#something left fic

[helena-thessa]

A million years (ten months) later, I posted the next chapter to Something Left to Save. Kind of terrified that this story is nearly 100,000 words and 1,000 kudos but we're not yet to the halfway point. Thank you everyone who's been reading and waiting and commenting. 🖤

In that moment, Sasuke understood. Naruto's sudden surge of guilt had nothing to do with Sakura’s current condition. Maybe he had always understood. Maybe the truth was that Sasuke spent his whole childhood ignoring that he knew and understood Naruto on a fundamental level. Long before they were on these quasi-friendly terms that could be used to describe the last few weeks. Perhaps even before they set themselves up to be rivals in the academy, when there was no reason for Uchiha Sasuke, top of the class, to pit himself against the dead last. Uzumaki Naruto, wild and unruly, the host for all of Konoha’s resentment. An orphan kid. The only other orphan kid. Naruto, who lost more on that one day than what most people lost in a lifetime, had never been told that it wasn’t his fault. “Not everyone is your responsibility,” Sasuke said, choosing to be blunt at the cost of being kind. “Not everything is your fault.”

[be-xkyy]

Ok I can't stop thinking about a farmer x a city girl.

Tw: Yandere,smut, forced breeding.

She who is a city girl who studies in a good university, has a nice car, a nice house and a bright future.

She who goes to the countryside every year because her grandfather lives there and she takes advantage of her vacations to go see her favorite grandfather.

She who during one of those visits and when she is on the porch meets the sexy farmer who helps her grandfather with what he needs, she who stays looking at him longer than necessary, absorbing his firm figure and admiring his muscular forearms visible thanks to the rolled up sleeves of his blue shirt that accentuate his sun-tanned skin, his serious brown eyes with long eyelashes and his sexy jaw covered by a short beard...

She who wakes up from her daydream when he says in a thick and firm voice to get out of the way because she is blocking his way and only then she notices the shopping bags in his big hands so she moves awkwardly letting him enter the house.

She who walks into the house while she can't help but think he's a grumpy, rude jerk, she who walks into the kitchen and sees the man leaving the bags on the counter while he talks to his grandfather who smiles when he sees her and formally introduces them.

She who greets him with a sullen nod still offended by his previous attitude while he greets her back in kind while the grandfather rambles on about his favorite granddaughter and how you're so cute, smart and extraordinary... she who notices him silently scoffing at the words of his grandfather who says he'll happily go get the album with your photos from when you were a baby.

She who when they're alone asks him in an annoyed voice what's so funny only for him to reply in a mocking voice something like "I don't think it's very smart to come to the countryside in heels and those clothes... rather I think it's something extraordinarily stupid."

She who gets annoyed by his mocking tone and his sneering look at her shorts and tank top, and she tells him that this is a free country and he can wear whatever he wants and if he doesn't like it he can tear his eyes out.

She who gets even more annoyed when he laughs as he puts the last of his canned soup away in the cupboard, and puts the plastic bags away in a drawer, then approaches her and says in a mocking voice "Why tear my eyes out when I can do something much better... like tear your clothes off?"

She who doesn't know how she ended up pinned face down on the kitchen counter with her shorts and panties caught around her ankles as his fat cock abuses her wet, rubbery pussy, her walls sucking and sucking his cock as if they wanted to get him deeper while one of his calloused hands covers her mouth tightly preventing her moans from escaping.

She who rolls her eyes when he uses his free hand to tightly grab a handful of her hair tilting her head back and sending waves of pain and pleasure to her swollen pussy as he makes her teary eyes look into his dilated eyes.

She who whimpers sharply into his hand as he thrusts hard into her and gets close to her ear and says things like "Such a good girl, just one good fuck was all it took to get rid of your attitude huh?" or "Let daddy turn you into an honest girl, what are those slutty clothes you wear? No. There won't be any more of that for you."

