#prompt: epistolary | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pedroscurls · 1 month ago

Text

letters across time (one-shot)

summary: after having moved to rome for a fresh new start, you begin to receive letters from an unlikely stranger that you begin to develop feelings for... only to come to the heartbreaking realization that the two of you may never meet.

pairing: marcus acacius x fem!reader content warnings: angst (with a happy ending), strangers-to-lovers trope (?), mutual pining, mentions of war and death, sorry - i've got a lack of historical ancient roman knowledge but trying my best lol, deviation from the film (lucilla dies before marcus - sorry, wanted marcus to be single / widowed which only fuels his hatred for the emperors), reader has a nickname (rose), excuse my poor attempt at speaking italian, no use of y/n. word count: 9.4k a/n: so i'm really stepping out of my comfort zone with this one, but i've been obsessed with marcus a since gladiator 2 came out (and honestly who else hasn't lol). also a bit of a tidbit - my first ever tattoo is with the latin saying ad maiora so i had to fit it into this story hehe. if the characterization seems off or if the historical aspect of ancient rome / dialogue is inaccurate, please bear with me - it's my first ever marcus a fic and first time writing in that time period... anyway, huge thank you to @jolapeno for hosting this "dear-uary" challenge <3. my epistolary is letters and my prompt is here. hope you all enjoyed this!

Finally settled in, you walk out to your small balcony and take a seat. It overlooks the famous Colosseum and despite the sounds of chatter coming from nearby, you have to wonder how this place looked centuries ago. Rome had always been a place you wanted to visit, but never did you think that you’d move here.

You don’t speak the language (yet), and the apartment you moved into was surprisingly affordable given the location. An elderly couple owns the small building and when you had approached them about a vacant apartment listing, they were more than eager to have you move in. It wasn’t at all luxurious–the apartment building. It was very dated, remnants of ancient Rome decorated throughout the building. It almost felt like you were transported back to that time period, given the decoration that filled not only your apartment but the entire building itself.

The couple could speak a little English, asking plenty of questions that a usual landlord wouldn’t ask.

American? Yes, you answered.

Married? No, you replied with a heavy sigh–memories of your last relationship flickering in your mind.

A beautiful girl like you, not married? No, you repeated–now trying to end the conversation in hopes that you don’t have to go into detail why you uprooted your entire life into one suitcase.

You had noticed the way the older woman’s smile drops, can see her eyes softening at the sight of you. It’s almost like she knows, like she can understand why you’re here. She’s the first one to say that you got the apartment–the brief meeting lasting only twenty minutes.

It’s yours, she said.

You had told them you weren’t sure you could afford it, given how close it was to the Colosseum and knowing that it was one of the hottest tourist spots. There’s a lot of foot traffic that surrounds this area and you’d be lucky to have found an apartment this fast.

Whatever you can pay, the husband had chimed in. We will accept.

Then, the woman had touched your arm–gentle, light, almost feather-like and you could have sworn the warmth radiated throughout your entire body. This place, this couple–it felt familiar, it felt like home.

You nodded in agreement and you shook hands with the husband before the woman hugged you gently.

And now, sitting in your new apartment, this didn’t feel real. You still feel like you’re running, like you’re looking over your shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But the sun begins to set, the sky soon turns a shade of orange and you let out a breath that you hadn’t realized you were holding.

A flood of relief washes over you.

You’re safe.

This is your fresh start.

And you remember what the woman had told you when they had given you the keys to your new apartment: Ad Maiora, cara mia, she whispered, eyes staring into your own. A fleeting gaze of understanding. You asked her what that meant and she smiled, patted your hand and answered, Towards greater things, my dear.

After finding luck with your apartment, you doubt that your luck would continue. But now, a month later, you have a steady job at a coffee shop that’s within walking distance and the elderly couple–Giovanni and Antonia–have begun teaching you Italian. Most nights, they invite you to their apartment for dinner where they ask you about your day along with a detailed lesson in learning Italian. Some nights, though, they ask you to teach them English–living so close to a famous tourist area, they encounter plenty of Americans and they believe it’d be good for business if they learned how to speak the language.

Rome starts to feel more like home as the days pass. Giovanni and Antonia have welcomed you with such warmth that they soon find out the reason for you moving here. You told them you left America for a fresh start–having just gotten out of a very toxic relationship and a very meaningless job. You wanted more for yourself and you knew that staying in America was only going to keep you complacent, stagnant.

Antonia had given you a hug at the end of that night–a hug that you had gotten so used to receiving, a hug that you found so much comfort in. They reminded you so much of your grandparents that had raised you–those were the only good memories that you dreamt of, a time where you could be a young girl again, running around in your grandparents’ home.

You feel much freer, more at ease, safe now that you feel fully settled in here. And one day after work, you walk up the two flights of stairs to your apartment and unlock your door. There’s an envelope on the hardwood floor–almost like someone had slipped it underneath your door. There’s no writing on it, no name addressed on it, but you pick it up anyway and notice that it isn’t sealed. You set it on your small rounded table and walk to your kitchen to pour yourself a glass of wine–this is routine for nights when you don’t have dinner with Antonia and Giovanni.

You take a quick sip of your red wine and then move to your bedroom, removing your clothes to change into much more comfortable clothing–shorts and an oversized crewneck, your hair now pulled into a messy bun. You’re barefoot when you walk back into the kitchen to retrieve your wine glass. As you pass the rounded dining table, you notice the envelope. Someone must have had to slide it underneath your door on purpose, right?

