#tingling pores

[principiumindividuationis777]

[arcadiandeath]

it feels like i am reliving it everyday

[ervotica]

"I'm here, I've got you-" with mentor!finnick right after reader wins the games?! ilysm 🥺🥺

pairing: mentor!finnick odair x victor!reader.

warnings: finnick greets you after you win the games, and consoles your anxiety. something more ensues…

hunger games masterlist

Your bruised knuckles shake where you wring them in your lap; the tribute quarters are so empty, hollow and bereft of any signs of life other than yourself. You've scrubbed your skin raw in the shower, still flushed and tingling from the coarse brush you used to rid yourself of the dried blood and dirt.

You want Finnick.

You know mentors are always the first to greet victors after the games, and you need him more than anyone else right now.

The door creaks your head snaps up where you're laying. He’s at your side in an instant, concern carved into his features as he reaches out for you.

You tremble at his touch; palm against your cheek, arm hooked around your waist as he begins drawing you up and into him.

"How are you doing?" he asks, voice low and soft and caring.

The tears well almost unconsciously, catching on your waterline and spilling down your hot cheeks.

"Not so good," you admit despite yourself.

"I know, honey. I know," he murmurs, tugging you toward him as gently as he can manage. You're in his lap before you can register what's happening, and you tuck yourself up small, head under his chin, shoulders under his armpits.

"I'm sorry," you cry, "I'm so sorry."

"Shh, you have nothing to be sorry for. You did everything you were supposed to." He kisses the top of your head, hair still damp from the shower.

"Okay." You nod vehemently, almost like you're trying to convince yourself that he's right, that you're not a monster after what you had to do in the games. "Will you hold my hand?"

Finnick smiles and it pushes his dimples out- they're crescent moon shaped. You resist the urge to reach out and touch them.

"Of course I will."

His thick fingers entwine with yours like puzzle pieces, like that's where they've always been, where they're always meant to be. You bring his knuckles to your face and hold them there, against your cheek as you rest on his broad shoulder. Your bottom lip starts to tremble.

"I'm here, I've got you," he murmurs. "I'm right here."

You tilt your head to gaze at him, uninhibited affection practically oozing from your every pore. He leans in- you’re close enough to feel his breath on your face.

Your lashes kiss at the corners as your eyes flutter closed and he takes that as an invitation. His lips slot between your own like they live there and the kiss feels like coming home. When he pulls back, you chase him.

He meanders away from your lips with his kisses: the corner of your mouth, your cheek, a lingering one on your forehead. Your hand, still laced with his own, is holding him so tightly you’re scared you’re cutting off his circulation. He can feel your anxiety.

“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

You’re smiling this time when you say,

“Okay.”

[dmitriene]

bathing routine with simon riley, he wasn't always the one for a long, drawn out bathes with bubbles and tons of soothing gels, his every shower was about washing off the grime and strong, soaked smell of gunpowder and sweat that clogged in the pores of his skin, not until he started joining you in your evening bathes at home.

settling in the warm, soothing water that was already coated with a bubbly, foamy layer from the special gel you use for this, and while it doesn't has any purpose, except soft texture and kind of cute sight, simon still found himself enjoying the coziness of this, his beefy form dwarfing the place behind you, broad back leaning against the tub, as his head lolls back.

you help him feel floaty, letting his body soak in the water, despite that he's cleaner than after the battlefield, since he's been home this whole week, it's still an enjoyable time spending, letting your delicate hands massage his lax muscles, pressing firm circles against some tense areas, listening to simon's hoarse, throaty groans.

pale, clumped eyelashes feathering over his cheeks, dusted with light stubble that starts to outgrown slowly, tingling under your fingertips when you cup his face in your warm palms, his honeyed eyes barely open, blinking on the edge of rolling back and closing in sleep, as he drapes a heavy hand around your shoulder, pressing you flush against his slick skin.

making you nuzzle closer to him, leaning your head over his sturdy chest, as he brushes his calloused fingers against the wet expanse of your fragile spine, rubbing over the skin up and down, absentmindedly, contented to be in the warmth of your arms and good, relaxing bath, as his mind goes out, dozing off for the short sleep.

you let him rest, gaze gliding over the flushing, pale skin of his body, jagged scars and uneven skin submerged in water that sloshes around you two, making his hand tighten intuitively along your back, gripping onto the supple curve of your waist, fingers sinking in when he feels how you move, cradling you against the beat of his heart with sleepy mumble.

main masterlist. quidelines.

[kechiwrites]

boom, recluse erotica writer simon and avid fan reader who gets to meet their idol in person.

His assistant leaves the two of you alone, and the silence is stifling. You fidget with the book in your hands, the one you wanted signed. It's well worn, spine broken at least ten times over, pages dried wavy from a beach trip two years ago. a tear at the corner of the trade paperback's cover. You'd wanted to get a new copy, but they'd been out of print everywhere.

You drag your toe back and forth over scratchy carpet and listen to the sound of his faucet dripping. What noise his pencil makes as it scratches over paper. He doesn't look at you, just continues to work like you're not even there. He's huge. Bigger than you'd thought he be, and blond. Broad shoulders and pale, inked skin hunched over a work desk that seems just a little too small for a man with his build. From what you can see, a laptop lies to the right of him, bulky and humming with life, only recently snapped shut, fast enough that the author hadn't the time to shut it down properly.

Despite the awkwardness, the silence, excited butterflies bat back and forth in your stomach when you think about what the outdated device stores; half finished manuscripts, character or plot charts, his inner musings?

The sensation, the curiousity, goads you into speaking. Finally.

"Mr. Spectre? I'm a huge fan." You sound breathless, kind of desperate. but you were. you are. He's your favourite author. His books are your constant companion. And yeah, it's smut. But it's good. His prose makes your skin tingle from phantom touch, makes your pulse rage, your insides clench.

"D'you touch yourself to my books?" He must've turned around while you were staring at the floor, because when you whip your head up at the intrusive, inappropriate question, L.T. Spectre is staring at you.

"Pardon?" You sputter in disbelief.

And he rolls his eyes.

"Y'said you were a fan. Do you touch yourself to my books?" He enunciates the question clearly, Iike he thinks you're stupid. His accent is thick, gruff. An unexpected but near-perfect compliment to the pitch of his voice.

"Wh-what?" Your brain stutters and stalls like an engine past it's prime, unable to speak the truth but refusing to lie too.

"Which ones?" His black honey eyes are sharp, poring, behind his rectangle wire glasses. His gaze sweeps over you, head to toe and back again, lingering on the novel clutched tightly in your hands, before he turns back to his work, sniffing once.

"It's the ones with praise, huh? You seem like the type to need it."

nasty, nasty man probably dangles drafts and manuscripts over your nose in exchange for a few hours of you under his desk.

[paper-mario-wiki]

it's hard to appreciate the frigid snowfields of the Tabantha region when you haven't had a proper night's sleep in a month. your sleep cycle tends to unravel in the Abyss. many would tell you it's because the place seems designed to kill you, flora and fauna alike. what bugs me more than that is the creeping awareness that the sun will not come out, no matter how long i wait there.

many explorers prefer not to stay more than 3 days underground, though this time i spent 30. i'm more of an adventurer than a researcher so perhaps i was better equipped to take this trek than them, though i didnt intend for it to be that way. sometimes you lose the reigns over your own journey. at times there would be opportunities to leave when i had every incentive to keep pushing forward. very rarely did those opportunities come when i needed them the most.

my last moments in the underground were spent fleeing from a something gigantic that i could not see. as soon as i could hear the sound of the freezing cold wind above only a few layers of stone and soil, i started clawing through fistfuls of dirt until i emerged to a grey, snowy sky near the top of a mountain. Mount Drena i think. i'll ask a local as soon as i get to a lodge. i'm looking forward to a proper bed of course, but more than that i'm looking forward to a warm bath. my body, as it tends to go on my expeditions, is currently sustaining itself through adrenaline. even still my muscles are aching. i still have dirt under my fingernails from all the digging too.

arriving at the stable, i'm greeted by the clerk who saw me off when i began my trek through the underground a month ago, who tells me he's relieved to see me return in one piece. the look on his face when i collapsed onto one of the spare beds after setting down my backpack told me he meant that sincerely.

taking off my chest plate and chainmail gaiters, my coat, my protective chest padding, my undergarments, underpants, shoes, socks, and finally the hair tie that kept my vision clear, felt like emerging out of a cocoon. or maybe shedding my skin like a snake. my body breathes in the fresh air as if i needed every pore to fill my lungs. dipping into the hot water made every ache and pain i'd earned during my time underground scream all at once, only to get quieter, and quieter, and quieter, until it turned into a tranquil numb tingling. clean water, piping hot, doesn't seem like a luxury until it is kept from you. the underground had lakes, but the water stank like rainwater from the bottom of a vase left outside.

maybe next in my travels i'll spend some time in Eldin. the hotsprings are the first things people i've met on the road tell me about whenever it's brought up. i let my mind sink into that idea as i crawled into the wool covers of the bed i bought for the night. even with the stable being as rural as it was, i was lucky enough to get a privacy curtain. i appreciate this, because i'd prefer not to wear anything to bed. although it's still freezing cold just outside the lodge's door, i won't deprive even an inch of myself from the fresh air tonight. the delicious, fresh air.

[a-leg-without-fear]

Sweet

sin sin sin sIN SIN THIS IS SIN. please enjoy pleasuring our dear college!matt

Ship: Matt Murdock x Female!Reader

Rating: 18+ (pure filth, truly)

Wordcount: 2.7k

Warnings: smut, sexual situations, foreplay, some depressive thoughts (because i apparently can't write anything without them)

Warm.

Soft, warm, gentle, sweet. Sweeter than anything he’d tasted. Like dew that’s been licked off a cold strawberry, or the fragrant scent that wafts through the air outside of flower shops. A delicate and tender sweetness. Subtle, comforting, like the smell of home after being away for years. Such sweetness could make Matt lose himself, letting himself drift away on a current of fond smiles and warm embraces. He would allow himself to drown in the sweet taste, even if it was the last drop to pass his lips before he drifted to the ocean floor.

At the sudden loss of the warmth, the tenderness, the sweetness, Matt’s throat let out a whine of annoyance. His body moved of its own accord as he scrambled to reconnect himself to the source. Fingers tangling in silken hair. Hand bunching in a tank top. Teeth nipping at a plump, pink lower lip.

“Matt,” you sighed. The words cascaded past Matt’s tongue and down his throat, carrying a breeze filled with cherry blossoms in their wake. He could distantly feel delicate fingertips brush at his jaw. A tingling warmth trailed behind the gentle touch, only fueling his need to swallow as much sweetness as he could.

“Matt, honey. Breathe.”

Matt’s eyes fell open as he pulled away from his brief reprieve. His senses came crashing down like a cave in. All he could see was a haze of swirling oranges and reds that filled every inch in sight. Streaks of flame and blood painting the college dorm room like a canvas on fire. His cotton shirt was too tight, too scratchy. The humid air settled in his pores like an unwelcome visitor. A sudden cacophony of noise spilled into his ears through the crack under the door and the thin material of the walls. He blinked a few times to reorient. 

The first inhale he allowed himself felt like a punch in the lungs. Gone was the taste of strawberries or cherry blossoms, the feeling of warmth and comfort. A sharp tang of stale alcohol plunged its way into his sinuses and left him reeling. Notes of old, worn carpet and water-damaged ceilings shoved their way through to stand side by side to overwhelm thought and feeling. Matt screwed his eyes shut, trying to recall the smell of flowers that flowed like water down his throat.

“Hey, I’m right here,” you whispered, your melodic voice brushing aside the sounds assaulting Matt’s senses. Your soft hand rested along his jaw and brought his forehead to yours. Matt could feel your breath fan across his face. Warm and gentle and sweet.

“I… I’m sorry,” Matt said. He felt naïve. The world was harsh and cold and unforgiving. He shouldn’t have let himself get carried away by the allure you unintentionally provided. The sweet ambrosia that flowed from your lips could never compete with the torrential downpour of too much all around him.

“Sorry for what?” you asked. Your fingers brushed strands of Matt’s dark hair away from his face, then trailed their way down his cheek to rest on his collarbone. 

Matt opened his eyes again in a desperate attempt to see you. See anything. But all he was met with was the clouded reds and oranges that submerged the world beneath a pool of blood. 

He tried to focus on where your face would be, using the brush of air currents along your seated body to understand where you were on the bed. Your head was cocked, hair falling in front of your kind eyes. Matt could tell you were looking at him. From the way your heart calmly beat behind your ribs and the pheromones that surrounded you like an aura, Matt assumed you were happy. Content.

“I got caught up in the moment,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. You chuckled at his bashfulness, the sound ringing like a small bell around Matt’s head. Hopefully he could deflect from his lapse in awareness. Of course he had to be blind and easily distracted.

“That’s not a bad thing, you know. Just gotta remember to breathe,” you said. Matt scoffed playfully at the jab. He let his hands drift down to your waist, tucking his fingers beneath the bunched-up hem of your shirt.

“I don’t know, you seem to like it when I prevent you from breathing.”

Your breath caught in your throat as your heart leapt and your face heated. A flash of the intoxicating scent that was distinctly you floated from between your legs. Matt could feel his own arousal swirling like a whirlpool in his stomach. An uncontrollable tempest begging to be released over calm waters. Despite how desperately he wanted your clothes off and you beneath him, he pulled his mouth into a cocky grin while his fingers worked their way up to your bra.

“What’s wrong? Feeling embarrassed? Or are you just remembering how good it felt when I choked you?” he purred.

That got you riled up. Your chest started heaving as your skin grew hot and clammy over your entire body. A fresh wave of wetness and delicious scent warmed the inside of your thighs. You swallowed heavily and Matt could practically feel the way the muscles in your throat moved.

But you hesitated. Your fingers stopped their soft stroking along his sensitive skin. Your breath halted just behind your soft lips. Matt’s brow furrowed as a frown tugged at the edges of his lips.

“You okay?” he asked warily. Matt forced his hands to cease in their uphill climb and placed them on your hips. Anxiety gripped at his chest. Did he misread the situation? Misread you? Did he make you uncomfortable? God, what if you finally realized you’d made a mistake in dating him? It was bound to happen, sooner or later.

“Can I be on top tonight?” you asked, as though that sentence didn’t hit him like a ton of bricks to the stomach.

“W-What?” Matt spluttered.

“These past few times you’ve been making me feel good. Really good. I want to try to return the favor,” you explained. Your nails began to pick at a stray thread on Matt’s shirt collar. Matt’s ears picked up on the uptick in your pulse. Were you… nervous?

“If you don’t want to, that's fine, you can be on top. We can also just kiss if that’s more what you’re feeling today. I don’t want to make you feel weird and-”

“Sweetheart, slow down,” Matt said, interrupting your fast-paced tangent. Your mouth clamped shut as a deep breath filled your lungs. Matt grabbed loosely at your shoulders, thumbs rubbing back and forth on your bare skin, as an easy smile fell over his face.

He gave you a few seconds to catch your breath then said, “You can be on top. I just wasn’t expecting you to ask.”

In all honesty, he wasn’t expecting you to ask. Matt’s life was a never ending learning curve of discovering that love was not guaranteed. His mother left before he was a year old, his father died when he was nine, his mentor, Stick, abandoned him at the first sign of affection. He learned long ago to not expect anything from anyone. That was the first lesson Stick had taught him. 

And yet, against all odds, here you sat. An enigma if ever there was one. Offering your affection on a silver platter at Matt’s feet. A clear sign of trust, of devotion, of love.

“Okay,” you said. A relieved smile broke out across your face. You tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear as you cleared your throat. Matt’s heart raced in time with yours. His fingers began kneading in the soft flesh at your hips.

“Lie down for me,” you said. Four words, spoken softly with the gentleness of a feather, yet they struck Matt in the chest like a wide haymaker. A sentence that carried the weight of authority and a gentle caress all in one. Suddenly all he wanted to do was follow instructions.

In a flash he had his head on the pillow, arms at his sides, breathing at an alarmingly fast rate. Anticipation burned its way through his veins and clouded his senses. The world outside the dorm room faded away. Like a memory retreating into a dense fog. Loud voices down the hall quieted into nothing, the humidity in the air evaporated, his shirt felt like the softest silk, and the scent around him. God, all he could smell was you. Your breath was like the first day of spring, your skin like rolling hills of green grass, your hair like soft strands of pure sunlight. Matt’s world was, yet again, sweet.

“Let me know if I’m making you uncomfortable,” you breathed, your lips suddenly brushing against his earlobe. Matt would have jumped had he not been so relaxed beneath your comforting presence. Your sense of calm had washed over him like a warm wave at low tide. 

“I will,” Matt replied, having to use what remained of his mind to form two coherent words. A soft hum of acknowledgement rustled the baby hairs by his ear. He had just enough awareness to track you as you pressed a soft kiss under his jaw. 

A sigh escaped his lips as he tilted his head back against the pillow. You smiled against his skin, rewarding the accommodation by pressing a firmer kiss into the soft skin beneath his ear. Tendrils of goodgoodgood shocked their way through his veins from where your lips connected to the sensitive skin. His breath hitched as he let his eyes fall closed.

“Good spot, I take it,” you said through a smile Matt could hear. Matt barely got out the word “yes” before you licked a broad swipe up his neck and ended at that sensitive spot. Matt’s back arched as a groan kicked its way out of his throat. His hands fisted into your tank top out of pure instinct, practically begging the source of his pleasure to stay put. Another pass of your tongue stoked the embers in his abdomen into a bonfire, flames licking their way over his damp skin.

“Sweetheart, please,” Matt begged, the words a whisper on his parted lips. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was begging for. All he knew was he never wanted you to stop. 

Blunt fingernails traced the exposed skin beneath his shirt. Matt’s hips bucked up, chasing the light touch. The muscles beneath his skin jumped as you slowly, so slowly, started pushing his shirt up. It was agonizing, the feeling of your nails lightly scraping along his stomach. Each finger lit up thousands of nerve endings, each nerve ending pushing him further and further toward the edge of a steep cliff.

You pressed a soft kiss to the shell of Matt’s ear as you whispered, “Arms up, Matt.”

You could tell him to kneel at your feet for the rest of his life and he would.

Matt did the best his melted body could to help you take his shirt off. The two of you were a mess of limbs and cotton for a moment before you were able to pull the infernal garment away. Matt’s arms fell beside him like two sacks of grain. Palms as soft as calfskin ever so gently glided down his bare chest. You made sure every divot and round muscle got the attention it deserved, caressing Matt like he was the finest lace. When your pinky brushed against his nipple, a sharp hiss escaped through his teeth.

You hummed, hands retreating in their path, fingers dancing along the edges of Matt’s nipples. Matt choked out a moan, baring his neck as his back arched into your touch. Your tongue made another pass of his throat as feather-light glances of your fingers across both of his nipples chased the last coherent thoughts from Matt’s mind.

“Fuck,” Matt groaned. Every millimeter of his skin felt like it was aflame. Fire left in the wake of your gentle touch. Burning away all sense and reason until all that was left was Matt’s writhing body.

He was close. Embarrassingly so. Matt clung to the cliff’s edge by his fingertips, each kiss and caress prying his fingers off one by one. His hips moved of their own volition. He was bucking into your thigh like a dog in heat. Whines and moans flew from his glistening lips while his hands scrabbled against the sheets.

With your hands still toying at Matt’s chest, you shifted in his lap until the warm heat between your thighs settled over where his shorts had tented. A slurred string of curses and your name spilled from between his teeth. His wild grinding now dispersed your scent in the air around him. And God, there was so much. It settled into every inch of Matt’s skin until he could taste it on his tongue, feel it coat his lungs as he breathed it in.

“Sw-eetheart,” Matt choked out. He could feel his fingers falling away from the cliff in rapid succession. The precipice below him seemed to climb up the cliffside until it was just beneath his feet, tempting him to let go and plunge into its depths.

The final nail in his coffin was when you nipped at his neck, teeth closing around where his pulse flowed strongest. The air in his lungs leapt through his throat in one big gust. His unseeing eyes rolled back in his head, hands grabbing at anything in their vicinity. 

Matt’s final grip on the cliff fell away, plunging him into warmth and gentleness and sweetness that surrounded him like a strong embrace. Held him tight and wove its way through every muscle in his body. A shock of white hot pleasure rolled through him like a steam train. Starting in his groin and washing over him in wave after wave of fuckyesgoodfuckkeepgoingdon’tstop. He could barely register how loud he was over the roaring in his ears. His heart pounded against his chest like an animal behind bars.

Your lips found his again and everything clicked into place. Matt lapped at your mouth like he was drinking his first glass after a month in the desert. The sweet nectar that you produced flowed down his throat and prolonged his orgasm. His hips rocked up into yours, chasing a heat that he could feel in his bones. Hands, trembling, bunched themselves in your shirt and pulled your chest flush to his.

It took several minutes for the aftershocks to calm down. Every breath, every twitching muscle made his overwhelmed senses go haywire. In his mind, the world around him was a swirling cloud of bliss. All he could hear was your breathing, all he could feel was your heartbeat against his chest, all he could taste was strawberries and cherry blossoms. He let his fingertips trail along your exposed shoulders, zeroing in on the feeling, bringing himself back to reality.

When you felt the movement, you lifted your head to look at him, “Back with us?”

A tired smile spread itself over his lips. Matt opened his eyes, the effort to lift his eyelids like lifting a dumbbell, and let his empty gaze land somewhere on your face.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he sighed. You responded by giving him a quick peck on the lips. Matt grumbled, brow furrowing, then guided your chin back up to kiss him again. You chuckled against his lips, a whisper of “ridiculous man” absorbed between your mouths. Matt relished in the familiar sweetness before letting you pull away.

“I take it you enjoyed that?” you asked. Matt gave you a solemn nod, at which you laughed. He shifted beneath you so he could attempt to meet your eyes.

“Did you like it?” he asked tentatively. He fiddled with the hem of your shirt as he waited for your answer. He hadn’t done anything for you, he just laid there and made you do all the work. What kind of boyfriend was he? Not to mention you didn’t even touch him. A few grazes of your fingers over his chest and he was done for.

“I loved it. It was fun to figure out what buttons to push,” you laughed. The tinkling tune of your laugh erased any negative thoughts Matt retained about the experience. He let his smile return, holding you tighter to his chest.

“Give me a few minutes and I’ll return the favor,” Matt said, letting that seductive edge find its way back into his voice. You shuddered on top of him. Your thighs clenched instinctively around his. You blew a stray strand of hair out of your face, attempting to mask the want clearly written on your skin.

“3 minutes, then we’re back in business.”

“Deal.”

HUGE thanks to the Murdock Tuna Team for being the inspiration for this fic. i have them to blame for the filth that fills my head on an hourly basis.

Murdock Tuna Team 🐟: @vigilxnte-shit @pastafossa @yarrystyleeza @ecxlipse @sunflowersandsapphires @amphitrite-5 @fuckyeahpommelstrike @mar-thewriter @zomtart @what-i-call-men

[igotanidea]

five more minutes: Dick Grayson x fem!reader

I'm (not) sorry, but that smug face fits right into this fanfiction!!

request/summary: Dick getting clingy when the reader needs to go somewhere

A/N: so, I think I'm back? Two weeks break and I'm getting into the swing of things again, so please go easy on me with this story......

***

When she wakes up in the morning something seems off almost instantly.

It only takes a second to realise that said thing took the form of Dick Grayson, her beloved boyfriend, the man by day and the fearless vigilante by night. The protector of Gotham and its people.

Well, if only the people could see him now.

Sleeping in a weird position with the imprint of the pillow on his cheek, messy hair and some dried saliva in the corner of his mouth.

He so cute and adorable like that. Y/N does the quick scan of his face and body in the search for any injuries he might have obtained during the patrol but her heart rests easy when she noticed him being all in one piece with no blood or stiches. Either it was a quiet and peaceful night or he already took care of himself. Her bets are the latter, but since it’s work day she doesn’t really have any time to wait until he wakes up to blame him for not being careful.

As quiet and swift as she can, Y/N tries to move out of bed, but since Dick’s senses are heightened she doesn’t really get far, when his arms wraps around her, keeping her in place.

“Dick……” she mutters

“Mhmmmm……” he mumbles into the pillow

“Come on, I have get  up!”

“no you don’t.”

“I gotta get to work!”

“I’m the only work you need……” he grins, still half-asleep, but so full of himself and she almost rolls her eyes at the joke

“God, please stop…. I need to earn money you know? Not all of us have a billionaire daddy!”

“You’re dating the billionaire oldest son, isn’t that enough?”

She wonders for a moment. On a second thought maybe it is. Dick seems to use that heartbeat of hesitation, shifting his body weight on her, pinning her to bed, his eyes still closed, but this little shit knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Dick!” she gasps feeling all those muscles crush her “shit!

“I like it when you call my name in such a desperate words. Do it just one more time and the neighbours will hate you forever.” He chuckles and his makes her skin tingle.

You’re heavy…..” she squirms trying to break free, but it’s no use. “You brought it on yourself….” The girl mutters poking on his ribs in the place where he’s extremely sensitive because of an old injury.

