#which in and of itself is something WILD to be against

[bigassbowlingballhead]

i shouldn't have to see political signs outside my place of residence that raise my blood pressure.

[andypantsx3]

LOADS OF FUN : TODOROKI x READER

SUMMARY: After moving into your first apartment together, Shouto seems more amorous than ever. You're not sure why—but when he comes home to you doing a load of laundry, more than your clothes are about to get tumbled. TAGS/WARNINGS: nsft (18+ only, minors please dni!), pro hero au, gn + afab reader, established relationship, fluff, emotional sex, table sex, cunnilingus, the shouto domesticity kink agenda goes absolutely crazy in this one lol (2.8k) NOTES: This piece is part of my pretty boy summer Shouto x Reader collab! Please go check out the other incredible fics people have written over the course of the summer; you will absolutely die over how good they are. This fic was also made possible through donations to the Fics for Gaza project. I cannot thank everyone who donated to one of the charities enough, as well as those who organized, reblogged, discussed, and got the word out. Lastly, I am so grateful for your immeasurable patience with me as I take time between fics to manage my workload, I hope I'm not too out of practice here lol. In summary: thank you, thank you, a million times thank you.

The sound of the door opening was hidden in the thump and glug of the washing machine starting its spin cycle.

Halfway across the house, you were oblivious—you had the clean laundry spread out on the kitchen table, hunting through the pile trying to match one of Shouto’s socks to another that seemed to have vanished into that mysterious void which opens somewhere between the laundry basket and the dryer. One of his shirts was half-folded over your shoulder, abandoned in favor of the sock search.

The rest of your things were still mostly tangled together on the table, warm and fresh and cottony, the few shirts you’d already folded sagging off the kitchen chairs.

It still gave you a little thrill—even several weeks after you’d moved in together—to see Shouto’s things twined up with yours—his enormous socks dwarfing yours, your sweaters clinging to the occasional piece of his hero suit that hadn’t seen enough action to need his agency’s industrial cleaners.

It all added to your sense of satisfaction with your afternoon—a frosty weekend day you’d spent cozy indoors, moving slowly and leisurely through some chores. A pot of soup simmered on the stove, and your favorite playlist worked itself through in lazy loops. Shouto was due off his rotation soon, and you hummed contentedly to yourself, entertaining pleased little fantasies of curling up with him for the rest of the weekend.

Which of course is when something moved in the corner of your eye. Your hum sawed up into a strangled screech, and you whipped around, flailing. Shouto’s sock launched itself full force at the intruder before you even registered you’d thrown it. In your shock, your leg caught against the table and you went stumbling—

—right into a pair of warm hands that caught you about the waist.

Your hands were on the man’s shoulders to push him off before you realized you recognized the touch—and that you’d caught sight of a distinct mop of scarlet and white hair as you’d whipped around.

“Shouto! Again?” you scolded reflexively, even as your heartbeat stuttered out of its wild kick into high gear. You tipped your head back to stare your boyfriend in the face, shoulders slumping in relief, letting him take some of your weight.

Shouto peered down at you, that tiny scrunch between his brows that indicated concern. “Are you alright, love?”

Your heartbeat pounded thunderously in your chest. “I’m—fine. But my god we need to get you a bell. I almost peed.”

Shouto’s mouth shifted minutely into something that might not have registered in anyone else’s face but was most definitely a regretful downturn on his. He looked even more unfairly beautiful than when he’d left you this morning—a little flushed and windswept from the unseasonable cold, that full mouth pink and pretty.

Your mind flicked momentarily off and back on like a circuit breaker, the way it always did when you had to process Shouto.

You’d understood he was once-in-a-generation levels of beautiful before you’d even met him, his face staring up at you from the glossy pages of various tabloids over the years. But in person, even after years of knowing him and several more dating him, Shouto’s appearance still managed to cross all the wires in a person’s brain. His features were an incomprehensible blend of aloof and elegant, sensual and warm—like a cold masterpiece of a marble sculpture had suddenly found himself with a consciousness and human desires and miles of warm skin.

“I did not mean to startle you,” he said, his voice low and warm. He sounded sincerely regretful.

You knew he hadn’t meant to—you’d long suspected his silent tread was habitually ingrained in him from years of hero work. And, in your most private and ungenerous thoughts, you suspected from years of making himself unobtrusive in his father’s home. The thought sat sour in your mouth, like a slice of pickled lemon.

You resisted making an equally sour face, shoving the thought away to make space for the reflexive flush of pleasure seeing Shouto always brought you.

“Welcome home, Sho,” you said instead, smiling up at him. Shouto’s hands moved on your waist, sliding gently beneath the hem of your tee-shirt to rest on the skin there.

He was still in his hero uniform, and as usual you felt a little goofy in comparison, in nothing but a tee and a well-loved pair of fraying sweatpants, which were this afternoon decorated with little flecks of soup from a brush with the pot.

But Shouto’s eyes were warm where they rested on you, and that perfect mouth crept back into a contented set. His long fingers smoothed over your skin as he watched you, thumb brushing your hip. He did not look like he found you at all goofy.

In fact, as his eyes dropped down to your ankles, slowly dragging back up to your face, you rather thought he looked a little appreciative. He even took a rather ungentlemanly step back, still holding you, to better take in the whole picture. His eyes wandered over the swell of your hip, the lines of the shirt against your chest, before darting to his own shirt, still folded over your shoulder.

His fingers flexed tellingly on your waist, and those heterochromatic eyes were both a little bit darker as they flicked back to yours.

His obvious regard made you feel warm. You shifted on your feet, shuffling.

“I was just—doing laundry,” you said for something to say, your mouth feeling kind of dry. Something about him always made you feel sort of shy and light-headed, even after all this time together. “And I made soup. I was thinking we could eat on the couch and watch one of those horrendous old All Might films?”

Shouto’s eyes darted to the stove, then beside you to the pile of your laundry, lingering for a long minute. His long lashes dipped, almost fluttering as his gaze traced over the tangle of your things together. His eyes flicked back to you. He was still for just a moment, watching you assessingly.

And then all of a sudden the world spun in front of your eyes. The hands at your waist lifted you clean off your feet, and you let out a startled “oof!” as you found yourself laid out in the pile of laundry on the table, sheets and sweaters bunching beneath you.

Shouto moved over you, stepping between your spread thighs, right at the edge of the table.

“You have no idea,” he intoned in a deep, delicious tone that went right down your spine, “what it is to come home to you like this.”

You wondered at that, feeling a strange combination of confusion and flattery, when Shouto’s mouth descended onto yours. His mouth was soft and sweet and insistent and absolutely perfect. The table groaned as he laid some of his weight out over you, pinning you into the laundry as he kissed you.

Your fingers clutched at him immediately, curling in his silky-soft hair, cupping his face to yours. One of Shouto’s own hands shifted to your thigh, holding you against him as he pressed himself harder into you.

You heard yourself making little gasps of appreciation as Shouto’s mouth moved down to your neck, laving hot kisses down your throat. You reveled in the feeling of him over you, broad and strong, his shoulders blocking the glow of the overhead light, casting shadows over you.

He’d been a lot like this lately, ever since you’d moved in together. He’d been adequately amorous before, of course, and blessed with a pro hero’s strength and unflagging stamina. But a few weeks after you’d moved in together you’d actually decided you needed to reactivate your gym membership given the amount of incredibly athletic sex you were suddenly having over almost every surface in the house.

One of the only spots yet to be touched was the table though, which Shouto seemed determined to rectify at this very moment.

He pulled back from you, his mouth flush from your kisses, looking a little entranced as he stepped out from between your thighs. You made a little noise at the loss of weight and heat over you, but Shouto caught the fabric of your sweatpants, gently but determinedly tugging them off of you. Your underwear was tossed right over one broad shoulder as Shouto went to his knees, and then his mouth was right back on you.

A wave of wild heat licked up your stomach at the noise of appreciation he made before sealing his mouth over you, strong fingers clutching your thighs to keep them apart.

“Oh my god!” you said, pleasure zinging right up your spine with the first lave of his tongue over you. “Shouto!”

Shouto let out a deep, pleased hum, two long fingers sinking into you embarrassingly easily as he worked your clit with his mouth. Your back arched and you could feel your clothing shift with you, Shouto’s shirt balling up under your shoulder blade, still half-draped over your shoulder.

“Oh, oh!” you heard yourself saying as your fingers twisted in the clothing, shuddering with every lick and suck of Shouto’s perfect, amazing, talented mouth.

He worked you with the expertise of long, dedicated practice—everything about him calculated to drive you insane. One moment he was excruciatingly soft, mouth slack and the touch of his tongue as fleeting and light as the brush of a butterfly’s wing. Then the next he was sucking relentlessly, teasing firmly with the tip of his tongue as his fingers played with you.

Your first climax hit you mortifyingly quickly, and Shouto seemed to know it before you did. His grip tightened on you, holding you down as you bucked against his mouth. Shouto looked more than a little smug as he got to his feet again, unbelting himself and laying back out over you.

He kissed you some more, the taste of yourself always a sort of shock to your system. But Shouto never seemed to mind, and if anything only seemed hungrier for you, mouth pulling at yours like he meant to devour you.

You felt the touch of his hand between your thighs as he lined himself up, then sank into you easily, groaning appreciatively like he’d just sunk into a hot bath. He bit carefully at your neck, one large hand pressing your stomach down to keep you pinned against the edge of the table where he wanted you.

“I always want to come home to you like this,” he intoned into the skin of your neck, his mouth sucking dizzying patterns into your skin. “Always.”

You could barely think past the slide of him inside you, thick and full and blissfully exquisite. He really was the most perfect man on earth, and he always felt like it too.

You barely managed to blink your eyes open to watch him, trying to catch his meaning in his face. Shouto watched you back, those blue and grey pinned on you like he couldn’t bear to look away from you as he moved inside you.

“You—” you panted out, trying to cling to the thoughts threatening to wiggle out of your grip. “What do you—? Of course you’ll always come home to me.”

Shouto bucked into you harder, the slap of his hip against the bottom of your thigh echoing loudly over the burble of soup on the stove. His eyelashes fluttered, mouth softening, and a realization struck you almost dizzy.

Oh, he really liked that.

You suppressed a wave of giddiness, charmed and helplessly pleased that he seemed to like the idea so much. Was that why he’d been so especially ardent this past month? Was it really because you’d moved in together?

Shouto’s arm hooked under one of your legs, drawing it up firmly over his shoulder so he could press even further inside of you. He looked so good like that that you nearly lost the thread of your thoughts, especially when his next thrust felt like that. Your eyes nearly rolled back in your head.

“Ah!” escaped you. “Fuck, Shouto. Like that, please!”

Shouto’s thumb pressed down on your still-sensitive clit and he had to dig the fingers of his other hand into the flesh of your leg to keep you from bucking him right out of you with the way you squirmed. Sweet fucking gods he was unreal.

Shouto fucked you harder, the sound of your skin slapping together obscene in the quiet of the kitchen.

You tried again, struggling to watch his reaction with the way you wanted to throw your head back and babble nonsense instead.

“You’ll always come home to me,” you repeated, gratified when Shouto’s grip on you tightened, a soft sound escaping him. “You want me right here for you?”

“Ah—yes, love,” Shouto panted, staring down at you again. He looked like he knew what you were doing but didn’t care. “Yes,” he hissed.

“Just like this?” you prompted, trying not to slur the edges of your speech when he gave another particularly mind-bending thrust of his hips. His chest rose and fell heavily and he looked a little wild-eyed, gazing down at you.

“Like this, for me,” he said. “In my home, in our home—”

You could hear the table squeal and groan with the force of his next thrust, and then you had to grip the sides of it to steady yourself as he fucked you, looking blissful. Your nails scrabbled at the edges of the table, caught in between a million sensations—the glorious fullness of Shouto inside you, the gentle grind of his thumb against your clit, the way he looked all flushed and beautiful and panting and wanting—

You squeezed your eyes shut, too overcome with the sight of him to look at him anymore, but it was no use. Your entire body trembled as you came, and Shouto let out a low swear at the way you clenched up around him, hunching over you and pressing himself so impossibly hard against you as he came too.

He slumped down against you, weighing you into the soft-smelling cotton of the laundry you were now definitely going to have to rewash. You could feel his chest rise and fall as he panted, his breath tickling the skin under your ear. He left an unbearably soft, sweet kiss just under the lobe, at odds with the near-wild way he’d just been fucking you.

You warmed, petting through his hair with a helpless affection.

“Well now I know what time I should always do our laundry,” you said.

Shouto huffed into your neck, but you could feel a tiny smile curve his mouth.

“It is not just that,” he said, but did not elaborate for some minutes until you elbowed him gently. He peeled himself off of you just enough to look down into your face. “It is the thought of our life together. Our clothes piled together. You in the home we chose and we made…” he said, trailing off.

But you thought you got the sentiment. It was about how easy it was, how uncomplicated. A safe place to come home to, no expectations, just soup and a pile of sweet-smelling laundry and someone happy to see you. It was something far away from what he'd grown up thinking a home was, possibly something he’d thought he’d never have—something you were determined to make him realize now that he always would.

You let your fingers pull through his hair again, smiling up at him. “I am going to have to do our laundry again, though,” you teased. “In case that interests you.”

And despite what he’d just said, Shouto did in fact look a little too interested. You watched his mismatched gaze trail over to the closet that opened onto the washer and dryer. A contemplative look snuck across his handsome face, carefully curling the corner of that plush mouth.

“There is another place we have not yet broken in,” he said slowly, voice dipping low. He looked down at you with an earnest expression completely in contrast to what he was suggesting.

You couldn’t help but laugh, and that was all the permission he needed to pull you up, gathering you up in his arms and layering a fat handful of laundry on top of you. His belt buckle rattled loosely beneath you where he'd barely done it up in his haste, and you laughed harder when he turned off the stove as you passed it.

Though it turned out to be a needed precaution—as neither of you found yourselves free to sit down to dinner for several hours yet.

[imaginedisish]

Wild Horses (Logan Howlett x Fem!Reader)

A/N: Proofreading took way longer than I thought; sorry this didn't go up on time, y'all. Anyway, the song references came from an idea from an anon, but the fic itself isn't a request. Working through requests now (sorry I haven't been doing more). I really like this fic, and I hope you guys do too. There are a couple of songs in this one, but "Wild Horses" by the Stones is def a Logan song. Enjoy!

Summary: Logan takes you out for a friendly drink...that ends up being more than just friendly.

Warnings: 18+ SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT MINORS DNI! Oral (f!receiving), Fingering, Unprotected PIV (wrap it up), multiple orgasms, overstimulation, porn with very little plot, implied!age gap (Logan is older than everyone, tho?), friends to lovers, alcohol consumption, cursing, feelings, f!reader/afab!reader, def some grammatical errors, I think that's it.

Word Count: 4,362 back on my BS

You’re sitting in a chair in the hallway, decompressing from the day—which, to be honest, is impossible in a place like this. Kids playing, running, yelling, T.Vs blaring all across the mansion. It’s always so noisy, always so active. And sometimes, that can be too much. 

A cacophony of voices bursts down the hall. One is bassy, louder, angrier than all the others. You smile softly to yourself. Logan. You can hear his footsteps against the hardwood floors as he makes his way towards the front door. He has his keys in his hand, and his leather jacket on his back. 

You perk up, trying not to seem upset that he’s on his way out. Although it’s probably no use; you wear your heart on your sleeve. You care about Logan, and that care extends beyond friendship. You’ve wanted him for months, but you’re not quite sure if he’ll ever feel the same. You’re friends—close friends—but just friends. 

He looks over to you, his frown suddenly turning to a smile. “I’m going out,” he says, nodding to the door. “Wanna come?”

“S-sure,” you stutter, pushing yourself up from your chair. You look down at your denim shorts and tank top. “I don’t know if I should change tho—” “You look perfect,” Logan says, shaking his head and smiling. Your breath hitches in your throat, and you try your best not to overthink Logan’s words. His hand is at your back, warm and undeniably massive, guiding you with him to the door. 

A cough erupts from behind you. “Where are you going, Logan?” You know exactly whose voice that is. 

You and Logan turn around, and there’s Scott. “Out,” is all Logan says, gruff and short. 

“We aren’t done talking, and you still have to run drills with—”

But Logan is tugging your arm and leading you out the door and towards the garage before Scott can get a word in. 

“Logan!” Scott calls from the front door. But Logan doesn’t stop, his hand now clasping around yours. He raises his fist in the air and unleashes just one of his claws: the middle. You giggle as Logan leads you inside the garage.

He walks you to the passenger door of his truck, opening it for you and closing it once you’re safe inside. It doesn’t hit you until he’s walking around the front that he opened the door for you. 

He slips in the driver’s side door and turns the key in the ignition, the truck springing to life. He pulls out of the garage, down the driveway, and through the gate. 

“So, where are we going?” You ask, turning to face Logan. 

His eyes drift between you and the road, a small smile playing on his lips. “Thought maybe we could get a drink,” he says, eyes on you again. There’s something behind his stare—a softness, maybe. It’s intoxicating and dizzying. It’s so distracting that you have to force yourself to acknowledge what he said.

“Sounds good,” you finally answer, smiling back at him. He nods, one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear shift, dangerously close to your bare thigh. 

The ride to the bar is quick and quiet, but not uncomfortable. You feel safe with Logan, cozy, like you could have spent the entire night just driving around with him. The bar looks like a little cabin—definitely Logan’s kind of place. It’s quaint, and perhaps a tad divey. But you don’t mind. You’re with Logan; that’s all that matters.

He slips out of the car, and you follow suit. He’s at your side when you open the door, smirking, holding out his hand to help you out of the truck. You take it, stepping onto the gravel of the parking lot. You think he’ll let go, that he’ll drop your hand to your side, but he doesn’t. 

Logan leads the way into the honeyed, yellow light of the bar. It spills across the porch as he opens the door, the light consuming you as you walk inside. The bar is warm, filled with couples and friends sharing drinks and listening to music. Some people are dancing over by a set of speakers. You smile, instantly recognizing the song blaring from the speakers. 

I met her in a club down in old Soho Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola C-O-L-A, Cola

You sing along, mouthing the words to Logan. A grin spreads across his face, his gaze flitting between your eyes and your lips. “You know this song? You like The Kinks?” He asks, his eyes narrowing as he tugs you over to a stool at the bar. 

“Of course! How old do you think I am?” You ask, moving your shoulders to the song as you sit down. 

He smirks, shaking his head. “Younger than me!” He shouts over the music, sitting down next to you, finally letting go of your hand. You wish he didn’t. You wish he held on. 

“Everyone is younger than you!” You shout back, singing the lyrics and swaying your head from side to side. 

Well, I'm not the world's most physical guy But when she squeezed me tight, she nearly broke my spine Oh, my Lola Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola

Logan is watching you—watching the way your lips make that O in Lola, the way your hips shake in the chair, the way you throw your head back laughing when you mess up a line. He’s entranced by you. You finally notice him watching, and you giggle, hiding your face in your hands. 

Your eyes widen as his hands come up to yours, tearing them away from your face. “No hiding,” he says softly, so only you can hear him. “It was cut—”

“What’ll you two be having?” The bartender interrupts, arms crossed against his chest, towel thrown over his shoulder. 

“I’ll have a Coors, and she’ll have…” Logan turns to look at you, and you nod towards him. He takes the hint immediately, as if he can read your mind. “The same as me.” You smile as the bartender walks away to get your drinks. 

You part your lips, almost ready to ask Logan what he was going to say before the bartender cut him off, but you’re interrupted again as your beers are placed in front of you. 

“Thanks, bub,” Logan says, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill and slapping it on the counter. The bartender grabs the bill and walks off to help the next patron. 

“So…” you trail off, watching as more people drift to the makeshift dance floor. “Have you been here before?” You ask, making conversation. There’s something about being out with Logan that makes you more nervous than usual. He’s never awkward to be around or hard to talk to. But in here? Out together? Alone? This is different. It’s almost like…

A date. 

“Just a few times,” Logan answers, snapping you back to reality. His long fingers wrap around the neck of his bottle, and he takes a swig. You catch the way he licks the little droplets on his upper lip, his tongue darting out all quick and gentle. You can’t help but wonder what his tongue would feel like against your own lips, and in other places too. Now is certainly one of those moments when you’re thankful Logan isn’t a telepath.  

You trace your fingers over the wet, cool bottle and take a swig, too. It’s ice cold, the alcohol burning at the back of your throat ever so slightly. Lola fades out, and Whole Lotta Love starts up. You nod your head, singing along in between quick sips. 

Logan shakes his head. “This one too?” 

“Oh my god, old man,” you remark sardonically. “Do you think I live under a rock?” 

“Didn’t peg you for a Zeppelin girl,” Logan says, tipping his bottle to you. “I’m impressed.” 

“Well, maybe there’s a lot you don’t know about me,” you say, meeting his bottle with yours. The clink is almost suppressed by the bass of the music. You bring the beer back to your lips and watch as Logan sips, too.

“Yeah?” He asks, pulling the bottle away. “What else don’t I know?” He leans in, his shoulder brushing yours. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the music pumping through your body, but you find the courage to lean into him. You can smell him—the pine and musk and tobacco on his flannel, his body. 

Your face is inches from his as you turn towards him, your noses practically touching. “I like dancing,” you hum. You down the last dregs of your beer and set it on the counter, grabbing Logan’s arm as Robert Plant’s voice croons throughout the bar. 

Way down inside

He knocks back the last of his beer, placing it on the counter as you tug him to the outskirts of the dance floor. 

Woman, you need, yeah

“I don’t usually dance,” he says, his hands finding your waist despite his words. He squeezes softly.

Love...

“But I’ll dance with you,” he says against the shell of your ear. And then his hips are rocking into yours, swaying with you to the beat. He’s never been this close, never this intimate with you. His lips ghost yours as the guitar and the drums echo against the wood floors and walls of the bar. 

Shake for me girl

I wanna be your backdoor man

You need more, need him closer. Logan pulls you in—chest to chest—his grip on your waist tightening. His hands slide around your back, slipping under your shirt. Your heart beats out of your chest as his fingers trail up and down your back. His lips find your ear again. 

“You’re pretty when you dance,” he whispers. “Pretty all the time.”

You look up at him as the song fades out. You part your lips to say something, but the next song starts up before you can find the words. You recognize the opening riff immediately, the acoustic guitar strumming gently through the speakers. It’s slow and soft. Logan pulls you back into his arms, closer this time. His palms rest against your lower back, and you let your arms wrap around his neck. 

“Don’t tell me you know this one too,” he husks, his lips at your ear again. 

Graceless lady

You know who I am

You know I can't let you

Slide through my hands

You smile into the crook of his neck. “Of course I do,” you answer. “Wild Horses. The Stones.”

“God, you’re fucking perfect,” he murmurs, pressing his hips harder against yours. You let your head fall to his shoulder as you lean into his chest. You can feel that ache between your legs spreading like wildfire. Friends don’t talk like this. Friends don’t dance like this. 

Because maybe you two aren’t friends. Maybe you never have been. 

“Logan,” you call, lifting your head. 

He’s just centimeters away, his eyes locked on yours. He tightens his hold on your lower back, your foreheads pressing together. “Wanted you for so long, pretty girl.” 

And then his lips find yours, consuming you, engulfing you like an open flame. He’s warm and soft, better than black treacle and golden honey and maple syrup. It’s slow and languid, his arms wrapping around you tighter, trying to pull you closer. 

Wild horses

Couldn't drag me away

Wild, wild horses

We'll ride them someday

You reluctantly pull away as the song goes on, looking up at Logan—looking for more. 

“We should get out of here,” he says, keeping one hand firmly around your waist as he guides you off the dance floor and towards the door.

He grips you tightly as you head to the truck, practically breaking the passenger door off the hinges as he opens it for you. He closes the door more carefully now that you’re inside. In the blink of an eye, Logan is on the other side, opening the driver’s door and slipping in. He turns the key in the ignition, and quickly makes his way out of the parking lot and onto the road. 

His hand moves across the center console and finds your bare thigh—exactly where you wanted him to be on the way here. His thumb brushes gentle circles into your skin. Something about it is possessive, like he needs to touch you, needs to know that you’re not going anywhere. His foot is practically through the floor as he presses down on the gas, racing back to the mansion. 

A few minutes later, Logan is pulling into the garage, his hand giving your thigh one last squeeze before putting the truck in park. And then you’re both tumbling out of the truck and towards the mansion. 

Logan’s hand finds yours, tugging you along and through the door. The mansion is swallowed in darkness save for the few hall lights scattered here and there. 

He suddenly pins you against the wall, his lips capturing yours. “Could fuck you right here,” he whispers. “But I wanna fuck you properly.” He steals another kiss before letting you go and leading you up the stairs towards his bedroom.

Logan twists the doorknob and guides you inside. Moonlight pushes through his curtains, washing his bed in white light. He turns around to face you, grabbing your waist and pushing you against the door. He’s caging you in, towering over you. 

“Logan,” you whisper, his lips crashing down on yours again. He’s all firm and solid against you. He bites your lower lip, his tongue swiping across to soothe the sting. You can feel his erection straining in his jeans, throbbing. He needs you, and you need him too.

“Want you so fucking bad, pretty girl,” Logan says between kisses. His hands slide down to your ass, squeezing gently before hoisting you up in his arms. You wrap your legs around his waist as he carries you across the room. He settles you in the center of the bed and climbs on top of you. He’s straddling you now, grabbing the bottom of his flannel and pulling it up and over his head. He’s wearing one of those beaters that you love so much underneath—tight against his abs. 

Logan lowers himself down over you, balancing on his forearm while his free hand explores your body. He slips under your tank top, his fingernails tracing every inch of your stomach. Your shirt hikes up as he reaches higher. He finally hits the hem of your bra and looks down at you. 

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “You sure you want this, sweetheart?” He asks, his fingers dipping tentatively underneath your bra. 

“Y-yes,” you stutter, arching up into his touch. “More than anything.” 

His hand slips around your back in an instant, unclasping your bra before you fall back down to the mattress. He sits up, knees on either side of your waist, straddling you again. 

He grabs the hem of your shirt and practically tears it from your body, your bra falling away with it, leaving your upper half bare before him. His hands find your tits, grabbing, squeezing, palming them. “So fucking beautiful,” he husks, his thumbs brushing over your nipples. He settles back down over you, resting on his forearm as his free hand continues to glide over your breasts, pinching and pawing. 

“Lo,” you whine, rubbing your thighs together, searching for more friction. “N-need…” You trail off, unable to finish a coherent thought.

“I know, princess,” he soothes, swallowing your whines with a kiss. His lips trail to your jaw, your pulse point, and down to your collarbone. He keeps moving down, pressing a kiss between the valley of your breasts and then to your belly button. He spreads your legs with the palms of his hands and settles between them, his fingers tracing the skin just above the waistband of your shorts. 

You sit up on your elbows, staring down at him. He smiles softly, cocking his head as one of his hands unbuttons your shorts and pulls the zipper down. He’s teasing you, leading you on as he thumbs your clit through the denim. A jolt of pleasure shoots up your spine. You can tell by that smirk, that look on his face, that he’s loving this. 

“Please,” you whimper, and Logan obliges, fingers hooking into the waistband of your shorts and panties, tugging them down your legs and throwing them over his shoulder.

He settles back in between your thighs, his palms splayed on either side. His breath is hot against your cunt. “You gonna keep these pretty legs spread for me?” He huffs, and you nod emphatically. You need him now—you can’t wait any longer.

“Lo,” you whine again. “Please, fuc—”

But you’re cut off as he licks a long stripe through your folds and up to your clit. He does it again, another slow, long stripe. He’s taking you in, consuming you, committing your taste to memory. He smiles against you as one of his hands climbs up your inner thigh. 

“Tastes so fucking good, sweetheart,” he mumbles against you, the bass of his voice rocking through your body. His fingers finally find your folds, your slit, spreading your slick before gently prodding your entrance. “Pretty little pussy,” Logan murmurs, shoving two fingers deep inside you. He takes your clit between his lips, sucking roughly, his teeth grazing the bud. 

You curse under your breath as he laps at you—starving, reckless. His face is buried deep in your cunt, his hair a mess. His fingers pump in and out, deepening with every thrust. His tongue swirls around your clit, drawing hard, fast circles. You’re already getting close. It’s all too much—the feeling of his fingers deep inside you, hitting that sweet spot every time. 

“I-I—” you stutter, throwing your head back as your walls flutter around Logan’s fingers. 

He chuckles against you. “You what, pretty girl?” He pulls your clit into his mouth again, sucking harder this time. “Use your words. Tell me what you need.”

“F-fuck,” you stammer. “Y-you. Just need you.”

“Yeah?” Logan answers. You can feel him smirking between laps. “Just me?” And then he’s adding a third finger, plunging deep inside. He’s dragging against your walls, scissoring inside you. 

“Y-yes,” you answer, arching your back as he pumps in and out, down to the knuckles with every thrust. “Only you.” Logan mutters a curse against your cunt as he buries himself deeper inside. “Need you too,” he hums, his tongue flicking your clit, drawing rough circles around the bud. “Such a good girl,” he praises. “Can feel you getting closer, sweetheart.” As if on command, your walls clench around him, taking him in deeper.

“Feels so good,” you choke. He’s pushing you over the edge, and you can’t hold back anymore. “L-Lo I’m gonna—” “That’s it, pretty girl. I’ve got you,” he coos between harsh laps, his pace unrelenting. “Let go for me.” 

And then you’re coming undone around him, your walls contracting and fluttering. Pleasure washes over you in warm waves like liquid fire. You’re trembling underneath him, his head still buried between your legs. His thumb brushes over your hip comfortingly as his pumps slow and his fingers slip out. His tongue drags through your folds a few more times, savoring you, before he pulls away and looks up at you. 

“You okay?” He asks, his tongue swiping out to lick your juices from his lips as he sits up on his knees. 

You nod, reaching out to him. “Need you, now,” you beckon. Logan smiles, grabbing the hem of his beater and tugging it over his head. He unbuckles his belt, letting it fall to the floor as he works at his button and zipper. His fingers hook into the waistbands of his jeans and boxers, yanking them down his legs. 

His cock springs up to his stomach, and you can’t help but let your jaw drop at the sight. Your breath catches in your throat at the size of him. You always thought he’d be big, but he’s massive. 

“Don’t worry, pretty girl,” he husks, settling between your legs as he lowers down over you. He balances on his forearm as his hand wraps around his erection, guiding his cock to your entrance. “Gonna take care of you,” he whispers, his tip sliding through your folds. “Gonna make you feel good.” 

And then he’s filling you up, bottoming out with one thrust. Your chest is flush with his, his cock unmoving inside you. You’ve never felt so full, so whole. “Fuck,” he murmurs, his forehead pressing to yours. He pulls out and plunges back in, down to the hilt again. “So fucking perfect.” 

His hand lets go of his cock but stays between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit and circling softly. He starts to set a rhythmic, gentle pace, letting you adjust to the sheer size of him. But you know he can’t hold himself back for much longer. You can feel the way his cock twitches and throbs against your walls as he drags himself in and out. 

You rock your hips against his. “Logan,” you moan. “M-more.”

His lips find yours—two puzzle pieces coming together. “You sure, sweetheart?” He asks, his thumb adding more pressure to your clit. 

You nod. “Y-yes,” you stutter. “I can t-take it.”

He curses under his breath, pulling out and slamming back in. He pounds into you, his cock hitting that spot deep inside, where you need him most. “Wanted you this whole time, pretty girl,” Logan grunts, thrusting in and out carelessly, punishingly. “Thought about you all the time, thought about fucking you just like this.” 

“Th-thought about you too, Lo,” you whimper. 

His cock twitches inside you. “Love it when you call me that, sweetheart,” he groans, his hips snapping against yours, thumb flicking your clit. “Say it again.” “Lo,” you pant as he fucks into you. You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him closer, fingers clinging to his biceps. “Logan,” you moan again, his name the only thing on your mind. 

Your walls flutter around him as he pounds into you with reckless abandon. “That feel good, sweetheart? You like when I take what I want?”

“Fuck, Lo, yes,” you whine. You’re growing closer and closer with each snap of his hips, with every swipe of his thumb against your clit. You know you can’t last much longer, not with his lips on yours, not with his praises floating through the air. 

“Doing so good for me, princess,” he whispers, his voice deep and raspy. “Taking me so well. Can feel you squeezing me.”

You contract around him as he sinks inside you, working you open with every thrust. It’s too much. “L-Lo,” you stammer. “I’m s-so…” You trail off, your eyes fluttering open and closed. 

“I know, princess. I’ve got you,” he hums, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. “Wanna feel you come on my cock.” His thumb circles your clit, faster, harder, still splitting you open with every pump. “Know you can come again; know you can take it.”

You shatter underneath him as the words leave his lips, falling apart in his arms. “Logan!” You cry out, your orgasm crashing into you, harder this time. His thumb is still on your clit, his cock pumping in and out with no signs of stopping. He isn’t letting up or letting go. Your nails dig into his biceps, searching for support, purchase, something, anything. 

Logan slams into you, chasing his own orgasm as that tension builds inside you again, liquid heat raging through your body. “Lo,” you whine. “It’s s-so much.” The pressure is so intense it almost burns, but it burns deliciously. It’s thick and hazy, dizzying and uncontrollable. 

“Just a little more, pretty girl,” Logan soothes, his pace faltering, growing sloppier with each pump. “Know you have another in you, know you can take it.” 

He flicks your clit, electricity sparking at the base of your spine. You’re so close again, ready to burst. “C-close,” you stammer. 

“Me too, pretty girl,” Logan grunts, cock twitching against your walls. “Wanna fill you up, wanna stay inside.”

You wrap your arms around his back, keeping his chest pressed to yours. “P-please,” you whimper, clenching down around him uncontrollably. His thumb is still stroking your clit, back and forth, drawing rough, tight circles. 

“Come on, princess. Come on my cock again,” he whispers at the shell of your ear. You listen, his name on your lips as you let go underneath him. You’re melting into the sheets, dissolving into nothingness, into air, as your orgasm courses through you. 

Logan lets go too, filling you up, spilling inside you. “So fucking beautiful like this. Always so beautiful,” he praises, his thrusts slowing as he rides out his orgasm. He pulls out, his thumb stroking your clit a few more times, easing you down from your high. 

He presses a soft kiss to your lips, rolling onto his side and tugging you with him. He wraps his arms around you, pulling you close to his chest. “You have no idea how long I’ve thought about doing that…how long I’ve thought about you,” Logan confesses, his fingers drawing abstract shapes across your lower back. “Wanted you for so long, pretty girl.”

Your chests heave together, breathing in time. You can feel him, still half hard against your thigh. “I thought you saw me as just a friend,” you say, smiling at how quickly things have changed in one night. 

Logan shakes his head, smiling back. “Never saw you as just a friend, princess.” He presses another kiss to your lips, savoring the feeling of you against him. “Should’ve taken you out sooner.” He presses his forehead to yours. “But I would’ve waited…waited forever just for you.”

You can see the adoration in his eyes, the love. And you know he means it. You bury your head into his chest. “I love you, Lo,” you whisper. 

“I love you too, princess. Always have.”

tags: @ilysmdovie12 @prettyseaveins @spiderset @figsnpassionfruits @silversprings-mp3 @movhoney @wittyjasontodd @theasiaabattoir @fanfic-writing-barbie @manipulatour @pedrohoe04

[divine-donna]

all you need is more radaway

save a horse. ride a cowboy. ;)

anyways i really loved the tv show and i love the game. and ghouls are just chef's kiss. or maybe that's because i love monsters. sad that i finished it so quickly. :(

perhaps i can put what i learned in my western class to good use lol

character: cooper howard aka. the ghoul

it's never easy surviving the wasteland. you don't know how you managed to survive for this long. perhaps because you seemed to have been blessed with incredible luck.

and building up endurance, of course.

you felt little to no side effects from the radiation of the food you were eating. which just meant you had a lot of radaway and rad-x stocked up.

to make ends meet, though, you had to start hunting. scavenging and scrapping by wasn't enough. you needed the extra caps.

thus your rivalry with another bounty hunter was born.

"well, well. aren't you far from home, sweetheart?"

you were used to comments about your outfit. a vault suit. yes, you came from one. you had been exiled after your father was revealed to be managing the experiment behind it. the child pays for the sins of the father always.

"you're not the first and you won't be the last." you pull the head off the body as clean as possible.

"now i don't know if you should do that."

"and why not?"

a bullet flies past you and burrows itself into the ground. you finally look up. a cowboy hat. the face of a ghoul. his gun pointing right at you.

but you weren't afraid.

"because he's my target." he pulls out a piece of paper. "and he's mine."

"seems unfair if i did all the work. and you just collect his head and the prize." you pull out the same piece of paper. yours is a little more worn out though. and covered in dried blood.

"that's the way of the wasteland sweetheart."

"if you believe so."

your hands were fast. two bullets lodged into his right left and when he looks up, you're gone.

of course, you learned from the best: western holotapes. you really liked them when you were growing up. claimed to want to be a lone hero.

in some ways, you were. the wasteland was just a new version of the wild west, wasn't it?

