#two of which were impromptu

[halfdeadwallfly]

dining hall energy is so fucked

[jeyneofpoole]

crazy face to make at one half of the couple you’re impromptu divorce lawyering for after you’ve just exposed seventy years worth of his lies including but not limited to aiding abetting and directing the death of two beautiful lesbians one of which was sort of his stepdaughter also btw this couple is comprised of nuclear warheads in the shape of beautiful men and you sort of had a thing with both of them that one time in the seventies when you thought you were going to get high and your dick sucked but instead got saw-trapped by a renegade botticelli angel with all mental illnesses in the dsm-5 and a couple others we haven’t categorized yet. daniel molloy you will live forever

[tonycries]

Unhoneymooners!? - G.S.

Synopsis. The universe was surely playing a joke on you. Here you were, trapped on a luxury getaway with your - dangerously handsome, extremely obnoxious - ex. Either you were going to kill each other or end up pinned beneath him, split apart on his cóck. You just didn’t know what would come first.

Pairing. Gojo Satoru x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! reader, exes to lovers, unprotected, argument as foreplay, slight enemies to lovers, more like annoyances actually, cunnilingus, oral (male + female), spitting, creampié, one bed trope, rough, Satoru is still EXTREMELY down bad for you, and unfairly hot, forced proximity, cúmplay, pet names (sweetheart), swearing.

Word count. 8.5k

A/N. It’s impossible to not write Satoru without bullying him at least a little bit.

You broke up with Gojo Satoru exactly 5 months, 2 weeks, and 16 hours ago - not that you were keeping count, of course.

So why was he outside of your resort room blasting “Kill Bill” by SZA like he’s auditioning for the world’s most dramatic comeback tour? On what should’ve marked your fourth anniversary, no less.

Well, given you were the one to lock him out, but still - the stubborn bastard could at least have some decorum. 

With an exasperated sigh, you throw yourself onto the king-sized bed of your honeymoon suite, trying to will away that annoying, grating voice - not SZA, no, more so Satoru singing along at the top of his lungs to the chorus. 

How did you even get here? And with Satoru of all people - your Satoru. Or at least he was this time a little over a year ago. 

You first met Satoru when you were in university, back when he wore those pretentious circled sunglasses and waltzed around those halls like he owned the place. And after a single literature assignment together, he wasn’t just your (self-proclaimed) best friend; he was the reluctantly favorite thorn in your side. 

Like the rest of him, Satoru’s introduction into your love-life was anything but subtle. It wasn’t like he strolled in, gave a polite nod, and blended into the background. Oh no, he bulldozed his way in and dragged you to dance with him on the tables of some dingy frat party in what you could only assume was some joke from the universe at your expense.

And damn him, you think bitterly, you couldn't resist him that night. Spinning you into a dramatic dip, silver chain brushing your face as his half-lidded eyes bored into yours. You couldn’t not kiss him after the way his hands were just searing into your skin. 

God, you’ve never been able to listen to “Gasolina” the same way ever since.  

Satoru was in love as he was in the rest of life - a force of nature, and it was too easy to find yourself caught up in him.

That night at the frat party was just the beginning. From then on was a rollercoaster of everything from heated debates over the best flavor of ramen to impromptu road trips where you’d end up under a carpet of stars. Wrapped in each other’s arms and sharing whispered secrets for an unpromised future - oftentimes where Satoru would crack a joke or two about running away to Tokyo with him. To which you’d laugh it off with a “Yeah yeah, I’d leave everything I’ve known behind in a heartbeat for your dumbass, Toru.”

You just didn’t think that it would be the downfall to your relationship. All the empty promises. 

Because as those heavenly days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, eventually two years had gone by. The whirlwind romance settled into a comfortable rhythm, but with it came the looming promise of graduation and Satoru moving to work under his family company in Tokyo.

Under pressure, it wasn’t long before the cracks began to show, the arguments more frequent, and the silences more deafening. And as your relationship slowly turned into nothing more than a husk of what it used to be - so did the both of you.

Long story short, graduation was a bittersweet goodbye - and you think both of you knew long before it was actually over. Neither of you attended the afterparty - with Satoru on a flight straight to Tokyo and you at home to stuff your face with chocolate. Hey, at least you could blame your tears on finally leaving university, right? 

You had meticulously erased his name from your phone, your social media, and even your dreams - well, almost, the bastard still came around to bother you occasionally. It was messy, painful, and final.

But “final” really didn’t explain your current predicament. Because if there’s one thing you’ve learned about Satoru is that he’s always there - whether you liked it or not. He was there when you needed a partner for that literature assignment, and he was there to turn your world upside down at that dingy frat party.

Hell, he was even there to help you stubbornly chug mountains of ice cream and win that raffle for this five day-long getaway trip to the Maldives. Though, you think he might’ve chugged the ice cream without the promise of a vacation anyway.

But, when ultimately those shiny tickets came in the mail - Satoru wasn’t there. Oh well, it might’ve been a couple’s trip - but you could have a hot girl summer, right? Maybe you could even snag a hottie by the end. You’d almost forgotten that he’d be getting his copy of the tickets as well.

Yet, unfortunately - as the beginning notes of P!nk’s “So What” bursts through the heavy wooden door - you were inevitably reminded of the fact that he was here. Right now. Goading you into coming outside.

You find yourself groaning inwardly (and outwardly) because of course, why wouldn’t he come back even more obnoxious than before? You haven’t seen him in ages, yet here he is, crashing back into your life with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Or - you furrow your brows at his purposefully off-key singing carrying over the sounds of the waves outside - with the subtlety of a manchild with a JBL and a premium account on Spotify.  

Rubbing your temples in frustration, you contemplate how much longer of this it would take before you’re both kicked out of this resort. And after you ate so many ice creams to win this getaway trip? No chance.

With a resigned sigh, you rise from the bed, smoothing out the bathing suit you’d just put on before the devil incarnate showed up knocking at your door. Something hot and prickly pools in your stomach as you approach it, and you can’t help but roll your eyes at the sheer absurdity of the situation. So like Satoru.

Taking a deep breath to steel yourself, you shakily reach for the handle. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal actually.

…

What’s the worst that can happen?

Slam! 

The door swings open, and there in all his smug glory stands a very shirtless Satoru. Gojo pain-in-your-ass Satoru, the same asshole you’ve blocked on even Gmail. 

Except, you’re momentarily struck by how high you have to raise your eyes to meet his. Are growth spurts even a thing anymore? You didn’t have a chance to take a good look last time before slamming the door shut at the first flash of white hair and a smug grin.

But right now, traitorously, your gaze catches on just how broad his shoulders look and…since when was he so chiseled? Damn you, Tokyo - you were doing him too good.

His hair is slightly longer too, curtaining those slightly more mature features, stopping just above that ever-immature grin. One which moves as he hums, “Well, happy fourth anniversary to me, If I knew this came with the suite then I’d have swam here myself.”

You scoff, suddenly feeling strangely self-conscious as he wiggles his brows, striking blue eyes sweeping your figure from head to toe. “I’d prefer if you swam back. What are you doing?” 

“Why, just showing up to our room on our lil’ honeymoon, sweetheart.” Satoru sing-songs, leaning against the doorframe to fully prevent you from slamming the door in his (admittedly) pretty face again. “And before you try to break my nose with that door again, I won that ticket here fair and square, y’know. I ate just as much ice cream as you did for it.”

“You ate most of those before you knew about the getaway raffle.” you sigh over his nonchalant shrug, pinching your nose, “And stop calling it our honeymoon, I dumped you five months ago.”

“Well aren’t you just the gift that keeps on giving. Keeping count?”

“No. Don’t be a pest.”

“Always thought you had a thing for pests. After all, you did date me.” As Satoru grins impossibly wider, you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. He winks, “And if I’m a pest then you’re an itch that just won’t go away.”

“At least I’m not the itch that shows up uninvited to someone’s honeymoon suite.” you hiss. And with that you start shutting the door ever-so-slowly, delighting in the panic that overtakes Satoru’s features as he reaches out frantically.

“Hey!” he sputters, “I didn’t know you’d be here! And besides this ‘pest’ forgot his slippers all the way in Tokyo and can’t stand on flaming-hot boardwalks for too long so let me in.”

And sure enough, you glance down to see that Satoru isn’t wearing any slippers on the scorching boardwalk. The realization almost brings a smirk to your lips. This idiot. 

“Wow.”

“‘Wow’ at my feet or-”

“I should leave you here to rot just for your pure idiocy.” you deadpan, eyes locked on the way he’s burning his soles off yet still has the audacity to flash you a cocky smile.

“But you won’t.” he hums.

A beat passes. One. Two. And Satoru’s grin almost falters, before you finally relent - opening the door just a crack, cursing his entire bloodline under your breath. “You’re incorrigible” you mutter as he saunters inside victoriously, dragging his hefty luggage behind.

“Why change perfection, sweetheart~” he calls out, heading straight for the bedroom, only to let out a delighted “OooOOo” at the sight of the king-sized bed in the middle. The only bed. “How scandalous, maybe you’ll even fall in lov-” 

“Don’t. I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a seashell.” you warn, holding up both keycards threateningly, “I get the bed, you take the couch.”

“But-”

“And I’ve got the keys, so slippers or not you’ll be back out on that boardwalk.” 

A slight smile tugging at the corners of your lips at the way Satoru looked so dramatically crestfallen, you continue - just to be petty, “And no more ‘Kill Bill’ that’s on my angry ex playlist.”

With a heavy sigh he sulkily makes his way to the bathroom, calling out as he does, “Fine. But I’m showering first.”

As he disappears from sight you throw yourself onto your bed, basking in what little peace and quiet you’ll have because of your unwanted guest. This was going to be a-

“And I’m using all of your body lotions.”

“...”

“I will use one of your body lotions.”

Groaning, you sink into the plush mattress, just wishing it would swallow you whole and spare you from this torment. And this was only Day 1? This was going to be a very long five days. 

---

The first night with Satoru, honestly, wasn’t too bad. 

You don’t know what you expected exactly - maybe for him to pour hair dye in your shampoo or something. But he actually stuck to his word, slept on the couch after only a bit of taunting, and used only one of your body lotions. Your best-smelling, most expensive one, but one nonetheless.

Feeling slightly more optimistic, you spent most of the second day at the beach, meanwhile he stuck to lounging by the pool. Add in a bit of pretending you didn’t know him by the salad bar at dinner and that made for an almost-perfect hot girl summer. 

Well, considering that you were rooming with your insufferable longtime ex - in a honeymoon suite of all places. 

The only catch came that night, fully content at the burning soreness from being pushed around by the waves outside. You got ready to splay out on your bed, humming along to the tunes of your playlist and…Satoru’s lamenting?

“I swear my back feels like it’s been run over by a truck. Five of them, and a zoo.” he complains from behind you, dramatically draping himself over the couch - his impromptu bed. 

“Good.”

“What if that was my last straw?”

“Even better.”

His exaggerated, disappointed whine is both embarrassing and almost-endearing as you roll your eyes, resisting the urge to suffocate him with a pillow. “Maybe call your chiropractor guy.”

Satoru shot you a pointed look, his expression a mixture of faux innocence and irritation, which you knew too well. “I wish but he’s trekking through the Himalayas. C’mon~ Don’t you think that lovely king-sized bed is too big for just one?”

“No, but the boardwalk sure is. Maybe you should try it out.” you monotone, getting ready to end this conversation once and for all. 

But when has Satoru ever let you off easy? He sits up abruptly, a devious smile curling his lips. “Ohh, I get it.” he taunts, batting his long lashes mockingly, “You’re scared to sleep in the same bed with me.”

Huh?

“Out of all the idiotic-” you cut yourself off by whirling around to face his smug grin, “Why would I be scared to sleep in a bed with you. I’ve done that far too many times already.”

“Exactly,” he chuckles. “And all those times you could barely last an hour before without keeping your hands off of me. Scared you’ll end up pinned underneath me and stuffed full like old times, sweetheart?”

You narrow your eyes at him despite the heat burning your face. “The only thing I’m scared of is your icicle feet on my side.”

He laughs, a sound that’s equal parts irritating and endearing, and stands up from where he was slumped on the couch. Making his way slowly, but surely towards you, “Oh, c’mon. For old times’ sake, admit it, you miss me.”

"Yeah, missed the peace and quiet I don’t have because of your big mouth,” you scoff. Finding it hard to meet his twinkling gaze as he comes close enough that you’re toe to toe with him. Your cheeks burn at the proximity - hot enough to match the heat radiating off his body. 

Satoru shakes his head, undeterred by your threats. And suddenly you get the overwhelming urge to throw him out the window and straight into the ocean. “You can deny it all you want, but you still have feelings for me.”

Your jaw clenches at his audacity. “You wish. I’d never.”

“Then prove it.”

Damn, he was good.

Which is probably how you found yourself lying in the same bed as Satoru, with a wall of all the pillows in the room erected between you two - and a few extra from room service just in case. 

“Sweetheart, this is a king-sized bed. Is the fortress really necessary?”

You wrap your blankets tighter around yourself, trying to ignore the figure radiating warm right next to you. Muttering out a muffled little, “Yeah, so you can keep your mitts off of me.”

Satoru groans dramatically, bed creaking as he shuffles what you can only assume to be closer to you. “You keep your mitts off of me, you lecher.” he quips, voice dripping with sarcasm as he inches closer.

You stiffen at his proximity, feeling his warmth seep through the layers of blankets and pillows as he chuckles softly, the sound sending shivers down your spine, “Oh, come on, don’t be like that. We used to share a bed all the time.”

“That was before,” you interject. God, you didn’t like where this conversation was going. 

“Before what?” Satoru presses, his voice low and insistent. 

Now, you might’ve let yourself be goaded into sharing a bed but these were old wounds better off left alone. You hiss, tone firm, “Before. Now sleep” 

Before when you didn’t have to make a wall of pillows. Before when he would hold you tight and whisper sweet secrets into your ear. That he’d buy you the biggest ring he saw and promise you the world. Before- 

“I missed you, y’know.” Satoru breaks the silence barely audible over the sound of your own thoughts. The word pangs through your mind and claws at your chest. And at your silence he continues, tone a little lighter, “And stop hogging all the blankets, I’m gonna freeze to-”

“Boardwalk.”

“My apologies, ma’am. Goodnight, ma’am.”

And he sinks back into his pillow with a huff, you let out a sigh of relief. Something hot coiling in your stomach as you close try to catch as much sleep as you possibly could with the bane of your existence laying right beside you. The suddenly taller, dangerously handsome, still as-obnoxious-as-ever bane of your existence. 

You just wonder if he remembered “before”.

Oh, how Satoru remembered “before”. So much so that he had sixteen different playlists dedicated to you even after the breakup.

It’s divine punishment - it has to be. Satoru thinks there’s no reasonable explanation for the series of unfortunate events happening to him other than punishment from his ancestors above for being such a pussy and losing the love of his life.

First he forgets his slippers, then he ends up locked out of his own honeymoon suite by said love of his life. Granted, all thoughts of his poor burnt soles went out the window the moment he caught a glimpse of you in that positively sinful bikini. God, were you glowing. A goddess upon Earth - he could really give the Gojo Satoru of five months ago a good, hard kick.

And now he’s stuck in a - very comfortable - prison with you just inches away, tossing and turning in that way he knows means that you can’t sleep either. 

Honestly, very funny universe, the great Gojo Satoru demands a refund. Way to punk’d him into confronting the feelings he’s desperately been trying to bury these past few months - ever since he got on that plane to Tokyo and contemplated faking a heart attack just to get off. 

Realizing just then that he lost the love of his life - and the only woman who’d tolerate his karaoke nights. But with that realization came another, more jarring one: he was too late. 

Every touch, every laugh, and even every time you rolled your eyes was etched into his very soul, and it felt like a montage from a sappy breakup movie directed by a sadistic screenwriter who had it out for him. 

And it really didn’t help that this was the exact suite he was planning once upon a time to propose in. God, how you’d feed him to the crabs if he said anything about that - nevermind the fact that he was actually one that booked this-

But still, some traitorous, annoying part of his heart interrupts, she still hasn’t made you sleep on the boardwalk yet.

Maybe - just maybe - he’ll wake up to a second chance?

��

Ha. As if.

“I can’t sleep.” Satoru groans out loud, more so to drown out his own thoughts than anything.

“Well, I can. Goodnight.”

Ah, his girl was such a lil’ liar. Undeterred, the mattress creaks as he shuffles his weight to excitedly face you, taking a moment to admire how pretty you looked under the dim moonlight. He plows on, “Hey, if you promise not to make me crab food, wanna walk along the beach and watch the stars?”

A beat of silence. One. Two. so deafening and tense that Satoru was half a second away from obnoxiously laughing it off as a joke and pulling out his Emo Times™ playlist. 

“Or I can go back to the couch and-”

“Shut up. Let’s watch the stars, Satoru.”

But what do you know - maybe the universe hasn’t given up on him just yet. 

And, well, if he woke up the next morning breaching your fortress - your warm breath tickling his neck and his arms wrapped tightly around your waist, like the lifeline he never knew he needed - then, neither of you mentioned it.

---

“Hey, Satoru. You think we’ll always be like this?” you hum into your boyfriend’s chest, barely a whisper as the looming fears of, well, everything ring in your mind. 

He pulls you close, flashing a mischievous grin before planting a dramatic kiss on the top of your head. “Duh, I’ll always be around to drive you dangerously close to a stroke, sweetheart.” 

You roll your eyes, yet bury yourself closer to his warmth anyway.

“Besides, it doesn’t matter if I have to drag you by the leg to Tokyo. Wherever you are is where I belong. ”

---

You’ve come to learn that a resort island is only so big when you’re actively trying to avoid your 6’3 manchild of an ex.

Now that you were rooming with Satoru, sleeping with Satoru (in a literal sense only, of course), and just-so-happening to bump into him at the beach - somehow, talking with him is a little easier, his presence just a bit more exciting than you’d care to admit. 

If the you of four days ago could see what had become of you, then she’d probably slap some sense into you faster than you could say “Kill Bill”. Sleeping in the same bed (still only literally), having dinner, watching the stars - with Gojo Satoru? You’ve gone completely off your rocker. 

But could you really be blamed? These last few days have you feeling like maybe you’ve been dropped into an alternate universe, where you and Satoru never broke up. 

Yet, reality is a persistent little bastard. And with the end of your trip looming dangerously closer, the past you would be cackling mockingly in your face, flashing a large sign in big, red letters reading “I TOLD you so.” 

Whatever. Maybe by this time tomorrow both of you could laugh this all off as a silly little adventure and call yourself somewhat begrudging friends. Maybe you’d even end up unblocking him by the end - on Gmail, at least.

At the very least, dinnertime was a solace - both from your thoughts and the smug bastard talking your ear off about how he could “make that spaghetti better than a thousand Italian grandmothers.”

Until the fourth - and final - night, that is. When the resort, deciding that your current torture wasn’t already enough, arranged a special candlelit dinner. A romantic one. By the beach. With Satoru of all people. 

Great. Wonderful. Perfect, in fact. Going out with a bang. Was this really part of the all-inclusive package? It was like the universe was playing some twisted joke on you - or some awful version of wingmanning. 

You grit your teeth silently as you’re ushered to the beachside table, thoughts barely audible over the waves crashing against the shore and the soft, romantic music drifting from the band nearby. 

The complete opposite of Satoru, who was already seated at the table and enjoying himself far too much for your liking. He lounged back in his chair, a self-satisfied smirk playing on his lips as he watched you sit opposite him uncomfortably.

You hated to admit it - but God was he dangerously beautiful in that crisp white button-up, one that you knew was from his overpriced collection for special occasions. You found yourself fighting to avoid the amber hues twinkling in his eyes as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting warm shadows that bring out his pretty features.

Pretty? So frighteningly pretty - until he speaks, that is.

“And here I thought our honeymoon couldn’t get any worse. You’re sweating bullets, sweetheart. This your first date with me or something?”

“We’re not on a honeymoon, Satoru. And no, it just brings back memories.” you scoff. Relishing in the way he inches his chair closer to listen, clearly not expecting this sudden sentimentality. “Memories of why I blocked you on every social media.”

All but slamming his head down on the table, Satoru whines out, “Ouch, straight for the jugular. That mouth is still as bitchy as ever, huh? Though I do prefer it choking on my-”

“I’m going to throw you into the ocean.”

“Ooo, kinky~” he hums, swirling his wine glass, “But you know what this reminds me of? That one time we had dinner under the stars.”

You froze, the memories suddenly flashing back to you despite your best efforts to suppress them. “Oh yeah,” you muse. A chuckle leaving your mouth despite yourself, “Wasn’t that where you spilled ketchup all over your shirt and then insisted it was a fashion statement?”

He leans in closer, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Hey! It worked, didn’t it? I got compliments from everyone including you.”

“I was just trying to stop you from bursting into tears.” you roll your eyes, shaking your head at the memory. 

“Exactly, sweetheart. Like moths to a flame.”

“More like to a bug-zapper.”

Satoru throws his head back and laughs, loud and unabashed. A sound that echoes across the beach and makes something warm and sticky strum at your heartstrings. And at that moment, that stupid, little part of you didn’t even mind that you were at a special candlelit dinner. A romantic one. By the beach. With Satoru of all people. 

And he didn’t even have to goad you into it with SZA this time.

As the orange glow of the setting sun melded into the cool blue of the night, it almost felt like slipping back into an old routine. The food had long since been finished. Jabs and shared memories flowing through the air like the gentle waves lapping at the shore.

The cool air was now thick with contentment and something so unknown yet so familiar that it made your heart race. 

 “I swear.” you groan over Satoru’s loud cackles, “He tried to charm his way out of the bill by flirting with the waitress. In front of me.”

Satoru doubles over, clutching his stomach as he laughs uproariously. “Classic move! If he’s going to be a cheapskate then he should’ve at least been successful with it.”

Damn, was he eternally grateful for these dim candles. Otherwise you’d surely have caught the rosy flushing tinting his cheeks. How dare you sit there so gorgeous and perfect in front of him. Perfect for him - you haven’t changed one bit.

“Right? She looked ready to fling us both out.” You chuckle, eyes catching on the little dimple just at the corner of his mouth as Satoru shoots you a sly grin. “Mhm, I know if it were me I would’ve charmed us out of the bill successfully.”

You raise a brow, retorting, “Oh please. I’ve had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of that ‘charm’. You’d probably end up charming us into washing dishes in the kitchen.” 

Ah, right now, he doesn’t think he wants to be anywhere but here - bickering with you. 

“Ouch, you wound me, woman!” Satoru feigns offense, placing a hand over his heart dramatically before leaning down to whisper, low and conspiratorial, “Besides, I doubt you even remember what pleasure feels like since being with me.”

A thrill goes down your spine as you realize the insinuation of his words, steady and searing - matching that of  Satoru’s fingers on yours - which had snuck their way across the table, lazily tracing patterns along your skin. 

When did they even get there? Sly bastard.

Your mouth drops into a soft oh! at the dangerous glint in his eyes. But you refuse to back down, “Don’t flatter yourself, Satoru. I’ve had other guys make me cum much harder than you have.”

Touch burning. Mapping every curve and dip he’d known so well, and this time - you graze them back. A challenge. God, you missed that warm little flutter in your chest. 

That seems to catch him by surprise, as those darkened blue eyes widen. But there’s a dangerous edge to his grin as he purrs, voice low. “Is that so?” 

And with that, Satoru’s chair is scraping softly against the sand as he stands up, “C’mon, you’re gonna regret that, sweetheart.”

Oh. 

Satoru knows that it’s been 5 months, 4 weeks, and 8 hours since you two lasted an entire dinner civilly - not that he was counting, duh.

So when he begged the resort staff into setting the two of you up on this special candlelit dinner, he was expecting you to drown him in the lobster tank halfway through or at least end the night with a slap. 

What he certainly did not expect was to end dinner with you shoved against the closed door of your suite, legs wrapped impossibly tight around his waist, and lips trailing hot, openmouthed kisses down your neck. He angles your neck, body pressing so impossibly close to yours.

Inwardly, you curse his button-up for being so goddamn thin that you could feel his abs rub against you with every little movement. Toned chest rumbling as he groans at your hands tugging at those soft locks - just a tiny revenge, for your body lotion. 

“S-Satoru,” you whisper, and he breathes it in with an almost-pained sigh - not wanting to part for even a second. Because fuck it took so long to get you back and he wasn’t going to waste a single moment. 

Pulling just a hair’s breadth away, “Tell me what you want. Always knew we’d end up-”

“Just shut up and kiss me, you smug bastard.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

And, well, who was he to deny you? So he does. 

His lips are searing on yours, hasty and greedy. With a tinge of something so painfully familiar. Your hands make their way onto his chest, feeling the thundering heartbeat against your fingertips - matching that of yours. 

Sweet. You tasted so sweet. Just like honey, and all the dreams where he didn’t leave you behind. Where he didn’t get on that damned plane but instead ran to you all the way from the airport like those sappy romcoms you love. 

He licks at the seam of your lips, drinking in your gasps as he intertwines his tongue with yours. Kissing you like he’ll never be able to again. Because, God, knowing his luck - he probably won’t. 

One hand cups your cheek so gently - a tenderness that doesn’t translate to his lips as he kisses you deeper. Meanwhile the other wanders the expanse of your body, leaving a burning trail of fire in their wake.

Satoru parts with a playful nip to your bottom lip - and before you realize what’s happening, the zipper hits the ground. He’s ripping your pretty dress off - mumbling something about “buying a new one” before large hands surge forward, groping and kneading your tits.

His mouth waters at the sight of your bra. Light blue - to match his eyes. “You evil, evil woman.” he mutters into the soft valley of your breasts as you giggle delightedly. Oh, how he couldn’t get enough of you.

And if there was ever a moment that Satoru thinks he could cream his pants right there, then this would be at the very top, followed very closely by the sight of that withering glare you shot after opening that suite door to him just a few days ago.

He unhooks your bra with one hand, throwing it blindly across the room as if it killed him to see you clothed. 

Immediately, Satoru drops to his knees with the desperation of a madman, coming face-to face with the heavenly sight of your clothed cunt, soaking through your thin panties. 

“Didn’t specify where I had to kiss, sweetheart.”

Your gaze pierces through him, as it always did. “What are you-” Your words get choked up in your throat as his tongue darts out. Licking a long, languid stripe over your clothed cunt. 

“Shit. So sweet f’me, jus’ like I remember. Just one taste and I feel like m’gonna cum in my pants.” Satoru groans, urgently sliding your wet panties down your quivering legs. 

“F-flattery won’t work.” you stammer out as his hot breath fans your quivering entrance as he waits just a second - one, two.

Drinking in the view of your pretty pussy with dazed, half-lidded eyes. Wet - so wet, he almost wants to tease you - just a bit, to see if you’ll get even wetter. Ah, he doesn’t have enough time to take in this view - probably never will. Would it ruin the mood if he took a picture?

“Oh, I’d say it worked pretty well.”

Cock twitching carnally, Satoru needed to taste you now. He immediately surges forward. Breathing you in so sinfully, pooling your juices on his tongue. Eyes rolling to the back of his head as he tips his head back back back to let it slide down his throat. 

Shit, if you were the forbidden fruit then he would gladly be cast out of the garden of Eden. 

Half-delirious thoughts running through his mind, Satoru flattens his tongue across your swollen folds. Leisurely sliding between them, catching on your throbbing clit up and down up and down up and-

“Oh- hngh, Satoru faster-”

“So bossy.” he hums prettily around your swollen clit, the vibrations stimulating it just right. But of course, what his girl wants, she will get. 

Lewd squelches and your mewls of his name ring in the heady room as he speeds up his ministrations. Rolling his tongue harshly along your clit, sucking so sensually. Licking at your sweet cunt, dipping just into your sloppy hole. 

You almost miss the long fingers that deftly slide their way up your thigh, spreading your folds with his thumbs. A low groan sounds at the back of his throat as your walls flutter so sinfully around nothing - aching for more friction. 

Urgently, Satoru bullies his fingers past your folds, sinking deep into your plushy walls as his tongue continues its abuse. So warm and wet around him. Curling his fingers just right.

“Ah- fuck, Satoru- Feels s’good.” you gasp as he starts thrusting his fingers back and forth. A ruthless pace that has tears stinging your eyes, hitting that spot over and over and-

“Oh yeah? Thought you didn’t like my ‘big mouth’?” he purrs, muffled around your clit, “Look at you, sweetheart, now falling apart cos’ of it.”

You scoff, fingers tangling in his silky hair, pushing him deeper into your dripping pussy - mostly because you needed it, but somewhat because you really needed him to shut up. “Yeah, I like it better when you shut the fuck up.”

And with a dark chuckle, his mouth is back on your cunt. Your slick glossy and dripping down the corner of his mouth as he alternates between sucking unforgivingly on your ravaged clit and fucking into you at the same time as his fingers. 

And in the delicious stretch of your cunt, you barely register the metallic clinking of a belt before Satoru presses his clothed erection into you.

Shit. You clench so obscenely around his tongue at the feeling of his clothed, painfully hard and throbbing against your leg. Fuck - as big as you remember. You weren’t gonna be able to walk for a while.

“You like this, huh?” he murmurs, speeding up the rhythm of his fingers. Vibrations sending white-hot jolts of pleasure down your spine.

Cracking an eye open you risk a glance downward. Greedily eyeing the hand wrapped tightly around the base, moving up up up. Pumping in small, jerky movements at the same pace of his fingers fucking into you. “Like the way m’getting off to tonguefucking my girl?”

“Like thinking about how this is what I thought about all those lonely fucking night without you?” You arch into his touch, fingers searing on his scalp and angling Satoru just right to make your knees weak. 

He’s so close that you can feel the precum smearing onto your leg. Mouth fucking you in a way you knew he wanted to with his cock right now. Rough and unrelenting. 

“Like thinking about how you’re all I can fucking think about.”

“Hngh- Yes, Satoru! Yes-” 

You see stars as you cum - or maybe those were the tears in your eyes. Pulling Satoru impossibly closer to your quivering pussy so that you could ride out your high on his pretty face. And he readily accepts it - letting himself be handled roughly with the conviction of a man that wouldn’t mind dying if it was suffocating in-between your pretty thighs. 

Your vision is hazy, blood still roaring in your ears as Satoru stands up. Not even bothering to wipe away the wet trail of your slick prettily glossing his lips before capturing yours in a searing kiss. 

“Y’know, sweetheart,” he gasps in between heated kisses. “We got a king-sized bed so we better make use of it, hm?”

Your back hits the mattress before you can even react. Reeling from shock and the audacity as you bounce at the sheer force of his throw. 

“Next time you do that you’re-” 

Whatever insult at the tip of your tongue melts away immediately at the purely pornographic sight of Satoru stalking his way towards you from the foot of the bed. Eyes hooded, cock rock-hard, kiss-bitten lips parted slightly in a way that was so fucked-out.

Unhurriedly approaching you with such a predatory glint in his darkened eyes as he fucks his fist slowly - so agonizingly slowly. Eyes locked on you.

Despite cumming not even minutes before, your pussy jumps in anticipation. Immediately reaching over as soon as he’s close enough - as if in a trance - to replace his hand with yours. 

He was big - so mouthwateringly big. Flushed your favorite shade of pink at his leaking tip, pulsing veins glistening in the dim light - every part of Satoru was so unfairly pretty.

So hot and heavy in your hand as you pump him at a steady, methodical pace. Precum smearing on your palm, trailing down your wrist as you pump. Tighter on the base, thumbing teasingly under his slit the way you knew he used to like. 

“Oh fuck, sweetheart. Still remember, huh?” he hisses lowly. Ah, the way he still likes. 

“Mhm.” you hum absentmindedly, thighs clenching together at the way his hips grind in shallow, mindless little motions into your soft hand. Meeting your strokes as if trying to fuck something so delicious out of him.

And, well, you just couldn’t resist a taste. Bending down in one, fluid motion to delicately lick at his angry, hard head. Slightly salty taste on your tongue as you swipe at the droplets of precum pooling on his tip. Tracing lightly - ever-so-lightly - down his prominent veins. 

Satoru groans, low and hoarse with desire, “Shit, hah- you don’ ngh- have to-”

“Shut up, Satoru.” 

And with that, you’re shoving down as much as you can of his throbbing erection down your throat. Cunt clenching at the way he hardens impossibly as you choke and gag around him.

“Shit, oh- Oh fuck, m’girl. Yes yes yes-.” Satoru lets out a guttural moan. Fingers threading through your hair as he uses it as leverage to fuck himself slowly, deeper and deeper into your heavenly mouth. Hips stuttering and jerky with pleasure. Yeah, he definitely missed this. 

Half-delirious and cock-drunk, you take him all the way till your nose was buried in the tufts of white at his toned pelvis, already so wet with saliva and precum. 

Still got it, some smug, utterly debauched part of yourself titters. 

It was dizzying, the way he was pulsing in your throat, his heady scent filling your senses. Beginning to move up and down up and down in hasty, desperate bobs of your head. Pulling such lewd gasps and moans from his lips. 

You moan around Satoru’s thick cock, clawing at his toned hips for some semblance of stability. Some truly animalistic part of yourself relishing in the neat, red lines down his milky skin. The sight hazy through the tears that spring to your eyes at the way his fat tip hits your abused throat. A relentless, sinful tempo you were steadily losing your mind to.

