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just-jordie-things · 8 months ago

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we weren’t just friends - okkotsu yuuta

word count: 11.9k warnings: heavy second base action (no tops, dry humping) but no smut, swearing, drinking but it’s legal summary: their friends think that if there’s tension between new roomates (y/n) and yuuta, then they should just act on it. more info: college!au, aged up characters, roommate!au, childhood friends, unrequited(?) love

part one: “face it, you want it, you crave it” ___

Having Yuuta as a roommate was never all that weird for (y/n). Things sort of just worked out that way, and honestly she was so relieved that she didn’t have to scramble to find a stranger to split the rent with- or face homelessness- that she hadn’t really given it much thought until a few days after he’d moved all of his things in and had settled into their now shared space.

On paper, he was the perfect candidate after all. They’d been friends for years, having known each other since childhood it was easy to trust him in her space. He already spent so much time in her dorm when she still lived on campus that having him in her living space didn’t seem like it’d be that much different anyways. Not to mention she knew him to be tidy and a pretty good cook, so as long as he was able to supply half the rent every month, she was content.

The day he’d moved in she’d been so happy that she’d hardly focused at all on helping him unpack. Most of her time was spent dancing around to the moving playlist she’d made, and she insisted they jam out while they- he- unpacked his things in the empty room adjacent to hers. When she wasn’t dancing, she was rambling on about how delighted she was that he agreed to move in with her. Looking back it was probably a little much, but Yuuta wasn’t overwhelmed by her excitement in the slightest.

As soon as she’d mentioned being on the hunt for a roommate he hadn’t thought twice about offering himself. They both just so happened to decide to move off campus to find cheaper, and steadier housing. The market wasn’t all that great so living alone wouldn’t have been possible even if either of them had interest in the roach infested studios in the area. Even the two bedroom apartment they shared was rather tiny, the living space and kitchen was essentially all one room, and there was only one bathroom, but they made it work. It was still more affordable than living on campus, and that’s all they cared about.

For the first two weeks it had been fun, even. It felt like a sleepover with their best friend, but every night. They spent most nights in cozy pajamas curled up on the couch sharing their favorite movies and swapping snacks. (y/n) couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have him, and she was happy to tell him so every chance she got.

Yuuta couldn’t believe how lucky he was to get to spend all his free time with her. No longer did he have to coordinate around both of their schedules in order to have quality time with his favorite person. If she had to study for the evening and couldn’t hang out, he’d happily sit on her bed scrolling on his phone or reading. When their friends were free they’d come over unannounced, because either (y/n) or Yuuta were bound to be around to hang out with.

It was just so easy, it almost felt like a dream. The beginning of having their own space as young adults to do with as they please.

Yuuta bought a fish tank for their living room, a whole ten gallon aquarium for a pretty betta fish that (y/n) helped him pick out. They spoiled it with plants and cool rocks for decoration. They took turns feeding him every three days, and regularly sat in front of his tank to admire him. If one of them weren’t present, the other would spam their phone with photos and videos of it swimming around, doing next to nothing, with captions full of hearts and emojis to swoon for their pet.

(y/n) spent her freedom a little differently.

At first it was decorating her new room with a maximalist aesthetic. Posters, tapestries, string lights, and any strange pretty thing she’d taken a liking to covered her walls so thick that most of it began to overlap. It could be overstimulating to some- as Maki had remarked when she first visited the place- but she loved it that way. It took her a full three days to collage a whole wall full of her favorite photos. Ones from childhood, some from grade school, most from her most recent experiences and adventures through college. If she were to pull out her phone and snap a photo to make a proper memory of the day, it was likely getting printed out the next day and taped up to the wall. Soon, those too began to pile up and overlap, but again, she loved it that way. Even Yuuta began to take pictures for her, printing them out when he found the time and sticking them to the fridge to surprise her.

Once the project that was her room had been tackled and she was satisfied with the home she’d made for herself, her desire for freedom took the form of heavy drinking. It might have been concerning, Yuuta certainly panicked a little bit when he’d come home from a late study group session and find her dancing around the kitchen with her favorite handle in her clutch and the belting of her favorite song echoing in the small space. Eventually her time of drinking alone proved to be just a phase, one too many hangovers having taught her a lesson on time and place for drinking hard alcohol straight. But he did come to learn that she was quite comfortable as a social drinker. So if the Zen’in twins and Toge were coming over, it wasn’t odd to find a drink in her hand. At least she started taking his advice and ending the night with a full glass of water and an ibuprofen.

All in all, living together hadn’t been too strange of a milestone for them. It was fun, it was easy, and they really couldn’t have asked for more out of a roommate. Being best friends was an added perk that just made it all the more smooth.

Until recently. ___

“I’m tellin’ you,”

(y/n) huffed as she pulled the straw from her mouth as she spoke. A signature vodka cranberry mixed to perfection after months of honing the skill of a perfect pour. Her movements are a little delayed and awkward as she leaned back into the kitchen counter, her elbows coming to rest on it to hold herself up as she leaned her head back dramatically. Maki, who had only been semi listening to the girl’s ranting, remained silent as she raised a brow at the display.

“I think he’s doin’ it on purpose” (y/n) finished with a mumble.

It was difficult to hear her over the game of mariokart that Yuuta and Toge were currently playing in the living room- they got quite competitive when it came to that game in particular- but Maki caught enough of it to understand where she was going.

She looked over at her sister with only mild interest in her expression. Mai touched her fingertips to her mouth as she chuckled to herself, finding the situation far more amusing than Maki.

The situation began as simple as this: In order to save time in the mornings when both (y/n) and Yuuta had class, they’d been working on a bathroom schedule in order to optimize their time. For example, (y/n) had started doing her hair and makeup at a mirror in her room, where she’d sit on the floor and go through her skin care routine, and any other beautification and styling she’d felt inclined to for the day. That helped a lot with cutting back on hogging the shared bathroom.

Yuuta’s idea of helping to cut back on time, is to go back to his room directly after a shower to dry his hair and get dressed for the day. It was a great idea in theory, and would definitely save an extra five to ten minutes.

However twice now (y/n) had run into him in the short hall from the bathroom to his room. She shouldn’t have been so flustered. Realistically, she wasn’t seeing anything she hadn’t seen before. There had been plenty of times she’d seen him without a shirt. In the backyard of the home she’d grown up in they’d often set up a sprinkler to run through. In high school they’d gotten their volunteer hours in through lifeguarding together. In their freshman year of college they’d gone to just about every frat party, bonfire, and beach day that was thrown, just to be able to say they had taken on the party scene in their younger years. Seeing Yuuta shirtless was nothing new.

But twice now she’d practically run into him, with nothing but a towel held around his waist, damp hair sticking to his forehead and falling around his eyes, pale skin still littered with droplets of water, and had he started working out-?

Even thinking about it now she felt her face heating up. She shouldn’t have committed that image to memory- but it happened twice already so it couldn’t have been more than her mind staying sharp, right?

“If he’s doing it on purpose,” Mai’s voice had (y/n) snapping her head up as she crash landed back in reality. Her blush was obvious to the twins, but she hoped to play it off as the alcohol in her system.

Certainly not the thoughts that had started littering her mind, thoughts that you just don’t have about a best friend and roommate.

“Then why don’t you just do something about it?” Mai finished with a small smile on her face that suggests she has quite a few ideas in mind on how she could fix this problem.

(y/n’s) eyes widen, and she brings her drink back to her lips to ease her racing heart and spiraling thoughts.

“Like what?” She mumbles, as if there was a chance the guys could possibly hear their conversation.

Nothing could compete with the sound effect of a blue shell incoming, and Toge’s defeated screeches.

Maki scoffs before laughing, finally finding entertainment in this whole ordeal (y/n) had gotten herself so worked up about. The last ten minutes of their girl talk in the kitchen had been for nothing, it seemed, if she wasn’t going to act on her obvious infatuation.

“Just bone?” She suggests with a small laugh.

(y/n) swears her eyes were going to bulge right out of their sockets, and what was meant to be a small sip of her drink turned into a gulp as she sucked a little too harshly on her straw.

“Maki,” Mai hisses, smacking her sister’s arm, before turning back to (y/n). “She’s not wrong though, that would definitely solve everything”

“I can’t do that!” (y/n) squeaks. “I just- it’ll pass, it’s just a little crush, right? That’s normal, right?”

She looks between the twins for confirmation, validation in her silly feelings that were bound to pass with time. Mai winces. Maki rolls her eyes. This wasn’t looking promising. But perhaps they were just too eager to set up their friends and see some drama to unfold, so (y/n) decides that their advice might be a bit on the biased side.

“Just test the waters a little first,” Maki suggests, shooting Mai a look as she tries to telepathically tell her to reel it in. “Dip your toes in a little. No harm in that, right?”

“You live together, how have you not experimented a little already?” Mai mumbles, her brows furrowing together as her eyes glaze over, as though trying to process how it could be possible. The calculations simply weren’t adding up.

(y/n) gnaws on the inside of her cheek, and her fingers begin to tap on her glass.

“I guess…” She says, but her uncertainty is obvious. “Well… how much is a little?”

The twins burst into laughter, and they’re looking at each other like there’s an inside joke she’s not in on, and (y/n) pouts at them for teasing her in their silent twin way. This wasn’t the first time, she should be used to feeling like an odd man out when it came to hanging out with these two, but they were her last hope for guidance, so she took what she could.

For now, she determined that Maki and Mai weren’t going to be of much help as they snickered and muttered to one another. (y/n) couldn’t make out what they were saying exactly, but she gathered enough to realize they were slights against her, and she had enough of the bordering-on-friendly fire.

“I’m playing mariokart” She huffs, strutting out of the kitchen space and across the floor to the living room. In this small apartment it was an open floor so the couch was only ten feet away, but it was far enough that she couldn’t hear their laughter anymore, and for now that was enough.

Yuuta and Toge were sitting on the sofa, both heavily concentrating on the competitive game. Their wrists are flicking the switch controllers with precise movements as they steer, but when it comes to using items and drifting, their fingers are smashing buttons viciously. As she rounds the sofa she eyes the screen, seeing that the pair are battling it out for first place, with Yuuta currently claiming the spot.

That is, until (y/n) plops onto the cushioned armrest right beside him, and he glances up at her out of habit. The two seconds that he takes to smile up at her- even though she’s watching the screen- is all Toge needs to creep up Yuuta’s character and throw a green shell directly at his kart.

The remote tingles in his hands with a familiar vibration, his character having taken a hit. Yuuta’s head swivels back to the screen, as he desperately tries to make a comeback, but two other characters have already passed him, and now he’s in fourth place.

“What the hell!?” He groans as he realizes his demise is inevitable. It was the third lap of the game, and Toge’s Yoshi was about to cross the finish line. “That was so uncool!”

Toge’s cackling to himself, proud of his sneaky attack. He had a feeling it would work, all he needed was the perfect distraction. And nothing distracted Yuuta like (y/n).

As Yoshi crosses the finish line, Yuuta drops his controller to his lap with a defeated huff. He leans back into the sofa, head hitting the cushion as he glares at the screen displaying Yoshi’s victory dance, before he turns to (y/n), who gives him a sympathetic smile, before offering her drink to him.

“That was a dirty move,” She sides with him- typical, Toge rolls his eyes at the two of them, which goes unnoticed- “You’ll get him next time”

Yuuta takes the glass from her hand, sipping from the straw experimentally. There had been a period of time where her drinks were so strong he was about ready to cut her off from alcohol altogether. When a perfect mixture of vodka and cranberry juice hits his tongue, he’s pleasantly surprised that it’s not too bitter. His eyes light up at her before he swallows. She giggles at the obvious reaction.

“Yeah yeah” She mutters before he could even say anything. He didn’t have to for her to understand exactly what he was thinking.

Yuuta chuckles at her, before scooting over on the sofa, closer to Toge, so that there was some space for her to sit next to him.

“You want in?” He asks, holding his controller out to her.

She squeezes awkwardly into the small space, her legs still hanging over the armrest, and her back almost completely pressed into his side. Toge had shifted completely to one side of the couch, giving Yuuta more than enough space to also move so that (y/n) could sit properly. But neither of them seem to notice the blonde boy’s silent offer. Or, if they did, they didn’t pay any mind to it.

(y/n) takes the controller with a grin and a nod, and Toge starts up the next round. Yuuta had chosen Rosalina as his character, a favorite between them that they often fought over so much she was usually off limits when the two of them played.

Despite having a delayed start because Yuuta had finished the last race somewhere in the middle of the lineup, (y/n) makes a good comeback for the both of them. He cheers for her, leaning forward in his seat again as though he were still focused on the game for his own win. (y/n) remained in a relaxed position slumped back against him, her fingers moving with swift ease over the controller.

She giggled at the way Yuuta was on the edge of his seat, literally, sipping down the rest of her drink as he watched her play. He threw out advice when she picked up items, and winced for her when she took a hit.

“Use that! Throw it! Throw it at-!”

“Yuuta you’re being a backseat driver” (y/n) said calmly, keeping the red shell in her inventory despite his demands.

Toge barks out a laugh, still coasting in first place without much competition from the computers. But (y/n) was quickly gaining on him, drifting and gliding past the other spots with ease, and Yuuta began to realize her strategy. With a knowing grin on his face he leans back into the couch again, and puts his faith in her abilities.

She kicked his ass most of the time when they played one on one anyways.

Soon enough she was in second place and Yoshi was in sight. Yuuta’s hand happily tapped at her shoulder, giddy with his excitement. Toge had gone eerily silent as he put all of his focus in remaining in first. But his efforts were wasted, without an item to defend himself, (y/n) was able to take him out with one blow, stealing first place for herself and crossing the finish line on the final lap shortly after.

She raised her arms victoriously, but even more excited than her was Yuuta, who bragged in Toge’s face before wrapping his arms around his roommate and congratulating her on her win. She laughed, her head falling back on his shoulder as she laughed at his antics.

He beamed at her, and even though it was silly, there was no doubt in her mind that his pride in her was anything but authentic. Yuuta was just like that. He celebrated even the most minor of conquests.

Toge tossed the controller onto the coffee table with a string of curses muttered under his breath.

“Good timing,” Maki calls, dangling her keys in her hand and catching their attention. “Are you crashing here or are you leaving with us?”

(y/n) lifts her head up from Yuuta’s shoulder, peeking over the back of the couch at the twins who suddenly had their shoes on. She gives them a pout.

“Leaving so soon?”

“We’ve been here for eight hours” Mai giggles.

“It’s one in the morning you maniac” Maki rolls her eyes.

“You could just spend the night,” (y/n) offers, her features brightening up at the idea. “Sleepover-!”

“No,” Maki shakes her head firmly, despite Mai’s excited expression at the idea. “We have class in the morning, we’ll do it another time, okay?”

(y/n) nods, satisfied with that answer.

Toge shuffles off the couch, giving a bitter congratulations to the winning pair of mariokart, although he made it clear to Yuuta that he only won because (y/n) took over.

They bid their friends goodbye, promising to meet up again at some point soon, knowing fully well they wouldn’t make a plan, and someone was bound to show up on their doorstep without invitation tomorrow or the next day.

And then it was just (y/n) and Yuuta.

She was still tucked under his arm, he was still drinking the remnants of the drink she’d made for herself but had conveniently forgotten about so he could have the last of it.

“Are you going to bed, too?” She asks him, and he chuckles at her desire for staying up late.

They’d always been opposites in that aspect.

(y/n) was a night owl through and through, whether party mode was on or not. She was most productive when the sun went down. It wasn’t odd to find her studying or doing chores at odd hours of the night. He’d actually had to tell her she couldn’t vacuum in the middle of the night, claiming she was going to make their neighbors complain. But it was a treat for him to wake up and find the apartment spotless and organized.

Meanwhile Yuuta was an early to rise kind of guy. He had a decent morning routine for himself that involved an alarm going off at eight in the morning every morning, and it wasn’t often he broke that routine. He’d be up for a few hours before (y/n) would drag herself out of bed and into the kitchen for breakfast- which was usually waiting for her on the counter.

“It is the middle of the night now,” He tells her, before checking his phone. “Actually it’s not technically night anymore, it’s Friday morning”

(y/n) frowned at him. He chuckles again.

“Fine, fine” (y/n) starts to sit up, but doesn’t go too far. She pulls her legs onto the cushion beneath her, and then turns to face him properly.

For some reason when she looks up at him again, she’s brought back to her conversation with the Zen’in twins, and she can’t help but wonder what they would have advised her to do if she’d stuck around for the rest of their conversation. She wondered if Yuuta had ever experienced this dilemma, or if she was the only one creating the tension in the apartment. She wondered if he even felt it.

“Som’thin’ on your mind?” Yuuta asks after a few beats of silence pass. His eyebrows furrow in the slightest, and (y/n’s) expression eases into something calmer. She must’ve been thinking too hard, she supposes.

“Not really, just had a weird talk with Maki and Mai” She tries to brush it off as not a big enough deal worth talking about, but for some reason, this seems to catch his interest.

“Oh yeah?” He muses curiously. “Don’t tell me they want to move in-”

“No!” (y/n) let out a burst of laughter as she shook her head. “Where did that come from? Where would they even stay?” She asks, gesturing to the small space around them. Yuuta laughs with her, shrugging his shoulders.

“My thoughts exactly,” He agrees quietly, as though they were keeping it a secret just between them. “But everyone hangs out here all the time, I don’t want them getting any ideas,” He says, half seriously. “This is our sweet deal,”

Yuuta laughs again, but this time when she laughs along with him it’s soft, almost unsure. Her heart flutters in her chest at the sentiment he shares for having this place with her. Even after all this time, she feels relief in waves of warmth when he voices his happiness here.

“What is it then?” He asks. He leans back into the couch cushion, but keeps his eyes on hers. She tilts her head and hums in question. “Your weird talk,” He reminds her, “What was it about?”

“Oh,” (y/n) drops her gaze from his, her face warming up at the idea of admitting to him what they’d been talking about.

I’ve just been thinking about you shirtless a lot lately, and sometimes I can’t sleep over it just doesn’t seem to be an appropriate thing to say to a long time best friend who she now lives with.

“They were just asking questions about what it’s like to live together” She settles on a half lie. They had been curious about the living situation. She didn’t necessarily have to disclose that Mai found it unthinkable that they were able to share a living space and not tear each other’s clothes off… right?

“For us to live together?” Yuuta raises a brow. (y/n) tucks her hands into her lap and nods.

She tries to get comfortable leaning her back against the arm rest, but everytime his gaze falls on her, it feels heavier than usual, and she struggles to sit still. Her hands fiddle in her lap, she squirms in her seat, and she can only hold his eye contact for a minute at a time. Did he always look at her like that? She wondered when she dared to meet those deep blue irises again. Was it the few drinks he’d had that made them look darker? Or was she seeing things?

“Why was that so interesting?” He asks. “I mean, it’s been six months,”

Again, her heart flutters at the thought of him knowing exactly how long they’d been living together. Or maybe she was being stupid and he was just keeping track of the rent.

“What’s so interesting about now?”

(y/n) shrugs, a small smile on her face that she can’t help. “I don’t know”

But he sees through the statement, especially with that smile on her face that tells him there was more she wasn’t telling him. Curiosity gets the best of him, and he raises a brow at her.

“Well,” He ponders, “What were they so curious about?”

(y/n) drags her bottom lip between her teeth as she narrows her eyes at him, proving that she could read him well, too, and she could tell that he was trying to pry even though she’d been repeatedly dismissing the subject.

“Nosy tonight,” She scolds him as she kicks her legs out to throw them over his, stretching the sore muscles from sitting on her feet for too long. “Were you eavesdropping, Okkotsu?”

“No,” He lets out a small laugh. “Though now I wish I had been, since you’re being unusually cryptic about it”

“Unusual?” She repeats the word in a drawl, tilting her head and pretending to think it over. “I wouldn’t say unusual,” She argues softly. “I don’t tell you everything”

“Yes you do” Yuuta replies matter of factly, his expression doesn’t even flicker. (y/n) blinks at him.

“No…”

“Oh yeah? Tell me something you haven’t told me then” He challenges, his lips curling into a smile.

She huffs, and quickly tries to rack her brain for something she’d kept from him. Secrets and embarrassing moments fly through her train of thought as she tries to latch onto a memory that she was sure she hadn’t shared with him.

Her eyes light up as she finally remembers something she’s sure he didn’t know.

“Oh!” She leans forward with eager anticipation to prove him wrong. “Remember my first boyfriend? In middle school?”

Yuuta raised a brow, but nodded in confirmation.

“On our first date, he took me out-”

“Mhm,” Yuuta hums, recalling the details of that date without much thought at all. “Bowling” He said calmly.

“Right,” (y/n) chuckles, flustering a bit that he already seemed to remember the event as easily as she had. “Well, at the end of the date, when we were waiting outside for his mom to pick us up, he’d asked if he could kiss me while we were alone, before she got there,” Her words are a little slurred, which she was quick to mentally blame on the few drinks she’d had. “But I told him n-”

“- you told him no because you ate chili fries while you were bowling and you didn’t want him to taste it and then he kissed you anyways and you slapped him on instinct and he was a little whiner about it and said you did taste like chili fries and you smacked him again” Yuuta filled in the rest of the story, his head rested back against the cushion again, as though he was bored just from retelling it.

(y/n) blinked, her lips parting into an ‘o’ shape as she realized maybe he did know everything about her already. Should it have been obvious to her from his confidence on that matter? Probably. Did she still feel a determination to find something, anything, that he didn’t know? Definitely.

At her lack of response, Yuuta rolled his head to the side, a lazy smirk tugging on his lips when he regarded her soft surprise. Her eyes narrow in the slightest at him, playful mockery of his know-it-all attitude.

“Well, then,” (y/n) scoffed as she took on a refreshed attitude when it came to rubbing in his face that she knew something he didn’t. “I suppose you already knew that the twins were curious about how you and I seem to manage living together without some kind of netflix-romcom-level sexual tension”

The teasing tone in her voice and eager gleam in her eye seem to disappear as soon as the words come out and she realizes what she’s just said. In slow motion, and as her face falls into one of regret, she realizes two things.

One, that by addressing the sexual tension, whether it existed or not, it instantly thickened in the air. All at once she’s aware of it. Suddenly the weight of her legs in his lap is so heavy she feels a desire to curl up into him completely. Yuuta has one arm draped over the back of the couch cushions in her direction, his hand hangs loosely just in front of her shoulder. If she were to lean forward in the slightest movement, his fingers would graze her sweater. His other hand lays on her knee, and sporadically he taps his index finger against it. Sometimes she thinks he’s playing a familiar beat that’s been stuck in his head, too, but then he pauses and she loses track of figuring out what song that is. Even her breathing is suddenly manual, and she’s afraid if she sucks in a breath too sharp, he’ll question it. So she takes slow, shallow breaths, barely filling her lungs with oxygen. Was that why she was getting so dizzy?

Two, now that she’s admitted what her and the twins had been talking about earlier, (y/n) fears that she’ll have to confess that the reason they were talking about the sexual tension was because she’d created the sexual tension- and yet she had gone to them to blame him for it.

Yuuta blinks, his brows furrowing at first, as though to process the information, but he just as quickly relaxed his face and pursed his lips, giving her a small nod.

(y/n) doesn’t dare utter a word. Instinct claws up her throat and begs her to take it back, make a joke and apologize to smooth it over and hopefully they’d never mention it again. The words die before she can utter them. She remains frozen beside him, focused on his every microexpression, hoping to figure out what he was thinking before he voiced it.

“I see,” He says, a small smile gracing his features that has her relaxing just a little bit.

Yuuta can feel her weight shifting as she sinks further into the couch cushion. He could sense her nerves from a mile away, so he spoke carefully, hoping not to spook her into retreating early.

Comfortingly, his hand smooths over her knee, long fingers grazing her thigh from the short caress.

“I don’t think I would’ve guessed that,” He admits with a chuckle through his nose. His eyes flicker over to hers, watching her closely. Her cheeks are pink, and her gaze shifts between his eyes at a faster rate than usual. She’s still anxious. “But I can’t say I’m surprised”

Her lips twitch with a curious emotion Yuuta can’t read as well as before. Her brows pinch and then relax. She’s reading him, he thinks. His mind is a little hazy from the few drinks he’s had, so he might be seeing things that aren’t there, but he’s equally intrigued by the conversation.

“You don’t think it’s weird?” She asks. Her voice is quiet, but he doesn’t mistake it for uncertainty. In fact, he can tell just how genuinely interested she is in obtaining his thoughts. Just as he is, she’s on the edge of her seat, and only pushing further to see where this new line of thought would lead them both. “Living together, I mean” She clarifies, unnecessarily.

The pad of his finger taps against her knee, once, and then twice. His lips purse and she watches the movement with her breath hitched in her throat. The room was getting hot from the thickening tension that she’d created. It was almost uncomfortable, her body screamed for her to get up from this couch, pull herself from where she was half draped over his lap and put as much distance between them while she still could. She was approaching a line between them that she’d never even tiptoed across before, and she wasn’t sure what lied on the other side, but god, she was just dying to find out.

“Weird? Not in the slightest” Yuuta murmurs honestly. She can tell from the way his eyes lock onto hers that he does mean it, and relief flooded her. Before it came back in the form of excitement, and now her skin was buzzing everywhere that their bodies were touching.

“You’re not just saying that?” She double checks, leaning forward off of the arm rest to study him up close.

They were already close enough, but there was a quiet desire in the back of her mind longing to push closer, until she could make out the individual swirls of blue in his irises. Her lips curve into a soft, lovely smile as she admires him, and Yuuta fights the way his own breath chokes up in his throat.

“You really don’t think it’s weird we’ve never…” She trails off, her head shaking in a small movement, just enough to make a few stray hairs fall into her eyes. “I dunno, like, even kissed or anything?”

His eyes grow rounder at the question, widening just a little bit, but enough for her to notice. She knew such a blunt question would make him nervous, Yuuta always grew nervous at any sort of romantic prospect. He’d been that way since they were kids. If he had a crush on someone it was obvious, but as soon as (y/n) would press about it, he’d get red in the face and begin to stutter. It had always been cute, if not a little silly. But now it had her curious as to why. They’d been friends for so long, and even now that they were older, it was like his initial response to such questioning would make him shut down.

‘You could bring girls here, you know,’ She’d told him once, shortly after they’d settled into the apartment. ‘I could even leave for the night. Stay with the twins, or somethin. That way it’s not weird’

He’d laughed, and given her a puzzled look, like the mere idea was ridiculous, like he didn’t even understand what she was suggesting. The pink in his cheeks told her he knew fully well what she was saying. She’d returned the confused look at the time. ‘Don’t you want to bring girls here?’ She’d asked point blank.

‘N-no, well, maybe,’ His response was immediate but he had no clue what he was saying. ‘I just haven’t thought about it’ He’d said instead.

She’d teased him for it, but dropped the subject. It might’ve been entertaining to watch him squirm, but she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. So she’d simply reminded him that it was alright with her. Followed by, ‘I mean, you wouldn’t mind if I brought someone here, would you?’

He’d stared at her for a minute, his answer not as instantaneous as the last. His heart lurched to his throat, or perhaps it had been bile, and he found himself biting down on his tongue to keep from speaking too quickly. His expression hadn’t flickered even for a moment, remaining neutral as she stared at him, awaiting his response.

