#suture lines | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starfinss · 9 months ago

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ᴏꜰ ᴛᴇᴀᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴍᴇᴅᴅʟɪɴɢ ᴍᴇʟᴜꜱɪɴᴇꜱ — ᴡʀɪᴏᴛʜᴇꜱʟᴇʏ

𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘮: Genshin Impact

𝘗𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨: Wriothesley + Reader

𝘙𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨: NSFW

𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 12,925

𝘚𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺: After beginning work as a doctor at the Fortress of Meropide, Siegwinne decides you and the Duke are a good match, and will do anything in her power to get you to together, even if she has to take drastic measures.

Or, alternatively, Siegwinne adds a little something extra to the Duke's tea. Chaos ensues.

As soon as the suture needle so much as touched the man sitting before you, he was already flinching away.

“That hurts!” He cried, “please, doctor, be gentle with me.”

It was almost laughable, really. Monsieur Phillip was a hardened criminal, or so you’d been told. He was a career criminal, you remembered the Duke remarking, and he’d been sentenced to serve time in the Fortress of Meropide for a myriad of things, such as assault, and even attempted murder, but here he was, a hulking mass of a man, whimpering in pain at the slightest prick of a needle.

“Hush,” you said, tutting gently, “the quicker I start, the quicker it’s over. Now hold still.”

He flinched back again, eyeing the needle like it was out to get him. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

You raised an eyebrow. “Please try and relax. I can assure you, I did go to medical school.”

Before he could say anything else, you made the first stitch, carefully, but quickly enough so as not to cause him too much pain. Even with the numbing gel you’d applied, it seemed that the patient’s pain threshold was quite low. It usually removed enough sensation that any leftover pain would be no more than a pinch, but even with that, you could see tears beading at his lash line.

A hardened criminal, indeed.

You finished the sutures quickly before bandaging the injured shoulder and giving Phillip some care instructions.

“And,” you said, “no more getting into altercations about work times, okay?”

Phillip sighed, casting his eyes away from you.

“Yes, ma’am.”

You smiled, kindly. “That’s doctor to you.”

It wasn’t wholly unexpected. Men tended to have lower pain tolerances than women did. You’d given stitches to many people before, and when it came to whining, the men tended to be the most common offenders.

After Phillip left, you checked up on a woman who was resting in one of the infirmary beds, and after taking her temperature and walking away with your clipboard, you nearly tripped over Siegwinne, who had somehow snuck into your path without you noticing.

“Archons,” you exclaimed, a hand flying over your heart, “I need to put a bell on you.”

Siegwinne ignored your remark. “May I see the patient’s chart?”

You handed it to her. “The patient shows signs of improvement. Her fever has broken, and her delirium has started to clear up. She should make a full recovery.”

Siegwinne hummed meaningfully. “Very good. I was worried about that one. I am glad to hear she is healing well.”

You nodded, then turned, starting towards your desk, but before you could make it, Siegwinne called your name, making you pause.

“Yes?”

Her expression remained impassive, eyes curious, unsuspecting, and she tucked the clipboard under her arm as she closed the distance between you.

“Have you seen the Duke today?”

There it was. You didn’t know what you’d been expecting aside from this. Ever since Siegwinne had caught onto the fact that you’d developed a crush on the Duke, she’d tried to do everything in her power to set you up with him. In the beginning, that was all it was. A crush. It was a crush in the same way one would develop an infatuation with a colleague or schoolmate, based on their appearance or the limited positive interactions they had with them. It was no secret that Wriothesley was an attractive man. He was tall, and handsome, anyone with eyes could see that. You’d heard the whispers among female inmates and guards alike. You were not unique in feeling some form of attraction to him.

But to Siegwinne, your silly crush was an opportunity.

“You’re a good woman,” she told you, “and His Grace is always stressed. I fear for his health. I think you would be the right person to keep him company. You are a good match. Your influence and affection would do him much good.”

Siegwinne came to you with this a few months after you’d started work at the Fortress, completely out of nowhere, stunning you to silence. You had no idea how she’d caught on to your feelings, and when you expressed as much, she went into a rambling tangent about human behavior, something about the dilation of pupils, and how she’d been taking notes, and that was when you cut her off.

“Absolutely not.”

But nevertheless, she persisted.

Siegweinne’s matchmaking attempts rarely ended conclusively, since she tended to see things as a logical cause and effect, and did not at all fit the way any normal human would attempt to court another. They mostly involved putting you and Wriothesley into situations that forced you to speak or interact with one another, with little to no regard to how much said situations were an inconvenience to you. Her first attempt, as such, embarrassingly enough, involved telling the Duke you’d had some kind of accident with an inmate, and when he came to the infirmary to check in, finding you unharmed and working at your desk, all that ensued was a lot of confusion. You wondered why he’d come all that way to see you, and he was surprised to find you not laying on one of the infirmary beds.

But, what her attempts did do, was make the way you felt about Wriothesley, which was no more than a passing fancy at first, grow into something more.

And despite your best efforts, that only made Siegwinne latch on even harder.

“Hello?” Siegwinne said, shaking you from your thoughts, “I believe it is polite to answer a question when asked one, or have human customs changed?”

You brushed off her unintentional rudeness, instead answering what she’d asked you.

“No,” you said, “I have not seen His Grace today. He’s a busy man, Siegwinne. You know that.”

“Well, you should go see him.”

You sighed, leaning down to take your clipboard from under her arm, then crossing to your desk.

“I don’t have a reason to go see him,” you said, sitting down, “and like I said, His Grace is a busy man.”

She didn’t push after that, simply going back to work as you did yours, and you tried to put it out of your mind. You and Wriothesley were friends, you’d say. Even though you usually found yourselves meeting in less than normal circumstances, you were still fond of him. You enjoyed his frank, matter-of-fact personality, and dry sense of humor, and he seemed to enjoy your company as well. Your relationship was as casual as it could be between you and a man who was technically your boss, and friendly enough that you had conversations outside of work related matters. You’d never let Siegwinne know this, but her repeated and clumsy attempts at setting you up were not without some benefits.

That was fine, you supposed. You’d bonded over Siegwinne and her antics, and built a friendship over a shared love of tea, as well as an author you both enjoyed, among other common interests. But that was it. As much as Siegwinne, and, begrudgingly, you, would like to say otherwise, you and The Duke were only friends.

And, it seemed, as you settled into that fact quite comfortably, Siegwinne only grew more brazen in her attempts at Melusine style matchmaking.

Her latest attempt involved trying to shut you in a locked room with The Duke, which failed when Wriothesley produced the master key in order to open the door. It happened a little over a week ago, which made you nervous, because Siegwinne didn’t like letting too much time pass between her less than gentle shoves. You were almost completely certain that Wriothesley knew what was happening, he’d have to be stupid not to, though he hadn’t said anything about it. This was probably to spare you from any further embarrassment, which you appreciated.

The situation was hopeless. You knew that well. But Siegwinne didn’t, and that was beginning to become a problem. You didn’t know why you’d let her get away with this for the handful of months that you had, but maybe, deep down, you hoped that something would actually come from all her meddling.

And apart from that, you had a certain degree of professionalism to uphold. Wriothesley was your boss, and you were both his employee and his doctor. As much as you found yourself wishing otherwise, pursuing your feelings, even if that was an option, just wasn’t ethical.

But still, you could dream, you supposed. Dreaming was harmless.

“I need you to run an errand for me.”

You turned in your chair, raising an eyebrow at Siegwinne, who was staring over at you innocently, a thermos in her hands. You looked at it, then back at her, puzzled.

“Siegwinne, I’m not in the mood.”

She frowned. “To do your job? How unbecoming. I’m simply asking you to deliver this tea to the Duke. His Grace is suffering from a headache. I delivered some to him this morning, but the problem still persists.”

You glanced at the thermos again. “Tea? What’s in it?”

She immediately became defensive, and for a moment, you almost felt guilty for doubting her.

“Medicine!” She cried, “what do you take me for? I’ve brewed a painkiller into the tea. It should help with His Grace’s headache. If you don’t trust me, you can take a sip yourself.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Why can’t you do it?”

Her brows pinched together in annoyance, and maybe a little indignance. “I have to go see a patient, thank you. A young man is complaining of nausea, and finds it hard to stand because of it, so I am going to see him in his cell. Now, will you bring His Grace the tea, or not?”

You sighed. In your own mind, your hesitance was completely justified. Siegwinne had tried to trick you into being alone with Wriothesley many times before this, but then again, if the Duke was actually feeling unwell, and you refused to bring him medicine, what kind of doctor would you be?

And so, you relented. With another sigh, you stood, snatching the thermos from Siegwinne’s outstretched hand.

“Fine,” you said, “I’ll be back as soon as I drop it off.”

If Siegwinne was disappointed by this, she hid it well. She simply nodded, then crossed over to her desk to busy herself with her medical bag. You glanced over a few more things at your own desk before scooping up the thermos and leaving the infirmary after calling a quick few words of parting to Siegwinne, who only nodded.

You shivered a little as you left the infirmary. Siegwinne tended to keep it warmer there, with a space heater sitting in the corner to combat the cold dampness of the rest of the Fortress of Meropide. It was better for the patients, she said, if they had somewhere nice and warm to rest and recover. You were fairly certain she also said something about humans and their preference for warmth, but that wasn’t important at present.

The clang of your boots against the metal floors rang out as you walked, head held high, thermos in your grip. The air smelled of iron and brine, a scent you’d grown used to in the time you’d been working in the Fortress. Artificial light cast everything in a sort of ominous hue, and the low strength of it left everything in partial shadow. It used to make you nervous, not knowing what hid behind them, using them like masks. Now you knew that whatever was waiting for you was something you could handle.

You glanced down at the thermos in your hands. It was warm, likely just brewed. There was no way Siegwinne would have you serve the Duke cold tea. The thermos was plain; unassuming. It was slate gray, probably stainless steel. You turned it over in your hands, studying it. It was just tea. You had no reason to think it was anything other than that. But with Siegwinne, you’d learned to expect the unexpected.

Absently, you stepped into the elevator to take you down to the administrative floor. The car jerked, and with a mechanical clank, began to move. You turned the thermos over in your hands again. It’s just tea. For the Duke. Your poor, ailing boss. You twisted your mouth. It was fine. There was no way Siegwinne would ever do anything to actually harm Wriothesley. You tapped your nails against the surface of the thermos, almost jumping from your skin when the elevator came to an abrupt stop as it reached its destination, jostling you where you stood and ejecting you from your tangled thoughts.

You sighed as you left the elevator, tucking the thermos into your arms and against your chest. Everything was fine. If Siegwinne took anything seriously, it was health. You’d caught her staring intently at you on many occasions, and when you asked her about it, she told you she was making sure you were healthy, in a very matter-of-fact tone, like it was obvious. She may be odd, but she wasn’t going to try and harm anyone.

As you reached the doors to the Duke’s office, you reached into the pocket of your skirt, digging out the key to the lock. Because of the Fortress’s status as a prison, it was only natural that important areas such as the office of the warden would remain locked. The only way to get in was if you had a key or if you were invited by Wriothesley himself. There was also the off chance that the Duke left the doors unlocked, but that was uncommon. Regardless, before you put the key in the lock, you raised your hand, knocking on the door with a great clang.

“Your Grace?” you called, though it was unlikely he heard you through the thick steel, “I’ll be coming in now. I have some tea for you.”

And with that, you pushed the key into place, twisting. With a grunt of effort, you pushed the doors open.

It was as you were opening the door that you heard him, calling to you. It was muffled under the mechanical clank of the doors, making you only vaguely aware of his call of your name, and you hurried to close the door to answer him. The lock clicked as you did, signifying that the mechanism had reset to its previous locked state.

You expected Wriothesley to call out to you again after your lack of response, or even possibly to come see you. It was unlikely that Siegwinne would send you on an errand without previously announcing your arrival. But instead, you were met with silence. You gripped the thermos more tightly, hesitating.

“Your Grace?”

You heard something else then. A soft intake of breath, only able to be heard because of the complete lack of noise, save for the quiet hum of machinery from beyond the doors. Then, you could hear him clearing his throat.

“Yes,” you heard Wriothsley say, from up the stairs, “up here.”

You sighed, relieved, as you made your way up the curving staircase and into the main office.

And as for things you expected to see, this was not among them.

