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soaps-mohawk · 7 months ago

Text

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 39: Life

Summary: Something begins to throb in your chest as you lay there. Something thrums deep within you, something you haven’t felt in weeks.

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 8,194 words

Warnings: Angst, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, angst, PTSD, nightmares, POV changes, depression and anxiety, illness, language, slightly graphic imagery, very slight violence, rumination, lots of feels, and yes finally some comfort

A/N: Yes, it has finally arrived. The time has come. We are now in the comfort. This very much is a good place to end things for the next month. If you haven't seen my post then I'll say it here, I will be putting the fic on a brief hiatus for the month of October. I have Kyletober planned and trying to do CRCB at the same time will be too much. So this will be the last chapter for a couple weeks while I focus on other things and just give my brain a little break from CRCB. It's been eight months of just pumping out long chapters every week, or almost every week, so I need a little break to focus on other things. I'll still be writing and posting things here (and Ao3 of course) but there won't be another CRCB chapter posted until November.

But anyway, I hope you enjoy this one and the comfort starting and I'm super excited for what's coming next month (can't believe it's almost October)

11/30/24: **This chapter has been edited and rewritten from its original version**

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“I need you to be brave.” Christine says, staring up at him.

His heart thumps in his chest. How bad is it that not only did she summon him down here, but she’s asking him to be brave. He knows you’re sick, that you’ve fallen ill after your moment of anger earlier. She had informed them over dinner as she made some broth that you came down with a fever.

They had all been worried, sharing glances at the news. John looked like a dog that had been scolded. It was his fault, after all.

If anything happens to you, it is his fault.

Johnny swallows the lump in his throat, nodding slowly as he stares down at Christine. “I can be brave.”

Christine stares up at him for a long moment before nodding. She pushes the door open, leading him inside your room. The scent in the air is thick, tainted by the bitter scent of anxiety still lingering in the air, and the sour scent of illness. He misses the fresh scent of strawberries, he has missed it over the last few weeks. Your scent had taken on a bitter edge ever since the cameras were revealed to them. It’s only gotten stronger recently after the events that transpired.

All of their scents have been off lately.

It’s dark in the room aside from the bedside lamp. It casts a soft glow around the room, elongating the shadows in the corners. They loom threateningly, and his fingers twitch to turn on the overhead light.

You don’t like the overhead light. It’s too bright.

You always prefer softer light. Is it an omega thing, or is it just a you thing? He’s not quite sure.

How little they really understand you.

The lamp illuminates a pile of blankets on the bed, stacked one on top of each other to create a lump of soft fabric. You’re underneath that pile, he knows it. You’ve always liked blankets, always carried one with you in the barracks, eternally cold in the harsh world they existed in on base. This many blankets though? It was excessive even for you.

He approaches the bed slowly, scared at what he might find. Images of you laying in a puddle of blood, cold and stiff fills his mind. Images of a skeletal figure reduced to nothing but skin stretched over bones has his heart racing. What will he find on the other side of that pile obscuring you from his vision?

He swallows down his fear, reminding himself that he’s a soldier. He’s seen dead bodies before, he’s killed before. So why is he so scared now?

This isn’t war. It’s you.

He steps up to the side of the bed, looking down on you. You’re shivering, trembling under the blankets. Sweat beads on your forehead, skin dewy and clammy in your fever. You look more alive than the skeletal figure he had pictured in his mind, but you don’t look well.

You look near death.

“I’m worried about her.” Christine says, closing the door behind her. “She needs someone from her pack close. You’re making the most effort right now, and if anyone might get through to her, it’s you. She needs...someone.” Christine sighs. “Someone who can offer what I can’t.”

“She needs a member of her pack.” Johnny says, easily putting together what Christine was saying.

He knows what she’s asking. He’s scared. He’s not sure how you’ll react. The last people you want to see right now is your pack, including him. How will you react to having him so close?

“Exactly.” Christine says, stepping up right next to him.

Her fingers wrap around his wrist, and he lets her guide his hand to your cheek. It’s hot and clammy against his palm, a fire blazing under your skin. You let out a shuddering breath, the air fanning weakly against his wrist. Your head turns just slightly, pressing into his hand. It’s a good sign, despite the delirium you have to be stuck in. What are you imagining is happening right now? What is your brain telling you?

“Touch her, talk to her.” Christine says, releasing his wrist. He keeps his hand there, pressed against your cheek. “We need to try and get her back before this gets worse.”

Before they lose you.

She won’t say it out loud.

She doesn’t need to.

Johnny nods, turning his head to look at Christine over his shoulder. She looks exhausted, and not just because of the late hour. She’s done so much over the past few weeks watching you and caring for you. Maybe it is time one of them tries to step up and help her. You can’t avoid them forever, no matter how much you might feel like trying.

He has to try. For you.

“I know what tae do.” He says, his eyes flickering to the books stacked on your dresser, the ones Simon and John picked up.

Christine squeezes his arm. “I’m just across the living room if you need me.”

“I’ll try not to.” He says.

She stares up at him for a long moment before nodding. She understands. He doesn’t have to say much else. She leaves the door cracked and he doesn’t mind, moving away from you to look through the books on the dresser. A handful of them are new, or at least ones he’s never seen you read before. A couple are ones he knows are in your collection at the barracks. He picks one of those, some fantasy novel he’s seen you read more than once.

He looks between the bed and the chairs. He could pull one over and sit by your side.

No, Christine said it was better to touch you.

Instead he climbs onto the bed, sitting close enough he can feel the heat from your body. He cracks open the book, flipping through to the first page. He clears his throat, staring down at you for a moment before he begins to read.

Rain batters the roof, coming down hard outside. The wind is blowing, whooshing past the house, rattling the shutters. The storm blew in from the sea, dumping rain by dinner and then the wind picked up by the time they were all getting ready to settle in for the night.

It feels fitting, a storm blowing in at a time when a storm is brewing within their pack.

The storm he blew into their pack.

He lays there in bed, listening to it rage outside. It’s quiet in the house, Simon and Johnny already settled in, and so are you downstairs. Kyle is beside him, but not asleep. He’s laying awake again as they have done since their arrival. He can feel the heat of Kyle’s body against his arm as he lays on his back, Kyle on his side facing away from him.

“You just had to do it, didn’t you?” Kyle asks quietly, breaking the silence. “Can’t even go a week without trying to apologize knowing full well she won’t forgive you.”

John stays silent, having expected some kind of reprimanding for his actions. He really was selfish for what he did. Kyle is right. You won’t forgive him, no matter how many times or ways he tries to say sorry.

“You’re just making it worse.” Kyle huffs out. “You’re the last person that should try apologizing right now.”

“You’re right.” He finally says. “It was selfish of me to do that. I just wanted her to know-”

“She knows.” Kyle snaps, cutting him off. “She’s not stupid and oblivious. She knows we’re all feeling guilty, she knows how sorry we all are. She won’t let us apologize until she’s ready. Shows just how little you actually understand her, trying to do that.” Kyle pushes himself up to sit. “She doesn’t want words. She’s had words spewed at her, her whole life telling her what to do, how to feel, how to act. She wants actions. She wants us to prove to her that we do care, that we are sorry, that we’re making an effort to make things up to her. She wants us to prove that we’re putting her first by putting her first.”

John knows he’s right. Words won’t solve a situation like this. None of them know where to start, though. How do you try and make things up to someone when you’re not even sure that person wants you to try?

“She’s sick now, because of what you did.” Kyle continues. “If anything happens to her...” He trails off, shaking his head.

“I’ll let you take the first shot.” John says. “I know. I’ve been a miserable excuse of an alpha. It’s easy when you have the confines of the military to hold everything in place. When those expectations dictate your life and how to run a pack. It’s easy, when you can exist as a pack with those set routines and structures. The facade that makes everything seem like it's working.” He shakes his head. “We never would have worked outside of those confines.”

Kyle’s head turns slightly towards him, but his gaze is still on the far wall. “No, we wouldn’t have. None of us would have chosen this in the first place.”

“Probably not.” John agrees. “Then we got an omega added, an outsider that showed us just how weak we really were.”

“We were crumbling long before that.” Kyle says. “We weren’t ready for an omega, we shouldn’t have ever had an omega.”

“I should never have been head alpha.” John says. “Being an alpha is different from being a captain. It shouldn’t have been me.”

Kyle snorts. “He would have never agreed.”

“That delay might have saved us.”

“Or it would have made things worse.” Kyle says. “Shepherd wanted us to bond with her right away so his control over us would strengthen if he had to use that power. If those bonds weren’t put into place when they were, they might have tried to force it.”

“That would have only destabilized things further.” John says. Kyle isn’t wrong. Who knows what lengths they would have gone to, to ensure what they wanted would happen. “They were watching us from the start. They knew exactly how to play all of us.”

“Simon was right all along in his suspicions.” Kyle says, laying back down on the bed. Their shoulders are touching. It feels nice, having him close again. They’ve been close for the last few days, forced together by their sleeping arrangements, but it feels different now.

“He’ll be a better alpha than I ever could be.” John says quietly, almost speaking to himself.

“I think she will come to forgive you eventually.” Kyle says, turning his head to look at John. “You just have to give her time. A lot of time. You have to figure out how to prove yourself worthy of that forgiveness.”

“I want to take her to the beach.” John says. “Once she’s recovered.”

“If she recovers.” Kyle had pieced together the worry in Christine’s voice combined with her words. They all had.

“She will.” John says, sliding his hand across the sheets. “She’s a tough little thing. She’s not going to give up just like that.”

“I hope you’re right.” Kyle says. He doesn’t pull away as John’s fingers brush his hand.

“I may not have the best track record with being right currently, but I’m confident in her and her strength.” John turns his head to look at Kyle in the darkness. The storm is calming outside, the wind dying down and the rain lightening. “She’s stronger than all of us combined.”

The corners of Kyle’s lips twitch. “You are right about that.”

It smells good.

There’s a rich scent in the air as you begin to wake. It smells like Christmas, like spices and citrus. Warm gingerbread and cider. Freshly squeezed orange juice on Christmas morning just like every year. It had been your favorite, though you never understood the lengths your mother went to, the early morning and the hours spent in the kitchen on Christmas slaving away to make everything perfect. Everyone got something they wanted, something they loved. You never appreciated that effort until now.

Oranges. Spices. Warmth.

You know that scent.

It’s hot in the room, sweat soaking your skin as you lay on your right side. Heat surrounds you like a cocoon, just like the scent. Warm and soft and too much. You try to wiggle out from under the blankets but you can’t move, so instead you shuffle them off. Some of them hit the floor with soft plops, the others just barely hanging on the side of the bed, trapped under your body. You’re still stuck, still hot as you lay there, a comforting weight around you. The scent floods your nose, fills your body with a pleasant feeling as you lay there, breathing through your nose. Oranges, spices, warmth.

Someone is baking a pie.

It smells good. You want to bury yourself in it, press yourself into that scent until it’s the only thing you can smell. It brings you a comfort you didn’t realize you were missing. Something fills your chest, a weight beginning to press down inside of you.

Your hair sticks to your face as you lay there, tempted to get up and see who is baking and why. There’s weight pressing down on you from the outside as well. You can’t move. You’re stuck.

The weight around you moves.

No, it’s not pie.

It’s Johnny.

That’s why you know the scent. That’s why it feels so familiar, so comforting. It’s Johnny. Johnny is pressed up against your back, his arm tossed over your waist. That’s why it’s so hot, his body putting off warmth like a heater.

You should be angry at the breach of your clearly placed barriers. You should be upset that he would come in here and just climb in bed like this. You should be pissed that one of them would try something like this after your outburst yesterday.

You shouldn’t be crying.

Not out of relief.

Oh how you missed this.

Something begins to throb in your chest as you lay there, crying quietly in Johnny’s arms. Something begins to thrum deep within you, something you haven’t felt in weeks. Life? Hope? Happiness?

You should be upset.

You can’t be.

Johnny grunts quietly behind you, his arm leaving your waist as he stretches. He’s awake now, or maybe he hadn’t been at all and had been waiting for some sign of life, some movement from you, something to try and give him a hint at what you must be feeling. He doesn’t say anything, laying still as you sniffle in the silence. No one else is up yet, despite the blue light of dawn coming in through the gap in the curtain.

“Johnny?” You whisper, even the quiet sound hurting your sore throat. You’re thirsty, desperately so, but that’s a problem for later.

“It’s me, kitten.” He says hesitantly, the pet name making a sob tear from your throat.

“Johnny,” You cry, the tears falling in a cascade. You can’t stop them. You’ve lost complete control as you lay there sobbing. “Hold me.”

He doesn’t say anything else, his arms wrapping around you and tugging you close against his chest. He locks you in his embrace, holding you tightly against his chest as you cry. It feels good. Life and energy flows through you again for the first time in weeks. That empty space in your chest begins to fill slowly, warmth blossoming in your body despite the sweat soaking you both. Johnny offers no complaints as he presses his face into your hair.

How you missed this.

How you need this.

You seem more relaxed at dinner. Despite your angry outburst the day before, and your sudden illness, you look significantly less miserable than you did your first attempt at joining them for dinner. The yelling did a number on your throat, but even now it’s nothing compared to that first day. You’re having soup again, and this time there’s a side of mash and peas next to the bowl.

You even walked to the table without the crutch.

Simon sits beside you again, all of them taking their respective seats at the table. They’ve assigned themselves these seats, even when you don’t join them for a meal. You’re at the head of the table as you were the first time, Simon and Chrstine on either side of you. Kyle and Johnny are seated next to them, and John is across the table from you. You’ve been avoiding looking at him. You haven’t even so much as glanced up at him.

Simon is watching you carefully out of the corner of his eye, trying not to make it obvious. If you’ve noticed, you haven’t shown any disapproval. He’s ready in case he has to act fast again, but you are far more steady than you were that first time. There’s no tremble to your hand as you bring the spoon up to your mouth.

The others look happier than before too. Johnny has stopped crying. Not even a sniffle from him ever since this morning when he emerged from your room. None of them had said anything about it, though they have an inkling of what had happened, judging by Christine’s lack of reaction to it. Kyle looks happier too, sitting straighter like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. It probably has, with the lightening of the mood. Whatever happened with Johnny this morning, it’s made a huge change already.

John has never been much of a religious man, but god bless Johnny for whatever magic he worked this morning.

You don’t even look feverish as you sit there, spooning soup into your mouth. A lingering low-grade fever, Christine had informed them earlier that afternoon, but significantly less concerning than things had been yesterday.

He’s glad to hear it. He’s always glad to hear Christine’s updates on how you’re doing, how well you’re healing, at least physically. The body heals easily. Mentally...there’s still a long way to go. Healing physically will help mentally, but with all the trauma, years and years of trauma, it’s going to take a long time to heal from that.

The clink of your spoon in your bowl draws him from his thoughts and he glances up at you.

“Getting full?” Christine asks as you take a sip of your water, wincing slightly as you swallow it.

“Can I have some tea?” You ask.

“Sure,” Christine says, going to push her chair back, but John is already standing.

“I’ll make some.” He says, not offering any room for argument as he turns his back on the table to head for the kettle.

You’ve been drinking more tea lately, likely to soothe your throat. He never thought he’d see the day, given your determination to stand with Johnny on the side of coffee. It’s a bit late for coffee, but he does know it wouldn’t keep you awake in the slightest. You love your sleep, as most omegas do, and nothing will get in the way of it. Not even some late evening caffeine.

He sets mugs out on a tray, deciding to make tea for everyone. At least that way it’ll make it seem less targeted at you. He’s not doing it to try and impress you or win your affections back. He just wants to help take the load off of Christine’s shoulders. She’s done so much for you, for all of them, already.

He steeps the tea before bringing the mugs to the table along with some milk and sugar. He knows at least Simon and Kyle will drink some, and he will as well. He brings the kettle over, filling the mugs with tea. All of them sit there watching him, waiting tensely for what will happen next. Will you take the mug of tea he offers? Or will you refuse. Even if you threw it in his face, it wouldn’t make him mad. It would be horribly painful, yes, but he would deserve it.

Perhaps him doing this was a mistake.

He stares at the sugar and milk as he grabs one of the mugs. Do you like sugar or milk in your tea? He’s not sure. He doesn’t even know how you take your tea. He knows you like creamer in your coffee. But how do you take your tea?

What a sad excuse of a human being he is.

You don’t look at him as he sets the mug next to your water glass. You’re still eating your soup, your hand trembling just slightly now. Your scent is tainted still, a whiff of it filling his nose. Displeasure, a hint of burning anger.

This was a mistake.

He sets the milk and sugar next to you first, letting you finish making your tea. He won’t push that boundary and risk making it wrong. It would only add fuel to the fire, make it more obvious that he knows and cares so little for you. He doesn’t even know how you take your tea.

He takes his seat again as the others help themselves to the tea, even Johnny taking a mug. Whether he’s doing it because he wants to make the moment feel less awkward, or because he genuinely wants some, John will never know.

He made a mistake in doing that.

Still, despite the awkwardness, it felt good to do that.

Maybe that’s how they get closer to you.

The little things, things that take some of the pressure off Christine. She has to be getting tired, going nonstop all day. Anything they can do to help, they should. Things seemed to go well with Johnny, so maybe the others can have some success in their attempts to gain your favor once more.

John will have to stay away for now. Distance is what you need from him.

That’s alright. He has other things he can do.

He tries to hide the small grin on his face as you pick up the mug, taking a sip of the tea.

They’re fighting.

You stand at the back door watching them throw punches. They’re solid punches, nothing held back, no pulling them. They’re all breathing heavily, two of them watching the other two fight.

Simon’s fist meets Kyle’s shoulder, Kyle’s fist going for Simon’s head but he’s too fast, ducking before he drives his shoulder into Kyle’s stomach. Kyle hits the grass, disappearing from your view.

John steps forward, pulling Simon back and speaking to him, but you can’t hear from this distance.

“Still out there?” Dr. Keller asks, stepping up beside you.

“Yep.” You say, watching as Johnny takes Kyle’s place against Simon.

“John did say it would be good for them.” Dr. Keller says, wincing as Johnny’s fist hits Simon’s ribs.

“They’re gonna start a real fight.” You say, watching as Simon starts to get more aggressive. You can tell because you’ve been in that position before. You’ve seen when that switch starts to flip, when the alpha starts to take over. He was never this aggressive with you, but perhaps even his alpha could be rational given your obvious size and strength difference.

And the fact you’re an omega.

“Well, that’s their problem.” Dr. Keller says. “As long as they keep it out there.”

“They might make you patch them up afterwards.” You say.

She lets out a snort. “There’s ice packs in the freezer and a first aid kit in the bathroom.”

You try to hide your smile as you watch John get in between Johnny and Simon, speaking to Simon again. Maybe it will be good for them to get some of that pent up energy out. They’re all used to being so active and always having something to do. Being stuck inside has to be driving them stir-crazy. Simon has been going on runs in the morning, and you know John has been going on walks every so often.

You’re starting to feel a bit stir-crazy yourself. It’s taking you back to the days shut up in the barracks, unable to go anywhere or do anything, having to entertain yourself for hours while they were gone. At least there you had space and room to move around, even when you were being trailed, one of them constantly following you around. They might not be hovering quite as obviously here, but it still feels suffocating, like you can’t truly have a moment to yourself.

“I want to go for a walk.” You say, shifting on your feet. The likelihood of you going very far is slim, at least right now.

How far you’ve fallen from your running days.

“I suppose you could go for a little walk.” Dr. Keller gives you a sideways glance. “Might be good to help get your strength back. I doubt they’d let us go without one of them, though.”

“Probably not.” You agree, knowing they won’t even let you sit out on the porch without one of them watching. If you left the house without even telling one of them, all hell would break loose and you’d be condemned to your room once more.

The thought makes you wince.

You almost wish you could go out there and throw some punches at one of them. That might make you feel a bit better. Hell, line them all up and you’ll take turns beating the crap out of all of them. Maybe that might heal some of the anger and pain still stuck inside of you.

That’s an idea for a different day, though.

It’s oddly warm out today, or at least that’s what Ashley said. Soon the weather will turn, though, and the cold rain will come. Lots of rain.

Your eyes flick between Ashley and Dr. Keller. The three of you are seated in a circle around a table outside, steaming mugs of tea in front of you. Neither of them are staring at you, instead focused on each other as Ashley speaks.

Dr. Keller has a crush.

It’s not hard to tell. Her eyes are focused on Ashley, a smile tugging at her lips. Her gaze only flicks to you when you shift and move in your seat before she’s staring at Ashley again. You can’t blame her. You can hardly bring yourself to look away from Ashely too.

It makes you almost miss Kyle.

They have the same soft brown eyes and the same bright smile. They’re both perfect, like they were chiseled out of marble and brought to life. They even laugh the same, a genuine chuckle coming right from the chest.

It makes you want to laugh, even if you have no clue what was being said.

How has Kyle been handling this? You’ve hardly paid him any mind. His connection to John puts him too close to the source of your anger and rage and pain. Johnny cries, Simon is a brick wall, John reeks of guilt and misery. Kyle...you don’t know. He’s been a blank spot, a hazy figure in the distance.

It almost makes you feel bad. You’ve completely cut him off, isolated him. Has he cried? Has he been sulking? How miserable does he feel about everything? Does he feel guilty or miserable at all? He has to. They all do.

Good. You think. They deserve it.

“You do get stuck in your head, huh?”

Your gaze snaps up, looking between Dr. Keller and Ashley. They’re both staring at you quietly, a small smile on Ashley’s face. You did get lost in your thoughts again, stuck in your ruminations as you usually do. Lately it hasn’t been a problem, as you’re alone or with Dr. Keller often. You’re supposed to be thinking and processing. It just happens at the worst times.

Simon would hate it still.

“Something specific on your mind?” Dr. Keller asks.

You probably shouldn’t say anything. How would you explain how your mind went from Dr. Keller crushing on Ashley to hoping the guys feel guilty? You’re not even sure you should reveal that you know about Dr. Keller’s crush, especially if she hasn’t said anything yet. You don’t think she has. They’re not...close in the way a couple would be, a distance still between them. Does Ashley feel the same way? It’s hard to tell since you don’t know her quite as well yet.

Maybe that can be your goal, besides healing. Something to focus on, something to distract from the constant emotions and pain. Get Ashley and Dr. Keller together.

They’d be perfect for each other.

“Not really.” You finally say, looking down at the book in your lap. You’re about halfway through it. It’s fine. Nothing to write home about.

“What do you think of the book?” Ashley asks, sensing your end to that discussion. She doesn’t push. You like that about her.

“It’s alright.” You shrug. “Kinda slow.”

“They are spending a lot of time on character development.” Dr. Keller says.

“We should keep a tally of how many times the phrase “his dark eyes” gets mentioned.” Ashley says, making you laugh.

“It’s good to hear you laugh.” Dr. Keller says, smiling at you.

“It...feels good to laugh again.” You say. “It’s nice to have something to laugh about.”

“Well then I’m going to make that my mission.” Ashley says, taking a sip of her tea. “Get you to laugh as much as possible.”

You don’t think you’ll mind that one bit.

“There’s something we need to talk about.”

You don’t turn to look as Dr. Keller sinks into the seat next to you. It’s raining again, the rain pattering against the window as you sit in front of it. They won’t let you go out in the rain.

“Something that is rather important.” She continues. “Something you should know.” She clears her throat, not waiting for a response. She knows she won’t get one. “When you told John that he left you there to be tortured...is that what Graves told you? Did he tell you they left you behind?”

Her words have something sinking in your stomach. Your insides are squirming, your intestines tying themselves in knots. You haven’t even thought about that. You’ve been so caught up in the emotions, swept up in the anger and devastation. The memories of what happened are still blurry, still stuck in the recesses while your body heals.

That pit in your stomach continues to drop as she stares at you, waiting for an answer.

You don’t want to answer.

“Hey,” She says softly, leaning to try and stay in your line of sight as your eyes begin to drop to the side. “We need to talk about this.” There’s a serious look on her face as your eyes slowly lift to stare at her again. “Do you believe they chose to leave you behind with Graves?”

Tears prick behind your eyes as you stare at her. Of course you do. Why wouldn’t they? They’ve left you behind so many times, what’s another? They don’t care that you were being tortured. They never cared that them leaving you before was like torture. Why would they waste the chance to go after Shepherd before he found a place to hide?

The job comes first.

“Yes.” You breathe, a tear sliding down your cheek. You want to say it, let all the thoughts rushing through your mind pour right out of your mouth but the tears choke you, keep you silent.

The serious mask on Dr. Keller’s face melts away to a sympathetic look. It doesn’t surprise you. It’s the look she often wears when she looks at you.

