#so. probably not much of a protective instinct

[mapoeggplant]

skip to loafer chapter 64 analysis // spoiler

the desire to be loved that distances her more and more from people: we are finally starting to understand a little more about yasaka's past.

unlike what I thought, the first spark that gave shape to the kyoto arc didn't come from shima or the girl groups, but from one of the most enigmatic characters in skip to loafer: yasaka.

we always knew very little about her and how her story unfolded. all we had was the understanding that she was a very lonely person with a complicated family situation and someone who sought people's love. and now, together with mitsumi, we are starting to understand more about where she was going with when she said that mitsumi had always been too loved to not care about what others thought.

yasaka clearly has a great desire to be loved, but she doesn't know exactly how to make people create stronger bonds with her. she believes that by being a person who is liked and desired by everyone and making these people feel good, she will get everything she wants — and this illusion may have been the result of a troubled relationship with her father, something that I believe is possible due to the small flashback she provides us.

she wants to be loved, she wants people to look at her with affection and not disapproval. being loved, pampered, praised is the way she understands love, something probably the result of a strict upbringing, where demanding anything more would result in a disappointed look. to escape this, yasaka always acts like a good girl, who gives double meaning answers and only says what others want to hear. the superficiality of the love she receives is enough to soften her ego and feed her well-being and the superficiality of the love she gives is enough to protect her from getting hurt.

but of course all of this is just a time bomb that is very close to exploding. yasaka puts on this persona of someone who does not want to be completely understood, but is unable to separate her frustration from the desire to form more meaningful relationships. she is not only shielding herself from people forming more mature relationships with her, but also doing her best to maintain superficiality so that her mask doesn't fall. another thing that solidifies this for me is the central page of yasaka surrounded by “affection” and gifts, showing exactly the loss of her childhood and the desire she still carries within her.

and what I like most about all of this is how mitsumi, someone completely opposite to her and who barely knows her, tries at all costs to cross this barrier that yasaka places between her and the world. by not allowing her to leave and insisting that she stay with the group, mitsumi is basically confirming to yasaka that it's okay for her to have her flaws and receive disapproving looks: her presence is still required and she is still a person who complements the group as a whole.

I really like how sensei is always willing to put two completely opposite characters so that they can externalize their flaws and fight against their barriers — and the relationship between mitsumi and yasaka is exactly another great example of this. on one side we have mitsumi, who grew up surrounded by love and affection, that’s why she’s so sure of herself and doesn’t need to seek validation on others. on the other, we have yasaka who craves affection so much to the point that she will drown herself in any small glass of it.

another thing i want to point out about this chapter is how being in love can blind you for flaws of the one you admire so much. when ujiie realized that yasaka isn’t the perfect girl he always saw, the first instinct he had was to deny it: of course his goddess wouldn’t have a flaw!! she’s 100% that girl he idolizes and loves so much. but what if this was all something he made up inside his mind?? how will ujiie deal with this heartbreaking of a confession?

another month blessed with another gorgeous chapter. sensei keeps surprising me more and more and can’t wait to see what she’s keeping as a secret from us. thank you so much for reading 💛!!

[jetii]

Few Fates Worse Than Death

Pairing: Wrecker x fem!Reader / Wrecker x Jedi!Reader

Words: 13,780

Tags/Warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, platonic Rex x Reader, kissing, found family stuff so that makes it better right?

Summary: You refused to believe that Wrecker would ever hurt you, but on Bracca, his nightmare finally comes true.

A/N: I've written angst to some degree for every member of the squad except for Wrecker, so I decided to change that. This is the first and probably only time I pull quotes/scenes directly from the show for a one-shot.

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The moment Rex told you about the inhibitor chips, everything fell into place. A cold, icy dread filled you, even as the others insisted that the chips held no power over them. Everything that had happened since Kaller, since Crosshair and Master Billaba's men tried to kill you... you saw it all through a new lens, and the galaxy spun dizzyingly before you.

Like the others, you’d barely paid attention to Omega’s explanation of the chip. The idea that the Kaminoans put some sort of mind-altering device inside every clone was beyond the pale, so absurd that, even if it was true, you never thought to give it much attention. And Tech was so confident that his own research proved the chips had no such abilities. It was easier to trust Tech, who had always been honest and open with you, than to question your own instincts.

But Rex was different.

The others protested, but Rex had seen something, experienced it himself, and he wasn't willing to risk any of his brothers falling prey to it again. You can hear his fear in his voice, feel it radiating from him. His insistence that the chips be removed, one way or another, was unshakeable.

Rex looks over at you, as if expecting you to back him, but you can only look away.

You feel like you can't breathe, can't think. You take a step back and settle down on one of the barstools, your hand gripping the edge so tightly your knuckles are white. Your stomach churns with dread. What do you do? What can you do?

You’d felt it, the moment Jedi across the galaxy were cut down, like a thousand tiny shards of glass stabbing into your mind. The pain had been nearly blinding, and it had taken every bit of concentration you had to keep from screaming. But you hadn’t seen the images. Hadn’t witnessed the slaughter. That had been a mercy. You hadn't been there, hadn't seen them fall, but you still feel the echoes of their deaths in the Force, a dull, aching pain that never goes away.

The thought of what Rex had seen, what the other clones had experienced, sickens you. Being forced to witness the death of someone you care about is awful enough, but to see your own hand, your own blaster, murder the very people you are sworn to protect? You shudder, the horror of it too overwhelming to contemplate.

The others are talking now, and the argument is escalating. You watch them in a daze, barely able to focus. Your thoughts are running away with you, and you have to fight back against the urge to panic.

The clones were made to be obedient, but not this obedient. There was no way the Kaminoans, or the Jedi, or anyone would have created them with the ability to commit mass genocide at the push of a button. It couldn’t be real. It couldn't.

Could it?

"The chips make you a threat to everyone around you," Rex says, and it's like being doused in cold water. You stare up at him, wide-eyed, unable to speak.

Rex's jaw tightens. "You're all ticking time bombs." 

And you realize then that he's right. Even if the inhibitor chips really do hold no influence over the clones, you can't ignore the potential threat they pose. Not after what happened on Kaller, the horror of it still fresh in your mind. You hadn’t been there after, but you’d heard what happened. If Crosshair had really wanted to kill those refugees, if his chip had made him turn on his brothers... how could the others be so sure their own wouldn’t do the same?

They're all still arguing with Rex, telling him he's wrong, but they don't understand. None of them understand.

Rex turns to you, and when he sees your face, he falters. He knows. He has to know what's running through your head, because he takes a step forward, and you hold up your hand.

"Don't—"

"She's not safe with you," Rex says, gesturing to you. His face is stony, his expression hard. "Any of you. How can you protect her from yourselves?"

Wrecker's eyes dart between you and Rex, and when his gaze settles on you, his brows knit together in a worried frown. He looks distraught, and you wish there was something you could say, something you could do to ease his fears, but you can't get your tongue to work. 

"What are you talking about?" he demands. "We'd never hurt her."

"No, you don't understand. It's not—" Rex pauses, and his expression goes from pained to resigned. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head, his shoulders drooping. "What's in your head is more dangerous than you can imagine. I've seen what happens when the chip activates, and I don't want to bury any more of our brothers."

Rex meets each of the Batch's gazes in turn, then his eyes settle on you, and you know that you won't like whatever he has to say next.

"You can't keep her. She's not safe with any of you," he says quietly.

He's not saying anything you haven't thought before, but the way he phrases it sends a sharp stab of hurt through you, and the ache is only exacerbated when he continues.

"I can protect her."

"We can protect her!" Wrecker snaps, taking a step toward Rex. He glares down at the captain, looming over him, and for a moment, you're reminded of just how much larger Wrecker is than him. But Rex doesn't back down, doesn't flinch. Wrecker glances back toward you and Tech, a desperate look in his eye, and his voice goes soft. "Right?"

You open your mouth, but no sound comes out. Tech doesn't speak either. He just stares at Rex, a deep furrow in his brow.

"She'll be safer with us," Hunter argues. His voice is firm, but you can tell from the way he avoids meeting Rex's gaze that he's not nearly as certain as he seems.

"It's not the same," Rex says, and he's clearly struggling to hold onto his patience. "Trust me. It is not something you can control. I couldn't. It's a risk you do not want to take."

You've heard enough. Your throat is tight and your stomach is roiling, but you can't let them continue like this. You swallow back the bile and rise unsteadily to your feet.

"Enough," you say, your voice thin.

The others turn to you, and when Wrecker looks down at you, his expression is heartbreaking. You take a deep, steadying breath, then glance up at him.

"It's okay," you whisper, and force a small, reassuring smile. "Everything will be okay."

Your words don't have the desired effect. Wrecker's brow furrows and he takes a half-step toward you, reaching out his hand. He hesitates, and you close the distance between you, reaching up to take his hand in yours. His hand engulfs yours, and his fingers close around your hand gently, like he's afraid he might hurt you. His grip is warm and reassuring, and for a moment, everything is okay.

But it doesn't last.

“General, please." Rex's voice is soft, imploring, and when you meet his gaze, there's a pleading look in his eyes. "You know I'm right.”

“I’m not a general anymore, Rex," you say, shaking your head. "And I’m not a Jedi."

He opens his mouth to protest, but you cut him off.

"You can't ask this of me," you say, and a shiver runs through you. You wrap your free arm around yourself, wishing desperately for the security and comfort of the cloak you left behind. "Please. Don't."

Rex closes his eyes, and for a moment, the two of you are silent.

"Alright."

The others look relieved. Wrecker's face scrunches up and you think he's going to cry, but he's also smiling, and he wraps his arms around you and picks you up off the floor. He buries his face against your shoulder, and you wrap your arms around his neck, squeezing as tightly as you can.

"We'll figure this out," you say, and pray the others don't notice the way your voice wavers. "It'll be okay."

Wrecker nods, but his voice is thick when he replies. "I don't want you to go."

"I'm not going anywhere," you promise. "I'm not leaving."

But Rex's words are stuck in your head, echoing relentlessly. It's a risk you do not want to take.

Wrecker sets you down, and when he steps back, there's a wet sheen in his eyes. He rubs at his face and laughs nervously. You reach out and take his hand, squeezing it lightly, and offer him a smile. It feels forced and unnatural, and Wrecker must notice, because his expression falls, and he looks almost guilty. He drops his gaze and takes a deep, shuddering breath.

You look past him to the others. Tech is standing by the door, his arms folded tightly across his chest. You can see his hands are clenched, the muscles in his arms tense. His eyes are fixed on the floor, and when he senses your attention, he lifts his gaze and meets your eyes. His brow is furrowed, and you know he wants to say something. You can see the words forming in his mind, but whatever he's thinking, he keeps it to himself. He holds your gaze for a moment longer, then looks away.

Hunter and Echo are standing together, watching you. When you meet Hunter's eye, he gives you a curt nod.

"It'll be alright," he says, and his tone is oddly final. He turns back to Rex. "How do you suggest we get them out?"

"Good question," Rex replies, and his gaze falls on you again. He frowns and tilts his head. "You're sure you don't want to leave?"

"Yes," you reply, but your voice sounds thin, even to you. You clear your throat and repeat the word more firmly, and the others all look at you. "Yes. I'm sure."

Rex hesitates. For a long moment, he just looks at you, as if searching for some sign that you've changed your mind. Then he sighs and nods, his expression grim.

"Alright. I'll be in touch."

He leaves without another word. The moment he disappears up the stairwell, Wrecker tugs you against him, wrapping his arms around you and crushing you against his chest. You squeeze him back, closing your eyes and resting your forehead against his chest. Your heart is pounding so hard that you can feel it in your temples, and your head is throbbing.

"It'll be okay," you repeat, trying to sound reassuring, but there's an uncertainty in your heart that you can't ignore. You're not sure who you're trying to convince, yourself or Wrecker, but you both need to hear the words.

You're not sure what comes next. You've only just got back to the Batch, and now this...

It feels like you're standing on a precipice.

You're not sure which way the wind will blow.

Wrecker's headaches are getting worse, and they come more frequently.

He can barely sleep, and his temper is short. More than once, he's lashed out at the others, and you can tell that it's eating him up inside. He's ashamed and frustrated, and all the more upset because there's nothing he can do. When he does manage to rest, it's fitful. You're not sure how long it's been since he slept properly, and it worries you.

Your own rest is fitful as well.

Ever since Rex's revelation, there's been a tension between you all that was never there before. It's like you're all just waiting for something bad to happen, and every day that passes is just more time spent in anticipation of a nightmare you can't stop.

It's hard to shake, and sometimes, it's all you can do not to cry. You miss the Jedi, the people you thought of as family, and the knowledge that the clones were responsible for their deaths is like a knife through your heart. It was easier when you didn't know the truth, when the deaths felt more distant. Now, every time you think about the Jedi, you can't help wondering how they felt in those final moments. If they knew.

The pain in the Force is still there, but it's different. A constant ache, a reminder of all the lives lost. Sometimes, it's too much, and the grief overwhelms you.

The worst part is knowing that the others are keeping their distance.

It's subtle. Just little things, but you can tell.

You and Omega are still spending most of your downtime together, but when you go to spend time with the others, it doesn't last as long. You've barely seen Echo and Tech, and Hunter is avoiding you like the plague.

And Wrecker.

Wrecker is pulling away, and he's doing it so slowly that you didn't notice at first. At least, not until you woke up one morning to find the bed empty. He hasn't slept beside you since that night with Rex, and he's not spending much time with you outside of missions. And the longer this goes on, the harder it is to break the ice.

When you do manage to talk to him, you try to offer support. You want to reassure him, to comfort him, but the pain in his head makes him recalcitrant. It's like he doesn't want you to know the truth of what's bothering him, and the more you press, the more agitated he gets.

One night, you try to help him with his headache. He's sitting on his bunk, leaning over and clutching his head, and you can't stand by and watch him suffer any longer.

You sit beside him and rest a hand on his back. His skin is slick with sweat, and his muscles are tense, his entire body shaking with pain.

"Can I help?" you ask, keeping your voice soft. "Will it help if I massage your temples?"

Wrecker's answer is a muffled groan, and it's impossible to tell whether it's a yes or a no, so you tentatively begin to rub your fingers in slow circles. You start at his temples and work outward, hoping that some of the tension will release.

You keep rubbing for a while, and it seems to help, a little. When his head finally slumps forward, you pause.

"How's that?" you ask softly.

"S'good," Wrecker grumbles, but the tone of his voice makes it clear that he's anything but pleased. "Thanks."

He doesn't move, doesn't relax. You're not sure what else to do, but you don't want to leave him like this. It feels wrong.

"Is there anything else I can do?" you ask, and you try to keep your voice gentle.

Wrecker shakes his head. "I'm fine."

“You’re not.” Your words are quiet, but they feel like a shout. Wrecker freezes, and for a long moment, neither of you speaks. You sigh and move so that you're kneeling in front of him, and you place your hands on his knees. "Please, talk to me."

He doesn't answer. He doesn't move, his head bowed.

"Why are you shutting me out?" you whisper.

"I'm not," Wrecker mumbles. His hands come up to cover his head, and you have the feeling that the action has less to do with his headache and more to do with his reluctance to meet your gaze. "I'm just..."

His words trail off, and a tense silence falls between you.

"What's wrong?" you ask, and now your voice is wavering. The tears you've been fighting for days are threatening to spill over, but you hold them back. You take a deep, shuddering breath and lean in closer. "Wrecker. Please."

"It's nothing," Wrecker mutters, and his shoulders hunch. He doesn't look at you, and his hands clench into fists.

"It's not nothing."

You hesitate, then gently rest your hand on his cheek. He flinches, and for a moment, your stomach tightens with fear. But then his eyes flick up to yours, and when he sees your face, a pained look crosses his features. His eyes soften, and a single tear rolls down his cheek.

"You're not sleeping. I can tell."

"Neither are you," he grunts, and he tries to pull away.

"I'm worried about you," you whisper. You reach out and touch his hand. "Talk to me."

Wrecker looks away. He wipes the tear from his cheek and clears his throat. "Don't be."

"I can't help it." You reach out and touch his hand, and when he flinches, it's like being stabbed through the heart. You draw back and look away. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to pressure you."

"I know."

"Just... if you need anything. I'm here."

"I know," he whispers. He looks down at his hands, and the tears are back. He wipes them away, but not before they start rolling down his cheeks. He shakes his head. "I'm a fuckin' mess."

"It's okay."

“It’s not okay,” he snaps. He glares up at you, his brow furrowing, and the pain in his expression is so raw that it takes your breath away. His voice is thick with tears. "I don't wanna hurt you."

"You won't," you insist, but your stomach twists and knots at his words. "I trust you."

"You shouldn't."

"Wrecker—"

"What if Rex was right?" Wrecker asks, and his words cut straight through your heart. "What if he's right? What if—what if something happens, and I..."

His voice trails off, and when he looks at you, his eyes are wet. He blinks and swallows, and when he continues, his voice is strained.

"What if the chip took control, and I hurt you? Or Omega? I couldn't..." He chokes and shakes his head, looking away. "I couldn't live with myself."

"Nothing is going to happen," you insist, and when Wrecker doesn't answer, your heart sinks. You climb up onto the bed and wrap your arms around him, pulling him against you. He rests his forehead against yours, and the tears are streaming freely down his cheeks. You kiss his cheek and reach up to brush away the tears, but there are too many. You wipe away a few, but the others just keep coming, and Wrecker lets out a soft, miserable noise. "Oh, Wrecker."

He doesn't answer. He turns his face into the crook of your neck and wraps his arms around you, pulling you close, and buries his face against you.

"I can't lose you," he whispers, his voice thick. "Not again."

"You won't," you murmur. "I promise. You won't lose me."

You can't be sure that's true, but you don't know what else to say. Wrecker holds you tightly, and you wrap your arms around him and kiss the side of his neck, and then his cheek, his shoulder, his chest, his lips. You want him to know how much you care, how much you need him. How much you love him.

"I'm not going anywhere," you say as your own tears spill over. You squeeze him tight and bury your face against his neck. "You won't lose me."

"If anything happened to you..." Wrecker shudders, and his grip on you tightens. "I couldn't handle it. If something happened, I couldn't—"

He stops and takes a deep, shuddering breath. He presses his face into your hair and squeezes you tightly. His voice is small, almost lost in the darkness.

"I love you."

You freeze. For a moment, your heart stutters, and you feel like your lungs have stopped working. He's never said it before. Not in words, anyway. You’ve known it for a long time, but to hear him say it, even in a moment like this, is something else entirely. It makes you ache.

"I love you," Wrecker repeats, and then his face scrunches up and his words spill out in a rush. "I've loved you for so long. I love everything about you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and the thought of hurting you, or losing you, is too much. I can't. I won't."

"Wrecker." You pull back and take his face in your hands. "Look at me."

"I should have told you earlier," Wrecker mumbles. His words are so slurred together that they're almost unintelligible. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Your eyes are filled with tears, and it's hard to see, but you know you need to get close to him, to offer him the same reassurance he's given you countless times. So you slide onto his lap, wrapping your arms around him, and rest your forehead against his.

"I'm not. There was never a good time, not really. But now, right now, I'm glad I heard it." You cup his cheek and brush the tears away. "And I'm glad I can tell you now. Because I love you too. So much. And I need you to know that. I'm not going anywhere. Not ever."

You press your lips to his, and he responds instantly, returning the kiss with a hunger that catches you off guard. It's intense and overwhelming, and he pulls you tighter against him, like he's trying to merge the two of you together. His hand slips beneath your shirt, his fingers splayed across your lower back, and he groans into the kiss. It's the most intense and passionate kiss the two of you have ever shared, and it leaves you gasping for breath.

"I love you," you repeat, and when he looks at you, his eyes are bright. He leans in and kisses your forehead, then rests his forehead against yours and closes his eyes.

"I won't let anything happen to you," he whispers. "No matter what. I promise."

"I know." You press a soft kiss to his jaw, then rest your head on his shoulder. "And I won't let anything happen to you. We're in this together. I'm here, no matter what."

Wrecker doesn't reply. He just nods and wraps his arms around you, leaning back until the two of you are lying down. He pulls you on top of him, and when you shift, the movement is enough to send a shiver through him.

He presses his face into your hair and holds you close, and for a long time, the two of you stay like that, holding each other. It's a little awkward, with your legs tangled together and the bunk too small for the two of you, but it feels right. It feels good. Safe.

 "I love you,” you whisper again, and Wrecker's arms tighten around you. He kisses the side of your neck, and his breath tickles the hairs on the back of your neck. You snuggle deeper into his embrace and close your eyes.

"Love you," Wrecker mumbles. 

The way he says it is so soft, so full of adoration, that your heart breaks a little. You love him. You love him so much. You never thought you'd get to say the words, never thought it would be possible, but now that it's out there, the words come so easily, like they've always been waiting to come out. And the relief of hearing him say them back is almost dizzying.

You stay there, wrapped up in each other's arms, and you listen to the sound of Wrecker's breathing. He falls asleep eventually, and his grip loosens, but he doesn't let go. When you're sure he's sleeping, you shift, resting your head against his chest and listening to the steady beat of his heart.

You close your eyes, and for the first time in a while, you feel safe.

For the first time in a while, sleep comes easily.

As soon as you arrived on Bracca, things took a turn for the worse. You'd all managed to dodge the Scrapper's Guild, but traversing the wreckage of the fallen Venator was a trial in and of itself. There was debris everywhere, and you could hardly breathe in the thick, oppressive air. Every step felt like it could be your last, and you and Hunter couldn't stop sensing something in the murky water below. Something lurking, waiting. And when Wrecker fell in...

He'd nearly drowned. He'd nearly been devoured by that dianoga. You'd thought you'd lost him.

You can't think about it.

He's safe now, and that's all that matters. He's safe, and you can finally breathe again. But the tension is still there, coiled tight in your stomach, and it's not just because of Wrecker. There's something else, something more. 

It's been there since Kaller, a feeling that something terrible is looming. You've felt it before, and it's never been wrong. The Force is trying to warn you, but the warnings are growing more frequent, more intense. Something big is coming, and there's no telling when it will happen, but you're sure it's not good.

You're standing in the back of the medbay, trying to keep out of the way as Tech works on Wrecker. He's running scans and taking readings, and the whole time, he's muttering under his breath. You cast a glance at Rex, who's standing next to you, but his attention is focused on the scene in front of him, his brow furrowed and his hands clasped behind his back.

"You've been quiet," he murmurs, his gaze shifting towards you.

"Yeah."

"Wanna talk about it?"

You hesitate. There's no point in keeping it to yourself, and maybe it'll help to get it off your chest.

"The Force is warning me," you say quietly, and Rex nods. "I don't know what it is, but... I can't shake the feeling that something bad is coming."

Rex frowns. "Do the others know?"

You nod, and he turns his gaze back toward the medbay. "Have they said anything?"

"Hunter knows," you say, and the words catch in your throat. "But... he's been keeping his distance."

Rex glances at you. His expression is unreadable.

"They all are," you whisper, and the admission is almost painful. You look away, unable to meet his gaze, and you have to fight the urge to cry. "I don't know what to do."

"You're worried," Rex says. It's not a question.

"Yeah," you reply, and a chill runs through you. You wrap your arms around yourself, hugging tightly, and take a shaky breath. “But it’s not just that. The Force is warning me. They... they could be in danger. All of them."

You swallow, and when you speak again, your voice is quiet.

"All of us."

He studies you for a moment, then looks back at Tech. He's still working, but now he's talking, and whatever he's saying is enough to pull a groan out of Wrecker. Rex watches them for a moment, his expression thoughtful, then looks back at you. His expression is grim.

 "How bad is it?"

You don't answer at first. The truth is, you're not sure. But Rex waits patiently, his gaze never leaving your face. Finally, you take a deep breath and force the words out.

"Bad," you say at last. You can't hide the fear in your voice. "Whatever it is, I think it's really bad."

Rex doesn't reply, but you can see the worry on his face. He knows what you're capable of, and he's seen firsthand the things you can do when the Force moves through you. If you're afraid, he's got every reason to be scared, too.

The two of you are silent, and when you can't bear it any longer, you break the silence.

"Do you believe in fate?" you ask.

Rex raises an eyebrow, surprised. He looks back at Tech, then shakes his head.

"Not really. I mean, maybe. Sometimes," he admits, and there's a hint of a smile on his lips. "But I try not to think about it too much."

You nod. "I can't help it."

"Why's that?"

"Because... sometimes, I think it's meant to be. Like, everything that happens is part of some bigger plan, and I can't change it,” you mutter. Your eyes drop to the floor. "All is as the Force wills it, and all that. But I don't know. It's... scary. It makes me feel helpless."

Rex doesn't reply at first. His brow furrows, and for a moment, he seems troubled. He looks over at the others, then back at you, and his expression softens.

"I know what you mean," he says, his voice is gentle. "But whatever it is, we'll handle it."

His hand comes up to rest on your shoulder, and you look at him. His face is serious, and the look in his eyes is reassuring. But he can't give you the answers you want, and the feeling of uncertainty lingers. You turn, pulling away from him, and your gaze falls on the others.

"Yeah," you say, but the word comes out sounding weak. Your eyes meet Wrecker's, and the concern in his expression is enough to make your heart clench. You don't want to worry him. You can't. Not after everything he's been through. You force a smile and say the words you don’t mean, knowing he can hear you. "We'll be fine."

It sounds hollow even to your own ears, but Wrecker relaxes, and the look of worry fades from his eyes. You look away, unable to bear the guilt gnawing at your stomach, and the smile fades from your face.

You know that if something happens, if something goes wrong, he'll blame himself. You don't want that. You don't want him to feel guilty, but the truth is, you're scared. For the first time, you're genuinely terrified. And not just for the Batch.

You're terrified for yourself. For the first time, you have something to lose. Your life, your happiness. You've never had that before.

And you don't want to lose it.

But the truth is, there's nothing you can do. You have to face the future, whatever it may bring, and pray that things turn out okay.

Rex's gaze flicks between you and Wrecker. He can see the concern in Wrecker's face, the worry in yours. His eyes are filled with sadness. Regret.

"I'm sorry," he says. "About before. I didn't..."

His voice trails off, and his brow furrows.

"I should have been more tactful," he says finally, and the corners of his mouth twitch up. He looks away, and when he speaks again, his voice is soft. "It's not an easy thing to talk about."

"No," you agree. "It's not."

He doesn't say anything, and neither do you. You both know there's nothing to say. There's no point in arguing or talking about what might happen. No point in making promises or predictions. There's only the present, the future unknown. So instead, Rex just squeezes your shoulder once more before letting his hand fall away. 

He moves to stand near Hunter, and the two of them start talking quietly. You watch them for a moment, but they're too far away for you to hear, so you turn your attention back to Wrecker and Tech.

Wrecker is groaning and wincing, his face contorted with pain as he hunches over. He looks miserable, and you want to comfort him, but Tech is moving him from one piece of equipment to another, and there's no room for you. 

Omega is hovering nearby, a look of concern on her face. She's wringing her hands, and her gaze darts between the two of you. She wants to help, and she's doing her best, but there's only so much any of you can do. You walk over to place your hand on her shoulder and try to give her a reassuring smile, but it feels forced.

You hate seeing him like this. You hate feeling helpless.

"Relax," Tech says as he prepares the surgical laser. "This won't hurt a bit."

Wrecker glares at him, and the look on his face would be amusing if not for the circumstances. Tech gives him an apologetic smile, then looks back at you.

"Could I trouble you to assist?"

"Of course," you say, and step closer.

"Hold his shoulders, please."

You do as he asks, moving to stand behind the bed, and hold Wrecker's shoulders firmly. He looks up at you, and the misery on his face is clear. It's hard to see him like this, but he needs you. So you do your best. You smile down at him, and when he smiles back, the tightness in your chest loosens, and the fear recedes, a little. You lean forward and press a kiss to his forehead.

"It'll be alright," you whisper. "You're going to be okay."

Wrecker takes a shuddering breath and nods, and you feel his body tense as Tech steps closer. You let out a slow, steady breath, and close your eyes, trying to impart as much calm through the Force as possible. Wrecker's shoulders relax, and his breathing slows.

Tech is talking again, and the sound of the laser whines, then there's a flash of light. You feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and the air around you fills with static.

"You're in direct violation of Order 66," Wrecker growls, and your eyes snap open.

He lurches forward, his face contorting, and the force of him breaking from your hold sends you stumbling backwards. Wrecker grabs Tech by the throat, the laser slipping from his fingers and clattering to the floor. Tech tries to grab Wrecker's hand, but Wrecker is stronger, and he shoves him backwards, slamming him into the wall hard enough that it dents.

He's staring at his brother with cold, empty eyes, and you're frozen, unable to move or speak. There's no sign of the man you love, no trace of the gentle, caring, passionate man who's loved and cherished you since the moment you met. His face is devoid of emotion, his eyes blank and dead. There's no recognition, no hint of compassion or mercy. 

Nothing but a cold, empty void.

Your blood runs cold, and your stomach lurches. This isn't him. This can't be him.

"No! Stop!" you shout. Your voice cracks, and when Wrecker's gaze snaps towards you, a cold sweat breaks out across your skin. His eyes are dark, and there's something else in his expression. Something that scares the hell out of you.

Wrecker's lips curl into a snarl, and the anger is so fierce and sudden that it catches you off guard. You take a step forward, but Rex catches your arm, stopping you. You don't look at him. You can't look away from Wrecker, from his eyes. 

His grip on Tech's throat tightens. Tech's hands scrabble at his hand, and his feet kick uselessly against the wall.

"Please! Wrecker, stop! You're killing him!"

For a moment, you think you've gotten through to him. For a moment, you see something in his eyes, a flash of recognition, a spark of life. But it's gone as soon as it appears, and he throws Tech across the room with a snarl. 

You jerk your arm free from Rex's grip and rush forward, but Echo catches you around the waist and pulls you back behind cover. You struggle against him, desperate to help, but he's too strong.

"Wrecker!" Hunter cries. "Stop! Fight it!"

Wrecker is beyond hearing. He grabs his blaster and fires wildly, narrowly missing Rex as he dives behind the crates next to you, Hunter and Omega close behind. Your heart is pounding, and you're shaking so hard your teeth are chattering. Omega is trembling too, and she's staring blankly ahead with wide, frightened eyes. She looks like she's on the verge of tears.

"He'll destroy the equipment if we don't get him out of here," Echo says, his voice strained.

"You're all traitors!" Wrecker bellows.

He keeps firing, and it's a miracle no one's been hit yet. Rex pops his head up, ducking back down just in time to avoid being shot.