"spaghetti? like...the pasta?"

more like spaghetti western. he knew that, of course. but no one in the wasteland knew what a spaghetti western was. they were remnants of a past long gone and one only accessible by holotapes in the vaults.

"that's their name." the person says. "why? you have business with them?"

"perhaps." the ghoul was looking to return a favor.

"don't even try. they're far more formidable than you think."

"we'll see about that."

your rivalry was an exchange of bullets, more often than not. thankfully, you always stocked up on bloodbags and could make a stimpack from your heavy (but useful) travel chemistry kit. you were smart like that.

surprisingly, it became something to look forward. mostly because the ghoul preferred if he tried killing you, so he managed to get you out of a tough situation by killing the other people trying to kill you.

and you returned the favor. there was something satisfying about lodging a bullet into him again.

unfortunately, this left you two stuck on a job once. captured by raiders. you had been knocked out with a drug. and he had collapsed from...something.

"fuck." you mutter, pulling at the ropes binding you. your luck had run out for the day it seems, because your arms were tied to the ghoul's around this godforsaken pole. the metal was also uncomfortably rubbing up against your skin.

"you got a knife or anything sharp?" he looks over at you. it's rare to see him without his cowboy hat. his head was rather smooth.

you chuckle a little.

"something funny?" the ghoul asks.

"nothing. you're just...shaped like an egg."

"very funny."

"let me guess. your answer is no?"

"i don't have a knife up my sleeve, sadly. think they took it."

"shame." the ghoul shimmies something out of his own sleeve. he flicks the blade out and begins sawing at the rope. "watch your fingers."

you keep your fingers tucked in. eventually, the rope on your wrists comes undone and one arm soon after. the rest comes off and you rub your skin. "fuck these guys. always hated raiders."

"well, we both got sold out. we need to find that thing now. or else we'll be dead by sunrise." he tugs on the door of the jail cell and clicks his tongue.

"i don't have sharp objects. but i do have these." you pull out the bobby pin taped on the inside of your sleeve, alongside a mini screwdriver.

the lock wasn't very complicated, so you picked it with ease.

as you both are grabbing your equipment, you hear footsteps up above. light ones and heavier ones. and the sound of a muffled, altered, robotic voice.

the brotherhood of steel was worse than raiders, honestly.

"you go left, i go right. how does that sound?"

"i don't usually like taking orders from my rivals." he reloads his gun. "but for you? sure."

the event left the both of you soaked in the blood of your enemies. on the other hand, you guys left with plenty of loot and an idea of where your target was: dead. at the bottom of a lake.

it was a journey to get there, wherein you learned the details of each other's lives. you didn't think he was paying much attention to your sentences. after all, you came from a vault.

and yet, you saw a hint of sympathy in his eyes.

he seemed less keen on sharing details about his life, aside from his former name. cooper howard.

undeniably, as a fan of westerns, you recognized his names. from the holotapes.

"they had those?" cooper shakes his head, taking sips of water. "no way."

"yes way! it's where i learned to shoot."

"from watching my movies?"

"yes!"

"that is...a pleasant surprise." cooper leans back.

"that also makes you over 200 years old."

"that it does. something wrong with that?"

"no. the wasteland changes people." you maintain your attention to your suit, sewing a tear up. "just...you're looking for something, aren't you? everyone's always looking for something up here."

"are you looking for something?" his voice hardens and he sits up straight.

"i was. and then i found it. and i stopped." you tie the thread to seal the stitch and then tear the thread with your teeth. "i hope you find what you're looking for though."

"well, that's awfully kind of you, sweetheart."

"i have a name, you know."

"what is it?"

"(y/n)."

getting personal in the wasteland was something cooper wasn't adamant about. but the circumstances seems to call for it.

"guess we're even now."

the body of water was daunting. it was murky and dark. you pursed your lips and dumped your bag. "well. guess we have no choice."

cooper looks over at you then quickly turns around when he sees what you're doing: taking off your suit and going down to your underwear. "what are you doing?"

"i'm going to go get that head. that's how we get paid, right? easy three thousand caps. 15 hundred split evenly." you stretch.

"i think you might die."

"i'll be fine. i've done it before." Aquaperson perk.

"i can also swim, you know."

"i'll be fine cooper." you pop a rad-x pill just in case. "be back in a bit."

you dive like a swan, making minimal splash into the water. your form disappears beneath the darkness.

you're gone beneath the water for over an hour. cooper's heart was beating against his rib cage. you should be out by now. it should not be that hard. did something get you? things lurked beneath the murky waters always.

"fuck!"

he drops his equipment and begins stripping down, until he is just in his pants. he would need to dive after you. if you were dead, then so be it. it was fun while it lasted.

suddenly, you emerge. you take in the oxygen of the surface and hold the head up high. "got 'em." you swim over to the shore and walk out of the water.

there was something about how...wet you were that got him feeling hot and bothered.

"something happen down there?"

"couple of mirelurks. no big deal. which reminds me." you set the head on the ground and go back into the water. within minutes, you're pulling out the bodies of the mirelurks you had killed. "dinner."

while cutting the mirelurks open, you observe the way he walks around you. his muscles bulging a little as he cuts a mirelurk open and takes the meat. he was kind of...attractive?

"were you going to come after me?" he stops cutting hearing your question. "in the water, i mean."

"so what if i did?" cooper averts his eyes.

"that's sweet of you. i didn't know you had a soft spot for me."

"i don't."

"sure." you can tell he was lying through his teeth.

dinner was a nice, cozy meal. it was delicious. a nice surprise considering the nature of the wasteland.

cooper notices the way you're looking at him. and he looks at you the same way.

though how does this work exactly?

"do you want to..." you try to find a decent way to say this. fuck is a good term. but it felt a little vulgar in the moment.

cooper already knows what you're asking. "absolutely. if you can handle it." he smirks.

it's so cute when he smirks.

you glance over at your bag, looking at your stash of radaway. you had plenty. plus your stash of rad-x too.

"i absolutely can."

[ilyhaitanii]

both ends || toji f. kong s.

nsfw. pure filth sorry. i had a dream abt this and i needed to write about it // oral (m!receiving) implied overstim (?) penetration, reader is implied to be married to shiu not proofread sawrry

shiu’s not very fond of sharing you. his sweet little fawn, twitching and sobbing underneath his closest friend makes him a tad bit angry. sure, it’s not your fault inherently. shiu did agree to this, but something about watching the two of you fuck like rabbits and shiu’s inability to even whisper in your ear or tuck your hair behind your ear has him feeling a bit desperate.

there’s a obvious difference in the way toji and shiu fuck. neither one is very rough, but the manner in which how they handle you, the filthy words that spew from their lips come out in very different tones. shiu’s is light, playful even especially when he gets a good look at your fucked out face, he grins and chuckles. and toji? oh he’s a whole different breed.

his words are the dirtiest that flith could be. worse than gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. he never says anything inherently degrading, but it’s that sultry, raspy voice of his that just makes even the simplest of words sound downright filthy.

“there ‘ya go, mama. stick your tongue out for me,” toji’s fingers slide against the warm muscle of your mouth, your tongue instantly swirls around his digits. the muffled, muted sounds of your mewls has shiu’s cock throbbing. it’s almost painful how hard the man is.

“atta girl. let’s keep that pretty mouth busy, yeah?” the thin curl of toji’s lips has your pussy fluttering around his thick cock. the scar on his lip makes him ten times more attractive. not to mention the scars that covers his chest and biceps. you try not to ogle too much at his body as you don’t want him to laugh at you again. shiu chimes in,

“push it down more. she’s cuter like that.” the older gentleman stands up, finally having enough. he needs to feel you against him. even if its against the tips of his fingers or the palms of his hands, he needs you. “her throat gets real tight. makes you wanna put other things in here, huh?”

he doesn’t exactly speak to toji. shiu’s eyes are locked onto your hazy eyes. a soft hand comes down to your forehead, wiping any sweat and stray hairs away. toji chuckles, pinching your sides as his fingers delve deeper into your mouth.

“why don’t ‘ya turn her around and shove something in there. would save me fromm having to choke her.” toji’s quick to flip you onto your tummy as you land with a small huff. he pulls your hips flush to his, cock pushing itself back inside your soaked pussy.

“good idea,” shiu mutters, watching as you shakily put your weight into your arms. toji’s quick to pin your arms behind you, pressing your body into a harsh arch. when you whine and struggle against him, shiu’s hands tangles itself into your hair.

“open wide, honey.” he says in a soft voice as his tip leaks pre onto your lips. you open big and wide for your husband, enjoying the heavy feeling of him inside you. behind you, toji wastes no time, nails dug into your skin.

he snaps his hips back and forth, fucking deep into your soaping hole. it’s downright disgusting how thick the white rinf around the base of his cock is. shiu on the other hand is too distracted by how hot and wet your mouth is. your to gue swirling around his shaft, pressing the tip of your tongue against his tip makes shiu go wild.

you can feel the slight brush of his balls against your chin when he tilts your head backwards. shiu’s cock hits the back of your throat, almost making you gag.

“fuck, baby. you’re so tight,” shiu groans, snaping his hips in and out of your mouth.

“you should invite me over more often, shiu.” toji grunts, his thrusts becoming sloppier. he tugs you closer to his hips just as shiu pushes your head down further. you feel like you’re being ripped in half with the way both men want your closer to them. “best fucking pussy i ever had,”

© ilyhaitanii - do not repost, translate, plagiarize

[strawbeerossi]

You Think, Genius?

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid

Description: Being friends with Spencer Reid is an adventure within itself. Movie nights are no exception.

Content/Warnings: Friends type humor, tension, mention of food/food fight, best friends to lovers trope, heavy kissing, very sweet smut (wild because I hardly write that, I feel like lmao).

Word Count: 2.7k

Anon Request: spencer reid x sarcastic funny reader? not mean but like kinda like Chandler from friends humour? with earlish seasons reid (season 3/4)ish cute smut. ADDING TO THE SARCASTIC!READER SHE AND SPENCE HAVE A BESTFRIENDS TO LOVERS ARC 🫶🫶

Navigation || Criminal Minds Masterlist || Request

RIP Matthew Perry, thank you for playing the king of sarcasm and being my inspiration for this. 🩷

“Serial killers and childhood neglect have actually been linked together for years. Some of the most notorious serial killers were abused in some shape or fashion at home. Which makes sense whenever you take into account how easy it is to psychologically break a person and cause them to shut down, children being more receptive than most adults.” Spencer rambled on about some study he had been reading about.

Everyone was mostly tuned out besides you, your left hand holding the travel size cereal box up in clear view, your eyes wide. “That explains why I can’t stop eating this cereal! My mom made my life a living hell and now, all I think about is cereal. Oh god.” You said in a sarcastic tone, causing Derek to chuckle from his desk.

“She’s a cereal killer.” He joked while you both were giggling, making Spencer look between you and Derek, a confused expression on his face.

“She’s not a serial killer. I don’t think she’d be working here if she was one.”

The laughter continued on at your coworker’s obliviousness. “No, Spence,” JJ shook her head as she approached your chair, gently taking the little box before holding it up. “The joke is that she’s eating cereal. Cereal killer.” The blonde explained as you were turning back to Spencer.

“Oh, it’s no joke. I’ve got six bodies in my apartment right now. Just waiting to get home to do away with them.” You continued on, a little snort leaving your lips as you were getting your cereal back.

As you were pushing a handful in your mouth, you watched as Spencer looked at you with his head tilted to the side. “You haven’t killed anyone. I know that for a fact. You’re too nice.” He said while he was tapping his pen against his desk, JJ let out a huff and waved him off before she was walking away from your desk to get to her office.

“Isn’t there such a thing as killing people with kindness? That is my big move. I will be nice to them and boom,” You punched the palm of your hand to appear menacing. “I go in for the kill.”

Spencer was shaking his head with a soft giggle at the mere idea of it, your sarcasm slowly seeping through the cracks in an obvious way where he could see it.

“Right. How foolish of me to not understand it.” He joked softly while looking back down to the page he’d been doodling on. Your humor was new to Spencer, something he wasn’t really used to. You were a very sarcastic person, hardly ever having a conversation without injecting the encounter with your wit and sarcasm. He was still pretty clueless with it, however he felt he was getting better. Especially now that you had him saying his own sarcastic phrases at random times. It was weird for the rest of the team seeing the way you’d slowly brought Spencer out of that little bubble he was used to.

He was always the one who didn’t understand jokes or take sarcasm, appearing confused a good chunk of his career from the jokes and lighthearted banter. Being friends with you was a good way to learn how to understand though, which was why he was so lucky that you were his best friend.

“I was thinking of watching a movie. Do you wanna join me?” You asked, packing up your things as you looked over at Spencer as he raised an eyebrow.

“Tonight?” He asked, making you shake your head.

“No. Next week.” You answered with a deadpan expression while he crinkled his nose.

“You’re.. Being sarcastic..” He began while you rolled your eyes fondly with a smile.

“You think, genius? Come on, are you gonna come over or not?” You asked while putting your bag over your shoulder.

“I don’t see why not. Can we watch that new show that’s airing tonight?” He asked curiously, already following you out of the bullpen. He knew you’d give him a ride rather than sending him to go on the metro and meet you there later.

“Sure. I’ve been interested in it anyway. The new sci-fi one, right?” You asked as you made it to the parking garage with him as you were both in search of your car.

“Yes! It actually looks very interesting because from what I’ve read, they don’t make up their own rules as they go. They are using actual scientific data and evidence.” He gushed while you were clapping your hands together.

“Like learning in school! Oh how I loved school!” You were laughing as he had taken notice of the sarcasm and nudged your arm.

“Seriously. It’s going to be great! You may not think it now but you’ll enjoy it while learning about the real world when it comes to tech and space exploration.”

“We’ll have to see about that Dr. Reid.”

The ride back to your apartment was peaceful, the sounds of some radio station filling the quiet atmosphere of the car as you passed by numerous street signs. The comfortable silence was something you liked, never needing to strike up a conversation to enjoy Spencer’s company. Even if he was just reading while you were on your phone.

Back at your apartment, you’d just gotten the channel you needed pulled up, having about ten minutes until the show was supposed to air. Spencer made sure to tape it back at his own apartment, wanting to go back and watch alone to fully appreciate the show for more than its entertainment quality.

“Do you want me to run to the kitchen and get snacks?”

“You don’t have to run, Reid. You can walk.”

“Ha ha. So funny. Snacks or not?”

You were waving him off with a little laugh, offering a smile. “Yeah, yeah. Please go get some snacks. I think I have a big bag of that buttered popcorn you’re obsessed with.”

Spencer practically skipped to the kitchen upon hearing the news, retrieving one of your mixing bowls from one of your cupboards. After filling it up generously with the snack of choice, he was stopped by the fridge to grab two water bottles. With the two cold beverages under his arm, he was hurrying to the living room.

“I think we are all set.” He beamed with pride while placing the bowl on the table.

“Perfect. You’re right on time. It should start after these commercials.” You informed him while leaning forward to get a handful of popcorn from the bowl. While pushing a piece of popcorn into your mouth, you were only raising an eyebrow when you felt a pair of eyes on you. “What?” You asked, head turning to face Spencer as he quickly put his hands up in self defense.

“Nothing! I just wanted to see if it was good, that's all.”

“Right. I hate to tell you this, it tastes like buttered garbage. I don’t think you should subject yourself to eating it.” You joked, picking up a piece before flicking it in his direction, his eyes widening as he felt the snack hit his cheek.

“That could’ve taken out my eye!”

“Too bad it didn’t. We could get you an eyepatch.”

That was when Spencer took it a step further, getting a small handful of popcorn before throwing it in your direction. He was too busy laughing at your expression that mirrored his shock from earlier, pieces of popcorn in your hair and some on the couch.

“Is it a war that you want?”

“Me? You started it! Call it returned fire.”

That kickstarted a popcorn fight that didn’t seem to let up. Spencer was reaching into the now empty bowl before letting his eyes widen. He had no more ammo yet you had two handfuls. He was done for.

“You can apologize and we can end this.” You warned, your body now propped up on your knees as you had eventually turned to face him on the couch. “Just one ‘I’m sorry’ can end this bloodshed.”

“Never.”

“Suit yourself, Reid.” You were winding back one hand whenever Spencer was moving quickly to grip your wrist. There was some screaming, some laughing, and eventually you were being wrestled down onto the couch.

“Drop it!” Spencer laughed, both of your wrists being pinned down. “You do that and this will be all over.”

“No way.” You laughed, panting as you were being pinned down, some of Spencer’s long hair tickling the skin of your cheeks. You had both been in that position for a few more minutes before things calmed down, leaving you and the man above you to stare at one another and wait to reach a stalemate.

There was a growing tension, your faces only inches apart as he had you trapped between his body and the couch. Those beautiful eyes were looking down at you, almost as if Spencer was using the close proximity to take in every feature on your face. It was enough to make your face flush, cheeks hot from his gaze fixed on you and only you. The sound of the opening credits for the show you were supposed to be watching was playing in the background yet you could only look at each other.

There wasn’t a beat missed as he leaned down, lips against yours in a soft, yet cautious kiss. He felt like he had to play it safe, although the way you were feverishly returning the kiss told him all that he needed to know.

There was a fiery passion as your lips slotted together, almost as if they were made for one another. Your hands were moving to tangle in his hair, legs now wrapped around his waist as you both gave in to your urges that were always bubbling under the surface for however long you’d known the loveable genius.

It felt right, in a way. The way your were wrapped in one another’s embrace while having a moment of passion that you never expected to happen. However you had to admit, this was better than you ever thought.

Spencer was pulling out of the kiss, face flushed as he stared down at you with a shy smile. “It felt right. I’m sorry.” He whispered, only being pleased with the way you responded by pulling him down to connect your lips again, wanting to savor another moment as if he were going to disappear in thin air if you let him get too far.

The kiss had escalated soon enough, both of your clothes in a pile on the floor as you were tangled up on the couch, nothing but underwear separating you from each other. “Are you sure that you want this?” Spencer soon asked, his forehead against yours. Your friendship was always special to him, so naturally, he was worried about preserving those positive memories and the relationship as a whole.

“Definitely sure. I’ve thought about this for years.” For once, you were genuine. There was no hint of sarcasm dripping from your tone. That’s how he knew this was serious. “I’ve always loved you. I know you know that because I tell you all the time but it’s.. It's different than loving your best friend.”

Your confession had Spencer’s cheeks bright red, head nodding slowly to show he was paying attention. “Y-yeah. I love you more than a friend too.” He said slowly while he was bringing his hands down your hips, his fingertips tracing over your hot skin as he was hooking his fingers in the waistband of your panties.

Your hips lifted to assist him tugging your underwear down, your own cheeks hot from being exposed in one of your most intimate areas. It wasn’t like you hadn’t had sex before and you had confidence when you did but this seemed different.

“I need.. Hold on.” Spencer began while pushing himself up a bit, your watching with a raised eyebrow as you propped yourself up on your elbows. He went for his slacks, getting his wallet.

“Are you gonna pay me for this?”

“What?! No! I-I just..” He began, shuffling through the wallet before he was pulling a condom from one of the wallet folds.

“You have a condom? You were planning for this?”

“No! I have.. I asked Derek for one. Obviously not for tonight but I had to be prepared!” He said quickly while tossing his wallet on the table.

You didn’t tease him any farther, instead your eyes gazing over his body as he was shimmying out of his boxers while standing. Just kissing you had his cock semi-hard, his hand wrapping around his shaft to give a few pumps in order to complete the process although it wasn’t too hard with the anticipation of what was to come tonight.

After sliding on the contraception, he was heading over to get settled between your legs. His eyes were glancing over your glistening pussy, your arousal shining in the dim light of the living room. “Wow.” He whispered, hand moving between your thighs as his thumb pressed against your throbbing clit. The pressure alone was enough to make your mouth go slack.

“Fuck.” You breathed while feeling the pad of his thumb start to rub your clit, your arousal coating it with each swipe. He was taking his time with teasing you, at least.

When he was finished with massaging the bundle of nerves and he couldn’t hold back any more, he was grabbing his cock before lining his tip along with your entrance, thick tip breaching your slick cunt as he was slowly pushing into you when you were both ready enough.

There was a pleasurable burn as he was stretching out your inner walls, your hands tightly gripping onto his shoulders as you pulled his body down onto yours just to feel his skin against yours. It was oddly more intimate than you could’ve expected, even with him staying perfectly still with his cock nestled deep inside of you.

There was a soft gasp leaving your lips when he gave a slow thrust, just testing the waters for now as he didn’t wanna go too crazy before you were ready. He didn’t plan on going super hard anyway, that wasn’t who he was. “You alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Keep going.” You urged.

Once you proved comfortable enough due to your persistence, Spencer’s thrusts began to pick up a steady pace and rhythm. Your moans were enough encouragement for him to feel confident enough in the act, not shying away from you as much as anyone would’ve expected.

They rhythmic sound of his skin slapping against yours coupled with your gasps, shaky breaths and moans were filling the living room, the long forgotten show still filling the background noise. Spencer had since embraced you, one arm wrapped under your frame as the other kept himself pushed up over you. He just wanted to feel you close, to hold you as he made love to you.

It was beautiful to him, the way you were holding him and keeping him close in return. It was like you were the only people in the world, no responsibilities other than being close to one another. The warmth of your flushed skin against his was all he needed to be happy.

It was a dream, essentially. A dream so vibrant that Spencer didn’t want it to end, even if he knew that realistically he couldn’t be in a dreamland forever.

As he was torn from his thoughts at the feeling of your hands on his cheeks, he was offering you a smile as you were locking eyes with one another. “I love you.” He said softly, repeating what you’d both confessed earlier while leaning down to press his lips against yours.

It was after the fact whenever you were finally speaking again, body sitting up from the spot you were in on the couch as Spencer had retreated to the kitchen to dispose of the used condom. “Do you wanna come take a shower with me? No funny business.” You put your hands up in defense.

“No. It’s too personal for me to see you naked.” For the first time, Spencer was the one to be sarcastic with you, making you both burst into laughter.

“I’ve taught you well. Come on.”

[e1dritchjackal0pe]

𝔚𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔇𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 ℭ𝔞𝔫𝔫𝔬𝔱 ℜ𝔢𝔞𝔠𝔥

Summary: Your husband has been deeply troubled as of late. In an attempt to guide him from his distress, he brings a concern of his to light that only serves to tip you into your own fears.

Warnings: Nonsexual nudity, AFAB implied w/ usage of "breasts," the title "wife" is used. Angst and some fluff. Small hints of morally gray reader. She's simply in love with her demented husband.

Notes: 5.6k words. Just something short and sweet; I had to write a comfort fic for our favorite, pretty war criminal after the season finale. But I may have just made it worse actually. Not proofread.

It is all teetering into chaos. Suspended along the edge of a great precipice. The depths of which you cannot spy the bottom of. The worry, the agitation looms heavily over the castle. Over the entirety of King's Landing. Buzzing and constant like the bothersome scattering of flies. And where there are flies, death is near. You see the dread in their eyes. The fearful whispers that are passed between the bowed heads of the servants as they work; the horrified, faithless gossip casted about by the socialites and bureaucrats as they traversed the halls in secretive conversations that are much louder than they believe. 

The tensions have only been mounted with the news that the Blacks have come into the resources of new dragonriders, the scales are looking as though they are tipping in their favor. It has all strained and on edge. With the order of the city's gates having been closed by Aemond's decree, the smallfolk have been up in arms against the order. Cries of outrage chanting and rising up from the masses in pleas against their Prince Regent. Protests that warn of starvation, proclaiming that he is cruel and uncaring. Not even the assured decimation of Sharp's Point by the scorching breath of Vhagar's fire has done anything to calm the storm brewing. 

The tides are still swelling. Churning and tossing to soon lift from above and collapse down upon all of your heads. The toll of it weighs heavy on all of you like the promise of damnation. Hope is dimming. The support it once offered giving underneath itself, curling in on its own body like a beheaded serpent. But it is the man who bears it all who is in the throes of violently crumbling underneath the burden of this war. 

You see it tearing at him. Pushing down on the once prideful set of his shoulders, pressing down upon the crown of his head so that it no longer sits perfectly high in unwavering confidence. The light of the zealous fire that once blazed within his eye has dimmed. Starved and suffocated; reduced to smoldering flickers light that mean to lash out in his near crazed attempts at preserving what little footing his still has in this war. 

It is almost as though he is dying right before your eyes. The final wild struggle of an animal caught between a set of fangs, claws and teeth lashing in the hopes to wound its bigger opponent. You have never seen him in such a state. The vulnerability that bleeds through the thin cracks in his armor worry you; unlike any sort of raw emotion that he has ever displayed before. It is fear. And it is almost unsettling to see on the face of your fearless husband. 

He is breaking directly before you, and now the only optimism you have of keeping him whole comes from the pressure of your own hands. 

His own mother has turned him away. You see it in the way she stares at him. Observing him as though he is a stranger, a monster wearing the flesh of her child - as though her name is not marked on this war just the same. It makes your skin prickle. Body flushing from heat and contempt as she silently disowns the very man who raises her banner, and fights in the name of his house. No one else will offer him solace as he labors underneath the crushing weight of the kingdom. Not his mother, not his sister, not the advisors in the king's counsel. It pains you to see him breaking. To see him scrambling to orient himself and find a way to victory with hardly an ally to assist him. 

So utterly lost. 

That is how you find when you slip into his apartments in the night. The candleflames flicker about the dim space in drops of amber, serving as your only guide to traverse the room in search of him. His bed and his writing desk are vacant of his presence. The latter cluttered and askew with parchment and documents, quills, vials of ink, and seal stamps strewn about its face. But it is the empty goblet of wine is what concerns you the most. He does partake in spirits quite casually, at supper and often when he evaluates the latest strategies before turning in for bed. You have yet to ever see him lose himself to the influence of the drink. Only indulging as a means to relax himself; a subtle rosy hue to dust his cheeks, but not enough to become untoward or dull-witted by its effects. 

But the circumstances now are so much different. You can only hope that he has not turned to it in the attempt to drink himself into a stupor or allowed himself to become sloppy from the sway of the spirit. 

"Aemond?" It is both a question and a call as your vision darts about the space, flickering back over to his bed to see if you might spot the impression of a body tucked underneath the drape of its blankets but they are flat and perfectly lain along the mattress. "My love, are you here?" 

It remains deathly silent. The only bit of noise belonging to the low whisper of the flames softly darting about their wicks in the draft that drags along the room; the delicate billow of the breeze drifting through the columns of the open windows, gliding into to the room from the guide of the wind that calls outside. Most of it sneaking in through the open threshold that conducts to the balcony. 

A low breath puffs from your chest. Hardly a sigh, but it dares you to feel relief as you step towards the entry way to near the stone platform the projects from the side of the castle. You notice the stars first. The bright, cosmic glimmer of them as they hang from their place within the silky black cradle of the darkened heavens. The faint lights of the city below nearly blending with the night sky, though the oily sheen of the lantern fires can hardly compete with the star dust above. 

In your observations, it does not take you long to spy the form of the prince, standing along the banister as he stares down at the city, bare hands gripping onto the rough barrier. You can see how tightly he clutches onto it from the tension in his fingers, stretched and taut along it so tightly that you fear the stone may crumble and break beneath his palms. Relief floods you at the sight of him, though it is quickly dulled and banished by the worry that replaces it. Snuffed by the rigid way he holds himself, as though he is only moments from snapping and giving in on the pressures of his own mind and collapsing upon the stone floor beneath his feet. 

He becomes hard on himself in times like these. No matter how indifferent he tries to project himself, the opinions and thoughts of others often swarm over him like a cloud of angered hornets, and it can be a trouble for him to shake. It is never easy to guide him out of his thoughts. You know that he is aware of your presence, but he has been caught too tightly within the chaos trapped within his mind to respond. The deluge of emotions that he often refuses to outwardly show too great. And knowing him, he has willingly turned himself in to the anger and the bitter spite that wars within him, finding solace in its familiarity. He is too stubborn for his own good, but that will never be enough to keep you from trying draw him out of it. 

Your feet seem to cross the stretch of the floor that separates you, silently carrying you to him with the soft patter of their soles along the chilled stone. He does not give you any indication that he is aware of your approach. Not the tilt of his head or a single murmured word in greeting, but he does not startle when your hands lift to sweep up his back. The leather of his doublet is tepid with the slight cold in the air and the warmth radiating from his body, smooth and buttery underneath your palms as they sweep around his torso to press him against you in an embrace. You let your cheek to rest along the flat of his shoulder, the silky strands of his hair tickling your skin; your lungs pulling in the subtle spice and musk of his scent. 

"You should come to your bed; it is getting late." You suggest, allowing your fingertips to toy with the metal clasps on the front of his garment, tracing the engravings in their shape. You nearly expect to get no response from him. For him to continue to wallow and torture himself alone in his silence. But then you feel it almost more than you hear it, thrumming along your hands from the depths of his chest as his voice rises out in a hum. The only verification that he has acknowledged your words. 

It is better than silence. A response from Aemond is better than naught in these circumstances. It gives you some hope that you may be able to usher him from the fog of his oppressions. 

"Come," you urge softly. "You have fretted yourself enough." 

"Have I?" It comes from him in that serene tone of his but the bite at the edge of it is more than apparent. You know that it is not aimed at you. Not directly, at least. In his mind, and on the battlefield, he has been backed into a corner, and like an animal it causes him to lash out and bare his teeth, even at things that are familiar. "That seems to be everyone's judgement as of late. I suppose I should listen then, hmm? Roll over and brandish my belly for Rhaenyra's dragonriders to feast upon. Would that satisfy you then?" 

"It would not, and you know that." Your voice comes out much firmer than intended, though you do not feel guilt over it. For someone so logical, Aemond is often swept over by his emotions and the voice of reason is easily drowned out. "Look at me, please." 

He makes no attempt shift from his stance, continuing to stare out along the horizon. Watching the city in its slumber, and you have to wonder if he is imagining it in a state of ruin. Preparing for the worst already. Bracing for the destruction that has yet to come. Picturing the roofs and spires lit aflame in a blaze so great that it would turn the night into day, smoke twisting up to the heavens to brush against the stars. 

You loosen your grip around him, giving yourself enough separation just to stand along his shoulder so that you are able to look upon his face. He refuses to meet you vision with his own. The pale glint of his eye now dark underneath the cover of the night as he peers ahead. But already you are able to spot so many different emotions reflecting within it. A confused storm: anger, bewilderment, sorrow, loss. You know that he must feel as though he is drowning. Caught and strung along by his responsibilities. Pulled between the pressures of his duties and the rejection casted by his mother. So many conflicting obligations with no way to properly juggle them. You know that you have no true way of guiding him through the blood and fire of this war. Of the strategies that it requires. But you can hope to be some kind of support. A beacon breaking through the thick wall of an oncoming tempest. 

You lift a hand up to his face, sweeping your fingers past the shape of his jaw to cradle his cheek, feeling the texture of the scar underneath your palm. You are gentle in your direction when you guide him to look at you, and despite his earlier remark, he allows you shift his head to you willingly. Leaning into the weight of your hand as his eye darts to meet yours. The confusion and torment burn inside the pale hue of it, glinting far brighter than the traces of light reflecting along the angles carved into his jeweled eye.  

You are nearly surprised that he has not removed the sapphire yet. You know that it often ails him. When the precious stone absorbs the chill around it, or the dull edges catch along the sensitive flesh of its cradle. Rattling about his socket and causing the tender tissue within to ache and swell with irritation. Another punishment for himself it seems. Intent to burry down inside his own suffering. 

"You must stop this insistence on driving yourself towards your own destruction. You will find no answers by forcing yourself awake at night, ruminating over the criticisms of your mother. Of the council."

Something venomous passes through his expression, but it is quickly traded out by what looks to be exhaustion and a diluted sense of irritation. A subtle furrow pinched between his brows; lips lightly pursed.  "What would you have me to? Laze about all day on my bed. Stuffing my gullet with wine as my brother would while our enemies close in around us?" 

"No." You reply promptly, allowing your hand to drop from its place, running your thumb along his cheek in a final caress as it falls to your side. You do not miss the way that his head nearly bends to follow its wake. "I would have you rest. An eased mind is a sharp one. " 

"Rest." He echos in a murmur, allowing the word to roll off his tongue as though it is a foreign one. "Rest is not something that I am afforded. Each moment of "rest" is another second allotted for our enemies to draw closer."  

You understand his reasoning. His anxieties are not unfounded. But that does not make them any less frustrating. His intellect, the determination that fuels him and wit of his tongue have always been some of his most endearing qualities to you. It drew you towards him like a siren song. But all of those traits are currently making you feel as though you could bludgeon your head against a thick wall. You fear that he will collapse underneath their breadth.

"They will draw near regardless of your slumber or not. " That stubborn expression on his face remains undeterred. Still fully unconvinced it seems. Or perhaps he seems to be resisting against your wishes because he is merely in search of some sort of victory, no matter how measly in spirit it is. And as much as you would like to indulge your husband in his efforts in feeling vindicated, this is not a battle you can allow him to win. Not for his sake. "If you will not do it for yourself then do it for me. Comfort your wife. That is too apart of your duties is it not?" 

You notice his nostrils flare, his chest rising suddenly as he draws in a deep breath. Likely to ground his own irritation. His eye shimmers lowly in the dim cast of the candlelight projecting from the confines of his room, spilling out past the threshold to dance along the dark blue of the sapphire. Like sunlight scattered about the shifting face of an ocean. He is angry. That much is and has been apparent. Left astray to dangle and thrash along the fraying support of a rope. You only wished that he would allow you to catch him instead of treating you like the ones who have tied him to the line. 

But you notice something waver in him then. The breaking of a dam. The thawing of ice. The vulnerability displayed could destroy you if you allowed it. To cause you to fall apart underneath the sheer sense of raw loss and uncertainty. He is so troubled. So lost. Forced to display a facade of unwavering poise and resolve no matter the dangers that prevail ahead. Constantly trailing after the role that he was not allowed to fulfil despite being better suited and now left to stand alone as the support of his own house falters. Superior enough to be wielded as a trump piece in combat, in council, but not benefitting enough to bear the title of king in the eyes of the advisory and his family. An injustice you can hardly stomach yourself. 

"Come," you urge once again. You voice much lighter than before, softened by the distress in his gaze. There is still a hesitance in him. The reluctance to relinquish what little control he still has over himself, but that control seems to snap when your hand closes over his, fingers threading to join them. It only takes a slight tug for him to follow. The fight in him absolving to trail after you, allowing you to guide him back into his chambers and away from the open, chilled air of the night. 

The atmosphere within the safety of the apartment walls is much warmer. Almost balmy along you skin, perfumed with the scent of wax and ink. Another reminder of the documents and worries that he tirelessly toils over. The bloodshed and the possibility of dragonfire. But you push it all to the recesses of your mind. Burying it all deep in favor of escorting him to the side of his bed. It is only then that you allow your hand to remove from his, and you mourn the loss of his warmth against your palm. 

"Remove your clothes," you order gently. You notice just the faintest hint of amusement nudging at the corner of his mouth. The possibility of a smile, though it does not fully come. You can still see the traces of his mirth. Of lust as well. Even while he does not properly convey it, you allow your delight to grace upon your expression. Your lips lifting upward as you shake your head to admonish him delicately. "Not tonight." 

He makes no complaints as he begins to unfix the clasps of his doublet. Unhooking the fine metal rungs with lithe fingers to shed the garments, uncaring as it lands along the floor. He is just as nonchalant about the rest. Shedding and discarding his undershirt and his breeches just as quickly after tugging of his boots. Baring his nude form to you. It is a state that you have seen him many times before, but still, you are unable to keep yourself from tracing the agile shape of his body. Admiring the swell of strength in his arms, the defined cut of muscle along his torso, the flaccid condition of his cock hanging between his thighs. 

The spike of heat that rushes throughout your being is tempting, but currently unwelcome. On any other night you would have basked in it. Pursued after the warmth and hedonism, but this is not one of those nights. When you manage to will yourself to meet his eye, you are forced to notice the smirk that lifts at the curled edges of his mouth. Satisfied and preening underneath your salacious attentions. 

"Not tonight, ābrazȳrys?" His inquiry is teasing and arrogant. And finally, for the first time since you have sought him out you see the man that lies beyond the pain and distress. The man that strides about the kingdom with his head lifted high. A head deserving the weight of a crown. 

"Not tonight, my love. " You answer, both a playful jab and a truth as you pluck at the neckline of your shift to allow it to join his clothes along the chilled stone beneath your feet. He only offers a velveteen hum in response as his eye sweeps over you. Just as gluttonous as yours had been as you move to climb astride the bedding, making sure to toss the blankets aside before shuffling to rest the flat of your back along the cushion of his pillows and the embellished headboard behind them. You sit, unfaltering underneath his focus. If anything, the crude nature of his observations only emboldens you. Even past the reasonings of lust. He views you as though you were crafted just for him. Sewn together by the gods and animated by stardust and earth to be worshipped and praised by his sight and hand. 