“Oh, honey.” She says, reaching out, but you withdraw yourself further away. “They didn’t leave you behind. They were doing everything they could to try and find where you were. John about blazed a path across the US to find you.”

You don’t want to believe it. It sounds too good to be true. Her words stir the bitter pot in your stomach, the anger at them and at yourself. You let yourself believe that they would care about you, but they led you to believe they cared. They left you so easily and you never said anything to them to try and keep them with you. They left you behind when they knew it was dangerous, and you believed Phil when he told you they had abandoned you.

Why would Phil tell you the truth? He wanted to torture you, wanted to take out his anger on you. It wasn’t your decision, nothing was your decision, but in the end the mark on your shoulder sealed your fate. You’d never belong to him. The more he could tear you and your pack down the better. The more hopeless you felt, the more you hated the members of your pack, the more satisfaction he would get.

He wanted to drive the wedge between your pack, and you fell for it.

Tears glide down your cheeks as you turn to face the window. They mirror the droplets of rain sliding down the glass. Your fingers curl against the fabric of the chair, your breaths starting to come in gasps as reality begins to settle in.

“You’re okay.” Dr. Keller says, kneeling next to the chair. “I was there with them, I saw just how desperate they were. They wouldn’t leave you like that. Trust me.”

Can you trust her? Can you trust any of them? Part of you would like to. The part of you that wants things to go back to the way they were, when things felt fine, when you still believed your pack loved you. Back when you could be delusional and believe something good could come of this entire situation.

Now you’re stuck with a pack that never wanted you. Now you’re stuck with the trauma of the last few weeks, trauma you should have never faced in the first place. Not if your pack truly cared about you. It was always a risk, but you always believed they would take care of you, they would keep you safe.

Now look at you.

A sob tears from your lips as you sit there, the thoughts quickly growing to be too much. Dr. Keller reaches for you but you pull away, pushing yourself up to stand. You move towards the bed, grabbing one of the plush pillows. You bring it to your face, letting out a long, muffled scream.

The scream dies in your throat as you jolt awake in bed. The book that had been in your hands when you fell asleep drops to the floor with a quiet thud as you jerk up into a seated position. You’re breathing heavily, your breaths coming in ragged gasps as you try and calm your racing heart. It’s beating hard like it might beat right out of your chest. You’re shaking, your hands clutching at the baggy shirt you’re wearing like you’re trying to cling to some hope that it was all a dream, that you’re awake now and this is real life.

Sweat beads on your forehead as you sit there, shaking in the darkness. You need someone. The shadows are closing in around you, your nightlight unable to keep them completely away. You need someone to fight them back. You need someone to reassure you that it was all just a dream, someone that can wipe the tears streaming down your cheeks and whisper softly to you that it’s all okay. That it’s all over.

You need Kyle.

Where is Kyle? How do you get to him without waking the others? You could go upstairs but what if they think you’re an intruder? You don’t even know which room Kyle is in. You wish you had a phone. You wish you could call him. You wish you could just telepathically reach out and tell him you need him and only him.

You’ll wake them all anyway trying to find him.

You suck a breath in, your hands still shaking as they cling to your shirt. You have to do it. It’s the only way to get them all down here, to get Kyle down here.

You take a couple deep breaths before you scream.

Within seconds the house is alive, footsteps racing across the living room towards your room as others thud from above.

The overhead light stings your eyes, forcing them closed. It’s too bright, intrusive even with your eyes pinched closed. You can still see it behind your eyelids, harsh and too artificial. Just a price you have to pay to get what you need.

Dr. Keller’s hands are soft as they peel your hands off your shirt, your fingers trembling with nothing to hold on to. They open and close, seeking out something to grip, something to give you an anchor to reality. You’re still panicking, your breaths shaky as you shit there, trembling in fear.

“You’re alright,” She tries to soothe you, brushing your sweaty hair back. “It was just a dream.”

You wish it was.

“Kyle.” The name comes out as barely a whisper, stuttering out of your trembling lips.

“What was that, sweetie?” Dr. Keller asks, leaning in closer.

“Kyle.” You whisper louder now, the name shaky in the tense silence of the room.

“Kyle,” Dr. Keller repeats, standing up straight.

Quiet, hesitant footsteps approach the bed. Your eyes are still pinched closed against the harsh overhead light. You can’t bring yourself to be brave enough to open them, to face that harsh light. It might reveal the truth, that it was all just a dream, that this is still just a dream.

It might not be Kyle approaching the bed at all.

You can’t know. You don’t want to know. You’re afraid to open your eyes.

There’s a click as the lamp is turned on. You still can’t bring yourself to open your eyes. It’s supposed to be comforting, the soft light, but it could be used against you, giving you a false sense of hope and security.

You flinch as the overhead light is turned on, still too afraid to open your eyes. Your hands have closed around the blanket pooled at your waist, gripping it so tightly your fingers are aching. It’s real. You’re touching it, you can feel the texture of it in your hands. It’s real.

It’s real.

Your breaths are shaky as you breathe in and out, trying to catch a scent. Any scent. Something to tell you that you’re really awake, that it really is Kyle standing next to the bed.

“I’m here.” A soft voice says, something hovering in the air next to you.

Kyle.

You know that voice. You’d know it anywhere.

You finally crack your eyes open, tears brimming as you turn your head to look up. Kyle is standing there awkwardly next to the bed, his hand raised as if he was reaching out to comfort you, but thought better of it. You’re glad he did. You might have spiraled into another panic if he’d touched you before you knew it was him.

You stare at his hand for a moment before you peel one of your hands away from the blanket. Your hand is shaky as you lift it, reaching out towards his own trembling fingers.

His fingers are warm and rough, just as you remember as they close around yours. You’re still shaking, a cold sweat forming on your skin as fear trickles down your spine.

What if this is a dream? What if this isn’t real?

“I’m here.” He says, rubbing his thumb across your knuckles.

You want to believe him. You really do.

You pull his hand closer, pressing your cheek against it. His skin is warm against your cheek, and like Johnny, he makes no complaints about your sweat smearing on his skin. You’ve been that close to them before, sweat mixing together, slicking skin. How far things have fallen since then.

Your tears drip onto his skin as you hold him there, just breathing him in for a moment. He smells like the sea, but with that soft, light scent underneath. You missed that scent, more than you realize you did.

You let out a quiet sound as you rub your cheek against his hand, almost like you’re trying to embed his scent under your skin.

He doesn’t say anything as you lean against his hand, tears still streaming down your face. The lamp is pushing some of the darkness away, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough. You can still feel the eyes from the dark corners of the room, the shadowy figures just out of view threatening to reach out and tear you away.

A shudder runs down your spine, your fingers squeezing around Kyle’s in what has to be a painful grip.

“I’m here.” He says again, pulling you from the dark thoughts plaguing your mind. He’d know if someone was here. He’d know if anything threatening was nearby.

It’s his job.

The job.

The thing that’s kept you so separated from them, kept you at a distance. The thing that put your life in danger, that exposed them all as liars. The thing that’s left you an empty shell.

Maybe having him down here was a mistake.

But the shadows...

You tug on his hand, pulling him closer to the bed. He sinks down on the edge carefully, still a bit hesitant. You don’t blame him. It’s not like you’ve been the most welcoming of them. For good reason.

You need him right now. That need for safety and security far outweighs the conflicting emotions battling in your brain right now.

“Stay.” You say, the word tumbling out from your trembling lips.

“You’re sure?” He asks, his thumb still stroking your knuckles. You’re not sure if he even knows he’s doing it.

You nod, tugging him closer as you scoot over in bed. He lets you guide him, laying on top of the covers.

You try not to think about it too much.

It’s nice having him close. The shadows don’t seem quite as dark, the threats in them silent now that he’s here. He’ll keep you safe. He’ll protect you from the silent threats. That’s why you want him. That’s his role to play in all of this. They all have roles, they all have their places in the pack. They all have a part to play, not just for you but for each other.

They’ve been struggling.

They’re struggling because you’re struggling.

The silence is loud as you lay there listening to the hum of electricity. You’re not quite sure what to say, how to break the silence. What is there to say that you haven’t already conveyed by your silence? What is there to say beyond what you’ve conveyed in your anger? They all heard your outburst, they all know the source of your anger and what they did to cause it.

What’s left to say when you have nothing tying you together anymore except a claim and a half-broken bond? What is there to say when saying the wrong thing might fray that bond even more than it already has been?

“I’m sorry.” Kyle says, finally breaking the tense silence.

Of course he’d start with that.

You let out a huff, turning on your side to face away from him. “I know you all are. You don’t have to keep saying it.”

He lets out a sigh. He knows it. He’s not apologizing to you, for you. “Nothing can change what we did and we know that. We just...want you to know that we’ll do whatever it takes to help you and support you. We don’t want to push that boundary too far, but we’re all here if you need us.”

You let out a hum. You already know that too. That’s why Johnny came so willingly, that’s why he stayed. That’s why they all tiptoe around you and stare at you like you’re a wild animal that may strike at any moment.

Part of you wishes they wouldn’t.

Part of you wants to go back to the way things were. Part of you wants to pretend that everything is normal again, that you love them and they love you just as much. You want to go back to that comfortable, seamless flow of one around the other, the way they all moved in sync, aware of each other without even needing to look. You want to insert yourself into that flow again and let them guide you along with them. You want to trust them blindly again and know they’d catch you if you fall.

They proved they won’t though. They proved you can’t trust them to catch you. You’re on your own again, forced to catch yourself, forced to save yourself. You have to make that rope to catch yourself with.

Yet, a deeper part of you yearns for that connection. Your omega screams for it, for your alpha, for your pack. You want them back with you, you want the bonds to heal and to be stronger than they were before. You want them to do as they said and prove to you that they’ve changed, that they're putting you first.

The omega should be first. The omega should be the center. The omega should be the sun they gravitate towards, revolve around.

That’s what the book said. That book that’s sitting on your desk in the barracks. That book you read over and over, convincing yourself that it was true and they were a good pack like that book said.

They’re not.

We all make mistakes.

They’ve never had an omega before. How are they supposed to know how to have an omega in their pack if they’ve never had one before? None of them came from big packs. John is the only one who’s ever even dated an omega before. They’re just as new at this as you are.

You probably know more than them.

You spent years learning how to be an omega in a pack. You read the books and wrote the essays and did the research. You read that book.

Simon read that book too.

Yet he did nothing.

“Why did you want me?” Kyle asks softly, pulling you from your ruminations.

You turn your head to look at him, staring into those soft brown eyes. Brown eyes you’ve missed. Tears trail down your cheeks as you stare at him, wetting the paths of the ones that had slowed to a stop in your rumination.

Why did you want him and not Johnny?

Johnny was the one that came for you, that comforted you, that got you through your fever. Johnny was the one you asked to hold you, to give you that support you’ve been so desperately clawing for.

So why did you ask for Kyle?

You turn onto your back again so you’re laying side by side, your shoulder brushing his. He’s warm, and you just want to nuzzle into him and never let him go again.

Another tear slides down your face as you stare at him, at that concerned look on his face. “I need you to tell me it’s going to be okay.”

That concern morphs into understanding as he shifts slightly, reaching out for you. You let him, you let his thumb brush the tear sliding down your cheek away. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just staring at you as you lay there in the warm light of the lamp. The shadows don’t seem so close now, so threatening with him here. The things that lay in the darkness waiting for you to sleep so they can seep into your mind and stir up the horrible memories lying there in wait are at bay for now, fought off just simply by his existence in this room.

His thumb continues to brush your cheek, your skin tingling along the path it follows. “It’s going to be okay.” He says softly, quietly.

You’re not sure if he’s convincing you of that or himself, or perhaps both. You don’t know what he’s feeling, what he’s been feeling. You’ve been ignoring him, pushing him away out of fear that if you looked too closely, you’d break down. That bond will never break between the two of you, held tight with steel simply because of that claim your alpha and his alpha has on the both of you. No matter how much you hate John, that bond can’t be broken. It can’t be cut. It can’t go away. It can’t be denied. Not completely.

A small smile tugs at Kyle’s lips, a reassuring smile. His words are stronger this time, spoken with more conviction and surety, like he’s speaking it into existence, manifesting it for the future when things perhaps can be different.

When things are better.

“It’s going to be okay.” He says, cupping your cheek, staring right into your eyes as he speaks. “We’re going to be okay.”

NEXT ->

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#call of duty #call of duty fic #poly 141 x reader #task force 141 x reader #tf 141 x reader #Johnny mactavish x reader #soap x reader #Kyle Garrick x reader #gaz x reader #John price x reader #captain price x reader #Simon Riley x reader #Ghost x reader #a/b/o #alpha/beta/omega #omegaverse

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lakeofsilverpike · 21 days ago

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3x06 crystalized something essential about what Moiraine is able to offer Rand in this moment of his journey. Presence in the darkness. A person who sees all of him and accepts him. Rand asks if Moiraine saw him kill her in the rings, and she smiles fondly at him and says yes. And he smiles back, because he knows that this doesn't frighten her away. Most people would run. Most would find the prospect of him going mad, no less him hurting them, too much to stay. But Moiraine won't leave. And where before that annoyed Rand to no end, now it has become a comfort. He is beginning to realize what he must do, what he must experience and how that will change him, to fulfill his destiny. And now the idea that there is a person who also fully knows that and accepts it and will remain by his side is a comfort.

Rand is reckoning with both the madness that he fears channeling will bring and also what he perceives as a darkness inside himself. Egwene tells him that loving Lanfear means he's given into the madness. But Rand knows the truth, that his love for Lanfear isn't about the madness from channeling. It's about there being one person he knows will see him at his darkest and still love him. Up until this episode she really is the only person who he knows can see that darkness and accept it.

I think that shifts at the end of the episode for Rand. When Rand channels to try to bring Alsera back from the dead it is a moment that feels for him like his evilness as a man and his madness from channeling come together. They're both him. It's hard to know where one ends and the other begins. Because he channels recklessly, but then that channeling brings the taint, and it changes his perception. And that feeling that he can do anything, that he is a god, is that him or the madness? Or does it speak to both the darkness within him and also the madness from channeling?

Egwene, Aviendha, and Lan have expressions on their faces as they watch Rand that speak to varying degrees of fear, disgust, and pity. But Moiraine looks at him only with understanding. Where the others recoil from the darkness, from the intensity of the pain of that moment, Moiraine goes to Rand in that pain.

There are a few aspects to what she can offers him. First, I imagine, a shared experience as a channeler learning the limits of channeling. Surely most Aes Sedai have raged against the idea that with all their power they cannot heal death. The have felt angry and helpless and despairing that despite their power, death exists, that they cannot change that.

Second, she grounds him. She understands the pull of the One Power, and she knows how to bring Rand back. Not with words or reasoning, but with touch, with human connection, with a hand on his shoulder, then quietly crouching beside him and encouraging him to look at her and come back from the seductive place the One Power takes him.

And third, and I think most importantly, she sits with him in the darkness. In his darkness. Not just the madness of channeling. But the moments after. When Lan looks at him with pity, Avienda with disgust, and Egwene with fear. Not because he channeled, but about the horrific human experience he just had, the messy, raw human experience of grief. Where he was out of control, overwhelmed by despair and rage, where he is lashing out, where his feelings are big and dangerous.

Moiraine touches Rand in that moment when he is loathing himself. She crouches down and looks him in the eye unflinchingly, sees him and offers herself. Her face holds understanding, but also an openness for him to give himself to her, to let her hold his feelings, to be the person who sees what he is feeling and holds it with him. And when he looks at her you see his face shift from this blank mask to all the complicated difficult emotions he has in that moment - the self-loathing, despair, rage. Moiraine is the person willing to wade into that with him, to see him when he feels his worst and be with him in that pain. She probably has always been that, but Rand finally sees it and accepts it, and that feels like a massive shift in this tiny moment of eye contact.

#moiraine damodred #rand al'thor #wot s3 spoilers #wot on prime #wheel of time

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anyarose011 · 4 months ago

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Agape

Pairing: Lucius x Reader

Summary: After the Roman Empire had fallen, birthing the Republic, you and Lucius had finally found a moment to breathe in each other's presence. Over a few years' journey of healing, you find that is both exhausting, yet all the more fulfilling at the same time.

Part 2 of 2 (Masterlist)

Warning(s): Past SA, Depictions of Grief, Violence, Angst, Miscommunication, Historical Inaccuracies [I tried my best to make it kind of accurate], Nudity (sexual and non-sexual), Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex (f receiving), P in V Sex

Paul Mescal's facial hair in All of Us Strangers, if you can hear us, please save us. Nobody ask me how I went from "’Oh, I’m just gonna write some scenes about healing from trauma, and the rest is smut! Easy!" to then making it just a little longer than the first part. I'm a yapper, but holy shit XD. Anyway, this is just shameless pRopAgAnDa at what I personally view a husband to act like (even in modern times). So, without further ado, thousands of words of hurt/comfort and smut.

Word Count: 16.4k

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You were a lucky child. When you were twelve and your friend was married off to a man who was forty-two, you asked your father when you would be married.

He tucked you in that night, saying that he wasn’t certain, and that you had nothing to fear; for he wouldn’t promise you to a man who was in a war the same year you were born. He would have to know him personally as well, saying.

“It’s easier to like a man than have to plan his assassination if he dared lay a hand on you.”

You like to think he would have approved of Lucius; he was the once heir to the Roman Empire.

You don’t think he would have approved of your…informal marriage.

“A year.” Lucius stated as the two of you sat together in one of the piazzas. “As long as we are not separated from each other for more than three days, Rome will view us as married if we live in the same household for a year.”

You hummed. “And why should we care what Rome views?”

“Men won’t stop their advances on you if they saw you as my sister.” he explained. “Even as a wife, that doesn’t stir them.”

“It’s a very Christian belief of you to have.”

“But it makes them think thoroughly on if they want to risk tainting you.” Lucius finally looked at you. “Knowing that I would break every finger they touched you with.”

Even with his proclamation, you merely shrugged. “Being the emperor’s favorite whore, I doubt they would care.”

He sighed. “Do you want to know what my mother wrote? Her final words that will forever be with me because they are in ink? ‘Take her as your wife.’”

It had only been one day since Lucilla’s death, since Rome had become a Republic, and no one knew exactly what to do.

Yet…even at the mention of her presence, you felt tears spring to your eyes.

How you hated crying; and crying and crying.

“It is wise.” You finally settled on. “The people here too must see me as a traitor.”

“You would be dead if they did.”

“It’s still early.” You smiled sadly. “I desired to be free of the emperors, but all they must have saw was lust for power.”

Lucius sighed. “If it is a concern, then I believe it is best to leave Rome.”

Suddenly, you were no longer afraid for your life. You scowled. “Leave the city you risked your life to liberate?”

“It is not just my own life I need to think of now, is it?”

“Then think of mine.” you began. “I don’t wish to leave. Where would we even go? I know nothing outside of Rome.”

This would have been solved if you somehow still had the house you grew up in. The moment Geta claimed you, it was gone. Even with the fall of the Empire, and the birth of the Republic, you could not take it back.

Among many other things, you could not take it back.

“We’ll live just outside the walls.” Lucius suggested. “A farm perhaps a few miles from here-.”

“-A farm?” You questioned. “You know how to farm? Because I sure don’t.”

“I’ve lived longer on a farm than I have in a palace.”

It shouldn’t have surprised you, but it did. You also weren’t in the position to bargain. Even though it wasn’t going to be what most would deem an ‘official’ marriage, he still owned you. That was how it always was, whether living outside of the Roman walls or not. Still, you had to try.

“I will learn as much as I need to,” You shook your head. “but I will find a job in the city. You cannot believe I will be shut out-.”

“-Do you want to share a room, or would you like your own?”

You furrowed your brow. “What?”

Lucius restated. “We don’t have any money to buy a farm, so I’ll build us one. Do you want your own room?”

You had only known him for a grand total of a day and a half (if you were to add up all the previous times you had spoken to him before Macrinus’ death), so needless to say, his offer shocked you; more so, it impressed you.

“Isn’t it odd for a man and wife to not share a bed?” You asked.

“So, you want to share a room?”

“No.” was your immediate response. “I just…”

Am not used to compromising with men without them threatening my life.

“Won’t it cost money to build a house?” You asked instead. “None the less, more for another room?”

“I only want you to be happy, if we’re to be married.”

There you were, asking every question and not being satisfied with his answers, yet he was remaining patient.

“Thank you.” You bowed your head in thanks for just a second before questioning. “I am still allowed to have a job in the city? It will help with the cost, of course.”

“Where exactly do you intend to work?”

He said your name; not ‘Julia’, the name you had whispered to him in his cell. Lucius was the only one who had said it to you, for you did not even tell Lucilla or Marcus. It still felt strange hearing it on your lips, nonetheless, his.

Still, shaking your discomfort away, you hummed humorlessly. “I know two women who run their own businesses; hairdressing and tailoring. I’m better at hair than clothes, but not so much. And you?”

He sighed. “I’ll see if there’s any other farmers needing a hand.”

“You’re going to work for a farmer to build a farm?”

“It sounded more bizarre in your head than when you said it aloud, did it not?”

That was the first thing you found out about Lucius after all the bloodshed and heartbreak of the last week:

He spoke with such a straight tone, you did not know he was joking until he would smile just a hint; you couldn’t really call it a true smile.

You managed to grin. “I suppose it makes sense. You should find one that will let us sleep there.”

And he did. A farm just a few miles outside of Rome took both you and Lucius in. It was substantial, housing five chickens, two cows, three pigs, four horses, and seven human children. Albeit the children helped with the chores, but the eldest was only ten and could not manage any of the heavy lifting whatsoever, which was where Lucius came in.

From sun up to sun down, he’d work on the farm. The farmers, Atticus and Diana, let you sleep in the barn of all places. The hayloft was nice for the both of you; enough space to spread out but not be right next to each other. There was also somewhat of a wall between the two of you, giving the illusion of separate rooms.

It was certainly an adjustment for you; had been sleeping on the softest of beds for months, but even so, you just missed the bed from your old house.

Lucius fell asleep the second he laid on the hay.

Dreams and nightmares were always a peculiar thing. Some days, you would dream of your mother and father, some days, they would be of Lucilla and Marcus.

You had nightmares of what befell you before coming to the farm; Macrinus and his manipulation, Caracalla’s temper, Geta…

Yet, the worst that would happen would be you waking up more tired than the night prior. You knew Lucius was having nightmares too, but every time you approached him, he would lie and say he was fine, or simply not want to speak of it.

You stopped asking.

For the first few days on the farm, you were put to work by watching over the younger children when their mother was busy. Somehow, it was the older ones you didn’t mind, it was the youngest baby who was a handful.

It’s morbid to say, but you always wondered how any of them survived infancy.

Luckily, you managed to get back to Rome after perhaps a week of being stranded on the farm. It was almost an hour walk, and you had gotten up even before Lucius had, but it was worth it.

It wasn’t that you felt dead as you were on the farm per say, but walking through the streets brought a certain kind of life back into your steps.

You spent a good portion of the day trying to find the hairdressers you talk to Lucius about. Just as you were about to give up and try again tomorrow, something caught your ear.

Hebrew.

You turned over your shoulder and saw a man speaking in Latin to another man and a pregnant woman. The father had spoken in broken Latin before turning to his wife, speaking quickly in Hebrew as if to ask her what to say.

The Roman man began to yell, and you rushed over, speaking to the patriarch of the family.

“What’s going on?” You asked quickly.

His eyes grew as if you were the first person in Rome to understand him (you probably were). “I paid for a bag of peaches fairly; two bronze, yet they’re saying it wasn’t enough.”

You turned to the man behind you. “He says he gave you two bronze for the peaches.”

“It was three.” The Roman man gritted his teeth.

Tilting your head, you tried. “Show me your stand so we may see.”

It was perhaps stupid of you to challenge him; yet, he controlled his tempter and led you to his fruit stand. The sign by the peaches indeed said ‘2’, but there was also a good amount of peaches blocking the bottom half of the sign.

When you moved a few, it read ‘3’.

You smiled, looking at the man who spoke Hebrew. “It is three, but it’s not your fault this brute didn’t notice either.”

He nodded, returning your grin before handing the men another copper. With an few mumbled exchanges, the man and his wife were on their way.

“You have Judeans in your family?” The man crudely asked.

Still, you decided to reciprocate his crassness with kindness. “I actually speak five languages.”

He rose his brows. “Is that a fact?”

“Yes, yes it is.”

He hummed, holding his hand out. “Isidorus.”

“Julia.” Was your immediate response as he took your hand and kissed your knuckles. It wasn’t even your own choice to say that name; it was what you lived by. Retracting your hand, you shake your head and said your own name. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-.”

