#the White City for the next half century

[edennill-archived]

The Eagle's song in the Return of the King is so crazy when you look at it from the perspective of the people of Minas Tirith because -- that's an Eagle of Manwë right there, and this is decidedly not a common happening, and they're Gondorians, the know what it is. Like.

If Minas Tirith was my city and I wasn't there at the time I would be so very mad.

[wheresarizona]

Learning to Live Part 35

summary: It’s your wedding night, and you’re finally alone with your husband in the privacy of your hotel suite. Not that you care much about privacy when things get hot and heavy on the balcony.

pairing: Javier Peña/f!reader

rating: E (18+!! No y/n, alternating POV, explicit smut, age gap (about ten years), two extremely horny newlyweds, Husband Javier Peña, dirty talk, oral sex (f + m receiving), vaginal fingering, unprotected p in v (wrap it up!), creampie(s), rough sex, loud balcony sex, exhibitionism, romantic bathtub sex, BREEDING KINK (so much), praise kink, marriage kink, love kink, ring kink, drinking, being buzzed, love confessions, body worship, body insecurity (and Javier making you feel better), cuteness aggression, relationship insecurity, romantic comedy, domestic bliss, Javier with kids, a new POV)

word count: 20k+

a/n: Hey! I hope you remember me. Lmao Let me just say the last six months have been literal hell, and my life is still in shambles. On a positive note, I’m no longer working 60-80 hours a week, and I now have time to write. A couple of notes about this chapter. It takes place in January of 1999. With inflation, $150 in 1999 would be $300 today. A big thanks to @devineconjuring for betaing! Also, thank you to @juletheghoul for checking out my Spanish. Thank you for reading!

Thank you for reading! Comments and reblogs feed me. I’d love to know what you thought!

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The San Agustín de Laredo Historic District, located downtown along the banks of the Rio Grande River, was where the original city of Laredo was established in 1755. The area had many buildings dating back to the 1800s, like the district’s namesake, San Agustín Cathedral—a place you were familiar with as it happened to be the church Chucho and many members of your new family attended and was where he married your mother-in-law some forty-plus years ago.

La Posada was the fanciest hotel in town since it offered room service and had valet parking. It was just down and across the old, narrow brick road from your family’s church. The tall, white bell tower could even be seen looming high in the sky from the hotel’s entrance.

The inn, opened in 1961, had its own rich history as it occupied the original high school building that was constructed back in 1916 and was surrounded by some 19th-century structures—one was a former convent, and another was the Capitol building for the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande. Most of the buildings in the area showed Spanish and Mexican influences, including the hotel, with its rounded arches at entryways and windows, thick stucco coating the outer walls, and many balconies, courtyards, columns, and elaborately carved doors.

Javi could’ve rented you a regular room at La Posada or even something at the Motel 6 off the highway, and you would’ve been happy as a clam. Your dear, sweet, wonderful husband, however, didn’t think either of those options was good enough for you and somehow managed to book the ever-elusive Presidential Suite; this was the room that a person with any kind of notoriety stayed in when they were passing through the Rio Grande Valley—think B-list celebrities, like Matthew McConaughey, or campaigning politicians.

Most of the hotel was only two stories high, but one stretch had a third level dedicated to a few luxury suites, including where you were staying. Through the double doors of your one-bedroom accommodations was a small entryway that led to the living room featuring a built-in bar—a shelf with a variety of liquors, a countertop with different kinds of glasses, and a cocktail shaker—a sitting area with an entertainment system, and French doors that opened to a private balcony that had views of Mexico across the river. There was a kitchenette, a four-person dining table, and a half bath. Through another set of double doors, the bedroom had a massive two-postered king-size bed, an en suite containing an oversized whirlpool tub, and a shower that could easily fit two people. Every room had beamed ceilings, the wall connected to another suite was made of brick, the color scheme of everything stuck to earthy tones that complemented the exposed beams and wooden furniture, and the art on the walls depicted beautiful river scenery.

No matter how many times you asked, your husband refused to reveal how much two nights in such splendor put him back.

And here you were in the bedroom, you and Javi stripped of your formal attire on the bed that he had the forethought to put a towel down on to keep things from getting too messy. You could not stop yourself from loudly moaning at how good it was; your husband had you in heaven with how he was filling you up, and you were finally at the point of feeling stuffed.

He was beside you, so close your bodies touched. “Yeah?” Javi purred. "You like that? You want more?"

You had to swallow before you could speak, shaking your head as you replied, “God, it’s so good, but I don’t want to get sick.”

“Okay, baby.” He kissed your cheek. “Relax while I clean up.”

Your husband carefully took the paper plate that you had practically licked clean of every crumb of wedding cake and the plastic fork you’d been using. Sitting crisscross on the mattress, you were dressed the same as Javier in nothing but a big, white, fluffy, hotel-provided bathrobe. On the towel in front of you were two more sets of dirtied plates and utensils from the leftovers the two of you ate, which Javi picked up as he got off the bed, heading out of the room to the small kitchen to dispose of them.

Earlier, when your husband revealed the surprise that you’d be staying in this suite for two nights, he told you all of the places in the room he planned to fuck you. From those promises, you imagined that he would toss you onto the bed upon arriving here and have his way with you. What actually happened was you got to the door, and Javi made you laugh when he lifted you over his shoulder like a caveman and carried you across the rented room’s threshold. He did throw you onto the big bed, where the two of you made out for some minutes. It just didn’t go any further because your sweetheart of a husband was aware you were hungry, and that made his biggest priority getting you comfortable and feeding you. So, the first thing he did was strip you out of your dress, the man unable to keep himself from taking a couple of minutes to admire the lacy thong you’d been wearing before he got you naked and had you join him in the shower. Aside from some groping and a little kissing, there was hardly any fooling around since he was so focused on taking care of you, which was sweet.

After that, Javi heated up some of the food from your wedding that the Murphys were kind enough to drop off prior to your arrival since they were staying at the same hotel, and the two of you had a little feast on the bed. Now you were nice and full, but not overly so that you felt sick, just enough that you were relaxed and a little sleepy—a food coma, if you will.

Many pillows were on the bed, and you moved some behind you to prop yourself up and lie back on. You grabbed your almost-empty complimentary bottle of water from the mattress beside you, unscrewed the cap, and took a drink.

“Cielito?” your husband called from the other room. “Do you want anything else to drink?”

The options included the bottle of champagne the hotel gifted you to celebrate your marriage, something from the living room bar, tap water, or the two of you could trek to the floor below to raid the vending machine in nothing but your robes and the slippers that were with them when you got there.

His question made you smile as you re-capped your water, stretching your arm to set the bottle on the bedside table. “No, babe,” you answered loud enough for him to hear. “I’m good—get back in here!”

He returned seconds later, his knees sinking into the mattress as he crawled onto it, smiling. Javi made his way over to you, and when he was at your left side, he wormed his arm behind your back, the other over your front to hold you close, his head nestled on your robe-covered chest. After getting comfortable, he sighed happily, closing his eyes with a little smile on his lips.

“Javi?”

“Yes, mi esposa (my wife)?”

The title made your spine tingle.

“God, I’ll never tire of you calling me that.”

“Good, ‘cause I’ll never tire of calling you it, my beautiful wife.” He quickly kissed over your heart, then rested his head on you again. “What were you gonna ask?”

“Oh, right. I know we should be having the dirtiest, nastiest sex known to man right now—” Javi snorted. “—but, since we just ate, are you cool with us hanging out for a little bit while the food digests?”

“Are you okay with cuddling, or am I hurting your stomach?” He lifted his arm off your belly.

“Cuddling sounds wonderful.” You lowered his arm back to where it was, resting your palm on his wrist.

“Okay.” He nuzzled you with his face. “Would you, uh, want to play with my hair…?”

“You can bet your cute little ass I do.” That made him chuckle. Your fingers pressed into his hair, playing with the soft strands and lightly scratching at his scalp, which earned you a noise from the back of his throat that came close to a purr.

“How was your day?” you asked.

“Fucking amazing. How about yours?”

“Fucking amazing, though talk about our bad sex luck—which reminds me, thank god your dad does his laundry on Saturdays. When we return the Mustang, I need you to distract him while I disinfect his laundry room.”

Javi groaned at the reminder of hearing his cousin and your best friend Robyn fucking in said room. “I don't wanna think about that.”

“And you think I do? I just don’t want our father coming across a condom wrapper, or god forbid a used condom, when he goes to do his chores. You know as well as I do that he’d tell his sisters, and it’d be the chisme (gossip) everyone is talking about Sunday at tía María’s.”

Your hand was still on his head, curling strands of his hair absentmindedly around your pointer finger.

“Los chismosos (The gossipers),” he grumbled. “Hold on, why do we care if he finds evidence someone fucked in there?”

“Um, because they’ll all assume it was us, and I do not feel like announcing to our entire family that I exclusively get rawed and creampied.”

“Why would you announce that…?”

“Do you want everyone to think we’re horny newlyweds who fucked in a laundry room because they couldn’t keep it in their pants until they got home?”

“We are horny newlyweds who couldn’t keep it in their pants until they got home. We almost did fuck in that laundry room.”

“Sure, except if we had, we wouldn’t have left behind any evidence. We’re not sloppy, thank you very much. I mean, I know a lot about Robyn’s sex life—like a lot—but I don’t know how discreet she is. So, we’ll need to make sure nothing was left behind.”

“I say, if they’re gonna be rude and leave shit behind, we just throw them under the bus…”

Your hand stopped moving in his hair.

“You mean the woman who convinced me to let you fuck my ass?” you asked. “The woman who’s held down the fort while you and I fooled around on my lunch countless times? The woman who covered while I got you off in an on-call room at the hospital? The woman who has had our backs so many times I’ve lost count? That’s the woman you wish to throw under a bus?”

There was a pause, and you heard him gulp.

“I’ll tell Pop that I think one of the Mustang’s tires is low on air,” he replied, “so he has to go with me outside while you take care of the crime scene.”

His response had you smiling. “Thank you,” you said, leaning forward to kiss his head.

You resumed playing with his hair.

“No need to thank me. You, uh, had some good points.”

“I know I did.”

“I haven’t had a chance to see your nails.” His hand moved to grab yours that’d been on his wrist, bringing it up to his face to look at your white-tipped fingernails. “Look at those, they’re fucking gorgeous.”

“Thank you. It’s a French manicure, and I thought they’d look really good with my dresses.”

“They’re perfect.” He kissed the back of your hand and continued holding it when his arm relaxed over your stomach again.

For a minute, it was quiet as you both lay there, your fingers slipping through the soft brown waves on his head in comfortable silence.

“Did I tell you what Olivia said before they left?” Javi asked.

“Um, I don’t think so?”

“She confused the fuck out of me—she thinks I play baseball.”

“What?”

“She gave me a pep talk…?” he said it like a question.

“A pep talk? About what?”

“Something about how she knows I secretly play baseball and that I shouldn’t be embarrassed I’m bad at it because I’ll get better the more I practice. To be honest, it was adorable, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I don’t play.”

“That is extremely random. Why would she think you play baseball?”

“I have no fucking clue. I’ve been thinking back on my conversations with her, and I don’t think we’ve ever talked about baseball.”

“Maybe she misremembered something or misunderstood something her parents said? No clue why Steve and Connie would be talking about you and baseball, though.”

“I don’t know, either. They’re both aware I’m a swimmer and played some soccer.”

“True. Who knows where Olivia got the idea.” You shrugged a shoulder.

“Yeah…”

“It’s gonna bother the fuck out of you until you figure it out, isn’t it?”

“A little.”

“We’ll ask Steve and Connie tomorrow at dinner, Detective Peña.” The Murphys were flying home the following evening, and the plan was to have an early dinner at the hotel restaurant before they left.

“Okay, Mrs. Detective Peña.”

“Oh my god!” you gasped. “I am Mrs. Detective Peña now!” you replied excitedly.

“Yes, you are.” The smile was evident in his voice. “You’re my wife.”

“Yes, I am, and you are my husband.”

“The best fucking thing anyone has called me.”

His response had you smiling.

It sometimes caught you off guard how much Javier loved you since the love you felt for him ran so deep that it consumed every fiber of your being. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could love you the same, not when your heart was more his than yours, yet Javi did. His devotion knew no bounds, and he saw you for everything you were and loved you despite it all—to him, you were perfection. No one would ever love you more, and you would never love anyone else more because he was yours, and you were his; fate, destiny, the writing in the stars led you to each other, and now your lives were so intertwined that his heart was your heart, his hands were your hands, his smile was your smile, he belonged to you as you belonged to him.

Enough time had passed for the food in your stomach to settle, and now you could acknowledge the want burning low in your belly, making your pussy drip with arousal. Something about how happy Javi was that he vowed to spend the rest of his existence with you was such a big turn-on that it was time for things to heat up so you could give him the sloppiest blow job to show your appreciation—except, you wanted it to be spicier than usual.

“My wonderful, perfect husband?”

“Yes, my wonderful, perfect wife?”

“You know what we should do right now?”

“Depends—has your food digested?”

“Yep.”

Javi jostled you as he moved his arm from under your back, rising up on it in order to meet your eyes, his plush lips smirking under his perfectly trimmed mustache. “In that case, have the dirtiest, nastiest sex known to man?” And it became evident you’d been together a while when he wiggled his eyebrows at you as you’d done to him many times before.

“You’re such a dork,” you giggled, playfully pushing his shoulder.

“That isn’t a no,” he pointed out.

“No, it’s not.” You shook your head. “But I was thinking we could get some fresh air out on the balcony.” It was your turn to wag your brows at him. Javi chuckled, giving you a big smile.

“Champagne?” he asked. “Or should I get out the salt and limes for tequila?”

“The room came with salt and limes…?”

“No—I brought the salt, limes, and our bottle of tequila from the apartment.”

He also brought you both overnight bags and somehow smuggled your toiletries out of his dad’s house–you’d taken them to Chucho’s the prior night when you stayed over, and you were pretty sure it was Connie who did the smuggling. She probably had Steve deliver your little bag with the food before he returned to their room, which Javi assured you was on the other side of the hotel and out of hearing range to your suite.

Your eyes rounded. “Because you knew I’d need liquid courage to fuck around outside?”

He gave you a look like the answer was obvious. “Yeah?”

“That is so unbelievably romantic. Horny, but romantic.” Grabbing a handful of his robe, you pulled him forward as you leaned toward him, slotting your lips with his, kissing him; he smelled like the floral rose petal-scented shampoo he used in the shower, and he tasted sweet from the bites of wedding cake you shared with him.

When you broke apart, you were both smiling.

“You get the goods,” you told him, “and I’ll meet you outside—I gotta pee really quick.”

“Okay,” he replied and pecked you on the nose.

The bathroom was on the other side of the room, which meant you had to go around the bed after you got off of it, Javi following you and smacking your ass. There wasn’t much of a smack with the thick robe in the way, but it still made you giggle. He headed for the bedroom door, and as you continued your journey to the en suite, something shiny on his bedside table caught your attention and made you frown.

“Babe?”

He hadn’t left the room yet, standing at the doorway.

“Yeah?”

“Does the gun have to hang out on your table, or can we put it in a drawer or something?” It was Chucho’s small revolver that he kept in the Mustang. Your husband didn’t want to risk it being stolen, so he brought it up to the room.

“Put it in the drawer.”

“Is it safe to touch…?” Unlike Javi, you did not have a lot of experience with firearms aside from treating many gunshot wounds when you worked in a big city emergency room.

“Would I ask you to touch it if it wasn’t safe?”

“No…”

“Exactly. The safety’s on.”

“That’s good,” you replied and moved closer. “I was worried about you shooting your cute little butt off when you shoved it in the back of your pants.” It was bewildering when he got out of the car and casually tucked the gun into the waistband of his slacks.

A huff of air left his nose. “Fifteen years with the DEA, and I never shot myself in the ass.”

Opening the drawer, the only thing in it was a bible. You carefully picked up the revolver by its grip with two fingers like an old, smelly sock and set it atop the book. “Yeah,” you replied, “‘cause you had the sexy tac-vest-thingy with the holster on the front.”

“I didn’t always wear a tac-vest...”

“What?” you replied, shutting the drawer and spinning around to face him. His fluffy, white robe reached down to mid-thigh on him, and it was tied closed, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the doorframe. “So, you’d wear a holster on your hip?” you asked.

You thought back to the pictures you’d seen of your husband in Colombia, trying to remember if he was wearing a holster in any of them.

His expression turned guilty. “No…”

The realization hit you. “A butt gun, Javier? You’d just walk around with a gun at your ass? That is not safe.”

One of his eyebrows rose. “The safety was on?”

“Okay? But even with the safety on, it’s still dangerous. I had so many people come through my ER because they didn’t properly holster their weapons. One dude had it in the front of his waistband, and when he went to pull it out, it accidentally discharged into his thigh and hit his femoral artery—dead on arrival.” Javi grimaced. “And don’t get me started on all of the butts I had to look at and treat because they carried like you and weren’t as lucky. Do you think I enjoy looking at strangers' butts?”

“I mean…”

“Us checking out bootylicious babes in San Antonio and Miami does not count, Javier. These butts I had to look at for work were mostly men’s butts, and I can tell you right now, they were not anywhere close to how cute yours is, and dear god, were a lot of them hairy—which, I am so thankful you are not a super hairy guy, and I really do appreciate that you trim your pubes.”

“It’s the least I can do.” He shrugged.

Your eyes lowered to his crotch, picturing what the white garment covered, your mouth watering at the thought of blowing him. Javi cleared his throat to get your attention, your eyes snapping up to his that sparkled in adoration.

“What were we talking about?” you asked.

Javi snorted. “You were getting on my ass about how I carry a gun.”

“Oh, yes—stop being dumb and protect what little ass you have.”

Javier was not going to reveal that there was a gun in the back of his waistband most of the time they went horseback riding.

“I’ll start using a holster,” he said. “But, if we’re going out on Pop’s land, you can’t complain if you see me carrying; I know guns make you uncomfortable, but our safety is more important.”

“Okay.” Her shoulders shrugged.

His eyebrows pulled together—he was expecting more resistance. “Really?”

“Yeah? You told me about all of the dangerous animals out there, and I’ll feel safer if you’re packing—that’s packing as in a gun on your person, not the big dick in your pants.” She winked at him, and Javier huffed in amusement.

“Thank you for the clarification. You’re taking this a lot better than I expected…”

She walked up to him with a grin and threw her arms around his neck, Javier immediately pulling her into him. “It’s marriage, baby,” she said. “We gotta compromise sometimes.”

“Yeah?” He smiled, his head moving forward to rub the tip of her nose with his. He whispered, “Does that mean you’ll let me teach you how to shoot?” Something she’s always refused.

“I don’t know—will it make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Then fine, you can teach me.”

He pulled back to look at her. “Really?”

“Yes, because I am an amazing wife who loves my husband dearly.”

He grinned. “You’re a fucking incredible wife whose husband loves you more than anything.”

Javier didn’t give her a chance to respond; his lips crushed into hers, kissing her tenderly, hoping she could feel how happy she made him.

She really was a fucking incredible wife.

When they parted, he gave her another smack on the ass and told her to hurry, his wife giggling as they went their separate ways.

The balcony was covered, with a beamed ceiling overhead and walls on either end to offer some semblance of privacy—the railing was made of wrought iron, the vertical bars twisting like vines into delicate loops and swirls. The only furniture out there was a wooden bistro table situated against the stucco-coated wall with two armless chairs on both sides facing the river. The outdoor light was too bright, and Javier thought it would bring too much attention to them, so he settled on what light filtered out from the living room through the French doors’ windows and the brightness of the moon in the clear sky, illuminating the space in a gentle glow.

He was sitting back in one of the chairs, his legs slightly spread and his arm resting on the table beside him. On the tabletop was the half-drunk bottle of tequila, ziplock bag of cut-up lime wedges, and salt shaker he brought from their apartment, along with a shot glass he grabbed from their rented room’s bar that he washed himself to ensure it was clean.

The night air was cool and a little crisp as he looked out toward the Rio Grande, where, in the distance, he could see the lights of Nuevo Laredo across the way in Mexico. For some unknown reason—maybe being outside or how emotional the day was—Javier was craving a cigarette; even after quitting almost two years ago, he still felt the itch for nicotine here and there, and he’d done pretty well not giving in to the temptation, mainly because there was someone in his life now who distracted him from it. The French doors opened, and immediately, his head was turning in their direction to see his wife coming out.

His beautiful distraction.

He couldn’t keep himself from smiling even if he tried. She looked so comfortable in her robe that matched his, her face lighting up when her eyes landed on him. Her expression took him back to the first time he saw that beaming smile after she handed him the perfect tomato: that was the moment she pulled him in and made him want to know more about the sweet woman who was easily excitable over fresh produce. It was like meeting the sun—bright, warm, happy, and he wanted to bask in her rays and see that smile every day for the rest of his life. Better yet, he wanted to be the reason for that smile, and now he was proud to say he was.

Only a couple of minutes had passed since the last time he saw her, and when she made it over to him, she asked, “Is this seat taken?” She nodded at his knee closest to her, and without waiting for his answer, she sat down on his thigh with her legs between his and her arms around his neck, Javier pulling her closer.

His head was tilted up to look at her, his hand reaching to cradle her face in his palm, staring her in the eyes, smiling.

“I’ve got something else you can sit on,” he said.

“Javier,” she gasped. Her fingers went to his forehead, brushing stray strands of his hair off of it. “I’m gonna need a shot first, maybe two—actually, two for sure, no more than three because, as we know, one shot, two shot, three shot, four-the-love-of-god-stop-crying.”

He chuckled. “Two shots then, pero, quiero que mi esposa me bese primero (but, I want my wife to kiss me first).”

“Cualquier cosa por mi esposo (Anything for my husband).”

Javier couldn’t get enough of her calling him that.

He pulled her down until their lips were a hair's breadth apart. “Dilo otra vez (Say it again),” he rasped.

“Cualquier cosa por mi esposo (Anything for my husband),” she whispered.

“¿Quién soy yo (Who am I)?”

“Mi esposo (My husband).”

“Sí, chingados que soy (Yes, I fucking am),” he growled, pressing his mouth to hers.

The kiss was anything but chaste with how Javier plunged his tongue between her perfect lips to tangle with hers. His heartbeat sped up, the blood pumping through his heated body and traveling to his hardening cock. He moved his hand from her face down to her bare knee, tracing his fingertips up under her robe over the soft skin of her thigh to her ass to squeeze a handful of it.

There wasn’t the same pent-up need like their kiss in the Mustang when he parked them in the field. This one was instead full of promise for their night ahead, making the anticipation swell that they could now take their time and truly enjoy each other since they already dealt with the sexual frustration of being cockblocked multiple times when they were frantic in the car.

Javier savored the feeling of her mouth on his, how their tongues intertwined, and the sweet taste of her lips. He savored her moans and her fingers combing up through the hair from the nape of his neck to the back of his head, where she clutched it tight in her fists; sparks danced along his spine and collected at the base of it, feeding the fire of his arousal that had him half-hard already and wanting to touch more of his wife’s body.

His wife. His beautiful, smart, sexy, amazing wife.

They kissed until they were breathless, both panting when they separated. He nibbled on her chin, his mouth blazing a path along the underside of her jaw until he was at the taut skin of her neck, nipping and kissing down the column of it.

“Oh, god,” she gasped when he sucked at her pulse point, and it made him smile. She lightly tugged his head back by the hair to make him look at her. “Shots.”

“Yeah?” He squeezed her ass.

“Fuck yes.”

“Okay, baby. Ladies first.”

He got his arm out from behind her back, his other hand leaving her ass as his upper body twisted slightly toward the table to grab the bottle of tequila, unscrewing the cap and pouring the liquor into the clear shot glass. Then he opened the bag of limes and picked up the salt shaker, his attention returning to her.

“Where do you want the salt?” Usually, a pinch was licked off the hand between the thumb and forefinger, but he had other ideas for his turn.

She worked open the tie on his robe and pushed it away to reveal his chest, his arm going back behind her again to give her room. “Here,” she said, bending her head to lave at his nipple with her tongue.

“Fuck,” Javier breathed, swallowing hard—it looked like she had the same idea.

While she sprinkled the salt on him, he took a lime wedge out of the bag and gently bit the rind, holding it between his teeth.

Cielito set the shaker down to grab the shot glass and raised it. “Fuck the leather, fuck the lace, here’s to the one who sits on your face!”

The only reason he didn’t laugh was because immediately after she spoke, her face dipped down to suck the salt off his nipple—the shock of pleasure had the muscles in his thighs tensing. She quickly drank the tequila, her face pinching at the burn before she bit the lime out of his mouth.

The glass was back on the table, his wife setting the remnants of the fruit she sucked the juice from next to it.

“Woo!” she exclaimed. “One down, one to go.” She untied her robe and opened it, Javier’s eyes lowering to her bare tits.

His hand moved on its own accord, skating his large palm up her stomach to fondle her breast. He could hear her say something but didn’t make out the words. Her smaller hand came into view, and the snapping of her fingers ended his trance—he looked up at her. “Sorry?” he said.

She smiled. “I asked where you want the salt.”

“I think you know where I want the salt.” His tongue swiped along his bottom lip at the thought of getting his mouth on her tits.

“That’s why the robe is open.” She winked. “My guess was boobies or neck, and I see you’ve chosen the boobies, a tit for tit.”

“Don’t you mean a ‘tit for tat’?”

“No.” She shook her head. “A tit for tit works better in this situation.”

“I am so in love with you.”

“Good, ‘cause I am so in love with you.”

He took her breast into his palm and leaned his head forward, sucking her stiff nipple into his mouth. Her breath caught in her throat, the fingers on one of her hands going into his hair. Javier came off of her with a wet pop, her skin shining with his saliva. He shook some salt onto her, then poured himself a shot as she got a lime wedge.

“I expect a good toast,” she said. “No, ‘salud.’ Give me something raunchy that you and your guy friends would say in college, or you and Steve in Colombia.”

His eyebrow lifted. “Something raunchy Steve would say? The guy who doesn’t like us kissing in front of his kids?”

“Okay, you know what. The moment I said Steve, I realized the raunchiest thing he’d say before you guys drank would be cheers or bottoms up if he was feeling a bit scandalous. There’s gotta be shit you and your friends in college would say, though.”

He picked up the tiny glass that looked even smaller in his hand compared to hers and took a moment to think about what he could say. He’d never been much into toasting, and in college, they usually drank to getting laid or winning a swim meet. There was something he overheard years ago, down in Colombia, that an American tourist said that stuck with him. He just had to remember the wording…

She had the lime ready for him between her teeth, and he lifted the shot. “Here’s to love, here’s to honor; if you can’t come in her, come on her!”

Cielito was doing her best not to laugh. He sucked the salt off of her breast and shot back the tequila, the mineral lessening the initial burn—it was smooth with a sweetness of flavors, picking up vanilla and caramel and a hint of something oaky that was washed away by the sourness of the lime when he bit into it. The glass went back onto the table, along with used rind.

He looked at his wife. “How was that?” he asked, his hand around her back, squeezing her hip.

“Very good. I loved the play on words.”

“How are you feeling?”

She smiled at him. “Fucking amazing. Ready for round two?”

Javier mirrored her expression. “Where do you want the salt?”

This time, she salted his neck, and when she raised the glass, she said, “To us: may all of our ups and downs be in bed!”

