed the distance between them, her lips pressed to his as Azriel rolled her onto her back and used his knee to guide her legs apart for the third time that night.

[notsocooljess]

Double Date

finally wrote the drabble i’ve been trying to write for weeks based on this reddit post discovered by @rainymyx in this post. i had so much fun writing this!

i want to continue to add to this based on the original reddit poster’s updates, so we’ll see!

read this on ao3 here

“What can I say? College football days should always be the best days of a man’s life. Now your best days can be listening to me talk about them.”

Ugh. Katniss huffed out a puff of air as she listened to Cato speak. An hour ago, she had been so excited for this date. They were texting for the past two weeks, and their conversation was easy and funny and, most importantly, normal. Now in person, his vibe was totally different than who he portrayed himself as online. Now, he was a thirty-year-old man who wouldn’t stop talking to her about his glory days from ten years ago and the “boozing, blinkers, and babes” that came with them.

After only receiving their appetizers and a single drink, Katniss knew she couldn’t stick around. The thought of having to hear Cato talk about another frat party he attended before The Force Awakens was released was nearly enough to bring her to tears. Desperate, Katniss did what she always did in trying times like these: text Johanna.

“Katniss! Katniss! I need your help, quick!” Johanna’s voice rang through her phone not even a minute later. Her ability to sound like she was truly in agony was as impressive as always.

“Johanna!? What’s going on?” Katniss responded, hoping her acting was, for the first time in her life, passable.

“It’s the baby! I need you here now!” her childless, non-babysitting, kid-hating friend shouted before quickly hanging up.

Katniss darted her eyes to Cato’s, and his brows were knit tightly as if he were trying to to put together the pieces of the conversation that just transpired.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure if you heard. My friend really needs me. She needs help with her… baby. I hate to cut this short, but,” she didn’t finish her sentence as she slipped on her coat. She shuffled through her bag and retrieved a twenty-dollar bill, smacking it on the table.

“Oh, yeah, it’s cool. You still wanna meet up at my place later, right? I have the best surprise waiting for you,” Cato responded while wagging his eyebrows, seemingly uncaring about her fabricated dire emergency or the quality of their date at all. This only irritated Katniss more. Her friend’s fake baby was in trouble, and all he cared about was getting laid!

“Uh… yeah, no. Definitely not. Let’s just forget about this, okay? Have the night you deserve,” Katniss practically snarled as she fled the restaurant.

Once she was in her car, she peeled out of the parking lot and quickly went around the block, looking for a place to park so she could call Johanna. She found a spot located outside of a small pub and dialed her friend.

“How was I this time? I feel like I’m really perfecting my blood-curdling shrillness. What do you say? Any pointers?” Johanna asked as soon as she answered the phone.

Katniss wanted to laugh, but now that the situation was over, she felt defeated. She actually had high hopes for this date, but she again found herself needing to bail.

At twenty-eight, Katniss finally felt ready to do things for herself. Before this, there was never the time. She was raising her sister Prim and taking care of her mother for more than a decade since her father’s passing. Now, Prim was in her second year of medical school where she received full funding for her work, and her mother has a live-in aide to help her with her daily needs. She finally did not have to spend all of her time focusing on school and work and money and bills, and without Prim nearby, she felt lonely. Her friends had convinced her to start going on dates, but after months of failed attempts, she still had nothing to show for it.

“Is it me, Jo?” she responded, “Do I just attract these weirdos?”

“Oh, shut up, brainless. You've been going on dates for a few months. Maybe if you gave yourself a little more practice when we were younger it’d be easier, but some people take years to find something that sticks. You’re hot. You’re smart. You’re caring. Maybe a little hard to swallow with the scowl, but anyone that gets to know the real you is gonna love you.”

She sighed, “Okay.”

“You wanna come over here? I was just going to watch some Dexter reruns, but there’s plenty of room on this couch for two.”

“Actually, I think I need a drink. I’ll let you know what I’m doing after.”

Katniss’s conversation with Johanna ended shortly after, and she made her way into the pub.

The pub was crowded, a symptom of it being a Friday evening in the winter, and Katniss had to shuffle past a group of freshly legal college students to make it to the bar. She wanted something simple, something just to take the edge off, and was quickly handed her rum and coke.

Eager to people-watch while she nursed her drink, Katniss scanned the crowd for an empty seat. Most of the tables seemed to be taken up by a larger group, but a single chair at a small table in the corner of the room was wonderfully vacant. Katniss closed her tab and swiftly made her way across the room.

As she approached, she stopped in her tracks. Hidden from her initial view was a man sitting on the other side of the table, somewhat hunched over with a book in his hands. Before she could backtrack and look for another open seat, he picked his head up and locked eyes with her.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was gonna sit here but didn’t realize you were already here. I’ll just…” her voice trailed off. Katniss had a habit of not finishing her sentences when she was flustered, and after meeting the man’s gaze, she was very flustered. Not only was she not expecting someone to be sitting at the table, but now that he was looking at her, his blue eyes piercing through to her even under the pub’s dim lights, she realized he was around her age and absolutely hot. Her hands began to sweat, and her tongue started to feel like lead.

The man smiled, an endearing smile that quirked more on the left side of his face, highlighting a sole dimple on his cheek. “Don’t worry about it. You can sit here,” He replied, his eyes scanning the room. “Besides, it doesn’t look like there’ll be much room anywhere else.”

“Are you sure?” She asked, and he nodded. “Thank you so much. I promise I won’t even bother you. We don’t even have to talk or anything…” Katniss said as she placed her bag on the table and took her seat.

Katniss started scanning the other patrons of the pub to observe their activities, but her eyes frequently darted back to the man seated across from her. She gathered more bits and pieces of his appearance in the brief moments she allowed herself to study his features. He had blond, curly hair that looked intentionally tousled. His shoulders were very broad, pulling the fabric of his navy henley taut across his chest. He had freckles across the bridge of his nose, and he drummed the table with his left hand while holding the book he was reading in his right.

After a few minutes, he lifted his eyes up from his book and offered her a soft smile. “My name is Peeta, by the way.”

“Katniss,” she said, offering a shy smile of her own.

“You know, I really don’t mind talking if you want to.”

Her grin grew. “Okay, then.” She paused, unsure of where to start, but her curiosity eventually got the better of her when she asked, “Can I ask why you’re reading a book at a crowded bar on a Friday night?”

Peeta chuckled, a laugh that let Katniss know he wasn’t offended. “You waste no time getting to the deep stuff. I actually just moved into my first solo apartment, and as much as I’m happy to have my own space, the silence feels kinda deafening.”

“Ah,” she began, appraising him up and down, “so you find comfort in the chaos.”

“Yeah, I guess I do. I grew up in a house with two older brothers, and the two of them used to practice wrestling no matter where they were. In the dining room, the backyard. One time they threw each other down the stairs,” he chuckled again, “Our mom wasn’t too happy about that one.”

“You’re joking,” Katniss laughed.

“Not even a little bit, I swear. And then I lived in a house with my three friends all the way through grad school. My best friend Finnick used to play eighties pop at all hours of the day. Think, like, Donna Summer or Cyndi Lauper on full blast at three in the morning.”

“And you guys never asked him to stop?” Katniss asked, finding she wanted to know more and more about him.

At this, Peeta hit her with a dead stare, his blue eyes piercing her with a combination of humor and seriousness. “See, that is something only someone who doesn’t know Finnick would ask. If we made any attempts to get him to stop this relatively-harmless-if-not-mildly-annoying behavior, we would only trigger severely worse outcomes for us all.”

“And you said this is your best friend?” Peeta let out a boisterous laugh in reply.

While sitting with Peeta, Katniss found the guard she had put up during her date with Cato had come crashing down.

They spoke about their jobs. Katniss explained how she works as a forest ranger, but she hopes to finish school to become an environmental engineer. Peeta said that he just finished graduate school to become a doctor of architecture.

“I really liked art, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy my parents or pay the bills, so I tried to do the next best thing I could think of.”

“So you became a literal doctor? In a field that’s focused on math and design? Are you a genius?”

“Time Magazine did call me the reincarnation of Albert Einstein.”

“Hm. And to think I placed you more as a Michelangelo.”

They spoke about their families. Katniss spoke about her mom and Prim. She bragged about her sister’s accomplishment in getting a full ride to a great medical school across the country. She felt so comfortable with Peeta, she didn’t even shy away from speaking about her late father, even if it was in the briefest of terms. Peeta nodded his head as she spoke, squeezing her hand across the table when he sensed certain details were particularly hard for her to get out. Peeta, the son of bakers, grew up really close with his older brothers. His oldest brother took over the family business, and while Peeta loves baking, he enjoys it more as a hobby than a career.

This seamlessly led to them speaking about their childhoods. Katniss was mostly shy, harboring two friends, Madge and Gale, through her schooling, despite her being a star on her school’s track and archery teams. University allowed her to come out of her shell and meet friends that didn’t matter her reticent personality, like Johanna. Peeta wrestled, painted, did debate team, and wrote. He had a solid group of friends during school, but he found his lifelong friends in college.

They spoke about the little things. Their favorite colors. Favorite snacks. Movies. Shows. And their answers were so similar across all categories, they had a near total eclipse on a venn diagram of each topic. Their responses were so alike that, at one point, Katniss plastered her face with her signature scowl Peeta had not yet been acquainted with, asking him if he was being totally honest with his responses.

He raised his hands in mock surrender, “Look, that scowl is too intimidating for me to not come clean. So the truth is, I’ve been being honest this entire time.”

Before Katniss realized, nearly two hours had gone since she first sat down with Peeta. They fell into a comfortable silence, and she studied his features more in the muted light. She tried to picture what he looked like out of this setting. Hunching over a sketchbook. Cooking in his kitchen. Laughing with his friends. Cheering on his nephews at their little league games.

She studied the way the dim light caught onto the golden strands of his eyelashes, becoming mesmerized by the way they fluttered against his cheek when he blinked. She didn’t even realize she was staring until he spoke again, causing her to jump slightly.

“So what about you?” He asked, a small grin on his lips.

“What about me?”

“Well, before you asked what I’m doing at a bar alone on a Friday night. But what are you doing alone here on a Friday night so that I, a stranger, was able to take up so much of your time?”

Katniss contemplates what she should say, unsure if she should reveal her failed date with Cato. But as Peeta looked at her with sincerity in his eyes, she has the hunch that she could really trust him.

“If I’m honest, I came here because I had left a really, really bad first date,” she responded sheepishly.

Peeta cocked his left eyebrow expectantly. “How bad?”

“Well… it was so bad I made my best friend call me and say she was having an emergency with her fake baby to give me a reason to bail,” Katniss blurted out, her tone hitching at the end to make her statement sound more like a question. Like she was questioning if she really did that herself.

Both of Peeta’s eyebrows were raised, his eyes glinting with amusement, lips curling in to stop him from laughing. “You’re kidding me,” he managed to croak out.

“In my defense, he only spoke about his college football experiences, and after I started leaving to go help my friend with her fake baby, he still asked if we were having sex later!”

At this, Peeta burst out laughing, and after Katniss realized exactly what she said, she joined him. As Katniss clutched her stomach, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes, she almost missed what Peeta said next.

“That’s why I’ve kind of given up on dating.”

“Given up?” Katniss asked, her voice airy from her recent laughter and something silly like concern that she might have been wrong about the connection she felt with him all night.

“In grad school, every date I went on just didn’t have any spark. They were just mediocre. Then, I got so busy with trying to finish my degree, I just gave up on the whole thing.” For the first time that night, Peeta responded without meeting her gaze.

She’s not sure what made her say it. Maybe it was the second rum and coke she had gotten while talking with Peeta. Maybe it was that she felt like she had nothing left to lose after her first failed date of the night. Or, maybe it was because she knew she’d majorly regret if she didn’t try to continue with the something that she felt burning between her and Peeta, but she had to say it.

“I find that hard to believe considering this is probably the closest thing I’ve had to a good date in what feels like forever.”

At this, Peeta drew his head back in what appeared to be shock. His eyes met her again, an indecipherable expression plastering his features as he searched hers. Katniss shifted in her chair, somewhat uncomfortable with his unreadable scrutiny.

Finally, Peeta’s features relaxed. and he looked Katniss right in the eye with a neutral, if not somewhat strained, expression. “Tell you what,” he began, “I have to go to the bathroom, but when I come back, I’ll ask you out for real.”

Katniss shot him a curious expression, but as Peeta began to move, it clicked. He did not stand from his seat – he wheeled back from the table, towards the back of the bar with the bathrooms. His left pant leg tied off just below the knee. Katniss understood: he wanted her to see everything about him before she agreed to go on a date with him. He was giving her an out.

At this, Katniss’s gut twisted, both with regret and butterflies. She felt somewhat bad for him, wondering if this was a move he made from being rejected for his physical condition before. Wondering how anyone could do that to anyone, let alone a guy like Peeta. But overpowering this feeling were the butterflies. He liked her. He wanted her to see all of him. He was laying his insecurities bare for her. Most importantly, he already trusted her. In mind, body, and spirit, he couldn’t be any more beautiful.

A minute later, Peeta emerged from the bathroom, a goofy grin plastered across his face to perfectly match hers.

As soon as he reached the table, the words came tumbling out of Katniss’s mouth before she could stop them.

“So, I’m free all weekend. What do you have in mind?”

[alien-magnolia]

Lost: Part 2

Lost: pt 2

Fic description: After spending a night with Jake, the two of you get to know each other better over the course of a few months. One special night, he takes you out flying, and you and Jake become a mated pair. 

Tw: nsfw minors dni. shy + subby omaticaya fem! reader, (mentions of human!reader at first) dom! Jake sully, exhibitionism, breeding kink, choking, overstimulation, mating, size kink! Rough sex, etc. Don’t like, don’t read.

A/n: this is a long one. Around 4K words. Bit of romance/fluff combined with heavy sexual undertones. Heavy smut towards the end. I am going to make this into a series. If you like this post, pls help a writer out and reblog💙

You woke up to the shining sun through the trailer. Jake was still there, still asleep. It took you lots of effort to lift his arms off you, you were surprised he kept you in his arms the whole night. He wakes up with a moan. “Hey, you sleep okay?,” he asks, as he stands up to cup your face into his hand. He picks you up without warning (you did not mind), so you’re right in his arms. He places you on the counter top, so you are at eye level with him. You giggle, sheepishly. “Yes. Never better.” 

“Okay. See you tonight.” He cups your face again, Hines you a wink, and jumps out the window, sprinting away. How could he like you? You were complete opposites, he was just so strong, tall, so big. His size drove you insane most of the time. Maybe you could be his sweeter, smaller half. You went out with him that night, and for many nights, it was you and him, together. He showed you many sights of the Pandoran forest, he taught you a bit of hunting, and he taught you most Omaticayan customs.  After a few months, you began to fall for him, and you felt that this night might be more special than most.

