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scullyverse · 3 years ago

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Roses & Restraint: Chapter Seven

After

Stella/Scully || multi-chapter || rating: E (explicit)

Summary:

After the Halloween party.

Notes:

Co-creator of this universe: @notdeannatroi (Lieke)

I couldn't do this without you Lieke, so thank you for everything <3

I hope you all love this chapter as much as I did writing it! The sexual tension continues, gotta love a slow burn.

CONTENT WARNING: (swearing, masturbation)

Also available to read on A03

Stella

University of London, England

October 1990

The walk back to the room was subdued.

Stella kept Dana close to her, squeezing their linked fingers and shielding her body from onlookers. She was already able to see hints of blue underneath the now rather see-through fabric of her dress. Why do you have to torment me, rain? For fucks sake, I don’t need any more fuel for how wet I feel.

Dana was unusually quiet and followed her with gentle touches to her arm. Stella was grateful for the silence as it gave her some brief, fragile minutes to evaluate the events on the fire escape. Whatever the hell had happened between them still lingered in the air; thick like suffocating smoke and it left her with an ache of desire that gnawed at her skin and a sunken feeling in her chest.

It unnerved her.

We almost kissed.

God, I wanted it. I still want her. Why is she pulling away from this? Doesn’t she feel what I feel? She has to. The way she held onto me…She wants me just as badly, I’m sure of it. Then why the fuck is she pushing me away?

Stella’s thoughts were broken the moment she shut her door, the silence in the room suddenly deafening even against the gentle thumping from the music below. Dana showed some reluctance when Stella let go of her hand, but soon Dana began walking around the room and admiring Stella’s things.

There was a flutter in her heart when Dana touched her fingertips to the copy of The Letters of Virginia Woolf that sat dog-eared on her bedside table with the faintest of smiles. Stella smiled too, recalling their conversation earlier in the week about their fateful meeting in the book store.

Small world.

“I’ll get you a towel. Help yourself to some clothes in the second drawer.”

Stella busied herself by rummaging through her wardrobe for her spare towel and couldn’t push down the strange feeling of warmth filling her chest as Dana picked out some clothes; her favourite The Clash jumper and something black and shiny that Stella assumed was her silk pyjama pants. Fuck, now they’re going to smell like her.

“Are you sure I can borrow these?” Dana asked, brushing her fingers against the bundle of clothes in her hands.

“Of course. I wonder how my favourite jumper will look on you. I’m curious to see if you can pull off the punk vibes.”

It was Stella’s attempt at breaking the ice and she sighed in relief when Dana giggled – it seemed that she’d succeeded.

“Oh, the things you don’t know about me, Miss Gibson.”

Fuck.

The way Dana looked at her, with hooded eyes, made her swallow with arousal, a thick glue-like feeling in her throat and a blossom of stickiness further south. Doesn’t she know what she does to me by looking at me like that?

Could she risk playing with fire? Stirring the hornet's nest? Or would she risk pushing Dana away?

But she was already moving towards her and handing her the towel with a cocked eyebrow.

“Is that so?” Stella smirked and let her eyes slowly wander down to Dana’s chest. A stray raindrop slid between her breasts and made Stella’s mouth water. I just want to taste her.

“W-Where do I change?” Dana’s breathing had increased, Stella could tell by the rising and falling of her chest before their eyes met.

Stella desperately wanted to comment on the blush of Dana’s cheeks but she bit her tongue. They were already teetering on that fine tightrope of the abyss and she couldn’t risk pushing her off it. Well, not yet anyway.

“You can change here. I’ll go de-vampify.” Stella grabbed her toiletry bag and left Dana alone, catching a final glimpse of unruly red hair peeking out from under the towel.

———♡———

How can frizzy hair be so fucking endearing? Snap out of it, Stella.

The cold water that splashed against her face snapped her back to her senses and she studied herself in the mirror; smudged black eyes, freckles, and dilated pupils.

This isn’t me. I don’t get feelings.

She fucked and moved on, taking the moments for what they were and never getting attached as it wasn’t something she wanted or ever felt she needed. There were risks involved with feelings. Someone could just swoop in and manipulate your control and before you know it you’ve become defenceless against yourself. She had felt that loss when her father had died and it wasn’t an experience she wanted to repeat.

With the unusual quietness of the bathroom, she contemplated taking a shower, an excuse to take a few skilled flicks with her fingers to ease her arousal, but with an angry huff, Stella pressed her face into her towel to give herself a moment of calm.

I hate this.

Stella took her time collecting her things before making her way to her room, pausing at the door with a gentle knock.

“Stella? Is that you?”

“Yeah, just me.”

Dana unlocked the door and Stella suddenly needed a moment to remember to breathe.

Standing there in her oversized jumper, the neck stretched from years of wear, and black silk shorts sitting dangerously low on her hips, Dana squeezed at her heart. I don’t think I’m ever going to look at that jumper the same.

“So, I guess you were holding out on me. You can pull off the punk look, call me impressed.” Stella knew her voice gave away her arousal and she knew she should care, but the shy smile on Dana’s lips made her think otherwise.

Did she enjoy it?

“I told you. Many surprises.” Dana’s smile turned into a smirk, laying her dress over Stella’s desk chair.

“I need to get out of these clothes.” Stella kicked her shoes under the bed and removed the collar from around her neck, eyes lingering on Dana.

There was a fire just shimmering underneath Dana’s bright blue eyes that spurred her on. It seemed to be a constant in their relationship, that push and pull of attraction that was both enticing and infuriating. Stella wanted to take a small step forward, maybe it was something that Dana needed, a direction to get pulled towards and a hand tether to once she stepped over the threshold.

Fuck it.

Stella didn’t wait for Dana to respond.

“Can you help me with this corset?”

Dana sucked in a sharp breath and seemed to freeze as Stella turned to show her her back, her gaze holding Dana’s to gauge her reaction. Stella didn’t expect anything of her, she never would, but on that fire escape, the line between them had blurred enough for Stella to be confident there was something there. Whether Dana wanted to see or admit that was a different story.

“O-Okay.” Dana whispered.

Her fingers deftly slipped each ribbon out of their place and with each tug Stella felt a pulse in her core. She was so close she could feel her breath on her neck enough to make her baby hairs stand on end. The seconds seemed to stretch on forever until the corset was free enough for Stella to cradle against her breasts and reveal the naked skin of her back, looking over her shoulder and catching Dana’s gaze with a lustful look of her own. And when she placed the corset on the table, she could have sworn she heard Dana whimper.

The electricity was back again. It lashed at Stella’s skin, much as it had back on the fire escape and with it came that same sense of uncertainty. It was thrilling.

It was clear to see she was affecting Dana. Her cheeks were flushed and the blue of her irises was nearly swallowed up by the black of her pupils, and an expression on her face that seemed to fit somewhere in between wanting to look away and never wanting to take her eyes off her. That and her knuckles had become white as she clenched onto the soft fabric of her jumper.

With a cocked eyebrow, Stella’s fingers stopped at the button of her pants, almost daring Dana to keep watching. She craved a challenge and she fucking wanted her; to the point where she could almost, helplessly, feel her self control waver.

It was the pop of her button that seemed to snap Dana into reality and with a quick turn of her body, she focused on the wall. From this angle, Stella could gauge her rapid breathing by the rise and fall of her breasts.

“Keep going.” Dana’s voice was a whisper as her fingers occupied themselves by playing with the hem of Stella’s jumper. Her eyes darted quickly to shoot her with that fiery look again, contrary to the innocence of her voice that made Stella’s stomach clench. “I promise I won’t look.”

If Stella could come by a look and words alone, she was sure that would have done her in.

The air plummeted out of her lungs with a puff to cover a moan, teeth biting hungrily into her bottom lip. But I want you to look. I want you to see me and what you do to me.

However, there was a nervousness to Dana’s demeanour brimming under the surface that was the only thing holding Stella at bay. Stella knew all too well what it felt like to be unsteady in her resolve and she didn’t want to push.

So, she kept her mouth shut and peeled her legs out of her pants with a shiver from the chill hitting her skin. Or was it something else? Catching a glimpse of Dana watching her with slightly parted lips in her mirror, she hid a smirk by gathering her pyjamas from her drawer. So much for promising not to look.

“Do you mind if I stay the night?”

Well, that was a question Stella wasn’t expecting.

Pulling her tank top down, Stella turned to see Dana giving her her undivided attention. The rain pounded against the window and there was a part of her that was glad Dana wanted to stay, even if it was only to avoid walking home in the rain.

But there was a part of her that was apprehensive. She didn’t do sleepovers. The intimacy attached to such an act made her feel uneasy. This was dangerous territory, much more so than the constant ache between her legs or the overwhelming urge to pull that jumper off Dana’s body. Feelings were dangerous.

Her hesitation must have been palpable, enough so for Dana to shake the unruly frizz of her hair.

“That was stupid. I’m sorry,” Dana apologised. “I shouldn’t have asked you. I can go when the rain dies down a little.”

No, please stay.

“I want you to stay.”

Stella searched Dana’s eyes with uncertainty. It was like Dana read her and understood, so she just nodded ever so slightly.

“Okay.”

Not another word was spoken.

Stella turned off the light, the vague glow from the lampposts outside enough to barely make out blurry shapes as they both got into bed. Her bed wasn’t the biggest so there wasn’t enough room to separate themselves; the occasional brushing of skin happened as they got comfortable and every touch only seemed to further shake Stella’s resolve.

Soon they lay facing each other, Dana’s hands cradled softly under her chin and Stella’s thumb wiping the lipstick smudge still present on her cheek. Stella wished she could kiss her but settled for the gentle kiss to her thumb when it lingered a little too long near Dana’s lips.

“Goodnight, Dana.”

Another kiss to her thumb. Another spark.

“Goodnight, Stella.”

———♡———

Goddammit.

Sleep wasn’t coming to her, she knew it wouldn’t, not with how wired she was. Stella had opted to roll onto her back when Dana had drifted off with the softest of sighs and a slow rise and fall of her shoulder. Staring at the ceiling was doing nothing to help but there was no way she could look back at the woman next to her. It was becoming too hard, too overwhelming, so she lay still and watched the occasional shadow from outside move across the walls.

Fuck.

Her control was breaking with every soft breath against her shoulder and every subtle shift of Dana’s legs under the covers. Tonight had been an accumulation of emotions that left Stella wet and unnerved, and Dana’s hold over her scared the hell out of her. How could I let it get to this point? I don’t do this. She can’t be able to do this to me.

But it feels good.

There was a sudden and unexpected rush of adrenaline when Dana rolled into her, hands still cradled under her chin but her head now making its mark on Stella’s chest. A burn. But the type of burn that made you come back for more because of that twisted desire to feel the pain again and again. Maybe that was just the oxytocin; the rush of an unfamiliar drug suddenly filling her body and causing rejection.

But it feels good.

Stella swallowed the thick feeling down her throat and took a steadying breath that gave her the courage to finally look down. She couldn’t have stopped herself from placing a kiss on the mass of copper hair even if she had wanted to. She smells like roses and the rain.

The kiss seemed to stir Dana ever so gently, seeking out the comfort of touch in her sleep by nuzzling her cheek further into Stella’s body and Stella felt lost. And burnt.

But her body was responding, relaxing into the bed and succumbing to the weight on her chest and the soft patter of warm breath on her skin that caused her nipples to harden in anticipation. She would have felt her arousal more, craved its possibilities, if she didn’t suddenly feel so tired. If her sleepy eyes hadn’t grown heavy. Like the weight on my chest.

———♡———

Dana

University of London, England

October 1990

Something felt different.

There was a pressure on her stomach and a soft something against her skin that, mixed with the slight thumping in her head, was enough to make her stir. Squinting open her eyes, Dana was met with the sight of Stella’s arm draped over her and her hand under the fabric of her jumper. So she’s the soft thing.

Stella was laying on her stomach and Dana was only able to see her sleep roughed hair peeking out from the blankets and hear soft snores against the pillows. She looked so peaceful. I could stay here. Stay here and drift back to sleep with this comforting feeling of being with Stella.

But the events from last night hit her like a freight train and suddenly there was a sense of panic bubbling up in her chest.

They had almost kissed.

We almost kissed and I watched her get undressed. Oh, God.

Dana felt weighted down to the bed, Stella’s arm not the only thing that worked in pinning her in place.

I wanted to kiss her.

Her eyes grew hot and Stella’s room became blurry, her body's natural reaction when she wanted to run, the dampness of her underwear only furthering her panic. She was aroused. She was turned on remembering the night before. Turned on lying there beside her. Turned on with Stella touching her.

I want her to touch me lower.

Well, fuck. That thought took her by surprise and terrified her.

A soft sob escaped her lips as she pressed the heels of her palms roughly into her eyes in an attempt to stop her tears. She felt ridiculous. Lying in Stella’s bed amid an oncoming panic attack all because of a rather innocent touch that Stella had no control over and the events of a stupid Halloween party. Well, that and the fact that she’s making me wet.

I need to leave.

Sucking back another sob, Dana gently removed Stella’s hand and climbed out of bed. She hadn’t been aware that she’d been holding her breath, but she let it out when the sounds of Stella’s quiet snores resumed.

Guilt, that’s what she felt. Overwhelming guilt.

The rational part of her brain knew that Stella didn’t deserve to wake up alone without explanation, not after the brief insecurity she had shown in her eyes when she’d told Dana to stay. But the emotional side of her brain, the part she loathed, screamed to her that staying here was not an option.

Slipping on her shoes and gathering her things, Dana only paused when she reached the door with her hand stilled on the doorknob. Stella did deserve more than this. She was a better friend than this. Fuck you, emotional brain.

Dana clicked a pen from Stella’s desk and looked down at the blank page of Stella’s notebook, her fingers shaking around the pen.

Pause.

What could she say? Sorry, I can’t stay because I have an overwhelming sense of panic at the thought of wanting you to kiss me and touch me? No.

Stella,

I’m sorry I had to leave but I needed to get home to study.

Thank you for last night, I'll return your clothes tomorrow.

Dana.

Way to go, Dana. Could you sound more stupid if you tried? But there was no time to reevaluate as the shuffle of bed sheets made Dana’s heart jump in her throat. She couldn’t be here when Stella woke up, that she knew for certain. Looking over her shoulder one last time, she saw Stella snuggle into her pillow. Dana bit her bottom lip and left.

———♡———

The first thing she did when she got back to her room was change. She couldn’t bear to wear Stella’s clothes anymore as the comforting scent of lavender and tea broke her heart. So she neatly folded them into a pile and stashed them in her wardrobe, needing them out of her sight until she had the energy to confront them again tomorrow.

After a quick shower; a furious blush on her cheeks when she noticed the lipstick stain still vaguely tinting her skin, she tried to study. Well, she had all the good intentions to study, but after frustratingly throwing her pencil across the room when she had to reread the same sentence for the 13th time, she flopped down onto the bed with a huff of defeat.

She couldn’t believe she’d just left a stupid note. How childish. She hadn’t even had the courage or decency to just be a good friend and say goodbye in person, just acted selfishly in the heat of the moment to try and stop her growing anxiety.

Dana stared up at the ceiling until her eyes began to sting, quivering from her stubbornness to keep them open. Why does this have to be so hard?

Resigning to the fact that studying wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, Dana shuffled up on the bed and wrapped herself in the comfort of the covers. There was an innocence underneath them that made her think that maybe she could just sleep this off, just pull the covers over her head and create a bubble where all the confusing thoughts couldn’t penetrate. But all she felt was the suffocation of hot, stale air.

When Dana pulled the covers off her head, the sheets brushed across her breasts and her nipples reacted instantly to stiff, aching peaks. She groaned in frustration. Why was her body betraying her like this? The memories of last night only seemed to make it worse, only made her wetter.

She had never felt so erotically charged as she had standing in that fire escape with the rain falling around her and Stella’s reassuring arms holding her like she was the most precious thing to exist. Never had celebrity crushes made her feel like this, nor did the on-again-off-again relationships in high school that had usually led to blowjobs in the backseats of run-down cars.

The rain and the warmth of Stella’s body as she held her and just barely brushed her lips against her when she spoke sent her hormones into overdrive. And her heart too.

Dana kicked the sheets off her body until they tangled at her calves and before she could stop herself, her fingers were teasing the waistband of her shorts. I shouldn’t do this. It was wrong to even think about doing this when the smell of lavender and – that fucking English breakfast tea – still swam around in her head and severely clouded her judgement.

But her fingers were sliding, millimetre by millimetre, further under her shorts and it created a greedy, hungry ache she couldn't ignore. She needed relief and as her fingertips slipped through wiry curls, she knew she was done for. Her body was acting on impulse, all she could do now was push down her guilt and go along for the ride. Think of something else, anything but last night, anything else but Stella.

“Fuck…” Dana breathed out in awe when she felt hot stickiness instantly coating her fingers.

She knew she had been aroused, but she hadn’t thought it was to this extent. Not to the extent that the lewd sounds of her arousal made her blush when her fingers parted to slide down either side of her clit.

Easing herself further into the security of her mattress, she let her fingers effortlessly work in a familiar rhythm, having years of experience in knowing just what she needed. The sounds coming from underneath her fingers had been startling at first, but now they only urged her on further. Her neck arched and toes dug helplessly into the sheets. This won’t take long.

Her thoughts drifted to anything she could use to speed up the process. Fantasies she liked to keep hidden in a special little box in her head. Like Michael, her friends-with-benefits fling in high school and how he looked when she’d teased him under the bleachers after football practice. Or how she’d felt as she stroked him, or how he tasted when she’d taken his cock into her mouth for the first time.

She wondered if women tasted similar and if their arousal would feel the same on her tongue. If Stella would taste like a mixture of salty and sweet if she kissed her right where her own fingers were working towards her release.

Dana’s fingers stilled.

Wait, what?

If she was in her right mind, one that wasn’t ridden with lust and reduced to its primal need to come, she might have stopped herself. She might have been scared and confused about the thoughts of Stella slipping into her mind when she felt her most vulnerable.

But her fingers were shaking against her slick skin and her throbbing clit cried out to her like a summoning beacon. Like a lighthouse urging the ships into the harbour in the midst of a hurricane. She couldn’t stop herself now, self restraint impossible with the phantom taste of Stella on her tongue. I bet she tastes so sweet. Like peaches with a hint of something tangy.

With a restrained whimper, Dana bit her lip and let her trembling fingers resume their task with a sigh of relief. The rational part of her brain chanted at her – this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong – but for the first time in her life, the voices were soft and washed out into a buzz of white noise as her body coiled tightly in anticipation for its release. Chastising voices were replaced with the drive to delve into that repressed, desired part of herself that seemed to blossom in the wake of last night.

Stella.

Damn her and the way her arms felt wrapped around me. Damn her and those lips that felt so hot and gentle.

Damn her and her smile.

Her eyes. Her smell. Her touch.

Her.

Dana arched into her pillow, her toes desperately seeking leverage in the mattress in an attempt to anchor her down, to keep contact with the earth as she felt herself edge closer to flying. Her eyes widened in surprise when her fingers seemed to become deliciously slippery between her labia, friction seemingly impossible from her arousal and the need to drift off and bask in the flood of delusional pleasure.

That release seemed to be coming quicker than Dana thought possible. Her body had always been a puzzle that needed to be solved by manipulating pieces with patience and care and even masturbating was sometimes a challenge to achieve her goal. But not today. The flood gates were opening and she was hurdling rapidly towards them, getting swept up in the riptide and unable to fight against it.

