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iamthemain-character · 25 days ago

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The Gold and the Rust

astarion x reader

she/her

TW: mild spice, almost dubcon (but nothing actually happens! we only believe in clear consent in this household!), mentions of canonical trauma

@ S.H. you better give me a big kiss for this one

One bright morning changes all things

Soft and easy as your breathing, you wake

Your eyes open, at first a thousand miles away

But turning, shoot a silver bullet point-blank range

And I can scarce believe what I'm believing in

Could this be how every day begins?

The grass was soft and cool under the scarred skin that stretched over Astarion’s shoulder blades. He was sure his body ached, but after thousands of years of this routine, he hardly even noticed it anymore. What he never got used to was the prick of guilt, making his heart bleed out into his stomach.

He pushes himself off the ground, relying on his hands to keep his frame upright. He let his head drop back between his shoulders, the soft, bristle-like ends brushing over his skin. He couldn’t help but recall how your hands had grasped at those same hairs not but a few hours ago. It had stirred an unexpected feeling in him, that simple gesture in the heat of passion. It was not the first time someone had grabbed his hair while he pleasured them, nor did he expect it to be the last. Yet...it had felt different; the pulling certainly had left his scalp tingling from the force of it, but it wasn’t violent. It had felt like you needed him closer, needed to have his lips on yours, needed his skin to merge within your own. Your touches had felt like you needed to know every part of him, like your soft fingers could reach down into his damned soul and bring it back to life.

He had never been needed before.

Astarion looked over to the side, his ruby eyes appreciative as he gazed at your body. Your skin looked so soft, the peaks and valleys of your frame swirling in the sunlight that shone through the leaves. You looked just like a treasure, glowing and priceless in your mere existence. Astarion’s mind kept replaying the sound of your voice as you had squirmed underneath him, the way your softness welcomed his tight grip. Heaven didn’t exist for vampires, but when you had called out his name he was sure he had found it.

Something altogether too warm and fluttery stirred in his cold, undead heart, and Astarion pushed himself up off of the ground, stretching to his full height as his hands brushed the low-hanging leaves of the willow tree that covered the two of you. He wasted no time collecting his clothes, lacing up his leather trousers in a business-like manner.

Just before he could don his shirt, however, he heard the rustling of the grass behind him; for some reason he could not fathom, he wanted to turn around. He wanted to watch you wake up, let his fingers lazily trace over your skin, pretending he was the artist who had fashioned this masterpiece. Then, perhaps when you woke up fully, he would create his own works of art upon your warm skin.

With a start, he snapped himself out of his thoughts, realizing his shirt was hanging loosely in his hands, swaying in the breeze. He felt an unfamiliar rush to his ears, a sort of embarrassment at catching himself so lost in thought over you. He never had trouble like this with any of his other victims before, so why was he so sentimental over you? Astarion knew he couldn’t love anyone, it wasn’t who he was. So why did he yearn to lay back down in the soft grass again?

Against his better judgment, he turned around, and he felt his resolve weaken. The sun now shone over your face, and you had instinctively turned away from the light, but the Sun’s hands still left its caress over your neck and hair. Astarion softly crossed the short distance, crouching down beside your sleeping body. His logic was screaming at him to leave, to make sure there was no chance of a confrontation between the two of you. That was how he was going to string you along, of course, keep you guessing, wanting more. But now he was the one guessing himself, and needing more.

Slowly, he laid on the grass again, feeling the sun glint off his own paper-white skin. He kept his chin over his shoulder, his gaze unable to be pulled away from your features. His fingers nearly ached with the desire to reach out, to feel your jaw under them, or the way your shoulder felt through your hair. But he kept them still, not willing to chance disturbing your rest.

This was good for his ultimate plot, he reasoned to himself. You would trust him so much more if he woke up beside you, showered you with flirtatious comments and sensual touches. Him staying behind was a good thing for him, so he wouldn’t have to wait as long to be able to manipulate you to his whims.

Surely that was the reason he laid beside you in the morning light, his pinky just a hair away from touching yours.

One bright morning goes so easy

Darkness always finds you either way

It creeps into the corners as the moment fades

A voice your body jumps to calling out your name

But after this I'm never gonna be the same

And I am never going back again

Astarion could see your hunger the moment you had come back into camp. Your eyes had that dark expression, your body tense in a way that he knew exactly how to relieve. It was beautiful, something he certainly appreciated, but his chest ached with the anxiety of having to perform. Just the thought of touching you in that way made him want to puke whatever little blood was in his stomach. Not because you yourself were repulsive, but because he knew he wouldn’t be able to feel your hands, but instead the claws of Cazador.

But he didn’t want to lose you. Already, his perfect plan was in crumbles. He already had your protection, your blood that you offered willingly. Now it was just maintenance. But instead, he kept trying to be more, to have more with you, simply because he wanted to. He liked your subtle glances across the camp, he liked the way you’d brush your leg against his. He loved the way he was finally able to learn to sleep because you held him so tightly after your encounters. Despite his best efforts, he had gotten used to having you as his, having your sole attention and romantic interest. Even if the blond elf pretended to not care, he liked having you all to himself.

So when you entered his tent, already looking like you were one breath away from shredding his clothes, he did what he always has. Kept his mouth shut, shutting off his brain and letting his body exist for the only thing he was good for. He felt like he was simply watching as you kissed him, lips hungry and needy as they sought to claim his. He simply followed the routine, touching where he knew you liked it, meaningless words murmured in a sickenly sultry tone. If he could just get through this, he would be fine. And besides, you always felt so good, so he was simply overreacting. He would be fine.

He let you pull off his shirt, but while your hands rested over his heart, the memory of Cazador’s tightened around it, fear running through his ice cold veins. And when you pushed him down onto the bedroll, straddling his hips, he didn’t see your adoring smile, but rather the vampiric fangs that had doomed him so long ago.

“Astarion?”

Your gentle voice broke through his thoughts, though by the look on your face, you must have called for him few times before.

He tried to gather himself, putting on his practiced wicked smile. “Yes, pretty girl?”

Your forehead was wrinkled from your furrowed brows, the desire in your eyes filled with concern. “Are you alright?” Your voice was so soft, so sweet, and if Astarion didn’t know better, he would have thought you cared.

“Of course pet. Please, I believe you were getting to something very important.”He purred, a little uncomfortable with the sudden attention to himself.

Instead of continuing, however, you got off of him, kneeling beside the bedroll. “If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to.”

Astarion sits up, and opens his mouth to reassure you, but he pauses as he hears your words. For a moment, he wasn’t quite sure he had heard them properly, because no one ever asked what he wanted, or if he even wanted the things he was doing. Still, the fear that you’ll walk away, that you’ll find someone else to shower your attention on seizes him, and he knows he must double down on the lie. “Dearest, I could see you wanted me from the moment you came into camp. Let me take care of your needs, ease the weariness from the day.”

You shook your head vehemently, a frown pulling at your mouth. “That’s not what I’m asking, Astarion. Do you want this right now, or would you rather not?”

Shame and guilt filled up his stomach, churning it into a stormy sea. Your eyes were so intense, as if you could see through him. He wasn’t sure his careful web of lies could protect him this time. “What does it matter what I want?” Astarion winces at how bitter his voice sounds, knowing that he’s not angry with you. He hesitates, wondering briefly if you were going to punish him for his impertinence.

Your furrowed brows arch upwards, surprised at his tone, but you don’t move away, nor do you make any move to harm him. “I don’t want to sleep with you if you don’t want it as much as I do.” You say, your voice a little frustrated from how much Astarion is dodging your questions.

Astarion huffs, looking guilty. “I can still give you what you want. I know how to make you feel-”

“That's not the point.” You cut him off, taking a deep breath to keep yourself calm. “Is that really what you think this is? You think I come to you just because of what you can give me?”

For the first time in his undead life, Astarion is speechless, a little bewildered by your reactions and your words. “What else would you come to me for?”

You run a hand through your hair, wishing you could shake this man of whatever terrible thoughts are under that silvery hair of his. Instead, you smooth out the edge of the blanket, keeping yourself calm. “Do you truly not have any idea how I feel about you?” You watch, but Astarion gives no reaction or indication of his thoughts. You soften, your heart aching a little. “I......I care about you so much Astarion. And I mean all of you.”

You sigh, dropping your head back against your neck as you think. “I think about you all the time. I worry about if you’re safe or if you’re hungry. I get excited knowing I get to see your face, I long to make you smile. And not the one you always have, the real one where I can see one more fang more than the other because your lips go crooked when you’re trying not to smile.” You drop your gaze back down, looking into the depths of his ruby eyes. “I enjoy the sex, of course. But that’s because I enjoy every part of you. You have so many other amazing qualities.”

Astarion sits very still and very quiet as he listens, only the tips of his ears twitching. He keeps playing the words on loop inside of his head. I care about you. And for the first time, he finds that he has no quips, no easy flattery or flirtation, nor any weapon to get out of this. You are just there, in front of him, your words raw and so saturated with honesty. And it terrifies him.

But deep inside of him, in the heart he likes to pretend he doesn’t have, there's a small glimmer of light. A tiny flame of hope, burning through the cruelty of Cazador and the ghosts of past trysts, making him wonder if he could truly be so desired. To be wanted beyond his body. “...I have spent my life, being a body for people.” He says quietly, his eyes trained on your hands as he speaks. Everything in his rougish logic is cursing him for being vulnerable, but as he lifts his gaze to your eyes, he finds nothing but safety and acceptance. “I do not know what it is to be cared for. But…” He pauses, his eyes softening, round and doe-like. His hands are embarrassingly shaky, but he reaches out, taking yours into them all the same. “I would very much so like to find out.”

A small, sweet smile curls on your face, fanning the hope inside of Astarion’s heart. You hold his hands gently but firmly, like you know he may pull away otherwise. “Then let me ask you again; do you, Astarion, want to continue what I was doing? And I want your genuine answer, not what you think I want.”

Astarion swallows the ball of nerves in his throat, his fingers tightening their grasp on you. “No.” He says, and he feels a surge of emotion within his heart. “No, I don’t.” he says again, astonished at how it feels to say the word. He watches you, but you’re still smiling, still looking at him like you adore him. Astarion wonders if perhaps you really do just care about him. “But I...I don’t want you to leave, either.” He admits, wondering if he’s pushing his luck.

Your smile only grows, and you move a little closer to him. “Would you like me to grab my bedroll? Or...I could even hold you, if you’d like?”

Astarion feels his own lips turn up, the idea of being close to you, warm and comfortable in his bed more enticing than he can express. “Yes please, darling. I’d like to keep you close.”

You nod, and without a single hesitation, you move back over to the bedroll. Astarion feels a little giddy at the prospect, struggling to keep up his cool, nonchalant attitude. He lays down with you, watching your hair sprawl out over his pillow. Your head mirrors his, and for a while, the two of you just gaze into one another’s eyes. Astarion tries to subtly shift closer, pretending like he’s getting comfortable, when in reality he just wants to be closer to you. Knowingly, you smile at him, and you open your arms to invite him in.

He practically swan dives into the junction of your shoulder and chest, nuzzling his head over your heart. He doesn’t even bother trying to hide the smile that pulls at his lips, all but purring as he melts against your side. You curve one arm over his shoulder, cradling his head as it rests over your breast, and you drape the other lightly over the valley of his waist.

The little flame inside of Astarion’s heart bursts into a fire as he feels you hold him, and he gives up any attempts at being cool about your presence. His bicep presses into the underside of your breasts, squishing them a little from how tightly he holds you. His other arm snakes under you, resting at the natural curve of your back. Even with your body fully in his grasp, however, it's still not enough. He draws his knee up, hooking his leg over yours, resting it below your knee. A contented sigh brushed your hair as he relaxed, his eyes fluttering shut. You could see his soft white eyelashes over his cheeks, the skin lightly pink and matching the tips of his ears.

Gently, your hand shifts upwards to the nape of his neck, lightly scratching at the hair where it grows out from his skin. The shorter strands loosen from where they were tucked between the two of you, twisting with every moment of your fingers. Astarion almost doesn’t want to believe this could be real, that you truly were so willing to simply lay with him, to hold him. And yet as he listened to the steady beat of your heart, so full of life, he was sure that he had found heaven.

The sky set to burst

The gold and the rust

The colour erupts

You filling my cup

The sun coming up

Like I lived my whole life

Before the first light

(Some bright morning comes)

Like I lived my whole life

Before the first light

Being an elf and a vampire meant that even when Astarion could sleep, he didn’t sleep for very long. It used to bother him, the long, lonely nights where he was left alone with the ghosts of his past. After falling in love with you, however, he adored the mornings. He would linger in the warmth of your shared bed, cuddled as close to you as he possibly could be. He would alternate between stroking your hair, or pressing delicate little kisses over your shoulder and arms. He loved watching you sleep, able to take his time studying your features without you blushing or hiding away.

On the mornings where he was feeling needy, however, he took no issue waking you up.

“My love.” He murmured, pressing a more insistent kiss to your shoulder, his arm wrapping around your waist. He saw no response, however, and so he decided to be more persistent in his efforts. He began trailing his lips over your arm, nibbling at whatever softness was there, making his way up to your neck. He couldn’t resist pressing the point of his nose into the skin of your neck, inhaling your scent deeply. Sometimes he felt he could get drunk on your scent alone, the different aromas that collected on your skin melding into a fragrance that was entirely unique, and entirely his to enjoy.

With that thought in mind, he nibbled gently at your neck, and was rewarded with the shifting of your body below his chest as you awoke. Your hands instinctively found their way to his back, soft and warm as they ran over his cool skin. He shivered, the sensation only serving to stir up the heat coiling in his lower abdomen. “There she is.” He hums, his tone dripping with satisfaction and barely controlled desire.

“Good morning.” You say sleepily, your body already leaning up into him, not needing to be fully awake to know what it wants. Your touch crawls up to the nape of his neck, brushing the soft curls there at the base. Astarion nearly moans, the simple gesture only adding to the intense need he feels for you.

He moves to get more fully on top of you, knees guiding your thighs apart as he finds his rightful place between them. Still, it's simply not enough, so his long fingers cup the slope where your ass met your thigh, nails digging into the soft flesh with a desperate claim. He knows that you’re still waking up, that he should be more gentle, but the smile on your lips is all the encouragement he needs to know his advancements are welcomed. His hands snap your hips up to meet his, and he presses his body intently against yours, letting you feel just how aroused he is.

A soft moan leaves you, your mind waking up considerably as you feel heat rush straight to your core. You look down your body, seeing the way he’s practically grinding into you, his red eyes dark with lust and love.

“Please.” The request carries an infinite well of want, his voice slightly breathless and husky, brushing invisible fingers along your spine. You nod, and that’s all it takes for Astarion to give into exactly what he’s wanting. Your bed becomes a paradise, both skin and sheets marked as he savors the way he can be this way with you, his past nothing more than a distant whisper.

Heaven didn’t exist for vampires.

But you did. And for Astarion, that was everything.

#i've dived so deep back into my bg3 phase #s.h. you are not helping the delusions #to be fair i'm also the culprit here #astarion #astarion baldurs gate #astarion bg3 #bg3 astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion x you #Spotify

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mooishbeam · 1 year ago

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『♡』 Treasures of the Fraud

♡ featuring: pantalone x f!reader

♡ summary: it's been forever since you've seen your friend, and as the hero of liyue, a new interruption has arisen. you pursue it, only to find memories awaiting you. wc: 9.1k+ (D:)

♡ cw/tw: long lonnggg fic, obsession, mentions of murder, mention of suicide, mentions of blood, manipulation, toxic pantalone, mean pantalone, possessive, spanking, degradation, mild praise, fingering, thigh riding, missionary, overstim, begging, edging, comeshot, pet names (darling, slut)

notes: helloooo!! ive been slow to get stuff out college is kicking my ass rn so sorry. not proofread so i apologize for any mistakes. I can't wait to have more time :) art by yion_yi on ig! <3 comments and reblogs are appreciated!

12 years ago

“Come get me!”

The boy with inky curls spiraling down his back dips through trees, ducking under low hanging branches embellished with vibrant autumn foliage. Messy blends of pink and purple melt across the slowly bleeding sun carried into the night. His silhouette resembles that of a malevolent spirit peeking behind the boughs, leaping over tangled twigs and shallow ditches. His excited screeches signal you to chase after the leading direction. You’re both screaming and laughing down the undoubtedly dangerous shortcuts. If your mother knew about the adventurous risks you were taking at 13, you’d never leave the house again. Tag is a troubling game—despite the thousands of times you’ve played with him, you regularly end up being “it”. You don’t care about losing, though; having someone to call a friend is enough.

You turn into a clearing with columns of trees overseeing your small presence, hundreds of them. The colder night is rising, not a celestial body to shield. In this deep blue void, the leaves seem to be aggrieved at your interruption of some secret meeting, angry and smiling faces crumpling in the whispering wind. You spin around frantically, looking for signs or laughter, but neither reveal themself. It’s quiet besides the downy linger of grass. Your shoulders are snatched back and shaken to a rattling shock. You scream, and he laughs.

“Rahhh! Did I get you?” he jests. Your eyebrows narrow, and you push him lightly to a stumble.

“You scared me!”

“Hah, that’s the point. C’mon, it’s late. Let’s go.” He's scared too, swiftly grabbing your hand as you both brave the darkness back to the village.

“We should’ve been home a while ago” you say quietly. You feel the chill in your bones and press yourself closer to him.

“Yea.” He holds your hand tighter at the sound of a small rock bouncing down a steep hill.

“I had fun today. Let’s do this again tomorrow.”

“I have something to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“I’m moving in the morning” he states. It was nonchalant, but your stomach turns a churning sickness. One you can’t understand yet, it makes you uneasy.

“Oh. Okay, then.” It isn't okay, not in the slightest. But it had to be. Your best friend of 8 years looks at you, aiming to register the gravity of the situation. You both say nothing, but tears start to brim in your eyes in the silence. You wipe them with your arm.

“Will you miss me?” he asks.

“A lot.”

“I’ll miss you too. Lots and lots.” He sways your interlocking hands. You pass by vacant homes tattered and aged by abandonment, overgrown with invading ivy. Homeless reside, caring each other to warmth from the freezing draft. You were lucky to have a home in this little forgotten sector of Liyue. It's a small, unfortunate room, with holes in the roof that drips when it rains and bags over the windows to keep the heat in. The stove never works, and you share a bed with your mother, but every birthday she makes sure to save just enough for a slice of cake with one candle. There isn’t more you could ask for. Everyone in the village suffered from poverty but they made it work, sharing crops and dairy to persevere until the next year. That’s how you met him, sitting on a rock as your mother collected rations. You perform two pebbles in your hands, mumbling sea shanties while imagining voyage on a grueling journey—he sat next to you.

“Those aren’t dolls. They’re rocks.”

“You’re a rock” you retorted.

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you want to be a rock?”

“...That’d be kinda cool.” You gave him a pile of pebbles, and he joined the trip.

You’re getting closer to the village, still processing who you’ll play with once he’s gone. You glance at him, he’s spaced out in a faraway stare. You crave the power to read minds.

“Can we talk about something? I’m getting sad” you sniffle.

“What should be talk about?”

“What are you going to do after you move?”

“I’m gonna be super rich” he assures, looking up at the starless sky as if a meteor would shoot across and grant his wish. “What about you?”

“I’m going to save the world” you proclaim.

“Cool. I hope you do.”

“Me too.”

You arrive at your makeshift door drawn together with scraps of wood and twisted rope for hinges. A dim candle glimmers inside, most likely your vexed mother waiting for your tardily return. He makes space for your entry, and you undo your hands for the last time. Before you go, he snatches your wrist. His eyes are foggy, cheeks an anxious tinge of pink. He isn’t sure what he’s feeling, but the strings in his heart are tense. His mouth shapes to say something, but nothing returns.

“Yeah?”

“...I... I’ll really miss you a lot” he whispers with a lump in his throat.

“Then don’t forget me, okay?”

“I won’t.”

“You promise?” you say and raise your pinky towards him. He curls around it. “I promise.”

“Good. By the way, you’re it now.”

“I’ll get you back when I see you again!” he chuckles. You bid your goodbyes, unaware that it would mark the unforeseen conclusion.

Leaves crunch under your feet as you make your leisurely traverse to Liyue Harbor. It’s just before sunrise and you finished helping the elderly in Qingce Village carry copious amounts of heavy produce to their homes. The thankful candies from seniors' jingle in your pocket as you stretch your weary arms. Your mom offered to cook, but you're determined to locate the best commissions Katheryne had before afternoon. “Maybe I’ll pick up some rice buns” you think out loud at the rumble of your growing appetite. You still had a long way to go before you got to the harbor.

This was your new normal. After your thundering battle with Ningguang and Keqing against Osial, you became an example of Liyue’s triumph. You also became more aware of Fatui tactics, wiping out their swarms with the raging fury of your pneuma and swinging vision. Days of grueling bloodshed resulted in your victory, cementing you as the lionheart of Liyue. Beat up and bruised, the only request you made after your fight was a hot meal and a place for your mom to retire. They delivered both, and you used your recent hero status to provide help to the villagers where needed, be it casual favors or ruthless assault on Fatui agents. You were neither rich nor poor, and lived off the land and kindness of the Liyue Qixing. They often suggested you focus on less mundane tasks, but to you, the most vulnerable age groups warranted priority. There was something about the lighthearted innocent squeals of children and mellow grandparents rocking in their wooden chairs that made you protective to an almost volatile extent.

Bustling interactions of trade and commerce carry through the wind as you enter the harbor—a sound that’s brought you peace for years. The smell of food vendors has you drooling instantly. As you devour the complimentary rice bun, you feel the yank of a little hand on your skirt. You look down and a boy with brown hair searches for familiarity in your face. You recognize him, babysitting him numerous times. You kneel and pat his head, but he doesn’t react or move.

“Hey, what’s up? Where are your parents?” you question, briefly scanning your immediate area for his family. He’s hesitant to speak, as if he can’t find the panicked words, and rushes into your arms. You hug him instinctively and let him sniffle into your shoulder. You pick him up in your grasp and raise his head with your other hand so that he’ll hopefully be open to your compassion.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” The boy wipes his chubby tomato-red face. “Grandma is on the floor, what do I do?” You quell your rising nerves to suppress his alarm and speak calmly.

“Where is she?”

Speed walking towards the destination, the commotion of a small crowd surrounds a kneeling woman in the distance. She’s on her sun-spotted hands and knees, wailing for some bygone Archon. “Grandma!” he yells and jumps out of your arms. You run after him, relieved that the worst case scenario hadn’t occurred. You push through the group and get eye level with her, forehead pressed to the ground spouting religious scripture.

“Are you okay? Do you need medical assistance?” Wise sunken eyes wrinkled with age and torn by tragedy stick to your heart. Her feeble hands encapsulate yours, and tears stream down her cheeks. “They took my baby!” she rasps, rocking back and forth. “Who did?” you ask, and she weeps harder. “They took her memory...my baby, my daughter!” You support her weight and lift her hunched figure off the pavement. “What did they look like, ma’am?”

“A black hood...red mask” she recalls shakily. Instantly miscellaneous chatter ensues. They whisper nervously in each other's ears, he who shall not be named steals their voices. “Fatui probably got ‘er” you hear the mumble of one. Fatui. Your blood boils at the word, and you direct your view to the shrinking man with hands in his pockets. “‘He’ got all of us” he scoffs. “Did they hurt you guys, too?” you ask, and they stare. They’re pained but accepting.

“500,000 mora.”

“194,000 for me.”

