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hotchscoffeecup · 11 months ago

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“Power Struggle”

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner/Reader

Rating: M

Category: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Word Count: 7.2k

Summary: For months, you and SSA Aaron Hotchner have been toeing the boundary between romance and your careers. When the unsub that's been killing women in Michigan by way of replicating Zeus' punishments from Greek mythology takes you as his next victim, it's up to Hotch and the rest of the BAU team to find you before it's too late. Hurt/comfort and angst with happy ending.

Tags: graphic depictions of violence, reader kidnapped by unsub, blood, implied SA, nudity, electrocution, scarring, hospitals

“You’re telling me someone is out here killing people to recreate, what? Greek legends?” Sheriff McCullen’s brow pinches as he shakes his head.

“Legends are stories often loosely based on a real person or event to teach us a lesson. Mythology is based on supernatural or sacred lore and explains why things came to be. It’s a common mistake.” Reid speaks quickly and methodically, as if reciting from a textbook. “It’s straight out of the mythos,” he explains, his voice tinged with something akin to excitement as he approaches the whiteboard where photos of the victims had been pinned up for review. Using a ballpoint pen as a pointer, he taps the first image of the first victim. “Regina Manford, she was found tied to a boulder in Craig Lake State Park with her liver removed. Animal predation showed birds had pecked at her while she was still alive. In Greek mythology, Zeus did this to Prometheus to exact revenge on him after he stole fire to give to man.”

Reid moves on to the next victim, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he did so. “Sarah Walters was found bound to an old water wheel that had been set on fire. Greek Mythology suggests this is a copy of Zeus’ punishment for Ixion.”

“And what did he do to deserve that?” asks the sheriff.

Reid’s lips form a tight line. “He was invited into Zeus’ home on Olympus. After attempting to seduce his wife, Hera, Zeus punished him by binding him to a wheel of fire cursed to spin forever toward the underworld. She might’ve smiled or even looked at him, and in his delusion believed she was a seductress deserving of punishment.”

“So, what? This guy sees himself as some sort of god?”

“We believe that is his delusion, yes,” answers Emily. “Each victim also bore signs of sexual trauma, this is something Zeus is also renowned for in the mythology. Our unsub thinks he’s infallible and that these women’s lives and deciding when and how these women live and die is his divine right.”

“Do we know if there will be more victims?” asks one of the detectives.

You step forward from your place between Morgan and Hotchner. “Given the number of victims Zeus punished within the mythology, we can assume he is not finished. These kills are two weeks apart. It’s been twelve days since the last body was found. We can only assume he’s currently hunting for his next victim. And when he finds one, he convinces her to go to a second location. It's once they leave the primary location that he attacks. In each case, the victim suffered a blow to the head, leaving a uniquely shaped gash in her forehead. This suggests that he strikes them with a distinct blunt object or even a ring that’s on his hand.”

“We need every man out on the streets,” Hotch states, his eyes hard as he scans the group of law enforcement gathered to receive the profile. “He stalks his victims in the city, often on the weekends when night life is busiest. He’s charming. He has no problem approaching women because he views himself as a deity and carries himself with the arrogance and confidence of one. He’s white, in his early to mid 30s, good looking, charming, and likely has a career that would’ve provided him with medical training.”

A female detective with short blonde hair sticks her pencil in the air. “How do we know that?”

“The incisions made on Regina’s body were clean, precise, and showed no signs of hesitation,” explains Rossi. “The M.E. also informed us that the hepatic artery was clamped off, meaning,” Rossi hesitates before continuing on, “meaning Regina Mansford was alive as her liver was being cut from her body.”

An uncomfortable murmuring breaks out. Hotch raises a hand, silencing them. Your mouth goes dry and you swallow, hoping your team doesn’t notice the way your eyes dilate when you look at him and the silent way in which he can command a room.

“This is why we need every available officer on the streets. Increase units in the downtown area. Have plain clothes officers on the streets. That’s where we’ll be. Thank you.” Hotch tucks his head and sweeps out of the bullpen, the rest of the team trailing after him into the conference room.

“Where do you want us?” asks Morgan as you shut the door to the conference room.

“Reid, I want you here working the geographical profile. See if there’s anything we missed that could bring us closer to a precise location where he’s kidnapping his victims. Rossi and JJ, I want you to go back to Sarah’s apartment and see if we missed anything that tells us where she was exactly on the night she was kidnapped. Derek and Emily take the north side of downtown.” He inclines his head toward you. “You and I will take the south side.”

His eyes linger on yours a moment longer than they ought to have. You dip your head and swiftly exit the room, jacket in hand as you prepare to brave not only the frigid Michigan cold but working one one-on-one with Hotch. This had been going on for months; subtle looks, brief touches where his fingers would slide over yours while passing off a case file…yet a part of you still wasn’t sure if it would ever go any further than that. You spend so much of your time with the team, it would be so easy to mistake one gesture for something that it wasn’t. Yet you knew that wasn’t true. You know behavior. You’re trained to recognize the subtlest of shifts in demeanor and body language and you know exactly what is going on.

You jump as someone pushes through the front door of the precinct. Emily’s gentle laugh disrupts your rumination. “Sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She moves to stand closer to you as she zips her jacket. “The guys went to grab the cars.”

You nod and shove your hands in your pockets.

Emily arches a perfectly manicured brow. “What’s up?”

You school your expression and feign nonchalance. “Nothing, I just want to catch this guy before he hurts anyone else.”

Emily’s brow furrows and then straightens, a glimmer of knowing in her eye. “Something tells me there’s a different guy on your mind.”

Your heart skips a beat and you nearly choke on the crisp winter air. “What? I don’t—“ Your words falter as Derek and Hotch arrive, the SUVs humming to a gentle stop at the curb.

Emily eyes you, a sly smile curving one side of her red lips. “We’ll talk later.” She winks and steps forward to open the passenger side door, sliding inside and disappearing into the dark interior.

As you turn to move toward the SUV, Hotch is there, opening the door for you. The gesture surprises you, but it shouldn’t. He’d been doing little things like this for weeks now. You nod your head in thanks and as you turn your body to slide past him, his hand catches your hip. Your breath hitches in your throat as his fingers glide against the small of your back, guiding your movement into the vehicle.

His hard eyes meet yours as he shuts the door and you’re grateful for the shadows inside the car as you feel your face flush bright red. Hotch slides into the driver’s seat with ease. He shifts the car into gear and pulls onto the road, heading in the direction of downtown.

After a few minutes, you open your mouth to disrupt the silence, but his cell rings. Hotch answers and places it on speaker as JJ’s voice floats through the receiver, “Hotch, we think we’ve got something at Sarah Walters apartment.”

“What’s that?” you ask.

“There’s a sticky note in her trash can,” a garbled sound echoes through the speaker as she shifts the phone. The sound of paper crinkles as she reads, “Tony’s at 9, does that mean anything? Has Garcia come across a Tony in any of her research into the victims’ lives? Maybe an Anthony?”

An image of a neon sign flashes across your mind’s eye. “It’s a bar,” you say matter-of-factly.

“A bar?”

“I remember seeing the sign on our drive-in. It’s a bar on the south side of downtown. That could be where he’s meeting these women.”

“We’re only a few blocks away, we’ll head there now. Thank you, JJ.” He hangs up and slips the phone into his jacket pocket.

“How do you want to play this?” you ask.

“We go in, make observations, see if we can identify anyone that matches the profile.”

You smirk and a small laugh escapes your lips.

“Something funny?” Hotch asks, his voice low in his throat.

You purse your lips, pausing before you proceed. “If we go in looking like feds, we’ll scare this guy away.” You tilt your head, considering. “Well, one of us anyway.”

A slight twitch in his brow is the only indication your words have just barely gotten under his skin. “Touched a nerve, sir?”

As the traffic light ahead blinks red, he eases the car to a stop. He breathes out slowly, the amber glow of the stoplight reflecting in his eyes. In less than two heartbeats, he thrusts the car into park and with both hands clasps your face, drawing you in to kiss you with such fervor white spots dot your vision. It takes a moment to process the heat of his mouth on yours and the way his tongue slides between your lips, and before you can truly reciprocate the light turns green and he pulls back, his breathing ragged against your mouth as his forehead touches yours. “Be careful when and how you choose to call me sir.”

Before you can exhale, his eyes are on the road again and you’re driving deeper into downtown.

“Understood,” and then you add, almost imperceptibly, “sir.”

A small smile quirks at the corner of his lips, but he says nothing more as you approach your destination.

It's nearing 9:30pm when you pull up on the street parallel to Tony’s. People trickle in and out of the bar in groups of twos and threes; most are young, in their mid to late twenties.

“Right,” you say as you unbuckle your seatbelt and turn to exit the vehicle. “Stay here.”

“Excuse me?” Hotch asks, reaching over your lap and grabbing your wrist to stay your hand from popping the door open. Your breathing stills and he just barely turns his face toward yours. “Since when do you give me orders?”

Unsure where the confidence to challenge him comes from, you lean in near his ear. You swallow once before speaking. “I think you like taking them.” Feeling incredibly brazen, you nip at his ear once and as the unexpected gesture disarms him; flick your wrist out of his grasp and pop the door open. You slide out of the car and are immediately greeted by the frigid January air eliciting goosebumps up and down your arms. Extending an arm overhead to hang on to the frame of the SUV; you lean down into the cab of the vehicle. “I’ve got you right here,” you say as you tap the hidden earpiece. “Let me know if you see anyone from the outside that fits the profile.”

Hotch eyes you and there’s a fierceness in his gaze. You wonder if he’s thinking of how he’ll ultimately retaliate for your little role reversal now that he’s gone and upped the ante in this little game of cat and mouse. “See you soon,” you wink and slam the door shut.

As you approach the bar, you make sure your coat is buttoned in a way that hides your sidearm and credentials from sight. The bouncer doesn’t even pretend to ask for an ID as you approach and move through the front door with ease. As you cross through the threshold, your senses are assaulted by the smell of beer on tap, the sharp tang of liquor, grease, and an amalgamation of perfumes and colognes.

Immediately you begin scanning the room. You note the layout of the bar: three exits for patrons, the one you just came in through, one near the bathrooms for cigarette smokers, and an emergency exit on the far right wall near to the kitchen. There are three pool tables all of which are occupied as well as three dart boards along the far wall. Groups of friends engage one another and dates carry on without a hitch. You approach the bar, which is centered along the far wall. Stools line the high countertop and behind the bar, two women work to fulfill the never-ending drink orders. You approach the bar and slide into one of the empty seats, relaxing your shoulders as you do so, and order a rum and coke that you don’t plan on drinking.

After a moment the bartender drops a cocktail napkin in front of you and places the drink on top. You thank her and stir the contents of the drink with the swizzle stick popped inside.

“Is this seat taken?” an unfamiliar voice causes the hair on the back of your neck to prickle and you know immediately that it’s him.

Painting on a saccharine sweet smile, you turn toward the voice. A white man, standing at about 6’2”, is smiling down at you. The neon lights behind the bar reflect in his blue-gray eyes and his honey blonde hair falls in soft waves to his shoulders. “Please,” you say demurely and gesture toward the seat. You tell him your name and continue smiling.

“Ronan Carlson,” he introduces himself as he slides in beside you and adjusts the lapels on his leather jacket, a fake Rolex peeking out from his sleeve. He’s preening, you think to yourself. The bartender approaches from behind the bar and he smiles, the curve of his lips the opening act of his charming performance. “I’ll have what she’s having, thank you.” He pulls a roll of cash from the inner pocket of his jacket, flips through several bills, and pulls a $100 bill free before sliding it across the counter to her.

The bartender’s eyes widen in surprise and he winks at her. She nods her thanks and turns to make his drink.

“That was very kind of you,” I say, stirring my drink for the thirteenth time.

He shrugs and tips the baseball cap he’s wearing down over his eyes and you know it’s to obstruct the view the cameras have of him. “It’s only money, and I think I may have made her night.” He inclines his head toward the bartender whose head is bent close to the other woman’s. She’s smiling wide and shows her the $100 bill.

Internally, you roll your eyes hard, but externally you smile and look at him from beneath your lashes. “You must have a great job, what do you do for work?”

His hand flexes as he sets his drink down on the counter and you note the two chunky platinum rings he wears on his right hand. There are symbols etched into them offset by different colored stones, but you don’t want him to catch you staring as he answers, “I’m in business for myself these days,” he says with no further explanation. “Though I used to be in the military.”

You feign surprise, though you were hopeful he’d continue to divulge information. “The military, wow. Let me guess,” you pause and allow your eyes to slowly scan him from head to toe. You remember the profile. “Army…medic.”

“Reign it in,” you hear Hotchner’s voice through the earpiece. “Be mindful of how much you reveal to him. Don’t let him know you know more about him than he’s letting on.”

You watch him assess you and your read into him. One blonde brow creeps up toward his hairline and that wicked smile curves his lips again. “Excellent guess, how do you figure?”

Leaning on to your forearms, you push your drink aside and slide your hand over his and you don’t miss the way his fingers tense at your touch.

“It’s the hands,” you say coyly. “You look like you know how to handle yourself.” He relaxes under your touch and a heat ignites in his eyes that makes your stomach churn, but you don’t let it show on your face. “You look like you know how to handle a lot of things.”

He licks his lips and turns the ring on his finger. “Tell you what,” he says as he picks up his drink. He places the glass to his lips and downs its contents. “Why don’t we get out of here?” He looks down at you from beneath dark lashes. “And I’ll show you just how much I can handle.”

You stand up and flash him a grin. “Let me quickly freshen up and I’ll meet you out front.”

His lips quirk into a smirk, “I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

You smile as you slip away toward the bathroom. As you push through the crowd you inform Hotch that the unsub is on his way out.

“There’s a line growing out the door,” he answers over the earpiece. “Does the description match the profile?”

“To a T,” you answer as you push past a couple with their tongues in each other's mouths. The amount of patrons has increased dramatically over the last hour. The volume of the music makes it hard to hear through the earpiece. You push your way into the restroom and are surprised to find it empty. Fortunately, the outside noise is muffled. You begin to describe Ronan’s appearance and note the jacket and hat he’s wearing. “He’s wearing two oddly shaped rings,” you add. “I think it’s what’s caused the unusual injury to the victims’ faces.”

“I’ve got him. He’s cutting through the line toward the parking lot.” You hear the car door open and slam.

“Got it, I’ll be right there.”

“Good work,” Hotch says over the open line.

You smile to yourself as you unbutton your jacket, glad to be on the receiving end of his praise. For a split second you wonder what else you could be on the receiving end of if you continue to play this game with him. After the case, you remind yourself. Priorities. Priority number one is getting this sick bastard off the street, and he’s right here within your grasp. You shoulder the door as you reach for your gun, positioning your thumb over the rotating hood to dislodge your weapon from its holster.

Over the speakers, an employee is calling to celebrate someone’s birthday. The crowd is distracted and pushing toward the source of celebration. The bar erupts into an off key rendition of Happy Birthday but you don’t hear it as 30,000 volts of electricity course through your veins. Your muscles spasm and lock up as you fall forward. Pain radiates from your abdomen in waves that crash over you again and again. You try to tell your body what to do as strong arms catch you and pull you into a chest that smells like cigarette smoke, but your limbs don’t cooperate. You feel his nose root into your hair as his lips find your ear. “How’s that for capable?”

As he shoulders your weight and steers you out through the emergency exit you hear Hotch’s voice in your ear. “It’s not him!” There’s an edge of panic in his voice as he says your name. “Do you copy? It’s not him. He gave another man $500 to wear his hat and jacket into the parking lot. It’s not him. Do you have eyes on him?”

Dark spots the edges of your vision as he drags your dead body weight. You try to focus all of your ability on getting out any words that can signal to Hotchner what’s happening, any at all but your mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton.”

You hear the tinkling of keys and a door slide open. Pain rattles through your skull as he throws you into the back of whatever vehicle he’s operating. Pain slices through your wrists as zip ties slice through the skin there. Through tunnel vision you see him leering at you. He’s backlit by the streetlights.

As his fist flies toward you, you finally manage one word.

“Aaron.”

•

When you come to, the first thing you feel before the splitting pain in your head threatens to cleave your mind in two, is cold.

Your mouth is dry, but as you move to lick your lips you realize you can’t because there’s a gag in your mouth. You try to move your hands, but they’re bound too. Zip ties cut into each wrist, securing them at your sides on the legs of a wooden chair. When you try to shift the chair, you learn that it’s bolted to the floor and your legs are spread open; zip ties at your knees and ankles keep them apart. Except for your bra and underwear, you’re naked. He undressed you. You feel the wound from the stun gun before you glance down at your stomach and see the two bloody pinpricks in your abdomen. You feel your heart rate increase as panic begins to set in. Do not panic , you tell yourself as you take a steadying breath. The minute you start to panic, you’re dead. You close your eyes and piece together the last dredges of your memory.

Tony’s. Sitting at the bar. The unsub. Ronan. Hotch was in pursuit. And then there was just pain.

Hotch.

The pain in your skull is overwhelming and you’re not sure if you can feel the earpiece anymore.

“Hotch,” you attempt to say through the gag. “Hotch, do you read me?”

You close your eyes as hot tears brim along your lash line when there’s no response. The signal is out of range or the unsub found the earpiece and removed it.

A door creaks open on squeaky hinges and your eyes dart toward the source of the sound. Ronan walks through the door with a sick smile on his face. As he saunters toward you, he rolls the sleeves of his flannel up to his elbows. Without looking away from you, his arm drops to his side and he scoops a folding metal chair with one hand, carrying it with him as he edges closer to you.

You flinch as he cracks the chair down in front of you, forcing it open. He chuckles as he takes a seat. His eyes skirt the length of your body and you wish any limb were free to deliver a blow to his smug face.

He reaches into his back pocket and withdraws your badge. He flips it open and holds it up to your face, the way his eyes flit between you and your credentials makes your lip curl.

“An FBI agent,” he says slowly. He slaps your credentials shut against his denim-clad thighs. “Hot damn!” he shouts and whoops. He throws your badge to the wayside and it clatters against the cement floor. “I’m going to take my time with you.”

It could’ve been hours. It could’ve been minutes. The torture is unrelenting and the pain is unending. Your chest heaves as you brace yourself for the next surge of electricity. Ronan, if that’s even his real name, twists the knob on the amplifier and taps the jumper cable clamps in his hands together. He smiles when he hears the buzz of electricity between them. As he presses them into your thighs, you cry out in pain as the shockwaves paralyze your body and mind and the pain overwhelms you.

“YES!” he roars as he pulls them away from you. He’d taken his flannel off, but now he peels off his t-shirt, balls it up, and uses it to wipe the sweat off of his face.

With the voltage no longer coursing through your veins, you slump forward, chest heaving as your scrambled brain fights to stay alert.

He drops the cables and clasps your face in his hand, forcing your chin up to meet his wild eyes. “You just don’t quit, do you? You're special.” He strokes your cheeks with his thumbs as if he cherishes what he’s doing to you. “You are worthy of a god.”

When you come to Ronan is watching you. He’s leaning forward, elbows on his knees, chin resting on his clasped hands.

“She wakes,” he muses.

You glare at him and his brow pinches. He purses his lips together like he’s been stung, but his eyes are alight with amusement.

“You,” he says, gesturing up and down your body, “look beautiful.”

You don’t need to look down to know the number of bloodied burn wounds spanning the lengths of your legs. If you couldn’t keep track of any other thought, the count was all that kept you grounded. There were ten. Five on each leg. Your wrists and ankles bled from the way you’d pulled against them with every shock he delivered.

He reaches forward and this time you don’t flinch. He hooks two fingers into the gag and pulls it down over your chin, his fingers trailing your lips as he does so.

“Here,” he says, bringing a bottle of water to your lips. “Drink.”

You clamp your lips shut and turn your face away. He laughs and shakes his head. “Come on now, don’t refuse me. That’s not how you show gratitude when a god shows you mercy.”

You muster as much hatred into your stare as you focus your attention back on him. “Mercy?” you hiss, and your voice is hoarse from screaming against the gag. It hurts to speak. You pull against your restraints. “This is what you call mercy?”

“I’m only testing you to see if you’re worthy,” he says by way of explanation. "You've lasted longer than the others."

“Worthy of what?” you ask, but you already know the answer.

“To be my Hera.”

“How is what you’re doing to me, what you did to those other women, going to help you find her?”

“They weren’t worthy,” he answered. “They couldn’t take my power like you could, my lightning. They were false. They needed to be punished.”

He leans in, his lips close enough to yours that you can feel his smoky breath on your skin. “But you, you deserve to be rewarded.” Your skin bristles at his words. His lips find your jawline and you grimace as he drags them up the side of your face. When he pulls away, dried blood flakes onto his skin.

“Don’t be afraid,” he soothes as he smoothes your sweat-drenched hair away from your face. “You’ll enjoy it.”

Unable to suffer any more of his poisonous bullshit, you rear your head back and slam it forward. Pain explodes behind your forehead, but it’s worth it to hear the satisfying crunch of his nose breaking. He roars in pain and clutches his bleeding nose. White light blinds you as he backhands you and curses your name. His ring splits the skin of your cheek open. The force of the blow causes you to bite your lip and you feel your teeth cut into the chapped skin there. You spit blood at him, angering him further.

“You are false!” he screams, spittle flying from his mouth as he shoves the gag back into your mouth. “You are not her!” He moves to pick up the jumper cables, twisting the knob of the amplifier all the way up causing the bulbs overhead to flicker. You know this is it. If he touches you with those, it will kill you.

Bracing yourself for the killing blow, you go to the grave knowing you did not give in to this bastard.

It never lands.

Instead, three shots ring out and he’s falling to the floor dead at your feet. As the unsub’s body falls, Hotchner’s frame comes into view and a choked sob escapes your lips. He holsters his weapon and runs to you. Emily and Morgan are right behind him. Morgan passes Hotch a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and he makes quick work of the zip ties binding you to the chair. From the corner of your eye, you see Emily turn off the amplifier and check Ronan’s pulse.

Unable to hold yourself up, you fall forward into his ready arms, letting yours fall over his shoulders. Hotch drops to his knee to support your weight. “You’re okay,” he says as he pulls the gag free from your mouth and you sob into his chest. He smooths your hair back from your face, his eyes assessing the damage done to you. Blood stains his shirt, your blood.

“Morgan, your jacket.” Hotch orders.

Without hesitation, Morgan unfastens his bulletproof vest and unzips his jacket. He passes it to Hotch who drapes it around your shoulders in an attempt to preserve some of your modesty.

“I need a medic!” he shouts before directing his attention back to you.

Your eyes waver as you try to keep them open. You lock in on the depths of his warm brown eyes. “You’re going to be fine,” he says but his voice sounds far away.

“He wanted someone to be his Hera,” you say weakly.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Hotch soothes.

You swallow and it hurts your throat to do so. Your lips crack open, “You found me.”

Hotch cradles your head against his chest. “Of course I did.”

You wince as the sound of a gurney crashes into the room, the metal wheels squealing as it draws near. Your head swims as you’re swept into the air and laid out on its cushiony bed. A light shines in your eyes and voices are overlapping. Blindly, you use what strength you have left to drop your hand off the side. Unable to focus your attention on where he is, you know he’ll hear you. “Don’t leave me.”

And as you lose consciousness, you feel his hand slip into yours.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

•

A steady beeping fills your ears as you slowly come to. Your eyes feel bruised and you don’t think you have it in you to open them, but you feel something around your wrists and bolt upright. Pain crashes over you in a wave. It was a dream. You’re still bound in that basement. The beeping increases, growing louder and faster. Someone says your name and you feel hands on your shoulders. You try to swing your fist and are surprised when your arm follows through and makes contact with flesh. Did you break through the zip ties? You hear your name again, clearer this time. A man. He’s asking you to stop, to relax.

“It’s me,” he repeats and says your name again. “You’re safe. You’re in the hospital.” He says your name again. “It’s me, it’s Aaron.”

You stop fighting and blink hard. Hotchner’s stern face comes into view, except there’s concern wavering in the depths of his brown eyes. His brow softens as you relax. A small smile turns the corners of his lips. “Hey there,” he says. A nurse rushes into the room and he raises a hand, “We’re fine, here. Thank you.”

The nurse looks at you and you nod. She looks unsure about leaving but ultimately relents. “I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake.”

Aaron cups the back of your head in one of his hands and gently begins to lower you back down onto the pillows behind you. You allow him to guide you and feel the tension ease from your muscles as your back sinks into the surprisingly plush hospital pillow.

As the adrenaline wears off, you’re finally able to take stock of your injuries as the pain quickly makes itself known. You feel your pulse beating in your skull, pounding at your temples, eyebrow, and cheekbone. With shaky fingers, you touch the places where you remember the unsub striking you. You feel a thick bandage taped over your right eyebrow and steri-strips over your cheek. Your lip is swollen from where you bit it.

Bandages encircle your wrists and there’s an IV stuck in your hand. You’ve been dressed in a hospital gown and the sheets are drawn up to your waist covering the burn wounds. You don't have to see them to know how bad they look. The pain is telling enough.

“Is he dead?” you ask, lowering your hand back down to the bed.

Hotch’s lips form a tight line. “Yes.”

You blink back tears as that information sinks in. “Good,” you whisper in a choked voice. You blink and allow your head to loll to the side. A colorful bouquet of roses and carnations dotted with plastic ladybugs and butterflies sits in a clear vase on the side table.

You smile, “Garcia?”

Hotch smiles in turn. “It was tough to convince her to go home and get some sleep, but I promised her I wouldn’t leave you alone. Even then, it was still a hard-fought battle.”

You chuckle and wince as the movement irritates your injuries.

Hotch telegraphs his next move, and you know it’s to avoid startling you. He cups his hand over your uninjured cheek and strokes the skin there with his thumb.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he says, and his voice sounds tired and pained. “I should’ve gone inside with you.”

“Hotch, don’t.” You reach up and wrap your fingers around his wrist. “Don’t do that to yourself. He didn’t know I was with the FBI until after he took me. If you’d been there, he might’ve pegged us as law enforcement and taken off. He might still be out there and we’d be finding another dead woman in a matter of days. You know I’m right.”

Hotch closes his eyes and heaves a heavy sigh. “I could hear you.”

“What?” you whisper. You try to sit up and wince as the movement stings the wounds in your legs and abdomen. Hotch stands and helps adjust the pillows behind your back before sitting back down in the chair at your bedside.

“Not for very long. He drove out of range, but I heard him speaking to you. I heard the blows land. I heard your head smack against the floor when he threw you in the van.” He stops and shakes his head. “I felt so helpless. I was afraid. I couldn’t get to you, just like,” his voice catches in his throat. “just like I couldn’t get to Haley.”

Your heart breaks for him as he speaks. You reach for his hand and take it, squeezing it. “Aaron, you did get to me. You saved my life.”

He clears his throat and swallows. “Yes, but we were almost too late.”

“But you weren’t,” you state, your tone firm. “Aaron, look at me.”

He hesitates and inhales deeply before lifting his gaze to yours. The corners of his eyes soften as he meets yours and you smile. You gently tug his hand, “Come here.”

Hotch glances toward the door and then back at you, “The doctor—“

“Isn’t going to do shit,” you finish. “I’m the one that endured hours of torture. Pretty sure I’m allowed some close comfort.”

He lets out a shallow laugh. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” Standing, he shrugs out of his suit jacket and drapes it over the back of the chair. With one hand he loosens his tie until he’s able to pull it up and over his head. He tosses it onto the chair and circumnavigates the bed, assessing the best way to join you on the small mattress.

You groan as you slide over. Hotch reaches out to stop you but you silence him with a pointed look. “Mind the IV,” you say as you pat the space beside you.

Hotch acquiesces, using the tips of his fingers to raise the IV drip enough for him to slide into bed beside you. He slips an arm around you and drops the feed. It falls across his torso. The feel of his arm around you is comforting, like a security blanket, like safety. You relax into him, and rest your head on his chest. His lips brush against your bandaged brow.

“Not quite how I imagined we’d first be sharing a bed,” you joke softly as you nuzzle in deeper against the wide plane of his chest.

You feel him smile against your hair. “Only you could joke at a time like this.”

“If I can’t laugh at what’s happened, I’ll never be able to close my eyes at night.”

“Well, if that’s the case.” He rubs the bare skin of your arm in small circles. “I’ll be there until you can.”

You turn your head to look at him then, your heart full. This is happening. His eyes are on yours and you push yourself toward him ever so slightly. He closes the small gap between you and presses his lips to yours. It wasn’t hungry and primal like the kiss in the car. There would be plenty of time for that later. This kiss was light, tender…healing.

“Sir, I’m sorry. I tried to go home, I really did but as soon as I got there I—” Garcia’s voice abruptly cuts off. You look up and her initial look of surprise turns to one of abject joy.