Yuuta hadn’t said a word. He simply shook his head, and then left the conversation completely by returning to his studies, hoping that giving his attention back to his textbook would drop the topic. It had worked, she’d moved on right away, and it hadn’t been brought up since.

Neither one of them had brought a visitor to the apartment, besides their friends who frequented regularly. There were no dates, no lovers, no visitors of the night snuck in, or even mentioned. Pondering it now, Yuuta supposes there were very few things she didn’t tell him. Then again, he didn’t exactly have an interest in knowing those things. In fact, the mere idea of it had bile rising in his throat.

Yuuta arched a brow at her, silently questioning her train of thought. Since that conversation early on in their roommate-ship, (y/n) rarely brought up this sort of topic. Occasionally she had a date, but nothing seemed to last longer than a couple of weeks, and she didn’t talk much about those events in detail. Always beginning with a simple ‘I have a date tonight’ and later followed up with ‘it didn’t work out’ and a shrug as she’d cozy up to him on this very sofa. Yuuta never met any of the people she’d go out with. (y/n) never offered him to. They left it that way, unspoken, and simple.

Well, it wasn’t all that simple at all. The nights she’d spend out of the house on these mystery dates Yuuta found himself sitting frozen and staring off into space, letting time lapse slowly as he waited for her return. A part of him hoped no one ever lingered at the door, so he wouldn’t have to see who it was she spent her time with, who it was that was her type.

But another part of him, the part that he tried to bury deep down, longed to look one of these men in the eyes, just once. He wouldn’t even say anything, he was sure he wouldn’t need to. If he could get one good look at them, he was sure he could make it clear just how undeserving of her time they were. Because at the end of the day, she had him, and she had him in every way that mattered. Since they were children, he’d been there, showing her what true love really looked like, felt like. He was there for every important event and milestone. He was here now, sharing a living space with her. And he’d be there for everything that came next. Because he cared about her. Because he loved her.

And when she had him the way that she did, wrapped around a perfectly manicured finger, how could anyone else be remotely deserving of her?

The gears in Yuuta’s mind are operating as fast as they can, spinning and whirring as he tries to decipher where exactly she’s going with this. But the alcohol in his system has him under a haze, and he realizes he has yet to give her an answer to her question.

He clears his throat, and his lips twitch into an amused smile as he locks eyes with her.

“Is kissing the true evaluation of roommates?” He asks, a teasing lilt to his voice that has her blushing and rolling her eyes at him.

A chuckle rumbles from his chest as the back of her hand smacks into his shoulder, the action soft, as though she were trying to be gentle with him, as though he were fragile, even with his broad shoulders and lean muscle built into his body.

He can’t help but tease again, for the sole purpose of seeing her continue to fluster before him. The idea of making her forget how to behave around him after all this time has his heart skipping a beat, and a mischievous glint flashes in his eyes.

“What exactly are the Zen’ins feeding you, hm?” He asks, and she struggles to look him in the eye now.

“I wasn’t trying to suggest- they just- they got in my head…” She huffs defeatedly, her bottom lip sticking outwards in a small pout. Yuuta’s eyes catch the plump pink skin, and they linger there for a moment longer than they should’ve before meeting her gaze again. Her eyes have noticeably widened, proving he’d been caught, but he doesn’t feel as much anxiety about it as he should have.

“So what,” He speaks curiously. “Are you asking me to kiss you?”

A small laugh escapes her, a tinkly little sound that is exhaled with the breath she’d been holding. Yuuta’s lips quirk upwards at the nervous response, his excitement getting the best of him the longer he watches her shift her gaze and fluster. Why this had been on her mind, he didn’t quite understand, but in their current predicament, he didn’t care too much to peel it back layer by layer.

“I didn’t-” (y/n) starts to shake her head, but her uncertainty overcomes her and she tries to switch gears. “I don’t know… I guess they made me sort of… curious” She admits bashfully. Her eyes focus on her fiddling hands in her lap before turning the question onto him. “Is that weird?” Her voice is quiet again. “Have you ever… I dunno… thought about it?”

The hand that he had resting before her shoulder reached out then, fingertips barely grazing along the soft material of her cable knit sweater. His gaze followed the motion as his fingers twitched and moved further on their own accord, stopping at the hem of the neckline, just before skin could touch skin. He looks back at her, surprised to find her attention locked on him again.

All of the fucking time, his brain is so loud it almost overpowers the heartbeat pouding in his ears. I don’t think I’ve ever truly stopped thinking about you.

“I suppose you’ve got me thinking about it now” Is what he says, quiet and smooth, although the blush on his cheeks betrays him and makes him appear a little softer than he was going for. (y/n’s) lips twitch into a smile nonetheless, relieved again that he hadn’t made a fool out of her for admitting such a thing.

When she leans closer to him, his fingers finally graze against the side of her neck, and he wastes no time in sliding his large hand around the nape of her neck, not quite pulling her any closer than she’d already brought herself, but the presence of his hand is firm, making sure she won’t distance herself too soon.

“Do you want to?” She asks, her eyes lighting up with an excitement he’d sparked as soon as he’d validated her curiosities. Her voice holds the silly eagerness of a girl much younger than she is. A schoolgirl with a crush, Yuuta thinks to himself as he eyes her bright eyes and slowly growing grin.

The hand on her knee flexes with anticipation, giving her leg a slight squeeze. He wants to say all the right things, he wants to do all the right things, because jesus christ this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and Yuuta could not afford to waste even a second of it. He wanted to commit it all to memory, her soft voice, the smell of her perfume, the curve of her lips, the stars in her eyes- there was so much of her to take in, and not nearly enough time for him to adore it all properly. With hooded eyes he studied every feature as best he could, wishing he could slow down time, or even freeze it altogether.

“Yeah,” He mumbles, and the word drawls out of his mouth in a long sigh as his eyes move between hers and her lips with a longing she’d never seen on him before.

If she didn’t know any better, (y/n) might have thought that look was desperation.

“Yeah, I want to,” He repeats a little louder, and he moves closer to her then, invading her space and clouding all of her senses with him.

His eyes, dark from how blown out his pupils had grown, his low almost raspy voice, the lingering remains of his musky cologne, the way his tongue barely poked out of his mouth to wet his lips- her heartbeat was racing, and her hand trembled as she reached out to place it against his collarbone. Her touch was feather light, almost experimental despite having touched him on plenty of occasions before, just never quite like this.

Her long lashes flickered quickly as she too struggled with where to look. When their gaze caught in passing, Yuuta gave the back of her neck a gentle squeeze, silently instructing her to hold his stare.

“You’re sure?” He asks softly, and she almost laughs at how thoughtful the question is. How thoughtful he is. But she doesn’t. Instead, she gives him a sweet smile and a shrug of her shoulders.

“It’s just a kiss, right?” She murmurs, blissfully unaware of just how worked up Yuuta’s gotten himself over the prospect of just a kiss.

He doesn’t wait for further confirmation. He simply draws her closer by the back of her neck. Her eyes flutter shut and she tilts her chin forward in the most miniscule of movements, and yet he can read her anticipation with ease.

Her breath hitches in her throat, and Yuuta’s closing the rest of the distance as his lips touch hers.

For half a second they’re both frozen, paralyzed by the sudden fear that there was no taking this back, there was no going back from this. (y/n’s) blood ran cold in that brief moment, worried that Yuuta also realized this was a grave mistake.

But then his mouth moves over hers. His warm lips catch hers with a soft yet determined kiss, and she gives into every temptation that consumes her.

Her hand presses into his chest a little harder, before her fingers are curling into the soft cotton of his tee shirt. Her other hand falls against his shoulder when he tugs her closer in a moment of thoughtless desire. Yuuta pulls her by her knee, sliding her closer until her legs drape completely across his, the curve of her ass flush with his thigh. As soon as he does it he panics again that he’s made a mistake and taken this experiment of a kiss too far, but she responds so eagerly, with a quiet hum against his mouth and her hand curling around his neck as she deepens their kiss.

For a kiss on a whim between friends, (y/n) kisses him with the fervor of a woman starved, and Yuuta internally struggles on where the boundary between them currently lies. His hand twitches on her thigh, squeezing the plush of her leg and aching to move, to explore the rest of her warm and inviting body, to touch her everywhere he could reach. He has to hold her a little tighter just to fight the urge.

(y/n) is less worried about taking strides across the gray area of a boundary between them. The hand on his neck slides into his hair, scratching at his scalp before her fingers tangle into the dark tresses. She gives it a small tug, and his lips part against hers as he gasps, before chuckling quietly at her curiosity. He feels her smile against him before she’s pressing closer again. Her tongue darts over his swollen bottom lip, and she gives him no time to react to the hot and wet sensation before she’s capturing his lips again.

Yuuta wasn’t sure what he should’ve predicted when they’d drunkenly admitted to sharing a curiosity for kissing one another, but he hadn’t expected this. Her hands have a tight hold on him, on his shirt and in his hair, and her sweet, cranberry flavored lips feel relentless as she slots them into his again and again. He supposes he’s treating this little experiment the same, meeting each of her kisses with the same amount of heated excitement. He tries not to think about when he’s supposed to stop, when he’s supposed to pull away and say ‘well that answers that. Goodnight!’. So for now he pretends that moment won’t come.

On the other hand, (y/n) knows she should stop. She knows she should pull away from his addictive lips and release her shackles from him before she gets carried away.

But she’s already too far gone, isn’t she?

Shakily, she releases his shirt, and her hand blindly maps across his shoulder, then down his arm. Her touch is light but the tips of her fingers burn across his skin. His muscles are taut, and she wonders if he’s flexing to be impressive or if he’s filled with so much anticipation he’s fighting the urge to go further. When her hand reaches his it stills, and she presses her palm into the back of his hand where it lies on her leg.

A shudder escapes her and she pants softly into his mouth, breaking their kiss as she grabs his hand a little tighter, and moves it.

Yuuta breaks away instantly, wide eyes meeting hers and an apology on the tip of his tongue. But before she can pull his hand away from her, he realizes she’s holding it to place it somewhere else, not to pull it away.

She blinks her eyes open lazily as she sits up further, curving one of her legs across his lap, setting her knee down beside his hip. Yuuta follows her movements in a daze, his hooded eyes flitting across her body as he watches her straddle his lap and settle back into him carefully. She’s slow, agonizingly slow, giving him ample time to halt her, to say the word that he was done and his curiosity had been satiated.

He doesn’t.

Her hand pushes his again, guiding it up to her waist, and then down over her hip.

“This okay?” She mumbles, and his gaze moves from where she’s still lowering his hand. He tilts his head back as he looks up at her, and the look in his eyes has her melting right in his lap. Her free hand spreads out over his chest, fingers stretching as far as she can reach to feel as much of his heated skin through his tee shirt as she could.

He looks at her with his pupils so blown they almost eat up every last splash of blue in his irises. His lips are swollen and parted as he takes in quiet, heavy breaths. He nods at her lazily, drunkenly, and she wonders if it’s from the alcohol or from her.

When she pushes his hand under her ass, she doesn’t have to guide him any further. He squeezes into the supple flesh right away. She giggles quietly before his other hand is pulling her into him again and smashing her lips against his.

They’re much closer now, it had taken little to no effort for him to pull her into his chest, and their hips collided at the sudden movement.

All she thinks about as she tangles her hands in his hair and parts her lips for his tongue to lazily explore her mouth are those couple of times she’s caught him in a towel fresh out of the shower. How she’d scurried into her room and tried to ease her mind of the dark thoughts he’d made blossom. She thinks about how there hadn’t been anything to quite satisfy those thoughts. Ignoring them did nothing, acting on them in the safety of her room and her hand down her panties made them worse, and even now she feels tortured by the image, making her ache for more, more, more. Nothing was quite enough.

His teeth sink into her bottom lip and she whimpers, her brows pinching as her hips stutter against her will. She feels as though she should apologize for grinding on him so shamelessly, she could feel what this makeout session was doing to him after all, but he doesn’t seem to want an apology. His hands grip her hips and he pulls her down again, dragging her slowly over the growing hardness in his pants with a low groan.

The guttural sound reverberating from his chest only spurs her on, and she complies with the rhythm he sets on her hips, slow and painful. Their kiss breaks as she lets out a few soft pants, but she never fully catches her breath as she grinds into him.

She can’t help but peek her eyes open at him, falling in love with the way his eyes are screwed shut and his lips are parted as small moans fall from his mouth. The sight makes something spark send a jolt of pleasure down her tummy and to her core. She knew she should’ve given him a quick peck of the lips and called it a night, because she’s not sure she could muster the strength to stop where she so desperately wanted this to go.

As though annoyed that she’d stopped kissing him for too long, Yuuta pulls her in again, his hand curling around the back of her neck as his lips plant hot kisses down her throat. A high pitched gasp escapes her as his mouth drags along her skin between each kiss, and her hands are curled into his long hair again. Her hips stutter in their pace, but he has no issue with grabbing them tighter and guiding them back through his favorite rhythm.

His mouth lingers at what little of her collarbones are exposed, leaving wetter kisses there as he appreciates them as fully as he could, before traveling up the side of her neck. His teeth barely graze the sensitive skin, and he’s dying to mark up every inch of her, but he restrains himself from doing so, instead compromising for lingering nips and gentle sucks against her skin.

“So fucking beautiful,” He praises in a husky murmur, biting down on a particularly sensitive spot just under her jaw. He’s rewarded with a sudden rut of her hips and a pretty little moan as she angles her head further back to expose more of her neck to him. He soothes the spot with a painfully slow drag of his tongue before kissing it sweetly. “So perfect, so perfect f’me”

The praise sends her into a dizzy spell so strong she’s not sure she’s still on earth with him. This must be another universe, maybe heaven, maybe a dream. Her fingers fall from his hair, tugging at the collar of his shirt with an irritated whine.

When she tugs a few more times and he doesn’t get the hint, she throws her hands against his chest defeatedly.

“Yuu” She whines, and the sound of his name has his dick twitching in his pants, which he’s certain she could feel. His face flushes with embarrassment, but she just as quickly grinds into him with a roll of her hips.

He hums questioningly against the side of her neck, before tilting his head and kissing his way to the other side to give it attention too. She sighs, half irritated, half pleasured, as he sweeps her hair to the other shoulder with one brush of his hand. (y/n) continues to paw at his shirt, bunching up as much material at his shoulders as she could, her desperate attempts were weak, barely exposing the skin of his abdomen. When he still didn’t comply with her unspoken desire, she opted to reach for the skin that she could get her hands on.

Yuuta’s abs tensed and he shuddered as her fingers ghosted over the exposed skin. At first she barely trailed her fingertips over the muscle, but watching him twitch and shiver had her eager to slide her hands up his stomach, eagerly mapping their way up his chest, and pushing the rest of his shirt upwards on their mission.

His face is completely red as he watches her heavy gaze admiring his body. He wants to laugh and remind her that she’s seen him without a shirt many times before now, and he’s never seen her look at him like this, but her eyes are darkened with lust and his voice is stuck in his throat, so he doesn’t say anything.

Instead, when the hem of his tee shirt is bunched up at his chest, he leans forward off the couch cushion, and takes his hands off of her hips so he could grab his shirt from the back, lifting it over his head in one quick yank. (y/n) watches with her lip between her teeth as his hair falls back in his face, and he’s left shirtless before her.

The idea of slowing this down now is far from either of their minds. She hums with appreciation as her hands smooth along his collarbones, fingers drawing loopy shapes into his skin as they travel down his chest, slowly exploring the skin she’d been fantasizing about for weeks now. His blush runs down his neck and stops just short of his collarbones, and (y/n) admires every inch of it.

Eventually her stare is too intense and Yuuta begins to stir, wrapping his hands around her hips once more to pull her against his chest before his lips meet hers. It’s a slow kiss at first, and her tongue brushes over his in a way that almost feels sweet. He could still taste the vodka and cranberry juice in her mouth, and he swears it's enough to get him buzzed. But as his hands climbed her hips and dipped below the hem of her sweater, she picked up her pace, and he could feel quick puffs of air from her nse hitting his cheek.

She’s getting worked up again, and he’s eager to see just how far he could push her before she gives in completely.

He pulls her in close enough that her hands dart back into his hair, gripping at the back of his head tight enough that he couldn’t tear his lips from hers if he wanted to. Not that he’d want to, with how drunkenly she’s sucking at his lower lip and whimpering into his mouth with every roll of her hips.

Learning she’s so vocal when she’s turned on was a mistake on Yuuta’s part. Because now all he longed to do was find all the right things that made her tick and do it more. Every strained whine and whimper was music to his ears, wordless praise that he was doing something right, and he’d be damned before he found every spot that had her making those sweet noises for him.

Calloused hands roam over her abdomen, feeling it dip as she inhales sharply, and smirking against her mouth when he reaches higher, skimming the hem of her bra.

Unlike him, she wastes no time at all. Leaning back from their kiss abruptly, and grabbing her oversized sweater from the bottom and pulling it over her head with great urgency. Yuuta’s eyes fall to her chest instantly, wide and eager as they take in the simple red bra and how pretty the color makes her tits look. The thin lace on the edges complimenting the swell of her chest so beautifully he hopes he commits this image to memory.

Now it’s her turn to fluster and blush while he unabashedly stares. And she could tease him, remind him that he’s seen her in a bikini, that this was the same amount of skin he’s been gifted to see before, but she finds herself growing bashful under his heavy gaze. She can feel the way his eyes take a mental picture of her before he finally leans forward to enjoy the exposed skin further.

“Fuck,” He mumbles, lips brushing over her clavicle before kissing downwards, between the valley of her breasts. “You really are s’fucking beautiful, y’know that?” His words are slurred as his hands roam up her sides and hesitate just before reaching her chest. “Can I touch you, pretty girl?”

The praise and pet name swirl in her mind in a sweet haze that gets her high. She gives a soft mhm and a nod of her head before his hands gently cup over her chest, squeezing with a surprising softness into the warm flesh. Yuuta continues to kiss along the exposed skin he could reach, her collarbones, the swell of her tits, her shoulders, his lips dragged over every inch, making sure to disperse his attention diligently.

“So beautiful,” He sings praises between each kiss, noticing the way it has her squirming in his lap. “So perfect, every part of you”

He grabs her hands by the wrists, pulling them up to his shoulders, until her fingers twitch and reach for his hair again. Her hips roll over his with a quiet moan. He lifts his head at the noise, a lazy smirk on his lips as he gazes up at her. She furrows her brows at him as she moves her hips again, trying to get more friction between them.

His hands squeeze her tits simultaneously, before his left thumb drags over the thin material covering them, finding her hardened nipple with ease and rolling over it teasingly.

“Yuuta,” She sighs, tilting her head at him as her gaze drags slowly down his body, the desire in her eyes obvious.

It made the room thick with sexual tension, and they both only grew hotter in temperature the longer this was dragged out. When her eyes met his again it was undeniable what she was thinking. Her every want and desire was clear solely from her eyes focused on his, and how her fingers tightened in his hair, pulling him close to her face, but not quite kissing him.

His hands slid up her chest, fingertips prodding at the lacy cups of her bra until it gave way and he could slide his hands over the soft skin beneath. Her bottom lip quivers with what she wants to say next.

“Yuu, I-”

A sharp rap of a fist against their door has them jolting back to reality with a harsh swivel of both heads turning towards the sound. Without thought Yuuta’s hands fall to her waist and he pulls her into him, instinctively covering her barely exposed body if someone was to let themselves into the apartment. But the door doesn’t move, and the knocking persists.

“What the- it’s two in the morning,” (y/n) mumbles with a brow furrowed in confusion. “Who could-?”

The pair lock eyes as realization floods over them at the same time. Oh.

“Shit” Yuuta curses, and (y/n) quickly scurries off of his lap as she begins searching for their discarded articles of clothing.

Yuuta’s faster, tossing her a shirt and pulling one on for himself as he gets up off the couch and quickly heads for the door. He glances down at his pants with a wince, trying to adjust the obvious hard on, but to no use. He tugs as far as he can at the hem of his sweater to cover it. It’s a half decent job, and as he approaches the door he hopes it’s enough to hide it. He gives (y/n) a quick look to make sure she was decent.

She’s still sitting on the couch, her head peeking over the cushions curiously as he goes to open the door. Her hair is a mess, and her cheeks are flushed, both obvious giveaways to what she’s been up to for the last fifteen minutes. Yuuta’s sure he doesn’t look any better, and his hands rush to his head to smooth his hair down before he finally grabs the door knob and swings it open.

“What?” He greets Toge with more annoyance than usual, and the blonde on the other side of the door raises a brow at the tone.

Lavender eyes sweep over Yuuta’s flushed face and messy hair. He points into the apartment, vaguely towards the living room. Yuuta steps aside, letting his friend in for whatever it was he’d forgotten.

Toge gives (y/n) a friendly smile and waves as he strides into the living room. She returns the smile with weak lips.

Their visitor grabs a hoodie off of the arm chair to the left of the couch, something neither (y/n) or Yuuta had noticed left behind. He shrugs it on and stuffs his hands into the cozy fleece-lined pocket with a satisfied smile before waving goodbye to (y/n) and walking out of the room just as quickly.

“Sorry I didn’t notice it sooner,” Yuuta says sheepishly as Toge passes. “I could’ve brought it to you tomorrow”

Toge waves a dismissive hand, before twirling his finger around and shrugging. He must’ve still been in the area, Yuuta realizes.

He’s about to step out the door and leave without a catch, but he hesitates just as he steps over the threshold, his eyes doing a double take as he notes the dark green cable knit sweater Yuuta’s wearing.

His eyes linger on the article of clothing, brows pinching with familiarity, before he lifts his gaze to Yuuta’s, who’s also suddenly aware of the shirt he was wearing.

Before he can stop himself, Yuuta’s head is swiveling to where (y/n) was still watching them both from the couch. She’s sporting a tee shirt too loose on her frame to be hers. Toge follows Yuuta’s gaze, his eyes widening with realization.

“Anyways!” Yuuta clears his throat as he turns back to Toge with a grin so forced his cheeks hurt. “I’ll see you later?”

Toge opens his mouth, a grin of his own forming and a small laugh coming from his throat, but before anything could be said, Yuuta was ushering him through the rest of the doorway, already trying to shut the door in his face.

“Yeah, later, goodnight, Toge!”

The door closes a little harsher than he meant it to, the frame shaking as the latch clicks into place. Yuuta locks it just as quickly, before groaning and hitting his head against the wood. It felt like his heart was beating in his throat. He worried he might throw up from the anxiety coursing through his veins.

“That was close,” (y/n) says quietly, just loud enough for him to hear.

He’s too anxious to look at her. He squeezes his eyes shut and stays put against the door. Distantly, he remembers his dick is still hard.

He can hear (y/n) stirring, getting up from the couch and padding closer to him. She pauses just before she reaches him.

“Do you think he noticed the shirts?” She asks quietly.

Yuuta sighs, finally lifting his head from the door only to throw it back and stare at the ceiling. He doesn’t want to see how worried he’s sure his expression looks. He doesn’t want her to get the wrong idea about the regret pooling in his stomach.

“Probably” He admits in a quiet groan.

(y/n) shuts her eyes as she winces, covering her face with her hands.

The tension in the room is no longer due to sexual desire overtaking their inhibitions. It was awkward. Painfully awkward.

“I feel so stupid,” She mumbles into her hands.

Yuuta’s head snaps towards her, taking in the shame in her body language. His heart sinks towards his stomach. Had they made a massive mistake? (y/n) drags her hands down her face before looking up at him, her brows drawn together with a knot of worry between them. Had he made a massive mistake?

“I am so- I’m so sorry,” She tells him weakly. “I shouldn’t have- that was- I was-”

She can’t even finish a thought, much less an explanation on how ridiculously impulsive and embarrassing that was. Her face is growing pale and she feels sick to her stomach. She couldn’t believe she’d just ruined one of the greatest friendships she’s ever had over a silly conversation with the Zen’in twins about a silly crush. She couldn’t believe she’d just ruined the perfect living situation with the perfect roommate over a crush that probably would've gone away on it’s own had she just handled it maturely.

“It’s okay-” He starts to say, trying to find the right way to explain to her that he wasn’t upset in the slightest about what happened between them. He’d only been embarrassed about practically getting caught. He knew their friends well, and he was sure that Toge wasn’t the only one to notice the swap of shirts. Surely Maki and Mai had already been given an earful about the whole ordeal.

Before he can say anything else, (y/n’s) cutting him off.

“I should go to bed,” Her voice is too soft to overpower his, but he shuts up as soon as she speaks. “I’m… I’m really sorry, Yuuta,”

His eyebrows furrow as he takes in her sad, apologetic eyes. She really meant it. She really felt guilt over what had happened. His stomach twists with disturbance, and fear.

“Please forgive me, I… I hope you can forget about… that”

Forget? No…

But she’s turning away from him, running her hands through her hair in a stressful manner as she quickly darts for her room. Yuuta’s left standing at their door, wide eyed and open mouthed in his shock.

Did that all really just happen?

His palm comes up to cover his mouth, the realization settling into his bones and making his blood run cold.

God, it did, it really did.

He’s slow as he puts the switch remotes back on the console to charge, before turning off all the lights and going to his own room. He unzips his pants and kicks them off somewhere in his room before crawling into bed, not bothering to change into something proper to sleep in, or take off the sweater he’d accidentally stolen. He lays on his back, eyes focused on the blank ceiling of his bedroom as he replays it all over and over in his mind.

(y/n) also sits awake in her bedroom. But she’s far from frozen. She repeatedly kicks the covers off herself before tugging them back on, undecided on if she was hot or cold. She’d abandoned her pants and laid awake in Yuuta’s tee shirt, the scent of his cologne and something else that was distinctly him still clinging to the fabric. Tears welled in her eyes as she curled in on herself, hugging her pillow to her chest in a desperate attempt to seek comfort.

Neither one of them gets much sleep. ___

xoxo ~ jordie

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foryourinformationhere · 2 years ago

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The Pet Care Robots Market size was valued at US$ 1.41 billion in 2021 and is predicted to reach US$ 3.65 billion by 2030 with a CAGR of 11.2% from 2022-2030.

Pet care Robots products are implemented with artificial intelligence and other technologies that allow to look after the pets and simplify their life. Also, these products help in monitoring day-to-day pet activities and can entertain the pets by clicking photos, creating videos, and playing calls. Moreover, the products such as monitoring cameras allow the owner to track the live location of their pets and other useful statistics.

Access Full Report: https://www.nextmsc.com/report/pet-care-robotic-market

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yinyuedijun · 5 months ago

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NIGHT FLOWER: part i

Your place in the world was one of a tool. This was true of every slave: you were all things to be used. Kakavasha understood this about you, and he understood this about himself. It was how he survived all those years ago, and it’s how he survives now. And so, when Aventurine goes into his first heat in years and decides to suffer it alone, you can only think of one way to get him to accept your help: You offer to let him use you.

written for @/lorelune's spring fever collab & @ficsforgaza

13.5k words of omegaverse, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, angst with an eventual happy ending. gn alpha reader + omega aventurine (they each have both amab and afab genitalia). explicit piv sex, reader bottoms, the sex is consensual but emotionally complicated and deeply sad. cw slavery, racism, gendered violence, including very brief and non-graphic (but direct) references to sexual abuse during slavery. the sa and slavery are not eroticized. dead dove do not eat, mdni.

thank you to @acerathia, @minnaci, @owlespresso for all your help with beta reading and to @kosmiccarma for brainstorming omega aventurine hcs!

