#roommate!vessel

[mappedfantasy]

> anything to get me to sleep

summary: vessel has insomnia and cuddles help him sleep. pairing: vessel x gn!reader warnings/tags: sleepy!vessel, roommate!vessel, insomnia, texting (brief), cuddling, non-sexual intimacy, feelings realization. word count: 1.6k a/n: i had promised someone on ao3 that i would make another sleepy!ves fic, so i'm fulfilling my promise to them! this was pretty self-indulgent as well, i love the idea of someone being so safe with you that it helps them sleep. and as always, roommate!vessel credit to the lovely wolfie <3 ao3 link

It had been a long time since you had learned Vessel struggles with insomnia. The information came slowly previous to you right out bringing it up to him one day. You had noticed how much coffee he drank by the cups in the sink, how a lot of times he’d still be awake as you left in the morning, his body language being restless. You heard it in his voice too, saw a certain daytime depression. After a while, it had started to worry you, and that's when you asked him about it. 

He was shy at first, tried to push it off with an awkward laugh. “No…?” you remember him saying, not a single bit convincing of himself or you. 

And when you had given him a look of non-conviction, he broke, telling you it had been something he deeply struggled with since he were a teenager. He told you he had to take melatonin to help him sleep, even though at times that didn’t work. Anything to try to get him to sleep, or so he said. 

You took it upon yourself to be of use when possible, providing what support you could for him to get some well deserved rest more frequently than he was able to achieve on his own. You decided you would never comment on it much either, at least not in a way that would make him feel worse about it than he did to begin with. 

Meaning you chose to never bring up the times he fell asleep on you during movies, where you’d get up as best you could without waking him up. He would wake up on the couch, no recollection of falling asleep, and a text message from you reminding him that you would be home soon. You felt a smidge bad about lying to him, but he needed the rest at any given chance he had. You didn’t blame him for it, so no use of bringing details up. The guilt he could feel because of it wasn’t worth it. Call you crazy, but you cared about his feelings. 

That was exactly what had happened now, Vessel had taken a couple melatonin in hopes to get some rest after his thirty-something hours of being awake. About an hour ago, he had told you that he was off to bed, joked that if you didn’t see him for three days then call it a miracle. 

You let out a startled laugh seeing a couple texts come onto your phone screen from him. 

Ves: i can’t sleep :( Ves: this is unfair 

Of course this happened, it was his luck. Completely unfair. The utmost injustice for the guy. The universe must have it out for him at this rate of things. Unfortunate.

You: you poor thing :(

You absently giggle to yourself after you receive no response back for a couple minutes. The mental imagery of him being huffed up in his bed with blankets wrapped around him, staring at his phone with a frown, is quite comical in the grand scheme of this. It wasn’t anything to allow to slide past him either, for him to sulk over while sleepy to the extremes (or at all, if you were to be especially honest with him) over some light teasing. You had lived with him long enough to know this, let alone be his friend for long enough. So, yeah, Vessel tended to act a bit “childish” while tired. 

You: do you wanna come to my room for cuddles? 

Promptly after leaving you on read, a lazy knock is at your door before being pushed open to reveal Vessel waddling to the edge of your bed. He flops face first into your mattress with a loud, over-the-top groan. He lifts his head just enough to pout at you, knowing your eyes are boring into him. You can’t help the soft sigh you let out as you reach your hand to scratch at the back of his head. Seeing him in this state made you feel a softness for him you tended to ignore. And you quickly stop thinking about it once he makes a noise at how good your nails feel on his scalp. 

“That feel good, yeah?” You breathily laugh, it’s delirious sounding. If he wasn’t too sleep deprived to catch it, he didn’t mention it or have any reaction to it. 

He sinks his face deeper into the fluffy blanket spread across your bed. You weren't sure how he was breathing in this position. “Mhm…” he amuses in agreement. 

“Do you want to come up here? Lay on me?” is offered to him. You tap at your chest with your free hand, although he can’t see what you’re doing at all. 

He makes a disgruntled noise. 

“No? It’ll be more comfy, Vess. You may even get to fall asleep,” you try to sweeten the deal. 

Another sound comes from him in time with turning his head to the side to say words lacking in muffledness. “Don’t want to move.” His voice is quiet and slowed, stretched thin. 

You laugh out. Your hand stops moving in his hair, you retract it back. “Well, then, no more head scratches.” 

Vessel snaps to look at you, chin resting on the blankets, eyes a little widened. Then comes his signature pout, the one you were imagining before. It doesn’t ever get any less cute. 

“Fine,” he mutters unenthusiastically. 

He picks himself up limply, dragging himself up your bed, and drives his face into your neck. This is where he melts down into nothing. His body deflates itself into yours, in a way that felt like lines blurred between where your body starts and where Vessel’s ends. 

Because of this, you stay silent for a couple moments, half-shocked and half-savoring of this feeling. Your hand hovers around the back of his head until his hand draws your hip impossibly closer to him. That’s when your fingers dip back down into his scalp. Your other hand strokes up and down his arm at a soothing pace. 

Cuddling wasn’t a new thing happening in your relationship, if you’d call being roommates with him a type of relationship. Cuddle sessions happened often between the two of you. Happened during movies on the sofa, if either of you had a nightmare, simply couldn’t sleep (much like what’s happening this time), if Vessel had a particularly long day. Thinking of it, cuddles had taken place every single day in the past as long as you could remember. 

When did that happen? 

When did you start remembering how all he seemed to want was an excuse to be close to you lately? How pouty he turned when you had questioned him about it instead of going with it naturally? When did he start coming behind you while you did the dishes or cooked a special meal for you both? When did he start to get closer to you on the sofa, blaming it on the lack of blanket, despite that one being a specifically huge one for sharing purposes only? When did he start to ask to hold your hand because he was “cold”? When did he start allowing himself to have this intimacy with you, and why? More importantly, when did you start to feel as if all these things were normal, letting them slip by you like this was always something that took place? Maybe like it was supposed to be happening.

“...and it’s frustrating that I still can’t sleep. Do you get what I mean?” Vessel’s voice comes into your main focus, becoming almost like an echo through your skull at how out of focus you were. 

During that time, he had moved his face out of your neck. Had opted to squish his cheek against your chest instead, nose half-stuffed into the cotton of your sweatshirt. 

“Mhm,” you hum. Bearings still aren’t with you fully, still distance in sound. 

Vess’ hand pinches at your side, making you jump in surprise. Well, you were surely back on Earth with that. “You weren’t listening to me.” You could hear the effects of his mouth being in a squished position. How cute. 

“Yes, I was!” you lie. 

He takes a pinch at you again. “You were not. I can tell when you’re lying.” He dryly laughs, empty of emotion, like that information should’ve been obvious to you. Maybe it should have been… 

“Okay, I’m sorry,” you admit, “What were you talking about?” 

He sighs dramatically, which you lightly flick him on the ear for, going on to summarize what he’d said, “What I said was that I’m really frustrated about how melatonin doesn’t work that much anymore. I take ten milligrams for fuck’s sake! I just wanna sleep.” He trails off at the end, changing to be more hushed. 

Your hand on his arm gives him a small squeeze, holding there for a few seconds too long. “Is this helping?” you ask. “You know, doing this? Me being here?” 

Same mhm from before is made. “More than you know.” Oh…

His face nuzzles more into the fabric of your shirt, balls up the bottom of it into his fist. He pulls forward with a gentle tug. He was not past greediness. This hand sneaks under the material, reaching up just enough to be able to palm at the flesh of your stomach. You feel him grin. It’s gooey, (love)sick, honeyed. He’s satisfied. 

All the while, you had some things coming into perspective that would be due for another time. Vessel needed rest. 

For once, Vessel was able to fall asleep within minutes. He hadn’t felt so at peace, so safe, in many moons. Eventually, he slowed in his breathing, had fallen asleep in record time for maybe his entire lifetime. He was safe with you, truly safe. He would never tell the tale, but you felt something of what the word “home” was meant to serve. 

[theonewhohyperfixates]

This is basically their dynamic anytime they're sharing the Lamb's body......

Anyway, more True Vessel AU doodles below because I STILL cannot stop updating my Lamb's appearance. But I think we're finally getting there, fellas. So close to a final design

[pybun]

🪢Entanglement 🪢

[oldbutchdanielcraig]

CROWLEY MENTIONED ‼️

[mentalmeles]

Id love to see a picture of your outfit if your comfortable with that! (If not thats totally alright)

Here u go. I also had some pink fishnet tights and makeup, but I don’t like my face and the fishnets didn’t show up very well in the lighting

[deepwoundsandfadedscars]

.

[menstits-illness]

orgasmed so long and intensely where i must have been holding my breath cause i came up with RED eyes and a bit of pinpoint bruising under my left eye

[destielgaysex]

nothing can change that castiel is gay. you get fired? cas is gay. you are out of coffee creamer in the morning? cas is gay. you break off a friend? cas is gay. your roommate used all the hot water? cas is gay. you are just generally miserable? cas is gay in every supernatural episode you will ever watch forever. every single image tou see of castiel from the show supernatural? he is gay. you are looking at a gay angel in a male vessel. nothing and no one can take this from you

[the-muppet-joker]

My Apology:

Dear Gerard Way:

I am sorry for killing your immortal vampire soul with a sharpened stick I found outside. I had to do it because my roommate was being a major bitch and trying to become the vessel for your astral vampiric lifeform and frankly I just needed her to cut it out. She was biting people and burning beloved artifacts (she burnt the Kermit plushie I was in a relationship with. Do not judge me for being in a relationship with a muppet. What do you even know about love Gerard Way). In any case, it was honestly kind of your fault that she went so crazy. Whatever "chemical" you were putting in "My Chemical Romance" was not safe for her mind, body, or soul and I think being emo turned her into a witch. If you wish to apologize in return for what you put me through, I will gladly accept. But yeah. Sorry, I suppose.

[pastlivesxpastlie]

♡ Let’s Fuck Her Up ♡

There’s nothing wrong with an innocent game of truth or dare among roommates…unless they’re two guys who seem to have massive crushes on you and each other.

Vessel x IV x F!Reader

Smut, M/M/F threesome, Bi!Token, praise, dirty talk, fingering, cunnilingus, finger sucking, some spanking, reader is yanked around like a fleshlight, p in v (pretend we talked about birth control prior), and they were roommates

A/N: a ✨ beloved mutual ✨ once said “hey what about a truth or dare fic” and then I was struck by lightning in Best Buy with this idea. Also I took to just naming them Ves and Ivy in this for my mental health.

