#ruining your life for simply existing?

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

something i hate is seeing neurotypical/non-psychotic people be all defensive when they have one (1) unpopular/unconventional interest. they make their whole personality into how quirky they are and then turn around and ignore at best, harass and bully at worst when people like me who are 'crazy' when we engage in those same interests because we somehow manage to 'do it wrong.'

[terrence-silver]

Hey could i make a request please. Terry X fem reader, her former abuser comes back into her life to torment her all over again and Terry buts them in their place and destroys them physically, mentally, financially and when it's all over they'll thank him.

Jerry and Terry.

A story of disproportionate revenge; Terry Silver x Fem!Reader in the background (with an appearance from John Kreese).

---

Jerry is a man with a common office job and the accidental assonance of their names never fails to amuse Terry.

Infuriate him some.

Jerry and Terry.

Well, Jeremy, in actuality, just another information in the long mosaic line up covering everything he discovered about this schmuck, as much personally as through his sources, not that it was tremendously difficult seeing as how none of these common civilians were ever too much of a mystery anyway, granting him immense satisfaction in the hunt nonetheless — but the punk’s name might as well be worm or cockroach, because that’s in effect what he was, leaning over Colorado Street, in Pasadena, a two hour drive from LA, the July summer air after midnight still hot, the asphalt seeming to let off steams of a searing, stifling sensation, the cool breeze blown in from the Arroyo barely reaching the isolated steel ledge secluded from the buzz of the traffic; the city long since planned to put to preventive nets over the bridge — Terry should know because he personally funded the project with a generous donation and it was hilarious how life had a weird way of falling into place and connecting in the most bizarre ways on a bridge of occasional suicides where your ex was standing, hands in pockets, staring down into the dark depths of the river below, no such net in sight just yet except for a couple of signs issuing a warming that it was dangerous to lean over the railings, nothing separating him from the flowing abyss below. Him and the Mayor shook hands on the business venture two years ago. The news even reported on it with all the adulation in the world. Terry’s picture was in the paper. He was all over the news — long enough to distract from all his other ventures. But, it was one of those urban landscaping deals that would dawn on the news and then take years, perhaps decades, to be actually realized. Meant that Jerry could jump — and there would be nothing to save him from doing so. No cameras installed for security measures just yet either. Maintenance. Terry knew, because this was Terry’s city.

Terry’s country and State.

Nobody in sight right at this moment.

Merely a narrow concrete path along the bridge for pedestrians.

Terry, the stranger, snug in his leather jacket, not minding the heat, pretending to be an innocent bypasser.

Truth of the matter was, he ruined this man’s life and he developed the progression of the slow decay all along the way with great interest and like a cat eagerly eying a moving red string, Terry’s effortlessly led him here, deliberately, right to this very place, this very spot, on this very night, on this very bridge and the guy never even realized he had no say in any of it or that none of it was an accident. Jeremy got let off of work. Accused of embezzlement. Embroidered in schemes. In debt. Reputation ruined. Social circle gone. All that jazz. All the classics. And Terry did it all. Weaved it all. And it culminated in this. Do a flip, he thought to himself, approaching the man under the headlights, leisurely, acting like someone who accidentally stumbled upon a scene he wasn’t supposed to stumble upon, en route to somewhere else, haunting the city, stopping in his tracks, behind a steel pillar, watching Jerry climb over the ledge; He could say something now. It would've been expected. A hastily thrown in 'Hey, you there! Stop!' or 'Hey, you! Don't do it! Lets talk, man! Life can be good, actually. It can be good when you're not crossing Terry Silver, that is.' Something faux-poignant. Something mean. Something mocking. Something distracting or even infuriating to bait the man into arguing rather than hurting himself. Anything, so long as it distracts and causes the man to hesitate and think twice, but it’s only once Jerry’s heel is slipping over the edge of the pipe he was perched up on does Terry act, allowing himself to smile from where he's standing, seamlessly, feeling his mouth twitch upward, watching the shadow disappear over the railing into the darkness of the night. The next day, there's a suicide report briefly on the news and you never even catch it in the whirlwind of all the other crime circulating in the media. Your asshole ex, identified by his wallet and the documentation found in his soaked interior pocket, fished out by the loading docks. Just another statistic.

-"So, what he’d do?"-

John asked him on one occasion when Terry told him of his plans.

-"Nothing much."- Terry slings his arm over his driver seat leisurely, chuckling. He didn't treat you as well as you deserved? Tried to occasional get in contact with you again and stay on, quote-unquote 'good terms'. What did that even mean? Good terms? Wasn't that enough to warrant execution? Terry thought it was. It was a crappy, mediocre relationship and nobody had to put their hands on you for Terry to be convinced that deserved payback. Not to mention --- the said entanglement wasted your time. Time that would've been better spent with him if you weren't busy wasting it with some Jerry. Revenge. Reason for revenge, right there. They were parked near Griffith Observatory, in the embrace of a forested path, all zig-zags and steep rocks, the skyline of the city visible from a nearby slope, offering them both a view and sufficient privacy to talk. -"I just want him to die."- Terry confess bluntly, nearly cackling as the words rolled off of his tongue, sensing something exciting coil around in his gut like so many butterflies, seeing no reason to hide these things from his Captain after everything they've been through together and John gives him a lopsided, paternal smile, halfway critical, halfway entertained, like he was about to throw in the talk.

-"Terry…"-

He clicks his tongue, shaking his head and Terry instantly protests.

Show mercy!? Why!? Since when were they the mercy-showing types!?

-"What? What!?"-

He finds himself whining slamming the palm of his hand against the backrest of the leather seats, feeling his own face furrow up. -"C’mon, Johnny!"- He sighs profoundly, rolling his eyes, annoyed and exasperated. This was some prime-time bullshit. -"Don’t you dare tell me that you never wanted anyone someone you loved loved before you to just, you know…"- He starts, trailing off, digging his teeth into his lower lip. Savoring the moment. -"Drop dead?"- He says it then, and it tastes so sweet, like caramel coated candy dipped in white powder. Terry knew all about Johnny nearly beating his beloveds Betsy's then-beau halfway to death on the parking lot of the Deli he worked in before the army. They were exactly the same, him and John Kreese. A Cobra doesn't tolerate competition. It's not in it's nature to. John says nothing. Almost as if contemplating that memory himself, looking off into the distance, pulling up the collar of his brown vest jacket on the passenger seat beside him, his face crinkling into a grim smile, not saying yes but not saying no either. Terry has the odd impulse to kick his feet up in the air in a flash of euphoria. -"We could always rough him up. Scare him. Hurt him, make him piss his pants and call it a day. I'm available for that."- John murmurs, the deep rumbling sound emanating from his throat recognized only as a suppressed chuckle. Terry grabs John by the shoulder and shakes him in excitement, halfway hugging him in joy. While kicking that Creature to a pulp did sound exciting it wasn't part of the plan. -"My man! Now we're talking! But, that would only martyr him!"- Terry lifts up his hands, engrossed in his own imagination. He felt more comfortable and content if this guy was just wiped out of existence altogether. Like, hit by a moving bus, perhaps. A guy that put his dick inside of you before being alive and well out there? Yeah. Unacceptable. -"No."- Terry says with a sense of looming doom. -"This is so final. There’s no coming back from it. And what’s best?"- He pauses slightly for dramatic timing, presenting the whole picture to John the way a storyteller would describe the synopsis of his newest magnum opus.

-"I’ll ensure he’ll do to himself."-

Six months into this special project and Terry never once put his hands on Jeremy. Could've. Itched to. But, he didn't. If Jerry deteriorated, it's because he ruined himself. With every drink, every cigarette and every sleepless, stressful night in tow. All Terry did was set events in motion and brought about the right environments for someone to start feeling profoundly unhappy.

-"I've put him through enough pain and now it's time to go to sleep."-

There can be only one, he almost halfway desires to add but he withholds at the last moment once he spots a shift on John's face --- that he didn't need any more convincing. Maybe it was an old habit --- an army habit --- but whenever Terry seriously wanted to end someone, he always came to Johnny first. To discuss the matter. Strategize. Get his greenlight from his Captain to go out into the field and terminate with extreme prejudice. That's how the hierarchy worked. Terry would do whatever he wanted anyway irregardless of John but he supposed he wanted to let him know. For old times sake. Reason why he invited him to meet here today. That and to gloat. -"Alright, Terry. If you say so."- John smiles that gruff smile of his, finally capitulating and Terry finally allows himself to breathe again after what seemed like an eternity of anticipation, letting himself be as jubilant as he wanted, turning the key in the ignition along with the steering wheel almost immediately, ready to get a move on, wasting not a second longer. There was a five star restaurant just down the road with their name on it. -"Of course I say so, Johnny! What I say is best!"- He exclaims, one hand on the wheel and another on the back of his John's neck, patting him triumphantly. Enough talk. Time to crack open the bottles before the big bang. You knew he was out with his oldest friend. You merely didn't know the context, is all. -"Reservations at five. Lets go grab that chow and celebrate!"- Terry practically shouts in euphoria, throwing a joyous glance at John, making a sharp U-turn. -"Ever ate a turkey stuffed with a chicken that's stuffed with a quail!?"- He snickers, knowing for a fact that Johnny would probably need everything in him not to roll his eyes at the option of orders, but regardless, he lived for treating his Captain to the finer things, just like he lived for removing each and every person from your past until nobody but him remains. Him, representing the future. -"I'd prefer plain good old bacon and some beer."- John mutters with a small, fox-like grin just like Terry knew he would, taking a relish in poking and prodding at him anyway. His Captain's wish is his command. They'd have so much to toast for today.

-"Done, baby!"-

Is all Terry says, laughing as he speeds away, down the woodland highway.

---

When you discover the news because he effectively tells you, deciding to control when and how the information reaches and that it might as well reach you from his own mouth, naturally, as expected, your mood turns gloomy. For days. Weeks. More time wasted and he despised it, deciding to immediately take you on a cruise of the Bahamas to distract you from it, but deciding tactically that you just had to ride it out. And you did. Week two on the deck of his yacht, eventually, slumped, looking out to the ocean, knees against your chest sitting on deck, you decide to speak. -"Terry, this will be such a weird thing to say."- You stutter, unsure of yourself and yet he's there, tracking your every movement and expression like a sonar radar. -"Maybe even meanspirited."- Will it now? Good. You were about to get whatever useless thing was still lodged in your system out of yourself. He's by your side, sitting beside you, looking at you intently, not wanting to miss a thing. -"But, I'm oddly glad I got out on time. That I met you."- You confess, holding back tears. Wasn't easy discovering that your ex was practically six figures in debt and wanted on several charges and that if you stayed with him, it would've reflected on you as well. Dragged you down with him. To the bottom of river Arroyo. That's what your pretty little head thought and Terry coos, massaging the edge of your scalp in gentle motions with his fingers, letting that beautiful brain below think whatever he wanted it to think. Oh, he loved you so. You were made for the greenest of pastures. For him. -"He would've destroyed his life as well as my own and I'm relieved the universe moved me out of the way when it did. That it brought me you. Thank you."- Ah. There it was. There were tears in your eyes flowing freely and you were thanking him, never even realizing you were unknowingly expressing gratitude that he effectively crapped all over your ex's life and led him to suicide. Stood by and watched while he did a triple Salto off of a bridge. The blood and the heat shoots down into his cock. How could it not? In any other situation he would've dragged Jerry's waterlogged swollen carcass fished out of the river at your feet and present it to you like a cat presents its owner a dead mouse. -"He was never bad towards me, exactly. But, he was never fully good either, you know? But, definitely not bad enough to deserve this."- Oh, Terry knew alright. It is just that he considered that your ex not being fully good towards you was a capital offense that found it's equivalent payback only in death. So, yeah. Punk deserved it.

Had it long time coming.

-"Is that fucked up and evil of me? To feel relieved I left on time? I feel so awful it's crazy! A man died!"-

A weak, nuisance man died, Terry wants to correct, but instead he settles into the act of collecting your tears with the tip of his fingers, letting none of them escape, feigning outrage, yet partially feeling said emotion in it's most genuine capacity; Jeremy died! Fuck sake, who cares! This guilt would evaporate and you'd find it fading overtime, because he'd be here to ensure it fades; there was almost nothing meaningfully positive for you to vindicate or romanticize and far too much crappy and mediocre to actually mourn or remember fondly. That was the good thing about measly, middle-of-the-road, middling, lukewarm individuals; too grey to be turned into saints and too grey to be turned into devils. The only thing one could do with them, whether one wanted to or not is to forget them. Where he could easily replace them and everyone else you ever trifled with, usurping their very vacancy and every emotion sent their way, be it good or bad. All of it. Only his. -"Fucked up!? Huh!? No way! It's not! Are you even listening to yourself!?"- He shakes his head vigorously, letting his disapproval grow visible, pulling you close, until the side of your body melts with his and you're effectively there, drying up your tears in his embrace, the open sea breeze against you. Terry grabs your face with both hands, making you look at him. -"You wanted a normal, stable life! Of course you did! Who wouldn't!?"- Terry explains, separating his gaze from you for but a second to point the tip of his nose out towards the blue expanse of the sunlit Atlantic.

[pantestudines]

No one should care but ive been thinking about it and my take is that the root of the walrus/fairy question is one specific word used by the original poll: "surprised". The question is not which would change your worldview or which is more/less possible to really happen. The question is which *surprises* you more. To me, this means which causes a stronger immediate surprise reaction in you upon opening that door. In essence, how bad do you flinch?

This, to me, is why so many people (including myself!) choose Walrus. A walrus is an immediate situation! That's an animal larger and stronger than you are, one that I would say is potentially very dangerous, that many people have never seen in real life. And now it's your responsibility and on your doorstep! A walrus on a doorstep is a novel idea, at least to me. I don't think I've ever had an animal just appear at my door, and certainly never knock. Sure, after the gut reaction dies down, the mundanity of the situation is certain; a walrus is a real animal and the perpetrator is likely nearby, laughing at the world's weirdest ding-dong ditch prank. But for a few seconds, it's just you, your expectations upon opening a door, and a pinniped of unusual size.

Now let's examine the fairy; The term can be vague, but I think most people imagine a generally humanoid but very small creature with insect wings. First off, by being small, the fairy will likely not trigger a defensive response, unlike the walrus. This thing is not an immediate threat, at least to your subconcious. Also, by being humanoid, usually with a very human face and features, this changes the situation from "strange beast on my doorstep" to "strange person on my doorstep". Obviously this may be different from person to person, but I think "strange small person on my doorstep" would illicite much weaker response from my flight or fight reflex than a large, strange animal. This is nothing to say about the familiarity most people have with fantasy and fantasy ideas, and the lack of familiarity most people have with walrus' in general, but I think those are also factors.

[gibbearish]

Hey, I'm a queer teen, male at birth, and took that trans quiz you made a while ago. I saw the @ at the end and thought to reach out. I'm really confused, I just feel wrong, I don't hate my body it's just like I feel like a girl, I really don't know. Most of my friends probably would support me if I was trans, I mean I already came out as bi, and they didn't care, but I don't feel like I can talk to them about this. I really just don't know. Help?

fixed it for you

[piper-2244]

the limit does not exist!

how spencer helps college!reader understand a little calculus and therefore understand how he loves her.

MDNI | smut word count: 1931 warnings & tags & stuff: fem reader, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), lil bit of overstim hehe, pure unbridled affection, LOVE, FLUFF, hugging, reader cries, this was in fact meant to be written for spence's birthday... sorry about that school is kicking my butt lets just pretend it's october! author's note: this one is for my folks who HATE their calculus class and want spencer reid to give them head instead <3 maybe this can help you romanticize it a bit. i think this is classified as self indulgent…like REALLY self indulgent… hah... anyway i hope you enjoy! let me know your thoughts if u have any, i loveeeee you!! have a great day my hands are shaking posting this smut is so scary!!!!!

You sat in bed, staring down your notebook, eyes narrowed. Limits stared back at you. You were just about at your own limit, if you were being honest. 

Your brain, however sharp and witty it may be, is absolutely not one designed for calculus. A literary analysis essay? Done in half an hour. In depth scientific research project? Easiest months of your life. But there’s something about finding the instantaneous rate of change of a curve at one point in time by finding the slope of a tangent line that hasn't clicked yet. 

A slew of other papers- notes, practice worksheets printed from obscure websites, and formulas- surround you, a sea of unfinished thoughts from the past month of the semester.

You bite on the end of your pen, the little hope you had for a good grade in this class slipping further and further away with each passing moment, like the last ember dying in the remains of a fire.

What you really wanted to be doing was celebrating Spencer’s birthday with him right now. A chocolate cake lay on the kitchen counter and pasta simmers on the stove, but you and your boyfriend had agreed to do a solid hour of work before the celebrations ensued.

You were never particularly strong willed when it came to following through on such agreements.

“Teach me calculus,” you say, a very impressive three minutes later, flopping down on the couch. Your head makes its way to its forever resting spot, Spencer’s lap. He raises his eyebrows slightly, thumb reaching out to trace over the slope of your nose. His eyes flit between you and the file to the side of him. 

“I thought we agreed on an hour.”

“Yeah. But it wouldn’t be a very productive hour if I didn’t know how to do what I have to do. And I missed you.” 

He sighs quietly, closing the file next to him. 

“What do you not understand?” You smile at that, loving how quickly you won.

“Related rates. Like, conceptually.” 

Spencer hums in response.

“It’s October. You’re not even supposed to know related rates yet.”

“Fine. Then let's open presents,” you respond, smiley. His eyebrows get impossibly higher, hand stroking your cheek delicately.

“No. I want our night to be a little more stress free when we celebrate, okay? How about you think about that lovely cake you made for me. What if I decided to squash it so that the diameter would get bigger, going from…let’s say, 20 centimeters to 26 centimeters in 3 seconds, and the height would get smal-”

“That wouldn't be nice. It took me like four hours,” you interrupt, grumbling. He cracks a smile.

“For the sake of the example, let's say I was an awful boyfriend and really wanted to ruin all the hard work you put in for me.”

You roll your eyes.

“Hey,” he says, hand moving down to touch your jaw softly. “Don’t do that. Don’t be difficult. I’m helping you.”

“Sorry. I guess I need you to zoom out a little. I don’t really get why I’m learning this as a whole.” Spencer’s eyes pore into yours, staring down at you adoringly for a small moment as he comes up with an answer.

“Calculus helps us begin to explain the unexplainable by harnessing what we can,” Spencer says simply. “Einstein once said that, ‘Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas,’ which makes it simple in practice, but I actually like to think about it as the opposite philosophically. Trying to find logic in the more poetic ideas.”

You cuddle deeper in his lap.

“Think he would agree with that?” you ask. “I do answer to Einstein before you, unfortunately.” Spencer bends down to kiss your hair.

“I think so. He also had a really nice quote where he remarked that, ‘Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.’ He said, ‘How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.’”

Spencer takes a deep breath.

“Math doesn’t explain how I love you. It can’t. But I love the fact that it tries to. It kinda makes you wanna learn it as best you can.”

You process that for a long second and nod. He keeps talking.

… 

Presents get opened, and cake gets eaten before dinner. Of course.

You’re now in bed, on top of the covers, forcing Spencer to give you a fashion show of the new sweater vest and tie you got him. He turns to you after putting it on, and you beam. 

“I really like it. You look great. Do you like it?” you ask. He nods, smiling back at you.

“I’m gonna wear it to work tomorrow.” 

You beckon for Spencer to come closer, sitting up in bed. Your hands go out to the tie, tugging at the knot softly. He stares down at you until eventually interrupting your motions with a slow kiss, hands cupping your face.

“You’re so pretty,” he mutters.

He pulls away and finishes what you started, folding the tie neatly and setting it in the drawer. Then comes the vest, and soon enough, he’s just in his boxers.

“You’re the pretty one,” you say quietly. “Come to bed.” He crawls on next to you, tugging you into his arms. “Happy birthday, Spence. I love you.” He dips his forehead to your shoulder.

“I love you.”

Before you know it, he’s shifted on top of you, moving down. Fast. You blink, hard, trying to rid your head of the hazy endorphins as you register what he’s doing.

“What? No, I was gonna do that. It’s your birthday. You don’t have to,” you protest.

“But I really, really want to, darling girl,” he murmurs back, kissing your knee and softly pushing it to the side.

You fluster and Spencer just looks at you, fingers tracing shapes on your waist, waiting for you to be ready. 

“Well. Um. Okay. If you insist. I can’t really deny the birthday boy.” Your voice is small, and a little giddy smile grows on your face. Of course Spencer Reid would want to give you head on his birthday. 

He smiles a little against the bare skin of your hip where your top meets your shorts. Then he meets your eyes. 

“You know you can, though, right?” he asks, voice a little more serious. You reach out to touch his hair softly. 

“Yeah. I know.”

Fingers hook your shorts, gently pulling them down. He presses a kiss to your thigh, and then he suddenly looks down at it. 

“Soft,” he murmurs, like he’s making a mental note. He presses another, and another, incrementally going closer and closer to your soaked through underwear. His eyebrows scrunch when he sees the wet spot. “All this from a few kisses?” 

You blush, unable to respond. 

Spencer’s fingers hook a centimeter of your underwear. “These?” he checks.

“Yes, please,” you manage. He tugs them down, silently noticing the slickness of your sex, and exhales shakily.

“How many times on average does it take for a guy to call you pretty on a given day before you get annoyed?” he murmurs, soft smile playing on his face. You smile too, head cloudy from his words, but it immediately drops when his lips press directly against your pulsing clit, kissing it softly.

“Fuck,” you say (Spencer would argue moan) softly (loudly). You let out a content sigh, and he moves to suckle it, actions becoming less and less delicate. 

It’s not harsh, but incessant. Spencer knows what you can take. He knows exactly what you can take. You’re both quiet for a bit, save for your breathy moans. 

“Spencer,” you say softly, ripping you both out of your individually hazy and dirty and distracted minds. “You’re too far away.” He looks up to you, face parallel to your aching core, hair beautifully messy and mouth glistening.

After a second, he grabs your hips, gently pushing you up against the pillows so you’re propped up at a better angle. He then shifts his body up wordlessly so he’s more above you, dipping his head down to give you a soft kiss. You taste yourself, tongue darting out to lick your lips.

His hand takes over where his mouth was, sliding in between your folds with a practiced ease. Spencer looks down at you, eyes wide and flitting between yours, searching for a reaction.

You reach out and wrap your arms around him, holding him close. “Holy shit, I love you,” you murmur.

His fingers lightly graze your clit again before one slides into you. “Angel,” he breathes out, so quietly. “I love you too. This okay? Are you okay?”

You nod feverishly and lift your hips to meet his hand, always in a perpetual state of wanting more, to be closer. Your bodies are melded so close together, barely giving him room to push his hand into you. He doesn’t even bother to ask you to use your words or keep your hips down, like he might on a regular night.

He pulls his head back to watch as he pushes another finger into you, stretching you just a little. “There we go. You always feel like heaven around me.”

Your eyes flit up to his face as he says those words, now having a little more room to observe him. You focus on the slope of his nose and curve of his mouth. 

“You’re so perfect,” you say quietly, adoringly, before you even realize it was true.

You blink at that thought. Spencer Reid is perfect, despite whatever universal odds deeming that impossible.

Those graphs, those formulas, now laying discarded & crumpled on the ground. They click, a little bit. You understand why Albert Einstein wanted to spend his life developing theories of relativity.

This is how Spencer sees you? What he was talking about earlier?

This is how he sees you?

The thought is almost too much.

Spencer sees your face, and not knowing what's going on in your head, slides down his free hand from your cheek to your carotid, feeling your racing pulse. “Take a deep breath for me, okay? You're about to come, huh?”

You inhale and are met with peace. Then your orgasm hits you like a wave. You clench hard around his fingers, and he just watches it happen, fascinated. “Baby,” he coos softly at you.

It wasn’t just your sensitivity he’s currently maximizing on or the little kisses he dips down to leave on your neck that sealed the deal, but the very thought that you could be loved in a way that is so perfectly impossible.

You exhale breathily as Spencer pushes you through the last trails of your climax, fingers not caring one bit that you just had your world tilted on its axis. 

“Spencer. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” you say eventually, overstimulated.

“You’re okay. Did so good.” he murmurs, fingers slipping out of you. 

His thumb brushes your cheek, wiping away a tear you didn't even realize was dripping down.

“Don’t cry, you always cry. It’s my birthday. Don’t cry on my birthday,” he whispers soothingly, affection lacing his voice.

“I’m not.” 

Another one falls. 

You reach and press out that perpetual little slope between his eyebrows with your thumb, gentle, like you might break him. “I’m not crying.”

Spencer lets you lie.

[yeyinde]

when your need grows teeth | John Price x f!Reader

John's the type of man to lock his jaws around what's his, preferring instead to ruin things, puncture it full of holes, and litter it with scars, rather than let it go. It starts when you ask him to pick up your birth control—like dangling a piece of bloody meat in front of a starving dog.  Of course he's going to take a bite.  He thinks you ought to have known this by now. 

SMUT 18+ | gratuitous smut; HEAVY breeding kink, breeding; Dom!John Price; p-in-v sex, unsafe sex; rough sex; mentions of spanking; mutual manipulation; this is roughly 10k of John Plotting and fucking you; John is: unhinged, obsessive, possessive, and Scheming. mentions of birth control tampering but nothing is followed through. No. He’s going to knock you up the old-fashioned way—by making you beg for it.

AO3 MIRROR

John has always had this desire—this awful, instinctual drive in the back of his head to knock someone up. Get them fat, swollen with his child. His. 

And maybe that's the crux of it. Possession. To have something of the most rooted kind. To irrevocably change someone—their anatomy, their body, the chemistry in their brain, their status in life from them (single no dependents) to mother (mother of his child), their very atoms—and create life from the combined parts. 

It's this almost fantastical beast, this unreachable dream for him. 

It's his Shangri-la. His castle in Spain. 

He's not under any disillusionment that this idea of fatherhood, of parenthood, is slightly skewed. That most men who want children don't feel this overwhelmingly greedy desire to fundamentally alter someone in such an irreversible way. It's not quite ownership, but it's the same ilk. A bastardised, unwanted child of it. 

And it's not just this idea of claimation—to forever be the father of their child, even if neither of them stays together; a piece of him will always be there, parasitic, no matter what—but something deeper. Something a bit less—egregious. 

This is, and always has been, about yearning. 

John's the type of man to lock his jaws around what's his, preferring instead to ruin things, puncture it full of holes, and litter it with scars, rather than to let it go. 

Marriage, he finds, is breakable. Divorce, separation. He's always on his worst behaviour in the initial stages of dating, so it's never something he has to entertain since no one ever sticks around long enough for it to be on the table, much less the menu, but the idea of it—of signing papers, of hashing out the split, of being known as ex-husband—leaves a bitter tang between his teeth. It won't do. He needs permanence. Perpetuity. 