Once again, he didn’t have a chance to chuckle before her tongue was licking up the sensitive skin of his neck, his eyes closing at how good it felt. The alcohol was warm in his belly, and he knew it’d take one more shot before he felt any of its effects—his wife would be feeling it any minute now.

For his turn, he chose her neck as well—a ‘tit for tit.’ He lifted the shot glass, keeping his gaze on hers, another lime wedge in her mouth for him. “To my wife, who I love more than anything. You are my forever and have made me the happiest man in the entire fucking world. This isn’t the best day of my life—it’s only one of them because I know there are many more ahead of us. Te amo, mi Cielito (I love you, my Cielito).”

Her eyes were misty, and he went through the steps—lick, drink, suck—she leaned his way, and he closed the distance, his tongue licking up the salty trail on her throat before he drank the tequila, then sucked the lime from between her lips. The moment her mouth was empty, she said, “Javier, how dare you say something so sweet when my toasts were gross.”

He spit the rind out onto the table with the others, the glass going bottom-up beside them. His hand went to the back of her neck, pulling her toward him. “I meant it all,” he replied, smashing his lips to hers.

His mouth muffled her moan—taking advantage of her parted lips, he licked inside, tasting the lime and sweet hints of tequila, their tongues dancing together as they had countless times before. His free hand gravitated to her tits, roughly palming one, then the other, pinching and rolling each of her pebbled nipples with his fingers.

Javier loved her breathy sounds.

The alcohol’s warmth was spreading through his body, his dick hard and throbbing, barely covered by his robe. His wife gave as good as she got, and she made him groan when she freed his length and wrapped her fingers around him, slowly pumping him up and down.

It was starting to heat up, and there was a list of things he wanted to do, but first, he needed to ensure she was comfortable. He detached his lips from hers, kissing the edge of her mouth, his nose bumping into hers.

“You good?” he asked. “Or another shot?”

“I’m good,” you answered and kissed his plush lips.

The booze had you feeling warm and tamped down your nerves. You were good, you were more than good, your cunt weeping with your need for him.

With the way your husband had been obsessing about eating your pussy all night, you knew that was the first thing he’d want to do, and you were curious to find out what he planned—was he going to sit you in the chair and get on his knees for you? Bend you over the railing and eat you out from the back? Or put you in the position he had you in earlier when you were interrupted, with your back against the wall and him kneeling at your feet? It was honestly a toss-up on what he would choose. Luckily, he didn’t make you wait long.

Javi’s mouth broke away from yours, grabbing your hand that was on him, ordering you, “Up.” You didn’t waste any time, rising to stand in front of him. He grunted as he got up with you, the seat creaking from his movements; he was so close to you that your bodies touched, your palm still in his—he tugged it to make you face him and have you chest to chest.

His eyes were dark with lust when they met yours. “I fucking need you,” he rasped, and suddenly those big mitts of his were framing your face, his lips finding yours. This kiss was fervent, urgent, his need evident as he turned you away from the table and backed you up into the wall beside the chair.

From how passionately he claimed your lips, it seemed his words had a double meaning: he needed you physically at this moment and needed you always in his life. He needed you in every way there was, and wasn’t it the same for you with him? You needed him in every way there was, too. Not only that, but you weren’t sure you’d be able to breathe without him; would your heartbeat cease without him? These were questions you never wanted to learn the answers to.

With your robed back pressed to the stucco wall, it was apparent he wanted to finish what he started earlier, and you were happy to oblige. The glow from the lights in the living room trickling out through the French doors’s windows, along with the moonlight, softly lit the balcony. Thankfully, it wasn’t bright enough for anyone to make out what was going on if they happened to look, and that, added with the tequila, eased any worries you had.

Your robe was untied, Javi shoving it open to reveal your entire naked front, the cool air causing goosebumps to prickle on your warm skin, your nipples to tighten. He kissed you hard one last time and then began his journey down your body. Earlier, when you arrived at the room, your husband was so focused on taking care of you that he didn’t get a chance to take his time to admire your bare figure—something you could tell he wanted to do badly when he was undressing you. Now, he could, the man worshiping you with his lips and hands, kissing and touching every bit of flesh he came into contact with; his palms mapped out your belly and hips, his mouth trailing down your neck to your chest, Javier whispering into your skin as he went, “You’re beautiful… you’re so fucking beautiful… I’m so lucky… fuck, I love you.”

He took your breasts into his hands, his head lowering to suck one of your pebbled buds into his mouth. The pleasure had you gasping and needing to touch him, your palms sliding under his robe to hold onto his waist. His teeth grazed over your stiff peak before he lightly bit it and tugged, making you loudly moan his name; he let it go and moved to the other, enveloping it in the warmth of his mouth, giving it the same attention.

Arousal was coating your inner thighs, the anticipation welling up inside of you—you wanted Javi’s face buried in your pussy as much as he wanted to do it.

Once he gave your tits an ample amount of attention, leaving your nipples and the skin around them glossy with spit, he continued making his way down the front of your body. As he lowered, so did his lips, his kisses all over your stomach imbued with his words of love. “So beautiful… I can’t wait to see you pregnant… you’re gonna look so good with my baby inside you… I love you so fucking much… you make me so happy.”

Even after all this time you’ve been together with Javi, it was still hard to accept that he truly found you beautiful. You knew he meant everything he said, but there were parts of your body you hated, parts that you could still recall word-for-word the negative comments your mother made about them, parts that were far from perfect that you couldn’t believe anyone would ever love. Except, there was someone who did love them—Javi. He genuinely loved every part of you, and he loved them all so reverently and with such conviction—like if he loved them enough, you would, too.

Maybe that would happen; maybe he’d help you break through the years of insecurity, and you would learn to love your imperfections—only time would tell. For now, you were finally to a point where you believed your husband when he told you how beautiful you were, and with his excitement over eventually seeing you pregnant, he’d helped calm your fears about the changes your body would go through.

He kneeled in front of you, grabbing handfuls of your ass while he placed a kiss on your mound. He put your leg over his shoulder to open you up, his fingers spreading apart your lower lips where you knew he could see how wet you were for him.

“Finally,” he whispered, and that was all the warning you got before Javi dove in face first, the flat of his tongue licking up your slit. He had you biting your lip and curling your fingers into the soft strands of his hair, making you keen when he started lapping at your perky little clit.

“Oh, god,” you breathed.

No one ate pussy like Javier—it was like he was starving for it, the rumbling groans he made as he dragged his mouth all over your cunt, wanting to taste every bit of your essence while inhaling your musk. His words vibrated against your cunt, “You taste so fucking good.”

“You’re too good at this,” you panted. The back of your head hit the wall, your eyes closing, moans falling unbidden from your lips as the first signs of your orgasm took shape low in your belly. “I’m so lucky,” you continued. “I can’t fucking believe I get this for the rest of my life.”

For only a second, he paused. “Any time you want it,” he roughly replied. “Fucking love this pussy.” He then sucked on his ring and middle fingers to soak them in saliva. You whined his name when he pushed them into your sopping cunt. There was a slight stretch, Javi putting his mouth back to work, licking and sucking at your sensitive skin. His come—still inside you from earlier in the Mustang—and your arousal had his thick digits moving easily in and out of you, your hips grinding against his face and hand.

“Just like that,” you said. “Oh, god, don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

Your limbs were beginning to tremble as the pleasure built inside of you, and you cried out as his fingertips rubbed that one spot only he could find—that only seemed to encourage him. He growled into your pussy and doubled down, hitting nirvana every time he pumped his fingers, his mouth focusing on your clit, alternating between sucking it between his lips and flicking his tongue along it side to side, over and over again.

“Oh my fucking god, I love you,” you told him in your blissful haze. “I fucking love you, Javier Peña.”

He hummed something that sounded a lot like, “I love you, too.”

The muscles in your stomach started tightening, the liquor in your system keeping you relaxed as you stood there on the balcony with your tits out, getting your pussy eaten by your new husband. It didn’t take much more to have you cresting, euphoria exploding out from your core as you came, gasping Javi’s name. He loudly groaned, saying, with his face in your cunt, “Good girl.” He replaced his fingers with his tongue, licking up your come and what remained of his inside you while you rode out your high.

Your body went lax, and you slumped; your heart was pounding in your chest, your breaths panting from your lungs. When Javi got his fill, he carefully removed your leg from his shoulder and rose back up onto his feet with a pained sound from his achy knees. He gently kissed your chin, then one side of your mouth, and the other—his lips were wet, and you could smell yourself on him. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close, his hard cock pressing into your belly. This was when his mouth met yours to properly kiss you, tasting yourself on his lips and tongue, hugging him in return, the skin on his back warm under your palms.

Between the tequila and orgasm, you felt amazing, and you wanted your husband to feel the same. You ended the kiss, your hands moving to hold his face as you looked at him—his eyes were closed, his mustache and lower half of his face glistening with your juices, a happy little smile on his lips. He looked so unbelievably adorable that you gave in to the impulse and squished his cheeks to the point his shiny lips pursed—it made you grin.

“You are so fucking cute,” you said. “Even when you look like a goldfish, you’re a capital C, Ca-Utie. Ugh, it’s illegal how goddamn adorable you are.”

His eyes opened. “You done?” he asked, sounding a little funny.

“Obsessing about how cute you are? Never. Like, you’re so cute.” A thought caught you off guard that had your eyes widening, the alcohol in your system amplifying the doubts. “You’re too cute,” you whispered. Letting go of his face, you continued, “Why would you want to be with someone like me? Do you like me?” you asked. “As more than a friend? Like, romantically?” You chewed on your lip.

His eyebrows pulled together, and he squinted, clearly confused. “I married you…” he said slowly.

“Yeah, but did you marry me because you love me or because we’re best friends?”

“Am I married to Steve…?”

“No, but he was already married when you met, and polygamy is illegal.”

“Cielito, mi amor, I married you because I love you, and you’re wearing the proof of that on your finger.”

“Friendship rings exist.”

“I sure as fuck didn’t give Steve my mother’s ring because we’re friends. I love you as more than a friend—wait.” His eyes rounded. Quietly, he asked, “Do you love me as just a friend or more than a friend?”

“How can you ask me that? I definitely love you as more than a friend!”

“You asked me first, and it fucked with my head!”

“I’m sorry, I needed to double-check.”

“I needed to double-check, too.”

“Well, I love you so much that I want to have your babies—” You poked him in the chest. “—and I can tell you right now, I don’t want to have Robyn’s babies. I mean, unless it was like a surrogate situation.”

That made him smile, his hands rubbing up and down your covered arms. “I want you to have my babies, too.”

“Then that settles it. We love each other as more than friends, but you’re still my best friend.”

“You’re still my best friend.”

“I won’t tell Steve.”

“I won’t tell Robyn.”

He leaned in to kiss you sweetly, the two of you smiling when you broke apart.

“Javi?”

“Yes, Cielito?”

“We’re a couple of dumbasses.”

An amused breath left him. “It’s a good thing we married each other, then.”

“True. Dumbasses need to stick together. Now,” you gripped the open edges of his robe and turned you both, pressing him back into the wall hard enough that he grunted. “It’s time for me to blow your popsicle, Mr. Peña.” Something you said you wanted to do earlier, but he told you could happen later.

“Mi cuerpo es tu cuerpo, Mrs. Peña (My body is your body, Mrs. Peña). You can do any-fucking-thing you want to me.”

You grinned. “I love when you tell me that.” You leaned in to give him one last lingering kiss.

It was your turn to make him feel good, and you began by kissing down his body, starting at his jaw and moving lower and lower, down his gorgeous neck, his chest, his soft belly, crouching when you made it to the happy trail of hair below his belly button that you followed until you were face to face with his hard cock. It looked even better than you imagined earlier–long, thick, and with that slight curve that felt so fucking good when he was inside you, the tip flushed and shiny with precum. The tile beneath you was unforgiving when you kneeled on it, raising your arms above your head to drag your fingernails down his stomach and through the curls, Javi’s head falling back against the wall with a soft moan.

You spat in the palm of your dominant hand, wrapping your fingers around his shaft—it was hot and hard, Javi twitching in your grip as you started languidly pumping him.

Looking up at your husband through your lashes, you said, “Hey, babe?”

His face tilted down at you.

“Yes, mi amor?”

“What do you call a nurse with dirty knees?”

His eyebrows pulled together. “What?”

“A head nurse.”

He went from chuckling to groaning loudly when the flat of your tongue licked up his length from root to tip, swirling it around the sensitive edges at the head. You reveled in how his eyes squeezed shut, and his mouth fell open, loving the salty tang of his precum as you took him into your mouth, continuing to stroke what didn’t fit. His big hands found their home in your hair, moving with your bobbing head as you hollowed your cheeks, taking more and more of him until he was hitting the back of your throat.

His rough voice came from above, “That’s it, baby—it feels so fucking good.”

That only egged you on. It could be said that you were an expert at blowing your husband. You knew all the things that made him tick and what would really get him going, like when your head rose off of him, gathering a wad of saliva on your tongue that you let drip onto the tip of him.

“Yes,” he gasped. “Spit on it.”

More saliva fell, slicking up the movements of your hand stroking him. You ducked your head, sucking one of his balls into your mouth.

His fingers tightened in your hair. “Fuck,” he groaned, and the way he said that word had your cunt clenching. You tongued at the thin skin of his sack, then gently sucked his other ball, your palm on his dick twisting on every upstroke to slide along the underside of the head.

The muscles in his thighs were tensed as you licked up his shaft to take him back into your mouth. His hips just barely rocked as his dick slid further and further along your palate until you were swallowing around him, his cock sliding into the tight space of your throat. Your nose pressed into the neatly trimmed curls at the base of him, smelling the soap he washed with in the shower.

“Christ, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he rasped. Tears collected in the corners of your eyes as saliva dripped down his length, your hands clutching his thighs. You looked up, meeting his dark gaze, seeing the clear love and desire he had for you. “So pretty with my dick down your throat.” His palm caressed your cheek. “That’s my good girl making me feel so fucking good—fuck, I love you.”

This was why you genuinely loved giving Javi head—he was always so vocal, and when he praised you, it made you drip for him. Arousal was hot in your belly. It always turned you on to hear and see the effect you were having on him. You swallowed around his thick cock, causing your throat to squeeze him—his body shivered, and you watched it travel down from his shoulders to his hips.

“Shit,” he moaned.

The glow of the moon and what light reached the balcony from the living room softly illuminated the man above you, and you couldn’t think of a prettier sight than your husband struggling to keep from coming, as he was right then. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he looked at you with pleading eyes. “I don’t wanna come like this.” The words came out scratchy like sandpaper. “Can I fuck you? Please, Cielito?”

He didn’t need to ask twice. Immediately, you came off of him, strings of spit and precum keeping you connected. Staring up at him under your eyelashes, you answered hoarsely, “Yes. Fuck me, Papí.”

That had Javi helping you stand. When you were finally up on your feet, his large hands framed your face as he kissed you hard. He didn’t care that your chin was wet with spit or your cheeks had tear marks; he kissed you as if his life depended on it and slowly started walking you backward toward the railing.

He spoke between kisses, his mouth pressed to yours, muffling his words, “Estoy tan feliz de que seas mi esposa (I’m so happy that you are my wife)… Estoy tan feliz de poder pasar el resto de mi vida contigo (I’m so happy I get to spend the rest of my life with you)... Estoy tan feliz de que algún día seas la madre de mis hijos (I’m so happy that one day you will be the mother of my children)... Este es el día más feliz de mi vida (This is the happiest day of my life).”

Suddenly, your husband spun you, his palm smoothing up the cotton covering your back to signal you to bend toward the railing. The top of it reached the middle of your ribs, so you weren’t bent at the waist—you were leaning onto it, crossing your arms atop the metal, and popping out your ass with a widened stance to give him more room. He gripped your hips and pressed his throbbing cock into your backside. Javi leaned into you. “Feel how hard I am? That’s all you, my beautiful wife.”

Arousal swirled in your belly, the beat of your heart pulsing between your legs.

You turned your head, looking at him behind you. “You should feel how wet I am. It’s all you, my handsome husband,” you replied, wiggling your butt.

He smiled and kissed your shoulder blade. “I love you so fucking much.”

“I love you, too.”

It seemed he had enough talking. Javi straightened himself and flipped up the bottom of your robe to bare you, the cool air chilling the wetness at the crux of your thighs. He grunted as he crouched down behind you, squeezing handfuls of your ass. His teeth lightly sank into the meat of your inner thigh for only a moment, and it was like dousing gasoline on the flames in your core.

His hands spread open your asscheeks. “So fucking pretty,” he purred. A second later, a rumbling groan came from his throat as he licked up through your slit from your clit to your entrance before spitting on the skin between your two holes—you felt the warm wad of saliva dripping down to your already-soaked opening.

He smacked your ass, the cheek jiggling as he rose back up on his feet. “You gotta keep quiet, baby,” he whispered. One of his hands held your waist while the other slid his dick through your arousal and his spit to wet himself. He bent at the waist to rasp into your ear, “Don’t wanna draw attention to us—unless you want everyone to know how good your husband fucks you.” He squeezed your hip as he notched the fat head of his cock at your entrance.

Your robe was open, your nipples tingling when a breeze hit your bare skin. The alcohol made you brave as you looked at him over your shoulder again with a smile, your hand going up behind you to touch his smooth cheek.

“I want the entire world to know how good my husband fucks me. Give it to me, Papí.”

A shiver moved down Javier’s spine, his cock jerking in his hand.

This woman was going to be the death of him.

“Scream for me, baby,” he replied, turning his head to kiss the center of her palm.

He started pressing himself into the tight clutch of her pussy, her inner walls hugging his thick length as he fed it inside her inch by inch—her arm fell back onto the railing, and they both moaned, Javier’s eyes closing, his jaw going slack at how good she felt around him, all hot and wet. His hips met the softness of her ass, and he looked down to watch as he slowly pulled out, his dick glistening under what little light there was.

“I love how wet you get for me,” he said. “All nice and soaked for your husband.”

He couldn’t get enough of being called that: her husband.

The quickie in the car scratched the itch; still, Javier had been looking forward all-fucking-day to the moment when he got to take his time and properly fuck his wife. Gripping her waist, he pushed back in, Cielito’s head falling onto the cushion of her arms with a breathy “Yes” that riled him up. She wanted everyone to know how good her husband fucks her, and he was more than happy to oblige.

He started moving in and out of her, keeping most of himself inside for her to feel every ridge and pulsing vein as he reacquainted her cunt with the familiar shape of him.

“It’s so good,” she moaned. “You feel so good.”

“Yeah? I’ve got you, hermosa (beautiful).”

He could make it feel even better—this was a position where she wanted him to be rough, where she wanted him to fuck her until she was cock dumb and her legs shook.

He began increasing the momentum of his hips, slickly sliding halfway out and back into her over and over again until he was railing into her with hard, even strokes that stuttered her loud moans. Javier grunted with each thrust, their skin clapping where it met. With how the balcony had walls on three sides, the sounds echoed off the stucco.

Fuck, he loved being inside her. There was nothing better than feeling the squeeze of her pussy around him. He did love her going down on him a little bit ago, and earlier, when she gave him a hand job after their marriage ceremony, he loved that, too. He also loved the occasions when she’d let him fuck her ass—Javier loved anything she wanted to do with him. But if he had to choose a favorite, it’d be a variation of what they were doing right now.

“You like this?” he mumbled between grunts. “Is it good?”

Several seconds passed with no answer, and there was no hiding his smirk. He slid a palm up the path of her spine to firmly grasp the back of her neck, his other hand going to her front, roughly fondling her breast. He kept up the punishing pace of his hips.

“Am I fucking you good, mi amor?” he tried again a little louder.

Her head lifted, turning her attention to him behind her. Even in such dim conditions, he could see her eyes were heavy-lidded and glazed over. There was a scrunch between her eyebrows, and her mouth was slightly agape—she was absolutely wrecked. She finally answered, repeating, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Pride swelled inside him. “You like how your husband fucks you?”

“Yes! God, yes!” she cried.

Her words had sparks igniting at the base of his spine, making his cock twitch. His fingers plucked at her nipple, rolling the stiff bud. It’d be hard for anyone down below to fully make out what they were doing, but there was no masking the noise—the filthy repetitive slap of skin hitting skin, his rough grunts, and her whining moans that filled the air gave them away.

They were usually much more courteous to their neighbors when it came to their volume. His wife always found it embarrassing when Mrs. Hernandez banged on the wall between their apartments or the people upstairs stomped on the floor to tell them to quiet down. It had to be the tequila—the liquid courage—that had her acting so brazen tonight, and he loved it.

“Are you gonna come for me?” he asked.

“Yes! Don’t stop!” She started chanting over and over again, “Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Don’t stop—”

He followed her orders, continuing to pound into her at the same speed, his fingers tweaking her nipple. Beads of sweat were forming on his brow and the small of his back, his gaze locked on hers—she was so gorgeous.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Cielito,” he told her. “So fucking beautiful taking it like my good girl.”

Her eyes squeezed shut, and she loudly whined his name into the night. Her cunt was fluttering around him, her entire body quaking. She laid her head back onto her arms, and that told him she was almost to the finish line.

“Come for me, mi amor,” he said. “Let me have it.”

He’d follow soon after he. His orgasm had been slowly building inside him, feeling the pressure rising deep in his guts with every passing second. He was thankful they fucked in the car because there was no way in hell he would’ve been able to last this long if they hadn’t fooled around beforehand.

Javier loved every second of this, the thrill amplifying his pleasure. The thrill was the reason he enjoyed fucking in places he shouldn’t. He craved the adrenaline, something he experienced regularly in Colombia. But now, instead of possibly dying to feel that rush, he just had to try not to get caught.

It wasn’t much longer before they reached a crescendo. She let out an unintelligible cry, all of the muscles in her body pulling taut, choking his dick hard enough to stutter his rhythm—he sucked in a breath through bared teeth, willing himself not to come while he continued fucking her through her high, drawing it out.

It happened fast. Her legs went wobbly like a newborn calf’s. “Shit,” Javier breathed, quickly getting his arm around her middle and the other across her chest. “Don’t fall, baby,” he grunted, hauling her up against his body to prevent her from doing as much. It was his strength that kept her standing and walked her forward, pinning her by the hips to the railing.

By some miracle, his cock stayed inside her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “My legs feel like jello.”

He carefully pulled the robe off one of her shoulders to lightly kiss the side of her neck, her skin prickling with goosebumps. “Don’t apologize,” was his muffled reply. “Means your husband fucked you good.” His lips made a journey to her ear. “Do you wanna stop?” he whispered. “Or can I keep going?”

She reached up behind her, combing her fingers into his sweat-damp hair. “Mmm, definitely keep going.”

Javier smiled. “Yeah?” He kissed that one sensitive spot behind her ear—she hummed happily. “I wanna look at you,” he said. “Can I turn you?”

“Of course. Just help me, please. I don’t trust my legs.”

He chuckled. “I’ve got you.”

He slipped out of her, the back of her robe falling into place. Her legs were still shaking as he helped her face him, pressing her into the railing again. They locked eyes, and both smiled. His hands reached to hold her perfect face while her arms went around his neck, her fingers pushing into the brown waves at the back of his head.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.” His thumbs stroked over the apples of her cheeks. “There you are. My beautiful wife.”

Before she could respond, he closed the gap between their lips, hers petal soft and slotting together with his perfectly. He wanted to kiss her slowly. He wanted to savor this moment, take his time, but she made this delicious little noise that broke his resolve, and he wanted nothing more than to hear it again. It made him greedy. Not only did he want that noise, he wanted her moans and her sighs. He wanted to hear her mouth caress the syllables of his name and cry it out when he brought her to the brink of ecstasy.

The kiss turned hungry and passionate, both of them ravenous. When that sweet sound met his ears again, it spurred him on. He was still hard and aching to come. Unable to wait any longer, Javier reached down to hook her thigh onto his hip, then guided his length back into her pussy. The moment his cock breached her tight opening, he moaned into her mouth, his head going dizzy at how good it felt.

He started slowly thrusting, his lips breaking away to nip at her chin. “Can I make you come again?” he breathily asked. “Please?”

Her fingers were still tangled in his hair, and she pulled on it to get his attention. “Is that what you need, baby? You wanna feel me come around your dick? You wanna watch your wife come?”

Javier whimpered—his eyes squeezed shut, and his cock pulsed inside her. He wanted to watch, he wanted to feel and hear her come, taste her tongue on his, and smell the sex on her skin. She already occupied his every thought, and he wanted her to take over his senses, too. Take over his entire world until she was all that existed.

He continued moving his hips, his dick sliding easily with how wet it was between her legs.

Javier looked at her, his tongue wetting his bottom lip. “Yes,” he answered. “Can I?”

Her palm pressed to his cheek, and he leaned into the touch. “Yes, Javi.” This time, she was the one who crushed her mouth to his before he could utter another word, her fingers threading into his hair. Her tongue pushed past his lips, and he groaned, the kiss turning messy.

He was still so worked up that it wasn’t going to take a lot to get him off. Javier increased his pace, going harder and faster. There was an audible wetness where they were joined, and he could hear himself working in and out of her used cunt, her arousal dripping down his shaft and balls.

This was what he wanted. To be able to kiss her. To see her and watch her fall apart. He had one hand gripping her leg at his waist, keeping it up, and snaked his other between their bodies, sliding it down her stomach to the apex of her thighs to rub her clit. He swallowed her moan, her fingers tightening in his thick strands of hair. His lips broke away from hers, Javier ducking his head, spreading sloppy kisses along her collarbone, on her shoulder, and up her neck. With her robe open and off her shoulder, it gave him a canvas of bared skin for his mouth to map out.

“Tell me when you’re close,” he murmured against her throat. “Can you do that for me?”

He was doing everything in his power to hold off his own end so she could take him with her. The muscles in his belly were knotted up, his heart pounding in his chest. His cock was throbbing almost uncomfortably with his need to come.

“Yes.”

“Good girl.” Javier sucked on her earlobe, then returned his attention to her neck and shoulder, kissing and biting the skin. His voice was muffled as he rambled, “I’m gonna make you come, and when I do—fuck—when I do, I’m going with you.” He was circling her clit, giving her the friction she needed. “I'll fill you up, and you’re gonna stay full. I fucking meant it when I said I’m gonna keep you stuffed full of me.” He was panting hot breaths as he kissed her, getting himself worked up with what he was saying. “I can promise you—shit—I can promise you, I am going to get you pregnant. I am going to knock you up.” He swallowed hard, his hips continuing to fuck into her. “You’re gonna have my baby. I’m gonna make sure of it.”

They were pretty sure her actual shot at getting pregnant was the week prior. But since they weren’t 100% positive, they didn’t want to miss their chance, and that possibility made the shit they said while fucking even hotter.

“Please,” she moaned. “Put a baby in me. Please. I want it. Fill me up, Papí.”

“Jesus Christ,” he groaned. “You can have it—fuck—you can have any-fucking-thing you want. I’ll fuck a baby into you.”

He tucked his face in the crook of her neck, breathing heavily through gritted teeth. It was taking most of his focus to keep himself from blowing his load.

“I’m close, Javi!” Cielito whined. “Oh, god, I’m gonna come!”

The excitement caused his rhythm to falter for a split second. “Shit,” Javier hissed. He quickly got back into tempo, his head lifting to look at his wife. Her eyes were closed, her forehead shining with perspiration, moans spilling from her rounded lips. His fingers kept strumming her clit, and his other hand gently grasped her jaw.