You’re laying on the couch. Mindlessly scrolling. Completely zoned out from whatever Ves and Ivy are talking about. 20 minutes ago it was all “yeah let’s go out oi oi” and all that but no one had any good ideas. Well. You did! But of course, the “boys club” always overruled you. You knew there were risks involved rooming with two guy best friends—either they treated you like a helpless little girl that needed defending and items retrieved from high spots or like you were the neighborhood girl their respective parents had guilted them into inviting. Suddenly, you hear your name and a snap.

“What?! Jesus.” You say rolling your eyes as Ivy tries to get your attention.

“I asked you something…”

“She’s checked out, man,” Ves says chuckling.

“Yeah yeah, fine. I’ll ask again. Truth or dare?” Ivy asks with his elbows on his knees as he leans forward on the loveseat across from you. Ves shakes his head and stifles a laugh, whispering “you wanker” in reference to Ivy’s mischievous grin.

You snort and decide to play along just to prove how stupid of an idea this is. How old are we?

“Fine. Truth.”

Ivy taps his chin as if he doesn’t already have a question in mind. “Which of us is the best looking?”

“Me. Easy.” You say straightfaced. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch Ivy’s shit-eating grin melt into a scowl. Ves pats him on the back as if to say “there there big guy.”

“Well…ok…but…” Ivy sputters.

“You actually disagree with her, Ivy?”

“What? No, I mean, come on…apples…apples and oranges mate.”

“So why’d you ask her? That’s literally the same question you asked her.” Ves asks with an exasperated laugh, flailing his arm a bit.

You’re watching them banter and the same suspicion creeps up in the back of your mind. There’s something more there. Maybe. The way they look at each other. The little nudges. That’s not just chemistry…that’s not just…being playful.

“Boys boys boys,” you interrupt. They both look at you. “Ves…truth or dare?”

The taller man blushes a little. Maybe he didn’t actually want to play this game and thought Ivy was being a prick. Maybe he just couldn’t believe you were playing along. He shrugs, trying to look nonchalant. “Dare.”

You catch Ivy’s eye and realize you’re both chuckling at Ves’s willingness to take on a dare. A tiny moment. Another one of those times where you think, “is this something?”

“Alright…I dare you toooooo…hmm…read us your most recent sexts.” You laugh but the boys don’t. You expected Ves’s reaction—rolling his eyes and rubbing his temples—but you didn’t expect Ivy’s blush. Or him fidgeting a little. “Uhm…”

Ves shrugs. “I don’t sext.”

“Oh. Well…”

He snorts. “I’m fucking with you.” He fishes his phone out of his pocket as Ivy watches him with great interest. What is this? There has to be something going on. He unlocks his phone and scrolls a bit. “Ok…it says…” he scrolls some

more, “it says ‘you should have your lips around me instead.” And with that he locks the phone and puts it back in his pocket. He looks over at Ivy as if he’s sizing him up. You feel like you shouldn’t be here.

“Truth or Dare, Ive?”

Ivy rolls his eyes as if the game he decided they should play is the stupidest thing ever. “Truth, I guess.”

Ves responds immediately. “Tell her what you said about the last guy she brought over.”

Oop. Ivy’s eyebrows furrow, and you feel your stomach drop a bit. The last guy you had over was pretty sweet but didn’t seem quick to move forward. You still talk to him and go out sometime.

Ivy pinches the bridge of his nose and answers. He knows he needs to be a good sport for his own game.

“I said he was a loser.”

“And?”

Ivy groans. “And a simp.”

“What’s wrong with being a simp?” You ask with play seriousness.

“You need someone who doesn’t have to be pathetic to get your attention. Not some lost idiot.”

You laugh with a scoff. “Takes one to know one?”

Ivy throws a small pillow in your general direction and you toss it back when it falls near you. He dodges it and grabs the pillow Ves had been holding. He’s ready to start a pillow fight as you shriek and giggle as he comes toward you when Ves says “alright alright, Ivy it’s your turn.” Ivy lands a soft thump of the pillow against your side before sitting by Ves again.

“Fine. Sour puss. Alright princess, truth or dare?”

Your cheeks are still warm from the silliness and adrenaline. You gather your nerves and…

“Dare.”

Ivy nods and thinks for a second before looking back at Ves. Some unspoken boy conversation going on between them.

“Let us guess what color panties you have on. If neither of us can, you get bragging rights. If one of us guesses correctly…you have to prove it.”

Both men are looking at you like your word is law. They’re hanging on the edge on your every word. Waiting. Like good boys. Wait no stop that. You sigh and stand up, doing a little twirl. “Alright, do your worst.”

“Black” they both blurt out, straightfaced.

Fuck. You shouldn’t be surprised but here you are scoffing and rolling your eyes. You loop your thumbs under your shorts and pull them down enough to let them see your black boyshorts. “Congrats on guessing one of the most common underwear colors. Alright. Ivy. Truth or dare?”

“But it’s my turn!” Ves interjects.

“Dare.” Ivy snaps back calmly. The tension is building.

“Give Ves a little kiss.”

There’s a lengthy, heavy pause. Ivy huffs out a little laugh. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Ivy and Ves lean towards each other and you feel a pulse deep deep inside you. Ves crooks his finger under Ivy’s chin as their lips meet. Seconds feel like an eternity. Ivy cups Ves’s face and gently caresses the taller man’s cheekbone with his thump. Your breath catches in uncomfortable shock but your synapses are firing like crazy. They’ve done this before. And it’s so hot. It is so clear just how into each other they are as one kiss ends and Ivy immediately initiates another. At one point Ves gently bites Ivy’s bottom lip, and Ivy chuckles as he pushes Ves back a little. Not out of disgust…but more like “not here, not now at least”

Ivy looks at you as he runs his fingers through his blonde hair and licks his lips. You barely register that you’ve actually slipped off your shorts while watching your roommates make out. “You cool doing a dare,” he asks, nodding up at you.

You nod wordlessly. Your breath is coming heavier.

“Good girl. I dare you…”

He looks at Ves but his eyes are taking in every single inch of your body. Ivy lets out a dry chuckle and looks back to saying, “I dare you to sit in Ves’s lap.”

You look at Ves for some kind of reassurance or “gotcha” reaction, but instead he beckons you forward and pats his lap. As if in a trance you walk towards him and shyly straddle his lap. His hands gently tug you by the hips.

“There she is…” Ves whispers as he looks up at you and moves your hair off your shoulders. Ivy scoots closer and puts his arm around Ves.

“Look at her on your thighs…” Ivy says without breaking his gaze from your body.

“I know. Like an angel.”

“Mm like a queen.”

“Ah…yeah…a queen. On her throne. Aren’t you?”

You know you look dumb right now because you feel dumb. “Wha-…”

They both giggle at your adorable confusion. Ivy starts toying with the strap of your tank top as Ves kneads your hips and love handles. Ves lets his head rest back on the couch as his hands go under your shirt.

“Is it ok if he does that, babes” Ivy asks softly as he brushes your hair behind your ears before pulling down your tank strap.

You nod, “…yeah. I…I like it.”

“Good. I do, too” Ves says as he lifts your shirt a little. You instinctively suck in your stomach but both guys protest. Ivy caresses your tummy with his fingertips and hums happily. “She’s too cute,” Ves says as he lets one of his hands drift up to cup your face. His thumb rubs over your lips, and your tongue pokes out to touch it. You taste his skin as his long thumb presses past your lips. You let out a small moan which elicits reverent coos and sighs from the guys.

“You like how he tastes, princess?” Ivy asks as his hands smooth over your back and ass. He leans close to your ear… “you should really try his cock. If you like his thumb that much…” he plants tiny kisses on your neck… “then imagine how wet you’ll get when you’re deep throating him.”

You moan and move your head to kiss Ivy. His plump lips press against you in the most delicious yet agonizingly tender way. Ves moans as he watches and circles your nipple under your tank with his thumb…still wet from playing with your tongue. Ivy palms your other breast through your tank top as you grasp at his thick, delicious body. He moans gently and relishes in finally…finally kissing you. You’ve always thought he was sweet and gentle. Listening to you vent, ruffling your hair when you’re being silly or even when he’s proud. So kissing him was like coming home. A hug.

Ves’s free hand trails up Ivy’s chest and rests at his neck. You pull away reluctantly from your friend’s lips…only to lean down and kiss your other friend.

If kissing Ivy was tender and soft, kissing Ves was frantic and needy. Between the two of them, you’ve felt the most sexual tension with Ves. You often end up spending a lot of alone time together. Just scrolling or watching something mindless. It’s not that you don’t talk…it’s comfortable silence. And glances. So many stolen glances. But now he’s holding your hips tight and pressing you against his toned body like you might disappear. Ivy groans softly as he watches you two, his lovers.

“She’s sweet, isn’t she, babe?” Ivy whispers to Ves as you feel your shirt being going over your head.

Ves pulls back from the kiss to get your shirt off and bites his lip as he ogles your chest. “Like fucking sugar,” he says breathlessly. He pulls you close and licks a long line up up your chest, making you moan with your head back. Ivy turns your face to him and nuzzles your nose with his as Ves starts kissing and sucking at your tits.

“Ivy…mm..please…” you whimper…willing him to touch you.

“Use your words, sugar,” Ves growls, “tell Ivy what you want. You’ll love it…he’ll make you feel so good.”

Ivy chuckles as you tug at his hand. “Touch me…please…I need you…” you groan… “take care of me.”

Both Ves and Ivy make cute satisfied little sounds as Ivy’s thick fingers slide under your boyshorts. You gasp as he finds your clit and blush with embarrassment at just how good it feels to have him touch you as Ves sucks your nipples. Your fingers tangle in Ves’s hair and your teeth clench as Ivy moves to trace your slit. You sit up a little to give him more room but the angle is weird…and you’ve never had two men pawing at you before. You’ve never been shared. The pad of Ivy’s middle finger playfully taps at your entrance. This whole time he’s been kissing and nipping at your neck but now he moves his lips to your ear.

“You’re a needy girl, aren’t you? You like doing this, hm? Being in the center of attention?” He whispers as he ghosts over your clit again. You whimper as he pulls his coated fingers from your folds. “Fuck she’s hot. Ves…”

Ves briefly looks up and quickly pulls away from your breast when Ivy offers him his finger. You watch as Ivy traces his finger around Ves’s lips before Ves takes the finger into his mouth. He takes a sharp breath and moans as he holds Ivy’s hand steady as your essence off him. God you want to just stare. Seeing the way Ves looks up with eager eyes and the way Ivy just lets him clean his fingers breaks your brain. You feel like a chained up bitch in heat. You want to play. You want to be your normal, slutty enthusiastic self…to show them what you can do…how you can make them feel. But you feel intimidated. Sensing your discomfort, Ves pulls you close. When he disengages from Ivy’s hand, he buries his face in your neck, taking in your scent and biting you gently.

