#pulse valve

[meownotgood]

pillars. / viktor x gn!reader, fluff and angst, lots of angst actually, implied childhood friends, confession kisses, mentions of death, one singular czech pet name, kissing viktor's moles, takes place during s1 act 2, so technically no s2 spoilers but some things are implied. word count: 7.9k

read on ao3

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"You look exhausted," You hum, your voice thick with fatigue in unison, "Don't you think you should rest?" 

Viktor takes a breath deep and slow enough to hear, his hands briefly faltering as he twirls a small, bronze magnifying glass with his fingers, but he doesn't reply, nor does he turn away from his notes. 

The lab is cool, quiet — aside from the distant hum of various pressure valves and idle machinery. The Hexcore thrums. Runic engravings litter each complex, geometric surface. Viktor rests his balled-up hand on his face, bony knuckles pressing into his cheek. With his inkpen, he messily scrawls something into his notebook. Low, blue light illuminates the cluttered room and his workspace. Each side of the Hexcore pulses when you approach behind him, twirling to its own complex, ominous rhythm. Acknowledging you, somewhat. 

Viktor inhales sharply, and shakes his head frustratedly, crossing out what he'd just written with jittery, forceful motions. 

It wouldn't be the first time you've found him here, like this, mulling over some sort of invention or idea when most of the city is already asleep. Falling into a focused routine is merely second nature. And normally, you wouldn't protest. 

When you were much, much younger, staying awake as long as you could felt fun. Helping Viktor cram studying for exams in between finishing an invention the night before Progress Day became a yearly occurrence. In the weeks before finalizing blueprints for the Hexgates, you'd almost forgotten when either of you had last seen the sun. It's just that this routine has been far more absorbing, far more taxing — and the repercussions are painted clearly on Viktor's shadowed face. 

He looks drained. Worn. Like if he tried to stand, if he wasn't leaning against his desk and absorbed in his research, the weight of his own exhaustion might make him crumble and collapse. The ends of his hair stick out in messy, curled strands, from where he's anxiously twirled them around his fingers. 

You hate the dark bags that have made their home under his eyes. You feel a knot in your gut as you watch Viktor's hands; shaky, and imprecise. Flipping through the pages of his notebook to search for something. Tracing a sentence with the end of his inkpen, only for his gaze to flicker back to the start when the words failed to register. 

You sigh. Forcing a smile, even though he can't see it, you take another stumbling step forwards. Your arms wrap around his thin figure loosely, and your weight settles gently yet firmly against his hunched back, in something of a tender, evocative hug. 

Viktor shifts, his grip tightens on his pen when it almost slips. You nuzzle into the perfect, head-shaped space at the crook of his neck, breathing him in — flooding your senses with a coffee-warm richness, with the scent of ash and sweat and lingering sparks. 

His gaze softens like melted honey. As if the simple press of your body to his returned pieces to himself he'd thought he lost. Brows unpinching, your heat at his neck spreads across him in waves, contradicting the collected edge kept in his tone. 

"I'm not yet tired," Viktor lies, trying his hardest not to lean into your embrace. "I'd like to analyze this for a few moments longer. This page is," He shakes his head. "Incomplete. If I could find the key to what induces some form of response, then-" 

As if on queue, the Hexcore sparks with energy, twirling faster, glowing with luminous constellations. Viktor swiftly moves to jot something down, but as fast as the Hexcore reacted, it's just as quick to return to normalcy. 

He mutters something under his breath, slightly jostling you from his shoulders when he leans forwards in focus. 

"I swear," You're grumbling; you rest your chin on the hard edge of his shoulder, glancing between the Hexcore and his notes with passive interest. "You've always been like this." 

"Like what?" Viktor flips through his notebook once more. "Stubborn, I'm assuming?" 

"Stubborn, yes. Smart. Terribly ambitious." You reach up, until you're able to place a few taps onto his forehead with the end of your finger. Viktor barely seems to notice. He adds onto an almost-full page by messily writing in the margins. 

"I know how hard it is for you to stop those gears in that brain of yours. Once they're going, it's impossible to get them to stop." 

"Mm. And you know how important this pursuit is in particular, yes?" 

He reaches for a notched turn dial on the opposite side of his desk, connected to the Hexcore by a series of braided wires and support poles. Your gaze follows his hands — gripping carefully, with delicate, calloused fingers. There's a distinct pause. A moment of palpable tension, as you both instinctively hold your breath. 

Viktor twists the dial. Once, twice. 

The Hexcore gives off a few miniscule, pitiful sparks, like a God's first attempt at a lightning storm. And he expels a long, drowsy, disappointed sigh. 

"I do," You murmur, sympathetic. 

Viktor grinds his jaw, hard enough to feel it aching, but even through his fierce familiarity with self-induced destruction, even though he isn't deserving of this, he can't hope to hold onto the ragged bites of stress in his veins. Not when you're so warm, when the feeling you ignite in his chest with your voice alone is so terribly soft. He has missed this. 

"But I also know," You're continuing, "Every time you get close to a breakthrough, once you let yourself rest," Viktor's head nods sleepily, struggling not to fall, and you playfully tap your index finger to the end of his nose. 

"That's when you find it." 

Part of him wishes he could keep himself from listening. Of course, as strongly as he wants to be better and more efficient, because taking a break is like admitting defeat, and defeat is worse than accepting he might've reached the end of his line — he knows you're right. 

Placing the cap on his pen, he leaves it in the middle of his notebook, closes the pages to save his spot before hastily, reluctantly pushing it aside. 

You grin. You slowly shift up, and Viktor feels your arms sliding from his shoulders, your weight leaving his body. For a second, he thinks you might move, believes you'll leave and feels a sharp grind between his ribs at the thought. Instead, you place your palms on his rigid shoulders, and you squeeze. 

His lashes flutter, eyes partially rolling into his skull. His head grows dizzy, like he'd been spun. Frustration melts out of him as warmth and light take its place, shining from your touch like the kiss of stars and the rays of the sun. Bright and lovely; galaxies weaving themselves into his tired muscles. 

Relaxing, he can't help but lean back, dropping his head against your waiting chest. 

"I saw Jayce before I left this morning," You're murmuring. It's in one ear, and out the other at first. You lean in, speaking close to him this time, to make sure you've been heard. Your voice shudders through him, warm like candle wax. "Says he hasn't seen you sleep in days." 

"In one day," Viktor corrects, rather matter-of-fact for someone who's busy melting into you like his limbs are boneless. "Technically, about twenty- no, twenty two hours. More or less. Honestly… hardly worth the over-exaggeration." 

"Vik," You scoff playfully, breath fanning warmly on his skin. "You're doing it again." 

Your palms move. They drift from his shoulders to his arms, fingertips gently toying with his sleeves in a foolish attempt to touch his skin. He tilts his head all the way back, and cracks his weary eyes open to look at you. 

"And what is it I'm doing?" 

"Saying things that make me worry about you. And then expecting me not to." 

"I am not-" 

Right then, before he can speak, your hands return to his now-tensed shoulders; they combat the ache in his chest and the tightness in his throat when they roll his muscles. His chest thrums with a soothing gentleness, rich and saccharine, difficult to swallow down. 

"You are worried about me?" Viktor questions, sighing slightly when your hands work out a particularly old, tightened knot. "I have not seen you in… who knows how many days. I have lost count." 

Your mouth forms a hard line. 

"I- I know," You're answering, hands drifting down smoothly, as if they're carried on waves. They find where his tie is neatly fastened around his collar, grasping the diamond and pulling to loosen it. "I've been trying not to get in your way. Everything is just- Jayce is a counselor now, and you're busy with a thousand different things. I'm not going to interrupt your work with my stupid-" 

"Our work." Viktor's tone is resolute. It holds you, grounds you against the raging winds in your mind that threaten to pull at your pieces. "Hextech was furthered by your contributions. Do not forget that." 

You swallow, but it does little to chase away the dryness in your throat. In a hasty, abrupt motion, your palm grasps Viktor's shoulder, this time twisting his chair to make him face you. He eyes you with surprise for a moment, his tired gaze tender and weak enough to light the shrapnel in your stomach. 

"Viktor." Your head tilts, affectionate. You reach up, and brush away the messy strands of hair that cover his pretty face and tickle his forehead. "This research, this dream of yours, it's-" 

"It is a necessary risk." 

Gaze wide, you freeze up. Viktor exhales sharply, glances away from you to focus on something in the distance instead — messy shelves of discarded machinery, inventions you once worked on together, etched with your signature and his — because the way you're looking at him has an ache prodding at his heart, sharp and thorned.  

"Finalizing this thesis would simply be the beginning," Viktor continues, passionate, gradually starting to talk with his hands. "Think of the lives we could save, of the good we could prosper from this sort of technology. Enough to improve the Undercity for the better, to provide rationale for the potential dangers. I understand you are worried- but this is our life's work we are talking about. If we were to determine the true limits of Hextech, it would make our efforts worth it, in spite of… even if…" 

He stops, trails off. Glances up, and decides he might've said too much. You understand. You have always understood where all of this is going. 

The lives he could change would be worth the price, even if he was to throw away his. 

Tattered threads tear from within you — unspoken, buried deep. You've become well acquainted with the taste of denial. Sharp on your tongue, thick in your throat to meld with the bile. It sits on your lips as words better left unspoken. Eats away at your skin and your flesh and your core, settles in your limbs and at the tips of your useless fingers. Reverberates, until the ringing in your ears begins to sound like him. 

Piltover feels so distant, with the idle noise of the lab filling the room. Miles away, even though you're right in its heart. Nothing has ever been fair. It cast you aside, it was never your home. He was. 

All you've received for ages now are fake sentiments, vague reassurances. Reminders of how terribly futile your ambitions have proven to be. Every sun has to set, every star will burn out — but fuck, you don't want him to burn. 

Your mind is dizzy. Each thought spins, tipped faster and faster. Light pounds from behind your eyelids, and your stomach churns, making you nauseous. The lines blur between Viktor's figure, the floor, and the dull aura of the Hexcore, beginning to overlap everything together. 

You aren't present, or perhaps you're wishing to be anywhere but here. Curled beneath the covers, hiding under your bed like you did when you were a child, running to the furthest, broken edge of the universe so you wouldn't have to imagine him slipping through your fingertips; Viktor draws you back, grasping your chin oh-so gently. He tilts you towards him, puts your focus on him to push the rest of the world into the background. 

"Though, I suppose there is no harm in stopping for the night," Viktor reasons, his tone a soft murmur, devastatingly gentle. "I have missed you. I believe I may have neglected to make myself clear." 

And for a brief reprieve, there isn't anything sweeter. Nothing this fatal. 

His arm braces behind him, elbow resting on the edge of the desk. You follow through when he gently keeps you in place, steady on his direction; you're a compass, and he's Polaris. Your gazes don't separate, magnetized together like a hex crystal to iron. 

For a moment, he forms a small pout, in a way that would have you grinning if the circumstances were different. His expression ripens, becomes soft. Almost guilty. A plea and an apology and some form of a confession, muddled into one dangerous, indecipherable nebula. 

"You sure?" You're muttering, trying to keep your tone upbeat, regardless. "Your project looks like it's itching to fly away." 

"Eh," Viktor shrugs, he allows his thumb to brush over your cheek. "I'm sure it can wait. It understands I have more important things to focus on." 

His touch makes you ache. Guides your sorrow to entwine with his, digs in deep to grasp at your chest with such devastating familiarity. 

It's an excruciating reminder of how much you have craved this. How badly it hurts, to feel Viktor's hand tremble as he touches you, slightly unsure, when you wish he wouldn't be. Exhaustion is wound so deeply into his system, you'd think he was born with it. He brushes his palm from your cheek to your jaw, caressing idly, in an absent, lazy motion. And it frustrates you, because you know you'll soon be lost, wishing you could feel his touch again. 

Every pound of your heart reminds you of everything — of the brushes of fingers, when passing tools and pens at the work table. Hands solidly grabbing one another to steady anxieties, to offer familiar reminders. Nights spent categorizing constellations, while in your eyes, Viktor's radiance burned brighter than any distant galaxy. 

Gentle touches pressed to weary limbs. Tightening machinery, releasing the gears on a brace. An arm offered to help him stand. Instinctually standing beside him, at the side that might need you. Fingertips exploring the notches of a spine, traveling rivers of veins, mapping out star-shaped clusters of freckles. 

Tired moments much like this, but instead of protests and strives against fate, there were lovely brushes of whispers. Twin dips in the same bed, murmurs of, I'm here, you can go back to sleep. Touches that wished for themselves to be something more, something lasting. Though they knew they'd evaporate by morning. 

It's far too late to still rely on daydreams. 

You let the haze die out, tracing the edges of his hard knuckles as an apology before you clumsily push his hand from your cheek. Standing up straight, the lab seeming more cold and quiet and empty than ever, you choose to put distance in between yourself, and your lost love. 

"Sorry. I shouldn't-" Breathe, you've got to remind yourself to breathe. Air catches in your lungs, sharp and dizzy, and you quickly shake your head. "Viktor, I-" 

Gods, Viktor shouldn't have to choose between you and his ambition. He shouldn't need to place his own body in the middle of making a difference, and saving himself. There's still so much you haven't done, haven't said. The life you both dreamed of and fought for is crumbling, he still has so much he was meant to accomplish, and yet — 

A hand grabs your wrist with surprising force, to keep you from taking another step back. 

Viktor's brows pinch. "Do not tell me you're thinking of leaving." 

Oh. Your gaze finally travels up from your feet, and he looks hurt; his voice barely manages to avoid cracking around the edges. His fingers dig into your wrist sharply, desperately. 

Viktor's jaw tightens, his firm grip causing veins to show in his wrist. Your shoulders slump, and you exhale. 

"I'll walk home with you. You shouldn't sleep here, it's bad for your-" 

"No, no you will not," Viktor interrupts, exasperation echoed through his tone, pain and worry laced through the lines of his palms to compel them to shake. "Tell me why you are refusing to stay. It's been weeks without change, why must you run off the moment I attempt to make time for you? I doubt you have any idea how much this torments me." 

Weeks of avoidance, days upon days where he'd watch you disappear too soon. Viktor would turn, he'd say something to the empty air because he expected you to be there, but you would be gone, absent from the lab or the hallways or the dorm you once shared. Bitter sentimentality, the hurt you forgot to take with you, is all that would linger in his bones. 

Just how far are you willing to run — in vain, until your legs might snap — to pretend you won't lose the only thing you have left, your friend, your partner, to imagine you might escape the certainty of his conclusion? 

Your gaze is flighty. It carries raindrops, flutters on soft wings, between him and the intricate, statuette angles of his face. Between the ground and the desk, and the glowing Hexcore. He has rarely seen you so unsettled. When your emotions run high, you hide them from him; unsuccessfully, he might add. Your wrist flexes beneath his palm as he feels your hand clench, and unclench. 

Little by little, you're tugging his heart from between his ribs. Tearing it apart like petals pulled, like the games you used to get lost in when you both were kids; you love him, you love him not —

"I can't stay. I wasn't- I shouldn't have tried to come back to the lab in the first place," You answer, dejected. His grip only tightens on your wrist when you pull. "Viktor, please." 

"Answer me. I need you to say something," Viktor grits out, voice getting louder, his shoulders tensed with frustration. "What is the cause of this- this fracture in between us?" 

Your arm drops. Your bottom lip quivers, and your breath gets caught in your lungs. The expression on your face is more sore than he's ever seen it, painful enough to kill, bordering on bursting into tears. 

And then, your voice quiets. "I don't want to watch you die." 

The Hexcore gives off a low, rumbling sound. The lab becomes quiet enough to hear the individual ticks of machinery gears. 

Viktor's grip loosens on your wrist, only slightly. He doesn't speak, he can't listen to his heart or his head when he's placed between the persistent thrumming of both. You aren't looking at him. Regret dawns on your face, then sadness, then something he can't recognize when you turn your head away. Fatigue curls into his system, and settles amongst everything else: the guilt, the anticipation. The raw, forceful tenderness. 

It's a reminder that you're right. 

The passing of each slow second seems to exist for just the two of you. Dragging on and on. Barely helping him to find any answers. If only there was more time. 

Words could never be enough, burying your emotions like lodging a knife way deep in your chest isn't working. Your partner was made to burn bright, to exist as an act of defiance itself. To dedicate his mind and his body and his bruised hands to progress, no matter the obstacles or limitations, the past grievances or untold emotions. 

So many moments were never adequately spent. Days and weeks across years taunted you, moments spent as friends and colleagues, despite half of you belonging to him. 

You just needed one push, one thrust into the light to stop you from holding back, because you knew you risked ruining everything. But if Viktor continues, if the Hexcore grows more and more dangerous, if the council continues to require more of him, and what you haven't spoken about becomes true — there won't be anything left to ruin.

And as he watches you collapse, firm on the outside but weak on the inside, turning back to him because you have to, not because you want to, Viktor finally understands. 

He knows this body is… wilting. 

Decaying; he can feel every ounce of newfound weakness in his limbs, knows he's a servant to his own existence as it waits for him to waste away. Many from the Undercity are much less fortunate. He is grateful you are stronger than him. 

More pressingly, he is acutely, abruptly aware of how little time he's spent with you — it runs as fierce in his chest as the hourglass-shaped reminders of the short span he has left. You used to be inseparable, you shared the same dreams. Your talks weren't limited to melancholy utterances of, Have you eaten yet? and, Is your leg okay? and, I never see you anymore, will this time be the last? 

How he's chosen to treat himself are small deaths, in a way. Promises to join you later that led to nothing, nights of exhaustion framed by mornings of fading in and out. He's followed his own guide to avoidance, the steps were simply laid out differently. He's grown sick of it, truly. And deep down, or perhaps on the surface, he is so, terribly exhausted. 

Swallowing thickly, you remain frozen in place, waiting for him to give up, for his hand to slip from your wrist. When it does, you continue to linger. Your heart pounds loud in your ears. Little glances at him greet you with his face downcast, his shoulders slumped. 

You sigh — and you decide this can't be it, or perhaps you're just not ready. You draw yourself dangerously close, to trail your knuckles down Viktor's sharp jaw as a weak apology. 

If there's one thing he isn't accustomed to, it's throwing logic to the wind. Viktor tries to think of this like his notes, attempts to categorize and interpret these emotions. He imagines there's diagrams and logs in his own swirly handwriting, outlines that would guide him to precisely what he needs to do. 

None of it works, of course. It's a terribly juvenile line of thinking. And he's rarely one to give into impulsivity, but you make it so difficult to think, to focus. 

His breathing is already quickening and sharpening, creating pockets of light in his weak lungs, even through the reminders of his own mortality's shadow. Nothing is more important than the feeling you cradle in his chest, bright and fate-defying. 

It would not be like him to accept this. To fade out with a hundred contributions unfinished, a thousand words unspoken. Confessions meant to fall from his voice like meteor showers, fears and regrets with no way to form on his tongue. The thought alone leaves him troubled, choked. His jaw tightens in frustration, only relaxing when the ghost of your fingertips guides him to. 

Low light frames you, the features of your face troubled; oh, he can hardly remember the last time he's seen your smile. But he remembers, knows it to be beautiful. The slight softening his gaze undergoes as it flickers across you is utterly familiar — you pointed it out, once. 

Your eyes overfill with warmth, they melt like amber. Your pupils widen like big, lovesick moons. His head can't help but spin; there's so much he never realized, when you did.

His hands like to absently search for something to fiddle with when he needs to think. His fingers have a habit of tapping against something methodically: his desk, the spine of his notebook, his own forehead. The mark above his mouth follows his lips, when they tip into a smile. He's doing it now, surely. Softening in your afterimage. Gaze warm, honeyed, hopeful. 

No, he isn't sure if his fate can be changed; he's treading close, but he isn't dying yet. The Hexcore is unresponsive to every stimulus he's attempted, but his research is far from complete. There are mountains of quandaries he isn't sure he can fix, pitfalls remaining just out of his control. All but one, all but this. This is something he could do, something he can change. 

You almost speak. Almost give some useless, parting words when his tired, gentle eyes drift back to yours, two ships on the same sea. He's inquisitive, hesitant, his brows creased together in thought and with conviction. The mere sight of him — hair a mess, skin pallid, ignites a thousand feelings and worries in your gut; a lighter tossed to a puddle of gasoline. 

It's something Viktor picks up on. 

You look pained. Unsure of yourself, from the way your eyes can't quite meet his own, from how your hand slips away from his cheek, as everything in you threatens to disappear. Weary, as you gaze at him like you've already lost him. 

You've forgotten how to read him, he realizes. Caught up on what you might lose, the both of you have forgotten what you could have. Viktor's heart feels like it might burst, with enough force to make the sun's implosion look weak, and you don't understand, he'd have to show you. 

He takes it as a sign. Grasps the last chance you've extended to him, and runs with it as fast as he can. 

His name dies on your mouth, before you have the chance to speak it. Echoes haunt your soul when his palm finds your cheek, solid, sure; Viktor pulls you in hard, threads of distance easily closed, and he presses his lips to yours with an intensity that feels vividly visceral. 

It won't fix what's already been done. This isn't a promise, falling short between being reassurance and becoming a goodbye. It isn't the way he would want to confess, if fate was kind enough to give him a choice. 

But Gods, logic and reason, worry and mortality are all melting into nothing. Fading and fizzing into the sky, budding and beginning anew in his lungs — because for so long, he has needed this, needed you. As fiercely as dead parchment longs to be burned. 

Your body immediately goes tense in surprise. Your arms awkwardly hover in place, until Viktor's head tilts, following the gentle aria, his palm brushing from your jaw to your cheek to hold you close — as though you're still prone to vanishing, if he were to let go. Like this is the beginning of too many firsts, and even more lasts. This kiss is worthy of savoring. 

So, you do. You let your eyes flutter closed. You shift forwards with a shaky step, practically stumbling into him. 

It's sweeter than you ever could have pictured. The subtle roughness to his chapped lips. The slight tickle of his breath, when you pull apart for long enough to hesitate, but not enough to gain the wisdom to stop. 

Soft kisses draw you further, closer. A hand holds his cheek, a palm braces to his shoulder. Careful to use little force, to avoid any accidental hurt. 

Viktor follows, leans back, has you bending closer as you get caught in his butterfly effect; blue light bathes you, and the Hexcore shifts, utterly radiant. There's a moment of separation, a brief second where your eyes barely get to flutter open. A pause that promises to be your last opportunity for regret. Greedy and urgent, brutally eager, Viktor drags you back in, keeping you caught in his penumbra. Coaxing you to cage him in — to kiss him like you mean it. 

The taste of you is vivid, perfect, intense, rich; you make charged electricity glitter down his spine when your fingers curl into the soft, chestnut tresses of his hair. Grasping, pulling, leaving it even messier than it already was before. 

Your lips part, your breath forms an intoxicating meld with his. And he is only foolishly, stupidly human. Made of flesh and bright dreams, etched with soft skin and fervent desires. Too weak, desperate, and caught in your echo to contemplate anything but the way his own name sounds — the V is a soft vibration, the completion of the consonants makes it sound like reverence — when it's breathed into his mouth. 

Hazily, he feels your palm press, shoving gently to his chest, pushing his back against the desk in a clumsy effort to bring yourself closer. His chair shifts slightly from the movement, rusted wheels grating the tile. Your palm finds its place between his lower back and the desk's firm edge, bracing some of his weight, and acting as a buffer, keeping him from pressing against it. 

