#so I’m going to be getting moved around

[cloudwisp]

𝐬𝐲𝐥𝐮𝐬 · 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐲 𝐤𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧

contents: fluff. established relationship. you always sleep better when you're with him. 600 wc.

It’s been long since darkness cloaked the firmament and Sylus is absorbed in the tranquil silence of his studies overlooking documents and official records. A common routine given his atypical profession in dealing with illegal weaponry and other business practices that caught his interest. His fingers idly tapping against the armrest come to a halt when faint footsteps reach his ears. The sound draws nearer and closer with each pace and the corner of his mouth tugs upward into a smirk while he waits in anticipation.

“Kitten, shouldn’t you be in bed where I had left you?” Sylus meets your heavy-lidded gaze and registers your appearance as a cashmere blanket wraps around your shoulders and your hair tousled from what seems to be troubled sleep. Despite his question, he beckons you with a gesture and you settle across his lap, your body turning in towards him to nuzzle your face into his neck with your arms coiling around him. He gently shifts your weight closer to him for a more secure hold and lays a sweet kiss on your head once your movement stills.

“You’re more comfy… way more comfy. I prefer this much more.” You hum and return his kiss by brushing your lips against his skin. He can feel you ease into him as he studies your adorable sleepy face and his heart swells with so much love and tenderness for you. He loves it when you seek him out even when you've spent the entire day together and still can't get enough of him.

“Is that so? I suppose I’m more comfortable than a bed, huh?” He strokes your hair, lulling you deeper into your drowsiness and you can only muster a noise of contentment. He wonders if he can emulate the same sense of comfort you provide him when he’s resting his head on your lap. The sweet and intimate sensation of your fingers caressing through his silver locks with the lingering scent of your perfume makes everything seem right in the world even if just brieftly. “You know I can’t work when you’re in my lap like this. I have too many distractions that way. You and the cute way you snore.”

You grunt softly. “I do not snore… do you really want me to leave?” You slowly unravel yourself from him with a small pout on your lower lip, and he softens with the realization that maybe he shouldn’t have teased you when you’re laced with sleep. You feel something warm against your forehead through your bleary eyes, and he can’t have his darling feeling unloved and unwanted by mistake and he intends to remedy that. His hand reaches up and moves your head back where it was moments ago and you are pliant under his touch.

“Now, I didn’t say you had to go anywhere. Stay here with me. I promise you won’t get in the way.” Sylus cooes you gently, his hand smooths along your back and he rests his cheek against your hair as he savors the feeling of having you in his arms. “I love you, sweet kitten. Sleep now. I’ll hold you until you do.” You murmur you love him back and for a few minutes, there’s nothing but silence and the steady rhythm of your breathing as your consciousness begins to drift.

Sylus gazes down at you with a fond and affectionate expression, whispering quiet reassurances that he hopes will reach you in your dreams. He resumes skimming through the paperwork he was doing before, his actions slower and deliberate so as not to wake you. Although his focus has shifted, he enjoys having you here with him like this and he could certainly get used to it.

[khioneee]

caleb won't ever let you go.

‘here’s what you don’t understand,’ caleb said, his voice low and steady as he stepped closer. his gaze bore into yours, unflinching, filled with an intensity that made your heart stutter. ‘i would live a thousand lives just to get to you.’

caleb’s hand came up, and he rested it against one of your cheeks, his thumb catching your lip. you swallowed hard, your breath catching in your throat, but he wasn’t done.

‘i would die time and time again, dig out my own grave if it means i can come home to you,’ he said, his voice trembling slightly with the weight of his confession.

you just witnessed your heartbreaker break into a thousand pieces, the vulnerable side of him slowly unmasked, and you saw it. he looked so, so tired. he was all pale skin contrasted with harsh colours; his eyes were bruised violet underneath, his lips were chapped to a raw red, and his usual glowing irises were a dull, cold black.

his lips were so close to yours now that you could feel the warmth of his breath against your skin. you wanted to push him away, wanted to move out of his grasp, but you weren’t strong enough for any of it.

‘if i can’t have you in this universe,’ he murmured, his voice barely audible, ‘i’ll make sure i’ll be there in the next.’

it felt like surrender to close your eyes, to let caleb touch his lips where he wanted, to let his mouth ghost your cheek, but you were tired of the battle. he must have felt the resistance give away, because he cupped his hand purposefully around your jaw and tipped your mouth up with a finger on your chin.

he paused, his breath hitching, before backing away just enough to meet your eyes fully. his gaze softened but remained resolute, holding a depth that made you shiver.

‘you belong with me,’ he said firmly.

your unsteady heart was about to detonate. you opened your mouth to speak, but the words caught in your throat as he added, softer now, gentler, as if he were speaking a truth only he could see.

‘you just can’t see it… yet.’

his words lingered, weaving into the air around you like a thread that couldn’t be broken. you wanted to fight it, wanted to deny him, but the conviction in his voice planted a seed of doubt in the walls you’d built to keep him out. and that terrified you more than anything.

caleb blinked at you. the storm had cleared in his eyes. he almost looked surprised to see you standing there. he put his cap on, his movements slow, deliberate, as if bracing himself to leave.

‘you’re not the same person i knew,’ you said suddenly, your voice barely above a whisper. the words spilled out before you could stop them, heavy and trembling with unspoken pain.

caleb met your torn stare as you observed him closely, trying to detect what it was that was currently going through his mind.

‘not the same,’ he repeated, shaking his head with a quiet, bitter laugh. he looked at you then, his eyes heavy with something you couldn’t quite place. ‘i still love you, don’t i?’

the words hung in the air, raw and piercing, cutting through whatever resolve you thought you had left. he turned slightly, as if to leave, but hesitated, his shoulders stiff, waiting for a response you weren’t sure you could give.

but he stepped away, disheveled and breathing hard, staring harshly at you. the look in his eyes was terrible. terrifying. then, as if the silence itself pushed him to speak again, his voice low but steady.

‘i’m the same person,’ he said, his gaze locking onto yours. ‘i’m just not willing to let you go this time.’

[mandalhoerian]

Fish in a Birdcage ৎ୭

ৎ୭ ⸻ rafayel has quite the storm raging in his mind during his artistic expedition to aridum. which, the root of his crisis he was trying to wean himself off of wasn't supposed to tag along to make him spiral further. funny thing is, you just think he's sick. he is. just infected by something far worse than you can imagine: crippling dependency.

ৎ୭ ⸻ SO MUCH BUILD-UP, momentary sickfic, anxious attachment issues, rafayel being hot and cold with the reader, angst, exhibitionism for like 0.01 seconds bc of bond shenanigans, switch4switch and constantly changing dynamics that comes with it, handjob, slight obedience kink, impromptu bondage play with rafayel's neck piece praise kink, obedience kink blink and you miss it, p in v, CLOTHED SEX ITS SO HOT 2 ME, unprotected sex, multiple rounds.

ৎ୭ ⸻ hello lads fandom, FIRST WORK HERE (it sucked my soul out i've been working on this for like tHREE weeks)!!! this is my adaptation of rafayel's nightly rendezvous card intertidal zone. a lot of it is based on my reading and understanding of the card, i'm so sorry for releasing this when caleb just released but, i hope you enjoy, much love <3 ( lil tag: @comatosebunny09 )

ৎ୭ ⸻ 26K, read on ao3

In retrospect, finding out Aridum was a city in the middle of a desert should have made you stop and think more about how the climate would actually affect Rafayel before diving straight into travel plans.

You know, a Lemurian.

Who, logically, wouldn’t fare well in the dry heat.

Rafayel flicking off your genuine concern like it was a bug on the surface tension of his fish tank was the first red flag you should have paid more attention to. In your defense, since he’d been there before and was confident enough to initiate banter, it was easy to give in and trust he knew what he was doing as he batted his lashes at you with those pretty dual-colored, sparkly wide eyes that left you starstruck in the face and said, “As long as I’m with you, I’ll be fine.”

Well. He was with you now and he wasn’t fine.

Because for once in his life, Rafayel didn’t have enough energy to run laps around you. Just a few minutes outside the hotel, lingering near the grand fountain square framed by towering palm trees that offered scant shade, and he began to deflate pitifully like a garish balloon leaking its vigor into the sweltering air. His usual dynamism, the kind that pulled attention to him as effortlessly as a river carved its path, had dimmed to a sluggish ebb, so much so you found yourself glancing over your shoulder every ten seconds, vigilance heightened by the unsettling absence of his ever-present current. The languid pace like he was moving through molasses made him look like an entirely different person than the one tugging you through the airport with even the luggage excitedly rolling behind him.

And it had been just a single day since you’d set foot in Aridum.

That wasn’t to say the trip had been a disaster or he was in terrible shape — you two were still on day one. Back in Linkon, he was, on paper, enthusiastic about pointing out local landmarks for you to go together like he knew the city personally, but he had quickly lost that energy when it actually came to the execution. You chalked it up to him not being able to get any sleep the previous night because of a mix of jetlag and the discomfort of a new bed, but regardless, it was still concerning to watch him only interested in stopping by street stands where he could buy himself cold water bottles and stand in a shaded corner in order to drink them slowly under shelter, while also dragging you with him, so there wouldn't be even a split-second distance between you two.

You were thankful you didn't have many plans in mind. Rafayel always packed enough enthusiasm for the both of you, but now, as you watched with wide-eyed worry how his spark had suddenly wilted, the drastic shift in his personality left him finding everything he suggested doing utterly unnecessary for the day. On top of that, after only managing to sit still for five minutes or so, it'd become obvious to see that the environment of this city, complete with a sun beating down hot enough to cook you alive, had taken a toll on Rafayel's temperament far more drastically than expected — rendering his eagerness completely sour.

But still, you wanted to cheer him up, you did. It broke your heart seeing someone who brought so much life into every room shrivel down to such a defeated shell. Maybe that's why you couldn't help yourself when you caught him pouting at something on the phone screen as if it'd done him a great offense.

So, you began teasing. “Rafayel, we haven’t even been out for thirty minutes, you're sweating already?"

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” you countered, only to squint at his face more closely. “Wait. You’re not?”

He threw his arms out like he was expecting a grander reaction. “Do you know what that means?”

“That you’re a human raisin in the making?”

He groaned, a sound that was more theatrical than pained, but you still caught the edge of frustration in it. “It means I’m seconds away from crumbling into sand. You’ll have to gather me up and carry me home in a jar.”

You started walking towards one of the fountains near some empty seats where shade was available, while he dragged himself behind you like a zombie. "Let's sit you down before you begin to form cracks."

The fountain’s spray misted faintly in the air, enough to make the stone bench beneath feel less like a skillet. Rafayel took extra care positioning himself on one of the seats before collapsing backward, draping one arm over his flushed face.

He took the bottle of yet another ice cold water you fished out from your bag without protest, but his free hand found your wrist and lingered there — light at first, then tighter, like he needed to anchor himself. The unexpected heat radiating from his skin sent a little jolt up your arm. You were about to comment on it, but then he tipped the bottle back and drank, and you swore you could feel the tension in his throat as if it was your own.

When he finished, he let out a breath — not a sigh, just an exhale that sounded heavy, deliberate, sprawling beside you, one leg stretched out, the other bouncing restlessly as he tilted his head back and squinted at the cloudless sky.

“I think I’m dying,” he announced, as if that wasn’t thr fourth time he’d said it today.

After your attention was made aware that he indeed wasn’t sweating by the dry hairline of his, though, the mood to banter had dissipated like a mirage. You began fussing. Was it normal that he didn’t sweat? If a normal person was like this, they needed to be taken to the hospital. However, Rafayel had done nothing but up the ante in complaining, that had to indicate nothing was seriously wrong, right? He’d know his body the best. Right?

“I told you to put on sunscreen this morning. Did you?”

He scoffed, “I don’t need it,” — and you heard the imaginary Lemurian in his tone rolling his eyes at your human expectations.

“Not with that attitude,” you shut him down, already skimming through your bag at an increasingly faster pace. “Now, keep still.”

Finding what you were looking for, you uncapped the bottle, reaching out with one hand to tilt Rafayel’s head left and right to gauge where to start. His skin under the pads of your fingertips felt almost brittle and paper-thin — unnatural on Rafayel, making you unconsciously rub like it was a stain you could get rid of. Without meaning to, you frowned, and he made a soft, lukewarm grumble, nudging your leg with his foot, reminding you what you were doing. Which was fussing over a grown man who should have been responsible from the start and able to take care of himself.

“Show me your forehead,” you said, wanting to get it out the way first.

He obediently carded his bangs back, silent, half-hooded eyes flicking everywhere on your face going ignored as you rubbed sunscreen in and felt what alarmingly was similar to a fever. It was a relief to hear him humming at the feeling, you hoped it would help as you quickly moved to spread the white lotion over his cheeks and smeared a stripe right across the bridge of his nose as he fixed his hair, squinting at your ministrations.

Though, somehow, he looked contented enough that you had to stop him from nuzzling into your hand. “Rafayel, I’m working here.”

All you got was a breathy, “Mmm,” as if he was speaking through the pleasant haze of sleep.

How contradictory of him, as always. For someone constantly grumbling about the unbearable heat, he leaned into every touch with a docility that defied reason — and worse, he initiated them, either molding against you like water taking the shape of the container it was poured into, or his fingers ghosting over your skin as though drawn by instinct. You couldn’t make sense of it. The mere thought of physical contact when the air was this heavy and oppressive made your skin crawl, but he seemed to revel in it. No, thrived on it.

It wasn’t just the way he didn’t flinch — he leaned in harder, his breaths hitching faintly, brow furrowed like he was wrestling with a need he barely understood. You’d swear the heat radiating from your skin would only make it worse, yet he tilted his face into your touch as though your thumbs brushing his cheekbones offered a balm, a strange, cooling relief.

Maybe, he perceived your skin to be indeed cooler than his.

It had to be something unique to his Lemurian physiology. His reactions didn’t make sense otherwise. What human would ever enjoy the sensation of warmth pressed against warmth in such sweltering conditions? And yet here he was, biting back what suspiciously sounded like a placid sigh, while you struggled to reconcile the peculiar contradiction.

“C’mon, don’t let me do all the work,” you muttered, quieter than you intended, the heat and the moment distracting you entirely.

You must have sounded a tad bit worried, because Rafayel didn’t react with his usual playful defiance or the melodramatic sulking he resorted to when things didn’t go his way. Instead, he fell silent, sinking more fully against your side as though he belonged there, and successfully narrowed the angle you were working with. His head tilted slightly, guiding your hand to the sharp line of his jaw with an unspoken invitation, eyelashes fluttering as he blinked, the haze of his voice turning soft and almost vulnerable. You couldn’t even see his face properly from looking at the top of the purple mop of hair blocking you.

"Do my neck too?"

Before you could decide, his hand encircled your wrist. Not tightly — not forcefully — but with a loose, guiding pressure that was maddeningly deliberate. He led your lotion-slicked hand to curve around his throat, the smooth, simmering heat of his skin pressing against your palm.

You hesitated, the instinct to pull away warring with the strange tension settling between you both, but his thumb found the delicate underside of your wrist and began tracing slow, thoughtful patterns that seemed designed to leave you paralyzed. You knew damn well how tenderly and skillfully he handled paintbrushes, and it was evident by the practiced precision of each touch that he was using the same sensibility on you, whether he was fully aware of it or not, which sent a warm burst of blood rising to your cheeks.

Seeming restless, Rafayel sat up straight and finally allowed you a clear view of him. His head tipped further back, exposing more of his neck to your hand, eyes darkened into to a shade of purple that seemed otherworldly in the harsh light of day. They glittered like faceted amethysts film-burned blue around the edges, soaking in every sunlit fleck of your features with a focus that made your chest tighten, like you were being studied with the assessment of the artist Rafayel before another’s painting, his focus unbroken save for the low hum he let slip, soft and unguarded.

You swallowed hard, aware of how exposed you were. The bustling world of Aridum hadn’t stopped turning just because the two of you had stumbled into whatever this was. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of your neck, but it wasn’t just the desert heat making you feel like you were suffocating.

This shouldn’t have been happening. Not here, not now.

Your breath shuddered as you finally regained enough sense to break the silence. "Do it yourself," you murmured, voice uneven as you pressed the bottle of sunscreen into his chest. You looked away, clumsily rubbing your hands on your arms to mask the way they trembled, pretending to rid yourself of excess lotion while wishing desperately to erase the heat radiating off your skin.

Rafayel sighed, a low sound of reluctant acceptance, as he pulled himself upright. His fingers glided over his neck, spreading the sunscreen where you hadn’t, his movements smooth and unaffected as he worked the lotion over his collarbones and along the nape of his neck. The sight was annoyingly graceful, as though he wasn’t feeling the same unbearable tension you were. If you’d have thought of bringing a small electric fan along today, it would have been inches from your face already.

"Maybe we should’ve gone out at night," you said abruptly, grasping for any lifeline to shift the moment’s focus. Your gaze darted to him as he worked, your cheeks burning hotter than the sunlight that baked the streets. "Now I feel bad."

"What for?"

"Making you come along. This must not be very inspiring.”

Rafayel let out an honest-to-goodness laugh. It rolled from his throat so easily and naturally that it seemed even he wasn’t aware of it until the sound tapered off into a quiet chuckle. Shaking his head, he leaned toward you until his temple rested lightly on your shoulder, his gaze unfocused as he stared absently at the fountain ahead. "I’m not giving up time with you just because the sun here wants me dead."

He completely bypassed the part about inspiration, but the sincerity in his words hit you like a splash of cool water on overheated skin. Your shoulders relaxed as you melted into a sigh, letting your head fall atop his, but the sticky warmth made the closeness unbearable almost instantly.

You promptly peeled yourself away with an, "Ugh.” He had already filled his making-you-feel-hot quota for the day, in every sense of the word.

Rafayel straightened just enough to meet your gaze, "That’s how you answer my heroic declaration?" he asked dryly, one brow arched in faux offense.

He didn’t budge, though, even though the heat seemed to bother him more than it did you. The stubborn set of his jaw spoke volumes, and it took a gentle nudge of your elbow to get him to finally sit upright. Even then, he let out a dramatic whine from deep in his chest as if being forced to separate was a personal betrayal.

"You’re lucky I’m rewarding it with mercy," you shot back, brushing a hand through your hair to vent your own rising frustration with the heat. "Come on, let’s head back. I need to get my fishie in the water before he dries up completely."

"But you wanted to see—"

"There’ll be plenty of opportunities in the future," you interrupted with a wave of your hand. "If anything, this was a good lesson about choosing the time we go out more carefully."

To your relief, Rafayel didn’t push back. He rose to his feet with you, though his sluggish movements and the slight downward pull of his lips suggested reluctance. As much as his leaning on you had been irritating in the heat, the sight of his faint frown made your chest tighten, and without thinking, you looped your arm through his and pulled him closer, even though the contact made your already overheated skin feel unbearable. His shoulders straightened slightly at the gesture, but the small crease between his brows didn’t disappear.

"I hear it’s seafood night at the hotel restaurant," you offered, attempting to lift his mood. He was obviously bummed out, but his stubbornness refused to show why outright. It was cute to a degree — childish almost, so endearing you couldn't find it in yourself to grow impatient with him. But you hated seeing him down. "If we head back now, we might snag a rooftop table.”

"Snag? Puh-lease. Worst case scenario, one glimpse of me and I could get us prime seating any time, anywhere," Rafayel scoffed. Still, the corner of his lip twitched upward as if tempted to smile, and you found yourself mirroring the reaction immediately. “And that whole thing would still be less bothersome than you assuming I haven’t secured us a reservation already.”

Later that evening, after dinner on the rooftop, the mix-up with the room service attendant delivering Rafayel’s envelope to your room turned out to be a convenient excuse to check on him. It had been hours since you insisted he take time to rest, and while he promised to settle in and let you know how he felt after freshening up, you hadn’t heard from him since.

You were greeted by the humidity hitting you in the face like a solid wall of rain when the door got opened though, instead of your boyfriend. Thick as fog like it had its own gravity.

Rafayel stood in the doorway, his hair dripping and clinging to his flushed skin in lazy dark purple rivulets, robe loose, the soft fabric blotched dark with water where droplets had slid from his neck and shoulders.

The room behind him radiated a different kind of heat — not the oppressive dryness of the desert, but the heavy, steamy warmth of someone trying to crawl their way back to comfort in the only way they knew how.

He looked better, at least.

The brittle edge that had been clinging to him seemed softened, as if he’d soaked away some of the tension in the beath he’d clearly stepped out of upon you knocking on his door.

Still, the sight of him — damp like a wet cat instead of a fish in his natural environment, robe-clad, the faint sheen of exhaustion still lingering in the way he leaned against the door frame left an odd twist in your chest.

He didn't look any worse for wear than he had earlier in the day when he’d claimed he wanted to spend the rest of his night marinating in ice cold water, and while seeing him not suffering was a relief, you clearly weren't expecting for him to actually mean what he said, even though the water obviously wasn’t ice cold.

The envelope, as it turned out, held a ticket to the memorial hall and an invitation to an art salon gathering hosted by one of his friends. Neither looked to be sparking any interest in Rafayel, however, despite him having come here for as much stimulation as possible for his inspiration.

You understood. It just wasn’t possible when he wasn’t feeling well.

The room itself was telling the entire story, in fact, chaotic in its stillness against the beauty of the floor-to ceiling windows framing the desert skyline in soft, shimmering lights of the city crowned by the full moon hanging proudly above. Papers were scattered across the floor in uneven piles, some curling slightly at the edges where they’d caught the artificial moisture in the air, blank and untouched, and some haphazardly sketched in a way you couldn't even begin to guess what they would become later. A few uncapped pens sat nearby, ink untouched, next to a can of soda that had long since gone warm. It wasn’t hard to guess what he’d been doing — or trying to do — in the hours since you’d left him.

So, you told him to stop forcing himself. Come enjoy the scenery with you.

It was your first instinct, but the words didn’t feel enough. You weren’t an artist, you didn’t know what would be good for the block he was going through. Even though your concern was genuine, you were clumsy at best at consolation.

But, he did lower himself onto the floor beside you anyway, his hands brushing against the scattered papers as he sat and leaned back on his palms. Like this, it was easy to imagine him search for his vision to come to him among the mess as he was attempting to draw, and end up with his gaze drifting out the window instead.

And then, as if he were a tide and the moonlight was pulling him inexorably to shore, he began to open up. Pushed by your mention of watching the view together, he spoke of sceneries. Of what traveling to discover secret corners of nature meant to him before everything changed — before he started creating. About how he used to just look at the world and feel it. Admire it. He didn’t need to do anything with it back then. A sunset was just a sunset, the sea was simply the sea, and neither asked anything of him but to exist alongside them.

Once he began to create, however...

Those discoveries done from a place of pure enjoyment became material, their beauty and pain turned into fuel. The act of looking became an act of taking. Of extracting. He started to see the world not as it was, but as something that could be stripped bare and transformed. A beautiful, bleeding wound. Every sunrise painted became a slice taken from the sun. Every ocean wave he put down on canvas was a handful of ocean lost. He couldn't experience sceneries for themselves anymore without having to to capture and translate them into a demand.

He didn’t look at you while he spoke, but the portrait of his honesty could be interpreted by even the most art-blind.

It was then that he dropped the bomb on you: “If one day, I become someone who only takes from you… If I were like that, would you leave me?”

That question dropped into the space between you like a stone in still water, sending ripples through everything you thought you understood about this moment.

But Rafayel was watching you in a way that made your pulse trip over itself, dissecting every flicker of your expression, like you were sitting in the middle of a high-stakes exam you hadn’t studied for. His fingers splayed on the ground besides yours were mere inches away, but even in that minimal distance, you sensed him drawing further back — a subconscious, reflexive reaction to fear, as if he needed to protect himself by retreating into some remote part of his mind, distant and closed off from the rest of him.

"Oh you silly fishie..." was your immediate response despite the whiplash he'd inflicted upon you, fondness rolling off your tongue easily, folding over itself into a dull ache for the struggle he was going through. "I won't leave you."

Your hand slid towards him, pinky finger crossing over until it brushed against his — gently, giving him ample chance to pull away before you covered his entire hand with your palm.

He was feverish again, despite all attempts made to soothe him, and the urge to smooth the pads of your fingers over his flushed skin, mapping each ridge and freckle that dotted his knuckles, surged forward within you. And you gave in, trying to make up for what you knew words would never be able to express, as you lightly rubbed lines onto the back of his hand.

It seemed to melt something in him, and he eased into your touch. It was an involuntary response to you reaching out for him — he tilted into you like he always did. It only lasted a second or two, however, before you felt him falter; like he noticed the instinctual motion midway, then consciously pushed down the reaction by gripping his thighs in an effort to sit back and avoid leaning in. Your heart dropped a little, confused, and you stole a peek at his face through the corner of your lashes to try to guess what he was thinking about.

What you saw only amplified how wrong everything felt. His features, which normally softened whenever you reached out for him, tightened, pensive. He frowned, holding back — hesitant about something, unreadable except for a subtle unease creeping in around the edges.

Even before he broke the silence, you had the awful premonition that his next words weren't going to be what you hoped to hear.

"Are you sure?" he asked, measured and quiet, and you knew you were right. This was trouble.

You squeezed his hand lightly despite wanting to do the very opposite, reassuringly, "Do you really think I’d stay even a second longer with someone I know is bad for me?"

He remained unresponsive.

“Rafayel?”

You made it about yourself, idiot, you realized.

Instead of acknowledging him and his cue for more reassurance and affirmation, you'd shifted the attention from him to trust in your decision making. You hadn't meant to, you hadn't done it deliberately — but...

Gosh, you were absolutely terrible at this.

So much so that Rafayel being the more emotionally in-tune of the two of you even in his vulnerable state was setting a humiliating new standard for how low you could go.

It was pathetic, really, how utterly you failed to pick up on what should have been an obvious cue. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in your mind that he’d taken your clumsy words as a glaring sign you found his struggles trivial, insignificant compared to your own convenience. All you’d managed to do was shove him deeper into the spiral of insecurities he was already battling.

This was supposed to help him clear his head. All it had achieved so far was adding onto his concerns.

Despite your determination to pour everything you had into assuaging the gnarled knot of his self-doubt, you were woefully unqualified for the task. Unmoored, you floundered blindly through half-finished thoughts, grasping for ways to communicate your feelings — gracelessly, imprecisely — all in hopes of soothing whatever ugly thoughts tangled around your boyfriend's brain like weeds choking the life from fertile soil.

Your stammering words stuck to the roof of your mouth like taffy, thick, unwilling to yield, and suddenly useless, coming out slow as you spoke. “What I mean by that is… My life has been consumed by you. In the best way possible. You made it ito a beautiful, chaotic mess bursting with life. I couldn’t possibly leave you.”

And he heard it — you felt it in the faint shuddering breath he drew as a silent response.

His thumb swiped over your pinky in absent response, stroking soothingly over the thin bones as he stared at your joined hands. His shoulders hadn't relaxed even marginally, but there was still an immeasurable kindness in the gesture.

“Besides, you’re not someone who takes. That’s not true at all. You’re just…”

He looked up then, turning his head to you, a doe-eyed, half-dazed blink breaking past the glassy stare he'd fixed on the empty space in front of him. His hand twitched underneath yours, flexing as he made a questioning noise, wordlessly urging you to elaborate as he invited comfort from your explanation. The way he tilted his head, the corners of his furrowed brows slightly angled upwards — the effect was childlike, innocent almost.

Receptive.

Breaking through your hesitation to touch him lest he shrink away again, you lifted both hands to cradle his cheeks gently, smoothing your thumbs across the high sweep of his cheekbones until his eyelids slid shut.

A soft sigh fell from his parted lips, his body pliant in your grasp as he melted under your fingertips, as if the gesture were more potent than any reassurance you might offer. The climbing tension within your ribcage dissolved with a single exhalation at the sight — helplessly endeared by his sheer willingless to submit to your awkward, inexpressive attempt at consoling. Subtle adoration burned quietly beneath each featherlight caress you placed along the slope of his nose or the soft patches underneath his eyes.

"You're just feeling a little anxious," you continued carefully, brushing a stray piece of damp hair away from his temple. It stuck stubbornly, refusing to let itself be tucked behind his ear before you tried again, gentler this time, hoping to soothe any lingering reservations you hadn't managed to wash away. “That’s probably why you’re overthinking things.”

In the brief silence that followed, anxiety bubbled low in your stomach once more, especially when he seemed to be focusing somewhere on your neck and ignoring looking you in the eye directly. It came as yet another whiplash and a sinking feeling simultaneously when he covered one of your hands with his, tilting his chin to plant a kiss into the centre of your palm as if making up for the withdrawal from earlier.

"What, were you playing tricks on me?" you murmured.

Shaking his head, "A token of my gratitude," he clarified. A gentle huff of laughter slipped past his lips, so faintly that you would've missed it had you not been staring at him with rapt attention in your bewilderment. "For you. Who accepted someone like me."

You frowned, eyebrows immediately drawing close. “Rafayel—”

He leaned in all of a sudden, one of his arms slid behind your back, while the other stretched across in front of you, caging you in with an unnerving ease. Both his hands rested flat against the floor now, framing you on either side like a living barricade. Your own left arm shot down to slap a palm down so you wouldn't topple over on your side. The droplets falling from his damp hair onto your neck was a sharp, sudden cold in comparison to the alarming heat radiating from his body, making you jolt in place as he loomed close enough for his breath to fan across your face.

"You're burning up again," you said weakly, trying and failing spectacularly to disguise your nervousness with indignance as his lips brushed softly against the apple of your cheek before ghosting lower, pausing just beneath your ear, testing for a reaction.

Meanwhile, him taking your hand that was balled up in a fist on the ground to slowly bring it towards his mouth left you frozen and dizzy from the contradictory sensations prickling under your skin.

Rafayel hummed against your wrist in response, dropping light kisses along the ridge of bone connecting your thumb to the rest of your fingers in the interim. It was impossible to ignore how every one of his touches ignited something different within you — the sensation of him painting the length of each finger with tender brushes of his lips and heated exhales sent pulses of liquid warmth flowing through your bloodstream.

The abrupt shift had left you uncertain about many things, chief among which being whether your previous efforts actually sank in at all or not.

Apparently they had.

The combined assault was distracting, but even amidst the whirlwind of thoughts vying for attention, you struggled to fully comprehend just how drastically the moment had veered off course — how your own worry-stricken attempt at appeasing him ended here instead, with your pulse hammering in your ears as he pressed even closer, draping his arm around your waist to turn you sideways until you were nearly sitting on his lap, faces inches apart.

A glimpse hope of maintaining control over the situation arrived in the form of a can toppling over during his handling of you, clattering on the hardwood flooring and startling you enough to snap free of the strange trance Rafayel had ensnared you in during his momentary lapse in focus.

Being so close gave you a good look at the change in him that manifested suddenly; his features visibly hardened as he turned his head at the disturbance, seemingly irritated to have been interrupted midway — a dark glint shone through his lashes before shifting over to you, misty, hazy, indescribable in its raw complexity.