You take the envelope and then walk out to your balcony, sitting on one of the seats as you set the glass on the small table. Slowly, you pull the letter out of the envelope and open it, the writing in neat cursive. You shouldn’t be reading it, especially if this was meant for someone else.

Confused but intrigued, you continue to read.

Lucilla died today. I was not there to bid her goodbye. I had given her a promise–that this campaign will be my last. All of Numidia–for the glory of Rome… all for nothing. Writing this journal entry surely is treacherous–I could be punished for it, but what is the point of it all? This is not Rome. This is not the Rome I had promised to fight for. Lucilla–I am sorry, my lady. I will love you for the rest of my days and cannot wait until we meet again. Your blue eyes, your smile… Your laugh and your voice–I will carry it with me, my love. I will speak with the Senate. I will–I will do what is right, what must be done. For you. For Rome. Acacius

You’re unsure of what you just read. Lucilla. Numidia. Acacius. Rome. It almost seems like this is a journal entry–the feel of the paper, the cursive writing. Maybe you shouldn’t have read it, but you’re curious. Something inside you tells you to write back–almost like a tug, a pull that you feel in the pit of your stomach. So, you grab a piece of paper and a pen and begin writing–not in cursive, though.

Dear Acacius, I’m so very sorry for your loss. I’m not sure there’s anything anyone can say to make things better and I’m not even sure if time helps either… Shit happens. It sucks, and I want to say that life goes on, but it doesn’t. At least not for the person who lives. I lost my grandparents when I was eighteen–it crushed my entire world and set me on a path that I’m still trying to fix. I know this isn’t the same as losing a wife or a partner and I’m not even sure if I’m making any sense. I just–I know what loss feels like and it fucking sucks. Anyway, I think this might have been sent to me by accident and I’m sorry that I opened it and read it. It wasn’t my intention. So, I’m just gonna send it back to you–somehow–but… I hope things get better for you, Acacius (really cool name, by the way!). Best wishes, A stranger

You fold your letter and place it into the envelope with Acacius’s original piece of paper. You then close the envelope, grab your glass of wine and walk back into your apartment, setting the envelope onto your dining table so that it’s visible for you tomorrow morning to ask Antonia about.

The following morning after getting ready for work, you notice that the envelope is gone. You furrow a brow in confusion, beginning to turn over your entire apartment to find the envelope–contents of your letter along with Acacius’s journal entry inside of it. When you realize that you’re late for work, you decide to call in sick and quickly leave your apartment to descend the stairs to speak with Antonia.

She’s in the community garden, tending to the roses and when she sees you, a bright grin lines her lips. She stands and pulls you into a hug without hesitation.

“Cara mia, no work today?”

You shake your head and ask, “Antonia, there was an envelope in my apartment last night. Do you know who might have slid it under my door?”

“Envelope?” she shakes her head, confusion written across her features. “Like a letter?”

“Well, not really?” you answer. “It seemed like a journal entry. They talked about Lucilla, about Numidia–”

“Lucilla? My dear, she was the daughter of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.”

“Wait, that was centuries ago.”

Antonia nods. “And Numidia,” she sighs. “So very tragic.”

“Antonia, who’s Acacius?”

“General Acacius?”

“G–General?”

“Cara mia, cosa sta succedendo?” asks Antonia. My dear, what’s going on?

You shake your head. “Nothing. Um, I’ll have to skip tonight’s dinner with you and Giovanni. Mi dispiace.”

“Cara mia–”

You give her a hug and walk back inside your apartment, determined to find out more about Acacius.

Marcus returns to his chambers, distraught and overcome with grief. His bed–once shared with Lucilla–now remains cold and empty. He can’t bring himself to lie in bed, yearning for his wife who is no longer alive. After Numidia, he was more than ready to return home–returning home meant returning to Lucilla, but when news of her death finally reached him, he no longer found the need to go back to Rome, despite the emperors’ orders.

But Marcus was a man of honor. He would ask Emperor Geta and Emperor Caracalla for a period of rest from war, to fully grieve the loss of Lucilla. He can’t even think about attending the emperors’ ceremony that’s dedicated to his success in Numidia–how can he when Lucilla is no longer here?

He hears a knock on the door and he walks–barefoot–to open it. He sees a chambermaid on the other side–she has a look of sympathy across her features with a hint of fear.

“G–General,” she mutters. “There is a letter for you.”

“A letter?” he asks, confused.

She nods and extends her hand. Marcus takes the envelope from her and gives her a single nod, dismissing her silently. She turns on her heel and Marcus shuts the door, walking towards the candle that illuminates a small table. He takes a seat, pours himself a cup of wine before he begins to open it. He holds two pieces of a paper–one he’s familiar with and when he opens it, he realizes it’s the journal entry that he had written–and the other, much more smooth, less texture, more white in color. When he opens it, his eyes widen at the writing–all capitalized, not written in cursive.

He reads the first line and realizes that this is a letter to him. He reads it with interest, eyes still slightly widened at the choice of words that he’s not used to.

Shit sucks.

Cool name.

It’s signed A Stranger and he isn’t sure how his journal entry even got into the hands of someone else. He doesn’t have any information aside from the fact that your writing is unusual and the words you use are out of the ordinary.

But, he finds comfort in your letter. He’s known loss before–plenty of his men understand what he’s going through–but somehow talking to a stranger who doesn’t truly know who he is provides a sense of relief. He doesn’t have to be General Acacius in his response to you–he can just be Marcus.

So, he grabs a piece of paper and his quill and begins writing to you.