Wriothesley was sitting at his desk, but he looked more than a little disheveled. His coat had been discarded, draped over the back of his chair, and his tie was undone, hanging loose around his neck. His waistcoat was also unbuttoned, as were the top two buttons of the dress shirt he wore underneath the garment. His gloves had also been removed, laying out on his desk beside an empty teacup. His hair was tousled, more than usual, and his face…

You furrowed your brows, suddenly concerned. His face was flushed, a deep pink settled in the apples of his cheeks, very evident against his usually pale skin. Breath, feather soft, expelled itself through parted lips, almost too quickly, as he looked over at you, brows pinching together, as if pained or troubled before the expression calmed. Wriothesley straightened, clearing his throat again, and he was hurriedly fixing his clothing, deft fingers doing up the buttons of his shirt, smoothing back over his hair.

His eyes fell to the thermos in your hands, lingering, before sliding up to your face.

You stared at him, your concern growing more by the second, and after a beat, you crossed to the desk, setting the thermos down.

“Your Grace,” you said, “I’ve brought you painkillers for your headache, but you look… May I examine you? You do not look like you’re feeling well.”

“Examine me,” he repeated, then took a slow breath, squeezing his eyes shut before shaking his head, as if clearing away a fog. He swallowed, raking a hand through his hair, and it was then that you spotted sweat beading on his forehead.

“Yes,” you said, gently, already in doctor mode, “please, let me help.”

He cleared his throat, for what was probably the third time, and you narrowed your eyes. You were rapidly beginning to get suspicious in addition to concerned. There was something he wasn’t telling you. Absently, you found yourself mentally scolding yourself for neglecting to bring your medical bag.

“I’m fine,” he said, though he certainly didn’t look fine, “please, don’t trouble yourself. You’ve come all this way for me, so would you at least sit with me for a cup of tea?”

You blinked, surprised by the sudden shift. It was fine, though, you supposed. Staying around wasn’t a terrible idea. It would give you a chance to more closely study the Duke’s behavior, and try and figure out what the problem might be. And so, you stepped to the table off to the side, picking a clean tea cup from the collection displayed there.

“I don’t need any, really,” you said as you leaned over to take the thermos from the desk, “Siegwinne made this for you, for your head. I am happy to sit and talk with you, though, if you want me to.”

Wriothesley smiled easily. “If you like, I can brew you a cup from my personal collection of teas. What do you like?”

You flushed, feeling special, and you turned to busy yourself with arranging his cup of tea to hide the pink in your cheeks.

“You already know my preferences, Your Grace,” you said, over your shoulder, “just a cup of earl gray is fine.”

You heard shuffling, then the sound of a drawer being pulled open, and you knew the Duke was rifling through the collection of teas he kept stored in his desk. Shifting your focus, you removed the small travel cup attached to the top of the thermos, then unscrewed the lid. Immediately, you were hit with the scent of the tea. It was unexpectedly sweet, and sort of floral. It certainly wasn’t the Duke’s usual style, that was for sure. You took another lungful of it, and could make out notes of various medicinal herbs, including rosemary and feverfew, both known to help with headaches. You could also smell a hint of lavender. But there was still that floral, sort of rosy scent, undercut by the bitter, citrus aroma of the feverfew. It smelled a bit like rainbow roses; of petrichor and morning dew and sweet fresh petals. It certainly had herbs in it, some of which were known to help with what the Duke needed, but the combination of them that you were able to discern was puzzling to say the least.

You put it out of your mind, chalking up the roses to being there to help with the bitterness of the feverfew. With a sigh, you poured the steaming liquid into the teacup. It was sort of a deep rouge color, bordering on purple. A nice color, you decided, and not entirely unexpected with what was contained in the tea. You placed the cup on a saucer, then carried it, alongside the still half filled thermos over to the desk, setting them before the Duke. In exchange, he handed you the tea bag you’d requested, which you accepted gladly.

After you’d filled a cup with boiling water, which the Duke always seemed to have on hand in any nearby kettle, ready for a quick cup. You added the tea bag, as well as a few spoonfuls of sugar, then took your seat on the couch by the tea table.

Wriothesley’s face twisted as he took the first sip from his cup, seemingly troubled.

“It’s very sweet.”

You tilted your head. “Is it not to your liking? I’ll be sure to tell Siegwinne to tweak the recipe.”

Wriothesley waved a dismissive hand. “No,” he said, “I just wasn’t expecting it. It’s not my usual style, but I don’t dislike it.”

You nodded meaningfully, blowing over your tea once more.

“How are things over in the infirmary?” He asked, and you sat up straighter, engaged.

“Fine. The usual. I had a man who was scared of needles just before I came over,” you said, “I’d barely touched him before he was telling me to stop.”

Wriothesley laughed, amused. He took another swallow of tea.

“Oh, really?” He said, “Monsieur Phillip, I suspect? That man always gets into brawls, but is terrified of medical treatment. And he never wins those brawls. The gardes always have to pull the other guy off of him.”

You hid your smile behind your teacup. “I know,” you said, “Siegwinne is always scolding him when he comes in for being reckless.”

Wriothesley rested his head on a closed fist, thoughtful, a glint of mischief in his eyes.

“Maybe a few rounds in the Pankration Ring would do him some good,” he said, and you raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t go putting any ideas in his head,” you said, “he might become a permanent resident of the infirmary if he starts entering into any matches.”

Wriothesley made a face, pale blue eyes moving to rest somewhere in the depths of his teacup. “Maybe he’d pick up a few things about proper combat, though.”

It was your turn to laugh. “Maybe, but at the cost of his health.”

You enjoyed this. It was hardly the first time you’d been invited to stay for tea, in addition to being personally invited to tea a handful of times before. Wriothesley’s presence was pleasant and inviting, despite his intimidating stature and appearance. His height dwarfed many other people, and you’d seen few as tall as he was, save for the Iudex, who was far more slim than the Duke was. Where Monsieur Neuvillette was tall and lithe, Wriothesley was broad and powerfully built. His sheer size alone, made only more prominent by the bulky coat he wore around his shoulders, was enough to intimidate anyone.

But despite that, he was an amicable and good-humored man, earnest and straightforward. He made you feel at ease, and your growing affection for him settled low and warm in the spot behind your heart.

His face was getting more pink, you noticed, with a start. You took another sip of tea, watching him closely. His brow furrowed, just briefly, and he was fiddling with the bands of leather around his throat, as if they were suddenly too tight. He shifted in his seat, seemingly uncomfortable.

“Your Grace?” You said, and he seemed to snap out of whatever had overtaken him, regarding you with raised eyebrows and an expectant expression.

“Sorry,” he said, “what were you saying?”

You studied him, eyes narrowed, and he laughed, a little awkwardly.

“You’re doing that thing Siegwinne does,” he said, “the thing she does with her eyes. I don’t know how you replicated it so perfectly. There’s nothing wrong, I promise. It’s just suddenly kind of hot in here. Do you feel that?”

You shook your head. In fact, to you, the room was cold. Just as cold as the rest of the Fortress, save for the infirmary. It was the reason for the thermal lining in the pale blue overcoat of your uniform, the color that marked you as medical staff, as well as the reason for the thicker uniform fabric worn by the majority of the other general staff.

“No,” you said, and Wriothesley looked puzzled.

“Oh,” he muttered, puzzled, “I was warm earlier, but I’m starting to get… hot now. I don’t suppose that’s normal?”

You cracked a smile at that. “No, I don’t think so.”

A spell of silence passed before your mind snapped back to what he’d just said.

“You were feeling overly warm earlier? When did that start?”

Wriothesley furrowed his brows, considering your question before answering. He took another sip from his cup, then poured more of the contents of the thermos into it.

“This morning,” he said, “I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, but it was maybe shortly after I had a cup of tea.”

You snorted, amused. “You realize how little that narrows it down, don’t you? You drink more tea than anyone I know, Your Grace. I need a measure of time, not cups of tea.”

He chuckled at that. “I apologize. I believe it was after Siegwinne delivered the tea she made for my head. Which is feeling much better, by the way. I think what I’ve been drinking while we’ve been chatting has helped kick the rest of it. I’m almost finished with the thermos.”

Suddenly, you made the connection.

Almost robotically, and with learned efficiency, you went over the contents that you’d smelled in the tea, along with their uses. Feverfew, maybe some lavender, and rosemary. All of those had various uses, though they all had one thing in common, which was pain relief. Finally, there was the rainbow rose. The petals and buds were used for medicinal purposes, and could be used as such, similarly to common red roses, for anything ranging from headaches to a sore throat.

Something was missing. Something was wrong. The scent itself had been off.

“The tea,” you said, “from before. Was it sweet?”

Wriothesley nodded, taking another gulp, and finally, pouring the last of the contents of the thermos into the cup. “This brew is sweeter, though.”

You stood, then reached for his teacup, bringing it to your nose and inhaling. You caught the same things as before, but as you mulled them over, something else clicked.

Siegwinne wouldn’t. Would she?

“It’s really hot,” Wriothesley said, and you could see the sweat beaded at his hairline, sticking the hair at his temples to his skin, cresting down his cheekbone.

You reached out, and when the back of your hand made contact with his burning forehead, he flinched, making a soft sound in surprise and alarm.

“Why is your skin so much colder than mine?”

Your skin wasn’t cold. In fact, your body was at an average temperature, kept warm by the layers of clothing you were wearing. By your own assessment, your hands were probably relatively warm. You frowned, reaching into your pocket and withdrawing your penlight, circling the desk to situate yourself closer to the Duke.

The way he was looking at you when you drew closer was strange. Almost hungry. Famished, ice blue hues swept over your form, and you watched as his hands, previously resting on the desk, folded in front of him, over his lap.

You moved closer, leaning halfway over to him, hand making contact with his face to tilt it towards you. He flinched at your touch, breath shuddering, and you studied his eyes closely before muttering a warning and shining your light into his face, instructing him to follow the light with his gaze.

“This isn’t… necessary,” he protested, weakly, and you ignored him. His pupils were blown wide, dark pits in the center of the sky blue of his irises.

“Mydriasis,” you muttered, more to yourself than to him as you switched off your light and pocketed it.

Your hand dropped from his face to just under where his jaw met his throat. You pushed aside the leather straps, just enough to access his pulse point, pressing two fingers to the spot. His heart was racing, quick and erratic, and you felt him shudder, breath heavy, his jaw setting tightly as your hands drifted across his skin, probing and searching. His skin was burning with heat, feverishly so, and coupled with the elevated heart rate, the blown pupils, and the way he seemed to flinch whenever you made contact with his skin directly, you could only make one conclusion.

“So,” you said, backing up to stand up straight, “this started after you had the first brew Siegwinne dropped off, yes?”

Wriothesley nodded. “It did.”

His voice. It had dropped several octaves in the time you’d been examining him, and you cursed the effect it had on you, coursing hot through your bloodstream. It felt so deeply unprofessional for a doctor to even think of her patient in the way the brief thoughts that fluttered through your mind suggested you do.

“Is it worse after this second batch?” You forced yourself to say.

He huffed a laugh. “You could say that.”

And it was then when you noticed, from where you were standing, that Wriothesley’s belt was undone. Rosy hues colored your cheeks as you yanked your gaze away.

“You need to tell me all of your symptoms,” you said, “spare no detail.”

Panic briefly flashed across his face as he crossed and uncrossed his legs.

“Hot,” he said, “I feel far too warm. Do I have a fever?”

You narrowed your eyes. He was purposely hiding the truth, but nonetheless, you answered.

“Yes,” you said, “but I believe it’s because your body is overheated and not because you're fighting an infection. I just said not to leave anything out, Your Grace, please tell me everything. As your doctor, I–”

“I’m… Archons, I don’t want to say it,” he paused, searching, almost frantically for something else to focus on. “What was in that tea?”

You swallowed, leaning back to rest against the desk.

“Herbs,” you said, “rosemary, feverfew, and lavender. All meant to help with pain and headaches. But I could also smell rainbow roses.”

Wriothesley brightened. “Yes, I thought that was what I tasted. It brings such a unique flavor to the table, don’t you agree?”

You fought a smile, endeared by him, but now was hardly the time. You needed to figure out what was wrong with him, not to discuss tea.

“Yes,” you said, “but it was strange. Too sweet. It only gets to that level when the powdered roots of a Sumeru rose are included alongside the powdered roots of a rainbow rose, in which case the combination can make–”

Oh. Oh.