Nothing says forever quite like a child, does it? 

And sure—he’s aware that countermeasures exist: custody orders, sole custody, shared; allotted visitations; divisional lines in this new age that keep the parents from ever interacting—but while you can get divorced, you can't unmake a child, can you?

The child would never write him out, either. 

Where deadbeats exist, it's important to note that their counterparts do, too. The ones like him who will gouge their eyes out of their skulls before they ever let what happened to them growing up trickle down and impact their child, polluting the pool. 

Simply put: John Price knows he'd be the best dad there is because he's stubborn that way. 

It helps, he supposes, that he really only has so much love to give out to the world, and greedily, he stashed the entirety of it away in a box to give to his would-be wife and their child. An overwhelming deluge that promises happiness should it ever be unlocked. Pandora's box, perhaps—down to the very essence because if John Price were to ever love someone, then it's probably in their best interest to run from it, this gaping, needy chasm. 

Not that it would ever be a possibility, of course—he’s much too good at compartmentalisation, in taking out his anger, his viciousness, on the ugly world he drenches himself in, the one his hands have a tangible cause and effect principle in place that will forever feed that starving beast inside of him.

Ergo—he’s a staunch supporter of the theory: happy wife, happy life. Though where those men think in a box stuffed full of emotional intimacy, flowers, chocolate, maintaining love, all-consuming and enduring, he takes it to extremes that would have them cowering a little bit. Maybe a lot.  

But that's fine. He only has to make sure his family is happy. No one else matters, save a select few who have a seat at his table during Sunday dinners. 

The rest, though? Spare parts. 

(The ice-cold resolve in those two words is apodictic, brass bound, and he's sure if his higher-ups knew about it, well—

His chest candy would be a hole in the ground. Put the rabid dog down before it has a chance to bite.)

But that all-consuming, devouring, obsessive love he has to give, that begs to be let free, is the reason why it's so tightly leashed. Locked up in a box. Untouchable. Inaccessible. 

It's why he isn't married. 

Ghost once asked him why the women he dated were older. Much older. Menopausal (always). And he'd said something to the effect of it being his type. Older women who wouldn't cower away from the acrid burn of him, who wouldn't hurt their delicate little hands on his gritty surface. 

But the real reason is because he knows better. 

He's a starving dog, and it's just bad form to dangle a piece of meat in front of it. Especially when the hand holding it is his own. 

Don't bite the hand that feeds you, and all. 

(The keen look in Ghost's eyes told him that, perhaps, the man already knew the reason when he asked, and was just satiating himself with kinship—the dark, awful look on Simon's ugly mug after the dredging the underbelly of Price’s rotten, mouldering mudfloor of things unsaid spoke volumes. 

They'd both nodded. Content, then. And promptly ordered a shot of whisky to drown the salivation, the hunger, from clogging their throats. Killing the urge to bite.

A pair of packless, stray dogs.)

But then he found you, and all his careful planning, all his distance, blew up in his face. 

It's always been on his mind since then. Lingering in his periphery—this fevered, tantalising vision of you, round and swollen with his child. 

It's unattainable, of course. A fantasy. 

Though, this—you throwing up in the washroom of his penthouse, undoubtedly knocked up by his machinations—is probably because he kept that desire too close to where he hides his questionable mortality, the one that allows him to throw innocent people to their deaths, and send mothers and fathers to an early grave just so he can rip his fists apart on their bastard offspring in his own brand of catharsis that always bites back when they grow up, hankering for revenge. 

He's always been good at snatching dreams out of the air, clenching them tight in his fists. Taming chimerical wants, whims, until they were docile, domesticated. Making realities out of fiction. 

And really—he’s just not a good man.

He thought you'd have known this by now.

He remembers the first time he growled the words into your ear as he came, your cunt clenching around him like a vice. Desperate for it, he teased after, fingers fucking into your sloppy, leaking hole. Pushing his spend back into you. Half-drunk on the taste of you still clinging to his beard, but mostly just mesmerised by the sight of you—pretty pussy all ruined, swollen from the vicious, hateful pounding he gave it, and dipping with his cum like a faucet. 

(It pissed him off—still does, really—when you waste it like this.)

Gonna fill you up, he snarled, low and wrecked. Gonna make it take—

It was a fantasy. Still is. But the way it took root in the garden of your bedroom, like it belonged—native flora, he thinks, a touch mad with it—had something ugly, oil slick, rearing up from that untouchable place in his head. 

He could really blame you for it—and does. The way your ankles locked tight around his thighs, hands reaching, grabbing at his waist, clawing at his asscheeks to press him in deeper, deeper still, as he came inside of you, cock lodged right against your plug, had that untameable beast cocking its head in consideration after you danced too close to it, waking it from his long, restful slumber. 

You wanted it. Ached for it. He could feel it in the way your walls tightened around him, practically starving for it. Your pretty, glossy eyes rolling back into your head. Drool running down your chin. A litany of pleas spilled from your kiss-bruised lips, begging him for it. Please, John. Please. Please—

Who was he to deny you? 

Even if you made a big, flustered show of waving it off—not something I've ever imagined for myself, you know? and–and your lifestyle, what you do—is something like that even possible for us?—he saw how it curled around your shoulders, dipping its silver tongue into your ear. Germinating. 

He let it. Encouraged it. 

“Something to talk about later,” he indulged, reaching over for a cigar just to smother the urge to breed you stupid. To tie you to his bedposts and keep you full until your belly was swelling with more than just the absurd volume of his seed he pumped inside of you. 

And, oh—

The uneasy smile on your face reeked of disappointment. 

Fuck. Fuck—

John went to the washroom after that, heart pounding out of his chest, and jabbed the lit end of his cigar into his thigh to kill the fever in his veins. To rewrite the desperate, ugly howling in his head with pain instead. 

It worked. Works—

Until you came to him, all watery-eyed and worried, and told him to please, please stop falling asleep with a lit cigar because you think you might just go mad if you lost him to a cigarette fire. And doesn't he see how silly it is, these burns look so bad, John, and I worry—

His teeth ached. He smiled, but it felt like a grimace. A dog holding back the instinct to bare its teeth. 

“Sure, love,” he'd said, and started taking out his anger on your cunt instead, fucking you deep, and stupid. Getting you all cockdrunk, and hungry for the dream that spoiled so badly in the back of his head, he's sure a proper man would call it a nightmare. “Anything you want.”

(Brassbound. Apodictic. You know that, he knows you know that, so imagine his surprise when you come to him, all soft and tender, and ask him to pick up your birth control as if he hadn't spent the better part of two years grumbling every fucking time you took it and wasn't on the verge of tossing the damn bottle out the window, and fucking you until it took—

But—you do know that, don't you? 

Well, then. Whatever his lady wants, right? Right.)

“Can you stop by the pharmacy on your way home tonight?”

He hums, fiddling with the belt of his slacks in front of the mirror. “Sure, love. You feelin’ sick?” 

“No,” you murmur, sliding behind him on your way to the washroom, wearing nothing but a towel tucked under your arms. “I need my refill. For birth control.” 

His hands still. A gnarled, rotted tendril curls over the edge of the cesspool, murky, ink black water splashing all over the place. “Oh, yeah? Still taking that, hm?”

You fluster. Hands waving, chock full of nervous, emotive energy you can't seem to shake off. “Well—yes. I mean, obviously.”

And he'd leave it there, let the spillage dry on the hot pavement, if you hadn't glanced back at him, all damp keenness, slightly skittish, and asked, feather-soft and utterly fragile, “right?” 

Right? A question, he notes. Not a statement. 

He licks his teeth. Tastes something rancid in the gaps. 

“Mm. I suppose so.” He leaves it vague, but drenches it in the heavy weight of his disappointment. Anchors dragging it down. You flit around the space like a house-locked bird, slamming into the walls and ceiling as you try—blind and panicked—to find an escape. Any escape. 

He finds the whole thing utterly charming. Especially when you realise he pitched himself in front of the only exit, thick, heavy hands curled around his belt, cock outlined against his slacks, already thickened, drooling in his pants. 

There's gasp—wet, and sharp—as you take him in. The liquid of his eyes as his want bleeds out of his skull. The flush on his cheeks, the twitch of his cock at the mere mention of you not taking your silly little pills. 

John lets it sit for a moment, taking in greedy lungfuls of your unease as you glance everywhere but at him, as if looking in his direction, breathing in this toxic miasma will give you a contact high. Infectious. Gnarled. 

The little seed that started germinating blooms. 

He fights back the urge to grin, all teeth. Madness staining them black. 

“It's—it’s on—” and fuck, he's never seen you so unsure before, this nervous. You handle him like a wrangler, wrassling his brutish dominance until it's putty in your hands, splitting his head into pieces and galvanising the madness inside until it's scripture for you to peek at whenever you need guidance, insight into him, his essence, his being. 

Your dyadic has always been built on permeance. 

John doesn't think there's a single person alive who understands him as much as you do. The only person who seems content to gorge yourself on his rotted marrow like it was a delicacy. 

Seeing you like this rents his resolve in two. 

“It's the pharmacy near the, uh, the school. The kindergarten.” 

He chokes on a groan, and thinks he tears something in his throat with the strain of keeping it down. There's blood, ash, in the back of his throat.

“Alright, love. I'll pick it up.” 

You smell it, and shiver. 

It's giving meat to a starving dog, and saying, dog, don't take a bite. 

And so, of course he does. 

John picks up your prescription, tossing it in the passenger seat like it personally offended him. And it has. Does. It's what's standing in the way between what he wants, what he craves, and there's a distinct thrum of irritation welling inside of him. One that started when he had to bark out your name at the counter earlier, and the pharmacist looked at him, and calmly, kindly, explained what it was he was picking up. 

Make sure she takes them once a day. Preferably at the same time. This brand of oral contraceptive can be taken with or without food—

Fuck off, he thought—thinks, even now, glowering into the tinted window of the pharmacy. 

He grips the steering wheel tight until his scarred knuckles bleach white under the strain, and sits in the parking lot, staring, unseeingly, at the shops. Pensive. Thoughtful. It gnarls over his expression until he's the picture of that grizzly-like intensity you often accuse him of. All furrowed brows and a pinched, angry twist to his lips. 

There's a series of complex equations running laps in his head. He's no stranger to this process, needing to make life or death decisions in less time it takes someone to snap their fingers, or tentatively stammer out his title. 

This one is more linear than the rest. One plus one, so to speak. But the weight of it is profound. Heavier, even, than deciding between the success of his mission and the life of an innocent bystander. 

(But he thinks he's just selfish like that.)

In his head, he debates the ethics of replacing all of these silly little tablets that stand in his way with sugar pills. 

It would be the quickest path to the end, but the risk-reward ratio ebbs and flows the more he considers things without the miasmic influence of that abomination throwing itself at the walls of its enclosure, howling in an endless cacophony of do it, do itdoit—

A better man wouldn't even have such a temptation. He supposes that's what you deserve, but he already had this particular crisis a few months after he met you, and realised that the things he wanted to do to you would undoubtedly put him on a list. Slapped so hard with a restraining order, his ears would still be buzzing. 

That something about you made his jowls twinge, and his teeth ache, and no amount of stay away from her, Price; she deserves better than you was going to keep his dirty hands from curling around your throat, leaving soot-stains on your skin in the shape of his fingerprints. Brandishing ownership in burst blood vessels; a pretty collar for you to wear because as much as you like to pretend otherwise—

You're a dog just like him. 

In any case, he's the best choice for you. The only one who'd burn the world just to keep you warm, and that's what you really need. Protection. 

And fuck—you toy with that particular urge that has always been etched in fine lines within the walls of bones; dipping your fingers into it, and spreading it over the apples of your cheek. Everything about you prickles along his hindbrain. Renders him from a modern man with modern ideals to an animal who can only speak in growls, snarls; pure primalism, all instinct. 

You're made for each other down to the bone. He's sure he could split your head apart and find that your cranial sutures are perfectly mirrored. Made in the same image: you were grown from his missing rib, and he always meant to be cradled in the brackets of your thighs. 

So, crisis of worthiness aside—because there are none, not anymore—he plots. Plans. Schemes. But his machinations keep catching on the soft fibrils of your wants. 

John doesn't know what he'd do if you changed your mind. 

(Or, rather, he does but that's another madness to unravel with his personal therapist.)

It's with this—the slight brandishing of his uncertainty in your certainty—that he gives up the idea, pocketing it for a later date, and drives home, back to you. 

He doesn't toss the bag on the counter, but sets it up perfectly, placing it as close to the edge where the bin sits under it. All it would take is a breath of wind for it to fall into the trash. 

That doesn't happen, though. You stare at the white, crinkled package for a moment as he sips on his tea, quietly contemplative. With your expression hidden from him, he has no idea what might be going through that pretty head of yours. Disappointment, he can only hope. And then you're reaching for it, fingers gripping the bag tightly in your fist. He hears the paper crumble. It sparks something inside his chest. A bloom of hope that you might just throw it out. Toss it in the bin—

You turn to him instead, knuckles white. 

“Thanks,” you say, and the matter is dropped. 

He goes to tuck that want back where it escaped, leaving slick trails of putrefying rot behind, but—

John peeks in the vanity later that evening, but where he expects to see the little rectangular package sitting in its usual spot between his aftershave and the mouthwash, he finds nothing. Just an empty spot on the ledge, spotlit by the lack of dust. A clean square of white paint, undisturbed. 

His jaw twinges. He wonders if you're hiding it from him, keeping it safe from his machinations, but then he finds it shoved in the drawer with his shaving kit, and the box of condoms he bought when you'd first started dating (for show, naturally—John had no intentions of using them and learned persuasion was your Achilles heel; that and you tended to get a little glossy-eyed whenever he growled filth in your ear, the smell of your cunt heavy on his breath). 

The package is crinkled like you squeezed it tight in your little fist before you tossed it in. 

You're always meticulous in the way you put things in their places. Even the junk drawer is organised, all neat. 

This speaks volumes, but he's not quite sure what it says. They are still here, though. Accessible. One is missing from the pack. It dampens his mood. 

He picks up his toothbrush, and runs through those calculations again to see how he can convince you to skip the one you're meant to take tomorrow. And the next day, and the next, and the next—

He stays awake as you sleep beside him, looking into how many days you can miss before your brand of birth control stops being effective. 

Seven pills in a row. 

He files it away, lost in thought. 

The next morning, he leaves his phone open on the bedside table with the article pulled up. He kisses you awake before he leaves to shower, humming something soft under his breath. 

When he returns, he finds you sitting up in bed with your knees drawn to your chest. There's something pensive about the look on your face. Paper soft, as though it would all blow away at a mere whisper. 

You regard him almost cooly but something raw, fractured splits over the ravine. A waterfall of midnight black sludge rains down. 

(He wonders if it tastes of the same rot, the same madness, as the basin of the untouched recesses of his head—)

“I'm working late tonight,” you murmur after a measured beat, and he can't place your tone. “Maybe we can watch a movie when I get home.” 

John nods, and your eyes drop, scaling down his bare, broad chest as he breathes in the flint staining the air. Your gaze is white-hot when it bludgeons into him, feverish. 

It doesn't take much beckoning at all to have him crawling toward you, towel ripped from his hips and thrown somewhere in the aether. 

As he steals the madness from your tongue, his eyes flicker to the phone still sitting on the table. It looks perfectly untouched. The screen is off. 

That, too, he files away. 

John comes to the succinct conclusion that the only means he has in his arsenal to get what he wants—legally, and somewhat morally, anyway—is persuasion. 

There's no recourse if he can water that burgeoning plant inside of you, make it seem like this is something you want, too. A family. With him. 

(Only him.)

He knows that you see things quite similarly to him. Wherein love is desire. Desire is hunger. And there's nothing more profound to you than to eat the person you love alive. Consumption of every part—the good, the beautiful, the bad, the ugly, and the rotted: skin, fat, muscles, blood, and bones. All of it. 

So, even if somewhere down the road you think you hate him for this, it'll be fine. He'll just consume that, too. 

John Price is a tenacious man. Stubborn. 

(Bullish, he hears around the barracks. Fuckin’ stubborn prick, too.)

It helps that this line of work is perfectly suited for such a peremptory drive to the finish line, no matter the cost. Utilitarian to a fault, despite his rather recalcitrant disposition. It's how he gets his way more often than not. Brutish dominance. Loutish suppression. 

But a near reckless, suicidal loyalty that attracts the sort of beasts this line of work needs. 

But that's work, not this. Not trying to convince you, his sugar-sweet (and viciously diabolical) lover, to bear the burden of giving him a family because society says it's uncouth (and illegal, morally reprehensible, villainous) for him to chain you to his bed to keep the darker parts of himself that want to rip into anyone who had the pleasure—pleasure that no longer belongs to them—of looking at you. 

That's all for him. 

(Nasty old bastard.) 

And, of course, because he's ready. Everything clicks. Locks into place. There's no one else out there for him. 

Really, though—it's your fault for prodding that beast in the first place. For letting inside your house, your bed. For thinking it could be tamed. And so. You should accept responsibility for it. 

(Nasty, nasty—)

But just as much as you know him, he knows you. You'll give him a litany of reasons why this shouldn't happen, and none of them will be because this isn't what you want. It'll be filled with reasons why you think he doesn't. 

And that simply won't do. 

So, he plots. Plans. 

The thing is. No one ever taught him how to hold things in his hands without crushing it. 

He doesn't think he can be delicate. Gentle. There's no way to gently nudge you into this. No. 

He'll convince you to yield the same way a tsunami convinces a house to move out of the way. 

Buried to the hilt in your cunt, he growls gospels into your ear about this beautiful Shangri-la, this sprawling castle he has in Spain until you're clenching down around him tight, conditioning your body to come at the thought of swelling with his child. About letting his seed take root, letting him knock you up. 

It's a crass image that he spits into your head—fuck you until it takes, love; breed this pretty cunt every day until you're fat and swollen—serves as the positive reinforcement to his classical conditioning. He'll turn you into one of Pavlov's mutts, salivating at the sound of him groaning into your ear as he fills your pussy up to the brim. He'll reshape you, change your wants until you only come around his cock when he's spitting his release against the plug of your womb. 

And when you make to get up, letting all his spend slip from your sloppy cunt to take your pill, he pulls you closer under the guise of wanting to feel your body on his, murmuring diabolical compromises he has no intention of letting you see through. 

“Later,” he rasps, pulling you closer. His mouth slots across your temple. “Just take it later, sweetheart. Later.”

“But—”

“It’ll be fine.” 

And, as if you'd been waiting for that reassurance, you melt into his hands, wet putty. 

(you take the bloody pill later, and he adds that to his mental calendar, adjusting the maths. He supposes he’ll just have to try harder next time.)

John's desire for you is overwhelming, all-encompassing, and he schemes around his wandering hands, bullying into your messy cunt only moments before your alarm is meant to go off, reminding you to take your pill, reinforcing that irritating little wall that keeps his come from reaching your womb. 

It goes off, but he hardly hears it over the roaring in his ears, the sweet, sweet litany of moans that slip out, staining the pillow with your pleasure. He just keeps fucking you through it, growling mindlessly into your ears about how badly he wants to come inside of you. His warnings, threats, about how close he is intertwining with your desperate begging for him to come, come inside me, John is the most beautiful harmonisation he'd ever heard, and it sews itself into his marrow, polluting the ugliness inside with a new, fresh hell for him to torture himself with. That delicious pleasure-pain that drives him mad—

He fills you up, palm pressed taut to your lower belly as he spits his virile release deep into your cunt. He can feel the heavy outline of his cock against your skin, stuffed full of him, and it's this—the way he moulds your body around him, cock visible through your flesh—that makes his eyes roll back into his head. Makes the urge to fuck, to breed, to claim bludgeon into him, shattering reason, logic. He wants to change you, irrevocably. Forever. To mar you with his touch, his essence. 

“Mine,” he chokes out, ugly and raw. It's a mangled mess in his throat. A threat. “All fucking mine, aren't you, love? All mine—”

His words seem to throw you into another climax, cunt clenching greedily down around him as he softens inside of you, plugging you up. You liked that, he notes, purs. The notion brands itself across his resolve, reshaping it into something that would make anyone else recoil in fear, disgust. 

But you preen at this creature that bares its fangs at you, snaps wicked teeth against your jugular. Fingers threading through its hair, shushing it, soothing it, as you pull it back into your embrace, head tucked against your chest. You lull it into complacency with the heavy thud of your heart, your sweet, earthy scent. 

What a pair, he thinks, and clamps his hands around your wrist when you murmur something about taking your pill now. Need to take it before it gets too late, John—

He makes his move, distracts you with his mouth, his tongue. 

“Just take it after,” he murmurs into your pussy, thighs bracketing around his head. His hands pull your waist down, pressing you harder against his mouth. “Later, love. It'll be fine—”

“But, John—”

The protest dies, turns to ash, when he grunts, sealing his lips around your clit, bullying it with the rasping press of tongue until you're arching your back, riding his face. Thoughts of your silly pill are gone, swallowed by him as you gush, drenching his mouth in your slick. 

And after, when you make to get up again, he pulls you close instead, voice curling around you like smoke when he tells you to take it after. 

“No, love. Stay in bed with me,” he peppers kisses to your cheek, your jaw, chin, sweetening his words, and folds you into the tight embrace of his arms. “Take it in the morning. It'll be fine to miss a day.”

You level him with something that shadows the ravines in your gaze with pure, unadulterated scepticism, but as he scouts the canyons, the valleys, the pretty craters that make up the composite of your eyes, he finds no discernible trace of wariness, uncertainty. The terse line in his shoulders ease. 

But while fossicking around he unearths something else. Something a bit more enigmatic, calculative, than doubt. Equivocal, slippery, it runs from him when he tries to give chase, tucking itself back into the harsh tenebrous that shades the landscape. 

He hums, wanting to ask, but you sigh in quasi-acquiescence, and burrow deeper into his embrace. 

“Fine,” you huff, but he tastes a purring sense of satisfaction in the air. “I'll take it tomorrow instead.” 

“Good girl.” The praise slips out, low and gritty, perfumed with his heavy greed. 

You shiver against him. The hitch in your throat is quiet in the bedroom, but to him, it sounds like a gunshot. 

John keeps meticulous track of the empty pill slots, and notes with a sticky, resinous sense of glee that the numbers are becoming muddled, skewed. Later becomes tomorrow, and your soft acquiesce has days skipped. Missed. 

You can't double up, you huff to him, mournfully slinking into the bed. It's nearly one in the morning. Technically, a brand new day. I absolutely have to take it tomorrow, John. Make sure you remind me—

There's something pointed in your tone. Something oil-slick. He nods, bites back a grin. 

“Sure,” he pulls you close, breathes in the sweet, loamy scent of you—sweat and sex and the lingering remnants of your perfume, your soap—and lets it stain his lungs. “I can do that.” 

You say nothing at all when he doesn't bring it up until well past midnight the next day, offering little more than an exasperated groan, and a huffy roll of your eyes, as if this was just a missed dinner with friends and not a life-changing misstep. 

(The beast purrs. He places his hand over his chest, and feels the rumble under his skin.)

“Need to be more responsible than this, John,” you say, squirming in his hold to try and rush to the washroom to take that pesky little pill. 

“Sorry, love,” he offers, and means none of it. Clings tighter to you. “Got a bit carried away today, is all.” 

“It's not your fault—” something curls out from a dark crevasse when you look at him. “I've been so—off lately, you know? Must be the new batch. Maybe I should call my doctor.” 

He stills. Body tensing, coiling. John tries to speak, but the words are ash on his tongue. He clears his throat. 

“Could stop taking it.” 

It crackles in the air. Hangs heavy like a stormcloud. 

You blink, stunned. But it's artificial, hollow. Pulled from a wicker basket where you keep all your different skins. 

“You mean—what? Stop it all together—?”

You flit in the space once more, but it's less of an injured bird searching for an escape, he realises suddenly, and more of—

A boomslang. 

One rearing up, searching for the perfect place to strike. 

Wishful thinking, though, because you're flustered and skittish once more, a small prey animal he isn't sure what he wants to do the most—sink his teeth into you, tear you into pieces, and devour you whole, or hide you away from the world. 

“I can look for something else in the meantime,” you sound shy, hesitant, and it prickles across his skin. “But we'd need to be careful, you know. Otherwise you might actually get me pregnant.”

He tries to swallow his groan. Chokes on it instead. 

“Sure, sure—” he hacks into his palm. “Of course, love. We'll be safe. I'll pull out—”

Naturally, he doesn't. Makes no effort to even try despite promising you he is. 

“Not my fault your pussy won't let go of me, love,” he grumbles, hand cupping your weeping sex in his palm. The heat of you is searing. Blistering. He thinks he could happily melt inside of it for the rest of his life, and leans down to whisper his devotion into your come-slicked folds, the bitter tang of you, of him, admixing on his tongue. An elixir he could drown in. 

You huff at him after, all glossy-eyed and sex-drunk, and tell him to please try harder, John, I'll have to get plan b tomorrow—

You don't, but the threat of it, the possibility, lingers in the back of his mind, souring his thoughts. 

Next time, and I'll have to, John, you say, featherlight, lips pressed against the head of his cock. A warning, a goddamn tease—

His voice is strained, pinched. “Of course, love,” and he guides your mouth back to his cock, letting the matter fall into pieces when you suck on the sensitive head, tongue licking, coy and kittenish, over his frenulum. 

It's only later, when watches you swallow down his come, that the beast slinks out of the shadows, pocketing the fragments. 

You're off birth control—barely any scheming words of whispered concern needed—but the idea of you taking a little pill to wipe away his efforts has him pulling back. Recalibrating his plans. 

He decides on a different route to the same end. 

Damnation at your own hand. 

John, for his credit, does begin to pull out after that—albeit, with a great deal of agonised reluctance—and instead comes all over your pretty face. 

With thick ropes of his pearlescent spend dripping down the apples of your heated cheeks, he doesn't think he's ever seen a sight more beautiful than this. 

And one with more opportunity.

Slowly, he swipes at it with his thumb and then promptly brings it down, hard, on your clit. You flinch, mewling at the overstimulation, and the threat he brings so close to your raw, unprotected sex. It's dangerous. This thin line he dances along could snap at any moment. Could rain hellfire and fury over his broad shoulders, unmake all the progress he'd steadily built up. 

He walks the precipice, anyway. He pulls his hand away, and brings two fingers up to curve over your cheeks. His thumb, stained with your slick and his come, slides across your bottom lip. 

The pout you give him—all wet-eyed lachrymose—has his spent cock twitching against his sticky thigh. “Fuck, love. Gonna send me to an early grave if you keep starin’ at me like that.” 

“You're cracked,” you slur around his thumb. In retaliation, he digs it into your tongue, and preens—full of nasty, gnarled satisfaction—when your eyes flutter, rolling into the back of your head at the taste. 