Her tipping point was the look in Stella’s eyes that had burned into her soul when she’d been caught staring into the mirror's reflection. She wanted Dana. And Dana wanted her too, with a hunger that gnawed at her stomach.

I should have let her take me right then and there on her bed.

“A-Ah! Oh God…”

I shouldn’t be taking His name in vain.

But more obscenities dribbled out of her mouth as a blinding, white heat electrified through her body and the hand that had been clawing at the sheets moved to her mouth so her teeth could bite into flesh and stifle her moans when she came.

Normally her orgasms felt like waves, like water rushing over her blissfully and tossing her to shore like a tumbled piece of glass that had become soft and pliable.

But this felt like being shot.

Hit suddenly, violently, with metal fragments piercing deep inside, Stella firmly holding the gun and repeatedly pulling the trigger.

Dana’s hips shot off the bed and her thighs shook. The constant pulling and releasing rendered her completely helpless to do anything but cry out and dig her teeth harder into her skin.

After what felt like hours, but in reality only lasted a few minutes, Dana’s hips hit the mattress with a soft thud as her thighs clenched tightly around the hand still buried between her legs. One last swipe over her clit was more than she could handle and she pulled back to rest her hand on her mound, fingers playing with the wiry curls as she struggled to catch her breath.

The room fell silent except for her harsh panting and as the clouds of desire parted like melting bubbles in her head, the reality of the situation hit her.

That too felt like being shot.

Dana’s fingers suddenly felt molten, like branding irons against her skin, so she quickly pulled them out of her shorts to wipe the evidence of her sin on the bedsheets. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at the state she’d been reduced to. What have I done?

Everything seemed to crush down on her chest at once and the tears that were already filling her eyes turned into sobs when she wiped her eyes and smelt her arousal on her fingers. Guilt and self-degradation were now like staples in her blood, replacing all her cells and eradicating any lingering pleasure with pure ice.

She needed to run. But there was nowhere to go, no way to outrun her body or mind and they both seemed intent on slowly destroying her from the inside out.

But it felt so good.

How could something so wrong feel so right? So fulfilling in a way that nothing had come close to before? Stella made her feel like a real person and their friendship tethered her in a way that was like a rope keeping a broken boat safely attached to the dock to prevent the water from washing it out to sea. The feelings of arousal were a stepping stone; Stella ignited parts of her body that had been lying dormant and untouched, perhaps even from a previous life that she was still too young and naive to comprehend.

Her body was too sated to fight but her mind remained hyper-alert, as did the critically driven side of her brain – her usual constant friend and companion now turned its back on her.

What have you done? You crossed a line. You came – hard – just thinking about her. You weren’t fantasising about just anyone, a random hot body without a face, you were thinking of Stella, your friend and a woman no less. What would your father think of you right now? Or your mother?

With the unrelenting berating in her head, Dana finally broke.

Shoulders shook as she cried, hands hovering over her face to shield her eyes and bury the shameful red of her cheeks. The room was no longer silent as her hands could do nothing to stop her wails. Everything is so fucked up. Right at this moment, she had never felt so alone, her pillars of strength crumbling under the weight of her beliefs.

You’ve sinned, Dana Scully.

#stella/scully #stella x scully #stella and scully #stella gibson #dana scully #txf #the x files #the fall #stellaxdanafic #stellaxdanaxrar

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selena-snape · 3 years ago

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¤ Chase Akira Braken y Felix Lucius Quinn

¤ Florian Narcissus Braken y Colin Leonard Frone

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poeticsandaliens · 5 years ago

Text

A Pirate’s Life for Me Ch. 11

Pairing: Stella/Scully

Rating: Mature

Summary: I may be slow, but I am still attached to this story and I fully intend to finish it. Consider this chapter your obligatory ‘beauty and the beast’ joke. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, but it did, and I’m not mad at it.

Raising a glass to @rey-thelast-jedi for reminding me that listening to pirate music doesn’t make novels write themselves.

Previous chapters:

Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

On AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405793/chapters/48109651

Stella Gibson floated toward them like an apparition in the dark. Stella, whose heart beat in the box next to her. Stella, who had already saved their asses once today. Who at that very moment was violating her oath.

Spector’s body bled onto the rocks. His fingers were still wrapped around the hilt of Scully’s rapier and his own. For a moment, Stella stood over the corpse, staring at the lifeless face frozen in a permanent expression of shock. There was something about Spector’s face that reminded her of John Jack, more so now that he had died. She remembered the look on John Jack’s face when he put three bullets into Stella, and she didn’t bleed. She remembered the horrified hush that fell over the tavern when Stella said, I am Davy Jones, and the sea itself stilled.

Scully got to her feet and brushed the dirt off her knees. She picked up the dagger—after so many years of disuse, the silver still gleamed, so clear that she could see her face in the blade. She held it out to Stella. “I believe this is yours.”

Stella looked up. With a weary quirk of her lips, she pressed the dagger into Scully’s coat. “Keep it.”

Scully reached out with her thumb and wiped a smear of soot off Stella’s chin. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “You broke your terms.”

Stella gripped her hand. “I know.”

“Captain.” Mulder stepped forward awkwardly. His brow hung. “Thanks for the bullets.”

Stella chuckled. Scully wrapped her arms around Stella’s waist and tucked her head beneath the captain’s chin. “God, Stella,” she said hoarsely, “what possessed you?”

“I saw Spector climb the cliffs. He was coming for you. Believe me when I tell you—I trusted in your strength, but you had no idea he was still alive. You had no warning, and a world where Spector killed you was unfathomable.”

“And what about you?” She brushed her fingers over the scar on Stella’s sternum, feather-light. “What about the curse? One day on land, ten years at sea. What becomes of you now?”

Stella lifted her chin, avoided Scully’s gaze. “I have ten more years,” she murmured.

“Stella…”

“Then I’ll waste away and join the Dutchman’s crew. My heart will stop beating, and it’ll lie in the chest until some merciful soul replaces it with their own. The Dutchman will have a new captain, and I’ll be another ghoul manning the ship.” She held out her hand. It was a cold blue-grey, and the muscles trembled. “Slowly but surely,” she said, and she sounded more tired than anything. Almost resigned. Then she chuckled. “I always thought I’d have a longer turn as the Sea Devil. I hadn’t quite tired of it yet.”

Scully watched her, studied her for any signs of death or dust. Nothing visible. But something in the air had soured around them, like a peach just before it spoils. Her breath hitched. Tears pricked her eye, and she understood then the magnitude of what Stella had done.

She took Stella’s hand. Once cool to the touch, now it was downright freezing. White lines snaked between Stella’s veins. It looked like glass washed up on the beach, and something uncomfortable roiled in her stomach. Stella’s body was dying, actively wasting away like the shell—the corpse—it had always been. She swallowed a lump in her throat and steeled herself before looking Stella in the eye.

“There must be a way to reset the clock. Set your ten years at sea back to today…”

Stella let out a hollow sigh, more resigned than anything. “Dana, my love, the trouble with immortality is that once you lose it, you never get it back.” She was right, of course. You could cheat Death for a hundred years, but never more than once. “I played the Reaper,” Stella said, “and now I must live with the consequences.”

“But that’s just it,” Scully insisted, her voice rising to a plea. “You didn’t play the Reaper. You’re no delusional treasure hunter, Stella. You didn’t hunt down the Flying Dutchman looking to live forever. You took your father’s place at the helm of this ship, and you don’t deserve to be punished by a curse that wasn’t meant for you.”

Stella whirled on her. “Well that’s life, isn’t it, Dana? Life isn’t fucking fair. Eternal or not.”

Scully stepped back. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What happened to ‘never shall we die?’ What happened to proud Stella baring the worst weather at the Dutchman’s helm? A month ago, Scully might have given up. Stella might have intimidated her; she might have pinched herself and said ‘curses aren’t real.’ But today, Scully wore a pistol and Stella’s father’s sword. She had lost an eye and gained a lover. She wasn’t about to stand down just because Stella was too cynical to change her fate.

That was the problem with living too long, Scully supposed. Immortality made you cynical after awhile.

Scully crossed her arms and stepped into Stella’s personal face, nose to nose. “Fine. Life isn’t fair,” she snapped. “But you can let it be unfair, of your can fucking do something about it. Aren’t you the one who said pirates made justice for themselves? Curses aren’t life, Stella. They’re justice, tailored to each man.”

She heard Mulder step behind her. “She’s right, you know,” he piped up, and she could hear the Mulder she remembered in his voice. The Mulder who knew everything there was to know about old wives tales and didn’t hesitate to tell it. This wasn’t his fight, but he understood it. “Cursed treasures ensnare the greedy; killers must live forever. The punishment fits the crime. Curses aren’t meant for the innocent.”

Stella snorted. “I’m far from innocent, Fox Mulder.”

Scully touched her shoulder. “Maybe not. But you’re not Padgett. He earned that curse. He had a lesson to learn, about the value of human life. You’re standing here today because you understand that value more than anyone.”

A dry laugh escaped Stella’s throat. “The Dutchman must have a captain, my love. Save your hope.” Her voice was shaking again, and at that moment Scully understood. If Stella allowed herself to hope for a future and was let down, it would break her. If she was going to give Stella hope, she had better follow through.

Scully wiped her eye. She reached up to wipe the other, then remembered—there were no tears on that cheek, no tear duct. Just a scrap of leather. “I want to try,” she insisted. “Where there’s a will there’s a way.”

Stella swallowed. She pressed her lips together, blinked and looked down at her hands, holding onto Scully’s. She said nothing, but she didn’t protest.

Mulder was fiddling with his coat buttons. “If we can get back to the Flying Dutchman,” he mused, “I still have the what’s left of my research. It’s not a lot—only what I managed to keep dry when Scully rescued me—but it might give me some insight into the curse.”

Stella looked at Spector’s body, the pool of blood swelling from him, and then at the wooden chest. Ye dead man’s fingers never touch the Dutchman’s heart. She picked it up and felt the wobbly tremors of her heart inside. Maybe she could already feel it slowing, turning to the wood of her ship.

Scully, too, wondered if Stella could feel the land weighing at her bones. She wondered if her steps felt slower, or her skin thinner, or her heart a little lighter in its box. She couldn’t help but examine Stella for signs of her time on land. She didn’t know what she thought would happen - perhaps webs of dying flesh peeling their way up her arms, some kind of discoloration or slow vanishing. She knew what became of the dying. But she didn’t know what would happen to the un-dead.

Without a word, Stella handed her the beating box and began to march.

She kept close to Stella’s side as they walked back to the Flying Dutchman. Clouds had covered the moon, shrouding the island in darkness and making for a difficult trek. Stella was quiet, but Scully had grown used to the silence. Many nights aboard the Dutchman, she had sat beside Stella on the deck, watching the sun drift and stars appear. Some nights Stella had made an occasional comment, nothing that required conversation. Some nights she had said nothing at all More than once Scully felt Stella’s hand resting on the small of her back, cold as ever. She wondered when it was she’d stopped shivering at Stella’s touch.

The chest sat tucked beneath Stella’s arm like a disobedient child carried home by its mother. Scully couldn’t take her eyes off it, not for more than a few seconds, not when she knew what lay inside. She wondered what heart looked like when it was still beating. She wondered what it was beating if not blood—maybe it was beating its own walls, forcing its way to freedom. Maybe it counted seconds, down to some great happening Scully would never live to see. The corners of the box dug into Stella’s ribs, her knuckles were pale from clutching it.

When they reached the beach, Stella’s pace quickened. She hurried to the water in long strides, her sword knocking against her hip. She stepped into the cool cove and stood knee-deep, still holding the chest, her shoulders rising and falling as she breathed. The night blurred her features, as if she were a ghost, or an artist’s charcoal rendering of a person, as if she had never been there at all. Scully’s eyes watered.

Scully went to her. Mulder hung back, trying not to stare. Scully was grateful to him for allowing her these brief moments, when she shared in Stella’s private pain. When she approached, Stella was trembling again. She seemed hollower, somehow, as if she’d aged in the time since Scully had met her.

“It feels wrong to stand on dry land,” Stella explained.

Scully held Stella’s hand overtop the chest. “How?”

“As if I’ve been wrung out to dry.” Stella squeezed her hand, then pushed it away. Scully might’ve been hurt, if she hadn’t spent so many weeks with Stella at sea. She thought of Tom Anderson, of Stella alone in the Ophelia ’s cabin, cutting out her heart. And now an incurable salty dryness was creeping up Stella’s skin with every hour she spent in the sand. Scully knew what Stella was thinking— is this how it’ll feel to die?

Abruptly, Stella tied back her hair, as if she just needed an excuse to move. Then she whistled, as if for a dog, and the rowboat appeared from the nearby cliffs, bobbing pleasantly over little inlet waves. The bay had stilled since the firefight, as if it could sense the conflict was over and was respectfully laying its new bodies to rest. Scully wondered how many bodies lay on the ocean floor before the men of the Claudius. She wondered if anyone would die there in the future, now that Stella’s heart was gone, if anyone would find Spector and Spender strewn across the barren landscape, or if they’d simply turn to dust and crow-food, and their skeletons grow into the rocks. The island would never be able to forget what had happened.

The Dutchman’s frame creaked and moaned as they boarded. Her sails drooped even in the wind, mourning their captain. Stella glanced about the ship, her eyes eventually settling on the wheel. “Lovely ship,” she murmured, as if she’d just now noticed.

“Come with me,” said Mulder, beckoning to the cabin. Everything he had salvaged from the Claudius—everything he’d had on him when Scully rescued him, that had survived the sea—sat on the Captain’s mahogany desk.

Scully looked to Stella expectantly. She wasn’t sure, not fully, whether Stella would follow, but she did. As they stepped into the familiar room, Stella’s breath tickled her neck. “I apologize for what I said earlier,” she murmured. “Or rather, how I said it. Life isn’t fair, but I should not have put my own despair on your shoulders.

“To tell you the truth,” Scully said under her breath, “I never believed in miracles. But I didn’t believe in the Flying Dutchman either.”

For a moment, Stella’s cool body was pressed up against hers, Stella’s breath on her cheek. Then she stepped to the side, and Scully sat down at the table. Mulder was already rifling through his belongings—a couple of loose strips of parchment and a wrinkled journal. “There must be something here.” He held up the journal, glancing between Scully and Stella. “These notes belonged to a bartender in Tortuga, by the name of James Burrow. On the twenty-third of August, every ten years, Padgett visited his bar. He hung his hat at the door and ordered pint after pint of their finest whiskey. He drank enough to kill most men, but it never got him drunk. And he told his story, in bits and pieces, to Burrow each time he saw him.

“How did you get the journal?” Stella asked.

“A thief killed Burrow and stole the journal, looking for Davy Jones’s treasure. That thief stowed all the way to Port Washington, where he was arrested for stealing from the jeweler. He ends up in jail, this book gets sent to the archives.” He smiled grimly. “I found it while cleaning.”

Scully leaned over his shoulder as he thumbed through the journal. “I believe,” he said, “that Padgett told Burrow about the terms of his curse, somewhere in here.” Half the pages were earmarked, clearly Mulder’s doing.

He flipped until midway through the book. “Here it is.” The date was August twenty-third, 1680. “It was Captain Padgett’s fourth visit,” he began to read aloud. “He drank his usual fill and kept his wits about him. He didn’t start any fights this time. Instead, he finally told me the story of how he got to be cursed. It’s a hell of a story—it had to be. You have to do something terrible to earn a goddess’s wrath. I thought he was just storytelling the first time he came - Davy Jones bein’ an old wives tail and all—but each time I saw him, I was a little closer to believing him. And today I think I do. Davy Jones isn’t some devilish ghost. He’s a real man paying for real crimes.

“He said he was at port when the goddess Athena revealed herself to him, disguised as the Lady of the settlement. He tried to kill her, take out her heart and toss it in the sea like all the other lords and ladies before. But she began to glow, so white he couldn’t make out her shape. He tried to run but she locked him in the chamber. She rebuked him for abusing the poetic arts, smearing his work with the blood of innocents. His punishment—to do to himself what he’d done to so many others. Cut out his heart and lock it in a wooden chest and cast it away, on an island far out at sea. Until another took his place, out of mercy or hunger for power, he would never die. His crew, they were bound to the ship, invisible. Granted one day ashore for every ten years at sea, he would be utterly alone. And that was how the Flying Dutchman came to be what it is—a cursed ship manning itself beneath the waves.

“Was there any way to break the curse? I asked him. He laughed in my face, a horrible sound. Death, he told me. If someone sliced open his heart with the very knife that cut it out. That knife sits on his belt. He brandished it for me. But the goddess did give him one way out. If he could trust someone enough to give them his heart, and they loved him enough to give it back, then he would be free.

“He admits to this day, he doesn’t understand what she meant. He probably never will. When he wants to die, he’ll damn some other unlucky soul to take his place.”

Mulder closed the book. Scully exhaled into the thick silence. If he could trust someone enough to give them his heart, and they loved him enough to give it back, he would be free.

Stella had stood on the Dutchman’s webbing and watched her row to shore. Stella had climbed the cliffs of the Hall of the Moerae and fatally shot Paul Spector. And when Scully had brought back that beating box, nothing good had come of it.

Mulder and Stella seemed to have reached the same conclusion. He hummed anxiously, tapping a quill on the table. Stella leaned against the wall, meeting Scully’s gaze with tired eyes. She picked absently at her fingernails. She breathed, but not really. “We’ve tried,” Scully murmured under her breath. But something nagged her.

When she was seven years old, her father had told her the story of how he’d met Maggie. I was just a young sailor, and we were the first crew borne out of Port Washington. The governor invited us to his home for a meal, with himself, the Commander, and a few of the port’s patron families. Your mother was the eldest daughter of Lord Barrett, and he wasn’t too keen at first when she met a Navy boy like me. But it was too late. I’d given her my heart from the moment I met her. My heart and all the rest of me.

Davy Jones’s heart didn’t come with ‘the rest.’ It came with no stakes, no promises, no declarations of love. It only came with power. Spender and Spector and many a treasure-hunter had fallen for Davy Jones’s heart. But Scully had fallen for the rest of Davy Jones, the woman with the hollow rib cage, whose heart had already been stolen. The only thing that tied Stella to her beating heart was the knife that could kill them both.

And Scully knew. To prove he had learned from his penance, Padgett had to trust another human being with the power to kill him. And rather than kill him, that person had to give that heart back back to its home. They couldn’t just love his heart, the power it conferred; they had to love the rest of him.

Stella had already given Scully the power to kill her. So many times, Scully had held the chest in one arm and the knife in the other. Her eyes met Stella’s in the dim lamplight. Stella’s mouth was a grim line, the lines in her face more prominent than ever. Her eyes shone through a film, like the stained glass in her hometown cathedral.

“You know I trust you,” Stella said tightly.

Mulder stood up. “Scully—” he started.

She held up her hand, and he stopped in his tracks. “I know how to break the curse.” She wanted to smile, but she was only dreading the hours to come.

“Scully, you have to give—”

“Hand me the knife, Mulder.”

His eyes widened. “Scully, what are you—”

“I’m giving Davy Jones her heart back.” She leveled Stella’s gaze with the one eye she had left. Stella slid down the wall until she was sitting against her cabinet, and Scully couldn’t help but wonder if this is how she’d looked when she cut out her heart in the first place.

