#this has been on my mind for quite a while now

[caramelkoo]

no questions asked— jjk

Jeon jungkook wants nothing more than to get settled with his girlfriend, but what if her fear of commitment makes him take a step back? Will he do it, or will he be able to changer her mind for good?

pairing : Jungkook X reader

genre : established relationship, smut, fluff

word count : 6.6k (im begging for forgiveness)

Based on this ask <33

warnings : nsfw, strong language, mature, oc is an anxious girly (same), mentions of emotionally unavailable parents, jungkook is a man of dreams, simp boyfriend jungkook, car sex, unprotected sex (be safe), begging, reference of titanic if you squint, yeah that's pretty much it.

a/n : this took million business days lmao but finally it's here. the sweetest anon requested a drabble but i couldn't do it and as much as i tried to make it shorter, it got stretched to 6k words 😭 so im deeply sorry anon. the rest of you who enjoy longer fics, dig in. I love you guys so much, you might not know this but yall are my besties for resties. kisses. 💌

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Your boyfriend is going to propose to you.

Oh god

Oh. my. God.

Anxiety is not a foreign feeling for you. Although this time, it’s an indescribable sort. Something which is lingering in the deepest pit of your stomach for a lack of better word. Besides, there’s a mayhem inside your head, the voices are loud and intimidating, causing you to bite your lip to a point where they bleed while also staring at nothing. 

Jungkook has been nothing but secretive— the poor boy has no idea that you have already seen the navy blue box sitting inside his side of the drawer. You can swear it was totally unintentional.

In your defense, you had been searching for your glasses and that was the only place left to fish around. Nobody could have prepared you for the utter shock when your eyes fell on that box and so for a minute or two you just stood there, horrifyingly still and stunned. However, you recovered quickly, because to be quite honest it was about time one of you mustered up enough courage to ask the question.

It’s supposed to make you thrilled right? So why does something feel… off? 

“Penny for your thoughts?”, as soon as Cherry’s voice reaches your ears, you snap out of it and flash her a forced smile. 

“Yeah-” you begin, “Yeah uh- I’m just thinking about nothing in particular.” 

“_____ you’re an amazing girl but you gotta work on those lying skills.”

A chuckle leaves your mouth. You shouldn’t even have bothered in the first place, the girl can read you like a book. 

“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours huh?” 

She picks up the book before scanning it with the barcode scanner all the while you marvel if you should tell her or just let it go, but then you also know how she would become a pain in the ass if you don’t spill the beans to her. Anyway, she can;t make you overthink it any more than you already have. 

You bite your lower lip before saying, “I feel like Jungkook is going to propose.” 

If looks alone could kill, you would have been buried deep by now with the way the man wearing an olive green cardigan, probably in his 50s, gives you side eye when Cherry drops the book with a loud thud on the counter. 

You wince.

“I’m sorry what?” 

When you subtly signal her to pick what she’s dropped, she takes a hold of the book, apologizes to the man who— you’re hundred percent sure hates your guts now, and resumes her work. 

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Ha! Girl you better start telling me more or none of us are going home today.”

She’s talking to you but her hands keep shuffling between scanning the books and expeditiously typing on the keyboard.

A spark of hesitation finds a way inside your heart. The thing is, you’re not sure. Do you want to marry the love of your life? Absolutely. Do you think you can keep the marriage going and stable? No. 

There you said it.

And that kills you because jeopardising your bond and connection with Jungkook is the last thing you want to do.

Maybe, it’s because nobody in your family has been able to keep their inner spark alive after they had gotten married or you might as well blame it on the relationship your own parents have had before your eyes. 

For everyone who couldn’t see past the walls of your house, your parents were an ideal couple. A pair who were equally efficient and successful in their respective areas of life. With your father being a renowned businessman and your mother holding the title of a world famous fashion designer, they couldn’t have been a better partner for each other, right?

Wrong. Too bad you had the honor of being an onlooker of their facade slipping away before getting replaced by their real impudent selves. 

But that’s all you could do though. You were merely just an audience. Someone who could see everything shatter before her eyes and not do a single thing to put an end to it. 

Constant fights, fuming with jealousy over one of them achieving more than the other, sabotaging each other.

All hell broke loose when they began making you take sides. 

You think mommy is better don’t you, honey?

You should be proud of your dad, ____. You’re living such a luxurious life thanks to me. 

For the love of god you were five. What does a five year old know about luxury or human ego? What could you have possibly known about who is better? In your eyes, they were your mom and dad and not some squish mellows placed side by side from which you had to take your pick. Let’s not even start with the emotional unavailability they provided you with.

A knot lodges in your throat and you struggle to get the words out. “I happen to see the box inside his drawer”

“You’re sure it had a ring inside- Wait, don't answer that”, she shakes her head as if she just asked the most ridiculous question ever.

No shit.

“But that’s a good thing right? I mean you guys have been seeing each other for a while now and marriage is the final stop.” she continues and you can’t help but feel terrible, because she is making sense. 

A sigh leaves you, “Yeah no- I mean yeah it is but I didn’t expect him to take the initiative so suddenly. No hints were dropped at all. Marriage is, gosh, I can’t believe I’m saying this but it seems intimidating to me.” 

The queue has finally dissipated at this point so she faces you fully showcasing her engrossment in your dilemma. The girl feeds off drama but refuses to get involved in one.

Her expression morphs into something between horrified and sympathetic. “_____, is that because of your parents?” 

Your heart skips a beat. This whole time you and only you had authority over this thought that your fear of marriage is deeply rooted in your own parents’ fucked up relationship. A belief that lay sly and unseen.

Only after those words left Cherry’s mouth did you realise how venomous they sound. It makes you aware that the fear was not as concealed as you intended to keep it. What are you supposed to do when you find out that somebody else knows about your deepest terrors? Run? Hide? Or simply not say anything? 

Your mouth feels suddenly dry. “What?” 

Cherry takes a hold of your palm and rubs it gently, “If it is, I want you to know that it’s not the case for everyone. Marriage is a beautiful concept, a lovely commitment. Are there some pitfalls to it? Yes. But that’s the beauty of it. The way two people come together and resolve them-”

Your phone buzzes inside your pocket causing you to flinch. Releasing your hands from her hold, you take it out and see your grandmother’s number stare up at you. 

“I’ll just be back.” you excuse yourself just as a woman places a stack of books on the counter.

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“Hey, beautiful” you greet her, a smile lighting up your entire face.

“My baby, did I catch you at the wrong time?” her voice is like a balm to your heart. So warm and comforting. It reminds you of your movie nights with her where you didn’t have to be anything or pretend. You just had to exist and she made it worth it. Always. 

“Now you know even the devil himself can’t stop me from talking to you.” 

A loud chortle reaches your ears and you imagine her throwing her head back, laughing. 

“I was calling to ask if you and your eye candy of a boyfriend are visiting home this year for thanksgiving, dear?” 

Dear lord, you can’t believe you forgot about that.

Your eyes widen, and just when you think you could bubble up some other lie, she speaks up, “You forgot, didn’t you?” 

Yeah, bold of you to assume you can do that and get away. You actually need to work on your lying skills. For whatever reason. You want to pluck your eyelashes out one by one because of how gloomy she sounds.

“I’m genuinely sorry, grams.” pinching the bridge of your nose you continue, “I’ve just been busy with work and barely making ends meet. I promise this is the first and last time I let it slip my mind.” 

With the job you have, there’s only so much cash you can count and while you would love to make a career out of writing, the thought of publishing your own book sends shivers down your spine.

Every time you open the draft a new mistake pops up, taking a percentage of your self confidence down the drain. You’re only human. A microscopic slip catches your attention and you start questioning your life choices. 

“Honey, come home and give yourself some time off, what do you youngsters like to call it? Oh yes, grind. Yeah?” 

It’s your turn to laugh. “Wow someone has been too into love island lately.”

Cherry raises her eyebrows from across the room and you mouth her the word ‘grandma’. She nods with a smile on her face, going back to work. 

A long stretch of silence hangs in the air before you hear her ask, “_____, what else is wrong?” 

The smile which has been adorning your face this whole time instantly drops. You blink.

Once

Twice

Thrice 

“I don’t understand.” Liar.

“You know what I mean, baby. I want you to tell me more, because I know something has been bothering you. What is it?”

Humans are so funny sometimes. They can be as close to you as your own soul and not have a hint of your torment. Meanwhile, there is your grandmother, who despite being so far away from you just….. knew. But again, it has always been like this hasn’t it? 

Whenever you got tired of your parents throwing stuff around the house, making each other lick the floors, trying to make their own and your life a living hell, she knew. 

She was the one who allowed you to cry, and assured you that she would not call you dramatic if she happened to hear your sobs.

You were allowed to cry,

You were allowed to ask for help,

You were allowed to not hold back.

Sucking in a deep breath, you release it, “Everything else is perfect, grams.”

Mr William is always the first person to greet you everyday when you reach the apartment. He’s been working as a guard for years now and you’ve grown quite familiar with him. While being the sweetest man you’ve ever come across, he also brings his wife’s yummiest tarts for you whenever she makes them. Arguably, they deserve more hype than they get.

“She knows how much you love her tarts” he says, making you feel immense gratitude towards his kindness. 

This particular night, he seems…. restless. He’s shifting from one foot to another as you shut the cab’s door behind you. Striding over to him, you mentally try your best to figure out his uneasiness. 

Clearing your throat, your throat as you ask, “Is everything alright, Mr William?” 

Only after he hears your voice, he gains his composure. Or so he tries. 

He hands you a piece of paper which feels a bit wet and you wonder what could have been so intense that the man began having clammy palms.

It’s nearly concerning, not to mention it doesn’t help with your own anxiety at all. If not, shoot it up. 

“Your boyfriend dropped by around lunch time, miss. He handed me this and asked me to give it to you as soon as you come back from work.”

He couldn’t have given it to you yesterday when he was with you in the first place? Weird.

“I see, but why are you so tense? Has something happened?” 

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “My wife has been sick and I was supposed to leave early but I figured it would be better if I gave it to you safely before going home to her.” 

Fuck

“You could have given this to me later. Your wife comes first, sir.” you gulp, “Please, I appreciate your gesture but she needs you more. Thank you so much and please let me know if I can be of help.”

He releases an empty chuckle. “Thank you, Miss” 

With one last nod you walk inside the building while also hoping he doesn’t call you for help. Not because you won’t do anything it takes to help him, but because you hope it wouldn’t come to it. The moment you shut the apartment door behind and turn on the light, the piece of paper steals your attention. Without waiting any further, you unfold it, coming across Jungkook’s writing. 

The note alone feels like he whispered it into your ear before placing the softest kiss on your skin. Your lips stretch into a serene smile as you stride over to the bedroom, turning the doorknob as your gaze catches a purple bodycon resting on top of your bed. It is accompanied with a bouquet of pink tulips as well as a bar of Dubai chocolate. 

Your head that has been nothing short of a commotion is now finally at peace. Not entirely but at peace nonetheless.

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Jungkook was 12 when he went on his first roller coaster ride. He was, like every other child, afraid. Afraid that he might fall and hurt himself so bad, he wouldn’t ever be able to get up. The roller coaster had a massive drop followed by a corkscrew which took him upside down. Until the moment Jungkook saw a woman in yellow dress buying a bunch of tulips from the flower shop he very often visited, he had never felt his stomach bottom out as strongly as it did during that drop back then.

There she was, chatting with the florist as if they’re best friends. He could see her behind the glass picking out the pink tulips before sniffing them. Meanwhile, Jungkook stood across the road, soaked and enchanted as he wondered if he should ask for her number or chicken out. Eventually, the latter won. 

But here’s the thing, Jungkook is not one for losing. He hates losing, even the term makes him want to peel his own skin off. 

He saw her hair first, becoming curly locks reaching down to her waist and just above her hips. Granted that his line of sight only allowed him to see her side profile, he assumed she was gorgeous. It was not unlikely for him to see beautiful women on a daily basis, but something about her just sucked him in. His eyes could not leave her face and he believed even if they tried, he would pluck them out just to punish them. Was it weird that his hands itched to hold a woman he doesn’t even know? 

What’s her name?

Where does she live?

What’s her favorite color?

How does she like her coffee?

There’s a japanese phrase called koi no yokan which means that you eventually will fall in love with a person you meet. You’re going to grow so fond of that person that you would want to see no one by your side but them. She was that person for him. 

He rubs his hands for the nth time in a futile attempt to warm them up, waiting outside ____’s building. How is this evening going so slow? He has been here for perhaps half an hour now, so why does it feel like it’s been a decade? 

And funnily enough, the only person who can put him out of his misery is _____. At this point, the guy fears he wouldn’t be able to so much as look her in the eye, but not doing that will be the end of him too.

He looks down and lets his hands run over his black button down shirt, wondering if she would like it. She loved seeing him in black on the first date. A loud click clack of heels grab his attention, perking his ears up. He looked up and there she was in all her glory. 

Jungkook releases a breath and rubs his chest as if his heart hurts. As if it’s telling him how unworthy he is of this woman who is walking up to him, who may be as nervous as him but still chose him as her man. 

The woman who could have anyone she wanted wrapped around her pinky finger gave her days, nights and evenings to him. She smiled at him, for him and if he was lucky, because of him.

_____ stops before him while he’s still adjusting to the sight of her. “How do I look?” 

Unreal, exquisite and way out of his league.

He shakes his head from side to side, thinking of a single word that would suffice the answer to that. He fails and so instead he runs his fingers down her forearm until he reaches her soft hands and takes it into his own cold ones. 

Placing a chaste kiss on her knuckles, he begins. “My imagination of you in this dress has got nothing on this vision.” 

Her face morphs into the softest expression of love, “And exactly how many times have you imagined me in this dress, Jeon Jungkook?” 

He takes a step forward, his chest almost touching hers. “I can’t answer that. You want to know why?” 

“Why?” Her voice is emotionless. His thumb grazes her lower lip as he tries not to smudge her nude lipstick. “Because if I do, we’ll have to go back into your apartment and try not to wake your neighbours up.” She swats his chest and softly pushes him back, dissolving into a giggle. 

“You’re looking quite handsome yourself.” she says as her eyes shamelessly check him out. His sleeves are halfway folded stopping just below his elbow, beautifying his tattooed forearms.

He’s also wearing his favorite blue baggy jeans with his usual black chunky boots. The same ones he goes for when he knows _____ might not be able to bear the pain caused by her heels, so he ends up swapping them with the boots.

He would argue carrying her all the way to her apartment instead, but settles elseways. 

Jungkook opens the car door for her and only after she’s well seated, he runs to his side and takes off. 

The ride to the restaurant is quiet despite the obvious tension that doesn't go unnoticed by either him or her. As much as he would like to spend the rest of the night snuggled into bed with her, he knows there is something more significant than that. So instead he indulges in caressing her thigh. 

“After you, angel.” He places a hand on the small of her back. 

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The ambience looks straight out of the movies. Like a paradise. Violinists are playing a chorus of Fuck her gently by Tenacious D far across the room. 

Jungkook catches an unknown look on her face. “Something’s wrong?” 

She shakes her head, flashing him a smile. “I love this song.”

He places a tiny kiss on her temple. “I know, baby. C’mon.” 

You know how women have this killer instinct of knowing if and when somebody’s watching them? It’s like they have a separate pair of googly eyes on the back of their head to protect them from creeps. 

From the moment you have entered the place, the man in the wine shirt has been making a hole in your face with the way he’s been staring at you. 

Is your dress too revealing? Are you showing too much skin?

“Oh I forgot to tell you. Your grandmother called earlier today.” Jungkook disrupts your thoughts. 

You gulp down the last piece of steak before answering. “Let me guess she asked you to join her for thanksgiving?” He nods, a bright smile on his face. “I told her I would love to.” 

A cheeky smile unfurls slowly on your face. Jungkook loves your grandmother. Maybe a little bit more than you do. Just a tiny bit though. Last year when you and he visited her, he was the first person apart from you to get a hug out of her.

Your grandma is not much of a hugger by the way. Her hugs are totally exclusive. 

“I’m sure she loves having my ‘eye candy of a boyfriend’ there.” 

Jungkook snorts, placing his fork down. “She called me an eye candy?” 

He dissolves into a fit of laughter when you answer his question with a nod. 

“See now that’s the biggest achievement I have had in a while. I mean what are the odds your wife’s grandma calls your an eye candy-”

Something sours in your stomach. The steak here tastes awful or maybe it’s just you feeling pathetic that as soon as he says ‘wife’ your expression morphs into something so dreadful that it causes him to stop. What are the odds that you just gave him a reality check and dragged him out of a fool’s paradise?

“Angel, what’s-” 

You stand abruptly, cutting him off yet again. His eyes bob all over you, and then a sad frown puckers between his brows. 

“I’ll just be back. I need to use the washroom.” You say as you grab your handbag as quickly as you can before leaving him there. Confused and wondering what the fuck just happened?

Few minutes later, just as you’re walking outside the washroom and making a way towards your table someone’s voice causes you to stop midway. 

“Excuse me.” 

Turning to face the person, you come face to face with the same man from earlier. The one wearing a wine colored shirt along with a nasty expression. You believe he’s trying to look cocky but is failing miserably.

“Can I help you?” 

A slow smile spreads over his mouth. “I couldn’t help but notice that the man you’re here with seems to upset you in some way.”

An awkward chuckle leaves you. “The man is my boyfriend and I don’t think it concerns you if he’s upsetting me or not.” 

He walks a little closer. Oh no, this is bad. 

“Fair enough,” he shrugs, “But clearly he’s not being a good boyfriend, is he?” 

The audacity of this man.

You huff out a frustrated breath, “Listen, you need to shut up and stay within your limits. It’s not healthy going around poking your nose into everyone’s business.” 

His sly smile grows even more as he steps closer than before. 

The hair on your body stands up, and not in a good way, but in a very uncomfortable way. You suddenly regret the idea of leaving Jungkook’s side. Bad, bad decision. 

Currently, you have two options. You can either just walk off and act like nothing happened, which by the way, is a safe option or you can kick the man in the balls and then act like nothing happened.

Since you're much more accustomed to the former option, you decide to do just that but when his hands grip your wrist with an iron grip, you settle on the latter. 

You knee him between the legs with an intention to hurt him as he grunts in pain, his hands gripping where you just kicked him. 

“You fucking bitch.” 

Before he can say anything further, you storm off. Your phone buzzes inside your handbag and you automatically assume it to be Jungkook’s call. As soon as you spot him across the room, you feel the clouds parting, there’s a feeling threatening to arise. It’s something between protected and anguished. 

Anguished because you let your mind speak so deafeningly that it silenced the oh so loud love Jungkook has for you. And protected because you know for a fact that if he had any idea about what that man just did to you, he would not think twice before dragging him by the hair before bringing him to his knees in front of you to apologize. 

He stands once he sees you and you waste no time running towards him. Your arms go around him as you nuzzle your face in the crook of his neck. His arms immediately embracing you in return, securing you against his chest.

It feels warm.

Concern laces his voice as he says, “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you. Breathe” 

You don’t even realise you’re panting unless he says that. You’re aware that at this point the way you flung yourself at him must have got everyone’s attention. But you genuinely don’t care. It might as well be an auditorium full of people watching you hug your boyfriend like an anchor, you just don’t care. 

You realise that’s exactly what Jungkook is. Your anchor. Someone who didn’t even ask as to what happened before he straight away began consoling you. 

His hand envelops the back of your head in a protective way while the other soothes your back. 

“Do you want to leave? We can leave right now if you want to.”

“Yes, please.”

His body shakes as though he just nodded. “All right, let me pay real quick and we’ll leave yeah?”

Your voice is muffled against his chest. “Yeah.”

You suck in a sharp breath as he lets you go. The small folder on the table grabs your attention. He opens it only to find a note inside of it saying— “It’s on me, gorgeous”. 

You can see the wheels in his mind turning, but before he starts asking you any questions which may or may not cause a breakdown of yours, you say, “I’ll explain it to you outside. Can we please go?” 

“Let me see wh-”

“Please?” He lets out a defeated sigh and nods. “Yeah- Yeah let’s go.” 

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At first when Jungkook saw that note, the first emotion that he felt was rage and a very serious one at that. But it was soon replaced by realization. It doesn’t take a scientist to figure out that something nasty went down after _____ left to use the washroom. Something he can’t wait to get to the bottom of. Nevertheless, he didn’t want her to be pressured to answer the more obvious question. 

Jungkook’s girl is attractive. She’s kind and empathetic and fucking stunning which makes her worthy of all the attention she gets. Of course men are going to want to be with her. 

Initially, it bothered him. A lot. 

Now, though? He’s grown rather used to it. However, it has never come to having someone pay for her in a restaurant. Even the thought of someone so much as speaking to her in an inhumanely manner makes him want to punch a hole through a wall. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

The silence is too loud inside the car. He can hear ____’s heart beating loudly or is it his own?

She’s leaning back with her head against the headrest. When she doesn’t respond, Jungkook speaks again, “_____ baby, will you please at least look at me?” 

Her eyes connect with his and he flashes her the softest of smiles.

Taking her hand, he kisses the inside of her wrist where he can feel her pulse. 

Thump thump thump. 

“I want you to give me something, angel. Anything.” 

He can see her gulp before admitting, “There was um… there was a guy outside the washroom and he kind of tried to force himself on me,” she closes her eyes for a brief moment, “Maybe I’m just being dramatic, but I handled him.” 

Jungkook’s stomach drops. He was right. His hands fly out to open the car door before _____ holds him back. “Don’t. I said I handled it.”

He turns back, his voice leaking with anger along with something more barbaric. “And I’m proud that you did, but if I don’t go in and beat that asshole into a new one I won’t be able to call myself a man worthy of you anymore. I need him to know that he can’t fuck with my girl and go about his goddamn day.” “Jungkook, please. I can’t take it anymore. Please stop.” 

And he does. For now. 

He leans back, running his hands over his face with frustration. For a few minutes he and ____ just stare outside the front glass of the car. The parking lot slowly gets empty as people leave for their homes one by one. 

Just when he thinks  _____ has dozed off, her voice reaches him. “Can I get one more hug?” 

“Come here.” 

He takes her into a warm embrace before kissing the top of her head, settling his lips there. His anger has yet not fully dissipated, but having her so close calms his heart. It calms his whole being. Her touch, her breath against his skin, her presence heals something in him.

Therefore, he made up his mind about spending his whole life with her. The little slip of words, which by the way was totally unintentional, soured _____'s expression and that didn’t go unnoticed by him. 

She’s scared but he fully intends to let her know that she doesn’t have to.

______ unwraps herself from his arms and pushes back. Just enough for their noses to touch.

She shakes her head, “Don’t give me those eyes.” 

Jungkook holds back a smile. “What eyes, angel?” 

“The same ones you give me when you want something dirty to happen. Those big brown eyes of yours.”

He lets a chuckle slip out. “I’m down if you are.” 

When she offers him her own laugh, gosh it’s as though he comes alive. If he could bottle up the sound, he would. Something passes in _____’s eyes. Lust? Desire? He can’t pinpoint. 

He wants to kiss the hell out of her though and he wants to do it desperately. Her eyes drop to his mouth and he takes it as a sign to lean forward and press his mouth against hers. 

Her lips part ever so slightly followed by her gripping Jungkook’s collar to bring him even closer. So close as if she wants their souls to intertwine. 

The feeling is very much mutual. 

She gets up from the passenger’s seat without breaking the kiss and straddles his lap. Her legs on either side of his thigh as their core’s touch. Jungkook is not sure how long he can endure this sweet pain of waiting. 

In all sincerity, he’s been holding himself back from the very moment he saw her walking up to him in that dress. Do with that information what you will. 

Now, he just wants to say fuck it and get inside her— only that he can’t, because he wants her to take her time and ask for it. Then and then only he will fuck her. If it’s inside this car then so be it. 

The kiss is electric and filled with passion, tingling his skin in all the right places as she matches his enthusiasm with her own.

______ pulls back with a deep breath, leaving Jungkook panting heavily. 

“Please.” she begs. 

A strand of hair falls on her face. He tucks it behind her ear. “Please what baby?” 

“Please fuck me, Jungkook. I want you so bad and I want you right now.” she whines.

He grins. “At your service, ma’am.” 

He hears _____’s light chuckle as he gets out of the car, carrying her with him while also making sure she doesn’t hit her head on the hood. She detaches herself from him once they’re out and settles in the back seat. Only after ensuring she’s comfortable enough, Jungkook follows her. 

His body lays on top of her and he wastes no time as their mouths collide. Her finger grip the hair on his nape and he groans with pleasure, his cock going thick. He rubs it on her lower stomach to show her how much he wants her, gaining a moan out of her. 

Jungkook’s head goes fuzzy with every passing second. He almost comes when she lifts her hips up and rubs a slow circle against his cock. 

“Fuck.” He groans, pulling back from the kiss. _____’s cheeks are heated and lips are swollen. He did that. Her man did that. 

Suddenly, he’s grateful for the tinted glass and his big car. 

_____ lifts her head up and kisses his sweaty cheek, swiping his forehead with her palm. “You’re sweating, honey.” 

“Yeah, I tend to do that in your presence. Do you know how hard it was for me to stay sane after seeing you look so unbelievably gorgeous?” 

She passes him a lazy smile, “You’ve always been so good at controlling yourself, haven’t you?” 

��Not anymore.” He sits up, knees on either side of her body and starts unbuckling his belt all the while panting with excitement. His pants slide halfway down letting his cock spring free. Thick, angry and leaking with precum. His shirt goes next.

______’s eyes flash with lust as she bites her lower lip. The straps of her dress have slipped down, leaving her tits bare and open for Jungkook.

“I’m gonna fuck you so good, baby.” he leans forward as she runs a hand up his bare spine, hooking her legs over his hip.

“Please.” she whispers. 

A loud thunder outside the car grabs Jungkook’s attention. Nice, he’s so horny he didn’t even realise that it’s raining. Another rumble of thunder drowns their panting breath but he still only focuses on the woman beneath him. The goddess of a woman who trusts him with her body. How lucky he is to call her his own. 

She brushes his hair out of his face, her thumb dusting over the mole on the bridge of his nose before her hand follows the path of his tattooed arm, his rib, his ass, until she wraps a fist around his dick. 

He pushes into her hand. “I need to grab the condoms from the console, angel.”

There’s a brief moment of silence, the car filling with the pants and whimpers before she says, “I want you bare. I’m on the pill.” 

Jungkook has never gone without condom nor has he considered going without one, but this woman right here just asked him to get inside her bare and fuck if it doesn’t tempt him.

And so he gives in, but not before asking, “Are you sure?” 

“As sure as one can be.” 

He nods, bringing his lips back to hers. His hand finds her thong under the dress as he slides it down her legs. Then he strokes a single line up and down her slit, wetting his finger with her cum. When he brings the same finger to his mouth and sucks on it, _____ all but whimpers. 

His cock follows next and he does the same with it, rubbing himself up and down her slit as he coats himself in her before he presses his thumb down on the head of his cock, curls his hips forward, and pushes into her. 

Tortuously slowly, inch by fucking inch. 

She’s so warm and tight for him. He’s not sure how long he can take before he shoots his load inside of her. 

“More.” she pleads, her face morphing into the most beautiful expression of pleasure. 

Jungkook pulls back and pushes again, watching more of a length disappear inside of her. He’s not even halfway in and she’s already crying out his name. 

Leaning in, he bites her neck in an attempt to give her his all. All his love, all his nights and all his life. The question is at the tip of his tongue but considering what happened inside, he quickly holds himself back. 

“You’re doing so good for me, my angel. Taking me so well,” He thrusts again. “You’re made for me, aren’t you?” 

She cries out. 

“What was that?” She throws her head back. “Yes. Oh my god” 

Thrust. “Yes, what baby? I’m gonna need you to say it.” 

Jungkook takes her nipple in his mouth, sucking on it until she cries out again, “I’m made for you. Fuck.”

He releases the nipple with a loud pop. “That’s right you are.” His pelvic bone is flush with hers, ____’s legs as wide as possible to accommodate him. She dusts her fingertips up and down his spine while he slowly kisses along her jaw.

When she pushes her heels into his ass, urging him to move, he pulls out part way before pushing back in again. 

She lets out a moan quickly followed by his own. _____’s hands run over Jungkook’s abs, nipples, and wrap around his shoulders. 

He’s fucking her slowly, taking his time, feeling her body and letting her feel his too. Every brush, every graze, every breath is precious to him.

Soft and intimate. 

So when the next words leave Jungkook’s mouth, he blames it on the moment. “Marry me.”

_____’s eyes which were closed earlier, savoring the very moment, pop open and his movement halts. 

“What?” 

“Fuck. Okay, I know this is not a position or place a woman wants to be proposed in, but I have to say this before I go insane. _____, I know you’re scared and I also know the reason behind it. Of course, I won’t ask you why you kept that part a secret from me, because I respect you and want you to take your time. But baby,” he brushes his thumb over her cheekbone, “I need you to know that I will die before I let anything like that go down between us. I love you so much you don’t even realise. Sometimes I even shock myself with how much I cherish you. You’re a gift to me, a gift which brings out the best not just in me but in everyone she meets.”

He places a small kiss on her forehead before continuing, “I can go anywhere, see everything but it still wouldn’t match the level of affection I hold for you in my heart. Still wouldn’t match the beauty of your smile, you amazing woman. You’re all I have ever wanted. So please, make me the happiest motherfucker in the world by saying ye-”

“Yes” 

‘What?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you. Now will you please shut up fuck me like you promised, husband?” 

He bites her jaw, “Oh, I’ll fuck you so nice you’ll be begging for more, wife.”

Soon enough, _____’s lower lip trembles as her orgasm takes over, and he has the privilege to watch it all. The fluttering of her lashes, the marks of her nail down his arm and the way she calls him her husband again when she’s able to find her words. 

He’s so gone.

About half an hour later when he asks her again as to what changed her mind about marriage, she says something so deep yet in such a casual way, he wants to cry. 

“When I hugged you inside, you didn’t ask questions. You just let me be and that may seem like a miniscule thing for someone else, but for me it was enough. Enough to stay with you until I turn all wrinkly and grey haired.” 

[potatoes83]

I appreciate the modifier "almost". Now, there was definitely a shift between the idealism of the white picket fence, the perfect family, Honey, I'm home world of the 50s and 60s, and say Married with Children, or The Simpsons. Both great sitcoms in their own right, but it was definitely a relatively new trope of the tit for tat between Peg and Al, or walking through the door to find Lisa on a hunger strike, and Bart smashing a hole through the drywall with a hammer, because reasons.

But there was this trope that definitely started more in the mid to latter period of our idealized Americana, and it most quickly comes to mind with The Flintstones. Now, I've opined on this before, but it bugs the hell out of me, because it's one we haven't yet been able to crack. It remains insidious. There's two sides to this. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is the fact that while Fred and Wilma love each other, one wrong move and she can be an absolute balls cutting bitch. Like seriously, if you have to sneak around to go bowling with the water buffalo lodge, crawling through the window of your own home because it's late and Wilma is either waiting to beat your ass with a cast iron skillet, or get pissed off and go to her mother's with the kid, what the hell is that? Like, living in the real non-idealized world, I don't have to worry about these sort of retributions. There is not going to be punishment or resentment because I want to hang out with my friends.

But then the other side, probably more subtle, is the fact that Fred is a freaking clod. And in this trope, the man always is. Wilma is pissed because Fred managed to forget their anniversary, went out bowling with the guys instead, said he'd be home by 8:00 to watch the kid because Wilma has a graniteware party or some shit that she told him about weeks ago, and instead comes sneaking in at a quarter to 12.

Now of course, the writing on this is just cheap humor. Supposedly relatable, one of those "uh oh, Fred's in the dog house again, we've all been there" sort of things. That's the point of a sitcom, it's idealized, dramatized, all sorts of other ized... but this thing started around that time, and it remains damaging to this day. Because if you look at male female couples as portrayed by the media, you see one of two things.

Going back to the age of The Flintstones, Fred is this big stupid blowhard popping off to anyone who will listen that he's the man of the house, he's not going to take no guff from Wilma for hanging out with the guys, and then comes home completely cucked both because she's downright vicious, but also kind of has a point because he's in the wrong, and is too arrogant to realize it because man. She's been cooking and cleaning all day, she asked him to do one thing, and he managed to screw it up because man. And you see that these days. Oh, she's pissed off, well he's just going to double down, he's going to tell her who the man of the house is, and then he gets the look. Granted, you see this one quite a bit less as time has gone on, because in general, you see strong men a lot less.

So then there's the other thing, and this is a more modern take, where the man is just a fucking idiot. I mean just this completely helpless man-child, thank goodness he is with this snarky judgmental always right woman, because if it wasn't for her, he wouldn't be able to tie his shoes. Anything more complicated than football, nachos, and grunting, he is invariably going to fuck up, so we need her to come to the rescue by clicking something on her cell phone and calling in professionals to deal with it. Of course, while giving a snarky comment, and a holier than thou look. Good thing he's busy watching the game, he won't be in the way when she's getting railed by the plumber she had to call because he couldn't figure out how to put soap in the dishwasher.

What It ultimately boils down to is partnership. I won't even say equality, because that word has been really somewhat co-opted, and wouldn't come across is what I'm trying to get at. Marriage is a partnership. And there are traditional roles. But that is certainly not to say that you are locked into them. Historically, the man does the outside yard work, maybe not the flower gardening, works and provides for the family, the woman takes care of the inside stuff, the cooking the cleaning the vacuuming and all that. He provides for the home, she makes the home. And there is nothing wrong with this, that was a big change with the radfem movement of the 60s, was this idea that so-called traditional gender roles were somehow subjugating to women.

So in our case, I'm the primary provider, I maintain the outside of the house, the home repairs and upkeep, let's call that the traditional masculine gender role. But then I also do most of the cooking. I enjoy it, and I happen to be a trained chef. I'm also home first by a couple hours. The laundry is, I would say, probably split evenly if not leaning a little more towards me, but then it's like I'll do the laundry, but she'll fold and put away all the laundry. Partnership. What It ultimately boils down to is what needs doing. If I'm in the kitchen and the dishwasher needs unloading and reloading, then I'll probably do it. Or maybe she will. She might vacuum, I might vacuum, it just depends who decides to take it upon themselves to do it.

So in a partnership, neither of you are stuck doing a certain thing, or more to the point condemned to do it because of some arbitrary rule. Like she has never mowed the lawn, but that's because it's something that I really enjoy doing. It's a great way to blow off the stress of the work week, it's something that I just really like. And I can't think of any chore around here that she's done that I haven't, but that's because I lived with roommates or out on my own for quite a few years.

I'm getting off on a tangent here, but the point is, we somehow went from an idealism that was based on a reality of partnership, to this almost him versus her scenario. If I had to sneak around and lie to hang out with my friends because she's going to be pissed off no matter what, I wouldn't have married her. And she is strong, intelligent, and beautiful, so if I was one of those "woman, I worked all day, get in that kitchen and cook me a steak" kind of lunkheads, I would hope she wouldn't have married me either. I recognize that. I'm 41 years old. And was raised with two parents, both of whom were in a partnership to run the house and raise a family.