Viktor melts underneath you, breathes a soft noise into your mouth that begs you not to stop — as if you could. As if you haven't wanted this in an unquantifiable amount of ways, across an infinitum of discarded daydreams. You're left to steal gasps in between, clinging onto quickened sighs that rival the struggle of keeping your head above water, as wild waves crash over your skull. 

Out of breath, he blindly fumbles to find your shoulder; pushes gently, silently asks you for a moment of reprieve. 

You draw back immediately. You're unable to stop yourself from shuddering when he softly breathes your name. Familiar accent curling around the syllables, giving them life and importance like your name was made for him to say. To whisper, to covet, to plead. 

"Lásko," Viktor coos, as his eyes grow heavy. Glinting, with a spark of zeal that tells you to stop holding back. 

You're well acquainted with the warm, softhearted nickname. You know it to be something Viktor taught you himself, between gentle explorations of the few things you didn't already know about one another, when your late-night curiosity and desire to learn led you to, Oh, and what name would you use for someone special? 

His jaw grits; his next words, murmured in his mother tongue, resemble a sharp, possessive swear. His head tilts with yours when you lean closer — but you shift, falling in to let your lips find his neck. 

The kisses you place there are hurried, desperate; like rays of light, as if you don't have time. Obediently, he stifles a whimper, and allows his head to fall back. It leaves plenty of room for your wandering hands to crinkle and press aside his shirt collar, and you place your lips on the firm, jutting curve of his collarbone. 

You find the twin moles on his neck tendon, blessing a kiss there, near desperate enough to bruise. You follow them like a treasure map, to kiss the perfectly-placed mole above his mouth. Your palms cup his face faintly. Then, you sweetly kiss the mark on his opposite cheek, your lips warm, laced with fervent sparks. 

Viktor shudders, he feels lighting race up his spine and split him open like a scythe. He's been avoiding his own declining reflection for weeks upon months now, but he doesn't need to remember much of himself to still know exactly where you're kissing, like the back of his hand. 

The ghost of your lips just above his mouth, and then to the apple of his cheek send a thick, syrup-sweet realization reeling through him. His moles. It reminds him of fingertips playfully tapping his face. Of soft comments and pretty compliments, portraits of his own image that he'd never forgotten because they were from you. 

When you hear the hitch in his breath, he swears he feels you smile against him. He's certain, once you shift back down to his neck, to repeat the process all over again. Placing messy kisses onto his soft skin, worshiping the intricacies he would've never thought were admirable. Memorizing each placement as though it's deliberate, like making a map of the night sky's constellations. And Viktor swallows, shakes, softens. 

Blindly, you search for where his hand has been kept at your side. You grasp it, and pursue the natural interlacing of fingers: yours fitting perfectly between the gaps of his. 

Trying not to shudder, failing when your breath fans against the right-angle corner of his jaw, he guides his free hand to trace the small of your back. His fingertips are gentle, hesitant. Careful brushes akin to a study, an exploration. 

With a dizzy mind and even more muddled thoughts, he doesn't expect when you support your weight by placing your knee on his stool, between his legs — when you lean in close and fast and hard, crashing your lips against his once more. One kiss isn't enough, so you kiss him again; you let yourself be pulled in on his current, and he forgoes breathing to drink you in instead. 

Your body arches into his touch, curves when his palm presses flat to your back, attempting to feel as much of you as possible. You want to be pliable beneath his warm hands like clay, because at least being molded would leave an imprint. You'd have something to remember what this meant, what his touch felt like. 

Seconds and minutes bleed into one another. You can barely tell where he begins, and you end. Two halves of the same anatomy, you can feel the thrum of his inherent light beneath your breastbone. 

The Hexcore watches. Pulses, hard enough to make pens begin to roll across the desk. To topple a precarious stack of diagrams, which sends a few papers fluttering to the ground, to make the steel marbles of a Newton's cradle clumsily clink together. 

Neither of you notice. The response Viktor's been searching for spikes just beyond his reach. You make him feel weightless, as though the fragility of his own vessel is more of an afterthought, until he could be ripped into fragments and you would be there to put him back together. Viktor's palm holds the back of your neck, his head tilts with yours, and you kiss. Falling into one another, only unfalling to breathe. Your atoms melt into his particles, blossoming a blur between your two shapes. Your heart pounds with his, to a rhythm so exact they could be mistaken for the same singular beat. 

Finally pulling away requires a mountain's worth of strength and effort. You only do so because you've got Viktor's back pressed hard against the desk, and he's practically about to fall off his chair. 

You both needed to breathe. It takes several moments for your head to stop spinning. You can barely focus on anything, but the bruising of your lips and the skip of your heartbeat. Stumbling back, sliding from his chair to offer him more room, you cup his jaw in both palms. Soft and blissfully tender, as though this is what they were made to hold. 

Viktor sighs hard, gasping heavily. His skin is slightly flushed, still warm to the touch. His gaze stays on you, basking in your afterglow. You're used to him flinching away. A slight hesitation always laces through his fingers when you try to grab his hand. His muscles tense on instinct whenever your arm wraps around him, braced to help support his weight. 

But this time, your palms hold his face, your thumbs brush his skin, and he melts into your touch, unburdened. Gaze fluttery, expression relaxed. Giving in at last, after countless ages of starvation. 

The low light of the lab, and the soft glow of the Hexcore's rune matrix — quiet, now — frame his face in outlines of shadow and hues of cerulean. Shades of blue meld with the honeycomb of his eyes, dulling the color. Clouds over a fading sun. 

He hears the slight shake in your breath first, before he feels a tiny droplet hit his cheek; and you're leaning forward, trying to hide. Eyes shut tight, as you rest your forehead against his. 

"Sorry, I-" Viktor murmurs, weak and faint. So quiet, you almost fail to hear. "I know this does not… fix things." 

Oh. He hasn't seen you cry since you were both kids. 

Viktor remembers clumsily trying to comfort you, making a crude somewhat-flower-pinwheel out of scrap metal as a gift, because he thought it wouldn't fix everything, but it might make things a little bit easier. For a time, anyway. 

Reality is often a cold, cruel overseer. Remembering how to breathe again brings sharp pain into his lungs, it returns an ache to his tired shoulders and his strained leg. His vision comes back into focus, his future returns to taunt him but this time, something is different. 

He feels a spark. A newfound wave of ambition. The radiant golden hour, before a bright, final breakthrough. 

"It's fine," You breathe, weak and fragile, with a meager shrug of your shoulders that says you are anything but. "I didn't expect it to." 

Viktor grasps your chin, gently shifting you back to give him space to look at you. His thumb brushes a stray droplet from your cheek. He tuts: a soft, teasing, tch sound. "Ah, but for a time, the world nearly felt miles away. Did it not?" 

His gaze is hopeful, almost nervous. Trying to gauge any slight shift in your reaction. Thankfully, his voice seems to swiftly bring you back to life. You laugh a bit, wiping the remainder of tears away with the back of your hand; there's the smile he's always admired. 

"Like we were melting into each other," You admit, a little shy, tenderly wistful. Your heart unfurls in your chest like a bright, pretty blossom. It's fitting for the both of you to recollect, to try and analyze the intricacies of every situation. "It was…" 

You're pausing, trying to find the right description, as you rest your arms around his shoulders in something of a half-hug. It was lovely? Captivating? Addicting? 

You shake your head. You're glancing away, because even remembering kissing him is enough to make your heart pound, enough to tempt you to pull him in again. Viktor tilts you back towards him, his finger lightly tapping your jaw. 

"Hm- Breathtaking?" He muses, "Better than you could have dreamed?" 

The brief lilt of confidence he embodies, words smooth as they're carried on his accent, pleasantly reminds you of when he was younger. Far too composed, and eager to prove himself. He follows it through, coaxing you forwards with a palm to your side. You're gentle; most of your weight, you support yourself, until Viktor pulls you down, patiently and decidedly guiding you to settle against his lap. 

"You know," You're cooing, head tilted, "That sounds an awful lot like a confession." 

You can see each subtle heave of Viktor's chest, expanding with every long breath he takes in. It's a tight fit. His stool is barely wide enough to accommodate himself, let alone you. His brace presses into the back of your leg just slightly: jutting metal, protruding bolts. The spread of his thighs leaves you with a small amount of space, but still forces your body to press awfully close to his. 

You're in the perfect position to witness every detail of his face. His tired eyes, the curve of his jaw, the slant of his nose. His thick brows pinch slightly, forming a faux pout, and you reach up. You brush your thumb from his temple to his brow, relishing in the instant softening of his expression. 

"Perhaps it is one. Or, actually-" Viktor hums, inquisitive. "It contains the potential to be one, if I decided to elaborate." 

"Oh? Enlighten me." 

A pause. Viktor bites the inside of his cheek as he ruminates, and your fingertips push fluffy strands of hair from his face to tuck behind his ears. 

"For so long, I… ached to be close to you." His tone is calm, temperate. It twists a shiver up your spine, cool and heaven-sent. His palm trails and caresses your face; a lesson in restraint, as he tries to stop himself from pulling you in once more. "It was a pipe dream. I assumed I was… too late." 

"I thought- I was sure you didn't-" Your shoulders grow tense and the bridge of your nose knots up, you twirl a strand of his hair around your finger and pull it away to admire the resounding curl. "Since when?" 

Viktor exhales. "We have been effectively inseparable since the day we met, I am certain you still remember when the Undercity kids would laugh and- and make jabs at my obvious crush. But, you are searching for something specific. In that case, there is one instance." 

This time, you don't have to ask him to elaborate. 

A palm tracing down the column of your neck, idle yet admiring, Viktor takes one more steady, deep breath. "It was the Progress Day after we had finalized the Hexgates. The council's afterparty was… stifling. I was fortunate to have convinced you to attend. You wore such gorgeous attire. Jayce commented, stated I was unable to take my eyes off of you. I denied it. In hindsight, it was more than obvious." 

The party was hardly your usual scene. Viktor was always the one who wound up convincing you to attend every Progress Day. 

He'd mention you should vouch for your contributions, try to mingle. You were fine with dressing up for an hour or two, but all of the drinking and fraternizing — you found the presentations about new technology to be interesting, but everything to happen afterwards was tiring, to put it bluntly. 

The occasion then was more special than most, though. There was a difference in the way Viktor asked you, sounding hopeful and stress-bound. It seemed important to him, and so it was doubly precious to you. 

"I joined you on the balcony, once I was able to shake the flocks of investors." Viktor continues, thinking, thumbing through all of the details, "You'd been saving a cocktail for me all night, if you remember. Something made with rum- apple cider, I believe." 

Viktor recalls overhearing several of your conversations. Your excitement to show off what you invented together was palpable. You made the room shine, he thinks. He watched you go on and on, when you thought he wasn't listening, assuming he was busy with his own consultations. Viktor zoned out of them, truly. Once the day's festivities are over, the rich folk of Piltover are more interested in finances than progress. 

Your words were so kind. Viktor is amazing, have you met him yet? Every sponsor and socialite would know your partner to be intelligent, inventive, incredible. He doesn't compare. It's funny, how Viktor saw the same qualities in you. 

For most of the night, you were separated; Viktor was busy with the swarm of fancy patrons, all of Piltover's finest hoping to get the latest gossip on what the partner to the Man of Progress would come up with next. Luckily, the both of you chose the same hideaway to try and escape the crowd. 

"I had been waiting for such a moment- to speak with you. You offered me your congratulations. Complimented me, on my performance of the short speech you helped me to memorize. And… so clearly, I remember you said, 'I'm so proud, Viktor. But I knew you could do this.'" 

I knew you could. No underestimations, never a doubt in his potential. You believed in him, even when no-one else did. When there weren't eager investors and a fawning council, just you and him, the suffocating smog of the Undercity, and his foolish dreams. Within the gaps in between, your praises sung as loud, unbidden, echoing strums. 

He supposes he's going to have to ask again for your faith, just one more time. 

Viktor's gaze stays focused down, for a moment. Contemplative, emotional. 

"I almost kissed you right then." He glances up to you, finally. "But-" He hums, then sighs, "There were benefactors still lingering just beyond the balcony, some of which already decided to inquire extensively about my personal life. I would have hated for our first kiss to incite such a scene." 

Viktor admires the tender kindling of gentleness on your face. Slightly pained, despite the hints of softness. It's his cue to find your cheek, to hold you close and oh-so softly like he did from the start; the cliff before the waterfall, his first step in to drown with you. 

Nothing will ever return to simplicity. But Viktor refuses to regret this, decides he should face it head on. Every building conflict, these budding emotions, the remnants of how your lips felt on his; tenderly unforgettable, a crucial step that he refuses to forget. 

You can feel the slight tremble to his fingers, the calluses on his palm — 

"Vik-" 

"I need to have your trust." 

Your eyes widen. 

"Viktor," You're starting again, "You already do- you always have. I don't want you to hesitate, you can-" 

"No, no, the Hexcore," Viktor corrects. He takes a quick glance between you, and the shifting runes of his project's surface. Glowing and fluctuating, a marvel even when it is dormant. "There is much I have not yet told the council. Nor Jayce, nor you." 

A newfound flicker of conviction blazes behind his sun-bound eyes. A brightened enthusiasm to solve any puzzle he's presented with, a key twisted into a door that he never thought would open. 

Your gaze is curious, attentive, then clearly conflicted, and he feels his jaw start to tighten. In spite, he continues, speaks with his entire chest, even though his hands tremor at the thought, and his voice is much too soft and broken and he hates the sound it makes when it's breaking — 

"You are the one thing I cannot lose." Viktor holds your face lovingly, captures you in a statue-like state of devotion, as he fights against the gnawing roughness at the back of his throat. "I believe I can solve this, but I need to know that to any end, you will follow. Please." 

It's something he's already sure of, against the faint threads of doubt in his mind. Of course you would, if he was the one to ask. The both of you are knit together as endlessly as the lines that connect the constellations, he just needs to hear you say it. 

You offer him a weakened smile, your touch brushing the curve of his face like fingertips would caress the arch of a flower's petal. "Do what you think is right. I trust you." 

Viktor softens. 

There's bittersweet catharsis in finally admitting the truth, along with an endless chasm threatening to swallow him whole — and for now, for the rest of the night, at least, he wants nothing more than to fall in with you. 

"My love," He murmurs; he draws you close, with the pull of the sea to the moon. He dares to press one more faint kiss to your cheek, despite knowing how infinitely difficult it will be to pull away. "My inspiration," A kiss to the opposite cheek, then. "My little spark." 

The lab remains quiet, dark, save for the low hum, and the glowing orbit of the Hexcore. Viktor leans his head against your chest, relaxes further once you begin gently toying with his hair. And finally, fully, he allows his heavy eyes to close. 

[astencontrolsindia-blog]

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[quackfallbackhq]

Transformers Autobots Characters Fully Committing To It Now (NSFW DRABBLES?)

Oh, frag.

A whole week—seven nights—of nothing but them pressing you into the berth, their frame caging yours, their voice thick and hungry as they push deep, again and again.

They’re relentless.

Every night, you start off with some strength—but by the end, you’re melting, your body wrecked, your voice nothing but soft, breathless whimpers as they fill you over and over until you can’t hold any more.

And the worst part? You love it.

SMUT - you been warned

The characters are written down below are,, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Jazz, Ironhide, Sideswipe, Crosshairs, Drift, Hound and Hotrod.

Optimus Prime

Optimus tells himself he should pace it—but the moment he’s buried deep inside you, the moment he feels you clench so sweetly around him, his restraint snaps.

Every night, he ruins you.

His thrusts are deep, deliberate, his servos pinning your hips as he watches your expression twist with pure, blissful exhaustion.

By the third night, your body practically melts into his, too spent to do anything but take what he gives. And Primus, that just makes him want to keep going.

“You asked for this,” he growls, voice dark, lips tracing your heated skin. “Now, take it.”

Bumblebee

Bee started off teasing—but by night four, it’s no longer a game.

It’s a need.

He worships you, his servos gripping tight, his engine revving as he loses himself in the way your body takes him so perfectly.

Every night, you end up a whimpering mess beneath him, your body trembling, unable to move, too wrecked to do anything but let him fill you up again.

And frag, that only makes him want to keep going.

“You’re so fragging good for me,” he groans, pressing his forehead against yours. “You still got another round in you, sweets?”

You always do.

Ratchet

Ratchet knew this was a bad idea—he knew you wouldn’t last the full week.

But Primus, you insisted.

And now?

Now, you’re spent, your frame wrecked, your voice no longer begging for more, but begging for a break—

But does he stop?

No.

His movements are slow, deliberate, his spark pulsing wildly as he watches you tremble beneath him, taking everything he gives you.

“You wanted this, love,” he rumbles, voice thick with possession. “So now, you’ll take it.”

And oh, you do.

Jazz

Jazz thought he’d be the one to tap out first.

He was wrong.

By the sixth night, you’re melting beneath him, your body weak, your voice a soft, breathless whimper as he fills you up again and again.

And Primus, he loves it.

“Too much, babe?” he teases, his smirk dark as he rolls his hips just right, making your whole frame shudder.

But the second you let out a broken moan—

Oh, frag.

He’s gone.

Ironhide

Ironhide warned you.

He told you a whole week would be too much.

But you insisted.

And now?

Now, you’re spent, your frame trembling, your voice a breathless whimper as he presses into you again, filling you completely.

He should stop. He should.

But frag, you’re so soft beneath him, so weak from taking him night after night—

And Primus, that only makes him want to keep going.

“You said a week,” he growls, voice dark as he thrusts deep. “So I’m gonna give you one.” his servos slide between the crevice behind her knees as he fold her nicely.

folding her knees to touch her shoulder plates as his hips snapped towards her valve.

Sideswipe

Sideswipe laughed when you first suggested it.

A whole week? There was no way you’d last that long.

But now?

Now, you’re melting under him, too wrecked to do anything but cling to his frame, letting him take what he needs.

And oh, he needs it.

“Aw, babe,” he chuckles, voice thick with hunger. “You’re so fragging wrecked, huh?”

And the second you let out a weak little whimper—

Oh, he’s not stopping now.

Crosshairs

Crosshairs should’ve known this would happen.

By the fourth night, you’re already spent, your frame trembling beneath him, your voice breathless as he fills you up again.

“You’re so fraggin’ soft now,” he murmurs, his servo sliding over your trembling frame. “Practically meltin’ for me.”

And frag, if that doesn’t make him want to wreck you all over again.

Drift

Drift had been gentle—at first.

But by night three, something inside him snaps.

You’re so soft beneath him, so pliant, your body trembling as you take everything he gives you—

And Primus, he needs more.

“You will endure,” he murmurs, voice thick with reverence, his movements slow but deep.

And oh, you do.

Each thrust send her though pleasure after pleasure, her whines make him increase each gentle thrust into more needy and hard ones, just by hearing her needy sounds made Drift himself snap.

But he shouldn't, not if they both have all week to continue on

Hound

Hound knew you’d be wrecked before the week was up.

But frag, did you look good like this.

Soft. Weak. Too spent to do anything but let him press you down, keeping you full all fraggin’ night.

And the way you melt for him?

Primus.

“You wanted this, sugar,” he rumbles, pressing a slow, deep thrust into you. “So now, you’re gonna take it.”

And frag, do you ever.

His large size makes her feel many things at once, the tight squeeze he feels when he would grind back in makes him full on shudder.

HotRod

Hot Rod thought he was the one in control.

He was wrong.

Because now, you’re so wrecked, so weak beneath him, your body trembling, your voice a soft, breathless whimper—

And frag, he needs to fill you up again.

He should stop. He should.

But with you this soft, this wrecked, he just can’t help but press a slow, deep thrust into you again.

“… Just one more,” he mutters, knowing damn well it won’t be.

And frag, do you let him.

notes - ahhh.. I suck at drawing transformers bots..

[howdoesone]

How does one manage airway and breathing in critically ill or injured patients?

Managing the airway and ensuring adequate breathing is a critical aspect of caring for critically ill or injured patients. In emergency medical services (EMS), prompt and effective airway management can significantly impact patient outcomes. This article will discuss the essential steps and considerations in managing the airway and breathing in critically ill or injured patients. Continue reading…

[matcha3mochi]

PROTOCOL Pairing: Doctor Zayne x Nurse Reader

author note: love and deepspace is my addiction guys LOL anyways enjoy!!

wc: 3,865

chapter 1 | chapter 2

✦•┈๑⋅⋯ ⋯⋅๑┈•✦

Akso Hospital looms in the heart of Linkon like a monument of glass, metal, and unrelenting precision. Multi-tiered, climate-controlled, and fully integrated with city-wide telemetry systems, it's known across the cosmos for housing the most advanced medical AI and the most exacting surgeons in the Union.

Inside its Observation Deck on Level 4, the air hums with quiet purpose. Disinfectant and filtered oxygen mix in sterile harmony. The floors are polished to a mirrored sheen, the walls pulse faintly with embedded biometrics, and translucent holoscreens scroll real-time vitals, arterial scans, and surgical priority tags in muted color-coded displays.

You’ve been on the floor since 0500. First to check vitals. First to inventory meds. First to get snapped at.

Doctor Zayne Li is already here—of course he is. The man practically lives in the operating theatres. Standing behind the panoramic glass that overlooks Surgery Bay Delta, he looks like something carved out of discipline and frost. His pristine long coat hangs perfectly from squared shoulders, gloves tucked with methodical precision, silver-framed glasses reflecting faint readouts from the transparent interface hovering before him.

He’s the hospital’s prized cardiovascular surgeon. The Zayne Li—graduated top of his class from Astral Medica, youngest surgeon ever certified for off-planet cardiac reconstruction, published more than any other specialist in the central systems under 35. There's even a rumor he once performed a dual-heart transplant in an emergency gravity failure. Probably true.

He’s a legend. A genius.

And an ass.

He’s never once smiled at you. Never once said thank you. With other staff, he’s distant but civil. With you, he’s something else entirely: cold, strict, and unrelentingly sharp. If you breathe wrong, he notices. If you hesitate, he corrects. If you do everything by protocol?

He still finds something to critique.

"Vitals on Bed 12 were late," he said this morning without even turning his head. No greeting. Just judgment, clean and surgical.

"They weren’t late. I had to reset the cuff."

"You should anticipate equipment failures. That’s part of the job."

And that was it. No acknowledgment of the three critical patients you’d managed in that hour. No recognition. No room for explanation. He turned away before you could blink, his coat slicing behind him like punctuation.

You don’t like him.

You don’t disrespect him—because you're a professional, and because he's earned his reputation a hundred times over. But you don’t like how he talks to you like you’re a glitch in the system. Like you’re a deviation he hasn’t figured out how to reprogram.

You’ve worked under strict doctors before. But Zayne is different. He doesn’t push to challenge you. He pushes to see if you’ll break.

And the worst part?

You haven’t.

Which only seems to piss him off more.

You watch him now from the break table near the edge of the deck, your synth-coffee going tepid between your hands. He’s reviewing scans on a projection screen—high-res, rotating 3D models of a degenerating bio-synthetic valve. His eyes, a pale hazel-green, flick across the data with sharp focus. His arms are folded behind his back, posture perfect, expression unreadable.

He hasn’t noticed you.

Correction: he has, and he’s pointedly ignoring you.

Typical.

You take another sip of coffee, more bitter than before. You could head back to inventory. You could restock surgical trays. But you don’t.