“Look at me,” he panted. “Open your eyes, Cielito. Let me see you.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, and he was met with hooded lust-blown eyes.

“Javi,” she gasped. Her fingers were clenched in his hair. “I’m gonna come, Javi.”

“I know, baby. I know. Come for me. Take me with you.”

She was quivering as his hips swung hard and fast into her. Javier watched as each stroke took her higher and higher, his gaze never leaving hers. After half a dozen more thrusts, she finally told him, “I’m coming.” Her eyes squeezed shut, moaning as she peaked; her body seized up, her pussy clamping down on him.

That was it for Javier.

A strangled noise left his throat as his balls drew up, pushing himself all the way to the root inside her. Pleasure erupted from his core, his dick pulsing, painting her insides with rope after rope of his come. He rolled his hips, fucking his spend as deep as it would go. The primal part of his brain making him ignore how sensitive his cock was in order to fill the depths of her cunt.

When every last drop was wrung out of him, he stopped moving, and his body became boneless. He slumped into his wife, but not before wrapping his arms around her and burying his face back into the crook of her neck. All thoughts had left his brain, the man blissed out, basking in her warmth and the familiar scent of her skin. And then she did his favorite thing and started playing with his sweaty hair. He sighed happily, nuzzling his face closer to her like he was trying to burrow himself under her skin.

This. This was the closest thing to heaven on earth. This was his heaven. She was his heaven.

Javier grew up going to church with his parents, and his interpretation of what he read and heard was that if there were a heaven, it wouldn’t be a physical place. There were no pearly gates or St. Peter waiting to greet you. Instead, it was a state of being where there was complete fulfillment and nothing but absolute happiness. How fucking lucky was he that he found that in life?

He stood there, his body pressed into her softer one, as the beat of their hearts slowed and their breaths evened out. There was a low rumble of cars driving on nearby roads and unseen crickets chirping in the distance.

It took a few minutes before either of them spoke.

“Javi?” she croaked.

He kissed the side of her neck. “Yes, baby?”

“I’m ready to go inside.”

He straightened to his full height to see her face. “Okay, mi amor.” He pecked her on the lips, rubbing his hands up and down her robed arms. “Can you walk?”

Her eyebrow rose. “Can I walk? Mr. I’m-going-to-make-you-come-so-many-times-you’re-gonna-need-a-wheelchair.”

Javier tried not to smile and failed, his hands pausing. “A wheelchair?”

“Yes, a wheelchair. Because my husband loves to fuck me to the point I can’t walk.” She wasn’t wrong, and it made his chest puff up. “Should’ve brought one home from work a long time ago.”

“You don’t need a wheelchair, baby.” He gently squeezed her biceps. “I did it, and I’ll get you where you need to go. Does a bath sound good? Or do you wanna get into bed? We could also watch TV on the couch—order a pay-per-view movie.”

Her lips lifted into a knowing smile. “Pay-per-view movie, huh? Like, porn? Javi, when you stay in hotels by yourself, do you order pay-per-view porn? You can be honest with me. I’m your wife.”

He scratched at the back of his neck. “I mean, not every time… what about you? You can be honest with me. I’m your husband.”

“A time or two, out of curiosity.”

He smiled. “Out of curiosity, huh?” His voice went a little deeper. “Did you touch yourself while watching…?”

“What do you think?”

Javier grabbed her hips. He leaned in to hover his mouth over hers, nuzzling her nose with his. “I think,” he rasped, “you played with your pretty pussy while watching. Did you get yourself off with your fingers?”

“Vibrator. You know I don’t like playing acoustic pussy unless I have to.”

“You like my fingers.”

“Because you’re sexy and an acoustic pussy maestro.” She brushed his lips with hers. “It’s your turn to choose,” she said. “Bath, bed, or couch, Mr. Peña?”

“Bath sounds nice.”

“Bath sounds wonderful.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do, Mrs. Peña.” He ended the sentence with a kiss, something slow and tender. They broke apart, smiling. “Let’s go, Cielito.”

The rectangular whirlpool tub was massive enough that your husband could sit across from you with his long legs fully extended while yours rested over his. Javi’s cheeks and chest were painted with a pink flush from the bath’s heat, his broad shoulders dotted with a constellation of freckles. Your bodies were submerged in the hot water, covered from your shoulders down, the bathtub’s jets rumbling as they massaged your backs. It was relaxing, the warmth of the water and the pressure of the spray along your spine easing all of the tension from your body.

To continue the celebration of your nuptials, your husband brought the complimentary bottle of champagne into the bathtub with you. He popped it open and poured you each a glass, the two of you toasting to your marriage and the start of your family before drinking and chatting, laughter quickly filling the room. The bottle was over halfway empty, and you both were buzzed.

“You’re fucking with me,” he said with a grin. His arm was resting on the edge of the tub, holding his flute of bubbly. The man always had to be touching you, his other palm under the water rubbing up and down your calf, but it paused when he spoke.

Your smile got bigger. “I’m not!” you laughed. Your champagne was sitting on the bathtub’s rim, your fingers fiddling with the stem of the glass. “When I graduated nursing school,” you said, “I was trying to figure out what I wanted to specialize in. So, I did a rotation in labor and delivery, and I had this mother in labor who needed a C-section. Like, it’d been hours with zero progress, and the doctor called it. She told the couple, and I quote, ‘This baby has to come out the other way.’ I shit you not, after the doctor left, the father looked at me and asked, ‘They’re gonna pull the baby out of her butt?’”

He huffed amusedly, his head shaking in disbelief. “Jesus.” He took a sip of his drink and set it back down.

“It was so hard not to laugh,” you said. “Surprisingly, not the dumbest or wildest thing anyone has ever said to me at work.”

His expression turned curious. “What’s the wildest thing someone has said to you?”

“Ummm.” Your eyes left his to think about it for a second, your mind running through many memorable interactions until one in particular stuck out. Your attention went back to him. “Probably the guy who may or may not have been a gang member who gave me his number and told me if I ever needed someone taken out—as in murdered—to give him a call. He even said it’d be free of charge, which was weirdly sweet? Not that I’d actually take him up on it,” you clarified, lifting your glass to your lips for a sip.

His eyes rounded. “What…?”

Your champagne returned to its spot on the tub’s edge. “It’s kinda like how people propose to me all of the time because they’re so thankful I brought them food after they fasted for their procedures. When scary-looking dudes who may or may not have gang ties come to the hospital, and you treat them like any other patient—you know, with dignity and respect—they really, really appreciate it. Their way of thanking you is by offering their services or illegal goods.”

His eyebrows drew together. “Illegal goods, like drugs…?”

“Sure, and weapons.” You shrugged. “One guy offered me illegal European cheeses, and I won’t lie, that one was tempting.”

“Do you still have the contacts?”

“No. I never kept their info, and let’s be real, they weren’t using their actual names. Once they left the hospital, they were no longer my patient, and what they did was none of my business. Snitches get stitches and all that jazz.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, and his hand began a new circuit along the skin of your leg. “What’s the dumbest thing someone said?” He had another sip.

“Oh, listen to this. A male patient came into the ER complaining about abdominal pain. After the doctor did a quick exam, he ordered an ultrasound. When we told the patient about the ultrasound, he shouted, ‘I’m not pregnant! I’m a man!’”

“You’re fucking with me,” Javi said again, looking just as amused as the first time, his champagne flute hovering over the water.

“I swear I’m not!” you giggled. “He said that! This guy was in his mid-fifties, too. His wife was so embarrassed. The doctor had to pull out a fucking human anatomy diagram to educate the dude.”

“I’d be a shitty nurse. I wouldn’t have the patience for all of the stupidity.”

“Oh my god,” you laughed, thinking about Javi as a nurse. “Between your grumpy resting face and the fact you cannot hide what you’re feeling, you’d be so bad. No offense, babe.” You patted his knee underwater.

“None taken. I said it first. It’s nice knowing my wife has the patience of a saint to put up with my bullshit.” He raised his glass your way in toast, then took a drink.

“Stop it. You’re perfect. Now, are you finally gonna tell me how much you spent on this room?”

He smiled, setting his champagne back onto the rim. “No.”

“Rude.”

He chuckled. “Just enjoy it, baby.” Water droplets trickled as he lifted your leg out of the bath and leaned in, kissing the inside of your ankle.

“But I’m curious as fuck,” you whined.

He returned your leg to the water. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “Earlier, you mentioned we sometimes have to compromise, so I’ll tell you how I got the room, but I won’t tell you what it cost me.”

That had you perking up. Maybe you could call the front desk and find out the price yourself.

“The front desk won’t tell you,” he continued, looking a little too pleased with himself. Of course, he knew what you were thinking.

You deflated with a sigh. “Fine,” you said. “How were you able to get the room?”

“The manager is mi prima’s (my cousin’s) brother-in-law.”

You grinned. “You’ve got connections. That’s very sexy of you.”

He was smiling, his eyes crinkling at the edges and shining with love—a look you were all too familiar with and hoped he could see on your face. His hand continued stroking your leg.

He chuckled. “Even with connections, it took some negotiating. It was worth it, though. You’re worth it. I know our wedding was pretty short notice, and since we couldn’t get time off from work for me to whisk you away on a real honeymoon—which I plan on doing sometime this year before we have a baby—this was the next best thing to show you how much I love you and what you mean to me. You deserve the very best, and that’s what I’m always gonna give you, and nothing less.”

His words had you melting, your heart skipping a beat. It was a regular occurrence where Javier said or did something that made you wonder once again what you did to deserve him in your life or to be loved in this way you never knew existed. “How did I get so lucky?”

“I’m the lucky one.”

“I beg to differ because I am married to arguably the greatest man on earth, who worships me like a goddess, and that’s not even an exaggeration. A freaking goddess! Me! Insane.” It was crazy how much you loved this man, and the alcohol had your feelings threatening to burst from your lips. So, you let them. “I need to tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

“You make me feel so safe. You make me feel comfortable and so fucking loved. Javi, I’ve never been so loved, and I know it’s sad, and you hate thinking about it, but I’ve never had someone love me unconditionally like you do.” The emotions had tears welling up in your eyes. “I’ve never experienced a love like this that I feel deep in my soul, and that’s how I know it’s real. I’m not as poetic as you are, so I’m just going to say what comes to mind. Prepare yourself for some sappy bullshit.”

He was watching you with a fond expression and watery eyes. “I’m ready.”

“Hold my hand.” You reached out to him, and he grasped your fingers, his thumb rubbing over the tops of them. You cleared your throat to compose yourself. “There was an emptiness inside my chest?” You said it in question. “A lifelong longing for something I never knew I needed until you came along. You redefined the void. You gave it meaning. You’ve shown me what it is to be seen, to be cherished, to be truly loved. You’ve shown me a world that, up until you entered mine, was nothing more than a fantasy I’d only ever dreamed about. It was something out of reach, you know? But here you are, a dream come true, who loves me unconditionally, and for that, you have my love, you have my total devotion, you get my every morning and my every night. You get slow dances in the kitchen and four a.m. grilled cheeses—ooh, I like how that kinda rhymes.” Your husband laughed, his lips curved up in a smile. “I’m not half bad at this. Javi, I am going to give you the life you’ve always deserved but never felt worthy of—a wife, kids, dog, house, and hopefully, happiness. I want to make you as happy as you make me. This is my long way of saying I love you, Javier Peña. Thank you for loving me.”

“I’m so fucking happy,” he replied. “Come here.” He beckoned you toward him, lightly tugging your hand. Without another thought, you moved, the bath sloshing as you pushed yourself up onto your knees and crawled into his lap, straddling his thighs. Javi wrapped his arms around you, hugging you tightly to his body, your face nestled into the curve of his neck. His head tilted to touch yours. “I love you,” he said. “I love you so fucking much. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how fucking lucky I am to have you. I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you, and sometimes I catch myself wondering if this is all a dream. You have no idea how many times I’ve almost pinched myself because being with you feels so right and so perfect that I think it all has to be too good to be true, and I’m gonna wake up alone in my bed at the ranch or in fucking Colombia.” You gasped, your heart squeezing at how heartbreaking that was. “Being with you is teaching me that life can be kind and there is hope for the future. You’re my future, and even though there are moments where it feels too surreal and too fucking good, it is real. What we have is real, and I am grateful for you. I will forever be grateful that you chose me, and I will never take for granted a single day that I get to share my life with you.” His head turned to kiss your cheek. “This is my long way of saying I love you, too. Thank you for loving me.”

“Oh, Javi.” You sat up, taking his face into your hands. Sitting in his lap, you were taller than him, and his chin raised to look at you with his red-rimmed eyes. “It is real. It’s so fucking real. I love you.”

That was an understatement of how you felt about him. Not when it felt as if his heart was beating in your chest, and looking into his eyes was like coming home—the familiarity, the comfort, the safety. Almost as if you’d always known that those irises, with their unique mix of chocolatey-colored hues, would belong to the one who was meant for you. A recognition, a certainty when your gazes met that he was your person, your other half.

Emotions had you smashing your mouth against his, kissing him hard. You poured your love into each press of your lips to his, letting him taste the devotion on your tongue. His arms were wrapped around your middle, holding you flush to him. It didn’t matter that you’d already come a handful of times tonight. The things he said had you wanting, no, needing him again, the desire searing through your veins and pooling in your belly.

An interesting side effect of being in love with Javi and knowing he loved you, too, was how it made you so fucking horny. Confessing your love to one another was basically foreplay, and wasn’t that adorable? A couple of love-sick fools getting turned on from loving each other. Robyn would absolutely fake-gag if you told her about you and your husband’s love kink.

He sounded breathless when he came up for air. “I love you.” He messily kissed your chin and the shape of your jaw. “I fucking love you,” he murmured into your skin.

“I love you, too.” His face was still framed in your hands, and you pushed him back to gain access to the line of his neck, your head dipping to swipe your tongue up his salty skin.

“Jesus,” he breathed, his throat bobbing. You rocked your hips, rubbing his already half-hard cock with your cunt, his hands grabbing ahold of your ass, the soft flesh firmly filling his palms as he helped you move. You sucked over his pulse point hard enough to leave a mark, Javi groaning, “Fuck, I love you.” The words vibrated under your mouth, making your lips curl in delight.

“I love you, too, Javi.” Your mouth traveled up to take his earlobe between your teeth, nibbling on it before your lips were at his ear. “I really fucking love you.”

“I’m yours.” His fingers dug into your asscheeks, moving you. “You fucking own me. I’m yours forever.”

“And I’ll always be yours, Javi. Always. For-fucking-ever.”

His large hand came up, lightly grasping your jaw to maneuver your face in front of his, Javier’s lips colliding with yours. This kiss was much more frantic, the headiness of passion overtaking you both, matching each other's energy, heartbeat for heartbeat, breath for breath. He was completely hard as you rolled your hips along his shaft, the bath’s water lapping at the sides of the tub. Your arms went around his neck, threading your fingers into the hair at the back of his head.

You loved this man so much that he was your entire world, everything that mattered, and the wild thing was, he felt the same way about you—you were his entire world and everything that mattered to him. It was an intoxicating feeling to love and to be loved.

The sweet heat of want burned at the base of your spine, the tension rising with each desperate kiss until it hit a breaking point. In sync, your mouths separated, you lifted your hips high enough for Javi to position his cock at your entrance, and then you sank onto it.

“That’s it, baby.”

“Yes,” you gasped when he was fully seated inside of you.

There was nothing better than the familiar fullness or how he stretched you open.

Your gazes were locked.

“I love you so fucking much,” he said. “Use me, Cielito. Make yourself come. I wanna feel you.”

He didn’t give you a chance to respond. Javi leaned up to capture your lips once more, his hands gripping handfuls of your ass. Your palms slid up his flushed chest to grab his shoulders, and you did what he said: you started moving. You ground your hips, keeping most of him inside you while rubbing your clit on the coarse hairs at the base of his dick. Sparks danced in your core, your pulse pounding. Your husband helped you grind in his lap.

“Te amo (I love you),” he said between kisses. “Te amo muchísimo, mi amor (I love you so much, my love). Eres mi todo (You are my everything). Toma lo que es tuyo (Take what is yours).”

“I love you, too, Javi.” Pleasure built, and the coil in your tummy started to tighten. “I fucking love you. I’ll always love you.” Your hips circled in the most delicious rotations.

His tongue delved between your lips, plundering your mouth, moans coming from the back of your throat. With how close you were physically—your bodies pressed together like pieces of a puzzle—and emotionally—your love and devotion for each other—this was the closest you’d ever been with another person, and it felt much more intimate than sex. It was something deeper. Something on a different level where you were caught up in one another, lost in your own little world and the overwhelming feeling of love. Maybe it was the oxytocin, the love hormone, flooding your system that had you thinking this must be what it felt like when your souls came together, the two halves melding to become one.

The water splashed against your back and ribs, the bath’s jets continued to rumble. You didn’t stop the rocking of your hips or sloppily kissing your husband. He felt so good inside you, the pressure on your clit pushing you higher and higher.

“Eres mi vida (You are my life).” It was muffled into your lips. “Eres todo para mí (You are everything to me). Quiero que me uses como tú quieras (I want you to use me however you want).” He switched to English. “I wanna feel my wife come. You gonna get yourself off?“

“Yes.”

“My good girl. I love you. Take what you need, mi amor. Don’t stop. You come, I come. I’m following you. You’re taking me with you.”

Your orgasm was close, the muscles in your stomach winding tighter and tighter.

“I will, Javi. I will. I fucking love you.”

This man you married knew exactly what would have you careening toward your climax. He took your breasts into his hands, ducking his head to suck on your hardened nipple, his fingers teasing the other one. It felt like every nerve ending in your body lit up, your eyes closed, the shock of it making you cry out.

“I love you,” you repeated. “I love you, I love you, I love you—”

Each time you rolled your hips, it created the best friction against your clit, and that, combined with the attention he was giving your tits, had you tumbling over the edge, coming with a gasp of his name. This orgasm was softer than the others. When your body tensed and your cunt squeezed him, Javi hissed. He grabbed your ass, his fingers digging into your flesh as he used his strength to keep moving you in his lap. He kept those gentle waves of pleasure flowing through you, letting you ride out your high while your husband chased his own.

“I’m yours, Javi,” you told him. When you opened your eyes, you saw his were shut tight, and his teeth were bared. It was that sexy look he got when he was close to coming; he just needed a push to get there. You touched your forehead to his, your fingers clutched in his hair. “I’m yours, baby. I want you to come. I want my husband to come. I want you to fill me up and fuck it so deep inside me you knock me up.” He whined, and that just encouraged you. “Get me pregnant, Javi. Let me have it. Let me feel it.”

“Fuck,” he gasped. “I love you. I’m gonna—Christ—I’m gonna fuck a baby into you. I’m gonna fuck you full of my come. Fuck it—shit—fuck it so deep in your pussy it takes. Te amo, te amo, te amo, te amo más que a nada (I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you more than anything).” The groan he let out was guttural. He hugged you to him, holding you still, his face pressing against your throat as he came. His teeth sunk into your neck, the pleasurable pain causing you to moan. His cock jerked inside you with each spurt of his spend gushing into your inner depths, and when it stopped, his heavy breaths were hot on your skin.

The only sound in the bathroom was the tub's jets. The water had turned lukewarm. The large mirror on the opposite wall over the two sinks was still fogged up. It was peaceful and calm. Time stood still in this little bubble where you luxuriated in one another and those happy chemicals flowing through your bodies. All of your muscles relaxed, making you melt into your husband. Javi nuzzled his face into your neck, and your fingernails lovingly scratched at his scalp, earning you a happy hum.

You loved these moments. You loved how comfortable it was to hold each other, your bodies and souls bare. You didn’t feel self-conscious or a need to cover up. You just wanted to share in the afterglow with the man you loved.

Javier told you once that his favorite part of having sex was this: the post-sex glow when you cuddled close and came down with the other person. He loved the intimacy of it. He craved it. He also revealed that down in Colombia, he’d pay the sex workers he slept with extra to stay with him longer instead of leaving immediately after he came so he could have some semblance of that intimacy. It was a little sad if you thought about it too hard; if you thought about how lonely and touch-starved he was, that was made exponentially worse because his love language was physical touch. You’d never let him feel that loneliness again. You were happy to spend those minutes with him after you both finished, cradled in his arms. You were happy to give him that intimacy he craved. You were happy to do whatever it took to make him feel as loved as he made you.

Seconds turned into minutes. Finally, Javi broke the stillness with a kiss to the skin his face was pressed against.

“Javi?”

“Hmmm?”

“I love you.”

He was smiling when his head lifted to look you in the eyes, and you matched his expression.

“I love you, too.”

“I have a serious question.”

His smile fell. “Yeah?”

“Are you a sea lion?”

As expected, his face pinched in confusion.

“What…?”

“Are you a sea lion?” you repeated.

“What do you mean…?”

“I mean, you must be a sea lion ‘cause I can sea-you-lion in my bed tonight.” To really sell it, you wagged your eyebrows.

He tried to hold in the laugh, his cheeks flushing red, but he couldn’t keep it in. He sputtered into full-on laughter, his eyes practically disappearing with how they crinkled in glee. It had you cracking up, too, joining him in the merriment. His head fell against your shoulder as you both laughed at your stupid pick-up line.

It took you back to your wedding ceremony, when you both vowed your marriage would be filled with love, happiness, and laughter. Which was another thing you loved about your husband: he made you feel comfortable enough to be your true goofy self. Something you didn’t feel in your past relationships. But Javi–even with him being a somewhat serious, no-nonsense guy—he appreciated your humor and laughed at your dumb jokes. He never made you feel stupid or embarrassed, and it was truly a breath of fresh air that you could simply be you.

Eventually, you both calmed down. Your husband kissed your cheek and then sat up, rubbing his palms up and down your ribs. He looked at you with soft eyes and a sweet smile.

“I am so fucking in love with you,” he said.

You grinned. “And I am so fucking in love with you,” you replied, poking the tip of his nose. He snatched your hand, lifting it to his lips to kiss your wedding ring.

“I love you naked like this,” he rasped. His burning gaze traveled from your face to your breasts, drinking in the sight of you before his eyes returned to yours. “But you know what would look really good on you?”

“Lingerie? That red thong you love?”

“Me.”

“Oh,” you gasped, your eyes widening. “That just made my pussy flutter.”

“I know.” Because he was still inside you.

You gulped. “Can I, uh, see your left hand real quick?” It came out of the water, dripping. He held it straight up for you to see the back of it. You stared at his fingers, seeing the gold band on his ring finger, and nodded. “Yep, that is a wedding ring. Jesus, you really did marry me. Me. That’s fucking crazy.”

“Stop that.”

Your attention went back to him to see he was frowning. “Stop what?”

He sighed and took both of your hands into his. “Thinking I’m out of your league. I hate it. Cielito, you’re fucking beautiful. Say it. Say, ‘I’m beautiful.’”

“You’re beautiful.”

He gave you a grumpy look. “You know what I meant. Say it.”

The thought of repeating it made you wince, but you did it anyway. You mumbled, “I’mbeautiful.”

“Say it louder.”

“I hate this,” you whined.

“And we’re working on fixing that. So, say it again.”

You took a deep breath. This was so fucking hard. “I’m beautiful.”

He smiled. “You are. Repeat it.”

“I’m beautiful.”

“Again.”

“How many times are we doing this?”

“As many as it takes for you to believe it. Again.”

You sighed. “I’m beautiful.”

“What are you?”

“I’m beautiful.”

He made you say it five more times, and it got easier each time you said it.

“One more,” he ordered.

“I’m beautiful.”

“Good girl.” He closed the gap to kiss you, his big hands coming up to caress your face. When his lips left yours, he nudged your nose with his. “You’re beautiful, smart, funny, sweet, sexy, talented, and an amazing partner. You’re perfect. I need you to remember that. You’re perfect,” he said again, “and I am lucky to have you as my wife.”

“Thank you, Javi. You know I struggle when it comes to that stuff.”

“Yeah, I do know. We’ll keep working on it.” He kissed your forehead.

“I’m lucky to have such a supportive husband who calls me out on my bullshit.”

He huffed. “You do the same for me. I love you, mi amor.”

“I love you, too.” You pecked him on the lips, then pulled back when you started to yawn, covering your mouth with your hand.

“You ready for bed?” he asked.

The question made you realize you were exhausted. “God, yeah.”

“Let’s go, baby.”

Thirty minutes later found you dry, your teeth brushed, and naked under the covers, with Javi spooning you from behind. The curtains were closed, the bedroom dark save for the alarm clock on the bedside table, whose glowing red numbers told you it was almost two a.m. Your husband’s arm was around your front, your hand over his on your breast, your rings touching. His nose was buried in the hair at the back of your head.

It was cozy and warm, feeling so happy and loved. Sleep was coming for you, and your eyelids were getting heavy, your thoughts slowing. In your sleepy haze, you remembered something.

“Javi?” you whispered.

“Yes, Cielito?” he answered just as quietly.

“I just realized Valentine’s Day is next month. I don’t know if you have anything planned yet, but you know what I’d love to do?”

“What?”

“You.”

He chuckled, hugging you a little tighter and kissing your hair. “That’s what we’ll do then. Any other requests?”

You smiled, wiggling back to get closer to him. “Nope. Do you have any requests?”

He was going to ask for the red thong.

“You said something about the red thong in the bath.”

There it was. You giggled. “You got it, babe.” You patted his hand, your rings clinking together. “Sweetest dreams, my wonderful, perfect husband.”

“They’ll be about you, my wonderful, perfect wife. I love you, Cielito.”

“I love you, too.”

Steve lifted his wrist to check the time, the hands on the watch face showing 3:16 p.m.

He frowned. He could’ve sworn he told Javier earlier when they talked on the phone to meet in the hotel restaurant at three p.m. Not 3:30, three on the dot, because he had to get Connie and the kids to Laredo’s tiny airport by six p.m. for their flight to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, where they’d get on a bigger plane to take them home to Miami.

Where the hell were the newlyweds?

He was sitting at the head of the long eight-person dining room table at the hotel’s restaurant, Zaragoza Grill, with a clear view of the entrance. Instead of a chair to his right, there was a wooden highchair with his one-year-old, Nate, sitting in it, chewing on a small slice of bread from the bread basket. Connie was next to their youngest in the middle seat, talking to Stevie, their three-year-old, on her other side while he used crayons to color the paper kids’ menu the hostess had given him. Olivia was at the other end of the table, opposite Steve, coloring her own menu.

His arm lowered as he looked at his wife. “Con?” he said.

Her head turned his way. “Yes?”

“I told Javi three, right? Not, 3:30?”

“Yes, you told him three.”

“Why aren’t they here yet?”

“Honey, they got married yesterday. You remember what it was like the days after our wedding. All of the laundry we folded.” She smiled.

‘Folding laundry’ was their codeword for sex, and he absolutely remembered the days following their wedding. They went at it like fucking rabbits and didn’t leave their hotel room in Cabo San Lucas for days.

He smirked. “How could I forget our honeymoon, baby? We had a good time. A really good time. You know, we should go back to Mexico. Maybe we could get your sister to watch the kids while we go on a little vacation.”

She rolled her eyes. “Keep dreaming, Steve. We’re not gonna be able to go on vacation alone until Nate graduates high school, and that’s a good seventeen years away.”

He sighed. She was right. They couldn’t pawn their children off on someone to fuck off to Mexico for a week. “You’re right, sweetheart.”

“I always am.”

That was the end of their conversation, Connie’s attention returning to Stevie.