She feels her body shake and her toes tense as his cock hits that spot inside her over and over again making her see stars and causing her orgasm to wash over her and her pussy to tighten around his cock and he growls at the delicious sensation moving his hips harder chasing her orgasm before giving a few more thrusts and staying still deep inside her flooding her insides with his warm semen while she stays limp on the cold counter so fucked that she can't think about anything not even the fact that she's not taking birth control.

The one who can't help but squeeze you with his weight, his chest on your back while his fingers move a strand of hair stuck to your sweaty forehead and whispers in your ear with a dark voice that shivers "You know it's time to settle down, I'm not getting any younger and I want to have at least 8 children, but don't worry honey we have plenty of time to do it... after all you're not going anywhere."

[aerequets]

trying to erase the trace of...

[keferon]

Okay I’m. Usually. Usually I don’t enjoy human aus and usually I hate drawing transformers as humans because it feels so wrong to my brain.

But then I stumbled upon Dream of something more by Gemma_Inkyboots and aaauuuhh fuck. Here’s the pile of the most vague and unspecific and undetailed fanart. Because I’m being torn between “I can’t drawing human designs” and “If don’t draw something for this fic I die”.

[mothlau]

brain filled with jegulus uni au where james walks into the wrong lecture, all tired and sleep deprived, with baby harry on his chest. cue regulus falling in love with the hot dilf that doesn't belong in his post modernism class and who he knows for a fact is sirius' best friend

first chapter is officially out :) 

[ichthyorelationships]

frankly them & honestly they

[captainfairygodmother]

You know what I really love that should be explored in even more Merlin fanfics?

Immortal Leon. Like, you've just got Merlin over there sulking about while he waits for Arthur to return. Then there's just Leon, living his best immortal life, doing the most randomest shit known to mankind

[mamawasatesttube]

something i like to think about sometimes is that. man. you could really create some kind of perfect storm with the combo of tim's post-infinite crisis fear of losing kon again + kon's intense, but generally passive, suicidality. guy who was so convinced he had to die a hero that when it happened he didn't even seem bothered by it (because he can't be traumatized by his own death if it was what he was literally made for, right?) x guy who has developed a whole new type of mental illness out of the survivor's guilt 100x combo. put them both through the wringer at the same time with one easy trick (make tim think kon will try to sacrifice himself for something) (and kon very well might!)

[marypsue]

So if you follow me (and aren't just stopping by because you saw one of my funney viralposts), you probably know that I've been writing a bunch of fanfiction for Stranger Things, which is set in rural Indiana in the early- to mid-eighties. I've been working on an AU where (among other things) Robin, a character confirmed queer in canon, gets integrated into a friend group made up of a number of main characters. And I got a comment that has been following me around in the back of my mind for a while. Amidst fairly usual talk about the show and the AU and what happens next, the commenter asked, apparently in genuine confusion, "why wouldn't Robin just come out to the rest of the group yet? They would be okay with it."

I did kind of assume, for a second or two, that this was a classic case of somebody confusing what the character knows with what the author/audience knows. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like it embodies a real generational shift in thinking that I hadn't even managed to fully comprehend until this comment threw it into sharp perspective.

Because, my knee-jerk reaction was to reply to the comment, "She hasn't come out to these people she's only sort-of known for less than a year because it's rural Indiana. In the nineteen-eighties." and let that speak for itself. Because for me and my peers, that would speak for itself. That would be an easy and obvious leap of logic. Because I grew up in a world where you assumed, until proven otherwise, that the general society and everyone around you was homophobic. That it was unsafe to be known to be queer, and to deliberately out yourself required intention and forethought and courage, because you would get negative reactions and you had to be prepared for the fallout. Not from everybody! There were always exceptions! But they were exceptions. And this wasn't something you consciously decided, it wasn't an individual choice, it wasn't an individual response to trauma, it wasn't individual. It was everybody. It was baked in, and you didn't question it because it was so inherently, demonstrably obvious. It was Just The Way The World Is. Everybody can safely be assumed to be homophobic until proven otherwise.