You feel your cheeks flush as Emily and Morgan appear in the doorway behind her. Morgan’s eyes widen and Emily’s brow arches as a smile curves her lips.

“I, uh, brought backup.” Penelope giggles. She remembers she’s holding something. “And cookies! I couldn’t sleep, so I baked. I figured I could bribe you into going home and getting some sleep.” Her words leave her mouth at a mile a minute. “I thought you’d fight me on it, so I brought some muscle.” She gestures with a tilt of her head. “They’re the muscle.”

Morgan exhales and points a finger at you and Hotch. “Can someone explain to me what’s going on here?”

Emily elbows him and he drops his arm. She takes the tray from Garcia and walks it over to the side table where she places it next to the flowers. She winks at you as she turns back to Garcia and Morgan. “It’s about time,” she says.

Penelope laughs as she hooks her arm in Emily’s. “What's it been? Two, three months?”

Morgan guffaws. “Months?”

Penelope pats his face with a ring-adorned hand. “My sweet oblivious profiler. Come on, hot stuff.” She takes him by the hand and leads him from the room. Emily shakes her head and laughs. “Men.”

“Safe to say the team knows.”

Hotch releases a breathy laugh and kisses your forehead again. “I know what will be the first thing on the agenda at tomorrow’s debriefing.”

•

6 weeks. It had been 6 weeks since you’d pressed the elevator button that would bring you back to the office. The weight of your gun feels right where it sits upon your hip, your gait more familiar to you now than when it wasn’t holstered to your side. You nervously adjust the grip on your go bag. You’d packed and repacked it the night before.

This morning as you were getting out of the shower, you stared at yourself in the mirror. Your cheek had healed nicely though the skin on your brow that had been split by the unsub’s ring had scarred, severing the tail end of your eyebrow from the rest of it. The ligature marks around your wrists and ankles had healed and the skin was smooth once more. The stun gun had scarred your abdomen, but all that remained were two purple pinpricks of scar tissue no bigger than the size of an infant’s thumbnail.

Your legs are a different story. The front of your thighs are an array of mottled scar tissue. One burn had gone so deep that they’d needed to graft skin from your calf to salvage it. The wounds no longer hurt physically, but you’d woken up from nightmares on more than one occasion.

You were never alone though. Garcia worked remotely on secure laptops with VPNs as often as she was able. Rossi brought you home-cooked Italian at least twice a week and talked with you over numerous glasses of red wine. Reid brought black-and-white foreign existentialist films that you didn’t understand, but his enthusiasm as he watched made you happy all the same. Emily and Morgan brought coffee and donuts as often as they could and Hotch…if he wasn’t at the office or visiting Jack, he was with you. On several occasions, he brought Jack. Jack would sit on the bed beside you, playing with his toys, narrating the adventures of his action figures as Aaron stood in the doorway, smiling. At night, when you had woken in a cold sweat, Aaron was there with a washcloth to wipe it away. When the bandages had stuck to your burn wounds and it felt like your skin was being peeled apart, he got your pain medicine and helped change the dressings, holding you until the pain had passed.

You blink as the elevator dings, signaling you’ve reached your destination. You take a deep breath and smooth down the front of your blouse as the door opens wide. Everything looks the same, yet everything feels like it's changed as you approach the desk you occupy perpendicular to Emily’s. A smile crosses your lips as you see the Welcome Bac k card on your desk. Two vases of flowers sit behind the card. One is almost exactly like the one from the hospital so you know it’s from Garcia. The other, a bouquet of purple tulips, has a note attached to it. You open the note and read it.

Glad to have you back. Things haven’t been the same around here without you. -AH

Hotch. You should’ve known. You smile and tuck the note into your purse.

“Hey, hey, look who’s finally decided to get her ass back to work.” Morgan’s charming laugh is followed by Emily chastising him.

“Ignore him,” she says as she places a steaming mug of coffee on your desk.

“You’re a godsend,” you say by way of thanks and take a long drink. Two sugars, no milk, just the way you like. “Wow, Emily, that’s perfect. I needed this.”

“How come you don’t remember how I take my coffee?” Morgan asks pointedly.

She shrugs, “Chicks before dicks, Derek.”

You sputter and choke on your coffee.

“Look,” he says as he pats you on the back. “Her first day back and you’re gonna kill her.”

At that moment JJ passes by with a file in hand. She raises it in the air and gestures to the conference room. “We got a case.” She smiles at you warmly. “It’s good to have you back.”

Together, you, Morgan, and Emily enter the conference room where Reid, Hotch, and Rossi have already gathered. Once you’re all sat, JJ begins presenting the case. You review current victims and why the Sacramento Police Department has invited you onto the case

“Sacramento PD is expecting us this afternoon. We’ve got a long flight ahead of us. Wheels up in thirty, understood?”

A chorus of ‘yes sirs’ echo throughout the room. As the team gathers their belongings and moves to leave, you wait for Hotch to catch your eye. You wink at him before mouthing, “Yes, sir.”

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darlingdaisyfarm · 4 months ago

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feeling pretty low today, so i’m turning to these two old men for a little comfort

nsfw under the cut, fem!reader

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ Stan likes to call you:

sweetheart, honeybun, doll face and on occasion baby girl. when he’s feeling extra bold? princess — always with that unmistakable smirk

calls you “my good luck charm" if you help him out in the Shack, especially when he’s trying to swindle a tourist and you flash a pretty smile.

✦ “c’mere, darlin’. can’t let a fine gal like you walk around without her prince.”

✦ “ah, y’know, you’re the only reason I don’t go completely nuts in this crazy town. sometimes, doll, I think yer my only sane thought all day.” said so casually as if it’s not gonna hit you right in the heart

✦ if you get hurt (even the tiniest scratch), he’s going into dad mode: “who do I gotta knock some sense into, huh?” even if you’ll tell him it was just a clumsy accident, he’ll grumble, “well, now I’m the one hurt. bein’ all worried like that. you’re killin’ me, kid.”

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ Ford likes to call you:

“dearest” when he’s feeling soft, sweetheart, darling, honey, baby

he’ll whisper “love” against your temple when he thinks you’re drifting to sleep, his voice quiet and reverent like it’s sacred to him

starlight – Ford’s been out in those other dimensions, faced down monsters and madness, but he says he’s never found anything so bright, so grounding. “c’mere, starlight, I’m not finished admiring you.”

༄ “don’t laugh, but. . . I’d chase you across universes, even if it took me another thirty years. no dimension is worth exploring without you by my side.”

༄ if you’re reading one of his journals, Ford’ll slide up behind you, his hands on your shoulders as he murmurs, “curious, are we? so, what do you think of my work?”

༄ he’s not a show-off, not by any means, but catch him fixing up a machine? he’ll lift his gaze to you, smiling. “I could teach you, you know. but you’d have to be a very attentive student.”

༄ oh, if Ford wrote about you in his journal, you know it’d be scrawled between notes on trans-dimensional theories and arcane symbols, the ink smudged in places where he hesitated, where his pen hovered just so before he let himself write the truth

“Strange anomalies detected….. not in the temporal or metaphysical sense, but in a far more personal dimension. Subject exhibits an inexplicable gravitational pull, distinct from any gravitational force I've previously documented. When I observe her, I feel an uncharacteristic deviation in my thought patterns, an accelerated heartbeat not caused by heightened blood pressure or adrenaline, but by… attraction. Confounding. She’s somehow eclipsing the most rational parts of my mind.”

And, because Ford’s words can’t capture the whole of it, there’d be tiny sketches of you, like half-finished thoughts.

nsfw

what Stan says during sex:

“Damn, honey, you’re makin’ an old man feel young again. Don’t stop.”

“You’re makin’ me wanna be a better man, but not right now, baby, not right now.”

“Mmm, there it is— yeahh, keep doin’ that. . . feels so good, darlin’, you got no idea.”

“Makin’ all these pretty noises, huh? Lemme hear ‘em, baby. Don’t hold back on me.”

“You’re somethin’ else, y’know that? I’m gonna be thinkin’ ‘bout that pussy all week.”

“Fuckin’ hell, don’t know if I’m gonna last much longer with you doin’ that.”

“Look at ya, so needy for me, beggin’ to be filled. You got me so riled up, I can barely think— ah, f-fuck. . .”

Ford:

“Ohh— sweetheart, you feel even better than I imagined, i’ve waited for this.”

“I need you so much it scares me.”

“You’re brilliant, utterly captivating. . . yesyesyes, keep moving like that, please.”

“Tell me exactly what you want, darlin, I need to hear you say it.”

“I never thought I’d feel this way again; you’ve woken something in me.”

“God, I can’t— can’t believe you’re letting me have you. I need you so much, it hurts.”

“Mmm, god, yes. . . yes, you’re mine, all mine. . . can’t believe I get to have you like this.”

“O-oh god, you feel so tight around me, sweetheart, I can’t-can’t hold back!”

“Please, oh, please— just, just like that, don’t stop, keep. . . keep going. . .”

“I can’t help myself; I need you. I want to feel you around me.”

“You’re so fucking beautiful when you’re like this. I can’t take my eyes off you.”

“Oh gosh, I need you to take me deeper. Please, baby.”

“Tell me how good it feels; I want to hear it.”

“You feel incredible. I could stay buried inside you forever.”

#gravity falls x reader #gravity falls x you #stanford pines #x reader #gravity falls smut #stan pines smut #ford pines smut #ford pines x reader #gravity falls #stan pines x reader #Smut #gravity falls fanfiction #gravity falls headcanons #ford x reader #ford pines x you #stan pines x you #stan pines x oc #stanley pines x reader

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sleepydeprived · 1 year ago

Text

A Chance for Redemption

—A mysterious high school student appears out of the blue, bearing the face of the late Martha Wayne and puzzling even Gotham’s greatest detectives.

[chapter 2]

| Platonic!Yandere!Batfam x Reader

The Batcomputer hummed with activity, casting an ethereal glow on the somber faces of the collected vigilantes. Five figures stood in a semi-circle, their eyes fixed on the screen.

"It seems we have an unexpected addition." Bruce, the one who called for their presence, broke the heavy silence.

The images of the young high school student continued to linger on the screen. Bruce's gaze drifted to Damian, the youngest among all of them, whose narrowed eyes betrayed a mix of curiosity and skepticism.

"What nonsense is this, Father?" The young boy’s voice cut through the air.

Bruce spared a glance at the stoic faces of his other sons, each processing the revelation in their own way. Dick's expression held concern, and Tim seemed lost in thought.

"She is a potential blood relative, a daughter,"

Hearing Bruce’s explanation, the rest stayed in a deafening silence. Silence in which did not last long as Jason was the first to break it with a cynical smirk.

"A long-lost daughter? You sure know how to keep things interesting, Bruce."

The man in question’s jaw tightened, a hint of frustration flashing in his eyes. "This is no time for jests, Jason."

The youngest of the bunch crossed his arms. "This is preposterous. We need evidence, not some blurry images claiming to be family."

Bruce, torn between the skepticism that fueled his vigilante persona and the yearning for a connection lost in the echoes of tragedy, took a deep breath.

As the initial shock settled inside of Dick’s inner turmoil, he stepped forward, his eyes meeting Bruce's with a hint of understanding.

"Alright, what’s our next move?"

Returning his gaze to the screen where the same haunting eyes looked back at him, he answered,

“We can’t disrupt her life until we have concrete evidence.” Looking back at the faces of his sons who looked back at him expectantly, he continued, “For now, we observe.”

Through the symphony of slamming lockers and loud chatter, a figure clothed in the infamous Gotham Academy’s prestigious uniform navigated through the school halls, a mysterious aura surrounding her.

Her demeanor was an ironic mix of grace and clumsiness, her backpack swaying with each step. Unbeknownst to her, the school’s surveillance cameras tracked her every move and captured her interactions with fellow students, the footage easily accessed by those who were over taken by curiosity.

Being one of the said individuals, Damian Wayne—who fortunately goes to the same school as the said girl—observed his potential sister from a distance. His piercing gaze followed her, skepticism etched in his features.

Nothing extraordinary.

She seems normal enough. Too normal to be considered a Wayne.

As she approached her locker, Damian skillfully maneuvered through the crowd, ensuring a safe distance. He observed her interactions; the genuine smile that adorned her face, and the unintentional charm that seemed to draw people toward her.

The boy had attempted to interact with her at least once, yet couldn’t bring himself to think of a topic to talk about, as the girl was as much of a mystery as the shadows that cloaked Gotham City.

The school day continued, each passing period carrying the young girl further into a world where her identity remained a mystery, and her every move became a piece of the puzzle for those who watched in silence.

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earlgreylatte · 3 months ago

Text

Three Lifeforms

(Hal Jordan x Blue Lantern Reader) Where Hal is the one that grounds you after a big reveal and the Justice League is always in everyone’s business.

“Three life forms detected.”

Hearing the status from the ring, you and Hal exchanged glances, finding that the abandoned planet you two often visited in between missions wasn’t as vacant as you initially thought.

“Hello—!” Cupping your hands around your mouth you began to shout out, only for Hal to immediately envelop more than half your face with his stupidity big hand, as he pulls your back into his chest.

“What are you doing?” He hisses, looking around worriedly, as you try to shove him off you.

“No one is ever here but us, someone might have gotten stranded here,” you explain, trying to look up at him.

“That doesn’t mean you should go announcing yourself to a possible hostile!” Hal retorts, tightening his grip on you.

You’re sure Barry or Batman would have felt vindicated amusement in how your usually reckless, highball partner was forced to take up a certain level of caution when paired with you. While Hal Jordan was an optimist, even he had nothing against a wielder of the hope ring.

“So what? No one can stand a chance against a Blue Lantern and Green Lantern, you’ve said that way too many times to count,” you finally escape his grasp before turning around to face him, “Besides, if they need help, it’s my duty to provide it.”

The man before you sighs tiredly, shooting you a wry grin. “Maybe you should have been the Green Lantern with how stubborn you can be, berryblue.”

“How many times have I told you not to call me that?”

“Come on, there’s no one here! We’ve been here for hours—“

“Less than a hour.”

“Let’s head home, order some takeout, watch watch whatever tv show you’re obsessed with right now, maybe fool around a bit-“

“Hal.”

He groans, before splaying himself against you, relying on you to keep him upright.

“It’s been so long since we’ve been alone, don’t you want me to take care of you?” His hand travels lower, giving your bottom a generous squeeze, eliciting a strangled yelp and punch from you, which he only laughs at.

For a second, you think he somehow flustered you enough that your knees felt weak enough to buckle, but with how your head felt like it was being drilled from the inside, you conclude that this goes beyond Hal Jordan’s charm.

“Babe,” he starts, but stops when he sees you bring up a hand to massage your temple. “What’s wrong?”

“Just a headache. I’m fine, Hal,” You assure him, gently pushing him off.

You can already tell he’s furrowing his eyebrows beneath his mask before he brings his hands to grasp your arms, pulling you closer to inspect your face properly.

“Your ring should have negated anything like that. God knows how many migraines—“

“Hangovers.”

“—you’ve cured for me. Something’s going on.” He frowns.

“Just tired. We haven’t been home in months, it’s probably just taking a bit of a toll,” you reply, ignoring the way your vision becomes blurred.

“More the reason we should go, then.” He declares, his face hardening into the determined expression you’re more than familiar with.

“Not until we find whoever else is here.”

He groans out your name in exasperation.

You’re sure that he’s giving you a lecture about self-care, probably adding a salacious remark or two. But you’re unable to register him when the world around you begins to tilt.

He’s calling your name. Not ‘babe’ or some other embarrassingly gushy pet name . He’s definitely worried. So when your eyes flutter open, you’re not surprised to see the distress on his face as he cradles you to his chest.

“How long was I out?”

“You…only a couple minutes,” he answers, his grip on you tightening for a moment, “Come on, we’re going home.”

Scowling, you squirm in arms, but his hold remains steadfast, much to your fond irritation. “It was just a dizzy spell—“

“That was not—!”

“I’m fine. Besides, we still haven’t found whoever else is here!”

“They could be the Pope, and I still wouldn’t give a shit!” He bites back, his hand flexing on the meat of your thigh, mindful enough to not strengthen his grip on any further.

You furrow your brows, I mean, yeah, you’re literally Jewish.

“Give me a boost, will you? I’ll have us back in the watchtower before it’s Spooky’s feeding time.”

When you remain still, he jostles you lightly, but you avoid meeting his gaze.

He growls out your name impatiently, before softening.

“I’ll have Guy or Kyle do a scope here as soon as we get you checked out,” he promises.

“It’s probably nothing,” you grumble, before acquiescing, focusing on his ring and augmenting its output, “Gently, Hal.”

“Only because you asked so sweetly.”

Powered down and tucked into a med bay bed, you toyed with the ring on your finger as Hal finished off the leftovers of the meal J’ohn brought you.

“Sure you don’t want me to get you anything else?” Hal asks leaning forward on his chair.

“I’m fine,” you reply absentmindedly. You’re sure he’s looking at you with that dumb, loving expression he gets around you, when his brown eyes soften enough to resemble melted chocolate, so you avoid looking at him lest you break.

He places his hand over yours, giving it a light squeeze, “You were just overworked, don’t worry, Nurse Jordan will you have up and running in no time.”

“Liar. You were the one saying something has to be really wrong for my ring to not cancel everything out,” you scoff, trying to fight back a smile when he winces guiltily. “Well, your bedside manner isn’t too bad, though.”

With a soft grin he climbs onto your bed, nestling one of his arms behind you so it’s wrapped around your shoulders, moving around until you’re settled against his chest, as he uses his free hand to lock fingers with yours.

“You’ll be just fine,” he quietly assures, thumb rubbing against your hand soothingly, “After all, there isn’t anything we can’t figure out together.”

“Because of our rings?” You mumble as best you can with your cheek smushed against him.

“Because I’d literally tear reality apart for you and you’re my stubborn, intelligent, gorgeous girl that’s going to outlast everyone.” he responds casually. You really can’t tell if he’s joking or not. “But yeah, the whole ‘strongest weapons in the universe’ thing too.”

You let out a breathy laugh, nuzzling against him, only straightening up when J’ohn returns, expression as enigmatic as ever.

“One of the functions of the hope ring is to keep its wielder in peak condition, especially since its speciality is regeneration, correct?” He asks.

“Always wakes up without an ache or creak in her back, her ring surpasses mine in that regard,” Hal comments, squeezing your hand.

“Yes, I think its effect on your physiology is more proactive than anyone could have anticipated.”

“Just spit it out,” you sigh, wanting to rip the bandaid off.

The Martian clears his throat, suddenly look awkward, “There really was no way for you to realize, with the ring working to negate any symptoms and attempting to keep your body in optimal condition, that you are…with child. Second trimester, I would guess.”

You’re very sure that you’re brain just blue screened for a second, jolting back into reality when a tension you didn’t notice in your partner immediately faded, “Oh thank god.”

You look at him incredulously as he grins sheepishly.

“Sorry, sorry, but I was really worried it was something terminal or some galactic virus!”

“Weren’t you telling me not to worry earlier?”

“Yeah, you’re a Blue Lantern, worrying is my job between the two of us.”

J’ohn clears his throat again, pausing your debate, “We can have our on-staff medical team oversee your…condition, or we can refer you to trusted OB-GYN on Earth. While rare, a ‘cryptid pregnancy’ is still completely safe. It’s just good we were able to catch it so early.”

“Yeah, imagine if you randomly went into labour in the middle of space,” Hal states, visibly shuddering at the thought.

You groan, burying your face in your hands.

“I’ll leave you two to discuss this privately,” The Martian excuses himself.

You feel two large hands wrap around your waist, and in an instant Hal has manhandled you in his lap, his back hitting the pillows you were just propped up on. He buries his face into your neck, humming contentedly.

“What are you thinking?”

“What are you thinking? You’re awfully calm when this is probably the last thing you’d want, flyboy.” You retort with a bit more venom than you wanted, but he only nuzzles his nose near your pulse point.

“I’ll admit that when I got this ring, I figured I wouldn’t do the whole family man thing. I mean there was a point where my feet wouldn’t even touch the ground, between sector shit and the airfield,” Hal starts, “but being with you, I realized that I wouldn’t have to ever tie myself down because it would never feel that way with you. Not that I would mind you tying me up.”

Despite your best efforts you laugh, and you feel him smile against your skin.

“Whether we’re on Earth or on the other side of the sector, I’d be happy as long as you’re the one holding my reigns. Lantern or not, I know we’ll be okay. So being married to you and raising a kid…what’s not to want?” You remain silent for a moment before relaxing against him.

“I won’t say I’ve never thought about this before and the ring is definitely going to make the process unfairly easy,” you begin quietly.

“Oh, yeah, bet there are a lot of ladies that just hate your guts for that alone.”

“So, I—,” you pause for a moment, Hal patiently waiting, “I want to do this. With you. I mean, I’m scared but overcoming fear is kind of our thing.”

Hal’s hand comes up to tilt your head back to press his lips against yours. The angle is a bit awkward, but Hal leaves you breathless nonetheless, and even now, he’s smiling.

You pull away with a shriek, when his other hand reaches up to grope your breast. “No, just like I thought, it’s definitely bigger. More sensitive too.”

“You’re the worst,” you complain without any real heat.

“Hey, just checking!” Hal grins deviously, giving you another squeeze before you’re interrupted by the sound of a certain bat clearing his throat. You would have jumped out of Hal’s arms if not for his grip on you, clearly unashamed of cuddling you even in Bruce’s presence.

“Hey, Spooky, here to congratulate us?” Hal asks and you resist the urge to elbow him for being so obvious, but the other man only hums in affirmation and you realize you should have known nothing goes unknown to the bat.

“And to assist in anyway you two would need.” He approaches you and hands you a pile of—

“Brochures?” Hal observes. “‘How to handle your super bundle’, ‘How to go from Superhero to Super Parent’—who the hell made these?”

“Not like we’re having a super baby that could try to claw out of me ‘Alien’ style,” you note.

“While you two are both normal humans, that doesn’t mean you won’t have our support in having a new responsibility added to your already busy lives,” Batman affirms, “We will also set up a college fund when your child is born and cover medical expenses and the like. And—“

“Wait, too much info,” you massage your temple, “Since when did we have all these resources? Oh, Clark wasn’t kidding when he said you paid his rent!”

Bruce only smirks in response. Rich people.

“Alright, alright, we get it, maybe don’t try to send the love of my life into an existential crisis?” Hal interjects. Softie.

“We can talk more later. Some of the parents in our community have monthly meetings. I’m sure Barry will be sending you invites and reminders as soon as he finds out,” Bruce says, looking vaguely amused.

“Hold on, how many people know? How did you even find out? Did J’ohn tell you?” You question, furrowing your brows.

“As soon as you two arrived, Clark heard a third heartbeat, and we all know he can’t contain himself on these matters.” Bruce explains already heading for the door, deeming the conversation done. You have no doubt he’ll be popping around Coast City in the coming months though.

“He’s such a gossip, or more like everyone here is,” you complain, “Better tell Barry and Ollie while you can. They’ll be mad if they find out from the grapevine.”

“Guess we got a lot to do when we get back home,” Hal muses with a stupid grin, probably already planning out a green, space themed nursery.

You hum, leaning back into his hold before jolting. “Third life force!”

“Huh?”

“The—ring—third life force! It knew!” You sputter out, glaring at your finger accusingly.

Hal stares at you for a moment before bursting out in laughter as his shoulders shook, once again burying his face into your neck, which did very little to muffle him.

“Hal!”

Low key my worst fear, but it’s Hal and I think he should acquire a child if dc isn’t going to write him being a big bro to air wave. Also I want his dick LMAO

Masterlist

#green lantern x reader #hal jordan x reader #green lantern imagine #blue lantern #dc x reader #dc imagine #dc comics x reader #hal jordan imagine #green lantern x blue lantern #blue lantern reader #fem reader #justice league #hal jordan #martian manhunter #batman #green lantern #minors dni

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dreamersworldduh · 2 months ago

Text

HI, NEIGHBOR — PART 3

• JASON TODD x MALE!READER

SUMMARY — you’re new to the neighborhood and find yourself becoming friends with the residential bad boy, Jason Todd. From his perspective, you seem like an outgoing guy yet there’s a mystery to you he couldn’t quite figure out.

WARNING! 18+ MDNI. Suggestive Langauge. Swearing. Violence.

WORDS! 11.2k

AUTHOR’S NOTE! here we are with part three finally, I know I was supposed to post this days ago but reality interrupted my dreams and I had handle a few things, but as you can see we are locked and loaded. Also 11k words is insane, but it was getting so good—I had to finish!

I hope you enjoy! 😉

NEXT PART! FOUR

PREVIOUS PART! TWO.

In the months following your arrival at Wayne Manor, you slowly adjusted to life within its towering, stone-carved walls. The sprawling estate, with its endless corridors, grand halls, and hidden passageways, transformed from an intimidating labyrinth into something almost familiar—though it never quite lost its imposing presence. You had little choice in the matter; agreeing to let the Bat Family handle the looming threat of the League of Assassins meant surrendering your personal freedom in ways you hadn't anticipated. The arrangement came with a steep, unspoken cost: confinement.

Bruce, ever the calculating strategist and overprotective guardian, made it clear from day one that venturing outside the Manor was not an option. "Too dangerous," he had said firmly, his voice leaving no room for argument. He cited countless reasons: the League's relentless pursuit, Gotham's ever-growing list of threats, and his unyielding need to protect those under his roof. It didn't matter how many times you reminded him—and the rest of the family—that you weren't some defenseless bystander. You'd survived the League's brutal training. You'd fought your way through far worse than Gotham's criminals. You were capable, competent, and deadly—but none of that mattered to Bruce. He couldn't risk losing another person he cared about.

So, despite the suffocating restrictions, you adapted. You weren't the type to waste energy on complaints, especially when there were...perks. Life at Wayne Manor came with its comforts—luxuries you never expected but quickly came to appreciate. Alfred Pennyworth, ever the consummate butler and caretaker, could whip up anything you requested with unparalleled skill. His meals were nothing short of culinary masterpieces, turning even the most routine days into something special. But it wasn't just the food—Alfred himself was a grounding presence, his dry wit and subtle warmth offering rare moments of peace in an otherwise tense environment.

Then there was the Batcave. Its state-of-the-art training facilities became both sanctuary and battleground. You poured hours into training, pushing yourself to exhaustion against holographic enemies and weighted combat simulations. You sharpened your skills with unwavering focus, testing weapon prototypes—some Bruce didn't even know existed. The cave's cold, metallic stillness was familiar, almost comforting. Every punch, every kick, every precise movement was a reclaiming of control, a defiant stand against the helplessness confinement tried to impose.

As the weeks turned into months, bonds you hadn't expected began to form. Dick, ever the optimist with his easy smile and magnetic charm, quickly became someone you trusted. His laughter seemed to chase away the Manor's heavy shadows, making even the darkest days lighter. Then there was Tim, sharp-eyed and brilliant, whose love of strategy and detective work mirrored your own. Together, you dissected Gotham's criminal networks like players in a high-stakes game of chess, often losing track of time in the process.

Even Damian, the guarded and sharp-tongued youngest member of the family, began to thaw. He still acted like the world's most stubborn brat, but there was something like respect in his gaze when he watched you train—perhaps recognizing a fellow survivor shaped by the League's harsh hand. The two of you shared an unspoken understanding built on shared experience, though neither of you would ever admit it aloud.

But the deepest—and most unexpected—connection you forged was with Jason.

Jason, with his jagged edges and bruised soul, had always been something of a wild card. Reckless, passionate, and fiercely loyal, he seemed to understand the feeling of being trapped better than anyone. He never pitied you for your situation—he just got it. He made being stuck at Wayne Manor tolerable, even fun at times. The two of you easily fell back into your old rhythm: late-night movie marathons sprawled across the Manor's oversized couches, sharp-witted banter flying between you like familiar, well-worn armor.

But things were...different now. The kiss you had shared—unexpected, intense, real—had shifted something fundamental between you. It wasn't just a passing moment or a mistake born out of loneliness. It lingered in every shared glance, every casual touch that lasted a second too long. Conversations turned softer in the quiet hours of the night, the edges of your banter giving way to something deeper, more intimate.

Jason's eyes lingered when he thought you weren't paying attention, a quiet intensity burning beneath that tough exterior he wore like a shield. His hand would brush yours, and neither of you would pull away. The space between you felt charged, an invisible line crossed long ago that neither of you wanted to retreat from. You both danced around the unspoken truth, hesitant but unwilling to let go of whatever fragile, uncertain thing was forming between you.

Wayne Manor might have felt like a gilded cage at times, its stone walls a constant reminder of your captivity—but being with Jason made it feel like something else entirely. He made it feel safe. He made it feel like home.