Dear Stranger, Thank you for returning my journal entry. I am not sure how that fell into your hands and it is quite alright that you read it. However, for some reason, I feel some relief knowing that I am not alone. Maybe my journal entry was meant to find you… Do you believe in that? In fate? Anyway, I am sorry for your loss as well. Loss is… Well, it is a part of life but that does not mean that it is pleasant either. I am sure the path that you are on now will lead you to greater things. There is a saying–if you are familiar–Ad Maiora. It means towards greater things. Also, what do you mean by ‘cool name’? It is quite interesting that my name is associated with some kind of temperature… unless I am misunderstanding. In any case, you may call me Marcus. If you are comfortable, may I ask what your name is? I hope this letter finds you well, stranger. And I hope I get to talk to you again. Best wishes, Marcus

He re-reads his letter, furrows a brow and sighs. It sounds desperate–a plea to get you to talk to him again because he feels less alone when he’s writing to you. He isn’t sure how this letter will get to you, but he keeps his journal entry and your letter and places his reply back into the envelope.

Marcus spends the better part of his night drinking, having ended up falling asleep at his desk and the envelope magically disappearing by the time he awakes the following morning.

You awake the following morning, having fallen asleep on your couch with your laptop and notebook scattered on the coffee table. You had spent the entire night researching Acacius. Antonia was right–Marcus Acacius was a General for the Roman empire, serving under the rule of Emperor Geta and Emperor Caracalla. Empress Lucilla was his wife, but had died while he was on his way back from Numidia. But all of this–it happened centuries ago. 211 AD. And Acacius ended up dying–right in the center of the Colosseum after he was forced to fight in the arena after the emperors found out his plan of treachery.

There’s no way that the person you had written to the other day was the same man you had researched–he was dead. Surely, you can’t be writing to someone from a different time period and to someone who is no longer alive. Right?

You sit up from your couch and notice the same envelope magically resting on your coffee table. Quickly, you grab it and pull the letter out. Same paper, same writing.

It’s from Acacius.

You read it quickly, a small smile lining your lips and a quiet giggle escaping you. You feel a wave of emotion when you read his reply; it’s obvious this man is clearly still alive but how could it be possible that you’re communicating with someone who lives in an entirely different time period? And how come the envelope is your only string tying you to him?

After you finish reading his letter, you grab your notebook and pen and begin writing your reply.

Dear Marcus, You can call me Rose. It’s my favorite flower and I grew up helping my grandma with her garden, which was filled with roses. You’re cute, Marcus. Cool name meaning… You have a nice name. I think that translates the same? Ironically enough, Ad Maiora is something I’m trying to remind myself when I have tough days. A good friend of mine mentioned it to me when I moved here. It’s been something that keeps me going every day… the hope that I’m moving in the right direction. And fate… I don’t think I believe in it. We all have free will and everything we do in life is a choice we make… like my choice in getting into a relationship with a really bad man. Would you call that fate? I like talking to you too… and I feel less alone too. Can I ask a question, by the way? What year is it? Best wishes, Rose

You take Marcus’s letter and set it aside, folding your reply and placing it back into the envelope. You’re sure that it’s going to disappear during the night and you hope that you can wake up the next day with a response from Marcus.

Marcus attends his ceremony, dressed in white and gold as he feigns a look of pride, a forced smile when he’s standing in front of Emperor Geta and Emperor Caracalla. It makes his blood boil–the fact that these two young men are parading him around like he’s done something so great, so grand. All he can see is the unnecessary bloodshed, the bodies burning in that pit. All he can feel is the emptiness in his soul–Marcus doesn’t want to be here.

And not once did they give their condolences over the loss of Lucilla. Marcus asks for a respite from this war, but they don’t grant him that luxury. He has a cut along the side of his neck due to Emperor Geta placing a sharp blade along his skin. As soon as the ceremony is over, Marcus retreats to his chamber where the envelope that disappeared that morning magically appears on his desk.

Still in his white and gold attire, he quickly opens the envelope and reads your letter. He lets out a breath of relief as he sits down and reads your words over and over again. It gives him comfort–something he desperately needs right now.

There’s something in the way your words put him at ease. He still has to put Lucilla to rest and he isn’t looking forward to it–that the next time he sees his wife will be in a coffin.

He grabs a piece of paper and begins writing to you.

Dear Rose, That is a beautiful name and a beautiful flower. There are gardens filled with them here. Now, when I see a rose, I will think of you. Cute–I have never been called cute before. That is certainly a first, thank you. I believe in fate, Rose. I believe that everything happens for a reason… But I am sorry to hear that you had to endure a difficult relationship. It pains me to hear that you were mistreated and I surely hope that you are far from him now. I believe that we have crossed paths for a reason. Maybe we will never know why, but I am surely glad that we did. You can ask me any question you like and I will be more than happy to answer. It is 211 AD–do you not know the year? Also, I assume that you live in Rome since these letters are coming rather quickly. The next few days will be… rather difficult. I am planned to bury my wife and I am not sure if I will be available to reply, but if you send me a response… I will do my best to write to you when I can. I am not looking forward to saying goodbye to Lucilla. She was an amazing woman. She had to sacrifice a lot in her life–she was very brave, strong, resilient… I should have been there at her bedside. I should have held her hand when she took her last breath… I failed Lucilla. What kind of man does that make me? If you choose to never respond after this letter, I understand. I just–there’s something in the way your words bring me comfort, puts me at ease, gives me a sense of relief… Anyway, I must go now. Until we speak again, Rose. Best wishes, Marcus

He folds his letter and puts it back in the envelope, ensuring this time that he passes it along to the chambermaid.