"You need to run," he says to you. "He's not going to stop until he kills you, and I don't think any of us are going to survive if that happens."

You shake your head. "I can't leave him."

"There's no other way. We'll distract him, but you need to go. Now!"

"No!" You shove Echo away and lunge towards Wrecker. Hunter is in front of you in an instant, grabbing your shoulders and shoving you back.

"Stop," he says. "Listen to Rex. Please. He'll kill you. Do you understand? You have to go."

"He needs me." You can feel the tears coming, and when Hunter sees them, his face softens.

"He does," he agrees. "But right now, he's a danger to you. He's a danger to everyone. You have to go. I'll keep him safe. I promise. But right now, he's going to kill you."

He holds your gaze, and the pain in his eyes is so raw and intense that you feel like your heart is breaking.

"What if you can't stop him?" you demand, your voice cracking. "What if you die? I can't let him do this."

Hunter doesn't answer. He's not even looking at you anymore. His attention is focused on his rampaging brother, and he's getting ready to strike. You can see it in his body language, the tension in his shoulders, the set of his jaw.

"Omega, stay with Tech," he says, ignoring you. "Make sure he's alright. We'll handle Wrecker."

Omega nods, and the two of you exchange a long, sorrowful look.

"It'll be okay," she whispers. "He'll be okay."

"I... I hope so."

You're not sure how much of that you believe.

"Go," Hunter urges. "We'll find you. I promise."

"Hunter—"

"Go."

You swallow hard and nod, and then you're running, narrowly dodging the blaster bolts thudding into the doorframe as you dash out the doors. You hear Wrecker's howl of rage, and then the sound of blaster fire as the others charge him, and the sound makes you sob.

"No," you whisper, and then you're running.

You're not sure where to go, and the ship is a blur around you as you dart down the halls, tears streaming down your cheeks. You run until you can't run anymore, and then you stumble, your chest heaving and your lungs burning. Your legs are weak, and the muscles in your thighs are aching, but you push on, determined not to give up. 

You have to get away. You have to stay alive. If you're alive, you can help him.

But the further you get from Wrecker, the more you feel like your heart is being ripped out. You want to be with him, to save him, but Hunter was right. You have no chance of defeating him without killing him, and the thought of you dying, of leaving him alone, terrifies you.

So you run.

You don't stop until the sound of his blaster fire has faded, and even then, you don't dare stop moving. You're sobbing uncontrollably now, and it's hard to see. Your vision is blurred, and the tears are pouring down your cheeks. You have no idea where you are, and every corridor and door looks the same. It's impossible to tell which way leads out, or even if there is an exit. All you know is that you're lost, and for the first time in a long time, you’re alone.

You finally come to a stop and lean against the wall, gasping for breath. You feel sick, and the walls are spinning. You squeeze your eyes shut and rest your head against the wall, willing the world to stop.

But it doesn't. And it's not just the room that's spinning. It's everything. Your whole world is spinning out of control, and you’re helpless to stop it. You've lost everything. You've lost your home, your friends, and now you've lost the man you love. He's been taken from you, and there's nothing you can do.

You're powerless.

Hot tears spill down your cheeks. Your chest is tight, and it feels like your heart is shattering. You can't breathe. You can't think. You just stand there, crying and shaking and feeling completely, utterly useless.

After what feels like hours, the tears begin to slow. You take a deep, shuddering breath, and the knot in your stomach loosens, just a little.

There's still a chance, you tell yourself. They'll stop him. They'll get him out of there. Wrecker will be okay. Everything will be okay. It has to be.

And then you sense him.

Wrecker's warm presence in the Force is gone, replaced by something cold and empty. He’s always felt warm, bright and strong, but now there's nothing there. Nothing but a cold, hollow void. A darkness so intense that it makes your skin crawl.

Your head snaps up, and you can feel him, a shadow looming in the corridor behind you. His presence is like a black hole, sucking the life and warmth out of the room, and you can't move. You can't breathe. Your heart is hammering in your chest, and the hair on the back of your neck stands up.

Your instincts are screaming at you to run, but you can't. You won't.

You don't know if it's stupid or brave, but you turn to face him.

You move slowly, terrified of what you'll see, and when your eyes meet his, a shiver runs down your spine.

He's standing there, his breathing labored and his body tensed, and he's staring at you with an intensity that makes your skin crawl. In the dim light of the wrecked ship, his face is barely visible, but his eyes are shining with a cold, cruel light. There's no recognition in them, no hint of the man you love, and for a moment, you can't believe what you're seeing.

But the hatred radiating off him is real, a tangible thing, and it's enough to make you sick. It's worse than any injury or torture. Worse than anything you've ever experienced. It's a raw, visceral hatred, and it's directed right at you.

You stand your ground, your hands shaking, and you clench them into fists.

"Wrecker," you say, and the words sound small and weak. "I'm sorry."

His brow furrows, and his jaw tenses.

"I should have done more," you continue, and the words catch in your throat. You're choking on the lump that's formed there, and you swallow, fighting back the urge to sob. "I should have protected you."

Wrecker doesn't answer. His gaze flickers over your face, taking in your tear-stained cheeks and the fear in your eyes. You can feel his hatred, the cold rage coiled tight in his muscles. He's barely holding himself back, and the tension in his body is palpable.

"Please," you whisper. "You have to fight this. This isn't you."

He doesn't reply. He takes a step towards you, and you tense, ready to defend yourself. You don't want to hurt him. You don't want to hurt him. You can't.

"Wrecker, please. Don't do this." Your voice cracks, and when he doesn't react, the tears start flowing again. "I love you. I need you. Please, don't do this."

Wrecker pauses, and his eyes widen. The hatred in his eyes wavers, and for a moment, you let yourself believe that you've reached him. But then his lip curls, and the hatred comes surging back. It's stronger this time, fueled by a rage so intense that it takes your breath away.

"Traitor," he growls, and then he lunges at you.

He moves so fast that you barely have time to react. You dodge out of the way, barely avoiding his grasp, and his hand closes around empty air. He snarls and whirls, his eyes burning with hatred. You take a step back, and the tears are streaming down your face.

"Stop this!" you cry. "Wrecker, please! I don't want to hurt you!"

He doesn't listen. He moves with a speed and grace that belies his size, and he's on you in an instant. You manage to avoid him again, but only just. He slams into the wall next to you, and the impact makes the metal buckle. The sound is deafening, and it sends a shockwave through the room. The walls creak and groan, and dust and debris rain down from the ceiling.

Wrecker's head snaps towards you, his eyes burning with a cold, cruel fire, and your stomach lurches. His lips curl into a snarl, and then he's coming for you again. 

You turn and run, darting down the corridor, and he's right behind you. You can hear the pounding of his boots on the floor, and the sound of his ragged breathing. He's gaining on you, and you don't know if you can keep ahead of him without hurting him. 

Your eyes are wide and desperate, and your heart is racing. You're terrified, but you force yourself to push that fear aside, to try and remember your training. You can't let it control you. You can't let it consume you. 

If you do, you'll never save him. You'll never get him back. You have to stay focused. You have to stay calm.

But it's so hard.

Wrecker roars, and you feel the air rush past you as he grabs at your arm. You jerk free, and his fingers close around empty air. You twist and slam your shoulder into his side, and he stumbles, hissing with rage. You reach out with the Force and shove him back, giving yourself just enough room to move, and then you're running again.

"Please," you sob. "Please, stop."

He doesn't.

You dodge around a corner, and the floor suddenly disappears beneath your feet. Your eyes go wide, and you cry out as the world drops out from under you. You tumble down the sudden drop, landing hard on your shoulder, and the breath is knocked from your lungs. You gasp, pain lancing through your shoulder, and for a moment, you're too stunned to move.

The sound of boots pounding on the floor above snaps you out of your daze, and you roll onto your back, pushing yourself to your feet. Your head whips around, taking in your surroundings, and it only takes you a moment to realize where you are. You're in the cargo bay, and the doors leading out to the planet are mere meters away.

Your heart leaps. You can get out. You can get help.

But you hesitate, and the feeling of his presence in the Force is enough to make your blood run cold. You dart behind a stack of crates just as Wrecker lands on the floor in front of you. He hits the ground hard, and the impact is enough to make the floor underneath you shake.

Your hand clasps over your mouth to hide your surprised gasp. Your chest is heaving, and your heart is racing. The tears are still falling, and you're trembling so hard that your knees are shaking.

The sudden silence is almost deafening, and the only sound is the distant hum of the ship's engines. You don't dare to breathe. You can't make a sound.

"I know you're here," Wrecker says. His voice is low and menacing. "You can't hide forever."

He steps forward, his boots crunching on broken glass. His footsteps are slow, methodical, like he's stalking his prey. He's close. So close. Too close.

"Come out, traitor," he snarls.

You shrink back against the crates. Your heart is pounding so hard that you're sure he can hear it. Your palms are sweating, and the crate next to you is slick with condensation. You have nowhere to go, and no way out. If you try to run, he'll catch you. And if you try to fight, you'll have to kill him.

"I'll find you," Wrecker growls. His voice is low and menacing, and it sends a chill down your spine. "You can't hide from me."

He moves closer, and the sound of his footsteps seems to grow louder with each passing second. You hold your breath, and your hand drifts toward your lightsaber on your hip on instinct before you clench your fist and drop your arm. You can't. You can't use it. You won't.

You won't hurt him.

You'll die first.

Wrecker moves around the crates, and his shadow falls across the wall. You can see his outline, and the hatred emanating off him is like a physical thing. It's palpable, suffocating, and it's enough to make your heart skip a beat.

You hear a thud, and a crate falls to the floor with a loud crash. You flinch, and your hand goes to your lightsaber again, but you stop yourself. You can't use it. You can't. Not against him. Not like this.

Another crate topples. And another. And another. Wrecker's getting closer. You can hear him breathing, and your heart is pounding so hard that your head is spinning. You can't see him, but you know he's there, lurking just out of sight.

He's so close.

So close.

He stops, and the room is deathly silent. You can't hear his breathing, and he's motionless, as if he's waiting for you to make a sound. The seconds tick by, and the tension in the air is so thick that it's almost impossible to breathe.

You can't take it.

"Please," you whimper, and the word comes out as a sob.

He freezes, and for a moment, everything is still.

And then the air shifts. You sense a sudden movement, and a fraction of a second later, the crate above you explodes. You yelp and dive to the side, rolling out of the way, and the crate is reduced to splinters.

 Your scramble to your feet, your back slamming against the wall, and you look up. Wrecker is standing over you, and his eyes are cold, dark pools. His hulking form trembles with rage, and he rushes towards you, his hand curled into a fist. You duck under the blow, and your hand flashes out, connecting with his chin. He stumbles, but he doesn't stop. 

He lunges at you, and you dodge, his hand catching your tunic and ripping the fabric. The sound of it tearing is deafening, and you feel the heat of his breath on your skin as he growls.

"Stop!" you plead.

He doesn't.

"Traitor," he hisses. He's on you again, and this time, you can't avoid him. 

Wrecker hits you in the stomach, and the breath leaves your lungs in a rush. Pain blooms through your torso, and your knees buckle. He swings again, and you throw up your arms, blocking the blow. The force of it knocks you to the ground, and your head smacks against the hard floor.

His fingers wrap around your throat, and he lifts you off the ground with one hand. Wrecker pulls you up close to his face, and the look in his eyes is terrifying. It's pure, unbridled hatred, and it's directed at you.

"Wrecker," you manage to croak. Your eyes search his desperate to find any sign of the man you love, and he growls, his grip tightening.

"Wrecker, please." Tears stream down your face, and you claw at his hands, struggling to breathe. Your lungs are burning, and the pain in your head is almost unbearable. He's going to kill you. He's going to kill you, and there's nothing you can do to stop him.

You know that your next breath will be your last, and you feel a strange sense of peace wash over you. There are worse fates than dying by his hands. Worse things than losing your life. You're not afraid. You're not angry. All you feel is sorrow, and a deep, aching love for the man in front of you. The man who's been your whole world, your heart, and the only home you've ever known.

If this is how it ends, so be it. At least you got to know him.

"Wrecker," you choke out, your voice barely audible. "I... I love..."

His fingers tighten, and everything goes black.

Your eyes flutter open, and the world swims back into focus. There's a dull ache in your skull, and the air feels strangely thin. Your chest is heaving, and it takes you a moment to realize that you're not breathing.

No, you're hyperventilating.

Wrecker.

His name is on your lips, and you gasp before a terrible, aching pain lances through your skull. You try to move, but your body is heavy.

You're lying on your side. The ground beneath you is hard, and the air is thick and heavy. There's a bitter taste in your mouth, and your throat is burning. You try to take a deep breath, but it's like someone's squeezing the life out of you.

"Hey. Easy."

The voice is familiar. Soothing. But it doesn't register.

Someone rolls you onto your back, and the movement sends a jolt of pain through your body. You gasp, and the air burns. You can't see anything, but you feel something cool and wet being pressed against your face. It hurts, and you try to pull away, but a gentle hand holds you still.

"Shhh. Relax."

The voice is familiar, but your mind is too fuzzy to place it. Your head is throbbing, and your throat feels like it's on fire. You can't focus. You can't think. All you can do is lay there and try to breathe.

"Stay still. I'm trying to clean you up."

You try to open your eyes, but everything is blurry. A pair of dark brown eyes stares down at you, but it's not the mismatched ones you're looking for.

Rex.

He's holding something cold and wet against your face, and the sensation is painful, but soothing. You take a few shallow breaths, the air finally starting to reach your lungs. You cough, and it's like sandpaper being scraped against the back of your throat.

"Don't try to talk," Rex says. "You need rest."

Rest. The word echoes through your head. Your thoughts are jumbled, and you can't seem to focus.

"What... What happened?" you manage to croak. Your voice is hoarse, and your words come out sounding more like a growl than anything else.

"I think it's better if I don't tell you," Rex says. He's frowning, and the look on his face makes your heart clench. "Just focus on breathing."

You take another breath, and this one is a little easier. The pressure in your head is fading, and your vision is starting to clear.

"Wrecker," you rasp. "Is he...?"

"Yeah," Rex says softly. "He's... He's okay."

"Where is he?"

"We got his chip out, and the others," Rex tells you. "Tech is treating his injuries now."

There's a catch in his voice, and you can tell that something is wrong. Something terrible. You feel a sharp stab of panic, and you try to sit up, but the room spins. Rex grabs your shoulders and eases you back down.

"Just stay still," he says. "You need to rest."

"I'm fine," you argue, but your voice is weak, and the effort of talking makes your head spin. Rex shakes his head.

"No, you're not." Rex sighs and presses a damp cloth to your forehead. It's cool and soothing, and the pain begins to ease a little. "Just give it a minute."

"Rex..."

"He's okay. I promise." He smiles at you, but it’s forced, and there's a sadness in his eyes that makes your heart twist. "But he's not doing well. We're all gonna need some time."

Your heart sinks. You know what that means. Rex is telling you that Wrecker needs space. That he's not himself. That he's ashamed and guilty and doesn't want to face you. It hurts. More than the physical pain, more than the headache, the exhaustion, and the fear, it's a deeper, sharper kind of pain. The kind that cuts to the bone, and you can feel tears stinging the corners of your eyes.

"I understand," you say, and you hate the way your voice cracks.

Rex's smile falters, and the sadness in his eyes intensifies.

"Hey, now," he murmurs. "It'll be okay."

"No. It won't." Your voice is thick, and the tears are flowing freely now. You can't stop them. You don't even try. Rex pulls you into his arms, and you bury your face in his shoulder, sobbing.

"He tried to kill me," you choke out. "He... He was going to..."

Rex holds you, and he doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to. The pain is written all over his face, and he knows exactly what you're going through. He was there. He watched Wrecker lose control, and he had to watch him almost kill the woman he loves. He had to watch him almost kill his friend.

"I'm so sorry," Rex whispers. He holds you close, and his hand moves gently up and down your back, soothing you. "I'm so sorry."

You cry until your throat is raw and your lungs are burning, and when the tears finally stop, you're exhausted. Your body is limp, and your head is pounding. You lean against Rex, and his arms tighten around you.

"Come on," he murmurs. "Let's get you up."

He helps you to your feet, and you wince. Every muscle in your body is aching, your throat is sore, and the wound on the back of your head is throbbing. You feel weak, and the ground seems to sway under your feet. Rex holds you steady while the feeling slowly fades.

"I've got you," he says. Then, slowly, he leads you towards the medbay. You lean against him, and with each step, you can feel the guilt and shame and anger radiating off him in waves. It's overwhelming, and it makes your heart ache.

"Rex," you murmur. "Are you alright?"

"No," he admits. "But I will be."

"I'm so sorry," you whisper.

"It's not your fault," he says, but you can hear the bitterness in his voice, and the resentment. He blames himself for what happened. He's taking the weight of the entire situation on his shoulders.

You want to tell him that it's not his fault, either, but you're too tired. So you lean against him, and let him guide you to the medbay.

The door is open, and Tech is inside, tending to a  cut on Hunter’s face. Echo is helping, and Omega is sitting in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest. She looks exhausted, tears staining her cheeks, but her face brightens when she sees you. 

She scrambles to her feet and rushes towards you, throwing her arms around your waist. The impact sends a shock of pain through your ribs, but you bite your lip and hide your wince. She's clinging to you like a lifeline, and you can feel the tremor in her body as she tries not to cry. You hold her close, stroking her hair, and the ache in your heart deepens.

"Hey," you murmur. "You alright?"

Omega nods against you, her fingers digging into the back of your tunic.

"Are you?" she whispers.

"Yeah," you lie. "I'm okay."

"You're not," she says, and the hurt in her voice is enough to make your throat tighten. "But it's okay. We're here."

She hugs you tighter, and you lean into the embrace, your heart aching. You wish it was as simple as that, but nothing is. Nothing will be. Not for a long time. Maybe not ever. You hold her close, closing your eyes, and her presence in the Force is warm and bright, just like always. 

You let yourself get lost in it, and the pain begins to ebb, if only a little, before you open your eyes again.

"Where's Wrecker?" you ask. Your voice is soft, but everyone in the room hears it and the tension is palpable. They exchange glances, their expressions grim.

"He's resting," Tech says carefully. "His injuries are relatively minor, and the surgery was successful, but his mental state is... concerning."

You swallow hard. You knew it was bad, but hearing Tech say it out loud is different. It makes it real, and the weight of that reality is suffocating. You take a shaky breath and nod, but the tears are threatening again, and your voice is unsteady.

"Can I see him?"

"He doesn't want to see anyone," Echo says. His voice is low, his words measured. He's... He's not himself. Not yet."

"I know." Your voice cracks. "I just... I want him to know that I'm here. That I care. That I..."

"Give him time," Hunter murmurs, his expression pained. "He's not in a good place."

"But I—"

"No." Rex's tone is gentle, but firm. "It's not a good idea. Trust me. He needs space. He needs to figure out how to live with what he did."

"It wasn't him," you protest, but even as you say it, you know that it's not entirely true. It was him. Just not the him you know.

"I know," he says. "But it was his hands that almost killed you. And that's hard to come to terms with."

You swallow hard and nod. You know he's right, but it doesn't make it any easier. It doesn't ease the pain in your chest or the ache in your head. You want to see him, to talk to him, but you know it's not what he needs. It's not what you need.

You let out a shuddering breath, your shoulders sagging. You're exhausted, and the world is spinning, and all you want to do is collapse into a ball and cry.

Tech approaches, and he hesitates for a moment before his hand settles gently on your shoulder. His eyes are sympathetic, but the frown on his face is deep, his expression troubled.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"I'm okay," you answer. The lie comes easily, almost automatically. It's a reflex. One that has been well-honed over the years, but one that's not very convincing. Not anymore.

He nods and studies you for a moment. Then, he glances at Rex.

"Help her onto the cot," he says. "I'll do a quick examination and treat her injuries."

"No," you protest. "I'm fine. I just need to sleep."

"You're not fine," Rex counters. He's not unkind, but his tone leaves no room for argument. "You were attacked, and you have a head injury. We need to make sure that you're okay."

"I am. Really."

"We need to make sure," Tech insists.

"I'm not—"

"You're getting checked out," Rex says firmly. "And that's final."

You open your mouth to argue, but the words die on your lips. You know he's right. Your entire body aches, and every breath is painful. You're not fine. You know it. But the idea of hearing it from someone else is too much. It's too real.

Rex gently guides you towards the cot, his arm around your waist, and you let him. There's no point in fighting, not when the others are worried about you. So you let him help you onto the bed, and Omega sits next to you, her small hand finding yours.

Tech begins his examination, and Rex hovers nearby, watching closely. You feel small and fragile and weak, and it's a strange feeling. You're used to being strong, to fighting your own battles. But now, you can barely stand on your own. It's a reminder of how fragile you really are, and it makes your chest tighten. No matter how good of a Jedi you can claim to be, it's impossible to ignore that the only reason you're alive is because Rex stepped in and saved your life.

"You have a mild concussion," Tech reports, and his words pull you out of your thoughts. "Several bruised ribs, and multiple contusions." He pauses, and his gaze shifts to your throat. "And those bruises will need time to heal."

Your hand reaches up, and you touch the spot where Wrecker had been holding you. The skin is tender, and the contact makes you wince.

"Yeah," Rex says, anger clear in his voice. "That's going to be a tough one to cover up."

You look away.

"It could have been worse," Tech points out.

"It was bad enough,” he snaps. When you flinch, Rex's eyes widen, regret flickering across his features. "Sorry. I didn't mean..."

"It’s okay." Your voice is quiet, almost a whisper. You swallow, but the lump in your throat remains. "I know."

Tech moves to examine the bruise on your stomach, his touch gentle.

"We can apply bacta to the worst of the bruises," Tech offers. "That will help with the healing process."

You nod, but you can’t bring yourself to say anything. You close your eyes and try not to think about it. About the way Wrecker had been staring at you. The coldness in his eyes. The rage. The hatred. The way his hands had tightened around your throat. The way he had been intent on killing you.

"Can I help you?"

Tech's voice is soft, and he sounds unsure of himself. It's such a stark contrast to his usual confidence, and it makes your chest tighten. This is hard for him, too. Hard for all of them.

"I'm okay," you murmur. "Really."

"You don’t have to be," Tech says. His tone is gentle, but there's an edge to it. “We understand, and we'll do our best to make sure that you're taken care of."

You open your eyes and look at him, and the sympathy in his gaze makes you want to cry. You don't want to be the one everyone's worrying about. You don't want to be the helpless victim, the one who needs to be coddled and comforted. You're a Jedi. You're supposed to be the one taking care of others, not the other way around.

But there's nothing you can do. Nothing you can say. So you nod, letting the tears spill down your cheeks, and Tech places a hand on your shoulder.

"Thank you," you whisper, and the words come out sounding more like a sob.

"Of course," Tech replies, and there's an unfamiliar warmth in his voice. "You're one of us, and we take care of our own."

He turns back to his instruments, and you lay down, resting your head on the pillow. The medbay is quiet, save for the soft beeps and whirrs of the machines, and the familiar sounds are oddly comforting. Tech continues to examine and treat you, his movements careful and precise. He works silently, and the others are gathered nearby, their attention focused on you. It's strange, but it feels nice, being the center of their concern. It makes you feel safe, and it eases some of the pain and fear and uncertainty.

You're surrounded by your family. By the people who love you and care about you. And as the exhaustion overwhelms you, and the pain fades into a dull ache, you realize that's all that really matters. You may not be fine, but you're alive, and you have people that care about you. And that's more than some can say.

It's been three days since the chip incident, and things are... strained. You've barely seen Wrecker, and when you have, he hasn't said a word. He won't look at you. He won't even be in the same room as you. It hurts, but you're trying to be patient. Trying to give him the space he needs. But it's hard, and every day, the ache in your chest grows a little bit stronger.

You'd hesitated to say goodbye to Rex, and he'd again offered to take you with him. To keep you safe, to give you a place to heal. And again, you'd refused, promising him that things would be okay. And they would. You're certain. They had to be. 

But the entire time you'd spoken to him in hushed whispers, you could feel Wrecker's eyes on you. When you'd finally pulled away from Rex to board the Marauder, Wrecker had turned on his heel, disappearing into the ship without a word. He hadn't so much as glanced at you, let alone said anything.

The pain of that had cut deeper than the bruises on your throat, but you'd hidden it, plastering a smile on your face for the others, even though they all knew better.

The daring escape you'd made from Bracca had only served to complicate matters, and the entire team was on edge after encountering Crosshair again. The tension in the air is thick, and it seems like everyone is walking on eggshells, afraid of setting someone off. 

It's a far cry from the usual banter, teasing, and camaraderie that's typical aboard the ship, and the only sounds are the hum of the engine and the occasional beep from the instrument panel.

No one has spoken in hours, and the silence is oppressive. You haven't left your bunk since that morning, the high vantage point allowing you to see everything without having to interact with anyone.

It's lonely, but it's also safe.

No one bothers you, and you're free to let your mind wander. You watch the others, and the sight of them fills you with a strange mixture of emotions. You're proud of them, and the love you feel for them is almost overwhelming. But there's also a sense of loss.

What happened was a reminder that everything could change in an instant, and you're not ready for that. You're not ready to lose any of them. Not when they're the only family you have left.

You close your eyes, drawing in a deep breath, and let the feeling wash over you. It's a bittersweet sort of sorrow, and it makes your heart ache. You know that they're not going anywhere, that the five of them are a force to be reckoned with, but you can't help the anxiety that lingers, the fear that something might go wrong. You've already lost so much. You can't lose them, too.

The sound of footsteps approaching the bunk pulls you from your thoughts, and you open your eyes, expecting to see Echo. But the figure in the doorway isn't him.

"I'm sorry."

Wrecker's voice is barely a whisper, but it's loud enough to startle you, and you sit up, wincing as your ribs protest. He’s standing below, looking up at you with his mismatched eyes. His eyes are wide and pleading, and he's fidgeting, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. You can tell he's nervous, but there's a hint of something else, too. Sadness. Guilt. Shame.

"It's okay," you say automatically, but the words feel hollow.

"No. It's not." His voice is low, and there's an edge of desperation to it, and his hands squeeze into fists. You can feel the anger radiating off him, and it makes your blood run cold. He looks like he wants to punch a hole in the wall, and you have no doubt that he could if he wanted to. He could tear the whole ship apart. He could tear you apart.

You swallow, but your throat is dry, and the fear is starting to build.

"I could have killed you," Wrecker continues, his voice shaking. “I... I wanted to kill you. I was gonna..."

He trails off, unable to finish the sentence, and his shoulders slump. The anger fades, and the shame is so intense that you feel it like a physical blow. Wrecker closes his eyes and runs a hand over his face, his shoulders trembling.

"I tried to kill my own brothers," he says, and his voice cracks. "And I... I almost..."

He takes a shaky breath, tears stinging the corners of his eyes, and he shakes his head. You're at a loss for words, and all you can do is watch him struggle with the weight of his emotions. You want to say something, to offer some kind of comfort, but you can't. You're just as broken as he is.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and his voice is thick with emotion. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Wrecker..."

He looks up at you, and the raw anguish in his eyes makes your heart twist.

"Wrecker, please, it's okay. I know it wasn't—"

"No. It's not." He shakes his head, his expression pained. "It wasn't me. But it was."

You open your mouth to argue, but he holds up a hand, cutting you off.

"I remember everything. I remember wanting to hurt you. I remember how good it felt. How right." His eyes darken, his lips curling into a snarl. "I'm a monster."

"No, Wrecker," you insist. "No. You're not."

"Yes, I am."

"You're not," you repeat, more firmly this time. You haven’t used the Force in days, but it flows through you now, warm and reassuring, and you can feel the conviction in your own words. "You're a good man. You're not a monster. I saw you try to fight it. I saw the struggle. I know what's in your heart. And it's not evil."

"I should have fought harder." His fists clench, and he hangs his head. "I'm supposed to protect you, but I... I'm the one who tried to..."

"Wrecker."

Your voice is sharp, but he doesn't respond. He's lost in his own guilt, his own self-loathing, and the weight of it is crushing him.

"Please, Wrecker, stop." You slide off the bunk, landing lightly on your feet, and you approach him, reaching for his hands. He pulls away, and it feels like a knife in your heart. "You don't have to apologize. I'm not mad at you. I'm worried about you."

"You should be." His voice is flat, his words coming out in a growl. "I tried to kill you."

"But you didn't."

"I would have." He turns away from you, his jaw clenched, his shoulders tense. "If Rex hadn't stepped in, I would have."

You reach out, laying a hand on his arm, but he flinches, jerking away from your touch. It's a rejection, plain and simple, but it's not unexpected. He's pulling away, both physically and emotionally, and it's tearing you apart.

"Don't," he says. "Just don't."

"Please," you whisper, your voice thick with emotion. "Please, talk to me."

"What's there to talk about?" He sounds bitter, defeated, but he doesn't pull away this time. "I'm a monster."

"No, you're not," you insist. "You're my hero."

"Don't say that," he mutters.

"It's true. You are.” He starts to speak again, but you’re faster, and your words cut him off. "You saved my life. Over and over again. You've never given up on me, even when the odds were stacked against us. You've always been there for me, no matter what."

He doesn't say anything, but you can tell that your words are affecting him. His shoulders are hunched, his body tense, but there's a tremor in his muscles, a slight shudder. You step closer, pressing yourself against his back, and you wrap your arms around his waist. You hold him tight, your fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt, and you rest your forehead between his shoulder blades.

"I trust you, Wrecker. I know you'd never hurt me willingly. And the truth is, I could've fought back. I could've stopped you. But I didn't. Because I trust you. I trust you with my life. And I always will."

He stiffens, his breath hitching.

"You're not a monster," you continue. "You're not a liability. You're my boyfriend, and you're my best friend. And I'm not afraid of you."

You press a kiss between his shoulder blades, lingering there for a moment. Your throat is tight, your heart racing, and you're filled with an overwhelming sense of affection and devotion. The feelings are strong, almost overwhelming, and you don't try to push them down. You don't try to hide them. You just let them flow through you, let them fill the space between the two of you. 

You've held them back for so long, afraid to show your feelings, afraid to let yourself be vulnerable, but now, the dam has broken, and you're drowning in the intensity of your emotions. There's a warmth spreading through your chest, a kind of peace that you've never felt before, and it's almost euphoric. It's like the first breath after surfacing from a deep dive, and the air is sweet, filling your lungs.

"I love you, Wrecker," you murmur.