I mean, imagine being a young man today. If you have any kind of strength or self-confidence, you're told that's toxic masculinity, and you just can't be doing that. All your masculine role models in the media are cucks, and why would you want to date the judgmental trash that is portrayed as a woman. This shit needs to change, and I'm not talking a Hallmark movie script either; real, substantive change. Nuclear family, backbone of society, partnerships, in which both parties better each other. 🥔

[thesongoficeandfir3]

Mine to take care of

Jacaerys Velaryon x Fem!Wife!reader

Warnings: brief talk of gore, talks of menstrual cycle, slight description of menstrual blood, smut alluded

Genre: Fluff

Prompt: Jace taking care of his wife who’s on her moon blood

A/n: You’re next Cregan Stark

You changed your position on the four-poster bed for what felt like the hundredth time as your mind bops in between sleep and wakefulness. You had a long and irritable day just wanting to sleep but your body had other ideas as it writhed in some unknown pain that worsened throughout the night.  Finally accepting the fact you weren’t getting any sleep you allow your body to fully wake up and once your mind comes back to the waking world, your eyes burst open when you realized what was keeping you from sleep. 

You jolted to a sitting position ripping the furs from your body. Your eyes snapping down and a string of curses leaving your lips and you leap out of bed. The room was  somewhat dark, all the once tall and bright  candlesticks now mere stubs hardly sputtering flames and the fireplace reduced to embers. Yet you could still make out the dark bloodstain, a stark contrast to the white sheets. You are pulled from your panic when you hear soft mumbling and Jace shifting awake. You move quickly and hide the stain covering it with the furs.

“What is it?” He mummers out still half asleep and his voice raspy with sleep.

“It is nothing my love,” you stutter out, failing horribly to conceal the distraught in your tone. “Please just go back to bed.” Though you had succeeded in covering the truth on the bedsheets with the furs, you failed to remember it also seeped through your rather thin and white nightgown.

“If it were nothing then why does your voice-” he pauses mid sentence once his eyes land on you, his mind still not quite in the waking world “what is that on your-”  his eyes then widen in realization and you prayed to all the gods above to end you right there.

Despite being betrothed for two years, it was not until a fortnight ago that you two were married and started to share a marriage bed. Thus there were still a few more intimate and more private things yet to be revealed in your relationship, your moon blood being one of them. While from the very first day you had met Jacaerys he had been nothing but kind and gentle with you, at this moment your insecurities got the better of you making you feel ashamed and embarrassed about your own moon blood. 

Jacaerys was not as savage nor dumb like many of the other men of Westeros when it comes to a woman’s anatomy (something you found out rather quickly on your wedding night). Due to reading and having female family members he was more than aware of what a moon blood was. This however was not enough to prepare him for how it truly looked and he can not help be slightly taken aback. He had been to war, he has  seen men’s heads crushed, animal’s stomachs ripped open, people skins bubble and burn from dragon fire, but seven hells was that a lot of blood for a person who was not injured or cut.

“Oh is that your… you know” He desperately tries to act casual.

His words go through one ear and out the next, not only was the lower part of your nightgown stained with blood but as you sleeped with nothing more than a nightgown the blood also dripped and stained down your legs.

Mayhaps it was the lack of sleep or the raging and unpredictable emotions that always came with your moon blood but your eyes immediately became watery with tears. 

 “Sorry” your voice breaks and you prepare for him to make any signs of disgust or try to pretend he doesn't see anything and go back to bed as you told him early. 

This is more than enough to snap him out of his surprised state, he mentally slaps himself for his initial dumbfounded reaction. He quickly shifts right back to the loving and caring man you know so well and needed more than ever at this moment.

“Hush now my love, there is nothing to apologize for,” he is at your side in an instant “this is a natural part of a woman’s body and you should never apologize for it.” His voice is soft and gentle. Despite his encouraging words he can still see your heart aching and it doesn't help when your arm quickly wraps around your abdomen when a painful cramp surges through. “Come now, let's get you out of that and cleaned up” he says as he reaches for the laces of your nightgown.

You recoil, not because of him but because of yourself. “I am repulsive, I should do it myself”

His face twists in disappointment, his disappointment pointed toward your words not at you. His hands grab your biceps slightly squeezing them in an attempt to stop you from walking away from him and for you to listen to what he had to say.

“Stop that you are anything but, what you are is my queen, my woman and you are mine and i intend to take care of what belongs to me” he ends the sentence with a soft kiss on the forehead before undoing the laces. Once undone he slips it over your head leaving you completely bare, you both instantly noticing how even bloodier in between your thighs were.

“This is a womanly thing, many men would be off-put by this so I will not shame you if you are.” you know he said just a few moments ago it was fine, but seeing blood stains was one thing and seeing its source was a whole other.

“Don’t you dare compare me to those dimwitted fools,” he takes your hand and leads you to the wash basin “a real man will not be fazed by his wife's body functioning  the way it's supposed to.”

Once at the wash basin, he picks up a clean cloth and soap. He kneels in front of you getting to work at cleaning off all the blood, you can feel the tender love and care through his touch. It was quiet the entire time he washed you, but a it was a comfortable silence as you two reached a new level of intimacy.

Jace felt honored that you allowed him to see this side of you. So raw and vulnerable yet you still trusted him and for that , he did not think it was possible, but he fell in love with you more. After the cleaning is done he leans forward pressing a long and gentle kiss where your womb would be.

“Guess what,” he murmurs, his breath felt warm against your skin “Your womb has not been seeded yet.” he stands once more “so that means I can try again and again until my seed starts to bloom in your beautiful garden.” 

He pulls you flush against him and you laugh at his words, his heart swells being able to hear the sound again.

“And once you give birth to our beautiful king or queen  I will plant hundreds more.

You bite on your bottom lip, the insecurity from earlier passing and you feel more bold now.

“Well then what is stopping you from starting now?”

“Nothing my heart” his eyes darkened with love and desire, he lifts you up taking you two to the bed.

[elryuse]

Suzy x Male Reader

Smut, Actress has an infatuation with a younger childhood friend

Always On My Mind

Bae Suzy X Male Reader

Tags : Childhood Friends, Vanilla Sex, Extra Intimate and Passionate, Sweaty Sex, Kissing, Romance Words : 4,982 Words

You always called her Noona. Ever since you could remember, Suzy was a constant in your life—a beacon of warmth and comfort. She was two years older, always smiling, always teasing, and always looking out for you. Her black hair framed her delicate features, and her voice carried the kind of assurance only an older sibling—or someone who cared deeply—could muster.

"Noona, wait up!" you called as she walked ahead of you on the way home from school.

Suzy turned, her lips quirking up into a soft smile. "You’re too slow, Y/n. At this rate, I’ll have to carry you home!"

"You’re only saying that because you like showing off," you grumbled, your face flushed from running to keep up.

"Maybe," she said with a wink, "but it’s my job as your Noona to take care of you, isn’t it?"

That’s how it had always been. She was the big sister you never had, but somewhere deep down, you also knew she was something more.

It was a Saturday afternoon, the sky overcast but dry. You were sitting in the small park near your neighborhood, kicking pebbles while Suzy sat on the swing beside you.

“I have to tell you something,” she said softly, her voice lacking its usual playful lilt.

“What is it, Noona?”

She looked at you, her dark eyes full of something you couldn’t quite place—regret, sadness, and maybe a touch of excitement. “I’m leaving. Next week.”

The words hit you like a punch to the chest. “Leaving? Why?”

“I got accepted into an idol training program in Seoul,” she explained, her hands gripping the swing’s chains tightly. “It’s a huge opportunity for me, Y/n. You understand, right?”

You didn’t understand. Not at all. All you knew was that Suzy was leaving, and the thought of it made your chest ache. “But… what about us? What about… me?”

Her expression softened, and she reached over to ruffle your hair. “Oh, my little Y/n. You’re going to be just fine. Besides, I’ll come back to visit when I can. And you’ll call me, right?”

“I guess…” you muttered, not meeting her gaze.

“Promise me, okay? Promise me you won’t forget about your Noona.”

You nodded reluctantly. “I promise.”

Life went on, as it always does. Suzy’s absence left a void in your heart, but you buried yourself in school and later in college. Occasionally, you’d hear whispers about a girl group named Miss A on social media or from classmates, but you never connected the dots.

Until one evening, your phone buzzed with an unfamiliar number.

“Y/n-ah, it’s me.”

The voice was unmistakable. Your heart skipped a beat. “Noona?”

She laughed softly, the sound like a melody you hadn’t realized you missed. “Still calling me Noona, huh? I’m glad.”

“Where have you been?” you asked, your voice shaking slightly. “It’s been years.”

“I know, I know. I’ve been so busy, but I debuted! I’m in a group now—Miss A. Have you heard of us?”

“Yeah… I think I’ve heard your name around,” you admitted, scratching the back of your head.

“You’re so hopeless,” she teased. “Anyway, I’m back in town for a bit. Let’s meet up. I want to hear everything about you.”

You agreed to meet at the old park where she’d told you she was leaving all those years ago. It was late afternoon, the golden light of the setting sun casting long shadows on the ground.

When you saw her, your breath caught. She was still the Suzy you remembered, but something about her had changed. She carried herself with a quiet confidence now, her long hair flowing in waves down her back. Her smile, though, was the same—warm and inviting.

“Y/n,” she called, waving at you.

You approached hesitantly. “Noona…”

She grinned. “Don’t look so scared! I don’t bite.”

“It’s not that,” you said, trying to compose yourself. “It’s just… you look so different now. More… grown up.”

“And you’ve gotten taller,” she teased, poking your arm. “But you’re still the same shy little kid I remember.”

The two of you sat on the swings, just like you had all those years ago. She told you about her life as an idol—the rigorous training, the long hours, the moments of doubt. And you told her about college, about your struggles to figure out what you wanted to do with your life.

“You’ve done so much, Noona,” you said, admiration clear in your voice. “I’m proud of you.”

Her expression softened, and she looked at you with an intensity that made your heart race. “And I’m proud of you, Y/n. I always knew you’d grow into someone amazing.”

As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the park in twilight, Suzy turned to you, her expression serious.

“Y/n, can I tell you something?”

“Of course, Noona.”

She hesitated, biting her lip. “I’ve missed you. More than I thought I would. And seeing you now… it feels like I’ve been searching for something, and I finally found it.”

Your heart pounded in your chest. “Noona…”

“I know it’s selfish,” she continued, her voice trembling slightly. “But I don’t want to be just your Noona anymore.”

The world seemed to freeze. You stared at her, your mind racing. “What are you saying?”

She reached out, her fingers brushing against yours. “I’m saying I want to be more than just your childhood friend. More than just your Noona. I want… I want to be with you.”

The air between you crackled with tension, thick and electric, as Suzy’s words hung in the twilight. Her fingers lingered on yours, soft and warm, and her gaze was unyielding, locking onto yours with an intensity that made your chest tighten.

“Noona,” you whispered, your voice barely audible over the faint rustle of leaves in the evening breeze. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

Her lips curved into a small, nervous smile. “You don’t have to say anything, Y/n. Not yet. Just… let me be honest with you for once.”

She shifted closer on the swing, her knee brushing against yours. The contact sent a jolt through you, but you didn’t pull away. How could you? This was Suzy—your Noona, the girl who had always been there, even when she wasn’t.

“All these years,” she began, her voice trembling slightly, “I convinced myself that I was just your Noona. That I was looking out for you like a sister would. But deep down, I knew it was more than that. Even back then, when we were younger, I felt something… something I couldn’t name. And now, seeing you again—” She paused, her breath hitching. “Now, I can’t ignore it anymore.”

Your heart raced, pounding so loudly you were sure she could hear it. “Noona, I…”

“Shh,” she murmured, placing a finger against your lips. Her touch was feather-light, but it silenced you instantly. “Just let me finish.”

Her hand dropped, and she leaned in, her face inches from yours. Her scent—a mix of citrus and something uniquely her—filled your senses, dizzying and intoxicating.

“I don’t want to leave without knowing,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Without knowing if you feel it too.”

The world seemed to shrink until it was just the two of you, suspended in this moment. You searched her eyes, dark and endless, and saw the vulnerability she was trying so hard to hide. It mirrored your own—the fear, the longing, the hope.

“Suzy,” you said, her name slipping out before you could stop it. It felt strange, foreign, to call her anything other than Noona. But at the same time, it felt right. Necessary, even.

Her lashes fluttered, surprise flickering across her features. “You called me by my name.”

“Yeah,” you admitted, your voice shaky. “Because… because you’re not just my Noona. Not anymore.”

A soft gasp escaped her lips, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. Before you could process what was happening, she closed the distance between you, her lips crashing against yours in a kiss that was equal parts desperate and tender.

It was messy, awkward even, born from years of suppressed feelings and stolen glances. Her hands tangled in your hair, pulling you closer, while yours found their way to her waist, clutching her like she might vanish if you let go.

When she finally pulled back, both of you were breathing heavily, your foreheads pressed together.

“Y/n,” she breathed, her voice trembling. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”

“Me too,” you admitted, your voice rough with emotion. “But I never thought…”

“I know,” she said, cutting you off with another quick kiss. “Neither did I. But now that we’re here… I don’t want to waste any more time.”

Her hands slid down to your shoulders, then lower, tracing the contours of your arms before settling on your chest. You could feel the heat of her skin through the fabric of your shirt, and the sensation sent a shiver down your spine.

“Suzy,” you said, your voice cracking. “Are you sure about this?”

She nodded, her expression serious. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

With that, she stood, taking your hand and pulling you to your feet. The park was empty now, bathed in the soft glow of streetlights. She led you away from the swings, toward the familiar path that wound through the trees.

Your steps faltered as the implications of what was happening began to sink in. “Wait, Noona—Suzy. Where are we going?”

She glanced over her shoulder, a mischievous smile playing on her lips. “Somewhere private. Unless you’d rather stay here?”

Heat flooded your cheeks, and you shook your head quickly. “N-no, private is good.”

Her laughter filled the air, light and carefree, and she tightened her grip on your hand. “Good. Follow me.”

The walk to her apartment was a blur. Your mind raced, torn between disbelief and anticipation. This was Suzy. Your childhood friend, your Noona. And now…? Now, everything had changed.

By the time you reached her doorstep, your nerves were frayed, your pulse thundering in your ears. She unlocked the door and pulled you inside, kicking it shut behind her. The room was dimly lit, the only illumination coming from the soft glow of a lamp in the corner.

She turned to face you, her breath catching as she studied your face. Slowly, she reached up, her fingers brushing against your cheek.

“You’re really here,” she murmured, almost as if she couldn’t believe it herself. “And you’re not running away.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you promised, your voice steady despite the storm raging inside you.

A slow smile spread across her lips, and she stepped closer, closing the gap between you. Her hands slid up your chest, then around your neck, pulling you down until your lips met hers once more.

This kiss was different—slower, deeper, more deliberate. Her tongue teased at your bottom lip, and you opened for her without hesitation, a low moan escaping your throat as she deepened the kiss. Her body pressed against yours, soft and warm, and you wrapped your arms around her waist, holding her close.

When she broke the kiss, both of you were panting, your faces flushed. She took your hand and led you to the couch, pushing you gently onto the cushions before climbing onto your lap. Her knees bracketed your hips, and her hands rested on your shoulders as she gazed down at you.

“I’ve imagined this so many times,” she confessed, her voice husky. “But it’s nothing compared to the real thing.”

Your hands found her hips, gripping them tightly as you looked up at her. “Suzy…”

She leaned down, her lips brushing against your ear. “Tell me what you want, Y/n. Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”

Your breath hitched, and your grip on her hips tightened. “I want you,” you admitted, your voice raw with need. “All of you.”

A shiver ran through her, and she pulled back just enough to meet your gaze. “Then take me.”

Her breath caught in her throat as your hands tightened around her hips, pulling her closer until there was no space left between you. The air around you felt electric, charged with the intensity of your shared desire. You could feel the heat radiating from her body, the way her chest rose and fell with each shallow breath. Her dark eyes locked onto yours, wide and searching, as if she were trying to pierce through every wall you’d ever built. And for the first time, you didn’t want to hide. Not from her.

You leaned in, your lips brushing against hers in a feather-light touch that sent a shiver down her spine. She tilted her head, her mouth parting slightly, inviting you in. But you held back, teasing her, letting the anticipation build until it was almost unbearable. Her fingers dug into your shoulders, urging you forward, but still, you lingered, savoring the way her breath hitched when you finally closed the distance.

The kiss started slow, tentative, as if you were both rediscovering each other after years apart. Her lips were soft, warm, and achingly familiar, yet they carried a sweetness you hadn’t noticed before. Your hands moved from her hips to her waist, sliding up her sides until they found the curve of her ribs. She gasped into your mouth, her body arching into your touch, and you took the opportunity to deepen the kiss.

Your tongue brushed against hers, coaxing a low moan from her throat. She tasted faintly of honey and something uniquely Suzy—something that made your head spin and your pulse race. One hand tangled in her hair, gently guiding her head to the side as you kissed her with a hunger that surprised even you. Her fingers slid from your shoulders to the back of your neck, holding you close as if she were afraid you might pull away.

But you had no intention of stopping.

“Noona,” you whispered against her lips, your voice rough with need. “I’ve dreamed of this.”

She shuddered at your words, her grip tightening on your neck. “Y/n…” Her voice was barely audible, trembling with emotion. “I never stopped thinking about you.”

Her confession shattered whatever restraint you had left. With a growl, you pulled her onto your lap, her legs straddling your waist as you claimed her mouth again. This time, the kiss was anything but gentle. It was fierce, demanding, filled with all the longing you’d bottled up over the years. She matched your intensity, her nails scraping lightly against your scalp as she kissed you back with equal fervor.

One hand slid under the hem of her shirt, your fingers skimming the smooth skin of her back. She arched into your touch, a whimper escaping her lips as you traced lazy circles over her spine. Your other hand moved lower, gripping her thigh and pressing her closer until you could feel the warmth of her core against your stomach. The sensation drew a groan from deep within your chest, and you broke the kiss, resting your forehead against hers as you tried to catch your breath.

“Suzy,” you murmured, your voice hoarse. “I need to see you. All of you.”

Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t hesitate. Slowly, reverently, she reached behind her back and unclasped her bra, letting it fall to the floor. Then, with a shy smile, she pulled her shirt over her head, revealing her bare skin to your hungry gaze. Her breasts were perfect—full and round, with nipples already hard and begging for attention. You couldn’t resist reaching out, cupping one in your hand and rolling your thumb over the sensitive peak. She gasped, her head falling back as pleasure coursed through her.

“Y/n,” she breathed, her voice trembling. “Please…”

You didn’t need to be told twice. Leaning forward, you captured one nipple in your mouth, swirling your tongue around the hardened bud. She cried out, her hands tangling in your hair as you teased her mercilessly. Your free hand roamed over her body, exploring every inch of her as if committing her curves to memory. When you switched to her other breast, she squirmed in your lap, her hips grinding against yours in a way that made your head swim.

“Noona,” you groaned, pulling away just enough to look up at her. “You’re driving me crazy.”

A wicked smile spread across her lips, and she leaned down to whisper in your ear. “Then let me take care of you.”

Before you could respond, she slid off your lap and dropped to her knees in front of you. Her hands moved to your belt, deftly undoing the buckle before pushing your pants and boxers down your hips. Your cock sprang free, hard and aching, and she wasted no time taking you into her hand. Her touch was firm but tender, her fingers wrapping around your length and giving you a slow stroke that had your eyes fluttering shut.

“God, Noona…” you groaned, your hands gripping the edge of the couch.

Her lips curled into a smirk, and then she leaned forward, taking the tip of your cock into her mouth. The heat of her tongue was almost too much, and you had to bite back a moan as she swirled it around the sensitive head. Her hand continued to stroke you as her mouth worked its magic, alternating between sucking and licking until you were trembling with need.

“Fuck, Suzy,” you growled, your fingers tangling in her hair. “You feel so good.”

She hummed in response, the vibration sending a jolt of pleasure straight to your core. Then, without warning, she took you deeper, her throat relaxing around you as she swallowed you whole. Your hips bucked involuntarily, and she looked up at you with wide, innocent eyes—a stark contrast to the dirty things she was doing with her mouth.

It was too much. The sight of her on her knees, her lips stretched around your cock, her dark eyes locked onto yours… it pushed you dangerously close to the edge. But you weren’t ready to finish—not yet. With a shaky breath, you pulled her off you, ignoring her pout as you lifted her back onto your lap.

“My turn,” you said, your voice thick with desire.

Her breath hitched as you flipped her onto her back, spreading her legs and settling between them. Her panties were soaked, clinging to her wet folds, and you couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to the damp fabric. She whimpered, her hips lifting off the couch as you tugged her panties aside, revealing her glistening entrance.

“Y/n,” she pleaded, her voice trembling. “Don’t tease me.”

You smirked, dragging your finger through her slickness and drawing a gasp from her lips. “But Noona,” you murmured, circling her clit with your thumb. “Watching you squirm is my new favorite hobby.”

Her response was cut off by a strangled moan as you leaned down, replacing your thumb with your tongue. The taste of her was intoxicating, sweet and tangy, and you lapped at her eagerly, drinking in every drop. Her hands fisted in your hair, holding you in place as you explored her with your mouth, alternating between broad strokes and focused flicks of your tongue.

“Oh God,” she cried, her back arching off the couch. “Y/n, I’m—I’m—”

She came undone with a cry, her thighs clamping around your head as waves of pleasure washed over her. You continued to lick her through it, gentling your movements until she collapsed back onto the couch, boneless and gasping for air.

When you finally pulled away, she looked up at you with hooded eyes, her chest heaving. “Y/n…” she murmured, her voice weak but filled with affection.

You kissed her softly, letting her taste herself on your lips. “Noona,” you whispered, “I love you.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and she pulled you into another kiss, pouring all her emotions into it. When you finally broke apart, she wrapped her arms around your neck, holding you close.

“Take me,” she whispered, her breath hot against your ear. “Make me yours.”

Your heart raced as you positioned yourself at her entrance, the tip of your cock pressing against her slick folds. “Are you sure?” you asked, searching her eyes for any trace of doubt.

She nodded, her expression filled with certainty. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

With a steadying breath, you pushed inside her, the tight heat of her walls enveloping you in a way that made your vision blur. She gasped, her nails digging into your shoulders as you buried yourself to the hilt.

“Y/n,” she moaned, her voice trembling. “You feel so good.”

You leaned down, capturing her lips in a searing kiss as you began to move, setting a slow, deliberate pace that had her writhing beneath you. Each thrust drew a soft cry from her lips, and you couldn’t get enough of the sounds she made—the way she whispered your name like a prayer, the way her breathing hitched when you hit just the right spot.

Her hands roamed over your back, her nails leaving faint trails of pleasure-pain that only spurred you on. You buried your face in the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent—sweet, floral, and utterly intoxicating.

“Noona,” you groaned, your hips snapping against hers. “I can’t hold back much longer.”

She wrapped her legs around your waist, pulling you deeper. “Then don’t,” she whispered, her voice husky with need. “I want you to come, Y/n.”

Her words pushed you over the edge. With a guttural groan, you thrust into her one last time, spilling yourself deep inside her as waves of ecstasy crashed over you. She clung to you, her body trembling as she reached her own climax, her walls clenching around you in a way that prolonged your release.

For a moment, everything faded away—time, space, the world outside—leaving only the two of you, connected in the most intimate way possible.

When you finally came down from your high, you rested your forehead against hers, both of you struggling to catch your breath. She smiled up at you, her eyes shining with warmth and affection.

“Y/n,” she murmured, her voice soft and full of emotion. “I love you, too.”

You kissed her gently, savoring the moment. But as you pulled back, a mischievous glint appeared in her eyes.

“Again?” she asked, her lips curling into a playful smile.

The next morning, the sunlight filtered through the blinds of Suzy’s apartment, casting a soft glow over the room. You stirred awake, your arm draped over her waist, her body warm and still against yours. Her breathing was steady, and for a moment, you just watched her, marveling at how peaceful she looked in sleep. She’s even more beautiful like this, you thought, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled when she saw you. “Morning,” she murmured, her voice husky with sleep.

“Morning, Noona,” you said, your heart swelling at the sight of her sleepy smile.

She stretched lazily, then propped herself up on one elbow. “I have to go to set today,” she said, pouting slightly. “It’s my music video shoot.”

You nodded, trying to hide your disappointment. “I’ll miss you.”

Her expression softened, and she leaned in to kiss you gently. “Why don’t you come with me?” she suggested, her tone casual but her eyes full of hope. “You could see what it’s like behind the scenes. And… I’d love to have you there.”

Your heart skipped a beat. The idea of seeing her work, of being close to her even while she was in her element, was incredibly tempting. “Are you sure? Won’t it be weird?”

Suzy shook her head, her lips curved into a playful smirk. “Everyone will just think you’re part of the crew. Besides, I want you there. Is that so bad?”

You couldn’t help but grin. “Not bad at all.”

---

The set was buzzing with activity when you arrived. Cameras, lights, and people filled the space, creating an electric atmosphere. Suzy immediately took charge, giving directions to her team and chatting casually with the director. You hung back, watching her as she moved with effortless grace, her confidence radiating in every step.

This is her world, you realized, feeling a mix of awe and pride. She belonged here, commanding attention without even trying.

At one point, she glanced over her shoulder and caught your eye, flashing you a quick smile. Your heart raced as she excused herself from the group and made her way over to you.

“How are you holding up?” she asked, her voice low so only you could hear.

“I’m fine,” you replied, though you felt a little out of place among all the chaos. “You’re amazing out there, Noona.”

Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she looked down, suddenly shy. “Thank you,” she said softly. Then, after a pause, she added, “Stay close, okay? I want you near me.”

You nodded, unable to resist the warmth in her tone. As the day went on, you stayed by her side, helping where you could and simply enjoying the chance to be with her. Between takes, she would lean into you, stealing quiet moments of closeness that made your pulse quicken.

During a break, you found yourselves alone in her dressing room. The door clicked shut behind you, and Suzy turned to face you, her expression serious.

“Y/n,” she began, her voice trembling ever so slightly. “I know this is new for us, and… maybe it’s too soon to say this, but…” She took a deep breath, her eyes locking onto yours. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this—for us—my whole life.”

Her words sent a shiver down your spine. Before you could respond, she closed the distance between you, her lips meeting yours in a kiss that was both tender and urgent. You wrapped your arms around her, pulling her closer, your hands roaming over her back as if trying to memorize every curve.

She broke the kiss reluctantly, resting her forehead against yours. “I don’t want to hide this,” she whispered. “I don’t care who sees us. I just want to be with you.”

Her declaration left you breathless. “Noona…”

She pressed her finger to your lips, silencing you. “Don’t overthink it, Y/n. Just be with me.”

Before you could reply, someone knocked on the door, startling you both. “Suzy-ssi, we’re ready for you!” a voice called from the other side.

Suzy sighed, stepping back but keeping her hand in yours. “Come watch,” she said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “I want you to see this.”

You followed her back to the set, your heart pounding as you took your place among the crew. The cameras rolled, and Suzy transformed before your eyes, slipping effortlessly into her role. She moved with such precision and passion that it was impossible to look away.

As the shoot progressed, you couldn’t help but notice how often she glanced your way, her smile growing warmer each time. It was as if she were performing for you, pouring her heart into every movement because you were there to witness it.

When the director finally called “Cut!” and declared the shoot a wrap, the room erupted into applause. Suzy bowed graciously, thanking everyone for their hard work, but her gaze kept drifting back to you.

Once the crowd began to disperse, she made her way over, her steps slow and deliberate. “Well?” she asked, tilting her head playfully. “What did you think?”

“You were incredible,” you said honestly, your voice filled with admiration. “I mean, I always knew you were talented, but seeing you like that… it’s unreal.”

Her cheeks turned pink, and she looked down, almost bashful. “Thank you,” she murmured. Then, her expression grew serious. “But you know what the best part was?”

You shook your head, curious.

“Knowing you were watching,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It made everything feel… different. Special.”

Your chest tightened at her words, and you reached for her hand, intertwining your fingers with hers. “I’ll always watch you, Noona. No matter what.”

She smiled, a soft, contented smile that made your heart ache in the best possible way. “Good,” she said, leaning in closer. “Because I plan on keeping you around for a long time.”

As the crew began to pack up, Suzy led you to a quieter corner of the set, away from prying eyes. She slipped her arms around your neck, pressing her body against yours. “Now,” she said, her voice low and sultry, “what do you say we continue where we left off earlier?”

Your breath hitched, and you didn’t hesitate. You kissed her deeply, your hands gripping her waist as she melted into you. The sounds of the set faded into the background, leaving only the two of you, lost in the heat of the moment.

When she pulled back, her lips swollen and her eyes dark with desire, she gave you a mischievous smile. “My place or yours?” she teased, her tone light but her gaze intense.

You chuckled, your heart racing. “Whichever gets us there faster.”

Her laughter echoed through the empty set as she grabbed your hand and led you toward the exit. But as you reached the door, she paused, turning to face you. “Y/n,” she said, her voice soft but firm, “this isn’t just about tonight. This is… forever. Okay?”

You nodded, your throat tight with emotion. “Okay.”

And as you stepped out into the cool night air, hand in hand with the woman who had once been your childhood friend and was now so much more, you couldn’t help but feel like the universe had finally aligned. For the first time in years, everything felt right.

“Let’s go home,” Suzy said, squeezing your hand.

[mandalhoerian]

Fish in a Birdcage ৎ୭

ৎ୭ ⸻ rafayel has quite the storm raging in his mind during his artistic expedition to aridum. which, the root of his crisis he was trying to wean himself off of wasn't supposed to tag along to make him spiral further. funny thing is, you just think he's sick. he is. just infected by something far worse than you can imagine: crippling dependency.

ৎ୭ ⸻ SO MUCH BUILD-UP, momentary sickfic, anxious attachment issues, rafayel being hot and cold with the reader, angst, exhibitionism for like 0.01 seconds bc of bond shenanigans, switch4switch and constantly changing dynamics that comes with it, handjob, slight obedience kink, impromptu bondage play with rafayel's neck piece praise kink, obedience kink blink and you miss it, p in v, CLOTHED SEX ITS SO HOT 2 ME, unprotected sex, multiple rounds.

ৎ୭ ⸻ hello lads fandom, FIRST WORK HERE (it sucked my soul out i've been working on this for like tHREE weeks)!!! this is my adaptation of rafayel's nightly rendezvous card intertidal zone. a lot of it is based on my reading and understanding of the card, i'm so sorry for releasing this when caleb just released but, i hope you enjoy, much love <3 ( lil tag: @comatosebunny09 )

ৎ୭ ⸻ 26K, read on ao3

In retrospect, finding out Aridum was a city in the middle of a desert should have made you stop and think more about how the climate would actually affect Rafayel before diving straight into travel plans.

You know, a Lemurian.

Who, logically, wouldn’t fare well in the dry heat.

Rafayel flicking off your genuine concern like it was a bug on the surface tension of his fish tank was the first red flag you should have paid more attention to. In your defense, since he’d been there before and was confident enough to initiate banter, it was easy to give in and trust he knew what he was doing as he batted his lashes at you with those pretty dual-colored, sparkly wide eyes that left you starstruck in the face and said, “As long as I’m with you, I’ll be fine.”

Well. He was with you now and he wasn’t fine.

Because for once in his life, Rafayel didn’t have enough energy to run laps around you. Just a few minutes outside the hotel, lingering near the grand fountain square framed by towering palm trees that offered scant shade, and he began to deflate pitifully like a garish balloon leaking its vigor into the sweltering air. His usual dynamism, the kind that pulled attention to him as effortlessly as a river carved its path, had dimmed to a sluggish ebb, so much so you found yourself glancing over your shoulder every ten seconds, vigilance heightened by the unsettling absence of his ever-present current. The languid pace like he was moving through molasses made him look like an entirely different person than the one tugging you through the airport with even the luggage excitedly rolling behind him.

And it had been just a single day since you’d set foot in Aridum.

That wasn’t to say the trip had been a disaster or he was in terrible shape — you two were still on day one. Back in Linkon, he was, on paper, enthusiastic about pointing out local landmarks for you to go together like he knew the city personally, but he had quickly lost that energy when it actually came to the execution. You chalked it up to him not being able to get any sleep the previous night because of a mix of jetlag and the discomfort of a new bed, but regardless, it was still concerning to watch him only interested in stopping by street stands where he could buy himself cold water bottles and stand in a shaded corner in order to drink them slowly under shelter, while also dragging you with him, so there wouldn't be even a split-second distance between you two.

You were thankful you didn't have many plans in mind. Rafayel always packed enough enthusiasm for the both of you, but now, as you watched with wide-eyed worry how his spark had suddenly wilted, the drastic shift in his personality left him finding everything he suggested doing utterly unnecessary for the day. On top of that, after only managing to sit still for five minutes or so, it'd become obvious to see that the environment of this city, complete with a sun beating down hot enough to cook you alive, had taken a toll on Rafayel's temperament far more drastically than expected — rendering his eagerness completely sour.

But still, you wanted to cheer him up, you did. It broke your heart seeing someone who brought so much life into every room shrivel down to such a defeated shell. Maybe that's why you couldn't help yourself when you caught him pouting at something on the phone screen as if it'd done him a great offense.

So, you began teasing. “Rafayel, we haven’t even been out for thirty minutes, you're sweating already?"

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” you countered, only to squint at his face more closely. “Wait. You’re not?”

He threw his arms out like he was expecting a grander reaction. “Do you know what that means?”

“That you’re a human raisin in the making?”

He groaned, a sound that was more theatrical than pained, but you still caught the edge of frustration in it. “It means I’m seconds away from crumbling into sand. You’ll have to gather me up and carry me home in a jar.”

You started walking towards one of the fountains near some empty seats where shade was available, while he dragged himself behind you like a zombie. "Let's sit you down before you begin to form cracks."

The fountain’s spray misted faintly in the air, enough to make the stone bench beneath feel less like a skillet. Rafayel took extra care positioning himself on one of the seats before collapsing backward, draping one arm over his flushed face.

He took the bottle of yet another ice cold water you fished out from your bag without protest, but his free hand found your wrist and lingered there — light at first, then tighter, like he needed to anchor himself. The unexpected heat radiating from his skin sent a little jolt up your arm. You were about to comment on it, but then he tipped the bottle back and drank, and you swore you could feel the tension in his throat as if it was your own.

When he finished, he let out a breath — not a sigh, just an exhale that sounded heavy, deliberate, sprawling beside you, one leg stretched out, the other bouncing restlessly as he tilted his head back and squinted at the cloudless sky.

“I think I’m dying,” he announced, as if that wasn’t thr fourth time he’d said it today.

After your attention was made aware that he indeed wasn’t sweating by the dry hairline of his, though, the mood to banter had dissipated like a mirage. You began fussing. Was it normal that he didn’t sweat? If a normal person was like this, they needed to be taken to the hospital. However, Rafayel had done nothing but up the ante in complaining, that had to indicate nothing was seriously wrong, right? He’d know his body the best. Right?

“I told you to put on sunscreen this morning. Did you?”

He scoffed, “I don’t need it,” — and you heard the imaginary Lemurian in his tone rolling his eyes at your human expectations.

“Not with that attitude,” you shut him down, already skimming through your bag at an increasingly faster pace. “Now, keep still.”

Finding what you were looking for, you uncapped the bottle, reaching out with one hand to tilt Rafayel’s head left and right to gauge where to start. His skin under the pads of your fingertips felt almost brittle and paper-thin — unnatural on Rafayel, making you unconsciously rub like it was a stain you could get rid of. Without meaning to, you frowned, and he made a soft, lukewarm grumble, nudging your leg with his foot, reminding you what you were doing. Which was fussing over a grown man who should have been responsible from the start and able to take care of himself.

“Show me your forehead,” you said, wanting to get it out the way first.

