#the chapters start getting way long after this though

[deliciousangelfestival]

Change Of Heart - 5 (Edited ver.)

Character: Bucky x Female! Reader

Theme: Angst, tragedy, romance.

Summary: The interviewer asked her a provocative question:

“If you were offered a million dollars, would you leave your partner?”

Without hesitation, she replied with a smirk, “Give me one dollar, and I’ll leave him this second.”

True to her word, she walked away, leaving the man stunned and searching for answers. Now, he’s desperately trying to find her, grappling with the haunting question—why would she leave him so easily?

And is there more to her departure than a single dollar could ever explain?

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5.

Main Masterlist || If you enjoy my work, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-fi 🙏🏻

By the way, I publish my book Arrogant Ex-Husband and Dad, I Can't Let You Go by Alina C. Bing on Kindle.

Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️

Bucky stood near the dock, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his coat. The waves lapped gently against the wooden posts, a rhythmic sound that did little to soothe the restlessness inside him. The sky had begun to darken, shades of deep blue swallowing the last traces of daylight.

"Sir, it's getting dark," his secretary reminded him softly, standing a few steps behind.

Bucky didn't respond immediately. Instead, he exhaled, his breath visible in the cold air. Then, out of nowhere, he asked, "Did your parents divorce?"

The secretary blinked at the sudden question. "No, sir. But my sister did. She divorced her first husband."

Bucky hummed, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the ocean stretched endlessly. "Was it the right choice?"

"I think so," the secretary admitted. "She smiles more with her second husband. He was divorced too. Somehow, they complete each other. It’s like they both learned from their past mistakes."

Bucky finally turned to look at him. "How long have they been together now?"

"Five years."

Silence settled between them. Bucky lowered his gaze, staring at the ground as if lost in thought. His parents divorced when he was young. His father changed wives like the seasons, to where Bucky had lost count of how many stepmothers he'd had. And his mother—she had become a well-known rich cougar, the kind who made headlines.

When two broken people come together, they begin to heal. But what happened between him and you... something still hurts deep down. Though both of you completed each other, seeing you leave felt like it wasn’t enough.

Bucky had spent years running from his past, avoiding the feelings he buried deep within himself. He'd been afraid of truly connecting, terrified that giving in to love would mean vulnerability—and he’d never allowed himself to be vulnerable. But with you, something changed.

He started to open up, piece by piece. He had found solace in your presence, a kind of comfort he never thought he’d experience. You made him feel like maybe it was okay to be human.

But even as the wounds began to heal, a part of him remained fractured. The scars weren’t completely gone. And as he watched you walk away, that deep-seated fear—of losing someone, of being left behind—came rushing back. He realized he wasn’t as whole as he thought he was.

Without another word, Bucky pulled out his phone. His fingers hovered over the screen momentarily before he made the call. He held the device to his ear and started walking, his steps slow and aimless as he paced along the dimly lit dock. A few streetlights flickered, casting long shadows over the worn planks beneath his feet.

The therapist answered after a few rings.

"My advice?" The voice on the other end was calm. "Let her go. Don't stop her. If she wants to come back, she will."

Bucky’s jaw clenched. His grip on the phone tightened. He didn’t agree.

"Do you have any sexual desire toward her?"

"No," he answered without hesitation.

"Do you feel safe when you're around her?"

"...Yes."

"Do you want to come home faster when you know she's waiting there?"

Bucky exhaled through his nose. "Yes."

The therapist paused before asking the last question.

"Do you have feelings for her?"

This time, Bucky hesitated. His lips parted, but the words didn't come as easily. "...No." But his voice lacked conviction.

The therapist remained silent for a beat before finally speaking.

"It will grow on you. Just wait and see."

Bucky lowered the phone, staring at the dark waters ahead. The wind picked up, tousling his hair, but he barely noticed. His chest felt tight, the answer lingering in his mind.

Had he really meant it?

The Next Day

Bucky followed you.

He shouldn’t have, but he did.

He was already waiting by the dock when you returned from your scuba diving lesson. You looked different—lighter, freer. The usual quiet presence he was familiar with had been replaced by someone more expressive, more alive. You laughed while talking to strangers, engaging with them in a way he had never seen before. When you were with him, you spoke to his colleagues, sure, but never like this. With them, it was polite conversation, surface-level. But now? You were glowing.

And Bucky didn't know how to feel about that.

You spotted him standing near the railing, and your smile faltered for just a second before returning. Surprise flickered in your eyes, but there was something else too—relief, maybe.

"You're still here," you said, your voice carrying a mix of disbelief and quiet gladness.

Bucky was about to respond, but then his gaze caught on you peeling off your wetsuit.

He froze.

It wasn’t like you were undressing provocatively—you were simply taking off your gear. But in the two years you'd been together, neither of you had ever seen the other completely bare. You had shared a home, a bed even, but always with an unspoken distance.

His throat went dry, and he forced himself to turn away, his jaw tightening.

Bucky had seen countless women undress before, but this—this was different. This was you. And it was as if some part of his brain refused to process it. He waited in silence, staring at the dark water until he heard your footsteps approaching.

You had changed into dry clothes and now stood beside him, leaning against the dock railing.

“I guess Grandpa won’t allow you to come home,” you said.

Bucky let out a dry chuckle. “How did you know?”

“Just a hunch.”

He exhaled sharply, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You’re right. But I guess… I failed. You don’t want to come back.”

“Not yet.”

Silence. The waves rolled in and out, filling the space between you.

You looked out at the sea, your expression unreadable. Then, as if speaking more to yourself than to him, you asked, “Do you ever wonder why we’re compatible?”

It was a good question. Because in truth, on paper, you shouldn’t be.

Most marriage contracts like yours didn’t last. Some couples couldn’t even stand each other for the duration of their agreement. They broke it off before the ink had dried.

You exhaled through your nose, then said with a smirk, “Because both of us are ambitious as fuck.”

Bucky scoffed. He almost laughed, but he held it in, shaking his head instead.

Then, in a quieter voice, he asked, “If you love me, why are you leaving?”

You turned your head to look at him. Your eyes were softer now, but firm, steady.

“Bucky, I know you’re not ready for this. And I won’t push you. You need to figure it out yourself.”

His chest tightened.

He had spent years figuring himself out. Years battling the demons that kept him tethered to his past. But had he actually moved forward?

“I used this marriage contract to get money,” you admitted. “To have a higher status than my father. Feeling superior to him gave me satisfaction.”

Bucky swallowed hard. He understood that. He understood it too well.

He had never wanted to be in a relationship—not out of fear, but as an act of rebellion. His parents' marriage had been a disaster, a revolving door of broken vows and replacements. His father cycled through wives like a man cycling through business investments. His mother had responded by becoming one of the most infamous rich cougars in town, collecting younger lovers as if to prove something to the world.

Love, as far as Bucky had seen, was nothing more than a transaction.

He had despised it.

But now, standing here, he wasn’t so sure.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “So this is goodbye, then?”

“For now,” you said, your voice gentle. “I just want to do what I’ve been holding back. I want to grow up.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow at that. “What do you mean? We’re already in our thirties.”

You smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was knowing, understanding.

“I mean growing up from the trauma.” Your voice softened. “Bucky, both of us were stuck as kids because of what happened to us. Our pasts kept us frozen in time. But I don’t want to stay stuck anymore. I want to move forward. I want to leave the trauma behind.”

Bucky didn’t say anything. He couldn't.

“The reason I didn’t come back,” you continued, “is because I still love you. And that terrifies me. I’m running away because I can’t be near you without feeling everything too much.”

Bucky sucked in a slow breath.

This was the first time anyone had ever said those words to him like this—with honesty, with vulnerability. It was the first time he had ever received a love confession that wasn’t transactional, that wasn’t tied to expectations.

And he didn’t know what to do with it.

You stepped back. “I hope that the next time we meet, everything will be different.”

Bucky watched as you walked away, disappearing into the crowd. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe for a long moment. Then, slowly, he let out a shaky exhale.

Something was shifting inside him, something he didn’t have a name for. It wasn’t just loss. It wasn’t just regret.

It was something deeper.

A few moments later, he pulled out his phone and dialed his therapist.

When the call connected, his voice came out rough, almost reluctant.

“I think I’m starting to have… sexual desires toward her.”

There was silence on the other end.

Then, finally, his therapist sighed.

“Well, Bucky,” they said, “it looks like you’re finally catching up to your emotions.”

He decided to leave you alone, but that didn’t mean he stopped caring. No matter what, you had been there for him for two years. Marriage contract or not, you left a lasting impression on his life.

When he returned, his grandfather was waiting for him, clearly hoping you would step off the plane with Bucky.

When he saw Bucky coming down alone, Tom clicked his tongue. “You’re an idiot.”

Bucky sighed. “Give her time. She’ll be back.” Even though he's not sure when you'll be back.

🌸🌸🌸🌸

One Year Later

The café inside the park was quiet, tucked away between tall trees and winding pathways. The morning sun filtered through the leaves, casting dappled light onto the wooden tables.

Bucky sat alone, a tablet in one hand, a coffee cup in the other. He scrolled through reports, half-reading, half-listening to the sounds around him—the soft chatter of other patrons, the occasional bark of a dog, the rustling of leaves in the breeze.

Then, a voice behind him made him nearly drop his tablet.

“I see you’re still a workaholic.”

His heart clenched. He knew that voice.

Slowly, he turned around—and there you were.

You stood before him, looking different yet familiar. Your skin was sun-kissed, your hair slightly lighter, and your presence felt… freer. There was an ease in your posture, a confidence in your stance that hadn’t been there before.

For a moment, Bucky just stared, as if making sure you were real. Then, a small smile tugged at his lips.

“I don’t work as much as I used to,” he admitted.

You raised an eyebrow, smirking as you pulled out a chair and sat across from him. “Really? Who’s been keeping up with all your work, then?”

“My parents.”

That made you pause. “Your parents?”

He nodded, setting down his tablet. “Yeah. I finally faced it. The whole mess.”

And it had been a mess. For years, he had avoided confronting the real cause of his fears—his childhood. He thought that refusing to engage in relationships was an act of defiance, proof that he had broken free from his parents' toxic cycle. But in reality, he had been trapped just like them. Stuck in the same story, just playing a different role.

It wasn’t fair.

They had lived their lives—moving on, getting remarried, collecting younger lovers, burning through money—while he had been the one frozen in time, afraid to take a single step forward.

So he had done something drastic.

He had cut them off.

No more allowances, no more endless funds. Their luxurious lifestyles had been fueled by company profits, and Bucky had put an end to it.

“This company is not a charity,” he had told them. “You’ve used its assets to fund your lifestyles for too long. If I let this continue, we’ll go down in history as the first corporation to bankrupt itself paying alimony.”

His father had been furious. His mother had scoffed. But in the end, they had no choice. They had to start working.

They had been terrible parents. But, ironically, they turned out to be decent employees.

"Both of them have stopped acting childish," he said. His parents had also stopped playing the roles of sugar daddy and cougar. It turned out money was the solution.

Now, here he was, sitting across from the one person he had waited a year to see again.

"I fixed my relationship with my parents, especially my dad," you replied.

"That's good to hear," he responded.

After spending some time with your dad, you realized that without the rivalry, he's an easygoing person. You started contacting him daily.

“Why did you come back?” he asked, his voice quieter now. “Does this mean you don’t love me anymore?”

Your gaze softened. “No. I never stopped loving you.” You smiled, almost shyly. “I just had a feeling this time would be different.”

Bucky exhaled slowly, leaning back in his chair. “I see. So you’ve completed your self-discovery?”

You nodded. “Yeah.”

The conversation between you flowed effortlessly, lighter than it had ever been. You talked about your travels, the people you had met, and the experiences that had changed you. Bucky listened, occasionally throwing in a sarcastic remark or a teasing comment, making you laugh. It felt easy—natural.

Then, as if it were nothing, you casually said, “I broke my leg climbing down a mountain.”

“What?!” His eyes widened, panic flashing through them.

You laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “I’m fine. Some nuns from a nearby chapel helped me. They took care of me for a month.”

Bucky frowned, his mind racing. So that’s why you didn’t post an update for a month.

You nodded. “Yeah. They prayed for me.” Then, after a pause, you admitted, “I’ve never prayed before. But I started to. Admitting my anger, my sins… it made the weight feel lighter. I guess I’m sharing my burdens with God now.” You studied his reaction carefully. “Do you think I’ve turned into a religious freak?”

Bucky shook his head. “No. As long as you found peace.”

Silence settled between you, but it was a comfortable one.

Eventually, he cleared his throat. “Do you want something to drink?”

You grinned. “Yes.”

“Caramel Macchiato, hot, less sugar… right?”

You blinked, then gave him a thumbs-up. He smirked before getting up and heading toward the cashier.

When he returned, he placed the coffee in front of you, watching as you took a small sip.

Then you said, “On my way here, I passed by a cinema playing Interstellar.”

Bucky’s eyes flickered with interest. That was his favorite movie—the one he always watched when he had time alone.

“Really?”

“You interested?” You pulled out two tickets and held them up.

Bucky chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. “Let’s go.”

As you both walked side by side, he glanced at you.

“You know,” he said, “you could share your burdens with me too.”

You turned to him, your expression unreadable.

Was that… a proposal?

Bucky continued, his tone calm but firm. “We’ve known each other for two years. You left for one. And yet, you came back with the same feelings. And I waited a year for you to come back.”

Your heart pounded.

This time, it wasn’t just a contract. It wasn’t a transaction.

It was something real. Something earned.

And for the first time, you weren’t afraid of it.

This time, there was a difference between them.

Before, they had been trapped—chained to the past, repeating old patterns, clinging to wounds that refused to heal. They had mistaken their pain for identity, their fears for inevitability.

But now, they had changed.

Not because time had passed, but because they had made the choice to move forward.

They had faced their demons, made peace with their scars, and learned to let go. Bucky was no longer a man protesting love out of spite. And you were no longer someone running away to find yourself.

You had both found your own way—separately.

And yet, in the end, that path had led you back to each other.

-The End-

Epilogue:

Bucky suddenly remembered something. “I should call Grandpa to let him know you’re back.”

You chuckled. “Oh, I already met him when I landed. That’s how I knew where to find you.”

Bucky smiled and shook his head. Even after a year, you still cared about Tom.

After watching the movie, he will take you to meet Tom. His grandpa will welcome you with open arms and finally stop calling him an "idiot."

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[abyssalwavezz]

ok since caleb is back i NEEDDDD to see him and zayne interact and they have like a rivalry since they’re all childhood friends in case infold doesn’t give it to me idk how it would work tho but i trust you

Fire and Ice

Author's note: I really almost went a very dark romance direction with this, but it would've needed to be multiple parts and Caleb would've been like a villain, so I did my best to condense it into a single chapter uwu plus, this is my first LADS fic, so I am really getting a feel for the characterization and what kind of storylines I want to write after so long of not writing fics.

Contains: College AU! Zayne x MC/YN x Caleb love triangle (except MC doesn't really like Caleb back) where Zayne ultimately wins over MC teehee, shameless cameos of the other boys because I can, and several time skips because yeah <3

Warnings: cursing I guess? and Caleb being kind of a creep lol but we all know he is one canonically anyway, and also this wasn't proofread because who has time for that

Word Count: 3,743

Class started at 9:00 today just like it did every other day. Today though, you were late. And of course, it was an exam day.

You jumped out of bed as soon as you realized it was 8:41. Could you get ready and make it across campus in 20 minutes?

Only one way to find out.

Had you looked at your phone, you would've realized that a certain someone had been trying to message you. But he was unable to since your phone was on DND. You were too busy throwing on clothes and making yourself look presentable to think about anything else, anyway.

Once you had an outfit on and had somewhat cleaned yourself up, you glanced at the clock on the wall.

8:53...shit.

On a good day, it took about 10 minutes to walk to this class. Today, you would have to run there in 7. If only you hadn't skipped running the mile for gym...

You grabbed your bag, keys, and phone (that you still hadn't looked at) before running out the door.

However, something very sturdy and tall stopped you halfway down the hallway.

"Oof," you grunted as you came into contact with this tall, sturdy thing.

Turns out, it was a person. The person who had been trying to text you all morning.

"Caleb! What the hell?"

You looked up at him in frustration.

"I'm trying to get to class! The one you should be in too? We have an exam!"

Caleb, who still hadn't actually spoken, only laughed as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He clicked a few things on the screen before turning it towards you.

It showed an email from your professor to your class, letting you all know that he was sick and that both class and the exam was cancelled.

It took you a few seconds to decide if you were happy or upset about the situation. Ultimately, you decided you were happy.

"If your phone hadn't been on 'Ignore Caleb Mode,' this could've been avoided," he chuckled out, putting his own phone back in his pocket.

You finally got yours out and noticed that you had, in fact, missed three texts and four calls from Caleb.

The most recent one though, wasn't from Caleb. It was from Zayne. Just reading his name on your phone made your heart skip a beat.

"You wanna go get breakfast or something?" Caleb asked, snapping you away from your Zayne-themed thoughts.

Your eyes met his excited ones, but it only took him a second to realize what your answer would be.

"Come onnnn," he groaned, tilting his head back dramatically. "Your next class isn't until 12 and mine is at 12:30. You got some big plans or something?"

You hesitated. You weren't sure how much you should tell Caleb. He could be a bit funny about things sometimes.

"I...I told Zayne I would meet him for coffee after our class. Which has now been cancelled, so he texted me asking if I wanted to meet him earlier instead."

Caleb grew silent, whatever was left of his initial hopeful expression now nonexistent.

"Oh...I see. Forgot he was in our class too."

"Caleb, come on. How about I have dinner with you to make up for it? Whatever happened with you two anyway? We all used to be great friends."

He scoffed, shoving his hands in his pockets and kicking at the floor halfheartedly.

"Don't worry about it. Go have fun, I won't get in the way."

With that, Caleb walked away.

~

You sighed as you swirled the last bit of your now cold coffee around the bottom of the mug.

"And so then he just walked away," you said quietly, still not sure what you did to deserve that from Caleb.

You looked up at the dark-haired man in front of you.

Zayne hadn't said much yet, he was just listening to you go on and on. But this really wasn't out of the ordinary for you two.

"Never mind that! Tell me about your day so far Zayne. I have really been yapping since we sat down."

Zayne lifted the corner of his mouth in a small smile, breathing slightly through his nose before raising his mug to his lips for a drink, and then setting it back down.

"I wouldn't call it yapping. I enjoy listening to you speak, and it sounds like you had an eventful day right from the start."

Your face burned slightly from Zayne's words, and you prayed he didn't notice.

"But my day before now really only consisted of some early morning studying, if you really wanted to know."

You chuckled a bit and raised your eyebrow playfully at Zayne.

"Future Dr. Zayne needs to study? We should all feel a little better about ourselves then!"

Zayne shook his head at your comment, in the way he always does when he thinks something is funny but doesn't want to show it and give you the satisfaction.

"Everyone would benefit from studying. Some of us...more than others," he said so only you could hear, glancing at the farthest corner of the cafe.

You followed his gaze and saw what he was looking at.

At the table in the corner was the well-known quiet kid, Xavier. His head was down on the top of the table in its usual position, and even from where you were sitting you could hear his signature snores.

What was really funny though, was not Xavier, but something else.

There were three people sitting across from him at another table with their phones out, taking pictures of him sleeping. Their stifled laughs and giggles were infectious, and you realized it was the class clown group of Sylus and his two sidekicks, Luke and Kieran. They truly were always getting into trouble or causing it.

You snorted and quickly covered your mouth and nose with both hands, hoping no one heard it. But of course Zayne did, and even he had to laugh quietly.

After the moment passed and it got quiet again, you decided to ask Zayne the real question that had been on your mind. The same one you asked Caleb a couple of hours ago.

"So... what did happen between you two? There must have been something."

Zayne stared into his dry coffee mug, pushing his glasses up slightly with the tip of his index finger.

"I'm not sure what you're referring to, (Y/N)."

"You know what I'm talking about. Caleb? The three of us used to have so much fun together as kids. Then when we started college together, everything got so tense a few weeks into the first semester."

"There are some things that you don't know, and it would be better if it remained that way. At least...for now."

You knew not to push Zayne. And you did trust him, so you decided to leave it alone for the moment.

Hopefully you would get to the bottom of it, sooner or later.

~

The two of you had stayed at the cafe much longer than you meant to. So you decided to go through the to-go lunch line before Zayne walked you to your next class.

You wondered if Zayne knew how you felt at times like these. Of course he was smart, but was he able to tell how you truly felt about him? What would he think? What would he say, if he knew? There's no way he would feel the same, so would he at least still want to be your friend?

Stupid.

Once Zayne had gotten his food as well, he turned towards you but stopped before he moved any closer.

"(Y/N), don't move."

You clicked your tongue in fake annoyance and put your hands on your hips, putting all your weight onto one side as you glared at Zayne.

"Why? Is there a big spider on me or something?"

"Yes."

"What?"

You immediately froze, your bag of food falling to the ground with a slight plop noise. Then you screamed and flailed your hands around, trying to brush off whatever spawn of Satan was on you.

In the commotion, you lost your balance, and fell backwards, colliding with another person. Whoever it was broke your fall, at least.

"Ouch, my hand!" the person whined underneath you.

As quickly as you could, you got up onto your feet and saw a big brown spider on the floor, scurrying away from the scene.

Huh, so Zayne really was telling the truth.

Snapping back to reality, you bent down with your hand outstretched to help the purple haired boy up.

"I am so sorry. It's Rafayel, right? Is your hand okay?"

Rafayel groaned and rubbed his right hand with his left before making eye contact with you.

"No thanks to you. I need my hands for painting, you know."

Rafayel bent over to pick up his bookbag that had fallen down, and then shot you another look.

"But I suppose that spider was a fearsome creature. You're forgiven."

Before you could apologize again, he turned on his heel and marched away.

Blinking rapidly, you stood up straight and scanned the cafeteria. As you made eye contact with people, they looked away away in a hurry. All except Zayne, who stood holding your forgotten bag of food.

"Shut up, Zayne."

"But I didn't say anything."

~

Classes were now over for the day, and you thought it was strange that you hadn't seen Caleb anymore. Usually, he was waiting outside your classrooms whenever he could, almost like he had your schedule memorized and watched you from a distance somehow. To be honest, you wouldn't put it past him. He had always been super protective of you, which you appreciated. But sometimes, it could be a bit much. Especially as you have gotten older, and are starting to feel differently and do more things on your own.

Did Caleb...like you? Is that why he has been like that? Or was he just being the best friend he could be for you?

Nah, no way he liked you. You guys were just really good friends, and had been for years. That was enough for you.

Zayne, on the other hand, often had your emotions and thoughts in a knot. You couldn't put your finger on when exactly, but you had fallen for him as more than just a friend, and you thought about him often.

Would his lips be as cold as his hands usually were?

You shook your head, trying to shake the thought itself from your brain. No sense in getting too deep. Zayne was here for school and to become a doctor. And he could have anyone he wanted, so why on Earth would that person be you?

You decided to take a walk before it got too dark. After all, it would be nice to be by yourself for a bit since the day had been so chaotic so far.

Glancing out the window of your room, you tried to plan the route you would walk. But when you did, you noticed someone duck behind the bushes nearby.

What the hell?

Now curious about who was watching you in your own room, you decided to go around the back of your dorm building to try and catch whoever it was.

Once you were outside, you crouched a bit and tried to come around the corner of the building as quietly as possible. You took each step with a sense of purpose, willing the person to still be there. The bushes were now only a few steps away.

In a flash, you lunged, separating the bushes with your hands to find out who the creep was. But there was no one there.

Defeated, you plopped down onto the grass, trying to decide if you even wanted to go for a walk anymore.

"Whatcha doing down there on the ground?" a familiar voice behind you asked.

"Caleb!"

You stood up excitedly and clasped your hands together.

Caleb bent down to your eye-level and smiled, his usual sparkle back in his gaze.

"Were you lookin' for something?"

You shook your head, looking back over at the disheveled bush.

"No, it was really weird. I thought someone was watching me from the bushes right there. It's right underneath my window. I was gonna punch them in the mouth!"

Caleb coughed.

"Yeah, that is really weird. Anyway, wanna grab dinner soon? You offered, after all."

"Oh, sure! It's gonna get dark soon anyway, so no time for a walk after all."

You walked with Caleb to the cafeteria in silence. Usually the two of you would be talking about random things, whether that be you trying to decide on a major or Caleb's newest model airplane he built. But today, it was nothing. And you didn't really like that.

"Caleb, do you care about me?"

Your sudden question startled him, the silence around you quickly dissipating. But he didn't miss a beat.

"Well, of course I do. It's about time you noticed! But why are you asking?"

"Because I feel like you're hiding something from me. And so is Zayne, and it really bothers me. Today was especially bothersome."

Caleb sighed, opening the door to the cafeteria for you.

"You really wanna know?"

"Yes! I miss the two of you getting along. We had some great times."

Caleb grabbed two empty lunch trays and handed you one. You mumbled a quick thanks as you watched his conflicted facial expression manifest.

"We just had a fight, okay? That's all. Sometimes that happens and people aren't friends anymore."

You weren't satisfied. You knew there was more to it after the way he reacted earlier when you told him you were meeting Zayne for coffee.

"You're still leaving something out."

"What, you wanna know what we fought about?"

"Yes! Maybe I can help."

Caleb shook his head, reaching for a serving spoon to get some rice.

"Hmm, I don't think so, (Y/N). Not this time. This isn't like when we argued over the last Popsicle in Grandma's freezer."

"Oh, come on. I'm not a little girl anymore. You don't have to hide things from me."

He gripped the next serving spoon tightly, causing the food on it to wobble slightly.

"I know you aren't a little girl anymore, and that's part of the problem. You don't need me as much anymore."

"Caleb," you groaned, "You know I still want you around, no matter what. I love you, you know?"

Caleb's head seemed to be on a swivel, as fast as he turned towards you.

"You do?"

"Well yeah! You're my best friend."

Caleb's face fell slowly, starting with his eyebrows and ending with his lips.

"Yeah, best friends love each other, I guess..."

You followed him out of line to the closest table where he flopped onto one of the seats.

"I don't understand, Caleb. You don't want me to love you?"

"He does, but not in the way you are referring to, (Y/N)," a male voice said from behind where you were sitting. A voice you knew very well.

"Zayne?" you gasped. "How did you know I was here?"

You turned away from Caleb to look at him fully. He wasn't wearing his glasses, and the expression on his face was completely unreadable.

"This is usually the time you eat dinner, and I was hoping I would find you here. I did some thinking after our conversation earlier and wanted to talk to you."

A sudden loud noise caused you to jump. Looking towards the sound, you saw Caleb's tight fist against the table, surrounded by stray grains of rice.

"You've got a lot of nerve comin' up to our table right now, Zayne."

"I suppose I have just as much nerve as someone who enjoys stalking women due to their own insecurities."

Caleb stood up from the table, attracting the eyes of other students sitting down for dinner.

"Um, guys. Maybe we should all go talk outside?"

You felt something cold against your hand, and then another on your cheek.

They were snowflakes from Zayne's Evol, melting against the heat of your flushed skin.

You quickly glanced at Zayne, who was completely focused on Caleb. He hadn't even realized that he was causing them to appear in his emotional state.

A few of them stuck to your eyelashes, but you quickly blinked them away, risking a look at Caleb.

He was just as focused on Zayne, his jaw set in place and his hands now gripping the edge of the table with white knuckles.

"I think that's a great idea," Caleb spat, still not breaking eye contact with Zayne.

Without another word, he stomped towards the door, bumping Zayne's shoulder on the way by.

Though you hadn't moved, you felt out of breath as you finally met Zayne's eyes.

He was stoic, the anger he felt inside radiating off of him like a heatwave.

"Sorry about the snow," he said quietly.

You shook your head.

"What is going on? This is the first time the two of you have interacted in a long time, and it's already going to shit."

"He wants you all to himself, (Y/N). And that is just something I cannot abide."

"He what? Zayne, what-."

Before you could finish, he left to walk outside as well, taking the remaining snowflakes with him.

You ignored the onlookers and the mess left on your table before following after them.

Once you had them in your sights, you realized Caleb was getting in Zayne's face, challenging him to make a move.

Your walk turned into a run so you could catch up to them in the clearing that they were in behind the cafeteria. It seemed that they were in the middle of a new argument.

"...doesn't know what she wants. How would you know, nerd?"

"You aren't right for her, and you act strangely when it comes to her. What would any sane person think?"

Caleb was getting loud, but Zayne was speaking in his usual measured tone.

"What is going on?"

The boys froze, seeing that you had followed them outside. Caleb started to back away, and Zayne cleared his throat, moving to push up his glasses before realizing they weren't there.

"Explain yourselves. Now."

They didn't start talking right away. Instead, they took a step farther away from each other and stood silently.

"I mean it. You two are acting so damn weird. I don't deserve this."

Zayne sighed.

"She's right, Caleb."

Caleb crossed his arms.

"Yeah, I know."

Zayne started speaking first.

"When we first came here, Caleb and I had a conversation. About you."

You didn't say anything, in fear of causing them to change their minds about telling you.

"(Y/N), I was going to let you know that...that I felt a different way about you now than you might've expected. And I told Zayne about it, thinking he would support me."

"Except I found out about the...peculiar ways he chooses to look out for you and protect you. And I let him know that I strongly disapprove of his intentions."

Caleb glared at Zayne once more, and you shushed him when you saw that he was opening his mouth to fuss at Zayne.

"You follow me around to classes and stuff right? I figured. And I'm now guessing that was you in the bushes earlier?"

Zayne raised an eyebrow.

"I don't need you to watch over me like a hawk, Caleb. I am a grown up, a grown woman. And I can take care of myself."

His head lowered slightly, a hand meeting his neck to rub it awkwardly.

"I know it comes from an honest place in your heart, but I need you to stop. And..."

You hesitantly reached out to touch his arm.

"I'm sorry, but you're like my brother. I love you...in that way. Do you still want to be around me?"

Caleb sighed, laying a hand over top of yours.

"You can't get rid of me that easily. I will always be around. In whatever way you want, pipsqueak." Caleb flashed you a sad smile.

You let out a nervous chuckle, glad to see that he took it at least somewhat well. Never in your life would you have expected Caleb to have a crush on you. But you knew you didn't want to lose him, no matter what.

"Zayne..." Caleb said, turning away from you and letting his hand fall away, "I'm sorry, man."

"It's alright. I look forward to moving past this with you."

Caleb nodded without speaking, and then he walked away. You decided you wouldn't call out for him since he seemed like he needed some time alone.

That just left you with Zayne and the awkward space between you.

"Zayne..." you began.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something now?"

A glimmer of hope could be felt, deep within the pit of your stomach. You couldn't stop thinking about something Zayne had said a few moments ago, and though this might not be the best time, you figured it was as good a time as any. If Caleb could do it, so could you.

"Anything. And for what it's worth, I am sorry too. Our behavior was inexcusable."

"What exactly did you mean earlier? When you said he wanted me all to himself? I thought you were upset with him because he chose to look out for me in unique ways."

The edges of Zayne's ears turned red, and he placed a hand against his chin, refusing to look directly at you.

"Were you...jealous, too?"

Zayne remained still and quiet, not sure what to say next.

"Because I really like you. I have for a long time. And no, I know what you're thinking...I am not just saying that because of what happened tonight. Actually it kind of inspired me to tell you."

Something suddenly caused your eye to water. You rubbed it hurriedly, then pulled your hand away to see a trail of moisture run down your thumb. But not long passed before you figured out what it was, a white speck falling in front of your field of vision giving it away as it landed on your outstretched hand.

"I wouldn't call it jealousy but..."

You shivered slightly as the snowflakes turned into a small flurry.

"I knew he wasn't right for you. And...one can have hopes."

~

[nameless-jamie]

Hi, I absolutely love your writing! PA series is my absolute favourite! Would you consider writing about Y/N who's struggled with anxiety her entire life? Maybe Jamie comforts her during a stresfull situation or she helps him deal with his own anxiety?

Steady Hands

Masterlist

Jamie Tartt x fem! PA reader

TW: cursing, angst, anxiety

A/N: Thank you for the request! Let's explore a different side of Y/N! Btw this is just an in-between chapter not relevant to the timeline!

The most challenging things for Y/N to do as Jamie Tartt's assistant were his ever-changing schedule, his tendency to forget important appointments, and his occasional moments of existential dread when he thought too hard about his legacy. Y/N was usually Jamie's rock, there to comfort him and care for him...

So it was rather unusual when Jamie had to comfort her.

But life had a funny way of flipping things on their head.

Y/N had always been good at keeping things together. She had to be. Anxiety wasn’t something she could just turn off, but she’d gotten good at managing it—breathing exercises, staying organized, making lists. Keeping herself busy helped.

And working for Jamie? That definitely kept her busy.

But today, no amount of planning or deep breathing could stop the weight pressing on her chest, the way her hands trembled at her sides.

It had started with a simple mistake. One email. A scheduling error. A time slot mix-up that meant Jamie had been double-booked for an interview and a sponsorship meeting.

She’d caught it too late. The PR team was annoyed. The sponsors were furious at her. And even though Jamie himself had just shrugged and said, “S’alright, babe. We’ll just move one of ‘em, yeah?” she couldn’t stop the overwhelming guilt flooding her.

She should have caught it earlier. She should have double-checked. She should have—

“Oi.”