“It’s a bit much, yeah? A lot to take in,” Ves says softly as he trails kisses on your collarbone. “Do you want to keep going?”

You can barely think. On one hand you have no idea what this means for the dynamic afterwards, on the other…if you don’t cum tonight you might actually combust. “Yeah. Yeah I do.”

You feel Ivy pulling you off Ves’s lap and against his nude torso. You were so wrapped up in Ves marking you that you didn’t hear Ivy get undressed. He pulls you down to the floor and lays you down. You look up and see Ves slipping off his tshirt before laying beside you.

“He’s going to take such good care of you, sugar,” Ves says almost teasingly as he kisses your temple. “You’re gonna cum all over Ivy’s fingers and pretty face.”

Ves’s hand slides down to your now bare pussy and gently circles your clit before carefully spreading your lips to give Ivy better access.

“Fuck…Ves…”

“Ah Ves you should see how her pussy clenches when you touch her. Fuck you’re getting her ready for me” Ivy says right against your clit. He flicks his tongue sharply against it, making you jolt. Ves responds by kissing your cheeks and cooing words of praise.

“Yeah he’s good with his tongue, huh, babygirl? Do you like what he’s doing?”

You feel your pussy quiver against Ivy’s face as he alternates between licking and sucking your clit. Ivy reaches up to play with your tits. Ves caresses Ivy’s arm as your nipple is lightly pinched. You moan and try to lift your head to kiss Ves…or get his attention at least. His eyes are glued to your slick cunt and the gorgeous man eating it out. Ivy must be looking back because you see Ves blow a little kiss before he turns his attention to you. You reach up to him and finally get to m pull him in for a sweet kiss. Ivy moans into your pussy and adds two fingers. As he rubs your sensitive bundle from the inside you break the kiss and moan against Ves’s lips.

“Ves…Ivy…I…I…don’t—“

Ivy stops when he hears this. Both men are concerned about you when you whimper like that. Ivy lays atop you, his still clothed bulge pressing against your hot cunt.

“I don’t…know how to cum unless I do it myself.” You say blushing profusely. “It’s not that easy for me to just…let go.”

Ves pets your hair as Ivy softly kisses your collarbone. “Then you call the shots, love. What do you need? What would you like?” Ivy asks softly before he gently teeths your ear lobe.

“I need to get fucked.”

Ivy and Ves share a pleasantly surprised look. They thought for sure you’d say you needed a breather but here you were asking to be dicked down by your two closest guy friends. Ves leans in to kiss Ivy before whispering “you’re already on top of her…you go first, handsome.”

Your pussy throbs watching them kiss right in front of you. Ivy cradles Ves’s face so tenderly you feel like you’re intruding, but you quickly feel apart of the moment when Ivy begins tracing lazy circles on your tummy. Ves’s kisses trail down Ivy’s cheek to his neck, and you take the opportunity to sit up. Shyly, you reach out and touch Ivy’s bulge through his shorts. He lets out a sharp moan as you stroke the length. It’s thick, and you can already imagine the stretch that would come from taking it completely. Ivy gently pushes your hand away.

“You’re too good at that, babe. Mm slow down.”

You chuckle softly and start kissing the other side of Ivy’s neck. He groans whinly. “Oh fuck you both…mm…‘snot fair.” Ves chuckles and moves his kisses to your cheeks. “Yeah there we go. Let’s pick on our girl” Ivy says as he dive bombs the other side of your neck. You squirm and moan as they both kiss, suck, and bite at your neck. Ves moves to you close to him as he lays back on the floor. You’re positioned like you’re going to ride him but you hear Ivy taking his shorts off behind you.

“Ivy’s going to fuck you now…yeah? Can you handle that for us, baby?”

You swallow hard and whimper as your feel the head of Ivy’s cock tease your entrance.

“She wants it, Ves. You should feel it.”

“Oh yeah,” Ves asks with a bemused expression as his unceremoniously reaches down and fingers you.” Mmm. Yeah…you are awfully wet…and you’re practically trying to suck my fingers in.”

Ves removes his fingers but you don’t feel empty for long. Ivy presses against your pussy and presses in with delicious restraint. He’s big and you’re tight. It’s been a little since you’ve been fucked from behind so it takes a second for you to regain some brain power after Ivy’s cock finally caresses your gspot. You feel yourself clench on him and a gentle spank.

“She’s gonna make me lose it, Ves. She’s so tight.”

“Mm yeah? She gonna milk you dry?”

You moan and try to relax but it’s hard when they talk about you like you’re not here. How they praise you and flirt with each other.

“If I’m not careful, yeah…she just might.” Ivy spanks you again. “You’re gonna love her Ves…well…love her more.”

Your brain feels fuzzy as you look down at Ves as holds your hips still for Ivy. Ivy starts rolling his hips into you…the stretch and friction is incredible. You feel like you’re on fire and itching an in impossible scratch.

“Mm. Such a good girl. We just love you…don’t we Ive?” Ves asks as he stares up at you. Ivy can’t answer the question directly.

“God…fuck…finally…finally…such a good girl…fucking love you, babygirl.”

You cry out as you press against Ivy for a deeper fuck. “I…love you…Ivy…fuck…aaahh GOD baby.” Your climax ripples through you as he keeps you in place for his boyfriend. “Fuck. FUCK. I love you both.”

Ivy’s breath hitches and he grabs for Ves’s hand. Ves looks up at you sweetly and says, “Ivy’s gonna cum inside you. Ok? Such a good girl to take his cum. And then…I’m going to fuck his cum and my cum so deep in you that you won’t sit right tomorrow. And we’ll have to take care of you…sweet princess. Someone will have to kiss that pretty pussy better when we’re done. Would you like that? For your boys to take care of you and pamper you all day? All the fingers and cocks and…”

“Shut up Ves…I’m not gonna last long if you don’t…fuck…hnng.” Ivy desperately fucks into you. He’s holding back, you can tell. The pace is measured and careful…and so fucking hot. Ves winks and flashes a wicked grin.

“I’m just having a conversation with our girl. That’s all…” Ves starts moves hands to your breasts and presses hot, wet kisses on each one. You feel another orgasm clench Ivy’s cock.

“Ivy! You’re so….fucking big….” You cry out as you become overstimulated.

“Nah baby…fuck…fuck…you’re fucking right…god Ves, she’s so tight. You’re gonna love it….”

“Ivy cum for me…please,” you beg. Your confidence is growing, and since Ves isn’t holding your hips anymore, you fuck Ivy right back. You feel his wide hand press into the middle of your back, making you fall against Ves. Ivy cries out your name and moans out in whines as he coats your womb with his cum. Your pussy clenches hard like it’s desperate for more.

Ves breathes heavily after holding you as Ivy fucked you and made you his for the moment. “I don’t know if I’ll last long,” he says pathetically. “You two are so hot together.”

Ivy pulls out of you and comes to your side. You two share a deep kiss and stare into each others eyes for a bit.

“You’re so good,” you whisper to him.

“That’s you, girl.” He gives him a quick kiss. “Now let’s play with Ves.” Ivy pats you to get off Ves and he tells Ves to sit on the couch. Ves obeys and takes off his sweats. His cock is hard and twitching for both of you. He sits on the couch, and you straddle him once again. Ivy guides your hips and sets you down on Ves’s cock…slowly…slowly…slowly…

You moan and whimper as you’re stretched once again. Ivy was definitely thicker, but Ves had length and a slight bend that felt so yummy inside you.

“Fffuuuuccckk…Ves…baby…” your voice is barely coming out.

“Move her,” Ves whispers to Ivy as he plays with your nipples.

“Alright…work with me, babygirl, yeah? You want him to bust for your pussy?” Ivy whispers huskily from behind you as he starts to move your hips up and down. He has you bouncing on Ves’s cock…he’s in control. Ves’s fingers press roughly into your plush hips so hard you can feel the bruises blossoming.

“God you’re so perfect…such a fucking queen…” Ves whispers as he pulls you close for warm, desperate kisses. “Ivy…Ivy…I need to fuck her.”

Ivy lets go of your hips, and Ves immediately repositions so he can fuck up into you. Ivy has to cover your mouth as the most obscene moans and whimpers leave your pretty lips.

“You’re gonna be mine, too, baby. You’re gonna be so full from me and Ivy. So much love in your pussy…such a good…fucking…fuck….FUCK.” Ves cums inside you and keeps fucking through his climax. You both and breathing heavily…like you might hyperventilate. Ivy helps you off Ves’s lap and sits you on the couch between them. Ivy clings to your back as Ves moves to hug you. You turn your head as the two men press needy kisses on you, letting it become a slow, sensual kiss between the three of you.

[omagpies]

Recently saw your roleswap AU and I’m loving it! I have a few things I’m curious about:

1. So by my understanding Anya failed her flight certification 8 times and PE was cheap enough to be fine with that? Did she never pass? Makes sense, I’m just kinda clarifying lol

2. Does nurse!Curly also feel like he wants to try something different in his career like in canon? Did he also not have enough savings after PE went under? Did he go to nursing school or did he also fail his entrance exams?

3. What’s Daisuke’s story in this AU? Did his mom push him to go to trade school to become a mechanic? Did he do that on his own and his mom suggested working with PE?

4. It’s so interesting to me that Anya tried E-dating after getting back to earth and seemingly got rejected based on her appearance, poor girl :( but I’m kinda wondering about Curly’s perspective on this, did he have feelings for Anya while she was E-dating and just sucked it up for her?