"Don't," he growls, but the tension is gone from his body, his muscles relaxing under your touch. He leans back against you, his head dropping forward, his eyes closed.

"I do," you say softly. "I love you. And I'm not afraid."

You hold him, the two of you locked together, neither of you willing to move, afraid that the moment will end. He's trembling, his breathing shallow, his fingers curling around your arms, but he doesn't pull away. He doesn't reject you.

"I trust you," you whisper. "I love you. And nothing will ever change that."

There's a long, heavy silence, and then, finally, he speaks.

"I love you, too."

It's barely a whisper, but the words are clear, and the weight of them makes your heart soar. You tighten your arms around his waist, burying your face in his back, and you feel the tears stinging the corners of your eyes. You’re so happy that it almost hurts, the emotions swelling in your chest, making it difficult to breathe. It feels like you're floating, the weight of everything finally lifted.

“I love you so much,” he mutters. “More than anything. But you should be with someone else. Someone safer. Someone who won't..."

"Wrecker, stop." Your voice is firm, and you squeeze him, making him gasp. "I don't want anyone else. I want you."

He takes a shaky breath, his hands moving down your arms until his fingers are laced with yours. He squeezes, his grip gentle, and you squeeze back.

"I don't deserve you," he says.

"Yes, you do."

Wrecker lets go of your hands, turning to face you, his gaze meeting yours. His eyes are wet, tears streaking his cheeks, but there's a softness in his expression that you haven't seen in a while. He reaches out, cupping your face, his thumb stroking your cheek.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I'm so sorry."

"Stop apologizing," you chide gently, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips. "I told you, it's okay."

"But—"

You shake your head, placing a finger over his lips.

"Enough." Your voice is soft, but stern. "No more talking."

His brow furrows, confusion flickering across his features. Then, he gets it, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He nods, leaning down, his lips brushing against yours.

The kiss is soft, almost tentative, but there's an underlying hunger, a need that makes your skin tingle. You press closer, your arms winding around his neck, the kiss deepening, his tongue sweeping across your bottom lip.

He tastes like salt, the tears still drying on his cheeks, and the familiarity is comforting, soothing the ache in your heart. He's home. He's safe. And he loves you. Nothing else matters.

The kiss ends, the two of you gasping for breath, but you don't pull away. You stay close, your foreheads touching, his fingers tangling in your hair.

"I missed you," he murmurs.

"Me, too." You nuzzle his nose, your hands stroking his cheeks. "So much."

"M’sorry."

"I know.” You press a kiss to the tip of his nose, your fingers caressing the back of his neck. "But you're not responsible for this. None of us are. The only person to blame is the one who put the chips in your heads. You can't be held responsible for what they did."

"I know, but..."

"But nothing," you say, your tone firm. "You're a victim, Wrecker. Just like the rest of us."

He sighs, his shoulders slumping, the tension draining from his body. He's still upset, the guilt is still there, but you can feel it ebbing, the darkness fading.

"I don't blame you. None of us do,” you continue. "We're all just happy that we have you back. We're a family. We take care of each other."

Wrecker gives a small nod, the sadness in his eyes fading a little, replaced by something else. Something warmer, more hopeful.

"You're my family," he says, his voice rough with emotion. "My brothers. Omega. And you."

He pulls you into a hug, his arms wrapping around you, holding you close. "And I will never stop taking care of you. No matter what."

You bury your face in his shoulder, squeezing him tight. You can feel the tears building again, but they're different this time. They're not a product of pain or loss or fear. They're tears of happiness, of relief, of love. You close your eyes, letting the feeling wash over you, letting yourself get lost in it. You've come so far, endured so much, but here, in his arms, you're finally home.

Wrecker's fingers curl into the back of your shirt, his breathing shallow, his face buried in your hair.

"Thank you," he whispers, his voice thick.

"For what?"

"For not giving up on me."

You pull away, looking up at him, a smile on your lips.

"Never."

He smiles back, the expression brightening his entire face. You can't remember the last time you've seen him look this happy, and the sight fills you with a warm glow. This is where you belong, where you've always belonged. With him. With your family.

You kiss him, long and slow and tender, and when the kiss breaks, the two of you are both gasping for breath, the flush high on your cheeks.

"I love you," he whispers, his voice rough.

"I love you, too." You reach up, tracing his jawline with your fingertips, your eyes meeting his.

"More than anything," he continues. "And I promise, I'll never let anyone hurt you. Never again."

His voice is thick with emotion, and there's a fierceness in his gaze, a protectiveness that makes your heart skip a beat. He means it. He'll keep you safe, no matter the cost. And knowing that, believing that, fills you with an overwhelming sense of comfort. It eases the pain, the fear, the anxiety, and for the first time in weeks, you feel... whole.

You're safe. You're loved. You're home. And no matter what happens, no matter how hard things get, that will never change.

"I know." You lean up, brushing your lips against his, and his arms tighten around you. "And I'm not going anywhere. Not ever."

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[yanderes-galore]

Yandere romantic hcs for Legoshi and Juno both fighting over a wolf darling please ^^

Sure! I haven't rewatched Beastars so I hope they're both accurate. I ran out of ideas for this near the end so I'm sorry it wasn't very intense or anticlimactic....

Yandere! Legoshi vs Juno with Wolf! Darling

Pairing: Romantic - Rivalry

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Possessive behavior, SFW Scent kink, Manipulation, Coercion, Stalking, Blood, Violence, Implied kidnapping, Forced relationship(s).

This is unnerving because, while you are a carnivore and the same species as them, the two can still take advantage of you.

For example, as a fellow wolf you'd think you can trust the two....

Legoshi may be socially awkward, but he's reliable.

Plus Juno is so sociable and nice!

Unfortunately, despite that, it doesn't seem like you can trust them in this....

Juno herself has been described as ambitious, manipulative, and jealous/possessive in canon.

This is shown in how she competes to be Beastar and her behavior towards Legoshi and Haru.

Legoshi is, surprisingly, more tame than Juno.

He's humble and polite, struggles socially, and tries to be gentle/patient.

Although, since he is still a wolf, he is capable of being imposing and assertive.

He doesn't like scaring people... yet his stature as a male wolf is naturally intimidating.

Out of the two, I feel Juno would be the one more forceful.

Legoshi spends a lot of his time trying to rationalize his feelings and comprehend them.

While Juno immediately thinks it's love at first sight and you must date.

There's a lot of manipulation in this rivalry.

The good thing is, you're not an herbivore.

Which should, in theory, put you on near equal footing with them as a wolf.

You see the two wolves during classes, in the hallways, during Biology Days...

You may even have drama club with them.

As a wolf you interact a lot and don't activate any sort of hunting instinct in them.

What you do ignite within them?

A need for companionship.

Juno used to feel such a way for Legoshi until she met you.

She loves your fur, your scent, your voice...

She loves it all!

It's funny, because the moment she finds a new crush?

Her old crush also shows signs of liking them.

Frustrating.

Wolves tend to be possessive of chosen mates.

So while Juno shows this a lot more, Legoshi's capable of it too.

You're close with them as friends and fellow wolves.

You even remember their scent and are capable of sensing them through that.

Which is why it unnerves you when you start sensing them more often than you should.

Juno is much more clingy, sociable, and touchy with you.

She's assertive and it seems like she's showing every animal around her that you two belong together.

It's like she's showing claim over you.

You notice and may try to distance yourself, but the other wolf follows you closely.

Why are you trying to avoid her?

Do you not like it when she holds you? Nuzzles you?

Don't you see her tail wagging when around you?

Legoshi is less into PDA....

He's shy around you and allows you your space and independence.

He's protective more than possessive, yet those desires still linger within his actions.

He blushes at close contact, stutters when speaking to you, and overall just likes to admire you from a distance.

He's the opposite of Juno... yet he feels jealous when he sees how Juno acts around you.

Legoshi can tell you aren't a big fan of Juno's clingy behavior.

Which he uses as an excuse to pull you away and distract you a bit.

Much to Juno's frustration.

Although, while Legoshi is protective and willing to help you away from Juno...

He can end up being suffocating too.

Legoshi is less manipulative and possessive than Juno at first.

Although, with how strong the other wolf is coming on, he may feel like he has to show claim over you.

It's no doubt in his instincts if he really does view you in a romantic way.

You probably don't even see either wolf in that kind of way.

Which is why it can be overwhelming when two wolves are suddenly not only trying to win you over... but compete.

They both act caring and attentive to you when it's just you and them alone.

Yet the moment the two are in a room with one another?

There's tension and glares.

Maybe a frustrated growl here or there.

Juno is the one who acts the most moody out of the two.

She's often arguing with Legoshi, blaming him for trying to sabotage her or how she just wants him to leave you and her alone.

Her heart is still recovering from their "break-up" (They were never together).

Now he's trying to take yours from her!?

Meanwhile Legoshi just wants to make sure you're okay and Juno isn't being too... much.

Legoshi's crush is gradual, so he starts just genuinely looking out for a fellow "pack member".

Although... Over time he wonders if he should pay attention to how his tail wags and how he blushes around you....

Would the two be violent with one another...?

No... I can't really see it.

Legoshi would want to physically hurt Juno.

Juno may threaten him, standing her ground and barking about how you're hers.

But she won't actually do anything... hopefully.

Legoshi is no doubt stronger than her as a male wolf, so she's cautious.

Even other wolves can sense the tension between these two.

Biology Day feels more stressful than it should be due to Juno and Legoshi avoiding one another.

Juno would try to spend more time with you by inviting you to gatherings or trips.

You don't seriously plan on spending all of your time in the dorms, right?

You'd rather do that than deal with their tension.

She'd drag you out to hang out with her, always having an arm around you as she walks.

Her tail would be wagging fast, while yours sways with insecurity.

Legoshi would be less forceful, merely offering for you to hang out with him... doing anything really.

Since he isn't as intense, you may actually go to him more often.

Right up until he admits he has feelings for you, another wolf, and asks if you'll be his?

He may be more considerate... but he's going to want this rivalry between him and Juno to end at some point.

One of them will have to claim you as theirs soon....

You don't seem at ease around Juno... but you're at ease around him, right?

Right?

It's worse when you're walking around the halls, only to catch sight or smell of them.

You know at least one wolf is watching you at all times.

As though they're waiting for the perfect move.

Kidnapping seems OOC for both of them... but hey...

Maybe one of them will trap you in their dorm so you have to make a decision?

This rivalry could go on for months.

It really pushes you and the two wolves to the brink.

You're aware the two stalk you.

You're aware they're pushy to date you because you're such a good looking and kind wolf...

Yet you wish they'd stop.

Even when you tell them you want nothing to do with either of them...

They only seem to press more.

Juno gets more possessive, Legoshi gets more protective...

You can't trust either of them anymore.

Plus, you may even grow more concerned when you start seeing blood on their fur.

With months of tension, the two may even fight more.

Wolves are territorial and violent when it comes to mates....

You can only hope the issue resolves soon.

Those wounds are beginning to concern you.

They can't hide the smell of blood from you.

Juno may be the one most likely to lock you in her dorm until you choose her.

Although, Legoshi may lure you to his dorm in an attempt to soothe you and protect you.

Both wolves are intense and only seem to have one goal in mind...

How long will it be before one of them snaps?

You may be a wolf, a carnivore just like them...

But between them you just feel like prey.

[twinkle-art]

Andromeda's garlean, or at least raised in garlean society, right? How'd she take the whole Varis/Anima thing in Endwalker? Or just the Garlemald section as a whole? If you've done all the EW role quests, how'd she feel about that last blasphemy?

unfortunately for her, she sure is! she was raised by her garlean mother and spent her entire childhood in the capital city so coming back to that under the circumstances that she did was, frankly, the worst experience of her life. just a profoundly miserable, harrowing time for her.

wrt to the anima stuff, i don’t actually know how strongly it hit her through the noise of every other horrific thing she was seeing, but i think the revelation that the people of her homeland had been devoured by their own nationalistic fervor nauseated her first and foremost because of how it almost felt like a foregone conclusion- a sort of “of course that would be what destroyed them” reaction that, in the face of how gruesomely it actually played out, makes her too unsettled to really feel any sort of vindication at the karmic comeuppance. mostly it just makes her sad. 

(the particular way she personally suffered at the hands of garlean fascism did little to harden her to the many, many cruelties of war she both witnessed and participated in in her capacity as the warrior of light- she has always done what she must without complaint, but she has never been able to turn off the way she instinctively sees humanity in those she cuts down for the sake of justice, knowing they’re probably a lot like the kind of people she was raised in tenuous community with. she just tries not to think about it too hard.)

of course, within the larger context of the arc, it’s ALSO pretty hard for her to view it as any sort of divine retribution when she knows not only what real, tangible person is responsible for unleashing this disaster on them, but that he all but says he did it to get under her skin, specifically. she might even feel culpable for the massive civilian casualties, if she let herself think about it for more than ten seconds. good thing there’s always something else for her to be doing!

anyways, more broadly, the garlemald arc was when her elaborate lies about being a normal eorzean girl completely and utterly collapsed under the strain of actually returning to where she came from. the psychological toll of keeping up the façade with the ilsabard contingient (though the scions, lucia, maxima, and some others have all kept her secret for a while now) And being treated by the garlean populace as a foreign invader (which strikes a nerve she was surprised to realize was still raw after all this time) And not knowing if her mother, who she had very recently accepted might’ve been a more complicated figure than she assumed, was even alive was, frankly, just way too much. the jig is extremely up. she’s taking out her anguish by cursing out some uncooperative military guy who probably reminds her of her step-father in her native language. she keeps asking everyone they meet if they know a woman named lucretia eir caecus. she’s finding any reason to avoid regio urbanissima because if she sees her old home she’s probably gonna have a panic attack. it went Extremely Bad.

the one and pretty much only spot of hope for her during all this is that it did help to get it through her thick skull that her friends like, really really love her. alphinaud and alisaie were basically glued to her side as much as they could be and each had their own approaches to trying to protect her from something that they pretty obviously couldnt. and, for what it’s worth, even as word began to spread through the ilsabard contingient that Hey I Think She’s From Here? i simply don’t think it destroyed their respect for her the way she had convinced herself it would. if anything i think a lot of them just felt bad for how much of a toll this was clearly taking onher.

…sadly i have not actually done all the edw role quests (i’m REALLY bad about doing role quests. i didn’t even do the shb ones until i made that video essay in june. and we all know i’m a huge shadowbringers guy) so i can’t comment on that but i’m sure it’s probably in line with all of this. yeah <3

[monitorkernelaccess]

I think it probably is more likely that Falin chimera was purposely trying to disarm Laios by crying for help, rather than that part actually being genuine. Cause it happens at a moment when she’s temporarily disarmed from being electrocuted and then she does make a smug face afterwards. But I’m sentimental and I Want To Believe

Uhh it could also maybe be both? Like both an intentional tactic (from the dragon side?) and also a sign that at least some part of Falin is in there and wants to be saved

The way they animate it, her eyes go from dragon-like slitted pupils to normal round pupils as she says it. And then a tear falls from one eye, while the other eye stays completely dry

Looking at all that again with a bit more context and possibly a clearer mind, that looks like it’s all to make the ruse look more realistic. If it were more of an outburst as I originally believed (or was trying to convince myself), then the pupils wouldn’t have changed probably? It seems like an intentional move

In addition to the pupil change, the single tear seems forced as well. Like she could only muster up one fake tear while the other eye remained completely dry.

On the other hand…it’s kinda hard to force tears at all, especially so quickly. And if we imagine for the moment that the tear was genuine, could the fact that it only fell from one eye mean that only half of her was crying? Like maybe the dragon is really mostly in control, but it let Falin out as an emotional manipulation tactic. Meaning that the cry was both genuine and just a combat strategy/self-defense measure.

And I’m still not sure what to make of the fact that she pushes Laios out of the way before crushing Kabru. Like was it just an accident then? Or is it more just a side effect of Laios being essentially the main character and no one in the main party gets killed in that scene? Or…could it still be that maybe, deep down, Falin doesn’t want to hurt her brother?

[semisolidmind]

Random person getting mulled to death by Dogday: GET YO FUCKN DOG BITCH

Y/n: He don’t bite.

Random person bleeding out: YES HE DO-

i mean, if said random person hadn't gotten so close to his house, the dog wouldn't be mauling them, sooooo...

and as an aside; i imagine y/n doesn't know that dogday will occasionally attack people in the woods surrounding their home when they aren't there. y/n knows him to be against violence unless it's necessary (unlike their time in the factory, where he didn't have a choice), and the closest town doesn't really deliver newspapers out in the woods. so unless they pay attention to gossip when they go to work, there's no way for y/n to figure out that the supposed "monster" in the woods mauling people is their friend and housemate. there are cougars out there, it's probably just one of those.

and they know that dogday likes to hunt deer occasionally (and he sometimes eats them all by himself), so they don't suspect anything when he comes home covered in blood. he's just a little messy, that's all. they clean him off and welcome him back in, none the wiser.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Hey, I had a thought for the fantasy au! So on one of the previous versions of the WH website, there was a rhyme for the show that went:

A house is a place with four walls and a floor,

with a ceiling above and a lovely front door.

There's a bed to cradle you safely at night,

and windows to bring in the morning sunlight.

Your house is a mirror of just who you are,

A reflection that tells you to never stray far.

Which I thought might make a good incantation for when Wally properly summons Home (I can't remember if that's ever required for Warlocks but hey, it's still a fun poem regardless).

ohhhh this. i like this...

bonus og sketch! big ol eyes...

& no capalet because uhhhh eh nah and also i wanted Home's pendant to be on full display!

[justashadetalkative]

Details: Phosa & Linast

Mundane video technology hits something not unlike an uncanny valley for Phosa & Linast on two fronts:

1) Their spacial awareness is intense and encompasses the electromagnetic field around them, so trying to process 2D images as representations of 3D objects & space was a learning curve for them. Even after they learned the trick of it, it’s still more like viewing an autostereogram than anything natural or automatic. (They have to trick themselves into perceiving it as looking at something that is very far away and outside of themselves, even as it's (usually) radiating from inside their range of perception.) 2) They don't have a brain that smooths a rapid sequence of images into a perception of smooth motion for them, and while their conscious processing speed isn't precise or rapid enough for them to truly discern the actual movement of light through space (unless working with large enough distances), they can still sense it to some degree. Between those two factors, it's like touching a vibrating surface; they sure as heck couldn't count the individual jerks, but they can feel that something about the motion isn’t smooth.

Some of these factors were mitigated during that human incident, and it went a long way towards helping them figure out how to interpret 2D images the way most sighted humans do.

[coloursofaparadox]

>:[

[zemnarihah]

much to think about.

[yeyinde]

appetite | Alpha!Simon Riley

it's been decades since Alpha!Ghost had a rut. something that's probably for the best, really. his want is as hideous as he is. as ugly as his goddamn mug. it's best kept tucked away, secured under lock and key.

but then he finds you. and you're all alone. unclaimed, on the verge of heat. poor thing. it triggers a voracious rut. decades worth of want spilling out over you. you're it, he knows. feels the certainty in that statement simmering in his hindbrain, in his essence. he'll have you—now, forever. non-negotiable. where you go, he will follow.

but you run from him. stupid girl. didn't anyone teach you not to run from a starving wolf?

dubcon. size kink. size difference. a/b/o dynamics: knotting, rut. breeding kink. spit kink. implied virgin!reader. obsessive behaviour. possessive!Ghost. semi-public sex. reluctant reader bullied into submission lmao. forced bonds. implied kidnapping. basically, you're hunted down and fucked by Alpha!Simon who growls in your ear about how he's waited his whole life for you. and lucky him. he finally found you

AO3

It's been years, decades, since he had a rut. 

(Broken Alpha. Ruined.)

Trauma, they tell him, will do that. Sever the drive in the back of his head, the one that rears—vicious and angry—each mating season, bringing with it the urge to breed. To claim. Own. 

A form of self-preservation. It pitches a plexiglass of protection between him and his instincts, not letting them merge. Join. Done so because to be in rut, to want, to need, is vulnerability. It costs hypervigilance. Turns man into beast. Animal. 

This bodily reaction makes an alpha extend themselves, like an overarching limb, to shield the omega they pick as a mate. Bearing their own neck to save another. 

Naturally, they say, if he couldn't help himself, how could he ever hope to protect a fragile little omega? 

They tell him it could be as permanent or temporary as he allows. Healing, they say. Time. Laughable, really. And utter nonsense because Ghost is fine. 

Trauma tampered. Revenge sought, found. There's no one out there who could ever harm him, and still—

His last rut was before the mission that buried him alive. That turned him into the living dead. A mockery of man. Frankensteinian beast. 

It's not something he cares much for, anyway. From what he remembers of his youth—vague snippets of memories, disjointed, blurred sensation; a profound need, an urge, to sink his cock into something, to plug them up, to bite—ruts have always been a nuisance. In the way. An annoyance that took time away from what he'd rather be doing. 

And as Johnny enters his—skin pallid, waxy; cheeks flushed, eyes darkening like a brewing storm on the horizon; snapping at anything that breathes, whining like a dog, miserable and hot, all the time (ahm’a bleedin’ furnace, s’what ah’m)—he finds he doesn't care very much to go reclaim what he lost. 

No skin off his nose. Nothing to concern himself with. 

Besides. Omegas know better. 

Even before he lost himself, dying, rotting in a tumulus, pretty little omegas with their soft hands and bashful smiles always went out of their way to avoid him. Miserable alpha. His scent alone wards them off—burnt leather, charred bones; sarcophagus dust, dirt—and he found himself alone during his burgeoning ruts more often than not. 

No pretty little thing to tender the sweat on his brow, or bend over and present for him—offering up a sweet little cunt he got to bury himself inside, tie up nice and tight on his knot. 

It was usually his hand. A bottle of bourbon. A printed porn stash he swiped from Tommy, who nicked it off their old man—

And when he did find a partner, it was always transactional. Hand to hand, an exchange of money. All clinical and detached. Empty. Fucking into a concept instead of a person; a vacuum eating away at his soul because he knew, then, that they wanted to be there almost as much as he did. 

But what choice did either have when their home was the rotted gullet of a dying beast?

(Simon told them to stay away from shitty men like him, who broke bones in the throes of his heat, snapped his jowls at anything that got too close, and had to be chained to the bed like an animal during it—)

Nothing to miss. Nothing to mourn. 

And it's not like he doesn't get the urge. Wanting to sink his cock into something warm, wet, is as recurring as a sweet tooth. A prickle in the back of his head after he devours his dinner that says, dessert might be nice. 

He can fuck, but his knot never pops. A worry the doctors had—unsure what the consequences would be in the long run for such a virile, young Alpha already experiencing nature's version of erectile dysfunction so early in life. 

(“pity the poor omega who has to deal with that rut,” they whispered. “might not be much of anything left of them when he's through.”)

Inconsequential now because he's pushing forty and his last rut was a false trigger. One dragged out of him by drugs and torture. The last true rut, natural and instinctual, was when he was eighteen. 

It's doubtful he'd suddenly be cured at his age. 

This is what he tells Johnny when he asks, pries. Broken fuck, ain't he? Unmated. Can't knot. Piss poor excuse of an Alpha. Doesn't he think it's—

“a shame,” Johnny grouses, words muffled slightly by the way he's hunched over the cheap plastic table in the canteen. His fingers dig harshly into his temple. “Alpha like you—” it's enunciated in clipped Queen's English, the barb makes Ghost scoff. “—ack! a waste. ma mam would be livid. no grandbabies t’show off? sacrilegious.”

—funny. If he's being honest. Laughable:

because for as long as Ghost can remember, he's always had a predilection to ruin his favourite toys. slaking his unquenchable lust on their tender skin, biting down to the bone, sipping on their marrow—

not really the sort of thing omegas today go for, is it? 

his want is as hideous as he is. as ugly as his goddamn mug—

Instead, he shrugs. “hardly.” 

“yer no’ missin’ it?” 

“missin’ what, Johnny?”

“knottin’, ye surly prick.” He jeers, then, jabs his elbow into Simon's arm. “a bonnie omega to stick yer prick in. ain't missin’ th’, no?”

“no,” Simon gripes. The last thing Price needs is another order of protection against his Lieutenant. But to humour the alpha in an early stage of rut, he jabs out, hollow and full of wretched derision. “i can barely remember what it felt like. must be heaven, though. is that your plans for tonight, Johnny? gonna go and knot some sorry omega?”

It's meant to prod, poke. Sharp barbs aimed at Johnny's threadbare control, the same one held in place by a fraying, unspooling knot. Alphas in the early stage of rut are considered safe enough to be around. Not yet mindless drones, hosts to an ugly little parasite; a being forced to obey a single, instinctual drive to mate, to gorge themselves into a post-rut stupor. 

Safe. Or so they say. 

But Ghost knows what Johnny's feeling in the same sense as a phantom limb. A broken, fragmented memory. So, he twists his mockery in deep. All in jest, of course. 

And Johnny pales suddenly. Wavers in his seat. The affirmative comes after a bout of contemplative silence. A jagged, choked yeah slips from his Sergeant’s mouth as he drops his head to the table, and groans. Miserable. 

“go fuck yerself, Lt.”

Simon intends on taking Johnny up on that offer, lazying out on the futon with his hand stroking lazily along his flaccid cock, thumbing through the latest series of snapshots Johnny—ever the photographer—snapped up during his previous rut. Images of pretty omegas dressed up in fine silk, blood-red lingerie, and coy little grins on their faces, a vixen pastiche of demureness. Jejune appeal in all its coquettishness.

Innocent sluts—Johnny's preferred type. Ones who'll bat their eyes at him, nervous and full of faux modesty, while they rock back and forth on his face, tugging on his mohawk to make him lick their cunts just the way they like. Sweet, like candy. Dressed in sin. 

He likes to take before and after photos of them—often with the pretty models unaware (adds to it, aye, Lt?). Ones with them batting their eyes at him, soft and shy in all their twee delight, and then fucked out, ruined and chewed up like a broken toy when he finishes with them. Bitten off more than they can swallow. Cheeky brats sobbing for mercy on his bed. 

Likes, even more, to send them to Ghost. A little tease. One he has no compunction about partaking in. Enjoying to his heart's content. 

Or—

Intended to, of course. Because what ends up happening is this:

Price calls just as he's getting into the new series sent to his phone—the tear streaks streaming down this omega’s face are particularly appealing, bound in intricate Celtic knots (Johnny, the artist), and gagged with their own panties—and tells him he has a job for him. 

Something simple. Discreet. And local, too. Bears have been sighted in town—a mama and her cubs. Dangerously close. 

The prelude to the phone call is a clipped take care’a it before the line goes dead. 

Ghost doesn't need to pack much—he can't remember the last time he unpacked his duffle bag, anyway—and stays in the recliner until the mission file comes in, idly stroking his thumb across the pixelated, tear-streaked face of the omega in Johnny's clutch. Moussed. Messy. They make the prettiest picture, don't they? Drool dripping down their chin, a spillover from what the lacy, white panties couldn't catch. 

Flesh peppered with jagged circles, bite marks. Johnny knows better than to claim them, and their neck is bereft of his teeth. Smooth. Unblemished. 

To claim is to bond. To bond—

Well. 

His earliest recollection of a relationship is his parents’. His mum, tied and trapped to a man she wanted no part of, but stuck. Unbondings, divorce, were rare during that time. Unheard of. Even now. 

And under his old man's influence, he's always seen claiming as ownership. As possession. A lingering remnant he’s told is wrong, but can't shake. Can't change. It glues in the fibrils of his mind. A rotten, pulsing scab that no amount of sanctioned reconditioning can ever seem to get rid of, to scrape out of his skull. 

(one he knows would be there no matter what because his sole purpose is exsanguination; bloodletting— 

in his warped desire to protect the things he cares about, he ends up smothering them in the end. a child holding a firefly too tight in its chubby fist.)

But Johnny knows better. Good Catholic boy. Knows to keep a muzzle on himself when he sucks desperate kisses into the small omegas' sweet neck, breaking apart the blood vessels of their scent glands, soaking himself in their musk—potent pheromones of a needy omega in heat. Aching for a bite. To be held down and conquered. 

It's wrong, they say. This ugly mass sits inside his chest like a foreign body. Scandalised eyes drilling into the side of his head like he's a monster for thinking this way. 

And he is. 

(always has been)

But he knows better. Knows to keep those uglier, rotten parts of himself hidden away from prying eyes. Got good at it, too. Enough that they let him into the brothels time and time again. 

Still—

He can remember the closest he'd come during a rut to biting a shrill omega who screamed in his ear until his head rang, ached. Nearly did it, too. Teeth razoring over their jugular, pinching delicate skin. 

Clarity came like a gunshot when he tasted blood. Chiselled a hole through his delirium, broke up the haze, and snapped his jaws up tight, locking them as he finished with a muffled growl, tongue swirling over his teeth for another taste. Another drop. 

His ruts have always been messy. Bloody. Got him banned from several centres, brothels, where they offered up betas drenched in the artificial musk of an omega in estrus. Ones resilient enough to withstand the harsh coupling of an unhinged Alpha in need. 

He had a problem, they said, with treating their workers like chew toys. Biting to break skin, drilling in deep enough to scratch his teeth on their bones. 

Deranged, they hissed. Fuckin’ mental, mate. Stay the hell away!

Some are just prone to violence. Need to be half-sedated before they can mate without ripping their partner to pieces. Ghost has always been that sort. Aggressive. Hard to control. Rabid. 

His appetite is bigger than the expanse of their skin. He sometimes thinks he could eat the whole world and still starve. 

He hums, thumb sliding to cover the omega's neck. Trapped in his hand, his clutch. They're cute when they're ruined like this. Begging. Whimpering. 

His cock gives a half-hearted twitch. His work phone chimes, signaling the end of his leisure. 

shame, he thinks, squeezing his hand until the metal dents, the screen cracks, splinters. Pops. Hairline fractures split across their distorted, tear-stained face. He closes his fist over it until it breaks. Goes black. 

really. such a goddamn shame. 

Some things are just not meant to be—

—but they have a habit of falling into his maw, anyway.

It's a simple set up. 

Man—

beast, monster, thing

—with his empty, growling stomach and teeth made to bite, tear, goes out hunting for a meal. In that search, he finds you. 

You, Persephone personified: damned (eternal), standing beneath a spruce tree. Limned, halo gold, in the waning sunset's bashful kisses, you lean on the rough bark, idling your timelessness away. 

Postcard beauty. Pinup demure. Alluring. 