A voice pulled her from her spiral, and suddenly Jamie was in front of her, brow furrowed in concern.

She must have zoned out, standing frozen in the hallway outside Rebecca’s office.

His voice was softer this time. “You alright, love?”

Y/N swallowed, forcing a nod. “Yeah. Just—long day.”

Jamie didn’t look convinced. His gaze flickered to her hands—still trembling slightly, even as she tried to hide them in her pockets.

And Jamie—who was normally all charm and banter, all teasing remarks and cheeky grins—just watched her for a moment, quiet and assessing.

Then, without a word, he reached out and took her hand.

Not in the usual Jamie way, either. Not the casual, half-distracted way he sometimes grabbed her wrist to pull her toward a meeting, or the playful handshake they always did after a good game.

This was different.

His fingers curled around hers, steady and warm, grounding her.

“C’mere,” he murmured, tugging her toward the empty boot room just off the hallway.

The door shut behind them, muffling the noise of the club.

Jamie didn’t let go.

“You’re freakin’ out, love,” he said simply. Not a question—just a fact.

Y/N let out a short, humorless laugh. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it.”

Jamie tilted his head, watching her. “Ain’t sugarcoatin’ it. Just sayin’—you’re freakin’ out. And you don’t need to.”

Her breath hitched slightly. “Jamie, I fucking messed up. That’s—”

“So?” Jamie cut in, voice easy. “People mess up all the time.”

She shook her head, looking away. “Not me. I can’t mess up.”

Jamie frowned. “Why not?”

“Because.” Her voice was too sharp, too fast. She took a shaky breath. “Because if I mess up, it means I’m not good enough. And if I’m not good enough, then—”

She stopped herself.

Jamie was still holding her hand, standing right in front of her. Still watching her, his expression unreadable.

Then, quietly he says:

“That’s bollocks, you know.”

Y/N blinked. “What?”

He huffed a soft laugh, shaking his head. “All that shit you just said. Bollocks. You do get to mess up, Y/N. Doesn’t mean you ain’t good enough. Just means you’re human.”

She let out a shaky breath. “Jamie—”

“Look.” He squeezed her hand, firm and steady. “I forget shit all the time. I mess up interviews, I miss appointments—you’re literally paid to fix my fuck-ups. And you do. Every time.”

She let out a small, reluctant laugh.

Jamie grinned and softly caressed her smiling cheeks. “There she is. There's my girl.”

The weight in her chest eased just a little.

Jamie’s grin softened. “You’re fuckin’ brilliant, alright? One little mistake don’t change that.”

She exhaled, shoulders loosening. “You’re… actually kind of good at this.”

Jamie smirked. “Course I am. Y’think I don’t know what it’s like?”

She frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

Jamie hesitated. Just for a second.

Then, with a small shrug.

“I get in my head sometimes too, yeah? Before big matches. When I’m knackered and feel like I ain’t doin’ enough. I start thinkin’—what if I fuck up? What if I lose? What if I ain’t good enough?”

Y/N stared at him. She’d never heard him say anything like that before.

Jamie scratched the back of his neck. “Dunno. Just—sometimes it helps when someone reminds me it’s all in my head.”

Y/N’s chest ached.

She squeezed his hand. “Jamie.”

He met her eyes.

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you this,” she said softly, “but you’re one of the strongest people I know.”

Jamie blinked, looking genuinely taken aback. “Oh.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “Well. You ain’t so bad yourself.”

Y/N huffed a laugh.

Jamie squeezed her hand one last time before letting go.

“Right,” he said, stretching his arms over his head. “Now, d’you wanna get outta here? Go get some food or summat? Reckon you need a break.”

Y/N hesitated. “Jamie, I still have work to—”

“Oi. Shut up.” Jamie poked her cheek. “S’not a request. We’re goin’.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Oh my god, I hate you.”

Jamie grinned. “Yeah, yeah. Liar, you fucking love me.”

She might really fucking do...

[malsmind]

more than we thought

a bsf!matt x bsf!reader series by @ 𝓂𝒶𝓁𝓈𝓂𝒾𝓃𝒹

chapter 2

warnings: swearing, mentiones of sex and being a one night stand

wc: 1.5k

chapter 1

english is not my first language!

the sound of your alarm ripped you fom your sleep, wishig you could stay in bed for a little longer. it didn't take long for the excitement to take over your wish to continue your sleep though. today, you had a date. you'd met this guy named joe a few months ago at a party you went to with nick, matt and chris, getting along with him almost immediately. he was nice and good looking, he cracked a few lewd jokes and comments, but other than that, he seemed nice. he asked you out on a date a few nights ago, which is exactly what you were getting ready for right now. getting out of bed and throwing on an outfit you put more thought into than you usually would, (if that's even possible). unplugging your phone from the charger and grabbing it off of your nightstand, you took one last look in the mirror, fixing your hair before you texted the guy and made your way out of the apartment building.

you were excited, for sure, but you also didn't really know if you had the courage to actually go and meet him. dating was always something you kind of avoided. not like you didn't want to date, or give and recieve love from a partner, but you were always hesitant to open up to someone. meeting new people could be hard for you sometimes, especially if it took onto a romantic way. despite your ovethinking, you started your car, driving to the adress of the resturaunt he was supposed to meet you at.

you arrived at the place, getting out of your car and walking up the stairs, looking for your date. when you spotted him, you made your way over, his eyes landing on you as you gave him a warm smile.

"hey pretty." he smiled, pulling you into a friendly hug. you hugged him back, greeting him.

you guys chatted a little, about your interests, about your hobbies, just the typical small talk. the way he seemed not entirely interested in what you were telling about yourself stood out to you immediately, but you decided to just brush it off, assuming it was just the natural awkwardness of the moment. you ordered your food, and he ordered his. the waiter walked away to put in your order and joe turned his head to look at you with a smile. "so how'd you know about the party?" you straightened your back, starting the new conversation with him. "i'm friends with the host, sort of." you answered, taking a sip of your drink, clearing your throat before continuing, "you?"

"a friend of a friend invited me, he's friends with her too." his eyes looked you up and down, admiring the way your body looked in the outfit you wore, making you shift uncomfotably under his gaze. you didn't like where this was headed, the way he looked at you giving away just what exactly his intentions were. despite the feeling in your stomach telling you to make an excuse and leave, you shrugged it off, trying to convince yourself that you're putting too much thought into it. before joe could speak up again, the waiter came back with your food, placing it on the table infront of you.

the both of you ate your meal, making small conversation again, "you're really beautiful, y'know that?" he complimented, a faint smirk on his lips, watching your reaction. you put your drink down after taking a sip of it, smiling, "thanks."

his eyes glanced down at your body again, lingering on your cleavage for longer than they should have. you could feel the mood shift slighty, realizing his behavior wasn't just you overthinking. "we could go back to my place after if you'd like, watch a movie or something?" he leaned back, smirk growing, clearly implying how he had no interest in watching a movie with you. you shrugged, nodding. "yeah sure, i'll have to see though, was gonna help a friend with something later..." you spoke, getting up from your seat, "i'll be right back, gotta use the restroom" you excused yourself, walking away, his eyes roaming over your figure as he watched you dissapear into the restroom.

you pulled out your phone, texting matt. there was no way you were going back to this guys place tonight.

you didn't care abut the fact that you had to leave your car here, joe didn't know what it looked like anyway, you just wanted to get out of this place, not interested in being some one night stand. you walked out of the restroom, back towards your table where joe was waiting for your return. you pulled out your wallet, placing the money for the food and drink you ordered on the table. "i am so sorry. my friend just called me and she got into a car accident. i'll text you, yeah?" you didn't even care about the fact that what you had just told him was a complete lie, not even waiting for his response as you made your way out of the resturaunt, spotting matt's car already parked further away from the window that joe was sat by.

you sprinted towards it, getting into the passanger seat, waving your hands for him to drive off. when matt pulled out of the small parking lot, onto the road, a sigh you didn't even know you were holding escaped your lips, sinking back into the seat.

matt looked over at you, letting you catch your breath, "seatbelt." he reminded, nodding his head towards you. you looked down on yourself, "shit, sorry." you mumbled, grabbing the seatbelt and buckling it in. matt drove towards your place, stealing glances at you every now and then before he actually spoke up, "he didn't... try anything, did he?" matt asked, slight protectiveness laced in his voice. you shook your head quickly, "no, no. god no." you exhaled, "he was just obviously not interested in anything other than sex." you sighed, leaning your head back against the headrest. to be honest with yourself, you were quite disappointed. the guy seemed nice when you met him.

matt knew what was up. he sighed, reaching out to place a hand on your knee to offer you some sort of reasurrance. "m' sorry to hear, he clearly doesn't deserve to get to know you." you turned your head to look over at him, still leaning back against the headrest. you gave him an appreciative smile before turning your head back towars the road. the drive to your house was quiet, different from the usual music playing, chatting, and laughing between you and matt on your usual car rides.

matt pulled up to your place, parking the car on your usual parking spot. he looked over at you, thinking of what he could do to help you with your mood. "how about i come up with you and we watch a movie, doordash some food?" his voice was soft, slightly tiltingt his head to the side. you turned your head to look at him, smiling "yeah, that'd be nice." you nodded.

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗

despite your horrible date and the disappointment that came with it, your evening with matt really made your day. even though matt wasn't the biggest fan of horror movies, he let you pick one out since you loved them. you were sat on your couch next to matt, a blanket draped over your legs, your head on his shoulder. you reached for the chips on your lap, shoving a handful into your mouth with your eyes focused on the movie. a jumpscare scene played, making matt jump, you couldn't help the small chuckle escaping your lips. "jesus christ, they always gotta fuckin' do that when you're focused and not expecting it" matt breathed out, shaking his head.

you laid your head back down on his shoulder feeling how stiff his body was from the jumpscare earlier. you reached out, smacking him on the chest, "you're a pussy, loosen up a bit you're shoulder's uncomfortable" you groaned, leaning your head against him again.

the movie continued and your eyes grew heavier with every moment that passed, exhausted from the stress from today. matt didn't notice how you slowly drifted off to sleep, his eyes stayed on the TV. another scene made matt jump slightly as he watched the horror film you picked out, really just torturing matt at this point with the amount of annoyingly scary scenes causing his body to jolt everytime, his heartbeat picking up with every jumpscare. a noise of disapproval left your lips at his movement, making him take his eyes off of the screen to look down at you drifting off to sleep with your head on his shoulder.

he leaned forward, careful not to rip you out of your dosing state completely. he reached for the remote, turning the TV off. "come on, i'll get you to bed." he spoke softly, tapping your shoulder. you groaned, getting up from the couch with an annoyed expression on your face, missing the comfort of the soft couch cushions beneath you and matts shoulder as a pillow. matt helped you get in bed, making sure you were comfortable. "i'm gonna go get your phone real quick, yeah?" you hummed in response, watching him leave your room. he came back with your phone and a glas of water in his hands, placing both down on your nightstand. matt sat down at the end of your bed, placing his hand on your leg over the comforter. "you call me when you're up and ready and we'll go get your car, okay?" matt tilted his head, looking at your face, you nodded.

matt got up from your bed, but you stopped him, grabbing his hand. "you can just stay, save the drive back..." you mumbled into the pillow. matt looked down at your hand holding his, thinking for a moment. it's not like it'd be your guy's first sleepover, but something felt different, there was something matt couldn't explain to himself about the way you were leaning on him earlier, head resting on his shoulder for comfort like it did so many times before, the way you asked him to stay. shaking himself out of it, matt agreed, "yeah, yeah, of course."

you let go of his hand, moving over so there was room for him to lay down. he got in bed next to you, getting comfortable. you were facing away from him, matt was facing your back. you were dozing off to sleep again, matt shifted next to you a few times but you were too tired to be bothered. it didn't take you long to fall asleep, but matt? matt couldn't fall asleep. his mind was racing, mostly with questions as to why this felt so different from the countless of times he's laid next to you in bed, sleeping over at yours ever since you were in highschool. he tried to shrug it off, to stop overthinking it, he really did, but he just couldn't stop his mind from going ways they haven't before and it scared him more than he'd like to admit to himself. what if it were in a not so casual way? what if cuddling up to you right now wouldn't be seen as two friends being comfortable with eachother, thinking of it as nothing else than the simple bond of a strong friendship?

he shook his head, a sigh escaping his lips. he shifted in bed again, scooting closer to you, cuddling up to you like he did many times before during a sleepover. your body reacted to his wamth, cuddling back into him. his arm landed on your waist, just laying over it. he held his breath without realizing, exhaling shakily when your body pressed against his. he tried to drown out the weird feeling in his stomach, closing his eyes and trying his best to fall asleep. luckily, he eventually did.

series link (everything you need to know)

taglist

authors note: yh icl this is lowk ass and cliche, forgive me. next chapter will be better... hopefully LMAO

@grace-sturnz @rcklessheavn @sofia-is-a-sturniolo-triplet-fan @chrissturniolossidebitch @sl4ttformattsturniolo @priscillaog @oopsiedaisydeer @sturnzzlovee @dollyvuu @xbahaaha @h3arts4nat @sturniolosymphony @powpowjinxlife @idkwhatthisis2009 @surprisecurlyfriess

[thyras]

→ of great gatherings (bonus chapter)

PAIRING → mairon | sauron x female!elf!reader

WORD COUNT → 14.8k words

SERIES → of sauron & the moriquendi

WARNINGS → 18+ only MDNI - unprotected p in v, oral (female receiving), fingering, semi-public sex, tub sex, bruh this is just sex everywhere tbh

SUMMARY → your husband wishes to show you off in the grandest way possible.

AUTHORS NOTE → please don't kill me i'm running out of gif's guys, none of jack's sauron really works okay, i'm sorry. like i fucking love that moron but shit the chapters i've written of him do not align with that version of him 🤣 so as requested, cause y'all be some filthy horny animals I have two fully filled smut chapters to post for y'all, thought this was just 15k words nope apparently it was close to 30k so yeah i've split them up and i'll post them separately. so lots of eärlindë in this and we get why he calls her mori as well hehe though little tidbit, this story line was abandoned cause i was not going to have reader meet celebrimbor but his father. yeah i realized the timeline did not match up for melkor's first chaining so it was scrapped. but still hope y'all like it if the timeline is a little janky, i wrote all this like the day after i kinda knew what i wanted to write.

masterlist // series playlist // mood board

His eyes swept over you as you entered the room. You were adorned in one of your delicate gossamer gowns, every curve and contour of your form illuminated for him to admire. Your hair cascaded in loose waves, catching the golden hues of the evening sun, which framed you in a soft, ethereal halo. To Mairon, you were nothing less than a goddess—one worthy of an altar in the sky.

Your marital bliss was still so fresh, though years had passed since you first wed. Yet, he could never see that glow fading. Even now, Mairon often felt unworthy of the love and devotion you so freely gave. The sins of his past had long since faded into memory, and he had begun to move through this burgeoning city with greater ease. Feeling more than fallen Maia.

He had even ventured beyond its borders, learning from other elven craftsmen despite being a smith of Aulë—even if none knew of his true origins.

And still, in the quiet depths of night, when sleep occasionally found him, his dreams were shadowed with the lingering fear that this fragile happiness might shatter, that his secret would one day be laid bare.

A warmth touched your face as you stood beside him, neatly laying his freshly folded clothes on the wooden stool there. His hand emerged from the warm bathwater, catching your wrist before you could slip away. Water dampened the sleeve of your gown as his grip held you in place.

“Moriel,” he purred, his soft green gaze locking onto yours, searching for something only you could give. “Join me.”

You giggled, a playful smile curving your lips as you shook your head.

“I’ve already started getting ready,” you teased, flicking your eyes toward the neatly folded clothes. “And so should you.”

You moved to pull away, but in one swift motion, Mairon tugged you forward, pulling you into the bath with him.

A surprised yelp escaped your lips as you splashed into the warm water, laughter bubbling up in its wake. Your gown, now drenched, clung to your body like a second skin, leaving nothing to his imagination.

A playful smile danced on your lips as you pushed yourself back, away from Mairon's reach.

"Now look what you've done," you chuckled, trying to wring the water out of your soaked gown.

Mairon simply shrugged, his eyes locked onto your body, unbridled desire shining in their depths.

"I don't see a problem," he replied huskily, inching closer to you in the bath. "You know how much I adore seeing you wet."

Your cheeks flushed at his words, feeling heat pool low in your belly at the thought of him seeing you like this.

"Is that so?" you teased, playing coy even as his hand reached for yours and pulled you into his lap.

It was moments like these that reminded Mairon why he had chosen this life with you over all others. The way you responded to his touch with such raw abandon drove him wild with desire. 

But for now, he contented himself with kissing every inch of skin he could reach—the slope of your neck, the dip between your collarbones, and down to the valley between your breasts. You could feel his arousal pressing against your heated core, and you shifted your hips, grinding against him with a devilish grin. Mairon let out a low growl, his fingers digging into your hips as he pulled you even closer to him.

"Divine," Mairon growled against your skin. "Keep that up and we'll never make it to the gathering." 

You rolled your hips again teasingly. "Maybe that's my plan," you purred. "I'd rather feast on you right here."

With a groan, Mairon captured your lips in a searing kiss, his tongue plundering your mouth with unrestrained hunger. You returned the kiss with equal fervor, the wet fabric of your nightgown brushing against his bare chest as you pressed yourself against him. 

His hands roamed your body, gliding over the translucent material clinging to your curves. Fingers deftly untied the laces at the front until the fabric loosened. With a tug, he peeled the wet gown off, exposing your body to his greedy gaze. 

"Beautiful," he murmured reverently, gleaming eyes drinking in every inch of your glistening skin. "My Mori, my goddess." 

His hands caressed your breasts, thumbs flicking over the sensitive peaks until you arched into his touch with a gasp. Mairon's lips trailed kisses down your throat as his fingers dipped between your thighs, finding your slick folds. You mewled and ground against his hand, chasing the delicious friction.

"Mairon, please," you breathed, head lolling back as two fingers plunged inside your heat. "I need you."

"Patience, my love," he purred, pumping his fingers slowly, savoring your silken walls clenching around him. "I want to worship you properly first."

You whined as his fingers withdrew, but it quickly turned into a moan as Mairon's hot mouth enveloped your breast once more, tongue swirling around the stiff peak. His teeth grazed your sensitive flesh, sending jolts of pleasure straight to your core.

"Yes!" you cried out, threading your fingers through his damp coppery hair to hold him against you. 

Mairon lavished attention on your breasts, suckling and nipping until you were writhing in his lap, desperate for more. His arousal throbbed between your bodies, the velvet head brushing your stomach. You reached down to stroke him, relishing the deep groan that rumbled in his chest.

Panting, Mairon released your nipple with a soft pop, eyes dark with lust as they met yours. "I want to taste you, sweet one," he rasped.

 With a wicked grin, you rose up on your knees, granting Mairon access to your dripping core. His hands gripped your hips as he guided you to hover over his face. You had to brace yourself against the edge of the tub as Mairon's sinful mouth made contact with your sensitive flesh. 

"Oh Mairon," you gasped as his tongue parted your folds, lapping up your essence. He groaned appreciatively, the vibrations making you shudder. 

Mairon begun eating you out, tongue swirling around your pearl before delving deep inside you. Your thighs trembled on either side of his head as he brought you closer and closer to the edge with every skilled flick and thrust. He slipped two fingers inside your clenching cunt, pumping in time with his licks.

"Don't stop, my love," you panted, rocking your hips against Mairon's face as the coil in your belly wound tighter and tighter. "I'm so close..."

Mairon redoubled his efforts, fingers curling inside you to stroke that sensitive spot while he suckled on your swollen pearl. The intense pleasure crashed over you in waves and with a sob of ecstasy, you shattered. Your inner walls clamped down on his fingers as you rode out your high, Mairon's tongue lapping up every drop of your release. 

Gently, he guided you back down into the warm bathwater, cradling you against his chest. You could feel his hardness pressing insistently against your stomach and you squirmed in his lap, eager to return the favor. But Mairon's arms tightened around your waist, stilling your movements.

"Not yet, my love," he murmured in your ear. "I'm almost finished.”

Mairon's hand glided down your stomach to tease your sensitive folds once more. You shivered and arched into his touch, still swollen from your recent climax. His nimble fingers circled your pearl, coaxing soft mewls from your lips as he reignited your arousal.

"Mairon," you whimpered. "I want to please you too." 

"You already please me more than you know, sweet one," he purred, nipping at your pointed ear. "Watching you come undone is the most exquisite sight."

To emphasize his point, Mairon thrust two fingers deep inside your core, making you cry out and clench around the sudden intrusion. He pumped them slowly, thumb rubbing firm circles on your pearl. The warm water lapped at your sensitized skin as Mairon worked you back up to a fever pitch. His other hand kneaded your breast, rolling and pinching the stiff peak until you were panting and writhing against him.

"That's it, my goddess," Mairon growled, increasing the pace of his thrusting fingers. "Let me feel you fall apart for me again."

Your walls fluttered around his digits as the pressure built, every drag against that spot inside you bringing you closer to oblivion. Mairon's teeth grazed the junction of your neck and shoulder before biting down, marking you as his. The erotic mix of pain and pleasure sent you careening over the edge with a strangled moan. 

Mairon worked you through the aftershocks, fingers gentling as you came down from your high. You sagged bonelessly against his chest, utterly sated. But Mairon's own need still pulsed hard and insistent between your bodies. With a languid smile, you shifted in his arms to straddle his lap, positioning yourself above his straining arousal.

"I believe it's my turn to worship you now, husband," you purred.

Mairon's sea-foam green eyes locked onto yours, burning with unbridled desire as you reached between your bodies to grasp his thick length. He let out a low hiss as you ran your palm along his shaft, your thumb swirling around the weeping tip. You positioned him at your entrance, teasing him with slow, shallow rocks of your hips that barely took him inside.

"Mori," Mairon growled, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips. "Stop tormenting me, you devilish woman.”

With a coquettish grin, you sank down slowly onto Mairon's throbbing arousal, enveloping him in your tight, wet heat. Twin moans of pleasure filled the steamy air as you seated yourself fully in his lap, relishing the delicious stretch and fullness. You paused for a moment, savoring the feeling of being one with your beloved husband.

Mairon's hands roamed your back, fingers tracing patterns on your damp skin as he gazed up at you with adoration and desire. "My beautiful wife," he breathed reverently. "I am forever yours."

"As I am yours, my love," you whispered back, capturing his lips in a deep, sensual kiss. 

Slowly, you began to rock your hips on Mairon's thick shaft. The warm water lapped at your joined bodies, heightening every sensation. Mairon groaned into the kiss, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips as he relished in your movements.

You set a languid pace, wanting to savor every blissful slide of his hardness inside your velvet walls. Mairon's hands glided up your sides to cup your breasts, kneading the soft mounds and teasing your nipples with flicks of his thumbs. You arched into his touch with a breathy moan, the dual stimulation sending sparks of pleasure racing through your veins.

"Mori," Mairon panted against your lips. "You feel incredible. So perfect around me."

"Mairon," you whimpered, circling your hips to grind against him. "You fill me so well, my love."

Mairon's hands slid down to grip your rear, guiding your movements as you undulated in his lap. The slick slide of your bodies, the erotic sounds of water lapping against heated skin, drove you both wild with lust. You increased your pace, moving to rise and fall on his thick shaft with wanton abandon. 

Mairon's head fell back against the edge of the tub, a guttural groan tearing from his throat as you rode him harder, faster. The coil of pleasure wound tighter in your core with every thrust, every drag of his cock inside you. You clenched around him, eliciting a strangled moan from Mairon's lips.

"Yes, just like that," he panted, hips snapping up to meet your downward thrusts. "Don't stop, I'm so close..."

You could feel your own release rapidly approaching, the relentless friction sending you spiraling towards that blissful edge. One hand gripped the edge of the tub for leverage while the other tangled in Mairon's damp hair, tugging him in for a sloppy, desperate kiss. Your tongues tangled and teeth clashed as you devoured each other, pouring all your love and passion into the heated embrace.

"Mairon, I'm close," you whimpered against his lips, walls fluttering around his length. "Come with me, my love."

"Together," Mairon groaned, one hand snaking between your bodies to rub firm circles on your swollen pearl. The added stimulation was all it took to send you flying over the edge with a keening cry of ecstasy. Your inner walls clamped down on Mairon's throbbing length, milking him for all he was worth as your orgasm crashed over you in intense waves of pleasure.

Mairon followed you a heartbeat later, spilling himself deep inside you with a hoarse call of your name. His hips jerked erratically as he emptied himself in long, hot spurts, your velvet heat coaxing every last drop from his pulsing shaft. 

You collapsed against Mairon's chest, both of you trembling and panting harshly as you came down from your mutual highs. Mairon's arms wrapped around you tightly, holding you close as he pressed soft kisses to your damp hair and temples. You nuzzled into his neck, savoring his warmth and the comforting scent of ash and soot that always clung to his skin.

For long moments, you simply held each other, basking in the afterglow of your lovemaking and the tranquility of the warm bathwater lapping at your sated bodies. Mairon's hands roamed your back in soothing caresses, fingers tracing idle patterns on your damp skin. You sighed contentedly, utterly at peace in your husband's strong arms.

Eventually, Mairon shifted, gently lifting you off his softening length. You whimpered at the loss, feeling empty without him filling you so completely. He chuckled softly at your pout, pressing a tender kiss to your lips. 

"As much as I would love to stay here with you all night, my goddess," Mairon murmured, "we do have a gathering to get to,” Reminding you of your earlier comment to him. 

You let out a languid sigh, nodding reluctantly. "I suppose you're right, my love. Though I can think of no finer feast than the one we just shared."

Mairon grinned at that, green eyes sparkling with mirth and adoration. "I couldn't agree more, sweet one. But alas, duty calls." 

With that, he stood, rivulets of water cascading down his toned body as he stepped out of the tub. You admired the play of muscles under his skin, the way his damp hair clung to his neck and shoulders. He was a vision of masculine beauty, and he was all yours.

Mairon turned, extending a hand to help you up. You grasped it, allowing him to pull you to your feet and out of the cooling bathwater. He enfolded you in a plush towel, rubbing your skin dry with gentle, attentive strokes. You practically purred at his ministrations, relishing his care. Once he was satisfied that every inch of you was dry, Mairon wrapped the towel snugly around your body before grabbing another for himself.

You padded over to the vanity, picking up your silver-handled hairbrush. Before you could begin detangling your damp tresses, Mairon's hand covered yours. "Allow me, my love," he murmured, taking the brush and guiding you to sit on the cushioned stool.

With infinite tenderness, Mairon ran the brush through your hair, carefully working out the knots and tangles. You closed your eyes, sighing contentedly at the soothing sensation. It never failed to amaze you how hands so powerful, so skilled at crafting wonders and forging metal, could be so incredibly gentle. Mairon treated you like the most precious treasure, every touch a whispered declaration of his love and devotion.

As he brushed your hair to a glossy sheen, his fingers would occasionally ghost along the elegant point of your ear or the nape of your neck, sending delicious shivers down your spine. With practiced ease, he separated sections of your hair, deftly twisting and braiding the strands into an intricate style fit for a queen. When he was finished, he reached for the silvery hairpiece on your vanity—the same one you had worn on your wedding night—and carefully placed it among his handiwork. The white jewels and silvery metal gleamed in the flickering candlelight, a reflection of the stars.

"Beautiful," Mairon murmured, pressing a soft kiss to your temple as he admired his masterpiece in the mirror. "A vision of perfection, as always."

You smiled at his reflection, eyes glowing with love and adoration. "Only because I have you by my side, my love," you replied, turning to loop your arms around his neck. "You make me feel cherished and radiant every single day."

Mairon's eyes softened, a tender smile gracing his lips as he pulled you flush against him. "You are my everything, Moriel," he whispered ardently. "My heart, my fëa. I will spend eternity showing you just how deeply I adore you."

Your heart swelled at his heartfelt declaration, a lump forming in your throat. Even after all this time, Mairon still had the power to make you feel like a blushing maiden with his poetic words and passionate devotion. Rising onto your toes, you captured his lips in a slow, sweet kiss, pouring all your love into the gentle caress.

"As I adore you, Mairon," you breathed.

Mairon returned the kiss with equal tenderness, his arms tightening around your waist. These quiet, intimate moments with you were his greatest treasure, filling him with a deep sense of peace and contentment he had never known before you entered his life.

Reluctantly, you broke the kiss, gazing up at Mairon with a warm smile. "As much as I would love to stay in your arms all night, my darling, we really should finish getting ready." You said, repeating his earlier words.

Mairon let out a dramatic sigh, a playful pout forming on his sensual lips. "If we must," he conceded. "Though I plan to hold you in my arms and shower you with kisses the moment we return from the gathering."

You giggled, pressing a quick peck to his pouting mouth. "I shall hold you to that promise, husband."

With that, you gently disentangled yourself from his embrace and watched as he walked back into the washroom, where his neatly folded robes awaited him. You smiled softly, content with everything that had transpired before moving to retrieve the gown hanging on the door of your wardrobe.

It was a soft, velvety blue gown adorned with sparkling diamonds, stitched into the fabric in delicate, star-like patterns. The craftsmanship was so exquisite, it seemed almost as if Vairë herself had woven it from the very threads of the night sky. It felt too grand, too regal for a woman like you to wear—meant instead for a queen.

Yet Mairon had brought it back from his visit to Gondolin, wrapped in an opulent box, his eyes alight with anticipation as he presented it to you. The moment you unfolded the gown, your heart had stuttered in your chest. It was breathtaking, and though you had deemed it unnecessary—believing you had no occasion grand enough to wear such a masterpiece—Mairon had been insistent. He had urged you to try it on, and to your amazement, it fit as though it had been tailored for you alone.

And then, when you turned to face him, you saw the look in his eyes—pure, unguarded adoration.

"You truly are a goddess, my love," he had whispered.

His words had made you flush with warmth, for you had never felt as such. But beneath his gaze, beneath his touch, you felt as though you were Varda herself.

"Do you need help?" Mairon’s voice pulled you back to the present.

You turned to find him watching you, a soft smile gracing his lips. He had already donned his elegant crimson robes, the intricate embroidery catching the candlelight like embers in a fire. He looked every inch the regal lord, his copper hair cascading over his shoulders in molten waves. Your breath caught at the sight of him—still, after all these years, you could scarcely believe this magnificent being had chosen you as his wife for all eternity.

"Yes, please," you admitted, holding up the sumptuous gown. "I don't think I can manage these tiny pearl buttons on my own."

Mairon crossed the room, his eyes gleaming with warmth and affection. "It would be my pleasure, my love," he murmured, taking the gown from your hands and holding it open for you to step into.

You let the towel slip to the floor and slipped your arms through the delicate sleeves of the gown. The luxurious fabric whispered against your skin as Mairon eased it over your shoulders, helping you shimmy it up your body. His fingertips traced feather-light paths along your sides and back as he worked, igniting small sparks of pleasure in their wake. You shivered at the sensation, though you could not tell whether it was from the cool touch of the fabric or the searing warmth of his hands.

With deft fingers, Mairon began fastening the three tiny pearl buttons that ran up the small of your back. Each brush of his knuckles against your spine sent tingles racing through you. He worked slowly, almost reverently, savoring the intimate moment before a single finger trailed up your back, tracing the exposed skin where the gown remained open.

"You take my breath away, Mori," Mairon murmured, his warm breath fanning across your neck as he secured the final button at the nape of your neck, fastening the delicate shoulders of your gown in place. His fingertips lingered for a moment before tracing down the elegant curve of your back. "This gown suits you perfectly, as if it were woven for you alone."

You turned in his arms, gazing up at him with shining eyes. "Only because you chose it for me, my darling," you replied softly, reaching up to caress his chiseled cheek. "Your impeccable taste and eye for beauty never cease to amaze me."

Mairon leaned into your touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment as he savored your gentle caress. "It is easy to choose beautiful things when I have perfection incarnate as my muse and inspiration," he purred, turning his head to press a tender kiss to your palm.

A delicate blush stained your cheeks at his heartfelt praise. Even after all this time, Mairon's poetic declarations of love and adoration still made your heart flutter like a hummingbird’s wings. You doubted you would ever grow accustomed to being so cherished and revered.

Mairon's hand came up to cradle your face, his thumb brushing across your flushed cheek. "My blushing bride," he teased gently, soft green eyes twinkling with mirth and affection. "Even after all this time, I can still make you blush with my words alone."

You playfully swatted his chest, an adoring smile tugging at your lips. “That silvery tongue of yours is going to get you trouble," you chided. "Keep your honeyed words for the gathering. We’re going to be late if we tarry much longer."

Mairon heaved an exaggerated sigh, his hands sliding down to rest on your hips. "As my lady commands," he acquiesced, though the wicked glint in his eye told you he was not quite finished with his amorous attentions.

He leaned in close, his lips brushing the shell of your ear as he whispered, "But once we return, I fully intend to worship every inch of you until you are trembling and breathless with pleasure. Until the only word your lips remember is my name."

A shiver raced down your spine at his husky promise, heat pooling low in your belly. Your fingers tightened slightly where they rested on his chest, and for a fleeting moment, the thought of skipping the gathering altogether crossed your mind. But Mairon had grown to enjoy these grand affairs, or it was seeing you all made up and in your finery that drove him towards it. But in your heart you knew he would rather spend the night tangled in your embrace.

"I look forward to it, my love," you breathed, letting your lips brush fleetingly against his.