With this brief distraction, he drops his come-stained fingers to your mound, and rubs along the swollen rim of your hole. Just touching, pressing. A tease, a whisper. 

You tense. “John—” it's muffled around his thumb, and he isn't sure if it's a warning or a plea. 

He pushes the tips in, barely to the first knuckle, and just pets around your rim. 

It's a battle of wills, now. “No more than this,” he promises, and the undercurrent of his threat rents the air. Makes you bristle. 

You always loved a challenge—especially coming from him. 

“Just the tip?” You tease, spittle running down your chin. Your eyes are dark—midnight skies, ink black—and he's struck by the afterimage of himself in those pools. Made in the same image. 

He grunts, slides into the first knuckle, and scissors them apart. 

“John—” it's breathless. Your teeth spear his thumb, tight around his bone. He wants nothing more than to have you bite down hard, scar his bones with the gnawed meteors of your desire. Your desperation. “Fuck—please—”

You give in so prettily, and he barely has a moment to think about how quick it's been when you angle your hips, hand falling to grip his wrist tight as you slide down his fingers, all the way to the last knuckle. 

You clench around him like a vice. A pretty bow. He fucks you with his fingers, meeting your shallow thrusts with ones of his own, slamming viciously into your pussy as he coos adorations into your ear. 

With his other hand, he reaches down and fists himself over your bare mound, pressing the tip against your clit where it weeps prespend over your flesh. His thumb sweeps across what spills out, dragging it back down to your sopping hole, pushing it inside. 

It's probably not enough to reach your womb, to get you pregnant, but he clings to that tantalising fantasy as he drills his fingers into you until you come, breathlessly begging him to fuck you harder, to fill you up—

He isn't even fucking you with his cock, and you still beg him for it. 

John pushes the tip into your slit, fingers still buried deep inside of your throbbing pussy, and groans with the force of his release. It makes him dizzy, almost nauseous with it, filling his head with nothing but the sweet, wounded sound of your moans filling the room, and the wet squelch of his fingers pulling out of you. 

When he catches the threads of cognisance in his fingers once more, he leans back on his haunches, chest heaving, and brands the messy sight of your pussy fluttering, clenching around nothing, as his spend drips down your slit, over your hole, and pools in the sheets below. 

He's not sure if heaven exists, but he knows the sight of you, breathless and whimpering on his bed, is the closest a man like him will ever come to seeing it. 

The push-pull of this little game stretches on. 

Price likes to see just how far he toe the line before you're whimpering into the sheets, telling him don't, John, don't come inside me, I'm not anything, John—and he's ripping himself away from the tight clutch of your wet, hot cunt, and coming all over you.

The illicit tease of barely pulling out in time, and then scooping up the mess he makes on your face, your breasts, your belly, your ass, lower back, thighs, and spooning it into your pussy until it's a fixture in your bedroom ritual. 

And maybe it's the threat of it all, of playing such a dangerous game, seems to cudgel under his skin the most, ripping apart the thin veneer of that man he once pretended to be—righteous and good—shedding it off with each hiccupped gasp you make when he presses his come-slicked fingers inside of you, murmuring guttural words of affection in the shape of impish mockery (want it bad, don't you, sweet thing; so fuckin’ greedy for it, love—). 

He likes it the most when he can fuck you stupid on his fingers. Cockdrunk, and come-starved (because you are, of course; he hasn't come inside of your cunt in weeks, and doesn't miss the mournfully pitiful whines you give when he pulls out, depriving you of the pleasure of feeling him come inside you), you're too blissed out, swimming in pleasure, to think about what he's doing. 

In fact, he doesn't really give you much of a chance to think at all. 

The next few weeks are filled with him fucking you each night brutally, viciously, snarling low in your ear about how bad he wants to come in you, stuff you full, and then keep you plugged up all night with his cock that it takes, and then pulling out right before, committing the sight of your betrayed expression to memory where it'll sit like a trophy when you finally break. 

You make an appointment with your gynaecologist, and circle the date on his calendar. 

John notes it down. Tucks it away. 

And then he amps up the pressure.

John's fingers root behind your knees, pushing your thighs apart as he settles between them. His gaze drills into your bare cunt, slick and wet, and so ready for him. Eager for it. 

He'd counted the days, and knows that if there's ever the absolute worst time to have unprotected sex, to come inside of you, is now. 

Which, of course, means he has to. The clause in that is ironclad. Apodictic. 

“Bit dangerous,” he rasps, and lifts your leg up, resting your ankle on his shoulder. You fluster beneath him, panting and pretty, and fuck—he’s not pulling out of your pussy tonight at all. “Should I pull out?” 

It's a tease. A test. 

He reaches down as he says the words, gripping his cock and bringing it down against your wet heat. The bare, blunt head of his cocks slaps against your clit, and you arch, keening. Nails bite into the thick muscles of his biceps, and he leans into the sharp sting. Letting it ground him. Centre him. 

This will be your cacoëthes. 

He's been depriving you for weeks, and John knows that you're wanting for it. Desperate. The little twitches your hips give, as if begging him to fill you up, are proof enough of how much you want this. 

This. The dream he dripped into your ears, hot oil congealing over your frontal lobe; infectious and thick. You can try to chisel it off, but the pollution is already damning. Ruining. 

You want this. He wears the axiom like armour. 

And you beg for it—eyes shaded in gut wrenchingly beautiful lachrymose—and John snuffles closer, inching the weeping head of his cock into your tight, warm heat. 

The sight of splitting you open is something he never grows tired of. Something that, without fail, makes his balls ache. His chest thrum. Blood turns to ichor. To wine. He's drunk on the contrast made between you—a garish chiaroscuro of your pretty pussy, soft and sickly sweet—almost nauseatingly so—swallowing down the fat, girthy length of his cock. The thick streams of veins running along the flushed, heavy shaft against your puffy, soft folds is almost hideous. Sinful. He can't equate it to anything else except corruption. The horrific beast sullying the princess. 

And fuck—

The thought alone makes him throb. 

He's sullied you plenty, he reckons, and yet you always look so sweet. Especially now, when your rim is stretched taut around the thick of him, pussy squeezing, clenching around him in a vice, as if you weren't sure to push him out or pull him deeper. 

John decides for you. Opting instead to push your knees down to your chest, nearly brushing your ears, and follows with the bulk of his body until he feels your breath rush out of your lungs. You struggle for a moment, gasping wetly into his ear as his weight—every bearish pound of it—rests on you in the perfect mating press. Your bite into his biceps, keening prettily into his ear as he bullies the full length of his cock into you. Spears you open. Splits you apart. 

He can feel you gush around him, drenching his groin and thighs with your slick. 

Like this—chest to chest, forced to breathe in the same air, the same madness—he likes to just stare at you, taking in the heat simmering under your skin, the sweat beading along your temple, the pinch in your brow as you struggle to adjust to the sheer width of him cudgelling you open. A battering ram you're forced to make room for. 

He takes it all in, each flicker of emotion, each heaving gasp. Burns it into his memory. Lets it soften the iron around his heart. Keeps it there, nestled in the cradle of his limited love, held aloft by indelicate, bearish hands. This sweet thing. 

He can't wait to ruin it. 

If these weeks leading up to this were lovemaking, fucking, then this, this, is mating. Animalistic. Primal. He pushes in as deep as he can, until the tip kisses the ripened seal of your womb, and grinds his hips cruelly into the cradle of your thighs. 

Your nails leave bloodied indents in his flesh. A scar he'll proudly bear the mark of. A tattoo of the time when he turned you into something new. 

His balls are soaked. The sheets, too. He mocks you for it, a rasping growl lodged deep in his throat, taunting you about how fucking wet you are for him. How badly you need it. 

“Gotta plug you up, hm?” He grunts, and sets a pace that serves only to accentuate the sloppy, messy squelch of your cunt. 

His cock pistoning into you, alternating between deep, full thrusts that knock the air from your lungs, and heavy, slow plunges meant to badger the blunt head of his cock against your walls. 

You seem to like it best when he shifts his weight between each thigh, content to just grind into you. Make you feel every inch of him. You cling to him, yowling in his ear about how good it feels, how much you love this, love his cock—

The thick bed of wry, umber curls on his chest, stomach, and groin grow slick with sweat from the intensity of it all, from the shared heat. Pressed tight against you, he feels every quiver. Every flinch. Each moan is made known in a slight reverberation across his skin before he hears it. 

Drenched in sweat, glued to you as he fucks you into the mattress, John feels very much like the beast making a house out of a twisted whim in his head. Feverish, sick, he drives into you with the single minded goal of filling that home up with three. Then four. Five—

As many as you'll let him.

And he almost loses himself to that thought alone. Dancing sugar plums that make his balls tighten. He stems the flood by pulling out of you, letting his heavy cock slap against your sticky, soaked cunt as he heaves into your hairline, sucking in the heady loam, the humus, of your scent. 

The whimper you make when he pulls out of you sounds like a wounded animal, and the noise tickles across his hindbrain. His jaw aches. He bites down on a snarl as you thrash against him, mindless with the need to have him inside of you. It brings a nasty, vicious curl to the ends of his mouth, and he doesn't even bother trying to tamper it down. John lifts his head and lets you see his foaming muzzle, drooling with thick globes of saliva. 

“Stay still,” he growls, low and dangerous. It's as much of a warning as it is a command, and the way you react, tensing, coiling tight—the flash of unease. Shock. And then the need. Achy, heavy. He feels it against his jugular when you shiver, moaning his name into the space between you where it reeks of desperation. 

To soften the submissive tremble in your jaw—and maybe to temper down the challenging talons sharpening in your gaze—he nuzzles his cheek against yours, peppers wet kisses to your skin. He licks across your jaw, bites down on your flesh. 

He tastes salt and sin on your skin. 

(His eyes roll so far back into his skull he thinks he might get lost.)

“Gonna cum on your pretty cunt if you don't stop squirming, love.” 

And John loves you most for your waspish intelligence—the ire smouldering in your throat. The way you bite back just as hard, never afraid to bear teeth when he snarls. He doesn't think he could ever love someone too soft—not without tearing them to pieces. To shreds. 

But you wear plush, tender conchoidal skin over jagged, rough obsidian. He'll ruin himself if he ever tries to rip you apart. 

Like this, though—you melt. 

All that keen, vicious intelligence snuffed out. His scheming Cleopatra tamed on his cock. 

Your heels dig into the back of his thighs, urging him closer to your sex. “Come on, John, just fuck me, fuck me already—”

(Tamed, though, perhaps being a misnomer.)

He huffs into your neck. “Impatient little quean.”

It gets him a sharp bite to the tip of his ear, and the floor roars so loudly in his veins, he gets dizzy from it. 

“Fuck—”

He's pressing back into you again, into your warm, tight heat, and it's nirvana kissing his nerves. Liquifying his spine. He rolls into you with a weighted groan, buried to the hilt once more. 

But even with the respite, he knows he won't last. 

John needs you fucked stupid, docile and soft just for him, and sets out to do just that. Pounding into you with a spiteful twist of his hips that he knows will leave you a little sore, and tender tomorrow. But the idea of spreading your puffy, achy folds apart and soothing the slight hurt with his tongue for hours until you're sobbing into the cushions quells any hesitation that rears, begging him to slow down. 

Go easy on your pretty cunt.

(As if.)

John batters into you until your eyes glaze over, and your chin, cheeks, smear with drool. Until the challenge in midnight black melts into submission. Docile, and malleable. Perfect for him to mould. Shape. 

Reshape.

He glues to you, touch starved and tactile, and basks in the liquid heat that blooms from deep within you. 

“Gonna cum soon,” he snarls, broken by the heave in his chest as he fucks into you, starved. “Gotta pull out, love—”

You're gripping him tighter, anchoring him to your body. You haven't come yet. Something he dangles in front of you like a threat. 

He watches the slow crawl of realisation crest over your messy face, and thinks he falls just a little bit more in love with you at the sight of your little pout. 

Loves, even more, the way it breaks apart when he pounds into you harder, viciously, watching drool dribble off your chin, and reason leak from your ears—

“Please, John—” the sound of your whimpering has him grunting, head dizzy with the saccharine sweet taste of it on his tongue. “Please, please—come inside me. I–I want you to–to fill me up—”

“Yeah?” He taunts, mean and breathless. “Want me to come inside your sloppy cunt? Dangerous, ain't it? Jus’ might take, sweet thing. Is that what you want?”

You're howling a litany of sin into his ear, desperation drenches each clamour of his name, each orison uttered, begging him to come, to fill you up, and then—

“Fuck—I want it so bad—” his head is filled with static. Whitenoise. “Want it to take, John—”

He comes inside of you, cock pulsing so hard it feels like a sob. Filling you up. Wishing on all the stars that it takes—

As a reward for your good behaviour, he spreads you out over the sheets, and growls his approval into your sopping pussy, drenching himself with the taste, the smell, of you, promising to wear it like a perfume so everyone knows how good you are for him. Him, alone. 

(His, his, his—)

When you come, you nearly smother him, and he thinks he sees a glimpse of nirvana in baby soft yellow before he's pulled back by your shaking hands brushing the hair off his sweat-slicked forehead. 

“Are you okay, John—”

He rolls you under him, fucking into your drenched pussy like a man starved. That tantalising vision glues itself to his hindbrain, so close he can scent the fresh dew of fresh milk, and warm bread in his nose. Feel the bump of your stomach. 

He's almost angry about it, about being ripped away from that dream, and takes his aggression out on your sloppy, leaking cunt. The way his come trickles out, staining the mattress below and the back of your thighs has him growling darkly into your nape. 

“Keep it in,” he snarls, words sharpened on the whetstone of his need. “Keep it all inside, love.” 

“Ah, John, John—” something falls from your split-slicked lips, and his fingers bite into your hips. Punishment for the slurred backtalk. 

“I'll spank your ass if any of it leaks out—”

It does. Of course it does. 

He bends you over his knee, and slaps his broad, rough palm over each cheek ten times before deliriously shoving two thick fingers into your sloppy cunt, stuffing his come back inside your tender, swollen hole, rough and mean, as you howl, squirming in his lap about how you promise you'll be good next time, John, please—I'll keep it all in, I swear, I—

“You fuckin’ better, love.” He groans, and thinks about cumming on your messy face, all slick with sweat, and drool, but decides against it. A waste, he thinks, and leans over you to shove the thick, twisting length of his angry cock inside you to the hilt just spit his release against your seal once more. 

“That was…” You're still panting against his chest, eyes dazed, and body laxed. Melted wax over his chest. “Intense,” you settle on after a beat. 

There's a hiccup in your breath when he hums, chest rumbling with the sound. 

“Mm, but you liked it, didn't you?”

Of course you did. Of course. The evidence of it is drying, tacky and slick, on his groin, his thighs. 

You burrow into his side, peeking at him from over the thick bed of wry curls that clot over his chest. “You're fucking me like you haven't in years, John. Makes me wonder if you have an agenda.”

He considers your words. The weight of them. Wonders just how much you've clued into, but huffs when he catches the same look in your eyes as the one reflected in his own.

Cheeky little—

“Can't I just want to fuck you? Not everything has to be about schemes, love.” 

The oil of his lies, the sticky resin of his evasion makes you huff into his skin.

In all his meticulous planning, he'd picked up several books on this particular topic, and scoured every available, reputable, site he could find. John knows what to look out for by now, and keeps a keen eye on you—one that very quickly dips into obsessiveness, but you're kind enough to call it overbearing. 

Jesus Christ, John, why are you asking me how many times I pissed today? 

He just needs to wait things out. 

But rather irritatingly, he's called away overseas for the next week. 

Ah, well. He'll have to try harder next time. 

He arrives in Heathrow mid-morning, and follows Laswell into the office. There's a mountain of reports to fill out—things that, rather irritatingly, require his signature—and resolves to spend the rest of the day hunched over at his desk, even though there's an itch in the back of his skull demanding he go home. 

It is always like this, though—both the post-mission ritual of banal paperwork that seems almost comical considering what he'd just done, and the undeniable urge to flee back into the sanctuary of your shared home. 

His bones ache for it. 

Laswell huffs when he lingers by the exit, and he swallows a groan. 

While he was away, you'd been silent. Moreso than usual. 

Where he'd have expected an update on what was going on—the mundanity of your life that he clings to when the beast in his head whets its talons a little too sharp, digs into a little too deep—you’ve gone silent. Not radio. Not completely. But the information you give is sparse. Cagey.

You don't tell him about the visit to the gynaecologist, offering nothing but a quiet hum into the receiver, all blase and nonchalant, and a simple, equivocal: “good.” 

He tucks it away, lets the matter drop. 

If he timed things correctly—barring your impish prevarication aside—then something will begin to show soon. You would have mentioned something. Some nominal change to your physical well-being, but when pried, pressed, you huff. 

“I'm good, John. When are you coming home, anyway?”

He raps his knuckles on his desk, still smarting from the punches he'd thrown recklessly this past week, too keyed up to let his anger simmer instead of boil, and thinks. About you. About this. 

A week isn't a lot of time—he’s been called away for months in the past—but this feels like it's lingering. Time stretched and distorted. Elongated. And a part of him feels chipped, fractured after touchdown. 

It wasn't as if this particular assignment was any more, or less, dangerous than the ones he went on before. If anything, it was comparatively mild. Muted. He honed into his training, and did his goddamn job. And yet—

Yet. 

You lived in the spaces he occupied. The air he breathed. The water he drank. 

He brought you with him, something he's never, ever, done before. Perched pretty on his shoulder, he heard your voice in his head with every step he took, every radio call. 

But it was hallucinatory. Chimerical. You weren't there, you were here, but the problem lies in the lack of a divide that usually bifurcates the world into two fractions: his job and you.

It eats at him. 

He brought you where he's never taken anyone before. Never let them in. 

His thoughts were asunder. Pulled in all directions, but the centre was always you. His compass pointing north. He wants you. Needs you. His whole being has been recalibrated with the needle aimed toward you. 

An alert on his phone shakes him from his reverie. 

He reaches for it, slides his hand across the lockbar. The notification pops up. A message from his bank. 

His card—the one he gave you, the one you've used all of once to buy a chocolate bar when he gruffly, surely, complained about you not spending his money—has been used. 

Curious now, he opens his app, eyes scanning the threadbare purchases—all mostly interest fees and service charges, bar one. It was recently used at a drugstore for under twenty dollars. 

He doesn't know what this means, what you're playing at. He makes to text you, but he gets an email next. 

Thank you for your purchase; here is your e-receipt. 

His heart does something strange in his chest. Turns in on itself. Goes all askew. 

Not only are you using his card, you're using his account, too. He clicks it, eyes scanning through the purchases (only two), and blinks. 

A card, and—

His want takes the shape of a hand, presses against his jugular. 

—a pregnancy test. 

He knew when he started this game that this was, of course, the inevitable outcome, but having it here, right in front of him—in that sneaky, noncommittal way you always do things; behind his back, and in the dark, like you enjoy watching him try and sniff out the truth—has his belly knotting up. Churning. 

A pregnancy test. 

Fuck—

(and out of all the ways to tell him, you cheeky little—)

He's up out of his chair before he's even aware that he's standing. 

“Laswell,” he gets out, and can't be sure how his voice is so measured when his head is being shredded into pieces. “I'm out for the rest of the day. This whole bloody week, too—”

“Something bad happen?” 

His hands shake when he pulls his jacket on, slips his car keys into his hands. “No. Quite the opposite, actually. I'm going to be a father. A bloody dad—”

It's on that sentiment when his voice breaks. Shatters. He clears his throat, blinks furiously. Fuck. Fuck. It's happening—

Shangri-la sits in his fist, taking the shape of an e-mailed receipt. 

In his periphery, he sees Simon's head come up. Watching him. Measured. 

Laswell, too, eyes him with a degree of wariness. He supposes to them this means the end of everything. 

She breathes in. “Tuscany would be my choice.”

“Oh?” He tears his eyes away from the screen, gracing her with a steady, unflinching look. “Was thinking something a bit more local. Liverpool.”

It gets a scoff, one full of disgust. “She'll divorce you within the year.” 

“I'm having a baby, Laswell. Not getting married.”

“Oh, no?” It's a challenge. “I seem to recall something about someone being a proper gentleman, or was that just the lie you told your unofficial missus?”

“We'll get married. That's not up for debate—” an intern makes an alarmed face, like perhaps it ought to be. Had he not been holding nirvana in his hand, he might be a bit more cautious with his madness. Too bloody bad. “Wherever she wants—Tuscany, Udaipur, fucking Siberia. I don't care. What I’m a bit more concerned with is my expectant wife.” 

“Soon-to-be,” she volleys, just because she knows it's the sort of thing that will itch under his skin. 

“Already is, Laswell.” He gripes, flat. “Or damn near close to it.” 

“If she knows what's good for her, she'll say no.”

“Lucky me, then, that she doesn't.” 

Lucky him, indeed. 

On his way out, Ghost utters a heated congratulations to him, and John can see his gaze is absent. Turned inward, mind whirring. Reeling. He can hear the gears grind from where he stands, and if the ink-black madness in his lieutenant’s drifting, pensive eyes means much of anything, then John sends a silent hail mary to whatever unlucky person was misfortune enough to unleash the muzzle on that particular dog. 

Well. It's not really his problem. Until it is. Until it becomes one. But since it's not something that'll impact him in the next five minutes, he tucks it away. “Thanks.” 

He doesn't linger. Doesn't, really, even remember the ride home, head buzzing with thoughts that keep twisting around themselves, driving him mental. Things like, is it real? what if you were joking. what you weren't? 

Oh, fuck—

You better not be. 

But you wouldn't. You're conniving and wily, but you're not cruel. 

This is happening, then. 

You've been playing house with matches inside of a tinderbox. He shouldn't be surprised when it all goes up in flames, in smoke, but as he walks through the door, and glimpses the pregnancy test perched innocently on the counter beside a card—congrats, daddy (and the caricature of a man in a pinstripe suit nearly makes him gag)—he feels all the maligned pieces inside of crack. 

It shifts—

You walk out, hand cupped protectively over your lower belly. Eyes gleaming like a wild cat crouched low in the tussocks surrounding the savannah, watching him an eager sense of anticipation, excitement, and just the slightest edge of what he can only imagine the unfortunate mate of a black widow sees before it's consumed. Spare parts. 

It thrums inside of him. Ignites this wicker basket he calls a heart until it's cinder. Ash. Soot. He breathes it in. Tastes you on his tongue. 

John doesn't have the words. Can't think beyond the steady brag of his burning heart. 

His. His.

—and then it all falls into place. 

Yours.

He dotes on you with an almost unhinged devotion, murmuring stilted, gruff words of muted affection into the shallow bump on your belly. Ones that you, politely, pretend not to hear. 

A new bedtime ritual, one he adheres to with an almost obsessive need. 

Until it becomes too much. 

“Go and get my prenatal vitamins from the washroom, please. I just need five minutes without you smothering me, you stupid bear of a man.”

“You love it,” he grumbles, but acquiesces, giving your small, barely there bump a pat. “I'll be back soon.”

“Oh, no… please take your time.” 

Despite the prickle in your tongue, your eyes are soft. Warm. Melting him just a little more. 

John pulls away, and doesn't even pretend the reluctance to be apart is feigned. 

“It's in the drawer,” you call, voice stretched. Echoing. “Next to your shaving cream.” 

He pulls the drawer open, scanning the contents briefly, before finding the purple bottle in the back. Why you chose here of all places to put the bloody things—

His knuckles knock against the old box of condoms, tipping it over. There's a strange rattle as it falls, and his brows furrow at the noise. 

Curiously, he reaches for it. Shakes it as he picks it up. The same sounds spill out. He pops the flap of the box open, peering inside, and—

A gruff chuckle crackles in his throat. 

Inside the old box of condoms—the ones he never bothered to throw out, or use—is an accumulation of all the pills you'd meant to take. 

His jowls ache. He rubs at his jaw with his hand, and feels the skittish patter of his heart thudding out of his skin. Madness in his veins. 

John closes the drawer with his knee, and then tosses the box of condoms in the bin, leaving it for you to find later when you're inevitably wracked by another wave of morning sickness. A little shred of vindication for this little game you made him play. 

Though he supposes turn-about is fair play, and the number of pills in the box is less than the months he spent scheming for this vision of his.  

In the back of his head, the beast purrs.

“Do we need to play these games again for the next one,” he rasps. “Or can I just fuck you until it takes.” 

You blink at him, wide and owlish. Full of faux innocence as you coax the beast out of hiding. “I don't know what you're talking about, John.” 

More games, then. He thinks he might crack open your ribcage and rest his weary head on the frantic beat of your heart. 

“Mm, don't know what I'd do without you,” he says, guns aching. He reaches for the pack of gum (no smoking around the baby or you'd toss him off the balcony), and pops a spearmint into his mouth. “Might live longer, I reckon, but—”

Your elbow digs into his side. “You sure about that?”

He just kisses your crown in response, and places his heavy, scarred hand over the curve of your belly. The beast inside purrs, content for now. Satiated. 

When he looks into your midnight eyes, he finds your own beast slumbering away. 

A match made in a tinderbox, he guesses, and kisses you until you're dizzy. His very own Shangri-la sitting pretty inside his bed, nestled in the castle in Spain you helped him build.

Will help him fill. 

[number1mingyustan]

Still Yours

idol!mingyu x fem!reader

Warnings: kissing, cursing, grinding, lots of sexual tension, explicit smut, protected sex (missionary), fingering (f.), low-key rough sex, scratching, teasing, they're so cute and domestic ugh, teensy bit (a lot) of angst cuz i can't live without it, if you realllyy read into it it’s a lil toxic but they’re so cute 😪

Summary: When you’re with him, the time around you ceases to exist. You’ve got your own little bubble that’s immune to reality where he’s just yours.

Word Count: 5.1k

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(a/n: i usually don't read/write content where they idols because I'm simply not a fan. but i read a jk fic like this recently and it was a masterpiece. to say the least i was inspired so shout out to that author and i hope you enjoy)

The cool outside air fills your lungs as you step onto the sidewalk. It’s not cold, just fresh and cool enough to rejuvenate you from the hot sweaty air from inside of the club.

It’s a lot emptier out here, it helps to clear your mind. There’s only two or three other people out here, having a smoke in silence or waiting impatiently for an uber.

Your mind is still just a little bit muggy from the alcohol coursing through your veins, but being outside has instantly given you clarity.

You just couldn’t be in there any longer. The guy at the bar just could not take a hint. He was cute too, the type of guy you would typically be interested in. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t interested in him at first.

But then halfway through your conversation and his hand touched your lower back, the guilt settled in. It suddenly felt so wrong. The guy in the club’s hand didn’t feel the same as when he does it.

Almost instantly, it registered in your mind. This stranger didn't compare. He had nothing on the guy who really has your heart.