As you were talking, it clicked into place. The scent, which you’d thought was much too sweet before, suddenly made sense. Sumeru rose must have been the final ingredient. It was flavorless when consumed, but smelled quite sweet. When combined with rainbow roses, the scent of the two grew overpoweringly saccharine. Unless diluted, it would almost resemble a syrup. If the rainbow rose petals were boiled alongside the powdered roots of the Sumeru rose, it could become a powerful medicine able to soothe a bad cough. But if the roots of both plants were powdered, the results were…

You cursed yourself for being so stupid. Of course, Siegwinne would see nothing wrong with this. Medicine was medicine, regardless of what the outcome of its ingestion spelled, so long as it got the desired result. To her, the suggestion of something unbecoming would be taken with great offense.

“‘Can make?’” Wriothesley supplied, and were already imagining the ways in which you were going to rip Siegwinne a new one.

“I need your symptoms. Now. I am a doctor, Your Grace, I promise I will be as non judgemental as possible, just please–”

“Damn it,” he interjected, face hidden in his hands, “I’m aroused.”

Anything you’d just been about to say left your mind, swept away by dread, because you knew what was happening.

Siegwinne was evil. You could already picture her expectant, innocent face, asking just how her little ‘experiment’ had gone, and it filled you with boiling rage.

Though, there was also the fact that she could simply be misinformed. Melusines had different reactions to some medicines than humans did, and it was equally possible that she simply thought that, if dosed with the tea, the Duke’s feelings for you, if he had any, would just be made more prominent. For her sake, you hoped it was the latter.

“Aroused,” you parroted, trying hard to stay professional and failing miserably, because this was unethical on so many levels, “tell me more about that.”

He made a strangled, startled sound. “You want to know more?”

You wanted to melt into the floor. “I need to know how strong the dose you’ve been given is.”

“Dose?!” He said, “of what?”

You refused to look at him. “When mixed together, the powdered roots of a Sumeru rose and a rainbow rose create a powerful aphrodisiac. I believe the first dose you received was a weaker version, and this one is much stronger.”

Silence followed as Wriothesley took in the information, then cleared his throat.

“Do you have an antidote?”

You raised your head to look at him properly. He looked almost haggard, the flush from his face creeping down his neck.

“There… kind of isn’t one.”

Wriothesley made a sound of frustration in the back of his throat, hands raising to card through his hand, and it was then that you noticed it. Now that his hands were no longer hiding it, you could see it, there, outlined against the dark fabric of his slacks.

He was hard.

A wave of suffocating, shameful arousal washed over you, and you forced yourself to look away, to ignore it.

You could only begin to imagine how he was feeling. The way you were feeling was nothing compared to him, his condition undoubtedly much more intense than your own physical reaction in response to his arousal, and you could feel his eyes on you as you scrambled to find a solution.

“What am I going to do then?” He asked, “it’s getting… I’m sorry, It’s getting rather unbearable. I tried everything. It’s impossible to ignore, and I know I can’t use my hands.”

You spared him a glance. “Why?”

“Because,” he said, “I was already trying that. It wasn’t enough.”

Oh. The unbuckled belt. His disheveled state when you’d walked in. He’d already been dealing with the effects of the first dose, or at least attempting to. The call of your name, as you were entering the office. The silence before he summoned you up to the second floor.

Fuck. He’d been thinking of you.

That had to be one of the hottest things you’d ever heard, professionalism be damned. Arousal rolled over you like a breaking wave, making you bite into your lower lip.

You knew what needed to happen. You knew the effects of this particular drug would take, and you knew that the only way to relieve his symptoms was either to very painfully wait it out or to… find relief. In this case, that entailed another person.

“You need to have sexual intercourse,” you said, “or you can wait it out.”

Wriothesley cleared his throat. “Wait it out,” he said, “right, I can do that. How long will that take?”

You twisted your hands together. “It… depends. You were likely given a pretty strong dose, even for someone your size. By my estimate, it would probably take several hours for it to work its way out of your system.”

He chuckled dryly, humorlessly. “Great.”

You cleared your throat. “Do you have someone I could… call? A girlfriend?”

He snorted, as if amused by the idea. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

That would make sense, you supposed, if he was calling out your name, and not the name of another woman.

“We both know what Siegwinne is doing,” Wriothesley said, “not just with this, but for the past few months. I can’t pretend I’m not fond of you, and neither of us can pretend there isn’t something between us.”

It was like the ground dropped out from under you at the sheer brazenness of his admission. You stared at him, thunderstruck.

“You… what?”

A cavalcade of thoughts crashed together as you rapidly attempted to process what he meant by that, but he barely gave you any time before he started speaking again.

“Look,” he said, “if you don’t feel the same, I can accept that. I’ll wait it out, and we can pretend this never even happened. But if you do, are you even… slightly interested in um… helping me? Because honestly, I feel like I’m about to explode.”

Heat coiled low in your stomach, threatening to overtake you as the lovely rasp of his voice made any of your logical thoughts close to meaningless. This was so vastly unprofessional. He was your boss, and you were his doctor. But something dangerously close to want was settling neatly over that space you usually reserved, that you looked to for reassurance about your professional standing with the Duke, to tell you that your feelings for him, ever growing, were improper.

And when you turned, watching his face, the way his hungry gaze traced your body through your uniform, something in you snapped, and you threw caution to the wind.

Head lowered, face flushed, you swallowed your rationality and any remaining hesitance you had left.

“I suppose,” you said, “I could use my hands.”

Wriothesley’s body jolted in anticipation, and his eyes betrayed his hesitance, darkened to steel blue with lust as he nodded once, then once more.

“Hands,” he repeated, “yes, hands are good. Whatever you feel comfortable with.”

You found it touching that he was at least trying to take your comfort into account, even when he was drowning in desire, and you took a slow step forward as he shifted, pulling his chair out enough to allow you room to situate yourself on the floor in front of him. As you took another step, he took his coat from the back of his chair and laid it at his feet, another gesture you appreciated.

Once you reached him, you knelt down between his thighs, and he watched you with burning eyes, flinching when your palms smoothed over his clothed thighs, jaw tightening. Medical curiosity echoed briefly in the back of your mind, taking note of just how sensitive the drug had made him to the simplest of touches, how he shivered as your nails grazed against the insides of his strong thighs.

Fuck, he was radiating heat. So much so that it was beginning to affect you, and you shifted back on your knees to remove the overcoat layer of your uniform, leaving you in the blouse and underskirt beneath it. Wriothesley’s eyes followed your motions with rapt attention, and when you moved forward again, settling, you felt him jolt when your palm met his leg once again.

This close up, you could see it, just how much he was straining against his trousers, his erection pressed against his zipper, and hesitantly, you cupped it in your hand.

The Duke gasped at your touch, fingers twitching where he’d curled them around the armrests of his chair, then tightening in a white-knuckled grip as you ever-so-gently squeezed. He twitched against your palm, and you removed his belt entirely, dropping it to the floor with a clatter before you were unfastening his button and zipper.

You palmed him through the fabric of his underwear, and you could already feel how big he was just from that. A sort of eagerness threaded its way into the burn of your arousal as you pushed away any remaining layers, pulling him free.

Fuck. He was so thick, and when you slowly wrapped your hand around him, your fingers just barely met. He was long, too, though you supposed it made sense for a man of his size. He was flushed red, painfully hard, and when you squeezed, you felt him twitch once more, his body tightening like a coiled spring. His hands tightened their grip on the armrests, flexing, and you felt his hips shift forward, unconsciously.

The first stroke made his head roll back, the sound he let out one of relief, just from that simple touch alone. It made you squirm in place, the sound of his voice and the stricken hitch of his breath causing the desperation of his arousal to bleed into your own building need. Precum was beaded at his tip, and you almost wanted to lean forward to lap it up, especially as more leaked out in response to the way you were stroking him in slow, even movements.

Heavy breath expelled through clenched teeth, followed by a low, low groan as your thumb found his tip, rubbing in slow circles, and it was then that you leaned forward, giving into temptation as your tongue pressed to the underside of the head of his cock in a slow lick.

“Oh,” he gasped, “oh, you don’t have to– oh, fuck.”

He cut himself off as you lapped at his slit, groaning through his teeth. He was already completely lost to pleasure as you pumped the base of him, and when you took him into your mouth, sucking on the tip, you heard him curse, a sound drawn out with a low, decadent groan.

“You said your hands– oh!”

Arousal was settling low and smoldering hot in the pit of your stomach, pooling between your thighs, and you whined as he whispered your name. You released him from your mouth, hands moving to rest on his thighs, and you dragged your tongue up and along the underside of his dick, gathering up any precum that had dribbled down. Your fingers curled into the fabric of his slacks, lips grazing the side of his shaft, and he repeated your name, louder, voice twisted with an urgency that made your blood sing.

It was embarrassing, just how quick you’d gotten like this, punch drunk on the reactions he gave you, the way his body reacted to your touch. It filled you with an addicting sort of power, one that threatened to overtake you if you weren’t careful. But right then, all you wanted was to add fuel to the ever growing fire. And, with the way he was breathing, rough and ragged and broken, you doubted he’d be opposed to that.

Your tongue flicked out, against the fold of skin just below his tip, and he tensed, crying out helplessly. When you finally took him in your mouth, fully, his head fell back against his chair, a feral groan tearing itself from his throat as your tongue pressed firm against him. Your hand moved from his leg to encircle the base of him again, squeezing and stroking in tandem with the slow bob of your head, and making the Duke gasp at the sensations.

When you sucked, just a little, Wriothesley babbled a string of curses, hips twitching up towards your mouth, and when you ducked down, bobbing your head, one of his hands flew from the armrest to the back of your head. You thought he’d push, or maybe take control, but all he did was lace his fingers into your hair, unmoving. His body shuddered under the roll of your tongue, under the press of your free hand to his stomach, creeping under the layers of clothing covering him, his skin fever hot against your own.

You took him deeper, and he twitched, hips jumping as you hollowed out your cheeks, drawing back before surging forward once again. You relaxed your jaw further as his hips bucked, and he muttered an apology, breathless and feverish. His head pitched back as you rubbed your thumb against his base, and he twitched again, sharply. When you looked up at him, through your lashes, he was gazing down at you with hooded, burning eyes. There was desperation in his cool blue hues, a wordless plea for anything, everything you could give him.

And with everything you had, you delivered.

You dropped your jaw, swallowing as much of him as you can, drinking in the sound of his breath shuddering, tapering off into a low moan. You sped up, gradually, and the sounds he made were so madly erotic that you found yourself aching to reach between your thighs and take care of your own growing need, but you could hardly focus on anything apart from taking him as deep as possible without choking. The sheer girth of him was enough to make your jaw sore, and when you moved forward again, he hit the back of your throat, making tears catch in your lashes.

“Fuck,” he groaned, drawing the word out with the sound, long and low and you kneened around him, making him curse and buck.

The hand not tangled in your hair raised to his face, balling tight, and he bit down on his fist, stifling his uncontrolled cries of ecstasy, eyes squeezing shut, brows pinching in concentration. He was trembling beneath your touches, twitching against your tongue, and when you moved back to suck on the tip, slow and indolent, the noise that left his mouth was nothing short of pornographic.

“Yeah,” he seethed, voice breathy, needy, “fuck, yeah, don’t stop.”

Not a chance in hell you were doing that. You clamped your thighs together, squeezing around nothing, and you knew you were soaked, evident in the way your panties were sticking to your skin, your thighs tacky with sweat and the soak of your own arousal. Your hand curled into a fist where it rested on his stomach, then flattening once more and flexing, searching for anything to anchor yourself. When you took him into your mouth once more, fully, he bucked his hips, groaning with no regard for volume. He was close, teetering on that edge, evident from the way his grip on your hair grew tighter, the way you could feel the muscles in his stomach tensing, and when you took him deep and sucked, he moaned, long and low, the sound almost forced from his fraying lungs. The sensitivity had to be maddening, you decided, and you’d use that to your full advantage.

Slowly, you pulled back, lapping at the leaking tip, hand working tirelessly at the base of him, and you barely had any warning before he tipped over the edge, back arching, breath all but leaving him. You shifted back in surprise, reflexively, and cum painted itself across your cheeks, the bridge of your nose, the seam of your lips. You closed your eyes in an attempt to keep anything from getting into them before you were hurrying to take him in your mouth, sealing your lips around him. His hand was fisting in your hair, and the sound he made, a low, breathless groan, was one of sheer, debauched relief.