“Hey!” he yells, trying to defend himself and letting go off her in the process.

Y/N is quick to jump out of bed and rush towards her wardrobe, grabbing her jeans and t-shirt and struggling to put them on.

“Not so fast!” Dick tears her clothes from her hands and holds them high out of reach.

“Not fair Grayson!”

“You called me fat.”

“I called you heavy!’

“Same thing!”

“It’s not….. You know what, fine. I’ll just wear something else….” She shrugs and runs towards the drawer, but before she could reach it Dick grabs her from behind and holds her tight to him

“Dick…….” She whines stretching out just to grab something to wear. Anything.

“I know. I’m irresistible.”

“A pain in the ass is what you are!”

“I can make you breakfast….” He tempts

“You’re not Jason, Dick. Making me breakfast means putting cereals In the bowl and poring some milk over it in your dictionary. Cold milk. And that is only if I bought both cereals and milk.”

“did you?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Can’t you see how hard I’m trying? Just for you. Come on, you are like an employee  of the month. Or even a year. Stay…..” he kisses her neck playfully “you can call in sick.”

“I used all my sick days because of you.”

“How about casual leave?”

“and what may be the emergency?” she sighs in defeat, her body going limp as she drops the fighting knowing well enough she won’t win it. “Clingy boyfriend?”

“You called me boyfriend!” he grins again and she facepalms herself.

“We’ve been together for a year Dick. Why do you seem surprised?”

“I could never get bored with hearing that word from you. Makes me proud that you’re mine.”

“trying to sweet talk me? Won’t work. By the way, you are soooooo cheesy Grayson.”

“And?” he asks

“ And? What and?”  at this point Y/N is confused, her eyebrows furrowing as she turns to meet his gaze

“And you love me?” he insist, spinning her around in his arms so that he can get easy access to her kissable face.

“Yeah…..” she smiles dreamily “yeah, I do love you, you idiot” she trails with a love sick puppy expression. But it doesn’t mean I’m gonna stay and be you babysi…..ah! Put me down!” she yells suddenly feeling her body lift of the ground without her knowledge or will. “Put me down Grayson! What are you……?! Damn it…!”

Dick does not listen or does not get impressed by her poor attempts to break free. He’s Nightwing. He’s got so many ways to immobilise the opponent. Or, in this case, lover.

“Dick I swear I am going to kick your ass if you don’t….!” the threat dies on her lips as he throws her onto the mattress and kisses her softly shutting her up in the process.

“Stay?” he pouts looking at her with those pretty doe eyes “Pretty please?”

“You act like a five year old!”

“A five year old that wants you. A five year old that misses you…”

“I’ll be back, you know……” she brush the strand of hair from his face. She’s already gone but still tries to keep the appearances.

“Yeah, at 6 p.m. or later. It’s almost the time when I get ready for my night shift…… Please…..”he whines nuzzling his nose over her neck “stay…..”

“please…..” she mimics his whining, caressing his cheek “let me go……”

“But I need you…….” He hide his face in her belly and his hair tickle

“Why do you always need me when I am supposed to go to work?’

“It’s a terrible and uncontrollable disease…..” he laughs

“Is there a cure?” she laughs back

“I can think of something….” He closes the gap between them, nibbling on her bottom lip. “and it may be working…. But I;m not sure. Need some more testing” he repeats his action. “Mhm, yes, it’s definitely working… You don’t want me to be sick, do you?”

“Not really. You are whiny and attention seeker when you are sick.”

“I am not!” he shouts in denial “ok, maybe I am. A little. But come on, you can stay some more time with me……”

“How long, dickie?” she smiles at him, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“five more minutes?”

“ok. Five more minutes. She sighs deeply, letting go of any of her objections, letting Dick lay beside her and act like a big spoon, while holding her tight to his chest and caressing her sides and belly.

“You’re not letting me go, are you?” she whispers closing her eyes and getting lost in his touch.

“Never.”

And she’s pretty sure she can live with that.  

[simpforfandom231]

Numb leg

A/N: enjoy this ;) warning: filthy smut sorry not sorry

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As the sun dipped low over the ancient city of Petra, casting long shadows across the rose-red sandstone, Reneé Rapp and her girlfriend Y/n stood in awe before the magnificent façade of the Treasury. The intricately carved columns and ornate details seemed to hold stories of a bygone era, whispering secrets of civilizations long past.

Y/n's eyes sparkled with excitement as she took in the breathtaking sight. "Can you believe we're actually here, Reneé? It's like something out of a dream."

Reneé smiled, her heart swelling with love for the woman by her side. "Yeah, it's pretty incredible. And tomorrow, I'll be performing at the arena just a stone's throw away from here."

Y/n grinned, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "I can't wait to see you up on that stage, babe. You're going to absolutely slay."

As they wandered through the ancient city, marveling at its beauty, Y/n couldn't contain her excitement. "Hey, Reneé, do you think we could hike up to the High Place of Sacrifice before we head back?"

Reneé's brow furrowed with concern. She knew that Y/n had been struggling with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), a condition that often left her fatigued and in pain. "Are you sure, love? You seemed pretty exhausted from the hike to the treasury already."

Y/n waved off her concern with a smile. "I'll be fine, Reneé. I've been looking forward to this hike for ages. Besides, I'll have you to help me if I need it."

Reneé couldn't resist Y/n's enthusiasm, despite her worries. "Alright, let's do it. But promise me you'll let me know if you start feeling unwell, okay?"

Y/n nodded, her eyes shining with gratitude. "I promise. Now, let's go make some memories."

Together, hand in hand, they embarked on the journey to the High Place of Sacrifice. The trail wound its way through rugged terrain, the ancient stones beneath their feet whispering tales of centuries past. As they climbed higher and higher, Y/n couldn't contain her excitement, while Reneé kept a watchful eye on her beloved.

"Are you doing okay, Y/n?" Reneé asked, concern lacing her voice.

Y/n grinned, though she could feel the fatigue beginning to creep into her limbs. "I'm hanging in there, thanks to you. This view is so worth it."

Reneé squeezed her hand reassuringly. "We'll take it slow. We don't have to rush."

With renewed determination, they pressed on, the promise of the breathtaking vista spurring them forward.

As they continued their ascent up the rocky trail, Y/n's determination was palpable, each step a testament to her resilience in the face of adversity. Reneé couldn't help but admire her girlfriend's strength, even as she noticed the telltale signs of fatigue beginning to take their toll.

"Are you sure you're okay, Y/n?" Reneé asked, her voice laced with concern.

Y/n flashed her a reassuring smile, though she could feel the familiar tingling sensation creeping up her leg. "I'm fine, Reneé. Just a little numbness, nothing I can't handle."

Reneé knew better than to push, but her worry gnawed at her insides. She had spent countless nights poring over medical journals, trying to understand every aspect of Y/n's condition. FND was a complex disorder, its symptoms often unpredictable and debilitating. But through it all, Y/n had remained steadfast in her determination to live life to the fullest, refusing to let her diagnosis define her.

As they climbed higher, the air grew thinner, the path more treacherous. Y/n's pace began to slow, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Reneé could see the strain etched on her face, the lines of pain creasing her brow.

"Maybe we should take a break," Reneé suggested gently, her heart aching at the sight of Y/n's struggle.

Y/n shook her head stubbornly, though she knew Reneé was right. "I can't stop now, Reneé. We're almost there."

But Reneé wasn't about to let her girlfriend push herself to the point of exhaustion. With a gentle hand, she guided Y/n to a nearby boulder, urging her to sit and catch her breath.

"You've done amazing, love," Reneé said softly, her voice filled with pride. "But it's okay to take a break. We'll get there when we get there."

Y/n leaned into Reneé's embrace, grateful for her unwavering support. "I'm sorry, Reneé. I just... I hate feeling like I'm holding you back."

Reneé's heart broke at the sadness in Y/n's eyes. "You could never hold me back, Y/n. You're the strongest person I know, and I'm so lucky to have you in my life."

As they sat on the boulder, catching their breath and taking in the panoramic view before them, Y/n couldn't shake the frustration bubbling up inside her. "I hate this disorder, Reneé," she muttered, her voice tinged with bitterness. "I hate how it makes me feel weak and helpless."

Reneé's heart ached at the pain in Y/n's words. She reached out, gently brushing a strand of hair away from Y/n's face. "I know, love. I hate it too. But you're not weak, Y/n. You're one of the strongest people I know."

Y/n's eyes brimmed with tears as she leaned into Reneé's touch. "I just don't want to disappoint you, Reneé. I don't want to be a burden."

Reneé cupped Y/n's face in her hands, her gaze unwavering. "You could never disappoint me, Y/n. And you're not a burden. We're in this together, remember?"

As they sat in companionable silence, the pain in Y/n's leg began to intensify, a sharp ache radiating through her muscles. Reneé noticed the discomfort etched on her face and reached into her backpack, pulling out a granola bar.

"Here, love," Reneé said, offering the snack to Y/n. "This should give you a little energy boost."

Y/n accepted the granola bar gratefully, taking a few bites before tucking it away for later. "Thanks, Reneé. You always know how to take care of me."

Reneé smiled, her heart swelling with love for the woman beside her. "It's what I'm here for, Y/n. Now, let's finish this hike together. We're almost there."

With renewed determination, they rose to their feet, the summit tantalizingly close on the horizon. Each step was a testament to their strength and resilience, a testament to the unbreakable bond that held them together.

As they reached the summit of the High Place of Sacrifice, a sense of accomplishment washed over Y/n, mixed with relief and a touch of exhaustion. Reneé, ever prepared, pulled out a self-cooler from her backpack, knowing exactly what to do next. Y/n smiled as she watched her girlfriend set up the cooler, already familiar with the routine.

"Thanks, babe," Y/n said, her voice filled with gratitude. "You always think of everything."

Reneé flashed her a warm smile, her eyes twinkling with affection. "Anything for you, my love."

As Y/n strapped on her stabilizer, Reneé knelt beside her, helping to adjust the straps and set the harness to the softest level. "There you go, love," Reneé said, her touch gentle as she secured the stabilizer in place. "This should give you some extra support on the way down."

Y/n leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to Reneé's cheek. "You're so cute when you take care of me, you know that?"

Reneé chuckled, a hint of pink coloring her cheeks. "You're not so bad yourself, sweetheart."

With the stabilizer in place and the harness adjusted, Y/n took a deep breath, steeling herself for the descent. "Alright, let's do this."

Reneé offered her a reassuring smile, squeezing her hand tightly. "You've got this, Y/n. And I'll be right here beside you every step of the way."

As they made their way down the unsteady trail, Y/n felt a sense of unease settle in the pit of her stomach. Despite the stabilizer and Reneé's constant support, each step felt like a precarious dance on the edge of a cliff. Reneé walked in front, her presence a comforting reassurance that if Y/n were to fall, it would be into her waiting arms.

Y/n couldn't shake the feeling of guilt gnawing at her insides. She knew the consequences of not listening to her body, of pushing herself too far. But the desire to experience life to the fullest, to explore every corner of the world with Reneé by her side, often outweighed the warnings of her own limitations.

As they descended further down the trail, Y/n's leg began to grow numb, a familiar tingling sensation spreading through her muscles. She stumbled, her foot slipping on a loose stone, and before she knew it, she was tumbling to the ground.

Reneé's heart leaped into her throat as she watched Y/n fall, her instincts kicking into overdrive. She rushed to her side, her hands gentle but firm as she helped Y/n to her feet. "Are you okay?" she asked, her voice tinged with concern.

Y/n nodded, though she could feel the frustration welling up inside her. "I'm fine, Reneé. Just a little shaken."

But Reneé could see through the facade, the pain and disappointment written plainly on Y/n's face. She sighed, her irritation bubbling to the surface. "You need to start listening to your body, Y/n. You know what happens when you push yourself too hard."

Y/n hung her head, unable to meet Reneé's gaze. "I know, I know. I'm sorry, Reneé. I just... I hate feeling like I'm missing out on life."

Reneé's expression softened, her heart aching for the woman she loved. She reached into her backpack, pulling out a water bottle and a snack bar, before handing the bag to Y/n. "Here, take this. I'll carry you down."

Y/n's eyes widened in surprise, knowing full well that Reneé was angry with her. "But Reneé, I can—"

Reneé cut her off with a stern look. "No arguments, Y/n. I don't want to hear it. You need to conserve your energy, and I'm not going to let you push yourself any further."

With a resigned sigh, Y/n accepted the backpack, feeling the weight of Reneé's disappointment heavy on her shoulders. But as Reneé hoisted her onto her back, her arms strong and steady, Y/n couldn't help but feel grateful for the unwavering support of the woman she loved.

As Reneé carried Y/n down the trail, her frustration simmered just beneath the surface, her muscles straining with the effort. She muttered to herself in exasperation, her mind racing with thoughts of how Y/n's stubbornness had once again landed them in this situation.

Y/n clung to Reneé tightly, her arms wrapped securely around her girlfriend's neck. "Sorry about this, Reneé," she said softly, her voice tinged with guilt.

Reneé sighed, her irritation momentarily forgotten as she felt Y/n's warmth against her back. "It's okay, love. Just focus on holding on tight, alright?"

Y/n couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle, despite the pain throbbing in her leg. "Well, at least I have a great view from up here," she teased, her fingers tracing the outline of Reneé's arms peeking out from beneath her tank top.

Reneé couldn't help but smirk at Y/n's attempt to lighten the mood, though her frustration still lingered in the back of her mind. "You're lucky I love you," she replied with a playful roll of her eyes.

As they continued their descent, Y/n felt the numbness in her leg spread, a cold, tingling sensation creeping up from her toes to her hip. She knew what it meant—a sign that she had pushed herself too far, ignored the warnings of her body once again.

"Reneé," Y/n said softly, her voice trembling with fear. "My leg... it's numb."

Reneé's heart sank as she felt the panic rising in Y/n's voice. She tightened her grip on Y/n's legs, trying to steady herself against the onslaught of emotions threatening to overwhelm her. "It's okay, Y/n. Just hang on tight. We'll get through this together."

With each step, the weight of Y/n's limp body grew heavier on Reneé's back, the strain beginning to take its toll. But she refused to falter, refusing to let her own frustration get in the way of helping the woman she loved.

And as they finally reached the base of the trail, the exhaustion evident in every line of Reneé's body, Y/n felt a sense of relief wash over her. Despite the challenges they had faced, they had made it through, their love for each other shining bright even in the darkest moments.

As Reneé gently lowered Y/n to the ground, their eyes met in silent understanding.

As Y/n lay on the ground, her leg completely numb and useless beneath her, Reneé's heart clenched with worry. She knelt beside her girlfriend, her hands trembling with fear and frustration. "Y/n, we need to get you help," she said urgently, her voice tinged with desperation.

But Y/n shook her head stubbornly, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "I just need a minute, Reneé. I'll be okay."

Reneé's patience snapped, her irritation boiling over as she watched Y/n struggle to stand. "Enough, Y/n," she said firmly, her tone leaving no room for argument. "We need to get you out of here."

With a heavy heart, Reneé surveyed their surroundings, her eyes landing on a group of jeeps parked nearby. She knew that they were used to transport tourists back to the entrance of the park, a quick and efficient way to navigate the rugged terrain.

Reneé's anger flared as she realized that Y/n's stubbornness had put them in this situation. She couldn't understand why her girlfriend insisted on pushing herself to the brink, ignoring the warnings of her own body.

"Get up, Y/n," Reneé said, her voice cold and clipped. "We're getting in one of those jeeps and going back to the hotel."

Y/n's eyes widened in surprise at the steel in Reneé's voice. She knew that Reneé was done with her stubbornness, done with watching her push herself beyond her limits.

As they climbed into one of the jeeps, Reneé's mind raced with thoughts of what lay ahead. She knew every symptom of Y/n's disorder, knew that they just needed to get her back to the hotel so she could lay down and rest.

As the jeep rumbled to life and began the journey back to civilization, Reneé held Y/n's hand tightly, her heart heavy with worry.

As they approached the entrance of the park, the hotel mere steps away, Y/N could feel the tension radiating from Reneé. Knowing her girlfriend well, Y/N decided it was best not to push any further, silently offering her support as they made their way back.

Meanwhile, Reneé muttered to herself, her thoughts consumed with what needed to be done once they reached the hotel room. "I need the cool pack for the pain shocks in the knee, the electroshock travel thing to stimulate her neurological nerves, and the pulsing thing to stimulate the brain to signal the leg again," she murmured, her voice a mix of determination and concern.

Y/N gave Reneé a reassuring smile, appreciating her partner's meticulous care and attention to detail. Reneé always had those medical supplies on hand, just in case of emergencies like this one. She had even taken courses to officially carry the necessary equipment and provide care to Y/N in case of need.

As they entered their hotel room, Reneé wasted no time in helping Y/n to lay down on the bed, her movements gentle and precise. She could see the discomfort etched on Y/n's face, a mixture of pain and frustration.

"Let me help you get more comfortable, love," Reneé said softly, her voice soothing as she began to unfasten Y/n's shoes. "I think it would be best if we changed you into shorts. It'll make it easier to place the electrodes on your leg."

Y/n nodded in agreement, grateful for Reneé's practicality. Despite her dislike for the electroshock therapy, she knew it was necessary to help stimulate her nerves and alleviate the pain.

As Reneé helped Y/n change into shorts, she couldn't help but notice the grimace of discomfort that crossed her girlfriend's face. "I hate these electroshocks," Y/n muttered, her voice filled with frustration. "They're so painful."

Reneé sighed, her heart aching for Y/n's suffering. "I know, love. But they're helping to give small impulses to your nerves, to encourage them to start working again. We just have to keep trying."

With Y/n settled in shorts, Reneé set to work placing the electrodes on her leg, her movements confident and precise. She knew exactly where to position each sticker, ensuring maximum effectiveness of the electroshock therapy.

"It won't be long now, love," Reneé said softly, her voice filled with reassurance as she activated the device. "Just try to relax and let the shocks do their work."

Y/n closed her eyes, trying to focus on the rhythmic pulses coursing through her leg. Despite the discomfort, she knew that Reneé was right—the electroshocks were a necessary part of her treatment, a small price to pay for the hope of relief from the constant pain.

As the therapy continued, Y/n could feel a faint tingling sensation spreading through her leg, a sign that the nerves were responding to the stimulation. She let out a sigh of relief, grateful for Reneé's unwavering support and expertise.

"Thank you, Reneé," Y/n murmured, her voice filled with gratitude. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Reneé smiled tenderly, pressing a kiss to Y/n's forehead. "You'll never have to find out, love. I'll always be here for you, no matter what."

As Y/n lay on the bed, Reneé watched her with a mixture of love and concern, her heart swelling with admiration for her resilience. But as her gaze lingered on Y/n's hand, she noticed the cut from her fall, the dirt still embedded in the wound.

Reneé's concern deepened as she saw the injury, her protective instincts kicking into overdrive. Without a moment's hesitation, she retrieved some pure water, disinfectant, a cloth, a pair of tweezers, and a plaster from her suitcase.

"Let me take care of that for you, love," Reneé said gently, her voice filled with reassurance as she approached the bed.

Y/n nodded gratefully, trusting Reneé to tend to her injury with the same care and precision she had shown with the electroshock therapy.

Reneé began by carefully cleaning the wound with the pure water, gently dabbing away the dirt and debris. She then applied the disinfectant, her touch gentle but thorough as she ensured the cut was properly cleaned.

Y/n winced slightly at the sting of the disinfectant, but she knew it was necessary to prevent infection. She squeezed Reneé's hand in silent gratitude, drawing strength from her unwavering support.

With the wound clean, Reneé used the tweezers to carefully remove any remaining dirt or debris, her movements precise and deliberate. Once satisfied that the cut was free from contamination, she applied a plaster to protect it from further irritation.

"There, all done," Reneé said softly, her eyes meeting Y/n's with a mixture of tenderness and relief. "You should be good as new in no time."

As the electroshock machine signaled the end of the session with a soft beep, Reneé carefully peeled off the stickers from Y/n's leg, her movements gentle and precise. Y/n, though still not fully feeling her leg, trusted in Reneé's expertise, knowing that her girlfriend was doing everything she could to help.

"Thank you, Reneé," Y/n said softly, a small smile playing on her lips as she shifted slightly on the chair in the bathroom.

Reneé returned the smile, her eyes filled with warmth and affection. "You're welcome, love. Let's get you cleaned up, alright?"

With gentle guidance, Reneé helped Y/n to the bathroom, settling her onto the chair with care. She then proceeded to undress Y/n, her touch tender and respectful as she ensured her girlfriend's comfort and dignity.

Once Y/n was settled, Reneé fetched another chair and placed it inside the shower, making sure it was stable and safe. With a mischievous glint in her eye, Reneé decided to join Y/n in the shower, knowing that her presence would bring comfort and support.

As the warm water cascaded down, Reneé stepped into the shower beside Y/n, her wet skin glistening in the light. Y/n couldn't help but stare, captivated by the sight of Reneé's beauty and strength.

Reneé caught Y/n's gaze and smirked teasingly, the corners of her lips quirking up in amusement. "Like what you see, love?" she teased, her voice laced with playful affection.

Y/n blushed furiously, feeling a rush of warmth flood her cheeks. "I, um... well, yes," she stammered, unable to tear her eyes away from Reneé's captivating presence.

Reneé chuckled softly, her heart swelling with love for her shy girlfriend. "You're adorable, Y/n," she said fondly, reaching out to gently wash Y/n's body with the sponge.

As Reneé continued to help Y/n wash, their laughter and teasing filling the air, Y/n couldn't help but feel grateful for the love and happiness she shared with Reneé. And as they stood together under the warm embrace of the shower, their bond growing stronger with each passing moment, Y/n knew that with Reneé by her side, she could conquer anything that life threw her way.

As the warm water cascaded down, Reneé stood between Y/n's legs, gently washing her girlfriend's body with the sponge. Y/n couldn't resist the temptation, boldly planting kisses along Reneé's thighs, her lips trailing a path of warmth and desire.

Reneé let out soft noises of pleasure, her heart racing with excitement at Y/n's boldness. As Y/n's kisses grew more insistent, Reneé found herself unable to resist, her hands instinctively tangling in Y/n's hair, urging her closer.

Y/n's hands began to roam teasingly over Reneé's legs and ass, eliciting a shiver of pleasure from her girlfriend. Reneé tried to playfully ignore the sensations coursing through her body, focusing instead on washing Y/n with care and attention.

"Y/n," Reneé murmured, her voice husky with desire as she continued to wash her girlfriend's body. "We should... focus on getting you cleaned up."

But Y/n couldn't resist the temptation, her hands exploring every inch of Reneé's skin with eager anticipation. "I can't help it, Reneé," Y/n whispered, her breath hot against Reneé's skin. "You drive me wild."

Reneé let out a soft laugh, her heart swelling with love for her daring girlfriend. "You're something else, Y/n," she said fondly, unable to resist the urge to lean in and capture Y/n's lips in a passionate kiss.

As the water continued to cascade down around them, Reneé resumed washing Y/N, her touch gentle yet firm. Y/N couldn't resist the temptation, her hands still lingering between Reneé's legs, feeling the heat and desire radiating from her girlfriend's body.

Sensing Reneé's arousal, Y/N teased playfully, her movements slow and deliberate. Reneé, unable to resist the temptation, softly opened her legs a bit more, inviting Y/N's touch.

Y/N's fingers danced over Reneé's skin, exploring every curve and contour with eager anticipation. As the desire between them grew, Reneé couldn't hold back any longer. With a soft sigh, she sank down into Y/N's lap, her lips seeking out the sensitive skin of Y/N's neck.

Y/N gasped in pleasure as Reneé's lips trailed hot kisses along her neck, igniting a fire of desire within her. Feeling Reneé's need for friction, Y/N eagerly responded, her hands moving to grip Reneé's hips as she began to grind against her lap.

Reneé moaned softly, the sensation of Y/N's body against hers sending waves of pleasure coursing through her. Lost in the moment, she surrendered herself to the passion, moving in rhythm with Y/N's movements, seeking the ultimate release.

As Y/N's fingers trailed down Reneé's body, igniting a fiery passion within her, Reneé couldn't suppress the sounds of pleasure escaping her lips. With each touch, she felt herself unraveling, lost in the ecstasy of Y/N's touch.

"Babe, please," Reneé gasped, her voice filled with urgency and desire as she begged for more. "I need you."

Y/N responded eagerly to Reneé's plea, showering her with love bites on her chest and teasing her sensitive nipples. "You're so beautiful, Reneé," Y/N whispered, her voice filled with adoration as she lavished praise upon her girlfriend.

Despite the lingering numbness in her leg, Y/N was determined to keep the passion alive. With each movement, she felt the desire building between them, fueling their connection with an intense heat.

Feeling Reneé's need for more, Y/N reached for the strap-on in the cabinet, a mischievous smile playing on her lips. "Are you ready for this, babe?" she asked, her voice filled with anticipation.

