#Rust on the Gates of Heaven

[spikedfearn]

As if It’s Heaven’s Gate

one-shot

Remmick x fem!reader

summary: You take a job as a live-in nurse for the town’s most infamous recluse—Remmick, the strange, soft-spoken man hidden away in a rotting Victorian farmhouse no one dares approach. Locals warn you not to touch him. Not to linger after dark. But when you meet him, he’s all big eyes and broken manners, trembling hands and gold chain glinting at his throat. Touch-starved, tender, and ruinously ancient. He flinches when you reach for him—and sobs when you don’t. You drop to your knees, and he forgets the taste of blood. He’s already yours before you ever put your mouth on him.

wc: 8.5k

a/n: holy 2k followers batman!! I wanna thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support my work has gotten over the last month, truly insane, still processing, gonna release something soon as a massive thank you <333 based off this post, I'm sure I'm not the first but I haven't come across any fic of reader going down on Remmick yet and I have a great need to suck that man's dick until his stomach caves in like a Capri-sun (someone revoke my internet access) so here we are. Thank you to @ddlydevotion for finding my photo refs. Dedicated to Sam @matrixfangs for not only beta reading this but also requesting I incorporate Jack's cross tattoo into one of my fics!! title from the song too sweet by hozier.

warnings: vampirism, oral sex (m!receiving), d/s dynamic, begging, spit kink, hair pulling, praise kink, humiliation kink (soft), drool, overstimulation, ruined man behavior, touch starvation, religious imagery, cross kink?, control kink, sub!remmick, somniloquy, emotional degradation (tender), slight dacryphilia, mildly unhinged reader, dark romance, southern gothic atmosphere, implied violence, implied murder (offscreen)

I am doing away with my tag list because it's getting a little long so I recommend turning on notifications if you don't wanna miss when I post c:

likes, comments, and reblogs always appreciated, enjoy!!

The bus wheezed like it was exhaling its last breath, sputtering to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Dust kicked up around its wheels as the brakes hissed and the door creaked open with a reluctant sigh.

You stepped off into the heat—that heavy, wet Southern heat that sticks to your skin like tacky glue, curling into your clothes and dragging its teeth across the back of your neck.

The sun hung fat and merciless in a sky bleached bone-white, cicadas crying loud enough to shake the treetops. Sweat bloomed across your collarbone before your boots even hit the dirt.

It wasn’t real pavement, not out here. Just cracked-red earth, dry and crumbling, veined with weeds and the roots of things too stubborn to die. The main road—if you could call it that—was lined with rusted fence posts, bowed under the weight of creeping kudzu and wire that hadn’t held anything in years.

The town itself looked like it had been forgotten in a drawer: sun-wilted storefronts with paint peeling off in strips, glass windows clouded with grime, and a gas station that hadn’t changed its prices since Prohibition.

A man with no teeth watched you from a bench outside a bait shop. A girl gnawed a peach in the shade of a feed store awning, juice dripping down her wrist as she stared without blinking.

No one smiled. No one welcomed you. Just silence and the shrill, electric whine of summer bugs, loud as a curse.

You adjusted your grip on the suitcase handle—leather, secondhand, the clasp a little loose—and stepped forward, your boots crunching on gravel as the bus hissed again and pulled away behind you. The sudden stillness in its absence made your ears ring. Somewhere down the road, a dog barked once, then went quiet.

The driver who’d agreed to take you the last few miles was late. Or not coming. You checked the watch on your wrist—scratched crystal, the hour hand a little jittery—and waited. The skin on your shoulders prickled. Not from the heat. From the eyes.

They were still staring.

A woman in a gingham dress crossed herself. Didn’t stop walking. Didn’t look at you twice.

Then a voice—cracked with age and smoke, coming from just over your shoulder—broke the thick, humid quiet: “That house got ghosts in it.”

You turned. It was the man from the bench, leaning forward now, elbows on his knees, eyes milky with cataracts. He spat to the side, aimed like he’d done it a thousand times before.

“He don’t come to town. Don’t let him touch you, honey.”

Before you could ask what the hell that meant, the groan of old suspension and rattling chains cut through the air.

A pickup truck, wheezing like the bus, pulled up in a cloud of red dust. Faded forest green with rust eating away the sides and a crooked license plate hanging on by one bolt. The man driving it looked as old as the truck—tan leather skin, yellowed shirt, a straw hat pulled low.

He didn’t say your name. Just nodded once. Like he already knew.

You climbed in beside him, the vinyl seat burning hot through your skirt. Neither of you spoke. The ride out of town was long and winding, lined with cypress trees and fields that had gone to seed. Every now and then, the man would spit out the window. You watched the land unravel into nothing—just swaying grass, rusted scarecrows, and buzzards perched on telephone wires.

Then, after what felt like forever, the truck crested a hill.

And there it was.

The house.

Aging Victorian farmhouse, two stories tall, white paint weathered to the color of bone. Porch bowed in the middle like a snapped spine. Shutters hanging off their hinges. The front door was so dark it looked like a hole punched through the front of the house. Vines crept up the sides like veins, crawling toward the chimneys and windows like they wanted to choke it. Or hold it down.

The iron gates at the front were rusted and tall, still latched shut. You could make out glass-paned windows that looked hollow, staring out at the road like eyes that hadn’t blinked in years.

The man parked, killed the engine, and didn’t move. You stepped out. Shut the door behind you. He didn’t offer to help with the suitcase. Just lit a cigarette, slow and deliberate.

“He sleeps durin’ the day. House is yours ‘til sundown. Don’t linger on the porch.”

You waited for more.

He didn’t offer it.

He put the truck in gear and reversed down the dirt road without another word, vanishing behind the veil of oak and kudzu until there was nothing but eerie birdsong and your own breath.

The wind kicked up. Dry. Hot. Mean. The house creaked—just once. Like it had been holding its breath too.

And then…the front door groaned open.

The open door breathed out a draft of air—cool and heavy, smelling of cedarwood, old paper, and something vaguely sweet, like dried flowers pressed between book pages. It curled around your ankles like mist.

You stepped forward. The porch groaned beneath your feet, boards soft with age, and for one heart-pounding moment you thought the whole thing might give. But it held. Just barely. The screen door had been ripped clean off its hinges long ago. The wooden door itself was open wide now, dark as pitch inside.

You crossed the threshold. The world behind you dropped away like a curtain falling shut.

The house swallowed sound. Swallowed light. It was dim and old in the way caves are old—cooler than it had any right to be, shadows pooling like ink in the corners. Lace curtains yellowed with age hung limp at the windows. The wallpaper had peeled back in strips, revealing ribs of rotting wood beneath. A hallway stretched long ahead of you, lined with crooked picture frames and closed doors.

Your hand skimmed the wall, trying to find your balance. The place felt like it was holding its breath.

Then you saw him.

He stepped out of the parlor like he wasn’t used to being seen, like he expected to vanish the moment your eyes landed on him.

Remmick.

And he was…nothing like you expected.

Not some grizzled recluse with wild hair and yellow teeth, not a hissing, skeletal shut-in like the townsfolk seemed to imagine. No. He was—

Broad.

His shoulders were built like a man who used to work with his hands, chest thick under the open collar of a blue-and-white pinstriped button-up, the sleeves messily rolled to his elbows. Beneath it, a threadbare white wife-beater clung to his torso like second skin. His jeans were dark, faded, worn at the knees, and he was barefoot—toes pale, dust smudged across the tops of his feet, like he hadn’t stepped outside in years.

His hair was short and messy, soft-looking, brown with uneven bangs that fell just above his brows in a way that felt almost boyish, almost accidental. Not styled. Just…unbothered. Untamed. Like he’d dragged his fingers through it and given up halfway.

And then his eyes.

Blue. Too blue. Not sky-blue. Not ocean-blue. The blue of cracked porcelain. The kind of blue that shouldn’t exist in nature. They looked almost glassy, as if someone had painted them on too carefully.

You didn’t know that they were artificial, not yet, like a predator blending in with its surroundings to fool the naive prey. That the real eyes were red as flame and waiting underneath.

But even so, you felt it.

Something inhuman. Something primordial.

You didn’t know what you were seeing. But you knew it wasn’t just a man and yet—you weren’t scared.

He froze when he saw you. Like he’d walked into a memory.

His mouth parted slightly. His hands hung at his sides, rough-knuckled, long-fingered. One of them twitched, just once, like he meant to lift it—and then stopped. Like the very thought of touching was…too much.

His voice came slow, thick. Raspy from disuse. “Evenin’.”

You blinked. “Hi.”

That same hand moved to scratch the back of his neck—awkward, almost boyish. He ducked his head slightly, eyes flitting away from yours. His lips pressed together like he wasn’t sure whether or not to smile, and then decided against it.

“I, uh…I didn’t expect you so soon.”

There was a tremble in his voice, barely there beneath the deep drawl. But it was there. Not nervous. Not quite. Just…unused. He sounded like someone who didn’t speak unless he had to. Someone who had been silent for too long.

You stepped forward, instinctive. He flinched.

It was subtle—just a twitch of his shoulder, the stiffening of his posture, a faint shift backward—but your body caught it. Your eyes caught it. His eyes never left you.

“I’m your nurse,” you said softly, giving your name, your voice feather-light.

He nodded. Still didn’t move closer.

There was a thin gold chain around his neck, peeking out from beneath his collar. It caught the faint light from the window and glinted, just for a second, brushing against the pale hollow of his throat when he leaned forward slightly. Like it had weight. Like it mattered.

You took a breath, trying to read him. He was watching you the way a starving man watches a feast. Not greedy. Not desperate.

Haunted.

Like he was talking to someone who no longer walked this mortal coil.

“Where should I…?” you asked, fingers curling slightly around the strap of your bag.

He startled. “Oh. Right. Room’s upstairs. I, uh—” he hesitated, scratched at his forearm where the button-up had slipped back just far enough to reveal the edge of a vein that looked darker than it should—“I ain’t had company in a while.”

“How long?” you asked.

He blinked at you. Like the question hadn’t occurred to him before.

Then, just as softly, with a note of old sorrow so quiet you nearly missed it, he answered:

“Too long.”

He turned, shoulders shifting beneath the thin cotton of his shirt, and motioned for you to follow. He didn’t offer to carry your bag. Not out of rudeness—it was something else. A hesitation that clung to him like sweat in the air.

The hallway creaked under your steps, your boots heavy against the worn floorboards. His bare feet moved near-silent, just the soft pad of skin on old wood. Dust stirred where he passed, curling like smoke in his wake. You watched the muscles move beneath his shirt—the way the thin material clung to his back, the curve of his shoulders, the faint outline of his spine shifting when he turned a corner. You could almost imagine him once being a laborer, maybe a carpenter, with those thick forearms and that sunken posture—like he hadn’t stood tall in years.

He didn’t look back at you until he reached the stairs.

“They’re steep,” he warned, voice low, accent thickening just a touch like the words were sticking to his tongue. “House wasn’t built for comfort. Not anymore.”

You followed him anyway.

The staircase was narrow and curved, wood darkened by age and use. The banister wobbled when you touched it. His hand hovered near the wall as he climbed, but he didn’t steady himself on anything—as if he was afraid to touch the house too long.

The landing opened into a hallway lit only by a single cracked window. Dust motes danced in the beam of sunlight, and Remmick avoided it completely, skirting the edge like a shadow. You didn’t think much of it. Just heat, maybe. Or habit.

He stopped in front of a door at the far end. It was plain—faded green paint, iron handle gone dull with rust. He opened it for you but didn’t step inside.

“Room’s clean,” he said, still not meeting your eyes. “Did it myself this mornin’.”

You peered in.

Small, but tidy. The bed was old but made, white sheets tucked tight. There was a vanity with a tarnished mirror, a small closet door that hung slightly crooked, and a bedside table with a worn oil lamp and what looked like a book left behind years ago. A hand towel had been folded and left on the pillow.

“You didn’t have to do that,” you murmured.

“I did,” he said simply. Then, quieter: “Didn’t want you thinkin’ I’d leave it…unfit.”

He stood there, barefoot and awkward, hands half-curled at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them. His bangs had fallen deeper over his eyes, hiding them. But you saw the shape of them behind the strands—wide, almost deer-like.

He looked like he didn’t know whether to apologize for being alive or thank you for showing up.

You stepped inside. Set your bag down. When you turned to speak again, he was already halfway down the hall.

He hadn’t made a sound.

Later, after you’d unpacked and washed your face in the cracked porcelain basin, you made your way down to the kitchen, following the faint clatter of dishware. You paused at the doorway.

He stood at the sink, back to you, sleeves rolled higher now—his forearms dusted in pale hair, thick with muscle, the veins just barely raised under the skin. The gold chain shifted at his throat as he rinsed out an old tin mug. He didn’t seem to notice you.

The light from the window cut across the floor, a bright bar of late-afternoon sun. It stopped just inches from where he stood, and he didn’t cross it. His toes curled against the edge like it was a line he couldn’t breach.

You finally spoke. “Do you want any help?”

He jumped.

Not violently—just a twitch. His shoulders drew in, spine straightening, as if your voice had reached into him and plucked something loose.

Then he slowly turned. His eyes—still too blue—met yours, and for a second you thought he looked guilty. Like he’d been caught doing something shameful.

“No,” he said, swallowing. “But…thank you.”

You stepped forward anyway.

He froze. Again.

“I’m just getting a glass,” you said, brushing past him, your fingers grazing the inside of his forearm by accident—just a whisper of skin against skin.

He flinched. Actually flinched. Not hard. Not violently. But enough to feel like a blow. You pulled back, brows furrowing.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine,” he said quickly, voice hushed and low and cracking like dry wood underfoot. “You ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

You turned your head, studied him.

“Do you not like to be touched?”

A pause.

He looked down at the floor. His hands opened and closed once.

“I just…ain’t used to it, is all.”

Not used to it. Not anymore. Not in a long, long time.

You felt something tighten in your chest then, strange and aching. A tether drawing taut. You didn’t know what had happened to him. Why the town feared him. Why the sunlight seemed to singe the air around him. Why his voice trembled when you spoke too softly.

But you did know this:

He was alone.

And he had been alone for a very, very long time.

The glass was cloudy. Not dirty—just old, like everything else in this house. When you turned the tap, the pipes groaned in protest before surrendering a stream of lukewarm water. You sipped, then leaned against the counter, your eyes sliding back to him.

Remmick hadn’t moved.

Still by the sink, shoulder just shy of that stripe of sunlight, arms stiff at his sides like he didn’t know how to stand. The water dripped from the mug he held. A single droplet clung to the edge of his knuckle and then slid down, curling over his wrist.

He stared at the floor. At your boots. At anything except you.

“You live here alone?” you asked.

His head tilted slightly, as though the question had startled him. He nodded.

“For how long?”

A beat.

“…Long.”

He didn’t elaborate. Just that one syllable, spoken like a stone dropped into a well. No echo. No follow-up.

You took another sip. “Locals said you don’t like company.”

His lip twitched—almost a smile, but not quite. It was more like…a ghost of a smirk, something he might’ve worn naturally once, long ago, before it fell out of practice.

“I reckon they said worse’n that.”

“They said not to let you touch me.”

That made him flinch for real.

A sharp intake of breath, his spine straightening, knuckles whitening around the tin cup. He didn’t look at you. Didn’t speak. But the shame bled off him like heat, pouring into the space between you until the air turned too thick to breathe.

You waited.

And when he still didn’t say anything, you set your glass down with a quiet clink and asked gently:

“Why would they say that?”

He looked at you then.

Really looked.

Eyes wide. Blue. Too blue. Glassy in the way that porcelain is glassy—shiny and fragile and false. A color that didn’t feel real, not on a living thing. His brow was furrowed like the question pained him.

“…They scared,” he said softly. “Always been. But fear makes folks say things that ain’t...whole.”

“Is it not true?”

His throat bobbed. That thin gold chain moved with the motion, catching what little light the room offered. His jaw tensed, a tick pulsing just beneath the skin. When he finally spoke, it was so quiet you almost missed it.

“I don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it.”

He said it like it was a rule, not a defense. Something sacred. Something self-imposed and unshakable.

“I didn’t think you did,” you murmured.

That made him pause. Head tilted again. Studying you like you were a puzzle with too many pieces.

“Then why’d you come?”

You gave a small shrug. “They said you needed help.”

“And you believed ‘em?”

“I believe you now.”

That silenced him.

He set the tin mug down gently, almost reverently. The sound was soft. Barely there. Like he’d learned to be careful with his strength. Or maybe he was just scared of breaking things.

“I ain’t had a nurse before,” he said. “Didn’t think I needed one.”

“Well,” you said, tone light, “I’m here now.”

Another pause.

He nodded, still not smiling. Just…accepting. Resigned. Like he’d already decided you were temporary.

A flicker of something passed behind his eyes then. Regret. Fear. Hunger. You couldn’t tell. But it made you step closer. And again—he moved back. Just a step. Not far. Not fast. But enough.

Like your nearness singed. You didn’t take it personally. You were starting to understand: it wasn’t you he didn’t trust. It was himself.

“Can I ask your name?” you said, after a beat.

He blinked. Then, slowly, he answered:

“…Remmick.”

You repeated it once, soft. Let it settle. His breath hitched. And just for a second—less than a breath, less than a blink—his eyes flashed red.

Bright. Brief. Burning.

Gone just as fast.

You didn’t say anything. You weren’t even sure you’d seen it. But he turned away like he had something to hide.

“I’ll, uh…be out on the porch. If you need me.” His voice cracked again. “Dinner’s in the oven.”

“Remmick.”

He stilled.

“Thank you.”

His hand touched the doorframe. Just the tips of his fingers. Then he left without looking back, the gold chain glinting once over the curve of his collarbone as he slipped into the shadows again.

You didn’t know what you’d just seen. But you knew you weren’t afraid. Not of him. And not of whatever was buried beneath those woeful eyes.

The dining room was crooked.

The long table—mahogany once, now dulled and water-stained—sat slightly uneven, legs warped from heat and time. One chair at the end had been worn smooth with use. The others were still draped in white sheets, untouched, forgotten. The chandelier above was dust-choked, only one bulb flickering faintly. Shadows wavered across the ceiling like they were alive.

Remmick was already seated when you stepped in, spine stiff, hands folded neatly in his lap. Not touching the silverware. Not even looking at the plate in front of him. A modest meal—roasted potatoes, black-eyed peas, cornbread—steamed in a careful arrangement across two plates, though yours was a little fuller.

He’d set it out like it was a ritual. Like it mattered. His eyes jumped to yours the moment you crossed the threshold. That same stare—wide, dark in the low light, too big for his face—gave him the look of something puppyish, soft in a way that didn’t match the rest of him.

“I hope it’s alright,” he said quickly, words too fast, too eager. “I cooked it this mornin’. Tried to keep it warm without dryin’ it out.”

You slid into the chair across from him. “It smells good.”

His shoulders relaxed a fraction, like a wire had gone slack. “Ain’t had much reason to cook for two.”

You took a bite, slowly. It was simple—salt, butter, heat. No herbs. No flair. But it was made with care. You could taste that.

Across from you, Remmick didn’t eat. He watched you instead.

You didn’t comment on it at first, but when you finally glanced up, fork paused midair, he looked away too quickly. A flicker of red threatened behind his lashes—gone before you could be sure.

“You’re not hungry?” you asked gently.

He hesitated. “Not for that.”

You blinked.

He flinched. “I mean—nothin’ wrong with it. I just—I don’t eat much. Not lately.”

You let it go. For now.

The silence that followed wasn’t hostile, but it wasn’t easy either. It strained under its own weight. Not tension between you, but the kind that comes when someone’s forgotten how to be in a room with another person. He kept shifting in his seat—shoulders tight, hands flexing slightly in his lap, like he had to remind himself to stay still.

You tried again.

“So…you’ve lived here a long time?”

He nodded. “Since before the war.”

“Which one?”

His lips twitched. “Exactly.”

You huffed a soft laugh. “Do you ever leave?”

Another long pause. He looked down at the table, fingers tracing the edge of a scratch in the wood.

“I used to,” he said. “Town was smaller then. Or maybe it just felt that way.”

“You don’t go anymore?”

“I scare folks.” He said it plainly. No self-pity. Just fact. “And I don’t…do well in the sun.”