Because part of you refuses to give him the satisfaction of leaving first.

So you stay.

And so does he.

Two professionals. Two adversaries. One cold war fought in clipped words, clinical tension, and overlapping silence.

And the day hasn’t even started yet.

The surgical light beams down like a second sun, flooding the operating theatre in harsh, clinical brightness. It washes the color out of everything—blood, skin, even breath—until all that remains is precision.

Doctor Zayne Li stands at the head of the table, gloved hands elevated and scrubbed raw, sleeves of his sterile gown clinging tight around his forearms. His eyes flick up to the vitals screen, then down to the patient’s exposed chest.

“Vitals?” he asks.

You answer without hesitation. “Steady. HR 82, BP 96/63, oxygen at 99%, no irregularities.”

His silence is your only cue to proceed.

You hand him the scalpel, handle first, exactly as protocol demands. He doesn’t look at you when he takes it—but his fingers graze yours, cold through double-layered gloves, and the contact still sends a tiny jolt up your arm. Annoying.

He makes the incision without fanfare, clean and deliberate, the kind of cut that only comes from years of obsessive mastery. The kind that still makes your gut tighten to watch.

You monitor the instruments, anticipating without crowding him. You’ve been assisting in his surgeries for weeks now. You’ve learned when he prefers the microclamp versus the stabilizer. You’ve memorized the sequence of his suturing pattern. You know when to speak and when not to. Still, it’s never enough.

“Retractor,” he says flatly.

You’re already reaching.

“Not that one.”

Your hand freezes mid-motion.

His tone is ice. “Cardiac thoracic, not abdominal. Are you even awake?”

A hot flush rises behind your ears. He doesn’t yell—Zayne never yells—but his disappointment cuts deeper than a scalpel. You grit your teeth and correct the tray.

“Cardiac thoracic,” you repeat. “Understood.”

No response. Just the soft click of metal as he inserts the retractor into the sternotomy.

The rest of the operation is silence and beeping. You suction blood before he asks. He cauterizes without hesitation. The damaged aortic valve is removed, replaced with a synthetic graft designed for lunar-pressure tolerance. It’s delicate work—millimeter adjustments, microscopic thread. One wrong move could tear the tissue.

Zayne doesn’t shake. Doesn’t blink. He’s terrifyingly still, even as alarms spike and the patient's BP dips for three agonizing seconds.

“Clamp. Now,” he says.

You pass it instantly. He seals the nicked vessel, stabilizes the pressure, and the monitor quiets.

You exhale—but not too loudly. Not until the final suture is tied, the chest closed, and the drape removed. Then, and only then, does he speak again.

“Clean,” he says, already walking away. “Prepare a report for Post-Op within the hour.”

You stare at his retreating back, fists clenched at your sides. No thank you. No good work. Just a cold command and disappearing footsteps.

The Diagnostic Lab is silent, save for the low hum of scanners and the occasional pulse of a vitascan completing a loop. The walls are steel-paneled with matte black inlays, lit only by the soft glow of holographic interfaces. Ambient light drifts in from a side wall of glass, showing the icy curve of Europa in the distance, half-shadowed in space.

You stand alone at a curved diagnostics console, sleeves rolled just above your elbows, eyes locked on the 3D hologram spinning in front of you. The synthetic heart pulses slowly, arteries reconstructed with precise synthetic grafts. The valve—a platinum-carbon composite—is functioning perfectly. You check the scan tags, patient ID, op codes, and log the post-op outcome.

Everything’s clean. Correct.

Or so you thought.

You barely register the soft hiss of the door opening behind you until the room shifts. Not in volume, but in pressure—like gravity suddenly increased by one degree.

You don’t turn. You don’t have to.

Zayne.

“Line 12 in the file log,” he says, voice low, composed, and close. Too close.

You blink at the screen. “What about it?”

“You mislabeled the scan entry. That’s a formatting violation.”

Your heart rate ticks up. You straighten your spine.

“No,” you reply calmly, “I used trauma tags from pre-op logs. They cross-reference with the emergency surgical queue.”

His footsteps approach—measured, deliberate—and stop directly behind you. You sense the heat of his body before anything else. He’s not touching you, but he’s close enough that you feel him standing there, like a charged wire humming at your back.

“You adapted a tag system that’s not recognized by this wing’s software. If these were pushed to central review, they’d get flagged. Wasting time.” His tone is even. Too even.

Your hands rest on the edge of the console. You force your shoulders not to tense.

“I made a call based on the context. It was logical.”

“You’re not here to improvise logic,” he replies, stepping even closer.

You feel the air change as he raises his arm, reaching past you—his coat sleeve brushing the side of your bicep lightly, the barest whisper of contact. His hand moves with surgical confidence as he taps the air beside your own, opening the tag metadata on the scan you just logged. His fingers are long, gloved, deliberate in motion.

“This,” he says, highlighting a code block, “should have been labeled with an ICU procedural tag, not pre-op trauma shorthand.”

You turn your head slightly, and there he is. Close. Towering. His jaw is tight, clean-shaven except for the faintest trace of stubble catching the edge of the light. There’s a tiredness around his eyes—subtle, buried deep—but he doesn’t blink. Doesn’t waver. He’s so still it’s unnerving.

He doesn’t seem to notice—or care—how near he is.

You, however, are all too aware.

Your voice tightens. “Is there a reason you couldn’t point this out without standing over me like I’m in your way?”

Zayne doesn’t flinch. “If I stood ten feet back, you’d still argue with me.”

You bristle. “Because I know what I’m doing.”

“And yet,” he replies coolly, “I’m the one correcting your data.”

That sting digs deep. You pull in a breath, clenching your fists subtly against the side of the console. You want to yell. But you won’t. Because he wants control, and you won’t give him that too.

He lowers his hand slowly, retracting from the display, and finally—finally—steps back. Just enough to let you breathe again.

But the tension? It lingers like static.

“I’ll correct the tag,” you say flatly.

Zayne nods once, then turns to go.

But at the doorway, he stops.

Without looking back, he adds, “You're capable. That’s why I expect better.”

Then he walks out.

Leaving you in the cold hum of the diagnostic lab, your pulse racing, your thoughts a snarl of frustration and something else—unsettling and electric—curling low in your gut.

You don’t know what that something is.

But you’re starting to suspect it won’t go away quietly.

You sit three seats from the end of the long chrome conference table, back straight, shoulders tight, fingers wrapped just a little too hard around your datapad.

The Surgical Briefing Room is too bright. It always is. Cold light from the ceiling plates bounces off polished surfaces, glass walls, and the brushed steel of the central console. A hologram hovers in the center of the room, slowly spinning: the reconstructed heart from this morning’s procedure, arteries lit in pulsing red and cyan.

You can feel sweat prickling at the nape of your neck under your uniform collar. Your scrubs are crisp, your hair pinned back precisely, your notes immaculate—but none of that matters when Dr. Myles Hanron speaks.

You’ve only spoken to him a few times. He’s been at Bell for twenty years. Stern. Respected. Impossible to argue with. Today, he's reviewing the recent cardiovascular procedure—the one you assisted under Zayne’s lead.

And something is off. He’s frowning at the scan display.

Then he looks at you.

“Explain this inconsistency in the anticoagulation log.”

You glance up, already feeling the slow roll of nausea in your stomach.

Your voice comes out measured, but your throat is dry. “I followed the automated-calibrated dosage curve based on intra-op vitals and confirmed with the automated log.”

Hanron raises a brow, his tablet casting a soft reflection on the lenses of his glasses. “Then you followed it wrong.”

The words hit like a slap across your face.

You feel the blood drain from your cheeks. Something sharp twists in your stomach.

“I—” you begin, mouth parting. You shift slightly in your seat, fingers tightening on the datapad in your lap, legs crossed too stiffly. Your body wants to shrink, but you force yourself not to move.

“Don’t interrupt,” Hanron snaps, before you can finish.

A few heads turn in your direction. One of the interns frowns, glancing at you with wide eyes. You stare straight ahead, trying to keep your breathing even, your spine straight, your jaw from visibly clenching.

Hanron paces two steps in front of the display. “You logged a 0.3 ml deviation on a patient with a known history of arrhythmic episodes. Are you unfamiliar with the case history? Or did you just not check?”

“I did check,” you say, quieter, trying to keep your tone professional. Your hands are starting to sweat. “The scan flagged it within range. I wasn’t improvising—”

“Then how did this discrepancy occur?” he presses. “Or are you suggesting the system is at fault?”

You flinch, slightly. You open your mouth to say something—to explain the terminal sync issue you noticed during the last vitals run—but your voice catches.

You’re a nurse.

You’re new.

So you sit there, every instinct in your body screaming to speak, to defend yourself—but you swallow it down.

You stare down at your datapad, the screen now blurred from the way your vision’s tunneling. You clench your teeth until your jaw aches.

You can’t speak up. Not without making it worse.

“Let this be a reminder,” Hanron says, turning his back to you as he scrolls through another projection, “that there is no room for guesswork in surgical prep. Especially not from auxiliary staff who feel the need to act above their training.”

Auxiliary.

The word burns.

You feel heat crawl up your chest. Your hands are shaking slightly. You grip your knees under the table to hide it.

And then—

“I signed off on that dosage.”

Zayne’s voice cuts clean through the air like a cold wire.

You turn your head sharply toward the door. He’s standing in the entrance, posture military-straight, coat half-unbuttoned, gloves tucked into his belt. His presence shifts the atmosphere instantly.

His black hair is perfectly combed back, not a strand out of place, glinting faintly under the sterile overhead lights. His silver-framed glasses sit low on the bridge of his nose, catching a brief reflection from the room’s data panels, but not enough to hide the expression in his eyes.

Hazel-green. Pale and piercing

He’s not looking at you. His gaze is fixed past you, locked on Hanron with unflinching intensity—like the man has just committed a fundamental breach of logic.

There’s not a wrinkle in his coat. Not a single misaligned button or loose thread. Even the gloves at his belt look placed, not shoved there. Zayne is, as always, polished. Meticulous. Icy.

But today—his expression is different.

His jaw is set tighter than usual. The faint crease between his brows is deeper. He looks like a man on the verge of unsheathing a scalpel, not for surgery—but for precision retaliation.

And when he speaks, his voice is calm. Controlled.

His face is unreadable. Voice flat.

“If there’s a problem with it, you can take it up with me.”

The silence in the room is instant. Tense. Airless.

Hanron turns slowly. “Doctor Zayne, this isn’t about—”

“It is,” Zayne replies, tone even sharper. “You’re implying a clinical error in my procedure. If you’re accusing her, then you’re accusing me. So let’s be clear.”

You can barely process it. Your heart is thudding, ears buzzing from the sudden shift in tone, from the weight of Zayne’s voice cutting through the tension like a scalpel. You look at him — really look — and for once, he isn’t focused on numbers or reports.

He’s solely focused on Hanron. And he is furious — not loudly, but in the way his voice doesn’t rise, his jaw locks, and his words slice like ice.

Just furious—in that cold, calculated way of his.

“She followed my instruction under direct supervision,” he says, voice steady. “The variance was intentional. Based on patient history and real-time rhythm response.”

He pauses just long enough to let the words land.

“It was correct.”

Hanron doesn’t respond right away.

His lips press into a thin line, face unreadable, and he shifts back a step—visibly checking himself in the silence Zayne has carved into the room like a scalpel.

“We’ll review the surgical logs,” Hanron mutters at last, voice clipped, his authority retreating behind procedure.

Zayne nods once. “Please do.”

Then, without fanfare, without another word, he steps forward—not toward the exit, but toward the table.

You track him with your eyes, unable to help it.

The low hum of the room resumes, like the air had been holding its breath. No one speaks. A few nurses drop their eyes back to their datapads. Pages turn. Screens flicker.

But you’re frozen in place, shoulders still tight, hands clenched in your lap to keep them from visibly shaking.

Zayne rounds the end of the table, his boots clicking softly against the metal flooring. His long coat sways with his movements, falling neatly behind him as he pulls out the seat directly across from you.

And sits.

Not at the head of the table. Not in some corner seat to observe.

Directly across from you.

He adjusts his glasses with two fingers, expression cool again, almost as if nothing happened. As if he didn’t just dress down a senior doctor in front of the entire room on your behalf.

He doesn’t look at you.

He opens the file on his datapad, stylus poised, reviewing the surgical results like this is any other debrief.

But you’re still staring.

You study the slight tension in his shoulders, the stillness in his hands, the way his eyes don’t drift—not toward Hanron, not toward you—locked entirely on the data as if that can contain whatever just happened.

You should say something.

Thank you.

But the words get stuck in your throat.

Your pulse is still unsteady, confusion mixing with the low thrum of heat behind your ribs. He didn’t need to defend you. He never steps into conflict like that, especially not for others—especially not for you.

You glance away first, eyes back on your screen, unable to ignore the twist in your gut.

The room empties, but you stay.

The echo of voices fades out with the hiss of the sliding doors. Just a few minutes ago, the surgical debrief room was bright with tension—every overhead light too sharp, the air too thin, the hum of holopanels and datapads a constant static in your head.

Now, it’s quiet. Still.

You sit for a moment longer, fingers resting on your lap, knuckles tight, back straight even though your entire body wants to collapse inward. You’re still warm from the flush of embarrassment, your pulse still flickering behind your ears.

Dr. Hanron’s words sting less now, dulled by the cool aftershock of what Zayne did.

He defended you.

You hadn’t expected it. Not from him.

You replay it in your head—his voice cutting in, his posture like stone, his eyes locked on Hanron like a scalpel ready to slice. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t even look at you.

But you felt it.

You felt the impact of what it meant.

And now, as you sit in the empty conference room—white walls, chrome-edged table, sterile quiet—you’re left with one burning thought:

You have to say something.

You rise slowly, brushing your palms down your thighs to wipe off the sweat that lingers there. You hesitate at the doorway. Your reflection stares back at you in the glass panel—eyes still a little wide, jaw tight, posture just a bit too stiff.

He didn’t have to defend you, but he did.

And that matters.

You step into the hallway.

It’s long and narrow, glowing with soft white overhead lights and lined with clear glass panels that reflect fragments of your movement as you walk. The hum of the ventilation system buzzes low and steady—comforting in its monotony. The air smells of antiseptic and the faint trace of ozone from high-oxygen surgical wards.

You spot him ahead, already halfway down the corridor, walking with purpose—long coat swaying slightly with each step, back straight, shoulders squared. Always composed. Always fast.

You hesitate. Your boots slow down and your throat tightens.

You want to turn back, to let it go, to pretend it was just professional courtesy. Nothing more. Nothing personal.

But you can’t.

Not this time.

You quicken your pace.

“Doctor Zayne!”

The name catches in the air, too loud in the quiet hallway. You flinch, just a little—but he stops.

You break into a small jog to catch up, boots tapping sharply against the tile. Your breath catches as you reach him.

Zayne turns toward you, expression unreadable, brows slightly furrowed in that ever-present, analytical way of his. The glow of the ceiling lights reflects off his silver-framed glasses, casting sharp highlights along the edges of his jaw.

He doesn’t say anything. Just waits.

You stop a foot away, heart thudding. You don’t know what you expected—maybe something colder. Maybe for him to ignore you entirely.

You swallow hard, eyes flicking up to meet his.

“I just…” Your voice is quieter now. Careful. “I wanted to say thank you.”

He doesn’t respond immediately. His gaze is steady. Measured.

“I don’t tolerate incompetence,” he says calmly. “That includes false accusations.”

You blink, taken off guard by the directness. It’s not warm. Not even particularly kind. But coming from him, it’s almost intimate.

Still, you can’t help yourself. “That wasn’t really about incompetence.”

“No,” he admits. “It wasn’t.”

The hallway feels smaller now, quieter. He’s watching you in full. Not scanning you like a chart, not calculating — watching. Still. Focused.

You nod slowly, grounding yourself in the moment. “Still. I needed to say it. Thank you.”

You’re suddenly aware of everything—of the warmth in your cheeks, of the way your hands twist at your sides, of how tall he stands compared to you, even when he’s not trying to intimidate.

And he isn’t. Not now.

If anything, he looks… still.

Not soft. Never that. But something quieter. Less armored.

“You handled yourself better than most would have,” he says after a moment. “Even if I hadn’t said anything, you didn’t lose control.”

“I didn’t feel in control,” you admit, a breath of nervous laughter escaping. “I was two seconds from either crying or throwing my datapad.”

That earns you something surprising—just the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Almost a smile. But not quite.

“Neither would’ve been productive,” he says.

You roll your eyes slightly. “Thanks, Doctor Efficiency.”

His glasses catch the light again, but his expression doesn’t change.

You glance past him, down the corridor. “I should get back to my rotation.”

He nods once. “I’ll see you in the lab.”

You pause.

Then—because you don’t know what else to do—you offer a small, genuine smile.

“I’ll be there.”

As you turn to leave, you feel his eyes on your back.

[mariasont]

Copper Changes Color - A.H

all you wanted was to stop your new kitchen from flooding. what you got was a crash course in home repair, body awareness, and what mr. hotchner looks like in a dripping dress shirt

pairings: aaron hotchner x intern!reader warnings: suggestive themes, mild accidental injury, clothing transparency, mentions of aging (el oh el), slow burn (with water damage), sexual tension but we r making it neighborly, age gap, home repair as foreplay, science girl flirts via plumbing vocabulary, ballcock failure (swear) wc: 1.9k

Water sluices through your shoes in persistent little pulses, seeping into your socks and establishing a semi-permanent colony in the crevices between your toes.

You purse your lips and pitch yourself forward, clutching at the hem of your tank like you might peel the cold from your skin if you just squeeze hard enough. It doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t.

The fabric clings tighter instead, now suctioned to your spine, a damp, vindictive second skin with a grudge. (Hydrophilic fibers. That’s why. Cotton loves water. An ironic choice, in retrospect, for someone who knows that cellulose absorbs up to 27 times its own weight.)

So now you’re mid-drip, mid-shiver, mid-existential reckoning over the catastrophic intersection between you and the American household plumbing system when the door swings open.

And there he is, framed in clean lines and afternoon light — your neighbor, your new neighbor, your prohibitively attractive, aggressively symmetrical new neighbor.

What a great impression you seem to be making judging by the look he gives you, as if trying to discern whether this is a cry for help or just your natural state of being.

You realize, belatedly, that you don’t even know which one you’d prefer him to believe.

“Hi! I — okay. This is probably the weirdest neighbor interaction you’ve had all month. Maybe all year. But my kitchen kind of exploded? Not exploded-exploded, there weren’t any flames or concussive blasts or flaming shards of sink shrapnel, just… water. A lot of it. From a valve? Under the sink? It’s called a ballcock, which sounds fake but it’s a real word, I checked. Anyway there was, like, geyser-level water pressure shooting into my ceiling and I didn’t know what else to do, so I came here. Not because I thought you could fix it, necessarily, unless you can? But mostly because I panicked. Which I don’t normally do.”

He regards you silently for a moment, his expression closed off, reminding you of a combination lock, one your brain immediately fumbles through every numeric permutation it can conjure to open it.

“I can come take a look. And call a plumber.”

He gestures for you to lead the way, falling in step behind you, or maybe beside you. It’s hard to tell. Spatial awareness takes a backseat the second his eyes dip toward the distressingly see-through state of your shirt.

He jerks his eyes away in gentlemanly fashion, burning himself on a hot stove.

Clearing his throat, he recovers, “Do you know if your water main’s outside or under the sink?”

You cross your arms, an attempted picture of casual confidence, though realistically more akin to frantic self-containment via strategically placed limbs.

You hope he doesn’t notice.

“It’s under the sink, I think. I mean sixty percent of residential shutoff valves are installed there, though some new models route to an external main, especially in cold climates, but this house predates modular plumbing standards so — yeah. Probably the sink.”

He nods once, as if you had offered a completely ordinary and appropriate response. As if normal people regularly volley niche plumbing statistics at each other in casual conversation.

Most people — regular, socially adjusted humans — would’ve blinked. Or winced a little. Or at least made that polite, closed-mouth “ah” sound that universally signals, please, for the love of god, stop talking.

But not Mr. Hotchner. (Aaron? Hotchner? You weren’t sure which name was appropriate.) He just steps into your house, either unfazed by you or polite enough to hide his confusion exceptionally well.

He crosses the kitchen in three measured strides, slacks neatly creased, white dress shirt still buttoned to the collar.

His posture practically screams executive burnout, like he spent his entire day navigating high-stakes conference calls and patiently explaining things to people he silently considered throttling.

You conclude swiftly and confidently that he must be some kind of CEO. Something complicated, lucrative, and mildly sinister. Finance, perhaps. Or no, something with a more predatory reputation. Venture capital? Private equity? Arms dealing? (Okay, not arms dealing.)

Whatever it is, you’re sure it involves quarterly earnings calls, shareholder appeasement, and an extensive collection of expensive ties.

But then again, he does live here. In this neighborhood, which is lovely, sure, all quiet and sun-dappled, all responsibly pruned hedges and tasteful porch lighting. You love it. You also could never have afforded it if the house hadn’t been, you know, inherited.

Still, it’s not exactly executive-suite-level real estate. 

Unless, of course, he’s one of those hyper-rational finance-blog devotees who preach aggressive saving strategies and believe visible wealth is for amateurs. You could picture that. Actually, it fits him perfectly. Or at least, it fits perfectly with the version of him your brain is assembling based on fifteen seconds of sidewalk interaction and your wildly unused behavioral science coursework.

You haven’t exactly been studying him, per se, but certain details lodge themselves in your pattern-attuned brain. It can’t be helped.

He leaves early. Returns late, consistently solo, and displays zero evidence of a cohabiting partner. There’s no second vehicle, no conspicuous brunch plans on weekends. His grocery trips result in single-serving bags and he waters that one sad potted plant but never waves at Mindi Daugherty across the street who strategically times her daily walks past his house in distinctly flattering activewear. 

He also runs every morning. You know this in the same way you know tides shift or birds migrate because he passes your porch at precisely 6:12 AM.

Same routine, same pace, same gray T-shirt darkened at the collar and clinging to upper-body definition. You’ve taken to waking up early under the noble guise of catching the sunrise before class, gaze angled vaguely toward the horizon, which just so happens to intersect with his jogging path.

But now, with him crouched at your sink, sleeves pushed past his forearms — which, by the way, are absolutely in the top percentile of forearm presentation — you confirm those jogs have a definitive purpose. Strong legs. Powerful quads capable of door-demolishing force. Not that you’ve considered that.

“Can you hand me that towel?”

You comply instantly, arm extending stiffly, acutely aware of the warmth radiating off him in slow, magnetic waves, like a space heater, or maybe a heat lamp, but one inexplicably gifted with superb genetics and bone structure.

He takes it, fingers brushing yours in an accidental collision. You would think it’s negligible by most standards, and yet your entire sensory network lights up simultaneously.

Without a word, he resumes his investigation beneath the sink, using the towel as makeshift padding for one knee.

You shift your weight, then decide proximity is crucial for educational purposes, lowering yourself onto the tile, whose damp chill promptly seeps through your leggings. Not enough to dissuade you.

“What exactly are you looking for?” you ask, voice soft so it doesn’t bounce too loud in the small kitchen. 

“Fault point on the fill line. If it’s clean, it’s a seal issue. If it’s corroded, you’ll need a full replacement.”

Your lips turn to a frown.

“If it is corroded, is it something you can patch temporarily or is it full replacement only?”