(creature of sin

and oh, do you reek:

The air is saturated in the tantalising scent of honeybush, roasted hazelnuts, and clove. Saccharine—almost nauseatingly so—but with a hint of spice, black cardamom, cinnamon. He drags in lungful after lungful until it tangles deep within his chest, nearly suffocating. Smothered in this earthy sweetness. Drowning. Drowning—

the perfect dessert)

It unleashes something in him. Chips at the lock buried deep in his mind, cudgelling through the hinges until they pop. Rusted, slick with oxidising oil. It peels back from the gate, unveiling this gaping, ravenous chasm, polluted and gangrenous, rotten down to the marrow. Noisome. Noxious. This frothing pit sloshes, geyser-like, and greedily foams at the maw, the mouth, aching for a taste. Something to quench this gnawing hunger. 

This bottomless abyss hadn't seen light since he was eighteen, and—

The hollow space where his rib once sat throbs, aches. phantom bone. He holds his chest with his hand, feeling for the gap, the chasm, stolen from him. Ripped away, taken.

By you. you—

—so,

it's only fair that he steals something back. 

(quid pro quo, or something, right?)

You greet him with a small nod when he wanders close, eyeing him warily under the black rim of your ballcap. Tense. Small hands curl into fists, partially hidden under the rain-soaked windbreaker nearly two sizes too big. It smells like you—honeyed milk, molasses; lilac, lavender and warm bread—and he fights the urge to pull his mask down, to shove his misshapen nose into your neck, and breathe it in right from the source. Drinking, feasting, on it. 

This want is visceral. It coils in his guts, bubbling in his veins. His musk—heavier than yours, pungent—beads along his scent glands, mushrooming into the air like a fine mist. 

Your nostrils flare. He takes a step closer, eyes skewering into you, taking in everything you have to offer. The rucksack left at the bottom of the tree, stained with dirt and leaves. A sprig of Saskatoon berries peeks out from the lopsided flap. And—

Ah. 

Foraging is off-limits in this area unless granted a permit. One you don't seem to have based on the skittish way you keep avoiding his eye.

His scent thickens, tainted sour with faux suspicion, and you wince, ducking your chin, tucking it close to your chest, hiding from his spearing gaze. 

All it does is give him a voyeuristic view of your fragile nape, your vulnerable neck. 

His teeth ache. Jaw clenched up tight. 

It looks so bare. So naked. 

(Be a shame to keep it that way forever, wouldn't it?)

“Hi,” you stammer, seemingly oblivious to the musk you leak into the air, into his lungs. Forcing some sense of staid indifference into your tone. Like being here, out in the middle of the forest is normal. “Did you need something?” 

On the verge of a heat like this, wobbling where you stand—

He wants to chew you up. Spit out the pieces on the pavement. Drink from the gash he'll rip into your jugular,

quench this unbearable thirst. 

He doesn't know how you made it out here as long as you have, smelling like you do, and the thought burrows through the haze spuming, clotting, on the fringes of his muted periphery. Anger is an icy deluge of white water raging through his veins. 

Under the mask, the remnants of his scarred lip curls. His hands close into tight fists. Balled up. He feels the tension crackling along his muscles, his body. Coiled spring. Ready to leap—

But:

There's clarity. Focus. Where he was meant to become a mindless monster, driven by instinct, he instead feels the pieces of himself snap back into place. Missing puzzle pieces. It shifts. Settles. Locks. 

He wants you. Will have you. It's non-negotiable. Ironclad. You just—

Belong to him, don't you? Pretty little thief. And wandering around like this, reeking like you do, you must want him, too. Need him. 

(protect, protect, protect—)

Honed in, drilling into your face to catch every expression that flickers past, he sees the moment you take a sniff, when realisation blooms in the inkpools of your gaze that you are less than an arm's length away from a starving predator. Supple, soft. All plush flesh seated seamlessly against brittle bone. Fragile. 

“hi,” he echoes, and it sounds hollow. Garbled. Like he's speaking underwater. Thinks, for a moment, that he's buried again. Drowning under the crushing weight of dirt. His own tumulus. Suffocating. Choking on dirt—

But you twitch. Feral little thing. It breaks him out of this nightmarish obtundation; shaking the cobwebs loose. He tracks it like a viper. Attention narrowing, shrinking, into nothing but the way you move. Smell. You anchor him in his place, keeping him stable amid this horrific onslaught of emotions that rip talons down his chest. 

“I–” you breathe in again, lashes fluttering. Strains of silk batting over your etiolated cheeks. You breathe him in. Deep. He sees your chest grow, expanding with his air. His musk. Has to bite down on a growl before it forms, the lash of a whip in his throat. Aching. 

There's something spellbinding about you—caked in a layer of grime, briny sweat clogging your natural scent; wild and untamed. Uncharted wilderness, untouched by man and their dirty hands. A corrie after a rain shower. Snow melt. He wants to bathe in it. Carry it with him wherever he goes. 

As if scenting this thickening desire, your eyes widen. You take a step back, swallowing audibly when he follows. Marionette on strings. Your shadow. 

“I should go—”

And he knows he can't let you do that. 

Won't. 

He hums, a fickle, brittle thing in the far reaches of his chest. 

“Go?” he flicks his hand toward your bag, head cocking to the side in a mockery of contemplation. “Don' think you got a permit for that, do you?”

“A permit…”

He has you. Your eyes lower, falling to the badge on his chest. Game Warden. You stare at it, eyes widening. Swallowing thick. 

With you distracted, he leans in. Curves his body over you mockingly, like he's bending down to whisper a secret in your ear. Cupping a pretty little firefly in the palm of his hand. 

When his shadow falls over you—dark and damning—you flinch back, fists trembling under the hem of your jacket. Brows furrowed, knotted tight. Your lower lip wobbles. You try to hide that, too, by sinking your teeth into your flesh until it floods white under the strain. 

He wants to pry it apart with his own teeth. Take the bruised flesh into his mouth until you start to drool, whining from the abuse he inflicts on you in a mockery of a kiss. 

(wants to tear through it, taste your blood on his tongue—)

“An’ I don't reckon tha's a good idea, pet.” 

You shiver when he places his hand on the truck above your head. Boxing you in completely, nothing to spare—not even an inch. 

He hums at that, cock giving a vicious jerk inside his trousers at the almost impossible dearth between your sizes, at the way he swallows you up in an instant. Has to take a deep breath to steady himself, to keep the inkblack tendrils swirling, gathering, at the edges of his periphery from bleeding in. This starving murder of crows. 

When he speaks again, it's low. Deep. Kittenish licks from the tongue of a tiger; abrasive, rough. Mocking baritone of a shifting canyon, a mountainside, before it buries anyone alive under rubble. 

“Not reekin’ the way you do. Might ‘ave every alpha in a one square mile radius frothin’ at jaws for a taste. Ain't safe out there.”

And it's definitely not safe with him. 

He watches, transfixed, the moment this clicks. When your eyes waver between the hard bulk of his body—spread out, laxed; plumage unfurled—and the noisy clatter of the town just within reach. It's this thicket that cups your scent, that protectively curls over you, and keeps the Alpha's prowling about the market square from sniffing you out. A beaten trail. Hidden desire path no one was supposed to wander down. 

Except the bear problem in the woods, infringing on town, and him, the gun bolstered on his thigh still hot from his warning shots into the bush.

(lost little Lamb—

wandered too far from the herd.)

You take another step, cautious. Small. It brings you flush against the tree. Your polyester jacket whines at the friction. He can see indecision play out on your face. Oscillating between the badge on his uniform shirt, the gun on his massive thigh, and the clamour of muted noise from the town just within reach. Alphas prowling. Their acrid scent is unmistakable even through the dense foliage spreading around you.

It's an impasse. Neither option affords you much choice in the long run—it's either stay here with him, with the heady scent of want, of an Alpha on the incipient cusp of a voracious rut; or risk yourself in town. There are police officers patrolling. Ones who can sedate an alpha who gets too out of hand, but still. 

The mimesis of desire pooling around you might send you into heat sickness. That, or you'll get in even more trouble for fleeing a pursuing officer. Resisting arrest. Jail time, certainly. 

The pendulum wavers. Your knotted fists wobble. 

Then—

Your eyes leave his chest, the gun, trailing over his shoulder. Widening in surprise at whatever is there in the distance. 

He ought to commend you, really. The rouse is quite believable—

But: 

“Not bad,” he murmurs, leaning down further. If you won't jump, he'll push you—

He sees his mistake as soon as it happens. 

As he bends, you drop. Waiting until his attention seemingly drifts elsewhere, to when he's distracted and off balance. Lured in by your faux attempt at distraction. 

And it might have worked on a lesser being, but all Ghost has ever been is raw, unadulterated instinct.

He lashes out as soon as you move again, palm curling over your wrist in an instant. Snapping jowls of a defensive snake. Shackled. Locked. He tugs—

But the movement costs momentum. You use this against him, going limp. Forcing him to take the brunt of your weight on the spread of his fingers. Tricky little minx. His mouth breaks out in a feral smirk, tugging harshly on scars, on burns. Stretching skin. Distorting it under the mask, ugly and vicious. 

Your scent plumes up around him, sickly sweet. His jaw aches, gums itch. He wants to bite, snap his jowls around the scruff of your neck, chew on your skin until you sob out his name—

In seconds, you twist. Swinging your body back in a beautiful pivot, clumsy as it is. You're all animal now. Reckless in your pursuit to escape. Throwing out pheromones at him—purposeful, he realises a moment too late. 

And it works. Distracts him long enough for his grip to slacken. Your arm slips out of his grasp, and you're on your feet in an instant, darting through the thicket in a maddened dash to escape the heavy, starving alpha and his burgeoning hunger. 

Escape, or—

Weighed down by the afterbirth of his sudden rut, a prickle of his old self buoys, brims, from beneath the mess. He shouldn't chase you. Should leave you alone, call someone—Price, perhaps. Bark out between a clenched jaw that he needs a tranquiliser and chains. Will have to break Simon's teeth to stop him from biting into you like a man starved, famished. Tie him to the back of his pickup truck, drag him to the edges of the forest. Knock him out. Knock his teeth in. 

Anything.

Because they said this might happen. The doctors’ who poked and prodded. Therapists—all mandatory, non-negotiable, when he signed his name on the dotted line—murmured about unravelling. His self-control snapping like a twig. Sense of self retreating. All hiding away, protecting itself from the torrent of chemicals flooding his hindbrain. A heavy, unrelenting accumulation of a decades-long bout of rut celibacy all washing over him, all at once. 

Said to lock himself up if it happens. Chains. Shackles. Nuts and bolts. Heavy tranquiliser. Immediate sedation. 

And in Price’s office, in that messy filing cabinet he keeps, is a folder. A playthrough of everything that's supposed to happen if this happens. 

(“but that won't happen, will it, Simon?” 

and he'd rolled one massive shoulder in an easy, effortless shrug. 

“no.”)

The failsafe is that he's meant to call in if it does. Precious seconds of clarity, cognisance, enough time for him to dial the number, to bark out the order. To be hunted down, rounded up, and thrown in a pit. 

where he belongs. 

He should. Should. It's the book. Rules. Coloured in red ink. No option to negotiate. 

But as you slip through the dense foliage, angelic gold against the phthalo green bosky, the knot in his shoulders abates. Uncoils. In this sense of ease that permeates within him, he finds that he's shockingly cognisant. In full control. The plexiglass shatters, and in the ruins he finds purpose. 

You smell good. Too good. Any alpha will scent you in an instant, will claim you. Take you. It makes something in his broken, moulted head shift. Crack. He can't let that happen. Has to protect you the only way he knows how—

To wrap his paws around your throat before any other Alpha has the chance to sink their teeth into you. To claim you. 

All his. Little Persephone tucked tight against his ribs where you belong. 

And if the way the air clots with your cloying smell—heady, potent; the unmistakable ripeness of an omega in heat—then you must want him to chase you. Want him to follow. 

(escape, or—

a game.)

He tracks your movements, honed in on the rustle of the underbrush. When you're out of sight, Ghost flexes his hand, curling his gloved fingers over the leather on his palm. There's an itch in the back of his head. Festering. Rotting. He wants to reach in, rake his claws down the mass, shred it to pieces, but it affixes one simple truth inside of him: 

you need him. want him. why else would you run in the opposite direction of help if you didn't want him to give chase?

And so, he does.

You're a crafty little thing. To throw him off of your trail, you leave scent markers on the tree trunks you pass, doubling back to run in the opposite direction. 

It might have worked on someone else, but Ghost has spent half of his life buried in this thicket, and knows better than to follow smells in the forest. A vacuum, a great chasm; it plays tricks with sounds. Distorts scents wafting through the canopy, mingling with the natural loam, the disturbed humus underfoot. 

Instead, he hums at your cleverness—his smart little omega—and shifts his gaze to the forest floor, roaming over the footprints sinking into the soft soil, the peat and moss. A breadcrumb trail leading right to you. Broken twigs, crushed bushes. 

Ghost follows it. Places each foot down carefully, nose angled upward to catch the fresh wave of your heat leaking through the tangled furze. It beckons him forward. Calls out to him. 

(come, come, come—)

This lost little lamb needs a shepherd. 

He intends to give you just that. 

(—find me)

The path you cut through the forest is a twisting sawtooth meant to throw him off your trail. Traps laid out in tall tussocks, weaved through sweetgrass all drenched in your scent. Pieces of your clothing torn at the hem, the shorn fabric pressed on pine needles and tangles furze. 

These breadcrumb trails—a neat nest of wile, it seems—are cunning, he'll give you that. 

Even with his eyes to the forest floor, he finds himself throwing a wayward glance in the opposite direction, snagged in your webbed subterfuge. Somewhere between the visitors centre and the first trail meandering into the thick taiga, you seemed to have realised that your boots leave indents in the mor. He follows the deep impressions in the podsol until he finds them shoved under a Saskatoon berry bush. Another dead end. 

Clever little thing, aren't you?

But even when strays from the path, he's right on your tail. Confident in his scenting abilities. His prowess has always been tracking down wily little rabbits when they try to flee, picking them off in stasis from high above. The layout might have changed—his perch closer to the ground instead of a deer stand—but his eyes are just as keen. Your winding trail is ingrained in his mind. A long loop through the eastern trailhead, and he knows, instantly, that you'll try to throw him off at the placard where the west trail branches off through the dense conifers, and the east meanders downslope to the hidden stream where hunters like to trawl. 

He feels a pinch of pride simmering low in his guts. Anyone else would have lost you three pitfalls back. He's enraptured by this pursuit. Smitten by you. Your clumsy little escape. Your sweet little ploys. He wants to chew into you, let his teeth leave jagged scars, false starts, on your bones. Permanent. Starlight—dusting meteor showers in milk white. 

Ghost’s belly gives a tremendous growl. He huffs at the ache clawing against tissue, ravenous and unbearably empty. 

He'll have you soon. All to himself. 

The thought makes fresh blooms of pleasure spume from the rot in his chest, prickling through the layers of muskeg and peat, etiolated little sprout. Germinating in wet gangrene. Feasting on necrotised flesh. 

He swipes his hand over a honeybush, catches the lingering scent clinging to the leaves. You must have fallen here. Tangled yourself in the furze, overcome by your heat. 

Poor thing. Tired already. 

He holds his hand up to the fading gossamer of twilight trickling through the dense canopy, clenching the lingering remnants of your scent in his fist. It's fresh. He wants to tuck it in his pocket, carry it around with him. 

He finds you in a small clearing, bent down with your palm resting on the trunk of a tree. Nails digging into the rotting bark, desperately struggling to catch your breath. Your heat is a wildfire. It scorches the earth. Burns his nose. 

You're no longer on the cusp of it anymore, but in the throes. 

His rut, he finds, isn't too far behind. 

Perfect synergy. Meant to be. You call to him, and the gaping, gnarled chasm inside of him answers with a growl—

Before you can blink, he moves.

He falls over you, felled timber. The earth shakes under his indomitable weight. Palms slam into the rough bark of the gnarled spruce you've taken respite against, boxing you in. 

You fall against it with a gasp, hands pushing against his broad chest as he backs you into the tree. Little fists pounding on his sternum, mouth pinched, twisted in a snarl. There are pieces of bush caught on your clothes, tangled in your hair. Leaves. Sticks. A spot of dirt on your nose. 

It's mesmerising. 

The ballcap falls first. Morning sunlight over a boscage in bloom. Pitfalls, ravines. The canyons of your eyes quiver; this new topography shifting, sliding. Tectonic beauty in muted midnight. 

He wants to reach in, feel these granite walls of yours with his bare hands. Clamber up the colluvium, the scree, until he reaches these rugged peaks gleaming at him, angry and feral, in fading twilight. 

Time is endless. There's no limit to how long he has to know you—drink from your rivers, feast on your valleys; find all the hidden nooks, the crannies, shaded under the towering monoliths of your body. Chart your couloir. Defile your flume. Bathe in your estuary. Tangle himself inside your dells. Tame your chaparral. 

Fastidiously. Expertly. Until no part of you is unknown to him. 

Your chest heaves, mouth open as he crowds you further. Pressing into you. Over you. 

He wedges his broad thigh between your legs, presses it tight against your pussy. Your thrashing stills when he touches you, when he angles his knee up, up—

There. Through the layers of clothing that separates his bare skin from your cunt, he feels the heat bleeding out against him. The wetness from your sodden panties. Undeniable proof of how much you want him. Need him. 

 “All wet f’me?”

“Fuck you—!” You spit, angry and feral, but you arch into his touch, pushing your pussy onto his thigh. Aching for friction. 

It makes him hum. A low growl caught in the back of his throat. 

“Reckon I'll be the one fuckin’ you, pet.” 

And he will be. This is fact. 

You shudder, brows notching together in a vicious glare. “I don't want you.” 

It's hissed between the sliver of your clenched teeth. Full of heavy conviction. Forging truth out of lies—

And that's all it is. A lie. A fallacy. 

(and even if it wasn't, unlikely considering the way you arch into him, needy despite the disdain dripping down your brow—he really just can't find it in himself to give a fuck; he'll make you want him—)

Ghost leans down, muzzle pressed against your neck. He inhales deep, audible. Chest expanding, lungs swelling. Full of the aroma bleeding out of your pores. Proof of just how much you do, in fact, want him. Betrayed by your own body. 

He huffs out, paints the air with his derision. “Is that so?” 

Ghost drags his hand down the solid line of the tree, dropping it to rest against the jut of your hip. He ducks his head, watching. Staring at the way his palm nearly swallows you up when he rests it over your waist. Spanning nearly the entirety of it—hip to hip. 

It bludgeons into him. Knocks the air clean from his lungs. 

He's always had a hunger for things he can cup in his palm. The barrel of his rifle. The hilt of a knife. Your wrist in his hand. The curve of your hip. 

His gloved fingers slip under the hem of your shirt. Pads ghosting over your skin. Warmth bleeds through the leather, an unmistakable tell of your heat reaching its first equinox. It'll be all fire, all smoke, from this point onward. Desperate. Feral. 

Groaning deep, wanting, he pushes into you further. Chest rumbling. Eager. 

It takes a great deal of effort to pull his hand away. To bring it up to his mouth, fingers hooking over the edge. 

The fight in you abates—marginally—and you watch him with a keen look of suspicion dancing in the moulted dirt spread over your nullah. Wary. Anticipatory. 

He fights the urge to laugh—deep and delirious—and instead works on prying his mask down over his crooked nose, his mangled mouth. Letting the hem snap under his chin, kept there. Bearing himself to you for the first time. Naked. Exposed. 

Your eyes widen, trailing down the jagged lines, mauled ridges of scar tissue. Drinking in everything he offers in the fading embers of a summer twilight. 

He grins—a rivened, ugly thing—when you let out a heavy, quick breath, and your hips drop, rutting your sopping cunt over the wide heft of his thigh. Gyrating subconsciously. Quietly pleased by the way he looks—as maimed, as beastly as he is. He lets you. Lifts his knee, pressing his cap tight into the bark, and bumping the top of his flexing quadriceps at the apex of your groin, right where he knows your clit sits. 

The breath you take is pulled in through clenched teeth, biting on the rind of a moan. Its shapeless silhouette ducks, hides from sight. 

He lets you have it. Lets you run. 

But it's not without recompense. 

With his upper lip curled, he sinks his teeth into the leather tip of the glove above his middle finger. Letting you see them for yourself—these thrawn teeth he'll bury into your neck. Claiming you entirely as his. 

Your pupils start to eclipse your irises. Lagoons of liquid black blotting over rugged peaks. 

Ghost slowly tips his head back, dragging the glove with him. Eyes setting along his lashline, he drinks in the sight of you swallowing thickly, your gaze darting between his teeth, his mouth, and now—his bared neck. Voracious, greedy, in the way you feast on him. Drilling into the stretch of skin slowly unveiling itself to you. 

The muscles in his neck flex against rimy skin. Adam's apple bobbing with his slow swallow. 

You follow it all, but your gaze seems to fix itself on the brawny arch of his neck, falling—and then glueing— to the thick vein protruding from his flesh, pulsing with the steady rhythm of his heart, and the small, swollen bump of his scent gland beneath it. 

Hunger, he finds, paints such a pretty picture on your face. The greedy, anfractuous glances a bludgeon into him; so heavily affixed with desire that the shake of your head when he pulls the glove free, letting it dangle from between his teeth, and drops his hand back to your skin, is minute. Meaningless. 

You want him as much as he wants you. 

The clause in this, the axiom, is ironclad. Irrefutable. Bound in brass when you shiver at the touch—feverish skin on feverish skin—and arch into his palm for more. Panting through clenched teeth, each hiss striking against that fraying coil leashing his threadbare control. To distract himself from the unspooling knot, the ache in his gums, he charts the first inch of skin he passes with his thumb, committing the sloping plains of your body to memory. The jut of your hip, the stutter in your breath when he runs the rough pad of his forefinger over the slope of your underbelly. 

It's easy to marvel at the sheer enormity of his size compared to yours. Simon hitches his thigh firmly into your clothed cunt, nearly lifting you up off the ground. You teeter on the tips of your toes, falling forward into his chest to stabilise yourself. Little fists curling into the fabric of his jacket, knuckles tight against his the last rungs of his ribcage. Your head lifts, a glare chiselling into the soft fields of your face. 

You hiss something at him—feral and scathing. He drops the glove, leans down to meet you in the middle, and eats your feeble protests from your lips in a bruising kiss. Scorching. His teeth knock into yours. Tongue lashes out to catch the vitriol dripping from your fangs. You make a noise in the back of your throat, and he swallows that, too. Devours it all. 

It's a vicious kiss. All teeth, tongue. Bullying. He lets you sink your teeth into his tongue, huffing into the seam of your lips when you coo, victoriously, at the first drop of blood spilled. 

In retaliation, he sets his hands over your ribs, and lifts you up off the ground. Making you gasp. Mewl. Your legs kick out as the back of your head catches on loose bark, raining it down over your shoulders in flakes. He doesn't stop kissing you throughout. Eyes half-mast, still open, as he drinks in the sight of yours rolling back in your head when his thigh, one the width of both of yours—fuckin’ hell—catches the perfect angle on your clit. 

Loose-limbed, caught, you have no choice but to wrap your ankles around his waist, curl your arms around his broad shoulders. Clinging to him desperately to remain grounded, held aloft. 

His hand falls down, cups the back of your thigh, fingers spanning the entire curve of your cheek. Held tight in his palm. He bucks into you—quick, hard. Letting you feel the unmistakable bulge of his stiffening cock, leaking spend already in the tight confines of his trousers. This groin, inner thighs, already sticky with the mess dribbling out. 

You fall apart at this. Head tipping back, crown thudding against the truck of the tree. He has your lower lip between his teeth, and it pulls, skin stretching until he huffs out another breath, mocking, and unhinges his jaw, letting you go. 

Mewling, whining low in the back of your throat, you clumsily rut your cunt into the hard press of his cock. Eyes hazy, liquid, with your blooming heat. 

Its approach is quicker than he thought it would be, and he hums, tongue rolling over his teeth to catch the lingering taste of you. Under his hand, your skin burns. Singing with the urgency of your desperation. He answers it with a grunt, falling forward to smother you under his weight. 

There's a flash of clarity in your eyes when they crack open. Brief. Fleeting. He feels your sluggish attempt to push him away, to free your hands from between your chests, and he has to dip his head to stifle another groan. It feels good to have you under him like this. Covered entirely in his bulk, his shadow. 

His hand pulls away from your flesh, snaking between your bodies to catch your wrists in the palm of his hand. Only one swallows them up, and the easy way he subdued you—effortlessly—has him nearly coming undone in his trousers. Untouched. 

“Fuck, want it bad, don't you?” he snarls, hips bucking into you. Chasing pleasure. He pulls your hands out, lifting to arm to trap yours in the shackle his fingers make high above your head, and—

It's devious, this. 

Somewhere in the loosening agency of his self, his autonomy, he knows this is becoming dangerous. Something that ought to be stopped before he rips into you with a rabidness that promises nothing at all will remain intact when he's finished. When he's had his fill. He needs to clear his mind. To get away from the way you fit against him so perfectly. Tiny in his wicked embrace. 

Like you were made to fit between his ribs. His teeth. 

He gnashes them together, trying to stem the ache in his gums. 

He wants to fuck you. Needs to—

But as ripe as you smell to him now—tender melon, warmed honeycomb—he knows that you're not yet ready to take him. 

Ghost steps back, letting your feet drop to the soil below. With the sparse inch of space between your bodies, he breathes in the lingering scent of your breath—sharp, burning; imbued with a heady thrum of adrenaline electrifying your nerves—and finds the musk a near-perfect pantomime of ozone. The arid tang in the air just before the air. A lightning strike. It rolls over his tongue, tastes of wet pennies in the back of his throat. Heavy with anticipation. 

Something he feels very keenly as well. An eagerness he hasn't met in decades. Absolutely famished for it, for this familiarity of want. Potent desire. 

He mourns the loss of the way your ass fits in the cradle of his hand when he pulls it free, fingers trailing over the feverish skin of your hips, your belly, as he goes. He doesn't stop until he comes to rest on the button of your trousers, eyes flickering down to catch your gaze. Purposeful, now. Intent clear. 

Nothing is stopping him from taking. Your protests are paper-thin, dissolving the moment it touches the dense blanket of humidity in the air, but he wants your submission. Wants to see your resolve break, crushed by your own hand. 

The gossamer wings of a butterfly, crumpled up in your palm, and offered to him for the taking. How sweet—

You seem to realise his intentions when his thumb dips below the hem of your pants. Just a tease. Brushing against the soft skin he finds there with the curve of his nail. 

Your glare is instant. The sharp tug of a drawstring pinching tight between your brow. Mesmerising as it closes over your lax expression. A fierce snap. He wants to pry it apart. Wedge himself between the seam. Create a gap wide enough for him to fit. 

“I won't beg,” you grind out, acidulous. Firm. 

He huffs, quietly amused by the fight still sparking in you despite the evidence of your arousal, your want of him, evident in the stain at the seam of your pants. His other hand rests on the trunk of the tree above your head, boxing you in when he leans closer. Taunting. “That so?” 

You don't respond, but your glare sharpens, mouth tugging downward in a harsh frown. Displeasure sparks in the air. Cutting into him like fine glass shards. He lets it graze his naked flesh, the warning ghosting over him in needlepoint pinpricks. Entirely too captivated by you to notice the sting. 

Your ire is a heady, tangible thing dripping down your brow, slashing over your cheeks. Anger, however misguided it might be, paints a pretty picture over your face. Darkens the inlets nestled in the corner of your eyes. Drenches the ravines, gorges in a startling chiaroscuro. Limns the alpines, the valleys, in a halo of golden starlight. 

He wants to drink it down. Hold your fury in the palm of his hand—

Crush it between his fingers. 

Because despite the dissent, your desire cuts through, and hews the air in a thick tapestry of want. 

mutinous, teeth bared, but your eyes burn, rage against the prison walls, and scream, please—

His fingers dig into the bark above your head, catching flecks of sap between his nails. Knuckles turning white under the flaxen hair dusting over them, strained. The grip is unintentional. Unconscious. He keeps thinking about you beneath him. The heat of your thighs around his waist was a mere tease. A morsel when he wants a meal—

The pressure in his knuckles grounds him. Cuts through the phosphenes blanketing the edges of his vision, smothering the clarity, the cognisance, that lingers in the centre. Threadbare as it is. 

There’s an ache in his jaw. 

(the need to bite—)

He pulls it off, and shoves his hand tight between your thighs, cupping your cunt in his palm. Feeling the heat bleed through the gusset of your pants. The touch is harsh. Firm. He bullies his fingers into your flesh, letting out a mocking chuff when he feels the fabric dampen.  

“Somethin’s’ tellin’ me otherwise.” 

Your hand lashes out, grabbing the thick of his wrist. Holding firm. It should be a warning, but the obvious gap between your middle finger and thumb makes him groan instead. 

“You're wrong.”

“Am I?” 

You twist away from him when he leans down, chin ducking to your shoulder. Hiding. Denying him your mouth, your taste. This meagre measure of control you grapple for is easy to give. He presses his lips to the shell of your ear instead, letting you run. Flee. For now. 

His voice is thick when he continues, husky. He pitches it low, lets it swirl into the seashell coil of your inner ear, earning him a shiver in response. Your nails biting into the skin of his wrist. Holding tight. 

“‘m a lot of things, pet—” rucked gravel, sodden with his derision, spills into your ear. Your shudder makes him want to bite, to maim. “Wrong ain't usually one of ‘em. But you'll learn that soon enough.” 

Your breath hitches. Expression morphing, shifting. Changing into something adorably beleaguered as he encircles you like a tiger, eyes drilling through the tussock, aimed directly at your head. With his body boxing you in, coiling over you like a hideous shadow, he has you trapped, caught. Little lamb writhing between the paw of a tiger.  

You seem to be keenly aware of this. Your eyes are shrewd, searching, as you probe around for any escape route, but he's a bulwark around you. Inescapable. 

Finding none, you suck in another breath, and slowly lift your chin, glancing up at him through your lashes. The look on your face is—

Enigmatic. 

Something changes in the morphology of your mien. Fracturing. Cracking. 

“Yeah?” You breathe, soft and goading. Your hips buck into his hand, rutting shallowly against the tops of his fingers. Unconscious. Like you just couldn't help it. 

And he supposes you can't. 

A fine sheen of sweat has been building since he took after you into the forest. Gathering around your temple, your hairline. The harsh reminder of your festering heat, once dammed by your raw disdain for him—hatred, he'd say, and doesn't the thought just make him want to laugh; you're all bark, no bite, and he knows he'll have fun breaking you in, breaking you apart—but flooded over by the primal drive to mate. 