Reneé nodded eagerly, her eyes blazing with desire as she got on her knees in front of the strap-on. With trembling hands, Y/N secured the harness around her waist, the anticipation building with each passing moment.

As Reneé knelt between Y/N's legs, the anticipation hung heavy in the air. With a playful smirk, Y/N watched as Reneé took the strap-on into her mouth, her gaze filled with desire and longing.

Feeling a surge of excitement, Y/N couldn't resist the urge to grab Reneé's hair, urging her head deeper as she savored the intoxicating sensation. The sight of Reneé on her knees, pleasuring her with such enthusiasm, sent waves of desire coursing through Y/N's body.

"Keep going, Reneé," Y/N demanded, her voice husky with desire. "I want to feel you, all of you."

Reneé obeyed eagerly, her movements becoming more fervent as she pleasured Y/N with the strap-on. The sound of Y/N's pleasure filled the air, mingling with Reneé's own intoxicating moans.

But Y/N wasn't satisfied with just receiving pleasure. With a hunger in her eyes, she urged Reneé to start playing with herself too, craving the sight of her girlfriend lost in ecstasy.

"Touch yourself, Reneé," Y/N commanded, her voice laced with desire. "I want to see you lose control."

Reneé complied eagerly, her hands moving to explore her own body as she continued to pleasure Y/N with the strap-on. The sight of Reneé pleasuring herself while pleasuring Y/N sent a rush of excitement coursing through Y/N's veins.

With a playful innocence, Reneé looked up at Y/N and asked, "Can I sit in your lap on the strap-on, babe?"

Y/N's eyes sparkled with excitement as she nodded eagerly, unable to resist the thought of having Reneé straddle her in such an intimate way. "Of course, love," Y/N replied, her voice filled with anticipation.

But before Reneé could even lower herself onto Y/N's lap, Y/N's mouth found its way to Reneé's wet center, eager to taste her lover's desire. Reneé let out a gasp of pleasure as Y/N's tongue delved deeper, sending shivers of ecstasy coursing through her body.

Reneé couldn't help but push Y/N's head deeper, craving more of the intoxicating sensation. With each flick of Y/N's tongue, Reneé felt herself teetering on the edge of bliss, her body humming with desire.

Feeling emboldened by Reneé's response, Y/N began to eat her out with fervent enthusiasm, her fingers working in tandem to bring Reneé to the brink of ecstasy. The sensation of Y/N's mouth and fingers driving her wild with pleasure, Reneé's moans filled the air, mingling with the sound of the rushing water from the shower.

With Y/N's tongue expertly driving her wild with pleasure, Reneé couldn't hold back any longer. With a gasp of ecstasy, she practically rode Y/N's face, her body trembling with desire.

Feeling the intensity of Reneé's passion, Y/N eagerly held her lover up to stand by her ass, their bodies pressed close as they reveled in the heat of the moment. Y/N's fingers danced across Reneé's back, scratching just enough to send shivers of pleasure coursing through her body.

Reneé moaned in response to Y/N's touch, the sensation driving her wild with desire. With a commanding tone, Y/N urged Reneé to ride the strap-on, eager to fulfill her lover's every desire.

Reneé obeyed without hesitation, lowering herself onto the strap-on with a shudder of anticipation. Y/N wasted no time in taking control, her fingers moving to play with Reneé's clit, sending waves of pleasure crashing over her.

With each thrust, Reneé felt herself teetering on the edge of ecstasy, the pleasure building to an overwhelming crescendo. And as Y/N's fingers worked their magic, Reneé couldn't hold back any longer, her body convulsing with pleasure as she reached the peak of ecstasy.

With a cry of release, Reneé collapsed into Y/N's arms, their bodies entwined in a passionate embrace.

Y/N held Reneé tightly, her arms wrapped around her lover as they basked in the euphoria of their shared passion. Reneé, still feeling the lingering effects of their intimate encounter, shuddered slightly as she moved, the sensation of the dildo still palpable.

With a mischievous glint in her eye, Y/N couldn't help but feel a rush of desire at the sight of Reneé, her body glistening with water and flushed with pleasure. "You're so beautiful, Reneé," Y/N murmured, her voice filled with adoration.

Reneé chuckled softly, her fingers trailing teasingly along Y/N's skin. "As much as I love this view, babe, I think it's time we moved to the bed," she said playfully, her eyes sparkling with desire.

Y/N nodded eagerly, her heart racing with anticipation as Reneé helped her out of the shower and laid her down on the bed. With each touch, Y/N's desire grew, her body responding eagerly to Reneé's gentle caresses.

As Y/N lay on the bed, growing wet with anticipation, Reneé retrieved the strap-on and expertly put it on, a wicked grin playing on her lips. With a seductive glint in her eye, she crawled onto the bed, moving to straddle Y/N's hips.

"You ready for round two, babe?" Reneé whispered huskily, her voice laced with desire.

Y/N's breath caught in her throat as she nodded eagerly, her body tingling with anticipation. "More than ready, Reneé," she replied, her voice filled with longing.

As Reneé began to jerk the strap-on, her movements smooth and controlled, Y/N's fingers eagerly found their way to Reneé's nipples, teasing and flicking them gently. The sensation sent shivers of pleasure coursing through Reneé's body, her breath hitching with each touch.

With a hunger in her eyes, Reneé positioned herself between Y/N's legs, mindful of her still numb leg. As she pushed into Y/N, the sensation of their bodies coming together ignited a fire within them both. Y/N's moans filled the room, growing louder and filthier with each thrust.

Reneé, driven by desire and passion, moved fast and hard, her movements synchronized with Y/N's cries of pleasure. "You feel so good, Y/N," Reneé praised, her voice filled with adoration and longing.

Y/N begged for more, her pleas echoing in the air as she surrendered herself to the pleasure consuming her. Reneé, unable to resist Y/N's desperate cries, removed the strap-on and moved to taste her lover's desire.

With a hunger in her eyes, Reneé began to lick and suck on Y/N's clit, her movements skilled and deliberate. Y/N writhed beneath her touch, lost in the ecstasy of the moment as Reneé's tongue drove her to the brink of bliss.

As Y/N's back arched on the bed, her fingers tangled in Reneé's hair, she pushed her lover deeper, moaning Reneé's name loudly into the air. Pleasure surged through her veins, igniting a fire that burned hotter with each passing moment.

"Reneé, please," Y/N begged, her voice filled with desperate longing. "I need you."

Reneé, unable to resist Y/N's pleading, felt her own desire surge to new heights. With a hunger in her eyes, she eagerly obliged, her body moving to straddle Y/N's, their hips grinding together in a primal rhythm.

As their bodies moved in perfect harmony, their clits rubbing together in a symphony of pleasure, Y/N and Reneé lost themselves in the intoxicating rush of desire. With each movement, their passion intensified, building to a crescendo that threatened to consume them both.

Moans and cries of pleasure filled the room as they surrendered themselves to the ecstasy of their love, their bodies entwined in a passionate embrace.

As Y/n's moans filled the room, punctuated by cries of "yes" repeated like a mantra, Reneé couldn't help but speed up, the intensity of their lovemaking reaching new heights. With each thrust, Reneé threw her head back in ecstasy, lost in the pleasure of their connection.

Suddenly, Y/N's body tensed, her back arching off the bed as waves of pleasure washed over her. Without warning, she reached her peak, crying out in ecstasy as she came, her release triggered by the sheer intensity of Reneé fucking her senseless.

Reneé, still teetering on the edge of climax, watched with a mix of awe and desire as Y/N surrendered herself to pleasure. But as Y/N's command pierced the air, Reneé knew what she had to do.

As Reneé straddled Y/n's face, her own fingers teasing her sensitive nipples, she felt a surge of desire course through her veins. With each flick of her fingers, pleasure radiated through her body, intensifying the sensations pulsating between her legs.

Y/n, hungry for more, didn't hesitate to oblige, her hands finding their way to Reneé's ass, delivering sharp slaps that sent waves of pleasure reverberating through Reneé's body. Moans and cries filled the room as Y/n devoured Reneé with fervent enthusiasm, her tongue dancing over Reneé's clit with expert precision.

"Beg for it, Reneé," Y/n demanded, her voice husky with desire as she continued to eat out her lover.

Reneé, lost in the throes of passion, could only comply, her cries growing louder and more desperate with each passing moment. "Please, Y/n," she pleaded, her voice filled with need. "I need more."

As Y/n continued to pleasure her, Reneé felt herself teetering on the edge of ecstasy. With each flick of Y/n's tongue, she felt herself drawing closer to the brink, her body humming with desire.

"I'm close," Reneé moaned, her voice thick with desire as she neared the peak of pleasure.

As Y/n sensed Reneé's desperation for release, she embraced her dominant side, determined to push her lover over the edge. With a firm grip on Reneé's hips, Y/n delivered sharp slaps to Reneé's ass cheeks, the sound echoing in the room as Reneé's moans filled the air.

Feeling the intensity of Y/n's touch, Reneé arched her back, tipping her head back in pleasure as she sought support on Y/n's stomach. The sensation of Y/n's dominance drove her wild with desire, her body trembling with anticipation.

Y/n continued to assert her dominance, her hands roaming over Reneé's body with expert precision. With each touch, Reneé felt herself drawing closer to the brink, her body humming with desire.

Unable to hold back any longer, Reneé felt the tension building within her, the pleasure reaching an unbearable peak. And then, with a cry of ecstasy, she let go, her body convulsing as she released a torrent of pleasure, squirting all over Y/n's face.

As the waves of pleasure washed over her, Reneé collapsed onto the bed, her body spent from the intensity of their lovemaking.

As Reneé experienced her first squirting, Y/N was momentarily stunned, her eyes widening in surprise. It was a new experience for both of them, and while Reneé shuddered from the aftermath, Y/N could see a hint of embarrassment in her eyes.

But Y/N quickly reassured her, wrapping her arms around Reneé and holding her tight. "That was incredible, Reneé," Y/N murmured, her voice filled with genuine admiration. "You're amazing."

Feeling a rush of warmth at Y/N's praise, Reneé buried her face in Y/N's chest, her cheeks flushing with color. "I... I didn't expect that," she admitted softly.

Y/N gently kissed the top of Reneé's head, stroking her hair with tender affection. "It's okay, love," Y/N reassured her. "It's just another beautiful part of you."

With a contented sigh, Reneé pushed herself closer to Y/N, seeking comfort in their embrace. Y/N gladly obliged, spooning Reneé and wrapping the blanket around their naked bodies like a cocoon.

As they lay together in the aftermath of their passionate encounter, Y/N continued to stroke Reneé's hair, their hearts beating in perfect harmony. And as they drifted off to sleep, entwined in each other's arms, they knew that their love would only grow stronger with each passing day.

[lady-lauren]

Eye of the Storm

↬ Pairing: Satoru Gojo x Fem!Reader

↬ Rating: Explicit, 18+ Only

↬ Word Count: 1.4k

↬ Warnings/Tags: Praise kink, body worship, mirror sex, use of “good girl”, a bit of overstimulation, Gojo is a definitely a simp, and Gojo is too pretty for his own good and so are you

↬ A/N: my first jump into jjk is Gojo and I’m not ashamed.

He is devastation—the icy bite of a raging blizzard, yet the blaze of a desert sun. There’s no escape from Satoru’s gaze, no rescue from his embrace. He sees all, feels all. And you are all he desires. 

“Look at me, baby—watch me, that’s it, look at what I do to you.” 

Slim fingers press into the plush of your cheeks, forcing you to gape into the full length mirror. 

Satoru’s body is relentless behind yours, chest dewed with sweat as he grinds his cock into your gummy depths. You watch as his hand slides down your stomach, possessive and craving, pressing into your guts so he can feel himself inside you. 

“This pretty body is mine, yeah?”

Every thrust of his hips has your knees sliding farther apart on the sheets, the force of the storm behind you overwhelming. His mouth is everywhere—tongue sliding over your shoulder, up your throat, lips trailing down your spine as he murmurs hushed praises into your skin. 

“All I’ve ever wanted,” he whispers against your flesh, the fingers on your cheeks tightening selfishly. 

Behind you is a man lost; he is greedy and giving, consumed by a lust you’ve long evaded.

Between the pleasurable spread of your cunt and the spray of snow-white hair against your sweaty skin, you see visions of the past. Satoru’s sloppy grin as he chases you around the grounds of Jujutsu High, the bright magenta of camellias in the wind as he prays for your attention. The desperate phone calls late at night still ring in your ears alongside his heady moans.

You always thought that he is too selfish, too egotistical to truly love someone aside from himself. He’s a taker, a gravity well of power and pride. So you’ve kept your distance, kept pushing him away out of fear of getting sucked into him, being used by him. 

Only you’re so so fucking wrong. 

The deft fingers swirling against your clit are begging for you to cum, for him to give you the stars and feel weightless in his arms. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you gasp, “don’t stop—please, S-Satoru…”

He wraps an arm around your waist, straightening your bodies until he’s practically bouncing you on the thickness of his cock. A flash of the sky appears over your shoulder, white lashes heavy with desire. His smile is lazy and full of delight. 

“I’ll never stop. I’ve caught you now, sweet girl.” 

You’re a fly in the spider’s nest, entangled by the long limbs of an insatiable predator. 

“You’re so goddamn beautiful, you know that?” he breathes over the sound of his skin sliding against yours, your cunt gushing with every plunge of him inside of you. He’s in your throat, skating up your spine, sinking into every pore as he takes you, praises you. 

Your bodies meld in the reflection, your hands in his hair, his arms a gilded cage around your curves. In your eyes, you’re a darkness to his shining light, fading against his luminance. How can he find you so beautiful against his brilliance? 

His fingers brush against your clit just right, blurring the edges of your vision as you mewl and buck against him. Still, you can make out how his cock splits you apart, your pussy vulnerable to his onslaught. 

“That’s it,” Satoru coos, “cum for me, let me see how pretty you are when you cum on my cock.” 

He takes your bouncing tit in his free hand, squeezing the fat between his fingers and pebbling your nipple under his thumb. His eyes are catlike as he watches you—eager, ready, studying every twitch of your belly your cunt becomes over sensitive to his touch. 

A gentle tug to your nipple has your back arching, the responsive nerves soaring like fire down your back, tingling your toes. The pads of his index and middle fingers are fierce against your slick pussy, pressing and circling your clit until it’s puffy and swollen. 

“J-just like that, oh fuck me, you feel so good, so..so..” you drift off into the headspace of sex, bemused by the feel of him against you, pushing inside of you. His muscles are tensing against your back, his thighs hot against your own. His shoulders become a safe haven as you become fucked out, your head lolling against soft skin. 

“Please,” he begs, lips kissing against your neck, “so perfect, so fucking perfect.” 

He’s all consuming. The smell of him, syrupy and rich, vanilla and oak; the feel of him, lithe and brawny, soft and strong, the push and pull of tidal waves against the shore of your body. 

You could get used to this—addicted to the praises of the most powerful sorcerer bleeding into your skin, wrapping around the visions of your bodies in the mirror like a vice. 

“Love everything about you, baby, can’t believe I finally get to fuck you and feel this perfect cunt.” 

The blushing shock shows on your face and he grins, rolling your clit faster until it nearly hurts. 

He mouths to you in the mirror, his lips begging do it, do it, goading you to come undone. 

You focus on the shape of his words, on the peek of his hips thrusting behind your own. Every muscle is defined, from his rounded biceps down to the sublime V cresting down to the thick cock spearing between your legs. 

He is truly devastating as he makes you cum, quick fingers determined to keep you spiraling over the edge as his blue eyes shine with ecstasy. You convulse and choke on air, clamping onto his cock as your world goes white. Your body and mind hum against his praises into your hair. “Good girl, god so f-fucking good, so tight, oh my god…”

In your delirium, Saturo forces your body to the bed, spent hips in the air as he takes you from behind. Your neck cranes against the mattress, bleary eyes blinking toward the shapes in the reflection. 

“Gonna make you do that again, baby girl. Wanna feel that pussy suck my cock.” 

Strong hands grip into the meat of your ass as he pushes your body forward with every drive of his hips, your breasts bounding against the sheets. 

“Satoru I…c-can’t, too full, too…” too everything. 

Your senses are exploding and imploding at once, nerve endings shot and simultaneously feeling every small touch. You can count his fingertips digging into your skin, catch his sweat trickling down your spine, feel his cockhead bullying into your spongy depths. Your puffy pussy drags along his length with every plunge, the veins of his cock throbbing against your walls, pushing against your wetness. 

Every time he groans, you taste sin, the deep sound vibrating in your belly. 

“You can and you will.” A hand tangles at the nape of your neck, firm fingers ensuring your head is turned to watch him behind you, taking you, pleasing you. 

“This pretty body was made for me, yeah,” he affirms, tugging on your hip until you're entirely arched to take him. His cock stretches you wider, fills you to the brim until you can no longer breathe. Saturo builds a fast, staccato rhythm, losing himself to the view of your bodies melting into one being. The dazzling sun eclipsing the moon, chasing a fevered high.

“Come on, baby, milk my cock, be a good girl.” 

It takes the barest of touches to set you off again, just a few simple swirls of his thumb against your clit and you’re crashing, taking him with you. 

Satoru hisses through his teeth as your cunt writhes against him, pumping like a heart and sucking his soul. 

“Oh that’s it, baby, oh fuck.” 

You watch his neck fall back as he unloads inside of you, brilliant blue eyes finally closing in absolution as he stills. Time slows as you take in the reflection of your overworked body still connected to his, cum spilling down your inner thighs as Saturo Gojo smiles at his handiwork. Your bodies are perfect together, meant to be together. 

All too quickly, you find yourself empty on your back, staring into the sun of Saturo. 

“You okay?” He barely gives you a chance to answer, eating your affirmative reply as he tastes your lips, licking between your teeth. 

“You’re so pretty all fucked out,” he muses, kissing over your cheeks as you blink yourself back to life. 

“Mhm, I’m not—”

“Oh yeah?” His brow quirks as he settles his hips between yours, slipping an arm around the small of your back. “Then we’ll try again.”   

[lovers-rck]

little drabble about ellie and reader as the lady and the tramp (we all know who is the tramp)

☆

"c'mon" ellie says, a greasy fry resting between her lips "get the fry"

you frown your eyebrows, but direct your hand towards ellie's lips anyways. she moves before you could grab the fry in her mouth "not like that"

"with your mouth" she continues. you look at her, your hands leaving the keyboard of your computer

"what?"

"get it" ellie moves the fry between her lips, making faces to encourage you to do as she wants "c'mon"

"we aren't in the lady and the tramp ellie" you say, rolling your eyes and turning your attention back to the computer, resuming your task.

the light in your dorm is dim, you can hear people coming and going down the hall, talking about exams and subjects, complaining about teachers and longing for vacations.

"i know" ellie says, swallowing the potato and spinning around in the swivel chair "perhaps, they ate spaghetti, not fryes"

you smile slightly at the clarification. ellie had come to your dorm about 20 minutes ago, complaining about how hard her last assignment was and how her professor hated her, emphasizing the fact that she was sure it was because of that one time she fought with him in the middle of a debate. and with a tapper of fryes under her arm.

"i stole them from the kitchen" she told you when you asked, her lips in a pout and her eyebrows furrowed.

"cmon, get it" she repeated, placing another chip in her mouth "just for fun. i'll give you 20 bucks."

you looked back at her. you considered it for a moment, knowing that ellie wouldn't stop bugging you until you did, and you really needed to finish this assignment in time for your exam.

And something about being so close to her mouth made your stomach tingle.

"okay" you say, giving in to those puppy dog eyes "you are so weird".

she smiles "i know"

"I only do it for that 20 bucks" you reply, pulling your chair closer to ellie. but you knew that ellie didn't have 20 dollars. not even 5.

ellie rolls her eyes and nods, inviting you to proceed.

you try to think about how this is not normal behavior between friends as you move towards her mouth and feel the air from her breath against your face. the fry separates you and her by about 8 centimeters, so there is a bit of space between your faces, though not enough to avoid a nervous twitch in your stomach.

as your lips are about to grab the greasy chip, ellie pulls back, preventing you from catching it "ellie!" you exclaim, watching as ellie laughs uproariously.

"sorry, sorry!" she says, feeling your hand push her and almost knock her off the swivel chair "i had to do it. i'm sorry. now i'm serious."

when ellie gets back into her normal position, you move yourself to get close to her face again, trying to avoid the way ellie's eyes are staring at you with utmost attention, piercing your pores.

as your teeth are about to hunt for the food, ellie is quick and puts the whole chip in her mouth, causing you to stumble and end up with your lips on hers.

you feel ellie's salty lips against yours, greasy and warm. she rushes to rest her hand on your jaw, preventing you from pulling away from her but still giving you the chance to do so if that's what you want.

but you don't.

you reciprocate her kiss, which is not a kiss as such, as your lips only remain against each other for a few seconds, without moving, before they separate.

things are silent for a few seconds. you lick your lips, feeling the taste that ellie left you.

"we could agree that this is the modern version of lady and the tramp" ellie says, a playful tone tinges her voice and you can't help but giggle, feeling a warmth come over your cheeks.

"you idiot" you reply

ellie laughs and places another fry in her mouth "you didn't get it. try again".

you smile and move in again. the game goes on for five more rounds, five rounds where you fail to catch the fry and five rounds where you end up kissing ellie.

[vermilionsun]

Thinking about Ais perched up against one of the wooden planks atop the columns of the Seaspring. Thinking how the salty breeze tousled his hair as he gazed out at the vast expanse of the wastelands beyond the temple, a cigarette's smoke curled up lazily from between his fingers, ashes falling gently to the sparkling crimson water below. Thinking about him taking a deep drag from his cigarette, letting his eyes flatter close as he exhales slowly into the crisp night air, the nicotine tingling his senses and the smoke filling his lungs, momentarily choking out Ocuedus' thunderous screaming in his head.

Thinking about Kuras in his clinic, studying patient applications in the dim candlelight, brow furrowed in concentration. Thinking about how the long shadows of his past constantly danced across the walls, mocking him as he meticulously reviewed each case, guilt and regret running their hands through his dark hair, whispering reminders of his past mistakes. Thinking about him momentarily freezing in fear of his conscience rearing its ugly head, pulling and pushing him closer and closer to the edge of his sanity. Thinking about him finally shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath, taking off his glasses briefly to relieve the strain of hours spent poring over medical records, leaning back against his chair, and letting fatigue overrun him, finally allowing himself a moment of respite.

Thinking about Vere lurking in an unfamiliar house, sitting alone on the balcony and staring out into the night. Thinking about the wind whispering through the trees and blowing his hair into his face, and him shoving it out of the way with a huff. Thinking about him sighning and leaning back against the rail, reaching up toying with the chain around his collar, running his fingers over its cold links. Thinking about how all was quiet at this hour, and he could feel the solitude beginning to get to him. Thinking about him closing his eyes, letting out a long breath and trying to push away the sudden hyperawareness that had settled over him, having to center himself and slow his heart rate that had begun to quicken, forcing his mind to focus on the task at hand, not allowing himself to seek any form of comfort in the moment; when the world seemed to slow down and allowed him to appreciate its beauty. Thinking about how he knew he couldn't stay there forever, after all.

Thinking about Leander sitting alone at the bar, Bloodhounds around him talking and laughing, making him feel more isolated than ever. Thinking about him taking a sip of his drink trying to drown out the sound of their jovial conversations, the bitter taste in his mouth only serving to mirror the ache in his heart. Thinking about him being unable to shake the feeling that he didn't belong—like an outsider in his own pack. Thinking about him staring into the bottom of his glass, wondering if he would ever truly feel like he belonged anywhere. Thinking about him running a hand through his hair, the other gripping the glass tighter, as he looks up and scans the room, hoping to find a distraction from his own thoughts. Thinking about how, even if he manages to find someone to spend the night with, it never fills the void he feels inside, and he always wakes up alone in the morning.

Thinking about Mhin stumbling from exhaustion after killing another Soulless, its blood spattered across their face and staining their once white shirt. Thinking about them collapsing to the ground, pain radiating through their body and ragged breaths escaping their lips, echoing through the clearing. Thinking about their silver dagger clutched tightly in their hand, the moonlight glinting off the blade, dripping with the blood of the enemy. Thinking about them fighting to keep their eyes from fluttering closed as darkness crept in at the edges of their vision. Thinking about them using their final burst of energy to force themselves to sit upright against a nearby wall before their mind can finally succumb to the overwhelming fatigue. Thinking about them humming softly to themselves—something akin to a lullaby, a calming and comforting melody in the dead of night, hauntingly beautiful and wafting through the darkness until the morning birds respond with their own song.

Thinking about how lonely they all are…

[mysticworks]

Small moments ~ Lee Know x Reader

... this is my first writing for SKZ and I'm super nervous about it - open completely to making improvements. Hope you all enjoy !

D R A B B L E

Dating an idol is hard. But its the small moments you have together that make all the tough times worth it.

Genre: Pure Fluff

------------------------------------------------------------

Nobody ever said being with an idol was easy.

Finding time, was one of the hardest things. With Lee Know having hefty schedule after schedule, and somehow, during his time off, you'd always be caught up with work.

