#pedro pascal character ezra

[ak-vintage]

Wash & Fold

Pairing: Ezra x f!reader

Prompt: Two strangers discover they’ve been swapping items unknowingly through a communal space, each leaving an X in return until curiosity forces a meeting.

Summary: After discovering some unfamiliar clothes in your laundry (and losing some of your own in return), you begin exchanging messages with another resident in your apartment complex.

Word Count: 15.5K

Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Modern AU, unspecified age gap (Ezra is intended to be older, but use your own imagination on how much older), no use of Y/N, minimal descriptions of reader character, second-person POV, reader is getting over a recent breakup, mildly pervy Ezra, pleasure dom Ezra, SMUT (dry humping, vaginal fingering, squirting, biting, unprotected P in V sex, overstimulation, creampie, Ezra’s filthy yapping and filthy fucking).

Written for @jolapeno’s Dear-uary Epistolary Writing Challenge. Dividers by @saradika-graphics.

Read on AO3 | Main Masterlist

You have never considered yourself to be an especially domestic person.

Sure, you are a decent cook, but the handful of recipes you rotate between each week require little in the way of culinary skills. The ingredients are simple and cheap, the prep work is minimal, and the actual cooking involves nothing more than a couple of burners on the stovetop or perhaps a slow cooker if you’re feeling especially ambitious. The final products are always serviceable, but nothing more complex or skillful than what a college student might be able to achieve in their first apartment.

You’re a reluctant cleaner, as well. Your dishes tend to pile in the sink for days before you work up the gumption to scrub them, and you’re embarrassed to admit to the amount of time you have gone without vacuuming your carpets or mopping your kitchen floor. When you make plans to have friends over – or god forbid a date – you often have been guilty of racing around your apartment at the last possible minute, frantically cleaning things that ought to have been cleaned ages ago. It seems the potential shame of someone else thinking you lived in a messy home is the only motivator strong enough to get you into gear.

But there is perhaps one domestic task in which you find genuine joy. Laundry.

You love the ritual of it – the simple satisfaction of sorting, the methodical, repetitive action of folding, the tidy little piles of underwear and socks and pajamas and jeans spread out over the surface of your bed as you worked. You love watching the way your dresser goes from barren to pleasingly full as the soft drone of your current audiobook or a favorite podcast drifts through your headphones. You even love the scent of your detergent – it’s a small luxury, but you notice it every time you open your closet, and it never fails to make you smile.

Every Sunday morning, the routine is the same, and with it comes a meditative calm that always helps you center and reset yourself for the coming week. You’ve found yourself leaning on the consistency, the predictability of it all even moreso in recent weeks, which is why when you encounter a peculiar piece of clothing mixed in with your clean laundry, still warm from the dryer downstairs, you almost toss the thing straight into the garbage.

It's a large men’s sock – charcoal gray, crew length, and heavily worn. It sports two holes, one in the toe and one in the heel, and the knit fabric has pilled so intensely that from far away, it almost looks speckled. A ragged piece of clothing if you’ve ever seen one and nothing like anything in your own wardrobe. Instantly, you presume it must be his.

The mere thought of him leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and you eye the offending sock with reproach. Eight months of your life wasted on a man who could never seem to remember your takeout order, who called your master’s degree cute, who always had some new excuse to not introduce you to the gaggle of fellow finance bros constantly blowing up his phone and filling his evenings with cocktail hours and “networking events.”

Looking back on it now, you can be more honest with yourself about all the things you had ignored in the moment – all the little red flags that might have been passable on their own but combined with everything else painted a picture of a man who saw you as a convenience rather than a privilege, a little something to be kept on the side, held at arm’s length until he grew bored of you and moved on. And he had moved on, in the tritest way possible – with an intern from his office named Kyleigh.

You are eager to do the same, to pack the lackluster memories of him away in a box and shove that box so far into the back of your mind that you forget it even exists. This sock, sticking out bizarrely in the basket of soft creams and delicate blushes that you favor, has derailed those efforts. You’ve been doing so well avoiding thoughts of him.

You toss it into the paper grocery bag you have tucked into the corner of your bedroom, the one containing the handful of little things you’ve found around your apartment in the three weeks since his departure that you know belong to him. A blue silk tie. A bulky black phone charger that is incompatible with your phone model. A half-used tube of plain, unflavored Chapstick. A dogeared copy of Atomic Habits. And now this sock.

You have no idea how it ended up in your hamper in the first place, but it hardly matters, you decide. You refuse to let the thought of it – or the man it belongs to – darken your peaceful morning any longer. You’ll get the bag of stuff back to him at some point. Until then, he’ll simply have to make do with a missing sock.

What begins as a singular sock, however, quickly becomes more as over the next several weeks, you continue to discover foreign items of clothing in your laundry.

First, another sock, this one navy blue and even more worn than the first, the fabric loose and shapeless with time. Then, a pair of maroon men’s athletic shorts with frayed, raw hems around the legs and worn-out elastic at the waist. A ribbed undershirt in age-patinaed white comes next, and then finally, a true treasure – the softest, most perfectly worn-in gray t-shirt. It is oversized (for you, anyway) and pure cotton, stretched and softened with countless washes and wears so that it pools like butter in your hands, and for the first time, it occurs to you that there is no way that these mysterious items of clothing are relics of your relationship that you had simply missed on your first pass through your apartment to gather his things. Your ex, for one, had had many flaws, but hanging on to shabby, hole-riddled clothing that was nearly falling apart was not one of them. And for another thing, you feel certain that you would have known if your ex had owned a t-shirt like this one while you were together. If he had, you would have stolen it for yourself a long time ago.

For lack of something better to do with them, the navy sock, basketball shorts, and undershirt all make their way into the paper bag anyway. The t-shirt, however, gets folded neatly and added to your pajama drawer. Some poor man in your apartment building may be missing it now, but in a building with over a hundred units and only one basement laundry facility, you cannot imagine the complexities of attempting to reunite it with its owner.

His loss will simply have to be your gain.

The week following the fortuitous discovery of the most perfect t-shirt known to man, you encounter another disruption to your sacred routine, though this time, rather than a mysterious item of clothing somehow joining your basket, it comes in the form of a hand-written note.

The laundry facility in your apartment complex is nothing to speak of, and for as much as you enjoy this particular chore, you prefer to spend as little time in the dingy, windowless room as you can manage. Two rows of stainless steel, coin-operated washers abut each other down the center of the linoleum-tiled square, while matching dryers stack two high and six wide against the far wall. The air there is stuffy, warm and humid and smelling strongly of bleach, and the constant hum and rumble of the machines is almost more than the noise cancelling in your headphones can handle.

Typically, you don’t choose to linger – you grab your favorite washers as quickly as you can manage, and you set a timer on your phone for the duration of the wash so you can return to your apartment to wait out the cycle. Today, however, as you are slotting your collection of quarters into your machines, something out of place catches your eye.

Stuck to the wall of dryers is a crumpled piece of lined paper, clearly ripped from a spiralbound notebook and scribbled on in haste. You cock your head at the sight, frowning. You’re certain it must have been left by a fellow resident, for any messages from the complex’s management would have at least been typed and printed out.

Internally, you roll  your eyes – how often had a passive aggressive note left in a common area actually resulted in changed behavior? You came across them on occasion, in the mail room or in the lounge or in one of the elevators, and whatever it was the poster was disgruntled about only ever seemed to worsen after that. Still, once you have your washers going, you can’t help but approach the dryers to get a better look at the curious thing.

Your suspicions are quickly confirmed – it is from another tenant, written in a tight, hurried scrawl in dry, patchy blue ink and taped to the steel face of one of the dryers with a raggedly-torn piece of masking tape. It reads:

You find yourself quirking a puzzled smile as you read, the corners of your lips curling up at the writer’s flowery word choice. It’s almost comically formal for something clearly written in a rush, and the juxtaposition of the courtly language with the humble, jagged-edged notebook paper sparks your intrigue. Of course, there’s also the matter of the handful of mysterious garments you have been collecting. You can’t help but wonder whether this…loquacious neighbor of yours is the owner of the scruffy clothing items slowly collecting dust in the corner of your bedroom.

That would be another odd comparison, you think. That someone so meticulous with their words should be so careless with their clothing. You suppose you shouldn’t judge – perhaps he simply cannot afford to replace his things when they wear through. But still, you can’t reconcile the image you have created in your mind of the author of this note with the unkempt man who owns the clothes that keep ending up in your laundry.

It might be worth responding if only to satisfy your growing curiosity.

When you return to the laundry room to move your clothes from the washers to the dryers, you bring with you a bright pink, oversized sticky note from your favorite stationary set and attach it to the wrinkled piece of notebook paper.

Your curiosity drives you back down into the laundry room the next day.

It’s rare for you to deviate from your routine like this, but there’s something that feels almost fantastical about this nameless, faceless exchange. The author of that note might be someone you have encountered a thousand times without ever knowing.

The thought inspires your imagination, makes you think of fairytales and fate and all kinds of other childish things. Perhaps you have crossed paths with this stranger – with their funny, fanciful language and their unkempt presentation – in the mail room or in the elevator or outside the leasing office. You trade courteous hellos and the occasional polite smile with your neighbors when you see them, but you have never intentionally sought any of them out before. This person could be anyone, and that has you making your way back to the basement long before your next planned laundry day.

The moment you enter the stuffy, grimy little room, your eyes go straight for the wall of dryers where the last note was left. A smile splits your face almost immediately. The note from yesterday is gone, as is your bright pink reply. In their place, another torn piece of notebook paper has been left, this time stuck to the face of the dryer with a clear strip of packing tape. More secure, more intentional, like whoever had left it had intended for it to be able to stick in place for a long time even in the humid, poorly-ventilated space.

Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in anticipation, you’re thankful to be the only person in the room as you eagerly dart over to read it.

In the same hurried penmanship as the previous note, this one reads:

A rush of satisfaction floods you as you read. This is the mysterious owner of the clothes you’ve been finding! You must have a washer or dryer preference in common, you think, if his belongings continue to be mixed in with yours. You can see how it could happen, particularly if he was in a rush. A dark colored sock left in the bottom of the drum or stuck to the side after a spin cycle wasn’t unheard of.

Perhaps you ought to do a better job of checking your machines before blindly dumping your clothes in…

You also feel confident now that this is, in fact, a man that you’re dealing with, which makes his choice of vocabulary all the more intriguing. Not that there is anything especially feminine about his choice of words, but more that the men you find yourself spending time with tend to get their intellectual stimulation from manosphere podcasts and YouTube comedians. This man writes like a scholar, like a patron of the arts, like a Regency-era lordling. It is as refreshing as it is puzzling, and the sparkling prose combined with the mystery of the whole thing has you feeling rather enchanted.

And, perhaps the greatest victory of all, is that E makes no mention whatsoever of your new favorite t-shirt. The thin, buttery-soft thing has become a staple of your loungewear collection over the last few weeks. The way it falls over your skin so perfectly, the way it wraps itself around you like a friend – you can’t imagine parting with it now. Thankfully, it sounds like you won’t have to.

Pulling your pink pad of sticky notes out of your bag, you excitedly pen your reply.

Several more days pass before your now-daily trips to the laundry room finally bear fruit.

It’s Saturday morning, and rather than finding a new piece of crinkled notebook paper in place of the old, instead you find that someone has written on your pink sticky note, adding their own message to the bottom of the scrap of stationary. You recognize the handwriting immediately, though it’s even more irregular than usual. Scribbled in the lower right corner of the note, it reads:

In cramped, halting, angular strokes, a phone number has been added to the bottom of the note – even smaller than the words he somehow managed to fit on the same sheet of paper as your own. But by some miracle, with a squint and a turn of your head, you’re able to read it, and you pull your phone out of your pocket to quickly save it in your contacts.

laundry neighbor🧦, you call him in your address book with a smirk, and you decide to shoot him a text when you arrive back at your apartment. In the meantime, however, you are quick to yank both of the old notes off of the dryer, crumple them up into a ball, and toss them into the nearby garbage can.

As you catch the elevator back to your floor, you can’t help but wonder about the kind of man who was perfectly comfortable leaving his personal phone number in a public space for anyone to read and do with as they chose, but who drew the line at retrieving a small stack of holey, threadbare clothes from the same public space. You can’t imagine who in their right mind would want to steal the things that you had inadvertently collected from this man over the last several weeks; in fact, you feel confident that if you had ever seen them there while doing your own washing, you wouldn’t have spared them a second thought.

If anything, you think, if they had been left there long enough, I might have taken the liberty of throwing them in the trash.

Still, you suppose there’s no accounting for taste. And E had admitted to being superstitious about the shorts in particular, so perhaps this strange man was simply a creature of habit, one who did not part with such things easily.

A creature of habit who keeps strange hours and writes like someone from a different century. No matter how much you try, you simply cannot make heads or tails of this mysterious man.

Several hours pass before you receive a reply from the enigmatic E. You’re preparing to settle in for the night, a book and a glass of wine in hand, when your phone vibrates in the pocket of your pajama pants. Digging it out, you quirk a curious smile at what you see.

hi e! saw your response to my note about your clothes. when would be a good time for us to meet up so i can get those back to you? Ah! Good morning, little bird! I suppose I should say good evening, though it is my morning. Apologies for the delayed reply. As I mentioned, I keep odd hours. I would be available to meet with you tonight after my shift, if you are amenable? I typically return home around 4 in the morning.

You make no attempt to smother the incredulous laugh that bubbles up in your chest as his suggestion. What kind of person tried to make plans for 4:00 in the morning? You couldn’t imagine dragging yourself out of bed in the middle of the night to meet with a stranger just to hand off a couple socks. Shaking your head, you’re quick to type out a reply.

4 am??? 😳 you weren’t kidding, those are some weird hours 😅 sorry dude i will def be asleep at 4 😪 how about this time tomorrow? if you work nights, would you be awake then?

Three bouncing dots appear at the bottom of the screen, flashing in and out of existence a handful of times before his message finally coalesces.

An astute observation and suggestion. Ordinarily, yes, I would. But unfortunately, I have already agreed to an extended shift tomorrow to cover for a colleague.

A frown knits across your brow, your thumb tapping against the edge of your wine glass as you ponder your options. In your mind, you run through your schedule for the week, matching it up against what little  you know of E’s availability. It’s a challenging fit. A brief flash of irritation passes through you at the strange man’s stubbornness. If only he would allow you to simply leave the clothes in the laundry room – then he could collect them at his leisure, and the issue would resolve itself.

However, as you begin to type up precisely that suggestion (with no small amount of snark), you find yourself pausing.

If you leave the clothes for him to pick up on his own, you may never have the opportunity to meet him, to finally put a face and a voice to the person behind the notes. As it stands, you don’t even know this man’s name, but this odd little exchange easily has become the most entertaining thing to happen to you in a long time. It’s been a nice distraction from the absence of your ex, strangely making you feel a little less alone.

Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in contemplation, you delete the message you had been typing and compose another one instead.

You would put the ball in his court, put the responsibility on him to coordinate a plan for you to connect. The moment the message marks as delivered, you see those bouncing dots appear again. His reply is quick, as though he had been waiting on the other end of the line the whole time you deliberated. The thought has a strange warmth settling in your chest, blooming in your cheeks.

ok no worries. you wanna just text me whenever you’re free and we’ll see when our schedules line up? i’m pretty flexible but it sounds like we might work opposite hours 😅 Indeed, a common occurrence, I’m afraid, but such is the life of a bartender. But yes, I will be in touch. I appreciate you looking after my things until we can arrange a meeting! I am in your debt for your patience.

Your flush deepens at the compliment, and you cannot fight the grin that tugs at your lips. Flatterer, you think to yourself.

not a problem! we’ll make it work eventually 😊

Not ten seconds passes, and then:

Looking forward to it, little bird. Enjoy the rest of your evening. you too 😊 have a good shift

Good morning, little bird! The sun is rising, and I am preparing to retire. Do you perhaps wish to meet in the lobby before then? I’m unsure of your schedule, but I know many of the other tenants are departing for work at this time. sorry e 🙁 I left about 20 min ago, got a workout class on monday mornings. sleep well!

Thoughts of the man who has ostensibly become your pen pal linger at the back of your mind throughout your work day. It’s been a while since you received a “good morning” text from anyone, though you are quick to scold yourself for the little flutter that thought sets off in your stomach.

You think of the appalling collection of socks and lounge clothes, now removed from the bag of your ex’s belongings and taking pride of place on your kitchen counter, right next to the entrance to your apartment. That, truly, is all you know about him, you remind yourself – that he wears socks with holes in them and shorts with no elastic and undershirts with pit and neck stains. Not exactly the most appealing prospect.

Not that there ought to be anything appealing about him. He could be barely out of school. He could be an old man. He could be married. If his glittering prose and flattering pet names have charmed you, then you have no one but yourself and your own fanciful imagination to blame.

Of course, none of these musings stop you from shooting off a quick text to him on your way home from work.

hey! i’m headed home now, you awake? could meet up downstairs in 15?

To your disappointment, your message remains unread for several more hours. It isn’t until you’re queueing up your third episode of your favorite syndicated reality show, wrapped in a blanket and cradling a late-night bowl of ice cream in your lap, that you receive a response.

Apologies once again, birdie. By the time I noticed your message, I was already in the car. Thank you for keeping in contact – your diligence for a neighbor you do not even know is admirable. lol i try 🤷‍♀️ 😊

The next time you hear from E, it is early in the morning. You’re barely awake, eyes still bleary as you prepare yourself a cup of coffee, and the notification that greets you when you open your phone for the first time is two new messages from him, sent a couple hours ago.

I am certain you will not see this until morning, but be cautious using the northeast elevator tomorrow. It is making the most bizarre noise, and the door is rather sluggish on opening. Just now, I was nearly unable to fit through to exit the car when I reached my floor. I have informed maintenance, but I am sure you know as well as I how long it takes that old codger to get anything done. If it is not blocked for use by the time you leave tomorrow, I would suggest waiting until the other is available.

Your chest warms at the consideration, that he would have such a harrowing experience and think to warn you against it. Fully awake now, you thumb a reply and send it off, hoping he sees it when he wakes tonight for his shift.

omg thanks for the heads up! glad you’re okay and didn’t get stuck!

Later, after safely making your way downstairs and over to the parking deck, you cannot seem to stop yourself from sending another.

there is an out of service sign on it now, thank god! have a good sleep e!

[Attached: JPG] fyi reno crew in the lobby today. idk if you have your car in the deck but you may wanna take the side exit and walk around. the workers gave me a dirty look for walking on the unsealed floor lol Awful rude of them. You couldn’t have known. If management didn’t want tenants in the lobby today, perhaps they ought to have put up proper signage. Thank you for the message, birdie. I will do as you suggested. I hope you had a pleasant day at work. …what is it that you do for a living, if you don’t mind my asking? i’m a librarian 🤓 📚 !!! Forgive my ineloquence. I was unaware I have been corresponding with a scholar! lmao says the man who writes like someone out of an austen novel I will take that as a compliment! Do you enjoy it? the way you talk or being a librarian? 😉 Clever girl. 😏 Both. Either. yes very much! to both 😇 and how do you know i’m a girl? all you know for sure is we live in the same building. i could be anyone 👀 The way you speak is decidedly feminine, though you’re right, I should not make such assumptions. I apologize if I have offended you. No disrespect was intended. 😂 you’re fine, just giving you a hard time. you assumed correctly anyway how about you? do you enjoy what you do? It certainly is not my first choice of occupation, but it pays enough for me to make my way through the world, which is a privilege in itself. It also helps that I am quite good at it, if I do say so myself. lol nothing wrong with knowing yourself! what would be your first choice? if not bartending? I would be an academic. I do love books. well if you ever find yourself awake during normal business hours you’re welcome at the library anytime. we have a few of those 😉 Cheeky bird.