He obediently carded his bangs back, silent, half-hooded eyes flicking everywhere on your face going ignored as you rubbed sunscreen in and felt what alarmingly was similar to a fever. It was a relief to hear him humming at the feeling, you hoped it would help as you quickly moved to spread the white lotion over his cheeks and smeared a stripe right across the bridge of his nose as he fixed his hair, squinting at your ministrations.

Though, somehow, he looked contented enough that you had to stop him from nuzzling into your hand. “Rafayel, I’m working here.”

All you got was a breathy, “Mmm,” as if he was speaking through the pleasant haze of sleep.

How contradictory of him, as always. For someone constantly grumbling about the unbearable heat, he leaned into every touch with a docility that defied reason — and worse, he initiated them, either molding against you like water taking the shape of the container it was poured into, or his fingers ghosting over your skin as though drawn by instinct. You couldn’t make sense of it. The mere thought of physical contact when the air was this heavy and oppressive made your skin crawl, but he seemed to revel in it. No, thrived on it.

It wasn’t just the way he didn’t flinch — he leaned in harder, his breaths hitching faintly, brow furrowed like he was wrestling with a need he barely understood. You’d swear the heat radiating from your skin would only make it worse, yet he tilted his face into your touch as though your thumbs brushing his cheekbones offered a balm, a strange, cooling relief.

Maybe, he perceived your skin to be indeed cooler than his.

It had to be something unique to his Lemurian physiology. His reactions didn’t make sense otherwise. What human would ever enjoy the sensation of warmth pressed against warmth in such sweltering conditions? And yet here he was, biting back what suspiciously sounded like a placid sigh, while you struggled to reconcile the peculiar contradiction.

“C’mon, don’t let me do all the work,” you muttered, quieter than you intended, the heat and the moment distracting you entirely.

You must have sounded a tad bit worried, because Rafayel didn’t react with his usual playful defiance or the melodramatic sulking he resorted to when things didn’t go his way. Instead, he fell silent, sinking more fully against your side as though he belonged there, and successfully narrowed the angle you were working with. His head tilted slightly, guiding your hand to the sharp line of his jaw with an unspoken invitation, eyelashes fluttering as he blinked, the haze of his voice turning soft and almost vulnerable. You couldn’t even see his face properly from looking at the top of the purple mop of hair blocking you.

"Do my neck too?"

Before you could decide, his hand encircled your wrist. Not tightly — not forcefully — but with a loose, guiding pressure that was maddeningly deliberate. He led your lotion-slicked hand to curve around his throat, the smooth, simmering heat of his skin pressing against your palm.

You hesitated, the instinct to pull away warring with the strange tension settling between you both, but his thumb found the delicate underside of your wrist and began tracing slow, thoughtful patterns that seemed designed to leave you paralyzed. You knew damn well how tenderly and skillfully he handled paintbrushes, and it was evident by the practiced precision of each touch that he was using the same sensibility on you, whether he was fully aware of it or not, which sent a warm burst of blood rising to your cheeks.

Seeming restless, Rafayel sat up straight and finally allowed you a clear view of him. His head tipped further back, exposing more of his neck to your hand, eyes darkened into to a shade of purple that seemed otherworldly in the harsh light of day. They glittered like faceted amethysts film-burned blue around the edges, soaking in every sunlit fleck of your features with a focus that made your chest tighten, like you were being studied with the assessment of the artist Rafayel before another’s painting, his focus unbroken save for the low hum he let slip, soft and unguarded.

You swallowed hard, aware of how exposed you were. The bustling world of Aridum hadn’t stopped turning just because the two of you had stumbled into whatever this was. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of your neck, but it wasn’t just the desert heat making you feel like you were suffocating.

This shouldn’t have been happening. Not here, not now.

Your breath shuddered as you finally regained enough sense to break the silence. "Do it yourself," you murmured, voice uneven as you pressed the bottle of sunscreen into his chest. You looked away, clumsily rubbing your hands on your arms to mask the way they trembled, pretending to rid yourself of excess lotion while wishing desperately to erase the heat radiating off your skin.

Rafayel sighed, a low sound of reluctant acceptance, as he pulled himself upright. His fingers glided over his neck, spreading the sunscreen where you hadn’t, his movements smooth and unaffected as he worked the lotion over his collarbones and along the nape of his neck. The sight was annoyingly graceful, as though he wasn’t feeling the same unbearable tension you were. If you’d have thought of bringing a small electric fan along today, it would have been inches from your face already.

"Maybe we should’ve gone out at night," you said abruptly, grasping for any lifeline to shift the moment’s focus. Your gaze darted to him as he worked, your cheeks burning hotter than the sunlight that baked the streets. "Now I feel bad."

"What for?"

"Making you come along. This must not be very inspiring.”

Rafayel let out an honest-to-goodness laugh. It rolled from his throat so easily and naturally that it seemed even he wasn’t aware of it until the sound tapered off into a quiet chuckle. Shaking his head, he leaned toward you until his temple rested lightly on your shoulder, his gaze unfocused as he stared absently at the fountain ahead. "I’m not giving up time with you just because the sun here wants me dead."

He completely bypassed the part about inspiration, but the sincerity in his words hit you like a splash of cool water on overheated skin. Your shoulders relaxed as you melted into a sigh, letting your head fall atop his, but the sticky warmth made the closeness unbearable almost instantly.

You promptly peeled yourself away with an, "Ugh.” He had already filled his making-you-feel-hot quota for the day, in every sense of the word.

Rafayel straightened just enough to meet your gaze, "That’s how you answer my heroic declaration?" he asked dryly, one brow arched in faux offense.

He didn’t budge, though, even though the heat seemed to bother him more than it did you. The stubborn set of his jaw spoke volumes, and it took a gentle nudge of your elbow to get him to finally sit upright. Even then, he let out a dramatic whine from deep in his chest as if being forced to separate was a personal betrayal.

"You’re lucky I’m rewarding it with mercy," you shot back, brushing a hand through your hair to vent your own rising frustration with the heat. "Come on, let’s head back. I need to get my fishie in the water before he dries up completely."

"But you wanted to see—"

"There’ll be plenty of opportunities in the future," you interrupted with a wave of your hand. "If anything, this was a good lesson about choosing the time we go out more carefully."

To your relief, Rafayel didn’t push back. He rose to his feet with you, though his sluggish movements and the slight downward pull of his lips suggested reluctance. As much as his leaning on you had been irritating in the heat, the sight of his faint frown made your chest tighten, and without thinking, you looped your arm through his and pulled him closer, even though the contact made your already overheated skin feel unbearable. His shoulders straightened slightly at the gesture, but the small crease between his brows didn’t disappear.

"I hear it’s seafood night at the hotel restaurant," you offered, attempting to lift his mood. He was obviously bummed out, but his stubbornness refused to show why outright. It was cute to a degree — childish almost, so endearing you couldn't find it in yourself to grow impatient with him. But you hated seeing him down. "If we head back now, we might snag a rooftop table.”

"Snag? Puh-lease. Worst case scenario, one glimpse of me and I could get us prime seating any time, anywhere," Rafayel scoffed. Still, the corner of his lip twitched upward as if tempted to smile, and you found yourself mirroring the reaction immediately. “And that whole thing would still be less bothersome than you assuming I haven’t secured us a reservation already.”

Later that evening, after dinner on the rooftop, the mix-up with the room service attendant delivering Rafayel’s envelope to your room turned out to be a convenient excuse to check on him. It had been hours since you insisted he take time to rest, and while he promised to settle in and let you know how he felt after freshening up, you hadn’t heard from him since.

You were greeted by the humidity hitting you in the face like a solid wall of rain when the door got opened though, instead of your boyfriend. Thick as fog like it had its own gravity.

Rafayel stood in the doorway, his hair dripping and clinging to his flushed skin in lazy dark purple rivulets, robe loose, the soft fabric blotched dark with water where droplets had slid from his neck and shoulders.

The room behind him radiated a different kind of heat — not the oppressive dryness of the desert, but the heavy, steamy warmth of someone trying to crawl their way back to comfort in the only way they knew how.

He looked better, at least.

The brittle edge that had been clinging to him seemed softened, as if he’d soaked away some of the tension in the beath he’d clearly stepped out of upon you knocking on his door.

Still, the sight of him — damp like a wet cat instead of a fish in his natural environment, robe-clad, the faint sheen of exhaustion still lingering in the way he leaned against the door frame left an odd twist in your chest.

He didn't look any worse for wear than he had earlier in the day when he’d claimed he wanted to spend the rest of his night marinating in ice cold water, and while seeing him not suffering was a relief, you clearly weren't expecting for him to actually mean what he said, even though the water obviously wasn’t ice cold.

The envelope, as it turned out, held a ticket to the memorial hall and an invitation to an art salon gathering hosted by one of his friends. Neither looked to be sparking any interest in Rafayel, however, despite him having come here for as much stimulation as possible for his inspiration.

You understood. It just wasn’t possible when he wasn’t feeling well.

The room itself was telling the entire story, in fact, chaotic in its stillness against the beauty of the floor-to ceiling windows framing the desert skyline in soft, shimmering lights of the city crowned by the full moon hanging proudly above. Papers were scattered across the floor in uneven piles, some curling slightly at the edges where they’d caught the artificial moisture in the air, blank and untouched, and some haphazardly sketched in a way you couldn't even begin to guess what they would become later. A few uncapped pens sat nearby, ink untouched, next to a can of soda that had long since gone warm. It wasn’t hard to guess what he’d been doing — or trying to do — in the hours since you’d left him.

So, you told him to stop forcing himself. Come enjoy the scenery with you.

It was your first instinct, but the words didn’t feel enough. You weren’t an artist, you didn’t know what would be good for the block he was going through. Even though your concern was genuine, you were clumsy at best at consolation.

But, he did lower himself onto the floor beside you anyway, his hands brushing against the scattered papers as he sat and leaned back on his palms. Like this, it was easy to imagine him search for his vision to come to him among the mess as he was attempting to draw, and end up with his gaze drifting out the window instead.

And then, as if he were a tide and the moonlight was pulling him inexorably to shore, he began to open up. Pushed by your mention of watching the view together, he spoke of sceneries. Of what traveling to discover secret corners of nature meant to him before everything changed — before he started creating. About how he used to just look at the world and feel it. Admire it. He didn’t need to do anything with it back then. A sunset was just a sunset, the sea was simply the sea, and neither asked anything of him but to exist alongside them.

Once he began to create, however...

Those discoveries done from a place of pure enjoyment became material, their beauty and pain turned into fuel. The act of looking became an act of taking. Of extracting. He started to see the world not as it was, but as something that could be stripped bare and transformed. A beautiful, bleeding wound. Every sunrise painted became a slice taken from the sun. Every ocean wave he put down on canvas was a handful of ocean lost. He couldn't experience sceneries for themselves anymore without having to to capture and translate them into a demand.

He didn’t look at you while he spoke, but the portrait of his honesty could be interpreted by even the most art-blind.

It was then that he dropped the bomb on you: “If one day, I become someone who only takes from you… If I were like that, would you leave me?”

That question dropped into the space between you like a stone in still water, sending ripples through everything you thought you understood about this moment.

But Rafayel was watching you in a way that made your pulse trip over itself, dissecting every flicker of your expression, like you were sitting in the middle of a high-stakes exam you hadn’t studied for. His fingers splayed on the ground besides yours were mere inches away, but even in that minimal distance, you sensed him drawing further back — a subconscious, reflexive reaction to fear, as if he needed to protect himself by retreating into some remote part of his mind, distant and closed off from the rest of him.

"Oh you silly fishie..." was your immediate response despite the whiplash he'd inflicted upon you, fondness rolling off your tongue easily, folding over itself into a dull ache for the struggle he was going through. "I won't leave you."

Your hand slid towards him, pinky finger crossing over until it brushed against his — gently, giving him ample chance to pull away before you covered his entire hand with your palm.

He was feverish again, despite all attempts made to soothe him, and the urge to smooth the pads of your fingers over his flushed skin, mapping each ridge and freckle that dotted his knuckles, surged forward within you. And you gave in, trying to make up for what you knew words would never be able to express, as you lightly rubbed lines onto the back of his hand.

It seemed to melt something in him, and he eased into your touch. It was an involuntary response to you reaching out for him — he tilted into you like he always did. It only lasted a second or two, however, before you felt him falter; like he noticed the instinctual motion midway, then consciously pushed down the reaction by gripping his thighs in an effort to sit back and avoid leaning in. Your heart dropped a little, confused, and you stole a peek at his face through the corner of your lashes to try to guess what he was thinking about.

What you saw only amplified how wrong everything felt. His features, which normally softened whenever you reached out for him, tightened, pensive. He frowned, holding back — hesitant about something, unreadable except for a subtle unease creeping in around the edges.

Even before he broke the silence, you had the awful premonition that his next words weren't going to be what you hoped to hear.

"Are you sure?" he asked, measured and quiet, and you knew you were right. This was trouble.

You squeezed his hand lightly despite wanting to do the very opposite, reassuringly, "Do you really think I’d stay even a second longer with someone I know is bad for me?"

He remained unresponsive.

“Rafayel?”

You made it about yourself, idiot, you realized.

Instead of acknowledging him and his cue for more reassurance and affirmation, you'd shifted the attention from him to trust in your decision making. You hadn't meant to, you hadn't done it deliberately — but...

Gosh, you were absolutely terrible at this.

So much so that Rafayel being the more emotionally in-tune of the two of you even in his vulnerable state was setting a humiliating new standard for how low you could go.

It was pathetic, really, how utterly you failed to pick up on what should have been an obvious cue. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in your mind that he’d taken your clumsy words as a glaring sign you found his struggles trivial, insignificant compared to your own convenience. All you’d managed to do was shove him deeper into the spiral of insecurities he was already battling.

This was supposed to help him clear his head. All it had achieved so far was adding onto his concerns.

Despite your determination to pour everything you had into assuaging the gnarled knot of his self-doubt, you were woefully unqualified for the task. Unmoored, you floundered blindly through half-finished thoughts, grasping for ways to communicate your feelings — gracelessly, imprecisely — all in hopes of soothing whatever ugly thoughts tangled around your boyfriend's brain like weeds choking the life from fertile soil.

Your stammering words stuck to the roof of your mouth like taffy, thick, unwilling to yield, and suddenly useless, coming out slow as you spoke. “What I mean by that is… My life has been consumed by you. In the best way possible. You made it ito a beautiful, chaotic mess bursting with life. I couldn’t possibly leave you.”

And he heard it — you felt it in the faint shuddering breath he drew as a silent response.

His thumb swiped over your pinky in absent response, stroking soothingly over the thin bones as he stared at your joined hands. His shoulders hadn't relaxed even marginally, but there was still an immeasurable kindness in the gesture.

“Besides, you’re not someone who takes. That’s not true at all. You’re just…”

He looked up then, turning his head to you, a doe-eyed, half-dazed blink breaking past the glassy stare he'd fixed on the empty space in front of him. His hand twitched underneath yours, flexing as he made a questioning noise, wordlessly urging you to elaborate as he invited comfort from your explanation. The way he tilted his head, the corners of his furrowed brows slightly angled upwards — the effect was childlike, innocent almost.

Receptive.

Breaking through your hesitation to touch him lest he shrink away again, you lifted both hands to cradle his cheeks gently, smoothing your thumbs across the high sweep of his cheekbones until his eyelids slid shut.

A soft sigh fell from his parted lips, his body pliant in your grasp as he melted under your fingertips, as if the gesture were more potent than any reassurance you might offer. The climbing tension within your ribcage dissolved with a single exhalation at the sight — helplessly endeared by his sheer willingless to submit to your awkward, inexpressive attempt at consoling. Subtle adoration burned quietly beneath each featherlight caress you placed along the slope of his nose or the soft patches underneath his eyes.

"You're just feeling a little anxious," you continued carefully, brushing a stray piece of damp hair away from his temple. It stuck stubbornly, refusing to let itself be tucked behind his ear before you tried again, gentler this time, hoping to soothe any lingering reservations you hadn't managed to wash away. “That’s probably why you’re overthinking things.”

In the brief silence that followed, anxiety bubbled low in your stomach once more, especially when he seemed to be focusing somewhere on your neck and ignoring looking you in the eye directly. It came as yet another whiplash and a sinking feeling simultaneously when he covered one of your hands with his, tilting his chin to plant a kiss into the centre of your palm as if making up for the withdrawal from earlier.

"What, were you playing tricks on me?" you murmured.

Shaking his head, "A token of my gratitude," he clarified. A gentle huff of laughter slipped past his lips, so faintly that you would've missed it had you not been staring at him with rapt attention in your bewilderment. "For you. Who accepted someone like me."

You frowned, eyebrows immediately drawing close. “Rafayel—”

He leaned in all of a sudden, one of his arms slid behind your back, while the other stretched across in front of you, caging you in with an unnerving ease. Both his hands rested flat against the floor now, framing you on either side like a living barricade. Your own left arm shot down to slap a palm down so you wouldn't topple over on your side. The droplets falling from his damp hair onto your neck was a sharp, sudden cold in comparison to the alarming heat radiating from his body, making you jolt in place as he loomed close enough for his breath to fan across your face.

"You're burning up again," you said weakly, trying and failing spectacularly to disguise your nervousness with indignance as his lips brushed softly against the apple of your cheek before ghosting lower, pausing just beneath your ear, testing for a reaction.

Meanwhile, him taking your hand that was balled up in a fist on the ground to slowly bring it towards his mouth left you frozen and dizzy from the contradictory sensations prickling under your skin.

Rafayel hummed against your wrist in response, dropping light kisses along the ridge of bone connecting your thumb to the rest of your fingers in the interim. It was impossible to ignore how every one of his touches ignited something different within you — the sensation of him painting the length of each finger with tender brushes of his lips and heated exhales sent pulses of liquid warmth flowing through your bloodstream.

The abrupt shift had left you uncertain about many things, chief among which being whether your previous efforts actually sank in at all or not.

Apparently they had.

The combined assault was distracting, but even amidst the whirlwind of thoughts vying for attention, you struggled to fully comprehend just how drastically the moment had veered off course — how your own worry-stricken attempt at appeasing him ended here instead, with your pulse hammering in your ears as he pressed even closer, draping his arm around your waist to turn you sideways until you were nearly sitting on his lap, faces inches apart.

A glimpse hope of maintaining control over the situation arrived in the form of a can toppling over during his handling of you, clattering on the hardwood flooring and startling you enough to snap free of the strange trance Rafayel had ensnared you in during his momentary lapse in focus.

Being so close gave you a good look at the change in him that manifested suddenly; his features visibly hardened as he turned his head at the disturbance, seemingly irritated to have been interrupted midway — a dark glint shone through his lashes before shifting over to you, misty, hazy, indescribable in its raw complexity.

His bathrobe hung loose, the neckline slouched further down one shoulder from having moved so much earlier, displaying more skin than was appropriate, and you weren’t sure if you were imagining the faintest hint of familiar coloration mottling his chest.

Which was dry.

Not only had his skin absorbed all the moisture that clung to it like a sponge after stepping out of the bathroom, there was no hint of perspiration whatsoever — not a bead of sweat lining the ridges of his collarbone or dampening the strands of hair stuck to his forehead.

As if responding to your inner thoughts, he lamented, "As you said, I'm anxious... Well, more like... Restless," before leaning in further to bury his face in the crook of your shoulder. "Ever since I arrived here, I feel..."

His arms encircled your waist, pulling you flush against the expanse of his chest and filling your nose with the scent of bodywash. It was no less than holding a solid block of heat capable of radiating more than enough warmth to replace an actual human furnace. The sheer amount of radiated temperature seemed ridiculous in such conditions, but the way he tried the loosen the already disheveled robe covering his other shoulder despite coiling around you, which had to be the source of the biggest discomfort concerning heat, was even more ridiculous. Shouldn’t he have let go of you before complaining?

"The air feels like it's burning, like there's not enough moisture anywhere. My heart's racing and I feel so miserable," he admitted quietly, muffled in the material of your shirt.

Yeah, you were taking him to a hospital.

This wasn't normal by any means, especially since you were now a hundred percent sure Rafayel couldn't sweat in order to regulate his internal body heat.

How could you let this go on for so long? He had been suffering these symptoms for a whole day now, hiding it all under layers of petulant frustration and overdramatic complaining to escape having to ask for help.

He was always like this. So secretive and reserved about his struggles underneath all the goofiness, especially those directly related to him being a Lemurian.

You put a hand on his burning chest and pushed yourself away to put some distance between the two of you and this moment, ignoring his quiet gasp and the way he clutched your waist. "I'm taking you to a—”

Suddenly, the world spun off its axis, a dizzying blur of motion that ended with your back colliding against the floorboards.

The impact sent a ripple through the room — drawing pens clattering and rolling away, half-sketched papers crumpling beneath you, while others scattered into the air like startled birds, carried by the gust of displaced air.

As you blinked up, trying to shake the daze from your mind, the world sharpened into focus.

The light cascaded over Rafayel like liquid mercury, accentuating every sharp edge and soft curve of his form. His bare legs straddled your hips, knees pressed firmly into the ground on either side of you, pinning you in place with an effortless authority. His hands had found yours in the chaos, and now your wrists were restrained above your head, his long fingers encircling them with a grip that was firm yet somehow shaky.

The bathrobe he wore hung precariously, one shoulder already exposed to the moonlight’s caress while the other threatened to follow suit, the fabric dipping low to reveal a tantalizing V that stretched from his clavicle down to his navel. Tendrils of lilac hair curled lightly downwards with gravity, catching the light from outside, glittering like morning dew against a canvas of violet satin and plopping down onto your face, each impact making you blink. And his face, suffused with a flush so intense that it seemed to glow under the pale lighting, as if all the blood in his body had rushed to stain his fair skin with an undeniable rosy bloom.

The cool floorboards beneath your skin were contrasting harshly with the heat of his touch, and the helpless position left your pulse racing in a way you couldn’t entirely blame on adrenaline.

Rafayel lowered himself until his nose brushed lightly against yours, his breaths shallow and uneven, eyes caught halfway between hazy drowsiness and burning intensity — a vivid shade of sunless plum made darker not by the shadows cast across his features, but a deeply buried and masterfully concealed emotion on the verge of making itself known to you.

To call it desire wouldn't do it justice.

It was something far stronger than fleeting arousal or casual infatuation — you hadn’t been looked at this way before. Weren’t even sure if a man could look at someone like this. There was nothing superficial or mundane about this particular weight. It sought to consume you. To burn you alive, leaving you to crumble into ashes like incense offered up to a deity. And the worst part? You had no idea what exactly you were being consumed by, or why.

All of this, because you had merely wanted to—

“No. I’m not going anywhere,” he hissed as if sensing your plan, breath dragging along the edge of your ear. "I'm just... restless.”

But—

“In every sense of the word.”

Oh?

Your mind reeled, dizzy from the intoxicating cocktail flooding your senses — from his breaths washing over the side of your neck, to the overwhelming sensation of Rafayel on the verge of draping over you like a living brand, hot and firm, trapping you in place.

"Especially when you're by my side," he purred.

Oh.

He pulled back to stare you down, heavy-lidded and glinting like knives honed razor sharp, yet somehow tender in his approach. If anything, it served only to accentuate the danger of whatever it was simmering below the surface. This was different than his Ebb Day state, but similar enough in its intent to be instantly recognizable — especially since it bore all the marks of the manic rush he fell victim to when succumbing to the lure of his instincts.

It was something primal in you that scattered your thought process into oblivion and made you look away instinctively, averting your attention toward the window off to your left — but the sparkling view of night time in Aridum was soon curtained by a flash of Rafayel's hand as he cupped the side of your face in one smooth motion.

The slight roughness of the pad of his thumb brushed along your cheekbone until his fingers sank into your hair, fanned along the outer edge of your ear, and turned you back to face him. The gesture felt proprietary, like he wanted to make certain he'd captured every last scrap of your undivided attention, like it physically hurt to allow even the smallest opportunity for you to withdraw and escape his grasp.

“Rafayel,” you forced your common sense to come out of its hiding place. “I don’t think—”

"But even so, I can't let you go. I don't want to," he breathed against your lips, punctuating his command with an achingly slow drag of his nose tracing yours. The contact made something molten unfurl in your belly, warm and sticky-slick and pooling in the hollow space below your navel, curling its tendrils through your veins like sweet, syrupy nectar. "What should I do?"

It would be easier than breathing to surrender and give him whatever he was asking for, but... but...

It felt wrong when he was so distressingly hot to the touch, not to mention you couldn't shake off the feeling he was doing his best to distract you from your worry by acting more brazenly suggestive than you'd ever seen him be before.

"You should rest, I don't think you'll enjoy getting worked up in your current condition—"

Your efforts were derailed with the subtle scrape of chapped lips running up the slope of your neck and a bite into the fleshy part below your ear as punishment for daring to answer his plea with platitude.

A shudder shook your frame, nerves firing off confused messages in quick succession throughout your brain, half demanding the sudden pressure recede and half urging more from the tingling heat. Your hand flew to grip his bare shoulder, fingers digging in until the tight bunch of muscle strained beneath his fevered skin — not enough to stop his ministrations, but enough to serve as a weak deterrent.

"Such lovely lips, spinning such pretty excuses," Rafayel huffed, drawing back and sweeping his thumb across your chin with gentle disapproval. "When we both know you don't want me to let you go either."

The words trailed off into something softer, tender, almost wistful, and were followed by the pad of his finger slipping past your parted lips, stroking along the underside of your tongue before drawing back and skimming across the wet patch he'd left glistening upon your bottom lip. As if magnetized, his smoldering stare followed, entranced by the minute trembling of your mouth, darting occasionally upward to capture your own hooded eyes at the sudden boldness of his gesture. He licked his own lips slowly as if thirsty, mirroring the same lazy stroke he'd used against your mouth, allowing you to take your fill of the sight.

No.

Before you could fall into his enticing trap again, your palm pressed firmly against Rafayel's chest until he eased back obediently, giving you space to rise, every single sensation previously pink at the edges quickly melting into clarity about taking care of him properly.

"This isn't the right time," you insisted breathlessly once you managed to catch your breath and speak, steadfast with the strain of iron will alone — pushing forward when your mind threatened to wander where his moistened lips had been just seconds before.

The mood was quickly dispelling, much to Rafayel's clear irritation, judging by the petulant slouch of his shoulders. You emphasized your point by putting your hands on his forehead, cheeks, neck, every patch of skin you could reach, the clear intent of medical examination being communicated silently until he relented with a dramatic sigh, turning his face upwards to expose more of his throat as if giving permission.

"It's fine," he groused reluctantly, although his grumbling somewhat relenting in volume under your gentle inspection. "I'm not dying."

"That's the opposite of what you said earlier today. Are you sure you don't want—"

His hands closed firmly around your wrists, tugging you off gently before you could finish speaking. "It's really not that bad.”

You’d be more convinced if he'd just told you about how miserable he was feeling.

"Is it a Lemurian condition?" You frowned up at him, taking note of how carefully he cradled your hands in his palms, stroking the insides of your wrists. "If it's making you feel awful, shouldn't we see someone about it?"

Rafayel tilted his head at you with a peculiar sort of fondness written across his features. It was difficult to identify what precisely made his smile curve upward into something distinctly knowing, yet warm — something infinitely affectionate yet impossible to quantify.

"Already doing that," he answered cryptically, tilting forward until he met your forehead with his own, nuzzling into the creased spot directly between your brows, eyelashes fluttering shut.

Ugh, this man.

"Do you know for a fact if you'll be okay?" you asked as delicately as possible without sounding too overbearing. That would definitely push Rafayel closer to defensive territory again and have him brush off any attempt at assistance, or even conversation, so you needed to walk the tightrope of concern while still keeping it mild enough for him not to clam up. "This trip still has a few more days left. What if you don't get better?"

The corner of his mouth twitched faintly with a ghost of a smile, perhaps pleased by your attentiveness —— "I enjoy this kind of concern."

—— which was starting to irritate you a little. "Well, I don't. Seeing you suffer and not doing anything isn't enjoyable."

He had the audacity to grin at that, broad enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes as he ducked his head coyly before turning it sharply to brush the tip of his nose against the shell of your ear and murmuring, "Not enjoying seeing me suffering does imply some enjoyment in seeing me otherwise."

"Rafayel!" You snapped finally, jerking out of his embrace with exasperated incredulity, only to meet an unrepentant smile waiting for you beyond your escape. He wasn't deterred whatsoever, which was a little unnerving.

Or rather, the rapid shift to your own pent-up restlessness was about to become in the next two days.

The limbo between then and the memorial hall day unfolded in a whirlwind of contradictions, each more puzzling than the last — starting from the abrupt ending to your interlude in front of the window, where he suddenly pulled back without any warning at all, leaving you cold and stunned with the excuse that he wanted to go to sleep, subsequently kicking you out of his hotel room as if possessed by a demonic force capable of inducing selective amnesia.

Like he wasn’t asking to fold you in half like a laptop mere moments ago.

The result was you forcing mandatory house rest until the day of the memorial hall visit came, settling awkwardly between coddling and hovering — a weird blend of fussing over his health like a mother hen and trying desperately not to make him feel infantilized as a result of said fussing.

All of that only ended with him either clinging close or deliberately distancing himself in confusing waves that seemed to occur at random intervals with little rhyme or reason.

It was simultaneously bewildering and heartbreaking. You had no idea how to react when he gave you zero insight into his thoughts and behaviors unless coaxed open, and even then, his answers were cryptic.

(So much for enjoying your concern.)

Really, this was your fault.

Maybe you shouldn't have pushed. But you worried.

Especially when he was dismissive like that despite being openly going through something other than a fever and a creative block, made worse by his inability to leave the hotel due to the hostile environment. Both of which you could do nothing to help with.

He would sit at the edge of the bed, his sketchbook propped open but untouched, pencil hovering above the page as though waiting for some divine spark that refused to come. At times, he’d stand by the window, reminding you of a cat sitting by its food dish for its owner to fill it with dinner, paw swiping irritatingly at its empty confines. Then, just as abruptly, he’d abandon his spot to sprawl across your lap instead while you were busy with paperwork online, one arm draped loosely over his stomach as he stared blankly at the ceiling in defeat, and demanding you play with his hair.

Then, some time later, it was back to deciding being near you was unbearable, pulling away entirely whenever you reached out for reassurance, no matter how casual or friendly your intentions, retreating back into his personal bubble to focus on attempting to get something on paper mindlessly, pages fluttering with restless action, crumpling here and there under the rough treatment before being smoothed out hastily.

The cycle continued nonstop. Restlessness, fatigue, clinginess, building you up while you didn't let it show because time and place, solitude, then back again — you never knew what Rafayel's whimsies were going to bring, and the uncertainty of it wore you thin, fraying your already wan nerves.

The humidifier was a desperate, last-ditch effort, the kind born out of sheer frustration and the kind of exhaustion that makes rationality optional.

You’d bought it from a small local shop at the crack of dawn, spurred on by the memory of walking into Rafayel’s suite only hours before, where he’d bullied the hotel staff into delivering two oversized sacks of ice — each roughly the size of a small child — and ordered them to be dumped unceremoniously into his bathtub.

At 3 AM. In the dead of night.

By the time you returned and set it up, the machine had barely begun spitting out its first gentle stream of cool mist before Rafayel sat down beside it, legs folded beneath him like a solemn monk meditating in front of some sacred relic. His quiet intensity as he stared at the thing made you wonder if he was grateful, resentful, or some combination of both — because with Rafayel, it was never as simple as one emotion at a time.

Still, the day turned out to be noticeably easier on him, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you allowed yourself to believe that maybe, just maybe, the worst had passed.

He still looked like death warmed over, often pink on the face and worn, but at least he wasn’t on the brink of staging another late-night ice-bag heist.

He even tolerated your awkward attempts to distract him, accepting your offerings of snacks, endless glasses of ice water, iced tea, whatever cold beverages you could scrounge up, and a marathon of that one TV show the two of you had been meaning to watch together.

And, of course, there was the doting.

So much doting.

Which was rare for you.

You were not, by any stretch of the imagination, the kind of person who showered people with attention. You weren’t the mom friend. You didn’t hover. But something about Rafayel in this state, rightfully whiny, subdued, far too fragile for your liking, made you want to roll him over in bubble wrap and shove him in your pocket to keep him safe from everything.

In some ways, you were more anxious than he was.

The helplessness swung at you like you were a tree and it was an axe, the inability to snap your fingers and fix him, to just make it better was torture. Worrying felt inevitable, but useless. And the not knowing what to do with yourself in between bouts of fretting? That was worse. Still, he wasn’t showing any signs of further deterioration, which felt like a victory you didn’t want to jinx.

You were so relieved you briefly considered leaving all your savings to the shop clerk who’d sold you the overpriced humidifier. She had probably thought you’d lost your mind, judging by the way you thanked her like she’d just handed you a ticket to salvation, practically singing her praises as she rang up your purchase. And honestly, if you could go back in time, you would’ve thanked her even more profusely.

Because it worked. Rafayel was better — well, better-ish. Better enough that you decided it was safe to move forward with the plan to visit the memorial hall.

Which, eventually, became a visit to the ocean.

An ocean.

In the middle of a desert.

The sheer impossibility of it left you breathless, like you were standing at the edge of a fever dream made real. The water stretched out endlessly, shimmering beneath the brutal sun, and you couldn’t stop marveling at the sheer absurdity of it — a body of water so vast, so alive, nestled in a place it had no right to be. It felt like a miracle.

It was a miracle.

And just when you thought the desert couldn’t surprise you further, the skies proved you wrong soon enough later, crowning the experience with snowfall at the end of the trip. Snow, delicate and silent, drifting from the sky like a benediction.

You couldn’t help but marvel at it all — at how the world had managed to gift you two impossibilities in the span of a single day. It felt like the desert itself was defying logic, bending over backward to offer something beautiful, something extraordinary, as though it wanted to prove it wasn’t all hardship and sunburnt misery.

But Rafayel stood by the edge of the ocean with a look that made your chest ache — a look that spoke not of wonder, but of mourning. To you, it was a miracle, but to him, it was a tragedy: a dying ocean trapped in a place it could no longer thrive, its very existence a reminder of something slipping away. An everlasting eulogy engraved into reality.

He didn’t look away from the canvas of pain he had set up and started painting for himself until you voiced all of what you thought out loud for him to see.

And this time, you truly felt like you had broken through — like you’d reached him in a way that mattered.

It was there, in that rare, fragile moment, that Rafayel dove straight through your hesitation, sidestepping the awkward pauses you were fumbling with, and pulled you into an embrace before you even had the courage to ask if you could. It was as though he had heard the unspoken thought aloud, plucking it out of the air with startling precision.

And then he’d confessed — softly, almost too softly — that at the time, he had wanted to come here before, with the most important person in his life.

Those words lodged themselves in your chest, a bittersweet ache blooming alongside the unmistakable joy bubbling up within you. You hugged him back as tightly as you could, pouring all the gratitude you didn’t know how to put into words into that one simple gesture. Gratitude for trusting you enough to share that. Gratitude for showing you yet another new side of himself, something unguarded and rare. A treat, indeed, one you hadn’t expected but cherished all the same.

Relief flooded through you, so potent it felt like a physical weight lifting from your shoulders. You hadn’t even realized how tense you’d been until that moment. Your body relaxed, and with that relaxation came fatigue, the kind that crept up on you and left no room for resistance. Before you knew it, you had fallen asleep during the entire way back, lulled into a rare sense of peace you hadn’t felt in days.