His bathrobe hung loose, the neckline slouched further down one shoulder from having moved so much earlier, displaying more skin than was appropriate, and you weren’t sure if you were imagining the faintest hint of familiar coloration mottling his chest.

Which was dry.

Not only had his skin absorbed all the moisture that clung to it like a sponge after stepping out of the bathroom, there was no hint of perspiration whatsoever — not a bead of sweat lining the ridges of his collarbone or dampening the strands of hair stuck to his forehead.

As if responding to your inner thoughts, he lamented, "As you said, I'm anxious... Well, more like... Restless," before leaning in further to bury his face in the crook of your shoulder. "Ever since I arrived here, I feel..."

His arms encircled your waist, pulling you flush against the expanse of his chest and filling your nose with the scent of bodywash. It was no less than holding a solid block of heat capable of radiating more than enough warmth to replace an actual human furnace. The sheer amount of radiated temperature seemed ridiculous in such conditions, but the way he tried the loosen the already disheveled robe covering his other shoulder despite coiling around you, which had to be the source of the biggest discomfort concerning heat, was even more ridiculous. Shouldn’t he have let go of you before complaining?

"The air feels like it's burning, like there's not enough moisture anywhere. My heart's racing and I feel so miserable," he admitted quietly, muffled in the material of your shirt.

Yeah, you were taking him to a hospital.

This wasn't normal by any means, especially since you were now a hundred percent sure Rafayel couldn't sweat in order to regulate his internal body heat.

How could you let this go on for so long? He had been suffering these symptoms for a whole day now, hiding it all under layers of petulant frustration and overdramatic complaining to escape having to ask for help.

He was always like this. So secretive and reserved about his struggles underneath all the goofiness, especially those directly related to him being a Lemurian.

You put a hand on his burning chest and pushed yourself away to put some distance between the two of you and this moment, ignoring his quiet gasp and the way he clutched your waist. "I'm taking you to a—”

Suddenly, the world spun off its axis, a dizzying blur of motion that ended with your back colliding against the floorboards.

The impact sent a ripple through the room — drawing pens clattering and rolling away, half-sketched papers crumpling beneath you, while others scattered into the air like startled birds, carried by the gust of displaced air.

As you blinked up, trying to shake the daze from your mind, the world sharpened into focus.

The light cascaded over Rafayel like liquid mercury, accentuating every sharp edge and soft curve of his form. His bare legs straddled your hips, knees pressed firmly into the ground on either side of you, pinning you in place with an effortless authority. His hands had found yours in the chaos, and now your wrists were restrained above your head, his long fingers encircling them with a grip that was firm yet somehow shaky.

The bathrobe he wore hung precariously, one shoulder already exposed to the moonlight’s caress while the other threatened to follow suit, the fabric dipping low to reveal a tantalizing V that stretched from his clavicle down to his navel. Tendrils of lilac hair curled lightly downwards with gravity, catching the light from outside, glittering like morning dew against a canvas of violet satin and plopping down onto your face, each impact making you blink. And his face, suffused with a flush so intense that it seemed to glow under the pale lighting, as if all the blood in his body had rushed to stain his fair skin with an undeniable rosy bloom.

The cool floorboards beneath your skin were contrasting harshly with the heat of his touch, and the helpless position left your pulse racing in a way you couldn’t entirely blame on adrenaline.

Rafayel lowered himself until his nose brushed lightly against yours, his breaths shallow and uneven, eyes caught halfway between hazy drowsiness and burning intensity — a vivid shade of sunless plum made darker not by the shadows cast across his features, but a deeply buried and masterfully concealed emotion on the verge of making itself known to you.

To call it desire wouldn't do it justice.

It was something far stronger than fleeting arousal or casual infatuation — you hadn’t been looked at this way before. Weren’t even sure if a man could look at someone like this. There was nothing superficial or mundane about this particular weight. It sought to consume you. To burn you alive, leaving you to crumble into ashes like incense offered up to a deity. And the worst part? You had no idea what exactly you were being consumed by, or why.

All of this, because you had merely wanted to—

“No. I’m not going anywhere,” he hissed as if sensing your plan, breath dragging along the edge of your ear. "I'm just... restless.”

But—

“In every sense of the word.”

Oh?

Your mind reeled, dizzy from the intoxicating cocktail flooding your senses — from his breaths washing over the side of your neck, to the overwhelming sensation of Rafayel on the verge of draping over you like a living brand, hot and firm, trapping you in place.

"Especially when you're by my side," he purred.

Oh.

He pulled back to stare you down, heavy-lidded and glinting like knives honed razor sharp, yet somehow tender in his approach. If anything, it served only to accentuate the danger of whatever it was simmering below the surface. This was different than his Ebb Day state, but similar enough in its intent to be instantly recognizable — especially since it bore all the marks of the manic rush he fell victim to when succumbing to the lure of his instincts.

It was something primal in you that scattered your thought process into oblivion and made you look away instinctively, averting your attention toward the window off to your left — but the sparkling view of night time in Aridum was soon curtained by a flash of Rafayel's hand as he cupped the side of your face in one smooth motion.

The slight roughness of the pad of his thumb brushed along your cheekbone until his fingers sank into your hair, fanned along the outer edge of your ear, and turned you back to face him. The gesture felt proprietary, like he wanted to make certain he'd captured every last scrap of your undivided attention, like it physically hurt to allow even the smallest opportunity for you to withdraw and escape his grasp.

“Rafayel,” you forced your common sense to come out of its hiding place. “I don’t think—”

"But even so, I can't let you go. I don't want to," he breathed against your lips, punctuating his command with an achingly slow drag of his nose tracing yours. The contact made something molten unfurl in your belly, warm and sticky-slick and pooling in the hollow space below your navel, curling its tendrils through your veins like sweet, syrupy nectar. "What should I do?"

It would be easier than breathing to surrender and give him whatever he was asking for, but... but...

It felt wrong when he was so distressingly hot to the touch, not to mention you couldn't shake off the feeling he was doing his best to distract you from your worry by acting more brazenly suggestive than you'd ever seen him be before.

"You should rest, I don't think you'll enjoy getting worked up in your current condition—"

Your efforts were derailed with the subtle scrape of chapped lips running up the slope of your neck and a bite into the fleshy part below your ear as punishment for daring to answer his plea with platitude.

A shudder shook your frame, nerves firing off confused messages in quick succession throughout your brain, half demanding the sudden pressure recede and half urging more from the tingling heat. Your hand flew to grip his bare shoulder, fingers digging in until the tight bunch of muscle strained beneath his fevered skin — not enough to stop his ministrations, but enough to serve as a weak deterrent.

"Such lovely lips, spinning such pretty excuses," Rafayel huffed, drawing back and sweeping his thumb across your chin with gentle disapproval. "When we both know you don't want me to let you go either."

The words trailed off into something softer, tender, almost wistful, and were followed by the pad of his finger slipping past your parted lips, stroking along the underside of your tongue before drawing back and skimming across the wet patch he'd left glistening upon your bottom lip. As if magnetized, his smoldering stare followed, entranced by the minute trembling of your mouth, darting occasionally upward to capture your own hooded eyes at the sudden boldness of his gesture. He licked his own lips slowly as if thirsty, mirroring the same lazy stroke he'd used against your mouth, allowing you to take your fill of the sight.

No.

Before you could fall into his enticing trap again, your palm pressed firmly against Rafayel's chest until he eased back obediently, giving you space to rise, every single sensation previously pink at the edges quickly melting into clarity about taking care of him properly.

"This isn't the right time," you insisted breathlessly once you managed to catch your breath and speak, steadfast with the strain of iron will alone — pushing forward when your mind threatened to wander where his moistened lips had been just seconds before.

The mood was quickly dispelling, much to Rafayel's clear irritation, judging by the petulant slouch of his shoulders. You emphasized your point by putting your hands on his forehead, cheeks, neck, every patch of skin you could reach, the clear intent of medical examination being communicated silently until he relented with a dramatic sigh, turning his face upwards to expose more of his throat as if giving permission.

"It's fine," he groused reluctantly, although his grumbling somewhat relenting in volume under your gentle inspection. "I'm not dying."

"That's the opposite of what you said earlier today. Are you sure you don't want—"

His hands closed firmly around your wrists, tugging you off gently before you could finish speaking. "It's really not that bad.”

You’d be more convinced if he'd just told you about how miserable he was feeling.

"Is it a Lemurian condition?" You frowned up at him, taking note of how carefully he cradled your hands in his palms, stroking the insides of your wrists. "If it's making you feel awful, shouldn't we see someone about it?"

Rafayel tilted his head at you with a peculiar sort of fondness written across his features. It was difficult to identify what precisely made his smile curve upward into something distinctly knowing, yet warm — something infinitely affectionate yet impossible to quantify.

"Already doing that," he answered cryptically, tilting forward until he met your forehead with his own, nuzzling into the creased spot directly between your brows, eyelashes fluttering shut.

Ugh, this man.

"Do you know for a fact if you'll be okay?" you asked as delicately as possible without sounding too overbearing. That would definitely push Rafayel closer to defensive territory again and have him brush off any attempt at assistance, or even conversation, so you needed to walk the tightrope of concern while still keeping it mild enough for him not to clam up. "This trip still has a few more days left. What if you don't get better?"

The corner of his mouth twitched faintly with a ghost of a smile, perhaps pleased by your attentiveness —— "I enjoy this kind of concern."

—— which was starting to irritate you a little. "Well, I don't. Seeing you suffer and not doing anything isn't enjoyable."

He had the audacity to grin at that, broad enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes as he ducked his head coyly before turning it sharply to brush the tip of his nose against the shell of your ear and murmuring, "Not enjoying seeing me suffering does imply some enjoyment in seeing me otherwise."

"Rafayel!" You snapped finally, jerking out of his embrace with exasperated incredulity, only to meet an unrepentant smile waiting for you beyond your escape. He wasn't deterred whatsoever, which was a little unnerving.

Or rather, the rapid shift to your own pent-up restlessness was about to become in the next two days.

The limbo between then and the memorial hall day unfolded in a whirlwind of contradictions, each more puzzling than the last — starting from the abrupt ending to your interlude in front of the window, where he suddenly pulled back without any warning at all, leaving you cold and stunned with the excuse that he wanted to go to sleep, subsequently kicking you out of his hotel room as if possessed by a demonic force capable of inducing selective amnesia.

Like he wasn’t asking to fold you in half like a laptop mere moments ago.

The result was you forcing mandatory house rest until the day of the memorial hall visit came, settling awkwardly between coddling and hovering — a weird blend of fussing over his health like a mother hen and trying desperately not to make him feel infantilized as a result of said fussing.

All of that only ended with him either clinging close or deliberately distancing himself in confusing waves that seemed to occur at random intervals with little rhyme or reason.

It was simultaneously bewildering and heartbreaking. You had no idea how to react when he gave you zero insight into his thoughts and behaviors unless coaxed open, and even then, his answers were cryptic.

(So much for enjoying your concern.)

Really, this was your fault.

Maybe you shouldn't have pushed. But you worried.

Especially when he was dismissive like that despite being openly going through something other than a fever and a creative block, made worse by his inability to leave the hotel due to the hostile environment. Both of which you could do nothing to help with.

He would sit at the edge of the bed, his sketchbook propped open but untouched, pencil hovering above the page as though waiting for some divine spark that refused to come. At times, he’d stand by the window, reminding you of a cat sitting by its food dish for its owner to fill it with dinner, paw swiping irritatingly at its empty confines. Then, just as abruptly, he’d abandon his spot to sprawl across your lap instead while you were busy with paperwork online, one arm draped loosely over his stomach as he stared blankly at the ceiling in defeat, and demanding you play with his hair.

Then, some time later, it was back to deciding being near you was unbearable, pulling away entirely whenever you reached out for reassurance, no matter how casual or friendly your intentions, retreating back into his personal bubble to focus on attempting to get something on paper mindlessly, pages fluttering with restless action, crumpling here and there under the rough treatment before being smoothed out hastily.

The cycle continued nonstop. Restlessness, fatigue, clinginess, building you up while you didn't let it show because time and place, solitude, then back again — you never knew what Rafayel's whimsies were going to bring, and the uncertainty of it wore you thin, fraying your already wan nerves.

The humidifier was a desperate, last-ditch effort, the kind born out of sheer frustration and the kind of exhaustion that makes rationality optional.

You’d bought it from a small local shop at the crack of dawn, spurred on by the memory of walking into Rafayel’s suite only hours before, where he’d bullied the hotel staff into delivering two oversized sacks of ice — each roughly the size of a small child — and ordered them to be dumped unceremoniously into his bathtub.

At 3 AM. In the dead of night.

By the time you returned and set it up, the machine had barely begun spitting out its first gentle stream of cool mist before Rafayel sat down beside it, legs folded beneath him like a solemn monk meditating in front of some sacred relic. His quiet intensity as he stared at the thing made you wonder if he was grateful, resentful, or some combination of both — because with Rafayel, it was never as simple as one emotion at a time.

Still, the day turned out to be noticeably easier on him, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you allowed yourself to believe that maybe, just maybe, the worst had passed.

He still looked like death warmed over, often pink on the face and worn, but at least he wasn’t on the brink of staging another late-night ice-bag heist.

He even tolerated your awkward attempts to distract him, accepting your offerings of snacks, endless glasses of ice water, iced tea, whatever cold beverages you could scrounge up, and a marathon of that one TV show the two of you had been meaning to watch together.

And, of course, there was the doting.

So much doting.

Which was rare for you.

You were not, by any stretch of the imagination, the kind of person who showered people with attention. You weren’t the mom friend. You didn’t hover. But something about Rafayel in this state, rightfully whiny, subdued, far too fragile for your liking, made you want to roll him over in bubble wrap and shove him in your pocket to keep him safe from everything.

In some ways, you were more anxious than he was.

The helplessness swung at you like you were a tree and it was an axe, the inability to snap your fingers and fix him, to just make it better was torture. Worrying felt inevitable, but useless. And the not knowing what to do with yourself in between bouts of fretting? That was worse. Still, he wasn’t showing any signs of further deterioration, which felt like a victory you didn’t want to jinx.

You were so relieved you briefly considered leaving all your savings to the shop clerk who’d sold you the overpriced humidifier. She had probably thought you’d lost your mind, judging by the way you thanked her like she’d just handed you a ticket to salvation, practically singing her praises as she rang up your purchase. And honestly, if you could go back in time, you would’ve thanked her even more profusely.

Because it worked. Rafayel was better — well, better-ish. Better enough that you decided it was safe to move forward with the plan to visit the memorial hall.

Which, eventually, became a visit to the ocean.

An ocean.

In the middle of a desert.

The sheer impossibility of it left you breathless, like you were standing at the edge of a fever dream made real. The water stretched out endlessly, shimmering beneath the brutal sun, and you couldn’t stop marveling at the sheer absurdity of it — a body of water so vast, so alive, nestled in a place it had no right to be. It felt like a miracle.

It was a miracle.

And just when you thought the desert couldn’t surprise you further, the skies proved you wrong soon enough later, crowning the experience with snowfall at the end of the trip. Snow, delicate and silent, drifting from the sky like a benediction.

You couldn’t help but marvel at it all — at how the world had managed to gift you two impossibilities in the span of a single day. It felt like the desert itself was defying logic, bending over backward to offer something beautiful, something extraordinary, as though it wanted to prove it wasn’t all hardship and sunburnt misery.

But Rafayel stood by the edge of the ocean with a look that made your chest ache — a look that spoke not of wonder, but of mourning. To you, it was a miracle, but to him, it was a tragedy: a dying ocean trapped in a place it could no longer thrive, its very existence a reminder of something slipping away. An everlasting eulogy engraved into reality.

He didn’t look away from the canvas of pain he had set up and started painting for himself until you voiced all of what you thought out loud for him to see.

And this time, you truly felt like you had broken through — like you’d reached him in a way that mattered.

It was there, in that rare, fragile moment, that Rafayel dove straight through your hesitation, sidestepping the awkward pauses you were fumbling with, and pulled you into an embrace before you even had the courage to ask if you could. It was as though he had heard the unspoken thought aloud, plucking it out of the air with startling precision.

And then he’d confessed — softly, almost too softly — that at the time, he had wanted to come here before, with the most important person in his life.

Those words lodged themselves in your chest, a bittersweet ache blooming alongside the unmistakable joy bubbling up within you. You hugged him back as tightly as you could, pouring all the gratitude you didn’t know how to put into words into that one simple gesture. Gratitude for trusting you enough to share that. Gratitude for showing you yet another new side of himself, something unguarded and rare. A treat, indeed, one you hadn’t expected but cherished all the same.

Relief flooded through you, so potent it felt like a physical weight lifting from your shoulders. You hadn’t even realized how tense you’d been until that moment. Your body relaxed, and with that relaxation came fatigue, the kind that crept up on you and left no room for resistance. Before you knew it, you had fallen asleep during the entire way back, lulled into a rare sense of peace you hadn’t felt in days.

And yet.

Like clockwork, he withdrew the instant you arrived back at the hotel.

Rafayel never thought he’d truly understand what it meant to drown.

As a creature of the sea, he wasn't meant to in the first place.

Not until you.

The realization had hit him like a storm breaking over still waters — not all at once, but in slow, rumbling waves that built. He didn’t even feel himself breaking; it was more like a slow erosion, the kind that wears stone into sand. Quiet, but irreversible. Your optimism. Your touches. Your encouragement. Inching in and in and in one step at a time.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

He had been holding himself together in the driver's seat, hands knotted around the steering wheel and knuckles bloodless with how tightly he gripped. Every inch of him vibrated with anxiety, away from where you lay fast asleep beside him, breathing shallow and uneven like he was afraid of exhaling too loudly. But there you were, oblivious, asleep, your head leaning softly against the window as if his world hadn’t collapsed in on itself.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

It wasn’t the desert heat that was killing him, though it might as well have been. (Everything about this place grated against him — the air, the dry scrape of his skin, the silence of the fading ocean that was too vast to be comforting. Too big. Too empty. Fading. Fading. A warning from cities away that this land was no place for a creature like him.) He wasn’t meant for this — for the cracked earth and the relentless sun and the suffocating absence of water. His body ached for moisture, for the cool, familiar embrace of the sea, but it ached even more for you. (He didn’t even realize how long he had been watching you from the corner of his peripheral vision — how long he had been unraveling, thread by thread.)

You’d tilted his world off its axis, turned everything he thought he knew into something unrecognizable. Once, pain had been his anchor. It was always there—constant, unyielding, something he could hold on to when nothing else made sense. It had driven him, fueled him, given him purpose when nothing else could. He had sought it out like a man dying of thirst seeks a mirage, and it had never failed him. Pain was constant. Pain was reliable. Pain was everything. Inside. Outside. It was all he had ever known, and it had kept him alive — fed the anger that gnashed his insides with teeth and claws, soothed the beast that prowled just under his skin, tempered the instinct that drove him relentlessly onward. Toward destruction. Towards home.

He had used it as a shield, as armor, as the whip he wielded against those who dared to clip the tails of his people. A weapon. A tool. A brush.

And then there was you (who he'd willingly sought out, angry and grieving and resentful and hurt.)

You, who didn’t fit into his carefully crafted world of suffering and art and revenge. You, who had made him forget (as easily as you forgot him) what it felt like to hurt, to ache, to yearn for something greater than himself. To hate. To see others bleed while his fingers flew across canvas after canvas, leaving only beauty in their wake — only soaring wings, only gleaming scales, only flowing water, only living fire, only reaching skies, only rushing wind, only rising floods...

Only you.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

Except now, he did yearn. He yearned in a way that was foreign and unbearable, in a way that felt like drowning — not in water, but in light, in warmth, in the overwhelming weight of wanting something too much. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he wanted you this much — needed you this much — when he didn’t even know who he was without all the hurt and hatred inside. It wasn’t fair that he felt something hot and ugly churning under his skin whenever you smiled up at him in admiration, filling his stomach with lead until he thought he might collapse beneath its heaviness. It wasn't fair that there were times when he thought it might actually be better not to have met you again at all.

(That thought filled him with dread so immense it threatened to crush the breath from his lungs; the possibility of having spent his entire life stumbling aimlessly through darkness towards a destination he was no longer sure even existed — )

He watched you sleep, the rhythm of your breathing steady and unbothered.

His gaze lingered on your hands, resting loosely in your lap, fingers twitching faintly as if even in sleep, you were reaching for something. (Reaching for him?) He wanted to take them in his own, to press them to his lips, to hold on so tightly he’d never have to let go. But he couldn’t. (He wouldn’t.)

Because the moment he did, he knew he’d lose whatever fragile standing he had left.

(“Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?”)

His thoughts spiraled, looping back on themselves in a tangle of contradictions that refused to resolve; questions without answers, fears without resolutions. What had he become, to need you like this? To depend on you like this? To depend on you so completely that even the idea of your absence felt like the loss of something vital — something essential — an emptiness he wasn't prepared to face.

(What must you think of him? Did you even know what you did to him? What would you think of him?)

He had told himself he could manage it, that he could stay close enough to feel your warmth but far enough not to burn. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? He was already burning. He had been burning since the moment he met you. An addictive pain — the kind that made him ache for more even as it seared him from the inside out.

And before he knew it, the car was parked beside the hotel entrance around the far corner of the garden, and Rafayel didn’t remember driving there at all.

He blinked, confused for a moment as to how exactly he had managed to pilot the vehicle, when you stirred quietly in the passenger seat, drawing his attention like a moth to flame.

You groaned softly, eyelids fluttering, but remained firmly locked within slumber's grip as he unbuckled your seatbelt for you, as gently as if he were handling fine china. Your head leaned sideways against the headrest and faced him, slack and soft with sleep. His fingers twitched around the plastic buckle, curling into a fist until he thought they might cramp under the strain.

He leaned forward, forehead coming to contact with the cool leather surface of the steering wheel, squeezing his eyes shut tight enough to blot out your presence entirely.

There was too much to process — too many feelings, thoughts, sensations threatening to overwhelm him if he looked directly at them, instead swirling through his head like debris caught in a vortex, invisible yet disorienting nonetheless.

But they all blipped out of existence the moment he turned his head around, following the impulse to look.

(“Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?”)

The urge struck Rafayel with all the force of a lightning bolt — bright, sudden, unavoidable — and suddenly the knuckles of his fingers were sliding across your cheek, feather-light in gentle arcs along the arch of your cheek, savoring every inch of satin flesh as it shifted beneath his caress.

The sensation of touch buzzed pleasantly underneath his skin previously starved, reveling in the sweetness of contact after so many days of withdrawal.

The artificial light coming from outside bathed your sleeping form in a glow that cascaded like a gentle waterfall, chiaroscuro shadows casting angles upon your features, emphasizing every line and curve, and for a long time, all he could do was stare. He could feel your breath against the tips of his nails, warm puffs of moist exhales against his calloused flesh, and found himself fixating on the gentle undulation of your chest as you breathed — unconsciously, mindlessly unaware of what such a simple act did to him.

The memory of your voice echoed in his mind, soft and certain, cutting through the chaos like a beam of light.

"Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?"

You had a way of reframing everything, of taking the pieces of his broken world and rearranging them into something that almost looked like hope. (He hated it. He loved it. He hated that he loved it.) It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

You hadn’t asked to become such an integral part of his existence — so intrinsic and fundamental and irreplaceable. Yet somehow, here you were. Here he was. The absence of water, the grief of it. The grief of what it meant to lose something so essential, so intrinsic, that one didn’t know how to live without it. And that grief had found a new home in you. You, who had become his ocean, his escape, the source of every ache in his chest and joy in his heart.

(Isn't it a surprise that there's an ocean in the desert? Isn't it a surprise you're the muse calling to him and not the muffled, fading cries of the dying ocean in pain, not the skeletal remains of an era he'd never get back?)

He gazed, and gazed, and gazed, drinking you in like a thirsty man lost in a sea of golden sands, watching the subtle play of lights over the curves of your face — the delicate angle of your chin, the arch of your nose, the graceful slope of your neck as it curved into collarbone and shoulder — memorizing every detail he could, without the pressure of having to wrench himself back before he drowned in your wake, without the need to pretend to your face he was anything less than desperate to be with you all day, every day, in every way possible. And that the sound of your voice in his ears was enough to get the paintbrush running across paper from the sheer momentum of his imagination.

But he couldn't keep going like this.

Somehow, somewhen, between the start of your journey and now, this thing had begun shifting irrevocably past his ability to contain it any longer. Had grown exponentially until it seemed to dwarf his capacity to handle it. All it would take was being away from you for a mere few hours to bring him to a level of misery that was honestly embarrassing.

And you had no idea.

No idea that orbiting around him in these past few days like a second moon had only served to exacerbate the foul joy of watching you fawn over him.

It made him sick to his stomach to admit it, but soaking in the knowledge (in his soul, through the bond) that you cared so deeply for him went straight to his head like some drug he hadn't realized he needed.

It felt so despairingly good that he would wrap himself around you like a vine climbing towards sunlight if he could for the rest of his days, absorbing your rays of affection like photosynthesis... or a parasite.

(Was he being punished by the sea that this love was eclipsing his fury and vengeance? Or rewarded that he held both equally in his grasp despite how terribly wrong it felt at times? Regardless, his inspiration was the punchline, once only capable of singing into the canvas elegies of lament and sorrow, now composed ballads and odes that poured out effortlessly.)

You would hate him if you ever found out just how perversely his emotions swung in every direction; so high one moment that the ecstasy of relief nearly shattered his reserve of control, and so low the next that he feared he'd choke to death from the guilt that clawed up the back of his throat like a strangled animal's cry for mercy.

This entire ordeal had flipped the script completely — instead of keeping you at arm's length as he normally did (regarding… everything), Rafayel now clung onto you desperately like Tantalus to a branch of fruit he’d finally gotten a grasp of, and what if he was exposed? The question rose like bile in his mouth whenever he began slipping.

“I won't leave you.”

Liar, his grudge wanted to answer.

It remembered. It never forgot. It told him you'd flee and never look back if he let a sliver of this dependency that bound him tighter to you with each passing day slip out from his fingertips — if he allowed you even the tiniest insight into the strange workings of his head and his heart.

Because you didn’t understand. You couldn’t. You had no idea what you were talking about when you told him you wouldn’t leave. How could you, when you didn’t know the depths of what you were promising to stay for? You didn’t know the true nature of Lemurian love, its ferocity, its weight, its cost. The all-consuming, all-encompassing reality of it — how they loved as if it was the only thing tethering them to existence itself. How they lived for it, how they died for it. How he had been dying for it.

If you saw it — if you saw him — you would run. He knew you would. Because if he laid bare just how much he depended on you, how much of his breath, his will, his very being hinged on you, you’d be overwhelmed. You’d leave.

Why else would he be tearing himself apart like this? Miserably trying to wean himself off you, forcing himself to let go only to grasp harder each time he felt you’d finally come to hate him and slip away?

He didn't know how long he sat there in silence.

Just a bit longer, he would keep watching you with these feelings out in the open. Just a little bit longer. He couldn’t bear to wake you up.

By the time you stirred, groggy and disoriented but blissfully unsuspecting, it felt as though several eternities had passed in the span of minutes, and he had to struggle with all the strength of a raging current to force himself back into this skin of his that felt too tight and suffocating around him.

But, still resting his temple against the steering wheel with an arm slung on top of it and another hanging lazily at his side, feigning ease, nothing betrayed his inner turmoil.

He watched quietly as you slowly regained your bearings, resisting the temptation to reach out and brush aside that one piece of hair out of place on your head, letting you find the words first.

(So adorable. So endearing.)

(It was not only snowing in his desert. There was also an ocean in there.)

"Rafayel..?"

"Yeah?"

"How long was I asleep?" You blinked at him blearily, one hand lifting to rub the lingering tiredness from your eyelids as you peer into the darkness of night beyond his silhouette. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

Everything he'd been thinking about vaporized and left behind nothing but softness, so tender it scared him; it seeped into the spaces in his heart left vacant and curled inside them, filling every corner, until it made the next smile he offered you come free of burden. "You were sleeping so well, cutie. I didn't want to disturb you."

The unconscious put of your lips and the way that strand of hair bounced around when you slid down your seat a little had him leaning in before he knew what he was doing, smoothing the unruly thing, fingertips betraying him by skating across the outer edge of your ear while he watched you tilt your cheek instinctively.

His body warmed immediately, gravitating towards you in a half-hug that kept you cradled close to the side of his frame as he nuzzled into your hair above your temple with a hum, dipping his nose deeper into the crown of your head near where your neck curved gracefully upwards before inhaling deep — greedy, thirsty, like he’d die if he couldn’t seep up all the scent of you.

Your breathing hitched a bit, and that’s what halted him right at the corner of your mouth with a sharp exhale — he couldn’t be doing this, he was just thinking about how he needed to pull back and —

Art salon.

Yeah, the art salon gathering.

He was supposed to be on his way to there like yesterday.

If only his body didn’t move like a most willing pupped tethered by strings to yours and refused to walk away whenever he tried.

“…Rafayel?”

It suddenly hotter in this car like a tide pool at noon. So stiflingly hot he was breathing fire even with the snowy weather outside. So unbearable the deepest V-cut known to mankind that had his whole chest out for the world to ogle did nothing to help.

He could… He could skip.

Yeah, he needed this. It had been literal days of non-stop withdrawal and a push-and-pull of his frustration that you wouldn’t touch him (because oh noo, he was sick — which, he wasn’t!) and stubbornness to not let you touch him. He’d gotten to a point that he was drunk off your scent alone and he couldn’t keep doing this forever, and why should he? Why did it matter about this event at all? Who cared — who cared about some stupid gathering? He wasn’t functioning anyways until he—

Stop. He had to stop. He was already so late.

He imagined catching himself by the scruff of his neck and yanking himself back to the driver's seat, within safe borders. Far away from your mesmerizing lips and wandering eyes and cute squirming in your seat under the thin cover of innocence.

And pulling away and practically fusing with the car door was exactly what he did.

He needed to prove to himself, just this once, that he could function without the constant reassurance of your presence — that he wasn’t helplessly anchored to you, no matter how much the pull of your moon whispered otherwise.

He had to dilute himself. This — and his inspiration problem, involving you or not, was his to figure out. And he had to figure it out if he wanted you to stay by his side.

"...Do you wanna go back to your room first?" he heard himself ask you quietly.

"You're not coming with me?" The tiny furrow of worry between your brows spoke volumes about your confusion, and despite wanting to reach out and smooth it away, to wipe every ounce of uncertainty from your face with a tender kiss, Rafayel clenched his fingers around the door handle of the vehicle until they cramped, his heart aching strangely inside his chest as you stared quizzically at him.

He brought out the invitation that came with the memorial hall ticket, waving it a little with little to no enthusiasm, "I still have to attend my friend's art salon thing."