The famous idol who doesn't hesitate to answer your phone calls or cook for you when you're hungry.

This guy was a nobody.

One phone call and you’d have so much better.

The stranger clearly didn’t pick up on your shift in energy, probably too drunk to notice how you started to pull away. You were suddenly uninterested in anything he had to say and it was exhausting to have to fake laugh and smile as you tried to make excuses as to why you weren’t going home with him tonight.

But he was persistent and suddenly felt too touchy. He probably wasn't touching you as much as you thought, but you were suddenly so aware of him that it felt wrong with him being so close. His very presence alone was irritating. You finally caught the attention of one of your friends and gave her the ‘SOS’ look. She drunkenly stumbled over to you and pulled away from the conversation somewhat smoothly.

You thanked her before letting her know you were stepping out to get some fresh air.

But now it's a little after one in the morning and your thoughts are clouded with him. Your mind begins to wander to the moments you've shared over the past few years. The pet names, the sleepovers with homemade face masks, the phone calls from his hotel rooms.

Now you're texting him.

You: you awake?

________

Mingyu sits at home on the couch, beer in hand as the TV flashes in front of him. He's watching a movie he's got no real interest in, but he can't sleep. He's been home for a little more than a day and he's still got major jetlag ruining his sleep schedule.

No matter how hectic his life has been, he always dreads the jetlag.

The buzz of his phone captures his attention and he can't avoid the smile that pulls on his lips when he sees your name flash on the screen.

Mingyu: nah, sleeping

You giggle at your phone, smiling at the device just as he is. Your hands move a little slower to text back as the cool air outside changes your body temperature. You shiver, blowing on your hands as they grow cold.

You: call me

The message flashes delivered briefly before your screen changes entirely. You're surprised to see an incoming FaceTime and not a regular call.

You hold the phone up to your face, fixing your hair before you hit answer.

He lays on the couch in the living room, the darkness surrounding him heavily contrasts the colorful beams of light that flash behind you. The loud music thumps in the background.

"Hi." He smiles.

"Hi," You grin.

You feel giddy inside. Partially because you were drinking a bit and mostly because you're talking to him again. It's been quite some time since you've seen each other.

"Where are you?" He asks first.

You take a moment to respond as you walk toward the curb. You fix your dress and sit on the curb of the sidewalk, holding the phone up to your face.

"At the club," You reply.

"Ah, fun night I presume?" He asks.

You shake your head. "Not really."

"Sorry to hear that Shorty," He says.

Your heart skips a beat at the nickname. Your heart always leaps when he calls you that.

"Yeah, not really my thing anyway," You frown.

"I remember, surprised you're even there this late," He comments.

You smile. He remembers.

"Took some convincing from my friends. It wasn't so bad when we were drinking earlier, but then it started to hit and I wasn't feeling it anymore," You say, chipping away at the white nail polish on your fingers.

"They didn't abandon you, did they?" He asks, voice laced with concern.

"Who? My friends? No, they were looking out for me but I just wasn't feeling it anymore so I told them I was stepping outside for a minute," You continue to chip away at the polish mindlessly.

"I don't like you being alone like that, especially if you've been drinking," He frowns.

"I'm okay, I promise..." You assure him. "I wanna see you though."

A boyish smile forms on his face. "Yeah?"

You nod. "You home?"

"Yeah, come over," He offers. "I'll get you something to eat and you can spend the night."

Your ears perk up from his words. Your heart jumps out of your chest in anticipation.

"Okay, I'll order a–"

"–Text me what club you're at," he interrupts. "I'll get you an Uber here."

______

You call another one of your friends while you wait. You’re surprised she picks up on the second ring. “HELLO?” she shouts into the phone.

“Hey love,” You say.

“Y/N WHERE DID YOU GO?? The hot guy you were talking to is still here, I thought you went home with him.”

The loud music thumps in the background, but you can surprisingly hear her clearly.

You shake your head. “I’m heading home, I’ll see you guys later.”

Of course, the terms of your NDA don’t allow you to tell them where you’re really going. You make up an excuse about not feeling well and she pouts.

“Aw but we were– Hana NO!” She interrupts herself and the line goes silent for a few moments.

You hear shifting and wait to hear her voice again.

“Sorry, we’re in the bathroom and Hana started throwing up. She’s fine now. You feel better though, and text one of us when you get home. Stay safe babes.”

“Okay, I will.”

Before you can hang up, she’s calling out to the other girls. “GUYS, Y/N IS GOING HOME.”

More shuffling suddenly fills your ears and female voice.

“Nooooo, don’t leave,” Hana drunkenly slurs.

You laugh. “I’ll go out with you guys again next weekend.”

After a little bit more drunken banter, you finally hang up and wait on the curb until your ride gets here.

____

Considering he's the one who ordered the Uber, you know he'll know exactly when you get there. So, you spend the entirety of the ride in the backseat fixing up your appearance.

You play with your hair, refresh your lip gloss, and adjust your appearance for the better.

When you arrive at the familiar home, your heart rate picks up and you open the door with shaky hands. You stand outside the car, purse in hand as you shut the door.

Just as you close the car door, his front door opens almost on cue. His full stature comes to your sight and your excitement bubbles over.

He leans against the door frame, grinning at you. He looks cozy, wearing a pair of grey sweatpants, a white wifebeater, and his glasses. Your knees nearly give out at the sight of him in his glasses. He looks so good. His muscular body is visible in the tee and you have to stop yourself from pouncing him.

His hair is definitely shorter than the last time you saw him. And it's been well, months since you've seen him. Two? Maybe even three? But that doesn't matter, what matters is that you're here with him now.

You try not to express how excited you are, but you just can't wipe the smile off your face. You walk toward him and he invites you in with open arms.

His strong arms wrap around your frame. You're so happy you could cry. Your arms wrap around him, squeezing his frame. You inhale, breathing in his scent. He smells like home. His touch is so comforting, this moment feels unreal. You hold him and appreciate him for everything he is.

He pulls away, looking down at you with a grin. He presses a kiss to your forehead. "Hi, Shorty."

You grin up at him, bringing your hands to his hair. You run your fingers through it. "You cut it."

He nods. "Couple days ago yeah, you don't like it?"

"I always like it," You tell him truthfully. "But it was a little sexier when it was long."

He pulls you all the way inside, closing the door and locking it. "I'll tell management to let me grow it back out just for you."

"Doubt they'll see me as reason enough for that," You say.

"They'll just have to deal with it," He runs a hand through his hair. "I'll never let scissors touch my hair again if you say so."

Oh my gosh. You hate him.

You hate how he makes your heart skip a beat and he somehow always knows all the right things to say to you.

You giggle. "I wouldn't ask you to do that, Gyu."

"You'd still like me if I was bald?" He asks.

"Yeah Gyu, I would." You admit.

"Oh wow" He has a boyish grin on his face. "You like-like me."

"Yeah well, you like-like me too," You remind him.

"Damn right I do, Shorty," He pulls you in by your waist. "Don't know why you're so far away."

You squeal when your body moves against his. "I'm still wearing my shoes! I need to take them off."

"Relax Shorty," He lifts you up effortlessly, placing you on the kitchen counter.

He drops down, undoing your heels and placing them on the mat next to his front door. He stands back up to his full stature, face mere inches above yours.

He leans in. "I missed you."

You look up at him with soft eyes. There's so much yearning behind your pupils, that it makes you wonder if he can see through to it.

"I missed you too," You admit.

You find yourself back hin his arms. His big hands circle your waist, pressing your chests together. But now, his lips are on yours.

The kiss is soft, just delicate enough to express how much he missed you. Your small hand cups his cheek as your lips move against one another. His touches are gentle, but they spark so many things inside you, igniting you from the inside out.

But your moment is cut short when your growling stomach interrupts.

You pull away just a little bit, brushing your nose against his, giggling to yourself. He lets out a genuine laugh, holding your hand in his. "I did promise you food, didn't I?"

You nod. "I believe you did."

He helps you off the counter and back onto your feet. He walks over to the pantry.

"Sorry to get your hopes up," He admits sheepishly. "I just got back so... there's not much."

"Oh that's okay, it can't be–"

You open the fridge, finding virtually nothing. Some milk, A couple water bottles, half a carton of eggs, a few bottles of liquor, and a can of half-eaten kimchi.

You wedge your way in front of him, looking into the pantry and it's somehow worse. There's only stuff that needs to actually be cooked, and there's not much of it.

You fall dramatically into his chest and he laughs. "I told you there wasn't much."

His hand touches your lower back as you sink your face into his chest. This time, it feels right.

"Why did you even offer me food if you didn't have any?!" You exclaim.

He holds your head in his hands, cupping both of your cheeks. "I don't know, I guess I forgot Shorty. You do that to me."

While his words are making your stomach turn, the hunger rumbling is a lot louder. "Is the milk in the fridge even good?"

"Yeah, I just bought it today." He says casually.

"You went out and bought milk... and nothing else? Knowing you had no food?" You question.

"I needed it to go with my cereal," He shrugs. "But that's not important. Look, there's some rice in here."

He grabs the uncooked rice out of the pantry. "I can make you some fried rice with egg and kimchi. I've got soy sauce somewhere around here."

"No I think I'll just take some cereal," You walk out of his grasp, making your way toward the fridge.

He pouts. "I can cook for you though."

"I'll take you up on that offer another time," You tap his cheek with your palm lightly. "I'm very hungry. And you've got no vegetable to go with, not even a green onion. I'm getting some cereal."

You open the fridge, grabbing the milk while he gets the bowls and spoons. You try to grab the cereal box from above the fridge, but you can't quite reach it. Mingyu comes up behind you, grabbing it with ease and a shit-eating grin on his face.

You frown, but you're too hungry to make any comments. The two of you sit at the table, each pouring yourselves a bowl of cereal. "You said you just got back?" You ask.

He nods. "Like two days ago, I think. My sense of time is a little messed up, jetlag."

You nod in acknowledgment. He continues to tell you about the past few months since he's seen you. You play friends catching up as he answers all your questions about his life as of recent. The shows, the photoshoots, all the traveling, filming, and preparations for the upcoming months as well.

He asks you about work too, although your updates are not nearly as interesting as his though. But he doesn't ask out of courtesy, he genuinely cares. He likes hearing about your life, likes just listening to you speak even if you're not the one doing Calvin Klein photoshoots.

The time flies, and before you know it, it's 3 in the morning. You always find yourself invested in him when you're together, like the world around you ceases to exist. You get caught up, failing to realize that time is indeed still passing, and a lot of it.

He pulls you in by your hips, pressing your back onto his chest.He pulls the bowls and utensils out of your hands swiftly and turns you around.

"Nope, don't worry about that," he drops them into the sink. "You just go hop in the shower, I'll give you one of my t-shirts."

"Are you saying I stink?" You accuse him playfully.

"Never, Shorty." He kisses your cheek. "As much as I love this little dress on you, it's getting late and you should be in something comfy. Now go." He playfully taps your butt, sending you to the bathroom.

You look back at him, feigning offense as he grins.

______

When you step out of the bathroom and into his bedroom, there's a t-shirt laid out for you with a pair of boxers. You get dressed before walking down to the living room.

Mingyu lays there, scrolling through his phone. When he hears you enter, his attention shifts to you immediately and he gives you a warm smile.

He sits up all the way and pulls you onto his lap so you're straddling him. "Thank you, for letting me using the shower and for the food."

He holds you close to him. "Of course Shorty

"Where are your clothes?" He asks.

"Folded on the dresser in your room, why?" You ask.

He pulls you off his lap and stands to his feet. "Wanna wash them so you can have them tomorrow. Are they washer and dryer safe?"

"Yeah, but you don't have to worry about it." You assure him.

"Don't worry about it, I have clothes I need to was anyway. I'll just through yours in with them," he says.

He disappears up into his room and when he emerges, he's holding a basket of clothes and your dress on top. He walks down and walks over to you on the couch.

"That's all you had? Just the dress and the panties? No bra?" He asks.

You grin. "Nope."

He inhales sharply, but pushes his thoughts aside. "Come with."

You follow behind him downstairs. He leads you to the laundry room in the basement.

You sit on the dryer as he loads the washing machine. There's a comfortable silence in the atmosphere. Everything about this is so comforting... so domestic. It's exactly what you needed.

"Hand me that?" he says, pointing to the detergent behind you. "Please?"

You grab the detergent, handing it to him. "Thank you, Shorty."

After he's done with it, he hands it back to you and adjusts the settings before starting up the machine.

"Ready for bed?" He asks.

You nod, reaching your arms out to him. He turns around, lifting you off the machine and piggybacking you all the way up to his bedroom. He drops your body on his plush mattress and strips down to just his boxers. He places his glasses on his dresser gently. Immediately after, he climbs under the covers. You join him, making yourself comfortable in his bed.

He pulls your body against his, yearning to have you close to him. He looks at you with a softness in his eyes. His hand runs along your thigh gently and innocently.

But right now, close doesn't feel close enough. You've missed him so much, you want to feel consumed by him. You need him inside of you.

You press your forehead against his, look at him with soft, sultry eyes. His hands start to wander, moving from your thighs to your butt.

Almost simultaneously, you pick up on one another's energy. The sexual tension grows and pretty soon his lips are on yours again. You moan softly against his lips.

He brings his hand to your cheek, cupping it softly as your lips move against his in perfect harmony. He takes everything you give and vice versa,perfectly in sync.

Pretty soon, you're itching to get undressed even though his clothes are extremely comfortable. You're eager for more of him, pulling away from the kiss.

"Gyu," You breathe out.

"I know baby, fuck–I know," He pulls you onto his lap so you're straddling him once again.

He lifts your hips enough to pull his boxers off of your body. The t-shirt you're narrowing is next to go, leaving you completely naked on his lap.

"Fuck," He whispers. "You're so pretty, Shorty. Need you so bad."

You lean over, leaving a trail of kisses on his neck. You know better than to leave marks, but you grind down against him slowly. He lets out a shaky breath, holding your hips as you move against him. "Mm-fuck."

His cock grows stiff beneath you, poking against your bare core. You grind down harder, feeling the veins of his cock against your clit through his boxers. "Feels good, Gyu.." You moan.

You chase the friction selfishly. You know you could cum like this, and with how good it feels, you're not entirely against it. But his hand comes in between the two of you, pressing against your pussy to feel how wet you are.

"Fuck, Shorty you're soaking..." he groans.

You can only nod in agreement as the pads of his fingers graze your clit. You're dripping on his fingers, so much so that he could easily slip–

"–You want my fingers?"

Fuck, he knows you so well.

You nod eagerly. He pinches your clit, making you yelp.

"Use your words baby."

You mewl. "Yes, fuck yes, please."

He lifts your body, flipping you over so you're underneath him. He holds himself up with his arm, hovering over you as he slips two fingers into you with ease.

Even though it's just his fingers, he can feel how tight you are. Your cunt stretches around his digits as he pumps them into you. You moan out, feeling the way the pleasure builds in your lower region.

His fingers are so skilled and he knows your body well. He knows that when he curls his finger, you're gonna squeeze your legs together and cry out.

Which is exactly what you do when he curls his fingers inside of you. He pries your legs back open, picking up the pace of his fingers as you moan out loud. "Ah fuck–nngh."

His cock twitches in anticipation as he pleasures you. He's not focused on it right now, but your pleasure is his pleasure.

"Shit–I'm gonna cum," You warn him, gripping his bicep.

He grins, teasing you with his words. "Already, Shorty?"

You breathe out, pushing your hips against his hands. "Fuck– 's been a while.

Oh?

His digits press against the sweet spot deep inside of you and you arch your back up off the bed and cry out. "You don't touch yourself when I'm not here, Shorty?"

"Not enough–ah!" You moan. "Can't cum."

You know you'd never admit this if you weren't drinking earlier or on the brink of an orgasm. But your words affect him more than he lets it show.

He's ruined you.

That means you haven't slept with anyone since he last saw you. And to top it off, you can't get yourself off without his help. A sense of pride fills his chest and only encourages him to go faster, pushing you over the edge.

Although, the same can't be said for him. The pride in his chest is pinched by a small twinging of guilt.

It's not something you really talk about with each other. You know it happens, but you choose not to acknowledge it. As much as it feels like it when you're together, you're not together. It's been nearly three years since your relationship, if you can even call it that, came to fruition.

But with him constantly busy and on the move, you've spent a small fraction of those three years in each other's presence. When he's not with you, he's performing and traveling the world. He catches the attention of plenty of other pretty girls who are more than willing to sign an NDA to spend the night with him.

He's just a man after all. And a famous one who constantly travels at that. He's got needs of his own and the means to fulfill them.

He's someone you trust. You know he'd never catch something and risk bringing it to you. He's too careful, has too much at stake with his career.

But those thoughts only cloud his mind, and for a brief moment at that. With you underneath him, writhing and gasping for air as you cum on his fingers, his attention is fully on you.

He pins your body on on the bed, adding more pressure as you grip his bicep. You nails dig into his skin, sure to leave marks. He doesn't mind though, not when you cry out his name and screw your eyes shut in pleasure.

Your hips move on their own, grinding against his fingers as you ride out your orgasm. "Shit, Shorty... that's it, yeah."

It takes a moment for you to come down. When you do, you blink your eyes open, loosening your grip on his bicep. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, warm breath fanning against your neck. His fingers slip out of you slowly and you whine as the loss of touch.

His hard length presses against your thigh, making it very known how badly he needs you. You think about pushing him down on the bed and sucking him dry, but you'd much rather have him inside of you.

You press a hand on his chest gently, pointer finger lightly dragging on his skin. "Mmm, that was so good, Gyu."

"Yeah?" He lifts his head up.

You bite your lip seductively and nod softly. "Yeah... want you to fuck me now, though."

He licks his lips slowly. "Want it, or need it?"

"Need it, need it so fucking bad, Gyu" You pull at the material of his boxers. You're so needy. He can hear it in your voice and it's clear in your actions. He wants to give you everything and more.

He presses his hips down against you and you help him to pull of his boxers. You wrap your hand around his cock and start pumping him slowly. He lets out a breath of relief.

His cock is hard and heavy in your hand. It's pulsing and aching to be touched. He inhales sharply when you circle your thumb around the tip, smearing his precum around.

You love it when he's sensitive like this, so reactive. It reminds you that you have just as much of an effect on him as he does on you. You continue to pump him, and he reaches into the drawer of his nightstand and pulls out a gold package.

You snatch the condom out of his hand. "I wanna do it."

He grins. "Okay, Shorty."

You tear open the packaging with your teeth.

"You know, you shouldn't do that," He warns you. "Could accidentally puncture a hole in it. Wouldn't want another pregnancy scare would we?"

You toss the gold wrapper onto the nightstand. "First of all, you use your teeth every time we do this. Second of all, you used your teeth to open the condom the time we had to scare." You remind him.

He smirks. "I learn from my mistakes, baby."

You ignore him, rolling the condom onto his length and laying on your back. He hovers over you again, stroking his cock a few times before lining himself up with your entrance.

When he enters you, the stretch is immaculate. You both breathe out, moaning as he bottoms out inside of you. He sinks further into you, deep into your warmth and you stretch to accommodate him perfectly.

"Fuck... Gyu," You moan out, wrapping your arms around his muscular back.

"Shorty... fuck me–" He groans. You breathe out, wrapping your legs around his waist, pushing your hips up into him. You move in perfect sync as his hips drive into yours. His neck nearly goes limp as his head dips down. "Yeah, Shorty–just like that–uh. Fuck, you're so hot, baby."

"Mingyu–" You moan out. "I missed you so much... so fucking much."

His hips snap back, his cock thrusting deep into you. "Missed you too, missed everything about you."

His thrusts slow down, but they don't stop. He taps the side of your thigh, silently telling you to unwrap your legs around around him. You oblige, and he lifts your legs up.

He drives his cock deeper into you, bringing your legs over his shoulders. You gasp out at the sudden stretch and wave of pleasure that hits you.

The pure force of his thrusts, how good he feels as the pain turns into pleasure into pleasure, the noises he makes – it's overwhelming in the best way possible. It's so much, but it's so good, you don’t want him to ever stop. Your mouth falls open in a silent moan as your breath catches in your throat. You eyes fall shut as your face scrunches in pleasure before the sensation courses through through you and you can hardly take it. Your hands grip the sheets tightly.

"Fuck... pussy's so good," He groans. " 'S all mine."

"Hah-fuck," You cry out.

"Tell me it's mine, baby," He demands. "C'mon Shorty."

Your eyes fall shut and your breathe in through your nose as his cock pushes deeper into you. Your voice is broken and soft. "It's all yours–"

He thrusts into you particularly hard. "Say it again–louder."

"Fuck! It's all yours."

It's a lie, somewhat. Everything between you two is complicated, yet simple. But in moments like these, you don't focus on the small details or realities.

"That's what I fucking thought," He groans.

You whimper, pussy fluttering around him. A telltale sign that you're close to the edge. His pace doesn't falter, and he continues to fuck you as your orgasm courses through your body.

Your body spasms beneath him, writhing to escape the overwhelming pleasure. He doesn't let you though, pinning your body down as he continues to drive his cock deep inside of you.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuck–uh!" You cry out. Tears are brimming the corners of your eyes.

Your pussy tightens around him, convulsing as you cum for the second time tonight. He watches as your face twists and contorts with pleasure, a sight that remains forever etched in his memory.

You're still coming down while he's fucking you, grunting and groaning with each thrust of his hips. There's sweat dripping down his body, causing his skin to glisten in the moonlight.

Your mind is hazy, still struggling to process all the pleasure you're body is enduring. You're growing overstimulated, but you can tell he's getting close.

His hips lose their rhythm, thrusts growing erratic and uncoordinated as your pussy milks him. He lets out a long groan, cursing out your name as he spills his load into the rubber.

His chest rises and falls rapidly as he sits up. He presses a kiss to your ankle before pulling out of you and allowing your feet to touch the bed.

His body is spent, and the soft look in your eyes relaxes him. It makes him feel blissful and at ease, it makes the sleepiness creep its way into his body.

You wrap your arms around his neck softly pulling his face toward yours. "All good?"

"Fuckin perfect," he sighs with a smile.

He's too close and too tempting not to kiss. So you do, softly pressing your lips against one another. The feeling in your heart is overwhelming. You don't know that he feels it too, two hearts moving rapidly yet somehow in perfect sync.

It's moments like these where there's a conundrum of things weighing heavily on your mind that you want to express or say out loud, but you don't. You know better than that, and so does he.

So a kiss will have to do. To speak the words that will remain unspoken and seal it closed. A silent way to express the thoughts that run through your brains and the emotions that are pouring out of your hearts.

So you kiss him, because that's all you can do for now. While he's still here, while he's still yours.

___

After you two clean up, you climb back into the bed. You face each other, laying on your sides.

His eyes are closed, but he's not fully encaptured by his slumber. He's halfway there though, pouting in his state of rest with a soft expression. He looks so peaceful, so cute. Such a contrast to the man who had your legs thrown over his shoulders only minutes prior.

You press your hand onto his hair, pushing it back ever so lightly as you admire his features. You see the smile tugging at his lips. "Go to sleep, Shorty."

His eyes don't open as he speaks to you.

"Sorry," You say sheepishly. I was just admiring."

"Cute, you can admire in the morning though. Go to sleep, baby."

You nod, although he can't see you, and exhale softly. You adjust the comforter and his eyes blink open slowly.

"I'll make you breakfast in the morning," he offers, pressing a kiss onto your forehead.

You hum, smiling to yourself. "lemme guess, cereal?"

A breathy laugh escapes his lips. "Alright, I'll take you out for breakfast, or we can order in if you can't walk."

You punch his shoulder playfully before burying your face against his chest. You fall asleep in his arms peacefully.

_______________________________________________

© number1mingyustan - Do not repost without permission.

[misscammiedawn]

Time Loops and Dissociation

CW: suicidal ideation, glitchy unreality, overt depictions of self-harm, parental abandonment

This essay contains full game spoilers for In Stars and Time.

You wake up to your alarm at the same time every day. The same view greets you from your window. Same sheets. Same outfits in your closet to get dressed in. Same choice of drinks in your kitchen to put in the same choice of cups. Same 24 hours but a different day. What better way to capture the existential horror of disconnecting from the world than to simply take away the words "but a different day" and make it the same 24 hours.

Time Loop fiction likes to capture the monotony of being caught in a rut. For some stories, like Groundhog Day, the rut could be that of not working on one’s self and accepting the eternal trappings of a never ending moment and not seeking change. For others, like Palm Springs, it is the conflict within a romantic relationship between one partner wishing to grow and find new experience while another wishes to remain in the safety of the known. Others still, like All You Need Is Kill, the conflict is a matter of maintaining one's optimism and drive in a hopeless fight against an antagonistic force that will crush their spirit upon the weight of eternity.

The constants in this genre are the forces of change and stagnation. Exit can be accomplished via self-improvement, it can be accomplished by having the bravery to risk leaving safety, it can be accomplished by killing every last time looping alien until you’re the only one left. But the allegories are always there. Tomorrow can only be attained by growing beyond Today. Change doesn’t happen in a day and as those stuck in a time loop know… a day can be an impossibly long time. And what does a person do during that impossibly long time? Repeating the same acts over and over again, where people become predictable and all the complexity of life has been stripped down until there’s nothing but cold empty and predictable monotony? You dissociate.

Dissociating is the experience of detaching from reality. Dissociation encompasses the feeling of daydreaming or being intensely focused, as well as the distressing experience of being disconnected from reality. In this state, consciousness, identity, memory, and perception are no longer naturally integrated. Dissociation often occurs as a result of stress or trauma, and it may be indicative of a dissociative disorder or other mental health condition.(*)

Every time loop story inevitably includes a segment where the pain of going around and around becomes simply too much to handle and the audience must witness the protagonist's mental health decline in real time. It is the moment in the story when they no longer feel able to connect with other humans, when they disconnect and just succumb to the weight of the eternity that they are trapped within. For most the idea of being stuck in a rut is a horrific thing. People are a social species. We seek connection and we seek change. We actively want to grow. But this is not true for everyone. Some are so scared and scarred by the world that they dare not ruin the safety that they have managed to find. Narrowing one's world down to avoid conflict and danger is a common feature in Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, particularly in those with a tendency to freeze in the face of their emotional triggers.

The flight-freeze type avoids potential relationship-retraumatization with an obsessivecompulsive/dissociative “two-step.” Step one is working to complete exhaustion. Step two is collapsing into extreme “veging out”, and waiting until [their] energy reaccumulates enough to relaunch into step one. The price for this type of no-longer-necessary safety is a severely narrowed existence. - (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving - Pete Walker)

And that is the heart of any time loop. Safety at the price of a narrow existence.