Behind him was a table for two against the brick wall. The young women sitting at it had walked by them when they were seated, and he estimated they were in their twenties. He couldn’t help eavesdropping on their conversation when one of the girls asked, “Can you believe all that noise last night?”

“Oh my god, I know, right? Like from what it sounded like, either the woman in the room above us was getting it real good, or the rumors are true, and this place is actually haunted. But I just don’t think spirits of nuns would make those noises, you know what I mean?”

“Girl, the moaning? The screaming? The sound of that pounding? Whoever was staying upstairs is one lucky bitch. Her man knows what he’s doing, and I don’t blame her for not being able to stay quiet. I also think they probably figured that since they were on the third floor, no one would hear them going at it.”

Steve inhaled deeply, shaking his head. He knew who was staying on the third floor—he’d even been inside the massive suite. Javier had handed over $150 per night, a pair of expensive courtside tickets to a San Antonio Spurs vs. three-time defending NBA champions Chicago Bulls game, and all of his wife’s tamales from his and his father’s freezers for it. The hotel apparently didn’t rent out the Presidential Suite to just anyone to keep its allure of being something exclusive for the rich and famous who passed through the area. Javier’s local fame, unfortunately, wasn’t enough.

That didn’t stop him, though.

His pal could be a real stubborn son of a bitch.

Javier got intel that the manager was a huge fan of his mom’s tamales and the San Antonio Spurs. He lucked out that his wife’s tamales were the closest to his late mother’s, so he bribed the manager with fifty-something tamales and the highly sought-after tickets to the Spurs vs. Bulls game to book the place at full price.

There was no way in hell Steve would ever pay $150 per night for a hotel room. That was a month and a half’s worth of mortgage payments on his four-bedroom, four-bath home in Florida, for Christ’s sake. The only reason Steve rented a two-room, double-queen suite here in Texas was because Javi and his wife paid for it. They wanted his family to have roomy accommodations since they had their three kids, which was greatly appreciated, and their room only cost a reasonable fifty dollars a night.

Movement at the restaurant’s entrance caught his attention, and he watched as the new Mr. and Mrs. Javier Peña made their way inside. Steve snorted at seeing the newlyweds in matching outfits of jeans and lavender-colored shirts, Javi’s a button-up, and his wife in a V-neck. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, they were practically fused together, with her tucked under his arm and pressed against his side, their heads close together, smiling and talking as they walked his way.

Steve had been friends with Javier for close to twenty years, and in all that time, he had never seen his best friend happier than he was with his bride. He wasn’t the same man Steve knew in Colombia. He wasn’t even the same man who lived with his family after he took down the Cali Cartel and quit his job. He changed, and he changed for the better.

To be honest, at first, Steve worried about his friend leaving the DEA and returning to civilian life. Javi had all of the signs of being what they call a lifer—someone who spends, if not all, then a significant portion of their career with the same agency. He’d been married to his job and fully committed to seeing it through no matter what it cost him. He didn’t visit his parents for years, and when his mother tragically passed away, he’d only gone home for a few days. Instead of grieving her death, he threw himself into his work. It sure as hell wasn’t healthy, but it was what he had to do to keep going.

Steve was so fucking thankful his friend got out and was getting a second chance. After all of the bullshit he went through, Javier deserved to be happy, and there was no doubt that this girl he married made him happy. She was the best thing to happen to him, and even though they needed to cool it with the PDA in front of his kids, Steve could admit they were really good for each other. He would never say it out loud, but he thought it was cute that a grumpy fucker like Javi ended up someone so bright and cheery.

He rechecked his watch to see it was 3:20 p.m.

The couple approached the table.

“Hey, guys,” the dark-haired man greeted as he pulled out the chair across from Connie for his wife to sit in. “Sorry, we’re late.” He got her settled, kissing the top of her head before taking the seat to Steve’s left.

“Tío (Uncle)!” Stevie shouted and hopped off his chair to run around the table to Javier.

His friend smiled. “Hey, mi principito (my little prince),” he grunted as he lifted the child into his lap.

When Javier was around, Steve and Connie no longer existed to their two eldest kids. Did that bother them? No. It gave them a break, and they weren’t going to be mad about that. They never expected Javi to take on the role of an uncle to their children. They never expected him to be as great as he was with their kids, either. He took his title of tío (uncle) seriously and loved the little Murphys as if they were his flesh and blood. It honestly caught Steve off guard the first time he saw how gentle and sweet Javi was with Olivia.

Steve could admit that at first, he didn’t like that his friend was so good and helpful with his daughter because it made him look bad. Steve grew up believing that, aside from the occasional diaper change, everything involving the children was his wife’s job. Looking back, he could see how that was a shitty way of thinking, and he felt ashamed for putting Connie through all of that. Seeing everything Javi did and how it helped his wife ended up being the swift kick in the ass he needed to step up and be a better father and husband.

“We lost track of time,” the bride said. “Empire Strikes Back was on the TV.”

That title sounded familiar.

“Is that one of those,” Steve started. “What’s it called? Star Trek movies?”

“Star Wars,” Javi corrected. Stevie got off his lap to run back to his original chair to grab his menu.

Nate had lost interest in the bread, so Connie put it on the table in front of the baby. Steve leaned down to his right to get into the diaper bag on the floor, grabbing a bottle of watered-down apple juice that he handed to the one-year-old as he sat back up.

“The ones with those, uh, laser swords?” Steve asked.

Javi sighed. “Lightsabers.”

“Never pegged you as a sci-fi guy.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Peña interjected. She looked past her husband at him. “Javi’s a space nerd.”

Steve smiled. “Is he, now?”

His son returned, holding the paper up to his tío (uncle). “Look!” He had crayons clutched in his other hand.

Javi’s attention went to the toddler. “Were you coloring, bud?” The man put the child in his lap again, and the page with a rainbow of scribbles on the table in front of them. “It looks good, buddy. What are you getting to eat?” He had an arm over the back of his wife’s chair, his other hand pointing at the list of three options, reading what each one was. Mrs. Peña watched the interaction with a fond expression.

Steve looked at Connie. “Honey?”

She met his eyes. “Yes, baby?”

“Five bucks says our kids will have a new cousin by the end of the year.”

She smiled. “I’d be stupid to take that bet.”

“She’s right,” Javi added before going back to talking to Stevie.

“Y’all are no fun.” Steve pouted.

The server interrupted to take their drink orders. After she left, Olivia called from across the table. “Tío (Uncle)?”

Javi turned to see her concerned face. “¿Sí, mi tesorito (Yes, my little treasure)?”

She asked him something in Spanish while pointing at his head, and whatever the question was made the other man’s cheeks flush and his new wife’s eyes widen. Connie looked where their daughter indicated and tried but failed to stifle a giggle.

“What did she ask?” Steve asked. His eyes traveled to each adult, hoping for an explanation.

Javier’s expression could be described as ‘panicked’ when he met Connie’s eyes. She didn’t even let him say anything. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know what happened, so you have to take this one.”

“What did she ask?” he tried again.

Connie caught his gaze and put her hand up to hide her mouth from Olivia while she mouthed at him, ‘Hickey,’ and pointed at the side of her neck. Great. Steve pressed his fingers to his forehead and sighed. They better come up with a believable excuse. His daughter did not need to be finding out what hickies were.

Javi finally answered Olivia in Spanish, and the young girl asked him another question Steve didn’t catch.

He hated it when they did this. He could make out some words, but his daughter and her tío (uncle) sometimes spoke too quickly for him to understand. They also liked to make it obvious when they were talking shit about him because they found it funny and enjoyed annoying the hell out of him.

Javier smiled and shook his head as he replied.

“What are they talking about?” Steve asked.

His friend’s missus threw him a bone. “Olivia asked about the bruise on Javi’s neck, and he told her what happened; he hit it on something last night, and he’s embarrassed about it.” That was a decent excuse. “She also wondered if it hurt, and he reassured her that it didn’t. Is that right, guys?” She addressed the uncle and niece.

His daughter said, “Yep!”

Javi turned his way and nodded. “Yeah.” He glanced over to Olivia and then back to Steve as he said something in Spanish that his daughter laughed at.

This was shit that made his jaw clench. “Hey, you guys know it’s against the rules to talk about me in Spanish.”

“Who said we were talking about you?” Javi replied. His attention returned to Olivia, the two of them, plus his wife, chatting in the language Steve barely understood.

“Leave them alone, Steve,” Connie said, and his eyes went to her. “It’s good practice for Olivia.”

“It’s rude,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

The server returned with their drinks, and the newlyweds had a chance to look over their menus, so the table ordered their food. Minutes passed. While Stevie was occupied with coloring, and the women were talking to his daughter about some show or movie he’d never heard of, Javier leaned his way and whispered for only him to hear, “Why does Olivia think I play baseball?”

The blonde man’s eyebrows knit together as he thought over the question. Why would Olivia think that Javi played baseball? It hit him: the conversation Connie and he had the day before on their way to the party after the ceremony. They used baseball terms to discuss whether the newlyweds would figure out how to fool around on the drive back to the reception.

He leaned toward his friend to reply just as quietly, “She wasn’t supposed to mention it to you.”

“Mention what?”

“It was nothing.”

“It was obviously something because your daughter is under the impression that I am a shitty baseball player.”

Steve had to hold in his laugh, air quickly leaving his nose. He needed to give his friend some kind of answer.

“You know how Connie and I use ‘folding laundry’ as a codeword?” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Well, we were talking more in-depth about the topic, but we used baseball terminology, so if the children overheard, they wouldn’t know what the hell we were talking about.”

“And it was about me…?”

“Yes.”

“Why were you discussing my sex life…?”

“You really wanna know?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

“Okay. I was being an ass and bet Connie that you horndogs wouldn’t be able to keep it in your pants on the drive to the party.”

“She would’ve lost. I hope she didn’t take it.”

“Of course, she didn’t, and I sure as hell didn’t take her bet that you guys would be able to wait until you got back to the hotel to score the first run on opening day.”

“Consummate our marriage?”

“Yeah.”

“That was a losing bet, too.”

“How the hell did you manage that with your wife driving?” he harshly whispered. She drove the two of them from the ceremony to Chucho’s house. “Wait, don’t tell me.”

“It was later on our way to the hotel,” he told him anyway. “We stopped in a field.”

“Are you guys trying to get arrested?”

“It was in the middle of nowhere. We were fine.”

Whatever happened to saving those kinds of activities for the bedroom?

“Uh huh, right.”

“Hold on a second, if Olivia overheard your baseball shit and assumed I played, where’d she get the idea that I’m bad at it? Did you fucking tell her that?”

Again, Steve had to keep himself from laughing, but this time, when he whispered, his voice was a little squeaky. “Maybe…”

His friend sat back to glare at him and forgot to keep his voice low. “You asshole.”

“You ass’ole!” the three-year-old in Javi’s lap parroted. “You ass’ole!”

The other man’s eyes rounded. “Oh, Shit. I mean, shoot.”

Steve groaned. “Goddammit, Javier,” he hissed.

“OH, SHI’!” Stevie yelled at the top of his lungs. He turned his head to look at Steve, pointing at him. “Daddy, you ass’ole!”

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Thank you for reading! If you’d like to be tagged in my fics, please fill out the form in my bio, on my masterlist, or just let me know! 

[somewhere-south-of-neutral]

Senior year of high school, a classmate and I both received the STAR award, which is given to the student or students who get the highest SAT scores in their graduating class each year. The award ceremony was held at the clubhouse of an old wealthy social club, the kind that, in Atlanta at least, probably doesn't want you digging into its past. I am Jewish, and the other recipient from my school was Black. Most of the honorees, students from high schools all over the city, were members of one minority or another. A large number (though I don't remember if it was more, less, or equal to half) were also women. I remember thinking that there was a good chance that almost none of us would have been allowed into that room before the 1980s. And then I remember thinking, as one student after another who didn't fit the white, Christian, male mold these clubs were built to cater to went on stage to accept their award, that our presence in that room was a victory in more ways than one.

I have been to Masada, from which you can still see the outlines of the Roman warcamps that besieged a doomed band of Jewish rebels and where, nearly two thousand years later, an Orthodox rabbi tearfully looked up from the ruin he was investigating to inform the watching archaeologists that the ancient mikveh they had found, the oldest we know of, was kosher.

I have stood in the ruined Jewish quarters in Lisbon and Madrid, where there are very few Jews anymore. But I was there, and I did not need to hide. I have been to the former headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition, where, in buildings made of bricks hewn from the graves of my forebears, they orchestrated my nonexistence. But I was there, and I existed, and the inquisition did not.

I have been to Savannah, GA, where the descendants of those who fled the inquisition founded a synagogue. The Inquisition headquarters were in ruin, but that synagogue still stands strong, and people still pray there. It is beautiful.

I have been to Berlin, where less than a century ago a plot to ensure that I could never exist, along with the descendants of many other minorities, was hatched and came frighteningly close to succeeding. But I was there, and I walked the streets visibly Jewish, made so not by a badge of shame but by my kippah, which I wore, and still wear, proudly wherever I go.

I have been to Prague, where centuries ago, according to myth, the rabbis created the golem, a magical protector built out of necessity to shield the community from harm. The golem is not there, but the community still stands. The Great Synagogue is one of the most beautiful and ornate buildings I have ever been to.

In every generation they have tried to destroy us, but we are still here and they are not. These next four years, and likely many after, will be hard. They will be steered by those who want us dead, and when I say us I mean all of us, any who do not fit their very narrow mold, but we will survive. And, one day, our (literal or figurative) descendants will stand in the places where they plotted to destroy us, and they will be free, and they will work to undo the damage, and their presence in those places will be a victory in more ways than one.

Good luck. Stay safe. We will get through this together. I love you.

[valeisaslut]

Hii I'm just wondering where ellie lives in collide

omg hii nonnie! i always wanted to respond this question!!!!

okay so ellie technically has apartments in like the main places she’s in the most — but in reality? she’s slept more nights in hotel rooms than in any of them. her life is a whirlwind. she’s either flying to a show, filming something, backstage somewhere, or waking up jetlagged and confused in a random city with a half-eaten protein bar next to her. her apartments are more like… crash pads she stops at when the world slows down for half a second.

✧ new york — this is the one she uses and likes the most. the one in soho. top floor, floor-to-ceiling windows, exposed brick, kind of industrial but cozy in that "someone rich definitely lives here and barely does laundry" way. she has vintage amps stacked in the living room like furniture. her guitars hang on the wall. one of them is signed by a drunk damon albarn and no one knows if it’s real. the coffee table is always a mess of scribbled lyrics, vinyls, dead lighters, and random things she found on tour and never unpacked. there’s a rooftop she likes to go up to when she can’t sleep. her neighbor hates her. she thinks it’s funny.

✧ los angeles — this is the one she was staying at during chapters 1-5, and honestly? it’s the most livable. it's tucked in the hills, mid-century modern, a little secluded. the kind of place you drive up to and think someone hot and emotionally unavailable lives here. big glass walls, black and white color palette, the pool out back is green half the time because she doesn’t remember to get it cleaned. there's a giant framed photo of patti smith in the hallway. all the shelves are filled with photo books and first edition novels that she swears she reads but definitely just uses to look smart when people come over. it always smells like sandalwood, weed, and whatever cologne she stole from jesse.

✧ seattle — this one’s more sentimental. the smallest one, older, moodier. it’s on the second floor of a quiet building in capitol hill, dimly lit, very grunge girl who lives in black hoodies and journaled through her entire teenage depression. there’s a drum set in the corner she never uses but refuses to move. the kitchen tiles are chipped. the fridge is 90% beer and 10% one expired yogurt. she never remembers to replace the lightbulbs. the view is of another building and she swears she saw someone get proposed to across the alley once. she cried about it for three days and wrote two songs.

✧ london — she keeps a flat there too. not for the weather (obviously), but because so many of her collaborators are based there and she had an on-again off-again situationship with a studio in shoreditch. the flat’s high-ceilinged, cold in the winter, decorated entirely in thrifted nonsense and whatever she packed in a suitcase. there’s a signed photo of liam gallagher on her fridge and no one knows how it got there. the bed frame squeaks and the neighbors smoke inside. she kinda loves it.

✧ paris — yes. she has a studio in paris. no, she doesn’t use it. it’s just vibes. she bought it impulsively after a press tour and has been there maybe twice. there’s a red velvet couch, one chair, and a guitar. that’s it. oh and a half-empty bottle of wine. it looks like a vampire’s vacation home.

every apartment is messy. not disgusting, just like… lived-in in a “rockstar doesn’t do domesticity” way. there are always takeout containers, mismatched socks, tangled charger cords, and sunglasses in weird places. the beds are unmade. the closets are chaos. her vinyl player is always out, always spinning something too loud.

but the truth is: she’s mostly in hotels. she’s barely ever still. her passport has more stamps than she can count. she knows every airport layout by heart. her suitcase is permanently half-packed. she’s had more existential crises in hotel bathrooms than in therapy. and her favorite chain? sofitel. because she’s annoying and dramatic and likes to pretend she’s in a french film when she throws on a robe and walks around with a glass of red wine at 2am after a show. the room service guy thinks she’s a menace. she tips very well.

and yeah. she's hella loaded. she has so much money she has no idea what to do with it.

[ghouldump]

Just read your Armand fic and it was SO good, I was wondering if we could get a prequel or separate piece on vamp reader in the theatre?

Masquerade | Lestat x Reader

ෆ even with your horrific background, he fell deeply for your heart.

thank you, i enjoyed this very much. the fact that this is a month old is embarrassing. someone else requested loustat + Claudia w/ vamp reader and theater but i accidentally deleted it. also in this Lestat hasn't had Akasha’s blood yet.

“Mr. De Lioncourt, you’re on in five,” the stage director said nervously, peaking into the dressing room.

Staring into the mirror, he couldn’t stop the heavy weight on his lifeless core. Perhaps it was due to the homage he had been contemplating.

Fixing his soft hair, he stood, adjusting the half-buttoned top. Taking large steps, his walk emitted confidence, his head held high, in his mind, a recessed warfare.

The piercing screaming became louder as he moved closer to the stage. After months of traveling and backlash from other vampires, as well as the media, he was finally at his last show of the world tour.

“Lestat! I love you,” he could hear his fans screaming.

Smirking, he chuckled, while his thoughts drifted to the ancient days, enjoying the sight of mortals marveling at his presence. In Paris, the city adored him with a love so great, while also managing to shred his heart into pieces. Stopping next to the backstage staff, one of them held the box, protecting the precious relic of his. Opening the lock, he carefully placed the delicate mask on his face.

Holding his head elevated, he closed his eyes, it all seemed like only a little while ago when he met the one who would make him fall deeply in love, through music.

“Y/n, do you have any new songs written? We will be having a special guest joining us tomorrow,” Armand asked, as you slowly met his eyes.

“Yes, I’ve made a few ideas,” you nodded, timidly.

“May I see them?” He asked you, smiling as you hopped out of your seat, handing him the papers with haste.

“Thank you, my love,” he told you, leaning to place a soft kiss onto your lips.

“You’re welcome,” you nodded.

“The others will be hunting later, you are free to join them,” he said, reaching for your veil, and covering your face, before walking away.

Once Armand was out of sight, you slowly sat back down, your fingertips lightly brushing against the piano keys. Humming the melody, you smiled, knowing he would be satisfied with the song that went beautifully in his play.

He was a few decades away from being two centuries old when you first met. In a sideshow, you were the most popular act of the next night. The circus was traveling throughout Europe when they finally arrived in Paris. ‘Come and see the Devil’s Mark’, they called out, catching the interest of people passing. Inside the large tint, they'd gasp at the sight, confused by the sight.

“Why does she have that on her head?”

“She was kissed by the devil himself, and it left her with the face of a monster, Y/n, entertain your guest,” hearing the sound of the whip cracking, your fingers moved on their own, against the stringed instrument.

A few left out of boredom, some through peanuts at you, while others through coins. You were seen as nothing more than a show, no more than the animals kept. Although you knew better than to act against them, this place, these people, they were all you'd ever known.

Suddenly, a scream broke out, filled with agony, others rushed out, wanting to either get away or find out what was happening. You could see the shadow of people, running further away, some of them getting tackled, screeching for help. When the man came into the tint, your trainer, backed away, turning to run, before the man quickly killed him.

Your eyes widened, seeing the man move quicker than the blink of an eye. Lifting his head, he looked your way, and instantly, he was in front of the cage, tearing the door off. Staring at him, you watched his milky white teeth, dark red blood covering his mouth, and icy blue eyes.

Slowly moving to the ground, he tilted his head at you, before ripping the sack from your head. Immediately, you turned your face, but he grabbed your chin, forcing you to face him.

“This face is something else,” he laughed. Moving his hand, covering the left side of your face, his grin widened.

“You aren't so bad on the eyes, as long as this side is covered, maybe I should keep you, how old are you?” he asked, you struggled to understand him, through his thick broken English.

“18”

“Beautiful and you want to die?” he smiled, listening to your thoughts, the entire time you had been bracing yourself, waiting for the final blow to take you out of this life and into the next.

“Yes,” you admitted. Stiffening as he caressed your cheek with his glass-like nail.

“Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate this life gain anew, your greatness will make up for the misery this face has brought you,” he told you before his fangs sank into your neck. Draining every ounce, you could hear your heartbeat escaping your body, as you weakened. Pulling away, he cut his wrist, pressing it against your mouth for you to drink.

“Do you have a name, child?” he asked you, as he pulled his arm away.

“Y/n,” you mumbled, lying on the ground, your stomach was beginning to churn.

“My name is Nicolas, and I am your maker,” he smiled at you, as you began groaning.

“Nicolas, is there a reason you're hunting in territory that isn't yours?” hearing the voice, he turned around, facing the brown man, or boy, he couldn't tell from the youthful face.

“What are you talking about?” Nicolas asked, frowning.

“My coven resides here and you have been wreaking havoc, never once making your presence known, it is punishable by death,” the man explained, meanwhile, you began puking up your insides.

“My apologies, I could sense others nearby, but it didn't cross my mind that it could be a coven-

“You are careless, to kill by the hundreds out in the open and thoughtlessly create a fledgling, you are unworthy of the gift, and a threat,” he said, fire appearing in his hand, before Nicolas was set ablaze.

Dropping to his knees, you watched as he turned into ash before he could completely hit the ground. Wiping the vomit from your mouth, your maker, whoever he was, was now gone. Armand’s gaze went to you, and lifting from the ground, he floated to you.

While his face held no emotion, he thought of himself, and his past, feeling a bit of compassion for you.

“Would you like to join our coven?” he asked you. Nodding, you didn't know what you had become, whatever Nicolas was, but you knew you didn't want the same fate from this man.

“Then come along, we will find a place for you in the theater,” he said, furrowing his eyebrows as you grabbed the sack, placing it onto your head. Slowly standing, you felt like a new creation, your head lowered under the man’s gaze.

“You will feel very hungry, but I will show you how to hunt adequately, what is your name?” he asked.

“Y/n,” you whispered.

“I am Armand, come now, the others are waiting,” he said, turning as you attempted to keep up with his steps.

Armand was not only the coven’s leader, but the director of a popular theater. Humans came nearly every night to them all, everyone having specific roles. The others weren't the nicest to you, but they also weren't mean. You stayed to yourself, and they let you be.

It wasn't until one night, the theater was closed, and you were supposed to be cleaning, everyone had left for hunting. Cleaning each seat, you scrubbed any dried food under the chairs. Humming lowly, you couldn't get a certain tune from an earlier play from your mind. Making up your own lyrics, you continued humming the melody. Standing from your knees, you jumped, seeing Armand standing on the stage.

“That was you singing?” he asked, surprised.

“I-I’m sorry,” you cowered.

“I never asked, why you wear this?” he motioned at the sack.

“I was born different, no real reason, my old trainer, Agnes, said I was probably kissed by the devil,” you said.

“May I see your face?”

“I don't kn-

“Please?” he asked. It was the first time I heard the word, someone saying it to you or even coming from Armand’s mouth.

Sighing, you pulled it off, shutting your eyes, bracing for the nefarious critiques. However, he didn't say anything, his hand softly holding your jaw. The entire left side of your face was in short observations, scarily scarred. Briefly after birth, you had been in a terrible incident, leaving the left side of your face comparable to a healed fourth-degree burn.

“This isn't as horrible as you make it out to be, and to be wearing this old sack on your head,” he told you, grinning.

“I don't want to scare anyone,” you told him.

“I think that is scarier than your face, you obviously didn't hear it enough, but you are beautiful with an angelic voice, would you like to be in the play?” he asked.

“I don't feel comfortable-

“If we found a way around that, would you be willing?” he asked, smiling as you, hesitantly nodded.

And so, he stuck to his word, surprising you with your very own custom masquerade mask. Fitting perfectly against the side of your face, while leaving the other side free. You felt more confident with the mask, as it hid that side of you. Soon after, Armand introduced the veil to you, along with the equally theatrical dress.

His reasoning, he said he would make you the star of the stage, without anyone pointing out the mask or having questions about your face underneath. You went along with his words, trusting him, and onward with practicing the lines.

The show was a captivating success, with roses being thrown at you, along with whistles and claps. Bowing, you thanked everyone, waving your gloved hands. Later that night, when you were helping clean up, Armand scared you.

Sneaking up on you, he congratulated you, while you blushed, your face burning profusely. Praising his judgment, you thanked him, before he kissed you. Ending your night in Armand’s coffin wasn't a part of your plans, but it seemed right.

Your relationship, despite blossoming, was unconventional. You acknowledged it, overhearing a few coven members gossip about you. In your eyes, Armand became your idol, he taught you new abilities, helped learn new instruments, and provided intimacy. You eventually recognized that he wasn't as serious about you, as you were about him, but rather possessive.

He forbade you to form any other companionships, persuading you to wear your stage costume continuously. While a piece of you was hurt by these actions, you had no experience before him, and were sure you would have none after, so naturally you accepted his terms.

Now over a century since then, you remained at Armand’s side, being the lead vocalist in nearly all the the plays. If only you knew, how much things would change in a matter of months.

Standing from the piano, you went to your coffin, the others would be returning soon, and the sun would be rising. You were interested in seeing the special guest Armand spoke of, but you would have to wait and see.

“What are you doing? Use your fucking brain?” you could hear Armand yelling at the coven members. They were setting up the stage, as he stood in front of the chairs.

You sat alone in a booth, far off, a small xylophone in your lap. Tapping each key, you hummed the tune of your song. Opening your mouth, you began to sing lowly, your eyes widening as you felt a gust of wind behind you.

“Is this an original piece? It sounds lovely,” the voice said, making you turn around, revealing the handsome man. Lofty, blonde, sharp jawline, full lips, you had never seen him before.

“I-yes,” you said, moving your eyes to floor, as he squinted trying to catch a glimpse of your face.

“Lestat,” Armand called out, turning to face the two of you.

“I told you I’d come,” The man named Lestat said, a smirk in place, as he bowed.

“And you are?” he asked you.

“Busy, Y/n, go read over your lines,” Armand said, watching as you nodded, appearing in front of him, accepting the papers from his hand, and disappearing into his office.

“Keeping her to yourself?” Lestat asked, tilting his head.

“Y/n is a century older than you, she isn't interested in a newborn like yourself,” Armand grinned at him.

“But you are,” he said, making the older vampire roll his eyes, walking to continue making preparations.