Things continue in this vein for several more days – courteous, neighborly messages about things happening around the complex that turn into brief, companionable conversations. Missed offers to meet, incompatible schedules, sleep and work and fitness classes and plans with friends somehow always seeming to come at the worst possible moments. You find yourself equal parts aggravated and entertained by what has turned into a never-ending game of phone tag with someone who you still, somehow, have never met. It wasn’t exactly what you had signed up for when you responded to the bedraggled little note in the laundry room, but you couldn’t say you were disappointed at how things had turned out.

At this point, the novelty of the clothes taking up space on your kitchen counter has faded, the little pile melting into the background and simply becoming part of your daily scenery, and every time you see E’s moniker and the little sock emoji come across your phone screen, you can’t help but smile. It’s been the best distraction you could have asked for, though a part of you knows that such a sentiment is leaning further away from whimsical and more toward delusional.

Perhaps that’s why when the charming, fresh-faced barista at your favorite coffee shop finally works up the gumption to ask for your number, you give it to him.

Perhaps that’s why when that same barista asks you out for dinner and drinks, you agree.

Little bird, I have tremendous news! The coworker whose shift I covered a while back has offered to return the favor. I am available this evening to collect my laundry from you. When would be best for us to meet? oh e i’m sorry ���️ this would have been a great night for it too! but i actually have a date. i’ll be gone most of the evening. I see. Not to worry, birdie. I hope you enjoy yourself. thanks 😊 i hope so too lol

You’re nothing but a lump of dry mouth and regret the next morning when the cheerful little buzz of your phone draws you out from under the downy refuge of your blankets. Your curtains are pulled tight, though a bit of the late morning sunshine still manages to spill through the gaps around the window frame, and you frown at it venomously as though your stare could will the light to dampen itself in spite of the idyllic weather.

Dragging the brightness of your phone screen all the way down, you open your notifications with a grumble.

How do you fare this morning? [Attached: GIF] Haha! That well? Not the pleasant evening you were hoping for, little bird? date was boring he was so boring drank too much trying to make it fun Ah, I see. In my experience, a good breakfast and an electrolyte-boosting beverage would do you well.

You glance over at your bedside table where two bottles of pale blue liquid sit, leaving rings of condensation on the painted wood surface. One is half empty, the other still unopened.

doordashed a couple bottles of gatorade. too hungover to make breakfast.

Less than 30 seconds later, another notification appears at the top of your screen.

Venmo: @Ezra-1982 paid you $20 “🍳🥓🥞” Order yourself the “Farmer’s Combo” from the diner on 35th. Have them add cheddar to the scrambled eggs. You will not regret it.

Ezra.

His name is Ezra.

Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, forcing the fog from your throbbing head, you tap out your reply as quickly as you can manage.

omg you did not have to do that Perhaps not, but you deserve nothing less after such a lackluster experience.

The unexpected generosity has you melting, as does the sweetness of his words. After the disappointment of your first foray back into the dating world, such kindness from a total stranger was equally surprising and moving. It makes you want to share it all with him, to explain in detail all of the various ways in which the barista had been a terrible choice. His stilted manner, his excessive fondness for vodka Redbulls, his awkward sense of humor…

ugh you can say that again he sucked so bad e omg idk why i said yes to him in the first place

His sloppy mouth, his grabby hands, his clumsy fingers, his complete lack of interest in making sure you came…

The way he had completely and utterly failed to keep quiet as he stumbled out the door in the middle of the night.

def should not have brought him home

You pause for a moment, the words of your most recent message staring back at you from your phone screen as though taunting you. The blush rising in your cheeks is enough to make your blankets feel suddenly stifling, and your stomach drops at the realization that E – Ezra, your neighbor, a man you have never met but on whom you are quickly developing a bit of a schoolgirl crush – is going to read it. The two of you have never discussed anything like this before. Even in your little occasional flirtations, there has never been even the suggestion of anything sexual.

This unknown stranger really does not need to know anything about your sex life, you decide.

However, just as you are about to recall the message, you watch in horror as the “delivered” status flips to “read.”

A wave of nerves floods your system, pushing out the last of the grogginess still clouding your mind, and try as you might, you can think of no excuse you could spin, no joke you could tell.

shit was hoping you hadn’t read that yet Alas, little bird. There is no need to be embarrassed. sorry idk why i’m trying to gossip w/ you like one of my girlfriends. plz forget i said anything i don’t wanna make this any weirder

For a handful of long, tense moments, your message remains unanswered. You watch, vaguely nauseous, as the three bouncing dots appear, then disappear, then reappear again. After a breathlessly long time of no typing at all, another notification pops up at the top of your screen.

Venmo: @Ezra-1984 paid you $5 “☕” Add a latte to your order from the diner. I find that everything looks a bit brighter after a good cup of coffee. Even a night of disappointing congress.

Your cheeks flare to life once again, the flush reaching from the tips of your ears down your neck to your chest. “Congress,” he called it. What a classy, delicate word for the sweaty, inept fumbling you had experienced last night in this very bed.

Which reminds you. You need to wash your sheets.

💀💀💀 thank you e 🙈💗

[Attached: JPG] holy shit this food is incredible. it’s bringing me back to life. also 10/10 recommendation on the eggs and the latte. you’re the best e, thank you You’re most welcome, little bird. Be gentle with yourself today. i will 🤗

any chance i could grab you before you go to work tonight? feeling much more human, got your clothes all ready to go by the door I have underestimated you, birdie. I must stop doing that. I did not assume you would have any interest in social interaction today given the state you were in this morning. I am already at the bar. ah ok no worries i really will get your clothes back to you, e. i promise. I know you will, sweetheart. I trust you.

You feel a bit crazed as you dig through the drawers of your dresser, rummaging through the neatly folded piles of clothing with such frustrated carelessness that you know you’re going to have to reorganize it all later. It isn’t like you to misplace something like this – you’re meticulous about your clothes, far more so than you are in any other area of your life (except perhaps your work). The idea of anything just up and disappearing from your wardrobe is unheard of.

Perhaps, if it were anything else, it wouldn’t bother you so much. Perhaps, if tomorrow was any other day, you wouldn’t mind choosing something else to wear. But it does, and you do.

You have another date tomorrow night.

Not a repeat of the disastrous liaison with the barista, thank god, but a friend of a friend, someone you encountered occasionally at parties or bars who often offered to buy you drinks and smiled at you a little too long to be strictly friendly. You had never taken his flirtations especially seriously, but after the unmitigated failure that was your last attempt at getting back into the dating scene, your ego admittedly is feeling a bit bruised. It makes you willing to give him a real shot. Even if it winds up being underwhelming, you feel certain that anything would be better than the fucking barista.

Which means that you need those god-forsaken panties.

They’re your favorites – the cheeky, lacy, baby pink pair that stretched over your skin so softly, that framed the globes of your ass so delicately you couldn’t help but feel every inch a woman in them.

Pulling them on over your hips is a one-way ticket to feeling your sexiest, most feminine self, and you can’t imagine going on a first date without them to boost your confidence. And you just washed them – they should be right at the top of the pile, nestled precisely in your top dresser drawer, exactly where they belong. And yet…they aren’t.

Collapsing onto your bed in an aggravated heap, you tug your phone out of the pocket of your lounge shorts. Opening your messages, you tap on your conversation with E and fire off a quick text before you can think better of it. The flush that follows arrives not far behind, part of you a bit mortified at what you’re about to ask your faceless neighbor. But you’re desperate, and you know he will help you if he can.

i have a longshot of a question for you Please, shoot! did you happen to do laundry last night? I did, indeed! Why do you ask? did you use the same washers and dryers you normally do? I always use the same machines. You’ve got me terribly curious now, little bird. What’s this about? would you mind checking your dried clothes for me? i seem to be the one missing something this time. i know the chances of them ending up with you are slim but i had to at least ask lol Of course, hold on a beat.

A few tense, nerve-wracking minutes pass as you stare at your phone, tapping your foot anxiously, chewing on your lower lip as you wait. You doubt he has them. What would be the chances? Your apartment building has over a hundred units – there was no way with all of the other residents whose faces you had never seen, whose names you did not know, that E had been the one to use the same machines directly after you.

And yet…what if he had?

What if your favorite panties are currently tangled in his laundry basket, all mixed up with his well-loved shirts and shorts and jeans and socks? What if he goes to check for them, and the little flash of baby pink peeks out at him from between the grays and the navys and the olive greens, all feminine and delicate and sweet?

What if this mysterious man, who calls you his “little bird” and who has managed to thoroughly charm you over notes and texts and money for coffee, was about to catch a glimpse of your underwear for the first time, and you’re not even there to see his face when he does?

[Attached: JPG] You wouldn’t happen to be missing these delicious little things, would you, birdie?

And there they are – draped over a calloused palm, dangling from thick, long, achingly masculine fingers. The blushing pink color of the lacy fabric contrasts stunningly with his tanned skin, and although you wouldn’t describe yourself as being particularly petite, the size of his hand somehow manages to make them look delicate in his grip.

The flush in your cheeks spreads instantly, making your ears burn, your chest feel tight and hot. Low in your abdomen, something stirs, something that had woken a handful of other times before – like when he had called you a “clever girl” or a “cheeky bird.” You had wondered then – what this man looked like, what he sounded like, whether he was as attractive in reality as you pictured him in your mind. Even without seeing his face, you feel now you know with certainty. You don’t have to wonder anymore.

Anyone with hands like that would turn your head. Knowing they were attached to someone who spoke to you like someone out of a regency-era novel is the final straw.

omg e Am I to take that as a yes? yeah those are mine 💀🙈 Are you at home, by chance?

You frown, your heartrate picking up as it beats a tattoo against the insides of your ribs.

yeah i’m here. why? Well, I am clearly in the building, as well. I will be for the rest of the evening. Would you be amenable to coming over? I would happily come to you if you would prefer, but I would understand if you wish for your precise unit number to remain unknown.

Oh, god.

You take a deep, steadying breath and will your hands not to shake at the sudden wave of nerves twisting your belly into knots. He wants to meet you. Finally. And right now.

ok. yeah i’ll come to you if that’s okay Of course. I’m in apartment 802. Come on over whenever you’re ready.

The frown between your brows deepens. 802? You’re in unit 902. Is it possible…

Has E been directly beneath you this entire time? Is it possible that not only does he share a building with you, but he is your downstairs neighbor?

wait. 802??? …yes?

He is. E – Ezra, your correct yourself (if you’re going to meet the man, you ought to be able to call him by his name) – lives directly below you. At least you know precisely how to get to him, you muse as you type out your response.

ok just making sure. be there in 10.

The next few minutes are spent in a flurry – brushing your teeth, fluffing your hair, refreshing your perfume, and confirming that you haven’t accumulated any unknown stains on your favorite oversized gray t-shirt or your shorts. You contemplate briefly whether you should change your clothes before making your way down to Ezra’s apartment, but ultimately you decide against it. Your lounge clothes are cute, and wouldn’t it be odd, you think, to show up on his doorstep looking like you felt the need to dress up for something when he knows your routine enough by now to know that you wouldn’t be leaving the complex today?

As you tuck your bare feet into your favorite pair of slides, you consider that you might be overthinking things.

It takes you another minute to gather your phone, your keys, and the small stack of his clothes that you are embarrassed to note has started to collect a fine layer of dust. The sight serves as a stark reminder of what this really is, all it has ever really been – a neighbor doing a favor for another neighbor. The return of items lost, even though the loss was weeks ago now. That is all your acquaintance with Ezra really is, at the end of the day. It’s friendly, but it is also impersonal.

These reminders to yourself ring hollow in your mind as you make your way to the stairwell. You don’t believe them, and you can’t help but hope that Ezra won’t, either.

The man that answers the door of apartment 802 looks both exactly like and nothing like you pictured.

He opens the door with confidence, an open and charming smile splitting his face the moment he lays eyes on you. He takes you in with a sweep of his dark, soulful eyes, tanned skin crinkling at their corners as he grins, and nothing could have prepared you for the way your heart begins to race as you do the same. Fuck, he is so handsome. Wild, dark brown hair, shorter on the sides and back than on the top, sticking up every which way with a single shock of blonde directly over his right eye. A prominent, Romanesque nose perched over a pair of full, soft-looking lips. Patchy, scruffy facial hair. A thin, pale scar twisting across his left cheek.

He looks like a creative, like a scoundrel – an artist or an activist or a rebellious academic who refuses to play by the rules. Precisely your type, you think, heat pooling low in your belly.

As you take in his attire, it immediately becomes apparent that the clothes you hold in your hands are an excellent representation of the rest of his wardrobe. He’s barefoot, a pair of navy-blue athletic shorts hanging low and loose on his narrow hips, and the black t-shirt that stretches snugly across his impossibly broad chest is heavily faded with many washes and sports several tiny holes along the seams.

Another hole, this one much larger than the rest, reveals itself as he shifts to rest his arm high against the doorframe. Leaning over you with casual self-assurance, the man tracks the way your gaze immediately darts to his underarm with the move. You can see the thick, dark hair of his armpit through the gap in the fabric, and the strangely intimate sight almost instantly brings a flush to your cheeks.

“Well, now,” he croons, slow and long and with an accent that flusters you even more. “Either you’ve found yourself on the wrong doorstep, or you must be the mysterious little bird that’s been chirping so sweetly in my ear every day for the last month.” He drops his grip on the old brass doorknob and extends his hand to you. It’s the same hand that had been photographed holding your panties mere minutes before – big, broad-palmed, calloused. “Name’s Ezra. What’s yours, birdie?”

You accept the handshake with minimal hesitation, offering him your name in return. “I’m, uh. I’m glad we could finally make this work,” you stammer. “I was kind of starting to feel like I had taken your stuff hostage.” 

To that, Ezra chuckles, and the warm rasp of the sound settles itself somewhere beneath your navel. “Your willingness to be so flexible and communicative is deeply appreciated,” he drawls. “I’m sure most people in your position wouldn’t have been so accommodating.”

The earnestness of his words has you feeling almost bashful as you quickly reassure him, “Oh, I didn’t mind, really. You were the one who had to go without your stuff for this long. It was the least I could do.”

“See, that is precisely what I mean. Sweet as sugar and twice as lovely.” The man winks, offering you another charismatic smile, and you can’t smother the flustered chuckle that bubbles up in your chest.

There is a moment then when the two of you stand in silence – just the span of a heartbeat where you look at each other through the archway of his apartment door, him inside, you outside, each of you sizing up the other, quietly putting a face to all of the little pleasantries you’ve exchanged over the past weeks. That moment stretches, becomes two, and you watch as something akin to a blush, the first vulnerability he has displayed thus far, blooms across the tips of his ears.

Just before the quiet begins to edge into awkwardness, Ezra claps his hands and steps back away from the doorframe, sweeping his arms in a wide, beckoning gesture.

“Well, let us not delay any longer, shall we?” he says brightly. “Come, birdie, step inside, and I’ll retrieve your own garments which have gone astray.”

You hesitate only a moment before accepting his invitation, and as you cross the threshold, he closes the door behind you. You think that perhaps the sound of the knob catching in its place ought to make you nervous – after all, you have never really met this man before today and now here you are, alone with him in his home. But instead, the way your pulse picks up speed feels more like anticipation than fear.

As you hover in the narrow entryway, you notice that the floorplan of his unit is perfectly identical to yours. The open kitchen, the modest living room, the short hallway down which you knew you would find a single bedroom and bathroom. You’ve never been inside another unit in this building before, and it feels almost surreal as you take in a space that bears so many resemblances to your own while still very clearly being inhabited by someone else.

Ezra seems oblivious to your observations. Instead, he is all business as he retreats without preamble down the hallway toward his bedroom. You stare after him, confused for an instant as to why he would just leave you alone, but then you realize –

Your panties are in his bedroom.

Trying desperately to distract yourself from that brain-melting thought, you allow yourself to glance around the place. Your first impression is of the almost overwhelming number of plants that take up the living space. You recognize a few – snake plants and ZZ plants in mismatched pots on every available flat surface, spider plants and pothos dangling from macrame hangers in front of the windows, a lush monstera taking up most of the western corner, a fiddle-leaf fig standing sentinel by the sliding glass door. The rest you couldn’t even begin to guess at, but the overall effect is one of a vibrant oasis of greenery, and you can’t help but be impressed.

“Wow, you have so many plants!” you gasp, wandering deeper into the apartment as you marvel at your surroundings.

Ezra’s voice is muffled as he replies from the bedroom, “Indeed. This side of the building gets such abundant sunshine during the day, but I don’t often have the opportunity to enjoy it. It somehow feels less wasteful to know that another living thing is reaping the benefits.”

“Huh. Never thought about it like that.” You feel a charmed smile tugging at your mouth. “Maybe I should get a few.”

His decorating taste is clearly eclectic, almost every item found in the dusty labyrinth of a thrift store or at an estate sale. There’s a vintage sofa in burnt orange corduroy that has plainly seen better days, a cracked leather armchair that looks like it once belonged in the study of some wealthy professor, and an overflowing bookshelf stuffed to the brim with books of all sizes and levels of wear. Butted up against the kitchen island is a little 1960s dining table with a single chair, the surface of which is littered with several abandoned, half-drunk cups of coffee. You also can’t help but smirk as you notice the chunky green ashtray on the coffee table in the very center of the living room with a partially-smoked joint resting in the middle.

“It’s quite a rewarding past time. I would encourage anyone with the time and the interest to try their hand at plant guardianship.” He emerges from the bedroom as he speaks, the smallest scrap of pale pink lace visible in the clench of his right fist. “Does your dwelling get light such as this?” he asks, gesturing at the tall windows, the sliding door leading out onto the balcony, the streaming sunlight painting the room a pale gold.

The question jerks you back to the present, reminds you why you’re here and of the strange coincidence you had discovered just before coming down to meet him.

“Actually… You know, it’s funny. Mine is almost exactly the same.”

Ezra quirks a dark, prominent brow at you, his expression pleasantly interested. “Is that so?”

“It’s, uh. Actually why I wanted to verify your unit number.” You rub the back of your neck, suddenly feeling strangely self-conscious. “I’m in 902.”

The man goes still at your confession, and the look of intrigue on his face shifts to a frown. He’s quiet for a moment, pursing his lips, before echoing, “…902?”

You nod. “Yeah. I’m directly above you.” Pointing to the white, spackled surface over your heads, you add, “My floor is your ceiling.”

A pause, and then a slow, creeping grin spreads across his roguish face, warping the thin white scar across his cheek. His dark eyes shine with something like awe as he murmurs, “Fascinating.”

“I know! What are the chances, right?”

“You are the unfortunate neighbor who has such abysmal luck with men.”

All good humor leaves your body then, and you find yourself blinking dumbly back him. His unexpected words hang in the air for a moment, and as you take a deep breath, you manage to stammer, “…What?”

Ezra’s grin transforms into something closer to a smirk, a knowing gleam darkening his gaze. “There was a man a while back, a frequent visitor. I could hear the weight of his footsteps often.” With slow, even steps, he approaches you, closing the distance between you with every word he drawls. “And sometimes, on the weekends, I would be woken from my sleep during the day to the sound of your bedframe squeaking and scraping across the floor, directly above me. You put on quite the performance for him, all those little cries and moans.” His words have the gentle flush you’ve worn since he opened the door flaring to life once again, and you fight the urge to cover your cheeks with your palms, to hide your eyes from his.

“Did he ever figure out that they were all fabricated?” he rasps, leaning into your space as he comes to stand before you. He whispers the question like something asked in the strictest confidence, like the two of you are gossiping together over a bottle of wine or a pot of tea. It’s ingratiating as much as it is humiliating, and the casual intimacy is enough to have your stomach clenching in your abdomen.

“I-I don’t know what you mean.” Your words lack conviction even to your own ears. You have never been a skilled liar, but this attempt is truly abysmal.