-

For this essay I want to talk about a piece of media that masterfully manages the time loop dilemma while managing to depict a remarkably strong representation of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Today I want to talk about In Stars and Time. Because if I'm gonna highlight a time loop story for my essays on dissociative disorders then I'm going to do the one which has a "Press X to dissociate" mechanic.

In Stars and Time is an RPG Maker game in the stylings of Earthbound and Final Fantasy. The star of the play game is Siffrin (he/they), a silly little one who tells light-hearted puns and has their tongue stuck out in a :3 cat face smile.

As the thief type of the party he leads the group through dungeons to deactivate traps and find keys he can sometimes be bad at his job. They have managed to help the team get to the final dungeon and take on The King who has managed to freeze most of the nation of Vaugarde in time. Their adventuring friends are Mirabelle (she/her), the housemaiden; Isabeau (he/him), the fighter; Odile (she/her), the researcher; and Bonnie (they/them), the kid. Siffrin finds themselves trapped within a time loop. Reliving the same 2 day period as the party make their approach to The King and must defeat him to release Vaugarde from being eternally frozen in time. The game speaks frankly and kindly on many topics beyond mental health and trauma. Among the many rare and beautiful things it organically depicts it has an asexual and an aromantic discussing society's pressure to enter relationships and perform intimate acts, a trans masc discussing the destructive and yet necessary process of transitioning and two expats discussing how difficult it is to integrate their cultural roots (or lack thereof) with the values and expectations of the dominant culture of their new environment. Keep that last one in your back pocket for now. It'll be important for later. This is the last chance to check the game out unspoiled and so if anything I have said intrigues enough then please buy the game (Steam - Switch - Playstation 4 - Playstation 5 - GOG - Itch.io) and enjoy it. The game is about 20 hours at a casual pace (WR speedrun is 2.5 hours) and it has much in the way of hidden conversations and content that can help a person stick around and dig deep to find all the content in the game (but watch out). Go with my blessing and check DoesTheDogDie for content warnings if needed. For those who have played or want to read on into spoiler territory, then please forgive my long-windedness. I've too much time on my hands and have not cultivated the skills or talent to present this as a video for passive enjoyment. Let's begin. The game is split into 6 acts so in the interests of not bombarding with information. Shall we follow suit?

Act 1 - The Stage

The curtain rises and the play begins. Act 1 makes up the first loop from Siffrin's perspective. If not for the time loops then this would be a very short adventure. Siffrin wakes up from a nap in a field as they will every single loop from now on. They are in the final town before the enemy stronghold, one final day to rest and gather their strength and resolve to save the country. The group's leader, Mirabelle, has decided to have a sleepover. One final day, one final dungeon, one final fight... and then it's all over. The world will finally be saved. It'll all be over... Siffrin spends the day speaking to their friends, making a wish on the local Favor Tree to spend time with an ally after the adventure and then it's on to the adventure. Isabeau has something he wants to tell Siffrin but decides it can wait until they have saved the world. Entering the house and moving through the first few rooms all seems to be going well. The party of friends beat their first few enemies and Siffrin is sent to check for traps in a corridor leading into the main areas of the house. He checks and checks and checks and doesn't find anything so...

The trap is activated by feeling safe.

For clarity I wish to say much of the analysis and discussion is our personal read of the plot. Before writing this essay we reached out to insertdisc5 to ask about how they approached depicting mental illness in the game and they responded that it was not a matter of research as she was worried about checking off boxes rather than depicting authentic experience. Which makes it all the more impressive that the game was able to depict so many aspects of Complex PTSD so seamlessly. From Walker's book the primary symptoms of CPTSD are:

Emotional Flashbacks Tyrannical Inner &/or Outer Critic Toxic Shame Self-Abandonment Social anxiety Abject feelings of loneliness and abandonment Fragile Self-esteem Attachment disorder Developmental Arrests Relationship difficulties Radical mood vacillations Dissociation via distracting activities or mental processes Hair-triggered fight/flight response Oversensitivity to stressful situations Suicidal Ideation

Over the course of the game Siffrin displays many, if not all of these. One of the core conflicts of the game is Siffrin's feelings of loneliness and abandonment as well as their inner critic and toxic shame.

Another common trait of those with C-PTSD not referenced in the above list is a sensitive startle reflex. It is mentioned in the same book at a later point, however:

A startle response is the sudden full body-flinching that survivors experience at loud noises or unanticipated physical contact. This is usually a somatic flashback to previous abuses.

I bring this all up now because Siffrin's first death. The cause of the first loop. HIS FIRST FAILURE. Was because he let his guard down. He felt safe for even a moment. This is not a reading or something which can be brought up for debate. On floor two of the house there is a book that explains the traps and speaks of the boulder that landed on Siffrin's head earlier:

Throughout the entire adventure Siffrin will have the toxic and universe validated belief that if they ever drop their guard, even for a single moment they may die. This belief will only get worse as they progress, unfortunately. For those with Complex PTSD they walk through life in a state of hyper-vigilance. Never quite feeling safe. Siffrin died the moment he let his guard down. [Dawn here. This is turning out to be the longest Media, Myself and I article by a wide margin. For the sake of not destroying everyone's timelines I'll put the rest of the game under a readmore. I would so very much love it if you did click on, though.]

Act 2 - The Performance

The curtain rises and the play begins. Again. Much of Act 2 is spent trying to get to The King and defeat him. Mistakes such as forgetting a key on an earlier floor or taking a wrong path will cause Siffrin to need to loop back. All the while inwardly berating themselves for their carelessness, knowing that in a world without the time loops they would have been trapped and unable to challenge The King at all. We are also introduced to Loop, a star who watches over Siffrin during his journey. Loop is in the time loop with Siffrin and can follow his progress, offer advice and comment on everything. Loop is a little disaffected and likes to play things silly and coy and can be a little mean at times. But they say they're here to help Siffrin. As the adventuring friends climb to the final boss we get to see Siffrin's rapport with the party. Siffrin likes to stay on the sidelines and listen in to other people having animated conversation. Everyone is nervous to touch him having universally come to an understanding that Siffrin does not like to be touched. They make fun of Siffrin's poor memory (another common trait of those with dissociative disorders that we will talk about more in time) and they treat one another warmly. However during a bit of banter in a snack break...

(source: ISAT Script Project) Note that Siffrin internalizes the comment "we're not friends." instantly. From this point of the game until a latter moment all times that Siffrin's monologue refers to his party the word "friends" is replaced with "allies". They are so sensitive to abandonment and rejection that the they simply accept Odile's words, not even aimed at Siffrin themselves and internalizes them deep enough that the HUD of the game itself changes to accommodate this belief. It was mentioned at the start that Siffrin is a silly traveler who enjoys puns and makes light of most situations. In battles the game uses a Rock, Paper, Scissors weapon triangle and all of Siffrin's attack names are puns. In the profile menu he sticks his tongue out. His battle image is a playfully confident smirk.

During the game we always have access to Siffrin's inner monologue and can tell how they interpret the world around them but they seldom ever voice their opinions. This allows us to see how often they are convincingly laughing on the outside while hurting on the inside. Siffrin, unable and unwilling to approach their shame and self-loathing and terrified of becoming a burden to their friends allies will deflect whenever he sense that they are hurting.

A person (or dissociative part) may avoid being aware of inner experiences such as feelings or thoughts that might evoke shame. Thus, he or she is not aware of the experience of shame, typically does not acknowledge the negative experience of self, engages in denial, and attempts to distract self and others away from the painful feeling. For example, a person who felt ashamed in therapy might start making jokes or flippantly comment that the session is boring or useless, or he or she might try to change the subject entirely or even switch to another part that has a different agenda. The experience becomes neutral or positive; shame may be disowned or denied, or overridden with joy or excitement in distracting activities (joking around, talking about something else). There is little to no awareness of shame or one’s shameful actions, faults, or characteristics. The motivation is to minimize the conscious experience of shame or to prove that one does not feel shame. - (Coping With Trauma Related Dissociation - Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, Onno van der Hart)

The other key thing we have come to learn about how others perceive Siffrin is their memory issues. Memory issues are a constant part of dissociative disorders with a lack of childhood memories being a key feature in Complex Dissociative Disorders such as Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder. If I am being honest about my motivations for writing this essay, while playing it I keyed in on the lack of memories early and assumed it to be an allegory for such trauma. Even made a Tumblr post stating this. On the top floor of the house of change in a secret room and only during Act 2 there is a bit of dialogue where Siffrin speaks about their childhood.

This was the moment we knew we needed to write about this game. What is missing from the text above is that when Siffrin stammers on their words there is a time loop effect. The first one in the game that is activated by something other than a death or the natural end of the loop. Siffrin edits out this conversation so that not even he can remember it.

Amnesia goes far beyond normal forgetfulness. It involves serious memory problems that are not caused by illness or extreme fatigue, by alcohol or other mind-altering substances, or normal forgetting. Amnesia falls on a continuum. People with a dissociative disorder may recall some aspects of an event but not other essential parts of it. In some cases all memory for certain events is unavailable for conscious recall. Some people with a dissociative disorder describe their memory as being like “Swiss cheese holes,” “foggy,” or “full of black holes.” They may suspect that something happened, or may have even been told by others that something happened to them, but have no personal recollection of events and often feel afraid to think about them. People may have amnesia for longer periods of time during which normal life events took place, for example, a person may report being unable to remember anything from the fifth grade, or from ages 9–12. - (Coping With Trauma Related Dissociation - Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, Onno van der Hart)

Instinctive use of time travel to edit out parts of a conversation that a perspective character does not wish to accept or confront is a fantastic allegory for how dissociative symptoms manifest. When a person or dissociative part stumbles too close to a severe trauma trigger. To speak from personal experience it is a moment where in a conversation a question comes up and the answer feels wrong in your mouth. Like you just lied. But you know you didn't intend to lie... so of course you interrogate the piece of information and the wall of confusion that hits can make a person feel truly powerless. Like you're not even certain of what you are saying anymore and a mixture of shame and fear flood in and tell you to stop talking, stop lying, stop exaggerating, stop speaking, stop, stop, STOP. Poor Siffrin shouldn't have their memory made fun of. But... his friends allies don't know. Do they? How could they? Siffrin doesn't speak up and when he does it tends to be a showy performance of being light hearted and silly so no one can see how hurt he is. Because if he does try to be honest... well. You saw what happened when they tried to open up. Through hard work and persistence the allies loop enough times to gain the knowledge and strength to win against The King. The King's first attack will force the allies to see a vision of the future and without a special magic shield will kill them in a single strike. Siffrin stays determined and prepares his allies. Helps them become stronger. Helps them win. The world is saved. Everyone in Vaugarde is released from the time freezing spell... But something's wrong... Siffrin is given a chance to talk to everyone as they all happily speak about what they'll do now that the country is saved but no matter what happens. Isabeau attempts to confess the thing that he wished to tell Siffrin if they won but is interrupted before he can get the words out, much to Siffrin's annoyance. The world is safe. All is well. It shall return to normal soon enough... only thing to do is speak with the head housemaiden and accept the praise and thanks for all the hard effort in saving Vaugarde... Then world starts to fall apart and... The second act comes to an abrupt close.

Act 3 - Family and Culture

The curtain rises and the play begins continues. The loop begins with Siffrin back at the start, even though the day was saved. Simply killing The King must not be enough. There must be a reason that the loops are continuing, even after Vaugarde is saved. The only way to understand is to find out more about why The King is able to freeze the country in time and if it has anything to do with why Siffrin can loop back. Speaking with Loop, Siffrin recognizes that as long as there are ideas and leads to explore then giving up is not going to happen. Loop seems reluctant to encourage Siffrin to continue, in fact Loop seems doesn't appear surprised by the time loop continuing at all. Loop is an interesting character and deserves an article unto themselves. We should focus on Siffrin right now.

Their first order of business is to attempt the Golden End exit route. It worked for Bill Murray, why not in this situation? Simply work out a way to make everyone have a perfect loop. Saving the world isn't enough. Siffrin can solve everyone's problems. Here we learn that Bonnie, the kid, harbors a deep well of shame for allowing Siffrin to be blinded in an eye while protecting them earlier in the adventure, before the loops. Siffrin, true to their dissociative nature, did not even remember the event. Siffrin also spends quality time with the adults in the party. Always hoping Isabeau would be brave enough to confess this loop. On this journey up the house of change the team are closer and more caring. No one makes fun of Siffrin for bumping into the counter. Siffrin discovers that the other party members have noticed his breathing exercises. Very helpful for those with dissociative disorders, by the way. They ground the body and allow one to ease somatic symptoms by soothing the nervous system and preventing activated sensations worsening symptoms. As they get closer to The King the warm and familial banter continues with Odile using the word 'friend' out loud. A guarded Siffrin allows themselves to confront Odile on saying that they were not friends (something she did not even say this "Golden" loop) and through an awkward but kind conversation she confesses she, a Too Old For This lady cannot feel comfortable calling a group of people with a pre-teen "friends" but she can perhaps call them "Family" The menu updates. Siffrin's Allies are now Sif's Family Members. This remains true in all the menus no matter what happens in any loop. But in this moment, there is a golden ending. There is joy. Though Isabeau is unwilling to discuss his confession when Sif is feeling vulnerable. They need to have a Feely-Feels talk. Sif hates the idea of a Feely-Feels talk. Yet, even still... In this moment Sif is loved.

Many people with Complex PTSD have attachment wounds from their family of origin. The concept of a found family is common among survivors, particularly in those who choose to go Non-Contact with the family of origin. Others, like Sif, have lost their family to tragedy and simply have no roots to return to. The role of a chosen family is vital in the healing journey. Survivors can become aggressively attached to those who they view as chosen family and are often activated by the concept of another loss. The wounds of losing one family enough to have massive impact on how the survivor handles relationships going forward. It is why unstable relationships is listed as a symptom of CPTSD and why there is such a big overlap of CPTSD and BPD diagnosis.

There’s no way around the fact that on the journey to finding your chosen family, you will get hurt. People you thought would be there for you will abandon you, people will decide they no longer have the emotional capacity to hold space for you, and… people who made promises to be by your side will betray those promises. That’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just life. Not everyone belongs on our journeys, but… when you find the right people, don’t let go of them. Nurture the relationships, reciprocate the support, and above all, respect the myriad of ways that people can and will show up for you. - (The Role of ‘Chosen Family' in Trauma Recovery - Monika Sudakov)

Sif is desperately attached to the Family Members that they travel with. In many ways the only reason they can endure the time loops is to protect them. Any time there is a prompt which threatens these relationships Sif's monologue insists that they will not abandon the script that ensures their safety and happiness. Yet despite all this power of love and Family, the loops continue. Which is fine. Golden Ending was a long shot anyway. Clearly it has to be related to The King and it's power to stop time. It seems to know the mysterious art of Time Craft. Talking to The King will help. The answers are still attainable and now Sif has a Family. To get the information required to learn about Time Craft and The King one must interact with as many books and items in the house of change as possible. In doing so we learn more about Sif and their history. By this point in the story the concept of croissants has come up a number of times for the party. In the opening town Sif has the option of buying one from a bakery and gives an uncharacteristic scowl. When they are spotted in the house Sif tends to duck out of conversations, not caring to listen to people talk about the pastry he loathes so desperately. He jokes about it and obfuscates but Sif hates croissants. With a burning passion. There is literally a food that can kill him in the game (he is allergic to pineapple and can die on a banana plantain peel) but his ire always turns towards croissants. Croissants are an emotional trigger for Sif. They harbored such a deep hatred of croissants that when, in Act 4, he is pressured to tell everyone what he wished for at the start of the game he says that they wished for croissants to disappear forever. Sif's reactivated trauma is related to croissants. Up until now he had been living his life blissfully unaware of his dissociated experiences and yet a croissant cracked the amnesia barriers that kept him safe and now each time he sees them they cannot help but be reminded of "The Incident". By examining the Silver coin in their inventory a number of times one can see "The Incident", a moment that happened days before the plot began which informs Sif's entire emotional state throughout the game...

(source: ISAT Script Project) Note the time skip at the tail end of that sequence. Sif was thinking too heavily about the trauma again and skipped time to avoid thinking about it. Dissociative barriers. He literally cannot think about it. The universe won't let him. Sif's home isn't there anymore. In the canon of the game where reality can be rewritten on the whim of a wish, the country that Sif comes from was wiped off of the map and all knowledge and memory of it has been erased, even from those who lived there. Sif's trauma is that he lost his home. His family. Everything and everyone that he ever knew. Through traveling with his family members he has gained a slither of the emotion, comfort, connection and safety that he lost and in being reminded of all that he lost so close to the end of their journey he was reminded he can and will lose it all again and the thought is too terrifying to process. This is the core conflict in Sif's heart for the entire game. The more they interact with memories of the destruction of his homeland the more keenly aware he becomes of the fact that the quest will end and his family will go their separate ways and abandon him. They have no home to return to when this is all done. CPTSD is not currently recognized by the DSM-5. An official diagnostic description can only be found within the ICD-11. On the ICD-11 page for Complex-PTSD there is a specific segment for "Culture Related Features" that reads:

Cultural variation exists in the expression of symptoms of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. For example, somatic or dissociative symptoms may be more prominent in certain groups attributable to cultural interpretations of the psychological, physiological, and spiritual etiology of these symptoms and of high levels of arousal.

Given the severe, prolonged, or recurrent nature of the traumatic events that precipitate Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, collective suffering and the destruction of social bonds, networks and communities may present as a focal concern or as important related features of the disorder.

For migrant communities, especially refugees or asylum seekers, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may be exacerbated by acculturative stressors and the social environment in the host country. - (ICD-11 for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics)

We do not learn much of Sif's culture of origin but we know that they were in tune with The Universe, that they had spiritual aspects that allowed them to use Wish Craft and follow when fate leads. Act 3 is an info gathering quest on The King's motivations and we discover that King and Sif both hail from the same country and have lost all their social bonds, networks and communities and cannot even recreate the specifics of their culture. It has literally been erased. No culprit is ever named for this atrocity but from Act 3 onwards Sif mourns this lack of roots and via the power of the magic that prevents anyone from remembering the country they cannot mention this tragedy to anyone. Though Odile is able to infer it. Odile is also an immigrant to Vaugarde, her mother was from Vaugarde and her father from Ka Bue. Her mother abandoned her and Odile's quest in Vaugarde is to find parts of her history within the foreign land and fill in the parts of her soul that she feels are incomplete from the lack of her mother's presence and history in her life. In Act 3 the two bond over it as part of Odile's "friendquest", in Act 4 and beyond Sif's inner monologue seethes with bitterness and envy for Odile having connections. The initial connection of them both being foreigners in an accepting land caves to the pain of loss that consumes Siffrin whole.

(source: ISAT Script Project) What's worse is that some of the things that the family members joke at Sif about for being too forgetful to know the words "Kiln" "Pottery Wheel" or "Stuffed Animal" (though they do remember on some loops) become less about silly forgetful Sif letting incidental information slide out of their dissociative mind. It becomes making fun of a person speaking a second language and not having complete mastery over it. By Act 5 Sif has no patience for the playful jabs because they happen every single loop and they hurt. Minimizing is a lot harder in a time loop. Every small moment of tiny pain repeats again and again. Every time Sif bumps their hip on a counter the party laugh at him. Well... except for the time he screamed at them for it... or the time he collapsed into a defeated pile on the floor on the verge of tears. Heaven help me if bumping into a counter hasn't been the last straw to break my facade when the weight is too much to carry. Poor Sif... As Sif learns more about Time Craft and the country that both he and The King come from, Sif starts to gain an understanding of The King's motivations. After losing one country he couldn't bear to risk losing another home. Vaugarde was so kind to him and took him in and he wants it to remain perfect and safe forever. Frozen in time like a photograph. Now that Sif has come to recognize how important his Family Members are to him, they understand. To have people you love and consider Family is so important and the idea of losing that is simply unspeakable. It is a fate worse than the time loops. By now Sif has done the Golden Ending a time or two...

He understands why The King would do this. The final loop of Act 3 allows Sif to attempt to convince The King not to fight. The pair have attempted to bond over their roots, they have tried to force The Universe to allow them to speak the name of their nation (but it refused to be said) and now Sif wants to try and use understanding. The King agrees. He stops the fight. Asks Sif to come to his side and... Then he freezes the Family Members in time. He understands now that Sif is using Wish Craft to fight him and he cannot win on traditional terms so he decides to carve it into Sif's memory, a reminder of what happens if he continues defying The King's will. He picks up poor little pre-teen BonBon... and FORCES SIFFRIN TO WATCH AS HE CRU-

Act 4 - Shame Spiral

The curtain rises. The play begins continues. And Sif is not okay. They witnessed the game break the well established rule that the kid was not able to be hurt. Even in runs where you lose to The King Bonnie always gets away. The Family will always go out of their way to ensure The Kid survives. It's happened so many times by now one doesn't even think to question it... And the player had to watch. There is no avoiding that event. Sif will lower their guard to speak with The King and offer compassion and trust to someone they thought of as a kindred spirit and no sooner had they laid down their arms for a moment they were punished for it. Brutally. It's the rock again. Feel safe, even for a moment, and it comes crashing down to crush with full weight... only this time it's not the Sif taking the hit. Sif can take all the hits in the world. It was BONNIE. Someone else was crushed because Sif trusted. From this moment on Sif's intrusive thoughts become louder and meaner. Look above at the conversation with Odile about her roots and notice the changes between Act 3's inner monologue and Act 4's. By this point in the story Sif is losing track of how many loops they have gone through. Unless you keep your Memory of Self equipped you will find that any time you loop forwards or backwards the loop counter will jump up by leaps. Sif is so numb to the cycle by now that they're just dissociating through iterations of the time loop. Other times he 'blacks out' bits of time include sleeping at the clocktower. We learn that he never ever sleeps at the tower. He just blacks out and comes to at the house ready for the next run. All Sif can remember is what the player sees. But stuff does happen besides that which we see. It's not just the amount of time that Sif has been in the loops that is causing this degradation of mental health, though. It's the continuous activation taking a toll. When a person is continiously hyperaroused they become disaffected, chronically dissociated and begin experiencing somatic symptoms. Headache, stomach ache, exhaustion with no ability to sleep, hunger without ability to eat. At this point of the story Sif is constantly hungry and is not sleeping at all. The primary cause for this is the attachment trauma being continuously triggered. Where in early acts it was a matter of worry over losing his new family while being reminded constantly of losing his old one, now he is reminded of allowing his family to die because of his actions. The shame spiral claims him and his emotions become wild, even if he is not able to express them outwardly. This level of emotional sensitivity is a primary symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder. The similarities between CPTSD and BPD are enough that much of the discussion around the potential for including CPTSD in the next revision of the DSM centers around whether it should replace or be combined with BPD. The Foundation for CPTSD writes on the topic:

At one-time, complex post-traumatic stress disorder was proposed as an alternate form of borderline personality disorder because of the shared link to severe childhood trauma. The jury is still out to recognize CPTSD as a diagnosis in the DSM, but it is believed that the symptoms and causes of BPD and CPTSD overlap substantially, but it is not warranted to replace one diagnosis with the other or conceptualize CPTSD as a subtype of BPD. Borderline personality disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder are commonly found together, with between 25% and 60% of people living with BPD also having CPTSD. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is listed in the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), and this has spurred research differentiating the two disorders. Evidence suggests that CPTSD and BPD may represent a continuum of the stress response, and both seem to have a component of dissociation involved. The most significant difference between the two diagnoses is when they form. CPTSD typically forms in early childhood, while BPD forms during early adolescence. Having both CPTSD and BPD makes life difficult, to say the least. - (CPTSD Foundation)

BPD is a personality disorder categorized by attachment wounds. Part of the diagnostic criteria includes "Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, whether it is accurate or not, by family and friends" It is safe to say Sif feels this way about their family. They lost their entire home, their history, their family of origin. They cannot conceive of losing the family that they have gained. The concept is simply too painful for them to consider and so emotional and dissociative barriers force away anything which could potentially bring the topic of losing them to mind. Heaven knows we can understand the impulse... But since being directly responsible for failing the promise they made to protect Bonnie this is no longer a matter of fear of the unknown, it is shame in having failed to keep a promise to protect. This shame grows and cripples Sif's emotional regulation, leaving them prone to volatile outbursts of their repressed rage. Either forcing it inwards on the self or outwards on others.

When you feel chronic shame, you believe that no amount of punishment or corrective actions would be sufficient, and you are unable to forgive yourself or have any empathy for the terrible suffering shame brings to you. It is as though chronically ashamed people have received a life sentence of shame with no hope of parole, even when they are unsure of exactly why they are bad. In fact, some people will say there is no particular reason they are bad and unworthy: The mere fact that they exist and take up space on the earth is shameful enough. They believe they are not worthy of living and do not deserve anything good. In such cases, shame is an emotion of hiding: The last thing an ashamed person wants is to be open, vulnerable, and seen by others. Thus, it is an emotion that often is not addressed sufficiently in therapy, even though it is a major impediment to healing. - (Coping With Trauma Related Dissociation - Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, Onno van der Hart)

Act 4 is about learning the origins of the Wish Craft that rewrites the universe and allows for Sif to use Time Craft. We learn that any time they are upset they will instinctively rewrite history to prevent the things that they fear from coming to pass. This includes moments when their anger gets away from them and they lash out at their family. Some optional scenes include forcing Isabeau into a kiss or screaming at Odile when she knows too much and tries to help Siffrin. Any time these outbursts happen time rewinds and only Siffrin is left with the knowledge that they happen, deepening the growing well of shame. All the while Sif feels more hollow in the interactions he has with his Family. In forcing them to be their best selves via the "Friendquest" events every loop he starts feeling like he is manipulating them. Where he felt loved the first few times he now accuses himself of forcing them to love him.

To the degree that our caretakers attack or abandon us for showing vulnerability, to that degree do we later avoid the authentic self-expression that is fundamental to intimacy. The outer critic forms to remind us that everyone else is surely as dangerous as our original caretakers. Subliminal memories of being scorned for seeking our parents’ support then short-circuit our inclinations to share our troubles and ask for help. Even worse, retaliation fantasies can plague us for hours and days on the occasions when we do show our vulnerabilities. I once experienced this after being very honest and vulnerable in a job interview with a committee of eight. Over the next three insomnia-plagued nights, my outer critic ran non-stop films featuring my interviewers’ contempt about everything I had said, and disgust about all that I had left out. Even after they subsequently and enthusiastically hired me, the outer critic plagued me with “imposter syndrome” fantasies of eventually being exposed as incompetent in the new job. - (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving - Pete Walker)

It doesn't matter. Sif tries everything. Learns all the things that they can learn. Explores all the hidden areas of the house of change. Nothing matters. It's hopeless.

And with each loop The King's attack shows Sif a vision of the future. What do they see? Endless looping or... does Sif see the future beyond the loops? After the party return to their various homes? Act 4 ends with The Head Housemaiden, the only one who could have potentially held answers telling Sif outright that there was no escape... Before the loop begins anew.