They list off their debt one by one, and you’re horrified at the accumulating number. They seem to endure, however; no longer phased by the incurable tally haunting their lives. “H-how are you paying any of this?”

“We can’t. It adds up. Interest, late payments, it always does. So, we give everything, and ‘he’ takes everything, until we have nothing left. We die poor without a possession to our name” a woman sighs. As a child, you heard of the loan sharks that purposely fed false promises to the poor, and once they were reeled in, charged insurmountable payments to blackmail—it was the origin story of most people in your birthplace. Your soul aches for them, but is there anything you can do?

“...I’ll help you, all of you. I’m sure I can-”

Ningguang arrives. She's a nurturing figure to you, the kind that asks if you’ve been eating well and politely scolds you. “What happened?” You lead the tired elder to the Jade Chamber, and she tells her story through choked sobs. You didn’t expect Keqing to already be there, arms folded and turned away from the situation. Ningguang can barely glance at the woman.

“They stormed my home and took my jewelry and belongings. They took the pendant my daughter gave me; it had her face in it. Archons give me strength, my baby! I can’t afford it; I have nothing!” she quakes. You rub her back and Ningguang nods, listening—you can’t help but notice the anxiety blooming on her abstracted face. They take her through the process and once she leaves, Ningguang and Keqing look at each other with a silent understanding. The room is eerily quiet, and Ningguang paces back and forth in front of the intel wall contemplating an uncertain danger. You fumble with your thumbs.

“What are we going to do about this?” you wonder. Keqing clears her throat loudly, attracting the attention of Ningguang. She looks at you, and sighs deeply. “We already know about this issue.”

Your ears perk up. “Great, so how can I help?”

“By doing nothing, (Y/N)” Keqing says.

“...What?”

“I have eyes everywhere; I’ve known for a long time. The Fatui are not people to be taken lightly, especially the harbingers. A few of their skirmishers were caught trading exotic goods and taxing medicine at high prices, on top of extorting the impoverished regions.” Ningguang points to one of the many Fatui exclusive headquarters on the wall. “Pantalone is the richest man in Teyvat, he has more political influence than anyone can imagine, and they answer to him. We can’t risk getting involved with this. They’ve brought this upon themselves, and unfortunately, they must deal with the consequences.”

You can’t accept this response. How can they just desert them? It doesn’t comprehend in your naïvity—you scold yourself for not spotting the signs sooner, furrowing your brows and looking at them with distaste. “I expected this. You shouldn’t have said anything” Keqing chides. “...Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped before-”

“You’re the last person I wanted to know about this” Ningguang interrupts. Your anger feels misplaced, and you bite your lip in restraint. She sits next to you and offers fleeting comfort with a graceful hand on yours. “You’re quite the reactionary type. In due time, this will be sorted. But right now, I need you to calm down, and trust me.” It sounds desperate, you know you shouldn’t go looking for answers, but a snagging thread pulls at the back of your consciousness, all too convincing. You bounce your leg. “You should want revenge just as much as me. Where we came from, where they end up, it isn’t fair.”

“You know I do, more than anything. But we must handle this with care, before too many people get hurt. I’m doing this for the betterment of Liyue as a whole. It’s not easy to make these decisions.”

“We can’t just go around serving justice, there’s laws we have to act with” Keqing adds. You don’t reply and stand up abruptly to leave. The worried Tianquan grabs your wrist one last time. “Promise me you won’t make a mistake, (Y/N). I’m trying to protect you” she pleads.

“I promise. Thank you.” You flash a half genuine smile, already planning to rebel against her wishes.

Who exactly is ‘he’—Pantalone. You don’t even know where to start looking. Too many headquarters, infinite possibilities. The best way you have to find him is through Fatui agents.

You start taking up odd jobs late in the evening, scouring for the possibility that a fatui agent might fall into your hands. Though you considered playing the part of an impoverished villager taking out a loan at Northland Bank, it didn’t guarantee that you’d meet Pantalone in the flesh—it’s more likely that would raise unnecessary suspicion in the process. It’s awkward at first, seeing the hero of Liyue fish on the dock for petty change throughout the night. As you do, the malicious fire in your eyes burns bright at the occasional voice in chill silence. Your vision glows as you toss the hunting knife between your nimble digits. Listening closely to conversations, hoping that one might be unguarded enough to slip up, but nothing of the sort appears—not even the boldness of Fatui skirmishers enables them to divulge secrets under the baleful existence of Celestia.

The moon illuminates sweetly on the tranquil waters lulling you to drowse. You hadn’t heard much since the start of your escapade. A fishing pole is weak in your resistless hold, and you’ve evidently given up on the idea of portraying the hardworking fisherman tonight. You vowed to help the people of Liyue, but justice was seemingly unfeasible. Maybe a direct approach? Should I ambush their headquarters? More so a suicide mission, you’d have no luck achieving that. Just as you’re about to leave, the crunch of withering grass straightens your posture. You make yourself hidden with a burst of energy and slouch behind the bushes as a Fatui pyro agent charges along the route. Through the glutted leaves obstructing your vision, you can just make out the heavy bag on his shoulder and jagged blade waiting restlessly on the other. His stride points towards Qingce Village. You hold your breath disguising yourself with the scenery and allow him to take a few feet between you before you begin following him. He’s rather shifty, those veiled eyes darting back and forth at the lightest noise. You’re careful to glide behind trees, moving with the heartbeat of the wind and taking advantage of the various melody's nature offers. You suck in a breath and duck behind a boulder a few inches too close, and his head snaps in your direction. The feeling of being watched besets him, but with no way to prove it and time running out, he secures his knife for the hypothetical ambush, and makes haste towards the target. Turning a tree, you watch as the pyro wielder knocks on the house of a small worn cottage. A short stocky man appears, shading half his body behind the door.

“H-hello...” you hear faintly. The Fatui keeps his hand firm on the door, one boot propped under the hinge. He presents the flaming knife loosely as he towers over the man. “We’ve given you time.” You were sure now that he's working for Pantalone.

“I don’t have it. P-please, if you could just give me some more-” He slams his fist against the wood, a resounding thump shakes the home. The man cowers. “Give me everything you have. The Regrator won’t wait any long-”

A small rock flies past his mask, skidding on the ground until it comes to a stop. He glares in the direction of the tree you’re hiding behind. You have no plan, nothing but the distracting impulse to stop the assailant from attacking. “Stay here” he commands, and stalks towards you. His slow footsteps get increasingly louder, playful stomps toying with your obvious whereabouts. He twirls the razor-sharp knife, and as he sharply peeks around the corner, you’re nowhere to be found. “Here, kitty kitty” he taunts, spinning towards the lake, then the village grounds for footprints. He severs the air aimlessly in mirth, believing some amateur fighter came to challenge him. As he monitors the tracks under you, you drop down from the wiry branches. Legs wrap tight around his neck, and you catch hold of his hood trying to pull his mask off. He gags but he’s too quick, throwing off your steadiness as he slams your spine on the grass. He whips around to take a stab at your chest, but you roll away guarding the vital arteries. You kick him in the crotch, and he recoils giving you ample time to stand.

You can’t feel the wet laceration dripping down your abdomen as you take a slash at his throat with your weapon, infused with elemental energy. He leans back and meets your strike. You trade blows, the strength of your smite bursting sparks of light above the scratches and bruises. Your wrist burns with the unmoving knives stumbling you. He begins to manifest blazing knives circling his figure, and you jump back from the singing cut melting the cloth. You wipe the dried blood from your mouth, and in the blink of an eye, he disappears. Suddenly, red auras similar to the pyro agent surround you. One by one, the clones charge at you, and you parry their overhead onslaught. Something is different about the last clone, your vision revealing a brighter outline than the others. When the next clone attacks, as you counter you pretend to fall for his trick. With your eyes on the other, he immediately passes through the black fog to deal the killing blow. You’re quicker this time and heave a heavy tear into his chest. Crimson splatters the grass, it shatters his element and rips open the robe. You tackle him on the dirt and wrestle until you kick his weapon away. Your knee digs into his back, and he can barely breathe with his arm locked behind him and knife rigid against his neck. He ttempts to swing at you, but you wrench his arm tighter and slice into his skin just enough to draw blood.

“Fuck. Okay!” he wheezes. “Where is Pantalone?”

“I don’t know what you’re- shit!” You’ve lost patience long ago and twist his arm to dislocate the shoulder. He lets out a blood curdling scream thrashing in pain—you tug hard and focus him. “Shut up and answer my question. Where is Pantalone?” you demand. He hisses in pain and coughs up phlegm mixing with reddening soil. “Kill me.”

“Just tell me and I’ll let you go.”

“I’m a dead man, either way.” he rasps and hangs his head waiting for the execution. You grit your teeth; a drop of guilt leaves a bad taste as you thwack the pressure point on his neck that forces him unconscious. You glance at the bag he left and limp over to rummage through the contents. Useless papers crumple under stolen items, but one note catches your eye. Presumably a to-do list, you read to the bottom. A list of homes, goods on standby exchanges—at the bottom of those, a rendezvous point:

Report back- Yilong Bank, Liyue

You rest in a plot of prickly bushes and leave in the morning after patching yourself up. You couldn’t stop now, not when you were this close to facing him. You soothe your body from the twigs prodding you all night, and check the wound suppressed by gauze. It’s a light scar now, apparent after bathing in the warm water on the outskirts of Qingce. You contemplated telling Ningguang about what occurred, but imagining the look on her face once she knew kept you moving.

Tucking your vision where it can’t be viewed, you take a waverider to Yilong Port into the afternoon. You concoct a half-baked scheme, one that relies on every scenario being perfect to a tee. Unreliable, but probably your only chance. The plan amounts to scaling the building and breaking in through the office window, snatching everything owned by the villagers and breaking out before anyone notices. Easy in your capabilities, but you have no idea what the building looks like, nor do you know where the office is. The man driving wears all black, an outfit that stands out from the rest of the region. He stares at you blankly, and once you’re aware, you meet eyes. His smile is uncanny, stretching across his face with an abnormal friendliness.

“Is this your first time at the port?” he asks, finger tapping the wheel. Be it sleep deprivation or ignorance; you don’t recognize red flags in his behavior. You smile at the courteous face. “Yeah, the weather’s beautiful out here.”

“Mhm, hot weather up here. On vacation?”

“Nah, I have business here.” The minuscule edge of your vision catches in the light. He homes in on the passing twinkle. You wonder why his eyes widen momentarily, and his finger starts to tap methodically, as if memorizing a coded pattern.

“Business...what kind?”

“Oh...I have some items to trade.” You close off your answers feeling that you’ve said too much. He subsides with a stale expression. “If you’re looking to trade, you might find luck at Yilong Bank” he utters monotonously.

“And where is that?” You feign disinterest, but victory is too loud on your tongue.

“Up the mountain.” The waverider halts at the harbor, and he turns his head away from you unusually cold, akin to a mechanical bot shutting down. “Welcome to Yilong Port.”

You make yourself invisible in the crowd and wait for nightfall. People still roam the port along with Fatui monitoring the front of the bank, which gives you leeway to blend in as you find passage around the back of the mountain. It’s a steep, dark incline jutted with irregular jagged stones. The imposing size of the climb tangles knots in your stomach, and you wipe the persistent sweat on your top. In one huge leap, you latch onto a craggy indent, and begin your ascension.

Your legs feel like jelly with each contact of the unforgiving breeze. You sway alongside the spirit of anemo and swallow your anxiety before leaping to the next rock. Shoes plant into rock and nails excavate fresh cobble on the next jump. By the time you’ve realized, you’re already up most of the mountain. You tug yourself even with the land as a barreling gust of wind goads your glance to the ground, kilometers beneath you. Your breath stills, and for a second dizziness overtakes your nerves at the thought of slipping. I could die, one mistake and I’m dead. You focus, and spring to the next piece. Without warning, rock gives way into pebbles at the weight of your foot. You nearly plunge, but anchor onto the small bump out with one hand. You’re dangling off the edge, playing with death while you fortify your body. Hyperventilation makes your heartbeat thrum incessantly and stress palpitates tired muscles; If you didn't have your vision, you would’ve fainted to your demise. You bite the bullet, push your heels in and persevere through the hurdles. The next thing you clutch is malleable in your palm. You vault over the cliff, the smell of dew is overwhelming. The back of the bank—the end goal—is visible.

One Fatui member remains in the front. You scale up the building effortlessly, nothing compared to the hell you just went through. Shifting window to window, your eyes land on the pitch-black darkness of the room at the top of the building. An ideal glow casts on the fraction of precious gold resting on a coffee table. This has to be it. You slink through the window soundlessly, and land on the balls of your feet. Analyzing the dish, you don’t discern the pendant. You can faintly identify some bookshelves near the dish, and tiptoe further inside. You creep around luxury sofas, and squint at the embellished glass case next to the door, containing all manner of jewelry and valuable possessions. You won; this was it. You scurry to it, moving with abrupt carelessness. One more step.

Click

The fireplace you didn’t heed is set aflame. It flickers sneering shadows on the opposite wall and brightens the case. You pause and hope. There’s a confining silence stirring in the room, like someone is with you. The case is visible now, and so is the key to opening it.

You fell into a trap.

“Looks like I have a little thief on my hands.”

A bittersweet voice in the sable, reminiscent of rich dark chocolate, rolls off the room. He steps out obscurity behind his desk and your eyes adjust, revealing the tight black turtleneck compressing his willowy torso and gloves adorned with silver rings. You can’t see the upper part of his face, but the chains of his glasses hang in front of that duping smile. You expected the Fatui harbinger to be on the stronger side, physically intimidating. It’s not physical, but you feel a certain fear boiling in your body. He’s not terrifying, but you tremble. His presence makes your hair stand and sends waves of goosebumps up your arms. You can’t find the will to move your wobbly legs. His charmed laugh rings in your ears and causes you to hold your breath. He has no vision; you shouldn’t be afraid. You could take him on easily, why can’t you fight?

“Hello, honored hero of Liyue” the headless man taunts. It makes it worse that he knows who you are. How long had he known you were coming? Was your plan doomed from the beginning? Your feet are stuck in molasses as your fight or flight shuts down at the man before you.

“Now, tell me. What is the little thief doing, barging into my office to take the possessions I worked so hard for? Not very heroic of you, If I may say.” There’s power in his stature—you forget how to speak. He holds his palm out to you. Tangled between his fingers, is the ornate golden pendant you’d been searching for, a woman’s face in the frame. Your eyes widen, and the sweet familiar curve of his lips stretches in amusement.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” The plod of low-heeled boots accompanies unveiled darkness, and you can observe his entirety. Amethyst eyes drunk with an orchid hue pool into your being. Lazy curls brush against his glasses and kiss his porcelain skin. He’s beautiful, a calm enticing rip current that sweeps you with immeasurable pressure before you can pull yourself out. He leans on the desk, observing the chain halfheartedly. If you weren’t careful, you’d mistake the look on his face for genuine kindness; you’d drown, just like he craved. Nonetheless, you can’t shake the emotion his smile grants.

“Yes. That’s all I need, and I won’t bother you again” you whisper meekly, hoping that he’d let you go with the pendant in a spur of forgiveness. The jest in his eyes says something different.

“Come get it.”

Come get it. Your mind begins to piece the man into a stage of your life you’d forgotten. It can’t be him. Memory tells intrusive truth in short flashes. Inky curls spiraling in front of you as you chase. He was consistently miles ahead of you. It was irrelevant how far apart you were; he’d always find you. That big, curving smile for every match he won. Purple eyes glancing back at yours; the same ones that withheld tears when you said goodbye.

“Come get me!”

Tears stream down your eyes for the friend you thought you’d never see again. Childhood laughter bleeds into his current cat-like conniving snicker, and you gaze at his face.

“I... remember you” you choke. He looks up without a smile, perceiving an unexpected thought, and meets your eyes. There’s a hint of affection in the warm smile beaming on his face. “My my, (Y/N). You have quite the memory.”

You’re motionless, full of something that catches in your lungs. This isn’t the triumph you wanted, and now that you’re face to face you feel powerless. He must’ve known the entire time. Watching you fight and work alone, sending Fatui to roam in Liyue, all done to toy with you. Your lip quivers, swelling in your already deafening heartbeat.

“How long...” you utter. He inquires with the tilt of his head.

“How long have you been messing with me?” Your eyes adhere to the floor, pride that won’t permit you to shed misery for Pantalone. He drinks in your resistant frame, the kind he desires to break; perhaps this game of cat and mouse isn’t done, after all.

“This hurts me too, (Y/N). I wouldn’t be doing this if you weren’t so…persistent.” Your confusion spills over in shaky, weak huffs. You can’t maintain your composure, and make yourself first to oppose the authoritative man on his own territory.

“How could you do this to anyone? We grew up poor!” You shout with balling fists.

“It’s inefficient to dwell on the past” he replies with gentle cadence and languid grace unrepresentative of his cruel tactics. You nearly regret raising your voice.

“These people are at their wits end and you’re taking advantage of them” you chide. He slowly paces towards you. Pantalone looks down on you from height disparity, but the royal glower pities you, judges worth you can’t see.

“Driven by emotions, are you that simple? You presumed that if you stormed in here, and professed a touching story, that I would suddenly see the error in my methods?” You’re not sure what you’re here for anymore or why you haven’t left yet. Subconscious urges can't determine if they should slap or hug the man inching towards you. “I simply enforce contracts and exchanges. No one can be swindled by a debt accreted on their own.”

“No one asks to be poor either” you interject. Pantalone’s a foot away from you now, analyzing your reactions to his personal entertainment. He recalls the blurry past—the pranks you pulled together that ultimately failed from your loud hurried sneakiness tripping to alert the farmers, helping out for loose change so that you’d split a snack between each other that wasn’t big enough to share, gazing at the twinkling night imagining a distant future—you changed and stayed the same, but he keeps wanting more.

“Weigh the odds. They either die impoverished or live by passage of loans. I merely provide a service. Does that make me so cruel?” You can’t find an answer.

“You’ll always be my friend, but I need it back. It can’t be much to forgive someone’s debt” you plead.

“You still consider me a friend?”

“I think…you’re hurt. And you’re trying to heal. We all are. I know I’ve dealt with a lot as I’ve gotten older and I think you have, too. Power corrupts even the best people in this world, so maybe you’re not a bad person. But you’re doing bad things, and this isn’t the right way to get better.”

Pantalone is quiet for a few long moments. His hands web his face, but you can clearly see the pearly fangs in his open-mouthed smirk. Then he laughs—dulcet and mocking, it lingers for too long as he throws his head back and relishes the obtuse notion. He gazes with insulting compassion and stalks towards you.

“Incredibly…. gullible. Mora is the pathway to all endeavors. Devoid of gnosis or divine knowledge, wealth has rendered me impervious to control. Suffering and destitution only manifest if I will it. I am the guise of a false god, an emblem of achievement.” It’s borderline delusional the way he regards himself, arms moving in theatric grandeur, the star of his own opera.

“Does that make you feel good? Stepping on the backs of the community that raised you, and abandoning them because they chose not to be influenced by greed?” Pantalone towers over you. His fingers brush light against your sensitive ears, trail to your clenched jaw, and finally cup your frustrated cheeks with the cradle of a long-lost lover.

“It does, in fact. I’m not easily swayed by ridiculous optimism, that’s why I’m at the top. You’ve devoted your blood and tears to a region that will succumb to adversity in your absence. Is that not a pointless feat?”

“So what? That doesn’t mean we just don’t help people. You have nothing without the Fatui, you’re a pawn just like the others” you retort. He brings his lips close to the shell of your ear, and his breath hot on the untouched skin drags a tingle up your spine.

“And what do you know about the Fatui?” he whispers.

“I know enough. You’re all disgusting.” He huffs out his nose.

“Disgusting isn’t the right word. I’d say...opportunists.” Pantalone backs up, sliding his hand up your chin and tilting your attention to the intense glint. “But you’re clever, I’ll give you that. If only you were clever enough to know your place.” You'd forgotten you were acting out of line. You refocus your mindset to negotiation.

“I’ll do anything you ask for the debt. Please, just give it back.” The word “anything” evokes a malicious yearning—so forthcoming without understanding the implications of “anything”, of eternity. He caresses your cheek.

“Anything, hm? Even if I said to give up being a hero for good? Would you still call yourself a heroic traveler if you weren’t allowed to travel or adventure as you please?” he teases. Your mouth opens to refute, but you bite your bottom lip instead. Pantalone walks back to his desk and leans while dangling the golden chain. Now that he’s far, the invading space between you two shows how insignificant you are in this luxury palace.

“Your resolve moves me. Consider this; make an exchange with me, and I’ll guarantee not only her debt, but the debt of all residents in Liyue forgiven” Your face instantly lights up, ready to accept it without thinking.

“What is it?” you ask.

“In exchange for regional loan forgiveness, I want you.”

“...What?”

“I want everything you have. It’s the fairest exchange I can make. Your obedience, your loyalty, and your body.”

The choice turns in your frontal lobe. You can’t fathom giving yourself to a man, let alone a Fatui harbinger. It’s unbecoming of a hero to lie with the enemy.

“Absolutely not” you assure.

“Alright. Then allow their village to be reduced to nothing.” No, wait. “You may leave. However, if you do, you’ll cause great misfortune to that woman and her struggling family” You play into his covet so smoothly as you stand in the center of the room, reluctant to leave.

“I’m not a complete monster, so I’ll give you 5 seconds to make a choice.” He sways the pendant in his hand like the transient time of an hourglass. 5 seconds, all you have to sign your life away.

“4.”

What if no one ever sees you again? What’s the point of sacrificing your happiness and freedom, are the people of Liyue truly worth it?

“3.”

You could threaten him, take him hostage so that a harbinger might bow to your demands. That, or they kill you, and the village suffers anyway.

“2.”

You think of your graying mom, the sweet boy with his chubby red face who cries over the smallest things, the grateful elders that give you candy after every good deed, Ningguang and Keqing stressing over the next financial impact.

“1.”

“I’ll do it.”

Pantalone swings the chain into his palm, an undefeated smug overbearing as he sets it on the desk. There was never a point in resisting; he always got what he wanted, no matter how long it took to achieve it. He waited months—no, years—to get you in this exact moment. There’s a daunting beguiling charm in the way he closes the gap between you two. You glare at him; a temper common people would dread shooting. He assesses the pending punishment and lowers himself eye-level. He grins, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

“I can see the defiance in your eyes. Do you want to talk back? Go ahead, challenge me.” You don’t test this scenario and turn your head. “Don’t patronize me. Get it over with, ‘Pantalone’.”

He quirks an eyebrow, and pliable flesh strains your teeth as your face is gripped rough by satiny leather. You’re twisted sharply to the calm expression—it humbles you.

“That’s not how you address your superior. What should you call me?” You don’t answer promptly to his liking, and he tightens his grip. “Answer me properly, darling.”

“...Sir.” Pantalone plants a sickly sugary kiss on your forehead, the kind that makes you forget how petrifying he can be, and lets you go.

“Good.” He walks back to the desk and sits in the onyx chair embellished with silver jewels fit for a king. His chin rests on bridging hands. “Strip.”

You don’t move, your heart hammers in your chest at the request and you stir uncomfortably. You have no experience with sexual gratification, let alone exposing yourself to an old friend.