One month later, the forest, around midnight:

One month later, the forest, around midnight:

You wait for him inside. Your human body was tucked away, fast asleep, you were here as an avatar now. You were only seven feet tall, compared to the common Na’vi, who reached a height of eight to ten feet tall. You put some flowers in your hair, and fumbled with the rings on your fingers. 

You hear a knock. Jake is standing there, he is wearing some beaded bands around his arm, a beaded necklace too, perfectly fitted around his veiny neck. His serious face lights up for just a bit when he sees you. He comes closer to you, you crane your neck up to look at him. 

“Hi,” he says, in a hushed tone. “Hi,” you reply to him. His eyes rake you up and down, he steps towards you. Even your Na’vi body felt so small under him. “Come here,” he motions to you. His big hands bring you into him, close to his warm body, as he gives you a long kiss, cupping your face. The man looked at you as if you were a goddess, he was in awe. After a few kisses, he takes your hand and leads you out the door. He had a few weapons with him too. “Just in case, pretty dangerous out here for you,” he teases with a cocky smile. You blush and give him a little slap on the wrist. Although he has taught you how to navigate the forest, he still would protect you, given any chance he would get.

His hand in yours, he leads you out into the forest, you scramble to keep up with his big steps, but he does slow down for your sake. There were some monkey-like creatures swinging over the two of you, but he shooed them off. He found it real cute when you’d cling closer to him, when you heard a loud noise or got scared by something. 

You stop for a second because you wanted to collect samples. “Not here. Come on, I got a better place in mind, but you gotta trust me, okay sweetheart?,” he asks you. You nod, smiling. You cling onto him as he helps you cross this big log, and you see the beautiful night sky over the cliff. 

He whistled, and suddenly, the great leonopteryx swoops down and lands right near him. Jake pats the creature on the head, chuckling at your  awe. “You are Toruk Makto,” you trail off.

“That’s right. What did ya expect?,” he smirks back at you cockily. 

You were shocked. Not only did you get the attention of a Na’vi warrior, but the most powerful, and it was Jake. Of course it was. With a body like his, you wouldn’t doubt it a second more. “Don’t be scared, he’s all mine. Come, fly with me. I want to show you something, baby,” he says, as he extends a hand to you. You hesitantly take it, and Jake connects his queue (the nerves at  the end of his braid) to the creature to make tsaheylu, the bond. He lifts you up to put you on the creature, and sits in front of you. He screams for the creature to take off. It awakens something primal within you. 

You have flown on an ikran before, but  certainly not the giant one. You weren’t much of a thrill seeker like he was, but you liked it all the same. You knew the ways of the Na’vi people, how the Omaticaya lived in their village. He has taught you, introduced you to his world. Ikran was a hunter’s animal, powerful, fierce, just like your Jake. 

You passed through the beautiful night sky, you saw the forest down below. You stay pressed to his back tightly as he expertly flies and lands the ikran on a cliff, he helps you down with a swift grab of your hips. “Stay,” he firmly tells the large creature. He was so dominant, even if it wasn’t sexual. You loved it. 

You sat down to talk with him. He told you about his past as a human too, as a marine. He told you how he came to be an avatar at first, and now a permanent Na’vi. He told you the story of the war, how he became Toruk Makto, the protector of the Omaticaya. You tell him about yourself too, your shy nature and why you worked by yourself, secluded in the woods. You tell him about your human past as well. 

You and him were complete opposites, but that drew the both of you to each other even more. You wanted him, he wanted you too. You stayed at the cliff for the rest of the night, until twilight — just before dawn. 

“So.  Are you mated?,” you ask shyly, hoping that he would say no. You hide your face again, blushing. You expect him to be mated already, there are plenty of Omaticaya women who would throw themselves at the Toruk Makto. He told you that he didn’t have a mate, but he was looking for one, and that apparently, he already found one. 

“You found one?,” you asked, with a heavy heart. A tiny part of you longed for him as your mate. “Yeah. Honey. Think it’s you,” he chuckles, and smirks a bit, tilting his head to the side. “Me?,” you ask, in shock. “Yeah, you. So fuckin’ cute you are. I want to show you this special place. C’mon.” 

He looked a bit worried that you’d refuse, but you simply smiled and took his hand again, loving the look of relief that brushed across his face. He lifted you onto the giant ikran, and the two of you set off again. He lands the bird in front of the Tree of Souls. 

Helping you get off again, he leads you closer to the shimmering, bioluminescent cords and plants. You were in awe… 

“Jake. I’ve always wanted to see this place. It’s so beautiful.” He chuckles, and agrees: “Look. You can hear the ancestors from this. All you have to do is put your queue onto the tree,” he explains, as he steps closer to you, pulling you down to sit on his lap. You do as he says, you connect with the tree, with Eywa. It is beautiful. 

“Be my mate, baby. Be mine. I’d love nothing more,” he whispers to you, you stare into his adorable yellow eyes. “Eywa will guide us,” he asserts, and you nod excitedly. 

You were ecstatic. He brings you in, closer, gently running his hands over your face. He takes his braid, you take yours, the two of you connect, you make tsaheylu. You felt his breath, his heart, his mind. He felt yours. 

It felt so good to feel all of him, you were lost in his big, warm, chest. He smiled at you again as you kissed, his hands starting to have an iron-tight grip on your waist. “Was holding back before, baby. Didn’t want to hurt you,” he tells you. You didn’t want him to hold back anymore. “It’s okay, Jake. I trust you,” you gently whisper to him. 

This time he pushes you up against him, rougher, your whole body just jolted from the way he was manhandling you. His kisses were addictive, you trail your hands down his toned abdomen. Both your tails were just twitching, he was groping at you with his full strength, it hurt. 

You feel him push the cloth on his lap to the side, and without warning, he starts pushing his length into you. You could finally see it better, it was thick, the same color as his skin, with a few stripes and a large vein running down the right side. His tip was dark blue, and so soft as he pushed into you. You wanted to taste him, to feel him. Even in your taller form, it was hard to take him. His throbbing cock put so much pressure onto you. His hands harshly pinch and grope at your hips, your breasts.

He pushes into you roughly, all in one go. You let out a desperate moan, clawing at his large back for more. He chuckles. “Gonna be all fucked out on my cock, baby.” You can only nod. He starts bouncing you on him, going deeper and rougher with each thrust. You feel his groans come from his chest, which was pressed against yours, as both of you just kept looking into each other's eyes. His cock just hits that sweet spot in you, you feel so full with him, you feel his soft balls press up against your throbbing mound. “C’mon baby. Take me deeper, c’mon. Do it for me,” he grunts at you. 

He uses the leverage on your hips to shove you down into the ground, now he towers over you, his cock now able to reach into you all the way. You feel one of his giant hands find it’s place on your throat.  He has that determined look on his face. “Stay still for me.” You nod. “Good girl,” he grunts, and starts thrusting into you, his large biceps keeping him on top of you. You’re just delirious, cock-drunk, hell bent on having him rearrange your insides. You feel a bulge in your stomach, he puts his hand there, it’s still as big as half your abdomen. Even as a Na’vi, your size couldn’t match his.

“Feel that, sweetie. Feel my cock inside you, going all the way in. Gonna pump you so full of my cum, it’ll be spilling out of you the next day,” he growls, and you can only moan back in response, your glazed over eyes still on his. 

You never, in your entire life, thought that you’d be here, under this beautiful tree, getting a fifteen inch alien cock rammed into you. Again, and again…

“You close, baby? You are, can feel that tight cunt just fuckin’ milkin me. Go on, girl. Cum for me,” he grunts, as his thrusts get sloppier. His brow is furrowed, it is dark, but you see the spots on his skin glow, his face stern, focused on pleasing his mate, claiming you as his. “J-Jake,…” you stutter timidly. 

You felt so much, you felt everything. That white hot shock of pleasure was running through your veins, you felt high, you felt your heartbeat sync with his, so very fast. You felt his pleasure, you felt his emotions, you felt him inside you. His warm seed spills into you. He starts to slowly pull out. You grab his arm. 

“Want you to stay in, Jake. Please,” you beg him. He chuckles, and lays down on you, pressing your body to the ground with his enormous weight. “I’ll stay, baby. Gotta make sure it takes, yeah?” You agree, your heart sings. “You’re mine now,” he whispers, as he nips kisses over your face. You feel his sharp fangs, making you let out a breathy moan. He was your predator, you were his prey. But you were both united now, as one.  “I see you,” he whispers to you, with a small smile. “I see you, too.”

He flips you over on your side, you lay your head down on his heaving chest. You feel his muscles wrap around you, holding you tightly, secure. “You’re with me now, baby,” he hums. “Always and forever,” you whisper back. 

Your braids stay connected, and the two of you dreamt together, now, as mates, under the Tree of Souls.

Avatar tag list: @23victoria @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed @jake-sullys-whore @aerangi @brioffthegrid

[mychoombatheroomba]

Black-Out Names

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 39

You read through your contraband and Leon finds a way to spend time with you - in short, both of you continue to find new ways to break the rules.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Index

Leon’s muscles aching, finishing the day with fresh bruises, getting knocked on his ass thanks to your and Krauser’s combined efforts, stealing glances at you when there was a lull in instruction . . . it was almost like old times. If what had only been a few months ago could be considered “old times”. 

Having you back after that first week was enough to brighten the worst days. 

Even if you couldn’t join the rest of the squad in marches, or combat drills, you were at least allowed now to sit in for Reed and Hellman’s lessons. Leon watched you throw yourself into the studies, unyielding in your desire to learn. To prepare in some way for what was out there. Every time the agents would go over knowledge of known bioweapons, your eyes would sharpen, your muscles tensing. And if your body couldn’t perform right now, you made every effort to make sure that your mind could. Even if it meant setting mock explosives up with Krauser every morning before drills - and sometimes while everyone was taking meals. Even if it resulted in tripwires being set up in annoyingly inconvenient places, you were doing a little better. You always worked best when you had a goal. A purpose. You wouldn’t fall completely behind, if you could help it. 

Leon did his best to follow suit, trying to work in time to practice new skills between nights sparring with the others, or getting his ass handed to him by Major Krauser - who still took to the task with fervor. The impending graduation made it easier to focus, but you . . . 

Maybe Krauser hadn’t been entirely wrong about you being a weakness, because it was hard not for Leon to look your way when he was in the classroom with you. It was hard not to let his thoughts drift to you during the day, wishing it was you that he locked blades with instead of Valeria or the others. 

With Hellman’s eyes on the two of you, though, he knew he couldn’t afford to be obvious. He couldn’t even afford to let a glance betray the two of you.  

Still, on those days when you weren’t helping Krauser set clever traps and you joined the others in the mess hall, he would sit at your side. You were friends, after all. Reed and Hellman knew that much. There was no harm in you two speaking, so long as it was in public. With others. Still, Leon would sometimes risk a self-indulgent touch; fingers brushing as he handed you water, his knee resting against yours under the table . . . 

He felt like he was in a goddamn old-timey movie. One of secret affairs and longing glances. Forbidden love. 

You would have hated that way of describing it, but Leon would have given just about anything to see your annoyance at the description. He could imagine the eye-roll you’d give him. You’d probably continue that eye roll as he kissed you, too, he could almost see it. 

He could almost see a lot of things, as he sought solace in the memory of your touches. 

It wasn’t enough. 

He’d gone a long time without your touch before, at Fort Benning, but now it was your company he craved, too. Desperately. With eight - and now seven - weeks on the clock, he wanted as much time with you as possible before he was shipped off to fight the horrors Reed and Hellman described to the others. The monsters that Leon, in ever-dwindling spare time, would describe to his squad mates, telling them how he fought and killed the nightmares. He wasn’t ready to face them again, and he wasn’t ready to leave you behind. 

So, he would seek opportunities to be with you. Reed and Hellman wanted him to learn spy shit? He could do that. He could find more ways to be around you that wouldn’t draw suspicion.

And he started that process mostly by accident. 

⧫⧫⧫

You had never been one to stay up late reading, even before joining the Army. Your youth had been spent in other ways, and if there was a late night to be had, it was often one involving being out and about in the world, finding ways to get in trouble. 

You hadn’t thought that your C.O. would so readily help you find that trouble. 

The reports weren’t supposed to be in your hands - that much was clear. Krauser would have just openly given them to you if they were something you were supposed to have. So, during the day and when you helped the Major with setting up more traps around the base, you kept them stashed away in the lining of the mattress you slept on. 

In the free hours of the night, though . . . you kept the light on and the blinds closed, and you did as Krauser ordered you to do; you read. 

Leon was the one trained to be a police officer. You’d been a grunt from the day you could put the uniform on, but still you found your mind making connections. You were an investigator, trying to understand just how everything had gone so wrong. Trying to tie together the events that had put you and Leon and so many others through such hell.  

It did your mind no favors, knowing that, whatever else was going on behind the scenes with Umbrella, all known records of anything bioweapon-related started on a date you knew all too well. 

January 29th, 1998. 

The night your life nearly ended and was forever changed. 

You didn’t reread the report. You were the one who made it, after all. You’d agonized over the details of that night enough. 

Total destruction . . .

Viral weaponry . . .

Unknown paramilitary group involvement . . .

One survivor . . .

The only thing of importance in that report was the date. The fact that everything else followed it, which exhumed an old guilt that had started to eat at you when you heard the reports of Raccoon City. Even if the government had wanted to cover up what happened there, you’d seen the news. Heard the reports of people gone mad, a strange sickness that made its victims violent. 

“She looked like a corpse. Like a walking corpse!” you’d heard on the radio, one day. You remembered. 

You’d known in your heart what it all was, before it had even been confirmed to you. And in those nights you spent reading and rereading, you found yourself filled with anger. You’d often thought that if you’d been faster or stronger or smarter on that night in January, then maybe there would have only been one report for you to read through now. You’d let your own guilt talk you into believing that you could have stopped what was to come. 

Now, though, reading a chain of communications from August, you realized that it was inevitable that it would end up this way, because the government that employed you had smelled blood and come running. 

𝚂𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝: (𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚎)

𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖: █.█.

𝙼𝚢 𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚜 ███████ ██████, 𝚊 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚜𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙸’𝚖 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚝 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚔 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞. 𝙾𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔, 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚒𝚗 ███████ 𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛, 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝. 

𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 ███████ 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛, 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚗 𝚞𝚗𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚒𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚏𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎. 𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚔, 𝚒𝚏 𝚋𝚢 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚡𝚢, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚢 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗. 

𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚒𝚝, 𝚒𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝. 