You sucked, and he let out an obscene moan as you swallowed down his cum, hips jerking, the hand previously fisted between his teeth flattening against the desk, palm slamming down, just once, and you heard the rasp of wood under fingernails as he moved to grip the edge.

You slowed, working him through the intensity of his orgasm, as he twitched and throbbed under your touch, the sheer volume of cum surprising you. It leaked from your mouth, down your chin, and you did your best to swallow as much of it as you could. He slumped, boneless, against his chair, and when you moved to clean him with your tongue, you got to listen to the delightful sound of him gasping from oversensitivity.

“Fuck,” you heard him say, dazed and utterly breathless, “fuck.”

Slowly, you drew back, and his eyes followed you, breath hitching and gaze darkening as he took in your appearance. The sight of you, knelt before him, covered in his cum, was enough to make him groan aloud, cheeks flaring pink.

“Archons,” he said, “that has to be the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

You let out a short, breathless chuckle.

“Do you have a rag or something?”

He nodded, once, and you stood on shaking legs before leaning sideways against the desk, and he pulled you closer, gently wiping your face clean with a tissue before depositing it in the trash situated under his desk.

“How do you feel?” You asked, and he huffed what may have been a laugh, nearly disbelieving.

“That was… Incredible. But I’m still, um…”

You crooked an eyebrow, watching him, expectantly.

He looked almost guilty. “I’m still hard.”

Oh. Oh.

You weren’t completely surprised. You didn’t know if a blowjob alone would be enough to work the drug from his system, and clearly, it wasn’t. Not that you minded. Your own arousal was a steady pulse below your skin, working like a second heartbeat. Desire coursed through you, and you pressed your thighs together once more. You wanted it. You already knew that. You wanted him.

“Alright,” you said, and what was left of any phantom of resolve, or the shreds of your until recently professional relationship with him all but vaporized, “sit back.”

“You don’t have to,” he started, the protest as fragile as glass, but you cut him off.

“I want to. I’ve… wanted this– you– for a while. So please, Your Grace– Wriothesley. I want it all. If you’ll have me.”

That was all it took. With a low, shuddering breath, a signal of his rapidly fraying restraint, he was yanking you forward and into his lap, his fingers working the buttons of your blouse open, hurriedly shucking it down your shoulders once undone. He made quick work of the ties fastening your skirt to your body, and you briefly shuffled off of him to drop it to the floor, along with your stockings, before resituating yourself on his lap.

“If I’ll have you?” He rumbled, the low, rough ombre of his voice sending prongs of lightning down your spine, and he yanked you closer, mouth dragging along the curve of your jaw.

“How could I possibly refuse?”

And then, for the first time, he was kissing you.

His lips were burning hot against yours, and your fingers found his hair, threading into messy locks, nails dragging against his scalp. He huffed a sigh into your lips as he nudged his tongue between them, tilting his head to slot his mouth more firmly against yours, and when his tongue dragged against yours, you moaned, low and soft, into his mouth. He kissed you slow and deep, almost a juxtaposition to the way he was feverishly running his hands, large and calloused, down your body, and when his fingers grazed over the patch of nerves just where your lowest rib met the curve of your waist, you shuddered in his hold.

You could taste the tea he’d been drinking on his tongue, cloyingly sweet, and it was almost too much when mixed with the heady, spiced smell of his cologne. Everything about him was overwhelming you in the best way possible, rendering you pliable and soft in his hands. Fuck, Wriothesley needed his own warning label. It was almost funny, really, just how riled up you were when he was the one who had been drugged with an aphrodisiac.

His teeth caught your lower lip as he drew back, tugging, before he was diving back in, hands planted firmly on your hips, and you let out a stuttering gasp as he pulled you forward, his bare cock pressing against your stomach.

The way he shuddered at the contact was enough to make your head spin with arousal, and when you shifted forward once more, just to see what he’d do, the grip on your hips grew to nearly bruising.

“You have no idea,” he husked, low and rough, the very threads of his sanity slipping from between his fingers, “how hard you’re making it to hold back.”

His words shot straight between your thighs, and you rolled your hips again, loving the way he stiffened. You felt his palm, dragging slowly up your body, then finally moving to cup your breast through the fabric of your bra, squeezing. You arched your chest into his touch, his name whisper soft on your lips.

He unfastened your bra after some fumbling, his coordination clearly beginning to become impacted by the drug. Once the garment was discarded, he barely gave you time to breathe, and you gasped when his head dipped down, mouth dragging across the valley of your breasts, skating along the side of one before his lips found one of your nipples, drawing it into the heat of his mouth.

He groaned at the taste of you, indulgent, as he laved his tongue over your flesh, hands sliding up to grip your waist, holding you in place, allowing him to explore the newly exposed skin with his mouth as much as he pleased. He was strong, his grip like iron, but it didn’t prevent you from slowly rocking your hips, rubbing your clothed cunt against his bare cock, and the way he groaned into your skin was a sound of delirious pleasure.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed, almost disbelieving, “fuck, I’m a lucky man.”

His tender words made your heartbeat quicken, and you squeezed him closer, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. Your hands slid down his chest, fingers catching on the buttons of his shirt, and you quickly unfastened them, pushing the cloth away to smooth your palms over his bare skin. Gently, you pushed him back against the chair you were both situated in to look at him, and the sight before you was almost too much.

You already knew he was muscular, that much was obvious by just looking at him. But beneath his clothing, among thickly corded muscle was a patchwork of scarred flesh. You’d known about some scars; three of them crept up over the collar of his shirt, partially hidden by the straps he wore around his throat. There was also a collection of them on his arms, and of course, the one under his right eye. The ones that were hidden wove their way across his chest like a roadmap, some of them faint, and others more prominent, pale threads across his already pale skin. You laid your palm against him, tracing the one closest, and he shuddered, leaning into your touch, eyes fluttering closed. Your fingers skimmed down his chest, to his trim waist, and when your thumb caught in the deep v at his waist, he let out a soft grunt.

One of his hands moved from your waist to your hip, squeezing the plush flesh, then migrated to the apex of your thighs, and when his middle finger rubbed you through the sodden fabric of your panties, a high, breathy whine tore itself from your throat. He pressed harder, and your back arched, eyes falling half-lidded when he circled your clit through the fabric.

Then, without warning, he was pushing the cloth aside, and the feel of his calloused finger dragging across your entrance was enough to make you jerk in his hold.

He dipped his head, forehead making contact with your shoulder, and it took you a moment to realize he was watching himself, observing the sight of his hand between your legs. When your hips twitched, he used his opposite hand to hold you steady, effectively forcing you to stay in place as he did what he pleased with your body.

“Please,” you whispered, and that was all it took for him to tire of his teasing, sinking his finger inside you with a slow, indulgent movement.

You gasped, the sound bleeding into a moan when his finger curled inside of you, and he pushed you down, forcing you to take him to the knuckle. You whispered his name as he curled his finger again, and when he added a second finger, you squeezed your eyes shut. He groaned at the sound it made when he thrust his fingers into you, the lewd, embarrassing schlick of you around him, and you had to take a moment for your jumbled thoughts to catch up with you. His fingers were so much thicker than your own, not to mention longer, and he was hitting spots you didn’t even know existed. He thrust again, and you cried out, hips twitching, causing him to tighten his grip.

The curl of his fingers hit a spot inside of you that made you see stars, and when he felt the way it made you tighten around him, he began to abuse it with everything he had.

“Oh, Gods,” he groaned, “you’re so wet.”

You could do no more than gasp as his palm ground against your clit, and he held you there, forcing you to take it as he pressed in slow, maddening twists of his wrist before replacing his palm with his thumb.

It was arousing how easily he could manhandle you, and you had absolutely no desire to fight against him as he pumped his fingers in and out of you. You were getting close, embarrassingly quickly, and you could do nothing to stop yourself from hurtling towards that end, walls throbbing and contracting around his fingers.

One of your hands shot between you, encircling his thick wrist, and you weren’t sure what the purpose of that was, either to push him deeper or simply to find purchase, but you did know that your desperation made his dick twitch where it was pressed between you, forcing him to stifle a groan.

You convulsed in his hold, hips jerking in his iron grip, his name on your lips, and with a final press of his thumb against your clit, you came hard around his fingers, biting down into his shoulder, and he worked you through it with slow thrusts that made stars and celestial bodies dance across your closed eyelids. You called his name, urgent and drawn out, yet high and needy, and he replied with a groan of his own, his free hand flying from where he was holding you in place to wrap around his own cock, palming it, thumbing the head, forcing a moan from between his teeth.

You slumped heavily against him as you fell from your high, and when he withdrew his fingers, you let out a shuddering breath, the sensitivity sending your thoughts into nonsense. Your head was spinning, thoughts in a daze, and all you could feel was him as he panted for breath.

Seconds of silence, only interrupted by heavy breathing, passed before you rose on unsteady legs to discard your panties before you were settling over him once more, and he watched with hazy eyes as you shifted forward, pressing your bare cunt against the underside of his shaft in a slow grind. His mouth fell open in a silent cry, brows pinching upwards, the sensitivity clearly unbearable. Suffocating, maddening lust worked its way through your bloodstream like a toxin, and you knew he needed more, from the way his hips rutted up in halfway thrusts as you rubbed against him.

“Fuck,” he choked, head falling back as the tip of his cock caught against you, “I wanna–”

You rocked forward, and his entire body jolted, tearing a groan from deep in his chest.

“What do you want?” You asked, breathless, and he lifted his head to look at you, the fog of desire in his eyes downright sinful.

He yanked you close, trapping his cock between your bodies, and into a frenzied kiss, his restraint all but gone as he unabashedly moaned at the feel of your skin.

“I want,” he husked, mouth pressing open kisses against your jaw, and he stopped, breath hot against your ear, “to be inside you.”

Your breath left you in a rush, and you drew him into a deep kiss, one he returned with vigor, hands smoothing down your body to grab at your hips, pressing you forward and against him once more, and when you pulled back, his eyes were wild with desperation and maddening lust.

“I don’t have protection,” he said, and you shook your head, dismissing him.

“I’m on birth control,” you said. Siegwinne made the tonic you took, something she supplied even to female inmates to help with lightening periods. But right now, it would be used for its intended purpose. Wriothesley nodded as he took this information in, seemingly relaxing a little.

“Please,” he mumbled, and you blinked, surprised to hear him beg for anything, but you were hardly going to deny him, “I’m going insane. I need you.”

You took a shuddering breath as you shifted up, using one hand to brace yourself as you took his cock in your hand, pressing him against you. You both cried out in unison at the feeling, even the slightest whisper of much needed friction enough to make you feel lightheaded, and you felt his hands grasp your hips, urging you downwards.

You sank down, slowly, and even the tip of him was a stretch, a dull ache blossoming as you pressed closer. Both hands landed on his shoulders, breath heavy, and he groaned lowly at the sensation.

“Slow,” he said, fighting for control, “c’mon, you can take me. Relax, deep breaths.”

You nodded, once, as you did as he instructed. Your knees shuffled as you pressed yourself down, met with more resistance, and forcing you to stop, gasping for air. He was only halfway in and you already felt full, stretched to accommodate him. It was unfamiliar and new, and you weren’t used to this, but his grip was tightening, and with a deep breath, you thrust down, taking the rest of him in one quick motion.

The sting of the stretch danced across your frayed nerves like a livewire, and you grit your teeth, head slumping forward as Wriothesley let out a long, low groan, both of his hands rushing to your hips, squeezing, keeping you in place.

A string of curses left his lips as his head fell back, and you could feel him throb inside of you, so deep you could hardly believe it, stuffed full to the brim.

“Just– oh, or you could just take it all. Fuck,” he quieted, breathing heavily, before speaking again, “are you– did that hurt you? Are you okay?”

The pain wasn’t horrible, and you hesitated to even call it pain. It was just an ache, dull and unpleasant, but you’d been wet enough that taking him hadn’t caused you any actual damage. You sat still as you adjusted, the aching burn of the stretch rapidly fading into something maddening, replaced by a desperate need.

“I’m fine,” you said, voice strained, “I’m okay.”

He nodded, once, before drawing you close, linking your mouth to his in a kiss far more gentle than you’d expected. You felt him throb, and when you squeezed, you got the pleasure of hearing him groan your name.

“You’re so tight. Please, please– yeah–”

His head fell back as you rocked your hips, lifting yourself up, only to sink back down, and when you repeated the action, he groaned helplessly, a string of almost nonsensical praises spilling past his lips, only serving to make you want to wreck him even further.