And yet.

Like clockwork, he withdrew the instant you arrived back at the hotel.

Rafayel never thought he’d truly understand what it meant to drown.

As a creature of the sea, he wasn't meant to in the first place.

Not until you.

The realization had hit him like a storm breaking over still waters — not all at once, but in slow, rumbling waves that built. He didn’t even feel himself breaking; it was more like a slow erosion, the kind that wears stone into sand. Quiet, but irreversible. Your optimism. Your touches. Your encouragement. Inching in and in and in one step at a time.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

He had been holding himself together in the driver's seat, hands knotted around the steering wheel and knuckles bloodless with how tightly he gripped. Every inch of him vibrated with anxiety, away from where you lay fast asleep beside him, breathing shallow and uneven like he was afraid of exhaling too loudly. But there you were, oblivious, asleep, your head leaning softly against the window as if his world hadn’t collapsed in on itself.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

It wasn’t the desert heat that was killing him, though it might as well have been. (Everything about this place grated against him — the air, the dry scrape of his skin, the silence of the fading ocean that was too vast to be comforting. Too big. Too empty. Fading. Fading. A warning from cities away that this land was no place for a creature like him.) He wasn’t meant for this — for the cracked earth and the relentless sun and the suffocating absence of water. His body ached for moisture, for the cool, familiar embrace of the sea, but it ached even more for you. (He didn’t even realize how long he had been watching you from the corner of his peripheral vision — how long he had been unraveling, thread by thread.)

You’d tilted his world off its axis, turned everything he thought he knew into something unrecognizable. Once, pain had been his anchor. It was always there—constant, unyielding, something he could hold on to when nothing else made sense. It had driven him, fueled him, given him purpose when nothing else could. He had sought it out like a man dying of thirst seeks a mirage, and it had never failed him. Pain was constant. Pain was reliable. Pain was everything. Inside. Outside. It was all he had ever known, and it had kept him alive — fed the anger that gnashed his insides with teeth and claws, soothed the beast that prowled just under his skin, tempered the instinct that drove him relentlessly onward. Toward destruction. Towards home.

He had used it as a shield, as armor, as the whip he wielded against those who dared to clip the tails of his people. A weapon. A tool. A brush.

And then there was you (who he'd willingly sought out, angry and grieving and resentful and hurt.)

You, who didn’t fit into his carefully crafted world of suffering and art and revenge. You, who had made him forget (as easily as you forgot him) what it felt like to hurt, to ache, to yearn for something greater than himself. To hate. To see others bleed while his fingers flew across canvas after canvas, leaving only beauty in their wake — only soaring wings, only gleaming scales, only flowing water, only living fire, only reaching skies, only rushing wind, only rising floods...

Only you.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

Except now, he did yearn. He yearned in a way that was foreign and unbearable, in a way that felt like drowning — not in water, but in light, in warmth, in the overwhelming weight of wanting something too much. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he wanted you this much — needed you this much — when he didn’t even know who he was without all the hurt and hatred inside. It wasn’t fair that he felt something hot and ugly churning under his skin whenever you smiled up at him in admiration, filling his stomach with lead until he thought he might collapse beneath its heaviness. It wasn't fair that there were times when he thought it might actually be better not to have met you again at all.

(That thought filled him with dread so immense it threatened to crush the breath from his lungs; the possibility of having spent his entire life stumbling aimlessly through darkness towards a destination he was no longer sure even existed — )

He watched you sleep, the rhythm of your breathing steady and unbothered.

His gaze lingered on your hands, resting loosely in your lap, fingers twitching faintly as if even in sleep, you were reaching for something. (Reaching for him?) He wanted to take them in his own, to press them to his lips, to hold on so tightly he’d never have to let go. But he couldn’t. (He wouldn’t.)

Because the moment he did, he knew he’d lose whatever fragile standing he had left.

(“Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?”)

His thoughts spiraled, looping back on themselves in a tangle of contradictions that refused to resolve; questions without answers, fears without resolutions. What had he become, to need you like this? To depend on you like this? To depend on you so completely that even the idea of your absence felt like the loss of something vital — something essential — an emptiness he wasn't prepared to face.

(What must you think of him? Did you even know what you did to him? What would you think of him?)

He had told himself he could manage it, that he could stay close enough to feel your warmth but far enough not to burn. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? He was already burning. He had been burning since the moment he met you. An addictive pain — the kind that made him ache for more even as it seared him from the inside out.

And before he knew it, the car was parked beside the hotel entrance around the far corner of the garden, and Rafayel didn’t remember driving there at all.

He blinked, confused for a moment as to how exactly he had managed to pilot the vehicle, when you stirred quietly in the passenger seat, drawing his attention like a moth to flame.

You groaned softly, eyelids fluttering, but remained firmly locked within slumber's grip as he unbuckled your seatbelt for you, as gently as if he were handling fine china. Your head leaned sideways against the headrest and faced him, slack and soft with sleep. His fingers twitched around the plastic buckle, curling into a fist until he thought they might cramp under the strain.

He leaned forward, forehead coming to contact with the cool leather surface of the steering wheel, squeezing his eyes shut tight enough to blot out your presence entirely.

There was too much to process — too many feelings, thoughts, sensations threatening to overwhelm him if he looked directly at them, instead swirling through his head like debris caught in a vortex, invisible yet disorienting nonetheless.

But they all blipped out of existence the moment he turned his head around, following the impulse to look.

(“Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?”)

The urge struck Rafayel with all the force of a lightning bolt — bright, sudden, unavoidable — and suddenly the knuckles of his fingers were sliding across your cheek, feather-light in gentle arcs along the arch of your cheek, savoring every inch of satin flesh as it shifted beneath his caress.

The sensation of touch buzzed pleasantly underneath his skin previously starved, reveling in the sweetness of contact after so many days of withdrawal.

The artificial light coming from outside bathed your sleeping form in a glow that cascaded like a gentle waterfall, chiaroscuro shadows casting angles upon your features, emphasizing every line and curve, and for a long time, all he could do was stare. He could feel your breath against the tips of his nails, warm puffs of moist exhales against his calloused flesh, and found himself fixating on the gentle undulation of your chest as you breathed — unconsciously, mindlessly unaware of what such a simple act did to him.

The memory of your voice echoed in his mind, soft and certain, cutting through the chaos like a beam of light.

"Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?"

You had a way of reframing everything, of taking the pieces of his broken world and rearranging them into something that almost looked like hope. (He hated it. He loved it. He hated that he loved it.) It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

You hadn’t asked to become such an integral part of his existence — so intrinsic and fundamental and irreplaceable. Yet somehow, here you were. Here he was. The absence of water, the grief of it. The grief of what it meant to lose something so essential, so intrinsic, that one didn’t know how to live without it. And that grief had found a new home in you. You, who had become his ocean, his escape, the source of every ache in his chest and joy in his heart.

(Isn't it a surprise that there's an ocean in the desert? Isn't it a surprise you're the muse calling to him and not the muffled, fading cries of the dying ocean in pain, not the skeletal remains of an era he'd never get back?)

He gazed, and gazed, and gazed, drinking you in like a thirsty man lost in a sea of golden sands, watching the subtle play of lights over the curves of your face — the delicate angle of your chin, the arch of your nose, the graceful slope of your neck as it curved into collarbone and shoulder — memorizing every detail he could, without the pressure of having to wrench himself back before he drowned in your wake, without the need to pretend to your face he was anything less than desperate to be with you all day, every day, in every way possible. And that the sound of your voice in his ears was enough to get the paintbrush running across paper from the sheer momentum of his imagination.

But he couldn't keep going like this.

Somehow, somewhen, between the start of your journey and now, this thing had begun shifting irrevocably past his ability to contain it any longer. Had grown exponentially until it seemed to dwarf his capacity to handle it. All it would take was being away from you for a mere few hours to bring him to a level of misery that was honestly embarrassing.

And you had no idea.

No idea that orbiting around him in these past few days like a second moon had only served to exacerbate the foul joy of watching you fawn over him.

It made him sick to his stomach to admit it, but soaking in the knowledge (in his soul, through the bond) that you cared so deeply for him went straight to his head like some drug he hadn't realized he needed.

It felt so despairingly good that he would wrap himself around you like a vine climbing towards sunlight if he could for the rest of his days, absorbing your rays of affection like photosynthesis... or a parasite.

(Was he being punished by the sea that this love was eclipsing his fury and vengeance? Or rewarded that he held both equally in his grasp despite how terribly wrong it felt at times? Regardless, his inspiration was the punchline, once only capable of singing into the canvas elegies of lament and sorrow, now composed ballads and odes that poured out effortlessly.)

You would hate him if you ever found out just how perversely his emotions swung in every direction; so high one moment that the ecstasy of relief nearly shattered his reserve of control, and so low the next that he feared he'd choke to death from the guilt that clawed up the back of his throat like a strangled animal's cry for mercy.

This entire ordeal had flipped the script completely — instead of keeping you at arm's length as he normally did (regarding… everything), Rafayel now clung onto you desperately like Tantalus to a branch of fruit he’d finally gotten a grasp of, and what if he was exposed? The question rose like bile in his mouth whenever he began slipping.

“I won't leave you.”

Liar, his grudge wanted to answer.

It remembered. It never forgot. It told him you'd flee and never look back if he let a sliver of this dependency that bound him tighter to you with each passing day slip out from his fingertips — if he allowed you even the tiniest insight into the strange workings of his head and his heart.

Because you didn’t understand. You couldn’t. You had no idea what you were talking about when you told him you wouldn’t leave. How could you, when you didn’t know the depths of what you were promising to stay for? You didn’t know the true nature of Lemurian love, its ferocity, its weight, its cost. The all-consuming, all-encompassing reality of it — how they loved as if it was the only thing tethering them to existence itself. How they lived for it, how they died for it. How he had been dying for it.

If you saw it — if you saw him — you would run. He knew you would. Because if he laid bare just how much he depended on you, how much of his breath, his will, his very being hinged on you, you’d be overwhelmed. You’d leave.

Why else would he be tearing himself apart like this? Miserably trying to wean himself off you, forcing himself to let go only to grasp harder each time he felt you’d finally come to hate him and slip away?

He didn't know how long he sat there in silence.

Just a bit longer, he would keep watching you with these feelings out in the open. Just a little bit longer. He couldn’t bear to wake you up.

By the time you stirred, groggy and disoriented but blissfully unsuspecting, it felt as though several eternities had passed in the span of minutes, and he had to struggle with all the strength of a raging current to force himself back into this skin of his that felt too tight and suffocating around him.

But, still resting his temple against the steering wheel with an arm slung on top of it and another hanging lazily at his side, feigning ease, nothing betrayed his inner turmoil.

He watched quietly as you slowly regained your bearings, resisting the temptation to reach out and brush aside that one piece of hair out of place on your head, letting you find the words first.

(So adorable. So endearing.)

(It was not only snowing in his desert. There was also an ocean in there.)

"Rafayel..?"

"Yeah?"

"How long was I asleep?" You blinked at him blearily, one hand lifting to rub the lingering tiredness from your eyelids as you peer into the darkness of night beyond his silhouette. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

Everything he'd been thinking about vaporized and left behind nothing but softness, so tender it scared him; it seeped into the spaces in his heart left vacant and curled inside them, filling every corner, until it made the next smile he offered you come free of burden. "You were sleeping so well, cutie. I didn't want to disturb you."

The unconscious put of your lips and the way that strand of hair bounced around when you slid down your seat a little had him leaning in before he knew what he was doing, smoothing the unruly thing, fingertips betraying him by skating across the outer edge of your ear while he watched you tilt your cheek instinctively.

His body warmed immediately, gravitating towards you in a half-hug that kept you cradled close to the side of his frame as he nuzzled into your hair above your temple with a hum, dipping his nose deeper into the crown of your head near where your neck curved gracefully upwards before inhaling deep — greedy, thirsty, like he’d die if he couldn’t seep up all the scent of you.

Your breathing hitched a bit, and that’s what halted him right at the corner of your mouth with a sharp exhale — he couldn’t be doing this, he was just thinking about how he needed to pull back and —

Art salon.

Yeah, the art salon gathering.

He was supposed to be on his way to there like yesterday.

If only his body didn’t move like a most willing pupped tethered by strings to yours and refused to walk away whenever he tried.

“…Rafayel?”

It suddenly hotter in this car like a tide pool at noon. So stiflingly hot he was breathing fire even with the snowy weather outside. So unbearable the deepest V-cut known to mankind that had his whole chest out for the world to ogle did nothing to help.

He could… He could skip.

Yeah, he needed this. It had been literal days of non-stop withdrawal and a push-and-pull of his frustration that you wouldn’t touch him (because oh noo, he was sick — which, he wasn’t!) and stubbornness to not let you touch him. He’d gotten to a point that he was drunk off your scent alone and he couldn’t keep doing this forever, and why should he? Why did it matter about this event at all? Who cared — who cared about some stupid gathering? He wasn’t functioning anyways until he—

Stop. He had to stop. He was already so late.

He imagined catching himself by the scruff of his neck and yanking himself back to the driver's seat, within safe borders. Far away from your mesmerizing lips and wandering eyes and cute squirming in your seat under the thin cover of innocence.

And pulling away and practically fusing with the car door was exactly what he did.

He needed to prove to himself, just this once, that he could function without the constant reassurance of your presence — that he wasn’t helplessly anchored to you, no matter how much the pull of your moon whispered otherwise.

He had to dilute himself. This — and his inspiration problem, involving you or not, was his to figure out. And he had to figure it out if he wanted you to stay by his side.

"...Do you wanna go back to your room first?" he heard himself ask you quietly.

"You're not coming with me?" The tiny furrow of worry between your brows spoke volumes about your confusion, and despite wanting to reach out and smooth it away, to wipe every ounce of uncertainty from your face with a tender kiss, Rafayel clenched his fingers around the door handle of the vehicle until they cramped, his heart aching strangely inside his chest as you stared quizzically at him.

He brought out the invitation that came with the memorial hall ticket, waving it a little with little to no enthusiasm, "I still have to attend my friend's art salon thing."

The way your shoulders deflated and face dropped at the mention made him waver in — not enough to follow through with ditching the whole thing, but certainly making his resolve weak enough to crack like glass under pressure. "But you don't look well. You need to rest."

How could someone manage to resist getting spoiled like this, he thought miserably as he closed his eyes while you continued fussing, peering worriedly up into his face with the cutest scrunch to your forehead, palms searching along his cheeks heat before trailing down the length of his arms, and he wanted nothing more than to give in to that impulse of being coddled to bits by your hands alone.

He was a weak man.

You nearly lifted off the passenger seat and fell into his lap the way he embraced you, his arms coiling around you like kelp around a rock, holding fast as though you might slip away with the wind. His face buried into the crook of your neck, breath warm and uneven against your skin, his grip snug yet teetering on the edge of too much — like he didn’t trust himself to let go. There was a desperation in the way his hands trembled slightly, his fingers pressing into your sides, not hard enough to hurt but enough to leave the faintest impression of how badly he needed this. When your pained whine broke through, it was like snapping a thread, he instantly loosened his hold, guilt washing over his features as he pulled back just enough to make room for you to breathe. But he stayed close, his forehead dipping to rest against your shoulder as a heavy sigh rumbled deep from his chest, raw and apologetic. You leaned heavily into him, your fingers threading into his hair in a gesture that should have comforted him, but instead left him drowning deeper in the tangled sea of his emotions.

"See? You're burning up again," you mumbled as your cool lips grazed his temple in a comforting kiss. He was no better than a child. He knew it. And he hated how much he basked in your coddling, reveled in the unspoken message behind your words: Don't hide it. Tell me when you hurt. I care. "Maybe we can go together? Will you feel okay if I'm there?"

He would. He would feel more than okay, because that's what made him function.

But he couldn't keep being like this.

"Do you wanna turn me into a sea creature beached on the sand after the ocean recedes," he whispered, mostly kidding except not really, hiding in the dip of your neck just below your ear, hand tracing absent shapes into the small of your back above your tailbone. "Unable to breathe on my own, waiting helplessly for your tide's return?"

Your fingers stroking through his hair slowed, then stilled entirely at the edge of his nape. You pulled back only far enough to meet his lowered stare, confusion dancing within your own, bright and clear and genuine. You had no inkling of what was going on with him, and he didn’t want you to find out either. He would be fine. He was going to handle it.

"Don't you trust me?" Rafayel said. "How about we make a promise? I promise... I'll be okay without you tonight."

It hurt to lie to you so directly, but seeing your doubt dissolve to appease him helped soothe that sting considerably. (Even if it felt a little too convenient to rely on such flimsy methods.) You nodded, seeming convinced in spite of yourself, and his stance firmed — strengthened with your faith and affirmation alike, like he'd just taken a double shot of espresso. He would be okay. He wasn't going to keep imposing his feelings upon you even if a part of him desperately yearned to, no matter how difficult the prospect seemed.

(Say no, a small part of him whispered traitorously, selfishly, insistently. Ask me to stay. You know I can't say no to you, he wanted to plead. Needed to be affirmed once more, reassured that he was welcome to indulge, to remain, to lean into the comfort you offered freely.)

"Okay..." you echoed uncertainly, but gave him another soft smile — tentative yet warm, gentle encouragement. He watched quietly as your expressions shifted in quick succession, cycling through shades of hesitation and worry before settling on resignation. You nodded again, firmer this time, seemingly steeling yourself against whatever doubts you harbored. He wanted to kiss it all away.

But instead, he gently pushed you back, sinking further into his seat, looking out the view beyond the windshield to gather his wits against the force that was your presence beside him.

"You can head back," he repeated, not turning to meet your searching stare. "I can handle it."

The art salon had an air of cultivated elegance, grandiosity reflecting into soaring ceilings and walls adorned with curated artworks, with conversations floating in fragmented pieces, the occasional laughter punctuating the steady hum of "cultured" discourse — all the while Rafayel stood at the periphery, his posture consciously maintained with the kind of deliberate nonchalance that masked a profound discomfort, one hand buried in his pant pockets and the other holding a flute glass of champagne, ghosting the suffocating room with an expression of aloof disdain, attention drifting from painting to painting without ever settling. Humans circled him like murmuring specters, their faces a study in muted curiosity and empty civility. He loathed their presence. (Yet, here he was.)

The room's overwhelming sensory overload grated against his composure — cloying mingling of varnish and wine, sharply polished sheen of curated lighting, artifice of smiles that never reached their eyes...

He should leave. (No, he had to stay.)

The dichotomy was a pendulum swinging between contempt and an unspoken compulsion to endure. He’d insisted he didn’t need you here, insisted on proving — to himself as much as to you — that he could function without your constant presence. But the more he replayed his own words in his mind, the more it was obvious the joke was on him.

He rolled his eyes as an overly enthusiastic laugh erupted nearby, a sound sharp enough to pinprick through his already thinning out patience. His hand twitched in his pocket, the movement a reflexive manifestation of his barely-contained frustration.

(Focus.)

The art, exquisite as it was, did little to distract him as the chatter blurred into a meaningless drone, the edges of the room constricting him under the weight of pretense.

And then. The tug.

At first, it was delicate — an unsuspecting tremor sifting through his awareness, like the faintest ripple across an otherwise still surface that he thought he was imagining and hoping this was you. But it swelled rapidly, a deluge of sensations sweeping him off his feet towards your pull with a force that left his breath stuttering and the floor wavering beneath, erupting into vivid, agonizing clarity.

His lips tingled, a ghostly imprint of a kiss not yet given.

Heat bloomed under his skin, first at the base of his throat, spreading like a slow, insidious current. The faintest pressure, then, at his collarbone, radiating outward, like silk dragging over sensitive skin, a tingling warmth that prickled and spread, until it seemed to rewrite the very contours of his form, leaving him trembling with phantom caresses that lingered far too long to ignore.

He could feel the press of your palms against his chest, the drag of your nails over the planes of his stomach, each sensation so precise it made his breath catch, and the ache in his hands mirrored the way you gripped at yourself. Every brush of your hand — every hurried, seeking stroke — burned through him like smoldering embers, and he swore he could hear the faintest hitch of your breath, feel the tremor in your thighs.

A siren song of need that echoed his own, calling him under, drowning him in you.

Come to me, come to me, stay with me.

His breath hitched with the oxygen turning into lava-hot needle prickling in his lungs, his legs going limp as noodles and giving way. He collapsed into the nearest chair with a jarring lack of control, the motion abrupt, almost violent.

One hand clamped onto the edge of the table as he hastily discarded the champagne glass to cover where the bond was glowing, fingers digging into the wood as if it were the only thing keeping him from being swept away.

A single candle at the table’s center responded instead of Rafayel, its once languid, uninterested flame quivering violently, and then erupting into an erratic flare, a burst of light so sharp and sudden it cut through the room like a gasp. The activity drew murmurs from those nearby, heads turning, eyes widening as the flame seemed to writhe with a life of its own as wax spilled over the edges of its holder, dripping down in frantic rivulets, glistening like molten gold beneath the trembling glow.

"Hey, Rafayel, man, you good?"

A hand on his shoulder made him flinch violently and slap it away, the contact snapping him partway out of his spiraling thoughts. "Don't."

He was already rising, the chair scraping noisily against the floor as he pushed himself upright with a force that bordered on frenetic. The friend stood as well, confusion clear, but Rafayel didn’t wait to explain — with a curt shake of his head, he turned on his heel and strode toward the exit, leaving the other man standing there with his hand half-raised, a bewildered, "Hey, where are you going, come back!" hanging unanswered in the air.

The murmurs of those left behind — curious stares, the faint scrape of chairs and clothes ruffling — faded into irrelevance, they barely even registered. The bond burned like a tether, yanking him back to you, and he had neither the strength nor the desire to disobey.

By the time he reached the cool air of the night outside, he was seething. He had heard you loud and clear.

You merciless, cruel, horrible witch of a woman, punishing him with your sweet truth in an act so loving yet selfish, selfless yet entirely possessive, driving him completely to his wit's end until the only remaining thought was yours — to worship you wholly, thoroughly, obsessively, as deeply as he wanted.

He was in love.

You were in Rafayel’s room.

Because for his sanity to be tested like you intended it would be, of course you had to be in there of all places.

He was able to crash in the way he wanted like a dam bursting without knocking holding him back. In fact, he didn’t even bother calling out at all.

And honestly, he wasn’t even lucid enough for coherent thoughts such as those the moment his vision tunneled on your frame in the middle of his space, your back turned to him, an unaware and unintentional siren in a fluffy white robe loosely tied at your hips.

His robe.

Rafayel was moving before he registered the full picture — prowling the distance between you within seconds, hand snatching up yours and spinning you around. Just being this close and touching you uninhibited got the synapses firing faster than bullets in his head. He pushed forward into your space with no preamble, crowding you against the floor-to-ceiling window. He spared another two or three precious seconds taking in your startled expression with vindication (“Rafayel, what are you doing here?” before putting a stop to all the unnecessary talking with a kiss.

How could he expected himself to stay away from this?

One knee pushed between your thighs, a subtle but undeniable acknowledgment of what he’d felt, and you faltered, clutching the sides of his shirt so abruptly the lily decorations peppered through out clinked. A quiet noise escaped past your lips, muffled by his own and intensifying the building pressure simmering in his gut as he played with the collar of your robe — his robe — and drank greedily from you.

He felt a push at his chest.

The separation between you that couldn’t be more than a tight space to breathe each other’s air brought the world rushing back into focus — Aridum’s quiet, serene snowfall materialized behind your head like a mockery of their frenzied tangle of limbs, the ambient sounds of the city bustling in the distance dampened.

Your eyes searched his, glazed and hazy with steadily-building arousal, yet waiting nonetheless for an answer, shiny lips parted in wordless wonder.

Rafayel could say nothing. The words were there, soda fizz under the surface threatening to erupt into something incomprehensible at best if he opened his mouth.

His palm engulfed your cheek and drew you right back in, continuing the kiss with more urgency to prevent you from tumbling out from his grasp again — let the action speak for him.

The need that thrummed deep beneath rendered him mute, save for strained sighs and grunts of effort louder than the rustle of fabric and the thuds of feet shuffling around on the floor as he plundered your mouth, tongue chasing yours. It tasted like toothpaste and chapstick, like fresh mint leaves, like nurturing warmth cooling his into something calmer.

Rafayel’s hand left your face and slid down your back to seize your waist, dragging you closer, flushing your hips against his firmer and pushing his thigh more brashly. Not even a second later, his other hand bracing your wrist against the window pulled your arm into him to spin you around like in a dance, switching positions without breaking away.

And you bit him.

He recoiled with an “Ah,” that was more surprised than pained, drawing away just enough to swipe his thumb over the curve of his bottom lip where your teeth had punctured him.

“Why are you here?”

Something rotten and vicious was about to bare his fangs at you through a smile he barely stopped from telling on himself by holding back, ‘You called,’ from slipping.

The other, more acceptable answer came in a quick and effortless sweep of your legs off the floor, draping them over either side of his waist, one palm supporting you underneath like the cradle of a hammock as he pivoted towards the bed. “This is my room,” he said — low, simple, keeping eye contact to witness your frustration. “You’re the one who walked in here.”

He saw in the curl of your mouth that you would’ve continued arguing semantics if not for Rafayel bending to deposit you gently atop the bed for you to settle safely beneath him. The mattress creaked under his shifting as he eased further and started descending to resume getting lost in your kisses until a finger landed upon his lips.

“What I meant was,” you started, and Rafayel exhaled against your touch and nuzzled into it like an obedient pet coming to heel with a lowered tail before his master. “Shouldn’t you be at that art salon?”

He stared, blood about to keel over the boiling point.

His beloved was pouting. So adorable that he wanted to bite down.

You’d been so patient with him, hadn’t you? The little divot between your brows called out to Rafayel, begging to be kissed.

“I regret going in the first place,” he said, getting closer to breathe those words directly against the curve of your ear, savoring its delicate shell and the heat emanating from it against his lower lip — basking in the short tremble he could pull out of you that told him all he needed to know. “Stay here with me—”

His arm dipped around your waist and tugged you insistently closer, shakily eager, while your hands scrambled at his biceps, the side of your neck stretching upward to meet his halfway and melting further into him like candle wax molding against Rafayel and pooling liquid sweetness inside him like a basin filled.

Ring — ring — ring — ring — ring — ring — ring!

What the hell? Now?

A surge of irrational anger flared inside Rafayel, sharp and sudden, as if the hotel room phone had personally wronged him so bone-deep that his ancestors themselves had been insulted by its shrill, untimely ring. He clicked his tongue sharply against the roof of his mouth, a frustrated noise brimming with disdain as he reached out with the intention of silencing the nuisance immediately.

But before his hand could reach the red button, your fingers curled gently around his wrist, halting him mid-motion. The touch was soft, warm, and unassuming, yet it cut through his irritation more effectively than words ever could. His breath hitched as he glanced down at your hand, stilling under the quiet weight of what you were going to say next.

“Wait,” your dulcet murmur came. “What if it’s something important?”

More than this?

The irritation got you a side eye for that — but he quickly caught onto where this was heading from the way you gave him a pointed, sultry glance under your lashes and the faintest devilish curl at the corners at your lips. The grip around his wrist turned into your fingers interlacing with his as you guided him to accept the call, holding his gaze so intensely throughout that the beginning of the reception’s announcement went unheard in his ears.

“The guest of this room is unable to answer. Please leave a message."

Rafayel hadn’t even found a chance to breathe, let alone process what was even happening when you pushed him off and knocked him flat onto his back, straddling his hips with surprising speed which elicited an involuntary jolt from him.

He froze, breath caught somewhere between his lungs and the thick, burning, moistureless air that was overheating him. A thousand words tumbled in a rush into his mouth at once, all died under his breath in a sigh as his senses swam and short-circuited in response to your boldness, the sheer power radiating off your figure captivating him. For a single, stretched heartbeat, all he could do was look up — look at you.

The light from the ceiling framed your form in a way that bordered on divine, spilling past the loose strands of hair that fell around your face and catching on the curves of your silhouette like a lover's caress. Shadows slithered around you, dipping into the soft folds and valleys of the bathrobe that clung to you in all the places his gaze couldn’t help but follow.

And then the vision struck, slicing through his mind like a blade dragged cleanly through water.

No, you brought it to him, conjuring it as surely as though you had whispered it directly into his mind.

The blues wouldn’t just be blues — shadowy cobalt would bleed into the depths below, heavy and still, fading into fractured glacier blue as the water grew lighter near the surface, where the sun struggled to break through. The greens would soften into glassy jade, shimmering faintly, caught in the shifting light as if the water itself pulsed with life. Shadows would stretch in drenched charcoal, not oppressive but endless, framing the brightness above almost like curtains opening.

And there, close to the surface, you would hover like the sun underwater, light spilling from you in ripples and shards. Your form would glow with submerged gold, warm and radiant, a halo of sunlit pearl surrounding you where the sunlight hit the water and scattered around your silhouette. You wouldn’t simply stand still — you would drift, your movements impossibly fluid, arms outstretched in a gesture that could be comfort or inevitability, a quiet invitation to a homecoming. Shadows would gather around your curves in bruised honey, soft and subtle, fading into the glow that surrounded you, the kind of light that looked almost too warm to belong in the cold ocean.

The person who the painting was drawn from the perspective of would see you not as a person, but as something greater. His arms would float above him, slack and surrendered, the only movement from his fingers angled upwards, glowing faintly with washed ash gold, the last vestiges of warmth clinging to his skin, while the rest of his form darkened in the embrace of storm-drift gray. Faraway air bubbles would be glacier silver-blue catching the warm light as they ascended toward the unreachable surface, reflections flickering like distant stars against the background of salt-shadow teal.

This was a homecoming.

The bursting of colors landing on his imaginary canvas came to a head when the branding heat of your mouth found his ear, screeching into stuttered motion and scattering like seagulls afterwards. His head lolled sideways under the zapping pressure, inviting more of the world-halting caress that left him all limp.

Then it was gone — only a cool tingling remained where yout moist breaths once ghosted him —

"Hey bro, why'dya leave? Get back here—"

Shocked as if he had short time memory about it being a voice message, he squirmed for a beat, eyes flitting in panic between the call display and you with the mortification of every single drop of blood in his body rushing southwards.

His friend’s voice fractured into static buzzing under the pounding of his ears when you bowed forward once more, towards the red mark on top of his mark that was practically vibrating under his skin, trailing kisses across its glow. Every skin contact point with you burned even with the layers of clothing in-between, melting into an acute throb as you reached the base of his throat and dipped into the hollow between his collarbones — fingers dancing along the strip of his neckpiece before delving underneath, dragging down and delicately, deliciously tugging.

That was all it took for Rafayel to flip your positing and roll you beneath his body, propping himself up with one forarm and holding your wrist to just — stop you for a minute, expression tight as he asked, “Are you sure?”

Your intentions were crystal clear, but it was necessary to check in before continuing any further even though he needed this like air right now, and the prospect of hearing it straight from your lips that he was wanted —

Looking somewhere off to the side, you replied, “Otherwise you’ll actually go back,” thoughtfully, but there was something resentful in there, the statement almost bitter sounding in its delivery.

The overjoyed press of his lips to hide the smile he just knew would annoy you betrayed what he was thinking on the spot.

“So cute,” breached containment however, full of affection as he moved aside your hair behind your ear tenderly, fore and middle fingers taking your love’s sensitive edge between them and caressing, causing you to turn your face further away from him. “You must have missed me quite a lot.”

That sentence was accompanied by the press of his knee into the junction between your inner thighs, innocent enough unless you factored in that one certain revelation of earlier that entirely changed the context in intent. Especially when your pupils dilated visibly before him as you choked out a tiny gasp of surprise, revealing your guilt in glaring clarity.

“What, not pleased you got caught?”

A wicked impulse seized him — one daring him to keep playing this card to unlock so many possibilities as to how he could have you tonight.

He could have you show him what you’d done while he watched until you begged to be touched — on your back with legs wide open for his viewing pleasure, or hovering right above his face in 4K Ultra HD quality that he could just lay down and enjoy and perhaps contribute with his breath if he felt generous enough. You were having fun all on your own, yeah? He just wanted in on it. Not knowing wasn’t a sin, but not learning was.

If you didn’t think you were ready to bear the consequences of this decision of yours, you should have rethought before choosing the room he frequented, shouldn’t have turned him into a fish out of water in public by calling out to him like that, should have known better that Rafayel could be the vilest when he was provoked.

“Or, are you?”

His words were a double-edged knife. Pick the surface-level meaning and you ended up with him teasing you about missing him quite literally, nothing more, nothing less. Take him for what lay beneath, however...

Unfortunately, or, fortunately, you were one slippery fish.

"Why should I be ashamed?" The confidence that dripped from your reply rang genuine. You were so unbothered by his instigation that he realized this was going to be harder than expected, perhaps more rewarding as well. A delightful prospect. "Do you wish I wouldn't miss you?"

Oh, your pride, your grudge was truly an impressive sight —

gleaming razor-sharp even under scrutiny, glittering steel reflecting his image in fragments, and yet tempered by enough warmth to invite him closer instead of warding him off.

"Not at all." His heart sang. "But it couldn't compare to how much I missed you."

"And you still left," came a mumble, sounding more dejected than anything, carrying the weight of his deeds for the past two days.

It was that easy to change his mood.

Rafayel cooed instinctively, rubbing soothing circles into the skin above your knuckles as he pressed a string of quick kisses into the curve of your wrist — lips brushing tender apologies along its path until he reached the palm of your hand cupping his face, where he lingered to feel you stroke delicately over his lower lashes.

"I'm here now," was his gentle promise, one spoken nuzzled against the backs of your fingers. "I'm not going anywhere."

"What are you going to say to your friend? You didn't even pick up his call," you admonished softly, drawing his attention towards where the voicemail was still being displayed on the hologram screen hovering from the nightstand, accepting a prompt about how to proceed.

Rafayel made a show of leaning back to sit back on his heels, staring down at you as he slipped his fingers underneath the tightly-belted thick, sash-like band to pop the clasp to the side apart, the metal closure disengaging with a small clack as the ends slid free and exposed the zipper underneath.

He drank in your every reaction — every detail of you sprawled out before him: your robe coming undone ever so gradually, tantalizing glimpses of skin peeking between its parted folds, a little bit of collarbone here, the curve of your breast there, teasingly hinting at the shape of a nipple underneath the white fabric, then another flash of thigh, an exposed inch of inner leg from your feet shifting restlessly alongside his shins.

He pulled the whole belt free in one smooth yank — the sudden momentum making it snap with a harsh crack. It curled like a ribbon in his palm as he surveyed you, gauging your reaction; watching your widened stare catch onto cloth held loosely in his fist as he flung it haphazardly to the side.

Then, he started tugging at your ankle to raise it higher — dragging his knuckles along your heel, the sole of your foot, caressing into the arch of your instep, traveling along the softness of your calf all the way down to your knee, a single fingertip trailing underneath, slinking gradually but surely toward the inner side, tracing hypnotic spirals into the silky flesh that made your breathing hitch unevenly.

The ends of your robe were riding further up past your thigh along with the slow march, your naked skin revealed in gradual increments the higher his palm slid — revealing more and more until his hand stopped at the underside of your thigh, entirely disappeared from view because of the bunched up cloth, and pulled your leg up gently to drape it over the curve of waist.

Falling right back in on instinct, he leaned down, propped above your splayed form on his forearm beside your shoulder and bent to drag his nose upwards along the line of your cheekbone, saying, "I'm busy."