Messy.  It was so fucking messy.

You just wondered if his orgasm would be the same…

But, alas, one can’t always get what they want. Because Satoru pulls you off of his achingly hard cock with a lewd pop! that rings in his ears and makes your cunt twitch. 

“Shit, sweetheart. Any longer and I’ll have to start thinking about ol’ Prof. Gakuganji to not cum.” he pants through ragged breaths, flashing you a deceptively innocent grin. “Now, lay back and spread ‘em f’me and let me see if your pretty pussy can still handle me.”

And that you don’t argue with. 

It’s almost embarrassing - the way you scramble desperately to sink back into the mattress. Letting Satoru manhandle your legs open so shamefully for him, throwing them over his muscled shoulders. But that’s a problem for the future, not lust-drunk you. 

Right now you couldn’t give less of a fuck as his hungry gaze locks on your glistening pussy. Pausing for just a split-second before spitting once. Twice. Thrice onto your waiting cunt. Making you feel more and more like an object as the warm saliva mixes obscenely with your slick, trickling down to form such a sinful pool on the sheets below. 

And you liked it.

Almost as much as you loved the way Satoru drags his tip along your swollen folds, catching so maddeningly on your clit. Teasingly pooling your slick on his leaking head. It was so sloppy. And too slow. 

“Satoru, I’ve waited five months too long for this. If you’re going to fuck me then fuck me like you mean it.” you grit out, frustration and pure need boiling over within you. 

“Oh? So it’s like that, huh?” 

And maybe you were a mastermind, maybe you were an idiot - probably both. Because Satoru immediately pushes in one, long thrust into your dripping cunt. Your words catch pathetically in your throat as he loses grip on whatever semblance of restraint he had - or his sanity - whichever one would break you first. 

Fuck, it feels so heavenly. Oh, how you missed him.

Bowing his body down down down till his damp forehead met yours. Folding you completely underneath him in the way you’ve found that only the smug bastard, Gojo Satoru can. 

You could almost sob at the stretch as he presses in - deliciously painful, borderline insane, and exactly what you’d been trying to deny that you’d been craving all these past five months. Being split apart on his throbbing cock, feeling like you were about to be absolutely devoured underneath him. 

It seems Satoru was just as needy for you, hot and throbbing agonizingly inside you, each little bump bump bump against your walls matching that of your heart thundering against your chest. 

Or was that Satoru’s? At this point you couldn’t even tell. 

“Oh, god yes-, jus’ like that ah shit shit shit-”

“This what you wanted, yeah?” A low growl leaves his throat at how sinfully your walls were milking him as he pulls back. All the way till his leaking tip was just innocently kissing your sloppy hole - only to ram his cock all the way back into your snug cunt. “To be split apart on my cock?” 

Shit, he could just about pass out right now with the way your cunt was sucking him in so greedily like she never wanted to part. 

Guess she missed him too, he thinks deliriously. Not even having to think about it as he starts fucking into you in shallow, mindless little thrusts. Pushing himself deeper and deeper into your plushy cunt. 

“Äh- fuck, yeah. S’all I’ve wanted.” you mewl, feeling so vulnerable and exposed under the hungry eyes boring into yours. A dark gleam in them as he grins, “Then take it back.”

Disoriented, you gasp out a strangled, “What?” before Satoru’s hips become rougher, chasing his high as much as yours. 

“What you said at dinner.” your lips fall into a soft oh! as you realize just what he’s talking about, “Admit that no man makes you cum as hard as I do.”

God, you don’t think you could answer even if you wanted to, choking on the harsh, purposeful movements of his hips just to fuck your soul out. 

Heavy balls stinging your skin, the lewd sounds of skin-on-skin fills the heady air. Driving you to insanity. An absolutely unforgiving cadence that has the bed creaking in protest. Ah, whatever, he could buy them a new one anyway if this one just so happens to break.

“Take it back yet?” He had to break you first though.

Slick gushes out of your heated cunt, dripping down his length and pooling at his heavy balls, stinging your ass at each merciless thrust. “No.” 

A large hand hastily makes its way down to draw rough, frenzied little circles on your throbbing clit. Voice strangled, sweat beading on his forehead, thrusts becoming increasingly sloppier. “How about now?”

“Ah- hngh- oh fuck. Satoru!” You could only moan softly in response, broken whimpers leaving you each time his tip kissed your cervix. Angling his hips just right to expertly brush against that one spot he knew so well would have you keening and bucking up into his cock. Your face almost burns at the sheer familiarity of it all. This bastard knew you too well. 

And something about that made such an uncomfortable, prickly feeling pool in your stomach. 

Something which you knew would only be sated if you looped your arms around his neck. Nails digging into his sculpted back as you pulled him impossibly closer.

Kissing his flushed cheeks as he murmurs, “Take it back, sweetheart.”

Despite the thick cock splitting you in half till you probably couldn’t walk tomorrow morning, you find it in yourself to huff out a soft laugh at the way Satoru’s tone teetered on just that endearing side of sulky. “Fine. You win, Toru.” you whisper into his lips,

And then you’re cumming. White-hot pleasure flashing behind your eyes and Satoru’s lips gently slotting against yours as he fucked you through your high. Acting as if the fucked-out whimper of his nickname is one he’ll never forget. 

As if he couldn’t cum simply from hearing it leave your pretty lips. And he does, shooting thick, hot ropes of cum painting your plushy walls white with a raw groan of your name. It oozes out of your cunt and onto the mess of sheets below as he fucks his seed into you as a lover would. As he would. 

It was intoxicating - everything from the way you milked his cock so sinfully, to the arms tight around his shoulders. Pulling him close, running soothingly along his skin as Satoru collapses onto you with a final, fucked-out thrust. 

And despite being a lightweight, Satoru’s never been so easily drunk off of something than he was off of you. God how he missed this - how he missed you. 

So much so that he can’t put it into words - and probably won’t ever be able to. But it’s alright, because your sticky body snug against his, and Satoru arms tenderly around your waist - but you didn’t mind. Both of you understood.

Satoru traces his fingers lazily along your side, neither of you bothering to tackle the mammoth task of cleaning up for now. Each movement slow and gentle, as if any sudden movement might shatter the delicate balance between you. 

All is quiet in your little haven, and you could almost fall asleep. The most contented one you’ve had in a while - 5 months, 3 weeks, and 7 hours ago to be exact.

But, of course, Satoru can’t keep his mouth shut for nothing. You jolt out of your reverie as he hastily tries to stifle the startled laugh that huffs out of him. Your dazed eyes meet his in the dim lighting, raising a brow in question.

“It’s just…” he starts, voice soft, “You still call me Toru. Feels like home.”

Ah.

You find yourself chuckling softly with him. Heat rushing to your cheeks, burying yourself deeper into his warm chest, to hide the embarrassingly flustered smile breaking out across your face if anything. 

Chuckling, Satoru shifts closer, touch now feather-light against your cheek, tracing the line of your jaw with his fingertips. Faltering ever-so-slightly as you mutter out, “Happy anniversary, by the way. I didn’t say it earlier because someone was being a public menace.”

“Hey! It’s not my fault that someone locked me out of my own honeymoon suite.” he laughs, drinking in your pretty lil’ smile. 

Ah, you were perfect. As you always were. Satoru can’t help but utter out a little, “Hey, if I tell you something absolutely stupid, would you promise not to make me fish food?”

“Absolutely not.”

He knew you’d say that. So he flashes you an easy grin, a hint of nervousness in it that he’s sure you see through - you always do. 

“So…” he begins, “First thing’s first, I’m thinking of expanding my father’s company further overseas and it might just so happen that I’m leading the branch development and get to pick where exactly.”

God, you made him feel like such a teenager. At your stunned silence, Satoru could barely raise his eyes to meet yours as he plows on, stumbling so uncharacteristically over his words, “You, I picked where you are.”

You’re breathless, words barely audible as his sinks in. “What? Toru that’s-”

“And don’t be mad but you kinda sorta didn’t-win-the-raffle-so-instead-I-planned-this-getaway-when-we-were-together.”

Any and every trace of breathless euphoria leaves your tone as you narrow your eyes at the very guilty Satoru beside you. Fidgeting under your intense scrutiny. Finally - after what seems like an eternity - you find your senses after his whiplash-inducing information dump. 

A hand immediately shoots out to squeeze his side, right where you knew he was dangerously ticklish.

“You sneaky little-” you scold over his laughed out yells of, “Mercy! No murder on our honeymoon!” squirming helplessly beneath you.

“I can’t believe you let me chug all that ice cream.”

“Exactly- hah- help! You w-would’ve been so sad that you ah- didn’t win.” he manages to choke out under your attack.

Finally relenting, only once you’re sure he’ll be feeling the burn of laughter until your flight tomorrow, you release him from your grasp. A satisfied smirk playing on your lips as you lean in close. “You’re lucky I still love you, you smug bastard” you deadpan.

“Aww, you beat me to it.” Satoru whines. Yet he reaches out to cup your cheek, “And I love you,” words hanging in the air like a promise. “With every fiber of my being.”

You let yourself be begrudgingly pulled into his embrace again, hands caressing along your skin like the highest form of worship. Satoru sighs out a contented, “Best honeymoon ever.” 

But of course, you couldn’t help but bully your idiotic boyfriend. “This is not a honeymoon, Toru.” you mutter into his heated skin.

He only presses you closer to him. Yeah maybe not, fingers deftly dancing along your left hand. But maybe next time. 

“Wanna watch the stars and tell me all about that branch development?”

“Of course, sweetheart, but first can you at least unblock me on Gmail now?”

“...”

You broke up with Gojo Satoru exactly 5 months, 3 weeks, and 12 hours ago. And as for how long it’s been since he won you back - well, you think it might just be one of the few things you didn’t keep count of.

A/N. Based on my vacay at Lily Beach except I didn’t meet my future husband there :0

Plagiarism not authorized.

[mandalhoerian]

Fish in a Birdcage ৎ୭

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

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

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

ৎ୭ ⸻ 26K, read on ao3

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

You know, a Lemurian.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, I’m not.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do my neck too?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What for?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But you wanted to see—"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked better, at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Once he began to create, however...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He remained unresponsive.

“Rafayel?”

You made it about yourself, idiot, you realized.

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

Gosh, you were absolutely terrible at this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Receptive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apparently they had.

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

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

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

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

Which was dry.

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

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

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

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

Yeah, you were taking him to a hospital.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To call it desire wouldn't do it justice.

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

All of this, because you had merely wanted to—

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

But—

“In every sense of the word.”

Oh?

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

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

Oh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ugh, this man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(So much for enjoying your concern.)

Really, this was your fault.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At 3 AM. In the dead of night.

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

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

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

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

And, of course, there was the doting.

So much doting.

Which was rare for you.

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

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

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

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

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

Which, eventually, became a visit to the ocean.

An ocean.

In the middle of a desert.

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

It was a miracle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And yet.

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

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

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

Not until you.

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

(It was snowing in the desert.)

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

(It was snowing in the desert.)

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

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

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

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

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

Only you.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he couldn't keep going like this.

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

And you had no idea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I won't leave you.”

Liar, his grudge wanted to answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(So adorable. So endearing.)

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

"Rafayel..?"

"Yeah?"

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

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

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

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

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

Art salon.

Yeah, the art salon gathering.

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

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

“…Rafayel?”

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

He could… He could skip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was a weak man.

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

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

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

But he couldn't keep being like this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Focus.)

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

And then. The tug.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hey, Rafayel, man, you good?"

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

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

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

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

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

He was in love.

You were in Rafayel’s room.

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

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

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

His robe.

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

How could he expected himself to stay away from this?

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

He felt a push at his chest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And you bit him.

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

“Why are you here?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the hell? Now?

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

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

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

More than this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was a homecoming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What, not pleased you got caught?”

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

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

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

“Or, are you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was that easy to change his mood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Just returning to the original plan.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mouth wide open.

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

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

"Pffft!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Rafayel.”

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

“Rafayel…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your mouth opened, the gleam of a retort on the tip of your tongue, but the words dissolved into nothingness as his hands shifted, palms hot against your sides, skirting along your ribs in an intentional, testing motion. He knew the heat of his touch stole the breath from your lungs, burning through the fabric like a spark setting fire to paper.

“You go on,” he said, infuriatingly smug as he leaned back into the pillows, his hands never straying far from your sides. “Help yourself. Take as long as you need. I’ll just… be appreciating this fabric in the meantime.”

His fingers traced the lines of your ribs, the motion slow, languid, before sliding downward to hover just above the curve of your stomach. They lingered there, resting near the knot of the belt holding your robe together. The edge of his thumb dipped just slightly beneath the fabric, brushing over its folded loops, a movement so subtle it was barely there, as though he wanted to test how much he could push you. He toyed with the fabric, rolling it between his fingers like he was unraveling a puzzle.

The pause in his pent-up desire — the break that had proven to be a blessing — was wearing thin. The front he was putting on, all casual indifference and smug bravado, was crumbling, betrayed by the way his gaze kept flickering back to you, and, of course, the growing press of his impatience beneath you, hard and neglected, made it abundantly clear that he was more than ready to pick up where you’d last left off.

You broke first.

With nary a warning, your hand shot out, snatching the ends of the thin, ribbon-like scarf draped loosely around his neck. You wound the fabric around your fist once, twice, tightening it just enough to make your intentions clear…

Then you yanked.

The pull wasn’t violent — no, it was far too calculated for that. Enough pressure to catch him off guard, to tip him forward slightly, but not enough to hurt. It was a demand, plain and simple, one he found himself surrendering to before he even had the chance to consider resistance. His wide-eyed surprise melted almost instantly like cotton candy in water into something darker, something sharper, as his lips curled into a grin that spoke volumes about just how much he was enjoying this game.

"First, you ask to beg for my forgiveness," you continued, pulling him a little closer, and his chest tightened as though the leash around his neck extended all the way to his lungs.

Your gaze pinned him down like a blade, your lips curving into something that wasn’t quite a smirk, wasn’t quite a smile — something far more addictive.

"And then," you murmured, sweet but laced with unmistakable bite, "you start ordering me around like a brat."

A jolt of concentrated heat shot through him, not from embarrassment but from the sharp edge of thrill that ran through his veins. He let the tension in his body slacken just slightly, a calculated move that allowed him to lift from the bed a little, meeting your challenge with his own. The faint tug of the scarf against his neck only heightened the electric energy between you, and he found himself biting back a grin.

“Well," he said at last, letting his weight sink into the bed with a noncommittal shrug, the barest shift of his shoulders enough to convey his defiance. "I’m just playing my part." He tilted his head just enough to make the scarf strain, wanted to see what you’d do with the provocation. “The sleazy husband.”

“You want a reward for that?”

“Acknowledgment of how committed to the role I am would be nice.”

“Oh yes, the most infuriating actor—”

“Aaand you goofed it—”

“—impossibly—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—”

“—handsome," you went on, and his smirk faltered ever so slightly. “Disarmingly clever, annoyingly witty," you added, the sharp edge softening with each word, though the grip you kept on the scarf didn’t loosen. If anything, you pulled him closer, closing the space between you inch by inch. "—and worst of all," you finished, dropping into something softer, something so intimate, "Completely, devastatingly, undeniably competent."

“Well, aren’t you good at apologizing…” he said into himself, embarrassingly beet-red at having fallen for your trick.

“I’m still waiting for yours, you know,” you pointed out distractedly, playing with the crystal flame lilies scattered on his wine berry shirt, tracing the petals of a bloom while seemingly entranced, following the silvery droplets dangling in a chain. “But I’ll be graceful this time and keep going with mine...”

Before he had a chance to blink or register the motion — your free palm slipped underneath the thin fabric covering his heart, caressing right alongside the pulsing red mark — and squeezed with a vengeance (such a fierce boob grab!), applying enough pressure that the pads of your fingers sunk into flesh, then widened the buttonless V-cut of his shirt by yanking, no, downright ripping it open by the lapels with both hands, and Rafayel damn near felt like a virgin at how scandalous that single action was that he almost covered himself up.

But then again, he could hardly claim innocence right now, could he? He was practically a champagne bottle about to pop down there. Just from that. Who was he, the main female character getting her corset ripped in a bodice-ripper novel?

“Ohmyg—hi? What happened to hello? How are y—”

“Shut up or no head.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kisses were rained along his collarbone, the length of his neck, and nipping gently at the spot behind his ear that got the hairs on his nape rise to attention. It would’ve been funny what a child’s play it was to tease him until his ears matched the scarlet blossoms on his shirt, except nothing about this particular situation bore humor — least of all, his response to it.

Which was practically none at all. Because he simply lay there, stiff as a plank from how turned on he was, and you worked him diligently as if he was an instrument and you were the virtuoso.

It was also because he was zeroed in on the cleavage peeking out from the gap in your robe as you made your way further downwards, tongue flickering along the dips and bumps of his upper abdomen — surely able to feel more than hear each inhale and exhale getting closer to moaning territory the longer you kept teasing. He even caught a nip slip here and there, getting impossibly harder in response, culminating in him twitching and tightening beneath you whenever you — purposefully! — brushed against his erection.

“Rafayel,” you sighed dreamily, and he moaned for real this time at how his name fell softly past your parted lips, pouring into a pleased hum against his navel where a trail of wetness gleamed — followed by fingertips curling gently around the hem of his pants’ band. “You’re so quiet. Not leaving it up to chance, huh?”

And the only response he gave was an impatient roll of his hips toward your head, granting you permission — eager acquiescence, even — while a loud, unabashed gasp slipped into his lungs as your hands found the zipper of his pants. With a practiced tug, you freed it from its track, and his pants slid low on his hips, just enough to reveal the waistband of his underwear. Your fingers followed immediately, hooking under both fabric barriers to ease them down until they rested tautly just below his hips. The motion tugged on his shirt as well, once secured by the overlap tucked into his waistband, and with nothing anchoring it anymore, the luxurious fabric parted effortlessly, exposing the sculpted expanse of his chest and abs in one sweeping reveal. His stiffening length, freed from its confines, ached visibly — leaping subtly toward contact, as though craving the touch it had been denied for far too long.

"See? You're being so good... why do you keep wanting to provoke me?" came your lilting reproach, spoken against the soft skin of his pelvis, lips fluttering teasingly across its planes in playful grazes of their silky plush. "

“Permission to talk?”

A sharp, in-drawn breath escaped him the moment a single finger traced along the underside of his shaft, lingering over a wildly pulsing vein — evidence of the frenetic race of his heart currently pumping pure liquid lightning straight through his veins — but he recovered quickly, allowing it to dissolve into an exhale long and drawn-out instead.

“Go ahead, handsome.”

His hips lurched instinctively in search of something tangible, of a sensation besides the torturous tickle of warm breaths dancing lightly along his arousal, "Give me my reward, then. I've waited so long for this, it's been torture."

“Doesn’t sound like you minded the wait. You left me, didn’t you?”

Ah, yes. The grudge. You were becoming like Rafayel the longer you stayed by his side.

"You know I hate waiting. Let alone like this," he said, all whiny and punctuated with a shudder — one that was met with an accompanying jolt that surged straight from the base of his erection when your lips brushed teasingly alongside it. "I didn't think you'd be this cruel..."

"Are you really asking?"

"Can you give it to me instead of wasting time talking?" came his blunt retort, brows drawn together in an impatient furrow that radiated ‘I’m being wronged,’ energy.

"Not wasting time at all, just wanted to spend more time with you. Feels nice, right? You deserve this,” you murmured comfortingly against the swell of his abs rising and falling with each heavy breath — and oh, he almost melted into a puddle at that, visibly deflating with his chest cavity just filling up all warm and fuzzy with love.

It did feel nice but — just — just — fuck — he needed to be touched or he actually was going to disintegrate into sea foam. Not joking.

A brief kiss landed on on the left side of his Apollo belt in consolation before a drag of your tongue along its path followed, transitioning into you breathing more warmth directly into his base, then placing a loving peck to his tip — eyes twinking at the tremble that surged through him. “I really love seeing you so reactive. Does it feel that good? Just breathing on you like this?”

His hips pushed upward in tiny nudges, bumping insistently against your cheek, practically begging to be held properly inside your mouth. "It doesn't feel good at all — just, come on, hurry... I keep my lube in the top drawer on the left... It's edible, you know..."

Thankfully, you didn't smirk at him. Didn't stop to tease him about his eagerness, either, wordlessly going about reaching over to rummage for a bottle in his nightstand — an act that forced you to draw away from his straining member completely, your warmth vanishing suddenly in one agonizing instant, causing him to nearly whine from the loss.

You popped open the lid to squirt some lubrication into your palm and recapped it while staring down at him with a curious gleam. "You had something like this with you the whole time—"

Your words got cut off upon him grabbing your dripping hand and directing it straight where his impatience stood angry at the delay, shuddering out a moan at how incredibly silky the glide was.

"Finally... yesss," he hissed, thrusting upwards to feel more friction — the delicious slickness spreading across your enclosed grip driving him absolutely wild. "Ahh—kkhfff... Keep going, you have to keep going, don't let go... Please. Please?”

Something in your face twisted weirdly at his breathy begging, making his heart flip at the unflinching lust in your widened gaze trained firmly onto his jerking hips.

He had your fist trapped around his swollen cock, urging you into pumping it once you settled into a steady rhythm stroking its turgid crown, twisting and curling into each new swipe upwards along his pulsing flesh; encouraging you by squeezing tighter every few strokes until you took over completely. Then, he threw his arm over his forehead haphazardly, basking in the blissful waves flowing through his veins at long last, watching you watch yourself pleasure him through fluttering lashes, breathing hard through half-parted lips.

"That's it," he sighed huskily, rocking his body into the hand rubbing and grinding against his dick's ridge with expert motions; thumb circling its glistening head and caressing alongside its slit where precome beaded out generously, smoothing over the entirety of its surface and working into the underside, swirling tantalizingly over the bulging vein there until all his thoughts melted into a haze of pure sensation, mind wiped clean of everything except the singular, simple fact that he desperately needed to come. "Like that — nnhhh, yes! That feels amazing — feels perfect — love those sweet little fingers... So close already, I can't, I can't—"

At his muttered groans, your pace stuttered noticeably before resuming its previous speed, which wasn't fast enough according to the stretching throb inside his core, his blood rushing loudly through his ears like boiling rapids. "No, faster..." he urged you, rutting into your palm even harder in a frantic effort to increase the pressure and bring him to the precipice quicker. "I can't hold on much longer — need more, I need more. Tighter. Tighter."

The corners of his vision pulsed white and Rafayel whimpered as he jumped inside your curled fist when the unexpected sensation of having your forefinger slide through his sticky fluids gathered at its tip, swirling clockwise before ascending back up in an unhurried stroke that carried a slippery coating alongside it to smooth out the glide to put pressure right into the slit — a sensation that lingered for seconds afterward with ghostly echoes, drawing a sudden choked gasp from his lips at how intensely good that single touch felt.

“Thaaaaat’s it, yeah, I love that, you have such a beautiful voice.” Your free palm swept up alongside his ribs to rub gently against their curve as though to soothe the ragged sounds ripping past his throat; traveling upward to cradle his head against yours where your cheek brushed alongside his temple, holding him still with tender care and easing some of the tremble wracking through him. "Can you feel how much I'm enjoying us being together like this — how badly I've missed you? Please let me hear those pretty sounds, I wanna hear them loud and clear. Will you be generous for me and share it all?"

His reply died in his throat in favor of a low keening sound — something raw and broken — when you squeezed tighter.

The way your nails dug ever so delicately into the sides of his cock, applying pressure just shy of pain was truly exquisite torture, making his head swim and rise up from the bed so he could crush his lips against yours, biting hungrily into your plush mouth and delving deep into its depths until oxygen became nothing but an afterthought. Every neuron of him burned alive in chain reaction as your tongue wound and slid alongside his, curling along the underside before retreating for him to suckle on your lower lip eagerly until it swelled red.

"Mmnghhfuck! Hhhaaa—keep—" Words spilled past his slackened lips like ribbons unfurling, senseless as he struggled to convey how excruciating it was to contain his euphoria within, desperate for any sort of outlet to relieve the pressure rising inside him rapidly —

— and then broke off suddenly on a low moan when he caught a flash of your unoccupied hand that was just cradling his neck having found its way between your thighs, the view out of sight because of the robe —

Then, Rafayel saw the pearly gates.

His orgasm slammed straight into him, so unexpected and yet wholly expected all the same that he gasped around it like he was in a headlock, utterly disoriented by the sudden assault on his senses, soaring impossibly higher with each jerk of his hips into your fingers' grasp and shooting thick white streaks across his stomach; leaving behind faint smears wherever it hit its mark — warm, sticky ropes landing atop his defined abs and even reaching as far as his sternum.

He knew something was wrong when it didn't stop.

Far from it, really: each pulsing contraction seemed to force more of its fluid past his cock's narrow slit, painting your pumping digits liberally with his release — even staining the lapels of your robe in messy spots. It lasted so long that Rafayel started seeing stars sparkling around the edges of his blurring vision; making everything appear fuzzy like static. "Nggh—too much—ah! Aaa—hhh! Nnhhfff... Khhffffcking hell... Can't believe—still going—"

"Don't hold back now, just ride it out, nothing wrong with it," you murmured fervently, brushing some hair back from his sweat-soaked temple and — then — kisses, so many kisses. "I know you wanted this so badly, it's okay... You deserve this. Let go for me, yeah? Can't you let go for me? All this stress will go away. Isn't that nice?"

What came out instead was an embarrassingly high moan, hoarse with overuse, entirely at odds with the self-assuredness he'd wanted to project with each thrust of his hips, spurred onwards by instinct alone in a mad dash for euphoria.

Just how pent-up was he?

He couldn't recall the last time he'd felt pleasure this acute, sharp as shrapnel beneath the layers of desire, making him so out of it that he wasn't even aware of the embarrassing mess he made like he’d just wet himself being cleaned up with a tissue by you.

And it still wasn't nearly enough.

He surged forward, wound his arm around your waist and tossed you to the side gently so your back lay flush against the sheets before following suit in a tangle of limbs that ended with you under him — where he belonged: cradled between your thighs, seated fully inside their heated clasp as he hovered above you — one elbow propped beside your shoulder while the other wandered aimlessly downwards and undid the trusty knot holding your robe together in one go.

"Rafa—"

“Sorry, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm so thirsty," he said, as he raised the lube-and-come-sodden hand of yours up to his mouth to lap at the trails trickling over your wrist; sucking on your fingertips in apology — no trace of shame coloring his cheeks as he did, far too focused on the task of cleaning them thoroughly to be distracted by something as trivial as embarrassment. He didn’t even taste himself. Just the blueberry.

So engrossed in it that he didn’t even notice you burning holes with your gaze at his lips sealing around your thumb while he ran his tongue underneath it in short, quick flicks until it was glistening once more, except this time with spit instead of lubricant.

All the while, he traced the clean strip of skin revealed by the parted folds of your robe with a searing hand, starting from the valley of your cleavage between your breasts all the way down the slight convex curve of your torso leading towards the V that marked the point where your thighs began, drawing delicate circles into your navel, slipping downward inch by tantalizing inch in search for hidden oasis.

Taking notice of how wrecked you looked through the curtains of your fingers splayed over his eyes and forehead, Rafayel rewarded you an equally debauched looked as his lips curled into a smirk against your palm.

A loud, viscous pop of your wetness echoed in the room when his fingers tenderly made contact — positively dripping for him. Your mouth flew open upon feeling him draw his forefinger's pad gently against your entrance, lingering teasingly at the seams in an excruciating crawl, tracing lightly around it as you pulsed hungrily against his fingertip.

"So thirsty," he mumbled absentmindedly to himself — mouth watering.

Rafayel pushed open your legs by the backs of your thighs to allow his head better access. If he was on a normal day, he would plant feverish kisses on the insides of your quaking knees and thighs and mark you everywhere, made it more sensual, more teasing, but he was borderline parched — not to mention more impatient than a driver stuck behind a cyclist in a one -lane road.

You yelped at his mouth diving between your legs in reckless abandon. His tongue lapped up your slick in deep, obscene flicks, then plunged inside into the warm haven awaiting him inside, devouring your sweet nectar in loud slurps, uncaring of how sloppy and unrestrained he was currently acting; far too hungry to concern himself over anything save for indulging greedily in your flavor.

"Rafayel, shit, that feels—oh my god..." He had to push your hips down by splaying his hand along the plane of your stomach as you arched helplessly, otherwise you would have simply lifted right off from his greed ravaging you without mercy or restraint. "That's so—you're so—fuck! What—what’s gotten into you? Ahh...!"

Any hope of responding to that died the second your hand tangled itself tightly into his hair and tugged to bring him impossibly closer against you, his head blanking. It felt so good when your heel planted itself onto his shoulder blade and pressed insistently there in a silent plea for more, sending ripples of heat fanning out across his nerve endings in their wake.

Without hesitation, he latched his lips around the swollen bud peaking proudly from beneath a layer of velveteen flesh and flicked upwards, suckling hard before closing around it fully — then rolled his tongue in circles around its rim with the intent to render your world spinning madly with each passing stroke. The fingers locked around your trembling thighs kneaded deeply into their skin, coaxing the delicious, involuntary spasms coursing throughout you until the only thing you knew was the blissful torment his hot mouth wrought.

"You're so delectable on my tongue, did you know? The prettiest moans come pouring out from your lovely lips when I'm between your legs like this," he said, the sentences pieced together like beads on a pearl necklace fragment by fragment between licks and sucks, sounding just short of reverence. "Your taste drives me wild, I swear it's addictive... Am I making it up to you yet? Please say yes. Tell me it's working."

"Yesyesyesyesss—" A sharp inhale cut off anything else you tried to babble further as Rafayel rewarded you with another generous helping of his enthusiasm by diving back in and running his tongue in earnest up through your center. "You feel amazing, you — feel — so — g-good—"

"—don't think that's enough, though. Didn't you call me incompetent earlier?"

"What," you choked out angrily when a puff of warm breaths skated dangerously close to where you were most sensitive. "Oh my god—"

"I hold grudges, cutie. You taught me that," he said in a sing-song reply, lighthearted in tone, nearly drowned out by the thready groans bleeding through.

"I apologized already — what more do you want? Stop teasing, Rafayel!"

A pregnant pause followed as he stared up at you from between your legs, and saw your eyes widen with realization at just what you'd requested.

"As you wish," he relented, a dark edge to his mischievous grin when he rose back up and braced his knees against the mattress better, pulling your hips tight into the cradle of his thighs until one of your legs was thrown over his shoulder. "Have it your way — and don't forget you asked for this."

The slow sink inside your wet heat was traitorously misleading: a gentle, sweet meeting at first that masked what was brewing underneath.

A dragged out whine fanned his flames as you threw your head back. “You asshole—”

"I could have made you come once, twice..." he said, in a smooth purr that dripped sinfully past his lips.

Your mouth fell open on a silent gasp; the first wave of pleasure rolling through you upon being filled suddenly in one deep plunge. Your torso twisted to allow you to hide your face into the curve of his forearm draped next to your shoulder.

"You know I love taking my time with you," he continued, pausing to bury his face into your hair to breathe you in deeply, adjusting your leg to fall from his shoulder straight onto his hip. You took advantage of Rafayel getting close, grabbing onto his back so quickly that you missed the first time and yanked his shirt down to bunch halfway down his midsection and get stuck at his elbows. "And you just had to take that from me. I don't know which one of us is greedier... "

An apology was voiced, muffled by the crook of his elbow, almost incoherent by your gasps.

He cupped your chin and made you look at him. “Are you comfortable? Not hurting you, am I?”

Your throat clicked audibly. Then you shook your head rapidly in answer to both inquiries: yes — no — everything was okay — and Rafayel breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

And then, out of nowhere your fingers started moving around the expanse of his upper back, and before he could question the non-sexual way it came across when he was literally inside you, you said, "You're sweating."

"Yeah...?" Confusion muddled his hazy mind clouded with dull pleasure begging for him to start moving again, but you looked at him with wide, eager expectation dancing behind your expectant eyes — as if you couldn't quite believe what you'd seen.

"No — your temperature. It's still high but you're sweating now," you told him excitedly. "Rafayel — that's huge! This means your body is cooling itself down!"

He huffed.

"Of course it is, I've got the hottest woman in the world under me," he said with a roll of his hips, earning an enthusiastic moan from you in the process. Your arms snaked themselves around the back of his neck tighter until both forearms crossed at their crease, palms moving upwards in an intoxicating drag through the back of his skull. "You the cure to all of this..."

His forehead dropped unceremoniously yours where it stayed, and he sucked in an uneven, shaky groan that tapered into something resembling a whine as he started rutting steadily against you, driving into that spot where you liked it the best with growing desperation with the occasional staccato grunt at the fluttering squeeze and murmured encouragement.

At some point, his mouth wandered towards your pulse, scraped his teeth against it gingerly before latching on it in an open-mouthed kiss that was hard enough to bruise.