The way your shoulders deflated and face dropped at the mention made him waver in — not enough to follow through with ditching the whole thing, but certainly making his resolve weak enough to crack like glass under pressure. "But you don't look well. You need to rest."

How could someone manage to resist getting spoiled like this, he thought miserably as he closed his eyes while you continued fussing, peering worriedly up into his face with the cutest scrunch to your forehead, palms searching along his cheeks heat before trailing down the length of his arms, and he wanted nothing more than to give in to that impulse of being coddled to bits by your hands alone.

He was a weak man.

You nearly lifted off the passenger seat and fell into his lap the way he embraced you, his arms coiling around you like kelp around a rock, holding fast as though you might slip away with the wind. His face buried into the crook of your neck, breath warm and uneven against your skin, his grip snug yet teetering on the edge of too much — like he didn’t trust himself to let go. There was a desperation in the way his hands trembled slightly, his fingers pressing into your sides, not hard enough to hurt but enough to leave the faintest impression of how badly he needed this. When your pained whine broke through, it was like snapping a thread, he instantly loosened his hold, guilt washing over his features as he pulled back just enough to make room for you to breathe. But he stayed close, his forehead dipping to rest against your shoulder as a heavy sigh rumbled deep from his chest, raw and apologetic. You leaned heavily into him, your fingers threading into his hair in a gesture that should have comforted him, but instead left him drowning deeper in the tangled sea of his emotions.

"See? You're burning up again," you mumbled as your cool lips grazed his temple in a comforting kiss. He was no better than a child. He knew it. And he hated how much he basked in your coddling, reveled in the unspoken message behind your words: Don't hide it. Tell me when you hurt. I care. "Maybe we can go together? Will you feel okay if I'm there?"

He would. He would feel more than okay, because that's what made him function.

But he couldn't keep being like this.

"Do you wanna turn me into a sea creature beached on the sand after the ocean recedes," he whispered, mostly kidding except not really, hiding in the dip of your neck just below your ear, hand tracing absent shapes into the small of your back above your tailbone. "Unable to breathe on my own, waiting helplessly for your tide's return?"

Your fingers stroking through his hair slowed, then stilled entirely at the edge of his nape. You pulled back only far enough to meet his lowered stare, confusion dancing within your own, bright and clear and genuine. You had no inkling of what was going on with him, and he didn’t want you to find out either. He would be fine. He was going to handle it.

"Don't you trust me?" Rafayel said. "How about we make a promise? I promise... I'll be okay without you tonight."

It hurt to lie to you so directly, but seeing your doubt dissolve to appease him helped soothe that sting considerably. (Even if it felt a little too convenient to rely on such flimsy methods.) You nodded, seeming convinced in spite of yourself, and his stance firmed — strengthened with your faith and affirmation alike, like he'd just taken a double shot of espresso. He would be okay. He wasn't going to keep imposing his feelings upon you even if a part of him desperately yearned to, no matter how difficult the prospect seemed.

(Say no, a small part of him whispered traitorously, selfishly, insistently. Ask me to stay. You know I can't say no to you, he wanted to plead. Needed to be affirmed once more, reassured that he was welcome to indulge, to remain, to lean into the comfort you offered freely.)

"Okay..." you echoed uncertainly, but gave him another soft smile — tentative yet warm, gentle encouragement. He watched quietly as your expressions shifted in quick succession, cycling through shades of hesitation and worry before settling on resignation. You nodded again, firmer this time, seemingly steeling yourself against whatever doubts you harbored. He wanted to kiss it all away.

But instead, he gently pushed you back, sinking further into his seat, looking out the view beyond the windshield to gather his wits against the force that was your presence beside him.

"You can head back," he repeated, not turning to meet your searching stare. "I can handle it."

The art salon had an air of cultivated elegance, grandiosity reflecting into soaring ceilings and walls adorned with curated artworks, with conversations floating in fragmented pieces, the occasional laughter punctuating the steady hum of "cultured" discourse — all the while Rafayel stood at the periphery, his posture consciously maintained with the kind of deliberate nonchalance that masked a profound discomfort, one hand buried in his pant pockets and the other holding a flute glass of champagne, ghosting the suffocating room with an expression of aloof disdain, attention drifting from painting to painting without ever settling. Humans circled him like murmuring specters, their faces a study in muted curiosity and empty civility. He loathed their presence. (Yet, here he was.)

The room's overwhelming sensory overload grated against his composure — cloying mingling of varnish and wine, sharply polished sheen of curated lighting, artifice of smiles that never reached their eyes...

He should leave. (No, he had to stay.)

The dichotomy was a pendulum swinging between contempt and an unspoken compulsion to endure. He’d insisted he didn’t need you here, insisted on proving — to himself as much as to you — that he could function without your constant presence. But the more he replayed his own words in his mind, the more it was obvious the joke was on him.

He rolled his eyes as an overly enthusiastic laugh erupted nearby, a sound sharp enough to pinprick through his already thinning out patience. His hand twitched in his pocket, the movement a reflexive manifestation of his barely-contained frustration.

(Focus.)

The art, exquisite as it was, did little to distract him as the chatter blurred into a meaningless drone, the edges of the room constricting him under the weight of pretense.

And then. The tug.

At first, it was delicate — an unsuspecting tremor sifting through his awareness, like the faintest ripple across an otherwise still surface that he thought he was imagining and hoping this was you. But it swelled rapidly, a deluge of sensations sweeping him off his feet towards your pull with a force that left his breath stuttering and the floor wavering beneath, erupting into vivid, agonizing clarity.

His lips tingled, a ghostly imprint of a kiss not yet given.

Heat bloomed under his skin, first at the base of his throat, spreading like a slow, insidious current. The faintest pressure, then, at his collarbone, radiating outward, like silk dragging over sensitive skin, a tingling warmth that prickled and spread, until it seemed to rewrite the very contours of his form, leaving him trembling with phantom caresses that lingered far too long to ignore.

He could feel the press of your palms against his chest, the drag of your nails over the planes of his stomach, each sensation so precise it made his breath catch, and the ache in his hands mirrored the way you gripped at yourself. Every brush of your hand — every hurried, seeking stroke — burned through him like smoldering embers, and he swore he could hear the faintest hitch of your breath, feel the tremor in your thighs.

A siren song of need that echoed his own, calling him under, drowning him in you.

Come to me, come to me, stay with me.

His breath hitched with the oxygen turning into lava-hot needle prickling in his lungs, his legs going limp as noodles and giving way. He collapsed into the nearest chair with a jarring lack of control, the motion abrupt, almost violent.

One hand clamped onto the edge of the table as he hastily discarded the champagne glass to cover where the bond was glowing, fingers digging into the wood as if it were the only thing keeping him from being swept away.

A single candle at the table’s center responded instead of Rafayel, its once languid, uninterested flame quivering violently, and then erupting into an erratic flare, a burst of light so sharp and sudden it cut through the room like a gasp. The activity drew murmurs from those nearby, heads turning, eyes widening as the flame seemed to writhe with a life of its own as wax spilled over the edges of its holder, dripping down in frantic rivulets, glistening like molten gold beneath the trembling glow.

"Hey, Rafayel, man, you good?"

A hand on his shoulder made him flinch violently and slap it away, the contact snapping him partway out of his spiraling thoughts. "Don't."

He was already rising, the chair scraping noisily against the floor as he pushed himself upright with a force that bordered on frenetic. The friend stood as well, confusion clear, but Rafayel didn’t wait to explain — with a curt shake of his head, he turned on his heel and strode toward the exit, leaving the other man standing there with his hand half-raised, a bewildered, "Hey, where are you going, come back!" hanging unanswered in the air.

The murmurs of those left behind — curious stares, the faint scrape of chairs and clothes ruffling — faded into irrelevance, they barely even registered. The bond burned like a tether, yanking him back to you, and he had neither the strength nor the desire to disobey.

By the time he reached the cool air of the night outside, he was seething. He had heard you loud and clear.

You merciless, cruel, horrible witch of a woman, punishing him with your sweet truth in an act so loving yet selfish, selfless yet entirely possessive, driving him completely to his wit's end until the only remaining thought was yours — to worship you wholly, thoroughly, obsessively, as deeply as he wanted.

He was in love.

You were in Rafayel’s room.

Because for his sanity to be tested like you intended it would be, of course you had to be in there of all places.

He was able to crash in the way he wanted like a dam bursting without knocking holding him back. In fact, he didn’t even bother calling out at all.

And honestly, he wasn’t even lucid enough for coherent thoughts such as those the moment his vision tunneled on your frame in the middle of his space, your back turned to him, an unaware and unintentional siren in a fluffy white robe loosely tied at your hips.

His robe.

Rafayel was moving before he registered the full picture — prowling the distance between you within seconds, hand snatching up yours and spinning you around. Just being this close and touching you uninhibited got the synapses firing faster than bullets in his head. He pushed forward into your space with no preamble, crowding you against the floor-to-ceiling window. He spared another two or three precious seconds taking in your startled expression with vindication (“Rafayel, what are you doing here?” before putting a stop to all the unnecessary talking with a kiss.

How could he expected himself to stay away from this?

One knee pushed between your thighs, a subtle but undeniable acknowledgment of what he’d felt, and you faltered, clutching the sides of his shirt so abruptly the lily decorations peppered through out clinked. A quiet noise escaped past your lips, muffled by his own and intensifying the building pressure simmering in his gut as he played with the collar of your robe — his robe — and drank greedily from you.

He felt a push at his chest.

The separation between you that couldn’t be more than a tight space to breathe each other’s air brought the world rushing back into focus — Aridum’s quiet, serene snowfall materialized behind your head like a mockery of their frenzied tangle of limbs, the ambient sounds of the city bustling in the distance dampened.

Your eyes searched his, glazed and hazy with steadily-building arousal, yet waiting nonetheless for an answer, shiny lips parted in wordless wonder.

Rafayel could say nothing. The words were there, soda fizz under the surface threatening to erupt into something incomprehensible at best if he opened his mouth.

His palm engulfed your cheek and drew you right back in, continuing the kiss with more urgency to prevent you from tumbling out from his grasp again — let the action speak for him.

The need that thrummed deep beneath rendered him mute, save for strained sighs and grunts of effort louder than the rustle of fabric and the thuds of feet shuffling around on the floor as he plundered your mouth, tongue chasing yours. It tasted like toothpaste and chapstick, like fresh mint leaves, like nurturing warmth cooling his into something calmer.

Rafayel’s hand left your face and slid down your back to seize your waist, dragging you closer, flushing your hips against his firmer and pushing his thigh more brashly. Not even a second later, his other hand bracing your wrist against the window pulled your arm into him to spin you around like in a dance, switching positions without breaking away.

And you bit him.

He recoiled with an “Ah,” that was more surprised than pained, drawing away just enough to swipe his thumb over the curve of his bottom lip where your teeth had punctured him.

“Why are you here?”

Something rotten and vicious was about to bare his fangs at you through a smile he barely stopped from telling on himself by holding back, ‘You called,’ from slipping.

The other, more acceptable answer came in a quick and effortless sweep of your legs off the floor, draping them over either side of his waist, one palm supporting you underneath like the cradle of a hammock as he pivoted towards the bed. “This is my room,” he said — low, simple, keeping eye contact to witness your frustration. “You’re the one who walked in here.”

He saw in the curl of your mouth that you would’ve continued arguing semantics if not for Rafayel bending to deposit you gently atop the bed for you to settle safely beneath him. The mattress creaked under his shifting as he eased further and started descending to resume getting lost in your kisses until a finger landed upon his lips.

“What I meant was,” you started, and Rafayel exhaled against your touch and nuzzled into it like an obedient pet coming to heel with a lowered tail before his master. “Shouldn’t you be at that art salon?”

He stared, blood about to keel over the boiling point.

His beloved was pouting. So adorable that he wanted to bite down.

You’d been so patient with him, hadn’t you? The little divot between your brows called out to Rafayel, begging to be kissed.

“I regret going in the first place,” he said, getting closer to breathe those words directly against the curve of your ear, savoring its delicate shell and the heat emanating from it against his lower lip — basking in the short tremble he could pull out of you that told him all he needed to know. “Stay here with me—”

His arm dipped around your waist and tugged you insistently closer, shakily eager, while your hands scrambled at his biceps, the side of your neck stretching upward to meet his halfway and melting further into him like candle wax molding against Rafayel and pooling liquid sweetness inside him like a basin filled.

Ring — ring — ring — ring — ring — ring — ring!

What the hell? Now?

A surge of irrational anger flared inside Rafayel, sharp and sudden, as if the hotel room phone had personally wronged him so bone-deep that his ancestors themselves had been insulted by its shrill, untimely ring. He clicked his tongue sharply against the roof of his mouth, a frustrated noise brimming with disdain as he reached out with the intention of silencing the nuisance immediately.

But before his hand could reach the red button, your fingers curled gently around his wrist, halting him mid-motion. The touch was soft, warm, and unassuming, yet it cut through his irritation more effectively than words ever could. His breath hitched as he glanced down at your hand, stilling under the quiet weight of what you were going to say next.

“Wait,” your dulcet murmur came. “What if it’s something important?”

More than this?

The irritation got you a side eye for that — but he quickly caught onto where this was heading from the way you gave him a pointed, sultry glance under your lashes and the faintest devilish curl at the corners at your lips. The grip around his wrist turned into your fingers interlacing with his as you guided him to accept the call, holding his gaze so intensely throughout that the beginning of the reception’s announcement went unheard in his ears.

“The guest of this room is unable to answer. Please leave a message."

Rafayel hadn’t even found a chance to breathe, let alone process what was even happening when you pushed him off and knocked him flat onto his back, straddling his hips with surprising speed which elicited an involuntary jolt from him.

He froze, breath caught somewhere between his lungs and the thick, burning, moistureless air that was overheating him. A thousand words tumbled in a rush into his mouth at once, all died under his breath in a sigh as his senses swam and short-circuited in response to your boldness, the sheer power radiating off your figure captivating him. For a single, stretched heartbeat, all he could do was look up — look at you.

The light from the ceiling framed your form in a way that bordered on divine, spilling past the loose strands of hair that fell around your face and catching on the curves of your silhouette like a lover's caress. Shadows slithered around you, dipping into the soft folds and valleys of the bathrobe that clung to you in all the places his gaze couldn’t help but follow.

And then the vision struck, slicing through his mind like a blade dragged cleanly through water.

No, you brought it to him, conjuring it as surely as though you had whispered it directly into his mind.

The blues wouldn’t just be blues — shadowy cobalt would bleed into the depths below, heavy and still, fading into fractured glacier blue as the water grew lighter near the surface, where the sun struggled to break through. The greens would soften into glassy jade, shimmering faintly, caught in the shifting light as if the water itself pulsed with life. Shadows would stretch in drenched charcoal, not oppressive but endless, framing the brightness above almost like curtains opening.

And there, close to the surface, you would hover like the sun underwater, light spilling from you in ripples and shards. Your form would glow with submerged gold, warm and radiant, a halo of sunlit pearl surrounding you where the sunlight hit the water and scattered around your silhouette. You wouldn’t simply stand still — you would drift, your movements impossibly fluid, arms outstretched in a gesture that could be comfort or inevitability, a quiet invitation to a homecoming. Shadows would gather around your curves in bruised honey, soft and subtle, fading into the glow that surrounded you, the kind of light that looked almost too warm to belong in the cold ocean.

The person who the painting was drawn from the perspective of would see you not as a person, but as something greater. His arms would float above him, slack and surrendered, the only movement from his fingers angled upwards, glowing faintly with washed ash gold, the last vestiges of warmth clinging to his skin, while the rest of his form darkened in the embrace of storm-drift gray. Faraway air bubbles would be glacier silver-blue catching the warm light as they ascended toward the unreachable surface, reflections flickering like distant stars against the background of salt-shadow teal.

This was a homecoming.

The bursting of colors landing on his imaginary canvas came to a head when the branding heat of your mouth found his ear, screeching into stuttered motion and scattering like seagulls afterwards. His head lolled sideways under the zapping pressure, inviting more of the world-halting caress that left him all limp.

Then it was gone — only a cool tingling remained where yout moist breaths once ghosted him —

"Hey bro, why'dya leave? Get back here—"

Shocked as if he had short time memory about it being a voice message, he squirmed for a beat, eyes flitting in panic between the call display and you with the mortification of every single drop of blood in his body rushing southwards.

His friend’s voice fractured into static buzzing under the pounding of his ears when you bowed forward once more, towards the red mark on top of his mark that was practically vibrating under his skin, trailing kisses across its glow. Every skin contact point with you burned even with the layers of clothing in-between, melting into an acute throb as you reached the base of his throat and dipped into the hollow between his collarbones — fingers dancing along the strip of his neckpiece before delving underneath, dragging down and delicately, deliciously tugging.

That was all it took for Rafayel to flip your positing and roll you beneath his body, propping himself up with one forarm and holding your wrist to just — stop you for a minute, expression tight as he asked, “Are you sure?”

Your intentions were crystal clear, but it was necessary to check in before continuing any further even though he needed this like air right now, and the prospect of hearing it straight from your lips that he was wanted —

Looking somewhere off to the side, you replied, “Otherwise you’ll actually go back,” thoughtfully, but there was something resentful in there, the statement almost bitter sounding in its delivery.

The overjoyed press of his lips to hide the smile he just knew would annoy you betrayed what he was thinking on the spot.

“So cute,” breached containment however, full of affection as he moved aside your hair behind your ear tenderly, fore and middle fingers taking your love’s sensitive edge between them and caressing, causing you to turn your face further away from him. “You must have missed me quite a lot.”

That sentence was accompanied by the press of his knee into the junction between your inner thighs, innocent enough unless you factored in that one certain revelation of earlier that entirely changed the context in intent. Especially when your pupils dilated visibly before him as you choked out a tiny gasp of surprise, revealing your guilt in glaring clarity.

“What, not pleased you got caught?”

A wicked impulse seized him — one daring him to keep playing this card to unlock so many possibilities as to how he could have you tonight.

He could have you show him what you’d done while he watched until you begged to be touched — on your back with legs wide open for his viewing pleasure, or hovering right above his face in 4K Ultra HD quality that he could just lay down and enjoy and perhaps contribute with his breath if he felt generous enough. You were having fun all on your own, yeah? He just wanted in on it. Not knowing wasn’t a sin, but not learning was.

If you didn’t think you were ready to bear the consequences of this decision of yours, you should have rethought before choosing the room he frequented, shouldn’t have turned him into a fish out of water in public by calling out to him like that, should have known better that Rafayel could be the vilest when he was provoked.

“Or, are you?”

His words were a double-edged knife. Pick the surface-level meaning and you ended up with him teasing you about missing him quite literally, nothing more, nothing less. Take him for what lay beneath, however...

Unfortunately, or, fortunately, you were one slippery fish.

"Why should I be ashamed?" The confidence that dripped from your reply rang genuine. You were so unbothered by his instigation that he realized this was going to be harder than expected, perhaps more rewarding as well. A delightful prospect. "Do you wish I wouldn't miss you?"

Oh, your pride, your grudge was truly an impressive sight —

gleaming razor-sharp even under scrutiny, glittering steel reflecting his image in fragments, and yet tempered by enough warmth to invite him closer instead of warding him off.

"Not at all." His heart sang. "But it couldn't compare to how much I missed you."

"And you still left," came a mumble, sounding more dejected than anything, carrying the weight of his deeds for the past two days.

It was that easy to change his mood.

Rafayel cooed instinctively, rubbing soothing circles into the skin above your knuckles as he pressed a string of quick kisses into the curve of your wrist — lips brushing tender apologies along its path until he reached the palm of your hand cupping his face, where he lingered to feel you stroke delicately over his lower lashes.

"I'm here now," was his gentle promise, one spoken nuzzled against the backs of your fingers. "I'm not going anywhere."

"What are you going to say to your friend? You didn't even pick up his call," you admonished softly, drawing his attention towards where the voicemail was still being displayed on the hologram screen hovering from the nightstand, accepting a prompt about how to proceed.

Rafayel made a show of leaning back to sit back on his heels, staring down at you as he slipped his fingers underneath the tightly-belted thick, sash-like band to pop the clasp to the side apart, the metal closure disengaging with a small clack as the ends slid free and exposed the zipper underneath.

He drank in your every reaction — every detail of you sprawled out before him: your robe coming undone ever so gradually, tantalizing glimpses of skin peeking between its parted folds, a little bit of collarbone here, the curve of your breast there, teasingly hinting at the shape of a nipple underneath the white fabric, then another flash of thigh, an exposed inch of inner leg from your feet shifting restlessly alongside his shins.

He pulled the whole belt free in one smooth yank — the sudden momentum making it snap with a harsh crack. It curled like a ribbon in his palm as he surveyed you, gauging your reaction; watching your widened stare catch onto cloth held loosely in his fist as he flung it haphazardly to the side.

Then, he started tugging at your ankle to raise it higher — dragging his knuckles along your heel, the sole of your foot, caressing into the arch of your instep, traveling along the softness of your calf all the way down to your knee, a single fingertip trailing underneath, slinking gradually but surely toward the inner side, tracing hypnotic spirals into the silky flesh that made your breathing hitch unevenly.

The ends of your robe were riding further up past your thigh along with the slow march, your naked skin revealed in gradual increments the higher his palm slid — revealing more and more until his hand stopped at the underside of your thigh, entirely disappeared from view because of the bunched up cloth, and pulled your leg up gently to drape it over the curve of waist.

Falling right back in on instinct, he leaned down, propped above your splayed form on his forearm beside your shoulder and bent to drag his nose upwards along the line of your cheekbone, saying, "I'm busy."

Your answering snicker was endearing and familiar, drawing forth a swell of warmth inside him like the sun rising over a tranquil ocean's horizon. "Still trying to run away?"

“Just returning to the original plan.”

There would be no running away now — not anymore, not ever, at least not from you and what you made him feel. He'd tried; failed, obviously, as evident in his return here, where the answer awaited him with open arms.

"Who says I'm going to agree? I still haven't forgiven you.”

Rafayel adored that one pout of yours, the one that curved at its edges like the swoop of a bird's wing, delicate and lovingly rounded in its downturned shape. It drew his mouth upward to meet its match, slotting perfectly against its twin seamlessly in the union of a kiss, lingering as if they belonged together like puzzle pieces. You melted sweetly under the fondness contained within the gesture, sighing quietly in surrender; every angle of his mouth was drawn to yours inexorably, it was gravity pulling falling stars back to their courses.

"Not yet," he amended dutifully once he could manage words again, and felt your smile widen before sealing his mouth over it. "Let me."

"If you beg," you shot right back, the curve of your mouth pronounced against his chin, smug satisfaction dripped from every word and its delivery as you pulled away again just enough to meet his half-hooded stare evenly — daring him to refuse you. "Properly."

You kissed the little groan that was about to spill past his lips, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Neither was it intended to.

"How would you like me to repent?" He dragged the question into an offer, a honey trap ripe for plundering. "On my knees? On my back?"

He let his arousal to show on his fact at those mental images, conjured by practiced ease, crafted to seduce. The soft puff of your exhale danced across his chin, sending his nerves tingling. A sign he was on the right track? Or did it merely betray surprise at whatyou had in mind? Either possibility stirred his blood.

"You know what someone in your position shouldn’t do?" you whispered, low and hushed, conspiratorial yet laced with a dangerous authority that quickened his pulse. His brows rose involuntarily, the shift in your tone sending anticipation skittering down his spine. Your lashes swept low, casting faint shadows on your cheeks as your pointed stare locked onto him, sharp enough to pierce. "Ask me what to do when you’re supposed to be coming up with ideas on your own. That’s weaponized incompetence."

His head snapped back so fast that something audibly clicked in his neck.

Mouth wide open.

"Weaponized in—" The sensual, submissive haze he’d been wrapped in evaporated like morning dew under the brutal heat of the desert sun, vanishing so quickly it left him sputtering. The words faltered on his tongue as insult overtook every carefully cultivated mood, his composure fracturing into clumsy indignation. Propped up on his elbows above you, his face twisted into a comically muddied mix of offense and disbelief, his tone taking on an incredulous sharpness as he glared down at you.

"Say that again and I’ll spit bubbles at you!" he snapped, his threat hanging in the air like a gauntlet thrown by a petulant prince.

"Pffft!"

The insolent brat you were being in that moment, daring to laugh straight in his face, was both impossibly cute and maddeningly infuriating. He stared down at you, eyes narrowing with mock offense, the knowledge that your laughter was entirely at his expense gnawing at his frayed patience. He was torn between kissing you senseless or flipping you over and finding some other way to wipe that smug, adorable smirk off your face.

"What do you mean weaponized incompetence?" Rafayel shot back, the words almost trembling with disbelief. "You think I can't please you properly without you guiding me through it step-by-step? Is that what you're saying?!" His irritation swelled, a balloon of indignation puffing up and threatening to burst as he fought, tooth and nail, to keep the whine rising in his throat from escaping. "I like you telling me what to do because I enjoy indulging in your desires! Not because I’m incapable of being creative in bed!"

A frustrated huff crowned his ranting, "Stop laughing!" he barked, though his rising pitch only seemed to add fuel to your uncontrollable amusement.

You shook your head firmly, slapping your hands over your face to muffle the sounds of your laughter, but it was no use. Your entire body curled inward instinctively, knees drawing up as you rolled to your side, burying yourself deeper into the cocoon of your mirth. It only made it worse for his pride — your stifled giggles shaking through you like tremors, every failed attempt to contain yourself sending them bubbling up again.

Rafayel let out a growl of frustration, throwing his body off yours with an exaggerated thud, landing face-first into the pillow beside you in utter defeat. The mattress jolted slightly from the force, but the muffled yell he buried into the pillow caused a chain reaction that only made your laughter harder to suppress. The giggles came fast and bright, and he swore they sounded far too gratifying for his current temperament, his scowl deepening with every shake of your shoulders and every wheezing gasp for air that he felt in the bed, he didn’t even need to look.

The fact that you were utterly immune to his wrath, impervious to every “Stop,” he threw your way, made it all the more maddening. How was he supposed to maintain the upper hand, to reestablish even a shred of dignity, when he couldn’t even intimidate you?

"I'm sorry," you gasped finally, though the apology was weakened by the cracks of laughter still slipping through. You managed to sit upright, though it took visible effort, your hands brushing away tears from the corners of your crinkled, joy-stricken eyes. A few lingering giggles escaped as you cleared your throat, attempting to sound sincere but failing miserably. "I didn’t think you’d have such strong feelings about this topic."

Rafayel lifted his head from the pillow, his hair disheveled, his glare shooting daggers your way, though the deep flush blooming across his cheeks betrayed his struggle to keep his composure. He opened his mouth to retort, to say something, but instead all that escaped was a muffled, irritated groan as he flopped back down into the pillow.

“Rafayel.”

He rolled onto his back with dramatic flair, hands folded primly over his stomach and ankles crossed, the picture of theatrical innocence. The pout he wore, however, was pure spite, lips pushed forward just enough to make his point. “If you think I’m sooo weaponizing my incompetence, maybe I should actually start doing that. Let you handle everything yourself. Clearly, you’ve got it all figured out.”

“Rafayel…”

“No, no, go ahead,” he cut in, stubbornly resolute, almost belligerent in its exaggerated persistence. “I’m useless, right? I don’t know what I’m doing. Teach me. I won’t even lay a single finger on you.” He puffed his cheeks, a childish act of defiance paired with the way he turned his head away, sulking with the finesse of spoiled royalty.

The exaggerated display drew a sigh from you, long and exasperated, but tinged with a quiet amusement that he didn’t miss. He wasn’t fooling you — not for a second—but he relished the moment all the same.

“Well,” you began, feigning hesitation, with false reluctance. “Since you’re already laid out, I guess…” You trailed off as you shifted to straddle him, slow enough to test the limits of his so-called resolution, the soft white robe you wore parting ever so slightly as you moved, revealing tantalizing glimpses of skin before your knees closed firmly around his hips, framing him like twin prison bars.

His eyes darkened as he watched you, taking in the sight hungrily, every detail sinking into him like a drug he couldn’t resist. His hands betrayed him almost immediately, fingertips skimming the hem of the robe where it hung loosely, their touch feather-light as they ghosted over the tops of your thighs. It was instinctive, reflexive — completely unrepentant.

“I thought you weren’t touching me,” you teased with a playful lilt that interrupted the heat thickening the air between you like an unwanted knock on the door.

His hum was deliberately innocent, his head tilting as though to feign ignorance. But the dark gleam in his eyes and the smirk curling at the corners of his lips told a different story entirely. “I really like this robe,” he murmured with a calculated drawl. “What, I can’t touch my own clothes now?”

The claim was absurd — blatantly so — but it made you pause, his fingers grazing the fabric in question as though testing its texture, when in reality, it was clear he was savoring the warmth of your skin beneath it.

(Truthfully, it was also you who looked lovely draped in what was his — but that went without saying.)

Your mouth opened, the gleam of a retort on the tip of your tongue, but the words dissolved into nothingness as his hands shifted, palms hot against your sides, skirting along your ribs in an intentional, testing motion. He knew the heat of his touch stole the breath from your lungs, burning through the fabric like a spark setting fire to paper.

“You go on,” he said, infuriatingly smug as he leaned back into the pillows, his hands never straying far from your sides. “Help yourself. Take as long as you need. I’ll just… be appreciating this fabric in the meantime.”

His fingers traced the lines of your ribs, the motion slow, languid, before sliding downward to hover just above the curve of your stomach. They lingered there, resting near the knot of the belt holding your robe together. The edge of his thumb dipped just slightly beneath the fabric, brushing over its folded loops, a movement so subtle it was barely there, as though he wanted to test how much he could push you. He toyed with the fabric, rolling it between his fingers like he was unraveling a puzzle.

The pause in his pent-up desire — the break that had proven to be a blessing — was wearing thin. The front he was putting on, all casual indifference and smug bravado, was crumbling, betrayed by the way his gaze kept flickering back to you, and, of course, the growing press of his impatience beneath you, hard and neglected, made it abundantly clear that he was more than ready to pick up where you’d last left off.

You broke first.

With nary a warning, your hand shot out, snatching the ends of the thin, ribbon-like scarf draped loosely around his neck. You wound the fabric around your fist once, twice, tightening it just enough to make your intentions clear…

Then you yanked.

The pull wasn’t violent — no, it was far too calculated for that. Enough pressure to catch him off guard, to tip him forward slightly, but not enough to hurt. It was a demand, plain and simple, one he found himself surrendering to before he even had the chance to consider resistance. His wide-eyed surprise melted almost instantly like cotton candy in water into something darker, something sharper, as his lips curled into a grin that spoke volumes about just how much he was enjoying this game.

"First, you ask to beg for my forgiveness," you continued, pulling him a little closer, and his chest tightened as though the leash around his neck extended all the way to his lungs.

Your gaze pinned him down like a blade, your lips curving into something that wasn’t quite a smirk, wasn’t quite a smile — something far more addictive.

"And then," you murmured, sweet but laced with unmistakable bite, "you start ordering me around like a brat."