“-All of Rome knows who you are.” He interrupted. “Do not be afraid of your own people. Most of them were there simply a week ago when you tried to slay Macrinus but was there to comfort lady Lucilla in her final moments.”

You only nodded, not wanting to be praised. “I thank you for your kindness.”

“With certain.” He nodded. “You are with child; only a monster would harm a woman carrying.”

The events of the past weeks had made you forgotten about the false babe. Luckily, the fear upon your face could be used to your advantage.

“Are you not well?” Isidorus questioned.

You dropped your gaze, stammering your tone. “The…I lost the child.”

He looked down as well. “Oh…I’m so sorry.”

“No,” you shook your head. “it’s…it feels odd. His father was terrible but…”

“Why are you perusing Rome unchaperoned?” He changed the subject.

“My betrothed is being put to work,” you immediately answered. “and I am scouring the streets to find my own.”

“What has your luck been?”

“Nothing.”

Isidorus hummed. “I could change that.”

Even at the thought of what he was alluding to, you smiled. “Good sir, I am not in the position to sell my body-.”

“-None of that.” he waved his hand. “My brother works down at the entrance of the city gates. They’re always in need of translators.”

You nodded, considering. “When may I meet with him?”

“Tomorrow?” He asked. “Midday at the gates with many people watching so you do not feel threatened?”

The two of you laughed, and you agreed. “I shall be there. Thank you.”

“Anything to help a woman of the people.”

You walked all the way back to the farm with a skip in your step. Even at dinner, you were more talkative with the rest of the family. Lucius certainly took notice as the two of you were settling down for the night.

“You seemed better today.” He complimented, laying onto his bed of hay.

“So, I’ve been absolutely horrible the rest?” You teased, peeking around the wall of the hayloft.

“No, just what I think you were like before everything; more yourself.” He explained. “Did the hairdressers go well?”

Leaning against the wall, you crossed your arms. “I’m actually working as a translator down by the city entrance.”

He gave you a look. “How’d this come about?”

“Well,” you began. “I overheard two men arguing, one was speaking Hebrew, and I asked him what was wrong. There was a misunderstanding over peaches of all things, I helped them talk it out, and it was solved with no bloodshed. The vendor said his brother works at the gates and is always in need of translators and offered to meet with him tomorrow. It will be midday and so many people around; do not worry.”

Lucius nodded. “I’ll accompany you.”

“Did you not hear what I just said? I shall be fine.”

“I have no doubt you would.” You knew that was a lie. “One of the scythes broke today, I’ll need to buy another one in the city.”

You didn’t know if that was a lie or not, but it wouldn’t surprise you if Lucius would sneak out in the night and break equipment simply to go with you.

Sighing, you went behind the wall to your side of the hayloft. “Fine.”

To no one but Lucius’ surprise, Isidorus had not lied about his brother, nor the job offer. Of course, the brother had been off put at a woman being the translator (because everyone knows that they are the lesser sex). Still, after some convincing (you talked to a Greek family, a man from Anatolia, and two brothers from Persia), he said you could be put to work.

Lucius stood there the whole hour you had proved yourself.

“You couldn’t have gotten the scythe while I worked?” You questioned him while walking home.

He kept his gaze on the road before him, carrying the farm equipment. “It was engaging to watch.”

You hummed. “I could see how engaged you were while you stood like this.” You crossed your arms and scowled.

“I did not look like that.” He scoffed.

“You did so!” You refuted, lowering your voice. “My name is Lucius Verus Aurelius, the Last Gladiator, son of Lucilla and Maximus, grandson of Marcus Aurelius.”

He looked down, mouth upturning a little. “I do not sound like that.”

“Is that a smile?!” you gasped. “Gods above, I never thought you could unless you were attempting humor!

“Away with you, woman.”

You only laughed as the sun was starting to set.

There was something called a “Fullmoon” period in a marriage. Most now would say it’s “Honeymoon”, but the period in time where a man and woman were in a complete state of euphoria together was called “Fullmoon” because it only lasted for a month.

You and Lucius (even with your strange circumstance) were not immune to this.

A month later, when you had fully settled into a mundane life of working in different areas for hours upon hours, the only times you saw Lucius was when you ate dinner with the farmer’s family, and before going to bed.

It didn’t’ effect you that much for the first three months, as you both were still on good terms and were fine simply cohabitating without affection. This marriage was purely for protection and to honor Lucilla’s wishes.

Then…Lucius came to you one day, saying that together, you both had enough money to build a farm. He already had a patch of land picked out from the help of the famer who employed him. It was five miles away from the farm you stayed at. Five miles more of a journey to the city.

You would move in once the walls were built, which he said would only take a week or two.

It was too fast for you.

Still, you had to go along with it, because you were to be his wife; nothing more. Even so, nothing out of the ordinary besides your hidden, simmering annoyance happened between you two.

The first day construction was to be done was when light was shed upon it.

“Lucius!” You called his name as you approached him and a few other men hauling the wood and stone that would be used. It was mid-twilight when you ran to them.

He furrowed his brow, walking towards you. “Aren’t you meant to be in the city?”

Grinning from ear to ear, you shook your head. “I asked for the day off because of the house. He said I-.”

“-You need to go back and tell him you’ll work.”

Your smile fell from his usual, monotone demeanor. “He doesn’t expect me to come in today-.”

“-Then he’ll be happy to see you.”

“May I just talk for a moment?!” You yelled.

His said nothing.

Sighing, you began. “I will be useful in any capacity. If you need me to help dig for water, measure supports, lift anything-.”

“-Your shoulder cannot carry-.”

You retorted. “-It might be the shoulder you shot, but it’s the shoulder I have to live with, and I will tell you if something is too heavy to carry.”

It hadn’t been the first time you brought up your shoulder after Rome was free. Yet, in the past, it was always out of good fun; something to say to him when you didn’t want to carry as little as an egg from the chicken coop. You told the children the story too why you had to set one of them down after carrying her for so long.

You expected them to cower away from Lucius when he returned for supper, but instead, they all tackled him to the ground to defend your honor.

They didn’t hurt him of course, and you laughed until you couldn’t breathe.

Yet, at that moment, you said it with nothing but disdain; and he heard it in every word. You thought it would have been enough to guilt him into letting you help, you made sure of it.

Lucius titled his head back toward the main road. “Go on, now. The sun will be up soon, it’ll be better to walk without daylight beating down on you.”

The audacity he had. Usually, on the times you’d have disagreements of sorts, you’d try to leave with dignity; perhaps a word of sarcasm or two.

No, you simply turned on your heel and marched away in a huff.

You were harsher that day when translating, and you were still angry by the time the day ended. You ate dinner outside by yourself (until three of the seven children came outside to eat with you), and did not utter a ‘goodnight’ to Lucius before laying down to sleep.

Neither of you spoke to the other for days after that.

It was one morning, not even when the sun was out, as you tried to tiptoe around him, did he ask from his makeshift bed.

“Do you remember where the house is?”

You nearly fell off the ledge of the hayloft. “What is wrong with you?!”

“Do you remember?”

“Yes!” you whispered, afraid to wake the whole farm. “Why?”

“We made the water pump, and the walls and floors are finished. We’ll be able to sleep there now.”

“I don’t see the appeal in sleeping in a house with no roof.”

“I’ll put half of it on today. Tell your foreman too that you won’t be able to work for the next week.”

You furrowed your brow. “Why?”

“I’m teaching you how to tend to a farm.” He wrapped his blankets tighter around him and turned his back to you.

And you continued on your way; making the long trek to the city, which would only be longer when you moved to the house.

When your work was over, you walked and walked. You took a short break at the farmer’s house, making your final goodbyes to the children, and gathering what little belongings you owned.

As you tried to leave, Diana stopped you. She was leading one of the horses, a berber, behind her.

“Take her,” she handed you the reins. “you shouldn’t have to walk so far.”

You shook your head. “I simply cannot-.”

“-I insist.” She smiled. “She’s yours now. Think of it as payment for helping me with the little beasts that are my children.”

Smiling politely, it soon faded. She took notice. “What is it?”

“…I’ve only ever ridden once, and I was a child.”

She sighed yet was still kind. “Come on, my husband’s horse is at your farm. I’ll ride back with him.”

Despite your inexperience, it was actually nice riding a horse. It was perhaps the closest you could ever come to flying in your lifetime; maybe that’s why you enjoyed it. As you were nearing your soon-to-be home, you saw a familiar silhouette along with some others.

Atop the house, against the setting sun, you watched as Lucius continued to add tiles to the unfinished roof. His shirt was off, and even with night beginning to set in with the cold air, he was still breaking a sweat from the rigorous work. You would be a liar if you say that you didn’t catch yourself staring, and it was Diana who had to take the reins.

“What a fine home!” She broke you out of your trance, and when Lucius looked in your direction, you snapped your gaze away.

Lucius nodded. “All that needs to be done is the roof.” He jumped onto the ground just as you were sliding off the horse. He gave you his hand as you were, and you took it.

“Thank you.”

Atticus and the other workers went to a lone tree where their horses were tied. Atticus then approached both you and Lucius.

“Well,” he smiled. “it was lovely hosting the both of you. Please come back as often as you can; I’m sure the children will miss you.”

You all exchanged your final goodbyes, and it when everyone rode off away from you, did you realize something. This was the first time in a while you were alone with Lucius that wasn’t when going to sleep or waking up.

“Do you have a name for the horse?” Lucius asked.

Turning over your shoulder, you led the steed to the tree, petting her as you began to tie her up. “Not at the moment. She’s yours too, do you have any?”

“You’ll be with her more; you should name her.”

Humming you looked at him when you finished securing the horse. “You asked them to give her to me, didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “They asked how they could repay you for taking care of their children, I mentioned how it would be a longer journey to the city once we moved here. That’s all I did.”

…He was better at asking for forgiveness than for permission; that was another thing you learned about him. Still, you nodded your appreciation, inspecting the area around you. It was quite beautiful even with its plainness. The fields stretched on for miles, and there were no tall buildings to cover the night sky. Even the unfinished house brought a sense of happiness to you.

Something that was, at least partially, your own.

“Where will the barn and chicken coop go?” You questioned.

A hint of a smile played on his mouth, but in Lucius fashion, did his best to hide it. “You were complaining about not having a roof, and now you wonder about things for the animals?”

“Perhaps I’m more interested in farming than you are.”

“I’ll teach you.” he led you into the house. “Come on.”

The front living space was large, and in the corner of it had an oven, so that was where the kitchen would be. Lucius showed you the two rooms as well; each having a single pillow and a blanket.

“We’ll begin planting tomorrow.” he announced. “I don’t think I’ll have to wake you up.”

“You won’t.” You nodded. “Goodnight, Lucius.”

“Goodnight.” He said your name.

You didn’t think you’d ever get over the sound of your own name from his lips.

You named the horse after your mother. Well…not the exact same name, but a similar one. It was quite a scene too when confessing to Lucius you couldn't exactly remember how to ride a horse by yourself.

He didn’t laugh at you, that was what greatly surprised you. He spent an hour teaching you, and you were able to ride her on your own.

Farming was more difficult than you thought it would be, but not so horrible either. Yes, where Lucius was patient with you for the first few days, he made a few snide comments as time passed. Nothing outright mean, but still enough to get under your skin.

Still, you managed to pick it up within the few weeks after that.

He had even let you help him finish the roof of the house; something you didn’t expect him to do. After living in the house for a month, both of you managed to buy actual beds for your rooms, among other luxuries like a few tables and chairs for the main living area, and utensils both for cooking and for eating.

The bathroom was completely bare. Having spent all the money on everything else, it would take time for the both of you to buy a bathtub. Bathing wasn’t a problem back on Atticus and Diana’s farm, but now being away from them, you would be forced to rely on the public baths in the city…

Even with some bathhouses having baths only for women, that did not stop men from forcing their way into them.

You didn’t mind being dirty for weeks on end.

The two of you fell into another pattern of life; you going into the city and spending hours translating foreign dialogue, and Lucius working on the farm for most days, sometimes accompanying you.

There was…something else strange as well.

It was always a coin toss on what weeks Lucius would speak to you or not.

Yes, he was always a man of few words, but this was different. There were some days when you asked him about his day, he would tell you what boring tasks he did. Than, on others, it was just one word: “Good.”

Never “Bad”, never “Just okay”; only “Good”. Even when you knew it wasn’t, that’s all he would say.

And you could endure it.

It had already been a little over half a year since the two of you started living together. In the eyes of Rome (as mere Plebians), you would be married once a year passed.

This was perhaps the best marriage you could ask for as a Roman woman. Still…every day that Lucius would not speak to you only brought more dread upon your shoulders.

When he stopped even looking at you, that was when you went to Diana one day.

“It’s so lovely to see you.” She smiled, setting down two cups of wine and sitting. “It’s felt like ages!”

With her youngest baby on your lap, you chuckled, taking a sip of your drink. “You honestly didn’t need to get the wine out.”

“Nonsense!” She waved her hand. “It’s a celebration just to be in your presence. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you as well.”

“How’s the farm? Lucius?”

“Well,” you took another sip, setting your cup down. “the farm has been alright. I know at least how to properly water crops and know when they’re ready to harvest or not. I help Lucius sometimes, but…he likes things his own way. He was a farmer too, I understand.”

She hummed. “And as a betrothed? I hope having your own home would help; to me, you two treated each other more like acquaintances than anything else.”

All you could do was avoid eye contact and bounce the giggling baby on your knee.

“Ah.” She sighed. “So not much has changed?”

“We both talk more than we had at your farm, but somehow, less at the same time.” You explained.

Diana reached over and held your hand, asking softly. “When was the last time you were intimate?”

As if she were a man, you tore your hand from hers. “What?”

“I do not wish anything to be forced upon you,” she stated first. “especially with what has happened to you. But…it is still important, especially to your future marriage.”

“We…we haven’t done anything in…months.” You were not going to tell her you hadn’t even seen him naked. You were not going to tell her you hadn’t done you “duty” as a woman.

She nodded. “There must be something plaguing his mind terribly.”

“I know that!” You cried. “He just won’t tell me.”

“Men do not like talking,” Diana sighed. “I have been married to Atticus for fifteen years, and even after seven children, there are parts of his past I still do not know of. What Lucius frets over is important though. You must dig your heels into the ground and let him know you are not doing anything until he tells you what he has issue with.”

The baby on your lap cooed as you held her, reaching for parts of your clothing. Diana took her from you once the baby started fussing, and you offered her a grateful smile.

“I’ll try my best with him.”

She squeezed your shoulder. “He will come to his senses. If not, then he truly hit his head too hard in the Colosseum.”

Except, you couldn’t confront him when you got home. Even though the sun was only beginning to set, when you arrived, the house was silent. You peeked into his bedroom and saw that he was already fast asleep.

With a sigh, you finished your nightly activities, and when the sun went down, you were in your own bed.

The nightmare was unlike any you had before.

Hands from all around you reached out to you. Some grabbed clumps of your hair, stuck their fingers into your mouth, caressed the most intimate parts of your body, or even tear your skin off.

You blinked and then you were in the palace, surrounded by cloaked figures. Someone forced you onto your back, and you looked up and saw Geta, raising a knife high above his head before diving it into your stomach. He carved it out before digging his hands into the opening he made and pulled out your womb.

After sitting up in bed, you had thought you awoken. When you opened your bedroom door, you were welcomed to a field of reeds, seeing nothing for miles. All but a silhouette in the distance. You could not make out it to be a man or a woman; all you knew was that you needed to run to them.

Yet, even as you dashed through the fields, calling out a name you do not even remember, your feet sank into the ground with each step.

The earth swallowed you whole before you could even reach them.

You didn’t awake with a scream; you didn’t even awake with a cry. You did awake in a sweat. Sitting up, you slowly pulled the blanket away from your body. Your stomach was unwounded, and nothing had happened.

Without knowing why, you rose from your bed and slipped on your sandals. Not even putting on a robe, you walked out of the house into the cold, night air. Numbly, you treaded through the tall grass away from the house and stopped.

The stars above you watched as you fell to your knees, and the past finally had the last laugh.

You wept for your mother (whose touch you never felt).

You wept for your father (who you had to take care of the same way he took care of you).

You wept for Marcus (the first man outside of your father to ever see you as a person).

You wept for Lucilla (the woman who saved you in more ways than one).

You wept for the innocence you lost to the twin emperors (and how you mercilessly killed them).

You wept and wept, until you felt bile claw its way up your throat and out of your mouth.

The tears did not stop even after you were finished.

Two hands grabbed your shoulders from behind, and you tried to tear yourself away with a sharp cry. You were turned around, and even though your tears blinded you, you could see that it was Lucius.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, his eyes grown.

You couldn’t speak clearly, only shaking your head and saying ‘No’ over and over. Lucius led you to the water pump and sat you down by it. Cranking the handle until the water flowed freely, he cupped his hand to catch some of it before gently washing your face.

The cool water grounded you, and your sobs began to slow. Once you were only left with shallow breathing and a stuffed nose, Lucius finally sat beside you.

“What happened?” He asked again, although, returning to his normal, straight-toned self.

“Bad dream.” Was all you said.

He said nothing at first. Then, looking down at the grass beneath him, he said. “Would talking about it help you?”

It was meant to be a helpful question, but it only angered you. “You ask that now? After I run out into the night screaming?”

Lucius squinted his eyes. “Why does that bother you?”

“I know you have nightmares too.” You scoffed. “I have asked you dozens of times if you wish to talk to me about them, and you have always said no. You’ve never once asked me about mine, so how dare you expect me to tell you about it now when you cannot even share yours with me!”

“That’s not fair.” He shook his head.

You stood up, walking back to the house. “You’re right, it isn’t fair.”

He jumped to his feet. “You can’t walk away without telling me why this is troubling you.”

“You first.”

“What?”

You turned to face him. “We are to be married in less than a year, at least ‘In the eyes of Rome’ as you say, yet you do not even look at me anymore!”

His shoulders fell, and he shook his head. “I am looking at you-.”

“-I ask you how you are these days, and you lie to me every time.” You interrupted. “The few instances you allow me to work beside you, you criticize every little thing I do. I understand that I am the farthest thing you wanted for as a wife-.”

It was that word that struck a chord. Despite saying it every so often those past few months…it was only then it occurred to you that where Lucius was your first husband…you were not his first wife.

He tore his gaze away from yours, as if he knew you had figured it out. You sighed. “Gods above…I’m sorry for what has happened to her, and I will never know the loss of a love like that…but I cannot be viewed as her replacement-.”

“-Who told you that you were?” He sharpened his tone.

You swallowed, knowing that this would all end in tears no matter what you said. “You do not tell me anything. I will never ask you to care for me the way you cared for her, but she is gone-.”

“-I couldn’t do anything after she died but weep and watch her body float into the ocean.” He hissed. “I vowed to kill the man that slaughtered her, and I didn’t. It had been perhaps just a month since her death, did I promise myself to another woman. I have dishonored her memory three times.”

“I do not know how long you need me to apologize for something I could not control, but I will if that means you will stop hating me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You hate that I will be your wife!” Your voice was growing hoarse. “I don’t understand it at all. I will be whatever it is you wish me to be in few months’ time, because you will own me. Even if you wish me to be dead, it shall be done because what I want will not matter-.”

“-Must you make everything about yourself?!” He finally yelled. “Would it soothe you if I said I despised every part of you? That if Jupiter himself came down and offered me my old life in exchange for you, I would give you up to him?! Would it give you any peace of mind if I told you I would have rather died in the arena than live a thousand years with you?”

You had expected him to at least pause after he made his confession. To at least have the courage to look you in the eye and watch as the words sunk into your being. Yet, as soon as he finished, he stomped back to the house; and you were alone outside again.

The tears upon your face glimmered from the light in the sky above you, for all you could do was stare at the little farmhouse Lucius had built for you.

How strange that something you once saw as a sign of devotion, was now revealed to be one of complicity.

He had admitted his disdain for your future marriage. You knew that it would be loveless (you would never escape that), but you wished at least for respect. Seeing as how you were not even going to have that, you dragged your feet over to the tree where your horse was tied up. Mounting her with nothing but the clothes on your back, you raced down the pathway.

For the first day, you had stayed at Diana and Atticus’ farm. You said nothing about Lucius, and tried to spend the most time with the children to avoid any questions.

On the second day, you finally went back to the city. Even though the man in charge of you yelled louder than Lucius had at you, it did not phase you. You merely nodded and returned to work. With what money they paid you for the day, you spent it on a room at the safest inn you could find. You had another nightmare that night. Not as horrible as the one two days prior, but awful enough for you to lay awake until the sun rose.

The third day seemed to be ordinary, until you finished your job, and you were promenading along the market. As you eyed the fruit at Isidorus’ stand, a man came to stand beside you.

“Good sir,” you heard Lucius’ voice. “do you have a wife?”

Isidorus nodded. “I do.”

“What from your stand would you give her if she was angry at you?”

He eyed you before smiling at Lucius. “My ears to listen.”

You turned, promptly walking away. Of course, Lucius followed.

“I didn’t know you confided into strangers about our qualms.”

“He’s not a stranger.” you kept trying to lose him. “And gifts will not suffice for an apology this time.”

He got in front of you, uttering your name. You stopped, sighing. “What else have you come to say to me?”

“That I am a fool.”

Although you weren’t necessarily expecting him to admit it, you only nodded. “You very much are.”

He began. “For my entire life, I was not allowed to be entirely truthful with others. Whether it was how I felt in the moment, or even my own name. I’m not used to the freedom of being candid with one another. And I have been mistreating you; I have provided a home, but I haven’t provided your wellbeing. Ari-.” Lucius paused, breathing through his nose. “Arishat and I lived on a farm, that was all I knew while being a husband. I will love her until the end of my days, but that does not give me the right to neglect you. I will…I will try with all my being to share my thoughts with you.”

You stared at him, feeling as if you would blink, and you would awaken from another dream. Yet once you did and saw that he was still in front of you, you said.

“I didn’t mean to insult your memory of her.”

He shook his head. “I believe she would hit me if she were here and saw how I treated you.”

“Thank you.” You nodded. “Truly, for everything. I…it’s not only you, I don’t know if I will ever feel like myself after…everything.”

Lucius already knew. Still, looking around himself, he then said. “Where is your horse?”

“The inn I’ve been staying at has a stable. You walked the whole way here?”

“It’s what I deserved.”

“You smell horrible.” You mustered a shy grin.

He mirrored you, looking away. “I have for a while.”

“I do as well. I was…I was going to brave the baths; would you like to join me?”

Your offer took him by surprise. Usually, a question like that would be an invitation to more salacious activities to take place. Still, what took him aback more was how you were initially so afraid of the public baths, yet there you were.

“I shall.” He agreed.

Thus, the two of you walked beside one another. There were many baths in Rome, yet it would be challenging to find one that had a separate bath for women and one for men. By the time you reached the third bathhouse, you sighed.

“This will do.”

Lucius shook his head. “I’ll ask the workers at this one if they know-.”

“-No.” You stopped him. “It’s fine. I wish to speak more with you.”

He was still hesitant, but gave in. The two of you entered and drifted off to the separate changing rooms. It was strange that the bathhouse had rooms for the different sex to disrobe, but not baths itself.

After locking your clothes away, you ventured out into the main pool. You were welcomed to an array of naked bodies. You weren’t entirely innocent of course, even before everything. You were never to see any of these people again; it was Lucius you would live with.

Quickly, you disappeared half of your body under the surface of the water and clung to the wall of the large bath. Other people around you laughed and socialized, only putting you more in the eyes of men who only came to the baths for one thing.

Yet, before you could take a moment to worry, your eyes fell to Lucius who entered. You soon averted them and felt the water shift beside you as he entered. You turned to look at him, leveling yourself with the side of the pool, essentially shoulder to shoulder with him. The hear radiating off of his body onto yours reminded you too much of that night months ago; the one where you whispered your name into his ear.

“What were you like as a boy?” You questioned in an attempt to hide how flustered you were.

He hummed. “Why do you ask?”

“If you wish to be more honest with me, than I think it should be best to stary with something minor.”

“I understand. I was spoiled growing up in the palace. Still, I wished nothing more than for adventure. All my life, the mere thought of war and battles were taught as a way to bring glory to the empire; pride for one’s family. I had gotten my foolish wish when Maximus died, and my mother sent me away from Rome.” He paused momentarily, before continuing. “I ran all across the land until I was thirteen, where I finally settled in Numidia. I had changed my named too many times to count and settled upon Hanno.”

Your attention did not waver for a moment. When he was finished you asked. “How old were you when you left?”

“Eight…” There was a sad silence between the two of you. A silence held in almost reverence for all the troubles he had been through. “What about you?”