You tilted your chin skywards with a sigh to give him better access and tangled your fingers encouragingly deeper into his hair, and something inside him sparked awake in response, a fiery need demanding him to paint every inch of your skin violet, rose and mauve so that it may glow evermore brightly for everyone to see —

"Way too beautiful for your own good... Driving me crazy... Every single day... Couldn't keep my hands off you the moment I got in here..." he hissed furiously as though he were possessed, snapping his hips harder upon finding the angle he desired, searching relentlessly for something within you both to satisfy the frenzied race to the peak taking control of him completely; searing kisses littering everywhere he could reach along the underside of your chin and neck whilst spewing senseless litanies into your skin in between them. "Can't believe I could have this forever... Right? Say I can have this forever. It'll drive me insane if you don't, I swear—"

"Forever," you echoed hoarsely, your nails digging tightly into his scalp as his pace increased once more. "Y-you can have me forever—anytime, wherever—"

Your assurances came with a startled cry of ecstasy as he sank his teeth into the juncture connecting your shoulder and collarbone in a bite that bordered on a savage instinct to ensure he was there, he'd been there, and would always be there. "You're not leaving, are you? Aren't gonna leave me anytime soon, right?

Every syllable was marked with a measured grind into you as if determined to force every word inside your head by burying it deep in your core — imprint it permanently into your brain; until the only thing filling your thoughts was him and him alone. "Not letting you — I'm not letting you. I can’t let you go, it’s too late — too late. Say it. Say it.”

"As — many times as I ne-ed to," you panted underneath him, arching upwards so beautifully for him as his grip loosened marginally to let you find that perfect angle that caused your back to bow like a perfectly tuned instrument in his hands; singing nothing but divine music. "'S not changing, ever. Won't change... Agh!"

His hips bucked in answer to your nails sinking deep into the skin of his shoulders as though clawing for dear life. "Yeah? Yeah? Promise—?"

All you could do was sob into his mouth hungrily swallowing yours — a mess of moans falling endlessly past your lips swallowed whole, accompanied with plaps and slaps of wet thrusting. There'd never be a time when he wasn't craving the taste of your flesh burning scorching white hot against his own, craving more and more until everything blurred into a haze of delirium.

"Tell me... Tell me—hah, tell me, princess. Let me hear it..." His chest rumbled deep within where yours rubbed deliciously against his bare flesh with each fervent roll of his body. Even then, it wasn't nearly enough; couldn't possibly be, not with how ravenously thirsty he was for anything and everything having to do with you: your sounds, your expressions, those intoxicating stares filled with nothing but need for him and only him. Not while his stomach twisted itself in knots tight enough to tie sails and yet remained impossibly empty at the same time, yearning for the sweet relief of gratification flowing freely and quenching his deepest thirst. "Wanna hear you, gotta hear you say it—"

"I'm right here, m'here, not going anywhere, not leaving... I'myours, just don't let go, don't let go of me—"

He heard it as though you were underwater; faint, muffled underneath the thick fog clouding his senses, so indistinct yet simultaneously loud enough to drown out anything else within reach.

Every coherent thought vanished from his mind, melting into thin ribbons streaming across an ocean of red flames, then bursting forth anew into embers scattering throughout his vision in a dizzying display, igniting behind his eyelids with blinding light every time he blinked them closed. When he opened them, new constellations blossomed instantaneously; bright orange ones with maroon tinges shining bright among the black canvas.

"M'not gonna—! Can't let go—couldn't even if I tried. They wouldn't even be able to pry you away from my cold, dead hands."

More vivid blotches appeared before him at random intervals, painting his desert landscape in abstract patterns shifting so erratically they threatened to form fractals at any moment, jagged shapes overlapping and warping themselves until they resembled colorful stains splattered across walls in chaotic messes; or perhaps simply the shadows of clouds skirting the edges of his sight drifting past without a care — all blending together and merging seamlessly as though water droplets bleeding into fine lines until none could tell where one ended and the others began.

"Gonna be... gonna be stuck with me for life," Rafayel said, sounding entirely half out of his mind with the way he was babbling endearments (something about a bride) in-between little laps that trailed upwards along your quivering sternum toward your heaving chest; kissing you so fervently as though possessed, driven wholly by base instincts demanding he give in to whatever compulsion overtook him. "Always been mine. Always. Always—can't ever leave, yeah? I won't forgive you—won't forgive you this time—"

"Rafayel, I'm gonna come, please..." you whispered hoarsely against the crown of his head nestled between your breasts, your hands grasping onto his shoulders helplessly in an attempt at anchoring yourself. "I can't keep going, I'll fall apart. Please, don’t stop, don’t stop—"

One of his fingers slid down to repeatedly flick through your swollen folds, teasing and circling around your clit while his tongue swirled around a nipple; pulling and sucking hungrily with fervent desire, giving a pointed twist once he'd latched on.

"Come for me, then, do it, c'mon, cream all around me, let me have it, let me have this — you can do it, I’ll help you along.” His lower body lifted suddenly, pulling back until only his cockhead remained caught inside; followed by a quiet pop indicating his lips breaking contact from where they were buried in your chest. "I need you so bad I can hardly stand it anymore... Wanna feel you — feel all of you — need all of you..."

All it took was one sudden shift after a steady build-up of rhythm of shallow, quick thrusts: the smallest rotation of his pelvis and thrust straightwards, hips knocking against yours in a violent shove of flesh meeting slick flesh for you to fly apart spectacularly when he buried himself into that specific area right below your cervix.

With a shuddering breath that dissolved instantly into a shrill cry tearing through your throat, your thighs locked tight around his waist — holding him prisoner while your nails sank fiercely into his scratched back as your entire body trembled uncontrollably through the aftermath.

“Yeah, there you go, cutie.” A comforting, grounding caress landed on your forehead, tracing the arc of its curve towards the back of your ear; then repeating itself multiple times in slow, unhurried strokes — to remind you he wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon. “There you are, that was beautiful. You got me seeing stars.”

"It's... It's snowing outside... In the desert," you said faintly, eyelids slow in their blinking, and Rafayel thought how utterly gorgeous you looked, all worn down and exhausted and so drunk in your post-orgasmic euphoria to talk nonsensically about what was happening outside.

"Yeah," he agreed, equally hushed as he peppered a trail of soft kisses across the bridge of your nose. You closed your teary lashes instinctively against the ticklish sensation. "It's so soft... and beautiful..."

You were the snow in his desert. Though, too blissed out to pick up on what he was implying.

Too busy stiffening up when you felt his cock jump inside you.

"You... you're still hard?"

“I didn’t come in the first place, whoops. Busy being too competent, I guess,” he said breezily, tilting his hips so that he pressed deep inside, directly into the tender spot inside you where pleasure flared to life unbidden.

"Let me... Let me rest, fuck, give me a minute..." Your hands scrambled for purchase against his scarred back; anchoring yourself by clawing surface level trenches down along its expanse and dragging red tracks as he continued his grinding in torturously slow and shallow rolls. "Need — I need to catch my breath, you're gonna make me pass out, shit, hold on — !"

Rafayel had you for three more times after that.

The first was the short prologue to what was coming, picked up from where he’d left off in the same position — head buried in your neck, making you tightly embrace him like he’d fly off the earth if he wasn’t held. No sooner did his hips start bucking roughly against yours before he spent himself inside in long pulses that coated you inside in heated spurts, sending sparks rippling out into your limbs from where you clenched weakly around him through your own release that hadn’t yet run its full course.

The prettiest sounds in the whole entire world spilled from him as he pulled out with a schlick, dripping his neglect-thickened seed onto the sheets, and you were naive as to think this was it. You both had indulged yourselves enough for the night, fucked through the absence-abstaining makes the heart fonder phenomenon, it had been fantastic to witness him get so serious. Surely now would be a good time to cool off and step into the bath together now that you’d been able to make him sweat and the sex-heavy humidity clinging thickly to your body was getting more comfortable the more you became aware of it. The room was absolutely boiling, stuffier than a sauna like he’d projected all the heat trapped inside his body everywhere. Perhaps opening up a window wouldn’t hurt…

“That was one,” he said then, staring down at his flushed erection straining proudly between his legs like a compass needle pointed north — the faint strand of semen connecting his tip and stomach swaying and snapping apart. “This isn’t anywhere near enough.”

To your shock, Rafayel got off the bed, hauled you in by your legs until your bottom half was dangling from the bed, and folded you completely in half with no warning. Your legs were pushed against your chest and were hooked over his shoulders, and the speed of with which all of it happened punched out a wheeze from you.

"Can I? Are you okay?" he asked urgently, patting your thigh rapidly twice, pausing — then adding another firm slap there before you nodded hurriedly in confirmation rather than a verbal response, because fuck, his weight holding you down felt absolutely incredible like this.

Your ankles started bobbing in sync with his hip thrusts as he drove deep inside your heat, the sink easy, smooth and soft and the mess you both made between your legs pouring out and splattering everywhere as he kept mumbling, “I can’t stop, I’m sorry, I can’t stop, can’t stop—”

This round lasted longer, though it was the worst frenzy you’d seen Rafayel in. Nothing was slow about it, he was mercilessly pistoning himself into you and unpredictably switching between shallow and deep that had your clit being scraped against and A-spot drilled into. You couldn’t even keep your eyes open from how intense pleasure was kneading you violently like a dough. If it wasn’t for his mouth gluing itself onto yours, the entire floor and the poor downstairs guests probably would have heard what was happening with how loud his moaning became — because he was downright voluntarily overstimulating himself.

With one particularly desperate sob, Rafayel finally buried himself to the hilt within you — throbbing — in harsh jets of liquid fire with jerking, abrupt twitches of his hips, milking himself into your body as he found yet another release that was as intense and concentrated as the previous. You cried brokenly, shuddering as that final thrust abused your clit over the edge of orgasm number two, involuntarily flinching and trying to get away when he pushed all the accumulated, positively flowing stringy mess right back into your puffy cunt with a strange, entranced look on his face. You had to slap his hand away and kick his weight off you, powerless and exhausted and fully feeling like your vagina was gaping and would never close back up.

A soft kiss on your cheek brought you back to earth.

“Still alive?” he croaked, gently maneuvering you higher up the bed and laying you back comfortably. You had to avoid the giant, wet and shining spot that had to be dripping down on the floor at the edge of the bed, face burning as Rafayel’s sweat-drenched forehead leaned against yours. “I’m not going easy on you… I have to say I’m impressed how good you’re taking it.”

You realized, once more with feeling, that he was rock-hard against your hip despite having already come three separate times — two of which had filled you to the point of pouring out of you — and had no sign of calming down any time soon.

He was beyond insatiable.

Though the third and final time was far sweeter, the pace much slower and drawn out as though he’d suddenly regained some sense and clarity. By that time, you were growing deliriously tired, the earlier carnal fucking accommodated itself to you by morphing into tender lovemaking. Rafayel had you on your side, comfortably able to hug pillows and anchor yourself, while straddling your thigh and hooking your other calf over his waist and held it there firmly, out from your space to let you breathe with his back straight. Just looking down at you with obvious, sensual longing to lean down for kisses the entire time and looking so fucked out had been enough to rekindle your desire.

He was driving himself languidly into you, either eyes closed and head thrown back, or focused dead-on at the spot between where he was slipping in and out of you — watching your cunt eagerly swallow his white-coated cock and attempt to suck him right back in each time he pulled out until only his tip remained buried. Over and over.

And eventually, his shaky breaths and sweet sighs started turning into fast-paced, restrained moans. You saw him hanging on the precipice of wanting to go fast again, the tension his body pulled taut like a bowstring about to snap.

At one point, your robe and his shirt had found themselves slingshotted into the far, opposite corners of the room at some point but he still had his pants and was positively drenched in sweat like he’d just taken a bath and shining under the dim lighting.

"Drained all of my stamina, I'm empty, completely dry... I’m gonna need an IV drip. I can’t believe it. This is crazy, you know... I could die happy like this... But I wanna come. I wan—nnah come inside you so bad again, wanna fill you up—make you full with me—"

He went completely motionless and stayed burrowed in you when your palms cupped his face gently, forcing him to look down at you with his shiny eyes. "You've got to calm down first."

“I don’t think I can,” he murmured, panting, “I really can’t. You feel so—”

Your thumbs stroked the outer corners of his eyes with aching tenderness. “We’ll stop and try to calm you down a bit continuing then, okay? Try for me. No need to rush when we have time to ourselves. No one’s going anywhere.”

He stumbled and nearly fell to his elbows on top of you. “Tell me to,” he said, in a begging voice. “You can just tell me to calm down. Anything you want, anything. You know I’ll listen.”

All these months of living with the revelation about the bond and it still came as a shock to you, but you figured if it was for his own good...

So you ordered him: "Calm down and relax, Rafayel. Everything’s fine, you’re okay."

And god, did he listen well.

You were shocked, as you always were each time, to see just how willingly compliant he was. Seeing his body literally change its chemistry to conform itself to your desires and let go of all tension was unbelievable. You immediately felt bad that you’d forced it on him somehow like some admitted, invasive tranquilizer, because you could have made him relax naturally, with your own labor, a glass of water and massage, maybe, gradually work him through it—

“There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t think about it too much. Just focus on me, yeah?” A quiet command that lacked any real intent to order accompanied an equally soft kiss planted softly against the corner of your mouth, and all thoughts went flying out of the window when you saw how mellowly at peace he was, gazing dreamily at you without the slightest care in the world.

After that, everything became a blur once again. But a pleasant one. Slow, like molasses trickling lazily throughout your bloodstream at room temperature — soothing all aches into pleasure-flavored coziness at being joined, no rampant race towards a climax involved. There was no concept of time whatsoever: just the two of you together.

After your pillow talk about what he believed inspired him — what he wanted would, you internally filled in the blanks — and how he was running out of reserves exclusively saved up for the purposes of his art, you had to make it clear to him that there would be no pain involved in your relationship.

You didn’t know if he expected to be hurt by you in the future or implied he had no problem with that happening, but you couldn’t even tolerate him saying those things for the sake of love, or whatever it was. Him being intimately familiar and nonchalant with the concept bothered you down to the bones.

Not only were you trying to work around the huge rock he’d just dropped on top of your heart with the revelation that Aridum had to represent pure suffering to him as a Lemurian, you were also slightly upset he’d wanted to subject himself to it because he was lost more beautiful things in life had made their way into his life to inspire him as well. His paintings, all of them, had taken a new context and an additional layer of tragedy with that revelation, despite the fact that he’d basically said you made him draw from a different fountain and clogged up the other one.

It was a bittersweet happiness to hear Rafayel wanting to explore brighter, happier sides of life together when the sketch he showed you he was working on while you were sleeping depicted a man drowning in the sea and a figure beckoning him from above, close to the surface. Something still very painful.

“That’s one bleak drawing.”

“Depends on what you see.”

“I see a dying man hallucinating. Maybe that’s someone close to him and his brain is comforting him with a vision. I don’t know.”

“Interesting take. Maybe it’s not just a man at all. Maybe it’s a reunion. It looks peaceful, doesn’t it?”

Now you looked again, it did look peaceful. Just like Rafayel was right now, next to you on the bed with his forehead almost touching yours.

"I'd like to think he isn't drowning, then."

Rafayel just smiled.

[wileys-russo]

in the blink of an eye (4) II a.putellas

breaking my impromptu hiatus to bring you something long overdue, part of the in the blink of an eye series in the blink of an eye (4) II a.putellas

“-one ale, por favor just one!” you begged your girlfriend whose face was hidden behind the sunglasses sat on her nose. “no.” the girl replied curtly with a shake of her head, stubborn as ever as you huffed impatiently.

“but mi amor you have such pretty eyes, la más bonita. so let me see them?” you tried again sweetly, hand stroking her cheek as her mouth curled upward into a small smile but still she shook her head, turning and kissing the palm of your hand before you snatched it away as if burned by the touch of her lips.

“amor. por favor i just want a nice picture with you when your face is not hidden behind glasses. just one picture!” you begged her, reaching up to try and take them off yourself as she craned her neck out of the way and you grunted, infuriated at her stubbornness.

“you are saying i do not look nice?” the brunette pouted though you knew it was sarcasm as your eyes narrowed at her. “you know that is not what i mean alexia.” you warned as she grinned wolfishly, the two of you sat down together on a beach seemingly in the middle of nowhere as there was hardly a soul in sight.

“you can take pictures later mi amor, venga. quiero acostarme contigo.” the catalan laid back down and patted your towel, holding her arms out expectantly for you to drop down into them.

the two of you were taking advantage of a rare few days off for the up and coming barcelona superstar, though it had taken your everything to try and convince alexia not to spend it holed away in her apartment reviewing game footage.

“no because later you will just tell me you have had too much sun and you are tired and you are not in the mood for pictures.” you mocked and quirked an eyebrow, knowing your girlfriends games all too well.

“well i am not in the mood for pictures right now and we took some!” the midfielder smiled as you lazily smacked her bare toned stomach. “sí and i want to take one more picture but without your stupid glasses covering your face.” you stared right back down at her as she dropped her arms and sighed.

“just one?” alexia clarified as you nodded and she sat up, wriggling a little so her warm body was pressed right behind yours, a few light kisses to your neck before finally she pushed her sunglasses up and onto her head.

“i take. i have longer arms!” your girlfriend reached for your phone with a wiggle of her fingers as you gave her an odd look. “que? i do princesa! look.” she held out her arm and nodded for you to do the same as your eyes rolled but none the less stretched your own out.

“alexia!” you laughed in surprise as her arm suddenly wrapped around your torso and pulled you down to lay back on the towel when you weren’t expecting it, phone plucked from your grip.

you watched as she swiped to the camera and smiled, tucking your head closer to hers, looking up and squinting a little at the sun baring down on the pair of you as you felt her lips against your cheek and heard the click of camera go off.

“allí, one picture.” alexia handed you your phone back and settled herself, one arm draped across your midsection holding your body firmly against hers as you opened your phone and clicked into the camera roll.

“ale! estás bromeando?” you groaned once you saw the photo, which was taken of the sky above you and not the cute selfie which you’d been angling for and that the brunette had made it seem like she took. “oye, one photo no?” you felt her nose tuck into your collar bone and a cheeky grin against your neck as you rolled away from her with a huff and wrenched her arm off of you.

“sí a photo of us!” you protested as the footballer shuffled closer to amend the gap between the pair of you that you’d created, laying her head on your chest and again draping an arm lazily over your waist. “oh i did not understand mi vida, silly me, lo siento.” alexia pouted mockingly as you glared down at her unimpressed.

“no frowning now bebita, you said one photo without my glasses on. now you can look at that one photo of the sky and know that when it was taken, my glasses were off.” the midfielder mumbled into your tan skin as you groaned again and once more you felt her triumphant smile against you.

“putellas you are so annoying.” you huffed, trying to push her off as she went limp and swatted your hands away, holding onto you tighter and peppering feather light kisses against your sun touched skin. “mm so you like to tell me.” the catalan teased, sitting up a little more so she hovered over you.

to your surprise she made no move to push you away as you reached up and plucked her sunglasses off her face, but you pretended not to notice the way her free hand moved your phone just out of your reach as you couldn’t help but allow your annoyance at her to melt away at her cheeky hazel eyes which bore into your own with a loving stare.

“you cannot always just kiss me to get your own way.” you warned but the smile on your face betrayed the attempted stern tone in your voice as your girlfriend laughed, a melodic sound which caused a warm feeling to spread through you from the tips of your toes.

“no? so i should stop then? no más besos?” the footballer grinned, knocking your legs apart and moving to settle herself between them, ducking down and kissing just beneath where your bikini top covered your chest, strong hands gripping your waist as her thumbs traced circles on your hips, pointer finger teasingly snapping the thin ties which held your bottoms together.

“mm no más besos.” you confirmed with a nod, squirming slightly at the vibrations of her amusement against your stomach, her warm ruby red lips trailing kisses down your torso, chin resting just above your pelvis as her bright eyes locked with yours. 

“i love you.” you exhaled softly, a hand pushing through the mop of wavy brunette hair atop her head. “te quiero más.” your girlfriend spoke up near instantly, another gentle kiss to your stomach as your nails scratched lightly against her scalp.

“alexia! we are at the beach.” you warned with a slight laugh as her next kiss was against the material of your bikini bottoms, tips of your ears going bright red at the familiar wave of feelings which washed over you from the simple gesture.

“no hay nadie.” your girlfriend murmured, cheeky smirk flashed at you as her hands rubbed up and down your sides, causing goosebumps to prickle at your warm skin beneath her touch, the midfielder spurred on by the way your body betrayed you and reacted like clockwork to her knowing touch.

you breathed out and closed your eyes feeling her fingers dance over you, pushing your chest upward a little allowing one hand to slip beneath your back and tug at the ties of your top. “un momento.” one eye cracked open as her touch disappeared and she sat up between your legs, an eyebrow raised curiously toward her.

“sun safety first.” alexia’s lips curled into a wicked grin as she snatched her sunglasses from your hand, slipping them on and wiggling her eyebrows suggestively as you groaned. “moment ruined.” you grumbled as her body flopped down on top of you, soft laughter in your ear as her nose tucked into your neck mumbling how much she adored you, the sweet confessions causing a blush to creep into your features.

“dios mío you are so annoying.”

alexia wasn’t sure what she quite expected to come out of her leaving her number with you, and maybe radio silence should have been at the top of her list but that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt as if you’d broken up with her all over again when days passed and still she hadn’t heard a peep from you.

it also didn’t help that the moment her younger sister learned about what happened she hadn’t stopped letting alexia know exactly what she thought about it, which as she’d gone on and on about over the years was that alexia was wasting her life away pining over you, and that she needed to get over what happened and put herself back out there.

it all fell on deaf ears of course, the footballer having long learned how to tune out alba when she wasn’t saying anything interesting, only this time she was purposefully ignoring her sisters warnings because deep down, she knew there was some truth to them, the thought of letting you go entirely was one far too scary to face at all.

no matter what had happened, you were such a constant force in alexia’s life, her past, and even now her present.

you were like a distant lifeline, a safety net, a coil of rope to be grabbed at when she was fast falling that alexia knew would always be there, but kept just far enough away from her that she wasn’t forced to face the reality that maybe you’d moved on, or worse maybe you weren’t really there at all.

growing up with someone, watching them experience life and all of its ups and downs, falling in love with them despite that and taking the plunge of allowing that person to not only experience life but intertwine their own with yours to make a new one together, was both the most euphoric and downright horrible decision alexia had ever made.

you’d hurt her, there was no doubting that. but she’d also been the one to walk away, albeit without hearing you out much more than a few passionate arguments, one night of what seemed like closure sex and then within a weekend all of alexia’s belongings were gone from the apartment you shared, and so was she.

but as big as barcelona was it felt suffocatingly small when you were trying to avoid someone who seemed to pop up everywhere and appear in everything, even just as the ghost of a memory that once was, so naturally you’d moved away from her and alexia was left knowing that they were right, you never knew how much you missed something until its really gone.

though as time passed, the hurt started to fade a little.

she threw herself into football and assumed you’d be throwing yourself into law school, still an ever so distant ache for you would always be set in her bones, especially on nights where sleep seemed impossible and alexia lay alone in a bed made for two, wishing more than anything that you were there beside her.

she found punishing herself for these thoughts helped to silence them, even just for long enough to let her come up for air out of the sea of regret and anger and anguish she often found herself drowning in when your name was tossed around in passing.

daydreaming about what you might be up to would earn her an extra hour in the gym, a dream in which you appeared leaving her waking up pale as a sheet and flailing around trying to find you, meant she’d run and run until blisters would form on the backs of her heels, the only thing to focus on the sound of her feet hitting the pavement and her lungs screaming for air.

the extra work only meant she improved with football, and now with no distractions she was able to immerse herself fully, dedicated and driven by something everyone wondered what but no one but alexia knew the answer, which of course was that it was you.

some things despite punishments alexia’s mind couldn’t help but constantly stray to.

did you ever watch her games? face hidden in the sea of thousands but maybe with a small smile? had you seen her in passing when you returned to visit your family? were you proud of her? did you too spend nights laying awake wondering how it might feel if she was beside you? did you have someone else occupying that side of the bed now?

did you ever think about her the way she thought of you?

up until now alexia had begrudgingly accepted these questions would go unanswered. but then one day when she was busy trying to convince herself her thoughts had turned into delusions and she really needed a coffee, just a few feet away, not a mirage or a hallucination like alexia assumed, there you were.

only there you were with a new woman, a new baby, a new life, and one in which alexia had no part in at all. 

yet there you were still the same girl with crooked eyeliner and a kind smile she’d been forced to stand beside in line for the bathroom at some concert alba had dragged her to when she was a teenager and wasn’t allowed to go alone. 

the same girl who hated olives, the same girl who had the laugh of an angel but sang like a dying cat and made alexia laugh so hard her stomach hurt the way nobody else ever had, the same girl who knew what alexia needed before she did, the same girl whom she loved so fiercely it almost consumed you both. 

there you were, the same twenty three year old whose eyes screamed pity when alexia was down on one knee before you, who yelled until her voice cracked about how much you loved her but your answer wouldn’t change, the same girl who ran miles around her mind like an olympic track star, the same girl who after years and years of trying to convince herself she was over, alexia was still mildly, horribly and undoubtedly head over heels in love with.

the same girl who alexia hoped to see as she lurked the aisles of the grocery store near your apartment. 

really she could use the excuse that it was the closest store to the training ground, but as the midfielder stared at loaves of bread she didn’t need, purposefully taking her time hoping that by some slim chance she might bump into you, she thought perhaps this was finally a step too far.

she’d been in here three times already this week, with two unopened bottles of milk, a loaf of stale sourdough, three bananas and a pack of spearmint gum to show for it. she was almost certain the young girl tending the checkout likely thought she was crazy, or had some sort of compulsive disorder which meant she needed to come in every day and buy the most bizarre and seemingly random item she could.

with yet another loaf of sourdough in hand she made a mental note to drop off to her mami on her way home so it got some use, alexia was ready to call it, the paranoid guilt that her behaviour was now bordering obsessive with her loitering around the neighbourhood you resided in trying to force some sort of ‘natural’ coincidence in which you’d bump into one another like those horridly cheesy english romantic comedies mapi was always telling her about at training.

if alexia was a bull you were the red flag that got her to bite every time without fail, the colossal tidal wave of feelings which crashed over her head around you came when out of nowhere you were flashed in front of her eyes and her heart did a back flip, a switch flipped in her brain which until recently had begun to grow dusty, almost forgotten about.

the cashier was right, alexia was crazy, and you’d driven her to it. 

so crazy that she could almost swore she could hear you right now, the all too familiar notes of your voice carrying through the small local grocer to the point she knew it was time for her to leave, you may have made alexia crazy but auditory hallucinations was just the thing to send her diving her over the edge into insanity.

dropping the loaf of bread in hand not particularly in the mood for a snarky comment and the roll of the angsty teen cashiers eyes alexia began to mumble polite apologies as she squeezed her way down the aisle, dodging and swerving shopping carts, small children and people old and young alike.

she almost missed it.

“aye dios mio posie please! ten more minutes and we will be done and we can go home nena, i promise.” you begged quietly, your heart rate spiking as the three year olds face just went redder and redder and you knew you were rapidly running out of time before her grumbling and whining and crying turned into a full blown level ten tantrum.

she wasn’t well, and neither was your mami who you had a sneaking suspicion had passed on her cold to the tiny sniffling three year old who had not wanted to leave the house today but you needed food desperately and you didn’t have anyone to watch her. 

with your mami out of action and the young girl who babysat posie away on holidays for the week with her family you’d had to call in sick to work to look after your niece, your boss warning that if this happened again so last minute you’d be out of a job your chest had been tight with anxiety all day.

with posie being so young and her temperature soaring you’d panicked and taken her to the doctor who informed all she could do was take some cough medicine and decongestant and wait it out. you tried to remember exactly what it was that made you feel better when you weren’t well, but nothing seemed to work as posie only grew more and more grumpy and tearful.

crying for her mami all you could do was hold her and do your best not to break down along with her, because her mami wasn’t coming to help either of you and there wasn’t a single thing in the world that could change that.

eventually she’d exhausted herself so much she’d fallen asleep curled up on your lap, your nails scratching her back the same way natalia had always done for you when you were upset and only a little older than posie, and when she woke up she seemed to have a slight bit more colour in her face.

with an hour free from tears to actually think you’d used your free hand to google and decided the best course of action to try and make her feel better bar a lot of cuddles would be the same soup your abuela had made whenever she would visit in the winter.

it was warm and comforting and always made you feel safe. and you wanted posie to feel safe with you because you were all each other had right now that was familiar, and you weren’t going to disgrace your sisters name by failing the one thing she’d actually entrusted you with.

though on days like this, you wondered if she’d really made the right call.

once the two of you arrived at the store posie’s mood went from bad to worse and you promised her over and over this would be fast. but her little ears were blocked which you knew was painful, her eyes were sensitive so the harsh glare of the store wasn’t helping, but neither did the sunglasses you tried to offer her that she would often wear around when feeling a little shy, those were thrown on the ground and broke which was what head lead to the beginnings of the meltdown you could see was hurtling toward you like a freight train.

“we can watch whatever you want, have chocolate cookies, a dance party, you do not even have to take a nap today! see nena? no naps, just fun!” you’d given up on any sort of rationality and societally functional parenting, ignoring the overtly judgemental glances from the older woman to your right whose eyes raked over you in a mix of both pity and disgust at your attempts at bribery.

you yourself were already overstimulated in the small store. it was busier than usual, aisles crowded and chatter loud, someone had left one of the doors of the cold wall open meaning there was a constant drip drip drip sounding as the tears of condensation trailed slowly down the fogged up glass, a chill breeze wafting from the shelves and shelves of frozen bagged vegetables standing the hairs on the back of your neck to attention.

you had another seven things on your list, seven. if you could just get the small girl to calm down enough to allow you even five more minutes you’d be done and home and you could deal with the consequences of bribery later.

only you didn’t even get the chance to take a breath when finally her sniffles stopped and you foolishly thought that was that and you’d solved it, silenced her crying with promises of chocolate and god awful childrens tunes that made you want to tear your hair out with each and every song that seemed to get faster and louder and al the more stuck in your head for days and days afterwards.

“no, no, no, NO!” you winced as finally the dam broke and a blood curdling scream left the small blondes mouth, your eyes widening in panic and before you could even process what was happening you’d grabbed posie and yanked her up and out of the seat of the shopping cart.

a hand covering her mouth you ignored the little teeth which sank into the flesh of your palm and her tiny fists which gripped and twisted your shirt in her hands.

screams muffled, blood pumping and heart racing as you all but sprinted out of the store, knocking into people and not even able to get out an apology for fear of if you opened your mouth you might scream or cry too.

you heard the snide comments, the disapproving tuts, the pitiful sighs, and there was a time you might have turned around and snapped back but today they all fell on deaf ears as you abandoned the groceries you’d spent the last half an hour collecting, shooting out the automatic doors and flying across the carpark.

you weren’t sure who you were apologising to whether it be your niece, the universe or god forbid your sister likely looking down on you in disappointment, but all you could do was mumble how sorry you were as you clumsily fumbled with the straps of the car seat, hands shaking like leaves as posie continued to wail and scream like a banshee.

you thought someone came over to you at some point to try and help but if they did you’d entirely zoned them out, the moment the buckles clicked together the door was slammed and by the time you blinked you were both safely in the shelter of the car, doors locked and windows up protecting you from the harsh scrutiny of the outside world.

alexia scoffed as she felt someone barrel into her, wincing as a scream ripped through her ears and her shoulder throbbed where it had been rammed, catching a glimpse of a young woman darting out the doors carrying a toddler who seemed determined to break the sound barrier with her crying.

but then as she squinted a little, rubbing her shoulder and hearing an elderly gentleman grumble behind her about how no one knew what the word discipline was these days and all a screaming baby needed a was clip round the ears, she realised it wasn’t just anyone.

it was you.

alexia’s eyes widened and the disapproving chatter of the supermarket ceased, her hazel eyes watching as you fumbled clumsily with something, a store worker approaching to see if you were okay but pushed away as you shrugged off her hand.

alexia wanted to take a step forward but her feet were cemented to the floor, watching as her heartbeat thumped in her ears and moments later the car you’d fled too was peeling out of the carpark, once again leaving her yearning for even another second of your time.

with a defeated sigh alexia glared down at her feet, muttering under her breath about the betrayal and glancing over her shoulder as yet another person made an offhand comment about your seeming lack of parenting skills, watching two middle aged woman point to an abandoned shopping cart full of food and roll their eyes.

then the cogs started to turn in her head, taking a quick stock of what she could recognise in the forgone shopping cart, and suddenly a lightbulb flashed in her head of just how she could try to see you again, if not just try to be the supportive ‘friend’ her mami seemed to think she should be.

alexia paused as she made her way to what she was hoping was your abandoned cart, stiffening as the same pair of women continued to chatter away to one another about you, the judgement thick and the lack of understanding astounding as alexia counted to three, a hand on the cart as she turned and cleared her throat.

“métete en tus asuntos, tener vergüenza! i am sure she is doing her best.”

~

you exhaled heavily as finally posie had gone down for a nap, stopping her screaming the moment you’d walked through the threshold of the apartment, which then promptly turned to sobs and a refusal to let go of you, the two of you laying down together for an hour before the tiny girl had once again exhausted herself to sleep and you were able to ever so gently pry her fingers from where they clung onto your shirt.

you really needed to research what happened to children who frequently cried themselves to sleep, yet another thing for you to spiral down a rabbit hole over and unpack in therapy, not that you’d been able to find time to make an appointment for a month now.

“tienes que estar bromeando.” you sighed, running your hands down your face as you stared at the scarily empty fridge in front of you, which seemed to be taunting you, jolting in surprise as it beeped angrily and you swore under your breath and slammed it close.