5. I’m kinda curious about Curly and Anya’s relationship pre-crash, was it a little bit flirty like in canon? Did Anya try to approach Curly with what Jimmy was doing or was the blackmail powerful enough for her not to say a peep to anyone?

haha gonna answer all of these at once! but first here's something on 5 :)

she never passed the Official Legit certification but passed what counts for it in PE (so, certified only to fly PE vessels) and kind of sees it as her last chance to make it as a pilot. still hopes to get properly certified one day, working at PE to make the money for simulator hours and exam fees

curly actually went to a med school on a football scholarship but had to drop out about two or three years in because he started prioritising studies over practice and the money got pulled. used the money he had left to switch tracks and certify as a nurse. joined PE because space travel sounded fun but is pretty bored of it because he doesn't get to do much on a regular haul. he isn't quite as existential in this regard as canon curly because working in a people-oriented nurturing profession actually makes him feel useful, he just wishes he could be more useful ya kno? has enough savings to be able to rent a place and find a job at a hospital, so overall it all kinda works out for him if you don't count all the horrors

i think in this au daisuke's mother actually pushed him to intern as a mechanic a few years earlier than in canon, which is how he met swansea (pilot with engineering background) and got inspired enough to go into trade school. by the time the events of the au begin he is a certified mechanic though not with a lot of experience :"3

curly has had the biggest fattest crush on anya almost the entire time of knowing her (i feel like he kinda spawns in already in love with anya), so her E-dating phase is kinda rough on him (like, Very rough; mans full on wasting away from his heart getting broken in tiny ways a hundred times a day), but he is king of denying himself and putting others first so he does his best to be A Good And Supportive Roommate about it. he even tries to date other people too! but with not nearly as much gusto and it never goes far. he is too whipped

there was definitely Something. i'll expand on it a bit more in a later ask i got about captain anya, but the tldr is that she goes to great pains to Act Professional and curly is never in a million years going to confess anything. and then jimmy's arrival blows it all up and any kind of romance plummets down everyone's lists of priorities. and anya never tells curly anything -- this is her problem to deal with, and with him being jimmy's friend there is a tiny part of her that is afraid of not being believed even though she overall thinks he's a good guy :")

anya writes all kinds of things, but it's all fiction. she dabbles in poetry, but her two main points of focus in prose are a) long meandering stream of consciousness type of pieces that span generations and have very convoluted plots and interpersonal relations (think woolf's waves meets one hundred years of solitude), inspired largely by the time she had to lie there and do little more than drift in and out of delirium and think, and b) shameless smut that starts out as your run of the mill romance and suddenly changes genres halfway through (funny how life can just Change all at once huh). she never really gains a Massive audience but does have a considerable number of dedicated fans of both categories

(more roleswap au)

[toji-bunny-girl]

Can u pls make a fic about roommate!reader (preferably fem) seeing denji come home a mess and offering to bathe him??🙏🙏🙏 can be fluff or smut but i just think the idea of denji getting taken care of after sm bad experiences would be so wholesome!!! Maybe he cries too idk

bestie I gotchu 🤩

His shoulders dropped with an exhale when he saw you, dirt and dried blood flecked across his face when your eyes fell upon him. The signs of weariness dragged down his features as he threw his bag aside and flopped onto the couch. 

“Take a bath with me?”

You had offered it out of the blue, and Denji was too exhausted to register your words—nodding in a daze before you guided him to the bathroom, taking off his mud-stained clothes for him. 

His senses were blurred when you led him into the bathtub, the warm water still running as he sat, back facing you. He doesn’t look like he’s ready to speak, nor react to fuzzy flashes of time; you didn’t bother to question his thoughts. 

Your fingers teasingly danced from his arm down to his abdomen, his skin tensing from your fluttering touches. His energy doesn’t quite meet yours when you lightly chuckle at his reaction, almost as if his mind has drifted far from the current of time. Your bodily warmth mingled, but there was no connection underneath your flesh. 

You mused over his uncharacteristic silence, the dorky boy you were used to would be battling an angry boner by now, stammering over his sentences with a crimson face. There was a limit to how much succour you could provide, the worldly ones to the seemingly vacant body of his.

His form jolted in surprise when your fingers wrapped around the base of his cock, your touch running the sides of his shaft as blood raced through his vessels, pumping his half-hardened size.

“Just relax,” your voice drifted into his ears like mist, hazy and soft, blending into the splashing of the water. And he slipped back into your body in the wake of your words. “Good boy,” a shade of red lightly dusted his cheeks when your other hand pushed his golden hair back, guiding his head against your shoulder. 

You watched his lips part as his breaths got choppier from the way your fingertips teased his slit, his nerves gradually tingling violently before your fist fell to the base of his shaft. He let out a groan when you continued to pump his cock hard, your wrist twisting as your fingers tightened around his length. 

Your finger loosely swiped over his tip while you stroke his cock, the weight of his head pushing into your chest as his face tensed from the butterflies that fluttered in his belly. He was getting closer to his release, his face flushed red from the arousal-filled blood that pumped beneath his flesh and his hips jaggedly thrust into your fist.

A whimper left his lips as you lazily jerked him off, and you pasted a kiss onto his hot cheek, enjoying the scene as he slowly fell apart in your hands. “Cum for me. Hm, pretty?” your silky whisper lured a heavy wave of pleasure from the depths of his core, his breath shuddered and his back arched as a rope of semen shot from his twitching cock.

Both of your eyes remained closed as he sloppily sucked your lips, craning his neck to reach the inside of your cavern. You let his tongue idly dance with yours, your nails softly scraping against the sensitive skin of his thighs. 

[gallusrostromegalus]

Hello this is just to say that I am very interested in that post you mentioned maybe making about indirect communication!

So to define Direct and Indirect communication with a pair of examples real fast:

Direct communication: "Hey, can you do the dishes?" Indirect communication: "There's dishes in the sink." (Please wash them.)

Indirect communication tends to trip a lot of ND, but especially Autistic people up because the implied request in the parentheses... doesn't always come through. So you don't do the dishes, and the Indirect communicator gets frustrated because they thought they had made that request perfectly clearly.

Which, in their defense, they did! ...in their micro-cultural language.

See, the actual purpose of Indirect Communication is to provide some extra verbal personal space and non-aggression measures in micro-cultures where people's personal autonomy has been compromised but there is also a high degree of understood social context.

Hm. That's a weird sentence. Let's try some more examples.

Indirect communication is most common in places or situations where people's ability to stay in their own lane is compromised, but everyone also shares the same base knowledge of what's going on. One example is in large cities, where people are PHYSICALLY up in each other's personal space because they're physically crowded. So cities have etiquette like "Don't make eye contact on public transit unless you actually need to address someone", so that, if people can't stop violating your personal space, they can at least signal non-aggression and give you some privacy. People raised in large cities, or who have lived there for a while all learn these unspoken rules by trial and error, some of us with more errors and trials than others.

Thus, in physically compact situations, "There's dishes in the sink" means "There's dishes in the sink." (I trust that you are already familiar with the social rules that dictate that dishes need to be done, and assume the reason you haven't done them is because you haven't seen the sink yet. I won't insult your intelligence by elaborating on the Do The Dishes Rule, because I know you are smart <3)

Speaking of Privacy, the other place indirect communication is common is in situations where people have Limited Privacy and thus everyone knows what's going on with them, and they know what's going on with everyone else, whether they want to or not. Close-knit families and religious communities often have this shared no-privacy pool, but it can also happen with you and two roommates in a 100sq ft apartment, or on a research vessel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Since y'all are up in each other's business, indirect communication is there to prevent hostility in close quarters.

This, in a low-privacy situation, "There's dishes in the sink." means "There's dishes in the sink." (I know you are a good and responsible roommate who is maybe a little forgetful, and I trust you to have enough context from living in the live feed of everyone's life to know that I need them done. I won't insult you by suggesting your motivation was malicious in any way, and i trust you to do them <3)

So, to an indirect communicator, that was a perfectly clear request to do the dishes because OF COURSE you'd know what they meant- literally everyone else they deal with is in on this shared knowledge of social rules and daily updates. And not elaborating on that request is an affectionate sign of trust in your competence.

Except, you know. You're not.

So, you try to explain to your indie friend that "There's dishes in the sink." only sounds like an observation, and your brain will not auto-fill in the request like theirs does, so if you want me to do the dishes, just ask with words, okay?

And your indie friend understands this! but then instead of going "Hey, can you do the dishes?" they instead don't say ANYTHING until they're really frustrated with the state of the kitchen, and communicate VERY directly at you, and with great anger.

What happened?

So remember how indirect communication exists to prevent hostility and violence? That's because the threat of hostility and violence is VERY, VERY REAL.

Like you, your indirect communication friend made some mistakes while learning The Unsaid Rules and How To Use The Shared Information Pool, and the social hammer came down on them HARD. Ostracization, ridicule, maybe even actual, psychical harm. So they grew very, very afraid of violating those secret rules, and doubly so with people they like, so your indirect communication friend is facing this HUGE EMOTIONAL BLOCK when it comes to directly communicating with you, because to someone who grew up with their boundaries compromised and the threat of hostility if they violate the communication rules, communicating directly with someone they love feels really, really, really mean and they don't want to hurt or lose you.

For real, "Hey, please do the dishes" sounds like "Hey, please do the dishes." (You fucking moron who doesn't give a shit about our home and probably hates me) to them, and they don't want to talk like that to you. It's like how we never like picking the mean dialogue option in video games.

So instead they... just don't say anything at all, rather than risk a potential confrontation, and then the dishes don't get done and it turns into a REAL confrontation.

What a headache.

So what are we gonna do?

Well, you can't control your friend's actions, emotional reactions or interpersonal skills, but you can manage yours, and you're gonna have to meet them halfway, and it's gonna feel like training a skittish cat that coming out from under the couch is safe. Several-pronged approach:

DO NOT PUNISH BEHAVIOR YOU WANT TO SEE. When your friend does manage to say "Hey, please do the dishes?" don't go "UUUUGH IN A MINUTE." even if you are in the middle of something else and their timing sucks, which is probably does. Stick to either neutral responses ("Cool, let me finish this paragraph and I'll get on that") to positive responses ("Oh, sure! Thanks for letting me know!")

REWARD THE BEHAVIOR YOU WANT TO SEE. -and then actually go do the dishes to demonstrate that this approach not only is safe, it's effective. Also, praise your friend when they do a good job communicating with you. "Hey, thanks for actually asking me to do the dishes, that was really helpful." or "You're doing a great job navigating and giving me directions, this is much less stressful than the GPS" or "Thanks for being honest about how I was annoying you and bringing it up before it became a huge issue." This will kind of feel like you're an actor on sesame street teaching big bird how to say please and thank you, but honestly? that was the age most of us learned our communication skills, and we return to that teaching method because BY GOD IT WORKS.

MODEL THE BEHAVIORS YOU WANT TO SEE. Humans learn by copying, so lead by example with the kind of communication that helps you, and explain why it helps. "Hey friend, a question so I can schedule some stuff- Do you have any plans this weekend I should know about, or am I clear to paint the bathroom?"