“Mulder, give her the knife,” Stella said hoarsely. She reached for Scully’s hand. “Are you still chasing the horizon?” she asked under her breath, and a grotesque laugh escaped her.

Mulder handed Scully the knife. She got down on one knee in front of Stella. “I love you more than I ever loved the horizon.”

Mulder looked away but didn’t dare leave the room. Scully reached for the hem of her shirt and tore off a strip, handing it to Stella. “Bite on it,” she ordered.

Stella raised her brow. “I don’t feel pain.”

“You will soon.” She was surprised at the steadiness of her own voice, the sureness of her hands. “Mulder, bourbon.”

Mulder passed her a bottle of bourbon from the table, still facing away, out of fear or respect Scully wasn’t sure. She poured the alcohol over the blade of Padgett’s knife and wiped it dry on her shirt.

“Mulder, the heart.” He gave her the box. Stella’s heart thumped against the side.

“Are you ready?”

“Do it.” Stella’s fingers gripped the hilt of her sword. She closed her eyes and craned her neck to the sky. Ye dead man’s fingers never touch the Dutchman’s heart.

She plunged the knife into Stella’s chest.

#the x-files #dana scully #txf fanfic #stella gibson #fox mulder #stella x scully #a pirate's life for me #pirate stella gibson #pirate AU #tw: blood #the fall

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the-years-between-us · 6 years ago

Text

Lamplighter

Summary: Stella gets a call from Reed directly following the final episode of The Fall S3. (Stella Gibson/Reed Smith)

Chapter Index 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

Warning: This story contains references and descriptions of self-harm.

AN: Big thanks as always to @mobygirl21, @misshadley, and @Nsgnicole. Thank you to those of you who have stuck with this story even though it takes me forever to write. Just knowing it has readers makes it all worth it x

Chapter 8

There’s a distant click of a lock as Reed closes the door to her sister’s flat. She makes sure to notice it somewhere in the back of her mind since the rest of her is blissfully occupied with more important things. Important things like Stella’s mouth and her perfectly shaped tongue. Reed considers herself very lucky to have such an expertly gifted mouth attached to the underside of her ear, dotting constellations down the slope of her neck. It makes everything inside her twist and go weak, small breathy sounds escaping the back of her throat.

Thank god they’re alone - Reed considers herself very lucky for that too. The girls are gone, Lydia’s gone, and she can finally touch Stella without fear of a wandering student or a small set of peeping eyes. And god, she wants to touch her, she never wants to stop touching her.

One of Reed’s hands tangles in the loose waves of Stella’s hair, pulling her in for a messy kiss that’s wet and undiscerning. She just wants her close, as close as she can get and then even closer still. She never knows how to get enough of her at once. And then Stella leans back against the door, dragging Reed with her, pulling lazily at the fabric of her clothes, a cool hand slipping across the taught skin of her stomach.

Knees shuffling, Stella angles her hips and presses her thigh into the juncture of Reed’s legs. Pushing against her, it creates a breathless friction that has Reed’s jaw falling open against the sculpted curve of Stella’s cheekbone, a hot burst of air there. How is she so good at that? She makes their bodies fit together so effortlessly and it always makes Reed want to come in three seconds flat - like some sort of sixth sense.

Suddenly the memory of their last encounter in this hallway slams into Reed’s memory with a jolt between her legs. She remembers how hard Stella made her come against the wall and it’s enough to send her head spinning, enough to make her forget her own name.

But this time has to be different, she can’t forget, not even as Stella moves against her, tongue diving into the shell of her ear. She’d forgotten herself last time and felt like shit for days, guilt consuming her in the knowledge that she’d been reckless and hurt her. She can’t let that happen again, she needs to come to her senses and be careful, tune into Stella’s breathing, watch for signs of discomfort or pain, even if they’re small.

And as if on cue, Reed moves a hand to Stella’s breast that has her jerking almost violently in response.

“Fuck-“

“Stella,” Reed says pulling away as quickly as she can, trying to catch her breath while registering the expression of pain washing over her features. And Stella’s head falls back against the door, a defeated wince at her brow, eyes shut tight.

Reed watches as Stella’s chest rises in a halted sort of way, flinching halfway through each breath. And suddenly Reed feels so incredibly angry. Angry with Spector for ever touching her, for ever existing, and angry with Stella for not letting herself heal. Because this is ridiculous, she’s tired of Stella brushing it off like it’s nothing, tired of excuses. Sometimes a little pain isn’t the worst thing. But sometimes it is.

Heaving a frustrated sigh, Reed tries to contain the emotion rearing up inside her.

“What the hell was that?” she asks, and it comes out harsher than she’d meant it to but if Stella says she’s ‘fine,’ Reed might just implode.

Not opening her eyes, Stella must hear the threat in her voice because eventually she admits, “I went swimming this afternoon. Probably for too long.”

Reed’s anger takes hold of Stella’s admission and darts off, stealing into the dark corners of her chest, building a toxic pressure. It fuels her more emotional instincts: to scold her, to shake her (if she could) and tell her to stop running herself into the ground. Because it’s hard to watch something you love destroy itself. There’s a litany of disapproving words tearing through her mind, words she would surely regret if she said them so she bites her tongue to keep them from spilling out.

Then Stella warily lifts her lids, just a crack, like maybe she can sense the provoked flare blazing in front of her. And in her strained lower register, propped up against the door, she concedes, “Definitely for too long.”

And Stella’s words wash over Reed like water, steam simmering through her lungs, dousing the fiery tinder with her small confession. A simple acknowledged truth. Reed hears the vague hiss of hot coals as she looks into Stella’s evaluating stare - a bit guarded after setting her truth free, and it’s then that Reed realizes what she feared all along. The devastating fact that Stella knows exactly what she’s doing and still does it anyway. That Reed’s unleashed lecture won’t do either of them any good. Her efforts are useless in the face Stella’s, and she feels so entirely helpless in that moment she could cry.

“Stella…”

“I know,” Stella says on an exhausted whisper, followed by a more firm, “I know.” Then her hand swings forward like a wandering vine, fingers snaking around Reed’s - a plea to let it go. Holding Stella’s eyes, Reed notices how glassy they’ve gone in the surrounding darkness, tired from a day of emotional battery. Let it go, she hears them say through the buzzing electric current that runs between them. For her own sake, Reed wishes she could, she wishes she didn’t care so much because then letting go might be easier, or even possible.

Stella’s fingers gently tug at her, willing her forward and Reed’s surprised by how susceptible her body is to this soft seduction. Especially when her mind is still charred and fuming, puffs of smoke curling futilely around the base of her skull. But Stella’s eyes slip down to the bruised skin of her lips and Reed feels her heart bottom out. In these complicated moments, this faultless attraction to her feels like a curse, like hypnosis. One look and she’s in a trance, logic and free will be damned.

And when Stella sways forward, kissing her carefully with an open mouth, Reed wonders how much she’s willing to sacrifice to please her. Because she fervidly wants to please her. She wants to heal her and fuck her, make love to her and breathe her in - she just can’t decide which she wants to do first or if that’s the perfect order.

As their lips brush in a mesmerizing suggestion, her brain floods with an overwhelming and intrusive notion that tells her to keep going. But she can’t keep going. She can’t rationalize with her and tuck her quietly into bed, and she certainly can’t push her into the door and fuck sense into her. What’s worse is that she can’t turn her away, her body wouldn’t even know how.

Her options are limited and her mind races to calculate an appropriate solution.

“What’d they give you for it?” she mumbles into her lips and when Stella doesn’t answer, Reed pulls back and clarifies, “Painkillers?”

“Liquor’s fine,” Stella says and it’s not an answer even though it’s disguised as one.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she says, eyes falling back to Reed’s lips, leaning in to meet them. Not finished with the singular ounce of care that she’s determined to impose upon her, Reed lowers her chin, evading the advance.

“Have you eaten anything today?”

Stella’s lips twist. That’s a no.

Reed sighs.

“Liquor cabinet’s in there. I’ll order something - do you have a preference?”

Stella stares at her for a long moment, all of her energy contained in the pilot light wavering behind her pupils, a small blue, appraising flame.

“Whatever’s fast,” she says evenly, the implication burning steadily in her gaze. And then she disappears, lithe steps leading her in the direction of Lydia’s glass bottles, the ones with nice labels and a thin layer of dust from lack of attention. It has Reed biting her lip, questioning herself, unsure if she’s done the right thing.

Doing what she can, she’s going to attempt to nourish her - put food in her body and peace in her mind. She rolls her shoulders trying to erase the guilty feeling forming between the bones and walks toward the kitchen to check one thing off the list. Flicking a switch above the stove, artificial light quickly illuminates a small patch of kitchen, offsetting the moonlight ribboned across the floor. She digs through the cluttered miscellaneous drawer until she unearths a chinese menu (Lydia’s go-to suggestion for mediocre takeaway), and holds the crumpled paper to the lampyrid light. Quickly dialing the number, she places a generic order with a promise of 15-20 minutes until it arrives and it has her feeling unnecessarily accomplished.

When she makes her way into the dining room, Stella’s at the small bar with two healthy glasses of scotch. Sidling up next to her, Reed sees that she’s already had a sip or two - or four, and it makes her smile as much as it makes her worry because she knows how Stella drinks. But on an empty stomach… Reed bites back a cautionary warning to be careful, swallowing it with a silencing gulp.

“You know, fasting is a sacred pillar of various religious communities around the world,” she says as if reading Reed’s mind, as if she’d managed to blurt out her concern into the silence. “Apparently studies have supported finding major physiological and mental health benefits.”

“In most communities, fasting also requires abstinence from alcohol and sex. Not just food.”

Stella gives a non committal hum into her glass and drains it poignantly, a small smirk flirting at her lips as she reaches for the bottle to refill it. There’s the gentle clink of glass against glass and the tinkering sound of pouring liquid. Then her eyes land dangerously on Reed’s, “Well, that won’t do.”

Reed turns, not wanting to look at her too long lest she be tempted to do something stupid, so she takes a seat at the dining room table. A little space might be good, and since they’ve neglected to turn on any further light source, Stella remains half cloaked in shadow. Yes, that’s good. Reed might be able to exercise a bit of restraint if she can’t properly see her.

But then the whites of Stella’s eyes bounce in her direction, and unfortunately the dark surroundings do nothing to lessen their effect on her. Chill bumps call to attention across her arms and Reed’s body goes impossibly still, hyper aware that she’s being sized up as Stella gauges the fortitude of her decision making. How negotiable is dinner? She feels caught, like wandering through the wilderness, immediately arrested by the reflective stare of an assumed predator. And no, Reed doesn’t usually treat Stella like an assumed predator but maybe she should. Maybe she should take caution, move carefully around her.

View her from a distance.

She could be eaten alive.

The thought only gains traction as Stella moves towards her, painfully slow and Reed can’t tell if the pace is a byproduct of her injury or the unpredictable energy between them. Filtered through a thick canopy of embroidered drapes, light shifts over her features as she draws nearer. And faced with the the cat-like slink of her hips and the powerful prowess of her stare, Reed knows the rush of encountering a wild animal, majestic and frightening in equal measure.

But when Stella’s knees bump into hers as she sets her glass down ever so carefully on the hardwood table, she seems inexplicably human. A flesh and blood woman, slender and small, the same one gasping against the front door with a determined look in her eye. And Stella remains silent as she places one leg and then the other on either side of Reed’s chair, a hand dragging blissfully through the strands of Reed’s hair while she looks down at her.

Closing her eyes with an upturned chin, Reed wills herself to find strength or even anger. Anger had worked earlier. Anger just might stall whatever’s happening to her resolve under Stella’s ministrations. But the most Reed can work up is huffy frustration, another pointless sigh. She wants to scoff with the eroding patience of a tired mother. She wants to ask her why, why she insists on doing this.

Then there’s the soft pad of Stella’s thumb brushing her bottom lip and Reed holds her breath. She counts to 3 and tries to will herself into immunity, bracing herself to look at her. Nothing could prepare her for sight of it though: Stella lowering herself into the cradle of her lap, a hitch to her body as she settles there, the definitive straightening of her spine and snag in her lungs.

Wide-eyed, Reed forces herself to breathe and suddenly she doesn’t know what she wants.

Stella looks at her thoughtfully, tracing Reed’s lips with the delicate weight of her thumb, wandering curiously up to her Cupid’s bow and then pausing at her teeth, the small digit poised at the entrance of her mouth. Under the intensity of her stare, Reed’s lips fall open, just barely. And Stella checks in with her, meeting her eyes as she presses her well-manicured nail forward, slipping it easily into the wet heat of her mouth, teeth grazing a knuckle. Instinctually, Reed’s tongue wraps around it, sucking as she watches Stella’s jaw open to reveal a sliver of teeth, her eyes dilating in real time. It’s a look of desire so distilled that Reed doesn’t want to let her go. Resisting the urge to keep her there, Reed lets the thumb escape and Stella swipes its wet tip over the curved plane of Reed’s bottom lip with profound concentration.

Leaning forward, Stella replaces the print of her finger with the sear of her tongue, branding her with the same hovering caress of her mouth. And she focuses on the perimeter of Reed’s lips, outlining their shape with agonizing attention. It’s too much and not enough, and Reed can’t help but grip Stella’s thighs with every ounce of suspense clawing through her body, knowing that she won’t hurt her there but wondering if it will bruise all the same. Reed feels Stella let out an involuntary breath of relief, warm wet air expelled against her parted lips. Then there’s the almost immediate roll of Stella’s hips, the smallest turn followed by an aching snare. And Reed bites down, sinking her teeth into a warning. Nails digging into the strong muscles of Stella’s thighs, it provokes a sound, irresistibly crystalline and so unlike the sounds Reed typically hears from her.

Then Stella’s hand is on Reed’s, moving it from her thigh to her core in a silent but earth-shattering directive. Because there are few things more arousing than concise direction from Stella Gibson, and ‘conflicted’ doesn’t even begin to describe the extremes battling for Reed’s ethical integrity right now. With Stella painfully purring in the crux of her lap, the alignment of her moral compass swivels all over the fucking place; due north almost entirely lost to the perfect weight of her body. And as Stella’s hand slides down across Reed’s throat, stopping possessively over her collarbone, Stella looks down at her with heavy eyes and Reed knows without a doubt that she is positively fucked.

But while Reed’s mind spins and stutters, her thumb presses against the seam of Stella’s trousers eliciting the reward of that sound again. Cursing quietly into Stella’s mouth, she wonders if there will ever be a moment in her future where she’s not dreaming of this sound, thinking of ways to make it happen, obsessing over it. And she can’t resist her, can’t resist taking another pass at her through the material of her pants. Then Reed watches Stella’s eyes drift shut - first in ecstacy and then in spasm.

Reluctantly, Reed’s hand drifts away, roughly dragging down the side of her ass.

And Stella’s eyes drill into her.

The door bells rings.

“Saved by the bell,” Stella says quietly.

She removes herself from Reed’s lap with careful precision and Reed takes a moment to catch her breath before standing to answer the door. And when she returns, she finds Stella sitting innocently at the table looking into the depths of her glass like she might find something more than liquor at the bottom.

“Sustenance,” Reed says placing the bag on the table and Stella doesn’t budge. “If we can even call it that…” and at least Stella grants her the gift of a small smile.

Reed doesn’t bother with plates or silverware like she might if this were a proper meal, a dinner by definition rather than disguise. Because they both know the food is little more than an excuse, a means to an end. And Stella obediently eats it as such.

They make their way through sticky sauce and noodles in silence, and there’s easily enough food to feed four people. When Reed’s satisfied that they’ve done the best their best, she makes minimal effort to tidy the scattered lids and plastic wrappers. Bright eyed, Stella pushes her remaining food towards Reed, who stacks unused napkins and packets into vague piles of ‘keep’ and ‘toss.’ Then she makes it all disappear.

When she returns, Stella’s finished her drink, tipping the glass recklessly at her lips, making a show of catching the last remaining drop along its crystal rim.

“Need another?”

“No,” Stella says with a heavily rounded ‘o’ that’s very indicative of what she does need, and Reed finds it alluring and irritating in equal measure.

“Upstairs.”

Stella’s teeth catch her lip like she’s gotten away with something and Reed thinks that she could absolutely kill her. She’s tempted to make a follow up comment, something petty about sleeping and bed rest but then Stella’s hand slips into hers with a little squeeze. It feels like a thank you and an apology all rolled into one. Once again, Reed can’t bring herself to be upset, not when Stella’s leading her through the darkened house and up the stairs, all soft movements and careful steps.

And when they reach Reed’s bedroom, Stella waits patiently as Reed closes the door. Behind her facade of submission, this absolute calm that she projects standing there, hands folded behind her back, Reed still senses an anxious energy pulsing at their fingertips. Stella’s restlessness and her own hesitation, all masked beneath the convenient veil of a dark room.

The sound of the floorboards creak as Reed approaches her and Stella doesn’t move, not even as Reed’s head tilts curiously to the side, looking her over. Nor does she move when Reed leans in, kissing her chastely on the lips, whispering against them, “Help me take off your shirt.”

Gingerly, Reed rolls up the hem of Stella’s top, curling the fabric under her fingers and carefully ghosting it over the ladder of her ribs, stretching it treacherously over the swell of her breasts. Obediently raising her arms, Stella allows Reed to slide it over the obstacle of her shoulders, and when her hair falls messily around her face, Reed distractedly drops the garment in an unceremonial mess on the floor. But Stella doesn’t blink, not even as Reed steps closer, fingers at the clasp of her trousers, open mouth glistening a few millimeters from her own. And Reed holds her eyes as she tugs Stella’s pants down, thumbs hooked into the waistband, rounding the curve of her ass. She follows them to the floor, freeing them from Stella’s ankles and pushing the perfectly tailored cloth towards her shirt.

Then Stella’s fingers twitch. Unable to stay still for so long, she reaches for Reed’s shirt, fists bunching the fabric at her sides until Reed stops her with the halt of a hand. Stella holds in a breath, biting her tongue as Reed removes her grip with a small tsk of admonishment. And Reed can see the fire in her gaze, the internal debate as her fingers flex and contract. But then Reed’s fulfilling her unspoken request, tearing her sweater up over her head, and she kicks off her jeans with far less care than she’d managed with Stella’s clothes. Shoving them aside, she steps back into Stella’s space, arms circling her torso with a kiss to her shoulder. And she’s careful not to touch her bruised ribs as she unhooks the back of her bra, sliding it cautiously from her shoulders.

Other kisses follow, gifts of tender pressure sprinkled over Stella’s neck, the underside of her jaw, and then her collarbone. Stella hums a small sound as Reed’s mouth travels south, a wet kiss at her belly button dotted by the snap of underwear, teeth and elastic and lace. Stella’s hand pushes through Reed’s hair on a sigh, brushing it back from her face as she looks down at her. Occupied with her task of peeling Stella’s underwear down her legs, Reed concentrates on appreciating the sharp jut of her hips and the impossibly flat plane of her stomach. Looking up at her then, Reed makes sure to catch her eyes as she licks her already wet clit, just once, delivering a chaste kiss to the smooth skin of her apex afterwards.

“Lay down on the bed,” she says and it’s barely a whisper.

Stella’s eyes go as dark as the night sky, swirling nebulas shining in the far off distance as stray comets of rebellious emotion trail across her deep blue irises, the weight of Reed’s command churning there. It vibrates in the astute set of her jaw and the tilt of her chin, this desire to retaliate as strong as the desire to comply. And Reed waits her out, knowing that if she wants this, they’ll both arrive at the same conclusion.