Sheer, uncontained relief was tangled inextricably with every sound he made, his hands squeezing your hips as you took him again, and again, and again, and oh fuck, you felt like you were being split open, impaling yourself repeatedly on his fat cock. The burn from before turned into pure ecstasy, the stretch of him inside of you intoxicating, and you buried your face into the crook of his neck as you moaned out his name. He wasn’t even bothering to stay quiet, not that it mattered, nobody could hear from outside the heavy office doors, which was an advantage right then.

You keened as his hips rose to meet you, the base of his dick rubbing against your clit. You sank down, taking him fully, ejecting any rational or sensical thought from your head, grinding in deep, easy circles, and you could feel blunt nails digging into your hips as he held you in place, totally drunk on pleasure.

His grip eased as you slid back up before taking him again, and he was kissing you frantically, one of his hands flattening against your breast, rolling the nipple under the rough pad of his thumb, making you whimper into his mouth.

“Faster,” he hissed, pulling back to meet your eyes, “faster, ride me faster.”

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, using them as leverage to move yourself faster, arching your back as the new speed made you see stars, and you whined, burning pleasure shooting through you at the grind of his cock against your clit.

“Good girl,” he groaned, dizzy with pleasure, “yeah, just like that.”

You could feel yourself getting close again, and you groaned his name as you swiveled your hips. Your thighs were beginning to burn with the exertion, even with just the short time you’d been moving at this pace, and when he felt you shudder, his hands found your waist, helping you along.

“That’s it, gorgeous,” Wriothesley panted, “that’s it, fuck me just like that.”

He was moving you with his own hands, easily, and you tried your best to move along with him, swiveling your hips whenever he bottomed out, and his head fell back in rapture, gasping for air.

Your orgasm was approaching fast, and you were helpless to its pull as you sped up, chasing after it frantically, the sound that filtered through your clenched teeth one of desperation. You felt like you were losing yourself, and when you sank your teeth into the soft flesh of his throat, an unrestrained groan fell past his lips, his hips bucking up with enough force to make you see stars. When his thumb pressed against your clit, you tipped over the edge hard, stilling as you clung to him, sobbing his name into the curve of his shoulder.

You tightened to a vice grip around him, throbbing as your climax crashed over you, and you heard him growl at the sensation, hips bucking, still working his cock up into your messy cunt. Before you could even start to come down from your high, you were moving, and the frigid steel of the floor met your back, rapidly heating from contact with your skin. One of his hands gripped at your leg, tucking beneath your knee and holding it up, and then he was driving forwards, hips slapping against yours as he filled you once more.

He paused, shaken by the intensity of the sensation, before his head pitched forward, breath heavy, and he was thrusting again with a renewed vigor, nails digging into your flesh.

His name was the only thing on your tongue as he fucked you, so good it made you feel like your head was emptying itself out. His mouth found yours as he leaned forward, supporting his weight on his forearm, laid beside your head, giving him more freedom to do what he pleased with his hips. The base of his dick was rubbing against your clit once again, and you whined, squirming beneath him, but he wasn’t letting up.

“Wriothesley,” you gasped, head fuzzy, completely cock drunk as he broke the kiss to mouth at your neck, “deeper.”

He groaned, low and indulgent, and when his hips snapped forward, filling you completely, your back arched against his chest.

“Deeper?” he repeated, the baritone timbre of his voice lowered to an uneven bass, “you want it deeper? That what you want, gorgeous?”

“Please,” you sobbed, “please, give it to me.”

A low, rough chuckle was the only warning you got before he was thrusting forward, hips flush against yours, and he repeated the action, again, and again, and again, making you bite your lip to keep from wailing at the intensity of it all.

“Oh, fuck,” you heard him gasp, stricken, indulgent, “fuck, yeah, that’s it.”

It felt so good you could hardly think, and when you babbled his name, lust drunk and fucked dumb, he pressed soft kisses along the column of your throat, almost like a reward, a thank you for letting him do this to you.

His pace was growing sloppy, but he showed no signs of letting up, and in the back of your mind, you figured was probably just going to keep on going, even if he came. It was rapidly beginning to become far too much for you, and you moaned, high and breathy, when he rammed himself all the way in, grinding his hips before pulling out less than a quarter of the way, then thrusting back in. He was so deep, and you writhed under him, fingernails scraping against the floor before you were clinging to him. He was moaning, low and breathless, the way he was moving causing you to helplessly spasm around him, forcing you violently over the edge when the base of him rubbed just right against your aching clit.

You could feel tears, beading at your lashline as the sensitivity became maddening, but he wasn’t letting up, even as you arched and bucked and wailed beneath him, the intensity of your climax rendering you incoherent. He knew exactly what he was doing, just how to push every button he needed to, and you were halfway between deliriously begging for more or sobbing at the sensitivity.

A string of curses left his lips as he came, gushing hot and thick inside of you, but he wasn’t even pausing, even as his groans tapered into breathy moans from the way he was overstimulating himself. You could feel him, throbbing, pulsing inside of you as he filled you, uncaring of the way his cum dripped out of you. The sound of it, combined with the slap of skin against skin, was unbelievably lewd, but you hardly had the wherewithal to even think, let alone be any kind of embarrassed. If anything, it only drove you higher.

“Fuck,” Wrothesley cursed, low and broken, “I need it again, please, again– fuck!”

He shifted back, grabbing at your legs and pressing them down beside you, and you thanked the Archons you were flexible as he continued, leaning forward once he had you in the position he liked and taking your body with abandon. He was hardly bothering to hold back his strength as he hammered into you, and your head fell back against the floor with a soft thud, eyes rolling back.

You’d never felt like this before in your life. Your legs were growing sore, and your back was going to be stiff from the way he was fucking you into the floor, but you didn’t care, not as you got to listen to the way he was saying your name like a prayer, how he was caressing and kissing your body like it was sacred. Exhaustion was a heavy weight against the blurred edges of your mind, and all you could do was lay there and take it as he chased after what he so desperately needed.

It didn’t take long for him to grow close again, and he whispered your name as his end quickly approached. You yanked him into a kiss, which he returned with a groan of ecstasy, and then, with a final, deep, shuddering thrust, he was cumming. The force of it made his entire body tremble, and the sound he made was one of satiated, relieved bliss as he emptied himself out inside of you, the heat of him almost suffocating, burning you from the inside out.

His hips jerked with unconscious movements and spasms as he drifted down from the staggering height of his climax, his breath heavy, and he slumped, weakened, his face pressing into the crook of your neck. His mouth pressed lazy kisses against your skin, and you lifted a hand to run it through his hair as he finally, finally began to grow soft inside of you.

The two of you lay there, still joined, for what felt like hours, bathing in each other’s warmth and the afterglow of it all. His breath fanned across your skin, feather soft as he lifted his head to join your lips together, before he slowly pulled out, rolling off of you, dazed.

“Are you hurt?” He asked, voice hoarse, and you arched your back, flexing your body. You winced at the soreness. You were undoubtedly going to have bruises from how hard he had been gripping you.

“I’m fine,” you said, “are you–”

He snorted.

“Yeah,” he said, “that uh… that did the trick.”

You laughed, a little breathlessly. You didn’t know how you’d be able to stand after that, genuinely. Your legs felt like jelly, and a deep, all consuming exhaustion was settling over your senses.

“You think it’s gone?” You asked, “the drug, I mean.”

He looked at you sidelong. “I don’t feel uncontrollably horny anymore, so I’d say so.”

Wriothesley sat up, flexing his shoulders. He tucked himself back into his pants, and then he was gathering you into his arms, rising to his feet.

“What are you doing?” You asked, and he raised an eyebrow at you.

“Taking you to the bath,” he said, “I have a bathtub, in my living quarters.”

You relaxed, settling into his arms. “Oh.”

His living quarters were attached to the office, through a door you’d somehow never noticed before. You were far too tired to take in any of the details of it, instead opting to close your eyes and rest your head on the nearest comfortable spot on Wriothesley’s chest, which he didn’t seem to mind at all.

He set you in the tub, and after the water was run, you were surprised to see him climbing in along with you. It wasn’t unwelcome, and seeing him completely bare was hardly a bad thing, and you were pleasantly happy when he began to gently wash you, and once he was finished, he tugged you back, settling you against his chest.

The bathroom was silent, save for the musical sound of running water, and you allowed yourself to close your eyes, settling into the comfortable atmosphere.

“I meant what I said, you know,” Wriothesley said, and you opened your eyes to look up at him.

“What?” You asked.

“About being fond of you,” he said, “you’re… an amazing woman. I want–”

You leaned up, kissing him, and effectively giving him an answer to his thoughts. He sighed into the kiss, content, one large hand rising to cup your face, thumb smoothing over your cheekbone.

“I guess Siegwinne succeeded,” you said, and Wriothesley smiled, amused.

“I guess she did.”

You stayed in the bath much longer than you expected, until the water became cold, and once that happened, Wriothesley whisked you off to the bed, tucking you under the covers after supplying you with one of his shirts to wear. You smiled when he joined you, now dressed in a pair of sweats, chest left bare, and curled up beside you, tucking you close to his chest.

Sleep came quickly after the lights were switched off, the exhaustion from before spreading over you like wildfire.

And, when he thought you were asleep, you felt him, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of your head, his body relaxing against yours.

BONUS:

You were agonizingly sore. Your stiff muscles had stiff muscles, and while Wriothesley was sheepish, and apologetic, and promised he’d treat you to dinner to make it up (which you would be taking him up on), it made walking back to the infirmary the next morning a little difficult.

What was even worse was the look on Siegwinne’s face when you entered, ruby red eyes knowing as she watched you approach.

“How’s the duke?” She asked, and you handed her the accursed thermos without saying anything.

“Fine,” you said, slumping down into your chair with a sigh.

She smiled. “Good. Are you seeing him again tonight?”

You turned, brows furrowed. “How did you know about that?”

She shrugged, unbothered. “Someone saw you leaving his office this morning. I suppose what I put in the tea worked a little too well.”

You stared at her. “Siegwinne, you put an aphrodisiac in his tea.”

She paused, concerned. “No I didn’t. I put a supplement to further enhance his desire for you. If we’re being frank, it’s closer to a love potion. Just to get rid of any inhibitions. It’s medicine. But it isn’t meant to cause anything like–”

You rolled back your sore shoulders. “Yeah, well, it did.”

Her face went pale, but she briefly covered it up. “I… suppose I miscalculated.”

You laughed, then. Really laughed. It startled Siegwinne, who stared at you with growing concern.

“It’s fine,” you said, “whatever, Siegwinne. At least you don’t have to keep going with trying to set us up. Focus your energy on making ‘love potions’ that aren’t aphrodisiacs in humans, okay?”

She flushed, quiet, then nodded, once, her eyes taking on a determined look. You were beginning to regret saying anything.

With a smile, and a good natured nod, she put her hands on her hips, ever the dutiful nurse.

“I’ll get right on that.”

Fin.

1K notes · View notes

maskosis · 1 month ago

Text

copper sutures, open wounds

Simon Riley x Reader

You've always belonged to each other even when you weren't sure what it meant.

Back when you'd shove clumsy fingers into your panties after he'd call, uttering awful, terrible, heart-aching things like been thinkin' 'bout you, pup and fuck, can't stop thinkin' 'bout you, pup.

Words meant for the ears of a lover, not you.

But the lines between the two have never been parallel, have they? Even when he was just an idea tucked inside gyri. A stranger that weaved in and out of your life: a haunting spectre on the edges of your periphery. Intangible. Each one an inchoate pin added along a growing, nebulous surface; pointillism in hindsight. The evolution of semelparity.

He's yours and that's all you've ever known. The rest just doesn't matter.

OR: two people who were probably lovers in a past life end up as siblings in this one. except. it doesn't really change much.

DDDNE—incest. smut. dirty talk. shame. slight bully!Simon. slight breeding. size difference. slight coersion. dubcon. mean dom Simon and the lil sister he bullies

You've always been close.

Something that strikes people as odd considering he's been gone for the majority of your life—military dog that he is—but despite the distance, the age gap, it's easy to wrap yourself up in him. Copper sutures over open wounds.

And that's what you are. Wounds. Gaps, gashes. Deep canyons of cleaved flesh, severing muscles and tendons, chipping off bone.