A jolt of concentrated heat shot through him, not from embarrassment but from the sharp edge of thrill that ran through his veins. He let the tension in his body slacken just slightly, a calculated move that allowed him to lift from the bed a little, meeting your challenge with his own. The faint tug of the scarf against his neck only heightened the electric energy between you, and he found himself biting back a grin.

“Well," he said at last, letting his weight sink into the bed with a noncommittal shrug, the barest shift of his shoulders enough to convey his defiance. "I’m just playing my part." He tilted his head just enough to make the scarf strain, wanted to see what you’d do with the provocation. “The sleazy husband.”

“You want a reward for that?”

“Acknowledgment of how committed to the role I am would be nice.”

“Oh yes, the most infuriating actor—”

“Aaand you goofed it—”

“—impossibly—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—”

“—handsome," you went on, and his smirk faltered ever so slightly. “Disarmingly clever, annoyingly witty," you added, the sharp edge softening with each word, though the grip you kept on the scarf didn’t loosen. If anything, you pulled him closer, closing the space between you inch by inch. "—and worst of all," you finished, dropping into something softer, something so intimate, "Completely, devastatingly, undeniably competent."

“Well, aren’t you good at apologizing…” he said into himself, embarrassingly beet-red at having fallen for your trick.

“I’m still waiting for yours, you know,” you pointed out distractedly, playing with the crystal flame lilies scattered on his wine berry shirt, tracing the petals of a bloom while seemingly entranced, following the silvery droplets dangling in a chain. “But I’ll be graceful this time and keep going with mine...”

Before he had a chance to blink or register the motion — your free palm slipped underneath the thin fabric covering his heart, caressing right alongside the pulsing red mark — and squeezed with a vengeance (such a fierce boob grab!), applying enough pressure that the pads of your fingers sunk into flesh, then widened the buttonless V-cut of his shirt by yanking, no, downright ripping it open by the lapels with both hands, and Rafayel damn near felt like a virgin at how scandalous that single action was that he almost covered himself up.

But then again, he could hardly claim innocence right now, could he? He was practically a champagne bottle about to pop down there. Just from that. Who was he, the main female character getting her corset ripped in a bodice-ripper novel?

“Ohmyg—hi? What happened to hello? How are y—”

“Shut up or no head.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kisses were rained along his collarbone, the length of his neck, and nipping gently at the spot behind his ear that got the hairs on his nape rise to attention. It would’ve been funny what a child’s play it was to tease him until his ears matched the scarlet blossoms on his shirt, except nothing about this particular situation bore humor — least of all, his response to it.

Which was practically none at all. Because he simply lay there, stiff as a plank from how turned on he was, and you worked him diligently as if he was an instrument and you were the virtuoso.

It was also because he was zeroed in on the cleavage peeking out from the gap in your robe as you made your way further downwards, tongue flickering along the dips and bumps of his upper abdomen — surely able to feel more than hear each inhale and exhale getting closer to moaning territory the longer you kept teasing. He even caught a nip slip here and there, getting impossibly harder in response, culminating in him twitching and tightening beneath you whenever you — purposefully! — brushed against his erection.

“Rafayel,” you sighed dreamily, and he moaned for real this time at how his name fell softly past your parted lips, pouring into a pleased hum against his navel where a trail of wetness gleamed — followed by fingertips curling gently around the hem of his pants’ band. “You’re so quiet. Not leaving it up to chance, huh?”

And the only response he gave was an impatient roll of his hips toward your head, granting you permission — eager acquiescence, even — while a loud, unabashed gasp slipped into his lungs as your hands found the zipper of his pants. With a practiced tug, you freed it from its track, and his pants slid low on his hips, just enough to reveal the waistband of his underwear. Your fingers followed immediately, hooking under both fabric barriers to ease them down until they rested tautly just below his hips. The motion tugged on his shirt as well, once secured by the overlap tucked into his waistband, and with nothing anchoring it anymore, the luxurious fabric parted effortlessly, exposing the sculpted expanse of his chest and abs in one sweeping reveal. His stiffening length, freed from its confines, ached visibly — leaping subtly toward contact, as though craving the touch it had been denied for far too long.

"See? You're being so good... why do you keep wanting to provoke me?" came your lilting reproach, spoken against the soft skin of his pelvis, lips fluttering teasingly across its planes in playful grazes of their silky plush. "

“Permission to talk?”

A sharp, in-drawn breath escaped him the moment a single finger traced along the underside of his shaft, lingering over a wildly pulsing vein — evidence of the frenetic race of his heart currently pumping pure liquid lightning straight through his veins — but he recovered quickly, allowing it to dissolve into an exhale long and drawn-out instead.

“Go ahead, handsome.”

His hips lurched instinctively in search of something tangible, of a sensation besides the torturous tickle of warm breaths dancing lightly along his arousal, "Give me my reward, then. I've waited so long for this, it's been torture."

“Doesn’t sound like you minded the wait. You left me, didn’t you?”

Ah, yes. The grudge. You were becoming like Rafayel the longer you stayed by his side.

"You know I hate waiting. Let alone like this," he said, all whiny and punctuated with a shudder — one that was met with an accompanying jolt that surged straight from the base of his erection when your lips brushed teasingly alongside it. "I didn't think you'd be this cruel..."

"Are you really asking?"

"Can you give it to me instead of wasting time talking?" came his blunt retort, brows drawn together in an impatient furrow that radiated ‘I’m being wronged,’ energy.

"Not wasting time at all, just wanted to spend more time with you. Feels nice, right? You deserve this,” you murmured comfortingly against the swell of his abs rising and falling with each heavy breath — and oh, he almost melted into a puddle at that, visibly deflating with his chest cavity just filling up all warm and fuzzy with love.

It did feel nice but — just — just — fuck — he needed to be touched or he actually was going to disintegrate into sea foam. Not joking.

A brief kiss landed on on the left side of his Apollo belt in consolation before a drag of your tongue along its path followed, transitioning into you breathing more warmth directly into his base, then placing a loving peck to his tip — eyes twinking at the tremble that surged through him. “I really love seeing you so reactive. Does it feel that good? Just breathing on you like this?”

His hips pushed upward in tiny nudges, bumping insistently against your cheek, practically begging to be held properly inside your mouth. "It doesn't feel good at all — just, come on, hurry... I keep my lube in the top drawer on the left... It's edible, you know..."

Thankfully, you didn't smirk at him. Didn't stop to tease him about his eagerness, either, wordlessly going about reaching over to rummage for a bottle in his nightstand — an act that forced you to draw away from his straining member completely, your warmth vanishing suddenly in one agonizing instant, causing him to nearly whine from the loss.

You popped open the lid to squirt some lubrication into your palm and recapped it while staring down at him with a curious gleam. "You had something like this with you the whole time—"

Your words got cut off upon him grabbing your dripping hand and directing it straight where his impatience stood angry at the delay, shuddering out a moan at how incredibly silky the glide was.

"Finally... yesss," he hissed, thrusting upwards to feel more friction — the delicious slickness spreading across your enclosed grip driving him absolutely wild. "Ahh—kkhfff... Keep going, you have to keep going, don't let go... Please. Please?”

Something in your face twisted weirdly at his breathy begging, making his heart flip at the unflinching lust in your widened gaze trained firmly onto his jerking hips.

He had your fist trapped around his swollen cock, urging you into pumping it once you settled into a steady rhythm stroking its turgid crown, twisting and curling into each new swipe upwards along his pulsing flesh; encouraging you by squeezing tighter every few strokes until you took over completely. Then, he threw his arm over his forehead haphazardly, basking in the blissful waves flowing through his veins at long last, watching you watch yourself pleasure him through fluttering lashes, breathing hard through half-parted lips.

"That's it," he sighed huskily, rocking his body into the hand rubbing and grinding against his dick's ridge with expert motions; thumb circling its glistening head and caressing alongside its slit where precome beaded out generously, smoothing over the entirety of its surface and working into the underside, swirling tantalizingly over the bulging vein there until all his thoughts melted into a haze of pure sensation, mind wiped clean of everything except the singular, simple fact that he desperately needed to come. "Like that — nnhhh, yes! That feels amazing — feels perfect — love those sweet little fingers... So close already, I can't, I can't—"

At his muttered groans, your pace stuttered noticeably before resuming its previous speed, which wasn't fast enough according to the stretching throb inside his core, his blood rushing loudly through his ears like boiling rapids. "No, faster..." he urged you, rutting into your palm even harder in a frantic effort to increase the pressure and bring him to the precipice quicker. "I can't hold on much longer — need more, I need more. Tighter. Tighter."

The corners of his vision pulsed white and Rafayel whimpered as he jumped inside your curled fist when the unexpected sensation of having your forefinger slide through his sticky fluids gathered at its tip, swirling clockwise before ascending back up in an unhurried stroke that carried a slippery coating alongside it to smooth out the glide to put pressure right into the slit — a sensation that lingered for seconds afterward with ghostly echoes, drawing a sudden choked gasp from his lips at how intensely good that single touch felt.

“Thaaaaat’s it, yeah, I love that, you have such a beautiful voice.” Your free palm swept up alongside his ribs to rub gently against their curve as though to soothe the ragged sounds ripping past his throat; traveling upward to cradle his head against yours where your cheek brushed alongside his temple, holding him still with tender care and easing some of the tremble wracking through him. "Can you feel how much I'm enjoying us being together like this — how badly I've missed you? Please let me hear those pretty sounds, I wanna hear them loud and clear. Will you be generous for me and share it all?"

His reply died in his throat in favor of a low keening sound — something raw and broken — when you squeezed tighter.

The way your nails dug ever so delicately into the sides of his cock, applying pressure just shy of pain was truly exquisite torture, making his head swim and rise up from the bed so he could crush his lips against yours, biting hungrily into your plush mouth and delving deep into its depths until oxygen became nothing but an afterthought. Every neuron of him burned alive in chain reaction as your tongue wound and slid alongside his, curling along the underside before retreating for him to suckle on your lower lip eagerly until it swelled red.

"Mmnghhfuck! Hhhaaa—keep—" Words spilled past his slackened lips like ribbons unfurling, senseless as he struggled to convey how excruciating it was to contain his euphoria within, desperate for any sort of outlet to relieve the pressure rising inside him rapidly —

— and then broke off suddenly on a low moan when he caught a flash of your unoccupied hand that was just cradling his neck having found its way between your thighs, the view out of sight because of the robe —

Then, Rafayel saw the pearly gates.

His orgasm slammed straight into him, so unexpected and yet wholly expected all the same that he gasped around it like he was in a headlock, utterly disoriented by the sudden assault on his senses, soaring impossibly higher with each jerk of his hips into your fingers' grasp and shooting thick white streaks across his stomach; leaving behind faint smears wherever it hit its mark — warm, sticky ropes landing atop his defined abs and even reaching as far as his sternum.

He knew something was wrong when it didn't stop.

Far from it, really: each pulsing contraction seemed to force more of its fluid past his cock's narrow slit, painting your pumping digits liberally with his release — even staining the lapels of your robe in messy spots. It lasted so long that Rafayel started seeing stars sparkling around the edges of his blurring vision; making everything appear fuzzy like static. "Nggh—too much—ah! Aaa—hhh! Nnhhfff... Khhffffcking hell... Can't believe—still going—"

"Don't hold back now, just ride it out, nothing wrong with it," you murmured fervently, brushing some hair back from his sweat-soaked temple and — then — kisses, so many kisses. "I know you wanted this so badly, it's okay... You deserve this. Let go for me, yeah? Can't you let go for me? All this stress will go away. Isn't that nice?"

What came out instead was an embarrassingly high moan, hoarse with overuse, entirely at odds with the self-assuredness he'd wanted to project with each thrust of his hips, spurred onwards by instinct alone in a mad dash for euphoria.

Just how pent-up was he?

He couldn't recall the last time he'd felt pleasure this acute, sharp as shrapnel beneath the layers of desire, making him so out of it that he wasn't even aware of the embarrassing mess he made like he’d just wet himself being cleaned up with a tissue by you.

And it still wasn't nearly enough.

He surged forward, wound his arm around your waist and tossed you to the side gently so your back lay flush against the sheets before following suit in a tangle of limbs that ended with you under him — where he belonged: cradled between your thighs, seated fully inside their heated clasp as he hovered above you — one elbow propped beside your shoulder while the other wandered aimlessly downwards and undid the trusty knot holding your robe together in one go.

"Rafa—"

“Sorry, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm so thirsty," he said, as he raised the lube-and-come-sodden hand of yours up to his mouth to lap at the trails trickling over your wrist; sucking on your fingertips in apology — no trace of shame coloring his cheeks as he did, far too focused on the task of cleaning them thoroughly to be distracted by something as trivial as embarrassment. He didn’t even taste himself. Just the blueberry.

So engrossed in it that he didn’t even notice you burning holes with your gaze at his lips sealing around your thumb while he ran his tongue underneath it in short, quick flicks until it was glistening once more, except this time with spit instead of lubricant.

All the while, he traced the clean strip of skin revealed by the parted folds of your robe with a searing hand, starting from the valley of your cleavage between your breasts all the way down the slight convex curve of your torso leading towards the V that marked the point where your thighs began, drawing delicate circles into your navel, slipping downward inch by tantalizing inch in search for hidden oasis.

Taking notice of how wrecked you looked through the curtains of your fingers splayed over his eyes and forehead, Rafayel rewarded you an equally debauched looked as his lips curled into a smirk against your palm.

A loud, viscous pop of your wetness echoed in the room when his fingers tenderly made contact — positively dripping for him. Your mouth flew open upon feeling him draw his forefinger's pad gently against your entrance, lingering teasingly at the seams in an excruciating crawl, tracing lightly around it as you pulsed hungrily against his fingertip.

"So thirsty," he mumbled absentmindedly to himself — mouth watering.

Rafayel pushed open your legs by the backs of your thighs to allow his head better access. If he was on a normal day, he would plant feverish kisses on the insides of your quaking knees and thighs and mark you everywhere, made it more sensual, more teasing, but he was borderline parched — not to mention more impatient than a driver stuck behind a cyclist in a one -lane road.

You yelped at his mouth diving between your legs in reckless abandon. His tongue lapped up your slick in deep, obscene flicks, then plunged inside into the warm haven awaiting him inside, devouring your sweet nectar in loud slurps, uncaring of how sloppy and unrestrained he was currently acting; far too hungry to concern himself over anything save for indulging greedily in your flavor.

"Rafayel, shit, that feels—oh my god..." He had to push your hips down by splaying his hand along the plane of your stomach as you arched helplessly, otherwise you would have simply lifted right off from his greed ravaging you without mercy or restraint. "That's so—you're so—fuck! What—what’s gotten into you? Ahh...!"

Any hope of responding to that died the second your hand tangled itself tightly into his hair and tugged to bring him impossibly closer against you, his head blanking. It felt so good when your heel planted itself onto his shoulder blade and pressed insistently there in a silent plea for more, sending ripples of heat fanning out across his nerve endings in their wake.

Without hesitation, he latched his lips around the swollen bud peaking proudly from beneath a layer of velveteen flesh and flicked upwards, suckling hard before closing around it fully — then rolled his tongue in circles around its rim with the intent to render your world spinning madly with each passing stroke. The fingers locked around your trembling thighs kneaded deeply into their skin, coaxing the delicious, involuntary spasms coursing throughout you until the only thing you knew was the blissful torment his hot mouth wrought.

"You're so delectable on my tongue, did you know? The prettiest moans come pouring out from your lovely lips when I'm between your legs like this," he said, the sentences pieced together like beads on a pearl necklace fragment by fragment between licks and sucks, sounding just short of reverence. "Your taste drives me wild, I swear it's addictive... Am I making it up to you yet? Please say yes. Tell me it's working."

"Yesyesyesyesss—" A sharp inhale cut off anything else you tried to babble further as Rafayel rewarded you with another generous helping of his enthusiasm by diving back in and running his tongue in earnest up through your center. "You feel amazing, you — feel — so — g-good—"

"—don't think that's enough, though. Didn't you call me incompetent earlier?"

"What," you choked out angrily when a puff of warm breaths skated dangerously close to where you were most sensitive. "Oh my god—"

"I hold grudges, cutie. You taught me that," he said in a sing-song reply, lighthearted in tone, nearly drowned out by the thready groans bleeding through.

"I apologized already — what more do you want? Stop teasing, Rafayel!"

A pregnant pause followed as he stared up at you from between your legs, and saw your eyes widen with realization at just what you'd requested.

"As you wish," he relented, a dark edge to his mischievous grin when he rose back up and braced his knees against the mattress better, pulling your hips tight into the cradle of his thighs until one of your legs was thrown over his shoulder. "Have it your way — and don't forget you asked for this."

The slow sink inside your wet heat was traitorously misleading: a gentle, sweet meeting at first that masked what was brewing underneath.

A dragged out whine fanned his flames as you threw your head back. “You asshole—”

"I could have made you come once, twice..." he said, in a smooth purr that dripped sinfully past his lips.

Your mouth fell open on a silent gasp; the first wave of pleasure rolling through you upon being filled suddenly in one deep plunge. Your torso twisted to allow you to hide your face into the curve of his forearm draped next to your shoulder.

"You know I love taking my time with you," he continued, pausing to bury his face into your hair to breathe you in deeply, adjusting your leg to fall from his shoulder straight onto his hip. You took advantage of Rafayel getting close, grabbing onto his back so quickly that you missed the first time and yanked his shirt down to bunch halfway down his midsection and get stuck at his elbows. "And you just had to take that from me. I don't know which one of us is greedier... "

An apology was voiced, muffled by the crook of his elbow, almost incoherent by your gasps.

He cupped your chin and made you look at him. “Are you comfortable? Not hurting you, am I?”

Your throat clicked audibly. Then you shook your head rapidly in answer to both inquiries: yes — no — everything was okay — and Rafayel breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

And then, out of nowhere your fingers started moving around the expanse of his upper back, and before he could question the non-sexual way it came across when he was literally inside you, you said, "You're sweating."

"Yeah...?" Confusion muddled his hazy mind clouded with dull pleasure begging for him to start moving again, but you looked at him with wide, eager expectation dancing behind your expectant eyes — as if you couldn't quite believe what you'd seen.

"No — your temperature. It's still high but you're sweating now," you told him excitedly. "Rafayel — that's huge! This means your body is cooling itself down!"

He huffed.

"Of course it is, I've got the hottest woman in the world under me," he said with a roll of his hips, earning an enthusiastic moan from you in the process. Your arms snaked themselves around the back of his neck tighter until both forearms crossed at their crease, palms moving upwards in an intoxicating drag through the back of his skull. "You the cure to all of this..."

His forehead dropped unceremoniously yours where it stayed, and he sucked in an uneven, shaky groan that tapered into something resembling a whine as he started rutting steadily against you, driving into that spot where you liked it the best with growing desperation with the occasional staccato grunt at the fluttering squeeze and murmured encouragement.

At some point, his mouth wandered towards your pulse, scraped his teeth against it gingerly before latching on it in an open-mouthed kiss that was hard enough to bruise.

You tilted your chin skywards with a sigh to give him better access and tangled your fingers encouragingly deeper into his hair, and something inside him sparked awake in response, a fiery need demanding him to paint every inch of your skin violet, rose and mauve so that it may glow evermore brightly for everyone to see —

"Way too beautiful for your own good... Driving me crazy... Every single day... Couldn't keep my hands off you the moment I got in here..." he hissed furiously as though he were possessed, snapping his hips harder upon finding the angle he desired, searching relentlessly for something within you both to satisfy the frenzied race to the peak taking control of him completely; searing kisses littering everywhere he could reach along the underside of your chin and neck whilst spewing senseless litanies into your skin in between them. "Can't believe I could have this forever... Right? Say I can have this forever. It'll drive me insane if you don't, I swear—"

"Forever," you echoed hoarsely, your nails digging tightly into his scalp as his pace increased once more. "Y-you can have me forever—anytime, wherever—"

Your assurances came with a startled cry of ecstasy as he sank his teeth into the juncture connecting your shoulder and collarbone in a bite that bordered on a savage instinct to ensure he was there, he'd been there, and would always be there. "You're not leaving, are you? Aren't gonna leave me anytime soon, right?

Every syllable was marked with a measured grind into you as if determined to force every word inside your head by burying it deep in your core — imprint it permanently into your brain; until the only thing filling your thoughts was him and him alone. "Not letting you — I'm not letting you. I can’t let you go, it’s too late — too late. Say it. Say it.”

"As — many times as I ne-ed to," you panted underneath him, arching upwards so beautifully for him as his grip loosened marginally to let you find that perfect angle that caused your back to bow like a perfectly tuned instrument in his hands; singing nothing but divine music. "'S not changing, ever. Won't change... Agh!"

His hips bucked in answer to your nails sinking deep into the skin of his shoulders as though clawing for dear life. "Yeah? Yeah? Promise—?"

All you could do was sob into his mouth hungrily swallowing yours — a mess of moans falling endlessly past your lips swallowed whole, accompanied with plaps and slaps of wet thrusting. There'd never be a time when he wasn't craving the taste of your flesh burning scorching white hot against his own, craving more and more until everything blurred into a haze of delirium.

"Tell me... Tell me—hah, tell me, princess. Let me hear it..." His chest rumbled deep within where yours rubbed deliciously against his bare flesh with each fervent roll of his body. Even then, it wasn't nearly enough; couldn't possibly be, not with how ravenously thirsty he was for anything and everything having to do with you: your sounds, your expressions, those intoxicating stares filled with nothing but need for him and only him. Not while his stomach twisted itself in knots tight enough to tie sails and yet remained impossibly empty at the same time, yearning for the sweet relief of gratification flowing freely and quenching his deepest thirst. "Wanna hear you, gotta hear you say it—"

"I'm right here, m'here, not going anywhere, not leaving... I'myours, just don't let go, don't let go of me—"

He heard it as though you were underwater; faint, muffled underneath the thick fog clouding his senses, so indistinct yet simultaneously loud enough to drown out anything else within reach.

Every coherent thought vanished from his mind, melting into thin ribbons streaming across an ocean of red flames, then bursting forth anew into embers scattering throughout his vision in a dizzying display, igniting behind his eyelids with blinding light every time he blinked them closed. When he opened them, new constellations blossomed instantaneously; bright orange ones with maroon tinges shining bright among the black canvas.

"M'not gonna—! Can't let go—couldn't even if I tried. They wouldn't even be able to pry you away from my cold, dead hands."

More vivid blotches appeared before him at random intervals, painting his desert landscape in abstract patterns shifting so erratically they threatened to form fractals at any moment, jagged shapes overlapping and warping themselves until they resembled colorful stains splattered across walls in chaotic messes; or perhaps simply the shadows of clouds skirting the edges of his sight drifting past without a care — all blending together and merging seamlessly as though water droplets bleeding into fine lines until none could tell where one ended and the others began.

"Gonna be... gonna be stuck with me for life," Rafayel said, sounding entirely half out of his mind with the way he was babbling endearments (something about a bride) in-between little laps that trailed upwards along your quivering sternum toward your heaving chest; kissing you so fervently as though possessed, driven wholly by base instincts demanding he give in to whatever compulsion overtook him. "Always been mine. Always. Always—can't ever leave, yeah? I won't forgive you—won't forgive you this time—"

"Rafayel, I'm gonna come, please..." you whispered hoarsely against the crown of his head nestled between your breasts, your hands grasping onto his shoulders helplessly in an attempt at anchoring yourself. "I can't keep going, I'll fall apart. Please, don’t stop, don’t stop—"

One of his fingers slid down to repeatedly flick through your swollen folds, teasing and circling around your clit while his tongue swirled around a nipple; pulling and sucking hungrily with fervent desire, giving a pointed twist once he'd latched on.

"Come for me, then, do it, c'mon, cream all around me, let me have it, let me have this — you can do it, I’ll help you along.” His lower body lifted suddenly, pulling back until only his cockhead remained caught inside; followed by a quiet pop indicating his lips breaking contact from where they were buried in your chest. "I need you so bad I can hardly stand it anymore... Wanna feel you — feel all of you — need all of you..."

All it took was one sudden shift after a steady build-up of rhythm of shallow, quick thrusts: the smallest rotation of his pelvis and thrust straightwards, hips knocking against yours in a violent shove of flesh meeting slick flesh for you to fly apart spectacularly when he buried himself into that specific area right below your cervix.

With a shuddering breath that dissolved instantly into a shrill cry tearing through your throat, your thighs locked tight around his waist — holding him prisoner while your nails sank fiercely into his scratched back as your entire body trembled uncontrollably through the aftermath.

“Yeah, there you go, cutie.” A comforting, grounding caress landed on your forehead, tracing the arc of its curve towards the back of your ear; then repeating itself multiple times in slow, unhurried strokes — to remind you he wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon. “There you are, that was beautiful. You got me seeing stars.”

"It's... It's snowing outside... In the desert," you said faintly, eyelids slow in their blinking, and Rafayel thought how utterly gorgeous you looked, all worn down and exhausted and so drunk in your post-orgasmic euphoria to talk nonsensically about what was happening outside.

"Yeah," he agreed, equally hushed as he peppered a trail of soft kisses across the bridge of your nose. You closed your teary lashes instinctively against the ticklish sensation. "It's so soft... and beautiful..."

You were the snow in his desert. Though, too blissed out to pick up on what he was implying.

Too busy stiffening up when you felt his cock jump inside you.

"You... you're still hard?"

“I didn’t come in the first place, whoops. Busy being too competent, I guess,” he said breezily, tilting his hips so that he pressed deep inside, directly into the tender spot inside you where pleasure flared to life unbidden.

"Let me... Let me rest, fuck, give me a minute..." Your hands scrambled for purchase against his scarred back; anchoring yourself by clawing surface level trenches down along its expanse and dragging red tracks as he continued his grinding in torturously slow and shallow rolls. "Need — I need to catch my breath, you're gonna make me pass out, shit, hold on — !"

Rafayel had you for three more times after that.

The first was the short prologue to what was coming, picked up from where he’d left off in the same position — head buried in your neck, making you tightly embrace him like he’d fly off the earth if he wasn’t held. No sooner did his hips start bucking roughly against yours before he spent himself inside in long pulses that coated you inside in heated spurts, sending sparks rippling out into your limbs from where you clenched weakly around him through your own release that hadn’t yet run its full course.

The prettiest sounds in the whole entire world spilled from him as he pulled out with a schlick, dripping his neglect-thickened seed onto the sheets, and you were naive as to think this was it. You both had indulged yourselves enough for the night, fucked through the absence-abstaining makes the heart fonder phenomenon, it had been fantastic to witness him get so serious. Surely now would be a good time to cool off and step into the bath together now that you’d been able to make him sweat and the sex-heavy humidity clinging thickly to your body was getting more comfortable the more you became aware of it. The room was absolutely boiling, stuffier than a sauna like he’d projected all the heat trapped inside his body everywhere. Perhaps opening up a window wouldn’t hurt…

“That was one,” he said then, staring down at his flushed erection straining proudly between his legs like a compass needle pointed north — the faint strand of semen connecting his tip and stomach swaying and snapping apart. “This isn’t anywhere near enough.”

To your shock, Rafayel got off the bed, hauled you in by your legs until your bottom half was dangling from the bed, and folded you completely in half with no warning. Your legs were pushed against your chest and were hooked over his shoulders, and the speed of with which all of it happened punched out a wheeze from you.

"Can I? Are you okay?" he asked urgently, patting your thigh rapidly twice, pausing — then adding another firm slap there before you nodded hurriedly in confirmation rather than a verbal response, because fuck, his weight holding you down felt absolutely incredible like this.

Your ankles started bobbing in sync with his hip thrusts as he drove deep inside your heat, the sink easy, smooth and soft and the mess you both made between your legs pouring out and splattering everywhere as he kept mumbling, “I can’t stop, I’m sorry, I can’t stop, can’t stop—”

This round lasted longer, though it was the worst frenzy you’d seen Rafayel in. Nothing was slow about it, he was mercilessly pistoning himself into you and unpredictably switching between shallow and deep that had your clit being scraped against and A-spot drilled into. You couldn’t even keep your eyes open from how intense pleasure was kneading you violently like a dough. If it wasn’t for his mouth gluing itself onto yours, the entire floor and the poor downstairs guests probably would have heard what was happening with how loud his moaning became — because he was downright voluntarily overstimulating himself.

With one particularly desperate sob, Rafayel finally buried himself to the hilt within you — throbbing — in harsh jets of liquid fire with jerking, abrupt twitches of his hips, milking himself into your body as he found yet another release that was as intense and concentrated as the previous. You cried brokenly, shuddering as that final thrust abused your clit over the edge of orgasm number two, involuntarily flinching and trying to get away when he pushed all the accumulated, positively flowing stringy mess right back into your puffy cunt with a strange, entranced look on his face. You had to slap his hand away and kick his weight off you, powerless and exhausted and fully feeling like your vagina was gaping and would never close back up.

A soft kiss on your cheek brought you back to earth.

“Still alive?” he croaked, gently maneuvering you higher up the bed and laying you back comfortably. You had to avoid the giant, wet and shining spot that had to be dripping down on the floor at the edge of the bed, face burning as Rafayel’s sweat-drenched forehead leaned against yours. “I’m not going easy on you… I have to say I’m impressed how good you’re taking it.”

You realized, once more with feeling, that he was rock-hard against your hip despite having already come three separate times — two of which had filled you to the point of pouring out of you — and had no sign of calming down any time soon.

He was beyond insatiable.

Though the third and final time was far sweeter, the pace much slower and drawn out as though he’d suddenly regained some sense and clarity. By that time, you were growing deliriously tired, the earlier carnal fucking accommodated itself to you by morphing into tender lovemaking. Rafayel had you on your side, comfortably able to hug pillows and anchor yourself, while straddling your thigh and hooking your other calf over his waist and held it there firmly, out from your space to let you breathe with his back straight. Just looking down at you with obvious, sensual longing to lean down for kisses the entire time and looking so fucked out had been enough to rekindle your desire.

He was driving himself languidly into you, either eyes closed and head thrown back, or focused dead-on at the spot between where he was slipping in and out of you — watching your cunt eagerly swallow his white-coated cock and attempt to suck him right back in each time he pulled out until only his tip remained buried. Over and over.

And eventually, his shaky breaths and sweet sighs started turning into fast-paced, restrained moans. You saw him hanging on the precipice of wanting to go fast again, the tension his body pulled taut like a bowstring about to snap.

At one point, your robe and his shirt had found themselves slingshotted into the far, opposite corners of the room at some point but he still had his pants and was positively drenched in sweat like he’d just taken a bath and shining under the dim lighting.

"Drained all of my stamina, I'm empty, completely dry... I’m gonna need an IV drip. I can’t believe it. This is crazy, you know... I could die happy like this... But I wanna come. I wan—nnah come inside you so bad again, wanna fill you up—make you full with me—"

He went completely motionless and stayed burrowed in you when your palms cupped his face gently, forcing him to look down at you with his shiny eyes. "You've got to calm down first."