And what this comment really clarified for me, but I've seen in a million tiny clashing assumptions and disconnects and confusions I've run into with The Kids These Days, is that a lot of them have grown up into a world that is...the opposite. There are a lot of queer kids out there who are assuming, by default, that everybody is not homophobic, until proven otherwise. And by and large, the world is not punishing them harshly for making that assumption, the way it once would have.

The whole entire world I knew changed, somehow, very slowly and then all at once. And yes, it does make me feel like a complete space alien just arrived to Earth some days. But also, it makes me feel very hopeful. This is what we wanted for ourselves when we were young and raw and angrily shoving ourselves in everyone's faces to dare them to prove themselves the exception, and this is what I want for The Kids These Days.

(But also please, please, Kids These Days, do try to remember that it has only been this way since extremely recently, and no it is not crazy or pathetic or irrational or whatever to still want to protect yourself and be choosy about who you share important parts of yourself with.)

[revvethasmythh]

tbh, one of the things I can't wait to be over with this campaign is the idea that any real person's engagement with feminism is somehow tethered to whether or not/how much they like imogen and laudna (and additionally, having the concept of lesbophobia attached to whether you enjoy the ship between them). i feel like every single time there's been a word of criticism about their behavior or development, it's immediately been met with a cry (in certain circles) that anyone being critical isn't feminist and doesn't support sapphic relationships, which has been a WILD experience on my end as a stan blog for a female character who has notable sapphic ships. but none of that has mattered in the wake of these two SPECIFIC characters. like they're the linchpins of feminism and all sapphics around the world, and to dislike or even just be mildly critical of them proves you have disavowed your rights to be a feminist. or queer yourself. if i am eager for ANYTHING to be over, it is that

[screechingfromthevoid]

Dorym's (yes dorym) attachment and love for Imogen is so unbelievably soft and loving and I'm OBSESSED with it.

Orym has been right there in front of Imogen the entire time. He's been protecting her and supporting her since the very beginning. He heard "she's very capable" and he said "fuck yeah she is". Orym telling her he'd be proud to be her dad. Orym putting all his faith in her despite her fears and her obvious weaknesses (ie not being able to give up on her mother). I wouldn't go as far as to call her his daughter but that's his second best friend and he loves her SO much.

Dorian. Dorian Storm admires and respects the FUCK out of Imogen. They've only gotten closer since his return. I think they see themselves in the other. I think there is a commonality they find in being some of the youngest in the group. This is their first real excursion into the world. They're just now settling into their queer identities. They have strained relationships with their fathers. They love their mothers. They are just constantly supporting and uplifting each other.

And Imogen loves dorym as much as they love her. She cried when Orym told her that he was proud of her. She trusted Orym to keep her secret when she went looking for her mother. She listened to Orym about his family. I truly believe Orym is the reason why Imogen has stayed on this side of the fight. I think, in a worse world, Imogen would have joined up with her mother. Not because she believed any of it. But because whatever the end result is, she would have time with her mother. But knowing and loving Orym she stayed on the right path because of exactly how much hurt and pain her mother helped cause. If she didn't know it. If she didn't see it. She would have been with her mother.

Imogen pulls Dorian into her little "we were being too loud" rouse because on some level I think they both knew that the other was fundamentally unattracted to the other and I think that harbors a solidarity between them. Like not to meme on a meta post but wlw & mlm solidarity at its finest. She teased him when he comes back and when he understands that's what she's doing he grins and says "I've missed you too". And since then they've had this back and forth where they can be a little mean to each other. And they can be a lot sweet to each other. I think they gave each other a sibling. And no. Imogen didn't do that to replace Cyrus. But she wanted a brother. And Dorian wanted a sister.

I don't remember what my thesis was going to be but all of this is to say the dorym & Imogen dynamics mean a lot to me and I love seeing every part of it in action.