Act 5 - Curtains

[Hello there. It's me, Dawn. I'm pausing the essay and dropping the cute little play structure to reiterate the Content Warnings from the start of the post. During Act 5 there are options to commit self-harm that a player may stumble across unintentionally. During previous acts one has to work exceptionally hard and against the game and characters within it to unlock a means of self-harm and it is unambiguously seen as a bad thing. In Act 5 there are no external forces to comment on Siffrin's actions.] The curtain rises. No point in wasting time. Get the actors. Make them strong. Beat the king. Do it right this time. Unfortunately our star has lost all of the mental fortitude they had. They were so strong for so long but there is only so much a person can take before they let the anger win. It is all too common for people with significant trauma to harbor resentment and anger in their soul. It sometimes remains repressed under layers of emotion numbing dissociation, it sometimes turns inwards into self-destructive acts and viewpoints and it sometimes turns outwards into explosive acts of physical or emotional violence. But it's there... lurking within the injustice of all the pain a person has felt.

When you have experienced a trauma, anger often becomes the central emotion that you feel. Angry thoughts about revenge may consume you. According to Enright and Fitzgibbons (2000), your anger is more destructive if you focus it on another person or people; it is intense, even in the short term; it leads to a learned pattern of annoyance, irritation, or frustration with others who are not the source of your anger; it is extremely passive; it is extremely hostile; or it is developmentally appropriate for someone much younger than your actual age (e.g., you act like a two-year-old and have a temper tantrum). - (The PTSD Workbook Mary Beth Williams)

and so... with the 5th act of our play about to begin, the star wakes in a familiar meadow for what may be the hundredth time... and they simply cannot take it anymore.

The actor on stage has reached Rock Bottom and likely unlocked the skill Rock Bottom to go with it, though they are beyond the silly puns now. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Breathe or Heal. Just get to The King. Just kill it. One. Last. Time. The GIF above starts with the line "YOU WANT YOUR FAMILY BACK!!! NOT THE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS THAT HAVE TAKEN THEIR PLACE!!!" Up until now we have only spoken about dissociation in terms of zoning out or blocking out memory. I now want to talk about Derealization and Depersonalization. DPDR has been a subject of other Media, Myself and I essays, most notably our discussion on Night in the Woods. To be brief about it for this essay Depersonalization is a detatchment from one's sense of self and Derealization is a detatchment from reality. Our star has become so disillusioned with the endless looping that they no longer view their surroundings as real. The people in their life are just actors in a play that they are directing. Everyone says their lines. Even the star must say their lines. But there's still some stage direction. Some purpose that our hero must fulfill. They know that there is a chance if they can just kill the king without Mirabelle landing the final shot. Then. Maybe... In their disaffected state and unable to convincingly perform their lines in the play, our star manages to upset everyone else on stage causing them to doubt if it would be safe and productive to continue traveling with such a horrible disgusting unreliable stupid person. This causes the final act to be a solo performance. One final walk through the house without friends allies family actors to help. At the clocktower the other actors talk about our star and are uncertain if they can trust them any longer. Our star reacts by rejecting them entirely and going it alone. There is a concept in BPD called Splitting in which a person devalues or exaggerates the value of an individual in their compromised emotional state. It can cost a person relationships if they act out of these temporary emotions. At the start of Act 5 the actor manages to scream at the kid for getting in danger, calls the fighter a coward and mocks the researcher for her mother abandoning her. The individual, so desperate to shield their wounded heart, pushes the people they love away because their proximity is too close to their open wounds and they push away to maintain space. This is particularly true in those who struggle to create healthy emotional boundaries. This game is such a god damned call out at times. As the actor climbs the house everything is broken. The universe itself is trying to maintain the reality of two wishes that it needs to make a reality. "Save Vaugarde" and the one the main character wished for in Act 1. Do you remember what it was? The Universe cannot allow Siffrin to remain with their Family Members if they run off alone and reject them. The Universe simply cannot accomodate such a reality. Everything is falling apart. What proceeds is the ISAT equivalent of a Genocide Run in Undertale. Everything is broken and wrong. Rooms are breaking the collision boundaries of a video game, textures are cut wrong, doors lead to the wrong location, time is looping without rhyme or reason. And the menu is blunt. You cannot change your equipment, now stuck with Memory of Emptiness with the description (Nothing comes to mind, hahahahaha!) Some rooms contain hallucinations that make our star feel more abandoned and empty and mournful of their situation. In rooms where they would normally receive a modicum of physical comfort brushing against the other actors there is nothing now.

(Aaaaaaah…) (You rub your arms once, twice, thrice.) (Your throat tightens) (You feel like you're floating in your own body.) (If only someone would touch you to make sure you're real! Someone, anyone!)

This is an example of extreme depersonalization. Also the garden has a table with 4 healthy plants and 1 dying plant to the side. Our star notices it and it acts as a visual indicator of the barriers between the director and their actors. Some of the other rooms on the Act 5 climb depict overt self-harm...

It can be understood as a substitute action for more adaptive coping that attempts to deal with a variety of overwhelming problems, many involving too much feeling (for example, loneliness, abandonment, panic, inner conflicts, traumatic memories) or too little feeling (numbness, depersonalization, emptiness, feeling dead). Self-harm is thus often related to the need for regulation skills, that is, finding ways to modulate and tolerate unbearable inner experiences, such as painful emotions, or traumatic memories (Gratz & Walsh, 2009; Miller, 1994). Some people harm themselves in secret and carefully hide the inflicted wounds from others. Other people harm their bodies in places that are visible to people around them. (Coping With Trauma Related Dissociation - Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, Onno van der Hart)

The shame only increases upon doing these optional (but distressingly unprovoked) actions. Honestly, if I had one criticism of the game and its depiction of mental health it is that there is no way to know that looking at the cupboard with the eye patch conversation would cause a self-destructive action. As someone with extreme sensitivity to depictions of suicide and self-harm I felt that having no agency or warning over that (I had no reason to assume this would happen. Any other form of self-harm requires selecting a menu option. This one jumps out at a player unexpected) was... unfair. It is noted in monologue that breathing exercises no longer work by this point of the narrative and due to not being at the clocktower our star is proceeding with no food and no sleep. Their already bottomed out mental and emotional state is in sore need of external intervention. Something the actor both desires and rejects in equal measure. Upon finding and fighting The King our hero is frozen in time and locked in a dream. Placed face to face with their worst fears and worries of how their actors Family would perceive them.

(source: ISAT Script Project)

After the screen stops being blurry and the player wipes the wet spots off of their Nintendo Switch. The fear of being perceived. The fear of being seen as manipulative. Being seen as insincere. Being seen as lazy or too afraid to change. Callous. Aimless. Manipulative. So many survivors have these negative scripts and inner critics. Caught in their cycles. Their own little loops. But there's still hope. Family. The chance to be vulnerable. The game concludes with Sif's Family saving him from The King. But even though The King's spell is broken and the people of Vaugarde are unfrozen the sky has a giant red crack in it. Sif's wish is still tearing the world apart. Realizing that when the quest is over everyone will go home Sif has their temper tantrum, becoming the final boss in which every move is a choice to either lash out at the party or lash out at themselves. A boss mechanic version of the final embers of a violent extinction burst. That is to say a person who does not have control over their ability to maintain a sustained behavior will lash out and attempt to assert control in order to prevent losing the conditioned routine.

An extinction burst is characterized by a temporary increase in the frequency, intensity, or duration of behavior being extinguished through operant conditioning. This phenomenon occurs when the reinforcement for a previously learned behavior is removed, leading to an initial escalation of the behavior before it decreases and eventually ceases. While not all instances of extinction involve such bursts, they are observed in some cases, particularly during the treatment of problematic behaviors. Extinction bursts can complicate the treatment of behavioral disorders, as they may temporarily increase undesired behaviors like aggression or self-injury, making it challenging to assess the effectiveness of interventions. (*)

In this case Sif is lashing out because he has no way of preventing his Family from going back to their lives. It's a destructive and unhealthy mechanism. The fight ends with everyone refusing to let Sif run away or hide anymore. He is forced to admit that his wish was to stay with everyone. That he didn't want the family to go away. He opens himself up to the vulnerability of being seen of being understood and yes, even potentially rejected. The Family agree to travel together at least long enough to get Bonnie back to their sister. But there are no guarantees what happens beyond there. There is love. There is acceptance. There is honesty. There are no more time loops. Maybe now, finally... there can be change. Growth. Tomorrow.

In time loop fiction everything eventually loses meaning. There are no permanent consequences, no external pressures, nothing inherent to strive for, no meaning but what the protagonist(s) give themselves. The option to just accept things and remain is always there as Andy Samberg's character in Palm Springs does. The option to never stop trying to escape is there for those like Keiji in All You Need Is Kill.

The brilliance of In Stars and Time is that there are two wishes that are influencing the universe. The wish of the people to save Vaugarde from being frozen in time and Siffrin's wish to remain with his family. Change and Stagnation. That's what it always comes down to in these time loop stories and the conflict in this game is that those two forces are playing against one another. The only outcome was to give up on one or the other. As we'll learn in Act 6 there is no reality where Siffrin gets to stay with all 4 party members. They will have to separate at some point. Accepting change is accepting that things can and will and do end and life will go on and you have to be okay with it. Many of our essays have focused on representation that includes a healing journey from Ange Ushiromiya accepting the circumstances of her tragic past to Elliot Alderson's 4 season long representation of trauma therapy for dissociative clients. I think the thing I love about In Stars and Time is that it's the long and arduous process of a chronically traumatized individual asking for help. It's the first step on the healing journey. Acceptance. Siffrin spent the entire game in denial and rejection, making jokes and pushing things aside. Our long and hard journey was just getting to the point where they were able to recognize and admit it. And I really hope that Sif and their family members will be okay. I wished on my leaf for Sif to see Ka Bue with Odile. I hope they get to go. But as insertdisc5 says when asking any questions about what happens next "it's your turn" -

Stars that was a long one. Thank you for sticking with me if you read the whole thing. We like to write these essays as a matter of helping our study on dissociation (we, ourselves, are a DID patient and reading and comprehending this material is essential to our recovery and treatment) and providing a little insight to bits of media that are positive examples of what we go through. If you enjoyed always feel free to leave an ask or leave some silly tags. I never care if I get a flop post as writing is its own reward but the encouragement is good for my ego <3

Special thanks to @insertdisc5 for answering when I reached out for comment on the writing of this essay. The reply was helpful and encouraged us to take our time and write this with extra care. (In Stars and Time can be found on Steam, Itch, GOG, Nintendo Store and Playstation Store. The Prologue Game can be found on Steam and the Start Again comic on insertdisc5’s website) Media, Myself and I is a series of Tumblr Essays for positive depictions of dissociative disorders. Other essays include: A History of Murder Alters Discworld and Plurality Incidental, intentional and accidental representation Gender, Dissociation and Clinical Stigma in The Third Person Recontextualized Memories in Umineko Derealization in Night in the Woods and Metal Gear Solid The Dangers of Hypnotic Personality Play in Penlight System Origins in The Incredible Hulk Relationships with Systems in The Incredible Hulk The Healing Journey in Mr. Robot

...wait... what happened to Act 6?

I did say Loop deserved their own essay, didn't I?

[tarotwithlucien]

Letter from your Future Spouse | PICK A PILE

⊹ ᨦ Hello! Welcome to another PAP about future spouse, as you asked for a lot, here I am back ;) I have to warn you that there's a lil bit of nsfw in this reading so if you're underage LEAVE 😠

₊˚๑ How to choose: Close your eyes, take a deep breath and choose the image that caught your attention. ₊˚๑ Disclaimer: All readings are done for entertainment only, don't use my readings as a replacement for legitimate advice. This is a general reading, so take what resonates and leave what doesn't.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ masterist | tip jar

🥐 ⊹ ꒱ PILE ONE ᨦ ♡

⊹ ︶⏝⭒ ⊹ ⭒⏝︶ ⊹

"My dearest love,

I want you to know that all I truly desire is a peaceful life with you. In a world that often seems to value wealth, fame, and material luxuries, I find solace in the simplicity of our love. I don’t need grand gestures or extravagant possessions. As long as I’m by your side, that’s more than enough for me. I envision a quiet, private life where it’s just the two of us, free from the noise and distractions of the outside world. It doesn’t even matter to me if no one in the city we live in knows our name, all that matters is you and the beautiful life we build together. From the moment I met you, I’ve fallen for you deeply. Your essence captivates me in ways I can hardly explain. I love your unique style, even when others judge it harshly (Many people in this pile have a more alternative look, maybe even tattoos or piercings, and that just adds to how much they admire you). I find beauty in your individuality, in the way you express yourself unapologetically. I adore listening to you talk, even when your words ramble on about something seemingly silly – it doesn’t matter. When you ask me to, I love wrapping my hands around your neck, feeling the warmth of your skin beneath my fingertips. The way you beg for my touch sends shivers down my spine; it ignites a fire within me that I never knew existed. The pleasure you give me is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced, and I crave every moment we share. Seeing you from behind during our passionate encounters drives me wild with desire, and I’m utterly eager to know your taste in every sense. I am completely captivated by you; you have my heart, and honestly, I’d let you ruin my life if that’s what you wanted. I want you to know that you are free to be exactly who you are with me. Never apologize for being yourself; your authenticity is what makes you shine. Don’t let the opinions of others weigh you down or dictate how you live your life. You don’t need to seek validation from anyone or change who you are to fit someone else’s expectations. Those people who criticize you? They’re simply jealous because they lack the courage to live as freely as you do. Remember, you’re not perfect – none of us are – but you possess so much inherent value. I hope you can see that in yourself, even on days when self-doubt creeps in. I’ve noticed that you’ve been holding back, staying quiet when things or people bother you, and it’s been going on for far too long. It’s time to stop. You deserve to stand up for yourself and speak out when something doesn’t feel right. Don’t just let things slide or accept situations that don’t sit well with your heart. And please, exercise caution with the people you trust – not everyone has your best interests at heart. You are precious to me, and I want to protect you from any negativity or harm that may come your way. You mean everything to me, and I promise to be your safe haven, your supporter, and your biggest fan. Together, we can navigate this life and face whatever challenges come our way. I’ll always stand by your side, encouraging you to be the incredible person you are meant to be.

With all my love, Your future spouse."

🥐 ⊹ ꒱ PILE TWO ᨦ ♡

⊹ ︶⏝⭒ ⊹ ⭒⏝︶ ⊹

"My love,

I’ve never felt so happy or so deeply invested in someone until you came into my life. Before we became what we are now, we were just friends, and that in itself was confusing for me. I’d never felt anything like this for anyone before, so it caught me off guard. But now, being with you, I find myself in awe, thinking, "Wow, is this really my life?”. Being with you as your partner feels like the most divine experience I’ve ever had. Right now, I know there are people who don’t treat you the way you deserve. Some of them always think they’re right and criticize you, making it seem like you’re always wrong and never good enough. They point out your flaws and mistakes as if you aren’t capable of doing anything right. But listen to me, love, you don’t need to tolerate that. You deserve better. These people don’t know your worth, and I’m telling you, don’t waste your time trying to please them. Don’t let their words tear you down, and don’t let them walk all over you. It’s time for you to stand tall and show them exactly who you are. You’re so much more than their shallow judgments, and you don’t need their approval to know your value. The thought of losing you is something I can hardly bear. Just imagining you being with someone else, laughing with them, sharing moments, and kissing them – it makes my heart ache in ways I can’t describe. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I’m protective of you because I love you so much, and the idea of someone else having what we have – it would break me. I know it sounds possessive, but it’s not in a toxic way. I just can’t imagine my life without you, and I don’t want to share you with anyone. You’re mine, and I’ll always fight for us because I know that what we have is rare. This kind of love doesn’t come around often, and it’s something worth fighting for, no matter what. I’ll be by your side through every high and low. I’m not going anywhere. Stay with me, because I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted, everything you’ve dreamed of. You deserve the world, and I’ll spend my life trying to give it to you. You’re beautiful – so incredibly beautiful. If we were in a room full of people, you’d still be the only one I’d see. No one else could ever hold my attention the way you do. You make me feel more alive than I ever have before, and I can’t help but be mesmerized by you, by the way you move, by everything you are. I want you. I want to feel you close, I want our bodies to collapse into one another, and I want to hold you through the night. I want to wake up the next morning with you beside me, your face illuminated by the soft light of the sun. I can’t imagine anything more perfect than that. Every moment with you feels like a dream, and I never want to wake up from it. I hope you know how much you mean to me, how much I cherish you. I’m completely and hopelessly in love with you, and I’ll stand by you, no matter what comes our way. You’re my heart, my soul, my everything.

With all my love, Your future spouse."

🥐 ⊹ ꒱ PILE THREE ᨦ ♡

⊹ ︶⏝⭒ ⊹ ⭒⏝︶ ⊹

"My darling,

I want you to know that I’m here to lift you up and encourage you to fly high, chasing after all your dreams with unwavering determination. I see you grappling with people who are rude or who treat you as if you’re less than you truly are, and I want you to realize that this mistreatment only happens because you allow it. I understand that you might hold back your words, choosing silence to avoid conflict, but it’s essential for you to stand your ground and assert yourself. You have every right to demand respect, and you must not let anyone walk all over you. It might take time for you to learn how to set boundaries and to stand firm without feeling guilty, especially if you’re someone who tends to please others. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but I promise you, you’ll get there if you take that first step. I see you feeling lonely at times, and it pains me to know that you’re going through this. I can help you mend that loneliness, and I want nothing more than to see you shine brightly in your own unique way. I long to be near you, to touch you, to kiss you passionately, and to explore every inch of your being. You deserve to feel desired and loved, and I want to be the one to show you just how incredible you are. I’ll make you scream with pleasure because you are such a good girl/good boy, and I will send you all the love in my heart, wrapped in every caress and whisper. You have the power to manifest the life of your dream. You can create the reality you desire, and I believe in you wholeheartedly. Know that I am practically at your feet, waiting for you to call out to me. As soon as you do, I will come running. Being apart from you right now feels like a dagger to my heart. Even though we haven’t met yet, I am on a quest to find you, enduring this distance as best I can. The thought of trying to stop loving you is impossible; it would only cause my feelings to deepen. I could never truly let you go, and the very idea of it is unbearable. But I hold on to the hope that one day we will be together, sharing everything that life has to offer. My eyes are always on you; you are everything I see. You are my world, my everything, and I will always be here, ready to embrace you when the time comes.

With all my love, Your future spouse."

© tarotwithlucien - don't copy, redistribute or edit my content | moodboard & dividers by plutism

[yandere-sins]

Monstober - Day 3: Alien

I've read so much alien romance by now—it's a good way to incorporate monsters ngl—I feel like I have seen it all. And yet, there is just something about it that I will never tire of ♥

Prompt: Day 3: Alien | Otherworldly // Uncanny Valley // Space Warnings: Yandere, Violence (Threats, (Alien) Blood Mention, Killing (of aliens), Getting cut), Abduction & being auctioned off situation, Belittling of Humans, Alien Manipulation

"And next up: A very rare pet of the type "human"! Directly imported from their home planet, "Earth," to be loved and cared for! Bidding starts at one million GSC!"

You felt terribly exposed without your clothes, merciless, harsh lights burning down on you, and no shade to hide in. Even with your arms tightly wrapped around your body, legs tugged in and crossed over, you still felt the stares of the creatures below, even if you couldn't see them. Their hungry growls and huffs echoed all around you while the price kept rising.

The lanky stature of the monster that hosted this auction paced back and forth on the edge of the stage, asking for participation and making this deal worthwhile. The creature looked like a humanoid cricket, with spindly legs, four arms, and three fingers on each hand that it kept pointing left and right.

"Four million GSC! Four-point-five million GSC! Do I hear five? Five million, thank you!"

You couldn't help the tears filling your eyes as you listened to the worth of your self, something you never had a say in determining. Even with your father swearing up and down that he adored and cherished you more than his own life, you knew that his gambling addiction would one day ruin everything you loved. You just didn't think he'd go as far as to sell you—to aliens nonetheless.

On earth, you had thought you had seen it all—highs and lows, in person or on television. But in your cell on the spaceship that flew you through the cosmos, you learned you knew nothing. You were a tiny speck in this endless design, and it left you feeling empty and meaningless.

You met quite a few species back when you were waiting for the auction to take place. Humanoids, insectoids, and some completely unexplainable. You learned that most aliens sold themselves to wealthier species to live a better life, not so much concerned with pride or shame as humans were. Thus, the existence of an enslaved human caused quite a ruckus in the galaxy. You had yet to learn the worth of GSC—the currency beyond your planet—but apparently, one million was akin to a yearly income here.

"Twenty-five million GSC! What an amazing price for a priceless pet! At this point, it will only be fair if you lovely participants know what you're getting into!"

At this, you finally raised your head again, bracing your eyes against the painful light as the thumping of steps closed in on you. A three-fingered hand reached out for your arm, and as green and gnarly as it was, its movements were fast and precise. You cowered away but weren't as quick and nimble, and the fingers were large enough to wrap around your upper arm, yanking you back.

Without any warning, a small claw emerged from one of the alien's free hands, cutting you right above its own fingers around your flesh that held you in place. You gasped but the creature hummed approvingly before it dabbed a white tissue to the wound, soaking up the blood. Unnecessarily harsh, the monster discarded your arm again, making sure to let you know how much you really meant to it with all its actions—nothing.

You were simply a means to an end. One that would hopefully bring lots of money.

If not for the precarious state, you should have been angry. Angry at your father, angry at the world—the whole galaxy even! How dare they sell you like a piece of meat with no regard for your well-being and wishes! Sure, they weren't used to the pridefulness of a race they deemed weak yet untouchable by the laws of their organization. But the way they treated you, abused you, and disregarded all of your self as if you truly were a mindless animal only seeking food and shelter to simply survive was beyond insulting!

You were still a human! The superior race on your planet. You still had intelligence and empathy and deserved so much more than their belittling treatment!

But here, you were nothing. The alien disappeared with the sample of your blood, and you saw it bend down at the edge of the stage, leaving you to assume it was passing the tissue to someone else, who, in turn, probably gave it to the patrons of this establishment. The crowd suddenly erupted in a heated cacophony of sounds. More groans and huffs spread through the masses, and the alien auctioneer clapped his four hands together as more offers were yelled into the room.

You were just a piece of meat. One to purchase and show off, play with, ruin, break, and then force to be the good pet that they paid millions for. At this point, you were pretty sure that they wouldn't stop and keep your dignity intact. That no one here truly cared whether you'd be happy or scared or embarrassed.

"Fifty-three million! Sixty-four! Do I hear sixty-five—Seventy million GSC!"

The enthusiastic grunts and murmurs made you sick to the stomach, and you hunched over, cowering in your position. Maybe they were right; perhaps you really were just an expensive piece of meat.

You hadn't given the future too much thought yet, too afraid of the present after you were kidnapped and shipped to space. But what if, despite them calling you "pet", you'd actually be killed and eaten? What if once you weren't new, weren't special anymore, you'd simply be discarded, ending up on the streets of an alien planet where you were at the mercy of those creatures? What would you do if they were all hulking, strong beasts that could throw you around like a ragdoll, hurting you, abusing you?

Or worse... Oh god, you could think of so many more things they could do, and yet you were too afraid to form the thoughts in your head.

There were so many cruel ideas in your head as you sat there, hunched over, despair filling your body and mind. You had to do something, had to get away. Pride was one thing, but survival was the most primal need you had in you. And as much as you wished for it all to be over, how could you possible achieve this? How could you, a simple human make them stop tormenting you? Secretly, you had already accepted their superiority; it had been this way since the old ages. Masses made you humans strong, but you alone? No chance.

"Do you wish to end all of this?"

Your ragged breath came to a halt, your head slowly turning to the side from where the voice came. There was no explaining what you were looking at, those humanoid features so similar to humans, yet somehow their features were sharper, elongated, cheekbones too high to be real, the nose too slim to look functional. The creature's body was lean and tall, its torso almost entirely in view from above the stage. You examined them for a long time, their blue skin standing out against the harsh lights. You spied the flick of a tail behind them every so often, sleek with a puff of hair at the end. And despite being so different, somehow, they scared you less than the aliens you had seen on your journey here.

"S-Sir, with all due respect, you're not supposed to approach them without them being restrained."

The auctioneer called out to them, stepping in front of you and blocking the line of sight unsuccessfully with its spindly, insectoid legs. You shuddered at the thought of going back into the restraints you had woken up in after being knocked out and readied for shipment. "What if they attack you or get filth all over you? These creatures are known to spit," he added more quietly, hoping to appease the one standing in front of the stage, their tail flicking more often now. Was it annoyance that crossed their features? Or did the light blind you to see the truth?

The creature's gaze lingered on you for a while longer, their eyes drilling into you from between the gaps in the legs before their head snapped upwards rapidly, lips parting in a menacing grimace. "Let them speak," they growled, and the auctioneer jumped back, sputtering before moving to the side.

Only now did you notice the deadly silence in the hall, and you slowly unfurled from your hunched-over position, looking up. But not without your arms tightening around you, shielding you a little from being exposed.

The alien's head fell back down, facing forward, the movement much gentler, less frightening—intentional. Their dark blue gaze softened, no pupils but swirls of lighter blues and purples swaying in them. And then they smiled, and it almost seemed comforting, if there weren't two rows of spiked teeth. One of their hands raised from below the stage—another uncanny feature as their arms were just too long—and the other settled on the stage tapping on it, beckoning you closer.

When the other arm emerged, it held a smooth kind of fabric in it, maybe a coat or a rag, but the dark blue color glistened in the direct light made you assume it was something better than a poor person's rag as they spread it out on the edge of the stage, pushing it in your direction as far as possible.

"It's okay now," they purred, and a sudden relief washed over you, their words sinking into you like a warm hug and reassuring backrub would, your jaw unclenching and shoulders sinking. Something about them calmed you, and although your brain was telling you to be extra careful, you couldn't help but feel connected to them. Hesitantly but curious, you inched closer, fingertips reaching for the fabric. Part of you expected the creature to pull it away from you the moment you attempted anything, but they didn't move, didn't even breathe. It was unnerving how still they could be, still like a trick of your mind, an illusion, but the soft fabric beneath your hand was very real, and you tugged at it warily.

It followed your pull, and soon enough, you pressed it to your chest, covering up your naked body. Greed settled in as you reached for more with your other hand, spreading the blue around you, the fabric seemingly never-ending, at least not until you had utterly cocooned yourself in it, nothing but your face and a few strands of your hair still looking out of it.

It had this grounding smell that enveloped you like a second layer of fabric, sweet and earthy, but also reminded you of the ocean you used to visit at home. Your heart ached as you took another deep breath, unwilling to part with the memory.