This is the one that sucks but YOU GOTTA MEET THEM HALFWAY AND LEARN ABOUT THE CONTEXT POOL. Can't make everyone learn, and Indirect communication has it's uses (especially in modern jobs and social media), so you gotta learn their style too. I literally have a discord server that's just me where I keep notes on the life events and conditions of my friends, coworkers, neighbors and loved ones because I know I won't remember that shit, but they will kind of expect me to, and it's been a lifesaver in both not blundering into social faux pas, and actually getting around my crap memory to know them better. You can also model hybrid communication and practice your indirect skills by using an indirect request opener, but then saying the rest of the implied context aloud: "Hey, there's dishes in the sink. I know you'll do that ASAP because you're cool, I just wanted to make sure you knew they were there and needed to be washed, thanks <3"

Accept that some people aren't gonna change for reasons that are beyond their control and probably have nothing to do with you, and decide what you're willing to invest in learning to deal with them. I still have to play 5D words chess with my mother-in-law, who was raised in a close-physical-space-AND-no-privacy culture and is an excruciatingly anxious indirect communicator as a result. I can't make her go to therapy for the anxiety, and until she does, her ability to communicate effectively probably won't improve. It's got nothing to do with me, even if I'm the person she's most frequently at odds with. As a result, I have extremely limited contact with her. I don't see her for more than a few hours at a time, when we have an activity to do together, and only a handful of times a year. More than that, and I get brainworms by proxy, so for my sanity, I've limited what I am willing to do with her. Maybe your indirect communicator is someone worth effectively learning a second language for, like a lover. Maybe they're someone you can cut out of your life entirely without issue, like a manger at a retail job you can quit. You'll have to decide.

Anyway, that's my raised-bilingual ADHD/Autism Direct/indirect communicator ramble, hope it helps.

[prettypinkporkchop]

Oh my god, they were roommates

Vessel x fem reader

Description: he's annoyed by you. You learn how he really feels.

Warnings: semi sexual?, making out, cursing, mentions of blood, angst, fluff

"Blah, blah, blah. Always bitching about something." Ves smiles at you from his bed.

"Just fix the fucking washing machine." You roll your eyes.

"You do it." He retorts.

You fold your arms and lean on his doorframe. "You know I don't know how."

"Stop breaking it, then. It doesn't need that much detergent." He growls and stands up, pushing past you.

"Blah, blah, blah. Always bitching about something." You bite back.

God, being his roommate, can be so challenging. He's nice when he wants to be. Yes, granted, you don't know how to do a lot of the things that he can. For example, change a tire, fix appliances, and you're JUST a GIRL. You've known him and the band for a couple of years now through your friend, ii. You know their faces, and you didn't know they were sleep token until you had to share a place with Ves. You have vowed to keep their secret. Oh yes, Ves is sexy as fuck. You have always thought that, but he can't stand you because of your girly personality.

You sit in the living room, waiting on him to finish. You hear rummaging in the laundry room. Then, a loud noise, "Shit!"

You scramble to your feet and make your way to him. You see him against the wall with a gigantic gash in his hand. Blood is pouring. "Ves!" You stand in front of him and take his wrist.

"UGH, I got my hand caught in the back of it." He doesn't fight your touch to his wrist.

"Damn it. Let me help you." You take his arm and start to walk him toward the bathroom.

He jerks himself from you. "I'm fine. I don't need any help. But we need a new washing machine." He swallows and looks down at you.

You huff and look at the ground in guilt. He hurt his hand because of your mistake. This is the second time it has broken. "Can I please help you?" You look up at him, a lump in your throat.

He notices how upset you look. He nods his head. "Yeah." He walks into the bathroom where you guys keep the medicines and stuff. He sits on the edge of the bathtub.

You open the mirror and dig around. "Is it deep enough for stitches?" You grab the peroxide.

"No. Not even close." He chuckles.

You sit on the ground in between his legs. You take his hand and hold a washcloth under it. You pour the peroxide to clean it up. The blood washes down, and you see it's deep but not too bad. He watches your every move. He notices how gentle you are. You spread some gel stuff on it and wrap it up. You stand up and put away the material. Vessel sits there and squeezes his hand.

"Thank you." You hear him say.

You turn and face him. "I'm sorry for being a shit roommate." You reply.

"You're not." He says sternly. "Plus, the washing machine needed to be replaced anyway." He smiles.

"Yeah.. I'll buy it." You walk out of the bathroom and go in your room. You plop on your bed and try to forget about how guilty you feel.

---

"Good morning!" A booming voice wakes you up. "It's approximately twelve in the afternoon, and it's show time!"

You look to see a snickering Ivy holding a megaphone. "What the fuck, bro?" You groan.

"Just wanted to let you know he'll be gone and that we'll be at a show." He smiles.

"Alright. Good luck to you guys!" You yawn and smile.

"You want to come with?" He speaks through the megaphone again.

You cringe. "I will if you stop using that thing."

You get ready and get in the van with the band. iii is driving. Vessel is sitting in the passenger seat while you and the other two are in the back, hanging on for dear life.

"Yo, Ves. What happened to your hand?" ii looks over the seat.

"I got it stuck trying to fix the washing machine." He replies.

You look down at your hands, feeling stupid and guilty again. You feel ii nudge into you.

"What's wrong?" He asks quietly. If anyone in this band knows you, it's him. He's known you as a friend for the longest.

Should you confess? He keeps secrets. You know he won't tell. You know! But you're too scared. "I feel bad because I broke it." You whisper.

He gently pats your back. "You're all good, hon. Don't beat yourself up. He's a smart guy. He can handle a bit of pain, too. Kinky motherfucker." He jokes to make you feel better.

You laugh a little bit at what he said.

You guys make it to the place where they're performing. You sit backstage on the couch, scrolling through your phone. The guys are in their rooms getting ready. You can hear their loud ass laughter. They're being rowdy. They get like this before shows. A bunch of boys, lol.

"Y/n! I need your help!" You hear ii call out.

"Lord. Coming!" You call out. You walk through the hall and find the door with his name on it. You enter the room and see he's trying to put his hair on right with the band of the mask behind his hand.

"I'm struggling. I need to look hot for the boys and girls out there." He snorts.

You shake your head and walk up behind him. "Stupid." You mutter and put the band where it goes. You ruffle his hair on the top like he usually has it. "Where's Ivy to help you out?" You ask.

"Kissing iii." He jokes. "Nerds."

You finish what he needed and you pat his shoulder. "Aight. Kill it like usual." You step out of the room.

You look down the hall and see Vessel... in his alter ego.. slowly walking towards you. (GIF above). He's not talking. He's walking closer and closer. You back up slowly. But he's still stepping forward like you're prey. Your heart speeds up. You back up until you're against a wall. His hands move up next to your head, holding him up. His face towers to yours. His white mask is close. You can almost see his eyes through the small hole.

"My hand feels better." He smiles.

"Ves! We are on!" He leaves you.

You're stuck in place as he walks away.

---

You look at the message you just sent ii. Your heart is beating out of your chest.

I can't deny the feelings I have for Vessel anymore. I need him.

You're sitting in your bed, thinking about what went down backstage a week ago. He's been acting like nothing happened. Like everything is normal. Your phone goes off and you see his response.

I can promise you, the guy is a sucker for you.

There's a knock on your door.

"Yup!"

Ves opens it and looks at you. "I did the dishes." He says.

"Congrats? I do it all of the time." You try to act like what happened didn't. You're trying to act like you don't have feelings for him. Just trying to keep things normal.

He scoffs. "Well, I did you a favor because it was your turn." He rolls his eyes.

You just realized that you had forgotten it was your turn. Here comes the guilt. "I'm sorry, ves. Let me do your laundry in return." You sit on the side of your bed, looking at him.

"It's not a big deal." He waves you off and leaves your room.

You sigh, and you can't take it anymore. You get off of your bed and follow behind him. "So, what happened that day?"

He stops and turns around to face you. "What day?" He smirks.

"Don't act dumb." You look down at the small scar on his hand.

He steps closer, reenacting what he did backstage. "Do you mean when you came out of ii's room? I got pissed." He laughs.

You scoff and cross your arms. "He's just a friend, and you know that. No romantic feelings on either side."

He walks slowly in front of you again. You back against the wall, and he towers over you. His hands on the wall above your head. "He told me." He whispers.

"Why'd you a-ask him?" You're nervous.

"You push every button I have. You piss me off in such a good way. It turns me on. Yet, you're still sweet to me." His hand runs along your cheek. "You're like gentle waters, and I'm the sharp rocks in it." His hand on your cheek moves to your hair. He tangles his fingers in your scalp. "I had to see if you felt the same way. By the way you reacted, I knew I have you in the palm of my hand."

You're stuck in place. In awe. The way his lips move. His eyes scan your features. You can smell his cologne. You are intoxicated on Ves. Your heart is jumping. You have butterflies in your stomach. Your head is fuzzy. Your knees are trying not to give out.

"You're trembling, beautiful." He smirks at you. His lowers his mouth, hovering over your lips. "Fucking show me how much you've been holding back." He growls.

You smash your lips on his, kissing him with passion and hunger. He kisses you back with the same energy, pulling at your bottom lip with his teeth a few times. You moan into him, making him push his body harder into yours. He grabs your hands, entangling your fingers and holding them against the wall. He moves his thigh up, pressing his knee gently against you.

You pull away. "Ves?" you gasp as he kisses down your neck, biting your skin.

"Hm?" He asks.

Sudden anger forms in your stomach. How he has been treating you, saying you annoy him but then trying to fuck you. Now, you realize this, and you feel stupid. "Get off." You say.

He instantly stops and backs away from you. "I'm sorry." He says.

"Why're you doing this when you hate me?" You ask.

He laughs, throwing his head back a bit. This makes you even angrier. Now, you've had it. He's making you feel so stupid and vulnerable. You lift your hand up and try to smack him.

His hand grabs your wrist before you can. He looks you dead in the eyes. "You're so oblivious." He smiles, not letting go of your wrist. You squirm a bit. "I'm in love with you. Have I not made that obvious?" He finally let's you go.

You look up at him and growl. "You have a seriously messed up way of showing that."

"Who picked you up a whole state away when your tire was flat? Who gave you a place to stay when you moved here from home? Who fixes everything when you need it? When we are out at night with the guys, who gives you a jacket when you're shivering? Who makes you soup and tea when you're sick?" His voice is a bit loud, he looks so into his speech. His hand is held out and he's breathing hard.

You are taken aback. You realize everything you've ever needed. He's been there. He never hesitates to make sure you're okay.

"Most importantly," he steps forward, "Who's the one that makes my heart stop when she looks at me?"

"Now I feel bad.." You whisper.

"Don't. I would do it all again. I will do it forever." He smiles and bites the inside of his bottom lip.

"But I've done nothing for you.." You croak.

"Oh, yes, you have. You're so sweet to me. You take care of me. I feel honored every single time you ask for my help. And you make me feel alive." He takes both of your hands in his.

You smile and shed a tear.

[mappedfantasy]

> wash me clean again

summary: vessel is far too exhausted to wash off his own body paint, so you help him. pairing: vessel x gn!reader warnings/tags: sleepy!vessel, roommate!vessel, bf!vessel, clingy!vessel, use of petnames (darling, babe), established relationship, showering together, size difference, praise, touch starvation, biting as a love language, begging, making out, non-sexual intimacy, slightly suggestive (if you want to view it that way), reader heavy dialogue. word count: 1.1k a/n: read this fic by @badomensgoodomens the other day and felt inspired to write something of my own based on the same concept. thank you for making it, very sweet, loved it <3

ao3 link

You hear Vessel faintly calling for you from the bathroom. 