Later that night, you come home after having spent dinner with Antonia and Giovanni. You’re welcomed with the sight of the envelope sitting neatly on your dining table. You set your things down immediately and grab the envelope, taking the letter out and sitting down on the couch.

Your heart breaks slowly as you read Marcus’s letter. You can feel his guilt through the words on the page and when he confirms the year he’s living in, it all but crushes you. This is a man that you’re slowly developing a friendship with and you know that it isn’t going to last long.

As you continue to read his letter, you feel tears sting your eyes. So, you don’t hesitate to begin writing your response back to him.

Dear Marcus, With you, I’m starting to believe in fate. Would you believe me if I said the year I live in is 2025? I’m not sure how to explain how we’re able to exchange letters from different time periods, but… here we are. It’s possible. I just don’t have an explanation for it. I can assure you that I am no longer in a relationship with that man and I am very much far from him. I moved to Rome about a month ago and I love it here. I can see the Colosseum from my balcony. I’m sorry that the next few days will be difficult. I can’t imagine the pain that you’re feeling–losing the one person you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with. Lucilla sounded like a great woman, Marcus. I know saying sorry doesn’t change anything, but I don’t know if there’s even anything I can say to make things better. I’m sure Lucilla knew… I’m sure she knew that you did your best to get to her. I’m sure she knew that you wanted to be there with her… And you know, maybe you don’t have to say goodbye. The ones we love don’t ever really leave us, do they? We continue living to keep their memory alive. You didn’t fail, Marcus. Sometimes, things happen out of our control. Not being there for her at the end isn’t a reflection of who you are as a person, or as a husband. I’m willing to bet that if you had it your way, you’d have been there for her. Maybe wherever you were… you wouldn’t have gone if you had a choice. Finally, I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me, sorry. I hope the next few days give you some closure, Marcus, and when you’re ready, I’ll be right here waiting. Best wishes, Rose

You take his letter and put it on the pile you’ve collected before you place your reply back into the envelope. You turn your back for a moment to grab a glass of water and when you turn back around, the envelope is gone.

Marcus awakes that morning to the sight of the envelope. He can’t explain how it just vanishes and reappears out of thin air on his desk. He pulls your letter out of the envelope and reads what you have written.

2025? Surely, that’s a lie. There is no way he’s exchanging letters with someone centuries into the future. He has to wonder if this is some sort of joke, if maybe the emperors put someone up to this. As he continues reading though, he feels tears sting his eyes, threatening to spill over. Your words–it provides a sensation of warmth that blossoms in his chest. He wants to believe you, wants to believe that he’s a good man.

Marcus rereads your last sentence repeatedly, commits it to memory as he begins thinking of what he has to do today.

I’ll be right here waiting.

He doesn’t have time at the moment to write you back, so he keeps the envelope and letter separate from each other. He takes one last look at your letter before he leaves his chamber.

The next few days, you’re anticipating a response from Marcus. He did warn you that he wouldn’t write back until he’s able, but you still can’t help the disappointment you feel when the envelope doesn’t appear for the next few days. Antonia and Giovanni notice a change in your demeanor since you’ve been receiving the letters–they notice the excitement in your eyes, a much freer spirit, but you tell them it’s because you’re finally feeling more and more comfortable here in Rome.

You learn more about Marcus through your research and you try to find someone who can explain the phenomenon that you’re experiencing. How is it possible that you’re communicating with a man from a different time period? Sure, there are theories about time travel but that never felt real to you.

At the end of the week, you’re already getting anxious. It’s been four days since Marcus’s letter. You have to wonder what he’s doing, how he’s doing. You know how his life ends, and you have to wonder what would happen if you told him. That would change so many things, right? It would not only change history, but it would ultimately change the trajectory of how the world is now.

On the fifth day, Marcus is exhausted. Saying goodbye to Lucilla had only fueled his anger for the emperors. He has a plan in place and he knows what end he will meet if he gets caught, but at this point, he has nothing else to lose.

After he buries Lucilla, he finds some time to ask around if anyone knew a woman named Rose. When someone would respond with a nod, there’s a flutter of excitement that he feels in the pit of his stomach but he’s left disappointed every time. Every Rose he’s met so far has no idea of the letters and he’s starting to believe that maybe you do live in the future–centuries into the future. It leaves him with an unsettling sensation in his chest, a sad reality that there’s a likely possibility that Marcus will never get to meet you.

Now, he finally has some time alone. So, Marcus sits at his desk, rereads your letter once more before he takes his usual paper and quill out to begin writing a response to you.

Dear Rose, I am sorry for the delay in my response. The last five days have been very difficult for me, but every time I saw a rose… I thought of you and it brought me a lot of comfort that I did not realize I needed. I want to express my gratitude to you, Rose. Your last letter–I kept it close to me at all times during the last few days here. Somehow, knowing that you’re waiting for me helped me get through each day… and knowing that I get to write to you again helped me through the difficult moments I endured. Ad Maiora, I suppose. Towards greater things… and I think that greater thing is you. I buried Lucilla yesterday. She still looked so beautiful, but she looked… peaceful. She endured a lot of hardship in her life and there is some comfort that I feel knowing she’s no longer in pain. She no longer needs to fight… and I believe you are right. The ones we love do not ever leave us. We keep their memory alive and Lucilla will always hold a special place in my heart. I must be completely honest with you, Rose. I am the General of the Roman army. I have a lot of blood on my hands… all for the glory of Rome, but you are right. If I had a choice, I would have been by Lucilla’s side from the start. I am conflicted… It is difficult to fight for this version of Rome. So much bloodshed, so many lives lost… all for nothing. I should not be writing this–it is certainly punishable, but I am exhausted, Rose. If you do live in 2025–which does not seem possible–how does Rome look like then? You say you moved to Rome. Are you happy here? I also tried to look for you. Asked around about you, but I did not get anywhere. There isn’t anyone by the name of Rose that knows about these letters. Do you really live in 2025? Lastly, tell me more about you. I want to spend as much time as I have getting to know you, Rose. I hope that is okay. Best wishes, Marcus

He folds his response and places it into the envelope. Right before his eyes, it suddenly vanishes and Marcus is sure that he must be hallucinating. He’s exhausted and hasn’t had much sleep since he’s gotten back, but he has no other explanation for it.