And that made it all incredibly, incredibly difficult. Difficult to plan vacations, or take restaurant trips. Difficult to even have a day solely in each others' presence. 

You’d often go months without date nights, have birthday celebrations over rushed video calls, making do with the spare moments that you had together.

You'd plan little walks in the park, or find an excuse to meet somewhere during work; like that time he was practising late for a music show, and you turned up to his practise room with a basket full of snacks.

Or when he turned up at your office, with a bouquet of flowers to make up for Valentine's day. Except he'd told your manager you were expecting a tiny guest in your family, (your manager didn't need to know this tiny guest was a rescue kitten) - and leaving work early that day became a matter of absolute urgency, which your manager didn't even try contending.

Sometimes he'd be miles and miles away performing to audiences of places you’d only ever dreamed of.

Sometimes he’d be right by your side, too deep in long overdue sleep to be woken up.  

And so… every moment was precious to you. 

The small comforts and little gestures, all accounted for a world’s worth of love.

And this was one of those moments too. 

Lee Know lay in bed beside you, your head resting against his toned chest. He had a lazy hand thrown across your waist, spooning you into his side, the other, lacing through your hair.

His long fingers curled around random strands before loosening again. 

You both lay with your eyes half closed, the dewy morning light beginning to seep in through the gap in your curtains as early hours came round once again.

The house was silent, your synched breathing the only known noise; the garden birds chirping, only secondary - background.

“Minho?” He only hummed lazily in response, not fully out of slumber and you felt the vibration from his deep sound run through the entirety of your body. 

“I love you.” 

You felt his arms tightening around you at your words, as if pulling you further and further into him.

Lee Know clutched at the duvet warming you both, proceeding to turn you on your side. 

You faced each other now, though still in his arms - his eyes swept across your face, taking in every small detail - he wanted to memorise each pore, each mole, each and every line etched on your face.

It would be a while before you could do this again. 

He placed the smallest of kisses onto your forehead; a faint peck that left your skin tingling. 

“Of course you love me, look at me.”

You gave his chest a playful thump, rolling your eyes. “You’re supposed to say ‘I love you too’, dummy.” 

He gave you a goofy smile, before pulling you into himself, his lips now brushing against your ear. 

In an almost silent whisper, he spoke the words you wanted to hear, “I love you too,” before deciding to add a playful, “sometimes,” at the end.  

That earned him another thump, before you both broke out into a fit of sleepy giggles.  

[karlachismylife]

Wrote the intro the day I started this work and decided to leave it since it reflects the shitstorm in my head quite well, eh.

Okay Idk what it is with me today (I actually do know, I'm having a bad fucking night as a consequence of my own actions but I prefer not to think about it), but I just thought about task force 141 and reader that has such a bad withdrawal after their orgasm that they actually cry and not in a fun way (cue my lack of understanding how crying in bed can ever be fun, but i'm not here to kinkshame)

CW: NSFW (so minors and ageless blogs DNI, I'll block you), but there's barely any sex, hurt/comfort, body image issues, low self-esteem, chubby/fat!reader, written with afab!reader in mind (but most parts can be read as gn), potential mental health issues (?), thoughts of selfloathing and selfharm, smoking mentioned once at the end. Very self-indulgent and I'm definitely unwell, so yeah. It's also more focused on reader's inner shitstorm than the guys in many places so idk if this even really is enjoyable...

Starts as a single piece, then splits into individual blurbs/drabbles/oneshots + some polyamory cuz I'm spoiling myself today having done nothing to deserve it, lol.

They vary in size and tone since I've been writing them through several ups and downs in my own mental state, so please don't take this as a sign of which characher/combo is my favourite. I'm greedy, I like everything.

This is unfair.

Like, you just had wonderful sex, probably came more than once in a short period of time, ears stuffed with cotton, limbs weak, head spinning... and it keeps spinning, sweet tingling on the skin turning into nasty rushes of cold, muscles too tense, but it's not a cramp.

You feel like shit, every possible hormonal and neuromediator crash downing on you, a hollow, depressing weight in your chest instead of a sweet afterglow. Sweat and cum feel disgusting on you skin, your skin feels disgusting, strangling, your whole body seems revolting, too heavy, too sluggish. A sticky, suffocating heatwave on your nape, but your chest is cold and covered in goosebumps, a feverish feeling clogging every pore. Nausea wrenches into your stomach and stops just before you can relievingly barf and get rid of this parasite inside.

You simply want to dig your nails into your own shoulders instead of his and rip the skin and meat off, free yourself from this burden (you're the burden). Each second as he stays blissfully unaware, holding you tightly with his big hands and panting into the crook of your neck, drags on like a hundred hours of pure torture - the torture of being yourself.

Throwing up feels like an appropriate reaction to how unappealing and ugly you feel.

You're spiraling. You couldn't fucking keep your own messed up emotional outburst - completely unreasonable and unprovoked, by the way - to yourself, and now it's going to be noticed. You'll ruin someone else's fun. Make it all about yourself when you've already been nothing but doted on, cared and provided for. Fucked so good that your body is still clenching around that magnificent cock deep inside you.

And you're fucking crying, like an ungrateful, egotistical brat. Never having enough, unable to provide something as simple as a hole to make someone else happy without fucking it up.

Ghost notices immediately. There's nothing that can escape this man, and definitely not his love's distress. He's not reacting immediately for a sole reason: he's frozen in fear, horrified that he made you cry. How - he's not sure, he always takes great care to stay within limits, never allows himself to push you further than you both agree on. But what if he slipped up? What if he got carried away? Did he cause pain? Did he say something hurtful in the heat of the moment?

"Fuck. Hey, hey, lovie... look at me... wha's wrong? Did I... did I hurt ya?" Good thing you're hiding your face and your red eyes so desperately that you can't see how distressed and downright terrified Simon looks, lost at the sight of your tears. When you shake your head and attempt to push him away to hide your pathetic sobbing, he somewhat calms down and brings his big calloused hands to cradle your face, gently prying your own palms away and holding your puffy cheeks tenderly. His thumbs brush your tears away as he holds you, holds you through the growing rage fit of touch aversion, through the shudders and actual wailing. At some point he moves his palm to cover your eyes, a dry, dark blinder to keep the world around you shut out, help you concentrate on his voice.

He's not talking, just humming, a familiar, deep, grumbling noise that soothes all the flashes of anger, hate and disgust in your brain. You're tired now, like you're always are after such an intense outburst, and as you go limp, he finally pulls away, only to pick you up - barely a strain, a direct spit in the face of your own insecurity - and bring you to the bathroom. A warm shower evens your distorted body temperature out, his hands running over your body and cleaning all the stickiness away bring back peace with your own skin. After a quick rinse Simon holds you, your head cradled against his chest, until you make a weak attempt to help him wash too - he lets you trace his body, that perfection you adore with all its old wounds, sores and scars, for a bit, and then finishes himelf.

Gives you fresh cotton underwear and his hige T-shirt, still holding you around your shoulders and keeping the comfortable pressure even while he changes the bedsheets, kissing your temple as you find it in yourself to help.

It's only after you settle on top of him, nice, clean comforter protecting your back against the world, head on his chest right next to his heart beating in a steady rythm, he finally breaks silence.

"Need anything else, lovie?" Just like that. No prying, no occusations, nothing that would put you on the spot. You can ask him to bring you the moon soaked in unicorn's milk, and he'll just nod, kiss your hand and start dressing up, already calling Johnny to ask where the fuck did Scots hide their last horned horse and if he happens to know where they enlist astronauts.

"Just you."

His grip on the small of your back tightens and you feel his uneven, scarred lips graze the top of your head.

"Ya've got me. Always."

Soap is running hot like a furnace, still shivering and panting after what he considers the best sex he has ever had (every time with you is). He lifts his face, buried into the crease of your neck previously, and starts peppering you with slightly sloppy, grateful kisses - your neck, your jaw, your lips, your...

When he tastes your tears and opens his unbelievably blue eyes to see your expression contorted in disgust, he panics. Pulls away immediately, hands both itching to grab you and shake a reason for that look on your face out of you and too scared to touch you in case this hatred is directed at him.

"Whit's wrong, leannan? Are ye a'right? Ye didnae lik' it? Shite, lass, Ah'm so sorry, Ah didnae mean tae-" He stops yapping only when he notices the way your lips tremble as you try to plead with him, sobbing that it's not his fault.

"'M sorry, I ruined it... I'm so sorry, sushine, I just... fuck I wish I wasn't so bloody sick in the head and ugly..." Speaking out loud only worsens your anger, directed solely at yourself, and you try to wipe your eyes furiously. As the tears keep rolling, your frustration only grows - maybe if you yanked your own hair really good or slapped the disgusting pudgy cheek you've despised ever since chidhood as everyone kept pointing out how big they were...

"Ye didnae just call the love of mah fucking life ugly." Johnny's voice is a mix of a harsh order to cut your bullshit and pure disbelief. His huge paws wrap themselves around your wrists, stopping you both from harming yourself and covering your face. You're forced to look at him, and as you do, you see his handsome face flushed with a passionate anger at the intrusive thoughts in your head, heavy frown in his thick eyebrows and the sea in his eyes dark and deep enough to drown a whole fleet. You'd be scared if it wasn't obvious how hurt he is underneath it all - like a kid whose favourite plushie just got mocked by his classmates.

"It's just a toy," adults would say, and they would be bloody wrong.

"Tis not a toy, tis mah friend."

You're his friend. His love. His heart, his soul, his everything - he whispers that frantically, kissing you over and over, hot palms running over your body, wiping the cold, the stickiness, the goosebumps away. You don't have time to think, to spiral again, you're drowning in that exact sea that's spilling from his eyes, staring at you with pure devotion - a sea of affection, admiration, love, love, love.

Johnny nuzzles up to you like an animal seeking comfort, hides into your chest, right after he kisses your sweaty double chin, breathes in deeply, lets go of your soft shoulders only to grab two handfuls of your tummy, kneading it, warming up the stale blood, squeezing your big thighs between his and getting lost in the frenzy - he honestly doesn't even remember already that he was comforting you, he's fully in the worshipping mode, leaving you no chance to dip even a single toe into the self-conscious thoughts again.

You'll just have to stay there, every single tear lapped up from your face, and accept every greedy touch and word of a man utterly in love with you. Even the messed up parts.

Gaz keeps his cool despite how distraught even the thought of your sadness makes him. First of all he moves aside to give you space, makes sure you're not hurt, asking in his usual kind - unbelievably kind, so much that you burst into tears again, feeling undeserving of such unapologetically soft treatement, tone.

"Shh, shush, gorgeous, you're not hurt, are you? It's okay, c'mere, jus-st like tha', very good, love," praises keep spilling from his tender lips as he carefully helps you sit up, simply dragging you away from the damp from sweat and everything else spot on the sheets. He ends up balancing half his bare ass off the edge of the bed, but it doesn't bother him in the slightest as he feels you already coming back from that hopeless place as soon as your body gets stuck between clean, dry and a bit cool sheet and Kyle's firm lean body of a litearal god - or a prince, at least.

His deft fingers are already at work, massaging your scalp, chasing the tension away, but the second he feels you grow uncomfortable with the repetitive movement, he stops and retreats to simply holding you in a steady, reliant embrace. You know he's good with his words, that's how he got you, swept off your feet completely and made you swoon with sweet compliments, hilarious snark and smart talk.

You just don't expect him to do it all over again in the face of your burdened mind crumbling in the paradise.

"Talk to me, angel. Let me inside that pretty head, hm?"

It takes this sweettalker just a couple of words to coax whatever that ugly, slimy knot in your throat is, out. You sob, retelling Kyle every single thought that has been stuck in that coagulated mess in your head, spill the bile that has been burning your retching throat, out in the open, for him to see the disgusting ugliness of your insides - matching your outside.

Somehow throughout your choking trade his soft, careful hand never leaves your back, rubbing circles of different radius and intensity into your skin to keep the aggression at monotonous touch at bay.

"Must've been some terrible person to overbear your spirit and plant all those lies in your mind, angel." You don't catch the meaning of his words at first, glancing at him confused and whoozy after you exploded with self-deprication. Those dark, calm eyes look at you no different than before: quiet, calm reverence and determination. A thread of spider's silk, thin as a hair, but stronger than steel, his love does not waver. Were you in the right state to actually pay attention, you would've seen it only grow.

"Well, beautiful, this isn't how I planned to start writing poetry, but since you insisted... maybe I can think of a diss track about you."

"A diss track?.." Poor you, so upset that you can't catch onto the mischievous glint in his eyes and that silly smooth sarcasm slipping into his words. You're actually half a step away from believing he would diss you, destroying that already non-existent self-esteem once and for all.

"Yup. Gotta diss-tract you from all that bullshit in your head for good. Unless you'd rather me fuck it out of you instead?"

You cannot not smile at that, even if it's a weak, timid smile. Kyle's face still lights up as if he sees an actual angel, bringing the good grace or whatever.

"There ya go. First step of the mission? Success. Permission to continue? I repeat, permission to continue?"

"You spend too much time with Simon. Permission granted..."

Price undrstands what's going on before he even hears your first sob, the tension in your body and the change in your breath telling him all he needs to know. There's enough experience in this man for the both of you, he has learnt to read people and immediately accomodate them in a way that serves a common goal so long ago that it's a secong nature already.

Your comfort is that common goal.

With a grunt, he rolls you over, planting you firmly on top of his warm, burly body. Untucking your head from his hairy chest, he holds your face and does not let you concentrate on anything but his stern, focued gaze under those bushy eyebrows - but there's still that undeniable tenderness in his eyes that's always there whenever John looks at you.

His voice sounds usual too: a calm, commanding, but not harsh tone, not a loud bark any of his subordinates would hear, yet still an order. "Look at me, darling. Tha's right, look at me, look at your John. You shut whatever's going through that troubled mind of yours out and let me take care of the rest, a'right? Can you do that for me, darling? I know you can. I'll do all the thinking for ya, eh?"

Giving control over to him feels natural at any other moment, but right now you're too deep in the trenches of the war with your own mind, hissing at you with pure disgust for being so selfish. Really, now? Had to use this sweet, caring man for your own needs, and now you're dumping all your perverted, fucked up baggage on him too?

"Nuh-huh, ya're still thinking. Told ya to cut if off. You know that's not you thinking right now, dontcha? You're a smart one, love, ya know shit like this happens. And when shit happens, who are you going to to deal with it, huh?" His deep voice rumbles in his chest, seeps into your clogged ears, fills your skull with the unyielding determination and leaves no room for your own dark thoughts.

When you hesitate to answer, John slides his rough palms over your back, tracing your soft rolls and landing onto the pudge of your hips, squeezing lightly to remind you who's in charge and what your task is. "Who is there for ya to deal with shit that happens, hm, darling? Need ya to tell me."

You want to hide, escape his demand for an answer, but he keeps you firmly in his embrace, a gaze of steel unmoving from you. It almost makes you tear up again, almost feels mean of him to put you on the spot, when all you want to do is curl up in a dark corner and stay there for all eternity. But the love you have for this man overpowers even the seething hatred you bear for yourself, so you give up and murmur meekly: "You..."

"Tha's right, darling, it's your John. I'm here to deal with everything that bothers ya. Everything, ya hear? Tha's me job. Your job is to stay wit' me 'n' not overthink, eh? Especially not when it's just hormons making ya feel bad." You have nothing else left to do, other than sniffle into his chest and melt under a warm kiss he plants on your crown. "How about a cuppa, eh, darling? And something just as sweet as ya for a bite. Ya'll feel better in no time, I promise."

Ghost and Soap cancel each other's panicking out. As soon as both you and Simon slip out of the sweet afterglow, falling backwards each into your own pit of self-doubt and spiraling, Johnny starts babbling, terrified at the thought of both his beloved people feeling worse after being with him. His slurred, panting words and frantic kisses help Simon shake of his own horror - in return, he squeezes Johnny's shoulder to slow the worried mutt down and redirect his energy into helping you. Soap tenses up under the firm touch of his Lieutenant, then relaxes again, leaning into him for a moment to collect himself - they charge from each other, mere seconds of feeding off each other's energies in the middle of a time-limited mission with the highest stakes: your well-being.

They exchange glances, no words needed after the way their work together almost makes them mindreaders to each other, and turn back to you as you lay there, face painfully contorted in an attempt to keep the black foamy bile you feel rising in your throat from spilling. Slow, sticky, angry tears run down your flabby cheeks, and with each millimetre they go, your scalding wish to gouge your eyes out with your bare hands grows, just to punish yourself for being ungrateful after two perfect men spent so much of their time making you feel good.

"Dinnae cry, bonnie. Ye're a'right, ye're 'ere, wit' us. Right, LT? We're nae gonnae let ye marinate in whitevur got ye so upset." The pressure from inside your body that threatened to burst you open into a messy explosion of bile and rot, gets evened out from outside by Johnny's tight hug. He squeezes you up to the painful point, cradling against his broad chest, holding the fort while Simon leaves the bed, but not without kissing both your palms and holding them against his lips until he feels the cold leave your fingertips.

"Oi, Johnny. Help lovie get in 'ere," he calls out several minutes later out of the bathroom. Soap, who has been holding you and allowing you to sob against his heart this whole time, stroking your sweaty hair and murmuring every word of love he knows, scoops you up immediately. He pads over with you in his arms to where a warm bath is already filled thanks to Simon, and when you react to the temperature with another wave of tears, they both reach out to the tap simultaneously.

"Is tha' a'right, bonnie?" You make a strangled noise as Johnny finally sets you down into much cooler now water. It soothes you, makes you feel instantly cleaner, smaller, lighter. Breathing gets easier, that swollen blob of anger and disgust shrinking down in your chest and allowing you to inhale bathroom's damp air normally. You open your mouth to apologize and get cut off before even a single syllable leaves your mouth.

"Don't," Simon's voice sounds gruff, but even his murky reflection in the rippling water looks genuinely soft towards you. They're both perched on the cold bath edge, naked and seemingly not caring about that at all. "Jus' let us take care of you, yeah, love? Tha's what we're here for. Tha's what we want to do."

"Well, actually, there's one more thing," Johnny interjects, causing you to finally lift your sullenly lowered head and look at him, Simon's big palm using this moment of distraction to press onto your back in silent support. "Can Ah make ye a foam beard? Please, bonnie? Ye jus' 'ave the prettiest sweetest cheeks fur tha'."

Soap and Gaz feel like their world is sinking into a whirlwind of stormy clouds, the kind that sucks all light out of sky in mere seconds and can't be cut through even by blinding flashes of lightnings. There is no sun in their skies if you're not smiling, and the sound of your muffled sniffles hits their eardrums harder than thunder or explosions. The frowns distorting their faces only make you more self-aware of the fact that you ruined things between you - the initial hysteria starts rapidly flowing into complete shutdown, threatening to turn you into an emotionless shell for unknown period of time, when several warm, big hands intervene and cut the depressing trajectory down at its root.

"Damn, we did a shit job fucking all your thoughts out, didn't we, angel?" Kyle's joke sounds soft, teasing, but empathetic, ready to be met with sobs or silence instead of the usual laughter that flashes your teeth at him and makes his own smile grow brighter.

"Aye, we did. If anythin', Ah think we put more thoughts intae 'ere instead," Johnny scratches his head dramatically, and then you feel his big, hot palm on you sweaty forehead, as if he's trying to get a feel of the thoughts inside your skull. It doesn't linger there for long, though, rough fidgety fingers digging into your hair and tugging at the roots. This makes the hot-and-cold collar around your nape unclench, uncouth and chaotic massage confidently pulling every ounce of anger out of your brain. From time to time his calloused palm slips lower, squeezing your scruff, wiping the cool sweat away and taking control over what seems to have escaped your own.

"How does it feel to be the first person to get knocked up mentally, love? Having any cravings yet? Feeling your brainworms kick yet?" Dry cotton comforter suddenly covers your exposed to be looked at with disdain body, and before you can choke out a protest and something about you being sweaty and sticky and disgusting, Kyle grips your shoulders firmly, rubbing up and down as he slowly helps you sit up a bit.

"Ye eejit, how dae ye think thay can kick? They're brainworms, thay dinnae hae any legs!" The sheer passion in Johnny's heated counterarguement does the impossible - makes the corners of your deeply upset mouth twitch against all the weight the sadness put on them. Your knights in shining (from all the sweat your lovemaking covered them with) armor of their own warm skin seem to not notice the slightest twitch of your lips - there's no excessive attention drawn to you, none of them puts you on the spot. Their touch isn't going anywhere, but it almost seems mindless, simply their need to have something soft and pleasant to squeeze in their restless hands. "'N' wasnae Mary th' first lassie tae get up th' duff through th' heid?"

"That wasn't mentally, that was spiritually, read your books, Soap," scoffs Kyle, as if it was the most obvious thing, and ducks just in time to avoid a pillow thrown at him with sniper's precision.

"Oi, ye sayin' Ah cannae read now?!" Whatever snarky retort Kyle was ready to shoot, gets wiped out as Johnny tackles him, barely avoiding pushing all three of you off the bed. Their scuffle consists of chokeholds and sneaky kisses, legs getting caught in the sheets and somehow tangling you into the mess too.

Until you laugh, finding yourself squished into Johnny's hairy chest with Kyle in a gently headlock somewhere under your arm.

"Hey, hey, careful, mate, our lovie's expecting, we can't just throw 'em around!" However obvious that deflection is, Johnny reacts as if you were actually with child and grabs your face, boring his eyes into yours, slowly widening his two blue lochs in pretend horror.

"Och naw! Ah think we lost 'em, Ah cannae see nothin' there now!" Flushed after the playfight, you avert your gaze, still a trace of self-consciousness about yout outburst somewhere deep inside, but none of the "brainworms" that clogged your insides in sight indeed. Johnny's little drama earns him a soft nip on his thumb from you, and he smiles at you, clearly satisfied with the effect their little scheme had.

"Aw, damn, and here I was, ready to hear the pitter-patter of 'em little feet," Kyle's warm lips somehow find their way to kiss your temple, eliciting another shy giggle.

A pillow crashes onto both of you with the force of a small bombshell.

"THAY DINNAE HAE FEET, GARRICK, THAY'RE WORMS!"

Price and Gaz fall into their usual ways seamlessly, responsibilities and tasks split between the two seemingly without even any verbal communication. Clearing out the space around you with the same quick efficiency they clear out enemies with, they prop you up on some pillows, assess your condition in case they got carried away and hurt you, and finally settle on both sides of you, warm hands on your knees squeezing softly.

"Are ya gonna talk to us now, lovie? Or will we have to use interrogation tactics to learn what made our love so upset?" John's voice bears no trace of threat, but it still makes you cower and try to take up even less space that your curled up body already has, which earns you a sigh from the Captain. "I see. Take over from here, Sergeant. I expect results once I return."

The matress sighs with relief a Price's weight leaves it, bare feet padding a few steps before he reaches his slippers and leaves the room. The pit that the sound of your bedroom's door closing opens in your chest is crushing your ribcage with the iron fist of vacum. You can't blame John for not willing to deal with your bullshit, but the hearbreak only reenforces the choking smog in your head that's rasping in a hundred different voices that the only thing you deserve is pure repulsion.

Kyle's soft thumb pads wipe the tears teetering on the arrows of your lashes, and in a smooth movement you find your face cupped and pulled close to his shoulder. His smooth skin sticks to your wet cheek and you find yourself crying like a little kid, the unbearable pain of the revolting dark knots inside somehow replaced with surprisingly more bearable grief over what you consider an ending reltionship. Perhaps John leaving our bed finally shattered your heart, letting the ungodly pressure out and allowing it to beat - and bleed - again.

"We'd really like if ya talked to us, angel. Don't think Captain can stand there bare-ass naked much longer, might catch rheumatism at this point, he's not getting younger, you know..."

"I hope you know I can hear you perfecrly clear, Garrick." You stop mid-sniffle, eyes snapping to the closed door. You can finally see the shadow of a man standing just outside, and the air slowly feels with some flavour you can't distinguish through all the snot yet, but seem to like a lot...

"Good, so your hearing's still intact, sir. You're in good shape," Kyle's cheeky remark must've broken John's famous patience and restraint, because the bedroom door finally opens, and you see him there. With a tray with a whole bunch of tea mugs and little plates of treats balanced in his hands.

"Still not talking? Well, we'll try another method then, lovie. Sandwich for your thoughts, eh?"

His cheeks are round with a kind smile, confusing your tortured mind even further - Kyle uses your stupor to fetch John's big, slightly scratchy bathrobe, successfully wrapping you into a cocoon of grounding stimulation all over your feverish skin. With a huff and a grumble about staying butt-naked a bit longer, John puts a pleasantly warm mug into your hands and looks at you, arms crossed and tucked into his armpits now that he got rid of the tray.

Expecting an answer.

"'M sorry..." seems appropriate right up to the moment when a little finger-sandwich gets shoved into your mouth. The bread is soft, nice, salty ham and crunchy cucumber filling your senses and cracking a bit fat line of light right in the middle of the dense cloud in your thoughts.