You couldn't help a shuddering breath from escaping as you looked back up at the creature. So much closer to them now, their size was even more towering, yet you didn't hesitate to look into these intriguing eyes of theirs, the swirls now creating pools of depth inside of them with how fast they were circling, looking as if they were entirely fixated on you.

"Thank you," you muttered, genuinely grateful for the help.

"My pleasure," they replied, their long-limbed arm reaching out, catching the loose strands of hair and twirling them in their fingertips. You felt like you needed to recoil, but for some reason, you didn't move, completely at peace with the creature touching you, their skin smelling much like the fabric around you. "Now, about my question. Do you wish to end all of this?"

It was a strangely phrased, hard-to-interpret question, but you didn't wreck your head before agreeing with a nod. You did want all of this to end; you didn't want to be a pet to some strange creature that was paying a lump sum just to own you. They were all the same greedy monsters that your father was: heartless and unsympathetic. Why would you not want to end this damned situation?

"Wonderful, but I'll have you know that that power comes at a price," they chuckled, hand falling from your hair to your cheek. A large palm cupped your face, thumb splitting off to caress your lower lip, pressing against it, their gaze fixating on the plumpness jumping back in place after being fondled. Then, their hand slid further down, unwrapping your neck from the fabric and slipping around your throat to the thumping spot of your puls that it wrapped around.

"Are you willing to pay that price?"

"B-But Sir! Please..." someone whimpered from beside you, but it was nearly impossible to break eye contact with the alien before you and acknowledge whoever was speaking. They had a mesmerizing aura to themselves, the swirls captivating your attention, and you felt ashamed to say they fascinated you. It felt wrong, yet... right. Was it supposed to feel that way?

"What's the price?" you mumbled, a part of you still a good human, aware that nothing came for cheap and everything should be in equal value.

"Mhm," the creature hummed thoughtfully, but not appalled by your question, their thin lips curving into a grin similar to that of a human but more foxish and uncanny.

"Your life to do what I please with, in exchange for..."

They made another thoughtful sound before the rumble in their chest turned into a purr. Their lips split into that menacing smile from before, many sharp teeth creating pristinely white rows, and you knew they thought themselves on the winning side. You felt their grip around your throat tighten, and with an unexpected yank, you were pulled forward, just a breath away from their face.

"How about every life that dares to look at you with appalling intentions? Every soul, or the equivalent in their respective race, in this room, calling you a mere pet? Every alien that touched you as if you were an object of their possession? Anyone that has ever or will in the future harm you? Would that be enough, little human? Do you require more from me? It shall be yours. Your life in my hands in exchange for everything you could want—and my coat."

You tightened the fabric around your body, a waft of the sweet scent you smelled before tingling your nostrils. It was a damn good coat, and an even better offer.

Somehow, it bothered you less to hear you'd still be sold like a slave—although perhaps better a slave than a pet. At least it would be on your terms, right? Or the alien's... Your head felt dizzy as you thought about it. If this was the promise, you could live with it. You'd at least get out of this situation and live to see another day. And you were so angry at these creatures around you, your father, everything! Why should you care about them? Right, you shouldn't. You should... agree. Take the deal and be done with it. Dealing with one alien was better than all the others.

"Do you swear to keep your promise?" you asked, and the creature sighed blissfully, nodding their head before resting their forehead to yours. Tension that you hadn't realized had been there before left their body, and you noticed their free hand creeping up on stage, closer to your bundled-up form.

"I swear," they uttered solemnly, and you nodded in acknowledgment.

"So do I."

"S-Sir! You cannot disrupt this auction as you please! There are rules on the Galactic Space Hub that prohibit direct selling of wares and—"

The sound of squashing flesh interrupted the auctioneer's speech, and your eyes widened—as did the creature's cheeky grin. You felt something hot and wet splatter on your coat but didn't realize what it was until it hit the alien in front of you on the face. Your head slowly turned with hesitant movements, but their free hand reached up, keeping your face forward instead while hushing you.

"Don't look," they chuckled, and chaos erupted in all forms of sounds around you. Neighing, squawking, and the occasional grunts were to be heard everywhere. You couldn't ignore the squashing, sputtering sounds of fluids and flesh being cut open, your body shivering with not even the coat being able to keep you warm all of a sudden as you came to a realization of what kind of deal you had made.

"Shh, shh," the alien hushed, bringing a hand up to their own face to wipe away the alien guts that had splattered them. With a flick of their wrist, they returned the arm to your back and wrapped it around you. "Just keep looking at me, don't look at them. It's your turn to keep your promise and not to disobey my orders. I hope you remember your part of the deal and spare yourself the misery."

Pulling you off the stage, you were cradled against their chest, flat and tight under what looked oddly similar to a vest and dress shirt from earth, intricate patterns decorating the seams. The curiosity of any human wanted you to look and witness the devastation that had taken place, but you couldn't tear yourself away from this strange, otherworldly creature, their command seemingly effective.

"Your Majesty, it is done. What do you wish to do now?"

"Hm," the creature hummed, leaning forward a little more, lips almost brushing yours. You held your breath, fingers clawing into their shoulders. You tensed in their hold as they carried you out of the harsh spotlight, shrouding you in the darkness that had once given privacy to the aliens trying to buy you for their own pleasure. But nothing more than silence was left now, and it was an eery one, paired with many pungent yet alluring smells around you.

"Ready my ship," the alien ordered, and you felt hypnotized by their eyes paired with their smell so close to you now. Tempted, almost, to have a taste of their lips, see if they tasted the same as they smelled. "Sent a fleet ahead of us and tell the court I am finally coming home."

They grinned again, and you should have recoiled from the sharp teeth shining in the darkness. Their whole body seemed glowing even outside of the light.

"And tell them I bring back my blood mate, my newly betrothed, and prepare for the harvest."

You gasped as you heard the creature announce their plans, pushing away from them and managing to tear away from their hypnotic gaze. No one said anything about your blood! What were their intentions? What did they want with your blood? How much blood did they want? You thought this would merely end in you being a companion, rather than a mere pet, but it seemed you had been entirely wrong.

"Ah, ah," they chuckled. "Remember, it's the price you promised to pay. My kind values clean bloodlines above all else. Imagine how hard it was to find one of your kind that matched mine? Otherwise I would have never been allowed the pleasure to keep one of you, be with one of you. You are simply perfect. Interesting, "fun". Exactly what I want in a blood mate!"

"What?" you winced, feeling a strange sense of betrayal. "Why me then? Why a human? Why not one of your own kind? O-Or the others!"

"Your kind is the most interesting of them all," they explained. "I can't wait to uncover all these emotions you are feeling, one after the other. I must know all about what it's like to feel "pain" and "happiness". You have no idea how boring these other species are, no matter what I do to them. I'm not wasting my time copulating with those simpletons. I want something more from my mate. Something they can't give me, but you can."

Their explanation sounded threatening even when they smiled throughout it, their intentions becoming awfully clear, and you squirmed in their arms that only seemed to tighten the more you moved. You fell for it like a fool! you thought, scolding yourself inwardly for not being more careful. You trusted the creature even though you knew better! None of those aliens would have treated you well! None of them had good intentions!

And you might have just fallen for the worst of them all—a curious one.

"Now, now," they tutted, a hand wrapping around your neck from behind, squeezing until you gasped for air.

"It's time to hold up your end of the bargain, as will I, always."

[viviennevermillion]

oooh what if vidyadhara reader with draconic feature just like dan heng (or feng) who's trying to hide the fact that they're jealous but the tail just gives it away by thumping on the ground like it has a mind of it's own and no matter what the reader does it just won't stop unless you grab it

but like, if the tail didn't exist they would actually believe it cuz their expression is actually very convincing

i was thinking of blade, dan heng and jing yuan back when they were still a high cloud quintet cuz i believe they were so popular back then

With a Vidyadhara Reader

✧ ɴᴏᴛᴇꜱ: thank you for the request! i went with present time for this because i feel like i still don't know enough about their past to feel confident in portraying them accurately.

✧ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀꜱ: dan heng, jing yuan, blade

✧ ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: obvious — taylor trensch

✧ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: none

Dan Heng, being a Vidyadhara dragon himself, immediately knew what was up with you when your tail started indicating exactly how he made you feel. Yet, because he wasn't open about his past with the other members of the Astral Express Crew yet, he kept silent, simply observing you and wondering what would become of your friendship if one day you decided to be honest about your feelings.

Dan Heng loves you too, but he's hesitant about putting you on the spot and forcing you to share something about you, that you weren't ready to share with him yet. And besides, that would mean bringing up the whole High Elder thing and he wouldn't know how that would affect your opinion of him. His memories of the past are hazy and he doesn't know who you were back then and what that would mean for you now. Whether it would make you see him with different eyes.

So when he comes back from the Xianzhou Luofu with dragon horns and a tail; the resemblance to High Elder Dan Feng undeniable; your eyes fall on him and you immediately know there's quite a lot for you to talk about

At first it's all about what happened on the Luofu and how Dan Heng felt about the whole thing. But he eventually decides it's time to talk about how your tail had been giving away your feelings for him for months now.

You're understandably flustered, still a little shocked from the realization that he likely knew the whole time. You had always brushed your agitated tail off as "things your nerves just do sometimes" so finding out Dan Heng was always aware you were lying about it was quite awkward

However, Dan Heng is happy the cards are finally on the table. He confesses that he feels the same for you and you decide on just burying the past for a while and enjoy your life together now.

You receive a text message from him the next day to enter his room and you find that he has built something akin to a dragon nest / pillow fort for the two of you to cuddle in. Dan Heng lays down with you in his arms and he places a kiss on your horns; a silent promise to stay by your side and love you forever; his tail intertwined with yours.

Blade is... hesitant about falling in love with a Vidyadhara dragon considering how his last close bond with one went.

Blade actually is completely oblivious to your tell-tale signs of having a crush on him. He'd be entering the room and your tail would swish back and forth and he's way too caught up in his own head to notice. His thoughts are spiraling around what happens if you want him to be immortal too and what it means when you reincarnate or whether you will bring ruin to his life like his friendship with Dan Feng did.

Meanwhile you're just like,,, happy to see him

Kafka actually has to slap some sense into him by telling him about your feelings for him and your desire to love him and take care of him that is obvious to literally everyone BUT Blade. This man is DEEP in denial and half the time he spends with Kafka is her trying to convince him that you're not out for making his depression 10 times worse and that since he feels the same; he should just give the whole thing a chance and enjoy your time together

But these interactions made you wonder whether Blade wasn't into Kafka instead.

So your tail smacks onto the ground in an unnerved motion and Kafka chuckles, leaning over to Blade and whispering in his ear about how you're obviously jealous and he should just give in to his feelings already.

This in turn makes your tail act up even more.

This continues until Kafka one day decides to put you out of your misery and just tell you that Blade has a huge crush on you that he's trying to deny and that he mumbles your name in his sleep while snuggling a pillow, which makes you almost choke on your cereal.

Blade enters the room not long after that, finding your tail completely still from the shock of the information you just received. He turns his head to Kafka, speaking in a slow but annoyed tone. "What. did. you. do?"

This incident ultimately marked the moment you two got together but Blade still thinks Kafka is a horrible wingwoman.

Jing Yuan is the only one out of these three who is not conflicted in the slightest.

Rather, he's having the time of his life watching you talk to him with a completely straight face while your tail is having a solo dance session behind you; something you were unfortunately very aware of. You try desperately to stop it from moving while Jing Yuan just stands there with a subtle smile on his face.

He'll subtly tease you about it as well. Asks you if everything is okay whilst he knows full well what is happening here.

When your tail thumps on the ground out of jealousy, Jing Yuan leans close to you and tells you that you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Yes, this is before you start dating. He knows what he's doing to your poor heart by teasing you about this. He hopes it finally prompts you to be honest about your feelings.

Even after you get together, the tail is definitely a big help in showing Jing Yuan how you're feeling at the moment, so he can reassure you when he needs to and give you attention when you crave it.

He often pulls you into his lap and runs his fingertips over the tail, marveling at the scales and how you react to his touches. When he notices your tail is sensitive, he chuckles lightly and presses a kiss to your forehead.

Everytime he sees jealousy or a need for attention in the movements of your tail, he makes a mental note to take some time off to spend with you and pamper you with affection as soon as possible.

[the-faceless-bride]

Some Of my current ideas and obsession Blurbs (if you find any of them interesting, I'm open to hearing ideas 👀👀)

Part 2 ->

Imagine being a demon...

Imagine Part of your power has to do with death, corruption, and seeing who someone was when they were alive... as a demon, the death of Rengoku Kyojuro broke you. He was such a beautiful, loving, caring man. Giving such an unfair and unfortunate death... you just couldn't accept this...

Imagine You bring him back as he springs up after your ritual. His hair was a mess, covered in dirt, his clothes ripped. He gasps for air as if it was the first he's had in centuries... "Poor unfortunate soul, so sad, in need... come allow me to give you a second chance."

Imagine His horror. Him. Now a Demon. Tethered to you. Unable to die again unless you give him permission to do so... he tired. Sat in the sun. But while he felt weak and itchy, he didn't die. He hated it. Hated himself. He hated you. You who, while yes, didn't have malicious intent. Who gave him a second chance at 'life' as you called this... you who brought him back and unlike when he was alive in his final moments felt no pain, no hunger, he hated you.

Imagine slowly helping him come to terms with his eternal life. From Enemies (one sided) to Lovers letting him stay with you in your small hidden village of other demon families that have also been brought back and tethered to you. Still fulfilling his dreams, taking down the demons who "lost their humanity and deserved their eternity to end."

Imagine the conflict you face, when His once friends and found family find him... a demon... still classic Kyojuro but yet so different... what do you do? An angry group of Hashira Pillars cursing you for what you did to their friend. Kyojuro broken and ashamed of what he is once more at the heart break of his friends being scared of him, some of them hating him all together...

Imagine him calling out to you, help him. Make them listen. Please. His Angel... his little firefly... please make them understand. He can't bare the way they look at him... help him... he needs you.

Rengoku Kyojuro × demon Reader Trope: Enemies to lovers

Now also Imagine being a demon...

Imagine being a demon who was so desperately, hopelessly, in love with Gyomei Himejima. Hopelessly devoted to a man who didn't even know you existed. You watched him at night, singing your sweet song and lulling him to a deeper sleep each night. Wishing nothing more than to one day be able to caress and memorize every inch of his mind, body, and soul. Wishing to kiss his soft looking lips...

Imagine desperately trying to deny what you know is true... you've heard it from your fellow demon 'friend' over and over again. And tonight, you were desperately trying to hold on to your dreams... "[name] just face it... he's a Demon slayer. A hashira. And to him, you're a monster... that something no amount of love is going to change. You'd be better off not thinking about him anymore. If you really love him, you'd let him go... besides a pretty human girl will probably catch his attention sooner or later..." You hang your head as tears fill your eyes, it's not true... it's not. He could love you. He could...

Imagine one day, you run into him in the Forest. The Forrest trees are so thick that the completely block out the sun, it's only a small section of the Forest. You liked to come here to lay in the flowers, and apparently Gyomei had thought the same...

Imagine He needed a quiet place, today had been a very hectic day. No peace and quiet today at all. He'd simply sat under a particularly large tree, focusing on his breath. You'd sat so unbelievably still. Not wanting to move and risk ruining this perfect moment. You were so close. You'd never been this close to him before and it made every part of your cold body ache.

Imagine accidently rustling the flowers catching his attention instantly, and he jumps to stand in a defensive position. You quickly kneel head pressing to the ground as you apologize for disturbing him, and not wanting any trouble. But oddly he doesn't attack you and instead he apologizes for startling you. At first you were confused. But then it clicked, you Had not attacked him like a demon would. He's blind. He doesn't yet realize you're a demon... this was it. Your chance. To speak to him. To hear him address you... to hear him say your name...

Imagine Pretending to be human, making it seem like you were a measly human girl who came here to sit in the flowers to relax... and this was how it went for some time... days turn to weeks, and weeks turn into months. You'd been keeping this secret of yours for 3 months, your love for Gyomei stronger and flame of obsession brighter. And he'd become so open to you. Telling you almost eveeything... sure you'd felt guilty lying to him... but you just couldn't let him. Go...

Imagine one evening, the sun setting, the fireflies and the colorful flowers surrounding you... you gain the courage to confess... stilling your heart of how much you admire him, you know that he way not feel the same way... but even if he'll never belong to you... that's OK, you are happy to just dream and be his dear friend... but to your shock and joy he accepts your confession. He's gained feelings for you. You could almost cry... but then... in an instant the happiness... your happily ever after was ripped away from you in an unfortunate series of events "Dearest... your hands are so cold..." - "GYOMEI!" A his friend Mitsuri calls out her foot steps quickly approaching, more footsteps following behind. "AWAY DISGUSTING MONSTER!" she cries her sword just barley missing you as your arm is severed clean off. And instantly Gyomei's face goes through so many emotions... worry, Confusion, shock and finally realization... and he let's you go. You dash away vanishing... "Gyomei! Are you ok?! That awful creature tricked you! She must've planned to devower you then and there if I hadn't noticed your absence! Are you OK my friend!?" The sounds of other Confused voices all speaking over each other planning to find you... Gyomei thinks of her question... is he OK?... honestly... he doesn't know...

Gyomei Himejima × Demon Reader Trope: unrequited love/Forbidden love

[4unnyr0se]

pookie pls can you write for gojo where reader and him are coworkers at jujutsu high and have a dynamic similar to utahime and gojo? and like yaga is always making them work together even tho they don’t like eachother, but Gojo lowkey gets off on reader being annoyed at him so there is *tension*? 🥺🥺🥺

❥ whole lotta attitude | satoru gojo

warnings: enemies to lovers, gojo is a dickhead but it's okay because he's gojo, fem! reader, unprotected sex, office sex (im a slut for office sex), multiple orgasms, wall sex, roughness, one hickey, spanking, oral sex (m! receiving), making out, filthy filthy words are spoken, hella sexual tension, reader hates gojo but gojo loooooves her, gojo gets slapped once, degrading, praise, hair pulling, hate(?) sex, gojo texts like a super senior, a little bit of a textfic but not rlly, fluff at the end

MDNI | 18+ content

word count -> 3.6k

Jujutsu High was quiet today. That wasn’t unusual because most of the students were either out on missions or in Shokos’ office experiencing whatever the hell she called “medicine.” The quiet was nice, strangely calming, and reassuring. Being a jujutsu sorcerer yourself, calm was a foreign feeling. The cool breeze blew your hair softly in the wind, the songbirds tweeting a melody that was most becoming on this quiet say. You took a deep breath in as you leaned against a wooden pole, admiring how clear the sky was. Everything was simply perfect. If tomorrow was your last day alive, today would be the most wonderful send-off.

“Hey there princess! I missed you!” 

And just like that, there was no more peace. No more tranquility, no more sing-song bird crap. There’s only Satoru Gojo and his humongous ego that crushes anyone within a 50-foot radius. 

His deep voice was laced with a sickly sweet playful tone that made you want to grab his collar and punch him right in his perfect nose. God, you fucking hated him. He was the bane of your existence with his smug attitude and that stupid infinity that he only turned off when you were around. Did he seriously think you were that weak, and he didn’t even need to use infinity because he could defeat you within a millisecond? Stupid fucking handsome bastard, you hated him with every fiber of your being. 

“What, you’re ignoring me now? Don’t be like that, it’s not nice!” Gojo laughed and practically teleported to where you were sitting, his eyes no doubt sparkling under that black blindfold he always wore. 

You groaned and rolled your eyes, crossing your arms and looking away from the smug bastard. “Fuck off, Gojo. I was having a perfectly peaceful afternoon before your very existence ruined it for me.” You pinched your temple with your index finger and thumb, rubbing the stressed skin. “I was calm for once in my damn life. You really do have a talent for making me wish I was six feet under.”

Gojo playfully pouted and shifted himself to your other side, taking your hand off your temple. He cradled it with his own, royally pissing you off in the process. “Why are you always so grumpy all the time, huh? Is it because your students are always out on missions instead of keeping little ol’ your company?” He mocked slightly, letting go of your hand. His blue eyes sparkled beneath his blindfold, filled with mischief. “I could keep your company, you know that right? Or is Little Miss Grumpy Pants too high and mighty to give me a shot?”

“I would literally rather make out with Jogo than spend more time with you than I’m legally required.”

“Ouch, that hurt.”

“Too bad, so sad.” You smirked, shoving him away. If anyone else had seen that they would have been shocked. The mighty Satoru Gojo, pushed to the ground by a grade two sorcerer. You rose up from the wooden desk and dusted yourself off, walking away as quickly as you could in your tennis shoes.

“I always look forward to these meetings you know!” Gojo yelled at you in the distance only to see the faintest image of your middle finger wiggling at him. Gojo smirked and put down the hem of his blindfold, his hair returning to its usual upright position. 

You stormed back into your office and locked the door shut, sliding down against the mahogany doorframe in exhaustion. How was it possible that just being in his presence absolutely drained you of all resolve? Was he really that strong, or was he just super fucking annoying? You had no idea, no one ever had any idea when it came to Satoru Gojo. 

The beautiful day finally came to an end and you got back to your apartment, collapsing onto your couch. Most jujutsu sorcerers had house provided to them by their clans, but that was not your case. Your neighbors thought you were a teacher at some religious school deep in the country side. It was the best excuse you could come up with for being gone for practically days at a time. Maybe the only bus to the train station broke down or something, any old excuse like that in order to keep the nosy (and mostly elderly) fellow tennents off your back.

“Fuck my life…” You groaned, placing your head in your hands as you stumbled over to your cozy bedroom, it’s warm environment almost giving you a hug in its own way. You slipped into your pajamas and curled up under the covers, setting your alarm on your phone for the next morning. Just as you were about to close your eyes, your phone started to buzz. At first it was just a single vibration, probably a text from your mother or something. But the buzzes and vibrations kept coming until your phone was practically moving itself off the bed.

You groaned in annoyance and turned over, checking the notification center to see who the hell had the nerve to text you nine times in a row. And sure enough, sporting the contact photo of a .5 that he took of himself when he stole your phone that one time, Satoru fucking Gojo had spam texted you at 11:41PM.

“What the actual hell?” You whispered, unlocking your phone to see what could possibly be this important. Nothing was ever this important past 10PM, not even if your apartment building was on fucking fire.

The messages plagued your screen, his smirking face in the contact photo made you even more angry. And yet a faint blush found itself creeping up against your face. Maybe it was the sheer excitement of a man texting you at night, or maybe deep down you actually liked Gojo. You smacked yourself lightly on the cheek, trying to erase that thought from your sleep-ridden mind.

Worst person alive: heyyyy

Worst person alive: r u up???

Worst person alive: theres no way u actually went to bed, omg ur such a grandma

Worst person alive: im bored talk to me

Worst person alive: megumi wont answer my texts :(( i think he hates me

Worst person alive: i know ur awake, u were active three minutes ago on insta

Worst person alive: ik u blocked me on their but jokes on u i have 5 other accounts

Worst person alive: pls pls pls pls talk to me im dying over here princess

Worst person alive: btw yaga assigned us on a mission tmrw mwah

Your eyed widened at the last message, your hands gripped the phone with white-knuckle strength. “Fucker!” You yelled, turning off your phone before melting under the covers. Why did Yaga have to do this to you? You and Gojo together was torture enough, but now you had to do actual work with each other? Gojo was grossly incompetent at anything that didn’t involve exorcising cursed spirits. 

You sighed and closed your eyes, silently praying that a curse would somehow break into your bedroom and murder you right then and there. But unfortuanly, you woke up to your alarm blaring in your ear the next morning.

Gojo and yourself were sat in Yaga’s office, Gojo smirking at you the entire time. You blushed under his gaze, hands gripping the edges of your seat as you waited for Yaga to tell you what the assignment was. Was Yaga being late on purpose just to mess with you? Did you manage to piss him off somehow? A million questions were flying through your mind and there was no answer in sight. 

“I saw you read my messages princess.” Gojo finally spoke, leaning forward. He was significantly taller over you, his towering muscular frame intimating you. “Why didn’t you respond? I was really bored. It’s rude to ignore your friends.” He spoke, that same sticky and syrupy voice coming back to haunt you.

“Maybe that’s because we aren’t friends, Gojo.” You scoffed, flipping your hair behind your back. “Could you please just shut up until Yaga gets here? If I have to listen to you mock me again I might actually explode.” Sighing, you placed your face in your hands.

“Actually,” Gojo purred, getting up from his seat only to sit down in Yaga’s velvet office chair. “Yaga doesn’t have a mission for us, princess.” He kicked his feet up on the desk, taking off his blindfold. His snowy white hair fell into a beautiful mess, with his painfully gorgeous blue eyes lighting up his already hellishly handsome face.

You looked up from your hands to raise an eyebrow, your face immediately turning a bright red upon seeing Gojo without his signature blindfold. “I’m sorry, what? I don’t follow.”

Gojo tutted and threw the black fabric onto your lap, his eyes still staring at your blushing face. Gojo found it simply adorable how you would always get so flustered, so annoyed in his presence. How you would always deny being attracted to him, how you swore up and down that he was put on this Earth to make your life a living hell. But he noticed that you would always squeeze your thighs together when he spoke. It was precious, really. How you thought you could hide your painfully obvious desire for him.

“Ae you hard of hearing or something, princess?” Gojo purred, leaning forward to he could grab onto the collar of your navy blue work uniform. With just a snap of his wrists his face was mere centimeters away from your own, the tips of your noses were pressed up against each other so perfectly. You felt your breathing quicken, the atmosphere in Yaga’s office so thick you could cut it with a butter knife. “I said that Yaga never gave us a fucking mission. I just wanted to see you again.” He breathed out, his steaming air causing the hair on the back of your neck to stand up. His grip on your collar tighten, his eyes were filled with desire. Desire for you that’s long overdue to be broken.

Your brows furrowed at you gripped onto his wrist, trying your best to pry his hand away from your uniform collar. Twisting and turning his wrist every which way turned out ot be fruitless, causing you to grow ever more angry and flustered. Fuck Gojo and his superhuman abilities, fuck him for being the strongest. 

Instead, your hand came flying at his face. Your palm collided with his flesh, the cold stinging sensation snapping Gojo out of his lustful trance. His spare hand crept onto his cheek, rubbing the mark softly. You gulped, nervous to see how the strongest jujutsu sorcerer would react to getting slapped across the face by a grade two. 

He smirked and threw his head back slightly, a dark chuckle emitting from his throat. He looked back down at you, his grip on your collar so strong that you started to choke. “God, I was hoping you would fucking do that.” 