Even with your uneasiness to answer your starkly different childhood, you did so; also have been promising to be honest with him. You spoke of your father, your past friends, the house you grew up in. He never once looked upon you with envy or hatred.

“Your father sounded like a good man.” He said.

“He was.” You nodded, feeling a weight settle in your chest. "I think he would have liked you.”

“I can only hope.”

The conversation halted after that, unknown if you should wait for him to ask a question, or for you to ask another. Both of your eyes drifted around the bath house as people filtered in and out. When your gaze fell back onto Lucius’ you watched his eyes flicker to something behind you. Before you could utter a word, he placed his hand upon your bare back, bringing his lips to the space between your ear and your jaw.

It all happened so fast you had no time to react, and your body shivered upon the feel of him being so close to you.

“There’s a man eyeing you from behind.” He whispered into your skin. “Don’t look at him, just keep looking at me. I’m sorry.”

You pulled away slightly, doing as he told. He traced circles on your back with his thumb, staring intently at you. Even as you shrunk under his eyes, they did not frighten you.

Deciding to play along, you trailed your hand up his bare arm until resting on his shoulder. You felt his skin erupt into goosebumps and he took a sharp intake of breath.

“Okay?” You asked.

He nodded. “Yes, it’s just…it’s been a while.”

Anyone with any sense knew that meant more than one thing. It had been a while since he felt anyone’s touch; nonetheless, a naked woman’s.

From behind him, you saw a small group of girls all looking at you. They all looked a little younger than you, and acted like so, giggling loudly and talking without a care in the world. It was only then that you noticed they were looking at Lucius.

“Is there someone eyeing me now?” He attempted to tease you when he noticed your gaze.

You nodded, no hint of humor behind your voice. “A good few of them.”

“Is that so?”

You removed your hand. “I wouldn’t mind, you know.”

“Wouldn’t mind what?” He pinched his eyebrows together.

“…Getting your release from a woman that isn’t me.” You were puzzled by his seeming ignorance. “You’re a man, I understand-.”

He said your name with somewhat of gasp. You didn’t listen one bit.

“No, I mean it. I will not be more selfish than I already have been, expecting you to remain celibate because I don’t think I will-.”

Lucius said your name again and you stopped. Even when you did, he said it a third time as if to know he had your attention. He continued to run his fingers up and down your back.

“I will not dishonor you-.”

“-I have been dishonored several times before, it does not matter-.”

“-Listen to me.” He said softly yet firmly. “Even if I desired someone carnally, it is not selfish of you to want my loyalty. I’m not a boy who wishes to bed anything that breathes. I don’t think I can do so with someone I do not have any deep feelings for. You are my wife, and I will not treat you less.”

He didn’t call you his ‘betrothed’. As if, the moment you accepted his apology, you were already his other half. To hear him speak with so much certainty after neither of you knowing what any day would bring…it brought an astonishing comfort you never knew you needed.

“Thank you.” You felt like your heart could beat again.

“You don’t-.”

“-No but I do. I don’t…I don’t think I could give you anything of myself if you wanted it. It’s still…I remember a lot of what Geta did to me, and I forgot it at the same time. It doesn’t happen a lot in my nightmares, but it still does. That one night you found me he…he cut out my womb and held it in his hands. I thought I woke up, but I didn’t, and I think I was in Elysian Fields, but I only saw a shadow. I don’t know what any of that means.”

Lucius let you finish all of the anxiety you had thrown onto him. Still, releasing a shallow breath, he said.

“You die in most of my dreams.” He clarified. “The bad ones, I mean. A lot of people do, but you’ve been in them the most. There are times I see both you and Arishat, or my mother, or all three of you and…those are the worst. The night I found you outside, I couldn’t…I had a horrible dream that I couldn’t even see your face, but I knew it was you when I found you hanging in the Colosseum.”

If the both of you weren’t naked and, in the bathhouse, you would have embraced him. Yet, with the most understanding look in your eyes, you brought your hand to the base of his neck, his loose curls between your fingers. You swore you felt him relax into your touch for just a moment.

“I’ve known everyone to have their own beliefs of dreams.” You whispered. “They’re meant to predict the future, they reflect the past, they are punishments, they are blessings, and they mean nothing. I wonder if it’s possible they are all of them.”

He nodded. “I don’t know what I believe in anymore.”

“I do.” Lucius unknowingly leaned into you just ever so slightly. You grinned from ear to ear, pulling your hand away from him. “I believe you need to cut your hair.”

He chortled. “I’m not spending anything on cutting it. It’s fine.”

“I’ll cut it then.”

“I would rather be stabbed.”

“Oh, quit being dramatic.” you playfully swatted him. “There’s a reason I would’ve been a better hairdresser than tailor.”

The two of you teased one another for a minute longer after that. Than, even though the conversation died, it was not in vain. There was a quiet gentleness and protectiveness as you both shared a short distance between each other while bathing. Lucius kept his eye on you more than you did him, knowing that it was always possible a man could try to take advantage of you.

When all was said and done, you got your horse from the stable at the inn, and the two of you rode back to the farm with a newfound understanding of each other.

More than a year and a half have passed since the fall of the Roman Empire and its subsequent birth of the Republic. Your strange marriage with Lucius grew into a friendship of respect and understanding. You both talked more than you had when you were first betrothed, even if your busy schedules remained the same.

The farm had improved after its first harvest, even raising enough money to build a chicken coop and house a few chickens. The house itself was more furnished, and the two of you managed to purchase a bathtub, no longer needing to use the public ones in the city.

Both of you had changed as well. Even with what minimal farm work you did, it built both your strength and stamina. Lucius had begun to grow out his facial hair; not much for it to be an actual beard, but more so just under his nose. You’d joke about it looking like a caterpillar, to which he would lightly shove you away.

After the intimate discussion the two of you shared, it was only then you both realized you still didn’t know much about each other. Most importantly, the little things that made each of you a person.

So, you’d take time to get to know one another.

You were helping Lucius pull weeds around the crops when you found out he had ripped a monkey’s throat out with his teeth during his very first gladiator fight.

You were reading a collection of poetry one night when Lucius told you that you mouth the words of whatever you’re reading if you find it most interesting.

During supper one night, Lucius ate the entirety of the plate only to then eat whatever else you hadn’t. That was when your theory was proven right; he does forget to eat sometimes.

Both of you had tried to keep the housework to an equal amount; if he cooked one night, you’d clean the kitchen and vice versa. Yet, some remained stagnant; you always cut his hair, yet he always changed the horses’ shoes.

Cutting his hair was perhaps your favorite way to speak with him.

“Remember to clean your sandals before coming in next time.” He reminded you as he sat on a tree trunk outside. “You tracked in mud.”

Standing behind him while trimming small hairs, you shook your head. “My apologies, master of the house; it was downpouring and I was freezing.”

“Serves you right, I’d say.”

You placed the tip of the shears against his neck. “What else do you have to say?”

He snickered. “That you’re an astonishing woman who I am blessed to be with."

“Wrong answer, all lies.” You pretended to stab him, only to bring the shears back to his hair.

“I’m not lying!” Lucius laughed.

You only gave him a ‘tsk’ before continuing. “Are you sleeping any better?”

He said nothing at first. Your eyes drifted down to his hands and saw him pull on his tunic; another telltale sign of his nervousness.

“I keep seeing my mother’s face.” He admitted. “Only her face, nothing else.”

“It was the third night last night, right?”

“Yes.”

You sighed. “Would you want to hear a dream I had a few days ago to make you feel better?”

“Better because it was happy, or because you think I’ll feel happy I wasn’t you?”

“The latter.”

“Tell me.”

You turned his head to the side gently, continuing your work. “I stood in front of the entire senate of Rome, and they were all laughing at me. I don’t even know what I said, they only laughed and laughed.”

“Is that not what happened to you in the waking day?”

“No, they listened…I think.” You shook our head. “It more so angers me that, in the waking life, I presented logic to them, and they still chose Macrinus who showed nothing of the sort.”

“Some men like to speak of only desiring logic yet run away with their emotions once it is presented.” Lucius stated. “What had you told them?”

“That all of Rome would continue to riot if they killed Lucilla.” You said grimly. “I still don’t understand; they had their proof of the rage Rome’s children could feel when their general was killed, the only reason the city did not fall was because Macrinus was slain. I’m done.”

You set your shears down and Lucius stood, shaking the fallen hair off his clothes. He turned to you.

“If it matters at all, I think the only reason this house hasn’t fallen is because of you.”

Grinning from ear to ear, you shoved him playfully. “Away with you, you’re just as much of the reason as I am.”

“I do all that I can.”

There were moments like this where you would not speak of childhood memories or events of your day. These moments were reserved for the days where it felt like time slowed down just to give you two the grace to speak about them in more detail.

With only a single candle between the two of you one quiet night, you told him how you have to walk a different path in the city sometimes simply to avoid brothels; hating the sounds you would hear from inside, the stench of cheap perfume and sweating bodies burning your nose, the men who would brag to their friends about the women they had.

At breakfast one day, before the sun had even rose, Lucius told you about a time when he was ten, still on the run. He had gone into a man’s house with the promise of food, only to then be hit the head with something so heavy, he was knocked out. He had awoken in a dark room, but managed to find a curtained window, and escaped. He never knew what would have happened to him if he had woken up just a minute later.

There was tenderness you shared with him that you had never shared with anyone in your life.You sht

That was only more apparent on one fateful day.

The first bad omen for the day that morning was when you had run out of sugar for breakfast. The second was when your horse was extra stubborn as you rode her into the city; it was so out of the ordinary, you wondered if you did something to make her hate you.

Still, everything was fine once you went to work. At least it was for the first half of the day.

There were aggressive people from across the land coming into the city you certainly had to deal with, but the worst was when a man twice your size bluffed you with a slap. Even so, the other men you worked with had yelled and sent him away.

That day though…there was a woman with a look in her eyes.

You thought you had seen pure rage when you had been with Geta. Yet, that day was a lesson to you; wrath had many faces.

She mumbled in Greek, but you did not know what she said at first. Then, she attempted to speak Latin. You politely told her you could speak Greek, and so with exhaustion, she told you that she was going to visit her mother.

When asked for her mother’s name, she didn’t say it. After asking again, she became enraged, yelling at you that she should just be able to be let in. When you resisted, she grabbed your bad arm, yanking it to pull you closer to her.

The pain shot through your shoulder like a bolt of lightning, and you cried out. She tugged on your hair as the men beside you tried to pry her away from you. Luckily, she didn’t manage to yank any of it out once the men forced her away from you. Tears fell freely over your face as you cradled yourself, unable to stop the sobs from leaving your lips.

They let you leave early yet paid you as if you were there the whole day.

The ride back to the farm wasn’t any better, but at least your steed took notice of your heartache and was more merciful to you. When you made it home, you slowed her down when you saw Lucius limping towards the house.

You both stopped where you were, staring at one another as if you weren’t supposed to be seeing the other.

“Why are you back so early?” He asked first.

“Why are you dragging your foot?” You asked second.

Lucius took a deep breath, and you saw tears in his eyes. “I fell.”

The only time you had seen him cry was when burying Lucilla; it wouldn’t be from simply falling. You slowly pulled yourself off your horse but did so quick enough before he could rush to help you. You wished nothing more than to pull him into the warmth of the house, to sit him down and tend to his wound to distract you from your own.

Yet, the moment you took his hand, he began to weep.

“Oh Lucius.” You whispered, bringing your hand up to cradle his face. He wrapped both of his arms around you, bringing you onto the ground with him. You yelped a little when he squeezed your bad shoulder too tight, and he pulled away.

“What happened?” He asked.

You shook your head. “You need-.”

“-What happened?!”

Knowing he wouldn’t stop asking, you told him. “Someone at the gate attacked me. Pulled on my bad arm, my hair…it wasn’t as bad as you’d think-.”

“-Where is he?” He lowered his tone and his demeanor.

Your jaw dropped into a surprised huff. “She is long gone by now, and even if she wasn’t then as my husband, you should stay with me instead of wandering the streets of Rome hoping to find someone to be your anger’s victim!”

Though he still wore that rage upon his face, it soon fell once he saw your own tears fall from your eyes like dewdrops on flowers. Lucius laid himself flat on the dirt, and you sat above him.

“I have been married to you longer than I had been to Arishat.” He confessed. “I knew her for longer, but-but not as deeply; no, I-I knew her more than…I don’t…It’s been long since her death, yet there are moments I think of her, and I cannot stop crying.”

You never knew this was in his heart. You knew to never speak of Arishat, only listen whenever he would bring her up (even so, it was once in a blue moon).

“I’m sorry.” He sniffled, trying to pull himself together. “I know she is gone, and I shouldn’t be-.”

“-You shouldn’t what?” You interrupted. “Remember her? You think I wish for you to forget the woman you so loved?”

He shook his head. “No, but it’s selfish of me to-.”

You were the one to make him lose his words this time. With both hesitation certainty, you placed his head into your lap. It was too late for you to stop once you did, and you felt your own body tense. Then, upon taking a look at his body battered from rigorous work, and another at his face, which relaxed with his eyes fully shut, you ran your fingers through his hair.

“Lucius,” you sighed. “never will I think you are a horrible man for mourning her. You missing her shows just how much you adored her, and how she was a treasure to you. In another life, above all, I wish I could have met her. You are not in the wrong for wanting to see her again. I know you do not love me-.”

“-I do love you.” He opened his eyes upon saying it.

Your heart felt as if it was going to beat itself out of your chest and run away when he said those four words. To preserve your sanity, you took it a different way and smiled sadly.

“Not in the way you loved her.” You said softly. “But what else more can I ask for in a husband than one who treats me with a gentleness I did not know was possible? One who has been there to protect me even before we were married?”

Lucius took a deep breath, rubbing his face to clear away his tears. “You’re too good to me.”

“Gods above,” you groaned tiredly. “we can go back and forth on who deserves each other. Let us just go back into the house, have supper, and sleep.”

“I would like that.” He hissed as he went to stand.

Helping him, once he was on his best foot, you said. “You never told me what you did to your leg.”

He looked behind him at the field. “There was a snake and a rock.”

You gave him a look. “And what happened with them?”

“I don’t wish to speak of it.” He said grimly.

In any other instance, you would have laughed. Yet, as his eyes were still heavy from crying, you just nodded. The both of you helped each other into the house, and you sat him down on one of the several cushions in the living area.

“Your arm,” he asked. “how bad is it?”

You shook your head. “Just really sore. I think she might have left a nasty bruise or two somewhere, but I won’t know yet.”

“Put one of the cloths in the pot with water and put it over the fire.” He told. “Take it out after a few minutes, let it rest for another, then put it on your shoulder. It should help.”

“Thank you.” You stood, doing so, saying. “I swore we had bandages somewhere. I’ll make something for you to drink too; I bought some herbs just last week.”

He nodded, not taking his eyes off of you as you worked. If it were any other man, you would have felt unsafe; yet, it was only Lucius.

Little by little that night, both of you helped heal one another.

Half a year passed since that night, and you and Lucius had only grown closer. Perhaps as close as you could be with a man who was not your husband by choice.

Not much on the farm had changed; you two were living comfortably, and happily, almost making all the turmoil from the first year worth it. The both of you decided to make more visits to Atticus and Diana’s home, realizing just how much you both missed having someone to talk to outside of each other; but that did not mean you had to keep things hidden of course.

If anything, you shared everything with each other.

So much so, that when Lucius asked you why you held onto him longer when he embraced you on your birthday, you told him the truth.

“I don’t want every time we touch to be when it is in turmoil.” You explained, growing meeker. “And I…I’ve missed the feeling of it when it has not been forced upon me.”

Lucius stared at you with a look you had never seen from him. He had been gentle with you many a times, but they way his eyes fell into yours…

He took a step closer to you, and when you showed no sign of discomfort, he took your face into his hands. Your eyes shut at the feeling of him, and he pressed his head against yours. Never in your life had someone’s breath upon your skin feel so immaculate.

From there on out, it always seemed like you had to have a hand on each other one way or another.

It started with holding hands whenever walking through the city together. He used to ‘lead’ you through the crowds in the past, but more so with a hand hovering over your back. No, him holding your hand meant he would have to go where you would go if anything were to happen.

Alongside this, he’d reach over and hold it at Atticus and Diana’s house; whether it was during dinner, or simply just talking. The eldest child had said what the rest of the household had been thinking.

“They’re finally acting like they’re married!”

Because even when there were no other eyes besides yours, he would still hold your hand. You wonder if it ever became a way for Lucius to ground himself; because it certainly did for you.

You hugged him more often as well. Those used to be for ‘substantial’ occasions; those being celebrations or heartbreaks. Now, they were incorporated into greetings and goodbyes. Of course, it only took a few weeks before they were than made into simple desires.

He would be cooking dinner, and you would come beside him to embrace him. You would be gathering eggs from the chickens, and he would wait for you to set the basket down before tossing his arms around you.

At night, it was normal for you both to trade spots as one of you would read a story, and the other would have their head in the other’s lap.

This happened on so many occasions, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise for what Lucius proposed next, but it did.

“If you don’t favor the question I’m about to ask you, then you are allowed to never speak to me again.” He said, his feet hanging off the arm of the lecti couch you both bought that year.

“Well,” you scoffed, sitting on the end of it. “I will have to speak to you again because we live together.”

“Would you want to sleep in my room tonight?” Never in your life had you thought that would have been his question. When you didn’t speak right away, he backtracked. “I don’t expect you to. I understand if-.”

“-The nights are growing colder.” You stated, no visible uneasiness. “I’ve noticed it, and I don’t think any number of blankets could warm me.”

He swallowed thickly, and this was perhaps one of the first times you’d ever seen him like this. “Yes…it’s cold.”

You nodded, and another beat of silence fell between you two. Standing up, you tugged at the seams of your dress. “I-I’ll go change.”

“Yes,” he sat up. “I shall as well.”

Disappearing into your room, you tossed your day clothes off then slipped on a nightdress. After pacing around the floor for a few moments, you gathered the courage to go out into the hall and knock on Lucius’ door.

It was opened as if he was standing right behind it.

He wore just a plain, tattered tunic, and said nothing; yet, you caught his eyes run down you before immediately bringing them back to your face. You were not even in his room yet, and already your body grew warmer.

“May I come in?” You asked.

“Yes, of course.” He stepped aside and you entered.

Somehow, you were no longer man and wife; you were two people who had just discovered a strange, yet burning, feeling that you both held for one another. A feeling that you were both afraid to say aloud…because then it would be real.

The only light in his room was from the moon just peeking through the curtain of his one window. Looking around, you saw that it was still just the bare minimum; a bed, a small table beside it with a lamp, and a dresser. The only others things of note were his sword leaning against the wall, and just a few dirty clothes on the floor.

“I-I tried to clean before you came.” He mentioned.

“Is the rest under the bed?” You asked.

He chuckled. “Yes.”

Before you could change your mind, you pulled the covers off one side of the bed and slid under them. Glancing behind at Lucius, you saw him wear a look where you knew he wanted to say something.

“What is it?” You asked.

“That’s usually the side I sleep on but-.”

You rolled over to the other side. “Are you content now?”

He wheezed, moving to his designated side, slipping under the covers. “Very.”

“Good.” You smiled up at him.

His own mouth lowered as you could see him thinking. He then said. “I don’t expect us to do anything.”

You watched as his eyes dropped from you, as if it was too invasive just to merely look. Thinking from only your heart, you scooted closer, resting your hand on his arm. You ran your fingers up and down his muscles, but then guided his arm to wrap around your waist.

“Okay?”

He hummed, pulling you just a little closer. “Yes.”

“And we’ll just lay together?” You whispered. “Nothing else?”

“Nothing else.”

And that’s what you did. The compete truth was that you would caress him only to remind yourself that it was Lucius and not Geta. His arms, his back, his face…he was nothing like him.

After a few more nights, you told him that as you both lay awake, unable to sleep. He had pulled you on top of him that night, saying that you could see his face better in the moonlight. You only giggled, hiding your face in his chest; even that was too much for you.

It was easier to tell each other things in the darkness. You always knew that, but with being in the same bed (you had not gone back to your room for a week), the words flowed out of both your mouths.

“After my father died,” you said one night as you laid on your side facing him. “I would stroke my own hair or even my arms and pretend they were someone else’s. Even when I was with Geta.”

Lucius stared at you, then immediately began to caress your cheek. You shut your eyes, sighing at the feeling.

“I never thought I’d be able to sleep next to another woman again.” He whispered.

“And now?” You looked into his eyes.

He stopped his movements, but did not remove his hand. You watched every part of him. How his chest heaved shallowly, his arms tensing ever so slightly, but his eyes…gods his eyes. They were heavy as they looked at you; a look that made your heart flutter and not shutter.

Swallowing your fear, you sat up and inched closer to him. Your face hovered above his, and your breath heated his skin. His hand continued to trace shapes about your cheek, and shutting your eyes, you placed your lips upon his.

It was the gentlest kiss you ever shared with a man.

You had pulled away, dreading to see how he felt. When your eyes befell his gentle smile, and his other hand came up to cup your face, you kissed him again.

And again, and again, and again.

You climbed upon his lap without pulling your lips away from him, wrapping your arms around his neck. He sat up, his own arm encircling your waist and drawing you impossibly closer.

Lucius parted from you, and as you whined at the loss of his lips, they soon settled upon your cheek, and then your jaw, and then your chin. Your heavy pants turned to soft grunts as he kissed down your neck, his mustache scratching your skin in just the right way.

Your hands settled into his hair the lower he traveled, moving your night gown off your shoulder to kiss your collarbone. You felt yourself becoming intoxicated from him, and only then noticed you had been for a while.

Oh, how you wished you could bottle up his laugh, his strength, his stubbornness, and get drunk every night. His kisses only added fuel to the fire that was your desire for him.

He sunk his teeth into your skin, and your body, once enflamed, ran cold.

“No!” You tore yourself from his lap, nearly falling off the bed.

Lucius said your name, leaning forward on instinct but soon stopped once he saw you crawl away. “I’m sorry.”

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. All you knew was that you needed to go, so you did. Cradling yourself in your arms, you got up from his bed, rushing out of his room and into yours.

You half expected him to knock on the door, then, when you wouldn’t answer, him yell and curse you before breaking it down. Yet nothing of the sort happened. You heard his own door open, and you saw his shadow on the other side, but he did not touch your door. He left after a moment of waiting.

When his own door shut, did you finally cry.

You told yourself that night, you would wake up far earlier than Lucius would so you simply wouldn’t have to see him.

When you awoke, you did the exact opposite. You laid in your bed, trying to return to sleep, only to be forced to lie in the dark. The sun rose into your room, and you heard Lucius’ door open. Still, you did not get up.

It was quite comedic, actually. With your door still shut, he knew you were still home. How he tried his best to keep quiet for you, yet his footsteps had always been heavy, the front door had always creaked, and you could always hear him cursing under his breath every time.

When you knew he had left the house, that was when you stood from your bed, slipping on your sandals. You didn’t bother changing out of your nightdress, leaving your room, and then the house.

Lucius was amongst the chickens when he saw you. He didn’t bother hiding the surprise upon his face at the sight of you. You walked to him until there was little space between you.

“Last night-.”

You took his hand from his side, placing it upon your face. He rubbed your cheek with his thumb as if it was natural. Kissing the palm of his hand, you trailed it down to your clothed breast. He breathed your name with hesitance, but you shushed him. You held his hand there, not taking your eyes off him.

“I will show you, one day.” You told him. “I will show you the mark Geta had made. The one where I myself can scarcely see it, yet I know that it haunts me. But now…” You brought your other hand up to his face, tracing your thumb over his lip. “I just want you to understand.”

He kissed the pad of your thumb, nodding. You embraced him, and he held you with both gentleness and ferocity. The rest of the day carried on as normal, yet you aided him with the chores on the farm.

You went to bed with him that night, but it was the first time he did not entrap you in his arms. You knew he was still afraid of hurting you, but you would be a liar if you said you weren’t thankful for the space.

Still, he would feel your touch every day; whether it was something as small as brushing his hand, or as substantial as kissing his cheek.

As the both of you lay awake one night, you played with the sleeve of his tunic.

“Could I lie on top of you?” You asked.

Lucius looked over at you, nodding. “You never need to ask.”

“I want to.” You climbed on top of him, straddling his lap. “I never want to force you to do anything.”

His eyes fell to your hips before returning them to your face. “I’ll tell you if I wish to not do something. I hope you know you can as well.”

“I do. Would you like to touch me?”

“Where do you want me to touch you?”

You moved his hands to your hips, which he held firmly, yet not enough to hurt you. You leaned down so your lips touched his.

“No teeth.” You said.