You awake the following morning to see the envelope on your coffee table. Excitement fills your veins and you quickly walk over to the envelope, carefully taking the familiar piece of a paper out. You begin to realize the letters you have begun exchanging with Marcus are becoming longer and longer–it brings a smile to your face and heat rising in your cheeks.

You sit on the couch, pull your legs underneath you and grab the blanket to drape over your lap as you finally read Marcus’s letter. He thought of you–the last five days and he thought of you. When he finally tells you the truth about who he is, you feel a sense of relief. You had been afraid that you’d accidentally let it slip that you know who he is, despite already telling him that you live in the future.

The last sentence in his letter brings you back to reality. You feel the pit in your stomach drop at the realization that this is as far as you’ll ever get with him. Sooner or later, this letters will end but you can’t help the feelings you’ve begun to develop for a man you will never meet.

I want to spend as much time as I have getting to know you, Rose.

It’s almost like he knows what will happen to himself–maybe he knows that the plan he eventually comes up with is a death sentence once the emperors find out.

You know you shouldn’t get attached, but you get your notebook and pen and write back to him anyway.

Dear Marcus, I must say, it’s such a relief to hear from you. I wish I could have been there for you, with you… supporting you. If I’m being honest, it’s hard to hear that you’re going through a difficult time. Makes me want to go back into time and pull you into a hug. Do you think that’s possible? Time travel? You sure know how to make a girl feel special, don’t you? You make me blush sometimes with the things you say. Are you sure you’re real? A lot of the men here certainly don’t talk like you do–you can definitely teach them a thing or two. I'm starting to think our saying is Ad Maiora, isn’t it? Moving to Rome led me toward a greater thing… one after the other, and it finally led me to you. I’d say that’s fate, wouldn’t you? And General Marcus Acacius–sounds so formal, so official. You must be very important, aren’t you? Like I said, I wish I could pull you into a hug. I hope, at least, knowing that I’m here to listen is enough though. Also, if talking about this is punishable, then maybe we should be careful. I don’t want anything to happen to you… Yes, I live in the year 2025. I’d be surprised if someone lied to you and said they knew about the letters we’ve been exchanging. Rome is… different than what you’re used to. There are no emperors. The colosseum is no longer in use–there aren’t anymore gladiators. I’ll attach a photograph of me and my balcony, maybe it’ll help you believe me. Well, what do you want to know? I’m an open book, Marcus. Ask away. Can’t wait to hear from you again. I have missed you. Love, Rose

You sign the letter without thinking, but you don’t bother to change it or rewrite it after you realize the word you used. You hope it isn’t too forward or too insensitive. You grab your Polaroid camera and quickly walk out to your balcony. You face the camera to yourself and smile, pressing the button to take the picture. Once it develops, you go back inside and fold your letter. After a few minutes, the Polaroid develops and you look down. It’s a good picture and gives a good view of the colosseum in the background.

Placing the letter and the Polaroid into the envelope, you close it and surprisingly see the envelope disappear.

“So it is real,” you whisper to yourself, a smile lining your lips as you already begin counting down the time before you receive a reply from Marcus.

Later that same night, Marcus sees the envelope on his desk as he gets ready for bed. He sits down instantly at his desk and uses his candle to illuminate your writing.

But he sees the Polaroid and takes it out of the envelope. Marcus lets out a quiet breath when he sees you. He isn’t sure what exactly he’s holding or how this managed to capture a realistic photograph of you but he’s distracted by your beauty to even notice the colosseum in the back. He’s still reeling over Lucilla’s death, but there’s something in the way your smile and your bright eyes somehow puts him at ease.

“My lady,” he mumbles. “Lucilla, if you can hear me, please forgive me. This woman–She is helping me through this, through your loss.” Marcus shuts his eyes, guilt and desire mixing together. Guilt because he’s still dealing with the grief of losing Lucilla, and desire because you are absolutely stunning. Marcus isn’t even surprised–this is exactly how he pictured you when you began exchanging letters with him.

Marcus turns his gaze to your letter, but his eyes flicker to your picture repeatedly. You really do live in the future and you will always be so out of reach.

Then, he sees the word you sign your letter with. A warmth washes over him. His lips curl upwards just slightly and he begins to write.