“un día desde el infierno!” you groaned as with the force in which the door slammed close several pictures and magnets went clattering to the ground, watching a few of them roll under the fridge as you hung your head and dropped down to the floor in defeat.

“dios mio i need to clean under here.” you muttered as you stuck your hand in the tiny space, feeling around blindly, a rapid few knocks at the door causing you to jolt in shock again, shooting up and smacking your head against the fridge door which hadn’t closed properly when you slammed it.

“por el amor de dios!” you grunted, clutching at your head as there was another series of knocks at the door and you managed to pull yourself up to your feet using the back of the couch. “ya voy!” you called out, rubbing your forehead with a wince as you could already feel a small bump forming and hobbled your way to the front door.

however when you opened it, you couldn’t have been any less prepared for the sight that greeted you.

food, bags and bags of food, were laid at your feet as you frowned, noticing a few things you’d left in the shopping cart on the top of one of the bags as you bent down a little and rifled through one, quickly realising this was in fact everything you’d left behind.

your head snapped up and scanned the hallway as there wasn’t anyone in sight, however all you caught was a flash of blonde and a familiar tattoo disappearing into the elevator before you could even say a single word.

~

“alexia, do you need us to get one of the staff?” alexia paused her conversation with irene, glancing curiously toward ingrid who didn’t meet her gaze, looking off ahead of them as alexia turned to try and see what she was watching.

“oh no no, alexia will not be the one who needs security.” mapi grinned knowingly, having already spotted the girl waiting by alexia’s car, the underground parking lot under renovation meaning they’d all needed to park just outside the training grounds for the week.

“but why would-” ingrid frowned as mapi clicked her tongue catching her attention, her and her girlfriend seeming to have a silent conversation and the norwegians face perked up in realisation. 

“oh! that is-” though ingrid seemed to realise maybe announcing that the girl who’d turned down alexia’s proposal…was the girl who turned down alexias proposal in front of alexia herself, may not be her best move.

“she is back? and you two are…” irene asked, eyes wide with surprise as alexia felt her cheeks heat up a little and quickly shoot her head. “no no, she is back but we are, we are not anything.” she winced at how uncertain she sounded, mapi snickering and grunting as ingrid shoved her with a warning look.

“but you want to be-” “we will give you some privacy.”

the tattooed defender couldn’t even finish her sentence before ingrid grabbed the strap of her training bag, yanking her off and away as irene squeezed her shoulder supportively and headed off toward her own car, alexia stopped in her tracks as her feet failed her for a second time this week.

unsure if she’d realised it was you and rapidly starting to think maybe just showing up unannounced may not have been the best idea, you awkwardly raised your hand in greeting, alexia slowly doing the same as she finally continued her walk over to you.

“hola?” “hola.”

the two of you exchanged somewhat shy greetings, alexias hands fiddling with the zipper of her bag as you stood up straighter and gave her a small smile, though it was enough to have alexia’s stomach lurking and her knees wobbling.

“gracias.” you started, meeting alexias confused stare with a knowing one and softening as the tips of her ears went pink and she rocked back and forth on her feet.

“de nada.” she mumbled, unable to meet your eyes as you smiled. “lucky for me you were in the same shop at the same time as me, no?” you questioned and alexia stumbled over her words for a minute trying to come up with a logical response.

but then she noticed the way your nose was slightly scrunched, eyes narrowed a little and the dimples in the corner of your mouth were like little half moons.

teasing, you were only teasing her.

“está todo bien? with the nena uh…” alexia frowned, hating the way her mind had gone blank around you, struggling to remember as you chuckled, finding her confusion and concentration quite endearing. “posie.” you put her out of her misery as she sighed with a curt nod.

the nena in question was with anna, once a week the woman would take her for some food and talk to her as best you can to a three year old about the quality of care she was getting, posie thankfully feeling a lot better now it had been a few days.

you’d been wanting to try and find and thank alexia but all of your concern was with your niece, trying to screw your head back on and pick up the pieces, because if you weren’t standing on stable ground then how could you expect to provide that for posie?

“sí, posie.” alexia corrected as you now sighed, spinning one of your rings around your finger as you gave a small shrug. “she is better, had a cold. but my mami was also sick and could not look after her and i was supposed to be at work and i wanted to make soup and we had no food and posie needed-” you caught yourself as you slipped and began to ramble, face heating up as you stopped and mumbled an apology.

“how did you know i was here?” the blonde blurted out, wishing the ground would swallow her up as she didn’t give herself a moment to think before the words came falling from her mouth. 

“when are you not here?” you challenged, alexia letting out a quiet laugh which had your stomach turning and a whole lot of feelings you’d pushed deep deep deep down fighting to bubble back up as you felt a little nauseous, coming back down to earth as you rummaged around in the bag slung over your shoulder.

“for the food.” you held out some money as alexias eyes widened. “alexia.” your tone became a little stricter seeing she was about to decline, pushing it forward toward her more. “no, no hay necesidad.” sure enough, there it was.

“alexia, please.” you sighed, pushing it toward her again as her hand grabbed yours and pushed it right back to you. “no.” she shook her head stubbornly, quickly moving around you as her car beeped and she popped the boot, dropping her bag in.

“ale-” “no.” “but you-” “no-” “oh you are so-” “no.”

you wanted to be annoyed at her but the slightly cheeky smile she flicked your way as she closed the boot had all of that melting away. “is the only word you know, no?” you sighed, a small smile tugging at your lips as alexia shrugged, leaning against her car and again battering away your hand as you tried to offer the money. “no.” she parroted again as your eyes rolled and she gave a small grin clearly pleased with herself.

and at the sight you couldn’t help yourself, and the words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think through the consequences of them in any way at all.

“do you want to get a coffee?”

[whipped-for-kpop-fics]

Life's A Beach - K.MG

🌊Who: Kim Mingyu (Seventeen) x female reader 🌊What: Smut, some fluff I guess? Strangers to lovers. Lifeguard Mingyu!!! 🌊Wordcount: 7.3k 🌊Warnings: Profanity. Quick joke about burying a body on the beach. Slight drowning, it’s not graphic and it’s very quick all in all. Passing mention of panic. Probably excessive use of “baby”. Semi-public sex, oral (female receiving), fingering, big dick Mingyu, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms(f), messy Mingyu, choking, a single solitary spank, mentions of bruising. 

Summary: You don’t like the beach, but you do like the handsome lifeguard who works there. As it turns out, he likes you too and is more than willing to risk his job to have you.

Minors do NOT interact, which means reblogging and/or commenting on this story. I WILL block any account that interacts without an age indicator in their bio.

-2024 Masterlist-

A/N- Happy birthday to my beanie @ourdawnishotterthanourday , I know I said this was to prepare for a Christmas gift but I lied hehe oops. Hope you like it, my love 💗

Thank you @okiedokrie for the very last minute beta! 💕

A few weeks ago, your best friend managed to succeed in convincing you to go to the beach after some very effective emotional manipulation in the form of puppy eyes and pouting at you. She had promised you’d enjoy yourself and admittedly, you did, but not because of the beach itself. Still, she used your enjoyment to convince you to return a few days later, and then another few more and soon enough the two of you seem to spend more time at the beach than your homes in your free time.

Now, the reason for your interest in attending the sand and seas despite liking neither of those things is pretty simple. The eye candy. One particular hunk of a man with a sweet smile, in particular.

You have no idea what his name is, you’ve never spoken to him nor been in close proximity but that doesn’t deter you from setting up in that same spot under the parasol for a few hours every few days at roughly the same time just to watch Mr Hunky Lifeguard do his rounds strolling topless up and down the sand and helping where he can. 

It’s sweet, the way he’ll help anyone who asks, even with matters you’re very certain are not a part of his job description. Judging impromptu sandcastle contests between kids. Blowing up beach balls. Helping older folk set up their beach chairs and parasols. 

You can’t help but wonder if he’d help you apply sunscreen. His warm hands slipping over your thighs, working up and up and-

“Hey!” The voice of your best friend breaks you from your fantasies as she skips over happily, hands cupped and before she’s even close enough, you already know what’s in her hands. “Check this out!” She drops onto her knees at your side to proudly show you…a little crab. So not another shell to add to the pile gathering on the sand to your right as you assumed. 

“A crab,” 

“Yes,” 

“I thought you were looking for shells to decorate your castle with?” You both look over at the half-finished and admittedly, rather grand, sandcastle a little to the side, safely out of the way from any passerby. 

“Every castle needs a King, don’t you think he’ll look crabulous on his throne?” You look back at your best friend to find her grinning at you, proud of her joke. 

“Go find shells.” You deadpan, she just giggles and gets up to return to the rockpool where she had found the crab to return it to its home.

Thoroughly distracted from your fantasies of the hot lifeguard, you have honestly forgotten about it and also happened to have lost track of him. Last you saw him, he was up on the deck of the watch tower, peering over the beach through binoculars yet now, he’s nowhere to be seen.

With a disappointed sigh, you decide to just relax, leaning back against the bags you’ve piled up to create an impromptu backrest and go back to reading your book. 

It’s not even ten minutes later when a figure blocks your light and casts a shadow over your pages. You immediately assume it’s your friend from the way the figure lingers and lift your head with every intention of accepting whatever funky patterned rock or shell she’s found this time, yet it’s not her who you spot, but Mr Hunky Lifeguard himself. 

“Hi,” he greets, hands on his hips and smiling at you in that bright friendly way you’ve noticed him smiling at everyone else. 

You take the moment with him so close to quickly rake your hidden gaze over his exposed, sunkissed, toned torso and arms. Praise be to whoever invented dark sunglasses. “Hello.”

“Family day out?” He questions, motioning to the pile of plastic beach toys by the sandcastle on your right, causing you to look over and only then realise how it must look; that you’re here with your child, not your grown ass adult of a best friend. 

“Not exactly,” You huff a laugh and lean aside a little to peer around him. “My best friend.” You declare upon spotting said person and pointing to her. To your surprise, she’s squatting with another lifeguard, this one wearing the same red shorts though he’s got a white sleeveless t-shirt on, and rummaging through the sand with your friend. 

“Oh,” The man in front of you lets out a surprised little laugh when he looks over too. “I’ve never seen Vernon interact like that with a stranger. Unless they know each other?” 

“Not that I’m aware of,” You shrug and look back up at the tall man in time to see his body angle back around to give you his full attention. You briefly wonder who exactly is looking over this section of the beach when both lifeguards are currently distracted on the sand. 

“Huh, okay. I’m Mingyu,” He takes a step closer to lean over and offers his hand to you. Your gaze catches on the chain around his neck and the way it swings as he leans over. You want to reach out and grab it, yank him down and defile the beach together. 

But that would get you arrested and you really don’t want that. So you lean up onto your knees to accept his hand to shake and tell him your name in return. 

“Mm, pretty,” He hums, looking at you over the top of his dark sunglasses with a lopsided little smile. It feels flirty as fuck, but you don’t want to make assumptions that this beautiful man is interested in you. 

“Oh, thank you.” You smile a little and take your hand back yet remain on your knees, feet tucked comfortably under you as he straightens up. You can’t help but think about the fact that if he was a few feet closer, you’d be face height with his dick and within reaching distance. 

“You must really like the beach.” 

“Huh?” You blink away the fantasy of slobbering all over Mingyu’s cock and seeing how pretty he looks when he cums down your throat, or maybe on your face, that’d be nice too. 

“I said you must really like the beach, I’ve seen you here almost every day for almost a month now.” 

“You noticed me?” You mutter in shock. 

“Uhm-” Mingyu rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, his confident stance melting away as his shoulders curve in and make him appear smaller. Embarrassed. Cute. “I-It’s my job. To notice things. People. You know. To ma-make sure people are safe.” 

“I see.” You hum and tilt your head a little without even noticing, amused and endeared by him. 

As if he isn’t already attractive enough just by existing, talking to him and realising he’s got this cute shy side definitely draws you in further.

“Y-yep!” He laughs awkwardly and straightens to his full height again while putting his hands on his hips again. “Well, I should get back to it. Nice to meet you!” And then he rushes off before you can even respond, leaving you watching him scuttle off and almost trip over a stray sandal in the sand making you snicker. 

Mingyu flails to right himself and then immediately looks over at you to see if you noticed. Realising that you had definitely seen him almost faceplant the sand, he gives an awkward embarrassed little wave before turning and rushing off, quickly putting his face in his palms as he goes.

And just like that, the beach gets that much more interesting.

It’s a handful of days before you return to the beach, you had been busy with work, unfortunately, so you simply hadn’t had the time or energy to take the trip.

“I’m gonna dig a giant fucking hole today.” Your best friend declares as you both put down your items in your usual spot and start to set up. 

“To bury me? Work killed me, babe.” You retort dramatically.

“Please don’t bury bodies on the beach.” The voice makes you jump over and to your surprise, a dripping wet Mingyu is standing a little behind you. “Hi,” 

“Hi,” You reply dumbly, doing your utmost to not oogle his shimmering chest, or the flex of his bicep as he lifts a hand to run his fingers through his wet hair to stop the salty water dripping over his face. You’re once again very glad for tinted sunglasses. 

“You’re wet,” Your best friend comments, making you both look at her where she’s standing and looking between you both over the top of her sunglasses, where you’re very certain she’s lowered them down her nose just to give you both this very pointed look. 

“I was teaching a kid to swim, of course I’m wet.” Mingyu chuckles, motioning over his shoulder with his thumb in the direction of the sea behind him.

“Wasn’t talking to you.” Your best friend gives you a final look before pushing her sunglasses back up into place. “I’ll leave you to set up, I have places to be.” With that, she turns and walks off in the direction of the snack carts and shacks further down the beach leaving you and Mingyu alone. 

You appreciate that, the alone time with the attractive man, but what you don’t appreciate is having to set up on your own. “She could’ve at least opened the parasol first.” You mutter to yourself, looking at the giant umbrella in disdain. 

“I can help!” Mingyu offers, bounding forward before you can even answer, to pick up the umbrella from the sand, biceps flexing as he moves. “Where do you want it?” 

“Right here,” You reply without thought. He hums in understanding, even if he doesn’t truly understand because you were definitely thinking about where you want him to rail you when you answered, not where you want the parasol set up. 

Still, Mingyu sets the parasol up and it is in the right place so you find no reason to correct yourself and instead thank him and get to work setting up the mat. 

To your pleased surprise, Mingyu sticks around to help you finish setting up everything, making friendly conversation as he goes and smiling brighter every time he makes you laugh. 

You wish he would keep you company for longer but his walkie-talkie crackles to life and announces that he’s needed so he leaves you with a smile and waves at you when he looks over his shoulder after jogging a little away. 

It makes you feel all warm inside, how he seems to be genuinely interested in being near you, you just hope it doesn’t take another three weeks before he decides to make a move if he plans to. You’re not confident enough yourself to make that move, you’d be utterly mortified if you’ve read this all wrong and he’s just being a genuinely nice guy who goes above and beyond for his job. 

So you just settle down with a new book and hold that hope next to that sun shining in your chest.

“This is perhaps the dumbest idea we’ve had and gone through with.” Your best friend comments as the two of you stand ankle-deep in the sea with the rented surfboards ready for your lesson with one of the two men who run the surf supply shack.

“You signed us up,” You point out, both of you watching the man in question as he removes his t-shirt on the shore to toss at his co-worker who rolls his eyes. 

You know the co-worker personally but more because he somehow knows your best friend. His name is Joshua and he, according to your bestie, had purposely set up this lesson with his co-worker, Seungcheol, because Joshua owes her for something or other. Honestly, you long ago stopped trying to keep track of the shenanigans of your bestie. Wisely too.

“Sorry about that, Shua had to tell me something.” Seungcheol apologises as he walks over to join you two, sans surfboard of his own, confusing you but you don’t point it out.

“Sounds ominous.” You declare.

“No,” He chuckles and motions to your best friend who points at herself with wide eyes, sunglasses propped on Joshua’s head so they don’t get lost to sea, while yours are with your belongings. “Shua said you have really bad balance so I should probably hold onto you.” 

“Terrible balance.” Your best friend agrees seriously without missing a beat, even if you know she’s lying at least a little. 

It takes everything in you to not burst into laughter. Clearly, Joshua is very aware that your bestie has been thirsting over his co-worker since she first saw him. Admittedly, you have been too but most of your attention has been on The Hunky Lifeguard now officially known as Mingyu.

“Okay, so is it okay if I hold onto you to help?” Seungcheol checks, expression giving away that he truly has no idea that this is some kind of a set-up and is genuinely just concerned for his student’s safety.

“Full consent to touch me however you want.” Your best friend agrees, making Seungcheol smile, entirely missing the depravity hiding in her words. 

You have to look away to take a few breaths to calm yourself before you break, and happen to notice Mingyu up on the watchtower deck, looking through his binoculars. You can’t be certain but it looks like he’s got them pointed in your direction. You don’t want to be delusional so convince yourself that even if he is, he’s not focused on you specifically. 

Spoiler, he definitely is.

“Alright,” Seungcheol claps his hands together, making you jump a little and turn back to him and catch his adorable gummy smile. “Let’s get this lesson started, shall we ladies?”

Honestly, the lesson with Seungcheol goes a lot better than expected, he takes it very seriously and pays careful attention to you both. You hadn’t expected to get anywhere close to standing on the board in the water but with his careful guidance even with his hands hovering around your friend to aid her oh so terrible balance if need be, you get your feet under you. 

After a few more tries, you manage to get almost entirely upright while Seungcheol and your friend cheer you on supportively. 

And then you make a giant fucking mistake. 

Before you’re even upright, you lift your head just enough to peer around naturally and notice Mingyu in all his topless, red short glory jogging along the beach looking like everything out of a Baywatch themed porno with his pecs bouncing with fucking every step. And as if that’s not bad enough, the man clearly is packing something very special in his shorts because you notice that bouncing too. 

Next thing you know, you’re toppling into the water so suddenly that you inhale in shock a second before you hit the sea’s surface, allowing salty water to pour into your open mouth and trickle into your lungs. 

It’s barely a second that you’re under the water before a strong arm is around your waist and heaving you up into the air while you sputter, panic starting to seize your body. 

“Move!” You hear as you’re laid down on the sand by the strong arms, though the voice is coming from elsewhere.

“I can handle this, Gyu,” This voice is right over you, the owner of the arms and you vaguely register it as Seungcheol, but you’re too busy coughing up seawater to open your eyes or give him or the other any attention.

“I’ve got it, Cheol.” Mingyu assures. 

There’s a heavy sigh and then those strong hands leave your body and you feel Seungcheol back away while other hands touch you gently, helping to remain on your side. 

“That’s it, you’re okay, I’ve got you.” Mingyu’s voice is soft and soothing where he’s hovering over you in concern, one hand rubbing over your arm and the other pushing your hair back. 

Luckily, the whole ordeal only lasts a handful of minutes and then you’re okay, breath stuttered and throat a little sore but fine otherwise. 

When you roll onto your back and open your eyes, you find Mingyu right there, leaning over you and backlit by the sun he’s purposely blocking from shining right in your eyes. Like your own personal guardian angel. Or something more poetic. 

You can be given a break from being unable to wax poetry about this beautiful specimen of humanity before you, considering what you’re going through. And no, not the just inhaling seawater thing. 

But the whole, he’s leaning over you topless with that damn silver chain dangling inches from your face, thing. Just a little closer and you could bite it. 

You wonder if he’d find that weird. Probably. You still want to do it though.

“Hey,” He gives you a tender kind of smile when you lift your eyes from his chain to meet his relieved, soft gaze. “You okay?” You just nod, pretty sure you’d say something highly inappropriate if you open your mouth.

“I dunno, I think she might need you to watch over her, Mr Lifeguard.” Your best friend speaks up. You peer at her from the corner of your eyes and find her standing beside Seungcheol with a little smirk on her face as she looks between you and Mingyu. “Maybe you should take her up to the watchtower and keep a close eye on her, just in case.” 

“She doesn’t need that,” Seungcheol points out simply, definitely unaware that your friend is trying to set up a situation for you and the man you’ve been thirsting over for weeks.

“No, no, she’s right.” Mingyu argues quickly as he shakes his head and turns to you to help you sit up and then get to your feet to stand with him. “I should definitely keep a close eye on her, she almost drowned, Cheol-” 

“She’s fine,” Seungcheol’s mutter is neither heard nor considered as Mingyu continues to talk over him as if the man said nothing. 

“So I’ll take her to the watch tower for a while until she’s feeling all better, sounds okay?” He looks at you. You just nod.

“Make her feel all better, Mr Lifeguard.” Your bestie encourages with a nod and thumbs up. 

Mingyu returns it and you’re not certain he actually gets what your friend is insinuating but you don’t really care. Whether he understands or not, you’re getting alone time with Mingyu and that’s all that matters. Bless your bestie for always trying to get you laid.

As you walk up the stairs to the watchtower, Mingyu walks a few steps behind you, a hand on your lower back gently, the same place it has been since the two of you started to walk across the sand. It’s still there when he opens the door and you two enter the building. 

“Hey,” Vernon, the lifeguard your bestie apparently befriended the other day, greets looking over from where he’s sitting at the control desk facing the large windows that oversee the beach. “Oh,” He mutters, eyes widening a little as he looks between you and Mingyu, clearly taking in the sight of the tall man’s hand on your back. “You know, I think I’m going to go get some air for a bit.” 

“Okay,” Mingyu agrees, giving Vernon a grateful look as the shorter man vacates the building without even grabbing his walkie-talkie from the desk. 

At Mingyu’s gentle nudge, you move further into the building allowing him to shut the door.

“I’ll grab you a towel.” He declares, moving over to the cupboards while you decide to check out the view from the window. 

From here you can see the entire section of the beach, especially when you pick up the binoculars Vernon left on the desk and peer through them. It’s pretty interesting, being able to watch over everyone like that and see everything while they no doubt don’t even consider the eyes on them from above. 

“Can they see us?” You wonder, lowering the binoculars to look at Mingyu as he approaches with a towel in hand. 

“I mean sure, if they try hard enough at other times of day but the sun is in the right position to just reflect on the glass at the moment. So right now, no, nobody can see us.” He informs, stopping perhaps a little closer than necessary. Paired with the information that nobody would even see if he fucked you right against the window, well heat flares in your stomach.

“Have you tested that?” 

“Mm, a few times.” 

“How?” 

Mingyu tilts his head a little at you and as you haven’t accepted the towel, too focused on the conversation, he puts it down on the desk and gently takes the binoculars from your hands to also put down. “What do you mean, how? By looking up from outside.” 

“Right.” You hum and turn your head to look back out of the window.

“What were you expecting?” He chuckles lowly. You feel him move a little closer, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating from his bare chest. “Hm?” You shrug. “Tell me,” 

“Just…you know.” You shrug again and although you can barely feel it through the wet material of the rash guard on your torso, the gentle press of his fingers on your back makes you shiver a little. 

“You should get out of this and dry off.” He suggests while running his hand up the length of your back and around your neck to the zipper in the middle of your throat. 

“I might need some help getting it off.” You reply. “Things being wet makes things harder.” 

“Oh, I know.” You’re very certain that you’re both talking in double entendre now and look at him over your shoulder as you turn your back to him a little more to give him better access.

For a weighted moment, nothing happens, just heavy eye contact as if you’re both waiting for the other to take a step backwards and prove your suspicions of the rising tension between you to be false. 

Yet you both stay in place.

You feel a slight tug against your neck, barely noticeable but it makes your body burn a little hotter as he slowly tugs down the zipper to your clavicle before stopping.

“Face me.” He mutters, adjusting his own stance to fully face you. You immediately comply and turn so you’re face to face, all without him removing his grip on the pull of your zipper. 

Then he’s back to dragging the zip down, over your breasts where his knuckles brush a little making your breath catch before his hand moves on to finish the path to open the zip all the way to where it stops at your belly button.

Mingyu only then breaks eye contact to look down at the glimpse of skin he can see now with the zipper open. “This is a one piece?” He checks, noticing how the material of the rashguard vanishes into your shorts. You hum in confirmation and then he’s lowering to his knees in front of you to tuck his fingers into the waistband of your shorts. 

He glances up at you, checking that this is okay and when you nod, he gives you a little smile before turning his full attention back down to watch the shorts move down your thighs with the help of his hands.

“Can you-” He starts once you’ve stepped out of the shorts and he’s tossed them aside, but when he looks up at you, you’re already working on pulling the front of your rash guard open, revealing your chest little by little, covered only by the little bikini you bought specifically to wear with the rashguard. “That.” Mingyu swallows thickly, watching more skin get revealed until you start to struggle to get the wet material down your shoulders. 

Without a word, Mingyu gets up onto his knees as tall as he can without getting up to reach out and grip the material to ease it over your shoulders and down your arms. 

“You’re beautiful,” He murmurs, hands bunching the wet material by your hips as he stops to take in all the exposed skin only a few feet from his face.

“So’re you,” You reply shyly. He smiles up at you then leans forward to press a featherlight kiss to your stomach. 

“This okay?” He asked in between kisses on your skin, each growing more daring than the last.

“Y-yeah,” You agree, feeling breathless already and nothing has happened yet. The tension is just so thick between you that it fills your lungs and takes up space usually reserved for oxygen. 

For a moment, you worry that if you’re this breathless already with just a couple of kisses to your stomach, you will not survive actually being fucked by this beautiful man. But then his lips are suddenly on the crease of your thigh, right at the edge of the rash guard and moving inwards and you can no longer worry about the future state of your lungs. 

Mingyu quickly tugs the rashguard off of you entirely and tosses it aside carelessly once you’ve stepped out of it, leaving you in just the skimpy little bikini that leaves very little to the imagination. “Fuck,” He breathes out, leaning back to take you in from head to toe then back again. “So fucking beautiful, baby.” 

“Mingyu,” Your voice is a soft little plea as you reach towards him, for what exactly, you’re not sure, you just want something and hope he gets the hint. He does and tilts forward to lean his cheek against your palm for a second, then plants a kiss there, tender despite the heavy moment.

“Lean back, baby,” He encourages, leading you by your hips to turn and take a step back until the edge of the desk is digging into the meat of your ass. 

You grip the desk edge on either side of you as he hitches one of your legs up onto his shoulder then leans as his free hand tugs aside the seat of your panties to allow him to get straight to work dragging his tongue up your pussy. 

The noise Mingyu lets out overpowers your own, he sounds like he’s tasted the fucking nectar of the gods or something equally as divine. Hearing him so immediately into eating your pussy only makes you more aroused and attracted to him in general. 

You have heard of men eating pussy like a man starved before but you had never experienced it until now. Mingyu truly gives it his all, holds you open and drags his tongue and lips over you with desperation and an intensity that has your legs shaking and a constant stream of moans spilling from your mouth almost in time with the grunts and needy moans vibrating through his lips against you.

“Gyu,” You breathe out, tangling the fingers of one hand in his hair and encouraging him to stay on your clit. He groans at the slight tug on his scalp and redoubles his efforts, sucking and licking at your clit hungrily. 

Your eyes are closed, entirely absorbed in the toe-curling sensations this man is giving you in spades, but when his hand touches yours on his head, you open your eyes to peer at him curiously. He’s looking at you, eyes so blown with arousal that you’re very certain you leak over his chin even more. 

Mingyu doesn’t stop suckling your clit between his lips in a steady pattern that has you so fucking close to a beautiful climax. It won’t be long until you fall over the edge into bliss. 

He removes your hand from his head and directs it between your thighs to make you curl your fingers around the seat of your bikini bottoms to hold them aside and away from his face. 

Then those same fingers that had just curled your own are prodding at your entrance. He hesitates though, staring up at you for permission until you rapidly nod and then he’s plunging two right into you, made easy from how fucking wet you are.

Just like that, an orgasm hits you so suddenly and powerfully that you don’t manage to do anything, no warning, no sound from your mouth as it rushes through your body, making your eyes roll back and back arch.

Mingyu feels you clamp down around his fingers and groans deeply as his own eyes threaten to roll back despite not being close to orgasm himself. Just knowing you’re cumming because of him, because of his mouth, on his fingers, it drives him insane and makes his cock throb.

Diligently, Mingyu works you through the pleasure pulsing through you, slowing down when your hips start to twitch and then reluctantly detaching his mouth from your clit when you nudge his head with a slightly shaky hand. 

Though he doesn’t go far and instead pushes your thigh a little further open to give his head more space to get next to his hand between your thighs and noisily slurp up every single drop that spills from your pussy. He even goes as far as to lick up the line that dribbled down his hand to his wrist.

“Gyu,” The call of his name makes him lift his head to look at you with wide eyes, looking so innocent despite his mouth and chin being soaked in your juices, all the way down to his throat. The sight and reminder of how hard he just made you cum has you unintentionally squeezing around the fingers still buried to the knuckles within you. 

He groans, tilting forward and opening his mouth ready to make you see stars all over again but you quickly put your hand to his head, palm to his forehead to hold him back. “Lemme eat your pussy, baby, prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen. Most delicious pussy ever. Could eat you forever. Let me. Please?” He’s got a slight slur to his words as he speaks, voice pitched higher than normal as he begs in a tone verging on a whine. 

“D-don’t you want to fuck me?” You ask, words a slight pant still, too soon from the intense orgasm to have your breath back but you don’t care. He can steal all the breath from your lungs so long as he makes you cum like that. 

“Fuck you?” He repeats dumbly. You nod and then it’s like a switch has been flipped. All of the innocent pussy-drunk expression and voice vanishes in an instant as his eyes turn heavy-lidded and his lips turn up into a smirk. “Yeah? Want me to fuck you, sweetheart?” His fingers in you start to move, making you jolt a little in surprise and reach down to try and remove them. “No no no, you gotta take my fingers first, baby. Need to show me you can take them before I give you my cock, okay? This is such a pretty pussy, I don’t want to ruin it by giving you my cock before you’re ready.” 

You can’t really say anything in response, both from his words and the way he’s skillfully moving those two fingers in you, slow but pressing in all the right ways to stretch you out and drag all ability to form anything but pathetic moans from your parted lips. 

“That’s it, good, just take it. You can take it for me, right, baby?” You nod quickly at his words. “Can you take another finger?” Another nod so he pulls his fingers out most of the way to work a third in beside them. “That’s my girl, fuck.” He breathes out, watching the way your pussy opens around his fingers as he carefully feeds the digits into you. 

It doesn’t take much longer for Mingyu to pull his fingers out of you and get up to his feet. You barely have time to react before he has your hips in his hands and spins you to face the window. The sun is right in your face like this, lessened in power by the window yet still an annoyance so you lean over all the way down onto your elbows and rest your forehead on your forearms.

“Oh,” Mingyu breathes out, watching you bend over the desk and stops his task of shoving down his swimming shorts to free his leaking cock. “Fucking perfect.” He approves and gives you a quick spank to watch your asscheek wobble with the impact. 

He hadn’t expected the moan that tumbles from your lips and pauses for a moment as he considers spanking you until your ass is raw and there are imprints of his hands left on your skin like a claim. 

But then his cock twitches desperately and he gets back to work shoving his shorts down enough and taking his thick, heavy cock into his hand to run his hand up and down the length, spreading precum over his heated skin while his free hand tugs your bikini bottoms aside.

A breathless curse spills from his lips when he aligns his cock with your dripping hole, he wants to bury himself to the hilt in your warmth right away but he’s very aware that frankly put, he has a giant cock, so he needs to take it slow to not hurt you.

As soon as the head pops into you, you’re moaning and trying to push back for more. Mingyu has to take a firm hold of your ass cheek and push you forward against the edge of the desk to stop you moving too fast. If you keep it up, he will fuck into you without hesitation and he’s already trembling with the effort of holding back.

Little does he know, you want him to fucking ruin you. You want him to fuck you so hard and deep that you can’t take a step for the next few days without thinking of his cock splitting you open.

But you don’t have the brain power to make your tongue move to form that specific string of syllables so you’re forced to just remain pinned to the desk as he feeds you inch by thick inch of his cock at an almost agonisingly slow pace.

But the time his hips are pressed up against your ass, he’s shaking with his eyes squeezed tightly closed and both hands gripping your hips so tightly you just know there will be bruises in the shape of his fingers afterwards. Bruises you’ll wear proudly. 

“Fuck, baby, this fucking pussy,” He groans as you pulsate around his throbbing length. 

He needs a moment, needs more than one really, with how fucking close he is already to filling you with his cum but you press back against him as best as you can considering his grip. It’s barely any movement but he gets the hint, you really don’t want him to wait anymore and fuck, neither does he.

Mingyu slowly pulls his hips back, sliding half of his length out of you before sliding back in in the same slow, careful manner. He’s testing the waters, the give of your pussy and his own resolve, really. And all three give so fucking easily that the next time he pulls out, it's all the way until only his tip is tucked up safely inside of you before he thrusts forward harshly making you cry out and scramble to brace a palm against the window above your head blindly. 

“That’s it, hold on, baby,” He encourages with a heavy exhale as he adjusts his footing and hold on you before he starts to fuck you like a man possessed. 

It’s hard and fast and so fucking deep that he’s hitting places within you that you didn’t even fucking know exist before his cock found them. Or maybe they’re special places his cock is carving out and no one will ever be able to access them again. No one will make your mind blank and eyes roll back so far that all you see is the mental image of Mingyu’s giant cock wrecking your pussy in the best of ways.