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚞𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚕 𝚊𝚝 █████ ████ 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚟𝚒𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 - 𝚊𝚗 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚟𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚗𝚟𝚘𝚕𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜. 𝙸𝚖𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚎𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚝𝚘 𝚠𝚒𝚙𝚎 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗. 

𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚟𝚘𝚕𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚒𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 - 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚍 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚞𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙸𝚏 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚍, 𝚒𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚛𝚜, 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚒𝚏 𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚞𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚕𝚘𝚋𝚎. 

𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚘𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕 𝚌𝚘𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚛𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝙸 𝚊𝚜𝚔 𝚒𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗 𝚒𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢. 

𝙸𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍, 𝙸’𝚖 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚐𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎.

You’d read that part time and time again. You’d let ink on paper seed rage and retribution in your heart. Even blacked out, you knew the name of the scientist writing - Leon had told you and Krauser both all those nights ago. Birkin. A name for you to assign blame to, if not for the knife in your gut, then for the creation of the virus that destroyed your life. 

Trouble was, you didn’t have a name for whoever had been stupid enough to answer his call for help. Not with the letters blacked out, hidden from your view. 

𝚂𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝: 𝚁𝙴 (𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚎)

𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖: █.█.

𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚜, 𝙳𝚛. ██████. 𝚆𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝙸 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 . . . 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚛, 𝚑𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚘𝚕𝚍, 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚏 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚏𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚏 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚙. 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚄𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊’𝚜 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝. 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚂 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚘𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎. 𝙺𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚞𝚜 𝚞𝚙𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜. 𝙸 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖 𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚞𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛𝚜.

█████ ████

Not without something actionable . Reading that sentence was molten metal being poured into your gut. This wasn’t something the CIA agents had bothered to talk about. Nor would they, you imagined. Too damning. Too irredeemable. It left the taste of bile behind as you read confirmation of what Leon had already told you; the US had seen potential instead of tragedy from the destruction of your base. 

Whoever this blacked-out name was, they’d wanted a weapon and damn the consequences.

Damn the consequences, and damn the man who made that weapon, as you later discovered.

𝚂𝙴𝙿𝚃𝙴𝙼𝙱𝙴𝚁 𝟸𝟽𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟸:𝟶𝟶

𝚁𝚎𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙰𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚝: █████ ████

𝚁𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝙲𝚒𝚝𝚢

█████ █████ 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚒𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚊𝚜 “█”. 𝙸𝚏 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚖 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝙳𝚘𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛 ██████, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚗𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚖 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚣𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚟𝚒𝚛𝚞𝚜 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚜. 𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚢.

And then, a few lines down . . .

𝚂𝙴𝙿𝚃𝙴𝙼𝙱𝙴𝚁 30𝚝𝚑, 01:𝟶𝟶

𝚁𝚎𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙰𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚝: █████ ████

𝚁𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝙲𝚒𝚝𝚢

𝙰𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 █████ █████, 𝚠𝚎 𝚖𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚞𝚛𝚎. 𝚂𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚍 𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎. 𝚂𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍.

Shit had hit the fan and they’d left Birkin out to dry. Him and whoever had been sent into the city on a suicide mission. You couldn’t say you pitied the Doctor. In fact, you were glad that he was dead. Glad that, according to what little Leon had told you of that night, Birkin had been stripped of his humanity by his own creation, until Leon put him down at last.

As you read the reports, you sighed as you learned that no one - or, at least, no one in the reports you were handed - had walked away with the virus. The US had lost out on their dirty prize. And then they’d destroyed an entire city. 

All for Umbrella’s idiocy, hundreds of people had suffered. The man you cared for most in the world had suffered. 

You needed to know all there was to know.

So you’d stayed up night after night, reading and piecing together the story until Krauser would come and get you to set more traps. And when you returned, you would read into the waking hours or until exhaustion demanded rest, whichever came first. 

Even if you’d asked, in essence, to see those reports, they frustrated you. 

As if you weren’t already frustrated enough as it is with your situation. 

The only thing keeping you sane were your outings onto base. Going with Krauser at night to set the traps . . . and the few classes you were allowed to take with your squad. Seeing Leon again, even if it had to be in public settings, even if you couldn’t let yourself express what you wanted to express, was enough to keep you sane and make you teeter on the edge all at once. 

So you focused on reading. On the radio. On anything you could focus on. 

Like the little lockpicking set in your hands, one you twisted and turned, trying to get it to click open. 

Hellman had been nice enough to give you a few sets of locks to practice on - as if “nice” was an act you really bought from the man who’d waterboarded and beaten you. Maybe he felt bad that his friend broke your ribs. Reed sure as hell didn’t. The darker-eyed agent hadn’t really spoken more than a few words to you since the interrogations. That suited you well enough. Getting into a fistfight would be a bad idea in your condition. 

A really cathartic, bad idea . . .

The pins aligned, and the lock in your lap gave way, opening up to nothing at all but a slight feeling of satisfaction, somewhat familiar. You’d tried to learn in your youth. Helped to have actual instruction now, even if it was from men you hated.

“You’re goo’ a’at.” The observation was barely audible as Doc shoveled more pasta into his mouth. Penne with a red sauce. You were fairly certain that Krauser had asked the medic to watch and make sure you weren’t doing anything to aggravate your injuries. You were also fairly certain he was always eating homemade meals in the room just to torture you. 

Joke’s on you, old man. Been there, done that.

“Have to be. It’s all I really can do.” That might have been an over exaggeration, but there was enough truth there to warrant the statement.

It just made the grizzled man swallow and shrug. “You’re good at picking radio stations and frowning, too.” 

You wouldn’t have hesitated to tell a superior officer to fuck off, once. Not one who had started becoming less and less formal with you, anyway. Still, you held your retort but for a glower. 

Besides, footfalls and Doc’s attention being drawn elsewhere stole your chance for a reply. 

You couldn’t be mad at the theft when you looked up and saw who stepped into the room. 

Only Leon could look so gorgeous covered in mud and grime, his fatigues dirtied on the front and his arms covered in it too. Arms that were held up against his chest, one hand clasped over the other. It wasn’t a tight enough grip to prevent the blood from slipping down his muddied arm, though - a sight that made your eyes widen involuntarily. 

“What’d you do this time, rookie?” Doc asked, setting his lunch down and rising to his feet. 

Leon looked from the older man to you, and there was no evidence of real pain in his soft smile. “Ask that one. Unless you want to tell me someone else put a tripwire charge in barbed wire.” 

Ah, so he’d been the first one to run across the tripwire charge that you and Krauser had left there the night before. Well, more so the Major than you. The low hanging barbed wire set up to train for the infiltration course wasn’t something that you’d be crawling through any time soon - a fact that should have immediately cleared you of any blame for setting the charge there. Now, were you guilty of thinking of putting it there? That was another story.

Did you feel guilty for your little idea causing Leon to bleed? 

Also another story. 

“Come on,” Doc moved forward, ignoring the playful jab thrown at you. “Let’s see.” 

It was a nasty cut. Or maybe tear would be the better word. Deep and still gushing some blood on Leon’s right hand. Nothing incredibly serious, but for the mud Leon had been crawling through. “Krauser wanted me to go get it cleaned.” Your suspicion was confirmed with those words, and Leon once again looked between you and the Doc. 

“Better stitch it, too,” the Doc nodded, pulling the supplies he’d need as you were struck with a feeling of deja vu. It wasn’t so long ago you were stitching up Leon after the tear gas ambush, telling him that you wanted to talk about the kiss you’d shared. You’d been able to offer your services then and have it not be suspicious, so Doc would leave the room. You weren’t sure you could do that a second time without raising the man’s scraggly eyebrows. Luckily, though, as he searched through what he had available, you realized that you might not need to. “Come on . . .” he groaned. “Make yourself useful and clean it out, would you? My idiot assistants didn’t replace the thread.” A fact you were all too grateful for as Doc left to grab some and you and Leon were finally, mercifully, gifted your first few moments alone. 

Leon wasted no time, just as you knew he wouldn’t. 

“So,” he said, watching as you collected the supplies to clean his wound, “you gonna kiss it better?” 

It was stupid enough to stop your movements, and you just raised your eyes to meet Leon’s, unable to stand the cheeky grin he gave you. 

No, that was a bold-faced lie. You adored that look. 

Smug bastard knew it, too. 

“You been thinking of that one the whole walk over?” you asked, wiping away the grime carefully and then disinfecting the cut. It was bigger than you thought, now that you were getting a good look at it, a rip in the flesh between his thumb and pointer finger. “You know, you’re supposed to avoid the barbed wire.” 

Leon smiled, not even flinching this time around as you poured the disinfectant over the wound. “I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

And Krauser called you the smartass. 

“So you, what, decided to backhand it this time around?” 

“Wire had it coming,” Leon shrugged, but then after a deadpan from you, he shifted to a more serious tone. “I was trying to disarm the charge. I triggered it instead and pulled my hand away too fast.” 

That made you raise another incredulous look his way. The charges you and Krauser had been little more than firecrackers - a placeholder for the real thing. Still, you supposed that having your hand right next to an explosive of any kind when it went off wasn’t a good idea. Still . . .

“Think you were just looking for an excuse to end up in the infirmary.” Your voice was low, just in case the Doc came back. 

Leon just smiled and shrugged. “Believe whatever you want,” he said, blue eyes finding your own. Searching and savoring in a way that sent sparks through you. Was that all it took, now? Just him looking into your eyes, like you were some idiot teenager looking at their crush? 

It would be so easy to close the distance between you. A quick journey that you so desperately wanted to take. 

But as you heard Doc’s returning footsteps, you backed off. Even if the man, you were fairly sure, had helped Krauser pass along classified documents to you, you didn’t want to take a risk like that. 

Now, a risk of another kind . . .

“If I stitch him up for you,” you looked over at Doc as he returned, the older soldier caught by surprise as you spoke, “can I have some of your fancy home-made lunches?” Frame it as you wanting something else. Reed and Hellman teaching you to all to move and act without suspicion could be their downfall, because Doc didn’t seem suspicious whatsoever of your offer. 

Just annoyed. 

“You want payment in my wife’s cooking for stitching up one cut?” he asked, and Leon smiled at you sympathetically. “You want good food, kid, you gotta earn it.” The older man looked between you and Leon’s injury, and then shrugged once more. “Not a bad place to start, though.” 

You could work with that. Not only an opportunity to be with Leon right now, but a chance to maybe get some better food overall? That sounded like a net gain to you. 

So, you sealed Leon’s cut with needle and thread, your hands steady even if the rest of your body felt like it was atrophying slowly. Just as you’d done all those nights before, you worked near silently, doing your best to get this done painlessly . . . but not too quickly. You wanted whatever time you had with him to last, and even stitching up a wound for him was something you’d savor, because it was the first time in nearly two weeks you’d been able to touch him. To do something for him. 

Still, he had to get back to training. He had to focus, because his life was going to be in danger again far sooner than your own.  You couldn’t take away from his time preparing for that-

“So I was thinking,” Leon began, his tone more neutral than you’d heard it in a long time. Almost . . . formal was the wrong word, but nowhere near the playfulness you’d heard from him even a minute ago. He spoke in a measured way, even as you pushed a needle through his skin and tugged on the thread tied to it. You looked up, realizing his eyes were set on the little open lock and lock picking set you’d left on the bedside table. “A lot of us are still struggling with the stuff they’re showing us in Reed and Hellman’s lessons.” A gesture to the very lock that had caught his eye. “Thought we could all work on it together. In our off hours.” 

Not beaming at him took some effort, because you knew he was just coming up with more excuses to spend time with you in a safe way, even if he was serious about wanting to practice new skills. 

“Sounds like a plan.” You didn’t have to think hard to agree, didn’t have to hide the fact that you thought it was a good idea. 

You would just hide why you did. 

And so, that night, you found yourself hosting a company of six, including yourself - even Alejandro had joined in, this time. Just like that day after Krauser pulled you from the prison, you let the radio play softly as you all exchanged phrases in different languages, as you let Alenko correct your pronunciation, or you showed Williams how you’d gotten a particular lock to turn. 

It was all good practice, good knowledge for you and everyone to have . . . but your attention was divided. Torn between the man you wanted so desperately to get lost in, and the folder of reports you’d stashed beneath your mattress. You thought of whether you should tell them all you’d learned. 

You wanted to. The knowledge you’d gained felt like it was trying to claw its way out of you, a beast looking for more of its own kind. You wanted to fill in the gaps of everything you didn’t know. You wanted to have the full picture, because even now, it seemed that there were still things being kept from the others. You wanted to know everything there was to know. Names, locations - everything. 

And yet . . . there were still two reports you refused to read. Two stories.

One known in full, the other known in pieces. 

Those reports weighed on you for a different reason. It wasn’t about understanding an enemy, or why a tragedy beyond measure had happened. Your story and Leon’s weighed on you because, in the back of your mind, you knew that time was running out. Whatever happened to Leon after his graduation was beyond your control. It always had been - that was what you’d warned him of so long ago. 

You would know as much about Leon S. Kennedy as you could before fate took control of you both. 

And he would know as much as he wanted to know about you. 

You would find a way to make sure of that.

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Chapter Index

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Don't Go Blindly Into the Dark

Summary:

To hide that he can't read, Jan Van Eck has been forcing his son to pretend he's blind since he was eight years old. Wylan is now attending Ketterdam University, and meeting Jesper Fahey may very well be about to change his life. But is he safe to tell Jesper the truth? And what will Jesper say if he does?

Jesper is struggling to weigh up his life in the Barrel and his life at the University of Ketterdam, and there's a good chance that his growing debt is about to make the decision for him. He hasn't attended class consecutively for months, but maybe that will change when his newest project includes partnering up with Wylan Van Eck. But can he really leave the Barrel behind him? And how long can he keep up the pretence of who he thinks Wylan wants him to be?

Tags: @justalunaticfangirl @lunarthecorvus

If anyone else would like to be tagged let me know :)

Content warnings for this chapter: death, descriptions dead bodies, blood and wounds, gore, violence, murder, implied sa references, trafficking references

AO3 link

Note: I only freaking went and did it again *facepalm* Sorry, I once again updated on ao3 and left the tumblr post completely written and open on my laptop without actually posting it - but at least this time it's only been a few hours instead of an entire day haha. Love to y'all, thanks so much for reading <3

Chapter 31 - Kaz

“Kaz-”

Kaz looked up from his office door, his gloved hand half closed over the handle, to see Jesper working his way across the room towards him. He sighed and shifted his weight against his cane, leaning heavily against it as he waited for Jesper. The weather had begun to clear up after the storm but the air was still damp and clingy, and his leg never liked the wet or the cold. Convenient, for Ketterdam. 

“I just spoke to Layla,” said Jesper, as he reached him, “About that girl from the Sweet Shoppe-”

“Inside,” Kaz nodded to his office door.