“I’ve alw███ l█ved ███, Ka██v█s███”

You knew it from the moment you met him.

Gaunt, pallid, weighed down by heavy chains. Irises that glowed like the auroras back in your world. Delicate features that made every passerby in the market stop to read the description on the placard. (Sigonian, it said, although you couldn’t read at the time. Avgin. Male. Omega. Sixteen years old. Sixty Tanba, no tax.) He had an all-consuming scent that was impossible to ignore—one that possessed you, made your heels dig into the dirt, every atom in your body resisting the impatient jerk of the chains at your wrist. Even through your muzzle, through the perpetual stench of carbon-steel and blood, you could smell it: honey and wildflowers. A fragrance that settled deep within you, flooded you with a warmth that felt like home.

Aventurine is not a spiritual person. He once told you this, his smile cold in the glow of an artificial moon. He'd been deeply religious as a child, but hasn’t since cared for fairy tales about fortune and fate, three-eyed goddesses or merciful rainfalls. Hasn't thought about anything like a destined love. He thinks the idea of a true mate is laughable, that no such bond could ever be forged between an omega and an alpha. That nothing so unconditional could ever exist.

You know differently, of course. You've known it from the moment you met him, from the second you laid eyes on him and thought, I need to help you, and I need to protect you, and I need you to be safe, and you’d never once heard the word ‘love’ in your life—slaves are never loved by their masters, after all, and you'd always been nothing but a slave—but every atom of your being knew that you loved him, that you'd always love him.

And when your master cradled your face that night and crooned that he owned you, that you'd always be his obedient, alpha pet—for the first time in your life, you knew that he was wrong.

You didn't belong to your slaver.

You belonged to him.

To Kakavasha.

These days, Aventurine does not smell like honey, and your jaw is not restrained.

Your muzzle was one of the first things that Aventurine threw away when he bought your freedom. According to the Amber Era system, it had been several months since the murder of your shared master. Ninety-five Star Calendar days after the Interastral Peace Corps had arrested Kakavasha. An entire rotation around the black hole at the centre of your wretched galaxy, all of which had been spent in the captivity of some new mistress. She picked you out because she liked your calming scent and the look of your face, but mostly she used you for the fighting pits just like your old master.

Aventurine had been sitting in the audience of your final match, then bought you out right after you won. “I’m in need of a fighter,” he’d said, smiling in his thick furs and jewels. He played the part of a slavemaster perfectly, his gloved hands wandering the span of your aching shoulders, touching the bloodied maw of your mask. “And I’d be willing to pay top credit for yours.”

She protested. You were her most prized possession, one of her greatest investments. Slaves from your planet were hard enough to come by—alphas capable of reproduction, nearly impossible. And you were so well-behaved, so poised, so endearing in a way that was rare for alphas. She was fond of you. Her omega slaves were fond of you too. They would be distraught if you left, and that would complicate her household affairs—and surely Aventurine, as a respectable owner of human capital like herself, could understand how inconvenient that would be?

Aventurine bared his teeth in a gracious smile. (You’d never seen Kakavasha make such an expression before—so disarming, so cunning, a crescent moon beneath snake eyes. He’d never smelt like this either, like an expensive cologne layered with bleach, and it left you feeling nauseous, wondering if he was ill.) He flirted his way into her good graces, made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, and then he brought you into the first-class ship on which he’d arrived. You were so stunned by its luxury—the handwoven carpets, the crushed velvet seats, the imported tea from several galaxies away and the custom-ordered outfit he had bought for you—that you nearly missed the tremble in his hands as he punched numbers into the remote control lock for your chains.

He had regained his composure by the time he pulled away your muzzle, though. He threw it carelessly to the ground—your titanium chains, too. Then kicked both away with his shined leather shoes.

“There,” Aventurine said, smiling cheerfully. “Much better, don’t you think?”

“Vasha—” you started, voice thick with wasted grief, and all you wanted to was reach for him, to double check that he was real, but he placed a finger to your lips and stopped you. You stiffened at the satin touch, but he seemed unbothered.

“‘Aventurine’,” he corrected.

You stared blankly. “What?”

“‘Aventurine’. Like the gemstone. That’s my name now.”

“You—” Your voice caught in your throat. You realized that you’d been holding your breath. You always had the habit of holding your breath in the luxurious, private rooms of very rich men, because you never liked what happened in them. Forcing yourself to breathe, you asked, “You gave yourself a new name?”

“No. The IPC gave me a new name. They gave me a job, too.”

“A job?” you asked, voice faint. Now that you were breathing again, you were noticing once more just how bizarre he smelled. Sterile and expensive and completely foreign. “You’re free now?”

“Well, I’m a freedman, but I don’t know if I’d call myself free. I’m a bit… indebted to the IPC, let’s say. But that’s fine. I can’t complain. I mean—look around. This beats the fighting pits, doesn’t it?” He gestured lazily at your surroundings, and you nodded.

“It’s nice here,” you replied, feeling absurd but not knowing what else to say. Once Kakavasha got talking, it was impossible to get a word in edgewise.

“You like it here? Good. This room’s yours. Mine is the next one over. You’ll live and work here, with me. I’ll make sure you’re paid well. Full benefits, vacation, salary, and overtime. The standard pay for your role is seventy-thousand credits per month, but I’ll see if I can get you more. HR is pretty strict about their hiring policies, but—”

“You’re hiring me?”

Aventurine went very still, his smile tightly controlled. His eyes remained fixed on you, but they seemed less snake-like, now. They looked more familiar. More afraid.

“I’m offering, yes,” he said neatly. “You’ll be part of my personal security detail. I don’t have the contract for you to review yet, unfortunately. I didn’t arrange one ahead of time because, well”—he laughed, as if this were polite conversation and he were making a joke about the weather—“I didn’t know if I’d find you alive. But things worked out in my favour. They always work out in my favour. I’ll make sure they’ll work out in your favour too, so long as you’re with me. So you’ll consider it, won’t you? Staying with—working for me, I mean.”

Your eyes went soft. Beneath the artificial fragrance, you finally caught a hint of his familiar scent—more wildflower than honey at that moment, the way it always is when he’s scared.

“Kakavasha—”

“Name your price,” he said loudly, “and I’ll match it.”

You sighed. “Vasha,” you said more gently, and his shoulders relaxed at the subvocal shift in your timbre, at the famed alpha Voice that necessitated your muzzle, “I don’t care about the money. Of course I’ll stay here. But—what happened? Why did you kill him yourself? Why didn't you let me do it? That was the plan. It was always supposed to be me.”

It was my job, you thought then, just as you had thought to yourself every night, curled up in your bed and trying to recall the scent of fresh honey, to keep you safe.

He shrugged and said, “It would have been too risky to involve you.”

“You were caught and sentenced to death. The risk was already too high.”

“But the stakes weren’t,” he replied simply, and before you could ask what he meant by that, he continued, “and it worked out, didn’t it? I work for the IPC. You work for me. We’re freedmen now. Whatever I've lost, it doesn't matter. Our gains far outweigh it.”

“And what have you lost, Vasha?”

He smiled at you, charming and distracting. A crescent moon beneath snake eyes. “Nothing of value,” he reassured you, and even though you could feel the calm of an omega’s voice washing over you, even though it released all the tension in your body, all you could smell was cologne and wildflowers, and you knew that he was lying.

Vasha once told you, curled up and quiet on the basement floor, that he despised his eyes. They were supposed to be a sign of blessing from Gaiathra Triclops, but they'd never brought him anything but trouble. They were the first thing that the slavers always noticed about him, the feature that made him such an alluring commodity. Their aurora glow, their strange beauty, their promise of a rare opportunity: a chance at owning a specimen of an exotic, endangered species, possibly the last of its kind. These are all things that you've heard in the parlour of your master’s house as he entertained rich company, the crowd of them gawking at his human curios.

Avgin are said to make the most beautiful slaves, he'd often say. And Avgin omegas are said to be the most beautiful among them. What do you all think? They'd all hum, peering closely at Kakavasha’s features, and inevitably someone would joke, I think I'd like to borrow him sometime, and then they would all laugh while your pulse ticked up and you imagined tearing at their throats. Vasha would search for your gaze in these moments, giving you a long, pointed look: Don't do anything stupid.

He’d always been so blasé about it, the way people fixated on his Avgin blood. You'll never understand how. He didn't react to any of the comments, the groping, the innuendos. He was, however, distinctly unimpressed at the way that your master liked to play him up as a rare and expensive acquisition, as a sign of his own status. It's embarrassing to watch, Kakavasha had remarked. Everyone knows that Sigonian slaves are uncommon but cheap—people always think we’ll bring them more trouble than our worth. This was how Kakavasha had ended up in the market in the first place: because his last master had been robbed, and he'd been wrongly blamed for it.

The blame, to this day, has never stopped. People—powerful people, politicians, businessmen, socialites—look at Aventurine’s eyes and immediately reach for their pockets. You've seen it for yourself, these spineless despots and scammers feeling for their wallets. Sigonian, you know they're thinking. Liar, cheat, thief, whore, worthless, worthless, worthless. Your hands tighten around your blade each time, a loaded gun with a finger on the trigger.

Alphas are said to be violent by nature. Aventurine has often called you the one exception to this rule: the most docile, good-hearted alpha he's ever met. But this is a lie. You do have a predator instinct, and it comes out in full-force whenever you’re around these particular types of men. These types who notice Aventurine’s eyes and see a thief; these monsters who see his irises and imagine what it would be like to bed him. You’d kill them if you could. It would be so easy, especially now that you are an IPC dog. The Company is already such a violent force; what would be one more murder?

But Aventurine has never ordered you to punish anyone. (Don't do anything stupid, he always tells you with a glance, smiling through every humiliation.) Nor has he ever seemed bothered enough by these meetings to try concealing his heritage.

A fellow Asset Liquidation Specialist once asked why he didn't just hide his eye colour—it would likely be better for fostering relationships, negotiating deals—but Aventurine had shrugged it off. I'm a gambler working with the IPC, he'd said. Do you really think a pair of coloured contacts would make anyone trust me? He'd laughed, and his voice had carried a threatening edge, and his coworker had shifted visibly at it. Being an Avgin is the least threatening thing about me, wouldn't you say?

You think that Aventurine likes being seen as a threat. Sometimes you wonder if this is why he doesn't mind wearing his eyes so much, but abhors keeping his scent. He washes his clothes until they're free of his disarming sweetness and then masks himself with an unsettling blend of ambergris, jasmine, and wood. And he is on suppressants all the time—hasn’t had a single heat since the day he killed his master. Hasn't smelled like himself, either.

At the end of the day, it’s manageable being an Avgin in this business, he often comments, spraying half a bottle of masking cologne on himself, but you can't be an Avgin and an omega. Wouldn’t you agree?

You'd know better than me, you reply, noncommittally—and truthfully.

But you're an alpha, he observes. Don't you have an opinion?

You don't pay me to have opinions, you always remind him, stone-faced. You pay me to stand here and look scary. And Aventurine always laughs at this, and he always wires you money and calls it a bonus as he pesters you for an answer, and he always gets distracted and starts scrolling through all his shopping wishlists instead. I saw this thing the other day and thought of you. And this too. Would you like either of them? Would you like them both? I’m a very generous manager, you know. I'll buy you anything you like.

But even though he always gets distracted, Aventurine never forgets. Sooner or later, he inevitably circles back to these questions—these anxieties about his scent, about his eyes, about his blood. He never cares for anyone else’s opinions, but he's always been curious about yours. Even when he was Vasha, he wanted to know what you thought.

He’d been sixteen years old and delirious with heat the first time he asked you, face wrinkling with pain as he spilled his thoughts. It was so incoherent, so sad, you thought it must have been about a fever dream. Mama Fenge, he kept saying. Mama Fenge blessed me, She blessed me, I'm blessed, it rained when I was born—did you know that? My luck, I was lucky. The Katicans, they never caught me. They got everyone else, but not me. I was blessed by Her. I'm going to save my people. I will. I'll save my sister. My eyes are proof. My mistress liked them. Said they're beautiful. Worth sixty whole coppers. A blessing. He pulled you close, pressed his scalding face to your scent gland, and his whole body shuddered with relief. This was the first and only time he'd allowed you to hold him, and it was only out of desperation, out of his mind. Do you like them, alpha? Do you like my eyes? Why? Is it because they're beautiful? Because they're from Gaiathra?

“I like them because they're yours,” you'd replied, and Kakavasha had laughed deliriously.

This is when he told you he hated them: I'd close them forever, if I could.

When you were younger—dumber—you had a habit of squirrelling away every spare coin you came across. You collected them in a little purse that one of the omega slaves had sewn for you—a thank-you for always keeping the other alphas away from her—and you hid it underneath a loose floorboard. By the time that Kakavasha was arrested, you'd saved up twenty-nine Tanba. You’d wanted enough to buy Kakavasha’s freedom and then to set him up for a comfortable life.

It had been a stupid plan. An embarrassing one. If you ever confessed it to Aventurine, he'd laugh at you. Slaves can't buy other slaves, he'd say. Leave the schemes to me next time. You’re too good-hearted for it.

You’d already known that, of course. You knew that you didn't have the status to buy him or mate him or even just provide for him, but you wanted to. God, did you want to—you spent every waking moment thinking about it, every sleeping moment dreaming of it. It wasn't even that you desired him, though he was beautiful and fragrant and more delicate than anything that had ever touched you in your life, which was only your master’s hands and your muzzle and your chains. Aventurine would feel so soft in comparison, you’d always figured. It made your heart ache, thinking about getting to hold something so lovely.

But really—that desire came second. What came first was how mated omegas feel safe around their alphas, and you so desperately wanted him to be safe. Kakavasha had looked so frail, so grim, as your master took his chains and led him home from the market, and you could smell the fear coming off him in waves. And you could do nothing to stop it. You had nothing you could use to stop it—nothing other than your hands that could kill for him and your pheromones that could soothe him and your useless heart that wanted to collect sixty Tanba for him. That was all you had.

So you failed in the end. Of course you did. You didn't have the status to buy him or mate him or even just provide for him. You couldn't even do for him the one thing you could have done—which was to kill. And Kakavasha suffered for your incompetence. He had to dirty his hands with blood and gamble his way into wealth and then suddenly he was freeing you, not the other way around.

And now you are comfortable. You'll lead an easy life from now, Aventurine reassured you when he brought you onto his ship all those years ago, and he's kept that promise. What about you? you'd asked him then. Will you lead an easy life with me, if you're working for the IPC? And he had smiled and lied to you: Yes.

It had been a painfully obvious lie. If you were a smarter person, you'd have never believed it in the first place. Aventurine has no interest in leading an easy life, because an easy life would be less profitable, and less profit would mean less safety. And he is always, always worried about being unsafe. It is indiscernible to everyone but you—an alpha (his alpha, always his, even if he doesn't want you) who has watched over him for so long that you can detect every shift in his scent. No matter how much cologne he drowns himself in and no matter how strong his suppressants are, you know when he is afraid.

And here is the bitter truth, the ultimate proof of your shortcomings:

Aventurine is always afraid.

It is a beautiful day on Agnisahr, and you can tell that Aventurine is about to throw up from worry.

You're sitting in the middle of stunning wealth—Aventurine in his feathers and jewellery, you in your tailored jacket—in a lobby made from marble and pale sandstone, with a view of palm trees and rolling, scarlet sand dunes beyond the window. The waitstaff addresses him as Honoured Guest and they keep his crystal chalice filled constantly with water—one of the most expensive commodities on the planet. Aventurine has been drinking from it religiously, which is strange as he typically has the habit of forgetting to hydrate. A faint wildflower scent is drifting from his slender form. These are the only giveaway to his mood: he's otherwise as pokerfaced as ever, smiling calmly as he discusses his plans to sabotage the local government and acquire the planet for the IPC.

“This is a very dangerous mission,” you state flatly.

“All my missions are dangerous.” He takes a sip, one pinky up. “The IPC pays me well for a reason. As they say—”

“‘High risk, high reward.’ I know.” You try not to sound bitter, though you allow yourself to sound tired. “I still do not think the risk is worth the reward in this case.”

“I think over 5.6 million in credits is a great reward, actually. We could do a lot with that kind of money.”

You raise a brow. “What could an extra 5.6 million get you that you can't already buy?” It is—as Topaz would say—‘chump change’ in comparison to his current wealth, which sums to a number so vast that you can't wrap your head around it.

Aventurine pretends to miss the point. “Tons! We could buy a new spacecraft. Get another mansion. Or—we could take a vacation to Penacony. I hear it's quite nice there.” A playful smile. “I could get us a penthouse unit. With a featherbed.”

You frown. Sometimes Aventurine likes to flirt when you're being stubborn—not out of interest, but as a ploy to distract you. He’d developed the habit after he joined the IPC. It used to fluster you, but now it only makes you cross your arms.

“You could die,” you point out.

“You'll protect me.”

“No, I won't. You always find a way to get rid of me when things are most dangerous.” You give him an accusatory stare. “You never let me do my job.”

He's too shameless to deny it. “And it's worked out fine, hasn't it? I haven't died so far.”

“Yes. Just by dumb luck.”

“I beg to differ. My luck is quite reliable.” He sets down his glass. Glances back outside. A microexpression, brows knotting for the briefest second as he studies the sky. “I'm not worried.”

“You're a shit liar.”

That gets him to look at you, letting a small frown pass over his face. “No, I'm actually a great liar. You're just too good at reading me. It's very inconvenient, you know.”

“I can't help it.” You lean toward him, making a show of it as you sniff. An orchid-like scent—faint but unmistakable—has seeped into artificial ambergris and wood. “It's hard to ignore.”

He hums. He isn't frowning anymore—but doesn't look happy, either. “I should change suppressants.” He taps the side of his empty glass, fidgeting. Aventurine never fidgets: it's an amateur giveaway. “These ones clearly don't work well enough.”

“That won't help. I know you too well.” Your eyes soften. He's looking outside again, the blues of his irises distant. “You're worried, Aventurine. More than usual. Let’s back out of this—let Jade handle it.”

“The mission isn't what's bothering me,” he says patiently. “I just don't like this planet.”

“Because you can tell it's dangerous.”

“No. Well—it is, but nothing I can't handle.” He leans back. “I just dislike the weather here.”

You arch a brow. “...the weather?”

“Yes,” he says neatly, “it's too dry here. I'll break out.”

You open your mouth. Close it. It is possibly the most absurd thing you've ever heard, and certainly the worst lie that's ever come from him. For as long as you've known him, Aventurine has had flawless skin, marble-smooth, and ever since being freed, he’s never really cared much for looking handsome so much as looking rich. But he maintains his serious expression: all-in on the farce. “Did you know that outside the capital, this planet hasn't had any natural rain in a quarter of an Amber Era? And the stellar winds are terrible. I don't know how people live on a planet like this.” His eyes narrow at the cloudless sky. “The IPC is going to need to do a lot of terraforming if they want to make this into a merchant hub.”

“Aventurine.”

“It'll be a pain crossing the desert—the elements will ruin my clothes, you know,” he continues. “It won't be so bad while we're on the ships, but we’ve got to go outside from time to time. Can't make any friends otherwise.”

“Aventurine.”

“And there's nothing to do for fun when we’re not working.” He sighs dramatically. “I can't wait to get our 5.6 billion and leave for someplace else. I'm being serious about Penacony, by the way—”

“Aventurine.”

“—though not about the featherbed. I'll get you your own room, obviously. And I'll buy whatever dream experience you’d like. What kind would you want?”

Finally allowed a chance to speak, you say, “One where you retire.”

“Retire? Why would I ever do that?”

“I don't know. Maybe you decide you've made enough money.”

“No such thing.”

“Then you can settle down with someone.”

That makes him smile. It feels mocking. “Me? Settling down? With who?”

“Who knows. Someone who will treat you better than the IPC, I hope.”

“Anyone that nice would run in the other direction. But never mind me. This would be your dream experience. What happens to you in it?”

“I stop chasing after you and get to live out the rest of my days in peace,” you say dryly, and Aventurine blinks. “Please stop deflecting. The IPC gave you a suicide mission. We will both die if we stay here.”

He looks serious now. “I wouldn't let you die.”

“You can't know that.”

“Well, I do. And I've got decent chances at surviving too—at least one in ten.”

You feel like sighing—a deep, aggravated noise is heavy in your throat—but Aventurine doesn't enjoy it when you show anger around him. It's the one omega instinct that he can't ignore, you suppose: unease around an aggressive alpha. Voice tightly controlled, you say, “You’re going to bet your life on one in ten?”

“Sure. My chances were worse on the last planet, and things worked out great. It'll be the same on Agnisahr.” Aventurine raises a hand, calls for the bill. The conversation is over. You lean back in your seat, watching sourly as he pays tens of thousands of credits just for water.

“You know, they say the royal family is backed by an Aeon,” you can't help but point out, once the waiter is gone. A last-ditch effort. Aventurine smiles at it, amused. Like you're a child.

“So what?” He glances outside, at the desolate landscape beyond the oasis—nothing but red sand, a blue, rainless sky, and two radiant suns shining above it all. “The protection of a god is nothing compared to the schemes of human beings. And gods abandon their people all the time, anyway.”

During your tenth day on Agnisahr, you realise that something is deeply wrong.

It takes you some time to understand what’s happening. At first you think that whatever political danger you’ve intuited is much worse than you thought, and that’s why Aventurine has been so pale, so discomforted, so exhausted. Then his scent starts changing—he switches clothes two, three times a day (because of all this heat during Agnisahran days, he tells his new business associates) and spritzes his nape with his cologne almost religiously—and you wonder if he is sick with something. If the food in this planet has something that disagrees with his Sigonian biology, or if he has picked up one of the local filoviruses, or if someone’s poisoned one of his meals because they’ve correctly identified him as a threat. Aventurine dismisses every single one of these theories when you bring it up, and—as if in denial—only attributes it to the weather. (I’ve never done well in deserts, he tells you, his eyes on his phone screen. I'm not used to them. It is above 300 Kelvin, and you do not see a single bead of sweat on his neck, and his cheeks are not even a little flushed.)

You only figure it out when he is too ill to get out of bed one morning and forbids all the IPC staff from coming near his hotel room. It sets off alarms immediately—Aventurine, no matter how sick, will work and see through meetings as long as he is mentally capable of it—and so you naturally ignore his orders and check on him, using the spare key to his sleeping quarters that you're given as a policy. And as soon as the door cracks open—as soon as you step inside only to be hit with a violent, cloying sweetness—you realise what’s happening and slam the door shut behind you.

“You’re in heat,” you blurt out, and Aventurine—a shivering, panting mess on the bed—groans in response.

“Why are you here?” He turns toward you, still lucid enough to glare at you through the tangled mess of his hair. His voice is weak, but no less self-possessed: “I was very clear—no company today.”

“I am your personal bodyguard,” you remind him mildly. Your voice is calm—both non-threatening and non-condescending. “Those orders don’t apply to me. If things feel suspicious, I look into it. And they felt very suspicious.” Your brow knits as you study his clothes. Mulberry silk clings to his form, soaked through with sweat. Thin, eucalyptus sheets are tangled up around him. There are only two pillows. No water bottles. No knotting toys.

Nothing.

“You didn't know you'd be in heat,” you realise. “What happened to your suppressants?”

“I don't know.” There’s a quiet, frustrated edge to his voice. Vulnerable too. It makes you think of when you were both still slaves, and Aventurine was confined to the basement of the manor—the one that all omega slaves were made to ride out their heats in. Either they would do it alone or were ordered to spend it with some alpha, usually either a friend of the master or an alpha slave he wished to reward. That's when they're most pliable, he'd tell his guests, or sometimes even you. They get so desperate they'll present themselves to anyone. Then amused laughter from the other party—How obscene!—as you looked away, blood hammering in your ears.

You had been your master’s favourite. His most obedient, most profitable pet—striking enough for his guests to admire, deadly enough for his audiences to bet on, docile enough for him to enjoy. Good enough for him to reward, and he often rewarded you with his most beautiful slave: his Avgin omega. Just don't mark him, he’d said, fastening the muzzle around your mouth. It'll ruin his market value. Who knows if someday he'd sell Kakavasha off to some alpha master who wished to claim him, he said. Though I don't think there's anyone in this star system who'd want a Sigonian for a mate, let alone a Sigonian slave. Then he’d paused, eyes scanning over you. As if contemplating. But maybe they'd try to get Avgin whelps out of him, he added, and you felt like throwing up.

You'd never mate him in those moments, your muzzle always prevented you from saying. You didn't even want to think about touching him, and he didn't want to think about it either. Even in the cruel grip of his heats, with nothing but the thin mat beneath him and his slave’s rags around him, Kakavasha hadn't wanted any kind of contact from you, rejecting any chance of solace. Don't, don't—not again, not again, he'd begged. Then as the nights marched on and his mind grew hazier, he’d start whimpering too: It hurts, alpha. It hurts. Help me. It hurts. Don't touch me. Not again. It hurts. It hurts. Stop it, please stop it.

It gutted you.

It went against every instinct, not to touch him. To let him lie there, in scorching, lonely pain, when all you wanted to do was to dispel it. It would be so easy to press yourself against him and let his skin cool against yours, do the one thing that your body was good at other than killing. But not again, not again, I can't anymore, I don't want it, I never wanted it, and all you could do was sit there, unmoving. Watch as the most delicate, precious thing you had in your life shatter.

And standing here now, watching Aventurine shatter before you once more—it is unbearable. He needs a nest, you keep thinking. He needs a nest and some water and some kind of touch, some kind of relief, but not again, not again, and you’re still a slave, still a worthless and stupid slave, and Kakavasha is still crying on a basement floor and you can't do anything for him.

“You need help, Aventurine,” you say, voice soft, and his whole body tenses. His scent dips, and the scent of florals overwhelms you.

“No,” he breathes, “I don't.”

“You do. You're sick.” You bite your lip. Your heart splits as you suggest it, but you say, “I can call a professional.”

“No,” he spits. The facade is gone. The poker face has cracked. The anger and the pain and the fear are all on full display, and his voice sharpens: “No strangers.”

No foreign scents, you realise he's demanding. A new scent would probably make him feel unsafe.

Then let me help you, you think of pleading, but not again, not again, and you're filled with so much shame at the thought that all you can do is look away.

“Then—can I do anything?” He goes still. “Not—not that, but something to make you more comfortable. I can build you a nest, at least—”

“No.” He takes a deep, shaking breath. “No nests. I don't need one—”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don't,” he says. His voice is wavering now, on the verge of crumbling with fever and pain. “I've never—I’ve never needed a nest, I don't—I don't want to—” He presses his face into his pillow. “I need—I need to be alone, fuck—”

He doesn't mean to whine. The cry for distress is instinct, something that all omegas are programmed to do in heat. You’ve heard that they’ve evolved to make this noise as a way of appealing to nearby alphas for help, but you think this must be a lie as you never once saw your alpha master giving mercy to any of his omega slaves. Still, whether it is your biology or not—the noise that Aventurine makes has your heart aching so much you can't help but step forward. But he shakes his head and inches away, shuddering violently, and then his voice echoes again in that cold basement—not again, not again, and don't touch it anymore, don't use it anymore, don't use me anymore, not again, and it's all you can do to back away until your spine is pressed against the door.

“I'm sorry, Vasha,” you say, strained. “I’m sorry. I'll leave you now.”