You like to believe that he was born for the same purpose. A god amongst men built by fire, wind and blood. Designed to be revered by your voice and mouth. He is beautiful beyond compare. Fierce in his loyalty and cunning. Unrelenting in his determination and ferocity. Like a deity of war. 

He does not wait for a cue as he follows after you, climbing along the bed and into your waiting arms to lie himself within the cradle of your hips, draping the length of his body along yours as he settles his head against the cushion of your stomach. He allows himself to go pliant against you. Indulging in your warmth just as you do with him. The heat radiating from him making you turn lax. The both of you melding to each other. You observe him at his place tucked into you. Admiring the pale fan of his lashes resting against the sharp contour of his cheekbones, the proud rise of his nose. He is gorgeous like this. As though he had been sculpted from a fine marble. The statue of a great god - a king - come to life. 

You glide you fingers through the silken, silvered strands of his hair. Combing your nails along his scalp and you are all but rewarded by the way that he seems to melt even more, the tension leaving his body. Going slack and supple; his nose daring to nuzzle along at your breasts as he attempts to burrow himself closer like he wants to bathe in your warmth. That stubborn furrow is still hitched between his brows. Immediately letting you know that his troubles have yet to be fully evicted from him. His mind is no doubt just as frenzied as before even though his body relents to the comfort of his bed and the weight of you. 

"You truly do stress yourself too much," you murmur. Your fingertips skirt downward, tracing along the nape of his neck, sweeping your thumbs along the sensitive skin at the edge of his scalp. A shudder trembles softly down his spine. "It does not suit such a pretty face." 

His lips twitches again, though that furrow comes back with a vengeance. His brows cinching close in the guise of annoyance, and if it were not the fleeting appearance of that brief smile then you would have truly believed him to be angry. "I have no ear for listening to your jests, lady wife. " 

"Not a jest," you promise playfully. "I wouldn't dare. " 

Another low, rumbling hum rises up from his chest in the semblance of a response. His chin tilts back just the slightest, baring his throat to you. Offering it to you as you move your hands downward to cradle the sides of his face, fingertips gliding along the edge of his jaw. The contented noise he makes nearly reminds you of the purrs that leave Vhagar as she lounges along the forest floor. The pleased growl of a dragon. A tranquil silence drifts along the room, as though it is brought in by the tepid breeze that glides in through the threshold of the balcony. It is calm. Peaceful for once. It feels as though it has been years since an hour without fear or dread has haunted you. And finally, it is simply you and your husband. Free to relax and just simply exist. To lounge within the warmth of each other as though you were lying under the sun. Untouched by war and bloodshed. 

You continue to massage your fingers along the shape of his skull, combing them through his hair and lightly scratching your nails along the sensitive skin almost absentmindedly as you allow your own head to rest against the board of the bed. The lull of sleep is already calling. Inviting and comforting in its beckon as the influence of it threatens to take ahold of you, but a part of you resists. Insistent on enjoying the dulcet pleasure of this moment. Intent to stretch it out for as long as possible before it slips away from you and the both of you must return to your duties. To the horrors of the world. It is here that you are safe. He is safe. 

"We should make contingencies in the event of my death." 

The quiet sound of his voice, the words abruptly registering in your mind feel as though they gut you once they are fully understood. Just the prospect of it has your heart skipping, fluttering wildly within your chest and your hands are forced to pause; smooth tresses caught between your fingers. Your eyes snap open as you head bows to look down upon him from his place against your torso. He is already watching you, the sapphire gleaming sharply in the firelight but the pale hue of his eye is soft despite the sobriety of his words. You see clearly without asking that this is not some sort of twisted attempt at morbid, tactless humor. He is well and truly serious. A dull wave of nausea wells up in the pit of your stomach as you watch him. 

"What has brought this about?" You ask sharply. There is a raised edge in your tone. Defensive and unsettled, but your vulnerability is also apparent. Easily heard with the way that your breath snags in your throat. 

"It is only an honest concern. " He answers, but it is clipped. A bear explanation and it gives way that he is dodging the question. Offering scrap to appease you. "One that I should have prepared for long ago, when this war was little more than a whisper on a gossips lip." 

"I won't hear of it." 

"You are my wife," he insists. But with each utterance it only drives a slash of phantom pains into the depth of your heart. You swear that you can hardly manage to pull in a single lungful of air. "That does not shield you but make you a target. And we cannot expect to win this battle with Vhagar alone. If I were to be slain, they may very well come for you. A trophy of this conflict-"  

"Aemond, that is enough." It comes out as a warning. Or perhaps a plea. It is so difficult to know. It is impossible to tell when you feel as though you are breaking in half even while he rests safely inside your embrace, confronting you with the single thing that you have always feared. The single terror that gnaws and bites and lashes at your heart and spirit every time that he sits astride Vhagar and lifts into the air for battle. The horror that he may never come back. It had eaten at you when he had snuck off to Rook's Rest without your knowledge, only to return hours later smelling pungent of dragonfire and the acrid sting of smoke. 

His lip's part, a rebuttal no doubt on the tip of his tongue, but it is quickly snuffed out by the desperate plea of your voice. A final beg of mercy.  

"You are my love, Aemond. Without you I cannot live." You nearly hate the sound of the raw emotion that pitches from your chest, but you are unable to control it. The intensity of it far too great. Welling up within you until it seems as though you may drown in your own trepidations. That your lungs will be squeezed in its grip until you suffocate on your own anguish. Your fingers thread around his hair, seeking out the warmth that lies underneath as though your mind requires confirmation that he is still here with you. Safe in your bed. "You are not allowed to die. Promise me, Aemond. Promise that you will return to me."

His eye skirts along your face, as though committing your features to memory. You can tell exactly where his vision lands from the weight of the concentration in his gaze as he studies the structure of your lips, the sweep of your cheekbones, the shade of your eyes. It is awful how much it feels as he is staring at you as though it will be his last. 

"Please," you whisper once more. 

A plethora of emotions flicker along his countenance. Time seems to be frozen when he lifts himself from your grasp. Your hands leave him reluctantly, clutching onto the sheets alongside you to stave off the urge to reach for him. But you are stopped when he rises to nudge his head to your own to meet your eyes. It gives you no other options but to meet his eye. To face the intensity and adoration that burns within it. The flecks of violet and azure seeming to blaze with his fervency. 

"I promise, ñuha dōna ābrazȳrys, I will return to you. Be it a thousand years in this life or the next, no man nor god will keep us apart." 

A sob could have torn itself from your throat had you not a better grip on yourself. Though you do not have enough control to manage in articulating a response. You can only nod, lifting your hands once again to grip at the junction of his neck and shoulders. Needing to feel the warmth of his flesh underneath your palms. His lips are soft as they press against yours. Simultaneously gentle and hungry as they coax yours into a kiss. It is languid. Unhurried but no less passionate. 

It is like a balm on the tearing placed upon your soul. Soothing and mild. You sigh into his mouth, drawing each other's air inside of your lungs in between the starved presses of your mouths. Holding scraps of the other within the pocket of your chests. But just as quickly as it had begun, he pulls away from you. Though he hardly gives you time to voice your complaints or to mourn as he guides you both to settle along the bedding. Mapping out your face with the fleeting brush of his lips, scattering them along your face until you both lay side by side to gaze upon each other. 

You cannot bear to look away from him now. The mere idea of it sounds akin to death. You are not sure how long you remain in that state. Simply beholding each other. Counting the breaths that he takes, how they puff across your face in warm brushes along your nose and cheeks. The candlelight has lightened his hair with glows of burning amber, as though molten gold has been spilled upon the pale strands; highlighting the contours of his body. Like a deity of light. Of fire.  

There is a peace in his expression now. And you are not certain if that concerns or alleviates you. The corners of his mouth have perked into a content smile, his eye unblinking in his admiration as though he is at peace. Sweeping over the shape of your breasts and rise of your hips down to the length of your legs. But it is untouched by lust. It is simply observing. Peaceful in his exploration of a body that he has touched many times already. As much as you would like to remain that way, fixed beneath the worship of his stare, you are unable to keep yourself from nudging yourself closer. Too weak to hold yourself back from returning him back into your arms where he is safe. Untouched by the war he wages. Protected from the consequence of dragonfire and sword. 

You rest you nose along the crown of his head, drawing in the scent of spice and wind that clings to his hair in the hopes of calming yourself. Of ripping yourself from the influence of your own worries and escaping the control of sleep that threatens to possess your body despite your terror. You want to focus only on the weight of him. The heat of his skin. The steady rise and fall of his breath. The press of his face tucked beneath your chin. 

"Sleep, ābrazȳrys." His voice thrums against your chest. It seems that even when he is not watching you, you are unable to escape his perceptiveness. That you cannot hide from the from him. He knows you too well; he feels the tension in your muscles, in your silence. Still, despite the urge to fight his tender order and to resist the weight of sleep, it is growing difficult. The urge to slumber is heavy on your eyelids, nudging them to close. And the comfort of his scent in your lungs only goads you closer. "I will be here when you wake." 

It sounds like another promise. And the assurance rings heavy in your ears, giving your mind the permission that it seems to have needed in order to welcome the blanket of rest. But all the while, as you descend into your slumber, you can only give yourself the solace that he is still here. As of now he is safe. Guarded from blood and death under the shield of the night. Drawn into an embrace while you both sleep as pair of lovers. 

[withahappyrefrain]

Just a Game

You and Peter like to play a game. It requires no trivia or plastic pieces. Just two people and feigned innocence.

Warnings: CNC (which has been discussed explicitly) unprotected sex, language, minor breeding kink at the very end

You and Peter like to play a game. 

It's not a board game, though you two enjoy those from time to time. Not a video game, though Peter has expressed interest. 

This game doesn't require any trivia knowledge or plastic pieces. No one has to keep track of points. There isn't a timer. 

All this game requires is a surface and your two bodies. 

Sometimes it was a couch, when you two were in the middle of watching a movie. Other times it could be your kitchen counter, dinner be damned. Rarely, it would be the back of a car, which was your favorite. Peter’s favorite-against a wall- depended on when and where. 

Today the surface was your shared bed. 

It started innocently, like it always does. Peter found you curled up in bed, reading. He hadn’t considered playing today. But then he saw you, wearing only one of his hoodies and those pastel yellow panties that drove him wild. 

It didn’t help that Peter could smell you. Though the cover of your book didn't look out of the ordinary, your arousal revealed the true nature of your reading choice. 

“What’cha reading ladybug?” He asked, curling up to you. 

You put on an innocent smile, keeping the book to your chest, “Oh nothing. Just one of those silly romance books.” 

Peter raised his eyebrows, “Silly? Let me see.” 

Before you could squeak out an objection, Peter snatched the book away, his eyes scanning the page you were on. 

“He pushed her dress up to her hips, revealing her wet core. He dove in, lapping up her arousal like a starved man, his mouth quickly attaching itself to her clit.”

Sometimes you got so caught up in playing your role. Peter had said much dirtier things to you and yet there you were, head in your hands and a warm flush coursing through your body. 

Peter placed the book on your nightstand before bringing your hands away from your face. 

“Oh baby. You’re too sweet to be reading something like that. Why don’t we cuddle instead?”

With his brown puppy dog eyes and sweet smile, he actually sounded genuine. For a moment, you thought he wasn’t inviting you to play. Not when he had his head in your lap, practically purring as your fingernails gently scratched his scalp. 

But then his long, nimble fingers made their way under the blanket, grazing against your bare skin, drawing shapes along your thighs as he made his way up your body.

“Peter.” His name was said in a sweet, sing-song voice, “Thought you wanted to cuddle.”

He sat up, pulling you closer, “I do bug.” Peter's other hand was now underneath your shirt, creeping up to your chest.. 

“Peter,” you could barely breathe, too enthralled with how good his fingers felt kneading your breasts, “This isn’t cuddling.” 

“I know,” He sighed, as if he felt some guilt about what he was doing, “But doesn’t it feel good bug?”

You could only nod, breath hitching up when one of his large hands began to toy with the elastic waistband of your panties. 

The foreplay was fun, but it wasn't the main focus of the game. 

That didn't come until you were underneath him, completely bare and withering as his hard cock slid between your soaked folds. It was a battle, fighting the urge to jerk your hips up, potentially catching him. 

“Peter, w-we shouldn't,” your voice was shaky as you tried to come across as worried rather than in a pleasure laced haze.

“I know. We shouldn’t.” He's panting. Peter's lips ghosted over your bare skin, leaving a trail of open mouthed kisses. 

In this game, your birth control and five year relationship didn't exist. 

No. In this game you were wide-eyed and innocent. In this game, both your heads were clouded with lust, longing threatening to overtake common sense. 

“Maybe,” His voice is soft, addictive. “Maybe I-we-just the tip?” 

You throw your head back when the head of his cock makes contact with your clit. Desire racked through your body, fingers creating crescent shaped marks along his back as you searched for something, anything to ground you amidst the pleasure haze that was clouding your judgment. 

Part of you wanted to break character so he would fuck you sooner. 

But where was the fun in that?

“But we-fuck- we don’t have a condom?” A box of condoms was currently stashed away in your nightstand. You had been on birth control for years. There was no concern.

Again, not in this game. 

With your wide, doe-like eyes, sweet voice, and withering body, Peter was truly surprised he hadn’t come already. 

But where was the fun in that? That didn’t allow him to play, to take off the friendly neighborhood hero mask and act out his deepest desires. 

His head dropped down to your chest, his thin pink lips quickly latching on to one of your breasts. Your back arched in pleasure, hands grabbing Peter’s soft chestnut locks upon feeling the scrape of his teeth. His hips continue to thrust forward, reminding you of what was within reach. 

“I know, forgot to bring some. It would just-just be the tip,” He sounds like he just ran a marathon. You’re so warm and wet. Everytime the plush head of his cock nudges against your clit, he can feel your walls clenching, trying to catch him, enticing him in. 

“Peter,” the way you moan his name is sweeter than any song he’s heard, “We-no. Peter, don’t.”

He’s already grabbed the backs of your thighs, hitching them up to your chest. Now he has the picture view of his cock sliding through your slicked folds. You have the prettiest cunt Peter’s ever seen and God, does he want to use it.

Your hips twitch as he nudges his cock towards your all too welcoming entrance, entranced by how your walls eagerly suck him in. Eyes roll to the back of your head upon feeling the head of his cock begin to stretch you, nearly forgetting your role in all this. 

“W-wait!” You try to prop yourself up, try to jerk your hips away. 

But Peter is stronger. It drives you crazy, his strength. His hands grasp your shoulders, pushing you back down onto the mattress. 

“It’s okay bug. Just the tip, remember?” The ambered irises are blown out with lust. Combined with the downright wicked smirk adorning his handsome face, he looks more devilish than heroic. 

It thrills you. No one else sees this side of him, only you. Only you does he feel comfortable enough to indulge in these desires. 

For a few moments, it's only the tip, sliding in and out of your tight walls. 

Sometimes he’ll dive right in, other times he'll drag it out, as if Peter is truly at war with his morals when it comes to your sweet cunt. 

“Just….just the tip,” he whispers, as though he’s trying to convince himself, trying to convince you. 

The outcome is clear, but you still nod your head. “Just the tip,” you agree. 

“So…fucking tight,” He watches where you two connect in awe, lips parted, “So warm. God…feel fuckin’ incredible.” 

The praise leaves goosebumps on your skin, almost distracting enough to not notice that Peter has been slowly pushing his cock in more and more with each passing moment. Your body betrays you, hips jerking upwards in a desperate, near pathetic attempt to get more of his cock. 

Sometimes the game is hard to keep up with. There have been times where you both forfeit, craving each other far too much to continue. 

If Peter noticed you breaking character, he didn’t acknowledge it. He’s too mesmerized by the way your cunt eagerly welcomes him. 

“Fuck, baby, m’sorry, it’s-you feel s’good.” His speech is slurred, drunk off your body. Before you can react, he thrusts forward, filling you to the brim. 

Finally. 

“Pete-no! We can’t!” You plead, despite your body enthusiastically welcoming the intrusion, “You said-ah! You said the-the tip!”

His cock twitches at your words, at the feigned concern in your voice. His lips ghost over your face, hips increasing the speed of their thrusts. 

“I know, I know,” it’s almost convincing, that he truly feels bad for this, for giving in to lust. As if neither of you wanted it. 

He picks up his pace, shushing your fake protests. His cock feels incredible, so full. No matter how much prep beforehand, the sheer size of Peter is still an adjustment. 

“You'll- you’ll pull out, right?” You gasp, eyes meeting his. 

“‘Course bug,” He chuckles. 

He won't. But it's the false promises that keep you going.

“As-ah- as long as you pull out, it's okay, right?” You're committed to the role of the naive girlfriend, Peter will give you that. The concern in your eyes is incredibly convincing. 

Sometimes he's so caught up in the euphoria of you that he forgets to play along. All he has to do is look you in the eyes to remember his role. 

“Yeah, it's okay. God, feels incredible. Your pussy.” He hitched your legs further up until they were nearly resting on his shoulders. The change in angle allowed him to thrust deeper, reaching the spot that made you see stars. 

Bliss quickly overcame you, causing you to focus less on the game and more on the coil that was currently winding up in the pit of your stomach, threatening to snap at any moment. 

“God, you're clenching me. Can barely pull out.” His pressed his lips against yours, capturing them in a messy kiss. 

You shake your head, “Y-you should. Peter!”

But Peter continues, relishing in how tight you're gripping him. It's addictive. 

“Everytime I try to pull out, your little cunt sucks me back in. Think she wants me to stay.” His words elicit a downright desperate whimper from you. 

“How’s this? I'll stay ‘till ya cum.” His composure was incredible, his voice so soft you almost believed him. 

Almost. 

Weakly, you nodded as Peter’s perfidious promise promptly pershing into the periphery of your mind. Who could express you to focus, when his nimble fingers were toying with your clit? 

Your pleas to stop fade away, occasionally a feeble no falling from your lips. His massive hands were all over you, kneading at your soft skin, sure to leave bruises. 

It's one of the best things to Peter, waking up and admiring the work he did on your body from the night before. 

But for now, he could enjoy another favorite-you. It was cute, nearly adorable how your legs shook, your hips jerking upwards, desperate to get more despite already being full of him. The pathetic whimpers that fell from your lips, unable to form anything coherent. With each thrust, your breasts bounced against your chest. 

It was picturesque. Peter wished he could grab his camera to immortalize this moment, but that would break the illusion. 

So instead, his fingers skim your soft skin, tracing over your plush curves, downward until he reaches his desired location. 

After all, he promised he'd pull out once you cum. So why not help? 

His fingers on your clit felt like lightning, sending a crack of electricity up your spine. It's euphoric, you can't even bother to play along, hands gripping the strands of his hair tightly as the bedroom is quickly filled with your moans. 

When you finally get pushed over the pleasurable edge, it’s loud. There are no whines or pleads for Peter to pull out. Only raucous moans that fill the bedroom, combining with the erotic sound of his skin slapping against yours. 

“Shit, feel s’good. S’fuckin tight,” He pants, “Babe-baby. You feel s’good. Don’t know if I can pull out.”

His words jolt you out of the lavender haze, reminding you of the part you were still playing. 

“N-No. You can’t!” 

Peter nods his head, though he’s not agree with you, “M’sorry,feel s’good.”

You try to sit up, to put up a fight. But just as you do, you’re pushed back down, your hands above your head, enclasped with Peter’s. His body covers you like a warm weighted blanket, the kind where it’s so soft and deceptively confining, you can’t get up even if you wanted to. The spicy scent of cinnamon that always lingers on his body floods your nostrils, his mouth swallowing your pleas to stop as his hips erratically slam into yours. 

It was blissful. You were enraptured by Peter, by his body, roleplay be damned. Your legs wrapped themselves around his lithe waist, pulling him closer. 

Peter reaching his own high triggers yours again, walls clamping tightly down on his cock as he floods you with his warm. 

“Baby, m’s’sorry, feels too good,” it's then you register he's still rutting his hips against yours. 

Well this is a new move. Usually the game ended at this point. 

The chance to prolong, to try something new was thrilling. 

So you shook your head. “Peter!” Your moan contained more desire than it did distress, “N-no, you need-oh- pull out!” 

But Peter just grunts. It's so animalistic, your thighs clench at the sound. His refractory period was much shorter than anyone else you had been with, no doubt thanks to a radioactive spider bite. 

Now sensitivity is surging through your body, pain and pleasure mixing together. He's hitting the spot that makes you see stars, the spot you didn't think existed until you met Peter. 

It's getting harder to stay in character. But as long as Peter is trying, so will you. 

“Y-you promised you'd pull out!” 

“I know,” he groans in your ear, “Shouldn't have such a fucking tight cunt then. Don't know how ya expect me to pull out.” 

His teeth sink down into your throat, earning a sharp gasp. 

“God, your cunt,” the scruff of his beard scratches against your skin, “Think you want me to cum in ya again.” 

You shook your head, “No! Please!” Fingers claw at his strong back to no avail. He continues with his harsh thrusts, paying no attention to how your mixed arousal was leaking onto the sheets. 

“No- stop!” But that wasn't your safe word. 

He could tell you were already close, your moans increasing in pitch, how your walls were clinging to his cock. 

You just needed a little help getting there. 

“Gonna cum in ya again. It might just take this time. Is that what you want? For me to fuck a baby in ya?” 

The illusion of your feigned innocence shatters, his words igniting a flame in you that can't be fanned out. 

You're now wailing, nodding enthusiastically at Peter's words. Fingers which were once clawing at him now grip his shoulders. Instead of jerking away, your hips move upwards. 

“Y-yes! Want it to take s’bad! Please fill me up!” 

Your voice was nearly unrecognizable; whiny and desperate. It only spurs him on, his cock thrusting into you at a near bruising pace. 

Peter's next high is with your’s, hips stuttering as he fills you once more. He knows he could go again, but everyone needs a break, an intermission before the next act. 

The next few moments, you two are speechless. The only audible sounds are that of heavy breathing and the overhead ceiling fan.

“Well, that was fun,” you chuckled, running your fingers absentmindedly through his hair. 

Peter finally made eye contact with you. His eyes are dark, almost black with lust. The grin on his face is downright wolfish. 

“Oh sweetheart, I'm far from done with you.” 

You were in for a long night. 

[doufudanshi]

朝暮 / Dawn ‘til Dusk

Translation of the MDZS Pinsin exclusive extra. Finished like 80% of this in one sitting almost 2 years ago and finally decided it's been gathering dust in my gdrive for long enough. Enjoy!

Feel free to let me know if you see any errors. Screenshots okay with credit. Do not repost.

Rating: E, nsfw 🔞

—————

Haishi had passed a while ago, yet he still hadn’t returned.

The paper lantern on the table hadn’t gone out yet, and Lan Wangji stared at its hazy light, unblinking. 

After a while, he rose and walked to the entrance of the Room of Tranquility, opening the wooden door. 

He stood there for a bit. He seemed just about to step over the threshold when a strange thump came from behind him. 

Lan Wangji spun around, only catching sight of the window, which had opened at some point. Its frame swayed slightly in the night breeze. A large, odd lump rose from beneath the thin blanket on the bed, as if something had broken in, rolled inside, and was now curled up underneath, quivering with a faint rustle.

He stayed silent for a moment, then gently closed the door and went back into the room. Blowing out the candle along the way, Lan Wangji shut the window and got into bed. 

He laid down beside that huge lump, silently pulled another blanket over himself, and closed his eyes. 

Not long after, something big and ice-cold burrowed under his covers. 

It squirmed and wriggled its way on top of him, plastered itself onto his chest, then cheerfully chirped, “Lan Zhan! I’m back~! Quick, give me a warm welcome.”

Lan Wangji wrapped his arms around him. “Why are you so cold?”

“I was in the wind all day. Let me warm up,” Wei Wuxian said.

No wonder he was covered in bits of grass and dirt. He must have taken the juniors of the Hidden Cloud Depths to terrorize the wild fauna and wicked beasts up in the mountains again. 

Wei Wuxian had rolled into his bed and burrowed under his covers while covered in dirt, yet Lan Wangji, neat and tidy by nature, didn’t flinch in the slightest. In fact, he only silently squeezed him tighter, holding him even closer. 

After warming Wei Wuxian up with his body heat for a while, Lan Wangji said, “Take your shoes off, at least.”

“Okay~” Wei Wuxian replied. He toed off his shoes, then shrunk back into the covers to press his freezing skin against Lan Wangji’s again. 

“Don’t mess around,” Lan Wangji said evenly.

“I’m literally in your bed, and you’re telling me not to mess around?” Wei Wuxian said. 

“Shufu has returned,” Lan Wangji said. 

Lan Qiren’s residence wasn’t far from Lan Wangji’s Room of Tranquility. He didn’t like Wei Wuxian much to begin with, so if he caught wind of any inappropriate activity, he may very well fly into a thunderous rage at Wei Wuxian again the following day. 

And yet, Wei Wuxian stuck a knee between Lan Wangji’s legs, covertly and naughtily pressing against him a couple of times, making his stance quite clear on the matter. 

After a brief silence, Lan Wangji abruptly flipped them around so that Wei Wuxian was underneath him. 

His movements were too big, too forceful, and the two hit the bed with a thud. 

“Slow down, slow down, slow down—slow—down!”

Lan Wangji had pinned Wei Wuxian down onto the bed, penetrating him as easily as splitting bamboo, thrusting all the way inside. Only when his lower abdomen pressed against Wei Wuxian’s bare ass, when he couldn’t possibly go any deeper, did his body still. 

Wei Wuxian took in a couple of shallow breaths, head thrown back. Trying not to make any unnecessary movements, he only looked around and wriggled his hips slightly in discomfort, trying to get him out a bit. However, Lan Wangji realized what he was trying to do, and holding down his waist, promptly slid right back in. 

“Ah!” Wei Wuxian cried out. “Hanguang-jun!”

Lan Wangji bore it patiently for a moment, then said, “You brought this upon yourself.” He paused briefly, then began thrusting, again and again. 

Wei Wuxian was trapped underneath him—toes curled, hair splayed, face flushed, body jostled up and down with Lan Wangji’s movements. With every one of Lan Wangji’s thrusts, Wei Wuxian cried out in response. Though Lan Wangji immersed himself in his efforts for a while, he couldn’t let Wei Wuxian continue on like this. Straining against the breaths threatening to burst out of his chest, he quietly said, “Lower… Lower your voice.”

Wei Wuxian reached up and stroked Lan Wangji’s cheek. This thin skin of Lan Zhan’s is so strange, he thought. His face is clearly scorching hot to the touch, and yet it refuses to turn red, still white as snow. The elegant Lan Zhan will lose himself in his emotions, hardly able to hold himself back, yet only his earlobes will be dusted with the faintest of pink. 

Panting, he said, “Er-gege, you don’t want to hear me cry out?”

Lan Wangji: “……” 

It was too difficult to speak the truth, yet he couldn’t bring himself to lie. Watching this sentiment flit across Lan Wangji’s face filled Wei Wuxian with an indescribable delight—he wanted to just eat him up. 

“Afraid someone will hear me?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Easy. Just Silence me.”

Lan Wangji’s chest heaved, his eyes going slightly bloodshot. “C’mon!” Wei Wuxian taunted. “Cast Silence on me. Then no matter how you fuck me, even if you fuck me senseless, I won’t be able to make a sound—”

Before he could finish, Lan Wangji leaned down and sealed his lips.

After his mouth was stilled into silence, Wei Wuxian’s limbs wound around Lan Wangji. The two of them tumbled around on the bed, tussling together into a heap, blankets already on the ground. 

Generally, Lan Wangji didn’t change positions often when they were intimate. After an hour of being pressed down and thrusted into, Wei Wuxian had gone numb from his lower back all the way down to his ass and thighs. He had a high suspicion that they would stay like this for the rest of the night—and considering Lan Wangji’s current state, without the slightest indication that he planned to stop anytime soon, it really could happen. Thus, Wei Wuxian took the initiative and flipped both of them over. Straddling him and wrapping his arms around his neck, he moved up and down on his own. He bit Lan Wangji’s earlobe and whispered,  “Is it deep?” 

His voice was low beside his ear, breath hot and humid. Lan Wangji held onto his shoulders, then brought him down, hard.

The thrust was incredibly intense. Wei Wuxian cried out in surprise, arms tightening around him. Lan Wangji stroked the small of his back and asked, “Is it deep.”

Wei Wuxian’s lips wobbled, but before he could regain his bearings and respond, his face suddenly scrunched up. “Ah! Wait! P-p-pace yourself!” he cried.

One hand struggled in vain to protect his abdomen, while the fingers of his other hand dug into the firm muscle of Lan Wangji’s shoulder. “Lan Zhan!” he yelled in terror, soul practically flying out of his body. “Do you not understand what pacing yourself means! You—don’t have—to go—so deep—every—every—”

The second half of his perfectly sound sentence was broken by thrusts, hitched and disjointed. Lan Wangji said, “I don’t understand!”

Initially, Wei Wuxian was wailing miserably, willing to say anything to beg for mercy—but after most of the night had passed, after they’d finished going at it twice, Wei Wuxian’s legs stayed locked around Lan Wangji’s waist, refusing to let him go.

Lan Wangji’s body covered Wei Wuxian entirely, and he was careful not to lean his weight onto him. The area where they were pressed against and connected to one another was wet and slick. Lan Wangji seemed like he wanted to get up, but he only got to move a little before Wei Wuxian’s legs tightened around him. The fraction that had just left him slotted seamlessly back in again. 

“Stop moving,” Wei Wuxian said languidly. “There’s a draft. Let’s just lie here for a while.”

Lan Wangji acquiesced and didn’t move. After a while, he asked Wei Wuxian, “It’s not too much?”

“It is,” Wei Wuxian pouted. “You’re filling me up so much I could burst. You weren’t even listening to how pitifully I was crying out earlier.”

“…I’m pulling out,” Lan Wangji said.

Wei Wuxian’s expression immediately changed. “I like it when you fill me up like this,” he said without mincing his words. “It feels good.” 

He clenched down, hard. Lan Wangji’s expression shifted, and for a moment, even his breathing seemed to hitch. After bearing it for some time, he finally hoarsely said, “…Shameless!”

Seeing that he was nearly at his limit, Wei Wuxian laughed and placed a kiss on his lips. “Er-gege,” he said. “What haven’t we done? What’s there to be ashamed of?”

Lan Wangji shook his head a little in defeat. “Let me go,” he said softly. “You should bathe.”

“It’s fine, I’ll just wash up tomorrow,” Wei Wuxian said sleepily, already starting to tire a bit. “I’m exhausted from today.”

Lan Wangji placed a kiss on his forehead. “Bathe. Take care not to fall ill.”

Wei Wuxian was so tired that he couldn’t lock him in place anymore, his limbs finally going soft and letting go. Lan Wangji got off the bed, picking up the blanket that had fallen to the ground and covering Wei Wuxian’s body, tucking him in. Afterwards, he hung the clothes that had been thrown all over the place over the folding screen one by one, and draped his own robes over his shoulders. He dressed swiftly and neatly, and left to draw water for the bath. 

After an incense stick’s time, Wei Wuxian, who had nearly fallen asleep, was picked up and placed into the bath basin. The basin was placed beside Lan Wangji’s writing desk, and after Wei Wuxian submerged himself in the water and waded around a little, he grew energized again. Patting the side of the basin, he said, “Aren’t you going to come in with me, Hanguang-jun!”

“In a moment,” Lan Wangji said. 

“Why in a moment? Just come in now~” Wei Wuxian said. 

Lan Wangji glanced at him, as if he were contemplating something. After a moment, he said, “We returned four days ago, and four of the Room of Tranquility’s bath basins are broken.”

With the look Lan Wangji was giving him, Wei Wuxian felt like he had to defend himself. “It wasn’t my fault last time.”

Lan Wangji placed the honeylocust soapbox where Wei Wuxian could reach it. “It was mine,” he said neutrally. 

Wei Wuxian poured a cup of water down his neck with a splash. It was covered in love bites, and the more he washed, the brighter they glistened. “Exactly,” he said. “Last last time wasn’t my fault either. To be honest, you’re technically the one who breaks them every time. This bad habit of yours hasn’t changed since the first time you did it.”

Lan Wangji rose. When he returned, he placed a jug of Emperor’s Smile beside Wei Wuxian’s hand, then sat back down at his desk. “Indeed.”

If he stretched his arm out just a little farther, Wei Wuxian could scratch under Lan Wangji’s chin—and that’s exactly what he did. Lan Wangji took out some papers, covered densely with characters, and began to read, making brief comments in the margins. As Wei Wuxian sat in the bath, he opened his Emperor’s Smile, tilting his head back to drink. “What are you reading?” he asked casually. 

“Night-hunt notes,” Lan Wangji replied. 

“The kiddos wrote these?” Wei Wuxian said. “You’re not in charge of correcting notes and such, are you? From what I remember, that’s your uncle’s job.”

“Every once in a while, Shufu doesn’t have the capacity,” Lan Wangji said. 

Lan Qiren was likely busy with more urgent matters, causing this work to temporarily fall upon Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian took two of them to read. “Back then, your uncle would write hundreds of words for every other line, and then summarize with almost another thousand words at the end. I have no idea where he found the time to write so much. Your comments are very sparing.”

“Is being sparing a bad thing?” Lan Wangji asked. 

“It’s good!” Wei Wuxian said. “Clear and simple.”

It wasn’t because he was cutting corners. He managed even the simplest of tasks with the utmost diligence. Rather, he was just used to it—regardless of whether he was speaking or writing, he treated ink like gold, omitting any unnecessary details. 

Wei Wuxian submerged his head underwater. After some time, he finally re-emerged, wet and dripping. He picked up the honeylocust soap and ran it down his hair with one hand, and took an assignment off the desk with the other. He’d hardly skimmed it before he let out a snort. “Who wrote this? So many characters are wrong, hahahahahahahaha. I just know it’s Jingyi. You gave him an yi.”

“Yes,” Lan Wangji said. 

“You have so many assignments here, but his is the only one I saw that didn’t get top marks,” Wei Wuxian said. “Poor kiddo.”

“Too many characters are wrong, and the analysis is redundant,” Lan Wangji said. 

“What happens if you get an yi?” Wei Wuxian asked.

“Not much,” Lan Wangji said. “A rewrite.”

“He should know how lucky he is,” Wei Wuxian said. “That’s much better than being punished to copy lines while doing a handstand.”

Lan Wangji silently collected the essays that Wei Wuxian had scattered all over the place. He straightened them out then set the neatly arranged stack to the side. Wei Wuxian watched his movements, a smile automatically tugging at the corner of his lips. “How’d you grade Sizhui?”

Lan Wangji pulled out two sheets and handed them to him. “Jia.”

Wei Wuxian took and read them. “These characters are beautiful,” he said.

“The argument is clear and logical, and the content is focused and precise.”

When Wei Wuxian finished flipping through the pile in his hand, he saw another stack on the table that hadn’t been graded yet. “You need to go through all of these? How about I help you look through some?”

“Alright,” Lan Wangji said. 

“All I have to do is mark any errors and give comments, right?” Wei Wuxian asked.

He took more than half the stack. Lan Wangji tried to take the papers back, but Wei Wuxian pulled away. “What are you doing.”

“That’s too many,” Lan Wangji said. “You’re bathing.”

Wei Wuxian took another drink from his Emperor’s Smile, and snatched a brush over. “I have nothing better to do while I bathe anyway. Reading the kiddos’ notes and essays will be rather fun.”

“You must rest after bathing,” Lan Wangji said.

“Does it look like I’ll be able to fall asleep? I feel like we could even go another couple of rounds,” Wei Wuxian bragged unabashedly. 

As he watched Wei Wuxian lean against the bath basin—carefully reading through the notes, sometimes resting an elbow on the desk to write—the fire reflected in Lan Wangji’s eyes seemed to flicker with warmth. 

Though Wei Wuxian’s words were bold, he had led a bunch of teenagers through the deep mountains to stir up a ruckus all day, then came back to mess around in bed for half the night, then graded a stack of notes. It was hard not to get sleepy. After standing firm and meticulously going through his pile, Wei Wuxian tossed them onto the desk and began slipping into the water. Eyes sharp, Lan Wangji quickly and gently lifted him up, toweled him dry, and carried him to bed. 

The quick bath was over, and after Lan Wangji got into the bed and wrapped him in his arms, Wei Wuxian woke up for a little while again. He drowsily said against his collarbone, “Your family’s kiddos’ essays were written quite well. They just come a little short when night hunting.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji said.

“That’s okay, though…” Wei Wuxian said. “While we’re in the Hidden Cloud Depths, I’ll help them cram. Tomorrow… I’ll bring them to make a mess of the shanxiao’s den again.”

One-legged shanxiao’s strength was second to none. Covered in black fur, it ate humans as easily as munching on a melon or slicing vegetables. To anyone else, though, it would’ve sounded like he was just bringing a group of snot-nosed kids up onto a rooftop to steal bird eggs.

The corner of Lan Wangji’s lips twitched, as if it wanted to go up. “You went to catch shanxiao again today?” he asked.