Jesper faltered slightly, but followed him in and pushed the door shut as Kaz sat down behind his desk. He stretched his bad leg out in front of him. 

“I’ve seen her,”

“Layla?” asked Jesper, frowning, “I thought she said-”

“Amethyst,” said Kaz, “I saw her,”

It hadn’t been pretty. Jesper grimaced, leaning back ever so slightly in the chair he’d taken up.

“You mean…” he gestured vaguely up and down his own face, as though miming the place Amethyst had been cut through.

Kaz nodded. 

He’d been to the Exchange just before their job this evening was supposed to start, only there to remind someone what he knew so that they’d agree to update him on which guards would be working over the coming nights. It wasn’t for a while that he’d be needing the information, but they might get ideas of lying to him and if they did then he needed to make sure they knew what would happen to them. He also couldn't afford for the night they chose to be the night he needed to know, so the work would have to begin in advance. Finding Amethyst spilling her innards down the steps had been unexpected - and unwelcome. Kaz hadn’t been prepared. 

“Perfectly,” he added, watching the grim look on Jesper’s face deepen, “Straight in half,”

“Some Grisha can do that, can’t they? They say the Darkling could,”

Kaz shook his head. 

“A weapon specific to very powerful Etherealki, I believe. No frightened runaway in the middle of Ketterdam could have done that, or at least not anyone who’s been flying under the radar for long - and anyway, I don’t think the Cut’s precise enough for two equal halves. I’ve heard some stories,”

Nina had an unnerving habit of dropping such things, things she’d witnessed as a child during the Ravkan Civil War, into casual conversation and being surprised when people were taken aback, but Kaz had heard of it from a couple of others as well. As far as he could tell, the Cut would have been even messier than what he’d seen today. 

“So then, what?”

“I have no idea,”

There was a brief pause, before Jesper ventured. 

“Do you think it’s the same person? Tara - she’s the girl from the Menagerie - Tara and Amethyst, do you think-?”

“I don’t think,” Kaz sighed, “I’m certain. The patterns are far too similar, the murders far too close together, the mode of operation is exactly the same - except the death itself,”

And was there to that? Everyone, Kaz included, had thought that the Leopard, Tara, had been strangled; the bruises around her neck were heavy, inkblots on her too pale skin, and her body was otherwise unmaimed but for scars and the remnants of old injuries. But bruises could have been placed there, couldn’t they, by a Corporalnik? Though Kaz couldn’t imagine any possible motivation for that. None of this seemed to quite make sense. 

“The question is whether they have real motive or if this is just mindless killing - and the answer is that mindless killing, even in the Barrel, is much rarer than people think. In any case it doesn’t get this much attention. Mindless killing is messy, its random - mindless killing is corpses with no connection to each other, usually lower effort, sometimes a more fleeting motivation fulfilled and the victim killed in the aftermath. Mindless killing isn’t premeditated, it doesn’t involve such long-term kidnappings - remember both had been missing for at least a week, Tara for two, but those bodies were fresh. When Tara was first found, maybe we could have struck that up to mindless. The seeming randomness of it, the returning her to the Menagerie, even the method; all of it could have just been Tara’s very bad luck. But looking at it all together…” Kaz shook his head, “You know a girl from West Stave died in a similar pattern last month? From a smaller house, didn’t get much notice; I didn’t start to connect the dots until Tara, but when Amethyst went missing I knew. Something’s happening here, and if something’s happening then someone’s making it happen with intention and with motive. These are setups, and there’s somebody pulling the strings behind them,”

Jesper fidgeted a little, and Kaz saw his hands drift towards his gun belt. He’d swapped his prize revolvers, still sitting in Kaz’s safe, for two sad little lumps of pistols and apparently they weren’t giving him the comfort that his own guns usually did. He always laid hands on them when he was antsy, like a child seeking the comfort of a favoured doll, and now his fingers were dancing over the replacements like they couldn’t quite decide where to land. 

Kaz flexed his gloved fingers and gripped his cane tighter. He could have given Jesper his revolvers back, the safe was right behind him, but he didn’t move. Jesper hadn’t asked for them, he knew the deal was incomplete, and Kaz could admit to himself that part of him wanted to punish Jesper a little. He owed the sharpshooter nothing, and if Jesper hadn’t left her behind then maybe the Wraith wouldn’t have been injured. Kaz may not have lost money on the proposed deal with Wylan, but Jesper’s proposition had cost Inej something more. And it was costing Kaz the loss of her skills these past few weeks, leaving him in the dark on details she could have gathered for him. He was well within his rights to keep the guns, by the deal they’d made at least, but he knew that if Jesper asked for them he would hand them over. But Jesper hadn’t asked, so they continued to gather dust in Kaz’s locked office. 

“Who died last month?” asked Jesper, a little quieter than before.

Kaz shrugged.

“I don’t have a name, but the point is that whatever’s happening here is building up. The first didn’t get attention, the second wasn’t atypical of West Stave it was just showier. But Amethyst? This is new,”

Kaz suppressed a shudder at the thought - he’d never seen a body like that before. Amethyst had been splayed over the steps outside the Exchange, stripped bare, leaking blood onto the stones. Her entire body had been sliced in two, from head to foot, and the open flap of her chest cavity spilled structures Kaz probably couldn’t even name free from the cage of her ribs and flesh and skin. His eyes skirted quickly to her face. It was impressive they’d managed to identify her, he thought, and then a minute later realised that they hadn’t needed to. Her face was smashed and blood-soaked and split into two equal halves, but the dismemberment had left her arms untouched. The Sweet Shoppe tattoo, dancing on her skin in time with the mist. 

Kaz swallowed tightly, stiffening his hand on his cane and readjusting his bad leg. There were more stadwatch on their way, in fact it was surprising the entire place wasn’t crawling with them yet, and Kaz didn’t fancy being the only person around the corpse when they arrived. He didn’t want to look at it any longer, everything in him was screaming to turn and run, but Kaz’s feet would not move. Amethyst’s bulging eyes stared up at him from their unnatural distance apart, and even standing there he could feel the cold skin, taut over bloating flesh, wet beneath his palms. 

“Kaz?”

Kaz snapped back to the present, gaze fixing on Jesper and forcibly anchoring him in the room. He felt an unfair rage fizzing straight through him, crackling down his arms and all the way into his fingertips. 

“This is new,” Jesper prompted, “What…?”

“I don’t know what kind of weapon could do that to a person,” Kaz shook his head, “And I don’t know why someone wanted to kill Amethyst, or the others. But I know they had a reason,”

It probably wasn’t anything to do with the girls themselves. At the end of the day they were easy targets, weren’t they? Heleen and Pekka may even have had some money slipped to them under the table, Kaz wasn’t sure he’d be surprised. Though maybe not, or they might have done a better job of keeping the original disappearances under wraps. It didn’t matter. Kaz didn’t think that Tara and Amethyst, or the other girl, had been chosen individually for who they were. They’d been chosen because they would get no more attention than Barrel gossip, and because no-one was going to expect the stadwatch to solve the murder of an indenture from West Stave. Kaz doubted the first victim had even been reported to them. Who would have said anything? He just didn’t understand what they’d been chosen for. If they’d all been killed like Amethyst was, he’d assume someone was testing some kind of new weapon. But something didn’t add up here, and it was putting Kaz on edge. 

“They’ll do it again,”

It wasn’t a question but Kaz nodded anyway, and Jesper leaned back as he drummed his fingers against his knees. Again Kaz thought he might ask to have his revolvers back, but he said nothing. 

“They’re getting braver,” Kaz mused, “Who says this only started last month?”

And what comes next? 

There was a long silence.

“You were late,”

“I was setting up a sling for Inej,” said Jesper, readjusting on his seat, “And I had to wait for Anika so there was someone to stay with her,”

“How is she?”

“Restless. In pain. Improving,” Jesper shrugged, “You might know better for yourself if you spoke to her,”

Kaz didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. He hadn’t spoken to Inej since she woke up in his office a few days ago. Her sudden panic at waking up in a room she only had hazy memories of dragging herself to through the clouds of pain that were clinging to her, lying on the floor, wearing someone else’s clothes, had been palpable in the air even before she’d scrambled away from him across the boards. As soon as she moved her face contorted in pain and she shuddered to a halt, pulling her arms into herself and pressing into the cupboards behind her as she shook herself properly awake and her dark eyes found Kaz’s. 

“Don’t try to walk until you’re ready,” he told her, “Nina’s outside, she’ll take you back to the Slat,”

Inej watched him for a moment, shaky breaths filling the air between them. Kaz stood slowly and began to walk towards the door, wary of Inej’s eyes on him. 

“The body’s been moved,” he said, feeling something soften in his voice whether he wanted it to or not, “If you’d rather swap to a different room maybe I can-”

“It’s okay,” she whispered, and he couldn’t help but turn to see her, “Thank you,”

Kaz’s heart was in his throat and Inej’s eyes were wide and dark enough to drown in. 

“I’ll get Nina,”

It was all he could bring himself to say. 

[alulasprinkles]

'The Stress-Ink Never Lies' out now :)

Her lip was bleeding again. She’d bit it too hard earlier, around book number four—that was, book number four of tonight, of course. Since promising to find a way to save Andromeda—a viable way, one that didn’t rely on famously lost runes—she’d read close to thirty.

She pulled her scrawled notes closer and dipped her quill in ink. Running her tongue over the small cut, she scrawled a potentially relevant quote from Secrets of the Castle. The book wasn’t well known for a reason; it was vague, misinformed, and entirely biased towards house elves (no, house elves were not ‘utterly incapable of fulfilment without a broom or ladle in hand’). However, within its pages, she’d found another possible lead: the fifth possible lead she’d found this week—numbers one, two, three, and four being swiftly disproven by a ruthless Malfoy.

If she heard the words ‘yes but’ one more time, she was going to permanently muffliato her ears. She rubbed her temples just thinking about that drawling know-it-all tone. She might wonder if he didn’t want to find a way to save Andromeda… if she hadn’t witnessed him relentlessly pouring over book after book, night after night. At this point, that was the only thing that kept her from screaming at him—remembering that he’d already spent months wading through this frightening madness—alone.

“Hermioneeee?”

She looked up from her parchment. Based on Parvati’s expression, this was not the first time she’d called Hermione’s name. Hermione shook her head slightly, becoming aware once more of the buzzing common room around them, students crammed around tables post-dinner to study for their approaching midterms.

“Er—sorry,” Hermione replied guiltily, closing the book in front of her, but not before inserting a slip of parchment to mark her place. She needed to ask Malfoy about the passage.

Ugh, she wouldn’t see him until late tonight, and she really needed an answer now to know what book from her stack to read next. Maybe she ought to find a way to communicate between their post-curfew rendezvous.

Wait. Was she really longing to talk to Malfoy more often? What had her life come to?

“You finished with number eight?” She quickly pushed her book aside. “I can take a look.”

Hermione reached towards Parvati’s parchment, but Parvati smacked her hand away with a quill. “You look stressed. What’s wrong?”

Hermione sighed. “It’s nothing.”

Parvati raised a disbelieving brow and reached into her bag to withdraw a handkerchief. Hermione flinched as the witch abruptly raised it to her temple.

“Mm-hm,” Parvati hummed doubtfully as she pulled back a now-inked handkerchief. “The stress-ink claims otherwise. And the stress-ink never lies.”

[stevenbasic]

Growing into the Job, Post 343: A Sunday at Melissa's, p1

“Oh, hey,” I said, as I stepped into the kitchen that rainy Sunday morning. I had a throbbing headache, a bit like a hangover but as far as I could remember I hadn’t had a drop last night. Or maybe I had? I was also sore just about everywhere, most acutely the, uh, parts between my legs. They’d had quite a bit of use yesterday. What was it? Four times? Five?

“Hey,” drawled Amelia, the other sole occupant of the kitchen. It was early-ish, the weird, heretofore unseen clock of Melissa’s mom had just struck I dunno seven-eight-or-I- don't-know a bunch of  times just a few minutes ago as my head pounded along with it. She was wearing a casual, long sleeved white thermal and some yoga pants. Her makeup was light, which was rather atypical for her.  Maybe it was just leftover from last night. I noticed she was slicing an apple…casually using her impressive fingernails. “Want some?” she asked.

“Uh, no thanks…” I answered, watching for a moment as the long, white-painted nail of her right hand slivered off another slice, cutting through the apple like butter. Just another thing to add to the weirdness that was this weekend, I thought. At the very least, standing there for a moment and watching her distracted me from my vague sense of awareness that things felt different to me than they had yesterday morning. The house seemed bigger to me, the counters higher. Yes, Amelia had been going through this same strange growth spurt as the other girls had over the past couple months and even here in her bare feet she stood at least six feet tall, but I couldn't ignore the creeping feeling that I’d become shorter again, just in the past day. I pushed that frankly terrifying notion deep back in my mind, like I'd somehow done many times before. 

“Is anyone else still here?” I asked.

“No I’m the last one,” Amelia answered, as she casually speared an apple slice onto the nail of her right index finger, “and I’m leaving.”  She popped the piece in her mouth, and speared another. With her other hand she picked up a white travel mug adorned with what looked like the symbol of the New Woman Party, emblazoned in deep pink. 

“Coffee?” she asked. 

The kitchen had one of those fancy single-serve units, built into the counter. 

“N-no thanks,” I answered. 

“Oh yeah that's right,” Amelia said, between another bite of apple and a sip from the mug, “Melissa only lets you have milk.”

I flushed, unable to find the strength of will for an argument. Memories of last night flashed before me. A mug of warm milk…human milk. It sent a shiver down my spine.

“I hear she’s your sugar-mama now,” Amelia continued, regarding me with cool interest as I stood there awkwardly. I hadn’t moved a step since first setting foot in the kitchen. 

“She’s…what?” I asked, a little confused.

“She’s giving you money now?” the buxom blonde said in retort, with arched brow and another bite of apple, “that officially makes her a sugar mama.”

“Oh, th-that…” I stammered. How had she heard? “That’s just a one time th-“

“Sure don’t worry,” Amelia answered, reading the embarrassment right off my face, “It’s no big deal to her. You should see her bank account. It’s huge.”

For a moment, that took me aback. I never considered whether Melissa had money. I figured that she was like most every other twenty-something in today's world, just trying to make ends meet and maybe slowly putting something aside for the future. I knew she’d worked as a small-time model for a bit, but besides that most of her work history had been relatively meager-paying jobs. But, after our conversation last night, considering this elegant home of her mother’s, and now with this nugget from Amelia I was beginning to see things differently. Maybe she was the one with the financial power in our relationship. After my divorce, I certainly didn’t have much to my name. Not anymore.