With a final heated look, Mairon stepped back and offered you his arm. "Shall we?"

You placed your hand in the crook of his elbow, a radiant smile blooming across your lips. "Lead the way, my dear husband."

Arm in arm, the two of you departed your home, stepping out into the moonlit streets of Laureandor.

Once at the gathering, you moved to envelop Eärlindë as she approached, her expression bright with delight. She returned your warm embrace, her laughter like the chime of silver bells.

"Tintilmë, you look absolutely stunning!" she exclaimed, holding you at arm’s length to admire your resplendent gown. "That color suits you beautifully."

You beamed at her praise, giving a little twirl to show off the shimmering fabric. "Thank you, my dear friend. It was a gift from Mairon."

Eärlindë’s eyes sparkled with mirth as she cast a glance toward your husband, who was engaged in conversation with a group of Noldorin lords. "He certainly has exquisite taste—in both fashion and wives," she teased, nudging you playfully.

You laughed, linking your arm with hers as the two of you began to weave your way through the gathering. The space had been transformed into something truly magical—golden lanterns hung from the trees, casting a warm, celestial glow over the revelers. The air was thick with the scent of exotic dishes and the sweet aroma of delicate confections. Soft music drifted through the night, mingling with the gentle hum of conversation and bursts of joyous laughter.

"It’s like something out of a dream," you sighed, your eyes drinking in the twinkling lights and elegantly dressed guests.

Eärlindë nodded, a smile gracing her lips. "The Noldor lords certainly elicit a grand response when their delegation arrives. Mother always goes overboard, seemingly feeling the need to prove herself or something." she commented as you looked around at all the elves present.

Many were from court, a court you never attended but knew. Whereas the taller ones you knew were high elves. Their opulent gowns, finery, and jewels all of Valinor. A place nether you or Eärlindë had seen.

Nor did you ever want to.

As you moved through the crowd, stopping occasionally to exchange greetings with familiar faces, you found yourself marveling at the unexpected path your life had taken.

From awakening in the woods of Cuiviénen, drinking from the sweet waters, migrating west with kin, traveling among the other Moriquendi and relishing in the beauty of Arda herself.

Never in your wildest imaginings did you expect to one day stand amongst the nobility of elves that were far younger than you, let alone knew of Beleriand’s true beauty.

Eventually, you and Eärlindë made your way to one of the long tables laden with delicacies, both savory and sweet. Crystal goblets filled with rich, fragrant wine gleamed invitingly under the lantern light. You each took a glass, moving to stand at the edge of the gathering where the view of the glowing garden stretched before you like an enchanted realm.

As you sipped your wine, movement from the corner of your eye caught your attention. A small cluster of elven ladies had gathered nearby, whispering and casting furtive glances in your direction. A few of them even had the audacity to point at your gown, their expressions laced with thinly veiled envy.

You felt a flicker of unease. Was the gown too ostentatious? Perhaps you should have chosen something simpler. But then you recalled the way Mairon had looked at you, as if you had woven the very stars into existence. His words echoed in your mind—"You truly are a goddess, my love."

Squaring your shoulders, you met the envious stares of the high elven ladies with a serene smile, refusing to let their pettiness diminish your joy.

Eärlindë, who had noticed the change in your posture, followed your gaze. When she spotted the gaggle of gossiping women, her brows furrowed in irritation. "Pay them no mind, Tintilmë," she murmured, giving your arm a reassuring squeeze. "They are merely bitter that your radiance outshines them all. Let them choke on their own jealousy."

You couldn’t help but chuckle at Eärlindë’s blunt words, grateful for her unwavering support. "You’re right, of course," you replied, taking another sip of your wine.

Your eyes wandered across the garden, searching for Mairon. It did not take long to find him. His crimson robes a striking contrast against the more subdued hues of the gathering. The coppery sheen of his hair caught the lantern light like molten fire, making him stand out effortlessly.

He was deep in conversation with a tall elven lord, whose finely embroidered outer robe bore a smith’s insignia—a fellow craftsman, no doubt. You could only imagine the topic at hand, likely some intricate discussion of metalwork or a trade of forging secrets.

As if sensing your gaze, Mairon glanced up, his sea-green eyes meeting yours instantly. A slow, knowing smile curved his lips, his expression filled with open adoration. With the barest tilt of his head, he beckoned you forward.

You turned to Eärlindë with an apologetic smile. "If you’ll excuse me, my dear, I believe my husband requires my attention."

Eärlindë followed your gaze, her smile turning knowing as she saw Mairon’s besotted expression. "Of course, mellon. Go to him. I’ll be just fine on my own."

With a grateful nod, you made your way through the gathering, your skirts swishing around your ankles as you moved with effortless grace. The envious stares of the high elven ladies burned into your back, but you paid them no heed. There was only one pair of eyes you cared for, and they were already fixed on you with unwavering devotion.

As you approached Mairon, the elven lord beside him turned his gaze upon you. He was taller which was typical of High Elves, with dark hair bound neatly at the nape of his neck, his strong features marked with a regal air. When he inclined his head in greeting, it was not the casual acknowledgment one would offer an acquaintance—it was a bow of deference, as if he expected you to be of higher station than you truly were.

And then recognition struck.

Curufin.

Your breath hitched slightly as you lowered into a respectful curtsy. You had heard of him before—one of Fëanor’s sons, a master smith in his own right. More importantly, he was a name you knew through Eärlindë’s brother, who had fought beside him in the early years of the war.

Rising gracefully, you met his gaze with composed politeness. "My Lord Curufin," you greeted, your voice steady despite the unexpectedness of his presence.

His dark eyes flickered with something unreadable before he inclined his head once more. "My lady," he greeted, his tone measured yet not unkind.

Mairon’s hand found the small of your back, his touch grounding you as always. “This is my wife, Tintilmë,” he said smoothly, his voice carrying the warmth of pride—but also a subtle edge of possession.

Curufin turned fully to you, taking your outstretched hand with practiced elegance. He brought it to his lips, pressing a chaste yet deliberate kiss to the delicate skin atop your knuckles. His lips lingered just a heartbeat too long for your husband's comfort. The shift was almost imperceptible, but you felt it—the tightening of Mairon’s grip against the small of your back, his fingers bunching the fine fabric of your gown ever so slightly.

"A pleasure, my lady," Curufin said as he released your hand and straightened to his full height. His gaze gleamed with something unreadable, a hint of amusement dancing in their depths. "It is not every day one has the privilege of meeting a maiden truly blessed by Varda herself."

Your face warmed at the unexpected compliment, but before you could formulate a response, you felt the slow rise and fall of Mairon's chest behind you. A glance upward confirmed your suspicion—his jaw was set, his expression composed, but the steel beneath his impassive exterior was unmistakable.

Possessiveness radiated from him like the smoldering heat of a forge, restrained but simmering beneath the surface. You knew that look well. While others might have mistaken his silence for indifference, you could see the warning in the slight clench of his jaw and the unyielding grip on your gown.

Curufin, it seemed, had noticed as well. A ghost of a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, as though he relished in pushing just enough to test the edges of Mairon’s restraint.

You cleared your throat delicately, hoping to diffuse the tension that crackled between the two smiths like a forge at full heat. "You are too kind, my lord," you replied graciously, offering Curufin a measured smile. "But I assure you, I am no more blessed than any other elf here tonight."

Curufin’s eyes glittered with intrigue, the corner of his mouth curving in something that was not quite a smirk. "Modesty becomes you, my lady. But surely you must know that your radiance outshines all others present." His gaze flickered briefly to Mairon before returning to you, keen and calculating. "A true jewel of Beleriand."

Before you could formulate a response, Mairon’s arm slipped fully around your waist, pulling you flush against his side in a blatant display of possession. His fingers pressed firmly into the fabric of your gown, a silent declaration of claim. "My wife's beauty is indeed unparalleled," he agreed, his voice a low, velvety purr that sent a shiver down your spine. "As is her grace and kindness. I am truly the most fortunate of elves to call her mine."

A warm flush crept up your neck at Mairon’s ardent words, his unwavering devotion sending a rush of heat through you. No matter how many times he declared his love, his admiration, it never failed to set your heart aflutter. Leaning into his embrace, you placed your hand over his where it rested on your hip, entwining your fingers in a silent reassurance that you belonged to no one but him.

Curufin inclined his head in acknowledgment, though the gleam in his eyes remained, assessing and appraising. "Indeed, you are a fortunate elf, Mairon," he mused, his tone almost too casual. "To have found such a rare treasure and claimed her as your own." A flicker of something unreadable passed through his gaze, his lips curving just slightly. "One can only hope you fully... appreciate her value."

The barely veiled insinuation made your stomach tighten, and you felt Mairon’s fingers flex against your hip, betraying the slow burn of anger beneath his controlled exterior. "I can assure you, Lord Curufin," he replied evenly, each syllable measured and precise, "that I cherish my wife above all else in this world. Her worth to me is beyond measure."

The unspoken warning in his tone was unmistakable—sharp as a honed dagger, a threat woven into civility. For a long moment, neither smith spoke, their gazes locked in a silent battle of wills. The air between them thrummed with the kind of tension that spoke of grudges unspoken and rivalries long since settled in steel and fire.

You glanced between them anxiously, your heart pounding. Though a small, primal part of you found the intensity of their regard thrilling, you knew better than to let this continue unchecked. The last thing you wished was for your presence to sow discord at what should have been a joyous gathering.

It was Curufin who broke the standoff, though the smirk that ghosted across his lips suggested he had achieved precisely what he intended. He inclined his head in a gesture that was both deferential and mocking. "Of that, I have no doubt," he drawled smoothly, his voice as rich and polished as the finest tempered steel. "Your devotion to your fair wife is admirable, Mairon. A lesser elf might find himself... distracted by such beauty." His eyes glinted, his meaning unmistakable.

Mairon’s grip tightened ever so slightly, his body rigid against yours. "Then it is fortunate that I am no lesser elf," he countered coolly, his words edged with steel.

Curufin’s smirk widened, a knowing gleam in his gaze as though Mairon had walked straight into his carefully laid verbal snare. But rather than press the point further, he merely dipped his head, feigning politeness. He had done what he came to do—test the edges of Mairon's restraint, and perhaps remind him that there were others who took notice of what he held most dear.

Satisfied, he straightened, offering a bow more formal than truly necessary. "I will take my leave," he said smoothly, his voice carrying just a whisper of amusement. "It was a pleasure speaking with you again, my lord." He turned to you then, his eyes settling on yours with an inscrutable look. "And an honor to meet you, my lady. For it is rare to meet a true child of Ilúvatar.”

With that, he gave a deeper, more measured bow and moved past you both, disappearing into the throng of guests.

Only when he was out of sight did you feel the full force of the tension leave Mairon’s frame. His fingers still rested against your hip, but they no longer pressed possessively—rather, they traced slow, absentminded circles against the fabric of your gown. You turned to him, catching the flicker of something dangerous in his eyes, something simmering just beneath the surface.

You exhaled softly, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Mairon," you murmured, coaxing him to meet your gaze.

His eyes softened, the glacial edge thawing ever so slightly. "He seeks to provoke," he muttered, his voice a thread of controlled ire. "And I do not take kindly to games where you are the prize."

You smiled gently, reaching up to trace your fingers along his jaw, easing away the tightness there. "I am no one's prize," you whispered. "I am yours. Always."

The heat in his gaze darkened, possessive in a way that sent a thrill through your veins. He lifted your hand to his lips, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to your fingers. "Yes," he murmured, his voice a promise. "Mine."

The intensity of Mairon's gaze, the fervent promise in that single word, sent a shiver of desire down your spine. In that moment, you wanted nothing more than to melt into his embrace, propriety be damned. But you were still very much in public, surrounded by curious eyes and wagging tongues. The last thing you needed was to provide more fodder for the envious whispers of the elite.

Even if it would give Eärlindë something to gossip about.

Reluctantly, you stepped back, placing a more respectable distance between your bodies while still keeping your hand entwined with Mairon’s. "Later, my love," you murmured, a coy smile playing at the corners of your lips. "When we are alone, I will show you just how thoroughly I am yours."

Mairon's eyes darkened with barely restrained hunger, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he visibly struggled to rein in his desire. "I will hold you to that promise, sweet one," he purred, his voice a dark caress that sent heat pooling low in your belly. "And I intend to worship every inch of you until there is no doubt in your mind or body to whom you belong."

A delicious shiver raced down your spine at his fervent declaration. Oh, how you ached to drag him away from the festivities and lose yourself in his embrace. But duty and propriety demanded your presence a while longer. With a soft sigh, you gave his hand a final squeeze before reluctantly releasing it.

"I look forward to it, husband," you murmured, your voice husky with promise. “Though perhaps we should mingle separately for a while longer," you suggested, hoping a bit of distance might help.

Mairon exhaled slowly, as though grounding himself, before offering a slight nod. A flicker of reluctance passed through his soft green eyes at the loss of your touch, but he understood. Much as you both longed to remain by each other’s side, it would be wise to circulate separately, lest your mutual distraction become too apparent to the ever-watchful nobles.

"Save a dance for me later," you whispered, your tone sweet with anticipation. "I will be counting the moments until I am back in your arms."

Mairon’s gaze softened, his sculpted lips curving into a tender smile. "For you, my heart, I would wait an eternity." He lifted your hand to his mouth, pressing a lingering kiss to your knuckles that sent tingles racing up your arm. "But I will be counting the moments all the same."

With one final heated look that promised delights yet to come, Mairon released your hand and stepped back, allowing you to glide into the glittering throng of revelers. Though your body instantly mourned the loss of his closeness, you knew the anticipation would only make your reunion all the sweeter.

You moved through the crowd with practiced ease, your luminous gown drawing admiring glances and murmured compliments as you passed. Outwardly, you were the picture of serene grace, exchanging polite smiles and nods with nobles and dignitaries alike. But beneath that carefully composed facade, your mind still reeled from the tense exchange between Mairon and Lord Curufin.

The Noldor smith had always been a master of barbed words, and tonight had been no exception. His thinly veiled insinuations—about you, about Mairon, about the nature of your marriage—had clearly struck a nerve. Your husband, usually so impervious to provocation, had barely concealed the simmering fury beneath his polished veneer. You could still recall the way his fingers had tightened around yours, how his voice had taken on that dangerous, silken edge that only appeared when he was at the precipice of temper.

A part of you should have been unsettled. And yet, a dark thrill curled in your belly, knowing that you had the power to stir such intensity in him. That your love—your mere presence—could fracture the iron control of a man who prided himself on his unshakable composure. A shiver of anticipation danced down your spine as you imagined how he would stake that claim in private, how he would worship you with all the fervor of a disciple before an altar, possessive and unrelenting.

Lost in your musings, you nearly failed to notice Eärlindë appear at your elbow, her expression alight with mischief. In her hands, she carried two new crystal goblets, their contents catching the glow of the lanterns in warm amber hues. She extended one to you with a knowing smile, her keen eyes flickering over your dreamy, distracted expression.

"I know that look," she teased gently.

You accepted the proffered goblet with a grateful smile, taking a sip of the chilled, honey-sweet wine. "Am I truly so transparent?" you asked ruefully, feeling a telltale warmth creeping into your cheeks.

Eärlindë laughed, a melodic sound that turned a few curious heads. "Only to one who knows you as well as I do," she assured you, her smile laced with sisterly affection. "Let me guess—your devastatingly handsome husband has just promised to ravish you senseless the moment he gets you alone."

The wine nearly caught in your throat as a fierce blush bloomed across your cheeks. You gave her an exasperated look, but the amusement in her eyes only deepened.

"Not in so many words," you admitted, lowering your voice to ensure it wouldn’t carry to prying ears. "But Lord Curufin seems to have gotten under his skin with a few ill-advised remarks regarding my… allure." You shook your head, torn between flattery and exasperation at the memory of the Noldor lord’s casual provocations. "I fear my poor husband may be driven to distraction with the need to stake his claim.”

Eärlindë’s brows arched, intrigue sparking in her gaze. "My, my, the infamous Curufin taking notice of our sweet Tintilmë? You do aim high, my friend." She chuckled, taking a dainty sip of her own wine as her eyes scanned the room, no doubt searching for the elf lord in question.

"Believe me, his attentions are entirely unwarranted," you said hastily, as if that alone would deter her interest. But this was Eärlindë—once she caught the scent of gossip, she would not easily be dissuaded.

She hummed, clearly unconvinced, and her lips curled into a sly grin. "Oh, I don’t doubt that. But that won’t stop me from enjoying the scandal of it all." Her voice dropped conspiratorially. "Tell me, did Mairon look ready to strike him down where he stood? Or was he simply seething in that quiet, terrifying way of his?"

You gave her a pointed look, but despite your best efforts, a small, traitorous smile tugged at the corners of your lips.

"Perhaps a bit of both," you confessed.

Eärlindë grinned triumphantly. "Delicious. Do you think Mairon would let me watch when he exacts his vengeance? No doubt it will be something terribly dramatic."

You sighed, though you couldn’t quite suppress the amusement bubbling beneath your breath. "You are incorrigible."

"And you love me for it," Eärlindë said breezily, though a knowing gleam sparked in her eyes. She tilted her head, studying you with mild amusement before arching a delicate brow. "So, the renowned smith of Himlad has decided to test our Mairon's mettle, has he? I can't say I'm entirely surprised."

You frowned, swirling the wine in your goblet. "What do you mean?"

Your friend leaned in conspiratorially, her voice dropping just enough to ensure your conversation remained private. "Curufin is known for his sharp tongue and his taste for mind games. He enjoys pushing boundaries, needling just enough to see how far he can prod before someone snaps. Especially those he considers potential rivals."

"Rivals?" you echoed, puzzled. "Surely he doesn't see Mairon as a threat. Their crafts are distinct, and Mairon has never shown an interest in playing politics."

Eärlindë chuckled softly, her lips curving in that way that made you feel slightly naïve despite your own wisdom. "Oh, my sweet, oblivious Tintilmë. For all your years, you can still be so blind sometimes." She took a sip of her wine before continuing. "This isn’t about craftsmanship or politics—it’s about pride." Her gaze flickered across the room, seeking Curufin among the revelers. "Curufin is used to being the most sought-after presence in any gathering. He commands attention simply by being who he is. But tonight, all eyes are on you and Mairon. You outshine everyone, and he can't stand being eclipsed, even for a moment."

You blinked, absorbing her words. "So, he’s trying to unsettle Mairon out of… jealousy? Petty rivalry?"

Eärlindë inclined her head slightly, though her expression turned more contemplative. "Jealousy, perhaps, but not just that. He’s also testing Mairon, taking the measure of his mind and spirit, trying to see what lies beneath that flawless composure."

A flicker of unease curled in your gut. "To what end? What could he possibly hope to gain by provoking my husband?"

"Knowledge, leverage, or simply the satisfaction of cracking a particularly well-guarded puzzle," she mused, swirling the wine in her goblet. "Curufin’s motives are rarely straightforward. But one thing is certain—he wouldn’t bother engaging Mairon at all if he didn’t see him as an equal. In a twisted way, this may be Curufin’s version of a compliment."

You let out a soft huff, shaking your head. "I can think of far more pleasant ways to pay a compliment," you muttered before taking a fortifying sip of wine. "Ways that don’t involve trying to drive a wedge between newlyweds."

Eärlindë smirked, reaching out to squeeze your arm reassuringly. "Pay him no mind, mellon. Mairon adores you far too much to let Curufin’s petty machinations sway him." Her eyes glimmered with playful mischief as she added, "If anything, I suspect this little display has only inflamed your husband’s desire to worship you properly once you’re alone."

Heat crept up your neck at her words, your body already thrumming with anticipation for Mairon’s ardent attentions. You let out a soft laugh, shaking off the wicked images forming in your mind. "You are incorrigible," you said, though your grateful squeeze of her hand betrayed your fondness.

"Honestly, what would you do without my wisdom and encouragement?"

"Get into even more trouble, no doubt," you teased back, matching her grin. "Someone has to keep me grounded amidst all this opulence and intrigue."

"Exactly," she said with a wink. "Now, let’s at least pretend we’re enjoying the party before someone starts whispering that your dear husband has already whisked you away."

You chuckled, but even as you kept up the appearance of polite engagement, your gaze inevitably strayed across the glittering throng. Your eyes found Mairon with an unerring pull, as if drawn by some invisible thread. He stood among a cluster of lords, speaking with his usual elegance, yet there was a tautness to his posture, a barely concealed impatience beneath his mask of control.

And then, as if sensing your gaze, he turned.

His sea-green eyes locked onto yours, and even across the crowded courtyard, you could see the fire smoldering in their depths. A silent promise. A vow unspoken yet utterly clear. Your breath hitched, anticipation coiling within you.

Mairon inclined his head almost imperceptibly, an acknowledgment of the charged energy crackling between you. The corners of his sensual lips curled into the barest hint of a smirk—a warning, a tease, a promise of what was to come.

Then, with a smooth farewell to his companions, he excused himself. His long strides ate up the distance between you, his presence commanding even in so casual a movement. Within moments, he was standing before you and Eärlindë, his gaze flickering briefly to your friend before settling back on you, dark with intent.

"May I steal my wife for a dance?" he inquired smoothly, offering you his hand.

Eärlindë, sipping from her glass, gave you a sidelong glance and wiggled her brows in barely concealed amusement.

A fresh wave of heat flooded your cheeks as you placed your hand in his, your fingers curling instinctively around his own. He helped you step gracefully down from where you had been standing, his touch sending sparks racing up your arm.

You handed your goblet to Eärlindë, who accepted it with an exaggerated air of suffering. "Have fun," she said with a teasing lilt. "And do try not to scandalize anyone—at least not too much."

Mairon’s smirk deepened as he led you onto the dance floor, the music swelling around you in soft, lilting strains. His arm slid around your waist as he pulled you close, his touch both possessive and reverent. You exhaled, tilting your head to meet his gaze, and in that moment, nothing else in the grand, glittering courtyard existed but the two of you.

As he led you through the steps of the dance, his emerald eyes bored into yours, dark with unspoken promise. "You are a vision, my love," he murmured, his voice a low caress that sent shivers racing down your spine. "A goddess made flesh. I can scarcely keep my hands off you."

You melted into his embrace, your body molding perfectly to his as you moved together in the age-old rhythm. "Then don't," you breathed.

Your words sent a jolt of desire straight to Mairon's core. His grip on your waist tightened as he spun you gracefully across the dance floor, the two of you moving as one. Every brush of his body against yours stoked the flames of your mutual longing, until you felt you might combust from the sheer intensity of his gaze.

"Careful what you wish for, sweet one," Mairon growled, his lips grazing the shell of your ear. "Keep testing my restraint, and I may just ravish you right here, propriety be damned."

You shivered, your blood heating at his promise. Rising slowly, you met his burning gaze through your lashes. "And what's stopping you, husband?" you asked, your voice husky. "I seem to recall you promising to worship me until I remember naught but your name.”

Mairon's eyes flashed, his grip on your waist tightening to an almost bruising pressure. "Mori," he growled, his voice rough with barely restrained desire. "You tempt me beyond reason."

In a move almost too swift to follow, he spun you off the dance floor and into a darkened side garden, hidden from prying eyes. His powerful body caged you against a cool stone pillar, his lips claiming yours in a searing kiss that stole the breath from your lungs.

You melted into him, your fingers tangling in his silken hair as you returned his kiss with equal fervor. Mairon's hands roved over your body, mapping every curve and hollow as if he would commit them to memory. When his nimble fingers found the buttons of your gown, you tore your mouth from his with a gasp.

"Mairon," you panted. "What if..." 

Despite your halfhearted protest, your body arched into his touch, craving more. Mairon's lips curved into a wicked smirk against your throat as he continued his sensual assault. 

"No one will find us, sweet one," he purred, his fingers deftly undoing the top button of your gown to expose your heaving chest as the velvet shoulders slipped downward. "I'll be quick. I just need a taste..."

You shuddered as his hot mouth descended to your chest, tongue swirling around a taut nipple. A breathy moan escaped your lips and your fingers tightened in his hair, holding him to you. Mairon growled his approval, the sound vibrating against your sensitive flesh.

He released your peaked bud with a soft pop before trailing open-mouthed kisses across the swell of your breasts. "I need you, Mori," Mairon growled against your heated skin. "I need to claim you, mark you, make you scream my name until there's no doubt who you belong to."

"Yes," you gasped, arching wantonly into his touch. "I'm yours, Mairon, only yours. Take me, please..."

With a groan of satisfaction, Mairon sealed his lips over yours in a deep, plundering kiss. His fingers bunched in the skirts of your gown, hitching the flowing fabric up your thighs. You whimpered into his mouth as his hand found your heated center, cupping you possessively. The heat of his hand against the growing wetness there, sent a shiver of pleasure down your spine.

"So wet for me already,” He chuckled darkly. With deft fingers, he sank two digits deep into your aching core. A keening moan tore from your throat as he began to pump them slowly, his thumb circling your sensitive pearl. Mairon swallowed your cries with his lips, mindful of the need for discretion even in his passion-fueled haze.

"That's it, sweet one," he rasped against your mouth. "Let me feel you, all of you. I want to drown in your essence, be consumed by your fire.”

Incoherent pleas and praises fell from your lips as Mairon worked you higher, his clever fingers unraveling you with ruthless precision. The wet sounds of his digits thrusting into your slick cunt filled the air, mingling with your breathy moans and the distant strains of music from the gathering. The delicious scandal of it all—your husband fingering you to ecstasy in a darkened garden while a hundred nobles drank and danced mere yards away—only heightened your pleasure, edging you closer to that elusive peak.

"Mairon, please," you whimpered, writhing against him as the coil in your core wound tighter and tighter. "I need... I need..."

"I know, sweet one," Mairon growled, nipping at your kiss-swollen lips as a third finger joined the first two, stretching you exquisitely.

You gasped at the addition, your inner walls clenching greedily around Mairon's plundering digits. The building pressure in your core was almost unbearable now, your entire being focused on the exquisite sensations radiating from where Mairon played your body like a finely tuned instrument.

"That's it, my love," he purred against your ear. "Sing for me. Let me hear those sweet sounds of your pleasure."

His fingers curled inside you, stroking that sweet spot that made stars burst behind your tightly closed eyelids. Your thighs trembled, barely able to support you as Mairon drove you closer and closer to the edge of bliss.

"Mairon!" you keened, your nails digging into his shoulders as you teetered on the precipice. "I'm going to...I can't..."

"Yes, you can," Mairon growled, his fingers pumping harder, faster, his thumb grinding mercilessly against your throbbing pearl. "Come for me, Mori. Let go, sweet one. Shatter for me."

His dark, sensual command sent you over the edge. With a choked cry, you flew apart, your release crashing over you in shuddering waves of ecstasy. Your inner walls clenched almost painfully around Mairon's fingers as they gentled you through the aftershocks, drawing out your pleasure until you were limp and quivering in his arms.

Mairon's soft green eyes burned into yours as he slowly, deliberately sucked your essence from his fingers, savoring your taste like the finest wine. The sight of his sensual mouth wrapped around those same digits that had just brought you to such dizzying heights sent a fresh wave of desire crashing through your still trembling body. 

"Exquisite," he purred, releasing his fingers with a final lick. "I could feast on your sweet taste for eternity and never be sated."

You whimpered softly, reaching for him with needy hands. "Mairon, please," you breathed, hardly recognizing your own voice, wrecked as it was with desire. "I need you inside me. I ache to be filled by you, claimed by you."

A low growl rumbled in Mairon's chest, his eyes flashing with possessive heat. "And I ache to fill you, to claim every inch of your luscious body as mine," he rasped, his voice rough with desire. "But I fear if I take you here and now, I will not be able to control myself. I want to worship you properly, my goddess. I want to lay you out on our bed and spend hours driving you mad with pleasure until you forget your own name."

You shivered at his dark promise, your body already thrumming with renewed anticipation. "Then take me home, husband," you purred, sliding your hands down his chest to brush teasingly over the straining evidence of his arousal. "Take me to our bed and make me yours in every way. I need your touch like I need air to breathe."

Mairon captured your wandering hands, bringing them to his lips to press fervent kisses to your fingers. "As my lady commands,"

With a final searing kiss that stole your breath, Mairon set your skirts to rights, helped you button your dress back up, and took your hand, leading you swiftly out of the darkened side garden. The music and chatter of the feast reached your ears once more as you emerged onto the main path, a reminder of the outside world that had briefly ceased to exist while you were wrapped in Mairon's passionate embrace.

You both made your way to the edge of the gathering, trying to slip away as unobtrusively as possible. But before you could make your escape, a familiar voice called out your name.

"Tintilmë! Leaving so soon?"

You turned to see Eärlindë approaching, her eyes twinkling with mirth as she took in your flushed cheeks and kiss-swollen lips. Beside you, Mairon stiffened imperceptibly, though he maintained his polite smile as your friend drew near.

"I'm afraid so, Eärlindë," you replied, trying to keep your voice steady despite the thrum of desire still coursing through your veins. "Mairon and I have some...matters to attend to at home."

Eärlindë's smile turned knowing, her gaze flicking between you and your husband with barely concealed amusement. "I'm sure you do," she teased, her melodic voice laced with innuendo. "Far be it from me to keep you from your...marital duties."

You felt heat creep up your neck at her playful insinuation, even as a thrill raced down your spine at the thought of what those "duties" entailed. Beside you, Mairon shifted subtly, his grip on your hand tightening ever so slightly. You knew he was impatient to whisk you away and make good on his heated promises, but he maintained his composure for your friend's sake.

"Indeed," he replied smoothly, his rich voice betraying none of the hunger simmering beneath the surface. "My wife and I have much to...discuss in private. I'm sure you understand."

Eärlindë's eyes danced with barely suppressed laughter, but she nodded graciously. "Of course, my lord. I would not dream of keeping you from such important matters." She turned to you, pulling you in for a quick embrace. "You must tell me all about your 'discussions' later, mellon," she whispered in your ear, her voice trembling with mirth.

You swatted her arm playfully as you pulled away, fighting back a grin. "You are incorrigible, Eärlindë." 

Your friend merely winked, her smile full of mischief. "And you love me for it. Now go, enjoy your 'marital duties' with that delicious husband of yours." She made a shooing motion with her hands. "I expect a full report tomorrow!"

Shaking your head with a laugh, you allowed Mairon to lead you away, his strides purposeful as he guided you towards the path leading to home. The moment you were out of sight of the revelers, he pulled you flush against him, his arm snaking possessively around your waist.

"Divine," he growled against your ear, nipping at the sensitive lobe. "Teasing me with Eärlindë, knowing full well how desperate I am to have you." His hand slid lower, palming your ass through the thin velvet of your gown. "You enjoy testing my restraint, don't you, little temptress?"

You shivered, arching into his touch with a breathy sigh. "Can you blame me? Seeing you struggle to maintain your composure, knowing that I'm the reason for it...it's intoxicating."

Mairon's answering growl vibrated against your throat as he peppered your sensitive skin with hot, open-mouthed kisses. "Wicked woman. You'll pay for your teasing." He nipped at your racing pulse. "Once I get you home, I'm going to strip you bare and worship every inch of your body until you're mindless with pleasure."

You swallowed thickly, fighting against the desire to simply let Mairon take you right there on the moonlit path. "Then hurry, husband," you breathed. "Before I combust from wanting you."

Mairon's eyes glittered with dark promise as he scooped you into his arms, your surprised yelp quickly turning into delighted laughter as he carried you swiftly down the path towards home. Your heart raced with giddy anticipation, every nerve ending alight with desire for your passionate mate.

In what seemed like mere moments, you had crossed the threshold into your candlelit chambers. Mairon set you on your feet only long enough to secure the door before he was on you again, his mouth claiming yours in a searing kiss that left you weak in the knees.

"I thought I would go mad with jealousy tonight," he growled between kisses as he walked you backwards towards the bed, his nimble fingers already working on the buttons of your gown. "Seeing the way Curufin looked at you, the way his eyes devoured you like a wolf eyeing a lamb..." 

His teeth grazed your throat, making you gasp. "I wanted to throw you over my shoulder and carry you away from all those lustful stares, to remind everyone that you are mine and mine alone."

"Yours," you agreed breathlessly, shrugging out of your gown and letting the velvet fabric pool at your feet. "Only ever yours, Mairon."

A possessive growl rumbled through his chest as he drank in the sight of you standing before him in nothing but the silvery chain and wedding band he had placed upon you all those years ago. "My perfect goddess," he rasped, green eyes burning with reverent hunger. "Let me worship you as you deserve.”

With reverent hands, Mairon lifted you onto the bed, laying you out on the silken sheets like a priceless offering. His eyes raked over your naked form, drinking in every dip and curve illuminated by the flickering candlelight. You had never felt more desired, more cherished than you did under the heat of his adoring gaze.

"Magnificent," he breathed, long fingers trailing feather-light paths along your quivering skin. "An exquisite masterpiece shaped by Eru himself."

You keened softly, arching into his worshipful touch. "Mairon, please..."

He smiled, slow and sensual, as he divested himself of his own finery with deliberate grace. Each movement was a revelation, baring his sculpted physique to your hungry eyes inch by torturous inch until he stood before you in all his magnificent glory.

Mairon joined you on the bed, his powerful body covering yours as he claimed your lips in a deep, worshipful kiss. You melted beneath him, your fingers threading through his silken hair to hold him close. His tongue delved into the honeyed recesses of your mouth, mapping every curve and hollow.