You could feel the eyes of Lestat on you, as it was time for you to come from Armand’s office. You never had actual words for the play, rather allowing your singing to move the audience. The others complained and muttered that it was Armand’s way of not forcing you into reciting with everyone.

Sitting on the prop, you looked towards Armand, as the curtains opened. Singing to him, for the people, is how you always looked at it. He smirked in pride, satisfied with how everything played out. Your role, the grim reaper, serenading your victims as they pleaded with the audience to save them. Finally, death came to collect, the coven members attacked their prey, while the crowd cheered loudly for you.

Bowing your head, you waved at everyone, as the curtain closed. The show was now over, and it was time to hunt. You didn't exactly hunt with the coven, despite everyone sticking together like a pack. Even after over a hundred years, you didn't feel confident to lift your veil around anyone, except your targets. Armand was a bit lenient, letting you stray away from the others.

Watching the young man leave the bar, you followed him, leaving a bit of distance between the two of you. He was beautiful, doll-like, with youthful features on his glowy skin. The further he walked, the more empty the area became. Slowly lifting your veil, as he approached a nearby alley, you attacked, dragging him into the darkness. As his body went limp, the flames appeared in your hand, before you burned his body.

“Did Armand teach you how to do that? Is he your maker?” you heard as you covered your face, turning to face Lestat.

“Yes and No,” you said, going to past him, when he blocked your way.

“Why do you cover your face? Like…a bride,” he smirked.

“Armand will be expecting me back”

“With a voice as beautiful as yours, you shouldn't hide your face, everyone should see the countenance behind the magnificent voice-

“Y/n,” Armand stood behind Lestat, slowly walking around him.

“Oh, I think he's jealous Y/n, he wants to keep you locked away for himself,” Lestat told you, as you approached Armand.

“Meet with the others, straight to your coffins,” he instructed, reaching for your cheek. Nodding, you kept your head down, leaving as quickly as possible.

As you closed your coffin, comfortable, mask off, you smiled, thinking of Lestat. He was carefree, he didn't care about rules, and wasn't scared of anyone, or anything. If only you could be like him, maybe one day.

“Everyone get in your positions,” Sam ordered, as everyone ran around.

Armand was away for business, meaning you had the night off until he returned. You never complained, accepting the rare days, and watching the plays from Armand’s booth. Sitting comfortably, you smiled as the lights dimmed.

“Hello, ma chérie,” you heard, a hand pressing against the veil to stop you from gasping.

“You frightened me,” you mumbled.

“Shall we go out for a walk?”

“I'm watching the play,” you whispered.

“The same play that ends the same way every single night, it won't do you any harm to miss one,” he said, sounding persuasive before you took his hand, allowing him to take you away.

“Now that we're alone, will you tell me why you wear this veil?” Lestat asked as he walked in the direction of the park, your hand still in his own.

“If you knew the reason, then you wouldn't be so nice to me,” you told him.

“How will I know, until I see,” he said.

“You have no reason to see it,” you put your head down, taking your hand back, and speed-walking away.

“I yearn to see the face behind the beautiful voice?” he smirked, as he was instantly in front of you.

“Armand said you are a newborn, when were you turned?” you asked him.

“A year or two ago, I lose count,” he shrugged.

“You sing too? Why not travel outside of France?” you asked him.

“I could ask you the same thing”

“I am a part of a coven, I couldn't just up and leave” you shook your head.

“Armand wouldn't approve”

“Is Armand your maker?”

“…No, but he is dear to me”

“But are you to him? I've heard a few things about your…situation, you're not even his companion, but he keeps you to himself, why?”

“He has had compassion for me”

“And so you feel you owe him everything?”

“I do”

“Even denying yourself more, more than simply being his doll, that he can play with and toss the side whenever he wishes,” he said, as he moved closer to you, his body centimeters from pressing against your own.

“Just a peak, ma chérie, I won’t utter a word after,” he said, as you slowly stared at him, unmoving as he lifted the veil.

He gazed at the mask but didn't say anything, as his cool fingers touched your cheek.

“You exceeded my expectations,” he said, as he took in your facial features, your skin texture, marks, moles, freckles.

“No need to lie,” you said, a bit harsher than you intended.

“I have seen men and women of all kinds, and I have no reason to lie when I say, you are beautiful,” he said, as he grabbed your hand, pulling you back.

“I need to get back to the others, it is best that we stay away from each other,” you told him, turning back to the theater.

“I can't promise I will be as obedient to your leader's commands,” he said, watching as you walked away.

Lestat kept his distance for a while until you received the sudden news he'd be joining you in a play. It was a renowned success, something the theatre hadn't experienced in years, bringing humans to tears at the heavenly duet, before punishing your victim of the night.

He became a recurring guest, who refused the idea of joining the coven. Everyone was surprised Santiago wasn't jealous of him, but he admired him too much to be bothered by him taking the position of leading actor.

You steered clear of him, outside of your performances, to avoid upsetting Armand. Yes, he was jealous, and no, you may not have been companions, but you didn't blame him. He was extremely traumatized from his past and for that became controlling and untrusting to most, but once you gained his trust - he was a godsend, and you didn't want to ruin that for a newborn vampire you'd just met.

Then it happened, after the usual set, you found yourself sitting on the roof, watching as the others left to hunt. Holding the small music box, you humming the melody, your heart aching. You'd overheard a few members gossiping about you, questioning your secretive nature.

Masquerade, Paper faces on parade

Masquerade, Hide your face so the world will never find you

Masquer-

“You don't think sitting up here alone is a bit gloomy,” Lestat spoke.

“It will sound different once it is performed,” you mumbled.

“Then I hope you don't mind me joining, perhaps I can add my touch,” he said, moving to sit next to you before you could answer.

“Lestat, Armand won't be pleased,” you shook your head.

“It is ridiculous how much you care for his feelings, considering he isn't your companion”

“He has been more than generous to me”

“By making you wear a masquerade mask, along with a gown as if you are a widow, I trust your judgment,” he said, sarcastically.

“He spared me, he could have killed me, as he had done to my maker, but he helped means taught me how to even live as a vampire,” you confessed.

“But he did not give you your talent”

“No,” you shook your head.

“Then I see no reason for this appearance, you have a voice unlike any other I’ve ever met, your eyes-

“My voice has nothing to do with my eyes, my face, he saved me and in return it is his”

“What could have happened to you for you to willingly settle for so little?”

“Excuse-

“Take off the mask,” he said, catching you off guard.

“No,” you said, awkwardly.

“We won't be able to fix this deep-rooted insecurity, whatever it is until you remove all of the layers that hide you,” he said, standing up, and hovering over you.

“Or you could mind your own business,” you said, seconds before screaming. Lestat had quickly taken the mask off, watching as your hand covered your face, nearly clawing in disgust to cover up.

“Please, I beg of you, give it back,” you cried, holding out your other hand, your head down.

“Y/n, look at me,” his eyes softened, it was one thing to see you quiet and standoffish - that was normal. However, seeing you bitterly weeping, your nails almost piercing into your face, he was concerned.

“Please, I’m sorry, just-give it back, please,” you said.

“Look at me first,” he said sternly, inaudibly gasping as lifted your head.

“Are you satisfied? Am I still the beautiful star you thought me to be, or do you finally see the monster hidden under the veil,” you spat, the blood-stained on your cheek.

“Is this what he has told you? This is nothing comparable to a monster, if anything, it makes you stand out. A beautiful voice, with an equally beautiful face, you just HAPPEN to be unique,” he told you, reaching to hold your chin, making you look at him.

“That isn't true, I don't want pity-” You were caught off guard as he pressed his lips against your own.

“You are very beautiful Y/n, you haven't been reminded of it, but you are. I haven't been able to get you out of my head since that night, you lifted your veil for me. You tug at my heart, with the simplest glances, don't ever think I am saying anything about you for pity,” he said, pulling you into another kiss.

“Come with me, to my place, we wouldn't want your leader interrupting,” he said, in between kisses, as he kissed along your neck.

The last thing you expected was for his place to be a dark abandoned dungeon, but his attentive skills made you indifferent to the environment. Finally, the passionate tango, you straddled his lap, your head on his chest, as he sat up leaning against the wall. Reaching for your mask, he stopped you.

“You don't have to be so quick to put it back on, I enjoy seeing you this way,” he said, kissing your scarred skin.

“I have to get back soon,” you told him.

“I want you to leave with me, be my companion, and we can travel the world, you can be the star I know you are,” he said, wrapping his arms around your body.

“You want to be my companion?” you asked, confused.

“I want nothing more than to be your companion, to love you for an eternity”

“What about Armand?”

“How he feels is irrelevant to me, he has kept you around as his toy, but I will lick your wounds if you accept me,” he said, wiping your tears. Nodding, you mumbled, ‘Yes’, as he kissed your lips.

“I have to get back now, we can start planning after tomorrow night,” you said, as he nodded in agreement, kissing your lips, before you look the mask, pressing it to your face.

By the time you were in the basement of the theatre, everyone was in their coffin, but Armand. He sat in his office, the light dim, looking up at you, as you came down the stairs. In an instant, he was in front of you, going to speak, you stared confusedly, as he lifted the veil, smashing his lips against your own.

“I missed you,” he said.

“Sorry, I changed my mind and ended up going hunting,” you lied.

“It is alright, will you join me tonight?” he asked.

“I’m too tired to do anything,” you put your head down, but he quickly lifted it, pecking your lips.

“And that is fine, I will hold you, come,” he said, grabbing your hand, and leading you to his coffin.

“I don't tell you too often, but I am proud of what you've become,” he wrapped his arms around you, as he shut the top.

“Thank you”

“No, thank you”

Watching from behind the curtain, you peered at Santiago as he recited his typical lines. Suddenly, you felt a hand on your lower back, making you turn around, your eyes widened, seeing Lestat.

“Why are you all the way over here?” you asked, but he ignored the question, pecking your lips.

“You look perfect, it will only be a short while before we are together away from this place,” he said reassuringly, lowering your veil, moving to the side, as the curtain opened, closing behind you. Looking towards the crowd, before setting your eyes upon Armand, you began to sing. However, mid-song, a commotion could be heard backstage, as the music sped up.

Glancing at Santiago, you noticed the unusually dark gleam in his eyes. The curtains opened again, revealing coven members, dressed as judges. Your heart immediately sank, as others brought Lestat onto the stage.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the true show of the night has begun,” Santiago chuckled. Going to rush to Lestat, you fell to your knees as pain shot through your body.

“This, my dear friends, is Y/n, our grim reaper, she takes hold of souls that face judgment, but who judges her, you will,” he said, making the audience cheer.

“What are you talking about? Armand, what is he talking about?” you asked, but they both ignored you.

“The gracious vampire Armand has done nothing but save her, she was in a freak show, her maker, she didn't even know, and instead of killing her, he took her in as his own, kept her secret,” he smirked, as you realized this was real.

“Armand-

“The ancient vampiric laws, she has broken number two, and while it wasn't her fault, she chose to leave with this secret,” he continued, watching as the audience cheered in anticipation.

“Y/n, be a doll and take off your veil,” he said. Frozen in your mind was all over the place, trying to understand why this was happening, how you could save Lestat, how you could save yourself.

Taking too long for the judges, with a simple glance, you began screaming, pulling the veil from your hair.

“Stop it,” Lestat screamed, trying to get up, but they seemed to have had him stuck in his seat.

“The dark gift, it shall never be given to children, the crippled, OR THE MAIMED,” he screamed, ripping the mask from your face, cutting your cheek in the process.

Lestat grunted and growled, trying to get up, but the more he fought, the more pain he felt.

“I’m okay,” you tried to reassure him, yelping as Santiago picked you up by your hair.

“See this hideous face, a face, not even a mother loved, yet Armand cared about this abomination, and in return, she went behind his back, planning to leave with a newborn,” he spat.

“Armand, I’m sorry,” you cried, but he kept a straight face, watching from his book.

“And Lestat de Lioncourt, from the moment he has stepped into this theatre, he has been puffed up with arrogance, and while that isn't a sin, he was willing to be an accomplice to help Y/n escape, despite seeing her monstrous face, so we will begin with him, guilty or not guilty?” he asked.

Using all of your strength, you controlled every human in the room, blood leaking from your eyes.

“Not guilty,” you muttered.

“g…NOT GUILTY,” everyone screamed, catching Santiago by surprise, but Armand saw you, and it only infuriated him, even more, to see you protect Lestat.

“And Y/n, her pathetic excuse of a maker is thankfully dead, but she is nothing more than an abomination that should have never been created, so I ask you, guilty or not guilty?”

“GUILTY”

“and her punishment?”

“DEATH”

“The jury has spoken,” he said, tossing your mask onto the floor.

“I am sorry Armand, that I didn't leave you sooner, I’ve allowed myself to be used for far too long for your benefit. I am grateful for your compassion, but only because through it, I was able to meet my companion. I love Lestat and I have no regrets, all I ask is, for you to do it the same way you did to my maker,” you said, smiling, as Amrand clenched his jaw.

His thoughts were loud and clear, you were his, and he could do whatever he wanted with you, sure, this ideology partially came from his own maker, but you knew this already. You could never leave him, your loyalty was owed to him alone, he hadn't made you his companion but he cared about you, in an unhealthy way, and for you to want to up and leave him for some guy you only known for a few months, he would rather see you dead than for you to leave Lestat.

Facing Lestat, you kept the sad smile on your face, taking in his face one last time.

“I love you, mon chér,” you said, before Armand set you ablaze. Your screams of agony flooded Lestat’s mind, as he cried, trying to come to you, but you quickly turned to ash, leaving nothing more than the remains of your gown and your mask.

Releasing him from their hold, he grabbed your mask, before rushing out of the building. Due to his judgment being not guilty, none of them could stop him, as he went to the dungeon. Your lingering scent only made him cry harder, as he clutched the mask. He would keep this mask, as an heirloom, as remembrance, as a promise. He’d love you always, and never forget the feelings you brought upon him.

As the song ended, Lestat opened his eyes, the fans screaming loudly for him. Reaching to remove the mask, he bowed, but seeing the figure in his peripheral, his eyes began to sting. Rising, he fought the urge to cry, seeing you standing next to him, bowing alongside him.

“I couldn't be more proud of you, mon chér,” you told him.

“I’m sorry, my love, I-

“No, you are seeing the entire world, and they love you, that is all that matters to me,” you smiled.

“I love you,” he said, reaching out for you, as you faded away.

The once heavy feeling has left his body, now replaced with sweet memories, you looked just as beautiful as the first time he'd laid eyes on you. He could go on, knowing that maybe, just maybe, you had been with him all along.

[y3ager]

MATERIAL GIRL.

— and what do you give the girl who has everything? two rich boyfriends!

jean k. x eren y. x black!fem!reader

tags: modern au, fluff, polyamorous relationship. socialite!reader. lovergirldeepdown!reader. 4k word count. inspired by this blurb.

HAILING FROM OLD money— your father the CEO of a century old automobile brand and your mother the third generation runway model—you have seen all there is to see, worn what there is to wear, had every priceless stone dangle from your neck and fingers, and tasted the most decadent of foods. the belief that just superficial things would be enough to sway you offends you greatly. if you don’t have it, you will have it as if it’s your right at this point. it takes much more than dinner and a yacht ride to make you squeal.

and that’s what’s so tiring about the whole dating scene. the pool is filled to the brim with arrogant nepotism babies in khaki shorts and sweaters around their shoulders. they’ll never worry about a thing because daddy kisses the ass of this man and mommy grins in the face of that woman, and by god, do they make it known. if another man brags about owning original modigliani pieces over dinner, he’ll be met with an oyster shell to the eye. who are you supposed to be, some bright-eyed influencer? please. check the pedigree.

things changed when you met them, however. one in the summer, and one in the winter.

you were on the jet back home from italy when hitch, a girl you’ve known since you were a tyke, bombarded your phone with messages about christening her new penthouse with a pool party you just had to come to, lest she’d drag you there. after confirming your attendance, you rolled back over in the white leather reclining seat and pulled your silk eye mask back down, making a mental note to get your braids refreshed and place an order for a new bikini.

you’re reborn as a literal doll, the braids on the left side of your head coaxed into an intricate butterfly while the others lay flat against your scalp in faultless rows and hang low to your hipbones. white, white, white everywhere, from the nails, the strappy swimsuit, the miu miu sandals; a beautiful contrasts against your glistening ebon skin dusted with body shimmer for good measure. perfect, as usual.

hitch’s new high rise penthouse is something out of a multimillion dollar budget drama, with its dozens of crystal clear windows and modern interior. sitting far away enough from the city to avoid the hustle and bustle, but close enough to gaze at the twinkling lights, it’s practically a palace for the dreyse corporation heir.

champagne flute filled with 1820 juglar cuvée, you mingle amongst the next generation of the one percent. hitch’s friends, and your friends by proxy you assume, are a breath of fresh air. human.

but there’s one person amongst the gaggle you don’t recognize. from your spot next to the slightly tispy miss dreyse, your dark eyes glance over the rim of your ivory framed sunnies, glass rim tapping absentmindedly against lined, glossed lips. light brown mullet, slightly tanned skin, dark brown eyes...

“hitchie...” your elbow gently bumps into the blonde’s sides, snatching her out of her mild stupor. “who’s that?” you ask innocently, gesturing with your half full flute. it’s casual, inquisitive.

hitch squints a little bit, pure concentration written all over her features as she tries to put a name to the face. “oh!” when the name comes to her, her hand meets the back of your shoulder in a kinda hard slap, totally unintentional, of course. “jean, kirschtein! you know, from-” a hiccup interrupts her introduction, making her burst into a quick giggle. “-the oil company.”

the pieces begin to come together, you know the names all of the elite; the braun’s, the leonhart’s, the ackerman’s, names listed amongst yours and names you close deals with. clans with power, influence, wealth, distinction.

he, jean, is walking over now; casual with an easy stride that shows he’s in no rush, he’s confident. he pays his respects to the girl of the hour, congratulating her on her new playhouse before her attention is diverted by another guest calling her name to get her to come over there. hitch slips off, but not before discreetly tapping your lower back in excitement; an unspoken ‘get him.’

“jean,” he introduces himself, extending his hand in a polite greeting. “i wanted to speak to hitch, but i wanted to talk to you, too. you are breathtaking.” his eyes drink you in, from head to toe, even though they’ve been roaming your frame since you first caught his attention. the heir simply cannot get enough. “but you get told that a lot, yes?”

“thank you.” your lips spread into a small smile, one hand slipping into his larger one as the other pulls off your sunnies, sticking one of the arms down into your top. “i’m ___” jean bore a lean swimmer’s build, dark navy beach shorts hung low on his hips, and his tanned skin decorated with a dusting of faint, brown freckles over his body. years of private villas and yachts, no doubt. he was impossibly tall, too, you find yourself having to gently tilt your head back to see his face fully. it was cute from afar, maturely handsome up close. was that a faint hint of a mustache? it was hot.

jean repeats your name slowly, enjoying the feeling of that line of syllables rolling off his tongue. “i’d love to get to know you more. ___, you’re so beautiful. i have to impress you somehow. name it,” his other hand comes up to rest of top of yours, successfully encasing it in a gentle hold. an excuse to touch you just a little bit more. “i’ll make it happen.”

your smile becomes a grin, and your dark eyes glint mischievously under your delicate lashes. one quick test, because where’s the fun in not initiating one? you just want to see what he’d say, pick at his brain. what sweet words will he spin from his golden cords now? “but jean,” you begin softly, “what if i was the type of girl that liked a man that took control? told me we were doing this, at this time, on this day, and in my prettiest red dress?”

“it’d be rude, ___, at least in my eyes, to so quickly assume i had a right to your time, and drag you around this way and that. allow me the privilege of occupying your time, and space.”

before you can catch it, one of your expertly threaded and sculpted eyebrows quirks up in mild surprise. you beckon him a bit closer to your face with a wave of your acrylics. “good answer,” you tease, honeyed voice playful and whispery. “phone? i can put my number in, and we can talk about how you can try to romance me when i have my schedules laid out in front of me.” you watch as he fishes the device out of his shorts pocket.

you were captivating afar, but up close with your tawny skin soft, glittery, and emanating an intoxicating vanilla scent, your dark eyes glistening with mirth and playfulness… it makes jean’s body go into some type of shock, his heart plummeting to his feet and his blood running cold but racing through his veins at the same time.

“well then,” you chime as you save your digits into the millionaire’s phone, the contact simply your name with no bells or whistles to adorn it. “i hope we can get to know each soon, mr. kirschtein.”

jean thinks that pearly white smile will be the death of him.

…

every year, no matter what, your father throws his annual christmas party. you long assumed that it brings him a special type of happiness because your normally humble father goes all out for them, each year being better than the last. he flies out the best chefs in the world to cook for hours, orders the tallest, greenest tree for the foyer, and has the house cleaned til someone could check their reflection in the perfect marble floors. when it comes to this, the man skimps on nothing.

you take it upon yourself to make the most of it, requesting custom design dresses from the most exclusive sewing tables over in Europe, shoes fresh from the runway. only the very best for you, the heiress, the crème de la crème, the girl who has never known the word no.

“dance with me?”

you had been absentmindedly swirling your wine glass by its delicate stem, attempting to place its origin (red, tart-like with its cranberry flavor and a strange orange bite near the end), when you’re approached. once you turn your head, you’re meet with striking green eyes and a sharp little smile.

“you looked bored, and that’s what these parties are for, right?”

eren yeager, the german-american son of grisha and carla yeager, 2nd generation genius neurosurgeon with a net worth in the 7 figures, and the just-as-talented, third generation wedding gown designer. according to the rumor mill, after graduating in the top of class in one of those ivy’s upstate, he gallivanted across the country (no, the world) as the not-so-favorable yeager son. of course, there are entirely too many eyes on the yeager clan for grisha to do too much of anything and a son can do no wrong in a doting mother’s eyes; so eren is left free to his disagreeable desires. everyone wonders how long that will last.

steely dark eyes and your naturally neutral face does nothing to deter him. you decide to indulge him, slipping your hand into his and raising up, allowing him the luxury of whisking you to the dance floor. “i guess i don’t see why not.”

“great.” his hand is soft and a little cool against your own, the woody, cedar notes of penhaligon the inimitable gently wafting off his skin and pressed shirt. unbeknownst to you, a few pairs of eyes bore into yeager’s back. the arrogance he has to whisk you away so early into the party, especially with it being his first one. if eren was the wiser, he’d revel in their envy.

there’s a handful of other couples waltzing across the floor when you two arrive. your fingers thread through his as his free hand finds a respectful place on your waist, blessed with the feeling of the smooth skin exposed by the opening in your dress.

no matter how much money your father makes, he’s an old black man at heart. old r&b plays from the expensive sound system he had installed, tevin campbell’s can we talk playing through the speakers. the irony of the situation isn’t lost on you. nonetheless, you hum nonchalantly to the tune and glide around the floor with your partner.

“i gotta ask, do you enjoy these things? or does your dad put you up to it?” your arm is held above your head and you’re spun around in a quick circle before being guided back to eren’s chest. face still impartial, you nod your head towards your five o clock, the wavy blonde strands dangling from your delicate updo tickling your face. a table teems with gifts for you and you only, bachelors from afar vying for a wisp of your attention with shiny, expensive gifts. they fail to realize that a girl like yourself isn’t so easily bought. but, it’s their money not yours, and few things in life bring you greater joy than pulling ribbon and wrapping paper from luxury brand boxes.

“of course i do. i’m not ‘put up’ to anything. i dress up, i get my presents. what isn’t there to love?” manicured hand splayed across the man’s back, you’re dipped towards the floor. you’re one to give credit where credit is due, yeager is a good dancer; the confidence in his movements isn’t a lame front and he maintains the delicate balance between taking the lead and dragging his poor partner around. since this is suddenly an interview, you have questions of your own. “when i have time to go through them, will i find your name on anything?”

“of course you will. be pretty damn rude to show up to a party empty handed. especially when it might be my only chance to get a gift for the princess.” a name your normally cringe and scrunch your nose at sounds surprisingly nice passing by his lips. he grinned boyishly. “no hints.”

“i can wait. for your sake, i hope it’s no ring. it’s going straight into the garbage.” just the thought of such a “present” makes your blood want to boil. who raised these “men”? i mean honestly, what brain dead fool buys a ring for a girl who didn’t even know his face? and expected her to wear it? you would sooner die and go to hell first.

“no way someone is that dumb. you’re fucking with me.”

“what do i have to lie for?”

"well, taking a look at these guests, i take it back. some of these bastards look dumb enough to pull a stunt like that." eren scans the array of guests over your shoulder, and you can't even feign offense for your father's sake. scanning over a guestlist for former flames and explaining why you didn't want them in attendance would take too much time, and you really didn't feel like explaining "relationship troubles" to your dad of all people. loved him as much as you did that really wasn't his business. besides, watching them shiver and skulk away from your disinterested and annoyed glance made up for everything. "are you a betting woman?"

"did you waste grisha's money on a degree in journalism?" your eyebrows furrow and eren laughs again.

"you're funny, ___. most of our peers aren't so witty. and if it so pleases her majesty, i want to bet on the odds of one of these dumbasses putting a ring under your tree." eren's green eyes stare down into yours, gleaming with playfulness, mirth, and confidence. "what do you say? someone does, and we can go on a date, just us two, and you can smile and laugh a little bit."

"and if there's no ring?"

"i'll leave you alone and fall in place in your long string of broken hearts."

luck has always been on your side. look at the family you were in born in, the riches that are your birthright! the universe has never dealt you a bad hand and surely wouldn’t start now. and worse case scenario, you hang out with one of the few men that can mark your plump lips twitch in the shadow of a giggle. “fine.” your brown eyes meet his green, and neither of the waver. “deal.”

several days later, gifts from around the globe surround you. handbags, shoes, dresses, envelopes bursting with cash; you’ll have to tell your dad you need some walls knocked down in your already spacious closet to make room for more. amidst all this, though, a godforsaken ring is gripped between your fingers. if looks could kill, it would melting and dripping from your grasp. holding it like it’s contaminated, you snap a picture to send to yeager:

‘i’m free the 3rd weekend and tuesdays.’

…

as temperatures rise again, you spend the next few months allowing jean kirstein and eren yeager the luxury of whisking you away when your schedule permits.

the former is a bit... old fashioned, in a good way! you're led off to slow paced, cozy dates; the two of you roaming italian streets, attending shows in their original opera houses, he never strayed you out of the bubble you two were born in. it was casual, soft, predictable in a good way.

eren on the other hand, spent money like it would burn through his pocket if it sat there too long. he spent money like a man who just felt its crispness in his palms and was addicted to the feeling, knowing deep down it'd never stop flowing for him. you're frequenting the night scene in your tight, revealing dress, his firm hands on your hips as you two grind to the pounding beats. shopping spree dates that lasted all day, if your hand so much as brushed it, it was bought, packaged up, and in the car. spontaneous flights abroad, stealing you away for weekends. it was exhilarating.

they both provide the things you're looking for. jean is the type of man you imagine yourself settling down with one day, when the whole young and turnt shtick melts away into something more domestic and slow paced. he has gentle hands and treats you so delicately, softly. his reliability will be something you can learn to lean on and need.

eren could possibly be that type of man too, but for now he has a fire, impulses that keep you oh so entertained. having everything in the world gets boring, and eren brings that spark that you crave.

you ruminate at your vanity. hair tied down and tucked away under a silky soft bonnet, you run your gua sha across your moisturized face, long sweeping strokes that end with a gentle tug. eye masks rest on your face, your feet clothed by a exfoliating mask, and a fluffy robe envelopes your body. you stare at your reflection, you're the only one who gets you.

you're really at a crossroads. you choosing between something is unheard of. you're ___, you get everything you deserve and want tenfold. you like jean, you like eren. the way they look at you with such adoration, how their hands and lips caress your body, the sweets words they declare, and how every promise they've made to you remains unbroken, oh how they must certainly feel the same for you.

as greedy as it may make you sound, you want both. your cake and to eat it too. two of your richest peers fawning over you day in and day out, them caring for you and you caring for them. them loving you, and you loving them. it’s a dream that will be your reality.