That reminded me. I had some work to do today, some paperwork, some things I was still responsible for after Olivia had taken the reins. It wasn’t a lot, but I’d been told they wanted it for tomorrow. Some stuff for the building permits and some new clinical trials. “Hey, um, Amelia?” I began, “could I grab a ride home?”

Her answer came straightaway. “No. Melissa will drive you home when she wants.”

That statement, also, struck me funny. And again I didn’t have the fortitude to argue or complain. I guess I’ll be waiting for you. I put that little humiliation to the back of my mind as well. 

I glanced around the room, the white marble countertops, searching for what had originally pulled me downstairs. It had been missing since…I dunno when. 

“Looking for your phone?” Amelia asked, watching me as she took another sip of coffee and grabbed a jangle of keys from the counter. “Check around the pool,” she said, “we were playing with it last night.”

Ah okay. Despite being uncomfortable with the fact that my young employees had been maybe going through my phone, I thanked Amelia and - without much else besides a ‘bye’ - she turned and left the room, taking her coffee with her. I watched her curvy hips sway away and felt a wave cloud of perfume recede from the room behind her frankly jaw-dropping ass and shapely back. 

Immediately, things felt strangely  colder, darker, and I felt a little smaller. Maybe a storm cloud had further darkened the scant mid-November sun. Anxiety began to tickle my bones and I wanted nothing more than to just find my phone and scamper back upstairs to bed with Melissa, where it was warm and, frankly, safe. I could stay there with her until she was ready to drive me home. I had woken with my face alongside her naked breast and I somehow  found the strength to peel away while she slept, but suddenly I really wanted to go back. I wanted her scent and warmth again to the point it felt uncomfortable not to be next to her. I'd become spoiled by it. 

It was a Sunday morning, after all. A time made for cuddling, you’d tell me. 

But, first, I wanted to find my phone. There was nothing in the kitchen, so on unsteady feet, I made it out to the soaring great room while trying to ignore the worsening of my headache. Amelia said it might be out by the indoor pool, so I headed in that direction. Looking over the now-empty couch and floor brought back vague memories, which made me reflect on and justify how I spent last night. My mind, truth be told, couldn’t quite accept that the last 24 hours had really taken place. Echoes of the girls laughing filled my mind as I tried to remember what happened last night. Flashes of breasts and curvy hips plagued me as I searched the couch cushions for my phone. I couldn't remember what really happened, and the more I tried to the more it slipped away. All I could remember was bits and pieces...feelings. I remembered skin and touching and kisses that had seemed all too real at the time but my current sense of logic was already rationalizing these strange memories away,  altering them  for my own mental well being. That I’d seen…or had I?...women grow before my very eyes was ridiculous. It was almost like something out of a movie or an animation. No, that couldn't be right. My mind was clearly getting the best of me. Whatever happened couldn't have been that weird. Maybe I'll ask Melissa after I finally find my phone, I figured. Similar to how I was denying the feelings that everything seemed larger, I didn't want to accept that I may be smaller now than when I first stepped through Melissa’s door on Friday evening. My brain was adapting. Protecting me. Keeping me sane. Or, maybe this is insanity? Is that what you want?

Nonetheless, despite all my subconscious attempts to see the world as normal, standing next to familiar standardized constructs like doorways, light switches and tables I was constantly reminded of my altered state. The sliding glass door to the indoor pool seemed so much bigger and heavier than it should, and it took all my effort to pull it open. 

Stepping into the room, the pool filter was on, and the hum of it buzzed in the chlorinated air. Ripples shimmered over the surface of the water but as I made my way midway around the perimeter I spied it, my phone…sitting on the bottom of the deep end. Ugh.

Phones, these days, were made to be waterproof, right? I mean, I’d never really tested mine out but…maybe it survived? How it had gotten there - were the girls using it to take pictures? Look through my apps and documents? Email and texts? Whatever it was, why did they have it in the pool?  I didn’t need to concern myself with that yet. I just needed to retrieve it. Hm…it was only Melissa and myself here, now. I could shed these clothes (a t-shirt and gym shorts Melissa had picked up for me at the mall yesterday, fresh from the shopping bag this morning while she slept), dive in and grab it. But…I seemed to remember something, some time in the pool yesterday. Had I…had trouble swimming? There was something, some new anxiety I felt when I looked down into the depths of the pool - maybe it was eight feet or so - that kept me from jumping in. A quiet little dread. I wasn’t afraid of the water, was I?? As I stood there debating on whether to get in my eyes spotted a net, a skimmer on the end of a long, telescoping pole hanging on the wall...that felt safer 

Feeling heavier than it should as I tested it, the skimmer net should help me get the phone off the bottom without me having to get in. That made me feel better. So, without too much hesitation I had the thing off the wall and telescoped it out to its full length. It was kind of ungainly, I realized, as I slowly stepped toward the pool’s edge. I dipped the thing in the water, lowered it down and, awkwardly, started trying to scoop my phone off the bottom.

“Dammit…” I murmured, as at first all I managed to do was push it farther away, towards the pool’s center. A wave of something - dizziness? anxiety? -  washed over me. Maybe I should just wait for you to come down and do it for me? No no, I could do this. I just needed to get a little closer. I crouched down and stretched out over the edge as far as I could. That got me just about…yeah…almost there. I stretched my arms out as far as they would go. They shook from the exertion, but I could - just barely - touch the edge of my phone at the bottom of the pool. Now I just had to pull it back. This would have been so much easier if I were just a bit taller I thought, but goddammit I was gonna get this done. It was just within reach! After a few desperate attempts to pull the phone toward me my body reached its limit. I was already out of breath. I had clearly overestimated how much my body could do in its weakened and shrunken state, but still I thought I could do this. I just needed to reach out…a bit more…

Ahhh shhhhhhhittttt…..

 <<SPLASH!!>>

The water hit my body like a shock as I crashed face first in the pool. My mouth filled with warm pool water as I wrestled with the net still in my hands. Coughing and sputtering my head broke the surface my arms helicoptering wildly in attempt to stay afloat.  I threw the net aside my lungs burning as the panic set in. 

I can’t swim! I really can't swim!!

My legs kicked frantically as I tried to keep my head above water.“AHHHHGgglp-!!” I cried as I went under and swallowed another mouthful of chlorinated pool water. My arms and legs began to pinwheel in uncoordinated spasms, my head breaking the surface for a second as I finally opened my eyes and looked into the great room through heavy glass doors. I tried to cough, to scream, only to be met with yet another mouthful of water.

No one was there! I was alone drowning in an indoor pool inside my girlfriend's mom's house and no one could hear me! I tried to scream anyway, to call for help but all that came out were tortured gasps and sputters as my lungs expelled mouthfuls of water.

This is it?? This is how things are going to end??

My thrashing began to slow as I ran out of energy unable to find purchase on the pool's edge. My head dipped below the surface and I started to sink.

Melissa… I found myself thinking, I'm sorry…

>>>THOOM!!<< a huge crash from above, through the water, and Melissa was there, in the depths with me, breaking the surface and in an instant down under, aside me, in front of me, naked, hands under my armpits and her feet on the pool’s floor. Her eyes were wide, looking into my own panicked ones, and with a burst of strength she pushed us up to the water’s surface.

>>>AHHHHHH!!!<<<

"Shhh…shhhhh…it's okay now. I got you."

I coughed as I struggled to breathe.

Melissa pinched my nose and took me into a long powerful kiss filling me with her breath as she sucked the water out of my lungs.

Air, in my lungs. Then water, rocketing out of them. I coughed. I coughed and coughed feeling my eyes near to bursting. Her eyes were still on me, in half-panic herself.

“JayOhMyGOD!!!” she exclaimed, as she all but shook me back to life.

>>cough cough cough!!!<<

“JAY ARE YOU OKAY?!?!”

She was…she was naked.

>>cough cough<<  >>cough cough<<

“Talk to me! Jay!”

>>cough…cough<<  “yes…yes…<cough>...I’m okay…”

She was definitely naked.

“THANK GOD!”

Still swimming, still treading water there in the deep end, Melissa hugged me to her. Had she just saved my life? I think she did…

========================

More thanks to ResistanceIsFutile for his assistance.

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[usmsgutterson]

The Axiom of Equality- T.S x gn! reader

all right! I don't know if there's much of an audience for tommy shelby fics here but I'm going to write this anyway because I've been daydreaming about it virtually daily since the idea first came up and if I don't get this out of my head I might just cry a little bit

Fic type- this is post-war hurt/comfort!!

Warnings- the war and being drafted into it are mentioned a fair amount

Dear Tommy,

This letter won't be the best thing to return to after the war, but it's what I need to do and I need in turn for you understand that. I know that you probably won't but I am asking you to and I have to believe that such is enough.

I probably won't be in Birmingham upon your return. You've been gone for six months now, and I miss you everyday, Tommy, but I just can't stay here.

Every time I walk through Birmingham, it feels as though you are all I am capable of seeing. It is inescapable and I am in dire need of an escape plan.

I love you, Tommy, and I have stood by your side throughout the course of our entire lives, but I just cannot do this anymore. Find me when you're home--Ada will know an address, but so too will Polly, and I guarantee I will want your company at some point. Even now, I yearn for your presence.

All the love in the world and the deepest apologies to accompany that,

Y/N

-

Tommy had read and reread the letter since Ada had given it to him when he returned from the war. He'd not yet asked her for the address, even a year after his return because all he could do was mull it over.

He kept thinking about you and about the fact that you'd left, how much he'd missed you and the reluctancy with which he approached the acknowledgement of that.

There was to be no denying it, though. He couldn't deny he'd missed you simply because he had. At the mention of your name, the remembrance of any singular part of you, Thomas Shelbys heart shattered, and he was left scrambling to put it back together and remain composed for the sake of keeping his family from shattering as he had.

Eventually, sometime in autumn of 1920, he found himself searching for Ada. He'd heard from Arthur that she was at the Garrison with Freddie Thorne and when he found her, she met his gaze and she grinned like she knew why he'd come looking, let alone at eight on a random weeknight.

"Let me guess," she said. "You want an address? Particularly to a neat little flat just a thirty minute walk away from the Eiffel Tower?"

Tommy gave a rather impatient nod in spite of himself--so much time had passed since he'd left for the war and you'd left Birmingham to escape him. All he'd been able to think about since he returned had been you, and he doubted you'd found yourself in a similar predicament, but he still hoped.

"I am indeed," Tommy said. Ada laughed.

"You two were together how long, exactly? Five years, six?"

"Eight," Tommy said. "From October 31st, 1906 to the day I left for the war."

"And you love them wholeheartedly?"

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't," Tommy said, running a hand through his hair. "Give me the address, Ada. Please--I've started to worry I'll go mad if you don't."

Ada grinned. "Yeah. Freddies got it on a slip of paper in his wallet."

Freddie took the slip of paper out of his wallet and passed it to Tommy, giving him a grin.

"They might be gone," Ada cautioned. "Maybe they remembered 'oh, yes! I fell in love with a criminal and left him in 1914. Don't want that life, so I'll leave him behind, move somewhere nice like...Canada, perhaps.'"

"I know," Tommy said. Ada could've been right, and you could've been gone, and Tommy could never have hoped to see you again, but the twenty-four year old who had helplessly loved you and couldn't wait to see you upon his return from the war had taken hold of his heart, and it was reaching out to yours, and there was nothing to be done other than to go. "But you've gotta understand, Ada. You, of all people."

"I do," she said. "Now, I'm sure you can buy a train ticket and make it to Paris in time to see them. Go."

And, in spite of himself and with the address from Freddie tucked into his palm, Tommy Shelby ran out of the Garrison like the eighteen year old boy who had spotted you approaching from the window and had felt his heart set itself alight with the joy he oh-so-rarely experienced.

Thomas Shelby was thirty, though. He was not the eighteen year old he had once been and you were not the eighteen year old who you had once been. Things had changed, and no matter for the giddy feeling in his heart that made Tommy feel like the boy he had once been, he was not that boy anymore. If you wanted to be left to your own, Tommy would respect that of you. If you had moved on, Tommy would respect that. He was not the person he had been before the war, and you weren't, either.

But still, Tommy went home. He packed as efficiently as possible, kissed Pollys cheek in goodbye and told Arthur to keep himself in check as he headed for the train station, his feet, his heart, and his mind dragging him on an impulsive trip to France.

-

The trip from Birmingham to Paris was a lot less difficult than Tommy had expected. Seven and a half hours on the train where Tommy read and made sure that his French sounded even slightly passable, and Tommy was at the train station in the heart of Paris for half past three in the morning.

The next hour was spent trying to locate a decent hotel to stay in for the week or so he'd planned to stay, and when he found one it was nearing five in the morning. He collapsed onto what turned out to be a bed that was almost decent but still a little off, and woke up at noon.

He showered to avoid smelling like cigarettes even though the smell of tobacco had never really bothered you and he knew he'd end up smoking one anyway, and then he was off to the address he'd been given at just after two.

What he found was not a flat. It was nothing of the sort--it was a quaint home by lakeside and one that was definitely a bit longer than a 30 minute walk away from the ever so infamous Eiffel Tower.

It was exactly the kind of home you'd described wanting to live in before Tommy left, exactly the kind of thing that you would've felt the most at home in from the outside. The acknowledgement of such made Tommys heart swell.

He was a very, very different person in 1920 than he had been before leaving for the war in 1914. He couldn't help but wonder just how much of a difference it would've made to you, the person who had once vowed to love him for the rest of your life, for the rest of his.

It gave him pause, made him hesitate as he walked up the front steps to your home and stopped him before he could knock on your front door.

What if you had remained unchanged and Tommy had done a full 180? What if you hated the person he'd become? There were too many variables, and, had he thought over it for more than approximately eleven seconds, Tommy would've done it all so differently.

He never lead with his impulse.

He never made rash decisions, not when it came to you.

But he supposed he could allow himself one rash decision a decade, and deciding to go to France on nothing more than a written address and a whim was definitely rash and impulsive enough to last him through to the 30s.

He approached your door. Knocked once, twice, a third and final time for the sake of politeness.

"Esmeralda? Is that you?" Your voice called. "I wasn't expecting you with the tea leaves until Sunday! Come in!"

Tommy didn't respond, only rested a hand on the doorknob, a rare surge of fear grabbing hold of his chest. It had been two years since he'd gone back to Birmingham. Six years since you'd last seen each other, with not a moment of contact through letter writing to bridge that gap. How much would you want to see him, really, if you wanted to see him at all?

"I'm going back to Birmingham this week! Esmeralda, darling, if thats you, please bring the tea in! Polly wrote that she wanted some and I figure I'll see her before I find Tommy. She'll be furious with me if I don't have them after I've promised to bring them along."

Tommy opened the door just a bit. It was unlocked--had you been expecting visitors?