The quiet hum of advanced technology reverberated through the cavernous expanse of the BatCave, blending seamlessly with the steady rhythm of your fists slamming into the reinforced punching bag suspended from thick, heavy chains. Each precise strike sent deep, resounding thuds echoing across the cold stone walls, reverberating through the dimly lit space like distant thunder. The soft glow from the Batcomputer's towering display monitors flickered faintly in the background, illuminating rows of specialized gear and weapon racks arranged with military precision.

Beads of sweat rolled down your temple, dripping onto the steel platform beneath your feet. You inhaled deeply, letting the chilled, mineral-scented air cool your burning lungs. The BatCave's icy stillness grounded you, stripping away everything except the focus of combat—the rhythm, the movement, the power radiating from deep within your core.

Your knuckles connected with the bag again and again, each punch sharper, faster, and harder than the last. The faint pulse of Chi energy thrummed beneath your skin, a persistent force you had long since learned to harness. It surged with every strike, burning like a fire that couldn't be extinguished—only controlled.

Fighting was your language, your anchor, your defiance. The League of Assassins' brutal training still lived within your muscles, etched into your very bones. You hated that, but it was yours now—something reclaimed, reshaped into a weapon on your terms.

You pivoted sharply, throwing a vicious spinning back-kick that cracked against the heavy bag with a satisfying boom, sending it swinging wildly on its reinforced chains. The satisfying ache in your leg reminded you that you were still in control—that you were still fighting.

Then— "Your balance is off."

The cold, clipped voice cut through the stillness like the edge of a blade.

You whirled on instinct, already dropping into a defensive stance—ready to strike. But you stopped short when you saw him.

Damian stood a few feet away, arms crossed, his intense green eyes gleaming in the dim, flickering light. His posture was impossibly straight, his expression sharp and unreadable—a perfect image of practiced discipline and quiet authority far beyond his years. His green cape draped neatly over one shoulder, its hem just barely brushing the cave floor like a royal mantle.

Despite your heightened senses, you hadn't heard his approach—not a single footfall, not even a whisper of movement. He was that good.

You exhaled slowly, tension still coiling in your muscles. "You always sneak up on people, or is it just me?"

His mouth twitched—just slightly. Not quite a smirk, but close. "Consider it a compliment," he replied coolly. "Most wouldn't have even noticed me."

You snorted softly, grabbing a towel from the nearby bench and wiping the sweat from your face. "So, what do you want, Wayne? Here to critique my footwork again?"

Damian took a measured step forward, boots clicking faintly against the cold steel. His eyes remained locked on yours—sharp, calculating, serious.

"I came to talk."

You blinked, thrown by his directness. Damian Wayne... wanting to talk? That was a first.

Still, something about his tone was different—less sharp, more... resolute. Whatever this was, it wasn't just a passing observation about your training.

You tossed the towel aside, folding your arms. "Talk about what?"

Damian tilted his head slightly, studying you like a chess piece he was considering moving. For a moment, he said nothing—his sharp mind clearly weighing his words before finally speaking.

"About the League... and what comes after." His voice was quiet—but heavy with meaning.

Your breath hitched despite yourself, though you kept your expression neutral. The League. They were always there—lingering at the edges of your mind, a shadow you could never quite escape.

"What about it?" you asked cautiously.

His gaze didn't waver. "You know what it means to be made by them... to be shaped by their rules." His voice was steady, but edged with something deeper—something personal. "They make you believe that's all you'll ever be." His expression hardened. "That you'll never be anything else."

Your jaw clenched, memories surfacing like jagged glass cutting through old wounds. You stayed silent, letting him speak.

Damian's sharp features remained set, but something... raw flickered in his eyes—something unmistakably human.

"I believed that," he admitted quietly. "For a long time." His voice dropped, almost distant—as though speaking more to himself than to you.

"I thought being part of the League... was my purpose. That their rules, their code, were all that mattered." His lips pressed into a thin line, bitterness seeping into his tone. "Until I came here."

Your brow furrowed, caught off guard by the quiet intensity in his voice. Damian never talked about himself—especially not about this.

He took a slow, measured breath, meeting your gaze with quiet determination. "Being Robin... changed that."

His voice steadied, gaining strength. "My father taught me that being a weapon isn't the same as being a person. That I could choose who I wanted to be—not what the League made me."

His emerald-green eyes burned with conviction, even as something darker lingered beneath the surface. "But it wasn't easy."

You remained silent, listening intently despite yourself.

Damian took another deliberate step forward, his voice steady but low. "I still fight. I still kill, when I have to." His gaze hardened. "That part of me doesn't just... disappear. It's always there. But it doesn't control me anymore."

He held your gaze, fierce yet... understanding. "Neither does it have to control you."

The words hit you like a blow, raw and unyielding. For a long moment, you couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. His admission struck something deep, something you had buried long ago.

"You think..." your voice wavered, rough with emotion. "You think it's that simple?"

Damian's expression softened—but just barely. "No," he said firmly. "But it's possible."

The stillness between you stretched—charged not with hostility, but... understanding. For the first time, Damian wasn't speaking as Robin, or Bruce Wayne's son, or even a former assassin.

He was speaking as someone who understood.

You exhaled slowly, tension bleeding from your shoulders.

"I'm... not like you," you admitted, voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know if I can change."

Damian's lips twitched—almost a knowing smirk, but softer. "Neither did I."

Silence fell between you once more—weighted, but... not uncomfortable.

Finally, Damian straightened and stepped back toward the shadows of the BatCave, his cape trailing behind him like a phantom.

"Just... think about it." His voice was calm, steady—but held an edge of quiet sincerity.

Without another word, he vanished into the dark, leaving you alone with your thoughts... and the faint, lingering echo of his words.

"It doesn't control me... and it doesn't have to control you."

For the first time in a long time... you wondered if that could actually be true.

The soft flicker of the TV cast shifting shadows across your dimly lit room in Wayne Manor. The familiar hum of an old action movie played quietly, its over-the-top explosions and cheesy one-liners filling the comfortable silence between you and Jason Todd as you lounged on the large, worn couch pushed against the far wall.

The room was simple but cozy, far more welcoming than any place you'd ever stayed before. Dark wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with books, training manuals, and a few small mementos you'd picked up since moving in. A faint breeze drifted in from the half-open window, carrying the cool scent of the manor's sprawling gardens.

Jason sat next to you, legs stretched out comfortably, his leather jacket tossed carelessly over the back of the couch. He wore a simple hoodie and dark jeans, his signature sharp, rugged features softened slightly in the dim, warm light. His sharp blue eyes stayed fixed on the screen—but you could tell he wasn't paying much attention.

Neither were you.

You leaned back into the cushions, one arm draped over the back of the couch, fingers resting just barely close enough to graze Jason's shoulder. He sat just close enough that his warmth pressed against your side—not quite touching, but close enough.

The comfortable silence between you lingered for a while, both of you absorbed in your thoughts more than the film.

Finally, you exhaled slowly, breaking the stillness. "...I talked to Damian today."

Jason arched an eyebrow but didn't look away from the TV. "You? Talking to Damian?" he teased, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Did the world end or something?"

You rolled your eyes. "He wasn't that bad... this time."

Jason chuckled, stretching his arms behind his head. "What'd he want? Lecture you about footwork again?"

You shook your head, your expression growing more thoughtful. "...He talked about the League. About how... being Robin changed him."

That got Jason's attention. His teasing smirk faded, replaced by something more serious, more attentive. He sat up slightly, resting his forearms on his knees as he watched you carefully. "Really?"

You nodded slowly, running a hand through your hair. "He said... he used to think he couldn't change. That being part of the League was... all he'd ever be." You hesitated, your voice dropping lower. "...He said being Robin showed him that... it didn't have to be."

Jason's blue eyes softened—not with pity, but with something far deeper... understanding.

"And what did you think about that?" he asked quietly, his voice steady but gentle.

You shrugged, though your expression stayed thoughtful. "I don't know... it's hard to believe." Your gaze dropped slightly. "I've been running from what the League made me for so long.... I don't know if I can ever be anything else."

Jason studied you for a long moment, his expression unreadable—but his eyes burned with something fierce and protective.

"You can," he said firmly, his voice rough but sincere. "You already are."

You met his gaze, startled by the conviction in his voice.

Jason leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "You're not like them. You left. You fought back." His expression softened just slightly, the intensity in his voice easing into something warmer. "You've got nothing to prove to anyone—especially not them."

His words hit deeper than you expected, settling somewhere deep in your chest. You could tell he meant it, every word.

Still, you couldn't resist adding, "You sound like Bruce."

Jason's lips twitched into a faint, crooked smirk. "Don't push it," he shot back.

The two of you fell into a comfortable silence again—but there was something different about it now, something warmer, charged with something unspoken.

After a long pause, Jason spoke again, voice low but... hopeful.

"You know... you could... be one of us."

You blinked, caught off guard. "What?"

Jason shrugged, his expression thoughtful but sincere. "You're already here. You've been training in the BatCave, fighting alongside us... hell, you've saved my life more than once." His sharp blue eyes gleamed with quiet certainty. "You belong here... whether you believe it or not."

You let out a disbelieving laugh, shaking your head. "Me? Part of the Bat-family? You're insane."

Jason smirked faintly but didn't back down. "It's not as crazy as you think."

You stared at him for a moment longer, still processing—but there was no mockery in his voice... just earnest belief.

The warmth in your chest grew—unexpected, overwhelming.

The movie on the TV played on, forgotten. The flickering glow of the screen danced across Jason's face, highlighting the faint scars tracing his jaw, the steady intensity in his piercing gaze.

You realized... you were staring.

But Jason... was staring too.

The air shifted between you, charged, as the familiar walls you'd built around yourself slowly... fell.

Jason's breath hitched slightly, his sharp features softening as his gaze dropped just briefly to your lips—hesitant, waiting.

You leaned in—just barely—testing the distance between you.

Jason didn't move... but his eyes darkened, something unspoken burning in their depths. His hand brushed yours, tentative... gentle.

You closed the small distance between you—finally.

The kiss was slow at first—steady, like neither of you wanted to break the fragile, perfect stillness of the moment.

Jason's breath shuddered against yours before he deepened the kiss, pulling you in closer, his hand resting lightly on your jaw, fingers brushing your neck in a way that left fire in their wake.

Your heart pounded against your chest, steady and certain, chasing away every lingering shadow.

Soon Jason's hands move to your sides, fingertips grazing the thin fabric of your shirt with slow, deliberate intensity. His touch was warm, sending a thrilling shiver down your spine that you couldn't suppress.

The kiss between you deepened, turning from tentative to desperate, fueled by weeks of lingering glances, quiet moments, and feelings left unsaid. His breath hitched when you threaded your fingers through his thick, dark hair, tugging gently—just enough to draw a low, rough sound from deep in his chest.

Jason pulled back just enough to catch his breath, his sharp blue eyes locking onto yours with fierce, burning intensity. His pupils were blown wide, and you could feel the tension radiating off him—wanting, waiting, but still holding himself back, as though afraid you might change your mind.

But you didn't. You couldn't.

Before you could think, his strong hands found your waist, gripping firmly—not rough, but secure. His gaze flicked to your lips for just a heartbeat before he moved, effortlessly pulling you into his lap in one fluid motion.

A soft gasp escaped you as your knees hit the mattress on either side of his thighs, straddling him as his hands settled firmly at your waist, holding you in place like he needed you there—like letting go wasn't even an option.

"Jason..." you breathed, barely able to get the word out before his lips claimed yours again, fierce and demanding. His fingers pressed into your hips, anchoring you closer, as though afraid you'd vanish if he let go.

You melted against him, your hands bracing against his broad shoulders before sliding down to rest against his chest. His heartbeat pounded fast, strong, echoing the frantic rhythm of your own as the kiss deepened—hot, urgent, and hungry.

His lips moved against yours with a fire you hadn't expected—like he'd been starving for this, for you, for far longer than he'd ever let on. His fingers tightened their grip just enough to make you feel it, keeping you anchored firmly against him.

Your breath hitched when he broke the kiss, trailing slow, heated kisses down the line of your jaw, leaving a burning path in his wake. His teeth grazed the sensitive spot beneath your ear, drawing a sharp gasp from your lips as your hands tightened against the hard planes of his chest.

Jason smirked against your skin, clearly pleased by your reaction—but there was nothing cocky about the way his breath stuttered when you rolled your hips just barely against his. His grip tightened, a low, rough sound escaping him that you felt more than heard.

"You're gonna kill me," he muttered, his voice rough, low, and wrecked as his forehead rested against yours.

"Good," you whispered, voice breathless but teasing, a small, satisfied smirk tugging at your lips.

Jason's answering grin was dangerous, laced with heat and something far more intense—something real. His hands slid up your back, pulling you even closer until there was nothing but fire between you.

Your fingers moved almost instinctively, skimming over his broad shoulders and trailing down his chest, feeling the faint tremor beneath your fingertips. His body was solid, built from years of combat and survival—scarred, strong, and completely real.

Without thinking, your hands slipped beneath the worn fabric of his hoodie, fingertips grazing over the taut, heated skin of his abdomen. The breath he sucked in at the contact was sharp, his muscles tightening instinctively under your touch.

Jason pulled back just enough to meet your gaze, his expression unreadable for a fleeting moment—intense, unguarded, as though you'd caught him off guard in a way no one ever had before. His breath hitched, lips still slightly parted as he stared at you with something dangerously close to vulnerability.

Slowly, Jason tugged the hem of his hoodie and shirt upward in one smooth motion, pulling both over his head and tossing them carelessly to the floor.

Your breath caught.

His chest and shoulders were a patchwork of old scars—deep, jagged, and unforgiving, crisscrossing across his toned skin like the remnants of countless battles fought long before you'd ever met him. Each mark told a silent, brutal story written in flesh—survival, pain, resilience.

Jason's expression shifted—not defensive, not ashamed—but... uncertain. Like he was waiting for something—rejection, disgust... anything.

But you didn't look away.

You let your gaze trace every faded scar, every rough edge, your fingers moving slowly, reverently, as though trying to memorize all of him.

Gently, you leaned in, pressing your lips softly against a long, faint scar that curved just below his collarbone—a wound that looked like it might've been fatal once. His breath hitched, muscles tensing beneath your touch, but he didn't pull away.

You kissed the scar again—slower this time, lingering—before trailing your lips lower, tracing the rough line of an old slash across his ribs. His hands flexed against your waist, tightening their grip as though holding himself together.

Your fingers followed the faint, faded scar running just beneath his right pectoral, brushing over it with deliberate care before pressing another gentle, lingering kiss there. Jason's breath shuddered, his head tilting back just slightly, lips parting with something between a gasp and a low, desperate exhale.

"You don't have to—" he started, his voice rough, strained—but you silenced him with another slow, reverent kiss along the edge of a ragged scar near his shoulder.

"I want to," you whispered against his skin, your voice steady but soft—earnest.

Jason let out a shaky breath, his hands moving to cradle your face gently, thumbs brushing over your jaw with surprising tenderness. His expression was... raw, stripped of every wall he'd ever built, laid bare in a way that felt too much, too intense—but he let you see it.

You pressed another soft, lingering kiss against a scar just over his heart, feeling its steady, strong rhythm beneath your lips. His hands trembled—just barely.

For a moment, he closed his eyes, letting himself feel it—really feel it—like no one had ever touched him like that before.

"You're... unbelievable," Jason whispered, his voice wrecked, almost disbelieving, like he couldn't comprehend what you were doing... or why it felt like it mattered so much.

You met his gaze again—steady, grounded—and saw something breaking in his expression... something open and real.

"You're not just your scars," you whispered, voice low but fierce. "You're more. You've always been more."

Jason inhaled sharply as his hands slid beneath the hem of your shirt, his fingertips grazing over your heated skin with deliberate care. His touch sent shivers up your spine, making your breath hitch as his fingers slowly tugged your shirt upward, exposing more of your torso inch by inch.

His gaze never left yours—intense, focused, hungry—watching for any sign of hesitation... but there was none. You wanted this—needed this—and he could see it in your eyes.

Without breaking eye contact, Jason stripped your shirt off in one smooth motion and tossed it carelessly to the floor. His strong hands immediately returned to your waist, gripping firmly, grounding you as though anchoring himself just as much as he was anchoring you.

Before you could even catch your breath, Jason gently pushed you back against the soft cushions, guiding you down with a quiet, silent command that sent a thrill down your spine. His weight settled comfortably over you, strong and solid, radiating warmth that made your heart race in your chest.

His gaze flicked over your bare skin, dark and possessive but still tender, like he was memorizing every inch of you—every scar, every line, every breath.

"You're so—" Jason started, his voice rough, wrecked—but whatever he was going to say got lost as he moved.

He pressed his lips to the side of your neck—soft at first, almost reverent, tasting your skin with slow, measured intensity. You exhaled sharply, your hands instinctively threading into his thick, dark hair, tugging gently—not to push him away, but to pull him closer.

Jason groaned softly against your neck at the sensation, his fingers tightening on your waist with just enough pressure to make you feel it. His mouth returned to your throat, his breath hot and ragged as he trailed slow, lingering kisses along the sensitive curve of your neck.

And then... he bit down—just hard enough to leave a sharp, stinging sensation that melted into something deeper, more intense. A gasp escaped your lips as Jason followed the bite with a slow, soothing kiss, his tongue flicking lightly over the spot.

"Jason..." you gasped, your voice breathless, shaky—but filled with need.

He smirked against your neck, clearly pleased by your reaction—but there was nothing cocky about the way his breath shuddered, his hands trembling just barely as they roamed up your sides, exploring every inch of your bare skin.

Jason's lips returned to your neck with renewed purpose, his kisses growing more intense—hot, wet, and deliberate—as though he was claiming you with every kiss, every bite, every mark.

He sucked gently at the base of your neck, his teeth grazing sensitive skin before biting down again, harder this time—leaving his mark. A sharp, helpless whimper escaped your lips as your body arched beneath him, pulling him closer, deeper.

Jason groaned, low and rough, his voice thick with need as he kissed the freshly made bruise—possessive, protective, yours.

"Mine," he rasped against your skin—unspoken, undeniable, raw.

Your fingers tightened in his hair, pulling him up just enough to crash your lips against his in a desperate, hungry kiss. Jason kissed you back just as fiercely, his hands sliding up to cup your face with surprising tenderness even as his lips moved against yours with absolute intensity.

Before you knew he changed your positions. He hovered over you, his strong hands resting firmly on your waist, grounding you, anchoring you. His body radiated heat, and his touch burned where his fingers grazed your skin, leaving fire in their wake.

You could still feel the faint, lingering sting from the marks he'd left along your neck—his marks—possessive and unapologetic, like he wanted the world to know exactly who you belonged to.

But now... it was your turn.

Your breath hitched as you slowly dragged your hands down the hard planes of Jason's chest, tracing each scar, each line, savoring the way his breath stuttered beneath your fingertips. His muscles tensed with anticipation, every inch of him coiled like a spring just waiting to snap.

His gaze darkened, pupils blown wide with want as you let your hands drift lower, trailing down his stomach, feeling every ridge of muscle beneath your fingertips until you reached the waistband of his dark jeans.

Jason's breath shuddered audibly when your fingers brushed over the rough fabric of his belt, lingering just long enough to make his jaw clench. His fingers tightened on your waist, his grip firm, as though holding himself back.

You could feel the tension thrumming in his body—barely contained, ready to break. His blue eyes burned into yours, hungry and wanting, but still... waiting.

Your heart pounded in your chest as your fingers found the button of his jeans. You toyed with it slowly, deliberately, watching the way his breath hitched, his entire body going still—tense—as though his entire world balanced on that single moment.

But before you went any further... you paused.

Your hands stilled, resting gently against his waistband as you lifted your gaze to meet his, your breath coming in uneven, your voice quiet but steady.

"...Is this okay?" you whispered, earnest, serious—vulnerable.

Jason's inhale was the only sound in the room. His eyes softened—just barely—but enough for you to see something deeper flicker behind them—something raw and real.

He exhaled slowly, his grip on your waist easing into something gentler—still firm, still grounding, but filled with quiet reassurance.

"Yeah..." Jason rasped, his voice wrecked, thick with emotion and need, but steady—certain.

His gaze held yours, steady and intense, as his hands slid up your sides, rough fingertips grazing your skin with reverence.

"You can—" He stopped himself, breathing out a shaky laugh, his expression softening with something almost... tender. His voice dropped to a low, intimate whisper.

"I want this... I want you."

His thumb brushed gently along your hip, grounding you as his intense gaze burned with trust and longing. "But only if you want it too."

Your chest tightened—not with fear, but with certainty, with need, with something far deeper than desire. You leaned forward, your hands resting firmly on his chest, feeling the steady, strong rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your fingers.

"I do," you whispered, voice fierce but soft, trembling but sincere. "I want you... Jason."

You unbuttoned his jeans with deliberate slowness, savoring the way his sharp intake of breath shattered the tense silence. The click of the button sounded almost deafening in the stillness of the room, followed by the soft whisper of the zipper being drawn down.

Jason's jaw tightened, a faint tremor running through his body as your fingers brushed over the exposed waistband of his briefs, the warmth of his skin searing beneath your fingertips.

His breath shuddered when you let your fingers trail lower, brushing lightly against the hard outline of his swollen length, already straining against the confines of his jeans. The sharp, ragged gasp he let out was wrecked, his head tilting back just slightly, exposing the strong, defined line of his throat.

"F—" Jason bit off the curse, his voice rough and hoarse, like he was fighting to hold himself together.

Your fingers moved again, slow but intentional, feeling the heat radiating from him as you pressed just lightly against his hardness through the thin fabric. His hips jerked involuntarily, a strangled, needy sound escaping his parted lips.

His hands tightened on your waist, trembling just barely, as though he was using every ounce of control to keep himself from pulling you closer, from taking more than you were offering.

His gaze snapped back to yours, intense, desperate, and pleading without a single word spoken.

You could see it all in his eyes—need, want, trust... and love. He was bare, stripped of every wall he'd ever built around himself, laid open only for you.

"... Are you sure this is okay?" you whispered, voice steady but soft, your hand resting just barely against him—asking, not demanding.

Jason's breath hitched again, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he stared at you with something deep and unspoken.

"Yes..." he rasped, his voice trembling but firm. "God... yes."

His fingers loosened on your waist just slightly, his touch shifting from a firm grip to a gentle caress, grounding you even as his entire body shook with restrained need.

The sound Jason made was low, raw, and devastating, like something had broken inside him—but in the best way. His hands slid up your sides, rough fingertips grazing your bare skin with reverence, as if memorizing every inch of you.

Before he suddenly realized something as he looked back to see the slightly ajar door at the far end of the room, the faint hallway light spilling through like an unwelcome reminder of the reality beyond these four walls.

For a moment, Jason's expression shifted, his sharp features tightening with thought, instinct kicking in like it always did after years of surviving in the shadows. He was always aware of his surroundings—always watching, always calculating.

But this wasn't just anywhere. This was Wayne Manor. A place where privacy was a luxury, where anyone could walk by... or walk in.

His fingers lingered just barely against your bare skin, resting at your waist as he hesitated, clearly debating... thinking.

You could see the thought cross his mind—the realization—as his eyes flicked toward the door again before he exhaled sharply, muttering a quiet, "Damn it..." as he reluctantly pulled away, the loss of his warmth making your skin ache in its absence.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed with practiced ease, muscles still tense from more than just desire, his sharp gaze cutting back to you for just a heartbeat—checking, making sure you were still there, still his.

Without another word, Jason rose to his feet, his powerful frame moving with that same effortless grace he always carried, like he was born to be in motion. The faint creak of the floor beneath his boots was the only sound as he strode toward the door, his shoulders still slightly tense, as if expecting someone to appear on the other side.

He reached the door in two long strides and paused, his hand resting on the cold brass handle. His sharp eyes darted down the hallway one last time—searching, scanning, checking—before he quietly clicked the lock into place with a soft, resolute snap.

The sound seemed to echo in the stillness of the room, final and certain.

Jason lingered there for a moment longer, his broad shoulders rising and falling with a slow, steadying breath, his fingers still resting against the locked door as if needing a moment to reassure himself—that this was safe, that you were safe.

Finally, he turned back toward you, his blue eyes locking onto yours—soft, focused, but still burning with that same fierce longing that never seemed to fade.

He crossed the room again with purpose, every movement deliberate but unhurried, his lips quirking into a faint, half-smile—almost teasing, almost smug—but there was something deeper behind it... relief. Need. Want.

Jason's voice was low, rough, but soft as he came to a stop at the edge of the bed, his hands resting firmly on the mattress on either side of you, caging you in once more.

"No interruptions," he replied, his voice thick with promise, his intense gaze flicking to the locked door before settling back on you—focused, possessive, and certain.

His chest rose and fell in uneven breaths, his bare skin flushed from both exertion and anticipation. His hands hovered at the waistband of his unbuttoned jeans, his fingers twitching slightly as if weighing the moment—letting it sink in, letting you see him—all of him.

He was always in control, always ready, alert, prepared—but this was different. You made him feel different—unraveled, open, seen.

Jason swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing as he held your gaze—his expression flickering between desire and vulnerability, like he was offering something he didn't know he could.

Slowly—deliberately—Jason hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans, his breath hitching slightly as he eased them down over his hips, inch by inch. The sound of denim sliding against his skin seemed deafening in the quiet, intimate space, leaving him standing there in just his dark briefs, his body tense, his chest rising and falling with every shallow breath.

His intense gaze never left yours, watching every flicker of emotion across your face—searching, waiting, hoping—until he saw nothing but want reflected back at him.

With slow, measured movements, Jason's fingers grazed the waistband of his briefs, hesitating for just a heartbeat. The faint tremor in his hands was barely noticeable, but you felt it, saw the way his breath shuddered as he finally pushed the fabric down over his hips.

His briefs dropped to the floor, forgotten, leaving him fully exposed—unprotected—in a way that seemed more vulnerable than any wound he'd ever taken in battle.

Jason's chest heaved as he stood there, still, watching, his gaze fixed on yours—not with fear, but with trust, need, and hope—like he was waiting for your reaction, waiting for you to make the next move.

But there was no hesitation, no doubt in your eyes as you slowly rose up on your knees, closing the distance between you. Your hands reached out gently, fingers brushing against his waist, anchoring him, making him feel.

You could feel his body quake with restraint, his broad shoulders tight, like he was fighting against every instinct to take... have... claim. His need for control was practically etched into every line of his body—but right now, that control was hanging on by a thread.

Your hands slid slowly up his torso, savoring the way his breath hitched at every lingering touch across his toned stomach, every scarred ridge of muscle. His skin was warm, real, alive—a living map of battles fought and survived.

Jason's breath shuddered when your fingers drifted lower, tracing the lines of his hips, your touch deliberate and slow—teasing, exploring. His blue eyes never left yours, flickering with want, need, and something deeper... vulnerable trust.

"You're killing me..." he whispered, trembling with desire as his fingers tightened on your waist, digging just enough to make you feel how much he was holding back.

But you didn't stop—you couldn't. You wanted to see him fall apart, to watch Jason Todd—always in control, always ready—come undone because of you.

Your fingers grazed lower, dipping beneath the edge of his waistband, tracing the trail of muscle that disappeared beneath his skin. His hips jerked involuntarily at the touch, and a low, rough sound escaped his lips—a growl, raw, desperate, and completely unrestrained.

Jason's head tipped back for a brief second, exposing the strong, defined line of his throat as he sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth.

He bit back a curse, his body practically vibrating beneath your touch. His grip on your waist tightened, trembling just enough to show how much control he was losing.

You moved your hand lower—slow, intentional, watching every flicker of desperation and longing in his expression until your fingers finally brushed against his swollen ten inch dick.

Jason let out a broken, ragged groan, his hips thrusting forward involuntarily into your touch as though he couldn't help chasing the sensation. His intense blue eyes snapped open, darker now, completely consumed by you.

"Sh—" Jason exhaled sharply, his chest rising and falling rapidly as you wrapped your fingers around his dick, feeling the heat, the hardness, and the faint tremor that ran through his entire body at the contact.

His reaction was instant—his hips jerked again, pushing into your hand with a barely restrained desperation, as though he was already too far gone to care about holding back.

His forehead fell against yours, his breath hot and uneven, every exhale spilling over your lips as he tried—and failed—to regain control.

"Shit..." he hissed, his voice rough with barely restrained need.

But you weren't done—not even close.

With deliberate slowness, you leaned in and pressed your lips to the hard plane of his chest, tasting the faint salt of his skin, still warm and flushed from your earlier touches. His breath shuddered again, his broad hands trembling as they gripped the bedsheets beneath him, like he needed something to ground himself.

Jason's sharp intake of breath turned into a low groan when your lips trailed lower, leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses down the center of his chest, following the faint line of an old scar that cut across his ribs. You traced the rough edge of the mark with your tongue, feeling the faint twitch of muscle beneath your touch as his hips jerked again, entirely helpless under your intentional exploration.