You’re being loud, both of you, moaning and whining with every drag of his cock through your rapidly tightening walls. But neither of you cares, neither of you has the presence of mind to consider anything but the way it feels to fuck and be fucked like this. 

At this point, you’re so close to another incredible orgasm that you wouldn’t even care if the door opened, you probably wouldn’t even notice and honestly, neither would Mingyu. 

And when Mingyu tilts forward enough to wind a strong arm under your waist to press his palm against the flat of your chest to pull you up until your back is against his bare, sweat-dappled chest, you almost scream in pleasure at the new somehow deeper spot he’s grinding into.

There’s a little part of Mingyu that’s still aware that you’re in public and his place of work even if he’s not consciously aware of it, and that part of him is the reason his hand flies up from your chest to your throat and squeezes in the exact fucking way to cut off your airflow.

It’s the last nudge you need to hurtle into the single most mind-shattering, nirvana-inducing orgasm of your fucking life. At least so far because once you’re more coherent, you’ll definitely think about how much you want him to fuck you again in all sorts of ways.

A choked, cut off moan spills from Mingyu’s mouth as you clamp down around his cock so tightly as your pussy absolutely gushes around him that it sends him over too. His hand on your hip quickly moves, sliding around over your lower stomach to wrap his arm around your waist and hold you tight as he ruts into you and fills you with his cum. 

It feels fucking endless, the length of your orgasm and how much it takes out of you even though it truly doesn’t last that long. It’s just an all-encompassing feeling that feels like utter bliss, a neverending pulse of pleasure, pure fucking serenity.

“You okay?” Mingyu manages to breathe out once his cock has stopped twitching as your throbbing walls milk him for every drop of cum in his body. His chest is heaving against your back, matching the deep rise and fall of your own chest, even if he had released the pressure on your throat as soon as his cock had started to empty in you. 

You can’t respond yet, you’re not quite back on planet Earth making Mingyu chuckle a little, fond of you already, and cocky at his own abilities to fuck you so dumb like this. 

Carefully, he draws his hips back to slide out of you with a wince and hears the splatter of cum hitting the wooden boards. But that’s a problem for after he’s looked after you.

Mingyu is so fucking gentle as he grabs the towel from the desk and uses it to clean between your thighs as best as he can without removing his arm from around you to keep you propped up. 

Then he manoeuvres you onto the wooden chair on your right before getting to his knees to spread your legs wide once he’s between them with his knees pressed to the floorboards. For a few seconds, he just stares dumbly at the sight of his cum leaking out of your swollen pussy and he almost leans in to clean you up with his mouth but you’re already so out of it that he figures he better not. He’ll save that for next time. 

Fuck, he really fucking hopes there’s a next time.

You come back to reality when Mingyu is doing his best to slide your shorts back up your legs. 

“Hey, beautiful,” He greets you when he notices you moving slightly and looks up to see you blinking down at him. “How you feeling?” 

“Like I had the life fucked out of me.” You reply, giving him a sated, borderline dopey smile that makes him laugh. You reach out to him and he happily leans up to let you run your hands over his shoulders and to his neck so that you can tug him in and kiss him. 

He sighs in contentment as your lips move together slowly like you have all the time in the world. Like there’s nothing that either of you would rather be doing than this right here. 

“Should’ve kissed you earlier,” He murmurs when you both naturally pull apart for air and he rests his forehead against yours. “Sorry, got carried away.” 

“There’s no need to apologise, seriously, that was…” You trail off and just giggle instead, fingers playing with his hair near his nape. 

“It was.” He agrees with a chuckle and leans back to look at you. “Could we maybe do that again?” 

“Now?” You baulk.

“No, not now.” He giggles. “I really can’t do that again now, I think I’ll pass out if I try to do anything like that now.” He assures, squeezing your thighs a little where his hands lay. “But another day in the future, when we’ve both recovered.” 

“That sounds much more reasonable to me.” 

“Reasonable, huh?” He teases and nips at your cheek playfully making you giggle. “And what about a date? Does that sound reasonable to you?” 

“No.” Mingyu’s face drops so fast as he looks at you. He looks pretty heartbroken, honestly. “I didn’t mean no as in no to the date!” You rush to assure, cupping his cheeks and brushing your thumbs soothingly over his skin. 

He pouts and pushes into your hold. “Then what do you mean?” 

“Just that it doesn’t sound reasonable but very nice and something I would definitely love to do.” 

“Oh.” He turns into your palm to try and hide the cute happy little smile that lifts his mouth and exposes his teeth, but you feel it. He presses a kiss to your palm before facing you again, no longer hiding his smile. “Good, good, I’m glad you’d love to. I’d love to as well. Maybe after my shift ends we can get lunch? Well, we’d have to take Vernon too and I guess your friend but they can entertain each other at another table.” 

You giggle and nod in agreement. “Sounds perfect to me.” 

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Taglist; @variety-is-the-joy-of-life

[trappolia]

caitvi with a girlfriend who loves shopping a little too much.

even disregarding vi's upbringing, her personality and priorities don't exactly call for her to fawn over the latest fashion trends. dolls and trinkets and other collectible items are something she can't grasp either. she has her emotional support bunny, what else could she want?

caitlyn may be of a more prestigious upbringing than either of you, but her status as a piltovian scion has also granted her the privilege of realising that not all fineries are exactly comfortable, or even necessary. she has more clothes in her closet that she knows what to do with, some of the styles are which are just a bit too… much for her. she has her own style and preferences, and she very much prefers to stick to them.

you, on the other hand, are completely different from your two lovers. raised in that space between the "best" of the undercity and the "worst" of topside, you were that little girl all bright-eyed and dreaming of wearing princess gowns, satiated only by your parent's promises of "we'll get you those pretty dresses when we have some extra money, my love."

you never did, really— get that extra money, you mean. it was never your family's fault, of course. even when you lived so close to the bridge, you were still considered to be citizens of the undercity, and life was hard. you learned to put your craving for designer clothes on the backburner, learned your way around a needle and a thread to fashion your own image of your wardrobe— and, later when you meet vi, to patch up the tears on her clothes.

vi is a darling girlfriend, who rebuffs your attempts to dress her up with gifts of fabric bought with the coin from her own pockets. she wants to give you more, she truly does, but prices for proper rolls of fabric are steep and hard to come by down in the undercity. it's not until caitlyn comes along, with the extra money to fund an entire wardrobe for you and then some, that your dreams as a child are finally come true, with not just one, but two generous girlfriends to boot.

caitlyn may not know the ins and outs of the fashion district of piltover, but her family has a private tailor that caitlyn commissions much more often when you and vi finally move into the kiramman estate. the two women are often content enough to sit back and watch as you fawn over the designs offered to you, occasionally giving input to the designer; cait sometimes recommends certain fabrics that she thinks will move about your frame much more smoothly, and vi learns to give in her five cents whenever she has something she'd like to see you in.

they even indulge you when you huff and puff about "window shopping being a part of the experience!" the fashion district becomes a common part of your dates together, and the three of you make quite a sight: the leader of house kiramman looking fond as she points out her mother's favourite shop to you, while vi balances an absurd amount of shopping bags in one hand, the other wrapped firmly around your waist.

it's never actually acknowledged, but watching you show off your pretty little outfits becomes the staple of caitlyn and vi's day. whether you've returned from an impromptu shopping trip and want to show them your latest purchases or they've just woken up and you want them to give their five cents on your outfit choices for the day, it brings them so much joy to watch you twirl around like a little princess— just like your dream come true.

[rafesangelita]

hi victoria!!! i love ur pogue!sweetheart!reader and i was wondering if u could do a lil hurt/comfort thing where one of rafes friends tells reader she talks too much/is too loud and she gets super upset? i’m a super big crybaby and i talk a LOT and i’d love to see how you write how rafey defends n comforts her :,)

warnings: protective!rafe, topper and kelce are pretty mean in this one >:(, rafe defends you <3, sight angst, fluff, rafe being the king of reassurance

a/n: i have personal beef with anyone who tells ppl to quiet down when they’re excited for something, or just naturally outgoing. also idk how to play poker so excuse the way i explained it if it’s incorrect lol

before you, friday nights were always reserved for rafe and his friends, the group of them either going out for a beer or staying in and betting money on card games. but now? rafe spent his friday nights buried inside of you, both of you laughing and kissing each other in the dark until one of you fell asleep first. and rafe wouldn’t have it any other way. his friends however, weren’t very fond of your boyfriend choosing you over them.

which would explain their impromptu visit while you two were mid-makeout session. “so this is why she has you locked away, huh?” you jumped, rafe covering you with a throw blanket as he slipped his shirt on. “what the fuck, guys?!” rafe glared at kelce and topper, your skin hot with embarrassment. “you left the door unlocked, playboy.” topper pushed a twelve pack of beers into rafe’s chest, the pair of friends walking to the kitchen.

“are you okay, baby?” rafe leaned down, wanting nothing more than to sucker punch his idiot friends for making you feel mortified. “i’m in my bra and panties!” you whispered, scrambling up from the couch and running up the stairs to rafe’s bedroom. rafe pinched the bridge of his nose, cursing under his breath before meeting topper and kelce in the kitchen. “y’all should’ve called me or something.” his tone was harsh, kelce holding his hands up defensively.

“she has you so pussy whipped bro, would you have even answered?” no, the answer was no. “it doesn’t matter, you two shouldn’t have walked in like that.” topper scoffed, popping open a can of beer. “chill, man, we just came to see our boy,” kelce slapped rafe’s shoulder, “and beat your ass at poker.” he added. rafe laughed, muttering a ‘not a chance.’ before going upstairs to check on you. “y/n?” you were fixing your disheveled hair, your lips still swollen from your previous activities.

“hey..” you turned, rafe pulling you in for a hug. “why don’t you come downstairs? be my lucky charm for the game we’re gonna play.” you shook your head, recalling topper’s words from earlier; ‘so this is why she has you locked away, huh?’ locked away? really? “i better not, you should go have your ‘bro’ time, i know it’s been awhile..” you smiled, hoping he didn’t catch the way your gaze faltered. he did. “i want you with me.” he pecked the tip of your nose, your eyes shutting momentarily.

“what if they don’t, though?” rafe was already dressing you, waving off your words. “well then they can leave.” he shrugged. you sighed, letting him walk you downstairs where topper and kelce had the game set up on the table. “the girl scout is joining us?” you didn’t miss the way topper exchanged looks with the boy on his right. “yes, she is. is there a problem?” kelce mumbled a ‘no.’, followed by an awkward clearing of his throat.

rafe pulled you onto his lap, the guys starting the game as you rested your head against his chest. you didn’t know a thing about poker, your lips quirking every time your boyfriend shouted excitedly. “there’s no way!” topper slammed his losing cards on the table, “i have nothing!” kelce was getting frustrated, the chances of him winning decreasing with each turn. “if i flip this card and it’s right, i take all of this.” the guys had already put in well over four hundred dollars, the tension in the room incredibly thick.

“with this money we’ll get you that mixer you been wanting, how does that sound?” you nodded, both you and rafe leaning forward in anticipation. as soon as rafe turned his last card over, you screamed, jumping up as topper and kelce heads fell down in defeat. it was the first time you had even opened your mouth tonight, and kelce wasted no time in shutting you down. “calm down, do you really have to be so loud?” your smile dropped, along with rafe’s. “forreal.” topper glared at you before pushing the money in your direction.

“what’s up y’all’s asses? she’s just cheering,” rafe pulled you to his side, “just a reminder that you two came here on your own accord and interrupted us, not the other way around.” in that moment you felt like a little girl again, always having someone to tell you to quiet down and suppress your excitement. you couldn’t help the tears from welling in your eyes, their judgmental looks making you want to disappear. prior to you and rafe being together, topper and kelce had always been nice to you, but all of that seemed to go out the door when your boyfriend stopped participating in their little get togethers.

“we hardly see you anymore, bro, we just don’t understand why she can’t lay off sometimes.” topper looked over at you, his jaw ticking as rafe laughed bitterly. you couldn’t believe your ears. if only they knew how much you encouraged rafe to hang out with them. “has it ever occurred to you that maybe i rather spend my time with my girlfriend than hanging out with you two? get the fuck out of my house.” topper and kelce looked like they were at a loss for words, both of them apologizing to you under their breath.

“and not that it matters anymore, ‘cause you two are so convinced that she has me trapped in her evil lair somewhere, but she encouraged me to come down here by myself before i dragged her along with me. you don’t even know what you’re talking about.” rafe basically pushed them out before shouting, “and i’m keeping the beers assholes!”

rafe shut the front door, making sure to lock it this time before he scooped you up in his arms. “don’t cry, sweetheart, they’re both idiots.” you sniffled, laughing softly. rafe smiled at the fact that he knew how to make you feel better. “talk my ear off while i order that mixer, i love hearing your voice.”

[prettymfwrites]

Wifey🤰🏾💍

Mom Paige bueckers x influencer mom female reader

Summary: You and Paige are married and have three kids... Which as quickly become a running joke.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚　 ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

The cozy hum of family life filled the kitchen as you set your phone up against the countertop for an impromptu Instagram Live. Parker was perched on your hip, her chubby hands fiddling with the strap of your tank top as her big brown eyes darted around with curiosity. Her soft coos melted your heart as you adjusted the angle of the phone, your face lighting up when the viewers started rolling in.

“Alright, y’all, don’t come for me about how tired I look,” you teased, glancing at the comments scrolling quickly on the screen. “This is mom life, okay? Three kids in five years. I’m running on iced coffee and vibes at this point.”

Parker gurgled, and you kissed her cheek softly. “Parker says hi, by the way. Say hi, baby,” you encouraged, lifting her tiny hand to wave at the screen.

The comments were already flying in:

“Y’all had another kid?!”

“At this point, Paige needs to chill.”

“Mama stays busy fr.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “I swear, y’all love dragging Paige. She’s somewhere around here, probably eating something she didn’t ask me if she could have.”

Right on cue, you felt familiar arms slide around your waist from behind. Paige’s taller frame towered over you, and you felt her chin rest lightly on top of your head. She pressed close, her warmth immediately grounding you.

“There she is,” you said, laughing softly as the comments exploded. “And here comes the culprit.”

Parker lit up when she spotted Paige, letting out an excited squeal. Paige peeked down at the baby, grinning ear to ear. “Hi, Mama,” she cooed, her voice soft and playful as Parker reached out for her.

“Here, take her,” you said, passing Parker to Paige, who immediately kissed her baby’s cheek. The sight made your chest warm. Seeing Paige with your kids always hit you in a special way.

“Look at these two,” you said to the camera, your voice tinged with affection. “They look like twins.”

Paige stayed behind you, holding Parker with one arm while keeping the other securely around your waist. Her grip was gentle yet firm, a silent reminder of how much she adored you. You glanced at a comment that caught your eye.

“Let us see the nails.”

“Oh, okay!” you said, holding up your hand to the camera. Your fresh set gleamed, and the delicate cursive "P" on your ring nail caught the light. “What do y’all think? I wanted something simple this time.”

Before you could pull your hand away, Paige leaned closer, pointing at the nail. “Y’all see this? This my baby. My wife. That ‘P’ don’t stand for anyone but me,” she declared proudly.

You laughed, shaking your head. “Relax, Buckets. You know they know I’m yours.”

Paige smirked, her free arm snaking back around your waist to pull you even closer. The comments started to get even more chaotic:

“Paige, get off her!”

“Doctor, it’s loose again!”

“Sis can’t breathe, let her go.”

“Okay, so y’all thinking boy or girl for the next one?”

Paige laughed loudly, leaning her forehead against the back of your head. “If y’all had a woman like this, you wouldn’t be able to stay off her either. Be real.”

You turned your head to give her a side-eye. “Paige, don’t start.”

“Oh, I’ve been started,” she teased, pressing a series of soft kisses on your shoulder. Parker babbled happily in her arms, as if agreeing with her mama.

You couldn’t help but laugh along with her, your heart full in a way that words couldn’t quite capture. Turning your attention back to the live, you read aloud one more comment: “Seriously, Paige, leave the poor woman alone!”

“Y’all act like I don’t love this,” you said, smiling knowingly. “I married her for a reason, didn’t I?”

Paige grinned behind you, placing another kiss on your shoulder. “You sure did. You stuck with me now, baby.”

I take requests! 💋 also leave a comment I love to hear from y'all

[dilatorywriting]

Monster Mayhem: Siren's Song [Part 3]

Gender Neutral Reader x Vil Schoenheit Word Count: 5.2k

Summary: Teaching a Siren to read is perhaps the best or worst idea that you've ever had. If only you were half as capable of reading between the lines.

[PART 1] [PART 1.5] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [PART 5]

‘U-G-L-Y’

“Wow,” you drawled. “What a wonderful use of your new talents.”

The fish you were cooking landed upside down on the hot stone with a crackling sizzle of skin that you could feel as a jumping prickle of heat all along your arm. You poked at your impromptu stovetop with your impromptu stick-spatula and prepared your impromptu leaf-plates. A true culinary connoisseur, you were. When you were rescued, you were going to argue to Riddle that you deserved a promotion to the kitchens. Though, apparently not everyone appreciated your talents.

‘UGLY’ the Siren poked again, jabbing his talon into the sand.

“Then bring me prettier fish,” you returned, pointed. “It’s not that hard.”

His sharp, black claws came up to point at you next alongside his wonderful, two-syllable insult. Then back to you again, with four fingers this time. Both hands going for it. There was a tight, irritated expression on his face that you refused to call a pout because firstly, surely this vicious king of the seas could never pull something so childish. And secondly, because in these past few days you’d developed a terrible habit of just chattering each and every one of your thoughts aloud. And if you called him bratty, or dared imply such pouting was coming from his regal visage, you were just setting yourself up to get drenched by his flailing tail all over again.

“You can’t hurt my feelings,” you said, bland. “Ugly is the nicest thing you’ve ever called me.”

He huffed and smacked his fins against the sand. The trailing, dark tips cracked against your leg and you kicked him right back. It didn’t actually hurt, no more than a pinch to the side, but you’d spent enough time with this asshole now that not fighting back like a toddler pitching a tantrum wasn’t an option anymore.

Just over two weeks, now. Fifteen days and counting.

Those first few days had been spent in a nervous, prey-like panic, of course. Watching him circle the bay with his shredded fins, crying at the top of his lungs until your goosebumps had goosebumps. And then you’d helped untangle him from the mess you’d made, delicately working salt-brined twine away from weeping wounds. Sure, there’d been that whole hoopla of him pinning you in the sand after your act of Great Chivalry and promptly threatening to rip your throat out with his teeth, but you’d moved past that. The offering of home-cooked meals had softened his scaly hide, and then the even greater move of handing him your species’ alphabet like some great, guarded secret of old had sealed the deal. Cheers all around. It’d only taken you nearly being eaten, disemboweled, and drowned, but you’d made peace with your roommate. What a success story.

And now instead of trying to murder you, he just called you U-G-L-Y.

So, you know, baby steps.

The thin, pointed end of his tail whipped up from where you’d kicked him to twine around your ankle and give a sharp tug that had you sprawling face first into the sand with an oomph. Your great tumble sent all those pretty letters of his scattering in the breeze, and you spat out a mouthful of grit.

“Here’s a new one for you,” you chirped, digging your fingers into the muck. F-U-C-K—Y-O-U.

The Siren yowled, which you’d come to recognize far too well as a prickle along your nape and that forever echoing tug, tug, tug somewhere in your head that could never return the call with its corresponding answer. His tail flailed out again to smack at your hands. It was thick, and scaly, and all smooth, powerful muscle. The fact that he hadn’t crushed your poor fingers into a sad, bony paste by now beneath its wrath was a miracle. If you were a more optimistic person, you’d say he was being extra gentle with you on purpose. But even you weren’t delusional enough to think he liked you that much.

“Okay, okay,” you grouched, spitting out another mouthful of pebbles. “Fine. Just not around the food. Unless you want to have to go hunting for dinner all over again.”

The Siren huffed, rolling his eyes like it was a professional sport, and settled himself prettily back against the butt of his tail like he’d never even tried to beat you to death with his fins at all.

You sighed and pulled yourself back out of the sand, scrubbing it from your salt-sticky skin as best as you were able. You returned to poking at your fish. They weren’t too terribly singed, despite your distraction. And the Siren seemed to like the edges extra crispy either way, so it wasn’t any kind of loss. You were in the middle of balancing your impromptu stick-spatula against another impromptu stick-spoon to try and flip the fish without destroying it entirely when you felt a gentle poke, poke, poke against your arm.

You looked back and the Siren stared down at you, lips canted in a sharp smirk that was all pride.

U-G-L-Y—A-N-D—S-T-U-P-I-D, the sand said.

He’d been struggling with applying the whole -pid noise to the proper lettering, because of how similar it was to -ped. And the spelling had been tripping him up (with much obvious frustration) for the last day or so.

“Well done,” you sighed, not even too terribly upset that it had taken you months in Riddle’s impromptu classrooms to learn what he was picking up over the course of a few, harried sessions delivered with broken bits of sharp sticks and an ever changing canvas. “Try this.”

You scribbled another message in the sand. An insult, naturally, because he seemed to like those. You sounded out the letters as you hopped the tip of your finger over them one-by-one, and the Siren stared down at the inscription with the sort of intense focus meant for ancient tomes or sacred texts. You watched his lips move silently as he sounded it out alongside your mini-lesson, and then he was reaching forward to trace over the letters with the curved tip of a claw—knuckles bumping yours for a moment before shooing your hand away.

You returned to your dinner—finishing up the poor, murdered fish as best as you could and doling it out as usual. You reached out to hand pretty boy his leaf-plate, which he took like a lord accepting a meal from a lowly servant. All upturned noses and pointed disinterest. He set it beside him and nibbled on the offering as he continued to study the new task you’d given him—grand, purple fins splayed out at his sides to brush against your hip like a habit. And this was your life now, apparently. Sitting and frying lazy, shallow water fish over a heated stone while your Siren student studied curse words in the sand. If you managed to survive this, no one would ever believe you.

.

.

The wrecked ship called to you like, well, did you even have to say it.

(It felt like a low hanging pun at this point. You’d never be able to use the expression again for as long as you lived without thinking of narrowed, purple eyes nearly rolling up into the back of a too pretty head because you were apparently that annoying.)

Every day when you ventured towards the western side of the islet to feed your teeny, round octopus friend, you couldn’t help but sit and stare at the shattered hull. It’s not like it was in any sort of shape to actually get you off your little, sandy prison, but it was… There was something about it that was familiar enough to scratch an itch in your brain, but just alien enough that figuring out what was itching was outright impossible.

Silver songbirds.

‘Not safe,’ the Siren had demanded, with an almost frantic look to him. Not safe.

Every time you tried to venture closer to get a better look, it was like he could feel it. And he’d be pacing the shoreline like a blood-frenzied shark—rattling off muted, angry complaints the whole time that popped against your skin like soda fizz. So, lesson learned. Keep away.  

It was a particularly sweltering afternoon today. Not a cloud in the bright, blue sky and nary a breeze to be seen. Sweat was beading unpleasantly along your brow and all down your back, and you hated it. At least on the Rose Queen there had been shade. And the lower decks of the ship submerged in the waves had always felt at least a little chilled. You could practically feel the damp, cool wood against your cheek. The smell of salt and pine oils in your nose. But here, on this stupid not-island with its barren trees and nothings, you just had to suffer in silence. The memories of your ship had you thinking of the washed up Songbird all over again, and you were in the middle of a heated, internal debate over making a swim for it again when something cold rained down over your face in small, scattered droplets.

You blinked back into focus to see Mister Merman at your ankles. You’d been sitting with your heels in the water, but no deeper. Because the shallows were still his territory, and while he hadn’t tried to hold you under in a while now, it was hard to forget something like that so easily. You didn’t really want to chance it if a foul mood struck him, no matter what sort of fragile truce seemed to exist between the pair of you lately.

Last you’d looked he’d been sunning himself on one of the wide, flat rocks—as he was wont to do. Lavender-tipped hair splayed out along his cheeks in a pool of soft gold and fins spread at his hips like the finest, plum silks. How he never seemed to burn with that delicate, ivory skin of his you had no idea. Maybe it was a Magical, Mystical, Merman perk yet undocumented. Or maybe he was just Like That. But he’d been snoozing away on his favorite boulder, and now he had rolled in with the tide to lounge by your toes. His fingers were spread, still dripping with sea water from where he’d flicked you in the face. You frowned at him—partly curious, but also pissilly blinking salt out of your eyes that stung, because come on dude.

He flicked more water your way and said something that you couldn’t manage to catch the shape of. When you didn’t respond with anything other than a pointed scrub of the water dripping down your cheeks, he reached out to wrap a clawed hand around your ankle and give a gentle tug.

“What?” you frowned, confused, and he tugged again.

He canted his head towards you, and then out to the cove behind him. He slipped back with the soft, frothy roll of the waves—just a foot or two—and clearly meant to pull you with him. You slid against the sandbar with a yelp and dug your heels into the muck to keep from getting yanked all the way in.

“No way,” you snipped, kicking a mess of water into his face. He didn’t even blink, just frowned down at you with a twisty sort of petulance. “I thought we were over this. If you drown me you won’t get any more cooked food, y’know. And I, in turn, would very much like to not be drowned. Win, win.”

That frown of his went stiff, and his lips twitched down at the corners. His amethyst eyes darted away and for a moment you swore that those gemstone irises flashed with something almost like guilt. He rolled forward with the next curl of surf and pressed a claw into the damp, dark sand at your hip. He scratched out a careful message, stubbornly refusing to meet your gaze all the while.

Won’t, it said.

“Forgive me for not believing that,” you returned, dry. “You’re oh-for-two now, I think. And, you know, fool me twice, and all that.” Though maybe the first one didn’t really count, seeing how you were both tangled together and sinking to the bottom in a mutual sort of destruction. But whatever. You were keeping it.

The Siren’s brow pinched in the middle and he reached forward to dig his claws in again.

Accident.

Your own brows jumped nearly to your hairline. You were just about to politely point out that dragging someone to the bottom of the ocean until they were bubbling from the nose and flailing wasn’t really an accident,but then you remembered the startled look on his face. The way he hadn’t stopped you from clawing your way back to the surface and how he’d carefully helped tow you back towards the shore after. And… maybe he hadn’t really meant it. It had to be strange, probably. Being able to thrive so easily below the waves and then be faced with someone who would die if they were left facedown in a puddle.  

“…Fine,” you huffed, and his eyes jumped back up to yours with all cat-in-the-cream smugness. “But just because I’m about to drop from heatstroke. Not because you asked.”

The Siren rolled his eyes at you and returned to dragging you by your ankles into the shallows.

The bay really was very lovely. It was crystalline clear and the sort of brilliant blue that you’d never even known existed until you’d left the land for a life on the open ocean. The sand below your feet was soft and white, with barely any pebbles or broken bits of shell to dig into your toes. You watched a few crabs scurry out of the way as you were led deeper and deeper, but most of the cove’s occupants were spoiled and slow. Unbothered by this weird, fleshy, bipedal creature stepping past because they’d never known anything else. Once you hit waist-deep, the Siren let go of you to sink more fully into the water. He swam around you in a languid, looping circle—plum fins cresting the surface to flick water against your arms and scales shining like polished glass in the sunlight. It was still far too shallow for him to move around in earnest with how massive that tail of his was, and how wide and trailing his great, beta-like fins were, but he was still elegant. Still fast and flexible as he swam rings around you like an orbit.

“Show off,” you scoffed, but couldn’t quite bite back the grin twitching at your lips.

Because creature from the deep trying to devour your crew or not, Sirens really were so impressive, weren’t they? Straight out of a storybook, and deserving of every song and tale attributed to them.

You reached out before you could help yourself to run your fingers along his tail. The scales were smooth, and sleek, and cool against your palm. The wispy ends of his fins caught along your fingers, but other than a bit of a tangle, you almost managed to run your hand along the whole of it. And what was it? Eight feet? Ten? Bigger than you at least, that was for sure. It wasn’t like anything you’d ever felt. No fish, or whale hide, or shark. Something entirely of its own.

You realized on the next loop when your fingers danced over a patch of still healing scales that you’d felt already that he had most definitely realized your err in personal space, and was letting you poke about on purpose. You glanced up, embarrassed and warm faced, to see the tail end of a smirk quirking out from the water’s surface. Preening bastard.

You turned up your nose and waded deeper. There was a ripple in the water around you, like a chuckle, and he returned to his looping circles. Occasionally his tail would brush up against you to get you to jump, but otherwise he kept his hands to himself and—as promised—did not attempt to wrestle you down to the sandy floor and your subsequent watery grave.

Once you’d made it up to your chest, the Siren was able to start his dance in earnest. He darted away to make a wide arc around the edge of the cove—sunshine catching on his scales like a glare on the water. He shot from one end to the other, so fast it was nearly dizzying to try and keep up with. And then he was back to circling your ankles all over again—tangling your legs in his fins and curling his talons against your calves to try and drag you deeper.

“Okay, okay,” you laughed, paddling after him until you were well and truly above your head. The bay wasn’t very deep, but there were a few areas that dipped down to at least fifteen feet. So soon enough you were bobbing like a top in the gentle surf as he looped around your idly kicking feet—brushing up along your ankles and tugging at the frayed edge of your shirt with his claws when he passed by.

When he next rose above the surface, you’d already taken in a big mouthful of water in preparation, and shot it right into his face. The Siren’s whole expression shriveled up like a hundred-year-old prune and you laughed so hard he had to curl his tail around your waist to keep you from dipping under the waves and choking yourself. You let him drag you around and only grabbed at his fins a little. He would dive below your feet and you’d sink after him. Not nearly as agile or adept, but competent enough to follow his little game of tag without losing completely within the first few seconds. It was—it was nice. Genuinely. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d swam for the fun of it. Way back when you’d first joined up with Riddle’s crew, maybe. It’d been a hot day, just like this one, and you’d been anchored in a safe, shallow inlet off the coast of an archipelago. Deuce and Ace had jumped in first, already brawling, and you’d dove in soon after. It’d been a mess, and Riddle had nearly hung the three of you up by your toes for it. But it’d been fun. Familial. Warm. Something you’d never forget. And while this moment didn’t feel entirely like that one had, there was something similar about it. Sure, you weren’t trying to give the Siren a bloody nose and there were no rock wars, but it was… well, it was nice.

By the end of it, he was swimming lazy, looping shapes around the cove, and you were being dragged alongside him like a raft—kept afloat by the curling press of his tail and relaxing in the afternoon sunshine with the cool ripples of the ocean water to keep you both comfortable in the heat.

“Do you do this a lot?” you asked, as you relaxed in the gentle lull of the surf. “With your pod, I mean.”

The Siren stiffened beneath you, but after a moment he nodded. Slow and rigid. Which—

Oh. Right.

“…sorry,” you mumbled, gaze darting away.

Because he was missing his family just as much as you were missing yours, wasn’t he?

All that frantic pacing at the start of your mutual stranding had just seemed to… fade away as the days passed. He would still circle the entrance of the cove some mornings, singing towards the skies and tilting his head—fins pricked as he searched for an answer. You’d feel it in your nerves, see the gulls overhead dipping in a trance and watch the crabs crawl up onto the sand like they were being dragged out by their little claws. But most of the time now he just… didn’t. He spent his days mumbling over the letters you showed him, or carefully preening over his healing fins and resting in the sun. Catching fish for you to prepare and roast, and taking his meals at your side as you both snipped at each other with sandy curse words. It was pleasant, this routine you’d fallen into together. But all the same, he never really stopped checking the ocean waters. And you could see a spark in his eyes, an itch. The same one that lit yours, no doubt, every time you caught yourself squinting for the outline of ships on the horizon.

The difference between the two of you, of course, was that in a few more days his scales would be healed enough to face the dangers of the open water alone. Life as a rogue mer was notoriously perilous. The lone Sirens were those that poachers were willing to risk battle with for a trophy. They were the ones caught in fishing nets, and found mauled by rival pods. But your Siren was smart. He was big, and strong, and impressive. He’d find a way to survive it, no doubt. One morning you’d wake up and he’d have darted off into the deep to search for his family. To go home. And you…

You would still be trapped here.

Alone.

Forever.

Rotting under the sun with no one to take you swimming in the afternoons. Or bring you clawed up fish to cook for dinner. Or to use your writing lessons just to insult you with scribbled words in the muck.

Which—that was what you’d wanted, wasn’t it? At the start of all of this.

And it was only fair, in the end. He was the better of the two of you, after all. Born and bred to thrive in the depths of the sea that would swallow you whole without a thought. And if either of you was going to survive, to find your home again, it was always going to be him. Maybe you’d be a story, like he would have been for you. The strange human with no ears, just like the rest of the pirates whispered about. Who taught him that fire could make fish extra tasty and that leaves could make perfectly serviceable plates if you tried hard enough.

You sighed, and bubbles of salt water frothed along your mouth.

The Siren raised his head from his own lazy sprawl to arch a brow at you in question, and you did the very mature thing of spitting water in his face all over again.

You ended up being dragged through the cove in a flurry of spitting, Siren rage. Laughing and laughing until he huffed and hauled you back to shore to keep you from swallowing any more seawater like the idiot that you were. And it was fine, really it was. He wasn’t so bad, not really. And if he was able to reunite with his pod once more after all those days of hollow wailing and pacing, pacing, pacing that had made something deep in your soul itch like a freshly scabbed wound that you just couldn’t stop picking, well, that wouldn’t be such a bad ending after all.