“I don’t think I can,” he murmured, panting, “I really can’t. You feel so—”

Your thumbs stroked the outer corners of his eyes with aching tenderness. “We’ll stop and try to calm you down a bit continuing then, okay? Try for me. No need to rush when we have time to ourselves. No one’s going anywhere.”

He stumbled and nearly fell to his elbows on top of you. “Tell me to,” he said, in a begging voice. “You can just tell me to calm down. Anything you want, anything. You know I’ll listen.”

All these months of living with the revelation about the bond and it still came as a shock to you, but you figured if it was for his own good...

So you ordered him: "Calm down and relax, Rafayel. Everything’s fine, you’re okay."

And god, did he listen well.

You were shocked, as you always were each time, to see just how willingly compliant he was. Seeing his body literally change its chemistry to conform itself to your desires and let go of all tension was unbelievable. You immediately felt bad that you’d forced it on him somehow like some admitted, invasive tranquilizer, because you could have made him relax naturally, with your own labor, a glass of water and massage, maybe, gradually work him through it—

“There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t think about it too much. Just focus on me, yeah?” A quiet command that lacked any real intent to order accompanied an equally soft kiss planted softly against the corner of your mouth, and all thoughts went flying out of the window when you saw how mellowly at peace he was, gazing dreamily at you without the slightest care in the world.

After that, everything became a blur once again. But a pleasant one. Slow, like molasses trickling lazily throughout your bloodstream at room temperature — soothing all aches into pleasure-flavored coziness at being joined, no rampant race towards a climax involved. There was no concept of time whatsoever: just the two of you together.

After your pillow talk about what he believed inspired him — what he wanted would, you internally filled in the blanks — and how he was running out of reserves exclusively saved up for the purposes of his art, you had to make it clear to him that there would be no pain involved in your relationship.

You didn’t know if he expected to be hurt by you in the future or implied he had no problem with that happening, but you couldn’t even tolerate him saying those things for the sake of love, or whatever it was. Him being intimately familiar and nonchalant with the concept bothered you down to the bones.

Not only were you trying to work around the huge rock he’d just dropped on top of your heart with the revelation that Aridum had to represent pure suffering to him as a Lemurian, you were also slightly upset he’d wanted to subject himself to it because he was lost more beautiful things in life had made their way into his life to inspire him as well. His paintings, all of them, had taken a new context and an additional layer of tragedy with that revelation, despite the fact that he’d basically said you made him draw from a different fountain and clogged up the other one.

It was a bittersweet happiness to hear Rafayel wanting to explore brighter, happier sides of life together when the sketch he showed you he was working on while you were sleeping depicted a man drowning in the sea and a figure beckoning him from above, close to the surface. Something still very painful.

“That’s one bleak drawing.”

“Depends on what you see.”

“I see a dying man hallucinating. Maybe that’s someone close to him and his brain is comforting him with a vision. I don’t know.”

“Interesting take. Maybe it’s not just a man at all. Maybe it’s a reunion. It looks peaceful, doesn’t it?”

Now you looked again, it did look peaceful. Just like Rafayel was right now, next to you on the bed with his forehead almost touching yours.

"I'd like to think he isn't drowning, then."

Rafayel just smiled.

[oceantornadoo]

ch7 something borrowed something blue (mafia!price x simon's sister!reader)

tw: oral sex both ways

masterlist | next

John Price thrives on routine. His days are filled with meetings and bloodshed, negotiations and betrayal. Routine keeps him sane.

Unfortunately, that resolution crumbled the moment he gained a wife. It’s getting harder and harder to leave in the morning, to ignore the fluttering of your eyelashes as you feign sleep. That’s what he blames for this break in routine.

The morning after, he stays for ten minutes instead of five. Counts the ticks of the old clock in the corner of his room as he memorizes the scent of your skin. You always end up with your head in the crook of his neck, legs tangled around his torso. He’s never been much of a back sleeper, but now it’s the last thing he cares about. It’s the sound of your breathing, the plushness of your skin, the brush of your chest against his. When he eventually gets up, he doesn’t look at the bed until he’s ready. If he glanced back at your eyes in half-slits, shifting closer to his pillow to soak up the remaining warmth he left in the bed, he would never leave the room. 

At night, though, he succumbs to his weakness. He creates a new routine.

It’s the start of a new week after the getting-off confession. John had business in Glasgow over the weekend, lonely and cold in his hotel bed, but now he’s back.

“So Laswell sent me the contract. I definitely have enough to pay in full, but I’m thinking of paying half and then doing installments for the rest so I can have enough for immediate repairs. What do you-John?” John’s nodding along to your rant, disappearing under the covers to the place he’s been thinking about all weekend. The blanket’s a bit heavy, limiting his breathing, but it’s worth it for the sight of your clothed cunt, waiting for him.

“Keep talkin’, sweetheart.” Instead of following his orders, you peel back the cover until his head peeks out. “What are you doing?” He rubs circles into your thighs, reveling in their softness. John moves upwards, teasing the fabric of your pajama shorts. “You miss me this weekend?” He murmurs, not sure if he’s talking to his wife or her cunt. Both seem happy to see him, if that’s any consolation.

“No, I actually got the best sleep of my- hey!” He shoves his face into the triangle of your lap, sniffing with wonder. “Fuck, I missed ya.” You’re silent at his admission, but your hand finds a hold in his hair. “You did?” It’s soft and unsure, forcing him to rip his focus away from your pussy. “I did.” You bite your lip adorably. You tug him forward, gripping his scalp hard, until his face is in front of yours. 

“Maybe next time, you take me with you.” Absolutely not. He was meeting with a new prospective manufacturer, shady and dangerous. He was not putting you in any sort of danger. John shakes his head, heart clenching as your face falls. “Not the kind of place fer you, baby. Gonna let me eat you out now?” You nod, but your face is still hard with repressed emotion. He kisses your forehead, trailing down to your cheek, then nose. “Give us a kiss then.” It’s the first time you’ve ever kissed him first, the notion sending blood straight to his cock. The kiss is short and sweet. Can’t believe how quickly you’ve gotten him under your spell. Two bloody weeks. He pulls away, a final kiss laid to your jaw. “Keep talkin’. Don’t mind me.”

The new routine continues for weeks. He gets you off a different way every night, from fingers to tongue to plain old grinding. And then he goes to sleep with you tucked to his side, taking care of himself in the morning. John needs you to be the one to ask to fuck, to reciprocate. The alternative leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Plus, every time he gets you off, you fall asleep immediately, like it’s the only way you’ll go to bed. It’s terribly endearing.

A month in, he starts noticing changes. The furniture in the sitting room, for one. They used to be 18th century relics, designed to make sure a guest didn’t overstay their welcome. Except now they’re eclectic, blue and green against the cream walls. The couches look comfortable, like you could spend a whole day there. The paintings change as well, from Rembrandt to Monet and Picasso. The impressionist works, blues and greens and yellows, work well with the new furniture, making his flat seem like a home. When he asks you, all you do is shrug and say something smart about updating his old man apartment. He leaves bite marks on your thighs that night. 

It’s a beautiful Friday night when John gets home early, around 9. He usually gets text updates from Terrance, your commandeered security guard that Price assigned to you full time, about your movements. You’ll usually get home at 7, but nothing yet. Two hours late. He calls Terrance and gets his voicemail. Highly unusual. Calmly, he presses on your contact's name, and it goes to voicemail. Three times.

Fingers shaking, he calls Kyle.

“Sir?”

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

“My fuckin’ wife, Garrick.”

“Isn’t she with Terrance?” “No one’s answerin’ their goddamn phone.” Gaz sighs on the other end, like this is an inconvenience and not his wife they’re talking about. Keys click, then a mouse, before Gaz answers. “They’re at the bookstore. Been there since this mornin’, sir.” John drags a hand down his face, then grabs the keys to the car he barely uses. 

“Garrick, this is the last time you take more than three seconds t’ know where she is. I want a full team on ‘er at all times. I won’t hesitate t’ assign someone else as my Head of Security, someone who isn’t lettin’ their judgement take over their goddamn job. Copy?” He hasn’t dressed down one of his men, especially Kyle, but he’s tired of the man’s judgement on this marriage. What’s done is done. “Yessir.” John hangs up, too miffed to say goodbye. He’s got a wife to find.

-

Your bookstore is coming along well. It’s been over a month since you’ve been married, a month of John’s fingers and tongue loosening you in more ways than one. You swear you’ve developed stronger thigh muscles, simply from the orgasms he coaxes from you night after night. And then he just goes to sleep. You’ve felt his cock in fleeting touches, brushing against your thigh or hard in his lap as you grind on him. He never takes it out, never drags your hand in that grueling way men do with shady eyes and slimy smirks. Every night, he asks you if you hate him, and every night, your lie convinces him less and less. 

And every night, you think of how adamant he was against you joining him. His insistence that it “wasn’t the kind of place for you.” Your old problem with him has faded, a mess of childhood fears rolled into new ones. In its place are your insecurities, the word bastard floating through your head every time you think of his rejection. The clause in the marriage contract. It rolls together into a simple thought: he doesn’t trust you. That’s why he’s barely let you in on his business, content to stick with late night chats and orgasms. It should be fine, it should be what you wanted, but instead you feel a hollow hole in your heart where the word ‘friends’ lives. Even friends should share their secrets. 

But back to the bookstore. Your new baby. This first month was full of cleaning, dusting out odd corners and greasing creaky door hinges. You listed a hiring notice on online job boards, looking for an assistant to help with the grunt work. Which landed you Phil, a wonderful addition to the team. He was around your age, an American with sandy blond hair. Handsome in a basic way, something you noted and never thought of again. Terrance ran a background check on him, something you gladly consented to, and insisted on helping you interview him. It took a week of recon, but he was officially your new assistant as of two weeks ago. An amazing help around the store, handy with tools. You’d told Phil that you were the daughter of a lord, a minor lie to explain the bodyguard. He shrugged it off, the ex-pat seemingly used to the oddities of London.

Now that the space had been cleared, it was finally time to paint. Terrance insisted that he couldn’t help too much, his main duty too important, but with the help of Phil, you convinced him to paint the walls with you. You all left your phones in the half-fixed office, donning plastic sheets to protect from paint splatter. Your business plan, formed from your downtime during the day and shaped by your late-night conversations with John, was to have a store section and a community section. The community section would be at the front, with a beautiful light blue accent wall, perfect for book influencers. It would be surrounded by comfy couches and warm lighting, complete with a cafe space you intended to build out. Your idea reminded you of the library waiting hours away, with its own fireplace and furniture. You decided to recreate that cozy feeling and bring it to the public.

Farther into the building there would be bigger shelves for rows and rows of books, organized by type. The color scheme was influenced by the one in your home, as you decided to hand paint metal shelves light blues, greens, and yellows. Most would be bought, but you were planning a book drive far out for people to donate old books and get discounts on new ones. It’s an idea you had wanted to do in Manchester but never got around to.

Now that the front of the store was cleared out and bare, it was time to paint. The hours fly by as you paint the light blue wall while Phil and Terrance work on a cream wall on the other side. When you blink, the sun is already down, and your watch is flashing 10PM at you.

“Guys it’s almost ten! I think we ought to lay down the brushes for tonight.” Phil opened his mouth to respond but is cut off by a harsh pounding at the locked front door. It was supposed to be clear, but there was newspaper on all of your windows to prevent the glass from getting paint on it. Frowning, you moved to open the door, but Terrance stopped you with his arm out, his other hand reaching for his gun. “Go into the office, ma’am.” You followed his command reluctantly, Phil following on your heels as you went into the back office. It didn’t have any windows, so it was a space you did not want to be in for a while. Phil looked nervous, running his hand through his hair and tapping his foot on the ground.

“I’m sure it’s fine, Phil. Probably one of the neighbors complaining about our music.” You insisted on a jam session as you painted, blasting music from a speaker you stole from the Castle. “Shady things happen in London no matter what time, boss.” You shrug, picking up your phone to quell your nerves. A glance at your notifications explains everything.

Oh no.

You burst from the office, phone already returning one of your many missed calls. That’s when you ran into your husband, face hitting his hard chest with a harsh oof. “Christ, sweetheart, gave me a near heart attack.” John steadied your shoulders with his large hands, anchoring you in his grip. His brow was furrowed, eyes crinkling in worry as he scanned you up and down like he was looking for injuries. “You didn’t answer-” “Everything good out here?” Fuck. Phil.

“Who are you?” It was a tone you’d never heard come out of John’s mouth. You imagined it was his mafia man voice, gruff and short like he had a better place to be. John shoves you behind him, reaching for his gun. You rolled your eyes, hand covering his to stop a potential shoot-out. 

“John, he’s my-” “Assistant, sir. Good to put a name to the face, I’ve heard a lot about you.” You could practically hear Phil winking, laying on the Southern charm. You wrestled out of John’s grip, stepping out from behind his back. Phil’s hand was out for a handshake, but John hadn’t taken it, scanning the man up and down with suspicious eyes. “Funny, ‘cause I’ve never heard about you.” John tore his gaze away to catch yours, eyes slanted in anger. “I don’t have to tell you everything, John. I’ve got my own life, you know.” He looked almost hurt at your words, which couldn’t be true. Sure, you were fucking, but it’s not like this was a normal marriage. You knew he wouldn’t have wanted Phil working with you, just on the basis of him being a man. You didn’t want to be micromanaged by your own husband, so you simply hadn’t got around to telling him. 

“C’mere.” John tugged you towards the office, his grip hard. You could hear Terrance telling Phil to go home and wait for an update. Probably for the best. You imagined Terrance following him out, then debriefing with John’s driver about how much of an asshole their boss was.

“Why didn’t ya tell me?” John asked, arms crossed and face red. He’d shut the office door but remained standing since there wasn’t any furniture yet. “Because I knew you’d get like this.” You spit out, crossing your arms to mirror his. “Fuckin’ concerned fer the security of my wife? Tha’s a bad reaction?” You took a step back from him, crossing your arms tighter so you could pinch your waist, a reminder to stay strong.

“Controlling and caveman. This is my place of work, John, and you’ve embarrassed me in front of my coworker.” He doesn’t meet your eye, staring at the door so hard it might burst into flames. He looks like a predator ready to pounce, muscles trembling from restraint. “Ya don’t realize how many enemies I have. Every person needs t’ be checked.” Did he think you were stupid? “I had Terrance check him out. I know you don’t want me around your work, but I’m not an idiot, John.”

His rejection of your offer to travel with him weeks ago had stung more than you cared to admit. He clearly didn’t trust you, only seeing you as someone to fuck around with. You didn’t realize how far that lack of trust went.

“He should’ve reported it to Gaz.” John mutters. “He did. I know that for a fact.” John ran a hand through his hair, then dipped down to tug at his tie. “He didn’t fuckin’ tell me. Christ, he’s worse than I thought.” You wanted to ask what that meant, but you bit your lip instead. He obviously didn’t want to tell you.

“Look, I know I’m a bastard and you had that goddamn clause in the contract, but you can trust me. I’m not running around behind your back.” That got John’s gaze to snap back to you, eyebrows raised in disbelief. “Tha’s wha’ ya think this is about?” You nod, suddenly unsure. “Sweetheart, that was Gaz’s idea. T’ see if you’d argue. I intended for you to ask fer another cheatin’ clause fer me, but ya didn’t so I let it go. ‘S nothin’ like tha’. Plus, I didn’t know ya then. I know ya now.” Oh.

“So you trust me?” What about the trip? You wanted to ask, but you figure that would show your hand too much. John nods slowly, uncrossing his hands to put them on his hips. “Don’t care tha’ yer a bastard. ‘M not fuckin’ anyone else, either. I’m just concerned fer yer safety.” He takes a few steps towards you, gauging your reaction to see if you step back. You don’t, uncrossing your arms and praying they don’t shake. He grabs your hands in his own, blue eyes swimming with openness. There are so many things you want to ask him about: your childhood, his father, the future. They all fall to the wayside when he leans down to kiss you, a gentle brush of his lips against yours. “If I didn’t trust ya, ya wouldn’t sleep in my bed.” He kisses your forehead, then cheek, before pulling back. “I need ya t’ believe me.” He demands it seriously. A sudden rush of affection hits your heart. He looks so truthful, so concerned, and you want to show him that same care back.

You lower to your knees. John steps back, unsure. “Sweetheart, ya don’t have to.” You shake your head, beckoning him to come near. “I want to.”

John tugs off the blazer he’s wearing, folding it into a light pillow. He squats down on his haunches, eyes on yours. A warm hand brushes your knees, urging you up so he can slip the blazer under them. He then stands; blue eyes dark as he brushes your cheek with his thumb. “Go’on, baby. Take whatever you want.”

You reach for his black belt, unfastening it with trembling hands. It unclips with ease, and John’s hands, hairy and veiny and strong, cloud your vision as he unfurls it from his belt loops. You continue downwards, undoing the midnight black of his button. You unzip slowly, licking your lips in anticipation. His fingers brush back the creases on your forehead, trailing down to brush the shell of your ear. “Feel ok?” You nod at his question, cupping him through his boxers. John releases a sharp exhale, a heady sense of power coming over you. You work the pants down fully to give you room, petting him this way and that.

Finally, you peel down the dark fabric of his boxers. He’s hairy but well-maintained, similar to his fuzzy torso you’ve felt in bed. His cock is thick and heavy, wet with precum as it slaps against his upper thigh. You tuck his boxers down to give you room, then start exploring. Kitten licks to the base of him, his hair tickling your nose. Your hand joins you to squeeze his balls, eliciting a sharp groan. John tugs on your hair, more out of instinct than control. “You feel ok?” You throw his words back at him, a cheshire smile growing as he moans again.

“Christ, those fuckin’ hands.” He responds. You move to start stroking, licking him from base to tip. He tastes like salt and musk, but clean with the scent of pine. It’s the most addicting scent on earth. After he’s wet and leaking, you steady yourself with a hand on his upper thigh and the other on your husband’s cock.

You finally take him in your mouth, tongue swirling around his tip. You hum and his grip on your hair tightens. “‘M gonna fuck yer mouth sometime.” You let go of him with a pop, leaning backwards. “Not tonight?” He shakes his head, reaching down to pump his cock in your absence. “I’m a few strokes from cummin’, sweetheart. You look too goddamn good on yer knees.” That earns a grin from you and a renewed sense of vigor.

You suck him hard this time, your hand making up the length you can’t cover. You work yourself into an easy rhythm, up and down as he cradles your face. It’s much softer than you’ve ever experienced from a man, careful and protective. He wasn’t kidding about how close he is, harsh pants emitting faster and faster from his chest. “Where d’ya want me, baby?” You don’t respond, keeping him in your mouth. All you do is blink sweetly, willing your eyes to look bigger than usual. “Fuckin’ perfect, my wife.” That sends a jolt to your heart, and you have to stop yourself from accidentally biting down. Instead of responding, you stroke faster and faster. His abs tense, and you pull back just slightly, letting him coat your tongue and lips. It’s salty but not bitter, a marker of how fucking healthy he is. You lick your lips, swallowing thickly. His thumb brushes off a bit from your nose, pushing his thumb into your mouth. You suck hard, like you did the night he first fingered you. He continues cleaning you up, careful and quiet in his movements. John tucks himself back into his pants and offers you a hand to help you off the floor.

“Your knees sore?” He whispers. You shake your head, suddenly feeling exposed despite not having taken your clothes off. “C’mere.” He tugs you into his arms, tucking you under his chin. “We good?” He asks. You want to say no, want to ask him all the questions swirling around in your head, but all you do is nod and hold him closer.

-

In the car, John’s hand on your thigh, your phone vibrates. It’s Phil.

Everything ok?

Yep! Marital problems, all good.

Your husband is intense.

He’s a sweetheart for me, all that matters 🙂

Good to know. See you tomorrow.

His tone is odd, but you shove that thought from your mind. John squeezes your hand, and you tuck your phone away, content to focus on your husband. Phil is the farthest thought from your mind.

-

um. smut. now they're like friends with problems? idk enemies got boring.

-

@heretoreadanddrinktea

@peachyxrosie

@joufrance

@galactict3a

@exactlyyoungchaos

@trulovekay

@alleycc

@abox-of-rocks

@orangehibiscus

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@nova-willow-541

@throwing-up-butterflies

@grossitsluca

@evans-dejong

@popcornlauncher

@earthcole

@backfromthedeadhehehe

@baduzzxy

@thegreyjoyed

@cutelibrariangf

@dearghostling

@mrsmalfoy1005

@all-by-myself98

@snburntandsad

@baklovers

@rmikaelson01

@leon-thot-kennedy

@the-gods-gloted-but-they-burned

@barcelonaaababe

@brokenandemptyhearts

@sleep101

@ontopofthefridge

@lilynotdilly

@teenagellamaangel

@harperdoodle

@ii-angelsrolltheireyes-ii

@violetisheresworld

@lolwey

@polyfandom-blogs 

@burrowedinnature77

@sharkerino

@ashy-kit

@aikojwhpa

@thriving-n-jiving

@krispymagazinepizza-blog

@grayskel

@rpgsandstuff

@hisuccubus

@lumi-kalyke

@gimmeabreak1

[mywritersmind]

JUST FRIENDS - LN4

summary : just friends…? in which lando and his best friend have a night out like any other, until a spicy song starts and lando can’t take it any more.

or: they make out to the song sports car

listen up : kissing! talk abt sex! tate mcraes new song sports car was on repeat so enjoy.

words : 1507

⋆｡‧˚⋆

I pull down the visor, the mirror greeting me as I swipe on my lipstick. I’ve gotten oddly good at doing my lipstick in fast cars, specifically, my best friend's fast car.

Lando shifts gears as I finish my last touch up and slap the visor shut, “Red’s a little bold, no?” He glances at me, his eyes hot against my skin as he adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.

“When have I been anything but bold?” I blink, shutting my lipstick and handing it to him. I don’t miss the slight smirk at our routine.

He pockets it, shaking his head as we pull up to the club. Lando gets out first as I check out my nails, knowing damn well he’ll be at my door in seconds.

He opens it, looking at the people staring with a blank look. Then he looks at me, my skirt short and my heels high. I walk past him and straight into the club.

He follows me, his head down, probably an excuse to look at my ass. He slips his hand in mine as the crowd gets tighter, people screaming and saying hi to us left and right.

Our group is easy to find, all cheering as we arrive and immediately pushing drinks into us. The club is small and pretty private, but loud as fuck and filled with the smell of smoke, alcohol, and lust.

The dance floor is packed, the Dj raised along with little glowing stands which bottle girls and randos dance on.

I tug on Lando’s shirt, a white button up that’s already halfway undone, and offer him a drink. “Who’s gonna drive you home if i’m fucked?” He says plainly.

“Oh you’re driving me home, now? I thought you’d piss off with your new supermodel of the week.” I raise a brow and such on a lime.

His eyes flick to my lips, “I could say the same for you, love.”

“I am the supermodel, darling.” I wink, getting dragged away by my friend who’s laughing at the interaction and landing myself on the dance floor.

I’m two drinks down when I see him again, a girl flushed in his lap and his hat backwards on his head.

He’s talking and she looks absolutely fucking absolved in his words, probably drooling over his accent or his lips. Yet as he rattles off, probably talking about his new car or training, his eyes are set on me.

They practically burn my already hot skin, my arms going up as I dance with the music. It’s funny, really.

My best friend is Lando Norris. We get looks everywhere we go, yet the one look I can’t get over is how his eyes track me.

He’s got a girl in his lap and I've got a guy grinding behind me, yet I can’t seem to shake him. I watch his tongue sweep against his teeth, his eyes moving to my legs smoothly.

The girl puts her hand on the back of his neck, getting him to look at her. She’s not smart, if she were, she’d bother with a guy who’s actually looking at her.

He’s looking at me again, his gaze now flicking back and forth between me and the man behind me. I have a slight smirk on my face as I turn around to look at him.

He’s hot. Dark skin and eyes to match, I bite my lip before moving my hands to his shoulders and bring him in. He’s sweaty but the kiss is hot, I just hate that it’s so hot because my best friend is watching all of it.

Once the guy goes in for another kiss, I dodge it and make my way over to the bar, leaning up against the cold surface and wiggling my fingers at the bartender.

Lando is at my side seconds after I take my first sip of the icy drink. I pretend to not see him. “Lemme try.” He goes to take a drink but I swiftly pull my hand away, shaking my head.

“No way, Mr. Sober.” I grin as he leans against the bar, his head tilted slightly back and making his hair look godly. “Who’s gonna drive me home?”

“So you’re coming with me?” He stands up a bit straighter, “Not gonna find that guy?”

‘That guy’ in question is probably already fucking a girl in the bathroom. I laugh, “No. My best friend has separation anxiety, so.” I shrug as he grins and pushes off the bar.

“Dance with me.”

“Not a chance, Norris.”

His teeth catch his lips, making me look down at them. Fuck him and his fuck boy tactics.

“You’re Lando Norris!” a guy stumbles up to us, clearly pissed and far too excited to see Lan.

He mumbles about getting a picture and just as I walk away I hear Lando say, “Yeah, mate…”

I hand my drink off to someone, my hands in my hair as I groan and shake the feeling of Lando teasing me.

A few girls scream near me and I don’t realize it’s because of the song change until I hear the lyrics.

Hey, cute jeans

Take mine off of me

I laugh as someone pushes into me, not everyone knows the song, but almost everyone knows her voice. I find my friend, her hand tightening on mine as she pulls me to the center of the dance floor.

Before I know it, I'm screaming the lyrics that Tate leaked to me on top of the raised glass. My friend is messing with her hair and shaking ass as she sings along.

In the alley in the back

In the center of this room

With the windows rolled down

Boy, don’t make me choose

I laugh, throwing my head back and swinging my hips. I barely realize my friend is gone until her figure is replaced by Lando in front of me.

“You like this song?”

I raise a brow, “Yes?” I keep dancing, pretending that every part of me is aware of how close he stands.

I think you know what this is

I think you wanna, uh

I sing along still, until it gets to the next lyric, my mouth shutting as Lando watches me.

Oh, but you got a sports car

A grin takes over his face, cocky and completely evil. “I like it too.”

“Oh? You like Tate now?”

“I fuck with fucking and I fuck with cars… seems like enough to me.” His hand finds itself on my waist, pulling me tighter.

This is dangerously close to crossing our lines.

We could go again like three, four times

“Am I your type, Y/n?” He’s speaking into my ear now as butterflies hit my stomach, “Want me to fuck you in my sports car?”

I hold his arm in an attempt to not fall off this fucking stand. He looks way too good, his hat gone and his hair messy.

“Don’t get cocky now, Lan.”

“Oh, like you’ve been in other sports cars?” The quirk of his brow makes my heart beat faster.

I think you know what this is

I think you want a ride

I shake my head, “We’re just friends.”

“Friends who kiss other people in front of each other for fun?” He pulls me closer, staring down at me, “Try again, Y/n.”

While you drive it real far

“So what are we, Norris.” I stand him up, still not taller but my confidence building, “I dare you to tell me.”

He swallows, his adam's apple bobbing as his face leans closer, “How ‘bout I show you?” At this moment, I know i’m completely fucked.

Oh my guy-uy

You don’t wanna waste my time-ime

His hands are gripping me tighter as his head dips and his lips crash against mine.

Let’s go ride-ide

Let’s go ride-ide-ide

Oh, my guy-uh

My arms snake around his neck as his tongue parts my lips and slips into my mouth. It’s too hot, especially for the public to witness but I'm too kiss drunk to care.

He kisses me harder, his hands at my hips and dipping below my waist band so his fingers press against my bare skin. I bite his lip a bit and pull him in tighter against me.

Lando bites me right back. I whisper it against his lips, not holding myself back from the lyrics, “I think you wanna, wanna.” He kisses me again, his hand at my ass and his breath hot against me, “But you got a sports car.”

I feel his lips morph into a smile against mine, his kiss deepening as if he’s hungry for me. I move my hands to his hair, his groan vibrating against me.

“Let’s go.” He says over the sound of the music and people below us.

“Where?” I ask, still breathless and too close to him to pay attention to anything else.

That damn smirk is back as he tugs at my hand, “My sports car.”

[gpcwsl]

Could you do a Leah Williamson one where reader is a chef and has restaurant establishments worldwide and just located one in England a couple months ago and the England girls are a having a camp in London and since everyone is all together for camp they want to celebrate with a fancy dinner and they start discussing restaurants and readers restaurant is put out there, but some of the girls disagree because they tried to eat there but it was always booked up, so when Leah gets home she talks to reader and gets them a table, so Leah texts the team gc and say dress fancy tomorrow night and the location of the restaurant and the gc starts blowing, but she ignores it, and when they all go to the restaurant and ask questions and Leah’s like she has connections, but come to find out that Leah is dating reader then reader sits down beside Leah and the team gets to know her a little and when they go to pay reader says it’s already taken care of.

Warnings: a kiss?

Leah Williamson x Chef!Reader

- Dress fancy -

MasterList

Leah Williamson kicked her boots off at the door, the satisfying thud against the floor signaling the end of another long day. Training had been intense, but it wasn’t the drills or tactics replaying in her mind—it was the chaotic group chat blowing up her phone during the drive home.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and glanced at the screen, scrolling through dozens of messages.

Tooney: “We should go to that new restaurant tomorrow.”

Brightness: “What’s it called? The fancy one that’s always booked?”

Backheel: “You mean Palace Place? Impossible. I’ve been trying to get a table since it opened.”

Brightness: “Same. That place is like gold dust.”

Tooney: “We need something special, though. We’re all together. Ideas?”

Leah smirked, leaning against the kitchen counter as she typed her response:

Captain: “Sorted. 7 PM tomorrow. Dress fancy.”

The chat exploded.

Tooney: “LEAH.”

Backheel: “How?!”

Brightness: “You didn’t even say where!”

Walshy: “She probably means Nando’s.”

Tooney: “I swear, if this is a joke…”

Leah tossed her phone on the counter, ignoring the continued barrage of messages, and walked into the living room. The soft hum of classical music filtered through the space, and the faint aroma of roasted garlic and herbs greeted her.

“Smells amazing,” she called, rounding the corner into the kitchen.

You stood by the stove, dressed casually in an apron, hair tied back, moving with the kind of effortless grace Leah never tired of watching. You glanced over your shoulder, a smile already forming.

“Hey, you. Dinner’s almost ready.”

Leah walked up behind you, wrapping her arms around your waist and resting her chin on your shoulder. “I don’t know how you do it. Training kills me, and you’re here cooking like it’s nothing.”

“Years of practice,” you teased, leaning back into her embrace. “How was camp?”

Leah hesitated, her lips brushing lightly against your temple. “Good. The girls want to go out tomorrow night. Celebrate being all together.”

You turned in her arms, raising an eyebrow. “And let me guess, they want to go somewhere fancy?”

She grinned. “They were debating places, and your restaurant came up.”

“Did it now?” you asked, amusement coloring your tone. “And what did you say?”