As the door shuts behind you, you catch a final glimpse him—face pressed into the pillows, shivering.

If you didn't know better, you'd think he was crying.

When you were both slaves, Aventurine hated seeing you during his heats.

Kakavasha was normally calm around you. Most of the time, he was even friendly (he was friendly to everyone whom he thought could be useful), but he was different during his heats. Sometimes he was vicious; mostly he was withdrawn. Nearly always, he wanted to be left alone. In those moments, all he could register was your alpha scent and his memories of what other people had done to him during his heats. And while you'd have hated to leave him, despised the idea of him being offered to another alpha—even more than that, you hated violating this boundary of his. Hated that you were allowed to do whatever you wanted to him. Hated being the reason he felt so unsafe.

Hated being an alpha.

Now that you no longer have the orders of your slavemaster hanging over you, it is the least you can do to respect Aventurine’s wish of being left alone. He has every right to privacy, and you have every obligation to give it to him. But instead you have been standing here, outside his door, for a full system-hour.

Every time you try to leave, your body is wracked with anxiety. The thought of other people—other alphas—coming near him in this state makes you seethe, your hands flexing at your side. The predator instinct comes out, and the people around you notice it. Every person unlucky enough to walk down this hall scurries away under your glare, even the other IPC staff wandering about to look for Aventurine: Must be their mate on the other side, they remark to one another, and then they're gone.

It is a hard thing to hear. You are not his mate. You are not even a heat partner. If you were, then he wouldn't be in so much pain. Not now, and not back then.

Aventurine has never had easy heats. You keep replaying your memories of all his past ones, each one a wound in your heart: the aching sweetness of nectar and honey; his withering body as he clutched his abdomen and curled up; the tears and sweat staining the mat beneath him. And above all: the fear. The scent of it, the sight of it, the sound of it in his voice. Stronger today than any other day.

By instinct, you know that he cannot persist like this. That this time is somehow worse than all those other times, and that he will become seriously ill if left alone.

After nearly an hour and a half, you finally open the door, fearing the worst.

“Aventurine?” you say quietly, but there's no response, and your stomach drops as you see him.

His body is pale, listless. If it weren't for the fragrance washing over you or the sweat on his temple, you'd worry that he was dead.

Tentatively, you reach out. Rest a hand on his forehead, and it scorches you. He stirs at the touch, doesn't open his eyes—but the quiet sigh of relief is unmistakable. His fingers twitch, as if wanting to reach for you.

“Aventurine,” you say gently. “Aventurine, I'm going to take care of you. Is that alright?”

He doesn't respond. You grimace, pulling away to fetch things for him: several spare pillows from the closet, an extra blanket too. From his suitcase, you grab a few of his sweaters, all thick cotton and fleece. He’d had a sense that Agnisahr would be cold at night. Deserts always get cold after sundown, since sand doesn’t retain heat, he'd told you while he was packing. Or I think so, anyway. Don't know why. Must have read it somewhere. Then he’d given you a long, unreadable look before saying, Make sure to bring a jacket. The warmest one you have. The elements on a planet like Agnisahr can kill a person—even a person like you.

I’m sure I’ll be fine, you’d dismissed him. I can survive anything. Any kind of weather, any kind of illness, any kind of pain: these are all things your species is known for being able to endure, the trait that made you such a prized slave in your master’s eyes, such a useful agent at the IPC. You hadn’t given Aventurine’s warning any thought and hardly paid attention to what you’d thrown into your own suitcase.

It surprises you, then, that you find one of your sweaters in his luggage. Made from Sedanian cashmere and heat tech designed by the Intelligentsia Guild. Cloud-soft and warm to the touch. Aventurine had bought it for you before you were deployed to Jarilo-IV to collect intelligence for Topaz. Warmest thing in the known universe, he’d commented. One of a kind, too. Remember to wear it, alright? Don't let my money go to waste, now.

You stare at it, kneading the fleece between your fingers. You hadn’t mentioned wanting to bring this sweater. You’d lost it in your closet some months ago and forgot about it. Aventurine must have remembered and gone looking for it, because—why? You aren't sure. Probably because it’s warmer and softer than anything he owns, you guess. Of course he’d want to wear it.

You throw it into the pile of things you’ve collected for him.

You take it all to his bed, the mattress dipping as you sit next to Aventurine. One by one, you scent each item with your wrist, watching him carefully the whole time. You’re quiet as you lay them out around him, leaving him undisturbed as you build a nest. You order water and electrolyte drinks too, and you’re quick about going to the door when you hear room service knocking—with how feverish he is, he probably badly needs it.

Aventurine is awake when you come back. His breathing is still laboured, pained—but calm.

“I said I didn’t need a nest,” Aventurine says, though he doesn’t sound angry. You wonder if he’s too weak to be. His voice is faint, and his eyes are barely open—focused on the pile of blankets and clothing around him.

“You’re welcome.” You open a bottle of water, hold it out to him. “Drink.”

Aventurine pauses, stares at the offering like it's some kind of foreign object. But he accepts it eventually, sitting up and taking it from you. He winces with the movement, which he tries to hide. He ignores your frown as he drinks, and he doesn't stop until the bottle is empty.

“There are more,” you say, pointing at the several additional bottles on the nightstand. “And some food and some painkillers. I don't know how well they’ll work. This isn't a normal heat. If you're alright with it, I'll call a doctor and—”

“Everything smells like you,” he says quietly, and you stop.

“...yes. Unless they’re mated, nests usually feel most comforting to an omega when they smell like an alpha.” You swallow, looking away. “...you don't have a mate, and you didn't want a professional, so this was the only option I could think of. I'm sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says. He picks out one of the sweaters that have made its way into the nest, the Sedanian one. “I don't mind it.”

“Oh.” You let out a breath. “Then—can I call a doctor?”

His grip on the sweater tightens. “No.”

You frown. “Aventurine—”

“I’ve never needed a doctor before,” he says. He sounds unbothered, but he's fidgeting with the sweater now. “I don't need one now.”

A lie. He almost certainly needed a doctor in some of his prior heats, but you don't push the matter. “Maybe you don't need one,” you say instead, “but it would help.”

“I don't need help,” he says, and you look at him in disbelief. He catches your expression, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Not more than you've already done, I mean.”

“I’ve barely—”

“Contact Topaz. Tell her I'm incapacitated. Tell her…” He hums. “Tell her I have food poisoning. The personnel too. It's not time-sensitive, our business on Agnisahr, so it shouldn't matter if I need a few days off.”

“You really need—”

“Give my regrets to our Agnisahran friends. Deliver it in person. They see you as my right hand, so they’ll most appreciate it coming from you. Topaz can help you with the verbiage. And—try to socialise with them a little, won't you? I think that little omega princess of theirs likes you. Some of the courtesans too, and they have surprising influence.”

“I do not want to be around any omega other than you right now,” you say before you can stop yourself, and Aventurine stops, blinking. His expression is blank, if perhaps a little curious—but his scent shifts. You can't identify how. You add quickly, “I’m not leaving you alone when you’re this sick.”

“Ah. Right.” Aventurine looks away. His voice sounds strange, and his heat must be getting to him again, because it carries a hint of pain. “But you have to. The IPC’s goals take priority.”

You frown. “Your life is more important than the IPC,” you say, and he laughs. Loudly.

“What? This is just a heat. I’m not going to die.”

“You don’t know that without seeing a doctor.”

“I do. I’m willing to bet money that I won’t die.” He cuts you off before you can reply: yes, you're always willing to bet on your life. “And even if I do, that would still be less important than Agnisahr. Do you know how many resources are on this lifeless rock?” His mouth slants. “If we mess up here, I’m dead anyway.”

“I wouldn’t let them touch you.”

“Yes, you would—because they would kill you too.” Aventurine sighs. His eyes close, and his brow creases—a sign that whatever reprieve he was lucky enough to get is about to end. “Go do what I asked. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll… see a doctor if you do.”

You stand immediately. “Alright. I’ll be back to check on you.”

“I know.”

You stop at the door, giving him a long look. Seeing him like this—lying on a proper bed, cradled in a warm nest, with water and food and medicine nearby—you feel a little better. This is leagues beyond what he’d been afforded in his days as a slave, at the very least. Even if he isn’t free, at least he isn’t trapped.

But it still doesn’t feel good, having to step away. The last thing you want to do is talk to other people, pretend to have interest in other omegas. There are an astonishing number of them who are interested in you on this planet—that princess, and some baron’s son, and one of the prince’s favourite paramours—but you can’t bring yourself to care even for business purposes when Aventurine is like this. You can't act as if you are enjoying yourself when you know he is in pain.

You wonder about telling Topaz the truth. You wonder if she’d be worried enough about Aventurine to let you neglect this mission and cover for you instead, without letting Jade or Diamond or anyone else dangerous know. Not that you think that anyone at the Company particularly cares about Kakavasha—it’s only that he’s valuable. Aventurine of Stratagems is valuable. How many worlds have fallen because of him?

But he seemed unwilling to bet on his worth to them. Which is startling, given how often he's bet on it in the past.

“What’s so important about this planet,” you can’t help but ask, “that the IPC would rather you die than lose it?”

He’s silent for a long moment. His eyes are closed—hidden—but you can see his knuckles whiten as he clutches the Sedanian sweater.

“Copper,” he says. “They want it for the copper.”

When Kakavasha first suggested a friendship to you, it had felt like something in between a proposition and a threat:

Go ahead, he'd said. Use me as you wish. You can even stab me in the back if you want. Just be mindful of this: I don't make deals that don't pay off.

It might have been a strange way of making friends in any other circumstance, but in a house of slaves, it was a natural one. You had not been a clever person—still aren't—but you understood that your place in the world was one of a tool. This was the place of all slaves: you were all things to be used. Your body was a thing to be used. It was valuable for its strength, for its hardiness, for its threat in the arena and for its convenience in your master’s bed (or in a dark basement, or within a heat house, or inside whichever omega your mistress ordered you to calm down). It did not surprise you that Kakavasha wanted to use it as well. It did not surprise you that Kakavasha expected you to use him in return.

You never would have, of course. Kakavasha was not a thing to be used—he had always been a mate. Though you were happy to let him use you, because all you were was a tool anyway, so it was really all you could offer him: to be used.

None of this has changed for you. You don't think any of this has changed for Aventurine, either. With each new friendship he makes, he repeats those familiar words: Use me as you wish. And with each person who accepts, this is exactly what they do: they use him, and they use him, and they use him until suddenly they notice he's tricked them and they've got the losing hand.

You damned gambler, they always spit. You Sigonian wretch. All you know is how to manipulate people. Thief, liar, cheat, whore. Despite all these insults, Aventurine always smiles at them. Cry as they might, he’s won his bet and has their world in his palms.

Winner takes all, he sometimes gloats.

Winning and losing. Using and being used. Exploitation and treachery. This is all Aventurine knows; these are his great guiding principles in life. (He's told you this point blank, stacking up chips in his favourite gambling dens with a self-satisfied grin.) You often find yourself coming back to these conversations, particularly when you need to convince him of something.

And right now, you very badly need to convince him of something.

Aventurine is ignoring his doctor’s advice. His suppressants are unstable in extreme temperatures, he's been told. During travel on Agnisahr, they'd degraded, and now he’s experiencing his first heat in several years. Of course it's going to be painful, his doctor had said. I can prescribe you some medication to ease the symptoms, but really—nothing will work better than a heat partner. It doesn't need to be a mate. Any alpha will do.

The doctor had been an alpha. You had asked for a beta or omega, but alphas tend to dominate in Interastral Medical Schools, so they're in short supply. Aventurine had been still the whole time, face unreadable, but you could tell he wanted to throw up at the stench of an unfamiliar alpha. You had stepped between the two of them, not bothering to hide the animosity in your voice. We’ll take the medication, you had said, and the doctor had sniffed the air and nodded at you in approval.

Probably won't need it. An alpha like you could sort him out with just a few rounds, he told you, and both of you stayed quiet as he left.

You still aren't talking, or even looking at each other. Aventurine has lay down in his nest again, closing his eyes, while you stand as far away as physically possible—at the door where you'd just shown the doctor out. With the room shut off again, windows closed and door locked, Aventurine’s scent is starting to flood your senses once more. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch him shivering.

“What do you want to do?” you ask.

“Nothing.” He swallows. “I'll be fine.”

He's afraid. You can tell he's afraid. And you can tell he’ll be more afraid if you take even a single step closer to him, so you nod and say, “I'll go pick up your medication, then,” and Aventurine doesn't stop you. You can see him curling up in his nest, face pressed into the cashmere sweater.

But he still doesn't stop you.

After a few more days, Aventurine finally breaks.

There is a rare sag to his shoulders when he calls you to the room, along with a taste of dread in the air. You haven't seen him so vulnerable in years. Aventurine is not an open person, so cunning and self-possessed in his wealth—but Kakavasha was more brittle, more powerless, flayed raw and open even though he didn't often get the whip. (It would ruin his value if he ever scarred—his looks were his greatest selling point, your master said.) He was especially defeated when forced to spend his heats with an alpha he didn't want. You wonder, a vice grip of pain around your heart, whether this entire situation is simply an extension of that. Whether he is calling you here against his will, this time compelled by his pain, rather than his master. Whether this luxury suite feels like that wretched basement to him.

He doesn't look at you when he talks, nor does he sit up. He remains curled in his nest, nearly clinging onto the blankets and clothes.

“That stupid medication,” he pants out, sharp even in his heat, “isn't working.”

“I can tell.” Your brow knots. He’s in so much pain, it is palpable. “I”—you hesitate, voice dropping. “Can I help you?”

He goes quiet. As both Aventurine and Kakavasha, he has always been disinclined to accept help from other people. There is no such thing as unconditional help in his mind—only leverage and weakness. He hates it when people have leverage over him, and he hates being weak. Both are things that can be exploited, and Aventurine always needs to be the one doing the exploiting. He always needs to be in control.

Even like this, the last threads of his sanity about to snap, with every circuit of his omega biology trying to drag him into insensible lust, he fights viciously to be in control.

Winning and losing. Using and being used. Exploitation and treachery. Control and being controlled. This is how he's always lived. This is how he's always survived.

This is the only way to let him maintain control when he is most afraid of losing it.

“I don't mind,” you say quietly, “if you use me.”

Even through the haze of heat, Aventurine’s eyes sharpen. “What?”

“I don't mind if you use me,” you repeat, voice neutral. Unfeeling. The proposal might sound cruel to someone else, but not you. After all—your place in the world is one of a tool, and this is what you've always done as an alpha and a slave: sleeping with people to take care of their needs, or sometimes just their desires. It did always make you feel strangely hollow, but you think it will feel just fine with Aventurine. All you've ever wanted to do is keep him safe, and surely, this will do that, but—

“I'll only help if you want. I don't want to force it.” You lower your eyes. “But if you do want it, I'll be careful with you. You can lead. I promise.”

“...I know.” Aventurine’s voice is weak, cracks with pain, but you can tell he's speaking with clarity. “I know you will be.”

You look up. “Then you'll let me help?”

Aventurine looks away—a sign that he cannot adopt his usual smile. He’s clutching that sweater again, pressed close to his chest.

“Just your wrist,” he says quietly.

You listen carefully. “What?”

“I just—I just want your wrist.” He looks away. “Your—your scent gland. Only that.”

“Okay.”

You get up, then falter. When it was your job to comfort your mistress’ omega slaves, you were told to enter their nests—no permission needed from them, no permission needed from you, because only her permission ever mattered for anything. The omegas were usually too delirious to care, often had even begged for it with the state of mind that they were in. But Aventurine is different. He's not like you, and he's not like them. He's never bent to any of his masters’ wills. And even if he did, you wouldn't want to have him bend to yours.

Instead of climbing into his nest, you ask, “Can I sit on the bed?” He doesn't answer. “Just the edge of it,” you add, and you hear him exhale.

“Fine,” he says, breathing measured.

“Thank you,” you say, and he gives you a confused look. But then you're reaching out with a hand, offering it, and he is quickly distracted.

Aventurine drops the sweater, grabs your hand almost immediately. He turns over your palms, fingers tracing your heartlines—as if testing you, as if mapping out territory. He runs his thumbs along the veins of your wrists, too, right over your scent gland, and you have to force yourself not to shudder at the feeling. You only stay still, letting him explore the contours of your hands, letting him acclimate to the feeling of your skin. He laces his fingers with your own, a latticework trap, and he finally drags his wrist along yours.

Both of you inhale sharply.

You can't react. You know it'll scare him if you do, but it's hard to keep still. The way his scent blossoms, the way it mingles with yours, the way it all washes over you—what you're doing can hardly be called touching, but you feel like you're going mad. Especially when he flushes like that, his vibrant eyes fluttering shut. Especially when the sweetness of honey overtakes your senses. Especially when you can smell the way his body is reacting, all that wetness and heat and slick dripping between his legs. You don't miss the way his thighs rub together, nor the hard outline of his cock straining against his pants.

Aventurine shudders. He brings your hand up to his face, rests his cheek in your palm. His skin is flushed and burning with fever, and it's no wonder that he's sighing with relief at your touch. You try not to stare at the way his mouth falls open. He looks at you for a moment, his gaze a hazy violet and blue—before he closes his eyes again and presses his lips into your wrist.

Fuck.

“Aventurine—” You have to stop, voice strangled, when you feel the full softness of his lips working against your skin. He’s panting now, laboured breaths sweeping over your veins. Then you feel his teeth catch, a gentle nip on your flesh, and when he groans into your racing pulse—deep, relieved, desperate, a noise that makes your gut flare with heat—you realise you can't do this.

You pull back your hand, and Aventurine startles.

“Aventurine,” you say, voice strained. Maybe we should stop, you want to say, but he cuts you off.

“I need”—a shaky breath—“I need more.”

You watch Aventurine carefully. His pupils are dilated, blue irises nearly eclipsed. His cheeks are rosy, and he can't stop panting. You can fully smell his arousal now, even through his silk clothes. He's desperate, needing to be filled.

But he also looks torn. His brows are knotted, and you can taste a faint hint of fear in the air now. His knuckles clutch at the sheets, almost white, and he stares at them. He can't look up. He can't look at you. His whole body is tense, like he wants to bolt—and if he weren't so weak, you think he might actually.

“Are you sure?” you ask.

He doesn't nod. He also doesn't shake his head. His arms clutch at his midsection as he winces. He doesn't look like Aventurine. He looks like Kakavasha. It makes your heart ache as you watch him give into his body’s demands, wearing the same expression he did on the day your master bought him.

“...don't use your Voice on me,” Aventurine—Kakavasha—says quietly.

It takes you a moment to realise what he's asking. “I won't.”

“And”—his eyes somehow grow even more evasive, hidden by his long lashes— “don’t touch my commodity code.”

His commodity code. His commodity code that is seared into his scent gland. His code that, if you kiss, will ease his agony instantly. His code that, if you bite—will chain him to you irreversibly.

“Of course I won't,” you say instantly.

He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath.

“And—” Aventurine looks away, jaw tight. His voice is quiet but wrought with tension: “—I don't like when people put things inside me.”

Something claws the walls of your heart.

“That's fine too,” you reply. “I don't mind doing it the other way.”

Aventurine’s sigh is nearly inaudible, but unmistakable. His scent shifts a little bit, the wildflower fragrance fading ever so slightly. But he doesn't come to you. He merely sits there—waiting. Expecting. Maybe dreading. Even in the senseless daze of heat, he’s too anxious to move.

You approach slowly. Though you're overwhelmed by the bouquet of his scent, though you feel a curl of heat in your belly in response to it—you are slow. Alphas are supposedly victims of insatiable lust whenever around an omega in heat, absolved of every action they take, but you are convinced this is a lie. You have never once wanted to handle Aventurine with such cruelty. You think that inflicting violence on him, more than anything else, would go against your biology. Every molecule in your body would reject putting him in such pain or inciting such fear. So you are careful when you approach him, slow as you inch up to him—but you do not think it helps.

Aventurine lies down, his face turned away from yours. His eyes squeeze shut, like he's expecting this to hurt. Uncertainty gnaws at your gut as you lean over him, draping your body over his—the only position you've ever taken an omega in, other than mounting them from behind.

(You do not want to mount Aventurine. You never have. It is an impersonal position, a position that omega biology supposedly would force him to enjoy, a position that alphas have likely dictated him to enjoy. You think there is nothing you would hate more. In your weakest, most selfish moments, in your worst ruts, when you’ve allowed yourself to fantasise about mating Kakavasha—you are always facing each other, and he is always looking at you with his eyes you've always loved, and it always feels intimate. Never impersonal. Never dictated. Never forced.)

Aventurine is so honeysweet beneath you. More fragrant than any omega you’ve ever been with. You glance at his commodity code, trying to ignore the scent of his branded skin, then lean down to press your face against the other side of his neck, where a faint scar mars the otherwise flawless slope of his nape. Like every other omega slave you've ever slept with, the scent gland there has been excised: a precautionary measure to reduce the risk of an unwanted mating bite.

(Not unwanted by them—the wants of a slave never matter—but unwanted by their owners. A mating bite would ruin the code seared into their neck, claim an omega more deeply and permanently than any titanium collar or carbon steel chain. It would hurt their resale value. Only owners are allowed to claim slaves in such a permanent way—and the wants of a slave have no relevance there, either.)

It's a funny thing, this surgical scar. Even with their gland missing, you've noticed that most omegas like having their neck scented by you anyway, probably from some vestigial instinct. You guess that Aventurine won't be any different, that maybe it will comfort him. But when your lips skim the scar left on him by his owner, his entire body stiffens beneath you. His fragrance cuts into your lungs, sharp.

You recoil, as if burned by the touch of him.

“Sorry,” Aventurine is quick to say. He tries to glance at you, but his diamond pupils quickly avoid you again. “Don’t worry about me. Just do whatever you need to do.”

“But you're scared,” you point out, and you see his brow twitch. “You’re scared when I touch you.”

“Not scared,” he lies. “Just…”

When his eyes finally look at you—land on your lips—you understand.

A bite would claim an omega more deeply and permanently than any titanium collar or carbon steel chain. If you lost your mind—give into the insatiable lust of an alpha whenever around an omega in heat—you might bite him, and then you would own Aventurine.

And Aventurine would rather die than be owned by anyone again.

He doesn't need to finish his sentence. You already know what you need to do.

“It's okay,” you say gently, and his brow knots. “I have an idea.”

Aventurine is always afraid.

This is a fact that has haunted you since the day you met him. You've wondered about how to fix it—the bare minimum as his mate (always his, even if he doesn't want you)—and you’ve never quite pinned down how. Because when someone has spent their life in perpetual fear, how do you make them feel safe? When their life is constantly at risk, how do you ever make them feel calm?

You still aren't sure of the answer. But after seeing Kakavasha become Aventurine, you now have a good guess.

It is clear from his scent that Aventurine does not feel remotely safe right now. Not when you leave to fetch something from your own room, and not when you return. The anxiety thickens when he sees, in your hands, a very familiar muzzle.

Aventurine stares. He is not smiling, but he also does not reveal his discomfort on his face, even as beads of sweat line his temple. But his voice is too controlled, too calm, when he asks, “You kept the mask.”

You nod.

“I told you to throw it out,” he points out, “when I freed you.”

“I know. Sorry. I don't know why I kept it.” You remember how tightly you clutched it before the incinerator, thinking about how strange it would feel, discarding something that you'd worn everyday since you presented—but you don't tell him this. Instead, you say, “But it’s convenient.”

Before Aventurine can say anything, you toss him the remote.

“You’re afraid of my bite and my Voice, but you don't have to be with this,” you explain. Your tone is gentle, soothing. Probably disarming coming from an alpha, with how he is in heat. Perhaps that's why he’s studying the remote rather than chucking it away. “You'll be in full control if I wear this.”

Control. Mere seconds after you say it, you can smell his fragrance change again, mellowing. It's only a brief moment of calm that fades when you latch the mask onto your face, but he doesn't smell as nearly as stressed before.

Aventurine watches you carefully as the carbon steel swallows your maw, its old and familiar edges biting into you. For the first time in years, you cannot tell what he is thinking—truly poker-faced even to you.

“You aren't bothered by wearing that thing while we do this,” he says—asks?—and you shake your head. The muzzle was part of you for years. You were wearing it when you killed someone for the first time. You were wearing it when you went into rut for the first time. You were wearing it when your master had sex with you for the first time. It doesn't bother you that you’ll wear it when you have sex with Aventurine.

If you could speak, you would ask him, Why do you think it would bother me? But all you do is gesture for him to sit up. To switch places with you. You lie down—something you've never done with an omega—and wait for him to get on top.

Aventurine stares at you for a long, quiet moment. It's followed by a sigh of relief. Disarmed, he—for the first time in any heat you've witnessed—finally relaxes. His scent wafts over you as he climbs between your legs, and you can feel the heat radiating from his hands as he parts your thighs, almost scalding.

He doesn't bother getting you ready, too needy to think rationally, but he doesn't have to anyway. You've been wet ever since you felt his mouth touch your wrist, hard ever since you heard him groan into it. You're equally desperate to get some relief as you feel his cockhead sliding against your opening, leaking all over your entrance as his slick drips onto your thighs. His breath shakes as he enters you, and he can't hear it with how you're muzzled—but you groan just as deeply as him at the tight stretch.

You hear him swear when you clench around him, watch him lean over you. His arms shake as he supports himself, refusing to succumb to his heat even as he chases his relief. You seek out his gaze (just as in your dreams, facing each other, intimate), and his neon eyes catch on your eyes for a brief, breathtaking second—

—before he looks away.

There's a flash of—you don't know what, maybe pain? Or fear?—in his irises as he does. A twitch of the brow, a tell he'd normally rather die than let slip. You have the realisation, as Aventurine moves inside you, that even while you're muzzled, even while he has complete control over you—he still can't stand having sex with you. Probably because he can't stand being in heat in general, you tell yourself. Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't use it anymore, don't use me anymore. He'd have this reaction to anyone.

Still—you didn't expect him to have this reaction to you.

Your hands twitch, possessed by an old instinct to cover your eyes. But you'd probably scare Aventurine if you moved your arms, so all you do is dig your fingers into the sheets and squeeze them shut. You tell yourself again and again that he'd hate having sex with anyone in these circumstances—not just you. And then you tell yourself, as a desperate, broken moan leaves his branded throat, that he would also come inside anyone in these circumstances, caught within the cruel grip of his heat.

Aventurine stills inside you as he finishes. He pants, sweat dripping down his temple as he shudders in his ecstasy, his spend hot and thick inside you. You can feel his fever break as he comes down from his high, the heat coming off his body easing into a manageable warmth.

Do you feel better, you try to say, but you can't move your mouth while your mask is on. So you wait patiently for Aventurine to come back to himself, watching him carefully as he pulls out and rolls onto the mattress beside you. He finally glances at you then. His eyes narrow once they land on you, confusion flicking through them. Then displeasure. He reaches for the remote.

To your surprise, he immediately punches in the code to unlock your muzzle. Aventurine has apparently remembered the numbers after all these years, as if the moment he freed you has been since seared into his memory.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing you say, and Aventurine gives you a confused look. He’s still panting, dazed, so you ask, “Can I check your temperature?” And when he nods, you confirm your suspicion: he's still much too warm.