Deep wrinkles form between Ezra’s brows as he frowns at you, his tone taking on the soft timbre of reproach. “Oh, come now, little bird. I know the difference between manufactured pleasure and the real thing. Now, the unfortunate boy you drunkenly brought back to your domicile a few nights ago, the one that you said, and I quote, ‘sucked so bad.’ You didn’t even attempt such a performance for him, though if I recall, he was rather loud.” He looks you up and down, that perceptive gaze tracing from the top for your head to the tips of your toes and back again. “And it’s no wonder you did not find your rapture with him, birdie, he lacked all sense of rhythm.”

Involuntarily, you are thrown back to that regrettable night – the awkward barista’s sharp, angular body hovering over you, his too-wet kisses, his grabby, wandering hands, his irregular thrusts, the barely-lukewarm interest all of it inspired…

You do cover your cheeks then, spinning on your heel to break his all-too-discerning stare. “Oh…my god.”

But Ezra is undeterred. He continues, “When we conversed the next morning, I did think it an odd coincidence that you should describe such an underwhelming night when I knew for certain my upstairs neighbor had had much the same experience. Imagine my surprise to learn that it was not a coincidence at all.”

Swallowing thickly, you shake your head, as though the motion might erase the last few moments and somehow bring you back to a time when you did not know that this man – your neighbor, your friend, the person you have been casually crushing on in spite of never having seen him before today – has not only been hearing you have sex for the last several months but also has known all this time that it was bad sex. Somehow that little detail makes it all the more appalling, though you aren’t certain you could explain how.

“This is mortifying,” you mutter, almost to yourself, the words coming out smothered and strange as you slip your fingers over your eyes, palms pressing against your mouth.

Before you manage to disappear into yourself, however, a large, warm, calloused hand wraps itself around one of your wrists and draws your hand away from your face.

“Nonsense, birdie, nothing at all to be embarrassed about.” His voice is low and gentle as he bids you to look at him. “If anyone ought to feel any humiliation in this scenario, it ought to be those incompetent fools granted the unparalleled privilege of getting the share the bed of a kind, intelligent, and heart-stoppingly beautiful young woman such as yourself.”

Your brows draw upward in surprise, and you drop both your hands, thoroughly disarmed and taken aback by his words. “T-Thank you, E. You’re sweet.”

Shifting on his feet, the man inches just that little bit closer to you, enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off of him, enough that you’re overwhelmed by the scent of him. Something woodsy and green, deep and fresh and colored with an inescapable undertone of sweat. You think it ought to be repellant, being this close to a strange man who undeniably smells like he didn’t bother to put any deodorant on this morning, but instead, it just makes you feel a little weak in the knees.

 Ezra smells like a man, like a sweaty man in the middle of a dense, evergreen forest, and it makes some primal part of you, deep inside, ache and throb and want.

You startle softly as he gently takes ahold of your chin between his thumb and forefinger, the touch pulling you out of your reverie and forcing you to meet his eyes. God, his skin is so warm, his dark brown eyes so beautiful and earnest. You couldn’t look away even if you wanted to.

“Far as I can tell,” he croons, his accent elongating and softening his words in a way that has your heartbeat stuttering, “it’s been a tragically long time since you were properly satisfied. And that’s just a cryin’ shame.”

With the most delicate pressure, he slowly, tenderly tugs your chin forward and upward. You can feel his breath on your cheek, on your lips, hot and damp and smelling of spearmint. The sensation has your eyelids flagging, your mouth parting. He’s so close now, a hairsbreadth away. You wonder what his stubble will feel like, whether it will leave friction burns on the tender skin of your jaw.

You’ve never slept with a man with facial hair before, you think to yourself. Would he leave those same burns under your breasts, on the insides of your thighs, too?

The moment the thought crosses your mind, you rip yourself out of his grip with a gasp, practically throwing yourself backward and colliding with the edge of the coffee table. The edge catches against the backs of your calves, and you stumble, rattling the ash tray and sending the half-smoked joint rolling across the table.  

“Birdie! Are you – ”

You brush off his concern, retreat to the kitchen in a flurry of excuses.

You don’t know this man, you remind yourself, willing your heartbeat to stop racing, the space between your thighs to stop throbbing. Prior to five minutes ago, you had never even seen his face, and you were about to kiss him? And not only that, but you’re already thinking about fucking him?

Sure, the E you knew was kind. Intelligent, well-mannered, thoughtful. Wickedly funny. All things you looked for in a potential partner. But was all of that real? Was this man – Ezra – the same man you thought you knew?

He follows you into the kitchen, handsome face pinched with contrition, dark eyes wide and shining. “I apologize if I – ”

But you do not let him finish. Instead, you gather up the little pile of clothes you had brought for him and thrust them in his direction. “Here – your clothes,” you say hurriedly, avoiding his eyes. “All the socks, the undershirt, and the shorts. So if I could just get my – ”

This time, it is Ezra who cuts you off. “Your lacy little unmentionables?”

He opens his fist, and you watch as your favorite pair of panties tumbles from his grip and dangles tantalizingly in mid-air, his thick index finger threaded through the gusset.

Abandoning his stack of laundry on the kitchen counter, you lunge for them, but he sees you coming a mile away. He yanks them out of your reach before your fingers can close around them, like a child on the playground teasing another with a coveted toy, and you stare at him incredulously.

“Ah, ah,” he tsks, his smile placid, almost smug as he watches your frustration and embarrassment grow. “You know, until I saw you on my doorstep, I wasn’t certain, but now that you’re here, I’m afraid there’s one more thing I’m going to need if you want these delightful delicates back.”

Unsure whether to blame your pounding pulse on anger, humiliation, or arousal, you can do nothing but blink back at him. “What?”

“Your shirt,” he specifies, gesturing to the oversized gray t-shirt currently draped over your frame. “Or, perhaps more accurately, my shirt.”

“This is my shirt,” you snap venomously. You are certain now – it’s anger. It has to be. The audacity of this man –

But Ezra is unperturbed, unmoved by your vitriol. His tone is calm and matter-of-fact as he replies, “No, little bird, it’s mine. Lost about the same time as the rest of articles you recovered from the laundry facility.”

You shake your head in confusion. “But…you never mentioned – in your notes, you always just said – ”

“I know, that it is true, but I was mistaken.” He glances down at the pair of underwear in his hand, allowing the intricate fabric to slip between his fingers and pool in his palm as he speaks. “You see, the shirt you’re wearing is not one I reached for often. It’s even older than those shorts you’ve been looking after for me. It took me well over a week to notice that it had disappeared from my wardrobe, as well.” His eyes flick back up to yours, dark lashes lowering as he studies you. “By that time, you had already established which of my items you had in your possession. It never occurred to me to ask if you had the shirt, as well.”

Your jaw works, mouth opening and closing as you struggle with how to respond. You think back to the day you found this shirt, tangled up in one of your bath towels fresh from the dryer, the same day you had found the sweat-stained undershirt. You couldn’t believe your luck, couldn’t believe the soft, perfectly-aged flawlessness of it – the way it had caressed your skin, the way it draped so effortlessly over your shoulders and skimmed your curves so delicately. It had never once occurred to you that this shirt might have been owned by the same person as the undershirt that had clearly seen better days.

“But… This is my favorite shirt,” you murmur despondently, all the fight leaving you as you run your fingertips over the hem.

Ezra’s gaze follows your touch, tracing across the edge of the shirt with an almost feverish gleam. “I can see why,” he rasps, his tongue coming out to wet his plush lower lip. “It is…enchanting on you. But I really must insist. You see, if I allow you to keep it, I will be plagued for the rest of my days by thoughts of you in this shirt – my shirt. And it will surely drive me mad.”

Your eyes snap to his, and for the first time, you feel as though you are able to glimpse a sliver of the man beneath the fanciful language and the slovenly clothes and the cluttered, eclectic apartment. Ezra has an edge to him, a ferocity he keeps well-hidden, but as he allows himself to take you in, you can see it – something animalistic, something raw and ragged and hungry. You watch as his hand clenches tightly around your panties, his thumb rubbing possessively over the little satin bow on the front, and all at once, the anger and embarrassment warring in your chest falls away, leaving only burning need in its wake.

You had never felt anything like this – this crackling electricity, this smoldering desire – with your ex. And certainly never with that worthless barista. This feels primal, a dangerous compliment to the silliness of the swooning, blushing infatuation you had felt for him before today.

How were you supposed to stand strong, to not give in to him when you had fascination, affection, and lust all working against you?

Did it really matter that you had never seen his face until this afternoon?

You’re certain that your conflict must be showing on your face because Ezra looks ready to charge across the kitchen and throw you up onto the kitchen counter at a single word from you. He’s twitchy and eager, his fingers spasming down by his sides, his fist clenching around your panties so hard you can see his knuckles turning pale.

“Come on now, birdie,” he urges, the stretch of silence almost seeming to cause him physical pain. “Have mercy on an old man and hand it over.”

His words have you swallowing thickly, a wave of heat flooding your chest and spreading to the apex of your thighs. You shift on your feet, pressing  your thighs together in an unconscious search for friction, but he spots it – of course, he does. You watch as a muscle in his jaw jumps at the sight, his nostrils flaring as though to catch a whiff of your scent, and god, there’s that animal again – that feral savagery that you never would have known he possessed if you hadn’t coaxed it out of him. He’s beautiful like this, you think, just on the ragged edge of his self-control; it is that look that has you crossing your arms over your chest and drawing your t-shirt up and over your head.

The man blinks heavily, releasing a long, shuddering breath as you hold the shirt out to him by its collar. You dangle it from your fingertips, just as he had your panties, and he looks on with burning eyes as you let it drop to the floor in a puddle of gray cotton.

“Gods above, girl, look at you.”

You have no more words to describe the look on Ezra’s face. He looks enraptured, like a man in thrall, and you resist the urge to cover yourself. Your plain cotton bralette is easily one of the least glamorous underthings in your collection, but with the way he drinks in your figure, you would think that you had just revealed the most intricate, salacious piece of lingerie the man had ever seen. It makes you feel beautiful, powerful, and in control for the first time since you stepped through his door.

“Happy now?” you ask, your voice coming out weaker, breathier than you had intended. Your words are confident, almost taunting, but your tone betrays that you are just as affected by this game you’re playing as he is.

The smallest hint of a smile quirks the corner of his mouth. “I am, indeed. And yet now I fear I will find myself plagued by thoughts of another subject but a…similar flavor.”

With one last sweep of his gaze, the look like a caress as it trails across your body, he takes a step forward, then another, then another. When he finally stands no more than a handful of inches from you, he crouches down and scoops the abandoned shirt off the tiled kitchen floor. Heart in your throat, pulse in your pussy, you watch as he slowly rises back to his full height, brings the shirt to his face, and inhales.

“Goddammit,” he growls, eyes falling shut as he breathes in the soft fabric. “Smell so sweet, little bird. And it’s still warm.”

Your stomach bottoms out at that, the desperation in his voice like a drug that has your knees weakening beneath you. You’re so wet now; you can feel it slicking your panties, dampening your little cotton shorts.

“Ezra.” It spills softly from your mouth like a plea, unbidden and unashamed, and he nods slowly, eyes still closed, as though drinking in the sound of your need like water. 

“I do so enjoy the sound of my name on your lips,” he admits. He makes no attempt to hide his own hunger anymore, and it calls to the one in you, stoked so confidently and carefully by his words. “Would you like me to see if I can make you say it again?”

Ezra kisses like a man starved. You’ve never experienced a need like his, the heat and the urgency of it a physical thing, dragging its silvered claws along your nerve endings, leaving you with no choice but to melt into him as he ravages your mouth. Desperation drips from his tongue past your lips, radiates from his hands into the very marrow of your bones. There’s something almost unhinged in the way he grips back of your neck, the way he runs his fingers through your hair, the way he eats at your mouth with a decadence that has you whimpering. It’s terrifying and thrilling in equal measure – that he could have such an effect on you so immediately.

He had lamented how long it had been since you had been “properly satisfied.” From the way he touches you, you wonder if he ever has.

“Gods, birdie,” he groans, dragging his mouth across the edge of your jaw to your ear, catching the soft little lobe between his teeth. “The sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted. What divinity is responsible for bringing you to my doorstep?”

You can do nothing but sigh in reply, the heat of his breath on your neck sending sparkling shivers down your spine. You cling to him tighter, dig your nails into the cotton of his T-shirt, and he groans at the dull bite of them embedding themselves in the ropey muscles of his shoulders.

“Hnng – the delicate little bird has claws.” He drops both hands to your ass with a smack, each one taking a broad palmful of your cheeks, and grips you so hard you can feel your pussy lips start to spread with them. Your face burns as you realize that he almost certainly can feel your heat on his fingertips – he’s mere inches from the core of you, the only thing separating his touch from your cunt the thin, damp layers of your shorts and panties.

“You should know…” he murmurs into the soft, vulnerable patch of skin behind your ear. “I am going to wring every. last. ounce. of pleasure out of you. I want to savor every drop of it. And if you even think about attempting to placate me with one of those fake little cries I know you favor, I can assure you, I will know, and I will not stand for it. Do you understand?”

You nod, sliding your fingers up into his dark, unruly hair. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”

The scruff of his beard scrapes along your neck as he grins. “Atta girl. Now. Hold on tight.” And with little warning, Ezra slips his hands down to the underside of your ass cheeks and lifts you into the air. You let out a little yelp, your legs wrapping around his waist on instinct alone, and the hum of his laughter sings in your veins as he carries you to the bedroom.

“There she is. That’s what you needed, isn’t it?”

“Ezra…!”

“Fuck, sweet girl, I know. Keep on grinding for me. Keep going ‘til I say so.”

He has you on his lap, knees on either side of his hips as you straddle him in the center of his bed. His torso is propped up on an abundant pile of pillows stacked artlessly against the wall behind him, and his hands haven’t left your tits in countless minutes. He has no headboard, you notice absently, just a thin photo-realistic tapestry depicting a moss-covered forest hanging at the head of the bed, but as off-putting as you would find that under normal circumstances, in this moment, you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Feels so good,” you whimper, head thrown back, eyes drifting shut, hips working, working, working over the sizeable bulge pressing insistently against your cunt through the fabric of your clothes. He’s so hard beneath you, and his hands – his broad, thick, calloused hands – are performing magic on your nipples.

He had long since pulled down the flimsy cups of your bralette, allowing the soft swell of your breasts to spill over the tops, and after drawing the tips of them into achingly hard points with his tongue, he has contented himself with endlessly rubbing, pinching, and tugging at them while you grind against him. The constant stimulation is driving you insane – every caress of his thumb is like a crackling arm of lightning arcing down your nerve endings to your slick, swollen clit, and every thrust of your hips has the leaking head of his cock catching on that clit, and god damn, you’ve never come just from dry humping before, but you feel dangerously close to doing so right here in this near-stranger’s bed, all over his lap.

And Ezra knows it, too. With a smug, filthy smirk, he nods slowly, encouragingly. “Yeah, it does. Can feel you soaking me through my shorts.”

You pant, leaning back to brace your palms on his knees behind you, shifting your angle, seeking more of his hardness. The moan that leaves your mouth as you find the perfect position would be embarrassing if you weren’t so far gone. As it is, it barely even registers. “Oh my god, oh my god – ”

Your neighbor shakes his head, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he traps each of your nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and squeezes, making your hips judder. “No god here, baby. Goddess, maybe. Never seen anything that made me believe in the almighty quite so much as you.”

His praise sends a wave of heat through you, and you can feel sweat starting to bloom along your hairline, under your breasts, in the creases of your thighs. Fuck, your legs are burning, your hips are sore from being spread so wide over him, and god, why won’t he just fuck you already?!

“Ezra, please – ”

“You can come like this, birdie.” His voice is low, strained and rasping but somehow steady. “Come just like this, and then I’m all yours.”

And he’s right – it doesn’t take much longer for it all to become just too much. His torturous attentions on your tits, the low, rich, rasping drawl of his encouragements, the impossibly hard and thick length of him pressing so perfectly against your dripping pussy – all of it stokes the flames in your belly, winds that coil deep inside. In the end, all it takes the wet drag of his tongue against your neck and a whispered “let go, little bird, I got you” in your ear, and you are gone.

Ezra’s hand comes up to cup the side of your face as you come down, his thumb stroking your cheek with surprising tenderness as you whimper and sigh and shake under his grip. “There she is,” he croons, all gentle warmth. “How’d that feel?”

All you can manage in reply is a weak nod. You list forward, seeking his mouth with your own, and you feel him grin into the kiss as you slot your lips against his.

“Fuck, E, please?” you murmur, fingers finding the short, wild strands of hair at the base of his skull and tugging gently.

“Please?” He echoes the word into your mouth, his breath hot on your face as he traces the tip of his prominent nose along yours. His eyes are heavy-lidded, his pupils blown wide, but they shine with good humor just the same. “Please what, baby?”

“Fuck me.” You sound petulant, demanding, almost childlike to your own ears.

With a warm chuckle, his slick tongue darts out to flick playfully at the seam of your open, panting mouth. “Soon. Very soon.”

“I dare not admit to how many times I thought about this. It would surely ruin your good opinion of me.”

You can barely string together enough brain cells to process Ezra’s words, let alone form a coherent response.

You’ve shed the remainder of your clothes, as has he, and you’ve traded places now – your reclined torso supported by the pile of pillows against the wall while your neighbor kneels on the mattress between your spread legs. He pumps his cock – even thicker than you had guessed, flushed ruddy and dripping pearls of precum – with one hand, while the other busies itself between your legs. The stretch of his first two fingers is incredible, the gentle, focused swirl of his thumb on your clit only adding to the sensation. It’s so delicious you can’t keep still, your hips grinding and thrusting to meet his touch.  

Eyes fluttering with overwhelm, weak little moans dropping from your open mouth, you stammer, “Y-You thought about this?”

He nods, that blonde shock of hair over his right eye bobbing with the motion. “I did, indeed. Couldn’t help myself, gods forgive me.” His dark, burning gaze remains focused on your cunt, intent on not missing a moment of the way his fingers glisten with your wetness. The intensity of that stare makes you tremble. “From that very first missive I found in the laundry facility. That…precious pink stationary, with the strawberries around the outside. It smelled sweet. Damn near drove myself mad thinking about it.”

Fuck, his fingers – they keep dragging against something inside you – something along the front wall of your pussy, something you know exists but have never found a partner who was interested in seeking it out. The feeling is foreign but completely spine-melting, a pleasure so deep and round and full that you can barely keep your eyes from slipping shut.

“I wondered what you might look like, what you might sound like. I wondered if you got as much satisfaction from our correspondence as I did. I wondered whether you enjoyed it when I dared to flirt, even if it was just a little bit.” His gaze flicks up to yours briefly, his hand still working his cock, his fingers still buried in your wetness. “Did you, little bird? Did you like when I flirted with you?”

You nod, blinking heavily as you try to hold his eye contact. “Yes,” you sigh, the sound coming out high-pitched and whining. “I did, I liked it.”

“And what about now? Do you like this? Do you like how I toy with your captivating little cunt?”

You moan and nod again. “I do, yes, E, fuck.”

The desperation in your voice makes Ezra smile. “She’s so pretty, sweetheart. So soft and juicy, spilling down my fingers like a ripe little peach in the middle of summer.” He pulls his fingers from you then, and you yelp in protest, your hands flying to his wrist to try to drag him back inside you. But he brushes off your grip like a harmless pest. Instead, he sticks out his tongue and drags his pointer and middle finger across it, leaving a trail of your milky slickness across his tastebuds. “Sticky. Sweet. Rich,” he groans, eyelids dropping closed, losing himself in the taste of you for a moment. “Full to bursting.”

He seems to remember himself, to finally hear your pleas of protest, and it takes him no more than half a beat to slip his fingers back inside you once again. “I want one more moment of ecstasy from you, birdie,” he growls, and you feel your deepest muscles clench down around him at the sound. “Let me watch you fall one more time, and then I will give you this cock.”