“No teeth.” He repeated.

Lucius sighed into your mouth as you kissed. Despite how you were on top of him, the kiss was sweet, shy even. When you pulled away, you trailed your lips from his cheek to his ear.

“Do you dream about me?” You rasped.

He said nothing, and you continued to kiss every part of his face besides his lips.

“It’s okay.” You kissed his Adam’s Apple. “I want you too.”

“Yes.” His breath hitched.

“What was I doing in your favorite one?” You kissed his pulse point.

“You,” he breathed sharply through his nose. “you’re touching yourself.”

“Would that please you?” You sat up in somewhat surprise, resting your hands on his chest. “To watch me do so?”

He shook his head. “I want to do what pleases you.”

It felt foreign to hear someone say they want you to feel good. Instead of cowering from it, you faced it head on. You kneeled for a moment, hiking your gown up to your hips before sitting back on your ankles, exposing yourself to him. Lucius’ jaw clenched at the sight of your naked center, and he drew his hands away from your hips, falling them into fists upon the mattress.

“I wish to watch you as you watch me.”

Without looking away from you, he drew his hand down to his cock, pulling it out from under his tunic. Your eyes grew just a hint. There was no doubt upon him being more well-endowed than others, but it was still different from how you imagined.

Shutting your eyes, you trailed your fingers over your cunt, your thumb playing with your clit. The sounds of Lucius’ smothered grunts, and the skin of his cock on his fingers only added to your pleasure. Digging deeper and moving faster, you felt a coil within your stomach tighten when you opened your eyes and saw as Lucius’ gaze bore into yours.

Light moans escaped your lips as your hips moved with a mind of their own, watching the man beneath you take pleasure from his own hand. It was him chanting your name like a prayer that sent you over the edge. With your eyes shut, the coil within you snapped, and pleasure filled your veins.

Not long after, you felt a warmth coat your nightdress. Opening your eyes, you looked down and saw the white-hot residue of Lucius’ release. Your gaze drew to his cock, still clutched in his hand, yet red with droplets of white running over his knuckles.

You don’t know what possessed you to, but you lowered your mouth down to clean him with your tongue.

“Gods be good!” He huffed, laughing your name.

“What?” You wiped your mouth.

“You’re going to be the death of me.”

Grinning like the devil, you slid off the bed, walking towards the door. “I hope it’s a pleasant one then.”

He sat up. “Where are you going?”

“To change. You dirtied me as well.” You teased.

“Take one of my tunics from the dresser.”

It almost made you laugh that he didn’t want you to leave for even a second. You opened the top drawer, grabbing the longest tunic you could find before facing him. “Close your eyes.”

He laid on his side, putting a pillow over his head. Many would find it strange how the both of you would see the most intimate parts of yourself while doing one of the most intimate acts together, yet you didn’t want him to see you naked.

But Lucius never thought of it as strange. He knew what you had been through, and never once judged you.

When you were clothed, you slid into bed, wrapping your arms around his body and pressing a quick kiss to the back of his neck.

“You’re a good man, Lucius Verus Aurelius.” You whispered. “I will tell you that until the day you die, or when you finally believe me.”

He squeezed your hand, relaxing into your touch. You never slept so peacefully until that night.

You always had to see him whenever he would touch you so intimately. There would be nights where there was only a single candle in the room either while he caressed the swell of your breasts, or the inside of your thigh as you sat on his lap.

His fingers were too much for you at first, but he never ridiculed you. When you whimpered at the feeling, he retracted them, kissing your eyes. You asked him again to try, and he whispered praises into your hair as the pain from a dry spell soon turned into pleasure.

It was usually at night did these moments of exploration occurred. In the day, the most you would ever do was kiss. That is, until the first time you cut his hair since the discovery of feelings.

“I don’t want to get hair on your floor.” Lucius said as he sat on the floor, leaning his back against the foot of your bed. It was hotter than sin that day. He wore nothing but a loincloth, but that barely did anything to help him from the heat. You wore essentially a thin shift that would usually be under your dress; yet again, because of the heat, that was all you wore.

You sat on the bed, legs draped over his shoulders as you cut his hair. “It’s your floor too. You built the house.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I haven’t slept here for a while now. Besides, I will clean up.”

“I had no idea you favored doing domestic work now.” He turned and pressed a kiss to your knee.

You slapped the back of his head. “Don’t move! I’ll give you a bald spot if you do so again.”

“Yes, my mistress of the house.” He joked.

“You’re horrible.”

“You just told me I was a good man not so long ago.”

“And I can just as easily revoke that title.”

He stayed silent the rest of the time, but not from any underlining anger. Simply from his at ease posture, you knew he was smiling.

He smiled more those days.

When you were finished, you tossed your scissors aside, but Lucius’ hands settled upon your thighs, not allowing you to get up. You scoffed.

“What is it?”

He turned to face you, kneeling up to meet you. “I wish to try something, but only if you wish it as well.”

You rose your brow, but smiled, kissing his nose. “It will be difficult if I do not know what it is.”

Without drawing his eyes away from yours, he slid his hands up your thighs, bringing the bottom of your shift with it. It seemed normal at first, but once he lowered his mouth, your chest tightened.

“What are you doing?” You asked.

“I want to kiss you there.” His breath caressed your cunt and you mewled at the feeling. “I think you’ll enjoy it, but we don’t have to.”

Your heart changed from beating in fear, to then in anticipation. You loved how he kissed your lips, and every inch of your skin that was not covered, what would it feel like to have his lips there?

Kissing the top of his head, you laid on your elbows, nodding.

“Let me hear you say it.” He nosed the inside of your thigh.

“Yes.” You sighed. “Please.”

He lowered his mouth back down, pressing the lightest of kissed onto your center. You groaned through shut lips, only for them to part open as the hairs of his mustache tickled you whilst he began to lap at your wetness.

Tossing your head back, you sat up, running your hands through his hair, unconsciously rolling your hips to meet his mouth. His groan reverberated through your body, only adding to the pleasure you were feeling.

“Lucius, Lucius,” you babbled his name until it didn’t sound like a word.

His nose bumped against your aching clit the same time his tongue penetrated your cunt. You yelped as that familiar, tightening feeling swept over you. His half-lidded eyes would stare up at you every once in a while, as he would continue to drink from you as if he had been stranded in the desert. Just as you were on the brink of release, you drew him away from you.

“What-what is it?” He huffed. “What’s wrong?”

You shook your head, pressing your lips to his before scooting further up the bed. With one last breath, you pulled your shift over your head, revealing your bare body to him. His gaze ran over your figure unashamedly.

“Come here.” You beckoned.

He crawled onto the bed and over your body, yet still looked at your face. You took his hand and laid it over your breast. His body ran cold at what was on the side of it. A bite mark.

“He branded me all those years ago.” You confessed. “And it has not left since.”

Geta…

You ran your hand up his chest. “I love you, and I trust you with every part of my body. I need you to know that.”

“I love you.” He echoed, pressing the tenderest of kisses to the mark and you gasped lightly. “I have for so long now; I…I need you.”

“Then have me.”

He sat back on his knees, unwrapping his loin cloth and tossing it to the floor. Precum leaked from his sweltering cock as it stood upright like a pillar. You crawled over, kissing every inch of his face and climbing into his lap. He drew his arms around your waist, his finger tracing circles into the small of your back.

“I don’t know how long I will last.” He puffed heavily. “It’s been so long.”

“I just want you inside of me.” You kissed his jaw, taking his cock into your hand and sinking down onto it. It had been a while for you too, and while you were soaked, it was not enough to completely subside the tightness. “Just…wait.”

“I could die happy if all you wanted was for me to remain still as you’re above me.” He said into your ear.

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, sinking your nails into his skin because that was the only way to remind you that he was still there. The further you sunk down on him, the easier and more pleasureful you felt.

“I’m going to move now.” You said into his shoulder, and you did.

Slowly, at first you relished in the quiet slapping of skin and the breath moans leaving both you and Lucius’ lips. He trailed a syrupy line of kisses down your throat until he bowed his head to place them upon your chest.

“Your name,” Lucius said into your skin. “tell me your name.”

You gave him a look as you rolled your hips into his, yet sighed your name.

“Again.” He breathed, latching his lips around the tip of your breast.

You did.

“Again.” He kissed the hollow of your throat.

You leaned into his touch, saying your name a third time.

He repeated your given name, than following it with ‘Aurelias’. Your movements stilled, yet he did not care.

“You are the most cunning woman I have met, and you are my wife.” He stated, never looking away from you. Tears sprang to your eyes when you saw the same for him, and you gave him a messy kiss before resuming faster this time.

After months of being called a name that did not belong to you, especially whenever in the bedroom, Lucius was doing everything to remind you that you were yourself again as you felt pleasure.

It felt as if, after two years, ‘Julia’ was finally gone.

You chanted his name as if it was your favorite prayer, burying your hands in his hair and kissing his lips.

“Lucius, Lucius, Lucius…”

Because, just like you, how long had it been since his true name was uttered whilst in the throes of pleasure?

He moaned into your mouth, holding onto you tighter. You squealed when he rose up onto his knees, latching your legs around his waist and only crying out sharply when your throbbing clit ran across his pubic hair.

“Come on, come on,” he urged into your ear. “I know you can give it to me.”

“Lu-Lu-!” You moaned, running your nails over the thick field of muscles that was his back.

He said your name over and over again, until it was one word that was the end of you.

“Please.”

You came with your vision blinded from the state of euphoria you had reached. Lucius still held you above him even as his legs began to quake, bouncing you on his cock. You felt as though you were suspended in air when his groans stammered, and you felt strings of his cum paint the walls of your cunt.

Slowly, he lowered the two of you onto the mattress, laying you on your back like you were the most precious treasure in the world. You kept your legs around his waist, breathing with him with your chests glued together from your sweat.

“Lucius-.” You began, trying to shift under him.

“-Just,” he grunted. “just another moment. Please.”

How could you deny him? Every kiss he gave was loving as he laid upon you. His cock had grown soft, and even you were aware that you could’ve fallen asleep if you weren’t careful.

When he pulled away from you, you let out an involuntary whine.

“I thought you wanted me to get off you?” He kissed your stomach when he stood up.

You shoved him playfully. “Just clean me up and come back.”

“So controlling.”

Still, he did what you asked, bringing a soaked washcloth from the bathroom and cleaning you. You groaned out of both the cold water hitting your hot skin, and the heat from the air itself.

“We should’ve waited until night.” You whined.

“Why?”

“I’m suffocating from the air outside!”

Lucius hummed, tossing the washcloth aside and looming over you. “Then that forces us to wear nothing today, so that we might cool down.”

You nodded. “Perhaps you aren’t as feeble minded as I thought.”

He settled behind you, tossing an arm over your waist and pulling your back to his chest. Even though his cock pressed against you, the two of you were completely exhausted from the heat of the day’s work, and the heat of what took place only moments before.

The only sound was that of the cicadas singing in the summertime. Sometimes, a breeze or two of wind would bounce the curtain off the window, but for the most part, just the even breathing you shared with Lucius was all you could hear.

Lucius’ mustache rubbed your skin when he placed a kiss to your neck. “What’s going on inside of your mind right now?”

You grinned. “A proper wife would say that I was thinking of you.”

“But that’s not what it is.”

“It’s something that has nothing to do with anything of note.”

He squeezed you. “Spit it out, woman.”

Sighing, you felt a sense of dread in your heart; both for your thoughts, and also how your husband would react. So, you tried your best to explain it.

“Do you even wonder how you will be remembered?” You began. “Spoken from mouths? Written in books? Painted on walls? They’ll remember Lucius, the Lost Son, the Last Gladiator…What will they remember of me, if anything? Rome’s Cleopatra? Her Delight? A whore to the twin emperors? I like to fantasize that they will name me the first woman who sat upon the emperor’s throne, even if it was as the last of its consul. Yet, even if they name me…I will be Julia. The name of a slave, the name I only accepted when he would press me into the bed so roughly. I only survived because I would need to tell myself that he was doing all of it to Julia, not to me.”

It felt quieter in that room, even though the sounds outside did not cease. Lucius gently turned your body towards him, and he stroked your face with the back of his hand.

“You’re crying,” he uttered your name, frowning.

You wiped your eyes, wanting to hide from him. Yet, he did not allow it, pulling your hands away from you and wrapping them around his shoulders.

“Would you wish I remain silent, or share with you what is in my head?” He asked.

“Talk to me.” You answered.

“I never cared of what history would see of me.” He stated. “Even as a boy. I know that we are different in most aspects of life, but I believe it serves no one to wonder away how we will be viewed long after we are dead. I do not care if or what a stranger thinks of me in a lifetime later. I care how Atticus and Diana see me. I care what their children think. Above all, I care of what you see me to be.”

You pressed your head against his. “You’re pigheaded and quite foolish sometimes.”

“And it matters you say that.” He pulled you closer. “Because that is what you will tell others when I pass on.”

“You know I don’t think that is all you are.” You remined him.

“I do.” He nodded. “I will know you for your wit, and your protective nature, and your kindness.”

“I never truly thought of myself as kind.” You gave a pained smile.

“That is how I see you.” He kissed your brow. “And what I will say with my last dying breath.”

You wondered how such a man as himself could exist at the same time you did. A man who hated you prior to everything yet laid with you in bed. A man who treated you with a tenderness you never thought possible.

A man who could be the last person on earth with you, and you would only feel at peace.

You did not need to say anything to him. Simply by the innocent smile that spread across your lips, did he know. You fell into the most comfortable of silences together as you laid naked in the summer heat.

The both of you were lost to time as we all shall be one day.

Perhaps you lived on that farm for the rest of your days, or perhaps you moved to a different land.

Perhaps you had ten children, perhaps you had only one, or perhaps you had none and were content with each other’s company.

Perhaps you died before him, perhaps he died before you, or perhaps you both passed onto the Elysian fields together.

All that truly matters, at the end of all things, is the life the two of you led together, and what you and loved ones remembered the most of it.

#gladiator 2 #gladiator ii #hanno x reader #lucius x reader #lucius verus x reader #lucius versus x reader #gladiator 2 spoilers #Youtube

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theorist-fox · 8 months ago

Text

Never had a thing

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

I never posted on Tumblr. Is this okay? Anyways, Simon Riley brain rot. That's it. That's the post. Also, you can find this on AO3.

Part 1 >> Part 2

Summary: Simon has to lie low and go dark for an undefined period of time. While trudging along the unbearably long, dark alley that's his life, he finds the light at the end of tunnel, and it's shaped like you. 18+

Word count: 10k

CW: Roommate Simon Riley. Smut (fingering, p in v unprotected sex), jealous simon riley, pining, strangers to friends to lovers.

Masterlist 🦊 | Series Masterlist 🦊

Simon had groaned like a battered dog when Price gave him the news that he needed to lie low. “Someone in Konni’s got your name” he’d said. “We don’t wanna take any risks. Just for a few weeks.”

He was sure those few weeks would turn into a few bloody months if he didn’t get a move on. For that, he’d hastily packed his things from the poor excuse of a flat the army had granted him, and started looking for a place to stay that wasn’t in Manchester.

Initially, Simon almost fantasized about buying his own flat. Maybe a piece of land and fulfill the wishes of the outcast that he was – living away from people, giving them the same treatment they’ve always given him.

Too bad he was legally dead. He had nothing to his name if not a grave that didn’t even exist, all his possessions were cursed memories and metaphorical things – a rank he didn’t hold, a flat that wasn’t his. Even his name barely pertained to him anymore.

The SAS wasn’t offering any accommodation, the tightwads. He couldn't buy a house, or rent one. He couldn't lean on any of his teammates, or he'd put them in danger – he wouldn't do it, not to them. Taint their lives with his name and the death it inevitably brings.

Price had helped him settle in a glorified motorway hotel. But he wasn’t picky – after all, he only had to stay for a few weeks.

A few days into his exile, he’d entered a Tesco with his head bowed and his hood on, a surgical mask on his face. A pack of Marlboro was all he wanted since the dodgy motel he was staying at (hiding) didn’t care if he smoked within the room. Plus, he reckoned that the smell of nicotine and combustion was a much better alternative to the rancid stench of mold.

However, as he plucked ten quid from his wallet, his eyes absently fell on a bulletin board behind the store clerk. There were tons of leaflets there: missing cats or dogs, people looking for a job or offering one. And then, a bright yellow paper caught his eye. Whoever printed it lacked taste but sure as hell knew how to catch one’s attention. He’d stopped in his tracks, a tenner between two fingers.

DESPERATE!!! PhD STUDENT LOOKING FOR A FLATMATE. NO SPECIFIC GENDER OR AGE AS LONG AS YOU CAN PAY RENT ON TIME. Two-bedroom flat, third floor, no elevator. If interested, please contact this number.

At the end of the flyer, the paper was cut into tear-off strips, so that interested individuals could rip the section with the phone number.

He liked that first word: desperate. He wondered if this person was as desperate as he was. Would they accept a man who wore a balaclava and looked proper sketchy? How desperate were they, really, if he asked to rent on verbal agreement – no contracts, no signatures whatsoever?

He decided he wanted to test that before he died of mold poisoning.

Nevertheless, when he dialed the number on his burner phone a few hours later, he wasn’t expecting the voice coming through the line. A shriek. A goddamn banshee. Chirpy and cheery, sounding like those damn advertisements on the telly for children’s toys. Whoever was on the other side of the phone was trying to sell.

The obnoxiously happy voice he’d heard through the receiver surely did match the person he found at the door of the flat a few days later - and the apartment itself.

It was a splash of colors Simon wasn’t even sure matched, from oranges and greens in the living room to yellows and blues in the kitchen. Walls of the same room were painted differently, and a brown leather couch lay on a round and fluffy turquoise carpet. A glass coffee table stood in the middle of it, hosting a clay vase with orange tulips.

You were a splash of colors yourself. Bright clothes, vibrant smile, and matching eyes.

Notwithstanding the loud energy that came with your presence, he could see you were tense as you guided him through the apartment. Simon didn’t blame you – he wasn’t the most trustworthy-looking lad. While he’d ditched the balaclava and had decided to go for a surgical mask, even hewould walk on eggshells around himself.

“Only a few weeks.” He’d said, deciding that he could withstand the eyesore that was the decor of that flat. “I’ll cover the rent while you find someone more permanent.”

And to his utter surprise, you’d accepted. He thought it was much too naïve of you, to let him rent without a lease. Without a document, without anything to prove that he'd pay as he'd promised in that listless fashion of his. Maybe you were as desperate as your tasteless leaflet said, in that dive of a Tesco.

He moved in in the span of a few days. You helped him with the boxes, although it was clear he didn't need a hand – especially not from a tiny thing like you. Not that you were small, he was just built like a brick house and you – well, you were made of wood, like in those cautionary tales mums tell their children. Pigs and wolves and shite.

You didn’t question why he wore the balaclava, nor why he never left his room, but sometimes you’d knock on his door to ask if he wanted pizza too, since you were ordering. He’d eat it (and any of his other meals really) in the cramped space he'd managed to rent, hosting only a bed, a poor excuse of a closet, and a desk.

Until one day he heard booming noises coming from the telly in the living room, so he peeked from the door he’d left ajar only to be greeted by Tom Cruise’s mug – Top Gun.

Silently, he joined you on the sofa and he started correcting the way Maverick held the gun or grunting about how an aircraft couldn't make that maneuver. You never asked how he knew, but it had been a few weeks since he’d moved in and he’d already gathered how brilliant you were. You didn’t need to ask questions to connect the dots.

Simon wasn't keen on giving you his phone number, even the one on his burner phone. The paranoid that he was, and with a bit of experience to back it up, he didn't want to leave you with anything that could connect you to him.

So, you started leaving post-it notes on the fridge.

Dinner leftovers on the second rack. He’d tick off the sentence to let you know he’d read it, whether he ate them or not. Simon had this inborn ability to ghost people even without the use of phones.

Tried a new recipe. Tupperware with the blue lid. He’d write a score out of ten on the corner of the note.

I used your milk for breakfast!!! Sorry!!! He had huffed and grumbled when he’d headed out for groceries afterwards, but ever since that day, he started buying two cartons instead of one.

And he'd leave post-it notes for you, too.

Out for a few days. That’s how he would vaguely tell you he was being deployed. You would always draw a sad emoji next to it.

Watered your plants. Bloody things were more dead than alive. You’d mark down a very happy emoji, going as far as to add two poorly drawn thumbs up.

He barely noticed when his meals started happening on the kitchen table instead of his desk. Similarly, he couldn’t recall when he’d stopped taking pains to ensure your mealtimes wouldn’t coincide.

Friday night pizzas were always shared; it was a silent house rule you’d both agreed on. The both of you on the settee with the carton boxes on your thighs, two cold beers on the glass coffee table, and the telly playing a movie.

Your cheeky arse often chose a war film, and Simon had to refrain from rolling his eyes at how obvious you were being – trying to get to know him.

Zero Dark Thirty.

“Is it true you use callsigns?”

“Yes.”

“You have one?”

“Yes.”

“What is it, then?”

“Classified.”

“Oh, c’mon.”

“Negative.”

The hurt locker.

“You ever defused a bomb?”

“Yes.”

“No shit – oh my God. How was it?”

“Dangerous.”

“Why thank you for the chat.”

“No problem.”

“When did it happen? Like, what was the situa-”

“Classified.”

You made a face and mocked his accent. “Classified.”

Apocalypse now.

“You are a bit like Kurtz.”

He gave you a look. “Mental?”

You huffed. “No. I meant the things he says, not the whole insanity bit.”

Simon scoffed but otherwise stayed silent. The film rolled in the background.

He murmured, then. “The horror, the horror.”

And you laughed.

He found it inexplicably easy to strip down for you, until he stood metaphorically naked in front of your eyes. Until he told you his full name and gave you his personal phone number. Until he showed his face.

Until he noticed you'd stopped looking for a flatmate, and his weeks of rent turned into months like he’d initially foreseen, but for another reason entirely. Months turned into years, but he could’ve never predicted anything in his life to last this long.

Until two summers later, while sporting a mundane black surgical mask and casual clothing, he took a photo with you in your doctoral gown, in front of your Uni. The same picture that now hung next to the entryway of your flat.

Until two years became three, and then four.

Until he just kind of… stayed.

𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬

Simon’s day has worn him to the bone. The only thing he wants now is to go home, down a beer in two gulps, and knock himself out on any flat surface available.

He’s risked his fair share of speeding fines on the motorway, parked the car in the building's garage, and trudged up the three flights of stairs that led to his apartment. When he unlocks the door, he finds a sight that melts his frustration into a puddle at his feet.

You’re lying on the sofa, absolutely unbothered, looking lovely and homely. A lousy romcom plays on the telly. One hand is hiding in the crinkling shell of a packet of Walkers, and your other one is curled around the neck of a Stella Artois. Simon gathers that your workday must've finished a little earlier than normal because you’re already in your loungewear: a pair of loose sleeping shorts and a t-shirt he knows all too well.

All too well, because it’s his.

And he could give you the benefit of the doubt; after all, you often wear oversized clothes. It could’ve been a laundry mishap; you could’ve absently taken it out of the dryer without a second glance, thinking it was yours. But the blatant British Army patch on the sleeve and his surname written in white block letters on the back give him very little to work with to excuse you. He doesn’t even remember he still owned that tee, probably because, factually, he doesn’t anymore.

It's clearly yours, now.

He drops the house keys in the tray lying on the floating shelf next to the doorway, before closing the door behind him. The sound must’ve alerted you, because your head drops backwards, rolling against the armrest of the sofa.

"Evenin'." You beam, looking at his downward image. Your head lolls and your mouth looks busy chewing on a handful of crisps.

Ever the vigilant bastard, he wants to flick your forehead and remind you that chewing upside down could lead to choking, but you aren’t a child. Although, with the crumbs of what smells like salt and vinegar crisps littering the corners of your lips and the baffling, chaotic way your hair is tied in a bun, you sort of look like one.

You curl your legs to leave a free spot for him, patting your foot on the sofa’s cushions. "Wanna join me?"

Simon hums quietly; his eyes flicker over to the TV for just a glance. He isn’t in the mood for a romcom, not at all. But he does want company. He sighs and shrugs off his jacket before toeing off his boots. His balaclava is snatched off by a tired hand, and dropped somewhere he doesn’t care to check. Only two wide steps with his annoyingly long legs and he’s already by the sofa, flopping onto it like a wet rag slapped on the leather cushions.

He eyes the bag of crisps in your hand and raises a questioning eyebrow.

You’ve learned how silent communication works with him because most of the time (especially after particularly hellish days or long deployments) he wanders around the flat like a haunting specter more than a living being.