“(Y/N). Don’t make me say it again.” Keen agitation in his voice serves as a final warning. He eats you with his eyes, homed in on your hands clumsily snaking the top over your head. A glimpse of the scar you received during your fight with the Fatui captures him. He takes a mental entry, for an explanation that might justify why the agent suddenly goes missing. You were generally too busy to look in the mirror or analyze your assets, and pleasure was a removed afterthought—so the hungry fervor warming your skin and permeating the room clamped your thighs shut. You’re visibly flustered and nervous fumbling with the clasps on your bra while stabilizing your anxiety, and he delights in every second of the accidental strip tease. It feels like fresh meat introduced to a savage animal, and the instant your bra omes off, a new vulnerability coils in your gut. You move to your bottoms; the sheen of sweat polishes your plush thighs to wiggle out of them. You’re left in nothing but tantalizing panties hugging you in the right places. His eyes undress and redress you, tracing up and down the perk of your nipples, tempting fullness of your thighs, each unseen curve and perfect imperfect mark on your glistening body. He lets out a deep breath to stop himself from jumping over the table and taking you right there.

“The underwear. Take it off” he says, an undertone of lust. You shimmy the fabric off and fully expose yourself. You impulsively cover your intimate parts and avert your eyes, but you can still feel Pantalone on you, ravaging you. He doesn’t bother telling you to put your arms at your sides, your bashfulness combined with an attempt at stoicism is comical.

“Ah, the little thief is trying to act tough. That's cute” Pantalone teases and leans back in the chair. Manspreading, he pats his thigh. “Crawl.”

He’s hellbent on shaming the defiance out of you. It’s a vile command, but you begrudgingly drop to your hands and knees. You drag your chaffed knees on wood, balancing like a newborn fawn adjusting to its legs. It’s humiliating and downright degrading; the cold floor fails at cooling your burning fever. You’re on the verge of tears, but Pantalone can’t help but smile. You get around the desk and look up at him, waiting for the next horrible thing he’ll have you do. “Unfortunately, the stunt you pulled impeded my paperwork. Be a good thing and sit on my lap until I’m done.” A “thing”—that’s all you were now, a shiny trophy meant to be ogled at but never taken seriously, used and thrown away. You stand off your scraped raw knees and straddle his thigh, hands balancing the leg so you don’t fall.

And Pantalone starts to work. Working as if you’re not there, filling in the spaces on his documents. For some reason, it’s more demeaning this way, you truly are just a prize. One hand dances beautiful penmanship in masterful motions on embossed paper, the other fondles and explores your being. The gloves brush down your delicate spine, nonsensical shapes drawn on your lower back that make you shiver and pool heat in places you’ve never thought of. You’ve never been touched like this, it’s needles light on your skin. They move to your stomach, pleasant circles above the pelvis that threaten to go lower. He’s careful to trail his hand up your cleavage and behind your neck, neglect your hardening nipples and repeat the process over and over. He’s painstakingly slow, savoring the dazed arch of your back, massaging your inner thighs and dragging the sleek material over your rear.

Middle and index sweep across your lips, pulling your bottom lip to reveal teeth, and prods your mouth. Pantalone’s fingers are invasive, they exploit your gums and twirl around the squishy tongue molding to his appetite. He plays with the pink mass, and it fills you like a kiss. He’s everywhere and he hasn’t looked at you once. You hate it, the kind elegance and refinement of his technique that makes every calculated word and action reek of opulence. Yet, arousal pools on the surface, sticking to your labia and clouding your drowsy mind. It’s an extreme ache that doesn’t go away from cold showers or shrugging off like you usually would. You can’t remember what you did today, yesterday, or the day before that. The sensation of him consumes you and persists in spots he left. He smells of expensive cologne, hints of heady wood and sage. You’re lucky his fingers are in your mouth, or piteous moans would spill out of you. Flat on his thigh, the subtle jolts of his leg rub against your hypersensitive clit and set your nerves on fire. Throbbing swells in your core, and you struggle to stay stiff as your hips stutter.

Pantalone knows exactly what he’s doing. Your labored pants sound like saintly melody while you writhe on his lap. The fabric goads your pulsing pussy, and you hang your head in embarrassment of the juices soaking your thighs and his. He’s surprised you have strength left to withstand the itch. You do your best to hover above it, trailing thick strings of slick. “There’s no need to pretend you don’t like this. Just give yourself to me” he whispers. And it’s so enticing, an invitation that might let you come if you ask. However, remnants of pride cling to your melting resolve, you can’t give in yet. He takes the fingers out and presses on your nipple, flicking the bud. You can’t hold the mewl, and he snickers.

“So indignant for the hero of Liyue, to be on a harbingers lap, reduced to a pretty pet.” Your ears tune out the insults. The damp gloves pull and pinch your puffy nipples, then knead to soothe the pain. He does the same to the other, switching between both as he feels you squirm.

He works on the last few pages. Piles upon piles of reports and records—they detail the deaths, or “suicides”, of clients who’d disappeared mysteriously after extended absence of payments for millions of mora, people who dared go against the Regrator. Unruly, uncooperative clients that take advantage of fair exchange, and pay the price for it.

Your arms get tired, and you settle on him again. Pantalone starts to softly bounce his leg, enough for you to notice the friction on your clit. It’s too much, you can’t take it anymore, and start to rut your hips on his thigh. You look messy, smearing your essence on those overpriced slacks and biting back your moans. Pleasure flows in your veins, and you give up. His cock throbs nonstop, print stealing space in his pants. “Did you believe I wouldn’t catch you? You’re not sneaky enough. You’re not good enough," he taunts from the corner of his eye. You hump his leg like a desperate bunny, chasing the addictive high.

“Nasty slut, fucking your hips on a man you barely remember.” He moves his hands to your clit and replaces the slacks with slippery leather. You grind on it harder and hold your moans. More, more, more. He coats it in the mess and finally diverts his attention to you. He teases your entrance gliding vertically on your vulva before pushing one finger in. It hurts at first, but your walls hug him eagerly, pulling it deeper. He coaxes it to take another and starts scissoring your gushy walls.

“I’ll devour you. I’ll inscribe my name upon every surface of your physique until it adorns your lips, and I’m the only thing that remains.” Pantalone starts pumping rhythmically, tormenting, poking everywhere but your g-spot. Gloss drips down his knuckles and glazes his rings.

“S-sir please, s’too much” you whimper, mustering up an ineffective stable voice. “Hmm? Can you hear the lewd sounds you’re making?” Loud squelches sing from him fucking your insides. Each time you try to speak, he elicits another moan.

“M-my sto-mach hurtss” you whine. He holds your waist in place with the other hand and continues the assault. “I know, it hurts? Would you like me to alleviate the pain?” he coos. You nod fast.

“Hold it in. You ask for permission every time you’re close, do you understand?” You don’t reply and try to angle your body to get more contact. You make the mistake of guiding yourself to your clit and earn a harsh stinging slap on your hand. “Don’t touch what’s mine” he orders. You’re frustrated and he’s doing it on purpose, it’s entirely too hot where pleasure and pain blur. “N-not yours” you stammer, and he stops. He pulls out your warmth and you whine from loss of pressure. Looking at him, there's no smile, and the irritation on his face makes your heart drop. You're really in for it.

Without delay, your stomach flies over one of the chair arms, and you hold onto it for dear life. It presses firm on your ribs, and he slants your ass to the air. “You have courage, speaking back to me” he says. He pulls his gloves off and hurls them. They’re lovely, the silken soft hands of a man who hadn't lifted a finger through combat a day in his life. They sink into your sex, and you moan out for him. The other winds back, and you feel the palm hit brutally on your unsuspecting backside. Crack. It echoes in the room, and you almost fly forward.

“Disrespectful.” Crack. He keeps pumping through it, and tears collect in your lashes.

“Disobedient.” Crack. There’s blood rushing to your head, and violent smacks make your pussy flutter and ass ripple; his control won’t give you adequate touch.

“Little.” Crack. Every time he feels you getting there, he pauses. A masochistic pleasure whirls innermost.

“Brat.” Crack. Both cheeks are a sore fiery color and beginning to welt, but he resumes. You’re drenching his palm, sobbing from prolonged edging and Pantalone laughs. “Pfft, you’re crying? Too embarrassed to beg? Perhaps I’ll give you what you want, if you grovel hard enough, darling.” An incoherent orchestra of please’s mesh with broken moans. “Sir m’sorry. Wan’ it so bad, p-please!” you mumble. There’s no dignity on your lips, no residue of the hero you once were. Drunken ardor floods your short-circuiting brain.

“Oh, what do you say? You want it? Is that it? I'll let you have it... but only if you say it loud and clear for me” he croons. He winds his fingers in a come-hither gesture that licks your core.

“Please...I won’t misbehave again!” He spreads your ass apart and watches your hole pucker from lining the brink.

“I’m not sure I want to give it to you now. It's a lot more enjoyable watching you squirm and beg.”

“’M yours, sir. Please give it to me. I’ll be s’good, promise!” you mewl. You’re so pathetic, it’s endearing. He simpers and maneuvers impossibly fast while gyrating your clit. “How humiliating. You’ve satisfied me.” Your eyes roll back, and you dissolve in pure euphoria. There’s black dots in your vision, and it doesn’t stop as he starts torturing your overstimulated clit with the pad of his thumb. Your tears only encourage him. You jerk and spasm, but he moves where you move with insistent skill. “T-too m-”

“Aww, what’s wrong? Isn’t this what you wanted, where are your manners?” Pantalone pulls out and delivers staggering mean swats to your pussy, and you recoil. “Say thank you” he demands.

“Thank you, sir.” He hums and picks you up in his arms. Before color can return to your numb cells, he lays you on the desk. You watch him pull his shirt up to his pecs with haste and uncover the lean skinny midsection. Unzipping his pants, he unsheathes his leaking thumping erection. Even his dick is pretty, it curves upwards and shades a starving dusty pink past the thin strip of tissue on the underside of his bulbous tip. Composure thinning, a bead of pre come runs down his tip at the sight of provocation sluicing your ass and thighs. His glasses plunge down his neck, body blushed wildly, but he doesn’t care. Pantalone slides between your labia and groans at the sound. Engulfing the tip in awaiting velvet warmth, “You’re so good for me, hm?” he sighs. You embrace him, delicious searing stretch of your walls forming to his cock. Your orgasm builds just from your body accommodating the size. He places your hands on your calves and holds them at your sides. He slips out, and in one swoop, drives into you. His heavy balls smack against your ass as he thrusts frenetically in the gooey grip he’d been waiting for, stalking and spying for. He digs crescent shapes in your waist and uses you to his abundance. The desk base creaks and grinds on abrading wood and obituaries float to the floor with overturned calligraphy ink from the unrelenting momentum. You throw your head back and indulge the carnal lust washing over you both.

“You’ll never see anyone ever again. Fuck- you’re mine, and mine alone. You’re nothing but a come dump, your purpose is to please me, hah, until I say it’s over” his voice is unexpectedly deprived and weighty with vulgar whimpers. Pantalone eyes your neck and encapsulates it in his slender hand. He clenches tight and releases in sporadic bursts that have you seizing around him. For a split second there’s the image of you—exorbitant pearled collar wrapped around your throat, with “Pantalone” inscribed in bedazzled letters—and he loses it. He swipes your clit rapidly and feeds you deep strokes; you’ll definitely die. You speak, but it’s unintelligible rambling.

“Use your words” he lilts, squeezing your airflow taut. “C-can I, sir, please?”

“You’ll do it on my command.” Pantalone thrusts frenetically, you can feel him bucking, twitching and quickly approaching his climax. His hips sputter, chanting some mixture of your name and curses under his breath. “You’re so obedient for me, aren’t you? F-fuck, darling, go ahead. Come on my cock.” You permit yourself to surrender, white noise streams in and time slows as you come down his shaft. A creamy ring forms at the hilt of his slaps. You recite “thank you” through wails with the semblance of a follower at the altar of their savior. Then he grabs your face and goes in for a kiss.

It’s sloppy and misses half your lip, but its doughy attachment mellows your blissed out head. His lips taste like the bitter excess of green tea, and you crane for a better sample. His tongue does things his fingers couldn’t, and swirls around yours in a passionate bruising waltz. Pantalone breaks away, a string of saliva when he frees himself. “Mm, coming. Gonna claim you everywhere” he whimpers. Sweat on his lustered abdomen, he pumps his tender cock before spurting thick hot ropes across your tits and stomach. He paints your vulva with the rest and plunges the tip in your entry so as to not waste the endless globs of white. He tremors inside you until soft, and when some dribbles out he fingers it back inside.

Afterwards, Pantalone opens one of the drawers on the desk and takes out an embossed loan dismissal form. You can’t read the finer details through hazy eyesight. “It’s already signed, so don’t worry. I won’t deceive you.” He caresses your face in his normal sing-song attitude. “We depart in the morning.” You don’t have a clue where you’re going or how you’ll get there as you drift unconscious. Once you’re asleep, Pantalone shuffles in a different locked drawer. He twiddles the stunning purple geode in his hand, a crystal lined mineral you gave to him years prior. He looks at you, then the druse, and cackles.

“Mine. Always.”

#genshin impact #genshin smut #genshin au #pantalone smut #pantalone #pantalone headcanons #headcanon #pantalone x reader #pantalone x you #pantalone x y/n #genshin impact pantalone

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vitaminseetarot · 5 months ago

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PAC: Random Messages You May Need 🌈🎆⛅

Sup, y'all. I'm finally back for another pick a card reading. I really apologize if folks have not heard from me over the past month, I meant to get this reading (among other things) out a while ago. I have not been able to touch tarot for the past few weeks. Life has been… topsy turvy, to say the least. Heh heh. [sweating profusely]

I meant to have another game out and to have paid readings available by now--that is still part of the plan. What was meant for June will be in July. So this blog might go from 0 to 100 mph real soon, to move along with plans as intended!

I was loosely inspired by the Baker pride flag from 1978 for this group selection. These piles are pretty nondescript: each one contains a random message that may resonate with you. Pick based on whichever color of the Prism Oracle speaks to you most, and feel free to choose more than one. Take only what resonates.

Pile 1 - Strength (Red) Pile 2 - Happiness (Orange) Pile 3 - Illumination (Yellow) Pile 4 - Movement (Green) Pile 5 - Flow (Turquoise) Pile 6 - Trust (Blue) Pile 7 - Intuition (Violet) Pile 8 - Love (Pink)

Pile 1 - Strength (Red)

10 of Swords, Insight

You've been asked by the universe to put up with a lot, especially recently. You're reaching a finish line of a very long and brutal marathon. There have been too many times where you questioned whether or not to throw in the towel. If you have, you may also have questioned whether or not it was the correct choice. Sometimes, things don't work out, and it's better to move on. It can be difficult to hold everything up when one thing after another seems to fall apart at the seams, but either way you're being reminded of the light at the end of this long and turbulent tunnel.

Collect yourself, pick up what pieces you can. Time has shifted everything, but the essentials still stand. Gather the wisdom you have learned from this ordeal. There is still beauty to be found in the decay, glittering gems in the rough.

Maybe you don't want to get stronger. Healing may feel like a better option than grinding for difficult experience points. Give yourself the rest and repair you need. Let go of only that which is keeping you from starting again, but you don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You've gained so much wisdom and strength, this trial wasn't without gain. Treasure it and begin anew.

Pile 2 - Happiness (Orange)

2 of Swords, Clarity

Whatever answers you seek are coming to you. Or perhaps they've already arrived; open your eyes and see for yourself. You may be wondering which path will satisfy you more. The process of reconciling this could take forever unless you lean on your gut here. This can't be decided based on intellect alone, for you could get stuck mulling it over for days. Imagining all the different possible outcomes could be taxing for your brain, so narrow it down. Eliminate the weakest links and home in on what excites you. It should feel like an "aha, yes!"

If you cannot see the answer right away, go within to the realm of imagination. Feel your way through. Visualize not just with sight but with yearning. Does the light of the sun make you feel hopeful? Does the cool rain make you feel relaxed? Would an art class expand your capacity to imagine many things, or would taking a science class?

The X mark in 2 of Swords is like a railroad crossing sign. Redirect that train of thought into brighter and more positive avenues of expression. Say "what if" as if you can't wait for something to happen. "What if I saw a shooting star tonight? What if my cute neighbor asked me out?" Let the future shine its beacon for you. It will all make sense in due time.

Pile 3 - Illumination (Yellow)

Ace of Cups, Reconciliation

Have you been staying up way too late trying to figure everything out? Please give yourself a brain curfew: no problem solving or saving the day after 10 pm! I'm getting that you may tend to ruminate on the same strong emotions. For some I'm getting that there is a crush here. There's inconsistent text messaging. I know it's easy to get too nervous about their reply, but try to wait until at least the next day to hear back. They may need time to formulate their words right. They may not even see your message straight away. Take it all in stride and sleep on it; if they want to reach out to you, then they eventually will.

For others in this pile, you may be going through a rough patch with another person right now and could be wondering how things will pan out. Give them time to respond, they could still be processing it. Stay on the more positive end of things with the idea that things will work themselves out. I feel like if you can manage this in a relaxed and non hurried way, the knot will untangle easily. The coffee in the Ace of Cups is very hot, so give it a chance to cool.

There is opportunity in your near future to make up for something that went awry due to a miscommunication error. You may get a chance to make up for a test, appointment, or an interview. You will receive grace for any mishaps. Remember that tomorrow won't necessarily be the same as today, so cherish both the good you have now along with the good that soon awaits you.

Pile 4 - Movement (Green)

IX Hermit, Devotion

Looks like things are progressing faster than you even thought they would. You may be blinking your eyes in partial disbelief: could this ball really be rolling? Indeed, thanks to your efforts, goals are being met and results are more evident by the day. You eschewed a lot of distractions to make this work, so give yourself a pat on the back for the level of commitment you put into it. Some of you in this pile may have just graduated, if so then congratulations! But try not to get too comfortable with your laurels, for you have a long road ahead of you in whatever you do next. This one completion is the start of many.

Does that thrill you? If so, wonderful! On the other hand, some of you may be feeling uncertain about continuing. You may be reviewing your options to see if this really is worth pursuing. Something that requires a lot of dedication and focus on it to the exclusion of all else… yeah, I can see how that can get tiring after a long time. There are folks who can get their Master's right after their Bachelor's, or have another child right after the first, but people can also happily move on to what feels more right for them instead.

It's okay to stop and assess your tracks if necessary. Taking time off is not the same as quitting. It's not losing motivation, it's recovering it. This is your passion and your discipline, not anyone else's. If you need to give other parts of your life more room to breathe, then do so with the confidence that your great work will wait for you.

Pile 5 - Flow (Turquoise)

4 of Wands, Hospitality

Have you been stuck with something for a while? There's a strong sense of a blockage that is being eroded away over time. This process can be sped up by allowing the ice to thaw a little more. "Break the ice." You may be wanting to open up and spend more quality time with other people but don't know how. Or you could be faced with meeting new people and being nervous about interacting with them. Even more so if they're roommates. A few people in this pile could be moving or have just moved. This is a chance to ease up and get to know new people.

This blockage could be a result of the past and of anxiety. The sound of a turning doorknob just jumpscared me as I typed the last sentence. You may benefit from learning about social anxiety and how to manage it. It's not an overnight job for you to fix this, though, but to just be aware of it and not allow it to get in the way of positive change in your life.

If you're struggling to figure out how to deal with meeting new people, I would suggest looking up videos or how-tos on social interaction, especially if a certain etiquette is required for an event. Learn about conversation starters and fun things you could do together like hosting a game night. Practice makes perfect, and over time the blockage will melt into the stream.

Pile 6 - Trust (Blue)

3 of Swords, Conversion

You have a very soft and tender outlook on life, which makes it all the more painful when reality doesn't conform to such a compassionate vision. It doesn't always try to respond to vulnerability in appropriate ways. Much of the time, this isn't from natural events as much as it stems from the ways in which people can treat one another cruelly. You've had some toxic people in your life who have put you through the wringer and attempted to squeeze every ounce of kindness they could from you. Making light of this pain to them only resulted in further deflection and antagonism on their part. The only outcome was to salvage whatever you could and pray for the best.

It is not your job to change their closed minded perspectives. They're on their own, here. Do not concern yourself with their messy inner world and lose any more of your energy. Also, do not attempt to regain what energy has been lost through bargaining either, as much as it hurts to press onward without looking back. You will recover, but you have to move on first and prioritize what you deeply care about most (you included).

There will come a time when your heart will be healed so you can see the brighter side of human connection again. All the beauty that your gentle soul is seeking is still there, shrouded by layers of protective petals that will one day bloom again and your life will truly flourish. For now, this is a time to give yourself all the comfort you can.

Pile 7 - Intuition (Violet)

XII Hanged Man, Spring

I get the feeling that you've been waiting quite a while for some good results to come in. This could either be from something that you started back in the spring, or are waiting to see results which may come around springtime. It is a season of flowers, so you may be waiting for this thing to blossom--that is, to be fully presentable to the public in some way. To have something to show for the time you put in. Like "hey, this is what I've been working on, this came from the seeds I planted." It could be growing in a direction unlike what you're used to, leaving you wondering how it could succeed in such unusual and burdensome conditions.

Lean on your inner guidance when it comes to the right timing. I don't believe that you're currently in a space where you need to push so hard for the best results. You can let things move at their own pace. Over tending to anything can end up in just as much trouble as neglect. There's only so much you can do before you have to let the flower do the growing and blooming for itself.

It's not always easy to sit in the place of uncertainty with the idea that doing more will provide more. But sometimes less is more. What you're creating is coming to fruition and may even turn out better than you expected. Trust in both the knowledge you've earned over time from learning lessons, as well as your natural intuition, to help you decide when it's time to take action.

Pile 8 - Love (Pink)

7 of Swords, Gossip

Let your heart lead the way here, not your worries over what others will think. Sure, you may end up with some people talking about you, but opportunities will keep passing by if you wait for everyone else to catch up to you. Leaning too much on everyone else's perspectives will only distort the vision you have for your own life journey. We all have unique journeys to go on, but unconditional kindness remains at the center of the Love card, the one thing that brings us together. Following life from a heart centered place may result in having others glance over and whisper, but that shouldn't distract you.

There is a rather delicate message here about dealing with friendships, colleagues, or possibly even family. You may have a tricky situation between several other people right now who have beef not with you but with each other. They may be coming to you to air their grievances and ask for advice.

If you care about both of these people, then it's best to approach this issue as diplomatically and impartially as possible and avoid feeding into the conflict. What would an enlightened mindset do in this situation? How would you want the other person to behave if they were in your shoes? Come from a place of pure compassion. They may choose to make amends or not, it's up to them. If their butting heads is bringing you down, it's always okay to step back and take a break. You are not responsible for what's going on in their heart, only your own, so protect yours well.

This reading has not been evaluated by the FDA to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease or infection. Please ask your physician before going online.

2024, @VitaminseeTarot ™

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etheries1015 · 1 year ago

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Hi Entheries!

Been following your TWST works for a litttle bit, which are so much fun, especially the MC kicking ass one, and can't wait to see what else you come up with 💜

Wanted to let you play with an idea that's been tumbling around in my head for a bit, thought you might do a better job of exploring/making it into a blurb or headcanon.

It would be a Malleus x GN or Fem Reader who would be Yuu/MC (whichever makes you happy)

Reader loves working with pottery/ceramics mostly making teapots and mugs that are themed around the person they are making them for. Maybe making a surprise mug with a dragon or gargoyle inside for Malleus or a teapot that looks/functions like a gargoyle. How would he react/what would his thoughts be?

Hope you have fun with this!

-💜

I absolutely love this idea!!! Its so cute. Thank you for submitting it!

Malleus X reader - An apology mug!

Notes: Gender neutral reader

General warnings: None!

Tw: None!

When you had joined the gargoyle studies club and began using your talent of pottery and craftsmanship, it came rather natural to you when he had taught you to create your own. Most of them would be bigger and more akin to a regular sized gargoyles you see on buildings in order to present them more accurately for the club, but this had given you a grand idea. Making a tiny gargoyle, and merging it into designing a mug (your specialty) for malleus after a little.. "Misunderstanding" for lack thereof better words.