Your answering snicker was endearing and familiar, drawing forth a swell of warmth inside him like the sun rising over a tranquil ocean's horizon. "Still trying to run away?"

“Just returning to the original plan.”

There would be no running away now — not anymore, not ever, at least not from you and what you made him feel. He'd tried; failed, obviously, as evident in his return here, where the answer awaited him with open arms.

"Who says I'm going to agree? I still haven't forgiven you.”

Rafayel adored that one pout of yours, the one that curved at its edges like the swoop of a bird's wing, delicate and lovingly rounded in its downturned shape. It drew his mouth upward to meet its match, slotting perfectly against its twin seamlessly in the union of a kiss, lingering as if they belonged together like puzzle pieces. You melted sweetly under the fondness contained within the gesture, sighing quietly in surrender; every angle of his mouth was drawn to yours inexorably, it was gravity pulling falling stars back to their courses.

"Not yet," he amended dutifully once he could manage words again, and felt your smile widen before sealing his mouth over it. "Let me."

"If you beg," you shot right back, the curve of your mouth pronounced against his chin, smug satisfaction dripped from every word and its delivery as you pulled away again just enough to meet his half-hooded stare evenly — daring him to refuse you. "Properly."

You kissed the little groan that was about to spill past his lips, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Neither was it intended to.

"How would you like me to repent?" He dragged the question into an offer, a honey trap ripe for plundering. "On my knees? On my back?"

He let his arousal to show on his fact at those mental images, conjured by practiced ease, crafted to seduce. The soft puff of your exhale danced across his chin, sending his nerves tingling. A sign he was on the right track? Or did it merely betray surprise at whatyou had in mind? Either possibility stirred his blood.

"You know what someone in your position shouldn’t do?" you whispered, low and hushed, conspiratorial yet laced with a dangerous authority that quickened his pulse. His brows rose involuntarily, the shift in your tone sending anticipation skittering down his spine. Your lashes swept low, casting faint shadows on your cheeks as your pointed stare locked onto him, sharp enough to pierce. "Ask me what to do when you’re supposed to be coming up with ideas on your own. That’s weaponized incompetence."

His head snapped back so fast that something audibly clicked in his neck.

Mouth wide open.

"Weaponized in—" The sensual, submissive haze he’d been wrapped in evaporated like morning dew under the brutal heat of the desert sun, vanishing so quickly it left him sputtering. The words faltered on his tongue as insult overtook every carefully cultivated mood, his composure fracturing into clumsy indignation. Propped up on his elbows above you, his face twisted into a comically muddied mix of offense and disbelief, his tone taking on an incredulous sharpness as he glared down at you.

"Say that again and I’ll spit bubbles at you!" he snapped, his threat hanging in the air like a gauntlet thrown by a petulant prince.

"Pffft!"

The insolent brat you were being in that moment, daring to laugh straight in his face, was both impossibly cute and maddeningly infuriating. He stared down at you, eyes narrowing with mock offense, the knowledge that your laughter was entirely at his expense gnawing at his frayed patience. He was torn between kissing you senseless or flipping you over and finding some other way to wipe that smug, adorable smirk off your face.

"What do you mean weaponized incompetence?" Rafayel shot back, the words almost trembling with disbelief. "You think I can't please you properly without you guiding me through it step-by-step? Is that what you're saying?!" His irritation swelled, a balloon of indignation puffing up and threatening to burst as he fought, tooth and nail, to keep the whine rising in his throat from escaping. "I like you telling me what to do because I enjoy indulging in your desires! Not because I’m incapable of being creative in bed!"

A frustrated huff crowned his ranting, "Stop laughing!" he barked, though his rising pitch only seemed to add fuel to your uncontrollable amusement.

You shook your head firmly, slapping your hands over your face to muffle the sounds of your laughter, but it was no use. Your entire body curled inward instinctively, knees drawing up as you rolled to your side, burying yourself deeper into the cocoon of your mirth. It only made it worse for his pride — your stifled giggles shaking through you like tremors, every failed attempt to contain yourself sending them bubbling up again.

Rafayel let out a growl of frustration, throwing his body off yours with an exaggerated thud, landing face-first into the pillow beside you in utter defeat. The mattress jolted slightly from the force, but the muffled yell he buried into the pillow caused a chain reaction that only made your laughter harder to suppress. The giggles came fast and bright, and he swore they sounded far too gratifying for his current temperament, his scowl deepening with every shake of your shoulders and every wheezing gasp for air that he felt in the bed, he didn’t even need to look.

The fact that you were utterly immune to his wrath, impervious to every “Stop,” he threw your way, made it all the more maddening. How was he supposed to maintain the upper hand, to reestablish even a shred of dignity, when he couldn’t even intimidate you?

"I'm sorry," you gasped finally, though the apology was weakened by the cracks of laughter still slipping through. You managed to sit upright, though it took visible effort, your hands brushing away tears from the corners of your crinkled, joy-stricken eyes. A few lingering giggles escaped as you cleared your throat, attempting to sound sincere but failing miserably. "I didn’t think you’d have such strong feelings about this topic."

Rafayel lifted his head from the pillow, his hair disheveled, his glare shooting daggers your way, though the deep flush blooming across his cheeks betrayed his struggle to keep his composure. He opened his mouth to retort, to say something, but instead all that escaped was a muffled, irritated groan as he flopped back down into the pillow.

“Rafayel.”

He rolled onto his back with dramatic flair, hands folded primly over his stomach and ankles crossed, the picture of theatrical innocence. The pout he wore, however, was pure spite, lips pushed forward just enough to make his point. “If you think I’m sooo weaponizing my incompetence, maybe I should actually start doing that. Let you handle everything yourself. Clearly, you’ve got it all figured out.”

“Rafayel…”

“No, no, go ahead,” he cut in, stubbornly resolute, almost belligerent in its exaggerated persistence. “I’m useless, right? I don’t know what I’m doing. Teach me. I won’t even lay a single finger on you.” He puffed his cheeks, a childish act of defiance paired with the way he turned his head away, sulking with the finesse of spoiled royalty.

The exaggerated display drew a sigh from you, long and exasperated, but tinged with a quiet amusement that he didn’t miss. He wasn’t fooling you — not for a second—but he relished the moment all the same.

“Well,” you began, feigning hesitation, with false reluctance. “Since you’re already laid out, I guess…” You trailed off as you shifted to straddle him, slow enough to test the limits of his so-called resolution, the soft white robe you wore parting ever so slightly as you moved, revealing tantalizing glimpses of skin before your knees closed firmly around his hips, framing him like twin prison bars.

His eyes darkened as he watched you, taking in the sight hungrily, every detail sinking into him like a drug he couldn’t resist. His hands betrayed him almost immediately, fingertips skimming the hem of the robe where it hung loosely, their touch feather-light as they ghosted over the tops of your thighs. It was instinctive, reflexive — completely unrepentant.

“I thought you weren’t touching me,” you teased with a playful lilt that interrupted the heat thickening the air between you like an unwanted knock on the door.

His hum was deliberately innocent, his head tilting as though to feign ignorance. But the dark gleam in his eyes and the smirk curling at the corners of his lips told a different story entirely. “I really like this robe,” he murmured with a calculated drawl. “What, I can’t touch my own clothes now?”

The claim was absurd — blatantly so — but it made you pause, his fingers grazing the fabric in question as though testing its texture, when in reality, it was clear he was savoring the warmth of your skin beneath it.

(Truthfully, it was also you who looked lovely draped in what was his — but that went without saying.)

Your mouth opened, the gleam of a retort on the tip of your tongue, but the words dissolved into nothingness as his hands shifted, palms hot against your sides, skirting along your ribs in an intentional, testing motion. He knew the heat of his touch stole the breath from your lungs, burning through the fabric like a spark setting fire to paper.

“You go on,” he said, infuriatingly smug as he leaned back into the pillows, his hands never straying far from your sides. “Help yourself. Take as long as you need. I’ll just… be appreciating this fabric in the meantime.”

His fingers traced the lines of your ribs, the motion slow, languid, before sliding downward to hover just above the curve of your stomach. They lingered there, resting near the knot of the belt holding your robe together. The edge of his thumb dipped just slightly beneath the fabric, brushing over its folded loops, a movement so subtle it was barely there, as though he wanted to test how much he could push you. He toyed with the fabric, rolling it between his fingers like he was unraveling a puzzle.

The pause in his pent-up desire — the break that had proven to be a blessing — was wearing thin. The front he was putting on, all casual indifference and smug bravado, was crumbling, betrayed by the way his gaze kept flickering back to you, and, of course, the growing press of his impatience beneath you, hard and neglected, made it abundantly clear that he was more than ready to pick up where you’d last left off.

You broke first.

With nary a warning, your hand shot out, snatching the ends of the thin, ribbon-like scarf draped loosely around his neck. You wound the fabric around your fist once, twice, tightening it just enough to make your intentions clear…

Then you yanked.

The pull wasn’t violent — no, it was far too calculated for that. Enough pressure to catch him off guard, to tip him forward slightly, but not enough to hurt. It was a demand, plain and simple, one he found himself surrendering to before he even had the chance to consider resistance. His wide-eyed surprise melted almost instantly like cotton candy in water into something darker, something sharper, as his lips curled into a grin that spoke volumes about just how much he was enjoying this game.

"First, you ask to beg for my forgiveness," you continued, pulling him a little closer, and his chest tightened as though the leash around his neck extended all the way to his lungs.

Your gaze pinned him down like a blade, your lips curving into something that wasn’t quite a smirk, wasn’t quite a smile — something far more addictive.

"And then," you murmured, sweet but laced with unmistakable bite, "you start ordering me around like a brat."

A jolt of concentrated heat shot through him, not from embarrassment but from the sharp edge of thrill that ran through his veins. He let the tension in his body slacken just slightly, a calculated move that allowed him to lift from the bed a little, meeting your challenge with his own. The faint tug of the scarf against his neck only heightened the electric energy between you, and he found himself biting back a grin.

“Well," he said at last, letting his weight sink into the bed with a noncommittal shrug, the barest shift of his shoulders enough to convey his defiance. "I’m just playing my part." He tilted his head just enough to make the scarf strain, wanted to see what you’d do with the provocation. “The sleazy husband.”

“You want a reward for that?”

“Acknowledgment of how committed to the role I am would be nice.”

“Oh yes, the most infuriating actor—”

“Aaand you goofed it—”

“—impossibly—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—”

“—handsome," you went on, and his smirk faltered ever so slightly. “Disarmingly clever, annoyingly witty," you added, the sharp edge softening with each word, though the grip you kept on the scarf didn’t loosen. If anything, you pulled him closer, closing the space between you inch by inch. "—and worst of all," you finished, dropping into something softer, something so intimate, "Completely, devastatingly, undeniably competent."

“Well, aren’t you good at apologizing…” he said into himself, embarrassingly beet-red at having fallen for your trick.

“I’m still waiting for yours, you know,” you pointed out distractedly, playing with the crystal flame lilies scattered on his wine berry shirt, tracing the petals of a bloom while seemingly entranced, following the silvery droplets dangling in a chain. “But I’ll be graceful this time and keep going with mine...”

Before he had a chance to blink or register the motion — your free palm slipped underneath the thin fabric covering his heart, caressing right alongside the pulsing red mark — and squeezed with a vengeance (such a fierce boob grab!), applying enough pressure that the pads of your fingers sunk into flesh, then widened the buttonless V-cut of his shirt by yanking, no, downright ripping it open by the lapels with both hands, and Rafayel damn near felt like a virgin at how scandalous that single action was that he almost covered himself up.

But then again, he could hardly claim innocence right now, could he? He was practically a champagne bottle about to pop down there. Just from that. Who was he, the main female character getting her corset ripped in a bodice-ripper novel?

“Ohmyg—hi? What happened to hello? How are y—”

“Shut up or no head.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kisses were rained along his collarbone, the length of his neck, and nipping gently at the spot behind his ear that got the hairs on his nape rise to attention. It would’ve been funny what a child’s play it was to tease him until his ears matched the scarlet blossoms on his shirt, except nothing about this particular situation bore humor — least of all, his response to it.

Which was practically none at all. Because he simply lay there, stiff as a plank from how turned on he was, and you worked him diligently as if he was an instrument and you were the virtuoso.

It was also because he was zeroed in on the cleavage peeking out from the gap in your robe as you made your way further downwards, tongue flickering along the dips and bumps of his upper abdomen — surely able to feel more than hear each inhale and exhale getting closer to moaning territory the longer you kept teasing. He even caught a nip slip here and there, getting impossibly harder in response, culminating in him twitching and tightening beneath you whenever you — purposefully! — brushed against his erection.

“Rafayel,” you sighed dreamily, and he moaned for real this time at how his name fell softly past your parted lips, pouring into a pleased hum against his navel where a trail of wetness gleamed — followed by fingertips curling gently around the hem of his pants’ band. “You’re so quiet. Not leaving it up to chance, huh?”

And the only response he gave was an impatient roll of his hips toward your head, granting you permission — eager acquiescence, even — while a loud, unabashed gasp slipped into his lungs as your hands found the zipper of his pants. With a practiced tug, you freed it from its track, and his pants slid low on his hips, just enough to reveal the waistband of his underwear. Your fingers followed immediately, hooking under both fabric barriers to ease them down until they rested tautly just below his hips. The motion tugged on his shirt as well, once secured by the overlap tucked into his waistband, and with nothing anchoring it anymore, the luxurious fabric parted effortlessly, exposing the sculpted expanse of his chest and abs in one sweeping reveal. His stiffening length, freed from its confines, ached visibly — leaping subtly toward contact, as though craving the touch it had been denied for far too long.

"See? You're being so good... why do you keep wanting to provoke me?" came your lilting reproach, spoken against the soft skin of his pelvis, lips fluttering teasingly across its planes in playful grazes of their silky plush. "

“Permission to talk?”

A sharp, in-drawn breath escaped him the moment a single finger traced along the underside of his shaft, lingering over a wildly pulsing vein — evidence of the frenetic race of his heart currently pumping pure liquid lightning straight through his veins — but he recovered quickly, allowing it to dissolve into an exhale long and drawn-out instead.

“Go ahead, handsome.”

His hips lurched instinctively in search of something tangible, of a sensation besides the torturous tickle of warm breaths dancing lightly along his arousal, "Give me my reward, then. I've waited so long for this, it's been torture."

“Doesn’t sound like you minded the wait. You left me, didn’t you?”

Ah, yes. The grudge. You were becoming like Rafayel the longer you stayed by his side.

"You know I hate waiting. Let alone like this," he said, all whiny and punctuated with a shudder — one that was met with an accompanying jolt that surged straight from the base of his erection when your lips brushed teasingly alongside it. "I didn't think you'd be this cruel..."

"Are you really asking?"

"Can you give it to me instead of wasting time talking?" came his blunt retort, brows drawn together in an impatient furrow that radiated ‘I’m being wronged,’ energy.

"Not wasting time at all, just wanted to spend more time with you. Feels nice, right? You deserve this,” you murmured comfortingly against the swell of his abs rising and falling with each heavy breath — and oh, he almost melted into a puddle at that, visibly deflating with his chest cavity just filling up all warm and fuzzy with love.

It did feel nice but — just — just — fuck — he needed to be touched or he actually was going to disintegrate into sea foam. Not joking.

A brief kiss landed on on the left side of his Apollo belt in consolation before a drag of your tongue along its path followed, transitioning into you breathing more warmth directly into his base, then placing a loving peck to his tip — eyes twinking at the tremble that surged through him. “I really love seeing you so reactive. Does it feel that good? Just breathing on you like this?”

His hips pushed upward in tiny nudges, bumping insistently against your cheek, practically begging to be held properly inside your mouth. "It doesn't feel good at all — just, come on, hurry... I keep my lube in the top drawer on the left... It's edible, you know..."

Thankfully, you didn't smirk at him. Didn't stop to tease him about his eagerness, either, wordlessly going about reaching over to rummage for a bottle in his nightstand — an act that forced you to draw away from his straining member completely, your warmth vanishing suddenly in one agonizing instant, causing him to nearly whine from the loss.

You popped open the lid to squirt some lubrication into your palm and recapped it while staring down at him with a curious gleam. "You had something like this with you the whole time—"

Your words got cut off upon him grabbing your dripping hand and directing it straight where his impatience stood angry at the delay, shuddering out a moan at how incredibly silky the glide was.

"Finally... yesss," he hissed, thrusting upwards to feel more friction — the delicious slickness spreading across your enclosed grip driving him absolutely wild. "Ahh—kkhfff... Keep going, you have to keep going, don't let go... Please. Please?”

Something in your face twisted weirdly at his breathy begging, making his heart flip at the unflinching lust in your widened gaze trained firmly onto his jerking hips.

He had your fist trapped around his swollen cock, urging you into pumping it once you settled into a steady rhythm stroking its turgid crown, twisting and curling into each new swipe upwards along his pulsing flesh; encouraging you by squeezing tighter every few strokes until you took over completely. Then, he threw his arm over his forehead haphazardly, basking in the blissful waves flowing through his veins at long last, watching you watch yourself pleasure him through fluttering lashes, breathing hard through half-parted lips.

"That's it," he sighed huskily, rocking his body into the hand rubbing and grinding against his dick's ridge with expert motions; thumb circling its glistening head and caressing alongside its slit where precome beaded out generously, smoothing over the entirety of its surface and working into the underside, swirling tantalizingly over the bulging vein there until all his thoughts melted into a haze of pure sensation, mind wiped clean of everything except the singular, simple fact that he desperately needed to come. "Like that — nnhhh, yes! That feels amazing — feels perfect — love those sweet little fingers... So close already, I can't, I can't—"

At his muttered groans, your pace stuttered noticeably before resuming its previous speed, which wasn't fast enough according to the stretching throb inside his core, his blood rushing loudly through his ears like boiling rapids. "No, faster..." he urged you, rutting into your palm even harder in a frantic effort to increase the pressure and bring him to the precipice quicker. "I can't hold on much longer — need more, I need more. Tighter. Tighter."

The corners of his vision pulsed white and Rafayel whimpered as he jumped inside your curled fist when the unexpected sensation of having your forefinger slide through his sticky fluids gathered at its tip, swirling clockwise before ascending back up in an unhurried stroke that carried a slippery coating alongside it to smooth out the glide to put pressure right into the slit — a sensation that lingered for seconds afterward with ghostly echoes, drawing a sudden choked gasp from his lips at how intensely good that single touch felt.

“Thaaaaat’s it, yeah, I love that, you have such a beautiful voice.” Your free palm swept up alongside his ribs to rub gently against their curve as though to soothe the ragged sounds ripping past his throat; traveling upward to cradle his head against yours where your cheek brushed alongside his temple, holding him still with tender care and easing some of the tremble wracking through him. "Can you feel how much I'm enjoying us being together like this — how badly I've missed you? Please let me hear those pretty sounds, I wanna hear them loud and clear. Will you be generous for me and share it all?"

His reply died in his throat in favor of a low keening sound — something raw and broken — when you squeezed tighter.

The way your nails dug ever so delicately into the sides of his cock, applying pressure just shy of pain was truly exquisite torture, making his head swim and rise up from the bed so he could crush his lips against yours, biting hungrily into your plush mouth and delving deep into its depths until oxygen became nothing but an afterthought. Every neuron of him burned alive in chain reaction as your tongue wound and slid alongside his, curling along the underside before retreating for him to suckle on your lower lip eagerly until it swelled red.

"Mmnghhfuck! Hhhaaa—keep—" Words spilled past his slackened lips like ribbons unfurling, senseless as he struggled to convey how excruciating it was to contain his euphoria within, desperate for any sort of outlet to relieve the pressure rising inside him rapidly —

— and then broke off suddenly on a low moan when he caught a flash of your unoccupied hand that was just cradling his neck having found its way between your thighs, the view out of sight because of the robe —

Then, Rafayel saw the pearly gates.

His orgasm slammed straight into him, so unexpected and yet wholly expected all the same that he gasped around it like he was in a headlock, utterly disoriented by the sudden assault on his senses, soaring impossibly higher with each jerk of his hips into your fingers' grasp and shooting thick white streaks across his stomach; leaving behind faint smears wherever it hit its mark — warm, sticky ropes landing atop his defined abs and even reaching as far as his sternum.

He knew something was wrong when it didn't stop.

Far from it, really: each pulsing contraction seemed to force more of its fluid past his cock's narrow slit, painting your pumping digits liberally with his release — even staining the lapels of your robe in messy spots. It lasted so long that Rafayel started seeing stars sparkling around the edges of his blurring vision; making everything appear fuzzy like static. "Nggh—too much—ah! Aaa—hhh! Nnhhfff... Khhffffcking hell... Can't believe—still going—"

"Don't hold back now, just ride it out, nothing wrong with it," you murmured fervently, brushing some hair back from his sweat-soaked temple and — then — kisses, so many kisses. "I know you wanted this so badly, it's okay... You deserve this. Let go for me, yeah? Can't you let go for me? All this stress will go away. Isn't that nice?"

What came out instead was an embarrassingly high moan, hoarse with overuse, entirely at odds with the self-assuredness he'd wanted to project with each thrust of his hips, spurred onwards by instinct alone in a mad dash for euphoria.

Just how pent-up was he?

He couldn't recall the last time he'd felt pleasure this acute, sharp as shrapnel beneath the layers of desire, making him so out of it that he wasn't even aware of the embarrassing mess he made like he’d just wet himself being cleaned up with a tissue by you.

And it still wasn't nearly enough.

He surged forward, wound his arm around your waist and tossed you to the side gently so your back lay flush against the sheets before following suit in a tangle of limbs that ended with you under him — where he belonged: cradled between your thighs, seated fully inside their heated clasp as he hovered above you — one elbow propped beside your shoulder while the other wandered aimlessly downwards and undid the trusty knot holding your robe together in one go.

"Rafa—"

“Sorry, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm so thirsty," he said, as he raised the lube-and-come-sodden hand of yours up to his mouth to lap at the trails trickling over your wrist; sucking on your fingertips in apology — no trace of shame coloring his cheeks as he did, far too focused on the task of cleaning them thoroughly to be distracted by something as trivial as embarrassment. He didn’t even taste himself. Just the blueberry.

So engrossed in it that he didn’t even notice you burning holes with your gaze at his lips sealing around your thumb while he ran his tongue underneath it in short, quick flicks until it was glistening once more, except this time with spit instead of lubricant.

All the while, he traced the clean strip of skin revealed by the parted folds of your robe with a searing hand, starting from the valley of your cleavage between your breasts all the way down the slight convex curve of your torso leading towards the V that marked the point where your thighs began, drawing delicate circles into your navel, slipping downward inch by tantalizing inch in search for hidden oasis.

Taking notice of how wrecked you looked through the curtains of your fingers splayed over his eyes and forehead, Rafayel rewarded you an equally debauched looked as his lips curled into a smirk against your palm.

A loud, viscous pop of your wetness echoed in the room when his fingers tenderly made contact — positively dripping for him. Your mouth flew open upon feeling him draw his forefinger's pad gently against your entrance, lingering teasingly at the seams in an excruciating crawl, tracing lightly around it as you pulsed hungrily against his fingertip.

"So thirsty," he mumbled absentmindedly to himself — mouth watering.

Rafayel pushed open your legs by the backs of your thighs to allow his head better access. If he was on a normal day, he would plant feverish kisses on the insides of your quaking knees and thighs and mark you everywhere, made it more sensual, more teasing, but he was borderline parched — not to mention more impatient than a driver stuck behind a cyclist in a one -lane road.

You yelped at his mouth diving between your legs in reckless abandon. His tongue lapped up your slick in deep, obscene flicks, then plunged inside into the warm haven awaiting him inside, devouring your sweet nectar in loud slurps, uncaring of how sloppy and unrestrained he was currently acting; far too hungry to concern himself over anything save for indulging greedily in your flavor.

"Rafayel, shit, that feels—oh my god..." He had to push your hips down by splaying his hand along the plane of your stomach as you arched helplessly, otherwise you would have simply lifted right off from his greed ravaging you without mercy or restraint. "That's so—you're so—fuck! What—what’s gotten into you? Ahh...!"

Any hope of responding to that died the second your hand tangled itself tightly into his hair and tugged to bring him impossibly closer against you, his head blanking. It felt so good when your heel planted itself onto his shoulder blade and pressed insistently there in a silent plea for more, sending ripples of heat fanning out across his nerve endings in their wake.

Without hesitation, he latched his lips around the swollen bud peaking proudly from beneath a layer of velveteen flesh and flicked upwards, suckling hard before closing around it fully — then rolled his tongue in circles around its rim with the intent to render your world spinning madly with each passing stroke. The fingers locked around your trembling thighs kneaded deeply into their skin, coaxing the delicious, involuntary spasms coursing throughout you until the only thing you knew was the blissful torment his hot mouth wrought.

"You're so delectable on my tongue, did you know? The prettiest moans come pouring out from your lovely lips when I'm between your legs like this," he said, the sentences pieced together like beads on a pearl necklace fragment by fragment between licks and sucks, sounding just short of reverence. "Your taste drives me wild, I swear it's addictive... Am I making it up to you yet? Please say yes. Tell me it's working."

"Yesyesyesyesss—" A sharp inhale cut off anything else you tried to babble further as Rafayel rewarded you with another generous helping of his enthusiasm by diving back in and running his tongue in earnest up through your center. "You feel amazing, you — feel — so — g-good—"

"—don't think that's enough, though. Didn't you call me incompetent earlier?"

"What," you choked out angrily when a puff of warm breaths skated dangerously close to where you were most sensitive. "Oh my god—"

"I hold grudges, cutie. You taught me that," he said in a sing-song reply, lighthearted in tone, nearly drowned out by the thready groans bleeding through.

"I apologized already — what more do you want? Stop teasing, Rafayel!"

A pregnant pause followed as he stared up at you from between your legs, and saw your eyes widen with realization at just what you'd requested.

"As you wish," he relented, a dark edge to his mischievous grin when he rose back up and braced his knees against the mattress better, pulling your hips tight into the cradle of his thighs until one of your legs was thrown over his shoulder. "Have it your way — and don't forget you asked for this."

The slow sink inside your wet heat was traitorously misleading: a gentle, sweet meeting at first that masked what was brewing underneath.

A dragged out whine fanned his flames as you threw your head back. “You asshole—”

"I could have made you come once, twice..." he said, in a smooth purr that dripped sinfully past his lips.

Your mouth fell open on a silent gasp; the first wave of pleasure rolling through you upon being filled suddenly in one deep plunge. Your torso twisted to allow you to hide your face into the curve of his forearm draped next to your shoulder.

"You know I love taking my time with you," he continued, pausing to bury his face into your hair to breathe you in deeply, adjusting your leg to fall from his shoulder straight onto his hip. You took advantage of Rafayel getting close, grabbing onto his back so quickly that you missed the first time and yanked his shirt down to bunch halfway down his midsection and get stuck at his elbows. "And you just had to take that from me. I don't know which one of us is greedier... "

An apology was voiced, muffled by the crook of his elbow, almost incoherent by your gasps.

He cupped your chin and made you look at him. “Are you comfortable? Not hurting you, am I?”

Your throat clicked audibly. Then you shook your head rapidly in answer to both inquiries: yes — no — everything was okay — and Rafayel breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

And then, out of nowhere your fingers started moving around the expanse of his upper back, and before he could question the non-sexual way it came across when he was literally inside you, you said, "You're sweating."

"Yeah...?" Confusion muddled his hazy mind clouded with dull pleasure begging for him to start moving again, but you looked at him with wide, eager expectation dancing behind your expectant eyes — as if you couldn't quite believe what you'd seen.

"No — your temperature. It's still high but you're sweating now," you told him excitedly. "Rafayel — that's huge! This means your body is cooling itself down!"

He huffed.

"Of course it is, I've got the hottest woman in the world under me," he said with a roll of his hips, earning an enthusiastic moan from you in the process. Your arms snaked themselves around the back of his neck tighter until both forearms crossed at their crease, palms moving upwards in an intoxicating drag through the back of his skull. "You the cure to all of this..."

His forehead dropped unceremoniously yours where it stayed, and he sucked in an uneven, shaky groan that tapered into something resembling a whine as he started rutting steadily against you, driving into that spot where you liked it the best with growing desperation with the occasional staccato grunt at the fluttering squeeze and murmured encouragement.

At some point, his mouth wandered towards your pulse, scraped his teeth against it gingerly before latching on it in an open-mouthed kiss that was hard enough to bruise.

You tilted your chin skywards with a sigh to give him better access and tangled your fingers encouragingly deeper into his hair, and something inside him sparked awake in response, a fiery need demanding him to paint every inch of your skin violet, rose and mauve so that it may glow evermore brightly for everyone to see —

"Way too beautiful for your own good... Driving me crazy... Every single day... Couldn't keep my hands off you the moment I got in here..." he hissed furiously as though he were possessed, snapping his hips harder upon finding the angle he desired, searching relentlessly for something within you both to satisfy the frenzied race to the peak taking control of him completely; searing kisses littering everywhere he could reach along the underside of your chin and neck whilst spewing senseless litanies into your skin in between them. "Can't believe I could have this forever... Right? Say I can have this forever. It'll drive me insane if you don't, I swear—"

"Forever," you echoed hoarsely, your nails digging tightly into his scalp as his pace increased once more. "Y-you can have me forever—anytime, wherever—"

Your assurances came with a startled cry of ecstasy as he sank his teeth into the juncture connecting your shoulder and collarbone in a bite that bordered on a savage instinct to ensure he was there, he'd been there, and would always be there. "You're not leaving, are you? Aren't gonna leave me anytime soon, right?

Every syllable was marked with a measured grind into you as if determined to force every word inside your head by burying it deep in your core — imprint it permanently into your brain; until the only thing filling your thoughts was him and him alone. "Not letting you — I'm not letting you. I can’t let you go, it’s too late — too late. Say it. Say it.”

"As — many times as I ne-ed to," you panted underneath him, arching upwards so beautifully for him as his grip loosened marginally to let you find that perfect angle that caused your back to bow like a perfectly tuned instrument in his hands; singing nothing but divine music. "'S not changing, ever. Won't change... Agh!"

His hips bucked in answer to your nails sinking deep into the skin of his shoulders as though clawing for dear life. "Yeah? Yeah? Promise—?"

All you could do was sob into his mouth hungrily swallowing yours — a mess of moans falling endlessly past your lips swallowed whole, accompanied with plaps and slaps of wet thrusting. There'd never be a time when he wasn't craving the taste of your flesh burning scorching white hot against his own, craving more and more until everything blurred into a haze of delirium.

"Tell me... Tell me—hah, tell me, princess. Let me hear it..." His chest rumbled deep within where yours rubbed deliciously against his bare flesh with each fervent roll of his body. Even then, it wasn't nearly enough; couldn't possibly be, not with how ravenously thirsty he was for anything and everything having to do with you: your sounds, your expressions, those intoxicating stares filled with nothing but need for him and only him. Not while his stomach twisted itself in knots tight enough to tie sails and yet remained impossibly empty at the same time, yearning for the sweet relief of gratification flowing freely and quenching his deepest thirst. "Wanna hear you, gotta hear you say it—"

"I'm right here, m'here, not going anywhere, not leaving... I'myours, just don't let go, don't let go of me—"

He heard it as though you were underwater; faint, muffled underneath the thick fog clouding his senses, so indistinct yet simultaneously loud enough to drown out anything else within reach.

Every coherent thought vanished from his mind, melting into thin ribbons streaming across an ocean of red flames, then bursting forth anew into embers scattering throughout his vision in a dizzying display, igniting behind his eyelids with blinding light every time he blinked them closed. When he opened them, new constellations blossomed instantaneously; bright orange ones with maroon tinges shining bright among the black canvas.

"M'not gonna—! Can't let go—couldn't even if I tried. They wouldn't even be able to pry you away from my cold, dead hands."

More vivid blotches appeared before him at random intervals, painting his desert landscape in abstract patterns shifting so erratically they threatened to form fractals at any moment, jagged shapes overlapping and warping themselves until they resembled colorful stains splattered across walls in chaotic messes; or perhaps simply the shadows of clouds skirting the edges of his sight drifting past without a care — all blending together and merging seamlessly as though water droplets bleeding into fine lines until none could tell where one ended and the others began.

"Gonna be... gonna be stuck with me for life," Rafayel said, sounding entirely half out of his mind with the way he was babbling endearments (something about a bride) in-between little laps that trailed upwards along your quivering sternum toward your heaving chest; kissing you so fervently as though possessed, driven wholly by base instincts demanding he give in to whatever compulsion overtook him. "Always been mine. Always. Always—can't ever leave, yeah? I won't forgive you—won't forgive you this time—"

"Rafayel, I'm gonna come, please..." you whispered hoarsely against the crown of his head nestled between your breasts, your hands grasping onto his shoulders helplessly in an attempt at anchoring yourself. "I can't keep going, I'll fall apart. Please, don’t stop, don’t stop—"

One of his fingers slid down to repeatedly flick through your swollen folds, teasing and circling around your clit while his tongue swirled around a nipple; pulling and sucking hungrily with fervent desire, giving a pointed twist once he'd latched on.

"Come for me, then, do it, c'mon, cream all around me, let me have it, let me have this — you can do it, I’ll help you along.” His lower body lifted suddenly, pulling back until only his cockhead remained caught inside; followed by a quiet pop indicating his lips breaking contact from where they were buried in your chest. "I need you so bad I can hardly stand it anymore... Wanna feel you — feel all of you — need all of you..."

All it took was one sudden shift after a steady build-up of rhythm of shallow, quick thrusts: the smallest rotation of his pelvis and thrust straightwards, hips knocking against yours in a violent shove of flesh meeting slick flesh for you to fly apart spectacularly when he buried himself into that specific area right below your cervix.

With a shuddering breath that dissolved instantly into a shrill cry tearing through your throat, your thighs locked tight around his waist — holding him prisoner while your nails sank fiercely into his scratched back as your entire body trembled uncontrollably through the aftermath.

“Yeah, there you go, cutie.” A comforting, grounding caress landed on your forehead, tracing the arc of its curve towards the back of your ear; then repeating itself multiple times in slow, unhurried strokes — to remind you he wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon. “There you are, that was beautiful. You got me seeing stars.”

"It's... It's snowing outside... In the desert," you said faintly, eyelids slow in their blinking, and Rafayel thought how utterly gorgeous you looked, all worn down and exhausted and so drunk in your post-orgasmic euphoria to talk nonsensically about what was happening outside.

"Yeah," he agreed, equally hushed as he peppered a trail of soft kisses across the bridge of your nose. You closed your teary lashes instinctively against the ticklish sensation. "It's so soft... and beautiful..."

You were the snow in his desert. Though, too blissed out to pick up on what he was implying.

Too busy stiffening up when you felt his cock jump inside you.

"You... you're still hard?"

“I didn’t come in the first place, whoops. Busy being too competent, I guess,” he said breezily, tilting his hips so that he pressed deep inside, directly into the tender spot inside you where pleasure flared to life unbidden.

"Let me... Let me rest, fuck, give me a minute..." Your hands scrambled for purchase against his scarred back; anchoring yourself by clawing surface level trenches down along its expanse and dragging red tracks as he continued his grinding in torturously slow and shallow rolls. "Need — I need to catch my breath, you're gonna make me pass out, shit, hold on — !"

Rafayel had you for three more times after that.

The first was the short prologue to what was coming, picked up from where he’d left off in the same position — head buried in your neck, making you tightly embrace him like he’d fly off the earth if he wasn’t held. No sooner did his hips start bucking roughly against yours before he spent himself inside in long pulses that coated you inside in heated spurts, sending sparks rippling out into your limbs from where you clenched weakly around him through your own release that hadn’t yet run its full course.