He turns to respond, but his gaze slips past your eyes, dropping downward for what seems like the seventh time in ten minutes, and precisely then, his arm brushes the loosened valve with just enough force to dislodge it.

Water explodes in a vicious surge, hitting him squarely in the chest and smacking you on the cheek.

Before you can move or breathe or curse, he’s already between you and the line of fire, arm braced against the cabinet, deflecting the brunt of the stream. Water barrels into his side, soaking through his pristine shirt in seconds.

Amidst the roar of rushing spray, you hear the metallic groan, the protesting grind of something finally surrendering beneath the steady force of his hand, and at last, the deluge tapers.

He exhales and then turns to look at you, shirt molded to his pecs, sleeves dripping onto the floor.

“Sorry,” he says, voice low but not annoyed, if anything, it’s amused. 

You offer him a weak smile, still blinking through droplets. “No, it’s — this is my fault. I should be the one apologizing. I mean, I’m the one who dragged you into this mess.”

He huffs a laugh, and there’s a dimple there, you realize, half-hidden beneath rain-slicked skin and a mouth pulling into something between wry and warm.

His hair drapes across his forehead, coiling slightly now that it’s wet.

You’re still smiling, you think, though hopefully in a restrained, adult, totally-not-enamored-neighbor sort of way.

He tilts his head at the pipe, then looks back at you over one shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re going to need a full replacement.” He gestures vaguely at the sad, dripping underbelly of the sink. “I can shut it off from the main for now, but it needs to be looked at professionally.”

“Right.” You nod. “I’ll just add this to my ever-expanding list of adult learning experiences.” He moves toward the shutoff as you wipe water from your eyes with the edge of your tank top. “Seriously, though, thank you. I know this isn’t exactly a neighborly favor on the usual spectrum of things.”

“This was… not the worst emergency call I’ve had,” he says, almost smiling. 

You’re about to respond, standing from your spot, to ask what could possibly be worse than this, when your heel skids across the drenched floor.

Your arms flail instinctively, grabbing at the nearest available support, which, of course, is him. He moves quickly, to his credit, trying to stabilize you, but the momentum carries you both backward. You tumble gracelessly into a slippery, tangled heap.

He mostly succeeds in cushioning your fall, though the resulting thud against the floor elicits a sharp grunt from him. Your palms, meanwhile, end up planted squarely against his very wet, very muscular chest.

You freeze, trapped somewhere between outright panic and complete sensory overload. His hands rest firmly on your waist in a futile attempt to salvage the situation, but the situation is well beyond saving, you’re adhered to him, nipples peaked against a top that’s now suctioned to skin. He has to feel it. And worse, your hair is now stuck across his face, one curl draped over his temple like an attempt at decoration.

His face, you notice, is stupidly handsome this close up. You can see the exact shape of his jaw, the way his lashes cluster into tiny spikes, the faint suggestion of stubble shadowing his skin, a brow that ticks just briefly as your breath catches against his collarbone. 

“You okay?”

“I’m fine!” you blurt, immediately launching into what can only be described as an anxious, full-body scramble off him. “Are you okay? Because I landed right on your — well, your thoracic region, technically, which absorbs impact better than your lower back, but still, that was a lot of force and you’re older —” You stop. “— I mean, not older, I just mean relatively speaking, like, statistically, the male spine starts to degenerate past thirty-five and — okay, I’m going to stop talking now.”

He stands with a grunt, more from effort than pain, and offers you his hand.

“You know,” he says, clasping yours as he lifts you to your feet. “I didn’t realize I was old until you mentioned it.”

Your face goes hot. “I didn’t mean you specifically, it was a general observation about musculoskeletal aging and —” You cut yourself off with a wince. “Right. Not helping.”

He exhales, a laugh almost, then glances at the kitchen. “I’ll call a plumber I know. They should be able to come out tomorrow and I can come by and oversee it, if you want.”

“Oh. Really? You’d — yeah. Thank you. That’d be great.”

He gives a nod, and for a moment, it’s just the two of you standing in a ruin of your own making. Then he opens the door. “Try to get some rest.”

And you will. Probably. Eventually.

💌 masterlist taglist has been disbanded! if you want to get updates about my writings follow and turn notifications on for my account strictly for reblogging my works! @mariasreblogs

[luveline]

Sorry if you’ve done this already, but if you’re taking Spencer Reid requests I would love to see one where his wife is struggling with morning sickness and he takes care of her. He has all the medical facts on deck and is the sweetest. 😊

“Morning sickness is super common.” A hand on your back. “It’s not known what the cause is, but they think it has something to do with low blood sugar.” He rubs your shoulder. Fingers spread, a slow side to side. “Because your hormones are changing rapidly, the body isn’t as efficient in processing your blood sugar.“ 

“Spence,” you say, breathing hard with your face in a toilet bowl, “that doesn’t make me feel any better.” 

“What about if I told you that it’s worse with twins?” 

It’s interesting.

You’re not having the most exciting of pregnancies. Some people get pregnant and feel that connection to the baby instantly, their foetus the size of a strawberry and somehow a whole world. 

So far yours just makes you sick. “I think there’s something wrong with me.” 

“Probably not.” 

Spencer hoists you back from the bowl. He clambers off of his knees to close the lid, flush, and turn to the sink where he washes his hands. You put a hand on the lid, not so sure you’re finished throwing up, but Spencer tends to know. He’s a good guess. 

“Here, dove,” he says softly, offering a face towel wet with warm water. 

He tried to wipe your face down himself last time and you couldn’t hide how much you didn’t want him to do that. He’s kind, and the gesture is sweet, but you’re feeling less human than ever lately. An in depth analysis of your face isn’t in the books for him. 

You hold the towel in both hands and drop your head. 

“Let me help you up.” 

“I’m gonna just live here, actually.”

“I don’t think so. You’re too cute to live on the floor,” Spencer says, not even slightly ironic, “you have to live in bed like every other adorable woman.” 

“I don’t feel adorable.” 

“You wouldn’t. Your organs are moving and your skin is stretching, and the valves in your veins are becoming fatigued.” 

“Awesome.” 

Spencer holds both arms out to you and helps you stand. Your head pulses, forcing you to rest your head against Spencer’s arm for a few seconds while you come around properly. 

“You’ve never been this beautiful, though,” Spencer says softly, “you really do glow.” 

“Thanks,” you say, your laugh muffled in his shirt. 

“It’s because your blood flow has increased all over your body. Maybe. It’s probably just because you’re you and you’re having our baby and…” Spencer lets his head drop gently atop your own. “You know. You’re the loveliest woman I’ve ever met.”

“Even when I’m sick as a dog?” you ask. 

“At all times… you know what I said earlier, about your blood flow? You know what else that causes?” 

You bring your arms up to curl them protectively behind his neck. He takes your waist. “What?” you ask his neck. 

“Your heart doubles in size.” 

“That happened when I met you.” 

“I think being pregnant has made you flirt more,” Spencer says fondly. 

“Nope. Just a side effect of all these certified Reid facts.” You know what he’s doing, distracting you from your nausea with other things. It’s working slowly, and you appreciate the effort. You might not feel a big connection yet to your baby, but you never feel alone.  

[getaapologist]

Draw Slow When You Take From Me

Pairing: Vampire!Geta x female!reader

Warnings: 18+ only, MDNI. Seriously. Blood! (this is about vampires, so), mention of the menarche, consumption of the menarche, sex.

Word Count: 4.0k

A/N: It's finally here. This is just my immediate thoughts that poured out when I first started thinking about this AU. I would always be willing to explore different things, perhaps pre-wife, or even other household members. Mine is sweet, mostly. If you're looking for something more... well, more, check out @prettycalla 's contribution. I promise it's so amazing (better than mine!). I also owed some people a Geta period thing, so I combined the two. I apologize in advance.

Geta looked down at you as you slept. He could hear every heartbeat, each individual ventricle pulsing, valves closing, a wet symphony. Waves breaking. Your steady breathing filled the room. He could smell the jasmine oil you dabbed behind your ears, at your wrists, between your breasts.

He was far too hungry to linger tonight.

“Mmm, come to bed,” you spoke sluggishly, reaching out to tug on his robes. 

“Later, mea lux,” he smiled, a deep pit in his stomach. It grew the closer he got, but he shoved it down so he could lean over and nuzzle at your cheek. He could smell the sunlight soaked into your skin. So tempting. “After our meetings.”

After the feed. While the bloodlust raged.

“Please,” you begged, your hand gripping the back of his neck to try to keep him there.

A brief flash of panic. His mouth watered and he swallowed it down. 

“I am busy, and you are…” He gently pulled your hand away and lifted his head, his eyes dark. “Distracting.”

Eyes dark, but unmistakably full of love for his new blushing bride.

A tamed shark.

“You will keep your word?” You smiled up at him, tone playful. “I do not care the hour.”

He kept his smile soft, lips shut tight. A nod. As he moved away, he allowed his mouth to open, the sign of his affliction not visible to you.

“I will keep it.”

Geta grimaced, looking down at the woman currently slung across his lap. He could see her impatience, staring up at him out of the corner of her eyes, stretching her scarred neck out. 

Inviting his thirst. Yet his stomach soured.

“Brother, are you alright? You’ve hardly touched your meal,” Caracalla giggled, pushing yet another of his concubines from his lap, blood fully covering the lower half of his face, his neck, staining his robes. He feasted like he was starved. “You keep on like this and you will slip up.”

A mocking laugh at Geta’s efforts.

Geta let out a frustrated growl, his anger at his brother’s suggestion pushing his muscles into action. The woman let out a panicked yelp as Geta hauled her up to his mouth, his teeth sinking in unkindly. 

As the hot, sweet liquid slid down his throat, he gulped eagerly, forgetting his earlier apprehension. He clung to her, his grip so tight it would leave marks. Even though the concubine occasionally winced, her face soon settled into a soft, blissful expression.

A nice trick. A gentle fever. A distraction from the threat of impending death.

The woman’s hand slid up his thigh, hoping for more from him than his hunger for her blood. A jolt of revulsion twisted his spine and he pushed her down to the marble floor, her neck still weeping. 

“E-Emperor?”

“Leave us,” he ordered, waving her away. She left reluctantly.

“You know, maybe you should give some more thought to turning her,” Caracalla suggested, moments before sinking his canines into another waiting neck.

A relieved sigh. A hand gripping his robes.

Geta turned away, Caracalla’s words echoing in his head.

No. Never.

The thought of never hearing your heart race for him again, never being able to leech the warmth from your skin into his?

Unthinkable. Not worth considering.

“Try not to kill anyone tonight, please,” Geta stressed to his voracious twin. “Silence is expensive.”

“I make no promises, brother,” Caracalla grinned, looking every bit a monster as he lapped at a still-bleeding neck. “That dreadful meeting worked up a mighty appetite.”

Geta stood, wiping at his mouth, feeling ill and far from sated. But he would not feed on another. He could handle himself just fine.

Discomfort. Cramping low. A glance down confirmed your fears. 

There would be no heir this month. 

It was hard not to grieve, even if it never existed. It was your one responsibility now, and you had hit your first stumbling block. 

Juno had not given you her favor.

The realization was uncomfortable, but there wasn’t anything to be done. Perhaps your offerings were not enough, too humble to wish for the child of an Emperor to take root.

For a moment you allowed yourself to lay there, knowing that getting up would be an ordeal in and of itself.

Geta could come back at any moment. He would surely want a clean bed to sleep in. It needed to be stripped. You needed to bathe. So you moved into action, despite the late hour.

As you worked, you wondered what Geta would make of this. Would he be upset? You honestly weren’t sure.

During your short time here at Palatine Hill, things were certainly unusual. People warned you that there was illness festering in the palace. That there was something strange going on. Dark rituals, or illicit affairs. The usual fantastical gossip. They told you that your husband-to-be was slowly being driven mad by his brother’s shocking antics. 

That at least seemed closer to the truth.

But you didn’t believe any of it until you were forced to marry under the moon, a quiet ceremony with minimal guests. Your new brother had been irritable all evening, Geta having to pause his conversation with you to place a steadying hand on his shoulder. More than once, he himself had disappeared to retrieve Caracalla more wine, instead of asking a servant nearby for a topping off. 

And there were these late night meetings every few days, meetings that you were not to attend. Meetings that lasted quite a while. It would be enough to worry any new bride.

Adultery was forbidden, yes, but would that truly stop an Emperor?

No. He’s shown you nothing but love and devotion. Even if he sometimes grows irritable, or will not walk in the sunlight, he has fulfilled all of his husbandly duties, quite well. And on the nights he returns from his meetings, he is insatiable–

No. Focus. Change your clothes. Strip the bed. 

All the ruined linen was carried off by a waiting servant just outside the door, replaced with clean, fresh bedding. 

Now, to bathe.

As you turned to leave, Geta stepped into the room, his dark eyes big and searching. Nostrils flaring.

“Mea lux, are you alright?” His voice was strained. Muscles tensed in his neck as he took slow steps closer.

“Yes,” you answered, building up your nerve to tell him there would be no heir this month. “Geta, I–”

He interrupted you, eyes raking over you, voice frantic and unsteady. “Do you have a cut? Where is it coming from?”

Your face felt hot as his hands tugged and pulled at your limbs, inspecting your skin. “My love, what?”

He sank to his knees before you, hands bunched up in the fabric of your slip. A moan fell from his lips and he pressed his forehead into your belly, breathing heavily. Your hands attempted to bring his head up, but he fought you. It was like trying to bend a metal bar. 

“Geta?”

A low rumble in his throat. Hunger stirring. Salivating.

He did not consider this.

“You bleed.”

Heat traveled up your neck, to your ears, your face. “Yes. I’m sorry, Geta.”

“I do not care about heirs,” he muttered, his face pressing into the fabric of the slip, his inhales deep and languid. 

Large hands released the fabric, sliding around to grip the back of your thighs, hauling you in closer, if that was possible. 

Your hands found his shoulders and you very nearly fell over. “Geta!”

He hugged your legs, his face dipping lower, and suddenly you were trying to fight him again, your self-consciousness not able to tolerate this.

“Geta, let me go, I am unclean,” you hissed at him.

“I cannot,” he whined.

“What do you mean? Let me go!”

His grip only grew tighter as you squirmed, his face pressing closer. Testing his will. 

He promised himself he wouldn’t ever let this get to you. He wouldn’t allow Caracalla’s carelessness to infect you. You were pure, his. He loved you.

And yet here you were, able to give him such a gift. 

He needed it.

Each inhale full of iron sent a buzzing through his brain, a wave of pleasure he felt all the way down to his toes. Even when he fed, he never felt like this, so lost to it.

Weak.

“I cannot control this urge, I am sorry, mea lux.” Pain was laced through his voice. “Please, you must go.”

“Geta?” Soft hands pressed at his cheeks, his shoulders. 

“Go!” he yelled, pushing you away from him. 

Mild fear gripped you, not used to seeing him like this. Something was very wrong. But he was resolute, unable to look you in the eye. You obeyed your husband, taking a few steps back towards the door.

“Wait,” he begged, reaching out for you. 

As you neared him, he struggled to breathe, opting to instead open his mouth, the smell overwhelming.

Clarity, then. 

His hands shot up defensively. “Do not listen to me. Go, get out of here. I cannot be trusted!” 

He could hear vividly how your heart raced, a different rhythm than what he was used to. Too fast. Uneven, as if it were scrambling to escape your chest.

“Geta, are you alright? Do you need–”

“Go!” he roared, getting to his feet.

“I-I will go get Caracalla–”

You were swept up and dropped unceremoniously onto the bed.

“No,” he growled, his eyes black as pitch. “You will not go near him.”

“I won’t,” you placated, hands on his arms.

Guilt coursed through him, even as he enjoyed the erratic racing of your heart. It was a miracle he hadn’t already fed, the aroma enough to seriously strain his convictions.

“I am sorry,” he sighed, his nose pressing against your cheek, moving down, pausing over your pulse, tongue slipping out to lick your skin.

No.

“Geta, are you unwell?”

A pained sound was torn from his throat, but he did not answer. His hands slid down until they reached the edge of the slip. He parted your thighs easily, fingers sliding up, your mumbled warnings not heard by him.

Wet. Warm. Viscous. 

He pushed off the mattress and brought his fingers in front of his eyes, his breath leaving him in delight. 

A relieved moan poured out of him as he slipped his red fingers between his lips, eyes falling shut.

Heat filled your face at the sight. You had always been told that the Emperors were a bit… unusual. But surely they didn’t mean this.

“Mea lux,” he drawled, bliss easing the stress from his voice. He looked quite satisfied. “This is… divine.”

Licking his lips, his dark eyes fell down to you. As his lips parted, you saw them. Long canines, not unlike a wolf’s, but perhaps more pointed. 

Unnatural. 

He tongued at one of them and a deep-seated hunger filled his eyes. “I need more, mea lux,” he spoke, lowering himself until his nose pressed against your soft belly again.

The fabric of the thin slip was pulled taut, up off your abdomen. He bit through the linen, the sharp canines making easy work of it. A loud ripping sound filled the room and cool air washed over you, now laid bare for him.

“Geta,” you flushed, nerves worming into your gut. “This is–”

“Please, mea lux, I am still so hungry…” he whined, lips brushing low, his tongue leaving behind a wet line. “You would not deny me this, would you?”

His voice was all sweetness, but edged with mania. 

“I have not bathed–”

“Good,” he growled, hands firmly pushing your thighs apart. 

He heard the transition, the moment when fear left you and your heartbeat settled into a more familiar rhythm. It made him salivate, his breathing matching yours, his desire growing for more than just your blood.

Your embarrassment only lasted until his tongue met the skin of your inner thigh.  

Soft, satisfied sounds rumbled from his throat with each stripe of skin he cleaned. He was immersed in it, each little taste making him stray further and further from himself.

Your hand gripped his shoulder.

Slow. Or you will frighten her, he told himself, his desperation only barely restrained. There was something about you that always made it easier. 

The blood alone was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted, but mixed with your own desire for him? Truly a gift from the gods. He would not let a bit of it go to waste. 

Dark eyes met yours. 

“Do you have any idea how delicious you are?”

“Me?”

He made a sound of assent before pushing his face into your warm, wet center, eyes shut in relief.

Eyes rolled back. Sighs full of relief from both of you.

Geta wondered if this was what his victims felt, what kept them coming back for more. If it was anything close, he could understand. He could live here.

There was no room for cleanliness or concern for anything other than the taste on his tongue. The sounds ripped from his throat were obscene, the sounds he was making, even more so. 

Wet smacking, deep grunts, the slick pop of flesh leaving his suction.

His hands gripped your thighs hard enough to bruise.

It didn’t matter. You were seeing the stars. It was almost too much, the way it felt. So wonderful, in fact, that you couldn’t even begin to spare a thought for how loud you were. It was everything you’ve ever needed. 

Tremors in your muscles, all down your legs. That was all the warning you were able to give before your body seized, your thighs attempting to clamp shut around his head. 

Wave after wave pushing out low moans until they finally stopped.

“Geta.” 

You pushed at his shoulder. The sensations were too much to bear.

“A moment longer,” he mumbled, lapping up anything else he could.

When there was nothing left, he resurfaced. It should have been horrifying. Streaks of blood spread over the bottom half of his face. His tongue was already swiping at his bottom lip, collecting what was within reach.

But you weren’t scared of him.

“Are you feeling better?” you asked, watching him closely.

His eyes were still dark, but there was some light returning. He wiped at his cheeks, licking away any remnants from his palm.

“Geta?” You moved over to him. 

He caught your wrist as you reached for him, his grip tight. “Not… yet.”

You waited, wrist still in his hand, watching him lick his fingers completely clean, his face almost entirely back to its usual state.

“Geta,” you spoke, your voice merely a whisper. “What happened to you?”

“I am the monster you married.” He looked up at you, eyes shining in the warm firelight. 

A monster. Surely not. Yet the proof spoke for itself.

“How did this happen?”

He took in a deep breath, let it out. “I’m not exactly sure. I didn’t see how it started. I just… I went to check on Caracalla, and the next moment I was sitting up from the floor, and he was crying over me, his wrist in my mouth. That was a few months ago.”

“And now you…”

“Feed.”

You felt dizzy.

“At first it was awful. You know what my brother is like. Unrestrained in everything, including this new appetite. I was having to pick up after him, to protect him. I think he understands now, the value in keeping his food source alive. At least, I hope he does.” 

“So tonight, your meeting…?”

He nodded, pulling your wrist into his lap. “I don’t take pleasure in it. I want you to know that.”

“Is that why when you return, you are…” Heat filled your cheeks.

His full lips curved into a grin. “Yes.”

Relief. Concerns stuffed down deep melted away. He noticed.

“What is it?” Damp fingertips smoothed circles over your wrist, your pulse.

You drew up your knees, holding them close. “I thought maybe I wasn’t enough, or you were still set in your ways…”

He sighed deeply. “Not a chance, mea lux. Do you know why I still married you, knowing what I have become?”

You met his eyes, intensely curious.

“I am selfish. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And so graceful. I resolved to make it work. I have made it work, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” you admitted.

“Tonight was… I was reckless.” His other hand smoothed up your arm, to the crook of your elbow and back, slowly exposing himself to more of you, testing his hunger. “I did not take enough. It was stupid of me, I put you in danger.”

“But I am fine.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Are you… you’re still…?”

A nod.

His eyes raked up your arm, to your neck, staring hard at the pulse there. He could feel it beneath his thumb, at your wrist, a millisecond delay. If only your heart didn’t beat so nicely. Hard and strong, not a lullaby, far worse, the opposite. A siren call. Normally tuned out, but now…

“Mea lux, I need more.” His grip on your wrist tightened slightly. “Can I have more?”

You would give him anything he wanted. Yes, even that. Your imagination filled in the gaps. You understood what this was. What would happen.

Why did it excite you?

“Yes.”

He moved over lightning fast, immediately nuzzling at your neck. Only seconds passed between giving him permission and his teeth slowly sinking into your skin.

Like he was trying to be careful.

They were sharp, piercing. Forcing a gasp from your lips. 

Your hand pushed at his head until a soft, warm wave washed over you. Your fingers tangled in his hair instead as you let out soft, relaxed breaths.

Dreamlike. The lights all had halos, radiant like stars. 

 A sound you felt, each of his steady gulps, his grip on you tightening. 

And then you felt that warmth spread out, your free hand sliding down his clothed back.

A warning growl. 

Heat like the sensation of the sun on his skin filled him as the fresh, rich blood poured down his throat. But yours was sweeter, like what he remembered honey tasting like. Even better than that. 

He would take his fill, and absolutely not a drop more, he promised himself. 

He couldn’t afford to get carried away, or distracted, even as your hand sought his hip. Even as it pulled him in closer, even as he settled between open thighs.

Open, inviting, warm, soft, plush, velvet–

Your gasp woke him from his trance. 

He was already buried deep, so lost in you he didn’t even realize. 

He moved to lift his head from your neck but your hand pushed him back down, pressing his lips to the wound as your thighs squeezed at his hips, urging him to continue.

The blood smeared over his lips until he opened his mouth, lapping at the trickle. And then his hips began to move. 

The Elysian fields. He could see them. The closest he would ever get to them was right here. He never wanted to leave. But he knew he had to. 

One final drag of his tongue and he moved to your lips, pressing his mumbled gratitude against your mouth as his hips continued to move. 