There is an ache between your legs and a strange hollow in your gut (because you aren't very experienced with receiving, you think—your body likely just isn't used to the feeling of it), but you quickly forget them. All you can think of is Aventurine, and how he’s still unwell, and how you need to comfort him. The instinct is so strong that you don't even say anything as you get up, straightening out your clothes.

“Are you leaving?” Aventurine asks. His voice is neutral, completely unbothered, but the thought is so horrific to you that you turn back to him with wide eyes.

“Of course not. I'm going to get you water and medicine.” A beat. You stare at Aventurine’s eyes, then think about how he hid them from you during sex. The hollow feeling comes back, but it's mostly eclipsed by your anxiety at the next thought: “...do you want me to leave?”

“Do you want to?”

“I—” I'd rather die, you think. Being forced to leave him right now would feel like tearing out a piece of yourself. You don't know if there's an alpha in this world who could leave their mate in the middle of a heat. And even if he is unmarked, unattached to you—you still think of yourself as his mate. (His, always his, even if he doesn't want you.) “I would prefer not to. I am your heat partner. I'm supposed to take care of you.”

You hear a quiet breath. “Right. Of course. You're always so conscientious.” Aventurine nods, as if convincing himself of something. “Try not to take too long.”

“I’ll come back soon,” you promise, and the air sweetens. Encouraged, you add, voice gentle: “I’ll bring that medication, and then we can have sex as many times as you need after I come back. I'll make sure you're not in any pain anymore.” You pause, studying him. “Is there anything else you need to feel better?”

His fragrance changes once more, this time in a way you don't totally recognize. “No.” His voice sounds strange. His scent is still foreign, fluctuating, possibly hinting at some kind of pain. The heat must be getting to him again—and of course it wasn't enough, what you just did, what you can provide. He likely needs to be filled to get any kind of lasting relief, but you left him empty. “No, that's all I want.”

You nod, forcing yourself to look calm. Ignoring the emptiness in your gut. It didn't feel bad, but you hope it'll feel better next time you have sex. You think it will. Alphas are supposed to be filled with an insatiable lust near omegas in heat, after all. And even though you’ve never felt that before—never felt anything sleeping with all those omegas in your mistress’ house—you are sure you'll eventually feel it around Aventurine.

But the feeling never comes. Even though you can tell that his heat has returned by the time you're back—sweat beading his temples, laboured breaths at his lips, his bottoms now discarded, with full evidence of arousal between his legs—you don't feel much of anything as you reach for your mask again.

“Don't,” Aventurine says, before it can clasp around your face. You give him a curious look. He explains, “Don't. I don't want to have sex again. Not yet.”

You stare at him, shifting. Uncomfortable. Uncertain. Not knowing how he wants to use you. “What can I do?”

He gives you a long look. “Come here. I… I want your scent gland.”

It's a sensible request. If there's a way to seek relief without fucking someone—without fucking you, which he clearly hated doing—you're sure Aventurine would prefer it. So you climb into his nest, holding your wrist out for him, and—

“No.” His voice is quiet. “I want the one on your neck.”

“...oh.”

You stand there, not sure where to move. If he wants you in his nest again, or if he’d rather do this standing. You’re relieved when he demands, “Lie down.”

You expect him to get on top of you when you do. Assume that he wants complete control—but he instead lies down beside you. Presses his body into yours, and then his face into your neck. His nose and lips brush against your scent gland, a full-body shudder running through him, and—

—and now you know for a fact that it is a lie that alphas want nothing other than to fuck an omega when they're in heat. Because even like this, with his lips sweet on your neck, with the sheets soaked with his slick, with his spend leaking out of you—you do not want to have sex with Aventurine. You only want to hold him. You only want him to keep scenting you. You only want to scent him back.

You only want him to feel safe.

You breathe in deeply, lungs flooded by honey. You think of what it felt like to hold him in that cold basement, when he was delirious with fever and pain, and you think about how different his scent is now. How much sweeter it is. How much calmer he feels.

“Do you feel better?” you ask, and he doesn't respond, but you know the answer. His hands come up to dig into your shirt, and he presses into you like you're a sweater in his nest. Silence blankets over you both, calm and warm. His laboured breath starts to improve.

He does eventually speak.

“Has anyone ever told you,” he says, “what you smell like?”

You stare at him. Your master used to say that you smelled good, but he'd never elaborated, and you hadn't wanted him to. “No.”

Aventurine breathes in.

“You smell like—” A little sigh, shaking and feverish, leaves him. “You smell like rain.”

Your eyebrows tick up. “Rain?”

“Yes. Or not just rain, but”—he pauses, next words quiet—“more Iike after it rains. You smell like the desert after a rainfall.”

“Oh.” You don't know what to say to that. Feeling distinctly like it's a silly question, you ask, “Is that a good scent?”

“Some would think so. Especially to people from the desert. You probably smell like a blessing to them. Although…”

Aventurine goes quiet again. You stare at the chandelier above you, all crystal and white gold, and wait.

“Although?” you prompt.

“...although I wouldn't really know,” he says. “It’s just a hunch. I bet it's why so many omegas on this planet like you.”

You couldn't care less about those other omegas. All you care about is Aventurine. “And?” you say. “Do you like my scent?”

His reply never comes. He just breathes deeply again, seeking relief from your neck—not intimacy. Any alpha’s scent would work; that doctor told you so. Any alpha’s touch would work, too. There are no special feelings involved here. Your place in the world is one of a tool, and tools are never especially liked nor disliked. Their value exists only in how they can be used.

You don't know why you even bothered to ask the question.

But then something strange happens: Aventurine curls against you, pressing even further into you. His lashes flutter against your pulse again; it ticks up in response, beating fast against his lips.

“I do,” he says quietly. “I do like it.”

You swallow. “But I guess that's because you're in heat. Any alpha would smell good to you, wouldn’t they?”

“No.” His fingers dig into the fabric of your shirt. “No, I like it because it's yours.”

You know better than to read too much into his response. Aventurine had already said it earlier: No foreign scents. He's only tolerating this whole arrangement because you don't smell unfamiliar to him. Only able to use you because you are the least threatening option.

But the words break something in you—break the thing that made you unable to throw out that little pouch of copper coins that you were saving up for Kakavasha’s freedom, the part of you that made you wear that carbon-steel mask for him. It is this part of you that has your eyes squeezing shut and your arms wrapping around him. You know he’ll recoil, reject you, but just this once—you need to try.

Aventurine doesn't push you away.

He melts into you instead, inhaling deeply. Your scent gland tingles with the warmth of his breath, the feeling of his lips. He seems—comfortable.

You can't fathom why he’s staying in your arms. Perhaps he's simply desperate for some kind of relief from his heat, just like when you held him in the basement while he was delirious from pain. But Aventurine had spoken to you with clarity just now, and his skin doesn't feel scalding so much as warm, and his scent is so different than from that moment. So sweet and so gentle, without a trace of fear. It makes your heart squeeze. As much as you've always wanted Aventurine to feel safe, you'd never imagined that his scent would be so beautiful when he is.

It makes your heart ache. You've never held anything so lovely before, and you’ve never felt so warm before, and it all makes up for how badly it hurt to let Aventurine inside you. How hollow it made you feel to let him use you. How none of that matters as long as you can keep him safe like this, because you belong to Kakavasha. You'll always belong to Kakavasha, in a fate that was chosen for you on the day you met him.

You're his, always his—even if he’ll never want you.

end part i

thank you so much to lore for hosting a fantastic collab and to my sponsors who funded this fic and got it over the finish line! please go check out @ficsforgaza to find other amazing hsr writers you can sponsor in order to help fundraise! here is my own wip list, if you are interested in seeing more from me!

and thank you most of all to YOU! I appreciate you so much for reading this chapter. thank you so much for sticking it through.

additional end notes

#aventurine x reader #hsr x reader #honkai star rail x reader #cw.omegaverse #cw.slavery #cw.sa #dead dove

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astrosky33 · 1 year ago

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The Best Career for you: Asteroid Industria

◉ Industria is an asteroid in astrology that can represent the long term career industry you will work in. Based on the readings I’ve done this asteroid is very accurate in predicting your long term career

◉ Asteroid Code: 389 -> How to find asteroids

House Meanings

Asteroid Industria in the 1st house

Your career will be a major part of your identity (more so than others careers would). Your career may change or constantly be testing your outlook/view on life. This career will be something you’re very passionate and ambitious about. You may use lots of mannerisms in this career. It most likely is going to involve your physical body, fighting, beauty, confidence, and/or individuality

Ex: Athlete, Model, Makeup Artist, Fighter

Asteroid Industria in the 2nd house

Your career will be a major source of stability (not just financially but also emotionally) for you in your life and your career may boost your self esteem/self worth. It is going to revolve around material items. It most likely is going to involve either your singing voice, finances, cooking, giving, receiving, and/or material resources

Ex: Singer, Banker, Accountant, Chef, Product Designer

Asteroid Industria in the 3rd house

In your career you will use your voice to spread an important message. You will express many of your ideas to others. It most likely will involve communication, literature, teaching, transportation, influencing, social media, the mind, and/or phones

Ex: Author/Writer, Social Media Influencer, Driver, Teacher

Asteroid Industria in the 4th house

Your career will be in an industry where you’re using lots of emotion toward your work and/or caring for others. It won’t be a job far out of your comfort zone. It likely will involve houses, home related things, food, and/or self-care

Ex: Real Estate Agent, Nurse, Baker, Home Designer

Asteroid Industria in the 5th house

Your career may revolve around you and be in an industry where a lot of spotlight/attention is on you. You’re going to work in an industry where you use your talents. It’s going to be a career you really enjoy and that makes you happy! It likely will involve entertainment, romance, events (such as a festival or concert), children, talents, and/or drama

Ex: Actor, Event Planner, Child Psychiatrist, Talent Agent

Asteroid Industria in the 6th house

Your career will have a set schedule and steady income. In this career industry you’ll constantly be working on self improvement. It likely will involve health, fitness, hygiene, your analytic nature, animals/pets, and/or giving service to others somehow

Ex: Doctor, Nutritionist, Fitness Trainor, Dentist, Vet

Asteroid Industria in the 7th house

Your career will be one that’s based around equality or partnership. You’re going to be working towards harmony or peace in this career. It will likely involve commitment, marriage, attractiveness/attraction, contracts, conflicts, negotiations, and/or equality/sharing

Ex: Wedding Planner, Lawyer, Model, Fashion Designer

Asteroid Industria in the 8th house

Your career will be one that’s based around a lot of transformation, power, or mystery. In this career industry you’ll constantly be working on changing for the better. It will likely involve crime, death, taxes, psychology, surgery, investments, the stock market, business, loans, secrets, your inheritance, reproduction, and/or spiritual transformation

Ex: Detective, Psychologist, Tax Preparer, Surgeon

Asteroid Industria in the 9th house

Your career will be one that helps you grow a lot as a person. In this career industry you will learn a lot more than most people do in their career. It will likely involve travel in general, air travel, exploration, television, media, teaching, higher education (college/uni), religion, beliefs, ideologies, philosophy, interviews, courts, law, cultures, ethics, viewpoints, and/or languages

Ex: College Professor, Pilot, Newscaster, Photographer

Asteroid Industria in the 10th house

You are more likely than others to be very successful when having this placement in your chart. Your career will teach you how to set long term goals for yourself and succeed. It will likely involve being in charge/a boss, business, peoples reputations/images, sense of mission, responsibilities, being famous, and/or status

Ex: Manager (anywhere), Publicist, Movie Director

Asteroid Industria in the 11th house

You’re more likely to gain wealth from your career with this placement since the 11th house represents financial gains -> read more here. Your career will be one that introduces new ideas to the world and may be a more unique career compared to most peoples. It will likely involve technology, film, politics, science, inventions, chaos, sudden change, friendship, groups, desires, manifestations, hopes/wishes, humanitarianism, social networking, clubs, and/or parties

Ex: Engineer, Scientist, Film Producer, Politician

Asteroid Industria in the 12th house

Your career is one that will transform you spiritually. In this career industry you will heal others. It will likely involve spirituality, hypnotism, isolation, music, karma/karmic debts, hidden enemies, the subconscious mind, subconscious memory, sleep, dreams (the ones you have when you sleep), old age/people, mental health, fears, losses, endings, impersonations, closure, self-undoing, bed pleasures, intuition, illusions, and/or the afterlife

Ex: Therapist, Song-Writer, Astrologer, Psychic

➠ [READ] the examples listed aren’t the only possible careers for each house only some, so there can be more interpretations than the ones listed

𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗘𝗥 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚! 𝗜 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘇𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮 𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗼𝗶𝗱 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴

𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗦𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗕𝗘 𝗧𝗢 𝗠𝗬 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗥𝗘𝗢𝗡 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗺𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁

𝗠𝗬 𝗠𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧

#astrology #astro community #zodiac #astro placements #astrology tumblr #astro chart #birth chart #asteroid astrology #industria asteroid #industria asteroid persona chart #asteroids #astrology asteroids

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lady-boketto · 6 months ago

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Gyomei Himejima General Headcanons (Sfw/Nsfw)

a/n: I hope i did this right but anyway, I have a lot of ideas but i don't really know how to right them out and his is my first time actually drumming up the courage to post anything lmao but after writing this I had a lot of fun and actually feel more confident in writing headcanons but let me know what you think! :)

SFW (Safe for Work)

Gyomei is a man who is very in tune with his feelings, so he's very attentive to your emotions and when you're not feeling quite like yourself so he likes to help you out when you're not feeling well or when you ask him to hold you, he always welcomes you into his strong arms with a warm smile on his face

when someone comes to confide in him, Gyomei is more of the type of person to listen to your problems or stories that you want to tell him than he is at trying to come up with topics or solutions to talk about but he will comfort you with ressasuring words if he feels like you need it and always has a warm smile on his face when you approach him

Sometimes when Gyomei has time to himself to relax and unwind in his own space it is often interrupted by someone (his comrades or you, his beloved) not that he minds at all at their presence he actually welcomes them as he found with time that the people around him naturally gravitate towards him and tend to be comfortable enough to share stories with him which he's more than happy to listen and be engaged in anything they might say, Gyomei suspects it might be due to the mixture of his large stature and calm demeanor that people naturally feel that they are protected and puts those around him at ease

Due to people casually coming and talking to him, Gyomei is a bit of a gossip and likes to know things but doesn't really do anything with the information, he doesn't like to start drama or be around it, he would rather be spending time at home with you, he'd take a seat in the lounge area and when he has made himself comfortable he'd raise his hand out to gesture for you to come and sit with him so he can tell you all the stories he has collected since you last spoke with a wide grin on his face

He may be blind but that doesn't mean that he is completely useless, in reality Gyomei has learned how to compensate for his short comings in a way that makes the people around him forget that he is even blind

tries to hide how amused he is when you forget that he is blind (ex. when you try to show him something interesting or when you comment on how dark the room is)

he loves it when the both of you have the time to relax and enjoy each other's company, especially the warm afternoons where he can sit in the grass without a care as you are relaxing peacefully in his lap, reading out loud to him the book that you picked up from the markets while he was out on his last mission.

also there are days where he likes to sit outside ( by himself or with you) and play his shakuhachi ( it's like a flute but sounds so majestic lol) , he doesn't know a lot of songs but likes to play notes and find which ones sound good together and plays little random tunes ( sometimes he makes up lyrics to go with the melody but most times its just meaningless tunes)

Gyomei has two weaknesses and that's: you and cats. It's a struggle for him to balance the two but with persuasion ( he secretly likes to be complimented and hugs, especially when you hug his arm) he will choose you with little to slightly moderate regret to the stray he saw on his way home from his meeting with the leader and the rest of the hashira.

Gyomei especially has a fascination with the maine coon cat breed not only because they are one of the biggest breeds of cat but because they are rather social creatures like Gyomei himself, they don't mind spending time around other people. He also finds it very funny when he get to spend time with a maine coon cat and he feels them softly making biscuits on his haori when he's trying to pet the other cats or talking to you

NSFW (Not Safe for Work)

Gyomei likes to praise you in bed so that he can feel the heat rise from your skin under his large hands

not really the one to risk getting caught doing anything other than kisses on the cheek or a loving embrace in front of others

there's a whole another side behind close doors and in your shared space, he becomes more desperate for your touch and especially loves it when you roam you hands down his chest and shoulders, he blushes and softly sighs when you pay more attention to his thighs ( lightly moans if you lightly drag you nails down his mid thigh)

Gyomei's ears are very sensitive and likes to hear your voice (has a thing for your voice) so he enjoys every little noise you make for him, it ties a knot in his stomach when you lowly whisper in his ear how much you desire him and he more than happy to comply to your wants

Another area that is sensitive for Gyomei is his neck and collarbone, he can't help but squirm and firmly hold you by your waist as you are on top of him and attacking his neck with kisses and bites

The one thing he doesn't mind other people seeing is the love bites you (or hickies) leave on his neck because most people that he talks to are actually too anxious to tease him about them when they catch the sight of them peeking out of his uniform, but little do they know he knows what they are nervous about because although he can't see the chain of marks you've left, he smirks to himself as he body shivers with the slight sting of pain when he traces his fingers over his neck as he remembers your touch

Gyomei likes to rely on his other senses to please you in the bed room and due to not having the proper time to go out and meet people it has left him a little touch starved so he loves to use his mouth on your body

He wants nothing more than to kiss your body on the parts you are most sensitive to and tell you how much you brighten his world by being in it and telling you how lucky he is to call you his lover while his hands are working to bring you closer your desire of coming undone in front of him

He is a bit embarrassed to admit to you but loves to use his mouth on your chest and moans like crazy when he has one of your nipples in his mouth, also likes to feel up your hips and thighs as he works his mouth on your chest

Gyomei's favorite places to kiss you are your lips and inner thighs because he secretly love how needy and how vocal you get for him (it makes his chest swell with a sense of pride and wants nothing more than to hear you praise him more so he can do his best for you)

He doesn't like to use his full strength on you in fear of hurting you in some way, unless you specifically ask him so to do or that you managed to work him up so much that he can't control himself and has to set a boundary to show you who is in charge of the current situation by sneaking up behind you with a firm press of his hips to your behind or when his hands find their way to your neck to put a light pressure, warning you to behave for him or else he'll have to use drastic measures on you if you dare to test him further)

if you'd let him if would love to cum inside you, he likes it when you beg for him to cum inside you (the heat of the moment makes the both of you blush like crazy) especially Gyomei because he doesn't stop thrusting his hips until you're both coming down from the high of the moment (he loves to feel you spasm and eventually relax against his body)

Gyomei always makes sure to take care of you after you are both done, he's amazing at massages (he's very good with his hands) and will clean you up or run the bath for you with your favorite soaps and scented oils or he will gladly get you a glass of icy cold water with the small ice cubes that are so easy to crunch with your teeth (whatever you want or need, Gyomei is ready and willing to serve your every need)

#gyomei himejima #gyomei x reader #kny gyomei #demon slayer gyomei #gyomei #gyomei himejima x reader #kny gyomei x reader #demon slayer gyomei x reader #demon slayer gyomei himejima #kny gyomei himejima #kny gyomei himejima x reader #demon slayer gyomei himejima x reader #x reader #kny #demon slayer #headcanon #gender neutral reader #gender neutral insert #divider by cafekitsune

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animal-care · 8 months ago

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Exploring the Animal Care Market Revenue, Growth, and Future Outlook

Introduction

The Animal Care Industry plays a pivotal role in ensuring the health, well-being, and happiness of pets and companion animals worldwide. This article delves into the dynamics of the animal care market, offering insights into its research reports, growth prospects, revenue outlook, and emerging trends.

Animal Care Market Research Reports

Market research reports serve as valuable resources for understanding the animal care industry landscape. These reports provide comprehensive analyses of market trends, growth drivers, challenges, and opportunities. Recent studies indicate a positive outlook for the global animal care market, with substantial growth expected in the coming years.

Animal Care Market Forecast

The animal care market is poised for significant growth, driven by various factors contributing to increased demand for pet-related products and services. Market analysts project steady growth, with a compound annual growth rate CAGR of 4.3% expected between 2023 and 2033, reaching a market size of USD 62.3 billion by 2033.

Animal Care Market Size

The global animal care market was estimated at USD 40.9 billion in February 2024, reflecting robust growth in pet ownership and spending. In the United States alone, the market was valued at USD 136.8 billion in 2022, according to the American Pet Products Association.

Animal Care Market Growth

While the global animal care market is experiencing steady growth, the United States is anticipated to witness a growth rate of 2-3% in 2024, as per Grand View Research. This growth is fueled by factors such as increasing disposable income, rising pet ownership, and growing awareness of animal well-being.

Market Segments

The animal care market comprises several segments catering to the diverse needs of pet owners:

Pet Food & Treats

This segment holds the largest share of the global market, accounting for approximately 50% of total spending on animal care products.

Pet owners are increasingly opting for premium pet food and treats, driving growth in this segment.

Veterinary Care & Products

The veterinary care segment is the second-largest, with projections suggesting it might reach USD 37 billion in the US by 2023.

Advancements in veterinary medicine and increased spending on preventive healthcare contribute to the segment's growth.

Supplies, Live Animals & Over-the-counter Medications

Estimated at USD 32.1 billion in the US in 2023, this segment encompasses a wide range of products, including pet supplies, live animals, and over-the-counter medications. This segment includes pet insurance, boarding, grooming, and training services, estimated at USD 11.8 billion in the US in 2023.

Market Trends

Several notable trends are reshaping the Animal Care Market:

Premiumization- Pet owners are increasingly willing to invest in premium pet food, treats, and healthcare options, reflecting a growing focus on pet well-being and nutrition.

Surge in Pet Adoptions- The pandemic-driven surge in pet adoptions continues to influence market demand, with more households welcoming pets into their lives.

Direct-to-Consumer Channels- Online pet food and medication deliveries are witnessing significant growth, driven by the convenience and accessibility offered by direct-to-consumer (D2C) channels.

Focus on Sustainability- Environmentally friendly pet products and services are gaining popularity as consumers become more conscious of their ecological footprint.

Conclusion

The animal care market presents lucrative opportunities for industry players, driven by increasing pet ownership, rising spending on pet-related products and services, and evolving consumer preferences. By staying abreast of market trends, investing in research and development, and embracing sustainable practices, stakeholders can capitalize on the growing demand for animal care solutions, contributing to the well-being of pets and companion animals worldwide.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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The long, bloody lineage of private equity's looting

Tomorrow (June 3) at 1:30PM, I’m in Edinburgh for the Cymera Festival on a panel with Nina Allen and Ian McDonald.

Monday (June 5) at 7:15PM, I’m in London at the British Library with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Baroness Martha Lane Fox.

Fans of the Sopranos will remember the “bust out” as a mob tactic in which a business is taken over, loaded up with debt, and driven into the ground, wrecking the lives of the business’s workers, customers and suppliers. When the mafia does this, we call it a bust out; when Wall Street does it, we call it “private equity.”

It used to be that we rarely heard about private equity, but then, as national chains and iconic companies started to vanish, this mysterious financial arrangement popped up with increasing frequency. When a finance bro’s presentation on why Olive Garden needed to be re-orged when viral, there was a lot off snickering about the decline of a tacky business whose value prop was unlimited carbs. But the bro was working for Starboard Value, a hedge fund that specialized in buhying out and killing off companies, pocketing billions while destroying profitable businesses.

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

Starboard Value’s game was straightforward: buy a business, load it with debt, sell off its physical plant — the buildings it did business out of — pay itself, and then have the business lease back the buildings, bleeding out money until it collapsed. They pulled it with Red Lobster,and the point of the viral Olive Garden dis track was to soften up the company for its own bust out.

The bust out tactic wasn’t limited to mocking middlebrow family restaurants. For years, the crooks who ran these ops did a brisk trade in blaming the internet. Why did Sears tank? Everyone knows that the 19th century business was an antique, incapable of mounting a challenge in the age of e-commerce. That was a great smokescreen for an old-fashioned bust out that saw corporate looters make off with hundreds of millions, leaving behind empty storefronts and emptier pension accounts for the workers who built the wealth the looters stole:

https://prospect.org/economy/vulture-capitalism-killed-sears/

Same goes for Toys R Us: it wasn’t Amazon that killed the iconic toy retailer — it was the PE bosses who extracted $200m from the chain, then walked away, hands in pockets and whistling, while the businesses collapsed and the workers got zero severance:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/06/01/how-can-they-walk-away-with-millions-and-leave-workers-with-zero-toys-r-us-workers-say-they-deserve-severance/

It’s a good racket — for the racketeers. Private equity has grown from a finance sideshow to Wall Street’s apex predator, and it’s devouring the real economy through a string of audactious bust outs, each more consequential and depraved than the last.

As PE shows that it can turn profitable businesses gigantic windfalls, sticking the rest of us with the job of sorting out the smoking craters they leave behind, more and more investors are piling in. Today, the PE sector loves a rollup, which is when they buy several related businesses and merge them into one firm. The nominal business-case for a rollup is that the new, bigger firm is more “efficient.” In reality, a rollup’s strength is in eliminating competition. When all the pet groomers, or funeral homes, or urgent care clinics for ten miles share the same owner, they can raise prices, lower wages, and fuck over suppliers.

They can also borrow. A quirk of the credit markets is that a standalone small business is valued at about 3–5x its annual revenues. But if that business is part of a large firm, it is valued at 10–20x annual turnover. That means that when a private equity company rolls up a comedy club, ad agency or water bottler (all businesses presently experiencing PE rollup), with $1m in annual revenues, it shows up on the PE company’s balance sheet as an asset worth $10–20m. That’s $10–20m worth of collateral the PE fund can stake for loans that let it buy and roll up more small businesses.

2.9 million Boomer-owned businesses, employing 32m people, are expected to sell in the next couple years as their owners retire. Most of these businesses will sell to PE firms, who can afford to pay more for them as a prelude to a bust out than anyone intending to operate them as a productive business could ever pay:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

PE’s most ghastly impact is felt in the health care sector. Whole towns’ worth of emergency rooms, family practices, labs and other health firms have been scooped up by PE, which has spent more than $1t since 2012 on health acquisitions:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/17/the-doctor-will-fleece-you-now/#pe-in-full-effect

Once a health care company is owned by PE, it is significantly more likely to commit medicare fraud. It also cuts wages and staffing for doctors and nurses. PE-owned facilities do more unnecessary and often dangerous procedures. Appointments get shorter. The companies get embroiled in kickback scandals. PE-backed dentists hack away at children’s mouths, filling them full of root-canals.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/17/the-doctor-will-fleece-you-now/#pe-in-full-effect

The Healthcare Private Equity Association boasts that its members are poised to spend more than $3t to create “the future of healthcare.”

https://hcpea.org/#!event-list

As bad as PE is for healthcare, it’s worse for long-term care. PE-owned nursing homes are charnel houses, and there’s a particularly nasty PE scam where elderly patients are tricked into signing up for palliative care, which is never delivered (and isn’t needed, because the patients aren’t dying!). These fake “hospices” get huge payouts from medicare — and the patient is made permanently ineligible for future medicare, because they are recorded being in their final decline:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

Every part of the health care sector is being busted out by PE. Another ugly PE trick, the “club deal,” is devouring the medical supply business. Club deals were huge in the 2000s, destroying rent-controlled housing, energy companies, Mervyn’s department stores, Harrah’s, and Old Country Joe. Now it’s doing the same to medical supplies:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/14/billionaire-class-solidarity/#club-deals

Private equity is behind the mass rollup of single-family homes across America. Wall Street landlords are the worst landlords in America, who load up your rent with junk fees, leave your home in a state of dangerous disrepair, and evict you at the drop of a hat:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/16/die-miete-ist-zu-hoch/#assets-v-human-rights

As these houses decay through neglect, private equity makes a bundle from tenants and even more borrowing against the houses. In a few short years, much of America’s desperately undersupplied housing stock will be beyond repair. It’s a bust out.