"Esmeralda?" You asked for a third time. "Esmeralda Monroe, I don't care that you're in your eighties now, if you're playing a trick on me--" Tommy stepped into the house, tried to find even the slightest hint you were there outside of your voice.

The house was nice. It opened from a foyer into a lounge, one with a seemingly comfortable couch and a working fireplace. Through a small doorway, he caught your frame in what must've been the kitchen.

"My name isn't Esmeralda Monroe, but I would pity her if she were here," Tommy said. "What's this mess about you comin' down to Birmingham?"

"Come into the kitchen," you said. "I am unwilling to abandon my bread to see your face. Perfecting this recipe has taken Esmeralda and I weeks. She's eighty-six, so that time is precious time indeed."

Tommy gave a low laugh as he took off his coat and his hat, hanging them both on the coat rack to the right of the door. He walked through the lounge and into the kitchen, grinning the moment he saw your face.

"Hello," Tommy said. "Been a bit, hasn't it?"

You glanced up from the dough that had held your focus. "Quite a long time. I'm sorry I didn't go to Birmingham sooner--I wanted to the moment Ada wrote and said you were still alive, but I didn't. I couldn't get the time away from work, though I nearly did quit on the spot when I was refused."

"You would've come back sooner?" Tommy asked. "I came down here to tell you I'm sorry that you had to leave at all."

"It wasn't your fault," you said. "I was yearning terribly and I made a cataclysmic mistake. I would do it over if I could. I would've gone round to the Shelby home and asked Pol to talk a bit of sense into me."

Tommy laughed. "I'm apt to think she would've told you to go," he said. "Always did say I didn't deserve you or your love for french pastry."

You laughed, flouring the clean countertop in front of you and laying your dough on it so that it could be kneaded. "She might've, but I dunno that I would've listened. If I'd stayed, we could've resumed things. There wouldn't be a six year gap between our departure and our reunion."

"We wouldn't've become different people," Tommy said.

"The war would've changed you, Tommy. Seems like it did as is," you said. "But I don't fault you for that. Fighting in the war changes people--I've gotten to know a couple of people who were nurses. They don't seem right either."

"And you don't--the fact that I may have changed leaves you undeterred?"

"There's an axiom that Esmeralda introduced me to," you said. "The axiom of equality. It's a mathematical principle but I like it better as a statement."

"What is it?" Tommy asked. He'd not been much of a math person, and while he had no doubt that someone like Polly would've known what it was, he hadn't a clue. "I've been too busy legitimizing stuff back home to read up on mathematical principles and ideas."

"The axiom of equality states that x=x," you said. Tommy, in a bit of a mood to help, located a cabinet with a bread pan as you talked. "It states that x must always equal x. Esmeralda told me that the principle of the principle, when applied to people, is that the person you were in the past will always be the person you are in the present."

"Are you insulting me?" Tommy asked, grabbing the crisco shortening from the spot you kept it in the pantry. "I'm feeling rather insulted."

"That is, in fact, not my goal," you said. "If I were insulting you, I would doing so with an air of flirt in the hopes of winning a kiss. You still probably taste like tobacco, but I've never minded that."

Tommy greased the bread pan, shaking his head. If you wanted a kiss, all you had to do was ask.

"The point of bringing up the axiom was just to tell you that it doesn't apply to everyone," you said. "We're human, Tommy. We're not a variable in mathematics, and as such, I'm pretty sure I would be able to learn how to love you if you came back someone completely and utterly changed."

"I have," Tommy said. "I am not the person I was in 1914."

"I'm not the person I was then, either," you said. "I've changed, even if it doesn't look it. I know I still look twenty four."

"Twenty six, at best."

"Thomas Shelby!" You shouted, placing the bread into the bread pan and grabbing a kitchen towel. Tommy dodged it as you thwacked it at him, laughing at the whole ordeal of the thing.

"I look a minimum of thirty-one, so you're better off than I," Tommy said. "And even as such, you're still the looker I fell in love with."

"Oh, if Ada were here, she'd have taken your head!" You laughed, and Tommy laughed, and oh, Tommy had never thought he'd have gotten so lucky as to heard the sound of your laugh again. "I would've watched--you are a real prick, Tommy!"

"A prick with whom you were once deeply in love," Tommy said. "One who you once kissed under a willow tree, and drank with, and sang with, and--"

You laughed, pressed your forehead against his shoulder. "I've missed you, Tommy."

"I've missed you more," Tommy said.

"How long are you to stay?" You asked.

"A week," Tommy said. "We can travel back to Birmingham together, if that sounds like an idea you fancy?"

You lifted your forehead from his shoulder. "That sounds wonderful," you said. "I'd really, really like that."

"Would you ever consider moving back?" Tommy asked. "I'm not asking you to if you don't want to, but if you'd consider..."

"If I were proposed to by a certain Birmingham native, I might consider it," you said. "Of course, this Birmingham native would have to fit six years of flirtations and kisses and casual signs of affection into just a week if such was his goal."

Tommy laughed. "I think he could manage that," he said. "Especially considering that he has a ring already--he bought it six months before he was drafted."

Your mouth opened in shock. "You were going to propose?"

"The plan was to do so the week I was drafted--sunset, perfect look out spot, everything was going to be amazing--but then I was drafted and proposing seemed to null itself out a little."

"You were going to propose and I left you in the dust? I am the worlds worst partner."

Tommy shook his head. "There are worse people," he said. "People who cheat on their spouses, namely. You only left because you missed me and it was so intense you couldn't handle the pain."

"When you put it that way, it sounds rather romantic," you said. "Less like one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made."

Tommy laughed, and he took your hand, and all he could think was that he was glad for the impulsiveness in his heart that'd dragged him onto a train for seven and a half hours, a shoddy hotel room for seven hours, and an additional hour spent trying to get rid of the scent of tobacco, chewing mint gum to rid it from his breath.

Tommy leaned in, and your arms found his shoulders as his found your waist. You closed the gap, and Tommy was kissing you for the first time in six years. He was kissing you for the first time in two thousand days.

He kissed you like a man starved and when you pulled away, wanted to kiss you again but managed to refrain.

"Missed that," you said.

Tommy gave a breathy laugh. "Ditto," he said.

Though the two of you were not the people you'd been before the war, you found it incredibly easy to love one another still.

"Well," Tommy said. "I would think I've got two weeks to cram six years worth of affection in to get you to come home, which means you'll probably grow sick of being kissed like that within the next bit."

You shook your head. "I would never," you said.

Tommy just laughed, pulled you in for another kiss and found his heart floating away from him, overtaken by love and joy and content, the rarely experienced emotions that always came into full effect whenever you were so much as in the same room as he was.

"I'll take your word for it, then," he said against your lips, laughing as you pulled him even closer, the both of you starved for one anothers touches.

And he would do as he said, let himself get lost in how you felt because the feeling of your touch was borderline intoxicating.

[canirove]

Bluebell | Chapter 22

Author’s note: And we’ve made it to the end! Thank you very much to everyone who has read this story, liked it, shared it with others or commented. It always means a lot 💜

For those of you who like Rúben, next Tuesday (Jan 31) I’ll start posting a new story with him (will probably share a characters introduction and maybe the summary on Sunday), and if everything goes as planned, I’ll start posting a new story with Mason the week of Valentine’s Day.

Hope you like this last chapter, and again, sorry to some of you for the previous one 😅

Previous chapter

Masterlist

"Thank you for coming, Mason. I didn't know who else to call."

"It's ok, don't worry. Do you know where the generator is?"

"I think it is this big thing next to the heating system."

"This big thing" he chuckles.

"You know what I mean" I say as a thunder sounds somewhere very close.

"We should check it before the storm arrives. C'mon" Mason says.

It was announced that a huge storm would be hitting Bluebell, and everyone in town had been urged to stay safe, but also to check if they had everything that may be needed in case of flooding, power cuts... And since Rúben was out of town and couldn't check it all for me, Mason was my next option.

Every time we've been alone during these past few months, things have been great, we’ve behaved like we've always had (minus the having sex part, of course). When Rúben is around, it is a bit more tense, but both of them are doing their part to keep improving their relationship, and hopefully one day have a normal and civilized one.

"Everything is fine over here" Mason says after checking the generator. "If the power goes out, it should start working on its own."

"Thank you."

"But shouldn't you be staying with Mrs. Smart? You are eight months pregnant, and I don't see any guests coming in with this weather" he says as the whole room gets lightened, a thunder sounding just seconds after.

"I'm going there later for dinner, I'll be alright. I'll..."

"What? What is it?"

"I need to go to the bathroom."

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, yeah, I just need to pee. Wait upstairs in the living room."

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━        

"Mason..." I say when I meet him, the storm already here. "I’m in labour."

"You are in what?"

"I... Fuck!"

"Fuck what?"

"The baby is coming, Mason" I say, trying to breath through my contraction.

"Now?"

"Yes, now. And fast."

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━        

"This... We shouldn't be doing this. You should be at the hospital, not here."

"Mason, there is no time to go to the hospital, you heard what they... Fuck!" I scream as I feel another contraction.

"But I don't know what to do! I've never seen a woman actually give birth, just what they show on movies!"

"Welcome to your first time, then" I say, trying to smile now that the pain has eased a bit. "Check how much I've dilated."

"What?"

"You heard what the midwife said, Mason. We must check it to know when it is time."

"Are you sure you want me to do it?"

"You are very familiar with that part of my body."

"I am, but I'm sure it doesn't look the same right now."

"Mason. Do it" I say, my voice sounding more like a grunt as I feel another contraction coming.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━        

"Ok guys, it's time to push" my midwife says over the phone.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck" Mason says.

"It's gonna be fine, I'll guide you, ok?"

"Ok" he repeats, taking a deep breath.

"Push!" the midwife says.

"Oh, oh, I see something!"

"That's good, that's good. Remember to breath and... Push!"

"The head! I see hair!"

"We are almost there, probably just another push. Are you both ready?"

"Yes" Mason and I say at the same time, our gazes focused on each other.

"Ok... Breath and... Push!"

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━        

"Where are they?" Rúben says, storming into Daisy's.

"Shh, quiet. They are sleeping."

"Where are they, Mount?"

"I already told you. Sleeping. She needs to rest, and Mrs. Smart is keeping an eye on both of them. Her, and Dixie. That cat hasn’t left her side since she went into labour."

"Ok" Rúben says, letting out a big sigh and sitting down on the sofa. "What happened?"

"The baby got tired of waiting, and decided that the day the biggest storm in the past decade was hitting Bluebelll, was the perfect day to come to the world."

"And you were here?"

"Yep. Since you were busy, she asked me if I could come check the generator downstairs just in case there were power cuts. And an hour later, I was bringing a baby to the world."

"Thank God you were here. If she had been alone..."

"Yeah..." Mason whispers.

"Thank you."

"Uh?"

"Thank you for helping her and the baby."

"Of course. You know I would do anything for her. Even if she chose you and all that."

"Friends?" Rúben asks, offering him a hand.

"Friends-ish" Mason says, shaking it. "Fancy a drink to celebrate that the little one is here and both of them are safe and sound?"

"That sounds like a great idea. Do you know where she keeps the nice stuff?" Rúben asks with a smile.

"Oh, I do" Mason replies, also smiling.

"What do we toast to?" Rúben asks once they both have their drink.

"To the little one, of course. And to that amazing woman you have as a girlfriend" Mason says, lifting his glass.

"To them... And to you. Thank you for what you did. Again."

"Cheers, bro."

"Cheers, Mason."

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━        

"You won't believe what I just saw downstairs."

“Please tell me the basement isn’t flooded and that we have ducks swimming on it.”

“No, nothing like that” Mrs. Smart says. “This is something good. I think.”

“You think?”

“Mason and Rúben were together downstairs, having a drink, and laughing.”

“They were doing what?”

“What you heard” she says. “Rúben also asked if he could come see you both. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━        

“Can I come in?” Rúben asks, opening the door.

“Of course. There is someone who is dying to meet you.”

“Hello, little one” he says, sitting on the bed next to me, caressing the baby’s head. Our baby. Our son.

“What do you think?” I ask him.

“He’s perfect. And you are amazing.”

“Me? What for?” I chuckle.

“Giving birth at home? With no drugs? And just with the help of Mason, who knows nothing about these things.”

“I had my midwife on the phone. And this is nothing compared to what other women do and go through.”

“I know. But to me, you are amazing” he says, kissing my cheek. “Can I hold him?”

“Of course. Little one, meet your dad. Dad, meet your son, the one who still doesn’t have a name” I say while putting him on his arms. He looks so tiny on them...

“Now that he is here, it’ll be easier, you’ll see” Rúben says, his eyes focused on him.

“I hope so. What about Mason?”

“I’m not naming him Mason.”

“That’s not what I meant” I say, rolling my eyes. “What was happening with him downstairs?”

“Oh, that” he chuckles. “Nothing. Just that this little guy may be the thing that will put an end to almost a decade of hating each other.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You are a miracle baby, little one” I say, kissing his head.

“Daniel.”

“What?”

“Daniel. Daniel Dias, with the accent on the e. I like how that sounds” Rúben says.

“No middle name?”

“Nah.”

“Daniel Dias... I like it. What do you think, Dixie?” He is sleeping at the end of my bed and hasn’t left my side for the past couple of hours, kind of protecting me. I sometimes wonder if that’s why my dad left him with me. To protect me now that he was gone.

“Meow” he says before stretching his legs and curling on a different position.

“I think that’s a yes, I like it.”

“Thank you, Dixie” Rúben laughs. “I love you, you know? You and Daniel. Both of you.”

“I love you too. Both of you” I say, resting my head on his shoulder and not being able to stop smiling while I watch him caressing our son’s head in the most loving and caring way I have ever seen.

I thought that after my ex and my best friend broke my heart, I would never recover from it. That I would never fall in love again. Make new friends. Find people I could consider my family.

Yet here I am, having found all that and more, feeling the luckiest and happiest woman in the world.

[glitching-out-common]

Part 1

Part 2 - The Gate

Mala was five when the disasters officially started. She could just barely remember the reports of a sudden influx of unusual weather events.

She was six the first time she was evacuated into the new shelters built for the worsening disasters. She grew well acquainted with them during the coming months as things only got worse.

She was seven when the Reinforcement Movement began and watched as her mother went to help with the construction.

She was eight when the majority of the world had completed their reinforcement and it was common place to live in cities again.

She was nine when the world was declared to be fully secured against the disasters and the people were told they would never need to worry again.