“Darling?”

You push the bathroom door open to find him sitting down in the bathtub with the shower running. Your heart crumples in your chest at the sight of him. Poor thing. It only worsens when he lifts his head, puppy-dog eyes catching yours as if to plead. He looks fucking exhausted.

“Darling, can you help me?” he asks, voice at almost the same volume with the water, lowering for the sake of saving whatever energy he can.

This is when you notice that the washcloth in his hand is stained gray, and that his body paint has low effort scrubbing streaks. 

“Yeah.” You drop down to a squat at the side of the tub, reaching for the washcloth from his hands. 

He snatches it away, low in attempt. “You’ll get the floor wet.” God, he’s nearly whining. You catch a glimpse of a frowned pout on his lips. 

You push yourself, hands on your knees, into a standing position. You begin to slip off your clothes, discarding them into a pile on the floor. A hand slides the shower curtain over even more so than it was open before, like that wasn’t getting the floor wet. 

“Vess, let me help you up,” you tell him gently, offering a hand down for him to take.

And he does. He takes your hand in his, becoming easily engulfed by the size difference of you two. He gets to his feet with a small stumble. Being this wrecked surely was making his head foggy, maybe enough to spin. You slip in, in front of him, closing the curtain behind you.

“That’s it.” You guide his hand to your shoulder, to keep him steady. He keeps the other on the shower wall after handing you the washcloth finally. 

You begin to wash his stomach. The touch is full of love despite the pressure you have to put down to get the paint to come off. 

“Are you really tired, hm?” You ask him, flickering your eyes up for a second to try at meeting his. 

But his eyes are closed, trying to get himself through this from what it seems. “Mhm…” he gets out. It’s muddled and taut. 

Moving upwards his chest, you wash out a spot enough to plant a kiss in, then change to a graze of a bite that was stronger resemblance to your teeth scraping against his skin. He groans out quietly, barely there at all. 

“Can you do that again?” He asks you. You both knew you could never say no to him. 

His stomach and chest have been stripped clean of black, remaining only his shoulders and neck. You apply more soap to these areas since it had run mighty thin from the other scrubbing. Exposing the pale skin of his shoulder under the dark makeup, you take a bite of him. Harder this time. By now, you knew he had a little thing for biting, was a love language to him. Vessel needed it. You feel a shiver shock through him. You land another nip onto his neck where you have to stand on your tiptoes to reach, lurching him down by the smallest hint. 

Vessel’s body slouches against yours, his back hunches over due to the height difference between the both of you. His cheek smooshes into your shoulder and his slickened skin slides along yours to rest his nose in the cranny where your neck and shoulder meet. You feel him huff subhumanly. His arms dangle beside him which almost brush your body. And one of your arms is wrapped around his lower back while the other gently washes at his sides to get rid of any residue paint there. His arms are slow in movement as they come around your back, resting low there, and gently pushing you closer to him. You use your nails just barely on his back, causing a low groan to come from Vessel’s mouth. 

“Fuck…” he drags the word out low, “that feels good.” He’s hushed, almost at a whisper if his voice wasn’t thick on getting those words out. 

Your mind can’t go there, and so, you won’t. You want to take care of him, softly. He deserves it firstly, but secondly, he also needs it. 

Instead, you hum in an agreeing tone. “Yeah?” Your nails go along his back, back and forth laggardly. “That feel good, babe?” You hope he picks up on the smile in your voice.

He grunts and you feel the brush of air on your neck again. You let out a small laugh, dry one. 

“Good,” you say.  

You throw the blackened cloth into the corner of the tub, bringing Vessel close to you in a hug. “I’m so proud of you,” you tell him. His body sinks further into yours, his weight becoming more of your responsibility than his. His lips press unhurried kisses into this side of your neck and down your shoulder. Retracting back, up, into his normal stance as much as he can bear with his fatigue. 

And you start to move back too. He needed to get into your bed as soon as he could get there. But he stops you. 

“One kiss. Please?” 

His face is brought down to you by your hands cupping his jaw, placing a tender kiss to his lips. They work slowly with yours as he makes another whine. You try to match the noise, licking into his mouth one good time before pulling away fully. 

“So lucky to have you,” you murmur to him.

Vessel looks at you with those same pleading eyes. “Can I have another? Just this one. Please?” 

Your lips catch his for one last kiss, relishing this one, him licking into your mouth this time. Whine.

That’s where you step away and cut off the water. You step out of the tub. You turn to hold your hand out for him to latch onto. And he does. You help him to not slip, his brain was not functioning at all if it was in any shape to work before. The two of you share a towel, not being arsed to use two separate ones. He nudges his head into your hand when you began to towel dry his hair. 

“How about we get you to bed, hmm?” You ask, tossing the towel somewhere into the bathroom. That, along with finding clothes, was a worry for a different time. Later, after Vessel had been taken care of, after he got some sleep.

He trails behind you like a lost pup. “Please.”

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 5: Ruby]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can’t seem to get away from…

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don’t like Titanic you won’t like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.5k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @nightvyre @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama @ecstaticactus @chattylurker, more in comments 🥰

💎 Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 💎

Scarlet dusk spills over the pine planks of the deck like rising water. Sweet little Madeleine Astor invites you to attend dinner with her party—perhaps there is gossip that you and Daemon have had some sort of a row—but you have other plans. As the rest of the first-class passengers descend the Grand Staircase to the dining room on D-Deck, you make your way eastward towards the stern. You pass shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, who is ambling along with a group of chuckling, pipe-puffing gentlemen including J. Bruce Ismay and Benjamin Guggenheim. Mr. Andrews is mentioning the iceberg warnings that the captain has received from nearby vessels today; the other men are agreeing that Captain Smith is right to not be concerned. On a night as calm and cloudless as this one, surely an iceberg would be spotted by the lookouts with more than enough time to steer the ship to safety.

Aegon is waiting by the steel railing of the stern, stolen black coat, face glowing in fading daylight the color of sunstone, a crystal mined in Oregon. His scuffed brown leather portfolio and a folded easel are tucked under one arm; in his fist is clutched the handle of a small wooden box, which must contain his painting supplies.

“So,” he says, smiling when he sees you’ve accepted his offer, this final kindness before you are torn away from each other when Titanic docks in New York Harbor. “Where should we set up our studio? It can’t be in my cabin. One of my roommates is currently fornicating with a Russian girl. She seems nice. I hope she isn’t burdened with his bastard child.”

“You don’t think we should join them?”

He laughs. “Maybe I’m not ready to share you.”

“You’re not living up to your reputation, prodigal son. I had heard you were an irredeemable miscreant.” Then you turn to leave, and Aegon follows you.

You stop first at the Café Parisien on B-Deck, which is mostly deserted; it’s very cold outside, approaching freezing temperatures as the sun sinks below the bloodied horizon, and the heaters don’t work especially well in the restaurant. You purchase several different sandwiches and a chocolate croissant. No cash exchanges hands, which is good because you don’t ever have any; the stewards there recognize you and will add the charge to your illustrious husband’s bill, to be paid before passengers disembark on either April 16th or 17th, depending on how quickly Titanic arrives at her destination.

Daemon and Rhaenyra will be in the First-Class Dining Saloon for the next several hours, and thereafter will almost certainly steal away into her rooms to commit their incestuous adultery. Rush is eternally prowling nearby in case Daemon finds himself in need of anything: a drink, a gun, a troublesome wife shoved over a railing. Per her nightly tradition, Dagmar has taken Draco to the Verandah Café, which in addition to being a more casual eatery has become a sort of playroom for first-class children. And so in your staterooms, only Fern is present, finishing up some dusting before she journeys down to C-Deck to enjoy dinner in the Maids and Valets Saloon. From above the fireplace, the taxidermied tiger head watches you with eerily still gemstone eyes, a dispassionate witness to your treason.

“Hello, ma’am,” Fern says when you enter. “Can I make you a cup of tea before I go?” Then she sees Aegon walk in behind you with all his equipment, and she blinks, bewildered. “Good evening, sir. Did we meet on the Boat Deck this morning…?”

“We did,” Aegon replies a bit sheepishly. Fern looks at you, seeking an explanation.

“I need a favor,” you tell her.

“Of course, ma’am. Anything.” But Fern’s large dark eyes shift skittishly between you and Aegon.

You give her the paper bag heavy with treats from Café Parisien. “I’ve brought you dinner. I wasn’t sure what kind of sandwich you’d prefer, so there’s ham and Gruyère, tomato and chèvre, and pâté and cornichon. Eat whichever you like, or all three, it doesn’t matter. Oh, and there’s a chocolate croissant as well, nice and flakey and shining with butter. It’s absolutely massive.”

“That’s very kind, ma’am,” Fern says. She’s touched, but she’s still puzzled.

“Fern, I’m asking you to stay here in the sitting room. It doesn’t matter what you do, but don’t fall asleep, and for God’s sake don’t leave to go outside, not even for a moment.”

“Alright,” she agrees cautiously.

“I don’t think they’ll be back for a few hours, but if somebody does walk through that door—Daemon, Dagmar, anyone—all I need you to do is offer to make them tea, as you would on any other night. And offer loudly.” This will alert you to the intruder and give you more than enough time to get Aegon out onto the private deck, from which he can access the hallways of B-Deck and the Grand Staircase.

Fern understands. She nods, studying Aegon thoughtfully. “Yes ma’am.”

“And I didn’t have any visitors.” Your voice is grave; it is not only your reputation at risk. It’s your life.

Fern feigns shock. “Of course not. I haven’t seen a soul.”

You touch a palm to her shoulder, fleeting and gentle. “Thank you, Fern.”

“It’s no trouble at all, ma’am,” she says, and then goes to the small circular table and begins to unwrap one of the sandwiches from Café Parisien.

As soon as you and Aegon are inside your bedroom, you push Daemon’s writing desk in front of the door, precious extra seconds bought in the unlikely event that your husband returns and Fern can’t slow him down. Aegon immediately begins setting up: placing his easel, clipping a piece of fresh linen-like parchment from his portfolio to it, and removing a palette, brushes, and tiny tin tubes of oil paint from his wooden box. He turns off all of the lamps except one, then glances at the unlit white candles on the dresser and the nightstand. Before he can say anything, you take his aluminum lighter from your handbag and light the wicks.

“Can I do anything else to help?” you ask.

“Yeah.” Aegon nods to your spacious walk-in closet, where the door is hanging ajar. It’s nearly as large as his entire third-class cabin. He shrugs off his black wool coat; beneath it he is wearing only a white button-up shirt and dark green corduroy trousers. “Get dressed. Put on something you feel like you look especially good in.”