And he's perfect for you, isn't he? 

Hideous bastard that he is. It's a sharp juxtaposition to your prettiness, your earthly beauty. 

Under the spinel sky, you break. The hand on his wrist tightens, your hips flexing into his palm. Seeking friction. Needing pressure. Needing him. And pissed off about it. Delicious. 

“Prove it,” you snap, irritation blanching the corners of your eyes arsenic white. Edging into a frenetic desperation hot enough to burn the threads of your resolve. But there's a gleam of reluctance pushing through the syrupy murk folding over you, heavy molasses. You want to give in, but there's something about him, his appetite, that makes you hold back. That makes you visibly sick at the sight of him—

Unfortunately for you, he has no such compunction to shelf his barbarity. To leash his desire, to muzzle the overwhelming urge to crush you under the weight of his accumulated need. It's decades of listless apathy. Divorced from anything resembling human emotion at the root. Carved out, scraped off bone. He was left to stagnate. A misfortunate creature submerged in a bog, dead but unable to rot. 

The deluge of his savage, bestial hunger rages in his veins. It's corrosive, vile, and—

unrestrained. 

Ravenously esurient. He wants to sink his teeth into you and never let go—

but first: 

he needs to eat. 

His meal is a feast, it turns out. Simon gorges himself until he's full. Promises that he'll stop as soon as he's satiated. 

(but he's lying to himself, and to you, because he never is—

never will be.)

Tears pebble along your lash line as he feasts on your sopping cunt, licking at your fluttering rim, slurping up your slick. Your clit is pressed tight against the crooked arch of his nose, sliding and catching on the jagged ridge each time he moves his jaw to dig deeper inside of you as if he's trying to taste the seal of your womb. You pant, whine. The noise muffled half-heartedly behind your palm. Teeth sunk into your skin, lodged against your bone. 

Angry rivulets rain down your cheeks, dangling like fine beads, gems, on your jaw. He wants to taste them next, as soon as he fills his gullet with the earthy tang you release. 

Your tears remind of that pretty omega Johnny sent to him—a brat, he'd said; the best, Lt—and it churns in his stomach, dredging up something awful. Terrible. He wants to make you weep harder. Wants you sobbing, begging. His own little brat to take over the knee whenever he wants—

But that's where the uncanny resemblance ends. 

You're not a brat. No. You're a headache. The kind that will have him written up, sat like a bad dog in his best suit, as they level him with charges, and orders, and the like. The sort of thing that even the old man wouldn't be able to string him out of—not that he would. Price is three days away from a much-deserved retirement to the mountains and sitting on his hands to keep from snatching up the pretty conservation officer who moons at him whenever he passes by. 

He won't be much help to get Ghost out of trouble. That leaves only Gaz and Soap. And while he's sure they can swing it, he doesn't really want to be under their ahh, guess ye/ya owe us one, Lt/Riley. 

So—

It stands to reason then that he should have you tamed before dawn. Shackled down, locked up tight. Only right considering he's the best in town to keep bears at bay. Do you really want to deal with a mama grizzly and her defenceless cubs? Or a starving male clumsily pawing his way out of hibernation? 

Probably not. 

So. So. 

He pulls back, rests his chin on your thigh. 

“Gonna be good for me, pet?” He asks, lowering his tone considerably until it catches on the gravel below. 

He's not surprised when you hiss through a cloud of tears. “Go fuck yourself—”

Ghost tips his head, suckles your clit into his mouth. Tongue laving over your flesh. Blunt teeth pressing flat against the swollen bead, a tease. You tense, gasping. Hand pushing his head back, back—

“Don't, don't—” you're mewling, nails raking over his scalp. Hips bucking, pulling back. Struggling to get away. The bite marks along your thighs weep fresh blood in your struggle, filling his nose with the heavy scent of iron. 

They serve as a harsh reminder of what he can do with these jagged teeth of his. 

He chuckles, mouth still closed around your clit. The vibrations have you choking, spine curving into a beautiful arch. 

Fingers digging into your hips, keeping you still. Trapping you. He's not quite done with your cunt, yet. And all this wriggling is something he can do without. With his hand pressed to your hips, he notches the other down your thigh. Tracing his index finger over your soft skin, dragging it close to your outer lips. Catching the tacky slick drying on your flesh with the tip. 

Tiny fists rain down over his shoulders. Urging him forward, eager for more. Selfish, spoiled little thing. 

What a monster he's made—

“Patience, pet,” he coos, mocking and mean. Likes the way you react to the patronisation in his tone. All taut shoulders, shaking fists. Bearing your teeth at the slight, the stinging barb. Shaking in an amalgamation of embarrassment and shame. 

You seem to like it when he's a little awful to you. A little mocking. Cruel. 

“Shut up—!” You hiss, lips curling as you glare down at him. “I'm not your pet—”

He ignores you. Bends down to sniff at your cunt instead, and finds his answer is the white hot desire he can taste in the back of his throat when he breathes you in. 

His fingers pry apart your folds, and he greedily drinks in the sight of your drenched hole, clenching down on nothing. Poor you. His heart thunders in his chest, rages. He wants to sink inside of you—impossibly deep—until the beginning of him and the end of you ceases to exist. Rolled into a single being, atoms merged. Bodies fused. He wants to take everything from you. All of it. Eat it out of the cup of his hand like pomegranate seeds, let the skin get stuck in his teeth. 

He wants to devour you whole.

(to eat—)

Settles, instead, for pawing at your cunt. 

Pressing the width of it against your slit, feeling the heat of your core on the palm of his hand. Branding himself with the intensity of your desire. Another scar among many. An uncountable number of jagged asteroids cratering along his flesh, making a home out of a ghost. A shell. 

Reinforced, too, by the absurdity of how terribly contrasted his flesh is to yours. Monstrous. His scarred hand rests over your pussy, encompassing it entirely with extra digits to spare. Folding each finger on top of the other to wedge between the basin of your thighs. And as his gaze comes to rest on the way he swallows you up, he is struck by the garishness of his hand—hideous scar tissue, burns—falling over your pretty cunt. 

Sinful. Frankensteinian beast palming the sweet pussy of a pretty, human woman, and—

Fuck. 

His cock twitches, spits out a thick glob of pre-cum.

Ghost has never wanted to ruin something as badly as he wants to ruin your cunt. You. Mess you up so badly that everyone will know you belong to him, and him alone. To brand you with the tattoo of his teeth on your mons; force a claiming bite on the pillowy skin above your clit. His ownership bracketed between your thighs, at the very apex of your hip bones. Buried into tissue right under the bulge of your womb. A fecund valley for him to lay waste; for you to grow beauty from the rot, the ash. 

Cinder scraps over his nerves. Fells his resolve in a brutal sweep. 

He comes undone at the seams, unravels. 

Simon curls his fingers into a loose fist, passing the rugged peaks of his bone over your soft flesh. Gathering slick on thick, scarred knuckles. He holds it there, folds pried apart by his hand, content to luxuriate in the softness of your flesh, the scorching heat.

Possessively, he unhitches his thumb from the coil of his fist, and swipes it over your clit. More slick leaks out as you keen. 

“Sweet omega like you should ‘ave been claimed by now,” he rumbles evenly despite the sour twist in his guts at the thought. “Might not ‘ave ended up ‘ere, would you ‘ave? Beggin’ the first alpha you see to fuck this sweet little cunt.”

“Begging?” 

“Practically gaggin’ for it, weren't you?” And even though the words are his own, they sit in his gut like a stone. An angry knot tangled in his intestines, snaking its way up his gullet. Bitter. It's quelled by the sight of your bare neck. Ripe for his teeth. And his alone.

But even if you had a pretty ring made by another alpha, Simon knows that wouldn't have stopped him from taking you, anyway. Biting over the claim. Breaking it between his teeth. Precious, loving union shattered by his crooked greed. He'd have relished in it, too. Basked in the way you sobbed as he tore your alpha into pieces. An obstacle turned into a pretty effigy at his feet. Wicker pyre burning to keep him warm.

(he'd have caught dinner for you, too; hunted caribou, moose, and roasted it over the open flame. Fucked you under the blume of orange. Let the fire lick across your skin as he sunk in deep—)

He rocks back on his haunches. Mood labile, quicksilver, as his rut grows. Festers. 

You deny it, breathless, as he slips the mountainous peak of his bent middle finger into your hole, stretching your rim around the scarred cartilage. You pulse around him like the fluttering wings of a hummingbird. Rapid, quick. Wanting. It draws him in. Makes him want to spit on your pretty pussy, and then break you apart on his cock—

“Such a needy cunt, eh? Starving for a good knot, ain't it?”

You hiss out your protests, but clench tight around his knuckle. He chuckles, and it's liquid. Wet rot. Lungs polluted, spitting nocuous, black smoke into the air. 

“I'm not—”

“You are.” 

He pulls back, pursing his mouth, and spreads your lips apart, opening you up wide and vulnerable to his prying eyes. Saliva puddles on his tongue. He gives you a moment to clue into what he's about to do, your fingers tightening, nails digging into his scalp as you do on a shallow gasp of disgust. Then, brutish, he leans forward, and spits. Lets the glob hit your clit, and he has to hold you still when you jerk, cringing away from him, snarling out your displeasure.

“You're disgusting—”

The protests are weak. Your knees tremble, giving away the growing slickness gathering on the insides of your thigh. 

He hums, watches as it oozes down between your folds, over your fluttering hole, before it falls to the ground between your legs. He lets his hand fall back over your cunt, middle finger gathering his spit. Rubbing it around your pebbled clit. It's done detachedly, perfunctory. A means to an end with hardly much concern for your pleasure. Not yet, anyway. 

You've given him nothing in return yet. 

He intends to change that soon. 

As you grapple with the harsh reality he presents to you—one of ownership, humiliation, and pleasure on his whim—he drags his finger down, sliding it between your soft lips until he reaches your hole once more. Petting around the drenched entrance slowly, softly, humming under his breath about how wet you are. 

Your hips drop, greedily chasing after his finger. You won't ask—not yet—but he likes the way you rut against him: all hateful, spiteful. Like you can't decide on what you want more—to bash his head in, or keep it locked tight between your thighs. Sweet thing. 

“Need me, don't you?” He sinks his finger in. Nearly whites out at the pressure, the tightness, he feels. Soft, wet. Squeezing him in a vice as you yowl, whimpering into the stretch like it matters. Like his thick, scarred finger is the most you'd ever taken before. Sweet girl. So naïve. 

He drinks in the sight of your flesh forcibly being parted around his knuckle, matting the wisps of blond on his skin as it leaks down to his wrist, until that, too, is pushed up into you. His whole finger now engulfed in the wet heat of your body as you squirm around the stretch, pulsing around him like a heartbeat. 

He groans when he tastes your discomfort on the back of his tongue. 

“Don't worry, lovie. M’gonna take good care’a you.”

You watch him with slitted eyes as he pushes you down to the forest floor, glaring over your shoulder as he adjusts you the way he wants. Maneuvers you around like a little toy. Forearms braced against the trampled grass, knees sinking into soft moss. Thighs spread. Cunt bare, drenched. Ready to be claimed. Taken. 

He drops to his knees, shuffling close from behind you. His hand drops to your lower back, pressing your torso down further into the ground below. His cock aches between his thighs. Heavy, fat. He reaches down with his other hand to where it droops, smearing pre-cum over his inner thigh. He catches it in his fist, flushed the colours of a fresh bruise—angry red, purple—and strokes along the sensitive skin of his shaft, dragging it up and over his engorged head. Pre-cum weeps from the tip, drools long strains down to the forest floor. Puddles thick between your knees. 

A prelude, perhaps, for what's to come. When he has you tied like a bow around his knot, milking all the pent-up spend from his heavy, full balls. 

It's been decades since he had this—

(“shame.”

he concurs.)

Simon pulls his cock up, taps it against your pebbled clit. Drinks in the sight of you keening, cunt gushing more slick out of your empty hole, dribbling down your thighs. Mingling with the mess he already started making. 

It shocks him how good it feels just to tap his cockhead on your pretty pussy. To drag it through your slit, teasing it against your fluttering hole that drools copious slick over him. 

He wants to make a mess of you. Fuck your pussy until you cum, until all you can feel is the split of him inside of you. Filling you. Ruining you. 

Until all you can think about is the thick drag of him against your stuffed walls. Empty without him plugging you up. Desperate for his cock, his knot—hungry little slut just for him. All for him.

He presses the head of his cock against your rim, letting it catch. Holding it there. A tease. Just a little taste. 

Likes when you whimper, head hanging between your shoulders, fingers curling into the moss below. You make such a pretty picture like this—the expanse of your back bare for his eyes to roam, locking on the dimples of your hips, the curve of your waist. The plump shape of your ass inviting him in—eager for a bite. Your flesh looks bare, lonely, without his mark. The contrast of his own inked palm—fingers webbed with faded lettering, some slogan he picked up in his youth. Hands etched in black. Lines bleeding, bulky. The unmistakable tremble of an incipient artist’s first brush of a needle on real skin. Jagged, garring. Ugly. He lets his hand rest against the small of your back, groaning at the way it looks. 

Sinful.

You're made for soft silk and a fluffy bed. Head resting on a plush cushion instead of your arms, forehead braced over the uncomfortable squeal of your polyester windbreaker that he didn't even have the courtesy to let you take off. No. Just trousers. Panties. Pushed haphazardly down your legs, left in a pile by the spruce tree so he could throw your ankle over his broad shoulder, feasting on your cunt. 

There's a spot of dirt on your asscheek. The curve of it is scraped from the bark, red and raw. 

The glare you aim at him from over your shoulder is venomous. There's a smear of moss on your cheek. 

You're made for epsom salt baths. Being tended to by a besotted alpha who treats you like fine china, only to be taken out on special occasions. Brushed, always, in a fine layer of dust from disuse. Sweet, tender lovemaking under the waning summer sky. Your alpha apologising for ruining you like this, for making you take the brunt of his rut. Poor thing. Gentle kisses, and hands clasped together. 

He can see it so vividly in his eye. So viscerally that it almost feels like a crime when he glances down at his cock, the weeping, engorged head almost comically too big for you. The thick of him could easily swallow your cunt up if he flattened his length against you. Covering you wholly by his girth. 

It's a thought that makes his hand tighten, and nearly chokes him on a moan. 

Even his thighs bracketing the backs of yours is hideous to look at. Bigger, broader—there's a considerable gap on both sides of his legs that he thinks nearly his whole fist can fit there, notched against the outside of your thigh, covering the expanse of his own. Garish. 

He can't wait to lay you down on your belly, lock his thigh tight on either side of your own and rut into you like that. Crushing you under his weight. Swallowing you whole. Until anyone misfortunate enough to wander by thinks he's fucking the cold ground. 

His thumb strokes along your fevered skin, collecting the sheen of sweat building up on the pad. Rubbing it in. He feels it too. This unrelenting swelter. A cage, pushing down from all sides. Inescapable. 

The only way to quench it is on you. In you. 

“Ready for me, pretty girl?” The words are mangled in his throat, thick with want. 

Your shoulders tremble. In worry, he thinks. Scents the air like a viper, letting your emotions curdle in the back of his throat. “Just get on with it—”

He meets you in the middle of that taunt, teeth against your throat. 

Ghost pushes inside with a groan, eyes rolling back at the way you swallow him up. Stretching around the considerable girth, fluttering around him. Pulsing like a heartbeat. 

It's heaven. 

Nirvana nests between your thighs, bracketed by rings of blood. Red. Absolution imbued in tender flesh, parting perfectly around his cock in a loving embrace. 

You haven't confirmed it for him, but the tightness of your cunt around his fingers, the heady scent of discomfort burning the back of his throat when he buried them inside of you, make him mutedly aware that you're inexperienced. A fact he pockets for later because if he thinks about being the first alpha, the first man, to ever claim you, take you, then he might lose his mind, he might fall down that yawning chasm that reeks of damnation, of brimstone and ash, and never recover—

So, he doesn't. Won't. 

Can't. 

His pace is slow as he feeds you the fat length of his cock, eyes drilling into the way you swallow him up. Rim stretching taut, flesh paling under the strain of taking him. With one hand anchored against your hip, holding you tight, and the other curled over your shoulder, fingertips resting on your collarbones, he slowly, slowly, sinks inside of you, bottoming out with a deep groan. 

The outstroke drags with it an iron scent in the air. He huffs, nostrils flaring. Greedy for more. There's discomfort leaking from your pores. His girth is more than you can conceivably take, even with the preternatural help from your heat, leaking slick down your inner thighs in thick rivulets. 

He holds himself there, breathing—heavy, tremulous—through his nose. His hands shake. The pressure, the pleasure, is indescribable. It coils in his guts, spumes liquid bliss in his veins. The way you feel pulsing sweetly around him is—

Equilibrium. 

Every misfiring synapse inside himself is slowed. Imbued with a potent sense of ataraxia. His mind comes to a standstill. Thoughts looping over themselves, tangling into the gossamer threads of control floating in stasis. Unmoored. You unravel him. 

It's further proof that you are his missing part. His ruts in the past have been calamitous. Snarls wrenched from the trenches of his chest; a gluttonous feast—a sacrifice to Hēdonē. Violent, vicious. 

But this—

It's drinking ichor from the vein of Anteros.

There's a crack in the back of his head. The sound of everything, all of it—

Falling into place. 

His hands tighten. Tighten some more. He holds you, sure and firm, keeping you nestled in the anchor of his embrace, unable to run, to flee. You're his. Settled. The caveat is ironclad, bound in permanence. 

And Simon moans. Deep, and low. The noise jutters out of his chest, and seeps into the evening air. Fine mist, crystallising in front of him. Phosphenes of ice cemented his decision, gluing to his cheeks. The nape of his neck. 

His ears burn. 

“Fuckin' hell, sweet thing,” it's a guttural growl in the hollow of his throat. “Where ‘ave you been all my goddamn life?”

It's a nauseating confession, one scraped out from the vacancy between his ribs. It peppers the air in a soft, saccharine kiss. Makes you shiver beneath him, gasping in lungfuls of loam, dirt in your throat. 

He grunts. Stills. He doesn't want that for you. Ever. Would rip off his own limbs before he ever let you feel the crushing weight of dirt congealing inside of your lungs. 

The way he arches over you is damning. Nauseating. He curls his arm around your shoulder, your chest, traps a heaving breast in the palm of his hand, holds tight. The other falls from your hip, closes over your mons. Greedily feeling your slick, hot sex pulsing wildly around him when he passes over your clit, toying with your stretched, swollen rim. It's perfection, this. 

He pulls you up, up, leaning back on his haunches until you're balanced on your knees, nearly sat on his lap. Taking him deeper than before. He drops his head back with another moan when he feels your slick gather, dripping down to coat his balls. 

Everything about you is just—

Perfection. Absolution. 

Your hands fly up, curling over his forearm, mewling when he pinches your nipples between his middle and ring finger. 

“C’mon,” he rasps, leaning forward to press his face into your nape. You smell sweet. “Play with ‘em for me, pet.” 

Nails bite into his skin. You whimper. Squirming around on his lap. But you do as you're told. Slowly, slowly, reaching up. Touching yourself the way you like. Fingers ghosting over your flesh, brushing across your nipples. Pulling, petting, the way you like. He hooks his chin over your shoulder, watches. Devours. Commits each movement to memory. Every sound, every breath. Everything. 

He keeps a slow, languid pace like this. Content to just feel you pulsing around him, listening to the slick, wet squelch of him filling you up. Over and over again. A lazy rut. 

It's unexpected, he knows. You've been bracing yourself this whole time, fingers digging into the podsol, spine tightening up. Waiting for the savagery to befall you. 

When it doesn't come, he feels your quiet acquiescence come in a soft breath. In the way you slowly drop down to meet the deep rut of his hips. Taking your pleasure, pulling him in deeper. There's an edge to your voice, one still dipped in threads of discomfort, a waning pain that rings out, shrill, in the satin spill of moonlight over the indigo forest. 

It's good like this. Tender. Not something he'd have ever imagined for himself, and the reality of it is dizzying. 

Reedy, he groans. Nuzzles his misshapen nose into your scent gland. His gums pulse, ache—

But he ignores it. Swallows it down. 

He's not sure what compels him to do so. Spellbound, maybe, by this unnatural softness that spools silken threads between you. Sutured in tenderness—so unbefitting of the man he is. The monster—

His hips stutter. Jerk. 

“Simon—!”

You whine into it, arching back. Sweat gathers, drips down your spine, smears into his chest, belly. Matts the thatch of hair running in sparse, patchy clusters down the thickness of his midsection. A bountiful spring fattened him up. Made him soft and pillowy over his abdomen. Something you can't seem to get enough of—pressing the flat of your back against him, leaning into it. Groaning when his arm shifts, boxing you in. Crushing you to him. 

Wily little kitten, purring so sweetly in his lap. 

He draws lazy circles over your clit, grunting with each clench of your cunt. You're soft in his arms. Malleable. He slides his hand up from beneath your breasts, catches your jaw in his palm. Fingers spanning from cheekbone to temple and, oh—

Doesn't that just make him preen. 

He drags your chin to the side, catching your mouth in a sickening kiss. All tongue, teeth. He wants to taste, to devour, every part of you. Bones and all. 

It's a fight, though. You tense in his grasp, lidded eyes snapping open, wide and around. Cheeks bulging between his fingers when you twist, trying to pull away. 

“Don't—I don't want to—” he bites the protests from lips. Messy, sloppy. He flicks his tongue over yours, wrapping it around you like a satiated snake burrowing in after a heavy meal. “Don't—f–fuck—”

It earns him a nip. Teeth digging into his bottom lip. Drawing blood. 

He huffs into the seam of your mouth. Only fair, he supposes, and then pulls you down—hard, fast—onto his cock. The air is punched out of your lungs, flooded into his esophagus. 

“Be a good girl for me,” he warns, bucking into you. It's harder this time, deeper. Tempo increasing. Growing. He feels himself thicken. Knot fattening up. Each piston of his hips seems to knock something inside of his head loose. Common sense, maybe—

The fraying knot of his self-control winding tight. Pulling taut. 

He huffs again, feeling himself slip. Lost in the sensation dripping down his spine, the unified pleasure blooming in the pit of his stomach. 

The air plumes with the thickening tang of your arousal—all sweet, spice. You can take it, now, he knows, and tries not to growl when you hiccup his name wetly into the air. 

The muscles in his thighs bunch tight. Corded and powerful. He arches up, up, forcing his cock deep inside your cunt, splitting you apart. Rutting desperately, edging into something animalistic. 

It runs a knife along the thin skin of his hindbrain. Come out, come out, come play—

He moves you again, pulling his hand away from your jaw and pushing you back down the forest floor. He stays glued to your back. Tucks his arm under your chin, and smothers you under his bulk, groaning when your thighs give out, sliding on the sweat-slicked moss below.

“Simon, ah—” your voice tapers off into a breathless cry when he pulls his hand free from beneath you, wrapping it around to join the other. Holding on, clinging to you. Keeping you locked tight against him, under him. You can't move at all like this—

The swell of his knot bumps against your stretched rim. He presses the brunt of his weight into each thrust now, spurned on by the needy way you yowl into his forearm, drooling all over his skin. Begging for it. 

“Please, please, please—”

Your body is jostled forward with each harsh buck of his hips as he gives you everything he has, feeding his cock into your sopping cunt over and over again. Eager now to fill you up, to flood you with his cum. Make you swell with it. Overstuffed. 

Perfect little omega, you rut back into him with each thrust, taking his thick cock to the root. Mewling sweetly when his knot begins to catch. Too much, he thinks. It might just wreck you for good—

pomegranate seeds splitting over your teeth, blood red juice leaking from the tear. spilling into your mouth. just a drop. just a drop, and Persephone is all his

—Perfect. 

He teeters on the edge of ferality and control. Spinning, spiralling. Loosefooted on the wobbling chossy. Coming undone in a magmatic end—wicked heat, ashes, brimstone; he catches fire, and smoulders you under his heat. Letting the flames lick across your skin until you whine his name, desperate and needy, in the back of your throat. The thrill a bludgeon against his skull, spilling pleasure, bliss, in the broken hole you wrought. 

You tighten like a vice around him—tight, tight—and he pistons into you, burrowing deep. Deeper still. Until you thrash around beneath him, soundlessly screaming his name into the dark forest. Begging for mercy, mercy, please—

He won't. Can't. 

He can't get enough of the way you feel wrapped around him like this. Silken, whitehot. Tight. Tight—

It squeezes the air from his lungs. Static in his head—

And then you let go. Pulsing, throbbing around him. Pulling him in deeper, blanketing his mind in white noise. In nothing but magmatic pleasure. 

“Fuck—!” He snarls, almost angry. Vicious. Chasing after his end in the aftermath of yours. Instincts are at war within him, banging against his skull. Demanding recompense. Paid it's pound of flesh. 

It's what he's promised. What it's owed. 

(and he always keeps his promises, doesn't he?)

Most describe their ruts as mindless, driven by instinct. No control. But Ghost has never felt more present, more alive, than when he sinks his teeth deep into your nape, nearly choking, drowning, on your blood.

For the first time in decades, he feels the crater inside himself, suffused with spare, broken parts, seal when you yield with a mangled yowl of his name, raw and fractured as it splits between your teeth. Pretty pussy swallowing up his knot when he bullies it in deep, locking you together.

pretty little lamb—

a perfect fit between his teeth.

His rut is a voracious thing. 

Ghost has you on your back for the second and third round, heels resting on his shoulders as he bucks into you. Makes you stare at him—don’t look away from me, pet—as he commandeers your body with an ease that seems to break apart all demurrals as they form, rendering you sweet, malleable, beneath him to do with as he pleases. 

And you are, aren't you?

So fuckin’ sweet. 

(“gonna give me a cavity,” he rasps, thick with pleasure, into your ear. he has you on your belly now. holds you down with his weight, crushes your chest against the soft moss below, thighs squeezed tight between his own. you can barely make a sound with his forearm digging into the dirt right above your crown, swallowing you whole under his bulk. 

(owns you like, he finds. no one would be able to see you beneath him if they wandered by. encompassed wholly by every iota he has to give—

he cums like that. nose buried in your crown, moaning low, scorched, in the back of his throat as you twitch beneath him, unable to move at all—)

It's early in the morning when he finally finishes, when his rut begins to slowly recede, and a fresh bloom of clarity yawns over his periphery. Moonrise peppers soft kisses over his aching shoulders as he glances at you curled up against his side, sleeping soundly. Exhausted by the hours and hours of mating, fucking. Taking him, his knot, drinking down everything he has to offer. 

The sight that greets him is gnarled fingers wrapping around his rotting heart, affection peeking out between the brackets of his ribs. His appetite for you is dizzying. Unquenchable. He wonders if he'll ever be able to look at you without wanting to crawl inside your body. To reshape your tender flesh around his bulk until it is indiscernible from himself. 

This want is agony. It's dread, desire. Greed. 

His shoulders bite back in protest when he reaches up to drag his dirt-crusted nails through the prickly hair on his scalp. As dawn slowly unfurls across the midnight blue aether, he knows he'll have to leave soon. Can already feel the creeping heat gnawing in the pit of his belly. His rut starting anew. The scant hours he has of mental clarity, moments meant to eat, to feed, and regain strength for the next marathon of fucking, are needed to feel out his next move. 

He glances at you again, and feels the same covetous tug in his chest as he did before, when he was thickly entrenched in the urge to mate. But as the burnt orange of the sun smears hazy fingerprints across the moulted sky, he sees you in a new, cleaner light. You're young. Much younger than he is. 

It's something he ought to worry about. To feel some shred of shame, of despondency over shackling you to himself—a defective alpha with more scars than morality—when you're in the burgeoning bloom of your freshly untethered youth. All jejune beauty outclasses nature itself. Snow melts on the alpines, trickling down to feed the valley below. Life itself—

But you are his. 

The ugly rings around your throat—mangled tissue swelling in the morning dawn, caked in a thick river of blood—all signify that you belong to him. And while it's a little extreme as far as claiming bites go—one would suffice, but he buried his teeth in you over and over again, biting down on both sides of your neck, your jugular, your nape; inner thighs, mons, wrists—it’s proof enough that you are meant for him. Made for him. 

His pretty omega. 

The rest doesn't matter. He ought to feel shame, but instead he luxuriates in it. Stares down at you with a needy sort of possession spuming in the putrid remains of his chest, mapping out the marks he put on you. And the ones he'll add to later, not stopping until covered in the perfect impression of his crooked teeth. Tattoos of his ownership all over your body. 

Mutual, of course. There's a scant patch of skin, restive and empty, above his heart, save for a fine, jagged line from a serrated dagger. He'll have you bite down on the flesh until your teeth meet inside his muscle. Scarring down to the bone. He'll go, then, to the man who inks him up whenever he has the whim to desecrate scar tissue, and have him etch midnight black against fine silver. Permanent, forever. Always. 

And anyone who kicks up a fuss—stupid as they might be—he’ll sort them out. Prove to them that you are meant to be his. 

(unshakeable:

his spend leaks out of you, drying, tacky and thick, on your thighs. under the sleepy citrine of the dawning sun, it's tinged pink, and looks just like pomegranate juice.)

Ghost rolls his shoulder, and reaches for his discarded trousers. He's covered in a thick layer of dirt, and reeks like soil. But the thought of being buried alive is miniscule compared to the want of being buried inside you again. The urge. Insatiable. He groans with it, cock throbbing already. 

He leaves you naked. No point in dressing when he plans on going home and sinking back inside of you before midday, anyway. An unneeded obstacle, really—

The clearing is close to his truck, and he sets a leisurely pace, yawning into the dawn, as he gathers you into his arms. Carrying you to it as you drool on his chest, brows pinched at the soft jostle of him trudging through the thicket until he reaches it. 

He's not in a rut when he stretches you out in the back seat, spreading your sticky thighs around his hips, sinking inside, bottoming out just as you come to, waking up with a gasp. 

The intense fucking from before lingers in the air. You're soft, molasses; arching into his chest, whimpering out the name he hissed into your nape only hours ago, folding into him with a somnolent submission. It won't last, of course—

You're a vicious little thing, and his back and chest twinge with the rivers you carved into his flesh when he didn't move the way you liked. Wolfish, aren't you? Spitfire hiding under the soft pelt of a slain lamb. He wants to devour you, bones and all. 