"Try again, love," Kyle gives a hint and wipes a crumb off your lips, licking it off his thumb. "We don't need an apology, we just want to know what's troubling ya. John, tell 'em."

"Already did," grumbles Price in response and clears his throat, sitting back down on the creaking bed. "Food's working though. Eat up, darling, get your energy. Then we'll talk properly, a'right?"

You chew slowly, still stiff in your own body, but regaining control gradually. Yes. Then you'll talk.

Ghost and Price exchange a single glance over your from, choking on the self-destructive rage, and John shakes his head so slightly that one can barely notice, but it's clear enough to stop Simon from tumbling down the traumatic spiral staircase of his own. Grounded by his Captain's presence, he shrugs his broad shoulders, shaking off the creeping up feeling of his own monsterous nature, and rolls onto his back, pulling you out of the miserable wet ball of wrinkled sheets and onto his firm lap, sideways, his big palms resting comfortably around your hips; he's not squeezing or digging his fingers into the fat like he usually does, but it's a secure hug you can't really escape.

Exposed held too far away from his chest you could hide on, you shrink, rising your shoulders protectively and trying to cover up your soft belly, spilling over your pelvis in a shapless manner - that's when John's arms come from behind, catching yours and instead of pulling away forcefully, simply repeating your own safety cocoon, hiding your body from your distorted sight and keeping you warm.

"You're not thinking straight right now, darling," every phrase he murmurs gently, calmly, convincingly into your ear is accompanied by a little kiss, beard tickling and burning your already irritated by tears skin. "So good for us, so kind. Can you spare some of that kindness for yourself?"

Even though it doesn't sound like a rhethorical question, Simon cups your cheek and shushes you tenderly, pressing his thumb to your lips, allowing John to continue with his little speech aimed to dispel the storm coagulated in your chest.

"'Cos if not, it's a'right, love. We know it's hard, and ya're doing good already. Ya 'ave us, eh? To love ya, to cherish ya. No need to overthink, jus' let us hold you, a'right?"

He finally pushes you onto Simon's chest, his big heart stuttering with worry as you seek shelter among his many scars that paint a horrifying picture once you put all the fragments together.

"How'd you do that, sir?" Simon's voice sounds vulnerable - so much that it strikes through all the layers of your egocentric self-hatred and shifts you almost immeditely into a completely different mindset; one where you throw your whole self into loving your scarred and battle-worn men in such abundance that it's ought to compensate for all the unfairness they've gone through.

There's no need for it now, you realize a little too late: Price is there, keeping Simon away from the darkness. They're fine. Better than ever. It's a distraction, a trick, a play to make your bleeding heart stop the internal self-destruction and turn to healing.

A sly little switch you're not sure they were planning to flip, but it worked.

"Hm?" As if emerging from the depths of his thoughts in response to Simon's question, John caresses your cheek as gently as his rough thumb can and then smiles, maybe catching onto the change in your mood or simply remembering all the times he pulled Ghost out of the same gloom and darkness. "Jus' taking care of me own, Simon. Tha's what a Captain does, no? Now, love, how about a shower? I reckon we can squeeze in all together and papmer you really good, what do ya say, eh?"

Ghost and Gaz manage to keep their cool. Kyle's confident and gentle presence serves to reassure any doubts Simon has about hurting you, he shoots a single glance at his sergeant and recieves support immediately. Two pair of hands cradle you with all the tenderness two soldiers are capable of, which is always enough to drown you in fully. It's a tight hug, a hot mess of limbs, too much skin on skin contact that makes your brain flare with undirected rage, but as seconds trickle by and you're still trapped between two firm bodies, you have no choice but to slip into the exhaustion phase of your outburst.

It's not pleasant, nor could you say you feel calm; if anything, you just petrify, a permanent frown on your face and blindly staring forward glass eyes. You're tired, you'd still rather be anywhere but inside your own body that still feels like a useless deformed bag that should be gutted and emptied to lighten up, inner layer of your skin scrubbed with a knife to peel off the suffocating thickness of fat trapping this heated rage inside...

Instead, you get a kiss.

It's Kyle, soft, full lips touching your wet with tears cheekbone, then again - your temple, your cheek, the overheated spot behind your ear. They're light, soft kisses, too gentle to be playful or arousing. Calming. They do not demand anything in return - he allows you to stay in your inner world where you feel secure, even pauses to kiss Simon the same way right in front of your eyes. A silent demonstrationg of the love and reverence these pecks carry, Simon's hooded eyes fluttering shut as if his own compartmentalized demons get exorcised by Garrick's touch.

"Wanna talk about it, angel?" Kyle's voice rumbles at a nice, grounding, smooth timbre, and your still-too-slow mind struggles to grasp how is it possible that he's talking and you're still getting kisses - until you recognize the uneven texture of Simon's scarred lips, trailing along your skin tenderly. "Whenever you're ready, love. But we would love to know what's going through your head right now."

It feels strange to say it out lound when you're held and caressed like this, but their kisses and solid embrace cleared your windpipe enough of the mental gunk for you to be able to speak.

"I hate myself... 'M disgusting, and-" A displeased grumbling kiss from Simon interrupts you, and even Kyle pushes his huge shoulder to reprimand his own Lieutenant for the interference. Kisses his temple immediately to make amends, though, and turns back to you, prompting you to continue.

"Wot? Don't like when someone talks shit 'bout mine," grumbles Simon like a dog that got flicked on the nose for growling at welcome guests.

"Let 'em talk, mate, it's good to get things off your chest." At least their little bickering coaxes a tiniest hint of smile out of you, and Simon, noticing it immediately, stares back at Kyle with such pride, as if he just did something great.

The thing is, in the way his arms squeeze you a tad bit tighter, pressing into his firm body, you can read that for him - your smile is the greatest achievement.

"Don't tell me you prefer his silent treatement, angel, I'm trying to be the attentive boyfriend here, and for what?" Your smile grows a little braver. A little brighter. You would've kept talking if you could remember what it was that hurt so fucking much in your chest.

"Shower. Then a cuppa. Then we have the talk." No one dares to argue with the Ghost and his gruff commands. You feel the sheet sticking to your skin as he lifts you up, Kyle already sneaking off to prepare towels and clean clothes for you three. He'll stay with you and help you wash the remaints of the mind attack off. Simon will make fresh tea.

You're going to be alright.

Price and Soap take quite an intense approach the second they notice your distress. You feel Johnny's weight disappear from you after the first strangled sob that escapes you, and if you could open your eyes glued shut by the hot, messy tears, you would see John practically dragging the poor Sergeant away by his scruff. It's easy to suspect that Johnny couldn't contain himself and went too hard, too rough on you - with no malice, but pure passion that's spilling from his big, hot heart every time he gets to be close to you.

But it's not Johnny's fault, neither is it John's. It's all you, a useless, pathetic thing, good for nothing and holding two gorgeous men to yourself like a greedy glutton hoarding delicious food.

"Ah'm sorry, bonnie- ow, Ah got it, Ah got it, Ah'm not touchin'!"

"Did we hurt ya, love? Was Johnny boy too rough wit' ya? Wha's wrong?"

You feel big warm hands gliding over your skin, quick assessment of your state in search of potential harm caused. This immediate care only makes you feel worse, every cold sweaty patch of your disgusting hide shivering and twitching under Captain's careful touch. You struggle against your own spiraling anger, fight it with what's left of your exhausted resilience - and lose, curling up with another burst of tears, shoving the loving hands away and dusting the lingering warmth off your body.

After all, you do not deserve to be treated with such kindness after the fit you just threw.

"No, no, no, it's not his fault, it's not Johnny's... it's me, it's my fault, it's all my fault, I ruin everything, I'm- I'm disgusting!"

The silence that follows you blowing up on them is heavy. Just as bad as the knot in your chest.

"Johnny."

When you open your eyes to find a way out, run away, scatter and hide in the furthest corner of the apartment until everyone who tried caring for you leaves again, you're met with Johnny's bright blue eyes, glistening with unshed tears.

It's a shocking sight, pushing you out of the muffled misery into an alerted worry - his face is red with unexplainable pained anger, fists clenched as John holds him tightly by hunched shouders, seemingly trying to prevent a violent outburst.

"Ah wanntae ken names of th' bastarts who made ye feelin' tis wa'. Ah swear Ah will mak' thaim fuckin' choke oan thair ain tongues, Ah'll rip thair spines oot 'n' shove thaim up thair-" - "Enough, Johnny. Stand down. This won't solve anythin'. Ya calm down and help our lovie feel better, a'right?"

Still a bit shells-hocked, you stir on the bedsheets and push yourself up to sit upright, stretching your arms hesitantly to the men in a weak attempt to remedy whatever shitstorm you caused in their minds.

"Don't get mad, please," you whisper sheepishly, and the shy sound of your still choked voice seems to wash Johnny's explosive anger away better than the firm grip of his handler's (Price's) hands. With a look of a beaten dog, Johnny huffs loudly, cuddlng up to you and hiding his face in your lap. His heavy jaw sinks in the plush of your thighs, accomodated nicely with the softness of your body.

"'M nae mad at ye, leannan. Jus' dinnae say tha' again, a'right, bonnie? If ye need me tae prove ye-"

"No..." your hand finds it place in his damp mohawk and brushes through, while you glance at John. His eyes are shimmering with love and love only as he looks at you and Johnny, and you feel a wave of shyness - the good, giddy, warm kind - replacing the paralyzing shame. "I'm fine already. With you."

"Maybe we should 'ave a little chat 'bout it, love," John's hand meets yours on the sad mutt's head in your lap, intertwinig fingers with you through Johnny's soft hair. "When ya feel better. Jus' so we know what we're dealing with, eh?"

"Yeah. A bit later. Thank you."

All four of your men get frozen witnessing your reaction, struck with a horrifying sense of helplessness - it feels like the biggest failure among many unsuccessful missions, operations where lives were lost and enemies missed, to have you curling up and crying in misery between all the love they've been pouring onto you just mere seconds ago. As if everything they touch is bound to go up in flames, drown in blood and rot, be it on the outside or from the inside.

They're lost, and as always, they turn to the Captain, giving themselves up for him to direct, trusting that he knows better what use they can be of.

And, frankly, he does.

They're barely talking, but the commotion around you is decipherable even through the red mind fog and closed eyes - it honestly only makes you feel worse, unsafe, exposed, despite that simply being Soap, sent off to fill a bath ("Ye want it hot or a tad bit cool, bonnie?" - Silence. Your nails dig into your scalp, the soud of someone simply breathing, even more so talking to you, sending you into a new fit of rage. "Make it warm, Johnny, we'll adjust later."), and Simon, leaving for tea duty - silently, your favourite way to have it attentively observed in the first two weeks you've been together and memorized ever since.

It's Kyle whose voice, murmuring into your ear sweet, reassuring nothings as he keeps you caged in a tight embrace, your back pressed against his warm chest, forces you out of the highly irritable state. You have no choice between his short, chaste kisses on the crown of your overloaded head, and John's calloused hands massaging your calves, soft flesh dipping under the firm pressure.

"Ya jus' focus on fighting tha' storm off, a'right, darling? We'll take care of th' rest. It happens, we know it does, 's not your fault. Jus' a funny lil' thing your mind does, eh? Yeah, love, we know wha' it's like when your mind does funny things. Don't we, Kyle?"

"That we do." Maybe it's just your own depressive state rubbing off on them or distorting your perception, but Kyle's voice sounds almost solemn. You would turn to look into the smoky quartz of his eyes, but either he holds you too tight, or you have barely any strength left in your upset body - you simply can't.

Maybe it's alright. Maybe tonight they don't need you ripping your heart out to tend to their restless minds, and you can just allow them to take care of you.

Allow Kyle to carry you to the bathroom.

Allow John to stay there and help you wash yourself with a nice, scrubby loofah.

Allow Johnny to bring in his huge, baggy loungewear that doesn't hug your curves too snugly and allows you to simply forget what you were so angry about for a while.

Allow Simon to serve you perfect temperature tea in your favourite mug and keep you quiet company on the balcony, night air cooling your wet and clean now skin and hair further and blowing all thoughts out of your troubled head away.

As you share a cigarette with rich clove aftertaste, breathing ironically becomes easier. Behind your back the bedsheets are being changed, proper meal is being cooked, a good movie you won't be upset falling asleep to is being chosen.

"Simon." - "Hm." - "You sure you're okay with me being like that?" - "Standin' in the wind with your hair wet, tryin' to catch a cold?"

You grunt, not appreciating him taking the piss while you're tryig to be vulnerable, but allow him to pull the hood of Johnny's hoodie onto your head.

"No. I mean, fucked up in the head?"

You don't actually know what answer you expect. With an unreadable expression, Simon turns his head, looking through the glass door at the men crowded in the living room and waiting for you, and then stares back at you with a smirk, a permanent scowl carved into it by someone's cruel hand.

"Nah. Tha's how I like 'em."

He throws the cigarette butt away and chuckles, cupping the back of your head and pulling you inside, into the warmth of home.

"Oi, bonnie! C'mere, As saved ye a spot." There is no spot as you look at the two-story cuddle pile on the sofa and the blanket nest in front of it, unless of course... ah, yes, Johnny's patting his lap. "Ah promise Ah'll behave. Mostly."

And as his warmth envelops you through a big hug, his hands clenched humbly on your belly and behaving indeed, you feel stupidly happy.

Because you're enjoying touch again.

[placeinthemiddleofnowhere]

Yo! Adrian

Pairing: König x Reader

Summary: You’re determined to find out why everyone thinks König is so scary, afterall he’s just some guy that’s taller than most people right? He’s probably harmless! Well, he’s a little scary, but you still like him anyway.

(No use of y/n or mention of gender/race)

AN: It's finally here, the LAST CHAPTER! What a journey this has been from a silly little oneshot to a whole fucking series that so many people have sent me so many kind messages and fanart of 💕 I'm so excited that I get to share this with you, and I'm so glad that I've been able to complete it and give you guys a full story. Thank you so so much to everyone that has sent me their support and kept the story going. Love you all sm, please let me know what you think whn you're done. I can't wait to see your reactions ✨🥰

Part 10 of A Rocky Start - Full Masterlist Here

-☠️- 

You swore you could feel König’s fingers caressing your face. 

You could feel his heavy digits tracing over every tiny pore and for a second you could breathe calmly, you felt light. In the shadow of his phantom’s presence you smiled airily and thought of better times. It was as if a rift had opened in the room and you were no longer part of it, you were somewhere far away and lying in an unfamiliar bed, naked under the pale sheets in the shine of moonlight.

Just like always, you fell into each other's arms and drank in each other’s bodies just as greedily as the last time you’d met. His heady piney scent would soothe your tired nerves and his hands would roam your body, chasing off every stray piece of worry that dared linger. It was your memories of comfort that you were clinging onto the most, holding them high above your head as you sunk into the depths of your mind, cold flesh tingling with the thought of König’s fiery warmth. 

You weren’t in some hole in the middle of nowhere. You were with him. 

There’s nowhere you can be sent to that I won’t find a way to reach you.

You kept repeating those words over and over in your mind, throat constricting as you remembered those whispered promises that he’d given to you in your bunk. He was with you, you and he were joined together inextricably. It didn’t matter if he was actually there or if you were simply losing your mind to lack of sleep and sustenance, he was with you always. 

All of a sudden König’s fingers stroked a wave across your cheek, a thin airy line that swung across your face like a breeze. It made you frown. What was he doing? Was he playing a game with you? It was so late, you both needed to sleep. Why was he doing this? 

When you opened your eyes again, it was as if you’d been woken into hell. Rousseau grinned down at you, his metal pole hanging loosely from his hands, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Reality was breaking down in front of your eyes, pieces of it glitching in your peripherals. The bedsheets and moonlight fell away and all you were left with was your dirty sheet in the middle of a crusty smelling shithole bunker. 

“Where’s… wh- where’s König?” you croaked.

Getting those words out was like fighting through a sandstorm to talk. Your throat had never been so scratchy, and your head was so clouded and heavy. Everything was such a jumble you couldn’t understand how you were lying with König one moment and then back with Rousseau again tje next, it didn’t make sense. 

“What’ve you done with him?” you cried, swaying with the effort it took to speak. “Where’s König!”

Rousseau shook his head and nudged your shoulder with his weapon, the thick metal bar barely even prodded you and you were sent spiralling. Your body tipped like a glass full of water and you spilled onto the floor, lurching onto your hands and knees as soon as you were able. Though you were shaking helplessly even as you steadied yourself, it felt like your muscles were rapidly atrophying in real time, tearing apart and wasting away like bean bag stuffing pouring from a tear. 

“You’re not doing very well, hm?” Rousseau taunted, walking around your pathetic crawling form. “There is no König here. Just you and the Captain, Sergeant.”

The way he said König, it sounded like a curse. 

You shrank back at his spitting venom and swallowed the bile that threatened to erupt upward from your throat. It was all too much. You couldn’t understand where you were anymore, couldn’t remember what was happening. 

You closed your eyes and opened them again, executing the world’s slowest blink. Finally looking around properly, you saw Rousseau and when you swivelled you saw his faithful guard dogs, the men that always seemed to haunt the corners of your vision. A further glance had you finding Price on his knees, swaying gently as he tried miserably to stay upright. He was dancing to the same sick death drum that you were. 

Your eyes lit up in recognition. 

“You were…I was…you were going to kill me,” you said dumbly, holding your head as you rose to your knees. “Why do you keep playing with us like this?”

Rousseau stood in front of you and tilted his head, watchful dark eyes cascading down your shivering body. It was like looking back at a bear. A vicious giant towering above you, threatening to charge at any second and shred you to pieces. Though he never did. He always stopped just before he could truly break you. 

Break your body anyway. You were more convinced by the day that your mind was gone.

“Are you really so eager to die, Sergeant?” He questioned.

His voice was light, playful as a cat batting a mouse around.

“You recorded a video teeing up for a final death blow…It doesn’t look very good if I’m said to be alive after that. Makes your threats look empty.”

Rousseau raised an eyebrow. His gaunt features slackened, but he didn’t look as angry as one might expect a scorned warlord to look. It seemed more like he was considering his next move carefully. Probably gauging what you could take after everything you’d endured already. 

“You think I don’t mean to kill you?”

His voice had a harder edge to it now.

“I think that you’ve taken far too long to do it.”

It was true. As much as you still clung to the hope of rescue, you knew well enough that being constantly on the move between decrepit holes and dank pits meant that you weren’t going to be easily tracked. The only other release you could be certain of was death, and at the stage you were at, it felt like it’d be a mercy. 

Your stomach constantly ached with clawing hunger, the kind that had you hallucinating little hands inside your belly - scraping at the lining just to try and find scraps. Your lips were dry and cracked and your eyes were always struggling to stay open. Your lids weighed so heavy on you, your entire body did in fact. It was becoming more and more of a chore just to keep breathing, nevermind trading barbs with the torturer in chief. 

Soon you’d be as out of it as Price was. 

“You are a government dog. All you know is ‘go fetch’,” Rousseau said eventually, straying from your side and leisurely working his way over to Price. “You do things quick and dirty. We are playing the long game, I am building something, I’m heading a revolution. Those aren’t built on quick decisions - no, they are chess moves. I am just aligning my pieces.”

He came to a stop behind Price’s back, his long legs were almost touching Price’s bare body, his black trousers were almost the same colour as some of your poor captain's bruises. Rousseau still held the length of metal piping in his hands, he was swinging it gently in his grip, meaningfully gazing at you and down to the bat. You stared between them from under your hooded eyelids and licked your lips.

What was he going to do?

You winced when you heard the crack. 

“Sneak,” Price gasped.

He tumbled forward, his back crumbling as he’d taken on another hit. The Captain's mangled body was only getting worse by the hour, his cuts were weeping again and his bruises looked like animal markings, like something that had become inherently part of him. You had no idea how he was still going. 

Even still, you flew forward and urged him up, looking into his tired eyes and trying to coax him back. At least if he was up he couldn’t be trampled. You’d learned that lesson the hard way. 

Price gripped your arm and you huffed under the weight, almost screaming as you tried to keep his body aloft with what little strength you had left. His roughened fingers were scraping at your papery thin skin and you clenched your teeth while you fought to balance him. It was getting harder and harder to set him right with every time he fell, but no matter what you’d keep doing it. 

Even while you’d gone against his orders he still held you up and made you keep fighting. It was only fair that you did the same in return. 

“Price? Price, are you ok? Price?”

He took a moment to reply. His body wobbled a little, threatening to tip again, but he righted himself in the last minute, his scruffy jaw almost swinging as he gasped in a breath. 

“Sneak, you’ve gotta shut the fuck up,” he coughed.

You almost laughed despite the situation. 

“Affirmative,” you grimaced, resting against him as you managed to work out a delicate balancing act. 

“Wait a minute now, Captain,” Rousseau tutted, signalling for his men to come forward. “You should welcome your Sergeant’s words. I’ve spared Sneak for now, but the next video is your final as a pair. I have something special planned…but all in good time. For now you can go back to your crate, dogs.”

The two of you stared at him, looking up through your tired gazes. The news didn’t feel shocking, you’d expected to die minutes ago so you hadn’t been holding out hope to steal time for much longer. It almost felt like a relief for a moment to know that you could be certain of something.

Though the relief didn’t last long. Not when his men finally reached you both and yanked you apart, dragging you along the floor like a couple of retired mannequins. Your skin burned with the familiar feeling of loose gravel and it didn’t take long until you were seething, clawing at the man’s gloved hand just to try and stop his forceful grip. It never ever seemed to help though.

“Try not to get yourself killed from fighting back. It would ruin the plans I have for you, Sergeant!”

The blanket that had previously been slouched on your back was now tangled around your waist. It was gathering itself between your legs and around your hips, snaking around you in a boa like grip. It might’ve felt like a relief earlier on in your time, but you knew well enough the men weren’t bothering about your state of dress, they never did. They would always drag you through the halls kicking and screaming, clothesless and dirty, feral as a child of the forest. Somehow the indignity faded with time, lost to the hurt you were drowning under. 

You looked up at the man and his smug bearded face and snarled. You soon took to scrabbling against the floor and trying to get as much purchase as you could. If you fought hard enough maybe you could work yourself into a semi crawl by the his side, relieve the burning of your back and feet. The man wasn’t having it though. 

He kicked at your legs and threw your arm away, sending you reeling and knocking into the dark wall by the doorway. Your jumbled head was spinning when you slammed into the concrete. The dim flickering light danced in your eyes and after a few blinks, you regained enough vision to see the man advancing back towards you. You cowered. 

You feebly stuck your arms in front of you, blocking your face and hunching up just to try and protect yourself. Even if you thought it was useless, even if you’d tried to do the same thing many times already and failed. You tried anyway.

“You don’t follow orders well, soldier,” Rousseau scolded, voice full of amusement. 

He had no idea. 

His lackey’s steps barrelled toward you, he shouted something in french and with each ricocheting sound that slapped your ears, you shook like a mast in a storm. You shook, but still you cursed at the man, you cursed at Rousseau and you peaked through your makeshift body shield and cursed at the guard dragging Price away.

No matter what they did to you, you revelled in the fact that one day they would be caught. One day König would catch up to them, he and the remaining numbers in the 141 would crash in and they would draw ten times the blood that Rousseau ever could. They would wreak the kind of revenge you would’ve chewed König out for only months ago. 

And you would celebrate it now. 

You gritted your teeth and braced, the man was only steps away from you. Rousseau was smirking to himself in the background, metal pipe discarded as he stood with his arms crossed just as casually as if he were catching the tail end of a sitcom. You waited for the hit. You tensed every screaming muscle in your frail body and shut your eyes tight, scrunching your face in full knowing of the hurt you were about to feel. 

Your heart beat furiously. You waited. 

Boom

The entire room shook and you were sent sprawling and coughing into the smoky darkness. Dust swirled around your eyes and seconds later the room went completely pitch dark. You blinked. 

Was this another of your hallucinations?

Were they really getting that vivid? 

This felt real. 

All of a sudden you were being yanked up and you screamed. Your arm felt like it had been pulled out of its socket and then replaced about five thousand times. It was sheer agony. Though you didn’t have the strength to fight the force. Instead you went along with it, crying out at whoever it was that was taking you further into the darkness. 

“Get the fuck off me!”

“Shut the fuck up!”

The voice confirmed it. The voice and the heavy metal weapon that struck your jaw. 

Rousseau had taken you from your heap and was now ragdolling through the doorway, stealing you both through the trembling tunnels like a wraith. You had no idea how he was able to navigate the place so smoothly with a fighting captive and sheer darkness and yet he was doing it anyway. Unfortunately for you. 

“Come! Gather the Captian!”

More explosions sounded overhead, gunshots rung out like hailstones hitting the ground, all muted and dull. Somewhere up above you there was a fucking massive firefight. The realisation had you grinning from ear to ear, even as blood sluiced from your split mouth. 

With the very little brain capacity you had, even you were able to figure out who it was that was up there. 

Your stomach was churning and your legs were barely able to crank themselves one in front of the other, but still you knew that König was close. You swore you could sense him even through the concrete. Somewhere in the battering of rock and scream of metal you could sense the six foot, ten inches of vengeance tearing up the ground overhead.