She was ten when the first gate opened. She was in school at the time, waiting for the substitute who was already late, when in front of everyone appeared the same box. A translucent blue hologram of sorts floating at eye level, completely flat, like something out of a video game. There were yelps and thuds as people jumped back from the box only to find it followed them. The chatter of the room settled quickly as people started to investigate the window. It was intangible but floated in front of every last one of them. The same announcement was posted on the screen, printed in a standard white font. It took a while for most to actually read what was in front of them and when it had been comprehended, shouts and accusations of a joke began to ring out.

Mala had just sighed and reread the message.

Your planet has been chosen for evaluation. The first challenge will begin today. The Divine are here to be entertained. Best of luck.

Short, simple, and utterly ridiculous.

She read it over a few more times, letting the confused commotion of her peers fall away. And then, just as suddenly as it had happened, the box disappeared. She sighed again and leaned back in her chair. First the supernatural disasters now some hologram claiming divine powers.

A loud ding rang through the room as all devices chimed with an emergency broadcast simultaneously. She glanced at her watch, seeing a headline scroll under a muted video of a worried newscaster.

Monsters in Paris! A portal has opened in the middle of the city releasing dangerous creatures everywhere.

The video cut to a scene of what she guessed were the streets of Paris where monsters straight out of a movie were prowling after screaming people.

First the claims of a magic power. This must be the proof. She glared at the ceiling. Today would go down in history, how could it not. The bell rang and everyone crowded the halls talking about the news. An alert came over the speakers informing students that class was dismissed early for the day. She smiled slightly and slid headphones up from where they rested around her neck and thought about the implications of the last hour.

The Divine, huh? Gods never do care about what happens to their toys. Science hasn’t been able to explain the disasters so far so maybe higher powers would. And whatever was going on in Paris… that message had said the first challenge would be today. That meant there was more to come. People thought the world ended five years ago. Maybe they were right. But it sure did seem like the apocalypse had come again. And this time the reinforcements wouldn’t be nearly enough to stop it.

Part 3

[peachy-panic]

Déjà-Vu

Part of Fifty-Eight Days. Takes place after this chapter. 

ALSO, if you have not yet read the BEAUTIFUL, BRILLIANT fanfic of these two by @writereleaserepeat, do yourself a favor and click this link. 

WARNINGS: Suicide attempt & aftermath, talk of mood stabilizing medication, post-capitivity, implied/referenced past sexual assault, severe PTSD, panic attacks, med whump, needles. 

The sense of deja vu didn’t escape him. Grayson and Elijah had been here before; a lifetime ago, somehow squeezed into the same calendar year, in a hospital room thousands of miles away.

Back then, Grayson was the one in the chair, Elijah in the bed—tangled in wires, freshly broken, and medicated after nearly dislodging his IV in an effort to evade the doctor’s touch. Grayson didn’t know at the time—couldn’t have known—that it would be one of the last times he saw Elijah in the following months. That once they were separated, he wouldn’t see him again until he showed up in the doorway of Grayson’s hospital room last night like a ghost from a dream.

Now, Grayson was wide awake while Elijah dozed in the chair beside him, camped out in the spot he hadn’t left all day. His arms, sheathed in a dark zip-up, were crossed tightly over his stomach. Something broke inside Grayson to see he still slept in the same position he’d witnessed in captivity—defensive even in rest.

Watching him from across the room, Grayson found himself re-memorizing every inch of him. From the black hair that had grown out, strands slipping free from the bun at the nape of his neck, to the pale ridges of his knuckles grasping at the material of his sweatshirt. And all he could think was how much he did not deserve this. Did not deserve him.

He forced himself to look away.

Grayson was still trying to wrap his head around his parents reaching out to Elijah in the first place. Guilt coursed through him—a never ending stream since the moment his eyes opened to the realization of what he’d attempted and failed—at the thought of what that phone call must have been like. For Elijah to receive. For his parents to make.

They had never been shy about their feelings—if not precisely toward Elijah personally, then at least about Grayson’s proximity to him. They thought being around him once they returned to the States would only drag Grayson back into the darkness he was trying so desperately to escape. They didn’t understand that Elijah was the only other person who knew how to navigate that darkness.

Their resistance was a moot point, anyway.

In those first weeks back on American soil, Grayson tore himself apart in the battle between reaching out to Elijah and giving him space. He yearned for him so deeply, especially in the immediate aftermath. He would wake in the middle of the night, screaming, clawing his bed apart in a desperate, bone-deep panic to find him find him find him. He would bury his sobs into a pillow for hours after, remembering that, maybe, Elijah didn’t want to be found.

Not by him.

On the night Grayson decided to empty the rest of his sleeping pill prescription into his throat, he was drowning in the memory of that last day in the hospital a thousand miles away. Elijah’s haunted eyes were the vision that led him into the light.

-- -- --

They finally succeeded in separating them once they reached the hospital. Grayson fought them tooth and nail, clinging to the railing of Elijah’s gurney as they pulled him out of the ambulance and through the bay doors. But he was weak. It’d been days since he had anything to eat, and his energy was depleted from the horror and chaos of the last few hours. In the end, it didn’t take more than two nurses to bodily pull him away from Elijah’s side.

Logic largely evaded him in the moment, but even still, some part of him knew it was necessary. Elijah was hurt. Even in the ambulance, blood continued to seep from the wound on his head, darkening the fresh, white bandage they placed over it. And he didn’t even want to think about what was happening internally after seeing those bruises on his ribs, watching those kicks to the stomach, after—

He needed help, and, as proven, Grayson was the last person qualified to give him that. So he let himself be moved, pulled, prodded in whatever direction the hands took him.

Something shut off inside him when Elijah left his line of sight. Everything that happened from that point on existed inside a fog.

Distantly, he felt a bed beneath his weight and let himself be guided backward until he was staring up at the ceiling. Everything was too bright, too technicolor after so long in the gray of the basement. He closed his eyes.

Just a pinch, he heard a voice say distantly. When he opened his eyes again, there was a needle in his arm, but he hadn’t felt it break skin. He stared at the point where the tip disappeared under his flesh, then traced his gaze up the line that connected him to a clear hanging bag.

He let his eyes fall shut again.

Your parents will be here tonight, someone said from a distant spot above him.

The embassy sent a social worker, said another.

One after another, their words and questions and touches piled onto each other.

Can I help you into the gown?

I’m going to listen to your lungs.

This might be cold.

Breathe in for me.

Breathe out.

Are you experiencing any pain?

Are you hurt anywhere else?

Were you raped?

By the time they were done with their examination, Grayson was holding on by a thread—both to consciousness and his composure. Several times throughout the process, he had inexplicably dissolved into tears and gasping breaths, and they would have to pause long enough for the social worker to talk him down before continuing.

He was still in shock, they told him. Grayson mostly just felt tired.

His eyelids were drooping before he could ask to be taken to Elijah again.

The needle, he realized. They must have put something in his IV, because the fight was waning in his arms and legs, his head growing heavy against the pillow.

The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was the sullen look on the social worker’s face as she said something to the nurse that he couldn’t hear.

When he next woke, the sun had dimmed outside the small window of his hospital room. A nurse was there to greet him when he opened his eyes, but there was only one word on Grayson’s lips.

“Elijah.”

They finally caved. She insisted on a wheelchair while the drugs were still fading from his system, but Grayson tried to abandon it the second he reached the doorway at the end of a hall.

Because Elijah was there. Alive, but fast asleep in a hospital bed.

He was safe.

“How long has he been asleep?”

“Just a few hours,” the nurse said.

Grayson took a tentative step forward, then, at the disapproving sound of the nurse behind him, consented to using the chair. She wheeled him to Elijah’s bedside, bringing him close enough that Grayson could reach out and touch, but he didn’t dare.

“Can I stay here?” Grayson asked without looking away from him. “I want… I want to be here when he wakes up.”

She glanced up at him as she jotted down a number from one of the monitors in his chart. “Just for a little while,” she finally conceded. “Then you should go back to bed.”

He nodded gratefully, and when she was gone, he leaned forward in his wheelchair so that his eyes were level with the bedrail. His eyes flitted to Elijah’s hand but ultimately kept his own in his lap. For a long time, Grayson just sat and watched the steady rise and fall of Elijah’s chest, soaking in the proof that they had made it out of that compound. Out of that basement. Out of that bedroom.

Over an hour passed before Elijah began to stir. It started with a small twitch in his fingers. Then the sounds. Grayson would know those sounds anywhere, and knew what they meant.

“Hey,” he said, leaning closer. “You’re safe now. It’s just a dream.”

The twitch in his fingers turned into a jerk of his arm, knocking his elbow into the metal rail. The impact startled him awake. Grayson made a small noise of relief, and Elijah’s head snapped toward him.

Their gazes locked, but it was as if Elijah wasn’t seeing him. His eyes were wide and glassy, caught somewhere between a nightmare and awareness.

“Elijah?” Grayson said, but his voice only seemed to stir something beneath the still waters of Elijah's guarded expression.

The beeping monitor at his bedside began to pick up, betraying a steep uptick in his heart rate.

“Elijah,” he tried again. Following some blind instinct screaming inside of him, he reached out a hand and—

Elijah flinched.

They stared at each other with twin expressions of horror for an eternity encapsulated inside a few passing seconds, then something seemed to collapse inside Elijah. He dropped his face into his hands and turned his body, angling himself as far from Grayson as he could inside the confines of his bed. The sharp left turn into hysteria was abrupt and crushing.

For a long moment—too long—Grayson just sat there, stunned and helpless, as Elijah’s frantic sobs turned to wails that bounced off the walls and pierced into his skin like a thousand tiny knives.

A nurse rushed past him, alerted by the alarm of his monitor. The movement jolted Grayson back into his body. He shot up from his wheelchair, nearly falling backwards in his haste to scramble away from the bed.

“I’ll go,” Grayson whispered, the small sound lost to the chaos of the room. “I’ll go. I’m sorry.”

He stumbled back through the door, not even registering the pain as his shoulder blade clipped the frame. The nurse tried to stop him, or to… to keep him upright, maybe, but Grayson hit his knees halfway down the hall. A bin was thrust under his face just in time to catch the bile.

The sounds of Elijah’s panic followed him into the hallway, tapering off slowly as the sedative took effect.

“It’s alright,” she told him, rubbing a hand over his back that Grayson didn’t have the energy to flinch away from. “Your friend is okay. He is just afraid right now. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

But she didn’t see. She wasn’t there. She didn’t know how much wrong Grayson had done.

-- -- --

They kept Grayson dosed around the clock on what Elijah assumed were some kind of benzodiazepines. He had his own experience with those. Whatever they were, they made him sleep a lot and waver in lucidity between naps. He was only awake for a handful of the hours that Elijah spent by his side. He was just glad he was getting some rest.

He knew the end of visiting hours was fast approaching and that he would be forced to leave. The countdown hung over him like a guillotine’s blade. Every few minutes, he had to beat back the paranoid fear that leaving this room would mean another months-long stretch of silence. Or worse, that he would never see Grayson again.

He tried to kill himself. Grayson had tried to kill himself.

There was a lot to contend with between the two of them. A lot of dark waters Elijah wasn’t sure either one of them were ready to wade into again, especially not with Grayson in this state. A part of him was terrified he would turn over this rock and find something he didn’t want to see. All of his worst fears had rushed to the surface the moment his mother got the call: that this was all Elijah’s fault.

The way he’d unknowingly lured Grayson into the compound. The way his failed escape attempt had subjected Grayson to the horrors he tried so hard to protect him from.

The way Elijah handled it in the aftermath.

Those first couple weeks were hazy. Elijah was all over the place; hysterical one minute and catatonic the next. They had him on a constant rotation of pills just to get him to a semi-functioning state, and then he just slept. A lot.

For all that he had bottled his emotions inside Myles Voss’s prison, something about the sudden freedom from it shook everything loose. He couldn’t control it. He hated it.

His therapist told him that was common. That his mind had been in survival mode and couldn’t fully process the trauma while he still lived inside of it. She told him that processing it now was the first step toward healing, but Elijah had only felt more broken than ever.

There was always some small part of him that knew there was a possibility of Grayson blaming himself for their distance, but at the time it was too big a mountain to climb. Elijah could barely get out of bed long enough to use the bathroom in those first few weeks. The thought of reaching back through the darkness to find Grayson again was insurmountable.

Because there was the bigger part of him that believed Grayson was avoiding him on purpose. And it was both easier and much, much harder to accept that. So Elijah let the days turn to weeks turn to months, and he avoided him because he was scared and he was ashamed, and now they were here. And all this time, Elijah had no idea Grayson was hurting this deeply.

He refused to let it go unnoticed again, and that meant being here. If that was what Grayson wanted, Elijah would be here now.

The rustle of bedclothes had Elijah’s focus narrowing in on his sleeping companion again. He didn’t usually stay awake or aware for long when he roused, but Elijah tried to be a comforting presence every time nonetheless. He slid his chair closer and reached for Grayson’s hand.

Elijah had finally won the fight against the doctor’s restraints. After so many times of him freeing Grayson’s wrist the second they left the room, unable to stand the sight of his mobility taken from him, they agreed to leave his arm free as long as someone was in the room with him.

It probably helped that Grayson’s parents had backed him up.

He had always gotten the sense that they didn’t like him. Even before… Even when things were normal, they were the kind of people who cast sideways glances when his mom showed up to Sunday service fresh off a graveyard shift, still dressed in her waitress uniform. Exactly the kind of church people that made Elijah resistant to attending with his mom even on the rare occasions he agreed.

Elijah hadn’t seen those people since he showed up at the hospital. The people he met today had vacant eyes that shifted not out of judgment, but with the desperation of someone lost and groping for direction. Their state of disarray was completely unfamiliar to the image Elijah had of them in his head. They looked exactly like two people who had nearly lost their son.

The three of them hadn’t interacted much since Elijah arrived, and what little they had was stilted and awkward. But they had called him. They had let him stay by Grayson’s side. And that wasn’t nothing.

Grayson’s head lulled toward him on the pillow, lips parting and then pressing together as if trying to form words.

“Hey,” Elijah whispered. “You with me?”

“You… Y’r still here.”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“‘S Okay,” Grayson slurred back at him, his eyes cracking for only a brief flash. “We’re g’na geddouta here. We’re gonna…”

Elijah bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. “We’re out,” he said, barely a whisper. “We’re safe now, Grayson.”

His eyes peeled open again, and he gave a few bleary blinks up at him. “‘M so sorry.”

“No.” Elijah said firmly, shaking his head even though Grayson’s eyes were already closing again. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

“‘M sorry.”

Elijah lifted the back of his sleeve to swipe at the escaping tears, then held onto Grayson with both hands.

“I’m sorry, too.”