Dear Rose, This–This picture, it is you, yes? I cannot explain how something like this exists, so it must be true that you do live in the future. So far into the future. But you are breathtaking, Rose. Absolutely beautiful. Your smile and your eyes… there’s a kindness and warmth to them. The man you had been in a relationship with before truly did not realize what he had because any man would be lucky to have you. The colosseum in your photograph–it looks old. If what you say is true, no gladiators and no emperors, then can I ask… is your world a better place than what it is here? I think I will dream of this, of you, of a different life. This is not to say the life I currently have or have led is not great, but a man can still dream, right? A hug from you sounds very nice. I imagine that I would feel even more at peace with my arms around you. I am not too sure about time travel, but if these letters are any proof of what’s possible, then maybe time traveling is too. Though, if anyone is doing the time traveling, I would rather it be me. I do not want you to be in this time period here, Rose. I do not want you to be around such men because there are bad men here too. Maybe more worse here than there. If I may be honest… I cannot stop looking at you. I believe I’m going to keep this very close to me from now on. I am sorry that I cannot provide the same type of picture of myself–we do not have this here… but maybe I can think of something else… An open book, hm? Well, I know your favorite flower. I know that you are starting fresh here in Rome… I suppose I should ask what do you like to do then? If you are living in the future, what is there to do? I am unsure if you have experienced this yet, but this envelope… it seems to be the reason why we are able to exchange letters. It vanished before my eyes the other day, Rose. I cannot explain how or why that happened, but maybe this is fate. Exchanging letters across time sounds impossible, but for some reason, the Gods wanted us to meet. That sounds like fate to me. I will wait for your next letter, Rose, and I have missed you too. Until then. Love, Marcus

He quickly folds the piece of paper and gently slides it into the envelope, not bothering to wait for it to disappear because his attention is pulled to your photograph. He brushes his thumb across it gently–wishing you were here.

The following morning, you’re awake far too early but excitement fills your entire body when you see the envelope sitting on your dining table. You make a cup of coffee and open it, having grown accustomed to Marcus’s neat cursive. You can feel the heat rise in your cheeks when he compliments you, can feel the butterflies in your tummy.

I think I will dream of this, of you, of a different life.

You feel your heart tug just a little–the harsh truth that you will never get to meet him becomes more and more real as you continue to exchange letters with him.

He’s seen it too–the envelope disappearing without a trace. You can’t explain how it’s possible and there is a part of you that no longer wants one. Time travel–there isn’t a way that’s possible and even if it was, how would it even work?

You grab your notebook and quickly begin writing to him, setting your cup of coffee down. You lift the cup away from the paper, taking note that it left a coffee-stained circle at the top corner of the page.

Dear Marcus, You are very sweet… I’m sure there are more pretty women there. I’m just… me. But Rome… it’s beautiful here. It’s always been a place I wanted to visit. I never did think I would end up moving here and now, I can’t even imagine ever leaving. Considering your time period, I would say the world now is much better. I think you would like it… it might take some getting used to–it’s so very crowded here, but I think you would like it. I suppose that’s all we will have, isn’t it? Dreaming of a different life… Or maybe I’ll learn how to time travel and bring you here. I love the beach. I love the water, the sunsets… It’s calming, almost peaceful to me. There’s just something about the sounds of the waves, the feel of the water, the sight of the sky that just puts me at ease. The beach was the one place that I felt like I could get away from everything. It became my safe haven, my safe place… What about you? General Marcus Acacius–what do you like to do? I have also seen this envelope just disappear. I don’t have an explanation for it either, but maybe you’re right. Maybe there is a reason why we’re able to communicate across time. Do you think we’ll ever get the chance to meet face to face? You know, if I learn time travel… Sometimes, when I go to bed, I pray that I dream of you. I think it’s the closest I can get to ever meeting you. I imagine what you would look like, what your voice would sound like… How it would feel like to be in your arms. I would assume I’d feel like how I would if I were at the beach–safe, calm, peaceful. If by some miracle I’m able to time travel, may I come visit you instead? I think it would be much easier for me to go back in time rather than you come here. Some things might change if you were to leave your time period and come to mine… Looking forward to your next letter, Marcus. Love, Rose

You fold your letter and place it in the envelope, already counting down the hours until you receive Marcus’s reply.

Marcus finally sits at his table after an exhausting day at the colosseum. He doesn’t find the violence entertaining like everyone else. It’s unnecessary and he wants no part of it, but he has to put on a facade for the emperors. He still plans on speaking with the senate, to conjure up a plan to somehow overthrow Emperor Geta and Emperor Caracalla.

However, he’s conflicted with so many emotions. The grief and loss he feels over Lucilla lingers in his chest, but he feels hopeful–excited whenever he sees the envelope on his desk. If he goes through with his plan and he ends up getting caught, Marcus knows what the consequence will be. He knows that it’s ultimately a death sentence if the emperors find out, but his mind drifts to you whenever he thinks about what his end might be.

His eyes drift to your picture on his desk, a small smile curling his lips. He dreamt of you last night, after he had written his response to you. He dreamt that he was in your world, somehow lying in a bed with you in his arms. It was the first time since losing Lucilla that he had woken up with a feeling of ease–just dreaming about you brought him that sense of peace.

Marcus takes your letter out and reads it with a smile. Once he finishes reading, he begins writing back to you.