"Fuck.." he hissed, a needy sound tearing from his throat. His intense gaze dropped down to watch you, his pupils blown wide as if the sight alone was enough to drive him wild.

Your lips lingered just beneath his sternum, leaving another slow, lingering kiss against the sensitive skin there, savoring the way his entire body tensed beneath you. His breathing came in uneven, shallow bursts, his fists still clenching the sheets like he was using every ounce of control to keep from pulling you closer.

You let your free hand slide up, tracing a slow, teasing path down the line of his hip, feeling the way his body reacted—shaking, tightening, desperate. Every tremor, every ragged breath, every shuddering gasp only fueled your need to push him further.

"You're driving me insane..." Jason groaned as he bucked into your hand again, chasing more of your touch like he couldn't help himself.

"Good," you whispered against his skin, teasingly—but filled with want just as much as power.

You kissed lower, your mouth following the faint trail leading down his abdomen, feeling the sharp, defined lines of his stomach tighten beneath your tongue. His breath stuttered, chest heaving, his hands twitching as though aching to grab you—to anchor himself—but he didn't.

Jason was letting you lead... completely surrendered in a way you knew he never allowed himself to be.

You pressed another slow, deliberate kiss just above his waistband, feeling the way his entire body shook beneath you—needy, wanting, and bare in a way that made your chest tighten.

"Damn..." Jason moaned.

You could feel the faint tremor in his legs as you slowly trailed your hands along his thighs, feeling the way his breath hitched at even the lightest touch. His body was tight, coiled with tension—a mix of expectation and need that left him visibly shaking beneath your fingertips.

"You're killing me..." Jason whispered as his head tilted back against the pillows, exposing the strong, defined line of his throat as he struggled to breathe through the electric tension crackling between you.

His entire body shuddered when your hand wrapped around his swollen dick, feeling the heat, hardness, and the faint twitch of anticipation beneath your fingertips. His hips jerked involuntarily, chasing your touch like he couldn't help himself, a needy groan escaping his parted lips.

"F—..." he hissed, biting back a curse. His sharp blue eyes snapped back to yours, pleading, searching, as though waiting for you to end the torment.

But you weren't done teasing—not yet.

With deliberate slowness, you leaned in, letting your breath ghost over his dick, watching the way his entire body tensed, his fists clenching the sheets so tightly his knuckles turned white.

Jason's hips buckled just slightly when your lips brushed his sensitive skin, pressing the faintest, teasing kiss along his dick—just enough to leave him gasping for breath.

"Mhm..." he groaned, desperate, his voice breaking on the word.

His hands twitched, aching to touch you, to ground himself—but he held back, barely, like he didn't want to break the moment.

You met his desperate gaze, seeing the way everything burned behind his blue eyes—longing, trust, love. He was open in a way he never allowed himself to be, his control stripped away, leaving only you.

With slow, deliberate precision, you let your tongue trace a slow, lingering line from the base of his length to the tip, savoring the salty heat of his skin as Jason shuddered violently, his head falling back with a sharp, wrecked moan.

His breath hitched again, chest heaving, every muscle in his powerful body tightening beneath your touch as you explored him, tasting every inch of his sensitive skin with slow, intentional movements.

Jason's hips jerked, chasing your touch despite his best efforts to stay still, his hands fisting the sheets with helpless need. Every shaky breath, every low, desperate groan spilling from his lips only fueled your determination to push him further.

"Fuck..." he hissed through clenched teeth.

You pressed another slow, open-mouthed kiss along his shaft, feeling the way he throbbed beneath your tongue, completely lost in the sensation.

Jason's voice broke again as he gasped, his hips lifting instinctively, chasing more, his eyes blazing with plea and passion as he watched you through heavy-lidded, desperate eyes.

His trembling voice barely managed a ragged, "Please... don't stop..." as his hands fisted tighter, his entire body shaking with how badly he needed you.

Every inch of him was laid bare, exposed not just in body, but in soul, stripped of every defense he'd ever built. He wasn't Red Hood now—he wasn't the fighter or the survivor—he was Jason, your Jason, open and vulnerable in a way he'd never been with anyone else.

His hands gripped the sheets tightly, fingers twitching with barely restrained control as he watched you, chest heaving, his jaw clenched tight as though holding himself together was the only thing keeping him grounded.

But you weren't about to let him hold back—not tonight.

With deliberate slowness, you let your lips brush softly against the sensitive skin along his length, placing a slow, open-mouthed kiss at the base. Jason's breath shattered, a harsh, desperate groan ripping from his throat as his hips jerked involuntarily at the sudden warmth of your mouth on him.

"F—" he hissed sharply, his head tipping back against the pillows, exposing the strong line of his throat as his entire body tensed, muscles rippling beneath scarred skin. His eyes squeezed shut, his chest heaving, as though trying to process the sudden rush of pleasure that overtook him.

You didn't let up—you couldn't. You needed to see him unravel, to watch Jason Todd—always in control, always ready for the next fight—come undone because of you.

Slowly, you flattened your tongue and traced a slow, deliberate path along his length, savoring the faint taste of salted skin, warm and alive beneath your lips. His hips jerked again, a low, wrecked sound tearing from deep in his chest as his fingers fisted the sheets tighter, clinging to them like his life depended on it.

"God—" Jason gasped.

His body was shaking beneath you, torn between holding still and chasing more, helpless under the heat of your mouth. His breath hitched sharply when you slowly took him in deeper, letting your lips stretch around his length while your tongue teased every sensitive inch.

Jason's reaction was instant—his hips jerked again despite his best efforts, a deep, wrecked groan ripping from his throat as though you'd stolen the breath right from his lungs.

"Shit..." he groaned, his head tossing back, exposing the taut, scarred line of his neck, his sharp jaw clenched tight as though he was desperately trying to hold on.

But he couldn't—not anymore.

His hips arched, pushing deeper into your mouth as he lost himself in the sensation, every sharp intake of breath shattering into ragged, desperate groans. His hands twitched, aching to grab you, to anchor himself, but he held back—barely—letting you lead, completely surrendered.

"Please..." Jason pleaded, trembling with desperation. His blue eyes fluttered open, glazed and dazed, burning with plea and longing as he watched you, utterly lost in the sensation.

The warmth of your mouth, the heat, the intimacy—it was too much, everything, perfect. He was melting, breaking, falling... and he never wanted it to stop.

"You feel... so good..." Jason groaned.

His fingers finally loosened their tight grip on the sheets, you barely had a chance to catch your breath when Jason's hands grasped your waist, fingers pressing firmly into your skin, sending a thrill down your spine. His grip was secure, steady, but not demanding—asking, needing.

Without warning, he moved—swift and decisively —rolling you seamlessly beneath him in one fluid motion, his powerful body hovering just above yours. His strong hands pressed into the mattress on either side of you, caging you in—but instead of feeling trapped, you felt protected, anchored.

Jason's breath hitched, his intense gaze burning into yours, his breath coming in ragged, uneven bursts as if he couldn't quite process what was happening.

"I need you..." he whispered.

Before you could respond, Jason's hands were already moving, desperate but careful, gentle but intentional. His rough, calloused fingers traced slow, deliberate paths along your sides, grazing the sensitive skin of your waist, leaving fire in their wake. He paused just briefly, as if silently asking for permission, his breath shaking with restraint.

"Jason..." you breathed, your voice trembling—not with fear, but with need, trust, and love.

That was all he needed.

Jason moved, his fingers hooking beneath the hem of your shirt, tugging it up in one smooth motion, exposing your bare chest to the cool air. His sharp blue eyes darkened, his gaze scorching as he took you in, his breath shuddering like he was seeing something precious—sacred.

"You're... perfection," he whispered roughly, almost disbelieving, the words slipping free before he could stop them. His voice trembled with something real, raw, and aching.

You barely had time to process the sincerity in his voice before his mouth claimed yours again—fierce, hungry, and needy. His lips moved against yours with desperate intensity, his fingers tangling in your hair, pulling you closer, deeper, like he couldn't stand the distance between you.

His hands moved again, rough, urgent, tracing the waistband of your pants before pausing—his breath hitching just barely, his gaze flicking back to yours, silently asking, pleading, his sharp features softening with vulnerability.

"Is this... okay?" Jason asked you in a low voice.

"Yes... I'm yours," you whispered, fierce and unwavering, your voice steady but soft, filled with trust and certainty.

Jason let out a shaky exhale, something in his expression breaking, his eyes softening with relief—and love.

"Good..." he growled softly, possessive, but tender, his fingers tightening their hold as he tugged your pants down in one smooth, determined motion, baring you fully to his intense, hungry gaze.

His hands slowly slid down the curve of your hips, his breath hitching when his fingertips brushed the inside of your thighs, pausing for a moment—asking, waiting, needing you to want this too.

"Can I...?" Jason whispered, his voice filled with care—still asking even when you were already his.

"Yes... Jason... please," you breathed, your voice trembling—not with fear, but with want, trust, and need. You couldn't hide the desperation in your tone, couldn't stop yourself from reaching for him, from wanting him closer.

Jason's intense gaze softened at your words, something deep and unguarded flickering behind his blue eyes—relief, devotion, love.

With a exhale, he slowly shifted, his hands sliding beneath your thighs, lifting them with gentle strength, his thumbs tracing slow, reverent circles against your skin as he spread your legs apart. His fingers trembled just barely, as though still processing that this was real, that you were his.

“God... you're so fucking beautiful..." Jason whispered, the words slipping free before he could stop them.

His hands tightened their grip—secure, steady, grounding—as he gently guided your thighs open, positioning himself between them with a deliberate, controlled intensity that left your heart pounding in your chest.

His eyes never left yours, searching, watching every flicker of emotion on your face, every tremor of desire, every gasp that escaped your lips.

Jason settled between your thighs, his broad frame fitting perfectly against yours, pressing you firmly into the mattress without ever making you feel trapped—only safe, only wanted, only needed.

His chest pressed against yours, warm and solid, his breath hot against your neck as he leaned in slowly, deliberately, letting his lips brush against your skin with agonizing tenderness. You felt the soft scratch of his stubble, the heat radiating off his body as his mouth trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses down the curve of your neck, claiming every inch of skin he could reach.

You gasped sharply, your hands finding his back, fingers digging into his taut, muscular shoulders as he pressed closer, the weight of him settling perfectly between your thighs, making you ache for more.

"Jason..." you gasped, your voice trembling with want and need, begging without even realizing it.

Jason groaned low in response, his breath shuddering as his hands tightened on your thighs, holding you securely, firmly, like he needed you to stay right there, like letting go wasn't an option.

"I've got you..." he whispered, voice thick with emotion, his intense gaze locking onto yours once more. "I'm right here..."

Jason slowly shifted, positioning himself perfectly between your open thighs.

You felt the heat of him pressing against you, solid and hot, making your breath hitch in anticipation. Jason groaned softly, his forehead resting against yours as he adjusted, his fingers tightening their hold on your thighs with a protective intensity, anchoring both of you in the moment.

Then, with one slow, controlled movement, Jason pressed forward, slipping inside of your hole with agonizing deliberateness, his breath breaking into a sharp, ragged gasp as he finally filled you.

The sensation was everything—intense, deep, perfect. The stretch, the heat, the way he fit against you—in you—felt so right it stole the air from your lungs.

"Oh— Jason...!" you gasped, your voice trembling with a moan, your head tilting back as pleasure spiked through every nerve in your body. Your hands fisted the sheets beneath you, clinging to them as though they could keep you grounded.

Jason groaned, his hips trembling as he fought to keep himself controlled, steady, his jaw clenching with the effort.

"Shit..." he hissed, breathless, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment as he felt you—all of you—wrapped around him so tight, so perfectly that his entire world seemed to tilt. His fingers dug into your hips just enough to keep him grounded, to anchor himself in the overwhelming sensation.

"You feel... so good..." Jason groaned, his voice breaking on the words, filled with wonder and disbelief, as though he still couldn't quite process that this was real—that you were his.

Your body arched into him, your thighs tightening around his waist as you let out another sharp, breathy moan, your fingers dragging down the hard planes of his back, feeling every tense, straining muscle beneath your fingertips.

"Jason..." you whispered helplessly, your voice shaking with pleasure, desperation, and love.

Jason pulled back just enough before slowly thrusting forward again with deliberate, controlled intensity.

His rhythm was slow, sensual, each movement intentional, measured—worshiping. Every slow roll of his hips sent waves of pleasure through your entire body, leaving you breathless and aching for more.

"You feel... so good..." Jason whispered, his eyes never left yours, watching, memorizing every gasp, every moan, every shudder he drew from you.

"Jason..." you whimpered, your fingers dragging down his back, feeling every tense, straining muscle move beneath your touch. "Don't stop... please..."

"I won't..." Jason growled softly, promise etched into every ragged word. "I've got you... I'm not going anywhere."

His pace stayed slow, steady, deep, his hips rolling in a way that made your entire body tremble. Each thrust was precise, intimate, personal—filled with love, devotion, and longing.

A soft, needy moan escape out of your mouth as you leaned up, wrapping your arms tightly around his neck, your fingers tangling into his thick, dark hair as you pulled him closer, until there was no space left between you.

Jason let out a low groan, his grip on your waist tightening as your lips brushed against the side of his neck, feeling the warmth of his pulse pounding beneath your mouth. His entire body shuddered, his sharp inhale sharp, like he hadn't expected the rush of sensation.

You lingered, your breath hot against his skin, placing a slow, open-mouthed kiss just beneath his ear, feeling the faint scratch of his stubble against your lips. His hips jerked, pressing deeper against you, a broken gasp escaping from his lips.

Jason pulled you even closer, anchoring you like he couldn't stand the thought of letting you go.

"Jason..." you moaned, his name spilling from your lips in a soft, breathy whimper as you pressed another kiss into the curve of his neck, slow, intentional, savoring the way he shuddered beneath you.

"Say that again..." Jason growled softly, his voice low and dangerous, thick with desire and need, like the sound of his name from your lips was the only thing keeping him grounded.

"Jason..." you whispered again, breathless, your lips brushing against the taut, straining line of his throat as you kissed him deeper, feeling the way his entire body tightened in response. "Jason... please..."

His breath hitched, his forehead falling against yours as he groaned your name in response, desperate and wrecked, trembling like he was losing control.

"You're... gonna kill me," Jason muttered, his voice breaking as his lips brushed yours in a slow, tender kiss that was somehow fierce, devoted, and loving all at once. "God... you're perfect..."

His hands gripped your hips, steady and firm, grounding you as if you were the only thing keeping him tethered to reality. His fingers tightened, pressing just enough to leave a burning trail across your skin, not from possession, but from need, want, and worship.

Your hands slid up his back, fingers digging into the hard planes of his shoulders as you held him closer, urging him deeper.

His blue eyes softened, something deep and unguarded flickering behind the desire—love, trust, and something more, something real. He lowered his forehead against yours, steadying himself, his lips brushing yours in a soft, reverent kiss filled with everything he couldn't say.

With one slow, deliberate movement, Jason pressed forward, his hips rolling as he slipped inside you with such precision. His breath hitched sharply, a low, wrecked groan tearing from his throat as he felt you—all of you—surrounding him, holding him, pulling him in.

The sensation was everything. He filled you completely, stretching you with perfect, intense fullness, leaving you gasping, your back arching off the mattress as a sharp, breathy moan spilled from your lips.

"Fuck— Jason...!" you cried, your voice trembling with pleasure and want, helpless against the overwhelming sensation of having him so deep, so intimately connected.

Jason shuddered, his body trembling as he buried himself fully inside of your hole, his chest heaving, muscles taut as he held still, giving you a moment to adjust. His sharp jaw clenched, and his hands dug into your waist, grounding himself as his breath staggered, spilling into the heated space between you.

"F—... You feel... so fucking good," Jason groaned.

Your body tightened around him instinctively, drawing another deep, desperate groan from his chest as he pressed his forehead against yours, his eyes squeezing shut for just a moment, overwhelmed by the pleasure that consumed him.

"Jason..." you whimpered, your voice shaking, filled with want and need, pleading for him to move, to never stop. You arched beneath him, your thighs tightening around his waist, urging him closer, deeper.

"I'm right here..." Jason whispered, his breath shaking as he slowly pulled back, only to thrust forward again with deliberate intensity, filling you to the hilt with a deep, slow roll of his hips. "I'm not going anywhere..."

The sensation was overwhelming, perfect, each slow, sensual thrust sending shockwaves through your entire body, leaving you gasping and aching for more.

"I want to see you... All of you..." Jason voiced, his eyes never leaving yours. "Let me..."

You could feel the tension in his strong arms, the way his fingers flexed against your waist, fighting to stay in control, even though his entire body shuddered beneath yours, aching for more.

"Take what you need..." he whispered, his voice rough, filled with love and desire. "I'm yours..."

Before you could process the depth of his words, Jason's hands shifted, guiding your thighs slowly until you were straddling him, your knees bracketing his solid, strong hips. His eyes burned with intensity, searching your face for any sign of hesitation—but there was none.

You were his, and he was yours.

His hands tightened around your waist, his strong fingers digging in just enough to make you feel how much he needed this—how much he needed you. He held still, his breath shuddering as he watched you, waiting, letting you lead.

A slow shaky breath escaped your lips as you sank down onto him, feeling every inch stretch and fill your hole completely. A helpless moan spilled from your lips, your back arching as the intensity of being so close, so connected, overwhelmed you.

Jason let out a broken, wrecked groan, his head falling back against the pillows as his hips jerked instinctively, chasing more of your warmth. "Shit... You feel... fuck," he whispered as his hands tightened on your waist, anchoring you firmly in place.

"Jason..." you gasped, your voice breathless and shaking, your nails dragging down his taut, muscular chest as you adjusted, savoring the way his body tensed beneath your touch.

Then you started moving, your hips rolling in slow, deliberate circles as you ground against him, feeling the way his entire body shuddered beneath you, his breath coming in ragged, uneven bursts.

"Fuck... Just like that..." Jason groaned, his fingers digging deeper into your waist, guiding your movements while still letting you lead. His blue eyes burned into yours, dark and consumed, like you were the only thing that existed in his world.

Your breath hitched as you moved faster, feeling the way his hips thrust up to meet yours in perfect rhythm, filling you with every slow, deep stroke. The intensity of being so close, so connected, left you breathless, your body shaking from the pleasure building between you.

"God dammit..." you moaned, pleading, your fingers clutching his shoulders as your movements quickened, driven by need, love, and something far deeper than desire.

With one strong thrust, he pulled you down harder, his hips slamming into yours, drawing a sharp, helpless cry from your lips. His breath shuddered, his forehead falling against yours, his hands sliding up your back, holding you close, keeping you safe even as he lost himself in you.

You let out a breathless moan as your hips rolled against him, feeling the stretch, the heat, the way he filled you completely. The sensation was overwhelming, perfect, and left you aching for more.

A groan escaped Jason's parted lips.

"Just like that..." he whispered, his hands flexing on your hips as though fighting to keep control. "Hold on..."

Jason pulled you down while lifting his hips, filling you so deeply that a helpless cry spilled from your lips. Your fingers clutched at his broad shoulders, digging in as you shuddered beneath the force of his movement.

“Fuck..." Jason groaned as he watched you intensely. "That's it... Just like that... I've got you."

He set the rhythm, controlling your movements with expert precision, slowly at first—each deep, rolling thrust deliberate, intentional, like he wanted you to feel every inch of him. His breath shuddered with effort as he watched your reactions, his grip steady but firm, guiding you exactly how he wanted.

"Jason..." you gasped as you clung to him, begging for more.

"I know..." he whispered with full devotion. "I know, baby... I've got you... I'm right here..."

His pace quickened, his thrusts growing stronger, deeper, until you could feel him completely—intense, all-consuming, perfect. Each snap of his hips sent shockwaves of pleasure through your entire body, leaving you breathless, helpless, wrecked.

"You're mine..." Jason growled, his voice low and possessive, his fingers tightening on your hips as he drove into you harder, deeper, like he couldn't get enough. His lips brushed yours in a fierce, desperate kiss, swallowing your moans as if they were the only thing keeping him grounded.

"Say my name..." he demanded softly, his voice breaking with need, his forehead pressed against yours, his hips rolling into you with intense precision.

"Jason...!" you cried, helpless, your voice trembling with pleasure as your hands gripped his shoulders, clinging to him like he was the only thing anchoring you in reality.

"That's it.." Jason whispered, his voice thick with emotion, his rhythm never breaking, never stopping, his love etched into every thrust, every touch, every breath.

"I'm gonna cum..." you gasped with pleasure, helpless beneath the intensity of his touch.

His lips found your neck, hot and possessive, leaving a trail of fire down your jawline, his breath ragged and uneven as he groaned your name like a prayer. His hips rolled with perfect rhythm, hitting deeper, harder, right there, sending waves of pleasure crashing through your body.

"Cum, baby..." Jason whispered in your ear.

The pressure inside you built, hot and unstoppable, coiling tighter with every thrust, every touch, every breath shared between you. The pleasure was overwhelming, consuming, intense—a storm you couldn't escape, couldn't fight, couldn't resist.

"Jason... please..." you cried out.

"I know..." Jason voiced, barely hanging on as his pace quickened, his hips slamming into you with purpose, power, and precision, driving you closer, higher, further. "Cum for me..."

Your body shuddered, trembling on the edge of release, every muscle tightening, every nerve sparking as the heat in your core exploded, spreading through you like fire.

And then—you broke.

"Jason—!" you cried, helpless and overwhelmed as pleasure erupted, unstoppable and all-consuming, crashing over you like tidal waves that left you breathless, shaking, and completely lost in him.

Your body arched against his, your head tilting back as you gasped for air, clutching him like he was the only thing keeping you together. His name spilled from your lips in ragged, pleading cries as the pleasure surged again and again, leaving you dazed and wrecked in his strong, steady arms.

Jason let out a shaky, low groan, his breath breaking as he felt you tighten around him, his entire body tensing, trembling, losing control right along with you.

"Fuck—" Jason gasped, his hips stuttering, jerking into you with desperation, his breath hitching as he followed you, breaking apart in your arms with a raw, helpless sound torn from his chest.

His arms wrapped tightly around you, holding you close, securing you, like he couldn't stand the thought of being anywhere else. His forehead pressed against yours, his blue eyes squeezed shut, his breath coming in shaky, uneven gasps.

"I love you..." he whispered such with emotion, his lips brushing yours in a soft, tender kiss that felt like promise, devotion, and love.

#dc #dc x male reader #jason todd x male reader #jason todd x male!reader #x male reader #batboys #jason todd #jason todd imagine #smut #dick grayson #damian wayne #tim drake

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i-yap · 9 months ago

Text

Batboys x quiet! reader(who is not quiet in private)

( some of the reasons for the quietness is a bit traumatic so uhh warning)

Dick grayson -

opposites attract is possibly my favorite trope ever. And that is exactly what you guys are . Not exactly golden retriever x black cat though people who didn't know you guys well assumed such .

Dick would get exhausted spending forever being charming and charismatic for even the most extroverted of people get tired when they had to manage multiple superhero teams, a detective squad and the whole batfamily.

You were silence, peace serenity almost..until you weren't. Grayson was worried about this relationship in the start, after all you guys were really different. He was afraid you were going to be annoyed by his sunshine self, and that when he isn't feeling like talking, the conversations would go silent.

But you really are so different when comfortable with someone, and its tough not to trust and drop your shield with grayson.

It took him by surprise slowly seeing you open up and show your weird side. It somehow made him cherish it more and even want to show sides of him that only you got to see.

When he asked you why you weren't like this with everyone you said " My parents had a habit of talking over me, sometimes outrightly not hearing me speak at all. No matter how loud I spoke..i wondered if they couldn't hear me...if anyone even wanted to you" "why me then?" asked dick , "you're nothing like my parents, I know you care" and he does..he really does. He won't ever let you feel like that every again. He will make sure everything you want said is heard, and if not he will burn it into the skyline

Jason todd

he appreciated it, a quiet person in public. He hated being in public, he hated the buzz the noise the push the touch of humans around him. He felt strange

till he feels you hold his knowing you felt just as strange as him. Leave the gala and walk around the library , one earphone in each ear listening to whatever you wished to play.

Pulling you close in crowded areas- was it for you or for him? Glaring at anyone who dared tease you about your quietness. A single glare usually does the job but don't worry ...other ways exist too.

He loves that when you two are alone, you are a completely different person. It makes him feel special, like he is the only one who understands you. Because you're the only one who understands him.

When he asks " well I guess I never felt like people liked what came out of my mouth.. my humour too dark, my words too dumb and I didn't make sense. So I stopped trying" don't worry about being cringe..he understands you completely

Tim drake

he is intruiged. How do you pull such a perfect facade. How does one look so poised and collected with those rich assholes and so wild and untamed with him?

He could never really perfect the act the way you did. He's seen you grow up, but somehow its like you were born with two people living in your brain.

If you're this mysterious to your childhood lover, how does anyone in the world even think that they could know you, both versions of you.

Dont get me wrong, he loved it, A mystery he never could solve, not even with your help.

" Teach me your ways master" "I remember you wanting me to call you that last night..oh no wait it was si-" "shut upp" "fine ill tell you timmy boy, I just believe those rich stick up their ass puppets don't deserve to see all ..this.." "what about school kids, friends , teemates-" "I don't need anyone to get me as long as you do"

He will never get it, even if someone engraved it into his skin he wont understand everything about you , you'll always be the case he couldn't solve.

AND WE ARE BACK BICHES , send in requests and stuff, inbox open again blah blah I'm feeling much better now but I might push angst stuff more

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inkyquillstories · 1 month ago

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DreamGrid: Best friends living their best lives (A Body Swap Story)

The 2020s was the time where smartphones and AI were the biggest thing. This decade however, virtual reality was the biggest gamechanger. Technology has gone to a point where not only can you see and hear your virtual world but also smell, taste, and feel it. All five senses connected to this virtual reality called DreamGrid.

Inside the DreamGrid, it automatically detects everything about you from your body to your preferences. We barely have secrets from companies these days since all our data has been uploaded in the cloud. Once you’ve logged in and wear the helmet, you can see, smell, and feel your real life body in the virtual world. In this world, the possibilities are endless.

Tom and Nate have been best friends since they were kids. Their parents were friends and they became friends themselves. They would always do sleepovers and do everything together. When they got into school, it became apparent that they had their own strengths. Tom was one of the smartest kids in the class while Nate was very athletic and charming. It didn’t affect their friendship though, in fact, it was strengthened. Tom would help Nate with his homework while Nate helped Tom with his social skills and physical-related tasks.

Years later, they’re still best buddies. They actually moved in together ‘cause it’s cheaper that way. Tom now works for DreamGrid while Nate became a physical therapist.

(Tom)

(Nate)

One day, Tom received headsets from DreamGrid and Nate insisted on immediately logging in along with Tom. They went through all the registration and setup until they were both in the virtual world.

Even in DreamGrid, they decided to be roommates. In this virtual world though, their apartment was bigger with more expensive furniture. Nate couldn’t believe how tasty virtual food is while Tom spent more time decorating his room with virtual knicknacks. Eventually, both guys logged off because there’s just too many things to do in DreamGrid but not enough time.

After a few months, both guys had a stressful day at work. They ranted to each other what annoyed them that day. Despite the very different type of jobs they had, one being very technical while the other being very physical, one of the common denominators that contributed to their stress was how routine and how repetitive each day could be. Given it was the weekend, Nate had the idea to go visit DreamGrid again to do something new with his best friend.

“Hey Tom, let’s go log on DreamGrid. I just need a break from my life right now.” Nate said.

“You know what, me too.” Tom replied.

Both men wore the headsets and hopped into their virtual apartment. What they didn’t anticipate is how similar it felt to real life. When they set up their accounts, they chose to still have the same jobs in the virtual world. Others would usually choose jobs they don’t have in real life.

“Hey Tom, I have a crazy idea.” Nate said.

“What is it?”

“What if I log in DreamGrid as you and you log in as me?”

“You want us to be each other in the virtual world?” Nate replied.

“Yeah, I do. I think it’ll be fun to be my best friend for a while.”

“Oh I don’t know-”

“Come on! We both know each other very well and our avatars have all the know-how anyway!” Nate insisted.

“Well I guess there’s no harm in doing it.” Tom finally relented.

Both men logged out and exchanged headsets.

When they logged in, they were each other.

“Holy shit, this is so freaky! No pun intended” Nate said.

“I know! It feels so weird being taller than you, or I should say, me.” Tom said.

“I’ve never been this fit before.” Tom said.

“And I haven’t been this hairless since 9th grade.” Nate replied.

Both men agreed to go to each other’s room to explore their new bodies.

In Nate’s room:

“Holy shit, it feels so weird to be in Nate’s body” Tom thought as he lifted his shorts.