The prettiest sounds in the whole entire world spilled from him as he pulled out with a schlick, dripping his neglect-thickened seed onto the sheets, and you were naive as to think this was it. You both had indulged yourselves enough for the night, fucked through the absence-abstaining makes the heart fonder phenomenon, it had been fantastic to witness him get so serious. Surely now would be a good time to cool off and step into the bath together now that you’d been able to make him sweat and the sex-heavy humidity clinging thickly to your body was getting more comfortable the more you became aware of it. The room was absolutely boiling, stuffier than a sauna like he’d projected all the heat trapped inside his body everywhere. Perhaps opening up a window wouldn’t hurt…

“That was one,” he said then, staring down at his flushed erection straining proudly between his legs like a compass needle pointed north — the faint strand of semen connecting his tip and stomach swaying and snapping apart. “This isn’t anywhere near enough.”

To your shock, Rafayel got off the bed, hauled you in by your legs until your bottom half was dangling from the bed, and folded you completely in half with no warning. Your legs were pushed against your chest and were hooked over his shoulders, and the speed of with which all of it happened punched out a wheeze from you.

"Can I? Are you okay?" he asked urgently, patting your thigh rapidly twice, pausing — then adding another firm slap there before you nodded hurriedly in confirmation rather than a verbal response, because fuck, his weight holding you down felt absolutely incredible like this.

Your ankles started bobbing in sync with his hip thrusts as he drove deep inside your heat, the sink easy, smooth and soft and the mess you both made between your legs pouring out and splattering everywhere as he kept mumbling, “I can’t stop, I’m sorry, I can’t stop, can’t stop—”

This round lasted longer, though it was the worst frenzy you’d seen Rafayel in. Nothing was slow about it, he was mercilessly pistoning himself into you and unpredictably switching between shallow and deep that had your clit being scraped against and A-spot drilled into. You couldn’t even keep your eyes open from how intense pleasure was kneading you violently like a dough. If it wasn’t for his mouth gluing itself onto yours, the entire floor and the poor downstairs guests probably would have heard what was happening with how loud his moaning became — because he was downright voluntarily overstimulating himself.

With one particularly desperate sob, Rafayel finally buried himself to the hilt within you — throbbing — in harsh jets of liquid fire with jerking, abrupt twitches of his hips, milking himself into your body as he found yet another release that was as intense and concentrated as the previous. You cried brokenly, shuddering as that final thrust abused your clit over the edge of orgasm number two, involuntarily flinching and trying to get away when he pushed all the accumulated, positively flowing stringy mess right back into your puffy cunt with a strange, entranced look on his face. You had to slap his hand away and kick his weight off you, powerless and exhausted and fully feeling like your vagina was gaping and would never close back up.

A soft kiss on your cheek brought you back to earth.

“Still alive?” he croaked, gently maneuvering you higher up the bed and laying you back comfortably. You had to avoid the giant, wet and shining spot that had to be dripping down on the floor at the edge of the bed, face burning as Rafayel’s sweat-drenched forehead leaned against yours. “I’m not going easy on you… I have to say I’m impressed how good you’re taking it.”

You realized, once more with feeling, that he was rock-hard against your hip despite having already come three separate times — two of which had filled you to the point of pouring out of you — and had no sign of calming down any time soon.

He was beyond insatiable.

Though the third and final time was far sweeter, the pace much slower and drawn out as though he’d suddenly regained some sense and clarity. By that time, you were growing deliriously tired, the earlier carnal fucking accommodated itself to you by morphing into tender lovemaking. Rafayel had you on your side, comfortably able to hug pillows and anchor yourself, while straddling your thigh and hooking your other calf over his waist and held it there firmly, out from your space to let you breathe with his back straight. Just looking down at you with obvious, sensual longing to lean down for kisses the entire time and looking so fucked out had been enough to rekindle your desire.

He was driving himself languidly into you, either eyes closed and head thrown back, or focused dead-on at the spot between where he was slipping in and out of you — watching your cunt eagerly swallow his white-coated cock and attempt to suck him right back in each time he pulled out until only his tip remained buried. Over and over.

And eventually, his shaky breaths and sweet sighs started turning into fast-paced, restrained moans. You saw him hanging on the precipice of wanting to go fast again, the tension his body pulled taut like a bowstring about to snap.

At one point, your robe and his shirt had found themselves slingshotted into the far, opposite corners of the room at some point but he still had his pants and was positively drenched in sweat like he’d just taken a bath and shining under the dim lighting.

"Drained all of my stamina, I'm empty, completely dry... I’m gonna need an IV drip. I can’t believe it. This is crazy, you know... I could die happy like this... But I wanna come. I wan—nnah come inside you so bad again, wanna fill you up—make you full with me—"

He went completely motionless and stayed burrowed in you when your palms cupped his face gently, forcing him to look down at you with his shiny eyes. "You've got to calm down first."

“I don’t think I can,” he murmured, panting, “I really can’t. You feel so—”

Your thumbs stroked the outer corners of his eyes with aching tenderness. “We’ll stop and try to calm you down a bit continuing then, okay? Try for me. No need to rush when we have time to ourselves. No one’s going anywhere.”

He stumbled and nearly fell to his elbows on top of you. “Tell me to,” he said, in a begging voice. “You can just tell me to calm down. Anything you want, anything. You know I’ll listen.”

All these months of living with the revelation about the bond and it still came as a shock to you, but you figured if it was for his own good...

So you ordered him: "Calm down and relax, Rafayel. Everything’s fine, you’re okay."

And god, did he listen well.

You were shocked, as you always were each time, to see just how willingly compliant he was. Seeing his body literally change its chemistry to conform itself to your desires and let go of all tension was unbelievable. You immediately felt bad that you’d forced it on him somehow like some admitted, invasive tranquilizer, because you could have made him relax naturally, with your own labor, a glass of water and massage, maybe, gradually work him through it—

“There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t think about it too much. Just focus on me, yeah?” A quiet command that lacked any real intent to order accompanied an equally soft kiss planted softly against the corner of your mouth, and all thoughts went flying out of the window when you saw how mellowly at peace he was, gazing dreamily at you without the slightest care in the world.

After that, everything became a blur once again. But a pleasant one. Slow, like molasses trickling lazily throughout your bloodstream at room temperature — soothing all aches into pleasure-flavored coziness at being joined, no rampant race towards a climax involved. There was no concept of time whatsoever: just the two of you together.

After your pillow talk about what he believed inspired him — what he wanted would, you internally filled in the blanks — and how he was running out of reserves exclusively saved up for the purposes of his art, you had to make it clear to him that there would be no pain involved in your relationship.

You didn’t know if he expected to be hurt by you in the future or implied he had no problem with that happening, but you couldn’t even tolerate him saying those things for the sake of love, or whatever it was. Him being intimately familiar and nonchalant with the concept bothered you down to the bones.

Not only were you trying to work around the huge rock he’d just dropped on top of your heart with the revelation that Aridum had to represent pure suffering to him as a Lemurian, you were also slightly upset he’d wanted to subject himself to it because he was lost more beautiful things in life had made their way into his life to inspire him as well. His paintings, all of them, had taken a new context and an additional layer of tragedy with that revelation, despite the fact that he’d basically said you made him draw from a different fountain and clogged up the other one.

It was a bittersweet happiness to hear Rafayel wanting to explore brighter, happier sides of life together when the sketch he showed you he was working on while you were sleeping depicted a man drowning in the sea and a figure beckoning him from above, close to the surface. Something still very painful.

“That’s one bleak drawing.”

“Depends on what you see.”

“I see a dying man hallucinating. Maybe that’s someone close to him and his brain is comforting him with a vision. I don’t know.”

“Interesting take. Maybe it’s not just a man at all. Maybe it’s a reunion. It looks peaceful, doesn’t it?”

Now you looked again, it did look peaceful. Just like Rafayel was right now, next to you on the bed with his forehead almost touching yours.

"I'd like to think he isn't drowning, then."

Rafayel just smiled.

[themultifanshipper]

Hi! I love your fics sm

Please don't feel obliged if this makes you uncomfortable, but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind writing something where reader has vaginismus and the driver is so sweet about it :3

For Max or Oscar (but I don't really mind any of them tbh)

Max was the best boyfriend anyone could ask for. He was incredibly patient and understanding. Frustratingly so. 

Warnings: smut, talk about vaginismus, oral, fingering, improper medical procedures 

Disclaimer: people with vaginismus have different experiences with the condition, this fic is vaguely based on a friend of mine's experience, do NOT do what is described in this fic, if you are seeking treatment then talk to a doctor because this is NOT the proper treatment method IT IS FICTION… that being said, enjoy the filth. 

You'd been scared to tell Max about your condition at first. 

All your other relationships had fizzled out because the guys were either too impatient or annoyed, or disgusted with you. 

Which is why you expected Max to be the same. But you couldn't have been more wrong. 

You sat him down one day, texting him beforehand to warn him that you had something serious to talk to him about. 

He tapped his fingers on the table while you made some coffee. 

Once the steaming mugs were in front of you, you just came out with it. 

“I have a condition, called Vaginismus” 

Max just blinked, which made you smile at his clueless face. 

“Do you know what that is?” you asked. 

“Uhh… no” he scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. He didn't like not knowing things. 

“That's okay. It's quite rare. It's a condition that makes sex painful, or at least difficult if it’s not treated properly” 

He nodded. 

“And basically it's an involuntary response to penetration. The muscles contract and it can be painful…” 

His brows furrowed. 

“So how do you… do you have sex?” 

You huffed out a laugh. “Well not since we've been together, but yes I have had sex before, but most of the time it didn't work” 

He blushed. “And have you  tried, you know… treatments?” 

You took a sip of coffee before answering. 

“I started. Sometimes it works, but it takes time and effort.” 

 “Okay…” he muttered. “So it's just penetration that is painful?” 

You nodded. 

“So I can eat you out?” 

Your eyebrows shot up in surprise. 

“I- yes. Yes, I suppose you can.” 

He got up and walked over to you and held out his hand. 

“What, now?” you asked incredulously. 

He shrugged. 

“Unless you don't want to?” 

You were taken aback by his attitude. 

“That's it? You don't want to know more? You're not… disgusted?” 

He stroked your cheek with his thumb. 

“Why would I be disgusted. It's not like you can control it. As long as you are happy, I am happy. And if you want to try treatments, that's up to you. I'm not going to force you. I have a fully functioning hand, and as long as I can bring you pleasure in other ways, I'm good” 

Tears sprung to your eyes and he melted, getting down on his knees and stroking your thighs. 

“What is it? Did I say something wrong?” 

You shook your head. “You're the first man to not react badly. You really are the one” 

He blushed even darker at that. 

“Well let's see if I can make you come with my mouth, then you can decide” 

It was your turn to blush. He led you to the bedroom and lay you down on the bed, dragging your clothes off and admiring your body. 

“Fucking perfect. Can't wait to devour you” 

You scoffed at his cliché choice of words and he smirked. 

He spread your legs, licking his lips as he gazed at your already glistening cunt. It was all his, and he was going to prove to you he was worth it. 

He licked a stripe up your folds and you shivered. 

His eyes were on yours the whole time, studying your reactions, every twitch of your hips for any indication that he was doing a good job. 

He brought his hand up to thumb at your clit lazily while he took a quick breather. 

“Wait, I can't finger you can I?” 

You blinked at him. 

“Uhh… not at the moment, no” 

He nodded, taking it in his stride. “What about my tongue?” 

You groaned and he smirked up at you, proud that he was getting you this flustered already.

“Yes, your tongue should be fine” 

He dove back in gleefully, happy to have new information. 

You felt his tongue prod at your entrance and you gasped. 

He mistook that for discomfort so he retreated. 

"No” you begged, your hands going to thread in his hair to hold him there. “Keep going, it feels good” 

Max hummed and continued, pushing his tongue further inside you, and his nose bumped your clit every time.

He quickly figured out how to use that to his advantage, and he rubbed it against your clit with purpose every time he pushed his tongue inside you. 

You took an embarrassingly short time to come after that. 

Once Max had figured out the fastest way to make you come, it became a daily ritual. 

And the absolute sweetheart was doing as much research as he could to understand your condition, and how to treat it. 

He didn’t push you though. If you wanted to seek treatment that was your business.  

So he waited, and was perfectly happy to eat you out every day for the rest of his life if that's what was required of him. 

But a few weeks later you sat him down again. This time on the couch, and you were next to him with your legs over his lap as you chatted. 

“So I have some news…” you were looking at him with a shy smile, almost looking guilty about something. 

When you didn't elaborate he tried to diffuse the tension. 

“Well I know for a fact you're not pregnant. Unless you found another way to get my sperm and babytrap me”  

You slapped his chest and giggled. 

“No, Max. Although that is a great idea, thanks for the suggestion.” 

He laughed and leaned his head on the back of the sofa. 

“What I wanted to tell you is that I think I'm ready for the next step.” 

He frowned. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, up until now my condition has been mostly situational. A stress response, and sex has always stressed me out, for obvious reasons.” 

His hand was stroking your leg soothingly, which encouraged you to carry on. 

“I've been working on this since we got together. And I feel very at ease when I'm with you. And when I'm not with you…” you blushed and looked at your hands, suddenly shy. 

“Hey. Tell me. What about when I'm not here?” 

You looked up at him. 

“I've been fingering myself” 

You bit your lip, waiting for his response but he just stared at you. 

“You-" you could tell he was picturing it, although his expression remained mostly blank. “Okay…” 

“So really you're supposed to get these dilators, right? But I figured, fingers do the exact same job, and they're free. So I started out with one. And you're supposed to do it for like 20 minutes a day or something. And it has to be snug but not tight or painful, and when it feels fine you move up a size. So I'm now up to two fingers, which is fine, so I need a size up, but three fingers is way too much so I'd need someone with bigger fingers than me…” 

Max blinked. 

“You see where I'm going with this?” you asked encouragingly. 

“No?” Max was lost. All he could picture was you sticking your fingers up yourself for 20 minutes a day while he was out. 

You sighed. “Your two fingers are bigger than my two fingers, but smaller than three. So… I need you to finger me” 

Max just blinked again. 

It took most of your willpower to not slap him 

“Stop fucking blinking and say something” 

“I… are you sure it's safe? I mean you're supposed to do it with like proper equipment and-” 

“Max I swear to god if you start Maxplaining my own treatment to me I am going to lose it” 

He promptly shut up. 

“So we are going to go into the bedroom, and you are going to stick your fingers in me for twenty minutes. Can you do that?” you batted your eyelashes at him. 

“Yes” he rasped, and you giggled at him before leading him over to the bedroom. 

He lubed up his fingers, sliding one in to test the waters, and see your reaction. 

You nodded at him and he slipped the second one in. 

You immediately felt the difference with your own. 

It was a stretch, but not painful whatsoever.

And Max was already hard in his pants. 

This wasn't about him though, this was a medical procedure to help you out, nothing more. 

He knew what to do. 

He moved his fingers gently in circles, just like he'd read about on all those forums, towards the front, the back and to the sides. 

You looked at him in awe. 

“Max… how do you know what you're supposed to do?” 

He smiled gleefully at you. “I've done a lot of research” 

You melted into the bed, doing your breathing exercises as he continued to stretch you out. 

Your alarm rang when the twenty minutes were up, and you were almost disappointed. 

Despite it not being sexual in nature, you kind of liked being this close to your boyfriend. 

It felt very intimate. 

You did the same thing four days in a row, and it became a routine for Max, because every time it was over, he ate you out, and then you gave him a blowjob. 

Which is why when you told him you were moving up to three of your fingers and didn't need him for the next few days, he honestly felt like you'd put him on a sex ban. 

But when you explained to him that that just meant you didn't need him for the medical part, but he could still put two fingers inside you while he ate you out, his spirits were lifted instantly. 

A week later, it was time for three of his fingers, and that was a real stretch. 

It wasn't painful, but as soon as the third slipped in, you felt full. 

Your breathy gasp alerted Max. 

“All okay?” 

You nodded. 

“More than okay… I feel so… full.” 

Max twitched in his pants. 

“I suppose that's normal… my fingers are pretty big” 

You hummed and Max started the usual exercise. 

Except this time, it felt different. It felt almost… pleasurable. 

As it went on, Max noticed you were getting progressively wetter.  

After about 5 minutes of trying to hold in your noises, you let out the tiniest whimper. 

Max stopped his movements and you let out a soft whine. 

Max raised an eyebrow at you. 

“Did that feel good?” 

You huffed “Too good. I think you're gonna make me come like that if you carry on for much longer.” 

Max bit his lip. “I suppose that's good. It means you're relaxed” 

He continued the slow circles and you let out a shaky exhale.  

“Don't keep your noises in” he piped up. “It will just make you tense up. Let them out” 

You couldn't go on like this, it felt too good to not take advantage of it.

You glanced at your phone. 

12 minutes left. 

“Max, if you can make me come just like this in the next twelve minutes I'll let you come on my tits” 

Well with an offer like that how could he possibly refuse. 

“Can I use my mouth as well?” 

You looked at the time again. 11 minutes 37 seconds… 

“I suppose” 

His tongue ghosted over your clit as his fingers moved in their usual slow circles. 

You moaned and he smirked. 

Some medical procedure this was shaping up to be. 

He crooked his fingers upwards just the slightest bit, and the noise you let out was confirmation that he wouldn't need the full 11 minutes. 

You came with 7 minutes left on the timer. 

And you were so relaxed he swore he could have slipped a fourth finger in, but he didn't. That would be abusing your trust, and he was determined to be patient and see this through to the end. 

After another couple of weeks you deemed yourself finally ready. You'd done 4 of your own fingers, then 4 of his larger fingers. And you came every single time. 

And Max had bought you a small-ish dildo to make properly sure you were ready. 

He was away for a race weekend when you used it, but you sent him plenty of proof that you could take it easily, and he was very grateful. 

When he got back, you had a candle lit dinner, wine and all, before he took you to bed. 

You were eternally grateful to Max for sticking this out with you, it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for you, even if it did just involve sticking fingers inside you. 

When Max finally lined himself up with your entrance, he was so nervous he felt like a virgin again. 

When he pushed in it was like the stars had aligned. Everything just felt right.

You had tears in your eyes (of happiness) and you pulled him down for a passionate kiss. 

He rolled his hips and you moaned into each other's mouths at the incredible feeling of finally being joined like this. 

Max lasted about 3 minutes he was so excited. Bless him. 

But he made up for it in the best way. 

He proposed, that night, while you both sat on the balcony in the warm Monaco air as the lights of the harbour twinkled below you. 

Yeah, he was the one. 

[conceptualsolitude]

Hi!!! I saw that you made a new post and I just wanted to say that you were one of the first people I followed many years ago when I made this blog and reading through all your words (I would scroll all the way to the bottom to your first post, like every other night before sleeping) got me through some rough times in high school and probably changed the trajectory of, like, who I am. It’s been a while since I went through this blog but I remember I had some of your art as my phone cases for years, and I still have them in a box somewhere (they used to hang on my wall when not on my phone) just because I was so into all that you did. I will have to scroll and find it, but one of your posts, it was something about Tomorrow, and Not Being Afraid, and though I can’t recall the exact words, I remember one night specially where I was so close to quitting a lot of things, because I could not handle the pressure of being around people or doing things or generally existing, and I read that before I went to bed and I remember it felt like seeing brand new colors bloom in my pitch black bedroom, like some kind of explosion of the mind (in a good way). And I repeated the words to myself as I fell asleep, and then when I got up before the sun I still spoke them, all the way until I got to what I was dreading and started my day. And that day was different, this is where it gets murky, but I remember that that day was so different, because I was different. And things just got Better for me after that. Like I said it’s been a while since I went through this blog, but I would check in some times the past couple years wondering if you posted again, and even if you don’t want to come back fully it was really nice to see your words again on my dash :) I think tomorrow afternoon ill scroll and try to get to the bottom of your blog like I used to (I can’t do it now, it’s kinda late for me and I try to get good sleep these days instead of scrolling tumblr all night like I used to haha). Anyway if you see this or read this no pressure to reply I’m not really expecting one, I just wanted to tell you, thank you.

this msg has been in my inbox for over a year and i was gonna keep it there but i think i'd like to share... it makes me very very happy and like this did all mean something good... thank you for being on this journey with me... it has meant a lot to me over the years and i think about it often

[dollarbils]

i can’t move on, babydoll | b.eilish

billie eilish x fem!reader

masterlist

“well you’re a familiar face.” you’d turned around to be met by her. no introductions were needed, in fact, you lingered for a moment too long, caught up in the faint memories grazing the horizon. you didn’t think the clubs in miami would be this small.

“billie.” it was all you’d managed to muster up, at loss for words, not out of awe, but out of a sort of anger.

“baby.” she smiled, and it was wicked. a smile destined for heartbreak. it was all too clear now, you cursed yourself for not having seen it sooner.

“don’t call me that.” she laughed, amused by your attempts to act cold, reject her. nobody rejected her. she was infectious.

“you have taken up quite the cold front, been having to wait on calls and flip through stations. it’s ridiculous babydoll.” you rolled your eyes at the mention of the calls. they’d been flooding in, nonstop, for fucking weeks. you’d think she’d have given up by now.

“get over it billie, it’s pathetic.” she smirked, taking her lip between her teeth.

“mm, talk dirty to me.” she moaned. in response, you sighed, heavy with disbelief.

“how did you even find me all the way in miami?” her grin indicated a witty reply in the midst.

“don’t worry about it.” her bottom lip was plump from biting on it, almost making you go feral. trying to erase images of sucking it ‘till it’s swollen.

“well this has been a pitiful waste of my time.” it took over half your willpower to turn away from her, heading towards to exit. she pulled you back, obviously, what a fucking cliché.

“come on,” she paused, “are you really going to give up on this? i know you wanna fuck me, i still see it in your eyes.” you contemplated for second, wether it was possible for her to see that in your eyes, but came to your senses shortly after.

“for god’s sakes, just move on, billie.” you weren’t quite sure if she was disrespecting your orders on purpose or if she simply hadn’t listened, but she gravitated towards you.

“oh babydoll,” she dragged out her words, almost whining. her hand came up to push the hair out of your face and behind your ear, lingering for a while.

“stop it.” you swatted her and away.

“i can’t move on.” the warmth of her lips against yours took you by surprise, your mind screaming at you for letting her kiss you. she would never learn to move on, and you’d never learn not to take her back. but who’s complaining?

@adinda-eilish @ijustlovemaths @sweetcherriexs @jaxon-nathaniel-drake @mybluebossanova @diceroll65 @tothediner @st0nerlesb0 @bilssturns @london-uhmye @bxllxebxtch @tan1shere

[emsdevs]

Jack, Do You Think About Me?

a/n: this has been a thought in my head since this song came out! here's a little jack x famous singer!reader inspired by noah by megan moroney. enjoy :)

You and Jack had gotten together the summer after you both turned seventeen. Your relationship was good, but good wasn’t always enough. You’d skip class together, riding around in his car, blasting “Record Year” by Eric Church. You were completely his, but he didn’t belong to you, not really. When he got drafted, he made the decision that your relationship should end, so you both decided to live out your last summer together before ultimately calling it quits the day before he got on a plane to New Jersey. 

Now, it had been years since you had seen him. You checked on him every once in a while, through the internet or mutual friends. You wanted the best for him, and he’d always own a piece of your heart. You couldn’t let him have all of it anymore though. You had met a nice guy, just a couple of years older than you, at your job. You were fresh out of college and quite nervous, but he had helped you settle in. Before long, you and the guy, Liam, had realized there was a spark between the two of you. He asked you out, and a few nights later you found yourself on a dinner date with him. Liam was great, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew he wasn’t Jack.

Not long after you and Liam officially got together, you decided to pursue your dreams and started uploading covers and your own songs to YouTube. After just a couple of months, you had gotten discovered and signed a deal with a record label. Liam was right there with you, supporting you through it all, but you couldn’t help but think about when Jack would tell you he’d never heard a voice more beautiful than yours. Now you’re touring, and it’s affecting your relationship with Liam. 

“I never see you anymore. I just… I thought I could handle this, but I need someone who can be here. I can’t settle down with a girl who lives on a tour bus,” Liam seemed exhausted, and you were tired of arguing with him, especially after that last comment.

“Fine, you can find your way to the airport I assume, then?”

“Yeah. I’ll get outta your hair.”

That night, after your tears dried up, you did what you did best, write. Just hours later, you were looking at a song called “Break It Right Back” that summed up how you were feeling about your entire relationship. When your band met with you to practice the next day, you threw it into the mix with some of your other unreleased songs, letting them get a feel for how you pictured the melody sounding. You’d be performing in Buffalo, New York later that night, and you planned to debut it as a surprise song on the setlist. It would likely stay for the next few shows, just until you got all the feelings out.

Four nights later, you were playing Madison Square Garden, but unbeknownst to you, a certain boy you used to consider a brother dragged your ex and half of their hockey team to the VIP section of your show. You had made it to the halfway point, walking around the stage and interacting with fans. That’s when you see him, Jack Hughes, the boy you had never really gotten over. You locked eyes with him (the VIP section was rather close to the stage at your shows), and everything came rushing back. You continued on with the show, trying to play it off and act like you were fine, but all of that changed when it was time to play the surprise song. Originally, like in the past three shows, you were planning to play “Break It Right Back”, but something stopped you. You could feel his eyes on you, and you knew you had to try one last time. You stopped your band and began to give the audience a little speech.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just… We were supposed to play “Break It Right Back” right now, but I feel like I should perform another song for you guys. I uhh… I wrote this song a while back. It’s about an ex of mine. We were um… we were together for about a year in high school, but our lives led us in different directions. So yeah, um… this one’s called “Noah”, and yes, I changed the guy’s name. So no one go searching for someone named Noah that you think I dated because I didn’t,” you tried to joke a little at the end, attempting to calm your nerves. Your band knew the song and started playing it perfectly. You couldn’t look anywhere near Jack, terrified of what his reaction might be. Soon, you were at the bridge, and your eyes were briefly drawn to his before you started singing, “It’s more problematic than it is innocent and sweet. You’re more like a secret I wish I didn’t have to keep, and I bet by now you’ve found somebody new. I did too, but when I lie down next to him sometimes I’d rather it be with you.” 

You finished the song, still not daring to glance Jack’s way, and then you reveled in the cheers from the audience, who had clearly enjoyed you performing a never-before-heard song. 

Once the show was finished, you went back to your dressing room after sharing a hug with your band and vocalists. You took a breath, letting yourself calm down from the adrenaline rush you still get from performing. A moment later, you hear a knock on the door. Assuming it’s your manager, you tell them to come in, but you’re shocked to see a gaggle of hockey players huddled in the doorway. The two in the front stand out the most to you though. You’d be able to recognize a Hughes brother anywhere, and now there were two right in front of you. Luke decides he’s done wasting time, quickly moving forward and engulfing you in a hug. All of the boys, even the ones you had never met, gave you their congratulations and told you how much they enjoyed the show. It wasn’t long before Luke was coming up with an excuse to usher everyone but Jack out of the room, hoping you two could work things out. 

“You did great out there,” Jack started the conversation.

“Thanks. I guess I have to come watch you play hockey now, huh?” you chuckle, trying to diffuse the tension.

“Did you write that song about me?” Jack cut to the chase, tired of dancing around the subject.

“Jack- I… If it bothers you, I won’t release it, and I’ll never perform it again. I just needed to let you know how I felt when I saw you in the audience.”

“It doesn’t bother me, I swear. It makes me happy. I think about you a lot. Honestly, I don’t know that I ever got over you, and the biggest mistake of my life was not even trying to make the distance work with you.”

“Hey, it’s okay. We both needed to grow on our own. Look at where we both are, living our dreams. If we didn’t break up, I probably wouldn’t be here, and your game is so good right now! Please don’t feel bad,” you tried to reassure him.

“Do you uhh… Do you think we could try again? I mean- I know you’re on tour right now, and I’m just on a short break before games start back again. But I need you around again. I really think we could make it work this time.”

“I think we could make it work too, J. How about we start out slow okay? Get to know each other again?”

“I can work with that,” Jack breathed out a sigh of relief, wrapping you in a hug. Both of you were happy to be revisiting something that made you both so happy. You didn’t know if Jack would be your forever, but you’re content to work together with him to see if he would be. At least now you could think about him without feeling guilty.

taglist: @heartsforjh @fofiquierellorar @justxpaulina @alex-wotton @devilinpradaheels @puckmedude

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[andromeda-pleiades]

Just Trust Me

WORD COUNT: 1,747

PAIRING: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Reader

Part- 1 | Part 3

The ride home is quieter than usual. Simon, who typically fills the silence with small talk or offhand comments, stays focused on the road. You can feel the absence of his usual chatter, and the space between you both grows.

You bite your lip, trying to decide whether to bring it up. The missing phone. The app. Simon’s reaction could tell you more than anything, but you're not sure what you're hoping to hear.

"So, I think I lost my phone today," you say, casually, trying to gauge his response.

Simon’s hands tighten around the steering wheel, though his expression doesn’t change. “Lost it? That’s a shame. Where?”

You hesitate, thinking back to the sandwich shop. The moment you realized your phone was gone, it felt like it happened in slow motion. “In the sandwich shop, I guess. It was just... gone.”

Simon glances at you briefly, his eyes cool, before returning to the road. “That’s annoying.”

He says it with a certain calmness, almost as if he's dismissing it without making a big deal out of it. You can’t quite place it, but something about his reaction makes you feel... uneasy.

"I’ll get you a new one," he adds, as if he’s solving the problem for you. “No point in you going without one.”

You almost want to argue, but something holds you back. The way he offers to replace it feels like it should be reassuring, but it only adds to the sense that you're losing control over things you once took for granted. You nod, unsure of what else to say.

"Thanks," you murmur. But the words feel hollow.

The silence stretches on, the low hum of the car filling the space between you. You keep wondering if he knows. About the app. About the things you haven’t figured out yet.

You glance at him, but his face is unreadable, his focus entirely on driving. It's as if the missing phone is nothing more than a minor inconvenience, and you can't decide if that should reassure you—or if it should worry you.

The car pulls into the driveway, and you feel the weight of the day pressing down on you. You know Simon’s going to act like everything is fine, that the missing phone is just another small thing to be dealt with. But a small voice inside you whispers that it's more than that.

You can't put your finger on it yet. But something feels...

You sit on the couch, your legs tucked beneath you, while Simon moves around the kitchen, humming a soft tune as he cleans up after dinner. The evening feels deceptively normal, his attentiveness wrapping around you like a warm blanket. He checks in with you often—bringing you water, asking if you’re comfortable—all while wearing the calm, steady expression you’ve always admired.

It’s what you should want, isn’t it? A partner who cares, who notices even the smallest things.

And yet, you feel… off. Not because of anything he’s doing, but because of you. Because of your own thoughts.

You glance at him as he wipes down the counter, his movements smooth and precise. Memories of his stories about his time in the special forces flash through your mind—missions in dangerous places, the constant threat of danger, the toll it must’ve taken on him. You’ve seen glimpses of it in the night terrors that wake him up, in the way he’s always scanning his surroundings when you’re out in public, in the way he can’t fully relax even here, at home.

You understand why he might have done it. The app, you mean.

It feels foolish now, the way you reacted earlier when you found it. Simon has always been a good boyfriend, patient and attentive even when you’ve struggled to keep up with his complexities. It makes sense that he would want to keep you safe, that he might need the reassurance of knowing where you are.

He’s been through so much—things you can’t begin to comprehend. After everything he’s seen, after all the chaos he’s lived through, is it so wrong that he wants control? That he wants to protect you in the only way he knows how?

You press your lips together, fighting back a wave of guilt. Maybe you overreacted. Maybe the app really is just his way of looking out for you.

But there’s something else, something you can’t quite name. A feeling deep in your gut that won’t go away, no matter how much you try to rationalize it.

Because if it was just about safety, just about protection, why didn’t he tell you about it?

The question twists in your mind, and you hate yourself for it. You hate that you’re doubting him when he’s never given you a real reason to. He’s been nothing but wonderful to you. Understanding. Patient. The perfect partner in every way.

And yet, the unease lingers, curling low in your stomach like a warning.

Simon turns to you then, breaking you out of your thoughts. “You okay?” he asks, his voice gentle, concerned.

You force a smile, nodding quickly. “Yeah. Just... tired.”

He studies you for a moment, his eyes searching yours, and you feel your pulse quicken. But then he nods, accepting your answer without pushing further.

“You should get some rest,” he says, walking over to press a kiss to the top of your head. “I’ll finish up here.”

You murmur your thanks, leaning into his touch despite the knot tightening in your chest.

As you retreat to the bedroom, you try to shake the feeling, to convince yourself that you’re overthinking it. Simon loves you. He’s always loved you. And he’s been through more than anyone should ever have to endure.

But no matter how much you tell yourself it’s fine, that he’s fine, you can’t ignore the small voice whispering in the back of your mind. The one telling you there’s more to this than he’s letting on.

And the more you try to silence it, the louder it becomes.

The room is dark and still when you wake, the faint scent of cigarette smoke lingering in the air. You blink a few times, disoriented, before realizing Simon isn’t beside you.

You sit up slowly, the silence pressing against your ears. Through the bedroom window, you catch a glimpse of him standing on the porch, his silhouette faintly illuminated by the cherry-red glow of his cigarette.

Simon doesn’t smoke often—only when he’s stressed. You watch him for a moment, his posture rigid, his shoulders tense as he stares out into the darkness.

A sense of unease washes over you, but you push it aside, convincing yourself it’s nothing. He’s probably just thinking, you tell yourself. Processing whatever ghosts still haunt him.

But you can’t shake the restlessness in your chest.

Sliding out of bed, you move quietly across the room. Your bare feet make no sound as they touch the cool floor. You don’t know what compels you to move toward the closet, but something in the back of your mind whispers for you to check.

The closet is orderly, as always—Simon’s precision extending to even the smallest details of his life. You scan the shelves and the small duffel bag tucked into the corner. It’s zipped shut, but not fully.

Your heart pounds as you crouch down, pulling it open. At first, you don’t see anything out of the ordinary: folded clothes, a shaving kit. But then your hand brushes against something hard and rectangular.

Your phone.

For a moment, you just stare at it, your breath caught in your throat. You pull it out slowly, your fingers trembling. The screen lights up as you press the button, and the app you found earlier stares back at you like a damning accusation.

You’re about to set it down when a notification pops up.

A message.

From Gaz

Your stomach drops. You hesitate for only a moment before swiping to unlock the screen. The message thread opens, and your pulse races as you scroll through it.

Gaz: She doesn’t suspect anything, does she?

Soap: Not a chance. Simon’s too good for that.

Simon: Just keep your end clear. I don’t want any loose ends.

Gaz: Relax. She’s not like that.

Your vision blurs as you stare at the screen, your brain struggling to piece together what you’re seeing.

She’s not like that. Are they talking about you?

You scroll further, catching bits and pieces of their conversation.

Gaz: How’s she holding up?

Simon: Doesn’t matter. Everything’s under control.

Soap: Yeah, but for how long?

The words feel like a punch to the gut. You don’t understand the full context, but you know enough to realize that this isn’t normal. This isn’t right.

And then it hits you.

Gaz

Kyle.