Malleus was only acutely aware of your endeavors and affections for pottery and creating little mugs and teapots, you had briefly showed him a few of your works when you had made an entire set for the heartslabyul dorm. You gifted Trey, Riddle, Cater, Ace, and deuce personalized teapot set that you had spent your free time between classes creating. Malleus noticed as of late you had been commissioned by Azul to produce a decent amount of these little tea sets in order to help boost business in the Monstro lounge.

"You have been working very hard lately, Child of man," Malleus pointed out during a session of creating gargoyles, "Are you sure you are alright? You haven't been overworking yourself? Ashengretto has a tendency to-"

"Malleus," You cut him off, "I am okay! I love my art, I enjoy that people like my teacups, and I'm grateful for the opportunity from Azul. He even paid me rather generously," You pointed out, working your hands on the statue you were occupied with. The tall green eyed fae pouted ever so slightly, unable to share the real reason was in fact the lack thereof time and attention you have been giving him while you were busy making these tea sets for Azul. He would attempt to study with you after classes, yet you have given the excuse that the deadline was coming up shortly. It had gotten to the point in which you were soon canceling days in which you would show up to the club. He was feeling...alone.

Because of this, you noticed the influx of items he would leave on the doorsteps of ramshackle. He enjoyed collecting little rocks and stones and knickknacks he found fascinating to give to you, gifting you necklaces, rings, earrings, bracelets...things that you may not normally put on yourself, yet shiny things that seemed rather expensive made its way to you more often now that you were no longer spending time with him. You were aware that Its his biggest love language, yet the extremes he had been going through to try and get your attention has gone rather far.

One particular day whilst you were in the middle of finishing up the task given to you by Azul, a knock upon ramshackles dorm interupted your intent focus. Opening the door, you were greeted by a man hanging upside down and a sly smile upon his features.

"Lilia!" You gasped excitedly, "good! I'm glad you're here!" You quickly invited him in before exiting into a different room, returning with a handful of treasures that Malleus had given you. "Please," You begged, "I can't keep taking all of these things! I understand it's his love language but-" Lilia interrupted your sentence with a hearty laugh, before sitting on the couch and leaning forward, the amusement glinting in his eyes telling you he had something to say.

"Well, I suppose that explains some of his current behavior back at the dorms," Lilia pointed out, "It seems that our prince has been sulking as of late. When I try to probe him, he simply gives me the cold shoulder. My assumption is he misses a certain human," He teased. You furrowed your eyebrows and slumped your shoulders, setting down the items you had carried in gently on the table in the room. You sat next to Lilia and turned to face him with worry in your eyes. He began to explain to you of Malleus' off behavior, how he would become easily irritated when the topic of your duty to Azul came up, or how your absence would be promptly noticed by others who had gotten used to you being by his side. Guilt began to creep up onto you, your heart aching imagining how it must have seem you had brushed Malleus off, and how lonely he must have felt when you had skipped out on activities with him, and how you simply ignoring the amount of items he had piled up for you had probably been seen as another blow to his pride.

"Thank you for telling me, Lilia...I think I have an idea of how I can make it up to him," You chuckled softly, waving the fae goodbye parting ways and returning to your station. You sat down and interlocked your fingers, stretching your back and returning to your work.

A day had passed and neither you nor Grim had shown up to classes. Texts messages sent to you by classmates were left unread, and worry began to fester upon your peers. Ace and Deuce were the most worried, and decided to be brave and ask the one person you were consistently with..... Malleus.

"What do you mean (y/n) did not come to classes?" He had asked with his green eyes wide in shock, "Are they not feeling well?"

"I thought you would know, Malleus," Ace shrugged, "You're always with them. But...maybe we should visit ramshackle ourselves-" Before he could finish making a plan, Malleus had already disappeared in a cloud of green.

He hadn't bothered to knock on the door, instead immediately popping up in the lounge of Ramshackle. He called out your name and walked around a few rooms, until he stumbled upon you sitting in front of your pottery/ceramic station with the door wide open. You were hunched over, your head laying in your arms with your hands littered with clay and paint. Seeing as your back was raising up and down indicating you were breathing and simply sleeping had allowed Malleus to breath out a sigh of relief, a kind smile upon his lips as he gazed upon your sleeping body. He walked towards you slowly, using a hand to gently pat your back in an attempt to gently wake you, when something in particular had caught his attention.

Next to you was a rather large mug, it was a deep forest green and well decorated in contrast with what looked like a black dragon tail that shaped into the handle spiriling around the outside of it (almost as if it was holding onto the mug). He picked it up and began to examine it further, noticing on the inside was a miniature gargoyle standing atop of a small Cornice. The gargoyle was very well detailed despite being so small, it was in the middle of the inside leaving a trench around it for the liquid to still enter the cup and be used as a regular mug. He was enamored with it, his eyes lit up with pure admiration and affection. the paint was sparkling in the reflection of the light, the tail that decorated it looked eerily similar to his own...however he didn't put much thought into it until he looked underneath the mug where he saw a few words.

"To my beloved Fae, Malleus Draconia" The words were small and fit just well enough for the width of the mug, it was obvious it was written by hand using what he could tell was a thin permanent marker. He couldn't stop staring at it. He read those words over and over again with wide eyes that sparkled with joy, finding that he couldn't control the wide grin that followed ear to ear. He read it about 20 times before he heard you begin to rustle around, before you groaned out of your sleepy state. Your eyes began to open slowly before gasping in shock seeing Malleus there, your eyes wandering to the mug he was now holding in his hand.

"No!" You gasped, "Nooo, Malleus! That was supposed to be a surprise for you-" He ignored your exasperated comments and engulfed you in a hug. He sat the mug down on the table and lifted you up with ease, nuzzling his head into the crook of your shoulder with his grip around your body so tight it felt as if he was afraid of you escaping. You let out a little "Augh!" Before slapping gently on his back, "M-malleus- can't- breath-" You choked out. Hearing your plea he loosened his grip however still did not let you go. 'Well', you thought, 'he already saw it, so... ' You gently hugged him back, holding that pose for what seemed almost like an eternity.

"Thank you, (Y/N)," He finally broke the silence, "I shall treasure it forever, trust me when I say no harm shall ever come its way," Malleus smiled down at you. Those were the words he had said, however his mind was running wild. He had always been the one to give and give, yet he never thought anyone would gift him the same. Words of affection bursted in his mind, baffled by this humans kindness. You. You gave him this kindness, and he couldn't be any happier than this moment. He felt so alone for so long, however you had opened doors to him that nobody else gave him the chance to walk through. You invited him to things, you treated him as a normal student, you had been there for him in ways he never thought he would have the pleasure of experiencing. And now, his precious favorite human had given him a treasure. A normal mug to you and others, perhaps, but a treasure you had made by your own hands with Malleus in mind. His heart was warmer than it had ever been before, no amount of words could he express the gratitude he had for this moment. Suddenly he forgot his woes, and all he could see in his line of sight was you, no longer the feeling of jealousy and sadness he felt the past week you were occupied. You gave a little giggle back and replied,

"Even if it breaks, I will re-make it for you in a heartbeat. I'm sorry I haven't been around lately, this I guess is my apology...I'm done with Azuls set, so now I have plenty of free time to commit to gargoyle studies club-" Malleus started with surprise in his voice.

"Did you think I was upset you were not attending club sessions? Silly human, simply being by your side is enough for me." Your cheeks lit up a light shade of pink, turning your gaze back to the mug trying to change the subject out of embarrassment.

"A-anyway..." You walked over to the table gesturing towards the mug, "I had some left over of this magic paint that Azul gave to me," You said, "The gargoyle seems black, but if you fill it with liquid it glows a bright green," You smiled, "Want to test it out?" Malleus could not hold back his excitement, you chuckled at the thought that you could practically see his tail wagging behind him as the tall Fae replied with graceful enthusiasm and a hand tenderly holding onto his newfound treasure,

"I would love to."

----

I hope that was satisfactory! It wasn't the most put together plot in my opinion, so if you have any other suggestions and ideas about editing it and making it better, please don't be afraid to let me know!

And check out my masterlist for more works like this!

as for Grim in this situation...he took you not going to school as an excuse to also not go to school, and slept in all day.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #Twisted wonderland fanfiction #Malleus #Malleus draconia #Malleus X reader #Malleus draconia x reader #Twisted wonderland #Twst x reader #twst #twst x yuu #Malleus x yuu #twst x reader #twisted wonderland headcannon #twst headcannon #Malleus draconia headcannon #malleus headcannon #Twisted wonderland fanfic

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netherfeildren · 2 years ago

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Forfeiting My Mystique

Pairing: Ezra x F!Reader

Summary: You're a girl made of golden gossamer, a work of art come to life, and Ezra, well he's dedicated his life to collecting beautiful things.

-OR-

An Ezra Art Collector AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: voyeurism; kind of objectifying? (not sure how to tag the strange shit going on here); ezra’s weird; mommy issues; references to past childhood abuse; touch aversion/touch starved (at the same time); sugar daddy vibes; size difference; oral sex (f! receiving); butt stuff lite; dom/sub undertones; power dynamics; self esteem issues x2; panty thieving; masturbation; obsessive behavior; possessive behavior; brief mention of recreational drug use; brief discussion of parent death

A/N: This is extremely self indulgent - basically I wrote it for me, but you guys can read it too. I know I took some liberties with Ezra's characterization but whatever.

Inspo (and some of the dialogue) pulled from Lenny Kravitz’s Paris town house Vogue tour, Jeremy Strong’s favorite things GQ interview, and “Marianne” from Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin.

Title is from the poem by the same name by Kaveh Akbar.

Word Count: 12K

Read on AO3

Ezra has always loved beautiful things. Since he was a child, his mother taught him to instill an appreciation for beauty into all facets of his world. She herself, a gorgeously beautiful creature, was well versed in such a life. But beautiful as she was, she was also cruel, selfish, capricious to her very core, and she’d turned him into a strange amalgamation of a man by proxy. At once also cruel and selfish and capricious, but hurt and soft and gnarled, as well, so that he was also made gentle and aware and hopeful. That above all else, his greatest weakness, always hopeful. Perhaps, to the point of naivety, the point of peril. For he looked for beauty in all things, and to do that, he was forced to bestow his hopeful eye upon even the ugly and harsh things of the world.

And so he’d dedicated his life to finding those beautiful things. An art collector by virtue, they called him. A vulture, a scavenger, a treasure hunter. A man full of greed and pride, demons and too much money. All he thought of himself as, was hungry. So yes, perhaps a scavenger, a morsel of greed within the marrow of his bones, always looking for the next sublime artifact, painting, statue – person. But he also liked to think of himself as a protector of those beautiful things, of historic things. Things that changed the very face of humanity, shifted the tide of the world. A collector – always in search of the next life changing sight. Always certain the world was filled with endless possibilities for beauty, for loveliness, for sensuality, for something to captivate, to overwhelm him.

The first thing he sees are your feet. Standing in the gallery over from the one you’re inhabiting, people he doesnt know or give a fuck about talking at him, schmoozing and preening and prostrating themselves. Probably hoping he’ll cough up a couple million euro for whatever cause they’re pretending to crusade behind at the moment. He can see only the quarter bottom half of the famed performance artist he’d heard so much about. The entire exhibit tonight had been built around you, and it had the whole of Paris raving and ravenous for a piece of the lovely morsel they so claimed you posed as. Shallow and vain creatures that the peers of his echelon were, they were easily amused and easily bored by the smallest passing fads. At once desperate to be the first to see or speak of a thing, and consequently, the first to discard it as dépassé.

He’d made the trek all the way to the Left Bank from his townhouse in the 16th arrondissement, to see the performance of the woman whom his associate, Oruf, had said would change the way he thought of a living creature forevermore. Big words from a little man, Ezra had no real inclination to believe.

The angle of the wall blocks most of you from his view – granting him the sight of only your knees down. Your feet are small, he can see the tiny square shape of your nails, the gleam of them under the soft warm overhead light – lying on your side, one slotted above the other. The fine architecture of your ankles – delicate, the blue hued veins crawling like vines up the top of your foot, lost to the pale of your skin. The smooth, glossy slope of your calf, up to the flat round of your patella. It’s all he can admire from where he stands. Pretty legs, but nothing to lose one’s head over so far.

The person talking at him is interminably long winded. Ezra would like nothing more than to beg them to shut the fuck up and be on his way. He wants another drink. He wants to see you in full. He’d heard so much about the woman sitting for the live art exhibit. You’d been heralded into a creature of myth by the wagging tongues of Paris. He wanted to discern for himself the level of sanctity you deserved. He wanted to see your face.

Finally, he’s able to demure from the conversation, the promise of ten million euro for the charity of the sycophant’s choice, promised off-handedly – any amount of money would’ve been too little to get the gaping, begging maw to quit it’s yapping.

He slinks along the shadows of the walls, a vulture in its natural habitat. The lights brought down to a low warm hue, meant to shape itself along the contours of your skin, bring out the soft gleam within you. Surely the oldest trick in the book, that of light and shadows. He moves further into the room slowly, your back to him. The plush round of your bottom comes into view, two little dimples gracing the low of your back, the notches of your spine, up, up, to the heavy mantle of your hair. You’re resting on your hip, your torso twisted so your chest is pressed to the chaise you lounge on, your head laying cradled in the circle of your bent arms. There is a tiny, delicate outline of a sparrow tattooed at your shoulder. He watches the slow rise and fall of your back, the shadow of your ribs – he’d feed you more if you were his. The thought comes unbidden – a little shocking – a lovely bottom, beautiful, long hair, but for a man like Ezra – one who so wholly avoided any sort of ownership by another or over another, the thought of such intimacy, something to cause revulsion, not desire, coming from his own psyche, it’s almost distressing to acknowledge as his own.

The crown of your head gleams like a halo in the soft overhead gallery light. The room is muted, voices hushed, and the patrons rove around your unmoving body, the rhythm of your breath the only discernible sign of life on your form from back here. Oruf had claimed that you did not move a single millimeter during the entirety of the three hour long performance. He sure as fuck didn’t believe that. He was having a quite, self proclaimed, contrary and bitter season, by his own choosing, and was prone to bouts of obstinance and general disagreement at anything and everything that presented itself to him. He was choosing, as of now, to not believe in your myth.

He moves further around the center where you lay in repose. He needs to see your face. That will give him the answer he’s come here for.

There’s a large group standing right in front of you – rudely pointing, whispering, and he feels a surge of annoyance at the sight of them. You were here to be observed, appreciated, not fucking ogled like some cheap attraction, and he was here to see you – they needed to get the fuck out of his way.

Finally, they shuffle off, leaving the space directly in front of you open. He makes the final round above your head, comes to stand before you. Oruf had said the only part of you that moved were your eyes.

They fall on Ezra now.

It could have been as if, in that moment, you’d gotten up, naked as Venus, to shriek directly in his face. That powerful was the force behind your gaze – a punch to the gut, his mothers handbag swinging unexpectedly, purposefully into his stomach as he scurried meekly behind her as a child.

He pulls his Jacques Marie Mage frames from his nose. He needs to look away from the searing power of your attention. He needs a moment to collect himself, taking deep breaths as he studies the glasses, runs the tip of his finger over the bridge. He’s held frozen in place by the feel of your gaze still upon him.

He decides in that very instant he has to have you.

When he looks back at you, your eyes flit away. He is dismissed – made ravenous. On the verge of tears, perhaps. Look back at me, look back at me, look back at me. What sort of reaction is this to a woman whose name he doesn’t even know? Nonsensical. Perhaps it’s the sleep deprivation – the edibles he’d downed before coming, maybe he’s having a bad reaction.

But the gift of your slow, lazy gaze roves around the space he inhabits now, everywhere but directly at him, almost like a punishment for having looked away from you first – even for a second.

He’s never considered the prospect of trying to buy a person. The moral question or dilemma of it. He decides he doesn’t necessarily care. Whatever he has to do to get you to leave this place with him, he’ll do. What he’ll be able to bring himself to let happen after that, if he’ll even be able to touch you, be brave enough to let you touch him, remains to be seen. Inconsequential too, he finds.

He circles the gallery for close to an hour before he can no longer help himself, can no longer feign casualness. The rest of the art here is pale and dull in the light of your luminescence. He finally comes to a stop in a corner diagonal from where you face, in the shadow of the sculpture of Paolo e Virginia. At this moment, he feels certain Puttinati prophecised your existence, to so depict the vision of reverence he’s feeling for you in this moment.

The performance is three hours long. In that time you don’t move your body at all, Oruf was right – lying with the stillness of marble. The only thing that moves are your eyes, and you watch the patrons closely, examine them. Your gaze is part of the art, part of the power of it.

The visage of you is shocking, not for your nudity, but because in a lifetime filled with unimaginably lovely things, you are, by far, the most magnificently gorgeous creature Ezra has ever laid eyes on. It is like a recurring bullet to the temple over and over again for the visceral shock you pull out of him.

Finally, finally, your gaze falls on him again. The meeting of your eyes, like the strike of lightning against the earth. He can feel his cock thicken, grow heavy, just at the touch of your gaze. It’s voyeuristic – unexpected – he can’t remember the last time he got hard. He feels almost perverted, sporting an erection at the mere sight of you, surrounded by all these people in this crowded gallery.

He can’t see your breasts entirely, pressed to the chaise as they are, only the full, pale sides. He wonders desperately at the color of your nipples, the shade, the hue. He’d like to imprint it in his mind. Know the taste of them, as well, of all your skin – wonders if the color there matches that of the skin between your legs. The thought causes hunger to climb like fire up his chest into his throat, saliva pooling heavy in his mouth at the mere suggestion of your cunt in his mind.

His eyes leave you for a moment, to cast the wide net of his gaze around the room, at the other men. He wonders if they’re hard too, if only your naked skin, lying still in repose, has the power to make their blood rush, their muscles thicken. He is not pleased by the thought of that. And when he comes back to you, you’re still on him. Gaze roaming down his body, taking in the fine cashmere sweater, his perfectly tailored suit, built to hang in a precisely designed loose cut over his shoulders, down his long legs, the incongruous sneakers, back, back up to his face, the spot of blonde at the front of his hair. A single delicate eyebrow crooks in a minute arch at him. It is all the answer he needs

You are looking back at him. It’s all he needs to know.

As the three hour mark comes to a head the lights dim even further until only a singular overhead spotlight falls upon your form. Your skin glows, seems to flare brighter for a single moment, and then a golden sheet of gossamer begins to slowly fall from the ceiling, and right before it lands upon your body, you finally move. Your body stretches, toes pointing and curling, long arms stretched in an arc over your head. The fine lines and slopes of your body coming into startling clarity for one moment, and then you turn over, away from him, where he can’t see your face anymore, and curl in on yourself. The golden gusset falls upon your coiled form, as if you’ve finally been put to rest. The lights dim until all that’s visible is the luminous gleam of the shroud over your curled body.

You are a girl made of golden myth and gossamer, and he must have you.

“Hello, Sparrow.” He steps into the small, warm space of your dressing room.

You turn to face him, you’ve been waiting for him. “Hello,” you say slowly. “You were watching me.”

“Everyone was watching you.”

“Not like you were–”

“No… not like I was.” His accent is some strange sort of concoction of eclectic European – at once French, but also slightly Germanic, with an inflection of deep American South at the end. The vowels and consonants rolling off his tongue, smooth and hypnotizing like the warm pour of honey, and then, suddenly, inflected with a bout of sharpness. Something that snaps you awake, forces you to come to attention, to pay attention to him. That was all it was really, you could tell, a forceful, demanding grab for attention at all times. He called it to himself, seduced the people around him into ardor. Whether they knowingly chose to be entranced or not, was not up to them.

“Ezra,” he gives an imitation of a little flourished bow. You give him your own name in return. “You were watching me back.”

“I couldn’t help it.” He had demanded it of you, after all, no need to lie now.

“I was wondering if you’d have dinner with me.” You turn back to continue packing your bag.

“I’m not very hungry.” You feel him come closer, hear the subtle hint of pleading desperation in his sensual voice that has pleasure coiling deep in your belly.

“A drink then.”

You’d like to be on clear ground with this man who you can see, even now, is an enigma not to be trifled with unconscionably. “Where? At your house?” you turn to crook a sardonic brow at him.

“Would you like me to take you to my house?”

“Yes. If that’s what you want too.” You’d already decided, didn’t see the point in prolonging the game.

His security takes you out the back of the gallery, dark Maybach rolling smoothly up as soon as you reach the curb, and you feel the searing phantom heat of his large palm hovering over the small of your back.

He hasn’t touched you a single time yet, and everything within you is coiled tight, waiting for that first graze.

He pulls the car door open for you himself, and then his driver is there, smoothly offering you his hand to help you step into the sleek interior. The leather beneath you is buttery chocolate brown and you press your thighs together. His security had taken your bag from you, and you felt bereft and listless without the protective clutch of it within your hands now.

He follows after you, sliding gracefully onto the seat across. You can see he’s wearing two gold chains around his neck that rest in the dip of his collarbones, and your mouth waters at the sight. The car pulls quietly away from the curb and then you’re merging into the busy city traffic, ensconced in the quiet of this liminal space he’s stolen you into with him.

He crosses one knee over the other, one thick arm thrown languidly over the back of the seat. You can see a small gold signet ring gracing his pinky – some sort of crest emblazoned on it.

Fucking family crest kind of rich. God. You don’t know if you’re prepared for this.

You cock your head to the side, the muscles in your neck are a little stiff and sore from holding your pose for so long, and you let your neck roll back on the head rest.

He’s quiet, still observing, as if you’re still existing within the walls of the gallery, and not being spirited away to his home so that he might have his way with you.

“Are you going to fuck me?” Might as well be blunt, you think, now that you’re here. He was so gorgeous in that room, watching you, circling you like a beast hunting in the wild. There was really no other way this night was destined to end, but with you beneath him, taking him into your cunt.

“Would you like me to fuck you?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t respond, only gives you a melodic little non-committal hum, continues to look at you from the seat across with those deceptively guileless eyes. You want him to snatch you by the chin and spit in your mouth.

The drive ends in front of the grand façade of a pristine Parisian townhouse on a secluded street in the 16th arrondissement – flanked by national embassies, no less.

You are very, very far from home. In a Paris you’ve not ventured into in all your years of living here.

He helps you from the car, finally, finally, finally, thick palm wrapping entirely around the thin of your wrist. Everything within you coils and pulses, tight and wet. His skin is warm and dry, you can feel the pull of rough calluses on his palm. You’re sure he can feel the hammering staccato of your pulse through the thin membrane as you stare at the way his fingers overlap completely around the circumference of your limb.

He lets you step into the foyer ahead of him as one of his staff sweeps the door open for the two of you, ready and waiting for their master to return with a respectably quiet, monsieur, mademoiselle, in greeting. There’s a huge Basquiat in the entrance hall, across from the sweeping staircase.

“Lots of his art came my way,” he says at your obvious admiration, shock, desire to tuck tail and run back home. “We weren’t friends, but I was roommates with a guy he’d lived with. His last girlfriend was best friends with my girlfriend at the time, so when he died we had one of the first calls.”

“It’s wonderful–” Your voice is full of awe, eyes taking in a type of home you’ve never seen before up close like this. Something out of a picture book that sits on the coffee table of someone wishing for more.

“How many bedrooms does it have?”

“Well… they get used for different things – so I’m not sure. Let’s call it eight.”

You huff a small laugh, run your finger along the keys of the opulent crystal Steinway. “Let’s call it eight, sure.”