"My Mori," he breathed against your lips. “My sweet wife,”

You moaned softly, your body already alight with need. "Show me," you pleaded, rolling your hips against his straining length. "Show me how much you adore me, husband."

Mairon's eyes flashed, a predatory smile curving his lips. He began a slow, sensual descent down your body, lips, teeth, and tongue painting fiery paths across your skin. He lingered at your breasts, lavishing attention on the soft mounds until you were arching off the bed with breathy cries, your fingers tangled almost painfully in his hair. His clever mouth suckled and nipped at the tender peaks, sending jolts of electric pleasure straight to your core.

"Mairon, yes.." you whimpered as he bit down on a sensitive nipple, the exquisite sting only heightening your arousal. 

He soothed the love bite with his tongue before continuing his worshipful journey down your quivering body. His hands mapped every inch of your heated flesh, tracing reverent patterns on your stomach, your thighs, the sensitive crease of your hips. He settled between your thighs like a supplicant before an altar, emerald eyes burning with reverent hunger as he took in your glistening folds.

"Moriel," he growled, hot breath fanning across your aching core. "I could feast on you for all eternity."

You shuddered, hips rolling pleadingly. "Then feast, my love. I am yours to devour.”

Mairon needed no further encouragement. With a groan of satisfaction, he buried his face between your thighs, his sinful mouth descending on your weeping center like a man starved. The first swipe of his tongue through your slick folds tore a keening cry from your lips, your back bowing off the bed at the exquisite sensation.

"Yes!" you gasped, one hand fisting in his silken hair while the other clawed at the sheets. "Just like that, my love..."

He growled his approval against your heated flesh, the vibrations only adding to the all-consuming pleasure building in your core. His lips closed around your throbbing pearl, suckling hard as two fingers plunged deep into your dripping core. The dual sensations sent you hurtling towards the edge with breathtaking speed.

Mairon's fingers pumped steadily as his tongue swirled and flicked against your sensitive bud, wringing gasps and moans from your lips with every masterful caress. He was relentless in his sensual onslaught, determined to shatter you again and again until you were boneless beneath him.

"Mairon, I-I'm close," you panted, feeling the tell-tale flutter of your inner walls. "Don't stop, please..."

He redoubled his efforts, fingers curling inside you to stroke the spot that made your toes curl and your vision blur. His lips and tongue worked in tandem, lashing your aching pearl until the coil in your belly snapped and you flew apart with a ragged scream of his name. 

Wave after wave of ecstasy crashed over you as Mairon gentled you through the aftershocks, his fingers and tongue slowing their relentless rhythm to soft, soothing caresses. You quivered and gasped beneath him, boneless and sated in the aftermath of your shattering release. 

Slowly, almost reverently, Mairon kissed his way back up your body, pausing to lave tender attention on the marks of passion he had left in his wake. When he finally reached your lips, he claimed them in a deep, sensual kiss, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. You moaned softly into his mouth, the intimate flavor igniting a fresh spark of desire in your veins.

"My goddess," Mairon breathed against your lips. "My perfect wife. I will never tire of worshipping you."

You smiled up at him, your heart full to bursting with love and desire for this magnificent being who had claimed you as his own. Reaching up, you traced the chiseled lines of his face with worshipful fingers, marveling at the raw beauty of him. 

"As I will never tire of being worshipped by you, husband," you murmured.

Mairon's eyes softened, a tender smile gracing his sculpted lips as he turned his head to press a fervent kiss to your palm. "Eternity will never be long enough to show you the depths of my love," he vowed, voice low and intense with emotion. "But I intend to spend every moment trying."

Mairon's lips claimed yours in a searing kiss, the intensity of his love and desire pouring into the passionate embrace. You surrendered to his ardent ministrations, your arms winding around his neck to pull him impossibly closer. The hard planes of his body aligned perfectly with your soft curves, two puzzle pieces fitting together in sublime harmony.

When the need for air finally forced you apart, Mairon rested his forehead against yours, his eyes boring into your own with breathtaking intensity. "My beautiful wife," he murmured, his voice low and rough with emotion. "I ache to be one with you, to join our bodies and souls as only husband and wife can."

You shivered at his words, your core clenching with desperate need. "Then take me, my love," you breathed, rolling your hips invitingly against his straining arousal. "Claim me,”

Mairon's eyes flashed with primal hunger at your wanton invitation. "With pleasure, my love," he growled, aligning himself at your entrance. 

With a powerful thrust of his hips, he sheathed himself fully inside your welcoming heat. Twin moans of ecstasy filled the air as you were finally joined as one, your bodies fitting together like lock and key. The delicious stretch and fullness drew a ragged gasp from your lips, your inner walls fluttering around his thick length.

"Mairon, yes..." you breathed, wrapping your legs around his trim waist to pull him impossibly deeper. "You feel incredible, my love."

He groaned, dropping his head to the crook of your neck as he savored the blissful sensation of your silken walls gripping him like a velvet glove. "No sweeter heaven than being buried inside you.”

Mairon began to move, his hips rolling in a slow, sensual rhythm that sent sparks of pleasure racing through your veins. Each deliberate thrust brushed against that spot deep within you, stoking the embers of your desire into a raging inferno. Your nails raked down the sculpted planes of his back, urging him on with breathy moans and pleas for more.

"Yes, Mairon," you gasped as he drove into you with increasing fervor, the wet slide of your joined bodies filling the room. "Harder, my love. I need to feel every inch of you."

With a guttural groan, Mairon complied, hips snapping against yours in a relentless rhythm, each powerful thrust driving you higher and higher towards that elusive peak. His lips and teeth mapped fiery paths across your throat and chest, worshipping every inch of your heated flesh. When his sinful mouth closed around a taut nipple, you cried out sharply, your back arching into his powerful thrusts.

"Mairon!" you keened, your fingers tangling almost painfully in his hair as he suckled and nipped at the sensitive bud. "Don't stop, my love, please..."

He growled his approval against your breast, the vibrations sending delicious shivers racing down your spine. His hand slid between your sweat-slicked bodies, nimble fingers finding your aching pearl. He circled the throbbing nub in tight, deliberate strokes, wringing desperate moans and pleas from your lips as he drove you towards the precipice with ruthless precision. The coil in your core wound tighter and tighter, your inner walls clenching greedily around his pistoning length. You could feel your release building like a tidal wave, cresting higher and higher with each masterful thrust and stroke.

"I'm so close!" you sobbed, your body beginning to tremble with the force of your impending climax. "Please, my love, I need..."

"I know, sweet one," Mairon rasped, his own voice strained with the effort of holding back his own release. He wanted to feel you shatter around him first, to watch you come undone in ecstasy before emptying himself deep inside your fluttering sheath. "Let go for me, Mori. Come all over my cock."

His filthy words and the relentless stimulation were the end. With a keening cry, you shattered in his arms, your climax crashing over you in shuddering waves of pure ecstasy. Your inner walls clamped down on his throbbing length, milking him with pulsing intensity as you rode out the dizzying pleasure.

Mairon groaned long and low, the exquisite feel of you fluttering around him sending him careening over the edge. With a final, powerful thrust, he buried himself to the hilt, spilling his hot seed deep inside your still quivering cunt. Your name fell from his lips like a reverent prayer as he lost himself to the bliss of his own release, his hips moving in shallow, erratic thrusts as he emptied every last drop into your welcoming womb.

Utterly sated, you clung to Mairon as the aftershocks of your mutual pleasure rippled through your joined bodies. He collapsed against you, his weight a warm, comforting presence as you both struggled to catch your breath. For long moments, you simply held each other, basking in the afterglow and the profound sense of connection it always brought.

Mairon was the first to stir, lifting his head from the crook of your neck to gaze down at you with adoring eyes. He brushed a few sweat-dampened locks from your brow, his touch infinitely tender. "My beautiful wife," he murmured, voice husky with emotion. “I could never tire of this.”

You smiled up at him, your heart full to bursting with love and contentment. "Nor could I, my darling husband," you whispered, tracing the chiseled lines of his face with worshipful fingers. "You are my everything, Mairon.”

Mairon's eyes softened, a tender smile gracing his sensual lips. "As you are mine, Mori," he breathed, turning his head to press a fervent kiss to your palm. "I am forever changed, forever blessed, to have you as my wife and eternal mate."

He shifted then, gently withdrawing from your warmth and rolling to his side, pulling you with him so that you were nestled against his chest. His arms encircled you, strong and protective, as though he could shield you from all the sorrows of the world. You nestled deeper into Mairon's embrace, relishing the comforting heat of his skin against yours. His fingers trailed idle patterns along your spine, soothing you like a lullaby. A contented sigh escaped your lips, your eyelids growing heavy in the hazy aftermath of your lovemaking.

"Sleep, my love," Mairon murmured, pressing a tender kiss to your hair. "I will guard your dreams and hold you close until morning’s light."

"Mmm, I like the sound of that," you mumbled, already halfway to slumber. The steady, rhythmic thrum of his heartbeat beneath your cheek was more potent than any sleeping draught. "Promise you'll still be here when I wake?"

Mairon's arms tightened around you, a silent vow. "Always, sweet one. There is nowhere in all of Arda I would rather be."

With that whispered promise, you let your eyes drift closed, secure and cherished in the circle of Mairon's arms. Sleep claimed you swiftly, your dreams filled with visions of eternal love and endless devotion. No matter what trials or challenges life might bring, you knew with unwavering certainty that Mairon would always be by your side—his love a steadfast anchor against the ever-changing tides of fate.

As you slept, Mairon watched over you, his green eyes soft with adoration and reverence. He marveled at the delicate beauty of your features in repose—the way your lashes fanned out against your cheeks, the gentle curve of your lips that he had kissed countless times. Even in slumber, you took his breath away, a vision of perfection that he still could scarcely believe was his to treasure.

Yet as he held you, his thoughts wandered back to the events of the evening—the simmering tension with Curufin, the way his possessive instincts had surged at the Noldor lord’s veiled provocations. Though Mairon knew beyond any doubt that your heart belonged to him alone, the mere thought of another coveting you, even in fleeting admiration, had stirred something primal within him. A need—not of mere possession, but of affirmation, to ensure that every fiber of your being knew, as surely as he did, that you were his and his alone.

He exhaled softly, brushing a reverent fingertip along your cheek, marveling at the silken softness of your skin. How had he been so blessed to earn the love and devotion of a maiden so radiant, so pure of heart? There were still moments when the shadows of his past whispered doubts in the recesses of his mind, when the weight of who he had once been threatened to taint the light he had found in you.

But then, he would look into your eyes—those luminous pools of unwavering adoration—and all fear would be banished. You had that power over him. You were his guiding star, his beacon of hope, casting light into the darkest corners of his fëa. With you beside him, Mairon felt capable of anything—renewed, redeemed, made whole by the sheer force of your love.

He silently vowed to spend every day proving himself worthy of the precious gift of your heart.

As the first rays of dawn painted the horizon in hues of rose and gold, Mairon pressed a final, reverent kiss to your brow before allowing himself to surrender to a light slumber. Even in sleep, his arms never loosened their protective embrace, as if holding onto you anchored him to the serenity he had found in your love.

Your soft breaths and the gentle rhythm of your heartbeat wove a lullaby more potent than any spell, and for the first time in his long, tumultuous existence, Mairon knew peace—a peace born not of conquest, nor of dominion, but of love. True and unbreakable.

Morning came all too soon, the warm caress of sunlight stirring you gently from your contented dreams. Your eyes fluttered open, blinking against the golden rays that filtered through the gossamer curtains. A sleepy smile curved your lips as you became aware of the strong arms still wrapped around you, holding you close against a firm, warm chest. Mairon's chest. Your husband, your love.

Careful not to wake him, you shifted slightly in his embrace, turning to face him. He looked so peaceful in slumber, the usual intensity of his features softened by the vulnerability of repose. Your heart swelled with adoration as you drank in the breathtaking sight of him—the high, sculpted cheekbones, the sensual curve of his lips, the fiery silk of his hair splayed across the pillow. Even in rest, he was a vision of masculine beauty, a work of art given life.

Unable to resist, you reached out to trace the lines of his face with a feather-light touch. Your fingertips ghosted over his brow, down the aristocratic slope of his nose, across the chiseled planes of his cheeks. You marveled at the smoothness of his skin, the way it warmed beneath your reverent caress. He was perfection incarnate.

Mairon stirred at your tender touch, his sea-foam eyes blinking open to meet your adoring gaze. A slow, sleepy smile curved his lips as he pulled you closer, nuzzling into the crook of your neck. "Good morning," he murmured, his voice husky from slumber. "What a vision you are to wake up to."

You giggled softly, threading your fingers through his sleep-tousled hair. "I could say the same, my love. Watching you sleep is one of my greatest joys." 

Mairon hummed contentedly, pressing languid kisses along your throat. "Is that so? And here I thought your greatest joy was screaming my name in ecstasy as I worship your exquisite body."

A shiver raced down your spine at his words, desire already stirring in your veins. "Mmm, that is a very close second," you purred, arching into his sensual kisses. "Perhaps you'd care to remind me just how exquisite that worship can be?"

Mairon's eyes darkened with hunger, a wicked smile curving his lips against your skin. "It would be my utmost pleasure, sweet one."

In a flash, he had rolled you beneath him, his powerful body covering yours deliciously. Your breath hitched as you felt his hardening length press against your thigh, evidence of his own stirring desire. Mairon claimed your lips in a deep, sensual kiss, his tongue delving past your parted lips to stroke and caress. You melted into the passionate embrace, your arms winding around his neck to pull him impossibly closer.

Mairon's hands roamed your body as he kissed you deeply, tracing every curve and dip he had long since committed to memory. Each caress ignited sparks of pleasure that raced through your veins, stoking your desire. You arched into his touch, silently begging for more, and he was all too happy to oblige.

His lips blazed a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses down your throat, pausing to nip and suck at your racing pulse. You gasped and writhed beneath him, your fingers tangling in his silken hair as he continued his sensual assault. When his clever mouth closed around a rosy peak, you cried out sharply, your back bowing off the bed.

"Mairon, yes!" you keened as he suckled and teased the sensitive bud, sending jolts of electric pleasure. His clever tongue swirled around the hardened peak, drawing breathy moans from your parted lips. Mairon lavished attention on your breasts, reveling in every gasp and whimper he coaxed from you. His hands mapped your quivering body with worshipful reverence.

Unable to resist any longer, you tugged impatiently at his hair, urging him back up to claim your lips once more. Mairon obliged with a low chuckle, sealing his mouth over yours in a deep, plundering kiss. As your tongues tangled sensually, you hooked a leg around his hip, using the leverage to grind your aching core against his hardness. You both groaned at the delicious friction, the kiss turning fevered and urgent.

Breaking away with a gasp, Mairon rested his forehead against yours, emerald eyes smoldering with barely restrained hunger. "I need you, Mori," he rasped, his voice rough with desire. "I ache to be one with you,”

"Yes, Mairon," you breathed, your body singing with the same desperate need. "Take me, my love."

With a low growl of satisfaction, Mairon reached between your bodies, aligning himself at your entrance. In one powerful thrust, he sheathed himself fully inside your slick heat, drawing twin moans of ecstasy from you both. Your inner walls fluttered around his thick length, relishing the delicious stretch and fullness that only he could provide.

Mairon stilled for a moment, savoring the blissful sensation of being buried deep inside your welcoming body. His eyes locked onto yours, burning with an intensity that stole your breath. "My perfect goddess," he murmured reverently, his fingers caressing your face with aching tenderness. "I will never tire of being one with you in every way."

"Nor will I, my love," you breathed, canting your hips to take him even deeper. 

Slowly, reverently, he began to move, his hips rolling in a sensual rhythm that sent waves of pleasure coursing through you.

You clung to his broad shoulders, meeting each deliberate thrust with a roll of your own hips. The slick slide of your joined bodies, the delicious drag of his thick length against your fluttering walls, drew breathy moans and gasps from your parted lips. Mairon drank in every sweet sound of your pleasure, his gaze never leaving your face as he made love to you with exquisite tenderness.

Your legs wound around Mairon's trim waist as he rocked into you, pulling him impossibly deeper. Each languid thrust brushed against that spot within you, stoking your desire. You could feel the coil of pleasure winding tighter and tighter in your core, your inner walls beginning to flutter around his hardness.

"Mairon," you gasped, your fingers digging into the flexing muscles of his back.

He groaned against your throat, his rhythm growing more urgent, more purposeful. "I feel you, love," he rasped, his voice strained with the effort of holding back his own release. "Your perfect body grips me so tightly, as if it never wants to let me go.”

You keened at his words, your head tossing against the pillow as Mairon's thrusts grew faster, harder, driving you closer and closer to that elusive peak. "Never, my love," you panted breathlessly. "I never want to let you go. I'm yours, Mairon, always..."

"Yes, Mori," he growled possessively, angling his hips to grind against that sensitive spot deep inside you with each purposeful thrust. "Mine, forever and always. No one else will ever touch you, worship you, like I do."

His hand slipped between your sweat-slicked bodies, fingers finding your aching pearl. He circled the throbbing nub in tight, deliberate strokes, the added stimulation wrenching sharp cries of ecstasy from your lips. The coil in your core wound impossibly tighter, your body trembling on the precipice of rapture. Mairon's thrusts grew more urgent, more demanding, each flex of his hips driving you higher and higher. His fingers worked your sensitive pearl mercilessly, determined to shatter you completely.

"Mairon…" you sobbed, your nails raking down his sweat-slicked back. "I can't...I'm going to..."

"Yes, Mori," he commanded, his voice a dark, sensual growl. "Come for me, my goddess, I have you."

With a keening cry, you shattered beneath him, your climax crashing over you in shuddering waves of ecstasy. Your inner walls clamped down on his throbbing length, milking him with rhythmic pulses as you rode out the pleasure. Mairon groaned long and low, the exquisite sensation of your fluttering heat too much to resist. With a final, powerful thrust, he buried himself to the hilt, spilling his essence deep inside you as his own release overtook him.

Mairon's hips moved in shallow, erratic thrusts as he emptied himself completely, your name tumbling from his lips like a reverent prayer. You clung to him, your bodies trembling in the aftermath of your mutual bliss, hearts pounding in perfect synchronicity.

As your shared breathing slowed, Mairon carefully withdrew from your slick heat, a contented sigh escaping his luscious lips. Emerald eyes bored into yours, Mairon's expression one of profound love and adoration.

"Mori," he murmured hoarsely, ducking his head to press kisses along your collarbone. "My divine wife, words will never encompass how much I truly love you."

You threaded your fingers through his damp coppery locks, guiding him back up to meet your gaze. "Then show me, my darling," you whispered against his lips. "Every day, for the rest of our lives, show me the depths of your love. As I will show you mine."

Mairon's eyes softened, a tender smile curving his sensual mouth. "For all of eternity, my heart," he vowed, sealing his promise with a sweet, lingering kiss. 

You melted into his embrace, relishing the comforting weight of his body covering yours. These moments of tranquility, tangled in the sheets with your beloved husband, were more precious to you than all the gems in Arda. Here, in the sanctuary of your marriage bed, the outside world faded away until nothing existed but the two of you, bound by unrequited love and fiery passion.

[kitthepurplepotato]

Chapter 22 - The hero Gala

Summary: The cat is out of the bag - Izuku is in trouble.

Warnings: swear words, mentions of sexual shenanigans, angst - IM SORRY GUYS

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1st Chapter Master List Support the potato

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Izuku’s friends tried their best to change Izuku’s mind about the whole Gala situation but their words fell on deaf ears every time; Izuku was adamant that he has no rights to be there and no one could change his mind, not even you.

There was a weird tension in the air between you two after the trip was over; Izuku went back into his shell right as you opened the door to his apartment and the only time you managed to make him smile was when you sneaked under his covers and cheekily kissed his thighs while giggling to yourself like a child or other cheeky shenanigans. Apparently, Izuku adores moments like that; when he is loved, appreciated, without the need to prove himself worthy. Izuku loves to be loved, especially by you, and even though you never ask for anything back he’s always keen to do the same for you and by the look of it, he enjoys it just as much as he enjoys “receiving”.

“Sweets, love me.” Izuku mutters into your neck on a sunny afternoon, right before the hero Gala. First, you have a slight urge to laugh and remind the greenette that you love him every day but then you realize his whole body is rigid and you stay quiet.

Something is wrong and that something is connected to the hero gala, you are sure of it, but you don’t ask questions; you just let your fingers rake through Izuku’s messy locks, you play with his scalp and the back of his ears, and Izuku closes his eyes and sighs, his breaths long, deep and full of lust.

“You like it when I play with your hair?” You finally ask him, and Izuku blushes like a schoolboy.

“A little bit too much, to be honest.” He giggles. “But it works. I don’t think there is enough blood left in my brain to overthink.” Izuku sheepishly admits.

This conversation makes you think about your first time with Izuku; it has only been a few days since but you feel like you’ve been intimate with him for so much longer; it just feels so right to be together in that way, to show how much you love the other without the need of words. On that first day, you grabbed Izuku’s hair from the back and pulled it, and the sweet sound Izuku had made will forever live in your head rent free. Seeing Izuku vulnerable and worked up is your new favorite thing; mostly, because you know that with you, he can let himself go completely, clear his mind and just be himself. It’s good for you and it’s good for him.

But you also start to get concerned that your random acts of love became a way for him to distract himself from this problem he’s facing right now and you really don’t want this new kind of love to become a bad memory for him.

“Can I be honest with you?” You mumble into his hair, a little bit terrified to continue.

“Sweets, of course.”

“I… I’m scared.” You admit. “I feel like I’ve made a mistake. I’ve been trying to cheer you up and make you happy but I feel like… now, every time you feel anxious you try to… well.. get cheeky with me but I want these moments to be happy, to be about us… I might be selfish, but…”

“Stop.” Izuku jumps into your words, a little bit offended. “I would never use your body for such a thing and if I ever do, I’ll tell you and ask for your permission to do that. You are the love of my life and while yeah, it is a really good way to distract myself from the turmoil in my head, the only thing I think about during our time together is you and you only. Us doing things so frequently since has nothing to do with my anxiety. I just love loving you. I love how there is no one but us in those moments. I love the way you feel, the way you smell, I love to see how much you enjoy my touches. It’s like a drug to me. Please, never say such thing ever again because it breaks my heart.” Izuku finally finishes and you feel terrible now.

“I’m so sorry, Izu, I just…”

“You just don’t understand how much I love you. And I get that. It’s hard to understand that you can mean so much to another person. Even if you are… mentally okay… everyone is a bit judgmental when it comes to their own self.” Izuku smiles and kisses your lips to prove his point even further. “But Sweets, you are everything to me. Even if the world falls apart, even is loose all my memories, I’ll forever come back to you. There is no path in life where I don’t end up right here at the end of the journey. I kiss you because I need you, I love you because I can’t get enough of you. I might be a little bit too clingy thanks to the fact that my brain wants me to believe that me being the way I am now is not the same person you fell in love with but I know it’s all bullshit. I just need a lot of validation right now. And maybe I’m seeking it by being intimate with you. Hm. Maybe you had a point.” Izuku rambles and you can’t help but laugh.

“Those therapy sessions are really good for you. Look at you self-analyzing yourself!”

“I know, right?” Izuku laughs, slowly moving up to tower over you. “So can you do that to my hair again? I’ve been so good today. So so good.” He grins, clearly aware of how cringe his is right now.

“Nope. You ruined it.” You push the man away and run into the kitchen to sit down by the table cluttered with drawing materials. “I need to finish this commission, anyway!”

Izuku stays put for an hour then sneaks under the table while you’re distracted by all the different kind of greens you need to choose from for pro hero Deku’s hair.

“Hey.” Izuku looks up at you from between your legs with a big, hungry grin on his face and… let’s just say he gets what he wants afterwards.

This man will be the death of you.

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The evening is a blur. You two sit down on the sofa when the time comes; Izu looks restless, stressed, absolutely out of it, he doesn’t cuddle, he doesn’t come close, he just sits by the TV, his right leg bouncing up and down and you are five seconds away from yelling at him; no, not because it’s annoying, but because there is something he’s hiding and you really do not appreciate being left out of something so important and you hate how you are incapable of helping because Izuku does not let you in on this one.

The gala starts and the fellow heroes make their grand entrance; Katsuki and Eijiou look gorgeous in their tailored suits, elegant but deadly, Kyouka is wearing a beautiful frilly dress, all black, and her favorite boots, she reminds you of Avril Lavigne but more extreme. It takes 10 minutes for the interviewer to question the number one hero’s absence; Izuku’s leg stops moving and he stares at his feet, not even looking at the screen. You usually love watching the gala; the beautiful dresses, the smile on the heroes faces but today, you are dreading it; there is a static coming from TV, but maybe it’s coming from Izuku’s uncontrollable quirk, the colors are faded but maybe that’s only in your head, it’s weirdly dark and something is just wrong, so wrong you can’t shake the feeling off.

“What have you done…” you look at your boyfriend, because you can’t do this anymore.

“Sweets…”

“What have you done, Izuku?!” You ask again, frustrated. You can barely finish your sentence before the event officially starts; the 10th hero gets announced, then the list goes up to the top three… you already know something is up when there is only 3 places left but there are four people, the top four still seated in the crowd, or in Izuku’s case, at home. The camera zooms in at Katsuki, who looks angry and disheveled, nothing like he looked like a few minutes ago. Katsuki is clever and he definitely knows how to count. Kirishima has concern etched into his face, already up the podium as a fellow top 10 hero. He probably hates not being there for his partner. There is anger boiling inside you from seeing how this beautiful event was completely ruined for these people.

“Before we move to the top three, I would like to play a video we got from our Number One hero, Deku.” The retired hero who was asked to hold the ceremony announces with an utterly confused face.

… And then you understand what’s going on.

“Hey there, my fellow hero partners and everyone in Japan.” Izuku’s voice is firm and confident or at least it sounds like it but you know it’s all a fucking act. “I’m really sorry for not coming to the Gala in person but I have a feeling I would be killed by friends if I do.” He smiles sadly. “First of all, I want to thank everyone for keeping me on the first place for so long. It has been a pleasure and I do feel I worked hard enough to get to that first place but it wouldn’t have been possible without all of you. But…” this is a bad dream. This is not real. This can’t be fucking real. “It’s time for me to give this opportunity to someone else. As you all know, I’ve been out of commission for a while now and it will take a long time for me to heal. Until my body is ready to earn your votes, until I’m able to thank you by saving as many people as I can, I would like to announce my temporary retirement from the hero business.” In the background, Katsuki stands up and is about to leave the event. Kyouka stops him. Katsuki yells but it’s not audible. More heroes come over to tame the beast. Eijirou looks like he’s about to cry, his eyes full of longing as he looks at his partner, his best friend, struggling while he’s standing on the podium. “Once I’m ready, I want to earn your votes with my actions. I want and I will earn my spot back in the future. But for now, I want you guys to move on without me. Thank you for everything. I can’t wait to see the new Number One hero. Kacchan, make me proud.”

Katsuki cries. But not from happiness.

“I don’t want it!” Katsuki yells so loudly it’s audible. “I don’t fucking want it! It’s not mine! It’s not…” the first sob leaves Katsuki’s mouth and that’s the last straw for Eijirou; he jumps off the podium and runs towards Katsuki, completely ruining the gala.

Izuku jumps up from the sofa and leaves without a word, leaving droplets of tears on the floor as he runs by. You have no idea what to do. You want to run after Izuku, you want to run to the gala, to be there for Katsuki, because in the last few weeks, he and Eijirou became family to you. You are also extremely mad and disappointed in your Izuku so you have a selfish thought of letting him stew in his own juice; but you need to be an adult here, you need to think about Izuku’s mental health, about the reason why Izuku is going to therapy in the first place, you need to be the bigger man, put your anger aside and help him get through it.

Yes, the Gala was ruined, but in a fucked up way, Izuku wasn’t wrong; the doctors did say he won’t be able to be back to work for a couple of months and he probably won’t be at his best for the next few months after, so technically speaking, he would have lost his first place by next year anyway. Ripping of the bandaid now instead of watching your rank go further and further down while you are supposed to be stress-free would have done more harm than good.

The problem here is the way Izuku did the deed but at the same time, there is no way Katsuki would have let him do this even if it’s the right thing to do.

On the screen, Katsuki and Eijirou leaves the Gala while the poor spoke-person tries to save the event.

There is no way they are not headed this way. Which means you MUST get Izuku out of his stupor before they arrive. The event was held 1 hour away; that is if they use a taxi. Knowing how angry Katsuki is, he’ll fucking fly through the sky and arrive without Eijirou in less than 20 minutes, leaving the blonde without the only person who can restrain him if he looses his shit.

You could close the back door but Katsuki would break through anyway. They also have a spare key. There is no point.

20 minutes.

“Fuck.” You pull yourself together and run towards Izuku’s secret office entrance; you don’t need to see him going that way to know that’s where he went. Your phone rings in your pocket; there is a message from Izuku’s mom and a missed call from Eijirou; you quickly message his mom back saying you have it under control and it’s all good, then you call the red haired man back who can’t stop rambling for the life of him.

“Dude, I can’t understand what you are saying.” You mumble angrily as you run through the small corridor. “But if this is about Katsuki flying though the city to kick Izuku’s ass, I had a hunch and I’m trying my best to sort him him out so he can at least communicate with him.” You end the call without waiting for a response. You have twenty minutes to get Izuku out of his office, if not, Katsuki will explode the small hidden room and you will all die from smoke inhalation… wait, does he even know about this room? Oh, he does. He doesn’t know how to open it, though. Not like it really matters, he is a clever man so it would take him a few minutes to find out the “code”. He knows Izuku better than he knows the back of his own pretty, smooth hands.

“Go away” Izuku mumbles right as you put the code in and open the door. “I said GO AWAY” Blackwhip surges forward but you are not scared; Izuku would never hurt you.

“PUT THAT THING BACK WHERE IT BELONGS, MIDORIYA IZUKU!” You yell; black whip shakes a bit and retreats. Izuku looks like a deer caught in the headlights, utterly surprised by your stern voice.

“I’m… so… Sorry.” Izuku stares at the floor, embarrassed. He’s still crying. You want to give him a hug but you also want to pummel him to the floor (not in a cheeky way.)

“No, I get it, and I get why you did what you did but we have 15 minutes before Katsuki barges through the back door and I don’t want our love nest to explode so let’s make a plan and let’s wait for that angry Pomeranian outside. If he ruins any of my plants, I’ll kill him myself, though. I worked really hard to make them look this pretty.”

Izuku looks at you like he can’t believe what he’s hearing; there is so much fondness in his eyes, so much love it almost makes you forget that the man is in trouble.

“You are the best girlfriend in the whole wide world, do you know that?”

“Well, you can show me your appreciation later, now let’s get ready for battle.”

Izuku says nothing but smiles; he takes your hand and lets you pull him towards the exit.

“A fated battle between two men, as Ochako would say.” Izuku smiles to himself, eyes still full of tears. You roll your eyes.

“Fated battle between two idiots, I would rather say.”

“Fair point.”

Honestly, at this point, you don’t remember how it feels to have a normal life. You’ve changed so much in the last few months your own parents would probably think you are an alien in their daughter’s body which might sound like a bad thing but it’s quite the opposite; you’ve become stronger, better, kinder but you’ve also learned how to say no, how to stand up for yourself, how to be your own person. You’ll be always grateful for this weird bunch for helping find yourself after being lost for years.

“Explodo-boy is about to land. Take a deep breath, Izu.” You mumble as you see a flaming meteor in the sky coming closer and closer.

“This is how I die.”

This retort earns Izuku a big smack to the back of his fluffy head.

… to be continued!

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Potato ramble:

- Eyyyo, sorry for the angst but it had to happen! I tried to be nice and not actually end the chapter with a really bad cliffhanger so please appreciate me trying. Haha.

- I only have two chapters to write (this is real life time, you guys have a few more chapters! For now, it should end with Chapter 26.) but I think I’m gonna post the ones I have ready, so I can read your feedback and maybe add some extra chapters or put some of your ideas into the existing ones. This means there is going to be a bit of delay again in the future, but hopefully, not months, but a week or two. I don’t really like writing without hearing your thoughts first but I’m also not in the right mind space to keep posting every week so it’s the devil’s cycle really.

I enjoy writing to you but I enjoy writing together with you even more! So feel free to share your thoughts or things you want to read about; this is your last chance to speak up! 💜

TL: @garfieldthomas @porusuniverse @stickygumchewer @sixxze @mily-moo @aei-sedai-moiraine @aymasakusa @katsuari @kenzie-deadly @shiviwrites07 @lukerycyja-reblogs @cloroxisadelectabletreat @coffeent @kisskissshutmydoor @bobcar1 @yazminetrahan @cringefan @ronimacaroni77 @themultifandomgirl @dangerousluv1 @emperatris-rinaka @shotos-angelic-whore @angelsdemonsmonsters @norvacaine @rei165 @unofficialmuilover @yao-ai @happydragonfrog @eeerreehhh @vinivave @alyss-eiz @sleepisfortheweakpooh

[himluv]

Haunting

Chapter 34 of Say My Name (Say it Twice) is here! In which a trip to the Hossberg Wetlands brings up old memories for Lucanis.

Read it below, or on AO3!

Enjoy!

Rook always took Lucanis to the nicest places. He disliked the Hossberg Wetlands almost as much as he did the Grand Necropolis. The oppressive, rotten stink of the Blight hung heavy in the air and Darkspawn crawled from every cave and canyon. 