.

.

The next afternoon while you were out on your daily Octopus Wellness Check, you came across a piece of pale, purple sea glass mixed into the rocky shore. It was smooth to the touch and frosted over by the endless tumble of the tide. You held it up to the light and it sparkled just like the Siren’s scales.

“What do you think?” you asked the octopus as it grabbed shredded bits of fish with its chubby, little tentacles. “Do you want it? Or should I give it to—”

You blinked, startled, and realized all at once that you’d never learned the Siren’s name. Or given him yours. You’d just sort of been calling each other a variety of derogatory pseudonyms and hoping for the best. Which, huh. You hadn’t even realized you’d wanted to know his name. It wasn’t yours to take, of course. Let alone from someone who would no doubt be leaving so soon. But it was a thought.

“You always give the best advice, you know,” you told the teeny creature, and it hid from you like you were a great, looming monster of old. “Whether you meant to or not. Thanks for that.”

So on the way back to your cove, you picked through some tufts of beachgrass to find the longest, driest spikes. You began winding them together as you walked, and settled down in your favorite little corner of the inlet to continue your weaving. The Siren, naturally—being as nosy as he was—was immediately hovering over you like a child watching someone hold a bag of sweets just out of reach. You clutched your little project to your chest like a secret, and it had him puffing up in irritation and smacking his fins against your sides like your refusal to share whatever had caught your attention was a crime beyond comparison. He arched up as tall as he could to try and peer over your shoulder, and, in failing at that, just outright tried to snatch the thing from your hands.

“I won’t give it to you if you keep being a pest,” you warned, and immediately he was slipping back to rest on his stomach in the damp sand with a starbright curiosity in his eyes, chin pillowed atop his interlaced fingers and gaze following the movements of your hands like a cat tracking a mouse in its hole. Clearly the promise of it being a treat for him was mollification enough to keep him from hovering.

Once you’d braided a sturdy enough chain, you carefully twined it around the sea glass in a little, crisscrossing cage of fibers. Just knotted enough to keep the ocean-worn trinket safe and in place without hiding the shine of it. With that, you held up your trophy with a dramatic wave, and the Siren was popping up all over again. His amethyst glare tracked the swinging pendant with startling focus and a surprisingly wide-eyed spark of confusion.

“Here,” you said, reaching out to drop the makeshift necklace into his lap. He caught it in his claws, eyes still far too round with shock. “It made me think of your scales. I thought you might like it.”

He was staring down at the gift in utter silence. And not the normal sort of quiet either—where your broken eardrums simply refused to pick up on all his petulant grousing against your person. This was actual silence. His lips were parted like they were caught on a breath, but he wasn’t saying anything. Not even a complaint about how plain and ugly it was. He curled his claws daintily around the woven chain, as if he was afraid of tearing right through it with an accidental prick, and then held the sparkling bauble aloft like he was utterly entranced by the soft gleam of it.

After a long, long moment of that near eerie silence and a pool of dread filling your belly that screamed you’d clearly fucked up in some way (overstepped some weird, Siren tradition. Accidentally insulted his father. Handed him a bad luck omen on a string. Something), the Siren was twisting around to show you the back of his neck. He held up the woven chain so it draped along his shoulder blades, and he pointedly shook the ends at you.

When you just gaped back in shock, he turned to sneer over his shoulder at you and jabbed a claw at his throat, then the necklace, then you, then his throat again. Which, oh. Oh! That—that you could do.

So you reached out to pluck the ends of the grass-woven thread from his talons and he immediately shifted around again to make himself comfortable. Curling his tail firmly against the sand with his plum-lined fins spread out in all their glory like a spill of purple ink along the shoreline. He set his shoulders square and firm, and looked straight ahead with that same, queer sort of focus to him as before.

You tied the ends of the necklace in a bow against his nape, making sure it was securely fastened in place and not snagging any of the softer, shorter hairs at the back of his neck. Once it’d been fussed with to his liking, he turned back around and stared you down until you could feel goosebumps prickling up all along your spine. You wanted to meekly tell him that it was just sea glass. Just a little trinket you’d found in the sand that you’d thought was pretty enough that he might like to have it. But the words died on your tongue. They felt wrong somehow. And you’d put your foot in your mouth plenty of times throughout your life, but this definitely felt like it would have been the biggest boot of all.

“…You like it?” you tried instead, because that sentiment at least seemed less like something that was ready to clog up your throat.

The Siren nodded, firm, his eyes still drilling into yours with that unnerving level of focus.

You coughed into your fist and awkwardly attempted to shift away to give yourself a bit of room, and—Huh. When had his tail come up to wrap around your leg? That made running away a bit inconvenient. You’d just have to try and wriggle your way out and hope he would take mercy on your far inferior musculature, and—

There was a poke at your hip. Tap, tap, tap. One, two, three. And you glanced back up at him with a pinched frown, confused.

The Siren pointed to a scrawl in the sand. Tap, tap, tap.

Acceptable.

You gawked, and then swallowed a laugh so fast it nearly choked you. Because he was still himself, wasn’t he? No matter what. Sassy, asshole fish. Gods, you were going to miss him.

You wiped at the bubbling, giggling tears prickling at the corner of your eyes and reached out to pat at his tail in good humor.

“I hope you find your happy ending,” you beamed, and meant it.

The Siren just looked at you with one of his familiar, lemon-sour puckers. He pointedly reached up to flick at the necklace around his throat, like that had anything to do with him finding his family again at all. Like it wasn’t just some silly trinket you’d gifted him in hopes that maybe one day he could look back fondly on the little human that he’d found himself stranded with. To not just forget you outright. To make your fleeting presence in his life something tangible, rather than just a mess of already fading scars and memories that would too easily be swept away in the depths of the sea.

“At least it’s acceptable,” you said finally around your giggling, and he huffed at you in a way that almost looked fond. You stood from the sand and brushed the mess of grit and salt off your pant legs. “Come on. Let’s go have dinner and I’ll teach you some nicer words tonight. So you can give me a real compliment next time.”

There was spray of water all along your back from where he’d no doubt dove back into the shallows behind you and walloped you with his fins to the best of his ability. And honestly, you couldn’t find it in yourself to be bothered by it at all.

.

.

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[illbegottenfaith]

unadulterated loathing (a what is this feeling inspired fic)

yours and theo's feelings for each other evoke a deeply visceral physical reaction in both of you, for which there can be only one explanation (theo nott x reader)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

a/n - had this idea ever since I watched wicked and so I whipped smth light and fun up prettyyy quickly (I think this is the fastest I've ever writtena fic? then again it is on the shorter side) enjoyyy :)) p.s. im quite behind on my notifs etc cuz of college so if i havent responded to anything pls know its an accident!

tropes/warnings - enemies to lovers, quips/banter, fluff, mentions of injury

word count - 1.3k

taglist - @hzdhrtss @justaproudperson

"I'm afraid the rumours are true," you were saying to Penelope Skeeter, a budding journalist eager to follow in her aunt's footsteps. "Theodore Nott was just so taken by my looks this morning that he promptly passed out in the Hogwarts library, poor thing. The whole school is bereft, naturally, but Madam Pomfrey herself expects him to make a full recovery."

You paused as her reedy-looking assistant snapped a picture, putting on a breezy, winning smile with just a hint of oh-silly-me-for-putting-one-of-Slytherin's-star-Quidditch-players-in-the-Hospital-Wing-but-also-who-could-blame-this-pretty-face.

"You could say I, quite literally, stole his breath."

Your impromptu interview came to a crashing halt as a strained groan sounded from the hospital bed a short distance away. The three of you glanced over to see that Theo had woken up and was now very much alive and kicking.

"Oh," you said, abandoning that affected, simpering tone for one with a noticeable trace of disdain. You thought you'd have more time. "You're up."

"Lies," Theo rasped breathlessly, with all the menace of a kitten swaddled in a blanket, eyes darting mistrustfully between you and Penelope. "Liar."

You tilted your head, your expression as displeased as it always was when it came to Theo. "Aren't you supposed to be dizzy or something?"

"Don't listen to anything she says, especially if it's about me. Strike that all - hang on - "

You watched him flail uselessly in his attempts to sit up, unimpressed.

"I don't think you hit your head hard enough."

"Shut up," Theo wheezed under the stifling weight of the warm compresses laid across his chest, "and get out."

You pouted exaggeratedly. "But you're sickly, sweetheart."

His already pale face blanched at the pet name. "Out. Out!"

For as long as you could remember, you had never gotten along with Theodore Nott. Anything he said, you'd feel compelled to disagree with, and anything you did, he felt compelled to sneer at. The adverse physical symptoms that presented themselves within each other's proximity certainly didn't seem to help matters. One way or another, sparks were bound to fly if the two of you were in the same room.

"It's - it's her - " Theo had spat out at The Three Broomsticks on a Hogsmeade trip in your third year. "She's doing this to me and she's doing it on purpose."

Mattheo had creased his forehead.

"Like a...like a hex?"

"No," Theo had said, distractedly scratching the hive that had appeared on the back of his hand. "It's worse than a hex. My pulse is rushing, my head is reeling, my face is flushing..."

"...oh," Mattheo had said, realisation dawning upon him. "I get it. It's lo-"

"That's it, Mattheo." Theo had interjected. "You're absolutely right."

"I am?"

"Yes, exactly. Loathing is what this is. Loathing." He had swivelled around, hatefully fixing his gaze on where you were laughing over some undoubtedly inane subject matter over butterbeer with your friends. "Unadulterated loathing."

Mattheo had rolled his eyes over Theo's dramatics.

That was years ago. Now, the butterbeer was gone and the inane subject matter was long forgotten, but the two of you were still too abrasive to get along. It was as though you couldn't help but rub each other the wrong way, the way you brought out the worst in each other. The detestation that everyone had hoped you would grow out of seemed to have grown with you, with petty jabs and insults and below-the-belt undermining becoming a regular occurrence between the two of you.

Today was no different. You were spending your morning free period studying at the library with your friends, roaming the bookshelves for anything that could help you with your Defence Against the Dark Arts essay. You'd turned the corner of the aisle, a heavy tome in hand, only to find Theodore blocking your path, his long fingers leisurely tracing the spine of a book like he had all the time in the world.

"Figures," you muttered under your breath, just loud enough for him to hear. "Of all the dark, damp corners in the castle, you'd turn up in this one. Like a bad penny."

Theo's gaze flicked up to meet yours, his expression impassive save for the slight lift of his brow. "Charming as ever, I see," he drawled in his low voice, carrying that familiar bite. "I didn't realise the library was off-limits to people with half a brain."

You narrowed your eyes, stepping closer despite yourself. "Don’t flatter yourself, Nott. If brains were currency, you'd be bankrupt."

His lips twitched, and for a moment, you swore he was fighting back a smirk.

"And yet, here I am, managing just fine without the constant headache of your presence. Speaking of which—" he gestured vaguely at the aisle, "—you’re in my way."

There it was - that repulsive, three-sizes-too-big ego of his. Really, it was a wonder how he managed to fit that swollen head of his through the castle doors.

"I'm in your way?" you repeated incredulously. "You do realise the universe doesn't actually revolve around you, right?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "Could've fooled me," he said smoothly, effortlessly plucking your book out of your slack grip. "You always seem to be in my orbit."

You peered up at Theo from beneath your eyelashes. You tilted your head, your lips curling into an insidious, self-satisfied smile that Theo didn't quite understand.

"Please. You want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid."

Theo felt a pang in his chest. His pulse stuttered and there was this nauseating feeling in his stomach. His vision swam, and it was all a bit blurry after that. The next thing he knew, there was an awful lot of shrieking coming from the crowd standing over him. Over him? His hand twitched. The hand that was on the very same rock-hard floor he was lying on. When did he get down here?

He groaned softly as the voices around him grew louder. There was this awful pounding rattling his skull. With considerable difficulty, he cracked an eye open, trying to get a sense of his bearings. Some of the silhouettes seemed vaguely familiar. He could recognise some voices - his friends must have found him. Those looked like Mattheo's shoelaces right next to his face.

And in the middle of it all was you, ashen face with a panic-stricken expression, with a vice-like grip on his forearms.

And then everything went black again.

Madam Pomfrey had come along just then, shooing Penelope and her photographer away. You weren't quite as lucky in your attempt to slip out with them. So now here you were, stoically holding Theo's hand in your slightly clammy palm at his bedside while she checked him over.

She hadn't told you to hold his hand. Theo decided he'd pull away in a minute. Maybe two.

He cleared his throat ineffectively, dry from a lack of water. You glanced at him.

"Admit it. You were terrified for a minute there."

You pressed your lips into a thin line like you were holding back a smile, trying to give the impression of watching Madam Pomfrey.

"You wish," you mumbled out of the corner of your mouth.

Still, he didn't miss the way you squeezed his hand as part of you relaxed in what seemed like relief.

"I know."

You dragged your gaze back to him, shaking your head somewhat affectionately as you took in the colour returning to his cheeks.

"I see you're feeling better already."

"Something about you gets my blood pumping."

Madam Pomfrey stepped away for a moment, leaving the two of you alone behind the screen. You leaned in until your noses were almost touching.

"Are you saying I make your heart race, Nott?"

This close, he can see the faint freckles scattered across your nose, the way your lashes brush your cheeks when you blink, and the flicker of mischief in your eyes. And for the first time in all the years he's known you, he admits to himself that perhaps you might be more than a little easy on the eyes. Especially his eyes.

"Sure," he says quietly, his gaze almost lovingly lingering over every blemish along your nose. "Let's go with that."

[l0vergirlwrites]

A totally random fic request but something where like reader sees like the team treats Spencer badly like interrupting him or something or like making him feel bad and the reader just like following Spencer out and like holding him I guess or something like that, sorry it’s rlly vague 😭😭

elevator sweetness ; spencer reid

synopsis: after another slightly deprecating comment was made about spencer, you offer him a shoulder to lean on & some kind words.

warnings: mentions of spencer being a bit sad, morgan making a comment about spencer (ily but leave my boy alone lmao), sorta new to the bau fem!reader, non-established relationship but future relationship is teased, fluff & slight angst themes, loosely based on s2 ep8

note: thank you for the request! i hope you like it! 💌

you first noticed it when you walked into the bullpen that morning, leather saddle bag snug on your shoulder as you beelined for your desk. you sat at the cluster of cubicle styled desks across from spencer’s, giving you a perfect view of him, which you’ve come to find is a blessing & a curse.

he had walked in moments after you, eyes drawn to the floor or inanimate objects, that curious twinkle was missing, & his soft smile was nowhere to be seen. spencer just sat at his desk, throwing himself into his work without greeting anyone or even getting a start on his morning coffee.

it made your lips pull into a small frown as you turned your gaze back onto your computer before anyone noticed you looking at him for too long.

“bau—conference room in fifteen” hotch’s voice broke through the morning chatter, the tiniest pit of dread filling your tummy after his alert. you wondered what the case was this time.

after going through your emails in a dash, you made your way to the small office kitchenette to grab a coffee before the round table, glancing spencer’s way once more. you saw derek perched by his desk, a teasing smile on his face like normal, but spencer remained rigid.

it made you frown again.

by the time fifteen minutes passed, you were in the conference room with two cups of coffee, casually placing one where spencer usually sits before the others noticed. you made sure to add lots of cream & sugar.

when spencer walked in, tight lipped & awkward, he felt a little lighter when he saw the coffee on the table. as jj grabbed everyone’s attention, his eyes fell onto you.

“thank you” he mouthed before opening the tab on the plastic lid, lightly blowing on it as jj played a video on the tv screen.

this weeks case was dealing with a kidnapping. three high-school girls from a small town, all athletes with bright futures—but they disappeared out of nowhere with odd voicemails as the only evidence to go off of for now.

“are we sure that they aren’t just going on a road trip? they said they’d be back by the weekend & their parents aren’t all that worried so—“

cutting morgan off, spencer spoke up, much to your surprise. “but their voicemails were quite cryptic. clean cut. as if they were reading off of a script—“

slightly rolling his eyes, morgan interrupted spencer. “you know, not every high schooler is a stickler for the rules like you were. it’s normal for teenagers to make impromptu plans while they’re young—have a little fun even”

about to rebut his point, spencer opted to stay silent. he’s used to being picked on, jabbed a little here & there for his goody toe shoes persona around the team. but today just wasn’t the day he could brush it off easily.

noticing spencer’s body language closing in as he slightly slumped into his chair, you took your turn to speak. “morgan, spencer’s right. the girls sound almost afraid on the phone—monotone, maybe even apprehensive. plus, they both said the exact same thing to their parents—word for word. just because their parents aren’t super worried doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be” you pointed out, jj quickly agreeing with you before gideon & hotch followed suit.

the meeting soon wrapped up with a warning that the jet would be leaving in half an hour, causing the team to scramble to prepare. as spencer made his way to the elevator, you decided it was your moment just to check in with him.

“spencer!” you gently called out, seeing him stop walking & turn around to see you. it made you smile a little when you saw that he was still nursing the coffee you made for him.

saying your name in greeting, spencer & you continued to walk once you were at his side. “grabbing your go bag?” you asked & he confirmed with a nod.

“could i tag along? i have to get mine from my car too. what do you usually pack in yours?”

as you both waited for an elevator in the busy office atmosphere, conversation came easy. you noted the way spencer spoke almost hesitantly, as if he was conscious of him rambling too much that he censored himself. you came to learn that he always packs a few books in his bag with sticky tabs to annotate—it’s become a new hobby of his.

once an elevator became free, the doors closed before anyone else could occupy it. so it was just you & spencer.

despite the decently large space, you both hovered to the centre with a few inches of personal space separating your arm from brushing his. the thought of it made a chill run up your spine.

“can i ask you something?” you fiddled with your fingers, tempted to pick off the black nail polish you wore as you looked to spencer.

you could tell he was still down in the dumps about something, but without the loud chatter of the office, a metaphorical weight was lifted off his shoulders for a moment.

“sure. what’s your question?”

swallowing your anxiety in fear it was out of line to ask, you felt like it was right. “is it normal for the others to kinda, i dunno, make comments about you like that?”

you watched as spencer’s face sort of furrowed, clearly not expecting a question like that. he was unsure whether he should answer it honestly or brush it off. he’s gotten used to doing that.

“uh…” he licked his lips, looking away from you to think.

you cringed. “sorry if that’s weird of me to ask”

he shook his head. “n-no, it’s okay. i-uh, just wasn’t expecting you to ask that” he scratched his neck, swallowing his own nerves as he continued to look at the metal floor of the elevator.

he wondered why it was moving so slow.

“i’m used to the comments—most are made in good fun, i know they aren’t targeted to get under my skin. but uh… people have said stuff like that, even worse, my whole life. so it doesn’t really bother me as much as it used to” he explained, tight lipped again as he nodded his head, finger drumming against the metal rail.

he knew you could see right through him though. “it doesn’t mean those comments can’t hurt sometimes though. you’re allowed to feel uncomfortable by them” you assure him, trying to validate his feelings like you wished others did for you too.

you knew exactly how he felt. different circumstances, but same feelings nonetheless.

the fragility & kindness behind your words made spencer’s chest ache as he turned his head to look at you again, seeing nothing but empathy across your features.

“i know it’s not my place, but i also know that it’s not fun for them to jab at you like that every now & then. i just wanted you to know that i…i have your back, you know… that i care”

spencer let the tiny crease in his brow dissipate, his eyes softened, & he felt a blanket of warmth spread across his body at your words. he didn’t know what he did to deserve someone so kind.

he almost felt choked up. “that’s really nice of you,” he spoke your name with such sweetness, it made your heart break into two & mend back together. “y-you don’t know how much that means to me. really”

you gave him a warm smile in return, not realizing that your hands were just barely touching his against the metal rail. “it’s no biggie. i know you’d do the same for me” & spencer nods, affirming that what you said was true.

“i would—i-i do” he corrected, letting a smile grace his lips too. you didn’t realize how much you missed it.

“pinky promise?” you proposed, slowly lifting up your hand, pinky outstretched. you hoped it would lighten the mood a bit.

spencer took it without hesitation.

“pinky promise”

soon enough, the elevator opened to the car park & you both walked in tandem to his car before reaching yours. more conversation was made along the way, one even included a promise that you both would sit next to each other on the jet & listen to music from an album you recommended him.

from that moment on, spencer couldn’t look at you without noticing the way your tucked your hair behind your ears, the crinkle in your eyes when you smiled, or how your laugh made his heart feel fuzzy.

he didn’t know that in this moment, he fell for you. & he wouldn’t realize it for another year.

[wosofutbolfan]

If You Need Me, Call Me

Alexia Putellas x Explorer!R Pt.2 in the 'I Would Climb Every Mountain With You' Universe.

Hi Guys, Thank you for all the love on the first part in this series. This is part 2 that I didn't expect to write. I have an inability to not write angst. TW: Claustrophobia. Injury. Events are not based on any real life events. Part two of I Would Climb Every Mountain With You. I would recommend you read that first, for some context. But you can do what you want really ;-)

You and Alexia had been together, happily, for a year. And it was happily. Though. ‘Together’ is probably being quite liberal with the word. And. You suppose. ‘Happily’ is also being quite liberal with the word. You loved Alexia. 

And Alexia loved you. 

That was clear to both of you. You admitted it early, before she’d even left UK soil after she’d come back with you from your first meeting. She’d rolled her eyes at you and the nerves on your face as you lay in bed together in your pokey Cumbrian flat, and kissed the words from your lips; ‘well duh, of course you do. And I love you.’ which made you laugh and fall into her lips again. But it wasn’t even 12 hours later that you’d had to separate with her season starting again and her need to be in Spain. Her teammates had teased her relentlessly on her return. How she’d U-Hauled with the Jefa de montaña and ran away to the rainey island she so famously disliked just to spend another day together. She'd rolled her eyes and slapped the back of a few heads but it was true. That is what she had done. She’d been overjoyed when she spotted you in the crowd on the first home game of the season. You’d made the surprise trip to Barcelona at the last minute, employing Ingrid to get a ticket in the friends and family section for you. The smile on the Captain's face as she spotted you could be seen from space. You had winked at her and proudly gestured to your brand new Barcelona jersey, Alexias number proudly splayed across your back. As the game ended, with a convincing win for the home team, she’d made a beeline for you in the stands. Jumping over the barrier and embracing you like you hadn’t seen each other for months (oh how used to that feeling you would become), rather than a couple of weeks. “I thought that you preferred rugby?” she had teased you. “Ah, I do, but no one told me how hot the captain in blue and red was” you’d replied, with a wink. Enjoying the blush you’d created on her face, before it was your turn to blush as Alexias eyes darted to your right and greeted, “Mami! Hola!” and embraced a small women in a shirt matching yours who was definitely standing within hearing distance. Just over her shoulder a carbon-copy of Alexia was lurking, a childlike grin on her face and twinkle in her eyes. “Ah, and this is mi hermana Alba!” she had introduced you. ‘Well, nothing like diving in headfirst’ you thought to yourself, as you were introduced to your apparently-new girlfriend's family, as that's what you had just been introduced as, with a squeeze of your hand and a kiss to the side of your head. The Putellas family embraced you with all the enthusiasm in the world. Alba kept you entertained and asked you a million and one questions as you waited for Alexia to be finished with her media and captain duties. Before you knew it you were at an impromptu meet-the-new-english-girlfriend party at the Putellas residence, sharing food with seemingly everyone who had ever been related to Alexia as well as their next door neighbours. Sharing wine, food, and lots of baby Alexia pictures. So yes. You had both moved fast. Maybe it was the speed which you were going that would soon become your downfall. You were moving a million miles an hour and the warning signs were a blur that you couldn’t quite make out. Of those first 6 months, you were on an exhibition for 4. You had travelled to Patagonia to climb some of the last unclaimed peaks on the planet with the National Geographic Society. They were unreachable by road or even yak. You had to sail to the bottom of South America and then move your way up on foot.  It was arduous, it was treacherous, but you found satisfaction and joy in the difficulty.

You become the first person and only woman to ever summit Orjos del Salado and, as you snapped a picture at the top, all you thought was how excited you were to share your achievement with Alexia. As you’d called her a week later from a dive-bar in a shanty town in central Argentina you could hear the pride and relief in her voice, even through the terrible connection. It was the first time you had been able to contact her in a month.

But you’d gone straight from there to leading some American businessmen through the Amazon on a 3 week river and hiking exploration. It paid handsomely, you’d explained to the disappointed blonde, you couldn’t turn it down.

You returned to Barcelona in time to spend a week together before Alexia left for a two week international camp.  Which was then followed by a week long trip for her to Norway, as part of their group stage champions league campaign.

You’d joined her there, soaking as much time together as possible between her matches and training sessions. Maybe it was then that the cracks had begun to show. As you had woken early to pick her up from her hotel to go for an early morning walk and grab some coffee before her media duties. You had been walking hand in hand in the early morning sunshine. You had been half-way through a story from the day before, where you and Ingrid's mum had gone together to a lake outside of Oslo, when you felt her drop your hand suddenly and took a half step away from you. “Huh?” you looked at her and a look you hadn’t seen before took over her features, “What’s going on Ale?”. “Trust me” was all she’d replied, and then it had become apparent her problem as a swarm of fans suddenly engulfed her, asking for selfies and autographs, which she gave out, graciously. She skillfully extracted herself from the situation before you both continued on your way, but now, you noticed, you were at least a foot further apart and a weird atmosphere had taken over you both. It had been when you were both safely in the cafe that you’d addressed it, “are you ashamed of me?” you asked, unable to mask the hurt in your voice. Hands safely wrapped around your Tea. “No!” she’d replied, aghast, as she pulled your hands from your mug into her own. “mírame cariño” you did, and saw the heartbreaking look in her eyes. “I would never be ashamed of you. Do not think that for one moment.” she said it with such conviction that you couldn’t help but nod. “I am sorry, but it is easier. For you. The media. They will pry into your life. It’s happened before with… partners and… I don’t want that for you. For your family. I love you.” “I won’t hide Ale.” you replied. Firmly. You were a free spirit. It was not in your nature to hide yourself, any part of yourself, for anything or anyone. The thought of it made you claustrophobic. “I know you won’t.” she huffed out a laugh, “I do not want us to hide. I promise. But, maybe, if we do not make their job easy for them? Can we do that?”. The look of desperation on her face broke your heart. “Bueno Ale. Para ti. Yo también te amo.” You’d gone your separate ways from there, you had explorations to complete, she was busy with the team. She’d managed to visit England for a few days when her UCWL matches lined up, and you started to return to Barcelona, rather than Cumbria, as a home base between trips. And that's how it had gone for some time. Your birthday had passed, you’d spent it together in Barcelona, Ale having stolen your trusty-old boots and had them professionally repaired and re-waxed. As she presented them to you, on her balcony with a cute bow on top, your heart expanded in joy. She got you. She knew you didn’t want new-top of the range boots that she definitely could afford. This actually was harder, she’d had to research the dying-art of cobblers in the area. She had to sneak them out of your duffell bag, she must have distracted you every time you went for them as your go-to walking shoes in the week. With all her money and fame. She understood that wasn’t you. You loved what you had. And she got that. As you had turned the boots in your hands, taking in all of the familiarity in all their glory and feeling the waxy leather beneath your fingers she couldn’t read your face. “I hope you don’t mind” she’d taken them gently from your hands and she pulled back the tongue, which showed a piece of jersey sewn into the backing-fabric. Blue and red, with a white AP11 embroidered into it. “It's from my first champions league shirt. I cut a swatch off, and had them sew it in…” she whispered. The moment had been heavy. “I know we don’t get to spend time together like most couples, but this way, I’ll always be with you.” Your throat had burned with the effort to keep your tears at bay, you were unsuccessful when you felt her warm hand cup your face and wipe a tear away,

“I’m sorry, It’s probably way too intrusive and I shouldn’t have taken your stuff, I can ta…” You’d silenced her with a kiss. Intense and hungry. “This is the most thoughtful gift I have ever had. I love you Ale. I love you so much.”  “Good.”... you both take a moment to look into each other's eyes, then you feel a movement as she reaches into her pocket and presents proudly what she’s pulled out, eyes shining with mirth “Then maybe you will consider these laces too, no?” and you burst out laughing whilst you take in the Blaugrana coloured hiking laces. You’ve not got it in you to not agree. But love sometimes isn’t enough. Time passed. You continued your work and she continued hers. Valentines days spent on opposite sides of the globe. You weren’t there when she won the Champions League, instead spending it watching it in a bar in Jordan. She wasn’t there as you returned from reaching an undiscovered island as part of a research crew in the South Pacific, instead being in Munich to film a new Nike ad. When you were together you couldn’t walk the streets of Barcelona hand in hand. You’d kept your promise and she kept hers. You weren’t hidden, but you weren’t showcasing your relationship. When she came to England you had more freedom, the people of Cumbia didn’t know who the Spanish superstar was, they just knew her as your girlfriend. Your fit girlfriend according to the teenage boy who lived next door to your mum. You made it work though, between you. You would send her snaps every time you saw children playing football. Pictures from south pacific islands to the mountain villages of the Himalayas, and every time you would receive the same response; “See, el deporte del mundo, I told you <3” It was a perfect storm. What happened. You’d spent a month in Barcelona, more time that you had been able to spend together in the year you’d been a couple. You’d fallen into a domesticity that you hadn’t experienced before. 

Alexia would train, you would have dinner ready for her. She would wake you up with a cup of Tea from her new kettle she's bought especially for you. You would plan routes and give advice to your online contacts about expeditions they had planned. You would sleep wrapped in each other's arms, Alexia would even let you be the big spoon, very occasionally. 

It felt perfect.  Until one, simple comment.

“Ay, look at you, wifey!” Mapi had exclaimed from her place at the table as you brought in the dinner you had prepared for the group,  you had invited her and Ingrid for a couples night, “who would have thought, “La jefa de la montaña. Tamed!” “Shut up Maria.” Ingrid nudged her girlfriend, with a kind smile she turned to you, “This looks delicious! Thank you” As the group tucked in though, you were distracted. Suddenly, the weight of Alexia's hand on your thigh felt heavy. The walls, too constricting. For you, the heat of Barcelona started to become oppressive. Too predictable. You missed England, you missed not knowing what the weather would be hour by hour. The contact blue skies felt like a false--happiness was being forced on you. The ground at your feet, sun dried, felt harsh compared to the muddy grass you had grown up stomping on. Soft, flexible. The routine started to bore you. You missed the weight of your backpack and the freedom of slinging up your hammock. Alexia hadn’t missed the way you had clammed up, the tenseness in your posture, the way your laugh did not reach your eyes for the rest of that evening. For the weeks following she felt like keeping you was like trying to catch smoke. Like trying to hold sand in her bare hands. She could feel you escape through her fingers for the next few weeks.

Which is why she wasn’t surprised when she returned from an away trip to Mallorca to see you on the couch. Hands nervously twisting and unable to meet her eye.

“You’re going again, aren't you?” she asked, as she dropped her bag at the door and settled next to you, taking your hands in hers. You nodded.

“I’m sorry Ale. It's just. It's not me.” you’d explained then, how you had been feeling. And she listened. Even though she knew. Of course she already knew.

“It’s okay, carino.” you’d assured you. You’d look up then, “it is?”

“Si, Mi Vida. I would never ask you to change. And only you would be bored of the life of a professional footballer, and you must be the only English person to ever complain about the weather in Barcelona” she’d lightened the mood with her joke, and rolled her eyes good naturedly.

“Where are you going this time?” she’d continued, and she should have known from your pause that this wasn’t the usual goodbye.

“Everest.”

“Everest.”  She’d reperated. Joy in her voice, she knew it was your life’s ambition to climb the world's highest summit. “...and Denali, and Elbrus...” you had continued to name the 7 highest summits on each continent that you would spend the next 18 months climbing, without oxygen, as part of an international exploration. Silence filled the apartment. “I….” “No.” “No?” you asked, shock in your voice. “No, what?” “No, you can’t do that. It's too dangerous.” “But Ale…” “No. No ‘but Ale’. I get it. I have been your partner now for long enough. I understand. But this is too much. No oxygen, so many climbs… there is too much danger. No.” her tone firm. Final. Her Captain's voice. And that had made the walls feel like they were closing in for you. And you responded like a wild animal, backed into a corner, defensive. “I wasn’t asking.” She let out a frustrated groan, hands covering her face. “Carino, please no. Listen to me. Being with you…” a huff again… “it is hard.” “Oh well, I am sorry Alexia, if being with me is such a chore…” you started. “No, stop, you are not letting me speak…” but you had started at that point. “You are not the one who is hidden away, you aren’t one who has had to move countries, to miss her family, your life hasn’t changed! You’ve given up nothing for this relationship.” you hiss out at her, hardly recognising your own voice. You're speaking just to hurt her. To make this easier for both of you. And that final sentence, seems to be what breaks the usually cool and calm exterior of your girlfriend and she stands and points her finger at you. “Nothing! ¡nada! ¿Cómo te atreves?” she spits out at you, the anger in her tone surprises you, you have never heard her speak like this, “I have sat here and waited. For months I have waited. For anything from you. Being with you is not like a long-distance relationship. You go, for months at a time, you go. And you expect me to sit here and wait. And I do. You do not text, you do not call. I understand that you cannot but do not say I have made no sacrifice for this relationship. When you got lost in the Gobi desert for weeks, what do you think I was doing? Sitting here! Jumping out of my skin every time the phone rang in case it was your Mami telling me you had been found dead. I did not play in The Copa De La Reinga final because I was so sick with worry. He hecho sacrificio. mi equipo, mi familia ha hecho sacrificio and I will not let you disrespect me or them and let you say otherwise.” 