He tasted of hot metal but you didn’t care. Never before had you felt this good, this free. You already wanted a next time. And there were others that felt this? That got to experience this? 

No. Only you.

He lifted his head. Looking down at you, watching you so relaxed, so blissful, coming apart. He felt such relief.

A squeeze at his hips, your thighs tightening. A whispered “more.”

It was all the urging he needed. 

He let his hands move to your hips as he sat up, drawing you in along with each thrust. Your legs were unable to hold on, giving up their grip, your hands covering his, back arching. 

Your sounds could probably be heard out in the hall, or down in the gardens, not that anyone would be out at this hour.  

It didn’t take much more, especially at that pace, that angle– 

A great tide. 

It was brutal as it crashed over you, leaving you gasping, trembling, clinging to what you could reach of him. Clenching firmly around him.

And he followed you. Collapsing. Gasping. Pushing in even deeper. Cheek smearing blood as he buried his face in your neck. Not to bite.

More than a minute went by.

He finally pressed a gentle kiss to the marks he’d left behind before sitting up, pulling the tunic up and off, revealing the smear at his collar, the rest of his torso.

“We’ve made a mess,” you commented, your eyes following the trail down from his mouth, his chin, his neck, even a little on his chest. 

“We have,” he agreed, eyes fixed to your neck, the stain in the fabric beneath you.

“I need to–” 

As you moved to sit up, Geta was there, pushing you back down. “Rest, my love. I’ll take care of it. The rest can wait until tomorrow.”

A nod.

And so he got to work, cleaning up his mess. A moist cloth wiping you clean, strong arms moving you to the other half of the bed. Smoothing your hair out of your face. Then he cleaned himself. Full, sated, he gave no thought to any lingering traces, the washbasin now reddish-pink. 

Geta returned to your side, resting a hand on your cheek. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m tired,” you confessed, pressing a hand to his, eyelids already only half-open. The blood loss didn’t help things.

“Sleep, mea lux. I will look after you.” He meant it.

A soft smile. “Thank you, my love.”

It didn’t take long after that for you to slip into a steady slumber. 

Geta allowed himself a moment to study you, to admire you, before he was up, walking over to the door.

He shrugged on a robe and held it shut before opening the door, eyes falling to a young servant who immediately turned bright red.

“Please, bring breakfast, fruit, whatever is ready.”

The servant nodded, walking quickly down the long hallway. 

Geta slid the door shut quietly, looking to where you slept. You looked so relaxed. You were a vision, the only thing marring it being the wound at your neck. 

Guilt crept up on him until he could hardly breathe. The one thing he told himself he’d never do, and he caved as soon as it was offered to him. He should have put up more of a fight. He should have left the room the moment he realized. 

But he didn’t. And he had unburdened himself of a big secret. It did feel better not having to hide it from you, but there were other things that now needed discussing. 

A gentle knock. 

Geta took the tray and shut the door up tight. He set it down on a small table at your bedside and got to work straightening the thick woven tapestries now used to cover the archways that led out onto the terrace. Once he was satisfied that no sun would be breaking through as he slept, he climbed into bed, pulling you in against his chest. 

He listened to the steady rhythm of your heartbeat.

'Mea lux' translates to 'my light.' Get it?

Taglist: @prettycalla ; @europixie

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[enviedear]

ON MY WAY TO HEAVEN, TOOK A DETOUR TO MY VICES

｡𖦹° M.GRAYSON

🎧ྀི it was meant to be an easy mission, something mundane—but the second you and mark wake up feverish and desolate, you put those hopes of ease to bed. something's in your bloodstream, festering, begging to be let out—soothed. the worst of it all—whatever the hell’s in your system has infested itself in mark as well. and you’re not sure how long he can bear it.

wc 3.8k | minors dni, 18+ CW | S3X POLLEN FIC so, dark content (i'd say. they're close pre-fic but not this close), main!mark also, college!mark, college!reader & superhero!reader, cursing, ominous villian, they're drugged, pain from battle, body discomfort, characters horny under duress, fevers (is that a warning), mentions of yakking, plot—what plot? smut: piv, unsteady consent (see; s3x pollen), hints of voyuerism.

the ground beneath you doesn’t feel real. just jagged rock and cold dirt, and your heat-slick skin pressed to it like it’ll help. it doesn’t. nothing seems to. you're not sure you even remember when the effects started, but you're sure you've prayed to every god within the span for it all to stop.

you groan, roll onto your side, and blink up at the burnt orange sky. your fingers shake as they press the comm at your ear. nothing. just static. the sound of your own ragged breathing, like it’s echoing from somewhere deep inside your chest.

across from you is—mark—INVINCIBLE. suit torn, chest rising and falling like he ran the globe and back. he shoots a look at you—eyes blown wide. his stare hold recognition first, then confusion, and then something else. something hazy, almost delirious. until he bends forward, on his hands and knees, coughing hard.

his shoulders twitch, wings of tension mar his back. he spits onto the ground, breath steaming in the cooler air—there's too much heat pouring out of him.

you breathe out his name, a weak, inquisitive tone. he flinches like it hurts.

"think i—" he tries, then swallows the rest. “it hit us. during the fight. whatever it was.”

you nod. you don’t say anything. you already know.

because your body feels wrong.

burning. wriggling. like every nerve is two seconds from misfiring. like if you moved the wrong way—against how your body is craving—you’d tear something open from the inside.

you sit up almost impossibly slow, every muscle screaming. mark collapses back onto the dirt beside you, blinking fast. skin flushed. chest heaving.

you don’t meet his eyes. you can’t, instead, you clear your throat, trying to hide some of the discomfort you're feeling. if mark's already far gone, one of you has to keep a clear(er) head.

for a split second, you can hear cecil reprimanding you for getting caught in this situation—whatever it is.

"maybe it’s some kind of toxin.” you mutter, trying to keep it clinical. detached. “we have a fever. we can just wait it out.”

“yeah,” he says, voice low and hoarse. “sure. just a fever.”

except it’s not—and you both know it.

the burn behind your ribs, the pressure deep in your hips, the way your pulse stutters every time you hear him shift beside you—it’s not pain. it’s something else.

something archaic and primal, something utterly abysmal.

you shift, just slightly, and your breath catches—pain threading sharply through your core. it’s not the injuries. not bruises, or sprains, or broken skin. it’s deeper. like an anatomical pressure valve being tampered with from the inside.

mark’s hands twitch where they rest in the dirt. his fingers curl into a fist. his jaw’s clenched tight, like he’s trying not to make any sound.

you follow suit—you don’t speak. the silence stretches, and stretches.

and then—mark's voice, “don’t touch me.”

the words come from somewhere not right. too low, too strained, practically rehearsed. but his words are clear. and they make your stomach drop.

you blink, “i wasn’t going to.”

his adam’s apple bobs, head nodding, “i know. i know. just—don’t.”

the two of you sit there, breathing in tandem, a vile cadence. the feeling, a ribald fever—it’s escalating. second by second. beat by beat. breath by breath.

you try your comm again, the same static greets you.

“we need to move, we can't stay here.” you say. it’s more head-strung than true plan. “get somewhere safer. a building. cave. anything but open ground."

mark shakes his head, scanning the sandy terrain, “don’t think i can fly right now.”

you look over. he’s shaking. his hands, his shoulders, his mouth. he’s not meeting your gaze anymore. his pupils are nearly black with dilation. his lips are parted, breath shallow.

you open your mouth to say something—anything—but your stomach turns. a wave of heat rolls over you so strong it knocks every bit of air from your lungs. like you’ve been anesthetized with pure fire. like your body’s burning up, molecule by molecule.

you fall back onto your elbows, gasping, "fuck—"

mark startles at the sound, eyes snapping to you. but this time…he doesn't look away.

you finally see it—not confusion, not resistance. just raw, scorching lust trying so painfully to wear the face of shame, disgrace, humilation.

his voice is practically a whimper, “hmm—it’s getting worse.”

you nod once, voice coming out unnecessarily gritty, "yeah. i know. it got me too."

and that’s when it hits you.

you weren’t meant to die in that fight. you were meant to survive it. long enough to get away—together. long enough to fall apart—together.

long enough to complete whatever sick, calculated, and meticulously planned sequence someone else set into motion. the thought has you reeling away from the dark-haired hero. your body cries out at the movement, but you force it anyway.

the barely-there logic left within you is screaming at you to get away, to not succumb to the lurid visions invading your mind, to realize that this isn't right—it's warfare of your own body, your autonomy.

you dig your own fingers into the dirt, trying to anchor yourself to something that isn’t your own body, that isn’t his breathing.

you shouldn’t look at him again. you know better. but your body doesn’t listen, and your eyes drag back to him like they have to.

and he's trembling—trembling—like he’s the one doubling over in both need and humiliation. as if this is breaking him, the unbreakable—like it is you.

and maybe he is. maybe this thing, whatever it is, doesn’t care that he’s half-alien, that he’s strong enough to break worlds. right now, he looks damn near breakable.

"we have to fight it.” you say through your teeth, but it sounds less like an order and more like a plea.

“i am fighting it!” he snaps back, but there’s no venom, only pain. he drags a shaky breath in through his nose. “i’ve been fighting it since you said my fuckin' name.”

you flinch. not because of what he said, but because of how much truth there is in it. you're both trying, both failing.

something curls inside you—tight and electric. want, not yours, not entirely. it's something layered, ancient—synthetic. something meant to reduce thinking things to base instinct.

“we must have gotten tagged,” you say out loud, trying to organize your shared chaos, trying to drag reason into your mess. “during the fight—maybe tech, some compound, i don’t know. it’s designed to keep us…compliant. distracted.”

mark breathes out a ragged chuckle, “yeah? i think it’s working.”

you don't laugh back.

because you're terrified that it is, indeed, working. that whatever you were hit with, doesn’t need to be permanent. it just needs to last long enough to make you too weak to resist. the various, "why's" all but lost on you. you just know it can't happen—you can't succumb.

“i don’t know if i can move...” mark murmurs. he’s curled inward now, knees drawn slightly to his chest, like he’s trying to keep something inside. “my body is—i don’t know how to describe it. everything’s too much. you feel that too?”

you nod, far too fast, like it’ll stop the shudder building inside you, “like it’s crawling under my skin. like i'll...lose it if anyone touches me.”

mark exhales, slow and bitter. “yep. like that.”

your tongue feels heavy in your mouth. you taste copper. maybe from biting your cheek. whatever—it tastes rancid.

you can’t stay like this. you can’t.

you scramble onto your knees, nearly retching from the sensation alone, but you stay up, teetering. “we have to get somewhere. underground. shielded. wherever this thing can’t—find us. we’re not safe out here.”

mark doesn’t respond. not at first.

then, faintly, like it’s killing him to admit, “i don’t know if i trust myself to be anywhere alone with you.”

that hurts worse than anything. not because he’s wrong. but because he’s right.

you stare at him, raw and quiet, and your voice cracks like brittle glass, “mark—it's not just you going through this. do you think i even trust myself right now?”

he lifts his head, finally. eyes still wild, but there’s clear guilt beneath it now, a thick and ugly weight pulling down the corners of his mouth. “i’m trying, okay? i’m trying so hard not to think about what this is making me want—from you. i’m trying not to want it too.”

that’s what makes it worse.

because he said it. he feels it. wants it, he does. you do too.

you can feel impulse pulling at the edges of your self-control, grinding your mind down to something basic and desperate. all of it—every broken thought, every sharp-edged craving—leads you straight to him.

your voice wobbles, barely a whisper, “what if it’s not just trying to…divert us?”

mark’s breath catches, you hear it so clearly, too clearly.

“what if it’s trying to make us…” you swallow, the word tastes sour, thick, “bond.”

you don’t need to explain. not to him. not to the guy you shared an anatomy course with last spring. not to a half-viltrumite who knows what it means when instincts override reason. he knows, same as you.

his arms twitch. he covers them over his face as if he can block the thought out of existence. “fuck. that’s—”

“inhuman,” you finish. “which makes sense. we’ve fought worse.”

“but nothing that’s…used us like this.” he shakes his head. “nothing that’s made me want to—oh, god.”

you look down at your hands at his outburst—how they tremble like they’ve got a will of their own. how they ache for something, but nothing you can give them. not without losing everything else.

you whisper, “we need help.”

mark groans, “but no one’s coming—are they?”

you glance back toward the horizon. no sign of movement. no hum of backup. no smoke flares or jets. just the buzz of static and your own ragged breath.

no. no one’s coming.

you and mark are on your own.

and whatever’s been done to you—it’s not done yet.

"maybe we just...touch? something...i'm sorry—just, please." he sounds desperate, and you know he is. equally as needy and out of it as you.

Dismissal passes across your mind, gone in a flash, "just touch?" your question comes out so soft, you wonder if he can hear you over the wind.

"yeah—here," he grabs your wrist, and for a second, you're overcome with solace. in your belly, your heart, your head—pure relief. but then the small touch becomes far too little, far too fast.

he pulls you closer, straddling him now, and you can smell him—sweat and saccharine sin. his breath fans across your neck as he leans in, his lips brushing against your ear.

“here...” he says again, and this time his voice is low, guttural, like he’s barely holding himself together. his hand slides from your wrist to your hip, his fingers digging into the soft flesh there, possessive and demanding.

you shiver, your body betraying you as heat pools low in your belly. his other hand comes up to cup your face, his thumb brushing over your bottom lip, and you can’t stop yourself from parting your lips, letting out a shaky breath.

"this is so fucked up," you manage. you don't pull away, but you give him the most serious look you can muster, "i'm so sorry."

mark swallows, "i know, i am too. i just want to make you feel better—make us feel better."

you nod—because he's right. you believe him. it’s not a lie, not a trick, not some smooth line he’s tossing out just to get laid. it’s him. desperate, aching, more human than you’ve ever seen him.

and still, it’s wrong.

but so much of you doesn’t care. not now, not when you feel like this and he's staring at you like you're the only oasis in this desert.

his thumb trails your lip again and you don’t even flinch, don’t even blink. instead, your mouth opens for him, and that’s when something in his expression fractures. his breath stutters like a heartbeat skipping a step and he exhales your name like it’s the only word he remembers.

then he's kissing you. the contact brings a new kind of pain and pleasure—sharp and bittersweet. you gasp into his mouth, your hands finding their way to his shoulders. it hurts. everything hurts. but it also feels…so good. like coming home to something you’d never known was missing. he tastes addicting—it’s overwhelming in the best way possible.

his kisses are wet and demanding—hard enough to bruise, and you let him. god, you let him. you need him to. you can't stop yourself from moaning as he drags you in closer, fingers sinking into your hips and waist, pulling you flush against his own body.

your core throbs in time with his heartbeat as he presses against you, free hand digging hard enough into the the ground that the dirt beneath cracks. his lips move down your jaw, teeth nipping at your earlobe, "you feel—really, fuckin' good. Feels good to touch you."

you can tell by the way his words run on, he's rambling. if it weren't for the need in your own system, you'd try to pull this back—make him realize how stupid this is.

but you don't, "does it make you feel any better? am i helping?"

he groans, eyes half-lidded, "not anymore—" his head falls to the crook of your neck, nose inhaling your scent, "i need more."

he says it as such a plea—like it’s the last thing he’ll ever say. it wrecks you.

"okay..." you breathe, fingers tangling in the short hairs at the nape of his neck. "okay, mark."

he shudders, your name desperately falling from his lips again as he kisses at your throat, open-mouthed and hungry. like he’s starving and you’re the only thing he’s ever even wanted to taste. when he drags his teeth along your pulse, your hips jerk against him, and the answering grunt punched out of his chest feels like a prize.

your hands are tearing away at his suit before you even realize it, palms skating across much too warm skin, the heat from his body almost intolerable. his muscles jump beneath your touch as he pulls back just enough to look at you—flushed, pupils blown wide, lips kiss-swollen. he’s shaking. quivering. trying so hard to hold himself back.

"please don't hate me for this. i need you," he pants, voice breaking. "i want—i just want us to get better."

you nod again. not just because you can’t speak, but because you feel like you had given in to this the minute his skin touched yours. every pulse of your body is screaming for him, every synapse firing off his name. you drag his mouth back to his instead of answering, and he whines into the kiss, his hands slipping off your suit like he’s done it a thousand times before.

his fingers are clumsy, yes—but they're reverent. like you’re something sacred and holy. something he never thought he’d be allowed to touch.

you feel his restraint slipping, fraying at the edges the longer you’re pressed together, the more your bodies align. he’s trying so hard to be gentle, to be careful, but his hips keep rolling against yours like they have a mind of their own, like he can’t help it—like he’s fighting himself just to keep from tearing through every physical layer between you.

your head falls back, and he takes advantage, licking into the valley of your neck, hand sliding over the swell of your chest. the contact makes you whimper and arch into him, needing more, needing everything, and you feel his grip falter as he breathes against your skin.

"you don’t—fuck—you don’t know what you’re doing to me," he grits out, forehead dropping against yours. "fucking unfair really—"

"stop—stopping. you're the one being unfair." you whisper, and that’s what shatters him. your rebuttal is all it takes.

his resolve crumbles—and he’s on you like he was made for it.

his hands are everywhere, frantic and greedy, yanking at the fabric of your suit like he can’t stand the damned thing. his mouth crashes into yours again, this time with no hesitance, no restraint—just pure, crude need. his tongue explores every inch of your mouth as if he’s trying to put the taste of you to memory.

you can feel his cock pressing beneath you through his torn suit, and you roll your hips against him, needing to feel more, needing to feel him.

"fuck," he groans into your mouth, hands gripping your hips so tight it almost hurts.

you don’t even think anymore. your hands are fumbling with the yellow and blue material covering him—exposing more and more of his red-tinted flesh. he lets out this broken little laugh at your effort, a desperate sound that only makes you want him more, but then he’s helping you, masks is thrown to the side, then the vibrant colors of your suits follow—leaving both of you bare. taking in eachother—the rise and fall of his chest, his toned stomach—down, to his cock. and fuck, is he perfect—thick and hard and already leaking, tip glistening.

you wrap your hand around him, stroking him slowly, just to hear him moan. he doesn’t disappoint. his head falls back, his mouth falling open as he lets out this low, guttural sound that goes straight to your core.

"holy fuuck," he breathes, his hips jerking into your hand. "you’re gonna fucking ruin me."

his words only prove to egg you on, because then you’re pushing him down into the ground, clambering onto his lap like a woman possessed.

your hands are on his chest, skimming over the hard planes of his body as you position yourself over him. he grips your hips tight as you sink down onto him, taking him inch by inch—until he’s buried to the hilt inside you.

he chokes out your name, his head lulling as you start to move. his hands are everywhere now—on your breasts, your ass, your thighs—like he can’t decide where to touch you first. but it doesn’t matter. all that matters is the way he feels inside you, the way he fills you so perfectly you swear you’ll never need anything else.

and then you’re riding him like your life depends on it—hard and fast and needy, your hands bracing yourself on his chest as you take what you need from him. and he lets you—he lets you use him like this, lets you take control, and all the while he’s watching you with this look in his eyes—like you’re eden personified.

"fuck," he groans again, his hands tightening on your hips as he thrusts up into you, wild. "you feel so fucking good. so fucking perfect."

the air’s dry and scorching around you, sun sinking low but still brutal, painting everything in a haze of gold and sweat and dust. your knees dig into the sandy dirt, scuffed and trembling from how you’ve been riding him, but neither of you let up—not when his hands clutch you like you're the only thing tethering him to earth.

“can’t—can’t stop,” he pants, voice rough and cracked from the heat and how hard he’s breathing. his pupils are blown wide, sweat sliding down his temples, dark hair sticking to his forehead. the usual softness in his expression is long gone, replaced with something animal—something ravenous. “feels like i’m gonna lose my fucking mind.”

he shifts, steadies himself with one arm on the ground, and drives up—deeper—hard enough that you cry out, your body jerking in his grip. you go limp in his grasp, falling forward into him. it's the closest you've gotten to relief yet, and your mouth is expelling every sound of pleasure it possibly can.

and god, the look on his face when he hears you. it’s ravaged, desperate, like he’s starving.

“again.” he breathes. “make that sound again. please, fuck—i’ll give you anything.”

your body responds on its own, hips rolling to meet his thrusts, dragging him deeper, tighter.

the compound is still thick in your blood, turning every brush of skin into a live wire, sending every moan into something that echoes inside your skull.

“i wanna come with you,” he moans, almost frenzied now, head tipping back again. “wanna feel you lose it around me. you’re—shit, you’re so wet, i can feel you shaking—please, just—come on, come on, please.”

he thrusts up into you again, snapping his hips. your body gives in before your mind does—tightening, clenching around him, and his whole body jerks beneath you. you're both a mess, just grasping at eachother like you're one. your vision is overcast, blurred and your ears seem to be dialed in on every sound falling out of mark's lips.

his mouth drops open. he shouts your name, follows it up with a slew of curses, praises, prayers.

he grabs your waist like he's afraid you'll vanish, grinding up into you through the wave of it, chasing your high as if it's a storm.

“that’s ittt.” he groans, burying his face against your chest as he spills into you, hips still twitching, breath ragged and rough. “that’s it, that’s it…”

he holds you like he doesn’t know where he ends and you begin, arms wrapped tight around your back, heart pounding against your ribs. both of you shaking, ruined, covered in sweat and dust and heat—but still not entirely satisfied. not really.

you pull yourself off of him slowly, wincing at the sudden absence of his warmth. the ground feels like ice beneath your skin, the coolness juxtaposed with the burning heat that radiates from the two of you.

neither of you speaks at first. you can hear him trying to steady his breath, but it’s labored, like he's still unsure whether he's waking up from a dream—or a nightmare. you sit next to him, not quite looking at him, but not able to stay away either. the weight of the air around you presses down, heavier than the sand and dust under your hands.

mark shifts beside you, the sound of his movements dragging you back to the moment. he looks at you, eyes wide and confused, but there's something else there—something darker, almost desperate.

"we can't tell anyone about this," he mutters, the words catching in his throat.

you nod, your hands shaking slightly as you pull your knees to your chest. the weight of the situation presses down on you like a vice, but his words, though simple, offer some strange sense of clarity. there’s no going back now.

"i know." you whisper, voice strained but firm.

he runs a hand through his hair, fingers raking roughly, but it’s clear he’s struggling to pull himself together. "we can’t let anyone find out what happened," he says again, this time more to himself than to you. "not yet. not until we figure out who—or what—the hell did this to us."

you meet his gaze then, and for a moment, neither of you speaks. there’s a quiet understanding in the air between you, a silent agreement forged in the mess of everything that just happened. the rawness of what you've shared is terrifying, but it’s also…something only the two of you know. and that means, somehow, it’s yours to carry.

"we'll go back." you say quietly, though the words feel like a weight in your chest. "just… we go back home. like nothing happened."

he nods, the tension easing slightly from his shoulders. "yeah. no one needs to know about this. not yet."

with a deep breath, you both stand and grab your suits. the haze feels as though it’s slowly slipping away, but in its place, doubt is bubbling. neither of you are too sure what you got yourselves into—but you know it changed everything.

writer's note .☘︎ ݁˖ this is so unlike anything i've ever written so i hope i did okay—i just had to write something for mark. he's captivated me. also i got through the entire series so fast i had to write just to quell my invincible brainrot LMAO. this fic isn’t beta’d, so if there are grammar mistakes and such i’m sorry! if you enjoyed this—reblog or comment (or both and i'll love you forever)

dedicated to @inthehystericalrealm to hoping we find our own mark variants in this life <3

🖇️ masterlist | askbox | recent works

[rabotimagines]

“Responsible” GN Autobot Reader x various, Mainly Ratchet, Wheeljack, Hoist, Perceptor. [Smut Scenario]

Summary: Reader gets their obsolete heat protocols triggered during a battle. Horny shenanigans follow with some of the Autobots trying to be responsible.