“Yeah, which is why I said they still have to keep training,” Wei Wuxian said. “Those mountain spirits only have one leg. If you can’t even outrun something with only a single leg, when you run into a lizard, a spider, or a centipede, aren’t you basically lying down and asking to die… ah right, Hanguang-jun, I’m out of money, you should grant me some more.”

“Simply withdraw some using the jade pendant,” Lan Wangji said. 

Wei Wuxian blearily laughed a little, saying, “The jade pendant you gave me doesn’t just let you go through the barrier… but lets you withdraw money?”

“Yes,” Lan Wangji said. “Did you destroy someone’s street stall?”

“No… how could that happen… I spent all my money because… after the night hunt, I brought them to that Hunan restaurant in Caiyi Town… the one that you refused to go to before, even when I tried my hardest to drag you there… I’m so tired… Lan Zhan, stop talking to me…”

“Alright,” Lan Zhan said.

“…I told you to stop talking… you only have to say one word, and I can’t keep myself from replying… okay Lan Zhan, go to sleep soon alright, I… can’t hold on anymore… I’m really falling asleep… Lan Zhan, see you tomorrow…”

He kissed Lan Wangji’s Adam’s apple, and as promised, quickly fell into a deep sleep. 

The Room of Tranquility grew still, cloaked in darkness.

After a while, Lan Wangji placed a soft kiss at the center of Wei Wuxian’s forehead.

“Wei Ying,” he said softly. “See you tomorrow.”

[hunnylagoon]

The Girl That Time Forgot

Ellie Williams x Reader

Find me in one thousand years, I will always be waiting here.

Premise: Ellie is the only time traveller who uses her uncommon gift to rewind time and constantly pester you-the only immortal who made a deal with death in 412 BC and is cursed to walk the earth for all eternity. Forever was promised but you never knew the price.

Warnings: death / murder / mentions of suicide / self-harm / toxic relationship /sickness / violence / angst / war / mentions of drugs / lovers?friends(ish)?enemies? it’s complicated / mild gore / things get nuts

ONE-SHOT | WC 18k (so you know what you’re getting into)

AID PALESTINE!

Athens, Greece- October- 412 BC

Come back in one hundred years, you'll always find me here.

Rain splashes against the skin of your face in lands of ancient Greece, where the winds themselves whispered stories of gods and heroes, neither of which you were. You were nothing more than a frightened woman running away from an unforgiving husband in the dead of night where your quickened heartbeat falls in rhythm to the ocean which is almost as angry as the storm that roars above.

Carefully you dodge the jagged rocks sticking out from the sand, you had memorized each and every one after days of burning your skin on the shores. Water surged against the rocks near your feet, white froth sizzling in the waves retreating like it was trying to drag you in and take you for its own.

Your heavy breathing was devoured by the heavy rain and cracks of lighting, the sounds of thunder so deep it was like Zeus himself was stomping in the clouds. Despite the night being dark you trusted the moonlight that glimmered off of the ocean to guide you. You have nothing more than the soaking wet clothes on your back, jewelry to sell, and the drachmas you had stolen from your husband tucked away safely in a wool tagari purse.

Someone grabbed your wrist, stopping you in your tracks "Hey!" They say, though you can't quite make out the figure in the dark you know it's a woman from the voice alone. "You need to go home." Fear pushes adrenaline to course through your veins at the sound of an unheard tongue babbling in your ears.

Your eyebrows furrow, clutching the bag even harder in your free hand. "Φύγε από μένα!" You scream, trying to force your voice to be louder than the malicious storm that brews over your head. You try to pull your hand away but the woman stands firm hardly even moving.

"Fuck," She mutters, you don't understand a word. In this moment you feel like a rabbit preparing to get devoured by a wolf, whoever this woman was you were shaken to your core like you had just uncovered a dead body. "I forgot that you can't speak English yet."

You struggle under the grip of the woman, using the hand which was holding tightly onto the tagari and begin to hit the woman before you to pry her off your wrist "Δεν θα πάω πίσω, τον μισώ μέχρι θανάτου!" You shout voice loud as thunder.

"Ow!" She said wrinkling her nose and trying to apprehend the hand that was hitting her "Can you stop?" She asks, even though you can't understand her it's worth a shot in her mind.

This does nothing to stop your protest, you only hit her harder hammering your purse against her head until she finally lets go of your wrist to block your swinging. Lighting cracks and just for a moment you catch a glimpse of her. Short brown hair that falls at her shoulders, and freckles across her face, something you had never seen before. What frightened you wasn't the sharpness of her green eyes but her clothes, an alien concept to you. She didn't wear a tunic but a scratchy blue fabric tight on her legs and what to you resembled a baggy grey burlap sack with a piece of cloth hanging off the back. In recent years it has come to be known as jeans and a hoodie.

"Δαίμονα, μάγισσα, φύγε!" You smack her once more for good measure and turn quickly on your sandal-covered heel to get away from her. You were as wild and untamed as the ocean itself, with eyes that sparkled with a craving for more than honey dripping down your tongue and salt smeared across your lips.

"Remember I tried to help you this time!" She shouts, her voice is so far off in the distance that you barely heard it through the storm. Even if her words were clear it made no difference, you didn't speak her tongue, and any warning fell unheard upon your ears "Have fun being twenty forever!"

You ran even faster than you had before, you didn't even turn around to see if the woman was still on your tail.

The salty spray stung your cheeks as you ran, your breath ragged and steps unsteady. The wind howled in protest, whipping at the wet hair that stuck to your face and neck, tearing at your white peplos, turned translucent on your body by the water. But you paid no heed to the fury of the elements, for you were driven by a desperate need to escape.

As you reached the edge of a rocky outcrop, your leather sandal caught on a slick stone, sending you tumbling to the ground. With a sickening thud, your head struck against the unforgiving rock, and the world around you spun into darkness.

You were dead. Body limp on the plethora of rocks, the tide slowly lulling over your body until it swallowed you whole and sucked you in deeper. Ropes of hair twist before your dull eyes, unmoving into the deep.

You sink further in and open your eyes though you are still deceased, your body still falling cold. Selene stands before you in the form of midnight. Her body was ebony and deep blue, half woman, half moon. Long black hair like ink tipped with moonlight spills down her breasts and her hips, she watches you with her pale eyes imploring.

The goddess before you turns to lead the way, enticing you to follow. Each step sends knives through your limbs. Your mouth tastes like blood and your lungs burn red hot though every time you try to breathe you choke and sputter of nothing, still, you follow Selene into the nothingness ahead.

Finally, she turns, one finger pressed to her lips, signalling you to be quiet. Beside her, a pale soldier appears in fine silver armour chiselled against his muscular body. The areas that the armour does not cover, his arms and an area of his legs between the middle of his thighs to just below his knees, tattered bandages hang around his limbs, They sway in the nothingness and shed by themselves. You see open wounds deep and red, beginning to bleed but his pasty skin sews itself up, leaving no scar behind, nothing but smooth flesh. Wings larger than the man himself sprout from his back. Thanatos.

Thanatos bows his head, hiding his deep sunken eyes beneath a Corinthian helmet. You should be afraid that you face the god of death but you aren't. This is a better fate than being hauled back to your husband.

He takes his helmet off, long dark hair falls onto his shoulders and he regards you. Thanatos is wordless as he stares at you, taking in every of your face, every curve of your body. He doesn't speak but you understand him well, too much beauty to go to waste.

Selene has left you to take her place back in the night sky, she watches you were she hangs on a beam of moonlight. In one hand Thanatos holds a silver knife. Your voice betrays you, for once your loud screeching voice is lost.

He holds out his hand, pitch black at the fingertips. You can tell he is trying to strike a deal as if he had put his words into your mind without ever even moving his lips.

You look at his hand and then at his face, death was less frightening than you had imagined, handsome for a god who took so many lives. He lets his offer sit and settle within you, he doesn't try to sweeten the deal, he offers you another chance and that is that.

The second you shake Death's hand, he pulls away from your grip and takes the silver dagger to your heart. With ease, he slices back layers of flesh in one swoop leaving your bones exposed before him. Using what seemed to be little effort for the god of death, he breaks your ribs and pulls out your heart.

You watch it beat in his hand, the blood drifting out of it like ribbons that hook around your limbs, you know you have made a mistake. For the first time, Thanatos smiles. Oh, how the wolf wore the sheep as a wicked disguise. he squeezes the heart and at the crush of his hand, you feel ice shoot through your veins.

Your eyes open, properly open. You were alone. You wake up in nothing more than a metre of water and immediately cry out in pure terror at the horrifying images that your mind has conjured up. You run through the salty ocean and back to the shore.

The storm hadn't subsided which helped to camouflage your sobs as you frantically felt around your body with shaking hands to be sure that the god of death hadn't ripped out your heart. Surely enough, your rib cage was intact. You fall onto your hands and knees heaving up all of the ocean water you had swallowed.

The purse that held your resources for escaping had either been devoured by the ocean or stolen off your body. Your wirey hands touch the back of your hand, you expect to shudder under the pain of the open wound that knocked you unconscious. Instead of pain shooting from a gash in your head, you are perfectly intact.

You look down at your hands, no trace of blood.

Maybe it was time to start believing in myths because you were in one.

Rome - July- 116 AD

Don't they know it's the end of the world?

At the center of the world, you had been buried alive for three years after switching places with a Vestal Virgin who looked remarkably identical to you in exchange you gained a large sum for your alleged death. When you were buried you hadn't thought much about how you would get out, you just knew that you wouldn't suffocate or starve.

After the second year passed you were beginning to think that offering to get enclosed in a stone tomb with bread, water, oil, a candle, and a bed wasn't a great way to live your abnormally long life. The air grew stale, and the silence of the tomb echoed with the whispers of the dead that surrounded you on all four walls.

Before sleeping every single night, you prayed to the gods to take your life but they never listened. What you once thought to be a blessing had turned out to be a curse, no blessing would make you crave death the same way you craved sunlight and cream. You had given away the gift of aging for a sweet pleasure that quickly became bitter on your tongue.

The first few moons after you had slipped into unconsciousness you truly believed it at all been some strange hallucination caused by smacking your dead until you took a steep tumble and fell on your husband's hunting knife only to pull it out of your body and watch the skin over your stomach fix itself up, leaving no evidence behind that it had ever happened aside from the blood on the knife.

All you know to do is survive.

It's not like you hadn't tried to find a way out of it, some loophole that would shatter the deal and set you free. You had 527 years to try and make some sense of it, but you had given up and resorted to trying to find a way to end your life. Every time you did that, Ellie always showed up to help but you were back together.

You didn't understand the words that came from her mouth, all you knew was that her name was Ellie and she was cursed like you. What was she cursed with? You weren't sure but she seemed a little less miserable with you.

Ellie would come into your life now and then, usually an unwelcome surprise, she always knew where to find you. The only consistent face that you've seen for 527 years. She seemed to know more about you than you knew about her.

Overhead of the tomb, you see a crack of light slip through one of the stones that sealed you in. A tremor shook the earth, and the ancient stones of the tomb began to crumble. Light spilled into the darkness as the walls collapsed around you.

Surely enough Ellie's head looked down at you. She smiles and extends a hand to help you out "Sorry I took so long, I had to time it right with the earthquake, you picked poor timing to get buried alive." She hauled you up, and you stepped over the rubble with bare feet, careless of whether you gut them on the freshly shattered stone or not, you knew that they would heal over regardless.

Despite still not understanding her tongue you were for a change, glad to see her. As you suspected, your feet had been sliced up, leading a little trickle of blood in your wake. The moment you reached the surface, you collapsed to the ground. The city was crumbling around you but they were the ones who locked you away in the first place. You ignored Ellie's unknown words and felt the lush grass for the first time in three years, the heat of the sun resting on your skin.

Beside you, Ellie wrinkles her nose. "You've definitely smelled better," This is one of the times when she dresses appropriately for the era, a toga slung around her toned figure. "Oh, I thought you might be hungry so I brought this, I know you don't have to eat but I figured it would be nice," She unfolded a piece of cloth beside her revealing a small stack of round pastries that had little brown dark spots in it, nothing you had seen before.

You furrow your eyebrows, partly in confusion, partly because your eyes were still adjusting to the light after being enclosed in darkness for three years. "Τι κοιτάζω;"

"They aren't bad I promise," She says, she had made an effort to learn Greek for you but it proved too difficult, all she knew was the odd word. "They're cookies and don't tell anyone because I'm pretty sure they don't get invented for six hundred years."

Ellie speaks freely like you comprehend every word that she says. You make a face that almost resembles a snarl as you eye her and the cookies suspiciously.

"In a few more centuries we're cool with each other," She eats one of the cookies, slowly taking a bite to show you that they were edible. The cookies are a little too good however and she eats the entire thing in mere seconds, speaking through a mouth full of crumbs "Maybe more than a few centuries," She corrects herself "It's like a thousand years and then some but you come around."

She looks once more at the confusion on your face and gives up on trying to verbally communicate, instead she just holds the cloth holding the chocolate chip cookies towards you and looking into her eyes as sharp as a wolf, you hesitantly take one.

Norwich, England- November- 1327

I can't take my eyes of you.

In the dimly lit streets of the town, where the stench of death hung heavy in the air and fear gripped the hearts of its inhabitants. People no longer walked freely around town, they were either sick and on the trek to become puss-filled corpses or they locked themselves away and observed the demise of friends and foes from their windows.

You had seen civilizations rise and fall and witnessed the ebb and flow of history itself, but nothing could have prepared you for the horror that awaited you in the plague-ridden streets of the town. As the death toll rose with each passing day, you donned the garb of a plague doctor, your face concealed behind a grotesque mask adorned with beak-like protrusions filled with aromatic herbs that helped to cover the sickly sweet smell of rotten corpses.

Armed with little more than your knowledge of ancient remedies and a desperate desire to ease the suffering of the afflicted, you ventured into the heart of the epidemic, where the sick lay writhing in agony and the cries of the dying echoed through the night like they were eating themselves alive.

"Jeez, this isn't good," Ellie appears beside you, out of thin air like she tended to do. Now she was wearing a green dress, long bell sleeves and a golden trim around the dress, she wore a white vale pushing her hair back. Though she was dressed for the time period she looked out of place in the garb of a noblewoman, surrounded by the sick and dying peasants. "I can't stick around too long because an official vaccine for the bubonic plague isn't developed until 2072."

"How many people will die from this?" You ask, voice somewhat muffled from the leather mask, stuffed with herbs.

"About fifty," She trails off "Million."

You were not a god's chosen but a god's cursed. You had already suspected her to say something along those lines. Your voice failed as you watched the searchers who had been employed by the city, dragging dead bodies off into a pit to be buried in a mass grave.

"Look on the bright side-

"There is no bright side," You turn to walk away from her, shoving Ellie into the back of your mind.

With each patient you tended to, you felt the weight of your immortality pressing down upon her—a burden too heavy to carry, yet one you could not escape. You watched as the plague consumed the bodies and souls of those around you, leaving nothing but death and apathy in its wake, a dream that this would be over soon.

Immortality was a mockery, you thought yourself to be a spectacle to the gods above, nothing more than cruel entertainment. As much as you run, you get nowhere, you always end up in the same place, watching those you developed bonds and memories with die.

As the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, you fought tirelessly against the tide of death, your resolve unyielding even in the face of overwhelming odds. But with each passing day, her heart grew heavier, burdened by the weight of countless lives lost and the knowledge that she alone would bear witness to their suffering for eternity.

A boy on his porch cries for his mom and dad who will never be coming home, his sobs echo through the narrow streets like a wolf's howl.

As the moon cast its ghostly glow upon the desolate streets, you stood amidst a sea of bodies, your gloved hands stained with the blood of the fallen. The plague had taken its toll, claiming the lives of all those you had sworn to protect, leaving you alone in a world consumed by darkness.

Henry, a stonemason who had no family aside from his little brother now cries over his body. Sam, the young boy had been hit hard with the disease, the sores covered almost every inch of his body and turned black upon his ebony skin. You had watched every stage of his sickness, there was no cure other than comfort, the only thing you couldn't offer to Henry at that moment.

You could turn the brothers into poetry but you couldn't offer up the immortality that you carried like a cross you had to bear.

He held Sam's corpse in his arms, hugging him close and sobbing. Henry was freshly infected there was no way he would make it out alive though you weren't sure that he even wanted to after watching his baby brother's hands turn pitch black and seize up.

How strange that you, someone who was not deserving of eternal life, was the one burdened with it. People are dying and you can't get a grip.

With a heavy heart and tear-streaked face, you cast aside her mask, the symbol of your futile efforts to defy the inevitable. For in that moment, you realized that no amount of healing could undo the damage wrought by the plague, and no amount of compassion could ease the pain of those who had been lost.

You turned your back on the town that had become your prison, the echoes of its suffering fading into the night. For though you were immortal, you were not invincible—bound by the chains of your own existence, condemned to wander the earth as a silent witness to the fleeting moments of life and the relentless march of death.

Salem, America- April- 1692

Immortal she, return to me.

The paranoid colonial Massachusetts was not the place for a woman who never ages. You grew careless of covering up your secret and lived on the outskirts of Salem, seen by few but that didn't aid the treacherous rumours whispered about you.

You had been there when they settled in 1626 and hadn't aged a day from the time you settled. This had spread into rumours of you dancing with the devil, practicing witchcraft, and bewitching townspeople.

Though many denied your existence, all fingers pointed towards you when two young cousins began acting erratically and were given the diagnosis of being under an evil hand.

The courtroom was a hallowed chamber of unjust judgment, where the accused stood trial before the watchful eyes of the magistrate and the hushed voices of the gathered crowd. You stood, with your hands bound and your head held high, faced your accusers with a steely resolve, eyes burning with a fire that refused to be extinguished.

As the trial unfolded, it became clear that justice was but a mere facade—a thin veil masking the insidious machinations of those who sought to rid the town of its perceived evils. Witnesses were coerced, evidence fabricated, and lies spun like silk until the truth became little more than a distant memory lost to paranoia and skepticism. In the crowd, mixed in with the townspeople, you saw Ellie.

Her steady gaze on you was unmoving and ever-focused, a small smile played on her lips while she watched you face the accusations, anger simmering deep inside you like a curse.

Despite protestations of innocence, you were found guilty of witchcraft—a verdict as unjust as it was inevitable. With a silent prayer upon your lips, you were led to the gallows, where the noose awaited you like a taunt.

You had still been bound by your hands in front of your grime-covered dress from being imprisoned in a dark cellar for a month which felt like mere hours in your lifespan.

A man named David, one of the wealthiest residents of Salem and the first to seek warrants against the accused innocent aided you into stepping onto the back of a cart. The crowd surrounding you cheered while a church member slipped the noose tied to a tree around your neck.

"Hang the witch!" Ellie shouts and you lock eyes with her, feeling nothing more than bitterness and resentment. She still seems unfazed and somewhat amused like she's seen this a thousand times, she likely has. You know she had already watched you 'die' over and over again, Ellie was desensitized to it.

"Hang her!" Another man yells, following Ellie's act in tow. They scream all around you, jeering for your death which would never come. David and the churchman step off the wagon and the crowd gets even louder, anticipating a broken neck and lifeless eyes. David gave a command and the horses pulling the wagon were off, leaving your feet to flail helplessly over nothing.

Even as the rope tightened around your neck and the crowd jeered and spat their curses. Though you couldn't die the pain of the rope restricting your breathing still ran you ragged. For just a brief moment you pretend to die, and those around you cheer. There is so little hesitation in their voices, they were glad to see you dead.

You begin to thrash around, kicking your feet. When the townspeople realized you weren't deceased their cheers of victory fell into silence as you coughed and sputtered on the build-up of saliva and blood choking you. An eery silence falls upon the land while they watch in horror, waiting for you to die. Ellie bites back a smile from where she watches you. You bring your hands, bound together by the wrist to reach up and grab the rope that you hung by. Gathering all the force you can you yank it harshly, over and over again until it finally snaps and you fall to the ground.

David's face falls completely. You had known him to not truly believe in witchcraft but the murder of innocents and threatening women. The look in his eyes when he saw you stumble to your feet. "Witch!"

"Ay, I am the witch!" You shout, the townfolk backing away. You slip your hand where the rope strangled your bent neck, the moment the noose comes loose you pull it off over your head, holding it in one hand. In only seconds the broken bones in your neck heal and you bring your head up, chain raised tall, the wound where the rope dug into your neck disappearing "I am older than your oldest god, I am more ancient than the winds, and more sacred than your cross." You say, only to frighten them.

"Kill her!" David shouts to which no one answers, they are either running or frozen in terror, saving themselves before anyone else.

David isn't fast enough to run, you grab him by his hair and drag his struggling body back beneath the tree where he had hung you. In the blue hour of the day, you hooked the severed noose around his neck and began to walk, dragging his trashing body back to your home on the outskirts of the town. David's body eventually fell limp, still, you dragged it over the rocks and lumps of cobblestone. You had succeeded in making him as afraid of you as you were of him.

You were the first woman who hung in the trials, far from the last. "Headed west now?" Ellie asks, walking beside you, utterly unfazed by what she just witnessed.

Boston, America- March- 1770

In the darkness I will meet my creators, they will all agree that I'm a suffocator.

In the cobblestone streets of colonial Boston, where the talks of revolution were murmured, propaganda poured. There you resided, someone once worshipped as a god whose true name had long been forgotten by history.

But amidst the fervour of the American colonies on the brink of rebellion, you found yourself drawn to the heart of the struggle after the church bells had been rung sending confused people onto the streets covered with snow and out of their homes.

It was on the night of March 5, 1770, that tragedy struck with a swift and merciless hand where a pull of a trigger would be written into history textbooks—the night of the Boston Massacre. As tensions between the colonists and the British soldiers reached a boiling point, you stood amidst the thronging crowd.

The air crackled with tension as the soldiers, emboldened by their orders to maintain order at all costs, faced off against the angry mob, assaulting them with snowballs, chunks of ice and oyster shells for hours on end. With shouts and hollers ringing through the night, protesting the raise of tax brought by King George.

Before the rage-filled crowd stand nine English soldiers holding their ground while the mob grows more and more impatient. This had started when a wig maker apprentice got in a spat with a private stationed outside of the customs house who in turn clobbered the boy with his musket.

The eight soldiers and the captain endure the jeers of the crowd led by Crispus Attucks. The Captain, Preston, refused to fire upon the crowd though as he commanded them from the front, in the line of fire.

You push your way up through the crowd, interweaving through hundreds of people. You watch the nine men stand tall against the sea of angry colonials. One of the men is hit hard in the head with a jagged rock, he falls back to the ground his musket clattering neck to him, just then, behind them in the darkness shouts a voice "Fire!"

With little to no hesitation, the man who fell over quickly scuttles to his feet, firing into the darkness of the evening. Then, in an instant that seemed to stretch into eternity, the first shot rang out—a deafening explosion that shattered the silence of the night and sent shockwaves rippling through the crowd. The other men follow, firing a volley one at a time. Beside you, you hear the thuds of heavy bodies hitting the ground, you don't have much time to process it before a bullet lands right in your head, the bullet finds its mark, striking you down with a force that seems to rend your immortal body asunder.

For a moment, time stood still—the world around you spinning in a dizzying blur of pain and confusion. "Hault!" Preston the captain orders, the soldiers cease fire at his command, confused as they believed him to be the one who ordered fire.

You used the rising surge of anger and fear emanating from the people around you to disappear into the crowd. Men grew even more angry at this, some dispersed but many stayed put. There were only a few women in a horde of hundred, it was difficult to go unnoticed with a bleeding gash on your head, you looked more monster than human, skin on your face replaced by a mass of flesh and blood. You brought your hands up to rest on the top of your head, arms out in front of you to cover what was once your face so your already scared neighbours wouldn't see a breathing corpse.

You stumbled around on your feet, pushing yourself through the mass of people, all moving in your opposite direction, making it harder for you to keep your head down. "Is something wrong?" A woman asks, you disregard her, shoving her away from you to keep moving. Your head rang with a high-pitched whistling, echoing through your brain, and you could hardly see straight with the one eye you now had, eyesight fuzzy. Each person ahead of you blurred into the next, blood gushing down your face, so much that it trickled into your eye and tinted your vision.

The wound wasn't clean by any means, not a neat through and through. The gunshot had got you right up the cheek and into your forehead, half of your face entirely blown off. The close impact of the shot caused your right eye to burst, you were scrambling away with no face and one eye.

Already you could feel your body working to put itself back together, still blood flowed down from the horror that was your face, down your neck to soak into your stay and your once grey skirts. You leave a trail of blood in your wake, dripping into the snow that is sure to be found my morning.

At last, you finally pass the crowd, though you don't stop. You stumble into the dark streets, running until you tumble on cobblestones slick with snow and slush, eyesight heavily impaired. "You've seen prettier deaths," Ellie sucks a breath through her teeth, she isn't in the dress that a woman would wear in that decade, instead, she's clad in a red coat, the uniform of a British soldier, her hair tied up and tucked beneath a black cap that all of the soldiers adorned.

She stretches her hand out to help, you take it. Instead of being gracious that she came around to help you off the ground, you take a swing at her face, and when your face makes contact with her cheek you hear a crack. Ellie takes a step back, shocked as you haven't hit her since the night you first met, 2181 years prior to that moment. "Why would you scream fire?" You cry. The second you heard the voice, you knew it was Ellie though you hadn't had time to process it before your face was blown off. "Those men are dead, Ellie, they will never go home to their families or take another breath!"

"They die anyway," She retorts, one hand hovering over her now broken cheekbone. You look at her now, your skull re-intact, eyeball sewn itself up and found its place back in your socket, flesh weaves and stretches over your bones to its rightful place. "Fuck," Ellie mutters, wincing as she touches to fingers to her newfound injury "The second that soldier gets hit with that rock, he gets back up and starts shooting, every single time."

You freeze "Every single time?" The very moment the words fall from your lips, Ellie curses herself "How many times have you been here, on this day?"

"Maybe like," She raises an arm in defence the other still cradling her cheek as she winces"Thirty-seven times give or take."

"You've never stopped it?"

"I have," She says, eyebrows furrowing with a certain longing "It ruins everything, if those men don't die, the American revolution never takes place." Ellie's gaze softens "I know that it's awful but it happens whether you're here or not, it was meant to happen."

Ellie reaches out to hold one of your blood-covered hands, but you are quick to retract it, pulling it away. Your eyes move from where her hand waits for yours to intertwine with it to her freckled face. "How many lives have we lived together?"

Her outstretched hand falls to her side. "I don't want to answer that."

"I want to know."

She shakes her head "You'd hate me."

"I already hate you," Your mouth acting faster than your head.

Ellie doesn't seem shocked by this statement, just a little hurt. "We've had good lives together, you don't hate me every time."

"Who have I been to you?" You ask, new questions surging through your scrambled mind, questions you were sure you wouldn't like the answer to. You knew Ellie had the ability to jump between time periods, though you hadn't known that she'd met you in other timelines.

Looking deep into her downturned eyes your mind runs rampant with who you could've been to her in other timelines that defined what you meant to her now. It was like trying to recall memories that didn't belong to you, but another version of yourself- what could've been.

The hushed silence finally dissipates when Ellie opens her mouth again "I'll see you in a hundred years." With that, she turns and walks away into the darkness, her body shrouded by the cold night where screams of the freshly dead hang in the winds like sickening howls.

Nebraska, America - June - 1883

I'll be seeing you.

"Not a bad place to camp, huh?" Tommy smiles at us while the sun blazes overhead, the group disregards him as they set up camp in a grassy clearing with just enough trees to offer shade to the overworked horses. Few pitched tents while the majority prepared for a night of sleeping under the clear sky, unprotected from the elements.

His question falls upon deaf ears "What's in Montana?" Another man, Issac asks. "We're going all this way and I want to know what I've uprooted my life for."

"Untouched land, you'll be a rich man." Tommy takes the cowboy hat off the top of his head, using it to fan himself off, protesting the sweltering heat that devoured him whole beneath layers.

You eye him, unsaddling your horse, Shimmer. You were in a group of people headed to settle in Montana, many of whom you had never spoken to and didn't necessarily want to. The only ones who you had properly known were the Miller family, Maria had been the one who told you about the trip initially, telling you they needed more gunslingers. With a face that doesn't age, a decade was getting a little too long to stay in Cody and here was your offer to get away.

Joel was speaking in hushed tones to his daughter, Sarah. She was nodding along to each word her father said, you had guessed it was a set of rules, him telling her not to run off or chase down wild animals.

You shower your sweaty chestnut horse with little pats and scratches, and she gives you a snort in response as you begin to wipe away the grime she's accumulated over the day's journey. Your entire life was packed away into two saddle bags, there wasn't much room for luxury in the Wild West. Times were harsh and lands were rugged, more commonly violent than anything you'd ever seen.

As you move in front of Shimmer to pet her soft face, she sneezes on you, reverberating on the rubber lips. You scrunch up your nose, and bring your sleeve to wipe your face "You're lucky you're cute," You mutter, hearing the sound of giggling and looking to find Sarah "Hey little lady."

"Hi," Her accent was thick, she came straight from the heart of Texas. Sarah was still young, the things you knew about her dad were only what she had told you, oversharing their personal life.

"Leave her alone now," Joel walks up behind Sarah, her wide eyes looking up at him.

"I don't mind, Joel," You answer. "I saw some sour cherries by the river if you care to come pick 'em with me," You say looking at Sarah whose head immediately shoots to her dad "As long as your father says it's okay."

Sarah silently pleads with her daughter, his gaze is still cold like steel. "Maybe tomorrow," He answers and Sarah's face drops. Despite knowing the Millers for months, Joel was always iffy about letting Sarah out of his sight. He knew almost as well as you how vile the world was, especially to young girls.

"Maybe tomorrow," You repeat Joel's words, digging around in your saddlebags for a small wicker basket and cloth to spread out at the bottom "I'll see y'all around," You give the pair a nod before heading down the bank.

The walk was quick and scenic if you ignored the overwhelming heat and the entirely too many layers you were sweltering beneath. You closed your eyes and let your spirit lift with the sounds of rustly grass and the flowing river nearby. The air was thick with the sweet smell of wildflowers mixed with an earthy bitterness from the ground beneath your feet.

You walked towards the tree, carefully plucking ripe cherries. They reminded you of the same ones you once picked back in Greece, as you ate them the juice smeared down your lips you laughed with your sibling, pretending that you had been blood drinkers or angry gods drinking the wine that was poured for them.

You often find solace in reminiscing over all of the people you have been in the span of one lifetime. You've been a wife, doctor, witch, god, poet, farmer, handmaiden, dressmaker, priestess, and now you were just a woman picking cherries and planning out her next facade. What awaited you in Montana? Hopefully somewhere peaceful, a cabin by a stream where you could live alone and lay outside in a grassy meadow, waiting for the sun to swallow you whole.

After filling the wicker basket, almost to the brim with small sour cherries, a little larger than the end of your thumb. You turn to walk back to the campsite, though you pause at the incline of the riverbank and decide against it, instead, you find yourself sitting under the shade of the cherry tree, staring to the other side of the riverbank.

You thought that you could've spent the rest of eternity under that cherry tree where you listen to the songs the earth sings for you. Here, the air is clean. The river itself was a sight to behold, a ribbon of shimmering blue that wound its way through the landscape, its waters sparkling in the sunlight like a thousand diamonds. Here and there, small ripples danced across the surface, creating patterns of light and shadow that played upon the sandy riverbed below.

Someone sits next to you, you can sense them awkwardly shuffling around to try and get comfy, from that alone you knew it was Ellie. "Hi, it's been a while," You say, voice quiet.

"Hey," She takes a cherry out of the wicker basket beside you, she bites into it, juice dribbling down her chin, nose scrunches when the sour taste hits her tongue. "Fuck, that's sour."

"They're supposed to be, they're sour cherries," You look at her face to see a large dark bruise engulfing one of her cheekbones, it spreads under her puffy eye bag, giving her a real shiner over her eyelid. "What happened to your face?"

"You," She says, pressing her lips together "After the Boston massacre you hit me pretty hard, remember?"

Your eyebrows furrow "That was more than a hundred years ago."

"For you," She corrects "It's been a little under a week for me."

Your gaze shifts to the glimmering river in front of you "That must be nice," That familiar sense of bitterness set in once again, the reason why you could never stomach being around Ellie for too long. She could blip in and out of your life as she wanted but you were the one forced to sit through thousands of years of torment and longing for the sweet release of death that taunted you in mirrors and the eyes of those who thought they knew you well.

She falls short of words to say. In your eyes it was nice, in her eyes, she faced the woman whom she had married in another life who held nothing more than a little resentment for her now.

"I am sorry that I hit you," You mutter, spitting out the pit of a cherry beside you. "You did cheer for the colonials to hang me though."

"And I am sorry about that," Ellie rolls the stem of a cherry between her fingers, more focused on it than any of her beautiful surroundings. She had seen every bit of scenery that there was to see, her favourite was seeing the dinosaurs, they were much more scary in person than they had been "At least you're an urban legend now."

"What's it matter to be an urban legend when you've already been a god?" You say "It just does not get more interesting than that."

"Yeah, watching you eat your own heart in front of terrified ancestors was pretty cool." Ellie flicks the cherry stem into the river, watching it get swallowed and pulled away by the currents "I'm glad you aren't still mad at me, if I were you I'd probably have a knife to my throat by now."

"I think I'm finally getting wise after two thousand three hundred four years," You joke, digging your teeth into the flesh of another cherry.

"What? You don't look a day over one thousand," She teases, a smile ever so slightly playing on her face.

"Thanks, I was worried."

"Don't be, you look great for your age."

She was joking, her tone light-hearted but something inside you breaks just a little more. You look at your hands, not a wrinkle or callous, no sign of the exciting and extremely terrifying life you had lived, just smooth young skin stretched over ancient bones.

You should've been nothing more than a skeleton buried beneath centuries-old rubble and flora by now. "Yup."

Ellie fiddled with her hands, trying to think of something else to say, she didn't want the conversation to be over just yet. She clung to every word you spoke like it was scripture and she was the most devoted follower. "What are you gonna do in Montana?"

"I think you know better than me," You answer, eyes focused on the water glittering in the blistering sunlight, beads of sweat resting on your brow. "Care to share?"

"Can't say."

"How come?"

She shrugs "I don't think you want to know."

"Well, how many times have I travelled with this bunch?"

"I've lost count," Ellie lies through her teeth, she knew every statistic, she had turned back time to the ancient cities 872 times to be with you. It slowly got easier to face you every time though it never replicated the love you had that first time, a high Ellie was forever chasing.

"Oh," You respond, leaning against the trunk of the cherry tree, sinking into yourself.

The silence stretches between you two. You had actually missed Ellie in the century that she disappeared completely; you found yourself waiting for her to show up around a corner and say something to annoy you.

After swallowing back another cherry in silence you open your mouth to speak "Ellie, whatever I meant to you, whoever I was, I need you to know that I'm not that girl-

"I know-

"I don't think you do," You say, discarding the stem of the cherry beside you "I need you to forget about any life we had together, at least until you get bored of this one."

"I don't get bored of it, I could never get bored of you," She answers.

"Then why start all the way from the beginning over and over again?" You ask "Just to watch me beg for death?"

Ellie shakes her head "I just can't let go of you." She listens to herself "I guess you're right, I'm holding onto someone who doesn't exist anymore." You watch the realization strike Ellie, with each rapid blink her eyes get more and more watery "I'm sorry, I know it's selfish."

"It is," You answer, feeling no urge to coddle "I'm not her, I know that you loved me but I don't remember what you used to be to me. I'm sure I loved you a lot, but I doubt that I do every single time."

Ellie nodded, using the heel of her palm to wipe at the tears that threatened to spill "Okay," Her voice hardly above a whisper "Just see this life through and I promise I'll fix everything, you live a good life, I promise." You stare at her blankly for a moment before nodding. She must know what waits for you in the future, something sweet perhaps, like sugar resting on the tip of your tongue. "I'll always hold you close but I'm learning you let you go."

"I appreciate it," You say, the ghost of a melancholy smile on your face.

The heat of the day finally disappears into the coolness of night and with that, Ellie disappears too, likely to be seen in another year.

The night was draped in the thick, velvety darkness that you only got in the west, where the only illumination came from the crackling flames of a campfire. Around it sat your sorry crew of companions, their weary faces highlighted by the flickering light, casting shadows that danced across the rugged landscape. They had ridden hard all day, herding cattle across vast plains and navigating treacherous terrain, but now, as they rested under the vast expanse of the starry sky, they sought solace in camaraderie and laughter.

"Y'all hear the one about the preacher who walked into a saloon?" Tommy began, his voice gravelly from years of dust and tobacco. Several others in the group had already called it a night, resting their heads beneath the stars that hung in the ink black sky.

The others leaned in, eager for the punchline.

"He says, 'I'm lookin' for the man who's been sleeping with my wife!' And a fella at the bar stands up and says, 'You'll have to narrow it down, preacher!'" The group erupts into bellowing laughter at his words and you can't help but smile at the pure joy written on these gruff men's faces.