[helena-thessa]

we are all museums of fear

An exploration of Tenzō's background and how the trauma of being abducted, experimented on, and brainwashed by Root shaped him and his relationships with Team Seven. Title, chapter titles, and tie-in themes credited to POEM FOR NOBODY by Charles Bukowski. The strings have been cut, Kinoe is no longer the pale man’s puppet. He’ll never again be bound by serpentine wires. He’s free to wield kunai and throw shuriken, to run alongside comrades, to travel far and wide during their assignments. To draw blood from others, instead of watching it drawn from himself. 

Read on Ao3

(Yes, like a sane person, I've used my day off to post a WIP for a rare pair that's been sitting in my drafts for months. It's a companion story to Something Left to Save that could also work as a stand-alone piece centered on Tenzō/Yamato and his relationship with Kakashi.)

[gossippool]

so i do think it's very interesting how, at least from what i've observed, people see/depict worst logan as kind of different from the x men logan in terms of their propensity for violence, or rather how this violence is released. i think it has to do with a couple of things:

as many have pointed out, wade is the only one who has ever been able to match him in a fight. so it makes sense that people would headcanon their relationship as involving fights on the regular. but also;

most of what we see from him in the movie is him fighting, and so we assume that he has a tendency towards it, especially since the past he's trying to escape from is exactly that: him being violent towards others, including those who don't deserve it. i think this has definitely subconsciously shaped some people's perception of him in some way.

but i think it's good to remember that what we are shown isn't proportionate to who he is, because the movie necessarily can't develop his character much outside of the plot. i don't think worst logan and x-men logan are different at all in the sense of x-men logan being "gentler", because not only have we just not had the chance to see worst logan act otherwise, but x-men logan also has this same animalistic violence in him. we can see how quickly he unleashes himself in the movies when the situation calls for it, and even when he's doing it to protect, there's still that rage underneath it all.

worst logan is violent towards wade because 1. he's projecting, and 2. wade can take it. but also it's a symptom of something else that he hasn't worked through, possibly decades of trauma he hasn't worked through. i'm working on a fic that explores this rn, but my headcanon is that his post-x-men rampage was a sort of addiction for him because of the release it gave him, which he then replaced with getting shitfaced, and finding someone who could take him in a fight (wade) could be a reversion to the former addiction if he doesn't work on it. (i think that especially with superhero movies, it's so easy to brush off violence as just another normal thing, but realistically, a failure to unpack all that baggage could escalate his problems into something way worse.)

so imo i think worst logan is practically the same, if not very similar, to x-men logan, just that he's a variant that was dealt the worst card, but we interpret his character differently because all we're shown is what he became because of it. we all know logan is gentle with his lovers, and i think that unless wade shows that he enjoys it, logan would not be violent towards him just because wade can take it. just because you can doesn't mean you should, and i think he of all people would understand that

[rainboneish]

the most relatable tweet i’ve seen today

[kori-senpai]

Fanart for @honeydots Fire Emblem fanfic. I've been using it as a reason to fluke out of social interactions for the last two weeks and boy oh boy I will continue to do so >:)

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

le dragon rouge: rosquez [e]

“Grandmother,” Valentino drawls out. Marc’s fangs gleam, wicked—he can’t stop staring. They’re smaller than he had imagined. Sharper, very white. “What big teeth you have got.”

Marc lets out a snort. Doesn’t smile and doesn’t blink either. “All the better to eat you with.”

It’s—disquieting. It is also disquieting when he does it in press conferences, or when he’s listening hard to whatever bullshit Valentino is saying, but nothing softens the blow here. Marc’s attention falls over him intensely, scrapes along his nerves.

Hungry—which happens to be the crux of their current issue.

Valentino is thinking about it—Little Red Riding Hood. Being eaten. Same difference. Marc’s mouth is close, is the thing, and bitten pink. Almost pretty enough to distract him from what it hides, how his voice comes out lisped through his teeth.