You nod again, your head bobbling on your neck as weakly as a newborn’s, and the grin he gives you in return in positively filthy.

“Excellent.”

The stroke of his fingers changes then, no more drugging, hypnotic in and out, no more tender swirl around your over-sensitive bundle of nerves. Instead, he starts to press on that soft, spongy, elusive spot deep within you, the pressure strong and insistent. Your back arches at the sensation, your hands flying out to grip onto his bare, freckled shoulders to hold yourself steady, but even the heat of his skin under your fingers isn’t enough to ground you. Instead, all you can do is drop little rhythmic moans synched with the motion of his hand. He jacks his wrist up and down, quick and firm and unrelenting, his fingertips pressing releasing pressing releasing pressing releasing, and slowly, steadily, something begins to build in you.

It’s searing hot and molten, pooling in your abdomen and leaking into your bloodstream. Your chest flushes, then you neck, then your face, and you swear your limbs are going numb as the pressure below your navel ratchets higher and higher.

“Ez-Ezra,” you whine. “That feels – I – ”

Somewhere at the edges of your awareness, you can sense him nodding, can feel the heat of his stare as he watches you. “I know, I know. Don’t fret now. You can give in to it. Feels good to surrender.”

A bolt of adrenaline rushes through you as that pressure morphs, transforms into the sudden, immediate, and desperate need to pee. The feeling mortifies you, and you shy away from it immediately, hips squirming away from his touch as you try not to embarrass yourself in front of this man you just met, but before you can get far, Ezra abandons his grip on his cock and instead uses that hand to push down hard on your lower stomach, holding you in place.

“Ah! Ezra!”

“Don’t fight your rapture, girl,” he rumbles. “Give me all that sweet nectar.”

Your orgasm hits you like a freight train.

It bowls you over, knocking the wind from your lungs, robbing the voice from your throat, and you can’t even manage to cry out as that dam inside you breaks and you flood his hand. Liquid gushes from you with such force that you can hear it hit his forearm, his knees, his bedsheets. He groans deep in his chest, resonant and victorious, but it sounds far away to you, like you’ve dunked your head underwater or filled your ear canals with cotton fluff. You’re so lost to your own ecstasy, you can hardly be bothered to acknowledge him, but still his miraculous fingers fuck you through the throes of it.

As you drift back to awareness, as your eyes blink open, you find that your nails have left deep, blood-red crescents in the tanned skin of his shoulders, and Ezra is gazing at you with something like pride shining in his dark eyes.

Your throat is dry and hoarse as you stutter, “I didn’t know – I’ve never – ”

“That’s my girl,” he whispers, dropping a surprisingly tender kiss to the very tip of your nose. “Lie back now. I’ve got one last trick up my sleeve.”

“Shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”

He’s so deep inside you now, thick and long and throbbing, and tears are starting to gather at the corners of your eyes from the stretch and the force of him. He has your knees hooked over his shoulders, your hands braced against the bare wall above you to keep your head from bumping into it, and between your legs, Ezra pants and sweats and grinds his teeth as he pounds into you with enough force to rock the bedframe.

“In all my time…on this green earth…never felt anything like you, birdie. What did this old man…ever do…to deserves something so sweet? So…soft. So wet. So fucking…tight, goddammit, sweetheart – ”

From the moment he slipped inside you, he hasn’t shut up. Not that you want him to, but you’ve never had a bed partner be quite so vocal before. You think it might take some getting used to, though if what you’ve experienced with him so far is anything to go off of, you feel confident that it would be worth it for the orgasms alone. This man treats your pleasure like it’s his, like he gets just as much out of watching you fall apart as you do experiencing it. It’s intoxicating, making you want to deliver for him just as badly as he clearly wants to for you.

Your pussy feels swollen and almost achy, your clit throbbing with the paired sensations of pain and pleasure with every grind of his pubic bone against yours. You’re exhausted, your vision hazy, your mouth parched, your hips sore. If he manages to make you come even one more time, you think you might actually pass out.

And yet, you fight to keep your eyelids open, to keep your gaze on him. Your cunt still drools for him in spite of your overwhelm, and you’re gripped with the bone-deep need to stay the course. You want to make him feel as good as he makes you feel. You want to be good for him.

He deserves it, you think. He deserves everything you can offer him and more.

“All those theatrical moans, those high-pitched cries,” he continues, voice dropping to a husky growl as he drags the tip of his nose along the soft, supple skin of your calf. “Where are they now, little bird, eh? Turns out when someone really fucks you right, you go almost totally quiet. Isn’t that so?”

You gasp out a soft, strained, “Mm hm.”

Ezra’s teeth flash as he grins, sweat dripping from his brow, slicking down both blonde and brown hair to the surface of his forehead. “I know, baby. Dick so good, you can’t even make a sound.”

He shifts slightly, bearing the weight of his upper body on one hand instead two as the other delicately brushes  your wild hair out of your face. You’re sure you’re a sight, all folded up like this under him, drenched in your own sweat and his, your hair tangled and your eyes fighting not to cross in pleasure.

“Thought about you so many times, birdie. Thought about the girl that made those sounds, too,” he confesses. He’s breathing heavily, his pace never slowing, never stopping. You can feel the flex of his abdomen as he thrusts, can feel the delectable friction of the tip of his cock against your tender G-spot. “What cosmic alignment…what turn of fortune…that you and that girl should be one and the same.”

“E-Ezra. It’s – it’s so – ”

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” His fingertips are so gentle against your cheek, a spine-melting contrast to the rough, powerful, insistent way he pounds into your body. Fuck, his cock is so good – you clench down around him involuntarily, the weight and the girth and the heft of him pressing so perfectly against every swollen, over-worked nerve ending within you. “But I told you – every last drop, remember? And you’ve still got one more to give me. I can feel it.”

On instinct, you shake your head, a whine bubbling up in your throat as your vision starts to blur. “Can’t – it’s too much – ”

“You can.” Ezra’s voice is breathless but firm, leaving no room for negotiation.

“But – ”

He groans your name then, and the sound of it on his lips forces your eyes open once more. “I can feel this precious little pussy clamping down on me. She’s speaking to me, baby. She wants to come, doesn’t she? One more time? She wants to squirt her delicious nectar all over me, I can tell.”  

You have no more brain power left to formulate a response. A weak, whining “fuck” is all you can manage.

“It’s all right, little bird.” The wicked smirk on his face is audible in his voice. “You don’t have to say a thing. I can do all the talking for now – you just relax.”

Before long, that pressure returns – that weighty, swollen, urgent sensation low in your abdomen, the one that makes you seize up on instinct, one of your hands flying to his hip as though to push him away. But you are entirely too weak and overwhelmed to have much of an effect. Instead, Ezra just nods knowingly and chuckles.

“Right there? Is that what this pussy needs to give up her treasures?” He holds steady, hitting the exact same spot over and over and over, and you can’t help but whimper through clenched teeth. “Breathe, birdie. Breathe deep and let go.”

You’re too far gone to even consider disobeying.

You do as he says – dropping your jaw, drawing a deep, soothing breath into your lungs, feeling your belly rise with it, feeling your diaphragm stretch, and like magic, all of the resistant tension in your hips and core releases, and you’re coming.

You’re thighs-trembling, neck-straining, hands-clenching, cunt-gushing coming. Your mouth open on a silent scream, you ride the tidal wave with half-awareness, barely hearing Ezra’s babbled praises, barely feeling the vital grip of his fingers around your hips, barely sensing the bloom of warmth deep inside you as he fills you with his cum. The only sensation that breaks through it all is the sharp pinch of his teeth biting into the soft flesh of your inner thigh. But you don’t mind – you think you might actually relish the bruise that is sure to come later.

The world is hazy as you come down – the late afternoon sun streaming through Ezra’s window casts long shadows across the bed, and you notice belatedly that the two of you have cast every single pillow and blanket onto the floor during your tryst. You shiver as the sweat between you begins to cool, and for the first time, you start to feel the sopping wet mess you have made of his fitted sheet as it sticks to you unpleasantly. You hope he has a waterproof mattress cover underneath it – otherwise, he is in for a very expensive steam cleaning bill.

Even in your growing discomfort, however, you cannot bring yourself to move. Every muscle in your body feels wrung out; every joint feels weak and wobbly. And your mind – your mind is blissfully, delightfully blank. You smile faintly, allowing your fingertips to trail leisurely over your chest, your stomach, your hips. You are entirely sated, and it is glorious.

Ezra, for his part, appears to feel the same. He braces himself over you with lax, rounded shoulders, his head hanging loose on his neck, his eyes closed, silent at last. His softening cock still rests inside you, but you don’t mind it – he’s warm, and you’re starting to chill. Not for the first time, you’re struck by how beautiful he is. So much more so than you ever could have imagined when you first responded to that crinkled little note in the laundry room.

When he finally withdraws from you, he lets out a soft, rasping groan, and between your legs, you feel the slick warmth of his cum dripping out of your swollen, sensitive hole. You catch him watching it for a moment, a faint smile lifting the corner of his mouth, before he collapses onto the bed next to you with a sigh.

“Well, birdie,” he quips after a moment of satisfied silence, “I suppose I have some more laundry to do, eh?”

His words surprise a laugh from you, the motion forcing even more of his cum to slip down between your ass cheeks. “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea,” you say with a tired smile, turning on your side to face him. “I can help, if you want.”

His grin broadens, and he shoots you a cheeky, crinkle-eyed wink. “No need, sweetheart. I know how to clean up my own messes.”

It’s hours later when your phone vibrates on your night stand, pulling you from your shallow, restless sleep. The time reads nearly midnight, but you rub the grit from your eyes anyway as you scan the message lighting up the screen.

The next time I fuck you, little bird, you’re wearing those lacy panties.

A delicious thrill trips down your spine at Ezra’s words. Drawing your lower lip between your teeth, you thumb a quick reply.

🤭 on one condition i want to wear the tshirt too 😜 Oh, you mean MY t-shirt? no MY tshirt 😇

[arcanefox207]

These are some PPCU fics I have read and enjoyed this past month and would like to recommend. Some new. Some Old. All have smut. I am going to be doing a monthly rec list going forward in an attempt to read more and help reblog and support some amazing authors out there. Please show them some love. Read all warnings! Not everything is for everyone and that is ok. Please always comment AND reblog fics you enjoy to show love to the authors 🖤

Joel Miller

Feelings on Fire // @pedropeach You're back from college for the summer, staying with your devout catholic parents in your childhood home while they order you around and try to keep authority over you. as an act of rebellion you ask your new neighbor mr. miller to teach you how to play guitar, but it turns out there's a lot more he wants to teach you.

But He’s The One I Want // @wheresarizona All you needed was to see if your dad’s friend, Joel, had a spare key to your father’s house. Instead, you get railed within an inch of your life on Joel’s couch. 

Only then, I am good // @joelsdagger You have a bad day in which it makes you question your worth. only joel can make you see the truth. daddy jackson!joel x f!reader

'Tis thee Season // @joelsdagger You’re back in town for christmas, and it’s been months since you’ve seen your boyfriend, joel miller. and he decides to make the most of the brief window of time you have together or,  joel fucks you after taking viagra.

Subscribe // @joelmillerisapunk When Joel accidentally stumbles upon your only fans he convinces himself he's only subscribing to help you through college. And then you send him his top-tier subscriber personal video and he's fucked because you don't even know it's him your dad's best friend

Inhale, Exhale // @sp00kymulderr This world is not made for intimacy and both of you know it.

Dance With Me, Darlin' // @milla-frenchy You go to a club and want to fuck. So does Joel

San Angelo // @macfrog It's the summer of two thousand eight. after two weeks following his little brother cross-country on the back of a harley, Joel follows him through the doors of a dive bar where fate delivers him to you.

General Marcus Acacius

Prima Nocta // @fuckyeahdindjarin Tomorrow, you will marry your husband-to-be. But tonight - it belongs to his father.

Fit For A Goddess // @ozarkthedog You wear Marcus’s gold laurel crown while he worships you.

Ezra

Little Wren // @schnarfer Wild. West. Priest. Ezra. That’s it, that’s the idea.

The Beast Within // @aurorawritestoescape Trekking the Green with his new partner, Ezra is overtaken by his need to have you. While you sleep in the camping tent, the animal within Ezra pushes him to act on his desires. Little does he know, you’ve wanted him as well.

Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales

Nut vid with the sound on // @syd-djarin You accidentally send Frankie a text that he wasn't supposed to see.

Javier Pena

Office Hours // @itwasntimethatdidit40 You should concentrate on work. But you can't do that with the charming bastard you share the office with in front of you. Why not find a more fun way to spend your office hours?

Banner by me. Dividers by @saradika 🖤

[softiedingo]

[strang3lov3]

Rescue Mission

“You take him beautifully, birdie. Beautifully,” Ezra says, now drawing in and out of you at a faster pace. “Look how happy he is inside a’ ya. You’re soakin’ the fella.”

Tags - smut, dubcon, dbf/dad’s weed guy/uncle!ezra (he’s not your biological uncle. I promise), pussy job, unprotected piv, creampie, cock pronouns in excess, cock nicknames (fella, bastard), Ezra’s cock has a titan’s girth (thank @beefrobeefcal), fire hazards, somno ish, plumber’s crack, smoking weed, a tasteful amount of pussy pronouns, me writing Ezra comes with its own warning, surprise surprise Ezra is morally bankrupt, Beefro contributed so I’m not all to blame, Ezra has a lot more jizz than the average man. i don't know how to summarize this. Fic Help - thank you @beefrobeefcal for being my guiding light. Without you this fic would be nothing! thank you @endlessthxxghts and @noxturnalnymph for your eyeballs! A/N - heddo! I finished my research paper but I still have a few things to do as far as school goes, but the end of the semester is right around the corner!! Thank you all for being so patient with me this month. I love you. Mwah!

This is my submission for @sp00kymulderr’s cock pronoun event. I had so much fun with this!! Thank you for hosting, Gideon!!

After packing your old Vera Bradley weekender duffel bag with the last of your clothes for the long weekend ahead of you, you open up your phone one last time to check the weather. It’s not supposed to snow until later in the afternoon, but you’ll make it to your dad’s before then. 

You haul your duffel into the backseat of your car, then carefully place two 9x13 Pyrex pans covered in tin foil next to it. Your dad asked that you prepare a couple of Thanksgiving sides - sweet potatoes and broccoli cheese casserole. Your dad is taking care of the turkey, with other extended family members taking care of everything else. 

You do one last quick check to make sure everything is in order, taking care to give your cat an extra scoop of food.

Fuck - the litter box. You almost forgot! You thoroughly clean it so your neighbor doesn’t have as much work to do when they’re caring for your cat in your absence, but you realize you forgot to buy a new tub of litter at the store the other day. Not to worry, your dad left you some in the trunk of your car for some reason or another. You’ll just leave that for your neighbor to use. 

You get into the driver’s seat after turning off all the lights and pull up directions to your dad’s on your phone and put on Father John Misty’s newest album, then you’re on your merry way. 

About a quarter way through your drive, you have to turn your windshield wipers on. It’s not bad, but there’s the tiniest sprinkle of snow coming down. It’s probably nothing. People are driving like morons under just the threat of snow, but it’s nothing. It’ll be fine. At a stoplight, you change the music. This time, you listen to Love Deluxe by Sadé, one of your Uncle Ezra’s favorite albums. You wonder if you’ll see him at Thanksgiving. 

Quickly, the snow becomes not-nothing. The further you drive, the worse it gets. The snowflakes are getting bigger and coming down heavier, and the road ahead of you is becoming so covered that you can hardly make out the white and yellow lines painted on the road. You’ve slowed to driving at about twenty miles an hour, and you’re growing nervous. It seems like you’re headed deeper into the storm. 

Forty-five minutes pass, though you’ve not driven more than ten miles. It’s coming down now, and the roads are so thick with snow that you’re driving at what feels slower than a glacial pace. This is getting dangerous. The good news, however, is that you did see plow trucks driving down the opposite side of the median. Not confident in your ability to safely drive through what is now probably three inches of snow on the ground, plus the added slush and ice, you decide to pull over and wait for a truck to salt and plow the roads before continuing on your way. You turn on your hazards and watch the traffic move slowly ahead of you; it seems that nobody else has the same idea as you. 

You text your dad first just to let him know that you’ll be a bit late, that you’re pulling over to wait out the storm and wait for the roads to be plowed. 

Ok. Stay safe. - Dad.

Things could be worse, right? You’re safe and warm in your car, you have plenty of gas in the tank. It’s probably another 45 minutes of just waiting, but finally, it happens: plow trucks drive by, salting the roads in their wake. Halle-fucking-lujah. You adjust your mirrors, put your seatbelt back on, and throw the gear shift into drive. Aaand…

You’re stuck. 

You press the gas again, and you’re still stuck. It doesn’t take long for you to start to panic. But your dad will know what to do, right? You call your dad and explain the situation to him. 

“Try rocking the car,” your dad tells you.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Forward, reverse. Forward, reverse.”

With your dad on speakerphone, you try just that, but it’s a difficult maneuver. “It’s not working, Dad.”

“Okay, okay. Can you dig yourself out?”

“No!” you whine. “I am not doing that.”

Your dad’s eye roll is audible. “Alright. Cat litter. I left you cat litter in your trunk last time you came up, remember? Sprinkle that around your tires, it should give you enough traction to get out.”

“Cat litter…cat litter…”

“Yes, the cat litter. That I left in your trunk.”

You laugh awkwardly, “Yes. About that.” 

Your dad groans on the other end of the phone, “You have to be kidding. Okay. Hang on, where are you again?”

“Just past…I don’t know. I’ll drop you a pin.” You text your dad your location. The text takes some time to go through, but it does. 

“Alright. Uncle Ezra’s not far from you. I’ll give him a call, see if he can’t pick you up. Hang tight.”

“Isn’t he with you?”

“No,” your dad replies. “Why would he be with me?”

“I just figured he’d be up for Thanksgiving too.”

“I invited him, but I never heard back. Dude probably forgot. Okay, call you back.”

Sounds like Ezra. Ezra always was an…odd duck. You remember him visiting from time to time when you were a kid, and he and your dad would spend a lot of time locked in the garage together. It wasn’t until much later that you realized they were smoking weed. 

Ezra’s not your uncle, not really. It’s just what he calls himself. He’s your dad’s old coworker turned weed dealer turned buddy. Probably still sells your dad weed, though. Ezra also used to sell your dad quarter sticks of dynamite for the Fourth of July, and both of them made you promise not to tell anyone about that.

  Ezra was always a comforting, if somewhat peculiar, presence in your life. He called himself your guardian angel and texted you from an unknown number - he never has the same phone number whenever he texts you - on your twenty-first birthday, promising that one day soon he’d take you out for a beer. 

Your dad calls you back. “Hey.”

“Hey,” you greet him back. 

Your dad cuts right to the chase. He tells you that Uncle Ezra is on his way, that he has your location and he’ll come pick you up in thirty minutes. Worry about towing your car later, et cetera. 

“Okay. Love you. I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Love you too, honey. Be safe.”

-

‘On his way’ your ass. True to Uncle Ezra’s style, he doesn’t show up until nearly two and a half hours later. It’s just like that time he told you he’d pick you up from something at eleven and didn’t show up until the clock said 11:47. ‘Yeah,” he said, ‘Clock still says eleven, don’t it?’  He pulls up next to your car in a beat up old Kia van, the same Kia he’s been driving for years. 

Ezra hops out of his car, clad in snow boots, plaid pajama bottoms, a Carhartt jacket, and a fleece trapper hat. He stomps through the snow and opens your door, then ushers you into his van. “I apologize for the delay. Wasn’t expectin’ to be assigned a rescue mission,” he shouts at you. You’re not sure why he’s yelling. 