You watched the way he said it—carefully. Intentionally vague. Like he was testing how much he could say without scaring you off.

“I noticed,” you murmured.

His eyes lifted again. In the dim lighting, they looked almost black, shadows swallowing all the unnatural blue. The wide shape of them gave him a look so innocent it was disarming—a big-eyed, vulnerable softness, like a boy too shy to ask for what he needed.

“I’m not scared of you,” you added.

He swallowed hard. The gold chain at his collarbone shifted.

“You should be,” he said softly. “But I’m glad you’re not.”

The food sat cooling between you.

You noticed he kept glancing at your hands—how they moved, how they curled around your fork, how they pressed briefly to your chest when you swallowed water. He didn’t leer. Didn’t ogle. But he watched with the intensity of someone who’d gone without touch so long, he’d forgotten what warmth looked like.

“Do you miss it?” you asked.

He looked up sharply. “Miss what?”

“Conversation. Company.”

He blinked like you’d hit him.

“Yes,” he said. Just that. No hesitation. Voice cracking around the edge.

Then, quieter:

“I try not to. But yes.”

You sat with that for a beat.

“I could talk more,” you offered, a faint smile tugging at your mouth. “Or less. If you’d rather quiet.”

He shook his head, too fast. “No—no, I like it. I…I like your voice.”

You blinked. Your cheeks went warm.

He blinked too, startled at himself. “Shit—I mean—not like that. Just. It’s nice. I ain’t heard anything like it in…”

He trailed off. His ears had gone pink.

You laughed gently. “You’re a little out of practice, huh?”

“I’m fuckin’ terrible,” he muttered, half to himself. Then, with a glance at you: “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you said. “It’s nice. You’re…nice.”

He stared at you like he didn’t know what to do with that word. And then, without warning, a loud creak echoed from somewhere deeper in the house. The pipes moaned. The lights flickered.

You jumped.

Remmick didn’t move. But the red flashed again in his eyes—just for a blink, just enough to raise the hairs on your arms.

“Old house,” he murmured.

“Right.”

But he was staring down the hallway now, like he heard something you couldn’t. His jaw clenched. One hand curled tight against his knee, as if fighting the urge to stand.

“Is it safe?” you asked, your voice dipping instinctively into something wary.

His eyes cut to yours.

And something about the way he looked at you then—those big, dark, wide eyes still soft as a dog’s, still scared to ask too much—made your breath catch.

“With me?” he said.

A beat.

Then, softer:

“Always.”

The house changed at night.

It didn’t creak. It breathed—slow and hollow, like the walls had lungs of their own. The old wood carried footsteps in strange directions. Voices turned inward. Time unspooled.

You lay in bed, still dressed, still wired, the heat slick on the back of your neck. The lamp on your bedside table cast a low, amber glow across the ceiling. Somewhere outside, a whippoorwill called once and went quiet.

The room smelled like lavender soap and old cotton. The fan in the corner ticked every fifth rotation. You hadn’t seen Remmick since dinner.

He hadn’t said goodnight. Not that you blamed him.

He’d looked like he wanted to linger. Like his legs didn’t quite want to carry him away. But something in him—something knotted deep—had yanked him back into the dark, like a leash.

Still, you thought of him as you lay there. The way his eyes kept dropping to your hands. The way his voice cracked when he spoke too kindly. The way he watched you like he hadn’t watched another soul in decades—and didn’t know if he was allowed to.

You didn’t mean to doze. But the silence folded over you like a sheet.

And then—

You heard it.

Low. Fragile. Muffled.

A sound curling up through the floorboards.

You blinked awake, heart ticking faster, every hair on your arms rising before your mind even caught up. You sat up slowly. The fan ticked again.

And again, that sound.

A moan.

Male. Soft. Throaty.

Followed by something rougher. Shaped by a tongue and a mouth. Words.

You slid from the bed, bare feet ghosting over the cool floor. Pressed your palm to the wall. Leaned close.

The voice—Remmick’s voice—was speaking. But not English. Something old. It came in broken fragments. Whispered. Half-strangled. And aching.

“A chuisle…mo chuisle, mo chroí…”

(My pulse…my pulse, my heart…)

The wood under your fingers thrummed.

“Táid mo lámha ag crith…Dia, tá brón orm…”

(My hands are shaking…God, I’m sorry…)

A sound followed—wet. Guttural. Like he’d tried to breathe through a sob and swallowed it.

You stepped back, heart rabbiting, heat pooling low in your belly—not from fear, but from something else.

The need in that voice. The loneliness. The way the words clung to his throat like they hurt coming out.

And then—

A moan. Sharp. Broken open.

“Lig dom é a mhothú… lig dom tú a mhothú…”

(Let me feel it…let me feel you…)

You were rooted to the floor, bare toes curling against the wood as something bloomed low in your abdomen—hot and needy and shameful in its intensity. Your thighs pressed together before you even realized you’d done it.

He sounded desperate. Not sexual—not entirely. But starved. Ragged.

Destroyed.

Like he was begging for something he didn’t think he deserved to have, not even in sleep.

“Tá tú anseo…tá tú fíor…ná fág mé…”

(You’re here…you’re real…don’t leave me…)

The words were choked now. Slurred. Drenched in a broken kind of longing. You didn’t mean to press your palm flat against the wall. Didn’t mean to close your eyes.

Didn’t mean to whisper: “I’m here.”

But you did.

And somehow, the sounds stopped. Not abruptly. Just…slowed. Faded.

As if he'd heard you.

As if, wherever he was in that dream, the presence of you at the wall soothed something raw and ancient inside him.

The air stilled. No more moaning. No more whispers. Only quiet. You stood there for a moment longer, breath shallow, chest tight. Then turned back to the bed.

And as you crawled beneath the covers, something inside you whispered—

He wasn’t dreaming of just anyone. He was dreaming of you.

You didn’t sleep long.

When you woke again, the air was different. Thicker.

Your body was heavy with it, sunk into the mattress, heart drumming in your ears like you were already in motion. The fan had stopped ticking. The lamp had gone out. A soft glow slanted in through the hallway—a light left on downstairs, maybe. Or—

No.

Someone had turned it on.

You sat up slowly. The floorboards creaked outside your door. Once. Twice. A pause. Then a knock. Soft. Barely there.

Your stomach flipped.

“Yeah?” you called, voice still sleep-rough, soft enough that he could ignore it if he needed to.

But he didn’t. The door opened a crack. And there he was.

Remmick.

Still barefoot.

Still dressed the same—pinstriped button-up wrinkled from sleep, sleeves rolled to the elbows, suspenders hanging loose at his sides. His hair was mussed now, falling harder into his face, and his chest rose and fell beneath the thin white wife-beater like he’d climbed stairs too fast. Or hadn’t been breathing right since sundown.

He didn’t cross the threshold. Not at first.

He stood there like a man unsure of his place in the world—a broad shadow outlined in gold from the hallway light, wide-eyed and fidgeting, arms at his sides like he didn’t trust himself to lift them.

“Sorry,” he said, voice raw. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.”

He hesitated.

Then: “Can I…?”

He didn’t finish the sentence. But his eyes flicked toward the inside of the room—dark and private and unthreatening—and you understood.

You nodded once. “Yeah.”

He stepped in.

Carefully. Like the floor might bite him.

The door shut behind him with a click that echoed louder than it should have. He stood near the dresser, eyes darting—not in panic, but like he was looking for something to anchor himself to. His fingers worried the hem of his sleeve. His shoulders were hunched, defensive, vulnerable despite the width of them.

His eyes—dark in this light, wide and glassy—looked almost wet. Puppyish. Devastating.

“I heard you,” you said quietly. “Last night.”

He stiffened.

“I didn’t mean to,” you added. “I just…couldn’t sleep.”

His jaw flexed. His throat bobbed. He didn’t look at you.

“You were speaking in another language.”

“Gaelic,” he muttered, almost like he was ashamed of it. “From…before.”

“Before what?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped closer. His hand twitched at his side.

“I didn’t know I was talkin’,” he said. “I don’t—usually.”

“You sounded upset.”

“I was.”

You waited.

Then, just above a whisper:

“I was dreamin’ of you.”

The room tilted. Your breath caught.

He raised his eyes then—still that soft, drowning dark, still wide like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to say your name, let alone admit this.

“I know it ain’t right,” he murmured, voice hoarse, almost breaking. “But I’ve been here so long. Been quiet so long. And then you—” His breath hitched. “You come in here like you’re made of light. Like you belong. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

You stood slowly.

He didn’t move. He watched you with that same broken hunger, like he’d already decided you were too good for him, but couldn’t stop himself from needing you anyway.

“You’re shaking,” you said.

He glanced down. His hands were trembling. You stepped closer. He didn’t flinch this time.

But he didn’t touch you either. Just stood there—shoulders tight, breath shallow, like if he touched you, you’d vanish.

“I ain’t touched anyone in so long,” he whispered. “And I keep thinkin’ about what they said. About me. About my hands. That I ruin things.”

You reached up, slowly, brushing your fingertips just above his collarbone—where the thin gold chain clung to his skin.

He gasped like it burned. You didn’t pull away.

“You didn’t ruin this.”

His eyes fluttered shut. His lip trembled. A sound caught in his throat—half a sob, half a moan—as he leaned forward, forehead just barely grazing yours.

“Tell me not to,” he whispered. “Tell me to leave, and I will. But if you don’t—if you don’t say it—I swear to God, I’m gonna fall to my knees.”

The air between you crackled.

And his voice dropped, Irish blooming up from the roots of him like something ancient and helpless:

“Cuir do lámha orm…ná tabhair uaim thú…”

(Put your hands on me…don’t take yourself away from me…)

You didn’t speak at first. Didn’t move either.

Just breathed—slow and even, like you were the calm center of a storm, and he was every desperate gust of wind trying to press against your skin.

Remmick stood there, trembling. Not from fear. From need. It curled off him like steam, thick and desperate, clinging to the air between you. His pupils were wide, swallowing the color of his irises until they looked nearly black, and his lips parted like he wanted to say more, to beg, to confess—but didn’t know how to start.

You reached for him.

He gasped—actually gasped—when your fingers slid up the open placket of his button-up, brushing the edge of his white ribbed wife-beater. You felt the tremor through him, all the way down. His chest was warm and solid, rising and falling like he was trying not to pant.

Your hands smoothed over his shoulders, palms splaying against the thick muscle hidden beneath soft cotton. And then, softly—gently, like it was a kindness—you pushed him.

He let you.

Without resistance, without question, he backed up until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed, and then he sank down like he didn’t know how to carry his own weight anymore. He sat there, breath shallow, eyes wide and wet and locked on you like you were the moon and he hadn’t seen the sky in a hundred years.

You stood between his knees. Tilted his chin up with just two fingers under his jaw.

“Hands to yourself,” you ordered, soft yet firm.

His breath hitched. His fingers dug into the comforter on either side of him, white-knuckled and obedient.

You watched the way he fought his own instinct—fought it like it pained him. He wanted to touch you. God, did he want to. It rolled off him in waves. His thighs were tense, knees spread wide, shirt wrinkled where your hands had touched him. He looked wrecked already.

“Y-you sure?” he asked, voice cracking like shaky glass under the burgeoning weight of desperation.

“I didn’t ask for your hands,” you said. “Not yet.”

His throat bobbed. The gold chain swayed at the base of his throat as he nodded—once, sharp, frantic.

“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay, I—yeah, I can do that. I’ll be good.”

You smiled, slow and soft and wicked.

“I know you will.”

He whimpered. Actually whimpered. A soft, strangled sound pulled from the depths of him, one he didn’t seem prepared for.

His hair had fallen over his brow again, mussed and curling faintly with sweat at his temples. You brushed it back, deliberately slow. He didn’t lean into the touch—he melted under it. His lashes fluttered. His lips parted.

“You’ve really gone this long?” you murmured, thumb stroking the sharp line of his trembling cheekbone.

His voice was barely audible.

“Thirteen hundred years.”

You blinked. He looked away, ashamed.

“I feed when I have to,” he said, “but touch? Mouths? Skin? That kinda closeness?” He shook his head, jaw tight. “Not since—fuck. Before the plague hit London.”

You stared at him, stunned.

“You’re starved.”

He looked back at you with those wide, dark, pleading eyes, red bleeding into his pupils like a fresh laceration, like a man who's learned to lick his wounds clean in silence finally cracking open wide and letting you see the most vulnerable parts of him.

“I’m starvin’.”

You nodded, slow and understanding, letting your hand fall away from his face.

“Then sit still, Remmick,” you murmured, hushed, like you were afraid to shatter the silence. “And let me feed you.”

His breath shuddered out of him like you’d punched it from his lungs. His hands curled tighter in the sheets. His voice was hoarse, shaking, with the faintest Irish crack as he whispered:

“A ghrá…táim i do lámha…”

(My love…I’m in your hands…)

You stayed standing between his knees, just looking at him, because even if you didn't know what those words meant, you could feel them carve into your soul like a brand.

And Remmick—God help him—let you. Didn’t dare breathe too deep, didn’t dare move a single muscle. He was shaking with it. With restraint. With want. With that terrible, ancient hunger not just for blood, but for closeness, for skin-on-skin, for the obscene luxury of being touched.

Your fingers reached for him. He twitched.

Not in fear. In anticipation. His lips parted, a fine strand of spit hanging off one corner, catching in the gold glow of the hallway light behind you. It glistened, trailing down toward his chin before pooling at the dip beneath his lower lip—thick, warm, a little foamy, and wholly instinctual. His breath came in short, shallow bursts now, as if his body was preparing for something it didn’t fully understand.

You slid his suspenders off the broad slope of his shoulders first, snapping one against his pec, feeling arousal pool into your cunt like molten hot lava when he whimpers at the pleasant sting of it, letting the thin scraps of fabric fall down beside his hips.

Then you undid the first button of his shirt. Then the next. And the next. Slow. Deliberate. Never breaking eye contact.

Remmick’s eyes were huge in the dark—dark and shiny, wide like a dog waiting to be called forward, like he’d sink his teeth into the floor just for a word from you. Sweat pearled at his temples. His thighs spread slightly wider beneath you as the shirt parted open.

His chest was beautiful. Scarred, but beautiful—pale muscle threaded with faint blue veins, the sort that spoke of long nights and longer hunger. His skin was cool beneath your fingertips, though you could feel the heat roiling beneath it, just under the surface.

But what drew your eye—what made you pause—was the tattoo.

On his left ribcage, inked into him like a brand, was a budded cross—old, faded, the lines a little blurred from age but unmistakable. A Christian cross, yes—but older, rougher, like it had been carved into him by a trembling hand in candlelight.

You stared.

He followed your gaze, and his throat worked, the motion making his chain jump slightly against his collarbones.

“I got that when I still thought it’d save me,” he whispered, voice tight.

You dropped to your knees. He whimpered.

No contact yet—just the sound of your body lowering between his thighs, the shift in the room, the weight of your presence pressing into the cradle of his hips. He tipped his head back against the edge of the bed, more thick drool sliding from the corner of his mouth, breath now shallow, frantic, like he was trying not to choke on his own spit.

You leaned forward. Pressed your mouth to the edge of the cross.

He hissed.

You kissed it. Then licked—tongue flattening over the cool ink, tracing it reverently, slowly. He trembled beneath you like a man being sanctified and defiled all at once.

The irony rolled off your tongue with every stroke.

A man like this—older than gunpowder, older than the books that tried to define him—wearing a cross close to his heart like it still meant salvation.

You dragged your lips lower.

Down his ribs. Over the ridges of muscle. To the soft trail of hair starting just below his navel—a dark, fine line that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans.

You licked that too. Just once. Teasing.

Following the path slowly, like you were on your knees at an altar, taking your time with worship. His happy trail twitched under your tongue.

Above you, Remmick made a noise that wasn’t a moan or a sob but something shattered between the two.

More drool slipped from his lips now—foamy, thick, sliding down his chin, catching on the curve of his neck and the edge of that trembling gold chain. He didn’t wipe it. Couldn’t. You’d told him not to touch.

His voice broke apart.

“I c-can’t take it,” he choked. “I swear to God, I’m gonna come just from you lookin’ at me like that—just from that tongue—fuck, darlin’, please.”

You looked up at him.

Still on your knees. Still reverent. And said, with quiet finality, “Good.”

You reached for his belt.

His breath caught—sharply, like the sound a deer makes when it hears the snap of a twig too close behind it. But he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Just stared down at you with those wide, wet eyes, black in the low light, pupils blown to the edge. His chest rose and fell like he was sprinting through mud.

The leather was worn, soft from age and use, the buckle cool in your fingers.

You took your time.

Slowly, purposefully, you undid the clasp, the soft clink of metal loud in the hush of the room. He whimpered, his thighs tensing beneath you, and more drool spilled from the corner of his mouth—thick, glistening, sliding down his chin

“Stay still,” you reminded him, voice silk-wrapped steel.

He nodded, a jerky, miserable little movement, and you swore his lower lip quivered. You dragged the zipper down, each tooth catching slightly, the sound sharp and intimate.

And then—finally—you pulled him free.

Your breath hitched.

He was hard. Painfully so. Flushed deep red at the tip, already leaking, the slit glossy and wet. He twitched in your hand, a thick vein pulsing along the underside, and his thighs quivered like he could barely keep himself grounded.

“Jesus,” you whispered.

Remmick gave a breathless, broken laugh, chin tilted back as he struggled not to move. His hands were fists in the sheets now, white-knuckled, his gold chain trembling across his throat with every shallow breath.

“I—fuck, I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I can’t stop—fuck, it’s so much—”

You looked up at him as you gave him the first stroke.

Just one.

Slow.

Base to tip, twisting your palm, watching his mouth fall open wider—thick drool spilling freely now, down his neck, dampening the edge of his shirt. He looked utterly destroyed already.

“Does it feel good?” you asked, your voice soft, cruel with how gently you said it.

He nodded frantically.

“Use your words.”

His head lolled forward. His voice was wrecked. “Feels like heaven,” he groaned. “Oh God, sugar, I cain’t—I cain’t believe—”

You didn’t let him finish.

You leaned forward, licking up the length of him, tongue flat, slow, letting his taste settle warm and heavy on your tongue—salt and skin and something a little coppery, something distinctly him, something old. He sobbed. Actually sobbed, chest hiccuping, thighs jerking just slightly before he caught himself and moaned through clenched teeth.

Your mouth wrapped around the head. He cried out.

No words now. Just a strangled sound ripped from his throat, and more drool frothed at the corners of his lips. He looked dazed—eyes rolling back, lashes fluttering. His hips bucked once—a reflex—and immediately stilled like he was terrified to move again without permission.

You pulled back just enough to speak, saliva stringing between your lips and his flushed cock.

“I told you,” you whispered. “Hands to yourself.”

His voice came out wrecked, breathless.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Then your mouth was back on him.

You took him deeper this time—slow, tight suction, twisting your wrist around what you couldn’t take yet—and the way he howled, you’d have thought he’d been starved in every way a man could be. Which, of course, he had. Thirteen hundred years of this. Denied. Suppressed. Begged away.

His thighs trembled. His belly tensed. And still he didn’t move. Didn’t touch. Didn’t dare.

You sucked harder.

He broke.

“Fuck—fuck, I’m gonna—darlin’, I—I can’t—oh, please, please, I’m so sorry—”

He was crying.

Not just drool now—actual tears, shining in his lashes, streaking down his flushed face as you sucked him through it, as he jerked and shook and whimpered out your name like it was a hymn.

He came with a sob, hips barely stuttering forward as his whole body went taut, his cock pulsing against your tongue, spilling hot down your throat in waves, thick and heavy and so much you almost gagged on it.

He was loud.

Pathetic.

Perfect.

When you finally pulled off, he was slumped forward—a wrecked, shivering mess, his lips bitten red and his chain soaked through with spit and sweat. His chest heaved. His thighs twitched.

You sat back on your heels, wiped your mouth slowly.

“Still with me?” you asked.

He nodded, weakly. “I ain’t ever lettin’ you leave.”

He collapsed.

Not fell—melted. Like every bone in him had turned to syrup and grief, his body slumping forward, catching on the edge of the bed before slipping down to the floor.

Boneless.