Now that you’re here, that he hasn’t overtly said he’s brought you here for sex, you don’t really know what it is he wants from you. A bad thought, but an honest one.

“Drink?”

“Yes, please.”

He leads you into an elegantly lush reception room, hovering hand again at the place above the small of your back. There’s a gargantuan crystal chandelier hanging at the center of the room, two enormous elephant tusks flank the elaborate mantelpiece. The room is a mix of eclectic eccentricities, both neutrally elegant and demure in its obvious wealth, but inflected with touches of vibrant color and idiosyncrasies to bring the room together in a way that you think must reflect the house’s owner.

He moves to the bar, choosing the green bottle of twenty year Laphroaig and pours a knuckle into two crystal tumblers. He’s quiet, subdued, and the lack of small talk to fill the silence has the backs of your knees itching and sweating.

There’s a glossy red panther sculpture prowling across a gold and ivory lacquered coffee table. He comes to hand your glass to you. “That’s a museum piece. I can’t remember where I got it, but it’s rare.” You can’t tell if he’s trying to boast, to impress you, or merely share his satisfaction at owning a piece of art worthy of a museum's gallery. You’d already discerned that at the Basquiat’s first glance, shit, at the first sight of the house. It was a veritable museum on its own. You were sure the number of museum pieces in every room were too many to count in a single night, nay week.

You don’t sit as he goes to do, but start to slowly circle the room. An imitation of his slow roving of you earlier at the gallery. The peat whisky is bold and smoky, a surprising hint of something akin to seawater, but also mellowly sweet. You think that this must be what his skin tastes like, his come – an amalgamation of all the different flavors on the wheel. Saliva pools heavy on your tongue and you take a deeper sip, eyes flitting to him.

“Three hours is a long time to lay so still,” he says.

“It is. But I’m used to it by now.”

“You must be tired.”

“Not particularly – perhaps a bit stiff.”

“Have you been doing this for a long time?”

“Not so long, but not so short, either.”

“So just the right amount?”

“Yes.” He’s quiet for a moment then, still watching, watching, watching. His gaze upon you feels like the drag of a specter’s fingers along your skin, goosebumps rising in its wake. You wonder if this is how he felt while you watched him in the low light of the gallery. Hunted. But no, you imagine there isn’t anything that could make a man such as this feel like prey.

“Can I draw you a bath?” You pause at this – firmer, more familiar ground, finally. This is what you’ve been waiting for. His request for you to get naked for him, to let him into your body. It’s what you want also. He’s not rushing this, and it’s making you feel unstable, unsure of the ground you’re treading here together.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

He leads you upstairs, to one of the guest bedrooms. The en suite, one of his favorites in the house – dark marble tub in the center of the room under a low hanging crystal chandelier. The French windows let in the soft glow of the moon outside, and he draws the bath for you as you peer through the glass. The reflection of your face in the windows, eternally distracting.

When the water is warm and ready, a splash of Neroli Portofino Body Oil poured under the stream, he turns to you. He’s hesitant – both of himself and you, equally. It’s been a long time since he’s touched a body not his own, and he feels the slight anxious tremor of his hands. Although he can’t be sure if that’s strictly attributed to nerves, or all the blood in his body pooling in his cock at the moment.

“Can I take your clothes off?” said as gently as possible, so as not to spook you.

Your gaze is as direct as it was while you lay watching him, surrounded by half of Paris. “Yes.”

He starts at the tiny bow holding the front of your soft silk blouse together – the weave so fine, it’s almost translucent, and he can see the outline of your evasive nipples he’s been so desperate to see. He pulls on the string letting the neck of the blouse fall open, then down to the tiny pearl buttons holding the rest of it together. All without touching your skin.

You’re panting, face already flushed, eyes bright, almost fevered. His balls are tight and heavy, ready to come, just with this. Just at the mere fucking vision of you ready and panting for him. His belly clenches and then he pushes the silk off the fine bones of your shoulders. The wings of your collarbones, the shadow of the dip in them the most tempting image he’s ever beheld in his entire life. He wants to dip his tongue into the tiny pool, fill them with ambrosia and drink directly from your skin.

He feels his cock begin to leak.

The zipper at the side of your skirt is next. He watches the rise and fall of your ribs, the tremble of your throat as he pulls it down slowly, revealing the rest of your skin to him. There’s a tiny lace thong around your hips, robin's egg blue. Oh, he will be stealing that for himself.

He finally lets himself touch your skin as he pushes the scrap of lace down your legs, crouching smoothly to his knees to help you step out of it. He takes in the sight of your small feet up close now. The fine tendons of your musculature entirely too fucking beguiling. He ghosts the tip of a single finger over the top of your foot and you moan for him. So goddamn sweet and wanton.

He unfolds to his full height and pockets your panties. To be inspected at a later time, pressed to his nose and mouth so that he might drink the scent of you down into himself. He tips his chin at the tub now, holding your wild gaze, breaths coming in short little gasps. Your cheeks are flushed the color of your nipples. The tiny wisps of hair at your neck and temples beginning to curl deliciously in the humidity of the bathroom. He could spill his seed just at the look in your eyes, he’s sure of it.

“In,” he orders, crowds you towards the edge of the tub and grips the bend of your elbow between his thumb and index finger – as little contact as possible – to help you into the water. “Sit.”

You immediately obey, and that fills him with more pleasure than the sight of your naked skin. The control you’re granting him right now, allowing him the privilege of ordering you for the sake of his own comfort – he’s going to reward you very well for being so good for him.

He bends over the edge of the tub, hovering over your beseeching upturned face. He brushes his thumb softly over your full bottom lip. “Good girl.” Your eyes flutter shut, you look down into the water, a lovely pink blush blossoming over your cheeks. “Relax. Soak for a while.”

He can tell you want him. Badly. The flush of your cheeks down to your breasts, rosy little nipples peaked, your quick breath. That want, compounded doubly by his refusal so far to really touch you — his inability. The more he stays his hand, the more you want him, and the more you want him the harder his cock grows, the more frightened he becomes. He thinks it’s very true, that old adage, the harder you try to push a woman away from a man, the closer she will go to him by virtue of rebellion.

You sit in the warm bath for close to an hour, and he watches rapturously, hypnotized by the slick wet of the water rolling over your skin, from his seat on an ottoman at the center of the room. The weight of his gaze on your skin, almost violent in its intense desire. He wants to lick every single droplet from your body and then bite into the heavy lush weight of your tits until his teeth are imprinted in the soft flesh, bruises sucked into the pale globes. He hopes you’ll let him. He hopes he’ll let himself.

Your returning look is equally wanton. He watches your gaze trained and hungry on the heft of his cock hiding beneath his trousers. You spread your legs for him beneath the water as you wash yourself, putting on another show, private, just for him. An unjustly jealous wrath stirs within him, coiled and hissing, at the thought of any other human on earth ever getting to see you the way he is now. Largely a passive man, the violence that surges within him has him surprised and not, in equal measures. For he thinks that no being ever having beheld you, could ever possibly be driven to feel any other way than obsessively possessive over such a creature as yourself. You’re like a siren in this moment, languishing in the warm water of his bath, in his house, where you agreed to come with him tonight. A nymph willingly slinking into the depth of Tartarus, knowing she’s in peril of being wholly devoured by the beasts that lay at its depths, and still going anyways.

He helps you out after a while, tiny little fingers and toes soaked to wrinkles, elbow once again caught between his two fingers, and the heat rolling off your skin sears him. Has a violent tremble running jaggedly down his vertebrae.

He wraps you in a plush white towel, pulled from the warming rack, helps you dry your long hair. Then goes to his room for one of his shirts to put you in. He pulls one he’d worn a few days ago off the pile from the chair in the corner. He wants to know you’re sleeping in something that’s already been on his skin, that smells like him, that you’re soaking now in his own scent.

As he pulls the towel from around your body to once again reveal your bare form to him he presses a soft kiss to your naked waist – can’t help himself, the soft slope entirely too beguiling. Overtaking any apprehensions he may have, and his gut clenches with fear and desire. He can feel the weeping of his cock dribble down his thigh as he presses his lips to the warm, fragrant skin.

You’re quiet, watching him, letting him do with you as he wants. His own little sentient doll, created for his pleasure only. “I have a farm in Brazil,” he says. He rounds your form, starts to braid the long strands of your hair into a single plait. You put up no protest – it feels like water, slipping through his hands. “We grow organic fruit and vegetables and there’s cows, lots of cows. We never kill them, they just live there, graze.” One of his favorite places in the entire world, but perhaps, second to the place he resides now, staring at you, dressing you, touching your hair. “I love it there, I’ll take you.”

“Okay,” you say easily. “I’d like that,” the gift of the gentle curve of your smile. He wants to lick into your mouth, fuck you with his tongue, slap your pussy and watch the blood rush to the surface, feel the tight clench of your asshole as he fills you with his come.

“Will you let me watch you play with your cunt?” he asks gently.

“Won’t you do it?”

“I’m scared to touch you yet – to find out if you’re actually real.” He feels an uncharacteristically self conscious blush mar his cheeks. “I–I’m not ready. I want to watch first.” He comes to kneel between your parted thighs that dangle off the high bed. “Pet your cunt for me – show me how you like it, sweet girl. Please.” He is not above begging. Not for this. Not for you – for the sight of you playing with your wet, pink pussy.

You spread your legs wider, give him the tantalizing peak of your bare sex, your glistening folds. You’re already fucking wet for him. He feels an unrestrained growl claw up his throat like fire. His mouth goes dry, parched. The only way to sate himself, to drink straight from the source of your glossy slick.

You press your fingers to the pearl of your clit, swollen and needy already, he can see. You start to swirl little circles over your slippery flesh, your wet mouth falling open in a gasp. “That’s it, yeah–” he whispers, bringing his face in closer to the apex of your thighs so he can smell you directly from the source. His eyes flutter as he breathes in the scent of you, the deep amber and citrus from the bath oil, but beneath that, entwined in the rich notes, the musky scent of you. Fucking mouthwatering. He hears himself moan, the sound pulled almost unconsciously from his body.

“Inside– put your fingers inside. Let me see you fuck yourself.” You press a single finger in, all the way to the last knuckle, and start to rock your hips. He can feel your gaze on his face, the weight of it heavy and pleading.

“Ezra– p–please, please, you do it,” you beg, let your head roll back as you press another finger in and start to rock your clit against the mound of your palm in earnest.

“But you’re doing so well, sweet girl. About to make that little cunt come for me. Look–” He gives you the weight of a single palm on the bend of your knee and you moan deep and ragged at just that compact touch. He can’t help himself – he pulls the edge of the t-shirt up to bare your tits to him and holds it up against the base of your throat where he cradles the delicate column in his hand – the entire large span of him completely engulfing your smallness. “Your thighs are trembling, treasure. You’re going to do it just for me, aren’t you?.”

“Y–Yes, yes–”

He pushes your knee in his grasp wider, opening you more for the fileting of gaze. “Make yourself come – I want to see it. Fucking come,” it’s a demand you answer, just the sound of it causing the heat of your skin to seemingly ricochet even higher. You start to come – he watches the clenching of the muscles in your stomach as you grind your fingers deep. He can hear how wet you are, the sopping wet squelch of your pulsing cunt, and he worries for one second that he’s about to come in his pants.

You let out a reed high mewl, like you’re singing just for him. “What a good, good girl you are,” he praises, and your eyes flutter shut, pulling your fingers away so that he’s left to admire the clenching of your stretched hole. He can see the glossy shine of your slick sliding down the crevice of your ass, and he wants to lick through your sticky arousal so fucking badly he bites down on his cheek until he tastes blood. He bends his head to press his brow to the edge of the bed between your spread thighs, tightening his grip around your knee until you whimper in pain. He loosens his hold immediately, thumb brushing soothingly over the bend before he stands, lets out a long breath. He stares down at your panting, flushed form. Wet and sated after your orgasm. Fuck all the art in the world. He’d set fire to every single masterpiece he owns in this very moment if he was granted the gift of getting to watch you come even one single time more.

He passes his palm over his mouth, feeling the soft bristles of his scruff. He’d like to see the smooth insides of your thighs rubbed raw with it, he’d like to see the stretch of your cunt as he stuffs you full of himself, the milky white of his spend leaking from all your holes.

“It’s time to put you to bed,” he says instead.

Your brow creases in the sweetest little frown, red mouth puckering, still panting. “You’re not staying?”

“No, sweet girl. I think it’s best if you sleep here tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“But–”

“It’s alright. There’s no rush.” He leans over you to press a lingering kiss to your brow, pulls his shirt down to cover your breasts. You give him a little whimper, and he allows your hand to come up to clutch the thick swell of his bicep, the heavy muscle there bunching at the feel of your grip. He moves to help you settle beneath the silk duvet, pleased beyond belief at the sight of you tucked into a bed in his home, wearing his clothes, flushed and wearing the sated look of a recent orgasm.

“Goodnight, treasure.”

“Goodnight, Ezra.”

You find his room later. You can’t help yourself, following the glow of the soft light spilling between the crack of his slightly open door, like he’d left you a bread crumb trail to follow, like he knew you’d come searching. You can’t sleep knowing he’s so close, this dazzling creature come straight from a dream. Twisting and turning in the plush monstrosity of a bed he’d left you in. His shirt, butter soft, the dark, gray blue swimming around your much smaller frame. It smells like him, his cologne – you recognize the scent of Le Labo Another 13. Musky with the softest most subtle hint of jasmine, paired with something earthier – greener, and folded between all that: the soft saltiness of his sweat. Why would you sleep when a figure from your very fantasies was right here in the flesh. Your cunt clenches, wet and aching, even after he’d watched you make yourself come. You need more, want to feel the press of his cock inside of you, the heavy weight of it.

He’s sitting up in bed, reading something on an iPad, glasses propped low on his nose. He looks up at your small knock, not waiting for his permission to slip inside.

“I promise, I’ll be good.” You hold your hands up in surrender. “I won’t touch you. We can put a pillow between us if you like.” You move towards the bed.

There’s a large stack of books sitting on his bedside table, flooded by the warm moss stained light of the antique Tiffany lamp. A single idiosyncrasy of old world charm in a room made stark by its bright modernity. The pile is made up of a book of paintings by Howard Hodgkin, the diaries of Alma Mahler, The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner, the fourth volume of In Search of Lost Time – you appreciate his excellent taste – and at the very top, laying open, facedown, as if he’d just put it down a moment ago, My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard. You find it fascinating to see a book that spoke of life in such a granular way — realistic, simple, a normal man in a normal world, speaking in such extensive, caring detail on the small things in his life — on the bedside table of this enigma, this person who seemed to be, by far and large, a different species to all other men you’d ever met before. To see the spine so cracked and worn — as if he’d read it over and over again, in search of the equation for that simplicity, to thus inject into his own existence – a way to embalm his own world in such appreciation for the small but infinitely significant moments. You wonder if it’s taught him much— if he’s been able to find and implement whatever it was he’d searched for through so many reads.

“Alright,” he says easily, but the look in his eyes is slightly wary. You recognize Glenn Gould’s rendition of the Goldberg Variations playing softly on the surround sound as you crawl into his bed – under the silk smooth sheets, bringing a pillow to blockade you from him, protect him. You don’t want him to be uncomfortable, but you desperately want to be close to him also. The two of you have barely talked tonight – too caught up in the observation of one another, like two animals circling in the wild. You want to talk to him. Want to hear the sound of his deep voice vibrate through your nerve endings.

“Intimacy is… difficult for me,” he says slowly, swallowing. “It’s hard for me to get close to people… emotionally, physically. I need time to — I suppose, to warm up to them.”

“That’s — that’s okay. I understand,” you say, because you do, because you’re the same in many ways.

“It’s why I love art,” he continues. “You can be close to something, feel its warmth, beauty – whatever feeling it is the artist intended to pull out of you, from a distance. Untouched – it’s untouchable. That comforts me for some reason.”

“I think – I think I understand that as well. Something, perhaps, about the idea of a thing remaining as it was initially conceived as, for all time, undisturbed by outside influences.”

“Yes – yes, exactly.” His eyes are alive with the fire of being understood.

You look down at his straining erection. You can’t help it. “You’re hard,” you say. You want to touch him so badly it’s a physical ache inside of you.

“I’ve been hard since I first saw you.”

“Let me help.”

He shakes his head, “Not yet.”

“I was embarrassed that the other patrons would be able to tell how wet my pussy was lying there staring at you.” Shocking words. His eyes flutter shut, fuck, he murmurs under his breath, brings his hand up to rub at his jaw. You’ve noticed he does that a lot – a tell of sorts. He takes several deep breaths, the tension seeming to seep out of his body by sheer force of will.

You take him in as he settles back into the pillows, relaxing, or at least pretending to. His face, smooth and serene, laying there watching you, despite his heavy erection, but the look in his eyes – it’s also slightly provoking. As if he wants you to challenge him, question him, but also afraid, perhaps, that you’ll force his hand, that he’ll be forced to give in to what you both want before he’s ready. You decide to choose mercy – change the subject. More curious to see how he chooses to play this out.

“Let’s play the question game.”

“The question game?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” he turns to lay on his side, facing you. Both of your hands are tucked beneath your cheeks. He’s wearing a soft, worn sweater, a tiny hole at the collar, the sleeves stretched and overly long. Oh, this may just be too much for you to handle.

“We’ll start with something easy – what’s your favorite color?”

“That’s easy?”

“Yes.” You roll your eyes at him, laughing.

“Depends on the day,” he says very seriously. His blinks are slow, his pupils huge and dilated in the warm light of the lamp. You wonder if he’s taken something. Every time he blinks the thick fringe of his lashes fans over his cheeks, the pause of his languor allows you a moment to appreciate them.

“That’s not an answer – you have to give a real answer.” You want to reach your finger out and brush along that thick fringe, through the patchy hair on his face, threaded through with the smallest hint of silver, stick your nose in his hair and smell him right at the source.

“It’s the only real answer there is – no one’s favorite color stays their favorite color forever.”

“Do you do this a lot?”

“What’s that?”

“Make things purposely difficult.”

A flash of his brilliant white teeth, “Oh, always.” You want very badly for him to bite into your flesh.

“Okay, fine. What’s your favorite color right now?”

Without hesitation: “The color of your eyes – they’re very strange,” you can tell it’s a compliment, and he finally touches you again. A single finger, just the tip, to the point of your chin, tilting your head back slightly for his inspection, as if you were one of the pieces in his collection. You think you may become one by the end of this. You think you’d like that very much. You can feel the slight edge of his fingernail dig into your soft skin.

“I already agreed to fuck you. You don’t have to woo me,” you breathe. You realize that, as of yet, he’s not overtly asked you to have sex with him – you throw the words out anyways, hoping to provoke him. This is too much. This man is too much. You don’t know what it is about him, but you want him desperately, like no one you’ve ever wanted before. You want him to overwhelm you – to take you by force. To take all choice and will and autonomy from your hands. You don’t care what will come of this, what will become of you after he’s done with you, if he discards you, forgets you – none of that matters. All you care about, in this moment, is that he finally decides to take you, that he gives you the opportunity to let go, to relinquish control. To unfold from the pose for just a moment. A slightly deranged spark fizzes in your belly. Your heart pinches a burning little pain at the thought that he hasn’t kissed you yet, that you still don’t know the taste of his mouth.

“None of my answers satisfy you. And yes, I do need to woo you. I find it very necessary.”

You try and emulate an unaffected scoff, his finger is still on your chin, but you feel your brow unwittingly fold into a confused frown. There is a tight knot of want coiled at the very center of you, burning hot and smoldering, and you need him to pick it apart with these strong fingers. He takes his hand away. The look on his face is very telling. He can read everything going on in your mind, you can tell. He looks like the cat that ate the goddamn canary. You try and take a deep, calming breath. “Alright, now you have to ask me one?” you divert.

“Me?”

“Yes, you – that’s how the game works. I do one, you do one.”

“Alright,” he’s quiet for a second, contemplating, “Do you have siblings?”

“No, I’m an only child. Do you?”

“I had a brother, Damon. He died when we were younger.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yes, well– it was a very long time ago. But thank you. His daughter, Cee, is my ward now. ” Not his niece, not someone mentioned in any capacity as his family. The connection, maintained as if at a distance — his ward — cold. But he gives himself away, his tender vulnerability made transparent, with the sudden flash of bright fondness in his eyes at her name, despite his trying to remain aloof. You are not so easily fooled. You see him despite his attempts to deflect from the true core of himself.

His gaze is so mercurial – at once relaxed, uncaring, and then flaring into something bright hot like a flash fire. But remote, remote always. Like the very center of him, his true gaze is very far away, very deep within him, and this gaze, the one he presents to the world, is merely a farce, a mask. A shroud he pulls over himself to keep others out. His own golden gossamer. You’re shocked that he’s shared this with you.

“My parents died when I was very young,” you offer, your own morsel of ragged soul in the face of his sudden vulnerability.

“I’m sorry to hear that, as well.”

“It wasn’t so bad, after the fact. I went to live with my aunt – my mother’s sister. She was a dancer. My childhood was… unconventional, but wonderful.”

“What about it was unconventional?”

You laugh a little, looking up at the coffered ceiling above you, the thick beams a rich, glossy mahogany. You feel his gaze on your face like a brand. He has not stopped looking at you since he first started. In a sea of years being observed, his gaze is singular in the pleasure it brings you.

“She was a dancer. I mean—” you hum, “What wasn’t unconventional about it? We lived in New York for several years, then Budapest for a time, and then she brought us here, to Paris, where we stayed until her death – where I’ve stayed since. Her girlfriends were always around – fellow dancers, costumes and makeup, drinking and men. They taught me how to smoke when I was eight — Gauloises like a fucking chimney, at all hours of the day, after that — I forced myself to stop a few years ago. Now I only have one on special occasions, sometimes.” He looks at you like he knows you’re the sort to make a special occasion out of a trip to the market. “She had many lovers. Parties… disaster everywhere, but the riotous, happy sort – not the tragic kind.”

“No?”

“No. Perhaps, to the outside eye it may have appeared different… I don’t know. No life for a child, I think. But it was wonderful. She always protected me. But– but never like a mother. She was never like a mother – more like – a friend, or an older sister.” You laugh fondly at the memories, but also a little sadly. In the eyes of an adult now, you’d never want such a life for a child of your own, as exciting as it was at the time.

“One time someone told me I ended up as I did, naked for the world to ogle at, as a means to earn money, because of her. Because of how she was. And perhaps they were right, but… but not in the way they meant — to insult me. She taught me what art was, gave me the means to turn myself into it.”

“Who the fuck said that to you?” His tone makes you look back at him now. All the mystery in his gaze is gone, only fury burns now – very clearly. If he’d let you, you’d cup his cheek, soothe him.

You can see he isn’t ready yet, though. So all you say is: no one that really mattered – the truth, but you can see that it does not soothe him.

“What about you? What was your mother like?” You can appreciate how easily distracted he pretends to be, the deception of it, merely another shroud.

Another one of his long pauses, filled with his eyes on you. He gives you the gift of his touch again. Thick fingers picking up a strand of your hair, running it between his grasp. You feel the slight ghost-like tingle of the tug along your scalp, there but also not, and a jerking shiver moves through you. All the hair on your body standing on end. Fuck, this man.

“She was very beautiful – very cruel,” he says slowly, mesmerized by your hair sliding through his fingers.

“Cruel to you?”

“To the world.”

“Why?”