The realization hits you like a ton of bricks. Kyle—the same Kyle you’d known for years, your childhood friend. He’d always been part of Simon’s stories, but you never knew he was the same person. You never knew that Gaz—the elusive, almost mythical figure in Simon’s past—was your old friend.

Your childhood friend. The same Kyle you ran into at the sandwich shop. The same Kyle who was part of Simon’s special forces team, whose codename you’d heard in passing but never connected until now.

Your mind races as the truth sinks in. This wasn’t a coincidence. None of this was. Simon had been watching you from the start, and Kyle had been helping him. Every move you made, every step you took—it had all been calculated.

You feel like the floor has been ripped out from under you.

You force yourself to put the phone back exactly as you found it, zipping up the duffel bag and closing the closet door. Your hands are shaking, your breaths coming in short, shallow gasps.

When you glance out the window again, Simon is still there, his cigarette burned down to the filter. He crushes it under his boot, the movement precise, deliberate.

In that moment, he doesn’t look like the man you thought you knew.

He doesn’t look like the comforting, loving boyfriend who holds you when you’re upset or makes you laugh when you’ve had a bad day.

He looks like a soldier. A man trained to control every situation, to anticipate every threat, to eliminate every weakness.

And suddenly, you realize: you’re not his partner. You’re just another piece on the board.

[thechaoticcheese]

TW: Numbness, Mentions of Bruises, Yelling, Waterboarding, Torture, Lack of Care for the Reader

Wrongfully Accused - Chapter 4 - The Truth

Gaz had followed his lover and Price until the interrogation room. He watched the two enter and he stopped. His mind pounded with thoughts and his heart screaming at him that something wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. He cursed underneath his breath before he turned back and stalked his way to the barracks. His mind was milling on who would frame the person he loved so much. There was just no way you could do something like this. And god damnit he was going to prove you innocent, or do his best trying. First things first, he has to see who knows. Soap was first. He was the closest, or at least his room was and he’d assumed that Ghost was probably still in the commons room, or somewhere farther away from Soap’s location. Gaz noticed his Scottish friend starting to make his way towards the interrogation rooms and he interacted with the Brit first. Soap seemed a bit disheveled, his brows furrowing and a concerned look plastered on his face. “Aye, Gaz, ya’know wha’ happened b’tween Price an’ Y/N? He took’em away in cuffs.” Soap sounded distressed, in a friend kind of way, worried about your safety and whatever conflict the Captain had with you. “Yeah. He suspects ‘em of bein’ the spy on the base.” Gaz said with slightly gritted teeth, the thought made his fist tighten. “I don’t believe ‘im.” “You don’t believe the Cap’n?” Soap sounded a tad surprised, knowing that Gaz and Price went on a majority of missions together when it was just a two man job. Though he also knew Gaz’s unwavering loyalty to people he heavily cared about. There must’ve been a war inside Gaz, but to Gaz, the answer was clear who was on top. “Not with this. Somethin’ is up. Imma talk to Ghost next. Can you get in contact with Laswell for me?” Gaz requested from Soap, who nodded. “Aye. You think Simon knows som’tin’?” The Scotsman asked curiously. “No tellin’. If not, I have a few more people to ask.” Gaz said, crossing his arms over his chest. His mind flashing back to the burn that was on your face. He shivered as he watched the nurse start to carve out your flesh and you just didn’t move. Soap’s gentle pat on his shoulder brought Gaz back, the mohawked man offering a comforting smile. “Good luck.” “You too.” With that, the two headed in opposite directions. Gaz had a look of determination on his face as he marched through the halls towards the commons room. His mind whirled with what he’d say when he saw Ghost. A lot of it was yelling, but he knew he’d have to approach his friend carefully. The thought of Ghost doing nothing hurt more than he thinks it should’ve. Maybe because the team was so tight knit, hearing that one of his good friends did nothing to help his significant other boiled his blood. When he reached the room, it looked like Ghost had just finished cleaning up the table. He was now standing by the sink, rubbing his thumb back and forth against the mug you were drinking from. His eyes locked onto it before they glanced over at Gaz, who was beelining it towards the taller male. “Gaz.” Ghost gruffly greeted the male before putting the cup gently in the sink. “I should hit you. Ya know.” Gaz greeted back with a growl, taking in a deep breath to calm down the anger that had been bubbling inside him as Ghost glanced a humorous look at the shorter male. While Gaz was known to jump to the extremes quite quickly, the glare Gaz was returning to the masked soldier told Ghost how much he was willing to back up the claim.

Ghost leaned onto the counter, hands gripping the edge as his fingers went into the sink, along with his gaze. It was as if he was ashamed for doing nothing, refusing to look Gaz in his eyes again, or at least for now. “I’m sorry.” He said softly. “My significant other is being tortured by Price, got burned in front of you and you did nothing, and you’re ‘sorry’?” Gaz practically lectured the older male before he took another deep breath closing his eyes, clenching and unclenching his fists. He so wanted to drill Ghost’s head into the sink with one blow, but he had to keep things professional, as professional it was to yell at your friend in the commons room where people could see the two of you arguing.

“Yeah.” Ghost replied, his monotonous voice not changing. This was the closest that Gaz was going to get to a proper apology and he knew it. Though the thought of Ghost doing nothing to stop Price didn’t stop itching at his brain. “Did… Did you even try?” Gaz spoke softer, a soft crack in his voice. He tried to figure out what Ghost did. The silence spoke volumes as Ghost recalled the incident from earlier this morning. Gaz had never seen the bloke wince, but he did, making the shorter soldier wonder if Ghost watched you get burned. “No… Price…” Ghost was trying to speak, trying to explain the situation, but anything past the ‘No’, Gaz didn’t register. “You watched Price burn my partner and dragged them away and you didn’t do anything!” Gaz was ready to explode, his voice indicating that he was already there at such a loud tone. “They were hurt and you couldn’t stand up to Price to get them any bloody treatment! Did his accusation of them being the spy really change your mind that much?!” He continued to spit fire at the tall man. Ghost’s hands gripped tighter against the counter and sink. Gaz swore if he gripped it any tighter it would break. The masked man sharply turned to Gaz and jabbed his finger into his chest, making him stumble back a bit. Ghost being quick wasn’t unheard of, but that didn’t make it any less shocking when it happened. “I do not have a soft spot for traitors. If they are proven innocent I will apologize. Until then they are the enemy.” Ghost growled. The two were ready to fight there in the commons. It was just up to who would swing first. “What ‘appened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?” Gaz growled back, the air thickening as he leaned into the masked man’s finger. He was challenging the taller bloke. Ghost’s brown eyes flashed in some sort of angry emotion before he sighed and moved away. While Gaz knew it wasn’t because Ghost wanted to back down, he knew that Ghost knew that it would be the best move at this point. If the taller man swung, the commons room would quickly turn into a battle ground, and that would just make everything worse. “Nothin’.” He replied in a quieter tone. Hearing the reply made Gaz chuckle softly, a quip at the tip of his tongue, but he reminded himself to stay calm. Or well, to cool down to not have a fight in the commons room. He already made Ghost get close to boiling over. “Fuckin’ right. Now follow it. I have Soap contactin’ Laswell. I need to ask Price who he got ‘is information from. Though I have a feelin’ it’s one of the blokes that came in with Y/N when they first star’ed to work here. You wanna see what you can find out?” Gaz suggested, his voice determined and calm, but that was a contrast to how he felt. He’d definitely would need a round with Ghost in the ring after all of this is over. He knew he would more than likely lose, but a chance to hone skills and hopefully make some blows, would be worth it.

“Yea. I’ll make ‘em talk.” Ghost responded standing up fully now. “Good. Imma go talk to Price then. Meet ya back here later.” Gaz said with a small smile, gently punching Ghost’s arm, “You awe me a round after this blows over.” Ghost only replied with a half-amused grunt before going to talk to the other three. Gaz felt good about himself, puffing out his chest slightly in a mini victory before pivoting back to the interrogation room. He paused at your barrack’s door. Gaz’s mind filled with apologies that he could only wish to tell you at the moment. Price had to be wrong in this situation. He usually wasn’t, but everyone slips up sometimes. Then he felt bad for lashing out at Ghost, knowing his real anger wasn't at him, nor Price, but the asshole who accused you of being the spy. Whoever it was had to be the one that’s sabotaging everything. He must’ve been there for quite some time because a hand touched his shoulder. He glanced over to see Price. He seemed slightly defeated and tired, but still angry. The blood on his gloves made Gaz want to shiver, but he held his stance. “Gaz. This… This is a ‘ard ask… But Imma need you in a few hours to ‘elp with interrogation’ Y/N-” “You fuckin’ crazy, mate?” Gaz interrupted his Captain, absolutely shocked at how easily Price let the obscene request leave his mouth. Though part of him noticed how Price winced, as if he had known what Gaz’s reaction would be. How long had the Captain been stewing on the question? “They’ll crack faster seeing that there’s no hope.” Price responded coldly. Then Gaz realized something. Price had completely put on his mission mask. One of those masks that isn’t seen, but it’s like a mental block so they could do their work. This was too hard for him to mentally handle and so he hid instead of asking questions. Gaz’s blood started to boil again, but he silently started to reason with himself. This would for sure hurt your relationship, but if you don’t do it, the others would do it just as roughly as Price. At least in this way he could make sure you don’t get it too rough and keep Price from dishing out harder punishments. Though he wasn’t going to agree without bargaining. “Aight… On two conditions.” Gaz said, Prices seemed a bit surprised. “One, you get yourself a nap, you look worse for wear. Two, you tell me who informed ya.” Price’s eyes narrowed at the Sergeant, clearly seeing the bargain, but being too tired to argue he nodded and huffed, “Nikolai… and fine. No more than two hours. In the meantime fetch me a bucket. When I wake up, fill it up with ice cold water.” Gaz nodded, and as soon as Price turned around and sulked to his room to sleep, he shivered. His mind raced. Nikolai? Nik? No… Nikolai wouldn’t… Was… Was it written? There was no way Nikolai could be the spy, everyone knew the Russian too well. Something was amiss.

Gaz quickly jogged to the commons room, or well, he tried. He almost sprinted in, looking for Soap or Ghost, his mind whirling. He spotted the two quietly conversing in the corner. Soap was in front of Ghost, pressed up against him, teasing the Brit with something or other. Gaz couldn’t entirely care what it was at this moment. He quickly headed over, watching as Ghost’s eyes went from Soap’s to his, nodding slightly in a silent greeting. Soap, seeing the nod, shifted away and turned towards Gaz with a big smile, blue eyes shining happily before he caught Gaz’s furrowed brows. The two men knew something went amiss in the plan, or unexpected at least. “We have a problem.” Gaz breathed out as soon as he had both of their attention. “The intel is from Nikolai.” “No fukin’ way.” Soap whispered out. “Yea… I’m wondering if someone forged his handwriting… As illegible as it is…” Gaz put forth his thoughts, Ghost nodded in agreement. “Do we know if he was ‘ere today, or recently?”

“No…” Ghost shook his head slightly, the mask above his eyes moving, no doubt furrowing his brows. “No, he couldn’t be. ‘im an’ Laswell have been on a mission the pas’ few days.” Soap interjected, his eyes narrowing, “We go’ a right proper rat.” He growled out.

Gaz’s fists tightened again, he wanted to find who it was and put them in the dirt now, “What else did you find out?” “Well, Laswell an’ Nik will be ova’ere as soon as they can… Mission complications… Laswell an’ Nik don’t think Y/N is the spy, though they did warn me that they’d lose all communication soon so we’ll have ta wait wit’ baited breath for their return.” “Fuck. Ghost?” “Only one I could find was Tree… Drunk out of ‘is mind. Not suitable for interrogation.” The Brit gruffly responded, anger hinted at the edge of his tone. “God damnit.” Gaz cursed under his breath, despite how much he craved to yell it. “So we have someone framing Nik, who in turn is framing Y/N, and until Nik comes back we’re sitting ducks…” “Aye…” Soap confirmed softly, offering a gently squeeze of Gaz’s shoulder. “We will ge’em out, don’ worry Gaz.” “Yeah but how soon?” He grumbled. Gaz wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to feel his fist hit whoever got you in this situation. For now, he had about an hour and a half to figure things out.

…

Now here he is. Gripping your hair and forcing you into the water that felt cold. He had iced it earlier, but then scrapped the ice and put some hotter water in so it wouldn’t be freezing like Price wanted. He wasn’t about to confront his Captain in these circumstances. He gently pulled your head out of the water as you gasped for air, spitting water out of your mouth as your lungs demanded air. “You gon’ talk now? Or are we gonna take it up a notch?” Price asked, his face getting close to yours as his eyes narrowed. You looked at Price through somewhat closed eyes. “Fuck off.” You manage to murmur out through your sore throat. “Dunk ‘em.”

…

It’s been weeks. You’re weaker than you’ve ever felt in your life. Between being beaten and starved, your will to even consider forgiving anyone on 141 was slipping. The last thread that you held onto tightly was Gaz’s. You wrapped his thread around your hand tightly until it started to cut your fingers, your blood making the thread slippery, each drop from when he’d hurt you. Eventually. He did stop coming. Your grip on his thread was slowly loosening. It had been 21 days, 3 weeks, since you were brought here. You’ve gone numb to so many things, Price’s words, the cold cement, the aches and pains in your body. The way Gaz would sneak you small rations. It hurt you. Having to be secretly fed and begging every single time Gaz had to leave you to not go.

Three weeks of being interrogated to the point that it didn’t matter what happened after this. You were resigning. You wouldn’t sue, though the thought has crossed your mind multiple times. Worst part is, you found who it was. Price just wouldn’t believe you. By day 15, you shut up. Not a word had left your mouth for 6 days. Gaz had been gone for a day and that’s when you found out. It was Quail. Fucking Tree. He let you in on all of his little secrets as he toyed with you, adding to the bruises that decorated your skin as he tried to ‘beat the information’ out of you. You hope he’d burn in hell. You now knew, or well, used to know what was happening. He planted a letter for Price, claiming it to be Nik, but due to the secrecy had to use newspaper clippings, and it was because he and Laswell found sensitive information on their mission about said spy. They just sent Tree to collect it after they sent it to a burner address that everyone knew of, it was just his day to check it. And Price fell for the bait. You couldn’t say a damn thing about their plans though. If you did, you’d be the spy, but if you didn’t, you’d be a traitor after being proven innocent. It fits in your mind, a traitor in a group of traitors.

Soon, someone gripped by your hair, your eyes focusing on the oh so familiar boots of your beloved Captain. Your weak body was limp as Price pulled you from the corner he left you in just hours before, dragging your body across the floor. He then set you up in the chair in the center of the room. “I got a real treat for ya later. Someone’s coming to visit.” Price growled out, looking into your defeated eyes, “You best hope they don’t keep this up.”

You refused to respond. He huffed, gripping the chair and staring into you with hatred, “You’ve been a thorn in my side these past few weeks.If you weren’t so damn important, you would be dead by now” The words were supposed to phase you. They did, but only a little, mainly because being dead sounded like a nice relief. Seeing how ineffective his words were, he growled, winding his arm back to punch you square in the jaw before the door busted open, causing both you and Price to look at the open door that swung open with so much force that it bounced off of the wall it hit. “Enough, John.” Laswell’s voice loudly cracked through the room, seeing Laswell holding Tree by his hair and wrist. “We’ve got the actual traitor, release them.” Your heart fluttered, seeing Nikolai and Gaz right behind her, as if two guards guiding someone, who didn’t need to be guarded mind you, and their dangerous captive. Though, you were only glad to see Nikolai and Laswell. Your heart couldn’t decide if Gaz earned that right in the fuzziness in your chest after everything. After all, your limp hand barely held the string.

Price’s eyes widened, stepping away as his mind turned. You could tell that he was processing the information as Laswell pushed Tree inside the room, Gaz and Nikolai both following immediately. Nik went straight for Price, consoling the man and quickly ushering out of the room. His voice was too soft for you to pick up any semblance of words, that, and you were barely paying attention. You knew Price’s world must’ve been rocked considering what Tree had already told you. You could barely register Gaz taking off your cuffs and tightening around the traitorous male’s wrist, not caring if he complained that it was too tight.

Good. You sickly thought as you heard the clicking of the cuffs.

Gaz brought you up off of the chair, wrapping your arm around his shoulders in an attempt to let you walk, but your body refused. Your mind was still numb to everything, trying to figure out if it could even walk. When you crumbled towards the floor, Gaz scooped you up in his arms. Gaz’s soft and sweet voice softly murmuring apologies. How he tried to get there sooner, but they were waiting on Nikolai and Laswell, but they had to be rescued after weeks of no contact. Price was stuck here and just took his anger out on you since he assumed you were a part of it. You didn’t respond. Part of you didn’t believe him.

The look of dread was sinking into Gaz as he made glances down to your body. While Price didn’t break anything, he dislocated so many things, only relocating them when he got pissed enough. It felt like some might’ve been broken then, but you weren’t sure. Gaz had sped up his walk as you barely recognize Soap’s worried blue eyes as Gaz bulldozed past the Scot.

The amount of care you felt for the world around you was non-existence and it worried Gaz. Every fiber of his being convinced that he was way too late, but he’d try. He’d try so damn hard to get his little angel back.

You heard words exchanged between a different medic than the one before and Gaz. Though as soon as your body felt the softer feeling of the cot, you passed out. Welcoming any softer feeling of an object compared to the cold feeling of the concrete you’d spent the previous nights on. When you woke up, you were covered in bandaids, wrappings, and a few splints on your fingers. You glanced down to see an IV in your arm, and, moving past your better judgement, you ripped it out with nothing more than a soft grunt. It alerted the new medic who swiftly came over, mumbling to themself as you stood up on shaky legs. “Hey! Hey! Sit back down. You need to rest.” He instructed, gently trying to keep you on the bed, but you refused. You still had strength in your body, more than you realized. Perhaps it was just your mental will power that was dead. “No…” Your raspy voice spoke, startling the medic. “I want to return to my room.” He hesitated, glancing away for a moment. “If you let me and my colleagues check in on you every hour on the hour… F-Fine.” You knew this wasn’t allowed, but the lacking care in your body showed, cause the medic seemed absolutely scared shitless by your gaze. You must’ve given him one hell of a glare.

He helped you to your room, always there for your stumbles as you partly wondered where the hell Gaz was. You would’ve sworn he’d be by your side after all of this, but he wasn’t there when you woke. The question soon answered itself as the medic flicked on the light to your room. Your bed was covered with new bedding, stuffed animals, flowers, pillows, anything and everything a lover could do to comfy up the military beds. Though no Gaz. Was he hoping to do a big reveal once you were better? It didn’t matter now. The surprise was ruined and you couldn’t care how nice it looked. Not like you’d choose to remember.

The scene in front of you didn’t affect the deadness in your heart. You just wanted to sleep somewhere more familiar than the medical bay. You stumbled over with the medic’s help. He was about to help you to the side of the bed before you took your arm and wiped off as much as you could, dumping a good chunk of it onto the floor. The only thing that remained was a brown stuffed teddy bear and the new pillows. The teddy bear was holding a heart that you only noticed after grabbing it to huck it onto the ground. You assumed that what it said on the heart was something cheap, before you paused. You noticed how the message was hand-sewn into a heart, that was a bit-lopsided, but also hand made. ‘To my Angel. You will forever be in my heart. No matter where we are.’ It read. Was it still sappy? Sewn in a bit sloppily? Absolutely, but you settled into bed with it. The stuffed bear held tightly against your chest as the medic carefully tucked you in.

“See you in an hour.” He said softly, carefully nudging the gifts on the ground towards the wall to be picked up later, before turning off the light to the room and leaving you alone. The darkness made your mind scream in fear, but the tiredness in your body gagged it as you finally closed your eyes to sleep against the mattress that felt so soft. Your arms had a death grip on the teddy bear. Its soft fur brushed against the bandages on your arms and chest. You wish you could feel how soft its fur was, but your body was being held together by the medical fabric. Soon, you were able to drift off to sleep with a soft warmness towards Gaz once more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: I hope y'all enjoyed glances at word count 4,027 words of this! I was debating on putting it in two parts, but.... Nah. You guys just get one BIG chapter. Y'all get two more chapters of angst and fluff until it ends. Not sure when it'll be posted cause my mind be everywhere lol. Inspire by this post.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

[hedwig221b]

You are amazing ✨✨✨

Do you have any feral Derek fic recs?? Especially if he’s stuck as a wolf?? Bonus points if Stiles thinks he’s just a big friendly dog 🥹

Hi, love! Thank uuu! I absolutely love feral wolf Derek, it always delivers. Here's a very long rec list, enjoy!

Waiting by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

Not wanting to think on it too much, Stiles took a step forward and passed his hand between the bars, moving the bleeding side closer to Derek’s mouth. “Not too close, he bites.” Stiles snatched his hand away just as Derek had been about to lick at it. The snarl he got in response was not comforting. “He what?” Stiles asked nervously, turning to Deaton. The man looked a little amused. “Don’t worry, only if he doesn’t like you.” “Well, he probably hates me, now!” Stiles insisted, turning back to Derek.

He looked extremely displeased.

You're My Sanctuary by lilmissdaydreamer

The Argent Wolf Sanctuary. It’s been Stiles’ dream since he was five years old to work with the wolves, ever since his mother took him up there to see the magnificent creatures on one of their ‘full moon runs’ that the Sanctuary does once a month. The wolves are beautiful and much larger than Stiles would’ve thought, or at least, the newest wolf is. The owner had said he’s a special breed. Stiles just didn’t realize quite how special he is.

Stuck in This in Between by calrissian18

“You’re not getting better, Derek.” And it was the first time he’d called him that since he’d realized he wasn’t really.

The Feral Alpha by halcyon1993

Derek has lived in a half-feral state in the wilderness ever since hunters killed his family. When the hunters return years later, he gets his revenge and finds his true mate in one of the boys they were holding captive. He claims him immediately.

Safe Mind by LadyDrace

Derek goes missing for a while and comes back full wolf. Only problem is that his mind has gone wolf too, and for some reason the only one he'll allow near him… is Stiles.

Of Blood and Feral Wolves by Flicker_Ash

After Stiles is hurt in a surprise attack, Derek's wolf takes over and won't let anyone near him. Doesn't matter if it's Scott or a paramedic, when there's blood and no sarcasm, no-one's touching Stiles.

Light at the end of the tunnel by Lesatha

“Careful, Stilinski. Don’t think you can go around telling me what to do, or coddling the werewolf.” “What does it matter to you?” “If the feral alpha kills you, it will be my fault, as your supervisor.” Stiles’ head whipped towards the werewolf. He couldn’t see much of him apart from his red eyes, always following Stiles. Crazy as it might sound, it comforted him. The werewolf wasn’t the rabid animal Elis seemed to picture. He was just… hurt.

Feral by melofttroll

Scott’s yelling now as the Jeep comes to a halt, and Stiles ignores him as he clambers from the seat. The skid turned the Jeep completely around, and his headlights are pointed at something that is decidedly not dog-ish, or bear-ish, but very, very human. And by the shuddering breaths coming from the man’s chest, very much alive. Feral!Derek, Sterek AU

Lessons in Humanity by exclamation

Fleeing from werewolves, Stiles comes face to face with Derek, a werewolf human in shape but animal in his mind. Stiles is terrified of being killed, but it seems Derek has decided Stiles would make a suitable mate. Unfortunately, his idea of a romantic gift is a dead animal on the doorstep. Stiles must help Derek remember what it is to be human… and figure out how to explain his new werewolf stalker to his dad.

Throw Away the Key by mommymuffin

Stiles knew it was stupid to go to the hunters’ headquarters all by himself, so when he finds himself caught, he can really only blame himself. It shouldn't surprise Stiles when the situation quickly goes from bad to worse as the hunters throw him to a feral werewolf waiting to tear him apart. Sucks that it's Derek, though.

Thanks for Thumper, But I Prefer Cheeseburgers by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

The wolf’s head whipped around so fast, Stiles felt like he was watching The Exorcist. Stiles wondered if he could just stand still enough to make the wolf think he was a tree. A very bright red and jean-clad tree. He doubted it, but one could hope. He knew it was a lost cause when the wolf turned fully, lips pulled back from its sharp teeth—so very sharp, good fucking Lord!—and began walking towards Stiles. “I didn’t see anything!” Stiles shouted, both hands out in front of himself and sweat instantly breaking out across his skin. “I swear to you! I didn’t see anything! I didn’t see anything! I won’t tell anyone! I won’t! I’ll keep this to myself, until the day I die! I promise! I promise!”

What I Did On My Summer Vacation by grimm

There's something weird about Beacon Hills that Stiles can't quite put his finger on. The way everyone in town knows his name the day he arrives. The way they insist the melancholic howling that echoes through the forest every night is just a dog. The way his dad denies getting a dog, even though Stiles comes home to find one sprawled across his bed, some big black thing whose eyes gleam red in the right light. The way that massive oak tree out in the woods vibrates under his touch, pulsing with sickly life. There's something weird going on in this town, and Stiles is determined to get to the bottom of it.

Hallowed Grounds by damnfancyscotch

Everything in Beacon Hills is the same when Stiles comes home from college. Well, except for the fact that he's a published author now, Scott is halfway across the world with a travelling circus, Erica's epilepsy has been cured, her boss offers him a job too, and there's this weird black dog that seems to be following him around just to judge him. Oh, and the murders, of course. But other than that stuff… totally the same old BH.

There Are No Wolves in California (Werewolves on the Other Hand…) by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella), KioFox

“I’m not calming down until you call animal control! I fucking saw it! There were fucking wolves!” “There are no wolves in California, Mr. Daehler,” the principal said, sounding exasperated, like this was the third time she’d said it to him. “Well clearly there are!” he shouted back, showing such a lack of respect for the woman, Stiles had to applaud her for her fortitude not to smack him in the face. “Perhaps you were mistaken,” she said calmly. “No I wasn’t fucking mistaken,” Matt insisted, sounding incensed. “No way these were dogs, they were massive!” For a second, Stiles felt like the world had slowed considerably as those words wormed their way into his brain. Because—he knew a dog that was massive. Honestly, he’d also brushed away the idea of the dog being a wolf because there were no wolves in California. But… what if there were? Holy shit, had Stiles literally spent his lunch break with a fucking wolf cuddled into his side while he pet it?! Good God, he was lucky to still have all his limbs!

Where the Real Beasts Are by kaistrex (weishen)

Crown Prince Stiles is gifted a direwolf on his eighteenth birthday by King Gerard I of Venatia. The only instruction? Never remove the collar. Stiles never has been one to do as he’s told.

The Soul Knows What the Heart Wants by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

“Holy—shit,” Stiles breathed, Bacon stopping in what he was doing, still staring at him intently, as if begging him to understand, for someone to finally understand. Stiles felt like he’d been electrocuted and he leapt out of his chair, kneeling in front of Bacon and grabbing at his furry face. “Holy shit! Oh my God, are you—wait, holy—you’re not fucking with me, right?!” Bacon let out two quick barks, which Stiles chose to interpret as ‘no.’ "Oh my God, are you a real person in there?!” Stiles shouted in the wolf’s face, staring him right in the eye. He was still holding the wolf’s head with both hands, but Bacon dipped his muzzle in confirmation and Stiles officially lost his mind. “Oh my God!” he shouted again, releasing Bacon to clutch at his own hair. “Oh my God! Dude, for real?! You’re—holy shit! Holy shit!” He didn’t know how to react to this news. He had no fucking idea how to react. This was a person?! But how?! How was this a person?! People didn’t just turn into wolves!

Rabbit Hearted by secondstar, Tsuminoaru

Storytellers were known for their talented tongues, their ability to weave tales and enthrall the listener. Their stories held weight, taken as truth as they were passed down from generation to generation. A tale of a cursed pack of wolves was one such story that Stiles had known since he was a child. Never did he think that he would become part of that tale, or that its weight would be up upon his shoulders. A tale of curses, sacrifices, and acceptance of one's inner self.

Being Close to You by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

Realization dawned and Derek cursed himself viciously. How could he be stupid enough to forget Scott was a Werewolf? He could fucking smell him! Scott knew it was him! “Stiles?” Scott asked uncertainly while Stiles started opening and closing various cabinets, looking for who knew what. “That’s not a d—” Derek snarled and let out a loud bark, eyes glowing blue in Scott’s direction since Stiles couldn’t see him from where he was standing. Scott scowled at him, moving closer to him and inhaling pointedly. “What are you doing here, Derek?” Scott asked, voice low enough that Stiles wouldn’t hear. He wasn’t listening anyway, still panicking and randomly opening things.

(You) Bring Out the Beast (In Me) by Ember

“Should I make out the wedding invitations?” Stiles swallowed his mouthful of soda.”What?” Lydia smirked. “Well, you and Derek have seemed awfully cozy lately. Just wanted to be supportive.” “Oh, yeah, because that’s exactly why I went into wildlife preservation.” He rolled his eyes. “Beastiality jokes.” +++ Aka the one where Derek is a wolf and Stiles is his trainer, and then magic and transformations and feelings happen.

A Boy’s Best Friend by KnottheWolf

Stiles was just having some ‘me time’ when things escalated with his dog, Wolf. Or at least, he thinks it’s a dog.

"good boy" by quackquackcey

Stiles doesn’t think his senior year can get any worse with his best friend turning rabid every full moon, until he finds himself stuck with a massive black wolf overnight that doesn’t even like jerky. But on the bright side, the hot guy with the half-dying sister he met at the gas station seems to be in town for a bit, so there’s still a chance that his senior year, his supposed best year of high school, isn’t a complete lost cause…right? That is, if he can manage to juggle the sassy wolf that he takes care of at night and the hot guy that asked him out on a date for some reason.~ 🐺🍕

Other fic recs: angsty fics | possessive Derek | historical AU | baby/mpreg | outsider POV | smut | mafia | hurt/comfort | magical!Stiles | Stiles gets kicked out of the pack | BAMF!Stiles | omegaverse | witch!Stiles | creature!Stiles | bad friend Scott | pack mom!Stiles | unrequited love | werewolf!Stiles | dark sterek | single parent!Stiles

[arias-diaryy]

Soft Underbelly

Nobunaga Hazama x Reader

Synopsis: The samurai has pride in keeping his prize safe (despite how terribly he’s doing it).

Warnings: yandere, fem reader, mentioned physical abuse.

3.4k words ... my first fic in a long while, big big big thank you to my beta reader who also came up with the synopsis lmfao

 Under normal circumstances, there would be a back and forth before bath time. 

Nobunaga’s working the third round of shampoo into your hair, grumbling under his breath when he still finds debris in your locks. Considerably less, given all the work he’s put in, but he still finds a stray leaf in your hair. He flicks it out of your head, brows furrowing. There isn’t any water in the tub, he’s just been rinsing you off over and over with the handheld showerhead.

It’s cold, and normally you’d be afforded the luxury of warm water. This time, Nobunaga was more interested in getting you clean rather than waiting for the water to heat up. You’ve been without clothes too many times in his presence to still feel overly embarrassed about it, though that doesn’t mean you’re comfortable about it. Nobunaga is crouched on the ground outside of the bathtub, washing you as if you were a labrador covered in mud. His sleeves still got water on them despite being rolled up to his elbows, and his hair is pulled back into a low ponytail to keep it out of the way. If he’s leered at you, you haven’t noticed. You’ve been desperate to avoid eye contact.

When he holds the showerhead up and over your body, the water runs down clearer than it did the last few times. There was dirt before, being washed away by the soap and pressure of the water. You and Nobunaga both internally cringed when the water ran red the first few times; you even moreso when the soap got into the cuts and scrapes littering your skin. He fussed over them, still does, you don’t expect anything less. Every cut he sees, he clicks his tongue and asks where it came from. “I don’t know” quickly becomes your default answer.

You wonder if he feels any bit vindicated, seeing you with blood and dirt under your nails, and twigs in your hair. All those “the outside world is too much for you” talks replay in your head, and your nails begin to dig into your palms out of frustration.

“Don’t do that.” Nobunaga says sternly, having caught the motion in his peripheral. You’re shaken out of your frustration, uncurling your hands. He’s perceptive enough to catch that, but not enough to realize that you want nothing to do with him? He furrows his brows a little more, his hands still in your hair and lathering it up with the shampoo. It smells like fruit, it smells girly. Juvenile, almost. 

“I’m not doing anything.” Nobunaga doesn’t say anything to you, removing his hands from your hair and grabbing the showerhead again. He makes a point of angling it more towards your face, and you flinch when the cold water hits you like a hard smack. You shut your eyes as the shampoo suds roll off your head and your face. One of his hands returns to your head, tousling up your hair and rinsing the shampoo out of it. The near icy water doesn’t help with your shivering, and you don’t think you’re in any position to be asking for hot water.

“I’m not a dog, I can bathe myself.” You say, halfway under your breath. Nobunaga might have rolled his eyes, but to do that, he’d have to momentarily stop looking at you, something he isn’t keen on doing.  “I didn’t say you were one.” He doesn't address your stewing emotions, no matter how clearly they’re scrawled across your face. You have half the mind not to respond with a snarky comment. 

There’s a pit in your stomach. There’s been one for quite a while. You assumed it was anxiety, but now you think it could also be an ulcer. Sometimes it gets so great that you think there’s really something wrong with you. Sizzling, contorting, creeping its way up into your chest. You felt it most in the first two weeks, and it’s waxed and waned since then. It’s spiked considerably from the moment Nobunaga found you again to now. It isn’t helped by the fact that you were expecting some sort of punishment; a sick retribution from him for trying to leave, and it has yet to come. 

…The fact that your escape lasted less than 6 hours probably has something to do with how he’s behaving. Oh, he’s annoyed, you didn’t need to be told. Though, you suppose he didn’t expend enough effort in finding you to truly be outraged. Nobunaga had found you in the woods behind the house, having yanked you out of the hollowed log you squirmed into. In the moment, it seemed like a good enough hiding spot, once you had the horrifying realization that he wasn’t that far behind you. For all the metaphorical and literal slaps on the wrist you got from him, you can’t be faulted for thinking he’d have more of a reaction to you trying to leave him.

In retrospect, it would have been smarter to travel alongside the road by the house and hitch hike. But wasn’t that too obvious? Nobunaga had been out of the house at the time of your escape, you didn’t know when he would come back. What would you say if the car he stole came driving down the road, and he saw you with your thumb out like a dumbass on the side of the asphalt? Plus, you thought you would’ve had a few days to make some distance. If you knew he’d be coming back tonight, you would’ve waited.

You’re pretty sure your previous comment wasn’t an invitation to conversation, yet Nobunaga begins talking anyway. “I can’t believe you, the one thing I told you not to do,” he chides. “and you didn’t even make it that far.” Nobunaga says it with a bit of humor, as if underneath his irritation, he finds this a little funny. Of course he does. Your hair feels like rubber with how much shampoo has been in it, and you despair internally when Nobunaga goes to put another dollop of it into your hair. “You’re lucky I found you before you got seriously hurt.” He scolds, roughy lathering the shampoo into your scalp one last time for good measure.

Despite it all, he’s still acting too flippant for your liking, you had expected him to… well, you aren’t sure. You’ve been on edge since before you even ran away, waiting for the eventual blow. Sure, he’s raised his voice at you and dragged you the whole way home, but you were still waiting for the worst of it. You thought he’d show his anger more, you did escape after all. The one thing he specifically forbade you to do.

(He also forbade you from locking doors and going near the stove without his supervision, but actually getting out of the house and making a break for it seemed more serious than any of the others). 