It sounds a bit goofy, except everything Valentino can see is how ashen his face looks, the marble motionless of his posture.

He’s acutely, unfortunately aware of his heartbeat on his jugular, also.

Valentino is not surprised by anything that has happened thus far. It was right there on his files— MÁRQUEZ, Marc: vampire, 21 years old . So no, not surprised.

And he caught Marc feeding, once. On a fucking club bathroom, a girl in a mini green dress pressed between him and the grimy wall. She was screaming, but no, not that away. Less like she had teeth on her throat draining her dry, more like she had a couple of fingers in her cunt.

So sue him, he is a little curious.

“Valentino,” Marc says, doing a terrible job of trying to look steady with his huge, liquid eyes and the pinched tight press of his lips, like he’s salivating and wants to hide it. “Are you—ok?”

“Yep,” he pops the p obnoxiously. Makes himself grin. “Come on, food is getting cold.”

“Hmm—okay.”

It doesn’t sound very certain. Valentino is pretty sure he should be offended.

Marc bends down to hover over him anyway, pressing Valentino against the bed, chest on chest, worse than chains. His thighs had been cold, braced around his hips, but he’s fucking freezing —like metal left out in the winter. He can feel the hair on his standing on end. His little flinch, trapped under him.

It’s June in Spain, he shouldn’t burn like ice. It makes no sense.

The cold is better than looking at Marc, though. Easier. Kid’s—whatever, a predator species, something bad and wicked, but he doesn’t usually look like that. Doesn’t usually look like much of anything unless he’s up on a bike and taking them all for idiots.

And he’s terribly sweet for Valentino too.

He isn’t sweet in this bed. Eyes too dark, with an inorganic, lifeless glint to them. Body too still, never fidgeting, every move deliberate, seamless.

Valentino had read about it once—uncanny valley. That there had to be a reason for humans to be afraid of things that look like them but aren’t them.

Marc’s nose brushes against the hollow of his throat. Valentino swallows around nothing—mouth dry and sour. His pulse spikes. He wonders how much of that the vampire nuzzling him can feel, smooths out a scoff before it bursts out of chest.

“It’s alright,” Marc aims for soothing and misses it by a mile. He’s panting, and each word sounds like it was pried laboriously from his mouth. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Valentino laughs. Can’t help it, or how gravelly it sounds. “I thought that was the point.”

Marc huffs. The chill of his face pressed on the side of his neck is like a naked blade. 

“No, it isn’t.”

There’s this something tugging under his skin. Not fear—well, not only fear, Valentino has an alright sense of preservation for a moto rider, and he isn’t exactly thrilled by pain—but still there. Prodding like thorns.

Annoyance, except he doesn’t know why, doesn’t know anything other than the fact it makes him itchy, restless. He’s a pinned butterfly, the sheets creaking under him.

Marc’s lips skim over his carotid, icy, a little cruel—which is new. Horrible. And horrible in the way it makes his stomach clench. Valentino sucks in a rattling breath. His tongue might as well be glued to the roof of his mouth.

“I can find someone else.” Marc inches away from him, tries to get up.

Valentino clamps his hand on the back of Marc’s neck, watches him jolt like a live wire. “You don’t want to,” he says, thrumming, runrunrun instinct screaming at him—he sounds catlike still. A little steelier than he’d planned to. “I think you want to eat me real bad.”

Marc makes a noise—helpless, half-choked, amused. “Yeah, I do.”

“Well. It’s polite to ask.”

“Please, please,” he mutters, a laugh threaded into it. Because of course Marc wouldn’t be ashamed of begging—Valentino chews on the inside of his cheek until it aches, something white-hot pulsing through him. “May I bite you?”

May I . Proper little boy, isn’t he?

Valentino lolls his neck to the side. “Be my guest.”

He sounds very magnanimous. It’s almost a joke, another one, and Marc—

Marc grabs his chin. Bears down on his shoulder to keep him in place. Valentino thought—he thought he’d hesitate a lot more. He doesn’t know why he did.