…

after a long day at sea on one of many jean’s yachts, the sun beaming down on not only the beautiful blue water but the two of you, entangled in each other’s arms, docks at the private harbor.

you’re running your fingers through your french curl braids as jean talks to one of the dock’s attendees, slightly sleepy from your sunbathing session. the gentle breeze of the day brings the smell of saltwater up to your nostrils and you hear seagulls squawking from spots on the wooden posts. obviously, a day at the water leaves you craving seafood, juicy lobster tails with a decadent pasta on the side. your daydreams of the soon to be dinner are interrupted by an extremely familiar “yo!”

heads turn, and it’s none other than eren striding across the dock’s walkway towards where you and jean are standing. his green eyes shine at the sight of you, the hot pink of your two piece bikini a perfect contrast to your skin and showing curves and bends he’d worship for the rest of his life. oh, and jean’s here too.

another woman might falter, her heart catching in her throat and sweat beading up on her flesh as her suitors stand before her, but you’re the epitome of calm, brown eyes smoothly meeting eren’s. there’s no ring on your finger, and besides, you know what you’re after right now.

“haven’t seen you in a while, yeager.” knowing it’d be cliche, jean fights against the urge to wrap a protective arm around your waist. “done gallivanting the world?”

“seen all there is to see kirschtein, and you say that like it’s insult. what use is money if it just sits in accounts collecting dust.” eren looks at you again, god you’re a sight for sore eyes. “especially when there’s a woman like her to spend it on.”

jean’s eyes can’t help but to roll. what a cornball. “well, good chat, but ___ and i are on a little time crunch. i’m taking her to niccolo’s, especially after being on the water.” his hand slips into yours, taking charge but not tugging you along. you’d be lying if you said you didn’t like this side of him.

“well, now that you mention it, i could go for some niccolo’s too.” eren’s grin is shit-eating. what a cute dynamic these too have, one you know has a bit more bite to it when a lady isn’t in their presence. “how about i join? matter of fact, my treat.”

“that won’t be necessary.”

“i insist.”

“you two would argue all day if i let you,” you interrupt this small tussle, and now their attention is back on you. a manicured hand raises up to cover your small yawn. “like an old married couple.”

“it’s all in good fun,” eren’s shoulder nudges jean, and if jean had lasers for eyes, the youngest heir to yeager fortune would be a pile of dust before your feet. “we go way back.”

jean ignores him entirely, but eren finds it hilarious. “what he’s suggesting is insane, ___.”

you give a gentle shrug of your shoulder, coyness at the ready. “it’s nothing serious, it’s a lunch date between friends, and i bet you’d like to catch up.”

jean’s jaw tenses. he turns to you completely as eren looks on curiously. “i think it’s a sign that you say that, ___. i’ve been meaning to have this conversation with you for a while. yes, we are friends, but i want to be more with you.”

this moment, with the waves crashing across the dock, the sun illuminating the two of you, jean clasping your hands tight, would’ve been a soft, tender, picturesque one had it not been for eren’s booming laughter.

“oh, so now this is a pissing contest, huh, jean? well, since we’re confessing feelings, i have my own to speak for you.” his outburst breaks your gaze, and you and jean both turn in unison. “___, i want you to be my girlfriend, and i’ve felt this way for a while. i’ve been waiting for just the perfect moment, but i can’t let this jack-off take this one for himself right?” comically, you’re put between them, each of your hands in theirs.

“i…” this takes tact, a delicate way of stringing together words and honestly, with their eyes boring into yours, you find yourself falling just a touch short.

“i respect any decision you make,” jean assures.

“___, i will do anything for you,” eren promises.

any decision. anything.

you bit your bottom lip, hands minutely twitching in their clasp. you lean in neither direction, at the center of them. “any?”

and then there’s a beat of silence. and everyone’s looking at each other. this feels like a scene in a sitcom, something that should be accompanied with a laugh-track, but there’s no closed mouth that’s been fed.

“because in the time i’ve gotten to know both of you, i’ve begin to care for both of you. and i’ve made great memories with the two of you. i know i could make even more. i don’t value any time spent with you over each other’s.” your voice shakes just a tiny, tiny bit, vulnerability creeping in. “you too make me… so happy.”

eren cuts the silence first, ever the impulsive one. “i’ll do it.”

“you cut me off,” jean quickly interjects. eren really puts him on his toes, ignites an aggressive fire deep within, steps on just the right nerves. “i’m doing it too.”

“i said i’d do anything.”

“and i said i’d respect any decision.”

“okay!” you voice crashes down like a gavel. “okay. i’m glad that you two are hearing me out,” a smile tugs at your glossed lips, this feels so easy and lighthearted, a stark contrast from the seriousness you impose upon yourself. already, you feel yourself loosening up, because the two of them bring out the true, relaxed you like nothing else can. “but for our sanity the bickering needs to come down a notch before we all kill each other, yeah?”

two strong pairs of arms envelop you. it takes some effort, but you wrap your own around the two of them. three heads together, you find yourselves laughing. a weight eases of your shoulders, but not because you got your way, but because you know this is the death of a mask created by the circle you were born in. a mask that hides the love you can feel in an attempt to guard it.

“well, we won’t kill you.”

nov 13. 2021. nov 9. 2023. i nearly gave up. i almost threw in the towel. but goddammit she’s done. praise god.

[gluttons-for-punishment]

MY LIFE WITH QUEEN

One day in 1974 I was reading the paper and it said that "the Queen" was going to be on Top Of The Pops. Obviously this was a bit of typical puerile stupidity on their part. The Queen wasn't appearing on Top Of The Pops.

Queen were.

And they did. Seven Seas Of Rhye was their first hit, and I quite liked it partly because of the fun outro. Music had joy in it, back in the day.

The likes of Slade and Wizzard and Gary Glitter didn't take it all too seriously. They were all regulars on TOTP and it was a lot of fun.

Queen were on again a little while later with their follow-up, Killer Queen. Everyone liked that. Their lead singer was weird, exotic, almost Oriental-looking with big white teeth. He fitted into the now jaded Glam Rock aesthetic but with an edge, and more class than all the others.

I was listening to the radio the following year and I heard this strange record going "Mama Mia! Mama Mia!" and I thought what the fuck? That ain't Abba!

Then I heard the whole thing, Bohemian Rhapsody in its entirety, all five minutes and fifty-five seconds of it, and I was hooked for life. Queen were like a breath of fresh air, a sparkling gem amid all the Osmonds / Bay City Rollers / David Essex dross that was stinking up the airwaves. I set about investigating their back catalogue.

Someone taped their latest album A Night At The Opera for me. My mate Bernie had Sheer Heart Attack, so I got a copy of that too. Once I'd saved up enough pocket money I went out and bought Queen II. From this album, The March Of The Black Queen has consistently remained in my top three for nearly half a century.

That Christmas Eve, Queen's concert at Hammersmith Odeon was transmitted live on The Old Grey Whistle Test. I took an audio recording of the show on my little portable cassette recorder. The quality was pretty dismal but I played that tape to death and learned it all by heart. In the intervening years it's been repeated over and over again by the BBC, always in a savagely truncated form. It was finally given an official full-length deluxe box set release in 2015 under the title A Night At The Odeon, forty years after the initial live broadcast.

In the scorching endless summer of 1976 Queen announced that they were going to play a free concert in Hyde Park. I wasn't going to miss that. So I set off early in the morning of 18th September with a mate from school (whose name escapes me) after a fry-up made by my sister. We got to Hyde Park and sat on the grass with 150,000 other fans and stared at the empty stage. There was a middle-aged couple sitting behind us who may or may not have been Brian May's parents. A young hippy who looked like Jesus wandered through the crowd giving out cherries.

The first band of the day was Supercharge. Their lead singer was a big fat guy who came on stage wearing a leotard like the one Freddie wore. Next was Steve Hillage, whose endless noodling bored me to tears. Then it was Kiki Dee, who was in the charts at the time with her duet with Elton John, Don't Go Breaking My Heart. She performed the song with a cardboard cut-out of Elton, with the audience singing Elton's lines (Elton was actually present backstage at the time, but didn't appear on stage as he didn't want to steal Queen's thunder).

Then at dusk Queen finally came on with a blinding flash and blew me away. They opened with Procession and a clip from Bohemian Rhapsody and went straight into Ogre Battle.

"Welcome to our picnic by the Serpentine!"

By now, everyone had got to their feet and moved closer to the stage. I got separated from my mate. I didn't care. All my attention was focussed on the band.

The best bit was Freddie, solo at the piano, performing the as yet unreleased You Take My Breath Away. That was amazing. A flawless performance that's included for posterity on the 2011 re-release of A Day At The Races.

They finished with In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited but didn't play an encore: apparently the show was running late and the band had been threatened with arrest if they went back on stage, due to the huge numbers of people out there in the dark.

My first ever concert experience was absolutely euphoric. It was like losing my virginity. I was still on a high as I drifted away in the dark to get the tube home.

Their next album, the first new one to come out after I became a fan, was A Day At The Races. I got the LP for Christmas, some two weeks after its release, but by some careful snooping I'd found it hidden in my mum's bedroom and played it a couple of times beforehand. When I finally got my hands on it, I played it to death.

By now I was a member of the fan club, and used to ring them now and again to see if there was any news about forthcoming releases (the music press were always a few days behind). I'd sometimes pop into their offices at South Audley Street if I happened to be in the West End, always hoping there'd be one or two band members present. There never were. One day I was up there with my mate Mark and we casually asked the fan club secretary if there were any plans to re-release I Can Hear Music, the pre-Queen single Freddie had recorded with the engineer Robin Cable and released under the name Larry Lurex in 1973. She said no, but she had a few copies for sale. Were we interested?

Hell, yeah! It was a one-sided white label seven-inch single, a test pressing as it later turned out. I was disappointed that the far superior B-side Going Back wasn't included, but it was the elusive and rare Larry Lurex so I had to have it. We got one for our mate Andy too. 75p each. Bargain!

My copy disappeared into the ether decades ago, but Andy still has his. And apparently it's one of the most collectible Queen items (second only to the 1977 Bo Rhap blue vinyl single) and sells for an absolute fortune.

[Whilst visiting and working in the West End in the late Seventies I went past Trident Studios in St Anne's Court, off Wardour Street, many times without really realising its significance. Standing opposite Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed, a fantastic science fiction bookshop (where I acquired loads of quirky unofficial Tolkien stuff when Tolkien fandom was an underground movement rather than a multi-million-dollar industry), this was where Queen recorded their first three albums. Elton, Bowie and The Beatles had recorded there, too. Further on from the studio, towards the Dean Street end, was a tenement brothel where the ladies would sit by the open windows and call out to you as you walked past.

Of course, it's all gone now. Dark They Were closed in 1981 and there are shops and offices where the ladies of the night used to ply their trade. Trident is now a post-production facility.]

My second experience of Queen live was at Earls Court with Mark and Andy, high up in the balcony, miles from the stage. I snuck my little Kodak 126 camera in with me and succeeded in getting a series of very muddy, very distant images of the massive crown-shaped lighting rig. At one point Freddie was performing You Take My Breath Away at the piano when, at a particularly quiet part of the song, someone knocked over the drum kit (at least, that was what it sounded like). Freddie looked startled for a moment then, like the total professional he was, continued as if nothing had happened. This was followed by a performance of White Man that was powerful enough to blow your bollocks off. Freddie: "This is a real bitch of a song that's really fucked up my voice."

For the encore, Freddie strutted on stage in a shimmering silver leotard that sparkled like a glitterball. A brief but brilliant segment of Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting was included in the rock'n'roll medley.

Later that year I went on holiday to Italy with my family. When I returned home on Saturday 8th October there was a postcard waiting for me from the fan club.

My postcard is long gone. This is someone else's that I found online.

I read the first couple of sentences and thought "oh! fantastic! I'm gonna be in a Queen video!" but then as I continued I realised that the event had come and gone and I'd missed it by two days.

Mark and Andy were there. They said the band ran through the new song - We Are The Champions - a few times so the audience would be familiar with it for the recording, and after three takes played a surprise fifty-minute concert. What a unique experience, that I missed out on by two fucking days.

Empire Pool, Wembley was a much nicer venue than Earls Court. I got to see Queen there three nights running in May 1978. On this tour they opened with the fast full band version of We Will Rock You and included the brilliant It's Late, which for many years was my all-time favourite Queen track, in the set. The low point was probably Get Down, Make Love, but the gigs were brilliant. Electrifying.

Following this tour they released the Jazz album, which was a bit disappointing. For the first time, there were more duds than gems on a Queen album. The only track I really liked was Jealousy.

I was in the HMV shop in Oxford Street one day in 1979 and there were three or four copies of Live Killers for sale, autographed in gold ink by all four members of Queen. I didn't buy one because I'd already got a copy of this (disappointing and lacklustre) album. I wish I had. They go for between five hundred quid and a grand these days.

Later that year they released Crazy Little Thing Called Love. I gave it a listen. "That's fucking crap," I spat. "The worst thing they've ever done. The final nail in their coffin."

You could say it grew on me after a while.

Queen went on tour at the end of the year. It was called the "Crazy Tour", as they were playing small venues. I got to see them three times that year, first at the Lyceum in central London on 13th December - fantastic, me and Kate were right at the front! The following day I was so hoarse from cheering and singing my lungs out that I was sent home from work by a manager who thought I was suffering from a bad throat infection.

The following evening it was the Rainbow in Finsbury Park. But the best was yet to come: their gig at the Tottenham Mayfair (formerly the Royal nightclub) five days later remains the best concert I've ever been to. A full account of this concert is elsewhere on this blog.

A year later, another tour, to promote the albums Flash Gordon and The Game. Two nights at Wembley Arena (formerly the Empire Pool) this time, 9th and 10th December. I woke up on the morning of the 9th to the devastating news that John Lennon had been murdered. That took the shine off the prospect of going to see Queen.

I still went. I was in the balcony, with a side view of the stage. At one point in the concert, with no announcement or fanfare, they played Imagine. Just Freddie and Brian. Freddie had the lyrics on a sheet of paper. It was the best moment of the whole evening.

My enthusiasm for Queen nosedived in the early Eighties after the release of Under Pressure. I didn't bother buying Hot Space until a few weeks after its release, and then only after I'd heard Back Chat. Bowie had replaced Queen as my favourite, and I just wasn't interested any more. Consequently I didn't bother to see them on the 1982 tour: the closest venue was Milton Keynes Bowl, and it just wasn't worth the effort.

Next time around, for the tour promoting The Works in 1984, they played Wembley Arena again so I grabbed a couple of tickets. Me and my friend Claire were in the balcony again for this show. At one point I mentioned how brilliant it would be if Bowie would appear with them to perform Under Pressure, but Claire pointed out that as the date was 4th September, it would more likely happen the following evening, on Freddie's birthday (it didn't).

Queen's "show-stopping" appearance at Live Aid (13th July 1985) has gone down in history as one of the greatest rock performances of all time, but at the time it was hard to figure out why: to an experienced fan like me, it wasn't really anything out of the ordinary. They were always that good. Usually they were better. But it was a revelation for the general public who'd seen them as some kind of novelty act or bunch of glam-rock throwbacks, and as a result they gained millions of new fans. I watched it live on the BBC that Saturday, recording it on VHS and - in stereo!!! - on cassette from Radio 1.

I missed the Magic tour, their final tour with Freddie as it happened. Following their Live Aid appearance, everyone wanted to experience them in concert so the shows got bigger and bigger. Wembley Stadium and ultimately, Knebworth Park. It was essentially a greatest hits show, with the band playing mostly their hit singles with little room for the deep cuts which were much more appealing for veteran fans like me.

I watched the Wembley Stadium concert on TV though, and they were on top form. The broadcast and subsequent home media release successfully capture the essence of the atmosphere you'd feel at a Queen concert.

As the Eighties faded away the AIDS crisis became more and more prevalent. The vindictive gutter press gleefully jumped on the bandwagon and harrassed any gay celebrity they could think of, including Freddie. Following his gaunt and frail-looking appearance at the Brit Awards in February 1990, they quite literally hounded him to the grave. For over a year these vultures were camped outside his home, hoping for a scoop and a hysterical headline, and every time he emerged into the outside world there were intrusive and sensationalised pictures of him all over the papers.

Not surprisingly, the vile S*n was the biggest culprit.

I thought: "you fucking wankers." - Roger Taylor on the British press

Like most fans, I was in denial. I didn't believe he was ill. I couldn't bear to believe it. There were repeated rebuffs from the Queen camp - "Freddie's fine, he's as fit as a fiddle" - that we latched on to. This became harder when the videos for I'm Going Slightly Mad and Headlong were released. Freddie did look ill.

Sunday, 24th November 1991, the headlines screamed: FREDDIE: "I'VE GOT AIDS". Just after 7:00 the following morning, Monday 25th, I was woken by my girlfriend rushing into the bedroom declaring "Gary! Freddie Mercury's died!"

They make his life a misery and hound him to his death, then pretend they care. Fucking wankers.

Monday morning. That was a very hard day to get through. At work, there was wall-to-wall Queen on the radio. The jokes started up already: rotten seamen, etc. I was so stunned that I could hardly concentrate on anything else. Queen had been a more or less constant presence in my life from adolescence through to my thirties, and now that was suddenly wrenched away.

That evening, the other half was out so I had the flat to myself. I got a few beers in to toast Freddie and settled down to watch the tribute shows on TV. I was able to keep it together until the premiere showing of Freddie's final video, These Are The Days Of Our Lives. He looked so ill, so thin and frail, so sad. What he must have been through, how he must have suffered. It was hard to believe that was actually the same man on the screen. I sat there and cried my eyes out.

Bohemian Rhapsody got a re-release and became Christmas number one again. John and Roger and Brian announced a tribute concert that would take place the following Easter. A plethora of cash-grab tribute books and magazines were rush-released; I bought them all.

The tribute concert took place at Wembley Stadium in April 1992. I went with a mate from work, Allan Harvey, but we got split up in the 72,000-strong crowd before the concert began (echoes of Hyde Park). The concert itself was a mixed bag: some genuinely emotional moments, and a hell of a lot of shite. Roger Daltrey and Robert Plant were just fucking terrible. Paul Young was OK. Bowie's performance wasn't exactly inspiring: he seemed to be making an appearance for the publicity, rather than to pay tribute to Freddie. And his "Lord's Prayer" moment made me (and the rest of the world) lose the will to live.

Elizabeth Taylor made an appearance, giving a speech about the AIDS crisis (man in crowd: "Get 'em off!" Liz: "I'll get off when I'm finished!"). Elton John gave a solid performance of The Show Must Go On and duetted with the notoriously homophobic Axl Rose on Bohemian Rhapsody. The climax of the show, featuring Liza Minelli (one of Freddie's favourite performers) trying to sing We Are The Champions was just plain embarassing.

The highlight of the show was, without a doubt, George Michael. He gave a fantastic performance of Somebody To Love, '39 and, with Lisa Stansfield, These Are The Days Of Our Lives; as live performers go (those that I've seen, anyway) he's second only to Freddie. I still think this was the only part of the concert that stands up to repeated viewing.

Three years later Made In Heaven, Queen's posthumous fifteenth and final album, was released. This was ingeniously cobbled together from bits and pieces Freddie had recorded before he got too ill, outtakes from previous albums, and a couple of re-worked Queen versions of Freddie solo tracks. Despite a couple of crappy fillers (My Life Has Been Saved, indeed) it was their best album for years. I bought it on the day of release and sat there that afternoon getting hammered on Tungsten lager and listening to these precious sounds.

These days "Queen" (minus John) are still touring with American Idol contestant Adam Lambert as their frontman. I'm not really interested. I'm not a fan of Lambert, I don't like the Broadway-style approach the band take these days, though a few people I've spoken to have said it's a good show. I'm content with the eleven Queen concerts I attended in the Seventies and Eighties with Freddie Mercury at the front of the stage (even though the last one was over forty years ago).

It's fairly safe to say Queen have stood the test of time. They're still immensely popular some fifty years after their first release, even though increasingly these days their fanbase weren't even born when Queen were in their heyday. Those of us who experienced Freddie Mercury on stage are beginning to die off now. But Queen still keep bringing joy to new ears, and I'm quite confident that their body of work will still be appreciated in another fifty years.

QUEEN

My experiences

Hyde Park: 18th September 1976

Earls Court: 1st July 1977

Empire Pool, Wembley: 11th / 12th / 13th May 1978

The Lyceum: 13th December 1979

Rainbow Theatre: 14th December 1979

Tottenham Mayfair: 19th December 1979

Wembley Arena: 9th / 10th December 1980

Wembley Arena: 4th September 1984

Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, Wembley Stadium: 20th April 1992

[distinctlywhumpthing]

In League – Hugh

Masterlist

Late-19th century whump. A little backstory that popped into my head. This is probably a year and a half before Hugh helps hold August down for first aid.

The first time Wyatt lays eyes on him, he almost dismisses it as a trick of the light. 

It’s pissing down. A rainfall so unrelenting, it hits the ground twice. He’s only lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the boy because Theo’s word has sent him looking down every alley and around every corner. A week and no sightings have him questioning Theo’s reason but not the continued search. 

“This one looks like he’s never known warmth.” 

Theo’s words have been running through his mind since he heard them. Some misguided hope pushing him to prove Theo was laying it on too thick. 

Between a stack of crates and sacks of rubbish, a flash of pale skin and a sharp elbow. An even sharper chin when the boy turns, sensing himself observed, and he’s gone. 

Wyatt rushes down the alley after him, cobblestones slick underfoot. He bursts onto the street, skidding to a halt to squint through the rain but there’s no sign of the boy. 

It’s another fortnight before Wyatt sees him again. 

He starts to wonder if the boy caught his death, coatless on the streets in a late-October rain that fell without pause into November. The thought doesn’t stop him checking all the nooks and crannies everywhere he goes. 

The boy has his back pressed against a shed in the alley beside a bakery. A lamp illuminates the mouth of the alley. One step closer and his shadow will be the alarm that sends the boy running. With a few yard’s head start, there’s no hope of catching him this time either. Wyatt stays where he is. A full five minutes he waits, afraid to even reach up to ash his cigarette, the boy just as still. Hiding but to what end? He’s looking away so there’s no telling where his focus is. Still wearing the same short-sleeved undershirt, no jacket or coat to speak of. He’s rail thin and visibly shivering.  

When the boy finally turns, he stiffens immediately, tension visible in the wiry muscles of his forearm. His unkempt hair is a dark curtain over his profile but as he pauses, a short huff of breath is visible in the winter air. The vapour hasn’t even dissipated before he slips down the throat of the alley and lets the city swallow him.  

Wyatt doesn’t stop the third time. 

The boy is tucked behind a stack of empty barrels behind a pub, legs folded up against his chest. In the few strides it takes Wyatt to walk by, the boy passes something between his thin fingers, carefully setting it down with a few other objects collected at his feet. He doesn’t look up and Wyatt lets himself get too optimistic. 

Needless to say, he’s gone an hour later.

Wyatt sighs, hand carrying a small jug of milk and a pasty falling to his side. Perhaps it would have been better to try to speak to him, empty words or not. 

He gives the closest barrel a half-hearted kick of frustration and something clinks against the cobblestones. Wyatt stoops, ducking into the alcove and marveling at how the boy managed to fit in such a space. He finds a pristine-white seashell and a tiny bell the size of his fingertip. It’s a cheap thing, crudely hammered into the small shape, gold paint on the tin scratched and chipped. Twisting his arm at angles he would not normally volunteer, Wyatt discovers the rest of the hidden cache. 

He leaves it undisturbed, replacing the felled treasures and his optimism with them. Wyatt tucks the bottle of milk and the wrapped pie in the niche. He hurries off, lest the boy find him lurking and stay away all the longer.   

The next day, Wyatt returns to a bottle full and the food uneaten. Untouched would be a better term, as though the boy has marked it forbidden even to the vermin. Wyatt already knows the collection will be gone but he checks anyway. He could laugh, save the fact that the task of finding the boy has been stalking him as much as the other way around. Every time he steps out, any time he can’t sleep. Just another loop around the block, a quick check down a quiet lane, a diversion down the East side of the river. 

Theo tells him to throw the towel in. “Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.” 

He doubles down. 

Now he’s looking for something in particular. He catches sight of him a handful of times in the coming weeks. Never in the same place twice, never longer than flash. 

It takes weeks. 

But the city isn’t as infinite as it seems. The perfect stage is inevitable. 

In the quietest hour before dawn, Wyatt does his usual rounds. He makes a habit of checking in on the boys who work the night shift before their replacements arrive. After a smoke with Tom on the bridge, Wyatt weaves his way behind a block of riverside houses, moss-covered garden walls stretching along one side. The smoke rises from the chimneys in thin whisps, hearths waiting to be reawakened after the home’s inhabitants. He passes the same hound as always, sleeping on the back step of the last house. 

He’s about to turn left at a dead end when he sees him. Sitting up on the wall, one foot swinging and the other knee pulled to his chest. The boy’s head snaps up, leg lifting in the same motion like he’s on a marionette string, moving to drop to the other side of the wall. 

“Wait,” Wyatt calls, gentling his voice. 

Even in the soft light, Wyatt can see his eyes narrow, but for some reason he pauses. 

Wyatt pulls one of Midge’s hand pies out of his pocket, wrapped in paper and tied with kitchen twine, something he’s never without these days. The boy can surely see it but Wyatt lifts it to show him anyway, then places it on the ground and takes a few steps away. 

The boy is not impressed. 

But the dog from the last house is. It rises from the ground, lifting its nose to smell the air. Not quite brave or hungry enough to skirt in front of Wyatt for the prize, but locked onto the scent. 

Wyatt takes another step away, in the direction of his turn, leaving a straight path between the dog and the pie, the boy watching scrupulously from the wall. 

The hound takes a hesitant step forward. 

Seeing Wyatt’s end, the boy curls his hands into fists. He glares daggers at Wyatt, not even bothering to watch the dog continue its advance. 

Wyatt is hard-pressed to hide his smirk, wondering if the huffed growl came from the hound or the boy. He scarcely breathes as he watches the standoff, thrilled with his gamble. No matter the end, he’ll learn something about this scrappy street shadow. Whether he likes it or not.

At the last second, the boy springs off the wall, snatching the little parcel from close enough to be bitten. But the hound only sits, hopeful for a morsel as he watches the boy bound over the wall, pausing only to throw a last bitter look at Wyatt before he disappears. 