He takes his fill of your malleable concession, rutting into you with a sluggish ease. Mapping out the starlight sparking in the depths of your glossy eyes. Magnetic. It pulls him deeper. Unravels him at the seams. 

His hand spans the expanse of your jaw from ear to ear. He holds you like this, thumb buried in the tender embrace of your soft tongue, and begins to understand the reason behind Johnny's niche appetite when you toy with his flesh, coquettish and sweet, suckling him in—pretty seductress—and then mewl when he pushes in too deeply, bringing crystalline gems to corners of your eyes. 

Angelic innocence. The type that demands he prostrates himself at your altar, let his bones be picked clean when you so wish it. And he'll give it to you—body, blood, tissue; all of it. The entirety of him, however broken, shattered the fragments might be. 

He promises it all to you without a word, drilling holes in the gaps of your eyes, chasms wide enough for him to fit. When he cums, it's to a songbirds sonata. Your moans are a whisper, your pleasure swallowed down as it ghosts over his lips, clenching around him like a vice. Pretty bow. He doesn't hold back—groans, baritone; woodsmoke, into the gathering symphony, filling you to the brim. Thick, copious. He wants it to stick. To root. 

When the blood sputters back to his head, he gathers you in his arms once more. Keeps you seated on his lap—shush, pet; s’alright, jus’ close your eyes an’ I'll ‘ave us home in a bit—as he starts the old pickup, and puts it into drive. One hand on the wheel, knuckles blanching white in the glimmering sunrise; sparse forests of muted blond catching, limned in the coruscating light. The other is placed on the small of your back, holding your belly to his. 

Quietly, your body eases. Melts. You press your face into his chest, fingers curling into the fabric, and nuzzle into the heady scent of his sweat, his musk, still clinging to his shirt. Signing, soft and twee, in the cup of his embrace as you slip back to sleep. 

He drives home like this. Mind a quiet place for once. Silent in its contentment, it's comfort. There's an itinerary still left to do, but he pushes it back for now, gaze roaming the dense green of the forest bracketing the road. 

You'll like it, he knows. There's a fen on the outskirts of his territory, a little pond where wild rabbits have been known to make burrows. Deers, elk. Bears. They all come and go. You'll amuse yourself in the untamed wilderness of his abode, drawing delineations of your own as you carve out places in his home just for you. 

And as he makes the turn to his hidden driveway, this buried sanctuary, he can't help but glance down at your crown, and think—

Persephone, finally home.

He finds your identification in your rucksack, nestled underneath the contraband you smuggled from the park—mushrooms, berries, bark, feathers—and sears your name to memory. Every part of you will be unravelled in the coming days, pulled from the depths of your being until it's all ingrained in his head. A gaping chasm chiselled into bone just for you. All for you. 

Your address is a rental. He'll have to call them later today to cut your lease. Your job, too. They'll need to be notified on both your off time for his rut (and your burgeoning heat), and to update your contact information. 

But that's later. Now, he just wants to get home. Sink down into his bed with you beneath him, and fuck you until sundown all over again. Stain the house with the scent of you. With the potent tang of your coupling. 

It's yours too, after all. Should smell just like you. 

And when you wake up later to him fucking his tongue into your drenched hole, fingers toying with your pebbled clit, Johnny will be busy packing the rest of your things into the pack of his pickup truck. The majority of it is already stacked on the porch, waiting for you to rearrange it all in your new house. Lease cut. His name added to your contacts as spouse, husband. Address updated. Marriage certificate laying on the table, only one line unsigned. Waiting for you. 

Maybe it's too fast. You'll certainly protest like it is, bearing your teeth and hissing at him from across the room about too much, too fast, slow down, you don't even know his last name—

(“Riley,” he grouses, arms folded over his broad chest. Eyes burning in the cresting twilight. “S’your last name now as well, pet.”) 

Fast—sure. He might think so too for a brief moment when he as you purring against his chest, submissive and docile after he fucked the fight right out of you, bullied you into agreeing to everything—it's for the best, after all. No one could ever protect you like he can. 

Made for each other. Reinforced when he presses your fingers to the soft spot where his last rib once hung—

(“stole it,” he murmurs into the seam of your lips. “right from under my nose. only fair that i get to steal somethin’ right back, ain't it?”

the look on your face is rapturous when you press your hand to your side, eyes widening when you feel the extra rung—)

He's had decades of waiting. Waiting. And now that he's found you—

He's never letting go. 

You're it, he knows. Feels the certainty in that statement simmering in his hindbrain, in his essence. He'll have you—now, forever. Non-negotiable. Where you go, he will follow. 

(after all, there's something about three-headed dogs and their bones—)

[stick2vamp]

hiii!! may i please request something similar to this? <3 (i find the concept of reader hiding behind seb SO CUTEEE)

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRoEW2En/

𝜗 ˖ ❝ what do you think you're doing? ᵕ ♡

— in which you use sebastian to protect yourself from an angler. ✧

↷　 406 wc 𓈒 sfw 𓈒 sebastian is a bit mean 𓈒 i love this idea hehe

SEBASTIAN's shop is probably one of the safest areas in the Blacksite. No entities can get in—besides Sebastian himself, of course. That doesn't stop entities from coming right outside the shop, though.

After being here for so long, having countless anglers rush past you, that a flight or fight response triggers for you when the lights flicker all around. Sebastian seems to not react, besides a light grumble under his breath. He finally found a good area with lights, and now they were going to break. His esca could only light up so much.

You, however, had a much different reaction. Unfortunately, you've learned to instinctively flee and hide at the tiniest flicker. It helped you not die, so it simply stuck with you.

There were no lockers in Sebastian's shop, so you couldn't hide there. There also was no vent, since you had gotten him in an underwater area. The only other way to hide was to completely shield yourself from it's view.. and there was only one thing in the shop big enough to conceal your whole body.

Sebastian tensed as you quickly hid behind his tail, practically using him as a shield. He blinked, a bit confused: didn't you know that Anglers couldn't enter his shop? Maybe you really were a bit dumb.. He thought about telling you off, but it was also a bit funny to see you crouching behind him like a scared rabbit.

Sebastian huffed as he saw how shaky you were, and moved his tail to loosely wrap around you and help you feel more hidden. As quickly as you huddled behind him, the muffled noise of an Angler's scream rang out from below. He only hummed: the lights in his shop didn't end up breaking, how nice.

You stayed hidden for a few more seconds before perking up, your head popping out from the makeshift cocoon. Sebastian silently stared at you for a few moments before speaking, "You do know that Anglers can't get in my shop.. right?" He teased you, making you pause in embarrassment.

After a few seconds of just staring at each other, you tried to pry yourself off of his tail, but Sebastian wouldn't let you. He tightened his tail's coil around you. "No, no, it doesn't work like that," Sebastian commented, "I protected you, right? How kind of me. And how rude of you to try leaving before you even return the favor."

[slutofpsh]

f1 racer | psh.

part one

pairings: park sunghoon x reader

synopsis: f1 racer park sunghoon is the ace of their team until he got into a terrible accident causing of his sudden hiatus. the incident injured his shoulder and affected his mental health. you are hired by his mother to help him get through this tough times as you are one of the best psychiatrist in town. he hated the idea of being vulnerable so instinctively, he hates you. he hates how you try to get into his head for him to open up and he hates his parents for meddling with his life like he’s a kid. but he couldn’t deny that you are exceptionally beautiful and he can’t help his cock from twitching just by imagining pushing you down on your office table, fucking you deep and hard until you can’t think straight anymore.

wc: 14k

warnings: mdni. smut with slight plot, lots of dirty talking, degrading, corruption kink, minors dni, p into v raw (please always use protection), dom sunghoon, slight rough sex, reader experiencing sexual harassment. IF YOU DON’T LIKE ANY OF THIS PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SCROLL AWAY.

note: i have no right and enough knowledge with medical terms so disregard my claims as it came from my imagination to fit my plot. i’m new with writing smuts so please don’t give rude comments. i am still learning. also please send me asks and reblog my work. it will help a lot. thank you so much!

slutofpsh 2024 © all right reserved.

“Famous ace racer of the team (f1 team) reportedly caught on an accident last night. Medics who said to arrive at the scene says that he was in a bad condition...” the voice of the news reporter serves as your background music as you’re busy putting coffee on your brewing machine.

It was yet another busy monday for you. One of your colleagues gave you a ring moments ago just to ask you for a favor to fill in for her. You’re suppose to go at the hospital after lunch, but that plan was thrown far out the window.

Being someone who needs to pay expensive rent and lots of bills, you accepted it in exchange of receiving her full payment for these sessions.

People around you always says how workaholic you are and that you should at least learn to loosen up, have fun, date and have sex. You’ll be lying if you say those thoughts didn’t popped inside your mind once in a while, but you knew you have bigger responsibilities at the moment.

Maybe you’ll do all that once you’re a little bit more stable in life. Right now, its not the case so you have to go work.

The drive to the hospital you’re currently working at was short. Multiple vans of tv media reporters blocked the parking lot, putting you off into a slightly foul mood. You groaned and tried your best to find a good spot without scratching any of the vehicles around.

“What in the world is happening...” you softly mumbled, clueless.

After finally making it inside alive, you saw your secretary arriving just on time. She smiles and wave at the sight of you and head towards the elevator together. The sight of the security pushing the reporters out caught your attention before the door of the lift shuts completely.

“Wah, media these days are scary. How can celebrities stand them?” your secretary commented, probably annoyed by all the chaos at the lobby.

“Yeah, they’re basically getting crazy down there.”

She nods, agreeing.

“I can’t blame them. One of the biggest personality in our country got into an accident last night so they’re probably trying to get a scoop of information as much as they can.” she continuously fills you in.

Your head nods slowly, not totally interested about the ‘one of the biggest personality’ being mentioned. This hospital is pretty much located at the center of the big city and famous people often comes here. It isn’t a big deal anymore for you.

Besides, you're more interested on how you will make more money rather than be nosy of who’s confined at your hospital. The last thing you would want is to get involve with a big personality.

The day went on smoothly, met up with the clients scheduled for today. You started packing up after your last session, it was around 4pm. This is why you like to be busy, because its more convenient for you. Days pass by quickly and you’re off to your home even before you know it.

Three knocks from the door to your office is what snapped you back to reality. Your white coat hangs slightly loose over one of your shoulder as you’re about to take it off. The possiblity of that person knocking to be your secretary is low, since she usually alert you through the intercom that she will come in before knocking.

After taking off your coat, your eyes are still darted at the direction of your office door.

“Come in.” you softly stated and you heard the sound of the knob moving.

“I heard from the lobby that you are here so I thought I should make a visit.” his professional tone, yet a little softer rings to your head.

Your eyes grow a little out of surprise then you bowed your head for greeting. His eyes scanned you shortly before it moves around your cozy office. He already made multiple compliments on how your office just feels so warm and comforting.

That’s exactly the vibe you wanted to give off when you personally chose the furnitures and design for this room. Since you’re a psychiatrist who focused on patients who experienced traumatic incidents in their life, you don’t want the location of your sessions to have the impression of a workplace. Patients usually go here to meet you for sessions and their peace of mind and comfort is what you prioritize the most.

“Oh, thank you...” you flash him an awkward smile, hands rests at both of your sides.

It isn’t a surprise that your director paid you a visit for today. He always does that in order to keep on check with his employees. You appreciate it, truly. It's just he’s a little too friendly towards you. Sometimes it makes you uncomfy and afraid that other doctors may misunderstood things.

“Anyway, you must had a long day.” he took steps closer and when you’re reachable, he stretches an arm over you. His hand rests at your shoulder and he clapped on it gently before sliding it down your arm to caress it.

It sent shivers through your spine and you didn’t like it one bit. Unfortunately, you have no choice but to live through it for now. As he’s very powerful and one bad word from him and you can kiss your job goodbye. That’s the last thing you want.

“I should leave you.” he says in a low voice while eyes roams around your face.

You hated every second of it, but you didn’t say anything. He smiles and you flashed him one as well. He raised his hand and lightly pinched your cheeks once before exiting himself from your office.

Finally out of your sight, you manage to sigh heavily. You've been holding your breath ever since he entered your office. It’s slightly making you feel bad, but you feel like he will take advantage of you sooner or later. The feeling of uneasiness are very evident whenever he’s around you.

It’s bad to judge people easily, but that’s mainly it is. You’ve spent years studying and understanding human’s way of thinking. Resulting for your instincts around them to be heavily accurate most of the time.

And your instinct are setting off negatively with your director. The only solution you can think of is to quit this job after you have enough money to build your own small clinic.

In order to have that, you have to work extra hard. For your dream and for your peace of mind.

You finished packing your things and left your floor. While inside the elevator, it stops at a certain floor. You unconsciously moved towards the side giving whoever it is a space for the lift. When the door opened, a beautiful woman wearing black sexy dress steps in.

She seems surprised to see that there’s somebody inside and so her teary eyes grew a bit big. Avoiding to make the atmosphere even more awkward, you bowed and flashed her a warm smile. She nods and glanced away.

Based on how she carry and dress herself, you can tell that her line of work may have something to do with her face. Model? That’s one of your guesses.

By the short eye contact with her teary eyes, you catch a glimpse of guilt and small regret filling them. And also greed that’s trying to push them all at the back of her mind.

You tried to shove these thoughts off of your mind as you’re practically done with work. Even if you cannot help trying to read people’s personality base on first impression, you have strict rules of avoiding it once shift is over.

You’re the first one to leave the lift as you get off at the lobby where you entered this morning. Ignoring her eyes watching you closely as you walk off without sparing her any glance.

It was a long day for you and the last thing you want is to get involve with some drama. Obviously, she’s going through something. But what’s new to that? Everyone in this world is going through things. We just really have to keep it altogether and wait until things gets better for us.

It's been months and you put your focus on making money. Working really hard, filling in for your colleagues and also attending your own session. It was a routine you got used to, world revolving between home and to the hospital.

“There she is,” you bowed politely as you enter the office of your head doctor for the psychiatric ward.

Three heads snapped at your direction as you approach closer and the two of them are completely unfamiliar for you. By the way they dress, you can already tell that they’re important people. The type of people who reeks of money and connections.

“Mr and Mrs. Park, this is Doctor (surname).” your director introduced you to them. Even if you’re a little confused, you gave them a polite bow before sitting down at the chair in front of them.

“She’s the most recommended psychiatrist in our hospital and I really think she’s the one who can help your son.” the director added that made you realized that the two people in front are potention source of income.

With a warm welcoming smile, you pay close attention to the two of them to give good impression. Mr. Park have a serious look on his face, just a small smile from earlier and that’s all. Just by the looks of it, he’s a very reserved man. He seem to know the power he holds and so you guess he isn’t someone very friendly. Doesn’t really try hard to please other people.

Mrs. Park is elegant. The perfect epitome of graceful partner of somebody who holds so much power. She is very pretty as well, her smiles gives you the impression that she’s very family oriented.

“Their son needs assistance as he got involve with an accident months ago.” your head doctor tried to fill you up and instantly, you are on your professional mode.

With a nod, you smoothly fished your pen placed at the small pocket of your white gown then grabbed a paper not far away from you.

“Hmm, may I ask you guys a few questions?”

Mr. and Mrs. Park’s a little caught off-guard at how straightforward you are so they glanced over the head doctor. She quickly flashed them assuring smile.

“Go ahead, I’m sure Doctor (surname) perfectly knows what to do.” she added and with her words, they seem to let their guards down slightly.

“Yes, Doctor.” Mrs. Park says.

You smiled, “Does the patient personally asked to seek for professional help?”

Its a key point to know for you to know what kind of approach you need to utilize for this particular patient.

“No. Actually, he refused to see doctors and deny his need of it, claiming he’s perfectly fine. But me and his Father really wants him to atleast try.” the look on her eyes flashes genuine care and concern for her son.

“That’s totally okay, Mrs. Park. Sometimes, people who underwent accidents tries to deny that something changed within them when in reality there is. May I ask any behavioral changes within the patient, if there any?” and you continued jotting down on your paper.

Mr. Park silently watched how well you’re dealing with them. You looked so young, maybe around the age of their son and yet this is how professionally you handle things. His tensed shoulder relaxed a bit, realizing that they did the right choice of coming here.

“Yes...” Mrs. Park pursed her lips, blinks a couple of times trying not to get emotional just by the thought of her son.

“He shuts people out, doesn’t communicate with anybody and he gets pissed or annoyed so easily.” she sighs, eyes getting teary. “I mean, he doesn’t really have the best patience even prior to the accident but he’s just oddly cranky.”

You nodded your head and just proceeds on writing them down. This isn’t the first time you encountered patients that have the same personality with their son. This is what happens when someone had an accident that affected their life. They can be undergoing through post traumatic depression which is pretty serious as it can be dangerous.

“Can I schedule his sessions?”

They looked relieved at your question, happy that you agreed to take their son. Mrs. Park nodded her head and you continued on discussing them through the process of the sessions, letting them the available slots they can arrange for their son.

Normally, you would take patients to meet patients two times a week but they demand for a three meetings per week. You are a little hesitant about it because that only means you have to put him on Fridays as well. It's your day off.

“Please, Doctor. We will pay extra for the friday sessions.” and there it is. They offered you what you couldn’t decline the most.

Oh how nice could it be to have so much money. After finally settling with the Parks, you managed to agree on the schedules and they thanked you. They told you that they really hope you can help their son. You haven’t met him yet and one rule with doctors is you couldn’t give them false hope, but you shouldn’t give them the impression of failing as well.

“I will do my best.” and you bowed.

You parted ways with them and you went straight to your shared room with your colleague, also a good friend of yours. The moment you stepped in, you can feel her piercing and curious eyes following you.

“So did you accept it?” your head cranes over to the side to glance at Hana. She’s still wearing her white coat while she rest her back at the swivel chair. As far as you remember, her shift is over already. Why she’s still here is a big mystery for you.

“Yes. It’s a good offer.” you gave her a short shoulder shrug.

She sighs and watch how you took off your white coat then hangs it on your chair. Obviously, you are clueless of the situation you just got yourself into. She hates how workaholic you are and how you’re one of the best psychiatrist in the hospital. Mainly why you’re at the top list of the recommended doctors.

Not that she envy you or anything. She genuinely cares for you and she’s worried of how you’re overworking yourself. Not to mention you’ll be having someone very important as your client.

“Do you know who’s going to be your patient?” her tone sounded challenging, arms crossing as she waits for your answer.

You nod your head, eye glancing at the folder laid beside your keyboard. It was handed by your secretary while you discuss something with the head doctor. She reminded you to do a good job as accepting the Park’s can either do good or bad for you.

“Yes. Mr. Park Sunghoon.” you said in a monotonous tone.

She rolls her eyes, “He’s not just Park Sunghoon, y/n.” she sighs and tilts her head. “He’s the ace driver of a famour F1 team. The young bachelor who got into a terrible accident three months ago.”

That clearly rings a bell. You can remember how some of the hospital staffs are going crazy for such individual. F1 racers are truly a big thing for your country, but you’re never interested towards it so don’t have any clue who they are.

You’ve always thought that those type of sport are just out of your league. If he manages to drive for the whole country with extremely expensive cars just indicates how wealthy their family is. Sounds like so much drama for you. Not totally your cup of tea, all you want is the good pay.

“Don’t worry, I can handle.” you assured her.

“I know you’re good with your job, y/n and I have no doubt with your skills.” she starts that slightly moved you. She rarely talks like this and to hear it right now means she’s really serious about it.

“He’s known for being very stubborn. If he’s already like that before the accident, imagine how he can be much worst after it. I heard he’s refusing to do rehab for his shoulder and to drive again for his team.”

You are dumbfounded for the new informations coming from your friend. When his parents seeked for your help, you already knew that it is serious. But not like this. He’s refusing to drive again?

“y/n?” your friend tries to snap you back to reality.

You let out a sigh and flashes another smile for her. “Did you forget? I’m good with stubborn people. I've been dealing with them ever since I graduated from the University.” you tried to joke on it.

She pouts her lips and heaved a sigh, thinking that maybe she really is just overthinking things. She nods.

“Well, you are right. And besides, he’s dead gorgeous.” then she sent you a wink. You scoffed and rolled your eyes.

“You’re unbelievable.”

But it seems like she was not kidding when she said that Park Sunghoon is very hard headed. You think little of it not until you came face to face with the handsome racer.

His visuals are ethereal. No words can perfectly describe how breathtaking he is up in person. Of course, after your friend had informed you that he is handsome, you made research. Trying to just familiarize yourself with your newly acquired client.

It wasn’t hard to find something about him through the internet as he’s very famous. Skin so white and flawless, hair pitch black along with his thick brows and long eyelashes that perfectly decorates around his beautiful eyes. His eyes are slightly cold and blank at the pictures of him you found at the intenet. Over all, he has a face that comes around once in a while. God-like visuals, that’s how they describe him.

The pictures didn’t give him justice though, as he’s even more gorgeous in personal. His red lips pretty much stands out due to his pale complexion.

There are varieties of patients you’ve worked with before. The group who's willingly seek for your help in order for them to get better. Then the patients who was forced to do these sessions for the satisfaction of a family member or a loved one. And then the ones who truly hates it and give you hard time, punishing you for merely wanting to help them professionally.

That’s where Park Sunghoon is aligned. He made sure you perfectly know that he’s against with this arrangement.

“Son, meet Doctor (surname). She’s the one we’re talking about with you. From now on, you will meet her at Mondays—”

“Make her leave.” he insolently cuts his own mother’s words while staring blankly straight at you.

He’s sat down at his sofa, one shoulder have a cast over it. He didn’t even budge from his position and just stares at you with his intimidating eyes. The gray sofa looked a little small while he dominates it. You’re pretty sure that it looked normal when it was his Mom whose sitting there moments ago, but when it was him it looked small due to his large frame.

“Sunghoon, don’t be rude. Doctor (surname) is here to help you.” his Mom looks like she feels sorry for how he’s acting, yet her tone remained soft.

“I don’t need any help.” he said sternly. His eyes are piercing right at you. They are indeed intimidating with his eyebrows furrowed hardly, but this isn’t the first time someone wanted you to leave.

“But Son,” Mrs. Park tries to console him but you interrupted her.

“It’s fine, Mrs. Park.” and you flash her with your warm smile.

“Can you give us a minute?” your eyes then roamed around the room. There’s his Mom and another person inside together with you. She’s the househelper who assist Mr. Park from time to time. A little older than his Mother. Base on your observation, he seems to trust her enough to be inside this room.

“Sure, doctor.” she says and gradually asked the other lady to leave with her.

Sunghoon’s eyes burns at you as you stood in front of him. He didn’t say anything else after they left the room, he just stares at you with dark eyes. He’s so upset and angry for how his parents are dealing with this situation right now. They’re being too much for meddling with their son’s life when he’s already 27.

“Hello, Mr. Park.” you greeted him once again. As expected, he showed no reaction at all.

“I’m Doctor (surname) and I am here to help you—”

“I don’t need your help so leave. I am not crazy.” he cuts you off.

You pursed your lips and nods your head before pulling up another smile. His behavior of declining anyone clearly shows how he doesn’t want to show his vulnerability.

“Of course you’re not. Everybody knows you are not crazy, Mr. Park.” his eyes still bores right at you.

“Your parents hired me so I can help to understand your emotions even more.”

The corner of his lips lifts up as he scoffed, “You think I don’t know my own emotions?”

You shook your head right away, “No. Nobody else knows you the best other than yourself. I’m just here to assist and help you go through emotions you cannot control or understand.”

Sunghoon’s tensed shoulder slightly relaxed at what he heard. He doesn’t know if all psychiatrist are like this, but you sure are good with your job. You know your way of words to people. Or was it just because of your pretty face? Was he distracted a bit too much? Did you noticed?

He draws in a strained sigh and glanced away, letting his guard down a bit. It made you feel happy and take it as a sign that he wanted you to help him. For that session, you tried hard not to overwhelm him too much so instead of asking questions, you orient him about the case he’s possibly going through.

But that didn’t really became easy. He made sure you’re struggling on dealing with him. There’s often change of moods as well, sometimes he’s calm to have you around and sometimes he’s not. He rudely interrupts you talking and constantly asking you to just quit your job and leave him alone.

But he cannot do anything about it. He cannot fire you, because he didn’t hire you on the first place.

It was his Mother who asked for your professional help, so if there’s someone who can tell you that you’re not qualified for the job already, it would be only her.

“Hello y/n!” Hana greets you happily as she enter the room. It was obvious that she’s having a great day, unlike you.

“Hi,” you shortly replied and sat down at your chair.

“Looks like you aren’t in a good mood.” she states the obvious. You gave her a short nod and shut your eyes.

“Why? Did something happen?” she sounded so concerned about you and even walked closer to sit at the table near you.

“Nothing. I have an appointment with Park Sunghoon tomorrow. It should’ve been my day off and now I have to meet with him. He’s still being stubborn.”

It’s been a month ever since you started your sessions with him and still, nothing. He’s been giving you cold shoulders everytime, refusing to even open himself over you. Multiple approach already tried for him and yet, nothing. It’s frustrating you already.

“I know exactly what you need to do.” the brightness from Hana’s eyes gave you slight hope, making you sit straight.

She rummage over her stacks of unopenef parcels and cheered lightly after successfully finding something. She smirks and slowly walks towards you.

“What’s that?” you asked curious and confused.

She smirks and grabbed a cutter to open it up. From a distance, you can tell its a piece of clothing. She squealed a little, delighted of satisfaction for the package received.

“You’re going to wear this tomorrow.” she announced and even placed the opened box at your lap.

You tilt your head, confused. “What? Why? Do I not look good with my work clothes?”

That’s not the case. Your typical work clothes looks fine. The type of style that plays safe not to show too much skin and also not too covered for your liking. It was so-so.

“No, honey. But this time, that’s what you’ll wear tomorrow and then we will buy more at Saturday.” she announced with words of finality.

You gave her a weird gaze before checking the box she just handed you. Your heart dropped at the sight of it.

“No way! There’s no way I will wear this, Hana!” you quickly disagree and teared your gaze off the outfit she just handed you.

“Yes way! It’s time to put that sexy body into a good use!” she exclaimed all excited and even giggled hilariously.

“But my butt cheeks will probably show just by leaning down slightly.” the look of horror flashes over your face. Just by the thought of being exposed to Mr. Park makes you blush intensely, your core undeniably getting wet.

You shoved that thought away, somewhat blaming Hana for putting them inside your mind. She’s being a bad influence towards you right now and your face is red as a tomato.

“Then he will enjoy the view!” she winks and left you with no choice but to wear it for tomorrow's session.

Thankfully, the moment you arrived at his place the next day you are wearing a coat on top of your scandalous (not really) outfit. Okay, maybe you are a little exaggerating for thinking it is scandalous. You’ve seen a lot of people wear this kinds of workclothes, its just you’re new to this. This isn’t your usual go to office clothes.

You tried your best to act confidently, trying to ignore the fact that his gaze was practically glued at you the moment you took off your coat once you two are left alone.

You’re nervous already and having him stare at you that way makes it even worst. Regardless, you tried to proceed on your task for today.

Park Sunghoon may act nonchalant about it, but his pants feels so painfully tight ever since you walked inside his home. An hour long duration felt days for him. Those short skirts and body hugging top that perfectly shows your delicious curves is driving him insane.

Despite the fact that he hates your presence and how his parents hired you to help him, he’ll be lying if he will say that he never thought of rutting his cock so deep inside your precious cunt. He bet it will feel so good. Numerous times he imagined pushing you hardly over your office table, taking you from behind while your soft moans make it to his ears. He imagined fucking you so hard and deep until you cannot think straight anymore.

You on the other hand are sweating like crazy while trying to compose yourself, unaware of the sinful thoughts the man in front of you are currently having. You keep on shifting on your seat, uncomfortable with how your skirt is so tight and short. Thighs are basically suowing and by just one wrong move, you’re pretty sure your underwear will be flashed towards him.

“Something wrong, Doc?” you jolted at his sudden question, breaking the defeaning silence. It was his first words for today.

His playful tone and look on his eyes are quite foreign for you, a little delighted by the new side you discovered from him.

“N-Nothing.” your words almost came out as a mumble that made him chuckle dangerously.

To see you with less clothing sure is torture for him, to see you blushing and squirming nonstop while your underwear almost flash him is clouding his mind with so many thoughts. All dark and dirty.

“You dressed differently today.” he said in a low tone, almost like a growl. The statement halts your hand from scribbling down your paper. You glanced at him and quickly looked away as he was already staring darkly.

You gulped in attempt to get rid of the lump between your throat. The corner of his lips lifts while one of his hands plays mindlessly at it.

“Y-Yeah.” it was obvious for you to deny it.

“What are you trying to do, Doc?” he asks like a trap and once again you are caught off guard.

“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He scoffed sexily and let out a heavy sigh, “Of course you don’t.” then his eyes roams from your feet up to your face and his heated gaze stays at your eyes.

“You fucking don’t know what you are doing.” he said under his breath that you clearly missed. Even before you manage to compose yourself from his stares, he already glanced away then his walls are once again up guarding himself.

The whole session continues with you uncomfortably wet down there and Sunghoon’s dick throbbing inside his pants.

A whole week passes by and all you did was to tempt him. You started wearing tight and short clothes. Whether on purpose or not, it is driving him crazy. The sexual tension between the two of you are so hot. Too hot that whenever you are left alone, it can almost burn you two.

He knew he had to something about it. He can’t get enough of you and his palm cannot satisfy him anymore. He had to get a taste of that pussy or else he will really lose his mind.

It was wednesday and like usual, he’s the one to that have to go to your office. Mondays and friday sessions are held at his place.

He arrived perfectly on time and your assistant guided him inside after your patient before him. It was a guy and the way his face are so red when he walks out is pissing the hell off of Sunghoon. He knew why he’s like that and he confirmed his guess when he saw you with his own eyes.

Wearing a short tight red skirt. You flashed him an angelic smile that seems illegal for how slutty you dress today.

“Mr. Park, you are right on time. Have a sit.” you pointed the sofa where he usually sits and he followed without a single word.

‘I’ll have a sit and you sit on my face right after. How about that?’ he wanted so bad to say that but he refrain himself.

Sunghoon’s eyes dangerously fiest on you while you make yourself comfortable at your chair. The only thing that seperates you between him was the small center table.

“Today, I want to have a conversation with you Mr. Park. Nothing too serious, any topic you like. I just want you to talk.” you stated and smiled at him.

He nods, surprising you a little. He’s never been this cooperative. It’s making you happy and at the same time worried on why he’s suddenly being obedient.