-- -- -- 

TAG LIST: @mylifeisonthebookshelf @hold-him-down @distinctlywhumpthing @diyalogues @finder-of-rings @dont-touch-my-soup @wicked-whump @scp-1296 @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @melancholy-in-the-morning @whumpcereal  @reflected-pain  @pigeonwhumps @canislycaon24 @flowersarefreetherapy

[ereardon]

oh my god oh my god oh my god!! i didn't see your post about anniversary requests until now and i'm literally begging, pleading with a cherry on top -

will you please write anything about my absolute loves maggie and bradley? i miss them so much!! how are they doing? please tell me they spent some time after everything just holding each other ugh

(can you tell it's one of my comfort fics that i go back to read when i want just the right amount of heart wrenching angst mixed in with fluff? i've re-read it so many times i've lost count!)

Alex!!! I love that you love Maggie and Bradley so much and omg that they are one of your comfort couples has me giggling! This is a self plug but I only have one other full-length Bradley series that's Bradley x Reader that you may like if you haven't read it! Lots of angst as well.

Not sure if this is exactly what you were looking for, but I went back and was re-reading and thought this would be a good place to add in the narrative of what we saw with Bradley and Maggie! In terms of how they're doing now – they are great!! They get married in a very small ceremony and have their son pretty quickly after. Bradley insists that after long nursing shifts, Maggie comes home and he gives her a foot rub, even if he's worked a 12-hour day, too. She loves that he smells like jet fuel and she gets really into sourdough bread and he adores how she always tries to make little treats out of the discard that never turn out well but she never stops making them. They only have one son, Nick. They use the rest of Maggie's trust to buy a small house in Colorado where they go skiing in the winter and drink hot chocolate by the fire and when Nick goes away to UVA Bradley has to convince Maggie not to call him three times a day and to only send one care package a month instead of five. To me, these two are perfect and I miss them so much!

This takes place around chapter 3 after Maggie gets wasted at the Hard Deck and Bradley brings her home, sleeps on the couch and makes sure she's OK in the morning.

“What?” you asked him. 

He shook his head, looking you up and down. Your hair was starting to dry. You had no makeup on, a ratty old blue robe and a pair of slippers. But the way he was looking at you felt like you were wearing an evening gown and full glam. It sent a shiver down your spine. 

“Seriously, Bradley, what is it?” you asked, self conscious under his gaze. 

Bradley gave you a small, sad smile. “Just realizing everything I lost, back then.” He paused. “Everything I could have had for the last eight years.” 

You turned back to the coffee pot, hiding your face. His words made tears prick at the back of your eyes. You wanted the ground to open into a massive sinkhole and swallow you whole so you never had to face the devastating truth that maybe, just maybe, Bradley Bradshaw had been the one all along. And the two of you had just ruined it the way only two kids who are in love can.

"Mags, I–"

"Phoenix is pretty," you interrupted, reaching for the mugs on the second row of shelves. You stood on your tiptoes the best you could in your slippers but it's not enough. Damn shelves.

A shadow appeared behind you and you felt the heat of Bradley's body as he crept up, one long, muscular arm reaching for the mugs, gripping them easily. He set one, then another, down on the counter space in front of you, but he didn't retreat. You had both hands on the counter, grounding yourself, as Bradley hovered behind you.

So close it felt like he was pressed against you, but it was the air tightening in every direction.

You closed your eyes. And for a moment you were twenty-one again. And he was just a boy you loved more than anything. And he was falling through your fingers, ready to flee at any moment.

You opened your eyes. "She's pretty," you repeated.

"She's not you."

The words clung in the air. You swiveled around, Bradley hovering only inches from you, his head tilted down so his chocolate eyes could peer into your depths. "Bradley," you murmured.

"Nobody has ever come close, Mags," he whispered. "Not a single girl in the last decade has ever challenged me or cared for me the way you did. And I fucked it all up."

"Yeah, you did." Pain flashed across his face. To your disbelief and Bradley's, you reached out a hand, running your fingers down his cheek. He felt so different and yet when he looked at you, it felt the same as it had ten years before. He had a way of looking at you like you were the only person left on Earth. Like the walls simply melted away and it was just you and him and the slow rise of your chests and the air swirling around your bodies and everything else was almost a distant memory.

"Have I said I'm sorry?"

"It's not enough," you replied. His face went pale. "Besides, we're just friends, Bradley. Sometimes your friend makes you upset. But you get over it. Time heals and all that shit, right?"

"Right," he said solemnly, backing away as the coffee pot hissed. You lifted it, pouring into the two mugs and holding one out to him.

"Cream?" you asked.

He tipped his head to the side. "Don't you remember, baby? We always took our coffee the same way."

You added a splash into his mug and then one into your own before opening the fridge and depositing the carton back inside. "I know. I hate that I know you like the back of my hand. I tried to forget you, Bradley. But forgetting is like trying to remember something you never knew. Next to impossible."

"I never wanted to forget you, Mags," he said, blowing on his cup of coffee. "Somehow I always knew we'd find our way back to each other."

[willowworkswithwords]

I posted 9,844 times in 2022

That's 3,373 more posts than 2021!

189 posts created (2%)

9,655 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@silverandsunflowers

@sohotthateveryonedied

@kaydear

@redminibike1

I tagged 2,547 of my posts in 2022

#willow talks - 154 posts

#the old guard - 87 posts

#fic rec - 77 posts

#steddie - 60 posts

#other people's ocs - 58 posts

#tog - 56 posts

#art - 56 posts

#kenobi spoilers - 55 posts

#codywan - 39 posts

#i love this - 38 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

For the affection ask game, if it pleases your muse then maybe Codywan with one of them putting their head in the other's lap? Either way, hope your day is going well! 💜

My day has been all over the place, but it's not been entirely wacky and it's ending well :) Thank you for this ask Anon! 💕 Codywan near always pleases my muse

--

The war was over. Cody was... adjusting. Just like all his brothers, to their new roles as Citizens of the Republic. They'd all been given housing, across few different neighborhoods with spare buildings. Cody wasn't sure how one could have a spare building. All those planets, and every single one of them had been in need of more buildings, for one purpose or another.

But he wasn't going to question this one.

Especially not when it allowed for his head to be resting on the one person's lap he'd never let himself imagine.

(He'd imagined it so much in the beginning, when he'd had more hope. Towards the end, really every moment after those first couple months, the ache was too painful, too deep and holding too much of who he was and who the man he loved was, the truth of their positions, of what their purposes were. He'd had to make himself stop.)

The war was eight months away. Eight months that had brought many things to Cody's life. Brothers upon brothers, foods that filled the whole floor of apartments with rich smells, a few actual flimsy books, and lately, Obi-Wan himself, sat just like he was now. His right hand rested on Cody's waist, his other holding onto a datapad that was slowly slipped from his grasp. Cody reached up to slide it from Obi-Wan's fingers before it could thunk onto the floor.

Obi-Wan's head twitched where it was bent, resting against the back of the couch. His snoring was interrupted but a snort and Cody held very, very still, arm still outstretched. Obi-Wan's right hand flexed on Cody's side, then he relaxed again, snores filling in the room again. Cody let out a breath and slid the datapad down and readjusted himself, smiling softly at the way Obi-Wan's snores reverberated through his stomach onto the back of Cody's head.

If this was his life now, then maybe it was something Cody could hope for.

affection ficlet prompts <- open <3

60 notes - Posted March 28, 2022

#4

Could i perhaps request 31 with....vox, maybe (if you'd like?) IF not, any ship you wish!

Vox is another ship I'm not used to writing, however I do love reading Vox, so I'll try it out!

---

31. I love the way your face lights up when someone says, “It might be dangerous.” (I am glad we are friends.)

Fox was finishing up the last of the paperwork he was forcing himself to get through when the swish of his office door pulled his head away from the glare of the datapadd light. 

Quinlan stood just inside the door, fiddling with his lightsaber. His eyes didn’t leave the hilt as he took the handful of steps across Fox’s tiny office until he was right next to Fox. Fox couldn’t help the small smile that broke onto his face. A focused and quiet Quinlan was always interesting.

“Quin?”

Quinlan grunted but nudged Fox’s chair with his hip. Fox let his grin grow just a bit, slowly reaching up to slip the lightsaber from Quinlan’s grip. No matter how long it’d been since Quinlan had first trusted him with it, with his life, Fox still felt the power of the weapon in his hands. 

He’d asked Quinlan once, if it mattered that he wasn’t Force Sensitive. If it made things harder on him, his partner not being able to feel the same way he could. Quinlan had said it was a blessing. Fox felt so deeply, so thoroughly, in ways Quinlan had never been able to. Quinlan felt deeply, but in different ways. All that energy all the time. It was a lot. Coming back to a partner who felt so viscerally on a purely emotional level was a breath of fresh air.

Fox had thought he’d gone a little poetic on him, but he appreciated what he was trying to say.

Grabbing his toolset from a drawer, Fox began working on a couple screws as Quinlan sat on his desk. They didn’t need to say anything to each other. A few moments later, Fox handed the lightsaber back to Quinlan. Quinlan ran his calloused fingers over the screws, the panels, then in one swift movement slid off the desk and ignited the saber. 

It still took Fox’s breath away.

Quinlan pressed a kiss to Fox’s cheek as he spun into the most open area of Fox’s office, running through a few sets of exercises. 

“I’m going on a mission tomorrow,” Quinlan said, voice steady even as his movements were swift and ceaseless. “I could use some help and you could use a day out of the office.”

“And how are you going to be framing this mission, Quinlan?” Fox laughed. “You need extra protection, so you’re bringing along the Commander of the Guard, of all clones?”

He knew he wasn’t keeping his amusement out of his voice.

Quinlan turned, locking eyes. “It’ll be dangerous, so yes.”

Fox’s grin was all the answer Quinlan needed.

---

a softer world requests! <-open

72 notes - Posted March 9, 2022

#3

Tackle hug or brushing hair out of the other's face for Cody and Obi-Wan maybe? Whichever you prefer. (Also, I just wanted to say I like your writing)

Hi Anon! Thank you :D I appreciate that <3

post o66 au where Cody lives with Obi-Wan

--

Cody had stopped going into town after the first time. There had been so many troopers wearing armor so similar to the armor that had given him protection throughout the war, that had been so important to so many brothers who were now fallen. Cody knew most of those helmets hid faces not like his, faces of desperate or evil citizens of the Empire. Even so, every voice from those helmet modulators made his heart squeeze in his chest, and by the time he returned to the hut, he hadn't been able to regulate his breathing or stop the tears from falling.

So he stayed and Obi-Wan went. But Obi-Wan was late, six days late. Late meant trouble, which meant the Empire, which meant Ben being found out and everything that had just started to fall into place would--

A silhouette breached the horizon, cresting a dune to the east.

The war had scarred him, mind soul body, but Cody ran out to meet Obi-Wan as fast as he ever had. Obi-Wan didn't use the Force any more, pushed it away as much as he could, but he must have sensed Cody's relief because he was running to meet him too, arms outstretched.

Their bodies clashed and they whirled around, kicking up sand and nearly tipping over the side of the dune. Obi-Wan's hands enveloped Cody, pressing against his ribs and around his waist. Obi-Wan's shaking breath rushed in and out between soft. chaste kisses pressed to Cody's ear. Cody's own hands were shaking where they ran through Obi-Wan's hair, as grey and disheveled as it always was. Cody's own breathing came slower with each pass through Obi-Wan's hair, and in time they were breathing in tandem. Obi-Wan squeezed the back of Cody's neck, and apology, and together they retreated back to their hut.

affection ficlet prompts <- open!

73 notes - Posted March 26, 2022

#2

hello! I saw in your ship bingo commentary that you think people wildly mischaracterize both obi-wan and Cody but especially Cody. and it got me wondering how you would describe each of them and their dynamic? just genuinely curious as a fellow Cody stan 😊

Hello! What a great ask for May the Fourth Be With You eve

Ok so in my opinion:

Cody-- Cody is steady. He's a very steady, ready presence who thinks things through down to the smallest detail bc lives are on the line and he can't risk them any more than he's forced to. He's not cold, which is a weird characteristic I've seen attributed to him. I consider him very emotionally intelligent. This is largely due to the fact that he's both an eldest sibling and a commander. He's gotta know what the vibes are and also how to interact with the vibes. He's very intelligent emotionally and otherwise. I think in an effort to explore his childhood, people make him shut-off and overly guarded. Not to say he would throw himself into anyone's arms, but I think sometimes people make him oddly closed. He was profoundly affected by how he was raised, but he's taken it in stride and is very much a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps guy (even if he barely has bootstraps to begin with) and so that when he does begin to process it I don't think it'd present in the ways some people present it. If that makes sense. He needs to have a rock to rely on as much as others need him to be their emotional touchstone.

Obi-Wan-- Obi-Wan is based on faith and hope. People water these two things down and wildly misconstrue what faith is. Faith doesn't make you stupid or naive. Faith and enduring hope, even when his happiness is gone, is what makes up who Obi-Wan is. I think when put into romantic contexts, the aspect of Obi-Wan gets diminished or erased. He gets really bumbling, and I don't feel this is really part of who he is. Like, letting him have a little bit of human-ness, like having messy quarters or losing things doesn't mean he's suddenly this spacey, nearly childish character. I do like those traits! But in balance and proportion with his core character.

Dynamic together-- I mean I just dislike when ppl make one dominant over the other, especially when it's Cody. And I mean generally dominant, not necessarily sexually (that's not my area of fic-expertise so while i'm assuming the dominance trope gets brought up a lot in those fics i may be wrong). To me, they're balanced because both understand their duties. Obi-Wan's dedication to his family is strong, but his faith has had to be stronger, and this allows him to understand why Cody must put his vode above everything. Both had screwy childhoods but didn't think it was necessarily effecting them until much later. To me they have a grounded, calm dynamic. Not to say they can't be a force to be reckoned with- obviously, having fought together and leading thousands (i think thousands is correct) of vode into battle. And them surviving together, throughout the war and, in my preferred canon, beyond the war, bonds them deeply as well. I think that people give them an opposites-attract dynamic when it's really a similar-similar dynamic

83 notes - Posted May 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Thank you for the tag @solipsism-lemonade!!!

Rules: tag 9 people you want to get to know better or catch up with

fav color: blue and purple

last song: Whatever the last song in the Encanto soundtrack is

currently reading: The Witcher: The Last Wish

last movie: Encanto

sweet, savory, or spicy: Oooooo, savory with sweet not far behind

currently working on: Nothing at this exact moment actually. I’m gonna try to work on couple ideas I have rolling around hopefully tomorrow though. One to post soon and the other to maybe work into a long-fic (long for me at least)

-

no pressure tags: @redminibike1 @imperiousheiress @calltomuster @kaydear @shukruutsrb @secretlyatimelady @agreekdemigod @littlescarletstar @jediash

160 notes - Posted January 3, 2022

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