Next

@whumpy-writings @deluxewhump @no-whump-on-main @maracujatangerine @painsandconfusion

@wolfeyedwitch @briars7 @gala1981 @redwingedwhump @whumpflash

@poeticagony-blog @annablogsposts @fleur-alise @melancholy-in-the-morning @crystalquartzwhump

@magziemakeswhatever @neverthelass @cakeinthevoid @inkstainsonmyhands12 @morning-star-whump

[bremser]

Robert Frank on Ocean Boulevard

The late afternoon light, palm trees, their shadows and a covered car are elements so classic to LA and Southern California that Robert Frank's "Covered car -- Long Beach, California" could have been taken anywhere from San Diego to Santa Barbara.

I’ve been living in Long Beach for a handful of years and the photograph lives in my head rent free, in a good way, considering how much the prints can hammer for. I was out doing errands recently, stuck behind a delivery truck on Ximeno Ave, saw a covered car next to a palm tree for the 100th time and decided to find out where this was. The actual location is not obvious, Long Beach isn't a small city, without a street sign or house number, you can spend a lot of hours on Google maps.

In 1955 Frank was awarded a Guggenheim grant to document America through a road trip. He drove 10,000 miles, took 767 rolls off film, made 1,000 work prints from those selections. And edited those down to the 83 photographs of "The Americans," which became one of most influential photo books of the 20th century. (A signed, first edition can sell for $10-25,000.)

In the final edit of "The Americans," Frank pairs the covered car in a devastating way with a covered body ("Car accident—U.S. 66, between Winslow and Flagstaff, Arizona") on the following page. The sequence is a classic example of the art of photography in book form.  

work print for "Covered car -- Long Beach, California" with related contact sheet number in red pencil

A big 2009 exhibit about "The Americans" displayed many of Frank's work prints, contact sheets, along with prints for every page in “The Americans.” The exhaustively researched catalog included each contact sheet for those 83 final prints. The Frank archive is at the National Gallery of Art and they have over 600 contact sheets from the project online. In the contact sheets, you can see frames Frank shot before and after the frame that ended up in the book. The Long Beach visit occurs in contact sheets 537-540.

10 Frames from Contact Sheet 537 related to Ocean Blvd, Long Beach

Contact sheet 537 has the sequence with “Covered Car -- Long Beach.” It combines two different rolls of film, ten frames are from Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach (made famous by LBC’s 2023 poet laureate, Lana del Rey). The other twenty frames are from a roll of film shot at a recreation center or school auditorium, of a marionette show for children.

Robert Frank, frame 5 on contact sheet 537, facing south, 13th Place, Long Beach

Seven of the ten frames feature the covered car. Frame 1 is missing, possibly a throwaway while loading film. In the first five frames, Frank shoots the covered car at the end of the street, you can tell he's interested in the scene. He could have parked his car and got out, or shot these frames from his car window. The photos show a dead end, leading to … white sky. Living here, I immediately had an idea of where this might be. 

On the west side of Long Beach along the bluff overlooking the beach, there's a series of half block streets named "place" that jut south from Ocean Boulevard. Each dead-ends at the bluff, allowing beach access and real estate with water views. Some still have the “end” signs you can see in Frank’s frames. So, which one was it? In 68 years the bluff has experienced a lot of development, large towers built, original Craftsman-era homes torn down.

The details help identify the location: low slung garages (frames 2-6), the space carved out in the sidewalk for the palms, the glimpse of a two story building in the frame (frame 7), with a vent in a particular location. When you overexpose the MOMA jpeg, you can see a number: 20. 

(left) 13th Place, Long Beach 1956, (right) December, 2024

Frank’s covered car was located at 20 13th Place. The garages there still have the number 20, though some have been rebuilt. The two-story building, built 1917, still has the vent in the same location. Interestingly, after taking five shots of the dead end, he only takes one frame of the covered car framed by the palm trees.

The next frames were taken further down Ocean Boulevard, about a half mile. A man, woman and child walk towards Frank, while on the right side of the frame the beach is visible. A woman is on a bench facing the beach.

Robert Frank contact sheet 537: Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach, (left) facing east, (right) facing north

He stops and takes a portrait of her. She’s near the corner of Ocean and Lindero - a house and bus stop are visible in the background, that (infrequently arriving) bus stop is still in that location. The angle of the shadows from the palms indicates very late afternoon.

(left): Woman seated on bench--Los Angeles [sic], 1956, (right) Ocean & Lindero, 2024

In between “Covered Car” and “Woman seated on a Bench” is the Municipal Art Center (now called Long Beach Museum of Art). If Frank had stopped there, the 1955 Long Beach Juried Art Show was up, a show of mostly local painters. The museum was housed in a distinctive historic mansion on the bluff that would have been impossible for Frank to miss on foot or even if he had driven the half mile.

Robert Frank contact sheet 537: the marionette show

The remaining question about contact sheet 537 is: where is the location of the marionette show? There's a park one block north of Ocean Boulevard that had a recreation center with a stage. It's possible Frank skipped the art museum for the rec center.

Besides identifying the location of the covered car, the other question I had: What was Robert Frank doing in Long Beach? He didn’t just drive down to look for cars and palm trees. The other contact sheets (538-540) and work prints answer this. In a follow-up post we'll look at the rest of Frank's day in Long Beach and give it an exact date.

Related to the topic of locating places and people in "The Americans":

"Robert Frank Goes to Bunker Hill" - a 2021 investigation to find the location of Frank's photo of a building on Bunker Hill, downtown Los Angeles. Deliciously deep dive that involves building permits for the neon sign in the photo and a tour of Bunker Hill via the contact sheet.

In Search of the Places in Robert Frank's "The Americans" - Nicholas Dawidoff, 2022, locates a handful of photos

"Elevators, Americans, Missed Connections" at the SFMOMA version of the 2009 exhibit, a woman (the elevator operator) recognized herself in one of the photos!

Alamo Square, San Francisco - my 2008 photo of the spot Frank's portrait of the couple was taken (he said this was his favorite photo in the book). He was probably using a wider 28 or 35mm lens to take the portrait.

[eustasskiddsprosthetic]

I have this Lawlu fic idea called "The City of Light" in my drafts. I'm most excited about writing Law here. He's a pirate who disappeared a century ago and no one knows where he is. That is...

In the present day, Luffy stumbles upon an island that's seemingly abandoned. Usopp refuses to go, claiming he has 'fear of new islands diseases'. At their campsite, Usopp suddenly disappears. Whatever, Usopp probably got cowardly—nothing new. He and Zoro push on!

They end up on a city made of white gold. It's shiny, it's brilliant and sparkling. They're greeted by a handsome man who's older than them both but speaks kindly and warmly. He shows them around, feeds them whatever they want and gives them nice clothes. He promises to keep a look out for Usopp, but there's a weird look in his eye Zoro could not ignore. It gets worse when Luffy looks positively smitten.

One night, Zoro turns to Luffy and says, "Hey, this is nice but I think we should go back. I don't like the way he looks at you." Luffy just blinks, "Why?" Zoro explains, "Usopp's gone and I think he did it." Luffy never saw Zoro this nervous before but he agrees to be careful. The next day, Zoro's gone too. Whatever, maybe Zoro got lost. Zoro will come back. He always does!

(TW: Cannibalism.)

The next morning, Luffy sees his host under a waterfall while exploring the forest. That's when Luffy really sees him as a man, a gorgeous, sexy, irresistible one. He turns to Luffy and smiles. He invites Luffy to come bathe with him, which is an excuse for him to feel up Luffy approvingly while stripping him. He touches Luffy everywhere. His chest, his abs, his hips. He is just about to come closer until...

A plant nearly bites off the man's head. Then some sleeping gas.

Amidst the confusion, Usopp grabs Luffy and runs away into the forest, runs as far as he can back to their ship. Usopp tells Luffy that this guy's really fucking dangerous. He 'disappeared' because he got chased by this huge white bear demon (Bepo's sulong form) with shining blue eyes while collecting firewood. With enough effort, Usopp finally defeated the bear. That's not all. Usopp saw him try to lure Zoro into a cave by conjuring phantoms of Kuina demanding a rematch. The guy eats people in said cave. For a brief moment, Usopp swore he looked ancient, all wrinkly like a raisin as he devours them and only when he's had enough does he revert back to his youthful appearance. Just before Luffy can process this information, the man catches up to them and he is FURIOUS. He drew his sword to kill Usopp but Luffy pushes him off and punches him back. Luffy tells Usopp to run away and take care of Zoro and the others.

Luffy's unsure of what to make of this, but he decides to stick around just in case. By this point, Luffy's half in love. He did not want to think his first love could do anything bad...

The next day, Luffy stumbles upon a cave. When he looks inside, that's when he finally understood Usopp's urgency. The man was eating someone and was half-way through eating his arm that he looked up and saw Luffy. Luffy just walks up to him, finds the locket that accidentally dropped on the floor. He opens it and recognises the people inside. Luffy said he would leave the island to return the locket to the proper owner no matter what. The man's livid now.

They get into a heated argument about the world being dangerous or whatever but that doesn't matter. Right after Luffy says that he has his crew to protect him, the man knocked him out unconscious...

[ordinary-dsmp-nom-blog]

The Downfall Of A God

" Billions of years ago, a powerful being had existed long before legends, fables and folklore had been born, long before man had existed. However, when man had appeared, the being had been worshipped by mankind. The people of the ancient times had viewed this being as a God and a symbol of luck. It was no ordinary being. It was, indeed, a God. The first God to have been born, to be more specific.

The God had been described to have the upper body of a man, and the lower body of a snake with prestine white wings that shimmered with a rainbow tint if viewed from a certain angle, adorned with a prestine mask covered in symbols that could only be deciphered to that of an ancient language the God used. The God wore ancient green robes with golden lining and lots of jewelry, with a black robe beneath the green robes to appear more godly and mysterious, a hood that covered the head to protect its identity. No mortal had ever seen the face of the god, but only the bits of blonde hair that managed to stick out of the hood it wore on its head. Two halos crossed one another above its head while a third looped around its head in front of where its mask covered its eyes. It looked angelic, in more ways than one without the fact that it was half man-half snake.

The two sides had lived alongside with the other in peace for more than twelve centuries, cities were built and statues were made to show their God how deep their respect for it was, to show their appreciation to their creator. There was nothing but peace, before something had changed. Man had begun to fear the God over the course of another few hundred years. The mortals had gained magic, but feared to tell their God about it in fear of being executed on the spot in front of everyone by the one they worshipped.

Rumours had spread, stories had been told to the next generation of how the God had begun to enjoy mortal flesh, how it had developed a taste for man over the course of another two hundred years. This had only worsened and deepened their fear of the God, and it had noticed the change in the mortals over the course of fourteen centuries, but paid no mind to it.

It was only three hundred years later when mortals took matters into their own hands. Out of fear, they had built a temple for the God with the intentions of locking it up, to prevent tragedy of mankind in the hands of this powerful being. It had taken an entire year for the temple to be completed, and during that time it had been under construction, the God had begun to get suspicious of the sudden construction of the building, but had waved it off as its worshippers being generous to have built the temple for it. A place it could stay in, and somewhere the God could give advice to its followers privately. Of course, its reputation had been born from the tales its followers, also known as worshippers, had told to their young. Not that it had known about the rumours and tales spread by it own followers that would bring its downfall.

Impressed, the God had found itself entering the temple to inspect it, just like the mortals had expected and planned. Those who held powerful magic had begun to cast a spell that would seal their own God away just as the God had realized what the intentions of its own followers had been about. Betrayed, angered and full of hatred, the God had also bestowed an enchantment upon man in its own ancient language too complex for mortals to understand. But after they had successfully imprisoned the God, they had celebrated and thought that it was over, that they had won. At least, that was what man had thought. Their fear of the God had been replaced with relieve and joy, proudly stating how they had successfully trapped a deity with magic and had stayed in the area without a worry. Oh how wrong they were to assume that they had gotten away with it without a price to pay.

Not even a week after they had imprisoned their own God had they noticed how the vegetation had begun to die, how life had started to move away from where the once luscious forest had been now turned into a desert. Water had gotten scarce to the point of it being impossible to find in the place that had once flourished with life. But that was not all. Every mortal whom bore magic had suddenly gotten ill, magic stripped away from them thus causing them to become magicless. It had only gotten worse when newborns born with magic had suddenly also lost their magic and fallen ill while the newborns born without magic had been perfectly fine. The mortals had realized that what the God had enchanted was a curse, a punishment for them locking the powerful being away with magic, and had thought that those with magic were to blame for its downfall.

Panic and fear had returned, and everyone with magic had tried to release the God, to try to get the forest to grow again and fill the desert with life once more. But the damage had already been done. Each mortal bearing magic had lost their gift at either birth or at the ripe age of between twenty and fourty years of age, unable to release the God they had once worshipped and had begun to fear a few thousand years later. More mortals had lost their magic as time went by, and had left the area where they had sealed their God in the very temple they had built.

Thousands of years later, folklore, legends and tales were born. The word Naga or Nagini had been created to describe a being with the lower body of a snake and upper body of a man. The events that had happened and how a God had been sealed had been twisted in such a way that the story had been changed. Instead of humans losing magic due to a curse bestowed upon man by the god, the story had been about some disease that only affected those born with magic, a false replica that had twisted the truth of what had truly happened all those years ago.

Rumours say that the God had been imprisoned for billions of years and will be released from its prison while legends say that the temple and the ancient city had been hidden by the last magic user from ever being found by the future of mankind. Some had a theory that it was a combination of the two, but those were just rumours and legends, just theories. But there is also a myth that the God had a secret kept from man before it had even been imprisoned by its own worshippers.

Now, fear is all everyone knew from the variety of tales that had been born and created, all twisted in their own unique way after the original story had been lost and had died off with the last of the worhipper's bloodline, the truth never to be discovered or unravelled again."

The pages were covered as the book was closed by the one who read it, a sigh leaving them as the leathery texture of the cover reminded them of the old books they had read in this very library. The older tales were much more interesting than the newer books authors had written. The newer books written in the modern times had nothing of interest as they all followed the same principles of romance and other genres.

But something about old books and their tales of folklore and legends were different, drawing them in to read them all one by one, even if it meant that they had read the same book more than a hundred times. It was something within the way the books had been written and how the stories depicted the origins of where such tales had originated from that fascinated them. Even this book had said that all legends, myths, folklore and tales had originated from this one story after the imprisonment of just one God alone. This book was one of their favourites. The detail it had described what the God looked like, how magic had been born and how it had been the only way to imprison the powerful being, how a curse had been bestowed upon man as the God had been sealed away, how a week after its imprisonment the curse had taken full affect of those with magic at the ages between twenty and fourty- it was just fascinating to them. Everything about this legend was fascinating. No matter how many times they had read it, it still fascinated them.

" Library has closed around twenty minutes ago already."

The owner of the library pulled them out of their thoughts. Of course the library had to close just as they had gotten deep in their thoughts spiraling with good theories of their own as to what actually had happened and why the pwople had begun to fear the God if said being had done nothing to its own worshippers and followers.

" Oh my- is it that late already? Well, I thank you for letting me know, Wilbur. I must've lost track of time again. I apologize for staying that late here again."

The owner, now known as Wilbur, only chuckled in response, shaking his head and waving his hand in the air to dismiss the apology given by them while the other hand was in his jacket's picket.

" No, no. It's alright. No need to keep apologizing everytime you overstayed here in my family's library. It's not a problem."

" Again, I am still sorry for overstaying."

" George, as I had said previously, it's fine. Nothing to apologize for."

George, as Wilbur had called them, sighed and just left the conversation right there. Wilbur would keep on insisting that it was fine for him to stay here a little longer than what the closing times had said on the doors. Not that George minded, but he thought that it was unnecessary for Wilbur to let him stay a little longer to finish a book.

" Still reading that book?"

Wilbur changed the topic as soon as he saw what George had read as he put the book back in its rightful place, keys in hand and ready to close the library.

" You have read it over and over again. Don't you get a bit bored reading that same book again everyday?"

A grin had spread on the man's face, a teasing tone hidden in the way he spoke. It was part of the norm for him to tease George for reading the book titled " Origins of tales and more" written by an anonymous author. The book was more than ten centuries old, and the only intact and original book Wilbur had found in the attic of his family's house when they had moved here some two months ago.

" You know I don't get bored with a book as interesting as this, Wil. These new books written nowadays are too cheesy and predictable."

He laughed at George's response, barely able to stop himself from falling into his chair at the frontdesk.

" I swear you and Foolish are related somehow. You both share the same interest, the same replies and even hobbies. You two even read the same books too! The only difference is that he comes in the morning and you come around twelve o' clock. Are you sure you two aren't related somehow?"

Although Wilbur spoke alot about Foolish, he had no idea who it was and had never met the guy who apparently was his library 'twin.' He would have accepted and thought that he somehow had a twin he had not known about, if it weren't for the day of their birthdays being only a day apart. But what did that have to do with apparently being library 'twins?' Nothing.

" I really need to meet this 'twin' of mine. He sounds like an interesting fellow amd someone I could get along with."

" Trust me, you two will get along very well."

Wilbur made his way to the doors of the library with George not far behind him, searching for the right key to lock the doors to the library.

" I'll ask him if we can hangout later in the week? We can go to that new restaurant three blocks away, if you want? Heard that Quackity owns it and that the food there is absolutely amazing."

" You mean the restaurant called " Big Q's BBQ" near Karl's coffee shop?"

" That's the one!"

" I didn't know Quackity could cook or opened a restaurant!"

" I knew he could cook, but I didn't think he'd open a restaurant."

Wilbur hummed as he put the keys in his pocket, looking at George with a big grin.

" What do you say?"

" Hm? Oh- uh... ummm.... about what? The hangout? Yeah, sure. Sounds like a plan."

" Great! I'll let Foolish know about the plans. I'll send a message on what day he is available so that we can hangout. Maybe bring Karl and Sapnap with us."

" I think that can work! I haven't seen Sapnap in a long time because of his new job as an archaeologist. How's Tommy doing, by the way? I haven't seen him since his birthday, which was almost three months ago."

" Pfft- he has gotten in the phase of just thinking a lot about women now. Not that I can defend myself as I also went through that phase. Pretty stubborn too."

Both snickered, before they calmed down.

" See you tomorrow, if my boss decides to be merciful."

" Really? Your boss as in J. Schlatt? Yeah no. He won't show you mercy if it's Monday, which is tomorrow."

Both said their farewells and parted ways, heading back to their homes where they would play a game or two with each other before going to bed. They'd typically play minecraft mostly and stream sometimes, but nothing too extreme. Not that they cared about extreme streaming anyways. It just didn't sit right with them after attempting to try it out. It ended with both being drunk with massive headaches and pain in their bodies that they had to call in sick.

Wilbur was lucky that Philza, his father, would be on duty that day while George wasn't. Schlatt had to be convinced for a good while why George couldn't go to work that day or the next and it had taken an entire thirty minutes to convince him to give him two days off. Schlatt was merciful that time, but George wouldn't be lucky to get another day off anytime soon. That incident was almost eight months ago when he had been working for Schlatt for almost three years now.

And the guy had no chill, whatsoever. The coffee machine is broken? He'll yell at all of his workers. There's no water? Again, he'll yell at his workers. He doesn't get what he wants? Guess what? He'll yell at his workers. Again. Not that he paid any mind to the horrible boss of the workspace he worked at.

He couldn't wait to meet this Foolish guy! George had to keep his mind focused when he was on his way home. He kept on dwelling on meeting with Foolish the entire way home, and it almost caused him to walk into someone.

Everything would be fine.

-x-

" Sir! Look what we found!"

The man with brown eyes watched as one of his diggers pointed at something. His gaze followed to where his colleague pointed at, and his eyes widened at the sight of an ancient relic dating back to more than a thousand years ago sticking out of the desert sand.

" No way. There's actually something here?!"

He was surprised, actually excited to keep looking for more ancient relics or even an ancient city burried beneath the sand. The male got his phone out, immediately calling someone he knew would know about these ancient stuff.

" Hey, Punz. You gotta come here. We found ancient relics dating back thousands of years ago."

He nodded as he got an answer from the other on the line, grinning with sparkles in his eyes.

" Great! Yeah! See you in a bit!"

He ended the call and looked at his colleague with a big grin.

" Go see what else you can dig out. We might have discovered an amcient city! Tell the rest that they should also start digging."

" Yes sir!"

The colleague scattered off to go tell the others the order he had given him. Serotonin pumped in his brain all throughout his body. However, he had to stop when his phone rang again. He lifted the object to see who was calling him, and immediately answered upon seeing that it was Karl, his fiance.

" Hi, dear! Is something wrong?"

He listened to the other, softly humming at the other telling him of why he had called him.

" Really? Wow, I need to see if I can squeeze my way in to meet George and the others because we have discovered an ancient relic and I have a theory that there is a city here."

He heard the other, patiemtly listening, shoulders slumped as he had heard the reply he had gotten from his lover. He hated it when he made his fiance sad. He would have to pull a card and ask his boss to give him a day off to meet his fiance and friends. Not that his boss would mind, he hoped.

" I'll talk to my boss. I am just waiting for Punz to come here and will then ask my boss. You know how he is when I have to tale a day off."

He laughed at the funny reply he had gotten from the other on the line, trying to hold back tears. He was pretty sure his lover had said it on purpose.

" Don't say that! Fundy's literally going to have my head if he hears that you found out you saw his furry content on Facebook!"

He snickered, wiping away an imaginary tear from his eye. He had to not tell his boss, Fundy, about this or he would be "fired" from his job by him. The reason it was in quotation marks was because Fundy wouldn't actually do something like that, as he was pretty sure everyone knew about his content.

" Okay, see you, love. I'll let you know what he says."

He pulled the phone away from his ear and hung up, already plotting of how to ask Fundy to give him a day off to meet his finace again. He was pretty sure that the man wouldn't mind as long as he didn't mention about the transformation incident.

" Really? Your finace knows about my content, Sapnap?"

" Fundy- boss- I didn't-"

" Just take the day off. I am too tired and used to your shenanigans that I could care less. Plus the fact that you rarely ask for breaks. Take the chance of getting a day or even a week off before I change my mind."

He stared at his fox-hybrid boss with wide eyes, mouth agape. He was thinking that this was a dream, but was quickly brought back to reality as the hybrid walked away.

" Wait- how long have you been-?"

" Since I heard that Karl found my content. Also, Punz is here so get to work while I go help the others dig the area, Sapnap."

" I- yes. Of course!"

Sapnap dashed to where he thought Punz would meet him, a little embarrassed that Fundy had heard his conversation with Karl on the phone but was able to brush it off.

" Hey, Sapnap! How's it going?"

" Going great. Anyway, 0lease follow me."

Sapnap had led the man to where the relic had been found. Punz's eyes widened upon seeing the ancient writing on the surface.

" Holy- this really is an ancient relic!"

"Told ya! Thomas found it, and the rest of the crew are digging to see if there is a city here."

" I'll try to see if this is also an ancient Egyptian city. Who knows? Maybe they had travelled here and made themselves right at home."

" It does look like it was made by them, honestly. The carvings are similar, but the writing is different."

Sapnap commented, squinting his eyes to see if he could decipher the language a bit better. He wasn't able to do so. He was able to decipher Egyptian writing, thanks to technology, but wasn't able to decipher this Egyptian writing.

" Why?"

He wondered, almost glaring at the relic as if it had the answer to his question, as if glaring would help him read and finally understand the writing better. It did not, however, help him understand the writing.

" I swear this isn't Egyptian language."

" Wh- Sapnap, are you sure? Are you saying that we have discovered a new language?"

" I believe so. I can't decipher this writing or its language. As if this language had been around longer than the Egyptians and way before that."

He mumbled, literally scratching the top of his head as he tried ro figure out what type of name to give this newly discovered ancient writing and language. He had no idea if it was actually a newly discovered ancient language that seemed way older than it was with how fragile the relic seemed but just the cracks alone. Even a gentle breeze seemed to cause it to fall apart.

" Just get the epoxy or silicone to make sure this ancient architect doesn't crumble by just a gentle breeze."

He ordered, placing a hand on his forehead before dragging it across it, beyond exhausted and had given up on trying to figure out what the words written on the new discovery.

" I was just about to say the same thing."

Punz spoke as he stood up, putting both hands in his jacket's pockets as he observed the ancient relic with his ice blue eyes. It almost looked as if they glowed, but he knew that it was because of the angle he stood in and the light that had given the glowing effect. Sapnap just nodded in acknowledgement, and shrugged.

" Best get to it then. I am going back in town for a day or two."

" Your leaving already?"

Punz turned his attention towards the other, a brow raised as he gave Sapnap a questioning gaze to support his words. Not that it was needed with the question marks inaide his blue eyes. His confusion was also there, but not as prominent as the questioning look directed at him.

" I haven't seen my fiances for almost four months, Punz. I miss them and had not asked for a break until now."

It was true. He wanted to visit his lovers after not seeing them for four months. He felt guilty for not visiting them for so long, but he had expeditions and other work to do in every ancient city to learn mpre about the lives of the people that had once lived in them, how they had thrived and how they hunted. He hadn't realized that he had been gone for that long until Karl had called him almost three days ago now. Time flew by when he was focused on something related to his job.

" Tell them I send my greetings. Except Quackity. Tell him I said fuck him and his ego for breaking my table and washing machine during that sleepover."

Sapnap snorted, knowing that Punz would never forget that day Quackity had broken his washing machine and favourite glass table with an axe. More specifically, a proper netherite axe. Such good timeswhere he had witnessed the chaos of that day.

" I will be sure to tell him that you said hi in your own way."

He chuckled with the other before bidding farewell, heading towards his car to begin his journey back to town. It wpuld take an hour to reach the city. Punz was only quick because he had already set up his tent not too far away from where the discovery had been made by Thomas.

The poor man had worked for far longer than anyone else had before Fundy had become his boss and he was in his sixties. He was so happy that he hadn't realized that he was already on his wah to the city until he had driven over a rather medium sized rock that had snapped him back to reality.

He might as well listen to some music.

-x-

" Oh come on! That skeleton just had to kill me!"

Wilbur could be heard laughing at George, the death screen mocking him for having died to a mob that had the shooting accuracy of a rock. But it had to be the one time it had given justice to its fellow skeleton friends when he was mining diamonds!

" Come on! That's not funny!"

" It- hah-!"

" Wilbur!"

George looked at his chat, stumbling over his own words at the comments of how he had been killed by a skeleton of all mobs. He was unable to get words out of his mouth with how baffled he was at what had happened.

" Guys- wait- stop!"

He fumbled with his hands, trying to find sometheing else to do instead of flailing his arms to worsen the mockery.

' Playful mockery.'

He reminded himself, taking in a deep breathe to calm himself, to steel his nerves. He had to focus on the game and stream. After calming down, he clicked on the screen to bring his character back to life as if nothing had happened.

" I am sorry George! I couldn't help it!"

He heard Wilbur laugh again but it wasn't as bad as before. He had calmed down while George had calmed down. Not even the chat had playfully mocked him as bad as they had done previously.

" It was just so funny! Especially since you had half a heart!"

" Wilbur. Please, I don't want to remember it anymore."

Wilbur only chuckled before he suddenly gasped.

" Um... I am gonna end stream. Sorry everyone."

George looked at the time before humming.

" Same here, guys. Sorry but we have stuff to do tomorrow, and it is quite late where we are now."

He read the disappointed comments, the comments that wished him a goodnight and even saw the numbers plummet as the people watching his stream left. He ended stream by leaving minecraft and then stopped it completely. Hevsighed, rufflimg his hair as he looked at the time again.

" 19:48"

God he had to get ready for work and knew that Schlatt would be an a-hole on the first day of work, but it was what it was. A ping from his phone caught his attention and he lazily pucked it up, switching the device on and read the sudden message from Wilbur.