“I didn’t.” Leah shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Didn’t want to out myself as having an in with the chef-owner who happens to be my girlfriend.”

You laughed softly, running a hand down her arm. “So you’re here to use your connections?”

“Obviously,” Leah said, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips. “Any chance you can fit us in tomorrow?”

You rolled your eyes but smiled. “For you? Always. How many?”

“About 20.”

You blinked. “20?”

Leah winced. “Yeah… full squad.”

“Good thing I like you,” you teased, reaching for your phone to call the restaurant.

Leah sent the address to the group chat in the morning, and as expected, chaos ensued.

Tooney: “No way. THE Palace place?!”

Backheel: “Leah, I’m actually screaming.”

Daily mail: “I tried booking for my mum’s birthday and couldn’t. HOW?”

Brightness: “She must know someone.”

Tooney: “Leah Williamson: captain, legend, and apparently a magician.”

Leah ignored it all, casually walking into the training facility as if her phone wasn’t buzzing nonstop in her pocket.

The team arrived promptly at 7 PM, dressed to impress. The restaurant was stunning, its interior sleek yet inviting, with warm lighting that made everything glow. They were escorted to a private dining room where a long table awaited, set with pristine white linens, sparkling glassware, and fresh flowers.

“This is insane,” Ella muttered, taking in the surroundings.

“How did you pull this off?” Millie asked Leah, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

Leah smirked, leaning back in her chair. “I told you. Connections.”

The team was halfway through the meal—an exquisite multi-course experience—when the door to the dining room opened. You walked in, your chef’s jacket pristine, a warm smile on your face.

“Good evening, ladies,” you greeted.

The table fell silent, all eyes turning to you. Leah tried to suppress a grin as you approached.

“Everything to your liking so far?” you asked, your gaze briefly meeting Leah’s.

“The food’s incredible,” Keira said. “Are you the chef?”

You nodded. “And the owner.”

Murmurs of amazement rippled through the group.

Leah cleared her throat, sitting up straighter. “Everyone, this is Y/n.”

“Wait…” Rachel’s eyes darted between you and Leah. “This is your connection?”

Leah shrugged, feigning innocence. “What can I say? I know people.”

“Hold on.” Ella leaned forward, pointing at Leah. “You’re dating the chef?!”

Leah’s smirk widened. “Didn’t think it was relevant.”

The table erupted in laughter, teasing, and a flurry of questions directed at you.

When the bill arrived, one of the players reached for it, but the waiter quickly informed them it had already been settled.

“It’s on me,” you said with a smile, standing beside Leah. “You’re all family to Leah, which makes you family to me.”

The team groaned, joking about being spoiled, but their gratitude was evident.

As everyone filtered out of the restaurant, Leah lingered by the door with you, her hand slipping into yours.

“Thanks for tonight,” she said softly, her voice full of warmth.

You leaned up, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips. “Anything for you.”

The team’s laughter echoed down the street, and Leah pulled you closer, her heart full as she watched her two worlds collide perfectly.

[emmyrosee]

“Just one more,” you mewl.

“Oh my god.”

Sae has to leave. It’s past the point of him responsibly leaving, to now, where there’s no choice of him having to leave now, if he wants any chance of making it to practice on time.

But you, however, are seemingly far from getting your Itoshi Sae fix, not wanting to be far from him at all: you whimpered and whined when he got up for his run, you snuck into his shower with him, you looped your arms around his waist while he made his lunch, now you’ve got his face gripped in your hands, sponging kisses over him.

At first, sure, he loved the attention.

But Itoshi Sae has to leave. Four minutes ago.

“Hey,” he sighs softly, trying to push your shoulders back to peel you off of him. “You know I have to go. Don’t make this harder for me.”

“You don’t have to go,” you say simply. “You and I can just be hermits forever, hide here for the rest of our lives and cuddle forever.”

Tempting. Not that he’d ever tell you that.

“Don’t you want to stay here forever with me?”

He clicks his tongue, “you know I absolutely would if I could. But,” he makes a move to step away, and you whine and squeeze tighter. “I have to go. Then, when I come home, I’ll be able to tell you all about my day while we lay down. You like that.”

“I know I do, but,” you peer up at him with your lethal pout, “I like you being here more.”

Sae looks at the clock on the stove. Then back at you. Then he sighs and leans down to steal another kiss from you, slotting your lips with his. They move in harmony, eliciting small pants from you, and his hand cradles the back of your head lovingly. You mewl and rest your hands on his hips, letting the few seconds of heaven be savored between you.

When he finally pulls away, you’re smiling dopily, giddily, and Sae knows he hit the nail on the head.

You’d wanted a goodbye kiss. Sae always knows what you want from him, and in the morning, it just so happens to be a firm, loving, assuring goodbye kiss.

“Okay,” you purr, letting your hands roam over his back, compliant and melted in his arms. “You can go now. I’m happy.”

“You’re done with me?” He asks.

“Yeah, until tonight anyways,” you hum, kissing his chin. “Better go before I change my mind.”

He cracks a smirk, “you’re a real piece of work, you know that right?”

“What can I say?” You sigh dramatically. “I know how much you love a challenge.”

You’re right.

He really, really does.

[fragilefawn333]

kinky arcane women headcanons ☆ MDNI!!

f!arcane x f!reader - vi, caitlyn, jinx, mel, sevika

AN; SOMEONE SEDATE MEEE!!!!! my ass is too horny ok im OVULATING!!!! this is probably the dirtiest thing i’ve written and i’m spitting out fics i’ve had in the drafts for a while so CW; dirty talk, degrading language aka ‘slut,’ biting and marking, overstimulation, choking, power, blindfold, spitting (2k)

Vi - Breeding/voyeurism

Topping: Despite women not being able to get others pregnant, this doesn’t matter to Vi. She’ll have you folded over on your shared bed, gripping into the mattress as she slams into you — going at a brutal pace. Making you cum around her cock for the second time, sticky-white dripping out of your aching hole.

“You take me so well, such a greedy girl.”

Breathy moans as the other end of the strap rubs against her clit, intertwining with your own needy whines. She moves to hook one of your legs on her opposing shoulder, watching as the toy disappears into your tight cunt with each thrust.

“Fuck - ah! Gonna fill you up, make you a mommy. You want that, yeah? My pretty girl.”

Pseudo-feeling herself finish inside you, pretending that the cum dripping from your slit is your mixed fluids — filling you up with herself. Swear to fuck, she’s gonna pester that pretty-boy to engineer up some magic that’ll let this happen for real.

Bottoming: She likes making sure others know you’re hers. Slung over you in a sleazy-bar, sucking dark-hickeys into your neck — the smell of bitter beer and spicy aftershave attacking your senses, clinging to you so even when she’s not physically there, her presence is.

You’ll be stumbling back from the bar, tipsy with too-strong alcohol and her touch, street-lights dimly illuminating your figures. That’s when she’ll push you against bricked wall, arms hung around her neck as she grinds her knee into your clothed sex. Unbuckling her belt and letting her jeans and boxers hang off muscled hips, using her fingers to collect her wetness and smear it over your lips.

“You taste that? That’s what you do to me, pretty girl. You gon’ clean up your mess?” Grabbing at your chin gently, and facing it to her half-clothed pelvis — red hairs climbing to her bellybutton, glistening with smeared wetness.

Groaning when your slick tongue meets her clit, lapping her up like she’s the drink you two were just sharing two minutes ago. Her hand comes to grasp at your scalp, pulling you closer in to kitten-lick her slit, shoving herself into your face. Too enthralled in you, not caring to check and see if the streets are empty. If they want to watch then they can. Show everyone who you belong to.

Caitlyn - Brat-taming/degradation

Topping: Caitlyn relaxes on plush armchair, leather-clad hand moving to turn the page of her novel. You dig your fingernails into her shoulder, grinding sloppily against clothed leg. The harsh denim of her jeans chaffing against the flesh of your thighs, grinding against your clit. Huffing into her neck, you raise your hips and slam them back down onto her, trying to work up enough friction to come to your peak.

“Can’t cum?” Caitlyn mewls, mock sincerity, blue-eyes not even flickering up from her novel.

Your cheeks puff-up as you inhale, brows knitting together as you mumble a, “fuck you,” into her ear. Risky move, considering you’re currently knee-deep in a punishment from your last bratty-comment.

She wraps an arm around arched back, trapping you between her torso and bringing her face to yours. “Is that so?” She cocks her head, pensive yet still threatening. “Stand up.”

You whimper, shaking your head, “M’ sorry, I didn’t mean it.” But Caitlyn isn’t having it, directing you with a perfectly manicured index-finger. You stand up, vulnerable and naked to the bitter-air of the room. She leads you to the table standing next to the chair, pushing you so that the edge toys with your pussy. You grind on the polished oak, desperate for friction as rounded wood catches your clit. “You want to cum? Show me how desperate you are, and if I’m nice enough I’ll reward you.”

Drumming her fingers on the wood, she smirks and discards the book to the floor.

Bottoming: Caitlyn would lie herself onto cotton sheets, slender limbs snuggled on-top of the bed. Hair and body freshly washed, smelling of floral-soap and citrusy shampoo, not bothering with a towel letting the cool hit bare skin.

Allowing you to crawl onto the sheets after her, towel wrapped loosely around waist — another one ruffling through your hair, trying to dry it after your shared shower. She watches as your tits heave with every exhausted breath, nipples hardened at the cold air. She chews on her bottom lip, thighs opening so she can dip long fingers into her cunt. Caitlyn grinds into her hand, swollen, flushed clit circled by the base of her palm.

You glance over to her taunt, writhing body — chuckling as you watched her hump her own hand. “Shit Cait, you’re such a slut. Fucking yourself, don’t you have any shame?”

Caitlyn shakes her head, wetness now dripping onto previously clean sheets, letting out a strangled moan, “I need you.”

You snort at her desperation, moving to replace her fingers with yours as she bucks into you. “What am I going to do with you?” You tease, “What a pathetic mess.”

Jinx - Marking/overstimulation

Topping: It’s mid-afternoon when Jinx lays you on her work-bench. Shirt pulled up to collarbones, multi-coloured lights dancing on exposed skin. Jinx swipes her tongue down sternum, licking at your stomach and running teeth along the hem of your pants. You gasp when teeth embed into your side, sharp pain radiating from your waist. Jinx releases your flesh, feeling a vibration as she chuckles into your body.

She stumbles next to her, reaching amongst messy-desk to pull out a neon-pink marker, waving it in front of your face. She takes the cap off with her teeth, hooking her fingers around your pants and tugging them down. The ink is cold as it glides across you, Jinx circling the bite mark she’s stamped into your skin.

Jinx moves the pen down, right above your pubic-bone. She scribbles something, giggling to herself. The heat of the shimmer in her veins thrumming, unable to keep herself patient any longer — she lunges forward.

Her mouth meets your cunt. Lips wrapping around your clit, sucking the nub into her warm, welcoming mouth. She digs her nails, chipped blues-pinks, into your thighs, leaving half-crescents into swollen skin. You thrust up to her tongue, ears ringing as you come to your peak as she laps up the escaped wetness spilling from your pussy.

Later, when you stumble across a reflective surface, you lift up your shirt to reveal teeth-marks sunken into skin. Along with messy, capitalised ‘JINX WAZ HERE.’

Bottoming: Lights bounce off skin as you grind down into Jinx. The makeshift tent fluttering with the wind created by thrusting motions. Slick gliding together, smearing up thighs and abdomen. Jinx curls, letting out a shaky breath as heat pools in her lower belly. Hips rutting with frenzy as you bring her to her third release of the night.

Usually perky Jinx sighs with fatigue, hands stilling your gyrating hips. “Please… I can’t…”

You drag your tongue over your lips, leaning down to whisper into her ear, “Give me one more.”

Tilting Jinx’s bony pelvis to you, weaving thighs together and pressing her heat to yours. Her clit is swollen as it slides against yours, picking up considerable friction as you quicken the pace. Minutes later, Jinx twitches uncontrollably again, muttering pleases and silent sobs into the graffitied floors of her hideout.

Mel - Choking/filming

Topping: Mel will bend you over her desk, her fingers sliding down your nape, golden rings cold on skin. She buries her face into your neck, pressing heated kiss down sensitive flesh, her loose hair coiling down her face and tickling your shoulder. You press palms to her desk, trying to steady yourself as one of her hands snake down your body to the crux of your legs. You both simultaneously moan when her fingertips brush against wetness.

Bringing her other hand up your neck, shoving two fingers down your throat. You gag, spit trickling down your chin as her fingers slip over your tongue, hooking into your jaw — making you completely complacent to her. She presses circles on your clit, moving up and down, your thighs parting under the pleasure in turn giving her more access to spread lips open, dipping into your entrance. As her hands work you open, the two fingers coated in saliva draw back to neck, squeezing lightly. Your head comes back to rest against the dip of her shoulder, her hand bathed in golden divinity shutting off airways momentarily.

“Don’t fight it,” she hisses.

The intensity of your orgasm hits like a brick, tension around your throat adding to the pressure. Mel hums in satisfaction as you come down, running slick fingers over tongue — tasting you, lips suckling and rolling off her hand.

Bottoming: Mel lifts herself to the tip of the toy, grinding when she reaches the base. Each motion creating a jolt of pleasure that runs through her body. Stockings pull at her legs, garters tight around her thighs as skin spills slightly over the top.

“Stay still,” you pester, lifting up the camera to snap a picture of her hunched over — silicone dick buried deep inside.

She whines at the momentarily loss of friction, desperately waiting for you to allow her to continue her thrusts. You check the film, eyes taking in your artistry. You nod at her, and she snaps her hips immediately.

“You look too pretty for this to be forgotten,” you smirk. Her skin flushing, heat coiling in her belly, at your compliments. Mel nods her head, her eyes rolling back as she increases her pace — pumping into the toy. She spills over the bed, creating a wet patch on silken sheets as she lifts herself up, a string of slick connecting her pussy to the bed. You snap another photo, the room flashing white.

Sevika - Size kink/deprivation

Topping: Sevika places a hand at the base of your back, admiring how large her palm looks when it’s splayed onto your skin. Pushing you down with ease, stilling your almost-rabid jerking by tensing her muscles. Her other, metallic, hand comes to rub across your slit — the cool material’s contact against your warm cunt inciting a shiver.

You gape into ragged sheets, back arching as Sevika brings a hand down to the fat of your ass, skin slapping echoing throughout the room. Running her faux-fingers down the dip of your ass, rubbing circles around the entrance of your pussy. Chuckling at the way you reflexively pull back at the cold probe, but are unable to under her grip.

Switching positions slightly, she manhandles you so that you’re being supported by her metal-arm. This way she can feel the warmth of your cunt engulf her fingers as she pushes into your entrance, thrusting with haste. You whine and twist against her, feeling the pleasure shoot up to your abdomen - tightening and curling in you. She chuckles, low and grating, at the wetness that gushes out of you — stilling her fingers and planting a chaste kiss to your lower back.

Bottoming The blindfold tied around your face sits comfortably, obscuring your vision. You can only hear the sound of Sevika’s heaving breathing, and the taste of her, as you sit between her splayed knees. You dig your tongue in deeper, flattening your tongue at her clit. Grabbing onto muscled thigh for support, you continue working her open using your mouth.

You feel calloused hand pull at your hair, pushing you into the overwhelming wetness. She guides you closer, further up — aiding your unsure self in pleasing her, it’s not your fault really. She likes you rendered helpless, dependent on her and deprived of your sight.

“Thats a good girl,” she groans as you allowing yourself to be pulled by her grip. It’s not long before she’s coming undone before you, harshly pulling at your scalp to snap your head back — mouth open as you feel her saliva drip into your cheeks, and down your throat.

[roselilies]

"Are you trying to distract the curses, or me?"

The playful lilt in Gojo’s voice made the blood rush to your face before you could even turn to look at him. You had barely stepped into the training grounds when his signature white hair and too-casual stance came into view. Today, the uniform skirt you were wearing was a little shorter than usual, though not short enough to warrant his teasing.

“Excuse me?” you shot back, crossing your arms. “Why would I need to distract you when you’re already distracted all the time?”

Gojo’s grin widened behind his blindfold, and he took a deliberate step closer. His hands slid into his pockets, the picture of effortless confidence. “Oh, I’m very focused. On you, that is.”

You rolled your eyes, trying to ignore the way your stomach flipped at his words. “Don’t you have anything better to do than harass me?”

“Nope. You’re the highlight of my day, baby.”

The nickname made you falter for a split second, though you quickly covered it up by turning away and pretending to examine your nails. Don’t let him get to you, you told yourself. It’s just Gojo being Gojo.

But that was easier said than done. He had a way of getting under your skin, of making every casual interaction feel loaded with some unspoken tension. The worst part? You weren’t entirely sure he didn’t do it on purpose.

“If you’re going to stand there and flirt, the least you can do is help me set up,” you said, gesturing to the training equipment scattered around the field.

Gojo laughed, the sound warm and slightly obnoxious. “Of course, anything for you.”

Before you could blink, he was suddenly at your side, picking up a set of practice dummies as if they weighed nothing. The proximity caught you off guard, and you found yourself hyper-aware of the way his shoulder brushed against yours. Damn it, why does he smell so good?

“You’re awfully quiet,” he teased, leaning just a little too close. “Am I making you nervous?”

“In your dreams,” you shot back, shoving a dummy into his chest with more force than necessary.

Gojo caught it effortlessly, laughing again as if he enjoyed your annoyance. “I dream about you all the time, actually.”

You groaned, trying to mask the flutter in your chest. “Why do I even talk to you?”

“Because you love me,” he said matter-of-factly, his grin impossibly smug. “But don’t worry, I’ll wait for you to admit it.”

You shook your head, biting back a retort as you turned your attention to the field. His teasing was relentless, and you hated how much you secretly looked forward to it. Gojo Satoru had this annoying charm, this magnetism that made him impossible to ignore. He knew it too, and used it to his advantage every chance he got.

“Alright, focus,” you said, pointing at the dummies. “We’ve got to run these drills before the others arrive.”

“Anything for you, sweetheart,” he said with a mock salute, the smirk on his lips audible in his tone.

Ignoring the way your heart skipped at the nickname, you moved to the center of the field. As you began demonstrating the first sequence, you felt Gojo’s gaze on you, heavy and unapologetically lingering. It was like he wanted you to notice.

“Gojo, stop staring,” you snapped without looking at him, your voice sharper than you intended.

“Why? You look good,” he shot back, unbothered. “The uniform suits you. Especially the skirt.”

You froze mid-step, heat rushing to your cheeks. “Why thank you, but you’re impossible.”

“And you’re cute when you’re flustered,” he said, his tone softening slightly, almost fond.

That caught you off guard. Usually, his comments were light and playful, but this felt different, more intentional. You turned to face him, trying to gauge whether he was just messing with you again. His expression, though hidden behind the blindfold, seemed uncharacteristically sincere.

“Why do you do that?” you asked, your voice quieter now.

“Do what?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Say things like that.”

Gojo paused, and for a moment, you thought he might deflect like he always did. But then his lips curved into a smaller, softer smile.

“Because I mean it.”

The simplicity of his answer left you speechless. You searched his face for any sign of a joke, a smirk, something to suggest he wasn’t being serious. But all you found was an openness that made your chest tighten.

“...You’re so annoying,” you muttered, looking away to hide your embarrassment.

Gojo laughed, the sound lighter than usual. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Don’t.”

“Too late.”

He stepped closer, his voice dropping slightly as he added, “But seriously, you look amazing today. Not just today, though. Always.”

You hated how easily his words got to you, how they made you feel warm in a way you couldn’t quite explain.

“Whatever,” you mumbled, turning back to the equipment. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Anything you say, baby,” he replied, but there was something gentler in his tone now—something that made you think maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t entirely joking.

A/N: Gojo I will always love you.

[nanamiscocksleeve]

Hold Me Tenderly

Warnings: MDNI, sex, angst Summary: When woken up from a nightmare, you and Caleb are forced to confront some uncomfortable truths. WC: 3075 A/n: This week has been crazy. As I've mentioned in an earlier rant, there's more to Caleb than meets the eye and I'm here for it. I've seen a bump in toxicity since his launch, and I just want to take this space to say, please remember this is all FICTIONAL. Let people like who they like and if you have nothing nice to say, scroll on by.

It’s pitch black. You squint, your heart pounding frantically as you try to get your bearings. Up, down, left, right, direction seemed to have lost all meaning. It was dark. And quiet. Too quiet. The unsettling sound of your blood rushing through your own veins adds to the paranoia building inside you.

“Are you looking for me?” Your body jolts at the voice as you look around desperately for the source.

“Caleb?” You call through the echoing nothingness. He sounded so close but where was he? 

“Right here. Can’t you see me?” He sounded further away this time. You jog through the void, not even certain if there is ground beneath your feet. Were you actually moving? Or were you stuck in place, wasting effort to run through a medium that couldn’t be traversed?  

“Caleb, where are you? I can’t find you!” Your voice calls out, shrill, and panicked into the void.

“Here.” He sounded much farther away now, the faint sound of him disappearing into the dark. You give chase, plunging deeper into the unknown.

“Caleb!”

“Hey.” You’re shaken gently and your eyes fly open, your limbs tangling under the sheets as you thrash to free yourself.

“Whoa, calm down. It’s ok. It’s ok my little mouse.” Strong arms wrap around you and you’re pulled into a tight embrace against a firm, muscled, chest. You swallow, then blink your eyes open. The bedside lamp is turned on, and you feel relief flood your chest as Caleb’s face comes into focus. You sniff, burying your face into the comforting warmth of his skin. 

“Nightmare?” He asks softly, cupping the back of your head. You nod, feeling a lump form in your throat. “It’s gone now. I’m here.” He shushes you, patting your back soothingly.

You’re here, but you’re not here.

The thought enters your mind, unbidden, and suddenly, it’s too much. Your eyes squeeze closed, trying and failing to stop the cascade of tears that form. You couldn’t bear it anymore. Caleb came and went like day changing into night - too brief and without a trace. You hated it. You hated him acting like this tension between you didn’t exist, like the events at Skyhaven had been put to rest.

But most of all you hated that whenever Caleb visited, he never seemed to understand that you wanted him to stay. You had never said he was unwelcome, but he treated himself like an unsavory visitor, only packing enough clothes for a day, before leaving the next. 

And you hated yourself for being unable to shake off the question he had asked the last time he had visited. 

“Why didn’t you ask me who kept me up all night? Were you afraid I’d say it was you? Or were you scared I’d say it wasn’t?”

Wasn’t the answer to that obvious? Why else would you keep letting this man back into your life, over and over, like a moth drawn to a flame? Simply put, you were now in a precarious state, knowing you could never go back to a world where Caleb didn’t exist. It was infuriating, the way he thought he was being considerate, never overstaying his visits, when it was so plainly obvious you didn’t want him to go. Your heart broke each time he left without asking if there were feelings that went beyond the bond of growing up together. 

So you cry, and he holds you tenderly. You couldn’t remember the first time you had both done this, years ago, sharing a bed to avoid facing all the past trauma you’d endured together. But all you knew was that you never wanted there to be a last. 

“It’s just a dream baby girl,” Caleb murmurs in your ear. 

Your eyes snap open, and through gritted teeth you say, “It’s not just a dream Caleb.”

His hand pauses. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not a dream.” You sit upright, burying your face in your hands, your body racked with sobs, shaking and trembling on the bed. The sheets ruffle and Caleb pulls you against him, trying to console you. He seems to be at a loss about what to say. You take a shuddering breath and it’s like a dam burst inside you.

“You come when you want. And leave when you want. What about me, Caleb? Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want bits and pieces of you anymore?” You look up at him, tears streaking down your face, your heart skipping a beat as his eyes grow wide with shock. You ramble on. 

“I don’t know how we got here. And I’m trying to fix it but Caleb…I can’t fix it if you won’t stay.” 

You finally admit the things you’d tucked away inside, trying to bury them; now they were crawling out of your throat like ghosts desperate for a rebirth. You swallow, and Caleb grabs the glass of water from the nightstand and presses it into your hands. 

“Drink.” 

The word is said so firmly that you dare not refuse and you gulp, the liquid somehow helping dull the harshness of the lump in your throat. He puts it back before gathering you close to him.

“You realize that’s the first time you told me I could stay.”

“Well, I’m sorry! I thought it was obvious!” You hurl the words, which get muffled by the wall of his chest. 

Caleb huffs. “Well, it wasn’t. And who told you that I didn’t want to stay? I was trying to give you space.” He takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me around anymore.”

Your heart clenches, and your hands tighten on his T-shirt. “Of course, I want you around Caleb. You’re my…” Your voice trails as you realize the term ‘best friend’ rang hollow. He was so much more than that. 

Caleb gently leans back so that he can look at your face. He cups your cheek, his eyes gazing at your face searchingly.

“What? What am I?” 

The question snaps the coil that had been steadily winding tighter during his stay. Frustrated, you move to your knees, hands springing out to capture his face. Before he can react, you roughly cover his mouth with yours. The kiss is raw, pouring out every moment of rage and loneliness you have felt since being reunited with him. You had never kissed him before, and a momentary flash of worry crosses your mind at the implications but they’re pushed out as you take what you had been desiring for so long. 

Caleb groans lowly at the feeling of your soft lips against his but his mind is fighting propriety. “Wait. Hang on, wait baby girl.” Caleb’s large hands catch yours and he breaks the kiss, trying to put some space in between you both. 

“Are you sure about this?” Caleb’s eyes are painted with confusion and doubt, but there is no denying the growing darkness at the edges of his irises. Despite everything, neither of you had dared cross that line, the one that threatened to upend your complete understanding of each other. 

“Never been more sure of anything in my life.” 

Your consent brings forth a growl from his throat, and finally, finally, he claims you back. You revel in the push of his body against yours, the hard muscles pressing against your softness as he wraps both arms around you and you’re crushed under his weight as both of you crash onto the mattress. Everything was fair game now, no qualms asked. His mouth, hot and demanding, finds yours, and your hands anchor onto his shoulder blades, trying to pull him impossibly closer to you than he already was. Everything about him was familiar, yet different. 

You’d held his body before, cupped his cheeks, and cuddled him during the bad days, but now, you feel the tension in his body as the boundaries between friendship and something more start to blur. The raging ache in your chest that had been clawing at you since you had left Skyhaven now had a name; possessiveness.

Because he was yours. And weren’t you his? Was it fate that had brought you two together at the shelter after the day of the Chronorift Catastrophe? It hardly seemed to matter but now, the both of you were intricately bound together and you couldn’t figure out where he ended and you started. All that mattered was that he was here. 

A gasp leaves your mouth as Caleb rakes his teeth down your lips, nibbling and sucking the soft flesh. Carding your fingers through his hair, you wait until the sting has passed before leaning up to pepper his face with little kisses, causing him to pause as he catches his breath.

“I was afraid you’d say yes.” 

“What?” Caleb’s eyes knit in confusion as he regards through the haze in his brain.

“Your question. I was afraid you’d say yes.” Your breath hitches as he cushions your head with his arm, gazing down at you with affection. 

“Why?” He murmurs as he dips down to lick and nibble your ear, sending currents of heat down your spine.

“Because Caleb. I’m always afraid. I thought I lost everything during the chronorift. I didn’t want to dare ask for more. Because asking for more means being vulnerable to getting hurt.”

Caleb’s eyes are full of emotion. “I didn’t want to ask you for more,” he admits quietly. “Because I know you are already empty from giving me whatever you have now.” 

The room falls into silence and the only thing that can be heard is the hammering of your hearts, pounding in sync with each other. 

“Take me, Caleb.” You murmur and his heart nearly stops in his chest. “I can never be empty if you’re here. But promise me you’ll stop leaving the way you do.” Your voice hitches. “I can’t do it all over again.” 

Caleb presses kisses to your temples, rubbing your noses together like a puppy and there’s conviction in his voice as he speaks. “I won’t. I promise I’ll never be gone long enough for you to start questioning my position in your life.” 

Your hands start to trace his face and he catches one of them, kissing your fingertips and sighing against your palm. The heat between you threatens to consume you whole. When his mouth touches yours, you open and let in his tongue, exploring the taste and wetness. His hands are now bruisingly dug into your waist like he’s steeling himself from going too fast and rough.

Primal instinct pours into his veins and visions of his past fantasies flood his brain; ripping off your clothes while his hands spread apart your legs. How wet you’d feel as he tasted the sweet nectar of your sex before plunging his cock so deep within you that you’d feel for him for days long after it was over. How long had he held back from acting on those impulses?

He grits his teeth as he rolls you over onto him, knowing he wouldn’t be able to control himself having you pinned powerless underneath him. You’re looking at him in a confused daze, then, with a gesture so cute that it almost made him lose restraint, you raise your arms above your head. He leans up, dragging the pajama shirt off your torso, swallowing hard as you reveal yourself to him. Those soft, inviting breasts, the ones he’d imagined for years now, were perfect. He cups them reverently as he presses kisses to your cleavage, squeezing and enjoying the feel of your flesh. 

Your body reacts naturally to him, responding so strongly that you feel like you might combust from the rising need gathering in your sex. Your clit throbs within its folds, swollen and delicate, as it waits to be unsheathed. Caleb’s erection was straining against the fabric of his shorts, brushing against your crotch and as he pinched and rolled your nipples between his fingertips, you started to grind against him. 

A hiss escapes from him as he looks up at you, crazed with desire, the sight of you rubbing against him pouring fuel into the fire. He sits up, crossing his legs and upsetting your balance before drawing you securely onto his lap. His head dips to suckle, the feel of his tongue and teeth on your nipple sending shocks of pleasure through your system. You struggle against him, finding the hem of his T-shirt and undressing him, amazed at the sight of his bare chest. 

You sigh before running your hands over the expanse, his mouth busying itself with your breast again. There was no shame or reluctance as you took from each other. A sheen of sweat covers your bodies as you tease and stroke each other. Every small gasp, whimper, and moan was part of a private symphony, and he was desperate to hear you sing. 

You could feel the drip of moisture inside your sex now and were growing impatient from the wait. Your eyes lock with Caleb’s, those smokey, purple irises watching you intently. When your fingertips hook into his waistband, he doesn’t question you, but with a show of strength, braces his palms on the bed and lifts his hips. You slide forward slightly but manage to yank off the garments below his knees, watching his cock spring free from its confines, weeping precum from the slit.

“Fuck. Don’t look at me like that.” Caleb’s cheeks are flushed and his voice is gravelly, a soft rumble of barely contained need. He bites back a moan as your fingers curl around his shaft, squeezing and pumping him tantalizingly, and his hips rock against you as pleasure floods his brain. His hand catches your wrist, stilling you as he tries to control the rushes of arousal that shoot through him. His cock felt painfully hard and your willingness was driving him to the edge.

Without missing a beat, Caleb pulls off your shorts and panties, panting as your wet sex hovers over the tip of his cock, your knees sinking into the mattress as you try to settle back on his lap. He groans wantonly as your pussy, moist and warm, brushes against his engorged head, mixing your essence with his. It felt divine, and your hips start to seek friction, dragging the length of his cock in between your folds, gasping softly into his ear each time it hits your clit. 