Then there are teeth.

It hurts. It really fucking hurts. Valentino makes a noise, strangled, like he’s sawed off a chunk of his tongue. Cold sweeps over him—worse than an ice bath after Sepang, the shock making his body seize and spasm.

Marc might as well be raking teeth over his raw nerve endings. Injecting him with poison.

Too much to feel, and barely anything he can untangle. Barely anything he wants to untangle. Valentino’s head goes taffy thick, fuzzy around the edges. His vision blurs, breaking in blocks of color and little else.

He would flinch if he could. Maybe. Or maybe not. As that haze rises, Valentino relaxes muscle by muscle, and he might as well go down a drain, bones liquid, that jolt of nauseous fear bled out of him along his consciousness. Ha .

Marc moans, a quiet, wrecked little noise, halfway to a sob, like he does when Valentino is mean to him, pushing in his spit-slick cock after quali and pressing his face against a wall to keep him quiet.

Everything about him is still cold , glacial, except his frantic tongue on his neck. That feels scorching, and Christ, Valentino isn’t sure about pain anymore. It’s a blurry, feverish thing crawling under his skin. Too much. Too big. Valentino isn’t sure about pleasure either.

There’s only Marc, and that wet sucking sound right against his ear. He laps Valentino up, hungry and fucking shameless about it.

He feels his heart pumping, feels his blood moving the wrong way inside his veins—into Marc. It’s the most in-his-body Valentino has ever been.

A high, keening groan echoes between them, through the pounding in Valentino’s head. It has to be coming from him. He can’t stop it, or close his mouth, or think about moving. Valentino sinks— ah , ah , ah , dizzy when he tries to figure out he’s hurting, or not hurting, or feeling good.

He’s shaking. Like that one time when he brushed against a live wire by accident and couldn’t unclench his hand, stood there jolting until Stefania pushed him.

It sizzles inside—that feeling he can’t name, like an orgasm that just won’t quit until Valentino can’t decide if it’s great or worse than a knife between his ribs.

Valentino drifts on nothing. Time drips around him, and his blood drips into Marc. Marc who’s starving, who doesn’t ever care about stopping. Valentino is getting wrangled like his Honda on the corners, bent to his will. He laughs about it. Tries to.

Marc would eat him whole. He would.

And it isn’t great , but Valentino lets himself be taken over, fights to keep his eyes open—so he can look at the ceiling. At the tanned sliver of skin on Marc’s nape.

Everything spins. Loses meaning.

It all comes crashing down when Marc lets go of him. Valentino blinks, his eyes gritty—shudders, too. Entire chunks of his body are unresponsive, numb.

Marc presses his face against his chest, stays there. He’s panting, shoulders heaving with it, fever-hot to the touch and thrumming with wild energy. Can’t seem to stop fidgeting above Valentino, his fingers restless on the bones of his collar, back and forth and back and forth, right where it pushes against his skin.

Slowly, with Marc keeping him pinned to the bed, Valentino realizes his vision has focused again.

His senses come back to him one by one—the cool, smooth sheets under him, the rancid yellow lamplight, Marc’s strong things braced around him, the staleness in his mouth, the metallic smell thick and soupy in the air.

Marc leans back. Still fucking disquieting—except not quite. His cheeks are flushed pink. There’s red all over his lips, all over his chin, messy like when Valentino hooks his fingers into the babyfat of his cheeks and makes him show the come on his tongue, tells him to not swallow. He isn’t stone, or cold metal, or motionless.

And his eyes. They’ve gone from unnatural to searing, dark as pitch.

Alive. Hard to miss it when he was so other before.

It’s pretty. Reminds Valentino of that one time he saw an eagle pluck a kitten from the side of the road in Tavullia, the glossy blackness of its feathers.