“But also me.” Succinct in its truth. The thought is a terrible one – for anyone to have been cruel to this magnificent dream of a man. The backs of your eyes pinch. Another long pause. “Hmm,” he tilts his head side to side, still sliding your hair through his fingers, twisting it gently around his hair. He gives it a tiny tug, and you want to scoot forward, even just the smallest bit, just to be a little closer to him, to feel the brush of his belly against yours with the movement of his breathing. “It’s difficult to say – unhappiness, bitterness, boredom. A great and complicated concoction of things that made her into the eternally complex creature she was.”

“She died?”

“Yes. She killed herself.”

“Ezra– I’m so sorry,” the words leave you choked and breathless.

He says it so plainly, starkly, like a slap to the face, one not meant to cause pain or harm, but shock. One meant to cause fear, something to say, look at how fucked up I am, stay away or I’ll infect you with it too. You scoot closer now, you can’t help it, and he goes immediately still, frozen – eyes wide, hesitant, but you don’t touch him. Your hair is still clutched in his hand, and his eyes move back and forth between your own and his hold on you. You’re close enough now, though, that you can feel the heat rolling off his body. Your eyes flutter shut, you say again: “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“She was too vain to grow to old age.” You feel him relax, comforted by the indication that you’re not going to touch him just yet. “I think she felt it was the only recourse for her.”

You open your eyes again, and he’s still staring at you. You so badly want to know what he’s thinking, to feel the press of his mouth against yours, to know the taste of his tongue, the feel of his incisors pressing into your skin.

You pivot three-sixty again: “Do you want kids?” He lets out a loud barking laugh at that, head thrown back so the tendons in his neck jump out starkly. Your cunt clenches around nothing. Wet and jealous.

“This is a very difficult game,” he says, giving you a sly look.

“We don’t have to play anymore, if you don’t want to.” A great lie – you never want to stop playing with him.

“No, I want to keep going.” He slides his whole hand into your hair now, palm cupping the entire side of your head in its broad expanse, and you can’t help the desperate moan that claws out of your throat. His responding hum is all-knowing. “I don’t know. But I love being… I like being able to imagine it.”

Your mind has been lost to a daze induced by the heat of his palm. “Children?” you murmur.

“Yes.”

Your fingers are twisted into the front of your shirt, clawing at yourself to maintain respect for his boundaries. “I want them. Lots of them. I hated being an only child. I always felt alone. I want to have lots of babies.” And his eyes flare with heat at that. The first blazing sign of lust in them tonight. Everything else before this, you realize, was merely a low simmering boil. The fist in your hair tightens so that your head tilts back slightly, the line of your throat exposed for his eyes to follow.

“Lots of them?” You nod your head minutely, wide eyed, equally ensnared by that look in his gaze as you are by his hand.

“Then you shall have them, Sparrow.” You let out a shuddering breath, turn your face into the pillow, enjoying the slight pull to your sensitive scalp as his hand follows, try to breathe deep, temper your racing heart. You’re so wet, you can feel it seeping out of you in a constant throbbing stream. The conversation serving as a more intense form of foreplay than anything else you’ve ever done with a man.

“It’s my turn again. When was the last time you fucked someone?” Blunt – thrown at your face to throw you off kilter. Oh, he fucking loves this. A broken little whimper claws out of your throat at that. Your cheeks are flushed, you can feel them burning, and he knows exactly what he’s doing. The smug look in his eyes taunts you, tells you he knows just how soaked you are. But it is also wild, as wanting as you are.

“Hmm?” he presses.

“Three years ago.” It’s his turn to be shocked now. You see the pause of surprise in that bright light within his gaze.

“Three years? Why?”

“You’re not the only one who finds it difficult to be close to people.”

“And yet you agreed to come here with me?”

“And yet I agreed to come here with you.” You don’t return the question. You wouldn’t like to know, you don’t think. And you can tell he sees that in your gaze, for he doesn’t offer up the information either. You like the mystique of him. Like some eldritch beast, a deity of old, something amorphous, not to be contained or understood. The unknowable aspect of him is appealing to you for reasons you haven't quite figured out yet, despite this game of questions you’re flirting with.

You go next: “Are you lonely?”

“Yes, very.” A pause, and then: “You are too.” This is no question. He can see it, recognizes the same scent of it that permeates the air around him, following you. “You seemed it, laying in the center of that crowded room, naked – bared for everyone to see.” It is not said cruelly. He is only telling you that which you already know about yourself, that which is plain for the whole world to see. “And then shrouded in gold, as if you wanted to hide that vein of aloneness that flows through you – it didn’t work very well.”

“Do you think everyone could see it?”

“No.” Good. You only wanted him.

You take another turn, you can’t help but break the rules with him. “Have you ever been with someone who– who you didn’t really want to be with, but you were– you were so lonely and needed… something… or someone?” All the surety you’d posed your previous questions with is gone now. He’s already discerned so much of you, what’s a little more bared skin? “So you just– you just settled for being with that person even though you knew it was wrong, and the only thing on your mind was the other person you really wanted to be with?”

Without hesitation: “Yes.”

“I think that’s the only type of relationship I’ve ever had. Although, the other person hasn’t really existed – just – just something I’ve thought up in my own head.”

“I accidentally called her by the other person’s name. She never spoke to me again. It was terrible– terrible of me.”

“I want to touch you so badly,” you plead suddenly. Unable to hold it in anymore in the light of all he’s shared with you. Your voice cracking and begging. “I want you to touch me, so badly.”

“I know.” Yes, he does. “You want me to fuck you.” All you can do is let your eyes flutter shut, try to continue to breathe, nod your head.

“Why was your mother cruel to you? What did she do?” You feel like crying now.

“Many things… I had terrible night terrors as a child. Scared her half to death. I’d scream and cry and sleep walk. For years. She didn’t know what to make of me. Some sort of demon come from her very womb to possess and haunt her house. She hated me – would lock me in a closet furthest from her bedroom to keep my howling away from her.”

The blazing heat of anger floods your cheeks, your eyes filled with tears, and he clicks his tongue, smoothes his thumb over the slope of your cheek. “None of that, sweet girl.”

“You were just a little boy – she should have– she should have comforted you. Helped you.”

“It wasn’t in her nature. You cannot fault a thing for not being what it was never made to be. She was a killer of soft things – within herself, within me too, I think. Or she tried, at least. She tried to kill everything soft she came into contact with. But she did love me. In her own way – a wrong way, but she did. That comforts me immensely.”

“That she loved you even if it was the wrong way?”

He nods, “And that I loved her – despite all her flaws.”

“Why?”

“I… I appreciate the idea of being a bad person, and still being able to find someone to love you.”

“You’re a killer.” It is not a question for you already know the answer – you can see it in his eyes, it is his inheritance. You know that either way, it won’t make a difference to you.

“I am, indeed. But, are you?.” The soft curve of his cunning smile is so incredibly beguiling. The most tempting thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life. You shake your head, you’re not, you never have been. You think it must be very obvious at first glance, for the patronizing look he gives you as he asks anyways.

“Sometimes I can be very bad,” he whispers slowly, drags the tip of his finger over your shoulder, down the swell of your breast, stopping just shy of your peaked nipple, circling the point.

“What do you do?” your voice is breathless, beseeching.

He smooths his thumb over your bottom lip, pushes between to get inside, presses down on the hard edge of your bottom teeth to inspect the wet gleam of your tongue. “I steal beautiful things for myself–” His voice is like smoke – his confession fortuitous, on the verge of disappearing. His mystique enshrouds the both of you. You hope you disappear alongside him.

“Is that what you’re doing now? Stealing me?”

“Yes.”

“I think I like being stolen.”

He wakes, very late into the night, or very early in the morning, the confounding blue hue of the outside world seeping in through the heavy drapes over the tall windows. Shielding the two of you from the real world.

Your body is entirely draped over his own. You’ve invaded him in your sleep, taken over all the space and air and thought he’s ever possessed. The soft weight of your breasts presses into his chest, your head tucked in the hollow of his clavicle so that he can feel each pass of your damp breath wash over his throat and chin. He expects to feel overwhelmed, uncomfortable, perhaps even disgusted, so much skin, so much heat, your legs intertwined with his – but all he can focus on is the fullness of your tits pressed up against him, the hot wet apex of your cunt against his thigh. You’re wet in your sleep for him – he can feel your dampness seeping through the silk of your extra panties.

One of your hands is curled over his shoulder and he brings it to his mouth, presses a kiss to the soft, small palm. His hand dwarfs yours, swallows it whole. He sucks each one of the tips of your fingers into his mouth, bites down as gently as he can. Your hips start to shift over him, needy cunt trying to unconsciously rub up against his thigh.

He’s going to fuck you now. His cock is hard, aching, leaking, balls heavy – has been for ages, but finally, finally his mind has caught up. Thank fuck.

He passes his palm down the smooth line of your back, pushes his t-shirt you’re wearing up your back to get to your skin. This lovely smooth back he’d spent almost an hour staring at in that gallery. He feels a terrible, unfounded curl of jealousy, once again, that anyone else in the world has ever gazed upon the magnificence that is your skin. He wants it to be only for him, he wants you to be only for him – to own you.

His hand moves down to clutch the full swell of your bottom, pushes under your panties to take a handful of your bare flesh. He bends his knee slightly to put more pressure on your core and starts to roll your hips over him. You let out a soft little moan, sleepy, so sweet.

“It’s time to wake up, Sparrow. I’m going to fuck you now.”

“Ezra–” you murmur, coming to. Your body seems to take stock of the situation before your mind does, little cunt suddenly grinding down more firmly onto his thigh. You let out a moan that goes straight to his cock. He grips your hips and flips you over, settling between the spread of your thighs, slotting his length into your wet cleft, he starts a slow rock that has his head pressing up and into your clit.

“Tell me how you want to be fucked.”

Your eyes are glassy, dazed and confused. He says again, “Tell me how you want to be fucked, or I will decide for you.”

And then your soft little voice, grabbing him by the balls and showing him that as sleepy or drowsy or small as you may appear, you’re still aware of the power you hold over him: “I think I’d like you to decide for me, please.”

Fuck– he deepens the pressure of his thrusts so that his tip presses into your opening over your panties. Your jaw is hinged open, panting wet breaths as you moan for him.

He sits back on his heels then, pulls his t-shirt up over your head and then slides your panties over your hips and down your legs, grips your knees to spread your legs wide for him.

He was right, your cunt is the same color as your nipples. Beautiful.

It’s drooling, begging for him, and oh, how that fills him with pleasure – for such a beautiful thing to desire him, as much as he desires it. He ghosts the back of his knuckles over your slit, using his thumbs to spread your lips wide – he bends for a taste, moans deep and long from his chest.

“Fuck, you’re so sweet. Do you want me to feed your cunt, baby?”

“Ezra, please – yes – I want it so bad.”

“I know, I could see – all night, I could see how hungry you were. I’m going to eat you now.”

Please, please.

He settles between your thighs. Soft little licks to your swollen clit, then down to thrust his tongue into your hole. He grips the back of one thigh to press it up and back into your chest, uses his other hand to press down low on your pelvis, gives you more pressure as he sucks your clit back into his mouth. He can feel the clench of your pussy around his tongue, the shake in your thighs. Your keening moans move through him, have him grinding his aching cock into the mattress. You’re going to come in his mouth, he can feel it, taste it, your slick running from you, sweet and musky, all for him.

Your hands clutch at his curls, pulling and tugging hard as you arch your back and start to orgasm. Ezra, Ezra, Ezra. It’s a litany, a benediction. You are a work of art come to life to sing into his ear.

He gentles his mouth over your quivering sex, laps slowly at your pulsing entrance. He wipes his mouth over the tender slope of your inner thigh and goes back to his knees, licks his palm of your wet as he watches your gaze on him.

He cradles your small foot in his hold. He likes the thought that he can grasp that which has carried you through your life, in his hand. For some reason, it fills him with immense pleasure, the feel of your soft foot, the thought of you walking through life, walking through the world, towards him, to find him. Always him, only him.

There is a wound in him, dark, and putrid, overwhelming his existence always. It was only through the cathartic fulfillment of holding a beautiful thing in his hands that he felt reprieved of the terrible thing. He feels that reprieve in this moment, with the delicate weight of your small foot cradled within his palm.

He brings it to his mouth and digs his thumb harshly into the elegant arch, forcing a moan out of you, deepening the curve of your spine, then drags his teeth along the instep, presses a soft kiss to your first toe. He can see the clench of your little hole at his ministrations, the flush of your skin from the peaks of your breasts to your cheeks.

Your breath is hitching, breasts quivering with your gasps. He bends to lick into your mouth, thin ankle still held in his grasp, finally, finally taking the taste of your tongue onto his own and you moan, wanton and desperate, your legs wrapping around his waist to bring him closer.

“I’m going to give you my cock now,” he presses into your skin, open mouthed kisses to your throat, your neck, your breasts. He nips a gentle bite to one swollen little nipple.

He grasps the base of his cock, passes his hand slowly from root to tip once, twice, and then presses the flushed head to your clit, grinds there for a moment, you jerk, then moves down to your hole, feeds you just the tip. You cant your hips, try and take him deeper, but he holds back, pulls out and moves back up to circle your clit again, and then back down again to press inside. “No, no, no, Ezra, please – I need it so badly – so badly.” He watches a tiny tear, track down your temple and back into your hair, and he gives you the entire thick length of him at that, fucks inside, all the way to the end of you.

“There? How’s that?” He presses a kiss to your breast, sucks it into his mouth. The taste of you is godly. “Is that better, needy thing?”

“So good – so good,” you sigh. Stretching your arms high above your head, arching your back to let him in deeper.

“Fuck, yes–” he groans. He sits back on his heels, grips your hips and starts to give it to you hard. The strong swing of his hips causing the soft jiggle of your tits with every thrust. Your eyes are closed, lashes fluttering, soft mouth open and wet. So fucking beautiful.

“Will you let me fuck your ass too?” Your head is already nodding, all rational thought currently being fucked out of you. “You will, won’t you?”

“Yes, yes – anything you want.”

“Good girl.”

He changes the angle, fucks up into that spongy devastating part of you he plans to own after this is done, and he starts to feel the tight pull of your inner muscles working to suck him deeper. “That’s it, beautiful, just like that. Taking me so wonderfully.”

“God– I– I’m–” you press your palms to his belly and he brings one of your ankles up to his shoulder, presses a kiss to the bone.

“God isn’t here right now – just me–” He grits his teeth, gives it to you harder. He can feel his orgasm start to pool, hot and liquid, at the base of his spine, balls drawing up tight.

“Give me another, Sparrow, one more. Need to feel it around my cock,” spit through clenched teeth.

“Oh, fuck – that’s so good,” you moan, and then you’re milking him, pulling his come out of him with the tight wet clutch of your muscles.

“Fucking perfect, yes – just like that.” He lets his head roll back on his neck, hand grasping your ankle as he fills you.

He watches you eat your pain au chocolat. Sitting in the warm morning sun of the observatory. Tiny bites of the flaky sweet bread, dollop of chocolate sitting at the corner of your mouth that he plans to lick off in a second. He is mesmerized. He knows, empirically, he probably looks like a fucking creep, staring you down as he is, but he can also see the subtle preen in your gaze when you glance up at him every so often. You enjoy this part of your play as much as he does, so it seems. The watching.

“Will you let me take you somewhere today?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Brazil? I’d show you the farm.”

You swallow, the most guileless eyes he’s ever beheld, shining in the light. “Brazil? Really?”

“Of course, treasure. Or anywhere you want. Your happiness is mine to watch over now. I would do anything for you.” As he says it, he can tell, you did not lie when you said you’d like to be stolen.

#ezra prospect #ezra prospect x reader #ezra prospect fic #ezra prospect x you #ezra prospect fanfiction #prospect 2018 #prospect fic #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction #ezra prospect smut

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zahmaddog · 14 days ago

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V. The Best of Us

Closure Series

SFW | Crosshair x fem!reader

I. Nightmares of Eriadu , II. Going Home , III. Familiar Face, IV. Treasure Found

Warnings: SFW Romance between Crosshair x fem!reader, grief, heart to hearts between brothers

Characters involved: Crosshair x fem!reader x Hunter x Phee x Wrecker x Omega x Tech

Word Count: 3143

< I am behind on making art for this... I just have the highest expectations and have trashed so many drawings/paintings. I'll lower my standards. I love the visuals going on in my head, so sorry I'm selfish at the moment. ;) > Here's Hunter lost in thought for now.

After landing on Pabu, Omega reunited with the squad aboard Phee’s ship. Without alerting the town that Tech had returned, they stayed quietly aboard Phee’s ship on the beach.

“Tech?” Omega approaches slowly.

“Why does everyone insist that is my name?” He bluntly responds while sitting up.

“Because —- it’s the name Wrecker gave you,” Omega confesses.

“And who is that?” Tech rubbed his head.

“ME,”Wrecker raised his hand. “Your brother.”

“Don’t you remember?” Omega held out her datapad that displayed a picture of Clone Force 99 during the war against the Separatists.

Tech, still rubbing his head, took the pad from Omega and inspected the picture. He stopped rubbing his head to touch the screen as he recognized himself. His heel ceased tapping on the ground.

“Ring any bells?” Phee interrupts. “It’s clear to me that whatever was is no longer,” Tech slowly begins as he compares the photo to everyone’s current clothing and physical state. “You’ve put on weight,” he says to Hunter, “You’ve let yourself go,” he directs to Crosshair, “You’re insultingly static,” he mutters to Wrecker. “Hey!” Wrecker yells. “This one is absent,” he points to Echo, “And — “ he pauses with a finger to his image once more and squints a little, “It appears I once wore goggles — ”

Omega carefully takes Tech’s cracked and smashed goggles from her satchel and offers them back.

“We thought you were dead,” Omega discloses. Tech’s shoulders drop as he receives them. As he examines them, he takes a hand to his lost eye as he studies the completely smashed through left lens.

“Perhaps it would have been best if I stayed dead,” Tech deadpans.

“Why is that?” Omega is taken back.

“I have no recollection of you,” he sighs. “Surely that comes as a shock and disappointment to all of you.”

“You must have gaps in memory,” Crosshair interjects.

“Well yes, of course. But the lapses in memory never affected my plans for the future, so there was no need to dwell on the past,” Tech reports.

“Until now,” Phee leans in. “Don’t you want to remember, Brown Eyes?”

Tech couldn’t maintain eye contact with Phee for long and shrinks into his seat, letting his gaze fall back to the datapad. Tech wasn’t sure how to feel or rather, couldn’t collect his thoughts long enough to discern the storm brewing subconsciously. Not knowing how to ask the room for space, he drops the data pad, stows the goggles in a pocket, and stands abruptly. He fumbles past Omega and his brothers in search of the door. You hear Phee sigh and unlatch the door before he has to ask.

“Thank you,” Tech breathes and descends the ramp into the sand of Pabu’s beach. The squad rushes to the door to watch as Tech begins to pace in the sand, rubbing his eyes and head.

“It was wrong to bring him here,” Hunter worries.

“Give him time, Hunter,” Crosshair insists.

“What if he never remembers?” Omega sits down on the stairs of the ship’s ramp as she watches Tech continue to draw a line in the sand from his pacing. You squeeze past Wrecker and sit down on the ramp next to Omega.

“If he doesn’t remember, then there’s two possibilities: you either drift apart or you establish a new relationship,” you try to comfort. “He seems to have his core values in place; and after getting to know you all over the years, I know you don’t give up on family.”

“Well, not all of us,” Crosshair side-eyes Hunter.

Hunter brushed past Crosshair and stepped over you and Omega. Wrecker follows Hunter as they both descend the ramp to the beach. Wrecker sits in the sand to watch Tech as Hunter walks to Tech.

“You started that one,” Omega disappointedly mentions to Crosshair.

“You gotta ease up on him, babe,” you peer behind Omega to lock eyes with him.

“Hmm,” Crosshair grunts a little. You send a soft wink and soft smile his way. Despite how you hadn’t left his side all week, the commotion, family business, blaster fights, left you missing him. His shell breaks for a moment as his eyes sadden and mouth purses.

“You’re still his brother and he’s — right there; alive,” you assure Omega again. “And you’re better than me, kid. I just left my brother on Eriadu without thinking twice. I don’t even know if it’s what he wanted, but I never truthfully asked.” You give Omega’s shoulder a friendly squeeze as you stand and ascend the ramp back to Crosshair and Phee.

Running your hands up Crosshair’s arms, you lay your head on his chest. You watch Hunter together on the beach as he tries to slow Tech’s racing thoughts down; something that Crosshair knew never worked in the past. Tech continues to pace while Hunter’s hands motion him to slow down. Tech must have said something quick and brutal because seconds later he joined Wrecker to sit in the sand.

“That went well,” Crosshair mutters.

“Like you could do better,” Phee instigates.

Crosshair kisses your forehead, “I’ll be back.” He lets his hands slide down your back as he releases you from his embrace and he walks down the ramp with a quiet confidence.

“Get up, Hunter” Crosshair extends his hand to Hunter as he sits in the dirt. “We’re not done yet.”

Hunter exhales sharply and tosses his hand to Crosshair; which Crosshair grabs and lifts him from the ground.

“All right, what’s our plan, Commander,” Hunter sarcastically relays to Crosshair.

“I’m still working on that,” Crosshair breathes. “Wrecker, you’re welcome to come too, but I don’t think I can lift you off the ground.”

“Oh, come on, I’m not as big as I used to be,” Wrecker laughs as he stands.

The three begin to walk towards Tech, who is still pacing, talking to himself, and rubbing his head. You weren’t sure what it would look like to split your soul in half, but it couldn’t be too different from this.

“Captain Solomon!” You hear Crosshair yell for the first time in years.

Tech stops in his tracks with his back to the three clones and sighs, “If you’re going to ask me if I remember anything again, I haven’t.” He turns in anger, causing the three clones to halt. Tech’s glare is intense. His shoulders forward like he’s ready to pounce and tear into anyone who touches him. Hunter takes a step back out of instinct. Wrecker stands his ground. Crosshair steps forward and extends his hand.

“Can we start over?” Crosshair asks. “My name is Crosshair. I shared a bunk across from you for about a decade.”

Tech’s expression focuses on Crosshair, as if he expected more from the non-conversationalist.

Crosshair sighs, “I’ve listened to you talk about everything under the stars, so I never thought I could miss your voice.” Tech rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to banter back, but Crosshair continues, “But I found myself listening for it each time I wanted to know more about a star system or geological anomaly. Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

Tech drops his shoulders and moves to just standing and looking at him.

“You are the smartest of us all,” Crosshair shrugs, “And the bravest. The best of us. You may not remember us, but we could never forget you.” His words carried weight and truth. Tech believed him.

“Who are you now?” Hunter asks Tech as he rejoins Crosshair’s side.

Tech examines the three clones and begins, “My name is Solomon and I’m a pirate of the outer rim. I wanted to believe that’s all I was.” He rubs his head and pinches his eyebrows together with his fingertips. “The mystery of my origins were overshadowed by my curiosity of the galaxy.” He took a few steps forward and closed the gap between himself and his brothers. “Whomever I was and the possibilities that once were no longer exist if my memory is not sustainable. It is clear to me that we share the same biological fabric as our faces, voices, and even mannerisms are strikingly similar. But I cannot stay based on that alone.” He sighs deeply and holds his silence in contemplation a moment longer, “My crew needs me.”

Crosshair’s eyebrows furrowed, “I can respect that.”

“Then we’ll take you back to your crew,” Hunter aides.

“Uh, we should probably tell him we blew up half of his crew,” Wrecker interjects somewhat quietly. Hunter swiftly elbows Wrecker.

“You what?!” Tech was back to looking like he was ready for a fight.