Alexia doesn’t lose any of her anger in her tirade. And the silence that settles over the apartment is heavy. She seems to have surprised herself, as her eyes go wide and she opens her mouth again… but you interrupt her. “No Ale. Do not apologise.” you hold your hand up. “I didn’t think. I'm sorry. You are right. I am not good for you.” This is why you didn’t do relationships. You were a bad partner. You needed to be free, outside, exploring. You lived for adventure. It wasn’t fair.

“No! No Carino, that is not what I said!” tears are in her eyes now, and you knew this would be hard, but you didn’t know it would be this hard. “I love you...” “I love you too,” she quickly replies. Neither of you had even been shy with your affirmations to each other. “I love you so much Ale. But I have to go and do this. I have too. It is who I am. It is my dream. It.. It is my world cup.” She huffs out a laugh as she gently nudges herself into your arms, your attempt at speaking in a way she would understand humouring her. “I know.” she replies, sadly, “but I cannot go through that for 18 months mi amor. I cannot.” “And I won’t ask you to, love.” You move a strand of hair from her face as you kiss her lips, gently, there's a finality in it, you open your mouth again but she cuts in. “I can’t say anything that will stop you, can i?” she asks, as you shake your head, sadly. “When do you leave?” You cringe as you confirm her worst thoughts, “tomorrow.” She takes a deep breath and presses her face into your neck. “Can we do one thing before you go?” she asks you. 

Anything. You would give this woman in your arms anything she asked for at that moment. Apart from stay. And that's how you found yourself swinging on your old lightweight hammock. 

Strung up securely in the Putellas back yard. As you lay on your (ex?) girlfriend's chest, as you both looked up at the stars. You chatted into the night, you laughed and you cried. You fumbled under the blankets like horny teenagers. She asked you to promise to contact when you could. And you asked her to not worry, to concentrate on the Olympics and move on from you. You kept it to yourself that there was no way you were moving on from her.  You didn't know she was keeping the same thing to herself as she promised you she would try.

It was the weirdest break up anyone had ever had.

And, 17 months later, as you lay, trapped, entombed in your own coffin of ice,  you were sure that you could still feel the sway of that hammock, feel the heat of that Barcelona evening and hear the cicadas chirping. As the ice pressed all around you, all you could dream of was being back in that back yard in Barcelona, in the arms of Alexia.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Denali. Done. Vinson. Done.

Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Puncak Jaya . Done, Done, Done and Done. You’d faced the heat of Africa, the remoteness of Antarctica, the desolation of Russia. And here you were, finally, on your final summit. Everest. It was somewhat of a dichotomy between the mountaineering community. Everest had become a commercial hub. Have-a-go mountaineers paying big bucks to get a free ride to the highest mountain in the world. But to you, it had always been sacred. You had imagined it, as you climbed hills in the English lakes as a teenager, of one day scaling the iconic mountain. So, why? As you stood on the highest point of earth. After 3 months of acclimatisation. Were you thinking of your ex-girlfriend? Who were you kidding? You knew why. 

Alexia hadn’t been far from your thoughts on any of your summits. Her face popping into your mind at each peak. As you pocketed some rock as had become your tradition you would imagine her face as your hand touched the earth. The same earth she was on, thousands of miles away, probably in lush, manicured grass, kicking a ball around and entertaining thousands. Your group had become your family, and you had grown as close as one. Arguing when tensions got high but snuggling together to share warmth when in survival mode. Joking in bars across the globe and playing so many games of gin rummy that you sure a record had been broken. They teased you relentlessly for the old boots with silly laces you wore on the lower reaches of each summit, before you reached heights that you all had to wear mountaineering boots. Alexia, unknowingly, with you every step of the way. They had even made a game in each country you entered, to help you pick the rudest or funniest postcard to send to Barcelona, snippets of your time you sent to Alexia, keeping the promise you made over a year ago. You could have rang, you know you could. But you didn’t know if you heard her voice you wouldn’t high-tail it to Barcelona. So you sent postcards. It felt old-fashioned. It felt romantic. And you think that really, you liked that she couldn’t reply. It felt anonymous. You took off your snow goggles as you stood at the peak. You had 3 minutes on the highest point on earth without your goggles before you would become snow blind. The sun being about 60% stronger at this elevation. You could see the curvature of the earth.  It reminded you of the curvature of Alexia's shoulders as you held her from behind.

You took in a deep breath of thin air.

Your lung capacity feels like it has doubled since you left Europe.

You have done it. Without oxygen. 7 summits. Your life goal. Complete.

And now. You wanted to go home. 

“Congratulations English Sherpa! You have done it!” Arjan, clamps a heavily gloved hand on your shoulder, his wide smile visible even beneath his snood. Ice hanging from his moustache. He had to shout for you to hear him over the wind. He was a sherpa, he had travelled all around the world with you being one of the experts in the group, he’d affectionately nicknamed you the English Sherpa after he had seen your climbing prowess on your first summit. “We have done nothing yet, my friend. You know you’ve only climbed Everest once you get back down safely” you reply, glee in your voice, fixing your goggles back to your face. “Spoken like a true Sherpa.” he replied, and you both embraced at the top of the world. You didn’t hang around for long. Your entire expedition made it to the top of your final summit and you quickly pictured the moment before making your way down. The biggest risk on Everest is getting stuck in a crowd. It is not as technically difficult as other summits you have done. But without oxygen, a minute can feel like an hour on the highest point on earth. You heard once, it is easier to be saved from the surface of the moon than it is to be saved from the surface of Everest. Luck, however, seemed to be on your side. You had made good progress up, and were making even better progress down. With each step you became more and more gleeful, past 8,000 metres you started to finally feel safer. 7,000 metres, you let the excitement of your achievement settle into your bones. 6,000 metres you let your mind wander to finally going home but why was home seeming more like a sundrenched balcony in Barcelona rather than a green field of England? 5,000 metres, you promised yourself that you would use the satellite phone in your pocket to ring Alexia once you got back to base camp. Tell her you’d done it. Maybe even beg her forgiveness. You were alone on the mountain, ahead of most of your group and low enough now to be unattached to any guidelines, it was a usual affair.  Until it wasn’t.

You felt the ground rumble beneath you. It was barely noticeable. It felt more like the feeling you get when you’re lying in bed and a large truck drives past your house.

But it was enough to instil fear in you as you looked up and saw a wall of moving snow hurtling towards you. It was a slab avalanche, probably caused by the movement of the climbers above, and paired with the lateness of the day, the snow that had fallen and compacted overnight had melted enough to loosen into a wall of ice that was directed your way.

You had about 30 seconds.

You knew to go sideways, do not outrun an avalanche. It's like trying to outrun a cheetah. But this wall of ice looked wide, you ran to your side, moving slowly in the deep snow. As you ran you pulled your goggles back onto your face.

You could feel the earth beneath you falling away as the snow you trod on was unearthed by the vibrations of the snow above.

You ran. You ran for your life, but you knew this wasn’t good. Your training kicked in.

You saw a boulder in front of you and you threw yourself behind it, you created a ball with your body, making sure that you created a hole around your face you would be able to use to breathe. You pulled your ice pole from your back and stuck it into the ground next to you, that would help when you were covered by snow and you didn't know which way was up. Which way you would need to dig. You put one hand in your pocket and pulled the satellite phone in front of your face.

A thunderous rumble. 

And then. 

Silence. Darkness.  —----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alexia didn’t have her phone on at half time. She never paid it any attention - playing or not she was too focussed on the game.

Today, though, she didn’t know why. But she did.

She felt her phone vibrate in the bag at her feet.

And something compelled her to actually make the effort to dig into her bag and pull it out.

The number looked weird. Not a Spanish number, or an English one, she had gotten used to all the +44’s that had rang her over the year spent with you.

She stepped out of the unfamiliar changing room into the impressive corridors of Old Trafford. A post-season friendly. Barcelona Vs Manchester United. The game didn’t mean anything but it was always exciting to check another famous stadium off the list. A sold out crowd and an evening game. Can’t get much better.

She found a disused office room and managed to press accept on the call.

“Hola?”

At first she thought she’d missed it. Nothing on the line responded to her, as she pulled the phone away to check she saw the call had connected… ‘Scammers’ she cursed in her mind, moving to hang up. But just before she did…

“Hola, Ale.” She couldn’t believe it. Your voice. She dropped her weight onto the table behind her and held a hand to her chest that suddenly felt like it was torn in two. Heart beating faster than any 45 minutes of running could cause.

“¿eres realmente tú?”

“Yes, It’s me Ale.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes and even after everything she felt just the same as she did when she stepped out of that minibus nearly 3 years ago and first set eyes on you.

“Are you okay carino? Did you do it?”  she asked, breathlessly. “I did it, love.” was the response. In her pride at your accomplishment she missed how you hadn’t addressed her first question.

“Nunca tuve ninguna duda, I am so relieved to hear from you. The line is so quiet, are you still there?”

“Si…” a pause which Alexia attributes to the poor connection, “It must be the signal.” she notices you move on, quickly, “Can… can you just talk to me?”. Alexia smiles despite herself, you used to always ask her to talk you to sleep when your mind was whirring, completing your greatest accomplishment must be in that category and she can imagine you fidgeting in pent up adrenaline.

“I can amor, I have a few minutes. I am in Manchester. We are at half time at Old Trafford.”

“Old Trafford, hey?” she hears you laugh, “Finally, a football ground I’ve heard of.” She's missed your teasing lilt.

“Si, even you. It is raining. Why is it always raining here? I imagine you have better weather even at your camp.” Alexia jokes, innocently. The laugh you let out feels a little… forced? But she lets it go.

“I had lunch with your Mami today. We are only an hour or so away from yours, why did you never tell me we were so close?” Again, that laugh that she loves so much, but it felt more tired that she’d heard it before, more muffled. Though. She supposed, you must be exhausted.

“Because then, my love, you would have made us go and watch football matches and I much preferred to spend our time together in my bed.”

“Ah, Si, I remember, you did.” she responds, blushing and not missing a beat. 

“Your Mami is doing well. She is in the stands….” “Tell her I love her, Ale.” you cut in. There's a desperate edge to your voice that sends shivers down Alexia's spine. She stands, “I will. Of course I will. Carino, are you okay?” she realises now, you never answered her first question. “I stood on the top of Everest today, Ale.” you reply. You haven’t answered her question. She opens her mouth to ask it again but you continue, “I stood on the top of Everest and all I could think of was you.” Your words force her to sit again, her spare hand to her mouth, keeping in a muffled sob. “Don’t you think that's insane? That today, Ale. You were in Manchester and someone. On top of the world. The highest point on this Earth. The highest person on this planet. Only about 4 spacemen floating around above me. Had only you in their mind? I think that means you’ve been to the top of the world, Ale. En la cima del mundo conmigo. You were there with me, every step.” You sound drunk, she wouldn’t blame you, thin air for months it wouldn’t take more than half a pint to see you off, the thought of your ramblings makes her smile despite herself, she knows she shouldn’t, but she leans into it. “Everyone here talks like you….” she pauses, “In Manchester. Only me and Ona can understand them. With your flat vowels. It made me think of you more today. Miss you more than normal today. And now you call.” There's a knock on the office door, “Ale, Vamos!” half time has ended. She has never wanted to play football less than right now. “Because we’re soulmates” your voice definitely had a slur to it now, “and I miss you too. I’ll always miss you, my Ale.” you always got soppier when you drank. “You won’t miss me for long, Carino. You will be home soon. I don’t care if you decide that it's England or Spain. Whichever. I will be there. Si?... We will be together soon. We can sort all this out.” “Hopefully, n..to..oo soon.” she struggles to hear you, the connection starting to fail. “Pardon? Amor?” another knock at the door. She feels like she's being pulled in half as she presses the phone closer to her ear. “Amor. I have to go. Well done, Estoy tan orgullosa de ti. Call me when you can.” “I love you, Ale…” “I lo…” beep beep beep. The call drops before she has a chance to respond. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You feel pain all over your body. You had never felt pain like it. It was like every sinew in your body was screaming out in pain. You opened your eyes and immediately closed them again. Blinding white. You heard voices. Alarmed voices. 

Shouting voices. “HERE, HERE!!!” You felt yourself being moved. It made the pain worse. You tried to tell them to stop. 

Your throat couldn't make a sound. And then all you knew was black. 

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More darkness. You felt something covering your face. Your body being stripped. Water. Boiling water. It burned. You were submerged. “No no no no no no…” was all you could try to vocalise. A calming hand in your hair. “It is lukewarm water, we are trying to bring your body temperature up…” 

No, no. They were lying. The voice was lying. You thrashed. A pain in your arm. A needle? Darkness took you again. —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “There is no chance, Arjan.” “Bu….” “No. You are an experienced Sherpa. You are letting yourself get lost. There is no chance. She is too far gone. Air evac is the only way. No Nepalese pilot will fly at this altitude. We need to make her comfortable…” —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You felt yourself being moved.

Less painful this time.

You felt wind on your face.

This wasn’t natural wind.

The sound of blades. Air moving unnaturally. Choppily.

Your face is covered again. 

The wind gets louder. More mechanical. You feel yourself being lifted up. “You’ve some friends in high places, English Sherpa.” you hear whispered to you, a hand on your forehead. Arjan? Your friend is speaking to you. You feel less alone. You try to open your eyes but the effort feels herculean. And then nothingness. —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This time, when you wake up. You stay awake. You’re in an unfamiliar room. It’s obvious it's a hospital room. But you’re alone. You look around and see yourself wired up to all sorts of machines. But that's it. You try to move to sit up but your shoulder screams in protest. You take stock of your body. You feel a bandage wrapped around your head. Your head is banging now you think about it. Your right arm is completely immobile. Your arm wrapped across your chest and hand completely covered by bandages. You try to wiggle your fingers but. Nothing. God. You hope they’re still there. Before you had too long to spiral the door burst open and you were faced with a smiling, familiar face. “Arjan!” you try to exclaim, voice rough from underuse. “She’s awake. My friend!” his sun-soaked face suits his smile. His bushy eyebrows make his eyes almost invisible as he crinkles them in joy. Arjan settles next to you and fills you in on everything you were present for, but missed out on account of being buried alive or completely unconscious. Your choice to hide behind the boulder had been the first thing to save your life. It had protected you from being swept away by the avalanche and was easier to locate. Before you had called Alexia you had contacted base camp. But your GPS had been knocked off so all they knew was that you were alive. And where you told them you had last been. You’d lost consciousness fairley quickly. Brain starved of oxygen in the small air pocket you had created. Hypothermia had set in slowly.

Your hand had been left exposed after using the phone, and you remember wiggling your fingers, seeing them slowly turn black as they succumbed to frostbite. It had taken 3 days to find you. Luckily, you had been the only person caught up in the snow. You remember, now, coming in and out of consciousness. You even recall a bad spell of seeing Alexias face in the boulder your head rested against and talking to it. Maybe you’d keep that you yourself. Bit embarrassing really. Your legs were pinned down by snow. You had used your last piece of strength to thrust your ice pole upwards. You'd chosen the direction based on the way your tears fell. That was the second thing that had saved your life. Arjan had spotted the pole in the ice field. Days after everyone else had given up on ever finding you. You’d been dragged to base camp and they started to treat hypothermia. You were more than halfway to dead. You resembled a corpse. Arjan had told you he'd never seen anyone literally blue. “Pulled it off tho, my friend” he’d tried to joke. “Of course, always” you’d winked back in reply. You'd have no chance of survival whilst still on the mountain. The air was still too thin and your were suffering from hypoxia. Problem was, the air was too thin for an air evacuation and. Well. As you knew. It was easier to be saved from the surface of the moon than it was to be saved from the surface of Everest. The third thing that had saved you. Was Alexia. “You have someone who’s gone to the moon and back for you, my friend.” Once she’d found out you had gone missing she had gone to the UK embassy in London to start a search and rescue campaign. When they hadn’t moved quickly enough she had involved the Spanish government. She’d used her resources and status to launch a media campaign which had pressured both governments. She’d flown to Kathmandu herself and was trying to hire a plane to Lukla when you’d been found. Then her attention turned to locating a pilot crazy enough to fly at such an altitude. Turns out anyone was crazy enough for the right price. And many, many euros later, the highest ever search flight took off from the surface of Everest, with you on board. “She’s a force to be reckoned with, your girl.”

He told you, as he reached to the ground below you, “...and you’ll be happy to hear, I saved your precious boots” he dumped your familiar old tattered boots at the bottom of your bed.

“And some stuff from your tent. But I had to hike it out so I left some of the smellier clothes.” he joked, as you thanked him, he really was a good man. “... Wait… hike it out? How long have I been here?” “You’ve been unconscious for a week my friend. I always told you you were lazy.” You took a moment to take stock. A week. Well. That meant that even if Alexia had been in Kathmandu, she was a million miles away now. The door opens again and you’re too lost in your own thoughts to give any care to the nurse whos been coming in every now and again checking charts whilst you and Arjan chatted. “Ah here she is. La Reina herself!” You turned your head quickly and took in the face that had been the last image in your mind every night, and the first every morning, since the day you had parted. “Ale…” you breathed. Here. She was here. In Kathmandu. In the same room as you. 

She looked as beautiful as ever, hair flowing over her shoulders, blonder than the last time you had seen her. She had gained muscle and her features had sharpened. But everything else was the same. Her smell invaded your senses. That smell that mosquitoes loved so much. You got it. Her eyes were sharp, and directed firmly at you. They looked tired. She held a sense of exhaustion. You wanted her to fall into your arms, but she stood at the door, and you couldn't open them to welcome her in. The moment was heavy and Arjan broke the silence and stood… “I’ll leave you both to it. See you around English Sherpa.” and with a squeeze of your foot he was gone. Leaving you both in a heavy silence. “Thank You Ale.” you said, breaking the silence.

After all Arjan told you, you owed her your life. She didn't respond. But her eyes had moved from your face and were now directed at the boots still on your bed. As battered as ever, Blaugrana laces snapped and re-tied in several places, swatch still visible on the tongue. Maybe you thought that your meeting would be a bit more romantic, not as…tense? She stroked one of the boots gently with her finger, seemingly lost in a trance. “Ale…?” “You have a habit of not telling me important things.” Whatever you expected it wasnt that. “Qué?” “That you speak Spanish, how you feel, I don’t know… that your trapped in a fucking avalanche.” you’d seen her angry before, you’d seen that anger directed at you, but this felt worse. It was directed through you. She kept her distance when all you wanted to do was hold her close. “How could you do that? How could you let us speak knowing that you were about to freeze to death and just chat to me, like it was a normal Sunday afternoon?” “I…I didn’t want to worry you…” you croaked out, you felt like a school child who was being told off by the head teacher. And you deserved it, you supposed. “I will always worry about you, por el amor de dios!!” She started to pace around the bottom of your bed, your eyes moving like they were taking in a tennis match watching her wear the ground down. “...and to think I finished that game. I slept that night at your flat. Happy, finally feeling like I almost had you back. Your mami took me home. And then, the next morning, I walked into the kitchen. And there she was, crying at the table. She could hardly tell me what had happened. And then it all fell into place. You’d called me when you thought you were already in your grave, didn’t you?” All you could do was nod, arms desperate to dry the tears tracking down her face. “I’m glad to see you.” you let out. Unsure of what else to say. “You won’t be. I am so, so angry at you.” “I know you are bu…” 

“No, you did your speaking on that Mountain. Now you listen” Her tears are dry now and the anger is back in her face. “I have sorted a medical flight. We leave tonight. We’re going back to Barcelona. I don’t care if you want to go back to that rainey island or not. It’s not your choice, it's mine. You almost froze to death, you need the sun. The warm. You will come with me every day to the doctors at the club. They will monitor you. Your family will come to visit. You will go to a therapist. You will take your medication. You will not ignore your medication because you think its better to treat yourself with whatever crushed bug or mashed-up leaves you think is better….” She stops for breath. “That was one time…” you mumbled, referring back to the time you insisted that a crushed cucumber was better than antiseptic cream to treat a bee sting. “Nope. You are still listening.” She stopped you, firmly again, but you felt her eyes softening as she took you in, “... and when we get home and you get better, we will talk. We will decide where we are building our life together, but that is one non-negotiable. It will be together. Okay?” She seems to be finished. And she's moved closer to you, close enough for you to reach out and grab her hand with your good one. You nod, and pull her hand to cup your face. “I just have one question.” you ask, seeking permission to speak. She nods as she strokes your face, tired and burnt from over-exposure. “Are these fingers still attached?” you ask, shaking your injured arm at her, “they’re kind of important for my plans, if you know what I mean” you wiggle your eyebrows suggestively. Her laugh makes you think maybe you did die on that mountain, because surely, here, with her, you’re in heaven. “Te amo, idiota” —-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You awoke surrounded by soft sheets and sleep-warm pillows. Your once-injured arm tweaked in pain slightly as you stretched out. You had physio later this afternoon, you thought to yourself, you had better mention it. You rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen, still covered in blankets, bed hair resembling a yeti. You almost tripped up over your rucksack which was laying in the hall. Where it had been since your return to Barcelona, months ago. You hadn’t been ready to unpack it quite yet. You could hear Alexia on the phone out on the balcony, and you gestured the international, ‘want a drink’ sign to her, which she shook her head at. You shrugged. God, sometimes she was so Spanish. A good Brit would never let a hot kettle go to waste. It had been months of reconnection, Alexia finally letting go of her anger as soon as you entered the flat. She broke down in your arms that first night, simultaneously telling you how angry she was at you and how much she loved you at the same time. How she had never been as scared in her life. You just dealt with it by pressing kisses into her hairline.

She'd made you sit in the sun of the balcony every chance she got. Morning, Noon and Night. Moving you around to chase the rays. Insisting that you needed the warmth and vitamins of the sun to recover. The image of you pale, cold and frozen in the hospital in Nepal seared into her mind. When Mapi and Ingrid visited Mapi teased you, and had taken to calling you Bagheera. She said you resembled her cat, chasing the sun to lounge in at every occasion. She quickly stopped when Alexia slapped the back of her head. You no longer had to hide your relationship. Alexia had blown the doors off that as she went to the media in order to get the resources to save you. The feeling of claustrophobia that had made you flee from Barcelona had gone. You knew what being trapped really felt like now. And how you ever thought the love of your life and a shared life in this sun-drenched city was suffocating. Well. That was a different person to who you were now. Yeah, you would always love the outdoors. But you had an anchor now. Something that made you maybe not scale that next peak, and instead be excited to share a recipe with. Maybe not stay on the trail for an extra week, and instead pick out a good film to settle down to. Your mum was over the moon. She’d been a regular visitor. You thought she’d be upset, when you decided to stay in Spain instead of going back to England but she seemed offended by the idea. “That girl saved your life you stupid woman, of course will stay here with her.” Alexia didn’t accept it so easily. She was worried you would feel trapped again, that she wasn’t compromising. She would rather move with you than lose you. “Ale. Barna is your life.” you had replied, simply, “...and you are mine.” “It is not!” she had refused, aghast at the suggestion until you said, “United will have me, so will City, my agent has checked, I would even go to the Championship and play for Newcastle, I look great in black!” “Ale, you literally have a floor tile tattooed on your back. We’re staying here.” you said, deadpan. And she couldn’t say much to that. So, much to the despair of every football fan in England. She signed a new contract with Barcelona not two weeks ago. Maybe it was how settled you felt this morning, as the kettle boiled. The soreness in your muscles after the night you spent together in bed, which must be why your shoulder was straining now. Maybe you'd keep that away from the physio. Though, maybe he’d be happy to hear that your fingers were definitely fully recovered. Not as happy as Alexia was though, you'd bet. But something about this morning made you brave enough to finally open that rucksack in the hallway. As you zipped it open your fingers caught on a single piece of cardboard. A postcard. You flipped it over as arms encircled your waist and gentle lips kissed your shoulder. “Carino?” she asked, looking at the postcard in your hands. “I never got to give you this.” you whispered, as you held the postcard over your shoulder, she let you go as she turned it in her hands. She let out a barking laugh as she moved towards the fridge where 6 other postcards sat proudly, waiting for their 7th to complete the set. A woman in a bikini, sat on a yak wearing a cowboy hat, the imposing structure of Everest in the background. A speech bubble coming out of her mouth ‘I’ve seen bigger’. Alexia rolled her eyes at you as she stuck it to the fridge with a magnet showing the message you wrote all those months ago.

“Ale, I’m here. 

One more summit and I’ll be on my way back to you. For good. How can I say it in your language? ‘It’s coming home’. 

fin. 

[alice-everafter]

"Is the room to your liking?"

Riddle's tentative voice rings through the peaceful silence. He's stood like a stranger, unsure and hesitant in his crimson pajamas. Which is ironic given the fact that it’s his own room that the two of you are in. Really, that should be you standing around awkwardly. But instead here you were, sat on his king sized bed in similar pajamas without shame.

"Riddle," you don't have to fake the giddy grin as it stretches across your face painfully wide. "Any room is to my liking considering the shack I currently call home."

He gives you a concerned little smile in response. You couldn’t help it, you were excited to finally be able to sleep on a mattress that wasn’t lumpy. Or creaky. And or slightly moldy. The point being you’re excited to get some good sleep.

Riddle flicks off the lights and starts to settle into bed. You follow his lead, because if there is one thing Riddle Rosehearts can do is be a commanding presence even in satin pjs.

He turns on his side, staring at you from across a reasonable gap given the fact that you were currently sharing a bed. A really big one at that but a bed regardless.

And then continues to stare as a questionable silence occurs.

“Do you always go to bed this early?” You blurt out before you can think any better of it. The awkwardness was just asking to be broken.

“This is early?” Riddle’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “I’ve always gone to bed at this hour, even as a child.”

You can just vaguely make out the light of the still setting sun from the window behind you.

“Well, I mean, what time do you normally get up?”

“6 am.”

“Oh,” well. Maybe he’ll let you sleep in, enjoy the luxury of a non-lumpy bed while you still can.

“You seem apprehensive.” Riddle fiddles with the blanket in his hands where it rests right below his chin. You try and shoo the imagery of a small child being tucked in out of your brain.

Thank god his unique magic didn’t have to do with reading minds, otherwise you’d be thrown to the streets with a collar as a parting gift.

Speaking of collars and lack there of, today had marked a month since Riddle’s “big summer blowout” as you have codenamed it as. And what started as a “1 month of sobriety” joke by Ace turned into an actual celebration by Cater. So, naturally, you dragged yourself along and helped yourself to Trey’s mouthwatering pastries. But then one thing led to another and somehow you were roped into playing a Twisted Wonderland version of Monopoly that led to Grim melting all the plastic house pieces in a fit of firey tantrum to then being forced to fix them by Riddle in an impromptu magic lesson/lecture and—

Yeah, so a lot happened. And next thing you know, you’re being surveilled watched by Trey as you meticulously brush your teeth along to his direction… for some reason? Turns out Ace wasn’t spewing complete lies about Trey’s “fetish” for teeth. You wouldn’t call it that, personally. It was more like a… slightly uncomfortable passion.

But anyway, here you are. Sleeping over at Heartslabyul because Riddle had insisted you and Grim stay the night since by the time you had realized, it was past curfew. Though, surprisingly, Riddle insisted that you share his bed. And Grim, still more than a little apprehensive about the Dormhead, scampered off to sleep with the other freshmen. Cramped dorm rooms be damned.

“Prefect?”

You shake yourself from your thoughts, realizing you had left Riddle hanging for your answer.

“No, no. I’m just… difficult to get up in the morning.” You settle on saying, fiddling with the comforter much like Riddle was.

“Oh, well you can’t be worse than Ace. He’d sleep the entire day away if I allowed it.”

You can see that familiar spark of disapproval flare up behind his eyes and you instinctively tense up. Though as quick as it was there, it fizzles out. Reminding you that yes, this was Riddle, but not the same one that nearly decapitated you with a rose bush.

This is the one that you saw break down in tears on the Heartslabyul lawn after treating it like a playground sandbox. The one that nearly did it again—the crying part, not the sandbox bit—as he pulled you aside and apologized for nearly killing you.

You remind yourself that as you decide to take a small leap of faith with your next words.

“I was also sort of hoping to sleep in tomorrow.”

“Oh,” is all he says. Which isn’t terrible, but not exactly good either.

“Since, you know. It’ll be Sunday. And, you know, still the weekend so. Good to get caught up on sleep while you can… you know.”

He’s analyzing what you’ve said, you can tell by the way his eyes get wide and concentrated. Oh, he’s biting his lip now. That means he’s actually considering your thoughts. He’s thinking, he’s about to speak—

“Alright.”

“…Alright?”

“Yes, alright.” He seems to solidify his answer with a nod. “Let’s sleep in.”

Those words settle in your chest like the sweetest relief.

“Brilliant idea, Riddle!” You can feel the excitement as it grows in your chest. So much so you reach over and grasp his hand, shaking it in emphasis. “You won’t regret this, I tell you.”

“You’re acting like I’ve just done something revolutionary.” He titters, cheeks pink from the unexpected contact as you basically start shaking his hand like an eager businessman after a hard won deal.

“How many times have you slept in before?”

He opens his mouth to respond, ponders, and then slowly shuts it.

“See! So it's basically revolutionary. Why do you think we threw you a party?"

"Oh, and that's another thing." He seems to remember something at the mention of the party. "The fact that Ace and Cater kept congratulating me on my '1 month of sobriety' is pure nonsense. I've never had a lick of alcohol my whole life, so why would I be sober if I never got not sober to begin with?"

As he rambled, you could see his confusion slowly shifting towards indignance. His cheeks were beginning to flush, eyebrows knitting together. His fingers were clenching and unclenching in the sheets pulled over his body.

He looks at you now with pursed lips, bordering on pouty, waiting for a reply.

"...Well, it's a, um..." You stop yourself from saying joke. If you wanted Riddle to not possibly get offended, you'd need to overexplain as much as he can overthink. "It's supposed to be ironic. As in like, 'haha get it? Riddle would never get drunk and therefore sobriety makes no sense and therefore is funny!' kind of ironic."

You subconsciously ended up avoiding eye contact throughout your entire explanation. And also leaving out the comparison of his... "moments" with alcoholism, since you didn't think that would go over very well. So when you finish and decide to just bite the bullet and look, his expression is one of... disappointment?

"Oh," he says, simply and softly. "I see, I guess that... makes sense."

...Maybe you should explain the comparison. "If you need me to elaborate, I can."

"No," he quickly responds with a shake of the head. "That won't be necessary. Your explanation was more than enough."

His eyes are trained on a loose piece of thread near the edge of his pillow yet it's like he's staring straight through it.

"Is there... something else then that's on your mind?"

"I guess I am just... realizing a few things about myself. Especially in regards to these past few months. All those times when I overheard a student comment that I 'couldn't take a joke' were, in essence, correct."

"What?" Talk about a topic shift. "Wait, hold on a second, where did this come from?"

"From just now, actually." He begins picking at the thread he's been zoning out on. "I mean, you saw me. I almost talked myself into a tizzy over, what? A harmless phrase that had no intention of demeaning my character? That ended up turning into a party meant to congratulate me?"

"Well, I mean, there is an underlying comparison between your 'tizzy' moments and alcoholism so—"

"Ace was right."

You blink, momentarily wondering if the person laying across from you is actually Riddle or not.

"How?" You don't bother with hiding your incredulousness, too confused to sugarcoat.

"When he said that everyone around me only panders to my behavior." He huffs, a small humorless laugh filled with self deprecation. "I, all that time, was just silencing thoughts and behavior that I viewed as wrong even though it would've been right. It's no wonder some of the freshman are still hesitant with me. Why it feels like everyone is walking around eggshells when they talk to me."

"Even you, Prefect." He looks... small, truly like a child. Curled into himself like he wishes to disappear from sight. Blinking rapidly like he's trying not to cry. "Even you do it. You let me do what I want, you're never 100% honest with me, and you justify my responses. Like just now."

You open your mouth to rebuttal, but he shakes his head, smiling sadly.

"Don't bother, I can give you examples. Asking me if we could sleep in, expecting me to disagree. Only half explaining the meaning to me since it'd be directly referencing my anger. Which you have yet to actually name for what it is, not once."

You... hadn't even realized you were doing that. It was all just, natural. Instinctive.

"I can... I'm not the most perceptive but, I can tell when you tense up, Prefect."

He meets your gaze, and that's when you process the tension in your shoulders. You had been tensing them, for who knows how long.

"I don't blame you," he speaks before you can begin to try and say anything in response. "Not after everything I did, not after I overblotted and nearly got us all killed."

He looks defeated as he turns over to lie on his back, staring up at the canopy of his bed.

"Ace and all of them were right, I'm just a baby tyrant."

The two of you lapse into silence, you with nothing to say and him having said it all. You don't know how long you stare at his profile for, just scraping the recesses of your brain for the words to say. But eventually, you decide "fuck it" and just let him have it. Like he deserves.

"So you're a bit of a control freak." His head snaps to you but you force yourself to ignore it, barreling onwards. "Scratch that, you ARE a control freak. Can you blame yourself? What with that shitty mom you have, I'd be surprised if you didn't turn out some form of fucked up."