Marc shifts again on his lap. It hits him like being highsided into the asphalt. Valentino scrambles for air, his cock oversensitive in the cooling stickiness inside his underwear. He had—

“Uh.”

“I’m sorry,” Marc snorts, not sounding sorry at all. He’s rubbing himself against his thigh, Valentino realizes. Looking fucking obscene about it, his budge fat and heavy, straining against his shorts. “It happens sometimes.”

“Alright,” he says eloquently, in an ugly jumble of syllables. Lets his eyes linger. “Aren’t you going to do anything about it.”

It isn’t a question.

So Marc immediately shimmies out of his clothes—awkward, overeager—and wraps a hand around the big cock he doesn’t fucking use for anything because he acts like he’s going to die without Valentino inside him.

He’s flushed dark, wet . Valentino isn’t sure he wants it—but he’s thinking about it anyway, Marc’s thick dick in his ass and Marc’s teeth on his throat, all at once. Being eaten. Consumed. All of it. If he could, he’d scorch that thought to ash, and his tacky underwear too.

His next breath comes out funny, a little choked. Marc, uncaring godling that he is, throws his head back, opens his mouth to moan.

He works his hand like he’s on time attack, no finesse—ruts against it, in this ugly, brash desperation that Valentino can’t help but stare at. It’s too soon, and he might not have enough blood for an erection, but his own cock twitches anyway. The pain of it is like being pricked with a needle.

Marc didn’t want to stop—he knows that. Would’ve loved to drink him dry, keep him for himself, hishishis in the gore in his stomach. It makes Valentino clammy, jittery. It also makes Valentino think about cutting him open, burrowing in.

All the way up to his elbow. Or mouth first—have them match.

“You needed it,” Valentino hisses. It’s easier to say than you could’ve killed me .

“I did—fuck, you’re so—l don’t how you let—”

Valentino doesn’t like what Marc is about to say. He hooks his fingers inside his gore-splattered mouth, right over his retracting fangs. They’re shaking, chilly, an uncoordinated weight. Marc clearly doesn’t care—garbles out this reedy noise, eyelashes fluttering low over his cheeks, and tries to sink his teeth in.

“Don��t,” Valentino hisses.

Marc goes wide-eyed, nods. He’s sweet like this, almost.

“Can I—,” he asks frantically, in a slur of words, leaking all over his hand.

Valentino toys with saying no , just to see if he’d cry, or get angry, or ignore him and keep going. Lets it shine through in his face. Marc whines, his dangerous mouth wobbling pitifully. That smooths the unkindness unfurling in his chest like an overgrown rose bush, all thorns.

“Of course,” Valentino croons, remarkably gentle, in rehearsed showmanship.

Gentleness comes easy with Marc’s leash in his hand. Easier at his harsh, stuttered, “ Valentino ,” when he sweeps a calloused thumb over the head of his cock.

Marc topples forward, curled above him, the blood on his chin drying brown and stark against his skin, the pale scar running there. The blood on Valentino’s throat is fresh, though, still dripping sluggishly on the sheets. His head is light, untethered, running in manic racehorse circles around Christ, Christ, Christ .

Each time he blinks, his eyes feel sandy, and his skin is clammy, underwear scraping along his dick, but he’s wired wrong under Marc’s second-hand heat—hungry too. Reckless with it.

“You’d take anything I gave you, no?” He hums genially, the words cracking like a whip between them, Marc scrambling to nod. “Whore.”

It drips honeyed from his lips— puttana .

When Marc comes, he does it with a small, wounded noise, jaw twitching. But Valentino told him no, so he doesn’t bite. Just shakes, pants open-mouthed and wanting, with his come trickling over Valentino’s chest. His eyes plead, and he clings to that, to the uncomplicated cruelty that this opens up.

Tomorrow, Valentino will get rid of everything—the bloody sheets, his clothes, the ache in his veins at Marc’s wicked, white fangs and the fat weight of his soft, come-tacky cock.

Tomorrow, for sure.