" Foolish agreed to go on a hamgout at Quackity's restaurant on Friday. I had invited Karl, Sapnap and Quackity. Don't worry, he has asked the Executive Chef to be incharge for the day."

He shook his head as if the Wilbur had sat behind him, being physically there instead of the man being at his father's house eight blocks away from his apartment. Not that it that far away from George's place, but still quite a distance to walk or get there compared to Sapnap's place, who shared it with his fiances. Long story short, they had moved into his place after the other two had gotten enough cash to afford an extension of the house for their rooms. Sapnap's old room was nothing but a guest room now after the sudden change of the house with his fiances.

Not that it mattered. While Sapnap went out to discover new architect, the two would look after the place. Whenever George had visited while Sapnap wasn't there, the place had been spotless. There had been no rubbish anywhere as far as the eye could see. He had begun to suspect one of the two had OCD, but had nothing to prove his theory. Or they just enjoyed cleaning the house, very strange, or they wanted to lift off the heavy weight on the poor archeologists' shoulder.

That was sweet. He frowned, grumbling at the thought of them having found the loves of their lives. He admitted that he was jealous but wouldn't say it out loud. He didn't have anything against his friends for being lovers with one another, nor did je blame them. It just... it just made him feel jealous for not finding a lover or someone he loves.

It was frustrating, but he jad accepted it, knowing that his time for having someone by his side who loved him, cherished him, helped him, had his back, looked after him would come and that he would do the same in return for their devoting love.

It wasn't like it would be a lonely single life he would have for the rest of his life! Right? Surely he wouldn't be lonely... and a sad sack of a human for the rest of his life...

He shook those thoughts out of his mind, getting up from where he sat and walked over to his bed... his messy bed. He hadn't fixed it since morning, and wouldn't have enough time to fix it anyway. He'll ask if someone could clean the apartment for him, since he had mentioned to the owners that he would only ask for his room to be cleaned whenever he left the apartment, to which they agreed to.

They were a lovely couple, who had been together for almost twelve years now. Thwy were sweet and understanding, had not minded if people had their own set of rules that involved their need for privacy.

They were more than happy to respect his boundaries than intrude them, which had been a relief for him. It had taken away all his worries about his boundaries being broken, but not his worry for other things.

It had been a nice thing to think about over and over again. But it had also been a reminder of his single life... His mind dwelled on if he would ever have a partner for the following years to come for life or not. Those negative thoughts had plagued his mind, had rooted themselves at the back of the mind where a bin had been filled past the brim, past its capacity and limit.

He shook his head and stared at the bed in front of him, expression blank as he just observed his lovely bed. He crimged unnoticeably at the sight at how the covers were ruined, the duvet crinkled and desperately needed care. He sughed again, shaking the cringe feelimg out of his system. Literally. Now had not been the time to think about the poor bed needing care. Now was actually the time to think about sleep.

The messed up bed had fallen victim to his fall on it. The material giving in, bouncing him once. He got on the bed properly, slipping undet the covers with his clothes on. He was lazy, and would fix it as soon as he got up. He grumbled as he turned around and set the alarm for seven o'clock, finally feeling at ease with the knowledge of being screamed at by the trusty piece of technology.

Slowly getting comfortable, his eyes slowly fluttered shut, sound nothing but a white noise as it faded out of hearing range, body slowly falling limp as each muscle in it had begun to relax. The last thing to be pulled in the voud was his consciousness. And then, nothing but a dream had been displayed as he slept.

-x-

The front door to the house had opened, and Karl immediately jumped off of the couch to greet the person. He knew who it was, knew who would have spare keys to Quackity and his shared home.

" Sapnap! Welcome home!"

" Wait- KaaaaAAAAAARL!"

He yelled while he had received an answer from the other person, jumping on the them like a little kid eager to hug his mom after not seeing her for a long time which had caused him and his fiance to fall over from the force Karl had put into his running to tackle him.

" Mi amor, don't tackle our fiance."

Quackity's voice rang in both of their ears. Karl couldn't help but laugh nervously in response, while Sapnap shook his head with a broad smile plastered on his face.

" We don't need to tackle poor Saps to welcome him."

Quackity walked up to them both, offering a hand to Karl first and then to Sapnap after he had helped Karl up. He managed to help Sapnap stand up, and all three had went in for a group hug. Love was definitely in the air, as Sapnap began to give them both a small kiss on the cheek, still not ready to kiss them properly as it was something he wasn't used to yet. Relationship and all despite dating for more than three years.

" Love you too, Sugar."

Sapnap had given the nickname because of Karl's sweet personality. He even sometimes called him " Sweetheart". Quackity obviously had a different nickname because of his personality too. He had two nicknames, actually.

Karl gave him " Goldy" because of his golden duck wings while Sapnap called him " Flame" because of his firey personality. Quackity, also, used the nickname " Sweetheart" because of Karl's sweet personality. Sapnap was either " Honey" or " My Ember" because of his beautiful dark brown eyes with hints of bright orange. The brown looked almost black with how dark it was, and the orange was so bright that it had the illusion of making it seem like the cokour had glowed.

" Love you too, My Ember."

" Shall we go eat quickly? I made dinner. How does Wagyu steak with some nice and incredibly delicious truffel butter sound?"

" Aw- but you didn't need to, Flame! I was going to make dinner?"

Quackity playfully gave him a skeptical look, but couldn't help the smile that had crept on his face. Karl also smiled, giggling a bit at the look given to Sapnap by Quackity, but knew that was playful.

" With that three hour drive home? Not a chance. Plus, I made a Michelin Star worthy dish in those hours!"

Sapnap rolled his eyes, freeing himself from the hug. He was being dramatic, but also a loving fiance as he gave in. His shoulders slumped, upper body a bent bent over as he pretended that he had gotten scolded by them, dragging his feet on the ground as he walked into the dining room.

" Fine. You win."

" Just as I thought, Honey. Love you too."

The two followed after Sapnap, and sat at the table. Each separate dish displayed in front of each of them was no joke. The Wagyu steak had been nicely seered, and cooked at low heat like it should be. The marbled texture had still been left behind, but it wasn't as prominent as the raw product. Still a masterpiece. The truffel butter looked so good, giving the dish a nice aroma that would soon be gone.

" George, Wilbur and someone named Foolish have planned to go to my restaurant on Friday. Don't worry, I have asked my executive chef to take charge fpr the day."

" Friday? Holy- that's still in five days. We can go hangout and even catch up before the meet up."

Sapnap commented, picking up the utensils and slicing the delicate meat. A steak knife was not needed to cut this type of steak, as a butter knife acted like a steak knife from how easiky the meat had been cut by it.

" I agree. Who knows! Maybe we can go see that new relic you had found before then!"

" I am sure Fundy wouldn't mind. After all, I think it's a good idea and way to catch up."

Quackity spoke, placing a cut off piece of the steak in his mouth and chewed, before swallowing.

" Plus, Karl and I close early on Wednesdays because that is when the staff are off duty and Karl to fetch some ingredients for his coffee."

" I can get some for the hangout at where you found it too!"

Sapnap finished chewing a piece he had inserted in his mouth while they talked, swallowing it.

" I don't mind it, but I am worried about one of you two getting hurt when we work with some of the machines. Especially if one of the cranes had a tomb or something and it falls on one of you."

" Trust me, I know you are worried but Quackity can easily get me out of there if it were to happen. He is an avian after all, and has fast reaction timing."

" I know, but it's- it's just I don't know about this."

" Sapnap, don't worry. Karl and I won't get close to the machines and stuff. We are anyways way to scared of them and prefer to stick close to you."

Sapnap sighed, but reluctantly gave a curd nod. The two silently celebrated their victory, massive smiles plastered on their faces as they looked at each other. Sapnap gave a nervous smile at his two fiances as they looked at one another, still worrying. He hadn't thought of it, and didn't want to upset Karl with saying no to him. His sweet fiance deserved better than that with his sweet personality.

" But I will have to ask Fundy if it is alright."

" We know, but I bet he is going to say yes because it's us."

Karl was so positive and cheery, bubbly like always when he got too excited. In fact, Sapnap had thought about taking him there on the site with Quackity to another site during the holidays pr on Karl's birthday. He still had to figure it out, but found himself not minding it as long as there weren't any weather issues.

They all silently and slowly ate their dish, talking every now and then or telling each other how their days had gone. It was something if a tradition in the house they had started after Sapnap had come home two weeks after his first visit.

Sapnap found himself relaxed unlike the tense moments on the desert as the people dug in the sand to find ancient cities or anything of the sort. He just had to keep in mind of how he would have to keep a close eye on them when they were going with him to where the new discovery was.

As long as Fundy was fine with it and they kept their promise of sticking close to him, he wouldn't mind letting them come to work with him again sometime in the future.

How bad could it be?

This took so long to write but I had done it. I have conquered the four days with almost non-stop writing. I hope that you had enjoyed the first chapter, and that you all look forward to reading the next one.

Taglist: @kayla-crazy-stuffs

[maria-of-the-waves]

The Kingdom of Life

This is an idea that has been brewing in my mind for a while and was confirmed in my head when I looked at the map of the western continent (o_ _)ﾉ彡

You see this, the desert of death and the Kingdom of Askosan are the same size, that means that there is nothing stopping the City of Life from becoming the Kingdom of Life ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

It has already been confirmed to us in history that attempts have been made to create new cities in the Desert of Death, so it is not crazy to think that if more had been created, it would end up becoming a Kingdom with its own culture.

What's more, in chapter 316 we are told that only a necromancer will be the new king/queen of death because they are the ones who know the most about the pain that darkness can cause and still handle it ╰(▔∀▔)╯

Not only that, the Night's Exultation is a gem that belonged to the Queen of Death and gives us a great clue about what could be the main jewel of a crown or jewel that marks royalty ヽ(；▽；)ノ

Now that I've explained the reason why I came up with this AU, here are my ideas for it:

The divergence began when the Queen of Death founded the City of Life and appointed a family of dark elves to run it when she I couldn't do it anymore.

She designated this family with a magical huadian that would mark who is worthy to rule, so if one day the family were corrupted their right to rule would be eliminated and assigned to some other family that was worthy.

After the final battle againts the Queen of Death and the Church of the God of Sun it became common knowledge that the next King/Queen of Death would only be a necromancer and the most loyal dark elves built a palace in the capital which was sealed only to be opened when their next King arrived.

The ruling family began to rule and was recognized as an archduchy (The highest rank of nobility below royalty) and a branch of the royal family.

With the construction of more underground cities and towns, an aristocracy began to be created that will govern their respective territories, making sure to remain firm in the principles of always being faithful to their people and helping them in every way possible.

When humans began to escape from Dubori territory to the Desert of Death they were welcomed as citizens of the Kingdom of Life.

With each generation the population continued to increase in both humans, half-breeds and dark elves which caused the kingdom to grow and prosper while the culture developed obtaining things such as harem pants, the wearing of veils on the face and hair and hena tattoos

The archducal family remained faithful to the first queen and for generations humans and dark elves mixed, causing that although the most recent generation (Obante and his offspring) were mostly dark elves the percentage will vary.

At some point, Alberu's mother decided to travel the Continent and ended up as King Zed Crossman's concubine, but since they both fell in love, she did not care much about her new position.

Tasha didn't like this very much but accepted it until she found out that her sister was pregnant and immediately went to help her by disguising herself as a maid.

From here everything goes as canon until during a return visit to her native home Tasha ends up rescuing Mary who became a necromancer, the first in centuries.

During Mary's recovery in the capital's hospital someone leaked the information that the future Queen of Death had been born, and the entire Kingdom began to celebrate the arrival of the future Queen.

Due to the social pressure of taking the throne in the future when she is only 10 years old Mary felt overwhelmed and asked Tasha to stay with her.

Tasha accepted and during the time she took a break she and Mary formed a mother-daughter bond which was solidified when Tasha asked Mary if she could adopt her by blood.

Mary accepted and once the ritual was completed she became a dark elf half-blood, maintaining her status as a necromancer.

His web scars turned white due to the concentration of dead mana and he obtained the huadian of the archducal family in the same color.

I imagine that from here things would go as in canon with the exception that Mary would get lessons in etiquette and politics while she travels throughout the Kingdom of Life to meet her future subjects.

[halfmoonshines]

I'll Always Know You

summary; a series of events following bucky barnes and the reader

hurt/comfort, fluff

You had decided about fifteen minutes ago that this was probably your dumbest idea to date; now you were just miserable. The thunder boomed loudly overhead, the sky bucketing rain down on you like a small monsoon. You'd long abandoned the newspaper you'd fruitlessly held overhead to stay dry.

Why didn't you accept the ride from your work partner? You knew the storm was rolling in but you were so hellbent on being self sufficient.

You didn't hear the car roll to a stop on the empty street next to you, the rain putting a quiet blanket on everything but itself. But the voice that broke through definitely scared the shit out of you.

"Miss?"

You jumped, turning to the dark haired man standing opposite you. You probably would've thought his broad shoulders and defined muscles you could see beneath his quickly soaking wet shirt were attractive if you weren't immediately afraid of being murdered.

"Yes?" You replied with a subconscious step back.

His smile was tentative, hands half raising in a surrender. "I was driving by and noticed you fighting for your life against the wind. Could I offer you a ride?"

Every cell in your 21st century body said that you should turn around and start running. Never accept rides from strangers, even handsome ones. But it was truly storming now and you were still a twenty minute walk through the city home.

Sensing your hesitance, he tacked on. "You could either risk me being a murderer or almost definitely die to mother nature or pneumonia."

"Fair point." You followed him to his car.

--

Turns out, that would just be the first time you saw Bucky Barnes.

He showed up at your door three days after the rain incident, and you were almost freaked out if you hadn't been kicking yourself for not giving him your number.

"Sorry for just showing up, but I was wondering if you'd be interested in grabbing some coffee?" The arm positioned awkwardly scratching his head and the nervous smile on his face was enough to make your suspicions melt fully. Ted Bundy be damned.

"Let me grab my coat."

--

Turns out Bucky likes warm mochas, and also holding hands. You learned a lot about him over the next few weeks; his likes and dislikes. You fit together like the last pieces of a puzzle, you barely noticed the months passing and when you started leaving clothes at his apartment.

"You're kidding me, you've never seen Pitch Perfect? It's like quintessential 2010's cinema."

Bucky's laugh never failed to warm you inside. "I was a bit busy during that decade."

Your eyebrows scrunched, those little comments only confusing you. "The whole decade? What are you, 80?"

"Not quite."

---

"Would you still love me if I was a cat?"

"Yes." His reply was instant, warm arms wrapped around you while he leaned down for a kiss.

You dodged his lips, a playful smile on your own. "How would you know it's me?"

His hand found your cheek, pulling you in for a demanding kiss. The feeling of his mouth on yours always electrified you.

"I'll always know you."

---

The first time you felt he ever truly lied to you was a year in, which is a considerable span, as you tried to rationalize.

But there was no rationalizing the photo in your hand. A black and white snapped picture of your long term boyfriend, James Barnes, in a WW11 military uniform. Same boyish smile, same stance. The only difference was the haunted look that seemed to plague your Bucky.

There had to be an explanation, right? I mean vampires weren't real. This wasn't Twilight. A distant relative maybe?

A voice in the back of your head was insistent that this was him.

"Bucky?" You called him to the room before you could lose your nerve.

His smile was easy when he entered the room, but you couldn't help but notice the tenseness that filled him when he noticed the box you'd be rifling through.

"What's up, Doll?"

You lifted the picture along with an eyebrow, nervousness trickling into your stomach. "Who's this?"

He paused for only a second before it was like a switch flipped in him, and his smile eased back. "That's my grandpa. I don't really display his pictures for the sake of my sanity. We could be twins." He snatched the picture from you, depositing it back in the box.

"I'll say. You look the exact same." Your head was cocked to the side, a question still sitting on your lips.

"Strong genes."

---

He should've told her. No, he should've never gone back to her apartment. Never pulled his car over in that fucking downpour. All he ever brought with him was death and tragedy, and Bucky was terrified that she was about to make that list.

"We're five out." Sam's voice was carefully guarded, knowing his partner was on edge.

It was just a normal day a few hours ago when Bucky had come home to the door of their apartment hanging off it's hinges.

His panic was instant and only mounted when he searched the home and found nothing but signs of struggle and you missing. It was always a fear gnawing at the back of his mind. He had plenty of enemies, people he'd ruined the lives of. It was negligent to keep you in the dark, to even keep contact with you. But James Barnes was a selfish man.

When the jet landed and his boots hit the wet concrete, he wasn't Bucky. He was the soldier. And he would bring you home.

---

The sight of you, broken on the examination table was almost enough to take his knees out from under him. He put a steadying hand on the door frame to your room while Bruce gave him a diagnosis he had feared.

"It seems like they experimented on her. Traces of nodes connected to her neck and head. Until she wakes up I won't be able to tell the extent of damage, if there even is any. Worse case... she doesn't remember you."

Fuck. Bucky's breathing was shallow. If he could go back and rip every single man in that facility apart slowly, he would. Even then it wouldn't be enough to punish them.

Maybe you not remembering him was a blessing. Maybe you'd be safer.

--

The lights over you were like the blazing sun, and the only thing you could assume was that you had an insane hangover. Your brows pulled together, eyes squinting to recognize your surroundings. Vaguely clocking the IV attached to your arm, your vision started to clear and so did your thoughts.

Being at home, the bang of the door coming open, men swarming you.

And then nothing.

Your heart rate quickened, panicking now to inspect what was around you. You'd been taken, like some cliche movie. But by who? Why?

Just as your panic was mounting to a full blown freak out, your eyes found a familiar figure to your left. Head hanging off the back of the chair he was passed out in, your boyfriend was a more than welcome sight.

"James." Your voice was hoarse, scratchy, but he awoke instantly.

He was wordless, flying out of his chair and onto his knees beside you. Your handsome man was haggard, dark bags under his eyes and mussed hair. His warm hands roving your face distracted you from his gaunt appearance.

"Do you know who I am?"

His question confused you, as did the worry in his eyes. You brought your hand up to the one sitting on your cheek and gave him your best, exhausted smile. "I'll always know you."

--

a/n: have requests? submit here

[whisperinggbreeze]

Eight hundred years ago, there was a prosperous kingdom known as Xianle.

They were famous for their riches and extravagance, but most of all, they were known for their crown prince.

The Crown Prince of Xianle was pure and beautiful beyond comprehension, and skilled in both cultivation and the arts. By the way he was described and even worshipped, one even could have believed he was a god.

And then, at only seventeen years old, he ascended to heaven and really did become a martial god. The Heavenly Emperor himself even showed an interest in him. Many believed he was the luckiest boy in the three realms.

Three years later, the kingdom of Xianle fell into ruin.

An epidemic raged through the kingdom, leaving untouched only soldiers. On top of that, a part of Xianle known as Yong'An was also locked in a civil war with the capital. Soldiers from Yong'An overpowered the weakened Xianle and took over.

The remaining residents of Xianle blamed their god, their crown prince. If he couldn't cure them or save their kingdom, was he any better than a god of misfortune?

In reality, the Crown Prince of Xianle attempted to save his kingdom and failed. He was banished for descending from heaven to help mortals, and his efforts were for naught.

Soon after his banishment, the Crown Prince of Xianle turned his back on the world. He attempted to summon the disease that had plagued his kingdom, killing his last and most devoted believer in the process.

For hundreds of years, cities and kingdoms were laid to waste by his hand. He taught the crown prince of the new Yong'An kingdom, and then brutally killed the prince's family, wiping out half of the kingdom. Many believe he also orchestrated the downfall of the kingdom of Banyue. He became one of the four heavenly calamities, becoming known as White Flower Collecting Souls as his old name was erased by time. His eerie but docile title led many to underestimate his wrath and evil until it was too late.

For the past century or two, barely anything has been heard of White Flower Collecting Souls, leaving the three realms asking two questions: where has he gone, and when and where will he strike next?

---

part of the prologue of my hualian swapped role fic! gonna do a part for hc next 👀 I am slowly but surely working out the lore and plot, and I think this fic will probably mostly follow the plot of tgcf with a couple of alterations (still unsure what to do about lang qianqiu and his backstory, but I don't want to spoil whatever I decide to do in case the fic ever gets to that point)

i had a lot of fun writing this part! ive kind of forgotten exactly how the tgcf prologue goes but I tried to base the format loosely on that (the prologue is supposed to be told from an outsider point of view; this is basically XL's legend/myth/established or popular "story")

[rwbyconversations]

The Faunus/White Fang plotline was NEVER inspired by the Irish Troubles/IRA

A few years ago, someone posted a "theory" about how the White Fang plotline was based, not on the American Civil Rights movements of the 1960s such as the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King's protests, but on a similar conflict in Europe that ran for much of the 20th century in the British occupation of Northern Ireland, known in short as "The Troubles."

Recently, I saw it again as someone stole the post so they could feel smart, so I want to put this to bed definitively as an Irish person:

The Faunus and White Fang plotline were never based on the Irish Troubles or the Irish Republican Army. To be frank I don't think Miles and Kerry know anything about Ireland outside of making drunk Paddy jokes in their off-hours. (wouldn't be the first nationality they've made fun of)

Barring that they were both Civil Rights Movements that happened in the general post-World War 2 wave of the 1960s alongside other countries like India and South Africa, the Troubles and Americian Civil Rights movements have little in common. The big dividing point is religion. The Troubles were a conflict that at its core was as much a sectarian divide as it was fighting against British oppression. The Protestant/Catholic divide is still active in Northern Ireland to this day, with people getting assaulted for wearing the wrong clothes or having the wrong names. The city still has dozens of "Peace walls" scattered around as remnants of the conflict. The religious/sectarian divide is at the heart of the Troubles; you cannot do a depiction of it without at least acknowleding that divide. Even Captain Planet managed this, for Christ's sake.

RWBY does not do this. There is no religious element to the White Fang unless you blink and squint at Fennic and Corsac- and they don't matter to the story at large outside of being minibosses in Volume 5 and they are the only White Fang agents who are vaugely religious. There's no religious element to the Faunus at large unless you look up supplementary material and read about the Faunus creation myths in the Fairy Tales of Remnant series. Trying to be inspired by The Troubles without referencing the sectarian part of it, is like trying to write an two-question essay when you only read the first half of the first question- i.e., you're going to fail miserably. Yeah, there was a conflict, and a question can be raised of how appropriate the use of violence was. And that's it. There's not even an Irish character in the show or anyone who uses an accent, so safe to 100% say, no. The Troubles were never on Miles and Kerry's mind when designing the Faunus racism.

Additionally, there is a silver bullet debunking the entire theory. All the way back in Volume 1 on the commentary track, Barbara Dunklemann said this:

"If anybody needs a comparison for what the Faunus are in this world, it's kind of like if you're in the 1930s/1940s and it's the way African American people were treated and viewed."

After someone else asks for clarification, Dunklemann then confirms they meant the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement by name. No attempt is made to correct Dunklemann or say the White Fang was inspired by other Civil Rights movements- it is firmly, 100%, solely about the American movement.

There you have it- a quote from the crew itself confirming without a doubt that the Faunus and White Fang were always based on the Americian Civil Rights movement, with no mention of the Troubles or the Irish sectarian divisions. Attempting to say otherwise goes directly against stated intent from the beginning of the show.

Now please, don't let this stupid, asinine theory come back a third time, the next time a white RWBY fan gets uncomfortable at the racism in the White Fang plot, and reaches to a different civil rights conflict as a deflection tactic.

tldr- keep my country's history out of your mouth if you only care about using it to deflect blame on the catgirl racism subplot.

[monstercampus]

WHAT. 😱 He’s cursed?!? ELLIE PLEASE, I AM BEGGING. 🙏 Lore on Plauge Doctor???? A snippet of his deep dark backstory perhaps? Pretty please? A cherry on top? 🍒?

Oh, it's nothing special! Just the story of an average young man with an insatiable lust for death flying a bit too close to the sun </3

(cws: death, active plague, sickness, mentions of rot, body horror)

In life, "Doctor" Symon Knox was as average as anyone else you might meet in that tiny village on the outskirts of Ordomia--a kingdom-turned-capital city as the world knows it now, far, far away across the seas from the campus he now finds himself employed. Being such a talkative, curious boy in his youth, it was no surprise to his elders that he dreamed of becoming a doctor, and perhaps one with impeccable bedside manner since he found it so easy to make people laugh their pains away.

But this was an era before cellphones and sterilization, and upon reaching his tender adulthood Symon found himself in the throes of an unimaginable plague spreading across the continent, wild and uncontrolled as it killed indiscriminately. Still in the service of his mentor at the time, Symon was given the role of scribe during the last moments of each patient's life. Chivalrous or wicked, senile or sane, he penned each word to save and keep on record for many months, and grew quieter and quieter as the job worked him past his own limits. In time, it felt as though the mask he donned was a feature of his own face, the leather and cloth part of his skin that stuck fast to his bones. Not long after that did his mentor fall from the illness, as did the people he knew and loved from his village as sickness swept over each poor, kindred soul.

Upon returning home to such a sight, Symon began penning his own last words. Page after page of nothingness slung into fire, ink spilled over half-spelled curses, quill-tip pierced through the tough parchment into his father's writing desk. Days passed into weeks and months, the sickly-sweet stench of rot invading the bed of crumbling lavender protecting the beak of his mask. Having adored the man so much in his early years of doctorhood, Symon wouldn't realize that his descent into madness was caused by his mentor's wicked desires--even if he had at the time, there would be no stopping his transformation. The Lich that had masqueraded as a well-to-do doctor, had taken a dirt-poor youth under his wing to teach him the practice of medicine, had crafted that same disease that would kill his corporeal body and take his protégé's life next.

And while Symon Knox unknowingly wrote out his last rites in his own hand, his body was changing to fit the mold he'd been given--the shape that the Lich had deemed worthy to house the fount of his unimaginable necrotic power. Four hundred years prior to present day, Symon Knox died at his writing desk, quill perched deftly in his left hand. Less than four days later he awoke, quill pierced through his gloved palm, with nothing writhing beneath his robes but the curse of rot and death. Blood drained to a pale-skinned touch he rose as a phantom of his true self, his blue eyes no longer clear but cloudy, his hair bleached to a cowardly white from the strawberry blond strands he inherited from his loving mother. Neither living nor a corpse, black vines twisted themselves into neat array over his skin like the fibres of muscle beneath it, only patches of pallour visible and even less with several centuries of rot between them. He may as well be nothing but a lich himself if not for that distinct craving for the true depth of his power, his knowledge lost but the presence of his master violently cramming itself into his brain--for four hundred years he must keep it out, keep it away, lest it overcome him in the absence of his psyche and steal away the last part of Symon he so desperately clings to.

Memories, emotions, senses, and functions trickle out over time, falling limp and blank and drawing to a close, but never quite reaching the point of dying. The body wants to die but Symon Knox rather wants to live, to see more out the polished glasses of his plague mask than he ever would as a young man dying of an incurable sickness. He may have died at twenty, but he lives to twenty-one every day--and although he never quite shakes the feeling of need, need to kill, need to die, need to watch the light leave their eyes, he's gotten quite good at shaking that voice loose and shoving it to the back of his mind. To find something else to fill it, that would do the job quite well....if only he had something to occupy every waking thought, someone so endearing he can't help but run them through his head every waking moment of every living day.