Dear Rose, I dreamt of you last night. The Gods answered me and I dreamt of you. I dreamt that I was in your world, sitting on that balcony in the picture I received from you. I have this image of you–smiling and laughing–ingrained in my mind. It puts me at ease. Talking with you has been my safe haven, I suppose. Things have been difficult here ever since I got back and it’s lonely without Lucilla. I am sorry to bring her up. These letters have been able to get me through each day. Your picture, too. Lately, I have been dreaming of a different life than the one I am living. I have been a soldier for most of my life, Rose. I do not think there’s a day that has gone by where I have not fought… And it is tiring. The beach sounds like a great place to just get away from it all, I agree. Here, though, I like to go to the gardens. More so now than before. I am usually surrounded by roses and it makes me feel closer to you. I am ready to retire, Rose. I am ready to spend the rest of my days in quiet–possibly far, far away from Rome. Maybe near a beach, hm? That would certainly be another place where I can be reminded of you. I will pray to the Gods for a miracle that we get to meet one day. I didn’t think it would be possible to exchange letters with someone from a different time, so maybe being able to meet face to face may not seem so out of reach… I imagine that I would feel safe and calm with you near too. Your beauty, your words… The way you have made me feel… It all reminds me of Lucilla, but in your own way. I am a man of honor, Rose, and Lucilla will always have a piece of my heart, but… you have become the reason why I am able to get up every morning. I look forward to the next time I see this envelope because it means I get to talk with you. Maybe tonight, we can meet in each other’s dreams, Rose. Until then, my lady. Love, Marcus

Days turn into weeks and your letters with Marcus become more and more frequent. You’ve tried to teach yourself the theories of time travel, but you’re just as confused as when you first started. The more you talk with Marcus, the more you begin to realize the magnitude of your feelings for him. You try to tell yourself that developing feelings for a man you won’t ever meet–a man who’s already dead–is only going to set you up for heartbreak.

But despite knowing how this might end, you still exchange letters with him anyway.

Marcus is set to meet with the Senate tomorrow and he knows that if he gets caught, it will be his death sentence. There won’t be any way that he will be able to get out of it. He holds onto your letters–and especially your picture–when the days and weeks become more difficult for him. Emperor Geta and Emperor Caracalla require his presence at the colosseum and Marcus finds it increasingly exhausting to sit there and feign interest.

When he gets back to his chambers every day, the envelope is there waiting for him. He reads your letters repeatedly before he can even write a response. The way you talk about your world–it helps him escape his reality. He begins to realize just how deeply he feels for you and it saddens him because despite how strongly he feels, Marcus knows that you two may never get the chance to meet.

Later that night, you see the envelope and feel the excitement rush through you. However, once you open the letter and begin reading the words on the page, you feel your heart drop–tears building at the corners of your eyes. This feels almost like a goodbye…

Dear Rose, I am set to meet with the Senate tomorrow. In secret. I realize that this might be the last letter I will ever write to you, but I will be praying to the Gods that it won’t be, but if it is… I wanted to write to you one last time. You have given me hope, have made me feel alive when I had lost everything. Coming back to Rome after Numidia, after losing Lucilla–I could not find the will to live, but then I received your first letter. It was fate. You saved me, Rose. You continue to save me. I wish I could see you. I wish I could touch you. I wish I could hold you. I know I said in a previous letter that I would want to spend the rest of my days in quiet… but I think that has changed. If I had it my way, I would spend the rest of my days with you. I imagine what my life would be like with you. I imagine a lot of laughter. I imagine that we would be at the beach or maybe at the garden and we would have plenty of meaningful conversations. I imagine my mornings would be one of my favorite times of the day because I would get to wake up every morning with you by my side. If this is the last time I get to speak with you, just know that you now also have a piece of my heart, Rose. I will carry your photograph with me forever. I will hold onto the conversations we’ve had and the letters we’ve exchanged. If I do not make it… please remember that you deserve all of the good things in the world. You deserve to always be happy. You deserve to live your life the way you want. You deserve to be with someone who will cherish the very ground you walk on because you deserve nothing less. When I sleep tonight, I will dream of you… like I always do, Rose. Yours forever, Marcus

You know what he means when he says he’s going to speak with the Senate tomorrow. You’ve read what will happen–after all, you know exactly how history plays out after having researched the history of Ancient Rome and Marcus.

You can feel your heart breaking–the ache in your chest beginning to throb almost painfully. You know how Marcus’s story ends, but you can’t let him go. You had been hesitant before–altering history–but you have to tell him. You may never get to meet him, but you don’t want this to be the end.

Grabbing your notebook, you begin to write your response. Almost fifteen minutes later, you fold it in half and place it inside the envelope, watching it disappear yet again before your eyes.

Marcus awakes that morning with a knot in his stomach–his eyes glance over at your photo before he catches the envelope. He sits up from bed and walks towards his desk, pulling out your letter and reading it carefully.

Dear Marcus, Don’t. Your last letter feels like a goodbye, and I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to say goodbye, not yet… Not ever. I shouldn’t be telling you this because I’m sure it’s going to alter my own reality, but I don’t care. I don’t want to let you go. You’re going to get caught. No matter how many times you’ve rehearsed it in your mind, you will be caught. Emperor Geta and Emperor Caracalla will find out and they–they will not take it lightly. They will make you fight in the colosseum and that is where you will die. I know how your story ends and yet, I made a choice to continue exchanging letters with you. I knew that our story would only end in heartbreak, but maybe… Maybe there’s still a chance for us. I am begging you, Marcus… Please do not do it. Don’t go to the Senate. Just–Just leave Rome. Live the rest of your days in quiet–away from war, away from the bloodshed, away from the emperors. You no longer need to fight and I understand… I understand that you made a promise to Lucilla, to yourself, but I cannot lose you and maybe this makes me selfish, but– You saved me too, Marcus. I will spend the rest of my days figuring out how to transcend time… to find a way where you and I can finally meet. Fate brought us together, right? We will figure this out. I will figure this out. This is not the end of your story, Marcus Acacius. Do you understand me? And this certainly isn’t the end of ours. At the end of the day, we still have a choice… If you decide to still go through with it, then I will understand. I know you are a man of honor, Marcus. And if you do decide that you will go to the Senate tonight, then I hope you know how deeply I feel for you too. I didn’t think I would ever love again, but you… You nestled your way into my heart and made a home there. I go to sleep dreaming of you. When I wake up, you are the first person I think of. I love you, Marcus. Yours forever, Rose

He sits at the edge of his bed, rereading your letter over and over and over again. You know how his story ends and you know exactly what will happen when he goes to meet with the Senate tonight. He should have known that you’d be aware of his history–you live in the future after all.