You gaze blankly at the closet, then turn back to him. “I don’t think I look good in anything.”

“Well now I’m going to make you watch.” He smirks at you, mischievous, teasing, then drops to his knees to squirt beads of paint onto his stained palette: golden like the lamplight, a rich dark brown like the walnut wood of the bedposts.

“How would you possibly accomplish that?”

“You have a mirror.” He points to it with a paintbrush, the oval-shaped pool of silver standing upright by the bed.

You gape at it, mortified. “No, I couldn’t possibly stare at myself the whole time.”

“Sure you could.” Aegon goes to the mirror and adjusts it until it is filled with your reflection. “Not too bad, right?”

“I suppose,” you murmur, but you have already fled to the closet. As Aegon swirls colors together on his palette, searching for the perfect shades, you sift through your collection of jewel-toned fabrics: lace, cotton, velvet, wool. You think again of the dusk light that turned the decks and waves to rubies, and your eyes catch on a red silk robe: purchased only a month ago, never worn yet, no memories of Daemon or anybody else, a new age like sunset or dawn. You take off your green gown and remove the emeralds from your ears, then don the crimson-colored robe and return to the bedroom to meet Aegon, silk flowing behind you like a riptide, the rustling of your legs beneath the fabric.

Aegon is scrabbling around by the foot of the bed, smoothing out any bumps in the Turkish rug, straightening the white ruffled bed skirt that hangs down to the floor. He peers up at you and freezes, his fretful fingers going still.

You ask tentavively: “Is this okay?”

He chuckles. “Okay is one word for it. Come over here.”

You go to Aegon and he takes your hands, both of them, and draws you down onto the floor where he is. You sit with your legs bent and tucked to the right, as if you’re a mermaid, your tail the color of blood instead of cool rippling depths. Aegon arranges the hem of your robe—he wants your bare feet showing, the silk rumpled in some spots and smooth in others—then retreats and stands back to study you, chewing the corner of his full bottom lip, his hands on his waist.

“Can I take your hair down?”

“Sure,” you say, but when he touches you—even a graze, even a whisper—you have to stop yourself from startling a bit, from reaching out to grab his wrist and keep him close.

“I can paint from memory,” Aegon tells you as he works, perhaps filling the quiet to soothe your nerves. “But it always turns out better if I have the person in front of me.”

“I’ll try to stay still.”

“You can move around if you have to,” he assures you. “I’d rather have you comfortable. I know you’re not a statue.”

“Right.” You smile. “I’m a rock.”

Aegon laughs and places your left hand on the bedpost as if you are clinging to it. “The best rock. Now let’s see you glimmer.” He goes to the mirror and repositions it one final time, angling it downwards slightly so you are in the center of the glass oval. From behind you on the dresser, flickering dots of candlelight glow like stars. You instinctively avert your eyes from your reflection, but Aegon is insistent. Gingerly, he turns your head back towards the mirror before striding over to his easel.

You do not want to watch yourself, so you watch Aegon instead, his doppelganger reversed in the glass. He’s mixing paint on his palette, repeatedly glancing at your robe to make sure he’s made the correct shade of red. He’s absentmindedly tucking a lock of his hair behind his ear. And you cannot stop staring at his hands: the way he holds a paintbrush, the bumps of his knuckles. He is not a man who has ever pillaged or bruised but only created pinpoints of light that gleam through the darkness, music and art and laughter, the gems of human existence. He is far from home, just like you are. His bones are the bars of a prison; you have married into the same one, created new life with it, melded your bloodlines together like forged metal.

Now Aegon is back, his reflection kneeling behind yours, and he begins to reach for your waist before he stops himself. “Is it alright if I…?”

“Of course. However you want me.”

The Aegon that lives in the silver sheen of the mirror settles his hands lightly just below your ribcage. He turns you just barely towards the mirror, only an inch away from where you were before, but he is precise, he is careful. This is the last image he’ll ever capture of you.

The warmth of him against you, his weight, his wonder as he gazes at your reflection with eyes like deep water; your breath catches, and at first he fears he has crossed a line and removes his hands. But your fingers are—slowly, like a suggestion that someone could so easily pretend not to have noticed—pulling up the hem of your silk robe, to just above your ankles, to your calves, to your bent knees. Aegon’s right hand covers yours, and then—as your eyes lock in the mirror—skates up the inside of your thighs as you part them, displacing the vivid red of your robe, revealing yourself in the glass, and so you can see it as he touches you, not like he owns or commands or uses you but like he is here to chisel you free from the perpetual darkness of the mine you’ve been trapped in for millennia.

You gasp in desperate, disbelieving relief, shaking all over, and you move to kiss him; but Aegon catches your face in his other hand and turns you back to the mirror. “No,” he whispers. “Watch.” And then he presses his lips to the apple of your cheek and lingers there for a moment, tasting you, breathing you in like you’re water filling the lungs of a drowning man.

“Aegon…”

“I want you to see how beautiful you are. I want you to see what I’ve been dying to do to you.”

His right hand is still between your legs, his fingers circling, a whirlpool that drags you down like an anchor until you hit the seafloor, an ocean not of pressure and cold but bright, yearning warmth, golden lamplight and flickering candles. You reach back to touch Aegon’s face—the stubble of his short beard, the sand-colored strands of his hair—but still he keeps your gaze fixed on your reflection. Now you are unashamed in a way you haven’t been since before your wedding night five years ago, just about the same time Aegon was leaving home. The proof is indelible, inking itself into your memory like a painter’s signature: you are desired, you are loved.

“Thank you,” you moan, so low it’s almost inaudible. You’re close. You’re very, very close. “Oh my God, Aegon, thank you…”

“Shh.” He kisses the side of your face, his eyes on the mirror, transfixed. “Show me.”

It’s a beam of sunlight refracted and scattered by a ruby; it’s a scalding torrent of blood that crashes through a web of arteries all the way to the heart. And when—still shuddering, still fighting for air—you pull away from Aegon’s grasp, he lets you go without any resistance.

You roll onto the floor and drag him on top of you by his shirt, struggling with trembling fingers to untangle the tie of your robe until Aegon realizes what you’re trying to do and helps you. He opens the blood-red silk and tastes the salt blooming on your belly, your breasts, your throat where your pulse is thudding drunk and maroon in your carotid. It’s better than cider or champagne or beer or nicotine; he is not a poison but a cure. He is unbuttoning his shirt and his trousers, hurried famished need. He is inside of you, and he is kissing you deeply, your palms on his flushed face, your hips moving with his. You steal a glimpse of the silver-moonlight mirror, and there you both are: lost and far from home, shipwrecked on the same island, castaways and wave crests and mirages. In the end, you know you have not disappointed him. His lungs are breathless and his eyes wet, his muscles just as spent and useless as yours. Neither of you are lost anymore. You have found each other here in the gloomy depths.

Almost immediately, Aegon forces himself off of you and crawls towards his easel, at last staggering to his feet. He grabs his palette and a brush and begins working with frenetic strokes, his damp hair falling in his face, his brow knit with concentration. You don’t have to ask what he’s doing. He’s trying to paint you before the memory begins to fade. He works in thin layers, just enough to cover the white of the parchment. His visions are soft and fragile like dreams, things that can be blown away and forgotten. From where you’re still lying on the floor, you gaze up at Aegon as he paints.

Is it possible that I’m in love with him? Is it possible that after this voyage I’ll never see him again?

You have no sense of how much time has passed when he finally looks over at you and says: “I think it’s done.”

You stand and wander across the bedroom, your red robe still open and hanging loosely from you like flayed skin. On the paper you find two faces instead of one, you in a golden haze of ecstasy no one else can see the cause of, Aegon whispering as your fingertips reach back for him.