G1 characters: Ratchet, Wheeljack, Hoist, Perceptor. (Various other Autobots and Decpticons are also mentioned here at the start)

Genre/Theme: Smut Scenario 🔞

Warnings: MDNI, Heat cycles and the other horny nonsense it usually entails, Voyeurism, Interface toys.

Pronouns: You, Your, Yours

Notes: Starts Ratchet pov and goes to Wheeljack for the most of the smut. The start of this is absolute shenanigans I will not lie to you, Spike/Valve terms used for Bot Reader, The science and Medical team on the Ark trying REAL hard not to be perverts. (They only partially succeed)

“Ratchet please-!”

“No! Get your heat ridden aft back on that berth now!” Ratchet barks out and you mutter curses the whole way back to the medical slab in the back of the medical bay. When you get there you huff and drag the privacy curtain back closed.

Rachet pinches the space between his optics and sighs harsh. His plating loosening a touch afterwards in exhaustion. What exactly else were they supposed to do about this entire mess?

It had started like any other battle via whatever new Decepticon scheme it was this month. That being the machine they’d built that exploded after you pressed the fail safe. Right before it had a chance to fire a high pressurized blast directly into the closest human city. The formula they’d used for such a high level destructive weapon ment a large and aggressive amount of energy discharge when it did explode.

And unfortunately the exact backyard mixture they’d used had a rather unfortunate effect on your frame.

Megatron had grabbed you first, dragging your limp frame upwards to use you as a hostage- Optimus stopping his failed dash for your frame to try and figure his next course of action. Megatron was in the middle of gloating and goading Optimus when he adjusted his grip on your frame and- according to Optimus- you moaned. Loud and unabashedly.

They both froze at the very obviously obscene sound and balked at your still limp frame.

Megatron jerked and stared wide opticed down at your slowly twitching frame for some reason Optimus couldn’t discern- and no sooner was Megatron shot in the helm by Powerglide flying over which sent him down and you tumbling out of his grasp. Optimus rushed and dove for your frame scooping you up and running back for cover under the sudden blaster fire. And Apparently -again according to Optimus- you almost made him trip and fall flat on his faceplate when your glossia abruptly lapped against his windshield glass. Your em field pulsing hard in want against him and the urge for anything he was willing to give you- suddenly had him assume this was what made Megatron act that way-!

Optimus had to wrestle you off of him after that with an increasing embarrassment, because every touch from him had you making rather- racy sounds in response. You had also started begging Optimus for some ahem- “Special overtime.” was the phrase Ratchet manged to get out of Optimus. Optimus did a rather quick scan of your frames internal status while you squirmed in his hold- and realized it was the explosions fault for your behavior. The abundance of energy had your virus protocols scrambling everything to dispel every ounce of heightened charge immediately as fast as it could.

Which kick started up now active “Heat” Protocols which they didn’t even realize you had-! They weren’t exactly common and were rarely activated for obvious reasons! And that had your array set as high as it possibly could get leveled too. With you attempting to get that charge out as fast as you could. Even if that was by clinging onto Optimus while his optics brightened and he was trying to dodge blaster fire. Blaster fire that lessened when bots had stopped firing to instead gawk at the loud and horny attempt you were making on your own leader. Leader who was obviously floundering and failing to get you to stop feeling him up in the middle of the battlefield.

Optimus had made it back to some of the others and Inferno had grabbed you to help get you off of Optimus. You let go of Optimus finally and instead turned your attention onto Inferno.

You shocked everyone via not waiting or asking to lock Inferno into an open mouthed kiss. Shoving your glossia in Inferno’s mouth while already trying to frot against him- Inferno’s siren sounded off in a flustered panic and Optimus had to hastily explain you weren’t exactly in control of yourself. And seemed to be under the effects of obsolete heat protocols being triggered by the energy explosion. Red Alert had to pull you off of Inferno only nearly dropping you, his frame not made to carry other mechs like Inferno or the medics were.

Taking advantage of the slightly lost grip, you just turned your greedy servos upon Red Alert instead. You didn’t hesitate to lap your glossia over the edge of one of his helm sensors. Ratchet could have been back at The Ark and Ratchet still would’ve heard the embarrassed scream that came out of their security director. Inferno had to just yank you back off Red Alert. While Red Alerts sensors were left sputtering sparks, his optics bright, and muttering incoherently.

Which had only lead to a game of pushing you onto another Autobot when your horny attention and advances got to be too much for one of them. Ratchet had tried to get a hold of you then since you were impaired and needed help sooner than later. But he kept getting blocked by blaster fire or other battlefield insanity.

And then you had gotten grabbed by Breakdown when Wildrider slammed directly into Hoist, who had a hold of you at the time and they’d all tensed. Ratchet cursed knowing they’d use you as a hostage-

Breakdown yelped when you didn’t even hesitate in turning your heat driven perversions onto the unprepared Stunticon. Your servos grabbing at his pauldron tires and squeezing was enough for Breakdown to panic- and try to get you off of him instead of trying to hold onto you. When you tried to kiss him Breakdown screamed and fell with you already clambering on top of him.

Dead End had to pull you off of Breakdown and the cycle of perversion only continued with the Decepticons now involved in your heat ridden haze.

A few of the cons actually didn’t freak out and did try and use the opportunity to take advantage of you- only to either be hit by an Autobot or even one of their own faction members telling them to get it together. But finally- finally Ratchet managed to grab a hold of you after Brawn slammed into Motormaster’s helm and Ratchet made sure to keep a hold of you- even when Decepticons tried to grab you for hostage purposes- and even more unsavory ones.

The cons finally pulled back when Optimus threw Megatron through a wall and he called for retreat.

And now Ratchet was stuck guarding the entrance to medical from you and from any other sparkdamn idiot who thought they might just “help” you with your little heat issue. He’d grabbed Sideswipe by the back of the neck and thrown him out when he tried to sneak past him. He’s also stared down Smokescreen of all bots, who froze seeing Ratchet and tried to play it off as inquiring about you. Ratchet just told him to waltz his aft back to his habsuite.

But no- it couldn’t have just been the Autobots being morons- Skywarp had decided to warp into the Ark and sneak around only to be caught by Grimlock- which had the Dinobots all chasing him out of The Ark. The Dinobots leaving a trail of destruction behind them as they went. After that the Aerial bots were set to patrol the Ark's surroundings and no sooner than a few klicks ended up in an aerial dog fight with the coneheads.

Hound by chance caught the Stunticons on the other opposite area by the base. Which thankfully the Dinobots were still hunting for Skywarp near by and promptly helped fight off the sudden appearance of Menasor.

Megatron even had the sparkdamn audacity to video call Optimus to talk- Talk of “so graciously offering” to a limited ceasefire for the duration of your sudden heat if Optimus let them “borrow” you.

That bucket helmed jackaft was lucky Ratchet wasn’t in the room for that call because he’d of ripped him a new afterburner. Though Prowl and Optimus apparently didn’t hesitate to dress him down for the nerve of the request.

Ratchet was old enough he’d had a few fleeting conversations with a few bots that had heat protocols. And he’d felt the light ever encompassing waves that their em fields would give off when the protocols were active. He had asked a few questions to the first bot he’d met with them. Wanting to know how to assist if he had to help treat a bot with it.

Ratchet was told it was like your frames on fire and you can’t think or focus on almost anything other than trying to satisfy the heat in your array. Also that the first few heats were unimaginably more difficult than the later ones. The mech he’d been talking to had said on his first heat he’d interfaced with at least five different bots in a single lunar cycle… and he had done that for multiple lunar cycles sequentially. But the mech was also in the middle of a heat cycle while talking with Ratchet. And despite the em field that was heated and almost addicting- The mech had been managing it well anyway. Seeming mostly annoyed by the entire thing as opposed to well… you in your first heat right now.

You’d already tried and failed to get into Ratchets array panel more times than he could count. Desperation not diminished in the slightest due to your overcharged array and obsolete code running in your frames make up. You’d tried flirting, to asking, to begging him to help you- and it was driving Ratchets stress levels through the sparkdamn roof! The last thing Ratchet would want for any of his patients was to keep them suffering but- you were impaired and couldn’t make rational decisions at the moment.

As far as Ratchet knew he couldn’t trust you to not run out into the woods and pop your panel for whatever con happened to be the closest- let alone make a correct judgment of consent.

Ratchet groaned when his com pinged, fully expecting to be alerted of yet another failed attempt from the Decepticons. But Ratchet was pleasantly surprised by the message in his com.

“Have a possible solution for their array. Can you bring ‘em to the lab?”

Wheeljack messaged back finally about trying to find a way to break you out of your heat. Perceptor and Hoist were also assigned to help- and also assure Wheeljack not blow anything up in the mean time. Ratchet looked at the closed privacy curtain, his audials catching what he knew was you again self servicing trying to get some type of relief.

Ratchet approached and pulled the curtain aside to be met with you on your side and three of your own digits shoved into your own valve, array utterly soaking wet with pre lubricants. Spike heavy and twiching, already leaking a small puddle of pre lubricant on the medical slab. Ratchets optic ridge only twitched having seen you in almost every compromising position in these past few days.

Almost.

“Up. We’re going to the lab.” Ratchet stepped forward but you only groaned and shoved your digits further inside your valve. Your valve mesh easily parting due to your own arousal to take the intrusions even deeper.

“Why?” You mumbled and huffed, your plating tensing and fluffing over the abundance of over stimulation you were in.

“We may have a fix for your heat. Wheeljack wants me to bring you to the lab.”

“Don’t wanna…” You mumbled like some pouting youngling- and Ratchet can feel his optic ridge crease in annoyance.

Ratchet was very aware you were in a- delicate state and that state made it hard for you to do much else other than think of fragging or getting fragged. That energy in your frame could be partially discharged with another system or in this case another frame. It didn’t necessarily need to be someone else’s spike or valve.

Ratchet was really going to have to give you an inch here so you’ll help yourself, wasn’t he?

Huffs and your other soft noises drowned out much else in the room.

“If- you behave on the way over to the lab and keep your panel closed the entire way there- You’ll get a reward afterwards... And is will be for your array.” Ratchet made sure to stress. Your frame perks and your optics now focused to lock directly onto his.

You realize he’s serious and immediately roll over on your front and pull your digits out of yourself. “Ill be good-!”

Ratchet hopes you’re right! If he had to drag you off another bot after releasing you from the room he was going to make you know exactly how mad he is at you.

-

Perceptor had came over to help Ratchet in transporting you to the lab and he met you both right outside the medbay. Your designation leaves him at the sight of you “Salutations- How have you been fairing over your latent heat protocols being activated?” He slightly tilted his helm, definitely trying to ask for educational purposes.

Your plating twitched and your optics zero’d in on Perceptor. Your gaze slowly dragging down his frame. Ratchet mentally prepared himself to inevitably having to drag you off of Perceptor. But you didn’t pounce onto the microscope.

“Struggling.” You said blunt. “So Percy- Wanna frag till I can’t think about anything but your spike hitting my ceiling node?” Oh, for Primus sake-!

“Oh my-!” Perceptor recoiled a bit and his optics widened and brightened a good few levels when he comprehended what you’d just said.

“What did I say about behaving?!” Ratchet grabbed you by a gap in your chassis armor.

“I am behaving, I’m staying by you and keeping my panel closed. I'm just flirting.”

“That’s not flirting-! That’s you propositioning him!”

“Well you didn’t say I couldn’t do that either.” Your optics darted back to Perceptor “Or would you want my spike-” Ratchet started shaking you before you could finish what you were saying with your filthy no filter heated processor.

Perceptor reset his vocalizor loudly and cycled his optics. “I am- well aware of the effects a heat can have on a bot- let alone the tribulations the first heat will inflict upon a frame. So I…” Perceptor crossed his arms. “Shall not fault you for the inappropriate outbursts from you that are clearly driven by your heat.”

“Great so knowing I don’t have to feel bad about this- Percy, has anyone ever told your red would look lovely stained pink-?” Ratchet grabbed onto you with his other servo too and shook you harder this time. Perceptor’s optics brightened further and he raised a fist up in front of his own mouth while his optic ridge lightly creased.

When Ratchet stopped shaking you he scoffed pushing you forward. “Walk you overzealous heat ridden turbo fox.” Perceptor nodded at Ratchet and turned to cover the front while you all walked to the lab.

You thankfully did behave and kept your panel closed for the duration of the trip to the lab.

-

“Do you really think this will work?” Hoist muttered staring at the invention they’d made together.

“I mean it’s all we got right now besides handling it the uh- ol' fashioned way.” Wheeljack shrugged “Worth a try, ain’t it?” Really the worst that could happen is it wouldn’t help any, then they’d all just have to go back to the drawing board and think up something else to help you.

The lab door opened and Wheeljack glanced to see you being lead in by Perceptor and Ratchet. They make their way over to Hoist and him as soon as you guys saw ‘em.

“Hey, how ya doing?” Wheeljack smiled at you.

“Like I need to overload.” You bluntly remarked. “At least staring at Perceptor's aft on the way over here was a good distraction.”

Perceptor sounded like he’d choked on his own oral lubricant before he covered his faceplate with his own servo and looked anywhere but you. While Ratcheet looked like he was a nano-klick away from grabbing you and forcibly shorting your vocalizor.

“Well! I have great news then-!” Wheeljack clapped once and held his servos out towards- his new invention in the form of the false spike he had sitting upwards on the table. “Me, Hoist, And Perceptor think you might just need to overload enough times to get your frame to stop thinking it needs to burn out your interface protocols. So we-”

“Mostly Wheeljack-” Perceptor murmured still refusing to meet your gaze- And Wheeljack gets the embarrassment to a degree but c’mon! Being embarrassed about it wasn’t gonna help ya any!

“Yes mostly me designed this- But it’s basically a false spike with some neat extras. It throbs and twitches and even overloads fake lubricant to mimic transfluid.”

“And it’s got it’s own system set up so It will be able to respond and absorb some of the charge you’re putting out in your array because of the heat.” Hoist tacked on at the end.

“Is this why you wanted an immediate portion of the interface lubricant I keep in the medbay? For a frag toy?” Ratchet stared at him and Wheeljack knew it was the “I’m very disappointed in your current thought process and need to weld that fact into you with my optics.” Expression.

“Well, we were still work shopping a name for it but well- ha, that’s basically what it is. It’s just a basic design for a false spike and with one optimal addition for a spike if you wanna also service that at the same- woah-!” Wheeljack stopped short when you pounced directly onto the table on all fours.

“Finally-!” You cursed and your modesty panel snapped back- Your own pre lubricants immediately started cutting slick tracks down your own inner thighs and even dripping right onto the table top. Your spike pressurizing so quickly Wheeljack was wondering how you even kept your panel closed to begin with.

Peceptor sounded like he’d choked on his own glossia this time “G-Good gracious-!”

Ratchet said your designation sharp, “Get off the-!” Ratchet didn’t finish before you got your valve over the spike and Ratchet grunted when the toys head slipped into your hole and you dropped down the toys length fast. “Oh, for the love of-”

“Oh dear-! Not too fast you might hurt yourself!” Hoist tried to caution you, but Wheeljack was stuck staring when your thighs touched the back of your own pedes. Your valve almost flat against the table top and taking almost the entire thing near instantly. When the false spike bottomed out your mouth fell open and your glossia touched your bottom derma- a deep groan that sounded like it probably came out of your spark chamber tumbled out.

Your servos found purchase against the edge of the table and you didn’t waste any time pulling back off the false spike. “Frag- yeah, yeah-!” Wheeljack watched you start bouncing yourself up and back down the toys length, your heavy spike bopping in the open air every jerk back down. So he’s obviously focused enough that he can see the drop of pre lubricant that falls off your spike head and hits the table top to join in making a mess, along with the rest of your fluids.

Your spike- right! “Uh- right the other attachment!” Wheeljack cleared his vocalizor, remembering why they’d done all this in the first place and tries to ignore his own array trying to kick start a charge itself. He pulls the other part of their plan out of his subspace, “Tada! It’s a spike sleeve! And its got some uh- real neat settings.”

You actually whimpered in response “Wheeljack-!” And Wheeljack feels his optics brighten and his finials flash.

“Alright- You don’t gotta beg or nothin’!” Wheeljack closes the distance and tries to put the toy on your throbbing spike- but you just keep bouncing on the false spike! It doesn’t help that you keep preemptively rutting your hips, making him miss- and he ends up dragging teasing frots of the outside of the toy against your spike. You don’t seem to mind the clumsiness- just gasping and cursing from the limited friction on your spike.

“Wheeljack just- here!” A red servo grasps over his own thats around the spike sleeve. Ratchet steadies Wheeljack's servo and Ratchets free servo grabs your hip and tries to still you- Ratchet says your designation with a bitten curse. “Hold still.” Ratchet uses his “no arguments” voice and you actually do sorta listen to him and slow down. You don’t stop but with how you were slamming down on the toy Wheeljack's surprised you were even doing that!

Wheeljack watches as Ratchet helps him line up the sleeve then helps him slide the toy onto your spike- You grunt and then whine when the sleeve registers your spike and immediately tries to milk you for everything you’ve got. Well at least it works-

Wheeljack gasps when you bounce with more force and the toy almost slides right off your spike entirely. Wheeljack forces the sleeve back down your spike so it doesn’t slip off and you groan openly when the sleeve touches your pelvis. Your spike tip peaking out of the other open end of the sleeve teasingly.

“Wheeljack- How exactly is this supposed to stay?” Ratchet asks, this time ready to help Wheeljack to keep you from bucking the sleeve right off the next slide back down the toy spike you take. The sleeve making a sound after being slathered in your spikes pre lubricant.

“Uh- Well…” Wheeljack didn’t really think you’d be this uh- drenched with fluids.

“Wheeljack-!”

“Sorry-! Uh foresight and all that-!” Wheeljack did not need to look to know Ratchet was glaring at him. Which was good because Wheeljack was a little bit caught up watching you. Wheeljack was short enough and with you on the table he can clearly see your stretched valve clench down on the toy and he can also see the false spike throb which only makes you curse.

“Is it open at the end?” Hoist asks and he’s closer- so Wheeljack glances up and sees Hoist peeking over Ratchets pauldron to stare down at the toys and how they were both working your array. His visor just slightly brighter than it usually would be- If they were doing literally anything else Wheeljack would just think it was nothing. But instead Wheeljack can see Hoist's plating twitch when you moan on your next slide back off the toys girth. “I thought we'd decided on a closed model. Won’t that-… make a mess when they overload?”

“It was- A practical design choice for- well” Perceptor's voice is real close to his audial so Wheeljack can only assume he’s leaning over Wheeljack's pauldron to keep the view. “Clean up for the toy mostly- also so the sleeve wont overheat on accident.”

Wheeljack watches your spike tip kiss the back open end of the toy at the mention of it- trying to keep his servo steady so it won’t slide right off. Because if Ratchet weren’t holding his own grip over Wheeljacks- Well... Wheeljack would’ve probably worked to milk your spike at the same pace as your desperate hips were fragging yourself back down the false spike.

Speaking of which the toy actually slips out of your valve on your next slide up and your hips jut making the false spike slide past your aft. “Frag- frag-!” You try and reposition the spike back inside you on the next slide down- and the toy doesn’t catch on your hole and slides against your inner thigh making you whine. “Please- please-! Please-” You start begging and thankfully someone else steps up to help before him. So Wheeljack doesn’t have to feel guilty about being so hot and bothered and also a pervert for trying to get the toy back into your soaked valve.

Hoist was thankfully that pervert instead. “Hold on just-” Hoist rests his modified arm on your knee, the barrel of his attachment almost brushing against Ratchets servo- (which Wheeljack just lately realized was still gripping your hip) Hoist's servo grabs the base of the toy. Than he angles the spike when you lift your hips, your helm instinctively tilting to see the movement between your thighs. The spike head slots between your valve mesh and catches on the rim of your hole.

“Yes- yeah!” You moan loud but the sound still isn’t loud enough to drown out the sound of the toy sinking back into your soaked valve. Hoist grunts when you sink back down fast enough he can’t pull his servo back yet and you end up sitting down right on his palm. Hoist getting a full grip of your aft when the toy runs out of length.

Hoist does pull his servo away ....after three more full drops of your hips anyway. Hoist's gun muzzle was still on your thigh though-

Yeah, Wheeljack’s kinda glad they were taking care of this now. He could only imagine what would’ve happened if they’d left you loose in The Ark like this. Another greedy drag of your hips has the toy bottoming back out in your seemingly insatiable valve yet again. The toy utterly soaked in your own fluids and slick drenching your inner thighs. The mess you’ve made out of the table top and your own valve right here for anyone to see.

Wheeljack can’t exactly stop himself from imaging you bouncing down one of their actual spikes, when he thinks about them not being quick enough to stop you from going off on your horny lonesome. Maybe getting up to it with one of them and it turning into one big frag session for anyone that wanted to join. Wheeljack doesn’t exactly think all the other Autobots would have the same level of will power as them. Though even with that said-

Wheeljack can feel Perceptor's own em field that’s just coaxing against his own frame due to how close they are to each othet right now- and he can blatantly feel the arousal peeking out from it. Wheeljack hears an audible swallow on his side from the other when you moan again. He also hears Perceptor's plating softly clink like he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Ratchet wasn’t glaring at him anymore optics focusing on your over active array- optics flickering from spike to your valve. And maybe he was imaging it, but Wheeljack swears Ratchet’s servo over his own starts speeding up how quickly they were dropping the sleeve down your spike.

Wheeljack’s optics follow Ratchets other servo on your hip to the muzzle of Hoists gun attachment still resting heavy on your thigh. And Wheeljack knows he’s not imagining Hoist’s muzzle trying to follow the rhythm you’d set. His modified arm almost lightly urging you down every time you sank back down the toy.

Yeah... at least Wheeljack’s not the only perv here.

You groan openly and Wheejacks rather abruptly dragged right out of his observations when you still and paw at the table and start overloading unabashedly. Ratchet jerks to the side to avoid getting your transfluid on him. Thick heavy ropes of your transfluid shoot out of the gap in the top of the spike sleeve with every throb of your spike. Pink streaked out onto the floor and on part of the table and- oh yeah the toy’s features!

You bite down on your bottom derma and keen when the false spike registers the overload and throbs, spilling lubricant right into your waiting valve. Lubricant and your valves slick treks out of your hole and onto the table top making an even bigger mess. When your overload stops racking your frame your mouth opens and you start panting rapid vents. The air near your mouth fogging from the heat of your own frame and your glossia dusting your bottom derma. A stray string of drool rolls down your own throat cables. Expression blissed out of it and obviously satisfied.

Wheeljack registers wet on his digit and looks down at the sleeve.

There's a stray string of your transfluid that rolled down your spike tip and down the edge of the sleeve- and down to where Wheeljack's servo was resting. Wheeljack can feel Ratchet's servo twitch over his own when you groan again.

And Ratchet says he wasn’t the responsible kind...