Tom opened his selfie camera and admired his new hairy chest. He ran towards the bathroom and took a selfie there.

In Tom’s Room:

Nate peeled off Tom’s shirt and inspected his own body. It was certainly very different from his own. However he enjoyed every minute of it.

Like Tom, he went to the mirror to take a selfie of his new self.

Both guys emerged from their rooms and decided to go to each other’s jobs. Tom enjoyed helping people as a physical therapist. Nate enjoyed thinking about complex problems at DreamGrid. At the end of the virtual day, they met again at home and discussed.

“Tom, your job is amazing!” Nate said.

“I haven't thought that hard in a long time. It felt good being able to solve the complex problems they gave me.”

Tom replied “Well I had a lot of fun in your job too! You know I exercise too but I’m not as fit and strong as you and having your body helped a lot.”

“But it’s time to log off. Do you wanna do it again?” Nate asked.

“I sure do.” Tom replied.

Both guys removed their helmets and got back to the real world. Tom looked at his body with a bit of disappointment. Unbeknownst to him, Nate felt the same way.

Both guys excitedly got home and immediately wore their headsets. Tom was happy being Nate and Nate was happy being Tom. In fact, they preferred being each other more than being themselves. By extension, both men dreaded going back to the real world every time. They wished the virtual world was their reality.

This continued on for months. They would be each other virtually and do the bare minimum in reality. Both guys were able to articulate their common desire to swap bodies so they decided to be each other permanently in DigitalGrid.

However, this was not enough for either of them. They wanted their virtual identities to be their real and physical identities. In fact, Tom felt wrong being Tom in real life. He felt like he was too short and weaker than he should be. Nate hated being taller and stronger. This did not feel like the life he was meant to have.

When Nate is in DigitalGrid, he would work on a way for their consciousness to be reuploaded in each other’s bodies in real life. In the real world, Tom would tinker with the physical helmets to be able to trick the software that Nate was Tom and Tom was Nate. After a few more months, both men succeeded.

“Are you sure about this Tom?” Tom asked Nate. They decided to call each other by the other’s name a few months ago.

“Yes, I’m sure Nate.” Nate replied.

Both men smiled and wore the headset. In the virtual world, Tom was Tom and Nate was Nate. They both wore the headsets in the virtual world as well and pressed a button. Both men felt a shock and removed their virtual headsets. Tom was now Nate and Nate was Tom. Again, they removed the real headsets.

Tom found himself in Nate’s body and Nate found himself in Tom’s body. They hugged each other and said thanks as they looked forward to being each other for the rest of their lives.

The end.

#male body swaps #DreamGrid #inkyquill

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adarafaelbarba · 2 months ago

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“come and sit on my face and i’ll show you how much i missed you”

With barba? Slight age gap, he keeps canceling dates and she’s mad that Carmen had to tell her and not him

A/N: Rafael is 48 in this one (it's right before he leaves for Iowa) and reader is 33 😊 Warnings: Smut, minors DNI! Some arguing in the beginning, looks like they won't make up, but spicy in the second half, Rafael using his skills to win her back.

You were beyond pissed at Rafael. Of course, you'd expected there might be some hiccups early on in the relationship, you were both busy people, and some nights might be harder to plan dates on than others.

But this was the fifth time this month that something had come up, and he'd have to cancel. Worse still was the fact that he'd gotten his assistant, Carmen, to call you about it.

On a normal day, you and Carmen got on like a charm, but you could hear in her voice when she called you, that she did not want to make this call.

So when Rafael finally showed up at your place, at 11pm, you nearly slammed the door in his face.

"Amor! Please! I'm sorry okay, something came up with the case last minute and I couldn't just leave it!" He tried, but you couldn't even look at him.

"Always something to do with work. I understand you have a demanding job, Rafael, but so do I, and I still make time for you. You couldn't just have asked one of the 25 paralegals working under the SVU department at One Hogan Place to fix it for you?"

"It's not that easy, this case is too delicate--"

"If they don't get to try the hard cases, how will they learn?! I asked for time off, you could've done the same!" You didn't want to yell at him, but this might be the last straw.

"Please, let me make it up to you, amor--"

"I don't know if you can."

He shot forward and grabbed your hand, pulling at it until you looked at him. "This can't be it--amor, please give me another chance!"

You bit your lip, looking at him, he looked like he was about to cry, a weakness of yours when it came to him, "Rafael--"

"Please, amor, I'll do anything--."

You shook your head, needing time.

---

Three months after you last saw Rafael, you were at the Manhattan SVU, covering a shift for Sonny who had to call in sick, something that honestly never happened.

Upon entering, you spotted the last person you wanted to see, standing in Liv's office. The two looked so homey, it stirred something inside you that you didn't like.

Sitting down at Sonny's desk, you tried your best to ignore the feeling, and going about the case you were working instead, when suddenly there was a tap at your shoulder. You looked up to see Amanda nudging you.

"Barba is looking at you, what gives?"

You flushed slightly. "It's complicated," you murmured, not wanting anyone else to hear, least of all, Rafael.

"Wait?! You two?!" Amanda exclaimed, making you want the earth to eat you up whole. "Aren't you like 15 years younger than him?!"

"Is that any of your concern, detective Rollins?" Rafael's voice sounded stern, like an angry school teacher, stirring something completely different from earlier inside you.

Amanda managed to get an "I'm sorry out" before she sat back down to work on her own stuff.

"Can we talk, y/n?" Rafael was right in front of you now.

"What's there to talk about--." But you got up regardless, not wanting to have an audience as you broke down.

The two of you made your way to the on-call room, no one would be using it for the next hour, so he could try and explain himself in peace for now.

Once the door was closed, he trapped you between it and his body, looking down at you. "Sit on my face, amor, and I'll show you how much I've missed you." he whispered, then you heard the lock clicking behind you.

"We're at work--"

"I can be quiet, can you?"

As if on queue, you let out a whimper. "we shouldn't--"

He dipped his head, his nose brushing against your cheek, his breath hot on your skin. "Let me show you how much I've missed you", he repeated.

It felt like your legs were turning into jelly, and you leant up to finally kiss him. The kiss turning desperate as you made out. Rafael taking the opportunity to grab your waist and walk you to the bed.

"Strip for me." He was as demanding now as he was in court, which honestly turned you on more than you wanted to admit.

Doing as you were told, you stripped for Rafael while he laid down on the bed, getting ready for you.

"Now be a good girl and sit on my face, but keep quiet, won't want the others to hear you."

You nodded, straddling his head. As soon as you did, he pulled you down onto him, beginning the onslaughter on your pussy. A small yelp coming from you, but you were quick to clamp a hand over your mouth. Your eyes rolling back at how good he made you feel.

It would take no effort at all from him to get you to the edge, and he knew that, which made him so much more lethal when he gave you pleasure.

And sure enough, you soon found yourself on the edge of your release, on of your hands going into his hair, holding him there while he helped you through the best orgasm you'd ever had.

Getting off him, he had the biggest grin on his face, and you wanted to stay mad, but in that moment, you only felt love for him.

He got up after you, pulling you in for a heated kiss as he rubbed your heated body up and down. "I'll never betray you again, amor, please give me another chance."