You shut your eyes to keep shampoo from entering them, but it’s too late. They sting almost immediately and you let out a small hiss of pain. So much for tear free. Nobunaga leans closer, pausing in his lecturing. “Are you crying?” He asks in a less stern tone of voice. “No!” You say, but you doubt he believes you. After all, you are tearing up. You blink a few times, and there’s tears in your eyes, which are now red and irritated. Nobunaga brings his hand closer to wipe your tears away, and you flinch. He grabs your upper arm to keep you in place, and you tense up more than you knew possible.

“Are you sure?” He asks again, and you don’t like the way he’s saying it. He’s talking to you like you’re a kid who got caught in a lie. “You got shampoo in my eyes!” “Uh huh.” Nobunaga hums, disregarding your declaration and wiping your tears away with his free hand. Your eyes are really red, he thinks. Maybe a drop of shampoo did get in them, though he remains unconvinced that you aren’t at least a little regretful for trying to run away from him. You aren’t that heartless. You go to rub at your eyes, and Nobunaga grabs your wrist to stop you. You flinch again, and he clicks his tongue in irritation.

“Would you stop being difficult?” Nobunaga says, taking a firmer grasp of your wrist to emphasize his point. “I’m not being difficult.” “You are, you’re acting like I’m going to hit you.” “Are you?” You ask, and Nobunaga only looks at you like you’re challenging him. “Should I?” 

You take a moment to respond. You can’t think of a smart answer, and although none of them feel outright wrong, none of them exactly feel right, either. “If I were you, I’d hit me.” It’s not a lie, if you were just half as deranged as Nobunaga, you probably would hit yourself. Nobunaga pauses for a moment, then laughs. As if it was some punchline to a joke. You aren’t as unsettled as you are relieved that he didn’t actually put his hands on you. At least he found it funny?

If you were him, you wouldn’t have deemed yourself worth the trouble. You would have gotten rid of yourself a long time ago, replaced yourself with another woman. One that looks similar enough to you, if appearances mattered. Yet everytime you would correct him, insist that you weren’t his girlfriend or anything of the sort, he’d wave you off and go on with whatever he was doing. You aren’t sure what he sees in you, it’s never stuck, no matter how many times he’s said it.

“You shouldn’t say things like that.” Nobunaga finally says. “I already said before, I don’t want to hurt you.” You want to roll your eyes. He’s the one who brought the topic up. Sure, it’s not like he ever punched you in the jaw or anything, but he has a knack for manhandling you every now and then. Nobunaga keeps on talking, not that you had a reply or anything further to add to the conversation. He’s back to being stern with you. “Don’t think you’re off the hook yet. I’m still mad at you. What you did was stupid.” “I know.” You mumble, avoiding his harsh glare.

“You’re not going to do it again.” He says, more firmly this time. With the same lack of energy, you reply “I won’t”. Nobunaga looks like he has more to say, but stays quiet. A distinct smell of smoke and burning food wafts through the hallway and into the bathroom. The food Nobunaga tossed into the oven an hour ago… 

He curses under his breath, his eyes going from the hallway to you. “Stay here.” He says, rising to his feet and leaving you in the bathtub alone, still with shampoo in your hair. You take it that it’ll take him a while to salvage dinner, so you take it upon yourself to finish your bath. You make sure to twist the shower handle to warmer water before taking the showerhead to get the shampoo out of your hair and eyes. The pit in your stomach hasn’t gone away, and the prospect of charred food for dinner isn’t easening your pain. You hadn’t spent long enough outside to be that hungry for Nobunaga’s culinary prowess, or lack thereof. 

-

There was zero chance of Nobunaga scrapping dinner to just order takeout. In fact, that chance most likely plummeted to the negatives given the stunt you pulled earlier in the day. Still, dinner wasn’t a total waste. You could eat around the burnt pieces of chicken, which were few and far between. The rice was stickier than you would’ve liked. You doubt Nobunaga would be letting you handle the cooking for a while, it’s practically a given that certain privileges would be rescinded. Temporarily, you hope, but rescinded nontheless. 

At least the vegetables came out fine.

Nobunaga sits down at the foot of the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight. He looks over at you, laying flat on your back in bed with the blanket covering you. Your feet poke out from under the covers. Soft and warm, scratches on your soles. There’s a cut on the bottom of your left foot; it looks more like a thin slice of flesh was scraped clean off. Nobunaga can’t take his eyes off of it. He knows it’ll heal, but he can only run through all the different ways you garnered that injury.

He stares at your foot in his hand, brows furrowed. A sliver of him was impressed, perhaps a little endeared, that you were still clinging to this idea of not needing him. It was almost laughable, even more so given the state you were in when Nobunaga found you. Cold, exhausted, and hungry, you had somehow gotten two of your fingernails ripped off in the short time you were away from him. All that, and you had the gall to look at him as if he was somehow inconveniencing you by bringing you back home. You’d even tried to bite and scratch at him like some animal.

You really could be an ungrateful brat, sometimes. Maybe you were onto something about him hitting you. 

If anything, he’s only more convinced of how pathetic you are. Endearingly so, but pathetic nonetheless. You deserve an achievement for managing to scratch yourself up so much in a few short hours without him, truth be told. Not that he enjoys seeing the cuts on your body, but he does consider himself a little bit smart for not letting you have shoes of any kind, even ones for inside the house. You probably would have gotten much farther if you weren’t out there with just some thin socks.

Nobunaga shifts a little closer, gingerly taking your left ankle and foot in his hands. The foot with the nasty cut on the bottom. He didn’t want you picking at it or even looking at it, so he’d made sure to bandage it properly. If you were awake, you’d jolt like a spooked animal and try to kick at him. Though he’d always known you as a light sleeper, you don’t even stir when Nobunaga touches you. That’s good, he thinks. You need the rest. All that scrambling in the forest probably took out all of your energy.

Even looking at your sleeping face now, it’s hard for the samurai to imagine that just hours ago you were shrieking at him to let you go, to not bring you back home. He’d spent almost an hour painstakingly removing every splinter of wood caught in your feet and hands; all while you were squirming and trying not to kick at him reflexively. Another hour was spent getting the rest of you cleaned up. It’s almost like you’d prefer being out in the cold than being kept warm and safe with him. It’s so preposterous, he could almost laugh at the thought.

…Though, he can’t pinpoint any other reason for you acting out. Unless that’s just what it was, misbehavior for the sake of it. Maybe you wanted more attention? That seemed plausible to Nobunaga. He can’t imagine that you’re thrilled when he leaves your side to go on Troupe missions. When he returned, it was always to you looking miserable, only cheering up now that he returned to you.

(It was because he had a tendency to lock up the television remote in his absence to keep you from watching something he didn’t want you seeing, and the fridge almost never seemed to be stocked with actual food before he left you in your lonesome. He still hadn’t connected the dots).

(...Though the prolonged lack of human interaction did do a number on you, as well).

He knows that to some degree, this is his fault. He’s been too lenient with you, too soft. Uvo had made a passing comment once that it’d do him some good to instill some fear into you. Just a little, to keep you from misbehaving. Nobunaga let you talk back and maintain some independence, and you turn around and try to run away from him.

He gave you an inch and you tried to take a mile. If your ploy was really to get more of his attention, then you’d succeeded. Nobunaga can’t imagine not keeping a closer eye on you for the coming months. That, and he’d finally get around to putting some bars on the windows. His gaze lingers on you, on your foot resting in his lap. He wonders if you know how lucky you are, that it’s him who’s keeping you safe and not any other Troupe member. Someone like Feitan surely would’ve killed you, or at least made you wish you were dead. 

Nobunaga isn’t keen on taking a page out of Feitan’s book, though. He was generally averse to the idea of making you upset. He didn’t consider himself to be a bad man, one who hurts his woman. Sure, he’s killed more people than he can count and took great joy in it. He’s maimed women and children, and robbed people of all they had, all for the Spider. But that was different. It’s impersonal, and half of those people more or less deserved it anyway. Probably. Regardless, you escaping and making a run for it isn’t something he can brush under the rug, even if you totally failed.

A hot-head like Phinks, or even Uvo, would’ve broken your leg. Perhaps a bit excessive, you hadn’t made it far enough to warrant that in Nobunaga’s eyes. It’s like a part of you subconsciously didn’t want to go so far away. Like you wanted to be found. If you really hated him so much that you’d try to run away, surely you would’ve put some more effort into it. 

He could always just break your ankle, maybe both. Crude, brutish, almost, but that would get the point across. It wouldn’t be hard by any means. A flick of the wrist and it’d be done. Maybe he could wake you up before he does it, make you squirm a little. Perhaps you’d feel a fraction of the panic Nobunaga felt when he couldn’t find you anywhere; when he realized you’d ran away from him. 

The aftermath might be a little messy, but at least you wouldn’t be running away again. He could keep you like that for a few days, maybe you’d learn some appreciation then. It’d take Machi a while to get to his house anyway to fix you up properly. Maybe he wouldn’t even need her. You’d cry a lot, he’s sure. 

“What are you doing?”

Your voice, tired and having lost it’s previous bite, draws Nobunaga out of his thoughts. You’re still laying flat in bed, looking at him with your foot in his lap. You tense up, and he doesn’t miss the brief change in expression. You’re uncomfortable, and the man chalks it up to you being ticklish or something along those likes. Not that you ever claimed to be, but you always shyed away from his touch, always bit the inside of your cheek when he got close. Tensed up when his fingers brushed up against your neck or shoulders. It was cute.

Nobunaga doesn’t answer you right away, his thumb idly rubbing the skin of your ankle. It’s almost a soothing gesture. “Nothing, go back to sleep.” You retract your foot, and he lets you. He circles the bed, coming to the other side and getting in with you. You tense up, feeling Nobunaga slide in right next to you. You don’t move away, not that you had a chance to. Nobunaga presses himself against you, his arms wrapping around you.

You wince, being overwhelmed with his scent. In your brief time away from him, you’d enjoyed the smell of dirt and grass, and the wind hitting your skin. All things you never thought about too much, now feeling like luxuries. Your head is pushed into the crook of his neck, and the rest of you is too sore to do much about it. You suppose, if anything, that being in a warm bed is better than crawling into a log and trying to pretend the ants don’t bother you.

“You know I love you, right?” It’s something you’ve heard from him more times than you care to admit. You don’t say anything, only humming in acknowledgment. That isn’t enough, you know by now that he always wants an answer when he says he loves you. It sounds all too sincere, which ironically is the reason you hate hearing it. When he doesn’t hear a response, Nobunaga pinches your upper arm. So, to soften the blow of whatever’s in store for you tomorrow, you tell him what he wants to hear.

“I love you too.”

[crowsofdarkness]

Moment Of Weakness: Chapter Twenty Three

-gif not mine. credit to owner-

Pairings: Mob!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Content Warnings: language, 18 + smut, angst, fluff, affair, cheating, violence, kidnapping, faking a pregnancy.

Summary: Reader is the assistant to New York's most feared mob boss, James Buchanan Barnes. He had the picture-perfect life: status in the mob, friends, and beautiful wife. So why can't he keep his mind and eyes off of reader?

Authors Note: I just wanted to remind everyone who reads this, there are heavy moments of cheating/having an affair in this story. You might not agree with the actions of "reader" or Bucky but it does pertain to the storyline. If anyone is interested, tags are open for this! Just send me a message or comment!

Tags: @cjand10 @generalmoonpolice @sapphirebarnes @baw1066 @nameless-ken @minami97

I let out a deep breath while pulling my jacket closer to my chest as I continued the walk down the busy streets of New York City. It was after six in the evening and everyone was rushing to get home to enjoy the rest of their evening while I was trying to make it to the office in time, before he left. 

This wasn’t an easy decision I made, knowing the consequences that could follow. But I didn’t have any other choice. He was the only one that could help me with this.  

The thought of if he would even want to help me did cross my mind a few times, especially with how things ended, but there was a small part of me that hoped his feelings for me were still strong. Strictly to help me with my problem, nothing else. 

I hadn't talked to any of the three men I used to work with, deciding to stay off of social media because I couldn’t bother to see what happened with Bucky and Natasha. By now, he had to have realized that I was right; Natasha was faking the entire pregnancy. 

Yet, I hadn’t heard from him so maybe he still decided to stay with her. 

You told him to stay away. Eight months ago.

Shaking away the thought, I turned the corner and the all too familiar building came into view as with one last deep breath, I pushed through the door and my eyes landed on the person sitting at what used to be my desk. My heart hammered in my chest as his scent filled my senses. 

“Well, it seems like the job isn’t available anymore, huh?” 

He turned around in a haste in the chair, eyes grazing over every inch of me to make sure I had been standing in front of him. 

The last time we talked was a few months ago and we actually hadn’t seen each other since before I quit. He looked the same, hair and beard a bit longer. 

“Hi Steve,” I smiled. 

“Y/N?” 

Steve was quick on his feet to wrap his arms around me and lifted my body off of the ground a few inches. I closed my eyes at the warmth, silently missing him just as much. 

“How have you been?” Steve asked while setting me back onto solid ground. 

I nodded. “Good, I guess. How have things been here?” 

Steve hesitated, his shoulders going stiff. “Have you talked to him at all?” 

This time I shook my head so Steve gently led me to the couch in the main area of the office and we sat next to each other. He scratched at his beard, trying to find the right way to say this. 

“He’s gone rogue the last couple of months. He doesn't need mine or Sam’s help for anything, he takes care of the problems himself.” 

I pointed towards his office. “Is he here?” 

Steve shook his head. “I haven't seen him all day. He called me earlier to say he’s got something to take care of so he’s going to be at Power Brokers tonight.” 

My eyes narrowed. “He hates that club. Why would he go there?” 

“I don’t know,” Steve sighed. “He doesn’t tell Sam or I anything anymore. We only show up here now in case he needs us.” 

“Are he and Nat-?” 

He placed a hand on my knee, stopping the words. “That’s something Bucky has to talk to you about.” 

With a slow nod, I contemplated my next move because I knew that if I went to Power Broker tonight, it would be a disaster from the start. That club was highly known as a black market, people trying to sell you things that you couldn’t buy anywhere else. But if you didn’t agree to it it would be highly unlikely that you would make it back out alive. 

“Are you going to tell me why you showed up tonight?” 

I gave Steve my attention now and shrugged. “Trust me, I would rather go to anyone else with this but Bucky is the only one that can help me.” 

He cupped my cheek. “Please be careful.” 

“Always,” I covered his hand with my own. 

The music of the club vibrated against my bones as I maneuvered my way through the seas of people, who did their best to either dance with me or sell me on their latest project they had hiding in their pocket. I ignored all of them, keeping my focus on finding the one person that I needed. 

When I asked the bouncers outside if they had seen Bucky, they were quick to give him up. 

“He’s been causing problems here all night but refuses to leave. The men we have here isn’t nearly as strong as he is to kick him out.”

I was on high alert, skin tingling with my senses, as I observed the giant open dance floor of the club until some commotion at the bar piqued my interest. I watched as a guy was thrown onto the glass bar top, black and gold fingers wrapped around his throat. 

“Where is she?!” 

The voice was deep, angry, and wanted to know the answers. 

My heart beat intensified as I marveled at how different he looked yet looking exactly the same. The brown leather vest that covered his broad chest was missing a sleeve, his entire vibranium arm on full display.  He didn’t look like a mob boss any longer but more so a soldier. 

The heat pooled between my legs but I squeezed them shut, knowing that now wasn't the time to think about that. 

“I swear, I don’t know where she is! Last I heard, they were in Budapest!” The man struggled for his life under the tight grip around his throat. 

“They were together?” 

The man on the bar nodded, as best he could. “That’s what my guys tell me.” 

As I saw a glimmer of sharp metal emerge from the pocket of the other man's vest, I finally decided to speak up. 

“Bucky.” 

My voice might have been hushed with the background noise of the club but I knew he heard because Bucky looked away from the man he had pinned, his once blue iris now dark stared back at me. The firmness in his body faded with his face softing, as he dropped the man to the floor below. 

“Doll?” 

I swallowed thickly at the old pet name because I couldn't get distracted, I needed to finish what I came for. 

“I need your help,” I admitted with a sigh. 

[mrs-elsie-barnes]

Let The Rain Fall | Bucky Barnes x Autistic!Reader | Short Series - Part 2 of 4 - 1.9k

Bucky gets a welcome surprise and you finally meet Captain America. But when things don't go quite how you expect, you start regretting your decisions.

Warnings: reader is very obviously uncomfortable, some mention of workplace bullying from other agents and the preamble to reader having a meltdown.

A/N: I just want to say thank you to everyone who has read Part 1, I've been so ovewhelmed by the really personal responses and support, thank you! I also love how much the fabric softener scent has been brought up! This is definitely me and is an Easter Egg I've left in other fics too, so if you do check out any of my other stories keep your eye out!

<- Part 1

Masterlist | Let the Rain Fall Masterlist | Bucky Barnes

The last thing Bucky expected when he pushed the door to the hanger open was to see you sat on the benches with the other recruits. He noted there was a foot of space between youand the agents beside you, their voices loud and echoing. You were wearing the suit he’d brought you, you seemed comfortable enough apart from the zipper, which you were pulling up and down in time to the hum of the fan above your head.  

He was pleased you’d come, but something like guilt twisted inside of him at the look on your face. You looked genuinely pained, agonised, and he wondered, not for the first time that week, whether there was something you hadn’t told him.  

“Good to see you all.” He said, eyes scanning the room but consciously not settling on anyone as he walked past.  It was too tempting to let his gaze linger on you.

A chorus of ‘good morning, Sergeant Barnes’’ followed him as he entered the jet and took his place in the cockpit.  

The day was as uneventful as Bucky had described, a short ride on the jet and then an hour hovering over some empty base while the other recruits worked with Steve.

Each time the comm crackled you had a rush of panic that you’d be expected to join them on the ground, an opportunity you’d shook your head at and then allowed Steve to move on very quickly to the agent beside you. 

You gripped the seat harder, your jaw clenched. Closing your eyes you took a deep, steady, breath trying to imagine your happy place, a safe place, inside a tent, under a blanket and... 

“Are you okay, agent?” Bucky’s low voice echoed through your imaginary tent, breaking your peace. The dark utility of the plane came rushing back. 

“I’m not going down there.”  You said decisively, adrenaline coursing through you, preparing to argue. You could feel it, making your leg shake in anticipation of defending yourself.

“Okay.”  Bucky shrugged a shoulder.

“I’m serious I’m - wait, did you say okay?” You opened your eyes to find Bucky sat in the empty seat next to you, the jet clear of anyone else. His long legs were splayed open as he let his weight rest against the netting behind you.  

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Just came to make sure you’re alright.”  

The lead weight of dread that had been settling in your gut vanished and, weightless, you smiled, “better now.”  Adrenaline still flooding your body you tried to hold back tears of relief.

“Is there anything you did want to see? Steve said you oversee mission debriefs? Maybe you’d like to watch the mission from the cockpit with me?” Bucky stood then, holding his hand out to you briefly before tucking both hands into his pocket awkwardly.  

“I’d like that, thank you.”  

Bucky wasn’t sure he’d ever had such a nice time waiting in the jet. He was often resigned to babysitting the Avengers’ jet, car, boat, horrid little safe house, whenever there was actual teaching to be done. He didn’t mind so much, it gave him the space to read his books, listen to some music or catch up on all the history he’d either missed or inadvertently been a part of. 

But today you were there too, and your presence brought him a sense of calm that had truly surprised him. 

“Make yourself at home.” He insisted, gesturing to the spare seat. 

“Thanks.” You sat carefully.

“I mean it, make yourself comfortable, we’ll be here for a while. You want a drink?” Cautiously you tucked your legs up, crossing them on the seat. Your boots were clean, immaculate even, worn only through the compound and into the hanger this morning, but you were careful to keep them as far off the seat as you could anyway. 

Bucky poured coffee from a large flask tucked into the side of his seat and topped it off with a generous helping of milk. 

“That’s just how I like it.”

He smiled, wide and pleased, “I asked around, wanted to make sure you enjoy your first mission.” 

That flutter appeared in your chest again, the surprising desire to stay close to him that had first made itself known when he'd squeezed himself in to your tiny office.

“Not really a mission if I don’t do anything,” you blew steam from the top of your enamel cup and took a sip, cupping your hands around the warm metal. 

“Well, that's all I’m doing and I’m an ‘Avenger’.” Bucky laughed making his voice deeper as he said Avenger before reaching his arm out to clink your mugs together. “Cheers to the easiest job on the roster.” 

You fell into an easy silence, Bucky read his book for a while until you couldn’t hold it in anymore and told him you’d read it a few weeks before. Before you knew it two hours had melted away and you were curled up comfortably in Steve’s seat, giving Bucky a run down of your favourite books so far that year. He watched you, the wide grin softening into an indulgent smile while you blossomed before his eyes. 

Some of the other agents had been whispering about you, while you boarded the jet, that you were odd, childish, over the top and impossible to be around. But he enjoyed the exuberant way you described each plot, the glimmer of excitement in your eyes when he agreed with you and the blunt dry way you told deadpan jokes before breaking into peals of laughter. 

Silently he prayed that you’d come with him again, just to spend time with him even if you didn’t want to be in the field.  

You surprised Bucky by coming on the next recon as well, even agreeing to accompany him to collect Steve and some other agents from a secondary base. Silently, you followed him into the cockpit and set your bag down next to him, tac suit immaculate apart from one addition, a small toy turtle on a keyring that dangled from the zipper.

“I got you a present,” you said once the jet was at altitude and Bucky had flicked a considerable number of important looking buttons and levers. Steve and the others had parachuted in this time, your stomach had turned just watching them.

Bucky turned to look at you, the clear blue of the sky reflected in his eyes. 

“Really? You didn’t have to do that.” 

“I know, but I saw them in the gift shop in New York and, well, I like mine so-” trailing off you rummaged in your bag, pulling out a paper gift bag sealed with tape. 

Bucky took the little parcel from you and carefully opened it, removing the fluffy socks, striped like his arm, that were tucked up inside and staring at them.  

“Oh god that was stupid, I’m so sorry.” Your heart beat wildly, sweat forming on your brow.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, a way to keep you focused while you saw your doctor in New York. The city didn’t seem so busy when you were focused on your task, and Bucky had been so kind he deserved a present. But this was a stupid present, stupid, stupid present. You ground your teeth and squeezed your hand together, allowing your nails to bite into your palm. 

Before you could take them back, Bucky unrolled them and held them up, a huge grin growing on his face. “They’re socks! They make socks of me.” He laughed, rubbing his thumb against the soft fluffy fabric. “And you said you like yours - you got my socks have you?” 

“I - no - I -” you stammered and Bucky looked at you properly, a flush of embarrassment appearing on his own cheeks. 

“I’m messing with you ya doll, I love them, thanks.” 

Bucky’s heart

had soared, you’d bought him a present. Something you liked too and you’d thought about him when you weren’t together. He couldn’t deny how addictive your presence had become, the mixture of calm and joy. If you brought him a present surely that meant you liked him too? 

He’d have to talk to Steve later, he seemed to know more about you and where you’d come from.

The rest of the journey went by quickly, you talked about a new show you were watching, a book you finished and how terrible most of the agent’s handwriting was when you were trying to decipher their field notes, not to mention the way they ticked boxes wrong and put things in the wrong files.

He discovered it was you who’d streamlined the paperwork, automated some of the questions and changed the paperwork so it matched across teams. He was somewhat in awe of your ability to see efficiencies as if they were tangible, organising his own Avengers issue tablet to minimise the emails he received and sorting the rest into neat little folders in his inbox, all in the last twenty minutes of the mission.

Too soon the agents themselves were piling into the back of the jet, tired but excited, chattering away. Even Steve was still in a good mood, bouncing into the cockpit, his Captain America smile plastered on but his suit unzipped enough to show his flush chest and the grime of the mission on his neck. 

“Hey Buck, let’s get - oh, hello Agent.” He came up short, as if he hadn’t seen you at all. 

“Hi, Mr Rogers, Sir, Captain?” You fumbled. 

Bucky winced, you hadn’t really met Steve yet, he should’ve introduced you both properly instead of letting you struggle. 

“Steve is fine, Agent, you stay there if you want,” the Captain America smile morphed into his real, Steve, smile, and you looked surprised. He winked and turned to leave the cockpit again.

Before Steve had even shut the cockpit door you could feel the awkward lump of confusion move from sitting in your through with your unuttered words down into the pit of your stomach. Should you have given Steve his seat back? He seemed so insistent that you stay but maybe he was being polite and there was some etiquette rule that you weren’t away of at play.

You looked out at the gathering clouds in the distance and fixed your eyes on one cloud in particular, honing in on the shades of grey that built each bump and groove. 

“Are you alright? You don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to?” Bucky whispered from the seat to your right, the dark metal fingers of his hand lingered on your arm rest, so close you could feel his presence without him touching you. 

No.

No you were not alright.

It had been too long since you were in your own space, the jet was so loud and the din of the other agents so overwhelming that you thought you might be drowning in noise. You were confused about Steve’s behaviour, he was a superior, yes, but just a man and you didn’t think you needed to bow and scrape to him. But maybe you did?

“You’ve gone again, Doll. I need to know you’re okay.” His hand touched your elbow for just a second and then withdrew.

Oh, shit, you had, you were gone, everything felt weird and heavy and fuzzy, your eyes had drifted back to the clouds, body still, apart from the heaving of your chest as your breaths became more panicked. 

“I - yeah - I’m fine.” You grit your teeth into a false, pained smile and dug your nails into the arms of your chair. “I shouldn’t be here though, I should go back. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I’ll get Steve.” Before Bucky could stop you, you’d jumped up and rushed through the door leaving Bucky confused and alone in the cockpit. 

[cryptid-killjoy]

Willem was always going to be a guy down for a HTH break in. It was just the sort of adventure Wild Will was in toespecially if it ended in chilli dogs.

Willem also wasn't sure he ever thought of himself as a father figure to any of the dolls yet. Caretaker? Yes. Father, somehow, he didn't see himself as that even of his own creations even if that might have been somewhat true. Thoughts for another, perhaps. Emotions that hadn't quite matured or been labeled, perhaps.

"A mother? Hmm. I guess I can see that. I'll think about that."

He left it at that for more pondering later. What he knew for sure and did not have to think any longer on was Figaro looked cool as fucking get out with a firearm like that. It straight up suited them. Willem decided it was hot and gave it a double glance, maybe two.

"You look like a video game... in a cool way."

The compliment felt needed.

But moving along into the Livvy's home. Willem wouldn't know Figaro would have expected, but he knew what to expect with how many times he'd made these excursions to check the dolls. He navigated the home with ease.

Figaro wasn't wrong for thinking it was sad. Willem knew it was. It was why they didn't mind when Figaro first chose to stay at the ball. Sad things like this were often easier done in private. Modesty for humility. Smalls said no judgement and Will felt safe enough he wasn't unaware of how it would come off.

They laughed about the shrine and even turned red to some extent.

"I'm pretty sure she's my number one hater wherever she is now and has a voodoo doll of me and with its nuts in a vice on a Battleship board and keeps tossing it overboard. I have a theory they had something to do with Pan's flood making the blizzard melt day randomly a double hard moment for us because only she would hate me enough right now to want to make every moment of my life as hard as it could possibly be."

Even saying his theory out loud made him laugh.

"I'd have deserved it though. From her mind. We broke up after sailing on a ship across the water. Trying to drown me just makes sense to me. Poetic Justice. Whatever better form of justice is there?"

Despite it being oddly morbid he said it playful with humoral candor.

Then Figaro agreed to head on out and search for Livvy's uncle's closet.

"Okay, that's good. You come find me then."

He was going to go looking for Smalls, but Smalls said they'd come back when they were done, so they changed their mind and would wait for Smalls to come back to them.

When Figaro headed out Willem went along with his routine of tinkering with each shelf. He'd careful take ever figurine and doll off one shelf at a time and neatly lay them on the bed while he dusted the shelf and then cleaned the figures themselves before standing each one back one at a time. As he did this, he'd make sure any soft ones were fluffed and their dresses were tidied, shoelaces or bows flounced, and hats properly straightened. If Livvy had told him anything particular about the doll, he'd go through that memory in his mind to pay it homage to what sentimental value it held in the secrets of their faces. To the one he had no information he sent the same appreciation because there's sentiment in the bond of a knick knack, a memento, a toy, that's far stronger than just a memory.

He once considered memories like pages in a book of who a person is. They can be turned and re-turned again. He could read the same chapter more than once as many times as he liked for fun, but never truly relive it. A souvenir or memento of a memory is simply that, a small token. It could be thrown away or lost, but the memory still exists. The chapter can still be filed through in one's recollection. A doll however, a toy with a face, for some reason feels different to Willem than some token. Even silent it looks back. It gives the feeling it experienced all your eyes saw in that same memory. It experienced what you did. A shared experience becomes a friend not a souvenir. One can look into those non-moving eyes and think they were there. Maybe it was nuts? However, if you were a person who could also take those same dolls and bring them to life if he wanted the idea might not seem so farfetched. Lifeless dolls might seem more important than just some old attachment that needed to be let go of.

To Willem's credit he hadn't gone as far as bringing any of Livvy's dolls to life, but it had entered his mind. He was under no delusion he'd ever see Livvy again and he didn't want his old girlfriend's living dolls being a drain on relationships. He was bright enough to realize that could be a deal breaker moving forward. He just hadn't gotten to the fully moved forward part yet.

Okay, so he'd done a little messing around. Zero existed. Even Piper existed, more new, Nutmeg. These were not people who were ever going to be in Willem's life in a permanent way. They were when the mood hit kind of friends. These were complicated friends, not actual relationships.

All that said, none of it was on its mind now. Just the dolls were. When he finished with the cleaning, he'd pick up that mermaid again and sit down on the bed. It had a tendency to get the most favor and longest time being held. It had the vast majority of memories attached for Will. He laid back with it. He sat it on his chest and admired its face as he relaxed. He'd glance over at the shelf and give it a smile. Then he'd smooth over the mermaid's glossy hair. Motions like had a way triggering other past memories like turning Livvy into a doll at Barbie and Ken's party. He remembered the texture of her hair and the sand. He recalled the paints. He could relive every brush stroke of the artwork like muscle memory as porcelain slid under his his fingertips.

He sang one of the lines to the song he wrote Livvy just above a whisper. "If you don't feel that this is real then I'll just walk away. Way deep down I know I found the that proof that love can save. So take some time to figure out what this thing is all about. I hope some day you feel it too. I promise that I'll try to love the best I can. You make me a better man. Whatever this is leading to. For the first time I'm gonna listen to my heart."

Then he took a big breath and sat up. He kissed the little figurine. "I guess it all led me to you pretty lady. I saved you from the boxes. I can live with that."

Then he shined up her face one more time before placing her back in her proper place knowing full well his heart would always be with the dolls. It would be a big enough win for him.

"Thanks for being a part of that." He added as he tapped one finger tip on the glass after closing the shelving unit back up.

It left a smudge.

"Woops."

So, he went to Windex the last spot before he was completely done with the room. He cleaned it spotless enough for a bird to smash into. He was pleased with his work. He joked to the dolls, "Lucky this thing isn't a patio door."

“Now that would be entertaining to see. Especially if you two do the awkward dance of trying to pass each other but stepping in each other’s way,” Figaro said. Bright sides, sunny sides, you had to have the light to be able to have the dark too. Figaro tried to keep the balance.

Chili Dogs. Now that sounded good. Just the thought of it was enough to get the hunger going, the saliva flowing, despite being in this stink of a place. “Fuck it, we’re sneaking into Halloweentown one of these days. Once you try one of their Chili Cheese Dogs, your life isn’t going to be the same.”

Hansel as a handsome guy though? “It’s weird,” They said. “I feel somewhat … almost maternal over him? Guess I kind of am a parent now.”

What an odd thing to think about. What an odd thing to realize. In Funkytown, the dynamic hadn’t really changed. Figaro was in charge but hardly ever acted on it. It felt - wrong, somehow, to try to take control, having watched Gepetto give them their own autonomy, their own thoughts, their own actions. So Mr Punch kept being uncontrollable. Hansel kept living in the walls and being a bit of a pervert, his human body still having human feelings, thrusting against a wall while watching through a peephole.

“Yup, keeping this on me,” They agreed. It was not a good smell. Eventually all of the flesh and organs would rot away and then it would just be bones, which didn’t have as bad of a smell, but right now, it was pretty rank. The place needed some sort of Fabreeze cleansing. Or maybe Frank and Delta spent so much time up in their castle, they didn’t even know that it smelt so bad down here. They needed some sort of comment box, in Figaro’s opinion.

All of their information about guns came from movies and videogames. They knew at the very least to turn on the safety for now, until they would need it. “All I need are some green plants, and we’ve gone totally Resident Evil in this bitch.”

Great minds think alike. Figaro was also all about upgrading their setup at home. Getting a bigger TV, though the vintage one had been moved into their room, because they weren’t going to get rid of Gepetto’s things, other than giving some to Willem, of course. But it felt like he was one of Gep’s kids too. The stuff was THEIRS. Not just inherited by Fig. Better sound system, more gizmos and gadgets.

Figaro let Willem take the lead since they didn’t know their way around the apartment block. They had the gun in hand, waiting for a chance to use it. To ‘blast them’ as Thomas would say. Their knowledge of annoying curses and animal speak wasn’t the most useful for a zombie situation, except to get birds and other animals to let them know where the zombies themselves were. They had to bring out the big guns.

They didn’t say anything about Willem having the key. It just made sense, given that he came to visit the dolls. Others might have found it a bit romantic, perhaps, that he kept visiting his ex’s apartment, taking care of her things. But Figaro just found it practical.

The two of them went through the building, checking around corners, making sure that there wasn’t something waiting on just the other side. But it looked as if the building had mostly been cleaned out. Any life that was here that would have drew the zombies in, disappeared a long time ago. Still, once inside of the apartment, Figaro turned the lock on the door to feel a touch safer.

Though they were anxious to get at that Hawaiian shirt collection that hopefully had not been eaten away from bugs or faded by light coming in through the windows, they were curious about Livvy’s room, and would follow Willem inside. It wasn’t exactly what they had expected.

The shelves were new, and taken care of, that much was clear. It wasn’t covered in dust and cobwebs like everything else. The dolls seemed to be in a place of prevalence. They stood out, like they were an important item in a video game or something, rendered more predominantly.

“I’m a little surprised,” They admitted, hands on their hips, looking at the girliness of the room, the teal color that was on everything, the bit of a mess of clothes from when Livvy was deciding what to pack all that time ago for the big boat trip. “I was expecting a huge shrine to you,” They said, looking to Willem. “Or did you get embarrassed and take that down?”

They weren’t trying to be funny or teasing, that’s genuinely what Figaro thought that they would walk into when it came to Livvy’s space. A whole wall plastered with pictures of Willem, maybe some with Fig but with Fig’s face cut out or something like that. Pieces of his hair, his toenail clippings, on a shelf. This was a voodoo town after all, it wouldn’t be hard for some white girl to get their hands on some sort of love potion or DIY-Voodoo-Doll set. But it was actually pretty … relaxed in here.

They were watching Willem more than the dolls after that, making sure that he was going to be alright while doing this. But maybe it was something that he just needed to do, the way that some people just needed a big cry. Something about it being cathartic.

‘Miss her if she comes back.’ ‘Don’t get too lonely.’

It was … kind of sad.

“Yes, I’ll leave you guys to talk and gossip and … do whatever it is that y’all do in here, no judgment,” They said, putting their hands up and backed out of the room slowly. “I’ll come find ya once I finish raiding that closet.”