“Any topic, right?” he asks, confirming it from you. A small nod is what you respond to him.

He nods and stayed silent for a while. You thought it was giving him pressure so you assured him that its totally fine and he can take as much time he needs.

While he spaces out, your eyes couldn’t help but to absorb how he looks today.

Park Sunghoon is a walking temptation for you. It was against your rules to be attracted towards your patients, but you just couldn’t help yourself. He’s very handsome despite his rotten attitude. You kept having this sensual thoughts whenever he’s around. It felt so wrong and illegal. How you felt so weak and how you get wet just by looking at his toned arms and veiny hands.

“Do you know who I am? Is that why you accepted to be my psychiatrist?”

You pout your lips and shook your head side to side, cheeks blushing out of embarrasment because you have no idea of who he was until his parents asked you for help.

Instead of looking offended, Sunghoon looked more interested.

“So you don’t have any idea who I was before you accepted this job?” amusment lurks over his tone, finding it somehow amusing.

Not to sound so full of himself, but he’s pretty famous. Not only to his home country, but to the whole world. The bitterness slowly creeps over his chest by the thought of it. He shoves it off his mind because that’s not important as of the moment.

You nod your head sincerely while eyes darted straight at the handsome man sat across of you. His long legs are spread while one of his arm rests at the side of the couch, the other arm on a cast. It was the one that got injured and he needed it to be casted from time to time. He’s once again making the regular size couch look small because of his tall frame.

“You live under a rock or something?” his tone taunting.

You didn’t let it get to you then just flash him a small smile. “I was busy studying.”

He pursed his lips downwards while nodding his head slowly. His brow arches attractively before he smirks again.

“Oh, right. Miss Valedictorian have no time to fool around.” he said it with so much sarcasm and sighs right after. His gaze turned slightly dark while thinking about something. To what it is, you have no idea. He was hard to read after-all.

“Let me just ask you something, Dr.” he starts. Just by the way he’s looking at you, you can already tell he’s up to no good.

You gulped, trying to get a hold of your thoughts and keep a firm look on your face. The last thing you would want is too look weak in front of him. He’ll eat you alive if you let him overpower you.

“Go ahead, Mr. Park.” you tried to sound so casual. A doctor interviewing her patient. Not crossing any line, keeping a safe distant from him.

“Are you still a virgin?” his bold question completely caught you off-guard. Your breath hitches as blood rushes over your face, blushing hard.

“E-Excuse me?” the flustered look on your face made his grin wider.

Just seeing your innocent eyes opens wider after that question was priceless. He couldn’t get enough of you. Dark thoughts occupies his mind, how you will be so perfect for him. How fun would it be corrupting the fuck out of you.

“I forbid you from asking personal questions. This has nothing to do with your sessions.” and you cleared your throat then teared your eyes off of him.

He tilts his head, “Don’t you think you’re being unfair? You ask me personal questions too.”

Your lips hangs open, ready to answer him. Sunghoon’s brows arched as he waits for what you’re about to say.

“T-That’s different. You are my patient and you—”

“How am I suppose to trust you when I know nothing about you?” his words stunned you. Truly he makes a point. In order for your patient to be confident enough to share their thoughts to you, you need to earn their trust.

How are you suppose to gain his trust when he knows nothing about you? But why does it have to be your sex life? You can share anything else, not that one.

“Then ask something else.”

He shook his head with a teasing grin. “That’s what I want to know the most.”

You stared at him straight to his eyes, silently asking him if he’s being serious about it. He didn’t budge and just stared back, piercing through your soul. You let out a strained sigh as an act of surrender before resting your back at your chair.

“Y-Yes.” you gulped, trying to get rid of the lump between your throat. The amount of embarrasment you are having right now is incomparable to anything else. You’ve never been humiliated like this.

A spark lights upon his pretty eyes, his thick pretty brows raising in amusement. He chuckles and you quickly glanced away, couldn’t take it.

“I did expect you to say yes, but to actually know it is still surprising.” he stated.

You nibbled over your lower lip then dropped your eyes at the clipboard you are holding. The paper clipped to it was almost blank, nothing else was written as he’s not cooperating as usual. But in comparison from your previous meetings, he’s more talkative as of the moment.

“So tell me, why?” he asks in full curiosity. You glanced at him with a furrowed brows, confused as to what’s he’s talking about.

“Does no one wants you? Nobody tried to— ah no, that’s impossible right? I bet a lot had tried before but they just miserably failed.” the corner of his mouth lifts as he racked his eyes from your eyes down to your feet, licking and nibbling over his lips through the process. It was almost like he’s undressing you inside his mind.

The sight itself was enough to make you feel horny, the space between your thighs slowly getting wet. It was sinful and becoming unbearable for you. The temperature of the room surprisingly became hotter because of the man in front of you.

If you’re slowly losing your mind, Sunghoon had gone crazy in his own thoughts. After hearing it from you, he lost it. The thought of how pure and innocent you are just makes him dizzy and very horny. He can think of the most awful and darkest thoughts he wants to do to corrupt you. Make you his cum dump and a slave to of his cock. It makes him riled up.

Sunghoon curses inside his mind feeling his cock getting painfully hard.

Your eyes unconsciously darted over the wall clock and a part of you cheers that finally it was times up for his session.

“O-Our session is over, Mr. Park.” you forced yourself up, thighs rubbing each other and the heat coming out from your core makes it so bothering.

You didn’t wait for Sunghoon to speak and just stood up then walk towards your table, starting to rummage over nothing. Continuously touching and arranging things that doesn’t necessarily messy.

The couch made a sound when he stood up and you can feel your heart thumping so hard as you wait for him to talk.

Instead of hearing his voice, you heard him carefully walking near you. It halts your movement and your chest rises up and down. Your breath hitched as you feel his presence looming behind him, his tall figure approaching closer.

He stopped a step behind you. The sexual tension between the two of you is sky rocket, making you feel slightly suffocated. Sunghoon raises his free arm to reach over your waist.

The moment his big hand touched you, it was over for you. The wall you tried to barricade yourself in, crumbling down.

Sunghoon inched closer pressing his hot body at your back. Your scent made its way over his nose and he nibbled his lips at how good you smell.

“We shouldn’t really—” your words hangs as his action caught you off guard.

He dipped his head down, face dangerously burying your neck. His sinful hot lips places feathery kisses over it. Your hand clenched into fists, trying hard not to make any sound or let out a moan that can surely please him.

“Mr. Park,” you tried hard to face him, hand rests over his uninjured shoulder to push him away.

The difference between your physique clearly made it obvious how your strength would not even match his and so to see him not budging from his position isn’t really surprising.

He smirks, finding you adorable while blushing so hard. His effect on you visible and he’s loving it so much. He pressed himself again and this time it’s even more dangerous as you are face to face with each other.

You can now see his ethereal visuals, his thick dark brows, eyes surrounded by thick long lashes, nose pointy with a noticeable beauty mark on it and his pretty lips. He smirks, running his tongue once over them before nibbling over his lower lip showing you his fangs.

“Just like what you always tell me...” he murmured, lips inches away from yours.

Your heart almost burst out from your chest because of the intensity he's making you feel. The urge of giving in and kissing him plays inside your head dangerously clouding your senses.

“Cooperate.” his grip over your waist tightens as he leans even closer.

The last string of resistance prevents you from kissing him on his lips, leaning away when he inched closer. His eyes lifts from your lips, to your eyes. You can see how his eyes are clouded with nothing but lust.

“Think about it, Doctor. If we both cooperate in here, we’ll get what we wants the most. It’s a win win situation.” and he tugs you closer to him making you feel his erection from his pants. So hard and its making you dizzy how he rubs it

His head leans at the side, his lips grazing slightly to bite your earlobe teasingly. It makes you feel ticklish and lightheaded.

“You, getting inside of my mind and me getting inside of you.” he seductively whispered over your ears, hot breath fanning your neck that made the hairs stands up.

Your knees weakened and he hold your waist tighter to prevent you from collapsing down the cold floor.

The intercom to your office rings and it made you jolt. Sunghoon chuckles at how adorable you are for getting surprise by small sounds.

“Doctor, I would like to remind you that your session with Mr. Park is now over. The next client just arrived.” your assistant just announced.

A heavy and disappointed sigh slips off from Sunghoon’s mouth before he moves away from you. His hands ripped away from you and the sudden lose contact made you slightly feel empty, hand gripping the table hardly to keep balance.

He noticed it and he grinned widely. He sighs and felt slightly annoyed that the fun has to be interrupted.

“I should go. You seem to have a busy day.” he turns his heels and started heading towards the door, like as if he didn’t just pulled that stunt.

Just in time, your secretary opened the door and Sunghoon glanced at you for the last time, flashing you a very meaningful smile.

“I really enjoyed this session, Doctor. I’ll see you on friday.” and he sent a wink before finally leaving you a whole mess, the space between your thighs dripping wet wanting nothing but to feel more of him.

After what Park Sunghoon just pulled at your office, you gave it a lot of thought. He was too tempting, but something in you feels warry of the idea. He’s seriously like a wolf hunting on an innocent sheep. It was too much for you so you skipped two of your sessions. Friday and monday, sending Hana instead and making excuses that you’re outside the country for some seminar.

“Finally showing up, huh?” his dangerous tone errupts from the entrance of your office, making you jolt.

Your back was facing the direction of the door and so you have no idea how he looks right now. Gulping, you slowly turns to face him and you saw him shutting the door close. The sound of the lock clicking made your heart thump faster.

“I’m sorry, I was in a seminar. I did sent Dr. Kang in replacement for me.”

The look on his eyes tells you that there’s no slight chance that he’s buying it. And he’s pissed at you for actually thinking you can get away from him.

“P-Please have a sit.” you stutter because you have no idea of how to bring up what he just said the last time you two saw each other.

“Have you decided about what I told you?” a part of you felt relieved that he’s the one who brought it up, the other part is nervous because you have no idea what to tell him.

Your mind kept telling you no, but your core had another idea. Clearly, you want him. You want him so bad.

“A-Are you sure you will cooperate with the sessions if I give you what you want?” your tone sounded anxious and so soft.

Sunghoon’s eyes grew darker while he stares at you, legs spread so wide while he dominates your couch. He heaved a sigh, calming himself not to get so excited and scare you off with his dark plans of corrupting the shit out of you.

“Yes. I am a man of my words after-all.” he states and licked his lips.

You stared right at his eyes with your innocent looking eyes. A big grin spreads across his face the moment you nod your head, falling for his evil trap.

It felt really awkward after that and you’re just standing right there like as if waiting for what he’s going to say next.

“What s-should I do?” you asked timidly, fingers fidgetting carefully and nervously.

Sunghoon took time admiring how beautiful you look in front of him. Standing like a helpless prey, submitting to her predator. Her hungry and very horny predator.

He smiles and bit his lower lip, showing off his fangs like teeth towards you. It sends shivers on your spine, down to your core making it even more wet.

Sunghoon scoots over to the side of the couch, leaving enough space.

“Come sit here.” he ordered with his husky voice.

Your knees felt weak and your feet are stoned at your position, heart thumping so loudly inside your chest that it hurts a little.

“Don’t be scared. I don’t bite,” he scoffs. “at least not yet.” and he grinned at you.

With all your strength, you struts towards him and sat at the space beside him. To be this close to him is dangerous for you. You feel so hot, like going insane hot.

Sunghoon leans in towards your face and you instinctively moves back a little. His dark eyes moved from looking at your lips up to your eyes, silently warning you not to do that again. His hand raised and cupped your face to keep you in place. His hand so big and having it harshly holding you with so much dominance turned you on.

When his lips touches yours, you are lost. It started slow and gentle, then he started to kiss you hungrily like he’s been starved from your kisses. You shut your eyes and hand grip over his polo shirt for support as you can feel yourself losing into his touch.

Your head fuzzy at the taste of Sunghoon. A little bit of mint and sweetness. His kisses hot and messy as his tongue pushes your mouth open so he can taste your insides shamelessly.

He pulled away when you two are already out of breaths, biting your lower lip as he did so. His eyes half-lidded and clouded with nothing but lust. He looked so damn sexy.

“You taste so sweet.” he whispered near your lips, eyes darted straight at yours.

His gaze heated and so is his touch. You can feel his large hands roaming dangerously below you. His eyes serves as a distraction so it was too late before you even realize that he already pushed your skirt up, hands reaching over your clothed core. His hand expertly parting your legs for better access.

“Mr. Park—” your words cut when he placed a wet kiss on your lips.

“Call me Sunghoon.” you gulped and felt so flushed because of his fingers now playing with your core. The only thing that keeping him from touching it bare was your underwear. It was torture for you. A bit embarrased too as this is the first time someone had touched you this much.

“Already so fucking wet for me. That’s all for me, right?” he glanced back at your eyes, waiting for an answer.

Because of the overwhelming pleasure, all you did was nod your head, trapping your lower lip between your teeth.

“Words. I need words, baby.” he whispered, the sudden endearment adding to the sensation he’s making you feel at the moment.

“Y-Yes.”

“Yes what?” he asked, a bit impatient.

You whimpered when you felt him rubbing roughly at your wet core, “Yes I’m so w-wet for you.”

That sends a different kind of satisfaction towards Sunghoon. To hear you say those words just made his cock even harder. He never felt aroused just by hearing them dirty talk. This is the first time. You’re the only one who did it to him.

“I want to taste you. I bet you taste so fucking sweet.” he mumbled and you opened your eyes at what he just said, taken aback at what he’s planning to do.

“But—” he placed a kiss at your lips then kneeled beside the couch, just so he can be face to face to your heated core.

You closed your legs in attempt to hide yourself from him, but he firmly gripped your thighs pushing them back open. He shoot you blank stares.

“Hold your legs for me. Keep them wide open.” he ordered and your eyes unconsciously darted at his broad shoulders, taking notice at the cast over it.

“W-What about your shoulder?” you worriedly ask.

Sunghoon almost lose his mind at how soft and gentle your voice are. More importantly that you still have the time to think of his shoulder when you’re almost half naked in front of him.

“I’m fine.” he quickly dismissed it and placed his big hands at your thighs, supporting it so it won’t close.

Your legs are slowly moving closer, maybe out of embarrasment now that he can see your underwear fully and the wet spot in the middle of it.

One of his hand reaches over your underwear, but you stopped him.

“S-Sunghoon, I’m shy.” you admit, blood rushing towards your cheeks.

The corner of his lips lifts up at the sight of your innocent eyes watching him beneath you. The look of embarrasment and probably being neglected from orgasm painted frustration over your pretty face. He cannot explain it exactly, but it turns him on.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.” despite the look of lust over his eyes, his tone is surprisingly gentle.

“Can I take this off now?” he asks and while staring at his eyes, you had no choice but to nod your head.

He didn’t waste any second and removed your underwear, revealing your wet pussy. The sight itself was enough to leave him salivating. Sunghoon gulps and then dips his head giving one long lick to your core, juices wrapping his own tongue.

“God,” you mumble at the feeling of his hot tongue grazing your folds.

“Taste so fucking good.” he grunted and started lapping your pussy like a hungry animal. He kissed, he ate and even fuck your hole using his tongue, hardening it so you can feel him enough.

“Ngh,” you sound so dumb trying to contain your moan, afraid that your secretary from outside can hear you.

Sunghoon smirks and lifts his gaze to look at you enjoying the time of pussy being eaten. He never seen you like this before, he never thought you can even moan this erotic.

“Let me stretch you a bit, baby.” and he pulls away then spit at your hole.

“Open your eyes.” he says that made you slowly oblige. The first thing you saw was his sexy smirk, eyes so dark.

He raised his hand and while staring at your eyes, he slowly slid one of his long fingers inside you.

“Hmm, w-wait.” one of your hand lets go from your thighs so you can cover your mouth.

He chuckled, “Haha! Too much? It’s just one finger. How are you gonna take me if you’re already struggling with this?” he taunts and starts pumping it in and out, stretching you.

“You look so pretty like this, y/n. So damn pretty.” he mumbled and kissed your inner thighs while still fucking his finger knuckle deep in you.

“I think I can already add another one.” he says and you hitched your breath as you watch closely, anticipating the stretch and slight sting from it.

Sunghoon loves how obedient you are and how you just lets him do what he wants towards you. This is the first time you’ll ever experienced fingered other than your own fingers so he knew he needed to make it memorable. He added another finger and started pumping.

“Ugh, oh my gosh.” you moaned, gripping over wherever you can reach.

He kept repeating it until you can feel a knot forming your stomach, a hand clasp over his arm. “S-Sunghoon, I’m going to cum.”

His eyes sparkled, “Oh yeah? Give it to me.” he says like a challenge and continued pumping, dipping his head close to your core. He opens his mouth and placed his tongue near your hole, waiting for your sweet juice. The sight itself made you cum easily, moaning so hard and shaking a little.

“Good girl, cum so sweet.” he praised and suck your clit for any remnants of your orgasm.

You are catching your breath and he’s still pumping his fingers inside you, riding your high.

“How does that feel?”

“G-Good.”

“Then let’s do it again.”

Despite feeling drained out of energy, you looked at him with a bit of hesitation. “W-What?”

“Let me add another finger, pretty. Hold on.” and pushes your body to lay back down your previous position.

You whimpered at the amount of stretch his three fingers are giving you. This is the biggest you ever had.

“Pussy so tight. I bet we will have a hard time making my fat cock fit inside you.” his words’ making your head all fuzzy.

“Say it.” he said while staring at your eyes.

You looked at him confuse, clueless of what he’s talking about.

“W-What?”

“Say your pussy is so tight for me.”

Your cheeks flushed at how dirty those words are. You rarely cursed and never once did mutter this type of words, having him make you say this is making you feel so riled up.

“Say it, y/n. Or I’ll stop,” he shamelessly pulls his fingers out of your hole and instantly you felt empty, the other orgasm disappearing into thin air.

“S-Sunghoon,” you said a little frustrated.

“Say it.” his eyes so dark while it burn towards you.

“M-My pussy is so tight for y-you.”

Sunghoon slid his fingers right back after hearing you dirty talking. It back fired tho, as he can feel his dick throbbing painfuly inside his pants, head leaking with so much precum.

“Ah fuck, this won’t work.”

His eyes turned darker and he pulls his fingers off, making you look at him in confusion. He licked your juices on his digits before he stood back up. Your eyes grew big when you saw him unzipping his pants.

“W-What...” you are lost of words when you saw his erect cock, slapping his stomach after he took off his briefs. It is big and now you can definitely agree when he wonders how you will be able to fit him inside you.

Your face turned pale, a little scared of how painful would it be.

“S-Sunghoon, I don’t think I can—” he leans down and kissed you over your lips.

“Just the tip, baby. I promise.” he stroke his manhood and slowly near it to your entrance.

“Fuck,” he groaned when he managed to put his pulsating tip inside your hole. The stretch from a while ago did help, but only because its just his head. It stings a little, but the pleasure is unmeasurable.

“Oh God,” you mumble when he starts to pull in and out his tip.

“Keep steady for me.” and he started to keep his pace, pleasure overwhelming the two of you.

His eyes are fixed right at your pussy barely taking his tip inside. It was making him crazy.

“I’m close, Sunghoon!”

His brows narrowed and he bit his lower lip, stroking the length that doesn’t go inside you to catch your orgasm.

“Me too, fuck. Cum with me.” and after a few more thrust, you coat his head with your cum and afterwards he pulls out, spilling his outside your pussy.

You’re both a panting mess after and now that the lust is slowly withdrawing, your starting to feel shy again. He noticed it and smirks before leaning in for a kiss on your lips.

“You did so well for me.” he praised that made your cheeks flushed even more.

You pursed your lips into a pout and glanced away, eyes dropping at your exposed core.

“You got it on my skirt.” you rant cutely that made him chuckle.

“I’ll just buy you a new one.”

Friday came faster than you expected, or maybe you’re just really looking forward on seeing Park Sunghoon once again. You parked right at his mansion and knocked on his door.

Surprisingly, Sunghoon opened the door for you. Brows hardly furrowed.

“Hi,” you greeted with a smile and blushing cheeks.

He opens his door even wider for you, “You’re late.” he sounds like he’s sulking so you chuckle a little walking pass by him. Sunghoon managed to inhale your sweet scent and he’s already feeling aroused by it.

“I stopped by at a famous bakery since you mentioned yesterday that you love bread.” and you raised the plastic containing the bread you are talking about.

When you glance at him, he was already sat down at his couch. A ghost of smile spread across his face before he gestures you to come to him. You rest your things at the table and slowly walk near him.

He reached over your hand then guided you carefully to sit over his lap, arms wrapping around your waist.

“You look beautiful today.” he compliments that tugged your heart.

“Is that why you’re hard as rock right now?” you teased and rolled your eyes at him.

He smirks, “I can’t help it.” he mumbles then showers your shoulders and neck with feathery kisses.

You shut your eyes and your hold over his arm tightens. He kissed your neck and sucked at the skin so hard you’re sure it will bruise.

“Ride me.” he commands that made you open your eyes.

The look of lust over his eyes tells you that he isn’t kidding at all. After letting out a nervous sigh, you straddle over him your clothed core perfectly aligned at his erection. The sensation of having it rub as you position yourself on top of him is making you crazy.

Sunghoon’s big hands rests at your hips, eyeing you dangerously. Watching how your face contorts at pleasure as your privates rubs at one another. He can only curse inside his mind how the sight of you humping your wet core to him is so arousing.

“Sunghoon,” you moaned that snap him out of trance.

“Yeah?” and he leaned closer kissing your chin.

“Can I suck you?”

His eyes darken at your question. He was indeed planning to make you suck his cock, but he never thought you would be the one to ask yourself. Now he didn’t regret hearing it, you are turning him on even more.

“Well well, the innocent Doctor (surname) now hungry for my cock?” he teased that made you shy instantly, stopping how you rub yourself towards him.

He chuckles, “Say it first and then I'll let you suck my dick.”

You pursed your lips into a pout then was about to turn away, “Say it, come on.” and then he hold your wrists to keep you from leaving.

You glanced at his eyes and stared hardly. Letting him see how much he affect you. How wet he is making you at the moment.

“Can I suck your cock, please?” you ask so softly that it almost broke Sunghoon.

He smirks and leans to kiss you at your lips once, “Since you ask nicely, down on your knees.” he command and you got so excited after you heard that.

You stood up from sitting on his lap and watch how he remove the knot of his sweatpants. He was left with his boxers and he slides it down as well, revealing his already hard fat cock.

You gulped, astonished at the view in front of you. Eyes fixated at the dessert you’re about to taste. You slowly went down on your knees while still staring at his pulsating cock, the tip of it so red.

“H-How do I do it?” your hand hang awkwardly on the sides and it almost made Sunghoon laugh at how adorable you are.

He grabs your hand and placed it at his knees, making you tear your gaze from his dick and look at his lustful eyes. He smiles, fangs showing.

“Calm down, baby. Don’t get too excited. I feel like you will bite off my dick.” he joked that made you pout. He chuckled and leaned forward for a peck on your lips before resting his back at the couch once again.

“Okay, open your mouth and then rolled your tongue out. Flat them good for me.” he instructs that you quickly followed.

The shyness wearing off as the heat of horniness taking over. You don’t care anymore, all you want is to taste his cock inside your mouth.

“That’s it. Then hold my length, not too tight. It’s your friend, not your enemy.” he chuckles playfully and you just keep follow him.

“Now lick the tip. Lick or suck, just no teeth.” he reminds and you dived in, not wasting any second.

He tasted a bit salty, but good. You cannot explain what exactly it is but the type of taste you will look for from time to time. You hold his dick and looked at its tip, becore sucking it good making Sunghoon groan in pleasure.

“Fuck baby, you’re so thirsty for my cock.” and his hand rests on top of your head when you started bobbing it out of instinct.

“Just like that— damn, it feels so good.” he moaned, groaning while biting his lips deliciously.

“Look at me.” he demands that you oblige, making him go insane.

“Goddamn those eyes. I will cum if you keep looking at me like that.” he said in a husky voice that sent shivers in your spine.

You hummed sending vibrations on his dick that gave him ultimate pleasure.

“Keep going, pretty.” and with his guidance you continued bopping and sucking his delicious cock like a lollipop. It felt so satisfying hearing his moans and having him tightly gripping your hair out of pleasure.

“I’m gonna fucking cum,” he grunts so you kept your pace and he started fucking into your mouth, making you slightly gag on his fat dick.

He didn’t stop until he shoots his hot cum at the depth of your throat, making sure you swallow every drop of it. You did as he told, rolling your eyes as you continue sucking him dry. Sunghoon grunts at the sight of you.

“So good for me.” he mumbles and pulls you up to give you a kiss at your lips.

The day ended with you actually doing your session. This time, you can really tell he’s trying to be more cooperative. Answering questions from you about his childhood and all, trying to familiarize you more about him.

You left that day with a sweet kiss on his lips and small gropping. He’s just really naughty and you cannot get enough of him.

Your routines became making out, foreplays, makeouts then session with Sunghoon. Two weeks passed by so quickly and you two grew closer and intimately. Another weekend came and you spent it with Hana, trying to find good clothes and other girly things.

“How was it with Mr. Park Sunghoon?” she asks raising her brow teasingly.

Your cheeks blushed and eyes dropped at your food instantly. Just by then she realized that something is really happening between you and the f1 racer and so she squealed happily and didn’t stop bugging you to tell her everything.

“I always knew he have the hots for you.” and she winks, delighted that her friend is finally having the sex she deserves.

“What? No. Maybe he’s just bored and—”

“Oh come on! Sunghoon can have any girls he wants and yet he picked you. He isn’t the type to go fuck around girls as well, y/n. He may look like a player, but that dude is loyal.” she even whistles.

“How’d you know?”

She shrugs her shoulder, “He had only one ex-girlfriend and not once did I heard him getting involve with someone else.”

Your heart sank at what you heard. Lately, Sunghoon has been making you feel special. Despite him being mean sometimes, his gestures still tugs your heart. And to think that you learnt about this ex lover of his being the undefeated champion for his heart is hurting your heart.

“Don’t worry! They’re already over.” she assured you after noticing the look of horror on your face.

That didn’t wipe away your worry, since you could tell she has something to do why Sunghoon refuses to talk about his hard refusal of driving for his team again.

“Why did they broke up?” you couldn’t help yourself but to ask.

She pursed her lips trying to recall the article she saw the moment the news broke to the media. It was not that big of a scandal, but still they’re both a famous and public personality. There are a lot of people invested in their love journey.

“I’m not sure, but as far as I remember it was her who calls it off.” she says that made you even more insecure about it.

Hana seems to be ignorant about the fact that you’re starting to overthink things and just diverts the topic into something else. You tried hard to push back whatever that is that’s bothering you, but it was no use. Your heart feels heavy just by thinking of where you stand at Sunghoon’s life.

He didn’t mentioned anything about taking things seriously. You wanted to get into his mind, talk to him and help him get through this phase of his life. On the other hand, he wants to get in your pants and use you for pleasure. That’s it? You should not get worried and shrug it off, but you can’t. Because no matter how much you deny it, you are slowly catching feelings with him.

And to think that the possibility of him still having hang ups with his ex are breaking your heart.

Monday came faster than expected. The weekends spent mostly by you overthinking things. It was slightly exhausting, but again it was overpowered by the thought of seeing Sunghoon once again. Excitement feeling your chest as you parked right at the hospital to meet some of your morning clients.

Time passes by so slow as you keep glancing at your wall clock, begging for it to go faster. After your third client, your intercom rings.

“Doctor, you are asked to go to the conference room to attend a meeting.” your secretary announced.

Your brows furrowed as you glanced at your calendar beside your table, finding it odd that it wasn’t recorded to your schedule. Meaning its either its an unplanned meeting or you forgot to just include it.

You pressed the button to your intercom, “Alright. Thank you.”

The conference room are packed with some doctors and at the center of it was the director. His eyes lights up at the sight of you and you tried to flash a smile for him. He continued talking about some reminders and changes at the hospital protocols.

Your eyes unconsciously darts at the clock and saw that its almost your session with Sunghoon. Remembering that you forgot to inform him, you tried to check your phone from your pockets and realized you don’t have it with you.

You almost cheered silently when the director said his ending remarks for the meeting. Everyone stood up and claps for him. When you’re about to leave the conference room, he calls for you. It made you hesitant, but since you don’t want to make a scene you just walk near him.

“Your ward will be provided with new equipments.” he started and even looked over the folder holding the lists of things your department requested.

Your shoulder relaxed a bit, thinking that he’s not totally up for something weird. Its just that you represented the department as everyone else have something to do. Slowly, the people inside the room left one by one. Even before you realize it, you are alone with the director already.

“Can you check if there’s anything missing?” he asks seriously and even handed you the folder.

You nod and carefully checks the list. While deeply into it, you yelped when you’re suddenly pushed towards the table. His body pressing hardly behind you. Tears quickly pool your eyes in terror, head hurting as it hits the table.

“M-Mr. Cha w-what are you doing?!” you panicked and even try to push yourself back up.

He grunts and pushed you even harder, holding your position. You cried and shut your eyes, wishing that this is just a dream. A very bad dream. You felt his hot breath near the back of your ears and something hard pressed at your but. It felt disgusting, you felt disgusted with yourself.

“Shut the fuck up and just take this bitch.” he mumbles scarily and started grinding himself at you.

“N-No, please stop—” you cried even harder feeling him from outside your clothes and its so horrifying.

“Shh, don’t cry. I won’t put it inside. It’s too early for that...” he said lowly and even caress your face. You moved away from his touch and he just scoffed.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve taught of doing this to you.” he groans and you can feel him going faster, reaching his climax.

It was horrible, but you just stood still as you are helpess. Tears keep streaming down your eyes, unable to even say anything. You bit your lip, shutting your eyes tightly.

When he finished, he leans in and forcedly pressed a kiss at your lips. The moment he lets go of you, you bolted your way out of there. Thankfully, you didn’t stumble with some colleagues or else they would be wondering why you’re crying and dress all crumpled up.

You’re traumatized after what happened. You’ve been inside your vehicle parked underground the hospital. Tears doesn’t even stream from your eyes anymore, you just sat there feeling so numb and disgusted. You feel disgusted about yourself. Just every place he touched you.

Your head slowly cranes to the side when you heard your phone ringing. Sunghoon’s name flashing through it. Right, you’re late to your session with him. After a while, your screen turns black meaning you’ve missed the call already.

It lits up once again because he’s trying to call again. Your heart tugs and slowly reached for your phone.

“H-Hello?” you stuttered.