Crosshair forcefully slapped his hands over his eyes and sighed, “Meet Wrecker, the brother you argued with most.”

“We may have had some trouble extracting you,” Hunter confesses. He turns his attention towards Wrecker, “But our blasters were set to stun!”

“Well, I didn’t know that! I was carrying him!” Wrecker exclaims.

Through his teeth, Tech seethes while trying to remain calm, “Well, I appreciate the offer. Let’s go.”

“Can we still invite you to celebrate holidays and our birthday?” Wrecker says to Tech as he brushes past Wrecker. Tech doesn’t respond.

“Well, that went well,” Hunter mocks Crosshair.

“Hmm,” Crosshair grunts. He slides a toothpick into his mouth and watches Tech stomp off back towards the ship. After a few moments of silence, he slyly side-eyes Hunter, “Is this how I made you feel, when I elected to stay with the Empire?”

Hunter releases the breath he didn’t realize he held as he watched Tech storm off again, “I didn’t want to leave you behind. Ask Omega or Wrecker, it weighed heavily on me for years.” He met Crosshair’s gaze, “I understand now that you needed to be a soldier to survive and have purpose: You needed the Empire more than it needed you.”

“Hmm,” Crosshair’s eyes widen with the heavy realization of Hunter’s spoken truth.

“But I should have made more of an effort to — ,” Hunter loses his words.

“To what?” Crosshair takes his toothpick from his lips.

“To let you know we needed you,” Hunter admits. “Even if you thought you didn’t need us.”

Crosshair’s eyebrows lift in surprise to Hunter’s words, but stays silent.

“But Tech living as a pirate is different,” Hunter continues, “He built an entire identity from scratch. He enjoyed his freedom so much that he didn’t even care to look for us, despite knowing he had a past.”

“Was it freedom or survival?” Crosshair questions.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Wrecker nods.

Hunter raises his voice a little to call out in hopes that Tech could hear him yards away, “If you ever feel like you don’t belong, find us.”

“There’s no way he heard that, Sarge,” Crosshair snickers. “He’s way too far out now. Yep, he’s climbing the ramp; didn’t even glance back. Getting back into the ship now. Probably complaining about the smell. You missed your chance.” “Shut up, Crosshair,” Hunter demands.

_________________________________

Back in Phee’s ship, Phee was silently coming to terms that the squad unanimously agreed to drop Tech back with his crew to resume pirating in the outer rim. You could sense she didn’t want to argue, but she wasn’t one to easily let go of found treasure. Omega was satisfied knowing he was at least alive and didn’t apply too much pressure for him to stay.

“Did you at least try them on?” Omega says to Tech as he hands her the goggles back. “No, they are broken,” Tech shoots back.

“Just try them,” she insists, pressing them back into Tech’s hand. “I see you’re squinting to make things come into focus. You used to be a phenomenal pilot, I can’t imagine you are one now without them.” Omega teases.

“I am a phenomenal pilot. I just need my helmet to see,” He turns to Wrecker, “Which you left my helmet on Agomar when you senselessly carried me away.”

Omega presses the goggles into his hand once more, Tech wraps his fingers around them in acceptance. He lets them float in the air between his fingers for a moment, then with the spirit of revival, he lifts them over his head.

You could see in his expression that the perfect fit disappointed him; as if he didn’t want this reality to become anymore real.

“Happy?” Tech stammers.

“You can keep them, if you’d like,” Omega replies. Her expression is soft as she admires her brother adoringing his iconic eyewear once more.

“I’ll consider keeping them on until we return to Agomar,” Tech expressed.

“Just like that, you want to go back?” Phee asks, heartbroken. “You’re not even curious about your old life?”

“I have responsibilities to attend to,” Tech informs.

“Always the soldier first, aren’t you? Some things never change,” Phee sighs. “We’ll take off shortly.” You sat back on Crosshair’s bunk in silence watching everything unfold. You felt exhausted, unshowered, and unsure that returning to Agomar would be safe. You were home on Pabu for the next few moments; you could slip out hardly unnoticed and take a long shower at home. You might receive a message from Crosshair once he realizes you were missing, but he was rather distracted with family. How could he not be?

You reminisce back on seeing Crix just a few days prior. Did he have a choice in staying in the Empire? How could you be sure? Would you do the same for him that Crosshair would do for Tech? Should you have forced Crix to leave Eriadu like Crosshair forced Tech away from his crew? You decided to escape Phee’s ship with your thoughts before take off.

You gathered your helmet and extra clothes into your bag, then tip-toed towards the door. You feel a cold metal hand grab your arm.

“Abandoning me?” Crosshair croons quietly under the on-going conversation between Tech and Omega.

“Tech complained that the ship smelled and it’s probably me,” you say and let your nose scrunch up. “I should go home. You know, shower, sleep — get back to doing nothing,” you lie.

“Tech thinks everything smells,” Crosshair chuckles. “And it’s probably Hunter’s thermal detonating ration bar gas,” he lowers his voice.

You laugh a little louder than you should have for the family moments unfolding on the ship. Hunter eyes you and Tech turns towards you.

“And who are you?” Tech finally addresses you.

“I’m nobody,” you disclose. “I’m just a stowaway that keeps your brother Crosshair company and safe from — ”

“She’s my everything,” Crosshair talks over you as you were in a self-depreciating mood. He relays your name and begins filling Tech in on your past here and there. Tech’s eye widens when Crosshair mentions you’re a Tarkin. Crosshair notices the change in his expression.

“What is it?” Crosshair asks.

“I remember Tarkin,” Tech confesses. “Actually, he’s the first thing I remember.” As if he were just hit in the head with a hammer, Tech grabs his head and stumbles back a few feet. “Sorry, I seemed to have lost my balance,” he says, catching himself on the middle holomap console. He slowly sits himself down on the leather couch.

Omega, Hunter, Phee, Wrecker, Crosshair and yourself gather around him. Omega rushes to check his vitals, which Tech waves her off with his hand to assure her he was okay.

“What do you remember?” Hunter asks.

“I awoke in his compound as a prisoner. He questioned and tortured me for weeks about presumably your where-abouts,” he motions to his clone brothers with his hand, “But I couldn’t remember anything.” He gathers his thoughts and resumes, “The only evidence of my identity was surmised through officers questioning me. I gathered I was a ‘clone,’ an imperial deserter, and that I had infiltrated Tarkin’s compound with the assistance of other clones. I was scheduled for termination for not cooperating. But instead, a young soldier released me into the jungle as he explained to me that he ‘didn’t want to kill anyone’, ” Tech explains.

You immediately realize that the young soldier was most likely Crix. Had he served Governor Tarkin personally for that long? You counted the years and realized it made sense. You shook off the chills that sent goosebumps down your spine; you had been away from home for so long at this point.

“How did you get off end up a pirate?” Hunter asks.

“I found my way into town and began working in the mines the Empire re-opened. I suppose one thing led to another, and soon I was running an underground crime syndicate underneath the Empire’s nose.” Tech remembers.

“You found a way to survive,” Crosshair implies and eyes Hunter.

“Yes,” Tech agrees. “I did what I could to carry on.”

“Like you always do,” Omega adds.

Tech nods at Omega, “I would suppose so.” He leans back into the bench and sweeps his gaze across his brothers. “Perhaps we can gather once a year to celebrate our birthday after all,” he mutters.

“Good,” Crosshair nods as he throws your items back on his bunk. “Because tortured brothers get more cake.”

____________________

The hum and comfort of hyperspace was nearly lulling you to sleep, had it not been for Tech’s endless talking. Resting your head on Crosshair’s shoulder, you lay on the bunk facing the ongoing conversation in the bay of the ship, while Crosshair faced the ceiling.

Omega was soaking up the conversation with her long lost brother and sharing her latest experiences with the rebellion. In return, he chatted about his pirate affairs, crew members he looked after, his run-ins with the Empire, and his technical modifications to his giant cargo ship. Wrecker’s roaring laughter in between spoken anecdotes would surprise you; causing you to occasionally open your eyes.

Hunter watched in silence, leaned up against a wall with a proud grin across his face. You realized you missed how much he smiles when Omega is around. Phee listened and interjected fun comments and anecdotes from her life every now and then. Tech was intrigued by her abilities and pirating stories. You had heard from Crosshair that Tech would never run out of discussion, but witnessing it firsthand really surprised you. He really could talk about anything in-depth and barely leave room for another to get a word in.

Your attention turns back to Crosshair as you notice he was also lying awake with his eyes closed. His breathing usually changed when he was asleep. You rotate into him and wrap your free arm around him to hug him.

“I’ve missed this,” he whispers to you without shifting in the bunk.

“Tech ranting about weather systems of uninhabited planets?” You softly laugh.

“Yes,” Crosshair sighs. “Even if he doesn’t want to stay with us… This has been nice.”

“Do you want to join them?” You ask, shifting a little.

“No, no,” Crosshair vocalizes and cradles you into his chest more, “I’d probably ruin it.”

________________________________________________

Part VI: The Bounty

_________________________________________________

Taglist:

@heidnspeak @cloneflo99 @megmegalodondon @tentakelspektakel @maniacalbooper @thebadbatch2022

#the bad batch #tbb #tbb star wars #tbb crosshair #star wars #the bad batch crosshair #tbb omega #tbb hunter #crosshair x fem!reader #tbb wrecker #tbb phee #tbb tech #tech lives

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your-local-simp-writers · 8 months ago

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༺☆༻ Introduction ༺☆༻

Hello!

We’re the dynamic duo behind “𝕐our 𝕃ocal 𝕊imp 𝕎riters,” just a couple of friends who love to get lost in the world of stories and games. We’re here to share our passion for writing and all the geeky stuff we can’t get enough of.

♡ About Us ♡

I’m 𝒞𝓁𝑜𝓊𝒹 and I’m all about gaming and art. You’ll often find me with a controller in one hand and a comic book in the other. My better half, the yin to my yang. She’s the partner in crime, the sweet melody to my wild riffs, and the one who brings a touch of grace to our shared tales of adventure and heart, 𝒞𝒽𝒾𝑒𝓃𝓃𝑒! She is the other half of this storytelling team. We both love creating stories that’ll make you feel like you’re right there with the characters.

♡ Our Writing ♡

We write what we love, and we love what we write. Our stories are inspired by our current fascinations—be it a game, a movie, or a manga. If it’s interesting and fascinating to us, it’s fair game for our writing.

Most of our stories are “x female reader” because that’s where we feel most at home. Occasionally, we’ll write “x gender-neutral reader” pieces for a bit of variety. However, we generally steer clear of “x male reader” or “OC x canon” stories. We want to create a space where female readers can see themselves in the worlds we love so much.

❤︎ 𝒞𝓁𝑜𝓊𝒹 '𝓈 Interests:

Gaming: I’m a huge fan of Kingdom Hearts, Batman Arkham games, Mortal Combat, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Doom 3, Phasmophobia, Five Nights At Freddy’s, Twisted Wonderland, Call of Duty, Halo 3 and 4, Sonic and Transformers. If it’s a game or relating to horror, chances are I love it.

Comics: Batman is my passion. I collect anything related to the Dark Knight, and my collection is my pride and joy.

Anime/Manga: I'm into One Piece, Princess TuTu, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Jujutsu Kaisen, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kingdom Hearts, Sgt. Frog, Free!, HellSing, and a bunch more. I have also seen MHA, Fairy Tail, Dragon Ball, Soul Eater, Naruto, Castlevania, Diabolik Lovers and more.

Disney & Tim Burton: I’m a Disney kid at heart. My top 5 Disney movies are Treasure Planet, Cinderella 3, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and The Princess and the Frog. And I’m all about Halloween and everything Tim Burton.

Music: I love RnB and Y2K music so much! However, you can usually find me listening to cutesy, cheesy love songs.

❤︎ 𝒞𝒽𝒾𝑒𝓃𝓃𝑒’𝓈 Interests:

Gaming: I’m definitely not the biggest gamer around, but I do love to play Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft! Sometimes I’ll also dabble in some fall guys, FNAF or Poppy’s Playtime. On Roblox, I love to play pretty much anything but pvp games due to the fact that I’m not the best at them. Horror games are probably my favorite, even though I’m a chicken!

Anime/Manga: My favorites are definitely Fairy Tail, Jojo’s bizarre adventure, Naruto, and Demon slayer. I’ve also watched MHA, Danganronpa, Yona of the Dawn, Food wars, High Rise Invasion, Angels of death, and more!

Disney and Tim Burton: I’m definitely a Disney girl! I love all Disney Princess movies, both animated and live action. My top three not in any particular order would have to be Tangled, The Little Mermaid, and Princess and the Frog. For Tim Burton, my favorites are the classics, The nightmare before Christmas and Corpse bride.

Books: I’m also a huge book girly! My favorite genre has to be fantasy/sci-fi. My favorite book series is The Lunar Chronicles, I definitely recommend it!

♡ Join the Fun ♡

This is an invitation to you, dear reader, to become a part of our narrative. Engage with us, inspire us, and let us inspire you.

So, come on in, get comfy, and let's share the joy of stories. The next chapter is always the best one, and it starts right here, with you and us. Requests are always welcome in the ask box! and even inquiries, should you have any!

With all the warmth in our hearts,

𝒞𝓁𝑜𝓊𝒹 & 𝒞𝒽𝒾𝑒𝓃𝓃𝑒

P.S: 𝒞𝓁𝑜𝓊𝒹 drew the image, just so most people can get a idea of what we look like♡ AND THE G.M FIARY BOOK IS FOR FUN, for the pure shits and giggles TRUST

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tyfinn · 3 months ago

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Pick a Treasure

Thank you @a-noble-dragon @chelle-68 @carolrain @ramonaflow @mammameesh for tagging me today, and making it blaringly obvious I have A LOT of shit treasures...

Tagging @filet-o-feelings @flowertrigger @jamilas-pen @wordthieve and open tag for anyone else wanting to share their treasures

#treasures #my stuff

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eleanor-bradstreet · 10 months ago

Note

Hi Eleanor! Do you have any bridgerton fic recommendations? Love your writing!!

Hello Nonny!

I'm so pleased you enjoy my stories, that is sweet of you to say! Thank you! 💙 As for fic recommendations, build your blanket fort, get a beverage and prepare to never emerge because boy do I ever have some for you...

Do you want to feel like an artist is painting a mural across your heart, swirling colors of intense emotion from lust to anguish to redemption to joy, all of it blending perfectly into a sensation of bone-deep satisfaction? Then you need to check out the works of my dear friend @thebabblingbrookenook Masterlist here.

Brooke has crafted some of the most unique and heartfelt Benedict and Anthony stories out there, mostly modern AU and x Reader, delving deep into character psyches in a variety of breathtaking scenarios. I don't know if I can pick favorites, but don't miss:

If The World Was Ending - an apocalyptic Benedict love story

His First Muse - the most beautiful examination of Violet and Benedict's relationship you'll ever read

Wide Open Spaces - for some sultry Benedict friends-to-lovemaking

The Viscount Who Loved Me Too Much - an ongoing Anthony multichapter romance that is sure to surprise and delight

Or if your tastes are skewing a bit more...carnal, you must know about the incomparable @fayes-fics. Benedict smut queen and creator of the A&B manbread sandwich, her catalog offers so many steamy encounters with the two eldest Bridgerton brothers that you are at risk of developing bedsores while you enjoy them lefthanded 😉 But lucky for us, she plies her skilled pen to sweet romance and heartwrenching emotions as well. Masterlist here.

There are literally, literally too many jewels to highlight in the treasure trove of Faye's stories, but I highly encourage reading:

Lessons - the A&B throuple series of your dreams

Double Bind - an A&B love triangle series Faye sweetly crafted from my greedy little prompts

Second Son - a beautiful G-rated story of Benedict finding love and self-worth

The Things We Do For Love - Anthony. Benedict. Orgasms. Emotions. Just read it.

I have to cut myself off because I could list these forever...

Then if you're in the mood for some Viscount served up piping hot, pay a visit to our darling Bridgerton smut auntie @colettebronte My talented friend practices her own kind of alchemy, blending no-holds-barred kinks with fantastical settings and even a dash of history to create stories that are completely unique and entirely incendiary. The steam is....burning, the sweetness is real and the characterizations are always on point.

Her entire collection should be read, Masterlist here, but personal favorites for me include:

Lord Bridgerton's List - Thigh Riding - Just, read the whole List. Trust me.

The Queen and the General 4 - A powerplay threesome with Anthony and Simon. Need I say more?

Rise and Breathe - healing heartbroken regency Anthony through kink? I cannot wait to see where this series goes...

All The Time in The World - an apocalyptic Anthony series that I am salivating for more of!

I know so many talented fic authors, I could turn this answer into a novel. Search the #fic rec tag in my blog to see them all, but I would be remiss not to highlight these other incredible stories and authors:

@queen-of-the-misfit-toys is a stunning Bridgerton family writer, who knows how to make your jaw hit the floor, either from the delightful filth of her smut or the most heartbreakingly beautiful angst you could imagine. I recommend The End of All Things

@the-other-art-blog Just knocked my absolute socks off by imagining the most perfect origin story for My Cottage here

@fiction-is-life Is taking my prompts for angsty Benedict and delivering with a stunning series starting with Touchstone of Our Character

@urchintoast creates wonderful, lively imagery and has written some heartfelt and adorable Anthony and Benedict stories. I highly recommend Fear

And dear lord, the sweepingly beautiful, searingly sexy, deeply moving Don't You Remember by @captainbucky-yt is my most favorite Benophie retelling

I could type my fingers to stubs if I told you about all the fics I have loved, so please take this as a springboard and go enjoy everything these Bridgerbuddies have to offer 💙

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

#answers from el #fic rec #adore my moots

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iolaussharpe-24 · 22 days ago

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I miss my dad.

His favorite movies were Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Searchers. He loved westerns and treasure hunt movies.

He collected toys and movies and weights. Some of the last movies he took me and my mom to see were Dial of Destiny, Equalizer 3, and The Meg 2.

The last things I bought him were a couple action figures. The Melina and Red Guardian 2pack from Black Widow, because he liked Rachel Weisz, for his birthday and a McFarlane Riddler from the 60s Batman series because he'd collected so many of those figures and sets and he didn't have that one.

The last thing he gave me was a book I wanted for my birthday, Araña and Spider-Man 2099: Dark Tomorrow. A year later and I still haven't finished it. I probably never will.

I miss his smile. He was nice to everyone and almost never stopped smiling. We'd go places and people he'd seen maybe once or twice would recognize him right away.

I miss how he'd always try to make me laugh. He'd do funny faces and gestures and tell me about things he'd heard or seen or done in the funniest way he could.

He always did everything he could to show that he loved me and my mom.

He was an artist and a drummer. He could sit and doodle while on a conference call and it would look like professional comic art.

We'd sing in the car together to songs we knew. Especially if there were two parts to sing along with. Sometimes we'd alternate which part we were singing just so we'd both get to do each bit. Some of the songs we did that with were I'll Be Missing You, Nothing's Gonna Stop Us, X, Man in the Mirror, and so many others.

We played Little Wonders, Not All Heroes Wear Capes, At Last, Yesterday, and My Way at his memorial. I picked the first two because he really liked Little Wonders and he cried the first time I played Not All Heroes Wear Capes on Father's Day for him.

He was the strongest person I've ever known. That's a fact. He was diagnosed at stage four and given a year to live. He almost made two. He was a bodybuilder when he was young and he never lost his muscles. Even when he got older and stopped lifting weights. Even when his knees went bad and his shoulder tore. Even when the chemo wore his body down. His muscles never softened. Even when the skin around them did.

When I found him, he was still just as strong as ever. And he was still smiling for us.

#dia de los muertos #my first dia de los muertos #i miss my dad #may delete this later idk #i'm depressed again #personal #do not repost #do not reblog

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thewrittingpan · 2 years ago

Text

Painting Lies 3

Phinks x reader, Fetain x reader, Shalnark x reader

Tigger and content warnings include but are not limited to: blood, gore, violence, kidnapping, abuse, mental health issues, trauma

Wc: 6501

Tumblr links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

Ao3: Here

You think you remember the two blonds being there, but you also remember your legs being twice their usual size. Honestly you just stared at the ceiling for a bit wondering what the hell was going on in your head. For all you know you did get into a fight with a giant blanket yesterday but also you felt like you had somehow completed an entire treasure collection in that game you played. Everything in the dream was too close to reality for your liking.

“Hey Phinks?” You looked out into the hall to see if he was up.

“What?” The door across the hall from you opened.

“Weird question, did we have a staring contest during dinner or did I dream that?”

“That kind of happened.” he went to close the door.

“Okay, did you play video games yesterday with me watching?”

He looked at you terribly confused, “no?”

“Did we set up the table?”

“No, shalnark did.”

“Did I go to the basement? Does the basement have a whole art studio too? Because I dreamed there was like some art supply store or something in it and I feel like I'm going insane.”

“Yes to both.”

“Okay okay, now the part that ia really fucking with me is that i swear i woke up in the middle of the night-”

“You did.”

“-and you and the other guys were there-”

“Correct.”

“Then I got kissed goodnight by the three of you? And like some drink that you see moms in movies make for kids after a nightmare?”

He stood looking at you, you had no idea what he was thinking, honestly he looked as confused as you were.

“That didn’t happen, those two just wanted to see you before leaving.”

“Weird.” You mumbled to yourself. “It all felt like stuff that happened or could have.”

Everyone had dreams that left them confused when they woke up, or well you think everyone does. Waking up from them can vary, like with every other kind of sleep. When it came to “what the fuck happened who am I” level of confusion dreams waking up in anyway that left you dazed was not a good thing. What you personally think is worse is when you don’t feel like you have been asleep, or when you think you haven't had a dream.

Your thoughts fizzled out until you could have been a cartoon character with smoke coming out of their head. Confusion sticks, the whole day would probably feel off, and hell you might just fall back asleep with how just trying to think through it all was driving you mad.

“Are you going to spend time around the house or in your room?” Phinks was leaning against the door frame.

“Oh-“ you sifted through your ideas to keep yourself entertained.

There were the new games you’ve been given, but the clearly visible camera in your room had been creeping you out. You had some books but part of you couldn’t stand the idea of reading at the moment, something in your bones felt like they couldn’t find a comfortable way to sit to read. Maybe you could draw- there was that sketch you wanted to paint.

“I might go paint something?” You asked him.

It felt like you were allowed to go paint down there whenever, or that was the ideal goal they had with showing you it. Though there was something about this house, even with Shalnarks advice of Phinks being surprisingly soft, you felt like you were standing on an inch of ice and it was already waiting to break.

He nodded, “Not a bad idea, just don’t go past the curtain, Fetain doesn’t like anyone touching his things. I’ll make something simple to eat, I’m not much of a cook so you’ll have to put up with it or make your own food.” He walked past you towards the kitchen, “I’ll stay down there to make sure you don’t go poking around in things you don’t want to see.”

Yeah totally not threatening or creepy in the slightest. Hell part of you felt like a horror movie character right now, that vague warning only made you want to see what was down there. As you gathered your sketches your mind ran wild. The stairs in this unfinished basement were creaky wood. You looked at your feet as you descended, the wood was nice and sanded, with no nails that you could notice. Yet your mind drew with jagged lines, poorly put together stairs covered in splinters. That would be too empty, not enough visual interest but something could be drawn from those mental images of stairs. Maybe if something was spilling down the stairs it would be interesting, something twisted hidden in the shadows or beneath the stars themselves, something hard to notice but once you do it’s shocking.