It almost takes a full minute before Stella moves. But when she does, she does it with care, settling herself onto the mattress with diligent attention. Slightly this way and slightly that, her body molds into the comforter and Reed thinks that the picture she makes could be showcased in any exhibit, any museum. The explicit definition of fine art.

In a brief and terrifying moment, Reed realizes how much she truly cares for her. How much she worries about her and how much she craves her happiness. The things she might do to make her smile.

But no, now’s not the time for that, she reasons. Crawling up to meet Stella on the cushy duvet, she suspends herself weightlessly over Stella’s patiently waiting body. “Relax,” Reed whispers against her lips and then seriously, “don’t move.”

“Ridiculous,” Stella huffs when Reed’s mouth glides down her body. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Reed mumbles into her skin, biting harder than she meant to but then smiling when she hears Stella gasp in pleasure. “And it won’t be ridiculous when you come. So, shut up.”

Before Stella can argue any further, Reed takes a nipple into her mouth and sucks it against the flats of her teeth until the only thing Stella has to say is her name. It makes Reed grin, a gloating flash of expression against the soft skin of her breast as she releases her sensitized nipple and moves onto the other one. Then Stella’s squirming below her but she’s trying - trying to obey Reed’s parameters as best she can. And Reed knows that the sooner she can make her come, the better, the less damage she might inflict on herself.

So she plants a kiss to her sternum and moves on, tongue trailing down Stella’s body until she’s at the juncture of her legs. And she parts them gently, settling herself between the strong columns of her thighs.

“Be still.”

“Or what?”

“You really want to find out?” Reed asks, holding Stella’s eyes. And her jaw jumps as Reed wets her lips, the glistening outline of her mouth dropping closer to her cunt. But when there’s no response, Reed hovers there with a lift of her eyebrow and waits.

“No,” Stella breathes and it’s barely audible.

“Good,” Reed says, immediately dragging her tongue from Stella’s entrance to her clit, circling there and getting straight to the point. And she looks up at her, watching the way Stella’s eyes fall closed and the way her breasts rise on inhale, the arresting tension of her muscles as they strain beneath her fingers. Instantaneously Reed feels herself get wet. Humming into the slippery folds of Stella’s sex, she feels her own hips roll uselessly into the mattress and it’s always so surprising, so strangely surprising. She never expects the throbbing pang of arousal that comes with getting Stella off - she’d always thought it was the sort of thing reserved for exaggerated anecdotes, the inflated tales of other people’s sex lives, the sort of thing people say but don’t mean. But with Stella it always happens, every single time, in the best, most frustrating way imaginable.

And before this all started, she hadn’t imagined a lot of things. She hadn’t imagined enjoying the way a woman might taste, she’d never really given it much thought... But then she’d managed to think about the way Stella might taste to varying levels of insanity. Not too long ago, she’s convinced that there was a point in which the thought never fully left her mind. And of course she’s since discovered that she loves the way Stella tastes, looks forward to it even. They’ve only had sex a handful of times but it’s still shocking to enjoy the sensation of going down on her, to welcome the silky feel of her against her tongue.

“Fuck.”

These noises she makes, the muffled curses and punctuated gasps of encouragement, they almost feel like a bonus in comparison. And Reed feels her core clench as she laps at Stella, rhythmically sucking her clit, feeling herself wind up as she watches Stella do the same.

Perhaps this is the best part, watching her unfold from this vantage point. The concentrated crease at her brow paired with the soft bite of her lip, or the way her fingers pinch and play with her nipples. Reed thinks she’s never seen anything more beautifully erotic as the way her hair splays across the pillow, her head sinking deeper into its feathered support while her mouth soundlessly dips open in rapture. But then there are her eyes, those two acute extraordinary eyes suddenly zeroing in on Reed’s for a moment of uninterrupted connection. It fills Reed up, flooding her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and she feels sexy. She feels alive and more powerful than she can ever remember feeling because she’s making this happen. This charged thing between them, it’s her’s. And she wants it to be her’s for as long as humanly possible, she wants this feeling to last forever.

But she knows that forever isn’t in the cards tonight. She’s got to make quick work of this. Even these small movements, the microrotation of her hips and the pace of her breathing - it’s more than Stella should be doing - and it might feel good now but she’ll undoubtedly pay the price later. So Reed shifts her weight and uses her free hand to insert a finger into the wet heat of Stella’s entrance. And she doesn’t move her hand, just barely pushes up against Stella’s wall, and the sensation has Stella’s eyes falling shut and her hips jutting forward messily against Reed’s mouth.

Her own thighs press together as she tries to remain focused, knowing that she’s on the right track. And it’s an awkward angle for her arm but she keeps it there, inserting a second finger and reaping the reward of a neatly pronounced “Fuck. Yes.” God, she wants to touch herself, she wants Stella to recover and she wants to be able to fuck her without hurting her.

Then there’s a hand in her hair and that’s a good sign too because that always seems to happen right before Stella comes. And sure enough, she’s keening that she’s close and moving against her in earnest, a breathy plea sounding from her parted lips. Before Reed knows it, Stella’s legs involuntarily close in on the sides of her head, and she loses whatever sense she had of what she was doing. She just keeps going, knowing that she’s done it because Stella’s coming and she’s tempted to mumble her own “fuck yes” into the wetness of her pussy.

And then Stella’s still, appropriately limp and practically collapsed in on herself.

Reed extricates her limbs as gently as possible, sitting back on her knees and wiping her mouth. She can smell Stella on her skin and she loves this part, the part where she smells her everywhere. In the air, on the sheets, on her hands. And she’s so turned on, so high on this feeling that she thinks she might have to go to the bathroom and finish herself off.

“Thank you,” Stella whispers blissfully and Reed smiles, bending down to kiss the softness at her hip. She breathes her in and feels confident, like there’s nothing she can’t do. As long as she can do that…

God, she wants to come.

It’ll just take a minute.

She pulls away to get up, thinking up some excuse so that she can disappear and come back. But as she does so, something holds her gaze. No, not something. Stella. Stella’s body catches her eye. And it lingers, eyes focusing and refocusing, wandering over the mauled terrain laid out inconspicuously below the place she’d just been. And Reed tells herself not to stare, she tries not to in moment likes these - moments of ‘before’ and ‘after.’ But it’s just so jarring that she can’t help it. Something doesn’t compute. Her brain rejects what it sees. Because the rest of Stella is so visually flawless, so effortlessly perfect, that everything about this feels starkly out of place.

There’s the urge to touch her, to run her fingers over it like braille, uncover the stories Stella’s written there. Maybe they hold the answers she’s been seeking. Or maybe she just wants to prove to herself that they’re real, tactile evidence that they exist beyond the ghost she’s made them in her mind. More than anything, Reed just wants to know her, all of her, including these secret parts that only become visible in the dark.

And she thinks back to their day together, wind in their hair and sun in the eyes, taking in the beauty of the world around them. The sudden insight into Stella’s past, years revealed in just a moment. An unexpectedly small and simple moment sitting on an overlook. Reed cherishes those moments, the brief and weighty opportunities to discover unbridled closeness with her.

Maybe one day they’ll find that closeness here. Laying in a bed, unexpectedly revealed in a moment of ‘after.’

Maybe.

Then she realizes that she’s doing exactly what she didn’t want to be doing.

She’s staring.

Shit.

Her eyes fly back up to Stella’s face, hoping to find her mildly euphoric or possibly even close to sleep. But instead, she’s met with an unreadable look, pointed and vaguely terrifying in its intensity.

Caught.

Fuck.

The last time Reed unwittingly gaped at Stella’s scars, she’d gone cold to the touch, shut down completely and run off to the bathroom. And adrenaline spikes through her veins as she tries to calculate what might happen next. If there’s any way to save this or if Stella will achingly stand to leave, pitifully attempting to gather her belongings. But the silence just drags on, pealing in her ears as she tries to think of something to say.

And Stella just stares. Quietly. Calmly.

And eventually she speaks.

“Come here.”

“What?” Reed asks, not knowing what she means.

“Come here,” Stella repeats.

Unsure, Reed wonders if she’ll get off the hook that easily, if she’ll climb up there and drift off to sleep next to Stella, leaving her stolen moment in the bathroom long behind. But as she slinks up to the head of the bed, an arm tugs her forward.

“Keep going.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Keep going.”

“Stella,” Reed says warily.

“Yes?”

“Come on…”

“I won’t move. That’s the big problem isn’t it. I’ll be still.”

“We should sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep, I want you to come here.”

“I just-”

“Tanya,” she says dangerously, “Move.”

But Reed still hesitates, her mind stalled out, torn between the niggling concerns in her head and the weight of Stella’s command. She opens her mouth to speak, no idea what to say, when Stella cuts her off with a look, incinerating on impact.

“Don’t make me beg.”

Low and gravelly, her voice is authoritative in a way that makes Reed’s core pulse, the need to come resurfacing as quickly as it vanished. And even as she tells herself not to do this, she feels herself ache and she wants to scream. Or slap herself. Something. Backbone - where’s her backbone? She needs to get ahold of herself, tell Stella to go the fuck to sleep and start taking her recovery seriously. She needs to tell her…

She doesn’t know what she needs to tell her.

Because there’s that look in her eyes and that tone in her voice. It leaves no room for argument and Reed’s not proud to discover the visceral, almost primitive attraction she feels toward it.

And when she moves, she feels drunk and dissociative, not like herself.

“Relax.”

She blinks and looks down. Strands of blonde hair curling demurely around her knees as she straddles Stella’s shoulders. Stella’s eyes have softened and look a little shiny as she peers up at her. And Reed sees lust churning there amidst stubborn notes of fatigue, and she doesn’t know what to do with that...

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t hurt me, scoot up.”

“But-“

“Don’t suffocate me and I’ll be fine,” she huffs, coaxing Reed’s hips forward with her hands. And Reed almost finds it funny until she hears Stella’s voice go soft like velvet when she requests, “Come here.”

And Reed does.

She moves up so that she’s just inches above Stella’s face, her hands moving to the bed frame for support. Sliding up her body, Stella’s hands beckon her down. “Drop your hips,” she says in that husky tone, less commanding and more of a suggestion than anything else.

And Reed knows that if she got up right now, if she really let her concerns take over, she knows that Stella might be pissy but that she wouldn’t push her. Stella craves control, needs it even, in certain areas of her life to function day to day - Reed knows this, and she’s witnessed it enough times to understand it. Just as she knows that this is one of those times, an exercise in resurgence because she’s relinquished so much.

So much for her, anyway.

Besides, Reed won’t deny that her body’s practically demanding this. She can feel her pelvic floor tighten around nothing, releasing in frustration. And it’s as petulant as Stella, pleading with her, begging.

Not knowing when it actually happens, she makes the decision to commit, lowering herself in reach of Stella’s impatient mouth. And it’s only with the first lick of her tongue that Reed realizes how soaked she actually is. Stella breathes and the air feels cool against her folds, completely drenched in her own desire.

“Mm,” she hears Stella hum and then she feels it against her clit, slick and glorious, her head lolling forward. “Knew you’d be happy to see me.”

“I swear to God,” she mutters down at her, trying to think of something to say, anything to erase the smugness from her voice. But nothing follows because everything goes wondrously hazy, melting all around her. Even her annoyance evaporates in seconds because nothing can compete with this feeling, not even that.

God, she feels divine.

She thinks she says it, she doesn’t know what she says, but she feels Stella’s hands on her, pulling her closer. And somewhere in the amalgamous daze of her mind, she knows that she’s not supposed to be making this hard for her. Fast. She’s supposed to make this quick.

So she tries her very best to relax, to fully relax and sink down into this position, giving herself over to Stella completely. And it works at first because she feels so good, so fucking good that it’s almost too good. Reed clutches at the bedframe and then the wall, feeling like she might shatter up here, afraid that pieces of her will scatter everywhere, bouncing carelessly into space with no hopes of ever retrieving them. If only she could anchor herself to something, anything. Because her only anchor is Stella’s jaw working magic against her pussy and it’s not enough, not enough to keep her steady as she soars higher and higher away from her body.

But her hips still roll, unable to fully control them as they make the tiniest movements against the welcoming warmth of Stella’s mouth. And she tells herself to let go, to let this happen, even as her thighs tremble and her knuckles lock.

Then Stella shifts a bit beneath her and Reed thinks she’ll have a break, a moment to collect herself as Stella adjusts her shoulder. But Stella’s not just adjusting her weight, she’s bringing her hand up to insert a finger deep inside her and Reed almost feels herself split in two. And she moves it slowly, adding another as her apt tongue circles Reed’s clit with that same orgasm inducing brilliance.

It’s not long before Reed’s body is calling her to ride those fingers, purling pants wafting toward the ceiling as she grinds into Stella’s face. And Stella’s other arm wraps around Reed’s leg, holding her there, pressed against her mouth as she begins to come.

Radiant spots of color erupt behind her eyelids as her fingertips press into the wall with the force of her weight and her climax bearing down on them. And she tries not to press into Stella, she tries to lift away from her, to keep herself from completely smothering her. But Stella’s arm is like a vice and it keeps her there as she comes and comes, absorbing the aftershocks of her ogasm on her tongue until Reed can’t take it anymore.

“Okay, okay,” she says, flimsily falling to the side and crumbling into a messy jumble of limbs on the sheets. She tries to focus on breathing but soon she hears the telltale tinker of Stella’s laughter and feels the comforter covering her body, placed securely around her shoulders.

“You’re not supposed to move,” she mumbles.

She tries to open her eyes but everything feels heavy.

“I know,” she whispers, “I’m not.”

Reed feels Stella’s fingers tangle with hers, and sleeps.

Coffee drips lumberingly from the pot in Reed’s kitchen, its earthy aroma blanketing Stella in the warm haven of early morning as the sun begins to rise. The room reflects the new dawn, every wall alight with the prismatic beauty of daybreak.

Reed cracks eggs into a clear bowl, piling empty shells off to the side and running her hands under hot water. She’s making omelettes and even though Stella’s not hungry, she likes this ritual - the one where Reed cooks for her. It’s a strange thing to become attached to but Stella finds an unfamiliar and indescribable peace in the gesture, something calming about the simplicity of their lives when it happens. And it’s been a long time since she’s let this happen with someone, breakfast and crying and comfort, this level of access to her own monotony.

Mundane things always become the most important.

She wraps her fingers around a healthy looking grapefruit and slices, sectioning the fruit into pieces. It smells citric and sweet as she cuts, rosy pink juice spilling onto her fingers. And Reed says something but she’s not sure what it is so she laughs anyway. It doesn’t really matter, nothing feels like it matters because she’s just so happy. So unbelievably happy.

But then she realizes, hearing it echo, that she knows what Reed had said.

She wants a piece of grapefruit.

Picking up a ripe ruby hunk, she passes it to Reed who’s busy whisking together a thick yellowy concoction with the concentration her profession demands. She looks up from it and smiles, a brilliant sort of smile that makes Stella feel warm all over, protected in this cocoon of their togetherness. And she takes the fruit and puts it to Reed’s mouth, watching as her eyes flit from the offering back to Stella’s eyes.

Dauntlessly, she bites it, a sugary stream of juice sliding over her lip and down her chin. Stella captures it with her thumb. And then with her tongue. She feels her entire body flush and then vaguely wonders if they’ll have time for this. They have to work today don’t they? It’s a relatively far off thought when Reed is all softness and warmth against her, wet mouths greeting each other, clinging to each other in a promise of eternity.

And she wants her so bad, she thinks she’ll never escape it.

Then they’re at the table, clean plates and lazy smiles. Even the air feels good as she sit there, looking at the radiant way sunlight shines across Reed’s hair. She thinks that she could look at it for hours, studying every nuance that exists within her, every nuance that exists around her. She never wants to move.

But she moves anyway, collecting their plates and placing them in the sink. She rinses everything with hot water. It’s the least she can do after Reed’s gone through the trouble of cooking. She doesn’t mind at all because there’s -

Movement.

Something catches her eye over by the table where Reed’s sitting. And when she looks, everything goes cold, instantly cold. Because it’s impossible.

Impossible.

Her father.

He looks at Reed as he pulls a chair out, sitting next to her, saying nothing. He says nothing. He sits there staring, still and staring. And Reed’s eyes go wide as she looks at him. Wider as she looks at Stella because she knows something is wrong. She knows that her father is dead. Has been dead for 27 years. But he doesn’t look any older than the day Stella last saw him, smiling handsomely as he walked out the door.

Now there’s no smile, that small smile she’d been so accustomed to as a child is nowhere to be found. His expressionless face turns towards her, empty eyes boring into her own, almost black in their vacancy. And it’s unnatural, wrong somehow. So incredibly disturbing.

Because he’s dead.

Still dead.

And maybe he doesn’t know it.

Stella’s paralyzed, unable to think or breathe. Her heart pounds in her ears, blood beating loudly against her eardrums.

She’s so afraid, she can’t remember being more afraid in her entire life because she can’t watch him die.

He blinks. Lifelessly. An animated corpse.

She can’t watch him.

She’s running.

Breathing heavily.

Sweating.

She’s tired but she has to keep going. She doesn’t know why. All she knows is that there’s danger, a threat of some kind, and it’s coming for her. Coming for them.

But Gwen’s falling behind.

And she’s loud, twigs snapping and leaves crunching beneath her feet as they run. She needs to be fucking quiet or they’re going to hear her. They’re going to hear both of them. And that can’t happen - they have to keep going. They need to go faster, pick up the pace, because it’s getting closer. Stella can feel it closing in on them, dread filling her entire body as it nears.

“Stella!” Gwen cries softly, terror coloring the whimper in her voice.

“Shh!”

Stella grabs her hand, trying to pull her along so that they can run together but it doesn’t help. Gwen just stumbles, her legs fumblingly clumsily until she trips completely, falling hard to the ground.

Goddammit. No, no, no.

Stopping her momentum, Stella skids across the dirt, running back for her. And she’s pulling at her, pulling at her arms and her clothes, trying to get her on her feet, trying to make her stand. But she just won’t, she crumbles into a ball and sobs.

“Stella, I’m so scared.”

“Me too. But you have to get up.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes-”

“No-”

“Yes, you can!”

And Stella uses every bit of strength and adrenaline coursing through her body to pull Gwen a few feet away, underbrush clawing at them as she drags her behind a tree. Her body is leaden with fear, caving in on itself, and Stella has to practically carry her. Pressing her back into the bark, she settles Gwen heavily into her lap as she prays for a miracle.

“Be quiet.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop.”

Gwen trembles and Stella holds her, she holds her tight, probably too tight as she pushes against the tree, hoping that it will envelop them in some kind of protection.

It’s odd holding her. As terrified as she is, she can’t help but notice how odd it feels to hold her, to have her this close, breathing into her hair. Because it’s been so long, hasn’t it? Years and years. Decades even?

And she doesn’t hold Gwen anymore. And she’s dreamt of it too many times. So this must be a dream. It has to be.

She feels herself shaking.

Wake up. Wake up.

She begs herself to open her fucking eyes.

White.

She sees white everywhere, it’s so damn bright.

Blinking it out of her eyes, she looks around and she’s in her office.

Thank god.

Thank. God.