“König,” you choked.

Maybe you were going to make it.

You were tugged furiously forward. 

“No one can help you now. Snivelling like that will only make your death worse” Rousseau seethed.

You frowned, stumbling forward only moments later. You tripped over a gap in the flooring and pinwheeled forward, falling through the darkness and onto the ground once again. 

You shook your head, but before you could even think of recovering, you were blinded by a sudden shock of light. You let out a howling wail and covered your eyes, reeling as you tried to deal with the shock of it all.

Your head was pounding, the gunshots in the distance were relentlessly clashing with the swelling in your head. Your eyes felt like they might roll backwards through their sockets. Your nose was overwhelmed with thick dust, your throat was clogged with it too. Your ears were practically shrivelling with the wall of sound. 

All of it combined was sensory overload. 

You blacked out for a moment, temporarily lost. You saw König through flashes, but you knew it wasn’t really him. It couldn’t be. König wouldn’t just stand there, he’d be pulling you up into his arms and taking you away. He wouldn’t watch on as you were dragged around in that new level of hell. 

You blinked back through the spots and the flashes of unreality and you were greeted with the sight of a union jack unfurling high above you. The fabric unfurled like an angry ghost and your eyes were filled with dancing red white and blue. The lines didn’t seem to stay still, they were crossing and uncrossing, blurring softly in and out of focus. 

“What…what are you-”

“What did I tell you? Shut the fuck up!”

The metal pipe came down on your head once more and you gasped at the pressure, losing the breath from your lungs. You sprawled out like a bearskin rug and pasted yourself to the floor, watching dead eyed as Price was thrown by your side. He was equally as jelly-boned as you. 

“What are you doing?” you whispered, too done in to follow the directions you were given. 

Rousseau musn’t have heard you though. You followed the swelling blob that you assumed to be him and watched as it adjusted something and then gathered something else. Fuck. You were too fried to see what was happening. Everything was tinged in red, white and blue, nothing was solid, nothing felt real. 

Well, except maybe the blood that was still threatening to drown you. You hacked away at that and sobbed lightly, feeling the tears dribbling pathetically down your cheeks. Somewhere in the back of your mind you realised that you weren’t going to live through this afterall. Even if you did, was there going to be much of you left? 

Rousseau only confirmed your suspicions as he marched forward and tugged you up by your neck. You screamed and flailed with every little shred of energy you had left, but still it wasn’t enough. He was strangling you with something, wrapping something around your throat while he batted off your hands.

“No! No! No! No! N-” you choked until you couldn’t anymore. 

The thing was tightened around you and soon he didn’t have to hold you anymore. You gazed upwards and watched in horror as a long snaking line of rope was yanked upward - with you along with it. 

The choking and hacking only got worse from that point on. Your throat was constricting, you were flapping like a headless chicken. The pressure was threatening to burst your eyeballs, but even still you were cursed to see, cursed to watch. 

Price was being dragged the same as you, muscles twitching and head swaying like a lolling buoy. The camera was in front of you both, red light blinking ominously from the other end of the room. Rousseau was swinging his arms around and he was proselytising as always, sounding somehow even more passionate than usual. His voice was screeching and booming all at once, it filled the room and attacked the camera, it sent you swinging in his grasp. 

“...and now this is what they die for! They may capture me, but they will never prevail! They will only turn to ash, while we burn on forever!”

Out of the corner of your bulging eyes you could see the flag behind you set alight. You gawped at it like a flapping fish, tongue flailing around uselessly even as you continued to fight the rope. It was no use. Your vision was almost completely fading now, black was corrupting the edges and inch by inch it was taking over completely. Your body was losing its strength. Your arms fell limply to their sides.

“Nein!”

A scream of terrible anguish filled your senses. Your body slumped down. The darkness in your eyes receded for a moment. 

Boots filled your eyes, you coughed roughly upon seeing them, shocked as the two sets of feet got all too close to coming down on your head. The leading set stopped in their tracks and turned, forcing the other set of feet to back away before any final blow could come. You closed your eyes a moment and focused on hauling in tiny lungfuls of air, coughing like an old hag with every dying choke, but nevertheless you took those painful breaths in like they were bitter medicine. 

“You will pay! I will rip you apart, I will stick a knife through every nerve you have! You will suffer for what you’ve done, you self righteous sack of shit!”

You widened your eyes and even through the terrible pain you were fighting, you roared through it and forced your head up. You knew that voice, you knew that high pitched screaming growl. The sight of him only confirmed it. 

Was it really…were you dreaming again?

You blinked furiously and choked on a sob. Please don’t be dreaming, please don’t be dreaming. The mantra filled your mind and expanded into every little piece of you. Even through the dizziness and the labouring of your struggling body, you could recognise that man out of anywhere, you could’ve recognised him in the pitch black of the blown out tunnel. 

König was laying into Rousseau with the fury of a wounded lion. He rammed him into the wall and forced his head into the concrete over and over, the sound of sickening smack managed to break through the barrier of fuzz in your ears. It managed to break through König’s garbled screaming. Even in your broken state the site brought on an unwilling half smile that came slinking sickeningly from your subconscious.

“Don’t you dare move, don’t you dare do anything but keep breathing! You don’t get to leave this world until I make you regret ever seeing the light of your first day! Do you hear me? Your fight is finished!”

König threw Rousseau to the ground and brought his shining black boot hard down into his stomach. Rousseau panted out, a wormy little gasp broke past his lips but nothing more. He was forced to lie flat on the floor, torn between clutching at his cracked head and his flattened belly. The man who had towered over you had finally been brought down, turned into debris. 

You could hardly believe it. You couldn’t move for the shock. You just stared at Rousseau,  wide eyed, unflinching through the battlefield of pain that raged through every muscle and bone from within you. Somewhere above you were sure you could recognise your name being called, but everything was too fuzzy, the inky darkness was taking over, drawing you into its loving embrace. The dust was settling, your heartbeat was stilling. Everything coalesced into one feeling. Relief. 

You’d have never have felt that way before after seeing something so unnecessarily violent, but after all you’d been through… you weren’t so sure you could bring yourself to be upset. 

“…Darling please look at me.”

The faint whisper broke through your spaced out sound barrier. It was anguished, the voice it came from was hoarse and panting. So much emotion was poured into it, it couldn’t help but wash away the patina of death’s touch.

“Sneak, it can’t end like this. You told me you would come to Austria, yeah? You said you’d let me show you home. You have lots still to do. Look at me. Look at me! You said we’d make it through together Sneak, I’m not going to let you get away from me, do you hear me? Look at me!”

You forced your eyes to flicker upward, trying in vain to settle them on your saviour. The light in the room was so bright though, and his face- no his mask was so dark. You could only make out blackness and dark streaks of red. 

You grit your teeth and shuttered your eyes, blinking a few times until you could see König’s own big wet eyes staring forlornly down at you. You smiled then.

“It..is…you,” you croaked, voice all but useless from your injuries. “Not…dreaming.”

His eyes lit up at your garbled words, the dim blue puddles turned to shining icy lakes. The corners of your mouth lifted heavily into a pained smile. Those eyes didn’t lie, they weren’t figments of your imagination. This was real, you thought to yourself. Even if you might die, you still got to see him again, you got to look into his eyes again and hear his voice and bathe in the warmth of his presence. 

“No, you’re not dreaming,” König confirmed, hastily looking from you and to your surroundings, “you can't dream now, you have to listen to me, you mustn't close your eyes. Hold on for me, darling.”

“Kö…Kön-”

You launched into an ugly coughing fit, your head lit up an alarm system. System failure, everything was red. Your concentration broke and already you disobeyed König. You closed your eyes and lost yourself to the hacking and choking. It felt like your lungs were closing, like they were balloons getting filled so completely they might pop. Every nerve, every wound, every cell in your body was on fire. 

You just wanted it to end. Why couldn’t the suffering end?

“Shh, c’mon breathe. Darling, breathe for me and take control. C’mon! Breathe for me!”

König drew you into his arms and wrapped something thick and warm around you. It might’ve been a comfort if not for the sparkling firecracker that was being set off in your chest. The endless coughing that was tearing up through your throat. 

Tears filled your eyes. No matter how much you wanted to cling to life, if even just for König, you weren’t sure you were strong enough. You weren’t even sure how you’d made it that far to begin with. Raw hope, you’d supposed. Though it didn’t feel like enough anymore. The agony was too much. 

“Sneak, you have to hold on,” König pleaded, rubbing his hands as firmly as your battered back would allow. “Please…don’t leave me alone.”

Dammit. 

You wheezed and cried, clenching your fists with all your might. Your ears rang with a high pitched sound, something you imagined to be angel screams ripping through your ears. You were turning away from death and running, you were sprinting towards life again, toward the scrabbling ugly beast that ran through the chambers of your crumbling body and clawed down at the walls. Pain. 

You gulped in what felt like a litre of air and held on, falling silent for a second until you slowly let it go and felt quiet once again. König’s arms stiffened around you, you could feel his fingers carving grooves into the melted clay of your skin. 

“Sneak?”

You opened your eyes again and settled them on König’s, blinking a few times so that he could still see proof of your presence. He didn’t look as relieved as he did the first time, but there was still a glimmer of hope in his face, still detectable no matter how small. His breaths seemed to resume too, you could see the faint puff start up from behind the dark material of his hood. 

“Sneak! Price!” A voice broke through the strangled calm. 

You blinked again and directed your eyes toward the sound, only daring to crack your neck just a little so that you could see. It was Gaz.. Well, Gaz and Soap. Gaz was thundering over to Price in seconds, squatting over him and grabbing at him, begging him to come to. However Soap was torn, he was frozen in silent horror in the doorway, barely there even as he stood. His face seemed to hollow as he surveyed the two camps that filled the room, though something dark seemed to fill him again when he settled on looking between your groups. 

He was looking at Rousseau. 

“Soap, help me with Price!” Gaz demanded.

He didn’t listen to Kyle. He ignored him in fact and strided over to the centre of the room, grinding to a stop in front of Rousseau’s unconscious body. He knelt down and checked for a pulse, lips pursing when he must’ve found what he was looking for. Still alive, you guessed. 

Why else would he be pulling zip ties from his back pocket? You hazily watched as he tightened them soundly around his wrists and ankles, double checking each one.

“He seems to be alive. How’re they?” Soap grunted, shooting over to Gaz and settling at Price’s other side. “König, how’s Sneak?”

Watching everyone felt like streaming on a bad connection, your vision was lagging, the frames kept flickering. It was a struggle to concentrate on their movements and breathe at the same time. You were faltering toward the darkness again. 

“Not good,” König whined, tightening his embrace on you. “Sneak’s fading fast, we have to get out of here and get to a medic.”

“Price isnt much better,” Gaz grunted, huffing as he lifted Price into a standing position.

Just then another shadow filled the room, it grew and stretched from the doorway like a blight. 

“Alright, halls are clear. How’re we looking in here?”

Ghost’s gruff voice echoed off the chalky walls. He looked between you all, eyes darting around and checking in on everyone, gun angled low to the ground. He looked like he was ready to destroy an entire army, his eyes were set hard and his stance was tense and ready. He was breathing fast.

“Bad. We gotta go,” Soap answered.

“Fucks sakes, get Price covered will you?” Ghost growled, throwing one of the discarded blankets toward Gaz and Soap. 

You looked down at yourself then, only suddenly realising that König had stuck you into one of his sweaters earlier. He must’ve brought it knowing that you’d be naked…he’d seen the videos. A grim thought took hold after. At least if you’d died then, you weren’t dying knowing that everyone was staring at your naked body anymore.

“Wrong thing to fuss over, mate,” Price coughed, finally piping up after his long silence. “We just need to get out of here - quick.”

He sounded better than you for once. They clearly hadn’t been choking him quite so badly during the filming, he sounded reasonably clear after everything he’d been through. He accepted the blanket that was being draped over him nonetheless, but it was hard not to spot the annoyance that overtook him. His brows were knit together tight. 

“We’ll get out, Price, we’ve got things handled,” Ghost assured, finally strapping his gun onto his back. “König, is Sneak going to be alright? Can you get them back to transport?”

“Yes,” König answered, his response harsh through his gritted teeth. “I’ll get Sneak back.”

“Good. I’ll handle Rousseau.”

The way that Ghost said that sounded like Rousseau might not make it back to the transport with the rest of you. Not that you could argue sense into him. Your vocal chords were fried. Though even if they weren’t, you couldn’t be sure you’d have much strength to speak. Your body felt like it was balancing on a knife’s edge, swaying too and fro between darkness and life. 

Closing your eyes and accepting darkness wasn’t an option however. You had to keep fighting. You kept blinking furiously and breathed in however much air your struggling lungs would allow you to. You focused on your heartbeats, clung to König’s hard body and willed yourself to keep going. You weren’t going to let yourself fade out. You couldn’t face knowing that you’d leave him alone, couldn’t face knowing you’d break your promise. 

“Darling, I know you’ve been through so much, but you have to hold on for a bit longer, ok?” König whispered.

His mouth was lowered to your ear. You could feel the roughened material of his hood caressing your skin, lighting a fuse just beneath the surface. You could feel it feathering through to the surface of your skull.  

“Ok,” you whispered. 

He stood up at that, your single utterance spurring him on and forcing him to go. Unfortunately you didn’t feel quite the same way, in fact you screamed out raggedly the moment you were forced to change position. It had him apologising furiously in your ear, but you could only shake your head at him, urging him on with a faded look. 

“Just stay with me, Sneak.”

You nodded your head this time, though it was easier promised than done. You were aware that König was taking you through the shot up hallways, but you knew yourself that you weren’t staying conscious the whole way. 

There were entire sections that seemed to be cleared without your knowledge. Some moments you’d only just be turning corners and the next you would bob your head past König’s shoulder and acknowledge an entire straight corridor behind you both. 

Hold on. 

You continued to blink sleepily and breathe. 

Don’t leave me alone. 

Time ran like slow honey. Each breath seemed to span hours. König was talking to you, but you weren’t entirely sure what it was he was saying. They seemed like affirmations, you were sure at some point he was promising to buy you things from that deli that you liked in town, but you weren’t awake for long to hear it. 

Towards the end you must’ve been gone for a solid few minutes. You went from almost total darkness then violently awoke to four terrified faces surrounding you at once, all bathed in the yellow light of day like they were standing under buttercups. There was a whirring sound all around you and your body felt like it was smothered in bubble wrap. You could hardly feel a thing.

“The drugs must be helping!” Soap shouted hopefully, his voice almost lost under the loud whooshes of air all around you. 

Were you on a helicopter?

You blinked up at the ceiling and smiled euphorically, almost laughing until you were forced to choke back more coughs. It forced your face to scrunch and the light around you to shatter. 

Why were you coughing? What was happening? Why were you in a helicopter? 

Oh no, it’s happening again I’m dreaming, you thought, absolutely horrified at the thought of waking up in the darkness again. It was the only explanation. How did you go from being beaten to being in a helicopter with all of your boys? It simply couldn’t be real. 

“Not…real,” you croaked sadly, “Not…real.”

“Sneak, save your throat,” König roared, his voice sounding similarly distant as Soap’s. 

His hand felt so heart shatteringly solid, like something that was really there. Hadn’t you felt him like that earlier and awoke to find it was all fake? His voice as well. The realisation brought on a violent sob. You were reduced to tears in seconds, shivering violently into the hard floor beneath you. You just couldn’t tell what was happening anymore, you couldn’t feel anything properly. Your skin felt fuzzy and your mind was filled with pillow stuffing.

“You’re safe, Sneak. It’s alright!”

You jumped when you heard König’s voice come through loud and clear. A weird snug feeling encapsulated your head and you frowned, not understanding that you’d been graced with a pair of headphones. The drugs really were doing their work, but you were too gone to even think of that. 

“Sneak hold on for me, ok? Just a little bit longer, my love,” König begged. 

His voice was so hoarse and scratchy. However you heard it loud and clear. 

“Mm…love you,” you whispered. “Been…dreaming bout…you.”

Even if it was a dream, you were happy to fall into it now. The warm fuzz was spreading further through your veins, cushioning your insides pleasantly from all the misery and strain. The idea of this being one of your last dreams tickled at your brain and you almost felt like giggling again. The sunshine was returning to the edges of your vision. 

“Sneak, listen to König and stay awake, alright? Don’t close your eyes Sneak!”

“Soap?” you frowned.

He’d never been in your visions before. Not that you were angry to hear his voice again, but you were thoroughly confused as to why he’d appeared all of a sudden. 

“Stop talking, Sneak. Your throat’s fucked.”

Ghost? 

“Yeah, you can relax for a little bit, ok? Just concentrate on us.”

Gaz?

“Stop overwhelming them,” Price growled out. “All of you shut it.”

Were they all there? You strained your head, moaning when you couldn’t move very much. Something was preventing you. Were you strapped down? You struggled and huffed out a few heavy breaths and soon found that it was no use. You couldn’t move. You could only face ahead. 

That wasn’t so bad either. Soon König was filling your sights and he was leaning above you, floating into frame like an angel. He was wearing his half mask, allowing you to see his uncovered eyes and messy blonde hair. More than ever you wanted to reach out and stroke it, though you knew well enough that you couldn't in your restrained predicament. You pouted. 

“Wan…feel…you…”

“Shhh, darling. Don’t talk. I’m right here, just stay with me. Focus on my voice and keep your eyes open. We’re getting you to a hospital, alright?”

You moaned. 

Why couldn’t you just reach out and touch him? You wanted to feel his hard body against yours just one more time, even if you weren’t sure you’d feel him properly in your dreamstate. It didn’t matter, you figured you could convince yourself of anything. If only you were enjoying the spread of his thick fluffy blonde locks beneath your fingers. Even the thought was enough to send you tingling. 

“That’s right, you’re going to be ok,” König smiled, gently holding your cheek and stroking it. “You’re going to be ok and you’re going to recover. You’re going to get seen to by the doctors, and you’ll rest up and before you know it you’ll be coming home with me. Yeah? You remember our trip? You’re going to be ok. You’re going to come back to Austria with me, ok?”

Finally you were in heaven. It felt so so real. It felt safe. You inhaled deeply and relaxed back, smiling contentedly to yourself. That was everything that you’d wanted for days. You craved loving gestures like a ravenous addict, the yearning had burnt in your heart for days. 

“No! Stop that, keep your eyes open!”

You hadn’t even realised you’d closed them. You blinked sleepily and drew in a deep breath, but the yellow light couldn’t compete with the cool darkness. You craved the shade of rest, wanted to nuzzle into the black. 

“Darling please. If you fall asleep now you might not wake again and I don’t know what I’ll do. Please! Please stay with me! You told me you wouldn’t leave me again, Sneak, you promised! Stop this!”

You frowned. Through the last dregs of light remaining you could see his eyes streaming with tears. His chest was heaving with effort to keep himself upright. His hand was wrapped around your shoulder now, and his other had joined your other side. König was clutching onto you like a little boy lost, but you could do nothing to help him. You felt so weak. You could barely hold your lids open anymore, never mind comfort anyone. 

Why couldn’t he just relax into the warmth like you? You could both lie in the darkness together, bodied fused in the nothing, just floating. You frowned. 

Why was he trying to make you hold on? Didn’t he know that if you woke again you’d be back inside the cell, tied up and shivering like a beaten dog. You didn’t want to go back to that. You wanted to stay in your dream forever now. This was it, you decided.

“Nein! Bitte verlass mich nicht. Ich flehe dich an, bitte bleib!” König sobbed, his voice overtaken by sad gasping breaths. “Please…keep your eyes open. Bitte…please…stop…bitte…Nein…”

Distantly you wanted to remind him that he needed to talk to you in English, but even talking seemed like some far off concept.

You shook your head and lay back into the darkness fully, swaying into the eternal night. You wished König wasn’t so sad. You wished your last dream had been a more pleasant one…but it didn’t matter.

It was just a dream.

Don’t cry König… you’ll find me no matter where I go…

-☠️-

I got pain an' experience... an' you got heart -- kinda remind me of Marciano, ya do.

“How’re things? Any progress?”

“I’ve noticed some twitching, but the doctors keep saying I’m seeing things. They keep blaming it on lack of sleep.”

Rocky, when I was fightin' it was the dirtiest racket goin', see. Pugs like me was treated like fightin' dogs -- throw ya in the pit an' for ten bucks ya try to kill each other.

“...I know it’s difficult, but you need to rest too. You’ve been holed up in here alone with these movies on repeat for god knows how long now. It’s not good for you, mate.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what’s good for me. The doctors said familiar people and sounds will help. Rocky will help. Being here will help.”

“I know but...If-”

“Don’t you dare say ‘if’ Sneak wakes up.”

-

Do you feel you have a chance?

Maybe

“König, enough's enough. Get yourself downstairs, jump in that fucking taxi and go to the hotel. Don’t come back till you’ve gotten that wretched smell off you and do something about the bags under your eyes.”

“For the last time I’m not going! I saw a finger spasm. It really moved!”

“I’m sure you’ve seen pink elephants and all sorts by now, sunshine. Fuck off and go look after yourself. You’re no good to anyone like this.”

“No! I won’t do it!”

“For god’s sakes do you want to stink Sneak awake? C’mon, look at yourself. Don’t you think you’ll scare them if they wake up and see you like this?”

“I don’t care! I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!”

-

Get outta my life both of ya's.

“Look, I know we don’t really get on but…I bought you a tea. Can I sit for a bit?”

“Are you going to try and make me leave too?”

“Jesus, no. Just wanted to come check in. They keep sayin’ you’re seeing movement…”

... It's cold outside, Paulie.

“I am seeing movement. Today it was a blink, I’m sure of it.”

“Well, that’s good, hm? What’re the doctors sayin’? Do they think there’ll be any change?”

“The doctors never want to reveal much.”

He's scum from the corner, I didn't raise ya to hang with no bum!

“Do you ever get tired of Rocky being on all the time? It’d drive me nuts watching the same thing over and over all day.”

“I barely notice it anymore.”

“Huh.”

-

“Sneak please, I’m begging you. You have to give me something…I’ve been watching you for so long now and you’ve never been so still. Just give me something so I can keep going, yeah? Anything…bitte.”

-

“You know I was looking out at the stars a minute ago. It reminded me of when we sat together that night and looked up at the sky together. Remember that, darling? You fixed my hair for me. I could use that again now. I almost broke my comb trying to put it through my hair yesterday. I suppose maybe I should listen to your team, hm? Garrick and MacTavish offered to sit with you for a little while tonight… Maybe you’d like to have some company with someone else for a bit. Maybe you’d be better off without me, hm?”

-

It don't matter if I lose... Don't matter if he opens my head...The only thing I wanna do is

go the distance -- That's all.

“I’ve tried it all and still you won’t wake up for me! What will it take Sneak? What will it fucking take! I’ve done everything and still it isn’t enough! Why am I not enough! Is it because of what I did that day? Is this my penance? Are you running away from me again? Goddamn it, I can’t take this, wake up Sneak! Just open your eyes!”

-

I love you -- I love you -- I love you…

“Fuckin’ hell, is this still on?”

“Ghost!”

“You know why it’s on.”

“Think I could recite it from memory by now.”

“You’re not helpin’, LT. Leave him alone.”

“Fuck me, there’s only so many times you can listen to that numbskull’s voice. Let the arsehole say Yo! Adrian and turn it off.”

“Well then, it sounds like you can’t recite it from memory then.”

“What?”

“‘Yo! Adrian’ - That’s from Rocky two. He didn’t say it in the first one, see? The movie is over now.”

“Oh, fuck me.”

-

“I was thinking earlier…you said before that you hated not knowing my name. You said that I shared everything with you, except that and it…it killed you not to know me completely. I don’t know why I had to be so stubborn about it now, I suppose it's just not a name I like to hear very much. Apart from my mother, it just reminds me of people I’d rather not think about…but I think if i ever heard you say it I’d like it. Do you still want to know it? What if I told you now, would you wake up?”

-☠️-

Swirling mist danced behind your lids. There was an electric current somewhere sparking in a breeze, you were floating along on it, your skin tingled and your spine burned with the fizz of it. You felt yourself twinge, felt a groan building in the back of your throat even though you couldn’t hear it. There was a vibration running down your body, it built and thrummed through you, undulating with the electricity. 

You liked it. You enjoyed getting to float freely, loved the temporary bliss of your shadowy escape. There was no pain there in the darkness, just whooshes and whisps of feeling and giddy deliriousness. An endless drifting cycle that felt like it could go on for the rest of time. However implausible that would be to a sane person. 

Ultimately it didn’t last forever though - eventually you felt yourself sinking.

You frowned. No. You didn’t want to sink, you didn’t want to go into the depths, you wanted to remain in the clouds. You hated the falling sensation, you hated the burning that built in your throat, hated the aches that broke out all over your back as if it were cracked glass. You especially disliked the crusty feeling behind your eyes. 