You watch Ezra grab your prepared food and the duffel from the back of your car, his ass crack visible through his falling pants. Ezra tosses it all haphazardly in his before getting back into the driver’s seat. He’s covered in snow, stomping off the flakes before looking over at you. With his dark brown eyes narrowed in your direction, he scans you up and down. “What on God’s green earth is the matter with you? You intended to traverse without the proper coverage?” 

“Excuse me?”

It takes your brain double the time to process Ezra’s words. You forgot about the unique way he speaks, his very particular vocabulary. You wonder where he picked up that way of speaking.

Ezra gestures to your torso. Oh, you think. Right. You’re just wearing a hoodie. You suppose it could have been a problem, had your car’s heat gone out.  

“Jacket,” he chastises you. 

“Yeah, no. I got it.”

“Then where is it?”

“No- like, I understood what you-” Ezra stares at you expectantly, with raised eyebrows. “Never mind.”

Ezra shakes his head in disappointment, then puts his foot on the brake of his Kia and pulls it into drive. “My domicile will have to do for you tonight, birdie. If you are amenable to it, of course.” 

“Mhm,” you hum. “Works for me.”

-

It takes Ezra about forty-five minutes to drive back to his house, which is located behind a water tower and a church off of a highway exit. It’s in a secluded area, thick with trees, the snow much heavier on the unplowed roads over here. Ezra pulls into his driveway, then opens the garage via a remote control attached to his sun visor. He gets out of his seat first, then rounds the front of his van and opens your door. “Hold onto me,” he tells you, holding out his arm. “You’re liable to slip and fall on these slick grounds.” 

You take hold of Ezra’s sleeve, and he carefully helps you out of the van and ushers you inside his house. “Get settled in. I shall retrieve your belongings and return to you post haste.”

You toe off your shoes and leave them on Ezra’s doormat, then begin strolling through his home, perusing through his belongings. His home is cluttered yet clean; lava lamps left on, paintings of St. Francis and St. Gertrude on the walls in his game room, which has floor to ceiling bookshelves full of board games and Dungeons & Dragons paraphernalia. A Halloween bucket full of month-old candy on the table. The house smells strongly of incense, and when you turn the corner and enter the living room you see that Ezra’s left his fireplace lit. 

“Awh shit, must’ve slipped my mind,” Ezra says, noticing the same thing you do. He’s got your duffel bag on his back and the Pyrex pans in his arms. He sets all items down, then goes back into his garage without a word. A few minutes pass and you’re left confused by his absence, so you follow him. 

“Uncle Ezra?”

Ezra’s at his workbench, the warm flicker of a flame illuminating his handsome features as he lights a joint. He blows out the smoke, then smiles at you. “Joinin’ me?”

“Uhhh…”

“C’mon,” he urges. “It’s the holidays.” 

You join Ezra at his workbench, still unsure if you want to partake yet. While Ezra smokes, you study his workbench. There’s not one tool in sight, but there’s lucky bingo trolls, little Buddha statues, snow globes, and other little tchotchkes sitting on the bench. It’s lit by old, dim, rainbow Christmas lights, and little ornaments hang from the wire. You touch an ornament depicting John McClane from Die Hard in when he’s in the air vent, turning it side to side as you inspect it. 

“Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker,” Ezra croaks out with a smile then coughs. He offers you his joint. “Let’s have ourselves a merry little Christmas, now.” 

“It’s Thanksgiving, Ez.” 

Ezra’s brows knit together, “What’d I say?”

“Christmas.”

“Oh.”

Ezra’s still confused as he puts the pieces together, and then he realizes you’re correct. “I suppose you’re right, little bird. In any case, s’a reason to celebrate with a little green, no?”

“I’m not sure Thanksgiving is the weed-smoking holiday.” 

“Oh, but it is indeed, little bird. C’mere.” Ezra takes a pull from the joint held between his middle and forefingers, then, still holding the joint, puts both hands on your cheeks and pulls you close, pressing his lips against yours. He blows the smoke into your mouth, “Attagirl,” he says, his lips curled in a wry smile that makes your stomach churn and your heart flutter. You cough a bit, turning away from him to hide your flustered expression. Ezra pats you on the back. “You’re alright. You got it.” 

He pulls off his trapper hat then, setting it on the workbench. His black hair all messy, and he’s gotten grayer since you’ve seen him last, but that little white streak is still prominent as ever. “Let’s get you somethin’ to eat. Betcha need somethin’ in ya,” he says. 

Ezra ushers you inside, then sits you down on a barstool at the kitchen counter window. He opens his once white but yellowing-with-age refrigerator, scratching the back of his head as he examines his lack of contents in it. “I got…uh…” he trails off, bending his upper half to look through condiments and cans of ginger ale. “Wasn’t expectin’ company.” He opens a box of take-out, takes a whiff, and recoils. “Christ almighty,” he exclaims, “Don’t even wanna know what that most unholy concoction is.” then throws the box away. 

You have to laugh. Ezra is as Ezra as ever. Charming, bizarre, endearing, confusing. He’s never had his shit together, not once. You slide out of your barstool, then head into the kitchen to join him. You nudge him to the side, then pull out your Pyrex pans of Thanksgiving sides from his refrigerator. He’s got an R2-D2 magnet holding up a paper full of logins and passwords on it. ‘ezralikesballs’ is his WiFi password, apparently. 

Ezra smirks at you, tapping his index finger against his temple. “Smart girl,” he says, watching as you start pressing buttons on his oven. “Hold it right there–” Ezra pushes you out of the way and opens the oven door, pulling out various Halloween decorations, all of them plastic, before allowing you to preheat his oven. “Didn’t have a proper place to store ‘em.” 

Jesus fucking Christ. How this man made it past forty years is beyond you. You preheat Ezra’s oven, then sit back down at the barstool as you wait for it to heat up. Ezra pours you a glass of ginger ale, and you spend the time until your food is warmed talking. 

Ezra doesn’t have oven mitts or potholders, so you have to pull your pans out with kitchen towels. You carefully pull off the foil, and Ezra’s standing beside you with plates and forks, ready to serve you both. 

“Goddamn,” he marvels, salivating at the sight of the food you prepared. “You made all of this?”

“I did, yeah,” you reply, smiling shyly. 

“Beautiful. Jus’ beautiful.” Ezra serves himself first, a generous helping of both the sweet potatoes and broccoli casserole. He opens a cabinet and pulls out a can of Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce, “Knew this’d come in handy. Never hurts to have a can of this stuff for emergencies,” Ezra tells you, waving the can in your direction. He serves you next, then opens the cranberry sauce and puts a bit of it on both of your plates. You avert your eyes from the expiration date on the can. You don’t wanna know.

With a nod of his head, Ezra tells you to go sit in his living room. He pushes an ottoman in your direction with his foot, then sits down on his sofa. He pats the spot next to himself, “C’mere, sweetheart. Uncle Ezra missed his birdie.” You sit next to Ezra, who then turns on his TV. He puts on the Thanksgiving classic, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which is also one of his favorite movies. “‘Tis the season.” 

-

Ezra nudges you and leans down to whisper in your ear, “Wake up, sleepyhead. The hour’s come for us to adjourn to my quarters,” he drawls. 

“Hm?”

You hadn’t even realized you were asleep, and asleep on Ezra’s shoulder at that. In your head, you thought you could still hear the movie, that you were following along to it. You’re surprised to see Steve Martin cursing out the airport attendant on Ezra’s TV. 

“Bedtime,” he says. “Upstairs.” 

“Oh. That’s okay, Uncle Ezra. I’m fine right here.” 

“On the sofa?”

“Yeah.” 

“No.”

You turn your head to face Ezra better, stunned. “No?”

“This couch is Hans’ domain. Best not to provoke the fella. Don’t feel like settin’ him off tonight.” 

Hans is Ezra’s cat that you’ve rarely ever seen, but have often felt when his feather-duster tail brushes your foot, heard him when he hisses at you before skittering off into a dark corner. He has to be in his twenties at this point, an Eldritch creature. Hans was ancient when Ezra found him palling around with a raccoon by his garbage, and that was years ago. Ezra’s always spoken about him like Hans is an abusive husband, that one wrong move could result in a reckoning most unpleasant. You’re glad to know the beast is well. 

Ezra stands up first, then stretches backward, exposing his soft, pillowy tummy and happy trail to you. He smirks when he catches you looking. “Your turn, birdie. Up you go.” Ezra bends forward and takes hold of both of your hands, then guides you upstairs and into his bedroom. 

You enter the dark room first, Ezra right behind you with his hand on the small of your back. He turns the lights on and his bed is neatly made with the scratchiest flannel sheets that have to be well over decades old, knit afghans that are even older and have absolutely seen better days. Ezra peels off his clothes, tossing them into a laundry basket on the floor. Clad in nothing but boxers, Ezra gets into his bed. 

God, it is sweltering. Ezra’s house is warm to begin with, but does not heat efficiently at all. You excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and change, pulling out from your duffel only an oversized t-shirt. You’ll just be strategic, so as not to flash Ezra. 

You return to Ezra’s bedroom, and he looks halfway asleep already. “Do Uncle Ezra a kindness, darlin’, and hit the lights for me.” Ezra makes a lazy gesture toward the light switch by the door. 

You turn off the light, and darkness consumes the small bedroom until Ezra turns on his small CRT-TV, Die Hard playing and already halfway through. Another one of Ezra’s favorite films, as evidenced by the name he gave his cat and the little ornament in the garage. You’re not much of a sleep-with-the-TV-on person, but Ezra’s blackout blinds kind of freak you out so it’s nice to have that light. Plus, the volume is low enough. It’s been a long, long day. It weirds you out a little to sleep next to Ezra, but you know that while he’s a strange and bizarre man, he’s ultimately harmless. You slide into bed, exhausted to the point that you’re not even bothered by Ezra’s rock-hard mattress or the scratchiness of his sheets and blankets. The minute your head hits the pillow, you’re asleep. 

-

You wake up in Ezra’s bedroom to that suffocating, smothering heat, the hot air so thick that it burns your nose and your throat. God, how does he sleep this way? His flannel sheets under your body are also warm, and Ezra’s insulating all that heat with his own body. Ezra’s cuddling you tightly, and you’re not sure when that happened, not sure whether he initiated it or if you did. Despite the heat, you don’t entirely mind when he snuggles you closer, curling himself around your body. Nuzzling the back of your neck, strong arms wrapped tightly around you. 

Until you do mind. 

He groans when he presses himself tightly against your frame, his hard cock against your ass as he ruts his hips into you. 

“Uncle Ezra,” you whisper, scooting your body in the opposite direction. In Ezra’s unconscious state, he pulls you back against his body, now fully grinding his hard bulge into your backside with a rhythmic tilting of his hips. “Ezra,” you hiss, voice firmer.

“Wha…” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep, his words slow and slurred. His brow pinched together and his eyes are squeezed shut to block out bluish light from his TV. “What’s ‘a matter?”

“You- your-” You swallow, trying to summon the words. 

“What’s that? You’re havin’ a nightmare of sorts? C’mere, sweet birdie. Go back to sleep. I gotcha.” Ezra presses a kiss against the back of your head.

“N-no, fuck. Ezra-” You wiggle out from Ezra’s hold, then flip over onto your back. 

The loss of your warm body against his cock, that’s when it all clicks for Ezra. “Ohhhh, I get it,” he murmurs, chuckling. “I understand perfectly well.”

“Yeah…”

“I do apologize, little bird,” Ezra says in a raspy, low voice. He reaches for your cheek and drags his pointer finger up and down the soft skin there. “The bastard’s got a mind of his own, doesn’t he?”

Jesus Christ, he’s so fucking weird. He? Ezra’s given his cock pronouns?

“S’alright, go on back to sleep, now.” 

This has to be a nightmare. Or something in between a nightmare and a wet dream. You’ve had those before, anyway. You drift off to sleep once more, then awake again to Ezra’s bulge against you. This time, you feel more of him. His underwear is off, and he’s rubbing the head of his cock against your pussy. “Ezra!”

“What’s troublin’ ya now, birdie, tell me.” 

“You…fuck.”

Fuck, it’s wrong. It’s so wrong and you know it. But goddamn, if his cock isn’t thick. Ezra keeps rocking his hips, grunting softly in your ear as he rubs his hard length against your pussy, arousal dampening the cotton of your underwear. 

“I do apologize for wakin’ ya with my member, but he’s got a titan’s girth, birdie. What’s a man to do?”

Titan’s girth…what the fuck. You don’t even know where to begin deciphering that statement. Right now, the only thing on your mind is fighting the growing heat, that sticky feeling building deep in your belly as Ezra continues to grind against you. His little noises of pleasure aren’t helping in the slightest. 

“Let’s get you outta these,” Ezra huffs rather impatiently, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your panties, then pulls them down with a practiced ease. He tilts your ass, “Yeah, lay like that. You won’t even know he’s there,” he whispers, then slots his length between your lips, coating himself in your arousal as he moves his hips. “Don’t pay him any mind, birdie.”

“Ez- oh, fuck–” you gasp when the thick head of his cock catches against your clit, sparking a pleasure even more intense. “We - you can’t.”

“Oh, I know, angel. He just needs to feel ya a bit, that’s all. Not gonna feel any sort ‘a - fuck–” Ezra notches his tip inside you, only temporarily as he continues rutting, “Any intrusion of any sort.” 

“O-okay.” 

Ezra snakes a hand under your shirt and paws at your breasts, squeezing the soft flesh in such a manner so as not to be too harsh, but god, he could tear you apart. Ever the gentleman, he holds back, teasing your nipples with his fingers instead. You moan a little louder, a little more sweetly when he does that to you. 

It’s an excruciating tease - long, arduous, excruciating. Ezra needs more from you. He could get himself off just like this, fucking your slick folds and no more, but Ezra’s really not one to deprive himself. He’s always been a bit of a libertine in that regard, believing that pleasure’s good for the heart, good for the soul, too. He can’t stave off his hedonistic tendencies much longer, “Ohh, Christ. You feel how fuckin’ hard he is? He needs ya somethin’ fierce, birdie. Needs to be inside that sweet cunt of yours.”

“Ezra…”

“Why don’t you let him in, sweetheart? You need it too, I know you do.”

“We really shouldn’t, Ezra.”

“Says who, sweetheart? Ah–” Ezra notches his tip inside you fully, inching inside you little by little, “You cure what ails him, little bird. Be a lamb, now.” Ezra pushes inside you in one full thrust, burying himself down to the hilt. Ezra did get you sufficiently wet, but it’s still, still such a stretch. You wince in pain, and Ezra covers your mouth to quiet your cry. “You’ll get used to him. Relax, angel. M’gonna have him take good care of ya.” 

With that, Ezra builds a slow pace at first. Just steadily moving in and out of you, his short term goal only to get you used to the thickness of his member. “Ezra,” you sigh. 

“You take him beautifully, birdie. Beautifully,” Ezra says, now drawing in and out of you at a faster pace. “Look how happy he is inside a’ ya. You’re soakin’ the fella.”

Ezra moves fluidly, thrusting in and out of you as he breathes heavily in your ear, whispering swears you’ve only rarely heard him speak. This angle in particular has Ezra hitting that most special place inside of you as that hot, fiery pleasure inside you intensifies tenfold. 

He’s sweaty and warm against you, his body slick with sweat. You clutch his forearm as he fucks you, rocking your hips to match his thrusts. He feels so fucking good, good enough to scramble every thought in your brain. His cock is so long and thick and curved at just the perfect angle. 

Ezra wriggles his arm down the front of you, fingers immediately finding your clit. You gasp when he touches it, rubbing perfect, practiced circles into the sensitive bud. “Oh fuck, Ezra.” 

“Yeah, she likes that, doesn't she, birdie? Don’t take much at all.” Ezra smiles behind you, then presses a kiss against your cheek. He breathes you in as he fucks you, rubbing your clit with precision to bring you to the edge. Within seconds, you’re whimpering, thighs twitching against his large, masculine hand. “Let go,” he grunts. “Come all over him.” 

With his ministrations, his cock fucking you perfectly, you come with a loud symphony of moans, a mixture of swears and Ezra’s own name. Your pulsing cunt coaxes Ezra’s own orgasm along, walls squeezing around him as he paints your insides with so, so much come. A truly astounding amount of come. 

“Ohhh, he needed that,” Ezra groans, pulling out of you with no regard for his spend that spills out of you and onto his flannel sheets. “Thanks for humorin’ him, birdie. Go on and get some sleep now.”

If you enjoyed, please please please reblog with some kind thoughts or send me an ask!! Your feedback means the world to me and keeps me motivated to write, and goes so far in making this blog feel like a community 🩷

[yomi345345345]

Meow.

[ghostthathaunts]

Comment who you’d choose from each round 👀🥵

[daddy-dins-girl]

Pedro Boys tasked with buying your period products.

Someone sent an ask about Pedro boys dealing with their girl on their period... Not sure if this is what you had in mind but I hope you enjoy it regardless :)

Also, this is just for silly fun, don't @ me too harshly in the comments please if you don't agree with some of these, but DEFINITELY feel free to tell me where and why your opinion might differ on some of these choices, I'd love to hear it.

like this post? check out my Pedro Boys Alignment Chart Masterlist here

Headcanons under the cut.

Din/Tim/Dave/Ortega/Clint/Max L - Din is mostly just too shy/embarrassed to ask for help, the rest of these guys are too stubborn, too busy and/or aren't terribly comfortable standing around in this aisle any longer than they have to be.

Ezra/Jack - They're just genuinely confused as to why there are so many varieties. Maybe you WILL be playing tennis tomorrow like this girl in the picture on the box, how tf are they supposed to know? Jack's also a bit of a himbo but it's okay, he's pretty.

Marcus M/Oberyn/Frankie/Marcus P/Joel/Javi P - Some of these boys are 'girl dads' and just know the drill by now. Some are just great husbands (or husband material) who pay attention and some, well... some of these boys just know your p*ssy better than you do and that's all there is to it.

Javi G/Eddie/Zach W - They're sweet, and they're trying. They just wanna be good boyfriends. God bless these boys.

Dieter/Pero/Max P/Lucien - Dieter thought it was an honest question. The rest of these guys are just complete menaces (and honestly, we love them for it).

[pedroacrossthestreet]

ezra is such a beautiful and underrated character and I just wanna pet his hair and talk about him for days and days and days.

everything about pedro’s portrayal of him is perfect, he embodies him so well.

[oogaboogasphincter]

your pedro pascal character placements - based on your astrological chart! 💟

i made this thread a while ago and i put a silly amount of effort into deciding which character should go with which placement, so i thought i’d post some of my reasoning here! *this is just my personal interpretation of astrology+pedro’s characters; one thing i love about astrology is that it’s all subjective! :)*

**i’m working on adding more characters+placements! i made this list a while ago so i have lots of new ones to add :)**

☀️ Sun signs are said to represent your general personality and the archetypes they symbolize are supposed to act as a goal you’re to achieve in your lifetime, or a way to follow your life’s purpose.

♈️Aries sun: Agent Whiskey

people who fall under this sign are bold, energetic, and passionate about virtually everything in their life.

♉️Taurus sun: Frankie Morales

infamous for being stubborn, people with this placement are rooted in themselves and can be drawn to sensual perspectives.

♊️Gemini sun: Javi Gutierrez

if you have this placement, your mind is a whirlwind; you might be called aloof, scatterbrained, or accused of being in your head a lot.

♋️Cancer sun: Javier Pena

this placement bestows a painful amount of empathy in oneself; therefore, one with this placement might be distanced or protective of themselves and those closest to them.

♌️Leo sun: Din Djarin

people who fall under this sign tend to be people-pleasers, which gives way to them being inclined to indulgence and pride, even if they may at first present or argue otherwise.

♍️Virgo sun: Marcus Pike

infamous for being meticulous, people with this placement tend to be tightly wound and potentially shy or nervous because of it.