His cheek pressed to the old wood, hair clinging to his forehead, the buttons of his half-undone shirt twisted beneath him. He was drenched—sweat slicked across his chest and ribs, his pale skin kissed pink from effort, a shine of drool still slicking his chin, clinging to the corners of his mouth like foam. His gold chain was crooked now, stuck against the sweat-damp hollow of his throat.

You rose slowly to your knees, then leaned forward—not to comfort him, not yet—but to press your lips to that chain.

Right at the dip of his collarbones. He gasped. Like it burned. Like your mouth was fire and he’d been craving the flame.

His eyes fluttered open—glass-wet, dazed, the whites shot red, his lips trembling from overstimulation. He looked wrecked. Used. Holy.

And still. Still, he tried.

One shaking hand rose, dragging along the edge of your thigh—hesitant, aching, reverent. His fingers brushed your hip like he was praying through it.

“Lemme touch you,” he breathed. “Please. Let me—wanna make you feel good—want your taste on my tongue, sugar, please—”

You caught his wrist mid-rise. Firm. Final. His breath hitched. His mouth parted. But he didn’t resist. Didn’t fight. You leaned in close, until your mouth was at his ear, and whispered—

“You don’t get to yet.”

His eyes fluttered. His breath caught.

“You’re gonna learn to wait.”

A tremble rolled through him, from head to toe. His hand fell away, limp at his side. And then he nodded.

Small. Shaky. Utterly obedient.

“Yes, ma’am,” he breathed. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait, I swear.”

You ran your fingers through his hair, gently now, and he whimpered at the touch.

“Look at you,” you murmured.

He did. Glassy-eyed. Pathetic. So fucking into it.

His tongue darted out across his lower lip, catching more of the drool clinging there, and he looked at you like he’d fall on his knees all over again if you so much as told him to.

“Did I do good?” he asked, voice so small, so needy it nearly broke something open in your chest.

You smiled.

And whispered, “You were perfect.”

He didn’t get up. Didn’t even try.

Just curled in beside your legs like a dog, bare chest heaving, forehead pressed to your knee, as if your body alone could tether him to the earth. His arms folded in at his chest, drawn tight like he didn’t trust them not to reach for you again.

You stayed still. Let him have it. Let him exist in the aftermath—his breath still catching, his sweat-soaked hair plastered to his brow, drool drying tacky at the corners of his mouth, his jeans half undone around his hips, completely forgotten. He looked small down there, despite the size of him. Small and wrecked.

He murmured against your thigh—words so soft you almost missed them, lips brushing the fabric of your skirt like a confession:

“Didn’t know it could feel like that…”

You glanced down.

His eyes were closed, lashes wet. His lips parted as he pressed the side of his face closer to your leg, as if nearness was the only thing keeping him from coming apart again.

“Didn’t know I could feel like that.”

You stroked his hair gently. He shivered.

“I ain’t been held like this since…” He swallowed. “Since before.”

You waited. Then, with a sigh that hitched in his throat, he said:

“Before I stopped bein’ a man and started bein’ a thing.”

Your fingers paused at his temple.

But he nuzzled into your knee like he hadn’t said something awful. Like he hadn’t peeled that truth out of himself and bled it onto your lap.

“I remember what it was like,” he whispered. “Before I turned. Before the hunger. Before all that silence got in me and stayed.”

Another pause.

“I used to think about what it’d be like, y’know? Fallin’ apart for someone. Just crackin’ open. Bein’ touched like I was human.”

He sighed again.

“Didn’t think it’d ever happen.”

Your hand returned to his hair, soft strokes over the messy bangs sticking to his forehead.

He let out a low, contented whine.

“Felt you on my tongue before I ever tasted you,” he breathed, voice thick and syrup-slow. “In my dreams. In my fuckin’ bones.”

His fingers brushed the floor. Not reaching. Just hovering.

“Tell me you won’t go,” he whispered.

You didn’t say anything. But you didn’t move. And that was enough.

He breathed deep then, nose brushing your thigh, the gold chain glinting dully in the light. His body slackened further, weight pooling against you like he meant to stay right there forever—a crumpled thing collared in sweat, salt, and shame, held together only by the sound of your breath and the soft drag of your fingers through his hair.

“I’m ruined now,” he said sleepily. “You know that, don’t you?”

You smiled faintly.

“Good.”

He whimpered again. A sound so low and lovely it curled down your spine and planted itself deep in your stomach.

And then he sighed—the sound of someone finally coming home—and nuzzled in deeper at your thigh.

[elryuse]

Seven minutes of heaven with your tomboy cousin Ryujin turns you from best friends to incestuous fuck buddies

Seven Minutes Of Heaven

Ryujin X Male Reader

Tags : Cousin-Love, Tomboy Ryujin, Sweet, Lovey-dovey, Lustful, Teasing, Lots of sex, Teens, Young and Free

Words : 6,868

Hope you guys liked it. More Requested Fics, On The Way.

You hadn’t been back here in years.

The train hissed as it pulled into the station, the countryside stretching endlessly behind it — all green and gold, the scent of pine trees and dry grass sneaking in through the open windows. Cicadas buzzed like they were trying to drown out your thoughts, and the heat pressed against your skin like a heavy blanket.

You grabbed your bag and stepped onto the platform, blinking against the sun.

And there she was. Leaning against a pole with a piece of candy in her mouth and an annoyed look on her face, Ryujin didn’t even wave. She just gave you that same look she used to give when you stole her last bite of ice cream as kids — equal parts unimpressed and vaguely amused.

“Yo.” Her voice was raspy, a little lower than you remembered, and filled with a casual confidence that hadn’t existed when you were both twelve.

You stared for a second. Ryujin had changed.

Her once bowl-cut hair was now shoulder-length and messy, tucked under a faded baseball cap turned backwards. A white tank top clung to her frame, loose and stained near the hem. Her jean shorts looked like they’d survived three wars. And her knees were bruised. Still as tomboy as ever.

And yet, there was something else now — something grown-up, something wild in her grin. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” you said.

She popped the candy out of her mouth with a click. “That’s ‘cause I got hotter.”

You snorted, shouldering your duffel. “Still annoying, I see.” She bumped her shoulder into yours. “Still slow.”

And just like that, it was like nothing had changed. The walk back to the house was filled with awkward silences and the crunch of gravel under your shoes.

“You got taller,” she muttered, stealing glances at you.

“You got more violent,” you muttered back, rubbing your shoulder from where she hit you.

Ryujin laughed, loud and unfiltered, like she wasn’t trying to be polite. “What, did you expect me to run into your arms or something? Cry tears of joy?”

You shrugged. “I expected you to at least pretend to be happy to see me.”

“Dude, I am happy,” she said, grinning sideways at you. “I just don’t do the whole emotional ‘hug me, cousin I missed you!’ crap.”

“Clearly.” The sun beat down on your back as the familiar house came into view — the same wooden gate, the same rusted wind chime that made that off-key ting whenever the wind blew.

A part of you had been scared to come back. After everything. After growing up.

But Ryujin made it feel easier. Even if she was a chaos goblin in denim shorts.

You dumped your bag in the guest room. Same futon. Same tiny fan.

Your aunt and uncle were both still at work, so it was just you and Ryujin for the afternoon.

You hadn’t even finished unpacking when she barged in without knocking.

“Come on,” she said, arms crossed. “We’re going out.”

You blinked. “Going where?”

“Anywhere but here.” She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t come all the way out here to sit around and sulk in a dusty room, did you?”

You opened your mouth to argue, but she was already halfway down the hall.

You sighed, grabbed your phone, and followed.

She took you to the lake. You remembered this place — vaguely. A giant reservoir hidden behind a mess of trees and tall reeds. Back when you were kids, your parents never let you swim in it. Too dangerous, they said. Too deep.

Now?

Ryujin stripped her tank top off like it was nothing, revealing a black sports bra beneath. She toed off her sneakers and stood barefoot in the grass, eyes bright.

“I swear to god, if you don’t jump in, I’m pushing you.”

You hesitated. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes.”

“Neither did I.” She took a running start and cannonballed into the water with a scream.

You cursed under your breath — but something about the way she laughed, like the world couldn’t touch her, pulled you in.

The water was cold and sharp and perfect.

You surfaced beside her, blinking water from your eyes, and she immediately splashed you in the face.

“Ryujin!”

“Come on, loser! Fight me!”. And you did. You wrestled in the water like kids again, laughing until your sides ached. Until you were both floating side by side, the sky spinning above you.

Ryujin let out a sigh. “Told you it’d be worth it.”

You looked at her, water in her lashes, a soft smile on her lips.

“…Yeah. You were right.”

That night, you both lay on the roof, eating watermelon and pointing at stars.

“I thought you’d be boring,” Ryujin said, mouth full.

You rolled your eyes. “You say that like it’s a compliment.”

“It is. Boring guys make the best straight men for chaos.”

“You planned this, huh?”

She grinned. “Hell yeah I did.”

A silence settled between you — not uncomfortable, just familiar. Easy.

You glanced at her. “You’ve really grown up.”

Ryujin didn’t look at you.

“You haven’t,” she said. “Still soft. Still kind. Still trying to keep up.”

You smiled faintly. “Is that a bad thing?”

She turned her head then, just a little. Her voice was quieter when she answered. “No. It’s not.”

And under the stars, with the scent of watermelon and the cicadas screaming into the night, you felt something shift.

Something small.

But undeniable.

You wake up to a text from Ryujin.

7:03 AM wake up, slowpoke. we’re racing today. 🏁🚲💨

Your eyes squint at the screen. You’d stayed up until nearly 2 AM last night after stargazing, barely speaking but not wanting to go inside either. It was… nice. Peaceful.

This, however? This was war.

You step out into the hallway and immediately get hit by something soft — a rolled-up pair of socks smacks you right in the face.

“What the hell—”

Ryujin grins from the end of the hall, one foot planted on the wall behind her like she’s modeling for a 90s skate brand. “You looked too comfortable. Thought I’d fix that.”

You throw the socks back at her. She ducks.

“You said we’re racing?” you ask, brushing your teeth while she leans against the doorframe.

“Yeah. Bikes. Old route. You remember the one behind the rice fields?”

Your brain flashes to a dirt path cutting through green, sharp turns, dragonflies darting like missiles. “Barely.”

“Perfect,” she says, already slipping on fingerless gloves and tying her hair up. “No excuses when I destroy you.”

You end up on your uncle’s dusty old mountain bike, and Ryujin’s already two blocks ahead by the time you start pedaling.

“You absolute demon!” you shout.

She cackles over her shoulder, long legs pumping, wild hair flying out from under her cap. “You snooze, you lose!”

She cuts between trees like a local. You try to keep up, but she’s always just a little ahead. You catch glimpses of her through branches — the flex of her back muscles, her voice echoing through the woods.

It’s like she belongs to the chaos.

Eventually, you both stop at the top of the old hill overlooking the river.

She hops off, panting, and plops down in the grass.

“Told you I’d win.”

You collapse beside her. “That wasn’t a race. That was attempted murder.”

“Same thing, really.”

You’re sweating. She’s glowing.

You steal a glance at her — sun on her face, lips slightly parted as she catches her breath. Her sports bra clings to her skin, and you look away fast, heartbeat doing weird gymnastics.

“Hey,” she says suddenly.

You turn.

She grins. “You were looking at my chest just now, weren’t you?”

You sputter. “N-No!”

“I didn’t say it was bad,” she teases, leaning closer. “Just surprising. Didn’t think you had the guts.”

You nearly fall backward. She just laughs.

God, she’s trouble.

That afternoon, Ryujin drags you to the local store.

You haven’t been there in ages, but it smells the same — dusty wood, candy wrappers, and sun-warmed soda.

“Two mango sodas and those shrimp chips,” she says, tossing everything on the counter. “He’s paying.”

“Wait, what—?”

She elbows you. You shut up and pay.

On the walk back, she tears open the chips with her teeth and sticks one between your lips.

You blink at her. “I can feed myself.”

She shrugs. “I’m spoiling you. Don’t get used to it.”

That night, Ryujin barges into your room with a flashlight.

“Come on,” she says, tossing you a hoodie. “Bonfire time.”

Outside, near the riverbank, she’s already stacked twigs and paper and broken-up boxes. You help her light it.

She hands you a bottle of cheap cola. Sits close.

Too close.

The fire crackles. Her eyes shimmer orange in the glow.

“You remember that time we both fell into the koi pond?” she asks out of nowhere.

You smile. “You pushed me.”

“You pushed me first.”

“Yeah, because you cut my hair in my sleep!”

She laughs, full and loud. “It was a prank! You looked great.”

You shake your head. “You were a menace.”

“I am a menace.”

She falls silent for a beat. Then:

“But you never got mad. Not really.”

You look at her. Her expression is unreadable, the flames dancing in her eyes.

“You just… stayed.”

After the fire dies down, you lie on your backs in the grass. It’s cold. You can feel her elbow barely brushing yours.

“Truth or dare?” she whispers.

You snort. “Seriously? How old are we?”

“Pick.”

“…Truth.”

She turns to face you. “Do you like anyone right now?”

You freeze.

There’s a long pause. Then:

“…Maybe.”

She smirks. “Ooh, city boy’s got secrets.”

“Your turn.”

“Truth.”

“Same question.”

She turns away from you, staring at the stars.

Her voice is soft. “Yeah.”

You hold your breath.

She doesn’t elaborate.

Neither do you.

The next day is different.

The air feels heavier. The sky is clouded, and Ryujin’s unusually quiet. She doesn’t poke fun at your sleepy face. Doesn’t make you race her again. Just walks beside you, hands in her pockets, eyes somewhere else.

Eventually, you sit together on the porch, the sky threatening rain.

“You okay?” you ask.

She shrugs. “Just thinking.”

“You? Thinking? Must be serious.”

She laughs, but it’s a little hollow. “You ever feel like… the older you get, the more fake everything feels?”

You look at her.

She continues, “Like we’re all pretending. Pretending to be okay, pretending we know what we’re doing.”

You nod slowly. “Yeah. I feel that.”

She looks at you then — really looks.

“…But when I’m with you, I don’t have to pretend.”

The wind shifts. The first raindrops fall.

And for a second, you want to say something.

But she’s already standing.

“Race you to the shed,” she says, taking off.

You chase her.

Because that’s what you’ve always done.

Inside the tiny garden shed, both of you soaked, she tosses you a towel.

You dry your hair, heart pounding.

She sits on the bench, knees pulled up, watching the storm rage outside.

It’s quiet.

Then she says, “I liked you. Back then.”

You freeze.

She doesn’t look at you. “I don’t know if it was a cousin thing, or just because we were always together. But I liked you. Like, liked liked you.”

“…Ryujin.”

She finally turns.

And smiles — not her usual smug one, but something smaller. Sadder.

“I don’t think it ever went away.”

You don’t answer.

Not yet.

Because you don’t trust your voice.

Instead, you sit beside her, the rain thundering above you.

And she leans her head against your shoulder.

Just like that.

No teasing.

No jokes.

Just closeness.

And maybe — just maybe — you feel the same way.

Summer keeps going.

Days blend into nights, and the air grows thicker with each passing sunset. You fall into a rhythm with Ryujin — a rhythm of late-night bike rides, lazy mornings, watermelon slices, and quiet little wars in the form of teasing remarks.

But something’s changed.

You feel it in the way her eyes linger a second too long when you’re laughing. In the way she’ll shove you, but then her fingers curl around your wrist just to hold it there a moment longer. In how her silence now feels heavier — more charged — like there’s something always on the tip of her tongue.

And maybe you're the same.

Maybe you’ve started watching her too closely. Memorizing the lines of her smirk, the freckles on her shoulders, the way she throws her head back when she laughs like she doesn’t owe the world anything.

Maybe you’re starting to fall.

No — not starting.

You already are.

It happens on the third Thursday since you got here.

You’re helping Ryujin patch a flat tire on her bike, grease staining your fingers. She's crouched beside you, hair tied up in a haphazard bun, an ice pop dangling from her lips like some sort of bribe.

"You know," she says casually, "I don’t hate having you here."

You glance up at her.

She’s not looking at you. Just focused on the tire.

"That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve said to me all week," you joke.

She shrugs. "Don’t get used to it."

But her voice is soft. The kind of soft she only uses when she means something and doesn’t want you to know she means it.

You hand her the wrench.

She takes it — and her fingers brush yours.

And she doesn’t pull away.

Neither do you.

That night, there’s a fireworks festival in town.

Ryujin shows up at your room in denim overalls and a sleeveless black crop top, holding two cans of soda like it’s no big deal. Her hair’s still a mess. Her nails are chipped. Her lips are cherry red from the popsicle she had earlier.

You’ve never seen anything more beautiful.

“You gonna keep staring, or are we leaving?” she says.

You don’t answer. You just walk beside her.

The festival is all noise and color — lanterns strung between trees, kids running barefoot, the smell of grilled squid and sweet syrup hanging in the air.

You and Ryujin sit on the hill above the main square, legs stretched out, shoulders almost — almost — touching.

The first firework explodes overhead.

Ryujin tilts her head back, lips parted in wonder.

You should say something. You should tell her.

Instead, you ask, “What’s your biggest fear?”

She blinks. Then laughs. “What kind of firework-date-question is that?”

“Come on,” you nudge her. “Humor me.”

She’s quiet for a moment.

Then: “I’m scared I’ll lose the people who make me feel real.”

You glance at her.

She’s not watching the sky anymore.

She’s watching you.

Later that night, you’re walking back.

The fireworks are over. The town’s lights are dim. The cicadas have returned in full force.

Ryujin reaches out and loops her pinky through yours.

She doesn’t look at you when she does it. Just keeps walking like it’s the most casual thing in the world.

Your heart nearly stops.

The air between you and Ryujin feels charged, like the moment before a thunderstorm. Her pinky is still looped through yours, a small but undeniable connection. You don’t pull away. Neither does she. The cicadas hum in the background, their rhythm steady, almost hypnotic. The night wraps around you both, heavy and warm, and for once, there’s no teasing, no sarcasm, no chaos. Just this.

Just Ryujin.

You glance at her. Her profile is sharp in the moonlight, her jawline softened by the faintest curve of her lips. She’s not looking at you, but you can feel the weight of her presence, the way she seems to anchor the entire world around you. It’s unnerving. It’s exhilarating.

“You’re quiet,” she says suddenly, her voice cutting through the silence like a knife. “That’s new.”

You swallow, trying to find your voice. “Just… thinking.”

She laughs, a low, raspy sound that sends a shiver down your spine. “Dangerous.”

“You’re one to talk,” you shoot back, your voice steadier than you feel. “You’re the one who started this.”

Her grin falters for a split second, and she finally turns to look at you. Her eyes are dark, unreadable, but there’s something in them—something raw, something vulnerable—that makes your chest tighten.

“Maybe I did,” she says quietly. “But you’re the one who’s still here.”

The words hang in the air, heavy and electric. You don’t know what to say. You don’t know if you can say anything. All you know is that Ryujin’s hand is still linked with yours, and for some reason, that feels like the most important thing in the world.

She breaks the silence first, her voice lighter now, but not quite careless. “Race you back?”

You blink, caught off guard. “What?”

She smirks, the familiar mischievous glint back in her eyes. “You heard me. Last one to the house is a rotten egg.”

Before you can respond, she’s already taken off, her laughter trailing behind her like a challenge. You stare after her for a moment, stunned, before snapping out of it and sprinting to catch up.

She’s fast—faster than you remember—but you’re not about to let her win. Not tonight. Not when it feels like everything’s on the line.

You’re both breathless by the time you reach the house, Ryujin collapsing onto the porch with a triumphant laugh. “Told you I’d win.”

You lean against the railing, trying to catch your breath. “You cheated.”

She shrugs, unbothered. “All’s fair in love and war, right?”

You don’t miss the way her voice hesitates on the word love, the way her eyes flicker to yours for just a second before looking away. It’s subtle, but it’s there. And it’s enough to make your heart race all over again.

She stands, brushing herself off, and heads inside without another word. You follow, your mind still spinning, still trying to make sense of everything that’s happened tonight.

But when you step into the living room, Ryujin’s already there, leaning against the couch with that same unreadable expression on her face. She doesn’t say anything, just watches you, her eyes dark and intense.