You nodded at that, "one more chance, no more." Which he agreed to, helping you get redressed.

~~~

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#my writing #law and order svu #rafael barba #rafael barba smut #rafael barba x reader

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ask-geralt · 6 months ago

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You guys want to know one of my favorite things about Edwin? He loves how smart his friends are. He gets so excited and outright a w e d whenever they think of something clever, make a keen observation, or offer a solution to their problems. All I ever want to write is Edwin who eloquently gushes and praises his friends' intelligence and skills. Edwin who, when the occasion arises, gases them up when they get self deprecating, because to him it's not an opinion, it's a FACT that they're smart, and good, and kind, and brave. That they're all equals. I would even go so far as to say he, himself, feels he has to continuously work and study so hard to keep up with them, to continue contributing.

Genuinely I feel like it's a pretty big factor in his hostility towards Crystal in the beginning. When Charles and Edwin first talk with her post-exorcism, she's unimpressed with the work they did to save her, and she insults the name of their agency, which Edwin and Charles are both clearly fond of. Charles, who's used to laughing at digs far more hurtful than that considering his life before death, let's it roll off him easily, but Edwin takes it more personally. From there, he grows jealous because of the attention Charles is giving her, made worse when Crystal proves her powers ARE faster than the methods the boys used before meeting her. Edwin feels like he needs to prove he's better, or at least still useful where Crystal isn't ("We all have talents.") to Charles, because if Crystal can do everything Edwin does, and does it better, then why would Charles keep sticking around? And of course, Crystal returns his hostility beat for beat, as she should. I feel like her subtle attempts to smooth things over and get along with Edwin aren't talked about enough, like she lets him get away with so many snide and openly rude comments before she starts biting back again in episode one. But Edwin holds a grudge and she shouldn't have to take his attitude towards her lying down, not forever, and neither of them are willing to, say, try and ask the other why they're so snippy towards each other, or apologize lol. Honestly their dynamic is so layered and fun to pick apart!!

What really seals it for me is the contrast in his reaction to Crystal compared to Niko. He warms to Niko pretty much immediately, calling her charming and quickly getting down to business on saving her, without even a token protest about helping yet another living girl. And I think that comes down to her attitude towards their assistance, what she brings to the table for the group's dynamic, and her willingness to let them do their thing without rocking the boat on methodology. She doesn't come across as a threat to Edwin's friendship (repressed and unacknowledged crush absolutely not helping either) with Charles, since she and Charles don't interact much, especially not one on one the way he and Crystal do, so she doesn't ruffle Edwin's feathers at all compared to how instantly and repeatedly Crystal gets under his skin.

All this to say I love all four of them, I love that they've all got their strengths and skills, I love that there's also that overlap, that they all get to do detective-ing and that Edwin doesn't get that petty protectiveness over that role. Yes he feels threatened by Crystal, but that has everything to do with Charles and nothing to do with her being competent, in and if itself. He doesn't see himself as a Sherlock Holmes with three Watsons following him around. He likes it when the others are clever, when he's not being a petty bitch (affectionate) who hates change/new things lmao

#dead boy detectives #edwin payne #charles rowland #crystal palace #niko sasaki

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erinwantstowrite · 3 months ago

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bear with me here because i'm gonna ramble about something i've been thinking about for a while... and i'm not complaining, i'm just noticing

sometimes i think we've leaned so far into the vigilante side of the batfam that we miss out on what really makes their characters: detective work. we need more mysteries in their lives that don't lead up to some big bad "we already know who's doing it" or an "end of the world" or "yet again: this fucking guy." we need more stuff where spy movie music plays in the background and dumb adventures that don't lead up to some huge grand event with a big name villain. the shock factor stops being shocking or interesting in any capacity if we're like "Gah! the Joker! ... Again!" or whatever

does that even make sense? like "yeah sure they're blowing up a building again and there's hostages. oh look they're gonna poison the water supply." these aren't bad and that's not what i'm getting at because obviously this is a classic for comics. you need to have characters/antagonists that show up more than once and who can make a story better by being in it. and i did say to bear with me- that's because im tired. so like i hope im getting this across the right way? it's just that sometimes i don't wanna see a huge explosion, i want these motherfuckers solving a regular murder or a disappearance or regular corruption in a local office without it being tied to a grand reveal like "actually this person knows you as a long lost relative" or "they were at that circus can you guess which night they went?" that kind of thing? if you get me? like... more of the small time stuff makes the big stuff important, it makes it stand out more. at some point, the format gets repetitive even if you're switching up the villains. you can make these situations/mysteries still fun to solve for the characters and fun to read for the audience if you do it right

the concept of a detective dressed as a bat and having a sidekick in traffic light colors is inherently goofy as hell??? but that is what is so charming about it??? i think we have lost the balance between them being silly while also being intelligent with important conversations that criticize the world as we see it and teach lessons and can go over dark topics. nowadays it's always end of the world problems or just straight up the most gruesome true crime you can think of?? or they can ONLY do the dark stuff and the criticism without offering a balance of the good in the world. or we keep coming back to the FUCKING JOKER-

like yes they are vigilantes and with that comes a different level of their work, but their brand should be a mix between a black and white detective film that can get very nitty gritty and a classic spy movie, that kind of thing. at the end of the day, it's what makes them so different from the superheroes. that's what appeals to me.

seeing them in the big superhero groups is fun, don't get me wrong. it's always funny to see them standing next to people who are so powerful they never really fit in with anyone but each other, who chose to step up and use their powers for good. the Bats' specialty is Gotham and yet here they are stopping a god or whatever. and they do stop the god or whatever, all the while being an important leader and strategist to their teammates. they're important to have in these cases. but if there's a world ending event every time i pick something up, it's not as fun

the fact that they are so very human and not fantastical is why i like reading them. it's what makes the joke of people, even Gotham citizens, theorizing about them being cryptids, funny. they're fucking weird but that's because they're detectives. people who love to solve mysteries usually have a fatal flaw of curiosity. they forget the bounds between social interactions sometimes because they're used to working through problems or being intertwined with partners that understand them. but they're very much human. so human that it hurts them in many ways. and idk i've just been thinking about it lately and idk what point i'm trying to get across actually

it's just that in my eyes that's how it really is for Batman- a black and white movie narrated by a very serious man who took up a job to help people, one that has a deeper commentary on the world and viewed outwardly as pessimistic but actually has a deep hope for his city and who tries to help even the people who have wronged others. He's a stationary man in the belief that him being a constant can serve to soothe others and help them move forward. He stays in the middle of the path so he can tell everyone what is up ahead. he blends into the Gotham rainy night to serve justice but in a way that saves both the victim and the perpetrator. (the way he tucks a Robin into his cape is the same he does for Gotham with his mere presence.) and his background is actually so important to his story and yet people still somehow gloss over the lesson from it? he lost his parents because of a man who was on the opposite end of the spectrum to where he was in life. and yet he chose to help the people like the man that killed his parents. he could have done anything else with his power and money, but he instead is choosing to bring as many people up with him as he can. He's Mr. Serious that no one else can get a read on. and yet he walks into a room and he's already piecing together your life and what you're going through because he thinks it matters. he comforts people who have lost something or someone or themselves. I picture Batman and I don't picture a man trying to save the world, I picture a detective walking around a crime scene and trying to save at least one person every time he puts on the cape. and he put on the cape and became a vigilante because then he could go out of the bounds of what laws have been set up- and specifically, Gotham has other people in power who are corrupt, keeping the system that way. that's why Batman being a billionare and throwing himself into helping people at the risk of his own life is so important. he knows that if you are alive, you have something or someone to lose, no matter who you are. the dude is a bleeding heart but he doesn't know how to express it, in fear that if he gets too close, if he moves down the path with them, he'll be lost again

and then he's met with someone who should be a complete opposite, but isn't at all, because they're two sides of the same coin. his partner in crime, his son, a boy that is nothing like the black and white world that he sees. and that's the point in his life where he first sees that potentially getting lost is worth the risk. Robin is color and passion that needs guidance to move forward, but can not do so unless the stationary man learns to move with him. the kid is loud and reckless and you'd think he's from a different genre from the detective but they aren't so different, really. not when you look close enough. Dick grew up moving from place to place and seeing the world, knowing so many different people from different cultures. He's been learning to fly and jump and embrace the free fall his entire life. He's clever and he's sharp, and he thrives in the action and adventure. it's that perspective that compliments the stationary man. one is steady and the other pushes. he's the same genre but a different generation. and Batman introducing him to the way of life he chose for himself was another way he could save someone. because let's be real for a second? Dick would have gone down a very dark path had he not had Bruce, who understood, who saw not just himself in the kid but also saw who the kid has been his entire life until now. he saw Dick's parents, he saw the family he had in the circus, he saw the joy he had in what his family was doing. he saw the grief and the fire and the color that Dick's world was made of. because to Bruce, it always matters. Dick had to come to terms with Bruce's perspective to help anyone who they come across, to always give more chances, and it kept Dick from losing his color

what gets me is that the man who lives in the black and white world can actually see many different shades of gray (because black and white always needs the medium), whereas the boy in a world of color and light can get so focused on the bright that he can become single minded. and yet the boy sees a world of color and delves deeper into the lives of the peolle they come across and can be much more open minded, and the man in the black and white world sometimes forgets the shades of grey are right there. they are just like each other. they can exist without the other, but do they want to? because the black and white can be built up into the colored image, like the inking and shadows drawn on a comic book page before the colors are added in. they meet in the middle to complete each other. Bruce has been passing the story over to the next generation for a long, long time, even before his story was complete. and just like with the first Robin, it was so for every Robin afterwards. they each color in the lines differently, but that's what makes Robin so special, so unique. they are an art style that branches into their own life, but can not forget where they started: tucked into Batman's cape and the inky black of his world

and so detective work really frames their hunanity to me. the mysteries they get their hands on, the glimpses into the lives of Gotham citizens that they swore to protect, it's fascinating. it's what makes their story stand out compared to the people who can lift trucks or cast spells or run around the world in seconds. so yeah ig that's what i'm trying to say? that i want to read more of that? in both canon and fanon. cause even the small time villains we see can be like. AWFUL people and it takes out the fun of their gimmicks. and if it were any other day this would be a more coherent post but alas, it is not any other day

#tldr: we need more filler episodes #/hj but also /srs #erinwantstowrite #batfam #batfam fanfic #batman #batman comics #canon and fanon #in my eyes #bruce wayne #dick grayson #it's like that quote #“if you want to write about the impact if war you do not write from the government's perspective #you write about a little girl's shoe in the rubble of her home.“#the smallest stories can have the biggest impacts on us #gotham is so fucking weird and can be really silly #while also being so dark #and you can have the big stuff happen too #idk im just thinking today #this might not make complete sense #but it's things like that that make their rules make more sense #like no you don't come to gotham because you aren't one of us and you might misunderstand my people #you catch bad guys #we try to save them #also this did in fact give me and alighterwood an au idea #and im going fucking bonkers over that #so #yayyy

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sil-te-plait-tue-moi · 4 months ago

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My heart is a bloodhound!

PART 1 ★ PART 2

Quick summary: It happens again, when the year festers into August again and leaves the two of you raw and vulnerable like open wounds.

Word count: 15K… 🤓

Warnings: canon-typical mentions of death, violence and injury (there is mention of like eating people but idk); grief; misogyny; Rust's personality; semi-public SMUTT T-T (MINORS DNI); same level of pretentiousness, maybe a little more, as the first part.

A/N: Holy fuck this sucked the soul out of me (wish Rust Cohle would suck the soul out of I MEAN WHAT), i am super proud of this though!! Went through many iterations and this was the least shit! 🎀🎀🎀 This is technically part two to The idler wheel but can be read by itself too. May or may not write other things for this guy but for the time being, I need a cleanse 😭 BUT please please enjoy and please please interact, i love reading comments and so many lovely people commented on the first part, im gonna do my best to respond to any/all this time 🤘MWAH MWAH

***

It’s difficult to differentiate between the thrill of being left alone here with him and the slow-sinking dread of the implications of that.

With the return of the musk of the summer, those three ruthless, windless, unrelenting months that would seem to drag on for several lifetimes when I was a kid, the memory of where I was last year—and the year before that, and the one before that—hangs brightly in my mind. Stale, not quite dead – so bright. Crawling with mildew.

Stepping into the bar had felt like entering another dimension. Maybe it was the suits that gave it away – every single God-haunted patron—the truckers, the farmers, even the old dog lying at a man’s feet—had turned, sensing foreigners as acutely as the immune system registers a bodily threat. I knew Johansson felt it: that dark pull over the back of the neck. But under Marty’s overconfident, swaggering lead, that winning smile, we soon assimilated. Skin swallowing a bullet.

God forbid you ever leave the town you grew up in. Shame on you if you don’t, though. How sanctimonious of me to change my mind and return after earning a spot amongst the lucky few escapees.

Something in this place still irks me.

At least, in Brooklyn, there was always noise: cries of a baby in the apartment over, the discord of traffic bursting through the streets below, the rush of a crowd, the overlap and slur of private conversations. At least the badness would stare you right in the face; at least people were evil to be evil. At least there were corners where things could hide, where it made sense for shadows to exist: all to explain the paranoia that stalked me.

But here?—it seems so open. Like, if a rare, hot wind would blow through a Louisiana town, it could do so in one straight path, through walls, through people, without ever getting disrupted. Everything is so light in the blazing sun, you can practically hear it: the hum of rays passing over every surface. Nothing should be able to hide. And, at night, with no sun, no rays, there is no noise. Maybe a dog. And ghosts. But perhaps it’s just the area in which I live.

When Marty started drinking, flirting with the twenty-one-year-old barkeep, Johansson’s face had stiffened. He himself had never even touched a bottle of beer – devil stuff. We shared a look once the blond detective started gabbin’ like an idiot.

“Know what Maggie thinks?” he had laughed, slumping over the sticky table of the booth, big, sweaty palm choking out his drink. “She thinks you might be pissed at me.”

Johansson blinked hard to keep his nose from wrinkling, but, even then, he couldn’t keep from physically cringing away. “Who?” he asked, confused by those hazy, unfocused eyes.

Marty cracked a toothy grin – there was that slight gap between those front two, which had been charming at first and only managed to thoroughly disgust me now in moments like these – and pointed his finger right at me, accusing. “You.”

My stomach churned dangerously at the sight of him.

“Marty,” his partner had drawled, a low warning.

Waved away like a fly.

“Naw, it’s like—you’re on your high fuckin’ horse or somethin’.”

The words were spoken through a laugh, but I knew there was meat behind that so-called good mood. He was one of those people that tended to overcompensate. A mistake, an ill feeling. He liked to point out how I was alone, and often, too, poorly disguised as a passing joke, complete with one of those shit-eating grins that seemed to come so easy to him.

Shouldn’t he have been happy? Not only had he gotten our case, by then, but we’d handed it over with smiles on our damn faces. Nice enough to walk them through the original crime scene, introduce them to the key witnesses. Complicated. We didn’t have to do shit for ‘em, but we did. Hell, even that beer he was clutching to his chest was paid for out of the goodness of my own fuckin’ heart. Who was he to moan about the situation? He was the one who insisted on staying in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, brushing off any and all pointed questions on whether his family would be missing him at dinner.

“You know, I’d rather you were pissed,” he continued, where, really, I should have just smothered him into silence.

Rust was staring into the side of his flushed face, iron-grey eyes like a drill, like he was thinking the same thing.

“Look, you’re smilin’ at me now, but I sure as hell don’t trust it, buck. You wanna bite my head off, don’t ye?”

Like I ever could have done that.

Though the familiar weight of rage curdled in my chest, I would never admit it to the likes of Martin Hart. When he got like this—jealous, insecure, whiny—I wondered whether it was just a temporary lapse, or if this him, this true him, just lay under the surface all the time.

It wasn’t that fucking hard to plaster on a smile and take what you fucking got – I did it all the time. He could dream of a different life, but this was the one we were dealt. Fact that his grown ass hadn’t accepted that by now twisted violently in my gut. Between the two of us, I was the one that knew this – so why did he get myfucking case?

In my head, I’d let Salter have it, too. How could I ever admit I had an ego? How could I ever admit I had a mind to wrench the teeth out of the sheriff’s fucking gums?

But I have plenty of practice acting like things don’t bother me, which is why it was so easy to plaster on my amiable smile and laugh, “C’mon, man, you know it’s only ‘cause o’ the workload.” Not that you could comprehend that, lazy fuck. To Marty, my kind’s natural state was amiable—anything otherwise would be a defect—so I’d expected to convince him. “You’ll do right by it, ‘m sure.”

If he were sober, I know he would’ve bought it – he could convince himself that the way of the world was right and I was only being sweet to be sweet, because he deserved it.

But Marty was drunk. Piss-drunk, loud drunk. His mind was clumsier than usual, unable to muster the energy to jump points, ignore the evidence, like he did daily. I hoped I had the power—if I had to let the case go, I wanted to at least retain an into its goings-on—but there was only one way to really have power over men like Marty when they were drunk, and I had had no interest in being one of his girls.

My partner twitched beside me, picking at some spongy, yellow fluff protruding from a thin split in the chocolate-brown fake leather of the booth. He was just as furious as I was beneath his fort of calm.

Marty took a swig of his beer. “She wants you over soon. Maggie. Barbecue or some shit.”

“Maybe you should go home,” Johansson interjected, sharper than intended. If I were him, with his body, with his life, I’d have hit the fucker—long time ago, too. I couldn’t, but Johansson wouldn’t. He didn’t lack the temperament for brutality—I’m not sure anybody does—but, rather, couldn’t justify it to a necessary degree in his head. “I’m going home,” he’d reasoned kindly – he made it sound so easy. “Just let me take you. It’s on my way.”

Itching to leave, to return to the comfort of his wife and his little daughter. Marty had always found Johansson’s fondness of them disingenuous, had disliked my partner as long as they’d worked in the same office. He complained to me once that none of his stories seemed complete. When I asked him what he meant by that, he couldn’t answer—but I knew.

Breath short in my chest, I had half-expected Marty to lunge over the table, scratch Johansson’s eyes out. Only, Rust leaned over, dipping his head down to mutter something quietly into his partner’s ear, which was all flushed red.

And then he went willingly into Johansson’s car, stumbling through the still, open night into the backseat.

My partner had squeezed my shoulder goodbye – I’m not sure why I didn’t leave with him. Now, I was doomed to leave with Rust.

There, he sits across from me, smearing the ashy tar of his half-smoked, flaking cigarette over the mottled glass ashtray dragged over to his side of the table, little circles, waves, absent-minded art. Has me transfixed, some hypnotist.

If I look down like this, if I sacrifice the opportunity to look at him, I earn his careful attention: this sits in the back of my idle mind. I’ve been taking advantage of it more and more since summer broke through the sweetness of spring, which has since curdled like milk, sour. His stare drags over my face like fingers – I can almost feel his touch pressing into the softness of my cheek, dragging over the ridge of the orbital bone.

“You’re okay?” he asks after a couple slowed heartbeats, pulling me out of the honey-pit of my thoughts.

I dart my eyes up, breaking the spell – his observation retreats, clouds, and drifts away to fix on the broken clock on the wall, the one that reads one forty-five at eleven o’ clock.

Primarily, his question irritates me. Nobody asks “are you alright?” imploringly, not unless it concerns themselves and their own wants. Salter had asked me that, right after telling me he was pulling me from my case, and, then, I had thought about crying, just to unsettle him. But what good would that have done? He’d only asked “are you alright?” to test the waters, to see if there was a future possibility of letting him pull the rug out from under me with zero consequences. Again. I couldn’t win.

But Rust doesn’t want much from me. He doesn’t even want the case, really, which just twists the knife even further.

“You—you know I’m good in there, right? In the box.” I carve a jagged thumbnail into this message in the table, twisting the characters wider, or taller, risking splinters.

Why should I have to give it up? And to a fucking idiot? Marty wasn’t the one who stayed all those late nights alone at the office, wasn’t the one scoured over heaps of files under low light, wasn’t the one who took the fucking beating when the suspect fought against arrest. Marty was not the one who conducted an interview like that.

My mouth thins into a hard line, but I know the words will come out whether I let them voluntarily or not. Around Rust, it’s that way. I should’ve left when I could.

“It’s just that—it was so weird,” I continue, my head pulsing with the unwanted memory of that cabin. Marty didn’t have to experience it, Rust didn’t have to experience it—but I did. “Not jus’ wrong, or sad. Makes me feel strange, thinking about it.”

Often, the suspects underestimate me. Johansson’s broad shoulders and tough-set jaw come off as offensive—nothing like my voice, low and gentle, and my eyes, sympathetic and warm. I’m the mother who will never judge, who is spilling over with unconditional love.

Beneath this, though, I am good at the maths of the job, the connections. Though all detectives technically develop the same constituent skills—close attention to body language tells and other biological betrayals—I ain’t sure most understand the sensitivity and strength required to confront shit like this head-on. To not avert your eyes at the mutilated woman on the bed. To inspect her eunuched boyfriend’s severed appendage, to have steady hands when photographing the scene—with flash, of course, to highlight every detail with sufficient clarity—for evidence, which must be returned to and examined again and again, each time with greater fervour still.

I could name a few who’d joke about a thing like that, to ease the burn of that image in their heads, to sleep better at night, to leave behind the uninvited, vicarious sensation of a knife teasing over the meat of their dick.

But the boyfriend’s corpse, we eventually located separately in a cabin in the woods, laid into the basement freezer, so peaceful, such a brutal image. Pretty parts of him preserved for mauling.

And Salter has the fucking audacity to take it away. He wasn’t the one to see something like that, to feel sick to his very stomach, to gag and have to turn away, to cringe and writhe like his skin suddenly wasn’t his, like he ought to pick himself out. I’ve been reeling with that image for weeks, living with motion sickness, and have been denied the relief of vomiting.

“So, you need me to get that confession.”

Rust comes back into focus, perfectly still.

I nod, the back of my neck prickling with mean goosebumps. “Campbell, his DNA was all over the bodies. He was proud of it, even.” My ribs still glow with the phantom-sensation of his brutal kick there when we located him. Stomach clenching, I struggle to remain level. “But there ain’t no way in hell she wasn’t involved. He denies it, but the house is registered under her name. Maiden name, Phelps.”

“I read,” he confirms.

I tremble in frustration – I almost wish he hadn’t.

“It’s just—this lady’s tough.”

Eyes darting over to the dim-lit bar, scouring the scuffed hardwood floor, I can feel my face growing hot with indignation. Christ, it sounds pathetic, like a whiny kid insisting on continuing a task all wrong in order to protect their damaged pride.

“You know Johansson: once she starts with the tears, he can’t see past ‘em. Southern manners ‘n’ all: a crying woman is a delicate thing not for a man to understand but to comfort. But, with me, it ain’t the same. She doesn’t respect me.”

“What d’you mean ‘respect ’? Don’t need respect in this game.”

I scoff, which would’ve been a dire mistake with anyone else. “Y’wouldn’t know what I’m on about,” I tease through an easy smile, though I’m not feeling so funny at the moment.

He inclines his head down to me, an invitation to elaborate.

My boot feverishly taps against the floor, thrumming light like a jackrabbit on the run.

I sigh, mouth twisting. “She keeps asking me if I’ve slept,” I confess. “Says I look like her daughter.”

For all my mothering, here comes a perp who’s desperate to play me at my own game.

I can see how intelligent she is: some hollow glint in her eyes with nothing behind; past that gleaming screen of kindness, something black, like a cherry pit.

Sitting across from her, it felt like looking into a mirror. Not just physically—though her skin is a similar shade to mine, her nails bitten and splitting like mine, and she looks close to what I imagine my own mother could’ve grown into. It was in the way that, when I smiled, she smiled. When I took a sip of my coffee, she would drink some tea. At times, it would even seem like she would speak in my voice: the pitch, the intonations, the phrasing all far too similar. I was reluctant to tell her my name. It reminded me of this folk tale, of these tall, dark creatures who only required your name to speak like you, to look like you, to replace you in your own life. Its victim would die—in some way or another. Wander the woods, eaten alive.

A harrowing feeling had crept over me, winter pressing against the two-way mirror – I was sure Johansson, on the other side, would pick up on it. Only, when I confessed my worries to him, he’d given me this doubtful look, and I really wasalone then.

“She’s playin’ you,” Rust states simply, tracing his fingers over his mouth like some pseudo-cigarette.

“Yeah.” I grind my teeth together. Under the table, where he cannot see, my fingers curl into a tight fist, trembling with my secret violence. “And now Salter wants Marty to have it? Bull.”

I should’ve socked him right in his dumb, slack fuckin’ jaw. One day, I will.

“He don’t want Marty to have it,” Rust retorts smartly, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His eyes are warm in the dark – I should’ve taken my chances, raced to meet ‘em, but I’m too late. “He wants me to have it.”

Yeah, well, I wish what was mine would stay mine.

Even if I’m inclined to be pissed off at Rust by proxy, I just can’t be. The difference between him and Marty is that he actually pays attention, real attention, not the selfish kind. Just by watching, I can tell he knows exactly what he could say, how he could act, in order to appeal to somebody—which is why I find it so odd that he chooses not to. I sacrifice my damn dignity to keep myself palatable. He does not. As a result, he is not well-liked at the office – people tend to feel caught out by him; they don’t like to feel observed, known.

When did being seen become a threat? I thought it was intimate. Though, I suppose, a piece of shit never wants to believe they’re a piece of shit.

Everyone’s the hero of their own story.

Rust slides Marty’s half-empty beer across the table to me, which I receive with a crooked smile and a quick hand.

“Sure I won’t catch whatever he had?”

He shrugs. “Y’ain’t as deadbeat as the rest of ’em. Oughta drag you down to their level.”

I snort. “What, you don’t think you’re deadbeat?”

He huffs. “I’m worse.”

Bitter, the beer washes over my tongue, leaves that funny aftertaste I never really liked, not the first time, not the last. I don’t suppose I’ll ever turn one down though, not if it was offered to me: I’d accept it if only to win points with whoever it was, points I could spend at a later date.

“Maybe,” I start, “if you were a little more deadbeat, you’d be popular. Go out with the boys.”

When he meets my eyes momentarily, smirking, I have to grip my hand over my knee, fingertips digging into bone, and consciously remind myself via mantra not to let my face freeze. He hums, voice smooth and low like liquor, “What, like youdo?”

I should be pissed off, really. Maybe I will be. Instead, though, I choke on the smart retort I had meticulously configured in my head, some quip that would’ve maybe interested him based on what caught him before.

I don’t know whether it would have been worse pretending like it never happened. That’s my strong point: pretending. It’s his, too, when he wants it to be. Maybe we could’ve outlasted it – all we needed was stamina.

But, instead, it’s this. Looking across at each other and knowing exactly what’s going on in the other’s head. I can see exactly how he thinks of me, what he wants to do. When he tilts his head ever so slightly, my neck glows with a promise, like the movement was mine in the first place. When I would bite at the pendant of my necklace, he used to narrow his eyes, like he ought to yank the chain off my neck. But now, he looks on softly, so unlike him, his own fingers at his own lips. I know what it feels like – I’ve kissed him there, too.

“Don’t give me that. At least Geraci would stop shit-talkin’ ye,” I manage, tearing myself away. “Swear he’s stuck at sixteen or somethin’. But—you don’t mind it, do you?”

He shakes his head. “‘f he was smarter, maybe I would. Jus’ likes the sound of his own voice.”

The clock has replaced me as his focal point – I can’t help but feel jealous.

“S’why I like you,” I mumble from behind my beer. “First time I met you, I thought you’d make me feel stupid.

That seems to get him.

He blinks, a barely noticeable twitch. “Do I? I don’t mean to.”

Can I spin this? I’m sure, if I were a little more awake, I’d be able to spin this.

Some evil part of me hopes to make him feel guilty, to trick him into feeling tenderness for me, though I know the pursuit of that would be in vain. The type of men I know how to work—creatures of habit that take the exact path you want them to, to believe that they’re the real seducers—Rust seems entirely separate from that. He can sniff out rehearsal and practice, that robotism, like a dog – he sees it enough in criminals, doesn’t he? That’s why he’s called in for favours across state police departments.

When I met him the first time, I shook his hand, smiled, friendly-like, only to be met with rigidity and stoicism. No trouble, of course: some people just are that way. Wild horses on the highway. But his quietness?—now, that had set alarm bells off in my head. Boys at the precinct were loud – you couldn’t pay ‘em to shut up about their weekends, their football, their college years, their fuckin’ yards. When I was first exposed to it, I thought I’d gain a lot of friends. But then I realised they weren’t so much talking with me as they were talking at me. It’s why they’re so easy to read: they just tell you everything you want to know right off the bat. Even their secrets are bursting at the seams of their fat mouths, begging to be released.

But Rust?—doesn’t talk until he finds it necessary. It’s impressive. Before that, though, the trait was enviable. I had—have—no comparable method. Even though, at first, it can seem blunt, even cold, his eloquence is refreshing. Never running in circles – only determinedly forward. So intimidating, almost like a freight train – I have to consciously keep myself from jerking back and out of the way.

How low he must really think of me then, to see me like this. And I know he does: he sees. Everything I might have done to prevent it perhaps even had the opposite effect. I hate, I burn, I curse: it’s ugly. I cry over cases I would’ve left behind in two months tops, anyways, onto the next. I obsess over just another woman in the box. I think about him almost constantly.

“You don’t,” I mumble, wondering if I ought to be wishing myself far away. “Make me feel dumb, that is. Not me. Others, I can’t speak for.”

We’ll have to leave soon – no doubt, this local bar is used to slow days and early nights, a blissful routine rudely disrupted by two outsiders who haven’t even really shown them good business. I glance over at the barkeep, slumped over the scuffed wooden counter and flatly watching the football up on the boxy TV set, and I recall my first job. Then, too, I’d let men twice my age buy me drinks, flirted with them. Was worth the tip money.

Rust hums, though I really wish he wouldn’t speak at all. “Don’t pay mind to what Marty said.”

My neck prickles.

He’s not trying to console me, is he? No, that’s not like him. Besides, it’s not like any amount of coddling could reverse the merciless truths I’m constantly reminded of in this line of work – if I’ve learned anything about sympathy, it’s that it doesn’t fix shit. If anything, it’s just another complication. It can seem beautiful, but, really, it isn’t. I can miss it, miss its warmth, miss the kind, sweet nothings my husband would whisper into my hair on the hardest nights, but it never changed the fact that I would have to get up in the morning and do it again. Rust knows this, has maybe lived this, so he’s not trying to console me.

Maybe he’s trying to defend Marty.

Sharp and sure, that anger comes lurching up in my throat, slashing and snarling.

The sensible part of me—what I hope is the larger part of me—knows this is not possible. Rust understands Marty’s faults better than anyone, even himself, even his wife.

“Thing is,” I mumble bitterly, “he really means it, don’t he? He just don’t show it.” I trace the warm, smooth rim of the bottle with a light finger, though my mind is currently toying with the idea of jamming it violently down the opening. “Maybe it means more that he does keep it hidden – at least some part of him knows it’s wrong.”

Placid in the periphery of my vision, Rust shrugs. “‘s what separates us from our killers. Feelin’ it ain’t the problem. Resistance is where strength is tested.”

“Ego,” I chuckle darkly.

He hums. “Fragile ego.”

Underneath my smile lies an uneasiness stirred by his criticism.

Rust is not gentle with his opinions – I don’t suppose that’ll ever change. Resistance is a losing game – not even he is immune to the impermanence of these things. I’m sure he said that to me once, on a night like this.

I’ve never been very good at refraining from things. Even from an early age, I just couldn’t say no. Teenage years: alcohol, drugs, sex. If it was tossed my way, I’d take it, anything I could get, hungry to experience something.

Ha!—maybe I actually am more like Marty Hart than I’d like to admit. He’s trying to be an adult, albeit really, really poorly. As long as he believes he’s a good, family man, then his reality is protected. But I know I’m rotten, really. One of the boys at the precinct will call me pretty—in that sick way somewhere between the unchecked lust of a man and his paternal right to claim—but, below, I know I’ve got sickness swimming through my veins. Not blood. Something accumulated over the years, maybe from pretending all the time.

I feel like I want to cut things, break them. Told myself to hang on until I retire, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. I’ll break. What will Rust think of me then?

Maybe I was his low point: that fault in resistance.

Some awful, gnawing feeling collects at the pit of my stomach, like black tar. Must be all those cigarettes.

“Wha’s in that head?” he probes suddenly, stealing razor-sharp, fleeting glances.

I shrug, swallowing down a bout of nausea. “I dunno.” And I really don’t. Behind the surface tension, I don’t know what I feel, only that I do, and it’s so, so much. “It kinda—makes me happy to see him like that: jealous. ‘Cause he knows I’m good, and he’s wondering why he’s finishing what I started. He knows he don’t deserve it. Not like I do.”

My confession lingers in the air like smoke – I have mind to reach a hand up and wave it all away, or suck it down, deep, erasing reality. Fuck. I’ve always been a little off when reading into Rust’s quiet – with that tightrope he seems to have mastered, I know I should avoid any step at all—it could just as easily miss its mark—but I can never seem to help myself.

I stare at him—and I think it makes him uncomfortable, though there’s nothing there, not any normal human reaction, in his face for me to draw from. That’s fine. In my gut, I’m pretty sure I’ve got it down.

“You want to be seen as competent,” he finally says, a simple-enough statement.

I scrunch my nose up distastefully. “No, I want to be competent.”

“Well, what good is bein’ somethin’ if there’s no-one there to witness it?”

Unable to press down an exasperated sigh, I close my eyes, roll them with all the subtlety I can manage.

Foul words push under my tongue, like vomit.

I don’t know if I’m in the mood for this tonight: smart conversation. What feels like debate. Maybe if he hadn’t been given my case, I’d take him up on the challenge, but I’ve already lost.

I eye him, try to figure out his game.

“I dunno, Rust,” I tell him flatly. “I think that’s called having an identity issue.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Most people do.”

My chest burns. “This isn’t a go at me, is it?”

Slow, he draws the ashtray towards him from across the table, as if the grind of the glass against the wood is a noise that ought to be savoured.

I could be deaf, but reading his lips would be easy: “And how’d this be about you exactly?”

I’m able to fight off the initial instinct to wince, the way in which he delivers the words, calm and deliberate, stinging like a slap to the face. What’s worse is the growing impression that he’s as bored of me as I am.

With a furrowed brow, I watch him, heartbeat thrumming in my ears.