You scrunched your eyelids furiously, gritting your teeth when you couldn’t relieve the sensation. With a strangled moan and no small amount of effort you cracked your eyes open. Somehow you resisted the urge to scream. Maybe you were too weak to do anything like that just yet, but your body wasn’t above holding it in, waiting to survey your surroundings first. 

You blinked furiously into the light. The room you were in was disgustingly fucking bright, clinically bright. The shocking white glare flooded your vision and kept you fluttering your eyelids for a moment, continuously disturbing the layer of gunk that had built in the gloopy corners of your eyes. The world was in stark contrast to the one you’d just emerged from. What was painless and empty before was now bursting to life with sensation. 

Fuck. 

There were so many acidic scents and weird feelings around you. Your body felt like it was repressurising, your lungs were reacclimating to your surroundings. Through it all, you wanted to reach up and wipe your face so badly. There was no way you could muster the strength though. You didn’t have enough energy, it was all being used toward your growing awareness. 

Why were you so weak? Why couldn’t you move? Where were you? 

The questions clawed at your mind and had your brain scrambling until it burnt. There weren’t many memories to help you out. When you tried to think of where you were last, your head came up just as blank as the ceiling above you. That’s when you realised there was only one way you could get any answers. 

You would have to move.

For some reason your instincts were telling you not to talk, not to draw attention to yourself. You weren’t sure why, but you sure as fuck weren’t going to go aginst your gut at a time like that. 

You sucked in a silent breath and steeled yourself. Then you took in another. Then another. You breathed in and out and kept up a steady rhythm until you felt you’d gathered every miniscule ounce of strength you had and finally you put it all into twisting your neck around. You grunted out in pain, but kept yourself quiet, swivelling and sighing all you could until you were greeted with something other than ceiling. 

A lightning shock of messy blonde hair. A black mask. A big scarred face gently slackened into a sleepy frown. 

Your heart leaped in your chest. You couldn’t remember much, but one thing was for sure - you knew exactly who was sitting across from you then. 

It brought a smile to your sore cracked lips. The corners twitched up and your heart jumped around in your chest like a parading cheerleader. Next thing you knew, something from somewhere next to you, something started to furiously beep. It filled your head and ricocheted through your ears, and more importantly startled the man across from you out of his slumber. 

“Ah Oida! Doctor, nurse! The monitor its-”

König looked at you then and you could’ve sworn his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. The world went still. 

You smiled softly at him and watched on as he stayed frozen in his tracks, looking like a perfect picture of fear and disbelief. The room felt like it’d been filled with gas, like it was seconds from ignition. He gaped at you in the heavy silence. 

“Am I…Is this…Is this real?” he asked fearfully. 

You smiled wider then and blinked a couple times. You couldn’t rely on your voice to work, it felt like your gullet was filled up with gravel. Talking was going to be a luxury, you could tell. It already felt like a miracle getting to lay eyes on your man again, but it wasn’t one you were taking for granted. From the few moments you’d had, you could tell you’d been out for a while.

“My love! It’s really you, you’re really awake!” König laughed. 

You mustered a tiny nod from your depleted energy reserves. The second you moved you sent König running toward you. 

His boots slapped down on the squeaky tiled floors, with the force he sped to you it felt like he was going to put his foot through the floor. Though you couldn’t focus too much on that, because soon enough he was on you, arms clamping around you as if he’d never let go again. 

It hurt so bad to have him wrap himself so tightly round you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to complain. Strangely it was comforting to feel pain from something good. And man did it feel good. It felt like you’d been pulled from the ice, like you were warm again. Safe. You were home. 

It made you all the more aware that you really were alive. 

“König what the fuck are you doing? You can’t squeeze sneak awake! The doctors are saying you’re causing a commotion in here, what’s going on?”

You smiled wider than you ever thought possible and looked past König’s heaving body and toward the source of the gruff commanding voice. It was a voice for sore ears. 

“I don’t need to squeeze Sneak awake, Captain,” König giggled, his entire body vibrating with his maddened laughter. 

“Fuckin’ hell you’ve finally crossed the border fully into looney land,” Price growled. 

“No! No, see for yourself. See!”

König detached from you, allowing you some more space to breathe again, and you took the opportunity gratefully. However you couldn’t help but wrinkle your nose when you finally caught the pungent smell that had clung to the air around you. Was that…König?

“What are you talking about? What- fucking christ alive!”

You broke out of your hazy thoughts and made eye contact with Price, almost breaking your silence with a fit of laughter when he did the same thing as König. His mouth hung open, his unusually clean shaven face looking thin and haunted from the second he realised that König hadn’t gone mad from grief. He dropped his shivering skinny arms and his whole hospital gown clad body shot up stick straight. 

“Bloody hell It’s really…Sneak’s really…”

“See! I told you! I told you all!” König grinned. “I said there had been movement. I told you that Sneak would fight.”

König’s stance was victorious, his eyes were ablaze with pride. It made your chest wrench to see him so happy. Something told you that he hadn’t been doing well at all. If his greasy hair and fierce aroma were anything to go by. At least he would be able to fix that. 

You weren’t so sure that you were going to be fixed anytime soon. 

All of a sudden, as if awakened by your thoughts, a horrible tearing jolt worked itself through your throat and splintered down your back. It forced a pathetic squeak of pain from your lips and soon the two men were rushing to the door screaming and shouting for someone to come do something as your body heaved and trembled. The alarm and the crazed beeping from the machines only made your condition worsen, the shouting rattled your ears and rung through your head like a gong. 

A nurse was by your side in minutes, shaking a little as König stood beside her, urging her to do something. You were in too much pain to pity her though. Your entire being was in atrophy. Chills and hot flashes worked their way through your skin and horrible zipping sparks jumped all around your body, directing themselves toward your tired lungs. 

Though soon the trauma ended, and your pain dulled down into a light throb until eventually you felt like you were on a new plane. All the edges in the room appeared hazy and everything seemed to ebb and blur. At first it didn’t feel much better than the agony, but eventually you grew used to it, letting yourself lay back into the soft sheets and smile dopily into the skinny pillow you’d been given. 

“Sneak? Sneak!”

“König,” you mouthed, floating steadily back into the darkness. 

 -☠️-

You’d had a few more encounters like that until you were finally able to stay awake without being shot up with drugs like a dying horse. 

The pain started to get more manageable with time, and of course you were able to motivate yourself with seeing all of your loved ones again. König was always there, bar the times you had to raspily whisper shout at him to go take a bath or to go get some rest. He never would leave you alone to sleep though, opting instead to lay down on the empty hospital cot next you. He’d strong armed a young doctor into getting it into your room of course. 

Price visited quite a lot too. He was in the room next to yours, thoroughly displeased that they weren’t giving him the all clear to go back to work. He groused that he was just fine and that the bloody doctors didn’t know what they were saying, going on about how he’d been a Captain long enough and he knew better than them that his body was ready to go home and heal there. You both knew it was a lie though. Price was as sick as you, even if he was mostly able to walk and talk. You could see it behind his eyes. 

You knew well enough what was lurking in there, because you had the same sickness yourself. It was there when strangers came to touch you and check up on you, the doctors that were only trying to care for you. It was there when the lights went out at night. It was there lurking in the shadows. It was there every time you were forced to get a wash. You screamed bloody murder the first time you were awake for a sponge bath, almost choked up blood you were so terrified of the water. Even the sound of it sloshing at the edges of the bucket was enough to send you into a panic attack. It was a nightmare even having to drink the stuff. 

König took it upon himself to look after every facet of your wellbeing after that wash. He bathed you, he fed you when you were finally able to have solid food, and he practically barked like a rottweiler at anyone that tried to touch you without letting him know what it was for. As much as you tried to tell him it was alright and that he didn’t have to do all that for you, he’d shake his head with indignance everytime and shush you with a million platitudes. He said he’d do anything for you. He would serve you until the minute you sent him away, which wasn’t very often, but it was necessary to tell him to eat or get himself a shower. 

Price had confessed to you one night that he had reacted much the same as you after they’d brought him in. König had been sent away, and so your Captain sat on the foot of your bed drinking tea from a wonky paper cup, occasionally grimacing with his weird naked face as the bitter after taste sunk in. You were still getting used to seeing him without a beard, even after all you’d been through, that was still completely out of the ordinary. 

“It’s the only reason I drink this utter shit,” he’d remarked, drawing the tea close to his lap. “I’d rather have something with a taste to it. Something with a bit of colour.”

“Glad to know its not just me,” you’d said bitterly. 

Your voice was still raspy when you spoke, the doctors told you it would take a while to heal, you just had to keep your voice to a whisper for a while. Apparently your throat had suffered so much trauma that you were lucky you were getting to speak at all after what you’d been through. Not that you felt particularly lucky. 

“You know…when we go back we’ll have to get tested…medical tests, psych evals.”

Your lips parted and you sucked in a low breath. In the back of your mind you hadn’t forgotten that Price was going to waive your little misstep with König. You were technically allowed to go back. That aside though, would you really be capable? Could you pass a psych eval? You screamed bloody murder most nights because of the awful nightmares you were having. Your body was frail and your scars were deep. Not all of them would heal. 

“You’d let me back?” you asked slowly. 

“Well, if you managed to pass - of course,” Price shrugged. “I was serious when I said that the whole mess with König didn’t matter, I think we’ve been through enough together that none of that means anything anymore. The most important factor is, do you want to go back?”

You caught eyes with him then, locked into his hard stare. His blue eyes were shining dully in the dim yellow night light. You could see the hollows in his cheeks more prominently now, the shadows were digging their palms into his face. He was right - you had been through a lot together.

You weren’t so sure about your abilities anymore, if you would have the nerve to get out on the field again. A dark part of you also wondered about the alternative, what if you’d enjoy it too much? What if you’d want to take your vengeance out on those who hadn’t even done anything to you? 

Even through the haze of your memories of being rescued, you could still remember the way you stared at Rousseau's crushed up body and the feeling of your smile still haunted you.

Of all the things that that man had done to you, the most horrific of all was the taking of some small part of your humanity. It brought a shiver to your core each time you thought of his head being smashed against the wall, and how you couldn’t even imagine telling König to stop even if you’d had the ability at the time.

It was something you desperately tried not to dwell on, lest your chest cave in from the pressure. 

Both you and Price wordlessly let the uncomfortable silence linger. Soon enough he cast his gaze away and flickered his attention over to the TV. It was playing a crappy sitcom that neither of you had seen before, nevertheless you were both as captivated with it as if it were your favourite. Neither of you brought up coming back again that night. It made for too many questions that you didn’t have the answer to yet. 

It was easier to pretend that everything was going to be fine. Your head felt clearer when you plastered on a smile and acted like everything was normal. That was the tactic when Ghost, Gaz and Soap finally came to visit and it worked well then.

They’d all flooded into the room with faces like slapped arses. Gaz and Soap were fighting each other to apologise to you first while Ghost stood solemnly by your side giving you one of the sorriest looks you’d ever seen from those hard blue eyes of his. You weren’t going to have any of it though. They didn’t deserve to drown in their guilt because of a series of reckless choices that you���d made. 

“All of you have got to stop apologising. You already did enough getting us out of there, there’s nothing more to be said about it,” you rasped, quickly looking over to the jug of water placed strategically away from you. 

Ghost gave Soap and gaz a withering look, before he turned and fetched a small glass, filling it only a third of the way before steadily handing it to you. It barely shifted in his careful hands - it made you realise that someone must’ve filled him in. The realisation had your heart stuttering, it had revealed a crack in your normal facade. 

Despite that though, you gave him a small nod and gently tipped the water back, greedily letting the water soothe your burning throat. Drinking it never completely relieved you of course. Your throat remained scratchy no matter what you had, it would still take some time before you fully recovered. 

“We played our part in your capture, Sneak. There’s no denying it,” Ghost said. “Me more than anyone else. I put you in danger and I can’t let you dismiss that. I let my feelings get in the way of the mission, and ultimately that was the whole reason Price had set the rules he did with you in the first place. I’m truly sorry for what happened, and there isn’t anything that’ll make my part in what happened alright.”

“Aye, we all did, we all put you in danger. It was a fuckin’ big shock, Sneak. It didn’t feel good knowing you might’ve been leaving the team for someone we thought was…well it doesn’t matter what we thought. Point is we acted out of line and we do have to apologise,” Soap said seriously, placing his hand by yours on the bed. “Im sorry too.”

“It wasn’t our place to punish you,” Gaz said firmly, “We acted like fucking children and it almost cost your life. I can’t say sorry enough.”

“You were barely even with me on that mission!”

“Well I didn’t exactly stick up for you when I got the chance, did I?”

You started to roll your eyes, but the look that Gaz gave you was enough to stop them before they peaked at the skyline. You closed them instead for a second and then pursed your lips, taking a moment to consider their words.

Everything in you wanted to tell them all to shut up about it so that you wouldn’t have to think too much about that awful day, but you knew well enough that you couldn’t ask everyone to put it behind them just so that you could deny it. What happened happened. You had to face it. If not just for yourself, then for the men that had risked their lives coming to get you and Price back. For your brothers. 

Though you didn’t have to unravel right at that exact moment, you decided. That could wait for a time that you could at least fetch your own water for yourself, or when you could take a shower without König standing outside of it. 

“Well, seeing as we’re talking apologies…” you sighed, opening your eyes again and looking at each of them with serious measure. “Let’s get into reparations. What’d you all get me?”

“Get you?” Gaz repeated. 

“Yeah, where are my ‘sorry you almost died, woops!’ balloons?”

“Oh, away n’ bile yer heid!” Soap groused. 

“You didn’t even get a little bear with hand marks round it’s neck?” you grinned. 

“Well we found one, but it had big red handprints on its arse as well, and that just didn’t seem appropriate,” Ghost remarked. 

“Jesus, LT!” Soap snapped. 

“Yeah, König might take it as us flirtin’ and snap our arms off,” Gaz sniggered. 

“Oh for…” Soap groaned, and put his hands over his eyes. 

You laughed properly for the first time in a long time, and most joyously of all you didn’t fly into a coughing fit straight after. It flowed freely from you like notes from a tuba, still not quite your usual timbre but fuck it, it was music. Your body lightened and your head cleared, it was like an oppressive fog was beginning to lift. 

Even if you weren’t coughing by the end of it, your throat still dried up again though you didn’t need to worry. Ghost got you another glass of water and handed it to you with a softened expression.

You took the glass from him once more and sunk into a familiar rhythm with the guys again, transporting yourself away from the four stark white walls of the hospital room and away on their adventures. They filled you in on what was happening back at base, told you about their latest antics with the recruits and by the end of it you were so delirious from happiness, the nurse had to shoo them out so that you could rest. 

König came in shortly after them, freshly washed and fed, and he lay down in his cot across the room. His footsteps had woken you, even when he hadn’t meant to, you were still so hypersensitive to movement. Even in the darkness you could make out his mountainous shape as it rose and curved from the bed and it brought a little smile curving onto your lips. Your protector was never far. 

You sleepily invited him over and gladly he came speed walking to your bed. His messy was flopping in his excitement and the site of him reminded you so much of a cartoon you couldn't help but laugh a little.  

The trilling sound of it had him smiling, and soon after he poured you a cup of water and let you drink before fastening his arms around you and cuddling into your back. Your personal stove was on full heat. He was assuming his faithful position by your side. 

You sighed and relaxed into him, wiggling to get yourself right before frowning when you felt something sharp poking into your leg. What was that? You drew your hand back and stopped at König’s pocket, tilting your head when you slid your hand in and found the source. 

“Oh, Scheiße,” König huffed.

“What?”

König’s body went stiff as a board and you could practically feel the air harden around you. You were confused as to why he was there until you brought your hand to your face and discovered the cause. 

It was the wooden bird from the market. You tilted it gently and inspected it, quickly realising what the cause of his sorry state was. It’s little wing had been broken and glued back on, a permanent scar had been left on its frail body. Something that was all too familiar. 

“It’s just like me,” you joked.

“What?” König somehow managed to get stiffer. 

You turned around and faced him, gasping when you realised how upset he was. His entire expression soured, his eyebrows knitting into a deep frown. His shoulders sagged with grief and from behind his bandana you swore you could see his lips trembling, could sense his breath puffing out raggedly from behind the material. The pain on his face struck through your skull like a mallet. 

Shit. 

“You know…It’s got a little damage, but its ok. You put it back together,” you shrugged, trying fruitlessly to keep your tone light and even. 

“It was only broken because of me,” König whimpered. “And I haven’t even properly fixed it.” 

His eyes glazed over, spacing out into whatever terrible thoughts had been tugging at his subconscious. You’d felt your heart break then, cracking down the middle at the thought of him blaming himself. It was bad enough when the 141 were filling up the room with their apologies, but it was a whole other thing to see König folding under the pressure of his guilt. The boys had each other, but he didn’t have anyone other than you. 

“Hey,” you said gently, voice still a little rough. “Listen to me. C’mon look at me. König I need you to know that it’s not your fault, what happened wasn’t because of you…I don’t even know why you’d think it’s your fault, but ultimately it comes down to me. My stupid actions. You tried to do your best by me that day and I fought you because I was scared. I couldn’t stop worrying about all the damage I’d done and in the end I only made it all worse. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, frowning as he searched your face. 

“Of course I’m sure. That day I got captured was a shit show, König. After you did everything you possibly could to make sure I got back safe and sound again, and… well I don’t even know if I can even count on myself not having more dreams or hallucinations, but I’m sure I heard you everyday that you were by my bedside. I could feel you when I was asleep. You were there with me even when I was getting moved around all those prisons. You’ve been my anchor König, you’ve been the one that’s kept me here fighting. You’re my reason to go on, so don’t you lie there blaming yourself for what’s happened.”

“How can I not?” König sighed. “It’s my fault things got so complicated between us in the first place. I was the reason that Price banned you from having a relationship with me, It was my fault for being so bloodthirsty. Fuck, I could barely even stop myself from killing Rousseau, I thought- I thought that, well I worried that you would’ve spent your last moments horrified with me for what I’d done to him that day.” 

“Oh fuck no, don’t be stupid!” you snapped. 

König’s brows shot up and his eyes grew big as saucers. You swore you could see your hardset gaze reflected clearly in the blue of them, burning holes through that layer of guilt he’d shrouded himself in. How dare he think that he was your ruin when he was the one that saved you? 

“Don’t you dare put all the blame on yourself, König. You can’t think like that. I have just as much freedom over my actions as you do, it was equally my fault for getting Price on my back, and it was down to my actions that day that got me captured. As for Rousseau, well, I would’ve splattered him on the concrete myself if I had the energy.”

“Sneak!”

“It’s true,” you spat. “I know I shouldn’t think like that, but it’s true. I know I’m normally the one that tries to do right, but do you know what? After all the wrong I’ve done, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m not capable of the same things as you. We both have violent jobs, and we both carry horrible truths that haunt us. Don’t turn me into one of your ghosts König, don’t let the guilt fester and eat you up. I love you and I’d do anything to make sure you were safe, and I know that you’d do the same for me. You brought me back from the brink and now because of it we can lay here together and we can make a future for ourselves. We can go to Austria and we can decide to do whatever we want with the time that we have König. That’s all that matters. Don’t shrink from the past and get upset at the scars left behind. We have to learn to accept it.”

You thrust the bird toward him and he took it, scooping it into his hands ever so delicately. It was as if you’d handed him your heart. His breaths were soft and his eyes were filled with tears. 

There was a single beat where you worried he might try to walk away, but instead he gently placed the bird down on your over-bed table, wood hitting wood producing a soft whispery sound in the near silent room, and then he wrapped his arms around you again. He held you tight and kept you melded to him, fusing you with his shaking body. 

He cried soundlessly and let his body shake most of it out, all of the terror and the pain and the stress he’d been holding onto was slowly being released through you. His tears ran thick and hot and collected at his mask, reddening his cheeks at the edges of it. You slid it down for him eventually and cleared away the salty tracts, dabbing at his cheeks with the corner of your crisp white bed sheets. 

“You have no idea…I…I feel so selfish saying this, but you don’t know how lonely I’ve felt this past month. I’ve just felt like I’ve had all of this pain trapped inside and every time I’ve seen you suffer since waking up I just- I’ve felt like shit for thinking that I deserve an ounce of comfort when you’re the one that’s been through the worst.”

“Don’t think like that König, please. You always have me to turn to, you’re not being selfish for feeling hurt in all this. You got burnt too and it’s not fair you going it alone ok? You can talk to me, König. You can always talk to me. I love you, I love you so much, and I don’t want you bottling everything up just to protect me. I’m not broken, you don’t have to turn me into your next mission. I’m healing, and I think- I think we both need to heal. Y’know?”

König took a stuttering breath and nodded, his lips curling downward in a unique kind of sadness you’d never seen on him before. Now that his hair was flopping over his forehead and his half mask was wound down and dishevelled on his neck, he looked so young. His face was shadowed with his innocence, it shone out across his eyes. 

You pressed your palms into his cheeks and smoothed your thumbs over the irritated salty skin, pressing kisses where you could to ease the pain. His face was scratchy from the thick stubble there, but you didn’t care. It was more important that you soothe the burning ache inside König. You had to show him that you could be there for him too, even if you were still physically weak.

He was your reason to remain strong. He was the reason you were taking steps every day to try and get better. He really was your anchor. Your König. 

“Somehow we’ll make it through this…” you whispered, finally giving his swollen lips a much needed kiss.

He closed his eyes and leaned into it. The pressure in the atmosphere seemed to lighten, your lips crushed together like petals and you bathed in the calm that overflowed in you. It finally felt like things really would be ok. You were together now and you didn’t need to constantly think about your next steps, you just had to be. That was all that mattered for then. 

Your kiss ended a little while after, your breath not quite back to normal yet. Your chest panted with the lack of air, but soon you settled again and smiled. König matched your smile and his dazzling blue eyes gleamed like jewels in the low light. He rested against the pillow and stared at you in awe, as if he was finally seeing someone he hadn’t gotten to be with in a very long time. 

“Do you really think you heard me when you were…asleep?” he asked, tentatively breaking the silence as if it were fragile glass. 

He could never bring himself to say ‘in a coma’.

“I dunno,” you sighed. “I think I dreamed a lot, but I can’t really remember. I swear I really could hear Rocky sometimes, but then Price was very eager to make a point of saying how insane you’d driven everyone with it so…who knows,” you laughed. “He’s a vivid storyteller I guess.”

König chuckled a little and shook his head. Looking a little guilty as he thought about the amount that movie had been on. He’d already confessed to you it’d be a long time before he’d ever be able to watch it again. 

“You don’t remember me speaking to you though? Don’t remember the things I’d told you?”

You tilted your head at him, the movement rustling the stark sheets beneath you. 

“I feel like I can remember you saying you loved me and you wanted me to open my eyes, but I can’t really remember anything specific. Nothing I couldn’t have just as well have dreamt,” you shrugged. “Why?”

“I…well I thought…ugh, it’s ridiculous. Nevermind,” he sighed, looking toward the wall and away from your questioning gaze. 

“Aw, c’mon König! What is it? You can tell me,” you pressed, running your hand through a section of his fluffy hair. 

He closed his eyes and leaned into your touch. His face washed with relief, his body relaxed. He let go of his anxieties. 

“Well…I told you my name a little closer to the end of your sleep. I thought that maybe you might’ve remembered it if you were coming to awareness.”

You froze, stopping your calming gestures in your tracks as soon as you realised what you’d missed out on. 

“You what! You told me your name and now you’re just casually throwing that out there?”

“Well I was desperate, Sneak. I thought maybe it’d motivate you to wake up, I dunno. I said it was ridiculous,” he huffed, opening his eyes back up again. 

“Well, do I get to know it now?” you demanded, rolling over him so that he was caged between your arms. 

He widened his eyes, and even in the darkness you could make out the rosy tint that had broken out across his cheeks. He breathed a little quicker. 

“Aw, c’mon!” you begged, giving him your widest doe eyes you could muster. “Please.”

He sighed and bit his lip, trying to avoid your stare, but it didn’t work. He could feel the heat of your eyes on him and so he gave up. He puffed out a defeated breath and he smiled a queasy smile. He was about to speak, but instead found himself opening his mouth and closing it again, sealing his lips shut tightly. 

“Are you really still scared to share it with me?” you asked, softening your harsh stare at him. 

He opened and closed his mouth again and finally he shook his head at himself. 

“I’m not scared, no. It just feels…I’m not sure. I don’t really like to say it. I Will tell you though. I don’t ever want anything to happen again and live knowing that I didn’t hear you say it. I’m sure I’ll love to hear you say it.”

“Well you could always write it down…I can’t promise I’ll pronounce it right if its got some weird Austrian spelling, but I can-”

“No, no,” he chuckled, taking one of your hands in his and stopping you before you could go off on a tirade. “I won’t need to write it down. I’ll tell you.”

“Ok, well…when you’re ready.”

He breathed out and traced your fingers with his thumb. The massive digit stroked featherlight touches into your skin and you smiled at the fizzing sensation of it. His breath was warm on your neck, his chest was beating erratically from beneath you. It prompted you to climb down off him, keeping a grip of his hand all the same, but instead you took to lying next to him again. 