"Alright, alright, I got one more for ya," Wyatt announced, his voice carrying a hint of challenge. He was an unnerving man from the looks of it, tall and intimidating but after the first day you had spent with him, he treated you like a baby sister, ready to go to war for you at the drop of a hat. The others perked up, their interest piqued by the promise of one last ribald tale."So there's this rancher," the cowboy began, "and he's got himself a problem with his bull. See, this here bull is getting up there in years, and he just ain't performin' like he used to."

A ripple of knowing laughter spread through the group, anticipation building for the punchline. Joel sat beside you, he had no interest in the jokes nor did he find them funny, all he got from it was a small detox from his life of overworking himself into exhaustion.

"Now, this rancher, he's heard all kinds of remedies for puttin' a little pep back in a bull's step," the cowboy continued. "But none of 'em seem to do the trick. So he finally decides to consult the local veterinarian."

The rest leaned in, hanging on every word.

"The vet takes one look at the old bull and says, 'I got just the thing for him. There's this new experimental treatment I've been workin' on. It involves a little bit of whiskey.'"

The campfire erupted with uproarious laughter, the group hooting and hollering at the unexpected twist, it ws far from the funniest joke you had ever heard, still, you laugh. Some slapped their thighs, others doubled over with mirth, and a few wiped tears of amusement from their eyes.

"And you know what?" the cowboy concluded with a grin. "After that little glass bottle was emptied, that ol' bull was buckin' like a bronco."

As the laughter at last subsided, the fire crackled softly as men began to say their goodnights and lull for the night. They sat in comfortable silence, their thoughts drifting to the vast expanse of the frontier and the challenges that awaited them come dawn and dreams of the promised land of Montana.

"Y'know, fellas- and madams," Wyatt addresses you and Maria, "We've been tellin' jokes and carryin' on like a pack of fools, but there's somethin' to be said 'bout the bonds we share out here on the range," he began, his husky voice tinged with sincerity.

The others nodded, aside from Joel who was studying the fire in front of him, tuned out from the conversation.

"I reckon there ain't nothin' quite like the brotherhood of the trail," he continued. "We ride together, we work together, and when the chips are down, we stand together. Through thick and thin, come hell or high water, we got each other until death takes us all." Wyatt takes another swig of his moonshine "We may come from different walks of life, but out here, under these stars, we're all just cowboys," the cowboy mused. "And there ain't no bond stronger than that."

"That ain't true," Issac poked up "I know that not one of us will see each other once we get to Montana, we're all goin' our separate ways."

"Don't mean there's no bond," You peep up.

"How's that?"

You shrug "Your heart is just too young to realize."

The group stops for a moment before erupting into ragged laughter, Tommy almost has tears in his eyes at the fact that you had called the man seemingly 15 years older than you young "Kid, you're too young to realize how bad life gets."

"Sounds about right."

Cape Cod, America - May - 1937

To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels.

In the hazed ambiance of the club, the air reverberated with the lively tunes of Duke Ellington, and the floor pulsed with the infectious rhythm of swing. Amidst the whirl of dancers, there you were, dancing so exuberantly that others backed away in fear of you swinging on them; though that was the nature of swing dancing, almost a fight to keep your nose unbroken.

But even the most seasoned dancers could only keep up for so long. As the night wore on and the music continued to play, you found yourself in need of a moment's reprieve. With a smile still lingering on your lips, you tapped your partner, Richard's shoulder, signalling your desire to take a break. You hadn't known him well by any means but he was a good dancer.

Leaning against the cool plaster of the club's wall, you breathed deeply, chest rising and falling in time with the music. You closed her eyes, savouring the lingering sensations of the dance. Little did you know, your moment of respite was about to be interrupted in the most unexpected yet delightful manner.

A voice, smooth and warm, broke through the cacophony of sound around you. "Mind if I join you?" the voice asked, accompanied by a gentle tap on your shoulder. Opening your eyes, you found yourself face to face with a strikingly handsome man, his eyes twinkling with a hint of mischief. His black hair parted to the side and slicked over as well as his dark eyes soft as snow added to his undeniable charm.

A bemused smile tugged at your lips as you nodded, welcoming the interruption. "Not at all," you replied, voice carrying a hint of amusement.

With a casual elegance, the man leaned against the wall beside you, his gaze drifting out across the dance floor. "You're quite the dancer," he remarked, his tone tinged with admiration. He was wearing a white button-up tucked into pinstripe trousers being held up by black suspenders.

"Thank you. I've had a good bit of practice." You smile softly "Your name is?"

"Jesse," He answered "Care to tell me who I'm talking to?"

"Midge," you lie, it was the name you had picked up for your residence in Cape Cod.

"Midge," he repeats smiling as the name rolls off his tongue "You might just have the prettiest smile in Cape Cod."

You can't help but grin "And I thought I had already met all of the gentlemen around these parts."

"Must've been wrong," He said with his crooked smile. Then, after a moment's pause, he extended a courteous offer. "Can I buy you a Coke? It's the least I can do for such a captivating dancer."

You couldn't help but be charmed by his sincerity and manners. With a twinkle in your eye, you nodded in agreement. "I would like that very much."

Your conversation flowed effortlessly as you sipped on your cokes, exchanging stories and sharing laughter amidst the ringing of the club and chatter of individuals all around. With each passing moment, the two of you scrambled for things to talk about, desperate to keep the spark of conversation alive. You had just prayed that you could pull yourself away from his magnetic charisma.

As the night wore on, the music gradually began to fade, signalling the end of another unforgettable evening. Reluctantly, you rose from your seat, a sense of disappointment tugging at your heart while you watched Jesse lean back in his chair studying you like a textbook.

"Well, it looks like the night's coming to an end," you remarked, a wistful smile gracing your lips.

Jesse nodded, his expression mirroring her sentiment. "Indeed it has," he replied, his voice tinged with a hint of hopefulness. "But perhaps it's just the beginning of something new?"

"Perhaps," You agreed, gaze lingering on his handsome face.

That was when you had broken the only rule you created for yourself 'Don't fall in love'. One year later you were so head over heels for Jesse that you were getting married. Dressed in your floor-length wedding dress, hair carefully curated after spending hours trying to perfect it.

You hadn't any family to fill up your side of the aisle, so instead you had asked your friends from work and the jazz club to take their places. After telling Jesse you were orphaned, he didn't bat an eye at this. You had frantically searched for someone to fill the shoes of your father who walked the earth centuries prior on the shores of Greece, it was a relief when Jesse's father stepped up.

Walking down the aisle of the church, arms hooked with Jesse's father you see him then, standing at the end waiting for you and he looks like the rest of your life. "You clean up nice," You mutter to Jesse quietly to be sure no one else can hear your little remark.

"I try my best," He smiles, hands in front of him as he waits patiently for the pastor to speak up. He looks handsome as the day you met as you look remarkably the same, not a new scratch or wrinkle upon a single inch of your skin.

As you exchanged vows, the both of you unable to fight the wild smiles on your faces, the world seemed to stand still, as if holding its breath in anticipation. With each word spoken, you pledged your love and devotion to one another, promising to stand by each other's side through all the joys and challenges that life would bring and you meant every word.

The reception was nothing short of perfect in your eyes. Everyone gathered at Jesse's parents' home, flowing in and out as they pleased. You however preferred the outdoors aspect of it, where people chatted happily with a glass of champagne in hand.

"Congratulations," Ellie says "Little bummed that I didn't get an invite," There's an odd sense of bitterness in her voice. She's wearing a blue tulle dress at tea length, blending in perfectly around the other guests, long white gloves to cover the tattoo on her forearm, and she even had her shoulder-length hair pin-curled.

"I figured you would be coming around either way."

"You know me too well," She takes the champagne flute out of your hand and swallows it back.

"You're actually the one who knows me too well."

She nods, faces expressionless while she looks around at the scenery of the yard. "Good luck."

"I'm sorry?" You furrow your eyebrows trying to seek out some tell on Ellie's face that would give you any indicator of what's racing through her head. Still, she's unreadable.

"With your marriage."

"Okay?"

"What's the plan here anyways?" She asks picking up someone's glass of wine the second they place it down on the garden table and turn their head away. "In thirty years, you're still married to Jesse, he's sixty getting wrinkly and you're still young and beautiful?"

As Ellie goes to drink the wine you take it out of her hands, putting it back on the garden table. You think of something to say to her, anything, but the words die in your throat, shrivelling up, never to be said.

"I will say that you becoming a history teacher is very funny."

"Did you just come here to sulk?" You ask.

She shakes her head slightly "I've come here to celebrate your union," Ellie glances around the yard once more.

"Then celebrate," you throw your hands out "I don't see you doing anything other than slinking around."

"Honey, who's this?" Jesse strolls up beside you, putting one hand on the small of your back. He smiles brightly as he looks at Ellie, he has known all of your friends which wasn't a bountiful number to begin with, just other teachers you worked with and some people you danced with.

"Oh!" You force a smile onto your face "This is my old friend from New Orleans, we really have some catching up to do."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Jesse," He holds out his hand.

"Ellie," She says shaking it.

"When did you become friends?" He asks "Midge hasn't told me a whole lot about her school days."

Ellie looks at you, she doesn't say anything but you get the message being conveyed. 'What the hell are you doing?' she shifts her eyes to look at the groom "God this one was just wild, keep an eye on her," Ellie forces a fake laugh.

"Really?" He has that goofy lopsided smile painted on his face as he looks at you.

"Yup," Ellie says "So, when are you planning on having kids?"

"Oh," Jesse chuckles, somewhat nervously "We haven't discussed that much."

"It seems like something you should talk about before getting married-

"Thank you," You cut her off "Ellie," You couldn't stand the idea of outliving your child let alone your husband, though it was already an inevitable fate.

"Of course," She's wearing a smile that is bordering somewhere between penitence and condescension, Ellie's looking at you like you're in the gutter.

"Looks like rain," Ellie glances up at the increasingly greying sky before walking inside the cover of the house. "Bad idea," She whispered in your ear as she brushed past. In mere moments after she enters the house thunder cracks and rain dumps from the sky, heavy and harsh, beating against your skin.

Everyone rushes inside, covering their heads as rain showers and soaks them. You and Jesse are frozen, you watch Ellie's figure retreat into the group of people clamouring into the house while Jesse's eyes are trained on you, he can't hold back a laugh.

"Oh no," Jesse's eyebrows furrow as he takes one of your hands in his own and puts the other on the back of your head, staring at your face, makeup running from the rain, hair weighed down by fat droplets dribbling off your collarbone "You spent so long on your hair, what are you gonna do?"

You shake off Ellie's words, cryptic as usual. Your attention snaps back to Jesse once you can no longer see her. The gentleness of his touch, that is his beauty "I'm not sure but I've got half a mind to kiss you," You giggle.

"Yeah?" He takes a step forward "I like that half," Jesse plants a gentle kiss on your lips "The other half is great too."

"You're so odd."

-

It was a quiet Saturday evening in the summer of 1943, the echo of a fuzzy-sounding record player scraping a vinyl filled the room, enveloping you in a certain tenderness.

Jesse, in his crisp white shirt and neatly pressed trousers, held you close, his hand resting gently on the small of your back as they moved together in perfect harmony. Your hair cascaded softly around your face as you rested your head against Jesse's chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat matching the cadence of the music.

As you danced, the cares of the outside world didn't seem to exist, leaving only the intimate space you shared. The faint scent of your flowery perfume drowned out concerns. In the dim light, your shadows danced on the walls. Jesse had never been the better dancer between you though he was particularly tense on this night, his eyebrows were stuck furrowed like every thought running through his head was a worry.

The final notes of the song faded into the stillness of the night, Jesse hesitated, his embrace tightening around you as if reluctant to let you go. Sensing his unease, you looked up at him, concern etched in her features.

His unease wasn't difficult to sense, you pry yourself away from him to take him in completely. "Jesse, what's wrong?" You asked softly, voice barely above a whisper.

Jesse took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he knew he had to say. He held you at arm's length, his eyes searching over your features. "I've been drafted. I received my notice this morning." His voice trembled just the slightest as he took a shaky breath.

Your heart skipped a beat, breath catching in her throat and you thought that this must be what death feels like. For a moment, the world seemed to spin out of control as the weight of Jesse's words sank in. Six years with Jesse was not enough, you needed an eternity.

"We can find a doctor to exempt you-

"You know that's not right," He spoke so softly and you knew he was speaking the truth. You could never convince Jesse to do something as heinous as faking some disease or injury to get him out of the war.

"I know," You say and he steadies himself, staring deep into your eyes and through your soul "My whole life, all I've ever known is loss and I have never cared about anything the way I care about you-

He pulls you forward into his arms, rubbing that familiar calloused hand on the small of your back to soothe you "It's all gonna be alright, love, I'll be back before you know it and then it's smooth sailing for the rest of our lives."

You copied the crook of his neck, the warmth of his arms, the curve of his nose to memory. You caught all that you could before it slipped through the empty gaps of your mind. You hadn't realized that he had been doing the same, memorizing the smell of your perfume, the texture of your hair, the way your eyes caught the light.

He told you to look to the future when he finally walked back through that door and you could dance again but the only thing you could see was the end of the world, starting with you saying goodbye to him.

July 12, 1943

My Dearest Love,

I hope this letter finds you well and in high spirits. It's been quite some time since I last wrote to you, and I apologize for the delay. The days here in Europe seem to blend into one another, filled with moments of both intense action and serene contemplation.

As I write this letter, I find myself missing you more and more. You are what keeps me going through these harrowing and relentless days

Please know that you are always in my heart, my love. No matter where I may be, you remain my constant source of hope and inspiration. I dream of the day when this war is finally over, and we can be reunited once more, never to be parted again.

Until then, stay strong, my love. Know that I am fighting for you, for us, and for a better tomorrow. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers, as I do for you each and every day.

With all my love,

Jesse

December 18, 1943

My Dearest Love,

As Christmas draws near, my thoughts turn to you more than ever. I find myself reminiscing about the holidays we've shared together, specifically the weekend we spent at the cabin. How I long to be by your side once more, to hold you close and celebrate the season of peace and goodwill together.

But even amidst the turmoil of war, I see you in every good thing. Here in the trenches, my comrades and I have found solace in each other's company, we are united in our common humanity and our dreams for a home cooked meal.

I am reminded, now more than ever, of the importance of compassion in times of strife. It is love that sustains us, that gives us the strength to endure even the darkest of days. And though we may be separated by miles and oceans, our love remains as strong as ever.

As I write this letter, surrounded by the sounds of gunfire and the cries of my fellow soldiers, I find comfort in the knowledge that you are thinking of me, just as I am thinking of you. Your love is my guiding light,

This Christmas, as you gather with our loved ones know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. Though we may be apart in body, our spirits are forever intertwined, bound together by the enduring power of love.

Wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. May the coming year bring us closer to ending this war.

With all my love,

Jesse

March 19, 1944

My Dearest Love,

The world is now brighter than the sun because you're here, that is why I will remain giving you everything that I have.

I have been looking at the moon over and over again and wondered if you stare at it the same time as I do, please say yes. I think the battlefields are turning me into a poet, I would love some critique from a wordsmith such as yourself.

Everything here is frightening (redacted)

In light of the events I've just shared, I am looking forward more than ever to waking up and saying good morning to the sleepy woman lying next to me, that's you if you were curious. Here's to the future!

With all my love,

Jesse

August 8, 1944

My Dearest Love,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you today, for the horrors of war have taken their toll on both body and soul. The past few months have been filled with unimaginable hardship as (Redacted)

The knowledge that our sacrifices are not in vain, that we are fighting for a better future for generations yet unborn keeps these weary bones standing straight.

But oh, how I long for the comforts of home, for the warmth of your embrace and the gentle touch of your hand. In the midst of so much death and destruction, it is your love that reminds me of all the beauty that still remains in the world.

I fear that I may never see you again, my love, that this cruel war may rob us of the future we had planned together. And yet I'm not ready to give up. For as long as I draw breath, I will continue to fight for a world where love triumphs over hate, where you and I can go back to life as it was.

All of the living are dead and I have noticed an oncoming silence.

With all my love,

Jesse

May 7, 1945

My Dearest Love,

I can scarcely believe it – the war is finally over, and victory belongs to the Allies!

We won! Or we think we did, a true win would likely have less bloodshed.

But amidst the celebrations and rejoicing, my thoughts turn to you. How unmanly to cry though I find myself doing so as I write this. The thought of being reunited with you fills my heart back up despite those who have emptied it, for you are my everything, my reason for living.

I cannot wait to return home to you, my love, to begin our lives anew in a world free from the shadow of war. Until then, know that you are always in my thoughts and prayers and that my love for you knows no bounds.

It looks like I'm coming home soon! I'm looking forward to some dance lessons with my one and only.

With all my love,

Jesse

Though you weren't the only one occupying the seemingly empty house, you lived with ghosts. Every step you took they lurked behind you as permanent reminders of everyone you've ever let down; months stretched into years and you clung onto each word in Jesse's letter like it was doctrine. The moment you received that final letter from Jesse you ran out into the streets and hugged the very first person you saw.

"Ellie now isn't a great time to be here," You tell her as she stands behind you in your vanity while you reapply your lipstick "Jesse's home today," You can't help the smile that stretches across your face. After years of hearing from your husband in nothing more than ink over paper, you would see him again and not just in the pictures that you had hung around every corner of the house.

"I'm here to celebrate," She says though she doesn't seem enthusiastic in the slightest. She wears black cigarette pants and a short-sleeved blouse tucked into them. You, on the other hand, had pressed your hair flat only to do it up in pin-curls, wearing your finest dress and most expensive jewelry for your husband's return home.

"If you're going to water down today, you could at the very least pretend to be happy." You were so ecstatic that you didn't even mind that Ellie had chosen today to bum around your house. For once it wouldn't be empty with nothing but your hollowed cries.

"I am happy," She answers "Are you going to wait here for him?"

You shake your head while you put in earrings that Jesse had gifted you on your third anniversary "I'm going down to the train station so I can hug him the second he sets foot back in Cape Cod."

"Nice," She nods "Have you thought about what you're going to do if it doesn't go as planned?"

You furrow your eyebrows, putting the other earring down on the vanity so you can turn back and look at her. "What do you know?" Your smile dropped at her words. Ellie isn't as unreadable as usual, she has traces of guilt across her features and that makes you all the more concerned. "Ellie, what happens?"

Before she can even open her mouth, you hear a firm knock at the front door. "That," Ellie says, you push yourself up from the vanity so fast the chair tips over. You snatch the other earring off of the vanity and awkwardly force it into your piercing as you rush down the hallway as fast as you can in your heels, clickity clack over the floorboards, Ellie trailing slowly behind you.

Your heart was pounding so fast that it reverberated in your head like an echo bouncing off the walls of your mind. A click. A slow creak and you open the door. Sun floods into the room and your heart pinches at the sight of the officer, clad in military excellence with baubles and an olive green jacket.

"Who are you?" Your stomach drops at the sight of the stranger who stands in the place where your husband should be.

The man stared at you, a certain solemn yet controlled grief lurking in his pale eyes. "Ma'am, I am Sergeant Reynolds of the 45th Infantry regiment. Are you Mrs. Midge Maisel, wife of Jesse Chang?"

Your throat went dry. "Yes," You curled your fingers inward, feeling nails push into the soft palm of your hand until the skin broke and you pushed even harder.

You didn't know who helped you sit down when you couldn't move. You only remembered fuzzy voices and the pace of your heart becoming too fast for your body to handle. There was not enough air in the world for you to swallow. The world felt so far away, as did anyone who tried to comfort you or explain the circumstances of Jesse's death.

"After Germany was concurred, he intercepted a grenade ambush from stragglers, saving the lives of many in his platoon."

Everything had stopped spinning, leaving you nauseous where Ellie sat beside you her face smeared in your vision blurry from tears.

Accept our sympathies

Funeral arrangements

The return of personal effects

Bits and pieces of Reynolds's words jumped out at you but you couldn't hear them. Restless nights for centuries were instead what clouded your mind. Outside you could hear families and friends celebrating the return of their loved ones, while you ushered the man out of your door screaming at him to leave. Music played, a celebration you would not take part in but watch bitterly from afar while you plan out the next life you will live.

Ellie begins to speak when the eery silence becomes unbearable "I know you don't want to hear it but this was inevitable-

"Leave," You mutter, resentment simmering inside of you.

"What-

"Leave," You repeat "You knew this was going to happen and you didn't tell me? You didn't stop it?"

"I can't turn the world upside down just to make you happy-

"Then why are you here?" You ask, rage carved in deep despite the tears across your face "I thought you were in love with me and that's why you won't leave me alone."

Her words fail her. She stares at you blankly, trying to scrounge up an answer that would put you both to rest. "We have a good life-

"Ellie, this is not a good life, for you maybe because you don't have to watch me suffer since you can keep skipping to the parts where I'm happy again," You correct her words, fat teardrops streaming down your face while you try to compose yourself the same way that you would a song or a speech. "I'm going to tell you now so you have to get it into your head- We are not friends, I certainly don't love you, I don't even like you and if I ever see your fucking face again, I'm bashing it in."

Bethel, America- August - 1969

If we were vampires and death was a joke, we'd still go out on the sidewalk and smoke.

They wandered through the makeshift villages that sprung up amidst the chaos, where hippies and freaks shared food and shelter, and strangers became friends in the blink of an eye. Your hand was clasped tightly with Dina's while your pupils went wide under the influence.

She refused to let go and lose you in the crowd of sweaty bodies, despite your states you understood well that you would easily lose each other in the sea of people at the music festival and wouldn't cross paths again till night time. She was wearing a turquoise bell-sleeved top paired with a skirt of all sorts of funky patterns and had on at least six beaded necklaces. You'd think that she'd be hard to miss but in this crowd, she blended in perfectly, looking a little bit like everyone else as everyone seemed to bleed together.

You were already high out of your mind the world warping around you, everything moved in frames like an old film. The ground was morphing and breathing under your feet, you giggled with each step, following behind Dina to find the rest of the little group you had come to Woodstock with.

The two of you were nowhere close to the stage, you had only partially come for the music. To you, it seemed like another historic event to add to your list. While most people sit on the ground swaying to Janis Joplin, your small circle of friends was dancing; it was something like them loosely waving their bodies around.

"No one asks me for dances because I only know how to flail!" Dina shouts, laughing so hard that she leans on you for support. You laugh too, head resting on top of Dina's. Her words weren't funny at all but everything seemed funny when fractals hoovered around your eyes. You lifted your head just slightly to see that same freckled face that had haunted you for centuries.

"Ellie!" You shouted, letting go of Dina's hand and making your way towards her, eyes half-lidded and hazy. Dina lulled in place watching you run away from her.

Ellie looked frightened that you had stuck true to your promise of bashing her face in the next time you saw her but instead, you wrapped your arms around her tightly and began to sway gingerly. It was just the beating of hearts like two drums in the rain.

"I'm sorry," You mutter into the crook of her neck. "I missed you, you should visit more."

Hesitantly, Ellie hugged you back, folding her arms around your torso and letting herself sink into you. In the past 2380 you had never hugged Ellie, you hardly touched her. She closed her eyes letting delusion flood her brain, thinking back to the first time she had seen you and then seventy years later when she realized you were immortal and every other timeline she had lived with you.

"I missed you too," She muttered, trying to ignore the fact that you were only saying this because you were high.

You pull back away from her and take her in, all dazed. You give her a boop on the nose with your index and erupt in giggles while Ellie furrows her eyebrows. An idea strikes you and it's apparent on your face as you light up, eyebrows shooting up. "You should come to tell my friends about all of your time-travelling stories!"

Ellie starts to shake her head but you pull her away despite that. She trails behind you as you refuse to let go of her hand, dragging her back to the grassy patch where your friends danced, some of them taking a quick break flat on their backs. "This is Ellie, we've been friends for a long time."

The group acknowledges her, mainly with waves and giggles but Jimmy goes the extra mile, standing up and extending a lanky arm "It's good to meet you."

"This is my best friend in the world forever!" You sling an arm around Dina, calling for Ellie's attention. Dina leaned into your touch, a drowsy smile on her face. "Ellie can actually travel through time."

You tell the group and they all look toward her, eyes squinted and bodies relaxed. Ellie didn't mind, knowing that they were too high to believe her by the time they sobered up even if they did she could go back and fix it. She nods along "It's true and she's immortal." Ellie points at you.

"No, you're not," Dina pokes you.

"I believe it," Weston speaks up from his spot on the ground where he lies with Patricia, her ash blonde hair strewn across the grass "I have never seen this woman so who am I to not believe her." As opposed to the majority of the group whose pupils were dilated from LSD, the whites of his eyes had turned red from the herbs he smoked.

Stevie is still dancing, her loose white dress rustly so slightly in the gentle breeze. Dawn dances with her, her hair the colour of fire tied neatly into two twin braids, she doesn't care about anything besides the way her feet carry her.

"One time I cut out my own heart and I ate it," You giggle, head resting on Dina. Her face was sunkissed, accentuating her freckles. She had let her dark hair run loose.

Jimmy looks at you, through his sunglasses. He has Ellie sitting next to him, his ebony skin a contrast to her paleness. "How does that work?"

"I slice my skin open and then I break my ribs, rip out my heart and shove it in my mouth.

He looks you up and down "Ribs look fine to me."

"I can show you," You look around to find something to cut you open, and you see a large rock with some smaller ones stacked around it. You walk over, all eyes on you as you put your wrist on top of the larger rock.

In your free hand, you pick up a smaller jagged rock that fits into the claw of your hand. You raise the jagged stone up and smash it into your wrist with little effort after the strength you have gathered over the years.

Dina lets out a scream watching your arm bend out of shape, wrist twisted so your hand doesn't sit where it's supposed to. You bring the rock up and slam it down again, making sure to dig into your skin, flesh mangled up on your arm and you brought it up to show everyone. Jimmy scrambled to his feet in a panic, racing through the crowd to find a medic.

"No, it's healing!" You shout after Jimmy. Weston looks at your mangled arm with wide eyes before buckling onto his knees and throwing up. Dawn and Stevie pause their dancing, Dawn froze in fear and Stevie backed away. "Do you see?" You shake your arm trying to show them that the wound was fixing itself.

-

"I can show you," You look around to find something to cut you open, and then your eyes settle on Ellie who shakes her head at you. You knew this meant she had seen the outcome and it wasn't good so you decide to drop the topic, plopping yourself onto the grass.

"Don't you wanna dance?" Dina asks.

You shake your head. You had reserved dancing for Jesse who you knew you wouldn't see again, not even in death since it would never come for you.

The day had eventually faded away into night, the concert still rang loud but you stayed far in the back of the crowd, lying on the ground with Ellie and looking at the stars. "I'm really sorry for everything you've been through," Ellie breaks the pure hum of music.

"I'm really sorry for everything you've seen," You answer. "I thought the war would finally be over," You murmur, thinking back to Jesse and the idea you conjured up of his corpse; you imagined him to be blown into a million pieces, a thought that never left your mind no matter how high you got or what you drank you knew it wouldn't end. You had thought World War two to be the last until the Vietnam War plagued the news and began to pluck men from neighbourhoods all around.

"It doesn't end, not ever," Ellie tells you.

"You should fix it."

"I've tried," There's a hint of sadness in her voice "If one ends, a new one will always spring up."

The two of you fall silent for a moment, heads side to side but you don't look at one another, only the stars. There's something so calming yet unnerving about the inky black sky; it reminded you of the nothingness that consumed you on the night you had given up your mortality.

"I don't want to live," The words fall from your lips so effortlessly. The LSD was wearing off, leaving you to be in control of your thoughts and your body all over again.

"I know."

"I've seen more men die than I can count."

"I know."

"I can't seem to hate you though."

Ellie turns her head to look at you and you do the same. Her green eyes are shining beneath the moonlight, just the shadow of her face illuminated. You lean forward just the slightest and connect your lips into a kiss, Ellie seems surprised but she doesn't fight it.

Once you pull away, you can only seem to make out one sentence "Don't leave this time."

Greenport Village, America - April - 2011

A handshake of carbon monoxide, no alarms and no surprises.

As the late afternoon sun cast its golden hues over the rolling hills of the Greenport, you made your way home planning a quick visit to the beach before doing so, arms laden with bags filled with groceries from the quaint village market, arms laden with provisions that you had no need for, save to fill the endless hours of your existence.

You walked with your timeless beauty that seemed to shimmer like a mirage in the fading light, you had called the Greenport Village home for six years now, finding a position there as a history teacher, your favourite job of the hundreds you had worked. Though the passing decades had left their mark on the landscape and its inhabitants, you remained unchanged, frozen in time like a moth preserved in amber.

You still struggled to come to terms with the fact that death would never take you though Ellie tried to make it easier. All these years and it never felt any better, it was still difficult to swallow the truth.

There was no solace to be found in the quiet beauty of the world around you. For two thousand years, you had walked the earth with Ellie, you, a solitary figure doomed to wander the endless expanse of time and her, the shadow that trailed behind and mocked your existence without intending to. You had seen kingdoms rise and fall, witnessed the birth and death of countless generations, and yet you remained unchanged, untouched by the ravages of time. All of the identification you had forged didn't make you into who you said you were.

Walking towards the beach, you could've sworn that you recognized every face you saw but that was just how long you had lived; everyone you've ever known slowly bleeding into everyone else like a suicide cleanup. You would outlive the kids playing on the seesaw and the toddlers scrambling around them, you would outlive their offspring too and every other generation after that.

Eventually, you found yourself in your usual spot in the park, an old beaten bench outlooking the sea where sunlight danced off of it like sparks.

After the seventies, you had accepted that the land was your only friend, ever-changing just like you, yet it remained miraculously intact. You had Ellie, on occasion, though calling her a friend would be a loose term. You weren't sure what she was but butterflies and maggots had a field in your intestines every time you thought of all of the things she knew about you and how little you know of her.

The lack of trust always lingered. You never knew if she had gone back in time and forced you to forget about something she said or something you asked. How many times had you begged her to go back to the beginning and let you ebb away with old age?

As you sat in silent contemplation, lost in the labyrinth of your centuries-old thoughts, a frail figure approached, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane. It was an old woman, her face etched with the lines of a life well-lived, her eyes twinkling with a spark of something you couldn't make out.

You shifted slightly on the bench, making room for her unexpected companion. The old woman, her steps slow and deliberate, lowered herself onto the seat beside you, exhaling a contented breath as she settled into place.

For a long moment, you sat in companionable silence, each lost in your own reverie. "You must be an old soul," The woman next to you speaks, covered in sunspots and wrinkles, grey and white streaks all through her black hair. "When you're old all you want to do is sit and stare at the scenery."

"Yeah," You give her a tight-lipped smile "I'm mature at heart."

The woman furrows her eyebrows for a moment, deep in thought as her brown eyes rake over every single one of your features, studying you like scripture. "I'm sorry," She shakes her head "You just look like a girl I used to know."

"Really?" You ask and then it strikes you like lightning. Despite the withering of her face, it's the same bump of her nose, the freckles across her skin, the curve of her jaw, it was your Dina.

She waves it off "She's long gone by now, haven't heard from her in years." Dina looks off to the ocean, the screech of kids is far off in the distance. Her face drops just the slightest at the mention of this.

"Who was she?" You press, just wanting to hear Dina's voice after decades of replaying memories and performing autopsies on expired conversations like you could somehow revive them and the people who came with.

"Oh, um," Dina hadn't expected you to carry on the conversation, people had stopped caring about what she had to say when time hit her and dragged her skin down. "A friend of mine, way back before you were born. If you could see her, gosh," Dina mutters, salt and pepper hair braided down her back "You could've been her twin."

Your heart was slamming against your ribcage like it wanted to be set free. "Uh, I'm sorry if this seems odd," You say with a shakey breath "But could you just keep talking? I don't want to have to think right now."

Her eyebrows knit together just the slightest, concern growing with your words "About what?"

"Just," You shrug "Reminisce maybe," Nearby there were birds on a wire chirping, it felt like every one of them was talking to you, beedy eyes prying into your veins "I just like stories."

Dina slips a small smile, her teeth not quite as white as they used to be but her smile holds all of the comforts nonetheless "My stories are no good, I'm sure you'll have better ones when you're my age."

You shake your head on impulse, grasping the pieces of her that you still held close to your ancient heart. "No, I don't think I'll get there," You aren't trying to ramble yet here you are, scrambling to reconnect the two of you like this is a film that ends well.

Her smile falters, trying to comprehend the odd woman beside her, beginning to contemplate that you're high on something, suspicion growing more solid with each shake of your hands and blink of your watery eyes. "Are you alright?" She lowers her voice.

"Yup," You nod, already feeling her slip through the space between your fingers all over again like she had years prior. At this point in your life, you should've been a better liar but you just sat there, tears rolling down silently while you forced your teeth to bear a smile. You wanted to tell her how nice it was to see her and remind her of all of the days and nights alike you had wasted on each other.

It was easy to see how she didn't believe you, from your trembling hands gripping your thighs in an attempt to steady them to the manufactured smile you wore on your face, sadness seeping from your pores. Unlike Dina, you felt that age had made you no wiser. Years you spent studying and chasing careers just to end up faking death and restarting all over again from scraps, losing a little piece of yourself every time.

She places one of her calloused and withered hands over yours where it grasps to the fabric over your thighs. She meets your gaze "Whatever it is, you'll be okay."

Something inside you shifts, then cracks, and crumbles completely. The agonizing pain accumulated by thousands of years spilled out of you in the form of tears as salty as the ocean spray that simmered on your skin. It was like every awful thing you had ever felt was going to burst through the gaps of your teeth.

There was entirely too much going on in your head when you inched forward and wrapped your arms around Dina, chin resting on her neck. It took a minute but you felt her bony hands rest on your back while she returned the gesture, albeit confused.

You were glad you got to see her again. Every time someone passes through your life you think of all of the things you would do to speak to them one more time. You had finally been given a blessing, something that balanced out the bitterness of eternity. "I'm sorry, Dina."

The second you spoke you regretted it. With what little grace you have left you manage to pry yourself up, sheepishly standing to your feet and trying not to wobble like a colt. Dina's bygone face held more confusion than ever, mouth slightly ajar as she watched you with wide eyes like a doe. "Honey, I think you have the wrong person."

Your feet move faster than your head, not leaving Dina behind a second time but a complete stranger. You had only been sick with nostolgia. Panic shot through your veins like box cutters trying to find their way to your heart, which they surely would.

Your day's shopping had been left behind at the bench along with all of the dreams you once etched into indigo skies and sandy shores, now all they did was rot at your feet, at least they had the pleasure of aging.

The feeling of screaming was creeping up your body in shivers, you hugged yourself all the way home, swivelling your head every minute to be sure that ghosts weren't following you but they always had a way of sneaking up on you.

What purpose did you serve? Anything mildly important you had ever done was lost to time, gone, forgotten. You didn't get the luxury of having children with the one you love, you didn't even have anyone to love. You drag your mud-covered heels all the way up the steps of your stoop slamming the door behind you.

With trembling hands and a mind consumed by anguish, you began to tear through her home with frenzied desperation, your movements fueled by a maelstrom of emotions too powerful to contain, the urge-no, the need to die. You ripped books from their shelves, their pages fluttering like wounded birds as they scattered across the floor in a flurry. You overturned furniture with reckless abandon, the sound of splintering wood and shattering glass echoing through the empty rooms like a orchestra of destruction.

You open your cabinets, dragging your hands behind all of the ceramic and glass, pushing it to the ground and watching them shatter at your feet. What need did you have for a fridge full of food when you don't have to eat? Or a feathered bed when you don't need to sleep, you can't even bring yourself to sleep these days.

Each crash and thud seemed to reverberate through your empty, a haunting reminder of the pain and turmoil that threatened to consume her from within. Memories, once cherished and dear, now lay shattered and broken like all of the ambition you should have forgotten, fragments of an overwhelming life that had slipped through your fingers like grains of sand.

With a guttural cry of anguish, you sank to your knees amidst the wreckage, body racked with sobs that seemed to tear at your very core. You clutched at your hair in despair, her fingers intertwined in the tangled strands like thorns in a bed of roses.

Your eyes snagged on the cabinet below your sink. You crawl over to it, shards of shattered glassware sticks into the soft palms of your hands, porcelain china cutting up your knees. It didn't even feel like anything, you just wanted to feel something.

You pull the cabinet open pushing the other cleaning supplies aside and grabbing the ammonia and bleach. Twisting the caps of and discarding them among the wreckage, you take a deep breath before raisng the bottle of bleach to your lips and drinking, the harsh and ancrid taste making you cringe but you kept swallowing until you could feel a burning in your throat, taking a quick shallow breath and then doing the same with the ammonia, tears brimming your eyes and hitting the few beams of sunlight that struck through your closed curtains like the glimmer from the ocean.

God, it tasted rancid but for a moment, a brief one it had felt like death or something similar. Mouth feeling like plastic throat burnt to rubber you drank until both bottles were empty. You pressed yourself as flat as you could on the floor, soaking in the last moments of feeling as your insides contorted before stillness.