You know all those exploding trains filled with dangerous chemicals that poison entire towns? Private equity bust outs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/04/up-your-nose/#rail-barons

Where did PE come from? How can these people look themselves in the mirror? Why do we let them get away with it? How do we stop them?

Today in The American Prospect, Maureen Tkacik reviews two new books that try to answer all four of these questions, but really only manage to answer the first three:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-06-02-days-of-plunder-morgenson-rosner-ballou-review/

The first of these books is These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs — and Wrecks — America by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/These-Are-the-Plunderers/Gretchen-Morgenson/9781982191283

The second is Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America, by Brendan Ballou:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brendan-ballou/plunder/9781541702103/

Both books describe the bust out from the inside. For example, PetSmart — looted for $30 billion by RaymondSvider and his PE fund BC Partners — is a slaughterhouse for animals. The company systematically neglects animals — failing to pay workers to come in and feed them, say, or refusing to provide backup power to run during power outages, letting animals freeze or roast to death. Though PetSmart has its own vet clinics, the company doesn’t want to pay its vets to nurse the animals it damages, so it denies them care. But the company is also too cheap to euthanize those animals, so it lets them starve to death. PetSmart is also too cheap to cremate the animals, so its traumatized staff are ordered to smuggle the dead, rotting animals into random dumpsters.

All this happened while PetSmart’s sales increased by 60%, matched by growth in the company’s gross margins. All that money went to the bust out.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/09/27/the-30-billion-kitty-meet-the-investor-who-made-a-fortune-on-pet-food/

Tkacik says these books show that we’re finally getting wise to PE. Back in the Clinton years, the PE critique painted the perps as sharp operators who reduced quality and jacked up prices. Today, books like these paint these “investors” as the monsters they are — crooks whose bust ups are crimes, not clever finance hacks.

Take the Carlyle Group, which pioneered nursing home rollups. As Carlyle slashed wages, its workers suffered — but its elderly patients suffered more. Thousands of Carlyle “customers” died of “dehydration, gangrenous bedsores, and preventable falls” in the pre-covid years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/opioid-overdoses-bedsores-and-broken-bones-what-happened-when-a-private-equity-firm-sought-profits-in-caring-for-societys-most-vulnerable/2018/11/25/09089a4a-ed14-11e8-baac-2a674e91502b_story.html

KKR, another PE monster, bought a second-hand chain of homes for mentally disabled adults from another PE company, then squeezed it for the last drops of blood left in the corpse. KKR cut wages to $8/hour and increased shifts to 36 hours, then threatened to have workers who went home early arrested and charged with “patient abandonment.” Many of these homes were often left with no staff at all, with patients left to starve and stew in their own waste.

PE loves to pick on people who can’t fight back: kids, sick people, disabled people, old people. No surprise, then, that PE loves prisons — the ultimate captive audience. HIG Capital is a $55b fund that owns TKC Holdings, who got the contract to feed the prisoners at 400 institutions. They got the contract after the prisons fired Aramark, owned by PE giant Warburg Pincus, whose food was so inedible that it provoked riots. TKC got a million bucks extra to take over the food at Michigan’s Kinross Correctional Facility, then, incredibly, made the food worse. A chef who refused to serve 100 bags of rotten potatoes (“the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in my life”) was fired:

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/michigan/prison-food-worker-i-was-fired-for-refusing-to-serve-rotten-potatoes/69-467297770

TKC doesn’t just operate prison kitchens — it operates prison commissaries, where it gouges prisoners on junk food to replace the inedible slop it serves in the cafeteria. The prisoners buy this food with money they make working in the prison workshops, for $0.10–0.25/hour. Those workshops are also run by TKC.

Tkacic traces private equity back to the “corporate raiders” of the 1950s and 1960s, who “stealthily borrowed money to buy up enough shares in a small or midsized company to control its biggest bloc of votes, then force a stock swap and install himself as CEO.”

The most famous of these raiders was Eli Black, who took over United Fruit with this gambit — a company that had a long association with the CIA, who had obligingly toppled democratically elected governments and installed dictators friendly to United’s interests (this is where the term “banana republic” comes from).

Eli Black’s son is Leon Black, a notorious PE predator. Leon Black got his start working for the junk-bonds kingpin Michael Milken, optimizing Milken’s operation, which was the most terrifying bust out machine of its day, buying, debt-loading and wrecking a string of beloved American businesses. Milken bought 2,000 companies and put 200 of them through bankruptcy, leaving the survivors in a brittle, weakened state.

It got so bad that the Business Roundtable complained about the practice to Congress, calling Milken, Black, et al, “a small group is systematically extracting the equity from corporations and replacing it with debt, and incidentally accumulating major wealth.”

Black stabbed Milken in the back and tanked his business, then set out on his own. Among the businesses he destroyed was Samsonite, “a bankrupt-but-healthy company he subjected to 12 humiliating years of repeated fee extractions, debt-funded dividend payments, brutal plant closings, and hideous schemes to induce employees to buy its worthless stock.”

The money to buy Samsonite — and many other businesses — came through a shadowy deal between Black and John Garamendi, then a California insurance commissioner, now a California congressman. Garamendi helped Black buy a $6b portfolio of junk bonds from an insurance company in a wildly shady deal. Garamendi wrote down the bonds by $3.9b, stealing money “from innocent people who needed the money to pay for loved ones’ funerals, irreparable injuries, etc.”

Black ended up getting all kinds of favors from powerful politicians — including former Connecticut governor John Rowland and Donald Trump. He also wired $188m to Jeffrey Epstein for reasons that remain opaque.

Black’s shady deals are a marked contrast with the exalted political circles he travels in. Despite private equity’s obviously shady conduct, it is the preferred partner for cities and states, who buy everything from ambulance services to infrastructure from PE-owned companies, with disastrous results. Federal agencies turn a blind eye to their ripoffs, or even abet them. 38 state houses passed legislation immunizing nursing homes from liability during the start of the covid crisis.

PE barons are shameless about presenting themselves as upstanding cits, unfairly maligned. When Obama made an empty promise to tax billionaires in 2010, Blackstone founder SteveS chwarzman declared, “It’s a war. It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

Since we’re on the subject of Hitler, this is a good spot to bring up Monowitz, a private-sector satellite of Auschwitz operated by IG Farben as a slave labor camp to make rubber and other materiel it supplied at a substantial markup to the wermacht. I’d never heard of Monowitz, but Tkacik’s description of the camp is chilling, even in comparison to Auschwitz itself.

Farben used slave laborers from Auschwitz to work at its rubber plant, but was frustrated by the logistics of moving those slaves down the 4.5m stretch of road to the facility. So the company bought 25,000 slaves — preferring children, who were cheaper — and installed them in a co-located death-camp called Monowitz:

https://www.commentary.org/articles/r-tannenbaum/the-devils-chemists-by-josiah-e-dubois-jr/

Monowitz was — incredibly — worse than Auschwitz. It was so bad, the SS guards who worked at it complained to Berlin about the conditions. The SS demanded more hospitals for the workers who dropped from beatings and overwork — Farben refused, citing the cost. The factory never produced a steady supply of rubber, but thanks to its gouging and the brutal treatment of its slaves, the camp was still profitable and returned large dividends to Farben’s investors.

Apologists for slavery sometimes claim that slavers are at least incentivized to maintain the health of their captive workforce. This was definitely not true of Farben. Monowitz slaves died on average after three months in the camp. And Farben’s subsidiary, Degesch, made the special Zyklon B formulation used in Auschwitz’s gas chambers.

Tkacik’s point is that the Nazis killed for ideology and were unimaginably cruel. Farben killed for money — and they were even worse. The banality of evil gets even more banal when it’s done in service to maximizing shareholder value.

As Farben historian Joseph Borkin wrote, the company “reduced slave labor to a consumable raw material, a human ore from which the mineral of life was systematically extracted”:

https://www.scribd.com/document/517797736/The-Crime-and-Punishment-of-I-G-Farben

Farben’s connection to the Nazis was a the subject of Germany’s Master Plan: The Story of Industrial Offensive, a 1943 bestseller by Borkin, who was also an antitrust lawyer. It described how Farben had manipulated global commodities markets in order to create shortages that “guaranteed Hitler’s early victories.”

Master Plan became a rallying point in the movement to shatter corporate power. But large US firms like Dow Chemical and Standard Oil waged war on the book, demanding that it be retracted. Borkin was forced into resignation and obscurity in 1945.

Meanwhile, in Nuremberg, 24 Farben executives were tried for their war crimes, and they cited their obligations to their shareholders in their defense. All but five were acquitted on this basis.

Seen in that light, the plunderers of today’s PE firms are part of a long and dishonorable tradition, one that puts profit ahead of every other priority or consideration. It’s a defense that wowed the judges at Nuremberg, so should we be surprised that it still plays in 2023?

Tkacik is frustrated that neither of these books have much to offer by way of solutions, but she understands why that would be. After all, if we can’t even close the carried interest tax loophole, how can we hope to do anything meaningful?

“Carried interest” comes up in every election cycle. Most of us assume it has something to do with “interest payments,” but that’s not true. The carried interest loophole relates to the “interest” that 16th-century sea captains had in their cargo. It’s a 600-year-old tax loophole that private equity bosses use to pay little or no tax on their billions. The fact that it’s still on the books tells you everything you need to know about whether our political class wants to do anything about PE’s plundering.

Notwithstanding Tkacik’s (entirely justified) skepticism of the weaksauce remedies proposed in these books, there is some hope of meaningful action. Private equity’s rollups are only possible because they skate under the $101m threshold for merger scrutiny. However, there is good — but unenforced — law that allows antitrust enforcers to block these mergers. This is the “incipiency standard” — Sec 7 of the Clayton Act — the idea that a relatively small merger might not be big enough to trigger enforcement action on its own, but regulators can still act to block it if it creates an incipient monopoly.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

The US has a new crop of aggressive — fearless — top antitrust enforcers and they’ve been systematically reviving these old laws to go after monopolies.

That’s long overdue. Markets are machines for eroding our moral values: “In comparison to non-market decisions, moral standards are significantly lower if people participate in markets.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20130607154129/https://www.uni-bonn.de/Press-releases/markets-erode-moral-values

The crimes that monsters commit in the name of ideology pale in comparison to the crimes the wealthy commit for money.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farbenizers

[Image ID: An overgrown graveyard, rendered in silver nitrate monochrome. A green-tinted businessman with a moneybag in place of a head looms up from behind a gravestone. The right side of the image is spattered in blood.]

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crookedkryptonitebeliever · 6 months ago

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Yandere Coworker (part 12)

Thank you @i---believe---in---pink for commissioning this chapter.

(2041 words)

Tw: afab reader, reader is pretty mean to Cyprus, Cyprus becoming angry and yelling at reader

Please vote on the poll down below

Masterlists (+commission info), part 1, part 13

You rubbed your eyes with the back of your hand, Cyprus must have thought you were doing that excessively, as he would grab your wrist and pull it away from your face. He gave you a look from the corner of his eyes before returning his attention to the road.

You slumped in your seat, resting your cheek on the seatbelt. Cyprus's hand would find its way back to your thigh, where he would knead and squeeze them as much as he liked. You simply stared at it, because it would always return no matter how much you slapped it away.

You brought your chin up and looked forward. This farmer's market must be far, all you could see is a long strip of asphalt and grass around the car. The sun was shining bright and the air was silent, he refused to turn the radio on or play some music, because he wanted you to talk to him. Cyprus wanted a conversation, to connect with you better by sharing things about each other. But you're just not interested, you wanted to go home and catch up with sleep. Having Cyprus in your life is such a curse, everything was thrown off balance and he kept bullying you. Plus, he kept your phone away, and you're forced to simmer in reality.

"What's your zodiac sign?" He asked, resting his hand on your thigh.

You shrugged. Claiming not to be interested in it just so he would leave you alone in peace.

"Hm." He flicked his turn signal switch to the right before making a turn. "I'm a Cancer, my birthday's on the third of July. And if you're wondering what to get me, I just want your cute little ass on my face." Cyprus sported a playful smirk on his handsome face.

You told him you hope he gets cancer on his birthday. Which made him roll his eyes and click his tongue.

"Someone's cranky." It was followed by a laugh from him. "Sleepy?"

You snapped, telling him you didn't want to go on this stupid date this early in the morning. Wishing that you had never met Cyprus because everything was fine before then, but he had to come around and ruin it. He should just shrivel up and die.

There were a few beats of silence before he began speaking again.

"Wow, where the fuck did that come from, princess? That was a lot to take in." He tried to keep the tone lighthearted, but you could hear a twinge of hurt in his voice. "I must have woken you on the wrong side of the bed today, you were never this mean to me." Something in the way he said that suggests Cyprus is trying to get you to tell him the real reason why you're so moody today.

You sealed your lips shut and looked out of the window. You wanted nothing to do with him and he probably got the hint, as he removed his hand from your lap and placed it on the steering wheel.

Your eyes somehow itched way more than usual, so you went on to rub your eyes again with both hands.

"Stop that-"

You snapped at him again, curling yourself into a ball, pressing yourself far away from Cyprus. He opened his mouth to say something but ultimately decided against doing so.

He looked troubled but you didn't care. Unfortunately, you're too upset to give a damn and you don't know why.

The rest of the ride was driven in silence, neither you or him said a word. And eventually, Cyprus has reached his destination, driving further past the tents and stalls to enter an underground parking lot.

"We're here." Cyprus pulled his handbrake up and killed the engine. He took the keys out of the ignition, but made no move to open the door.

Because he was staring at you, who is now refusing to budge. Hiding yourself in your corner with your knees brought to your chest.

He brought a hand up to your head, petting your hair affectionately. "Baby? I said we're here-"

You yelled at him, saying you heard him the first time. All that while harshly shoving his hand away from you.

"What the fuck is up with you today!?" And it seems like that was the last straw for him, Cyprus furrowed his eyebrows and crowded you from his seat, making the only escape route the door, but it was locked and you somehow couldn't open it no matter how much you tugged on the handle or toggled with the lock.

You said you hated him, he has ruined your life. Perhaps you were trying to mimic what his exes did, you don't know how they could withstand the pressure of his menacing presence. Or maybe they liked it, you definitely didn't.

He sternly called you by your name. "Look at me."

You refused, burying your face in your arms.

"Look at me!" He scolded, this time Cyprus seized you by the jaw and forced your face to his. His grip on you was almost bruising, forcing you to pucker your lips as his fingers dug into your cheeks.

He glared straight at you, steely grey eyes darting all over to examine whatever might be causing your sudden and severe hostility. Though his expression softened when he realized what's been behind your intolerance today.

"Ah." He sounded out, "That figures." relieved and annoyed at the same time. Cyprus brought his thumb on your lower eyelid and gently pulled it down. He then pushed your upper eyelid up.

"Pink eye. I told you not to hang around Nancy." Nancy was one of your nosier coworkers, she had just come back from a medical leave and Cyprus was already telling you to avoid her. You didn't listen despite how she would have coughing fits and bad coughing etiquette. In hindsight, maybe you should have heed his words, but you were desperate to regain some agency over yourself. So you rebelled.

He continued checking your eyeball even after he knew what he was looking at.

It felt invasive, so you thrashed in his grip enough for him to loosen it.

He sighed, taking his keys out of his pocket, jabbing it into his ignition and restarting it again. You winced when Cyprus revved up his engine and allowed its roar to bounce off the basement carpark walls.

"I knew you didn't mean any of it; the crap you said to me. But you really need to say what's bugging you next time... not just take it out on me." He brought his handbrake down and shifted gears.

You remained static in your position and stayed quiet.

"I know you wouldn't, though. It's like it'll kill you to open up." Cyprus drove away from his perfect parking spot, pressing on the gas pedal as if he was in a rush.

"It's fine, I totally love playing detective." Snarked Cyprus sarcastically.

You merely rubbed your eye with a finger.

"One more drop, princess." He whispered, holding cupping your cheek and using his thumb to pull your lower eyelid down. Once the last droplet of your antibiotics reached your eye, you blinked hard and held onto his wrist.

"That's a good girl," Cyprus whispered as he pecked you on the forehead, before screwing the cap back on the bottle. A few seconds later, you started to feel the relief in your diseased eyeball.

Cyprus had driven you to a nearby pharmacist, where he would buy medicated eye drops for your conjunctivitis. He had insisted that he is the one to administer it because he claimed that you wouldn't know how to do it correctly despite being there when the pharmacist verbally gave you the instructions. It wasn't cheap, but he still footed the bill himself.

You shook your head and blinked rapidly, allowing the medicine to spread evenly. Cyprus brushed any stray hairs away from your face with his fingers, you were too distracted with the sensation you have in your eye to push him away.

"Well?"

You looked at him. He has his arms crossed and is leaning against the side of his car.

"Aren't you going to apologize? You were so fucking mean to me earlier." He looked away momentarily, seemingly trying to hide something on his face before bringing back his focus on you.

You froze and couldn't get anything out, yes, you were unreasonably rude to him. But that may be your only ticket out of this forced relationship... Well, your last resort is to go to the police but you don't think it has come to that yet. It's not... Illegal to be a jerk to Cyprus as long as you check yourself from time to time.

You were brought out of your thoughts by an incoherent grumble from Cyprus, he massaged his brow. "Okay, we don't have to do that now, you're definitely still a little prickly for some reason and I think I know why." He took a deep breath and exhaled as he opened the door to his passenger seat.

You stared blankly at the interior of his car, he gestured for you to go in. "Come on, get in. I'm going to have to fight for another parking spot, and that's going to take a while."

You looked around you, god knows where you are right now and you have no smartphone to navigate your way back home. There isn't a bus stop in sight either. Perhaps you could slowly inch your way to the general direction of your home? Your shoes are intact and pretty comfortable, there has to be a bus stop somewhere.

"You are not walking home, I'll fucking wrangle you into this car if I have to." As if he was reading your mind, Cyprus quickly closed the space between the two of you, so that your face is almost smothered in his broad chest.

You begrudgingly agreed and went into the Passenger's side on your own. He closed the door for you and shook his head while walking towards the driver's seat.

The distance between the pharmacy and the market wasn't that far at all, it was short enough that Cyprus didn't try to initiate any small talk or touch you either. Or maybe he was still freshly wounded by your recalcitrance.

Cyprus only reached out to pull your hand away when you're about to rub your eyes again.

"Here." He picked up his thermos flask in his cup holder and handed it to you. "Drink up, you only had a tiny sip of water today."

You cautiously took it from his hand and opened it to access the crisp, refreshing water with ice cubes bobbing around.

He was right, Cyprus isn't looking for a motherly partner to supplement his life. He is the motherly one who you now realize took care of you very well no matter how much you didn't like his personality.

From cutting your steaks without needing to ask, making your meals, taking you to the clinic, and paying for anything you can think of. Yes, it's irritating that he would drag you to dates that you didn't even want to go on in the first place, but his intentions were for you to experience the world and all its novelty alongside him. He just wanted you to have fun differently and he isn't stingy with his money.

However, that doesn't discount the fact that he's doing all these against your will, touching you despite your numerous "No"s and rejections, forcing you to play along with this romantic fantasy of his in the office and holding your items hostage, so he could keep you in his apartment.

You brought your attention to him again, he's sulking. A stark contrast from his cheery, teasing attitude from this morning.

Somehow, you felt guilty for lashing out at Cyprus earlier. He did make you cry, though. So this could have been payback for it. However, he apologized, albeit sounding patronizing and infantilizing.

But if you apologize, it will only send a message that you're genuinely interested in being with Cyprus. Worsening his chronic disability to heed your rejections.

You thought about your next move.

#yandere #yandere oc #yandere x reader #yandere male #yandere concept #tw yandere #yandere oc x reader #yandere x you #male yandere oc x reader #oc cyprus #male yandere x reader #yandere x y/n #yandere x darling #tw afab reader #tw fem reader #yandere x female reader #thank you so much for your commission

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calirph · 1 month ago

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𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 𝐊𝐄𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒: 𝐅𝐋𝐔𝐅𝐅/𝐃𝐎𝐌𝐄��𝐓𝐈𝐂 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐒.

requested by anonymous all these quotes and scenarios try to be more on the light side of life with fluff domestic bliss and slice of life lifestyle. you can change locations, pronouns and names as you see fit. These prompts and dialogues aim to capture the essence of soft, everyday moments in life, emphasizing the sweetness and warmth of domestic and slice-of-life scenarios!

Prompts (Fluff/Domestic/Slice of Life)

Spending a lazy Sunday morning in bed, reading books side by side.

Baking cookies together and laughing over the mess made in the kitchen.

One character teaching the other how to ice skate on a frozen lake.

Waking up to the sound of birds and the soft sunlight filtering through the curtains.

Doing laundry together and getting into a playful fight with detergent bubbles.

Building a pillow fort in the living room and watching their favorite movie inside.

Decorating the house for the holidays while wearing matching sweaters.

One character surprises the other with breakfast in bed on a random weekday.

Going on a spontaneous road trip, singing along to their favorite songs.

Sharing a quiet moment while stargazing from the rooftop.

Helping each other rearrange the furniture in their new apartment.

One character knits a scarf for the other, who pretends not to know.

Spending a rainy day inside, wrapped up in blankets and drinking hot chocolate.

One character learns to make their partner’s favorite childhood dish.

Attending a family reunion and sneaking away for some alone time.

Taking care of each other when one of them has a cold.

Exploring a farmer’s market together and buying fresh ingredients for dinner.

Sharing a bubble bath after a long day.

Planning and planting a small garden in their backyard.

Going to a pet shelter and debating which puppy or kitten to adopt.

One character surprises the other with a homemade candlelit dinner.

Sitting together in comfortable silence while one of them knits or paints.

Decorating their first Christmas tree together.

Trying to assemble a piece of furniture from scratch and failing miserably.

Dancing together in the kitchen while waiting for food to cook.

One character surprises the other with their favorite childhood board game.

Sitting on the porch, watching the rain fall and sipping tea.

One character falling asleep on the other's lap while watching TV.

Feeding each other bites of dessert in a cozy café.

Preparing for a family gathering and realizing how much they’ve become a part of each other’s lives.

One character tries to teach the other how to play a musical instrument.

Getting lost on a hiking trip and having a fun adventure finding their way back.

Sharing a picnic under a large tree on a sunny afternoon.

Building a snowman together during the first snowfall of the season.

Working on a jigsaw puzzle together late into the night.

One character kisses the other on the forehead before leaving for work.

Shopping for plants together, debating which ones would thrive in their space.

Making up stories about the people they see while people-watching in the park.

One character surprises the other with a weekend getaway to their favorite place.

Watching a thunderstorm from the window, wrapped up in each other’s arms.

Teaching their kids how to bake cookies on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

One character doing the other’s hair in the morning before an event.

Visiting a carnival and winning a prize for each other.

One character waking up to find the other wearing their oversized sweater.

Slow dancing to an old song playing on the radio in their living room.

Having a lazy breakfast together at a small café with outdoor seating.

Playing video games together, getting competitive but still having fun.

One character helps the other prepare for an important presentation at work.

Watching fireworks together from a cozy spot on a hill.

Waking up before sunrise to watch the dawn break together.

Dialogues (Fluff/Domestic/Slice of Life)

"You have flour on your nose... it's cute."

"How did you manage to burn water? Seriously."

"Let’s just stay in bed today. We deserve it."

"I made you coffee exactly how you like it."

"You snore, but it's kind of adorable."

"Can we adopt every dog here? They all deserve love!"

"You made this? It’s perfect. I’m never taking it off."

"You hog all the blankets, but I guess I forgive you."

"I saved you the last slice of pizza. Yes, I love you that much."

"You fell asleep halfway through the movie, but it was cute."

"You do realize that this fort is our new home now, right?"

"Can we stay like this forever?"

"You look perfect in my sweater."

"Every time I see you with our plants, my heart melts."

"You made me breakfast in bed? What did I do to deserve you?"

"Come here, you’ve had a long day. Let me take care of you."

"I found your old photos, and let me tell you, your haircut was something."

"I’ll hold your hand the entire time. Don’t worry."

"Let’s bake cookies and pretend to be professional chefs."

"Why are you hiding? I’m not going to laugh at your dancing… much."

"I’ll teach you how to cook if you promise not to set the kitchen on fire again."

"I can’t believe we’re rearranging furniture at midnight, but it’s kind of fun."

"You look stunning, but I also love you in pajamas and messy hair."

"Let’s just run away for the weekend. We deserve a break."

"I’ll make the hot chocolate if you bring the blankets."

"You’ve got something in your hair. Wait, let me get it."

"We should do this every Sunday: breakfast, blankets, and no responsibilities."

"I can’t stop smiling when I’m with you. It’s kind of ridiculous."

"Your laugh is my favorite sound in the world."

"I made your favorite dinner, just because."

"I know it’s just a lazy day, but it’s my favorite kind of day with you."

"You’re my safe place."

"You bring out the best in me, you know that?"

"Stay still, I’m trying to braid your hair."

"You’re freezing! Here, take my jacket."

"I’m stealing your pillow. It’s more comfortable anyway."

"Why is folding laundry so much more fun when you’re here?"

"I love how we can just exist together."

"It’s raining, so I guess we’ll just have to stay in and cuddle."

"You smell like coffee and home."

"No, I’m not ticklish—okay, maybe just a little!"

"I made you this playlist because every song reminded me of you."

"I love that I can be myself around you."

"I didn’t think it was possible to love someone this much."

"Come cuddle. It’s been a long day without you."

"Let’s go watch the sunrise together."

"You’re the best part of my day."

"I think I could get used to mornings like this."

"You’re a mess, but you’re my mess."

"I’d choose you, every single time."

#roleplay memes #sentence meme #( cali meme. )#rp memes #rp prompt #rp musings #roleplay prompt #◟ ⋆ memes › roleplay sources.

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salford-blues · 9 months ago

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Flowers follow

A/n: Think I might have to switch some things up. I only write smau's. Do you guys reckon I should write actual stories? I've never done it before, but I can certainly try. Pairing: F1 mystery driver x driver!reader Summary: Reader continues to soft launch her mystery man... through flowers?? (basic ass summary cause I'm bobbins at them) Warnings: like one swear word

@yourusername posted on their story

caption: I love you a lily more every day

Replies to story

liamlawson30 disgusting caption. You should be ashamed of yourself

alex_albon I know who it isssss

> yourusername who snitched?

>> alex_albon my lips are sealed

>>> yourusername count your days Albon

user.1 tell us your mystery man... please im begging

landonorris WHO IS YOUR MANNNN?? Why won't you tell me? Are we not besties?

> yourusername because you can't keep secrets to save your life

@yourusername

oscarpiastri, danielricciardo, georgerussell63 & others liked

''April showers may bring May flowers, but you bring me flowers year-round''

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liamlawson30 whats with the corny captions lately

> yourusername you love them bc you love me

>> liamlawson30 no, I tolerate you

>> yourusername meanie :((

User.2 is mystery man Liam??