You stop, feeling like you’re standing on the edge of a cliff. “What?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she takes a step closer, then another, until she’s standing right in front of you. Her presence is overwhelming, her warmth seeping into your skin, her scent—citrus and something wild, something uniquely Ryujin—filling your lungs.

You can’t breathe. You can’t think. All you can do is stare at her, your heart pounding in your chest as she tilts her head slightly, studying you like you’re a puzzle she’s trying to solve.

“You’re different,” she says finally, her voice soft but firm. “Why?”

You swallow, your throat dry. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She raises an eyebrow, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips. “Yes, you do.”

You don’t answer. You can’t. Because the truth is, you do know. You’ve always known. And now, standing here, with Ryujin so close you can feel her breath on your skin, it’s impossible to ignore.

She reaches up, her fingers brushing against your cheek, and you close your eyes, trying to steady yourself. Her touch is light, almost hesitant, but it sends a jolt of electricity through your entire body.

“Tell me,” she whispers, her voice barely audible. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

You open your eyes, meeting her gaze, and for the first time, you don’t hold back. “I’m thinking about you.”

She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes soften, her smile fading into something more serious, more intense. And then, without warning, she closes the distance between you, her lips brushing against yours in a kiss that’s both tentative and undeniable.

Your breath hitches, your hands instinctively finding her waist as she deepens the kiss, her fingers tangling in your hair. It’s messy, it’s chaotic, it’s everything Ryujin is—and it’s perfect.

When she finally pulls away, you’re both breathing heavily, your foreheads resting against each other. She looks at you, her eyes searching yours, and for a moment, you’re afraid she’s going to pull away, to laugh it off like it’s just another one of her pranks.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she smiles—a real, genuine smile—and says, “About time.”

You laugh, a little breathless, a little dazed. “You’re impossible.”

She grins, her usual mischief back in full force. “Yeah, but you like me anyway.”

And the thing is, she’s right. You do. You always have.

But before you can say anything, she’s already pulling away, her hand slipping into yours as she tugs you toward the stairs. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” you ask, though you already know the answer.

She looks back at you, her grin widening. “You’ll see.”

And just like that, the chaos begins again—but this time, you’re ready for it.

Ryujin stops abruptly at the foot of the stairs, her fingers tightening around yours. She turns, her gaze locking with yours, and there’s a flicker of mischief that makes your stomach twist. “Actually,” she says, her voice low and teasing, “let’s go this way instead.”

Before you can even process her words, she’s pulling you toward the kitchen. The house is silent except for the sound of your footsteps and the faint hum of the refrigerator. Your heart pounds as she leads you into the dimly lit room, her grip firm, almost possessive.

She stops in front of the counter, her back to the sink, and turns to face you. Her eyes are dark, intense, and they never leave yours as she steps closer—so close you can feel the heat of her body against yours. You swallow hard, your breath catching in your throat, as she presses you back against the counter.

“Ryujin…” you start, but she silences you with a finger on your lips.

“Shh,” she whispers, leaning in until her lips brush against your ear. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

Her hands slide down your chest, slow and deliberate, and you shiver under her touch. She smells like summer—like sunscreen and sweat and something sweet, something distinctly her. Your hands find her waist almost instinctively, anchoring yourself as she tilts her head, her lips grazing the side of your neck.

“Do what?” you manage to ask, though your voice comes out hoarse, barely audible.

She pulls back just enough to meet your eyes again, her lips curling into that familiar smirk. “This.”

And then she’s moving, stepping away just long enough to reach into the pantry. She pulls out a jar of honey, holding it up like it’s some kind of prize. Your brows furrow in confusion, but before you can ask, she’s already unscrewing the lid.

“Ryujin,” you say again, your voice trembling. “What are you—?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she drizzles a thin line of honey down your chest, starting just below your collarbone and letting it trail down to your stomach. The sensation is cold at first, sticky and strange, but then she sets the jar aside and leans in, her tongue following the trail.

You groan, your head falling back against the cabinet behind you as her lips and tongue move over your skin, warm and wet and electric. She takes her time, savoring every inch, her hands gripping your hips to keep you in place. Every stroke feels like fire, lighting up every nerve in your body.

“Fuck,” you breathe, your fingers tangling in her hair as she works her way down. Her tongue flicks over a sensitive spot just above your navel, and you jerk involuntarily, your hips pressing forward.

She chuckles against your skin, the sound vibrating through you. “You like that, huh?”

“You’re such a menace,” you mutter, though your voice is shaky, and you’re pretty sure you’re not fooling anyone.

She pulls back just enough to look up at you, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “And yet, you’re not stopping me.”

You don’t have a response for that—mostly because you’re too busy trying to remember how to breathe. She smirks, clearly pleased with herself, and then she’s back at it, her tongue tracing patterns on your skin that leave you gasping.

“Ryujin,” you manage to say, your voice strained. “This is—”

“What?” she interrupts, looking up at you with those dark, teasing eyes. “Too much?”

You shake your head, your hands tightening in her hair. “No. Just… not enough.”

Her grin widens, and she shifts closer, her body pressing against yours as she licks the last traces of honey from your skin. “Good.”

She leans in then, her lips brushing against yours in a kiss that’s soft and slow and utterly maddening. Her hands slide up your chest, sticky from the honey, and you can’t help but groan as she deepens the kiss, her tongue sliding against yours.

You’re not sure how long it lasts—seconds, minutes, hours—but when she finally pulls away, you’re left breathless, your chest rising and falling rapidly. She looks at you with a mix of satisfaction and something else—something deeper, something that makes your heart race even faster.

“You taste sweet,” she murmurs, her thumb brushing over your bottom lip.

You laugh, though it’s shaky and uneven. “That’s the honey.”

She shakes her head, her smile softening. “No. It’s you.”

You don’t know what to say to that, so you don’t say anything at all. Instead, you pull her back in, your lips crashing against hers in a kiss that’s hungry and desperate and filled with all the things you’ve both been too afraid to say.

Her hands slide down your back, gripping the hem of your shirt and yanking it over your head before tossing it aside. Her own tank top follows, leaving her in just her sports bra, and you groan at the sight of her skin—smooth and golden and perfect.

“God, you’re beautiful,” you whisper, your hands skating over her sides, feeling the warmth of her beneath your fingertips.

She smirks, her hands sliding up your chest again. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

You laugh, but it’s cut short as she pushes you back against the counter again, her lips finding your neck as her hands explore your body. You’re helpless against her touch, your hips pressing forward as she grinds against you, her breath hot against your skin.

“Ryujin,” you gasp, your hands gripping her waist tightly. “We can’t—someone might—”

“No one’s home,” she interrupts, her voice low and filled with promise. “It’s just us.”

And just like that, any lingering hesitation evaporates. You kiss her again, hard and deep, your hands roaming over her body as she does the same to you. The kitchen falls away, the world narrows to just the two of you, and for once, everything feels right.

She pulls back just long enough to grab the jar of honey again, and this time, she drizzles it down her own chest, her eyes never leaving yours. “Your turn,” she whispers, her voice dripping with challenge.

You don’t need to be told twice.

You don’t hesitate. Your lips crash into hers with a hunger that surprises even you. Her hands tangle in your hair, pulling you closer as your tongues dance in a fiery rhythm. The taste of honey on her lips is intoxicating, sweet and sticky, and you can’t get enough.

Your hands move on their own, sliding down her back, feeling the heat of her skin beneath your fingertips. She arches into you, her body pressing against yours in a way that makes your breath hitch. You grip her hips, lifting her onto the counter with a strength you didn’t know you had. Her legs wrap around your waist instinctively, pulling you closer, and you can feel the urgency in the way she clings to you.

She moans softly into your mouth, a sound that sends a jolt of electricity straight to your core. Your hands roam her body, exploring every curve, every dip, committing her to memory. Her nails dig into your back, sharp and possessive, and you groan against her lips, the mix of pain and pleasure driving you wild.

You grind against her, the friction between your bodies sending waves of heat through you both. She whimpers, her head falling back as you trail kisses down her neck. Your teeth nip at her collarbone, and she gasps, her fingers tightening in your hair. “More,” she breathes, her voice a desperate plea.

You don’t need to be told twice. Your hands move to her chest, fumbling with the clasp of her sports bra. It comes undone with a soft click, and she shimmies out of it, her breasts spilling free. You take a moment to admire her, the way her chest rises and falls with each ragged breath, the way her nipples harden under your gaze.

Leaning down, you take one nipple into your mouth, swirling your tongue around it as she gasps and arches her back. Her hands grip your shoulders, her nails leaving faint crescent marks as you give her the attention she craves. You switch to the other nipple, your teeth grazing it gently, and she lets out a low moan that vibrates through your entire body.

“God, you’re—” she starts, but her words dissolve into a whimper as your hands slide down her sides, settling on her hips. You grip her tightly, pulling her closer as you continue to work her with your mouth.

Her legs tighten around your waist, and you can feel how much she wants you, how much she needs you. It’s intoxicating, the way she responds to you, the way she melts under your touch. You’ve never felt this kind of connection before, this kind of raw, unfiltered desire.

You pull back just enough to meet her eyes, her lips swollen from your kisses, her hair a wild mess around her face. “Ryujin,” you murmur, your voice rough with need.

She looks at you, her eyes dark with want, and smiles that mischievous smile that always drives you crazy. “What? Got something to say, city boy?” she teases, her voice a little breathless.

You smirk, your hands moving to the waistband of her shorts. “Just wondering how much trouble I’m about to get into.”

She laughs, low and throaty, and pulls you back in for another kiss. “You have no idea,” she murmurs against your lips.

You undo the button of her shorts, sliding them down her legs along with her underwear. She kicks them off, and suddenly, she’s completely bare before you, her skin glowing in the dim light of the kitchen. You step back for a moment, just to take her in, and she raises an eyebrow at you. “Like what you see?” she asks, her voice laced with amusement.

“You’re perfect,” you say, your voice hoarse with emotion. And you mean it. Every inch of her is perfection, from the way her hair falls over her shoulders to the way her chest rises and falls with each breath.

She rolls her eyes, but there’s a hint of a blush on her cheeks. “Enough staring. Get over here.”

You don’t need to be told twice. You step back between her legs, your hands on her hips, and she wraps her arms around your neck, pulling you down for another searing kiss. Her legs tighten around you, pulling you closer, and you can feel how wet she is, how ready for you.

You reach down between your bodies, guiding yourself to her entrance, and she gasps as you press against her. “Ryujin,” you murmur, your voice thick with need.

She looks up at you, her eyes dark and filled with desire. “I’m ready,” she whispers, her voice trembling slightly.

You push into her slowly, giving her time to adjust, and she lets out a soft moan, her nails digging into your back. She’s so tight, so warm, and it takes every ounce of self-control you have to keep from losing yourself in her completely.

“You feel amazing,” you murmur, your voice rough with need.

She laughs softly, her breath hitching as you start to move. “You’re not so bad yourself,” she teases, her voice a little shaky.

You start to move, slow and steady at first, letting her get used to the sensation. But then she digs her nails into your back, and the sound she makes is enough to make you lose control. You start to thrust harder, deeper, and she moans, her head falling back as she arches into you.

Her hands roam over your body, exploring every inch of you as you move together. Her fingers trace the muscles of your back, your shoulders, your chest, and every touch sends a jolt of electricity through you.

“Faster,” she breathes, her voice filled with need, and you oblige, picking up the pace. Her legs tighten around you, pulling you deeper, and she lets out a low moan that sends a shiver down your spine.

You can feel the tension building in her body, the way she clenches around you, and it drives you wild. You grip her hips tightly, pulling her closer as you thrust into her, and she lets out a cry, her nails digging into your shoulders.

“I’m close,” she gasps, her voice trembling with need.

You lean down, capturing her lips in a searing kiss as you drive into her, the sound of your bodies coming together filling the kitchen. She moans into your mouth, her body trembling as she reaches her peak, and you follow her over the edge, the force of your release leaving you both breathless.

You stay like that for a moment, your foreheads pressed together, your breaths mingling as you both come down from the high. She smiles up at you, her eyes soft and filled with something you can’t quite place.

“So…” she says, her voice teasing, “was that worth the wait?”

You laugh, pulling her closer. “Absolutely.”

She grins, her fingers tracing patterns on your chest. “Good. Because I’m not done with you yet.”

You raise an eyebrow at her, a smile tugging at your lips. “Oh yeah? What’s next, then?”

She leans in, her breath hot against your ear. “Let’s just say… you’re about to find out.”

And just like that, you’re pulled back into the chaos, the heat, the endless, breathless spiral of her. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Her fingers tighten around your wrist as she pulls you down the hallway, her bare feet padding softly against the wooden floor. The house is quiet except for the faint hum of the ceiling fan in the kitchen, still spinning from your earlier escapade. Ryujin glances over her shoulder, her hair falling in a messy cascade, her lips curving into that familiar, mischievous grin.

“Where are we going now?” you ask, your voice low, still catching your breath.

“You’ll see,” she says, dragging you toward her bedroom. The door creaks open, and she shoves you inside, following closely and shutting it behind her with a soft click.

Her room is exactly how you remember it — chaotic in the most Ryujin way possible. Clothes are strewn across the floor, a skateboard leans against the wall, and posters of bands you’ve never heard of cover the walls. The scent of her — something sweet and wild, like strawberries and pine — fills the air.

She turns to face you, her eyes dark and playful. “You’ve been holding out on me, cousin.”

You raise an eyebrow. “How so?”

She steps closer, her hands sliding up your chest, her touch sending shivers down your spine. “You’ve been acting all innocent, like you didn’t know exactly what you were doing back in the kitchen. But I know you. You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you?”

You swallow, your throat suddenly dry. “Maybe.”

She laughs, soft and low, and presses herself against you. “Good. Because so have I.”

Her lips find yours again, eager and demanding, and you sink into the kiss, your hands tangling in her hair. She tugs at your lower lip with her teeth, pulling a soft groan from you, and then she’s pushing you backward until the back of your knees hit the edge of her bed.

“Sit,” she commands, her voice thick with desire.

You obey, your heart pounding as she straddles your lap, her thighs pressing against your hips. She leans in, her breath warm against your neck, and whispers, “You’re mine now.”

It’s not a question. It’s a statement. A claim. And you don’t argue.

Her hands roam over your chest, her touch feather-light but electric, and you can’t help but shudder under her. She kisses you again, deep and slow, her tongue teasing yours, and you lose yourself in the taste of her, in the heat of her body against yours.

“Ryujin,” you murmur against her lips, your hands gripping her hips.

“What?” she whispers back, her voice teasing.

“You’re driving me crazy.”

She smirks, pulling back just enough to look into your eyes. “Good. That’s the point.”

Before you can respond, she’s sliding off your lap and standing in front of you, her fingers hooking into the waistband of her shorts. She wiggles out of them slowly, deliberately, her eyes locked on yours, and then she’s standing there in nothing but her sports bra, her skin glowing in the dim light of the room.

You stare, unable to look away, your breath hitching in your throat.

She grins, her hands on her hips. “Like what you see?”

“You know I do,” you say, your voice rough.

She steps closer, her hands sliding up your chest again, and then she’s tugging at your shirt. “Fair’s fair, cousin.”

You pull it off, tossing it to the side, and she lets out a low whistle, her fingers tracing the lines of your abs. “Damn. You’ve been working out, huh?”

You smirk. “You’ve noticed.”

She laughs, shaking her head, and then she’s pushing you back onto the bed, climbing over you until she’s sitting on your hips. Her hands brace on your chest, and she leans down, her lips brushing against yours. “You’re not gonna be able to walk straight tomorrow.”

You groan, your hands sliding up her thighs. “Promises, promises.”

She kisses you again, hard and hungry, and you respond in kind, your hands roaming over her body, memorizing every curve, every dip. She pulls back, her breathing heavy, and reaches behind her to unclasp her bra. It falls away, and you’re left staring at her, your chest tight with want.

“Ryujin,” you say, her name a prayer on your lips.

She smiles, slow and wicked, and then she’s leaning down, her lips trailing down your chest, your stomach, until she reaches the waistband of your pants. Her fingers undo the button, the zipper, and then she’s pulling them off, leaving you bare before her.

She looks up at you, her eyes dark with desire. “You ready?”

You nod, unable to speak, and she grins, her hands sliding up your thighs. “Good.”

Her touch is electric, and when her lips wrap around you, you swear you see stars. Your hands tangle in her hair, your hips bucking against her, and she hums in approval, her tongue teasing you in ways that make you forget your own name.

“Ryujin,” you gasp, your back arching off the bed.

She pulls back, her lips slick, and grins up at you. “Not yet.”

Before you can protest, she’s climbing back up your body, her lips finding yours again, and then she’s guiding you inside her, her breath hitching as she sinks down onto you. She moans, her head falling back, and you grip her hips, helping her move, your bodies moving in perfect sync.

“You feel so good,” she whispers, her hands braced on your chest.

“You’re incredible,” you say, your voice strained.

She picks up the pace, her movements becoming more desperate, more urgent, and you meet her thrust for thrust, your hands roaming over her body, pulling her closer, deeper. Her nails dig into your chest, and you groan, the sensation only driving you wilder.

“Close,” she gasps, her voice trembling.

“Me too,” you say, your grip on her hips tightening.

She cries out, her body tightening around you, and you follow her over the edge, the world shattering around you as you both collapse into each other, breathless and spent.

Her head falls against your chest, her breathing ragged, and you wrap your arms around her, holding her close.

“That was…” she starts, her voice muffled against your skin.

“Amazing,” you finish for her.

She laughs, soft and sleepy, and presses a kiss to your chest. “Yeah. Amazing.”

You both lie there, tangled together, the room hushed except for the sound of your breathing. After a moment, she lifts her head, her eyes meeting yours.

“You’re not gonna be able to walk straight tomorrow,” she says again, her grin returning.

You laugh, shaking your head. “Worth it.”

She leans in, her lips brushing against yours. “Good. Because we’re not done yet.”

[lostinlovingrevery]

Smooches

Old Man Logan X F! Reader

A/N: This is short and sweet, no plot, just Logan coming home to you and relaxing.

Plot: You brighten Logan's world

Warnings: None! It's pure fluff, a little making out w Lo

Word Count: 1372

Another day.

Another day of putting up with know-it-all assholes, holier than thou customers who looked down at him like he was scum of the Earth purely because he was a driver and not some fancy rich haughty taughty dumbass who gambles his kids college fund away and cheats on his wife with some showgirl 20 years younger than him. 

Another day of aches that riddled his body- a body that used to be indestructible, able to withstand bullets, knives, hell even a fucking nuclear explosion. Now, he has scars haunting his skin, pain that riddled his muscles and bones. Sitting in the driver seat for hours at the time, taking only the occasional smoke and piss break, does no help for the pain. 

Another day of his endless lifespan, some cruel joke of god to keep a man like him alive on this Earth. A man who’s caused suffering, and now endures it. 

He put the limo in park, leaning back in his seat, taking a deep breath, before moving to shut the car off. He turned and looked at the old plant he now calls home. 

An old metal monster, forgotten, like him. Only to remember what’s waiting inside.

Another day….of you.

The thought of you was enough to motivate him to get out of the limo. He shut the door behind him, pushing the lock on his key fob and limbered over to the door of the factory; pushing the door open and making his way to the elevator. He hated the factory, the smell of oil and metal was strong enough that it gave him a headache and make him nauseous the moment he stepped inside. The place was dark, empty, and it wasn’t the most welcoming sight on his old eyes. Once he reached the elevator, he pulled the gated door open, and stepped inside.

 His mood heightening a bit, as he heard soft music playing on the floor of your living area over the sounds of the elevator grinding and squeaking as the pulleys did it’s job. The scent of something warm and spicy cooking wafted to his nose, slowly replacing the scent of metal. Reaching the floor, he pulled the elevator door open, a loud clank! and whine eliciting from it, and he made his way down the hall to the small space you and him have formed to resemble something of an apartment. 

He opened the door into the space that had been crafted to resemble a living room, greeted with the delicious smell of a stir-fry, a vanilla candle lit somewhere in the room, and the scent of you nearby. A welcome change compared to the smell of rust and metal in the rest of the factory, that was slowly being forgotten as he stepped further into the inviting place.  