All of the cells you killed were fixing themselves up and after a minute, you felt numb like you tended to. You hiccup, body jerking upwards just the slightest, a spat of vomit now dribbling at you chin.

Deep inside of you, you knew Ellie would be back to fix your wreckage and leave you oblivious to the destruction you not only caused but craved. She would just keep going back until you help something on the spectrum of happy.

Define happy.

Smiling?

Joking?

Laughing?

Not digging through the dictionary to find new ways to try to kill yourself?

That last one sounds right.

"Ellie, I can't do this anymore!" You screeched hoarsely to the empty room, despite the freckled girl being nowhere in sight. "Can you please let me die now!"

You call for her until your throat is as dry as sandpaper, hollow words scraping themselves dry before they can leave your mouth. Your voice is reduced to a pathetic rasp and you pray that she regrets stealing blood from your veins.

"Please!" You scream, fingers gripping onto the marble counter to haul yourself up. You stumble for a moment as you adjust to the jagged shards you stand on. "I know we've done this before but you'll just lie and make me sound like I'm fucking crazy," A sob falls from your mouth like a howl.

You pull a long kitchen knife from the knife block, and watch the silver blade glimmer, a warped reflection of yourself staring back at you. With little hesitation, you plummet it into your stomach, again and again until your midriff is a mangled fleshy mess. Blood pooling out of you like cherry wine. Nothing new.

"Asshole!" You cry out "I know you're hiding around here somewhere!" Your mind immediately went to how many times this situation had played out, on this same day. Maybe you had done something worse.

Lungs burning from screaming, cries throbbing inside of your throat, you have one last idea that had to have happened before. "Can you please stop?"

You turn to face the voice, hair matted, clothes torn and bloody, vomit from makeshift mustard gas sliding down your chin to your neck. You drop the knife, it clatters against the tiles "No," You approach her, each step more certain than the last. "You need to stop, this isn't right."

"I know," She says, face stone-cold a hint of irritation in her tone. She's back in her grey hoodie and jeans, finally, she fits into the time period.

"If you know then why have I been pleading with you to go back to the start and stop me from dying in the first place and making that deal?" You're inches away from her, voice carrying challenge if not bitterness. "Like I've asked you over and over again." Your voice is unsteady like it's being crushed beneath the weight of the world.

"Because I love you," She says, raising one hand to cup your face.

If it were for the chemicals flattering through the air making you nauseous, this act alone almost brought you to your knees with sickness. You don't bother to move her hand though, just shuddering under the touch. "Do you really?"

She nods, gaze softening "Yes."

"Then you'll go back and you'll fix all of this right?"

Her hand falls from its resting spot on your face. "You want to forget?"

"No, I want to die." Silence falls between you. Each rise and fall of your chest shaky and ragged "You keep forgetting that I'm a person, I'm not a concept you've curated in your head." It was hard to find yourself being gentle to her. It was hard to feel bad for her in general with how she treated your entire being as something for her to tune in and out of as she pleased.

Ellie takes a breath in, eyes unwavering from yours "Okay."

"Okay?" You don't believe her "You'll fix this and you'll leave me alone and let me live a regular life without knowing you?" You breathe the moment in, the hopes that this will be over soon. The taste of heartache and war could be washed away from your mouth, you wouldn't meet Joel and watch his daughter die in front of him or meet Jesse and fall in love. The humiliation to be made of rotting flesh then it hits you- how many times have you had this conversation? "I want you to promise-

Athens, Greece- October- 412 BC

I prayed for your breath right here in the shallows.

Rain splashes against the skin of your face in lands of ancient Greece, where the winds themselves whispered stories of gods and heroes, neither of which you were. You were nothing more than a frightened woman running away from an unforgiving husband in the dead of night where your quickened heartbeat falls in rhythm to the ocean which is almost as angry as the storm that roars above.

Carefully you dodge the jagged rocks sticking out from the sand, you had memorized each and every one after days of burning your skin on the shores. Water surged against the rocks near your feet, white froth sizzling in the waves retreating like it was trying to drag you in and take you for its own.

Your heavy breathing was devoured by the heavy rain and cracks of lighting, the sounds of thunder so deep it was like Zeus himself was stomping in the clouds. Despite the night being dark you trusted the moonlight that glimmered off of the ocean to guide you. You have nothing more than the soaking wet clothes on your back, jewelry to sell, and the drachmas you had stolen from your husband tucked away safely in a wool tagari purse.

This time around, Ellie doesn't intervene. She watched you, panic-stricken, fumble over wet sand and glide past slick rocks. Trying to outrun your fears of wasting your life.

As you reached the edge of a rocky outcrop, your leather sandal caught on a slick stone, sending you tumbling to the ground. With a sickening thud, your head struck against the unforgiving rock, and the world around you spun into darkness.

You were dead. Body limp on the plethora of rocks, the tide slowly lulling over your body until Ellie kneeled down next to your body and gingerly guided it into the ocean for it to take. The blood from the wound in the back of your head is sucked away into the sand. She watched your corpse drift out and get pulled down, all she needed was another lifetime with you. You didn't know how miserable you were with her anyway. 

This is not a story about love.

A/N: guys I’m breaking hiatus to post this bc I realised it’s been hanging in my drafts for a century (century haha) Anyways I actually hate this but it felt too long to scrap so thanks for reading.

Perm tag list: @ellslvr @gold-dustwomxn @bready101 @whenlostinthedarkness @veeveeisgay @vqxen

[pinkrelish]

𝐥𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮.

rockstar!eddie x assistant!fem!reader

✶Tossed to the wolves of touring lifestyle, you'd had enough of Corroded Coffin's backstage antics one night after a show, and try to escape to the bus for fresh air. Eddie follows.✶

NSFW — 18+ drug/alcohol mention/use, eddie spits whiskey in reader's mouth, sexual themes, crude jokes, enemies to lovers vibes, secret soulmates au

[wc: 8.8k]

↳ standalone gift oneshot for the i will wait series written by @abibliophobiaa, @blueywrites, @breddiemunson, @myosotisa, @fracturedarkness

The methodical chaos—the mechanical creep of soundscape under the drums punching through your body, building to something bigger—ended forty-nine minutes and twelve seconds ago, and like the suspended chords he loved so dearly, you were left with a sense of foreboding.

Stage lights dimmed off. You were on the clock. Showtime.

Babysitter. Handler. Assistant who knew better than to offer him water.

Nerves holstered your shoulders. Unease twisted your stomach. Your ears rang, your teeth ached. Your jaw clenched in throbs off tempo from your heartbeat running wild on the adrenaline feeding the racing pulse hammering in your chest.

The concert was over, but the noise never stopped.

Inside the venue’s backstage room, abrasive bursts of laughter collapsed in excited chatter after an individual cocked back an object, and threw it.

The true night began.

A mostly empty beer bottle smacked its intended target in an echoey clang, and fell in a spray of foam. Fine. You could handle that. Then someone grabbed a plastic chair with metal legs, hoisted it over their shoulder, and chucked it, stumbling after the trajectory in the sloppy way drug-encouraged drunkenness would imply. A cacophony of too-loud cheering was caught on tape by a sound engineer’s personal Sony camcorder, flattening himself against the wall to capture the reaction to the CRT TV dropping from its shelf in the corner, stage live feed long since dead. On its fateful descent, it clipped the edge of an EXIT sign, which now dangled by its chord like a pinata, becoming the next target.

The beige brick room dampened outside interference and amplified the rest, living between yours ears alongside the snappy demands, rude remarks, and crude jokes. Spoken down to, disregarded like caked dirt between boot treads. Anxieties buzzing, looming a presence at the back of your mind, always. On edge.

Shouts, thuds, broken glass. People had the sense to duck, and cower. A side table was lifted, and heaved in a barbaric yell. Beer bottle after beer bottle after beer bottle. Chair legs ripped off, slick from the boozy bubbles coating the floor, and hurled at the red blinking sign. A lamp from another room. An ugly trash can. A hairdryer. The telephone you used to make a phone call thirty-two minutes and forty-three seconds ago; ripped from the wall with its receiver, and added to the clutter of projectiles. A bucket of melted ice, nailed head-on, splashing two dots of cold water on your cheek.

Expendable bottles were gone, but the riot didn’t stop. Another case was ripped into. Hard liquor traded hands. White powder stung noses, earning bloodshot eyes. Rewards. Rowdy shoving. Boys will be boys behavior.

An unopened Pabst whizzed past your head, slammed like a bullet into the mirror on the opposite wall, launching itself in a jet of built-up pressure across the room, ending its route at the toe of your heeled shoes seemingly just to ruin your wool-blend Express pencil skirt with hoppy liquid.

Eddie kicked the can away.

He circled his thumb and forefinger up the sides of his nose, and sniffed hard. “Want some?” he asked as he leaned on the wall with you, posture lax and open in all the ways your crossed arms weren’t. You cut your glare to the clear bottle he offered you. His grip obscured most of it, but you could see a worrying amount of whiskey had already been drunk when it crested the sides between his middle and ring finger.

Remembering to answer, you shook your head. The amber liquid sloshed with his tut, “Suit yourself,” and two deep gulps bobbed his throat.

You weren’t opposed to drinking when around him, but you learned your inebriated lesson four stops ago when the bill from the hotel totaled a stomach dropping amount, and as much as alcohol made it easier to tolerate Eddie in particular, your sluggish tongue slurring over an authoritative reminder of the early start to the morning to make it to the next city on time only fueled his defiant attitude. Pink puckered skin marked the stitches he snipped out of his upper arm with a pair of nail scissors after he and Gareth decided to smash the Hilton’s wine glasses for fun, and was surprised when a sliver of glass bit him back. Under his stringy bangs was an angry red scab from yesterday’s mic throttle to his forehead at the end of a verse, screaming his voice to the point of cracking with emotion. Other self-destructive tendencies coated his knuckles in dried blood.

It was a lot to deal with.

Today’s toll was one ruined guitar, a broken bass after the fretboard was stabbed into an amp, a bent hi-hat stand, and a completely deboned keyboard; keys removed thoroughly by the sole of someone’s boot scraping them clean off in the midst of performance. Blowing off steam, Eddie called it. Boys will be boys, one of the returning tour managers shrugged at you.

So far, it was one of the lighter days of tour—

You flinched.

A loud pop flickered through the room. One of two fluorescent lights shattered, and the tube swung down from the ceiling, becoming the next victim to a corner store ham sandwich being thrown at it.

Staying as small as possible, the emotional support water bottle in your hand crinkled as you hiked your fists further up your biceps, eyeing the camera man in the corner. Your employer tilted his head at the sight too, admiring, perhaps, the scene of two guys puffing on cigars. They stood behind two young women dressed in short jean skirts and hot pink tops, leering over their shoulders as the camcorder zoomed in on the obvious body parts a crowd of men would be interested in. The cigars bounced in their mouths as they spoke an unheard instruction in the chaos surrounding you, and the halter tops came off, breasts dropping to the tune of their girlish giggles. The men cupped their palms around the assets, and bounced them as if they were weighing fruit. From their gross laughs, it appeared they were rating the groupies, and the ladies were just happy to be on camera, pouting their lips and arching their backs.

You drew a line from their tits to Eddie’s gaze, hating the sick kick of anticipation knotting your stomach, aware you shouldn’t care for an entire phonebook’s list of reasons if he was watching them with interest. But with clarity, you realized he wasn’t paying them attention at all. His lazy smile was aimed over the rim of his bottle, full lips moving in a goad to the mass of crew members clogging the doorway.

More property ready to be damaged entered over their heads. A couch. An entire fucking couch was carried, stood on its end, and lobbed at the sign, breaking loose a length of red and yellow wires. But it still held strong. Tenacious thing.

Two grown men wrestled beside you. Their sleeveless shirts tangled, riding up to show purpled bruises on their backs—one from a mic stand thrown at him, the other from who fucking knows what. At least Gareth’s was in the shape of a crescent moon.

You shifted closer to Eddie to get away from their kicking feet, and relaxed the frustration from your brows before he commented on it. He, likewise, was bumped into by his friends, but his stature didn’t waver. That’s just how it was. Your bodies were near enough for you to feel the heat radiating off his hot skin, but the moment his sticky elbow made contact with your nice blouse—forever marking it with oily sweat—he earned an apology from Jeff who fell into him, meanwhile you were increasingly worried about receiving a tennis shoe to the ankle.

Exhaling an overdue sigh, you glanced sideways at Eddie to gauge if this was an appropriate time to remind him he should shower and get ready to greet the fans waiting outside the venue, but your breath crumbled to a groan. An eager grin cracked his face, almost manic if it weren’t for his heavy-lidded brown eyes. An idea.

He stepped forward. Everything that wasn’t his tight lips on the bottle of whiskey was ignored; downing what he could in a long swallow, and shaking off his pinched features as it burned past his gritted teeth. He raised the rest over his head, and aimed. Perfectly. The sign smacked the wall from the force behind his pitch, spinning wildly on its cord, slinging the front EXIT display clean off, and dropping lower from the ceiling, ready to sever ties. Shouts for its demise pounded your headache. Many palms clapped the back of Corroded Coffin’s frontman. He held out his hand to his audience, and a fresh bottle of whiskey was produced into his grasp.

Intuitively, employees shuffled to avoid his uncoordinated steps backwards, but you didn’t have the luxury of options, thus he misjudged the distance to the wall and ran into it, and you.

Your poor toes were the first to scream out, stuck under his heavy heel. His elbow jutted into your stomach, digging the sharp corner of your laminated backstage pass into your sternum. Even better, his shoulder mashed your nose, and you didn’t twist your head in time to keep your mouth from coming in contact with his bare tricep, getting a lick of stale salt on your inner lip, and a whiff of boy scent assaulting your nose after his deodorant stopped working hours ago. Too much of his weight depended on you to keep him upright, so you grunted out, “Fucking—Eddie,” and pushed him when others wouldn’t. Laying your hands on him in annoyance when no one else dared. He wouldn’t remember it in the morning, anyway.

Eddie followed his stumble through, and spun around. “Whoops!” he said to you in a smile—a viciously sincere thing, betraying his status over you with a genuine shine to his heavy eyes. So innocent behind his sleepy blink, long lashes fluttering, fine lines creasing at the droopy corners from the happy grin teasing his dimple into coming out, freckled nose bathed in hues of pinky red darker than the places he chewed on his bottom lip. He appeared so earnest, so charming despite his current condition, that when his dilated pupils swallowed the rim of bitter coffee brown, you lapsed in staying alert, becoming enamored by his ability to steal the noise from the room when his gaze swept your expression in a slow study. Tender, almost. If he were anyone else.

That’s why it hurt more when the comradery in his features were a trick of the light, and you were reminded of your position as his paid bitch killjoy.

The uncorked bottle of whiskey made itself known under your nose. “Want some?” he asked with kindness he did not possess, easing into a higher register to lift the question to you. Knowing. Mocking.

You swatted his hand away, and answered flatly, “No.”

It was coming. You didn’t have to be looking at him to see his face slide into dull neutrality, dry mouth and wicked tip of his tongue swiping over the back of his teeth. The displeasure was felt. Living, breathing. Fracturing your resolve like the second lamp thrown against the wall.

“Y’sure? You look like you could use a drink to loosen that stick up your ass, and have a little fun.”

Maybe it was the fact Eddie’s day started with him bitching at you for waking him up, when yours started hours earlier, rebooking his hotel rooms after being banned from the chain after last week’s incident. Maybe it was his snide tone when he demanded coffee, and you glanced at the lobby’s carafe on instinct, only to be immediately humiliated in front of the interviewer who was sitting opposite him, festering an indignant response under your skin all day. You weren’t even intending it to be for him, you weren’t stupid enough to serve him such pedestrian coffee, you were thinking about getting it for yourself. Stupid fuckhead. Maybe it was the hours you spent oscillating between enjoying the travel to new places you’d never been, and wondering if the price of him getting this riled up whenever he pleases was worth it. Maybe it was the nauseous haze flogging the room from the cigars. Maybe it was the channeled aggression from the three guys who flipped over the fold out tables for no reason, sending plastic cups of backwash tequila across the floor. Maybe it was the collateral damage the venue was going to seek. Maybe it was the three days of disaster challenging your professionalism. Or maybe it was Eddie’s next comment which pushed you over the edge.

“If alcohol doesn’t do it for you, there’s prob’ly some guy who hasn’t left the parking lot yet, maybe he can loosen you up.” And to further imbue disrespect behind his comment, he leaned in and feathered the low dip of his raspy voice over the shell of your ear, speaking so quietly the syllables had trouble catching, “But if you fuck ‘im on the bus, I wanna watch.”

The sign snapped and crashed onto the heap of damp valuables, inciting a louder celebration from those participating.

You dropped your water bottle where you stood, and skimmed past Eddie on your way out. A firm departure with seething eyes aimed straight ahead. Chin strong, moving past him with a message. “Go to hell.”

And your backbone faltered when the mass of roadies blocked your exit. Security guards with big bodies jumped, rejoicing. Lanky lighting techs downed their beers and threw them over the small crowd with no aim. Your shoulders collapsed, tucking your arms to yourself. Avoiding elbows, meaty arms with enough muscle to floor you, testosterone laced boys will be boys behavior with a heavy dose of uppers. A wall of men who ignored your plea spoken so loud in your voice which did not carry.

But they obeyed the tattooed arm beside you. Minded the obnoxious rings when rapping on a man’s arm. Heard the hoarse voice commanding them all into a single file line for you to squeeze by, “Give her some room,” and their big bodies were already hugging the other side of the hallway with a laughed apology—to him, not you.

You shuffled out as dignified as possible, knees stiff and weight focused on the balls of your feet to avoid slipping on the tile. It was embarrassing enough as is being trailed with a bottle at your back—a far cry from a heroic palm guiding you forward—and his need to overtake you in a single stride. Eddie shot his other hand out and pointed down an unoccupied corridor, in essence blocking you from leaving. Not that you had much fight left in you to argue after being awake for twenty-one hours, thirteen minutes, and fifty-two seconds. You followed the lead he set for you.

Scarce lighting shone down on the two double doors leading outside, leaving the alcove he chose cast in a darkness your eyes had to adjust to. Musty warm air from the arena swept your face. A cleaning crew attacked the stands, creaking along the seating tiers. Sweeping, chucking empty cups. The pressure on the small of your back drove you to an open area near the instact and working EXIT sign allowing you to discern the back of the stadium, and his face.

Eddie’s features were glazed in a gentle omen of red.

There were thousands of scenarios churning in your mind at the situation of being stuck alone in a dark corner with a drunken man, but his slight smirk put you at ease, ironically.

The source of the painful knots between your shoulders spoke, “Aren’t you forgetting something?” He then had the gall to crowd you to the dusty drywall, and rest his arm atop your head, caging you there. Treating you as a nuisance. An insect. A little bee. A bug caught in his sticky trap. Gazing down at you with reptilian cold pupils behind his happily hooded eyes, substances battling in his body. Dangerous to no one but himself.

You squinted. “No?” The questioning lilt wasn’t intentional, but you had no idea what he was getting at.

He cocked his hip out with a dramatic sigh, and dropped his head forward to stare at you through his lashes, mouth hung loose. Waiting, waiting, waiting; acting as if he were the pinnacle of patience when you refused to play into his game, making you the bad guy. But worry not, he upheld the onus to inform you, his assistant, in a tone wallowing from the dregs of flat boredom with an edge of irritation and touch of patronization for having to spell it out for you, “I’m hungry.”

A polite, professional sneer lifted your upper lip. “Okay? Food should be here soon. I called it in a half hour ago.” About when the band came off stage, and Harry gave his honest opinion on their sloppy performance, while Eddie gave notes to the sound tech about Jeff’s mic not picking him up during Down In It. “Should be here in a few minutes.”

“What’d you order?”

Apprehension tensed through your back, perceived by his forearm mussing up your hair as the instinctual emotion stood you taller, defiant; knowing why his glinty grin taunted a show of teeth.

Pizza on Fridays. Texmex on Saturdays. Chinese on Sundays. That’s how it was every weekend. The consistency ensured you didn’t mishear him earlier when he requested his usual lo mein. “You asked for Chinese food,” you stated evenly, strongly. One step ahead of him.

“Mm.” Eddie scrunched his nose as he pretended to think it over. “Not feeling it today. I want pizza,” he said, the last word suffocated inside the bottle lifted to his lips, taking a long draw as your exhausted brain snapped to condescending him.

“So eat a cheese wonton and use your imagination.”

Utter elation gleamed in the steady eye pinning you in the crimson gloom, head tipped back to drink and drink and drink, cheeks sunken from sucking in liquor, pursing his lips around the glass rim from the smile he tried to suppress after succeeding in getting a rise out of you.

Your blood could only simmer for so long. Rolls of pent up anger, of festering disdain at his ability to find any opportunity to get under your skin, of fatigue from being ‘on’ for nearly twenty-four hours, stone in your gut from the constant passing glances when you were seen with Eddie; it all met its limit. You just wanted to leave. Your path to the hallway was blocked by the smooth contour of his bicep. Ducking under would mean an introduction to his armpit, and you weren’t thrilled by the idea of flattening yourself to the wall to slip by the untamed forest of black wiry hair. It would also be an admission of defeat, even further affirming your role as his spineless assistant to boss around. You could choose the other way and go around him, avoiding him all together, but there was no pride in that, either.

“Can you move your arm?” you asked, giving him the option despite better judgment when sudden pin pricks of uh-oh spiked your senses when he lowered the bottle.

A glistening line of whiskey traced his puckish smirk. Never menacing, but never a good sign. For a long moment the ghosts of the arena haunted the space in distant noises. Caresses of other humans around. Feedback other than the clutch on your heartbeat, and his troubled exhale into a strong inhale through his nose. Big breath filling his chest. Held. You took note of Eddie’s dimpled chin and the beads of water building at his lash line, and finally, he moved.

A sticky circle stamped the soft underside of your jaw, sliding his spit along your skin as he used the rim of the glass bottle of whiskey to lift your chin up, up. Stretching your neck, tipping your head back to the relaxed length of muscle along his forearm. Barely time to register the cherry-red halo striking the ends of his frizzy curls, or the ramping excitement overriding his already ruined impulse control.

Shy, you severed the intense eye contact when his face drew near.

Blank black soundless vortex rushing in your ears.

Drip, drip, drop.

Tiny splashes, one after the other, thumped on the locket of your lips. Mouth softly shut from the pressure under your chin. Tapping, tapping. Beat, by beat. Two, three, four, before your confusion determined what the sensation was, and the astringent scent cut its way to your sensitive nose.

You froze. Body clenching tight, fists sweating, nervous saliva pooling under your tongue too difficult to swallow. Jaw clamped shut and rejecting the liquid pooling at your lips, flooding it to the corners of your mouth, tickling the peach fuzz at the edges in tall walls of surface tension until, at last, they swelled, broke, and crashed. Thin streams flowed down either side of your neck, absorbed by your white blouse’s collar and trickling to the top of your bra cups, skirting to your cleavage. Brain overloaded. Clocked out. Warring with disgust, shock, and disappointment at the pathetic way you curled your fingers in some frustrated gesture at his actions, but ultimately, wrenched his tank top into your grip, and submitted.

You parted your lips, and Eddie poured.

Liquor, warmed from his mouth, filled yours. Burning, burning; drowning under the surge of spirits setting a blazing trail to your stomach, piquing a noise from you which would only draw the attention from those curious as to who the couple was fucking in the dark corner of the arena. You blocked the deluge from choking you with your fat tongue; rising onto your tiptoes while bending at your weak knees in the same involuntary whine as you tensed and squirmed—conflicted. Twisted your hands into the top of his shirt where the ribbed knit stuck to his chest, fabric damp with sweat and cool to the touch. You lurched him forward without thinking, locked in a panic. He complied. Easily.

Body to body, lazy weight on composed. Rubber soled boots dragging along the outside of your simple heels in a stuttered slide. Nudging the introduction of his bare legs against your skin; his hairy shins and the scraggly strings from the ripped hem of his shorts brushing the sides of your knees. Feeling his heavy arm flex as the front of his hips met you in the same stunted bursts as his steps, going from the man who frowned when you approached him, to the one who pressed himself between your thighs, causing the bulk behind his zipper to rock against you as he found his footing and stood tall, keeping his mouth aimed above yours, forgiving what spilt over your cheek in his stupor.

Dried salt and earthen dirt, embroidered texture of the fabric scraps he sewed onto his tank top rubbed your knuckles. The smooth pads of your thumbs landed above the neck hole as you centered yourself, tracing the duality of chilly perspiration on the heated skin of his sleek pecs, feeling the layer of muscle shifting underneath. Notes of oakwood barrels stroked your tongue before the sour punch of rye stung water to your shut eyes. You peeked through the wetness. Just to see.

His powerful lungs exhaled at a trained rate he could sustain in time with the runnel leaving his gently puckered lips paused above your own. Bangs stuck to his forehead. Sleepy faraway gaze. Calm, serene against the circumstances which had you questioning why you weren’t spitting the liquor back in his face. The scrunch of concentration between his brows was your last blurry sight before you were desperate for darkness again, letting your eyelids fall closed, lashes marrying.

Toofulltoofulltoofull.

The difference in your mouth size was apparent. Whiskey primed the inside of your cheeks, filling their fleshy stretch, stressing the brim of what you could hold. He’d only begun to dribble what had run hot and thick over his tongue when you untwisted your achy fingers from his shirt and served three warning taps in the vicinity of his heart. Feathery prods, like silk over the sparse hair growing in the valley between his pecs.

But, due to unforeseen circumstances, he forgot to stop.

Either you wormed yourself into stretching taller against the wall, or he leaned down. Perhaps both were true. Maybe you went rigid from the impending threat of irreversible stains on your new Liz Claiborne blouse, and maybe he shifted when the nuances of your hips slid against his own, dragging upward and reminding him of the cradle he had you in.

Richly flushed from booze, the tip of his nose thawed your thoughts as it grazed past your own, mashing a hint of tenderness you rarely witnessed from him to your cheek. By accident, of course, like the wet mid of his hair skimming the edge of your jaw where the bottle remained notched to your chin; amber glass a stark contrast from the plush give of his bottom lip flirting across yours.

Dry chapped against chapsticked satin.

The unintentional touch happened so fast, too quick to explore.

Mmm! Another antsy noise from you which rang sweet when amplified by the empty pit of coiled wires in the stadium. Mouth overfull. Stomach gripped, lungs clenching for unhindered breath. Realty checking in.

You put strength behind your forearms on his chest, shoving him and whirling your face away, keeling over what room he gave you to struggle through the largest gulp of your life, losing some of the liquor in the process, as evident by the splash on the concrete floor. Beyond brave, you drank it down, coughing, sputtering, and shuddering through the aftertaste for what felt like minutes. Huffing. Heaving. Working through the flood of drool coating your tongue, momentarily resting your dewy forehead on the thick vein drawn down his bicep by the red light, trying not to puke. Your shoulder pressed to his sternum. His heart beat, loud.

You used your sleeve to attack the wet streaks on your chin and cheeks, mopping up your pinched expression as the nausea of chugging his disgusting rye whiskey churned what patience you had for him. “What the—?”

“Hey, try not to waste any,” he commented dryly.

Voice raising, “What the actual hell is wrong with you?” You picked your head up from the crook of his elbow to pin him with your vehement glare. But the flash of temper at his drunken antics faded to the messy background of emotions when you remained in his pinion. Slotted between him, the wall, and the bottle.

Eddie’s nose bumped the bridge of yours. He pulled back slightly, and lowered the bottle. Still, his voice was one half of a sigh seeking its counterpart over your lax jaw and weak scowl. “Lotta stuff,” he answered. Still, your hands remained bound in his shirt. You couldn’t let go. Why couldn’t you let go? You couldn’t let go as the center of your bottom lip tingled like the buzzing wings of a bumble bee. Why didn’t you spit out the whiskey in his face? It was gross, revolting. Why did you swallow it?

Licks of black pepper and clove stayed on your tongue. Inhales went stale with his tangy scent, acrid and musky after giving his all on stage. His sweat clung to your fingers, mixed with the sheen on your forehead. When he breathed, his belly fought for the space between you, pressing into your stomach. Existing in the proximity you’d never seen the other in before; enabling you to hear the intimate loll of his tongue moving the spit in his mouth before he spoke.

Appearing more sober than before, with a strange amount of alertness in his glassy gaze trained on the minute changes of your features, he said, “You’re going to have a miserable time on tour if you keep being this up tight.” He angled away to sip from the bottle held by its long neck in three of his thick fingers. Rolling his lips inward, his throat bobbed a fierce line in the EXIT sign glow. “I was trying to work that permanent twist out of your panties. Get you to loosen up, have some fun.”

Just like that, the frustration was back. His words, his tone, his lack of apology for being a royal pain in the ass.

“You make me miserable,” you told him. For good measure, you pinched the sensitive underbelly of his tricep in case your voice didn’t carry the anger from the last hour of putting up with his shit.

He mumbled, “Ow,” probably not feeling the pain with how much alcohol was in his system.

Restraining yourself from reacting bigger, you tightened your fists and tried not to shake him. “I can’t relax, because the second I do Corroded Coffin gets stacks of lawsuits rammed up it’s ass, and you and I both know I’m hired damage control,” for you, you didn’t finish, getting too hot in the face to want to stand in your sticky clothes any longer, squishy inner thighs humid from being pressed together by his legs, shoes numbing your ability to feel the floor. “Would it kill you to stick to a schedule? Get cleaned up, meet some fans? Do the normal thing?”

The weight of his body returned, dropping the tension from his shoulders to curve them towards you, forcing your palms flat to his ribs. Another cage.

Unfortunately, his answer was a slow smirk. The bad kind. Sultry, and saccharine; dark like his purposefully narrowed coy eyes. “Kinda like it when you’re angry,” back to mushing his words together. “Lemme guess, you’re not even wearing panties to be twisted. You’re just naturally this…” Bitchy. “Pleasant.”

You pinched his tricep until you knew it hurt, until the roots of your hair tugged at your scalp from his forearm slipping away, and you used the space created to wedge past the areas of him which tempted a flicker of want in your core after a noticeable drag against your hip. “Don’t follow me.”

“C’mon, are you really..?” A pause. “Wait—!”

A productive conversation was a fruitless, futile thing.

You silenced the voice in your head telling you there was genuine remorse in his innate reaction to call for you. As if he were done pretending to be drunker than he was just to push things too far. Like he really cared you were walking away, in essence giving him permission to continue his night how he wanted.