“That’s right baby girl. Use me. I’m all yours.” Caleb whispers encouragement into your ear and it only makes you want to claim him even more. You whimper as you raise as high as your knees will take you, sliding the slick little bud along his slit, trying to fit it into the little hole that was leaking those milky beads from his shaft. 

“Caleb.” Your voice is a whine as your nails dig into his back, dancing so carefully along the ridge so that your clit doesn’t miss any action. 

“Oh, that’s it little mouse.” Caleb coos at you while his hands stroke down your back. “My sweet girl. Take what you need.” His fingers indent into your hips to help guide your movements and you feel a similar series of small spasms flutter their way into your core. Knowing you’re close you use Caleb, solid and grounding, as an anchor and hump him with abandon, your breasts bouncing with each movement. You’re both in a trance, broken from it when you feel the tension in your clit suddenly start to feel wonderfully light and sublime. You moan as your climax hits you, continuing to stimulate the little bud on his tip as the rest of the orgasm follows, sending ripple after ripple of hot pleasure through you. Your mouth hangs open as you pant from the exertion, then are caught off guard as Caleb cups your face and kisses you.

While he was occupied with your mouth you raise your hips and ease your fluttering hole onto his length. A guttural grunt spills from Caleb’s mouth into yours as you continue to lower your pussy onto him, taking him further into your slick welcoming heat. His cock throbs as it slips further inside you and he watches your face as you settle to his size. You felt so full, the way his cock filled your inner space, and when he rolls his hips, you cling onto him for dear life. You’d never thought he could feel so good, feel so comforting as his meat thrusts up into you before easing back down. 

Your hips start to coordinate a rhythm to his movements, sinking onto him as he pushes up, helping him bottom out each time, and he swore he could see stars forming around him. You were so tight, so inviting, and so unbelievably sexy as you writhed in passion along with him. 

“Fuck little mouse.” Caleb’s vision blurs at the edges as he feels himself on the precipice of a climax. “You feel good. So damn perfect.” He chases his orgasm, his thrusts growing more urgent and sloppy as he did so. Your juices coat his cock and start to form a ring around his length, your walls quivering and sucking him further in towards your cervix. 

Caleb’s abdomen is rigid and he feels every part of him tensing up in anticipation for a mind-blowing finish. He moans, the noise sexily floating into the air, then holds you tightly against him as he finishes, spilling himself messily into your quivering channel, the thick jets of seed coating your walls white. He doesn’t move, savoring the closeness and intimacy of having you pressed up against him, sated and warm. After a few moments, he maneuvers both of you to lay down, his softened cock still nestle within you as you immediately move closer to snuggle into his chest.

“No more running away. Whatever happens, we’ll talk it out. And I promise I won’t leave you unless you’re screaming at me to get out.”

You chuckle quietly, then kiss his chin. 

“Never. Unless you refuse to make your braised chicken wings for me.” 

He laughs heartily and both of you feel some of the awkwardness between you ease. It wasn’t going to be easy but you were both determined to fix whatever had been lost. One step at a time, you reminded yourself, before snuggling into Caleb and finally drifting off into a dreamless sleep. 

© nanamiscocksleeve original work | no copying, plagiarizing or translating

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[meadowfics]

delivery

hwang jun-ho x pregnant!reader

the policeman is excited for his daughter to arrive

warnings: birth

this is a continuation and part two to this

it all starts late at night, just as you’re getting ready to climb into bed.

you’ve showered, slipped into your comfiest satin nightgown, and are looking forward to finally getting some rest.

jun-ho is already under the covers, scrolling through his phone while waiting for you.

just as you move to sit on the bed, you feel an unexpected sensation.

at first, you freeze, wondering if you’ve accidentally peed yourself.

this has happened before, due to your daughter using your bladder as a soccer ball.

the thought of it happening again makes your cheeks heat with embarrassment.

“uh… jun-ho?”

you say hesitantly, your voice barely above a whisper.

your partner's head snaps up immediately, his protective instincts kicking in.

“what’s wrong? are you okay?”

he’s already moving to sit up, concern etched into his features.

you glance down at yourself and mumble,

“i think… i think my water just broke.” the words feel strange to say, and you can’t help but feel a little self-conscious.

jun-ho blinks a few times, processing what you’ve just said. then his lips curl into a small, excited smile that he’s clearly trying to suppress.

“really? are you sure?” he asks, but he’s already reaching for the hospital bag that’s been packed for weeks.

you nod, still feeling a little flustered.

“yeah, i’m pretty sure. i mean, i didn’t feel any pain, but—” you trail off, looking at the growing damp spot on your nightgown.

“okay, okay, no need to worry,”

jun-ho says, his voice calm but laced with excitement.

he places a reassuring hand on your lower back, then gently guides you to sit down on the edge of the bed.

“let’s get you changed first, and then we’ll head to the hospital. our girl’s on her way.”

as you change into clean clothes, with the help of jun-ho.. the man hurries around the room, triple-checking the hospital bag, your phone, chargers, snacks, and anything else you might need.

you can tell he’s trying to stay composed, but the way he fumbles with the zipper on the bag gives away his excitement.

once you’re ready, he helps you into the car.

during the drive, you start to feel mild contractions. they’re not too bad yet, but jun-ho keeps glancing at you every few minutes, asking,

“how are you feeling? do you need anything? want me to play some music?”

you laugh softly, despite the growing discomfort.

“i’m fine, jun-ho. just focus on driving. i’d rather not give birth in the car.”

at the hospital, jun-ho is by your side every step of the way. he holds your hand tightly as the nurses check you in, offering comforting words and even cracking a small joke to lighten the mood.

“guess i’ll finally get to see if all those birthing classes paid off.”

as your contractions intensify, jun-ho stays calm and steady, never letting go of your hand. he rubs your back during the worst of it, whispering,

“you’re doing amazing, y/n. she’s so lucky to have you as her mom.”

hours pass, and jun-ho barely leaves your side. even when you’re tired and in pain, he keeps encouraging you, telling you how strong you are and how proud he is of you.

"you're doing so well, sweetheart."

when your contractions start getting stronger, jun-ho immediately shifts into “coach mode,” even though he’s never officially done this before.

he sits beside you, holding your hand tightly, and says,

“okay, y/n, remember to breathe. in through your nose, out through your mouth..just like we practiced.”

during a particularly intense contraction, just when you're seven centimeters dilated.. you grip his hand hard enough to make him wince, but he doesn’t say a word about it.

he's faced worst while being a detective.

instead, he rubs soothing circles on your back with his other hand, murmuring,

“you’re so strong, y/n. you’ve got this. just focus on breathing, one step at a time.”

every time the nurse comes in to check on you, jun-ho listens attentively, nodding as if he’s taking mental notes.

afterward, he turns to you and explains everything in a calm, steady voice, making sure you’re not overwhelmed.

“okay, so it sounds like you’re dilating really well. that means we’re getting closer. just a little more, and we’ll meet her.”

at one point, he notices you’re getting tense and you start clenching your jaw during a contraction.

“hey, relax your shoulders,” he says gently, placing his hands on them and giving them a light squeeze.

“it’ll help with the pain. you’re doing amazing, y/n.”

when you start to doubt yourself.. you start to cry,

“i don’t think i can do this,”

jun-ho immediately shakes his head and cups your face with both hands.

“yes, you can. you’ve already come so far. you’re the strongest person i know, y/n, and you’re not doing this alone. i’m right here with you.”

between contractions, he keeps you distracted by cracking small jokes.

“if she’s as stubborn as you, it’s no wonder she’s taking her time coming out.”

when you glare at him, he grins and adds,

“but stubbornness is a good thing. she’ll be tough, like her mom.”

when it’s time to start pushing, jun-ho positions himself right by your side, holding one of your legs and encouraging you with every push.

“you’re doing it, y/n. just a little more. you’re so close. i’m so proud of you.”

at one point, you grab the collar of his shirt in frustration during a particularly difficult push.. the ring of fire as doctors put it.

instead of panicking, he stays calm and says,

“that’s it, take it out on me. you can yell at me all you want..just keep going. you’re amazing, y/n."

the moment your daughter is born, just after three hours of pushing.. jun-ho’s eyes fill with tears. he looks at her, then at you, and his voice trembles as he says,

“she’s perfect. you did it, y/n.”

when the nurse places your baby girl in your arms, jun-ho leans in close, his arm wrapped around your shoulders as you both look at her in awe.

“welcome to the world, little one,”

your man whispers, his voice full of love.

even as exhausted as you are, you can see the way jun-ho can’t stop smiling. he keeps glancing between you and your daughter, like he can’t believe how lucky he is to have both of you.

later, as the three of you settle in for some quiet time, jun-ho gently brushes his fingers over your daughter’s tiny hand.

“she’s got your nose,” he says softly, leaning in to kiss your forehead.

"thank you for being the best."

you mumble, tired from the pushing.

“thank you, y/n. for everything. i love you so much.”

"I love you too."

you watch him as he carefully cradles your daughter, talking to her in a soft, soothing voice about how much he’s been waiting to meet her.

in that moment, you know your little family is already filled with so much love.

masterlist

[seungfl0wer]

*𝒀𝒐𝒖’𝒓𝒆 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕*

Pairing: Hyunjin x Reader (Fem)

Genre: Super Fluffy Smut

Warnings: Oral (M), Unprotected sex, Creampie, Riding, lots of sweet words. I think that’s really it. Sorry for any mistakes or missing warnings.

This was request. Using prompts from my first list 36 “I got this for you” and 58 “Can I sit here?”

-🖤

Hyunjin has been working his ass off. With comeback, promotions and just everyday life of an idol. He still in all the chaos finds time to make you feel loved and appreciated.

You wanted to do something special for him something to show him how well he’s been doing. How much you appreciated everything and all his efforts. So you ordered a pretty lingerie set. It was lacy, with little flowers on it and to top it all off it was his favorite color. You set the mood in the room setting the lights and some soft music. You heard him coming in putting on one of his zip up hoodies on so he couldn’t see at first.

When he walked into the bedroom he smiled letting out a sigh of happiness to be home finally. He kissed you lovingly wrapping his arms around you to hug you tightly. “How’s my beautiful wifie doing today” he said the sweet nickname always making you smile.

“Good, happy to have you home” you said smiling wildly at him. “Come sit” you said leading him to relax on the bed. “I got this for you” you said that wide smile reappearing as you dropped the hoodie to the floor. His mouth dropped staring at you in awe.

“Wow” is all he could get out.

“No touching yeah? Let me take care of you” you said moving your way on the bed. You hooked your fingers through his belt loops ridding him of his pants and boxers. “Can you take your shirt off for me handsome?” You asked.

He nodded quickly taking his shirt off for you. As he did you quickly kissed along his body, kissing over his abdomen and hips. You let smile little nibbles knowing all his sensitive spots. Your hands coming up to slowly stroke his hardening cock. He let out a soft moan gripping the sheets. He wanted to touch you so badly, to run his hands through your hair.

You kissed down his body more kissing his thighs over to the other side before kissing the tip of his cock. His body arched at your touch low whimpers leaving his lips. “Hyune you’ve been doing so well you know that?” You said sweetly looking up at him. “I’m so proud of you”

Before he could respond to your sweet words you slowly took his cock into your mouth. You moved slowly, tongue twirling around his head the whole way down his shaft. Your hands roamed his thighs rubbing them soothingly. His eyes fluttered open and shut, moaning softly as you moved. You moved a bit faster hand coming up to play with his balls massaging them gently.

“Fuck angel- feels s’good” he groaned.

“You deserve it, working so so hard and still making me feel so loved.” You said eyes staring up at him with such love. You moved your body up kissing up his body before softly kissing his lips. Straddling him as you looked down at him with a sweet smile “can I sit here?” You asked.

“Can- fuck yes- can I touch you though?” He asked almost begging.

“Anything for you hyune” you said back.

You moved your hips against him, his cock nestled between your folds as you moved. “Fuck angel- please need you- fuck I need you so badly” he whined hands finally roaming your beautiful body. “You look so pretty, my beautiful wifie.”

You wanted to keep going, teasing him a little more, But you wanted him just as badly. You slowly slipped him into you the lingerie having an opening in the crotch for easy access. Both of you let out loud moans feeling each other so snuggly. His hands flew to your hips holding you there for a second “god- how did I get so lucky- fuck you’re so damn beautiful- so so fucking beautiful” he stammered out.

Your head felt floaty from his compliments and the pleasure. You rocked your hips back and forth before finally moving more. Your hips coming up and down as his cock kissed your cervix with every entry. “Hyune I love you” you spoke breathily.

“Ah- y/n- my- my beautiful angel. I love you. I love you so much. You’re my everything- fuck I couldn’t do this with out you.” He rambled.

His grip on your hips tightened as he matched your pace moving his hips up to meet yours. “Come here, let me kiss those soft lips of yours” he said his voice sounding like honey. You leaned down kissing him passionately. Your legs started to get tired but hyunjin didn’t mind. He took over fucking up into you needly. One of his hands left your hips coming down to play with your clit. He knew all the ways of your body, knowing every little thing that drove you crazy.

His fingers let little circles around your clit as his cock bullied itself against your most sensitive spots. “Angel- I’m close- fuck you drive me so crazy I feel like I’m going insane” he admitted. His words only fueling your desire to please him. Your legs hurt sure but you wanted to drive him over the edge. You quickly moved yourself back before bouncing your hips up and down.

Hyunjin choked on his moans head falling back at the new movements. “Cum for me hyune- please”

“Angel- fuck where?” He asked knowing he was close.

“Inside- cum inside me” you moaned out his fingers still working their magic on your clit.

“Inside? Really? You sure?” He asked.

“Yes- please hyune- I want to- want you to fill me” you babbled out.

His head was spinning at this point. This was the first time you had wanted him to. It drove him over the edge quickly his hand on your hips gripping as he moved his hips up faster. He held you still as he fucked up into you like a mad man. Your words circling his head ‘fill me’ he felt like he was going crazy. “Y/n I love you- my gorgeous angel- I’m- fuck so lucky to have you- I’m- fuck- ah I’m cumming!” He almost screamed out.

His hips snapped up once more before you felt him twitch inside you. The new feeling sending a wave of unfamiliar warmth through your body making you cum hard around his cock. Both of your body’s shook in pleasure you now laying against him. He wrapped his arms around you tightly peppering you with soft kisses.

“You did so well beautiful, thank you for the surprise. I love you so much” he said repeating sweet words as he kissed any inch of your body he could.

“You deserve it hyune. I love you too! So so much” you said looking up at him before kissing him lovingly.

“How about we take a nice warm bath? I’ll light those candles you like and we can just relax?” He offered.

“Sounds perfect”

“Not as perfect as you are Angel” he said smiling brushing some hair from your face.

He lit your favorite candles, running a nice warm bath in the big tub you had. He put some relaxing bath bombs in helping you into the water. He took his place behind you wrapping his arms around you as you both let the warm water sooth your bodies.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

💙 If you’d like to read more of my stuff you can find it Here: Master List . Thank you for reading and if requests are open or you just wanna talk feel free to send me something🩵

Taglist: @satosugu4l @do-you-remember-summer-127 @xines16 @minh0scat @troublemaker02 @tr-mha-fan @lunearta @velvetmoonlght @minghaosimp @ldysmfrst @felixleftchickennugget @0omillo0 @jellymochii @stilltrynafuckingtumble @catlove83 @delulkpopstan143

[slxtarchive]

𝐒𝐋𝐔𝐑𝐏𝐄𝐄 𝐑𝐔𝐍 ꩜ 𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐄 𝐄𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇

𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬. you and your best friend billie had your monthly sleepover consisting of a movie night and slurpees… she might’ve slurped sum else too.

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭. no but inspired by a request i got for madz

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭. SMUT ! oral f!receiving, fingering, scissoring, talks of finding yourself kinda, confusing and conflicting feels, basically relatable content [ especially for me ] a little deep on this one.

𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬. the synopsis i cannot — anyway, this was inspired by a madz request i got! tried making a divider, i got the inspiration from pinterest

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭. 3.6k.

“so i’m thinking like three different chips, maybe two candies and… slurpees?” billie smiled excitedly. “we have to go all out since we didn’t have a sleepover last month!! c’mon, ill pay.” she moved forward super close to you practically touching your nose.

you rolled your eyes moving forward as your foreheads touched narrowing your eyes. “okay.” you said, quietly laughing with a grin on your face.

you and billie have always been super close. you spent practically every day together and if it weren’t for your parents you’d have a sleepover every week.

most people at school thought you two were a bit too close but you both never gave your friendship a second thought, well, you didn’t give your friendship a second thought. billie though, growing up she found herself thinking about you as more than just a friend but she pushed that thought to the back of her mind with fear of messing with your friendship — which she would never put in jeopardy.

you grabbed your snacks and slushees deciding which ones to get. billie insisted you picked them all out before you headed back to her house.

this time you both were in the living room because her parents were out of town. so, you both set it up a little more dramatically than you usually would in her room. you brought the couch cushions together to make a makeshift bed with a bunch of fluffy blankets. then, billie brought out a bowl and platter for your chips and a spot to set down your slushees.

after a few minutes of setting everything up, you finally sat down and began to decide on a movie. “what are we feeling?” she questioned, scrolling through netflix.

you looked at the rows of movies showing up on the screen before something caught your eye. “fear street…” you read. “it’s horror, and — oo it’s a trilogy! fear street 1994, 1978, and 1666.” you looked toward her excitedly.

she pressed her lips together trying to stifle a laugh. “so i’m guessing your choice is that one?" she hovered over the movie.

you nodded, "yeah we can watch all three. movie marathon!" you sang out.

she obliged putting on the first movie of the trilogy. throughout the movie it was good, you both commented on how crazy the storyline was and how cute the main characters were until one particular scene came about.

you sat on the couch legs crisscrossed practically mesmerized by the scene before you. you became overly aware of billie’s shoulder next to yours, the room heating up around you.

the scene was short but it still clouded your mind for the rest of the movie — your thoughts running a mile a minute.

by the time the second movie was wrapping up, you felt the energy in the room shift. the air felt charged somehow — heavy — with something unspoken.

the third movie started, bringing its scene to the start of the storyline all the way back in 1666. two girls who both had a secret attraction to each other but couldn’t act on it because of the views of their village.

you felt for the girls, in a way that you didn’t know you could feel. the scenes continued and as more scenes passed — the more the story made sense. every scene was important but there was one particular scene that stuck with you even more.

your fingers toyed with the edge of the blanket that covered your and billie’s legs as the scene unfolded. the two girls had gone out into the empty woods together after a fight had broken out. you didn’t pay much attention to the dialogue of the interaction — you paid more to the energy shift between them.

you eyes were fixed on the screen as the two girls, deena and sam, shared an emotional and deeply tender moment.

your breathing hitched and your chest tightened, a strange warmth spreading through you that you couldn’t explain. you had seen many romantic scenes before — but this one felt… different. it felt so real. it felt like something you couldn’t tear your eyes away from.

what pulled your eyes away from the screen was when you moved your gaze over to billie, whose face was lit by the glow of the tv screen. her expression was unreadable, her lips slightly parted, her focus locked on the screen. you quickly turned your head back moving your eyes away from her, your cheeks flushed.

by the time the movie ended, you couldn’t sit still. your mind was racing and your body was tense. the silence between you both was deafening, interrupted by the ending credits song starting.

billie finally broke the quiet. “that was so good! holy shit.” she smiled, before looking at you.

you cleared your throat a bit trying to shake the thoughts from your brain. “yeah.” you whispered, your voice not sounding too convincing.

billie noticed the shift in your energy quicker than anything. she moved her posture to face you before speaking up. “you okay? you’ve been quiet since—” she stopped herself, before softening her gaze. “since that scene.”

you stiffened, your fingers twisting the blanket with anxiousness. “i’m fine.”

she tilted her head, unconvinced. “yn.” she knew you better than anyone in the world including your parents and yourself.

you sighed, knowing exactly what she was thinking. your chest rose and fell unevenly. “it’s stupid.” you mumbled, bringing your knees up to your chest.

“it’s not stupid if it’s bothering you yn.” billie’s eyebrows furrowed.

you hesitated, your throat feeling dry. “it’s just… that scene. it made me feel… weird? i… don’t know why. it’s like… it hit me in a way i wasn’t expecting, and now i can’t stop thinking about it.”

billie stayed quiet in response to your confession. her eyes scanned your face searching for some kind of telling.

you noticed the longing stare she gave you. “it’s not just the scene…” you whispered, your heart twisting and churning. “it’s you..” you confessed in realization. “sitting here with you i—” you stopped yourself, not wanting to say things you might not know the truth of.

you shook your head trying to take a deep breath to calm yourself down. you swallowed harshly, “i don’t know what’s happening to me, bils.” you admitted.

billie’s heart pounded as the air surrounding her became thick. she found the courage to reach her hand out toward you, brushing your hand. “you’re not alone.” she said softly.

you looked up, your eyes searching hers. “what do you mean?”

billie took in a shaky deep breath. “i… i felt it too — during that scene.” she bit her lip nervously. “and i have felt it before, with you.” she looked you into your eyes.

your heart practically stopped right then and there. you wanted to speak but you felt like all the words you thought of and wanted to say, that they couldn’t make their way out of your mouth.

billie spoke up, noticing the trouble you had been having. “i would’ve said something but i’ve just been too scared to say anything because i don’t know if you’d… if you’d feel the same.”

your breathing hitched, your pulse roared in your ears. “you’ve felt… felt it?”

billie nodded avoiding eye contact with you, “yeah. and it’s confusing and scary, and it feels like my chest is about to explode every time i try n think about it. but…” she stuttered her hand running through her hair, “but it also feels good. like it just — just makes sense.” she finally looked up to look into your eyes.

the space between you both felt smaller now, the air filling with tension. your gaze flicked to billie’s lips, then back to her eyes. “i don’t know what to do with this feeling…” you whispered with a conflicting feeling.

her hand moved to cup your cheek, her thumb softly brushing against it — the touch sending electricity through your veins. “we don’t have to know. not right now, okay? we can just… feel.”

you leaned into her touch instinctively, your heart pounding so loudly you were sure she could hear it. slowly, billie found her forehead pressing against yours, your breaths mingling in the quiet.

the moment hung there, suspended, until you tilted your head, your lips brushing against hers. the kiss was soft, tentative, their movements slow as you both felt your way through this unfamiliar territory.

billie’s hand slid to the back of your neck, her fingers tangling their way through your hair. your hand gripped the blanket over them before hesitantly moving to rest on her waist, pulling her closer.

you felt the kiss deepen, not rushed but full of quiet intensity, a mixture of nervousness and something unspoken that somehow had always been there, waiting to rise up to the surface.

when you both pulled away, you stayed close to each other — your noses brushing together and breaths shaky.

“is this okay?” billie whispered up against your lips.

you nodded, your fingers brushing against her side. “yeah, it’s… it’s more than okay.” you licked your bottom lip moving closer.

she nodded, building up the courage to kiss you once more but stood there admiring the way you looked angelic in the tv glow.

your eyes moved all over her face before you made the move to kiss her. your lips molded with each other softly and passionately with more need this time.

you liked it. the feeling of her lips on yours. your skin touching hers. it felt so good — so right. you could taste the faint flavor of cherry from the slurpee on her tongue as the kiss became more hungry. she slipped her tongue into your mouth again before she pushed you onto your back. she then straddled you still never letting your lips disconnect.

you felt hot and needy in between your legs and felt the same thing between hers. the small gasps that came from your mouth showed billie that you enjoyed what was happening but she still wanted to your thoughts on what she wanted to do next.

her hands moved from your face all the way down to your chest then your lower stomach. “we’re just feeling right?” she gulped, out of breath.

you didn’t register what she meant but responded with a slow nod. “mmm — yeah? yeah… we are.”

she took another deep slow breath before moving down your lap and moving her hands to the waistband of your shorts. “and if you like… what i’m doing — i could keep going. if you don’t, i could stop.” you still didn’t get what was going on until she trailed her fingers inside a bit, beneath your underwear as well.

you took a deep breath leaning back on your elbows trying to calm down. your mind immediately went to the movie scene, the way you felt — the way it made your body feel. you felt needy for that in the moment. the way you felt all uncomfortable but a good uncomfortable, as if there was an itch you wanted to scratch. that’s exactly how you felt right now with billie making a move toward that kind of thing.

just to be sure you wanted to ask. “stop… stop what exactly?” you questioned, still looking down at her.

she smiled softly before tugging down your shorts a bit. “just… stop me from tasting you.” she still pulled down your shorts slowly looking up at you waiting for your response.

the only response you had, had to do with your body. the fact that you nodded while wanting to clench your thighs and soothe that feeling down there showed you that this is what you wanted. your only worry would be that this would change everything, something you didn’t want to happen but at this point — you couldn’t stop yourself.

she pulled your shorts down before taking them fully off leaving you in your underwear. she noticed the damp spot in between your legs. “you’re sure?” she asked, her tongue touching her lower lip.

your chest moved up and down as you tried to build the courage. you let out a breath, “yeah, i’m… i’m sure.”

she nodded before moving to take off your underwear. she tugged them down the same she did with the shorts and tossed them to the side giving you a full view of your pussy. you felt exposed and quite nervous so you closed your thighs. she giggled shortly, bringing her hands up to keep them from closing. “it’s okay..” she whispered through the low light.

she moved your legs away from each other so she could see you again and moved her head down. your heart felt like it was about to beat out of your chest when you felt her give one lick. your body reacted instantly as your back arched slightly and your breathing stopped abruptly. she looked up at you before taking another lick — the eye contact doing something insane to you.

she slowly got more comfortable with it starting to suck softly on your clit. your hand found its way to her hair tugging on it and trying to pull her closer. “fuck—” you moaned as her tongue dipped into your entrance then brought your slick up to your clit.

she sucked and moved her tongue around picking up her pace before speaking up. “tell me if… if it feels good. tell me what feels good. wanna make you feel good.” she blabbered taking your clit again into your mouth and sucking on it harshly.

“that — that feels really fucking good. i’m… oh fuck bils.” you moved the hair out of her face again to see her actions on your clit. “yeah, jus’ like that…” you moaned throwing your head back.

she nodded against your pussy harshly pushing her tongue on you. the mix of her saliva and your arousal adding to the squelching wet sounds.

she brought her fingers up to slowly inch inside you providing more feeling and pleasure. she hummed against your clit as her fingers thrust inside of you. you couldn’t help but move your hips up to meet her tongue, practically trying to ride her. your eyes clenched shut, “fuck billie… i feel so — oh fuck..” you couldn’t get your words out.

billie felt you getting closer and closer wanting to bring you to that state of ecstasy. she licked, sucked, and slurped everything up before letting it fall onto your clit and doing it all over again until you came undone on her tongue.

you tried to catch your breath as billie brought her face away from you and up to face you, her hand wiping your slick from her chin. she licked her lips, “so… did you— did you like that?” she asked, shy and nervous.

your eyes were filled with lust as you responded. “mhm — i… i loved it.” you nodded before getting on your knees in front of her and taking her hands in yours. “let me make you feel good too?” you looked at her lips before leaning forward and capturing them in a kiss.

she whimpered against your lips as she felt your hands touch her waist. billie couldn’t wait for you to take off her clothes so she did it for you, removing both her shorts and underwear leaving you both bottomless. “i… can we try something?”

you were practically hypnotized by her so you nodded eager to hear what she had to say.

she sat back against the couch armrest with her legs wide open. she touched herself a little bringing the arousal from her entrance to her clit. “want you to… rub yourself on me, please.” you gulped, trying to figure out how exactly she wanted you to do it. “you just—” she started sitting up and pulling you closer. “put this leg over mine and rub yourself onto me.” she tapped your right leg. “do you want me to show you first?”

you nodded pressing your lips together not wanting to do anything wrong. she obliged your request pushing you back onto you laying flat on the couch. your head wasn’t elevated or anything so it was hard to see what she was doing but you felt her lift your right leg up and push it back against your chest, then she made her way on top of you. before you knew it, she placed her own pussy on yours.

she fixed herself so she was right on top of you then started moving slowly. your mouth fell open at this new sensation. you looked up to find billie already staring at you. “how does it feel?”

you poked your tongue. “it feels really good.” your head moved back as your eyes fluttered shut. you felt so hot and sweaty, you wondered if it’d be okay to take off your shirt. you felt your adrenaline take over so you decided to do it anyway. you took it off and tossed it off the couch before unclasping your bra and doing the same with it as well leaving you topless.

billie’s moved her hips faster and harsher upon seeing you feel more comfortable with her. she decided to avoid making you feel alone she took off her own shirt and bra leaving her in her bare skin. your hands rested on her hips trying to push her to move faster. “please, faster bils. feels so good..” you whined softly.

billie nodded. “c’mon, you try.” she said lying down on her back. you felt that feeling of edge simmer so you hurriedly tried to move your legs mirroring what billie was doing. you looked at her for reassurance as you moved your legs over hers. “yeah, that’s good.” she nodded.

you brought yourself down pushing over her trying to find that specific spot that made your legs feel like jelly. you looked at billie trying to read her expression as a way to help you that you found her sweet spot too. she bit her lip moving her hair away from her face. she hummed with pleasure as you moved your pussy over a particular spot.

you smiled lightly, trying to repeat that action over that same spot. “yeah yn, just like that, please.” she moaned resting her hands on your hips. “such a pretty girl.” she purred, her face contorting as you grinded over her own pussy. the wetness in between making the smallest noises. that feeling you felt earlier was coming back almost becoming too much.

your hand rested over her leg that was off to the side and resting against the side of her chest. you moved with passionate eyes on that amazing feeling that was coursing up through you. “oh shit bils… i’m — i’m gonna cum.” you cried out, the pleasure blinding you.

she moved her head to the side clenching the couch. “me too yn… fuck — keep moving like that, please. jus like that.”

desperate spurts of moans escaped your throat as you kept your hips moving faster and harsher. you were right there you just needed a little push.

you looked down at billie to see her eyes fluttered closed with her lip between her teeth. that look on her face, the fact that it was you that was making her feel this good brought you right where you needed. you felt that feeling spread from your pussy throughout your whole body. “shit— i’m cumming!” you cried out.

billie only responded with a low guttural moan, grabbing onto your thighs as she came undone beneath you as well. her thighs shook as she cried out head thrown back against the couch with a blinding wave of pleasure crashing through her.

after the minute of whimpers and whines had passed, you had collapsed on top of billie, breathless and exhausted.

you didn’t know what to say. you both were a bit quiet for a moment before billie spoke up, breaking the silence. “this changes things, right?” her voice was barely above a whisper.

you nodded slowly, “yeah.” swallowing harshly you continued. “but i don’t think it’s a bad thing.” you admitted, mostly to yourself.

billie nodded, “it’s not.” her quiet voice was so soft. “it just feels different.” her thumb rubbing circles over your skin.

you agreed, your nerves still swarming inside you but billie was able to calm you down. “yeah, it is different.” you moved the blanket so that it covered you both, your naked skin in contact with hers.

billie shifted slightly still feeling unsettled. her movement was slow like she didn’t want to freak you out or startle you. she reached for your hand lacing them together, “are you okay?”

you hesitated, your eyes dropping to your intertwined hands. “i think so… it’s just a lot. i didn’t expect this y’know? i mean, i’ve always felt close to you but this — it’s new and kinda scary.”

billie gave your hand a gentle squeeze. “it’s scary for me too.” she admitted. “but that’s okay because we don’t have to have all the answers right now.”

you looked up and made eye contact with her finally seeing her face in full. “you make it sound so easy.” you whispered, feeling her so close.

she chuckled cuddling closer to you. “its not simple but if we have each other and we promise to always be there and be honest with each other, we’ll be okay.” her hand rested on your cheek.

you nodded leaning into her soft touch. “one step at a time.” you stated.

billie smiled. “exactly, so first step, how about we finish these snacks and instead make this a date? another movie?”

you looked in between her eyes before nodding. “i’d definitely like that.” you spoke softly. in response, she leaned down and pecked your lips softly.