♎️Libra sun: Ezra, Joel Miller

if you have this placement, you might fare very well in new situations because of your friendly demeanor. you could be indecisive, but that is often cured by your adaptability.

♏️Scorpio sun: Pero Tovar

this placement makes for confident, intense people who are enshrouded in a quiet, unsuspecting shell. they could give off "doberman" energy.

♐️Sagittarius sun: Max Phillips

so you know i'm an optimist! people with this placement are likely honest to a fault, yet indulge in escapism quite often. you might fall victim to seeing the world through rose-colored glasses.

♑️Capricorn sun: Dave York

people with this placement are one word: driven. this could lead them to being materialistic or standoffish.

♒️Aquarius sun: Maxwell Lord

people with this placement have either never heard the story about the cat being killed by its curiosity or chose to ignore it. they're likely to be intellectual and innovative.

♓️Pisces sun: Oberyn Martell

people who fall under this sign could be considered an amalgamation of all the signs that came before it. they have a knack for empathy and could live in their dreams a lot.

🌙 Moon signs are meant to illustrate your inner monologue, or your emotional reasoning. They heavily impact your personal relationships.

♈️Aries moon: Javier Pena

people with this placement are very direct, but run the risk of becoming argumentative or losing their patience quickly.

♉️Taurus moon: Javi Gutierrez

if you have this placement, you might have a hard time standing up for yourself. you have burdensome emotional depth, but you're conservative about expressing it.

♊️Gemini moon: Max Phillips

if you have this placement, you might feel restless in your own mind and turn to others to express it, making you have a magnetic way with words. you could become shallow when agitated.

♋️Cancer moon: Marcus Pike

people with this placement are empathetic to a fault, which makes them endearingly fragile. you could dwell on things often, unintentionally hurting yourself even more than what something's worth.

♌️Leo moon: Dave York

this placement is very prideful; you might enjoy having a position of control, stealing people's hearts, or being admired or revered. however, you might take things to heart too easily.

♍️Virgo moon: Frankie Morales, Joel Miller

people with this placement tend to be labeled as the "mom" friend; they're reliable, responsible, and like for things to play out simply.

♎️Libra moon: Maxwell Lord

i hate to break it to you if you have this placement (i have it too, so i'm calling myself out just as much as you): you're petty. you could be a natural flirt, yet run the risk of depending on the approval of others if you're not careful.

♏️Scorpio moon: Ezra

people with this placement enjoy starting old things anew. they're have a suspicious feeling ingrained in their minds that just won't go away, so they enjoy transparency in relationships.

♐️Sagittarius moon: Agent Whiskey

if you have this placement, you could enjoy competing with yourself a lot (or think of yourself as your own worst enemy). you could have a tendency to make reckless decisions with cheerful intentions.

♑️Capricorn moon: Din Djarin

although people with this placement can be very guarded, they have a juxtaposing need for validation from others often. therefore, they're calculating when it comes to who they devote their time and energy to.

♒️Aquarius moon: Oberyn Martell

if "not like the other girls" was a placement, it'd be this one. people with this placement tend to take on an observant role rather than an active one, so they are often self-serving, independent, and philosophical.

♓️Pisces moon: Pero Tovar

people with this placement are observant, but instead of being independent like the Aquarius moon placement, they can fall for people's tricks more easily. they have instinctual feelings about people, but their sympathetic tendencies win over, rendering them gullible.

⬆️ Rising signs, also called ascendant signs, are supposed to indicate how other people perceive you or how you present yourself to others. It’s not uncommon for someone to mistake your rising sign for your sun sign because rising signs are sort of like first impressions.

♈️Aries rising: Dave York

if you have this placement, people might think that you move through life at a fast pace, independently, and are quick to jump to action.

♉️Taurus rising: Marcus Pike

people perceive others with this placement as stoic and sensual, often with a calming presence. you might have a sort of comforting, "lived-in" quality to you.

♊️Gemini rising: Maxwell Lord

people with this placement are likely to be thought of as socially exploratory, expressive and analytical; like a firecracker or a party-starter.

♋️Cancer rising: Javi Gutierrez

if you have this placement, you might appear like a wallflower to others. but, your perceived sensitivity makes people feel safe to put their stake in your dependable character.

♌️Leo rising: Ezra

you know those people who command the attention of a room without even trying? they just might have this placement. even though it comes naturally to them, others might think these people to be ostentatious or dramatic.

♍️Virgo rising: Din Djarin

people with this placement are revered for having a reserved character yet are ready to help at a moment's notice. they're not valiantly selfless, though; they're equally receptive to their own needs.

♎️Libra rising: Frankie Morales

people who are sly like a fox — provocative and might be accused more than once of operating under a facade — are likely to have this placement.

♏️Scorpio rising: Javier Pena

if you have this placement, people might think of you as intimidating because of your perceived x-ray vision. but they can see through you, too, to your vulnerability that you try so hard to privatize.

♐️Sagittarius rising: Oberyn Martell

optimistic to an annoying degree, talkative, a go-getter; all phrases used to describe how people with this placement come off to others.

♑️Capricorn rising: Pero Tovar, Joel Miller

people with this placement are often thought of to be responsible and hard-working, contrasted with a deadpan or dry sense of humor that cuts through their tenseness.

♒️Aquarius rising: Max Phillips

if you have this placement, people are likely to perceive you as a unique, educated, flexible, and quirky individual that gatekeeps only the very best parts of themselves.

♓️Pisces rising: Agent Whiskey

people with this placement are received by others as chameleonic. you have a capacity to be emotionally receptive, theoretical, and understand the subjectivity of different perspectives.

[sunshinehaze1]

my 2024 favorite things (that others have made)

I read a lot of words this year. A LOT. 🫣

~8 million words (yes, I kept track 🤓 for S&G) that made me laugh, cry, feel squishy, inspired, and continue to live rent-free in my brain. Below are some of the words I loved the most. This is by no means an exhaustive list. I compiled mostly from memory and I’m sure I’ve missed some. A lot of y’all are just churning out 10/10, no notes gems on the regular and it is truly inspiring. Thank you for sharing your beautiful brains with the world! 🫶🏻 I can’t wait to read more!

18+, MDNI. Please read the warnings on each respective fic.

Joel:

Halcyon @justagalwhowrites

Meet Me in the Back @joelstummy

Dress up Joel @covetyou

So Much to Lose @auteurdelabre

Never made it as a wise man @almostempty

Daddy Can Fix It @baronessvonglitter

Roommates @punkshort

Cover Me Up @almostfoxglove

Teacher’s Pet @javiscigarette

Touch @eff4freddie

Click Here @strang3lov3

Maintenance Request @burntheedges

The Falling @getitoutofmymindwrites

Guilty Pleasure @for-a-longlongtime

See How She Rides @arcanefox207

Defying Algorithms @yxtkiwiyxt

Javi P:

Paranoid Heart @goodwithcheese

Pump @morallyinept

Fantasize @gothcsz

Lost & Found @oliveksmoked

Pretty Boy @joelmillerisapunk

A Litany of Lethe @kiwisbell

Frankie:

The Pilot and His Girl @avastrasposts

Do Me Yourself @jolapeno

Tonight You Belong to Me @intheorangebedroom

Brand New Babygirl @tieronecrush

Learning Curves @moonlitbirdie

Table for Two @hellishjoel

Transient Nights @pedgito

Sympathy for the Devil @encasedinobsidian

The Realm of Love @80ssong

Other characters:

Marcus Pike - Your Ride, Best Trip @qveerthe0ry

Dieter - Purple Haze @schnarfer

Mr. Ben - Visiting @ladamedusoif

Din - Fifteen @whocaresstillthelouvre

Ezra - In The Dark @frannyzooey

Javi G - Rhapsody in Blue @maggiemayhemnj

Dave York - Wildest Dreams @guiltyasdave

Marcus Acacius - Work of Art @ak-vintage

Multiple characters:

Rumor Has It @senorabond - Javi P x Marcus P. x reader

Listen/Watch/Touch @luxurychristmaspudding - Joel, Frankie & Santi x reader

Baby, I’m-a Want You @perotovar - Joel & Javi P

❤️

[guiltyasdave]

the pedrolympics

daphne @sizzlingcloudmentality and i are spending our days watching the olympic games and we got to thinking… which sports would the pedro boys compete in? (there might have also been tequila involved in the decision making)

pre outbreak joel - football (…soccer) because of sarah

post outbreak joel - shooting, for obvious reasons

tim rockford - rowing, that’s where the obscenely broad shoulders come from

marcus acacius - triathlon, because swimming in the seine would add to the grime so nicely

max phillips - swimming, because it seems like the fuckboy thing to do

marcus pike - table tennis, self explanatory

lucien flores - surfing, it’s the flowing shirt and the soft beach waves

frankie morales - wrestling. just picture it

ezra - canoe slalom, in the paralympics

marcus moreno - decathlon, because he can do everything

dave york - tennis. daphne mentioned the grunts and moans we’d get to hear. jana died.

agent whiskey - eventing. riding horses so we can ride the cowboy

javier peña - beach volleyball, in tiny shorts

javi gutierrez - artistic swimming, he’s got the moves for sure and picture him in a swimming cap 🥹

pero tovar - judo, he knows how to use his hands and body

oberyn martell - diving & gymnastics, because he’s a show off that can do both. also the shoulders

maxwell lord - fencing, rich people sport but cooler than golfing

din djarin - rugby. the thighs. he can run. he can jump. he has experience in holding onto a green baby shaped like a rugby ball.

dio morrissey - skateboarding, wearing all black

comandante veracruz - sport climbing. also hosts knife throwing competitions in the olympic village.

clint - boxing. again, just look at him

reed richards - golfing. he’s a distinguished gentleman okay. could also be accused of cheating in most other sports

unnamed materialists sugar daddy - dressage, he knows how to make you… stay in line (we don’t know what’s wrong with us)

dieter bravo - manages the team’s social media account. he’s a star on tiktok

let us know your takes! 🫶🏻

[softiedingo]

I mean his lap is practically saying "sit here" , @sydneyinacoma

[magpiepills]

Bat Presents:

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Joel Miller

Only Teasing

Got It Wrong

Taurus

En El Mar

Into The Deep End

Put It In Coach

Made Me Love You (The Bangfest) complete

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 Pit Stop extra

Plow

Downward Dog,

Butterfly

Another Kind of Hunger

Airtight

Austin, Texas On A Rainy November Saturday, 2002

Austin, Texas On A Cloudy January Sunday, 2003

Doin’ Time

Like A Boy Does

Take It Easy

Javier Peña

En La Calle

Escritorio

Hard At Work

Aquarius

I’m Not Really A Waitress

DIY

Sweet Tooth

Promises, Promises

Promises Broken

The File Room

Frankie Morales

Honor And Obey

Say It

The Run

Once and Future

The Layover

Ezra

Sagittarius

Kill Shot

Not For Nothing

Code Duello

Coming soon ✨

Dieter Bravo

Here Today

For Her Pleasure

Lucky In Kentucky

But Baby, It’s Art

The Oasis

Marcus Pike

Misunderstood

Dave York

Strange Currencies

Gemini

Din Djarin

A Rite

Marcus Moreno

Girl Lunch

Same Time Next Week

Lucien DeLeon

Watercolor

Make Me

Ted Garcia

Vote For Ted

Silva

Divining Rod

Tim Rockford

God Speed

The Late Shift

Overtime

Mario (snl)

Game Over

Jack “Whiskey” Daniels

Rope & Ride

Bonus thots

Javier Pena

Marcus Acacius + Lucius & Dieter

Under The Weather HCs

Manus Aureum

[absurdthirst]

YESSSSSSS

Headcanons for when the Pedro boys come home after a long trip and find out that reader has put on some weight? (Whiskey and Frankie are usually my favorites in these things 💖🥺🌸)

Coming Home To Find Out That You've Put On Weight:

**Female Reader

Javier Peña: He's not going to mention it. He's not stupid. He can tell you are a bit nervous, you tug your shirt down over the extra curves that you aren't happy with and you hesitate to get naked when he is trying to strip you down. He showers your neck and lips with extra kisses, pressing his aching cock against your soft stomach and growls that he has missed you and needs to be inside you. Gonna go a little harder with you though, more cushion for the pushing is the saying, right?

Ezra: Delighted. You haven't been living off bits bars and meager rations. Maybe a little greedy for the fact that he might get better meals than what he had been having since being away from you. Plus he is of the opinion that every form is beautiful; fat, thin, tall, short, it doesn't matter. Your cunt is still hot and clutches around him like a glove and in your arms, he finds the solace he craves.

Mando: Mando yearns for softness. Everything in his life is hard, unyielding. His armor, his creed, even his cot is hard as a rock. So when he comes back to the covert to find that you are softer, he loves it. You can't see his express, because the room is pitch black, but you can feel the eagerness of his touch. The moans even louder when he squeezes parts of you that are a little fleshier than before. It might be the quickest he's ever finished.

Frankie Morales: See, Frankie loves a thicker girl. Those thighs you hate? He loves them. They are soft and cushiony, a perfect place for him to lay his head down on while pretending to watch tv with you. He always falls asleep. That pooch over your pussy? Fucking loves it, constantly touching it. So when he was deployed for eight months and he came home to find that you had put on a little weight, it didn't bother him at all. He was still going to strip you down as soon as the kids were taking and nap and explore ever soft curve you have with glee and exhaust himself and you.

Pero Tovar: Another man who does not mind if your waist grows thicker or your body is softer. Pero loves it. It shows that you did not starve while he was away, a constant source of guilt and worry for him. He had left you enough coins to last and you had obviously been successful in your gardens and trapping animals like he had hoped. The weight you have added might have made you have to let our your dresses, but your tits are also bigger, so it's extra fun for Pero.

Max Phillips: Whistles when he sees you. For a moment, he thinks about making a sarcastic comment about the weight gain, but he can see that you are actually self conscious. Max might be an egotistical, vain prick, but he's not cruel to you. You are still sexy to him. "There's my little blood bag." He hums, sweeping you into his arms and kissing you before smelling your pulse. "You look good enough to eat." He growls playfully, even though you both know that he will feed off of you when he is done making you scream his name.

Agent Whiskey: Listen, this man can throw a grown ass man around with a whip, you think you gaining some weight is going to take the fun out of the rodeo? He doesn't give a shit what the number on the scale says, as long as you still ride his mustache and his cock, Jack Daniels will be a happy man. Plus, he likes the extra jiggle.

Marcus Pike: Understands completely. He's been talking to you on the phone, knows that you have been doing the quick and easy dinners and snacking more - he has too. He doesn't mind the extra weight, as long as you don't. If you complain about it, he will offer to go for walks at night when he gets home or go with you to the gym in the mornings before work. If you don't say a word, this man will just happily love you as you are.

Oberyn Martell: Immediately asks if you are carrying a child. He has been gone for two months and when he finds that there is weight on your stomach, he is smiling as he caresses your skin, hoping for another child. The only way this man is disappointed is when you tell him that you have had your bleeding consistently while he was away. Then he will pout. But only because there is not another Sand Snake on the way. Then he will just get busy making that happen.

Dave York: He's getting older and the fucking weight just doesn't come off like it used too. He hates running, unless he absolutely must, so it doesn't bother him. Not really. Does he have the stray thought that you weigh a little more when you're riding him? Yeah, but he knows better than to say that shit out loud.

Zach Wellison: Doesn't say a word. He notices, but it's not his place to say anything. He's been gone, and you've been doing everything yourself. He just kisses you and asks how you have been while he's been gone.

Dieter Bravo: Doesn't really recognize you put on weight. He's just happy you are still here when he gets home, and you want to fuck him. He's greedy and needy in bed all at the same time, but after the deed is over, he's soooooo comfortable cuddling into you that he calls you his new pillow and drifts off to sleep with a smile on his face.

Javi Gutierrez: He notices. He notices everything about you. It doesn't matter to him. You are still perfect. You are still the woman he adores. Coming back from filming his latest screenplay is a relief and he is over the moon to be reunited with you. His love for you is pure and real, it's not even going to matter if you gained weight to him. He just has more of you to love.

Max Lord: Max is one who loves appearances, so this is something that you worry yourself sick over. The 80s is a time where everyone wants to be supermodel thin and gaining weight is heavily frowned upon. So you are a wreck when Max comes home from the super secret trip that he had taken. Only to find that he is completely unaware that anything has changed. He's too focused on being successful.

Marcus Moreno: Doesn't care. Are you healthy? Are you happy? If not, then he will help you however you need. If you are, then he is happy. He loves you and completely understands that bodies change over time. He's not wearing the same size Heroic's tac vest he was a few years ago, and it's not because he's gotten smaller. He's still gonna find you irresistible and slap your ass when he walks by you in the kitchen every morning. Maybe even more so now.

Tim Rockford: All the evidence points to the new flavor of cookie you've discovered. It's a good cookie. Tim is just happy to be home, that case took way too long to solve and he just wants to curl around your thicker frame after he's made you cum and sleep for a week. He doesn't care about weight, he's home and the case is solved.

Joel Miller: Doesn't bother him a damn bit. You still fit into your clothes, although they are tighter. Joel cares about you, not what size you are. There are more important things to worry about as long as you are healthy.

Marcus Acacius: It's been two years since he has seen your face. The memory of your last kiss, the last time he made love to you, has carried him through the campaign that had taken so many Roman soldiers. You look gorgeous to his weary eyes, a safe harbor to take shelter in. The plumpness of your new body does not take away from the way he needs you. This is a man who is just happy to have come back home to you.

[ghostthathaunts]

Guys! I’m going to start making Pedro pascal edits on tik tok! If yall could go give me a follow I’d appreciate it! Tik tok: pedropascalsupremecy

BTW! Can anyone gift me this handsome hunk of man for my birthday today?! 😭 just look at him

[chronically-ghosted]

vivarium

rating: explicit 18+ pairing: ezra x f!reader word count: 8K summary: you request a vacation for your birthday. With the rain and a few drinks, you get a lot more than you asked for.  warnings: alcohol drinking, minor age gap (less than 10 years), oral (f!receiving), fingering, smut, possessive!Ezra, dom!Ezra, one booty smack, dirty talk for real, smut, pining, a bit of angst, referenced/implied orphanhood, made a religious sex pun and i'm so proud of myself a/n: so @morallyinept requested this and it turns out when I write for a boy for the first time, it can’t be less than 7K – whoops. i've gotten ezra requests from some moots before, so i hope this lives up to your expectations! **massive thanks to @toomanytookas for editing and providing the initial validation so i don't post in a mouth-frothy haze. I've never had a beta like you before and I genuinely feel like I've turned over a new chapter in my fic writing. thank you!

🤍Masterlist 🤍 Ezra Masterlist 🤍 AO3 Link

💜come see what else we've done to celebrate 1K followers

Your feet in the clear blue water, the humidity like a wet tongue on your skin, you scratch a nail under the tab of a mustard yellow can, crack it open, and drink. The bite of alcohol dulled by the carbonation, you take several pulls, drawing out the mid-afternoon buzz from two other cans and whetting your mouth in the heat of the jungle day. You lean back on your elbows into the sponge-soft grass, and let out a massive sigh. 

A few feet ahead of you, on a repurposed inflatable reentry tube, your long-time privateer partner chuckles, the sound deep in the back of his throat as he floats by. Thick fingers and exposed heels dragging along in the crystal water, he greets the yellow sun like an old friend – arms wide, chest out, a lazy smile on his face. A damp rag – supposedly clean – sits over what you know to be dark-earth eyes, every other inch of him relishing in the inevitable sun tan. 

“I see your aaahhh, pet, and I raise you a mhmm.” The rubber squeaks as he adjusts, tips his scarred chin up to the cloudless sky and rests his head back. “Kevva said there’d be days like this, but I think the old hag mighta left out a thing or two.” 