[revelboo]

Hi revel! I managed to convince my parents I would be fine traveling on a plane alone for my friends engagement party tomorrow. Instead, the flight was delayed 3 hours, then the storm was still brewing at DCA so we flew around the airport in circles for an hour before we ran out of gas, and went to a airport in PA to “refuel” just for them to then kick us off the plane, and refuse any accommodations. I was supposed to land at DCA at 7:00 pm, instead it is 1:36 am and I just checked in to a random hotel in PA that I had to pay for out of pocket. Can I pleaseeeeee get a crumb of Dratchet x reader??

Oh no! Hopefully everything works out! 🔞 Mass displaced mechs 🌶️

Care

Dratchet x Reader

• Letting himself into his habsuite, Drift hesitates. Hearing Ratchet groan, then swear. The mass displaced medic lying back on the berth, your mouth on his valve as you lay on your belly between his spread thighs. Ignoring Ratchet’s erect spike completely as his biolights pulse and slick trails down his length, dripping on your cheek. And Ratchet’s head turns when he closes the door, staring at him as his hips tremble against your mouth. “Taking good care of our doc, little one?” Drift asks, smiling as he secures the door and crosses to you both and mass shifts to join you.

• Mouth sliding against Ratchet’s soft valve, lips finding his node and sucking to make him swear, servos scraping against the berth. Can feel the tension in him and know he’s trying so hard to not buck against your mouth. Pressing a thumb inside, you know better than to press too deep, because if he clenches around your fingers, he’ll break them. And he’s snarling, the rough sound sinking into you, inhuman and violent as he shudders. Startling when Drift cups your waist and lifts you, helping settle you on Ratchet’s spike with a moan before Drift is tugging Ratchet’s hips up into his lap.

• You two are trying to kill him. Hips lifting when you wiggle on him, palms splayed on his chassis and Drift releases his own spike, burying himself in his slick valve. Drift lazily pumping inside him as you ride him, overwhelming him with the feel of both of you. “Frag,” he groans, hips bucking and feeling Drift’s servos tighten on him. ‘Come for me, Ratchet. Give it to me,’ you whisper breathlessly, and one of Drift’s arms curls around you, leaning you back against him as his hips pump and the change in angle makes you feel so much tighter.

• Beginning to thrust harder into Ratchet, Drift watches the medic squirm, denta gritted. Feeling Ratchet’s valve tightening on his spike right before the medic overloads and you tremble against him, whimpering as Ratchet moans shakily. And he’s rutting into the other mech, hips pumping as Ratchet milks him until he’s overloading to fill him.

• Whimpering and so close as Drift lifts you off of Ratchet’s spike and lays you on your belly on the medic, you whimper when Drift slips free of Ratchet and buries himself in you, his spike still slick with Ratchet and you’re slicked with the medic’s release. Bucking urgently inside you as Ratchet’s servos cup your cheek. And when you come apart, Drift keeps moving against you. Dragging it out until you’re whimpering before he’s overloading inside you. Pushing you down so you’re trapped between them and you shatter again when they both shift their plating and snare you and each other in their sparks. Gasping and writhing between them as their mouths and hands touch you and each other, bodies moving restlessly.

[tom-foolery-incorporated]

Earthspark Bumblebee x Reader: Garage Service

Bumblebee x reader, gender neutral AFAB, racially ambiguous, blow jobs, eating Bumblebee out, cock worship, edging, Bumblebee has had enough and fucks reader

“Shit! It’s yours! No one is gonna take it from you!” Bumblebee whined. He sat in your garage with his legs spread. You worked up his valve with your hand firmly around his spike. Your lips wandered over his exterior node up past his puffy lips and to the base of his spike.

You had been working Bee up for what felt like hours. His chubby spike leaking into your hand as you edged him. You shoved his spike as far as it could go into your mouth making Bumblebee hiss and grab the back of your head trying to pull you off. “Don’t hurt yourself on it!” He pulled you off his spike with a wet pop. Bee panted seeing your dazed lovestruck look as a string of your spit still connected you to his spike. “I don’t want to have to explain to Dorothy or Optimus why I had to take you to the hospital for a ripped up throat.”

You only smiled back at Bumblebee making his yellow faceplate flush blue as he tried not to smile back. “Don’t look at me like that,” he scolded pressing his dermas into a thin line. You only laughed at how hard he was holding a smile back which ended up breaking him. He couldn’t help the snort and smile that popped out of him.

“Dumbass,” he chided playfully. “You act like I’ve never spiked you down.” He released his grip on you but still kept his servo on the back of your head to stroke at your hair. “It’s your fault,” you teased rubbing your hand up his chubby spike. You couldn’t wrap your fingers fully around his girth even if you tried.

“Oh? How is it my fault?” Bee tried to keep his cool with your soft hand teasing up his cock.

You smeared his transfluid around his tip with your thumb. “You go around looking like this. Big broad chasis and cute face,” you purred giving Bee’s spike a kiss. “I’m insatiable around you. Maybe if you weren’t so handsome I wouldn’t be so horny.”

Bee swore under his breath at your praise. He bucked his hips into your hand as you licked down the length of his massive girth. “You’re so big too,” you moaned leaving wet open mouth kisses along his length. “I wish I could just live on your spike. I feel so empty when you’re not inside me.”

Bumblebee couldn’t help the way he whined your name. If he was being honest he’d go through the whole war once again just to have his spike buried in your warm pussy. “Then-“ Bee swore when you started sucking at his tip. “Then why don’t you hop on already?”

You released his spike slowly letting him feel your lips slide off of his spike. “Because you taste so good,” you teased giving Bee a dramatic lick up his valve. He gasped feeling his hole pulse around nothing. “You taste so sweet,” you moaned into his valve as you wrapped your lips around his exterior node. “Just let me love on you, okay?” Your words were muffled by his puffy and pulsating valve. His juices leaked around your face as you suckled on his node. His vents were working overtime trying to keep his frame cool.

How was he supposed to stay calm while you worked both his spike and valve like this? “Mmm,” you moaned placing open mouth kisses over his cunt. Bumblebee could feel his overload nearing. Your talented lips worked him so well he could hardly contain the slew of praise that dripped from his mouth.

He was so close then you pulled away.

From your nose to your chin was covered in his slick. You licked around your lips with your eyes trained on his pulsating valve.

“Fuck!” Bee ran his servos up his faceplate. “Fuck! I was so close!”

You smiled giving a lick to his node making his hips twitch in response. “I know.”

“You know what,” Bee huffed as he dragged his servos down his faceplate. His optic ridge was furrowed in a scowl. He grabbed you by your sides lifting you up so you were on his lap. You let out a startled noise at being handled so aggressively. “I’m sick of you being a brat right now.”

His servos grabbed the fabric of your jeans around your rear and tore them like they were tissue paper. You gasped and were about to scold Bumblebee but the way he angled his spike up against your cunt through your underwear made you lurch into his chasis.

“I’ll get you new ones,” Bumblebee grumbled as he ripped through your underwear as well. He pushed the head of his spike against your leaking hole. “I’m going to take what I want and I don’t want any lip service from you, okay?”

You nodded eagerly excited to have Bumblebee be so rough with you. He jammed you down onto his spike in a harsh thrust. His servos remained steady on your hips to keep you from moving. You winced and cried out feeling your cunt be forced to stretch around something so wide. “You feel so good,” Bumblebee moaned guiding your hips up then pushing them back down onto his spike. You panted as you held onto to Bee’s chasis for dear life as he punished your sopping hole with his cock.

“Babe,” he moaned grabbing your attention. You looked up only to have your lips pulled into a sweltering kiss by Bumblebee. His much larger dermas moved against your soft lips. He moaned into your mouth as he bounced you up and down on his chubby spike. His glossa pushed past your lips moving into your mouth. His much larger robotic tongue swirled around your panting mouth taking in the taste of your spit.

Your body was at his mercy and he showed little with how he thrusted into you. Your rear started to sting from making sharp and fast contact with his metal plating. The wet clapping of your bodies joining together was the only thing that could be heard echoing off the garage walls.

Bee pulled away from your mouth only to move down to your neck leaving open mouthed kisses and sucking on the skin there. You squeezed your eyes shut feeling overwhelmed by the sensations Bumblebee gave you. You yelped when you felt him bite at your neck hard enough to leave a mark.

“Bee!” You cried grabbing onto his horns. He only chuckled into your neck kissing around where he bit you. You moaned feeling his glossa lick up your neck and to your cheek. “Hey, gotta mark what’s mine right?” Bee teased breathlessly. You rubbed at his horns making Bee’s thrusts sputter. “Wanna overload in you,” he moaned into the side of your face. “Wanna see you leaking my transfluid.”

You nodded eagerly bouncing in his grip as he brought your hips up and down to meet his thrusts. “Gonna fucking paint that valve,” Bumblebee groaned feeling his orgasm spreading through his abdomen. “You’re gonna be leaking for days!” He winced shoving you to the base of his spike as he released deep inside of you. You felt his hot flow of transfluid empty into your vagina and womb. Driblets leaked around where he plugged your hole with his spike staining your ripped jeans with his overload.

“Fuck,” Bee huffed giving you one last thrust. You furrowed your brows hearing your body squelch from his movement. “That was so good.” Be grabbed your hips to lift you off his spike but your loud whine stopped him. “No! Let me stay on you longer,” you begged rubbing your clit between your fingers. Bumblee swore under his breath seeing how your slick mixed with his overload. “Yeah? You want to keep me warm?”

You nodded using the mixture of cum to toy with your swollen clit. “I wanna cum with you in me,” you begged bouncing your hips slightly. Bumblebee swore feeling his spike moving inside your greedy cunt once again. “Fuck, take whatever you need, babe,” Bumblebee hissed.

He kept a servo on your lower back as he leaned backwards on his other hand. You rubbed at your pussy desperately as you bounced on Bumblebee’s lap. “You stretch me out so good!” You moaned. Your bodies made a wet clapping sound with every movement of your hips. Bumblebee gripped your rear in his servo. “Yeah? Biggest you’ve ever had?” Bumblebee couldn’t help the pride that swelled in his chest.

“Huge!” You cried humping your hand. “Be careful,” Bumblebee teased feeling the energon swell to his spike once again. “I might tear that little hole apart if you keep talking like that.” You whined flipping your head back. “Please! Tear me apart with your cock!”

Bumblebee was dumbfounded by your desperation. His shocked expression turned to one of smug pleasure. “Nah,” he teased. “I think I like how you look bouncing on my spike. If you can overload like this I might consider fucking you again.”

You huffed wanting to wipe that smug grin off his face. He knew how desperate he made you and you hated when he used that against you. You gasped when he bucked up into your cunt. “Come on then,” he smirked. “I don’t have all day.”

You looked up at Bumblebee with your eyebrows furrowed as you bounced on his lap. Your fingers worked your clit quickly and frantically like you’d die without the stimulation. “There’s my sweet spark,” Bee teased while fondling your ass. “Keep going just like that.” You gripped onto his chasis with your other hand for support as you picked up your hips to slam back down onto his lap. Bee panted feeling your sloppy cunt slap back down onto his pelvis with a wet sticky noise. Your movement became sporadic as your orgasm neared. His spike pulsed eagerly inside you as your walls hugged every inch of him. You chanted his name under your breath as that knot in your abdomen snapped.

Your fingers frantically rubbed your clit as you came around his spike. Your walls fluttering and squeezing him until he groaned your name. “Good,” he praised breathlessly. “So good for me.” You nodded riding out your orgasm until your hips twitched trying to move away from the torturous electric pleasure your fingers brought upon your clit. “I love you,” you panted pulling your wet fingers out of your cunt.

Bumblebee was sure to support your tired body as his other servo guided your hand to his intake. “I love you too,” he said placing kisses along your wet fingers before licking your orgasm off of them with his glossa. “I love you so much.”

[megapteraurelia]

sakusa kiyoomi hated walking through a crowded place.

there were too many voices layered on top of each other, footsteps in every direction, music bleeding out from one of the stores, a crying baby somewhere. he walked with his jaw clenched tightly, his hands in his pocket, a mask covering his face as he tried to keep his breath even.

you were next to him, quiet too, though he wouldn't have heard you over the static in his head, anyway, not without the clamor pressing in, and when he pressed his teeth together, he could feel his pulse in the valley of his molars.

then, a small tug at his sleeve. so incredibly minuscule, it was barely there.

kiyoomi glanced down, a quick look with his searching eyes to find your hand curled around the cuff of his jacket. you didn't say anything, just looked up at him, and for a moment — a single moment — in this foggy ocean of people and noise, you were a lighthouse.

when he exhaled, it was like pressure let off a valve, and his arm brushed against yours.

TAGLIST | @takes1 ; @sodaneko ; @classicalelephant ; @pomigranit ;

[smallestapplin]

Hello !! I’ve never requested anything before so I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I absolutely adore ur fics !! I was wondering if u could maybe write smth of a human reader (preferably female but gn is good too) eating out G1 jazz and making him overload a bunch of times in a row ? There aren’t enough fics like this in the world and I need more so bad 🙏🙏

This is a gender neutral household, so I went with that!

Warnings : gn!human reader, overstimulation, bottom Jazz, valve drunk reader.

Mdni you will be blocked! Adults only!

-

-

Even the mass displaced mech was still at least a good four or five feet taller than you, yet that did not stop you from kissing down his body to be seated so sweetly between his legs. You ignore his airy chuckles, merely looking up at him, kissing his modesty panel. Jazz sighs letting his legs relax and tilting his helm back.

“Are you sure about this, my light? I don’t want you to-mm! Oh..h-hey now” Jazz stutters as you lick across the paneling in your way.

“I’m sure, Jazz, let me please you, serve you, just relax for me. Let me see that pretty valve.” You trail your hands down his inner thighs, your thumbs brushing the edge of the modesty plating in your way, “I can already see you leaking around it, just let me get a taste, please?”

The large mech lets out a shaky ex-vent already retracting his modesty panel just as you finished your sentence. Running your hands up and down his thick thighs, you can’t help but admire his valve, he’s already so wet it’s almost endearing how easily you get such a calm mech so worked up. Jazz trembles under your touch and your gaze, his visor brightening as energon thrums through him. 

“Quit staring.” He sighs out, almost embarrassed at how you stare at the mess his valve is making.

You look up at him over his throbbing spike, smirking at his flushed face. Looking back to his valve you slide your hands up, taking his puffy lips with your thumbs and pulling them apart, showing off his hole clenching around nothing and pulsing anterior node.

His biolights glowing so slightly brighter at your touch almost like trying to beckon you for more, and who are you to deny your pretty mech? Jazz leans his helm back against his berth with a sigh of relief, feeling your tongue teasing his needy hole, licking up any leaking pre-fluid as you slowly move up to his node flattening your tongue against it in a firm lick, causing the mech to shake before his back strut snaps into an arch feeling your lips wrap around pulsing bud.

“Ohh! Hah…gah, y-you’re really gettin’ into it, aren’t ya?” Jazz places a servo over his face while the other keeps a tight grip on the slab of metal below him.

He doesn’t want to hurt you, but the way you keep sucking and licking his node has his body heating up and fighting the urge to flail.

He tastes so good it’s leaving your mind in a lustful haze, his scent is strong, it's heady and you just want to suffocate yourself in his valve, to drink him dry of all his transfluid, it’s intoxicating! Moving one hand from his valve lips you trail your middle and ring finger up and down his wet slit, soaking them in his juices before slowly pushing them into his sticky hole.

“Ah! Frag, feels so…so good- hnn! Ohh there, right there!” Jazz shrieks, his hips bucking against your face and fingers trying desperately to get your curling digits to run against his ceiling node again. Dipping your tongue down you gather another taste of his pink fluids, moaning out against him at the addicitive flavor making the mech’s voice go static for a moment. You have his helm spinning and valve fluttering around your fingers.

“Fuck…gonna cum for me already?” 

Jazz whines loudly at the sound of your wrecked voice.

“C’mon sugar, d-don’t tease me when- ah! Yes, yes! M’gonna overload!” His servo grip the edges of the berth below him, struggling to not grab you or snap his legs around you, he just wants you so much closer, “more, more please!” Drool leaks down the corner of his open intake.

He overloads with a pretty squeal and his frame quakes, shaking so hard his metal is rattling. Whining and squeezing his teary optics shut, listening to you greedily slurp up his transfluid like it’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted. Ex-venting hard, Jazz lets out a breathless chuckle while falling limp against the bed for a moment.

“Frag that was so good! You really know how to make a mech feel special.” Lifting his helm up to look down at you, he sees you lifting your head up from his valve, your heavy lidded eyes locking with his wide optics as you lick from the base of his spike all the way to the messy tip, cleaning up any transfluid that spewed from it. 

Jazz chokes on his sounds as his frame begins to heat up. In a flash you were back to his valve, moving your fingers to rub his node while shoving your tongue as deep as you could in his fluttering hole, making the ever growing sensitive mech squeal. A sob tears through his voice box as you meanly pinch his node, making his pedes kick out and his back strut arch.

“Oh primus- frag, frag t-that’s too much! Slag it all, I can’t- yes yes yes!” His body covered in a thin layer of coolant and his internal fans kicking on high trying to cool him down. He’s never had someone so feral for his valve before, so desperate for his taste like this, he might grow addicted to this.

“Fuck…tastes so good…” your moan vibrates against his poor valve, sending tears streaming down his flushed cheeks.

You might just break him, yet he finds he quite likes that’s idea.

[tinyshyteacup]

Taglist: @jozzieblood @buckysteveloki-me @dragonoftheshadows @plaidconvers @kateawolf13 @keira-kaz2y5 @frog-fans-unite @doilooklikeagiveafrack @verynormalsstuff @nynxtea @iminyourceiling @seventeen-x @mgchaser @y0urgirl @lovely-seb @laughterafter @mysuperlaserpissnumber1fan @irasciblemogwai @svtbpbts @vivalas-vega @chonkybonky @bmyva1entine @6urmom @gullableh @homiesexual-or-homosexual @aoi-targaryen @bitter-semi-sweet @soflegacy @kath-666 @hiireadstuff @nyxthedeity @highhopes1008 @sineminuse @hxsxxk-180294 @wordacadabra @hawkinsavclub1983 @buckingforbuckybarnes @purplefluffycows @fandomsearcherforcuntymen @huang-the-geek @joewhs @witchywannabe3263 @iyskgd @ironenemycollective @bumblebeebutter @sizzlingstarlightsky @buckybarnesslutshop @starstruck-cowgirl @angelicdarkn3ss @confused-simp-jpg @hufflepuffsforjoy @nicolebarnes @avatarobsessedgirly @escapismurmom @paige0103 @dollface-xoxo @read-just-cant-stop @sycamoregirl444 @raikan624 @iwritememesnotprophecies @imissbenswolo-blog @lcolumbia1988 @paintmekala @knowingnothingnoel @captain-shannon-becker @jainaeatsstars @mm4t @houseofthechaos @chachkid @escapefromrealitylol

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Tw: cussing, blood, dead body, alcohol consumption

Part 16

Words of command - Part 17

The music floated gently through the air — soft, warm brass and honeyed vocals echoing faintly in the quiet of the common room.

You and Bucky moved slowly in a loose circle, your cheek nestled just above his sternum, his chin tucked lightly atop your head.

The lights from the city outside glowed in soft pulses through the massive windows behind you. Bucky’s boots making no sounds save for a small squeak with each turn.

The rhythm was imperfect but full of feeling — a dance in slow motion.

You and Bucky moved slowly together across the plush rug. His large hand cradled yours, his metal fingers surprisingly gentle, barely grazing your waist. You could feel the tension in him slowly draining, like a pressure valve being released one slow breath at a time.

His blue eyes, usually so guarded, were soft and present. Focused only on you.

He spoke low, his voice gravelly from emotion, not tension.

“You’re gettin’ good at this,” he murmured, the corners of his mouth tugging into a smile — a real one. “Kinda like havin’ our own USO show, huh, Doll?”

You laughed quietly, resting your forehead against his chest, letting yourself just feel the moment.

For once, Bucky wasn’t watching the exits. He wasn’t flinching at every noise. He was just… with you.

“You know, Doll…” he murmured, swaying gently with you. “This? This makes me feel human again.”

Your heart clenched — just a little — and you tightened your arms around his waist in response.

Then—

The elevator doors hissed open.

Both your heads turned slightly as soft footsteps approached.

“Evening,” came a familiar voice — light, polite, and full of calm professionalism.

Agent McKenzie, psych and neuro division.

She was dressed casually, a coffee cup in hand, her S.H.I.E.L.D. ID clipped to the waistband of her slacks. Her expression was warm and neutral, her body relaxed — she glanced between the two of you, her smile broadening faintly.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said, tone honey-smooth. “Didn’t realize anyone was up here.”

You stepped back from Bucky slightly, keeping one hand in his.

“No, no, it’s fine,” you said sheepishly. “Just… dancing a little.”

McKenzie gave a polite chuckle and nodded toward the soft, vintage music. “Definitely wasn’t expecting the 40s in the middle of the night. That’s very ... nostalgic.”

You felt Bucky’s hand twitch in yours.

You looked up at him instinctively.

His eyes were on McKenzie now — not fearful, but narrowed.

Focused.

The expression he wore wasn’t confusion or discomfort. It was instinctual alertness.

You could feel the tension building under his skin, subtle but unmistakable — like a wire being pulled tighter and tighter.

McKenzie stepped closer, sipping her drink.

“I was just checking some files JARVIS flagged. Nothing urgent.” She tilted her head at Bucky. “You seem better lately, Barnes. Sleeping more? Talking more often too?”

You opened your mouth to politely redirect the conversation, but Bucky beat you to it — his voice smooth, but curt.

“Some days are better.”

McKenzie smiled, folding her arms loosely over her chest.

“Good to hear. It's important to make sure you're stable.” she said with a slight stretch.

"Hmm Stable," McKenzie repeated, with a slight smirk setting her coffee cup down on the counter. "That's what they're all hoping for, isn't it?"

Her eyes never left Bucky's face as she shifted her weight, moving closer with casual precision. "The team needs reliability. You could say their practically Longing for it."

Bucky's fingers tightened around yours. So subtle anyone else would miss it.

"We should head up to our floor," you said quickly, trying to steer Bucky away.

"Rusted," McKenzie said softly, as if testing the word.

Bucky's breathing changed. A nearly imperceptible hitch, then it became controlled.

Too controlled.

"Agent Mckenz—" you started.

"Seventeen," she continued, her voice melodic, almost conversational.

"That was his birth year, did you know that ?" She said to you.

Bucky had gone completely still beside you. His face remained neutral, but his eyes had begun to glaze over—a vacant quality that sent ice through your veins.

"Daybreak," McKenzie said, watching his reaction carefully. "Furnace. Nine."

You grabbed Bucky's arm, shaking him. "Bucky? Bucky—talk to me?" Panic rose in your chest as you felt him slipping away right in front of you.

With each word, Bucky's muscles coiled tighter. His jaw clenched, a vein pulsing at his temple.

His gaze locked straight ahead, not seeing you anymore despite your attempts to get through to him.

"Stop," you said firmly to McKenzie, stepping between them. "What are you doing to him?"

But McKenzie simply sidestepped you, her eyes never leaving Bucky's face.

"Benign,"

"Homecoming."

Sweat beaded along his hairline as he fought against whatever was happening inside his mind.

You grabbed his hands, shaking him harder. "Bucky! Look at me! C'mon, snap out of it!"

"No" he whimpered lips trembling.