They’d just vanquished a demon locked away in a mansion – which Spite had hated – after defeating an encampment of Venatori – which both he and Spite had relished. Now, they were on their way to check on Flynn’s mentor, Oskar. 

Normally, Lucanis would take up the rear of their party, but since Davrin was with them – and he and the Warden were once again not speaking – Davrin refused to have Lucanis at his back. The truth was, Lucanis wasn’t all that mad at Davrin. Yes, he’d basically drugged Rook with his disgusting tea, but that night was not something Lucanis regretted. At all.

Besides, he found Davrin’s wariness amusing. He was more than happy to let the Warden sweat for the time being. And Lucanis would happily follow two steps behind Rook and her swaying hips. 

He’d thought that, after the heated night he and Rook shared in the dining hall, things might have settled between them. Instead, it was as if his fuse had shortened. It took so little for his mind to turn to inappropriate thoughts and it felt as though his blood were set to a permanent simmer. 

It was distracting, the way he played that night over and over in his mind in any idle moment. How his stomach flipped and his pulse raced at the memory of her body pressed to his. How immediately his own body responded to the memory of her heat. It was embarrassing. 

In the past, on the rare occasions his body had demanded release, Lucanis had dealt with it quickly. Efficiently. It was simply another bodily function – inconvenient, but sometimes necessary. 

But it had been a long time since his body had been so… insistent. And now he was never truly alone. He wasn’t sure how to handle this situation with Spite constantly watching him, asking questions and needling him to speed things along with Rook. He’d considered it the other night, in the dark of the pantry, but he couldn’t bring himself to reach down and go through with it. Not with Spite looming in the back of his mind. 

He didn’t want to explain masturbation to a demon.

“We’ve got Darkspawn,” Davrin called from behind him. And sure enough, when Lucanis looked up there were ghouls sprinting toward them, down the trail from a small cabin. 

Mierda, he should have heard them sooner. Lucanis knew better than to allow himself to be so distracted out in the field. Someone would get hurt if he didn’t get his act together. 

In a flash of purple, Spite’s wings unfurled, and Lucanis launched at the nearest ghoul, his blades making quick work of the thing. Above him, Assan shrieked as he swooped down to claw at a Hurlock, while Rook’s magic crackled around the battlefield, lightning arcing between several enemies. 

The Darkspawn were artless attackers, their only tactic was to overwhelm and they had no sense of self-preservation. They were not exactly satisfying to dispatch, like the Venatori could be. Especially the mages. But, Rook rarely went anywhere without Lucanis these days, so if she wanted him to kill Darkspawn by her side, he would. 

After the last of the Darkspawn fell to Davrin’s blade, Rook started off back up the trail. She stopped at the top and shook her head. 

“That doesn’t look good,” she said. 

Lucanis joined her, frowning at the sight before them. The cabin and its meagre gardens had been completely overrun by the blight. Behind him, Davrin sighed. 

“No, it doesn’t,” the Warden said. 

Lucanis remained silent as he followed Rook toward the house. He knew they would find nothing good there, but seeing Oskar’s wife on their bed, her body subsumed by blight tendrils, brought a fresh wave of icy fear to his sternum. 

“It moved so fast,” Rook said, speaking of the blight. “But, Oskar isn’t here.”

She and Davrin looked around the cabin for clues to the physician’s whereabouts, but Lucanis stayed by the bed, staring down at poor Marta. He’d seen more corpses than most, had caused plenty of them himself. He’d even seen Wardens succumb to the blight, either at Weisshaupt or to their Calling while on contracts. But something about the woman laying there, her face lost to the blight, rattled him. 

“Looks like he went to search for Brona’s Bloom,” Davrin said. “It’s rumored to slow the spread of the blight.”

From the other room, Rook’s voice sounded grim. “He must have gone looking for it to give to his wife.”

The cabin was small, but it was well kept. Before the blight, it might have even been quaint. It was easy to imagine a simple, good life within its walls. Oskar and Marta probably gardened, read by the fire, cooked and baked, and helped their community. Marta’s dress was handmade, stitched with painstaking detail and well-mended. 

There had been a life in this house. There had been love. And it had been snuffed out by the whim of monster claiming herself a god. The monster he had failed to kill.

“Lucanis?” Rook asked. She was back in the bedroom, standing close to him, but not touching. “Are you all right?”

He glanced at her, then looked back at the body sprawled on the bed. He took in the anguished twist of her spine, the way the blight had erased her face and then destroyed her home. This was a consequence of his failure. A wrong he could never make right. Even if they did find Oskar alive, Lucanis was not sure that would be a mercy. 

He turned away from the bed. “Let’s find this physician,” he said, and marched back out into the night. 

They found Oskar, dead beside a tuft of Brona’s Bloom, his bag full of the cut flowers. The man had died without knowing the fate of his wife. They had both been alone, in the end, neither knowing what had become of the other. Lucanis wasn’t sure if that was better or worse, but the image of Marta dead in their bed followed him back to Lavendell.

The icy feeling in his chest felt tighter and tighter with every step.

Rook gave Flynn the news and the satchel of flowers. A sad consolation for the loss of their mentor, though they took it well. They were no stranger to loss, it seemed. Few who remained in the Wetlands were. 

“I’m going to stick around,” Davrin said. Even he sounded disheartened by the evening’s events. “Catch up with Antoine and Evka.”

Rook nodded. “Sounds good,” she said. 

Lucanis looked at Davrin, and they shared the barest of nods, little more than a reluctant lift of their chins. But it was an offering of peace, an acknowledgment that there were more pressing matters than their personal feuds. It was a step forward, for them both. 

Rook headed for the eluvian and Lucanis followed after her. This time, his mind spared no thought for the sway of her hips. Instead he thought of women dead in their beds and how he seemed doomed to fail them. 

They didn’t speak as they made their way back through the Crossroads. He appreciated that about Embria – she gave him space when he needed it, without him needing to ask. Somehow, she just knew. 

Once they were back in the Lighthouse, Lucanis looked down at his feet. “Goodnight, Rook.” He made to go, but her hand on his pulled him to a stop.

“What’s going on?” She asked. Blue and purple light undulated behind her, the mirror still active. “You’ve been distant all night.”

He shook his head. “I’m just tired,” he said. It was true, he was tired. It just wasn’t why he was being distant.

She frowned. “Is Spite still not letting you sleep?”

“No!” Spite said. “Lucanis. Sleeps! Spite knows now.”

 She watched him, and Lucanis saw the glimmer of suspicion in her eyes, saw when she chose to stuff it down and let him have his little lie. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He smiled, but it felt forced. “Of course,” he said. 

Again, she eyed him, that now-familiar crease in her brow. So, he pulled her to him for a gentle embrace and placed a kiss on her forehead. 

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he whispered against her skin. 

She snorted, but her voice was kind when she said, “you’re a terrible liar.”

He smiled, a little more genuinely this time. “I know,” he said.

She tilted her face up to his and kissed him. Warm, yes, but heatless. Just a press of reassurance and affection. Lucanis lingered in that warmth, desperate to ward off the chill he’d carried with him from the Anderfels. 

“I’ll have coffee ready in the morning,” he said once they broke apart. An offering of sorts, so that she might know this wasn’t about her. 

“Okay,” she said. She still didn’t seem entirely convinced. 

It felt strange, talking around his dark mood and desire to be alone. He could probably just say these things to her and she would understand. But she also might try to help, and he wasn’t ready for that quite yet. 

He needed to think. To sleep. He needed time to shake the dark thoughts haunting him. So, he squeezed her hand once, then turned his back and made his way to the dining hall. To the pantry with its close shadows. To his bed, where he might find some peace from his churning thoughts. 

Lucanis ran through the halls of Villa Dellamorte. The East Wing, lower level. The level Caterina would one day completely remodel from a suite of family rooms to a salon for larger parties. But, this was Villa Dellamorte as it once was. Glittering and resplendent and echoing with the screams of the dying. 

He’d been awake. Even as a boy he’d struggled to sleep at night and often explored the Villa in the wee hours, when his family finally went to sleep. With seven rowdy cousins, he preferred the quiet. 

But the Villa was not quiet now. There were shouts and curses, the gurgle of blood choking up breathless throats. The ringing song of blades meeting, followed by the dull thud of steel sinking into flesh. 

Lucanis ran through the halls of Villa Dellamorte, and all around him, his family was dying. He held a small dagger in his right hand, a recent birthday gift from his father, and it dripped with blood. His arm was coated in the hot slick, his neck and face splattered with it. 

He’d surprised the assassin lurking outside Illario’s door, caught him under the arm. It would have killed him, but Lucanis’s knife was too short to reach the man’s heart. Lucanis knew that, so he’d immediately withdrawn the knife and went for the low back with several ferocious jabs. As the assassin sank before him, Lucanis gripped his head in the crook of his arm and dragged his blade across the man’s throat. 

There wasn’t time to think after that. He didn’t even check on his cousin. He hurried through the halls, coated in a strange Crow’s blood, to find his parents. When he turned into their hall, it was empty. The door to Lucanis’s room stood open on the right, the contents strewn around the chamber as the assassins had searched for him. 

But, he hadn’t been there. He’d been down in the cellar feeding scraps to the rats.

Further down, the door to his parents’ room hung open only a crack. There was a smear of red across the wood, already drying to a rusty brown. A part of him, the part that was still very much a child – he’d only just turned ten! – hoped that meant his parents were alive. That the blood on the door was an unknown Crow’s and when he pushed through into the room he would find only a stranger’s corpse.

But the rest of him, the part that was already growing into a master assassin, knew better. 

He opened the door. Lantern light from the hall spilled across the floor, illuminating the foot of the bed. The blankets were strewn off one side, piled up to cover a shape on the floor. The iron tang of blood filled the air. This room had once smelled of his mother’s perfume – a delicate blend of embrium and crystal grace. But, after this night, the metallic scent of blood was what Lucanis would always recall when he thought of his mother. 

On the bed, the light from the hall revealed his mother, her hand dangling off the mattress, her opal ring missing from her middle finger. 

He stepped closer, even as a part of him screamed not to. He didn’t need to look, he knew the truth. His parents were dead – his father discarded on the floor beneath a blood-soaked duvet and his mother pale and bloodless on the bed. 

He knew this. He had seen it before, the first time. He didn’t need to relive it now. But, still, he stepped closer. Trembling footsteps waded through a cooling pool of blood, but he didn’t stop. The assassins had started here, then worked their way West toward the center of the villa. 

Lucanis and his parents had been the primary targets. The contract was for the heirs of Caterina Dellamorte. 

He took another step, his view suddenly from a higher angle, the bed surrounded by writhing blight tendrils. He looked down on the face of the dead woman on the bed, and instead of the caramel brown gaze of Ana Sofía Dellamorte, he stared into lifeless, crystal grace eyes.  

Lucanis lurched up on his cot, sweat sticking to his bare chest, his hair slick at the back of his neck. Air came in fast, short, panicked breaths that only made him feel worse. More out of control. He took a deep breath, counting as he held it, then released it. Again and again and again, until his heart settled in his chest. 

He had not dreamt of House Velardo’s coup attempt in a long, long time. That he dreamt of it tonight, however, was not surprising. He’d been haunted by intrusive memories since they’d discovered the physician’s wife, Marta, dead in her bed. 

What surprised him, what unsettled him most, was that the dream had replaced his mother with Embria. He shuddered as the image of her lifeless face flashed through his mind again. 

No! Spite growled. Rook is here. Is Alive!

“I know,” Lucanis said, rubbing at his eyes. He didn’t believe in the portent of dreams. He had too many bad ones to mistake them as anything more than anxiety and fear leaking out in his sleep. And yet…

The image of Rook dead in his mother’s place felt ominous. Like a warning, something he shouldn’t ignore. But if it was some ill omen, he had no idea what to do about it. And he refused to let a nightmare chase away the only good thing in his life. 

So, Lucanis got up and dressed, though he still felt shaky and out of sorts. Spite assured him that it was morning, that he’d slept through the night, so Lucanis set to brewing coffee – he had promised he would, after all. 

He poured a cup and leaned against the hutch, still too rattled by his dream to settle down. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long for a distraction. 

Rook! Spite said, turning to look at the dining hall door. Lucanis smiled into his cup when the door opened and Embria walked through. 

“Hey,” she said once she was close enough. She waited a careful distance from him and gave him a concerned look. “Rough night?”

He sighed. “Dreams.”

She grimaced, then stepped up to the percolator and poured coffee into her usual mug. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shrugged. He wasn’t sure that would help, but standing around brooding about it wasn’t likely to help, either. “Finding the physician’s wife yesterday… it dredged up old memories. Of the night House Velardo tried to end House Dellamorte.”

There was silence for a moment as she processed his words, his meaning. Then she asked, “you were there that night?”

“Yes.” He didn’t look at her, didn’t want to see the pity on her face. “Illario, too.” He braced himself for the next, natural questions – how did you survive? What happened? Where was Caterina? – but he should have known Embria would surprise him. 

She said nothing. Only slid a little closer to him and laced her fingers through his. 

Lucanis closed his eyes and shifted so that their sides pressed together a little more firmly. She was so warm, and he wanted – needed – that comfort. He sighed. “It’s an old pain,” he said. “One I thought I’d mastered.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think grief works like that,” she said.

He gave her a crooked smile. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

“Can I do anything to help?” Her gaze was earnest but soft. Not pushing, not hunting for a solution to the problem so that he could get back to his usual self. Instead, she genuinely seemed to want to make him feel better, whatever that might mean in the moment. 

He tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear, something he was beginning to realize they both loved. “You already have,” he said. He tilted her chin up and kissed her, slow and aching. Surely, there was no better way to banish the cling of nightmares than with her mouth on his.

Lucanis didn’t think he would ever get used to kissing Embria. Each time was different, some new emotion attached to the action, some new thrill he’d never thought to know running down his spine. 

And though he couldn’t bring himself to admit it to her yet, he knew he would gladly spend a lifetime learning each and every iteration of her kiss. 

[fanficshiddles]

Eternally Mine, Chapter 62

Loki sighed softly. ‘Claire…’

Claire felt like everything was tumbling down, she panicked that Loki would hate her. That he wouldn’t want to be with her anymore, she’d ruined it. Maybe he had something special planned. Or maybe he’d changed his mind, she had no idea how long he’d had the ring for, after all.

Her mind was racing with so many thoughts.

‘I was planning to wait until we got to New Zealand and propose romantically… But I guess this will need to do.’ He chuckled lightly and got down on one knee, taking her hand in his as he gazed lovingly into her eyes.

Claire’s eyes widened and her heart began racing, but for a good reason now. More tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at Loki.

‘Claire, my love. My soulmate. My best friend. My world. I love you more than life itself, I want to be with you for an eternity. Will you be eternally mine, and become my wife?’

Claire burst into tears and started squealing excitedly. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ She jumped on Loki, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Loki laughed in delight as he stood up, taking her with him and spun her around. When he put her back on her feet, he dipped his head down to kiss her softly as he cupped her face in his hands.

‘I love you.’ Claire said over his lips.

‘I love you too… fiancée.’ Loki grinned.

Neither of them noticed all the pairs of eyes watching them from outside the kitchen window, or even Bat peeping around the corner from the living room.

‘I’m so sorry I fucked this up though.’ Claire said as she looked down at her hand.

Loki picked her hand up and kissed the back of it. ‘You didn’t fuck this up. I should have hidden it better.’ Loki said sheepishly.

‘I shouldn’t have been snooping… Though to be fair, the box it was in I stupidly knocked over and everything went flying. I was curious and opened it when I saw the velvet box… I’m really sorry.’ Claire sighed and pressed her face into his chest to hide.

Loki kissed the top of her head and squeezed her tightly. ‘Stop apologising. To be honest, I was struggling with keeping it a secret. I wanted to propose to you for so long now, as soon as I got your father’s permission, I wanted to just do it. Though I figured doing it somewhere romantic, like in New Zealand somewhere nice, would have been what you’d have liked most.’ Loki said honestly.

‘You asked for dad’s permission?’ Claire asked, surprised as she looked up at him.

Loki smiled and brushed his thumb over her cheek. ‘Of course I did. You didn’t actually think I was planning to make a veggie plot, did you?’

Claire’s face lit up like a lightbulb suddenly. ‘Ohhhhhh.’ She giggled. ‘Makes sense now.’

‘So, it’s really stuck, huh?’ Loki asked as he picked her hand up again.

‘Yeah.’ Claire nodded sheepishly.

‘Why is it so slimy?’ Loki frowned.

‘Uh. A concoction of fairy liquid, butter and lube…’

Loki threw his head back with laughter. ‘Oh dear. You guys really tried everything, huh?’

‘Yeah.’ Claire laughed. ‘Bat tried helping at first, it was her idea for the butter and fairy liquid. Then Jessica arrived with lube.’

‘Trust Jessica to have that on her at hand.’ Loki chuckled. ‘I’m sorry I got the sizing wrong. I thought I had taken into account that arthritic finger, but I didn’t want it sliding off easily either when it’s not so swollen.’

‘No, no. You got it right, I mean, my finger isn’t always like this. Plus, if I’m not planning on taking it off much anyway there’s no problem. I just really panicked and wanted it off before you got back, so you wouldn’t know I’d found it and ruined the surprise.’ She said sadly.

Loki growled at her and gripped her chin, forcing her to look at him again. ‘You did not ruin the surprise, so stop that. But love, do you really think you’d have been able to pretend you didn’t find it, hmm? If you did get it off, I don’t think you’d have been able to keep that secret from me.’ Loki said knowingly, raising an eyebrow.

The way her cheeks turned bright red, gave him his answer. That he already knew, anyway.

‘To be honest, I actually think the way this has panned out is more… us, anyway. Don’t you think?’ Loki asked with a grin.

Claire matched his grin and laughed as she hugged into him again. ‘Yeah. I guess it is.’ She said, muffled against his chest.

‘Why don’t we go have a shower, get that ring cleaned up… and make a different kind of mess of our own elsewhere, hmm?’ Loki said suggestively as he wiggled his eyebrows.

Claire giggled and jumped into his arms, he caught her and carried her upstairs. Bat ran to hide, so she wasn’t caught watching their interaction in the kitchen.

-

When Louise ran out the back door, she realised she couldn’t actually leave as there was no access to the back garden without going through the house.

As the street at the back of the garden was a dodgy alley, where lots of dodgy people tended to hang out. Which is why Loki didn’t want a gate leading straight into his garden, whenever he needed anything delivered, he would just remove the fence panels.

So Louise went inside the garden shed and send a text to Chris.

L: Hey. SOS. In Loki’s garden, waiting in the shed. Can you come get me, please? Long story… not an emergency though, don’t worry. Xxx

Not surprisingly, Chris was there within two minutes. He flew down and turned into his vampire form as he landed outside the shed.

‘Louise? Are you ok? Why are you out here?’ Chris asked, completely baffled as Louise stepped out of the shed.

‘I’m fine.’ She giggled. ‘So, uh. Claire messaged saying she had an emergency… turns out that Loki bought a ring and has been planning to propose to her, but she found the ring while he was out. By accident. She was panicking, trying to get it off. He came back though and caught us all in the kitchen trying to help her. So we just… ran. I forgot I can’t get out of the garden though without going through the house.’ Louise said sheepishly.

Chris laughed and pulled her into an embrace.

‘Oh, pumpkin. Trapped in the back garden.’ He chuckled and squeezed her tightly.

‘Yeah. I need a leg up over the fence. And I know that alley can be dodgy, so didn’t fancy going alone.’

‘Wait, you said caught us all, who else was here?’ Chris asked, leaning back a bit to look at her.

‘Jessica, Toshi and Severus.’

‘We’re still here. We wouldn’t just leave Lou alone.’ Came Toshi’s voice.

Chris turned around and chuckled, noticing Severus was chilling in Toshi’s hair. Jessica landed and turned into her vampire form.

‘Wait. So, Loki has just found Claire with the ring stuck on her finger?’ Chris asked.

‘Yeah.’ Louise nodded.

‘Why are we standing around here talking then?’ He asked as he grabbed Louise’s hand and dragged her back towards the house.

The four of them, plus bat Severus, crouched down and crept over to the window, they peeped in only just so they could see, hopefully without being spotted.

They saw Loki go down on one knee and propose, then Claire squealing and jumping before pouncing on Loki.

‘Awwww. So fucking cute.’ Louise cooed and wiped away a happy tear.

‘This is so them.’ Toshi laughed.

‘It sure is.’ Jessica grinned. ‘At least we didn’t have to resort to anything drastic over the ring.’

‘I dunno, getting that lube off of it won’t be fun.’ Louise commented.

‘Wait, what? Lube?’ Chris asked, eyebrows shooting high on his face.

Louise giggled. ‘I’ll fill you in more later.’

‘Do I even want to know?’ He asked.

‘Probably not.’ Toshi laughed.

-

Loki pressed his forehead against Claire’s as they both took a moment to catch their breath. Of course, showering together meant having sex against the wall. Loki had Claire pinned to it, her legs wrapped around him as he gripped her ass to keep her up.

‘Are you a bit frenzied because of the whole engagement thing… or did you end up hunting tonight, too?’ Claire asked knowingly. With the way he was still hard inside of her, and how feral he had been while fucking her against the wall, she had a feeling there was something more.

Loki smirked and kissed her sloppily for a moment before responding.

‘Both.’

‘Hmmm.’ Claire mumbled into his mouth. ‘Care to explain more?’

‘Hunters. Young hunters. They were really easy to take out.’ Loki said a little breathlessly as she clenched around him.

‘Really easy? As in, easier than I’d be if I fought you?’ Claire teased.

Loki scoffed. ‘I could take you down sooooo much easier, my love.’ He purred.

‘Oh yeah? I bet not.’

‘I bet so.’ Loki laughed.

She tried struggling in his grasp at that moment, but he moved a hand up to her side and started tickling her. She immediately caved, and went limp against him as she squirmed a bit from his fingers attacking her side.

‘See? Easy.’ He said cockily.

‘Not fair. You’re mean.’ She laughed as she buried her face into the crook of his neck, moaning a little at the way his cock felt inside her after the movement they just did.

‘But you love it when I’m mean.’ He growled.

She nodded against him and when he felt her cunt flutter around him again, he couldn’t resist anymore and started bouncing her up and down on his cock a few times before pushing her back against the wall and fucking her like a crazed beast.

‘You feel so good around my cock. Wifey.’ He smirked at the glare he got from her, but her eyes were twinkling beautifully with so much happiness and adoration.

‘Don’t get too carried away. Vampy hubby.’ She responded with and giggled, that quickly turned into moans and cries of pleasure.

‘I can never not get carried away with you, love.’

[theamarischapter]

He’s Not My Boyfriend!

CHAPTER 03; the hangout

previous: chapter 2

a/n: hey everyone!! it feels like it’s been forever lmfao. it’s been chaotic but the chapter is finally here! if anyone would like to join the tag list, please lmk :)

w/c: 2.9k

genre: strangers to frenemies to lovers, high school au, slow burn…ish (?), fake dating (for a day)

warnings: none!

summary: your friends trick you into hanging out with him (alone). you should’ve seen it coming, really…but it’s not the worst. it’s actually fun! well, until…

fic below the cut! enjoy <3

It starts with an innocuous text from Kai.

hyuka!! : hi ^ - ^  do u wanna go to the movies on saturday ur bf will be there… (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)

you: shut up 🙄 i’m free who else is going

hyuka!! : soobin yunjin said maybe  and me ofc!! ( ^ω^ )

you: okay 😛  lmk what time and everything 

Of course, you think nothing of the interaction. Why would you? It’s your cousin inviting you to see a movie…and your friends said they’d be there. You made sure to ask them directly. Beomgyu will be there too, but whatever. It’s not like it matters. He’s just another person in the group, nothing more. Of course, you’ll get teased and everything but it’s no big deal—it’s been a while since you all hung out, anyway. 

The rest of the week passes in a blur of boring classes and repetitive homework. Everything is so normal and your friends have been talking non-stop about the movie you’re going to watch. Honestly, you’ve become quite interested in seeing it—you even decided to watch the trailer. When the weekend comes, you find yourself smiling at the thought of hanging out with your friends. It’s cold out, so you put on a few layers before stepping out into the chilly breeze. 

The movie theater is about ten minutes away from your home, and Kai texted you to meet out in front. You type out a text to let everyone know you’re on your way since you’re running late; it’s left unread—weird…they’ve been nonstop in the group chat all week, so why the silence now? The large building slowly comes into view, sitting beside the rest of your town’s constantly overcrowded mall. The car slows to a stop beside the curb and your eyes scan the area. You spot Beomgyu standing alone in front of the large glass doors, fingers moving anxiously over his phone—texting someone, maybe. A weird feeling begins to bubble in your chest, eyes narrowing down at your own phone—still nothing from your friends. You glance at the time, and you’re about eight minutes late. With a resigned sigh, you step out of the car, waving goodbye as your mother drives away.

“Hey, uh… Where is everyone?” You ask, standing in front of Beomgyu. He startles and his head whips up, meeting your gaze wide-eyed, as though surprised to see you. He looks around, lips parting, then closing, then parting again. What’s up with him?

“Everyone?” He repeats, a small crease forming between his eyebrows. It takes a moment, and then a flash of realization passes through his eyes. His lips press into a thin line before he scoffs, shaking his head. “Kai said it’d just be him and Soobin.” 

“Really? He told me he invited Yunjin and Chaewon, though—they both said they were coming…” Your words slow down as the realization hits you, too. It’s already ten minutes after you were all supposed to meet and only you and him are here? And your friends, who usually spam the group chat, are suddenly silent? You let out a long sigh, looking away from him. You’re an absolute idiot. How did you not see it coming? It’s so obvious now that you’re here, alone with Beomgyu in front of the movie theater. This is a setup. 

“What the hell.” He mutters under his breath, eyes narrowing at his buzzing phone screen. He senses your curiosity, the unasked question in your gaze, so he turns the phone to you. On it you see a message notification from Kai that says “have fun ( ˘ ³˘)♥.” Neither of you say anything. The wind nips at your cheeks, and for a second, the only sound is the hum of traffic in the distance. His phone buzzes again and he ignores it. He brings his phone back down into his pocket with a long, weary sigh. There’s an unspoken tension as if you’re both waiting for the other to do or say something, afraid of making the “wrong” move. You’re unsure why you suddenly feel the need to fiddle with your sleeve and avert your gaze—you were fine a few seconds ago! But, that was also when you’d assumed there’d be other people to make up for the awkward feelings and thoughts that always bubble up when he’s around. You shake your head, dismissing the unwanted thoughts. What’s the big deal, anyway? 

“Well, um. I mean- we already…” You stumble over the words, feeling indescribably unsure of yourself. There’s this unfamiliar, tight feeling in your chest that makes your throat tickle and your tongue feel heavy. You aren’t the most charismatic person in the world—you’ve had your fair share of awkward interactions—but talking to people isn’t that bad. And it’s Beomgyu of all people! Why are you struggling? “We already bought the tickets, so we might as well stay…if you want to—um, you don’t have to! It’s cold out and everything so-”

“No, it’s fine. Um, I’ll stay.” His response is quick, almost eager, and he immediately regrets it. He shifts his weight back and forth, clearing his throat. His mind races—does this make it seem like he wants to be here? Because he doesn’t. Not really. It’s just—

His gaze flickers to you, and you’re watching him expectantly. No judgment, no irritation, just quiet, kind patience. A gaze he remembers, the one that captivated him in middle school. He allows himself to relax, exhaling quietly.

“I don’t mind.” He says, steadier this time. He gestures toward the wide glass door behind him, offering you a polite smile as he holds it open for you. A tinge of warmth flows through your chest and the tension in your posture eases—just a little. See? He’s nice. You have nothing to worry about. It’s just a normal hangout with… a friend. Beomgyu seems a bit more at ease too, since you’re both on the same page. He’s really nice and, apparently, he's the kind of guy who insists on paying for your snacks, even when you argue you have your own money.

— °˖✧✿✧˖° —

Beomgyu can’t help but feel a bit annoyed. It was just the other day that he told Kai about his crush on Yeji, yet here he is, sitting beside you in the movie theater. Then again, there are worse people he could be stuck with. It’s just frustrating to have his feelings so blatantly ignored by his best friend. And then there’s also the fact that every negative thought about himself tends to resurface whenever you’re around, almost like a learned response. It happens before he can stop it—the automatic scan of your expression, the way his brain scrambles to pick apart your every shift in posture. He begins to gauge your unreadable expression and pull from it illusory ideas of dissatisfaction or ridicule. 

You don’t want to be here. You’d rather be with anyone else. You think he’s weird. A loser. Awkward. Someone you tolerate at best. You two don’t get along—

He should know better by now. He’s not that kid anymore. But still—

Are you bored? Are you fidgeting because of him? Are you regretting staying? His stomach knots.

Why does he care, anyway? Middle school was a long time ago, meaning he’s had plenty of time to let go of those bygone feelings. But, maybe, he forgot to let go of ingrained habits associated with you. Maybe deep down there’s a part of him that still holds you to an unattainable standard. The girl who was never in his league, who never took a second glance at him, who probably only ever knew him as her cousin’s best friend. He really needs to stop doing that all the time. In any case, you’re the one who offered to continue the hang-out, your here by your own choice. Because, in reality, you’re not some special celebrity. You’re just a normal, average teenage girl. Just his best friend's cousin whom he happened to end up alone with because some people love to be stubborn. He’ll get back at Kai for this…just wait.

The movie passes by in a blur of flashing images. The tension in his chest fades for the hour and a half that he sits completely captivated by the story being told on screen. Well, okay, he fell asleep like forty minutes in but whatever! The first half was really good…so he’s sure the rest was, too. 

You almost don’t want to wake him from his peaceful slumber. Even as the lights gradually come on, you sit unmoving beside him, eyes lingering on his plump lips and long eyelashes. Get it together, idiot. You nudge him gently. He shifts a little, taking a slow breath as his eyes flutter open. They connect with yours and it feels like the universe pauses for just a moment.

“The movie’s over.” You say quietly, glancing at your hand, which remains gently placed against his shoulder. Oops. You pull it away hastily, clearing your throat as you collect your garbage and stand. You refuse to spare him another glance, which he’s actually grateful for. You won’t see the reddening tips of his ears. He regrets falling asleep—what if you think he’s weird now? Or boring? Or rude, or something? The warmth of your palm lingers on his shoulder. He walks silently beside you as you exit the theater. 

The lively chatter of others fills the silence between you. Some say the movie was good, others found it boring. The exit gets closer and closer. Perhaps you two hadn’t made as much progress as friends as he initially thought. Should he bring up the movie? He was asleep for half of it, though. Are you two just going to part ways without speaking? He’s holding the door open for you now, noticing the way your gaze avoids his. Did he do something wrong? The quiet breeze whispers by, and he stops in his tracks when you suddenly stop. Finally, the tension is broken. 

“So…um.” You start, conversation eluding you. Seriously, this needs to stop. It’s Beomgyu. Beomgyu. There’s nothing to stress over. “Did you like the movie?”

“Yeah. It was good,” he replies stiffly, hands clenched in his pockets. His lips purse, a soft breath coming out through his nose. He just needs to be himself. His real self—the one he’s been working so hard to improve. “I mean, the part that I saw, at least.” He laughs softly.

You laugh in response, easing up again. Internally, Beomgyu celebrates this exceptional achievement, which boosts his ego and encourages him to do more. The Beomgyu from middle school would be shaking right about now. “I was so invested and then the next thing I knew I was the main character.”

“What time did you go to sleep yesterday?” You ask, an amused huff escaping your lips as you smile at him. He looks away from you, a smile pulling at his lips as he rubs the back of his neck. 

“Well…I kinda lost track, but maybe 3 AM?” He replies, a touch of hesitance in his tone. You’re still smiling at him, shaking your head. 

“At least it’s the weekend.” You shrug, glancing over to the mall, which sits right beside the movie theater. There’s a lot that happens in your mind over the span of a few seconds. First, the impulsive thought to invite him to hang out a little longer. Then, the realization that you don’t need anything fueling your friends’ shipping. Then, dismissing that thought because you already watched the movie with him which is enough to have fueled the shipping anyways. And then your gaze connects with his, triggering your brain to give in to an unasked request in his eyes. Is that really all the convincing it took…? “Uh, do you wanna go get some ice cream or something? Since we’re by the mall already.”

His expression brightens a little, lips pulling into a pretty smile. He nods, his fingers mindlessly fiddling with the hem of his sweater. “Sure.”

— °˖✧✿✧˖° —

As you browse around the mall, you get to know him better, slowly making your way toward the food court. He's unexpectedly fun—goofy, even—and keeps you smiling the whole time. You’ve never really seen him break out of his shell like this, but it’s refreshing. Maybe your impression of him has been wrong all along—he’s not some awkward loser or intimidatingly reserved. In fact, he’s the exact opposite. He’s charming and kind, his presence exuding a natural warmth—now that he’s more comfortable with you. Since he bought your snacks for the movie, you make sure to pay for his ice cream, even though he tries to pay. You take a seat at an empty table in the food court, sitting across from each other. 

“Ice cream in the winter…” You murmur, letting out a small huff as you take a scoop from your cup. He raises an eyebrow, elbows resting on the table as he laughs softly. 

“It was your suggestion,” he teases. As he takes the first bite, he lets out an overexaggerated hum of delight. His eyes widen and his eyebrows shoot up. “It’s delicious.” 