“I ain’t out to get you, s’you can quit lookin’ at me like I kicked you or somethin’.”

Frowning shallowly and trying to pretend like I’m not, I glance away and commit to rearranging my face—but at the glimpse of that twitch at the corner of his mouth in my periphery, I know I’m only digging a deeper grave for myself. The noticeable heat of my embarrassment must please him.

Playing with the food.

And I’ve got nothing to say to him—not a single word or phrase up to par, nothing to measure up to Rust’s clinical detachment, let alone destabilise him. He might’ve been reciting the coroner’s report. There’s nothing I can say to scathe him—and fuck, I want to leave a mark, prove to him that I can. I scan him for weakness, but either I’m still too stunned to see it or there is none. I have no plan of attack and no line of defence.

Rust seems to soften in the knowledge of this.

“I mean,” he begins, knowing now that I’m really listening, “identity ain’t fixed – it’s not permanent. I don’t scrutinise my appearance. I don’t mind my body, and my body don’t mind me. My personality hardly feels under my control – ‘s just somethin’ that is and will be—‘n’, I guess, will change, but only against my will, never because of it. Feels pointless to feel insecure about that.”

Is this supposed to be some fucked-up attempt at advice?

My priorities changed, but this place never has, never does, never will. So, it’s all dumb and the people are dumb and this bar is dumb and the boys at the precinct are dumb and, fuck, I wish Rust were dumb, too. I feel pathetic, and he does not alleviate that feeling at all. If he were dumb, I could laugh at him and make myself feel better. I could laugh at myself for sleeping with a dumb man. Instead, I think of him religiously and crave his approval. Afflicted with the knowledge that he needs to be corrupted to want me, that I’m awful enough to want it enough to corrupt him again. Tainted waters. It would be so much more comfortable if I could look down on him.

My skin writhes and ripples, and I know the only thing that would soothe it is if he touched me. Jesus and the sick man—or some polluted version of that.

My world swings under a bout of nausea as it begins to spiral – the beer does not help.

Maybe he’s waiting it out, like I’m trying to. Forgetting is the wisest decision anyone could make, the most fortunate outcome. Though, my efforts are paradoxical: I think so, so much about not thinking about it all.

“Sure seems like y’think about yourself a good deal, too, s’don’t you criticise me,” I mumble, clumsy. It’s a mistake to even open my mouth again – he’ll use it all against me eventually.

Rust hums again, low, some muscle twitching in his jaw, like his body has no clue what to do when not blindly occupied with a cigarette. “Never said I don’t think about myself,” he rectifies, staring at the sweaty palms I’m wringing together tightly against the lip of the table.

I allow my mouth to pool with saliva, trying to combat the increasing dryness of my mouth.

“Guess the thinkin’ part is where insecurity comes from in the first place,” I add after swallowing.

When my eyes dart up to look at him, his are on my throat.

Immediately, I look away.

Maybe this is the bad kind of intimacy.

The intensity of his attention is looming, sifting through my thoughts like sand.

Sometimes, I think he has me figured out but just couldn’t care less about what he’s found. He’s feeling the power of my burning desire for him – maybe it amuses him. Maybe he’s waiting to mechanise it, letting me sit idle while a use for me finds him (if ever). Maybe I know things. Maybe I can break things open. Maybe he can take my cases from me. Maybe I can tire him out, put him to sleep.

It’s almost worse that he hasn’t put me to work yet.

Maybe it really was just something in the water. Maybe all I need is to visit somebody close to me.

“Ever heard o’ that theory? ‘bout internal monologue?” Rust asks softly, leaning in and tipping his head down like only I’m worthy of hearing this here.

My leg jerks and I can’t place why. I nod, face hot.

“I think ‘s bullshit—‘bout some not having one. Think everybody’s got that voice in their heads.” He pauses, squints. “Mm, maybe that’s a little generous.”

I laugh – I hope it makes him feel good. In truth, I know he couldn’t care less.

“What d’you think it’d be like? No voice.”

The world seems so close right now, wrapping its fuzzy arms tight around us, buzzing in my ears, shadows fur-soft over my face. What does he want me to say? I wish he’d tell me, offer me respite.

I shrug, and it’s honest, my resignation. “No voice don’t mean no thought.”

“Alrigh’. Then, what about no thought?”

I shrug again. “I like thinking.”

He huffs, angling himself back away from me. Have I disappointed him? Somewhere deep in the pit of my tummy, there’s that fleck of worry, something that tastes an awful lot like vomit.

I expect him to finally stop talking.

But “I get tired of it,” is what he says instead. “In between cases, or these—moments where I feel like I could burn a hole through myself ‘f I spent ’nough thought on it. ‘s heavy, like they weigh me down.” He pushes the ashtray away, his fingers the only part of him moving.

Swept up in the rising tide of your own life, hurting around you in some never-ending circle or spiral of which you happen to be the centre. Swimming with black-eyed angels. I know how he feels – I used to feel that way. Maybe I still do, sometimes. Clinging on to the tenderness my husband used to have for me like it could save me from the guilt I would feel when I moved on. No-one would pull me out: that much was true enough. That memory of stability, of the good times, only depressed me, moving from Brooklyn back to Louisiana. Feeling small in my own life, like a piece on a chessboard, with no semblance of control, only duty, chasing this idea of who I used to be. Hunting down the bad men, wondering what upper hand is driving them across the squares, contemplating the carpenter that fashioned the pieces. Too big of a big picture can be detrimental. The fact that I know this to be true doesn’t make me an exception.

“I think you’re tired of the things you think about,” I muse, a headache beginning to expand between my temples – perhaps the heat has finally gotten to my head. “Space better occupied by other shit.”

I’m careful not to pay attention to Rust’s reaction, if there even is one, since the weight of his interest is pressing over my face where I really wish his lips would.

“Like what?” he challenges.

His eyes glint with curiosity, a blade’s sharp edge.

I bite my tongue.

“You think you know me?” It’s more a statement than a question.

I shrug. “You think you know me, don’t ye?”

Though, he kinda does. I think he’s proud that he can read me, but maybe that’s me overcomplicating things. Maybe I’m just another person to him. I wonder if he thinks I’m predictable. Boring, negligible, painfully average. Good for one thing, and that one thing was a mistake, anyway.

Look at him, now: his eyes have dropped to elsewhere, but there’s a soft smirk that curls up on his face, the hint of a pink tongue that traces lightly over his teeth.

Geraci always talks shit about that look whenever Rust closes yet another case, securing a tough confession. “So fuckin’ up ‘imself, ain’t he? Jesus.” Sure, he pisses me off—for different reasons. I’ve long since come to the conclusion that he’s worthy of admiration.

He smiles to himself – I don’t trust it. “You’re calling me arrogant.”

“Are you?” I press, gnawing at the inside of my cheek. I’m surprised at the tepidity of my voice, considering how I’m covered in boils and burns in my head.

He doesn’t have anything to say to that, only hums in response, seemingly amused.

“Doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” I murmur. “People are scared of bein’ known, so nobody really tries no more.”

“I don’t observe people for intimacy purposes.”

Then why does he fucking look at me like that?

A year ago, I’d have put it down to my own desires warping my perception of reality. Really, he wasn’t interested; he was only paying me my due amount of scrutiny in order to keep his mental file of me up to date. Really, he didn’t want to touch me; really, he was just someone who fiddled with his own hands, maybe to remind himself that he could be his own from time to time. Lust is such a dangerous thing – any deeper than surface level, and it has the very strong potential to kill you. If you want something against your better judgement, do you really even want it? The haze of having Rust come so close to me is dampened by such doubts.

But at this point, he either wants me, or I’m crazy. Shit, maybe I’d rather be just that. I’ve seen his eyes like this—dark and bottomless—when hands were unzipping my skirt, or dragging over my skin. To deny intimacy? Now that’s arrogance. Anddelusion. Shit, and I thought he was so above all that stuff. Does he think I can’t figure him out?

Surely his opinion of me can’t be that poor.

My hand cramps up as I punch down the instinct to pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Sure you do,” I press. And I’m right. I hope I’m right.

His stare thickens into something different, what I think might be a black, molten form of gratification. Then, it hardens, cools in a split second into these tough, jaw-breaker pellets. I’d say it was confrontational, but then his eyes flutter just as he happens to swallow thickly. Is that his pulse in his throat?

I rub at my puffy eyes with a stiff set of fingers.

Rust drops his eyes, brushes his hand over the side of his blazer where his cigarettes are sitting warm and ready beneath.

“What, you—lonely again or some shit?” he asks.

I almost recoil at the sudden bitterness of his tone.

I snort good-heartedly, but, really, the comment stings just right—he knows where to press—all the breath knocked out of my chest. “O-kay, Rust. That an accusation?”

“No. ’S an observation. Thought you jus’ loved those,” he combats flatly.

Chest burning, I have to save myself, jump ship, and look away. My mouth tastes like grainy bile.

“You were lonely last summer. That’s why you came to me.”

The dim light above us flickers, his face phasing in and out of shadow before me like a candle in the wind.

I roll my jaw.

Does he look back on it with disdain?

“No,” I snap instinctively, instantly burned by the satisfaction that crosses his eyes.

My breath hitches plaintively. Every fibre of my body trembles and burns to defend myself. There’s not a single word that could repair his opinion of me.

“Or—yeah.” Shut up.

I rub at my temple, desperate for relief – do they have pills for this shit? – which does not come. If he feels any pity for me, it certainly doesn’t show.

The harsh line of my mouth trembles. “I just thought you understood me. Or made an attempt to, at least, but maybe that part was self-projection. ‘Cause nobody ‘round here’s like you. I know you think that’s stupid and I was being naïve or—” I swallow though my throat is dry as ever, “—or dumb, or somethin’, but that’s what I felt. At the time.”

His gaze is fixed on my neck.

“At the time,” he echoes. It’s a question, I realise after a couple moments.

“Yeah. Fuck y'want me to say, asshole? 'm not—I’m not gonna embarrass myself with you, Rust. That what you want me to do? Show you just how dumb I can get—?”

“Sure like to speak for me, hm?” he bites back quietly, making it so damn easy to run right over him, to feverishly stamp out that insufferable fucking softness to his voice. Shit, I wish he’d just raise it and yell at me already.

“—Yeah, whatever. You like this shit, don’t you? Y’think you deserve a fight?—well, I’ll give you one. That what you want? ‘Cause what?—what, you get to ignore me, pretend I don’t exist, act like you’re above fuckin’ me—” his eyes flit away, bringing my roiling frustration to a crest, “—No, don’t you fuckin’ look away,” I scold, a bite, jutting a crooked finger into his space.

He obeys, but that look in his pale eyes is so hollow, it almost makes me feel bad for saying anything at all. Almost.

I try to press down my anger, but it’s spilling over, now, far beyond things so trivial as control. I clasp my hands together in a prayer that they will finally listen to me and not move again.

“Fact that you feel anything at all makes you feel like shit, huh?”

His expression has glazed over, cool and smooth.

Half-expecting him to walk out and rightfully abandon me here, I stare hard at him, like I might chip into that exterior. If I managed it, I’d slip it in my pockets as proof. Silently, I beg him to prove me right.

“Sorry,” I snap. No, I’m not. I hope it cuts at him. “You do what you want, I don’t fuckin’ care. But, please, do not patronise me like that again, Rust.”

God offers no help with the silent plea I send Him. He does not care, so I shouldn’t care, and that’s the end of things. I’ve survived worse natural disasters than him. He’s just a man, and this is just what happens with them. Still, the disappointment floods like poison under my skin. I’m a stupid girl, really.

“I understand if you regret things, but you don’t have to say it out loud. It’s mean. But, fuck, I dunno, maybe you mean to be.”

I take a moment to untangle the knot in my throat. He watches it all, quiet again, his eyeline sitting heavy over where the skin shifts and stretches over my neck.

I adjust the collar of my shirt, fiddle with the gold necklace that sits hot over the contour of bone. Rust stares as I wedge the small pendant tightly in the vice of my thumb and forefinger.

“Feels like you don’t even fuckin’ like me half the time. All the time.”

Christ, I should’ve left with Johansson.

My heart is racing like a wild mustang – it’s a surprise, really, that that old hunting dog lying over by the bar hasn’t noticed, singled me out as something to chase, to kill. My belly’s exposed, soft and ripe and asking for it. I forget, sometimes, that there are things out there that kill things that kill, too.

He doesn’t plan on giving me a break; I wouldn’t deserve it, anyway. “Wha's it matter to you if I like you or not?”

My cheeks burn furiously.

I stare at that bone-bird tattoo that fledges from the nest of his sleeve. With the way my head’s spinning, it almost looks like its skeleton wings are actually moving, unfurling and ready for pilgrimage.

“It don’t.” It’s a disgrace to myself to answer that god-awful question, but what’s more pathetic is the way I shrink into myself when Rust’s attention crowds in over my face. “I jus’ thought you knew me almost as well as I did.”

“And currently?” he asks.

The moment hangs.

“Just answer. I already know – just wanna see if you’ll lie again.”

I close my eyes a second—mistake—and breathe, breathe in and then breathe out, shaky but slow. It’s no use.

“Same.”

He nods. “Not better?”

I shake my head. “No, never better.”

Furrowing his brow, Rust tilts his head down slightly, a soft curl falling gentle over his tense forehead. “But you wanted intimacy.”

So it is intimacy to him?

Maybe this should count as a win for me, but it certainly don’t feel like it. This isn’t the slow slip and slide of last summer’s end – though the heat had swallowed whole everything from here to the other side of the Mississippi, there was something so clipped about the words that left me, left him. I’m sure I was more drunk then than now, but, even so, my mind had been so level, like I’d done it all in my sleep. Now, here, I have done it in my sleep. I’ve revisited him a hundred times in my daydreams, but all that practice has left me for dead. I would’ve killed for an opportunity like this a month ago – it’s like he’s taunting me. It should be easy.

Rust is smart enough to make me wonder if he wants me to feel this way.

Intimacy is planned and eventual, whether that’s due to his power or some cosmic fate. Everyone knows the decision they’re going to make, somewhere in their brains, deep inside. People only ask for advice to condone their decisions, to spread out the responsibility, which, at the end of the day, still remains solely with them. Shit, he’s rubbing off on me: I sound like a fuckin’ asshole.

No, all this thinking won’t save him from the sensation of human feeling, emotions. No amount of planning prepares you for skin-to-skin touch. No time spent evaluating can undo it either, and I’ve tried so hard. His way doesn’t work.

“Everyone wants intimacy,” I end up rambling, voice thin and dry and brittle. “Even folks that don’t want intimacy want intimacy. ’s not love or sex, really, I don’t think, though those are good, too. It’s not a way to find yourself. It’s jus’ trust. Or companionship—”

“And that’s what you want?”

Carefully, I rake my eyes over his face. Does he ever flush from the heat?

Hopeless and too muddled to bother with concealing it, I try to assess whether he’s displeased with me. I try to memorise this moment, so I’ll be able to turn it over in my head later, just another one of my crime scene photographs.

“Dunno yet,” I confess quietly. “I’ve had partners. And partners. When I was younger, I thought I’d have this life packed chock full of amazing relationships, and these—connections.”

The soft, disappointed eyes of my husband come to mind, which haunt all my relationships. I’m so hungry for another body, for connection. Why does it seem so easy for other people?

“Truth is, it don’t happen all that much. To me, at least. You?”

Surly and bone-tired, Rust shakes his head. “Didn’t have much hope for it growin’ up,” he admits.

“But you wanted it,” I press, clumsy and clinging to the sag of his voice. Of course, he’ll pick up on the trace of hopeful, aimless, false victory that undercuts my words; he’s the only one who ever could.

For a moment, though, I second-guess myself.

It’s pathetic, really: I’d give almost anything to walk as him for a day, though, even then, I’m not sure I’d understand him any better.

Sometimes, my imagination runs away from me: in my dreams, I do. I wake under the impression that we’re one and the same, that, just maybe, he, similarly, is dreaming as me. It’s a pulsing obsession, difficult to conceal. Whenever a moment becomes still, I think about it: at night, he is transported; in his dreams, he touches with my hands, sighs with my voice, tastes with my mouth. Then, at least, that would explain these funny sensations I get in the morning: so weathered and worn, a strange ache in my muscles, like I’ve been sleepwalking.

How else could he know me so well?

Or maybe I’ve really fucking lost it. Somewhere along the way – maybe after seeing that half-eaten body swaddled in thin cotton in its freezer cradle – I think something else took the wheel. Why that thing is racing towards him, I have no idea. It’s laughable, really.

Rust blinks calmly down at his hands. “Reckon the deniers are dumb?” he murmurs.

Squeezing the bridge of my nose, I do my best to press back against the foul memory of dismembered limbs. Whoever had eaten the man—who was now beyond recognition—did they feel satisfied? Comforted with how forever close he was to them now? When I was small, I used to think sex was crawling into another person's body, like a cave, and letting all of their insides warm you, love you, wrap you tight.

I swallow thickly.

“Your words, not mine,” I reply through a tight smile. “Reckon it’s easy to find a distraction.”

"Have you given up?" he asks. “Finding a distraction?”

I don’t entertain him with a proper answer to that – I merely shrug and scratch at my scalp, tucking loose strands of sweaty hair back into the loops of my braid. Rust must be frustrated with me. To want a companion, to want the good life. Rivalling Marty in my delusion.

He slides his hands into his lap, continuing: “Distraction is the way to peace?”

I shrug again – I think it’s starting to piss him off. “For a time, I guess.”

“So, ‘s that how you’re takin’ quittin’? Think about other stuff whenever you want a smoke? Occupy yourself?”

Once I realise my leg is going dead, fuzzy from sitting still so long in this dark booth, I flex my thigh, flex my hands under the table, wide-open and then tight-shut, processing the blank slate of his gaunt face. I press my fingers into the sticky vinyl, delight in the interrupted drag of them up, up, up as they curl to fists, my shoulders up to my ears.

When he says things like that, it makes it so hard to dislike him. I almost wish he’d ignore me, like he did the first couple weeks before it became clear to the both of us that it couldn’t be undone: his back constantly to me, sending messages only through Marty, refusing to look in my direction, like I might tempt him again into being a version of him he hated. At least, before, his coldness hadn’t been directed at me specifically. Then, it was a retaliation, a wall meant to keep me out. Where were his books on philosophy then?—to tell him that attachment leads to desire leads to suffering? That kind of suffering would be better than this kind.

This is worse. This is so much worse. I’d rather not have something at all than have it toy with me like this.

It takes a considerable amount of co-ordination to fabricate the apathy in my posture, my eyes, my expression, to compensate for the unease that pulses like a new artery in my throat – though, at the silvery glint that flickers in his eyes, I know it’s all for nothing. He’s already seen the hurt that, really, I can’t pin on anyone but myself. He’s raking his eyes slowly over my face. It’s fucking mean. Do me the favour of a mercy-killing, God.

I never even told him I was trying to quit.

“What,” I begin, concentrating very hard on keeping myself from stammering and from slurring, from crying and from grasping at his hand, “like that association thing?”

I’ve heard of it, obviously. I know every trick at this point: old wives’ tales to the latest research papers at the state university library. It’s psychological: whenever you want something, instead, think of awful, gross, repulsive things, and make yourself hate it. I’ve tried it before, but it doesn’t always work. How can you convince yourself that one thing is disgusting when it’s undeniable how good it really was?

Rust nods.

“I mean, I tried it,” I tell him lowly.

Overstatement: I tried it for approximately three days and two nights before I caved, unlocking the drawer in my study with shaky, desperate hands, hungry.

“But I’m always thinkin’ about it.”

Shit. He seems to have regained a nerve: Rust stares calmly ahead at me—not through me or just past me; at me. This is what I wanted, isn’t it?

He leans his weight over his forearms upon the table, on offence. Is this how he works his suspects? Well, shit, I’ve studied his methods from the privacy of the other side of the false mirror enough times to be able to answer that, actually: this is how he works his suspects. Initially, at least, to gauge their personality, their wants, their fears, what they need him to be.

Thing is, I can’t pin down his intention with me. Is it just the satisfaction of the kill? Or maybe revenge for what I did to him last August. I broke down his walls: an unforgivable sin. I condemned him to the effort of building them back up, of shoving me out—if I ever managed to intrude in the first place. Maybe I deserve this.

With his sleeves folded back, the dark lines of Rust’s tattoo jut out, growing along his tawny, leather-tan skin like lichen. I try not to stare.

His eyes complete a pre-emptive scan of my face, and, really, I know I should not let him see any change there in my expression, though my mouth twitches to frown. I try to gather my forces. I try to prepare myself for it, for that inevitable intrusion.

“‘f you’re so desperate for it, why’re you fightin’ back?” he asks, unblinking and cruel.

My mouth twists, and I let it fall into the frown it wants. “‘Cause I wanted to feel better.”

It sounds dumb because it is dumb, even though it’s true.

Low, he hums. He straightens, softens, and finally leans away. It’s like the vacuum around me leaves with him, and, there, now, it’s easier to breathe.

He must note the way my chest rises and falls so stiffly, like there’s a weight resting over my heart.

“Withdrawal’s a breeze, ain’t it?”

“You’re not fuckin’ funny,” I scoff, digging my nails punishingly into my palm. He smokes and drinks like he welcomes cancer, or hopes for it, so I don’t think we’re on a level playing field.

He quirks his head. “Well, do you?”

“Do I what, Rusty?”

Amused, he rolls his jaw. Good – I hope I’ve provoked him.

“Do you feel better?”

I run my tongue over my teeth. “Sometimes,” I reply truthfully. “Not right now.”

He searches my face.

“I can give you a ride home,” he offers.

Fuck, and what will that be like? Ten times worse than this. I’ll come away the husk of a woman, worn down by his disapproval. My own fault for wanting anything from him in the first place, really.

Teeth gritted together, I shake my head, ready to pull a muscle in my damn neck. “Didn’t mean anythin’ by it. Sorry.”

No, I’m not. I ought to slap him, and then run away, back home, or back to my house, or to a brand new city. Or he could finally cuss me out, save me the wondering. Then, I could lick my wounds and they would finally stop reopening.

I scratch at my scalp.

Rust eyes my hand like he’d like to rip the bad habit away from my body. For a moment, I think he will—the tendons in his hand flex and writhe under the skin—but, no, he only brushes a thumb against the valley between his nose and cheek, and he holds his tongue for once.

“Wasn’t offended,” he corrects firmly. “I’ll take you home.”

Flashing with annoyance, my eyes dart up viciously to penalise him. “And what?” I hiss.

He sits back, doesn’t answer the question.

Jaw clenched, I wait to see if he’ll look away, but he doesn’t.

My irritation soon fizzles through, condenses to a low, simmering understanding, steadily tended to by the intensity of his steadfast gaze.

Oh.

My eyes soften.

Oh – I have him, don’t I?

He shows no signs of the tentativeness he had displayed last time—if Rust could ever be tentative. His eyes do not shift and scuttle around me; they meet mine, challenging my comfort. He does not tuck himself into a corner; he remains leaned over the table, just like that. How could I have known?

I stare back, brow pinched in confusion.

In the heat of last August, I’d peeled away from him knowing exactly how I’d convinced him he wanted me. Maybe I was evil for it – a good person wouldn’t use somebody’s faults against them, would they? And maybe that’s what it was: selfish. If he hates me, he’d be right to.

Which is why I’m so puzzled that he doesn’t. Or rather, indifference was the baseline. Hell. And this? I don’t know.

Swelling dangerously with the well-loved memory of his delirious mouthings over my skin, I grow rigid.

My temples throb and ache, the threat of tears still very real.

“Mind?” he asks – I watch, wide-eyed, as he pulls a pack of Camels from his pocket.

Trembling slightly, I shake my head, though saliva is already pooling over the pit of my tongue, warm and soft, just like my desire. Luckily, he’s too preoccupied with his lighter to see it: how my body ripples at the scrape of his voice.

The promise of nicotine dances like a phantom in the mouth, just from watching him place a cigarette between his lips. When he flicks open his Zippo, the sharp, shuddering candle of it taunts me, and I finally understand what they say about moths and flames.

I watch him take a long drag.

That all-consuming hunger lurches up in me again, and I swallow the warm spit that’s steadily been filling my mouth.

Oh, Christ. This can’t be real. Desire shouldn’t be this bloody. Desire shouldn’t be the thing with teeth and claws, the ugly thing that tips into violence. Or obsession. With how often my thoughts return to us in the summer, I’ve wondered obsession as a possibility. The difference between myself and those who commit crimes of passion is control. Rust is dangerous for me. What is he thinking? What’s in his head? I ache to pry it open and explore, to swim close to him, for my skin to melt into his, to consume and be consumed. Not a moment’s peace, and that’s what I’m chasing, isn’t it? Peace and quiet?

I don’t have to say anything – he can read it all, mulling over the fine changes in my expression, the softening of my body, some pre-emptive instinct. Will he touch me tonight?

With a cautious hand, ready to jolt back if met with teeth, I reach out to him and remove the cigarette from his pinched fingers—which he allows—then bringing it to my mouth, taking a drag myself, nice and slow, good and deep, a sigh, like home.

He watches me.

“Don’t say anything.”

And he doesn’t. He just watches, watches, watches as I take another drag. He shivers, and I feel it reverberate through my bones.

“What are you thinkin’ about?” I ask him softly, pressing down a quivering breath, smoking his cigarette. I’ve never mustered the courage to ask before.

For once, though, I really don’t have to: I know exactly where his head is. Where else? He’s back in that room, infected by the drowse and drunken fever of August, with me, living it again. Where I’d coaxed him into the temptation, wicked as the snake in the garden. He should’ve pushed me to leave with Johansson and Marty – of course, I would’ve stayed. I’m a rotten thing, and my heart is a bloodhound. He’s the better of the two of us. I’ll take whatever of him I can get – anything.

He meets my eyes directly, so hopeless, so raw. Is he asking? He shouldn’t be.

But what will he have me do? I’m at his disposal, really.

“And?” I ask, throat dry.

When he moves to speak, the words that leave him are low and slow: “You did something to me,” he manages.

I scoff.

“S’that a good or bad thing?” I ask.

Rust huffs like what I said was funny. More likely, though, it’s the way my eyes are so wide, the way my hand is pressed between my thighs, that amuses him. “Can’t decide.”

My mouth trembles as my eyes scrape over his neck, which I know, I remember, to be hot and alive, thick with it over the pulse. I was so high off of it: his warmth, his weight, his press.

I indulge in one last drag, using the last scraps of my energy to conjure the pungent stench of rotting flesh in the cruel sunshine, the pick of eager flies and their cacophonous buzzing, the churn of vomit in the stomach. I look at Rust and try to do the same: the months of silence, his back decidedly turned to me, him accepting my case, and his arrogance and his apathy and his severity. He is a harrowing connection that I should rather not have made.

The technique doesn’t work. I don’t know why I thought, even for a minute, that this time would be different from the last.

With him staring calmly at me, like I deserve it—the trap, the squirming sensation over my spine, the hopeless, unavoidable heat that claims my face—it’s just another arrow pointing to the same conclusion. Maybe we should just let August have its way with us again. Twin plagues.

Trembling ever so slightly, blood so warm, so thick, I flick ashes out into the tray between us.

“I should put this out,” I mumble, though my hand yearns to return it to my mouth.

“’s my cigarette,” Rust mutters.

“Sorry.” I offer my hand to him. “Want it back?”

I know what I must look like to him, pupils dark, the size of the moon, like a plate. Here, in the darkest part of the dark bar, I open myself to him, warm, molten, inviting. And God, this must be a dream—because I know what he wants, and I know that he’ll accept me. How we got here doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe he’s thought about it for some time, and only now, in a moment of stillness with him, have I even noticed. Too caught up in the fine details of a painting to think of the artist’s intention, which is always more important.

Silent, stare inexorable, he accepts the cigarette, only touching my fingers quick, like I’d burn him. Maybe I will. Serves him right: he was always going to haunt me either way. I ought to get mine while I still can.

The hunger laps at me.

I want to coax him open-wide. I want to peel away his demeanour and wrap myself close to him. Body heat is the best way to keep warm, isn’t it? I’m sure I read about that somewhere. It’s still fresh in my mind, like a cut. I can’t manage a day without playing it over at least once. I want it again: I want to breathe him in and let him sit in my chest and seep into every cell and let him be part of me that way, at least until the next breath.

He can see it in my eyes: the freneticism of my thoughts, racing like a storm, desires like bullets like rain.

“You ever think about what you want?” I try asking him, voice strained tight over my heart in my throat.

“People only ever think about what they want,” he parries, batting away any trace of diffidence. He secures his cigarette between his lips, shifting. “Let’s leave.”

At his first movement, I slide out of the booth.

Sometime during our conversation, the place emptied out. It must have been around when I finished Marty’s leftover beer that the weight of the locals’ beady stares—which had already faded to the back of my mind, in the same way that a dark alleyway can still make you uneasy though you know nothing would ever happen to you there—finally left me. There are no witnesses left to see me following after Rust like a dog, my body thrumming like the lone bug zapper out on the porch, which cracks! just as we exit.

The broken clock reads three o’clock when we leave, but I know that, really, it’s only midnight.

Fortunately, the heat has cracked for once, like old, beat-up, splitting leather. Stepping out onto that night path, the breeze is warm and fragrant, dancing over my cheeks, playing gently with the loose threads of my hair. It’s a clear, blue, never-ending night – the dirt road which accompanies us is a long, winding, indigo river that spills unseen over the far, far horizon. The neighbouring fields—one a rolling stretch of grass; the other of wheat—are alive in the wind, flung one way on exhale, drawn the other upon inhale.

Thank God for the noise of it: their rustling whispers, in a language we can’t understand; the soft whistle of a passing gust of air; the firm, crisp crunch of dry mud and dust under my boots. Thank God for the sway of things: the cradle of humidity; the press of my arm to Rust’s, which he permits only for a second, with his face angled away. Then, he slows, coming to walk just behind me, still parallel.

Flickering strands of long-grass brush my knuckles – I grab onto one, pull the seeds off it in an easy swipe, and scatter them as we go, one by one.

Briefly, I glance over my shoulder. Sure enough, his eyes are fixed on me, on my every movement, like he’s making sure I’m actually real. The corner of my mouth twitches up into a smile.

Rust’s cigarette flares between his lips.

I scratch gently at my wrist, reminded of the flowing of my blood just beneath the skin, hot and thick.

You get nowhere in life just hoping things will fall into your lap like this—and, anyway, what good is getting something that you didn’t work for? Where’s the gratification? It’s artificial, feeble as plastic. Christ, it was even a struggle to get my head around Johansson and his propensity to dole out favours. I understood a write-up – won’t pretend I’m above ass-kissing – but tidying up the office kitchen and keeping quiet about it? I thought it was stupid: letting people reap the rewards of your own effort, and for what?

So, the buzz of earning Rust’s touch that first time?—shit, nothing compared. No drug, no high; nothing. I really thought I did something. Satisfied some secret ambition I didn’t know I held. To have him like that. To be able to replay that night, swallow it like a pill. To look at him and know what was underneath his clothes and his skin, and perhaps further inside, too. Shit, I took so much from him, but the mental gymnastics of the effort justified it, right? And, now, he’s going to give it all up again. Wants it, even.

Haven’t I played this out a thousand times in my head? I’ve seen the future—a number of futures—where I’m able to argue for his affection. Fight for your love – that’s what my daddy used to tell me whenever he was feeling sentimental after yelling.

I’ve had endless conversations with him in my head, edited accordingly as time passed, as he changed, as I changed, as the air between us changed. Possible flirtation seemed silly, futile, after a week. Sex appeal would go unnoticed by him – wasn’t like he looked, anyway. Not the type to chase tail. I found myself longing for him to please linger uncomfortably in doorways to rooms I was in, to leave things near me and come and collect them just after I was gone so that, maybe, he’d still feel the warmth of my presence and understand it was only ever warm that way for him. The idea of genuine confession always sprung up during the quiet nights alone together in the bullpen, but I was always able to talk myself out of it when he wouldn’t so much as glance at me after two, three hours.

It must be a million threads of conversation up in my head, which is why I guess it’s so hard to untangle the great knot and retrieve just one, because, now, there are no words that come to mind when it matters. Or maybe it doesn’t matter: I don’t think he needs convincing at all.

“What you so quiet for?” he asks faintly.

When I look back, he’s stark against the brooding sky like some shadow-man. His outline hums like he’s pulling away into his own silhouette.

I can’t seem to smile. “Nothin’.”

He won’t push—at least, not on this—and I’m glad for it.

Rust’s beat-up semi is all lonely sat in a dip up in the road, waiting for us. Same semi he’d driven me home in from work this one week I was getting my car fixed up, in which a series of slow, mutual interrogations would take place along the light-streaked highway. In the office, you were lucky to drag a full sentence out of Rust, but, alone, it wasn’t so hard to get him to talk at all.

Maybe I had just wanted to be better than him, to learn how he worked, how he was such a good interrogator, and bleed him dry. That was why I couldn’t look away: every choice in his demeanour could help me surpass him.

Even then, I learned to be careful with my looks. I had the feeling he’d morph into something else if I stared long enough, the way the shadow in the corner of your bedroom changes shape when you’re bone-tired. Sometimes, he would. And on the Thursday night of that week, when he had pulled over and thrown up, shaking, into the dark thrush, I hadn’t uttered a word as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. But, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, I’d stared at him with the filmy eyes of a hungry nocturnal animal.

Then, at least, the curiosity wasn’t a burden. Not like it became when I drove myself home come that morning after.

I could tell it was different the moment I shifted awake, feigning a sleep for just a couple more minutes.

Dressed again and putting on a pot of coffee, his back was to me. I had shuffled up, pulled on my clothes, and I knew the stupor of the night had faded. So, really, when I stepped past him and he closed the door behind me without a word, I shouldn’t have been upset.

When I reach the pick-up first, I twist to look at him.

Rust has slowed to finish his cigarette at a safe distance, eyeing me warily.

He crushes the stub into the dirt, then glancing out into the long night.

“Straight home?” he asks.

I shake my head, and the rigid line of him gives just a little. It’s so dangerous to be seduced by your own influence, but the realisation that I’ve had any at all is fuel enough to the plea in my wide eyes.

Rust advances haltingly. If I move, I’m sure he’ll flinch and bolt. So, I test the theory: better to weed out what’s already decayed.

I angle myself towards him, open like a door. He tosses his jacket into the bed of his pickup, stepping through.

The heat seeps back between us, slow and thick like a flood of molasses, and it becomes very clear, suddenly, that we never should’ve tried to barricade ourselves. Pretty sure Rust’s known this a while, anyways: he’s the one who leans in for me, kisses me slow.

This time, his hands are quick to curl around my body, where the tension in that tight cord all down his spine has snapped. Or just eased up on him—but that’s unlikely. And unimportant. With his firm touch petting up my spine, climbing each rung, it’s all unimportant.

A pulse of arousal strikes me like an electric current as Rust pulls the blouse out of my skirt, his face close to me.

His tongue pushes into my mouth again, and I hum over the husk of nicotine. It’s a haze in the brain, one I’ve missed. My skin tingles and my thoughts warp in this leer, like a nic rush, only I haven’t had one of those in years and years.

I can’t exactly call what I’m feeling satisfaction. There’s no win to this. My teeth sunk into him so sweet last time, and the thrill of getting him, of tripping him up with his own desire, was almost as good as the actual feeling of him inside me. But it’s different now: so obvious, it’s funny. Though my first instinct is to doubt and pry apart, maybe want is the most trustworthy thing a person can feel. It’s animal and instinctive, and it’s inevitable, so it’s always true. Ugly, sometimes, but always there. There’s no room to question his want, because I can taste it on his tongue, I can feel it pressing over my stomach, I can hear it in the way he hums at the sear of my skin.

It must be a favour to me: the blatancy of it all. For however direct he may be, I’ve always felt that Rust has these plans within plans. Nothing is as it is on the surface: you have to dig to get to the good stuff. It’s disorienting, having it all laid out for me. And I’ll take anything he gives me.

I don’t want to leave any room for doubt in his mind either.

So, I clutch at him hungrily, so drunk on his warmth, and thump my back against the door he opens for me to close it again.

I don’t ask, and I’m glad that he doesn’t make me, only presses my body flush against the cool surface of his side-door, until the only part of me free to move are the fingers that curl over his arms, as if they could sink through the fabric and then the flesh underneath. There’s only dogs and ghosts out at this hour, anyway; eyes in the long-grass. No-one but them and him to see my hips jerk against the precise hand under my skirt.

He hadn’t looked at me this much before. Even when my eyes go glassy and I have to blink hard to try and regain my smarts, to not finish too quickly, I know he’s staring at me like a scientist.