You mockingly raise your own questioning brow, but alas, you hand him the pack of crisps he’d wordlessly asked for. And just because you can, and because he’s never said anything when you did it, you stretch your legs to rest over his thighs.

That earns you a grumpy side-eye that softens just as quickly when he spots the checkered pink and green socks he gifted you for your graduation.

Simon doesn’t know much about things like that. He isn’t daft, he knows how big it is to earn a PhD. But presents aren’t his thing, nor are the pleasantries built around big achievements.

At the time, he was just tired of seeing you walk barefoot around the flat and thought you needed those more than anything since, apparently, slippers weren’t all the rage in your book. Surely, before his life-changing present, Simon was used to you asking if he’d seen your other slipper while you stumbled about the flat only wearing one on your feet. He’d find them everywhere: under the sofa when vacuuming the carpet, hidden in a groove between the floor and the kitchen counter, forgotten on the washing machine or in the washing machine.

He’d figured that the only way to ensure you’d avoid knocking your pinky toe on the corner of some furniture was to make sure you couldn’t simply drop the footwear. Socks were it, apparently.

He remembers how your eyes had shone like the bleeding sun when he’d given them to you, how you’d clutched them to your chest as if he’d just gifted you a pot of gold. It had been a lovely sight, one he carefully keeps tucked in the almost empty corner of his mind, the one reserved for happy memories.

Nevertheless, Simon has rarely minded your habit of lounging with your calves across his thighs. The opposite, actually. Your friendly sentiments make him feel like, for once, he isn’t about to get stabbed in the back. Moreover, the fact that he is letting you invade his personal space like that, when he never allows anyone else to so much as touch him, truly is a testament to the monumental trust he’s placed in you.

You take a sip from your beer. "Alright?"

“Peachy.” He grumbles dryly.

Your lips purse to conceal a smirk, but hell is it hard. His dry humor never fails to rob a halfhearted smile from you. He has subconsciously started using it more often than socially acceptable just because of that.

You wiggle your toes against his abdomen, trying to steal a smile of his own from him – even if those tend to appear once in a blue moon.

What you are given, however, is only a slap on the ankle.

Catching on his mood, you down one last sip from your Stella and then you wiggle the bottle at him.

"There," you offer. "Seems like you need it more than I do."

He tosses the bag of crisps on the coffee table and accepts the beer from you, taking a rather large gulp from it. He isn’t a light drinker by any means. In his defense, it takes a whole lot of alcohol to knock him out. He has the metabolism of a properly trained soldier and his liver has processed much worse things than a bloody Stella Artois.

“Why are you being particularly friendly today?” He asks with thinly veiled sarcasm.

He isn’t complaining, per se. But he is a pessimist, one who can’t seem to grasp the notion that people can act accommodating without asking anything in return. Even if that has been your only behavior for the past four years.

Therefore, Simon understands why you narrow your eyes at his question, all offended and a tiny bit sour, as if he’s just asked something outrageous. However, he also knows you’ll brush off his comment because it is true, what he said.

You are particularly cheery.

"I'm back in the game." You state, sounding as if you've achieved some great thing. "I have a date next Friday."

That.

That is what Simon needs to hear in order to give you a genuine reaction.

He raises a single blond eyebrow and glances away from the TV to look at you with that signature hooded gaze of his – the kind that could cut through steel.

“A date?” He grumbles. “Who’s the bloke?”

In response, you squirm a little on the couch to lazily reach for your phone on the coffee table. One of your legs swings to keep your balance, and if Simon didn’t have the reflexes of a sniper, you’d have heeled his face. He automatically grabs your ankle to both prevent your fall and save the integrity of his nose, releasing a sigh – bloody used to it.

You're absolutely unaffected by whatever's happening at the other end of you, awfully concentrated on your task at hand. Fingertips graze the phone enough to slide it closer until you finally manage to have it in your grasp. It’s painfully clear how you can’t be bothered to stand.

You lie back down on the sofa with a sigh, as if that has been an exhausting endeavor.

Simon scoffs.

Your legs return to his lap with apt nonchalance. Then, you swipe through your screen. Simon can only see the phone covering your face from that angle, how the screen light illuminates your features – brows furrowed and the tip of your tongue peeking between your teeth, all focused on finding something on it.

After painstakingly long seconds, you turn your phone to him. Simon squints at the screen and then focuses on the picture you’re showing.

The man is… somewhat handsome, he has to admit. Brown hair, blue eyes, charming smile with possibly fake teeth. Definitely older. Probably a boring, pretentious tosser. Probably wouldn’t appreciate your carefree nature. He wouldn’t return your lost slippers at your door. He wouldn’t buy you socks so you’d stop whining about being on the verge of breaking your toes. He definitely wouldn’t let you paint only one wall of the living room orange, because, in your opinion, having all four would be “too flashy” - as if one on its own isn’t obnoxious enough.

He has to admit, however, that you look beyond excited, and maybe a little enamored. It’s an adorable view, really, and he hates himself for being unable to rejoice about it with you.

"Adam." You tell him his name, even if he never asked. "Thirty-nine. Associate professor of Linguistics at the Uni where I graduated. Found him on Bumble.”

Simon has to physically stop himself from giving a scoff in response to that.

“Looks like a knob.” He takes yet another large gulp of beer, finishing the last drop. You frown, and before you can interject, he adds. “Looks old. Tory, probably.”

You roll your eyes and nudge his thigh with the tips of your toes.

"He ain't a Tory." You scoff. That little frown still lingers on your features, carving a small line between your brows, as if he'd personally offended you.

His comment prompts you to turn your phone to yourself and look at the picture of this Adam lad you found on Bumble of all places.

You look back at Simon and his deadpan stare. Then back at Adam and his million-dollar smile.

Your eyes swivel back to Simon again, and you tentatively ask, "You think he's a Tory?"

Simon places the empty beer bottle on the glass coffee table. The sound somehow makes you take a metaphorical step back. "Nah. He can't be."

You purse your lips, concentrated and slightly, just slightly amused.

Eyes back to Adam. Then to Simon. "Right?"

Simon looks that ounce of smug enough to be considered annoying once he notices how you’re about to go cross-eyed in changing your focus, all hesitant and that bit concerned. He already knows how you have zero faith in your own judgment of character even if you refuse to make peace with it.

A little too naïve for this world. A tad too innocent. When the topic would come up, you’d get all riled up and primitive in your frustration, muttering indiscernible words and expletives that sound like grunts. Brows all furrowed and pretty lips scowling. He'd remind you how you let him in your flat without a single proof that he wasn't a serial killing sociopath, and your mouth would lock in place.

His hand lands on the curve of your foot, smoothing down towards your ankle; the warmth of his palm bleeds through the fuzzy fabric of your socks. He sighs, a little overdramatic as if he were about to tell you some sad, sad news. "Definitely a Tory.”

You want to reprimand his lack of faith in your choice of men. But his hand on your ankle feels so nice and you’re a sucker for physical contact. Begrudgingly, you settle that your bruised ego and your wounded pride are worth the gentle giant’s warmth.

However, the lingering touch does nothing to discourage your fire, so you glower. The least believable thing he's ever seen.

It takes much more to upset a special forces operator with a series of achievements as long as Simon Riley’s. A doctor with a mop of hair lazily tied in a bun, checkered socks in his lap, and residues of crisps around her lips surely isn’t it.

"Well." You huff, crossing your arms over your chest. "I'll ask him on Friday when we’ll have dinner."

He scoffs.

“You’re gonna bring up politics at dinner on a first date, yeah?” A condescending pat on your ankle. “Sounds really romantic.”

His dry humor again. It wins in its intent to steal a chuckle from you.

The fight leaves as quickly as it entered your bloodstream, and you flop on the couch with a sigh, your phone falling somewhere on the turquoise carpet.

"Gotta make sure I ain't dating a conservative." You quip.

Simon watches you clasp your hands over your belly as it ripples with the first waves of a breathy laugh. You crane your neck forwards, eyes squinting in mirth clocking his own.

"He looks like he’d vote Tory." You concede with a laugh and pinch the air in front of your face. "A tiny bit - just a tiny bit."

“A tiny bit?” He snorts. “Lad probably has a framed photo of Margaret Thatcher in his bedroom.”

You laugh again, rubbing an idle hand over your eyes as you shake your head, utterly defeated. He can see in the way your shoulders sag that he’s shattered the careful castle of hopes and dreams you'd built brick by brick around the man.

"God no." Equally as exasperated as entertained, you sigh. "Can't imagine shagging him with the ol' Iron Lady staring at my tits."

He scoffs again at the mental image you have just provided him with. He doubts he’ll ever forget the picture, to his dismay. “Christ. Didn’t need that in my mind.”

In the afterglow of that belly laugh, you don’t notice how he’s somewhat tightened his grip around your ankle. Simon knows you aren’t one to pay attention to those subtleties. Too focused on other people's well-being to realize when yours is being put first. He can already imagine how your heart is unraveling with the knowledge that you’ve managed to make him quirk a smile, however small, even if his day had been a proper shitshow.

The selfless angel that you are.

You turn your eyes to the ceiling, looking for something that clearly isn’t written on the colorful paint of the walls.

"All jokes aside," you murmur. "I hope it goes well."

Your eyes touch his. There’s a melancholy in yours you only allowed him to see. Thinly veiled vulnerability, heart bare just for his eyes.

"Really need a confidence boost," you say with a wistful smile. "And some love on the side."

He mutters under his breath. “Right.”

Simon tries not to wince at your words and what they imply. He thinks you’re too good to rely on other people (men, above anything) to boost your confidence. As if what he thinks are mouthwatering looks, a striking sense of humor and a brilliant mind aren’t enough to make you feel a peg above everyone else.

He hates that you don’t seem to understand it. Hates that you require other people’s approval even when you have a brain that could put most to shame and a series of achievements to boot.

He hates that despite how sharp you are, you’re slow when it comes to emotional intelligence. And it’s Simon fucking Riley who’s saying it, the most emotionally unavailable man he himself knows. It isn’t that you can’t discern signs and tells, you aren’t stupid by any means, but it’s painfully obvious how you just can’t fathom why people would be attracted to you that way. Thus, you’d always dismiss compliments and advances with annoying levity.

In four years, Simon has witnessed all your relationships wither because your lack of self-confidence made you question everything.

Seemingly aware of the tense air your comment has caused, your cheeky grin makes a comeback just to lift his spirits. You wriggle your foot under his grip to get his attention. "You think he'll like my socks?"

Simon has to admit (finally, at least true to himself) that your tireless search for reassurance about your date isn’t exactly doing wonders for his heart or his sanity.

“He’ll love them, you muppet.” He deadpans.

You chuckle at the comment, and then you relax, thinking the conversation over. Comfortable with your eyes on the telly and your hands clasped over your stomach, that gentle feeling of home and familiarity lulls you into a soft rest.

Simon on the other hand, is anything but relaxed. His jaw clenches involuntarily as if he despises even the mere idea of another man getting to see you like this: lying down, all soft and sweet and sleepy in the fuzzy socks he’s bought you. With his surname plastered on your back, of all things.

His eyes flick to the hand on your ankle. He wants to keep holding on tighter and stop you from leaving altogether. Keep you tethered to that couch without ever needing to stand up.

He could tell you to drop it. He could.

But you’re a grown woman, in her prime, with her doctorate and her big girl job that gives her enough money to start a war of her own but for some reason has never decided to pick up her things and leave that shabby flat she shares with him.

And he is poor with words. Communication is a skill he’s never learned, unless it involves extracting precious intel from skin-trading bastards or bloodthirsty pricks. He surely isn’t going to communicate with you that way, even if it's the only one he knows. The realization makes his lips dip into a scowl of self-hatred for being seemingly unable to keep you.

Simon’s eyes rake over your body – your silhouette concealed by his shirt, softly draped over you like finely carved marble. With natural flow, his hand follows the path traced by his pupils, and very deliberately slides up your leg, towards your knee.

Initially, the movement only prompts you to steal a glance from him. But when your eyes land on that frown, as if he were deep in thought, it feels natural, instinctive, to give him your undivided attention again.

Softly, you ask for the second time that day, "Alright?"

He nearly lets out a huff of laughter. Such a simple question yet so goddamn loaded he’s on the verge of blowing a gasket – his patience wearing thin.

He locks his eyes with yours, only to snark once more. “Peachy.”

His humor this time isn’t successful in the effort of stealing a smile. In Simon’s defense, he hasn’t used it to make you crack one at all.

You frown, a tiny fracture between your brows. A little confused, mostly concerned. He can see it in your doe eyes, how you’re already miles away – overthinking every minute detail you might have missed during the conversation. You always thought so much Simon had joked, once or twice, that your skull was too small to host all that.

Your eyes shift from his face to his hand. Simon dares to be bolder and slides his palm a little higher. His fingers curl around the plush of your thigh.

"Peachy, eh?" You inquire, clearly suspicious of his antics. "You look far from peachy.”

A low scoff slips past his lips.

He is anything but peachy, he’d give you that. He is anything but sweet, far from it. Bitter, would fit better. Jealous, would fit best. He is downright pissed, but not at you. Never at you. He wishes he were a gifted conversationalist, so he could put into words what the idea of you shoving your tits in the face of some twat is making his hackles rise. He barely entertains the thought of you talking and laughing with him, never mind brushing with the concept of you riding the life out of that bastard. God forbid you brought him over and did all that in your flat – his flat.

He swallows in a piss poor attempt at juggling his feelings. His eyes shift to the TV to further conceal them.

“Just thinkin’ about work is all.” He mutters. Simon can almost hear Soap’s Scottish lilt calling him a “pining sod.”

Oh, but you’re an insistent little thing, aren’t you? Simon can hear the sheer doubt in your tone when you hum in response. The slight changes in the vibration against your frowning lips, the curves in the intonation of that simple, but so very telling sound. He catches each and every one of those details like the guard dog that he is.

In his peripherals, he sees the shifting of your eyes, from his hand to his profile. He sees you take in the crook of his nose, broken a few times (a tough job and a harsh childhood did that to him). His furrowing brows, light honey, like his hair – all ruffled and staticky from removing his balaclava when he got home.

"Work." You deadpan, but it comes out softer than intended.

His fingers aren’t as sneaky as before when they slide further up your thigh. Simon knows you feel that same electric spark because your quadriceps stiffen under his palm.

“Work,” he affirms, his jaw tight as his hand journeys farther to reach the hem of your shorts. His thumb rubs from side to side over the skin at the edge of the fabric, and Christ, he’s fighting the growing itch to just pull them down.

While the two of you have watched plenty of films on this same sofa, in this same position, Simon has never touched you.

As in, touched you, touched you.

He’s averse to that, to anything that isn’t a noncommittal gesture. This one, however, obviously isn’t.

His hand is so big against your thigh, that plush skin underneath his callouses almost makes him feel guilty. The hardened palm used to disperse death shouldn’t touch such soft things. He feels the peachy fuzz brush against the pads of his fingers, he sees how they leave divots in the meat.

It makes his heart beat a little faster, blood pumping in all the wrong places but his head.

His expression is blank, dull eyes staring straight at the television. However, his mind is not as quelled as he portrays. It’s leading him to a very unholy place, where he wonders if your skin is as soft on your belly as it is on your thigh. Whether you’d whimper or groan if he were to flick his tongue over your breasts. If your eyes would roll back, were he to plunge his fingers deep into your core.

So many ifs he wants to put to the test.

He gently skims where your thigh meets your hip, and Simon swears he hears you gulp. He can tell you’re absolutely blindsided. You've been living with him as your flatmate for four years. Four fucking years, and if he ever tried to give you anything more than his usual snark, he might have been a little too subtle about it.

Simon glances at you, before returning his focus to the telly. One look is all he needs to hear your thoughts as if they were his own – the self-deprecation, the anxiety, that tormenting feeling of not being enough.

How torn you look. Stiff fingers curl around air only to release it right afterwards, fighting an invisible enemy. Let him do what he wants, let his hand slide up your shorts, and find the cotton lace of your panties. Or, pull away and retreat into your safe bubble, where no one can hurt you.

As if he’d ever lay an ill hand on you. All you have to say is “Stop” and he’ll take back his arm – cut it off for good measure.

Your eyes are hooded as they turn to look back at the malleable flesh of your thigh in his hold. His fingers disappear under your shorts until the first knuckle. He brushes along the hem of nice lace undies, feeling the rough fabric under the pads of his fingers.

Your voice is deliciously breathy. "Wha' about work, then?"

Avoidance. Normally, he'd let you. If it were any other situation, he'd brush it off with you. He'd keep up with the chat, coddling you in that safe place you seem too keen on spending time in.

Not now.

His head turns back to you; hungry eyes fixed on the way your mouth parts to yield that soft whisper. It makes his eye twitch, a splinter in his veneer.

“Reckon work can wait,” he rasps.

Simon is hyper-aware of how close he is to your core – a knuckle away from the throbbing heat between your legs. He sees your bowed head, eyes lidded with that primal desire he is instilling in you.

You look as if your brain has turned into soup; the ingredients a mix of shared memories and touches – even the most indifferent, neutral ones. To his utter joy, for the first time in your life, it almost looks like you’ve finally turned off your thoughts.

Your jaw clenches in a desperate attempt to get a grip on yourself. He knows you’re confused; he is too. Because it’s wrong to indulge in intimacy when more than just a friendship is at stake. Money's involved, a roof over your heads, a bed to kip, and food in your bellies – four years of shared everything is involved.

But you agree. You nod your head a little dumbly, and suddenly work can wait. To Simon, the fucking world can.

Your voice is a mumble. "Yeah, guess it can."

“Mhm.”

His gaze flicks up to your eyes, depriving your lips of the attention they were given, and he is delighted to see that you’re just as affected as he is.

Simon's fingers get squished between your thighs when you clench them together. He squeezes, feeling how the flesh rolls between his fingers, how it folds where the stretch marks crinkle.

“Lift your leg up for me,” he rasps.

Breath is stuck in your throat in utter anticipation. Simon knows it's been a long time since you've been touched in any way, shape, or form. You could've gone out and found a man willing to have a shag, it wouldn't have been hard to find someone who needed it too – someone as desperate as you look right now.

After all, that single word is the one that led him to you in the first place.

Yet you never did it. Simon has never seen you bring a man, or a woman, back to the flat. Sometimes you’d disappear with a text, saying you’d be sleeping out, but you never brought anyone home. And he never asked why – mostly, because he thought it wasn’t his business. Another part of him, however, was afraid that if he did, you’d take it as an invitation to do so. Obviously, he wasn’t too keen on the idea.

After giving it little thought, you part your thighs for him. One still rests in his lap while the other dangles off the sofa.

There's very little resolve left in you, Simon can tell by the way your eyes are so focused on his disappearing hand, and by the way you shatter when he experimentally glides one finger over the damp line on your panties.

“Fuck.” You hiss, tilting your head back.

You must want him dead, he thinks, as he gawks at the way your throat curves.

“Christ.” He mutters under his breath. He pushes the pad of his thumb down the cotton, feeling how it sticks to your slit. “Barely touched you.”

He wants to take his sweet time. He does. Wants to take it slow, reduce you to a mess of please and more before he finally gives you what you want. But he’s just as desperate as you are, isn’t he? He’s craving, clawing at the walls, to feel you clamp around him. Feel you drip down his hand until his callouses are coated, slick flowing down the crevices of his palm.

He’s no better than you are, currently.

So, his fingers slip under your panties just enough to touch your folds.

You can't help but tilt your head forwards again, only to look down at the bulge under your shorts created by his hand.

But when your eyes flit back to his, he stops.

Maybe he’s gone too far, he thinks. Maybe you’re realizing this is one hell of a mistake that can only end with you going your separate ways, something he will never forgive himself for.

However, it’s then, that you nod. That worry line between your brows, ever-present, seems gone. Smooth skin between your beautiful, beautiful eyes. And Simon feels whole again, feels wanted. The battered hound dog that he is, only useful for one thing and one thing only – sowing the seeds of death, and reaping them afterwards – is wanted.

Not tolerated. Not required, or needed. Wanted.

He knows your brain is turning its cogs, fighting against the fog of a kind of hunger that can’t be extinguished, one that only wants to be sated – by him, and him only.

Why is he doing this.

What does it mean.

Is it because of the date you should have the next Friday.

Is it because he's frustrated at work and you’re simply there, lying on a silver platter.

So many fucking questions it irritates him that, somehow, while his middle finger is tracing lazy patterns to part your folds, you’re still thinking.

He doesn’t allow a single one to leave your lips, because he plunges one finger inside your cunt.

His first if is answered, then. Your eyes don’t roll back like he’d expected.

Your brows flutter to your forehead, and your mouth parts to form a pretty oval. Your chest swells as if you've just taken the first breath in your entire life. Your eyes, hazy and blurred, hold his own. And somehow, that is the hottest thing he’s ever seen.

Your leg on his lap is taut and stiff, toes curling under those loud socks you’re wearing.

Simon takes in the sight of you – all flushed and panting. The only sound in the air is the quiet drone of the telly in the background and your sharp inhales.

He can only describe himself in that moment as wrecked. Maybe even more so than you are right now, all rigid in anticipation of his first movements.

“Keep your eyes on me," he growls out, and when you nod, he curls his pad inside of you.

Your fingers seem to mimic his own, but they grip the edge of the sofa’s cushions instead. Your nails scratch at the leather with such voracity they leave beige lines against the dark brown.

He struggles against the double layer of fabric entrapping his hand to your cunt – the lace scratches the knuckle on his thumb, the cotton of your shorts is a manacle on his wrist. But fuck if he cares about all that when your hips twitch to encourage his movements.

You look ruined. And he loves that – the effect he has on you, the fact that he’s the one to have you like this.

He moves his finger in slow, long strokes. He doesn’t do it to torture you, no. He observes, because for once his constant vigilance is not only useful to quell his paranoia, but also to feed your desires. He tests movements, tries different spots, looking for that one within your walls that will make you scream.

And he finds it, then – to his utmost delight. Here you are: your breathy moans, soft and honeyed, turn into a stuttering and almost pained "Oh." And he knows he has you under his thumb, all perfect and yearning, unraveling with just one of his fingers. He’s looking straight at your face, not wanting to miss a single twitch of an eyebrow. Your pretty lips are all slick with your spit and they part to release the sweetest sounds he’s ever heard.

His strokes intensify, drawing back as much as he can with the limited movements he has, only to push in and hit ever so slightly that rougher patch of nerves he’s located. He doesn’t want to make you squirm, but he has something tickling his brain – questions. Or better, one question.

He places his thumb over your pearl, unsheathing it from the fleshy hood with a glide. He drinks the way it makes your breath hitch and stutter in sudden hypersensitivity. He rolls his pad tentatively, only to see you grit your teeth and groan – muscles and sinews all tensed up in your neck. It's like molten lava in your belly. It's syrupy hot and gushes out of you in long, sticky droplets that pool on his finger, down to the knuckle.

“D’you think you’ll need to go on that date on Friday?” he rasps and rolls his thumb again.

His question doesn't seem to make you falter; your hips are unrelenting in their chase for release, as you push against his hand, grinding like your life depends on it. However, he can tell that it irked you. That blissed-out look pinches in frustration.

You're breathless, on a feverish hunt for that taste of heaven his finger’s promising, and Simon has the gall to bring up another man? One he's been mocking for the past half hour? He's surprised by himself as well.

You whine. "Does this look like the bloody time?"

“No,” he concedes, sounding a little patronizing.

He has the upper hand, quite literally, and to give you a friendly reminder of the power he holds, he slides another finger in.

You're absolute putty in his hands now. Your fingers grip at the sofa, your cheeks all flushed and warm. Your back arches, and he knows he just gave you that fullness you've been chasing. The sensation that causes the right amount of pleasure and pain of the stretch. He’s knuckle deep inside of you, his fingers trapped by your velvety walls as he strokes harder, lingering a little longer where you like it, but not faster. He keeps that steady pace that takes your breath away, not forgetting to lavish your clit with attention, and leaves you with just enough air for you to free those clipped and breathless moans.

He’s shameless as his other hand clamps your shin on his lap and pushes it down onto the painful tent on his jeans. He shifts his hip upwards to grind against your calf and hisses when it causes the zipper to graze his cock.

“Gonna cancel it, then?”

It’s bliss. You look like an angel.

"Yeah," you breathe out, a little incoherent. "Cancel it, 'course."

Your voice is more of an unintelligible mumble than anything else – two fingers in and his thumb on your nub drawing idle circles. Perfect pressure. Perfect fit.

He’s never seen you look this beautiful, all abandoned and relaxed, with your big brain he loves so much shut off completely. Synapses only working to generate a wish for release, so sweet and simple, and nothing else. And who is he to deny such a plain request, you sweet thing.