No heavy thudded steps chased after you. The double doors were up ahead. You leaned into opening them past the heavy gust of hot air pushing back, and you stepped out to excited faces falling flat in disappointment when it was just a lady in a blouse and skirt reeking of booze, not a member of their favorite band printed on their bleach-dyed Corroded Coffin t-shirts.

~~~

When the tour bus doors next hissed, it wasn’t a single body stomping vibrations through the overly large vehicle on their way to pore over the details for the next show, it was a steady flow of those who called the beast their home. Most slung themselves in the couches at the front, talking shop around the kitchen table. Some infiltrated the fridge for beer. Another used the bathroom which was too close for comfort, especially in the recycled air blowing through the vents.

A body approached, and you curled your toes in as he passed.

Eddie’s heavy black boots stopped in the aisle of bunks. The soles squeaked as he turned, creaking leather as he sank his weight to one side. Stalling, facing you before he sat heavily on his bed. As he did so, two sharp pops drew his attention. Checking behind him, the privacy curtain was stuck under his ass, and the plastic rings meant to hold it up were snapped into pieces. You avoided putting your gaze on his person as you watched him solve this mystery, and returned to the paragraph you were scrawling in your notebook, moving your pen across the lined page.

Two of the last three days were journaled down, catching up from the hectic weekend, and venting through your emotions by reliving them. Darker ink bloomed where you carved the tip of your pen through your explanation of your hurt feelings and the general flippancy you were subjected to by one person in particular. The roadies and other members of the band got less screen time than the star of the show in your tirades. He knew this, too, looking from across the aisle at your clumped lashes, spying the water spots on the pages when he was standing. He sat forward, much like you, but his thighs were spread with his hands in between them, palm open to whittle a nervous thumb in the cupped center, having the decency to appear ashamed.

Your clothes were folded beside you, undecided if you wanted to trash them or wear them in defiance.

“Do you want me to apologize?” he asked, not quite enunciating due to his uncomfortableness.

Unable to mask it, you blinked rapidly before opening your eyes wide, not withholding the contemptuous sigh released from deep within. You gripped your notebook harder, bending it, rumpling the pages to hide what you etched behind your tight hands. Who the fuck asks if they need to apologize?

Eddie’s washed curls fell forward with his hung head, nodding to himself.

He got up, and left.

Anger scored your face. Draped by your headache was your furrowed brows, flared nostrils, twisted pursed lips zipped up tight from saying anything you’d regret—a lesson he could do with. Your pajamas were the makings of nine heavenly clouds after being dressed in stiff business attire all day, but the blisters on your ankles stung. Your joints throbbed. Your muscles wore sore. Your spine cried every time you moved.

Tomorrow you’d start doing the stretches the stageside crew showed you that kept them limber. You made a note to fit this in your schedule, bypassing the silly daydream of stopping at a bookstore in the next city and reading up on a yoga guide for more pose ideas than what the guitar techs could teach you, aware the chance you’d find time away from your boss to pursue your own self-interests was slim.

Flipping a new page, you dated it in the corner, began your introduction, and started on the third day of spilling your heart out.

Your pen was mighty interrupted.

It’s difficult to say what came first: the mouth watering rush of saliva, or the passionate rumble of your empty stomach yearning for the white takeout box placed in your lap by the bruised hand sporting cuts from punching Gareth’s drum platform during the one of the more self-loathing songs.

A pang of humility gentled his nature.

The four-fold top was open, revealing your favorite noodle dish with extra green onion and sesame seeds sprinkled on top, plastic fork stabbed through the middle. You lifted the container to swipe the oil stains off your mid-sentence rant, shaking free the beads of condensation collecting on the sides. The cardboard had gone soggy after being nuked in the microwave, burning through to your fingertips, but you held your dinner nestled in your palms, regardless.

It didn’t come with extra green onions or sesame seeds, those would have to be found on the side and added, along with the sauce to keep it from drying out.

Eddie made it exactly how you liked.

Hunched in the minimal space between bunks, you stared at the long stem of a bean sprout sticking out from the swirls of noodles, processing his gesture. Beneath that, your journal was splayed open to a slew of harsh sentences. Lower, directly across from your bare toes was Eddie’s boots. Higher, one of the metal aglets of his laces was stuck behind the leather tongue. Fresh socks clung the bottom of his calves. You listened to him peel back the curtain before sinking to his bunk, and trailed your study over the silvery scars on his knees. Moving up, you spotted a fresh beer in his hand, maybe one or two swigs taken. His elbows rested on his thighs, body folded over, leaning in, mirroring you to some degree.

The harsh overhead lighting brought luster to the bright golds, rich reds, and deep strands of chestnut through his dark hair brushing the shadow of his clavicle over the black shirt clinging to him, hugging the slope of his stooped shoulders.

Finally, you met the depth behind his eyes communicating what he couldn’t.

The apology lasted just long enough for your consideration, and then he lifted the crinkly wrapper tucked between two of his fingers. “You want this?”

You shook your head at the fortune cookie. “You can have it.”

“Nice,” he whispered. The unassuming planes of his cheeks lifted enough to allude to the dimple on his left side, and bracket his mouth in smile lines. He was still drunk, you assumed. A merry blush persisted across his nose, and his eyelids were as sleepy as the bags beneath them. But there was a youthful glee under it all as he tore into the cellophane. A glimpse at someone from long ago; not the rockstar before the start of touring who would pull laughs from you, but further, before the conditions of fame chewed him up, spit him out.

You wondered if Chinese takeout was a rarity in his boyhood, a special treat saved for when he left his hometown on trips to the city.

Eddie flicked the wrapper to the floor—annoyingly—and ducked at an odd angle to lay his upper half into the cozy nook of extra pillows he made you buy on the first night of being on the road. He stowed his beer at the apex of his clenched thighs, fitting the cold bottle snug against the packed seam guiding your eyes to the hill of his zipper, provoking hot blooded thoughts. His shirt rode up as he brought his arms above him, fanning the thick trail of hair out from under the hem, impossibly soft in appearance, auburn tinted, growing less dense on the sides of his belly. He cracked the crisp wafer in half, and you watched his stomach tense on the snap.

Squinting in the dark, Eddie depressed the button on the tiny reading light with his knuckle, and unfurled the paper from half the cookie, scanning the faded red text.

He snorted.

Choosing a mystical-sounding rasp not far from his real one to invoke the guise of a palm reader in a smoky lounge reeking of incense sticks, he read the fortune aloud while waving his other hand about, “You will be successful in love,” he said. His wrist went limp, and he tucked his chin to congratulate you. “Lucky you.”

No amount of plastic forks shoved in your mouth would rid you of the smile tightening your eyes. “Lucky me,” you echoed, full of wryness. The food, amongst other things, worked wonders to lift your mood. You weren’t as much buzzed from the shots sloshing in your stomach as you were queasy, and greasy noodles filled the tumultuous void stupendously.

He stuffed the crunchy cookie in his mouth, and turned the fortune paper over, speaking through the gnash of crumbs, “Your lucky numbers are 35, 26, 56, 10, 32, 52,” he continued.

“Uh-huh.”

The noise across the rest of the bus was at a level you could endure. Shooting the shit at an appropriate volume, or nodding along to the conversation. The driver would give the signal soon, and the boys would, or should, go to their bunks.

While you ate, Eddie stayed laying with his legs off the bed, head crooked against the wall due to the narrow space. He held the fortune above him. Reading it, sometimes. Thumbing the edge other times, or rubbing the texture of the stiff paper across itself. Staring, staring, unblinking from whatever he was thinking as he wrung a hand around his face; eliciting a sense of comfort from the audible stroke of his knuckles scratching over his stubble.

You scraped the bottom of your container, and put aside your notebook to gather your trash, two feet planted to make your way to the kitchen. At the last second, a glint caught your eye, and you bent over to pick up the wrapper Eddie dropped, tossing it in the takeout box, too.

“While you’re down there, be a doll and take off my boots.”

“No.”

His disgruntled groan followed you to the front of the bus.

The guys gave you a mixed reaction of curious glances and uninvolved nods as you stuffed your garbage in the overpacked bin. Jeff in particular made a point to look from you to his best friend’s legs, though you didn’t have much of an answer to whatever he was searching for.

A goodnight wave would have to do, and you were back at your bunk, folding the sheets down in preparation for the dreamless state you wished to be in. You sat on the mattress, eyes closed and spine somewhat neutral. The structure of the bunks were unforgiving, but the small crawl space could feel cozy at times, like a blanket fort made from couch cushions. Except, the house moved throughout the night, and angry honks woke you up on occasion. Not to mention you were a light sleeper from the stress of a car crash, or being dumped onto the floor.

The fortune paper flitted. Regarding you over the imposed suggestion between his legs, he informed you, “It says here the best way to relieve some of that tension you’re always carrying around is by taking a ride on a nice, fat—”

You snatched the beer bottle from between his thighs, big fake hard-on standing tall. He startled from the sensation, darting his eyes from the phantom trace against himself, and hailing you with a sputtered laugh through his cheek-aching smile, denying you the reward of taking him off guard by covering his mouth with his hand.

“I earned this,” you said about the drink.

“Yeah?” he goaded, pleased at your forwardness.

In a valiant attempt to show off, you tipped the mildly hoppy bitter back. Two pulls in, you thought better of it. Not quite a chug, but he lost the war with his grin, pearly teeth shining behind the thumbnail he strummed over the center of his bottom lip, eyes almost closed entirely in a bout of crinkles.

You pulled your lips off the bottle; off his spit and off his drink, off his glass cock, and were emboldened by the confidence of his playful disposition to rib on him openly, like the guys would when his pendulum mood swung to the good side. You lamented in a dramatic sigh,”Maybe my love life will be so successful, I'll get swept off my feet, and be free from the burden of listening to your sloppy guitar plucking all night.”

His expression lurched towards impressed. Overacting with his mouth agape in surprise, lips curled over his teeth, and splaying his hand on his chest. With how he propped himself up on one elbow, his shirt stretched flush against his pecs, accentuating the two round shadows at the ends of the metal bars through his nipples.

Right, you remind yourself, able to forget their existence through most of his wardrobe choices, he has pierced nipples.

Your body ran hot at the memory from two short hours ago where you were inexplicably thrusted into a situation where you could’ve felt the jewelry by accident, pressed against a wall. Now you were able to think through the adrenaline, and acknowledge having another person’s touch on your skin did more harm than good for the loneliness lurking within, calling it to the surface.

The notebook beside your pillow drew your glance.

Eddie stabilized your position in the conversation, not letting your sudden reservation deter him from seeking retribution for your insult. “Think y’drank too much honey, there, Bee. That one stung below the belt.”

The moment it took for you to register the low leech of a tease sneaking its way through his croaky, whiskey-hoarse words was a long one. Longer was his heavy palm falling to demonstrate where exactly your insult hurt him, cupping and grabbing the afflicted area. “You wound me!” he dramatized, demonstrating the limits his fatigue green shorts flattered, cotton fabric scrunching under his grip, then slouching flat on the release. Longer, still, was the distance between the gaudy ring on his middle finger and the tip of his short nails, thick digit landing on the tattered seam splitting him down the middle. Letting go, he rested his hand above his belt.

Everything about him was victorious. Champion eyes glinting rum colored; a shade you’d never seen on him, and almost missed with your observance stuck lower, trapped by his overt flirtations.

His belly rose and fell with a sympathetic hum devised to rattle you.

When sober, the invitation to crude insinuations began and ended with intangibility. A calculated smile to fluster you when caught admiring how his tattoos twisted over the muscles in his upper arms when he leaned on his keyboard, a sentence spoken in the morning before his voice warmed to its comfortable register, a tossed comment in the midst of conversation with his band mates and the effect it had on you shifting uncomfortably just outside the ring of amity—quarantined behind the scope of his single-handed gesture pumping an obvious motion, pretending you were absorbed by the timetable schedule for the band inside your folder, appearing busy and decidedly not desperate to either be included or released from the task of being present, even when hot needles of sweat stressed the lack of consideration for your feelings with each sorry expression cast in your direction. You were his worker bee, paid to wait on him, and his teasing was rarely physical beyond an appropriate knock on your bicep for your attention in the off chance he didn’t snap his fingers at you like a dog. Or a tap on your knee under the kitchen table to get you to stand so he could leave; a light pressure which you could replicate days later with your own knuckles. His daily indifference was born of spite, and his drunken actions were bred of the same annoyance, bottle-deep perspective viewing you as the one who was ruining his night. Assuming he continued to push his tolerance with more drinks after you left the green room, his bold teasing made sense, you supposed, too unrestricted to deny himself the fun of riling you up.

The right thing to do would entail divorcing yourself from this conversation, and bringing up his conduct tomorrow. The wrong thing to do would involve taking another swig of his beer. The right thing to do would require reminding him of his meeting with Murray in the morning, who had a shorter fuse than anyone in the music industry. The wrong thing to do would include lobbing the bottle in his bed. The right thing to do would demand not giggling at Eddie’s poor reflexes when he made a bigger mess of the ale spilling on his blanket.

Eddie seized to catch it, but his hand-eye coordination was not up to par. He scrunched his eyes closed at the last second, jolting into a crunch with his chin tucked in an inordinate amount of wrinkles, and hands turned with his palms out, more keen on keeping the bottle from hitting his face than truly catching it. Which was a plausible excuse for his boot kicking your bunk in the process, and overall lack of poise as he brought his hands together after the beer had already bounced off his belly, and rolled where the bed dipped around him.

The wrong thing to do would consist of you running your knuckle along your shameless grin, prodding the flesh against your teeth as he dropped his head back and emptied the bottle onto his softly cradled pink tongue, thank you for sharing the drink, every last boozy drop.

Recognition curved the groove of his mouth.

Boys will be boys behavior.

“Here,” he said, rolling forward with his arm extended. The glass bottle in his hand drew your immediate wilt, but before you advanced too far into your frown, he alleviated your ire with the two fingers pointing at you, fluttering the damp paper between them. “You believe in this sorta shit, don’t you?” Despite the mock, you knew better than to refute his claim, not having the chops to sound convincing. Not that you really had faith in the mass produced slip of paper, but the affirmation that you’d find your soulmate one day produced a sense of ease before bed. Even when the word ‘successful’ was blurred from a drop of beer.

You placed the fortune in your notebook, feeling the ache of an unfinished entry.

At the front of the bus, the driver stamped up the stairs and gave the signal he was going to start moving soon, cuing the subliminal bedtime. The unbelonging technicians left, and the rest of Corroded Coffin stretched from the stiff cushions lining the booth seats around the table. As they picked up after themselves, Eddie untied the top set of his laces, and kicked his boots off, leaving them in the aisle along with the empty beer bottle.

He rolled onto the edge of the mattress to rip back his sheets and shoved his legs under, hesitating from drawing the curtain when he browsed the end of your bunk, where your feet moved under a pile of belongings placed atop your covers. “I’ll send your clothes to the dry cleaners tomorrow.”

Not an apology.

“You mean you’ll send me to the dry cleaners tomorrow,” you corrected, and his face smoothed flat from the accidental snub.

Harry moved between you two. Jeff divided the conversation further. Gareth cleaved whatever rapport you had with Eddie when he snorted at the two of you facing each other in your bunks, cuddled up like a sleepover.

Thinking harder as his peers climbed into their beds, Eddie relaxed onto his forearm supporting his upright posture, and sank into the jut of his shoulder, spinning his hand in the same flippant way the scrunch between his brows appealed to the snark loading in his throat. “I’ll just give you my wallet then, mm?” he offered, gravelly voice dusted with insincerity. “Then you can buy all the white blouses, and black skirts your pretty heart desires.”

Someone snorted again. It sounded like Gareth.

“And, uh,” Eddie endured as the plastic rings tinked across the metal bar, leaving a generous window visible from the top of his shoulders to his wild hair spread about his pillow palace, limp curtain hanging pitifully, “if you’d be so kind, don’t watch me sleep.”

“I won’t,” you said, and it sounded so sad. So soft, and faint, no bite behind it. No zest, no strength. Just confusion, though you understood the events leading to the pendulum swinging the other direction.

You closed your curtain, too.

The tour bus rumbled before sighing its characteristic hiss and chugging forward, pitching its cargo inside. You swayed in your nook. Laying on your back meant you experienced every roll of the tires cutting corners in the parking lot, but you weren’t ready to turn over yet. Your mind was swarming with cluttered thoughts. There were things you could be doing other than peering out at the depressing darkness where the dim ambient light didn’t pierce. You could brush your teeth, stow away your pocketbook before the pens rolled out, pick up the bottle before it tipped over and played pinball down the aisle all night. Your journal entry could be finished, you could sit up and read a book like Eddie, you could do some of those stretches for your hips and back. You could cry, you could count sheep for the next four hours and forty-seven minutes, you could cry some more; wet face wiped raw by the stiff sheets, and mouth buried in the unfeeling comforter to muffle the squeak of air leaving your lungs when you couldn’t suppress the emotions lodged in your throat any longer.

You could do many therapeutic things.

Instead, you pressed your knuckle over the center of your lower lip, replicating the pressure, and thought about the fortune.

[arminsumi]

Your blog is my daily serotonin <3

geto letting you put eyeliner on him while sitting on his lap- taking the opportunity to flirt with you!!! I'm imagining soft, light, almost tickling touches and his sultry eyes. reader *desperately* trying to keep her cool...

ahhhhaaaaaaaa

˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱

𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 ?

A/N: stawppp u made me blush tysm 💗 also this idea made me SPIN in my spinny chair i love it sm. sugie's eyes are so mesmerizing 🫠 (p.s. ur theme is so prettyyy!!)

Wc ≈ 1.4k

Pairing: GETO Suguru x f.reader

Summary: practicing putting eyeliner on your best friend, while sat in his lap. He can't help but take this chance to flirt with you. Of course, a certain someone interrupts your moment right at the end

Warnings; Satoru being a jackass and totally interrupting u guys at THE moment lol

♪ melting like an ice cream when you smile

“Is it bothering you? Should I clip it back?” Suguru asked.

“Nooo, I don’t mind it.” you replied. “I can keep your bangs at bay with my pinkie, ‘s all good.”

What you did mind was the proximity between you and him.

You could feel the support of his muscular thighs and the engulfing warmth radiating from his chest even through that oversized cotton shirt of his. The very white shirt that had always driven your senses wild for some reason – probably because of how its short sleeves teasingly hinted at his toned arms underneath without completely showing them off.

Pinkie keeping his bangs at bay, fingertip lightly pressing against his cheekbone and hair tickling your skin, you applied the eyeliner with slow, meticulous strokes.

Suguru was mesmerized. You looked focused like an artist at work on a painting. And he noticed that you seemed mesmerized, too. Even a bit shy, which he commented on because it was so unlike you.

“Shy, huh?” He teased.

“I’m not shy.” You denounced half-heartedly. “Why would I be?”

He just smirked in response, and that itself had such an effect on you; your careful line became an inky squiggle. “Oh no! No no no!” you muttered under your breath, hastily using your pinkie to wipe the mistake away but that only resulted in smudging it awkwardly into the crease of his eyes.

“Don’t laugh! Don’t smile! I have to fix the corner…” you begged with Suguru, but that only made him laugh and smile harder. He apologized through soft chuckles.

After correcting the mistake, you pulled back from his face to check that both sides seemed equal. Only when you pulled your face away like this, did you and Suguru realize in the back of your minds that you were quite close to each other earlier…

“Mesmerized by something?” he asked teasingly. His cool voice was so close to your ears, it felt like it reverberated in your whole chest.

Sultry eyes narrowed interestedly at you as you observed the corners of them. Those abyssal irises demanded eye contact from you, and once they got it, they peered into your soul. Suguru loved doing that, not only to appreciate your eyes but because of your sweet, shy reaction.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to stare. Just making sure both sides look the same.” You told him.

“Mhm.” He hummed.

Maybe the broken eye contact is what led him to snake his arms around your waist and pull you closer. Or maybe he just missed the intimate closeness that you had with him earlier, when your faces were quite close.

 You tried to distract yourself from the bubbling heat in the pit of your stomach that his subtle touch caused. “I’m not very talented at eyeliner…” you admitted.

“Really? I think yours always looks good.” Suguru said.

“Just ‘good’ ?! That means I look bad.”

He chuckled. “No I – alright, I’ll phrase it better; you always look like you’re ready for a photoshoot.”

“Oh, stop flirting!” you scolded him playfully, causing his lips to stretch into a cheeky smile.

“Aw, you caught me in the act.” He muttered sultrily.

You tried not to smile, but that was very impossible in the moment. It seems it was the same for him, too. Being so close to you with his arms wrapped around your waist put him in an excited daze.

Sunset light streamed in through the sheer curtains, patterned shadows forming on the white bed made it seem like you were sitting on a grey meadow of flowers, twigs and leaves. A very slight rumble of traffic rose over the railing of the balcony just outside the sliding door. Tokyo had a certain sound and feeling to it, one you could never put your finger on.

After a bout of silence, you realized you and him had stopped talking and just stared into one another’s eyes. You’d even stopped applying the eyeliner. Stomachs knotted up with feelings, the two of you were both about to say something to each other before you blurted out “The brown eyeliner fits you well, glad I chose it.”

“Oh?” he batted his lashes at you… or was that an involuntary action? Who knows. You continued to carefully flick the felt tip of the eyeliner until a tiny, sharp angle was formed.

Well, ‘sharp’. It wasn’t as razor-edged as the other side, which really bothered you. The way you flitted your eyes between his two made him crack a smile that made his Addam’s apple subtly shift up and down.

“Do I look bad?” he asked curiously.

“Not at all… you look ho- you look good with eyeliner.” You replied.

“Oh, I look hot, huh? You crushin’ on me? Satoru’s gonna be heartbroken.” He joked.

“I'm not crushing — !” you squeaked quickly in response, taken aback.

“You’re not crushing on me or you’re not crushing on him?”

“I’ve never… I’m not crushing on Satoru.” You told him.

Such an unexpectedly serious question for him throw into the mellow atmosphere. He tried to sound light-hearted so he wouldn’t scare you off from answering, or give hint to his nervousness.

“So then…?”

“So then what?” you blinked at him, all movements of the eyeliner brush ceased. Things were getting heatedly exciting.

“So then, you have a thing for me?”

You widened your eyes at him. His heart thumped, he was getting nervous – unsure how to judge your reactions to his questions. He was trying to assess whether you liked him or not, and you were making it so hard. If only he could read your mind, he thought.

“Huh? What? Stop flustering me!” You laughed it off.

He could tell you were avoiding answering out of nervousness, but it still irked him; he really wanted to know.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to just spring that on you so suddenly. I was just… curious.” He said.

You sighed. “I’m… I’m already melting over you, no need to vaporize me.”

“Oh? You’re melting?” his eyes lit up, “Why?”

“Because…” you trailed off immediately, “No reason.” You lied.

“No reason?” he questioned, raising his brows sceptically, “You sure about that?”

With the way he raised his brows, his eyes became even more spellbinding. You felt completely bewitched by them. The pigment of the liquid eyeliner, paired with the undertones of the eye pencil you started with, paired with the slight glint of light in his eyes – all of it made that bubbling heat in your stomach explode into an even bigger feeling.

You got so lost in his pretty, abyssal eyes that you didn’t realize how silent you’d become, or how close you had gotten to his face – not that he minded the increased proximity, it had his heart pumping hard.

“You okay? Still melting?” he teased.

“Sorry! I’m just – “

“ – mesmerized by me? Melting for me?” he teased further.

“Suguru!” you laughed shyly.

“There’s no need to keep playing it off, I can see right through you.” He said seriously.

Your eyes lingered on his for much too long. It felt like what he said was true – it felt like he really could see right through you, like you were transparent. He was itching to break the tension between you and him with a feverish kiss. One of those classic, best-friends-to-lovers kisses that you see in the movies.

But then guess who burst through the door of your apartment as loudly as possible? Yeah, the jackass that you regretfully gave your apartment key to.

“YOUR SAVIOR HAS ARRIVED!” Satoru hollered, striding down the hallway and popping his head into your bedroom to find you and Suguru breaking apart very quickly, as if you weren’t just on his lap about to share your first kiss.

“Did ya miss me? ‘Course you did. What?”

“Nothing.” You shook your head.

“What’s with that look?” Satoru whined.

“Nothiiing!” You groaned, Suguru just chuckled under his breath.

“Yuh, I mean, I didn’t do anything, after all. Weirdos.” Oh, you really wanted to shove a pillow into his face.

He pounced on the bed, coming right between you and Suguru without thinking too much of it. “I’m so hungry – let’s get takeout.” He whined and rolled around on your bed. He pleaded until you gave in. “Yay, let’s fuckin’ go then I’m so starved.” He said dramatically.

So you and Suguru readied yourselves to go out for a spontaneous food trip.

“What a pity.” He said with the utmost sultriness in his eyes and voice, leaving you at the doorframe with a wink that lingered in your mind for the rest of the day.

Reblogs n' comments help a lot!! 💗😙

Visit my library ?

[thexsilentxwordsmith]

Part 2 to Desperate Times Call for Filthy Fantasies

Daddy Dom!Simon "Ghost" Riley x Brat!Reader

Fandom: Call of Duty

Character(s): Simon "Ghost" Riley, Reader

Summary: After a certain Lieutenant allowed his fantasies to run wild, there was only one thing left to do: make them a reality. Opportunity presents itself one day as your brattiness has reached new highs and he follows you into the communal bathroom and locks the door behind you both. You're all alone and now what? Seems you've bitten off more than you can chew, but you both know now that was your plan all along.

Word Count: 5.2 k

Warnings:

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ghost demanded as he stepped up to confront you, his voice sharp and harsh. You were in quite the mood today, deciding the night before that instead of pulling your usual bullshit you would be employing a new tactic to piss of your Lieutenant.

There was no way for you to have known how your superior had allowed his fantasies to run rampant through his mind, how he had been in a constant state of being turned on whenever he had to be near you now, how his cock was nearly raw from how many times he’d had to jerk it lately. No, you didn’t know any of that, but it definitely helped your newest little scheme.

“I’m not doing anything,” you said, not even bothering to look into the face of the man trying to reprimand you as you again moved away back to what you were doing.

You should have just been running drills before rifle practice, but instead of simply getting to it and doing it in silence, every time Ghost passed near you a suggestive noise slipped out of your mouth. Moaning, panting, humming; all those beautiful noises of what you would sound like as you climaxed just loud enough that he alone could hear.

It took every ounce of his strength to subdue the aching bulge consistently being made to grow in his pants, threatening to tent the fabric out and display his true feelings about the entire situation and every minute that passed it became almost impossible to quell. Goddamn him for indulging his imagination because now he had to deal with this shit and it made him furious that there was nothing he could do to fix it. Well, not yet.

Making another round to supervise his subordinates, he again passed by you and again was met with a closed-lipped moan as he got within earshot. You looked up as you finished your bit of vocal acting and locked eyes with him in an unmistakable act of defiance which he took the bate of.

“Dammit, I said stop,” he ordered, but again you brushed him off.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s it,” he growled, “I’m not playing games anymore private. You want to get reprimanded again?”

You shrugged. “Fine. What will it be this time, sir? Five hundred push ups or shall I run until the sun sets. Just make up your mind quick so I can get this started.”

Fucking bitch, he thought. “Push ups, now. And if I see your back not straight a board you are starting over. Got it?”

“Sure,” you said as you rolled your eyes and got on your hands and knees.

Not again, he could not take another second of this. Something had to be done or he was going to explode. What was your fixation with inducing his rage? Why could you simply not leave him be?

Ghost had already thought it before, but he had to wonder even more with this new development if the reason behind your actions was to get his attention, the type of attention that wasn’t so innocent. As his hand discreetly adjusted his cock inside his pants, it already throbbing against his touch, he knew he needed to find out.

It was the middle of the day when Ghost finally caught back up with you. At the far end of the base, near the Private barracks, he saw you chatting away with some of your fellow recruits. He watched silently, trying to concoct a plan to get you alone and finally nip this shit in the bud. There were plenty of things he could do: walk up and order you to his office, walk into the barracks and order everyone else out, but as he stood there brooding with what to do, you said your goodbyes and broke off from the small group.

His eyeline followed you as you walked your unsuspecting way to the communal bathrooms alone and stepped inside. This was his chance, at least it looked that way from the outside. Before he could stop himself or think of any possible ramifications of his actions, he stormed right in after you without hesitation. The moment he was inside his gaze scanned the room quick to locate you and found you standing in front of the sinks, peering at yourself in the mirror as you checked your face and hair, then moving on to readjust your breasts to sit up higher in your bra.

Your gaze shifted from the mirror once you felt that familiar pair of eyes on you and as you turned you saw the broad form of your superior officer blocking up the doorway with his impressive figure. He was silent, but then again wasn’t he always? Probably come to continue the earlier argument; good thing you were always ready to push him.

“Fancy meeting you here,” you said nonchalantly with a hint of sarcasm as you finished preening without caring if he saw. “Came to powder your nose as well? Please, don’t let me stop you. I promise I won’t look if you pull off the mask.”

He was quiet, too quiet, as those brown eyes again looked thoroughly through the room. What the hell was he searching for you wondered. It took him less than a minute to finally turn his attention back to you and as he secured that intimidating gaze directly into your eyes, his hand slipped behind his back and you heard a click as the lock on the bathroom door was engaged.

Slowly you turned away from the sink, facing him as you crossed your arms just under your chest. “Care to tell me what this is about, sir?” you asked, not the least bit afraid. “Kind of suspicious the way you just locked us in here like that.”

“Don’t you fucking dare play coy with me, princess,” he growled, his voice deep and menacing as his glare drilled daggers into you through the eye holes of his mask. “We both know exactly what the fuck it is you are doing and if you think you’ll just get away with it anymore, you’re fucking wrong luv.”

The corner of your lip upturned into a smirk. “Care to actually explain what it is I am being accused of? Or would you rather I start making a scene so you get caught doing … whatever this is by keeping me trapped in here? Your choice Lieutenant.”

Christ, the way you made his body burn with an uncontrollable need to put you in your fucking place, to have you bending over backward to his whims, was both infuriating and intoxicating all at once until he did not know up from down. You were fiery and that’s exactly how liked them; the challenge of making the spicy ones come to heel was half the fun for him. And it had been quite a while since he had been able to put his skill to the test.

“Your lack of respect and piss poor attitude are getting fucking old, little girl,” he hissed, his lips curling into a snarl under the fabric of his mask. “And now you want to pull this, hmm? Can’t bitch your way out of it so you decide to make yourself look like a slag to, what? Distract me?”

“Is that what this is about?” you questioned, followed by a malicious chuckle, shaking your head; he didn’t know what he was getting himself into. “And so what if I am?”

“Excuse me?” he interjected.

“You heard me,” you stood firm. “You see, I checked and double checked, I’m still within dress code so I don’t see your fucking problem. Besides, maybe I like making you stare whenever I am around; that’s not a crime and, let’s be honest, there is nothing you can do about it.”

Was that more provocation? Because now that he had the upper hand, it would definitely come with a price. The more defiant you got the harder he became. “Oh,” he said as he took a few steps closer, his boots crunching as they crushed the debris stuck in the grooves along the bottom. “Is that so?”

You weren’t going to back down, not when you were ready to see what he was going to do about it. “If you have a personal problem with me distracting you, maybe you should look into stroking it more often instead of acting like it’s my fault.”

“That’s because it is, sweetheart, and I’m fucking sick of it.”

Large, heavy sounding steps that seemed magnified by the otherwise quiet room kept the beat as he stalked towards the object of his ire and his desire. You matched his pace only moving backwards until your shoulder blades hit the wall; there was nowhere else for you to go now.

This wasn’t like those times during trainging when others had been around to boost your confidence in your back talk, this was a new side to him that you had yet to see. No shouting, no barking orders, nothing but silent intimidation by his impressive physical form. He towered over you in an imposing fashion and shut you up real fucking quick. Looking up into his face, you noticed the look he now gave you had gone dark as the closeness had cast shadows over his eyes behind the mask, giving him a feral look that sent a shiver down your spine.

“Where’s that attitude of yours now, hmm?” Ghost questioned. “That’s what I thought. You see, I realized that I’ve been going about this all wrong, luv.”

Reaching out his arm, his hand found its target and with powerful fingers he wrapped them around your slender neck. He didn’t touch you with hesitation as if he was unsure about what his intentions were, he touched you like he fucking owned you and you could feel the heat rise in your cheeks and a throbbing between your thighs at that certainty. His grip was firm, but not painful; he wanted you to know that the control was no longer yours.

“Daddy never disciplined you when you got out of line, did he, princess? I bet he spoiled you fucking rotten and now you think you can just do whatever you want and there won’t be any fucking consequences, is that it?” He shook his head with a click of his tongue.

Through his palm, you could feel his heatbeat pounding furiously. This was the first time he had really touched you and there was a certain jolt there as his skin connected with yours. Those copper eyes sparked to life like a fire had been kindled inside him as he glared down at you.

“Too bad I am not one to let you get away with it anymore,” he stated, “no, you are about to be made to follow directions. I’ve tried and fucking tried to get through to you, but I was going about it all wrong, wasn’t I? You are challenging me because you secretly want me to put you in your fucking place, isn’t that right?”

Looking up at him through heavy lids and thick eyelashes, you didn’t need to say a word; your silence said volumes. “You want my attention,” he said, “and fuck, you are going to have it.”

On of his wide knees found your thighs and with a good bit of pressure applied he split them apart. His own thigh pushed against your sex and he found that it was warm against his leg. As he pushed in farther, his eyes caught you struggling not to let him notice the way you took your bottom lip into your mouth and bit down, clearly from something being stimulated.

“Poor little girl,” he degraded cockily in that deep, gruff voice of his, “now that I’m this close I can see how goddamn pathetic you’ve been this whole time. Pushing me to my limit just to see what I would do. What is it you need? Want a big, strong man with more experience to make you their bitch?”

Those big doe-eyes stared right back at him. “Yes,” you confirmed quietly.

Ghost nodded his head. “Fine, I’ll bite, but we do this my way. Go on then, get on your knees.”

Your eyebrows raised with the tilt of your head. “And what if I don’t?”

Something in the air changed in that moment; the tension became so thick between you both you couldn’t breathe without it filling your body to the brim as he grabbed the back collar of his shirt with both hands and slowly slipped it off his torso. That bare chest covered in a thin layer of light brown hair immediately drew your attention from his face.

You knew the man was thick, it was clear from the way his uniform hugged his curves, but you were not prepared for just how toned he was. His line of work obviously kept him supreme shape, each muscle scuplted as if he were carved from marble all the way down his torso in firm and tight ripples of skin until it reached that ‘V’ that led like an arrow down into his pants. God, you needed to know how big the appendage it was pointing to was.

Leaning his cloth-covered face in closer as if he were about to connect your mouths through the fabric, he stopped just shy of your lips, making your body squirm as the proximity of his own just out of reach felt was like a new form of torture. You may have gotten the jump-start on him long before now, made his body burn with your teasing, but he could tease even better when it came down to it. He’d have you bending over backwards to do as he said in no time.

Ghost exhaled quick and sharp through his nose, “When the fuck did I ask? I said on your knees, now.”

Taking a step back, you were given just enough space to move. He was impassible, like a wall made of stone, and there was nothing else for you to do other than lower yourself to the ground before his form. It was like standing at the base of a sycamore tree, gazing up the long thick trunk that seemed to go on forever.

Pointing a finger to the buckle on his belt, he growled. “Undo it.”

Fumbling a bit as you tripped over your unsteady fingers, you did as he said and with a tinkling of metal hitting metal it swung open to hang loosely from the belt loops.

His slacks hung about his waist and he grabbed your hand to shove it inside the confines of his pants, going until he placed it on cock pulsing inside his underwear. “Take it out.”

Good God, what your hand wrapped around made your eyes widen and as you moved his boxer briefs down and out of your way, you could see why. Now that it was free, his thick cock stood at full attention: the tip swollen and already beaded with precum, the veins running the length of it pulsing with his rapid heartbeat making it twitch towards you. It was huge, matching the bulk of the man before you.

Ghost pushed you back so that you were sitting on your heels as he stroked his hand along the shaft a few times just so the shock of it being touched wouldn’t send him over the edge too quickly as he put you to work. “Open your mouth, princess. Let’s give those lips something to do other than bitch.”

His free hand found the back of your head as you sat up on your knees with your mouth agape and he laced his stocky digits through your hair. With a solid push on your skull your head moved forward into him until you had no choice but to take the tip of his cock inside your lips. That beast of a man was easing you into what was to come and you knew it; no man as experienced as him was going to go easy on you for long. The moment you made contact with his cock’s head he grunted and you could feel his it throb into the roof of your mouth.

“Goddammit, babygirl,” he groaned, his grip on your hair getting stronger as he pushed you down further onto his shaft.

Fuck, that impressive girth was almost too much for your tiny orifice to take in all at once and you had to use your hand for compensation at the base or risk choking, but that did not stop you from doing your best to give him exactly what he wanted; you were consumed with the feeling as you were sure if you did a good enough job he would take care of you.

The saltiness of his precum filled the walls of your mouth as with each flick of your tongue around the head of his cock added more moisture to the inside of your lips. Tears stung your eyes as you breathed through your nose, trying your best not to gag from the sheer volume of cock being shoved into your mouth and down your throat, but you couldn’t stop.

“Look up at me,” he commanded as he caught sight of the beads of liquid slipping down the sides of your cheeks; he needed an unhindered view. “That’s it. I want those eyes on mine while I fuck that pretty mouth.”

The more you sucked, the more his hips began thrusting smoothly against your lips until he was fucking your mouth with his hand still on the back of your head to keep you from pulling away. “Ah my little whore, mouth taking cock like it’s your job. That’s all you’re good for isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

You moaned, the vibration from your vocal chords reaching his tip. He grunted as his hips bucked harder against your face, smashing his abdominals into your nose. “Such a dirt bitch, trying to talk with your mouth full.”

His thrusts into your throat became more desperate the more you sucked as that familiar warmth gathered itself in his belly, threatening to tear through him soon. You never let your gaze falter, no matter how hard he hit your gag reflex, even that teary look in your eye as you struggled to take him; all together it was not helping. He would need to cool down if he wanted to play with you more; no sense in coming yet when you had more holes for him to explore.

Putting his hands on your shoulders, he pushed you off him and pulled out of your mouth. A bit of spit and precum dribble out and down from the corner of your lips and you wiped it away with the back of your hand as he pulled you to your feet.

No one made looking a face-fucked wreck more beautiful.

Rough hands found your belt buckle and hooked it so that he could jerk you forward into him as his surprisingly nimble fingertips unclasped it and let it hand. The bottom hem of your t-shirt was still tucked neatly inside your pants and Ghost’s huge, veined hands yanked it out before he plunged up and under all the way, through the bottom of your bra as well, until he got to your breasts. That supple and warm flesh in his grasp made his whole body seize with pleasure.

Shit, you were so fucking warm and soft and pliable under his hard grip.

Ghost’s mitts cupped the bulk of your tits as his thumbs pinched the skin of your nipples against the side of his pointer fingers so that he could massage them. Your lips parted, steadily quickening breaths filled up the space between the both of you at the stimulation from his calloused palms mixed with the intensity of his gaze and it left you spiraling.

All at once your shirt was being ripped off over the top of your head before your back was slammed into the wall by the force of Ghost shoving himself into you. Even your form-fitting shirt did not prepare the Lieutenant for the glory of what was hidden underneath and with hungry eyes he flipped the bottom of his skull mask up to his nose to release his mouth quickly. Wet, feverish lips lock onto one of your breast as he leaned his head against your chest, while the other he toyed with still in his hand.

Goddammit it was even better than he imagined, the feeling of those perky tits between his lips. He was in heaven as he sucked and sucked, securing your nipple between the pad of his tongue and the roof of his mouth to get the best seal. Your hand cradled the sides of his head as he went to work, sucking and pulling as you writhed with your pussy against his thigh.

Once satisfied with his work on the first, he switched to the other; can’t leave that one out. The same amount of attention was given to that one as well, which only made your want to grind against him more overwhelming as the wetness between your legs soaked through your panties. He groaned into your chest at how much he enjoyed being smothered against those endowed assets and you nearly came from the beautiful sound alone.