In an instant his lips were on yours, roughly clashing against each other. It took every fiber of his being to not rip all your clothes off right then and there, to bend you over Yaga’s desk and fuck you senseless. Oh how long Gojo had waited to feel your plump lips being ravaged by his own, and how deliciously rewarding it was to play the long game. Finally your lips were melding perfectly with each other, his tongue picking up just the faintest taste of peach chapstick. 

Gojo pulled away from the kiss after about a minute, a thick strand of saliva connecting your lips. He sighed in pleasue as his eye landed on your flustered face, your mouth still agape like a slut.

“So fucking pretty like this,” he muttered, stepping out from behind the desk. He pulled you out of your chair and trapped you against the wall, his muscular torso being so easily felt under the think fabric of the uniforms the school provided. “Been wanting to kiss you since forever, y’know.” He mumbled, dragging his callosued hands up and down the clothed snatches of your wasit. “Your lips taste even better than I imaged, sweetness.”

You blushed at his sultry words, the faint glim in his ocean blue eyes only making your knees evern weaker. Slowly but carefully, your arms wrapped themselves around his broad shoulders. “You’re still on my shitlist,” you muttered, standing on the tips of your toes to meet his eyeline.

“And you’re as stubborn as ever, princess.” Gojo purred picking you up by the bottoms of your thighs, Your legs wrapped instinctively around his waist, making it look like a scene straight out of a movie. “Such a pretty mouth, you gonna let me fuck it?” He whispered, rubbing circled on your bare thighs. The modest jujutsu skirt you wore covered your legs quite nicely, so you never really felt the need to wear tights. And that drove Gojo fucking wild.

“Depends, what’s in it for me?” You smirked, tugging lightly on the baby hairs at the back of his head. Gojo hissed in pleasure, kind of proud that you were being equally as bratty to him as he was to you. 

“The best fuck you’ll ever get, plus some more.” Gojo let go of your thighs, letting you drop onto your knees. You looked up at him, gulping in anticipation as you saw the imprint of his throbbing erection covered by his pants. “You gotta get me prepared first, princess. Or else I might not fuck that pussy as good, got it?” His voice was dripping with desire for you as his expert hands pulled down his pants, tossing them aside along with his boxers. His cock tapped against his shirt, leaving the smallest precum stain.

You bit down on your lip at the sight of his cock, moving yourself foreward. Ever so carefully, your right hand gripping onto the base of his cock. Tongue falling out of your mouth, you took his cock in your wet cavern slowly, your cheeks hollowing out to accommodate his girth and length.

“Shit princess, just like that. Yeah, I knew you would be good at suckin’ dick.” Gojo praised, offering you a slanted smile as your hands stroked what your mouth couldn’t fit. His large hand tangled itself into your messy hair, tugging on the roots ever so gently. His hips bucked into your mouth ever so slowly, almost painfully slow. He treated you like you were so fragile, sharp contrast to when he had you pinned against the wall with his tongue shoved down your throat.

He groaned in pleasure as his cock his the back of his throat, his hips driving his member down your throat even faster. His grip on your hair tighten, causing a small pool of tears to well in the corner of your eye. A singular droplet ran down your pretty little face, which Gojo thought was just the cutest little thing.

“Oh, is my princess crying? What, my dick to big for your slutty little mouth?” His hips stopped snapping into your face, pulling your mouth off of his member slowly. “Well, if you can’t handle my dick in your mouth,” He grabbed your arm, throwing you against the desk. His pushed you down so your face was against the hard mahogany wood, with your ass up and on display for Gojo to smack. “Then maybe your pretty pussy will be able to handle me, hm?”

He shoved your skirt above your ass, the blue material bunching the divet in your waist. His hand ran over your soaked panties, shoving them aside to expose your soaked core to the cold office air. “So pretty f’me…” Gojo mumbled, gathering up some of your slick on his thumb and popping it inside of his mouth. “Delicious too, maybe you’ll be my dinner one day. Wouldn’t you like that, princess?” He teased, his hand cracking against the supple flesh of your perfect ass.

“Fuck!” you cried out, your hands gripping onto the wooden desk for dear life. You grew increasingly frustrated, especially knowing that Gojo was taking immense pleasure in making you wait tt get fucked. “Dammit Gojo, just fuck me already!” You demanded, your eyes being slightly covered by your mess of hair falling in front of them. 

He smacked his hand across your ass again, alighting his cock with your sobbing entrance. “You sure got a whole lotta attitude, princess.” He purred, teasing your hole with his mushroom head. “I’ll be sure to fuck it outta you, don’t you worry your pretty little head.”

He shoved his cock inside of you, hissing as your tight walls enveloped his member. You cried out in both pain and pleasure, having never experienced someone as big or as girthy inside of you. Sure, you had slept around before but this time he might actually make you cum. You wouldn’t have to fake an orgasm just for it to end.

“Shit, Gojo!” You screamed, lifting your head up from the desk to meet his gaze from behind. “Y-you’re too fuckin’ big, you know that?”

Gojo smirked and started to slowly thrust himself in and out of your weeping cunt, the sound of his groans mixing with your moans of pleasure filling the chilly office. “God, you’re so fuckin’ tight. Squeezing me already, princess? Good fuckin’ slut.” He grunted, pulling your hair back so your neck was against his mouth. His hips were now snapping furiously at your ass, his balls clapping against the skin. “You won’t mind if I give you a little mark, right? Gotta make sure you remember being bent over like this, pretty thing.”

His sharp teeth bit down onto your neck, sucking a nasty purple circle right where your jugular would be. The stimulation was utterly overwhelming, your mouth was agape and your throat was starting to hurt from all your cries. “Fuck, such a good slut for me.”

Gojo’s rough and callosued hands reached under your top to grope one of your tits, his fingers pinching and rubbing your nipple under the thin fabric. He could feel your orgasm was fast approaching the way you squeezed onto his cock, almost like your body was trying to suck him in even deeper inside of you. “Gojo, fuck! T-Too fucking handsy!” You managed to moan out, your brain slowly starting to turn to mush as the coil in your belly threatened to snap at any minte. “Fuck, gonna fucking cum!”

Gojo smirked and smacked your ass once more, slipping his hand from behind you to rub on your sensitive clit. “Cum all over this cock baby, f-fuck. Be a good fucking girl.” He demanded in your ear, his fingers now furiously rubbing themselves on your clit while his cock hit every place it needed to.

With a wanton gasp you threw your head back onto his shoulders, your orgasm washing over you like tsunami or a tidal wave. Wave after wave of pure bliss crashed over your every nerve, your eyes feeling fuzzy as you swore you could see stars.

“Fuck, holy fuck! Gojo, oh my fucking God!” you sobbed, your bottom lip trembling as you came down from your high. Gojo sighed and began to kiss your neck gently, his thrusts becoming faster and desperate as he felt his own euphoria approaching.

“Shit, gonna cum princess. Lemme cum inside of you, yeah? God you’re so fucking warm and tight, fuck!” He moaned into your neck, the movement of his hips becoming staggering and sloppy as his hot ropes of sticky cum coated your insides, filling you up so nicely. “F-fuck, oh my god…”

Gojo pulled out of you, smirking to himself as he saw his cum leak from your sloppy pussy. “Fucking amazing, princess.” He bent down to pick up his boxers and pants, putting them on quickly. 

You got up from leaning over the desk and turned around, your face flushed and your hair sticking to your sweaty forehead. Your hands still gripping onto the table, your pretty lips slightly agape. “Holy shit…I think that was the best sex I’ve ever fucking had.” You breathed out, brushing the sweaty babyhairs out of your face.

Gojo smiled and bent down slightly, kissing your nose with a gentleness that was the complete opposite of how he fucked you. “I’ve been wanting to do that sicne I met you, you know.” 

You scoffed and rolled your eyes, adjusting your stretched-out shirt collar. “Stop lying, you already fucked me. No need to lie anymore, Gojo.”

He frowned and grabbed onto your hand, his thumb carefully rubbing onto the back of it. “I’m not lying, you know.”

Raising an eyebrow you looked into his blue eyes, curious as to why there wasn’t a hint of deception swirling around in his oceans of blue. “Gojo…are you being serious?” You whispered, a blush once again covering your face. It wasn’t a blush of desire but a blush of shyness, like you were sixteen years old and just got confessed to.

“Satoru,” he spoke, bringing your hand to cup his pale face. “Call me Satoru, please.”

You smiled and rolled your eyes once more, your hand gently petting his flushed face. You took a step towards him, allowing Gojo to wrap his other hand around your waist. You two held each other in Yaga’s office, the scent of sex and passionate still filling up the otherwise stiff air.

“What are you gonna call me then, Satoru?” You softly spoke, standing on the tips of your toes so your lips were hovering against his once more. Gojo offered you a gentle smile, pecking your lips tenderly.

“I’m gonna call you mine.”

[starrywilliams]

guilty as sin? | abby anderson

“these fatal fantasies giving way to labored breath, taking all of me, we’ve already done it in my head”

warnings: masturbation, slight masochism, ruined orgasm, angst, perv!abby (a little), internalized homophobia (discussed in more detail below)

notes: no surprise my favourite ttpd song is the gayest one on the album, but guilty as sin? screams lesbian guilt i fear!!!! i’ve been writing this for over a month so i hope u guys like it 😭

cw: discussion of lesbian guilt & comphet - these are somewhat based on my own experiences with my sexuality and i absolutely!!! do not think a man can ‘cure’ a lesbian or anything similar to that. nor do i believe anyone should ever feel guilty for being gay. realising i’m a lesbian has been extremely freeing & dykes r the best x

wc: 1.8k

likes, comments + reblogs are greatly appreciated :)

the door slammed harshly behind abby as she stormed into her room. she pulled her jacket off desperately; her skin hot under its tight vice. she’d been in the gym, trying to work out her endless frustration of late, when you’d walked in.

you’d only said “hi" and smiled politely at her before setting your things down. but she felt her stomach churn, a black hole opening inside her. abby stood up, pulling the weights off the barbell and onto their rack. she grunted softly, glancing at you from the corner of her eye.

you’d started stretching, currently bent over as you touched your toes. her eyes drifted for an infinitesimal moment, locking onto the swell of your-. she looked away - wrongwrongwrong.

but then she looked back, her stare feasting on your body. she wondered whether you were doing this on purpose, trying to tempt her from across the room. she wondered if you knew her dirty little secret, abby picturing a smirk on your face as you mocked her for such indecent thoughts.

she didn’t want to feel this way. she didn’t want to feel the poison ivy swarming around her chest, getting tighter, tighter. the rash spread inside her; this invisible whip of lust lashing against her skin whenever your face appeared in her mind. well, had it been just your face maybe she wouldn’t feel like some depraved sinner.

now it wasn’t like abby believed in god, in a world where death and destruction infect every crevice you’d have to be mad to believe that any ‘god’ wanted its followers to suffer so greatly. but something inside her screamed every time she had these thoughts. these impure, twisted thoughts about you.

she didn’t know what made her feel like this. what made her resent you for simply existing; and what made her resent herself.

she recalled her teenage years, when manny had subtly suggested that owen liked her - so she was supposed to like him back, right? and she tried! she loved him even - but there was always that something, that feeling in her gut that told her that something was wrong, something about him that just would never sit right with her.

but all the other girls wanted a boyfriend too, and the jealousy was nice at first - she’d thought. after all, mel was the star student, a doctor in the making, her dad’s favourite; and nora was this freshly trained medical officer, and abby was- abby was just abby.

her dad began noticing her more too - previously too preoccupied with his firefly duties and his favourite student. now his little girl was slipping away from him, he finally began paying her the amount of attention she’d craved for so long.

before, their conversations had often drifted into talk of mel and her new achievements, or his hopes of a vaccine, or some animal he was tracking. never anything about his daughter’s life.

having a boyfriend made her interesting, it gave the other girls something to envy. which was a nice reversal, for a while. then her dad died, and she had become this object of pity. owen helped a bit, she supposed. he tried to distract her and keep her focused on their new role as soldiers, but she barely cared about him anymore. all she wanted was revenge, and with revenge, came you.

you were one of the gyms trainers, passionate about helping the members of the wlf stay fit and healthy! you’d helped her start lifting weights, squealed as she reached every milestone, and had remarked jokingly about just how much you loved her new physique.

it was innocent at first, the most being her brain going a little fuzzy when you’d bit your lip while spotting her; a slight blush when you’d hugged her a little too tight. then, once she and owen were finally broken up, these new pictures began hanging themselves on the walls of her mind. still, innocent, just slightly tainted with desire - the true nature of them still an avoidable matter for her back then.

when she could ignore the truth in her recent behaviour, abby loved spending time with you. after all, you were just really good friends! anyway, she’d had a boyfriend before so everyone knew she was normal, and absolutely not different, and she would never ever have to feel like an outsider.

yet it took a mere three months before she gave up on this foolish lie. she liked you, and as long as nobody ever found out, it wouldn’t matter.

but as her mind grew dark and twisted - joel a constant topic in her head as she obsessed over finally getting to enact revenge - her thoughts got worse in turn. she wanted you - filthily and desperately.

every gym session ended with another cold shower, a desperate plea for her body to stop and let her focus on the task at hand; a hopeless attempt to bury this ache into the ground; an endless endeavour to escape these urges for just one second.

but then she came back changed, every hair on her body endlessly erected with guilt. the way she’d killed him so mercilessly, the way it had done nothing to ease the pain, and the way you had tormented her mind ceaselessly throughout the entire trip.

maybe, had she never met you, she could’ve just killed him and been satisfied. maybe had you never offered to train her personally, she could’ve just stayed comfortable in that stuffy closet. maybe if she found the right man she’d stop feeling this way.

abby deemed such ideas unfathomable now.

owen made her feel nothing. being with him was like an eternal thursday, an endless wait for the week’s end and its pleasure to turn up at her door. every day she’d wait for some spark to arrive, the routine only becoming more and more tedious by the minute. but he helped her get people’s attention, which was enough when she was just abby.

but then she was abby anderson, top scar killer and isaac’s favourite. she got attention on her own, she was praised for her own accomplishments: people worshipped the fucking ground she walked on. but they didn’t know who she really was.

they didn’t know she liked girls the way she was supposed to like boys. she’d seen it in enough of those wlf movie nights - cruel jokes about anyone who even thought about being different. she’d heard the way people gossiped, “did you hear that they’re moving lesbians into the family unit? what a joke.”

they said it like it was something dirty, something egregious, something that she had to hate about herself. so she did.

but as long as she kept it secret, kept it locked away in her mind, maybe she’d be okay. after all, only your actions talk: it was the age old question really, if a tree falls in a forest and no one else hears it, does it make a sound?

abby fell back against her bed sheets, calloused hands pushing her cargos down to her ankles as she replayed the sight of you in her mind. bent over - she felt like you were trying to tempt her on purpose.

she felt like a heathen; staring, fantasizing, worshipping. her mind was bursting with the idea of every possible position she could put you in; head a chorus of every little noise she wanted to hear you make; eyes screwed shut as depravity filled her every sense.

she shoved her bralette up her chest roughly, fingertips dragging over her nipples with little mercy. she pinched them, the peach skin stinging underneath her touch.

she wanted it to hurt; wanted it to feel like some sort of punishment for her thoughts. but as her hips bucked into the air, a long whine dragging from her clenched jaw, she realised it needed to hurt more.

she imagined you, finding her like this. disgust burnt into your features - what the fuck was she doing? repeating your name like some subverted prayer, fingers harshly scratching along her stomach as she tried to make the pleasure feel more like pain, trying to induce some connection between the two.

if it hurt enough, would she stop? force herself to forget? could she torture this part of herself until it surrendered?

her hand slipped over the top of her boxers, a finger running tentatively over her clit through the now darkened fabric. she bit down on her lip, groaning against it as she pushed down harder and harder, attempting to break through the skin.

another finger pressed down, beginning to draw circles down on the throbbing bud. she jolted against her own touch, your head between her legs burning into her mind. your hands, trailing along her flesh - groping at her with little tenderness; tongue, swiping at her pussy with no intent of fulfillment: she wanted you to make her weep, smoke out her lungs with shame, deny her from gratification until all she could feel was regret.

she pulled away, only to cover her fingertips with her spit - diving under her boxers to continue with her corruption. abby let out a strangled sigh, hips grinding against her fingers as they toyed with her clit.

she moved a hand to her hair, knuckles stretching against her scalp as she began to pull her braid. she grunted, yanking even harder. she whispered your name: pained, hopeless.

she sped up her assault against her pussy, feeling that pit in the bottom of her stomach begin to grow. “pleasepleaseplease” her voice cracked as she begged, unsure what she was pleading for.

she wanted to stop, but she needed to try and make this feeling go away. she knew it would come back, it always did - but even five minutes free from your torment on her mind might save her.

her fingers kept going, drawing desperate circles against her weeping pussy relentlessly. the void was growing, almost consuming her entirely at this point. she thought of you laughing at her current state: a crying mess, pussy wet with perversion.

it was sick, really - how the idea of you hating her for this made her need even worse. you’d probably think it appalling: someone who was supposed to be your friend, now sat here burning at the thought of you.

a part of her wished that you shared this sickness. that you too let yourself be overwhelmed by the thought of sin. maybe you didn’t let the guilt swallow you whole - she hoped so.

but there was no point lingering in the what-ifs, they were far too fleeting.

her deft fingers quickened their pace, the ache all consuming. the climb began - a desperate jump towards oblivion. closer, closer. the flames scorched her bedsheets as her breathing hastened.

fuck, she hissed before reaching the apex with a scream of your name. a scream? a whisper? a thought? it didn’t make her actions any less deplorable.

her conscience grabbed pleasure by the throat as she ripped her fingers away, putting out the blaze on her hips like a cigarette crushed on the ground.

the desire imploded within the walls of her torso; scratching against her insides in the vengeance of her denial.

it was wrong; she had to stop it. yet still, the guilt poured into her lungs with no chance of resolve. she was a fool for thinking it would fix her. maybe next time it would work. maybe next time the exorcism would finally purify her.

until next time.

[neyafromfrance95]

i feel like when we talk about sauron x galadriel we often focus on either the dynamic itself or sauron's pov, and we need to talk about galadriel's pov more bc it's really fascinating and complex.

for starters, galadriel loves halbrand. it's been confirmed by the creators and by her reaction to him in 2.08. and it was simply obvious from everything leading up to that point. he is her one true love. the only being with from she established a true connection. a comrade with whom she found companionship. she found herself in a soulmate hurt/comfort au when she was with him. and it seems like, no matter how she feels about sauron, she will always love halbrand. what an epitome of tragedy it is to eternally love a man who never existed?

sauron implied that he wanted to heal her when he said that if he wanted forgiveness, he would need to heal everything he helped to ruin, and he took accountability for galadriel's trauma when he apologized for finrod and everything. and i think one of the reasons halbrand had such an effect on galadriel is that his presence really was healing for her. for the first time since finrod, she wasn't alone. she felt understood and believed. he made her open up to him. she could be vulnerable with him. i find it interesting that she mockingly asks him "do you want to heal me", as if making a point that he can't heal her so that she can pretend like he didn't at some point. it adds another layer to her shame too, bc as much as she believes he can't heal the middle-earth, he was able to heal her when he "created" halbrand for her.

she has spent a lifetime harboring a deep hatred of sauron. her main goal in the life being to take revenge on him for her brother. for her, he is a sworn enemy that she's destined to slay. her hatred and ambition to kill him so all consuming and intense that she turned her back on heaven for him and basically willed him back into life.

galadriel is sauron's mirror. she has gazed into the abyss for so long that the abyss gazed back into her. her fight against him has became an intrinsic part of her identity, and we see how now sauron binds her to himself several times, either by guilt or by stabbing her with morgoth's crown, so we can say he has become an intrinsic part of her very being. always there just above her heart.

i think that sauron believes when he says that he would make her his equal queen, i believe that this is what he wants deep down (she is a natural leader, he is a natural follower). but would that actually happen? i don't believe that galadriel would ever willingly join him in mordor not only bc of the light her gaze is fixed on and bc of finrod, but also bc her pride and fear wouldn't allow it. what sauron offers galadriel is basically what jareth offers sarah (labyrinth) - "just fear me, love me. do as i say and i will be your slave." sauron wants galadriel to tame him, in a way, but she wouldn't be able to torture him into submission like morgoth did, as she could never match his strength, even as a dark!witch-queen, and she knows that. unless he repents and joins her in valinor, as a couple, sauron will always dominate galadriel in their dynamic.

trop recontextualizes what we know about galadriel's future. nenya is a symbol of her relationship with sauron and it causes her an extreme sea-longing, and the sea is another thing associated with her bond with sauron. even tho she has family and friends, she feels alone and her heart has greatly desired what sauron's proposal tempted her with for 3000-5000 years! she didn't go to valinor when celebrian did, didn't stay in the middle-earth while celeborn did, she only left the middle-earth for valinor when sauron was gone! and she took nenya with her! with trop context, it doesn't only signify her holding onto power/fight, it signifies her holding onto the only one thing that materialized as a symbol of her connection with sauron/halbrand! so while she passes the test and resists the one ring, i believe she will always yearn for both power and halbrand.

the dichotomy between her love for halbrand and her hatred for sauron is such an interesting concept, as is the dichotomy of her opposing the darkness of the dark lord as the lady of the light while being the perfect mirror of sauron, completely understood only by him, being the only one he is capable of loving, cosmically bound to him by the sea and the blood.

[abyssruler]

would they choose you over the world?

aether (traveler), dainsleif, scaramouche, raiden ei, lumine (abyss), venti, xiao x gn!reader

AETHER thinks he can save both, no, he knows he can. The powers of this world rests at the tips of his fingers. He’s faced monsters and gods and come out alive and better than he was before. There’s no reason to hesitate, none whatsoever to consider his decision but—but. He has never been made to choose before. There was always another way, another choice, another something he could rely on. It’s a moral dilemma, like the situation with the train where you either save five people and kill one person, or kill five people to save one person. It’s easy enough to answer when it was simply that—a moral dilemma created to confuse him, not a world ending decision that lies on his shoulders. To choose one is to doom the other. Most people would choose the world, but while Aether is called a hero and the savior of nations, he is also a person. He looks at your resigned smile, like you already know which one he’ll choose, and he decides to prove you wrong.

DAINSLEIF clings to loss like a dying man does to the edge of a cliff. The inevitability of death and your mortality rests on his shoulders much like weight of his entire nation’s death. He wonders what it says about him that he’d rather have you safe and sound than have the world be saved. Five hundred years of aimless wandering, fighting against the remnants of his fallen nation and watching the world move on while he remains untouched by time, the ghost of a past that can never be returned to. Dainsleif isn’t a hero, he’s tired. All that’s left of him are fading memories of a time gone by and moments with you that he clings to like a lifeline. What has this world ever done for him except cause him pain and needless grief? What has it done to deserve his sacrifice? Nothing. And so he rests, hand in hand with you on withering grass and waits for the world to end. At least, this time, he won’t be alone in watching the heavens descend.

SCARAMOUCHE laughs, and laughs, and laughs until he’s sure even the gods that reside in Celestia has heard the scorn and mockery in his voice. It is so laughably easy to choose you and denounce the world. Let it be turned to ash and dust, let his body dance on top of a desolate world, let him pull you in an embrace and delight in the fact that no sun and no light (for none of these exist anymore) would ever outmatch the brightness in your eyes, the smile on your face, the tinkling sound of your laughter amidst the remains of a world that once threatened to snuff your life like a candle left in the dark. He is like a flame and you, the spark. There’s a tsunami gathering on the horizon, threatening to drown everything in its wake, but instead of preventing it, he revels in the ruin it will bring. It is either your death alone or yours and everyone else, and if you have to die either way, then he will die with you and drag the rest of the world along in his self-appointed destruction. You taught him what it felt to no longer be alone, so he will make sure you’re never lonely, even in death.

EI feels weightless, like a leaf adrift in the wind. It feels like she is back to that moment five hundred (a thousand) years ago, a dilemma, a decision, a choice—follow Makoto to Khaenri’ah, or defend her people from the monsters ravaging the lands? There was uncertainty there, a small seedling of hope that she would arrive not far from Makoto and see her sister alive and waiting, and so she had made the decision to stay—but this? Faced with an ultimatum, the world or your death, Ei finds that the decision is much more difficult, much more devastating but no less heartbreaking. Had it been before, in her lonesome at the Plane of Euthymia, the choice would have been easy, barely a thought in her mind, but everything has changed and Ei wants, in a way she has never wanted before, to be with you. You with your smiles and your laughs and the warmth you induce in her frigid heart—and she finds that she cannot make a choice… so you do it for her. For the greater good.

LUMINE doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t even flinch before she turns her back to the world and takes your hand. What good is the world if you’re not there in it? She won’t just stand by and watch as everything she holds dear is destroyed in front of her—not anymore. There is you, there is her, and there is the world burning, and Lumine finds that she can hardly care. Her heart has no place for faceless people, no love left for a world that has done nothing but spurn and trample on everything she had offered. Let it burn if it means having one more second, one more minute, one more lifetime with you. A choice isn’t truly a choice if the other option was never considered, and she will never consider a world without you. There are millions, billions, countless other worlds out there she could take you to. Damn this place, damn the heavens, and damn the consequences. Her brother would understand, he always has, and when Lumine meets him again in a new world, she’ll make sure to introduce you to him.

VENTI wants, like Icarus yearning for the Sun, but Venti is Venti, and Barbatos is Barbatos. Right now, he cannot afford to be that carefree bard who spun tales of your lovely hair and lovelier still lips (cannot be Icarus who flew too close to the sun and fell). Venti wants—but Barbatos knows the best option, the best choice, the least devastating one but the most heart-wrenching one. The situation is funny, laughable, hilarious, really, the kind that makes his stomach ache and brings tears to his eyes that drip down his cheeks and onto the ground and—oh, he’s crying. He’s crying and holding you close and apologizing, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and he doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, doesn’t deserve the hand carding through his hair and the soft press of your lips on his forehead as you murmur, don’t cry, it’s alright, you’re doing the best you can. But the best means not doing this at all, the best means not having to make a choice at all, the best means not having to say goodbye. It’s okay, you tell him, I forgive you. But he never forgives himself.

XIAO thinks there must be another way, there has to be another way. He won’t accept this, won’t allow himself to choose between losing you or losing everything, because he knows, deep down, that the choice has already been made and it is not the one he wants. But he knows better than most that doing what he wants isn’t always what is needed, that certain sacrifices must be made despite his unwillingness, despite his entire body protesting against it. Rex Lapis once told him that being a god means making difficult decisions. If this is what it means to be a god, then he will accept a life of service, a life of war and fighting and breathing like every second is his last—because pain and suffering are infinitely better than having to wake everyday without your voice by his ear, giggling about how you finally caught him asleep. A world without your light, without your presence, without you is a desolate one. There must be another way, another sacrifice to be made that doesn’t involve you. Just—anything, anyone but you. Even if it has to be him.