For just a moment, his eyes found yours. Through gritted teeth, he managed to force out two words

"Call... Steve."

Then, with tremendous effort. "Doll, Run."

But you didn't back away. Instead, you moved your trembling hand to his forearm.

Your eyes searched his, "I'm not running, Where you go, I go right ?" you whispered, your voice breaking but resolute.

Agent McKenzie checked her nails, like it was a typical evening "God, your making it to easy." She murmured under her breath.

Bucky's hand had slipped from yours now. His breathing had gone shallow, his pupils dilated.

Sweat ran from his hairline as he fought against whatever was happening inside his mind.

"Please, please please" Bucky trembled "you gotta run Doll, I can't— I can't hurt you ... RUN" His blue eyes where shot wide in terror.

Not for himself.

For you.

"One," McKenzie said, voice hardening.

But, the programming was taking hold—you could see it in the mechanical stillness of his posture.

Bucky's metal arm whirred as the plates recalibrated. His flesh hand curled into a fist at his side.

Bucky’s face went vacant, the panic in his eyes moments ago erased.

"Frei—"

A gunshot cracked through the room, cutting her off mid-word.

McKenzie's eyes widened in shock. She looked down at the spreading crimson stain on her chest, then back up.

In the doorway stood Agent Collins, his service weapon still raised and trembling visibly in his hands. His mousey brown hair was disheveled, his face pale.

“I—I didn’t know what to do,” he stammered, voice high with panic. “She was doing the—the thing! The words! He—he looked like he was gonna lose it—!”

McKenzie stumbled backward against the counter, clutching at her wound. Her eyes found Collins, narrowing with recognition.

"You... idiot" she hissed through gritted teeth.

She slid down to the floor, her breathing labored. As her strength faded, she looked up at Bucky, who was still frozen in the liminal space between soldier and man.

"Hail... Hydra," she whispered, the words barely audible as her eyes glazed over.

Collins lowered his weapon slowly, looking like he might be sick. His hands shook uncontrollably.

"I've never shot anyone before," he mumbled, staring at McKenzie's motionless form. "Is she... did I..."

You grabbed Bucky's face between your hands.

"Bucky! Bucky, look at me," you pleaded, watching as awareness slowly returned to his eyes. The programming, incomplete, was already beginning to lose its hold.

In the background, the vintage record continued to play, its cheerful melody now a macabre soundtrack to the chaos that had erupted in the quiet night.

Bucky had crumpled against the couch, both hands gripping his head, rocking slightly — not from pain, but from the overwhelming storm behind his eyes.

“I didn’t—I didn’t do it, right?” he rasped. “Tell me I didn’t—please—Doll—tell me I didn’t hurt you—”

You dropped to your knees in front of him, reaching up to cup his face.

“No, no, you didn’t. Bucky—look at me. You’re okay. You’re here. I’ve got you.”

He trembled under your touch.

“I almost lost it,” he whispered. “I heard those words and it was like—I couldn’t breathe. Like everything was collapsing—”

He stared at you for a long second. Then he nodded—once, sharply—and looked past you, at Collins gathering his composure.

Collins was noticeably pale. “I—I didn’t mean—”

“You did good,” Bucky said gruffly, voice low so it stayed even.

“You stopped her before I lost myself. Before I hurt—" He reached up with his flesh hand but stopped himself. "Someone"

Collins blinked. “You’re not mad?”

“I’ve got a long list of people im mad at,” Bucky said, looking over your shoulder at Collins. “You’re no longer on it.”

Collins let out a shaking laugh that was halfway to a sob, sitting down heavily on the edge of the couch. “Jesus, I think I peed a little.”

You let out a soft breath—half relieved, half overwhelmed.

The elevator dinged again.

The room filled fast.

Steve was first through the doors, eyes sharp and wide. Natasha and Clint followed, weapons drawn. Bruce looked confused. Then Sam came through the doorway, his posture immediately tense.

And then—

Tony.

1940s Tuxedo slightly askew. They all froze at the sight before them, McKenzie's body on the floor, you still in front of Bucky who was slumped on the couch with you, and Agent Collins trembling against the other couch, service weapon dangling limply from his fingers.

Tony's head jerked to JARVIS's voice "Incident logged. Threat neutralized."

“Neutralized?” Tony repeated, tone sharp. "Somebody wanna tell me why there's a corpse in my common room? I leave for five minutes and Hydra decides to throw a dinner party?"

Bucky's shoulders tensed again. Not the panic from earlier, but the instinctive bracing that came with Tony Stark's presence.

"Well," Tony said, taking a long breath. "This is definitely not the midnight snack run I was expecting."

Steve rushed immediately to Bucky. "Buck? You with us?" When Bucky didn't respond beyond a slight nod and recognition in his eyes, Steve looked to you. "What happened? What did she do?"

"She was saying words—Russian, maybe? Something about longing and rusted and seventeen," you explained, your voice shaking. "He started to... change."

Natasha crouched beside McKenzie's body, her face grim. "The Winter Soldier activation sequence," she said softly. "She knew the trigger words."

Sam moved cautiously toward Collins. "Maybe put the gun down, man," he suggested calmly.

Collins looked down at the weapon in his hand as if seeing it for the first time. He quickly set it on a nearby table and backed away, nearly tripping over his own feet.

"I—I didn't mean to—she was doing something to Barnes and I just—" He made a vague shooting gesture with his finger and thumb, then grimaced.

"Shot a fellow agent," Tony finished, eyebrows raised as he watched Collins fumble. "Congratulations on your first bad guy. Though next time, maybe try for a little less murder and a little more, I don't know, pressing the alarm?"

Collins' face went from pale to green. "Oh god, I killed someone. I actually killed someone. I've never—I always close my eyes when I shoot."

"That's... terrifying," Tony remarked, walking to the bar and pulling out a bottle of his expensive scotch. "Here. This might help with the whole 'I just killed someone' thing you've got going on."

He poured a generous amount into a glass and slid it across the counter toward Collins, who grabbed it and downed it in one gulp, immediately dissolving into a coughing fit.

"That's—that's not water," Collins sputtered between coughs.

"Astute observation. It's thirty-year-old Macallan. Which you just shot back like a college freshman at his first frat party," Tony said dryly. "That was a six-hundred-dollar sip, by the way."

"She said 'Hail Hydra' before she died," you added, still not releasing your hold on Bucky's arm.

Steve's head snapped up, Tony's sarcastic demeanor sharpened, and Natasha's hand moved subtly back toward her weapon.

"JARVIS," Tony called out. "Full lockdown. Now."

"Already initiated, sir," came JARVIS's cool response. "Security footage is being uploaded to your private server."

"We need to check her files, her communications," Natasha said, already moving toward the elevators. "If she's Hydra, she's not alone."

Collins hiccupped loudly, drawing everyone's attention. "Can I... can I have another?" he asked, shakily holding out the empty glass. "My hands won't stop trembling."

"Sure, why not?" Tony sighed, refilling the glass. "Not like it's irreplaceable or anything."

Collins took another gulp and grimaced. "It tastes like burning."

"That's because you're supposed to sip it, not use it as mouthwash," Tony replied. He turned back to the others. "So, to recap, HYDRA agent tries to activate Winter Soldier, gets shot by the one guy in the building who couldn't hit the broad side of a helicarrier, and now we have a potential Hydra infiltration. Saturday night's looking up."

Steve gave him a warning look. “Stark.”

But Tony moved his eyes to Bucky, jaw ticking.

“Well, at least he stayed on the furniture this time.” His voice was biting, but there was panic under it, the kind he covered with sarcasm like armor. “Was this before or after he started quoting Shakespeare in Russian?”

“Tony, thats enough” you said quietly — voice soft, but it cut through the room like a blade.

He paused.

Then his eyes shifted to you, and something flickered behind his eyes— protectiveness, guilt, something deeper.

You were sitting right next to the man who had nearly been turned into a weapon.

But you weren’t afraid— it was clear you were the one holding him steady.

Bucky, to his credit, didn’t flinch at Tony’s words.

His jaw flexed and he looked Tony dead-on. “I didn’t break.”

The silence was thick.

Natasha's eyes softened slightly. Steve exhaled slowly, tension easing from his shoulders. Clint crossed his arms, assessing Bucky with that unreadable SHIELD gaze.

Tony’s expression didn’t change much — but the sarcasm faded from his tone.

“No,” he muttered. “Guess you didn’t.”

Then, pointedly, he turned to you. “You alright, Thumbelina?”

You gave him a gentle smile. “A little shaken. But I’m okay.”

“Sure, okay,” he said gruffly, but then added more quietly, “You want a med scan or a shield detail? Because I can have JARVIS turn this place into Fort Knox if one more person tries to play Hydra code-of-the-day in my damn common room.”

You shook your head. “I think a little ... calm would be better.”

Tony opened his mouth, paused, then shut it again.

“Fine. But if I see even one more rogue agent around here, I’m putting motion sensors in Bucky’s eyebrows.”

Bucky gave the faintest smirk at that. “I’d like to see you try, Stark.”

Tony blinked. “Well. Progress. Manchurian Candidate can crack jokes" his eyes narrowed slightly "doesn't mean I trust you yet.”

You reached for Bucky’s flesh hand. He let you take it without hesitation.

Steve gave Bucky a warm look of approval, but didn’t crowd him.

"We should debrief," Natasha said evenly, looking at McKenzie's body. "And clean up."

"Yeah," Sam added. "But, uh… maybe Barnes earned a night off."

The others gave nods or small smiles before filtering out — giving the two of you space.

The room quieted again. Bucky’s hand curled in yours.

You turned to look at him.

He was studying you with that same reverent gaze — like you were a miracle and he wasn’t sure if he deserved one.

“Doll…” His eyes shimmered.

He pressed his forehead gently to yours, eyes closing, metal arm wrapping around you like he was afraid to let go.

"We're ok, it's ok ... everything's ok" you murmured but your trembling lip betrayed the confidence of your words.

[hcneymooners]

✸ TRITWWISIYTSTICS ⤷ chapter ii. i was in the shower, shaking, and she was outside.

( read on ao3. )

synopsis & masterlist: here.

cw: animal death (non-graphic), mentions of grief and loss, the eroticism of feeding the woman you don't know but you're dreaming about already.

notes: thank you so much for all of the support on the first chapter. please let me know what you think. i would love to know anything you would like to tell me. my inbox is always open, and i always love you.

all of paige’s ghosts flooded her in sleep, so she dispelled them by gasping awake and rolling over the hills of azzi’s bare thighs. 

they’d flipped, two coins rusting in the dark, left to tarnish together until even god forgot which one was heads, and ended up curved together—two moons of women, half slivers barely a forehead apart. azzi’s mouth had parted slightly as she dreamed, and maybe paige was too disoriented to process anything else, but she swore it smelled sweet. she could’ve sworn that the sun had come through earlier, but maybe that was a figment of her imagination.

she lay in the dark for a while, rolling her neck and trying to loosen her body from its military indoctrination. this woman is not a threat, she thought repeatedly like a prayer. she hadn’t seen the inner body of a church in so long. 

and even if she was, paige continued, you are stronger. 

the thought made her feel more ill than anything. she clenched her jaw, flexed her fingers until the bone threatened to bubble and split the skin. she tried to recall her family members, tried to say their names or attach them to fading faces. when she got to her younger brother, her throat closed, and her hips twitched just enough to tell her that this venture was over. she tried to say his name, just one more time. her throat closed around it like a fist.

she would not fall back into sleep, she knew this. so, she lay there with her hands palm up across her chest. she resisted the urge to place a palm against the warmth of azzi’s side. 

the lack of touching was useless. she could feel something deep inside of azzi radiating into her, seeking out the similar fog that smothered whatever it was that had remained. 

it was like spores.

✸

azzi was dreaming; this much she knew. it was a nice dream, a calmer one. it was one without inês’s empty eye sockets, now filled with bejeweled bells. it was one without inês’s gaping, fat, pink mouth trying to close over her name. it wouldn’t hurt too much to wake from. 

still, it had its own pain. perhaps it was the joy.

in this dream, azzi was stock still on a basketball court. she stood alone, hair braided down into two thick plaits that brushed at the tops of her shoulders. every time she moved, the ends of the braids kissed her. again, and again, they kissed her because she was curious and couldn’t stop neither her hunger for this new world nor the hunger for the faux-intimacy of that faux-touch.

she was unsure of whether or not she was in uniform. when she looked down, she could only see how her hands were pulsing around a ball. maybe it was the world. she dropped it and reached back, clawed her fingertips through the braids until her curls fell thick and sweet around the fullness of her face. she turned to look over her shoulder. 

she saw a river of blonde hair. 

she knew the nape of that pale neck.

azzi slipped into the sweetness of late morning. at first, she didn’t understand, and then she felt that her existence was different.

she sat up, no stranger to the velveteen darkness, and listened to the sounds of that strange woman tiptoeing around her house. with a tender breath, she finally slipped from the bed, skin dappled in the little light let in through the balcony window’s curtain, and turned the warm water valve outside of the room’s bathroom. she tucked herself into the porcelain body of the bath and let the heat send light through her body. 

she straightened her hair.

when she came into the kitchen, she found paige sitting still with a hand around the thin limb of her gun’s trigger. she remained respectful of azzi’s instruction to leave it by the door, sitting cross-legged by the entrance to the cabin. she twisted to follow azzi’s dance throughout her home. 

paige didn’t mean to watch her, but she did. she watched the way azzi’s hands moved with care, not hesitation. she watched azzi shoulder open a cabinet and pull out a thin pack of dried meat. then: a few wrinkled peaches, coaxed from the solar-powered belly of the fridge. she gazed on as azzi sliced the peach gently, carefully, clinically as if she were handling a heart.

medical background, then. as if to agree with her, azzi’s full lips parted and let words slip out like a wrong birth; too early and exposed. 

“you’re underweight,” azzi said, flinching slightly when the duck hit the pan. paige watched a spray of oil droplets go high.

she didn’t answer. her jaw set. her gaze went down to her hands and outlined the bones of her rifle, before she transferred it back to its leaning post and stood. she shuffled into the kitchen and sat awkwardly at the round, oak table. 

azzi skewered a slice of peach and fed it to the fire. she turned it over after a few minutes, the caramelized side now dark and gleaming.

“you need protein. fat. salt.” a pause. “the others fed you?”

“there were no others,” paige said, “but i had rations.”

azzi turned toward her, the sun frail against her cheekbone. she pressed her lips together and then,

“your voice.” a pause, as if she hadn’t meant to say that. “are you—did you come from the midwest?”

paige gazed at her, blue eyes gleaming, before she answered. “minnesota.” then, “where were you?”

something seared through azzi’s stomach, and her hands tightened around the ridge of the knife. “virginia.”

she plated the food without speaking again. 

the smell rose warm and smoky between them. somehow, there were greens tucked in. paige couldn’t help the wrinkle of her face at the sight of the leaves. azzi set the plate down and finally looked at her. 

“this is the last of the duck.”

paige’s eyes met hers. “you didn’t have to.”

azzi gave her an almost tired look. barely fond. “yes. i did.”

they ate until the silence grew stiff. azzi could feel all of her disquiet boil within her. the fragments of her dream pressed into her nerves like blades.

paige chewed slowly, methodically, her jaw working through both the meat and the unfamiliar act of being cared for. she didn’t make a sound, but azzi could feel the hesitation in her. she noted the way paige avoided the peach, the way her eyes swept the room like she was already counting exits.

azzi’s curls began to press forward at her temples, kissed free from the water’s steam and the slow march of time. her straightened hair, warm and glossy only minutes ago, had started to ripple at the roots, like even it no longer wished to be held so tightly.

carefully, she leaned forward and picked up a limp sliver of grilled peach off the other woman’s plate. she carefully dusted a duck-wet sprig of kale from the top of it and then dropped it onto paige’s unused fork. paige watched her arrange it—god, did she watch. then the peach fled into her mouth.

“you can’t only eat what’s not good for you,” azzi told her.

paige wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist, then pushed her plate forward. her eyes didn’t leave azzi, not exactly, but she didn’t stare. she traced the space between them. she observed like a soldier, tracking something she hadn’t decided whether or not to kill.

“you don’t like greens?” azzi asked, tilting her head but adjusting nothing in her tone.

paige shrugged one shoulder, finally letting her tongue brush peach from the roof of her mouth. the tip of her tongue was dark pink as it swirled across the vermilion of her bottom lip. “never did.” she didn’t apologize.

azzi smiled faintly. “good to know.”

she rose and leaned back against the counter, a faint crescent of sweat beneath her collarbone. she didn’t bother hiding her fatigue. or her distance.

“so,” paige said, voice dry as flint, “how’s this work? you feed the strays, or am i a special case?”

azzi arched a brow. it wasn’t an offense. it wasn’t warm either. 

“you’re not a stray,” she said. “but you are a disruption.”

paige’s mouth twitched. maybe that was the closest she came to a laugh. azzi went on. 

“the commune lets me live my life as i want it. i patch up the children when they fall, and i touch the wrinkled and weathered skin of the elders when the wind breaks their hips. people are still terrified of growing old even when there’s not much life left.” paige’s mouth twitched again. azzi, again, thought of her tongue. “i give them antibiotics, help them with supplemental ivs, and provide makeshift hospice services. otherwise, i take nothing.”

“and in return?” paige asked.

“they let me have my perimeter. they don’t come knocking. they don’t ask about the water system. or how many solar panels i have. they don’t ask about the cabin, or why i’m—why she—” left me. “they don’t ask about why it’s just me.”

paige ran her tongue along her teeth, considering that.

“and me?”

azzi crossed her arms, her sweater sleeve slipping down her forearm. her skin was smooth and reminded paige of the dunes she’d spent nights scoping. her eyes were not.

“will they ask about you?”

“no,” paige said. “what do you expect from me?”

“you haven’t taken anything yet,” azzi said. “but you will. that’s just human nature. so, i guess i’ll know then.”

a long pause. paige nodded once, then looked away. her jaw worked slightly, like she was chewing on something bitter. azzi softened. slightly.

“there’s work, if you want to stay.” her voice was even. “i don’t feed idle mouths. you can track. you’re quiet. that matters.”

paige’s gaze flicked back to her. still cautious, but clearer now.

“i don’t make messes,” she said.

azzi turned back to the sink. “everyone makes messes.”

outside, the wind picked up, brushing past the curtains like a second thought. the light shifted—blued and white, like the bones of morning trying to stay alive. azzi reached up and tucked her curls behind her ears. they popped right back out. she didn’t bother again. she began to wash the dishes.

at the third plate, azzi said it. not dramatically, because it wasn’t a warning, but it still had some gravity.

“we’ll need to hunt. you need protein, and meat will get you there somewhat while i figure out the greens situation.” a beat. “i prefer a scalpel to a rifle.”

paige didn’t ask why. she only rose to azzi’s side, reached down, and dried a plate. she set it down. then:

“it’s not easy to be a good shot.”

“i never said i wasn’t a good shot.”

paige thought of speaking, but didn’t. she couldn’t understand it. 

“were you always a doctor?” the question came unbidden, surprising both women.

azzi shook her head. “pre-med.”

something about the way she said it made paige envision the anatomy of her throat, dark inked lines spiraling across smooth skin. lines without any label. a learning curve.

paige dried another plate. “i’m going to take a walk along the north loop,” she said. “won’t go far. just get the lay.”

azzi didn’t turn, but she nodded. and that was that. when she finished cleaning the sink, she turned away and sent a spoon spinning from the counter to the floor.

they both went to reach for it. their spines bent in the same way. their hands nearly touched. 

neither looked up.

azzi stayed down.

✸

it was only a few days later that paige better understood what azzi meant when she clarified preference over capability. 

it had rained the night before. the ground was as soft as a body returning to earth, and the grass still held the chill of early morning. dew sparkled like beads on the long, green tongues. azzi stepped forward, quiet in her boots, the wind tugging at the ends of her scarf.

she stayed in place for only a moment, watching as paige brought her hair up into a loose loop at the base of her neck. she watched the blonde’s body flex, her muscles extending and tensing to become a part of her weapon. she was well-trained. azzi’s gaze lifted to what sat at the other end of the gun’s muzzle.

“wait.”

paige locked up, twisting to look at azzi standing small in the backyard. azzi maneuvered past her, body shivering avidly through the loose cotton of her tee. across from her: a feral cow. most likely abandoned or escaped. it watched her approach, blinked at her. 

brown eyes, long lashes, a gaze that made it hard to lie. for a moment: inês. her brothers. 

azzi knelt. grief slid low through her, ringing out, unclean and unstoppable. she crawled the rest of the way, uncaring of whether or not paige thought she was debasing herself.

(paige didn’t. she’d crawled, once.)

“i promise,” azzi whispered, voice hoarse, coming close enough to haul up on her hands and press her forehead to its temple. her hand slid over the thick ridge of its neck, the skin soft as churned butter, pale and rippling with warmth. “you’ll feed us. warm us. i will use your bones, your hide, your fat. nothing will go to waste. not a piece of you.”

the cow didn’t move or spook. it shifted minutely, head pressing into azzi’s cheek. its eyes were so large. azzi wondered when the last time someone had loved it like this was.

“i promise,” she said, louder but still hoarse. “i promise to use all of you.”

she crawled to her feet. stepped back. 

paige coiled again, finger twitching. again, she didn’t take the shot. now, she stood and approached the cow with an open hand. 

i prefer a scalpel to a rifle.

before, paige could not understand it. she did now.

two lithe fingers came to the middle of its head and slid down to the gnarled twist of its overgrown horns. she tilted it downward, coaxed it into turning with the familiarity of a farmhand, and led it away into a patch of wood so thick azzi could not see inside of it without a deep strain. 

azzi did not strain. instead, she retreated into the cabin. the shot rang out, quick and merciful.

when azzi finally came into the world again, only the pressed grass remained, still warm where the cow’s knees had folded as it accepted her covenant. paige was taking longer to come back than she’d expected. 

when paige returned, dusk painted her in rust and hush. there was blood across her cheekbone, a drying thread at the hinge of her jaw. azzi looked at the body in her arms, wrapped in fabric. she looked up at paige’s chest, bare now except for a well-worn sports bra.

their gazes collided for one suspended moment, earth against sky. 

“less mess,” paige said.

it wasn’t really. azzi would have to wash the wood off it. the dirt would sit, hard and vengeful, and azzi would have to strip and cleanse it. 

that was alright.

azzi wiped her cheeks. 

her mouth trembled, and paige thought of touching it.  her cunt clenched.

again, the bed. their bed.

that night, they lay as before: backs pressed close beneath the canopy, breath steadying in tandem. azzi listened to the wind soften against the linen drape, to the slow shift of paige’s shoulder as she reached back blindly, fumbling. two fingers brushed azzi’s stomach, missing their mark.

azzi lurched forward, then back. caught her breath.

paige, without apology, trailed lower, hand skimming across azzi’s hip until she found the curve of her wrist, the pulse tucked there like a secret. her fingers settled over it.

azzi pressed back, not pulling away but into. it is very strange.

they shifted, slowly. backs to backs become shoulders side by side. both of them on their backs now, the space between them thinned to nothing but shared breath.

still, no words.

paige’s fingers pushed upward, into the opening of azzi’s palm as if she meant to hold the whole hand. azzi stared into the dark and widened the spread of her fingers. tomorrow, she would clean the remnants of blood from underneath paige’s nails. 

she was sure to have missed some.

© hcneymooners.