A big sigh is what’s greet you. “Finally!” he spats. “I’ve been trying to call you for an hour. I thought something bad happened to you.” he sounded a little irritated.

“I’m sorry, I was c-caught in a meeting.” the memory flashes back to your mind.

“It’s fine. I just got worried.” you missed what Sunghoon said as your mind slowly spaced out.

He noticed you being silent from the other line so he sighed, “Hey, I’m not mad. I was just really worried.” he repeated, thinking you thought he’s angry.

When he still didn’t receive any response, his brows furrowed hardly.

“Baby?” he calls softly, snapping you back to your senses.

“S-Sorry, yeah?” you sniffed.

“Are you okay? Did something happen?”

Your heart sank at what you heard. The amount of emotions mountaining inside you are unexplainable. You want to scream, cry and tell him everything but you are scared. Scared as hell on what will happen after.

“Yeah I’m f-fine.” only case is, you’re not.

“Are you coming here?”

“Yes.”

You really want to see him. Something in you tells you that Sunghoon can help. That seeing him can help you.

“Okay. Drive safely.”

You bid goodbye and drove towards his house with one thing inside your mind. What happened to you a while ago and what the director did you to you just means he will not stop just like that. If there’s anyone you want to give yourself in for the first time, it would be Park Sunghoon. You want to give yourself to him.

When you arrived his place, Sunghoon was the one of who opened the door for you. He can’t even say hi because you quickly wrap your arms over his nape, pulling him closer. You crashed your lips on his and start kissing him passionately.

Despite being surprised, Sunghoon caught on and kissed back. He doesn’t understand why you’re suddenly like this, but he cannot reject and stop you. No. Never. Not when you look so beautiful desperate for him. Desperate for his kisses and touch.

He pushed your body to the door and started kissing you hungrily, hands roaming your body like they have a body of their own.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asks, catching his breath.

Your lustful eyes stared right at his swollen lips. “I just missed you.”

Sunghoon’s eyes soften at what you said and leans back in for another heated kiss. Both of his large hands rests at your hips, gripping them tightly.

“H-Hoon,” you moaned when he starts to kiss and suck the skin on your neck.

He hummed on your skin, sending so much pleasure. Your hands plays over his hair, pulling it softly.

“Fuck me.”

Sunghoon was stoned at his position when he heard you mutter those words. He pulled away slightly, enough to look at your eyes.

“What did you say?”

You looked at him straight in the eyes.

“Please fuck me.”

Sunghoon went wild after hearing it. He licked his lips and placed a kiss on top of your hand. “You sure?”

You nod continuously, wanted so bad to forget what happened earlier at the conference room.

“All right, let me prep you—” you hold his arm.

“N-No,” you gulped. “I want to feel it. I want it to hurt.”

He furrowed his brows and looked at you in confusion. He’s not gonna lie, he’s all riled up with you saying these things but he cannot help but to think what happened to you. For the past month that he knew you and been doing stuff with you, he’s never seen you like this. He feels like something’s wrong.

“Is everything okay?” he asked all concerned.

You want to dodge that question as much as possible so you glanced away. His firm hold over you softens as he try to catch your eyes.

“Hey, you good? If you want to do this, I want you to be sure. I need to prep you so it will hurt less—”

“I said I don’t mind!” you burst and shoot him glares. Your emotions are getting the best out of you.

“You know what, nevermind! If you don’t want to do it then I’ll find someone else!” you yelled. Of course that was a lie, but you try to save yourself from too much embarrassment.

You’re about to walk away from him, but he grabbed you by the wrist. When you meet his eyes, shivers run through your spine because Sunghoon’s eyes are so dark.

“Why the fuck would you say that?” he looked so mad and your lips shake unable to even say anything.

“You want it to hurt? I’ll make it hurt.” and he threw you over his shoulders making you slightly yelp.

“H-Hoon,” he walked towards somewhere.

Realizing he entered a room, Sunghoon placed you on the middle of the big bed. You looked at him, nervous. He smoothly took off his shirt and you fold your legs. His toned body made you at awe.

He stretches and grabbed your leg pulling you closer to him. His hand find your skirt and he started taking it off. He dipped his head to smash his lips onto yours. Your eyes shut, getting drown by his sweet, sloppy kisses.

“You don’t say those words at me, y/n. Finding someone else to fuck you?” he said after he pull away and manages to take off your skirt. His eyes turned dark as he let out a scoff with no humor.

“Now, I’m going to fuck you so hard and you’re going to take it all like a good bitch.”

His words are enough to make you wet down there, but you know it wasn’t enough to make it less painful. With the length and thickness of his cock, it will surely hurt like hell.

“W-Wait—” you sound scared.

Sunghoon didn’t mind and just pushed your body down the bed, his big hand wrapping around your neck. His other hand started stripping off your underwear.

“Shut the fuck up.”

He moved away and started removing his sweatpants. His dick was hard already, slapping at his stomach after he took off his boxer shorts. The view itself was salivating for you. It made your fear disappear for a split second. Tho it all went back when he approached you and spread your legs wide for him.

His eyes are darkly focused down at your slightly wet core.

“H-Hoon,” he didn't say anything and spit on his palm before stroking his hard cock.

You’re about to say something but his dark eyes looked at you. The corner of his lips lifts a little as he position his tip at your entrance. Your heart thump in fear and excitement. Multiple times you two did foreplays and you’ve been imagining his cock entering you. Now, it’s really gonna happen.

“Do you trust me?” he asks in a low tone.

You nod your head.

“I will make it hurt so you wouldn’t forget who took you first.” he mumble so ruthless and then pressed his body closer.

Your lips pursed as his cock slowly enters you. It was hard, Sunghoon cannot even push inside as it was so tight for him. He clenched his jaw, couldn’t get enough of the feeling of your tight cunt squeezing his tip.

“Fucking tight,” he growled and thrust harder.

You yelped at the feeling of being painfully stretched by his dick. The pain was unexplainable, something you never felt before. Your hold over his arm tighten, eyes becoming teary. Sunghoon searches for your lips as he continues taking your virginity, cursing inside his mind how good this pussy is. How tight and perfect for him to ruin.

“S-So big,” you cry out.

“Just a little bit more, baby.” he whispered to your ears.

He’s not yet fully in but you already feel so full. It was unbelievable. Your eyes tightly shut, nails digging over his broad back.

“There we go,” he sighs when you finally managed to take all of him.

He pulled away slightly just to get a good look of his cock buried deep inside of you. Your pussy so red and full. It looked so tight with his dick filling you completely. He fits you perfectly that its no doubt that this pussy belongs to me.

“You’re mine now, y/n. Hear me?” he growled and leaned his body down as he start to move his hips, thrusting in and out.

“I’m claiming this pussy mine.” and he bit your shoulder, pistoning his hips harder and faster.

He didn’t even ask if you adjusted already. He was so lost by the pleasure you are giving him. He continued fucking you fast and hard that you’re starting to see stars. It was amazing. Painful, but amazing.

“Ngh,” you moaned when its started to feel a little better. He smirks and tries to catch a glance at your face.

“You’re taking me so well, baby. You’re such a good girl.” he mumbled and looked back at your privates hitting each other continuously.

“So pretty. So perfect for me.” he kept mumbling like a prayer.

You got lost on how long he’s been abusing your hole until he finally cum on your stomach. Sunghoon’s not the type who gets tired right away after a round, but this one’s different. The kind of pleasure and emotions he poured in this one is something he has never done before.

He crashed beside you and gently pulled you towards him, making your head rest over his chest. A peck on your forehead and then he rest his chin on your head.

“Thank you.” you mumbled, after finally gaining back some senses.

He scoffed and wrapped his arm around you. “Thank you for hurting you?”

You chuckled and nuzzled over his chest.

“Well, I did asked for it.”

“You did, baby.”

The two of you fell silent before your eyes caught a glimpse of some of his trophies.

“Did you want to be a racer ever since you were a kid?”

“Oh, my psychiatrist is back? Damn. I’m kind of enjoying my cuddles at the moment.” he said sarcastically.

“I just want to know.” you giggled.

He heaved a sigh, clearly thinking through it.

“I grew up loving cars. My uncle used to take me with him whenever he watch f1 racers. I thought it was cool and wanted to be like them.” he started and you just listened to him.

“And you did.” you uttered so proudly.

“My Mom was against it at first. Saying that its dangerous. But I just couldn’t stop myself from pursuing it. I just feel so alive doing it. The sound of the roaring engines, the thrill of the speed and the smell of the tires scratching over the race track. Its just... different.” he mumbles.

He didn’t say anything, but you felt his tension slightly disappearing. Your hand that was hugging him starts to caress his back, lowkey letting him know that you’re there beside him.

“I used to love racing.”

“You still love it.” you declared like you’re so sure of it.

He didn’t respond right away. Like something’s occupying his mind right now. The thought of his ex girlfriend made it to you and slowly, you pulled away from his hug.

You looked straight to his eyes and gulped.

“Does your ex girlfriend has something to do why you don’t want to race anymore?”

You can clearly saw how his eyes turned cold and the emotions in his face drained. He looked like how he was when you first met him.

Your heart cracks when he pulled away from you and leave the bed before starting to grab his clothes.

“I’ll get you a fresh towel so you can take a bath.” he suggested with cold voice.

“Sunghoon, I’m s—”

“Let’s skip today’s session. You can leave after you take a bath.” and he walked away to get the things you will be needing. Leaving you dumbfounded and heart’s aching.

You have no idea what just happened, but the f1 racer sure does know how to fucking hurt you both physically and emotionally.

tag-list:

@candewlsy @nyfwyeonjun @sunghoonizz @jaehyuniewifeu @imjakes-wifeofc1 @deobitifull @enhypens-hoe @yzzyhee @nyxtwixx @crimnalseung @vixensss @jjklvr9 @gonorrheaisme @lhspeachie @myboyfriendjungkook @capri-cuntz @brooklyninawhitemustang @woniebae @ma-riiii @tinie03 @seokseokjinkim @iheartjayke @hybeboyenthusisast @minniejenseo @shelovsme @sjakewrld @shawnyle (i can’t tag some of you, sorry)

[xo100]

Wrapped in warmth - LN4

*:･ﾟ Summary/request: by @misspygmypie "obv with lando and reader, she's always cold and he always makes sure she's warm (like wrapping her up in a thick jacket on a rainy race day). Maybe best friends with underlying unresolved feelings? My fav trope lol!"

*:･ﾟ Word count: 1566

୨ৎ

The cool wind swept across the paddock, carrying with it the scent of damp asphalt. It was race day, but the usual energy buzzing through the grandstands was slightly dampened by the persistent drizzle that had started in the early morning and hadn’t let up since. Grey clouds hung low in the sky, casting a muted, heavy atmosphere over the track.

-

Lando Norris pulled the hood of his McLaren jacket tighter around his face as he jogged through the garage, his eyes scanning the small crowd near the pit wall. His race engineer was calling him over to discuss some final strategy adjustments, but Lando’s attention was only half there. He was looking for her.

It was almost second nature now. Whenever he arrived at the track, the first thing on his mind—after the car, of course—was to find where she was. And today, in this cold, miserable weather, he knew she’d be huddled somewhere, trying her best to act like she wasn’t freezing. She always did. Stubborn as she was, she hated admitting she was cold, even when she clearly was.

Sure enough, there she was, standing near the edge of the garage. She had a team hat pulled low over her head, but it wasn’t doing much to shield her from the biting wind. She was dressed in a light jacket—nowhere near enough for this weather—and had her arms wrapped tightly around herself, pretending like she was fine.

Lando sighed softly. He had known her long enough to recognize when she was putting on a brave face. They had been friends for years, ever since that awkward first encounter in the paddock back when he was still in F2. She had been working as a journalist back then, tasked with interviewing young up-and-coming drivers. But what was supposed to be a quick five-minute interview had turned into an hour-long conversation full of laughter, teasing, and a connection neither of them had quite anticipated.

From that day on, they’d been nearly inseparable. She followed his career closely, attending as many races as she could, while he supported her in her work, always sneaking off to catch up with her during the busy race weekends. They were best friends—undeniably close, and yet, there was something more between them. Something unspoken, simmering just beneath the surface, but neither had dared to voice it. There was too much at stake, too much to lose if they acknowledged the feelings they both tried so hard to ignore.

Lando glanced at her again, noticing the way she subtly shivered, even as she stood chatting with a few mechanics. He grinned to himself, his protective instincts kicking in. She could act tough all she wanted, but he wasn’t going to let her freeze.

Without hesitation, he crossed the garage and approached her from behind. “You know, you’re terrible at pretending you’re not cold,” he teased, his voice soft and playful as he gently draped one of his thick McLaren jackets over her shoulders.

She jumped slightly, startled by his sudden appearance, but relaxed as soon as she realized it was him. “Lando, I’m fine,” she protested, though her fingers were already reaching up to pull the jacket tighter around her body.

“Sure you are,” he replied with a knowing smirk, ignoring her weak attempt to push it off. “It’s freezing out here, and you’re acting like we’re on a tropical beach. You could at least try to take care of yourself for once.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue further, clearly grateful for the warmth. “You’re such a worrier, you know that?”

“Only because you’re impossible,” he shot back, nudging her gently with his shoulder. “If I didn’t look after you, you’d probably turn into an icicle by now.”

Despite her efforts to appear unbothered, her heart fluttered at his words, a familiar warmth spreading through her chest that had nothing to do with the jacket he’d given her. Lando had always been like this—caring in the subtlest ways, looking out for her even when she didn’t ask for it. And she couldn’t deny how much she loved that about him, even if it made navigating her feelings for him that much harder.

“Besides,” he added with a sly grin, “I can’t have my best friend turning into a popsicle before the race. Who else is going to be there to cheer me on?”

Her stomach did that annoying flip it always seemed to do when he called her his best friend. It was a label she cherished but also hated at times like this, when his easy affection made it painfully clear that he probably saw her as nothing more than that.

“Always so selfless,” she joked, hoping her voice didn’t betray the whirlwind of emotions swirling inside her. “But thanks. I guess I’ll keep it—for now.”

He laughed softly, the sound bright even against the grey day. “Good. Now, come on, I’ve got to get through a strategy meeting, but after that, I’m dragging you somewhere warm until the race starts. No arguments.”

Her laugh echoed his, though her heart was still lodged somewhere in her throat. Moments like these—where his kindness felt like something more than just friendship—they were becoming harder to shake off. Every touch, every teasing comment, every concerned glance… it made her wonder if maybe, just maybe, he felt something more, too.

But then reality would set in. Lando was focused on his career, on being the best driver he could be. The last thing he needed was complications—especially not the kind that could ruin their friendship. And so, she kept her feelings tucked away, hidden behind easy smiles and sarcastic remarks, not wanting to risk what they already had.

-

As the race drew closer, the drizzle had turned into a steady downpour, and the paddock was buzzing with talk of potential rain strategies. Everyone was scrambling to adjust to the wet conditions, but despite the chaos, Lando’s mind was still on her. The image of her standing there, bundled up in his jacket, stuck with him. He couldn’t help it—making sure she was okay had always been a priority, even if he never openly admitted it.

Lando knew that his feelings for her had grown far beyond friendship. Somewhere along the line, between the races, the late-night texts, and the endless teasing, his heart had gotten involved. He had fallen for her, completely and utterly, but fear kept him from acting on it. What if she didn’t feel the same? What if he ruined everything by admitting it?

The thought scared him more than any race ever had.

And yet, there were moments—like today, when she looked at him with that mix of amusement and gratitude—where he swore she felt something too. It was in the way her gaze lingered just a little too long, or the way she unconsciously leaned into him when he was close. Maybe he was imagining it, or maybe he was just too afraid to see what was right in front of him.

-

By the time the race had ended, the rain had let up, but the cold lingered in the air. The stands were still packed with fans, despite the weather, and Lando had just finished celebrating a respectable finish. Exhausted but happy, he made his way back to the garage, peeling off his gloves as he went.

As soon as he spotted her waiting for him near the pit wall, bundled up in his oversized jacket, a sense of calm washed over him. She was talking to one of the mechanics, laughing about something, but her eyes lit up when she saw him approaching.

“Congrats,” she greeted him with a grin, her voice warm despite the cold. “You didn’t win, but hey, at least you didn’t crash in the rain, so that’s something.”

He chuckled, rolling his eyes playfully. “Always so supportive,” he teased, though he appreciated the way she could joke with him, even after a tough race.

“Someone’s got to keep your ego in check,” she shot back, the familiar banter flowing easily between them.

Lando was about to respond when he noticed the way her cheeks were still slightly flushed from the cold, despite the thick jacket she was wearing. Without thinking, he reached out, gently tugging the jacket higher on her shoulders, making sure she was as warm as possible.

“Thanks,” she murmured, her voice suddenly softer, as if the weight of the moment had settled between them.

Their eyes met, and for a brief second, the world around them faded away. It was just the two of them, standing in the fading light, rain still dripping off the roof of the garage. There was something unspoken in the air, something that had been building for years.

Neither of them moved, but the space between them felt charged with all the things they hadn’t said, all the emotions they had tried to bury.

“Lando, I—“ she started, but before she could finish, one of the engineers called him over, breaking the moment.

He shot her an apologetic look, but the tension between them lingered, the words unsaid hanging in the air.

“Later,” he promised, his voice low and sincere.

She nodded, watching him walk away, her heart heavy with the weight of everything they hadn’t said.

And just like that, the moment passed.

But the feelings didn’t. They never did.

୨ৎ

*:･ﾟ Notes; my first request! I hope you enjoyed it and that this was what you had in mind! If not let me know so I can change things! Enjoy it, love!

[zillychu]

I’ve gotten a WAVE of asks about this AU, so I decided to flesh it out some more and answer some of those questions!

I’ll probably polish this extended summary up at some point and submit it to AO3. But for now, here’s a rundown of my thoughts–please feel free to send more questions! I’ll update this post if I get any more. But if you’re someone who wanted to write fic for it, don’t worry, you don’t need to take my headcanons as gospel. It’s a pretty basic AU honestly lol

Summary:

The portal accident results in a violent explosion that wipes out the whole block, and condemns all of Amity Park. Danny haunts the city for 100 years, before Sam and Tucker find him. 

Setup:

In the 1920’s, 19-year-old Danny went into the incomplete portal on his own, hoping to help out his parents. Ripping the portal open through unnatural means created a huge burst of energy that resulted in a massive explosion. A good portion of the Amity Park population died, many were injured, and the ones on the fringes relocated–Amity was quickly deemed too dangerous due to the excess ectoplasm in the area that attracted ghosts. 

While the disaster was in Amity, the fallout was seen around the globe. Before, natural portals were rare, short-lived, and rarely allowed ghosts to fully slip into our realm (the most severe cases being on par with poltergeists that most people didn’t believe in). Now, natural portals pop open frequently around the world, large enough to allow the entirety of a ghost into the physical plane. They’re more common the closer you get to Amity, but they happen enough elsewhere that this change was something of a small apocalypse before people settled back down and found out how to combat at least some of their new, permanent neighbors. 

Danny is unaware that he’s only half-dead, believing he’s a full ghost. He ends up sticking around Amity, unintentionally making it his haunt. His grief and guilt over causing the death of his loved ones (and many others) makes him isolate and avoid human contact. Though he has, at times, scared nosy people away from the city in a mix of territorial instinct–and to get them to leave before a less friendly ghost finds them. 

Ghosts are much more of an uncontested danger in this AU. Lesser ghosts are practically mindless, and while stronger ghosts are capable of reason, their interests are limited. They’re highly territorial, possessive, and often destructive. Most worrisome is that they also like to snack on the life force of anything alive. No one is sure what dictates a ghost’s propensity to attack or hunt the living for their life force since ghosts don’t exactly experience hunger. At least, not the way we do. If a human is rescued before their life force is fully drained, they can make a full recovery–though humanity has still not yet found what this “life force" is. 

And since the Fentons’ research died along with them, there aren’t many tools available to the public to protect them from ghosts. Most homes have standard ghost shields and some weapons are available on the market, but certified ghost hunters are required to take care of anything more powerful than your average spook. 

Sam and Tucker met in high school, and are now rooming together for college very close to the Amity border. Rent is surprisingly cheap when you’re a stone’s throw away from a condemned area crawling with ghosts. Sam is the one who drags Tucker along with her fascination over finding out more about the city, and its largely mysterious demise. Sam is aware of the danger, but feels ghosts have a place in this world just like everything else, and does exercise caution–like one would while foraging in the woods with a known tiger population. 

What she and Tucker weren’t expecting was to run into a ghost that felt almost human. One that hasn't hurt them, not for lack of trying–while being powerful enough to walk past ghost shields without so much as a flinch. The long white hair is familiar in the whispers of the ectobiologist community, but there’s no way it could be the rumored ghost king Phantom, right?

About Danny:

He has very long hair, claws, and black sclera. His hazmat suit is more torn and ragged, with exposed hands and feet that fade into a burnt black.

His hair tends to float a lot on its own. It can start morphing into fire under duress. 

He does still technically have gloves and boots, they've just charred and melted into his skin towards the ends. He can't take them off in his ghost form. His hands and feet have a leathery texture that's tougher than the rest of his skin.

The white of his hazmat suit is both supposed to look like flames, and also a battered look representing his more violent, explosive death.

Overall, he appears rather listless and sad, with an unnerving air of danger around him–even for a ghost. 

Danny’s “ghost sense” comes out as white smoke.

He does breathe black smoke at times, usually when agitated. 

He's already fought and defeated Pariah Dark by the time Sam and Tucker find him, technically making him the Ghost King. This is heavily speculated by ghost experts, despite there being no real proof beyond a massive battle that scarred Illinois. He has not donned the Ring or the Crown, and captured sentient ghosts are hesitant to answer questions surrounding him. Danny basically has the throne but doesn’t do anything with it, and finds it meaningless enough to routinely forget he has the title. He only fought Pariah because he knew otherwise, humanity would have perished. A lot of ghosts are scared of him because he's so hard to figure out, and he's strong. 

Danny is usually very quiet and speaks softly, because his lungs were damaged in the blaze that half-killed him. He's technically healed since becoming a ghost, so it's more of a compulsion due to the traumatic memory. That, and he’s just… very forlorn and distant, shy around humans who don’t seem to understand how dangerous it is to keep hanging around him.

His memories pre-accident are extremely fuzzy. He knows the very basics of who he was, but specifics have been muffled due to trauma and isolation. He routinely forgets human habits, etiquette, etc. and tends to act more like a full ghost with some odd quirks. 

He does try to scare Sam and Tucker off numerous times. Unfortunately for him, they realized they shouldn't have been able to escape a ghost that strong–but they did, because he let them. 

Sam and Tucker think he's mute at first! He doesn't speak a word to them until several encounters later, when he fumbles his whole scary act and saves them from another ghost. 

He’s still half-ghost, though he doesn’t figure this out until Sam and Tucker come along trying to unravel the mysteries behind the Amity catastrophe. Physically and emotionally, he’s been stuck for 100 years–so his human form is still 19. It’s unclear at this point if he can age normally like a human as long as he stays in human form, or if he’s immortal. 

Danny's family did not turn into ghosts, though he sometimes worries he'll find them in the afterlife as shells of their former selves. He doesn't know if it's better or worse that he's not sure he'd recognize them. 

(Danny also still has some living family. Take a guess.)

Yes, he knows how to Wail. Understandably, he very rarely uses it. You do not want to witness this.

Danny :) is not immune :) from the allure of eating a human's life force :)))

[appocalipse]

the same thing ・❥・b. barnes

summary: during a mission, you put yourself in harm's way to protect bucky. back at the avengers compound, he wants to know why. | 1.4k words, angst with a happy ending

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

"You should be resting."

You don't turn your head as the familiar voice comes from behind you, too focused on the delicate art of making the perfect sandwich to look away. You are a woman on a mission. "I was hungry."

A few seconds later, he's standing next to you, leaning back against the countertop with arms folded across his broad chest. "It's been less than twelve hours since they patched you up."

He's not going to stop hovering, you realize, because that's what Bucky does when he's worried.

"Want half?" Maybe you can distract him with food.

He regards the towering monstrosity on the cutting board and the chaotic layers of meat, cheese, and veggies sticking out at all angles.

You can't help but grin as you slap another slice of bread on top. "A quarter, then?"

Bucky has the audacity to look offended. "I'm not eating that thing."

You cradle the plate in your left hand, holding the sandwich with your right, and give him a pointed look. "Your loss."

Bucky just watches, arms still crossed, as you take a huge bite. His blue eyes remain narrowed, his mouth pressed into a thin line. He's like a one-man intervention waiting to happen. You shrug and wander over to the kitchen table.

Sitting down is a bit of an effort. The wound on your side pulls as you slowly lower yourself onto the chair, but if you can keep from grimacing too hard, Bucky won't be able to tell, will he?

Your smile probably gives you away. He narrows his eyes further. "Why did you do that?"

"Because I'm hungry?"

"No." Bucky takes a step forward. "I meant why did you get between me and that shot?"

Good question. The answer is embarrassing and you'd sooner walk barefoot over hot coals than tell him the truth.

"Hm?"

Another step. "I have superhuman healing powers."

"I'll live."

"It was stupid."

"You're ruining my—ow," you mutter, dropping the sandwich as you instinctively put your hand over your bandage. There goes the carefully maintained poker face. You force yourself to remove your hand and look up at Bucky with what you hope is an innocent expression, even as your side throbs in protest. "My sandwich. You're ruining my sandwich. Are you sure you don't want a bite?"

Bucky is too smart to take the bait. He moves around the table, coming to stand in front of you. The whole 'arms-crossed-stern-glare' thing again. It would be intimidating if you didn't know him so well.

"You could've been killed," he's like a dog with a bone, you swear.

"But I wasn't," you say pointedly. "I'm fine."

"Fine? You were shot."

"Will you just let it go? It doesn't even...hurt...that much," you lie.

It will take a while for the super-soldier serum in your blood — a weaker variation of the same stuff that runs through Bucky's veins — to kick in and accelerate your healing.

Bucky exhales. He looks about ready to give you an earful, but then his gaze shifts and he notices the way you're holding your side, how stiffly you're sitting.

You move your traitorous hand away like you've been burned.

"How bad is it?"

"Huh?" you say in a deliberately casual tone. "It's...totally fine. Not bad, really. Don't worry. I don't even feel it."

There's the reason why you've never been a spy. You can't lie to save your life, apparently.

Or maybe just not to Bucky.

"Okay. It hurts, like, just a little bit...like—like not even hurts hurts, just..." you trail off with a grimace as he comes closer. "More of an itch?"

"An itch?" Bucky sounds dubious.

"More of a burn," you concede. "A...mildly annoying but totally manageable sort of a burn."

"You are a terrible liar."

"Okay, so it hurts," you snap, the last vestiges of your patience vanishing. "I have an extensive hole in my side, I get it. It's not—I don't want you to feel bad about it. It's really not terrible, I can take it."

Bucky shakes his head. "What if it had been worse? What if they'd shot you somewhere vital?"

"They didn't."

"But what if they had?"

"Then I would have died!"

Bucky looks at you like you just kicked him. "Yeah. That's what I'm trying to say."

You open your mouth, then close it.

"You think I want that?" he asks softly.

"No." You suddenly feel very small. "Of course not, I just...just..."

"Just what?"

"I don't know," you admit with a sigh. "It's just that you are...people need you, you know? And you have a life, people who care about you, but I'm just..."

A nobody. A girl with no past, who can barely make sense of her present.

"...it would be better if it was me. That's all."

"It would never be better if you were hurt."

"Bucky—"

"You don't get it, do you?" he asks in a low voice. "People need you too."

You roll your eyes. "Please. You mean the team?"

"Me," Bucky says pointedly. "You think it's easy for me? When you get hurt? It kills me."

The sandwich lays forgotten on the table, squashed flat under your clasped hands. "It...kills you?"

He just looks at you for a long moment.

Your heart flutters in your chest. You have a sudden, intense urge to break the silence with a terrible joke, a quip, something light and witty to dispel the heaviness in the air and make this moment go away. But before you can open your mouth, Bucky shakes his head.

"You kill me."

Okay, that's not where you thought this was going. "What?"

"When you say stuff like that. When you make it sound like you don't matter, like it's okay for you to get hurt. Or worse. It's not."

Oh.

"Bucky," you try again, with a more serious tone. "I don't—"

"Stop saying that," he cuts you off.

You realize your mouth is still hanging open and snap it shut.

"You want to know what I think?" Bucky is so close now you could reach out and touch him, if you were brave enough. "I think that you got this...thing in your head, that you're not good enough, or strong enough, or that you're broken somehow. I think that you forget that it's okay to want things. I think that maybe you think nobody needs you. That no one wants you."

You swallow. You're afraid to say anything, to move, because your heart is hammering against your ribs and Bucky is looking at you like he can see straight into your soul.

"But I do."

"Do...what?" you whisper.

"Want you."

It's the last thing you expect to hear. "Bucky, you don't mean that."

His voice drops an octave. "Don't tell me what I mean."

Your cheeks are burning. You feel pinned under his gaze. Your side is throbbing again and you have a mouthful of butterflies and it's all just too much.

You move to get up but only make it halfway before the wound pulls again and you wince. "Shit."

"Where do you think you're going?" Bucky reaches out to help you, one hand braced against your shoulder as you sink back down into the chair. His expression has softened. "You need to rest."

You really want to kiss him right now.

It's the closest he's ever been to you, perhaps. You can feel his breath on your face.

"I need to...? You really confuse me, Barnes."

"How so?"

"Well, first you tell me that I kill you, and then you say you want me. It's kind of a mixed message—"

"I'm not interested in being just friends with you," Bucky cuts you off abruptly. "Is that clear enough?"

Your lips part but nothing comes out. There's a warm, tingling sensation in your chest and you suddenly can't breathe properly. "That's—you—"

Bucky smirks, just a little. He looks almost...proud of himself? Like he's happy he's rendered you speechless for once.

You decide to take a page from his book and put him on the spot. "And what do you think I want?"

"I don't know," he murmurs, leaning even closer. "But I hope it's the same thing."

His lips brush against yours, soft and gentle. He pulls away and you want to chase after him but then he's back again and kissing you harder this time, all teeth and tongue and ragged breathing and heat.

You close your eyes. Your head is spinning and you can't get enough air but you're kissing him back now, both hands coming up to fist in his shirt, holding on for dear life.

His mouth trails down your neck, leaving hot kisses along your jawline. You let out a breathy sigh.

"Is that...supposed to help me heal faster, mhm?"

Bucky just smiles against your skin.