You grin, the wet heat of Banu 8’s lowlands drawing sweat droplets onto your hairline at the back of your neck, settling thick behind your ears where it co-mingles with the drunk haze loping around in your brain. You watch Ezra with his bare arms, hairy legs, and prominent nose turned towards the divinity he’s so fond of invoking and the thought crosses your mind – again:

Shit, he’s so fucking hot. 

Oh, bad thought.

You drop your gaze, pressing the cold aluminum lip of the can to your mouth, drinking quicker than you probably should, anything to distract you from your partner as he obliviously floats by. 

For our sake, you silently beg the hungry little creature that whines and snaps at the image of a shirtless Ezra, please fuck off. 

While Ezra whistles a vaguely familiar tune, terribly off-key, you scoop up the cool lagoon water and dribble it over your hot knees, then your thighs, dampening the rims of your make-shift shorts just enough to cool them without leaving them vulnerable to a permanent state of moisture due to the high humidity. You flick the last drops of the water onto your chest, your white cotton bra choked to your skin. A final effect, you press the cool can to the thrumming pulse on your neck, closing your eyes with a relieved grunt, taking the time to enjoy the sensation of the cold metal against the rapid beat in your throat. 

From the water, you hear an unsettled grunt and you open your eyes to find that same shirtless Ezra staring at you, the rag now curled in one hand against the rubber float. He swallows, looks at something past your ear, and again tries to adjust in the sticky rubber float without flipping himself over, his hands falling into his lap. 

“Neptune, dear, would you do us the favor of tossing over one of those cans? I’m parched. I think my lovely skin is drying out.”

Neptune. His favorite nickname for you. You never got any real explanation from him as to why you got that name, other than after you’d officially joined his crew, you told him you came from a blue planet in a far off system. But that was often the way of things: Ezra did something and you didn’t question why. From that simple truth, you learned about how to repair and rebuild the entire electrical system from a drop pod. You learned, in excruciating detail, the parts and mechanics of a thrower, so much so that you could almost identify the model number at a glance. You learned about which corporate dig sites to avoid, which made for easy marks, and which would draw the eye and ire of entities hardly worth the trouble. 

Being out on your own since you aged up out of the orphanage had not gone the way you hoped and life had not been so kind as to teach you any other way to survive. Ezra had found you in the back of a red spice market, cornered and slurping down the last few of your credits from a muck bowl that you had vastly overpaid for.

For whatever reason, he offered you a job on the spot, despite you having nothing to offer him. and no experience in anything except cleaning prophylaxiams and staying out of the way.

And yet, he has been far kinder than life, or anyone else, had ever been to you. 

As a result, loyalty was only a fraction of what you felt for him. What had begun as overwhelming adoration had grown hot to the touch, slippery between your fingers at night, and perhaps – what you feared most of all – obvious. 

Yet when Ezra looked at you with a smile on his face, it was only comradery he wished to share with you, certainly not his bed. He shared it with practically every other bi-pedal humanoid you came across, but not you. And this you had to accept. And you did. 

But being a little drunk made it that much harder to remember where to keep your hands to avoid being burned.

“Sure, Ez.” You tuck your legs out from the cool water and dig around in the canvas bag at the base of the white nut tree. Most of the ice had melted into the bright green grass around the lagoon, but a few of the cans were still cold. You’d probably tease Ezra later for skimping on the insulation bucket the provisions store the port offered, but he had been so eager to get to the camp ground after spending an “exceedingly exorbitant amount of time stacked up against human drivel on public transportation”. One lopsided grin, and you’d give him the world. 

“Ez–,”

He lifts the rag, glancing at you over his shoulder, hands cupped as the can flies through the air. The cold metal presses against the overheated skin on his chest and he hisses. Eyeing the can ruefully, he cracks it open and drinks deep. You busy yourself with sliding to the edge of the pool again to keep from watching his throat move. 

Ezra finally pulls back, smacking his lips, with a pleased groan. He wets the rag again and dramatically flops it over his eyes. Hidden from his view, you watch the roll of water down his temples, his neck, his chest. 

“Name anything better than this, Neptune, I beg you. Free from obligation or assignment on commission. Where my only moral imperative is to drink as many of these as I can and remind you how beautiful you are. Which . . .” he tilts the bottom of the can towards you, head still tilted back on the raft and dripping rag covering his vision, “fantastic, by the way.” 

Having stifled your blush while under his watchful gaze about three or four other times today, without him looking, you flush so hard and fast you go lightheaded. Beautiful, he said. You drink more carbonated alcohol to choke back your rising heart, your eyes skim over the curve of his nose, a drop of sweat as it peaks on his forehead. You can’t linger over him too long; he has a six-sense about you – unable to know what you’re thinking but that you’re overthinking all the same. 

“Was this worth the trip on public transportation, Ez?” Your ankles stir the water again. 

“I could do this all day,” he sighs contently, bringing a warm smile to your face. “And definitely all night.”

Maybe you’ll both be so sun-drunk later tonight, you’ll fall asleep together on the pallet on the floor. Of course, by nightfall, someone will have to come to their senses and you’ll be tucked back into your separate sleeping bags, but maybe, as a present you couldn’t possibly ask for, you can just nap together.

With the bottom plush of your lip stuck between your teeth, you rim the metallic edge of your can with your nail, ankles spinning slow circles in the water. 

“Thank you, Ezra,” you say quietly, “for the best birthday I’ve ever had.” 

It began as a sort of joke one night on the volcanic hotspring moon of Wulkan after a twelve hour shift hunting through the black ash in search of fire pearls. The job was rather rushed, and Ezra had his reservations going into it, but fire pearls were a near certainty and you both needed a boost after a jump exchange had gone a little cockeyed. Sweat dripping from his temples, the provided water packs in the harvest suits doing just enough to keep him from passing out from heat exhaustion, he extended the skein of hydro-electric towards you across the narrow lane between your cots and asked you if you could be anywhere right now, any system, where would you be.

“Somewhere so cold I freeze my tits clean off,” you said with a sigh and wiped your own sweat-drenched forehead. You could smell yourself after two days of sweating profusely, but your stench in comparison to the rest of the crew, including Ezra, barely registered any more. You took a sip as Ezra laughed.

“A grievous crime against humanity and all its luscious gifts, but I get your meaning. Anywhere else?”

“Water.” This was said with more conviction, so much so it turned Ezra’s head towards you. “The few memories I have of my home planet and my parents, we were always near or in water. An ocean, maybe. I’m not sure. But I remember being really, really happy and I think being near water . . . it would make me happy again.”

You handed the skein back to Ezra, something unreadable in his gaze. He took it back from you, his fingers dark from the ash that clings to everything. On the other side of the tent, the rest of your crew and other teams mill about, yelling, with cutlery clattering as the camp gets ready to slow for the night, a graveyard shift picking up in just a few hours. 

Ezra’s eyes are as dark as the ash you’ve been shifting through the past two days.

“Then you shall have it, Neptune.” He said, quietly. “I’d give you the fucking galaxy if I could.” 

Those words often came to you in the crevice between sleep and wakefulness, when your mind was idle and the reins that tightly bound your affection for him loosened without a conscious grip. When you thought you weren’t being watched. 

The flat of his foot hooking behind your ankle breaks you from your reverie. Cast into shadow by the wide, rubbery palm leaves above your head, he looks at you curiously. 

“That look of deep consternation is giving me a headache. Spill.” 

With a faint smile, you gently bump his knee with your own. “Nothing, Ez. I’m just glad we get to take a break from it all. I can’t remember the last time I . . . the last time we’ve just had nothing to do.” 

He cocks his head as his gaze crawls up your ankle, your shin, to your knee. You think it might linger on your thigh before it bounces to your face. You tighten your grip on the hot, expansive feeling behind your ribs and stare back at him.

“Then that’s a black mark against me, as the leader of this clan.” His mouth curls, eyebrow arching as he talks, knowing that statement has been a point of playful contention between you two for years. “A good overseer knows when to crack the bullwhip and when to let it rest.”

“Well, a better overseer knows when to demand that her team rests, because sometimes they have no idea what’s good for them.” 

His foot rotates behind your ankle, his toes brushing against your calf, bringing your attention to your own body part in the water. Your legs are hairy, nearly as much as Ezra’s, and you haven’t shaved your pits in possibly a decade. Ezra once brought home a professional nightwalker, one from the Upper City, to the derelict flat you’d been sharing for two weeks as you offloaded your haul to the under markets. You never forgot how smooth her skin had been, shaved clean and smelling of moon lilies. That scent permeated the small space for weeks afterward. Even now, just the sight of moon lilies makes you nauseous. 

His aversion to you runs much deeper than physical aesthetics, even if you can’t help but wonder sometimes if becoming as smooth and hairless as the nightwalker might change his mind.

“Observational to a fault as always, Neptune.” The ball of his foot rests briefly between your legs before he pushes off from the spongy lip of the lagoon’s edge. He floats back into the sun, his head shaking slightly, a smile drained of amusement on his lips. He inhales as the sun crests over his forehead and he glances up at the blue sky. “I have no idea what’s good for me.”

Something about his tone, the way he turns away from you, scratches a very raw place inside of you – a place that fears and obsesses over abandonment. You wouldn’t survive it if he abandoned you, if he left you to fend for yourself one day. Logically, you know he would never do that – he has sworn up and down to your face that that notion is fundamentally ludicrous to him – but the anguish of him silently rejecting you from his bed again and again and again makes that fragile place inside you bleed red. 

You stand up, swipe another can from the bag, and move towards the waterfall. 

“I’m taking a hike.”

You feel his eyes on the backs of your thighs as you march towards the gentle incline.

“Be safe, Neptune,” he calls softly.

For a fleeting second, you wish he had made you stay.

The first fat raindrop splashes against your cheek and wakes you from a humid, irritated nap. You’re scowling by the time you open your eyes to several more wet droplets as they splatter against your neck, your forehead and you sit up, even more frustrated than when you fell asleep. The last sticky tendrils of dreams snap and pop as you pull yourself onto your feet, back hunched and arm held high against the steamy sprinkle. A crack of lightning, then a growl of thunder, and the sky splits open, drenching you in seconds. With a snarl of your own, you snatch up the empty can from the grass next to you and make for your camp down the hill. As you crest the top, you see a figure standing outside the tent, back tense and hand raised as if searching through the twilight gray downpour. 

Normally, the thought of warming up beside Ezra in your yellow tent fills you with something inexplicable, the grime and load of the day melting from your shoulders, but your buzz from earlier has thickened, made worse by the heat, the emotions in your heart all gummed up and smashed together. The sight of him cranks up your irritation high in your ears. With a huff, you concentrate on a smooth slide down the hill without breaking your ankles and not the fire rising in your gut. 

But the rain and the distance apart has only stoked his own outrage.

“Where the hell were you?” He snaps as you yank back the velcroed tent flap. He is dripping from head to toe in jungle rain as he follows closely behind you into your small space. You ring the water from your hair into a corner and scowl up at him. 

“I fell asleep. The rain woke me up. I came back as soon as I could.” 

His eyes narrow, water rolling off his bare shoulders as if he still stood out in the downpour. The droplets pat pat pat against the tarp floor as he snatches up a fiber towel and dries himself off, scowling all the while. 

“I searched for you, calling your name up and down this fuckin’ jungle and I didn’t hear a peep. What if something had gone wrong? What if you’d been hurt?”

“Then I would have fucking dealt with it, Ezra.” You stomp to your feet, neck hot from his patronizing gaze. Hands on his hips, you feel like you’re being scolded. “I can take care of myself.” 

One dark eyebrow arches mockingly, the scar on his cheek twisting in his scowl.

“And you expect me to lay about, twiddling my thumbs, while I wait for you to return or until you deem it appropriate for me to fret over your corpse?” 

That patch of blonde hair is a shade darker, drenched and pressed flat against his forehead. His bare chest is littered with scars and divots where chunks of flesh had been torn away. His skin is a reflection of the hard life he lives. You doubt you’d look any different if you’d seen yourself in a mirror. 

“We are partners, Ez,” you grind out between locked teeth. “Equals, alright? I am not your little sister for you to fuss over and you are not my keeper.” 

At that, the indignant swell of his chest deflates and the anger in his eyes flickers before fading out. 

“You are beyond capture,” he mutters, eyebrows down but gaze distant. “I’d never dream of keeping you, Neptune.” 

Again, it’s his phrasing that hurts most of all. You glance away, the backs of your eyes growing hot and tight, drying out despite the sticky moisture warming the inside of the tent. But then his hand around your elbow startles away the tears forming in the corners of your eyes. 

“You are the most important thing to me in the entirety of this world and the next,” he says softly, earth eyes searching your face. “I came on too strong, I know that, but the idea that you’d ever be gone from my side for any amount of permanence . . . well, it’s been a lifetime since I’ve felt fear like that.” 

His frown goes belly-up, a hopeless smile on his face. “I wasn’t aware I even still could.” His calloused thumb brushes your skin, skin that nearly catches fire from the rough drag of scar tissue, before he lets his hand drop. Your own curls into a fist at your side, a tremor rattling the bones of your wrist in an effort to keep from reaching up and touching that moon-shaped scar you dream about at night.

“I’m not going anywhere, Ez. You taught me enough to survive in a world like this. But you’re going to have to trust me.”

That smile goes wan, sickly. “That’s the problem, dear heart, I trust you with my life.” 

He swallows, as if suddenly bashful to make direct eye contact with you. He clears his throat before rummaging around in his canvas bag for dry clothes. He yanks a black, sleeveless shirt on over his head before setting up the materials for a flameless pocket fire. 

“Since my dreams of showing you something called a barbeque have been quite literally rained out, we’ll finish off the rest of the dredge pack tonight. But come first light, I’ll fix you breakfast so succulent, the smell alone’ll make your mouth water. How does that sound, Neptune?”

He barely slows to breathe as he seamlessly switches topics from breakfast to another meal made at camp without looking up or stalling in his prep for dinner, hands almost disconnected from the humming of his mouth – one so methodical, the other like a channel rat on fire. 

“– and the thing was no one was really sure enough what a squatter egg looked like when it goes bad. But being out in a cramped hold-out for two weeks where it was so dark, your own ass and someone else’s had no demarcation, well, there wasn’t a single peep of dissimilitude . . .”

Words strung together so quick and so melodic, it was always incredibly easy to fall into a sort of easy trance around Ezra. Sounds and syllables just sounded right coming out of his mouth and after a while, that trance became a state of repose, Ezra’s own sense of calm filtered to whoever was also in the room. But not to you, not right now.

After spending immeasurable time with less than half a space between you in cramped tents and in claustrophobic dig sites, you could read the tension on the lines of his body as well as the lines on the palm of your hand. 

“Neptune? You with me?”

Ezra glances up at you, always aware of you and your movements like the twinge on a spider’s web, a signature smile that has always seemed to shine a bit brighter for you plastered over his face. The anger was the only thing holding you up and with it gone, you can feel your bruised heart twinge as it folds over itself. 

“Yeah, that sounds good. I’m gonna switch out of these wet clothes before we eat, okay?”

He hums, nodding, eyes fixating on the steadily boiling water in front of him as you turn away to the other side of the tent, by your pallet and traveler’s pack. As further evidence that he feels nothing but companionship for you, you feel his eyes remain nowhere near you as you strip off your shorts and bra for a sun-warm suit. Then again, you’d like to think it’s kind of scandalous to be changing in front of him, but you’d both seen each other naked more times than you could count – there is no modesty in foxholes. The space between your hips and your thighs feel sticky from sweat and the slick rain, the curve of your spine warm and flushed. The zipper is loud in the silence. 

You’re braiding your damp hair away from your face when he sighs and the noise makes you look back at him.

“Answer me honestly, if you’ve ever cared for me a tick. Do you regret it?”

His eyes are sorrowful, worried, brow fixed down. Ezra is not, and never has been, a man prone to melancholy. His wrists rest loosely over his knees, gaze deep in the bubbling bone broth. The rain outside taps insistently at the tarp. 

“Regret what?” 

“Coming with me and taking on this life. It’s not an easy one,” he says quietly. “I should have offered you another choice, that day in the market. But one look at you and I . . . I was willing to trust you with my life, Neptune – far, far too soon. Even at my best, you make me irrational.”

You watch him, his broad shoulders moving, as he scoops up the hot, dark liquid into two bowls, and joins you by the entrance to the tent. You pin back the flap as he settles, the scent of humid rain immediately flooding your mouth, the pattering sound now twice as loud. Wordlessly, he hands you a spoon before digging into his own bowl. 

The heat of the soup burns away all the silly, impossible things sitting on your tongue. You sit in silence, his presence never rushing you to answer before you are ready. As you eat, you stare out at the dark lagoon, where you had both been only hours ago, the clear water murky beneath the downpour. 

“No, Ezra, I don’t regret it.” He stills, as if surprised you’re answering him now, mid-meal. He lowers the bowl to his lap, eyes trained on you. “You saved my life, more times than I can count.” 

Your words loosen the rigid lock of his shoulders. He grins. “As you’ve said, you would have been just fine without me.”

Your vision goes blurry. You pin him with such a stare, you watch the blood rush from his face.

“But it would have been only half a life.”

“Don’t kid about that, Neptune, it’s not –,”

“I’m serious.” You put your bowl down and rub your eyes with your sleeves. Of all the ways he hasd seen you bare and naked, he’s never seen you this vulnerable. “I don’t wanna do any of this without you. I want you, Ezra.”

“You have me, dear heart, you have me.”

“Not like that and you know it.” You watch as understanding rolls across his face. His lips part, eyes wider. He swallows and you stare at the ceiling, cheeks suddenly wet and hot. He said he’d never leave you, but what if this is the thing that finally does it? Could he work with you, knowing just how deeply you love him, and not feel an ounce of disgust? “You told me once sex is just a way to pass the time, but never, not once, have you ever even tried to pass the time with me.” 

He swallows, deeper this time, jaw locked, his eyes fluttering with the force of it. He brings his knees to his chest.

“Because it wouldn’t just be passing time with you.” 

In that moment, you’re grateful for the rain, for the sound of something to fill the silence. 

You stare at him, cross-legged in front of the open corner of this yellow tent, abandoned bowls growing colder, but he sits with his leg up, knee to his chest, as if to ward you off. Ward off whatever is growing in your gaze, under the flat bone over your heart in your chest. But whatever is stifling the air in your lungs, is warming his eyes past the point of comfort, barrelling towards expletives and the crass, the lewd and depraved. You cannot go back to having him look at you any other way. 

That look loosens every line in his face when you crawl into his lap, your knees around his hips. The backs of your thighs go damp, even through the suit, pressing down onto his still-damp shorts, and you think his breathing has quickened.

His massive palm hovers near your cheek, unwilling or unable to pull you forward or push you back, his oak eyes searching your face for signs of discomfort as if he had somehow dragged you across the tarp floor. 

“Neptune,” he mumbles as he focuses on the curve of your bottom lip, “this is unwise. You don’t know what you’re asking for.” 

You can feel the hard curve of his shoulders as you follow the lines of his arms and settle them on his collarbone. Nothing has happened that can’t be undone – not yet. Your perfect, vicious Ezra hasn’t pressed you flat on your back like you thought he would at the hint of sex. You could return with your dignity tomorrow morning, this moment never spoken of again, and he’d let you have that. The shake of his elbow with his palm against the tarp is the only indication that something might be unsettling to him. 

But it is your birthday after all. Maybe he’d let you have this one thing. He doesn’t know you’ll die without it.

“If you don’t want this . . . if you don’t want m-me, then say something. Push me away and I’ll never bring it up again.” You cup the sides of his neck as your hips shift forward, closer to him. The air in your lungs tightens, breath coming in shallow pants. Only then does he drop your gaze and fixate on your encroaching heat. “At least then I’ll know.” 

There. Out loud. It’s been said, heard above the deluge of rain against the tent and the jungle outside. 