You can’t help but laugh, unsure how to react to such an overblown reaction. You simply nod, deciding to go along with it. It’s a little annoying that it’s him who’s making you smile and laugh so much. Your friends are going to get the wrong idea, especially because you exchanged numbers on the walk to the food court. Either way, the hangout has been surprisingly nice—ignoring the fact that you were both tricked into being here. 

Tricked, but technically…not forced.

And, of course, when things are going well the universe has a way of interrupting. An unexpected face appears, displaying a bright smile and gentle gaze meant for Beomgyu. Her sweet voice rings out, interrupting the small moment you’d been having. It’s…Yeji. 

“Oh, Beomgyu! Hey! You two on a date?” She asks, her voice bubbly and naive. Her kind gaze shifts to you and, for just a moment, it almost feels like she’s sizing you up. Her gaze flickers down, then up, before settling back on Beomgyu.

A date? With you? Something about the thought makes his brain glitch, but he obliterates the thought in seconds. He promised himself to move on.

“What? No—no, not at all. It’s nothing like that.” Beomgyu replies hastily, shaking his head with wide eyes and a breathy laugh. His attention is fully on her now and for some reason…that bothers you.

More than that, however, is how quick that response was. You were going to say no, but it seems he was eager to make it very clear that you aren’t on a date, dating, or anything of the sort. Just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean you aren’t a little offended. Like, is the thought of dating you that bad? You thought things were going pretty well. Anyway, it’s not like it matters. It’s better if he isn’t into you; it saves you the guilt of rejecting him. Plus, it’s just Beomgyu…his opinion doesn’t matter. At all. 

They seem to be having a comfortable conversation, even if Beomgyu’s leg is incessantly bouncing beneath the table. It’s all a blur to you. You spend the time trying to make yourself invisible because you’d prefer not to feel like some sort of third wheel. You scroll through messages, check the weather, and type random words in your notes app. Your ice cream has begun to melt by the time Yeji is walking away with a pretty smile, waving gently and sparing you one final, subdued glare. You sit up, clearing your throat to gain his attention again—his gaze had followed her as she walked away. 

“Well, I think I should probably go now. Um, I have some homework to do. So…” You say quietly, forcing a smile as you take a deep breath. He tilts his head, sitting up straight as he scrutinizes your expression. His eyebrows pull together faintly, but he simply nods. 

“Alright. I’ll…walk you out to the front.” He replies softly, standing with you and tossing his empty ice cream cup into the nearby trash can. You don’t have the will to argue or refuse, so you decide to walk beside him silently. As you approach the curb, your mother’s car sits there waiting for you. 

“Um, do you want me to wait with you?” You ask, gaze avoiding his. There’s an inexplicable tightness in your chest. As dumb as it sounds, perhaps there’s a part of you deep down that thrives off of the idea of…whatever this is. It provides a sense of comfort—a guarantee of prospective romance. Not because it’s him, no, it would be the same with anyone! He shakes his head softly in response, smiling sweetly. 

“It’s okay. I’ll see you around?” There’s a beat of silence, his gaze still carefully analyzing your expression. It’s like he can intuitively sense that the energy has shifted, but doesn’t want to mention it outright. You force a smile, looking into his eyes.

“Yeah. See you, Beomgyu.” You wave goodbye, getting into the car. Faintly, hidden beneath his dark hair, the tips of his ears warm up—that’s the first time you’ve said his name today. He can’t help but think it sounds nice coming from you. That thought is quickly dismissed, though, replaced by thoughts of how pretty and nice Yeji is and how he can’t believe he had an actual conversation with her—and she was the one to initiate it! He feels a flutter in his chest, smiling to himself as he thinks everything over again.

Yet somehow, it’s not as fulfilling as he imagined. Something changed.

taglist: @whatblop, @innies-goth-gf <3

a/n: hope you enjoyed it!! i feel like this chapter took me literally forever. the story is finally picking up! a bunch of denial and complicated feelings lol. i’m gonna try and have longer chapters from here on out, so it might take me a little longer. comments, likes, and reblogs are greatly appreciated! thx for your patience! (>_0) ♡

— °˖✧✿✧˖° —

upcoming: chapter 4 - the shipping gets worse the second you try to forget about his existence. beomgyu notices you avoiding him for some reason…and he has something to say about it.

[lachesismoonmist]

JK Drabbles - One Shots

Here's a collection of One-Shot stories involving JK. JK as husband, JK as boyfriend, JK as lover.

Some of them are scenes I wrote which didn't make it into my eventual stories, but were such fun to write I wanted to share them.

Each story is saved as an individual chapter.

Enjoy!

-------------------

Chapter 1: Welcome Home - JK as husband

It’s 3am.  Once leaving the hustle and bustle of the airport, everything is quiet.  The streets are deserted.  Jungkook had gone away for work. Three whole weeks.  He misses you like crazy.  It is coming up to your first wedding anniversary.  He’s planned an entire weekend away at the coast.  The beach there is beautiful.  He managed to book one of the quaint, little cottages dotting the hills just above the beach.  The views from the cottage windows are awesome, offering views of the sunset.  He isn’t sure how much time you’d spend admiring the view though. His plan is to spend a lot of time in bed. You under him. You on top of him. You pressed against a wall.  You bent over sofa.  Or whatever other surface in the house he can fuck you on.  And he plans to fuck you on Every. Single. One.

He is supposed to have flown home the next evening, but he managed to get a seat on an earlier red-eye flight.  He couldn’t bear to spend another day and night without you. The house is dark as he quietly puts his luggage and bags on the floor near the entrance to the apartment.  He shrugs off his jacket, draping it on the sofa. He doesn’t need to turn on any lights as the full moon is shining in from the full-length windows in the living room.  He steps quietly through the house to the bedroom door.

He stands there in the doorway for a while after quietly turning the doorknob and easing the door open.  You are sleeping soundly.  You’ve rolled over onto your right, face facing the window. The moonlight is streaming in, bathing you in an ethereal glow. 

Your quilt is a messy lump near your feet.  You move a lot in your sleep.  He admires the long lines of your legs, then his breath hitches. Your nightie has run up.  He can see the lower half of the perfect globes of your ass.  They look so fuckable.  His blood is now rushing to his cock. 

But he restrains himself from pouncing on you and devouring you.  He takes a shower to wash off the dirt from his travels.  He wants to make sure he smells all nice and fresh for you. He doesn’t worry about you waking up when the water is running.  You sleep like the dead.

He towels dry his hair as best as he can.  He lies down on the bed behind you, his chest to your back.  He pushes his nose into your hair at your neck, inhaling deeply. He’s missed you so much.  His arms feel so empty at night without you to hold as he drifts off to sleep.  His cock missed being buried in your warm, wet pussy.

Warm, wet pussy is within reach now. His cock is rock hard.  He ghosts his hand down your arm, over your hip.  He pulls the nightie up, exposing your whole ass.

He reaches down to grab one butt cheek, slowly squeezing.  He rubs his cock against your ass.  He presses kisses to your back.  He pulls your hair to one side, exposing your shoulder and neck.  He presses his lips to your skin. Behind your ear. Down the graceful column of your neck. Along your shoulder.  He slowly pushes the strap of your nightie off your shoulder, his lips following the path of his fingers.

He's now exposed one breast.  He covers it with his big hand and squeezes.  Your breasts are the perfect size.  Full and round. Big enough to fill his big hands.  Succulent rosy pink nipples.  He rubs his palm on you, feeling your nipples start to harden.  His cock is throbbing now, the tip leaking precum. 

You start to stir. “Mmmmm…..” your mumble.  He continues squeezing your breast.  He kisses his way back up your neck and gently bites your earlobe.

“What are you doing home, Kook?  Thought you’re flying home tomorrow,” you mumble sleepily.

“I couldn’t wait to see you.  Managed to get on an earlier fight.” He continues kissing your neck, sucking and nipping the skin gently, leaving little red marks. He loves leaving his marks on your skin.

“Miss you so much, baby. Did you miss me?” he says in a low voice.  You nod.

He pinches your nipple before rolling it with his fingers.  “Aah,”  you huff out.  He reaches over and gropes your other breast through your nightie.  Thumb running over the nipple.  He scrapes that spot at the juncture of your shoulder and neck with his teeth.  “Aah!” you cry out, your body bucking.  He smiles against your skin. He knows that’s your most sensitive spot.  He knows he can make you scream by biting down on it as you come.

Hi hand moves back down your body, pulling your nightie up some more.  He exposes the smooth v between your legs.  He touches your hip, trailing over the curve of it, his fingers moving slowly to where you need him the most.

He pushes his long fingers in between your thighs, sliding up and down your slit.   His palm rubbing against your mound.  “You want me to touch you, Baby?  Does your pussy need to be touched?” he says in a low voice in your ear.

“Yes, yes, Kook. Touch me,” you gasp. You roll towards him slightly.  You lift one knee up, opening yourself up to him.

He slips and slides a few more times, then slips a finger into your core.  The sound you make can only be described as obscene.

“Hmm… so wet baby,” he says approvingly. He pumps his long finger into you.  He continues pressing wet, open kisses on your neck and shoulders.  He snakes his other arm under your body, pulling your body flush against his, your back to his front. He holds you in place, his arm pressing down on your clavicle.  His hard cock rubs against your ass.

He adds another finger to stroke your walls.  Your hips start rolling. He presses his thumb on your needy clit, rubbing in time with his strokes. 

The tattooed arm around your chest is like a band of steel. His tattooed hand moves to cup a breast. Squeezing, rubbing, kneading, pinching, rolling.  Your arch your back, moaning sweetly.  “That’s it Baby,” he eggs you on.  “Let me hear you,”

His fingers sliding  in and out of your pussy are relentless. He knows just how hard to press, how fast to stroke.  You start to tense up, your whines becoming more needy, your breath coming out in pants.   Your body arches more, but he imprisons you with his strong arm.

“Gonna cum, goonna….  Kook!”  He scrapes hit teeth against that sensitive spot on your neck again as you cry out.   The wet evidence of how good he made you feel coating his fingers and palm.  Your body is shuddering through the aftershocks of your orgasm, but your husband is not letting you go so easily.

“Come on, Baby, give me one more.  Let me hear you make those pretty sounds again.”

He doesn’t let up. Doesn’t slow down. He continues to fuck his fingers into you and rub your swollen clit. You whine, clit still throbbing from your first orgasm. He continues pinching your nipple. Tugging it. Rolling it.  He pumps his fingers faster.   He knows you are close. He bites the soft flesh at your shoulder. 

“Kooook!  Oh my god, Koook!” you cry out, your body arching.

“That’s it, Baby, soak my fingers with your juices. See how your greedy pussy is sucking in my fingers.”  He removes his fingers from your hole, sliding them up to your throbbing clit, caressing it slowly.

“Too much, too much,” you whine as you try to move away, to give your body time to recover. But his grip on you doesn’t allow you to move.   You try to twist your body, but his tattooed arm is like a vise. His fingers slow down. The pressure eases up.  You slowly come down from your high, body shuddering.

He puts his fingers into his mouth.  “Hmm, tasty.” He sucks his fingers, licking your juices off his digits.

You reach behind you to grip his hard, leaking cock. You use your thumb to spread the pre-cum on his tip. Your finger dips into the slit, rubbing.  You grip his girth and give it a few gentle pumps. 

The first time you’d seen his cock, your eyes looked like saucers, your mouth open.   “So big” you’d said admiringly.  The skin was velvety smooth.  You’d wrapped on hand around it, barely able to grip all the way around.  The first time you’d taken him in your mouth, you’d gagged as you tried to take all of him in.  But you pushed on till your lips touched the base of his cock.  He’d almost blown his load at the sight of your pink lips around his cock. You looking up at him through your lashes, your eyes big and shiny. 

“Want your cock, Kook.  Haven’t had your cock in three weeks.  Want you to fill me up,” you say breathily.  The few times you had phone sex while he was away were good, but there was nothing like the real thing.  Nothing like feeling his big, fat cock fill you up. His body pressed against yours.  Two bodies and hearts combined.

He rolls you over so that he’s on top.  His hips settle between yours.  “Want me stuff this pussy full of cock?  Hmm?” He rubs his shaft against your wet slit, nudging your clit with the tip. He rips your nightie off all the way.  You nod vigorously.

“Look at you, so beautiful. I missed having you under me.” He uses one had to push your legs open wider. “Not going to be able to hold back, Baby.”  He reaches down to positing the tip of his cock at your entrance.

You look him in the eye.  “Don’t hold back, Kook.”

So he doesn’t. Jungkook lets out an animalistic growl and drives forward, making you cry out.   He buries himself balls deep in one smooth stroke.  Pull out to the tip, slide in till his hips grinds against yours. Pull out, slide in. Pull out, slide in.  Every stroke makes you shudder in pleasure.  His hips slap against yours as he fucks into you. Hard.   He bends down to take a nipple into his mouth, making you arch your back as you keen.

He’s so close. It’s been weeks.  Nothing feels like being buried inside you.   Nothing comes close to the bliss when he feels your walls wrapped around his cock. The way your breasts bounce when he bottoms out, grinding his pelvic bone against you, stimulating your clit.

You cry out his name as you tumble over.  The way his name rolls of your lips in a fervent cry makes him peak too.  “Y/N!  Fuck!”  He continues to pump into you, slowing down as you both catch your breath. He rolls you onto your sides.

“I love you, Kook,” you whisper, looking into his eyes, pushing his soft hair off his face.

“I love you, wifey.  That is the best ‘welcome home’ a man can get,” he says, grinning.

You smile evilly.  You push on him to roll him over, with you on top.  His cock is hard again.  You get up, kneeling over him. You line yourself up with him then sink down on his cock without warning. He hisses as he feels your warm walls envelope him again. 

“Let me welcome you home again, hubby.”

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

medialog january 2k25

books

ling ma, severance - first book of the year an unfortunate dud! the most notable thing about this book is that it’s a pandemic story published in 2018, but this is also true of carmen maria machado’s “inventory” which is a much better story at like 15% of the length. by chance literally the day after i started reading this brandon taylor sent out a newsletter talking about first person narration devoid of interiority, which allowed me to be like, yes, that! that’s what’s so fucking annoying about this! a first person narrative that feels like a list of stuff that happened, instead of a glimpse into someone else’s consciousness. and i knooooow people would say that’s the poiiiint because the book is reeeeally about late capitalist anomie or whatever, which would also be used to explain the fact that the narrator has no personality or emotional life, like she’s just so disaffected and detached and blah blah blah, but the theoretical justification for this mode doesn’t have any bearing on the visceral fact that i just at no point cared about anyone in this story, because it’s impossible to care about a narrator who doesn’t care about anything or act like a human being (a species that famously cares about things lol). might also be impossible to care about a narrator with a trust fund… open to having my mind changed on this one though. other complaints: prose clunky, nobody else in this book has a personality either, palpably convinced of its own interest and importance in a way that feels very Litfic Does Genre Trope Without Wondering If Any Genre Writers Have Thought About This At All Ever (zombies as capitalist metaphor is like... even i know that and i hate zombie shit!) the pandemic stuff closest to being interesting but the page count is unforgivably focused on 1 million backstory flashback chapters totally divorced from the present day because god forbid someone who wants to tell an immigrant narrative figure out a way to somehow integrate this into the actual plot of their book or otherwise develop a character through scene and action… truly this reads like someone was trying to write an autobiographical novel and realized they couldn’t make it interesting/saleable so they chucked a pandemic narrative at it to capitalize on the twenty-first century genre turn. i don’t know if that’s what happened… but that is how poorly the disparate threads are woven together.

miranda popkey, topics of conversation - really liked this! like it more the more i sit with it. i had it already and it happens to get mentioned in that taylor newsletter i mentioned as being a different kind of first-person narrator, so i read it figuring at least it wouldn’t annoy me in the same way as severance. i was a little skeptical at first for two reasons: (1) the book is told through a series of conversations across a long span of years, which i was worried was a cheat to avoid having a plot; (2) early on lots of women and sex and power stuff, which is dangerous territory re: potential to irritate me. but it won me over on the second point quickly by undercutting what it had seemed to be doing in a refreshing way near the end of the first chapter, and by the end i was ready to concede point (1) because it had done a very good job of telling a story beneath the story it was telling; more than once i was kind of rolling my eyes like, okay, but, really?, only to find a little while later the book addressing precisely what had been my concern, which made me feel like i had been pleasantly tricked. the prose is unshowy but very self-assured with a good ear, and a few lines/passages burrowed under my skin. the narrator is self-critical without being self-indulgent… idk, it threaded a number of needles very well. impressed and pleased.

myriam gurba, mean - another one i started out wobbly on and wound up liking a lot. in this case, the cover/what i’d heard led me to expect a different, darker, tone than i found, and i wasn’t sure i was on board; funnily enough, at one point i thought, disparagingly, “eh, kinda zine-y,” and then something clicked and i remembered wait, i like zine-y, and that let me recalibrate and get sucked in. mean is a memoir, more or less, opening with a description of a rape-murder in gurba’s hometown and then switching gears to become a coming-of-age story in vignettes, with the reason for the opening scene eventually coming clear in a way that made me really admire what the book was doing formally as a way to talk about sexual assault; i was also reminded of the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian, a book i loved, both for its form and for, to some extent, its tone, or its willingness to combine a light touch and a sense of humor with some dark-ass material (although mean is not YA and goes much darker in both content and expression) & often incisive racial commentary. gurba is a really playful, funny, curious writer, and while i think she could have killed a few darlings, by the end her voice had really won me over. she is not opposed to pushing hard on the bounds of good taste, and i would say that most of the time i was with her because she was either honestly capturing the sociopathic awfulness of teenagers, including her own teenage self (people who self-righteously respond “well i actually never laughed at XYZ in high school…” this book is not for you and also you are annoying, and i say this as someone known in high school as a bit of a PC scold myself!), or else, for example, making jokes about her own sexual assault or other issues, and then there were some times where, like… ok maybe an illustrative example is that i saw a goodreads review that was like “i was loving this book until she used touretted as a verb, my condition is not a cute joke,” and i was like, on the one hand, i get it, but on the other hand, the prison rape joke didn’t phase you? the holocaust joke? (holocaust joke distinct from the chapter about how reading the diary of anne frank made her horny btw.) so… on that score tolerance will reasonably vary lol. given that a fair amount of the back half of the book is in fact about the aftermath of sexual assault, i really admired how the book refused any kind of redemptive arc, landing on a brutal note, but also avoided feeling oppressively downbeat by virtue of the ferocity of its own telling, which stands as its own proof of survival.

elaine castillo, how to read now: essays - not for me. none of the ideas here felt new if you’ve ever spent more than five minutes considering the relationship between art, race, & politics, and i didn’t feel like they were ever explored at a depth beyond (or… even equal to?) that which i would find on a random tuesday scrolling my tumblr dash. elegance of expression can be its own justification but stylistically this book mostly just convinced me that books are not blogs and should not sound like the internet; the lack of discipline which can be a feature in internet writing (not always! but can be) is always a bug in print (or, at least, i haven’t encountered the book to convince me otherwise). i was excited that the title of the first essay was “reading teaches empathy and other fictions” but then instead of unpacking the cultural ideology that associates any kind of moral education with leisure pursuits at all it was mostly about how the white straight male story is granted universality but others are not, which… you perhaps see what i mean about how this will not be revelatory for those of us enrolled in the continuing ed program at supernatural dot edu slash tumblr dot html. there’s a weird essay about going to new zealand and being like “wow imagine if native relationships were this good in the US?” which i found weirdly uncomfortable to read from an american who by her own admission is not well-versed in that region’s history. she opens an essay by being like “i know it’s basically boring to talk about how you hate joan didion” and then spends 45 pages doing that (including what i think is a misread of at least the tone of didion’s comment that writing is the act of a bully - i’m not a didionhead and would never defend her famously terrible politics, but a) she is i think pretty clearly being both hyperbolic and self-deprecating b) castillo takes this as the chance to be like “well i write to be vulnerable and connect,” which… perhaps this is self-indulgent self-deprecation on my own part but i have an instinctive and strong aversion to writers hyping up their own reasons for writing, lol c) this is objectively not a stance exclusive to white ladies bc zadie smith once said essentially the same thing except i think she used the word sociopathic lol)... and then in the end notes of that chapter she drops a casual rec for the “excellent” show our flag means death which… girl, be serious… you’re gonna write 300 pages about the dangers of reading without context and then simp for the slaveholder RPF show with no commentary whatsoever? it’s fine to like that show btw i might watch it myself one of these days but it’s just deranged to drop this without qualifiers in a book allegedly against the act of eliding historical reality for the sake of aesthetic pleasure and comforting fantasy! she also does two things that are unfortunately guaranteed to make me, personally, insane (characterizing damon lindelof’s HBO watchmen as an important statement on race in america and being kinda wrong about the odyssey) which i will address below the cut at the bottom of this post because i understand that my own need to talk about them is the result of my bad personality and also this is long enough already.

movies

no - this is a 2012 movie about the plebiscite vote that ended the pinochet reign, starring gael garcia bernal as the young ad guy the leftists rope in to helping them make the best use of their allotted 15 minutes of TV time. i really loved this, for a few reasons. first, an interestingly and well-made movie; the director is the guy who did spencer, which i hated, and i don’t know if it’s a matter of directing in spanish or what but it felt like two totally different worlds. second, some extremely funny and perhaps broadly relevant commentary on the purity-strategy tension in leftist spaces; i particularly loved the scene where our protagonist unveils the logo and the leftists are like, “oh, and the different colors of the rainbow represent the factions of the leftist coalition coming together, right?” and he’s like “uh huh. yeah. totes.” third, there’s a matter-of-factness to the way the movie depicts living in a military dictatorship — depicts oppression, depicts military violence against civilians — that felt refreshing and, ummm…. very un-American. perhaps very latin american. but certainly very un-American. something really fucked up happens and it feels bad and then you go home and play trains with your kid and you maybe don’t expect that everyone is spending 8 hours a day wringing your hands about How Is Anyone To Live Now. fortuitous timing for me personally maybe to watch this on new year’s day 2025. also gael garcia bernal is always the only guy in the scene wearing jeans and rides his skateboard everywhere. strong rec.

the shop around the corner - the philadelphia story baby jimmy stewart pilled me so bad that when i learned this both starred baby jimmy stewart and was directed by ernst lubitsch i was like, wow i GOTTA see that. two coworkers hate each other while falling for the anonymous correspondents that are, of course, each other all along… this does a couple things that mitigate the screwball romcom gender politics problem, my favorite of which is introducing the female lead in a scene that highlights her smarts and competence, which is important in a love story about a meeting of the minds. has superb production design, lighting so good even i was like “wow the lighting,” a great ensemble cast given a good amount to do in a way that makes the whole movie feel really suffused with tenderness and care even amidst all the screwball prickliness, and most importantly some incredibly funny jokes.

one way or another (todo modo) - this is a really weird italian 70s thriller whose plot is largely incomprehensible if you are not conversant in italian party politics of the 70s, which i am not, but it was still worth watching for the unbelievable Catholicism Is So Fucked Up vibes… the whole movie takes place in a catholic spirituality retreat packed with power-players, largely underground in the spookiest ass rooms imaginable… there’s a ruthless priest and a million political freaks… and then people start dying… kinda conclave meets and then there were none meets glass onion? tbh sassier and bitchier and more honest about institutional catholicism than conclave!

a complete unknown - most of the non-singing parts of this movie are Fine, I Guess, If You Like Biopics; some are pretty bad (why does this movie hate alan lomax so much… to say nothing of the women, through no fault of the two actresses doing their damned best…). the cast is reliably good, i was worried at first timmy was going to be giving SNL sketch the whole time but something shifted and he won me over and i thought he was good and especially that he was very funny in the too-rare moments the movie found itself a sense of humor, mostly on the topic of bob dylan being a weird freak pathological liar with no social skills or interest in developing them (valid and should have taken up way more of the runtime than it did!!!). lots of people have complained about how much of this movie is just watching bob dylan write down lines while playing his guitar but i actually think this is even worse than people are saying because what it does is almost entirely obscure dylan’s voracious cultural appetite and eclectic influences, which is a huge part of what makes him the artist of he is, and which he himself is the first to own (chronicles volume 1 — of 1 lmao — is in my memory almost entirely dylan talking about what he was reading and listening to and watching as a young person). however the reality is that none of this really matters to the viewing experience of the movie because the movie smartly understands it’s not going to be better at making a movie than bob dylan is at making songs, so it just never makes you wait very long before the next time bob dylan is playing a bob dylan song, and if you are a certain kind of person for whom the music of bob dylan has a certain kind of effect — which i am — what happens is that the opening notes of one of the best songs in american music history starts up and all cares over “screenwriting” and “gender” and such things fall away and you just sit there in a haze so grateful to live in a world where bob dylan gave us “girl from north country.” also, credit where credit is due: the movie looks very good, in a very standard hollywood way but well that’s a dying art it seems. i liked all the lens flares in the night scenes! they were pretty and evocative without being distracting!

juror #2 - i love watching a movie about people talking about a process while i wash dishes. bonus points for this one because of my wrongful convictions thing — i found it genuinely a relief to watch a courtroom drama in which we know the whole time that the logic of the court seems persuasive to many people but is wholly wrong. nicholas hoult!

jay and silent bob reboot - this is an objectively pretty bad and at times genuinely offensive movie that made me laugh so, so much. im sorry

presence - i was absolutely never not going to love a soderbergh ghost story; i like that it’s less a horror movie and more a family drama from the perspective of the ghost, and i like that steven soderbergh, who i first started feeling interested in because of how unusually willing he is (among our A-tier dude directors) to view women as potential protagonists, made a movie largely about a sad lonely teenage girl. camera work on the ghost POV very cool and for me very effective. a tight 85 minutes! they shot it in 11 days! i love you steven!

nosferatu - already said this was a miss for me, and the more i think about it the more i feel reasonably sure that it would have been even if i were not so dracula-pilled… idk. i agree with my anon who called it cold. there’s a fundamental distance between the storyteller and the story that, again, was part of what i enjoyed about the lighthouse, but just doesn’t work for me with a more traditional, more visceral (in multiple senses) tale. similarly to the line about how there can’t be an anti war war movie, because you can’t portray combat without glorifying it, i sorta feel like maybe you can’t tell a story where you want credit for giving your abused and disbelieved female protagonist agency and also have multiple scenes that are like, “ok now do the crazy possessed horror chick thing” lol. i also thought it looked kinda bad in parts and really muddy in all the moonlight scenes but i did see one review on lbxd that was basically like “this movie only looks good in IMAX bc regular theaters can’t get the blacks deep enough” so… maybe that’s true. on the bright side: nicholas hoult!

music

kendrick lamar, gnx - this thing happens to me often with music where anything presented as A Big Deal i have a hard time listening to because i keep being like no it’s not the right time… this is why for example i have never listened to a mitski album and also why until now i had never heard kendrick outside of his features with taylor (bad, not his fault) and the lonely island (p. good) and, ofc, not like us. but “squabble up” came up at the singles jukebox and i got really into one of the slant-rhyme runs near the end and the general personality of his flow so i decided to check out the album and would you believe? kendrick lamar, good at rapping. i like how this album is like kind of about having a god complex and sort of knowing you’re being crazy but also what if actually you kind of mean it? (people get mad if you say this kind of thing so don’t tell anyone but it’s actually similar to the pose i enjoy taylor striking on some of the wilder moments on TTPD, lol.)

girl pusher, gaslight gatekeep girlpusher - 20 minutes of very of-the-moment hardcore-adjacent punk, mostly too hardcore for me (literally, i don’t like music that’s all screamy) but the 3 songs that aren’t are real bangers.

ghoulies, shafted by the algorithm - 20 minutes of bright synthy punk where i have no idea what anyone is saying, kind of like matt and kim with less abrasive vocals? (remember matt & kim??? no? bc i’m old? well ok). not an album i’ll return you but i liked the vibe enough to chuck the whole thing onto my 2k25 rolling faves list and have been enjoying the occasional 2-minute infusions of pep!

underscores, wallsocket (director’s cut) - really impressed by this one, and also really enjoyed it. i keep seeing people call underscores hyperpop but either their earlier work (which i haven’t heard) is very different or i just don’t actually know what hyperpop is (very possible). to me it’s giving aughts indie, maybe a little emo but like the bright eyes kind, it’s giving saddle creek but made by a kesha fan. (does anyone else feel like we’re really in a post-kesha era in a way that is not being appreciated…) catchy, inventive, varied but cohesive, angry and funny, political & personal in the lyrics, sometimes at the same time. there’s a song called “johnny johnny johnny” which is an incredible banger about being groomed by an internet predator in middle school that really blew me away; would also rec “cops and robbers” just because it slaps. but even the quiet songs are good!

rosie gray, louder, please - flawless and sometimes even kind of interesting (although never that interesting) dance-infused pop (pop-infused dance? i think the first one but i’m no expert). pretty, fun, sometimes endearingly unsubtle — there’s a song literally called “party people” and another one where the refrain is “the best things in life are free,” also one called “switch” that rhymes “positions” with “submission.” dumb but thoughtfully and expensively so (or so it sounds, which is what counts). the way that people talk about feeling when they watch influencers swanning poolside in ibiza or whatever, that’s what listening to this album makes me feel like. vicarious luxury and all i need is a pair of headphones. another one where i don’t anticipate returning to the album as an album much but i rarely hit skip when a track shuffles my way.

zora, BELLAdonna - yoooooo this album FUCKS, like, SEVERELY!!!!!! saw someone rec this saying it was framed as a black trans revenge fantasy, which, i’ll be honest, turned out to have absolutely no bearing my listening experience whatsoever, but i am dutifully repeating because maybe you, too, will be intrigued enough to listen, and then discover that this album has BOPS. i am not really up to the task of describing this one — rap/hip-hop forward but with glimpses of both r&b and a pop (maybe even hyperpop?) sensibility, obviously broad in its influences (there are at least two likely refs to bodak yellow lol) while sounding like the clear work of a distinct voice, retro and futuristic by turns or sometimes at the same time. sounds really really cool and really really fun. sick flow, sick beats, a song called “sick sex”... strong strong overall rec here, this album rules.

single of the year so far is "IT girl" by jade (from little mix!!!) btw. if you care. really delivering on always low-key being the most interesting of the quartet in what she's put out so far, not all of it is my thing but she has a Vision and IT girl is a certified bop... really curious about where she goes next.

okay so petty grudge-holding below the cut:

first, the watchmen thing. to start with, she drops in the intro that she admires HBO watchmen, and like, did this alone make me read the entire book less generously than i otherwise might have? entirely possible. that is me owning my positionality as a reader. anyway. mostly here i just want to say that she specifically discusses the fucking 1922 movie about a black hero saving a grateful white crowd that made me the joker and drops that the name of the hero is “historically accurate” because he’s named for the first black marshal in oklahoma or whatever, which, ok. cute, i guess, if i didn’t hate this. what i hate, and what is not historically accurate, is: the existence of a film in 1922 (7 years after birth of a nation!!!!!) with a portrayal of american race relations that looks anything at all like the one in this movie. i mean it’s just crazy. and i find it first of all just inane because if you’re capable of writing this scene and thinking it feels plausible, you by definition do not have a good handle on the history of antiblack racism in america or how deeply it has resided at the core of american popular culture (among other things), and second of all genuinely kind of offensive because of the smash cut to Real Historical Atrocity that follows, underscoring the alleged “realism” of the scene. and it is insane to me to praise this scene for its “historically accurate” detail in a book, again, largely about the importance of bringing an understanding of historical context to your reading. it makes the author look a little bit like she only means that for stuff she already happens to know about or saw someone else talk about online. lol.

also the essay starts out being like “another day another jkr twitter meltdown” which does not help with the sense that these essays were blog posts that did not get sufficiently cleaned up for publication (is that true? idk. it’s how it reads though!). and it’s called “the limits of white fantasy” (but then is largely about how HBO watchmen is good lmao) and has a thing like “well rightwing types can appropriate symbols from harry potter and the hunger games and wherever else because those authors never cared about oppression they were just interested in its trappings.” first of all, leave my girl suzanne collins, cashing her checks blissfully offline, out of this. but second of all i actually think this is a substantively wrong diagnosis. jkr very, very, very obviously and sincerely cares about oppression. she is just catastrophically wrong about who is oppressing whom! but it’s extremely clear she thinks of herself as an actual victim of the actual injustice (in her head) of the woke trans mob or whatever. ditto antivaxxers using hunger games cues or whatever. they sincerely believe their rights are being infringed upon. sometimes people are actually wrong! sometimes people care a lot about morality and justice and are wrong about what those things are! i think this is in general harder for people to contend with than the idea that anyone engaging in such wack behavior just “doesn’t care”... but it is true. writing this out makes me think i undersold the insight potential value-add of naomi klein’s doppelganger, because she’s actually really good about recognizing that while these movements involve a lot of sociopath grifters at the top, the footsoldiers are people responding to ways they do in fact feel victimized (and sometimes actually are, e.g. i literally can’t remember if klein talks about this or not although i think probably yes but a lot of people in the alt-wellness/medicine space got there as a result of terrible experiences with healthcare that failed to address their physical and emotional needs).

ok also AND one last thing about this essay, she really gives the impression that she thinks damon lindelof is like the first person ever in history to politicize the figure of the vigilante/superhero… lmao? she praises the show for being about how actually community is necessary and justice can’t be done solo, which, first of all, just gonna throw this out there, there are ways to tell that story without being like truly the most police brutality apologia nonsense i have ever seen, and secondly, this is literally thematically expressed quite poignantly in alan moore & dave gibbons’ comic limited series watchmen in the scene where the guy acting as a lone vigilante who has taken the fate of humanity into his own hands nukes a bunch of new yorkers coming together to try to mediate some conflict. do i think that you need to have read watchmen to write an essay — not a BLOG POST on your DUMB BLOG, an ESSAY in a BOOK — about the politics HBO watchmen? i mean, maybe? is that so crazy? she says making hooded justice black is a radical reimagining of a comics character which is so funny because it makes hooded justice sound like he’s fucking superman or something and not a probable nazi who dressed up as a kinky klansman as part of watchmen’s commentary on the politics of superheroes lmao. like hooded justice is already a radical reimagining of the superhero mythos… because he sucks… and i guess in my heart no i don’t think i’m just being a weird watchmen stan (lmao) to say, “you actually can’t get a meaningful read on the politics of HBO watchmen without taking into account that the actual intervention being performed with this character is ‘what if this nazi was actually a sympathetic black man.’” do you see how that feels different? (also not for nothing but wrt the idea of HBO HJ being inspired by the movie about a black hero, again, in the comics HJ through his klan-ish costuming is already inspired by american iconography of heroism — arguably one he also saw in a silent movie that actually existed by the name of birth of a nation lmao!!!!! — which is part of the indictment of american hero iconography… i mean whatever. it’s so fucking stupid. btw her big takeaway from this character’s arc is that justice has to happen in community which is also funny because like you know who had a really strong sense of community? the klan.) do you see how it feels maybe extra different in a show whose ultimate thesis is something like “what if nuclear weapons were good if we gave them to a black lady cop who loves doing police brutality so so much”?

and… ok one LAST-last thing… in her informal endnotes, she cites “the watchmen universe” created by moore & gibbons, which… idk man. on the one hand i’m like, ok but it actually is mostly irrelevant to my textual beefs here that watchmen was in fact not intended to be a “universe” as we now use that term in the IP era and that the extent to which it has become one has been expressly at the disapproval of moore largely because of the fact that DC fucked him over so bad with this that it literally changed comics contracts going forward lmao. but on the other hand, if you like claim to care about the social context in which art was created, isn’t it not the best look to do not a single google and uncover the most famous example of the abominable labor practices of the comics industry? i acknowledge i could be indulging in pettiness at this point.