Mismatched furniture thrifted from various stores from a local town, some from your old apartment decorated the place. Bookshelves decorated one wall, lined with books that you pick up nearly every week and promise you'll read eventually. Large curtains pulled shut to hide the night sky from the room, and to protect the inside from the drafty windows. Multiple lamps, strewn around and plugged in, creating a warm atmosphere- better than the ceiling lights that reminded him of laboratories. Pictures, filled with loved ones from both you and Logan's past decorated walls, shelves, and tabletops. How you managed to get ahold of some of them- such as a group photo of the X-men taken about 3 years ago, he didn't know and didn't bother to question. Somehow, you managed to take a small section of an old factory, and turn it into you and Logans quiet slice of heaven.

Kicking off his shoes, and pulling off his jacket and button-up shirt, throwing them on a nearby table, leaving him in his slacks and a wife-beater tank top; he walked to the couch and sat down with a harsh groan, the couch bouncing and creaking from the weight of him being dropped onto the cushions. 

“Doll? I’m home.” He called out, his voice sounded gravelly and husky. The sound of your footsteps quickly approaching from the kitchen and you soon appeared in the doorway, looking like an angel the way the light illuminated around you.

Wearing only one of his shirts, you bounded over to him happily, a beaming smile across his face- enough to make all his worries fade, as if the mere presence of you removed the poisonous material of his bones that was slowly destroying his body. You didn’t hesitate to straddle his lap, arms stretched over his shoulders, as you pecked his lips-

One

Two

Three times!

He chuckled quietly at the kisses, but you weren’t down yet as you moved to kiss the tip of his nose, then each cheek, and then his forehead. His hands settled over your hips, closing his eyes with a faint smile barely visible due to his thick beard, as you began covering his face with soft kisses, your hands moved to cradle his jaw. You landed on his lips once more- this time he made sure to capture you in a real kiss, as you molded into him, his hands reaching to press into your back and press you against him as he soaked in every ounce of you. Your soft lips moved against his chapped, and your tongue came out, wetting across his bottom lip and begging for entrance. 

Who was he to deny you?

Your kisses turned soft to something messy, spit and soft moans escaping as you laid down your love on him, you started to grind your hips on him, and he groaned, his hands moving back down to cup your ass. You parted from him, your lips swollen and spit covered, and smiled cheekily. 

“Hi.” You greet. He exhaled and grinned. 

“Hi.” He responded, his eyes had softened at the sight of you, the tension in his body fading, and the day he has disappeared into the recesses of his mind. You ran your hand down his chest, over his torso and back up his body, onto his shoulders. 

“Your day?” You asked.

“Usual.” He answers. “You?”

“It was good. Charles had a good day today.” You brought you hands over the back of his neck, intertwining with his hair as you examined his handsome face. How can it be possible that someone looks so good all the time? “We played a few games of chess- he won every round of course. And we did a little gardening too. The African Violets we planted are finally starting to come in!”

He nodded, happily listening to you go on about your day. It was your weekend off from work, and you took care of Charles during these days to give Caliban a break. He always admired your ability to stay optimistic, to stay strong in the face of adversity. Today was a good day sure, but even on the rough days you still always manage to pluck the positive between the cracks. A quality of yours he hasn’t quite picked up for himself, but considering his age it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s set in his ways. 

His thumb mindlessly rubbed circles into your hip, and your fingers softly tugged at the hair on the back of his neck. He loved these moments. These quiet moments when he could forget about the world and focus on you. 

“Logan?” 

“Hm?”

“Were you listening?” You pout. He chuckled. 

“Course I was doll. You made a new recipe?” 

You smiled, happy that he was indeed listening. “It’s a stir-fry. It’s all done, I think you’ll love it. Got your favorite stuff in it.” 

“It smells great baby.” He hums. “I think though, I wanna have some dessert before we have dinner.”

A small pout on your face, as you put your hands on your hips. “After all that work I put into dinner?” 

He chuckled. “It’ll be there when we’re done. Cmon baby, give me some sugar.” He purred, looking up at you with a sultry expression. 

Your will gave way, you could never turn him down- especially when he looked at you like he wanted to eat you alive.

[emmcfrxst]

the only heaven i’ll be sent to (is when i’m alone with you); arthur morgan x reader

word count: 2K

warnings: smut!, afab!reader, religious themes (kinda. a bitch loves blasphemy<3), oral (f!receiving), body worship (arthur worships the ground you walk on), multiple orgasms (again, f!receiving), expressively asking for consent because that’s sexy! also yes the title is a hozier reference! feedback is appreciated as always <333

!!!!!MINORS DNI!!!!!

The wind blows softly over the half-closed lapels of the tent you and Arthur had set up somewhere around Dewberry Creek, your old, rusted lantern creaking as it sways with the night breeze. The flickering light does not seem to bother your companion, however, as he flattens his tongue over the seam of your cunt, moaning greedily into you. Arthur’s eyes flutter closed in ecstasy as your fingers tangle in his hair, giving the honey brown strands a sharp tug when he delivers a particularly hard suck to your pulsing clit. Your legs close around his head instinctively, trapping him between your thighs, tense muscles flexing against the sides of his face. A soft, breathy apology leaves your swollen lips, the pressure disappearing soon after as your lover pins your body down with calloused hands, brushing off your apology with a chuckle against your skin. You do not have anything to apologize for; Arthur Morgan, a man who has escaped death more than once, would gladly let himself be smothered by your cunt if it came to it. What a way to go that would be, he thinks. The closest to heaven’s gates he will ever get. And although Arthur isn’t a man of religion, he is more than willing to spend every day and every night praying at the altar that is your body, worshipping every inch of you with his eyes, his lips, his hands. Every kiss, every mark you leave on his skin is a holy reminder of the love shared between the two of you; of the passionate nights where Arthur can forget all about his sins and fully allow himself to be bathed in the sacred light of your affections.

“There you go, beautiful. Come back to me.” he coos at you, pushing hair out of your teary eyes, a tender grin on his face. His thumb gently runs under your eyes, wiping away the moisture there as you come back to your senses, focusing on his form above you. The sight of him is like a punch to the gut; blue irises swallowed up by fully dilated pupils, lips swollen and shining with the evidence of your previous orgasms, his beard is soaked through and his breathing ragged. You let your eyes wander down to where his bulge is straining against his union suit, biting your lip. The effect is immediate— his cock twitches under your sultry gaze, a soft groan leaving your lover’s throat.

“Stop lookin’ at me like that.” Arthur warns lowly, calloused hands running over the bare skin of your thigh. You giggle, lifting yourself up to brush your lips against his, your hand running down his chest, feeling his muscles flex under your touch.

“Like what?” You ask innocently, the teasing curve of your smile betraying your oblivious act. Arthur glares at you playfully, hand coming down to squeeze your inner thigh.

“Like ye wanna do real bad things t’me.” He mutters, voice raspier than usual, dripping with arousal. Suppressing a grin, you sit up, letting your hands slide all the way down to cup him through his clothes, thumb gently pressing against the wet spot on his underwear. A sick sort of satisfaction fills you at Arthur’s reaction —pretty blue eyes fluttering closed, his lips part in a strangled moan, hips jutting forward, seeking more pressure. You allow him a few moments to bask in your touch, swirling your thumb around his tip through the fabric and cupping his balls, before taking your hands off of him, leaving him breathing heavily.

“Maybe I do wanna do real bad things to you, Mr Morgan.” you whisper against his neck, leaving open mouthed kisses over his pulse point. A satisfied little giggle leaves you when you hear him cursing under his breath, hips bucking upwards of their own volition. Your victory is short lived, however, as your lover pinches your clit in retaliation, making you cry out. Satisfied, a smug grin on his face, he finally bares himself to you, making your breath hitch. It isn’t the first time you see Arthur in all of his glory —far from it, really, but the sight of how strong, how capable he is always manages to steal the breath right from your lungs. Freckles adorn the robust planes of his shoulders, ascending all the way across the broadness of a back toned from years of hard work; a petite waist and powerful hips curve out into muscled thighs and chiseled calves— Arthur Morgan is truly a sight to behold. He flushes under your heated stare but says nothing —how wise of him, you think, for he knows by now that you would never allow him to look down on himself, not even under the pretense of a joke. You deserve better than the way you treat yourself, you’d told him a million times. And you’ll spend the rest of your life proving it— that he’s worth it, be it through words, comfort, actions or through the passionate entangling of your bodies and souls. Because sex is more than just that to the two of you; it is a way of communicating the love and the needs you have for one another— Arthur, so painstakingly touch starved before you came along, now revels in the physical familiarity you two share. From fleeting touches to lingering kisses, he simply cannot seem to get enough of you; he does not believe the longing in his heart could ever be quelled completely.

Trembling gasps leave the two of you as Arthur slides his cock between your folds, coating himself in your slick. Jolts of pleasure thrum through your body every time his tip bumps against your swollen clit, your soft cries of pleasure causing Arthur’s cock to twitch.

“Sweetheart, if you keep makin’ all them pretty noises it’s gonna be over b’fore it even starts.” His accent is thick and his voice is shaky, excited little tremors running through his body at your state of undoing —all because of him. He’s made a real mess out of the two of you; drenched, sweaty and needy — thick strips of your wetness clinging to Arthur’s lower abdomen, precum pearling over the tip of his cock and gliding down his length; yes, your lover is more than willing to drown himself in your shared desire, to indulge in the carnality of your bound. Wrapping a hand around himself, he groans behind clenched teeth, sensitive to the touch, fingers quickly getting wet from how thoroughly turned on he is. He, however, remains unashamed, having accepted long ago that he will never be in control when it comes to you —he has never felt so connected with another human being, be it physically, psychologically, mentally or emotionally and he no longer bothers trying to hide the way you make him feel.

Understood. Respected. Appreciated. Loved. Alive. He’d never felt so many emotions prior to meeting you. Had never felt so alive; had never wanted to keep going as much as he has since you walked into his life. You make it worth it.

Letting his lips brush along your brow line, Arthur curls the fingers of his free hand around one of your thighs, spreading you open for him.

“Ye still good? D’ye want me to stop?” He asks, blue eyes roaming over your bare form with tenderness, trying to assess the situation. Even with you soft, pliant and soaked underneath him, Arthur Morgan would never dare to make assumptions about your desires, would never be so single-minded as to claim you without expressed consent from your part. He needs to know you want this as much as he does, wants this to be good for you— he thrives on your pleasure and your pleasure alone; can only feel good if you are. It is one of the many reasons why you love him so deeply, but in your lusting daze, you find yourself too strung up to fully appreciate it.

“Arthur Morgan, if you stop now m’gonna kick your sorry ass—oh!” Your voice breaks off into a pitiful little whimper when his cock teases your entrance, a low, rumbling laugh leaving him.

“As you wish, m’lady.” He allows himself to be playful for a few moments longer, basking in the frustrated little furrow of your brows and your pouting lips before pushing inside in one smooth glide, aided by your shared arousal. Arthur curses under his breath as your cunt flutters around him, trying to adjust to his girth. The blunt ends of your nails leave crescent marks onto the broadness of his shoulders and Arthur clenches his jaw, doing his best to stay still and allow you a moment of reprieve from the sensations that overtake your body. Busying himself with leaving marks onto your skin, he soothes the spots where his teeth have dug into, lips moving from your neck to your chest to take a nipple into his mouth. The loud, broken mewl you let out at the action makes him shiver, goosebumps spreading all over his skin at the sound, but he continues to stay still, waiting for you to give him the permission to go on. It’s only when your legs wrap around his waist that he does finally let himself move, pulling himself almost all the way out before sliding back in with a quick snap of his hips. Another cry leaves your lips at the action, although this time sounding strangled, your cunt clenching around your lover’s cock at the delicious friction he provides you with. Your foot presses into the meat of his ass, encouraging him to go faster, deeper— a silent demand he is quick to indulge in. A series of loud, wet noises begin resounding around the two of you, only motivating Arthur on to thrust harder; your back arching up into him when he starts battering that one spot inside of you, rough fingers coming down to rub circles onto your clit. The moans pour freely from your mouth and into his as he kisses you, tongues tangling together in a messy, sloppy fight for dominance. You’re vaguely aware of the spit trickling down your chin but are far too gone to care; the coil in your stomach getting tighter and tighter with every powerful snap of Arthur’s hips into yours. Already sensitive from your previous orgasms, you rake your nails down his back, trying to warn your lover of your impending climax. Alas, gargling moans are the only thing you can manage before you finally snap; vision going white, body going rigid under his, you repeat his name like a prayer as waves after waves of pleasure wash over you. Arthur isn’t far behind you, spurred on by your own release, a long, incredibly deep moan rumbling through his chest before he pulls out of you, sticky cum splattering across your stomach. Coming down from your high, you tuck a few strands of hair behind Arthur’s ears, fingers lingering on his face lovingly. He leans into your touch immediately, turning his head to press a gentle kiss into your palm, his body trembling with the aftermath of his own orgasm.

“Was…” He clears his throat, rolling off of you and pulling you along to rest on his chest. “Was that good f’r ya?” The gravelly tone of his voice cannot conceal the genuineness of his question, his fingers running down the length of your spine. It makes you smile— he makes you smile, your sweet cowboy. Shifting to look at him, you kiss him right over his heart, fondness warming your features.

“It was. It always is, with you. I love you.” And despite it not being the first time you utter those words— far from it, really— emotion still takes over Arthur’s heart and features, eyes shining with a sheen of tears.

Love. You love him.

No, Arthur Morgan may not be a religious man, and he remains unconvinced of God’s existence, but he does know one thing; you are his little piece of heaven on Earth.

[m1d-45]

bloodletting

summary: a budding god needs a place to test their new powers, and childe was always a little too eager to lose a fight... a match made in heaven!

word count: 1.7k

-> warnings : minor AQ spoilers ? just like, general gi plot.. fairly graphic depiction of blood + other injuries (might be classed as body horror???). generally obsessive tendencies (childe <--> you). i cannot stress this enough, reader is 110% a sadist.

-> gn reader (you/yours)

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr || @ryuryuryuyurboat || @undrxtxd || @rainswept || @wanderersqt || @rozz-eokkk

< masterlist >

power was not something that came easy. it was fought over, stolen, defended with teeth and claw, tides of blood shed just so one could have power over another. social, physical, financial; no matter the leverage it provided, power was hard won. to give someone power was to admit defeat, a certain death that tartaglia had learned and taught more than his fair share of times. nobody undeserving of power ever held onto it for long; it was an acknowledgement that you were better, that you deserved it, that you’d won. power was a fickle resource that childe would kill to keep, only ever laying down his blade for a precious few.

the tsaritsa, of course. his fellow harbingers, skilled both on and off-field, who themselves could rival the archons. his family, for whom he’d happily give the world.

and naturally, who would be more worthy to hold power than you?

you, not just a god but the, the highest authority across all of teyvat. you bore a hundred names and a thousand monikers, your worship the one thing the world could agree on. granted, nobody could quite agree on how, but that was fine. childe did not need external powers to tell him what to do. he knew, in his deepest heart, that he had gotten it right.

he knew—and, on occasion, flaunted—that he was your favorite. of all the vessels you had chosen, you returned to him time and time again, wishing on his stars until his vision gleamed. his bow shone with power, even his weakest weapon more than enough to push his strength to new heights. part of him wondered what he could do if you’d granted him swords, or a claymore… but that was speculation for another time. didn’t it say something that you had still chosen him at his weakest?

the thought always made him smile. thick in the heat of puppeteered battle, before the sun to after dark, your presence was a constant in his life. at every altar, with every offering, when his hands stung from the rash of leather and his blade was covered in rust, your name a prayer behind blood-soaked teeth. he could not remember a time when his pocket was not weighted with a charm.

his devotion was no secret. he wore your bow with pride, entirely phasing out his other weapons. it didn’t matter that he was technically more controlled with them, for you had chosen this path for him. your word was his guide, a polar star through bitter nights.

he did not doubt when your presence ebbed or flowed. who was he to dictate when or where you spent your attention? no, his faith did not waver. it had no reason to. he waited patiently, going about his regular duties, lingering in snezhnaya for no other reason that he just felt like he had to.

who was he to question to buzzing in the back of his head? who was he to decline when he felt an instinct to leave, to go for a trip far past the city gates? who was he to think himself better than the guiding light that had never led him astray?

for you, he was whatever you needed. and so he went, armed with a thick coat and snowboots, hands shoved deep in the pockets to hide the slight shake. down the main road, an arbitrary turn into an alley and down an abandoned path, into a part of the city he’d never traveled. but a golden thread had tied itself around his heart, pulling without hesitation. he easily hopped over the fence gate, not bothering with hauling it open through the snow. the path beyond was covered in a thick layer of powder, his foot crunching through a foot of it before hitting solid ground. still, he continued.

snezhnayan winters were not warm. they bit and dug into every gap in your clothes, stealing away the precious warmth within. and yet, with his half-done coat and incomplete guard, he was not cold. or, rather, he couldn’t feel it. his hands were pink with frost, stiff at the knuckles, but he couldn’t feel the resistance. his body was not important, not now.

the snow began to thin. it fell from his knees to his shins to his ankles to his toes, until he was face to face with a thick wall of bramble, impossibly overgrown. he was beginning to overheat in his jacket. twin blades made quick work of the wall, and the sight behind it easily dispelled any breath left in his lungs.

the air that washed out of the bubble was thick and heavy, like a humid spring instead of snezhnayan woods. his breath came in short gasps, a shameful wheeze that he hoped was missed beneath the howling snow. he didn’t want you to see him as weak, as someone so easily tired by a short trip to a falling star; he didn’t want you to think of him as anything other than his best.

but you didn’t push him away. you helped him up—his head was buzzing with delusion, he could hardly see, when had he fallen to his knees?—and brushed the snow off his hair, not pushing him away when he leaned into your touch. he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could barely collect himself enough to recognize that he needed to get you inside, away from the wilds.

that was power. to so effortlessly take over every thought in his head, to hold his mind in your hands and pull it into your liking, that was the power he adored you for. gods were figureheads of power, a physical incarnation of their dominion. a god of the entire world would only naturally have power to manipulate that world to their liking. how blessed was he, that he could be the first you made yours.

he was with you when you first stepped into zapolyarny palace, looking around at the chandeliers and fine tile. he opened the door for you to her majesty’s throne room, sucking in a sharp breath as you brushed by. he was by your side when the tsaritsa swore you her fealty, delicately placing the gnoses in your hands.

and oh, how he’d fallen to the floor right then and there, dizzy from the wash of power that rolled off you in waves, an ocean that he willingly dove into. the floor was cool beneath his forehead, his hair sticking to his skin as sweat quickly began to bead. he didn’t bother pushing himself up on his hands, teeth sinking deep into his lip again to control his panting breath. copper bloomed over his tongue, filling his mouth and clogging what remained of his senses.

dimly, he was aware that he was being pathetic, that this would surely change your mind about him. he heard your voice, faint through the fog of his mind, your wisdom lost to his own inadequacy. and yet, despite his weakness, every part of him was tuned into you. he knew it was your hand whispering across his shoulders, he knew it was your influence that stole the breath from his lungs. he knew it was you, because it was always you. you were all he could think of, and now you were finally able to leverage your full power over his self.

he’d woken up in a hospital bed. saline dripped into his arm and the lights pierced his eyes, his head full of snow and iced over. and yet, the moment he was cleared for release, he found himself desperate to be back to your side, racing through the tiled halls of the palace and following the urgent burn in his chest. you would have been right to turn him away, to deem him too weak to stay by your side, but you didn’t. you smiled when he lost his breath and laughed when he wavered, brushing off his concern. you invited him with you—his lungs burned with the need for oxygen—as you twirled the gnoses between your fingers, as if they were toys or paperweights rather than objects of divine power.

divine to him. child’s play to you. a courtyard of snow was cleared in an instant, ripples of pyro melting permafrost while keeping the flora beneath intact, a lazy show of power that pulled little more than a slight hum from you in response.

he wasn’t so much a fool as to think he could teach you everything, or even something, about being divine. and yet he clung to your side like a sailor in a storm, watching as you grew familiar with the elements. he watched, stubborn and weak, as you stopped hesitating.

flowers bloomed as you walked by, crumbling to ash with the slightest look. electro jumped from your skin to his, a painful spark that drew his mind from his head, finally seeing your amused eyes instead of just mindlessly staring. you could—should—have just left him behind, but you didn’t. you instead asked for his help, taking his hand in yours and leading him to a quieter hallway of the palace. you didn’t comment on his thundering pulse despite the fact that you could certainly feel it, tracing a finger along the crease of his palm.