He has written in black in the bottom right corner of the painting: Petra and Picasso.

~~~~~~~~~~

Aegon doesn’t want to move it yet. The oil paint needs hours to dry, and he’s worried that if he takes it outside while it’s still wet, the wind screaming down from the Arctic might be cold enough to make the paint freeze and chip away, and the momentary lust-red magic he’s captured will be gone. So with the new painting still clipped to it, you hide Aegon’s folded easel, the leather portfolio, and the wooden box of supplies under your bed, concealed by the white ruffled bed skirt. You both take turns cleaning up in the bathroom—someone always listening for the noise of an unwelcome interloper—and Aegon shimmies back into his clothes while you change into a blue dress, velvet for warmth, pale like ice.

“Where can we go?” you ask Aegon as you put on a coat, heavy white wool. I don’t want to say goodbye to you yet.

He must feel the same way. He pushes Daemon’s writing desk back to its original place, unblocking the door. Then Aegon offers his hand and you take it.

You walk together into the sitting room. Fern looks up from where she’s perched on the sofa and sewing closed a rip in the sleeve of one of Dagmar’s charcoal-colored dresses, her eye wide.

“Thank you, Fern,” you say, calm and drowsy. “That will be all for tonight.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“How can I repay you?” You don’t have your own money, your own land; even the jewels in your collection belong to Daemon. You’d give them all up if they could buy your freedom. You’d let them sink into the dark cold North Atlantic Ocean, emeralds and rubies and sapphires. Randomly, you think of Daemon’s gemstone-studded dagger, the hilt glinting with gold.

Fern replies: “Never send me away to live with people who don’t bring me chocolate croissants.”

You dash to the sofa and hug her; Fern is stunned but accepts your embrace, warily patting your back as if the bones beneath might be porcelain or glass. Then you clasp Aegon’s hand again and vanish with him into the hallway.

Most of the men are still at dinner or have moved to the First-Class Smoking Room, the women are still gossiping and sipping their champagne, and so you and Aegon slip through the heated corridors like sharks in warm currents. He leads you towards the stern, to the section of the ship reserved for his chosen people, then down to F-Deck and the Third-Class Dining Saloon. They are just beginning to move the tables out of the way for dancing. You find a quiet corner of the room and take off your coats, then Aegon disappears for a moment and returns with a tray: two plates full of corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes, two bowls of plum pudding, two cups of tea, a dark bitter pint of Guinness for you. You can feel your face light up when you see Irish food.

“You’re lucky you weren’t down here for breakfast,” Aegon tells you. “We had fried tripe and onions.”

“Oh, awful,” you say, laughing. You take a bite of corned beef and close your eyes, thinking of Saint Patrick’s Day with your family each year, always a cold wet day in March, green hills and grey mist. When you open your eyes, Aegon is smiling.

“A little taste of Ireland.” Now he is wistful. Across the room, the musicians Aegon sometimes plays with have climbed on top of a table and are performing My Wild Irish Rose as couples whirl around the floor. “I’ll miss it. I love the music and the people. Perhaps one in particular.”

“What are you going to do when you get home?”

“I’m going to tell Aemond he has to teach me how to be a duke,” Aegon says casually as he eats. “I can’t really give it up, unfortunately. The title belongs to the Crown, not my family. It can be taken away any time the king decides he wants to. And he’s a strict one, George V. He’s humorless, he’s harsh. If I refuse my inheritance, I can’t just pass it along to Aemond, not unless the king agrees. But the way I am…my failings, my lack of restraint…it makes my bloodline look like bad stock, doesn’t it? Especially with all that eugenics bullshit floating around. I don’t want my mother and siblings to lose everything because of me. My mother has spent her entire life miserable, I figure she should have something to show for it.”

The Hightower branch of the family are phantoms to you. You know them only from newspaper articles and erratic gossip and sneering remarks muttered by your husband. You take a swig of your Guinness, and for the first time in as long as you can remember you don’t feel like you want to have another. You don’t want to take the jagged edges off this moment, hidden below deck with Aegon for what is almost certainly the last time. You don’t want to forget anything about him. “What’s Aemond like?”

“Superior to me in every way,” Aegon says. “Disciplined. Clever. Very tall.”

“I myself favor short, delinquent artists. Those tall clever dragons are nothing but trouble.”

He snickers, shaking his head. “I’m not a real artist.”

“Sure you are. You’re Picasso.”

He’s watching you with murky blue eyes, dazed and marveling. “What are you going to do when you’re back in Ireland?”

It’s a fantasy, a folktale. I’ll never see Ireland again. “I’m going to help take care of my father. He’s…he’s not well, and he hasn’t been for a long time. His memory is failing. I want to make his last years as painless as possible. I want to spent time with my mother again, I want to go on walks and sit in the garden and read books and paint our ugly little pictures. We used to play this game where we’d each paint an animal and then have the other guess what it is. It once took her twelve tries before she realized my grey blob was supposed to be a basking shark. I saw one washed up on the shore when I was little.”

Aegon is smiling. “I could teach you how to paint.”

“Yes,” you say softly, knowing it will never happen.

“You could teach me what it’s like to have nice parents.”

“They’d adore that. They always wanted more children.” You are distracted, gazing into your Guinness, flecks of foam like constellations in a night sky. “I want to make sure Draco grows up to be a good man. I want him to be kind and gentle.” You look to Aegon, the thought suddenly leaping into your mind like a cat onto a windowsill. “Like you.”

Aegon’s eyebrows shoot up. “Like me? No, Petra. You don’t want that. I was a demon.”

“And yet you turned out fine in the end.”

“I turned out weak,” he says, abruptly severe. He drags his fingers through his disheveled hair, staring forlornly at the white wall behind you. “I wanted to help you but I can’t. I followed you from Galway to Cork, to the first-class decks, to your staterooms, and now…now when we dock in New York you’re going to get dragged off to wherever Daemon wants you to be and…and there’s just nothing I can do about it.”

“You’ve helped me,” you insist. “But now you’re too far away.”

Aegon comes over to your side of the table and drapes an arm across the back of your chair, and you lean into him, and together you watch the couples dancing to cheerful Irish music. Below your feet the engines are humming, and outside the waves are crashing against the hull of the ship, and up on B-Deck Daemon is probably crawling like a spider into Rhaenyra’s bed, and Laenor is consorting with his new Parisien companions, and Dagmar is reading some Scandinavian story to Draco before he falls asleep, and husbands are dulling their worries with brandy and cigars, and wives are distracting themselves with gossip about other women’s lives.

You don’t want to leave, not even as the passengers here in the Third-Class Dining Saloon begin to clear out and those left are so drunk they can hardly keep themselves upright, stumbling into tables and chairs and howling uproariously. Aegon doesn’t want to leave either. Now his arms have circled around your waist, and he’s nuzzling at your throat and the curve of your jaw, and you’re trying not to notice the weight of your black opal engagement ring on your left hand so you can forget the life you’ll have to go back to tomorrow.

I want him again, you think hazily. Where can we go? Where on earth can we go?

There is a sudden jolt, a deafening grinding sound, a tremor that shakes through the steel latticework of the ship. The few remaining dancers shout and cling to their partners. Pints of beer are knocked from tables and spill across the floor. Plates clatter and lightweight wooden chairs slide away.

“What the fuck was that?” a drunk man slurs, but then he and his friends begin to laugh about it, pounding on each other’s backs. You turn to Aegon. He’s not laughing. His eyes are large and darting around.

“Aegon, the ship is fine, right?”

“Yeah,” he says quickly, but he’s standing and passing you your white wool coat. “Come on. Let’s go up to a higher deck to see what’s happened.”

You picture the lifeboats that you have strolled past so many times, not nearly enough space for all the passengers, only the lucky half, the richest half. “The ship can’t sink, can it? That’s what everyone’s been telling me since we boarded, and I didn’t believe them because of course any ship can sink, but…Aegon…”

“It’s probably just a problem with one of the boilers or a propeller or something,” he says as he pulls on his black coat, stolen just like the way he’s stolen you tonight. But he doesn’t walk to the hallway and up the nearest staircase; he damn near sprints, dragging you along with him.

Outside the night sky is black and full of stars, bitterly cold, no wind. You emerge near the bow of the ship, and third-class passengers are kicking around chunks of ice as if they are playing Gaelic football. Aegon spins around, searching for the source of the ice.

“Ehi, amico! Did you see it?” an Italian man calls to Aegon. Aegon trots over to join him. You look down at the pine planks under your shoes. Is the ship listing towards the starboard side, or is that your imagination?

“No, what happened?” Aegon is asking the Italian. You can hear voices from the other decks, less alarmed than curious, people rattled awake, stewards helping to retrieve items that have rolled away.

“Iceberg, a huge one! We just went right past it! Pieces broke off and fell everywhere. We don’t have nothing like this in Napoli!”

“An iceberg?” Aegon echoes, stunned. He goes to the railing and leans over to squint out into the blackness. “Did we hit it?”

“We bumped it a little, I think,” the Italian says, unconcerned. Then he returns to the game, kicking a block of ice when it glides over to him.

“Look,” you say to Aegon when he returns to you, pointing skyward. Up in the crow’s nest, you can just barely hear the lookouts shouting back and forth. You cannot decipher their words, but they sound agitated. They sound afraid.

“Hit an iceberg,” Aegon murmurs, trying to make sense of it. “But that’s not serious, right? No one’s running for the lifeboats, no one’s talking about leaks or anything—”

“Aegon, does the ship seem like it’s listing to you?”

He peers down at the deck, shifts his weight from foot to foot. He doesn’t have to answer. When he looks up at you again, his blue eyes are panic-stricken.

“I have to find the shipbuilder Mr. Andrews,” you say. “He’ll have investigated, he’ll know how bad the damage is.”

“I’m going with you.”

I don’t know where my jailers are: Daemon, Dagmar, Rush, Rhaenyra. “You shouldn’t be in my section of the ship.”

“If something really is wrong, they’ll be the first people to know,” Aegon says. That’s cruel, but it’s true. First-class lives are worth more than his.

You fly up the steps to A-Deck, where on the Promenade Deck men in black suits are chuckling about the ruckus as they puff on pipes and cigars, and women in beaded evening gowns are pressing their soft pampered hands to their chests as they recall the shock of the earthquake-like shudder that rattled Titanic. Stewards are flitting around fetching tea and pillows. No one is talking about lifeboats or sinking, which you take to be a good sign; but you can’t find Thomas Andrews.

When you and Aegon have at last circled back to the bow of the ship, you spot a group of men walking swiftly into the glass box of the bridge. They are speaking in low voices, their hands moving in frenetic gestures. Thomas Andrews is there, you are relieved to see. J. Bruce Ismay and Captain Smith are among those with him.

“Mr. Andrews!” you cry, and he stops and turns. He is carrying an armful of rolled-up engineering drawings.

“Lady Targaryen,” he says numbly, then seems to lurch out of a trance and hurries to you, standing closer than would be considered proper. In his state, he has not noticed Aegon, lurking a few paces behind you and listening intently. “Your family, Daemon and the others…you must wake them.”

“I saw the ice on the deck by the bow, did the ship—?”

“We hit it,” Mr. Andrews tells you, hushed so others will not hear and become hysterical. “An iceberg. Scraped along the side, caused the iron plates to buckle below the waterline. I’ve seen the forward cargo holds and they’re…” He blinks, astonished, as if this is a nightmare he might still wake up from.

This can’t be happening. This ship was supposed to be unsinkable. That’s what everybody told me, that I was insane to fear the journey. “But…but what about the watertight bulkheads?” He had spoken so confidently of them at dinner just a few nights ago.

“I didn’t built them high enough, and seawater is spilling over the tops. The first five compartments are already flooded, too many for Titanic to stay afloat.”

“The ship will sink?” you whisper, terrified. Aegon moves closer, a palm on the small of your back.

“Yes,” Mr. Andrews says.

“When?”

“Perhaps an hour or two.”

“An hour?!”

“Carpathia has answered our distress call, but she’s four hours away.”

You stare at him. “And the ocean…it’s freezing.” Anyone left adrift in it will die.

“Get to a lifeboat, Lady Targaryen,” Mr. Andrews says. “Don’t wait. I’m doing everything I can.” He rejoins the other men and goes with them into the bridge. Behind the glass walls, J. Bruce Ismay begins to yell something at Captain Smith.

“Hey, hey, listen,” Aegon is telling you, but you can’t seem to focus on him. His voice sounds like it is coming from very far away, another coast, another lifetime.

“There aren’t enough lifeboats,” you say, flat with shock.

“I know. I remember what you told Fern when I saw you up on the Boat Deck.”

You race for the steps that lead down to B-Deck where your staterooms are. “I have to find Draco—”

“Wait, wait, listen to me.” Aegon’s hand reaches out and grasps yours, not imprisoning you but imploring you, begging you to hear him. “Half the people on this ship are going to die.”

“Yes,” you agree, the horror of it quivering in your voice. In the frigid night air your words turn to fog like the mist that clings to the Cliffs of Moher, like ghosts captured in the corners of photographs.

“And most of the bodies will never be recovered, and there will be no way of knowing for sure what happened to them, and the crime scene will be at the bottom of the ocean.”

Crime scene? Crime scene??? “Aegon, what are you talking about?”

“Don’t you get it? Petra, this is your way out. I’ll help you. We’ll do this together.”

Draco. I have to get Draco into a lifeboat. “Aegon, I don’t understand, do what?”

His eyes are gleaming; the grin that splits across his face reveals teeth like pearls. “We’re going to kill your husband.”