OKAY so that’s all on watchmen i think. the odyssey thing is smaller and less of a big deal, more just goofy. so she talks about the cyclops sequence and highlights how in recounting this story to the phaeacians odysseus is identifying certain arbitrary marks of “civilization” such as cultivating fields, and how he ignores the arguably very “civilized” acts we see polyphemus the cyclops commit, such as tending his sheep and making cheese. this is all fine and unobjectionable, even true, although i will say that, first, she presents this like these are insights she is bringing to her close reading of the text but i really struggle to imagine the person in the past several decades who would disagree with the fundamental thesis “the stories and myths and texts of ancient cultures served in part to delineate and reinforce their own social norms”; and second, she opens the essay with an epigraph from toni morrison talking about how she always admired how homer could make you feel sad for the man-eating cyclops, but then she doesn’t bring this quote up at all and talks about polyphemus’s sheep and cheese as though recognizing in them the marks of humanity is, again, a novel way to read the text? idk maybe i am just misreading her tone bc by this point i was very tired of how impressive she seemed to find herself but i found it odd because she’s like “see polyphemus is actually complicated but odysseus doesn’t see that” and i’m like well yeah that’s like what morrison was talking about… i have no idea how this would have scanned in ancient greece bc i’m not a classicist but neither are you so… anyway. i couldn't figure out her attitude on the odyssey (or this chunk of it) as a text, i guess.

so she takes us through the whole incident, including a cutesy reading of “nobody is blinding me” as like a metaphor for how power operates by making it impossible to name it, which, sure. have fun. and she closes on odysseus’s final boast along the lines of “if anyone asks tell them it was odysseus of ithaca son of laertes who blinded you.” and then she goes into this whole thing about how like… this is odysseus wielding his privilege basically, that he’s doing this because he’s so secure in his name and the power that grants him. she says, “It’s his confidence in his own context that is Odysseus’s greatest strength, his greatest privilege, and his greatest cruelty.” which… i guess kinda makes sense… if you ignore the part where namedropping himself is literally what GETS HIS ASS CURSED? he drops his name and instantly polyphemus is like “grandpa end that motherfucker” and boom, odysseus’s men are doomed to death and he is cursed to ten years at sea. like… it is literally not his greatest strength!!! it is the thing that gets his ass beat!!!! and notice that observing this, the BASIC LITERAL PLOT OF THE TEXT, does not require morally defending odysseus, or claiming homer was woke, or whatever. it is very obviously the case that the text does not think odysseus’s thing about his name is bad and he is being punished for it to learn lmao. i actually literally pulled my old fagles translation off the shelf to find what bernard knox had to say about this, if anything, in the intro, and he reads it as an expression (one of several) of the same heroic code you see achilles living by in the iliad, which includes the idea that you must take credit for your shit — even in this situation in which doing so puts yourself and your ship at great risk. this is not a particularly sympathetic reading to most modern readers! but it is one that takes into account the fact that this is the inciting incident for LITERALLY THE ENTIRE PLOT OF THE POEM!!! like it is crazy to quote that line and end the story there as if odysseus just walks away unbothered! the point of that interaction is not that he’s acting like a vanderbilt trying to get a table at a fancy restaurant, and it is not incidental what happens next because what happens next is THE ENTIRE STORY! and, like… it’s also not incidental because the fact of the matter is the world of homer is simply not a world where your name protects you, or achilles and agammemnon would not be hanging out in the fucking underworld. i’m thinking here about knox’s comment on the iliad that it was written in a century where athens spent more years at war than not, and how crucial understanding that is for understanding the world these stories were created in… i mean on the one hand whatever but on the other hand the essay collection is literally about the idea of reading things in context… so like… whatever. you could take the events in the text and then discuss their influence on 3000 years of western art and how that trickles down into values or whatever, i guess… but she didn’t do that so like :/

also then she says “he may be traveling, but he’s not a migrant,” which i just found goofy because i’m not really convinced the concept of A Migrant as she seems to want us to read it makes a ton of sense to superimpose onto the mediterranean 3000 years ago. (i feel like A Migrant requires the concept of… nations? borders? etc.?) happy to be corrected on this by any classicists who follow me.

also her didion essay is not as good a takedown as either didion's own takedown of woody allen or barbara harrison's takedown of didion. lol.

anyway. ok. that’s my grudges off my chest lmao.

[cherrysurf]

Try again (osamu miya x f!reader)

Chapter 5; True love never dies?

contains; angst, smoking, angst, a tad bit of fluff.

also! the note is from “to all the boys i’ve loved before” lol.

When you arrived home, you broke down. It was all too much for you; all in just a couple of hours, it went from one extreme to another.

You sluggishly walked to the bathroom, opening the door to wash off all the energy from today.

You sit in the bathtub as the hot water hits your back, thinking about Osamu.

"What a coward," came out of your mouth. As tears slowly escaped your eyes once more, this time no cries were heard—just water falling down your face from the shower and your eyes. Soon after, you stepped out of the steamy shower, feeling slightly better than before.

You now sit in your living room with freshly washed PJs and a cup of your (his) favorite tea, staring into the void; with no thoughts, no feelings, just sitting on the couch.

You get a shudder down your spine, remembering how you felt this way when you and he ended things, but now it was because you were aware of how weak he was, not because you were hurt.

Then you hear your phone buzz next to you.

“Atsumu,” it read. You let out a heavy sigh.

“Hi.” You put on a smile as you spoke, hoping he wouldn’t be able to tell.

“Hey.” A voice that wasn’t Atsumu’s, but similar to his, spoke.

“You’re not Atsumu.” You deadpanned, dropping the act.

“You can tell that easily?” Osamu sarcastically let out a forced laugh.

“Unfortunately, yes, I can. Now, why are you calling me on his phone?” A response filled with attitude was given to him.

“He’s home now and sleeping. I'm leaving; you can stop by anytime except the nights I’m going to be there.” He gave you the same attitude right back.

“Okay, sure, whatever… bitch.” You whispered the last part.

“What did you say?” he replied angrily.

“What did you hear?” you pretended to be clueless.

“I don’t know.” He huffed.

“Then I guess I will never know, huh? Anyway, I gotta go get dressed and make him some of his favorite sweets.” You swiftly hung up the phone afterward.

“BITCH ASS LIAR, except nights because I’m going to be there. OH, SHUT THE FUCK UP, OSAMU.” You yelled out in an annoyingly mocking voice as you tossed your phone onto the other couch.

You decided to collect yourself from that small outburst because letting your emotions take over wasn’t good for you. Plus, you had to start planning what to bake for Atsumu.

You loved baking things for the people you loved. Osamu was very well aware of that; after all, it was one of his favorite things about you.

You didn’t first start getting into baking until your first year of high school. Osamu was there throughout all the trials and errors of your baking history. From the salty cookies to the undercooked cake, he was there for it all. He was one of your biggest supporters throughout everything, and now it felt almost like his brother took that place in an instant.

You wonder if Osamu is feeling jealous about how you and Atsumu have gotten close again, but does it matter? Yes. Yes, it does.

Although Osamu is many things, knowing the reason why he left you makes your heart ache. Maybe calling him a coward and a bitch was just to mask the fact that you’d forgive him and try to get back with him.

Even though that ship probably sailed a long time ago. I mean, who knows what he’s up to these days? You got so mad and let your emotions take control that you have no idea how he is. Perhaps you shouldn’t try to be too harsh on him, but it is hard not to.

Suddenly, you hear the beep of the preheating oven go off, snapping you out of your drowning thoughts about Osamu.

You put the cinnamon rolls into the oven and go off to get dressed. You wear something casual since it’s just a small visit and to make sure Atsumu’s house is clean and easy for him to manage.

The drive over is quiet; today your thoughts have been so loud that it was enough to keep the radio off.

When you arrive at Atsumu's house, you shoot him a quick "I’m here" text and receive an instant reply with "doors open." You walk in, taking off your shoes.

“Tsumu, cinnamon rolls are here!” you yell throughout the quiet house.

“Bring them to my room, please,” he yells back.

You make your way towards the kitchen to pull out a plate from the cupboard so you can serve them.

“Do you need milk or anything to drink with it?” you yell once more.

“No, I have water right here,” Atsumu says.

“Kay,” you nod to yourself as you set the cinnamon roll down on the plate.

You start walking down the hall to head to Atsumu’s room. Seeing the door wide open, you let yourself in to find him with a beaming smile. You couldn’t tell if it was for you or the cinnamon rolls, but regardless, you’re just happy he’s smiling.

“Thanks for stopping by,” his hands reach out for the plate of sweets.

“Of course. Did Osamu give you food before he left?” you pull back the plate just in case he didn’t eat regular food before shoving his mouth with junk.

“Yeah, he made me onigiri. You know that’s his whole thing now,” he says, finally grabbing the plate out of your hands.

“Oh, that’s good you ate,” you say, pausing for a moment because you did not know that was his “whole thing” now.

“Yeah, there’s leftovers in the microwave if you want one. I’m sure you haven’t eaten since the hospital; that’s been like hours ago, so you should eat. Bring it back to my room so you can keep me company,” Atsumu speaks with a mouth full of gooey cinnamon rolls, which makes you laugh at the sight of him looking like a squirrel.

“Okay, I’ll go get some. I’ll be back,” you tell him as you make your way out of the room once more, down the hall and then to the kitchen.

You hesitate before opening the microwave door, and you don’t know why. Seconds later, you open it and are met with the wafting smell of cooked salmon-filled onigiri. It makes you salivate instantly.

You pull the plate out to serve yourself two because one is never enough with Osamu’s cooking. You always wanted more; I mean, who wouldn’t?

You leave the rest of the leftovers behind in the microwave. You take the plate and make your way out of the kitchen and back into Atsumu’s bedroom, where he is bedridden because of his leg.

As you step in and make your way to the edge of his bed to sit, you both now indulge in the silence of chews, being next to each other without speaking as proof of the comfortableness you two had regained, just like back in your younger years.

After 10 more minutes of silence, you collect your and Atsumu’s plates and quickly walk back into the kitchen to wash the dishes so Osamu won’t have to do anything once he comes back for his night shift to take care of Atsumu.

You walk back in to find Atsumu looking a bit on edge as he bites into the hangnail on his right thumb.

“You’re going to end up with an infection if you do that, ya know...” you speak slowly while walking back to his bed.

“Yn, there’s something you should see. Get the light gray box from underneath my bed and go outside. Just come back when you're ready.” He sets his hands down at his sides as he tosses his head back into his pillows to stare up at the ceiling.

“Uhm... okay.” You look at him weirdly before crouching down to peek under his bed to find the box there by itself. You slowly pull it out and take a look at it as you sit on the floor by his bed.

It had nothing on it that looked like a shoe box or something to store papers in. You carry it in your arms as you stand up while walking to the door, turning your back to see Atsumu still in the same position as before you went down to get the box.

You make your way out to Atsumu’s backyard, where it is quite spacious and peaceful, as if it were a zen garden.

As you sit down comfortably in the large, quiet, and comfortable chair he has, you open the box to find a card addressed to you with the date from a few years ago, a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes. Not just any old cigarettes, the ones you and Osamu had smoked back in high school up until college were the ones from college. It was so recognizable because the red lipstick-stained kiss was still on the front of the box.

As you put the lighter and cigarettes to the side to pull out the card, the back of the card says, “Light up a cigarette as you read this.” You sigh at this stupid thing but do as you're told, because maybe you would need it—I mean, who the fuck knows what this could contain?

You rip open the letter to find Osamu’s initials at the top of the page. The letter smells of the cigarettes that were in the box. It had a yellow stain due to the time it had spent in the box.

A large inhale of smoke fills your lungs as you prepare yourself for another hit to the face from Osamu’s late confession. Maybe this is payback for slapping him.

“Dear Yn,

My memory of the first time I met you. It was our sixth-grade assembly. You were sitting in the row in front of me, and your name was written on your backpack in glittering letters. Principal Kyo called you up on stage to receive an attendance reward, and your hair got caught in your chair. I helped you untangle it, and you smiled at me. My heart somersaulted in my chest. I didn’t know hearts could do that. I had no clue then that you would become who you are now. The most important person in my life. Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am that you chose me. We’ve been through so much together. Yn, I never should have doubted that we’d get through this too, but I got scared and I hurt you, I am so sorry. Of course, you should go to the states. You should do all the things you want to do. I never want to be the guy holding you back. I want to be the one by your side. It won’t always be easy, but I would do whatever it takes to make this work.

Because that’s what you do when you love someone. Besides, when you think about it, if we’re going to be together forever, then two years of college isn’t such a big deal.”

You set the letter down at your side as tears trickle down your face; the agony that your heart, soul, mind, and body feel is worse than anything you’ve gone through. Osamu did care. He always had.

Your face falls into your shaking hands as the cigarette slowly burns in between your middle finger and index. You couldn’t see anything you didn’t want to as the words from the letter ran through your mind.

The thoughts in your brain were too much to sit and think about. Everything was moving too fast for you to comprehend after 15-20 more minutes of talking in that position you gathered the letter and everything else and placed it back into the box.

With the box under your right arm, you head back inside and walk your way into Atsumu's room with your head hung low until you reach the side of the bed he was lying on to face him. He can see everything by the look and tears on your face.

He sits up from his lying position and extends his arms out for a hug that you quickly fall into wishing they were his brothers. You softly cry once more in his embrace wondering if the pain would ever stop.

“Yn maybe my brother was a coward but he still loves you. He never stopped. He told me to give you this once you stopped by. I don't know if it’ll change anything but it’s worth a chance.” He sighs as he slowly pats your back in an attempt to comfort you.

“This changes a lot. Thank you Atsumu for being the mediator and fixor of a mess that isn’t yours,” you speak into his chest.

“Anything for the two people I love the most.” he smiles sadly.

You lift yourself off of him and wipe the rest of your tears.

“I should get going. I have a lot to think about. I’ll see you tomorrow Tsumu.” you reach for an embrace by him once more as you bid him farewell since you figured Osamu would be back in the next couple of hours.

You drove the rest of the way home numb and confused.

fucking yapperilla ahh ho rn.

taglist; @sahrii @dearru @angeleilee @gumims @istann @chlosology @loveyislost @kameyyy @tiramizuloz @hemmotivos @chososcamgirl @sakusasbadger @rekua1

[meownotgood]

THAT'S 60,000 WORDS LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO!!

[nihiltism]

I know I've infodumped this before but not as its own post so let's go. what I'd do if I was in charge of making a live a live anime. I am ignoring the fact that I desperately want it to be a musical because that's not going to happen so ask me about my Separate thoughts about what I'd do if I was in charge of making a The Day The Night Slept The Album-ening of live a live.

ok so my Basic Idea is I'd let the show have a 13 episode (maybe 14? does that happen?) first season. I assume each of the first 7 chapters would need about 2 episodes, but I can see some that end in one like wild west or Definitely present day. I could also see some taking longer though, like distant future and near future. it'd even itself out I think to average to 2 episodes each.

it'd be an anthology series basically. a bunch of non-connected stories, but tied together by one key point. a narrator. see I have a Framing Device idea here and it's that we know odio from the very beginning, but never see his face or know who he is. this is very inspired by princess tutu here but here the stories are actively being Read by somebody outside of it, and occasionally he takes the reins to bend the retelling a bit, likely in the chapter boss' favor. note that while the anime is actually Playing and showing the characters, if the narrator does decide to kick in the characters will likely not be doing what he says they are, and they Definitely cannot hear him. it's an unreliable narrator story, but to the point where it's pretty easy to tell that he's biased. in practice how this probably would go would be like in princess tutu, occasionally when a character reaches a point that justifies his own philosophy in some way he'll cut in and monologue about The Nature Of Man Bringing Only Tragedy or whatever the fuck. also maybe cutting in to give the chapter villains some sympathy for the devil, maybe at the end to close each story out as he turns the last page? I dunno I don't want to be Too obvious but like. odio does sound pretty damn evil by default so maybe it'd be obvious anyway.

anyway! that's season one. anthology of short stories. on the final episode I'd leave it hanging on him picking up one last book or something, but I'd let that be told in either a short season (again, do these happen?) or a movie ??? anyway that would start out with the middle ages chapter, which I don't think will have any narration? I'm iffy on this? it'd be cool to see his retrospective thoughts on his own story but also, that's a bit heavy-handed, I'm not sure. anyway the thing is that around the end, when oersted breaks into his soliloquy at the archons roost. there I think we'd get a sort of cut-in, as halfway through our narrator starts reading it out himself. shut book camera pan Blonde Man Jumpscare I think that's the best way to go about the "oh shit the villain is the protag of that story" reveal. also it'd be fun. anyway that'd be either the beginning chunk or the first two? episodes?

from here I'm not Exactly sure how to frame it because all of the endings are Very important, but also kind of. happen at the same time? I do not know how to do this. the easy way would just be to have it remain anthology-ish, and have say the boss rush version of the dominion of hate be one story while the rest is another, but I don't think that fits into the framing device well. mm?? I have no idea. I think we're good without the bad ending of the dominion of hate happening as long as the "if you kill this dude you'll end up just as fucked as him" message gets conveyed in some way or another but I don't think we can skip the whole other version of the DoH.

maybe we can play it less as Actually Happening and more a what if scenario?? more odio just. Fucking Talking Alone Again about what Could be if not for Man's Folly^tm. I think that'd get the point across, be a good intro for the rest of the dominion of hate and stay in universe but it would Not have the added bonus of "ok you kicked around a bunch of jrpg protagonists now what. did that make you feel any better" unless we tried to hammer that home in a different way. and oh boy do I not have a single idea what to do with the armageddon ending. maybe instead just have him mention how if he and the other odios were Still denied he'd have the page burnt entirely or something. maybe at the end. shrugs. there's not a ton I can do here.

eh. anyway the actual dominion of hate would likely be more based in the protagonists than anything, likely picking a main character (Probably Akira) and not having a Narrator as much as just being in the mc's head from time to time. though I Do like the idea of odio still being there Attempting to nudge the protags and them being actually able to hear him this time, it'd have to be used infrequently. or not at all. there is a certain merit to them not knowing anything about him until getting to the archons roost but Us knowing a lot. I dunno. anyway I think this adaptation would have a lot more interactions between the protagonists (desperately needed) and I think that'd take up most of the runtime there, we can incorporate the trials if we want to (trial of heart is necessary to be sure but the rest really aren't, so it can be a good dungeon for the whole team to go through and have some more plot-motivated character moments) but I think Getting The Band Together might already take a good amount of time if we don't rush past good chances for character building or interaction. I want it to feel like the mcs Do actually start to be a team that is the thing I have the Most problems with about the game, though in doing so that will mean we're gonna have to do away with the 4 character party thing unless we want to have them split up sometimes. that's details. the point is that it's going to be All the mcs together most of the time and hopefully it doesn't feel crowded.

anyway from there it kind of goes as expected, except with the aforementioned (we don't need to have the bad ending be its own thing but we do need to mention the consequences). maybe somebody of the team Does try to grant oersteds wish before being held back or something. for similarities reasons I say oboro but this can be wiggled. anyway I also think around the actual Ending ending you'd get more than just one monologue from the mcs, you'd probably get more of like. an actual Conversation I guess? the mcs building off of each other's points to oersted? I dunno I'm spitballing here I do think it would Start Off with akira's ending though and then somebody scruffs him and continues off from there. I dunno the important thing is that everybody should get a word in or perhaps a hug in in the case of pogo. I think that's it though? I probably won't return to the plot device to show like another book being closed or whatever that is purely A Plot Device so it'd be weird to have it come back after oersted was Thoroughly Dead. I will say though if the live a live anime has an ED it's gotta have sin of odio in the A that's the law.

[tteokdoroki]

✎ᝰ. OCT 1ST ★ BONDAGE - satoru gojo .ᐟ

[CHAPTER ONE RAPUNZEL] satoru gojo as flynn rider + bondage. once upon a time, a girl trapped in a tower with nothing but her extremely lavish, long hair as company decides…fuck it and sleeps with a handsome stranger to get what she wants ( 9.1K ).

✧ chapter contents - minors, blank and ageless blogs do not interact ! nsfw, heavy smut, rapunzel!au, strangers to lovers, role reversal & switching, orgasm control, sensory deprivation, edging, thigh riding, spit kink, outer-course, begging, handjobs (m!recieving), reader's hair has blonde streaks but colour remains ambigous, rapunzel + fem!reader, flynn rider!satoru gojo.

✧ fairy godmother's note - yippieee!! kickstarting spooky season with this hefty boy. we have our glorious blue eyed king welcoming you all to our fourth annual tteokdoroki kinktober - i hope you all like what's planned this year and enjoy this piece to start with !! kissies hehe <3 - m.list ⋆ kinktober m.list ⋆ taglist ☆

“you’re going to take me to see the floating lights. or else.” 

“or else, what, honey?” 

ever since satoru gojo climbed the wooden lattice sewn to your tower by blooming, overgrown weeds and winding vines effectively invading the safest space in the world ( according to mother ), he’s been a pain in your fucking ass. when he’d first arrived, a towering and unfamiliar figure creeping about the main floor — your heart had dropped to the base of your stomach, pulsing rapidly with fear while he scoped the scene. you’d never come across a man before, mother had made sure of that, warning you of their cruelty and ugliness both inside and out. except satoru looked nothing like the descriptions your mother had left you with, you’d say that the man was stunning. not that you had much to compare him to.

his hair was a crisp white, appearing soft to the touch much like the snowfall that came in the winter months (something about playing in it. contrastingly, his eyes were a beautiful shade of baby blue — eerily similar to that of a summer sky free of cloudiness. he was too good looking to be human, for it to be natural, almost as if satoru had strolled straight out of one of the many fairytale books mother purchased for you from the markets. although, over the years you’ve probably read each book cover to cover a million times and not one fictional prince could even match this stranger’s sheer beauty.

though for now, this handsome stranger’s looks would get him nowhere with you. strangers always came with dangers, and since all you’d known throughout your years of living were these four walls, you weren’t going to take any chances with satoru and whatever problems he’d have brought with him.  initially and out of an unfamiliar fear, you’d  taken the nearest weapon to you (a frying pan) and cracked it right over his skull — watching the hunk of a human collapse to his knees and eventually black right out. if mother were around, she would have been proud. you’d tried not to feel any guilt trying to stuff his limp, lengthy limbs in your closet or under your bed because… well, what business does this stranger have with you? what the fuck is a man doing here? how did he get here? why is he here? 

your whole life you’ve been convinced that the outside word was treacherous and that you had to stay inside, where it was safe, because people were horrible and selfish — intent on hunting you down for the powers that lay intertwined in the coils of your hair. those specific streaks that glow a valuable gold between the usual  colour of your locks whenever you sang. mother would style them the way you liked every night — so long as you sung for her. you weren’t about to let mother down, nor risk the little life you built here together.

but, as it turns out, satoru wasn’t looking for the magic sprouting from your crown and entangled in your hair. it almost seemed like he had no idea about them either. rather, the moonlit haired man was looking for a place to lay low and hide after being chased through the forest for his satchel that seemingly carries something valuable. a crown… jewels that have a weight familiar to your head and sparkle like something you’ve seen before in a distant memory. 

“come to think of it, honey, where is my satchel?” cocking his head to the side, sky blue eyes peer up at you with a charm that sends a foreign swarm of butterflies ripping through your stomach.

you frown, accusingly pointing your weapon of choice at gojo’s head and puffing out your chest to appear as intimidating as possible while giving him your name. “i’ve hidden it in a secure location—“ 

“it’s in that pot…isn’t it?” 

as best as he can in the handcuffs he can call locks of your hair, the tower’s newfound infiltrator gestures towards a colourful pot in the corner of tne room. what? all you could think of in the moment is restraining him against the chair and why waste perfectly good rope when you’ve got such length to your own hair? the pot was the closest spot too.you knock him out swiftly after his guess, not giving gojo the satisfaction of finding his precious purse.

now, with the satchel hidden once more, satoru gojo semi-concussed and conscious once again — you realise that for the first time in your life, you have some kind of leverage to bargain with. you need someone to take you to see the floating lights that illuminate the sky on your birthday, every year. satoru needs his… crown? that so obviously doesn’t belong to him. of course, he would have stolen it, mother always said men were no good and always take what isn’t theirs (oh the irony). nonetheless, it  was the perfect match of desires.

this way, you could prove to mother that you weren’t weak like she said you were. that you could cope by yourself and go explore the outside world. it wouldn’t be how it usually is with mother — where you ask for something and instantly get denied because she believes you to be too naive to function in a world outside of her. not this time. this time you have a bargaining chip. a satchel containing a valuable so rare that satoru was willing to risk his life for.

your captive wriggles against the restraints of your hair, woven around the chair like tough knots of a rope to keep him at bay. while the silver haired fox may not have canines like your mother suggested, you have no idea how powerful he could be. contrastingly, gojo finds your hair to be soft against his skin, ticklish along the veins of his arms despite how secure it has him strapped down. he’s forced to listen and to follow your every move across the floor plan, guided by the strength of your hair tugging him about.

“i have a proposition for you. come, look.” drawing back a curtain to reveal a painting from earlier — you recite your plan to your intruder. tomorrow evening, he will take you to see the floating lights … ahem…lanterns that drift across the sky on your birthday every year and then, return you safely to the tower before mother returns. it’s an easy deal.  “i won’t give your satchel back until then,” you stutter out fiercely, adjusting your height and the grip you have on the cool metal frying pan. “you won’t get it back until you’ve taken me to see the lights.” 

“oh whatever, i can just take it back, honey,” satoru goads, cockily ripping his head back in patronising laughter. even though the melodious sound makes irritation bubble hot underneath your skin, you can’t help the way your eyes are immediately drawn to the man’s Adam’s apple as it bobs delectably along with his chuckles. “as soon as i get out of this…hair? hair.” pale blue eyes flicker up to your face when gojo fixes himself in the seat he’s fixed to. they bore deeply into your soul, reading you with as much ease as you have flicking through the same three books that you own. you feel the weight of your hair shift around satoru’s shoulders as he gestures down to it nearly wrapped around his bulging forearms (not that you’d been paying attention). “this is kinda freaky, hon. don’cha think?” a slow sexy smirk tugs at the corners of gojo’s plush, glossy lips, or rather, he smoulders attempting to woo you into giving him what he wants. “you don’t seem like the freaky type, sweetheart.”

once more, a frustrated flame flares up in the middle of your chest — you’d feel offended for sure if you know what gojo meant. “freaky?” 

“as in like… dubious?” he grins in response, running the pink tip of his tongue over his straight, perfectly white teeth. “this is basically bondage, yanno?”

you blink once. confused.

“improper?” 

nothing, not one of these synonyms or explanations from the smiling idiot makes any more sense to you — bringing you to tilt your head to the side, innocently like a puppy that makes satoru laugh once more. this time it actually does something to you. sends weird butterflies fluttering in your tummy.

with a shake of snow white locks and an inhale that sounds amused as it goes, your hostage clicks his tongue — letting those cooling blue eyes slink up and down your virtuous frame . the swell of his lower lip trapped between pretty perfect teeth. “as in sexy, sweet thing.” satoru’s sickly sweet and powdered sugar coo slips through one ear and out of the other like hot, viscous molasses, you immediately shudder — flustered down to the meat on your bones, curling in on yourself as your faux intimidation tactics melt from your body and slip between the floorboards beneath your bare feet. “gosh! you’re so innocent,” his gaze rips away from you, and you fight back an unexpected whimper, missing the intruder’s gaze on you. “guess that’s what being trapped in a place like this does to a darlin’ thing like you. you wouldn’t last a day out there.” 

he’s patronising you. speaking to you as though you’re no more than a child. however, being talked over and down on is all you’ve ever known, especially from your mother… but the way he acts reminds you of all of the advice she’s bestowed upon you over the years. mother tells you all the time, how naive and silly you are. how people will try and take advantage of your looks and your kindness. and so you decide to use your mother’s advice — if all humans, act like dogs, you’ll throw one a bone and wait for them to come back for more. 

steeling yourself, you use a loop of your hair to drag gojo’s chair toward you — positioning him like a puppet beneath your cold, hard stare. he man spreads on the chair as best as he can in his restraints, leaning back while his seat tilts backwards on a forty-five degree angle — drawing your eyes from his face to his thick thighs momentarily. “you are going to take me to see the lights. it’s a promise, not a threat,” you whisper into the air that buzzes with tension between you both, leaning down and pinning gojo in place. you’re so close, so little proximity between your faces, that you can practically feel his warm breath lingering on the damp skin of your lips. “and i promise, i’ll make this worth your while.” 

your voice lowers an octave, smooth and buttery and just right. like a snare for a wild white rabbit or bait on a hook — it peaks satoru’s interest, illicit thoughts and desires flashing behind his pupils like lightbulb ideas. “oh, honey. i can make you see stars alright,” he looks up at you then, with an expression of heat and thirst, dragging you into a pool of shining blue eyes that you barely manage to free yourself from. drowning in his attention once more. you stand over him proudly, between his legs smugly and all he wants to do is wipe the winning smile from your face and show you a real good time. 

if he could, gojo would reach up and grab at your hips possessively, if he could he’d cup your neck and let his fingers toy with your baby hairs to pull you into a sloppy kiss. he can’t help the way white hot desire spreads through his system like throwing gasoline on an open fire and pile of wood. he grins mischievously, and in response, a brand new sensation stirs within your lower tummy — blistering hot as it zips between your chest and your core.

you sense the change in the atmosphere and gojo does too. both of you dying to scratch the itch on the part of your brain that is the control centre for lust. but you remind yourself what this is truly about, tell yourself not to get lost in the haze of it all, and will yourself to throw a loop of your hair over daring blue eyes like a blindfold — acting fast to secure a seat in an unsuspecting satoru gojo’s vacant lap.

he grunts in surprise, flinches when he realises one out of five of his senses are down. “what the fuck—?” gojo spits, cocky smirk melting away. 

“shhh,” you taunt the man under your breath, leaning forward so that your voice coasts over the shell of his ear like a summery breeze. it invokes a sense of pride within your chest when your hostage tilts his head to follow your voice — his own breathing erratic and increasingly shallow with how he begins to struggle against your restraint on him. “you won’t get a chance to make me see those lights. not if i get you to see them first.” 

in truth, you've got nothing planned. you’ve never been in the same room as a man, let alone pleasure them the way that you’ve read in books you’d borrowed from your mother. 

the reality of the scene before you is daunting, giving up part of your virtue just to prove a point and get to see the floating lights like you’ve always wanted…but at the same time — it’s your one chance at freedom that’s at stake here. “you don’t sound so sure about that, sweetheart,” satoru taunts you with the peaks in his voice coltishly high. he continues to wrestle against the restraints of your hair — he’s strong and with a little more force he could escape but it’s like he senses your hesitancy. 

like he knows for certain you won’t make good on your promise. just like mother. 

that much is evident in the way his smooth, glossy lips tick upwards into an arrogant smirk. 

your determination to prove him wrong grows more and more by the second, so before you succumb to your nerves again, you let your free hand claw with way over gojo’s right shoulder — steadying him, forcing him to sit still as you make a comfortable seat out of his widespread lap. he tenses at first, unable to see you move, but his grin remains, you have no idea if it’s because he’s proud of you or doubting you — but the expression only serves to piss you off even more.