“i wonder…”

a claw of geo cut across his skin, a sharp sting that quickly welled with blood. he barely felt it, watching with detached awe as it filled up his hand, sliding over the edge and dripping to the floor. you didn’t show any emotion, just… watching. his heart beat in his hands, a pool collecting on the floor, and still, you just watched. your other hand moved over the surface, barely an inch away, the blood collecting in a bubble beneath it. with a hum, your fist tightened, pain lighting up his arm. a strained grunt slipped between his teeth, hand flinching closed, brushing against the ball of his blood you had pulled from his veins. his hand was stained red, shaking in your grasp, minutes stretched into hours.

all at once, it dropped, forced back into his body as forcefully as it was removed. with a snap, the skin stitched itself shut, and you were again dragging him along like a child did their favorite toy.

you did that a lot. pull him aside and experiment with whatever new reaction you had discovered that month, week, day, hour, watching his reactions with unabashed delight. and he let you. every time, without fail, he eagerly followed, knowing full well he’d end up rigid with lightning or with ice crystals studding his throat. it was worth it, though. you always fixed him up, squeezing his hand with a whispered ‘good job’ that never failed to make him dizzy.

it didn’t matter what you did to him. it never did. even when his mind was hazy with pain and he couldn’t quite stand on his own, he never regretted it. unconsciousness licked at the edges of his vision, burning black stains that lingered even after you stopped, but he never once hesitated.

if you asked him to jump, he’d ask how high. if you felt like holding him underwater, he’d cherish every bruise. to be kept as a toy was still to be kept.

[vyainide]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤso smile the heavens upon this holy act ㅤㅤ＼ㅤpraise be the forgiving, the just heaven and its gatekeeper.ㅤㅤ𖥟

伏黒甚爾၇⃪⃖ꪆ୧ㅤ𝒇. toji x gn! readerㅤ 𓊉 ㅤ~1800𝗐𝖼.ㅤ─── nsfw, drabble, no plot, far too much religious imagery, oral (m! recieving), not beta'd, is this blasphemy? feels like it, reader has long enough hair for a ponytail kinda⠀᭮ ━─⠀ ❤︎ ㅤ2024��vyainide ㅤㅤㅤ︶ིྀᩧㅤ1864lib

vyon's mouthpiece. uhh, a tag for my wife @sugojosgf who was the reason why this came to me in the first place, and the post that struck a whore string in me; this started as a quick oral drabble and derailed; less about sex and more about the metaphor... like it often is with me

Religion is a fool's coping mechanism, his very last attempt at a good, a very true life— that's where Toji stands with God; he's no space in his life for an all encompassing devotion to a man that he'll never see until he dies. He doesn't care, even when the frantically religious admonish him and cite lines upon lines upon lines of a welcoming god who will forgive all so long as he is welcomed. Toji thinks a god who would forgive him is a bastard and so he rejects it all. Damns it all the way to their measly hell.

The idea of a god may be lost on him, but heaven, sure as hell, is not.

If a man like Toji tells you that he's seen heaven, you'll think him a messenger of a cult. You'll laugh when Toji claims not to have only seen heaven, but touched it— ran the dirty hand of a murderer over the gates of paradise and felt the ichor metal quiver under the weight of sin and rust with blood painted over its intricate lines, pressed the tongue that's lavished on animal carcasses indiscriminately over the salt of fountains until the marble wore away unstable. He could speak with the fervour of a man searching for forgiveness, speak to the desperate and the strange, get a suit and try to become a little more presentable, and still no one would believe him.

But Toji knows. And so does God, if he exists.

And Jesus, if God did exist, Toji pities him. He pities the great Zeus who'll never find the syllables of his name on your tongue when he gets to feel that same mouth of yours on his aching dick whenever he wants. Heaven is real, Toji maintains, and it begins in your mouth.

You're far too good to him, in an all–forgiving way that he's heard only God is capable of. He comes home at some time in the night, his soul tangled and his muscles all pulled taut with his hand still fisted around a gun that he no longer holds— he searches through the apartment for something that might help him forget, and instead, he finds the curious human shape of euphoria.

It takes you no more than a glance over the poor excuse of his posture to realise what he needs.

There's no foreplay to getting you on your knees— it's quick, easy. The flip of a switch, a light turned off, a body dropping to the floor. A bullet that leaves the gun, a child blessed underneath water long enough to learn death.

Toji feels like a dog you've pavloved; bright eyes peeking up through lashes up at him, an innocence rounded on the fat of your cheeks, hands anointing his thighs— over his pants, too faint it is, your touch. You drag your hands slowly up and down, sweeping away dust and dirt unseen— it's sweet sin enough for him to feel a twitch in anticipation. Toji tucks his hand down into his pants.

He feels your gaze gathering on the bulge of his hands as it turns over, cupping both dick and balls before he wraps the hand around the base, jerking over the length lazily. He's intent on the view for just a moment. Toji's all filth, his teeth catching the smirk off of his bottom lip. His other hand reaches out, his thumb blessing over your lips, tugging down from your cupid's bow to your bottom lip and watching your mouth obediently part open, then he starts at the corner of your lips and draws across— stopping halfway and finishes the mocking denial by pushing the pad of a calloused thumb down onto your tongue.

He'll never get over it, he'll think of it in death— turn away God who might seek refuge in favour of you. "So," he breathes before he even knows it, the air of the word so hot and so true, "so fuckin' pretty." His voice grounds out into a growl— not unheard of with Toji, the only truth he's known is decorated violence. His thumb turns over your mouth, catching enough spit to pull it down over your lips. "Look at ya, always so eager— so good." His voice levels into an even coo, head tilting and the haunting of a smirk turned over his lips.

He smears it around your lips, the shine that fills in your pout a shade of blue with how the sky was bleeding into your apartment's living room, the shadow of god's weeping at Toji's misdirected idolising. Shifting his lap forward, the man finally pulls his cock out of his pants and before he lets you do what you do best, he settles back and pulls up his shirt enough to let you see the trail of hair from his belly button. You shift closer, your chest pressed against the edge of the chair and then you're straightening up. Communion and blood are the kisses you lay over the trail, from his belly button down.

Your lips wrap around the weeping tip, licking up the first drops of pre and in return, Toji offers his first prayer. A soft hiss and his hands tightening around the leather of the armchair, calling out fuck; he finds stability elsewhere, his hands never straying close enough to mess with your carefully curated tempo, crushing the armrests with his fists. He claws desperately away from the burning light of heaven.

The horrible man he is— he stares at you with the intent of branding the image into every fucking nerve that's got to do with his seeing; the beauty of heaven is never lost on sinners, who cry and beg for a do–over, who wish desperately to even trace their hands over the gate and wash their feet in the clouds even at the risk of being burned. So, unlikely it is, that Toji'll ever forget this picture.

Tears wet your eyes, rolling down your cheeks and slipping into the mess of slobber and spit at your chin as you struggle to accommodate an evil like Toji. Your hand picks up your slack at the base, playfully turning up and down as you come back up for air, turning your hand up so that you can drag your spit downwards.

Your eyes drink in the sight, scrutinising every careful jerk of his hips, his jaw locked tightly shut, the vein that crawls up from his neck. How his lips part and he struggled through a gasp when you parted your lips and gave him entry once more. "Shi— shit, fuck, so fuckin' good."

His hands hold over the sides of your head, he pushes the hair out of your face first and finds stray Atlas rumbling around in his strength, holding still heaven and forcing his way in. His hips stutter upwards as your hand wrapped around his calf, jaw slacking open as best you could to make it an easier process.

His groaning turns into stuttered beats, turns into dazed panting; hands loosen up around your head when he feel your throat protesting the forced entry, fingers wrap around your hair, fixing it into a makeshift ponytail with shorter hairs spilling out messily. When you bring your head back up for air, he uses the leverage to push you back down.

There is it— he thinks, some sick satisfaction turning over in him, scratching out against his bones. The glare and the anger that you level up at him, the look that he'd think God would have for men like him. "C'mon," lips turned up into a sardonic smirk, "you started this so do it properly, yeah?"

One day, you'll see the warning lights that are flashing you, the loud siren that blares over the serene and the calm, the darkening of clouds and thunder that'll rumble the very foundations of your being. One day, you'll turn away Toji if you know what's good for you. His skin pricks in morbid anticipation for the day.

He coos, "don't pout. Pretty mouth like yours should be too busy to pout." Your glare softens and he’s reminded of how truly fallible you are, how concepts like God and heaven are. But your pout ceases and you enrapture him with a mouthpiece of small death, and god— what else is this but heaven? The pleasure of being taken in without complaint, finding warmth and feed without having to struggle and barter for it, the perfection that should come with no mistakes, remarkably far from human capacity, only for gods to have, for the good and the saints.

And here it is. The human desire and want disguised with its noblesse oblige, taking care of its servants. “There you go,” his tone hangs on a lilting tease, the smirk on his face practically palpable as a hand of yours moves upwards to massage his balls. When he starts thrusting into your inviting mouth, feeling the scrape of your teeth against his skin, the threat that comes with it only spurns him on more. Toji fixes his feet into the floor, balancing his weight back with a hand on the chair and straightens himself up so he could punctuate each thrust with a lingering bruise.

Let there be damage ensued, let God see who He’ll have to forgive.

He’s deaf to your gags, spit bubbles past the lines of your lips. Desperation clings to his movement, haunts the shadow of his that’s struggling to catch up with his thrusts, Toji sees you press your thighs together, how tense your body is strung up— but that’s for later.

God sure is an unlucky bastard if he does exist. Lost the tongue of his greatness to Toji, only allowed sneak peaks through opened blinds when you’re so lost to pleasure that you make the mistake of calling out God; even as Toji’s brutally fucking your mouth with abandon, you still find a way to work your tongue over him. The tip of your nose huffs hot breaths on his navel when he sinks in a final time, a swear and more between his lips when his spine cracks over you. A large hand pressed against your head, his large frame curls over you as he cums.

“Shit,” a wrecked gasp leaves his mouth as he lets you go, finally giving you enough space to pull back and find air. He watches with rapt interest as you swallow before your mouth opens in an attack of coughs.

You stuff your face into his knee, body shaking and spitting out excess fluids. “Asshole.” He hears you call out brokenly.

It only makes him grin, snickering. He shifts himself, picking you up from the floor easily and settling you sideways onto his lap. “M’sorry,” he hummed, his voice achingly true and honest, “let me make it up t’you, yeah?” His dry lips pressed over your cheek, grabs your hair and sweeps it out of the way so he can lower his head and open his mouth over your neck.

You squirm, hands tightening into fists. You and Toji both know you don’t need any more encouragement, but he seems strangely intent on this act. So when his hand sneaks upwards under your shirt, you start begging until he’s satisfied.

He smacks his hand on your ass as he pulls up over his shoulder to carry you to bed. And by the time the sun rises, Toji can confidently brag that he knows what heaven tastes like.

[fadingdaggerr]

Hey, I have just read heaven’s gate ( Larissa weems x reader ) and absolutely loved it! Is there any chance for a part two? Thank you x

pearlescent (18+ minors, dni)

pairing: larissa weems x gn!reader

summary: part two of heaven’s gate | 4.5k

includes: lesbians too in love for their own good, fluff

warnings: kissing/making out, sexual innuendo, afab reader (no breasts described for r), smut (fingering (L/r), oral (L), thigh riding (L)) can u tell i like eating pussy

note: first non-melissa post in over a year to bring me back from hiatus. thank u for ur patience. i feel like those wattpad writers that are like “just got out of a coma here’s a fic”

The smooth paving of the highway becomes bumpy and uneven as you pass the final gas station between here and your destination. Every pothole the car jumps over is like a shot of espresso through your aching joints. After the last stop, you promised yourself to drive straight through. Another stop would mean another chance to acknowledge the numbing of your ass after five hours in the car, and with one hour left, you’re not risking it. You really weren’t kidding when you said that teleportation would be much more useful.

Cell service is quickly obsolete as you continue through the woods, scanning the road for any squirrels that may decide that today was the day. Drumming against the steering wheel, you let your mind wander. Maybe coming without telling her is a bad idea, but it also has the potential not to be. She had begged you to drive to her just two days after she left, and you would have, if only your client hadn’t walked in the door. Dueling busy schedules made two months pass like molasses, longing to drop everything and hitchhike if you had to. Would the lack of alerting her put her off? Gods, you hope not.

A sudden shift of turbulent driving to a slight jostle of cobblestone removes you from the swirling doubt in your mind, peeking towards the sign you’re approaching. Green and rusting, white lettering reads: Welcome to Jericho! The Salem of Vermont. You find yourself glad someone took the time to graffiti over the last bit.

Ignoring the anxiety climbing your spine, you keep going, and going, and going, and going, until you finally break through the treeline. Out of nowhere sits the cutest town you think you’ve ever seen, with little brick shops with murals and a gazebo with the remains of New Year’s decor still hanging on. It makes sense why people would want to come here, why she would choose to stay.

In an attempt to not draw more attention than an outsider already gets, let alone an outcast one, you don’t linger on viewing the quaint town of Jericho. There’s better views awaiting you later, at the very castle-like building you can see on the high hill. Looming in a shadow, one that doesn’t extend over the rest of the town, sits Nevermore in all its glory. The corners of your lips turn up into a small smile, the view is nostalgic, bringing back the memories of your time at Byron’s.

The memory brings a reminder to the forefront of your mind, and with cell service restored, now is the best time. Carefully, and without taking your eyes off the road, you navigate to your favorite contacts.

“Hello, my angel!”

You chuckle, “it’s just me.”

“Fuck, nevermind then,” Parker grumbles, “so you’re not there yet?”

“I’m pulling up in a second, just wanted to let you know now before I can’t.”

A characteristic cackle comes from the other end, “gonna jump her bones immediately, I see, I see. Can’t say I blame you, she makes me question things about myself.”

“This is exactly why I called you before getting here,” you chuckle, pulling through the front gates, “but I gotta go now.”

“Yes, yes, go get slutted out, harlot. Just please call me sometime, so I can talk with the love of our lives,” Parker begs.

“I’m telling Max you said that,” you deadpan, hanging up just as you hear a rushed wait!

—☽—

For a town so small minded, from what you’ve been told, you’re more than surprised to find that you are able to walk into Nevermore unnoticed. Some students stand around, talking amongst themselves, but none seem to pay you any mind, likely thinking you’re just another teacher. Using the anonymity to your advantage, you slow your pace, listening in carefully. A gorgon walks by you, the only student at this time that seems to be carrying any school supplies.

You mentally scold yourself for stereotyping her studious behavior before you focus in on her mind. Your consciousness runs through hers, searching through test anxieties and hockey tryout concerns, until you find what you need. The literature wing, I could’ve guessed that. Coming back into your own mind, you’re already speeding up the stairs before your pupils return to their normal size.

Passing another student two stories up, you pray the siren knows which office you need, yet they don’t. Neither do the werewolves or the seer. Do you guys even go to classes? You’re about to give up on the full surprise, headache seeping in from all the mindreading of anxious teenagers. Just before you exit the hallway entirely, you actually look up from your feet, and you mentally smack yourself upside the head for not just reading the plaques on the doors.

With a renewed pep in your step, you keep just shy of running as you read every door. Finally, you reach a door that has a newer plaque compared to neighboring ones, serif font unscathed by age. Professor L. Weems, Department of Literature. Your heart skips a beat at the mere sight of her name. Noticing the door being cracked open, you push it open slightly more, hoping your search ends here.

Hunched over an antique desk, red-framed glasses perched on her nose with a pen spinning between her fingers, she doesn’t seem to notice the attention on her. It’s hard to pry yourself away from watching her, when holding her is seemingly moments away. Pushing the door the rest of the way open, you knock on the doorway with shaking knuckles.

A huff passes scarlet lips as Larissa peers up, a brief, disinterested gaze passing over her features. The pen in her hand stills, falling to the desk with a small clatter. Blue eyes widen as she stares unwaveringly at you. Fidgeting under her gaze, you smile nervously, “was- uh- was looking for professor Weems? Know her, by any chance?”

In no less than a blink, Larissa is rounding her desk at top speeds, crashing into your body as her arms wrap around your neck. Nearly falling into the hall, you just barely keep the two of you up, leaning into her to walk her backwards. One hand grips her waist as the other blindly reaches for the door to shut it, quickly coming back to bury into her hair. Your face tucks into her neck, brushing your nose against her skin, breathing her in.

“You’re here,” Larissa says quietly, disbelieving.

“I’m here,” you mumble against her warm skin, “couldn’t wait any longer.”

A sigh of relief passes plush lips, “and you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Surprise, it’s a noun,” you joke, pressing a soft kiss to the expanse of her neck, relishing in the way she shudders at the contact. There’s no reply except for her arms tightening around you, wordlessly telling you that this surprise is one she likes.

Pulling back from you suddenly, Larissa just stares at you, blue eyes taking in every feature, lingering on your lips before flicking back to your eyes. Your hand moves from her waist to cup her cheek, stroking soft skin that you’d been longing to touch. She takes the invitation, leaning forward to press delicate lips against your own, slow and savoring. Your tongue traces her lips, tasting earl grey and lipstick as she lets you in. No struggle or search for dominance, simply a familiar dance you’d both dearly missed. The hand in her hair stays in place, keeping her close as the other traces her cheekbone and jaw, memorizing the feeling of her skin. Every piece of you missed her, and all of those pieces felt healed the moment her lips touched yours.

Pulling away slowly, both of you keep your eyes closed, simply existing in this moment. It takes a while for either of you to move away, but you feel giddy seeing Larissa’s pink cheeks and smudged lipstick. Your thumb drifts to her lips, wiping away the mess you’ve made, ignoring that you are likely equally covered. Soft lips press into the pad of your thumb, gentle and sweet.

“I cannot believe you’re here,” she whispers into the small space between you, “I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you,” you reply at the same volume.

It takes two hours for the halls of Nevermore to empty, students retreating to their rooms or to the quad, finally allowing a chance for the two of you to leave Larissa’s office. Silence seems to come over the school, however frightening it may be when dealing with teenagers, though neither of you mind as you simply exist in the spacious office. After weeks of phone calls that lasted most of the night, quiet amazingly comes easy.

Only a soft hum from the blonde breaks the silence, twisting her wrist to check her watch. Turning towards you slightly, she keeps a soft volume as she speaks, “how would you like a tour?”

“That sounds perfect, I only got to see the foyer and this hall,” you answer, nudging into her shoulder softly. “Was on a mission, I didn’t really get a chance to explore.”

“Sorry about that, but we’re not supposed to have visitors here,” she explains, “the campus has essentially been on lockdown since the nineties.”

You chuckle, reaching a hand out to draw her in. Her fingers slide across your palm before gripping, letting you tug her closer, “in that case, security might be too lax. I got in no problem.”

“You what?” Larissa stiffens, looking at you bewildered.

“I drove right through the gate, walked right in, no one even noticed me,” you chuckle, “just walked on up.”

Her lips purse as she tries to hide the laugh building in her chest, leaning in more, “you read a child’s mind to find me, didn’t you?”

It’s impossible to hide the wry grin on your face, “potentially.”

“Potentially,” she mimics, amused.

—☽—

Nevermore has officially put Byron’s Home to shame.

Every hallway is covered in paintings, Latin engravings littering every shelf, moon phases in different corners. It makes you wish you never set foot in that brick schoolhouse all those years ago. The conservatory alone almost made you weep; crawling vines and shining moonflowers, the feasting venus flytraps, and, your favorite, bleeding hearts. Larissa stands back and watches as your fingers ghost over petals, pressing lightly against the flytraps full belly, all with a deep fascination behind your eyes.

“I can’t believe you have this,” your voice echoes quietly in the room, “it- it’s incredible.”

Her silence throws you, immediately turning. The lost look in her eyes makes you falter, and where your typical instinct is to read, you instead step closer.

“What’s wrong?” You ask, reaching to run your fingers over her knuckles that stay clutching her shirt.