She’s in her office, just her tiny mess of an office. She’s alone and Gwen’s not here. She’s just somebody that Stella used to know, and she’s not holding her, there’s no one here. She can breathe. She takes advantage it with a quivering breath, an attempt to leave the panic behind.

It was nothing but a dream. Nothing but a nightmare. Hallucination. A panic attack.

She’s fine. She’s safe.

Fucking hell.

Standing on wobbly legs, she finds herself in the bathroom, splashing water over her face. God, she’s still so hot, sweating. She takes a paper towel and wets it under the sink, putting it against her neck, and it doesn’t do much.

And then there’s fear, stronger than ever. Because someone’s in this fucking bathroom and she knows it. She sees them in the mirror behind her, a set of feet peeking out under one of the stalls.

Maybe she’s being paranoid, anxious. Maybe she’s being crazy.

She wants to leave, she should get out of here, but her body won’t move.

The door swings open and someone emerges from the stall. She spins around.

Greg.

Of course it’s Greg. He’s probably found her card, the small number scratched into it, she shouldn’t have left her initial. Or maybe he’s found out that she had coffee with Gwen, however short-lived and unproductive it was. And now he’s come to confront her in her own fucking office because he’s that kind of cocky. He thinks he can get away with it. But she’s faced him before and she’s stronger now. She’s been through training and learned to fight, and he’s a idiot piece of shit if he thinks that no one will hear her in this building.

But as he draws nearer, she can’t scream.

She can’t scream and she’s on the ground and it’s not Greg at all.

No, it’s Spector, his black eyes looming over her, hateful and mere inches from hers. His putrid breath against her face, his hand covering her mouth, gripping her throat, squeezing.

And again, she can’t breathe, abject terror reclaiming her body as everything goes black.

She struggles and struggles, but she just can’t move. She can’t scream. She can’t breathe.

Without a doubt, she realizes her fate so planely. The most nauseating feeling.

This is how she dies.

Shit-

Reed startles awake in pain, something sharp digging into her side.

Turning over, she realizes that it’s Stella’s elbow lodged there, pushing harder even as Reed attempts to move it. And her movements are tight and jerky. Almost instantly, Reed recognizes that she must be having a nightmare, eyes fluttering madly below her eyelids, moisture collecting at her brow. Reed puts a hand to her cheek, trying to wake her gently, but then she realizes how hot her skins feels and sits up worriedly.

“Stella,” she says, hoping she’ll hear her name and come out of it.

A short gasp of air rattles into the night as Stella twitches but doesn’t wake. So Reed moves her hand, feeling how warm Stella is everywhere, and she must be caught in a fever dream. With a firm hold, Reed grabs her shoulder and shakes her a bit, “Stella, wake up.”

But Stella mumbles wordlessly, deeply lost to some subconscious battle while her breathing goes shallow and erratic. For a fleeting moment, Reed feels illogically frightened, worried even though she understands that there’s probably nothing seriously wrong. Stella’s dreaming, just dreaming, but she needs to wake up. Tossing aside her guilt, she shakes her harder and relief finally surges through her chest when Stella jolts awake.

Cloudy eyes look up at her, confused and blinking wildly.

“Stella, you’re burning up,” she says, bringing the gentle caress of her hand back to her face, trying to ground her back in reality.

“Fuck,” she murmurs, eyelids falling closed as short breaths continue to burst from her lungs. And then she lurches forward so suddenly that Reed barely has time to register the alarmed look breaking across her face. But it’s instantaneous and she’d recognize it anywhere.

Quickly rolling over, Reed moves to grab the waste bin at her bedside and puts it directly under Stella’s mouth before she vomits into the plastic lining. It happens once, and then a few seconds pass and it happens again. Reed tries to brush the hair from her face, tucking it behind her ears.

“Sorry,” Stella says in a dejected whisper, face hovering over the bin.

“You’re fine,” Reed says nervously. “Sit back with this. I’ll get you some water.”

And she leaves Stella clutching the bin to go downstairs and fill up a tall glass at the tap. On her way back, she hurriedly grabs a cold washcloth and some ibuprofen, returning to find Stella slumped against her pillow, the sick bin sitting sadly on the ground next to her.

“Hey,” she says moving it over to sit on the edge of the bed next to her. “Try to sit up and take these.”

Stella’s eyes shut tighter as she breathes out of a pitiful noise that ambiguously tells Reed, ‘no.’

“Please,” Reed tries again. “It’ll bring down your fever.” Reaching around Stella, she adjusts the pillows behind her to make it easier. But when Stella still doesn’t move, Reed doesn’t wait. She puts her hands behind Stella’s back and lifts her into a sitting position while Stella semi-cooperates. “Come on, sit up.”

Weakly, her fingers collect the pills from Reed’s offering palm and she swallows them with a small sip of water. Then she’s sinking back into the comforter, the grimace intensifying at her brow.

“Talk to me,” Reed says, wiping the cool washcloth at her hairline. “What’s wrong? What hurts?”

“Nothing,” Stella mumbles, blinking blearily as her eyes fight to stay open. “S’just my stomach.”

“Does it feel any better now?”

“Yes.”

“Stop lying.”

“Tired,” she says weakly, her eyes drifting closed. “I’m just…” And she looks seconds from sleep. So Reed lets her slip away into unconsciousness as she evaluates the seriousness of the situation. She replaces the washcloth with her hand, assessing her fever and decides that it’s relatively low. Next she grabs her wrist and feels for a pulse. Stella groans a little and Reed has to keep herself from laughing - she’s almost completely positive that Stella would never let her do this under any other set of circumstances. And then that worries her. But the pulse she finds is strong, a bit fast but steady, not erratic.

Images of her from earlier in the day flicker through her mind, the exhaustion written across her face, the weight at her shoulders. She’s probably run down, dehydrated and in need of rest.

Fixing the blankets around her, Reed resigns to letting her sleep, knowing that she’s probably fine. Then she collects the lining of the sick bin, replacing it with a clean one, and tries to fall back asleep.

A few hours later, she’s had little luck. Reed wakes in and out of dozing to keep an eye on her fever, and around 5AM, she decides that it’s useless. Fetching her laptop from downstairs, she crawls into bed and begins checking her email. Every so often, Stella’s breathing escalates and she talks nonsense words into the early morning.

Sunlight peeking through Reed’s window, Stella barely stirs, but it’s time for her to take more medication. She’s also sweat through the pillowcase; Reed should really swap it for a clean one.

“It’s time for you to take something,” Reed says trying to wake her gently. She watches as Stella’s eyes blink open, still red and glassy, registering the world around her. “You should take some more of this.”

Without noise or complaint this time, Stella props herself on an elbow so that she can adhere to Reed’s request. Her skin looks clammy and the circles under eyes carve her typically regal face into a gaunt imitation.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Great,” Stella says sarcastically, swallowing the pills that Reed gives her.

“Stella-”

“Like I got run over,” she grumbles, setting the glass of water down on the nightstand.

“Drink,” Reed insists, handing it back to her. “You need to hydrate. And I need to change this,” she says, indicating to Stella’s pillowcase.

Stella takes a deep breath, one that looks like it hurts, and fortifies herself to comply with Reed’s caregiving. And she manages to sit up as Reed swaps out the pillows and drink half the glass of water before retreating back into the covers, bundling herself in bedding.

“Who can I call?”

Giving her a strange look, even as her eyes close on their own volition, Stella huffs out a vague “What?”

“At your office,” Reed clarifies. “I’ll call - tell them you’ll be out today.”

“I have to…”

“No you don’t.”

“I can’t…”

“Well, you can’t go in either,” Reed tries to say without sounding too authoritarian. Self-consciously, she softens. “Tell me who to call.”

Several seconds pass as Stella breathes, probably deciding how horrible she feels and Reed wonders how hard she’ll have to push the subject. She doesn’t relish in the idea of having to play doctor in these situations, but she’s prepared to. There’s only so much she can let go, only so much she’s willing to witness as Stella runs herself into the ground.

So she holds strong while a lecture (for another time) writes itself in her mind. And she can feel herself becoming frustrated and concerned in equal turns because Stella can barely sit up; the fact that she thinks she’s even capable of going to work is laughable at best. Yet she’s still silent, protesting Reed’s request for a contact. And this stubbornness even now, even now while she can barely sit, stokes Reed’s anger from the night before. She doesn’t know how to get through to her, she doesn’t know how to say the things that she needs to say, and she’s been silent for so long. For years she’s been silent and she refuses to sit back in her self-censored prison for much longer.

But then, right as Reed is about to repeat her question, Stella finally speaks.

“James,” Stella says almost inaudibly. “James Colgan.”

“Thank you,” Reed sighs, feeling herself unwind. “What’s the password on your mobile?”

“1934.”

Grabbing her mobile from the nightstand, Reed takes it downstairs and scrolls through her contacts looking for ‘James Colgan.’ It feels invasive to have Stella’s phone at her fingertips and for someone who’s so private, having even momentary access to it feels wrong, like she’s doing it without her permission. So she tries not to infer anything, she tries not to read names - not that she would know any of them - but she tries to do what she came to do and get it over with. And she finds his information with relative ease and dials…

“Colgan,” he answers.

“Hello, this is Professor Reed Smith,” she says, suddenly nervous. “I’m uh, calling on behalf of Stella Gibson. She won’t be coming in today and I wanted to let someone know.”

“Who is this exactly?” He sounds alarmed Reed understands why. She doubts that Stella ever calls out of work, let alone has someone call for her.

“I’m a friend of Stella’s,” Reed explains with a patient finality to her voice. Because while she understands his concern, she would never provide a more extensive explanation of their relationship to one of Stella’s colleagues, especially not without her consent. “She’s sick.”

James does not respond, not for a few moments anyway. And then he clears his throat.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” Reed says, inexplicably glad to hear someone else in Stella’s life express interest in her wellbeing. “But she could use some rest.”

“Okay.” And then, “You’re with her?”

“Yes, I’ll be with her all day.”

“Alright, well thank you.”

Reed’s not sure if he’s thanking her for staying with Stella or thanking her for the call. But either way, she’s glad to know that he exists and that Stella has at least one person in her life that worries about her.

“Of course. She’ll call as soon as she’s able.”

Reed ends the call and locks Stella’s phone.

“Who’s that?” A voice comes from behind her.

“Jesus. Don’t do that.”

“What? Walk around my own home?” Lydia says rounding a corner into view.

“No, I just mean - when did you get here?” Reed asks swiping at her hair because she has no idea what she looks like. She’s been up all night and her guard’s down, she didn’t hear Lydia come home - she thought she was alone. “I thought you were at Ian’s for the night.”

“Well, I was,” Lydia explains. “But then we had a row so...”

“So you came home?”

“Yeah, around 1.”

“In the middle of the night? It was that bad?”

“He’s a prick,” she says offhandedly like anyone would know, but Reed sees hints of hurt lining her frown and knows that it must be more than that.

“I’m sorry, Lyd.”

“It’s fine,” she says, less able to hide the bitterness in her tone this time. Then she returns to her original question. “Who was that?”

“On the phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, um, Stella’s here,” she explains looking at the phone and then pocketing it. “And she’s ill so I was calling out of work for her.”

“She’s here?”

“Yeah, sleeping upstairs.”

Lydia’s eyebrows pop up as she smiles a mischievous sort of grin. “Does this mean I finally get to meet her?”

“She’s really unwell,” Reed says with an edge to her voice and Lydia’s smile retreats. “Please don’t get any ideas.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know…” she says crossing her arms. “‘Stress, exhaustion probably. From what I can tell, she’s definitely dehydrated.”

“You’re going to stay with her?”

“I think so.”

“If you need me to grab the girls from school today-“

“No, no. I can get them. Thank you but… I think she just needs sleep.”

Stella’s tired.

It’s hot in her office and she’s unreasonably tired. The kind of tired that wraps itself around your heart and seeps into your muscles. But she can’t lay down. There’s so much to do.

She thinks she needs to clean. Yes, she definitely needs to clean because there’s still paperwork stacked on every fucking surface of her office - she hasn’t gotten the chance to tackle it since her return. And it’s everywhere, her office is absolutely littered with it. How did it get so out of hand while she was away? Had she really left all of it just lying around?

She doesn’t like to leave a mess, not like this one.

Must be Westfield.

They’re sharing an office now and it’s fairly close to hell on earth. Spencer knew what she was doing when she forced them into this cramped room together, it’s a message, a clear sign, a punishment. Stella’s got no space and looking around, his shit is just everywhere. He’s everywhere. Always asking her questions, making comments and conversation. She can’t breathe.

It hurts to breathe, she realizes, it hurts to exist.

God, she feels like shit, she should‘ve stayed home today. She should’ve listened to Reed, why hadn’t she listened to her? Why had she left?

She can’t remember leaving…

She pries an eye open and everything’s so fucking bright that she immediately closes it. And then she drags her arm out from under the comforter because she’s so hot. Christ, she needs some air.

Then she feels something soothing at her scalp and it sends jolts of relaxing energy down neck and into her shoulders. It’s repetitive like a revisiting tide and it must be Reed, running her fingers absentmindedly through Stella’s hair. For a brief moment, it’s the only good thing she can register, warm and tranquil.

Even still, Stella thinks she should move. She doesn’t really let people touch her like this, hasn’t in a long time anyway… But it feels good. She forgot how nice something this could feel. Maybe it’s just that she feels so heinous in comparison.

She needs to move.

Then the feeling at her crown is gone and Reed shifts next to her, realizing she’s awake.

“How’re you feeling?” she asks, her voice full of softness and Stella can’t decide if she loves it or hates it. She doesn’t have much time to think it over before Reed’s asking more questions. “Same, better, or worse?”

Stella takes a moment to breathe slowly and find her patience before she mutters, “Same.” After all, she’s not used to being sick and therefore not used to being cared for. And there’s something deep inside of her, buried beneath all of this illness, that yearns for and simultaneously rejects Reed’s caregiving. There’s distant feelings of gratitude down there surrounded by more obvious feelings of absolute annoyance.

She wishes she were in her own bed.

She wishes she didn’t have to think about this.

“You should drink some water while you’re awake,” she says and it pokes at Stella’s nerves even though she’s right. Because of course she’s right, Stella has no doubt, but it’s so unfortunately not the point.

Regardless, she anchors her hands and pushes herself into a sitting position until pain erupts down the center of her skull over the shifting balance of her weight. And if her eyes could shut tighter, they would because everything feels like it’s spinning, and she’s so so dizzy from the pain.

Then there’s something at her lips and it takes her a few seconds to register that it’s a straw, a straw added to her water cup, which is now being held instructively up to her lips. And the instinctive part of her body that knows she’s dehydrated floods with relief while the ornery part of her wants to refuse it on principle. Pride eventually wins out as her hand wraps around the glass because if she’s going to drink any fucking water, she’ll do it herself because she’s certainly not a child. And however she might feel, she’s not technically on her deathbed.

“You can take more ibuprofen in an hour, it’s on the nightstand.”

Stella sips from the straw and says nothing, feeling infantile for drinking this way but it’s so much easier and everything hurts. So she concedes to feeling infantile because it’s better than the alternative, whatever it may be. Pain radiates along her muscles, this dull aching pain that feels like it will never leave and she feels disgusting. Her skin is hot and there’s beads of sweat sliding down her back and between her breasts. She needs to pee.

“How’s your stomach?” Reed asks watching her intently and Stella can’t see much but she senses it just the same. “Do you think you can eat anything?”

“No,” she croaks, setting the glass down beside her on the nightstand with a shake of her wrist. And she’s thinks she made it look relatively easy, like she didn’t have to concentrate to do it, but she’s not sure. Sinking down into the sheets, she burrows beneath them as best she can because suddenly she’s freezing, and there’s no way she could possibly ever find enough warmth.

She wants to die.

Truly, no questions asked, she discovers the absolute clarity that she can’t bear to live like this, shrouded in the oscillating pain of existence for a moment longer. It’s too much, it’s been too much for such a long long time. If only this bed would swallow her whole...

“I’ll fix something incase you change your mind,” comes Reed’s voice softly and there’s something in it that makes Stella hurt worse than the illness coursing through her body. But she doesn’t have enough energy to unravel it. So she sits with it and lets it have her. “Give you some space, stop hovering.”

Stella’s so overwhelmed by this throbbing ailment that she barely notices the hot tear slip from the crease of her eye, forming a small wet spot where her face meets the pillow. Then she feels the cool dampness of it against her fevered skin and the realization is so startling that a few more searing drops immediately follow.

She would do anything to get away from here.

“I’ll check on you in a bit.”

There’s a soft thud of the door closing and Stella turns her whole face into the pillow, letting it absorb the wetness from her face. And the air in her mouth is acrid as she tries to breathe. Part of her wishes that Reed could come back. But Stella knows that she would never be able to make her understand. She would never be able to make her see. And even if she could, even if she could somehow find a way, nothing good would ever come from it. So few things in life are as certain as this. Whatever deep mystery Reed thinks lies within Stella, she’s wrong. It simply doesn’t exist. Because there’s no mystery to what’s hidden away inside her.

And someone as good as Reed wouldn’t be able comprehend it. She shouldn’t have to.

Stella wishes that she’d never met her.

As darkness slips compassionately around her, she hates everything about herself.

Leaves shuffle across the ground and the air feels brisk as Reed pulls her coat a tighter to ward off the chill. Even though it’s a bit cooler than she anticipated, she’s grateful for the time outside and she’s even grateful for relentless breeze. After hours of nesting at home, she’d needed a break from the stuffy staleness of that bedroom. The walls were closing in on her, even from the kitchen downstairs.

It’s not that she minds looking after Stella. Because she doesn’t.

No, it’s just that taking care of people who don’t want to be taken care of is a particular kind of draining, and Stella’s not the best patient. Obviously, that’s not surprising in and of itself - if anything, Reed would have expected her to be worse. But still… Reed shakes her head at her own thoughts and she probably looks crazy, talking to herself on the street.

Shoving her hands into her pockets as she approaches the school, she tries to let it go, this pestering feeling of being unwanted. Her mind replays it without her permission, the moment twisting through her psyche and forcing her to look at it. Stella turning away from her. Simple enough. Certainly not dire. But it has the feeling scraping up against her anew, even as she tries to push it aside. Logically she knows that Stella’s reaction probably isn’t about her, it’s more likely that she’s not used to having someone, it probably makes her uncomfortable.

And Reed knows how cranky she, herself, can be when she’s not feeling well.

But she’s finding an excuse to take it personally. Probably for no reason at all.

Probably.

So when the time had come to pick up the girls, she’d welcomed the excuse to take a much needed walk. After all, Stella had been soundly asleep when she last checked on her, and Lydia was still there on the off chance that she needed anything.

Reed sighs and tries to clear her head. She turns her focus outward and tries to take in the leaves and the trees and the spots where sunlight attempts to poke through the clouds. Then she arrives at the school and waits for the girls. A few children trickle out meeting their parents or sitters, and Reed observes as if looking through a far off window.

“Mum!” Charlotte’s voice rings through Reed’s muddled thoughts.

She turns to find her youngest skipping towards her at rapid pace, a large piece of paper flapping in her hand. Bending down to her level, Reed intercepts her with a hug and the small girl feels good to hold. It feels so good to hold her. But then Charlotte’s squirming, so full of energy and very excited about the picture she drew. From what Reed can tell, it’s a forest scene complete with animals and flowers of various kinds and colors. And her daughter’s not a naturally gifted artist but she’s so imaginative that Reed can’t help but feel herself bursting with pride. She laughs indulgently, rolling up the picture to keep it safe just as she sees Jane wandering over with a friend. And then Charlotte’s calling for her to “hurry up!”