He wears his as scars, an eerie blankness in his eyes—flat, stagnant water. Crocodilian. Predatory. Black humour. Vile jokes whispered in your ear—what d'you call a dead dad? anything you like, he can't 'ear you. Disappearing when things got too real. Too serious. Not running. Not Simon, no. But a strange, untameable thing—becoming a ghost again. Drenching himself in mission after mission. Icecold distance in his eyes. Polynyas. Arm's length is too close. He needs an ocean of space to sew himself back together. Lap at old, aching lesions until the taste of iron subsides into peatsalt flesh.

It's something you have to wait out. Return to some sense of normalcy without him—because even when he's gone, he's always watching—and struggle through the loneliness until whatever is metastasizing inside of his head is clawed out with the tips of his fingers, and he crawls home to you, bloodstained and hungry—

And you patch him up. Feed him. It's what you do best. How you wear your hurt—becoming the caregiver you wish you had. Taking on roles too big for yourself, for your trembling knees. Hefting him up on the shaking legs of a girl in over her head. Treading water even when you know the person clinging to you is going to be the reason you drown.

You just can't let go.

And you wonder, sometimes, if he knows that.

Simon is a lot of things, and almost none of them are good. A part of you does lay awake at night wondering if he's purposefully pulling you down.

The sea, you know, is a hungry, untenable thing. Voracious is her appetite. She's greedy with her dead, clinging to old bones even when they turn into vapour under her daunting weight. Smothered by a mother's everlasting love.

You can't blame her, though. She let you go, crawling out of her womb until your feet touched soil, leaving her empty and aching. Mother without a child to feed. And when she pulls you back, it's only because she doesn't know any better. Can't, in her unerring elation, understand that your time apart from her arms has turned gills into lungs, and when she tries to nurse you, it's a smothering, deadly thing. Too big is her bosom. Too tiny are you. Choking on the milk she offers until your ghost glides inside her waves.

And Ghost—

Sometimes you wonder if he ever left her womb at all.

Even if he was, though—you made your bed when you were eighteen. When he came back from deployment and met you as an adult, not a small, impish little child who hid behind Tommy's legs. Too afraid of your own shadow to even say hi. He was too big. Too intimidating. A monster of a man—something that made his marred lips curl up in an ugly smirk when he heard you whisper this into Tommy's ear.

But like most things in your life, it started with a cut.

Thirteen and tiptoeing through the grass to sneak back into your bedroom window. A rusted nail sliced the bottom wide open. Tommy was at work. His wife sleeping after staying up all night with their baby. You sat on the porch and clutched the bottom, holding the skin together until he happened to find you. Curled over yourself, biting back whimpers.

It wasn't bad. Not really. But he just crouched down, grabbed your ankle in his massive hand, and grunted. Seen worse, pup. Ain't gonna kill you.

You didn't ask about the wounds no one could see. The ones that ached in the middle of the night when you heard Tommy yelling from behind closed doors. Body tensing for something you can't remember—muscle memory, maybe. You escaped the worst of it. It's something everyone around you is so quick to say.

But he doesn't. Not even when you sink your teeth into your knuckle as he prods at the torn skin. He just looks at you, impassive and distant—this massive man folding his body into a curled fist held low to the ground, accommodating—and hums.

"don't ruin your pretty skin, pup. Got enough scars f'the both of us."

Your fingers were pulled from your lips. His own slipped between the gap of your teeth, too thick for the split of your mouth. Tasting bitter—saltpetre, ash. Sweat. Iron. Works with his hands. Smokes reds at the dinner table with Tommy until the scent of smoke, cheap tobacco, is heavy in the air. Had to breathe.

"Go on, chew on me if y'need to. Must be teethin'."

When most people spoke down about your age, it made you bristle. Made you sneak out at night and hang around bars you shouldn't have been. Talking old men into giving you and your friends sips. A drag of their cigarette. Got anything stronger? I'm not a kid—I can handle it.

Still. You haven't learned to hold your tongue yet and as he lays your heel on his thick, hard thigh, and pinches the sore, swollen skin between his thumb and forefinger, rifling around in his pack pocket for a needle and thread, you can't help the petulant huff that spills out, reedy around the bulk of his knuckles.

They slip free when you move back, but he chases. Hand twitching back towards you, like a babe seeking warmth.

"I was out,” you bluster, swallowing down the tang of seawater and loam that clings to your tongue. “Partying."

Tommy would have been stupefied. Mad. His face turning blotchy red, purple. Listen 'ere, I might not be the best goddamn guardian f'ya, but y'can't jus' do what y'want—y'grounded, alright? Grounded!

But he isn't Tommy. The look he levels you with is flat. Even. But something sparks in those murky depths. Humour, you think. Leonine pleasure. A well-fed lion pawing at a gazelle just to see it kick.

"I know, pup."

You don't ask how. You think, even then, that you knew.

Simon’s hand moves again, pressing cold, spit-slicked fingertips against the soft give of your lips. You part for him easily, the bravado cracking under the pressure of his deep, unfathomable insouciance.

Cowed. Docile. Or maybe—

Absumed. The tension inside of you—this near constant state of hyperarousal, innate; congenital—is dimmed, snuffed out, under his big, warm hands. A lonely child lulled into a latibule. This clawing, aching thing inside of you, hunger, is a lacuna. Filled, suddenly, by his ferric touch.

The silence that lapsed between you became a staple, a constant, in your evolving relationship. Neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, it just is. Quiet. Words unsaid. Actions learned. Understood.

You communicate better in silence. Shared looks. Touches. And when he brushed his thumb over the tender slit in your heel, you hear the things he won't say. Sewn up with spare wire, a needle. Sterilized with the worn, red Zippo he kept in his back pocket.

Wound knitted back together.

A trick he taught you with fishing wire and a needle (—burn the tip jus' like tha' and thread it in deep, birdie—)

Something about you both just clicks.

You were seventeen when you moved into his lonely apartment (one o' many, he grunts; but the safest one he has). It's closer to your school. You're older, mature. You've been making your own decisions since you were thirteen—things like therapy and custody, and signing off on restraining orders to keep your parents away. Not that they bothered about that much anymore—not when Simon came around and threatened them. Dad dead, but mum—she hovers. Floats in and out of your life; a poltergeist that slams doors and kicks over furniture, sews discord just because it's the only measure of control she ever had.

("'nore her," he grunts into your ear when he finally calls after disappearing two weeks ago. Mexico, he rasps. Need'ta know. "She ain't gonna touch you if she knows what's good f'her."

"I know," you murmur, shivering at the brittle char in his voice. You miss him but you won't tell him because he already knows. "Bring me back something from Mexico. A souvenir."

"'ow 'bout a muzzle? For that smart mouth o'yours."

"only if it's pretty."

"fuckin' hell, pup. Gonna start makin' me wish I never left.")

You take care of yourself. Always have. And he—

He takes care of you.

It's easy to slip into these roles. Shedding skin. Dutiful college student, diligently studying away to careening headfirst into a proper, working adult meandering through life that passes too quickly now that you're older. Happy little sister. Dedicated auntie. You know how to contort yourself into these shapes. Let them live and breathe around you, through you, until you both stumble into his dark, quiet apartment. Your feet ache from wearing heels all day. His hands itch from holding himself back.

But here, in this quiet space, nothing matters.

And when he presses your back against the door, chest heaving from the pent-up desire brimming in his dark, unflinching gaze, you know nothing ever will. Nothing ever could.

Except—his eyes on you at dinner. Rapacious. Unnerring. Even as Tommy nudged his arm, brows furrowing as if to say, whatcha starin' at, mate? Almost did, too, when the topic of your boyfriend (this mysterious, phantom figure you spun lies about since you were eighteen) came up and he growled, deep and dark over the idea of you moving in, sometime soon, with another man.

(Something has come between you, you suppose—)

And it leads you here.

Dot, dot, dot.

But his face is a perfect mask of neutrality. Carefully blank. Marred skin carved into marble—impenetrable. Unknowable. But you can feel his anger humming through the whipcord spooling between you. Moonglade you trace with the tips of your fingers, feeling the taut pull of his shoulders when you rest your hands on corded muscle.

In typical fashion, he doesn't say anything about it. Leaves it to rot as he bends down, lips fastening against the heated apple of your cheek—more teeth than affection; nips flesh, and groans.

His hand is big and broad when it slips up your thigh, chest rumbling with a quiet purr when he finds your skin already slick, slippery.

"all f'me?" He grunts, dropping down onto his knees in the foyer, rucking your skirt up to your belly button, a harassed 'old it, pup, tha's a good girl tumbling out. Eyes drilling into the apex of your split thighs, darkening with a desire so thick, you can taste it on your tongue. "Been like this all night, 'ave you?"

Huh? He demands, angry now. All fuckin' wet thinkin' 'bout my cock, pup?

"Simon, please—"

His fingers slip into the hem of your panties. Yours tighten around the bunched fabric of your skirt. It's always so electric when he touches you. Illicit—

But that's just wishful thinking, isn't it? Because nothing about the way Simon feels is wrong. Verboten.

It was there long before you were aware of it.

(—skin of mischmetal just waiting for the oxidized iron and magnesium of his touch to ignite. Little pyrophoric heart stuffed inside a tinderbox.

Inevitable.)

You've always belonged to each other even when you weren't sure what it meant. Back when you'd shove clumsy fingers into your panties after he'd call, uttering awful, terrible, heart-aching things like been thinkin' 'bout you, pup and fuck, can't stop thinkin' 'bout you, pup.

Words meant for the ears of a lover, not you.

He's yours and that's all you've ever known.

But at the time—it was just that. Words. Needles in skin. Thread closing the wound.

You're not sure when it, when this, started. When it changed.

Gone half of your life, and then blinking in and out like a phantom. A spectre. An idea. Half-formed in childish nightmares. In glossy, wet teenage dreams. Fingers slipping over your mound, his voice in your ear. A needy ache in the pit of your chest whenever he had to leave. Goodbye to don't go. Don't go to come home quick.

The lines didn't really blur because they were always there to begin with. Innate. Congenital. The first brush of your lips against his—him, stiff and unmoving; watching you with those flat, predatory eyes as you shuffled closer, peeled back the balaclava he sometimes forgets to take off, and pressed your mouth to his. Chaste. Damning. To this.

Him on his knees, pulling your damp panties down. Rocking on his haunches to shove his face into the seam of your cunt, breathing in deep. Gulping down the scent of you. Nuzzling his chin into your flesh, all hot and tender and aching for him.

"gonna eat this pretty cunt, pup," slurred into the wet, slick folds he parts with the crooked, hooked tip of his nose. "been starvin' for it all night."

At one point, you think you tried to stop it.

This morbid, twisting thing growing inside of you. Swallowed down anything to kill the mass that tightened up in a needy, aching knot whenever he was around. Poison. Medicine. Carving it out yourself. But it was all palliative. Quick remedies to soothe the burn, but nothing healed the damaged skin.

Holy places, prayers. Men, boys. Ethanol. Bad choices.

But he never let you go too far.

(how'd you know?

m'always watchin' you, pup. remember tha'.)

Tidied up the mess you made. Helped you into bed. Lied to Tommy about where you've been and what you've done. Scoured the blood from your nails, the viscera from your skin. Listened to you bable about shame and disgust like it was a phantom limb. A third man. Never you—just a friend of a friend. Said nothing as you curled around the mass, shaking in your bed. Just set his hand on your head, and let you heave it out. Expelling all from within.

"go t'bed," he'd say whenever you tried to bring it up, talk around this thing eating you alive. "Talk in the mornin'."

But that never happened. He was gone when you woke. A ghost seen only in the middle of the night. The corner of your room. He had to have known, though—

"s'wrong, pup," he'd said after the kiss, but he still let you pull him down into the sheets. Let you push his hand under the hem of your panties, groaning in your ear when you urged him on so sweetly touch me, touch me—

Somewhere in the tangled, muddled mess of feelings and silence and touch, it just started to make sense. To fit. He belonged to you, and you—got my goddamn blood, don't you? 'course you're mine.

Wounded beings bleeding out, riddled with coagulopathy. It just makes sense to suture them together. And that's what you do—just like he taught you. Copper wire. Golden needle. Dress the wound. Hide it.

But here, in this dark apartment that smells like you, like him, home, you rip the bandage off and let the wound breathe.

Your hand sinks down, nails raking over his shorn scalp. "Then do it," you whine, curling your palm over his crown. "Eat me up, Simon."

"Fuck, pup—tryna make me pop in my goddamn trousers?"