He smiled lazily as you settled by his side and he closed his eyes. You felt yourself strain as you listened to the buzzing quiet in the room, waiting to hear his name after all that time. 

“Matthias,” he whispered.

You instantly grinned, the single word lighting you up like a beacon. Your chest felt like it could burst. 

“Do I get a second name, Matthias?” you asked, pressing closer so you could kiss his cheek. 

He shivered next to you, his entire body buzzing. The static zipped right through the bed. He gave you a look he’d never given you before, the joy indescribable. 

“Luger,” he said gently. 

You bit your lip, not quite believing that you finally heard it.

“Not König then?”

“No, not König,” he murmured. “König was my mother’s maiden name. I started using it when I left the army. No ones called me by my real name in a long time”

“Huh… Matthias Luger,” you said in a whisper, feeling conspiratorial. “It suits you.”

“It suits me when you call me it,” he smiled, cuddling himself into the bed. 

“Should I call you Matthias when we’re alone now?” you pondered, letting your thoughts escape out loud.

He breathed out a laugh and pulled you close to him, forcing you to sink into the bed with him. It didn’t require too much coercion however. You were more than happy to lie there with him.

“You can call me whatever you like as long as you stay with me, darling,” he whispered. “Don’t ever run off like that again, you promise?”

You sighed and cuddled closer into his body, gradually letting yourself fade into the night with him. 

“I promise…Matthias,” you whispered, not helping yourself from saying it just one last time. 

-☠️-

The darkness kept a hold of you both for some time after that, after all was said and done. However during the course of your lying in bed together, it released its hold on you soon enough, and before you knew it the sun was raising its bright arms into the sky and beginning to wave good morning. You could see it out in the hallway, gently tickling at the floors and beginning to shift its eyes onto your room. You were dozing on and off, but now that you’d seen the light you were fully awake, flickering your lashes at the golden rays as they bounced off the blue linoleum. 

“Morning.”

König yawned next to you, stretching himself out and uncurling his arms. His back cracked like a firework seconds later, and he wrapped himself around you again, snuggling into the back of your T-shirt (one of his that he’d supplied you with). You rolled your eyes and smiled, feeling your heartbeat pitter patter. 

“You sure it’s morning for you?” You asked breathily. 

“Mm, I’ll be awake properly in a few minutes,” he grunted. “This just feels nice.” 

“Aw, so cute when you’re sleepy,” you cooed, rolling around so that you could see his shuttered lashes. 

He moaned his disapproval at being called cute, but he didn’t say much. He was verging far too much on the side of sleep rather than waking and you knew it would take far more to prod the bear back to life. 

You grinned slyly to yourself and bit your lip. Something of your old sense of mischief was returning to you.

“You’re just so sweet you’re all tired like that,” you continued.

He grunted again. 

“My little Schnucki cuddle bear…my lil matty watty-”

At that, König wrenched his eyes open and shot you a warning look. It was written all over his face that he had no idea how to take his revenge with you still in your weakened state, but you knew well enough he’d think of something. You took to giggling at his frowning face and lay yourself back against the pillow, innocently staring up at him as plotted away. 

“You know if you’re going to call me disgustingly cutesy names, I will have to leave.” 

“You would never,” you snorted, “I have to shoo you away just to get a shower most of the time.”

“Well, maybe I’m in a showering mood this morning,” he said, smiling viciously at you. 

His eyes were pointed at you like arrows. He pulled up his mask and sat up without breaking eye contact, then he tilted his head at you. A particularly smarmy look crossed his face. He’s clearly thought of a good way to get his revenge. 

“Yes, I think maybe I’ll head out for a little bit,” he shrugged.

“Fine,” you said, playing along with his little game. “I’m sure the nurses will be around with food soon. Price will be up and about too.”

“Mm, that will be good for you,” he said with a nod. “I think what might be good for me is getting myself a lovely breakfast. I’ll forgo the hospital canteen though, that stuff's rubbish. I think instead there's a lovely Italian deli that’ll be opening soon. One that I think you’ve heard of. It does lovely breakfast food!”

You narrowed your eyes at him. 

“And you’d bring something back from the deli then?”

“Why would I do that?”

You shoved at him playfully, too weak and tired to make much impact, but nonetheless enough to send him laughing back onto the bed. The booming sound had you giggling immediately, and even while all the excitement was hurting your throat you didn’t care. He pulled you into him and cuddled you close, forcing you back to the bed, though he didn’t actually have to use much strength. 

He held you like that until Price sleepily stumbled in with his morning tea round and cleared his throat, forcing you both to part. Even if he did say he was fine with König, it was evident he wasn’t in love with watching you exchange affections. Even standing next to König seemed like an issue some days. 

König left then, making his usual excuses, promising to come back with something from the deli after all, and allowed Price to pull up a chair alone.

He was a lot more mobile now that he’d mostly healed, he still stood a little funny under the weight of his crushed back, but according to the physio (and maybe Price overexaggerating his diagnosis) he would be fine again in a few weeks. Judging by the way he grunted when his back connected with the hard leather, you knew you were onto something assuming Price was being unusually optimistic.

“Making noises like that, you’ll be a sure candidate for desk duty, old man.”

Price shot you a glare and you bit your lip. He wasn’t going to abide by your cheek. 

“I can still send you to the latrines, Sneaky,” Price answered, slamming your flimsy takeaway tea down with a little too much force. 

“Oh yeah? I can imagine that’ll be a cushy job if I only have to clean your office.” 

“Fuck sake,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes. 

You couldn’t help yourself. Now that you’d been through all that trauma together, you found yourself braving interactions with him that you never would’ve before. After seeing him bollock naked and covered in his own detritus, the sheen of his title had faded some. You were able to be braver.

You and he both knew that nothing he could threaten you with would be worse than what you’d already faced. It was that universally realised truth that meant you knew the bitter glare that he was directing you from behind his takeaway cup didn’t hold any real malice.

“Seriously though…Gaz told me you were thinking of going back in a couple weeks. Is that true?”

Price stopped mid sip and regarded you awkwardly. His eyes slanted downward to the floor and his palm rested on his sweats in defeat. It was still so odd seeing Price in pyjamas, almost weirder than seeing him naked. It made him look all the more uncomfortable in front of you. 

“Well, just on paperwork to start. I’m not bloody likely to pass a medical and I’ve got a series of psych evals and debriefs to get through, so yeah, I figure I may as well get ahead of it all.”

“You’ve got to tell them about what happened? Do I? Will they ask me to come in?” you asked, breath hitching with fear. “Will they come here?”

“No, no, don’t worry. I’ve told them you’ll not be in until your health improves. Far as they’re concerned you’re barely talking right now,” he soothed. 

Your heartbeat wound down from its highly strung little dance. You breathed out a sigh of relief and picked up your cup of tea, breathing in the warm berry steam that wafted through the little opening in the top before you took a relieved sip. 

“Thanks…I don’t think I could face anything like that right now.”

“I barely can myself,” he muttered. “All those men giving me sorry looks like I’m a whipped dog. It’ll be hell. Still though, it’d be worse if I didn’t get to operate again. Needs must.”

You nodded, looking far beyond the pale white sheets that your head was directed towards. You didn’t have the same worries. You feared more than pitying looks, it was deeper than that for you. The real hell was having to relive what you’d gone through multiple times while blank faced suits noted down what had happened. The very idea made you want to bring up what little was in your stomach. 

“Have you given much more thought to coming back?” Price asked. 

You looked up at him and met his appraising look. His mouth quirked and his body tensed, he knew as well as you the answer was obvious. Obvious but complicated. 

“Honest answer? I’ve thought about it alot. At the end of the day I don’t even know if I’ll heal completely right yet. The fractures I’ve got are still bad and the physios keep looking at me like a tripped horse. I still can’t wash without König there. There’s a lot going on…”

“They’ll put you behind a desk if you tell them all that.”

“Maybe it’s the best place for me…I dunno. I’m not really sure of much right now, but I do know one thing - I’m not going to hide things anymore. I can’t hide my feelings just to try and get the work done, I’m not going to put people at risk because of the shit I’ve got bottled up. I’m never going to repeat the mistakes I made on that mission, Price. I’ve got too much to lose to ever do anything like that again.”

Price sighed and nodded, looking off into his own middle distance. It gave a sort of sagely quality, his crinkling eyes working against his younger years.

“I’ve asked and I can buy you three months,” he said suddenly, “You can take that time to heal and to think about things, see a shrink, do whatever you need to do. Come back to me then and give me an answer.”

“Three months?” you repeated. “To answer what? I don’t even know if I’ll be fully recovered.”

“You don’t need to be fully recovered…physically. You can be trained back to what you were, that’s not the issue. I just need to know if you can still do the job, and if you still want to do it. Take the time, think about things properly, hell go on that fuckin’ trip König wouldn’t shut up about and clear your head. After that, just come to me with an answer and even if it’s a no, I at least know that you got to think about your decision properly. I can make peace with it then.”

“You’re not keen on me saying no then?” you smiled, catching onto what he was doing. 

“I can see you leaning towards it and I’d rather you didn’t while you’re practically chained to the bed in a dour place like this. You’re a good soldier. You can recover from this and you can come back, if you want to. Get out of here as soon as you’re able and go away with König. Believe me when I tell you that I don’t doubt your ability for a second. You’ll get over the water stuff, you’ll overcome the shadows. If I can, then you can too. I don’t want to lose you, Sneak. So please, just promise me you’ll think about it, yeah?”

You sighed and gave him a nod, rubbing your thumb against the hot cardboard that barley kept your tea contained. It was almost blistering your skin, but the burning was a pleasant distraction from otherwise unpleasant thoughts. 

Price got up from his chair and put his hand on your shoulder, making sure that you acknowledged his meaningful look. His soft blue eyes cast a beam of light onto you, the wrinkles at the corner scrunching as he gave you a reassuring squeeze. His touch lingered long after he was gone, leaving you with just enough comfort to last until König returned. 

König did surreptitiously wander in minutes later, looking around warily before revealing his smuggled goods. He’d had to hide them in his hoodie like a pregnant lady, and just the sight of his overstuffed belly had you almost completely forgetting about what Price had discussed with you. You were happy to focus on better things. Afterall, you reasoned to yourself, it was Price that had told you to clear your head in the first place. 

“Ok, I couldn’t bring you Soup because I wasn’t willing to burn myself for you, but I did pick up your favourite panini and I got you a cake that might be a little squashed. Does the royal highness approve?”

You approved indeed. Anything was better than hospital food, but furthermore the deli food was better than anything. Immediately you grabbed for the panini and took a big grateful bite, barely just thanking König before you did so. It was just so good. Your eyelids shut tight as soon as you got your first taste of crusty bread and homemade melty butter. 

This was paradise. 

“Do I say enough how much I love you?” you murmured.

“Not at all,” König smirked, looking around the doorway for unwanted eyes before taking his own bite of panini from out of his mask. “It should be every word that leaves your mouth from now on.”

You snorted back a laugh and finished your bite. 

“I could do that, but your poor mother might think I'm a bit weird if I can only tell her how much I love you.”

König stopped eating and peered over at you, clearly forgetting all about his contraband treat. He regarded you seriously for a moment and pulled his chair closer, attention now completely focused on you. 

“You still want to go to Austria?”

“Well, the flights will need rebooked I imagine, but once I’m better? Of course!”

“But…didn’t you say you might need to report in soon?”

“Well, I spoke to Price about it all there and I told him the same thing I’ve said to you. I don’t know if I’ll go back fully. He didn’t want to accept that right away though, so he said he can give me three months. I figure I can be outta here a lot sooner than that. So what do you say? Still wanna show me home?”

König threw his panini down onto the table and pushed it roughly to the side, immediately taking his chance to wrap around you like a koala. He smiled brightly and he exhaled, his long thick arms not easing up as he constricted around you. 

“Do I say enough how much I love you?” König asked wryly. 

“Mm, I could stand to hear it a little more,” you sighed. 

He laughed lightly at that, you could feel it echoing around his chest. His warm puffs of breath landed hotly onto your neck. It had your eyelids fluttering closed, your own sandwich discarded somewhere next to König’s. You wrapped your arms around him in kind and revelled in the feeling of holding your universe close into your chest, letting everything else float away as you settled into the cloudy abyss once more. 

Even if you were unsure of where your future was going exactly, there was always going to be one constant. No matter what you faced, no matter what you decided, you would always have each other now. It didn’t matter that Price would come looking for your answer, it didn’t matter if the guys would be upset to hear you say no, it didn’t matter if you were nail bitingly eager and terrified in equal measure to say yes to Price.

König would be with you through it all, he could lend you his strength and you could give him your love and vice versa. You were your own team. Together you’d make contenders for anything. He was your rock and you were his light. You were going to be fighters until the end. 

[thus-spoke-lo]

All You Had to Do Was Ask // Trafalgar Law x afab!reader

CW: modern AU; afab!reader [no pronouns used]; strip games; suggestive content WC: 2.7k A/N: I'm pleased to be able share the piece i created for @lovinglawzine! if you haven't had the chance to download it yet, please be sure to check out the 100% free SFW/OC/X-Reader and NSFW downloads - over 200 pages of incredible writing and gorgeous illustrations, all featuring Trafalgar Law getting the love he deserves!

Law observes you from the doorway of his tiny kitchen while he listens to the last drips of coffee splash into the pot. You fidget in place, sitting cross-legged on his living room floor amongst a sea of papers and books, your massive pharmacology textbook laid open to a heavily-highlighted page, multiple neon colors taking up almost every paragraph. He suppresses a grin, feels a blush rising in his cheeks as you chew on the end of your pen and fiddle with the hem of your sweatshirt—little quirks that have captivated him after watching you in class year after year, habits he’d grown particularly fond of after spending hours with you poring over quizzes and assignments in the library and chugging the last sips of burnt chain-store coffee while you work yourself into a tizzy over a mediocre grade.

There is something irresistibly charming to him about your passion and dedication to your schoolwork and your fits of worry over what would inevitably turn out to be nothing at all—after all, you’re in the top of your classes for good reason, Law right alongside you, jockeying for the highest marks. He fills two mugs with coffee and chuckles to himself at your needless anxiety; if you worry half as much about your future patients as you do about a missing half-point of extra credit or a misinterpreted question that led to a wrong answer, then you’ll end up a fine doctor indeed.

And now here you sit in his small apartment, deep in another tumult of concern over next week’s midterm, looking as adorably anxious as ever; he never means to minimize your very real worries over your own abilities, but it’s hard for Law to deny that your nervousness is at least a little bit endearing. You’d shown up a little while ago out of the blue, standing at his door with your backpack held tightly to your chest, grimacing as you implored him to help you study.  How could he possibly say no to you? Certainly not with the way you stood in his doorway, looking disheveled and harried, gazing up at him with pleading eyes through the fall of your lashes, biting your lower lip in anticipation of his answer. Who was he to deny you his time when you vibrated with a nervous energy that he knew he could sooth with honeyed words of reassurance and a warm beverage? No, Law has never been able to say no to you, not since the first class you’d shared where you rushed to the first empty seat you spotted and quietly asked if you could sit beside him; he’d barely acknowledged you with a grunt, trying to keep his eyes straight ahead, but felt a warmth spread through him every time he’d glance at you out of the corner of his eye and catch your gaze.

Law passes your mug to you, his body stiffening as your fingers brush his, and plunks his lanky body down across from you on the floor, avoiding the carefully-placed stacks of papers that separate you. Something stirs in him as you nod sweetly in appreciation before pulling your legs up to your chest and taking a few slow, careful sips of your coffee. He wonders if you ever feel that stirring too—that tingling at the base of his spine that makes it hard not to lean in and kiss you just to sweetly cease your worried ramblings, that warmth in his core that makes him stop just short of settling his hand in your thigh in class and letting his fingers explore the expanse of bare skin that spreads out from under your skirts. You must feel it too—he’s seen the way your glances longer just a little too long when you think he isn’t looking, how you eye his copious tattoos when he leaves his shirt unbuttoned just a little lower than usual or rolls his shirtsleeves up on a hot day. You must feel it too, he reasons—why else would you smile at him in that way that feels like it’s meant only for him?

One day he’ll tell you, Law assures himself day after day—he’ll tell you just how much you mean to him, how these years in this program have been made more bearable by having you around. He’ll tell you how he wishes you’d come by for more than just study sessions and free coffee, how he knows just how good his hands would feel around your waist, his lips pressed to yours in the cold, dark quiet of his bedroom. But Law is, above all else, a methodical man, and his careful planning and good intentions were getting him nowhere with you—unending thoughts of precisely how to confess to you only work if he actually intends to act on them. All his years of painstaking preparations seem to be unraveling day by day, replaced by a restlessness in his bones, an eagerness to know you as more than just a friend—and an uncharacteristic impulsiveness that he is no longer certain he can repress.

“Thanks for this,” you finally mutter, setting your cup on the low table beside you. “Not just the coffee—for all of this, I mean. I know I sort of showed up out of nowhere, but I was in the neighborhood. I guess I could have texted first, but I just—”

“It’s okay, really. I don’t mind that you’re here.” Law reaches out and places his hand on top of yours, gently stroking the inside of your wrist with his thumb to slow your frantic chatter. His boldness startles him a little, the ease with which he touches you on a whim feeling at once unnatural and comfortable, like he’s meant to feel your softness beneath his fingertips.

Your lips part as if to speak, but instead you simply stare down at his hand for a moment, a soft squeak tumbling out of you, before retracting your arm and placing it in your lap. “I—well, that’s good, then.”

He can still feel you on him, feel the bones of your wrist and the smoothness of your skin, feel the way your pulse raced under the gentle grip of his fingers. It’s like he imagined it would be, warm and perfect, and he quickly clears his throat before he loses himself in thoughts of how the rest of you would feel under his tattooed fingers.

“You know, I really don’t think you have anything to worry about,” he says reassuringly as he starts to grab a stack of paper. “You always worry, and then you do just fine.”

“Only because you help me.” You flip through your textbook absentmindedly, seeming to be actively avoiding his stare. “You make the best study materials.”

Law feels a warmth spreading through his chest that extends out to his limbs, heat pooling in his core—the same one that always ignites when you sit just a little too close, let your hand stay just a little too long on his shoulder when you shuffle behind his seat in class to reach yours. He stills himself and inhales deeply—an idea begins to simmer in his mind, and the longer he sits, and the longer he lets uncertainty linger between you, the more and more it builds until it boils over and he finds himself blurting out a question he’s only half-prepared to know the answer to.

“Hey—what if we played a little game?”

You glance up from your textbook and raise a questioning eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Law runs through scenarios in his mind, all his careful planning suddenly useless as he quickly settles on an idea. “I was just thinking—sometimes it helps to have some distractions when you’re studying, you know? Something to take your mind off the anxiety.”

“Okay, and what exactly did you have in mind?”

“Well, I’ll quiz you from these study guides you made. And for every five questions you get right”—he pauses, touching his tongue to the corner of his mouth—“l’ll take something off.”

“Law!” Your eyes grow wide and your jaw slack, an astonished huff leaving your lungs.

“What?” A subtle smile quirks up the corners of his mouth as his eyes roam over your features; you look surprised, perhaps a little embarrassed—but not offended. “You don’t think an incentive could help?”

“And what if I get it wrong?”

“Well,” he purrs, cocking his head, riding a sudden high of confidence, “for every one you get wrong, then you take something off for me.”

He eyes you as you swallow hard and chew on your lower lip—you’re going to say no. You’re going to say no, despite how smooth he made his offer, despite how desperate you are for his help, and he won’t blame you if you do. You’ll never trust him again, he’s ruined everything, he never should have—

“Okay. Let’s do it.” You stare at him with jaw set, eyes wide, chest heaving a little under your shirt. A tight-lipped smile stretches across your lips, and your posture stiffens. “I’m game.”

Law nearly chokes on a relieved sigh, and his pulse races as he grips the study guide. He runs his thumbs over the smooth paper and wonders just how far you’ll let him go, just how far his little game will take you—and there’s only one way to find out. His eyes scan the first set of questions, and his stomach drops: there’s no way you won’t know the answers. You’re too quick to answer in class, and you’ve clearly pored over every page in your textbook with its copious color-coded highlighting. He takes a deep breath and wonders how quickly he’ll end up losing his shirt—or more.

As he had suspected, the first question is no sooner past his lips before you’re blurting out the correct answer; he nods, muttering “you got it,” and continuing. He lobs questions at you, one after another, and you answer each with ease—all correct, five in a row. Law tries to keep moving, continuing with his rapid-fire pacing, but you stop him, the beginnings of a wry smile on your lips.

“Now, now,” you tease, “aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Right.” He quickly unzips his hoodie and tosses it behind him, tugging at the hem of his t-shirt, suddenly feeling more exposed than anticipated. Law feels a heat rising in his cheeks as he catches your gaze landing on his tattooed forearms, your eyes darting over his skin.

He launches another barrage of questions at you, even more difficult than the last, but you make quick work of them—another five in a row.

Shit.

He removes his socks next, despite your insistence that this is cheating, and continues. You get another five right, and as he prepares to be stripped of his pants and possibly his dignity next, when he quickly responds, “Nope. The answer was B.”

“What? That’s bullshit!” You lean forward, brows furrowed and mouth agape, trying to snatch the paper from his hands. “I know that can’t be right, we just went over it in class last week!”

He sits back just enough so only your fingertips graze the paper, suppressing a depraved grin. “That’s what it says here. I don’t know what to tell you.”

You sit back and run your tongue along your teeth, your eyes narrowed at him, and for a moment, Law thinks that you may have seen through his ruse—or, at the very least, that you’re going to end his little game. But instead, you strip your sweatshirt over your head and toss it to the side, leaving your torso covered in a thin tank top, and Law’s pulse quickens at the sight of your bare skin.

“Alright, go ahead,” you shrug, a look somewhere between annoyance and self-assurance settling on your face, “quiz me again.”

Law lets you enjoy a few more right answers—you truly do know this subject well—before he fabricates another wrong response. This time you don’t protest, only huff a sigh through your nose and stand, shimmying out of your jeans; he catches a glimpse of your panties before you quickly sit back down and cover your lap with your sweatshirt. It feels a little wrong to be doing this to you, to take advantage of your trust and your reliance on him as your friend and study partner, but the guilt is slowly being erased by an insatiable hunger. He wants more, wants to see you bare before him, a display meant only for him. What he’ll do with you once you’re exposed, that he doesn’t know; all he knows for sure is that he close, so very, very close, to having you in front of him the way he’s dreamed of for so long.

A few more right answers pass, and he lets you reach five again—despite the fever that grips him, he knows you’re too damned smart not to get suspicious, assuming you aren’t already. And so he lets you have a win and he slowly, teasingly, takes off his shirt—letting you see a full glimpse of the tattoos that cover his torso.

“See something you like?” he grins, stretching his sinewy arms above his head to allow you an unobstructed view.

“What? No! I mean—t-they’re just cool is all,” you stammer.

Law’s cheeks burn at the feeling of being objectified by you, immersed in the sensation of being desired as much as he desires. It’s cute how you protest, how even now as he lets you see what you clearly have wanted to see, that you try to keep your eyes focused on anything but him—and fail over and over again. He finds it harder to want to keep quizzing you, wanting more than anything to toss the booklet aside and push you down against the floor, to make a mess of your books and papers and give in to the years of yearning and

Finally, he continues—he lets only one right answer pass this time before he corrects you, the need to see more of you becoming overwhelming. You slowly strip your tank top off, tossing it at his head when you’re done, giggling softly as he pulls it away from his face. Law watches as you sit back on the heels of your palms and shift so your sweatshirt falls out of your lap; he suppresses a moan as you bend your knees and let your legs loll to the side, exposing the thin strip of cotton fabric that separates his eyes from your center.

“Law, what are you doing?” you ask, head tilted to one side, a coy smile on your lips.

He manages to tear his leering gaze away from the apex of your thighs, and his pulse races at the look on your face—you look nearly as ravenous as he feels. “W-what are you talking about?”

“You know damn well I didn’t get those answers wrong.”

“Is that so?”

“What are you playing at, anyway?” You feign a pout. “Thought you wanted to help me, Law.”

“I did—and I do—I just—”

“Just what?”

You crawl across the floor to him, yanking the study guide out of his hand and tossing it to the side. Breathing feels impossible and his heart thrums away in his ribcage as you straddle his lap and press against his pelvis; a soft gasp leaves his lungs, his excitement becoming difficult to mask as he strains against the fabric of his jeans at the feeling of your heat against him. You grasp his arms and place his trembling hands on your hips, then drape your arms over his shoulders, wriggling as you settle yourself on top of him; it’s everything he wanted, everything he needed, and it’s happening so quickly that no amount of meticulousness, no amount of preparation could prepare him for the way you so nonchalantly take control. Law’s breath hitches in his throat—you’re close, so close, your lips nearly grazing his as you lean in and press your heated cheek against the side of his face. He can almost taste you, almost feel you melting into him, almost feel your heart racing against him matching the speed of his own.

“If you wanted to see me naked,” you whisper in his ear, warm breath spreading across his skin, “all you had to do was ask.”