> User.3 I don't think so. They're just friends. Plus I don't think Liam rides a motorbike

User.4 Look at our girlie goooo!!

User.5 Lord... it's me again 🙏

@f1driverupdates

liamlawson30, mickschumacher & 240,000 others liked

Rumour has it that our golden girl is now off the market. But the question remains... who has taken her? Still in her soft launch era, @yourusername has not shared that much information about her partner.

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user.6 can't believe someones stole my girl

user.7 We can see you Mick... 👀

user.8 Is Mick our mystery man? I men it checks out... tall and rides a motorcycle. Also seems like a person that is very caring to her and her pets

> user.9 omg imagine little Angie added to that madhouse!! So cutteee 🥰

@yourusername

oscarpiastri, logansargeant, landonorris & others liked

In the garden of love, you are my favourite sunflower!! 🌻

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User.8 Love how he gave you crocheted ones so that they last forever

> yourusername he's so sweet!! Especially since they're my favourite flower as well

User.9 Just tell us already... I'm done waiting

liamlawson30 cool story bro, didn't ask

> yourusername rude. I'll make sure to beat your arse in monopoly next games night

>> liamlawson30 😔 noted

@yourusername

mickschumacher, danielricciardo, charles_leclerc & others liked

Guess what I said??

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alex_albon what is this? when was this? Message me back Y/n

liamlawson30 Pick up the phone Y/n!!! I need answers

user.10 noooooooo... we've lost her

user.11 you said no, right?? pls don't join the dark side 🥲

oscarpiastri I hope that's fake

> yourusername maybe it is, maybe it isn't... but hey i still said yessss

>> logansargeant yeah well me and Oscar are gonna have a little word with him when we see him next

>>> liamlawson30 me three

>>>> danielricciardo me four

>>>>> yourusername oh leave him be. You all know he's nice and takes care of me.

landonorris ????

User.12 ignore the last slide... look at the kitty 🐈 😻

> yourusername main character moment for him. He's the only one that likes the rides 🫶

#f1 fanfic #f1 x driver!reader #f1 x female reader #formula 1 x female reader #formula 1 x reader #formula one x reader #f1 imagine

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keravnous · 1 year ago

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wanna go where the girls are young and dumb? ; christoph waltz x fem!reader (smut, 18+)

being c. waltz's sugarbaby - the playlist

Your mother dragged you along to southern France for the summertime. Thus, you are forced to spend your spring break with your stepdad.

warnings: stepdad!christoph, lowkey sugardaddy!christoph, age gap (the reader is in her early 20s, christoph is in his 50s), finally putting my native language to good use, daddy kink, light choking, power play, riding/reverse cowgirl, fingering, pet names, name calling, unprotected sex, slight cumplay and breeding, multiple orgasms, viagra (unrealistic effects), controlling/possessive!christoph, bratty!reader, christoph's a little dark in this so heed the warning, he really just wants to wreck you he's been waiting long enough

translations: Liebes - love; Na, sieh mal einer an wer uns heute noch mit ihrer Anwesenheit beehrt - Well, someone's seen fit to grace us with their presence; Oh, das machen wir aber nicht - Oh, we won't do that, won't we

word count: 11,4k

choosing a gif for this was really just playing what's my favourite waltz era

the title is from the song young & dumb by cigarettes after sex

thank you v for not giving up on me <3

"Na, sieh mal einer an, wer uns heute noch mit ihrer Anwesenheit beehrt. Where have you been?", your stepdad's voice is hard enough to cut steel and you freeze dead in your tracks, white heels dangling from your hand. Well, fuck - so much for sneaking back in quietly.

The huge wooden doors to the living room are opened - and you can see Christoph sitting on the sofa facing the lobby, in the shadows of the room, dimly lit by candles. Your feet are pressing against the polished marble, warm skin on cool stone. It's still hot outside, only a small breeze ruffling the leaves of the trees and rolling in through the opened windows, toying gently with the hem of your nearly see-through, white linen dress.

This place could easily be heaven on earth - the old, 18th century countryside bastide with its lush citrus and olive trees, near a cliff at the water and a sleepy, small town nearby - weren't it for the devil himself.

Your vision zeroes in on him - your mother's boyfriend and soon to be husband - and you try your best to glare into the dim abyss of the barely lit living room.

"Why do you care?", you spit, ready to storm upstairs. You just want some peaceful silence, not whatever the fuck he's on about.

And, like he can sense what you are about to do, like he sees the way your calf-muscles twitch, he says softly: "Don't you dare moving an inch, Liebes." His velvety voice drips with acid honey; a threat in candy-wrappers. A frost descends with his voice, making you shiver.

"I am not -"

"Where have you been?", Christoph asks again, voice menacingly calm. He sounds like he knows.

Like he knows, that you have been out to get laid.

You had met a pretty, young man and shared a few flirtatious looks with him at the farmer's market just yesterday. Your French was sufficient to get the necessities across and thus, he was quick to grasp that you wanted to fuck. Sneaking out of the house around 10 you rode your bike to his place, only to find out that what he had to offer in looks - long, dark, and curly hair and eyes like the ocean - he lacked in experience. He had been clumsy and after he tried to finger you for what seemed to be an eternity of aimless thrusting and unpassionate rubbing, you had told him to fuck off and drove back home. You just want to go upstairs, get yourself off, shower and go to sleep.

But you can't just say that, can you? And thus, you blink, unnerved, hissing: "You are not my fucking father."

You wish you could see his face, see his reaction, but it is hidden by flickering shadows. You decide that tonight's not the night to be the pawn in one of his strange games. Thus, you suck in a deep breath, before eventually sighing: "I am going upstairs. Good night."

"Ah ah ah", he scolds and you can see him taking a drag of his cigarette, the tip of it gleaming before he is exhaling smoke that curls into the air, the thick mist illuminated by the flickering glow of the candles, "Is that a way to speak to the man who keeps you in college?"

"I am not having this conversation right now."

"But I will", he raises his eyebrows and you feel glued to the spot, helpless.

Something prevents you from just leaving. You do not know what it is, but you recall a few encounters in which he had a similar effect on you - where he intimidated you into submission. Another shiver crawls up your spine at the thought.

"Step inside here for a moment, please", and as you don't move, his voice turns cold - like you are in real fucking trouble, "I won't be asking you again."

Making a great show out of your reluctant-ness, you groan, rolling your eyes, before you unwillingly drop your shoes onto the marble. Entering the living room, you sigh audibly, throwing your head back a little in exasperation, coming to a halt only a few steps into the room.

Christoph seems bored by your behaviour, deliberately stomps his cigarette out in the antique ashtray before crossing his arms. He's wearing linen, too - in a fruitless attempt to combat the heat - the first few buttons of his shirt opened. You can see the greying chest hair peeking through from where you are standing, dusted on his skin like silver threads.

You are annoyed - annoyed by the pretty young Frenchman who turned out to be an absolute disastrous disappointment, annoyed by being stuck here in the middle of nowhere, annoyed by the heat, annoyed by Christoph looking at you the way he does, annoyed by the way his strict gaze has your stomach tingling.

Annoyed by how pretty he looks in the golden candle light.

The thought hits you like a chair to the head and you sway a little, hands gripping the edges of the armchair in front of you. You swallow, trying to fight the thought. The light toys with his features, has his eyes gleaming and the grey hair on his temples looking like fluid silver.

You can feel his gaze roaming your body, burning and heavy, as his eyes wander up and down - taking in both, your curves, and your underwear visible through the white linen.

"Come closer."

You do not want to. You want to hide behind the chair, safe from the confusing mind games he likes to play.

But you don't. Instead, like a puppet on his strings, you take two steps forward and into the room, standing there uselessly. Disarmed, your only weapon left is your tongue.

"What the fuck do you want?", it comes out rude, brash. Christoph chuckles, unimpressed. For a second, you two just stare each other - a silent battle of authority and obstreperousness.

"Closer", is all he says, with the steadiness of a victory.

"I don't have time for this", your voice breaks, irritated and a little unsteady around the edges. Christoph looks at you, unfazed but something small changes. It's in his eyes, something that grows stern and unrelenting. If your little display of brattiness a few minutes earlier was a joke to him, your behaviour now was an insult.

And thus, a little intimidated by him, you comply, carefully taking a few steps forward until only a couple long strides part the two of you.

It does not seem to satisfy him.

"Closer."

You furrow your brows and close the gap, mere inches between your and his knee. He looks up at you, eyes cold.

"That's it. Sit", you blink dumbly as Christoph pats his thigh, his tone light in an odd, uncanny contrast to the way he looks at you.

Alright, no. Absolutely not.

You aren't sure if he's joking. It must be a sick joke. Maybe he finds it funny: his adult stepdaughter sitting on his lap. You do not move.

You are certain, he will break any second - for Christ's sake, he's an actor - he's just joking. He will break. His lips will curl up any second now --

Looking at his serious face, stern gaze boring deep deep into your soul, you grow certain that he is indeed serious. Very serious.

You gulp. "I am not doing this. This is so fucking inappropriate."

"And I am not discussing this. Sit."

God knows, Christoph isn't - never was - very patient. And you can feel it, too; he oozes with it, the way his gaze grows cold as ice and you nearly stumble over your own feet as your body gives in. He is fucking intimidating, especially when the façade of the European gentleman crumbles, drops, like it does right now - leaves you wondering, what he is capable of. And you do not want to find out. Thus, your brain barely has enough time to fight it or to reason with you, you step closer and sink down on his lap. You legs dangle over his left knee while you avoid his gaze.

Let's get this fucking over with then.

"There you go, that wasn't so hard, now, was it?"

"N-no", you shake your head, feeling the heat of his body radiating through both of your linen clothes. It should feel odd, and maybe it does just a little, sitting on your fucking stepfather's lap like this, but -- it also doesn't feel that bad. It is strangely comforting, with his rich, warm scent now wrapping you in. You have always liked his perfume - a subtle wooden scent, of vetiver and a subtle splash of mint. Sublime, sophisticated.

One of his slender, large hands wraps around your hips, holds you in place, the other gently takes your hand, fingers brushing over yours.

"I -- where's my mother?", you hold onto it like a lifeline.

"Asleep." And there it goes - the lifeline slips out of your hands and you drown in the dark, deep sea that is his presence, all light out of reach as you sink deeper, nothing else remaining but him. Still, you can't help but notice that his voice sounds cold, distant, and you wonder why.

You recall something your mother had told you just days before the flight to southern France. Her voice echoes in your skull as you remember sitting in her spacious living room, picking out a few dresses for her to wear on vacation. "He's not even touching me anymore, honey, I don't know -" - "Ew, Mom! I don't wanna know, my god!"

You wonder, if their little paradise is already crumbling, turning ugly around the edges, and a part of you wishes for it to be true. You want him gone. But there's also a small voice in the back of your head that panics at the thought. You like your life like this - you can't deny the fact that he keeps you afloat financially, that whatever you want or need - you don't even have to ask for it, he just buys it. Like it's nothing. It's comfortable and easy and you would most likely miss it.

No - you are certain you would. Life's never been that easy for you.

It's fucked up, really. You still remember meeting him, and in the beginning, you got along just fine. Blimey, even.

Getting to know him started off well. Your mother had met him at the theatre while he had been working there and despite her being shy around him, he quickly convinced her to Just try it. The first time you had met Christoph in person was at a dinner at your mother's place during Christmas break and he had been so charming, so soft and well-spoken that he had made you feel right at ease, even though you were sitting across someone so familiar with the limelight and the high society of Hollywood.

It had been nice. You found out that he was recently divorced, with children around your age. You told him about college and your future goals. It had been homely and down to earth, just nice.

And thus, you didn't think much of it as last year's spring break rolled around, returning to your childhood and now their part time-shared Los Angeles home, as he was knocking on the door of your old teenage bedroom. "It's just a little something I got you - a special gift for my new stepdaughter, perhaps? The sale's lady said it would be - quite fitting - for a young woman your age." And Christoph had been so so charming that you didn't think much of it, as you unwrapped the large box.

Inside had been a set of lingerie, made of fine, white lace with frills. The soft fabric had felt and looked expensive and you had gasped - the set so pretty that for a short while, you had forgotten how inappropriate it was for him to gift you such things.

As you finally, after returning to your dorm and showing the gift to your roommate ("Girl, that's just creepy."), came to realize just how wrong it was, a sleek beige box awaited you on your bed one night in the dorm as you returned from your classes. Inside had been a Chanel dress, all pale-pink, flowers and bows ("Shit, that one's kind of pretty").

Christoph had kept sending you gifts: jewellery, dresses, lingerie. You dutifully called every single time and thanked him and he usually only chuckled, stating that it was nothing. You know you should have told your mother. It felt off and you knew that it was, too.

But you just didn't.

Unbeknownst to you, he was testing the waters. Every time you'd see him from then on, he would put you through agonizingly long inquiries about what you did on campus, who you were seeing. He would make it painfully obvious that he was checking your credit card billings and whenever there was something out of the ordinary, he would bring it up casually in the following conversation.

You remember going out with some guy from your lecture, meeting at a place you had never been at before. The date had gone horrible and to not lead him on, you had paid for yourself - even though he insisted otherwise. Christoph had enjoyed seeing you squirm, bathed in your shame and uneasiness, as he asked you if the drinks were as horrible as he believed them to be.

That's when the tables kind of turned. You figured that he was just a rich and controlling asshole that had barged into your life, had belittled you and had ruined your fucking peace. Maybe he was an award-winning actor but to you, that didn't matter.

You were fucking glad, that he kept the relationship to you mother out of the public eye. You didn't even want to imagine the media attention. You didn't even want to imagine what he had to say about you - "My stepdaughter? Oh, she's just whoring about, that unthankful little girl, don't you worry about her."

His mellow voice rips you out of your memory. "So, what are we doing about you breaking my rules tonight?"

You nearly burst out a laugh - you are in your twenties; you are allowed to do whatever the fuck you want. His made up, bullshit rules do not apply to you - quite frankly, up until now, they did not even fucking exist to you. He never told you there were any in the first place.

Not that you would have cared, anyways.

"You have no authority over me", you say, but doesn't come out half as cool as you wanted it to. Christoph's lips curls into a smile, gaze wandering over your face. His fingers brush over yours and then he leans in, voice low:

"We both know, that is not what this is about."

Something in your stomach tingles and you want to rip it out with both hands. "What-", you whisper, seriously confused.

"I have seen what little - well, shall we call them movies, darling? - you watch when you're alone", he purrs and then smiles, all dimples and small lines around his eyes, flashes his white teeth at you. A shiver runs down your spine.

You blink dumbly. What? Jesus Christ, please no - oh no. Oh shit.

Mortification burns high on your cheeks; your skin grows warm and red with it. You immediately know what he's talking about and his invasion of your privacy has your head swimming.

"You checked my fucking browser history?", you blurt out.

"Checked", he huffs, seemingly amused, "If you leave your phone laying around unlocked--" Christoph shrugs, gestures helplessly as if he's trying to justify eating ownerless chocolates.

You can feel your gut sinking. "Y-you--", you can't help but wonder how much he's seen, what exactly he's seen. You can't help your mind from wandering there - wandering to what he thought, if he liked what he saw. Stop it, fucking stop it.

"I--?", Christoph smiles smugly, raising an eyebrow.

You wonder if he saw the countless videos of older men fucking younger women, making them beg and cry, teaching them manners. You remember one porn you have watched plenty of times - the one of a greying man tossing a young woman around, ripping her underwear apart, slapping her face and tits and railing her until she was crying, gripping her hair and spitting in her face.

You remember how deep you had plunged your fingers into your tight cunt, squeezing around them at the thought of an eloquent and handsome older man railing you until you couldn't walk, having his way with you for his pleasure, and his alone. Every single time you watched that one porn you came hard, harder than the time before, draining your sheets with your squirt until it ran down your legs. As fucked up as it is, just the memory of it has your pussy aching right in this moment, wetness pooling between your legs.

Shame crawls up your spine at the thought that he knows - that he has seen the frequency of it popping up in your browsing history. Maybe he had even clicked on it, watched it a little, indulged in your secret little fantasy. The thought has your cheeks burning red with humiliation, but there's also something else, something primal clawing at your insides, making your lower stomach tingle.

"This is none of your business", your voice is small and quiet, your eyes avoiding his drilling gaze.

"Oh, but what if it is?", Christoph's eyes gleam mischievously.

"Excuse me?", you blurt out, heart racing in your chest.

"Mh well", he weighs his head from one side to the other a little, as if he's carefully considering a thought, "You know, if you wanted what you saw in those little movies you could've just asked me?"

He says it so nonchalantly, as if he's talking about buying some milk. You blink, completely speechless.

"Do you want to know why? Why you could've just asked me?", and you nod, head swimming a little, "Because I do not want some dirt-poor, hicktown-boy touching what is mine."

Your breath hitches, and he shrugs. "There's no need for you to compensate your fantasies elsewhere any longer, Liebes, hm?", his voice is soft, dark and deep, like soft silk wrapping you in, "I can give you exactly what you crave."

It feels like your brain has just blown a fuse, blinking at him dumbly. His lips tilt up, one of his hands brushing over your knee. "You just have to say it, darling. Just say the word", and you feel like drowning in the grey sky of his eyes, loins tingling, "I can make you feel good, better than the young men can."

You swallow, excitement bubbling up in your stomach, hitching your breath. It's not like you haven't thought about it, about him - the memory buried deep, deep in the darkest corner of your brain.

You should say no. This is not okay, it will hurt your mother. It's not right. It is inappropriate, at best.

But you are also so fucking horny still, your whole body aching for a touch and the way he looks at you - your fucking stepdad who's a full-blown, silvery 30 years older than you - has tingles spreading through your limbs, fire spreading in your loins. Fuck it.

"Y-yes", you whisper instead of doing the right thing - the spirit willing but the flesh weak -,"Yes, please."

And then, he leans in.

Christoph's kiss is soft and firm, and goosebumps roll over your skin at the thought that it doesn't feel foreign or odd, like if it isn't the first time, he kissed you. It feels a lot like coming home, returning to a familiar touch - it's the way he grabs your waist, mostly, like he just knows how to touch you.

His hand brushes over the small of your back, tips gently stroking your warm skin through your dress, before snaking around your waist and pulling you closer - just as his tongue brushes over your lower lip. The other crawls up your leg, grabs the flesh of your thigh, gropes you and feels you up.

You part your lips obediently, letting Christoph's tongue slip past, brushing over yours. He tastes like cigarettes and liquor and you inhale deeply through your nose - his scent wafting around you, rich, and deep, and sophisticated.

One of your hands comes up, cups his cheek, and pulls him closer. You have never been kissed like this before, never with so much verve, so much lust. He kisses like only a man his age does, like he has tasted a hundred women, but decided you tasted best.

The hand on your leg sneaks higher, and you spread your legs needily, allowing it to slip past and between your thighs. Christoph wastes no time, his index-finger pressing against your pussy, gently rubbing it along your panty-clad folds. You are wet already; the fabric damp and you can feel your loins going up in flames as he rubs you through the thin lace.

Christoph eventually breaks the kiss, has you panting against his mouth, his lips curl up in a smug smile. His fingers dance of your cunt, gently circling your clit through your lace string. "Those boys never treat you right, do they?", he is right, he always is, has you gasping quietly, rocking your hips against his digits, "Only I get to touch you, from now on. Do you understand?"

And you nod, mind already a little hazy, nothing more important than the pulling in your stomach and the wetness between your legs. "Yes", you sigh, leaning into his touch.

"Yes --? You will address me properly", his other hand grabs your chin, "That's certainly not hard to do, now, is it?"

You swallow, your cheeks turning red once more as he digs deep into your fantasies. "Yes, Daddy", you say quietly, the word heavy on your tongue, fresh arousal flooding your cunt.

Christoph hums, visibly satisfied, thumb caressing your jaw and a soft gaze wandering over your face, takes you in, before it grows cold again, as he pulls his hands away.

"Let Daddy see what's his, then", and you follow his stern command.

Hooking your legs over his thighs you practically present yourself to him, the soft velvet cushions pressing against your calves as your back sinks against his chest - the soft material of your dress pooling between your spread legs. Christoph's hands roam over your body - from your hips up up up, brush over your stomach and then cup your tits through your flowy linen dress. His grip is firm and he squeezes them a little, making them spill out of your bra.

You gasp, looking down at his hands and watching the way they fondle your tits, pulling the hem of your dress down and hooks the fabric underneath your breasts. Being so lewdly exposed to him, reduced to being a pretty object to admire and to fondle with, has your head swimming, sparks shooting down your thighs.

"I'll show you off, hm, my pretty little girl? What do you think?", he whispers, one of his slender, large hands cupping your left tit and twisting your nipple between his fingers, "Taking you with me everywhere, let everyone see just how beautiful you are." You gasp, nodding frantically at the thought of being his pretty and expensive little arm-candy - all dolled up and looking pretty for him on the red carpet, adorned in shining jewellery and flowing dresses.

"Let's take this off, shall we?", Christoph tugs at the linen dress and helps you out of it, tosses it to the ground carelessly. You can feel his gaze roaming over your body as he looks over your shoulder, feel heat creeping up your cheeks as you suddenly realize that you wearing one of the lingerie sets, he had gifted you a couple of weeks ago.

A low growl leaves his throat, has the hairs on your arms standing up. "Have you been wearing this for him?", he sing-songs catatonically, his index finger hooks underneath the strap of your string, lets it snap back against your skin.

You have, but it makes you feel stupid now. Childish. Like you have done something laughable. Shame bubbles in your stomach and you feel the urgent need to explain yourself to him: "Y-yes, but--"

"Sh, be quiet", Christoph says softly, his hands casually making quick work of your bra, unclasping it, pulling the strings down your arms, and tossing it into the darkness of the room, "It's fine. You didn't know any better, did you, Liebes?"

"N-no, I didn't", you squeal, the cool air brushing over your hardened nipples, making you shiver while his hands run down your body.

"And do you think, it's fair that he gets to see you all dolled-up like this? In something I have bought you?"

Your teeth catch your lower lip as you shake your head. "Right", his thumb brushes over the strap of your lace string, "And why is that?"

You swallow. You know what Christoph wants to hear and you might just be very willing to give it to him. "Because I belong to you", you say quietly, your stomach fluttering after the words left your mouth.

"That's right", his thumb toys with the lace trimming of the string, "You always have, haven't you?"

You blink. "Huh?"

"Don't be stupid, now."

"I -- I don't-", and he tsks at your aimless stuttering.

"My pretty little airhead", Christoph coos, "Why do you think I bagged your mother?", and suddenly - it clicks. Like a heavy lock falling shut.

You remember the first day of rehearsal at the theatre. It had been his first day there and you had driven your mother, who was responsible for the stage designs, to work since she still had a broken thumb from working on the furniture and was pumped up on painkillers. Saying your goodbyes, you had been seeing him standing a few feet away, smiling at the two of you. You had paid it no mind - especially later, since he ended up going out with your mother. But he hadn't been smiling over the situation, he had been smiling at you. You. Not your mom.

The realization hits you like a freight train, leaves you breathless. "I always get what I want."

"Oh", you make dumbly, mouth agape a little, while his fingers dance over your panty-clad pussy.

"You are just a dumb little baby, aren't you?", for a split second his hand leaves you, only to come down rather hard, as he gives your cunt a firm slap, "I think, I might have to fuck some sense into you."

You squeal, a sharp gasp escaping your lips but you can't help it, as you feel fresh wetness pooling between your legs, rocking your hips against the palm of his hand. "Yeah, I thought so", he sounds rather pleased, lips brushing over the shell of your ear, "Nothing more on your dumb little brain than getting off, hm?"

"Y-yes", you croak, flinching as he strikes your aching cunt another time, moaning sweetly, "Daddy - fuck - p-please!"

"I know just how you feel", his other hand grabs your tit roughly, gropes you, pinching your nipple, "You made Daddy jack off to you so often, princess. Can't wait to see if you're really that tight."

And with that, he unceremoniously pulls your string to the side and you sigh, as your plush and hot skin gets exposed to the cool air.

One of his fingers immediately brushes over your slick folds, and you can hear him hum, a low sound that ignites your lust, has you gasping softly.

"Mh, so wet already, aren't you?", you are, you can hear it. You can hear your juices squelching as his finger runs up and down your cunt, circling your hole and giving your clit the slightest bit of stimulation. Your whole body tingles with it, and you look down, watch him exploring your wet pussy. And maybe, just maybe, you have thought about this, too - with your vibrator pressed snugly against your clit and fingers plunged deep in your cunt - maybe, the thought of him had been flashing through your mind, made you cum at least once.

Christoph's lips brush over your neck, goosebumps spreading over your skin, his free hand wrapping around one of yours. "C'mere, let me show you how wet you are for your Daddy, princess."

And you moan quietly, as he guides your hand between your legs, runs your fingers through your folds. You are incredibly wet, wetter than you have ever been and you gasp at the sensation as his hand guides your fingers through your slick. It's thick and watery and warm and your mouth falls agape at just how much there is of it. It drips down your cojoined fingers, that glide along your folds easily, runs over the palm of Christoph's hand and over his wrist.

"I have never seen a cunt wetter than yours", he whispers and you mewl, gaze dropping down between your legs, watching him guiding your fingers over your pussy. The grip on your fingers is firm and his movements come to a halt, as your digits brush right over your clit. Your breath audibly hatches and you mewl, the slightest bit of stimulation already having you begging for more.

Christoph grins against your warm skin, teeth brushing over the soft flesh. He knows that you had had sex before - he has seen the messages you sent to your roommate about the boys from class, about the one with the pretty blonde hair - but he can't help but notice how you turn into puddy in his hands, like you have never been touched before. Like a fucking virgin. It makes his blood boil, dick straining against his trousers, wanting to see you come apart under the touch of his hands. He wants to see you go insane on his cock, until there is nothing else left but him - all your flings from college washed from your mind - a clean slate for him to claim, ruin.

"Are you always that needy? I don't even want to think about how poorly he must've touched you", Christoph mumbles against your neck, tongue darting out, licking a wet stripe over your warm skin before moving his fingers along with yours, rubbing slow and wide circles over your clit, "I bet it was downright pathetic."

Your hips buck and you gasp, eyelids fluttering. "Oh god, yes", you breathe, feeling your own wetness beneath your fingertips, and the lust sparking in your loins like a wildfire, "Yes, it was."

The way Christoph touches you is just so so different from what you experienced earlier - his slender fingers move yours skilfully, rubbing your clit like he just knows how you like it, like he's done it a hundred times before. You sink back against him, and he gently removes your hand from your cunt, places it onto your thigh instead - lips brushing and sucking on the back of your neck. "Let me show you how good I can make you feel, darling", he hums, "Let me show you how a real man can make you feel."

And with that, he unceremoniously pulls the lace of your string apart, riiips it cleanly in two, lets the fabric fall to the floor, before spreading your legs further. His fingers dance over your cunt, gliding through your slick, before two of them dive back in on your clit. Rubbing wide, slow circles he has you gasping within seconds, watching his digits working you with your mouth agape - your hole clenches around nothing, hips bucking.

"Does that feel good, princess?", he sounds so so smug, like he knows that it does. You can feel your loins catching fire, slowly rolling your hips against his fingers.

"Y-yes, fuck yes", you huff, moaning quietly.

Christoph's finger delves deeper and circles your hole, has it fluttering under his touch, before he carefully pushes it in. You gasp, and he chuckles, feels the way your walls clench around him.