Simon would give you the moon if you asked.

He’s powerless in your presence, undecided if to focus on your face, or to stare at your hardened nipples. They brush against the black training t-shirt he once owned – right below the two crossing swords painted under the royal crown. It should be blasphemous. Should be bloody illegal to sully the name of the monarchy that way.

That is, if he gave a fuck about it. And even if he did, he’d see no wrong in it – because what can you taint when you’re the purest thing he’s ever touched.

Your hips move in tandem with his fingers, your face scrunched in that desperate look of someone who has a piece of heaven just out of reach. He watches you as you fall apart under his fingers and keeps your leg down so he can grind against it. If the situation were different, he’d feel like a wild animal in that regard, but there isn’t a spot on you he doesn’t wish to worship.

Especially now, when you look like this. With your hair sticking to your forehead and loose locks escaping your low bun.

He can’t take his eyes away from you – you have him absolutely entranced.

“s too much.” He hears you whine amongst the mist in his brain

“It ain’t.” He manages to grunt as if it's an order.

And you’re a little insubordinate, because you try and squirm away. But your shorts are his shackles as much as they’re yours – they fasten his hand to your cunt, while locking you against his unwavering fingers.

“Simon,” your voice is so wrecked when you beg. “Please - fuck.”

And how he finds the strength to snark is beyond him. His voice is thick and heavy. “’m tryin’.”

He drags his fingers deep down where yours can’t reach, where he’s found that patch of nerves that reduces you into a puddle of yourself. His thumb on your clit is steadfast, rubbing just above the hood where you’re not as sensitive, only to drag down again and make you see stars.

And the way that string of “Yes” leaves your lips, in that euphoric wheeze that tugs at the corners of your lips, makes his cock ache to be anywhere but in the confines of his jeans.

Your eyes are all glossy when you prop yourself on your elbows to fuel his resolve. Petal lips red and shiny, catching your teeth in an attempt to muffle your moans – bone-deep ingrained insecurity you can’t seem to get rid of. He doesn’t force you, though – he wants to hear you, sure, but most of all he wants to see you crumble to shreds. And if hiding your voice is what you need, then feel free to be his bloody guest.

Your hips stutter and your belly ripples under his large tee draped over it, and he’d recognize those signs anywhere.

“Cum f’ me,” he orders. “C’mon, love. Give it to me.”

It takes a few more pumps of his fingers, and Simon feels it before he sees it. You clench around his fingers in rippling waves, thrumming rhythmically. Your cunt deliciously threatens to cut them off just above the knuckle.

And fuck, aren’t you a goddamn sight.

Simon thinks it's almost cathartic to simply watch you. How your head tilts back to hit the armrest of the sofa, the way your toes curl in his lap and your foot on the floor rigidly lifts. The sway of your hips as they undulate to meet his thrusts and the liberating groan that leaves your lips, touching the sky with your fingers.

He unconsciously guides you through it, but truthfully, he has absolutely no idea what to do with himself – not with you looking straight out of one of his most unhinged dreams. His fingers slow down but keep moving relentlessly.

However, it would be a lie for him to say he knows what he’s doing.

You come down from it and your eyes are blinky and unfocused, staring at the ceiling. Your body deflates on the couch, limp and sated. Syrupy and warm. With your chest free to move now that the heavy weight on it has finally been lifted. He allows you this moment of privacy as you recollect yourself, although he truly wants you to look back at him again. He doesn’t want to miss a beat of this, yet he sort of understands.

Your breath comes out in puffs. He’s not faring any better on that note.

"Simon," you breathe, his name exquisite from your lips. "Christ."

He’s gawking. Watching your face for a moment more, he meets your eyes as they flick back to him down the slope of your nose.

Thumb still on your clit, the movements are gentler and featherlight. His voice is hoarse and rough as he speaks. “Alrigh’?”

You chuckle, breathless and a little nervous now that the appetite has been sated – much more self-aware than before.

His fingers are still inside of you and you’re already overthinking this. He knows it. He just hopes, deep down, that you’re not regretting it – because he sure as hell isn’t.

"Peachy.” Is your reply.

Oh, how the tables have turned. Joke’s on him, he’s fed you enough sarcasm for you to start throwing it back at him. Simon feels too weak to even smirk. However, his eyes do narrow, in a similar manner to how yours would at his snarky comebacks.

He gently slides his fingers out of you, mindful of your current sensitivity. He brings the hand up, seeing the gleam of your slick shamelessly coating their lengths down to the knuckles.

“Fuckin’ look at that.” He murmurs, unable to discern whether he’s talking to you or to himself, “Messy girl.”

He thumbs his middle finger and rolls the juice between the pads, thinking; tongue out to lick his lips like the voracious beast he is.

Simon reaches over and brings his hand towards your mouth. A jerky nod of his jaw, “Open.”

He knows he’s already crossed a line the two of you never even dared to toe before. And if he’s going to lose you after this, if you’re going to turn your back on him and leave the flat (leave his life) then he’s going to make the most of it.

Your brows are pinched in sudden uncertainty. A contradicting spectacle, if mixed with the way your chest is still heaving and how your cunt is still wet.

But tonight, you seem eager to catch him off guard, because you oblige. Your lips part and you offer your tongue, never breaking eye contact.

Each time he thinks you can’t look more beautiful you prove him fucking wrong.

He hums lowly in approval, and there’s something dark in that sound. He gently runs his fingers across your tongue, coating it with your taste. Fingertips slide and follow its curve. He stares at you with such an intensity, like he could consume you if he had a mind to. You devour him first, wrapping your lips around his knuckles.

When your tongue delves around his fore and middle fingers, he has to close his eyes. He has to roll his head, releasing the tension in his jaw. He has to, or he’ll cum in his goddamn jeans. The sharp inhale he takes almost burns his nostrils; his sigh heavy and anguished when his lips surrender to it.

“How d’you taste, dove?” he asks, blinking his eyes open.

The way his voice rasps out that pet name, rough like sandpaper, makes a shiver run down your neck. He sees it, the tremor of your shoulders, the goosebumps on your arms.

Simon reluctantly pulls his fingers away only so you can answer. His wasn’t a rhetorical question, and by that blush on your cheeks and the embarrassed hint of a smile on your face, you’ve guessed it already.

"Not as sweet as I thought."

His lips twitch.

“No?” he asks, his voice much too broken for his liking. He brings those same fingers to his mouth and sucks, tasting your spit and your cum. A low rumble of a chuckle escapes him – must be a blue moon tonight. “I think you taste pretty sweet.”

This can go two ways: a fairy tale ending, like those romcoms you like to watch, or an absolutely dreadful one – in which you leave. And truly, Simon doesn’t believe in a higher power; God has abandoned him more times than he cares to count. However, he hopes that whoever’s up there realizes that he's owed big time for all the crap he’s been put through.

And he asks for nothing, but you.

His face is hot, and he gathers his cheeks might be a little pink. The rare sight must give you some comfort, the fact that he’s just as overwhelmed as you are, because he feels your leg relax in his lap.

You purse your lips to hide a bashful smile - as if you have any right to be coy right now. "Flatterer."

He hums, seemingly wanting to bite back at you but unable to find the spirit for it. His eyes rake over your body, from your flushed face to your chest covered by his tee, until they land on your quivering thighs, still splayed open for him.

For him.

His hand travels up your leg, following the same route that has led to this. When his palm finally cups your hip, his fingers curl at the waistband of your shorts and tug.

“C’mere.”

You do.

He sees you bend your knees and shift on the sofa so you can crawl to him on shaky legs. As the gentleman he never thought he’d be, he helps you swing your thigh over his own and deposits you in his lap with your knees on either side of his hips.

Afraid you might say something hinting at regret, he selfishly grabs your jaw and pulls you down, finally tasting you the way he’s always wanted. His lips mold with yours, and they’re so soft he has no business claiming them as his own. His fingers tilt your head so he can deepen the kiss, and only when he sees your eyes flutter closed through the slit of his eyelids, he allows himself to surrender to you.

Your lips peck the thin scar on his cupid’s bow, but before you can run away from him (as you should), he captures you once more. He never wants to let you go, so his tongue slides across the seam of your mouth, and you, so pliantly, oblige him.

Your hands are resting on his shoulders when the kiss starts tentatively, while his slender fingers follow the curve of your waist.

But then your nails dig at the fabric of his t-shirt, as if eager to rip it, and his palms journey to your rear. He grips at the flesh through your shorts, before shoving out of the way their distressed hem and directly groping the plump meat of your ass.

The two of you never part. If anything, everything gets more heated.

He doesn’t recall when it is exactly that you start grinding your hips, nor does he remember when his shirt was removed – whether you did it, or if he’s taken the matter into his own hands.

However, he does snap out of it when he feels your palms leave his shoulders to grasp at the hem of your tee. While he wants to feel his skin on yours as much as you do, what’s separating your chest from his is not a mere layer of cotton.

He pulls away and – to his pleasure – he sees you lean in to have more. His hand lands on yours, stopping you.

“No.”

He sees you blink, dazed. A myriad of emotions travel through that pinched expression you wear, thinking like usual that you’ve done something wrong.

He quells your fears in seconds, when his other palm skims over your arm. It journeys unhurriedly, leaving gooseflesh in its wake, until it lands at the base of your throat. His thumb brushes over its column, forcing your neck to tilt backwards and your back to arch, presenting your chest.

Simon models you like clay under his warm fingers, and he takes his time to drink you in and sculpt you as he wishes. Because you seem so docile now that his intents are less covert, clearer.

He brings his mouth to your throat, and his nose scrunches when he presses it against your neck, keeping you still with one thick arm around your waist. With sluggish movements, he tastes the salt of your skin and the tang left by your perfume.

Simon pulls back only to run his tongue from the hollow between your collarbones up to your jaw, feeling right under the muscle how your throat bobs when your breath lodges in between. He curves his head and digs his teeth into the plumper flesh on the side of your neck, enough to get a taste but not enough (never enough) to cause pain.

“Keep the shirt on.” He breathes against your skin, “I wanna fuck my name into you.”

And he does just that.

It’s effortless how he lifts you in his arms, guiding your ankles to lock at his tailbone. Clothes, both yours and his, freckle the floors in a trail that leads to his bedroom. He’s famished; there isn’t a single surface along the path he follows where he hasn’t placed you – if only to savor every piece of you for a little longer.

Until he has you on that bed, the one he should’ve gotten only for a few weeks and instead became his own alcove.

You look wonderful on it.

But you’re even more gorgeous when he sits at the edge of the mattress, facing the full-length mirror in his room, and places you on his thighs to straddle his lap – your back facing the reflection.

He runs his hands over your chest, riding up the t-shirt to your neck only so he can feast on your tits. Grabbing greedy handfuls of fat and muttering unintelligible praises when his mouth all but devours every inch – sucking on your puffy nipples and grazing his teeth around each peak.

Another if is answered by the whimper that escapes your kiss-bitten lips.

You look like an angel, when your soft hand goes to grab the base of his cock and, without much ceremony, you guide it inside of you – sinking on it easy and slow.

You feel like heaven, too, impaled on him. Perfect fit, always made for him, and him only.

Simon’s not sure what he did to deserve you, now riding his cock like you’d been deprived of it your whole life. Unbridled, free. You moan and groan without a care in the world, the hesitation he saw before vanished into thin air – and oh, he couldn’t be more grateful for it.

His hands curl at the hem of your (his, his, his) shirt, lifting it up slightly at your waist, only so he can see in the reflection how your ass slaps against his thighs each time you drop. Or, how your glutes clench when instead of trying to pleasure him, you please yourself – rolling your hips to grind your clit against his happy trail.

Simon’s hands leave the shirt only to grab more of you, kneading at your hips to guide your cunt down his cock until he has you filled to the brim. Your eyes roll back, breath stuck in that pretty throat of yours. He bites at it - laps at the skin like a starved dog.

Simon shattered his chains the moment you came undone on his fingers, and now he knows no restraint – not when he has you like this.

“Look at you,” he growls, slapping your ass only to watch how the fat ripples in recoil in your mirror image.

He grabs the back of your neck and tilts your head downwards. Your foreheads touch as he guides your eyes to look at where your bodies join. The foamy ring at the base of his cock, how the folds of your vulva hug around his shaft and tip at your unhooded clit, all puffy and red.

He tugs at your mound with his thumb, stretching the flesh to expose more. With a deliberate roll of his hips, he makes a show of how effortlessly his cock slides into you, how your cunt greedily stretches to welcome him whole.

“Look at that.” His voice is equally as raspy as it’s enraptured. “Perfect.”

Using his hand on your nape, he angles your face to kiss you again. He thrusts into you only to have you part your lips in a stuttering moan, and he drinks it dry.

When you resume grinding your hips, he whispers in your open mouth, “Fuckin’ perfect.”

Simon sees how your thighs quiver under the strain of the effort, hamstrings taut and probably burning in the attempt to wrap around his hips. He won’t keep you like that for long, don’t worry. He’ll take good care of you, like he always has.

But now, he indulges in a selfish moment.

Spare seconds in which he watches your reflection bounce on him, and you’re too lost in the feeling to notice how his hooded eyes take in the view.

The profile of your face in the mirror (his little cherub), with your mouth parted and brushing against his temple as he nuzzles your shoulder through the fabric of the shirt. One hand ecloses his nape and your other palm is on his cheek, keeping his head close to your breathless lips. Your eyes are closed in bliss – lashes shy against your flushed cheekbones.

In the scantly lit room, the reflection in the mirror of you two is as dark as everything else, but the stark white writing on the back of your tee has never looked brighter. Your hair sways with your movements, and that RILEY that peeks through your locks has him impossibly enamored of you.

And you’re so smart, he thinks. So clever, because you know, even when your senses are clouded by euphoria and your eyes are closed. You know he’s never had a thing. You know that whatever he’s held, no matter for how long, has always slipped through his fingers before he could even get a taste of it.

“I’m yours,” you whisper in his ear.

And so, Simon surrenders. He’s at your mercy, you have his trust and whatever’s left of his heart – and he knows you won’t break either.

He helps you out of his t-shirt only to hold you bare against his chest. He brings you down with him, lavishes your skin with his palms and his lips. Nose buried in your hair, Simon breathes you in. The smell of sex and the smell of you and how it has him drunk when it whirlpools with his own – a new fragrance, one that burns itself into his brain with the threat (sweet promise) of never letting go.

Because he’s never had a thing, his name barely pertains to him anymore. But the moment he saw it on you, he finally realized where Simon Riley belongs.

#simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #call of duty modern warfare #cod #cod mw2 #fanfic #archive of our own #ao3 #jealous simon riley #ghost x reader #foxy #roommate simon riley

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deadsetobsessions · 2 months ago

Text

“Did you know that shrimps…”

Tim leaned in, poorly hidden eagerness splayed across his face. A clue that Danny and Phantom were dating?

“Are super delicious?” Danny mumbled, ducking his head to hide his impish grin. Tim exhaled, disappointed, and leaned back to observe. Danny currently had his arm elbow deep in Jason’s chest, the older man grimacing at the weird feeling of being phased through.

“You done?”

“Almost. This is a multiple session kind of thing though, since the corrupted ectoplasm's not only in your body, it's actively trying to fuse with your DNA. Like, a really fucked up virus with virtually no cure."

"No cure?!" Dick's panic was only barely suppressed. "But I thought you said you could help with that?"

"Yeah, I mean, how do you cure death? Everything has to end eventually." Danny said practically, before drawing a bit more tainted ectoplasm out. He stealthily replaced it with a cleaner source, a shot of ecto-dejecto he had absorbed as Phantom but didn't assimilate. "But don't worry, you're not dying again yet. You'll just become even more liminal."

"More?"

"Yeah. You were, by definition, a liminal. Now you'll just have more access to the traits- more in tune with your emotions, night vision, and a minor ability to manipulate ecto."

"I'm sorry, can we circle back on the fact that pit water is trying to fuse with my DNA?" Jason stressed. Danny took his hand out, treatment complete, and dusted them off.

"You don't have to worry about that either, since you've got a magic immune system in the form of... swords?" Danny’s brows furrowed, his senses making sense of the shape of magic.

"The All-Blades are cutting off pit water access." Jason sounded done. Exasperated at where he was in life... but really not all too surprised.

"...Sure?" Danny shrugged. The halfa has seen weirder shit than magic swords.

"Wait, you have magic?!" Dick reached over to grasp Jason's shoulder to shake him. Jason knocked his hands off, scowl becoming more prominent.

"Yeah, picked it up a while ago."

"And you didn't tell us?!"

In lieu of an answer, Jason summoned the All Blades and stabbed Dick, who yelped before realizing they just phased through him.

"Oh, you should use those more. They're purifying the ecto at a smaller quantity, but some is still better than none, right?" Danny said, pleasantly surprised. He ignored Dick’s outraged spluttering. “How interesting.”

Tim gathered his open jaw just to cheekily ask, "So, Jason's a magical girl? Usagi?"

Jason raised the one of the blades threateningly at Tim, who remained unfazed after watching them slide through Dick’s shoulder without leaving a trace of damage.

Danny laughed, "Hah! Nah, more like Madoka? If those are All-Blades, he’s supposed to kill evil with them…”

"Fuck off." Jason grumbled. Dick poked at the sword going through his shoulder in fascination. "Stop that."

"My baby brother is magical and he didn't tell meeeeeee!" Wailed Dick, flopping over Jason’s back like dead weight, hand clutched to his imaginary pearls as he swooned. Jason groaned, dismissing the blades to shove Dick off of him.

"Oh my god, this is why."

“Wait, have you tried stabbing Joker with them? If anyone’s pure evil, it’ll be that guy, right? No, but you’re a civilian… so you might get hurt,” Danny mumbled, huffing a grin as Jason gained a thoughtful look. Guess Danny knows what Red Hood’s gonna try next.

Tim ignored his dumbass brothers, finally done with the subtle tactics. Plus, he has to cut Danny off before he gives Jason any more bright ideas.

“You know, there’s been a rumor going around,” he started, only to get cut off by team Phantom’s impeccable timing. Danny’s open laptop rang with the blaring tones of a group call. The two idiots in the back stopped squabbling with each other, quieting down with interest.

“Oops, gimme a second.” Danny hurried to click the join call button, connecting to the video call. “Hello?”

“Hey, babe!” Tucker said brightly. In the background, Tucker could see Jason mouthing “babe?” to Tim, who shrugged. Dick’s face flashed into something intense before slipping back to its normal harmless facade.

“Sup, loverboy?” Sam chimed in, looking smug. “How’s my favorite boyfriend doing?”

Danny, leader of the gaslight gatekeep girlboss brainwave, naturally slipped into the banter. “Are you saying that ‘cause Tucker ate beef jerky in front of you?”

“Worse. He snuck a tourist t-shirt into my closet. My parents had a fit when they came to visit.”

“I said I was sorry, babe!” Tucker continued, looking actually regretful. Ah, this was something he actually did, as a prank.

“Whatever. Who’s the peanut gallery behind you, loverboy?” Sam buffed her nails, clearly in the middle of reapplying her signature nail polish.

Danny grinned. “Aweeee, is that the color shifting polish I got you? So you do love me!”

“We’re dating.”

If they hadn’t gotten the hint now, Danny would have to rescind their whole world’s best detectives titles.

“That’s our Sam, Danny. Prickly like a hedgehog but allll squishy on the inside.” Tucker snickered. “Seriously though, introduce us.”

Danny backed away from the camera. “This is Jason, Tim, and Dick. Guys, meet my wonderful boyfriend and girlfriend, Tucker and Sam.”

“Hi,” the three vigilantes chorused, looking awkward. Dick broke out of the atmosphere pretty quickly, used to controlling the mood.

“I’m Dick!”

“I’m sure,” drawled Sam. “Nice to meet you, even if we’ve met before.”

“You have?” Tucker and Danny asked.

“Yeah, at the galas. I doubt you’ll remember me.” Sam grimaced. “I was the miserable one in the pink frills.”

“Sam Mason?” Tim asked.

“Yep.”

The boys winced. “Rough.” Jason sympathized.

“Oh, yeah. Danny, how goes wooing Phantom?” Sam asked loudly, looking like she'd rather be discussing anything but the frilled monstrosity that haunted her nightmares.

“Oh, good! I think he’s warming up to me!”

“Ugh, babe, you fabulous fuck, why are you so charming? Why Phantom?” Tucker complained. Danny grinned.

“Come on, nerd, even you have to admit he’s hot.” Sam drawled, looking entertained.

“And majorly cool,” Danny chimed in, with a grin. Wow, Sam must really want Dr. Isley’s number. That, or she’s having a blast fucking with the peanut gallery. Their eyes were bouncing back and forth between Danny and the screen like they were at a tennis match. Or both. It's probably both.

“It’s so not cool to date one of my exes.” Tucker whined. “Plus, you know what he’s like.”

“What’s he like?” Dick asked, leaning in.

“Yeah, Danny won’t tell us anything,” Tim followed up seamlessly.

“Phantom? Hot. So. Hot. Super romantic too.”

"And an emotional mess. You'd never believe what-"

"Okay, seriously, it was one time!" He broke Tucker's system once, and he never let it go. Danny never got a break around here.

"Wait, if you liked him so much, why'd you break up with him?" Jason asked Sam. In Danny's peripherals, he could see Dick updating a group chat. It was going, as they say, swimmingly.

"Obviously I liked Danny more. But having all of them isn't too bad of an idea." Sam leaned back, looking as powerful as she normally does.

"But did it have to be Phantom?" Tucker sulked impressively. Then his eyes finally wandered to Tim. "Oh my god, Tim Drake. Danny, why don't you woo him?! Hey, Mr. Drake, are you interested in dating Danny? He brings terrible puns, smoking looks, and makes killer dinners. All you have to do in exchange is let me pick your brains."

Damn it, Danny knew Tucker was going to pull something like this.

"Uh-huh?" Tim flushed as his brothers cackled at his expense. "Sure..? Wait, what- I mean-"

"Sorry, Timsy. You're gonna have to fight Phantom for my hand. Considering you have no combat experience and Phantom's undead... rough, man."

"Danny, if you don't date him, I will," Tucker solemnly swore.

"Hey, get your grubby paws away from my little brother!" Dick tried to sternly warn them, effect broken by his own intermittent giggles.

"Yeah, you want to date him, you gotta go through the gauntlet." Jason said, muffling Tim's flustered protests with an arm.

"Challenge accepted." Danny paused. "Wait, did I just sign up to be Tim's boyfriend? Shit, Phantom's gonna kill me."

——

Danny texted a series of numbers to Sam. She left him on read.

Ah, maybe he shouldn't have introduced a budding ecoterrorist to a veteran one, but too late now!

——

If you notice any inconsistencies, no u don’t.

It’s been a while since I’ve written for this series though so… yk. Danny, verbally sealing himself into the trap while being chaotic. In character, me thinks.

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morose-melodies · 8 months ago

Text

a story to tell | yandere capitano x reader

summary: the captain appeared at the front of your house, bloodied and offering you a flower.

content warning: size different, mentions of a carcass and mentions of killing.

capitano stood at your front door with a flower in hand.

blood dripping from his mask and onto the snow underneath him.

the majority of his clothes were tainted red, the glove on his right hand slightly torn; you stood behind the door frame, your eyes wide with fear.

"don't look at me with such a fearful expression... am I scaring you?" capitano questioned, and you nodded, "are you hurt?"

"no," he then extended his hand towards you, holding the flower out for you to take.

the flower in his hand was red; perhaps it was his blood, or it was naturally like that. it was a kind gesture, you just couldn't look past all of the blood.

capitano lowered him onto one knee.

his head low as he waited for you to say something, but all you could do was stare, confused as to why a great fatui harbinger was bowing to you.

you hesitantly reached out and took the flower from him, an unsure smile on your face.

you examined the flower in hand, running a finger across the very red petals. you looked back down at capitano who was still kneeling before you and letting curiosity get the best of you, you slowly lowered yourself onto the ground, beside capitano.

"excuse me? what are you doing?" you took a cautious look around, noticing the eyes that watched shamelessly.

this was only your second time meeting the great harbinger. you couldn't understand why he was kneeling to you, or why he was covered in blood or why he had brought you a flower.

you watched him with curious eyes, watching how he breathed slowly, how his eyes never left your own -- you watched him as he watched you.

you reached forward, your hand running across that blood-stained armor of his, lower and lower, until your finger grazed one of his own. you took his hand into yours and stood.

tugging weakly, you urged him to stand with you and that he did.

"... thank you for the flower. do you want to come in?"

"that would be nice," capitano replied, before walking through the front door, he walked down the hallway, leaving a trail of mud behind him.

though you were once holding his hand, it seemed he was holding yours now.