“what’s next, sweetheart?” 

a strangled growl is your only reply, the most menacing sound you can muster as you lift head upwards and his pool of loose silver-moon locks fall out of place. with a shuddering breath and a hold of gojo’s restraints, you press your lips to his in a shaky kiss — still unsure of where your lips go and what to do with your teeth and how to move your tongue. the captive beneath you knows it and takes advantage of your weakness, nipping at the swell of your lower lip gently — hardly enough to draw blood. satoru is testing you, telling you to be brave and take from him. prove to him that you’re willing to do whatever you want for him to make your silly childhood dream come true.

he allows you to fight back, despite this being your idea, lets you forcefully grab his angular jaw and capture him in a proper spit-swapping kiss. if he really wanted to, he’d find a way to escape from the tight bounds of your lengthy hair. but he doesn’t. gojo lets you swallow him down; push your tongue exploratively into his mouth and lap at his foreign flavour. he wants your tongue to take dominance from his, pink appendages sloppily rolling over one another, slipping and sliding as you take and take from satoru.

the kiss, already uncoordinated from your lack of experience, becomes hurried and hungry and wet the more you steal from satoru. you take and take and take until his glass his half full and his brain slowly becomes devoid of all logical thought. he comes the prey to your predatory mouth, missing the way your hand frees his pale cheek and fingers fluidly traverse down his broad shoulders, over his marble sculpted body to find purchase in the belt loops of his bothersome pants. now curious, you feel your way down the front of the fabric and grin into the hot and heavy kiss when satoru’s lets out a breathy, staggered moan into your open mouth. 

his swelling erection twitches in response to your inquisitive hand, slender hips involuntarily jumping upwards.

“fuuuck,” satoru chuckles airily, words featherlight as they breeze along your lips. his head keens upwards too, chasing the weight of your hot sticky tongue in his mouth — desperate to be closer, craving the feeling of your nose knocking against his and your breath on his cheek from just how pressed up against each other you are. “fuck baby that’s it. kiss me more, touch me harder…” he’s addicted before he even knows what you have to offer, what he’s getting himself into. if you could see his eyes from under his binding, you’d bare witness to pleading blue pools swirling with a painful desire as he twitches beneath you, wriggling his wrists to get free. “c’mon, touch me.” he adds between sloppy pecks.

backing your face out of satoru’s reach, you break the drooly lip lock — letting your lungs fill with oxygen it had once missed, while your heaving chest syncs up with the intruder you have strapped  to a chair. you pull away, connected to the man by not just your hair, but a string of saliva glazed across your lips — cautiously, your tongue dart out to break the the between your eager mouths, two sets of uneven panting filling the quiet air. 

the two of you remain unmoving and unwilling to back down while you catch your breath; but your hand remains in the centre of gojo’s lap — rocking it back and forth, back and forth over his growing bulge. you stare at him, observing the reactions that he tries so hard to control. little twitches to his pink swollen lips and the flare of his nostrils whenever your palm makes contact with a sensitive spot. all this waiting is agony, the white haired captive might die if he doesn’t get more from you soon. 

satoru whines impatiently as a result, knowing full well what you want and you won’t ask him again — not when you’re tauntingly squeezing his cock for a second, third, fourth, fifth time. he doesn’t fucking know — overwhelmed by waves of lust-infested blood rushes to its blistering hot tip. “fuck! okay, okay fine. i’ll take you! just—“ the chair rattles from the force of gojo’s struggle against your restraints, which hardly covers the low moan that escapes from between his plush glossy lips while his length pulses against the inside of his pants. “just fuck me. touch me. anything.”

something about his tone being all desperate and high activates a part of you that you never even knew existed. a part of you that knows what to do next… even if you haven’t acted it out, you’ve enough books to remember what the erotic ones say.

only then, after he pleads, do you use your shaky hands to tug down the garment — pulling them towards his knees as best as you can against your hair until the button pops free. the zipper follows easily and the waistband falls away from starlight skin and slender hips. everything gets hotter; any fresh air between your bodies becoming tinged with the need for sex as the scorching ghost of your fingertips leaves burn marks against satoru’s pelvis, and sends heatwaves of ardour from the base of his spine to the top of his skull.

satoru’s squirming pauses while he waits with uneven breathing for your next move — tongue pressing up against the barricade of his white teeth to prevent himself from taunting you further or perhaps to stop himself from belting out another pathetic set of whimpers. he wishes he could see you, those sweet innocent eyes looking down at him as you peel back the last layer of fabric stopping you from accessing his painfully hard erection. his underwear. 

when you gasp in shock, pride weaves itself between the bones that protect his heart and lungs like an uninvited weed, he knows that he’s decent. longer than he is thick, bright red at his mushroomed tip and leaky from just how turned on he is. there’s a trail of silver moon hair that leads you down a path from his belly button to the thickest part of his dick too. but oh, how satoru gojo wishes he could see.. the way you lick your lips as drool drowns your tongue, mouth watering at the sight of his length slapping against his clothed stomach while he manspreads for you. the way your pupils dilate, the colour in your eyes swallowed by a dark veil of carnality. 

this is a hunger you’ve never experienced before, a type of starvation that makes your hand lurch forward before your brain can control it, gripping satoru at the base of his milky, slender shaft. it’s the first time you’ve ever seen a cock; let alone held one between your tiny fingers — it’s much warmer than you anticipated, tacky to the touch from dribbles of precum running down from his untouched tip, but you like it. the weight, the wet sound it makes when you slightly flick your wrist around satoru. not to mention the stuttered groan he lets out, his head falling against the support of the chair and yanking slightly on the blindfold made of hair that covers his eyes.

if you weren’t sitting in his lap, you’d want him in your drooling mouth. you’d sink down to your knees like the girls in your naughty books and take him down your virgin throat, just so you could look up at satoru and watch the sweat bead down his jawline and run a track over his bobbing adam’s apple. but you’re not and you’ve got a point to prove, so you loop your hair around your other wrist to tighten his restraints and extend a thumb upward from his base to his seedy tip, jamming the pad of it through the slit where he pre forms in thick, creamy pearls. as white as those that come from an oyster.

“that’s it gorgeous, just like that…” satoru leers up at you huskily, voice tinged with neediness that he fails to mask. he seems to like the way you touch him and you’re sure to use a delicate hand when you smooth the supple pad of your thumb over the pad of his sensitive tip, rubbing his opaque precum into it sweetly. “touch me s’more? you can do it… i know you’re shy, can hear your breathing ‘n how heavy it is. shit, you’re new at this.” saliva slows down satoru’s salacious words as he rambles to you with swollen lips and rosy cheeks, angling his head in whatever direction your breath seems to be coming from. 

he’s in tatters, destroyed by a few simple touches with his hard on smearing white across the front of his clothes. you roll your palm over his mushroomed cockhead next to test the waters and take pleasure in admiring the way he trembles, grasping at the arms of the chair you have him strapped to in order to ground himself. it’s torture for satoru to be this patient, killing him slowly from the inside out like a virus spreading across his brain and other vital organs — but it doesn’t mean you’re in any better state. practically dripping in his lap with your panties dampening more and more every time satoru so much as whimpers. past the point of being turned on by the sight of a strong, powerful man weak and blindfolded underneath you.

satoru bucks upward at your command, sucking in a breath as his sensitive, seedy slit bumps your palm once more. “s-shit… please.”

the improper ness of the entire situation sends a zap of electricity to your swelling clit. you’ve only ever imagined being with someone like this as you have seeing the floating lights — touching yourself beneath your skirts and under your painted ceilings whenever you were brave enough. now you’re here, spread over the thick thighs of a possible thief who begs you to jerk him off. “s-shut up,” you hiss as embarrassment and  inexperience begins to shine through the deal you’ve struck with gojo, the fact that he can tell as much and still wants this has you soaked all the way through and aching for friction as well. 

you’ve never been in possession of so much power in your life. mother never let you have it. but right now, you can taste it sparking between you and gojo, smell it in the air teeming mixed with a cocktail of your arousals. in the moment you realise that the silver haired man would cling onto every one of your sugar-coated words (no matter how nervous) if it meant he got the fuck he wanted in the end. and you would get to see your lights too.

“just… tell me what to do,” you say without realising how husky your own voice has gotten. “i promised you your crown, to make you feel good if you took me to see the lights. and i never go back on a promise. s-so tell me.” talking yourself into it and building up some more confidence, you circle over satoru’s bulbous cockhead again — gaze laser focused on the burning bright red colour as it oozes. you know that he likes it and it makes his head spin so much that he starts to fight against the restraint of your hair again. “i won’t let you go, not until this is over. so tell me what i can do to make you cum.” 

despite not being able to see his entire face, gojo’s smug smile says it all — his perfect teeth cheerily on display, contrasting with the flustered pink tint to his cheeks. “cup it, make a fist around my cock so you can jerk me off’a little bit,” a haughty moan scratches at the walls of your captive’s throat when you follow his guidance and finally grip him fully, soft and supple hands easily dwarfed by the size of him. satoru’s shaft may be a little thinner, but he’s thick enough to fill your own throat and cause a stretch to your quivering hole with his balls being round, plump and full of white hot seed saved up just for you. “christ, squeeze my base a lil’ before you get movin’,” at first contact, satoru’s thighs tremble deliciously against your mound, blood rushing to your clit and through the forked veins that spiral down his length. 

your senses are overwhelmed, he smells so good — of peppermint and a musky twang of sex act like dangerous smelling salts or fumes. you could get addicted if you weren’t careful. you’re super aware of each ridge and firm vein that decorates him and as you start to palm satoru steadily, you notice just how sticky your hand is — movements guided by the wet cream of his cock. slipping and sliding as your closed fist moves up and down, up and down, occasionally squeezing the base of him just like he asked. your knuckles brushing the soft bush of pubic hair at his pelvis. you can only imagine how everything feels for him, not being able to see at all.

the thought just barely crosses your mind — too focused on speeding up your soiled hand around gojo just to hear more of his angelic gripes and groans that rise and fall from his heaving chest. how good all of this must feel for the man without being able to see. every touch must make him tick and drip and throb achingly. he must feel weak too, completely vulnerable to anything you might do to him while blindfolded and unable to touch you because of bonds formed by your hair. 

once you set a steady rhythm to your closed fist to jerk him off with, gojo takes a breather to announce his next command — head shaking side to side with moonlight locks sticking to his forehead in an attempt to alleviate the inferno of desire spreading through of his limbs. “now spit on it,” he states bluntly, an obvious dip to the octave in his voice. you can’t possibly imagine why he’d need spit; your hand is already glossed with a shiny layer of precum, tainting your knuckles from the viscosity. 

you swallow thickly, but don’t dare stop pleasuring your captive stranger. “w-what?” 

“are you kidding me just—“ leaning forward as best as he can while held back by the strong locks of your hair, like rope around his wrists. dopamine crackles over your brain like fireworks in an enclosed space at the scene that unfolds next, satoru pursing his lips to spit onto his own milky dick — letting the frothy mix from mouth join the mess that lubes the both of you up where connected. “just spit on it, honey. thought you wanted me to feel it.”  

licking your lips, you rub down satoru’s girth far enough to drag the glob of spit down to his tender weighty balls, that pulse at your gentle touch. the feeling makes satoru’s entire body jolt like an electric shock — a gargled groan clambering out from the depths of his panting chest as his jaw goes slack and mouth falls open. “please. please spit on it, honey. god please.. need you to wet my cock. i need it so bad, promise i’ll be fucking good.” blind but with his remaining senses in tact, gojo remains largely vulnerable to your touch, his entire world tilting on one axis when you grip his dick a little harder at his request. causing a ring of white to gather where the circle of your wrist envelopes him.

at his begging. which you swear makes you gush like a small, erotic stream — your juices sloshing about in the gusset of your panties while your sex goes unattended.

so you nod obediently, tilting your head forward and parting your swollen lips to let a thick, syrupy string of your own spit ooze onto his plump and sore balls, stroking him rapidly to spread it over his creamy tip as well. your spit is contrastingly cool in comparison to the natural lubricant smeared all over your captive’s palpitating dick — causing it to grow impossibly harder. it slickens up your hand, evidence of the silver haired man’s arousal seeping through the fabric of his crumpled shirt and coils of your restrictive hair. neither of you can bring yourselves to care in the moment — all you can think to do is relish in gojo’s size.

he’s so big, you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t wondered how satoru fit entirely inside your tight hole, stretching you out in the new future — earning yourself a fresh wave of liquid lava hot essence to your ruined panties. you dare to dream onwards, picturing the azure eyed stranger fucking you against the walls of the tower in every way the man knew possible… you have no idea what he’s capable of when untied. but the sight of him lazily thrusting into your filthied fist like it’s instinct, following it like a moth to a candle flame, is enough dream fuel to last you a lifetime. even after the deal is complete and the lights are just a distant memory. 

eventually, you decide to pull off of satoru to give your wrist a break — walking your fingers up the broad expanse of his built chest to tweak his nipples between your tingling bodies. his entire frame is wracked with a case of shivers, mouth parting in a high-pitched, whiny whimper with strings of saliva connecting its roof to his tongue. you’re so pathetically turned on, drool pooling on your tongue like a hot flash flood. 

it’s why you tighten your grip on your hair and thus his restraints, resulting in satoru staggering forward. closer, panting like a damn dog in rut. drawing your free hand up towards your lips and away from his pecs, the proximity between you becomes so little that satoru can practically smell the musky evidence of sex that you lick from your hand. “oh… you taste so good,” you lament in a dulcet tone, failing to miss the way gojo’s dangerous azure eyes dart about beneath his makeshift blindfold, probably dying to see you get a taste of him.

“d-don’t say that, you’ll make me fuckin’ cum, honey.” he gulps, involuntarily pumping his hips into the air, chasing your hand which he needs so desperately to feel good. “please don’t stop.” while begging you — satoru is the perfect picture of a ruined man, though you’re sure he would say the same about you if you hadn’t strapped your hair over his line of vision. his milky skin glistens as though it’s the very source of light for the silvery moon — illuminated by droplets of sweat from the exertion off fucking your fist like a squelching, welcoming pussy. his cheeks glow warmly with a dusty shade of pink and there’s a red ring forming around his lips from where he’s bitten them to control his wails of ecstasy.

succumbing to the obscenity of it all,  you reach forward and lick a stripe into his hellfire hot mouth. effectively sharing the saltine flavour of gojo’s own precum with him while he languidly sucks all the tang from your pink appendage. his angel white lashes flutter shut at the heaviness of your tongue against his own. the kiss is messy and mismatched, saliva seeps from the corners of your mouth and drags a sticky train down your chin. parting briefly, you spit it into the middle of your palm — happily taking satoru’s cock back into your talented hold and providing a solace to soothe its passionate ache. 

“ngh… i can feel you. f-fuck. feel you tryin’ not to grind against me, sweetheart.” somehow, gojo finds pockets of air to taunt you in — his voice an arousing mix of a raspy whine and cocky tone. “so wet, i can smell you too. so sweet. dripping all over your panties while you jerk me off. do you need that needy pussy taken care of?”

everything he’s said is true, while the man with the sweaty silver locks fought to escape the prison of your hair — desperate to see how you pleased him, you fought the growing pit in your stomach. the urge to use satoru for release. you’d never hit your peak with another person before, only your smaller-than-his fingers whenever mother left for more than a day or two. 

you admit to nothing, continuing to stroke satoru to his own high — his panted moans accompanied by the sound of skin slapping skin from your hand fisting him to the high heavens.  “please baby, i wanna help get you off. feel that wet little cunt. let me go, i’ll be so good to you if you let me touch your sweet c—“ 

“n-no! we had a deal. my rules.” you stutter, denying yourself. denying him.

“c’mon sweetheart,” a strained and petulant whine echoes throughout the tower — satoru thrusting shallowly through your closed hand in order to match his rhythm to the flick of your wrist. “please, god, baby. if you won’t let me touch you, or at least see you, then can you put that pretty pussy on my thigh? ride it real good? wanna know how you sound when you’re being pleasured…when you give into it all. please honey, give me somethin’ to work with. anythin’…”

gojo presses, like a disciple begging their god for mercy. begging you for mercy. there’s never been this much power in your reach, the ability to control a man who could easily over power you with your sex makes your mind feel egotistically weighty. your resolve crumbles just a tad, satoru’s neediness  chipping away at its foundation until your hips instinctively position themselves perfectly over the swell of his right thigh. how bad could it be? giving him an inch when you’ve taken a mile from him. mother says you’ve never been good at lying and right now, you can no longer pretend like your hips aren’t dying to slide back and forth over your capture like a desperate whore. 

like you don’t want to use him for more than just the floating lights, but to soothe the fire lit in your lower stomach — trailblazing down to your throbbing clit.

something clicks in your mind, all of your inhibitions are dashed from the tower as you briefly release satoru’s pathetically wet cock and restraints to pull up the skirts of your silk purple dress, exposing a slither of supple fat at your thighs. hurried movements deliver the same treatment to satoru’s pants. “this… this doesn’t change anything. doesn’t mean i’m letting you go just yet. it won’t affect our deal.” you warn the intruder but all sense of venom and authority is lost, evaporating into the temperate air and ending up as a piteous, meek mewl when your exposed mound makes first contact with man’s naked thigh.

if the sound of ruffling fabric hadn’t caught your hostage’s attention; the heat of your sopping sex against his moonlit skin definitely did. “fuck…that’s it. there we go, honey. put it on me,” a tinge of amusement lays evident in his gravelly voice, sets of slender digits peeking out of their hairy restraints to map out your doughy thighs and crawl their way up to the source of your essence. “i just knew you were wet for me, can feel how turned on you are.” as best as he can, gojo shifts until his knee is able to bump your clit — cooing in satisfaction when you ooze against him in response. you almost despise the way he laughs up at you condescendingly, as if he’s the one in control irregardless or the fact that you’re on top. 

maybe it’s the dopamine rush that makes your dynamic unclear — neither of you wanting to give up or take the lead. the lust fizzing in the cracks and crevices of your brain make you cute and pliant for gojo but hair woven over his body keeps him subdued and thirsty for you. 

like a gravitational pull, you buck downwards on the silver haired stranger’s toned thigh and smear the beginnings of your arousal all over him. you’ve barely been touched, oozing in viscous waves as you lose control over your body, rutting harder and faster. “watch your mouth.” you cry out, volume barely above a whisper, bottom lip trembling because it feels so good to use someone this way. 

resuming your hold on his dripping cock again as you rock your hips — you rearrange the loop of hair keeping gojo in place, covering his eyes just as your hair begins  to glow gold in time with your symphony of moans. “right, right, sorry. this doesn’t change things,” he flexes his thigh underneath your syrupy sex, strawberry tongue slipping out to wet his lips while your words fade away into a pretty little sigh. “but you wanna smack that messy clit all over my thigh, don’cha wanna make it creamy… even messier?” satoru all but jeers, the wisps of a smirk rising on the horizon of his lips now that your hips have formed their own rhythm over his leg.

they speed up their passionate dance on him, beads of glistening essence pearling between your two fat pussy lips. the slick smack of your naked cunt against his muscular thigh caused his dick to twitch in your hand — gojo thrusting up when you thrust down. he tilts his head down, catching a whiff of your heavenly scent in the air between you both. you hate that he’s right just as much as he hates not being able to see you and touch you properly — only catching glimpses of the golden light sparkling within your hair like a halo from underneath his makeshift blindfold.

you feel like you might be going insane, trapped underneath a non existent touch. like being pulled under waves of euphoria with aching lungs that don’t get enough air. near angelic screams of delight rip through the base of your throat contrast with the way you sinfully hump satoru and jerk him off to the point of his dick forming a creaminess in your hand. he bounces his thigh faster the higher you moan, rewarding you for all the hard work you put in to make this deal worth it.

“you’re no better… you’re filthy,” 

“that’s right honey, so dirty. all cause of you. messy with you, why won’t you let me see?”  the captive rambles, torn between fighting to break out of the bondage and listening to the lewd sticky noises your mound makes when gliding smoothly over his paled skin. satoru growls at how roughly your body moves above his own, face contorting lecherously, cheeks red and lips puffy — a mess from how long he’s been holding out for you. he’s a mess. it’s true. he won’t even deny it. “now fuckin’ stroke it baby, stroke me to the rhythm of your pussy bouncing up and down for me…please…” 

simpering slightly, gojo’s fingers twitch against the arm of the chair — itching to grab at your ass and slam you down against his shaky thigh. if you palm him more, grip him tighter… he can better imagine the warmth of your cunt if he got the chance to slip inside. for now, you oblige his request, pulling tighter on the bindings of your hair while you them use as leverage — throwing yourself down on satoru as the lewd pap of your drooling pussy fills the musky tower air. “that’s it honey, up ‘n down. uppp ‘n  down. keep goin’ just like that.” 

you don’t have the energy to chide him, jostling about in satoru’s lap with wet whimpers bubbling up on the seams of your lips. pleasure begins to twist nice and tightly in your tummy, scalding you from the inside out and burning any logical thought from your brain. head beginning to roll to the side, you think about fully submitting to your capture. letting go entirely — you’d be satisfied. you’d get to cum. your deal might fall through but at least you’d get to see a different kind of light. 

easily, you could just give up. it wouldn’t be hard to, not  when gojo firmly plants his feet into the tiled floor and the power from his hips has hip rutting upwards to chase your fleshlight-like fist. a beefy cry battles its way out of his broad chest, vibrating through you as his quivering thigh juts your pretty, syrupy cunt every time you lift off of him. 

it’s the perfect cycle; the ideal push and pull. you squeal in ecstasy, the hood of your clit dragged back so that your sensitive bundle of nerves is exposed to the blistering heat of satoru’s cool toned skin — taking you closer and closer to your high. streaks of your hair glow brighter than before, more intensely the louder you moan and just like they would if you were singing to help mother or while she brushed your hair. despite the strength in the light of your hair, everything else about you weakens, your grip on your hair, the pace of your hand as you palm satoru to the high heavens. you can’t think to care about any of it when you’re this close. 

if mother could see you now, you don’t think you’d mind if she was disappointed in you. 

but then you’re ripped away from the edge of cloud nine. satoru stops just short of the dam threatening to break. his thigh completely still with your juices splattering against him once your own hips come to a hault. a petulant howl echoes through the flower, frustrated tears stinging in your waterline as you feel your orgasm slip away from you cruelly. “what the fuck satoru?” 

“sorry honey….” he laughs heartily, a slight rasp coating each syllable from each word that leaves his mouth. “don’t think i like this deal very much. just ‘cause you feel good doesn’t mean you can forget about me,” gesturing to the way you gush on and stain his thigh, the captive with the silver moon hair shrugs. “you don’t get to cum or see the lights unless i get to see you.”

gojo’s been good so far, hardly challenging you this whole time and instead, goading you into a world of pleasure you would have never experienced under mother’s watchful eye. instead, he was content to have his cock touched and his name wailed a hundred different ways — he’d shown no indication of breaking your deal aside from this. so in turn, you halfheartedly let go of the loop of hair that kept his sapphire stained eyes away from the world and held his wrists down to the arms of his chair.  the restraints loosen just enough to please him and do what he needs to do. not enough to give him complete freedom. 

“fuck the deal.” you cast it all to the side, relentlessly resuming grinding all over gojo — pushing your hips back as far as his knee to smother your swollen pleasure against it.

this time, satoru is able witness the way your bambi doe eyes roll back into your emptying skull. 

with newfound motivation, the intruder begins quickly blinking away any darkness that caused a fuzz at the edge of his vision, gojo’s gaze immediately trickles down to your clenching hole, a treasure kept safe between your nectar glossed thighs; watching you ride him. “god, if i had my hands on you i’d rub that clit until you were squirting… i bet you’d like that, if i ruined that pussy. made her mine — you'd like that.” gojo’s stare returns to your eyes, flashing you his pearly whites through a condescending smile. his rushed and rambled teasing words make your creamy cunt wetter; body betraying you to violently shake above him. 

though you find strength to keep up your end of the bargain. you’d sworn to make satoru see stars, encapsulating his rigid, sloppy dick between your nimble fingers once more. you even spit on it, earning a haughty bleat from between the man’s pretty (yet chatty) mouth. his sturdy body seizes underneath your touch as you take a firmer grip on him, palming him faster and faster — seedy, hot precum webbing over your knuckles once more. that’s when you finally get to see it. how murky and dark your captive’s vibrant eyes grow, like a pond, swimming with desire for you and only you.

the rapture that had once melted away from you like butter in a pan begins to blossom within you once again — willing you to beg for a chance at a real orgasm. “yes satoru! oh, yes please!” you squeak, short of breath and not entirely sure or what you’re even begging for. the golden light emitting from strands of your hair flare up again and your pussy throbs with an aching need to hit release. “please…”

a self congratulatory thread of cobalt lust weaves its way between the darkening midnight flecks in this eyes. “now look who’s begging,” clicking his tongue, gojo cocks his head to the side, relishing in his ability to finally look at you. drink in the way your chest bounces beneath the bodice of your lace orchid gown. it’s completely fucked, darkened by a crude mix of your arousals but it’s the most beautiful thing satoru has ever seen — only serving to rial him up even more… his own orgasm coming up over the hill. it burns at his internal organs, the lining of his stomach and the only way to alleviate this almost painful yet delectable twinge to his system is through you. “bet you’re only being nice ‘cause you’re close. well guess what? me too, be a good girl, honey, and cum for me.” he says, voice rising in both pitch and breathiness through his gritted teeth. 

he’s going to cum. 

and you’re too far gone to form a response with words just yet. you stop your own ministrations, payback for edging you earlier. his own cock dribbles pitifully as you rip his high away from him like pulling a rug from beneath his feet. gojo thrashes in his hair in response, azure eyes wild and almost wet with a sheen of tears — just as desperate to cum ad you are. “wh-what the fuck was that for?” he winges as though he’s a child on punishment, slender hips rising up to chase your soiled hand and perfect grip — shaft standing needily at attention. “honey…”

“you don’t get to cum until i get to cum. so either you work with me, satoru, or we’ll go all day.” you snap, slowly working your drenched cunt over the meat of his thigh once again, your puffy folds spread either side of it — squelching with the way you salaciously wind your hips all over him. 

satoru basks in the sight, tongue poking out tauntingly between his teeth as he decides to test the waters. “fine, but at least let me help,” he suggests, watching eagerly as you throw your head back in the purest form of pleasure and grind on him harder. it’s clear as day that you need just as much of a push to cum as he does and he plans on giving it to you in just one condition. “untie me.”

“deal.” chewing on your lower lip, you let more of your hair unwind your glowing hair from all points that keep gojo strapped to the chair. enough for more of his hands to escape. then, he’s on you within a flash, hot tongue swirling its way over your clothed bosom and biting at your peaked nipples while his hands shoot to the globes of your ass so that he can drag you in harsh circles across his lap. he’s ravenous, out of control, as if he’s been waiting for this moment the entire time. 

somewhere along the way, in one final burst of passion, your mouths find each other again — swapping streams of saliva as you lose yourselves to sex crazed minds teaming with lust hormones. with your lips smacking and bodies moving against each other in a delicious bump and grind — satoru forces a large hand between you both, fumbling against your cotton panties. the sound he lets out when he finally, finally gets his hands on your puffy clit is glutoral and animalistic, the simple touch sending a shock wave of electricity across every one of your synapses. dazing you for good. 

you bear witness to the silver haired stranger losing his mind, falling from grace like an angel with blackened wings. and for you, he does the same, commiting the sight of your glowing halo-like strands of hair to memory — the coils that shine brighter the more you sing and sin for him.

he can’t stop gabbling, gargling on the spit you pour into one another — followed by howls and screams of pleasure. “oh you like that, hm? i bet that feels so good… so sweet ‘n wet under my touch.” hot fingers belonging to satoru pick up the pace between your sticky folds, flicking your clit feverishly and writing his claim against your cunt at the same time that you jam a thumb into the tricking slit of his dirty red cockhead. the pair of you jolt in one another’s arms, taking one too many steps towards the edge of cloud nine before you’re even ready for you.  

“oh sweetheart, listen to you, sound so good. wish i could have you on my fat cock instead of my thigh. next time yeah? you’re gonna cum like this, aren’t you? gonna get my thigh nice and wet?” gojo growls, voice hoarse and layering perfectly over your whistle tone whines. his digits slow and start their greedy assault on your sex, edging you further and further as you wriggle and writhe at his words. 

the world escapes you, the knot of lust that had been warping within you finally coming undone. “gods… s-satoru! please!” you shriek as though your voice is a  gust of stormy wind — reverberating off of painted cobblestone walls. your free hand (no longer trapped by loops of your own hair) darts out to grab the intruder’s wrist, thighs locking around the hand that works you through an earth shattering high. the dam finally bursts, forcing open floodgates as your pussy releases streams of clear arousal in small spurts that soaks his entire lap and clothes.

gojo has no idea where to look, the smallest glimpse of your orgasm sending him hurtling over the edge as well — he doesn’t relent, viciously circling your precious pleasure mug and drawing out your release to match his own. his thick length spasms in your tiny hand, plump balls no longer able to contain the viscous, hot seed he has saved up all for you. just for you. he cums with a shout, abdomen contracting under your never-ending supple touch, ropes of white hot endlessly shoot from his overstimulated tip almost as though he’s a faucet that’s never been turned off.

he swears he almost blacks out, a white and sweaty mop of hair collapsing onto your shoulder as you slump in gojo’s lap — exhausted. as the air in the room cools, your hair no longer glowing and your chests syncing up to heave in an even rise and fall — you bring a lazy hand to the back of satoru’s head, toying with coils of his baby hair to help you both calm down.

a moment of quiet passes before you find the energy to whisper. “will you take me to see those floating lights now?” 

your innocent question causes satoru to snort sleepily, pressing a wet chaste kiss to your sweaty cheek as the sound breaks free from his cherry-bitten lips. “a deal’s a deal, honey. as soon as you untie me… we’ll hit the road.” 

neither of you move a muscle, however, still recovering from the sinful act you had just shared. 

you use the time to reflect, a sense of excitement dawning on you. you were going to leave the tower. you were going to see the floating lights on your birthday. and most importantly, you were directly disobeying your mother to prove your capableness. and all you had to do to get your fairytale happy ending was give a handjob to a very handsome, very willing stranger. 

the end.

꒰ end. — all rights reserved © tteokdoroki 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

[louisa-gc]

how to start reading again

from someone who was a voracious reader until high school and is now getting back into it in her twenties.

start with an old favourite. even though it felt a little silly, i re-read the harry potter series one christmas and it wiped away my worry that i wasn't capable of reading anymore. they are long books, but i was still able to get completely immersed and to read just as fast as i had years and years ago.

don't be afraid of "easier" books. before high school i was reading the french existentialists, but when getting back into reading, i picked up lucinda riley and sally rooney. not my favourite authors by far, but easier to read while not being totally terrible. i needed to remind myself that only choosing classics would not make me a better or smarter person. if a book requires a slower pace of reading to be understood, it's easier to just drop it, which is exactly what i wanted to avoid at first.

go for essays and short stories. no need to explain this one: the shorter the whole, the less daunting it is. i definitely avoided all books over 350 pages at first and stuck to essay collections until i suddenly devoured donna tartt's goldfinch.

remember it's okay not to finish. i was one of those people who finished every book they started, but not anymore! if i pick up a book at the library and after a few chapters realise i'd rather not read it, i just return it. (another good reason to use your local library! no money spent on books you might end up disliking.)

analyse — or don't. some people enjoy reading more when they take notes or really stop to think about the contents. for me, at first, it was more important to build the habit of reading, and the thought of analysing what i read felt daunting. once i let go of that expectation, i realised i naturally analyse and process what i read anyway.

read when you would usually use your phone. just as i did when i was a child, i try to read when eating, in the bathroom, on public transport, right before sleeping. i even read when i walk, because that's normally a time i stare at my screen anyway. those few pages you read when you brush your teeth and wait for a friend very quickly stack up.

finish the chapter. if you have time, try to finish the part you're reading before closing the book. usually i find i actually don't want to stop reading once i get to the end of a chapter — and if i do, it feels like a good place to pick up again later.

try different languages. i was quickly approaching a reading slump towards the end of my exchange year, until i realised i had only had access to books in english and that, despite my fluency, i was tired of the language. so as soon as i got back home i started picking up books in my native tongue, which made reading feel much easier and more fun again! after some nine months, i'm starting to read in english again without it feeling like a huge task.

forget what's popular. i thought social media would be a fun way to find interesting books to read, but i quickly grew frustrated after hating every single book i picked up on some influencer's recommendation. it's certainly more time-consuming to find new books on your own, but this way i don't despise every novel i pick up.

remember it isn't about quantity. the online book community's endless posts about reading 150 books each year or 6 books in a single day easily make us feel like we're slow, bad readers, but here's the thing: it does not matter at all how many books you read or what your reading pace is. we all lead different lives, just be proud of yourself for reading at all!

stop stressing about it. we all know why reading is important, and since the pandemic reading has become an even more popular hobby than it was before (which is wonderful!). however, there's no need to force yourself to be "a reader". pick up a book every now and then and keep reading if you enjoy it, but not reading regularly doesn't make you any less of a good person. i find the pressure to become "a person who reads" or to rediscover my inner bookworm only distances me from the very act of reading.