“Not so loud,” Reed reminds because she has a tendency to shout.

“She’s taking forever,” Charlotte insists.

“I am not,” Jane says approaching them quickly, parting ways with the other girl her age and glaring at her sister.

“You’re fine, darling,” Reed hugs her, planting an apparently unwanted kiss at the top of her head. “Who was that?”

“Clara.”

“Oh, Clara,” Reed remembers Jane talk about her. “She’s one of your good friends, yeah?”

“I guess.”

“What do you mean, you guess?” “She’s not like Zoe or Hannah but she’s nice,” Jane says going a little quiet and Reed feels herself fill up with guilt. Zoe and Hannah had been Jane’s best friends back in Belfast and Reed remembers how upset she’d been to leave them behind. And although Reed had tried to convince Jane that they would always remain friends, she knows that distance can be devastating for people at any age, let alone children.

“Nice is a good start,” is all she manages to say before Charlotte begins talking about her day, leaving any and all conversation about Clara in the dust.

Slowly Reed finds herself immersed in it though, wrapped up in the stories of their day, asking questions and letting them ramble. So much so that they’re almost home, rounding the corner to their street, before she realizes that she hasn’t told them about Stella being in the house.

“Girls,” she interrupts through their chatter. “Girls, listen to me,” she says more firmly. “When we get home I need you to be quiet. Stella’s sleeping upstairs and she’s very sick so I don’t want you to wake her.”

“Stella’s home?!” Charlotte gasps while Jane asks a more apprehensive, “Why is Stella at our house?”

“She was at the house last night when she got sick,” Reed explains. “And she couldn’t go home today.”

“How come Stella never comes over when we’re home?” Charlotte whines.

“It was just this once,” Reed counters.

“Nuh-uh, there was that other time,” Jane says and Reed feels her face go red, embarrassment inching up her neck.

“I just need you keep your voices down when we get inside, okay?” she says returning to the matter at hand, hoping to escape further questions about the first time Stella had been at their house.

“Will she stay the night?” Charlotte asks after a beat.

“If she’s not feeling well enough to go home, she might.”

“But where’s she going to sleep?” Jane asks.

“She can stay in our room,” Charlotte offers.

“And sleep where?” Jane rolls her eyes. “She’s in my room right now,” Reed interrupts their arguing. “And she needs rest, which means you aren’t to bother her. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” they mumble.

“When will she come over to play?” Charlotte asks as they walk up the path to the flat.

“Soon.” “How soon?”

“I don’t know, Charlotte. This isn’t our house, we can’t keep crowding Aunt Lydie.”

“Aunt Lydie doesn’t mind,” Charlotte implores and Jane offers a supportive, “Yeah, she wants to meet her too,” which stops Reed in her tracks halfway up the short set of stairs.

“What?”

“Aunt Lydie wants to meet Stella too!” Charlotte continues. “She told us so.”

“When did she tell you so?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why were you talking about Stella?” she presses.

“Aunt Lydie asked about her.”

There’s silence as Reed looks from one child to the other.

“After the museum,” Jane explains. “And when we went to her house.”

“Why are you mad?” Charlotte asks.

“I’m not mad,” Reed says turning towards the door but even to her own ears, it sounds mad.

And the girls are quiet as they trail inside.

“Girls,” Reed says after taking a breath and hanging her coat. “Go into the dining room and sort out your homework. I’ll be there to help you in a bit.”

“Can I have a snack?”

“Sure,” Reed says over her shoulder, but she’s already walking towards the living room, her eyes set on Lydia. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” she asks lowly, not wanting the girls to hear.

“What’s the matter?”

“Can I just talk to you upstairs,” she grates out. “Please?”

“Alright, alright,” Lydia sighs, uneasy with Reed’s tone. But she sets her laptop aside all the same and follows her sister upstairs until they’re closed safely behind the door of Lydia’s bedroom.

“What’s all this about?” Lydia asks, her question caught somewhere between annoyed and concerned.

“Why are you talking to the girls about Stella?”

“What do you mean?”

“They told me that you asked about her,” Reed asserts seriously.

“Of course I did.”

Reed’s fingers spring up, pinching the bridge of her nose to keep from crying.

“But not in a subversive way. In a ‘tell me about your day’ sort of way.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m their aunt and it’s my job to ask them about their lives,” Lydia explains defensively trying to get Reed to look at her. But she just nods and it’s a far-off thing, her eyes fixed on the ground as she processes, unable to speak. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Reed says trying to keep the emotion from her voice. “I just - they want to know why she’s here and when she’s coming over,” she explains rapidly. “And then you’re asking about her and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. This whole thing’s been one disaster after another. And they have so many questions and I don’t know how to talk to them about this. I don’t know what to say-”

“Hey,” Lydia says gently, grabbing her shoulder before enveloping her in a hug. “Come here.”

“I’m a terrible mother,” she cries into Lydia’s shoulder.

“No you’re not.”

“I am.”

“Shhh.”

“I’ve completely put myself first.”

“You’re allowed to have a life, you know.”

“Not one that hurts them.”

“Hurts them? How has it hurt them?” Lydia pulls back, wiping a few tears from Reed’s face and tucking her hair into place. “Nothing’s happened.”

“I don’t know how to explain her to them. And it’s so new,” Reed says, her voice going small. “Might not be worth explaining…”

Lydia rubs Reed’s upper arms soothingly. “Let’s calm down, I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Especially since she’s still in the house, yeah?”

Reed takes a deep breath and tries to collect herself.

“I’m sorry,” she responds. “I’m just - I’m being-”

“You’re not being anything. You’re fine,” Lydia says firmly. “But maybe over the next few days, you know, once she’s gone… We should have a good think about it.”

Nodding silently, Reed agrees and wipes her face. “I should go check on her.”

“It’s all going to be fine,” Lydia says quietly.

“Thanks, I’m just going to…” Reed motions towards the door and quickly escapes to the restroom.

She locks the door and grips the counter, Lydia’s words repeating like a mantra through her mind. It’s all going to be fine. It’s fine. It’s all going to be fine.

Overreacting.

She’s completely overreacting.

She needs to stop, she needs to get control of herself. A piece of advice, the passing words of an old college professor, surfaces to meet Lydia’s assurances at the forefront of her thoughts. When you’re overwhelmed with life’s Great Unknowns, the only certain thing is that they will not be solved tonight.

Everything’s snowballing, getting away from her, and she needs to stop it before she’s buried in the deluge of her own panic. Tonight’s not the night. None of this will be solved tonight let alone over the next few minutes. Her mind is spinning uselessly, self-destructively, it needs to stop.

Tonight’s not the night.

Long exhales leave her lips as she reaches forward, turning the tap, her hand limply falling into the stream of water. And she focuses on that. The sound. The feeling. Water rushing forward. Moving consistently and cool over her skin. And she stays like that for a few minutes, maybe more, before splashing it onto her face, drinking a little from the cupped palm of her hand.

She doesn’t know what’s happening with Stella. She doesn’t know what it means for her life and she doesn’t need to know. Not tonight.

There will be time for that.

Not tonight.

An hour passes and then Reed’s sitting on the edge of Stella’s bed.

Her bed.

All of the color has drained from Stella’s face and she looks small, so much smaller than Reed’s ever seen her. Sweat has tangled and matted her hair over the course of the day, and it’s hard to imagine that this is the same woman; the same woman who so profoundly walked into her life and changed everything, the same woman who’d had her hyperventilating into a washroom sink.

And she’d been antsy to come in here, afraid to check in on her.

Reed feels silly now, stupid even.

But she bats the thought away, trying not to engage in negative self-talk. It’s not what she’s here for. It won’t help.

Not wanting to wake her too abruptly, Reed places her fingers against the damp hair at Stella’s brow, sweeping upward until Stella hums, her eyelids fluttering open.

“Hi,” Stella sighs upon seeing her between drowsy blinks.

“You look better,” Reed says, moving her hand to rest on Stella’s hip.

“I feel a bit better,” she mumbles and then, “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I shouldn’t be here.”

“Nonsense.”

“Really. I should go,” she says into the pillow, and it’s hard to take Stella’s assertive tone seriously when it’s barely above a whisper.

“You should eat,” Reed says and Stella cringes. “You haven’t eaten all day, you need something. And I made soup.”

“You made it?” Stella asks as if it were some insurmountable feat rather than a few ingredients thrown into a pot and left to simmer.

“Mhm.”

“Impressive.”

“Preemptive praise. You haven’t had it yet.”

“Still impressive,” she insists.

“The girls sat a place for you downstairs. But I can bring it up if you’d prefer.”

Pushing herself up into a sitting position, Reed sees her fight not to roll her eyes. “I’m not completely helpless…” she says even though the it looks like it’s taken a lot out of her. “I look like shit though.”

“You look tired. There’s a difference.”

“Would you mind if I showered first?” she asks looking down at herself, and it’s uncharacteristically self-conscious.

“Of course not. I’ll get you something to put on.”

Reed grabs Stella a comfortable change of clothes, a fresh towel, and leaves her to it. She goes downstairs and starts dinner with Lydia and the girls, not wanting to put pressure on Stella’s arrival. But when she hears footsteps softly trotting down the stairs some 15 minutes later, her insides seize with anxiety.

Emerging from around the corner, Stella pads into the dining room, flannel footed and wet haired, sporting a cottony white t-shirt. She looks almost as hesitant as Reed feels.

“Stella!” Charlotte shouts around a mouth full of soup, some of it running down her chin.

“Charlotte, please don’t talk with your mouth full,” Reed says reaching across the table to wipe her face.

“Hello, little one,” Stella says carefully approaching the table. “Hello, Jane.” Jane smiles at her while Charlotte bounces in her seat.

Standing up to get Stella’s food, Reed attempts to keep Charlotte sitting with a stern, “You can hug Stella when you’ve finished your supper.”

“I’m done!” Charlotte groans.

“You’ve barely touched it,” Lydia says next to her. “Keep still.”

“You must be, Lydia,” Stella says holding her hand out. “I’m so sorry for the intrusion.”

“Oh, please, you’re more than welcome. I hope you’re feeling better.”

“I am,” she says, gingerly taking the open seat next to Reed’s chair. “Thank you.”

“I’ve been dying to meet you, anyway. Heard nothing but good things from these two,” she says scrunching her nose at the girl and Charlotte grins around her spoon.

“Well, I wish it’d been under better circumstances,” Stella admits. “In my own clothes...”

“What’s that?” Reed asks, returning with Stella’s bowl.

“Oh nothing, we’re just talking about you,” Lydia teases.

“Thank you,” Stella says as Reed settles in next to her.

“No they’re not,” Jane says loyally, and Reed smiles at her.

“Are you going to stay the night?” Charlotte asks Stella with a blessedly empty mouth.

“I think I’ve already overstayed my welcome.”

“Hush,” Lydia says. “You can stay as long as you need.”

“Stay!” Charlotte says.

“Charlotte, remember when I told you that Stella isn’t feeling well? Please be quiet and let her eat,” Reed says with as much patience as she can muster.

“You made this?” Stella asks after taking a bite.

“Mhm.”

“Impressive,” she affirms and Reed feels her nerves melt under the easy warmth of Stella’s praise.

“It’s one of the five decent things I can cook,” Reed says humbly, looking away to mask her blush.

“Well, you’re much better than I am,” Lydia tells her. “One of the few benefits of having you around.”

“What about us?” Jane asks defensively.

“You too, duckling,” Lydia says winking at her.

And as the five women sit comfortably around Lydia’s dining room table, Reed notices the strange ease with which they all share their evening meal - or in Stella’s case, her only meal. That is until Charlotte practically springboards out of her seat to shower Stella in affection. If she were smaller, Reed doesn’t doubt that she’d climb right up into her lap. It has Reed observing anxiously, watching Stella for signs of discomfort, and she looks absolutely ashen but not annoyed. She pets Charlotte’s hair and gives the energetic child her undivided attention until Reed tells the girls that they can watch TV before bed.

Then they’re both scampering away, distracted for the rest of the night, and it gives Reed the opportunity to notice how much Stella has wilted since her arrival downstairs. Lydia clears the table and when Stella moves to help her, her sister insists that Stella stay sitting - it’s obvious how much the simple meal has drained her. With her children fully occupied in the other room, Reed chances a brush of Stella’s hand, causing Stella to blink in her direction.

“Back upstairs?” Reed asks with as little force as possible, not wanting to impose upon Stella’s right to choose whether she stays or goes. But Charlotte’s right, she should stay. Reed thinks of what might happen if Stella insists on leaving. She wonders if she’d be comfortable stuffing her in a cab, trusting that she’d make it home to her own bed.

She looks so limp.

Stella hums, the corner of her mouth downturned, her eyes red and wet. “I should go…”

“Can you?” Reed asks realistically. Because she’s willing to concede, if Stella’s set on sleeping in her own bed, if she’d really prefer to be on her own.

But she doesn’t answer.

“You can always leave first thing in the morning,” Reed says gently. “If you’re up to it.”

Stella nods, it’s there but barely, somewhere off in the distance as her eyes narrow piercingly onto some insignificant spot on the table. And then they’re on Reed’s with the same icy intensity.

“Thank you,” she says. “For today.”

Reed looks down.

A small smile fights its way onto her face entirely despite herself. And she’s glad that Stella will stay.

#stella x reed #stella and reed #stella gibson #reed smith #gillian anderson #archie panjabi #the fall #fanfiction #fanfic #lamplighter #candicewrites

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ashlingiswriting · 6 years ago

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FSC • Day 6

In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts.

Podfic? I don’t have any kind of good theatrical ability, so I can’t really do it myself, but I think there’s some dramatic, emotional, atmospheric oneshots I have written that might make good podfic: Liv Goes Inside (Moonlight) or Oblivion (Venom). Or, since this is a dream wishlist, a chapter from one of my long Peaky Blinders fics: The Bride, A Battle Joined, or The Phoenix Will Rise.

Manips, gifsets, or fanvids based on one of my fics? I don’t have Photoshop and my fanvidding skills are atrocious. But I love a good movie-poster-looking manip, or a gifset with a strong palette, or a fanvid that’s gorgeously in sync with its backing music.

Crossover pairing fic? Like. I literally have so many absurdly, absurdly out-there pairings, both romantic and platonic, that I thought up for Crossover Exchange but will probably never see the light of day. Greatest hits:

Ainsley Hayes (The West Wing) & or / Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)

Ainsley Hayes (The West Wing) & or / Sloan Sabbith (The Newsroom)

Bridget Jones (Bridget Jones’ Diary) & Mindy Lahiri (The Mindy Project) & Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)

Cassian Andor (Rogue One)/Isabella Bautista (Narcos Mexico)

CJ Cregg (The West Wing) & Kirsten (Set It Up) & Anne Weying (Venom)

Don Keefer (The Newsroom)/Dan Rydell (Sports Night)/Sloan Sabbith (The Newsroom)

Eddie Brock (Venom 2018 movie) & or / Neal Sampat (The Newsroom)

Edmund Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia)/Sansa Stark (Game of Thrones)

Frank Castle (The Punisher)/Blanca Evangelista (Pose)

Jessica Tang (Southland)/John Wick (John Wick Movies)

Katy (Letterkenny) & Angel Evangelista (Pose)

Lara Jean Covey (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before)/Rilla Blythe (Anne of Green Gables)

Malcolm Tucker (The Thick of It) & Toby Ziegler (The West Wing)

May Carleton (Peaky Blinders) & or / Mary Crawley (Downton Abbey)

Mindy Lahiri (The Mindy Project) & Donna Moss (The West Wing)

Stella Gibson (The Fall TV)/John Luther (Luther TV)

Susan Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia)/Brienne of Tarth (Game of Thrones) Susan Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia)/Sansa Stark (Game of Thrones)

Sybil Crawley (Downton Abbey) & Valentine Wannop (Parade’s End)

The Splendid Angharad (Fury Road)/Sansa Stark (Game of Thrones)

Tommy Shelby (Peaky Blinders)/Sylvia Tietjens (Parade’s End)

#FSC 2019 #Fandom Snowflake Challenge #wishlist

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eddysocs · 2 years ago

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The Fall OC Masterlist

Name: Noemi Strauss

Face Claim: Mandip Gill

Love Interest: Stella Gibson

Fic Title: Rise Of A Killer

Plot Summary: As if being new to the police force wasn’t enough, Noemi is being targeted by a serial killer. She’s had one close call with him already, but the details of her encounter are far from clear. When Stella Gibson steps in to take the case, she’ll have to determine how best to protect Noemi and if her story is really even true.

#the fall oc #oc: noemi strauss

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lostlastsforever756 · 7 years ago

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I started posting the 3rd part of the rise of Stella Gibson. So like...yeah

#the fall #the rise of stella gibson #my fanfiction

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misslilli · 3 years ago

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lol that's a movie I'd pay good money to see 😂 I imagine it going something like this:

The Heist

"This is absolutely ridiculous. I have a perfectly capable partner to pull of that Heist with. Instead, I'm stuck here with you clowns."

Sitting up with her back so straight as the perfectly starched white collar of her blouse, eyebrow raised and lips pursed, Scully glances around the cluttered table in a house full of mismatched coffee cups and an assortment of inappropriately themed trinkets. Most of which make the Catholic in her blush to the tips of her ears.

The owner of the house places her chin on her interlaced fingers, elbows planted firmly on the table and a mellow expression on her face. "And how does that make you feel, Dana?"

Bristling at the use of her first name, the eyebrow arches even further up. "It's Scully, Milburn. You better not use any of that therapy voodoo crap on me."

"Ladies." Stella Gibson rises from her chair at the head of the table, anchoring herself with her hands on the table in a power pose. Commandeering a room full of people, despite her size, fits her personality like a glove and no-one dared to question her taking over the planning of the Heist.

Sweeping her eyes around the table, taking in the juxtaposition of the laid back, relaxed posture of the woman on one side and the poised, arms-crossed, sharp-edged demeanor on the other, she notices the only empty chair and the faint giggles coming from the other room. "Where's Anderson?"

"She found the stack of of magazines in my office."

"Anderson!" Stella raises her voice only slightly, laced with exasperation. "Get the fuck in here, now!"

Almost tripping over the edge of the carped, the fourth member of the gang takes the remaining chair, face bright with glee and the others roll their eyes collectively at the giggle of "Boobies!"

"Alright ladies. Now that we're all here, let's talk business!"

youtube

#drabble #ga is amazingly funny #please someone make this movie!!

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mercurygray · 7 years ago

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So, I hear you liked TURN.

Apres the Season 4 finale, I know there’s going to be a lot of crying, and hand-wringing, and rewatching, and these are all good and proper things to do in the wake of a TV show you’ve enjoyed.

But after the smoke clears from all of that, you’re maybe going to go looking for your next 18th century fix, just something in between rewatches or while you’re trying to flesh out your next story idea. (Hey, now that we have our canon, go hog-wild on story ideas, guys, seriously.)

So I’ve saved you some trouble and made you all a helpful list.

Obviously there are a lot of movies and TV shows out there - this is just a selection that I wish more people knew about.

Note: Everyone enjoys a show or movie for different reasons. These shows are on this list because of the time period they depict, not because of the quality of their writing, the accuracy of their history or the political nature of their content. Where I’m able to, I’ve mentioned if a book is available if you’d like to read more.