"are you sure you're not hurt? i-i can clean your wounds," you offered, still following behind him as he welcomed himself into your living room and seated himself on your couch.

"I am not hurt. I've come to see you," the captain explained to you, looking at you from his mask, "does that displease you?"

"uhm..." you weren't sure. this was a very odd situation, and he was getting blood on your couch, but this was the harbinger same that took time out of his day to save you from a group of treasure hoarders, "no, it doesn't. I'm just curious..."

"ask me anything, I will answer truthfully," he offered to you, tugging at your hand as if urging you to sit beside him, to be near him.

so, you seated yourself on the couch beside him.

"what happe-"

"I remember the trail to your house so well," he cut you off, answering the question he knew you had for him, "i recall bringing you back after meeting you for the first time. what a lovely home you have," he commented, looking at you.

"you never left my mind, I must confess," it sounded as if he spoke with a small smile, "when passing the very trail to your house, there was danger near. I couldn't allow you to fend for yourself, not when you're such a kind soul."

and so, he explained to you that were was a group of monsters near your home feeding on the carcass of a dead creature. he had killed them to stop them from venturing anywhere further to you.

"and after all, I found that flower and thought of you," his grip on your hand loosened because he knew you were no longer afraid and didn't fear you running off.

though... capitano had told one little lie. it was nothing serious, but he failed to mention that he practically guarded you day in and day out, passing by the trail to your house every house to assure himself of your safety.

why he did this? he wasn't exactly sure himself but he was grateful that he did. who knew what would have happened if he hadn't come to save you.

"well, thank you. thank you so much," you stood from the couch, smiling at him but that smile dimmed a bit when you noticed he was still holding your hand, "uhm, since you're here... would you like some tea? I can make some, you could also clean yourself before you leave..."

the captain smiled to himself, and nodded his head, "that would be nice."

#yandere x reader #yandere genshin impact #yandere #yandere scenarios #capitano x reader #yandere capitain #yandere capitano x reader #the captain #capitano

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cosycafune · 9 months ago

Text

CAPTIVATING FLAVOUR

3.8k words. sure, you’re supposed to be taking sylus’ measurements. yet, what happens when you’re sexually desperate for him, pushing forward an offer that the two of you can’t refuse? once you’ve made a deal, you have to keep it. now, you're in his room — waiting for him to finally test out his self-restraint. pt 2/3. p1 here. masterlist.

acts: oral (f) receiving, teasing, restraints, cunnilingus, fingering, slight praise, mocking, boob sucking, corruption kink, begging, missionary, crying, orgasm, unprotected sex, breeding kink and aftercare. a/n: thank you for the love on the first part; reposts are appreciated.

NERVOUS, you listen to the soundless atmosphere – only your footsteps linger. Composing yourself, you fidget with the ends of your sultry robe – concealing all traces of your lingerie beneath. You knew doing this — visiting Sylus’ room in the dead of night – was bound to consume you.

As you drew nearer to Sylus’ secluded bedroom, your abdomen churned wickedly – subjected to a spot of mental weakness. Glancing at the door, you puff out your warm cheeks – smoothing out any imperfections you carry. Everything within you yearned for Sylus intimately, after your private dressing room encounter, but you were too scared to commit after.

“You can do this,” Whispering to yourself, you shed your emotional distress, rooted in lust, “If he’s sleeping, wake him up.” Nodding naively to yourself, you catch sight of Mephisto – causing you to furrow your brows.

“Stupid robot-bird,” Scoffing, you slowly open Sylus’ double doors – briefly glimpsing at the intricate patterns. Patterns that intimidate you in the same way he does.

He’s just behind those doors. The confirmation welcomed thudding between your thighs, pushing a fuzziness to conquer you entirely.

“You’ll be fine, girl,” Reassuring yourself, you gently walk into Sylus’ bedroom – your eyes discovering his slumbering self.

Slightly smitten, you admire his sitting self – enthralled by his stance. Oddly, it proposed a form of vulnerability – consuming you entirely. Entirely as you dart nearer to him, brushing your knee against the edge of the ample bed.

“Sylus?” Attempting to wake him up, you settle yourself onto the bed – contemplating poking him frantically.

Giving into your urges, you cast yourself into frantically poking Sylus — simmering with desire. Your demeanour is tainted with lust, an insatiable urge and a bottomless craving. Each fibre of you wanted him so deeply inside of you, regardless of your pride and ego.

After all, after you had given him the sloppiest oral, Sylus had momentarily coddled you. Yet, despite his praises and fleeting solace, he wouldn’t gift you more. Partially, it’s due to you two never sexually going all the way — simply participating in oral or something less marking than sex.

The two of you had done everything, but intimacy leaves you unnerved — and Sylus knows that. No, Sylus is aware of that — hence why he restrains and denies you of physically sinking on his cock. A cock you had handled with your mouth many times, cock warmed, breast fucked and more. The most Sylus would give you, if he was feeling generous, was clothed grinding against your soppy cunt.

“Sylus!” Growing frantic, you heavily poke him — prompting yourself into almost straddling his sleeping self.

Pouting, feeling a little embarrassed, you softly poke his cheek — observing his toned breaths. Irritation floods you narrowly, causing you almost to leave his lap. Testing your luck, you gift him one last poke — only to be greeted by silence.

“I’m leaving,” Huffing, you meekly express your desires — attempting to get up from his lap.

That’s when you felt it. No, you had fallen for his trap. You’re an idiot.

“Where are you going, sweetie?” Tauntingly asking you, Sylus grabs your wrist — positioning you within his lap again.

“S-Sylus,” Flustered, you blurt out his name — feeling the intensity of his crimson gaze penetrate you.

“Don’t get nervous now, sweetie,” Wickedly smirking with his statement, Sylus looks down at you — intrigued.

“I’m not—”

“—Did you dress up for me?” The restraint within Sylus’ question causes you to halt, finally meeting his intimidating gaze.

“I dressed down, Sy’,” Countering his inquiry, you playfully roll your eyes — only for his deft fingers to grip your doughy ass.

“No,” Sylus’ eyes contort with lust, “You’re in lingerie and a robe.” Groaning, Sylus speaks — gripping your hips firmly.

He’s losing composure.

“I just want…more, Sy’,” Hazily, you admit your truth — warm at Sylus’ intense attentiveness.

“More, sweetie?” Feinting brash incompetence, Sylus pulls you flush against his budding erection — wavering at your scent.

It’s as if you’ve evoked something primal within him.

“I want all of…you, Sy,” Remaining firm, you voice your thoughts. All you could feel is Sylus fondling your ass, enthralled by the feeling of you.

“This is a large step, sweetie,” Seriousness adorns Sylus’ deep tone, leaving you to almost shed your apprehension.

“I-I know, but I want to try, Sylus,” Determined, you speak — feeling his nimble fingers shape around your hip curves.

Relishing your physique, Sylus caresses your hips — occasionally feeling your robe brush against his knuckles. However, you knew he was testing your resolve — feeling you squirm heavily against his touch. If his touch, simply from teasing you, did this much to you, he can’t help but wonder what you’d do if he finally gave in to you for the first time.

“Promise me that you’ll tell me if you feel the littlest pain?” Sylus instantly asks you, and you know that he expresses not an ounce of humour.

“I promise, Sy’,” Responding to him, you place your forehead against his own — kissing his soft lips.

With your array of kisses, you indirectly told Sylus you felt your safest. Needily, you passionately grind your hips against Sylus’ erection — intoxicating his eager lips.

Commanded by your physical, sexual and emotional chemistry, Sylus immediately takes control. Unable to restrain his primal urges, Sylus gently wraps his arms around your hips — lowering you against the bed.

Turning you around, so you’re near his mountains of pillows, Sylus smugly manhandles you. Fuelled by his urges, Sylus instinctively cages your physique — using his energy manipulation to tie your hands above your heads.

“You really waste no time, my love,” Sylus cocks his head at your nickname, leaning closer to you — settling a kiss against your neck.

“You put effort into looking more beautiful for me, sweetie, of course, I’m going to ravish you,” Appreciative, you grow flustered at Sylus’ praise— knowing he’s more riled up at your nickname.

“I can’t even be in control?” Pouting, you question him — flaunting your battering lashes.

“Not with what I have in store for you, sweetie,” Replying with authority, Sylus tightens the reddish-black bonds around your wrist – smitten at the way you gasp. Gasp at the control he’s planted over you, having access to every limb of you.

“S-Should I be scared, my love?” Sincerely, you ask Sylus – watching his soft cheeks and gruff ears turn a beautiful crimson hue.

“Terrified, sweetie,” Sneering, Sylus teases you – smothering meaningful kisses along your neck.

“Mhm,” You moan out, mesmerised by Sylus’ lips skimming down to the middle of your breasts – stopping at your heartbeat.

“Your safeword is crow, sweetie,” Sylus speaks, swiftly tearing apart your robe with a swift motion of his evol.

“Sylus!” Bellowing with shock, you look at his pleased expression — his brow lazily rising.

“I can buy you many more, sweetheart,” Boyishly grinning, Sylus needily informs you — enthralled by your sheer bra.

“I’m expecting a new pair,” Fake huffing, you respond to him — groaning at Sylus kissing between your pushed-up cleavage.

“Always,” Planting kisses against your breast curve, Sylus murmurs.

Basking in your anticipation, Sylus smothers slow kisses against your thin bra — running his warm tongue against your taut nipple. Practically, you could feel his smile — shivering at his teeth grazing it.

“Sweetie, tell me what you want,” Admiring you, Sylus questions you — hastily disregarding your bra with his evol.

“Aside from you destroying my lingerie, I want you between…” Pressure clings to your words; Sylus’ gaze intimidates you vastly.

“Use your words, darling,” Purring, Sylus taunts you — bringing his lips against your exposed nipple.

Naturally, you were shy beneath his gaze — within an intimate setting. However, being propped before him, caged, almost naked, left you a flustered mess. This scenery contradicted the usual you, whether Sylus is your boyfriend or not. You were both going down a territory that had been unmarked, something that was fated to strengthen your intimate bond with him.

“I want head, Sy’,” Crushing your ego slightly, you express your needs — groaning at him sucking your nipple.

“Say please, sweetie,” Dominance floods Sylus’ order.

“Please, Sy’,” Shedding your ego, you plead with him — slightly arching at Sylus’ insistent nipple sucking.

“Hm, you’ve earned it,” Indirectly agreeing, Sylus kisses around your breasts once more — gifting them a sensual squeeze.

Monitoring your flustered state, Sylus begins to descend down the length of your body — marking patches of your skin with kisses. Kisses of love, devotion and mellowness, that contrast his usual demeanour. Sure, he’s much softer with you — but this intimate softness pales Sylus’ past acts.

Observing him with love, intrigue and bubbling yearning, your breathing rises. Sylus’ lips upon your nimble skin consume you, leaving you letting out explorative moans, shudders and squeamish movements.

However, Sylus’ warm breath against your stomach left you so flustered. He’s savouring you, taking his time to relish every contort of your abs.

Desperation seized his composed breaths, leading to Sylus lowering his kisses — arriving towards your sheer underwear. Instinctively, Sylus’ head lifts — his crimson eyes meeting yours.

A message’s stored in his gaze.

“I’m trusting that you don’t have any doubts?” Sylus’ voice rings through your mind, causing you to frantically shake your head — irritated at his lack of touch.

“Nu-uh, don’t stop,” Pouting, you breathily respond to Sylus — longing for him to finally consume all of you.

“Don’t be impatient, sweetie,” Softly chuckling, Sylus murmurs — instantly disintegrating your sheer lingerie.

You’re completely naked now. Vulnerability clings to you.

“I want to see you, too, Sy’,” Shying at Sylus’ resumed kisses, you mutter — slightly unnerved at his lips kissing your smooth base.

Growing obedient, you watch Sylus’ lips with anticipation. Your lips part as Sylus’ mouth brushes against your clit, teasing you with his mouth’s warmth. Warmth you can’t help but try buck into, but he restricts your legs — smiling at your evol-tied down wrists.

“Not now, you saw me earlier,” Scoffing, Sylus grins, “Don’t be impatient, sweetie,” Sylus says, enjoying the look of innocence upon your facial features.

“J-Just wanna…see,” Knowing Sylus won’t cave into you, you stutter.

Your mind is hazy at his chuckling vibrations, against your soppy cunt, compelling you. And, as expected, you knew Sylus’ ego skyrocketed at your attempted grinding. In his mind, it spells that his touch is intoxicating to you — leaving you longing for his corruption.

“You heard me, sweetie,” Nodding at Sylus’ stern statement, your protests are lost. Lost the moment he ran his ample finger down your slick folds, bringing your sticky arousal to his swollen lips.

“‘More, Sy’,” Requesting more, your mouth’s agape — intrigued by Sylus’ long middle finger teasing your clit.

“Our safeword’s crow,” Sylus reminds you, dragging your slick towards your pulsating entrance.

As you process Sylus’ warning, you feel his thick fingers begin to sink into your entrance. Not expecting his swiftness, you loudly moan — your eyes barely able to stay open. Even if it was half of Sylus’ fingers, it doesn’t matter. His fingers are huge, and ample, leaving you feeling full and slightly unnerved.

“‘So…much!” Unable to hold back, you blurt out your thoughts.

Your body flutters at Sylus’ large fingers plunging deeper inside of you, causing a haziness to dance over you. Overwhelmed, you fall breathless — unable to spew coherent sentences. Maybe that’s why Sylus wasn’t keen on giving you his cock? If you’re barely able to handle him plunging his fingers into you, what makes you think you’re able to handle him? He’s a big man.

As Sylus intensely watches you, he uses his energy manipulation to secure your legs around his neck. Squeezing your eyes shut, you cry out — hypnotised by his lips wrapping around your clit. All you could feel was this fuzzing warmth that dissipated your sanity, stirring you into attempting to squirm around. However, your arms and legs are tied by Sylus — leaving you unable to move.

“Oh! Yes!” Lazily moaning, you lewdly smile. Your eyebrows and lips twitch drastically, conducted by Sylus ravaging your clit.

“Look at you, so desperate,” Mocking you, Sylus chuckles — thrusting his fingers rapidly inside of you.

“Mhm! Ngh! C-Can’t… breathe,” Whimpering, you’re barely able to listen to Sylus’.

The only thing you can do is grow embarrassed at being able to hear your pussy squelching, along with Sylus’ consistent sucking, and the perfect power imbalance. Everything within this moment captured you, leaving you an undeniable mess — monitored by Sylus’ gaze.

“Just say…crow,” Harshening his speed, Sylus speaks — basking in your crazed struggle.

Undeniably, you’re a mess — drooling, trembling and unable to handle this. Sylus’ groaning and lust-draped eyes didn’t help you further, prompting you to be louder. Whenever it came to intimidating moments, it didn’t truly take Sylus much to make you finish — and you knew that, too.

However, you want to prolong this moment. No matter what your ailing physique was screaming and no matter what your knotted stomach preached. Just seeing the unjust pride in Sylus’ gaze caused you to simply moan, knowing you didn’t want to validate his accurate judgment. A judgement that could potentially deny you of his cock.

“Fuck! A~Ah! N-No!” Countering his calm teasing, your body strains heavily — desperate to finally cum against his tongue.

“You’re so stubborn, sweetie,” Tutting, Sylus answers back — increasing his inhumane pace.

Naturally, your body’s compromised — almost Sylus’. Sylus’ speed and agility sapped your willpower, cramming the lewd squelching that fills the atmosphere. His proud smirk lightly ticks you off, as you’re so close to finishing with his tongue and ample fingers. Fingers you know you struggle to stand against.

“Here it comes,” On Sylus’ worded cue, you forcefully cum — your physique trembling from your crazed high.

“You’re…so smug, Sy’,” Huffing in embarrassment, you avoid Sylus’ gaze — flustered at Sylus slowly drinking up your seeping cum.

Taunting you further, Sylus unhurriedly removes his fingers from you — bringing his attention towards lapping up your cum. The grin he wore almost irritated you, but it warmed you at how attentive Sylus remains. All you wanted to do was run your fingers through his ivory hair, but he still had your wrists tied.

“Yet, you still love me,” Heckling you, Sylus frees your restrained legs — admiring the messy art he made of you.

“Yeah, but I’m ready now,” Flaunting your glassy eyes, you voice the unsaid — distorting the lingering tension.

“This is a big step for us,” Addressing the elephant within the room, Sylus meets your flustered gaze — amused by your messy state.

“I know, but I’m ready, my love,” Reassuring a sceptical Sylus, you silently ask him to release your tied wrists — but he doesn’t.

“I’m trusting you, sweetie,” At Sylus’ worded approval, you happily smile — a little teary at his intimate trust.

“Finally, I’ve been kind of deprived,” Relieved, you speak — waiting for Sylus to conduct his next move.

“Hm, I could tell,” Teasing you, Sylus inches closer to your face — quickly disregarding his large robe.

“You’re so pretty, Sy’,” Subconsciously babbling, you admire Sylus’ scarlet eyes — honoured by his heated cheeks.

“Pretty? Not handsome?” Feinting irritation, Sylus is heavily flustered — allowing his toned abs to greet your eyes.

“You just want compliments, greedy,” Responding to his disbelief, all your playful banter is eliminated — replaced with a suffocating lust.

“Of course, but those can wait,” Sylus’ voice is authoritative now, stripped of playfulness and painted with sexual intent.

Sylus’ eyes are coated with his bubbling desires and primal intent. Seeing you, so vulnerable, tied up, left him unable to restrain himself. Even as he spoke, tearing away his underwear, he couldn’t help closing in on you. Right now, you’re his prey — someone to be consumed entirely. There isn’t to be a fragment of you that doesn’t belong to him.

Shy, with no way to cover yourself, you nervously look down at Sylus’ cock — realising your mistake. This moment left you conjuring a strategy, gulping at his massive cock. It made so much sense since Sylus’ is a big man. His hands are large, his ego is large, and his physique is large. Of course, his cock is going to be massive — it’s fate’s rule. Naturally, you knew sucking his dick is so much different from being stuffed with it.

“Sylus, I’m ovulating,” Informing him, you blankly stare at him coming extremely close to you — his cock moments away from your soppy folds.

“And?” Unimpressed, Sylus responds — placing his fat cock against your stomach.

“I don’t want you to pull out,” Blurting out your deepest desire, your breathing grows choppy.

Your pussy pounds crazily at Sylus sizing you up, grinning at how far his cock’s to be in your stomach. To him, he basks in this revelation — encouraged further at your abdomen rising and falling against it.

“You’re willing to risk your future?” Enthralled, Sylus strategically questions you — bringing his pulsating cock towards your folds once more.

“Let’s think about the consequences after,” Playfully rolling your eyes, you reply to him — your eyes twinkling with desperation.

“As long as you’re comfortable,” Sylus mutters with subtle concern, settling his pre-cum-coated tip against your entrance.

Still restrained, you maintain eye contact with Sylus — waiting for his primal instincts to absorb his sanity. Carefully, Sylus grunts sensually — hazy at the tip of him slipping within you. Even as you softly moan, unable to clutch anything, you stare directly at Sylus. You’re swarmed by the feeling of his cock head inside of you, stretching you heavily — for the first time.

He’s not even all the way in.

“I-It’s warm, Sy,” Telling Sylus your thoughts, he quickly captures your lips in an opened-mouthed kiss.

As if distracting you, Sylus plunges more of his cock into your soppy cunt — whimpering at your pulsating warmth. Gasping, you grow lightheaded — attempting to adjust to his large cock. A cock that left you dumbfounded already, even with only half of it in. It didn’t help that Sylus’ deep voice mewled within your ear, his brows furrowed as he watched your contorted face.

“Are you…okay, sweetie?” Cloudily questioning you, Sylus watches you mellowly — purring at your warm cunt swelling him.

“‘M… fine,” Kissing Sylus mid-speech, you accommodate more of his sinister dick — arching beneath him.

“C-Can…I start moving?” Desperate to ravish you, Sylus passionately asks you — pressing his forehead against your own.

“Y-Yes,” A little nervous, you agree — love and trust adhering to your eyes.

“Remember, say crow if it’s too much, sweetheart,” Reminding you, Sylus gifts you a few experimental thrusts — his toned arms settled on each side of your head.

“Ngh! Fuck me! Yes!” Instinctively, you’re forced to let out your suppressed moans — warmed by Sylus’ pleasurable cock.

“You’re as…beautiful as the day I lost you,” Whispering in your ear, Sylus builds up a fast pace — thrusting harshly into your soppy cunt.

Beautifully, the large, raven room is coated with you and Sylus’ clustered moans, grunting and whimpering. The bed beneath you both creaks slightly, controlled by Sylus settling a pace you’re forced to handle. A pace that leaves you screaming with pleasure, unable to restrain your sounds.

“‘Need…more!” Begging at this point, you smile instinctively as Sylus quickens the snapping of his hips — colliding with your gushy cunt.

With your hands still bound, you’re unable to writhe against Sylus — suffocated by his warmth. Fuzzy with love, desire and everything just, you grow trusting with each moan. Sylus completely decimated you, conquering your squelching cunt — flooding the room with effortless skin slapping. Skin slapping, gushy macaroni sounds and your expressed love.

“Mhm, you’re…so good for me,” Sylus moans out, his eyes rolling back as he increases his pace — grinning at your breaths coming short and large breasts bouncing.

“Ah! Yes! More!” Spewing subconscious thoughts, Sylus continues to pound you recklessly — sparing not a fragment of mercy towards your gushing cock.

“So…tight,” Lazily smiling, Sylus increases his pace at your out-of-it state — proud at you being barely able to moan anymore.

“Ngh! Too… much!” Crying, you relish Sylus’ balls beating against your bubble butt — his thick cock drilling you senselessly.

As your hazy eyes barely meet his, teary and rolling back, you grow a little soothed at Sylus’ deft fingers caressing your forehead. He takes a moment to halt his pace, but he continues afterwards — enthralled at your cunt’s sounded praises towards him.

“Say it and…I’ll stop,” Addicted, Sylus frantically moans against your lips — bucking his hips as if it’s the only life he has left.

He’s been waiting for a moment as sacred as this.

“N-No,” Discovering a slither of sanity, you slowly respond — feeling your body tremor with a familiar essence.

“Let…go, sweetie,” Lewdly grunting, Sylus helplessly pounds into your inescapable cunt — loving the way your cunt devours his greedy cock.

Silent, Sylus’ voice is a distant wave to you. Everything within your physique is a warm, bubbling lava pit. There’s a fragment of sanity within you, yet it comes the moment you crumble beneath Sylus. Harshly, you cum — coming undone and crying out beneath Sylus. Not an ounce of silence consumes the both of you, yet you’re unable to register how loud your post-orgasm wails are.

“Hmm,” Satisfied, you’re weak beneath a relentless Sylus — rendered vulnerable as you try to pull him away. Pull him away at the suffocating intensity, warmth and consistent stimulation.

“You’re…swallowing me,” Sylus’ stern demeanour crumples slightly with his worded revelation, but he’s so near to cumming.

Overstimulating you extensively, until straggled moans flee you, Sylus finally gives in to his suppressed needs. First, he had guided you extensively through your first time with him — resisting the urge to cum immediately.

Yet, now, his breaths become straggled — his thick cock expanding within you. A mental mess, Sylus glances down at your sleepy self — snapping his hips a few more times before he prepares himself to finish.

“‘M close,” Flustered, Sylus can barely form a sentence — so close to pulling out.

Instinctively, you muster out your last strands of strength — wrapping your toned legs around Sylus’ waist. Restricting him, you grin the moment Sylus surrenders — filling and swelling you with his plentiful seed. Satisfied, you slowly allow your legs to fall — happy at finally being creampied by Sylus.

“Glad you wanted more, sweetie,” Pulling out of you, fatigued, Sylus speaks, “I love you,” Sylus smirks at his cum pooling out of your swollen cunt, completely painting your folds with all of him.

“I love… you, too, Sy,” Tiredly responding to Sylus, you barely register him placing you against his chest — subjecting you to his heartbeat.

Softly, Sylus kisses your lips — pleased at how you were able to handle him.

“You did so well, sweetie,” Sylus speaks, gentle praise detectable in his love-stricken tone.

“Can we do it again, forever?” Star-stricken, you ask Sylus — unable to hold back your heart.

“As many times as you want,” Content, Sylus answers — his chest vibrating beneath you.

“Let me take care of you in the bathroom, sweetie,” Sylus adds to his sentence, not willing to leave you so battered, marked and bruised without him attending to every part of you.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Grinning at Sylus’ extensive love, you reply — grateful at his attentiveness.

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