It startles a giggle out of you, breathless. Wanting. "You said you were hungry."

Simon buries his face into your inner thigh, groaning low in his throat. Humid breath ghosting over your heated flesh, dampening skin. "Cheeky fuckin' thing," he drawls, teeth shaping the words against your twitching muscle.

It's little nips, beestings, just enough until the playful laughter in your throat is smothered under the weight of desire. Burning kindling in your belly that pops, crackling sap blistering in the heat each time his marred, mangled lips brush closer to the slick, sensitive crook where leg meets groin. A sliver of flesh the width of a thumb. A hidden valley between tendon and the sloped fold of your cunt. He licks there. Scorching. Wet. Tongue soft as he laps the slick from your skin.

Moans, a little, at the taste. A mangled noise echoing in the broad expanse of his chest. Throaty. Wanting. He nips there too, sinks his teeth into the skin until you whimper, hand grasping futilely against his buzzed scalp, sliding over welts of raised skin, scars.

"Simon—" it comes out reedy. Petulant. "Stop teasing me or—"

"or what, pup?" Huh? He adds, mocking. Mean. Nose scraping over the shape of your sticky, wet fold. His eyes are bedrock. Solid obsidian. So dark, so deep, you think one slip and they might just swallow you whole. "What are you gonna do?"

"I'll—ah—" he sucks your labia into his mouth, sawing softly teeth jagged teeth. "Ah, Simon—I'll go back to Tommy's."

It's a hollow threat, empty words, but his eyes narrow like you uttered a promise. Held a knife to his throat. A gun to the back of his head.

"That so?"

It isn't jealousy that strips his tone raw, has greed dripping down glazed charcoal, staining midnight black green, but something far hungrier. Even though it's his younger brother, even though Tommy is nothing to you except kin—older brother, guardian, the man who gave up his life to raise you after your father was killed and Simon barely made it home in time to save your mother; all things that Simon knows very well—Simon has always been a selfish, possessive bastard. Hackles rising at anything that even hints at taking you away.

This, you know, is no different.

And when he sinks his teeth into the meat of your thigh, eyes narrowed at you the whole time, you suppose you deserve it.

Comeuppance doesn't stop you from keening at the fresh, hot spread of pain when his canines pierce flesh, draw blood. From digging your claws into his scalp, dragging them over his skin until he groans, eyes fluttering at the taste of your blood on his tongue, the feel of your nails scratching his head.

His maw drips with it when it peels back, rocking on his haunches to stare up at you with a renewed fever in his eyes. A sharp want that cuts a jagged line down the middle, bleeds black when he tips his head back, exposing the thick of his throat, and hums when he swallows the taste down. Letting you see for yourself the shift and pull of his muscles as he drinks you down. Blood—inside and out.

"s'tha' what you're gonna do?" He mutters, head still tilted back. "Gonna run from me, pup?"

The look in his eyes makes a shiver drip like hot oil down your spine. "N-not if you touch me—"

It's waging a deal with the devil. Taunting a basking saltwater crocodile. Sticking your hand in the maw of a lion. Danger. But in that—

A thrill.

"Jus' want me to touch you, huh?" He coos, mockingly plangent as he tightens his hands around your hips, holding you steady as he rocks forward until his mouth is a sliver away from your slick, throbbing flesh. His hot breath ghosting over your wet slit makes you keen, all low and pitiful. Whining in the back of your throat. "Need my mouth on ya? Wanna hump your needy little cunt all over your big brother's face?"

His name stutters out in a warbling cry—the coalescence of shock and shame that bubble inside your chest, frothing over at the hideousness of it all, but cowed (and secretly pleased) at how easily he can say something like that. Rough and gritty. Scree raining down—sharp stings. Little bites. Embarrassment and elation an ugly, mouldering thing in your belly.

"Don't—don't be crude," you hiss out instead, catching his crown once more in your hand to give a warning squeeze. Mouse nibbling on the toe of a lion, all he does is huff, blowing warm air over your drenched cunt.

"Crude," he mocks, but lets you lead his head to where you want it most. Buried between your thighs. Long, thick nose pressed tight against your pebbled clit. But you should have known better—his compliance always comes with a cost. He carves his pound of flesh with the sharpened edge of a mean smirk, dropping his mangled maw to let his tongue snake out. Just a taste, a tease. His tongue flattens against your parted seam long enough to coat the tip before he pulls back, your wetness glistening on his lips. "Ain't nothin' crude 'bout eatin' my baby sisters, pussy. 'pecially when she's beggin' for it so bad."

"Simon—!"

"s'where 'er big brother belongs, ain't it? Buried between these sweet thighs."

He cleaves his tongue up your slit—aching, drenched hole to swollen clit—and huffs when you yowl, back arching against the door. His mouth has always been an awful, awful thing. This is no different. Sawing it roughly between your folds, groaning at the taste of you. Peeling back long enough to dart his gaze upward, cutting, until you meet his stare. See the wetness around his chin, covering his lips. Pale pink lips turning blood red with how eager he devours you, eats you up.

Simon swallows again. Tongue flicking out to catch the drying droplets of your blood still tucked into the corner of his mouth.

"Want my mouth, pup?" He demands, words mangled in his throat. Raked over coals. "Want your big brother to eat your sweet pussy?"

You're not sure how he says these things so shamelessly—and that's exactly what they are: without shame. Drenched in desire. Want. He glares up at you, heaving, hands flexing around your hips as you war with the part of you that still likes to pretend he's a stranger sometimes. Waiting.

He won't touch you again until you give him what he wants.

But what he wants—

Well.

You're not sure there's enough of you left to give away.

"Simon," you try, angling for needy because that's exactly what you are: wanting. Hungry. Sick with the same fever that burns through the palm of his hand. Desperate. "Simon, come on, please—"

You try tugging him. Pulling his head back to your aching, empty cunt. Arching your back. Rolling your hips. But he stays, impassive and immovable as ever despite everything you try.

"Please, just—"

"Thought you wanted to go back to Tommy's?"

"Simon—"

"Tha's what you said," he trails his fingers down your hip, dragging the tips through the slick smeared over your mound. Featherlight touches. Chaste kisses. Slides his hand over your cunt until it's cupped in his palm, long, thick fingers pressed against your rim. Heel on your clit.

It's torture. It isn't enough—

"I won't go," you heave, panting when he starts to stroke his fingers over your fluttering, empty hold. The movement pushing the ball of palm into your clit that sends little frissons of pleasure down your spine. "I won't leave—"

"Wha'd'ya want, pup?"

"You—"

His hand on your hip flattens over your belly, stopping the desperate rolls you make with each brief, not enough touch. It's mean. You whine that to him, pouting when his lips pull up in a vicious smirk.

"Can stay here all night, pup."

You don't doubt him for a second—awful, awful man—but it's hard to breathe around the shame sometimes. This polluted feeling in your chest. Tarlike. Oozing from the wound you left to rot. Infectious. Greedy.

He knows it, too. Listens to you bable out your worries to him in the dead of night, and only ever when he's gone. Spitting up the ugliness that festers in your chest is easier to do when there's an ocean between you. Words that are swept up in the morning—forgotten. Bad dreams.

Finite maladies. Bloodletting. Something that recedes when he's here, holding the fraying sutures closed with his hands. Keeping you together.

And it's fine. You need him. Can't separate yourself from living inside the heat of his hands. But it's easy when he lets you pretend. Let's you act like the stranger, the girl he picked up off the street and brought home. Little stray out in the rain that no one wanted tucked inside the pocket of his coat. Live inside the parallels where he's just a man. Flesh and bone. And not—

Blisters on your fingers. Gonna teach you 'ow t'fight back, pup. Get some claws on you yet. A gash on your foot. Too clumsy f'your own good. Skinned knees. Bruises on the apples of your cheeks. This is Simon. You remember 'im, don't you? 'course you do. He's—he's family. Dancing around the behemoth in the kitchen bent over a warm beer. Eyes sliding in every direction until they landed on you. 'smatter? Scared of your older brother? Don't worry—red eyes, indents in your bottom lip; he never asks who did it, just says—I'll hurt anyone who touches you, pup.

And it's a fact. Truism.

The next morning: coffee instead of a beer (s'not black, Tommy whispers in stages, half conspiratorial, half pleading please, please love him back: "he takes wif' three sugars. Gots a sweet tooth;") but still hunched over the table, eyes gliding around the room—the exits. Muscle memory, he'll bite out three years later when you finally gather the courage to ask. Habit. Normal—

His knuckles are bruised. Bloodied. His hand stiff around the mug, fingers too swollen, cut up, to close. Catches your gaze over the rim, but you don't bother pretending that he hadn't known you were there the moment you walked in. Gives you a wink.

"told you, didn't I? I'll hurt anyone who touches you, pup."

You think about that time in the kitchen and wonder if that was when these parallel lines started to collapse. Cave in.

Run into the ground. Into this.

Or was it this inevitable. A statement of fact. Something meant to happen regardless of blood.

"Simon."

"don't keep me waitin'," he says your name then. Not pup. Not birdie. Your name. "Tell me what you want."

Words unsaid, you think. Tell me what this is.

"I want you." It comes out shakier than you want it to. Your nails rake over his crown. Hips twitching futilely in his iron hold. "I want you, Simon."

"Gotta be more specific than tha'. What do you want me t'do?"

It feels like dancing along the edge of a precipice. The canyon floor is a vertiginous drop some several hundred feet below, stopped only by jagged rock. Exposed travertine. Rocky terraces. Stepping off the ledge and into the chasm is a daunting task even though you've been flirting with the abyss long before you even knew what the fear of falling was.

Words well, swelling over your tongue. It's easy to whisper them in secrecy, in cloaked darkness. Buried beneath blankets of a Stygian night. Tenebrous folding hands over your eyes. Make-believe on worn, cotton sheets that smell like heady musk—animalic. Arctic Angelica. Geosmin. Wet copper. An old, dirty cloth stained with guncotton. Sex. Loam. Stale sweat. Simon.

Your tongue is looser when he's been gone for a while. Willing to give in to his whims, the ugly shape of his mishappen desire.

And you know it's not about the substance. Not at all. The taboo doesn't rankle down his spine the same way you—just you—do.

This is a manifestation of his greed.

Like your loving seamother, he isn't content with halves or quarters. It's bones, blood, and viscera: all or nothing. Life or death. You can't cleave the limb to save the body with him.

Just like you can't pretend he's something he is not. Flesh and bone. Blood.

All or nothing.

But there's a difference between uttering those words when he lets you hide your sins from the world, tucked under the bulk of his body. Protectively cradled in the dark. And this—

You still smell Tommy's cologne in your nose when he went in for a tight, consuming hug only hours before. The taste of gin and pot roast on your tongue. Wapish barbs thrown back and forth like darts when Tommy's wife pried into your life—when are you movin' out on your own? Si must be tired of ya, ain't he?—and how it felt like the floor was dropping out from under your feet when he kicked his foot against your ankle, eyes prairie fire, feverish, and waited to see what you'd do.

Simon doesn't seem to care much for decorum.

"clawed my way outta the dirt to get back 'ome, t'get back t'you. This," he stamps his finger into your chest, laying claim over the thudthudthud of your trembling heart. "Ain't gonna change nothin'."

You thought of that then when you glanced down at the overcooked potatoes leaking a river of golden butter into the marshy peas, and rolled your shoulder. "I pay rent. It's cheaper. It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it?" He'd said, dangerously low. Thick arms folded over his broad chest.

You should have known then that this was the inevitable conclusion. But—

Wounds. Sutures. Second skin. Copper solder.

Your head thrums with the aching pulse of a low-grade fever. Thoughts sluggish through the want.

And god, do you want.

Tactile: his hands, his mouth, on you. The way he pushes into you, filling you so perfectly that you always weep. Body on yours, crushing. All heat. The way he kisses you when he's about to cum, teeth and tongue, sloppy and wet. Chest rumbling with the groans he smothers against your lips. Hips working, pounding into you. Filling you up. Pulling on the threads, the seams, keeping you together. His rough voice in your ear (gonna cum, pup and—lips glued to yours, eyes burning in the dark—beg me not to do it inside o' you, not to cum in this sweet pussy). The pulse of his cock when you try to push him off, hands shoving against his broad, thick shoulders as you whimper beneath him, pleading just like he asked. Don't Simon, don't—not, not inside and, tears in your eyes, please don't cum inside me, Simon, please—

His groan in your ear when he does just that because nothing—not even you, pup—will ever tear him away from this perfect little cunt.