Before we get to the rest of the list, there are three excellent shows that are either currently on television or about to be very soon:

Poldark (BBC/PBS) is based on a series of books by an author named Winston Graham. It was made into a PBS series in the 70s starring Robin Ellis as the handsome Captain Poldark, who returns from the American Revolution to find his family farm in tatters and his long-time love interest married to his cousin. Drama ensues. The 70s series is worth your time, and the recent remake with Aidan Turner in the title role is also definitely worth a go. (If you like leading men who make terrible life decisions and the women who put up with them, this is totally your show.)

Harlots (Hulu) - If you really loved the TURN ladies, thought Lola and Philomena deserved more than they got, or are just interested to learn more about what life might have been like for the lower classes in London in the 1750s, have we got a deal for you. Harlots follows the lives of 18th century sex workers in this new drama, which was just recently renewed for a totally deserved second season. Female-lead ensemble drama. A little violent at points and deals with some pretty heavy-duty topics like rape, murder, and bastardy, but in a humane and understanding way. Totally bingeable.

Outlander (Starz) - Based on the wildly popular series of books by Diana Gabaldon, this time traveling drama jumps between a couple of different centuries and follows the story of Jamie and Claire, two very strong personalities trying to literally find their place in history. (Hewlett talks about the blade his grandfather picked up at Culloden; that battle forms a critical part of this show’s storyline.) It’s a real pretty show with very high production values.

And, without further ado, the rest of the list!

John Adams: If you haven’t watched this already, do yourself a favor and go pick it up from the library. Starring Paul Giametti in the title role, this HBO miniseries follows John Adams’ role in the formation of America, through his early days in Congress up through his own presidency. As with any biographical show, characters that we know and love from other media (Rufus Sewell’s Hamilton comes to mind, but see what you think of David Morse’s Washington, too) are presented in a slightly different light and provide some food for thought about how history can be selective in how it remembers us. The costuming is great, the sets are fantastic, and the acting is first-rate.

The Patriot: An oldie but a goodie. Mel Gibson plays a highly fictionalized version of Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox while Jason Isaacs turns in a really stellar hottie we love to hate in Colonel Tavington. A little heavy-handed at times, this is a good movie to laugh over with friends.

Sons of Liberty: I’ll be really honest - for a show from the History Channel, the history on this show is pretty awful. But the cast is pretty. This one’s up to you, really. It fills a hole.

Garrow’s Law: William Garrow was a barrister and a pioneering legal mind in the 18th century, and this show (which ran for 3 seasons) is based on real Old Bailey cases and Garrow’s defenses, while also working in his fraught social life. Were you interested in learning a little more about Abe Woodhull’s erstwhile legal training? This is the show for you.

City of Vice: A miniseries that explains the origins and work of the Bow Street Runners, one of London’s first police forces. Does a great job of opening up some of the early 18th century underside of London including a smidge of 18th century gay culture.

A Harlot’s Progress: William Hogarth was an 18th century artist, printmaker and social commentator whose “A Harlot’s Progress” famously depicts the downfall of a woman who goes into prostitution. This 2006 series explores the relationship that inspired the ‘Harlot’ piece.

The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant: At around the same time America was busy trying to figure itself out, halfway around the world another one of Britain’s colonial possessions - Australia - was just getting started. Hundreds of convicts found themselves stuffed in ships and sent to the other side of the world - a sentence deemed almost more humane. This 2005 series with Romala Garai follows a very famous convict, Mary Bryant, and her experiences.

Banished: Another take on penal colonies in Australia. Currently available on Hulu.

Black Sails: A more recent offering from Starz, this show explores the backstory of the pirates in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Lots of great representation issues, a whole lot of ‘how does your story get told’ - and there’s a real big community on Tumblr who loves it and very actively produces all kinds of fic.

Clarissa - Simcoe fans, this one is totally for you. Based on the epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, Clarissa follows a girl of the same name as the infamous rake Lovelace tries to seduce her. Another look at what how women can be corrupted. Also, for you fandom nerds in the crowd, Lovelace was one of the first characters to inspire fix-it fic. Yes, really! Fix-it fic in the late 1700s. Lovelace is one of the original men for whom the ‘No, really, I can reform him’ trope was created. (Richardson, his creator, was so horrified by this reaction by his fans that he actually revised the book several times to try and make Lovelace even more villainous and irredeemable, with little success. Then as now, women apparently love the idea of a bad boy.)

Amazing Grace - The history of slavery in England and its colonies is complicated and nuanced; this story deals with one of the more famous names from that story, William Wilberforce, and his contribution.

Belle - Based on the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral. Another look at racial politics in England.

The Aristocrats - One of my all-time favorite TV miniseries and based on the nonfiction book by Stella Tilyard, this show follows the (actual, nonfictional) Lennox sisters, daughters of the Duke of Richmond as they grow up, marry, and adjust to rapid social change from the early 1700s into the 1790s.

The Duchess - About the same time the Lennox sisters were out in society, so was Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. This is based on (I’m not sure how closely) Amanda Foreman’s biography of Georgiana, one of the leading ladies of her day.

Dangerous Liasons - Another story about corruptible young women, this one has 3 very well deserved Oscars to its name and an absolutely stunning Glenn Close.

Barry Lyndon - a very evocative, sumptuous film by Stanley Kubrick. Short on action, but very, very Aesthetic, as only Kubrick can do.

The Scarlet Pimpernel - Based on the book by Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel is largely considered to be one of the world’s first ‘superhero with a secret identity’ stories. Sir Percy Blakeney uses his identity as a dim-witted fop to provide cover for his activities rescuing French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution. The 1982 version with Anthony Andrews and the 1999 version with Richard Grant are both a lot of fun.

Speaking of the French, where would we be without them? Our small domestic dust-up with Britain has far-reaching international consequences, setting in motion so many other social movements in Europe. The French, for instance, will have their own revolution several years after ours, which, of course, will lead to a total political shakeup ending with an artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte on the throne as Emperor. (You may have heard of him. He goes on to have his own series of large wars and, you know, completely changes the geo-political landscape of Europe. Like you do.)

La Revolution Francaise, filmed for the 200th anniversary of the Revolution, is available on YouTube in it’s entirety with English subtitles! Starts in 1774 and goes through the 1800s. C’est merveilleux.

Marie Antoinette - Sofia Coppola’s wild, modern romp through the life of one of the 18th century’s most notorious women. It may not be great history, but darn me if it isn’t fun to watch.

Farewell, My Queen - Another story about Marie Antoinette - this one is in French.

Nicolas Le Floch: An 18th century crime procedural set at the court of Louis XVI. The whole show is in French, so watch with subtitles, but the costumes are a lot of fun and it gives an interesting picture of the life a character like Lafayette would have left behind when he came to America. (He gets name dropped a few times, actually, though he never actually appears.)

Ekaterina: A 2014 miniseries from Russia discussing the rise of Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796, contemporaneous to the Revolution. The 18th century is a fascinating time in Russian history and Catherine is a really, really interesting lady. Totally go and read about her.

Anno 1790: A Swedish crime procedural set in 1790s Sweden and following Johann Däadh, a doctor recently roped into the police force. Däadh is a bit of a reformer, interested in the rights of man and giving everyone a chance to be heard. Costumes are fun, and there’s a really great slow-burn romance between two of the characters, one of whom is (gasp) married. This show only ran for one season, but it was a really, really good season.

If you’re still jonesing for period dramas after the rest of this list, here’s a lot of shows and tv series set during the Napoleonic Wars that are also totally worth your time - the Richard Sharpe miniseries, the Horatio Hornblower miniseries, the BBC’s War and Peace, Master and Commander, and then, of course, anything based on a Jane Austen novel.

Have fun!

#turn amc #so i hear you liked

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borncruel · 7 years ago

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🍒 @asperad / CONTINUED FROM HERE !

HE DOESN’T REALLY KNOW WHY HE’D SAID IT. it had just slipped from his manc tongue before he could stop it. his gaze burns daggers through STELLA GIBSON, he had never truly cared that much for the blonde . . . but ALEX DRAKE does and he cares for her, therefore he feels the need to say something about the situation. IT’S PROGRESSIVELY BOTHERING HIM.

❝ it’s every bit of my BUSINESS, gibby. ❞ his tone is low, almost as though he’s purposely trying not to convey any emotion whatsoever . . . but it cracks, an annoyance sliding through his tone. ❝ the atmosphere around here is going to shit and it’s my responsibility to get the momentum going again. ❞

HE’S ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ROOM, watching her through a dark gaze. he’s leaning over a desk, not his own . . . but he almost acts as though it is. and it doesn’t matter to him that STELLA is his superior, he was here long before she ever was . . . he’ll talk to her however he wishes and right now, it’s with SPITE.

❝ walking away isn’t going to help. ❞ he watches as she rises, participates in her little staring game. and he doesn’t falter, doesn’t look away . . . follows when she walks past him. ❝ don’t walk away from me, stella. i’m not finished talking to you. ❞

#asperad #° * ch : gene hunt.#oh god

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scullyverse · 2 years ago

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Day 17: Insubordination Equals Restraint

Prompt: Handcuffs Pairing: Stella/Scully Rating: Explicit Words: 6,390 AO3 Link || Masterlist

🖤 Content warnings; stella/scully, smut, plot what plot/porn without plot, shameless smut, handcuffs, restraints, authority kink, strap-ons, sex toys, oral sex 🖤

Scully has an authority kink. Stella punishes her for insubordination.

“You aren’t calling the shots, Agent Scully. I value your professional opinion, but not when you explicitly undermine my authority – I will not give you another warning.”

I feel the heat rise in my cheeks at the way Stella’s looking at me and my stomach clenches in ways that would be deemed completely inappropriate while we’re at work.

I see a glimpse of deviousness in her eyes, a dark twinkle that makes me uneasy.

Is she able to see right through me? She does seem to have that ability, so I guess it’s completely plausible…

I bite the inside of my cheek to hopefully cover my growing arousal; well arousal and confusion to be more blunt. We’re surrounded by officers and Mulder’s silent at my side, a look of anger on his face. His hand touches the small of my back and I dart my eyes away to look past her, my gaze unfocused.

“Yes ma’am. I apologize if I was being insubordinate,” I’m proud my voice doesn’t waver.

But the slight tug of Stella’s lips tells me she isn’t fooled for a second.

Damn her.

“Good. Back to work, Agents,” Her eyes linger on mine for a moment before walking away, heels clicking on the concrete floor.

“Wow, what a bitch,” Mulder huffs under his breath as we watch her walk away.

My eyes are purely focused on the sway of Stella’s hips. Fuck, her ass looks incredible in that skirt. I do a double-take when I feel Mulder nudge my shoulder with a confused look on his face.

“Scully?”

“Huh?” I look over to him and shake my head. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked you if you’re ready to get started with the interviews again?” He replies with a gentle rub of my lower back. Even though my arousal is focused solely on Stella, his touch on my overheated skin still manages to send a jolt straight to my core.

I swallow and push aside my arousal with a nod. “Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

This is going to be a long afternoon.

—— xxx ——

I avoid Stella for the rest of the day.

If the twinkle in her eye and the curl of her lip was any indication she’s well aware of my arousal even if I was sure I’d managed to hide it from everyone else – Stella knows me far too well.

Throughout the day I’d become desperate to get back to my room and ease the aching between my thighs. Stella and I had agreed that our ‘casual-sex-arrangement’ wouldn’t come between work and if I’m anything, I’m a professional. I can at least keep my walls up in public until I’m in the privacy of my hotel room, then all those walls can come crashing down.

Now I’m laying on the bed, freshly showered and looking up at the ceiling when I hear a sharp, precise knock at my door.

I suck in a sharp breath when I see Stella standing on the other side of the peephole, looking fucking incredible, somehow, even after the long day we’ve had.

What is she doing here? It’s still light out. Surely she wouldn’t take the risk in coming here for anything other than to talk, right?

I’m honestly not sure if I have enough self-control to take another reprimand, especially not in the privacy of my room where I don’t have to hide my arousal – But I don’t have time to think as my hands are already opening the door.

She stands before me with an expression that I can’t quite put my finger on, but the burning in her eyes causes me to grip the door handle tighter, suddenly feeling inadequate standing here in only my cotton underwear and oversized bed shirt.

“Stella, what are you doing here?”

“I told you before, I’m not going to give you another warning, Agent Scully. It’s Special Agent Gibson,” She’s using that tone again and it gives me no wiggle room in understanding what she’s trying to convey.

It surprises me that someone standing on a rundown footpath of a rundown hotel wearing the finest silk blouse, tight skirt and feminine curled hair would be able to exude so much raw power. God, she’s like pure fire.

I’m rooted on the spot and it’s not until Stella takes a step towards me that I take a step back. It seems instinctual to back away from her when she has that predatory smirk on her face. Stella shuts the door and I back towards the bed. I’m not sure what her intentions are so I play nervously with my wrists and watch her slide the chain into the look and pull the blinds shut.

“S-S…Gibson…” I stutter, correcting myself mid-sentence.

It’s weird to address her so formally while we’re off the clock but I feel compelled to do so, even when there’s a part of me that is begging myself to tempt her further, just to see what she’ll do.

I bite my bottom lip and contemplate my ideas of rebellion but, just as quickly, my shirt is balled in her fist as she tugs me forward, shaking all thoughts from my head. I smirk. This is familiar, and my arousal bubbles in anticipation.

Stella studies me with curious eyes and tilts her head, brushing her fingers over my bottom lip. I suck in a breath before parting my lips and playfully nip at one of her fingertips.

Two can play this game, Agent Gibson.

She lets her finger linger and my nips turn to kisses before Stella replaces her fingers with her lips. My eyes flutter closed as I taste the slight earthiness of lipstick on my tongue. She groans and I take the opportunity to deepen the kiss and reach out to touch her waist.

But that’s a wrong move.

Two strong hands grip my wrists tightly, almost painfully, and my eyes open in surprise.

“I didn’t say you could touch me,” Her voice is rough but holds just as much authority as it did before.

I lick my lips, slightly unnerved by her tone. She hasn’t spoken to me like this before but it's stirring something in me that is making my knees uneasy.

“Sit on the bed,” She commands and it’s enough for me to bite the inside of my cheek and obey.

“You forgot your place today, Agent Scully. I value your opinion…” She stalls mid-sentence as she slides her heels off. “But you aren’t to undermine my commands like that again. Do I make myself clear? It won’t happen again, will it, Dana?”

Her gaze is so piercing that I know I can’t keep looking at her without proving Mulder’s theory about spontaneous human combustion, so I look down and nod. Why do I feel so hot all of a sudden?

“I-It won’t happen again. I’m sorry, Ste-“ pausing, I look up and let my eyes rest on the shallow of her throat, watching the vein pulse with her heartbeat, unable to meet her gaze. “Special Agent Gibson.”

“Good,” Stella reaches out and touches my jaw and it gives me no choice but to look into her eyes. “So, can I trust you to behave?”

I can’t stop the involuntary moan that escapes my lips, overwhelmed with the sudden need to please her, to do whatever she wants.

I can behave for her.

“Yes,” I whisper.

She smiles before stepping back to undress and all I feel I can do is watch. She’s a prize that seems off limits, something to be treasured but never touched. I squeeze my thighs together when Stella’s blouse hits the floor to reveal nothing underneath and my eyes focus immediately on her perfect breasts, tipped with rosy nipples that I so desperately want to taste. I watch as she teases herself, dragging her fingertips over her body until they tug at her nipples with such a heated look that I have to grip the bed sheets and close my eyes.

God, she’s such a fucking tease.

A rattle causes me to open my eyes and see a pair of FBI issued handcuffs next to me and I swallow the lump in my throat as something inside of me stirs when I reach out to touch them but do not dare pick them up.

Is she planning on using these with me? We’ve done things with silks before but this is something totally different.

There’s a power to these cuffs.

A power that Stella has strapped to her hips every day and uses to bring grown men to their knees. There’s a new flush of arousal blooming in my very being, down to the frayed edges of my psyche. Is this a part of her game tonight?

“Are you here to teach me a lesson with these, Special Agent Gibson?”

All cockiness leaves me and my mouth goes dry when I watch her slide her skirt down to reveal a delicate thong, swollen lips flush against the thin strap with trimmed curls just visible under the sheer fabric. She smirks and makes her way towards me as I instinctively part my legs to allow her to stand in between.

“And what if I am?” Her voice is smooth and warm like honey. “Don’t you think I should punish you for your actions today?”

My body’s crumbling as I look into her eyes, the harsh height difference only making her appear more powerful. I chew on my bottom lip as I feel myself slipping into a submissive state, something unfamiliar but not unknown to me.

I want to be good for her.

“Yes,” I arch when she touches her thumbs to my bottom lip, tugging it down before letting it bounce back up. “Please… sir.”

The change in her is instantaneous. Her body stills and her eyes darken, resting her hand at the back of my neck, her thumb running over my carotid artery, firm but gentle.

Shit. Why the hell did I go and say that?

Maybe if I’m quick enough she’ll accept my apology.

I’m about to speak when she crashes our lips together in an almost bruising kiss. I’m momentarily stunned and my body moves to the flow of Stella’s movements. As soon as my brain catches up to what’s happening, her lips are gone and I’m left panting.

She leans in, her breath hot against my ear.

“Say it again.”

A jolt of arousal shoots down to my clit and I melt.

“Please, sir, ” I speak again to a rumble of approval deep in her throat.

So, maybe she didn’t mind after all.

A soft kiss on the soft spot behind my ear relaxes my tense shoulders. She does this when we are about to try something like this and I nod. I trust you completely.

With my consent, she takes the handcuffs and brings her foot up to rest against my cunt. I whimper and arch into the touch as her toes wiggle against the seam of my underwear.

“Lay down on the bed. On your back with your arms above your head,” She instructs.

Shuffling back onto the bed, I raise my arms and wrap my fingers around the wooden slats of the headboard. I watch as she places the cuffs on my skin, resting between my hip bones, before moving to my suitcase.

“Did you bring it with you?” She peeks inside curiously.

I swallow thickly as my cheeks burn. “N-Not that one…”

“Not that one? You brought another?” She arches her brow. “Where is it?”

I can’t meet her eyes. “I put it back into the front pocket.”

“Put it back?” Her fingers pause on the zipper and her lips curl into a devious smirk. “Agent Scully…Have you used it today? Such a naughty girl you are.”

I blush harder and sink deeper into the bed. The way she addresses me causes me to squeeze my thighs together and give a shy smile, avoiding her gaze.

“I may have,” I reply with a tempting suck of my bottom lip. “The attachment is drying in the bathroom.”

Humming, Stella pulls out the harness and brings it to her nose. “You must have used it recently. I can still smell your come all over it. When did you use it, Dana?”

I feel completely exposed with how she is watching me – so intently – that I squirm.

I can’t lie to her now. It’s impossible. Not when she’s looking at me like that, unraveling all my layers and leaving me bleeding.

“I used it when I got back to my room,” I admit.

She clicks her tongue and kneels on the bed, her fingers lingering against the seam of my underwear as she collects the cuffs. I gasp and my hips buck into her touch but as soon as it’s there, it’s gone. She’s already sauntering towards the bathroom, my eyes feeling heavy with arousal as I watch her come back with the dildo in her hand, fingers teasingly playing with its girth.

“Tell me how it works,” She slips the toy into the harness.