His palm finally settles on your cheek. It brings a sense of wholeness to you like you’ve never known. Your eyes flutter shut at the sensation, a breathy exhale pours out of your mouth. His thumb catches the plush curve of your bottom lip and he draws it towards your chin, his own mouth open, enraptured. 

“Sweet thing, how have you not always known?” 

His mouth is humid against yours, as if he swallowed the jungle while looking for you, his thumb releasing your lip to capture with his own. The tip of his pointer finger massages the hinge of your jaw, just below your ear, and he manipulates your head until your mouth parts like he wants.

His tongue skims your upper lip, a tentative exploration into the unknown rewarded with a low groan that is warmed by the heat coiling low in your hips. You taste his tongue, a hot glide inside your mouth, and you feel his arms slip around your lower back, his inhale of breath sharp across your face as he brings you closer. He bites your lips roughly, the spark of pain and pleasure crackling across your face as if you’d brushed a live wire. 

His fingers wrap around your wrist, prying you from the back of his neck, just for a moment, his eyes heat-soaked. You suck your teeth, mouth open and seeking, and the hand around your jaw drops to your collarbone, the breadth of his palm nearly suffocating your throat.

The briefest pressure – the slightest touch – at the pulse at the bottom of your neck and your hips rock forward into him as he flattens his other palm to your ass, clutching you to him and pinning you to the pallet.

His teeth scrape against the curve of your ear, pinching the cartilage between his incisors, while his hands frantically search up and down your waist. His weight smothers you, his stomach breathing into yours, the flat plane of his chest rubbing your nipples raw against your suit, an unfocused lurch to his hips every time you tug on his hair. With every breath, every time you try to savor his touch, the taste of his mouth is like a wave, dragging you forward, wrapping a dizzy chain around your throat and squeezing.

Ezra’s greatest weapon has always been his mouth, that silver string spinning faster the longer he captivates you, spell-bound. Now he uses to decimate you in entirely new ways. 

The suck of his lips against the moist flesh below your ear distantly distracts from the afterburn of his unkempt beard against your jaw, your cheek. His lips alternate patterns of reward with a plush kiss and punishment with a stern nip when you try and stifle a moan. The edge of his shirt is damp from resting against his shorts when you slip your fingers underneath to palm the small of his back. He stills when you run your fingers around to the front of his trunks. 

His hand curls around a clump of hair at the base of your skull, his eyes darker than volcanic ash. The steady heat of his groin against your thigh is a sensation you’ll chase for the rest of your life.

“You know what happens when you touch a man there, Neptune?” He’s breathing hard, you both are, and the way he snags your hair in his fist has your head twisted at an odd angle, but you’d be damned to a Kevva-forgotten corner of the cosmos before you drop his gaze. You nod and that moon-shaped scar on his cheek twitches. “I know I didn’t teach you that.”

“L-learned it – somewhere else – Ezra.” Your mouth isn’t working properly, your lips swollen from his kisses, the slight pain in your scalp making it difficult to focus, while your cunt tightens hungrily. “Had to.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because you wouldn’t give it to me.” 

He leans back, his forearm tense and corded where he has you by the hair, a seemingly disinterested scowl on his face. But by the throbbing length pressed up against you, so far from where you need him the most, he is anything but. 

“So you’re saying this is my fault?” Without breaking eye contact, his chest raised inches above yours, his fingers snag on the blue zipper by your collar and your breathing nearly stops. He hums to himself, eyes following the path of the zipper as the material separates, click by click by click. When it reaches your belly button, he stops. 

“Ezra –,” it’s a whine and you can’t even chastise yourself for it. And neither, it seems, can he. 

Head tilted as if curious about the label of a box beneath colorful wrapping, he dips his wide hand beneath the edge of your suit. The heat that radiates from his palm against the curve of your stomach has you writhing underneath him, your knees drawing up to his hips, trying to catch any relief. 

But he takes his self-satisfied time. Callouses of a hard-won life snag and drag over the soft paper-thin skin that covers your ribs as he maps you in one hand. When he cups your right breast in his palm, the noise you make is a sob of gratitude. 

“You let another man besides me do this to you?” 

The snarling pit of your own thoughts slows as some awareness realizes he’s speaking to you. 

You swallow, clutching his bicep, begging for forgiveness before even opening your mouth to answer. 

“It didn’t mean anything, Ez, it wasn’t you – it meant nothing to me–,”

“But you let someone else touch what’s mine, hm?” That lazy, slightly irritated look on his face, he rotates his hand, squeezing the cup of your tit again, before sharply pinching your nipple. 

“Ezra–,” you choke out and his thigh shifts between your legs, just close enough to feel the heat but nowhere near close enough to grind against. His thumb rotates the raised flesh slow enough to capture and catalog every sigh it draws from you, his eyes catching between his hand and your relaxed face. 

He wears the same expression he does when sitting in the backs of blackmarket tea shops and smoky alebins. When the prospect of striking gold becomes all he can think about.

“Strip.” He suddenly commands. He lifts off you just enough for you to wrench your arm through the armhole, all the while keeping a rough palm on one breast, and then the other. You watch him massage your flesh and your ribs tremble with an unsteady breath. Only when a slightly cool breeze meanders over your bare shoulders and chest do you realize that the tent flap is still open, your head inches from the edge. A perfect and unimpeded view to anyone who wants to watch him hungrily grope your tits. Embarrassment peaks sharply, despite his hand pressing you into the tarp, you wrench your neck back and look over your shoulder through the window of the open tent as if you need to confirm that you are giving the jungle a floor show.

“Ez– shit, the flap–,” 

He finds that the skin beneath your breast had grown sticky and slick from sweat, the humidity still oppressive even with a breeze. He bends his head and licks that same sweaty path and your attention snaps back to him, nails curling against his scalp, his warm breath a high-intensity balm to your roughly-played-with nipples. 

“Not a soul in sight, Neptune,” he murmurs lazily into your ribcage, his nose running up and down the valley between your tits. “And if there were, let them learn a thing or two.” 

His teeth nip the swell of your stomach as he crawls down your half-naked body. Without his heat and hands, the tenderness from his attention on your breasts ratchets up to an ache, a minor preoccupation before he hooks his fingers around the rest of the jumpsuit and tugs. 

You are naked beneath him, swollen chest rising and falling, your knuckles scraping against the pallet as you search for something to grip with all your might. You smell of lagoon water and hot jungle air, of muggy photosynthesis and algae. The smoky scent of the black ash of that distant planet never really left Ezra and the dampness of the rain seems to stir it up. He towers over you, dark and breathing heavy. Smoke and brimstone.

He gropes your ankles, then your calves, hands gliding over the thick hair there – now grown soft in length – as he slowly spreads your legs, with a light you’d never seen before in his eyes. 

“Neptune, I revolve around you.” 

A wave of anxiety lurches up your throat when he brings his mouth to your cunt, the cloying, imagined scent of moon lilies threatening to tear you out of the moment – he won’t want you wild like this – but it’s forcefully yanked back down with a single stripe of his tongue. His previously casual, authoritative persona cracks when he buries his face into your unkempt curls and lets out a deep, overly pleased moan.

Your back bends and he’s gathering up your limbs in his arms to pin them down, nearly resting his forehead on your pubic bone. A few more licks, some deeper than others into where you drip for him, and your thighs start to shake. His fingers around your thighs squeeze roughly against your flesh and pull you further apart. 

Between the flush of slick seeping from you at an embarrassing rate and the wiry hair kept natural out of a certainty no one would see it, he must be drowning or choking, his tongue flicking and sliding, nose prodding your clit just enough to spread the sparks of arousal up through your spine. Feeling as though you’re losing your grip on reality, you sink your hands into his hair, thumb rubbing back that blonde patch, and tug. The moan he shoots into your cunt as he rocks forward into your touch has you whining helplessly. The tarp squeaks where he rubs his hips into it. 

His arms curled around your thighs, your hips shake with restraint against every lap of his tongue until he flicks your clit and your hips grind up against his obliging mouth, a sunspot of pleasure flaring brightly. But all too soon, Ezra lifts up onto his elbows, his hands smoothing across your stomach and he pops his mouth up from your wet folds. With an irate gasp, the swell of bliss fading, your gaze snaps down to plead with him, but he shakes his head.

Wordlessly, he takes one hand from your thigh and wipes his mouth clean with a swipe of his fingers. Then, with his eyes wide, the skin around his mouth loose, he crooks two fingers at the top of your mound before sliding them down where his mouth was seconds ago and presses them inside of you. That simmering in your low belly roars back to life and you toss your head against the unforgiving pallet, eyes slamming shut. He growls at the obscene sucking noise your cunt makes as he plucks at you, in and out. 

“Oleaginous,” he hums, so quietly, it might have been for him. He tongues your clit lightly, pushing his fingers as deep as they can go, watching you thrash. “Mine. Understand?” You remember that tone of voice from when he had you dissecting throwers on a workbench in front of him. You nod, eyes fluttering open, balancing on the precarious edge of release. 

You want to obey his every word. 

His thumb twists up, opening your clit to him and within a whispered breath of “good girl” he sucks your bundle of nerves and launches you into orbit. 

Your entire body goes stiff from the force of it, only to crash back down into his waiting hands, your voice wavering on a high-pitched, girlish wail that shrieks above the sound of rain. Waves of bliss lap at every nerve ending and your vision goes fuzzy for a minute, the only sound you can register is the pounding of your blood in your ears.

And then you register the steady, wet plunge of his fingers still dragging in and out of your pussy.

“Was that mine?” 

Your clit tingles from overstimulation, but you’d rather die than have him stop – you want to answer, if only you could pick up the pieces of your voice. You can only nod, whining. He presses a wet kiss to your inner thigh, the skin there smeared with your release.

“You did a bad thing, letting someone else touch what’s mine.” He scolds, rubs that spot inside you that makes your eyes roll back in your head, holds his finger to it until it burns. You cry, his punishment evident. “Now you have to apologize, Neptune.” 

You nod again, mouth wrenched open as he drags you back and forth across pleasure and pain. 

“Y-y-yes, Ezra,” the words are bone dry, cracked between your teeth. “I’m sorry.” 

Pure wickedness strikes those earth eyes and scorches them a singed black. 

“Unfortunately, atonement is a fickle thing,” Ezra tuts, dragging his lips across your thigh in a mockery of a kiss, “and I’m not quite ready to offer absolution. Despite your offerings,” he wipes his mouth with a stroke of his palm, “this godhead remains rigid.” 

You whimper. He grins with a mouthful of teeth.

Ezra pulls back onto his knees and shuts your thighs, his hand palming your ass as he indicates that you should turn. Your entire lower half still feels like jelly – no one has ever made you come that hard with just their mouth before – but you obey. You stagger onto your hands and knees in front of him. 

His wide palm appears beneath your chin.

“Spit.”

You do.

That spit-wet hand cups your still wet cunt, middle finger rubbing briefly against your clit, before it disappears. You feel him move closer, hear his slick hand pump himself a few times with a grunt. Hot lips drag up your spine, interspersed with the nip of teeth, and when he lays across your back, his hands overtaking yours and threading your fingers together, his bare chest presses up against the skin of your back and you shudder. 

He noses your temple, his throbbing cock coated between your folds. He bites at your jaw and follows your line of sight through the open tent flap. 

“Breathtaking, isn’t it? All that moisture, dripping and running over smooth rock and fern. All that heat coagulating in spaces it shouldn’t fit. All that . . . open field, for anyone to just wander into. Take a look around and smell the air. Could they smell you like I can, Neptune? The way you leak for this cock?”

As he hums filth in your ear, his hand settles again at the base of your throat, thick fingers squeezing just enough to threaten, before sliding down to your swinging breasts, rough palms catching your swollen nipples, then arching down your stomach and between your legs. 

He plays slowly with your clit; barely enough stimulation and he knows it.

“Ask for forgiveness.” He croons in your ear. The breeze returns for a moment, and between the heat of him mounting you like a feral animal and the hesitant touch of outside air against your sweaty chest, you shudder with a groan. 

“I’m sorry, Ezra. I’m so–,” his middle finger increases its pressure slightly and the words shatter in your mouth, “sor-ry.” 

“And for what?”

He continues to rub between your folds and the minute hitch in his breath is more intoxicating than anything he’s done so far. This is affecting him just as much as it does you. He kisses your jaw then tugs on the skin with his teeth. 

“For letting a-anyone but you t-touch me.”

Ezra presses his damp forehead into your shoulder, panting, your correct answers soaking the neurons in his brain. Your reward is the faster stroke of his finger. 

“And why was that a reprehensible thing to do?” His hips rut into yours, the scrape and rub of his cock between your slick lips and thighs almost enough to set you off. 

“Because it’s yours – I’m yours – f-fuck, Ezra, I’m yours, I only wanna be yours,” you sob. 

He’s suddenly gone from above you and the loud crack of his hand against your ass cheek deafens you for a minute, the sting skittering up your back and down your thigh. 

“Good fuckin’ girl.”

Your elbows shudder, the weight of his tone, his hand nearly forcing you onto your chest with your ass still in the air. You wanna be so good for him. 

He’s breathing hard and his skin is warm and damp where you feel his thigh press against the back of yours. There’s a measure of restraint he’s showing and it makes your heart pound in anticipation. You swing your hips back at him, as if you could catch yourself on his cock. 

“I wanna show you I’m yours,” you cry, nails curling into the pallet. “Please, Ezra, please!”

His broad hand settling on your spine draws a hiccup out of you, a sob. 

“Breathe . . . Good girls get what they need.” 

On an exhale, his blunt tip spreads you apart and he shuffles closer as he thickens inside you. His loud, unabashed moan overwhelms yours, when you think you might just be devoured by him. His hand, the one at your hip, squeezes you, silent reassurance. You can feel the knuckles on his other hand against your slick lips as he feeds himself into you.

“Neptune, talk to me. How,” your cunt tightens around his girth at the sound of his voice coaching you along and he grunts, as if suddenly dizzy, “h-how do you feel?”

“Amazing, Ez. Please keep going don’t stop I can take it–,” 

He obliges; something’s reconnected the wires in his brain enough to tell him to move. He huffs before sinking deeper and your eyes roll back in your head. He bottoms out and waits again, letting you both catch your breath. 

“Spent a hundred moons thinking about this.” The puff of breath against your shoulder is the only warning you have before he presses his mouth to your skin. His hand free of your clutch, his thumb softly rubs the muscle of your neck. He kisses you and kisses you and kisses you, wherever he finds bare flesh. “Would wake up in the night, with you a few feet from me, looking like divinity made sin, made real, but I wasn’t worthy to touch you. You got me all tongue-tied, Neptune, all mucked up in the head. A silly boy,” he purrs.

You glance over your shoulder, unsure which Ezra is going to meet your eyes, but wanting all of them. The man you feel most safe with in this world and the next greets you and you reach back and squeeze his hand. He chuckles softly, and with it, comes a gentle roll of his hips. You gasp, airily, your gaze slipping from his face to his chest, to the steady breathing in his stomach, and then to the growth of hair that fades as it reaches up his low belly. How many times did you sit across the room from him with your fists in tight balls, watching as he regaled exploits of riches and wonder, all the while thinking about how thick his cock is outlined in his suit – you’re so blinded by breathy dreams of what the musky scent of his cock must taste like that you miss that he’s pulled out farther, halfway now, and you are completely knocked senseless when he thrusts back in, a beat faster. 

“Later, Neptune. I’ll let you suck my cock later, but right now I’ve gotta ride this pussy to oblivion.” 

Your thighs quake at his promise, cunt squeezing him, and he huffs, picking up speed.

“I felt that. You really like sucking cock that much?” 

All you can answer him with is a whine. Your knees are starting to ache from the barest cushion the tarp provides, the palms of your hands sore, but you can’t find it in you to remotely care. With every stroke, he fills you up to a breaking point before riding you back out. Moaning gratefully, you finally drop onto your elbows, your cheek scraping against the pallet with every forceful thrust behind you. He tilts your hips up higher, on one knee to fuck down into you; he’s searching with his cock for that spot that made your brain numb. 

Like a flood, you feel bliss roll down your spine, his hands on your lower back pulling you up another peak, and you gasp, at the edge of a very, very long drop, the sounds in the tent as sticky and wet as the rain outside.

But Ezra’s sounds are loudest of them all. Grunting. Hissing. Moaning like he’s fucking the best pussy of his life. You open one eye, glancing over your shoulder and the sight drops open your mouth. Hips pumping forward, skin dewy with sweat, he breathes like a freshly broken-in stallion, relieved that something finally bested him. Chest full and tight with muscle, flushed pink with roaring blood. Stomach torqued with tension. His rhythm is caught between his hands pulling you onto him and his cock thrusting into you. A frantic beat that bounces wet and hot, mouth agape and eyes rolling shut, his head drops back between his shoulders. You push back slightly and he stutters, the hand on your hip tightening. 

“Not gonna last, Neptune–” he grits, his jaw locked tight. The image of him actively staving off an orgasm for you to finish first has been imprinted on your brain for the rest of your life. 

“J-just a little harder, Ez.” 

He obeys, submitting as you had for him, sweat curling around his neck and down his chest. 

As release barrels down on you, those mahogany eyes catch and hold yours in a second that lasts through infinity. They promise you things that you didn’t know you asked for, those eyes, made vows only your soul could hear. You see, in that instant before you are swallowed whole, that he’d die at your feet, if you asked him to. He’d give up every worldly treasure he won through grit and his teeth if you needed it or wanted it. If it made you happy.

His Neptune – in the crushing grip of your gravity. Willingly caught in the trail of your comet as you fill up his night sky.    

“Yeah, that’s it, right there – Ez-ra!” 

His face blown out in near ecclesial bliss is the last thing you see before your vision goes white. Your heart pounds in your ears so loudly, it's the only thing that exists for an instant. And then you shatter with a perfectly soft cry, bliss breaking across you like a heavy wave, and you succumb to exhaustion. 

Behind you, he groans, fucking you faster through it, snarling something entirely incomprehensible. 

You think you might say his name, you don’t know what your mouth is doing, but whatever you say, it breaks him and you are dragged through another low shock, the flood of cum deep into your achy cunt enough to contract your walls again, his harsh groan stuffing your ears just as full. 

The rain is barely louder than your desperate attempts to breathe. 

The tarp crackles as you slump forward onto your stomach, Ezra dropping to his side with half his body over yours. Panting raggedly, his hand curls up to the base of your neck, a reassurance of his presence and commitment when words have failed him. 

You lay like that for a long time.

And then, when feeling starts to return to your limbs, you turn your head, your nose rubbing against his. When you breathe hotly across his face, he grins a satisfied grin that splits into a chuckle. You laugh with him too, curling up into his chest, his forearm is sticky across your spine, and he kisses your forehead.

Staring up at the tarp, together you listen to the rain. 

In the long drawn out, buzzy silence, his nails scratch the base of your skull. And then, like he remembered something vital, he picks his head up and looks at you.

“Do you want this to change things for us?” 

“Yes.” You cup the muscles of his thick neck. “Yes, Ezra. I want this to change everything between us. Please.” 

He smiles, unguarded and open. 

“Wild horses never stood a chance . . . especially against these tits.” He nips at the swell of your breast and you laugh. “I had no plans of letting you go in any case . . . but we are bound from this day forward. You know that, don’t you?”

You nod. A stroke of heat passes over his eyes and  Ezra leans forward to kiss you, his hand on your cheek pulling you in close, as close as you can be, two sticky bodies, cum-dried and tingling.

“And if we’re going to spend every year of our lives together, I have a question for you.” he pushes away a stray strand of hair stuck to your face, nose tip to nose tip, “did you have a good birthday, Neptune? Are you satisfied?”

With a giggle that has his eyebrow arching playfully, you kiss his cheek.

“I already told you. This was the best birthday I’ve ever had.” 

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