You pulled out a pre-stretched canvas. For a while your hands hovered over two, each size would have its benefits, the smaller ones could make the figure have a “weaker” tone. Though the larger would allow the grotesque details you were longing for. Yet you could alter your concept slightly and “zoom in” on a smaller canvas, get up close and personal with the spine. You propped them both up so you could more easily compare them while sorting through your sketches. You tore them from the sketch book with a strange chaotic need. They were spread out across the cold concrete floor. Scattered and overlapped so they could all be seen without taking up much space. It was a kaleidoscope of paper and ink, and you were the crazed lunatic who had created it.

“You’ll have to pick those up when you finish painting.” Phinks stepped down the stairs holding a large plate full of scrambled eggs and waffles. “Or do you think you’ll need to have them spread out while working?”

“Do you have tape?” You asked, “Something stronger than a basic office tape, I could hang them on the wall?”

“Eat some, I’ll find some.”

The food was weirdly over and under done. The waffles had parts that were slightly more runny than they should be but the eggs were concerning. Parts were crispy and almost burnt, while the rest was fluffy, almost as if he had gotten distracted and almost made a bad omelette.

“Duck tape and packing tape.” He placed one roll of each on the table beside you.

“Oh, thanks, that’ll work fine.”

He was quiet, but it wasn't the same way Fetain is. Fetains silence was a threat, one you had grown used to. He had this weight to him that was impossible to ignore when alone, though he easily blended in and was easy to ignore in a group. Phinks was almost the opposite. You never noticed him when it was just him, though that didn’t mean you trusted him in the slightest. There was a comfort to him, familiar almost, half memories of moments with an old friend or a split second where you almost felt like you were sitting in the room with a long forgotten family member. Warmth tried to spread through you, you desperately wanted to trust him when you felt the familiarity, but how could you when you knew nothing about him.

You taped away. Deformed figures, haphazard diagrams and sketches of anatomy from memory. While each sketch held some semblance of a thought, a firework of an idea, sometimes you found that the best ideas grew when you worked without a clear thought. Molding fog and light created forms and shapes that you may overlook, sometimes you could compare them to an instinct, or a deep need to connect with something you had yet to fully understand.

These things made the beginning difficult but one of the most fun parts of it all. Every thought could be quickly scribbled out, fulfilling the urge to create, but not held back by perfection. It was wild, untamed, which made it unpredictable. A great idea could last a second before flickering out while a bad one could haunt you, not because the idea’s roots were rotten but because the branches had been infested by a failure to succeed.

You stared at the sketches of green bruises. The needles poked through skin, emerging from the bones themselves. Single drops of blood would sit atop the skin, staining it, drying deeply into the grooves. If the dirt and grime of the depicted horror went untreated it would stain not only the mind, but cling to the body like death itself, unable to be removed with hours upon days of scrubbing. It would always feel dirty, and you could always end up permanently stained.

This gorey twist that you adapted in your work was a little strange, even you had to admit it. You didn’t like the idea of torture porn when it came to horror movies, which some found surprising, clearly you didn’t hate it, but there had to be something gained from it. In your pieces you wanted each graphic mark to mean something, there needed to be a story you could read into if you wanted, but often they became reflections of struggles. It was relaxing, in the way that snapping and throwing something can make you sigh and sob after the frustration was finally released.

The thing about art is that it sucks ass. While it can be a weight off your shoulders and drain all of the stress out of you, it could just as easily make you want to stab someone’s eyes out. Staring at pins and needles for long enough just made you want to see your eyes shut so you didn’t have to see them everywhere else. Even closing your eyes made you think of the horrible blotchy shading that just did not want to work because you didn’t think and added too much water to your paints. Hell every time you groaned in frustration your fucking kidnapper look scared. So you tossed the brushes in the sink and worked on scrubbing out the paint before you ruined them right away.

“Do you usually work in these long multiple hour sessions?” He asked you over the sound of running water.

The water was cold, dangerously so. Your fingers toyed with the hair gently mixing small amounts of soap into it. This rhythmic movement helped calm you down and get out of the “holy mother of cats why won’t things go right” headspace that you got stuck in.

“Yeah, that’s common, anything less than three is an oddity.”

“I guess I just didn’t understand how hard it was.”

“Every job is kinda like that.”

You left the brushes on a spread out towel to dry. The pallet of rapidly drying paint was still there and there were a few reasons for why you didn’t clean off the paint; it’d ruin the plumbing, it was half dry anyways, you didn’t care, and it was fun to peel off later. If that little thing could give you some control maybe it would be worth it to wait and try to earn a way out.

Part of you felt like you were giving up too easily, that you had already lost your will to fight when you woke up that first day. Yelling at yourself wouldn’t do anything and you knew that but you felt like it was your fault. Perhaps you’re just the circus elephant tied to nothing. Yet you didn't blame yourself, or at least not as much as you think you were supposed to. Playing along and being good allows for you to be taken as a cute little pet that might be too frightened to try anything. Maybe other kidnappers are different.

You looked at Phinks from when he was leaning back in the folding chair balancing on its back legs. He was large, so much strength loomed over him, making him seem like the biggest in the room. Some damn part of him made you both think he was some jockey asshole like in movies and tv, or some large warm hearted man, though the latter seemed like a stretch.

“You’re starring again.”

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”

You gathered up the sketchbook you had ripped a handful of pages out of. You should lie. Shalnark said something like “he wasn’t perceptive” right? What if you were wrong? What about telling the truth? Would he kill you in anger? Slam you into the wall? Be the manifestation of the shadows from the covered half of the basement that had been driving you crazy, pulling you back and deep down into its maw, screaming as you die from-

“Just say it, I’m in a good mood, I don’t want it ruined with some anxiety attack because you’re scared to say someth-.”

“I don’t know how to feel.” You didn’t turn back to him as you walked towards the stairs, stopping at its feet, so he knew you weren’t trying to run away. “I don’t want to upset you or the others and risk dying or something arguably worse. I feel like everything has to be said correctly or not at all so I don’t find out someone is secretly more delusional than a damn LSD trip.”

You heard the chair squeak a bit as he stood up and walked towards the stairs, he didn’t stop like you and slowly started climbing them, slowly so you could continue.

“I should be scared, angry, maybe I should try to kill someone, or myself, try to escape? I don’t know, I can’t do any of those. I don’t want to, I hate how nice my room was, there was so much thought, so much detail, it felt so real, so close to my messy room. It creeps me out, enjoying the food, the room, the clothes, even the personal products make me feel like I graduated from a top academy with no debt and no depression.”

You lead him down the hall towards the living room. “I haven’t even looked outside you know, somehow I feel like it’ll make or break the dream. I think it might make me try something stupid, make me snap or something. I want to feel okay but I don’t, and when I don’t want to feel okay I do!” You ripped the curtain open, startling yourself.

“Did the window change anything?”

Woods. Beautiful moss covered trees that stretched far. The fire kissed trees rained down their leaves and it looked gorgeous. It reminded you of that date with the cats, the betrayal, of this fuck up of yours. It was something akin to heaven in your eyes, a perfectly twisted picture.

“I miss home.” You said finally tears slipping through your horribly masked emotions. You turned from the window stepping away from its bright light and into your dark room. You didn’t close the door fully behind you, it was very easy to look through the gap.

The blankets were smooth but when you burrowed into them to avoid everything, they felt fluffy against your skin. Even as your breath filled the underneath of them with hot air that felt suffocating, you accepted it with open arms. Stale warm air was unpleasant but it felt like the first warmth you’d felt in eons. The world outside this nest was cold and cruel, and you felt chained to the bed the more you thought about it.

The room's gentle darkness left you thinking as you tossed and turned. You fought back sobs but didn’t care about the tears that leaked down your face. Your sweetest boy laid next to you, his paw resting atop your hand as you faced him and the wall. You longed for the comfort of your real bed, sitting on the small balcony with your cat as he stared wide eyed at the birds.

Maybe you could have avoided this. Maybe if you had kept to yourself, avoided people like you had grown accustomed too, you could have continued your life. It didn’t change the fact that you were here now, but you were haunted by it. Those dark eyes at the damn exhibit. Why did it have to happen? Were you a fool? Were there any signs that you could have noticed? No matter how much crying you did or didn’t do you hated every second you were left to think about anything. Each damn second made you manic, and every other one made you depressed and unable to move. You felt so nauseous that soon you just vomited and sat on the bathroom floor headhung as you finally sobbed.

It was loud and obnoxious, you were lucky only one other person was home. It bounced off the walls. Phinks could definitely hear you. It was the kind of sob that was scratchy and full of angry screams, perfect for a tantrum that would destroy everything in a close area. You felt like a toddler who had been told no when asking for candy, a brat who wanted something. It felt like you were the problem even if you were just a victim of your surroundings. Yet you screamed and cried until your throat was sore, until it felt like it could have been bleeding, and you choked on the bubbling sobs as snot filled every airway.

You laid in a puddle of yourself, not moving when the front door opened and slammed shut. Unblinking as keys jingled down the hall with heavy footsteps. Looking with tired weak eyes, up at Phinks who stood, with plastic bags in hand, his face red and his eyes looking at the wall instead of you.

“It’s late, Fei and Shal want you to have a routine but they're not here… come stay up late and watch a movie or something? Shal bought some of your favorites and ones you’ve talked about! I have some chocolate, or popcorn if you’d like? I’m not sure what you all like when it comes to movie snacks…”

Your voice was so scratchy it hurt to hear you speak. “Please…” you whined as he helped pull you up and onto the living room couch.

He handed you the bags, a multipack of tissue boxes, an assortment of chocolate, popcorn, beer, teas, sodas, chips... You dug through it all and he returned with blankets in hand and a stuffed animal he knew you were attached to, that they all knew you were attached to.

He sat next to you, draping the blankets over you. He pulled a box of tissues out handing one to you. “Use the bag as a garbage bag for now.” He laid out everything haphazardly. He gently pulled your head down onto his lap and pressed the remote into your hand.

The blue glow of the tv puts you to sleep soon enough. It didn’t matter if it was one movie or ten, you were asleep, as soon as you were Phinks was too. You used his lap as a pillow, and Phinks leaned back, his head tossed over the couch’s back, his mouth hung open with a light snore as the tv eventually turned itself off.

In the morning you woke up when the keys turned to open the door’s lock. It made you jolt awake as the door was pushed open. Shalnark was clicking through his phone as he carried in a handful of something.

“Oh, you’re both up? How was the movie night?”

You sunk into the blankets giving back into your exhaustion. “Okay.”

You said it mostly to avoid any upset feelings on his end, the movie night was a nice way to avoid it all. You hated it considering everything, but those few hours of just zoning out at the tv and falling asleep to your favorite movies made you fell like home. You could imagine it so vividly it is what lulled you to sleep, the house didn’t have that smell of the three men, it was your home filled with cat fur, paints, and gesso.

You could feel the canvas frame from when you had to custom build one for a commission. Having to stretch it yourself, and you struggled to pull it back enough for it to hold well. The frame was obnoxiously large, you couldn’t fathom how they had the money to commission it or why they’d need one this size. That one had become a secret favorite, it was in someone’s private collection, an anonymous commissioner. You remember them sending someone to pick it up, which was strange, but if someone had that money how weird could it really be?

“Fei will be appearing soon, he has to drag something down to his office.” Shal giggled to himself speaking without catching his breath. “He’s surprisingly very interested in the work he brought back. It’s like a cat that got a hold of a mouse and doesn’t want to let it go.”

He set his envelope of papers down on the table, and sat down next to you on the couch. He was in front of you really, your back pressed firm against the couch nearly sinking into the cushions and the framework. Shalnark was turned slightly so he could face you and Phinks easily, his knees pressed against the front of the couch and one of Phinks’ knees. He breathed in deeply, his breath pushing both his stomach and chest out, he sort of chuckled as he sighed and leaned over to rest his head on the sofa’s back next to Phinks’ shoulder.

“I missed being home.”

Phinks and you didn’t say anything in response. Maybe Phinks secretly hated Shalnark, well, obviously not, but his silence kind of confused you. He cared deeply about the two from what you could tell, but who's to say you were ever good at reading the room. Your view upwards was obstructed by Shalnark hovering-leaning over you. Phinks moved his arm, you could see its shadow crossover you briefly, but you didn’t see what he did. Shalnark sat there resting with the two of you, this serene glazed look to him. He looked so pleasant, his hair hanging in his face, and his eyes closed.

He did eventually move, while he seemed content that was in no way comfortable to sit there for long. Shal eventually collected his things and ran off to go put them away. You gathered up the mess from the night before. Phinks took the trash out, you saw the cement steps out front as the door opened, and cool air rushed in to kiss your cheeks. The cat with wide eyes watched him complete his chores from the window, while you avoided looking at them. It was easier to stay busy with wiping the table and stacking the coasters in a neat pile in the center.

You kept wiping the table. Slow circular motions as you dazed off. The window just hurt you. Its clear glass was a mirror of your betrayal and gentle suffering, every damn time you saw that view it reminded you of the damned date. That date would remind you of his hands in your hair as you sobbed into his lap. What kind of suffering is this all? To be cursed with the inability to act, but blessed with a comfort of home and kindness. though it came from triplet tyrants. What tragedy had you fallen out of?

You went about giving yourself chores, dusting the shelves and tv stand, sweeping the kitchen floor, making a few pancakes with a box mix you had found, then cleaning up the mess you had made. Your hour or two of small chores only could keep you distracted for so long. You could hear Shalnark from his room, typing away on a keyboard and flipping through papers. When you walked past the basement you could hear things being moved around. It was faint and muffled, almost like you were hearing things, you wanted to go down there, the curiosity haunting you, but I’d anyone scared you the most it was Fetain.

You pushed open Phinks’ door. He had looked up at you as you did, but he didn’t say a thing, just motioned for you to come in. It was simple, navy sheets that were wrinkled, a strange mixture of pillows that didn’t have matching cases. There were some clothes lying around the room and the closet was open. He had a simple fold up chair in the corner and some green running jacket thrown across it. He didn’t have curtains, just the plastic blinds though some were bent and damaged. The closest thing to decoration was a digital clock on a wooden stool made bedside table and high quality at home gym equipment on the floor and tucked away into the closet.

“Need something?”

“I’ve never seen your rooms.” You half ignored the question, “and I don’t want to work on my painting when Fetain is working.”

He hummed, and you sat down on his bed looking at his window with the blinds pulled shut. “I hate it,” you said quietly to yourself, not knowing fully what you meant. “I might drive myself crazy. I keep trying to make things make sense, but I don’t get it.” You flopped down and rolled over, you didn’t look up at his face, didn’t acknowledge if he was looking at you or listening. “I think I’m ignoring half of everything to try and pretend that I’m okay.”

His hand rested on your head, his fingers playing with your hair. “You’re putting up with it well, though coming from me that doesn’t mean much.”

You grabbed his hand and his shirt. Pulling yourself up, straddling his waist. “Why couldn’t you have killed me? Torture me? Why not just make my life a real living hell? I feel like I’m burning but there’s nothing there, I keep thinking I’m drowning but I’m not!” Your hand trailed up to his neck, your nails pressing into his jugular, as you pinned him down to the bed. He laid there with his eyes wide but he didn’t move. “Please give me a good reason to hate it here! Please, I can't understand what’s going on! I didn’t ask for this. I don't know what I’m here for!” you screamed at him, though it wasn’t loud, just desperate. “I can’t do anything.”

His hand grabbed your hip and his other grabbed your neck, and he flipped the roles so he was hunched over you. His nails pressed into your skin. There was no weight to the threat. His hands while touching you, felt like they were hovering.

“You’re allowed to be angry, you don’t need permission for it.” And his hands were lifted away. and he was back on his side of the bed laying just like he was earlier, as if you never disrupted him.

Then you cried, you laid there curled up in a ball next to him. He never touched you, until you reached out and touched him, pulling yourself into his arms. He held you then gently and quietly until you relaxed and laid there half asleep and exhausted. His hands cupped your cheeks and you were held close to his face, his mouth a meare inch from your nose.

“I’ll do anything for you, even if you don’t like us or being here. We will do anything to keep you safe. I’ll make you as happy as I can, I swear to you I will.”

You heard Fetain come up from the basement when the door slammed shut. He was lighter than air with his footsteps so when he walked into Phinks’ room and ended up next to the bed you nearly screamed. “Try to sleep at ten and wake up at six. You need good sleep routine.”

You nodded, Phinks had mentioned it right? Ten to six seemed reasonable. “Exactly 6 am?”

“Roughly. Take time to change, one week to do yourself.”

“I’ll try to do it.” You nodded and a yawn slipped from your lips.

“Take nap, us three will talk work.” He waited for Phinks to get up.

Phinks patted your shoulder, “stay here and sleep for a bit we don’t want you dealing with our work stuff yet.”

“Okay.”

But Feitain hovered for a second longer than he needed to, just quietly looking at you with this deep thoughtful look in his eyes, yet he left without saying anything.

They had a habit of leaving you alone with your thoughts. Thankfully your cat at least sits with you when you need it, most of the time.

There was nothing to do with them all being busy. Something told you not to poke around for answers about what they were discussing. Even though you weren’t gonna search around for answers your mind wandered. It was a gross wandering similar to how one could lay in bed and gaze up into the darkness and just sit there. Rambling and turning whispers in your thoughts flashing images of blood gore and violence. How could anyone imagine what their jobs could be? You were used to surrounding yourself with images of oozing guts, but just beccause you had been decentized to it didn’t mean that fucking kidnappers who seemed more than used to living isolated was something you could handle.

You ran your hand back from the cat’s nose to his ears. He pressed himself so firmly against your hand that his eyelids were slightly pulled back as he demanded all of your attention. You could feel him breathing on you, his soft purrs are loud as he clung to you. When the fur around his face is pushed back his whole meringue look changes to one of a rat. His eyes while blown wide into dark saucers continue to look up at you fondly, his fur looks like a front facing bald eagle. There’s a reason you hardly ever see those angles, it’s less flattering. There’s less pride and a slicked back edge that is perceived as coolness. This is what that sweet cat looked like from this angle, his poofy roundness disappeared and strange looking from the front, while you never truly have looked too explore the other angles of the strange hair-do, the adorably crafted ugliness makes you melt into him as he melts into you.

As you lay there thoughts bubbling up worries and anxiety scratching away at your insides, this sweet fluff keeps you grounded. As was his task, he was an unofficial emotional support cat, nothing more than a pet that kept you mentally stable and provided both a comfort and reason to live. It was easy on the days where the paints seemed poisoned to be unable to reason and find out why you were alive. You wondered if everyone questioned this at times perhaps that’s why your artwork seemed so desperate, why you just cling to an intestine rope to pull you closer to answers and people who relate. It’s not something you can say for sure but even now, after a few years of this cat he kept you perfectly content to question but not give up.

He was also a good muse, posing in ways during his naps. Belly up, his head laid back against a pillow, his front paws folded under his chin but his back legs sticking upwards like two towers, fluffy and off white. He laid his ways that made it hard to determine if he was a cat or strang fluffy void, even though lots of cats did that. No matter how many photos and squeals you let out, it never felt the same, there simply isn't a connection. No photo could replace your cat, because you knew just about everything about him.

Sometimes you wondered if you relied too much on the cat, you’d question if the kidnappers thought the same if you weren’t so preoccupied with anything else. Even in captivity it seemed like you never had time for anything. All your plans would get mixed up or you would get horribly distracted. You acted as if you were wandering naked in a dark maze with how time snuck up on you. With no one to truly tell you otherwise you gave into it when you could, which was most of the time. Hours would be spent gazing off into walls and corners as you painted in your own head, it didn’t matter if you pictured it or not, it was the mental motions of the act that kept you entranced.

A jiggle of a brush, a whirlpool of the paint thinner. Hell the actions are what lured you down into the basement again. You hadn’t been told to stay, hadn't been told not to. You may not have paid attention to the home as you were pulled down to the basement by your navel; the living was quiet though the three men hummed and buzzed with a quiet conversation. You continued onto the door opening it so gently and silently you might have well just phased through the door to begin with. The unfinished steps hadn’t groaned or creaked as you stepped on them even though they should. The door hovered open, the light peering and stealing across the floor to the hall now behind you. As a moth would you step down and forwards moving towards your painting.

At this moment your eyes flashed with one lucid thought, “something isn’t right.” It didn't take a genius to know this but somehow as you were drugged by your own relaxation and you had taken the liberty to forget about everything that had been a bright neon sign telling you something was amiss. You looked away from your studio and across the room at another’s.

It’s important to note that some people have a personal belief that art is in the eye of the beholder, regardless of whether each piece usually has an original meaning in the grand scheme of things. You had thoughts and ideas, messages and stories to tell through your paintings. Each a commentary on something since you didn’t believe in unthoughtful gore and brutality, that wasn’t to say it had no meaning, but that there wasn’t a personal thought being expressed even deep below the surface. In this belief of art interpretation all art has at least two meanings, the artist’s original suffering inquiry, and the viewer’s lack of understanding. With this in mind the scene behind the curtain is much different then one in your studio.

The curtain had always been a temptation, that’s a simple fact of the matter. Place a marshmallow in front of a child and most struggle to resist even with the promise of more. This curtain in your case was so much more than temptation. A temptation is often pictured as sweet and sugary, lustful even, not a need but a want. This curtain was so much more than that, it was thorn covered and speckled with a lifetime of warnings but it wasn’t sweet, there was no guarantee of safety but an expectation of more. Even then you peeled it back.

It was more than a treasure trove of goodies, it was a threatening pile of one. The lights were on and you were slammed into with information as you peared across it all, for instance the room was large, much larger than you thought it was. While most of it was still unfinished further back against the far wall was a much more finished section. That is what you noticed second but you just were too in shock to register the first yet. The furthest wall was finished, a simple gray paint and from it hung old custom paintings, things both long forgotten and new. They were strange to see though in comparison to your room when you had first woken up nothing crazy. The first thing you noticed was crazier, though not too surprising.

The wall was lined with a board, hanging from it an assortment of household tools and even more specialty ones. Mostly pliers, wrenches, screwdrivers of all sorts of sizes. There were spools of wire, rope, and bolt cutters. There were more too, there were tweezers, the heavy duty kind, expensive looking, stainless steel and with a rubber grip. Each item while normally not threatening was fucking horrifying. The blindfolded and gagged half-dead looking man would ultimately agree if he saw the line up. Yet the detail of the organization, to the bindings, and yes even the table he was on, made it look like a perfectly created scene. To Feitain, who you half-confidently assumed was the resident torturer, this must be something artistic or even religious, sometimes the two came hand in hand.

His hair was glued by brown dried blood, his nose broken, the bruising covering his cheeks and eyes from what you could tell from afar. There was no way for him to escape from his binds, strapped down to the table. The table itself looked to be something akin to an embalming table, slightly slanted towards a floor drain, some blood already leaking down from the man and dried against the table’s cold smudged metal. He had bruises down his arms and legs dark purple and splotchy. His ankle looked painfully enlarged, not enough to be a break but horribly sprained.

You should have screamed in horror, your heartbeat sped up like crazy after all. There was enough adrenaline that maybe you could have killed a person, not your captors from the look and attitude of them. If a captor can be so unconcerned like they were either they were morons or knew full well that they had perfect complete control. From a second kidnapped person being in the basement looking like a corpse it’s easy to decide which.

Looking on even in your shocked state you made your third discovery. There were bulkhead doors. A small flight of stairs led up to them. In your shock you continued to move like a ghost, even though your chest was pounding. It rumbled in your gut, twisted and stabbed at your lungs, and you looked upwards at it, upwards into the dark steps a small crack of light. Your cat in all his loving sweetness rubbed up against your leg, mewling softly. You walked forwards reaching upward towards the door, climbing the stairs and gently pressing to see if they’d open, to your surprise it did.

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