I go to sit up, but her hard stare and disapproving tsktsk of her tongue instruct me to lie back down. “Did I say you could move?”

“I’m sorry,” I apologize with a tight swallow.

“Sorry, what? Remember who you’re addressing, Agent Scully,” She reprimands and slowly crawls onto the bed, pushing my legs up and apart to settle between them.

“Sorry, Agent Gibson…” My heart races when she crawls over me. I want to give her all the power she demands. “ …Sir.”

“Good girl,” She praises and lets her fingernails slide up the insides of my thighs. I can only hiss and whimper when red marks are left in her wake.

“Now, tell me how it works,” She asks again.

I’m finding it increasingly harder to gather my thoughts enough to speak but I don’t want to disappoint her.

“It’s a thigh strap on,” I stutter. “One person straps it onto their thigh and the other rides it.”

She pauses halfway up my thigh and looks into my eyes with curiosity.

“Then how did you use it earlier?” Her voice is thick and it sends a shiver down my body.

I’ve never felt embarrassed about anything I’ve ever done in the bedroom but under her gaze, I feel like I’ve proceeded to sin, delved into something off limits.

Silence falls between us and I gasp when she digs her nails impatiently into my thighs. She wants an answer.

“I-I strapped it onto a pillow,” I blush furiously. “You can use it like that to replicate a thigh.”

She hums her approval and places a playful kiss and nip on my exposed hipbone. I moan and try to give myself some relief but the solidness of Stella’s body between my legs stops me from achieving anything.

“You just couldn’t wait for me, could you? Naughty girl, ” She purrs.

Fuck, yes, I’m your naughty girl.

She climbs further up my body and pins me down with her thighs, leaning over to snap the cuffs on my wrist and effectively securing me to the headboard. My head’s swimming, clouded with mist that I can’t shoo away, as I look up to see Stella’s breasts hovering in front of her face.

I arch my neck, frowning when only the tip of my tongue can reach but I flick at one of her nipples regardless, which seems to catch her off guard, her thighs squeezing at my sides as a gasp slips from her lips just loud enough for me to hear. The satisfied smirk on my face is soon replaced with a grimace when she grips my wrists and holds them tight against the metal.

“I told you to stay still. I didn’t say you could touch me like that, did I, Dana?” The look in her eyes makes me instantly regret my decision.

“N-No. Sorry, Agent Gibson.”

She watches as I stretch my fingers and wrists as best I can to test out the extent of the restraints, also judging the pain. It hurts, but feels good, like when you pick at your cuticle until it aches, unable to stop. It makes me both nervous and excited about the prospect of experiencing more.

“Do the cuffs hurt?” She shuffles down the bed and runs her fingers up my thighs.

I test the cuffs again before watching her secure the harness to my thigh, the dark red silicone sitting erect and pointing to the ceiling. I feel a bit silly, but the way she’s stroking the cock, eyes focused solely on me makes it a hell of a lot more erotic.

“They sting a little,” I reply honestly.

No matter how kinky we’ve gotten in the bedroom she’s always been concerned about our safety, which I’m thankful for. But I know for that to work everything from this point on has to be open and honest. Something she also knows is my biggest weakness. It makes the power control that much more captivating.

She nods and gets to her feet. I lick my bottom lip when she shimmies her hips and pulls her underwear down, the fabric sticking to her arousal. I’ll never get tired of seeing her like this, she’s a goddess.

“You look beautiful” I whisper with awe.

There’s a flicker of a smile on her lips before she finds the travel-sized bottle of lube in my suitcase and climbs back onto the bed. She slips her underwear between the cuffs on my wrists to provide some cushioning against the harsh metal.

“Fuck, ” I moan when I feel the damp material against my left wrist, her overwhelming scent hitting my nose. Her ass is now angled towards my face as she takes her time in lubing up the cock. My fingers twitch as I watch her wiggle her ass, looking over her shoulder with a bite of her bottom lip and dark, blown pupils.

“Will you be a good girl for me, Dana? If I give you a little taste?” She arches her eyebrow and begins inching herself back as I eagerly nod with wide eyes.

“I’ll behave. Please, let me taste you. Please, ” I can’t believe I’m begging already. But I’m salivating to have her against my mouth. “I’ll be a good girl.”

Stella arches herself forward and exposes herself to me and I slip my tongue between her swollen folds. God, she tastes so sweet. I can’t do much at this angle, but I can flick my tongue playfully against her clit. She’s keeping herself just out of reach to be able to properly fuck her but I try nonetheless. When she goes to pull away, I tug my wrists hard against the bed and let out a hiss of pain.

“Easy, Dana,” She smirks and turns around to lick her arousal off my lips. “Now, behave while I fuck myself on your thigh. If you don’t obey me, I’ll have to punish you for your disobedience. Do you understand, Agent Scully?”

Her bluntness makes me shiver as I nod. “I understand. I’ll behave."

I watch as she sinks herself down, the red disappearing inch by inch into her until she is sat flush against my thigh. She rolls her hips gently before looking into my eyes and I know I’m done for.

“Please, sir…Use me to make yourself come.”

Her hips snap forward – as if uncontrolled – before she begins to rock her hips with the tiniest of moans. I’m dumbfounded by the feeling of her weight shifting on me and her heat radiating onto my thigh. She pauses only to grab the remote attached to the base of the toy and puts it onto the lowest setting. I’ve seen her in all states of arousal before and from the look on her face, the vibrations are doing their job.

“Uh,” She groans softly and lets her head fall forward, our eyes connecting.

The sexual tension in the room suddenly shoots up and I can’t stop the shuffle of my hips and the tight squeeze of my thighs. She stops and places her commanding hand down to my stomach to hold me still, a simple weight that speaks volumes.

“Stay,” She commands and I have to obey, unable to comprehend another choice.

She tugs my exposed leg up and places it over her shoulder, hugging it, now more stabilized in her movements.

I’m suddenly completely restricted and completely at her mercy, Stella taking full control and I find myself unable to move my arms or legs. I should feel overwhelmed, but I don’t. The many years that I’ve been restrained in closets, tucked away in the boots of cars or cable tied and left for dead should have me panicked, but her presence sucks all those things away. She has me completely at her feet and I’m willingly knelt down, lips teasing her feet with the knowledge that her soft hand resting in her hair will guide me towards safety and trust when I’m slipping into such vulnerability.

It’s weird to feel my mind and body start to slowly relax into submission, thoughts fading and replaced with a calmness as I’m captivated by watching her face shift and contort with pleasure. I can feel the hum of vibrations as she turns the speed up higher and my clit pulses every time she hits my thigh on a down stroke. I’m utterly mesmerized, my body naturally responding; wanting to please her, my thigh tensing to provide her with more friction and my hips moving to encourage her.

Her fingernails dig into my flesh in appreciation and my arms ache as I tug against the cuffs again with a groan as I’m met with painful resistance. She must have heard the clink because her eyes are suddenly open and focused on me, lips brushing sloppily against my leg.

I can’t resist the urge to tug against the restraints again – the pain is just too sweet – and she catches me off guard with a sharp nip to my calf.

“Fuck! ” I gasp, toes arching in an attempt to wiggle my skin out of her teeth. It’s not painful in the sense of feeling pain, but every tug against her teeth causes pulses of arousal to shoot to my clit that is now screaming at me for any sort of relief, like her teeth were connected to my very nerve endings, twinging and pulling at my neurons.

“P-Please…I need…sir…please touch me,” I’m begging again and I couldn’t care less. At this moment I would do anything for her.

She lets go and eases her hot tongue over the patch of skin she had pinched between her teeth and I hold my breath in anticipation as her fingers creep closer to my wet heat.

“You want me to touch you? Do you think you deserve that?” She asks curiously as her pinkie runs up and down the seam of my underwear making me shake.

“God! ” I squeal at the first bit of stimulation against my pussy. She shouldn’t touch me, I don’t deserve it. But the words “Please! I’ve been good…please!” leave my mouth without much thought.

She studies me for a moment and sinks onto the toy and rolls her hips in large circles against my thigh.

“You have been a good girl for me…I’ll reward you,” She smirks.

My heart jumps in my chest and my eyes go wide with gratification, but when she removes her finger from my pussy I could have screamed.

“N-No!” I whine, my hips bucking to try and follow her fingers.

She pauses and gives my calf another sharp bite that involuntarily shoots my hips off the bed.

“Did you just talk back to me, Agent Scully?” Her voice is low and dangerous.

I’ve never felt this aroused in my life, my body is fire personified and my mind is completely void of anything but primal urges, dulled by the sweet calmness of submission. I need to make it up to her, I can still be her good girl. I am her good girl.

“I’m sorry,” My fingers clench as I tug against the cuffs, the look of desperation in my eyes must be enough for Stella to give me mercy. “It won’t happen again, Agent Gibson.”

“No, Dana, it won’t. I’ve given you enough warnings today. That was your last.”

I blush and nod. “Understood, sir.”

Stella rumbles her agreement and turns the vibrations up. I can feel her erect nipple smashed against my leg, sharp as steel and I gasp when she leans forward to push my leg onto my chest. This new position leaves me feeling raw and exposed, completely open to her and at any other time I would feel vulnerable, but as her knee purposefully brushes the seam of my underwear against my swollen clit, just the slightest of touches, my eyes roll into my head.

“Look at me,” Stella commands and I snap my eyes open immediately, wanting to do as I’m told, the last bit of restraint of my own self control is my ability to behave.

We look into each other's eyes and I can see the flush of arousal on Stella’s cheeks and blushing the tip of her nose. Her curls are now unraveled and sticking to her sweaty forehead, her eyes are almost black; any remnant of blue overtaken by blown pupils.

There’s something so erotic about watching her fuck herself on me, about how she takes what she wants. I’m envious of her.

My wrists are constantly fighting against the restraints and now, I don’t even feel pain – just purely focusing on the wet slickness of Stella’s pussy sliding up and down the toy. I watch her let herself go and succumb to her body’s instinct, pressing forward and with a sudden gasp I know she’s found her g-spot.

That and her knee is now pressed against my pussy hard enough to make my eyes shut without my consent, the touch a sharp jolt to my blurry perspective on myself.

“Open your eyes,” Her nails dig into my thigh, her command not as strong as before but I know that tone all too well. She’s close. “Are you going to be a good girl and watch me come?”

Fuck.

I nod frantically, my hands tugging against the cuffs in an attempt to escape, to touch her, to feel something , pain or pleasure, I don’t fucking care. “Yes sir, I’m your good girl.”

It’s what Stella wanted to hear.

“I’m going to come on you and you’re going to lay there and take it, aren’t you, Dana?” Her voice is steadier than I expected and I can only whimper in response.

“Yes! Please, come on me,” I beg as my tongue swipes over my bottom lip eagerly. “I’ll take it. Give it to me, please, Stella.”

The moment her name leaves my lips I panic thinking she’ll stop. But she doesn’t, her pace picks up and I feel a new seep of arousal soak my already ruined underwear at the thought that maybe she can’t stop. That she’s too far gone in her pleasure, slipping into her own state of somewhat submission.

We lock eyes as she starts to pant, a subtle whine to every breath and her nails dig incredibly deep into my thigh, enough for me to cry out. Enough to mark me for days, small crescents bruising my skin with reminders of her presence, about what she can reduce me to.

“Fuck!” She moans loudly as her stomach curls in on itself with wide eyes on the verge of completely exposing me with the penetration of her pleasure. “I’m coming!”

I watch her in her throes of passion, her eyes screwed shut and I feel a gush of molten liquid pool onto my thigh. She looks like she’s having the orgasm of her life and I swear my body almost falls along with her, teetering like a dew drop hanging off the tip of a leaf, my hips arching off the bed and toes digging into the bed sheets in frustration.

Stella’s pants slow and her thighs shake as her nails ease out of my thighs, coming down from her high with soft rocks. She turns off the toy and slowly rides it, milking the pleasure of all it’s worth.

Teetering. Teetering. Teetering.

My body burns and I’m vaguely aware of what I must look like; shirt clinging to sweat-covered skin and hair plastered to my neck and cheeks. My need is stronger than I’ve ever felt and I find it strange how, for the first time in a long time, my mind is completely void of anything.

No fears. No anger. No sadness. Just free.

She runs her hands up my stomach, pushing my shirt to sit under the swell of my breasts before sliding off the toy and resting her hands on either side of my head.

“Mmmm,” She purrs and brushes our noses together. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so desperate, Agent Scully.”

“Please , make me come,” I don’t even care that I’m begging, the part of my brain that holds my self-respect is long gone.

We look at each other as she contemplates her answer, my heart hammering in my chest as she leans down to nibble on my ear. Her hot breath against my skin is enough for my hips to buck with unrestrained freedom.

“Stay still or I’ll stop,” Stella smirks and wiggles her way down my body and I part my legs as wide as I can in desperation.

She arches her brow and hooks her fingers under the sides of my underwear, her eyes completely focused on the large wet patch I know is evident on the white fabric.

“Did seeing me come make you this wet?” She peels the fabric off and tosses it to the floor with a devilish grin.

“Y-Yes,” I nod my head with a whimper as she runs her fingers up the insides of my thighs.

In this position, I can’t see anything but the top of her head and the anticipation of not knowing is killing me. I feel her lips kiss and suck along the crease of my thighs and her soft breaths against my cunt are infuriating. She’s so close to where I need her most and I can’t take the teasing anymore.

Then, suddenly, she’s everywhere I need her to be. Even places I wasn’t aware she could be, deep down in the broken little corners of my heart.

Her hot tongue dips into me with confidence and I feel my inner muscles clamp hungrily, greedily, around her. My head snaps back and my arms pull hard against the restraints, a primal growl leaving my throat at finally getting to feel something.

The sounds in the room are so lewd, all wetness and sucking, slurping and swallowing, and if I wasn’t so far gone I would blush. But Stella reveals in it, muttering “Fucking delicious,” against my skin before continuing.

I want to give her everything.

The instant her lips wrap around my clit, I’m lost – falling off a cliff and frantically trying to grip the edge but only rewarded with fingernails clawing at earth.

My eyes grow wide and I make a low, animalistic scream as my body explodes.

My orgasm takes me by complete surprise as my thighs clench tightly around her head. I feel weightless, stars shooting behind my eyes, every vein pumping my body full of pleasure as my clit pulses rapidly in Stella’s gentle mouth. I barely register the surprised moan from between my legs, but the subtle vibrations make me arch and spasm even harder. I’m just electricity, a single spark floating through space, unrestricted from anything but surviving in the vast expanse of nothing.

As my orgasm begins to fade I have just enough self-awareness to let my legs fall open to release Stella’s head. All I can do is lay there, head fuzzy, like it won’t connect to the rest of my body enough to give it proper signals. I can vaguely feel Stella unstrapping my thigh but I can’t move to help.

Our eyes meet and she smiles, wiping her lips and chin with a look of amazement in her eyes.

“You were really on the edge, weren’t you?” She licks her fingers clean. “I barely had enough time to taste you.”

I can do nothing but let my head fall back to the pillow, my arms sagging tightly against the cuffs, with no discomfort, only the warm fuzzy blurs in my chest.

Her eyes soften as she kisses me.

“Just relax, Dana,” Stella whispers and brushes some hair from my forehead before she undoes the cuffs, my arms falling limply above my head. “I’ll be right back.”

I lick my lips, my throat dry. I can’t speak, just nod and stare into that black vastness.

The next thing I’m aware of is a kiss on my thighs and I open them to allow her to softly drag a warm, wet cloth between my legs. The fabric moving across my oversensitive clit makes my hips jump suddenly.

“I’m sorry, I’m nearly done,” She smiles and finishes cleaning between my legs before pulling my shirt down to cover my stomach.

The submissive come-down hits me and I shiver. The mist is starting to clear, parting as the day grows warmer and the sun starts to edge the chill away.

“It’s ‘kay,” I mumble with a smile and bring my arms down to my sides, grimacing when my wrists brush against the sheets. I look down to see angry, red welts against my skin. They were the outwards expression of my vulnerability, raw and exposed down to the layers under my skin.

I roll them before Stella takes them in her hands, looking at me with a softness in her eyes. “Are you alright?”

I nod and relax into Stella’s hold. “Just a bit tender.”

“I didn’t know you had an authority kink,” She smirks and sits down next to me on the bed, thumbs brushing softly against my wrists. “How have I not known about this before? How long have we been fucking?”

She knows that I need that pull out of my consciousness, a jest, a tether to this world so I don’t fall completely to a place where she can’t reach out to steady me.

I love her.

“To be honest, I didn’t really know I had one either,” Pausing, I bite my bottom lip with a smile as Stella helps me sit up. “Until today, when you were suddenly very… boss woman . I’ve never gotten so wet so quickly before in my life.”

She hums her approval. “Well then, it’s a good thing we don’t work together too often, huh? Otherwise, you’ll have to start packing a lot more underwear.”

Stella accidentally brushes against a particularly painful welt and I wince. Her thumbs lift immediately and she leans in to give me a soft, reassuring kiss.

“I have something that’ll help, just lie back and relax, okay? Is there anything else you need?” She puts my wrists down onto my stomach gently and I snuggle back into the bed with a shake of my head.

“No, I’m okay.” My body suddenly feels heavy.

—— xxx ——

My eyes flicker open when I feel an icy coldness against my skin.

Stella’s sitting on the bed again, her skirt back on and her shirt hanging over on her torso. The cold cloth on my wrists are providing a nice relief and I blush when I realize that I must have dozed off. Her hair is wet and slick down her neck, face fresh, make-up free and speckled with freckles and she smells like cheap hotel soap.

“I wanted to let you rest for a while,” She uncaps a small bottle of hand cream that was nestled in her lap. “Here, this will help the irritation.”

I remove the cloth and pat my wrists dry on the bed sheets before I give her permission to gently rub in the cream, my nose instantly filling with the faint scent of camomile. She respects my boundaries, knowing that she needs to approach me, give me back that sense of control that I relinquished to her. It stings at first but soon the soothing motions of her fingers make my eyes feel heavy again.

I fight the urge to sleep and she only leans down to kiss my cheek before buttoning up her shirt.

“You should sleep, don’t fight it. It’s okay, you’re safe-” Her voice fades as I give a blissful smile, soft lips against mine the last thing I feel before everything slips into darkness.

—— xxx ——

I chuckle to myself when I hear the steady, deep breathing coming out of Dana’s slightly parted lips. I hadn’t even finished my sentence before she drifted off and I don’t try to hide the smile that tugs at my lips.

As I finish gathering my things, I catch myself looking at her reflection in the mirror.

I’m not one to get feelings, especially not for the people I fuck but there’s something about Dana that’s different. There’s something special about the connection we share and even though we’re just fuck buddies, I have an affection for her that I’ve only had with a handful of people in my life before. She’s dangerous but vulnerable, exposing things in me that unravel when she exposes herself.

I take the time to clear everything away before easing Dana under the covers and placing the cooling cloth back on her wrists, leaving a glass of water and some aspirin I’d found in Dana’s suitcase on the bedside table.

It’s important that Dana feels safe and cared for even after I’m gone, so I brush a copper strand out of her eyes and lean down to kiss her forehead.

I’m growing quite fond of you, Dana Scully.

I quietly leave the hotel room with a soft click, making sure the door locks behind me. My heels click against the concrete and I have a sway to my hips from the ache between my legs that makes me smile contently. I think, for once, I might sleep soundly tonight.

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