When the next needy noise is drawn from me, I bury my face into his neck to save myself the embarrassment of being seen like this, even though it’s pointless. His fingers are dragging aside the damp fabric of my underwear anyway, sliding through my silky desire. When his knee shoves between my legs to keep apart, he changes the pressure of his hand, circles tightly over where shame does not apply. Restraint is a man-made practice that never prevails over biology. I should know this. Still, though, my face is hot as I whine into his shoulder.

Rust doesn’t ask me to look at him, not yet, and I’m so grateful for it. I bite into the meat of him at the push of one finger, then keen all the way to my toes at the hook of two, rocking against his palm thoughtlessly as he fucks the both of them in deep.

The clink of his belt buckle barely processes through the smoke of sticky eyes and open mouths and the press of his body. But the absence of his hand from my hip, of it working between us?—that’s what ushers normal sensation back into me. I recover from the limp slump against him, but not quickly enough to understand or resist him guiding my hand to wrap around his swollen cock, coated with spit.

He grunts as he tightens my grip around him, coaxes my hand how he wants it. In the back of my mind, though, of course I remember. Only, his fingers are so far inside that my head is spinning, teetering on the precipice of another thought I know I’ll lose, one that dissolves at the slight scrape of nail, one that would never matter as much as the soft then firm press of him against my cervix. My eyes water, and there licking at me is only a faint, abstract impression of embarrassment when Rust grips over my jaw, calloused heel of his palm heavy on my neck, and hauls me away from the hiding spaces of his body’s crevices.

“What, you fuckin’ shy now? You wanted it, so look,” he mumbles, digging his fingers into the soft parts of my face a little more, like there’s some hidden button beneath the surface that can make my droopy eyes fly back open. There must be because, somehow, it works. He angles my face by the scruff of my neck.

I can only stand to look between us for a few jumpy heartbeats before my eyes settle on the comfort of his even face, which he seems to accept readily, breath hitching. He does not blink. The intensity of his observations hounds me, lights me up like points on a star, even when my vision smears and melts at the dizzying curl of his fingers. Lucky for my weak knees he’s got his hand over the nape of my neck, his thighs pinning my own. I shake against him, some pathetic thing, and tremble when he keeps massaging there deep inside.

“Don’t go dumb on me, girl,” Rust scolds quietly when my hand loosens around him, his own having to leave the heat of my neck and come down to correct the pressure, the pull. My head lolls without the support of his hand. “Ain’t gon’ say nothin’?”

Words spill uselessly into a pool before me, slipping through my fingers. My pulse slams in my throat, lower, too, against his touch, each beat meeting him as he works me over again.

What I manage is a choked noise, all clogged up inside. I have little to do with it: just a body, a heartbeat and a compulsion to be near, nearer, nearest to him. Half a mind that’s lagging worse than the computers at work, that realises far too late that the body is curling into itself again, so tight, so wet, and fuck, fuck.

He removes his fingers, that slow drag, and tells me to turn. When I don’t—completely without, dull and aching—Rust twists and shoves me against the window, which goes cloudy at the breathy moan pushed up from my slack stomach.

Slow-like, a cold hand snakes under my shirt, smooths up my burning spine, all the way up, all the way down, hooking in the waistband of my skirt, knuckles burrowing into the soft dimples in my back. My whole body shivers as he slides his palm over the back of my neck—a comfort for which I’m desperate to become familiar—and squeezes gently. If I keep my eyes open, all I can see of him is that black silhouette in the window, a reflection. A homogenous mass, humming at the edges, devoid of the detail of things: can’t see the way he drags his thumb up along the line of my spine, traces where it meets the skull; nor the way he steps forward, teases the air out of my lungs, enjoys it, tugs my hips closer to him by the gusset of the underwear webbed between my thighs; nor the way the cool metal buckle presses red lines into flesh.

The sight of Rust doesn’t matter so much as the understanding that it’s him behind me, that it’s his truck my cheek is being pressed into, that it’s his—fuck—that it’s him sliding through the heat of me, so close. The tip notches and makes it all the easier for my eyes to flutter shut. It helps with the vertigo that follows the rough push of him inside.

My fingers grasp for the little ridges in the door. Best place for them ends up to be under my mouth, though, to keep my head on my shoulders, to muffle the noises I was sure only animals made. My knee jerks sharply against the truck at the first white-hot pulse of pleasure – I hiss, smearing the drool at the edge of my mouth with the back of my hand, so glad he isn’t in clear enough line of sight to chastise me with his tendency to notice and never forget.

But he knows—he must fucking know by now—because the heavy hand clasped over my scruff curls around my face, and Rust forces two fingers into my parted mouth, presses over my soft tongue.

He pulls himself out just to feel the total length of me taking him again, so painfully slow. Feel the initial resistance, the spongy give, the sweet slip, the drag, all of it. So full, I feel sick with it. Overindulgence. Knocks me weak, doesn’t mind it when I bite down on his fingers to take most of the weight out of my sob. What I take from him, he takes from me—we’re even that way—so Rust, already with his nose flirting with the crook of my sweaty neck, nips over my erratic pulse, pushes his tongue over where I’m sure he can see the skin throbbing with the violence of it. Vampire. He could draw blood and I wouldn’t mind: he knows I need bloodletting.

So fucking dumb to think for a second it could be sated by just one time. I needed it again before it even ended – I knew it in the split second he touched me. The grief of closure was as adamant as a shadow. Stupid. He must think it, too, because, shit, the snap of his hips is mean. Punishment: you should’ve known.

“We ought’a be in your bed. I should be fuckin’ you through your bed,” he complains gruffly, his mouth dragging over hinge of my jaw.

I moan around the fingers in my mouth, which hook together with his thumb to pinch the fleshy inside of my cheek, challenging my lost focus. No matter. There’s nothing we can do now.

The seize of my body doesn’t take him by surprise at all, not that I expected it to, and the words that follow are easy, like he’s been thinkin’ of them as loud and clear as day as it would be to speak ‘em: “Shit, that feels good, sweet girl, huh? Tha’s it, just take it. That’s good.” And he lets the warmth gush out before stuffing it back in. “You’ll take one more.”

I stare at the endless field to the side of us, melted over the curve of his door, shivering despite the humidity that always finds you around here. I choke more on my own tongue than his fingers as Rust fucks me slow, like I deserve it.

“Need it s’bad, huh?” he drawls into the shell of my ear. “Why you gone all quiet on me, baby?—thought y’wanted it.”

He drags his fingers out of my mouth, daring me to speak. He slides his hand between my stomach and the side-door, gliding down between the thighs, smearing my dripping arousal over the skin.

My toes curl tight again as he pushes deeper than before, sits there like he knows my mind will do the rest of the work. The grate of his zipper as he shifts draws a mangled sound from the pit of me, not hidden by the brace of my trembling arm.

He zeros in on my clit, all sticky, and circles tight. I shudder.

“Give in,” he says to me in a voice so low and soft that it barely reaches me above the high frequency splitting through my skull. He rolls that bright pearl between his finger and thumb. “You feel it?”

Mindless and eyes all milky, I still manage a nod, grateful for the mean pin of his knees against my shaking thighs.

He hums. “So give in.”

Fuck, this is absurd. The mind can just about string two and two together when Rust lends a forearm beside my head for me to rest on, to grip over: so he’s pictured this, wanted this, for how long? I knew the stagnancy was a front, swallowed something else, but—my mouth goes wet and slack over his forearm at the languid roll of his hips—but it wasn’t realistic to imagine it was this. Rust struck me as someone incapable of reconciling himself with his wants. Shame over acceptance because he thinks it’s atonement. Should’ve known better than to think Rust believed in redemption.

The silhouette in the window is looking over the empty road, scanning for cars that won’t ever come—but his hand is warm under the tent of my shirt, easing over my waist, slow, as everything clamps up, trembling, again. Body and a heartbeat, he tugs my hips back to him, again and again, until he’s a hot, shuddering line all through me, face in my neck, crushing the fight out of my lungs.

His nose presses over my cheek, and his breath is coarse there, too, panting, when he lifts his heavy head. My throat goes so loose and open, greedily drinking in the sweet-sticky scent of him.

“C’mon, now,” he says to me once he’s pulled my underwear back up, dragging the cool, damp gusset against the mess of me for good measure. He pinches my hip, then over my thigh, like that might get me to quit shuddering. “Time to go.”

When I don’t move, he smooths a hand gently over my hair. Tucks a loose chunk of it back into the mess of my braid before deciding it’s best if he lets it loose completely.

Rust winds down the window as he holds open the door for me to clamber onto the bench.

“Y’can sleep ‘f you want,” he mumbles once he’s got me curled up on the seat, leaning through the frame. He tilts his head – the shadows have always hidden his eyes, but I like how the pinch in his brow has melted away at least.

If I had half a mind, I’d use it to shove his face out my goddamn way. Instead, I settle for the narrowing of my eyes and a decided huff. “Won’t.”

Lie. I fall asleep like anything, mellowed by the sweet rush of wind over marshland, the spirit of it weaving inside, and the weight of Rust’s hand tucked in the tight bend of my knee.

#rust cohle #rust cohle x reader #true detective season 1 #rust cohle x reader smut #the idler wheel td #marty hart #true detective #i want to [redacted] his [redacted] until he [redacted] all over-#who said that #female manipulator doesn’t need to manipulate in this one??? crayzay #fic is basically them talking but im hoping ive been accidentally super introspective and deep #her vibe is like mannnn i have to make this guy love me #and his is like girl you don’t have to try I literally already do #i know it’s 15K but i swear it feels shorter if you get into it #got #whatever #only took me a year 😃#fucking finally

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astroa3h · 1 year ago

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midheaven through the signs 💖

The Midheaven is your career compass, pointing you towards your professional path, shaping your social standing, and painting the picture of your public persona. It's like the universe's way of saying, "Hey, this is where you're meant to shine!" Now, let's break it down by zodiac sign, shall we?

Aries Midheaven: If you've got this fiery placement, you're a force to be reckoned with in the professional arena. You charge into things headfirst, fearless and ready to conquer. Your public persona? Bold, energetic, and unapologetically authentic. People can't help but be drawn to your magnetic charisma, and your social standing? Well, let's just say you're not one to fade into the background. You make sure you stand out anyway you can.

Taurus Midheaven: Slow and steady wins the race, right? That's your motto if your Midheaven falls in Taurus. You're all about building a solid foundation in your career, taking your time to create something enduring and of quality. Your public persona exudes reliability and dependability, like the rock everyone can lean on. And as for your social standing? You're the epitome of stability and success, you have the midas touch even if it doesn't always feel like it.

Gemini Midheaven: Ah, the social butterfly of the zodiac! With Gemini Midheaven, you're a master communicator and jack of all trades. Your professional path might involve fields like writing, teaching, or anything that allows you to flex your mental muscles. Your public persona is witty, charming, and endlessly curious, keeping everyone on their toes. And in terms of social standing? You're the one everyone wants at their party, the ultimate mingler and networker extraordinaire.

Cancer Midheaven: Cue the emotional depth and nurturing vibes! If your Midheaven falls in Cancer, your professional path likely revolves around caring for others in some way. You're the empathetic soul who thrives in fields like counseling, caregiving, or anything that lets you tap into your nurturing side. Your public persona is compassionate, intuitive, and deeply connected to your emotions. And in terms of social standing? You're the heart of the community, the one everyone turns to in times of need.

Leo Midheaven: Get ready for your close-up because with Leo Midheaven, you were born to shine in the spotlight! Your professional path is all about creativity, performance, and leadership. You're the natural-born leader, commanding attention wherever you go. Your public persona is bold, confident, and larger than life, like a true Hollywood star. And in terms of social standing? You're the king or queen of the jungle, the one everyone looks up to with awe and admiration.

Virgo Midheaven: Precision, perfection, and pragmatism—that's your game with Virgo Midheaven. Your professional path likely involves fields that require attention to detail, organization, and problem-solving. You're the analytical mind who excels in areas like accounting, healthcare, or research. Your public persona is humble, reliable, and quietly competent, earning you respect wherever you go. And in terms of social standing? You're the trusted expert, the one everyone relies on for practical advice and solutions.

Libra Midheaven: Balance and harmony are your bread and butter with Libra Midheaven. Your professional path is all about relationships, diplomacy, and aesthetics. You're the peacemaker who thrives in fields like law, counseling, or anything that requires finesse and negotiation skills. Your public persona is charming, diplomatic, and effortlessly stylish, drawing people in with your magnetic charm. And in terms of social standing? You're the social butterfly, the one everyone wants to befriend and collaborate with.

Scorpio Midheaven: Hold onto your hats because things are about to get intense with Scorpio Midheaven. Your professional path is all about transformation, depth, and uncovering hidden truths. You're the detective of the zodiac, excelling in fields like psychology, investigation, or anything that requires digging beneath the surface. Your public persona is mysterious, intense, and magnetic, drawing people in with your enigmatic allure. And in terms of social standing? You're the power player, the one everyone respects and fears in equal measure.

Sagittarius Midheaven: Adventure awaits with Sagittarius Midheaven! Your professional path is all about expansion, exploration, and pushing boundaries. You're the eternal optimist who thrives in fields like travel, education, or anything that allows you to spread your wings and explore new horizons. Your public persona is adventurous, enthusiastic, and endlessly curious, inspiring others to follow their dreams. And in terms of social standing? You're the free spirit, the one everyone admires for your fearlessness and joie de vivre.

Capricorn Midheaven: Time to climb that cosmic ladder with Capricorn Midheaven! Your professional path is all about ambition, discipline, and climbing to the top of the mountain. You're the ultimate goal-setter who excels in fields like business, finance, or anything that requires strategic thinking and long-term planning. Your public persona is authoritative, determined, and fiercely independent, commanding respect wherever you go. And in terms of social standing? You're the pillar of the community, the one everyone looks up to for guidance and leadership.

Aquarius Midheaven: Buckle up because you're about to shake things up with Aquarius Midheaven! Your professional path is all about innovation, progress, and challenging the status quo. You're the visionary thinker who excels in fields like technology, activism, or anything that pushes the boundaries of what's possible. Your public persona is unconventional, eccentric, and ahead of your time, inspiring others to think outside the box. And in terms of social standing? You're the trailblazer, the one everyone looks to for fresh ideas and bold solutions.

Pisces Midheaven: Dive into the depths of your imagination with Pisces Midheaven! Your professional path is all about creativity, intuition, and tapping into the collective unconscious. You're the dreamer who excels in fields like art, spirituality, or anything that allows you to express your deepest emotions. Your public persona is empathetic, mystical, and deeply connected to the spiritual realm, touching the hearts of everyone you meet. And in terms of social standing? You're the healer, the one everyone turns to for comfort and inspiration in times of need.

xox astro ash ✨ Get your own Natal Chart Reading @ astroash.net

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fandomtrumpshate · 24 days ago

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Unlisted Fandom Challenge 2025— on your marks, get set, GO!

Not that you need any encouragement — we've got almost as many write-in fandoms now (not even THREE DAYS into signups) as we did in total last year! There are currently 158 write-in fandoms. 158.

And if your fandom isn't here ... we'd love you to sign up as a creator and add it! We're ready to set new records, so let's do this.

This post will include the WHOLE LIST of write-in fandoms. Under the cut because 158 fandoms = very long post. Future Unlisted Fandom Challenge updates will feature portions of the list and info about the rest.

Ready? Okay then:

6 Jeff Satur - Music Videos 4 Control (Remedy Game) 4 Zhen Hun / Guardian (drama and novel) 3 Cabin Pressure 3 Dungeon Meshi 3 Fire Emblem Awakening 3 Fire Emblem Fates 3 Roswell New Mexico 3 Schitt's Creek 3 The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison 3 Transformers 3 Zhen Hun / Guardian (drama) RPF 2 Animorphs 2 BBC Ghosts 2 Biggles Series — W. E. Johns 2 Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu (Cute High Earth Defense Club) franchise 2 Cherry Magic 2 Dangan Ronpa 2 Dead Boy Detectives RPF 2 Detective Conan 2 Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast) 2 Five Nights at Freddy's - All Media 2 Inception 2 Iron widow 2 Kingdom Hearts 2 Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury 2 Sailor Moon 2 The Blue Wolves of Mibu 2 The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (TV series) 2 The Poppy War 2 Tiger & Bunny 2 Tower of God 2 Voltron: Legendary Defender 2 What We Do In The Shadows 2 ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 / JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken / JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 1 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) 1 Alien Stage 1 Among Us 1 Arctic Monkeys/The Last shadow Puppets 1 Avatar: Legend of Korra 1 Baseball RPF 1 BBC’s Musketeers 1 Beyond Evil 1 Black Doves 1 Boygenius (Band)(RPF) 1 Bridgerton (TV) 1 Brokeback Mountain 1 Bullet train 1 Canji Baojun De Zhangxin Yu Chong (The disabled tyrant's pet palm fish) 1 Cassette Beasts 1 Castle 1 Challengers 1 Charmed (1998) 1 Conclave (2024) 1 Danger Force (TV) 1 Dead by Daylight 1 Descendants 1 Destiny 2 1 Digimon 1 Dimension 20 1 Dishonored 1 Dishonored 1 1 Downton Abbey 1 Dr. Stone 1 Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey 1 Emma - Jane Austen 1 Fangs of Fortune 1 Flight Rising 1 Formula 2/3 RPF 1 Ghosts (BBC or American) 1 Grantchester (TV) 1 Gravity Falls 1 Grimm 1 Happy Ending (Thailand TV 2025) 1 Hatoful Boyfriend 1 Haven (TV) 1 Helluva Boss 1 Henry Danger (TV) 1 High School Musical (Movies) 1 Hikaru no Go 1 HLVRAI - Half-life VR But the AI is Self-Aware 1 In Stars And Time 1 IndyCar RPF 1 It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 1 Jeeves and Wooster 1 Jet Lag The Game RPF 1 Kane and Feels 1 Kraven the Hunter 1 Kuroko no Basuke / Kuroko's Basketball 1 Law & Order 1 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit 1 Lies of P 1 Live A Live 1 Lord Seventh/Qi Ye 1 Lovecraft Mythos 1 Lucifer (tv) 1 Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3 1 Mononoke (2007 series and 2024 movie) 1 MotoGP RPF 1 My Time at Sandrock 1 NBA RPF 1 Nirvana in Fire (琅琊榜) 1 Norah Grant Bruce's Billabong books 1 Oh No! Here Comes Trouble 1 Omniscient Reader 1 Once Upon A Time 1 Order of the Stick 1 Outlast games 1 Over the Garden Wall 1 Pacific Rim 1 Pathologic 1 Persuasion - Jane Austen 1 Pirates of the Caribbean 1 Power Rangers (2017 movie) 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 1 Princess Tutu 1 Prodigal Son 1 Puella Magi Madoka Magica 1 Quantum Break 1 Resident Alien 1 Resident Evil 1 S.C.I Mystery 1 S.W.A.T. (2017 show) 1 She-Ra Netflix 1 Shipwrecked Comedy 1 Slow Horses 1 Sonic the Hedgehog (Games) 1 South Park 1 Spinning Silver (Novik) 1 Squid Game 1 Starkid Musicals (no hp) 1 Stephen King's It 1 Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical 1 Super Sentai 1 The A Team (either the 2010 movie or the 1980s series) 1 The Coffin of Andy and Leyley 1 The OC 1 The Pairing - Casey McQuiston 1 The Paradise of Thorns 1 The Umbrella Academy 1 the vampire diaries universe 1 The Venture Maidens 1 The West Wing 1 The X-Files 1 Thousand Autumns 1 Tron 1 Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles 1 Turning 1 Universal Century Gundam 1 Valdemar Series by Mercedes Lackey 1 video games by Arkane Studios 1 Voltron 1 Wander Over Yonder 1 Watcher Entertainment/BuzzFeed Unsolved RPF 1 White Collar 1 Wind Breaker 1 Wonka 1 Word of Honor 1 X-Files

WHEW! That's a long list! And we'd love to see it get longer :)

If you're thinking of signing up and want to write in your fandom, we encourage you to make a promo post to grab the attention of others in your fandom so they come sign up, too. If you've already written in your fandom and want to see the number of signups grow ... we encourage you to create a fandom promo as well! We have an image generator you can use to add bling to your promo, or browse the 'fth promo reblog 2024' tag for inspiration.

And a quick request — if you are copying the name of your fandom over from the AO3 tags and it contains the | character, please change it to a /. The scripts and sheets in the back end of FTH do not like the | character.

#fth 2025 #unlisted fandom challenge

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taylormarieee · 4 months ago

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~Entranced~ sam winchester

Summary: You were a belly dancer and a singer, when Sam and Dean had to investigate you because your sister had gone missing, he couldn’t help but be entranced by you. In other words, he couldn’t help but want to get into your pants…

Word Count: 3.4k (wowzers)

Pairing: Sam Winchester x WOC!bellydancer

Warnings: porn with plot, long ass story line, obsessed sam, wingman dean, enticing reader, mentions of death and demons, typical supernatural tingz, smut, sexual tension, dirty talk, pet names (sweetheart, pretty lady, etc.) pussy whipped sam, sam drunk off readers love, reader is in love with sam, creampie, oral (male and fem receiving), cowgirl, use of 18+ language, MDNI!!!! enjoy cuz he's been on my mind for a long time.

A/N: ok hey guyyssss! I’ve been fantasizing about Sam ALOT lately like specifically season 2 Sammy so enjoy this smutty whoretastic slutty ass fic because I was indeed ovulating🙏��😭😁

*thump thump thump*

you smile as your body and hips move to the rhythm of the song. you were dancing and singing your heart out. mostly getting hollered at and whistled at along with a string of cheers. you laugh and smile as you move to the beat.

all of a sudden you feel yourself being watched. yes, that sounded stupid as there were hundreds of people watching you but these certain pair of eyes were burning. you could feel it.

you look around and walk all over the stage and that's when you see him. a man in a black suit along with another hot guy staring the same lust full daggers your way as everyone else.

but the other one, his hair was long and such a luscious brown. his eyes held one of admiration, as if you were admiring the mona lisa at an art gallery.

you liked him. he was cute, sexy even and that you certainly couldn't deny. when you got done with your performance you asked one of the security guards if they could kindly bring the two boys over to you backstage.

"hello boys, anything I can help you with?" you ask as you wipe off some sweat from your face.

"how'd you know we needed help?" the shorter one asked with a smirk on his face as he steps closer to you.

"well for starters, your both dressed in suits, sat in the back of the club all mysteriously, staring daggers right at me and shall I go on?" you list with a smile on your face.

you shift your weight from one foot to the other as you glance between the two of them.

the both of them look at each other and then chuckle. "guess you got us there" the taller one states with his charming smile.

"what are your names again? and who do you work for?" you asked as you sat down gesturing them to sit as well.

"oh I'm detective roadkill and this is detective showers." dean speaks out with a smirk.

"were FBI." he says as your face scrunches up into one of concern and confusion.

"why would FBI agents show up at our little club, no ones done anything wrong I hope, one of the main reasons we have security." you say with a dry chuckle.

"no no, not at all, uhm were looking in to the disappearance of your sister melisa?" sam asks.

"I-I don't feel like talking about it. she's not gone, she's dead." you say with tears prickling in your eyes.

"how would you possibly know that? police never found a body." dean says.

"exactly, main reason why I don't believe she disappeared or it was some freak kidnapping. even if she was kidnapped, she's been gone for 3 weeks, what are the possible chances she is alive? hm?" you say pacing and throwing your hands about.

"I know she's dead. I can feel it. It's a sibling thing, you two wouldn't understand." you explain.

"oh trust me, I get it. see I have this brother. means the world to me and yea he can be a real pain in the ass sometimes." he says with a chuckle which causes you to giggle too.

"I love him regardless because no matter how much we argue, I know he means well and just wants to protect me." sam finishes.

dean looks at him and you hum. they really thought you were stupid. you knew who they were, you just hated how these hotties could lie to you.

"sam, dean. this was a really fun talk but I don't know where my sister is." you say smirking at them with their confused faces facing you in return.

"H-How did you-"

"how did I know? oh it's pretty obvious, see word gets around that some fbi agents are asking around for my sister and then I find out you two are hunters? yea I am one of the ones that knows what's going on around here. what really goes bump in the night. what really lurks in the shadows when your not paying attention. my dad was a hunter, just like you guys. just like your dad." you say circling them as you go to pour them a drink.

"wow, that was-" sam starts.

"smart? impressive? amazingly cool?" you ask handing them the drinks.

"I was going to say hot. That was really hot but you know, those words work too." he says chuckling.

"aww thanks sam, I really appreciate it." you respond as you take a sip of your whiskey.

"ok seriously, we wanna help you. If you really know what's going on then maybe we can still save other people including your sister." sam states.

"now did you smell any sulfur in her house or maybe saw black smoke or maybe she was acting aggressive and erratically before her disappearance?" dean asks scooting up in his seat more.

"uhm not that I can recall. she was normal. my sister was a kind soul, she would never even hurt a damn fly. I mean the first week of her disappearance I thought it was her douchebag of a boyfriend. ex-boyfriend i should say, that ungrateful son of a bitch." you say with spite.

"oh so was he a suspect?" dean asks.

"ofc he was! He was the main suspect, but it was also stupid for the cops to think I would kill my own sister, like that's insanity." you argue.

"alright so, if it's not ghost or demonic possession..." dean starts.

"then what the hell is it?" sam asks. all of you shrug and sit in silence for a second.

"hey I got a question for you." dean asks you. you look up at him and nod with a hum.

"you think sammy could stay with you tonight?" dean asks. your eyes widen and sam turns to dean with a incredulous look.

"no it's fine." he turns to you and says. "I don't understand why I can't just stay at the motel dean, what the hell are you doing?" he whisper-yells to dean.

"you've been making googly eyes all freakin' night, just stop stressin' and get laid. trust me you need it. your veins popping out." he says as he clears his throat.

"so, can he? It would be really appreciated, see I have stuff to do and I don't want him to be in there alone, so maybe he can keep you company? plus we have no clue if whatever this thing is an M.O. and might come after you too." dean convincingly explains which persuades you to say...

"yea sure dean, sam it's ok. I'm cool with it, you can stay with me, i've got a cozy house." you say with a smile.

"plus I gotta get up outta here anyway, shall we?" you ask swaying your hips as you walk towards the door and walk out leading sam and dean out the back.

they watch your ass and hips sway and that beautiful little outfit you belly dancers always wore. sam couldn't keep it in anymore, he was entranced. obsessed. lured in like a moth drawn to a flame.

"here take m-my jacket. you must be cold." sam offers. you smile and accept it with a thank you, after all you were wearing a bra like top that covered little.

your hand brushed his for a mere second and it felt like electricity surged through you both.

you slide your arms through the sleeves of his jacket as you walk towards your car. your keys jingling in the process as they dangle from your hip.

you unlock the car and prop yourself in the drivers seat as same props himself in the passengers seat.

"oooo it really is cold out, thanks again for the jacket sam, don't know what I would do without you." you seductively say, without the intention of trying to be seductive but thankful instead.

"yea n-no problem. just me being me." he says as you start the engine turning up the A/C and backing out the parking lot.

sam looks out the window and notices dean in the impala with two thumbs up and a smirk on his face to which he rolls his eyes at and begs to god you don't see deans childish acts.

~ TRENTON, NEW JERSEY, 2007, 10:26PM @ YOUR HOUSE~

"get cozy, looks like your going to be here for a while." you say with a smile, shrugging off his jacket to place on the coat rack.

he takes off his shoes and makes his way immediately towards your fireplace and your couch.

you watch him trudge over there and sit down his tall lean figure finally shrinking just a bit but when he sits back up his broad shoulders are back on display.

‘god what was wrong with you.’ you thought, you just couldn’t get him out of your head.

but luckily the same goes for him because you racked his brain since the moment his eyes laid a glance at your face.

you were so enticing and enchanting, of course a guy like sam couldn’t resist, he was whipped for you so badly and you didn’t even know it.

“are you hungry sammy? can i even call you sammy or is that a you and dean thing?” you ask bringing over a bowl of grapes and some wine for you and a beer for him.

“you can call me whatever you want- i-i mean yea! you can call me sammy i don’t mind.” he stutters out nervously

you him again and take a sip of the wine straight from the bottle. sam watched as your plump and glossy lips wrap around the top of the bottle wishing it was his dick instead.

he gulps as he watches your throat bob up and down as you swallow the wine.

he quickly takes a swig of his beer and you watch his Adam’s Apple bob up and down. you watched as he wraps his lips around the beer bottles top wishing it was your clit.

the tension in the room was clearly escalating just a tiny bit. 'was it just you or is it hot in here.' you thought.

you take another sip of the wine and tuck your legs under one another as if in a criss-cross motion.

"so, what do you wanna do now? dean said he won't be back for a couple of hours." sam asks.

"honestly I usually shower and go right to bed after long nights like these, but I wasn't exactly expecting company so i'm stumped here." you say with a slight chuckle.

"yea sorry to be such a burden." sam says with a playful roll of his eyes. you scoff not seeing his eye roll and take his statement the wrong way.

"look i never said you were a burden, i'm just confused on how to entertain a fucking hunter sam." you speak with slight aggression in your tone.

"look, i was just joking with you. If you took my statement the wrong way i'm sorry. I'll totally leave." he says getting up to go grab his jacket.

'n-no sammy wait. I-fuck. I didn't mean that, i'm sorry. It's just been a really long day and I'm just stumped ok, please stay?" you apologize.

"ok, if you want to go take a shower and rest that's fine by me, i'll stay.' he says standing quite dangerously close to you.

you inhale his scent for a second, his scent bringing you comfort and warmth. you don't even realized you closed a few inches in the gap between you two.

"w-what are you doing?" sam asks. his hands stuck at his side just itching to touch you. you take note of it.

"do you wanna touch me sammy?" you asks seductively. you glide your hand up and down his chest as you stare up at him with your seductive eyes.

"w-what?" he stutters out nervously. he gulps as your hand goes lower and lower.

"I said, do you want to touch me sam." you repeat your previous question. "I know you want to, your hands are twitching." you say smugly.

"fuck, uhm yea. I do, very badly." he says as he moves his hands to grab your waist. you moan at the warmth of his hands on your body.

"I know you wanna kiss me." you whisper in his ear. your on your tiptoes as sam is much taller than you.

you grab his belt to pull him closer and that was his breaking point. his lips are immediately on yours in a feverish and desperate pent up kiss.

you both fumble with his belt and trip over each others feet. you both eventually fall to the floor letting out a fit of giggles and laughs at your clumsy shenanigans.

"fuck, your so gorgeous you know that?" sam compliments. you smile and kiss him again.

"and your so handsome, thank god your parents got together." you say with a grin as you unclip your bra.

he unbuttoned his nicely pressed shirt and unbuttoned and unzipped his dress pants.

your both crawling towards the couch now, sam ripping off the cushions and you taking off the rest of your outfit leaving you in your underwear only.

pretty black laced panties to match your outfit. his eyes bulged out of his head at the sight of you. your body was gorgeous. everything about you was gorgeous, your personality as well.

"god damn your beautiful." he whispers as he sinks into the couch and you climb on top of him.

"thank you sammy. can you please fuck me now." you ask.

with a primal like growl, sam rolls you over so he's now on top of you. "oh sweetheart, gotta prep you first. don't think you can take big ole me by yourself now can you?" he teases as he kissed down your body.

after an agonizingly long trip downwards, his lips finally coming in contact with the place you've been wanting him most all night.

his warm breath hits your soaking entrance and his skilfully long tongue teases your clit.

"f-fuck sammy, pleasee-ngh- please just fuck me I'll be a good girl for you p-please." you beg as you feel one finger slot itself inside of you.

you moan out at the feeling. the feeling of pain and pleasure combined as he stretches you out. 'fuck you haven't felt this good since your last boyfriend.' you thought.

your brain was soonly erased by the feeling of sam's second finger entering your dripping hole. his lips whispering dirty things into your cunt as he licks and slurps your cunt.

you tug on his hair and cry out his name, how can someone fingers and tongue work so skillfully together at the same time.

"yes sam! right fucking there, fuck fuck fuck-ngh-ugh! yea yea, holy shit daddy!" you scream out.

he moans into your cunt at hearing you call him daddy. you were a lot younger than him, he was 5 years older than you. he loved this dominance he had over you, but he became feral whenever you tugged his hair.

desperate to get off as he ruts himself against the couch. a feeling of ecstacy washing over you and determination washing over sam. he was going to make you cum and then he was gonna rearrange your guts like never before.

your walla clench and tighten around him and he groans at how rough your tugging on his lucious brown locks. your crying his name out like a prayer over and over again.

you moan one last time before silently letting out a scream as you convulse and shake as your orgasm floods your entire body.

"oohhhh fuckkk!" you moan out as your orgasmic feeling washes away intensely.

"was I good baby?'" sam asks curiously. his lips stained with your arousal and essence. you grab his face pulling him closer to you as you kiss him sloppily getting a taste of yourself off of his tongue.

"you did amazing baby, now lemme help you. looks painful." you suggest staring at his rock hard boner through his boxers.

a wet patch on the front from his precum and getting himself all worked up.

you let him sit on the couch normally and tug his boxers down slowly. he whines when the refreshing air hits his tip.

his tip is a pretty color, a nice hue of pink. ready... waiting to be sucked and fucked on.

you lick the precum around his tip and on his shaft. you engulf his tip in your mouth wanting to get more of a taste and he moans. he watches your pretty lips engulf him and swallow him whole.

he holds the back of your head pushing you down further and getting lost in the haze of lust. he moans out your name a little louder each time you gag around him.

your throat was so wet and so warm. your saliva pooling at the corners of your mouth. you mascara surrounding the under parts of your eyes as tears stream down your face in slow motion.

your head bobs faster and faster, you gagging each time but you didn't care you wanted to taste his cum inside your mouth, you wanted it so deep down your throat that you wouldn't stop until he was crying.

you wanted sam winchester and sam winchester wanted you.

he pushes you off him quickly when he feels his release approaching.

"no no wait i'm gonna cum! I don't wanna cum like this, I want it inside you. wanna creampie you and give y-you babies." he whines out.

you smirk and kiss him softly, "ok sam. gimme all your babies, come inside me like a good little boy hmm?" you asks seductively as you push sweaty strands of hair out of his pretty face.

you climb back on top of him and sink slowly down on to him. you cry out a bit at the pain of the stretch, he really was a big boy.

"he whines and the grip on your waist tightens. you moan and feel his cock slowly piercing you more and more and the feeling of pain easily subsides once he's in you all the way.

"I'm going to start moving now ok sam?" you confirm and he nods with a hazy smile.

he's drunk of you. eyes and mind entranced by you. filled with you. he's literally inside you. he's encompassed by you, your smell, your words. everything.

sam winchester is a simp for you and there's nothing that could change his mind.

your bounces start off slow and then they rapidly speed up in pace. your both moaning and groaning, incapable of holding them in any longer.

you needed to hear him as he needed to hear you. he honeslt ydidn't think hearing you moan could get him any more harder but it did.

you were both close now, on to your second orgasm of the night while trying to get him off on his first.

"sammy I-fuck-ngh. I love you so much sam, please give me your babies please!" you scream out as you gush all over his cock. "come on cum in me please!" you scream out.

sam groans as his climax hits him like a wave, he explodes. loads and loads of semen just squirting inside you. you sigh a sigh of happiness and content.

he was filled to the brim with cum and it was just never ending. he stays inside you for a bit, slowly but weakly thrusting up into you to keep his cum inside you.

your both panting and out of breath. he smiles and you do to giving him a long and passionate kiss.

"hey." you say with a giggle

"hey beautiful." he says chuckling.

"wanna go upstairs with me to you know, rinse the night off?" you asks with a smile as you slowly slip off his cock, hissing as you do so.

before sam can even respond your losing your balance causing you to fall over. you grab onto the fireplace mantle for stability as sam gets up to help you.

he grabs on to your waist and holds you there before smirking and picking you up bridal style.

"let's go get that shower huh? and then you are going to bed pretty lady." he says with a smirk.

your face is flushed even more than before and your flustered before wrapping your arms around his neck and snuggling into his embrace.

Taglist: @dollyfl1rt @itzdarling @sammyluvr @liliesdiary @ribbonprincess @bellahadidnt16 @iilovefictionalpeople @aerangi @keiva1000 @madafton @niktwazny303 @prettyluhdavis @kqmbr1a + anyone else who wants to join

A/N: Sorry to all the people who were in my taglist box and i never tagged you in my latest works, i'm so sorry i forgot to check it, I hope you all and others enjoy this one!

#my man <3 #sam winchester imagine #sam winchester #sam winchester fanfiction #sammy winchester #supernatural fanfiction #sam supernatural #sam winchester drabble #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester smut #sam

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