"My mother is—"

"Nope," you abruptly hold a finger up right to his face. "None of that, I'm talking. You want the truth so I'm giving you the truth. Your mom sucks, severely. She basically made you into the baby tyrant that you are. And we, as friends and as your dormmates, have perpetuated that attitude. Thereby continuing the cycle of tyranny until when someone eventually called you out on it, you exploded."

All that momentary fight dies out the more you went on. Every new statement was like a lash across his face. Now he refuses to look at you, too disappointed to meet your gaze. Eyes glossy with unshed tears.

You cross the invisible wall between you two and reach out, grabbing his hand once again in yours.

"But that doesn't mean you can't change." You squeeze his hand, whether to reassure yourself or him is beyond even you. "The fact that you're acknowledging your behavior is proof enough that you're on your way to fixing it. But even then, healing isn't linear. If you take a few steps back, just get back on it again. It's going to be a while but there's nothing you can do about that except let it happen and be patient. Don't let every reminder of your faults be a dissuasion, let it be a motivator to keep going."

You take a moment to breathe, but also to gauge his reaction. Wide eyed and staring at you in wonderment, Riddle lays unmoving. Nothing but the dim impression of street lights outside to illuminate his form in the darkness of his bedroom. Looking at you and only you.

"I'll do better," you tell him, resolute. "I'll hold you accountable. I'll remind myself more to say what I mean, or even call you out on your shit if I need to. And if not me then someone else will, especially Ace. Consequences be damned with him."

He's lying once more on his side, mirroring you like before. His fingers have since found their place around your hand, holding it in kind. His grip tightens with the lull in your speech. You don't know whether it was intentionally or not but it's enough to encourage you to let that last little thought out.

"And for what it's worth, I think you're doing as good a job as any, Riddle."

Silence settles in, him with nothing to say and you having said it all. Well, almost having said it all.

"So," you pipe up before those tears you can see in his eyes decide to fall. "I think this call for a concluding hug, what do you say?"

So, so many emotions fly across his face as you hold open your arms as best you can while lying on a bed. Eventually, what he settles on doing is laughing. Watery and in disbelief, Riddle laughs and leans forwards into your arms.

"Honestly," he chides without an ounce of real intent as he presses his face into your shoulder. "That's how you decide to end your thoughts?"

"I don't see you doing any better, Mr. 'I'm just a baby tyrant.'"

A month ago, that response would've gotten you a one way ticket to collar town. But tonight, he only laughs and holds you tighter.

"Touché, Prefect." He leans back enough that you're able to watch as a smile spreads across his face, unabashed and bright like the sun.

It's one of the firsts of its kind that you've ever seen on his face. You hope you can keep producing more just like it.

[moonsaver]

Falling asleep on them (their shoulder, mostly)

Title is as it says lol. A small apology for not having neither the seraphim sunday out sooner nor the yan alphabet.

– contains; Sunday, Aventurine, Dr ratio and Boothill (separately) x gn!reader.

No reader warnings bc its just fluff with a hint of angst if you squint

Sunday

Pre AE sunday: it's rare for both of you to have quiet, private and intimate moments long enough for either of you to really relax, but when it happens, you must've also been dead tired the way you didn't even realise you were asleep until your head softly landed on his shoulder.

I imagine Sunday would like sitting on a sofa with you and just do his work silently beside you, sorting through his documents in quiet peace when it happens. When it does, his hands freeze for a moment, stopping mid-turn of a page when he feels the warmth of you on his shoulder.

He'd gently set his work aside for a moment and simply relish the feeling. He's too busy to really be there for the most part, but he's still nonetheless grateful youve always been there for him, and he feels guiltier the more he stares at your sleeping form. It's this mix of overwhelming love and guilt that eats at him – he wonders if he's really as good of a partner to you and if you would consider getting with someone else besides him that could possibly give you more–

-Aaand the thoughts stop, when your head slightly slumps more.

He sighs, and leans his head on yours aswell, finding and interlocking his fingers with yours. He settles to relish the moment.

AE Sunday: basically the same, except he doesn't overthink nor is he working. But rather, he's in one of the trio's rooms in the corner leaning on the destroyed pillow fort which was done so to make space for the Monopoly game they were playing. He smiles when it happens, closing his book and gently setting it aside, settling more into the pillows and gets cozier. He'll play a bit with your hair, press a kiss to your forehead, and whisper sweet nothings to you – he talks about visiting new worlds, his feelings so far, how he feels so lucky to experience all of this with you. He tries to cover your ears so you don't wake up from the boisterous energy from the trio playing a few ways away. Maybe they also join you two and make it an impromptu cuddle session turned into a joint napping session.

——

Aventurine

A bit shocked when it happens, and originally thinks you're not actually asleep when it does, teasing you a bit. But quickly shuts up when you don't respond like your usual bantering self, and tenses a bit at your silence. He leans over carefully to see your sleeping face – and only then does he really accept you're asleep.

He stays tense for a moment. The moment is a bit too dangerously vulnerable for him — rather, the amount of trust you'd have in someone to sleep on them, is something he's a bit overwhelmed by thinking of.

If you stay asleep long enough he'll eventually relax, and realise how tense he was for a while when his shoulders pain a bit from it. He'll just stay silent for a moment, his eyes would be distant and his thoughts would be incoherent, but eventually they all settle down into silence when your soft breathing grounds him to the presence.

He sighs, followed by a very soft chuckle, before he presses a small kiss to the crown of your forehead, and wraps an arm around your shoulder.

——

Boothill

If the smell of gunpowder and rust and blood doesn't deter you from sleeping on him, and neither does his hard body, then you're in good hands!

His arm would probably be lazily draped over you from behind the couch, while he taps a bit on his phone, trying to mute some of the annoying notifications from a bounty or something when he feels you shift. Only you don't move away – but rather move towards him.

He looks slightly up from his phone and to his side, realising you've fallen asleep. He carefully shifts a bit, pockets his phone, and adjusts your head so you're sleeping on the "softer" parts – like the scarf around his neck or his top, making sure you're not pressing up against any hard bodied, sharp parts on him. Maybe even takes his hat off and places it so that it blocks the light from your eyes.

After that's done, he smiles smugly, before picking up his phone again and switching to the camera.

If you've made it this far being asleep, I hope you can survive the flashbang of his phone as boothill curses his device to hell and back, forgotten to have switched off the flashlight.

——

Dr. Ratio

At first, he quirks an eyebrow when you lean your head on him, but it doesn't take long to figure out you've fallen asleep.

He's still– well, tries to stay annoyed. But he really can't. Something about you softens him so much he (almost but not really) hates it. He softly scoffs, before wrapping his arm around your shoulder and making sure your head is positioned properly, you won't drool on him, etc..

If you don't wake up to it, he'll talk to you a liiitle while you're asleep. It's just mundane things to him – what he's reading while you're asleep, what he plans to study next, an experiment or so he's interested in, etc.. all while his hand gently rubs up and down your arm to soothe you.

He's surprisingly comfortable to sleep on – if he doesn't have anywhere else to be. Even then, he's actually very gentle. He'd be huffy about it later, but it doesn't defeat the fact he picks you up carefully and places you somewhere safer to sleep and makes sure you're comfortable and safe before leaving.

Don't fall asleep while in the bath. He'll just wake you up and urge you to leave the instant he realises you're asleep.

——

[thexsilentxwordsmith]

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Fem!reader

Fandom: Call of Duty

Character(s): Simon Riley, Reader

Summary: Simon is struggling, he can't get off and he doesn't know what to do. As his sergeant you are one of the closest to him and can see something is up. An impromptu visit late one night might just be what he needs... And the way you are suddenly making him bow to your authority and turning his brain off might actually make him come.

Word Count: 6.2 k

Warnings:

Part 2 - Read Here

Lt. Simon Riley is frustrated out of his mind and he’s no longer able to hide it. 

Something inside the stoic officer is causing him problems as a recent development makes him unable to reach the finish line when he’s touching himself, a secret that is causing a mental roadblock to his release… and he knows it’s making him a nightmare to be around. 

Being his sergeant, the second in command and one of the few people closest to him, you are the first to notice the shift in his personality. Simon Riley has always been a man of very few words, but lately he’s been even more silent when it comes to everyone else, except for you. Every time you two speak he is short and harsh and blunt as if you are getting on his last nerve. It strikes you as strange since you’re not doing anything out of the ordinary from how you’ve interacted before.

Then there is his temper which seems to be on a shorter and shorter fuse these days as a week turns into a week and a half of no change in his attitude. Mix that with the visible tension he is carrying in his shoulders whenever you are near and it’s hard to ignore how drastic things have shifted.

Something is up, though exactly what it is you aren’t sure, but you are curious to find out and nip this shit in the bud so things can go back to the way they were before: you two being able to interact in a friendly manner. 

It is the weekend of the nearly third full week this has been going on when you finally decide that enough is enough. The last couple of days he’s avoided you almost exclusively and that is it; whatever it is that has gotten between you is going to be hashed out here and now. Determinedly, under the cover of darkness at this late hour, you make your way to his room with the intention of staying until this entire thing has been fixed.

Simon sits alone in his quarters with his hand shoved into the waistband of his sweats, his hand palming around his cock, stroking up and down in hopes that this will finally be the time his body does what it’s supposed to. Things are progressing fine…that is until he is abruptly interrupted out of nowhere. 

There is a knock on his door and it rings through the room; who the hell could be so bold as to bother him at this time of night just when he is about to give this thing another try? Releasing himself, he straightens up his clothing and grabs his mask, putting it on as he stalks over to the door ready to lay into whoever is standing on the other side. He savagely flings it open and immediately he can feel his blood rushing until he can hear his pulse pounding in his ears at who he comes face to face with.

“Do’ya know what fuckin’ time it is?” he questions agitatedly as he stares back into your unwavering gaze.

Nodding in acknowledgement, you try to let his bad attitude slide; your mission isn’t going to be deterred just cause he wants to instantly get pissy. “Are you going to let me in or not?” you throw your own question back at him with a huff. 

He weighs his options in silence as you stand in the shadow of his door waiting for him to react and after a few seconds he reluctantly decides that he can’t just keep you waiting outside; he isn’t foolish enough to think that if he just shuts the door that you will go away. There are too many prying eyes that could see something if he doesn’t act and he doesn’t need any of the bullshit that could come from someone catching anything. Stepping aside, he allows you to enter into the room. 

“Shut the door,” he barks and you make sure it is secure before turning back to face him. You may have been permitted to enter, but the space right in front of the door is about as far as you can go as his body blocks you from moving in further, keeping you stuck between him and the exit.

“What the hell are ya doin’ ‘ere?” he asks. 

Staring back up into his eyes, you survey the curious look through his agitated glare. There is something there sparking in their depths, an unspoken need of something that he is longing for, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. “You’ve been in a mood lately towards me and people are starting to notice,” you admit after a moment. “What’s going on, hmm?”

Simon diverts his gaze from your scrutinizing one. “ ‘is nothin’,” he says hastily, not ready to confess to you the cause of his frustration. It’s not exactly something he wants to go revealing to everyone…especially not to the source of the problem. 

Just from his reaction you know it’s definitely not nothing and his lie falls flat without gaining any traction. 

“Well something has gotten into your craw,” you say as you lean your back against the door with your arms crossed across your stomach; you can’t move so you might as well get comfortable as you hash this out. “Whatever it is that you think I’ve done that’s gotten you in a foul mood at me, if you’ll just tell me, we can figure this out cause we can’t go on like this; it’s going to affect our work.”

All he wants to do is listen to your words, but his attention is being drawn somewhere else besides your face and it is getting hard to pull his eyes away. Why the fuck did you have to wear that god damn tank top? Christ it’s so tight he can make out the contours of your body without even having to try and at his height all he has to do is look down to have the perfect view of the top of those juicy tits popping out of the top. Not to mention your jeans which look to be painted on to your every curve. There is a stirring in his pants, the first signs of life between his legs. It’s getting harder to tell you that you should go.

“Not exactly somethin’ I wanna talk ‘bout,” he says hesitantly as he adjusts his stance so that the fabric of the long, gray sweatpants he has on won’t reveal anything.

“Come on,” you say, trying to appeal to the small bond you had before all this, “you know you can trust me. All I want to do is figure out what I’ve done so we can move on.”

This isn’t your fault and Simon knows it isn’t fair to put this on you as if it is. As much as he doesn’t want to admit anything, he knows that it will only make things fester more if he doesn’t say something, and all he has right now is the truth.  “Ya haven’t done anything,” he denies your culpability in his actions. 

“Then what?” You wait patiently for his reply.

He clears his throat. “Look, I’ve jus’ been havin’ a fuckin’ time… Christ… tryin’ to … uh… get off lately,” he grumbles as he begrudgingly admits to his predicament. “Some god damn mental block that’s got me…unable to…”

The sentence trails off with a displeased sigh of defeat, but in all honesty he doesn’t have to keep going; just from that tiny bit of information you can glean what’s going on, why he’s been so on edge, and what he is going to need to fix it. 

Simon needs to come.  

“Seems like something I could help with,” you say as the corner of your lip upturns slightly at the thought. “Why didn’t you just tell me? I would have come over; it’s not like… you know… we haven’t done things before.”

There is a pause. “Thought we agreed that those were just to let off a little steam and we were just gonna leave it be,” he says in that low, gravely tone that instantly has goosebumps prickling over your skin. 

Simon has you there; a couple quick, adrenaline-fueled rounds behind the mess hall after a few high stress missions doesn’t make you two actual lovers, but that also doesn’t mean those meetings meant nothing…or that you would deny any chance you could get to have him again.  You just can’t ever say no to him. 

Besides, he should know that this is something you would be doing for the greater good, right? A distracted lieutenant could mean trouble for the entire team, not just you. So, if getting him off will keep him from being distracted it is worth it; that’s a good enough reason for you to remedy this.

But how? 

There are several things you know about your superior officer and one of them that stands out among the rest in this situation is that he always has to be in control of everything in all aspects of his life. What if you took away some of that power? He says he feels like there is a mental block keeping him from climaxing, what if you just shut off his brain for a bit? Make the dominant become the dominated.

Simon was the one to turn your brain off those times past, perhaps it is time to return the favor. Mental blocks won’t be a problem if he is an overstimulated mess.

With a small thrust you push off the door and stand up to take a few steps closer towards him, drawing the distance between your bodies down to just a few inches. “Don’t you want to feel good, Simon?”

“Don’t know if this is a good idea, luv...” he still tries to deny himself even as he catches a whiff of your scent, that natural musk mixed with your perfume that drove him to lose his head those other times, and the fragrance conjures memories of the past that only make his pulse race more heatedly through his veins. He wants to come and he can’t deny that he wants it with you, but if he gives in and allows you to do this it may only make things worse.

You smirk and shake your head as you reach out to grab playfully at the drawstring hanging down the front of his gray sweatpants, lightly tugging on it so that the fabric puckers up. “That isn’t what I asked, Simon. Good idea or bad, that doesn’t matter right now. Do you want to feel good?”

Fuck, how pent up he’s been and with you standing here enthusiastically pushing to help get him off, how in the hell is he supposed to turn you away when now all he can think about is wanting to fuck you until neither of you can move? He knows this is a bad idea, but is unable to stop himself as gives in to your question with a short bob of his head up and down. 

“Jus’ somethin’ ta take the edge off,” he says with a hint of desperation. 

“Then let me fix that…my way,” you say as you shove him backwards towards the small sofa you see he has sitting up against the wall a few feet from the door. 

Large, greedy hands begin to fill themself with your body before he’s even sat down, but that won’t do. That is still giving him too much authority. Simon is bigger than you and if you want to be the one to dominate this hulk of a man you are going to have to cut off his ability to use his body to his advantage.

“Hands off,” you bark as you take a step away. 

You can see the immediate shift in your superior. Simon has seen you work with the new recruits and he knows the way you lead and how it demands respect, but being on the other end of it catches him unprepared on how to react and he stops dead in his tracks. 

Giving him a second to calm down you step back in towards him. “This is no longer in your hands as doing it your way hasn’t seemed to work this far. What I think you need is for someone to turn that serious fucking brain of yours off for a bit and that’s what I plan to do. So, here’s how this is gonna go: you are going to keep your hands to yourself and use your words while I play for a bit or I’ll just call it a night and leave and you’ll be back to square one. Understood?”

Simon remains silent, unsure of where his voice has gone as he can suddenly hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears. What is happening? In an instant the tables have fucking turned and everything he has known is flipped on its head. He isn’t used to giving away any bit of his control to anyone, especially not like this, but god damn does he have to admit that the visceral reaction he has to the way you are standing firm on giving him orders has his cock twitching as it stiffens. 

He doesn’t know exactly what is happening inside him, but he wants you to keep going.

Standing there lost in the assault on his sanity, he isn’t aware you’ve moved until you have your hands under the edge of his mask and holding tight you pull it up off his stark features, discarding it to the floor before grabbing his chin and bringing his head down to make him focus on you again. Suddenly he can’t seem to intake enough air.  

“I said, is that understood?” you ask again, with more firmness this time. “I’m gonna need you to say it - out loud.”

He swallows to coat the dryness scratching his throat. “Yes, understood,” he confirms.

You smirk. “Good. Now, take a seat Simon.”

Maybe this is something he needs after all; you’ve barely done anything and yet he’s chomping at the bit to have more. He desperately wants you to stay and he will do whatever it is to make that happen. Taking his seat on the sofa he places his hands on either side of his thighs against the cushion before looking back up at you with those warm, golden eyes expectantly.

“See, I knew you’d be good at this. You’re already doing so well for me just like the good little soldier you are, following my orders perfectly,” you approve and his stomach flutters at your praise.    

Those dilated pupils track your form as you step up to the edge of the sofa and grab onto his knees, pushing them apart as you lower yourself down between them. Your eyes look straight ahead to the place you want to start at, that broad area just beneath his shirt. 

“I think this needs a bit of attention, don’t you?” you ask as you pull your hands off his knees and bring them up without waiting for a reply.

Your hands splay open-fingered and wide across his chest, palms flush with his muscles as you drag them slowly down the rigid peaks and valleys of his abdomen over the soft fabric of his thin sleeveless undershirt until you can feel his pulse quickening under your fingertips. Reaching the hem along the bottom, you lift it up to reveal the broad girth of his torso: those beefy muscles lightly decorated with a thin layer of hair that travels down into the waistband of his sweatpants, a guiding path straight down to the final object of your mission. 

You lean in as you lower your head down and he inhales sharply before holding his breath as soft contact is made from just your mouth with all that toasty, smooth flesh just below his belly button, caressing your lips against him repeatedly until his skin tingles. He jerks under the connection as you stick out your tongue and place the pad against him to run it around the indention right in the middle of his lower abdomen. 

And suddenly he is vibrating under your lips as if he has been touched with a live wire. Every single embrace of your mouth leaves him reeling in the heat of pleasure until he feels like a puddle in your capable hands.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he groans with a hiss as he looks down to maintain eye contact as you move up the length of his trunk with your licking and kissing and biting at his sensitive body, leaving a trail of heat everywhere your mouth touches. He knows you can feel his cock stabbing against your chest as you lean further over his body to get at his sides, but there is nothing to help it now.

Sharp teeth trail deliciously painful across his meaty hips like a razor blade over all that beautiful skin and old scars that are still a little numb and add an entirely new sensation to the mix. His abdominals clench under your bite as he takes in quick, short breaths until he is panting as your yearning mouth latches onto the thick of his hip as you suck in the muscles and bite down. Small grunts echo from his lips as you tease and tease his body until Simon can’t help writhing under you as he gets lost in the way you make him feel.  

One of his large hands leaves the cushions involuntarily and palms the back of your head, fingers gathering the strands of your hair in the spaces between them to guide you as you move up his body, but unfortunately for him you are going to have to stop; he’s broken your rule by touching and you aren’t going to continue until he’s been reprimanded. 

“What did I say about those hands?” you scold with your lips still against him before you pull away, the immediate lack of pressure making him antsy for you to come back.

Jerking his shirt off his torso to get the damned thing out of your way, your eyes dart around the room in search of something you can use to prevent him from disobeying again and it doesn’t take long for them to land on his leather belt just a few feet away. Reaching and scooping it up, you turn back and immediately hold your hand out to him. 

“Sit forward and give them to me. Now.” you demand and Simon is compelled to follow your every word as if he has been placed under a trance, more and more eager to see where this leads. 

Quickly you gather his wrists together behind his back and wrap the belt around them, slipping it through the buckle and pulling taut so they are bound together, but not too tight. You set the strap under him so he is forced to sit on the tail to keep him from being able to free himself. Satisfied with his restraints you rise to your feet and move yourself over him, kneeling into the cushion so that you are straddling his lap and sitting on top of his wide thighs, his cock resting between your knees. 

“No touching,” you reiterate and he repeats the phrase, desperate to not have you stop again.

“No touching.”

“Good boy,” you say the moniker and hear the second he stops breathing as his eyes glaze over.

Never has anyone ever called him that before so it isn't until this moment that he knows what it's like and it triggers some innate part of his brain that now craves your praise as if he has always been starved for it. If his cock was tenting his pants before, it is nothing compared to now. Keep this up and he may come before he ever gets inside you.

Oh he likes that, does he? you think as you watch him completely fall apart at two silly little words. Best make sure to keep that in your back pocket to use again. 

Everywhere you place kisses begins to burn until it feels like he’s on fire by the time you reach his chest and latch your hand around the back of his head, your fingers making the short hair tingle across his scalp. Brown eyes flit down to your lips as if willing them towards his face; he desperately needs to taste them, press his lips tight against them over and over until they are raw.

Yet you won’t give in to his soundless pleas. Denial is making him overwhelmed with the nature of his desire and soon his mouth is aching for you to break and give him what he wants. Instead, you tilt his head away from you so that your lips can connect with the feverish skin of his neck. 

The sensation of his pulse racing violently against the skin of your mouth is intoxicating. Knowing that you are the one causing nerve ends to spark to life makes you feel powerful; that strong, stoic man is falling apart at the simplest touch. This must be what it’s like to be at the top and you cannot get enough. Never did you think you would have it in you, but now that you are here you can’t get over the euphoria of it all.

His neck is a mess by the time you’ve finished your work and you release him from under your teeth to lean back and admire how pretty he looks with your marks covering him to the sound of his heavy, ragged breathing. As your sight is drawn back to his eyes, you can see the depth of his desperate need swimming there as his slightly parted lips beckon you towards them.  

Leaning against his chest, you bring your mouth closer until the space between your lips is only enough to force you to share air. His cock twitches against your leg as your lips ghost over his, but not giving in yet. 

“What do you want?” you ask barely above a whisper.

Simon can feel the warmth of your breath on his lips as you speak and it is driving him insane. The ghost of your kiss can be felt across his mouth until the skin there is burning for you to break the tension.  ��Fuckin’ kiss me,” he says, his voice husky and dry with a slight rasp at the end. 

You catch his gaze and smile with your eyes. “How bad do you need it, Lieutenant Riley? I want to hear the ache in your voice as you tell me just how much you want me.”

Biting his lip, he takes a calming breath that does nothing to the heavy pulsating beat of his heart. “I’m fuckin’ burnin’ alive,” he admits, a tremble in the start of his sentence. “Achin’ something’ fierce to taste ya again just like the last time. God damn ya tasted so fuckin’ good, sweatheart. Fuck, I need ta feel your lips on mine ‘fore I pass out.”

God, he wishes he could break his restraints and get at your lips, but with your combined body weight securing the strap beneath you both there’s no way he can pull it out; he’s been trying, struggling with the leather and getting nowhere.

Your lips are so close he can almost taste you and yet still so far that it physically hurts that they are not on him. He leans in closer, but you are quick to pull back so that he cannot even brush against them. His body squirms under the overwhelming tension of it all as you keep your mouth just out of reach.

“Tell me, because I’m curious,” you ask in a breathy whisper, “do you ever think about us fucking? Have you ever touched yourself to the memory of it?”

Cocky looks beautiful on you and Simon hardly knows what to do with himself. He bites the inside of his mouth in hopes that the pain will force him back from the brink of insanity, but he is no longer sane enough to even register anything other than the hazy euphoria course through his body like wildfire. You could ask him anything at this moment and he is so strung out that the only thing he can do is answer honestly just so you will give him what he needs. 

“I…t-think ‘bout ya all the fuckin’ time,” he stammers out. “Don’t even know how many fuckin’ times I’ve stroked to the thought… I could even still remember the way ya feel wrapped around me for a while after, but lately the memory’s faded. That’s why…”

His hesitation drives you to believe that this is something significant. “Keep going,” you demand as your thumb strokes over the corner of his mouth over the remnants of a faded scar that leads down his jaw. 

A strong throb through his cock, a product of his pounding heart, makes him choke on his words. “T-that’s why I can’t get off alone anymore,” he grunts through his heavy breaths. “And it has me fuckin’ outta my mind. Thought I’d not get another chance to feel ya again… and so I’ve been strugglin’.”

Now it all makes sense why all his aggression was directed solely at you: he had to be near the one thing he desperately wanted, but he thought he wouldn’t get to have anytime soon. It was eating him alive and he couldn’t relieve any of the pressure from it. Something about the way his needy voice hits your ears causes a stirring between your legs as your clit pulses.

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” you praise. “Now, how about we fix that, yeah? Give you a taste of what you’ve been missing.” 

The building anticipation is more than enough to kill as you finally break the tension and collapse your lips together with so much passion that his eyes are rolling back in his head as stars sparkle behind his closed lids. You taste a sweet as he remembers and he cannot get enough. Time doesn’t exist anymore as the moist warm air from your breath mixes in his mouth, the urgent connection of your lips making them sting from the friction, the heat between your bodies making him pant.

That mouth of his is insatiable, stealing all the sloppy, frantic kisses that you allow him to have until your lips are burning from the abrasion. He barely remembers his own name by the time you finally pull back from him; all he knows is that you’ve stopped and it has left him feeling so fucking empty. 

His eyes beg you to come back to his lips, but you have something planned that might take his mind off the absence of your mouth for just a moment. “Lean forward,” you instruct, “I need to get these pants off of me and I want you to be the one to undo them… with your teeth.”

There is not a moment of hesitation or a word that needs to be said as Simon dutifully complies with eager movements as he leans to rest his forehead against your lower abdomen, his teeth heading straight for the button on the waistband of your jeans. Grabbing onto the fabric, he pulls it into his mouth and secures it with his teeth as he tugs and uses his tongue to unhook the metal before he catches the zipper and pulls the tab all the way down. 

You aren’t going to be able to keep this up much longer, not with how you can already feel that familiar warmth growing in the pit of your stomach as a damp heat gathers between your legs. Even in a position of submission he still makes your clit ache and as much as you are edging him, the denial is working on you as well.

Placing your hand on the center of his chest you shove him back down into the sofa so you can  remove your jeans painstakingly slow off your legs, doing the same to his sweats before climbing back on top of his lap to again straddle over him so that only a few thin fibers keep you apart. Your panty-covered pussy pushes down against the swollen tip of his cock straining against his boxers and you can feel the precum coating the tip soaking through the fabric as you press even harder over it. 

Those thick limbs of Simon’s tense with an overwhelming need to touch, to feel your soft skin under his rough, coarse hands, to cling to all those deliciously full curves and every minute that passes only makes that need grow in intensity. There are no more thoughts, only sensations that overwhelm his consciousness now. You’ve edged him to the brink of insanity; his cock is so hard that he swears he is going to shred through his boxers if you don’t stop. He has to get at you.

You start to roll your hips over him in rhythmic waves, stimulating your clit off his tip until you are both a mess, and he jerks against the leather of the belt keeping him secure as if trying to break free. It’s time; he’s ready to be set loose. 

Again you capture his chin in your grip and bring his face in close. “I can see you are trying to break free. What do you want?” you breathe the fierce words onto his lips. “Say it.”

“L-let me touch ya,” he pleads with what little dignity he has left, still struggling against his restraints.

You grind your pussy harder onto the stiff peak tenting his underwear and Simon grunts deep in his throat as his hips desperately rut against you to produce as much friction as he can. “But your groans are so pretty,” you moan as you roll your hips over him again and again. “Maybe I just want to keep you making good music for longer.” 

Simon lets his head fall back as his eyes flutter closed; he cannot hold back those deep, guttural sounds that want to escape, summoned from the way you are grinding against him. “Christ baby, I need ta fuck ya,” he groans loudly into the silence with his mouth hanging agape. 

Your pathetic little lieutenant, he does look amazing as a whimpering mess.

“You’ve done so good for me, Si,” you smirk, “I think you’ve earned your freedom.”

You get up on your knees and he lifts himself enough that you can wrench the belt out from under him and loosen the strap and he quickly pulls his hands out. They’ve barely been free for more than a few seconds before he is wrapping them around the sides of your face to aggressively drag it in so that he can overwhelm your mouth completely with his, taking the entirety of your lips and pressing his face against yours so hard that it hurts. 

“God dammit, I’m gonna fuckin’ fill ya until ya can’t take anotha god damn inch,” he growls as he drives his fingertips into the bulk of your hips as he picks you up, carries you the few feet to his bed, and flips your onto your back to pin your smaller body down to the mattress with his as he crawls over top of you. 

Wasting no time he reaches between your thighs and laces his fingers through the seam of your damp panties and rips them to the side out of his way as he shimmies his down just under the curve of his ass so that he can get his cock out. 

“Can ya feel how fuckin’ hard I am?” he snarls as he aligns the head of his phallus with your entrance. “Ya see what you’ve done ta me? I’m a god damn mess. Now you’re gonna take it.”

“Yes, give it to me,” you beg, letting your tough facade fall away as you let him take the reins. “Make me take it, all of it.”

He prods against the tight opening as he readies to strike through and with a strong thrust he is inside you down to the base of his cock, the taut stretch around him that molds your walls to his shape nearly making him come just from the pressure alone. His eyes stay locked onto the point where he disappears inside your body as he waits to be able to watch it slide in and out.

“That’s it, baby. Fill me,” you cry out in adulation as that thick, veiny muscle stretches you out wide and fast, the pressure forcing your thighs to clench hard around his hips. Your fingers grip into his shoulder blades as you hold on for dear life, nails digging into his flesh as your body harshly adjusts to accommodate his girth.

Simon is trembling, struggling to regain some composure through the ragged breaths he takes. “God, I missed this so fuckin’ much,” he groans breathlessly and with such need that it gnaws away at your stability. “So tight, so wet, fuckin’ hell…”

It isn’t until he has calmed enough to start thrusting again that he realizes your hands are clinging to his back and now that he is in control again he rips them off and brings them up to keep your wrists restrained above your head, taking the opportunity to violently kiss your mouth and steal your breath away. 

“My turn… no touching,” he snarls into your open mouth in mockery of your demands earlier. Two can play at this game and fuck does he want to return the favor. 

His rough, hard thrusts shudder through the length of your body, shaking the bed along with you as his hips slam into yours while he punctuates each one with a loud grunt. He thrusts so hard it shoves his cock so deep into you he is nearly hitting the back of your cervix.

“God, ya feel so fuckin’ good,” his voice quavers as the pressure welling deep inside at the base of his spine radiates out through his limbs and threatens to burst at any moment. 

It is a glorious mess that he becomes the longer he thrusts, drooling over your body as he can hardly function, going blind and delirious at the feeling of those tight, silky walls sucking him and fluttering around him. Those rough thrusts become more sloppy as his abdominals contract, his full body clenching as he grapples with holding on for as long as possible. The gauntlet of edging you put him through earlier leaves him in agony now.

“Keep your pace and come for me, baby,” you coax him through it. “Be a fucking good boy and come for me. I need to know I’m the one that can make you fall apart.”

Your mind is all static now, so lost on Simon’s cock that you cannot stand it. You are close, so close that it won’t take much more for you to come if he keeps this up and what better way to end this than to make him orgasm from the feeling of your walls clenching around him?  

You focus everything on letting go and keeping silent so that the moment it happens he is taken by surprise and he will not be able to brace for it. Thrust after thrust he is trying to hold on to make sure you get yours, but he is losing it fast. Then out of nowhere your body shudders as you cry out and suddenly your body is squeezing him so tight that he can’t stop violently falling over the edge.

A roar is released from within his chest, his body writhing as he holds on to your waist for dear life while he hurriedly pries his cock out of you just as he burst his warm load all over your thighs, coating them in the sticky, milky white fluid. You grab onto his cock to stroke everything out as he trembles and grunts like a wild animal until he is dry and spent and only then do you let him go.

You melt like a puddle into the mattress as he finally pulls himself out from between your legs and falls down beside you, exhaustion flooding his body. Weeks of buildup have finally come to an end with an explosion. He turns to you, vision hazy as he relishes in the ecstasy of his high, and strokes your delicate cheek carefully with his rough fingers.

“Better than your hand, yeah?” you laugh, out of breath and dizzy from the flood of adrenaline and he chuckles along with you.

Simon’s body is still vibrating through the drunken stupor making his mind numb as he leans up onto his elbow as he pulls you against his chest so that he can connect your mouths again in a kiss that feels a lot like a thank you. With his mouth barely broken free of yours, you hear his whisper against your lips.

“I’m gonna need ya to do that again. ‘Cept next time, I wantcha ta fuckin’ make me really beg for it.”

Oh, I think you can definitely do that.