© 𝐬𝐥𝐱𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐯𝐞

[takuma-talkz]

ok so how about a 388 x reader, where reader goes into the games with their ex (they force the reader to) and throughout the entire time there the ex is very toxic and abusing so it reaches a point where reader approaches 456's group to ask to stay w them and 388 takes it upon himself to protect reader

Treat You Better (Better than he can)

A requested Dae-ho x reader Fic

a/n: Aazix!! is here! This is my first decently written fic. I hope the anon who requested got everything they asked for in the fic. Since the anon didn’t make it clear on what gender they wanted, the reader, I decided to make the reader, gender neutral, with very little implications to gender.

additionally the title is a reference to a song, take a guess and see!

Warnings: Swearing, physical abuse, degrading terminology (bitch, whore, etc.)

dividers credits: @dollywons <3

You woke up to the blinding lights and blaring music. 

“Yo, [____]” Your boyfriend called out for you from under your bed. You called back in a sleepy mumble.

“I’m here.” 

He hopped out from the bed and gestured for you to do the same. Climbing down and standing next to him. You attempted to grab his hand but being the fucking prick he is, he yanks his hand away.

“Listen here, we are here to make money. Not to drain me of my mental, when you’re scared shitless for no reason.” His usual venom was present in his voice. 

“I-I’m sorry…it’s just there are so many strangers her-“ He cuts you off.

“Shut the fuck up. All you ever do is ruin my fucking life and bitch away at everything.” You look down and take notice of his number, 445.

You looked at yours. 389.

That’s when the guards come in. 

They explained that you’ll be playing games in exchange for a whopping 45.6 billion won in six days. 

“See? Whining my ear off for no reason.” Your boyfriend can’t help but belittle you.

After signing the consent form, you were taken to a set of photo booths. You try to again reach for his hand but you gripe at the air. You whipped around and saw him barking like a dog at another woman. 

It saddened you. He forced you into these games and he’s acting like it’s your fault for him being here. 

When you first met him, he had a debt of 45 million won. He promised you the world and you fell for his cheap romantics. Soon, the abuse started happening. First, he would come home drunk and yell at you. Then, he would slap you across your face for any little reason and lastly, he would beat you for absolutely no reason at all. 

And supposedly his growing gambling debt is your fault too. 

As time passes you reach a field where a giant doll stands in front of a tree. The doll looked like the schoolgirl doll you had as a child. It was kind of cute. 

“You will be playing red light, green light. Players must go when the doll says ‘green light’ and stop when the doll says ‘red light’. If players are caught moving, you will be eliminated.”

A player runs forward and shouts about how there are guns in the walls and how elimination means death. Something about his mannerism told you, he was telling the truth. 

But of course, most thought he was crazy. 

‘Drunk’, ‘Absolute lunatic’, and ‘Paranoid asshole’ you heard some of the many things the crowd called him. 

456 is his number.

The announcer started the game. 

“Green light.” the doll called.

Everyone played along for a while. Until a girl screamed about a bee on her when it was red light. Then…

A gunshot then a thud.

A woman screamed, and then the piercing sound of screams, running, and gunshots rang out. You were frozen with fear. 

“Get behind someone taller than you! And form lines!”

“Green light.”

You were grabbed and covered by a taller player. You saw the number on his back.

388.

“You okay?” He asked, holding your hand tightly. His hands were warm and strong. It made you want to cry. It had been so, so long since a man treated you this nicely. 

“Y-yeah…” you answered back.

“Just stay behind me. I’ll protect you.” His words carried a strong sense of conviction. You immediately believed him. 

He made you want to stand up and be proud of yourself, but the condescending comments your boyfriend made prevented that. You remain shaking through this game of stop and go.

To calm you down, he asked you questions and answered when you asked them back. 

“What’s your name?”

“It’s [____]. Yours?”

“Dae-ho. Kang Dae-ho.”

___________________________________________

Your boyfriend was by your side when the pink guards organized a vote. Player 456 went in the vote. He voted to leave. 

Your boyfriend subtly gripped your neck. “Vote to stay, baby.” That pet name made you want to vomit and jump off a 500-story building. 

The voting continued until it reached your boyfriend’s turn. He walked and voted to stay. The girl he was flirting with voted to stay after him.

You felt a hand entwined with yours. You remember that warmth. That sweet, comforting warmth. 

“Vote on your own accord.” You stayed silent as Dae-ho advised you to make your own choices. 

Then, it was your turn. You, very reluctantly, let go of Dae-ho’s hand and go to make your vote.

You close your eyes and think quietly. You have about 20 million in debt because you funding your boyfriend’s gambling addiction. So, since the current prize money is at 24 million, you can get yourself out of debt and still have 4 million to keep you going and start the company of your dreams. But, your boyfriend will stomp on plans the first chance he gets. 

‘Vote on your own accord.’

You made your decision and voted.

You voted to leave.

You accepted the X patch and walked over to the X side of the room. You looked over and you saw the absolute rage on your boyfriend’s face. 

You were fucked.

___________________________________________

You were roughly shoved into the wall, the scene shielded by the beds. 

“You fucking bitch. You think you could make a difference by voting to leave.” The bastard of a boyfriend pushes you again into the wall.

“I-i want to leave. Your debt isn’t my debt. I got into debt because of yo-“

He delivered a harsh slap to your face.

“Listen here, you rotten whore.” he wrapped a hand around your neck and pressed against it.

“You’re mine, so don’t get all brave just because you think you’re sneaky about holding hands with another man. He’s only acting nice because he wants you for your worthless body.”

He caught you holding Dae-ho’s hand. 

“From now on, you listen to me. You got that?”

You wanted to shake your head no, you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of total control over you. 

He delivered another swift slap to your face. This time, with more force. 

“Do you got that?”

Before you could respond, The announcements signaled lights out in five minutes.

You settled into your bed without another word to your boyfriend. 

You soon woke up with the urge to pee. Climbing down slowly and making your way to the door. You knocked softly.

“Excuse me. I need to use the restroom.”

“I’m sorry but no access is permitted at this time.” The pink guard voiced.

“I’m really sorry but it’s just that it’s an emergency.”

That familiar warmth touches your shoulder. 

“Y’know, we can’t control it. Human nature, am I right?” Your warmth speaks in your defense.

Eventually, the guards let both you and Dae-ho in the hallways to head up to the bathrooms. You use it quickly and try to head back to the dorms, Dae-ho grabs your wrist.

“I wanna talk for a second.” He gently cradles your wrist. 

“If you need to get away from your-uh friend, you can join my team anytime you want.” He offered with a warm smile.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” You look away from him. With the way he is looking at you right now, you’re ready to drop everything for him.

“Who’s thinking for you right now? You or that piece of shit boyfriend of yours?” Dae-ho’s tone was sharper than intended.

“I saw what he did to you. I watched him stare at you like he wanted to tear you apart.” His grip on your hand tightens.

“I could-“ He’s interrupted by the guard.

“That’s enough. Time to get back to the dorms.”

You and Dae-ho walk back to the dorms in an uncomfortable silence. You wished you could run away to Dae-ho’s arms, but being in this place with your boyfriend lingering around…

It would end well in your favor. 

Dae-ho whispered in your ear. “Just think about it, okay?”

He didn’t wait for a response after reaching the dorms. You watched as he approached player 456 and sat down to stand guard while 456 went to rest. You make your way back to your bunk and try to sleep with a fast-beating heart that pulses at the very mention of Dae-ho.

___________________________________________

“You have 10 minutes to form a group of 5 players.”

You and your boyfriend search for a team, he scoffed as he saw most people have formed a team.

He spots a team of three and approaches them. “Yo, need two for a team?” He asked.

“Nah, just one. One of our guys went looking for a guy but looks like we have our fifth man right here.” Your boyfriend smiles and turns to you. 

“Sorry, babe. Looks like you need to get lost.”

“Huh? You’re leaving me? W-why?” You grew angry. This fucker has the audacity to drag you to the middle of nowhere and then leave you like you’re the burden.

You don’t even want to hear his reasoning. Your boyfriend, no, your EX boyfriend means nothing to you anymore.

You walk from group to group, asking if they need one more person. Their responses were ‘Sorry, we already have five.’ or ‘You’re not capable enough.’

You’re running out of time. You’ll get eliminated if you don’t find a team. 

Every rejection causes tears in your eyes. You accidentally bump into someone, looking up and your eyes lock with Dae-ho’s. 

“Dae-ho…” You nearly broke down in tears.

“Hey, hey now. It’s okay. Relax.” He hugs you tightly. He gives the warmth and comfort that you thought you would never have again. 

“Is that offer still up?” You bury your face into his warm, strong chest.

“Of course, it still is.” He rubbed the top of your head, consoling you. 

Dae-ho takes you back to his group and introduces you to the others.

456, 001, and 390. All men that are quite older than you are. Dae-ho had to be your age or older. You felt safe. Dae-ho’s hand at the small of your back is a constant reminder of his vow to protect you.

He vowed to protect you since the moment he saw your ex put his hands on you after the vote. Dae-ho swore to treat you better, better than he can.

After note: WOOHOO I HOPE YOU LIKED IT!! Please feel free to request anything ranging from fluff, smut, or angst!! I’m thinking about a part two but I’m not too sure. What are you guys think?

dae ho taglist: @come-as-you-are-111

[captaincrabpot]

Once I believed I was above the wasps, that we existed as friends. Oh, the hubris!

I went to the hay shed one fateful afternoon in the early autumn with the expectation to move 20 bales into the barn to get through the next week or so. All throughout the summer, I had made peace with the wasps that lived in the fence posts and the overhangs of the sheds and even the corners of the paddocks. All summer I refused to use wasp spray and merely told the clients and boarders not to prod or swat my pointy friends.

It all changed when I pulled the seventh bale from the compact stack.

Hefting the heavy bale and sweating already, I felt a tickle and looked down to see a wasp on my belt. ‘Oh! A friend!’ I thought, til I noticed his posture. Stinging my belt! ‘Oh, what do I do?!’ I pondered, knowing he would sting again if not dealt with but I had not the heart to hurt the fellow.

Then I felt it. A shooting, stabbing pain through both hands and thrice in my back!

I yelped, dropping the bale where I was and sprinted out of the open shed. Sailing past my brother who waited to load the bales onto the tractor, he first watched me run with great confusion which quickly turned to horror as he watched the wretched beasts stream through the open tarp.

They chased me. For. THREE. LAPS. AROUND THE PROPERTY. It is not small! And verily they chased me! I ended up hiding in a room with a small window from whence I witnessed them circle the inside of the barn isles.

Later, I was notified (because the wasps would not let me near the back of the property) that they had build their nest INSIDE THE GOD DAMNED BALE. The WORST place to construct a home! How dare they threaten me when BUILT A HOUSE in, not only a notably flaky and unstable material, but one that MOVES AROUND. Hello?!

Anyways, they talked shit about me to all the other wasps, and from that moment on they were out for my blood. Just mine. The rest of the autumn was hell. My arms and hands were swollen. I couldn’t go near the hay shed and had to hire my brother to do my job for me. I flinched at the sound of any small wings. I couldn’t go near fences and property upkeep was almost impossible.

I hope this spring fares better. I am not aptly provisioned for more war. I am weak and scared. If they find me worthy of battle again… I may quit. 😔 though I did meet a few bald-faced hornets that endeared me, they are so adorable, but if they turn on me too I’m swearing off all of them. Enemies til death.

This is what bug haters look like

[shiningjustforreid]

stains

glimpses through fem!reader and Spencer’s relationship, through four instances of spills.

word count: 3.5k ish

a/n: i love the idea that for some of us, our personalities are made up all the things we like about the people we know and see. the idea that we’re all little bits and pieces of the things we love, and our experiences. this sort of explores that. (also this was mildly self indulgent because much like reader i’m a klutz!) <3

warnings/tags: 18+ for implied intimacy and canon typical violence for cm, pet names up the wazoo, reader is lowkey clumsy, Derek Morgan being himself, reader gets injured but she’s fine, who’s Maeve?, anxious love confession, Spencer adores reader so so much, S1 and S6 (ish) Spencer, Spencer in and post prison, love letters, marriage, kids, and briefly mentioned pregnancy, girl dad!Spencer Reid my beloved

- ✩ -

coffee - the first stain

To be honest, at first, he’s appalled.

The mug you set down on his desk isn’t his, so God knows whose mouth was on it last. You - somewhat carelessly - plopped it down on the file he’s working on, grinning that thousand watt smile he’s secretly become fond of. You’re wearing a sweater he noticed that brings out your eyes - a berry colored wool garment that he wishes you’d wear more.

“Hey! Morgan said you were exhausted. Thought I’d make you coffee.”

You pick it up, and set it down again, for emphasis, and a few drops make their way down the side and onto his case file, surely creating a cinnamon toned half circle that Hotch will not love. You don’t notice, watching his face.

“I made it with a bunch of sugar. Just how you like it, right?”

Suddenly, he realizes he’s been staring up at you, and then his mouth is moving faster than his brain.

“Yeah, I uh, I am pretty tired, now that you say it. Didn’t sleep well, long night, you know?”

You nod, sipping your own coffee, fingers wrapped around the ceramic.

“I get that. Goes with the job, right?”

“Oh, absolutely, yeah, I- wait, Morgan said that? Did he— what else did he tell you?”

You grin, coffee mug to lips again.

Stop staring, Reid.

“Nothing, really. Just said you needed a boost. Thought I’d provide.”

Titling your head a tad, you look down, a mild panic crossing your face when you see you’ve stained his file.

“Oh my God - Reid, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“

He’s quick to shake his head, hands coming up to reassure, his eyes wide.

“No no no, it’s okay, truly, I-I made a mistake on that one anyways. I’ll need to have a new copy printed, honest.”

Frowning, you look him over, searching for a tell, something to let you know whether he’s lying or not.

“Are you sure? I can do it, I’m not that behind on mine, I could—“

Before he thinks - you’d assume, with all his brains, he would - his hand grabs your arm, that gorgeous sweater under his finger tips, his eyes locked with yours. He says your name, once, his tone more serious than he’d like.

“It’s okay. Thanks for the coffee.”

You blink, and then a slow grin takes over your face.

“You’re welcome. Let me know if you need more.”

For a moment, neither of you move, the heat of his hand burning through the wool on your arm, until he lets go like you’re the one scorching his skin, like he’s just realized that he’s touching you. You laugh a little, awkwardly, and he grins with the same level of unpracticed nerves, and you head back to your desk.

He picks up the mug, and sips slowly, closing his eyes for a moment - it does have a mountain of sweetness, the saccharine liquid coating his mouth but soothing his senses. When he sets it down again, it’s on a part of his workspace not occupied by case work. Just as predicted, the file that once housed the beverage now bears a semi circle of dried java. His pointer finger traces the stain, clockwise and then counter, for a moment, before he glances up in horror to see Morgan, of all people, signature smirk in place.

“‘Thanks for the coffee’. I don’t what’s sweeter, that coffee you just got or-“

“Shut up.”

He mumbles, face flushed, small smile on his face despite the teasing. He traces the coffee stain one last time before he hastily tucks the soiled paper away in a drawer.

blood - the second stain

“What do you mean you aren’t getting a response from her on comms?”

He’s so scared, he can’t even stop to think just how breathless and afraid he sounds, as he turns to Hotch, who fixes him with a look that clearly says, Calm down, Reid.

“It could just be non-functional, or got knocked off, or caught.”

Hotch says calmly, almost maddeningly so. Spencer swallows back the protests, the arguments that swell up in his throat like bile.

They’d created, and given the profile, and once Penelope had narrowed down the couple possible properties their potential unsub owned, you, Morgan, and Prentiss had headed into an abandoned storage facility, silent and careful.

Perhaps not careful enough.

The voice in his head reminds him, almost sadly, and he grits his teeth inside tightly drawn and chapped lips. Shaky hands smooth over his slacks, again and again, as his eyes stay fixed on Hotch.

“Ask-ask Morgan again. If she’ll respond.”

He’s given a frown, dark brows pulling together in a very typical Hotch-like manner.

“Is there a specific reason you’re asking about her, Reid?”

Is there? God, he doesn’t know. You bring him coffee nearly every morning, but perhaps that’s just kindness. Then there’s the chocolate sprinkled donuts that start his work day from time to time - maybe you just enjoy pastry treats, and think of him, when you buy one. Oh, and heaven forbid he forget the way you’ll come by his desk, and ask for clarification on a piece of paperwork or a procedure - that you probably could’ve asked Hotch or Prentiss about. You listen, active listening too, eye contact, body still - when his explanations turn into rambles about statistics about this type of criminal, your eyes watching his face, your own voice quiet.

Is he deluding himself? Seeing phantom romance where there’s maybe merely nothing but platonic affection? Blinking, once, he shakes his head in response to his Unit Chief’s question.

“No Hotch. I’m just worried, she-well, she hasn’t responded, and Morgan has, and Prentiss has, and I—“

Speak of the devil, Morgan’s voice comes through, demanding and tense.

“I need a medic. Prentiss and I secured the unsub, but, not before—“

Oh God. Not before that bastard got to you with a baseball bat, to the back of the head, you unaware before your face met the concrete below. Spencer’s not even asking for permission, snatching the keys to an SUV off the desk nearby and flooring the gas pedal.

You can’t die. Not before I—

Driving there is like hell - his lungs burn like there’s smoke and ash polluting them, and fear feels like too tame a word to describe the overwhelming panic that seizes his heart the more he drives.

I’m a fool, he thinks wildly, as his knuckles grip the steering wheel like a vice. A damn fool if I don’t tell her-

He’s barely got the thing in park before he’s scrambling out the driver’s side door, Converse immediately coated from the dusty ground outside the facility.

When he finds Morgan, and you, head lolled to the side, eyes closed, face pale as his must be, he falls to his knees with little regard for his own pain or discomfort. Morgan watches, careful, his voice gentle when he speaks, trying to calm his terrified friend.

“She’s still out, Reid. Just a nasty whack to the back of her head, okay? Easy.”

Trembling thumbs trace and hold your face, like it’s made of paper, as he swallows hard to keep the ache behind his eyes from becoming tear tracks down his face. He spots the gash, trickling crimson down your ashy skin, onto his shaking hand, but doesn’t move from holding your face. A deep contusion, furious and violet-toned, on the back of your head, makes the air leave his chest like he’s been choked.

Beautiful girl, I couldn’t stop this.

He could sob, and he nearly does, until you make some sort of confused noise and force open your eyes. Light rushes through his heart, rekindled warmth as he meets your eyes, and yet, he finds himself almost frozen.

“Spencer? What, I thought-“

“Listen to me.”

He forces himself to speak - he has too. What if he doesn’t get the chance, and all he ever gets to associate you with is caffeine, sprinkles, and a listening ear? No, that won’t do. Not in the slightest.

You meet his eyes, hazy, but listening. Morgan’s brows furrow, as he protests,

“God, man, she just woke up, let her-“

Ignored, as Spencer often finds himself doing when there’s more pressing matters than banter, than propriety.

“You need to know. That I-care about you.”

Blinking, you swallow, and suddenly, the throbbing pain in the back of your skull is slightly dimmed.

“That I can’t let another sunrise or sunset go by where you don’t know that I’d give you the stars if you’d let me. Where I can’t touch you, where I can’t make sure you understand that I’ll protect the light you have inside you until I’m burnt from it. You absolute angel, I-“

He shudders, almost afraid of his own earnest, and says your name like it’s a prayer.

“I love you. Even if you don’t return it, my heart is yours.”

Morgan’s grin is wide, and he shakes his head, almost in amazement. Your own face is flushed, as you hear sirens and medics, your voice crackly and rough from pain, but still, that smile he’s grown to associate with his heart fluttering graces your face.

“My heart is yours, Spencer. Glad you’re finally realizing how absolutely in love I am with you, you goose, even if it took all this.”

He laughs a little, almost deliriously, and smooths his trembling hand over your face.

“Guess the doughnuts weren’t enough, huh?”

You manage, and he shakes his head, quick to push back.

“They were. You’re always enough for me, no matter what you do.”

Could he sound any more smitten?

Procedure says he can’t go in the ambulance with you - there’s no need, you’re just getting stitches and some ice and he can visit you at the hospital, okay? But as he heads back to the - oh dear, still running, he really was in a hurry, wasn’t he? - car, Morgan glances sideways at him, signature smirk in place.

“Pretty boy, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Spencer stares down at his hands in his lap. They’re stained, and a grimace floods his face when he realizes it’s not dirt, but your blood, coating his fingertips. A soft sigh escapes his lips, and he bites back a nastier retort than his friend deserves.

“I guess I did. I can’t believe it took-“

Morgan sighs, stopping Spencer’s inevitable incoming guilt filled rambles.

“Hush. You told her. That’s what matters.”

Glancing down at Spencer’s fidgeting hands in his lap, he presses on the gas.

“Let’s get there, so you can get that off you. I’m shocked you got all dirty, with your germ thing.”

Spencer shrugs, looking out the window.

“For her? I’d-I think I’d do anything. No matter what it stained.”

Soap finds his hands at the hospital, but he finds you soon after, unable to stop the gentle press of his lips to your forehead, or the soft murmurs that follow as he tries to remind himself that much more of your blood didn’t spill.

ink - the third stain

Emily has to physically hold you back in the court room, when they take him out, his eyes fixed on you, and the team, almost hopeless.

“Then your client is a flight risk.”

You’re quite literally fighting her, suddenly terrified in a whole new way for your boyfriend, tears staining your face.

“Bail is denied.”

She’s got both arms wrapped around you, her soft, ‘I know’s, and ‘I’m sorry’s barely heard over your own pleas for her to let you go.

“Defendant will be remanded to federal custody pending trial.”

You hear someone sobbing - angry, fear-filled wailing - and until Emily has you turned around, your face in her shoulder, comes the realization that it’s you.

“He’s-Emily, what are we going to do, he’s not going to be okay, I-I can’t—“

The days that follow are dark. Going to the BAU without Spencer, let alone waking up without him beside you, is enough to send you into a spiral. You try to remind yourself that he’s worse off, that whatever hell he’s experiencing is ten times worse than your quiet fear and loneliness. So, to try to combat the weight that squashes your heart, you write him letters. Daily letters.

Spencer -

We have a case in Florida. Emily says it’ll be quick, but the Florida ones never are. We’d solve it ten times faster with you, you know? Geographical profiles are much harder alone, that’s for sure. The plane ride is quieter without you, and no one’s saying anything - you’d be saying something if you were here. Maybe that’s why we’re quiet. ♡

Every day. You don’t relent. If you can’t mail them in whatever town you get stuck in for work, you mail them in one big envelope when you get back home.

Spencer -

That case was rough. I cried twice - once when I spent over two hours staring at the map at the precinct and couldn’t find anything new, and once when Rossi accidentally snapped at me. He said he was sorry, that he’s ‘on edge’ right now - but aren’t we all? Emily’s working really hard to try to get you home. I wish I could come see you. I hope you’re safe. I love you. ♡

When you learn that he didn’t put you on the list of people who can visit him in that concrete hell, you almost lose what’s left your nerve, breaking down in Emily’s office, shaking. You don’t know whether you’re furious, in despair, or numb to it all.

“Emily, why? Why doesn’t he want me to come see him? If it was me, I’d want to see him every day, I wouldn’t want him to leave!”

She sighs, her face tight. Twisting your hands in your lap, you search her face for answers. Nausea claws at your throat.

“Honestly, my guess is it’s just that. He knows that if you come, he won’t want you to leave. It’ll hurt too much.”

“But Tara, and you, and his mother, and-

Spencer -

I think I understand. Sort of. I feel like there’s this pressure in my chest, and I can’t ever fully breathe. Not since you’ve been away. The weight on my heart never goes away. Missing you more every hour. ♡

Despite the slew of handwritten letters that reach him, you only get one back, after you and the team search his apartment - you keep it in your purse pocket, folded safe, and read it whenever your throat feels tight and your eyes burn. His untidy scrawl is enough to make you feel like a part of him is actually inside this letter - like he’s reading it himself to you, interwoven in the fibers of the paper.

Angel -

I wanted you to know I’m in solitary now - I made sure of it. I know you want me safe, almost more than I do. I love you beyond what I can say, my beautiful girl.

Yours, Spencer.

One night, you’re curled up in Spencer’s apartment, writing him a letter, as is your nightly routine. The ink stains the side of your hand now - an ever-present reminder of the fact that your heart constantly feels ripped out of your body. After addressing the letter to him, your phone buzzes - Emily.

Oh God.

“Hey. We figured out that- oh, you don’t care about all that. He’s coming home.”

She doesn’t need to tell you twice. Paper and ink pen tumble to the floor as you shove your feet in shoes and snatch your jacket off the coat tree. Tension is coiled in your body the entire way there. Ink still stains the side of your hand, a permanent reminder that every time you needed to just tell him something - you had to pick up pen and paper.

Heart in your throat, you push open the door with shaking hand. There he stands, your Spencer. He’s still him, you think, although his face is tight, and sleep clearly hasn’t been something he’s seen much of.

Three months.

You walk in slowly, body trembling. One hand reaches up, runs through the curls that have grown so long.

“Your hair.”

You breathe out, voice barely audible. He nods, his face almost impassive. Tentativel fingers trail down his cheek, make a path to hold his face. He nods, and then, you notice his eyes are misty.

“My angel.” He murmurs, almost in awe, and takes you in his arms with a fervor. Crushed against him, face buried in the cool fabric of his shirt, you bite back a sob, arms threaded around him.

“No. Cry, my darling girl, I’m— I’m tired of doing it alone.”

How could you refuse him? Just hearing his voice, let alone the relief you feel at being touched by him again, is enough to satisfy you for days, you think. For a bit, all that’s heard is uneven breaths, until he speaks, his voice rough and shaky.

“I need to see your face.”

He pulls back, face shining with tears, and you swallow back the lump that just won’t leave your throat.

Calloused hands - less soft than you remember - take yours, and then he frowns.

“Your hand.”

Your right hand is held up, inspected, like the blue on the inner side of it is red instead. You smile, laughing a little, still breathless.

“Ink, baby. Just ink. I was writing you a letter.”

He shakes his head, rubbing at the navy stain with his thumb, as if that will remove it.

“I would’ve kept writing. Never given up. You’d be sick of letters from me.”

“Never, sweet girl. There is no part of me who could ever find himself sick of you.”

After you’ve home, he wastes no time in pressing less than tender kisses to your mouth and jawline and the column of your throat. It’s not until he’s reacquainted himself with your contours and the dip of your hipbones and the soft way you gasp out his name when he does that, that has you next to him, so he can see your face.

He needs to see your face.

Hand in his, still faintly stained from ink, he examines it, and then, softly, hesitantly, he meets your eyes.

“You know ink poisoning is actually rare? Pens we use are designed with non-toxic ink, to decrease any chances of fatal ingestion.”

You never mind his information sharing, but your eyebrows furrow tiredly at his timing.

“Spence, I’m not saying I don’t care, but we just— you just—”

“Please. Let me look at the woman I love and pretend for a few moments that my damn eidetic memory won’t play back the last three months of my life like some wretched tape.”

You let him, as he holds your cobalt-colored hand and your eyes droop, his soft voice telling you that rubbing alcohol will probably get that stain out. It almost feels normal.

Almost.

paint - the final stain

“Spence! Can you get paint water out of carpet with any amount of ease?”

You call your husband, turning back to your mildly sheepish five year old, whose water color adventure on the coffee table has quickly done south.

In walks Spencer, not even noticing the overturned hard plastic cup or purpley-blue spill, eyes going straight to his daughter’s nearly finished picture.

“Beautiful, Penny. Looks incredible.”

He murmurs, bending to be eye level with a beaming Penelope, hand on her arm, before turning to you, mild tension and stress lining your face. His smile is gentle. It’ll wash out.

“Rubbling alcohol, angel.”

You nod, tension easing from your shoulders.

“We’ll go get it - we always clean our messes up, right lovely?”

He asks your daughter, lifting her with practiced care. She giggles, nodding, as they head from the room, letting you take a breath and set up the paints and picture in a new location - the kitchen table, with some newspaper tucked underneath because she’s five, and you of all people know spills happen.

Once she’s set up again - she really is so quiet when she’s engrossed in something - you find yourself curled up with Spencer on the couch, head on his shoulder, watching her paint and sing-song to herself.

“Think she’s lonely?”

Spencer asks, turning to you, his grin wide.

Troublemaker.

“Hmm. I think you just like me pregnant.”

He chuckles, pressing a kiss to your hair.

“Maybe. Maybe I don’t want Penny to be sad, ever.”

Silence, then, for a bit.

“She’s so much like you.”

Spencer muses, his fingers drawing patterns on the side of your sweater. You smile, fondly.

“You say that because I’m clumsy. She was dancing around with that paintbrush, that cup of paint water stood no chance.”

“No, I say that because she shines like you. No matter what tries to dim her.”

That night, when you peek in your daughter’s door to see Spencer reading her A Little Princess, she’s propped up against him, hazel eyes barely open. Affection swells in your chest as his voice carries on, even though she’s clearly almost in dreamland. In you walk, pressing a kiss first to her forehead, then Spencer’s. He smiles gentle up at you - this is his favorite time of the day - and keeps reading.

“Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words, and everything in the world understands it.”

Once you’re back in the living room, you check on the earlier spill from today. All that’s left is a barely visible blue spot, no bigger than a quarter.

“No one will see it but you.”

Steadying, warm arms wrap around your ribs, and soft lips press against the side of your neck, washing away any insecurity about the state of your carpet.

“Besides, stains aren’t bad, sweet girl. They’re little reminders that things happened, good things, or bad things that brought us together. Memories, attached to splotches, attached to wounds, to paper, to skin. How convenient, to carry our most impactful moments like heaven-sent tattoos.”