There have been many times where Larissa wished for different abilities, or no abilities at all. Right now, however, she wished for nothing more than your ability. She wished she could reach into your mind and see how you saw the world, how you see the flowers, how you see her. Seeing you now, how you watch her with more reverence than you grant what, in her mind, is a greater beauty, she knows she has a window into the limitless path your consciousness takes.

“Nothing at all. I just have one more place in mind,” she answers, hand lifting to stroke your cheek, lingering against your oddly cool skin. You nod wordlessly, letting your fingers intertwine with hers.

Hand held in Larissa’s, you let her lead you through the halls. She pauses to peak around every corner, terrified the two of you would be caught. Leading forward, more like tugging, she brings you towards a spiraling staircase. Letting her go first, she enters into a massive room, cool but comfortable, dark enough to rely on distanced golden lamps.

Floor to ceiling bookshelves line everywall, the familiar Latin etched into stone and wood alike. Ancient Greek, Cyrillic, and Tamil, first and second editions of texts you thought you’d only ever see inaccurate translations of. Sections of different outcast abilities, poetry from around the world, fables of the inception of different classes. Most have an unfortunate layer of dust over them, long ignored in interest of the clearly loved young adult section.

“You’re really trying to make me jealous,” you say breathily, “this place is incredible.”

“These are my favorite sections,” Larissa admits shyly, “I spend hours of my day here and never see another soul. It’s peaceful.”

“All by your lonesome?” There’s a slight mockery in your tone, “not alone now, are you though?”

Red lips curve into a smile as you step closer to her, fingers grazing up her side, slipping around her back to tug her closer. Hands rise to cup your face, eyes hooded as she takes you in. Pupils blown and lip between your teeth, she doesn’t want to deny herself the view nor the pleasure. Leaning into your space, her nose brushes yours, lips just barely ghosting.

You know she’s teasing, even with closed eyes, you can sense her smile. Tilting, you capture her lips, sighing at the contact. The moment your tongue brushes her bottom lip, a switch in Larissa flips, pushing you back into the shelving behind you. Sliding from your face, her hands grip your waist, clutching with an unnecessary urgency. Meeting her pace, your fingers weave into her updo, pulling hairs loose as you try to keep her closer than she physically can manage.

The muffled boom of a door on the other side of the shelf forces you to jump apart, wide eyes looking at each other like deer in headlights. Cheeks puff as you try not to laugh, Larissa immediately pulls you out of the library, forcing you into a jog as you run towards a different end of the building.

—☽—

Carefully, she guides you upstairs, praying that no other teachers or students are around to see her sneaking someone in. Both of you struggle to keep your giggling in, the juvenile nature of it all making you fluttery.

Coming up to a white door, you see another plaque reading Dormitory Parent. Unlocking the door with a strong wiggle, Larissa motions for you to walk in first, quickly shutting the door behind her and latching it. Leaning against it, she lets out a sigh.

Larissa doesn’t get a chance to move closer before your lips press against hers once more. This time, neither of you waste a second, no longer nerved up by the chance of someone walking in again. Timid brushing of lips is forgone as her tongue bullies its way into your mouth, stroking yours with a gentle dominance that has your knees weak.

Wanting hands grip at her waist as she pushes her backwards, leading you further into her quarters until you’re backed into a wall. Lips move from yours and trail down your chin to your neck, teeth passing over your pulse. A groan leaves your lips, hands scrambling to pull Larissa back to your lips, missing them greatly in the seconds they’ve been apart from yours. Feeling her smile against you makes your heart clench, needing more, anything she’s willing to give.

Pulling back from her lips only enough to speak, you ask, “bedroom?”

There’s no reply, only you being tugged from the wall and walked backwards further into the room. You’re so lost in her, her lips, her hands, her tongue, everything. The feeling of dropping onto the mattress is what brings you back in, eyes cracking open to see a lightly panting Larissa above you, lips parted and kiss-swollen. Lapis eyes flick over your face, expression similar to the one she wore when she first saw you, right on the cusp of relief and disbelief. She’s not unlike a goddess viewing her devotee.

Taking her moment of distraction as a tool for your benefit, you flip the two of you, happily taking in the new view of her beneath you. Hair of white gold splaying over the pillows, eyes wide, skin flushed, and entirely beautiful, Larissa Weems is a gift for your eyes only. The hand on her hip slides up, pushing the fabric of her dress with them as they climb. It’s a silent question, or more of a silent begging, hands impatient to feel her.

Larissa’s head rises off the pillow, lips pushing into yours, her hands going to yours to push them even higher, dress inching up more and more. As she wishes, you lift her dress, hands finding solace on plush thighs, laying your body between her legs. The familiarity of it makes you moan into her mouth, pure want running through your veins.

Hands close in on the lace covering her, lips moving to her neck for a chance to breathe, “can I take this off?”

“Yes,” she answers in a whiny tone, lifting herself off the mattress slightly.

You carefully, thought quickly, lower the zipper. Larissa strips the dress off her torso, letting your wanting hands take care of the rest. The world stops for a moment as you look down at her, skin luminescent against dark sheets, constellations of freckles dotted across her chest.

The blush crawling up her neck brings you back in, and you haphazardly shrug off your jacket and tear off your own shirt. Leaning back down, you forgo her lips to kiss down her neck, reveling in her skin beneath yours. Larissa moans softly as her hands wander down your back, around your torso, tugging at your belt, and you're quick to head her command. Greedy hands pull you back down on the bed, gripping at warm skin as your lips take purchase on her neck again.

Laying her back, you continue your path down, fingers taking her bra straps down with you. Eyes peek up to hers, silently asking permission. Larissa arches into you in response, and your lips wrap around a rosey nipple. Nails dig into your back as she moans beneath you, hips bucking against your. Satisfying her desire, you place a thigh between her legs as you continue to lavish her chest with affection.

An already soaked white thong becomes absolutely ruined as Larissa grinds steadily against your thigh, moaning huskily into open air. Continuing down, your thigh moves away as you near her heat. Fingers curling around the band of her panties, you pause, “may I?”

“Please, darling,” Larissa replies breathily, mouth hanging open as you toss the fabric across the room.

Mouthing at her thighs, you suck harder as you get closer, red marks painted across a white canvas. Reaching her slick pussy, your mouth nearly waters at the sight, descending on her immediately. Her hips rock just as quickly, trying to ride your face as your tongue swipes through her folds. Savory wetness covers your chin, nose just barely rubbing against her clit.

Tilting up, you allow your lips to wrap around her button, sucking gently. The gasps Larissa emits above you only egg you on further, hand moving from her thigh to her entrance. Your middle finger slowly pushes into her, pumping carefully before adding your index. Her walls grip your fingers snugly, trying to keep you there. Her hips never still, and you force them down with your free hand as you focus your attention on her.

Alternating between sucking and licking her clit, combined with your fingers increasing pace inside her, has Larissa’s voice growing horse, moans turning to pitchy whines. Long legs wrap around your body, holding you snugly against.

Heavy whimpers fall from her lips. “Please,” she begs, “more, baby, please.”

Denying her when she’s asking so nicely, so prettily? You could never. Your ring finger lines with the others, pressing into her quickly. The stretch makes Larissa cry out above you, heels digging deeper into your back as your tongue swirled around her sex. It takes little time for her breathing to grow hoarse, mouth hanging open as her eyes squeeze shut.

Her breath hitches and hips still, essence coating your fingers as you watch her chest rise and fall rapidly, eyes finally reopening. Slowing your fingers, you retract from her, but in no way are you done just yet. Letting go of her clit with a small pop, you drag your tongue down to languidly traverse her folds, taking in her full taste.

Probing inside her, you relish in the breathy whine that comes from her throat. Pulling back, you flatten your tongue, swiping across her cunt. Trailing up, passing her navel, the dip in her ribs, you take a quick pass over her nipple, swirling softly. Grabby hands pull at you, tugging you back to her lips. Moaning at her own taste, Larissa’s body arches into you, heat brushing over your thigh once again.

Hand trailing up from her thigh, you pull back from her lips, offering your fingers in place of your tongue. Fading red lips wrap around your digits, her own tongue swirling, cheeks hollowing. You can feel your eyes glazing over as you watch her greedily taste herself, gently and unknowingly grinding on your thigh.

Letting go, Larissa takes your stupor to flip you over. Staring down with cool blue eyes with a mysterious fire. Wandering lower and lower, they trace over your own underwear, slick from pleasing her. The whimper you let out only eggs her on, rubbing you over the fabric.

“Riss…” you manage out, already breathless from her touch, “baby…”

A low hum leaves her throat, hand sliding under to make contact with you. Long fingers slide through wetness as lips attach themselves to your neck. Two fingers slide into you, slowly, her thumb makes tight, firm circles over your clit, making you keen into her. The pressure building in your core, that had been steadily growing since the library, feels so overwhelming with her all over you now.

Feeling you trying to ride her slow hand, she speeds up, taking over for you as your moans quickly become airy. Under her lips, she feels your heart beating wildly. For her. All for her.

Her scent, her taste, her hands, her tongue, all of her was all over you. Her teeth scrape against your skin as her fingers curl, making you groan. The hand not in her hair splays across her back, desperate to keep her close. Feeling the want dripping from you, her fingers speed up, almost bullying gummy walls that cling to her.

Tugging her by her hair, you bring her to your lips. Open mouth and messy, you’re barely kissing, just moaning into her mouth as she presses harder to your button, bucking into her hand. You can’t find it in yourself to feel embarrassed about how quickly she got you here, how quickly you’ve become putty beneath her.

Deciding she needs to taste her hard work sooner rather than later, her fingers just barely spread inside you, stretching you. The motion makes you erupt in a silent scream, clinging more to her as you feel the coil in your stomach begin to snap.

“C’mon darling,” she husks against your throat, “give it to me. I know you want to.”

Her words are your undoing, the sheer need in her voice and the feeling of her inside you was enough to snap the band. The whines from you turn into breathy pants, hands on Larissa still holding her close as her fingers slow. As she tries to remove them, you close your legs around her wrist, locking her in place. Her lips drag up your neck, capturing your own, sighing into your mouth as your fingers scratch gently at her scalp.

Lazy kisses last until the post-orgasm warmth leaves your body, shivering slightly at the cool air that you can finally feel tickling your skin. Legs unclamp her hand, allowing her to draw back. You nearly cum on the spot watching her suck your release off, moaning softly against her own fingers.

“Keep doing that and you’re not leaving this bed for a week,” you mumble beneath her.

She chuckles, rolling off to lay on the bed beside you, “I can’t say I’d be opposed.”

Just facing her, watching her chest rise and fall, rosy cheeks slowly returning to their normal color, you’re in awe. Freshly fucked and still perfect, Larissa Weems is a miracle. Laying on your side, you trace your fingers up and down her side, following the path of silver stretch marks and faint freckles. You push yourself forward, pressing yourself into her warm body, adoring how her arms immediately wrap around you.

“I missed you,” she whispers, as if she’s not sure you’d share her sentiment.

You press a kiss to her collarbone, “I missed you more.”

There’s a few minutes of silence before you feel Larissa chuckle beneath you. You hum in question. She squeezes you briefly, “would you like dinner?”

Another pause. You both giggle as you try to walk out of the room with a small waver in your steps.

—☽—

When your eyes open, you think it’s the sun cracking through the curtain that pulls you from the depths of slumber. A piercing ring breaks through the tiredness, bringing your attention to your phone. Your groan is met in tandem by Larissa’s, who shoves her head into her pillow further, arm tightening around your waist. Stretching in her grasp, you mentally prepare for what you know is coming. The little shit has a radar.

“No,” you say the moment you bring the phone to your ear.

“Oh sweet angel, I miss how nice you are,” Parker sing-songs, “did I wake you from your slutty slumber?”

“Yes, both of us. Dick,” you grumble, “you have zero consideration.”

“Give my real friend the phone, I’m done with you,” he says, though you know he’ll never leave you alone. Even when you eventually die.

“Baby, it’s for you,” you say as you pull the phone away from your ear. Larissa peeks one eye at you, clearly irritated. Parker, you mouth. You wish it wasn’t so endearing how quickly she perked up. Sitting up, she nods, motioning for you to put her on speaker.

“Hello, Parker,” she utters through a yawn.

“My love! How are you? Achy? Tired? In need of a better lover?”

“I’m great,” Larissa chuckles, “and yes, yes, and no, most definitely not.” Her eyes stay on you as she answers, peeking down at your lovingly annoyed expression.

The rest of the call is simply Parker talking at Larissa, rather than to her, while you shake your head at his antics. Curling back into her side, you let them talk as you watch her face. She seems at ease, a stark contrast from the stressed Larissa you’d seen when you first looked in her office. She’s less imposing, loose hair and smudged makeup, a smile playing on her lips as she listens to Parker’s plans for a surprise two month anniversary gift for Max.

In the walls of her bedroom. In bed with you. Breathing the same air. Perfection lies beside you.

note: if i could rewrite the entirety of part one i would. but i guess that shows growth in writing or whatever

feedback appreciated as always

[babylon-crashing]

[第三幕・第二场] [Act III, Scene II]

内宫秘殿。绢屏影绰，香烟如鬼萦绕。殿外：法锣沉沉，诵经隐隐——铁血与铁炼正赴黄泉。殿内：时间凝滞，寂静亵渎。巴悉拉跪坐冥想，身侧大狼仅着薄绸单衣，面泛潮红，眸含期待。青铜炉中紫焰幽曳，卷轴如舌展，朱砂墨溢地如血。

A private chamber in the inner palace. Shadowed silk screens. Incense drifts like ghosts. Outside: ritual gongs, muffled chanting—the execution of Tiě Xuè and Tiě Lián proceeds without interruption. Inside: stillness, sacred and wrong. Time bends. A hush. Bǎ Xī Lā kneels in meditation beside Dà Láng, who wears only thin silken robes, flushed and expectant. A bronze brazier flickers with violet flame. Scrolls unfurl like tongues. A bowl of cinnabar ink bleeds across the floor.

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ.

[轻语] "此处唯你我。星宿亦阖目——

似这九天十地……不敢窥伺。"

[Whispering] "It's just you and me here. The stars are also closed ––

just like the nine heavens and ten earths... dare not peek."

大狼 / DÀ LÁNG.

“苍天何曾容得……情人欢好？”

[褪去外袍，仰卧祭坛，闭目]

“快些，郎君。妾身……已难耐。”

"How can heaven allow... lovers to enjoy each other?" [Slips off her robes, lies on the altar with her eyes closed] "Hurry up, my love. I can't wait anymore."

[长寂。她睁眼。巴悉拉伫立如石，唇动无声，诵念畸变经文——喉音沉浊，似古庙残碑之语。]

[Long silence. She opens her eyes. Bǎ Xī Lā stands like stone, fully clothed, lips moving. The words are twisted scripture—glottal, guttural—spoken in a broken, holy tongue older than any temple.]

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ.

"此妇当为吾怒之器，备以毁殁。"

"She shall be for Me a vessel of wrath, prepared for destruction."

[炉火骤燃。屏风影动，如逃如窜。]

[The brazier flares. Shadows crawl up the silk screens, as if fleeing.]

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ [续]

"首当净器。

其额题名：奥秘哉，大巴比伦，娼妓与地上可憎物之母。"

"First, we anoint the vessel.

And upon her forehead was a name written: Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth."

[他捧起朱砂墨碗，以颤指绘经咒于大狼肌肤——腹、胸、腿。字迹隐泛幽光。]

[He lifts the bowl of cinnabar ink. With trembling fingers, he paints sutras in black and rust-red across Dà Láng's skin—belly, breasts, thighs. They glow faintly.]

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ [续]

"吾言岂非如火，亦如击磐之锤？"

"Is not My word like fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?"

[他将一柄浸透腐煞的玉刃掷入火中。刃嘶鸣，泣血，渗黑。大狼喘息渐促——如堕幻境。]

[He places a jade dagger, black with corruption, into the flame. It hisses. Screams. Bleeds blackness. Dà Láng's breath quickens—entranced.]

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ.

[柔声，几近爱怜]

"产门已闭。

'地开口，吞没妇人与其神裔。'

今吾当启新门。"

[Softly, almost tender.] "The mouth of birth is closed. 'The earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the woman and her seed.' Now I will open a new gate."

[未及她反应，刃已刺落。血肉绽裂声。血溅胸股祭石。她弓身痉挛，无欢愉呻吟，唯闻痛喘。忽其掌按她丹田，湿濡扭曲之声——如血肉自绽为花，裂作齿渊。腹开巨口，荧荧蠕噬，淫亵而饥。大狼惨嚎。]

[Before she can move, the dagger plunges. The sound of flesh bursting apart. Blood hisses onto her breasts, her thighs, the altar stone. Her body arches in shock. No moans of ecstasy, only pain. Then his palm presses to her navel. A twisting, wet sound——like flesh folding back upon itself. Her belly splits, not by blade nor wound, but like a flower blooming into teeth. A gaping, glowing maw opens, wet, obscene, hungry. Dà Láng screams.]

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ [续]

"彼倾魂至死……与罪同列。"

"He poured out His soul unto death… and was numbered among the transgressors."

[他从袍中取一燃烧之心——尚搏动，银脉盘错。倾入她体内渊口。殿外诵经声渐狂。待最后真气尽耗，心化灰烬。荧芒黯，渊口闭如沙漩。]

[From his robe, Bǎ Xī Lā removes a burning heart—still pulsing, riddled with veins of silver qi. He pours it into her, into the maw. The chanting outside grows frantic. As the last of the qi is spent, the heart withers to ash. The glow dims. The vagina dentata closes like swirling sand in the desert.]

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ [续]

"人将称其为可憎之母。彼将再孕，产兽。"

"They will call her mother of abominations. She will conceive once more, and it shall be a beast."

[大狼瘫倒——汗濡身颤，血污狼藉，目眦欲裂。]

[Dà Láng falls back—drenched in sweat, shaking, bleeding, terrified.]

大狼 / DÀ LÁNG.

[喘促]

"冷极——

不——灼如焚……此为何物？"

[Gasping] It's cold— No—it burns … what is it?

[巴悉拉漠然掷袍掩其残躯。仪毕。他目中已无她。]

[Almost absently, Bǎ Xī Lā tosses her robes across her ruined body. The ceremony is over. His eyes are empty of her now.]

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ.

[自语] "彼已成魔居，聚万秽灵，囚诸不洁憎鸟之笼。"

[朗声] "盘绕之暗。

汝已成终焉之杯。"

[To himself.] "She is become the habitation of devils, the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." [Aloud.] The coiled dark. You are now the chalice of ending.

大狼 / DÀ LÁNG.

[气若游丝]

"妾觉……其已动。此刻便动。"

[barely above a whisper] "I feel… it moving. Already."

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ.

"待皇后啖女肉，

待尸月裂，

待五毒蔽天——

其将破汝而出。"

When the Empress eats the flesh of her daughters, when the corpse-moon cracks, when the heavens darken with five poisons— then it will crawl free.

[地底深处，古物蠢动。非肺所生之呻，无名之饥。]

[Far below, something ancient shifts in the roots of the earth. A moan not born of lungs. A hunger without name.]

[他走向殿门。外间法锣一声——铁炼命绝。他驻足，回望。]

[He walks to the door. Outside, a ritual gong sounds—Tiě Lián's death. He pauses. Looks back once.]

大狼 / DÀ LÁNG.

[恍惚呢喃]

"妾身……将为彼之母。

吾儿。

吾儿。

吾儿。"

[dazed, whispering] "I … will be his mother. Our son. Our son. Our son."

巴悉拉 / BǍ XĪ LĀ.

[低语]

"然。

亦为……首飨。"

[to himself] "Yes. And its first meal."

֍

Note.

In the image that I'm including here, Bǎ Xī Lā paints the word, "永世沉沦" on the wall, which I am choosing to translate as, "Eternal damnation."

[thisiscatherinesworld]

A snippet from my book

PROLOGUE

The planes of reality bubbled up through the rotting fingers of the Beldam, whose pitiful excuse of mimicked flesh melted off of Her blackened bones and down into the treeline. Time itself began to boil. It seeped into fur and feathers and scales.

The forest's creatures quivered. They felt something— deep, primordial.

The rabbits screamed. The wolves howled.