Marcus isn’t afraid to die–in fact, it’s something that he’s come to terms with a long time ago, but for once, he doesn’t want this to end yet. He doesn’t want to let you go either and maybe, maybe you two will never meet, but he would rather die an old man exchanging letters with you.

He reads the last sentence repeatedly and he can’t help the way the words stir something in him–the butterflies he feels in the pit of his stomach, his heart beating faster–you love him.

Marcus knows what he needs to do now.

The rest of the day seems to drag on–the minutes trickling by ever so slowly. Even at work, you can’t concentrate. Antonia and Giovanni pick up on your distraction, but you reassure them with a fake smile and tell them that you’d just rather spend the night alone.

You know it was selfish to tell Marcus the truth, to practically beg him to stay, but you couldn’t imagine continuing to live your life with the possibility that you could save his life. You had only been exchanging letters with him for a little over a month, but you couldn’t help the feelings that you had begun to develop for him. The way your heart races faster when you see the envelope, or the way your stomach flips when you read his letters.

In your free time, you had been trying to learn how to time travel. It seemed almost impossible, but you didn’t want to quit. You couldn’t explain how you’re able to exchange letters with someone who lives centuries in the past–and if that was possible, then surely it was possible to time travel.

Somehow.

You enter your apartment later that night–you can feel the nerves settle in the pit of your stomach when you slowly open the door. You can hear your heart beating in your ears, heart rate slowly picking up when your eyes scan the dining table.

No letter.

Your stomach drops, so you close the door and then move your gaze to the coffee table.

Nothing.

Tears begin to pool at the corner of your eyes and you realize that Marcus had made his choice. You sit on your couch, bring your legs to your chest and cry into it. The sob builds and builds until you let out a quiet whimper, tears now streaming down your face.

He was gone.

Forever.

A week later and you finally get the courage to go back to work. When at work, you fake a smile–feign happiness, but when you get back home, you cry yourself to sleep.

Antonia and Giovanni leave you dinner at your front door, but you don’t bother to open it. You aren’t hungry–you haven’t had an appetite since Marcus’s last letter. You wonder if he ever received your letter and if he did, did he read it?

And if he did read it, what went through his mind?

And when you admitted that you loved him, did that scare him away?

When you open your front door later that night, you set your things down and begin walking into the living room until you finally see it.

The envelope.

Your heart leaps out of your chest.

You waste no time in opening the envelope, quickly taking out the letter and breathing out a sigh of relief when you see his familiar cursive writing.

Dear Rose, I am sorry that I have not written back to you. I had a change of plans after your last letter and had to strategically plan how I would be able to execute it. I am no longer in Rome. You were right–I no longer need to fight. I faked my death–with the help of some trusting men of mine–and am far away from that place. I am living the rest of my days in the quiet–I now live in a small village where no one is familiar with who I am or what I have done. It is almost like a fresh start–a chance for me to live a different life… a life that I might have chosen from the beginning if I had the choice. I want to thank you, Rose. For telling me the truth, for warning me. I am much happier now than I have ever been, and I am more than ready to spend the rest of my days with you. Traveling to this village was not easy, but you gave me the strength–like you always do–to keep going. I love you, Rose. I wanted to tell you that once I was safe–once I was finally settled in. Ad Maiora, right? Towards greater things... So, my lady, what do you say? Shall we continue our story together and maybe–one day–finally meet? Yours forever, Marcus

the end...?

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal character #marcus acacius #general marcus acacius #gladiator 2 #marcus acacius x female reader #marcus acacius x reader #marcus acacius fanfiction #marcus acacius fanfic #gladiator 2 fanfic #gladiator 2 fanfiction #general marcus acacius fanfiction #general marcus acacius fanfic #story: letters across time #jolapenosdearuary #marcus acacius angst #general marcus acacius angst

512 notes · View notes

ak-vintage · 19 days ago

Text

Wash & Fold

Pairing: Ezra x f!reader

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

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

Word Count: 15.5K

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

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

Read on AO3 | Main Masterlist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His loss will simply have to be your gain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not ten seconds passes, and then:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ezra.

His name is Ezra.

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

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

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

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

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

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

def should not have brought him home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which reminds you. You need to wash your sheets.

💀💀💀 thank you e 🙈💗

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

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

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

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

You have another date tomorrow night.

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

Which means that you need those god-forsaken panties.

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

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

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

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

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

And yet…what if he had?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, god.

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

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

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

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

wait. 802??? …yes?

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

ok just making sure. be there in 10.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your panties are in his bedroom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Birdie! Are you – ”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Gods above, girl, look at you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ezra…!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ezra, please – ”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Excellent.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Ah! Ezra!”

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

Your orgasm hits you like a freight train.

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

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

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

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

“Shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“E-Ezra. It’s – it’s so – ”

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

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

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

“But – ”

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

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

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

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

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

You’re too far gone to even consider disobeying.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#jolapenosdearuary #ezra x reader #ezra x f!reader #ezra x you #ezra #ezra prospect #prospect #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfic #ppcu #ppcu fanfiction

267 notes · View notes