(his perfect little cunt—)

And impossibly: him. His hand in yours. Leaning over to steal kisses from you when Tommy isn't looking. A house you together without questions like when are you going to stop depending on your older brother, grow up, settle down—

You just want him.

The rest—

Doesn't matter.

But it can't stay like that, like this, whispers in the dark. Vespertine. Not with the sheer vastitude of his unerring appetite for you.

You huff, hand curling in the damp fistful of your skirt. Gripping tight. All of nothing.

"I want you, Simon," you plead, and a liquid heat fills you when his eyes flash, widening a touch before his kids droop down, half-mast. Listening. Waiting. Bringing out a shiver when the hand cupping your pussy possessively twitches, the tip of his finger dipping inside just a sliver. "I want—" you swallow down the shame that prickles in the back of your throat, keeping your gaze fixed on him as you tremble through the unease and let the feverish pin of his stare pull you in deeper. Flay you alive just to stitch you back together again. "I want my—my big brother to eat, eat my pussy—"

When he groans, it sounds like you've gutted him. Vivisection in the dim foyer where you can still smell reality on your skin. Tommy's looming disgust, his anger, that snakes around your neck because Simon doesn't do quarters or halves. Flesh, blood, bones. All or nothing. And the next time the shadowed lover comes up, he'll pounce. Staking his claim on you. Laying ownership down in the shape of his spare dogtag he makes you keep around your neck. The next best thing to a ring.

(already go' my last name—)

Awful man.

He lurches forward. Springing like a tiger in the underbrush, all thick, corded grace. Muscled agility. Snatches his jaws around you, canines digging in. His face against your mound, breathing in deep. Fingers pushing, pressing into you. Tongue laving over salt-slick skin.

The thick line of his cock lays flat against his thigh. A terrible sight, really, considering you've only just learned how to take him to the root without clawing at him to get away. An impossible stretch that leaves you feeling achy and sore—the onset of a fever. Waking up with a bellyache and soaked in sweat. Him behind you, pushing his cock inside again, desperate for you ("go back sleep, pup—I jus' need your cunt—") despite the burn. Making room in a place that begs for clemency, crying out: he just doesn't fit.

Pleasure and pain are tetherbound with Simon. Tidally locked. You can't have one without the other, and slowly, slowly, he's teaching you how live around this paradox. And that's what it is

Two fingers stretching you. His mouth sealing over your clit. The sting soothed by the wash of his tongue. The hard, tight suck quelled with the graze of his knuckle over a cluster of nerves inside of you that make your vision blur.

Quiddity: hurt and bliss weaving together, sinking deep into bathic depths; becoming this ineffable thing shared between the two of you. Demersal. Subsumed deep in your marrow. Mother's embrace. Your own special temenos.

You wonder if he knows. If he feels it when he grips your hip tight, feasting on your cunt. This urgency. This need. This gnawing ache in your belly that wants, wants, wants—

"c'mon, pup," he grunts against you, brontide. "Ride my face 'til you cum."

He rives his tongue through your folds until your knees quake, threatening to buckle. Pulls your clit into his mouth, laving it with the flat of his tongue in tandem with the thrusts of his fingers. He knows your body perfectly. Renders it into a finely tuned instrument, strumming between his fingers and tongue. That mangled, awful mouth.

Pleasure thrums down your spine.

You can't do much, can't even move, when he lifts his hand and curls it under your thigh. Wrenched it up, hefting your leg over his shoulder. Opening you up wider for him.

His name spills out. A choked whisper, distant and ignored, under the noises he pulls from your body. The squelch of your cunt swallowing his fingers to the knuckle. So wet, so wanting, it puddles on the floor between his knees—

Makin' a fuckin' mess, pup—

And you are. His face is soaked. Covered in you. It drips down his chin, but he just licks his marled mouth and dives back in for more. Stroking against that spot inside, a lacuna he carved out himself, until you see stars.

Deliquesce in his hands. A pretty ringdove with his fingerprints around your neck, cooing for him as he tugs on your seams. Unravels you with too much teeth and tongue, fingers pistoning inside of you as you break into pieces in the foyer. The lights are still on.

There's no hiding in the shadows. No playing pretend.

It's Simon on knees opening you up. Glaring at you through cracked obsidian, naked hunger spuming in the ink-filled depths: heavy drapes of amorphous clouds, nimbostratus, that rumble through the room, closing in around you. Inescapable. Tangled in this nebulous web that spools around you—

Copper wire.

His tongue feels electric when it rakes through your folds again—from rim, stretched around two thick, long fingers, to your pebbled clit—and the hot, clenching pulse behind your navel intensifies, coiling into a tight knot. A balled fist.

Simon groans into your swollen cunt, jabbing the tips of his fingers cruelly into that spot inside that makes your knees feel weak, liquid. Over and over and over—

“Come on,” it's barked out between sloppy licks over your clit, fingers rubbing, rubbing. “Be a good little sister and cum all over your brother's face—”

The knot breaks. Bursts into a series of gut-wrenching, bellyaching throbs. Pulsing molten as your nails dig into his scalp, body tensing with the viciousness of your release. Less unrelenting pleasure and more relief because when it rips through you, pulsing and throbbing like a heartbeat, a bellyache, there's a thread of pain woven in. Hewn against the clench of your muscles, the spasms that burst behind your navel.

Made worse when he doesn't stop—

Fingers pushing, shoving. Mouth sloppy against your cunt, grunting into your wet slit about how he can feel your pussy squeezing around him. S’tight, pup. Feels like you're tryin’ t’strangle my fingers, but he keeps forcing them into you, bullying through the vice-like clench to rub over your spasming flesh, merciless and cruel. Tongue laving over your clit, sucking it into his too hot, too sharp mouth. All jagged teeth, and—

Too much, too much—

Giving a messy, slurping suck, then ducking down to shove his tongue into you, sliding it between his spreading fingers, drinking down the thick, syrupy taste of you until it aches. Burns—

“S–Simon, please—can’t—”

He peels away with a grunt, ugly and bullish, and the relief is so sweet, you nearly weep. Whining in the back of your throat when he blows over your heated, swollen cunt. The tears spill when he leans over, rubbing his wet, sticky face into your inner thigh before opening his maw and sinking his teeth into your skin. Claiming. Branding.

It's different from the times before even though you know it's the same—same shape, same teeth, same spot. Something about it sits on your skin, digs into your flesh, differently than before. Less subtle. Less—

Restrained.

Carnivorous. Possessive. Even if the press of his jowls fits like it always has—a tattoo you'll keep for a few weeks before it heals; open wound, scab, shiny new skin. Ephemeral.

But maybe it doesn't have to be.

In the malformed face of this engineered, coerced epiphany, he stands in a fluid motion.

Your thigh slips down his shoulder before getting caught by hand, trapping it against his waist as he pushes against you, fingers locking in a bruising grip on the meat of your thigh.

Simon cages you between his body and the door. His other hand trails wet fingers over the column of your throat, wrapping around the vulnerable slope until the heat of his palm is pressed tight against your jugular. Holding firm.

Possessive.

It's a reflection of the look in his eyes as he gazes down at you, mouth wet. Pinked from heat, from the smothering clench of your thighs as he buried his face between them. The sight blisters. You want to taste yourself on his scars.

"want all o'you," he rumbles, timber low and fried. A brassy rasp that tickles your ears, and blooms fresh heat in your belly. Leaves scorch marks over your skin. "Get that, pup? All o' nothin'."

All or nothing.

Your legs are shaking. Natant. It feels like being eaten alive. Swallowed whole by the sea, dragged down, down—

“Got it,” you breathe when he gives a little shake of his hand. A pinching squeeze. Eyes on me, birdie. Don’t you ever fuckin’ look away. “All or—”

His mouth is on yours, stealing the words out from between your teeth. Half-formed, inbred. A hitching gasp, a quiver. He eats it whole.

And that’s how he kisses you, too:

but it's never really a kiss so much as it is being devoured. Eaten alive. The same way he gorges himself on you whenever he's between your thighs. Hunger. Famine. All consuming. Immutable want.

It’s in this kiss—sharing spit, sharing blood—(or this mockery of it) that the tendrils of his ravenous desire manifest, growing limbs. Teeth. Bites the hand that feeds it.

Hindsight blooms in the black clots of hypoxia, screaming this:

Tommy’s approval (and surefire lack thereof) doesn’t matter, has never mattered, because in Simon’s head, his family is dead. Died in a massacre some eighteen years ago. Living ghost—

(Ghost, is that what they call you?

Why are you so curious, pup? Wanna try screamin’ that out tonight instead, huh? Call me Ghost when I go’ my cock buried deep inside that pretty little cunt. Go on, then. Let’s give ‘er a go—)

—and out of that, the ashes, the blood on the cigarette-burned carpet, you were the one he reached for, grabbed onto. C’mon, pup, ain't gonna lose you too.

The you too in that has always been a mystery, the misshapen shape of a bad dream because the reality is that it’s impossible for you to remember, isn’t it?

And yet—

You have the most vivid memory of him pulling you into his arms, tucking your face into his chest. Breathe, birdie. Ain’t done with you yet.

Like now, when he slips his fingers over the curve of your asscheek, following the slick seam until his knuckle is pushing against your sore, tender hole, slipping inside with a groan that tickles along your tongue where it’s trapped tight between his teeth. Ain’t done. Two fingers, knuckle deep. Swallowing the whimper you make, canines digging into the soft give of your flesh until the kiss turns from loam—the salt-soaked, algae-like tang of your pussy on his lips—to iron. Blood.

(But really—

A little more between you never hurts.)

He holds you to his chest, smothering. Suffocating. Playing god, tempting death, with just a kiss. Eyes open. Staring at you.

And you:

Eyes open, staring back at him.

He sinks his fingers deeper, hooking them into your abused flesh until you whimper into his mouth, pulling away with a sharp cry. Don't and stop on your tongue, leaden, but he follows you, breaking them between his crooked teeth before they form.

“Come on, pup. Gimme one more.”

But it's never just one more with him. Never sated. Never full. He groans into the soft skin under your lip, nipping there when you drop your head back against the door, panting. Breathless. Dizzy. So full of him, you don't remember what it's like to be empty anymore.

“Simon, Simon, please, just—”

“Gonna gimme this pretty cunt instead, birdie?” Gonna ride your older brother, huh? Make ‘im cum inside you. He slips is other hand between your bodies, fingers dancing cruelly over your belly. Little circles. An oval. Some macabre pastiche of a heart. “Ain't safe,” he drawls, all bark, bite. “Could knock you up—”

All or nothing, you think suddenly, something whitehot burning behind your navel. Promise me that, pup. All or nothing, yeah?

Sometimes, he really makes you sick.

“What?” He taunts, breath rolling over your cheek as he digs his fingers into that spot inside that makes your knees turn liquid. The space below your hips melting. Natant. “Cat go’ your tongue o’ somethin’? Gone all quiet on me. Gonna make me think you don’t want me, pup.”

“Want you Simon,” you slur, dizzy. Delirious. As long as he keeps petting that place that makes everything sound a little fuzzy around the edges, that makes the space between your thighs feel syrupy with heat. Pleasure. “Want you so bad—”

“Then beg.”

It’s cruel. Mean. But even so—

You think of his hand on your foot, pinching the wound closed. Copper sutures. Jus’ like that pup. Jus’ me an’ you.

“Go on an’ beg your older brother not to knock you up.”

The words form, moulding on your lips. They taste of seawater when you flick your tongue across their shape; ichor and salt. Blood, maybe. You remember the adage, fill the rest in: thicker than water. It comes out like a plea in the back of your head.

You make it around please and Simon, before he bucks into you. Cock hard—a mallet. Battering ram. Inescapable.

“Oh, pup,” he coos, strumming against that dizzying spot until you clench tight, unravelling around his fingers. Awash in pure white. Fuzzy around the edges. Cotton in your ears—

Sinking deep below the surface. Back in mother’s arms

But it’s just his lips against your skin, teeth nipping at your cheek, mocking and mean. “Gonna have to beg me better ‘in tha’—”

Tommy will be so disappointed, is the passing the thought as he pulls you down, down.

The other—

But he's yours and that's all you've ever known. The rest just doesn't matter.

#at this point i have GOT to start paying ethel cain royalities before she comes for my ass :/#anyway listen to two children in a motel while reading this or whatever #dddne; incest #cw: incest

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