Pleased with his handiwork, he released you only to move on to your neck. The way he bit and sucked, you knew he wanted to mark you and even though you’d have a fucking hell of a time hiding the hickies tomorrow, you didn’t care. Everywhere he went he sent electric shocks across your body and it was more than worth whatever trouble it would cause later.

“Take of your pants, now,” he ordered with a firm growl into the nape of your neck.

The authority in his thickly accented voice hit just right and as he backed off so you could move, you slipped your fingers into the waistband and pulled both your panties and those camo bottoms off your lower half. You were almost positive you heard your superior whimper as he caught sight of your pretty little cunt with its trimmed bit of hair just on top.

Waiting was not an option; he needed to be inside of you now. Where would he take you against? There were a few options, but as he quickly scanned the room a devilish idea struck him as perfect. With a tight grip on your arm he pulled you the few feet back over to the sinks, the large mirror perched just behind it. “Bend over right here, on your stomach,” he barked.

He didn’t wait for you to comply and pushed your upper body over so that your torso was pressed up against the cold countertop. Shoving his boot between your feet, he moved your legs apart, widening your hips and making you back arch so that he would be able to reach your entrance. The curve of your ass was accentuated by the position and he ran a heavy hand across the length of it before giving it a swift smack.

“Mmmm,” he hummed as it jiggled with the reverb from his hand.

That monstrous cock was throbbing against your backside as Ghost inclined over you back to clasp your jaw in his hand, pulling your head into place to face the mirror. “Here’s the deal, sweetheart. If you want me to let you come, then you are gonna fucking watch me fuck you silly. Your eyes move away from that mirror and I stop. You don’t want me to stop. Understand?”

“Yes,” you nodded into his palm.

His grip tightened. “Yes, what?”

You placed your gaze straight ahead. Just as much as he needed to shove all of his aching cock into you, you needed it just as bad. You had waited long enough for this: weeks and weeks of pushing him to his limit in an attempt to have him take you rough and without apology and now you were right at the brink; nothing was going to stop you now.

“Yes, sir.”

That was it, without another sound he stood back up and clenched his abdominal muscles while his strong fingers dug into the meat of your hips as he made sure he was aligned with your entrance. One strong thrust and his phallus ripped into you deep until he reached the base, bottoming out as you cried out.

Your fingertips dug into the hard surface of the countertop as you were filled out to the brim, your walls struggling to accommodate such an impressive object. Shit, you had never been this full before and it took you a minute to adjust.

“N-nh… ah…” Ghost groaned from behind and you watched him in the mirror as he staggered where he stood. “Fucking hell princess, your so tight…oh, f-fuck.”

A roll of your hips into him send shock waves of ecstasy through his pelvis and his head fell forward as he tried to calm himself enough that he didn’t blow his load right then and there just from that initial contact. All the fantasizing he did that night in the shower had nothing on this and he cursed himself for not trying to get in your pants sooner.

Getting himself under control, he began to thrust recklessly in and out of you with a force that shook made your breast sway. His fingers clawed into your flesh, leaving angry, red marks of where he had been that could would still be felt tomorrow. Those full lips twisted into a smirk as he bucked up against your hips, his testicles hitting your pulsing clit to make you twitch and your and your head fall forward.

“What the fuck did I say?” he grumbled as he removed his hand from your hip to grab a fistful of hair and wrench your head back up as he kept pace. “Eyes up.”

Your reflection stared back at the both of you, Ghost’s imposing figure with his chiseled abdominal muscles contracting and releasing with each thrust as his hips plowed you from behind. Ghost noticed how beautifully your cheeks flushed bright red as he continued to fill you up completely, each of his thrusts going completely in you down to the very base,. With the pressure of your orgasm building steadily your eyes took on a dreamy, dazed look as he hit that sensitive bundle of nerves within you time and again with a steady stream of moans that filled the air.

There was something so primal about watching himself fuck you into oblivion.

His amber eyes caught yours in the mirror and he smirked. “Fucking hell baby, you are a picture wrapped around my cock like this,” he groaned, his strokes becoming more sloppy, the slapping sounds of your overly wet cunt getting louder and louder.

The longer he went the more his sanity waned until there was not a single thought left except for the animalistic need to rut into you until he came. You could see the change wash over his face and through his eyes and it only thrilled you more as he became like a predator ready to catch his prey.

“Close,” you found yourself mewling.

One of his bulked arms secured itself around your middle as Ghost pulled you up until your back was flush against his sturdy chest, changing the angle of his thrusts inside you. He had to hold you up by your waist as you stood on the balls of your feet, but it was worth it as this new angle allowed him to reach a free hand down your abdomen to your clit where he could rub circles around that sensitive bundle.

“You gonna come for me, baby?” he teased, desperately clinging to you as he too was about to spill and wanting you to go with him, “ do it then. Come for me little girl, I want you to coat my dick with your juices. Let me feel those fucking walls flutter.”

The way this beast of a man was wrapped around you, his arms laced across your body like an organic body harness that accentuated your curves as you wore him. You were completely at his mercy, his size was just so that he could do with you as he pleased and you would have no say whatsoever. And yet here was furiously pounding into you harder and harder as his fingers stroked your clit; he was doing his upmost to get you off and to be treated so well by someone who could break you was euphoric.

Reaching behind your head, you wrapped your arms around his neck to cling to the muscles in his back as your nails dug in. “Fuck… fuck…mm…mmmh…” you stuttered as that warmth in the base of your stomach was almost at its peak.

“That’s it, come on,” he coaxed, keeping his movements steady.

He pumped with everything in him and that was it; with a shudder your rocketed through you fiery hot, making your body writhe in his grasp. God, it wouldn’t stop, second after second it just kept coming just as strong. Ghost did not let up either and soon you were crying from the over-stimulation.

A few more thrusts and he was following right behind, a roar ripping through his chest as he compressed your torso with a strength that made it hard to breathe. “Goddammit, baby,” his muscles strained as he rode out his orgasm to its end as he painted your insides milky white.

“Is this what you fucking wanted, princess?” he groaned into your ear, your body twitching together as you could barely stand up anymore.

You swallowed hard. “Yes, sir,” you said quietly.

You could see him grinning from ear to ear as you peaked back into the glass. “Good girl,” he praised.

Turning your chin with a slight touch of his fingers, he met your lips with his own. Breathlessly he captured and recaptured your lips as he stayed locked inside you. He tasted like the smoke from his cigarettes, but the way his soft, full lips felt against your own made up for it entirely.

“And you know, if you decide to be good for me from now on I will keep fucking you nice and proper just like this,” he groaned against your mouth as he finally broke the kiss.

You gave him one last quick peck on his mouth. “What if I don’t?” you questioned mischievously.

“Then I’ll be sure that your fucked so thoroughly that you won’t have the energy to pull that shit for the rest of the week,” he said firmly as he released you from his grasp.

Well, that didn’t sound like a punishment at all. Perhaps you’d have to put that to the test later. Right now you had to figure how you were going to get through the rest of the day with your sanity while coated in the scent of your Lieutenant.

Tag list: @rilamon, @karagd13-blog , @crucifiedbitch, @m-carriaga2021 , @emotion-no-hot-yes-hotel-trivago , @morbidmary , @liv4thewin , @dazaiscum

[utterlyotterlyx]

A Fate Inked In Starlight

Eris x Fem!Reader x Azriel

Summary - After crashing into the Autumn Court with no idea who you are, where you are or how you got there, Eris takes it upon himself to hide you and care for you with the help of the Night Court. That is until souls from other walks of life infiltrate Prythian searching for you.

Warnings - mentions of blood, Eris being gentle 🥺, memory loss, kinda arsehole Rhys?x

Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five

Leaves of red and orange peered down at you inquisitively, and the earth was hard and slightly damp beneath you.

You hissed as you moved, a metallic sting coating the inside of your mouth. The world tilted, a dull thumping in your mind swelled behind your eyes and you pinched the bridge of your nose in attempt to centre yourself.

It hadn’t worked.

Looking about, you drank in where you had awoken, soil and an array of foliage welcomed your sight, dark bark held onto browning leaves, some of which floated around where you sat. Light birdsong and the faint chirp of crickets flittered around you with the occasional crunch of dry twigs that snapped under the weight of the mammals that trotted by, not heading much mind to you.

You were clad in some kind of black armour, a second skin that fit you perfectly as it curved around your breasts and hips, the material splitting open in the shape of lightening across your chest where yellow gems and light hummed. Jewelled metal talons were fitted to your fingertips, coated with dry blood that had worked itself into each crevasse it could. You were sure that whatever you looked like was not a pretty sight.

Something had kept you glued to your spot, swaying slightly from the brute force that had clearly been wrecked upon you. From what you had no idea.

From the distance, you heard the beating of hooves against the hard ground, growing louder with each passing moment before a brilliant white stag exploded into the clearing where you were. It was beautiful, those pools of emerald bore into you, there was terror laced behind them, and the stag readied his attack as he lowered his antlers toward you.

“I’m not going to harm you,” you told the creature with an extended hand, an extension of your surrender, “I promise.”

The stag surveyed you, noting the wild hair that had fallen from a once tightly strung braid, the blood that coated your neck and fingers, the bewilderment in your eyes. No, you certainly weren’t a threat.

“I’m not sure how I came to be here. I don’t know where I am,” you continued, as if the stag would be able to answer any of your questions.

The creature relaxed, taking a tentative step forward to sniff the outstretched talons fixed to your fingertips. He huffed and shook his head, one of his hooves tapping against the ground as another sound entered your earshot.

“Dogs,” you said softly, sadness laced in your rough voice that scratched at your throat. “Go. I’ll distract them,” you turned your hand, exposing your palm to him, he rested his snout in it gently, and only for a moment before he bounded away. Leaping over molehills whilst leaving you alone once more.

The barking drew closer and your breath caught in your throat at the obvious number of hounds that approached your position, perhaps mistaking your blood for that of the stags.

They hurtled into the clearing, the hedges and flowers parting for them as they surged through the air and landed in front of you, mouths pulled back and snarling teeth ready to tear you apart. You shuffled back as they circled you, snapping, slobber dripping from their canines causing your heart rate to beat in your ears. Hitting the trunk of a tree, you sighed, realising there were no weapons attached to the leather holsters at your thighs made your current predicament a lot more complicated.

You wouldn’t dream of harming an animal, at least, you thought so.

A flutter of your heart gave way to gentle excitement when you had seen the stag, and even the dogs despite them wanting to turn you into a meal.

A sharp whistle tore their attention from you, pulling them back to the source as he too entered the clearing. His head was tilted to the side and he examined you with a hand resting on the hilt of his sword, assessing if you were a threat or not. Red hair and amber eyes found you, and he approached, splitting his gaze between you and your laboured breathing to the scene around you both.

“Who are you?” His voice was rough but held a stoic calm, the deepness of his words made your hairs stand on edge.

A simple question. Your name. You opened your mouth but nothing came out, you stuttered, eyes wide as nothing came to mind, “I, I don’t know.”

You were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Wide doe eyes staring at him in bewilderment, he knew your skin would be soft despite the mud and blood coating your surface. The sharp jaw and hallowed cheeks, full pouted lips and an elegantly pointed nose. Too beautiful for a human or fae.

The confusion etched into every inch of your features made the man relax a little, he knelt before you, his dogs happy with wagging tails brushing against his side, “Do you know where you came from?” By the looks of your armour, the blood coated talons, and the cuts dug into the side of your neck, it was clear to him that you weren’t from Prythian. You looked too advanced for his world.

You shook your head, muttering a faint and weak answer to him.

He hummed, reaching to tuck a strand of your dirty matted hair behind your pointed ear. Fae, he noted. Smiling when you didn’t flinch under his touch, he offered a hand to you, it was calloused and rough, but his pressure was gentle and guiding as he helped you from the ground.

“I’m Eris Vanserra, and you’re in the Autumn Court,” he looked down at you through thick lashes and offered a warm smile.

“Eris,” his name fell from your lips and he nodded in encouragement as you familiarised yourself with the sound of it. Yes, you definitely weren’t from his world, if you were, you’d surely cower from his name and the mention of where you were.

A pressure consumed your feet, and you found one of his hounds sat on them, staring up at you with its panting tongue flopping against the side of its jaw, its tail rustling the leaves beneath it as it wagged happily, “That’s enough, Duke,” Eris scolded the hound, rubbing between his ears in a bid to get him to move, “I’m sorry about him.”

“Don’t be. I don’t mind,” you smiled, and he noticed the warmth in your eyes, the molten gold and ocean blue that could have him entranced if he wasn’t careful. “I’m sorry about this,” you motioned the air, the current situation you found yourselves in, “I wish I knew what to say.”

“It’s fine,” he frowned slightly as he peered at the still open flesh on your neck that leaked with every heartbeat, “Let me help you with that.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

Eris smirked, “You’re not asking,” he shrugged as he heading back in the direction from whence he came, adjusting his brown jacket which lay over a cream open collared shirt. You weren’t sure how you didn’t notice it before, the well fit pants and shirt, the adornment of fine rings across his digits. Eris Vanserra was clearly someone of high standing, and you felt stupid for not knowing. The disappointment felt foreign to you.

The male looked back at you expectantly, his well kept fiery red hair tousling over his forehead, freckles visible as the sunlight hit his face. “Thank you,” you followed his steps, Duke trotting alongside you like a personal guard.

Once you had made it back to Fir Manor, Eris’ private residence that was home to him and his hounds alone, he insisted that you bathe, that it would be easier for the healer to assess the damage if she could tell what was or wasn’t your own blood.

You didn’t need telling twice, you thanked Eris for the spare clothes, a sheer deep red dress, before you slipped into the bathroom and peeled off your second skin, paying no mind to the marks that littered your forearms and torso, the marks that covered every inch of your body.

It seemed silly. To be so trusting of someone you’d just met. But something told you that Eris wasn’t a threat to you. Something had allowed you to feel safe with him.

You sighed as the hot water worked to relax your muscles, the rest of the world fading away into blissful nothingness.

Rhys was happy.

Finally happy.

A mate and a babe. A family. No danger for the first time in what felt like a millennia.

Rhys watched them, watched his Nyx swaddled into Feyre’s chest as she painted, humming some lullaby to the dozing babe. Light poured into the room from the domed glass and he let a content sigh pass through his lips from where he leaned against the doorframe. Relishing in the sight for a moment longer before retreating back to his office and closing the door with a soft click.

He wasn’t sure where the rest of them were, Mor would be returning from the human lands soon, Cassian and Azriel were surely training, Nesta was probably nose deep in another book in the library with Amren at her side, and Elain was tucked away with Lucien somewhere revelling in their newly accepted mating bond.

Everything was as it should be.

The papers on his desk were too chaotic for anyone else to understand but him, he knew where each treaty lay in the stack, where each letter from a concerned citizen sat, when Az’s countless reports waited for his eye.

Though, one thing caught his eye that definitely hadn’t been there before he’d gone to check on his mate and child. A folded up rip of parchment, singed at the edges with an aroma of wet grass gripping to it.

It reeked of Autumn, of Eris.

Rhys wasn’t worried that the heir had contacted him. They were planning for a better Autumn once Beron handed over his title, it wasn’t out of the ordinary to hear from the eldest Vanserra at all. Scanning the parchment, Rhys felt his interest grow in the words, the vague message that beckoned him to Fir Manor, telling him that someone had dropped into the forest who Rhys may be interested in meeting.

So, the High Lord of the Night Court stalked through the halls, parchment in hand as the clash of swords and jostling laughter flooded his senses. Then he saw them, his two brothers in their training leathers, wide smiles and bruises that would fade within the hour as they jabbed another with playful words.

“Ah, did you call on Rhys to come and save you, Az? How desperate,” Cassian glimmered, his wings rustling and body keeping guard against Azriel’s oncoming attack.

Rhys stepped between them, holding the parchment in the air between his fingers with a smirk on his lips as Azriel to it from him, scanning the words, “With no memory of where she came from?” Azriel questioned, his shadows curling over his shoulders as though they wished to see what held their masters attention whilst he handed the written words to Cassian who pouted about being left out.

“Do you remember the visitor we had not too long ago?”

Azriel smirked at the memory of the redhead scouring through the caves of Prythian, “Bryce?”

“Yes, Bryce.” Rhys sent a glare to Cassian, no doubt still unhappy at his mates willingness to aid the girl, “She too fell into our world out of nowhere, didn’t she?”

Cassian stopped the thought before it could be shared, “Yes, but Bryce knew who she was and why she came here. It seems this woman doesn’t share that similarity,” he turned the paper over in his hand, like some newfound information was going to be inscribed elsewhere.

From the brief information that Eris had sent to Rhys, the woman who had fell into the Autumn had no idea who she was or where she was let alone how she found herself bleeding in a different world from her own.

“Regardless,” Rhys’ eyes glowed at the hidden message Cassian had tried to convey, that maybe this woman had nothing to do with Bryce and whatever war she was fighting on her shores. Though Cassian did have to admit that it was a coincidence that another soul had floated through into their world. “It needs to be investigated. Azriel, you’ll come with me. Cassian, you’ll stay here.”

The pair knew better than to convince Rhys otherwise, Azriel especially knew better than to refuse and potentially put his home and people in danger.

Another invader had dove into his world, his home, and he’d be damned by the Mother if he let another one trick him again.

Authors Note

Hi my loves!

It’s been a while. I know I’m usually a Bridgerton girly but I’m kinda obsessed with everything SJM right now.

So, here we are. My first Maasverse fic 🤷‍♀️

I am wanting to write a series on this so let me know what you think! I’ve been out of the game for a bit 🤍

[st4rfckerz]

Farmboy | Farmhand!Anakin Skywalker x Farmers!daughter

word count: 4.1k

warnings: MDNI 18+, oral (male receiving), face fucking (if you squint), unprotected sex, creampie, dirty talk, slow(ish) buildup, not proofread

summary: Anakin is your family's farmhand and after inviting him to dinner, you can't keep your hands to yourself

Your family owned a farm out West, not far from the outskirts of town. It was quiet, as farms often are. The land was hilly, rolling out as far as you could see. The sun was shining, and the blue sky was bright with few clouds in it. The sound of horses and the wind rustling through the trees was all you heard. The air was crisp, and there was a slight tang of wildflowers.

Anakin was one of the farmhands that your family had hired a few months ago, a man who was quiet but skilled. As one of their hired hands, he was responsible for helping with the maintenance of the farm's livestock and machinery. His primary role was to ensure everything ran smoothly, which meant keeping the animals fed and watered while fixing broken machinery when needed.

It was midday when you approached him in the garden shed with a worried expression on your face. "Ani, I need your help. The sheep pen collapsed, and I can't find any tools nearby." Panic was evident in your voice, hinting at the potential consequences of leaving the sheep unattended for too long. Anakin followed you back to the dimly lit barn and you found the sheep wandering around their stalls, bleeting softly.

"I see," he muttered looking at the pen, he glanced over where the sheep were grazing. "I hope nothing else broke." he says under his breath, his eyes scanning the area for any signs of damage. He walked forward, whistling for the sheep that were scattered, and they came to him. He began leading them towards their pen, some were very fussy about it and didn’t want to go, yet he remained calm and gentle.

"Don't worry, I'll fix it," Anakin assured you, stepping over the fence and rummaging through the debris left by the fallen wood.

"You need me to help with anything?" you stand near him awkwardly, not sure what to do.

“Nope. I got it under control,” He said calmly, continuing to lead the sheep. You admired his patience and his ability to stay so level headed. "You can just sit there and look pretty while I get this done." Anakin shoots you a slick smile that makes your insides turn a little.

"I won't be bothering you?" you ask as you sit down on a bale of hay.

"You won't be bothering me at all sweetheart," He says, his eyes traveled over your body and he smirked at you. "You can be my moral support." He leans against the aged wall of the barn. His stance was relaxed, very casual as he was being nonchalant, but with you he was a little different. Something about you made him like this.

Anakin couldn't help but notice how good you looked in their simple dress, its hemline brushing against your thighs, revealing just enough skin to drive him wild. The sunset cast a warm, golden light over your body, creating a delicate glowy outline around your figure. It was almost like the sun was wrapping itself around you.

"You know you could stay for supper if you'd like," you suggest, breaking the silence of the barn. "I'm sure my folks won't mind." He watched as you leaned back on the bale of hay, and he couldn't help but notice your dress riding up a little. It was a small thing to notice, but he saw it.

Your dress wasn't that short, by any means, but the way it rode up on your legs was enough to make Anakin notice you. His gaze drifted down to your legs, and back up to your face.

"Oh I don't know, I don't wanna intrude or anything-" You smiled and cut him off, stopping him in his tracks.

"Please Ani? Just this once?" You walked over to him, and with that sweet tone in your voice, you were playing him like a fiddle. It was clear that your invitation was genuine, you wanted him to stay so you could keep his company. He smiled at you and looked away from your eyes for a moment. When he looked back at you, he was slightly speechless. The words were caught in his throat, and he couldn't speak, he wasn't used to someone that could make him flustered.

"Well, alright I s'pose I could join you." Anakin smiles. "What's mama bear fixin' up tonight?"

he smirked at you, his expression was playful, but you could tell he was serious. You laughed lightly at the silly nickname he often uses for you mother.

“She’s making beef stew, with biscuits. All from scratch, too.” you explain. "And there's fresh apple pie for dessert." His smile showed he was interested, and he couldn't help but admire your beauty. You looked like a little doll, with sweet doe eyes that could disarm any man.

"Then I'll be there." His voice had a masculine yet flirty quality to it, and it sent shivers down your spine. It was like music to your ears.

"Good, I'll see you later farmboy." You tease, knocking his hip with your own as you walked past him. You felt his eyes devouring you whole, looking at your sweet face and the sway of your hips.

As he continues to fix the pen, he can't help but think about the upcoming dinner. He's never had dinner with you and your family before, so he wondered how it would go. He didn't know if he'd be welcome, but you said they wouldn't mind, and you're pretty much like a little princess in their eyes so it shouldn't go wrong at all.

The evening rolled around, you were sitting at the table waiting for him, ready for the dinner to begin. Your family was already seated around the table, discussing various things. They all seemed pretty jovial, and you could hear the occasional laughter, as well as bits of conversation.

You looked around and expected to see Anakin walking through the door at any second, yet he was a bit late which was out of character for him.

Just as you thought he might've bailed last minute, Anakin's voice draws your attention towards the door, where he was finally walking in. His expression had a hint of embarrassment, since he was later than he thought he'd be. He had a shy yet sheepish look on his face, as if he expected you or your family to reprimand him.

"Sorry," he said quietly, looking at you, "I'm a bit late."

"Ani! I was afraid you flaked out on us." you joke as you abruptly got up from your seat to greet him. When Anakin saw you get up and come closer to him, he was initially confused as to why. But then you envelope him in a tight hug, catching him completely off guard. He didn't know how to respond, as he was taken aback by your show of affection.

"No, I'd never do a thing like that." he responds.

He hugged you back, his hands squeezing you tightly as you felt his body pressing against yours. He was caught by surprise, and he didn't expect you to show any affection. His body stiffened up as you hugged him, as he remained still.

However, he felt a wave of warmth rush through him and it caused him to relax into the hug. He wrapped his arms around you, feeling a new feeling of closeness between you both.

"Come eat, there's plenty of food." You let go of the embrace, but you still keep your hands on him, dragging him to the seat right next to you. He didn't hesitate to follow you, nor did he show any opposition. You both sit down, with you being right next to Anakin. You pull yourself slightly close to him, close enough that he could feel it.

Anakin's eyes look up at your father, his expression showing a bit of anxiety. Your father smiles warmly at him, and welcomes him to the table. Anakin smiles back in response, looking down at the table a bit. Your father proceeds to sit down, as does the rest of your family. The dinner proceeds like normal, everyone engaging in conversation with one another.

"So Anakin, how's everything been?" your father asks, his aged, gravelly voice booming throughout the room.

"I've been quite fine sir, same old news." Anakin says, smiling a bit as he takes a bite from his biscuit.

"Anakin fixed the sheep pen today." The conversation shifts as you interject, causing Anakin's attention to look up. Your words get everyone's attention, as they all look at Anakin, who is sitting to the side.

"Oh, did he?" your father says, looking at him. Anakin's ears pick up, and he looks over towards you. Your father continues, "I'm sure the sheep are happy." He blushes slightly, nodding his head humbly as he looks at your dad.

Your mother pipes up with her own question, pointing the discussion in another direction.

"So Anakin, what do you do in your free time?"

Anakin answers, keeping his tone relaxed and level.

"Nothin' too special really," he says, taking a few moments to respond, "Just hang around, or fix things. Y'know how it is." He's cordial, polite, and has a soft attitude.

He treats you with respect, yet his attention keeps flicking back towards you again and again, as if he was drawn to your charms. You felt as if you were a magnet to him, as he always looked over at you after he said anything.

As you lean forward to grab the salt, your fingers brush against Anakin's thigh under the table, a subtle gesture that sends a thrill through both of you. He raises an eyebrow, a knowing smile playing on his lips. He knows exactly what you're doing. You quickly return to your seat, trying to hide your flushed cheeks under the low light.

"The food is really good mom." you smile sweetly at her. While you speak, your fingers graze along Anakin's growing bulge under the table, a subtle hint of your growing attraction.

Anakin's eyes meet yours for a brief moment, he swallows hard, trying to maintain his composure as he continues the conversation. The tension between you two is palpable, yet unnoticed by the rest of the family.

Dinner comes to an end, and your mother presents a homemade apple pie for dessert. The family cheers in appreciation, and you can't help but smile at the delicious aroma wafting through the room. The scent of apple pie creates a cozy atmosphere that wraps around you like a warm blanket. Anakin compliments your mother on the meal, his eyes never straying far from yours.

As everyone digs into the apple pie, you feel Anakin's hand gently slide in between your thighs under the table. You try your hardest to suppress the smile creeping onto your face, the connection between you two growing stronger with each passing moment. The dessert is sweet, but it's nothing compared to the warmth you feel inside.

When you finish eating your piece of pie, you stand up and gather your plate and utensils, turning to head towards the kitchen sink. Anakin follows closely behind. You work side by side, the clinking of dishes echoing through the kitchen.

Anakin's hands are large and rough from farm work, but they move gracefully as he washes the dishes. He looks at you, his expression calm but also full of appreciation.

"It was nice having dinner with your family." he tells you, "thanks for inviting me over."

You give him a smile and use a nearby towel to wipe your hands. "It was no problem, they enjoyed your company." He smiles back, his jaw firm but his eyes showing that he was genuinely pleased.

Just as your family enters the kitchen with their now empty plates,  you lean in close to Anakin, your voice barely above a whisper. "Meet me in the barn in five minutes." you say, your eyes filled with anticipation. Anakin's gaze locks onto yours for a moment before he nods, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

Your father approaches, engaging Anakin in conversation about the farm and the upcoming town festival. You turn to your mother, your cheeks flushed but your voice steady. "I'll be right back, I just need to check on the chicken coop."

Your mother doesn't seem to suspect anything unusual since this was usually the time you'd check on the chickens anyway. "Take your time, dear. We'll be in here for a bit longer." She waves you off, her smile warm and understanding.

You wait for everyone to settle down before slipping out of the house, making sure to lock the door behind you. The moonlit night casts a pearlescent glow over the yard, illuminating the path leading to the barn. You hurry inside, your heart racing with exhilaration.

Anakin watches you leave, his eyes never leaving yours as you exit the house. He knows what's coming next, and he can't help but feel a whirlwind of trepidation. The anticipation killing him, but he forces himself to continue the conversation with your father, his voice steady despite the turmoil within him.

Finally, your father finishes his glass of sweet tea and stands up, nodding goodbye to Anakin after he explains that he should be heading home.

The sound of crickets and distant frogs filled the air as Anakin walks towards the barn, his boots rustling against the grass beneath him. He approaches the old barn slowly, his heart racing faster than a stallion at the starting gate. He takes a deep breath before opening the door, the creak of the hinges echoing through the night. He called out your name softly, his voice tinged with anticipation. The barn is dimly lit, with the moonlight filtering in through the cracks in the wooden walls.

As he stepped inside, he felt a sense of relief wash over him. You were there, your eyes locked onto his.

"Hi." you say softly, your voice tinged with a hint of mischief. The barn feels smaller now, the air thick with tension. Your eyes lock onto each other, and the crickets chirping outside seem to grow louder. Anakin takes a step towards you, his confidence wavering only slightly.

"Hey," his tone is softer than normally, you could tell just from his voice he was nervous. His eyes are locked on you, scanning every inch of your body. "Your folks know you're in here?" he asks.

You shake your head, biting your lip to suppress your smile. "I told them I'm checking on the chickens." His eyebrow raises, a hint of amusement playing on his face.

Anakin clicks his tongue while shaking his head teasingly. "You shouldn't be lyin' to your parents sweetheart." He looks at you with a certain sparkle in his eyes, as if you made him feel special with a simple remark.

"Technically, I glanced over there when i was walking over here." you state matter-of-factly. Anakin steps closer to you, his fingers brushing the little strands of hair out of your face. His eyes never leaving yours. His touch is gentle, yet electric, making your heart race even faster. You step closer to him and you can't help but feel the pull between you two. The barn feels comforting and inviting, a secret haven away from the world.

"You look real pretty tonight." Anakin compliments sincerely, his hand still resting on your cheek. His thumb brushes against your jawline, sending shivers down your spine. You nuzzle your cheek against Anakin's big palm. "Thanks," you whisper, your voice barely audible in the silence of the barn.

Anakin's thumb traces a line along your lower lip, teasingly brushing against the corner of your mouth. His hand moves to your waist, his fingertips grazing the hem of your dress, sending electric currents through your body. Anakin leans in, pressing his lips against yours in a gentle peck. He pulls back slightly, his eyes searching for your reaction. Seeing your approval, he leans in again, this time with more intensity. His kiss is soft yet passionate, filled with a sense of longing.

The kiss intensifies, your lips pressing harder against each other, tongues dancing in a rhythm only you two understand. Anakin's hands slide into your hair, pulling you closer, his breath hitching in your mouth. You break the kiss, trailing your lips against the rough stubble along his jaw. He groans softly, his hand tightening on your hair.

"Been thinkin' about you all day," Anakin panted between breaths. He grips your waist to pull you impossibly closer as you continue to explore his neck with your lips. "You and that damn dress." His hands moved up to cup your breasts, massaging them roughly through the thin fabric of your dress.

You giggle softly, your teeth grazing lightly against his neck. "You're that worked up over a dress, Ani?" Anakin whines quietly in response, his hips desperately bucking in your direction. You pull back slightly, your eyes locked on Anakin's. His eyes widened in surprise as you suddenly dropped to your knees, your hands reaching for his belt buckle. He groaned, his hips rocking forward, his cock straining against his pants.

Your hands reach for the hem of his pants, slowly pulling them down, revealing his muscular thighs. You reach down further, your fingers brushing against the waistband of his underwear. With a quick tug, they fall to the ground revealing his thick cock, hard and ready just for you.

"You're killing me kid." He managed to croak out as you slowly wrap your hand around the base of his shaft, stroking it gently. You lean forward and kiss his angry red tip. It twitches in anticipation, leaking a small amount of precum onto your lip. Your tongue darts out, tentatively exploring the head of his cock, savoring the salty taste. You moan softly, your hands reaching down to cup his balls, massaging them gently.

Anakin's hands grip your hair tightly, his moans turning into groans of pleasure as you continue to tease him. "F-fuckin' hell," he growls, his hips rocking back and forth, pushing his cock further into your mouth. You stroke the part of him that doesn't fit into your mouth, your fingers gliding up and down his length. You can feel him twitching, his body trembling under your touch.

His cock pulses in your hand and his breaths come in ragged gasps. You gag slightly, your eyes watering, but you don't pull away. Instead, you take as much of him as you possibly can.

" 'M close- hold on, I'm- ah!" His cock twitches violently in your mouth, shooting a hot stream of cum down your throat. You swallow it unhesitatingly, eager to please him. Gazing up at Anakin, your eyes is fixed on his. He's panting heavily, his hands shaking slightly. His eyes are filled with admiration and desire. You can feel the heat of his gaze, and it makes you blush slightly.

"Come 'ere," he says, his voice hoarse. He pulls you to your feet, his lips crashing into yours. His tongue dances with yours, tasting himself on your tongue. His hands wandering over your body, cupping your ass and pulling you closer. As you kiss Anakin, you can feel him growing hard again, his cock pressing against your thigh. He slowly walks forward, guiding you towards the small tractor in the back of the barn. His lips never leave yours, his hands roaming over your body, exploring every inch. He moans into the kiss, slapping his big hand against the fat of your ass. "Turn around for me baby." he commands.

Anakin bends you over the tractor, and flips your dress up, exposing your pink cotton panties to him. He strokes the growing wet spot gently, his fingers grazing your bare skin.

"Jesus, she's practically dripping for me." he whispers, his voice filled with lust. His hands move to your panties, tugging them to the side, revealing your swollen, hot flesh. He licks his lips, his eyes locked onto your slobbering cunt. His cock pulses, ready to be inside you.

Anakin lines up his cock with your entrance, gently pushing in. You gasp, your body adjusting to his girth. He holds onto your hips, guiding himself inside you. He thrusts deeper, his cock filling you completely. You moan softly, your body quickly getting used to his size. "Thaaat's it, angel." he praises, his voice low and alluring. "Let me in."

His hips move slowly at first, his cock sliding in and out of you with ease. Your body responds, your cunt clenching around him, pulling him deeper. Anakin's breaths come in ragged gasps as he starts to move faster, his hips slamming into you, each thrust sending you further onto the tractor.

You cry out as he sweetly rolls his abdomen, his cock hitting your sweet spot with each movement. The tractor creaks under your weight, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh filling the barn.

"Takin' me so good baby." he growls, you can feel his cock stretching you, filling you completely.

"M-more Ani," you beg, your voice hoarse. "Need more-"

"Yeah? You want more?" he rasps, his hands gripping the back of your neck tightly. Anakin pulls you up by your neck and your back is now pressed against his chest. He thrusts harder, his cock hitting your G-spot with every movement. You yelp in surprise, your nails digging into the arm he has wrapped around your shoulders to keep your body flush against his. "There you go, you can take it, I know you can."

"Needy little girl," he teases, his voice thick with desire. "Just couldn't keep your hands off me at dinner, shit, could've bent you over that damn table and fucked you raw in front of your folks if I wanted to."

You moan, your head thrown back, your body moving with his. Your walls flutter around him when you hear his vulgar words.

He chuckles, his hands gripping your neck tighter. "You'd like that wouldn't you? Oh, you're dirty." He turns your head roughly, his lips crashing into yours, kissing you messily.

His tongue duels with yours, his hands gripping your neck tighter, holding you in place. You moan into the kiss, your body trembling. "Ani- cumming, c-cumming!" You can't form any coherent words, your breath coming in gasps as you neared your climax.

"Let go sweetheart, I got you," Anakin's breath tickles the shell of your ear as he speaks. You cry out as your orgasm quickly wracks over your body, your cunt contracting tightly around his cock. "That's my girl, c'mon." His breath comes in ragged gasps, and sweat trickles down his forehead, his chest heaving. It takes a few more powerful thrusts for him to fully unload inside you, his cum filling you up completely.

He takes a moment to catch his breath, and carefully withdraws from you, his cock glistening with your wetness. He hastily pulls up his pants and adjusts himself.

"You did so good for me." he whispers, his voice filled with awe. He carefully fixes your dress, smoothing out the wrinkles. "You look even prettier now," he says, his eyes filled with admiration.

He reaches up, fixing your hair, his fingers grazing your face. "You best get back to the house," he says, his voice filled with concern. "You know I'll be here tomorrow."

You nod, your cheeks flushed, your heart still racing from your encounter with him. "Mhm," you hum quietly. He smirks, his eyes filled with mischief.

You smile, a blush spreading across your cheeks when he leans in and brings his lips to yours one last time.

Anakin leads you towards the barn door, his hand still wrapped around yours. "I'll see you tomorrow sweetheart." he coos, his voice filled with promise.

You nod, your cheeks still flushed, your heart racing. "See you, farmboy." you say, your voice shaky. He gives your hand a gentle squeeze, and you step out of the barn, your body still buzzing from the encounter. As you walk away, you can feel his eyes on you, watching you every step of the way. You glance back, catching him standing by his truck, his hands on his hips, watching you walk away.

You enter the house, trying to compose yourself. Your parents were still awake, sitting in the living room, sipping on their drinks. They didn't notice anything amiss about you, thankfully. You made your way upstairs to your room, still feeling the evidence of your encounter between your legs.

You feel a thrill of excitement, knowing that Anakin will be waiting for you at that old barn, ready to have you whenever he wants.

[metyouinthehallway]

tutor!matt head canons

SFW:

tutor!matt who sucks at flirting

“your shirt looks nice. i think my mom has the same one.” he says, pointing at it, you shake your head, returning to your homework.

matt mentally face palms himself, he was definitely gonna go home and look up how to flirt after this.

tutor!matt who can’t take his eyes off you

matt watched as you tried to figure out how to graph an equation, your eyebrows furrowing as you focus in but you can feel a pair of eyes burning a hole into your head.

as soon as you look up, he looks away, acting as casual as possible. “i know you were staring, dumbass.” you let out a dry laugh, watching as matt’s face gets red.

tutor!matt who knows how to calm you down when you’re visibly stressed.

you grumble, still not able to understand how to find the y intercept, slamming your pencil down you burry your head in your hands.

“okay, hey, don’t get upset. we can take a break, take a lap around the school.” he suggests, flipping your paper over so you don’t have to look at the equations for a second longer.

you two wander around the school hallways for a little, just talking about weekend plans and before you know it, you’re ready to go back to the library and try again.

tutor!matt who is always trying to hold your hand

one hand holds your pencil while the other is resting on the table, matt notices your empty hand, going to intertwine your fingers together. you’re quick to pull away.

“not here matt.” you huff, matt getting visibly upset. seeing this, you oblige, holding his hand in yours. the pads of his thumbs rubbing circles against you skin.

tutor!matt who’s constantly inviting you to his house.

the library was closed after school today so matt texts you, offering to study at his place today. knowing you need the extra help in algebra, you accept.

after school, you’re sat on his bed, pulling your notes out of your book bag. matt letting his imagination run wild just staring at you on his bed.

the following week, the library was open again but he still invited you over and you still accepted the invitation.

NSFW:

tutor!matt who makes you wear his glasses when you fuck

“oh my- my god,” he moans, watching you bounce up and down on his dick while his glasses are on your face.

“hm? you like seeing me wear your glasses? does it make me look sexy, matt?” you hum, leaving soft kisses all over his neck.

“look s’good, baby.” he throws his head back onto his headboard, groaning as you clench around him.

tutor!matt who’s not as vanilla as you thought

when you guys would hook up, which was often, matt would spit in your mouth, choke you, even slap your ass if you were doing doggy. you truly thought all this man was capable of was missionary.

tutor!matt who never lets you forget how beautiful you are

“look so beautiful with my dick in your mouth, s’beautiful baby.” he coos, grabbing a fist full of your hair. watching as you gag on his cock.

“so fuckin’ beautiful.” matt mumbles while hes nose deep in your pussy. you’re too busy gripping the bed sheets to even pay attention to the words that come out of his mouth.

tutor!matt who quizzes you while he’s fucking you

“square root of one forty four” he grunts, holding your hands behind your back. your face down on the bed.

“fuck- twelve?” you moan as he pounds into you from behind.

“such a good girl. i’ve taught you so well, hm?” he praises you, giving you a slap on the ass.

“s’ones a little harder, get it wrong ‘n i won’t let you cum,” he starts, speeding up his thrusts. “one forty four times itself.” he smirks, waiting for your reply.

“ma-matt fuck! i don’t know!” you whine, “twen- twenty thousand something?” you guess, feeling the band in your stomach about to snap.

“close enough. let go f’me baby.” he slows down, letting you ride out your high, you’re a whimpering mess underneath him as he pulls out, painting your back white.

tutor!matt who’s down for a quickie during school

bathroom by the english hall, five minutes ;)

you text him, needing to get your stress out somehow. he’s already in the handicap stall when you arrive, not wasting a second, his hands are already roaming your body and your tongue is already in his mouth.

“miss my cock that much?” he mumbles into the kiss while you unbuckle his belt.

“stop talking or i’m not doin’ this.” you roll your eyes, falling to your knees.