"You're so tight, princess", he pushes his finger in completely, curls it a little and you moan as it brushes over the spot that usually has you seeing stars - before he starts to move it slowly, agonizingly even, rubs your walls and feels you squeezing him.

Christoph can't wait to fuck you, to get his dick wet, feels himself growing even harder in his slacks at the thought. He has been thinking about it for so long, that touching you makes him a little dizzy, and it needs a whole lot of willpower not to throw you off his lap and push you into the cushions, ass up, pounding into you until you're a drooling, crying mess.

He really wants - needs - to take it slow, get a taste of every single second, make it last as long as he possibly can. He will make you beg for it, drunk with it; drunk with the way he is going to fuck you until you see stars, until there is nothing left on your mind but him and his dick pounding into you, his hands on your body. He had already made you dependant on him financially, and now, finally, he will own your body and its countless pleasures, too.

Christoph smiles to himself, all crinkled crow's feet, and white teeth, as you roll your hips against his finger, desperately adding some more friction. He loves giving it to you: pulls his finger out of you, only to push two back in, stretching your hole out a little. You are so fucking tight around his digits; he can feel the ring of muscles clutching and straining against his fingers. "No one's ever fucked you real good, Liebes, I can tell."

He shoves his fingers deeply into your cunt, gives you a short moment to assess to the feeling, before moving them slowly, fucking your slick in and out of you. First, your hips tremble and then you squirt, moaning deeply, wetness splashing against the palm of Christoph's hand. Gasping, you watch his other hand crawling between your legs, his index-finger slowly circling your clit.

Pleasure shoots through your body and you moan, goosebumps spreading over your body, your heartbeat rattling with lust. "Fuck", you gasp, head lolling back onto his shoulder.

With his lips ghosting over your strained neck, Christoph gently speeds up, harvests the desperate whines and gasps falling from your lips as he pushes his fingers in and out of you.

You feel like you do not even have to tell him what you want, what you like - it is like he hasn't only dug deep into your browser history, but also your brain - like he just knows which switch to flip, how to touch you and how to rile you up with a deadly precision. It also feels oddly familiar - his touch, his smell, your body pressing against his with lust and a thin layer of sweat - like he has known your body for years, like he had fingered and touched you a hundred times before.

And thus, you do not even have to vocalize it, that you need more, need it harder - he just knows, reads you like an opened book or a fucking road sign. Christoph starts to fuck you quickly, his fingers pushing your cream in and out of you, pussy gushing around his digits. Your hand flies to his wrist, clutches it tightly, as you moan and sigh, desperate of any sort of leverage.

The way he fingers you feels so fucking good and you wish it would never end, but you can already feel your muscles clenching and then his other hand starts to rub your clit hard, two slender fingers circling it quickly and you gasp, mewl.

"D-daddy", you shriek, walls clutching around his fingers rapidly as you feel your orgasm approaching quicker than any time before, "I-- I'm gonna-"

"Go ahead", he sounds amused, and the humiliation that floods you at his tone has your orgasm rolling over you, coming loose around his fingers on his command.

Shudders roll over your body as you cum, pathetic whimpers leaving your mouth while Christoph fucks you through your climax, fingers circling your clit and making you squirt against his digits. You are slowly coming back down to earth, a soft smile tugging at the corners of your mouth, before you moan, throwing your head back while you rock down on his long fingers, riding out your orgasm. Your juices squelch around his fingers as he rubs them along your walls, your squirt wet the sofa's cushions beneath. You can feel your slick running down your legs, and you gasp.

"There you go", Christoph coos, lips brushing over your exposed shoulder, his other hand still on your throat, thumb brushing over your jaw, "Doesn't that just feel wonderful, angel?"

You nod, a breathless Yes, Daddy escaping your lips - and you are just so turned on, fire in your loins and fresh wetness pooling between your legs, that you can't help it. You continue to roll your hips onto his fingers despite the last remains of your orgasm still rolling over you, gently and slowly rocking down, meeting the equally gentle thrusts of his fingers. Your cunt squelches as you squirt against the palm of his hand.

Christoph whistles lowly, pulls his fingers out of you - leaving you a whimpering mess - takes a good, long look at them in the dim, golden candle light. They glisten with your juices and he considers shoving them into your mouth for a moment, but the way you roll your hips onto him with your ass rubbing over his bulge, is fucking distracting, has him stalling.

"Oh fuck", you gasp, your head falling back on his shoulder, "Oh god, please, 'stoph, please please -"

"Oho", he chuckles smugly, "Still needy, little girl?"

You are. Your cunt aches, like you haven't just cum and made a mess out of the sofa beneath, but you feel so so empty. You need more. You need -

"N-need your cock, please! Daddy, please--", you roll your hips on his crotch, feeling his hard dick pressing against the soft linen, hot and heavy. He feels big against your wet and aching cunt, leaving stains on his expensive slacks, and you can't fucking wait to feel it inside of you.

Christoph grabs your hips hard, stalling your movement and pressing your slick pussy against his bulge. You can feel his hard cock twitching while you stain and wet the fabric and you moan, needily, while his tongue and lips graze over your shoulder, lapping at the soft skin.

And then, he suddenly buries his teeth in your shoulder - gentle but still hard enough to leave a mark - makes you gasp and sob, before he is licking over the bruised and red skin. Christoph's lips move up up up, over your neck, sucking and kissing. His tongue dances over the shell of your ear, his voice nothing but a deep rumble: "I can't wait to fuck you, darling. Been thinking about it a lot, I just can't get enough of you."

Your breath hitches, and you look over your shoulder, your gaze meeting his unrelenting one. "Please", you say quietly, his grey eyes boring into you, "Do it."

And then Christoph leans in, locks his lips with yours once more, licking into your mouth, while one of his hands wanders down, opens the fly of his pants. He is getting impatient now and you are, too, one of your hands joining his and pulling the hem of his boxers down. He is panting into your mouth, against your lips and your hand wraps around his cock, all hot and hard, gives it a few experimental strokes.

You wonder if he will fuck you like he kisses you; like he is going to swallow you whole, like he is never going to let you go again, with the way his nose digs into your cheek and his hands hold you close while his tongue explores your mouth in between open-mouthed kisses full of panting and groaning, leaving your lips plump and plush. You want him to fuck you like that - until there is nothing left but him.

His dick is bigger than you thought, long and just the right girth and you have trouble closing your hand around it fully. The way you stroke him, despite the angle being a little clumsy with your body in the way, has Christoph groaning into your mouth, licking your tongue, and gripping your waist, his other hand dipping back between your legs.

Your pussy is soaked, and he spreads your slick over the hot, plush skin - so responsive from your previous orgasm, that you gasp and moan against his lips, and he catches your lower lip, gently bites, and nibbles at it. Your hand massages his dick, your thumb occasionally flicking over its tip, smearing the drops of precum pooling beneath your digits. Eventually, Christoph is parting from you, cheeks blushed a little and pupils blown wide, swats your hands away. His voice is deep and dark, nothing but a low and soft whisper, that has the hairs on your body standing up as he addresses you again: "You fucking slut."

And that, that has you moaning. You never thought you'd hear such things from him, but the way his eyes grow dark and his voice rumbles in his chest you are certain, that something primal has kicked in his inner doors and makes itself comfortable. "First, you dress up like a whore for a hicktown-boy and now, all I have to do is to give you a cock and you're gone so quickly you won't even let go of it, eh?"

"It's jus'so big, Daddy, feels so good", you slur, already a little gone, trying to get your hands onto him once more. He tuts at you, shakes his head a little. "You'll get it back, sunshine, don't you worry."

Christoph grabs his dick with one hand - the other arm wraps around your frame and adjusts you in his lap, your naked, shivering body resting against his expensive linen - and presses it against your seeping hot cunt. The feeling alone makes your loins tingle, has you spreading your legs further.

You gasp, needy for him to finally fuck you, finally shove his cock into you. "Please, Daddy--", you whine, rolling your hips against his dick, wetting it with your juices.

"Been teasing me for so long", he sounds unnerved while thinking about it, his cock twitches against your hot cunt, "Did that get you off?"

"N-no", you mewl honestly, because you didn't, you did not know what you were doing to him. You feel guilty, wanting to make it right - to finally be good for him.

"Bet it did", he hums, not listening to you, "I will have to teach you some manners, one day."

Shivers tingle on your arms, run down your body and you nod, the promise of a punishment lingering in the air, your hole clenching around nothing at the mere thought of it. You need him - now. Need him to stuff your cunt, fuck you until you are a drooling mess, not a single thought remaining. "Daddy, please, just-"

"You know, I have kids your age", Christoph is slowly rubbing his cock along your cunt, the tip of it nudging against your clit, making you shiver and whimper. The complete and utter filth that leaves his mouth has you squirming on his lap, his tone - smug and calculating - makes him sound nearly proud that he's bagging someone as young and pretty like you. You can feel some fresh wetness spreading between your folds, warm and sticky, as he rubs his precum through them, eventually presses the thick tip against your waiting hole.

Christoph knows that you usually only let someone fuck you with a condom on, he has seen your contraception laying around in your room but he will make sure that tonight's a little different - he'll claim you, pump you full of his cum and make you remember the way it will mingle with your own juices.

Expecting you to protest as he finally pushes in without one on, he is genuinely surprised as you don't; instead, your hole flutters open, invites him in deeply, accompanied by the sweetest, softest, high-pitched moan he may have ever heard. The second your hot walls close around his dick, squeezing him tightly with your hole stretching around his thick cock, his face comes loose.

You can hear Christoph exhale deeply, a pleased and satisfied sound, his eyes falling shut and face growing soft as he relishes in the feeling of your throbbing, wet cunt. His dick isn't only bigger than you thought, it fucking feels like it, too. The thick head presses snugly against your cervix, while your hole stretches around its base, walls pressed against it, feeling his cock throb.

"Ah, that's it", he sighs quietly, hands gently rubbing your hips.

"'S good?", you slur, already a little out of it but wanting to be good for him, good for your Daddy.

"Better than I have ever dared to dream, darling", one of his hands brushes over your thigh, caresses the warm skin.

You sigh with the praise, hole clenching around the thick base of his cock while it stretches you out. "Y'feel so good, Daddy", you mumble, looking down to where his dick vanishes inside of you, has your cunt spread on it.

"That's my polite little girl", Christoph's hand brushes over your stomach, up up up and cups your right tit, gives it a firm squeeze.

"Why don't you start moving, sunshine? Make sure it will keep feeling good for me, hm?", he suggests, silky voice dripping with honey, and he lets go of a ragged breath as you do. Rolling your hips experimentally once, feeling his cock moving inside of you, and you quiver. It gently prods against your cervix with every moment, making you mewl and gasp.

Starting off slowly, you raise your hips and then move them back down carefully, feeling Christoph's cock stretching you out, rubbing along your walls. His hands brush over your thighs, your waist. "There you go, darling", he croons, lips brushing over your shoulders, "Keep going, make me feel good."

And you really want to - thus, you grow braver, lifting your hips and sinking back down quicker, rolling them on his cock. He groans, throaty and deep, hands digging into your thighs. You start to ride his dick, fucking yourself back onto him quickly, hands darting out to his knees, desperate for any sort of leverage as you lift your hips and sink back down.

Moaning, you throw your head back as your body sacks forward a little, back arched and Christoph gives your exposed ass a firm slap, before his hand snakes around your body, closes in around your throat. "Upright, girl", he scolds, has you gasping and straightening back up immediately. The hand does not vanish, instead, it adds pressure to your delicate neck, pressing your windpipe shut. Your hips stutter and your eyes widen, right before pleasure shoots through your body, hot waves of lust making you squirt against his cock. Your thighs clench, knees darting together. "Keep them open for me, baby girl", he huffs, his free hand darting between your thighs, grabbing your left and forcefully spreading your legs in the process.

Christoph's hand lets go of your throat, now laying gently against your soft skin instead and thus, keeping your upright on his lap, back arched. "Oh", you gasp, so fucking turned on, you might combust on the spot, "Oh, fuck -- Daddy!"

The hand on your thigh gropes you lightly, thumb brushing over your skin gently. You move up and down on his cock, cunt throbbing and walls squeezing him occasionally, while the tip of his dick prods against your cervix. The way Christoph's cock splits you open, rubs along your walls is delicious, has you gasping and whining.

"Mhm, don't you just look pretty, bouncing on your Daddy's cock like that?", the hand around your throat clutches once more and you moan, high pitched and whiny, hips bucking.

The lack of oxygen has your walls clenching around his dick as you rock down on it, hands desperately grabbing the linen of his slacks. The stretch in your back is deliciously painful, the hand on your throat adding to it.

Feeling your orgasm approaching slowly, you speed up a little more, the sounds of your slick skin hitting his cock filling your room, mingling with his groans and your whines. "There you go, sunshine", Christoph's praise is sweet and soft as you speed up a little more, rolling your hips up and down up and down, hands clutching the linen of his slacks, while you fuck yourself back onto his dick. You can feel your heart pounding in your throat, you can taste your arousal on the tip of your tongue, hear your blood singing with it.

With your cunt squeezing him, practically milking his cock as you rock down it, Christoph can't help but wanting more. The hand on your thigh sneaks between your legs, and he feels you shivering in his lap as his index-finger brushes against your clit. Your gasps are sweet and turn into dirty, wanton moans quickly as he starts to circle your clit with it and Jesus fucking Christ - he wishes he could hear it every day, when he wakes up, when he goes to bed, wishes he could just do nothing all day, only play with you, and make you cum over and over and over again. The way you roll your hips and fuck yourself onto his dick becomes more erratic, desperate and a little clumsy and his lips curl up - he just knows you're close.

"That's a good girl", Christoph coos, voice rough and deep, "Cum on my cock. Be a good girl and cum for me."

Adding pressure to your windpipe once more, he presses the hand around your throat down hard. Your hips buck wildly at the sudden lack of oxygen, lust shooting through your veins, while his finger rubs over your clit fast, in rhythm with the thrusts of your hips. You can feel your walls clenching heavily around his dick and then you cum, your orgasm hitting you with such force, that all you can do is gasp loudly. Any sound and thought is wiped from your body as your cunt squeezes his cock, pussy clenching and legs trembling, hips stuttering as you squirt and squirt, your cream gushing against his dick.

Christoph continues to fuck you through it, moaning quietly while you milk his cock, one arm wrapping around your waist and keeping you in place, the other slooowly letting go of your throat. You suck in desperate breaths, your senses slowly returning and you moan, high-pitched and sweetly, as you feel his dick pulsating inside of you.

"Yeah, just like that, sunshine", he groans, while he fucks you through your orgasm, cock twitching inside of you and shooting hot ropes of cum into your hole, painting your walls white, "Such a good girl, taking it all."

Humming with his praise, you spread your legs wide over his lap, letting his dick in a little deeper, welcoming his cum home. His free hand roams your inner thigh, gropes you gently, while he huffs and groans into your ear - the low sound making you shiver. You relish in the feeling of his warm body beneath you, feeling pumped full by his cum and his hands all over you, while your body grows a little sore, your pussy becoming plush and plump.

His dick is still buried inside of you, hard and hot and heavy. You feel so so full, with his cock preventing his cum from leaking out, only a few drops run out of your hole lazily, drip down his balls and onto the sofa. His cock doesn't seem to go noticeably flaccid, having you gasp and moan with the sensation, relishing in the feeling of him filling you up to the brim. You want to ask why he's still hard, but the question becomes obsolete as your gaze flickers to the coffee table. There's a blister of pills there, one cavity empty. The pills are blue.

Christoph's thumb rubs along your chin, catches on your lower lip. "Surprised, angel?", and you nod, only a dumb Uh-huh leaving your throat and he snickers at the sound, pushes his thumb into your mouth. Immediately, like you are fucking programmed to, you start sucking on it, pussy clenching around his hardening cock.

"Oh, my pretty baby, fucked your brains out already? And I am not even done yet", he sounds genuinely amused while his other hand brushes over your inner thigh and your skin and the nerves below are so so responsive to his touch, has you squirming in his lap and on his cock, mewling. It makes him groan, a low sound, vibrating deep in his throat.

"I have been waiting so long for this", he husks, "I didn't want for it to end too quickly, hm?"

You can feel him growing back to full size inside of you, within mere minutes. It feels nice, nice being so full and you are so far gone in that thickly sweet daze that you don't even think once, as you roll your hips lazily - once, twice - while his hands roam over your body, your lower belly, your waist, groping your tits.

Christoph touches you with a righteousness, like you belong to him, like he owns you. Like there's no one else but you.

But you know that's not true. You know that upstairs your mother is fast asleep, and that on her nightstand lays an expensive engagement ring with a huge-ass diamond. If you weren't so fucked out of your mind, you'd care and you'd wonder if this is a one-time thing.

As if he can read your thoughts, he says: "Don't you worry your pretty little head, princess. I won't marry her anymore - it's only you darling, always been."

And you sigh, his sweet talk wrapping you in as he pushes his hips upwards once, buries himself deep into your cunt, hits your cervix. You look over your shoulder, and your gazes meet.

One of his hands comes up, rests on your cheek while he starts to fuck you slowly, softly pants with the way his dick slips in and out of you. "Oh, my sweet baby", Christoph coos while you are hissing quietly as his cock brushes over your overstimulated walls, spreads your tight and aching hole, your hand clutching his wrist.

"Daddy, i-it's too much", you mewl and he pouts at you playfully, shakes his head.

"No, it isn't, is it? You can take it", his thumb caresses your cheek, gives you a sweet peck on the lips, "Be a good girl and take it. You can give me one more."

But you physically can't, and neither does your pussy, walls tightening around him, pushing against his hard dick. "Oh, das machen wir aber nicht, hm?", Christoph scolds, his other hand diving back between your spread legs, two fingers gently circling your clit. You hum, body immediately relaxing, and within a few moments the dull pain of him assaulting your used hole vanishes in thin air, sharp gasps escaping your parted lips, your juices running down your cunt.

"There we are. I knew you could take it", his grin is nothing but devilish, peppers your cheek with soft kisses, "I'm so proud of you, sunshine, hm? Taking it so much better than your mom. I knew you'd be the one."

Stretching your already used cunt further, he nestles back in fully, sighs deeply. "Like you were made for me, angel."

"Yes", you sigh sweetly, because you sure feel like it. Gently, careful even, Christoph continues to circle your clit, pinching and rubbing it. Your body slowly, slowly sinks away from you, growing light and all that is left is the feeling of his hands touching you, his cock buried deep inside of you. Every nerve-ending tingles with it, your brain only focussed on him and the way he feels, the way he smells, the way he sounds. The only thing left is him.

Your body goes limp, arms dangling at your sides as Christoph grabs your hips, fingers digging into the soft flesh, and thrusts you onto his cock - once, twice. Deep thrusts, that make your blood sing.

"O-oh, oh Daddy", you gasp, eyes rolling back. Your body practically goes up in hot, burning flames of lust, sparks tingling in your thighs and your chest and you want him to run his hands all over you and feel you up, but you also don't want him to stop manhandling you like he does - all his pent up energy coming lose, practically giving you taste of how long and cruel his wait had been. If you weren't so fucked out of your mind, everything a little hazy already, you would touch yourself, but you just can't - all you can do is spread your legs wider, mouth agape while you pant and moan, relishing in the delicious feeling of his dick fucking you into oblivion.

Your jaw goes slack with it, head lolling back onto his shoulder as he uses you, hammers you down on his dick like a fleshlight. Christoph's grip on your waist and hips is hard enough to leave bruises and tomorrow morning you will be able to see them, an angry red, count the ways he marked you as his.

The thought of you being nothing more to Christoph than his pretty little cocksleeve - young and attractive - that he can take anywhere and fuck whenever he pleases, makes your head swim. You think about him dragging you along to some award-show, showing you off on the carpet and then bending you over the sink in one of the bathrooms because another actor looked at you for a second too long, fucking you until you can't really walk anymore - only to later sit in the award ceremony and feeling his cum leaking out of you. You think of him taking you out for dinner to a fancy restaurant - maybe even with some of his Hollywood-friends - playing with your pussy at the dinner table, whispering sweet nothings in your ear - just because he can, because who would even dare to stop him? You think about visiting him on set, waiting for him in his hotel room - adorned in the jewellery he has gifted you, nothing on but a revealing set of lingerie - waiting for him to take his stress out on you.

It makes you fucking wet, squirt gushing from your cunt, that runs down your folds and that he pumps back into your wanton hole. "Jesus, fuck", you whine, starting to roll your hips with the way he thrusts you down on his dick, feeling him deep deep inside of your pussy, thick head brushing over and hitting your cervix. Hearing him moan with it nearly makes you lose your mind.

You cry out - overstimulated, but so so horny - with his cum squelching out of you with every single thrust, mingling with your juices and dripping, squirting onto the sofa. There are pleas falling from your lips as you yell out with lust and Christoph's quick to clasp one hand around your mouth, your cries and deep moans muffled by the palm of his hand. Your eyelids flutter as you fuck yourself back against his thrusts, his cock hitting your cervix and pain and lust ignite your body, making you want to curl up and just take take take what he gives you.

You feel like you are on fire, your whole body responding to his touch and his thrusts, every single nerve in your body on high alert, as you feel your orgasm coming closer.

Looking down, you can see how he is still thrusting your body down on his dick and you watch, panting. Seeing just how he is using you, like you are nothing but a delicate toy --

It's what tips you over.

A high-pitched scream escapes your mouth as you cum, muffled by his hand pressing against your mouth - before he pulls away, allows you to suck in a few deep breaths through your opened mouth.

Your body practically convulses on his cock, shakes rattling your frame as your third orgasm rolls over you, creaming and squirting against his dick, making a pretty mess of his linen slacks and the sofa beneath. You have left quite a few nasty stains tonight, and your cheeks will turn red in a few days, when your mother spots them and Christoph lies to her face.

Your cunt squeezes his dick and you can feel it twitch heavily inside of you, once, twice, and then he cums too, shoots hot ropes of cum inside of your pussy once more. You feel so fucking full, like you are about to burst, as you roll your hips against his, cunt gushing around his cock.

"Oh fuck", you moan sweetly, sacking back against him. You can hear him pant, one hand on your waist coming lose and resting gently on your stomach, rubbing loose circles over your warm skin.

"What a good girl, huh", he whispers, coarse and exhausted. His words barely reach you through the thick cloud, everything turns white and a soft numbness embraces you, makes you feel featherlight, like you are flying. Christoph's arms wrap you in gently, pulling your naked form close to his, the soft linen crinkling and pressing against your naked back.

You stay like this for a while, with his large and soft hands caressing your skin - rubbing your stomach and gently stroking your thigh - until your breath becomes deeper again, your limbs start to feel heavier, more connected to your body once more. "Oh God", you sigh, feeling his cock still plugging your hole up. It grows flaccid slowly, a few drops of his cum already leaking out of you.

Christoph's lips dance along your shoulder, your neck, kissing and pressing down onto the warm skin. His hands grip your hips tightly. "Ready?", and he sounds so so playful, like he is really enjoying this - taking some depraved satisfaction from it - and you can't help but nod, readying for him to pull out.

He lifts your hips, watches how his dick slips out of your hole easily, hears you hiss with it, and then it trickles down. Thick drops, streaks of white cum flush from your used cunt, and he's quick to swipe his fingers along your folds - spreads your pussy and his cum, collects it with his fingers.

They enter your vision and without thinking, like you're still far gone - despite the fact that you aren't - he shoves them between your obediently opened, waiting lips. You close them around his fingers, while the remains of his cum drip out of you still, and start to clean them up, sucking on them, tongue swirling around his digits.

"That's a good girl", his praise has your blood singing, and you whine in protest as Christoph pulls his fingers from your mouth, "So, tell me - where do you go the next time you want a good fuck?"

"To you, Daddy", you say softly, earning you a warm chuckle and a pat on the thigh.

***

Your legs are still wobbly as you make your way downstairs in the morning and out onto the terrace. Your mother and Christoph are sitting in the sun, a light breeze rolling around the terrace, making the seam of the table cloth sway gently.

Your mother is silently eating her breakfast while Christoph rustles with his French newspaper. He appears to be interested in the Feuilleton but you notice how his gaze flickers to you as soon as you're approaching the table, remains glued to your figure, small lines forming around his eyes.

"Oh, honey!", your mother gets up, happy that you are awake, and gives you a featherlight kiss on the cheek, "Oh god, you look horrible, darling! Did you sleep unwell?"

Christoph snorts, but your mother ignores it - holds you at arm length, iron grip around your arms as she assesses your timid frame.

"Yeah, 's just the heat", you mutter, freeing yourself from her death grip and sit down, flinching a little. You're so fucking sore, legs still heavy and hole aching, pussy begging for another touch through the slight pain. Christoph deliberately puts down the newspaper, a smug smile toying at the corners of his lips. It grows rather surprised than complacent as he takes you in fully.

You are wearing one of the dresses he had bought you. You also draped a silk scarf around your shoulders, hiding the viciously glowing bitemark he gave you. His face is expressionless as he looks at you, his cold stare boring into you. For a moment you think, he might rat you out - tell your mother that you snuck out last night.

But he doesn't. Instead, he wordlessly pours you a glass of freshly pressed orange juice, hands it over to you. Your fingers brush over his, goosebumps spreading over your skin at the thought that just a couple of hours, they had been in you, fucking you to hell and back.

You can still feel them inside of you, growing wet at the thought, squirming a little in your chair. If it weren't for your mom sitting right next to you, you'd get up and beg him to fuck you. Your pussy aches at the imagery that your brain conjures up; tits bouncing, one leg hooked over his shoulder, the expensive dress pooling around your waist, glasses on the table clinking with each thrust.

Your mother - oblivious to what is happening in front of her - brabbles on about her plans for the day, while Christoph's gaze is chained to yours.

It feels like his eyes are undressing you, a shadow dances over his greyish eyes, turning them into a darkened sky. Your hand grips the glass tightly, thighs rubbing together. You really wish you could just --

"Careful", he says quietly, pointing at your hand clutching your glass so hard your knuckles start to turn white, and you let go of it, like you just burned yourself. The glass nearly topples over on the white table cloth, the juice trickles down the insides of it lazily, silent testimony to an accident prevented. He's right - it might've burst.

Thank you for taking care of me, Daddy. You want to get up and thank him properly, unzip his pants and --

"Don't you think, that'd be nice, honey?", your mother chimes, still busy with her avocado, and pulls you out of your daydream - you on your knees with Christoph rubbing his cock and balls across your face and making you look like a cheap whore, before he slips it between your plush, waiting lips with their red lipstick smudged - you barely manage not to moan aloud, quickly turning your head her way.

"Huh?", you blink dumbly.

"Honey", she scoffs, "I said - Do you wanna go to the beach today?"

You rather wouldn't. Especially not with your mother around, gushing about the man who fucked you senseless last night. You would rather spend the day with him alone.

Thus, your gaze flickers back to Christoph quicker than you can think about it, quicker than you can stop yourself from doing it. He gives you the slightest nod, that goes completely unnoticed by your mother and rearranges his reading glasses.

Thank you for thinking for me, Daddy.

"Sure, why not?", you can hear yourself say. Christoph rustles with his newspaper and somewhere, in the trees, a bird chimes.

#christoph waltz #christoph waltz x reader #christoph waltz smut #my writing #smut #hans landa x reader #august rosenbluth x reader

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