Blood boiled. Veins erupted in silent sacrifice, each vessel bursting with a hiss. Steam rose, twisting into the air, whispering from the Beyond.

Animals withered in pain as their hearts gave out.

The forest rumbled in fear. It knew. Knew doom was inching closer.

The Beldam’s cracked nails, caked with specks of Earth and crusted over with dried blood, clawed at

the molten planes. The forest started to spark, as if electricity was shot through the bark. The branches flooded with a light that shone black as poison seeped into the leaves of the willow, oak, and pine. 

A nest of twigs and grass fell from the canopy, and a robin cried out in despair. Its eggs were lost among the chaos underfoot.

The ground did not shake in terror. It just gave in, collasping in a manner that alluded to an unseen battle.

This was not the first time the Beldam fought with the order Her Enternal Father, The Bloom That Was constructed. She loved to break the binds that were there to protect the Nauture and the Men and the Beasts and the Cosmos. There was a slow, labored moan from the Garden of Eidhen. Long and sluggish, like everything in the eternal wood. Something was stirring, as if it was a rodent trapped in a box. It pitter-pattered around underneath the rock, not in celebration, but in the slow, laboring movement of all that crawled and blotted there.

The ground ripped like taut hide. Not suddenly. Not apocalyptically. Simply on and on and on and on, like a ticking of a clock doomed to tick tick tick tock for the remainder of Time.

At first, the smell—rot, foul honey turned to taste, graveyard stench foul enough to retch on. Then the roots pulled up, slimy and dark, dragging stone and ash along behind them like carrion they could not shake off.

The orphanage bled as it ascended from Hell. Blood slicked the walls; mortar oozed like sap—thick, slow, dark. Bricks sagged beneath coats of moss and centuries of soot. Iron railings curled upward and out of the Earth like twisted ribs, skeletal and broken. The gate hung next, rust-eaten and collapsed inward, its barbs catching the light like fresh wounds.

Every window was shut—until they weren’t. Stained glass eyes flew open in unison, casting saints in colored light. Their mouths were sewn shut, expressions carved from old grief, their faces lit not by sun, but by something more ancient—older than flame, colder than ash.

And the others—if they could still be called that—rose from the mud like grave-born statues. Wings splintered, faces worn down to blank stone. Moss grew where eyes once were. One gripped a rusted key. Another held a blade dulled by centuries.

They didn’t speak. Not as sentries. Not as souls. Only as witnesses. Silent, their gaze drifted after the dust swirling in the air—measuring the shape of something coming.

And heat, heat that didn't feel right. A demonic warmth, simmering from underground.

Last stood the bell tower, twisted and slanted, reaching for the heavens. The bell never rang. But the air rang anyway.

St. Agana Children’s Home was born.

The Beldam reached her spider-like fingernails deep into the ear canals, and from the earwax crafted some men and women out of it. Their clothes were made from the leaves She hastily ripped off the oak, pine, and willow, and skinned the foxes and bears to construct shoes.

To fill their empty insides, She poured Her spiders down into their guts, and gave them some of Her eyes. Then, put her webs into their skull. 

The Beldam’s work was then done. She chucked her  Spiderlings into St. Agana Children’s Home, where they would work to fill the bottomless pit of her stomach.

She cackled, grinning down at Her monstrosities. Their purpose is simple—harvest the purest souls of the Universe for their ‘Our Lady’— and they would fullfil it throughout the centuries.  

The Beldam would not cease until her bottomless stomach was filled and cemented down.

She would not cease, even if it meant splintering the planes of reality.

Tearing a hole in the fabric of the Universe.

Undoing the bindings of Time.

Unleashing every sin onto the Earth.

Driving the cosmos into anarchy.

Opening the bunker with them chained down inside it.

She would not cease, even if it meant destroying everything and nothing that was forever and never, forever.

[afteritwasred]

My Dearest Partner in Greatness

The blood will mark us together in their blood we will hold our coronation and in the rust red of the kings of tomorrow we will find our own salvation

And only together will we not fall only together we will not fail because only as partners will we be crowned as the flesh of the Majesty runs pale

Here marches the equivocator all hail your divine grace and there upon your lips is the sin that you hide under your face

prepare to burn, because we have no choice prepare to die, your grace. the ringleaders of heaven and hell are bigger sinners than we ever have been so naturally they control the gates

[multific]

Video Game Collection

Karl Heisenberg /Resident Evil/

Your Heaven on Earth

A Rare Flower in a Factory

Chris Walker /Outlast/

Little Pig

Modern Warfare 2 Collection

Astarion /Baldur’s Gate III/

Love in Oil Colours 

Adore You

A Thousand Years

Injury

Your Eyes Glow in the Dark

My Heart in the Palm of Your Hands

Happiest - Short

My Darling Dark

Valentine

Haunting You

Pyramid Head (Silent Hill)

Protected

Home

Bound by Blood and Rust

Silent Devotion

The Executioner’s Bride

[myocsfanfictions]

Safe Heaven - TWD Season 3

The Walking Dead Fanfiction

They had to leave the farm, and this time, they had to be on the road for seven months. Sarah and Nicki can not help but wonder and pray to find a new place. A place where they and their new family could start a life, maybe in peace, maybe forever. Does a safe heaven really exist in a world like the one they are facing?

MASTERLIST

《 Previous - Next 》

Chapter 6

NICOLETTE

The prison seemed, indeed, everything they had been searching for during the past nine months. It was huge. The first iron fence went all around the yard, the second defended a wide, overgrown garden, and the third enclosed the actual building. There, at last, they could have more than one line of defense.

It stood like a silent fortress against the overgrown wilderness, a monolithic reminder of a world that once believed it could contain chaos within walls and bars. Now, ironically, those same walls were their only hope to keep chaos out.

Encircled by three layers of fencing topped with rusted barbed wire, the structure loomed in the distance like a beast of concrete and steel. The first perimeter was a tall chain-link fence, already buckling under the weight of weeds and vines, but still intact enough to slow the walkers. Beyond that, a wide yard stretched toward the second fence, enclosing a patchy field half-swallowed by wild growth — once a recreational yard, now a graveyard of silence.

The third fence wrapped around the prison itself — a massive, grey hulk with guard towers jutting into the sky like broken teeth. Windows were barred, doors thick with reinforced metal. Its watchtowers still cast long shadows over the land, ghostly sentinels of a time gone.

Inside, darkness and uncertainty waited. But so did shelter. So did walls. So did a chance — however slim — at surviving another day.

It was paradoxical that the only place that could probably keep them safe now was the one place no one had wanted to get even close to before.

But the world was no longer the one Nicolette had been born into. Needs were different now. Survival was different. Even the aspiration for the future had changed. Once, she had only asked herself what kind of job she would want to do once she finished school. Now, she could only aspire to become a better shot with each passing day.

"Alright," Rick said as they looked at the prison. "We have to stay close. Never break formation."

Nicki nodded her head, as they all did, but her eyes never left all those corpses moving around. There were so many walkers — there were always so damn many walkers. She was tired of seeing them roaming around. It could be dangerous to try and take the prison. But there was little choice they had.

I’d much rather have a fence around us than none, she thought, gripping her bow harder.

They had left the cars in the woods, to make their arrival less obvious. They needed to be quiet. And all together, close to each other, they made their way toward the side of the prison. Rick was ahead of the group, shears in his hands, ready to open a gate for them in the fence. Right behind him, they all stood in a circle, looking and protecting each side, all making sure that Lori was in the middle. Nicki was at the back, between Carol and Carl. Sarah was not far from her, keeping position between Hershel and Maggie. They all had their weapons in hand, and as they walked closer to the first fence, they started to get the walkers’ attention — and not only the ones blocked inside the yard, but also the ones roaming just outside.

As Rick knelt down to cut the net, Glenn and Maggie broke from the formation to kill a walker that had come too close to them. Nicki held the arrow against her bow as she observed Glenn and Maggie from the corner of her eye. It was only one, and they had no trouble putting it down.

In the meantime, Rick had stood up, keeping the way open to let all of them inside. Daryl was the first to enter, while Nicki got inside just after Carl. After her came Lori, then T-Dog, and lastly Rick.

Glenn was quick to use the wire in his hands to close the gate they had just opened. And Nicki found herself unable to keep her eyes off the walkers in the yard that were now charging toward them.

Would you ever stop eating? she thought, observing the corpses in disgust and alert, suddenly worrying if that net would hold. Then Sarah touched her arm, getting her attention, to follow the others making their way through the path that led toward the entrance of the prison.

They keep coming, Nicki thought, observing the walkers from the outside getting closer as well. The growlings followed them as they ran, keeping the formation close as Rick had asked, until they arrived at the main gate. It was closed, but not locked, and just outside there was a truck lying on its side. Probably someone had tried to block the entrance. Or maybe the driver of the truck had been attacked, leading to an accident. Either way, there was no one to ask.

"It's perfect," Rick said, getting Nicki's attention. "If we shut that gate, prevent more from filling the yard, we can pick off these walkers."

Nicolette followed Rick's gaze, noticing the gate that gave access to the building part of the prison was open. That could actually work, and if she had to be honest, Nicki really wanted to shoot at some walkers.

"We'll take the field tonight," Rick said firmly.

"So how do we shut the gate?" Hershel asked, walking closer to the sheriff.

"I'll do it," Glenn said from between Maggie and Sarah. "You guys cover me." But clearly, Maggie did not agree with his idea.

"No," she said. "Suicide run."

"I'm the fastest," he protested.

But Rick came forward with another plan. He told Sarah, Maggie, Beth, and Glenn to run back from where they had come, trying to get the walkers' attention as much as possible, and then kill them as they got closer.

Nicki looked at her sister, opening her bag to take out three plastic bottles filled with Legos, to give them to Maggie and Beth. As they shook them, the noise was already enough to get some walkers' attention.

"Daryl, go back to the other tower," Rick said, pointing to one of the watchtowers. Then he turned to Carol. "You've become a pretty good shot. Take your time. We don't have a lot of ammo to waste." The woman nodded, and then she followed Daryl.

"Hershel, you, Nicolette, and Carl take this tower." Nicki looked up at the tower above them. Then she quickly went to take one of the rifles — she couldn't use all her arrows — and then followed Carl up the stairs.

"My dad is going to make the run," he said as they ran.

"He'll make it," she assured him. Rick was surely going to be the one making the run; he had proven himself to be a great leader since he had arrived at the quarry. Some of them had not been quite sure after they came to know what had happened between Rick and Shane — Carol, for example, had been one of them. Nicki did not agree. She felt sorry for Shane. She had thought about him a lot in those months. She still remembered when he had taught her and Carl how to make a knot and how he had kept them alive at the beginning, but she could not erase what he had become with time. He had become angry, scary, dangerous. It was only a matter of time before he would start to think about all of them as a new enemy, and probably he had become more dangerous than a walker.

Had it been right to kill him? She was not sure which was the right answer, or the one that she would have given.

Nicki, Carl, and Hershel arrived at the top of the tower just as Rick stepped into the yard. Lori was behind him, closing the gate behind her husband.

From the side, she could hear her sister's group, yelling at the walkers and making as much noise as they could. It was working. Many walkers were now close to the net, not realizing that Rick had just stepped inside.

"Daryl and Carol are in position," Hershel's voice made her look toward the other tower, where Daryl and Carol were ready to clear the path for Rick.

Then Nicki took her bow and arrow, nocking the arrow and pulling it to the side of her lips. She took a breath before releasing it to hit a walker at Rick's left side. It was not too far from where Rick had to go, but in her mind, it took him an awfully long time to arrive at the gate.

She kept shooting arrows, exactly like Daryl was doing, while Carl, Hershel, and Carol shot with their weapons. Nicki's heart beat fast in her chest as she observed Rick.

We can really make it, she thought as she shot another arrow. If Rick made it to the gate and closed it, they just needed to kill all of those assholes, with no need to worry about any noise.

And when Rick secured the gate and locked himself in the tower standing a few feet from her, a little laugh escaped from her lips.

"He's inside," Carl exclaimed, looking at her as she put her bow away to take the rifle in her hands.

"Light it up!" Daryl's voice echoed in the yard.

No need to tell me twice, she thought, securing the back of the rifle against her shoulder and starting to shoot.

Nicolette hated the sound of guns and rifles, but now she was more focused on how free and safe she felt in being able to kill every walker that came by, with no fear of attracting more.

They were all shooting, and the walkers were all falling limp on the ground. They had it. They had finally made it into a place that could really protect them for a long time. And it felt so damn good.

It didn’t take them long to clear the yard, and soon Nicki found herself walking into the yard next to Carl, as everyone ran to gather back together.

"Did you have fun, Shorty?" she asked, seeing the huge grin on his face as he looked at her.

"That was fantastic!" he said with a laugh, making her chuckle, just before noticing Daryl and Carol appear from behind them.

"Nice shooting," Daryl said, as Hershel gave him a pat on the back.

"You okay?" Carol asked Lori as they walked closer.

The woman smiled. "Haven't felt this good in years," she answered. Nicki observed her for a moment; Lori's pregnancy was almost ending, and now she got tired with the simplest task. She was indeed trying to mask how tired she was even now, and Nicki was glad that they had found a safe place in this moment, so that Lori could relax as she delivered the baby.

As she passed by, Lori put a hand on her shoulder, and Nicki looked at the woman, giving her a little smile. Then she kept following Carl and Carol into the yard.

"We haven't had this much space since we left the farm!" Carol exclaimed happily.

"And with much higher fences," Sarah's voice made Nicki turn to see her sister and the others getting close. As she walked toward Nicki, she noticed that Daryl was walking toward Sarah as well.

"Good job over there," he said, looking at her sister, and Nicki frowned at Sarah's reaction; she smiled, looking down, doing all she could to hide her face.

"You too," Sarah said before turning to Nicki. "All good?"

Nicki's frown deepened, but she answered all the same, "It was liberating," she said, before following Sarah and Daryl so that they could get close to the others.

They were all so happy, and Nicki could feel her cheeks hurt from how much she was smiling as she looked around. She would have never thought that a prison could be a sight so beautiful.

"Tonight we stay here, get comfortable," Rick said as soon as they all gathered together. Then he turned to Glenn, Daryl, and T-Dog. "We should go take the cars."

"Yeah," Daryl said. "I'll get some squirrels so that we can eat somethin' tonight." Rick nodded his head, then he led the four men back to the gate where they came from.

Nicki didn't miss her sister’s gaze as she looked at the group getting farther. "You're acting pretty strange, you know?"

Sarah frowned as she turned toward her sister. "What are you talking about?"

"What are you looking at?" Nicki asked, cocking her head to the side.

"Carl is right," Sarah said. "It's unnerving when you don't answer a question." Nicki let out a little laugh as her sister walked away to help Lori and Carol set things down.

Nicki put the rifle back in the bag where they kept all the guns and started to walk in the yard. It already felt strange, to walk without anyone asking where she was going or telling her to stay where someone could watch her. Nicolette took a deep breath, enjoying the feeling of being safe. It had been more than eight months since she had felt safe, and even if she had to sleep on the ground again, nothing would have taken away that light feeling in her chest.

"So you know how to smile," Shorty's voice made her turn to him with a teasing grin.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "It's your time to make a move with Beth." Carl glared at her, his cheeks tinted with red. He was blushing. The sight made her chuckle.

"You're such a pain," he said, grumpy as always.

"You're so easy to tease," she answered, finding his reaction funny.

"I'm not!" he argued, only making her laugh more. Then he rolled his eyes. "I can't stand you."

"Now you're even more stuck with me," she said, looking happily at the fence. "We'll learn how to share the same spaces."

"I've handled you before," he said, crossing his arms as he looked at her, a little spark of amusement in his eyes.

Rick and the others came back not long after — just in time, before the sun started to set in the sky. Maggie had started the fire, while Sarah helped Daryl skin the squirrels so that Carol and Lori could cook them.

"You alright, Nicki?" Her eyes moved to settle on Glenn, who was sitting next to her.

Nicolette nodded. "You?" she asked, observing her friend's lips curve into a smile.

"Still can't believe it," he said, looking at her, before nudging her with his shoulder, making her chuckle. "You've become good with the rifle."

"I didn't have much choice," she answered, looking up at him.

"Let's hope you'll have to use it less and less, right?" he said, making her nod her head.

She didn't know if that could happen. She had almost forgotten how it felt not to walk around with a gun or spend a day without shooting. Could they really find some sort of normality — like it had been before? Could they really get back to what it was?

But her thoughts were stopped by the growling coming from the walkers outside. And suddenly, that hope felt less strong. Jenner had said there was no cure, and he was probably right. There was no cure to make all those creatures disappear. Probably, she would never know life as it had been before. But maybe they could find some peace. Maybe not like it was, but in some ways.

*************

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[richardsgraysons]

the alchemy

prompt — some of my favorite songs as batboys

tags — nothing lol

DICK GRAYSON

the alchemy by taylor swift ( Cause the sign on your heart / Said it's still reserved for me / Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy? )

yellow by coldplay ( Your skin, oh yeah / your skin and bones / Turn into something beautiful / And you know, you know I love you so )

home by edward sharpe & the magnetic zeroes ( That's true, laugh until we think we'll die / Barefoot on a summer night / Never could be sweeter than with you (hey) )

daylight by taylor swift ( I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you / (I can never look away) / I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you / (Things will never be the same) )

a world alone by lorde ( All the double-edged people into schemes / They make a mess, then go home and get clean / You're my best friend, and we're dancing in a world alone

JASON TODD

homemade dynamite by lorde ( I'll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies / Seeing me rolling, showing someone else love / Hands under your t-shirt /Know I think you're awesome, right? )

guzarish by javed ali ( I'm walking in the nights / hope I don't crash anywhere / The flame of hope is still burning / But still I fear the incoming storm / I hope that the flame doesn't go off )

maroon by taylor swift ( The mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones / The lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was maroon )

the blonde by tv girl ( 'Cause anyone who ever had a brain / Wouldn't stand out in the rain / Or keep it up for very long / Just to prove somebody wrong )

dear arkansas daughter by lady lamb ( You with the dark curls / You with the watercolor eyes / You who bear your teeth with every smile )

TIM DRAKE

lovers rock by tv girl ( But if you're too drunk to drive / And the music is right / She might let you stay/ But just for the night ) [ my biggest flex is that i was in paris by the eiffel tower with my family and we were going to go eat dinner on the eiffel tower, and as i walked by the street to get to the park where the tower is at, i saw a girl and a guy listening to lovers rock together on a scooter together and it was so CUTE ]

born to die by lana del rey ( Feet don't fail me now / Take me to the finish line / Oh, my heart it breaks every step that I take / But I'm hoping that the gates, they'll tell me that you're mine )

supercut by lorde ( I'm someone, you may be my love / I'll be your quiet afternoon crush / Be your violent overnight rush / Make you crazy over my touch )

are you bored yet by wallows & clairo ( 'Cause we could stay at home or watch the sunset / But I can't help from askin', "Are you bored yet?" / And if you're feelin' lonely, you should tell me / Before this ends up as another memory)

apocalypse by cigarettes after sex ( You've been hiding them in hollowed out pianos / Left in the dark / Got the music in you, baby / Tell me why / Got the music in you, baby )

DAMIAN WAYNE

sanctuary by joji ( If you've been waiting for fallin' in love / Babe, you don't have to wait on me / 'Cause I've been aiming for heaven above / But an angel ain't what I need )

sober by lorde ( Oh, God, I'm clean out of air in my lungs / It's all gone, played it so nonchalant / It's time we danced with the truth / Move along with the truth )

fire meet gasoline by sia ( I got all I need, when you came after me / Fire meet gasoline, I'm burning alive / And I can barely breathe, when you're here loving me / Fire meet gasoline, burn with me tonight, yeah )

work song by hozier ( When my time comes around / Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth / No grave can hold my body down / I'll crawl home to her )

put me through it by suki waterhouse ( And I'm tired of keeping all my feelings to myself / Was undercover, playing cards that I've been dealt / You spun me 'round in circles 'til I tripped and fell / I admit I got addicted, now I'm sick as hell )

[captainkurosolaire]

I Blade - Choose

Sandal-clogs dashed inside a corridor hidden-away from an Eastern Estate, sweat secreting from a wrinkled forehead, fear written in the visage of a monger, a wielder who manufactured beings-as-weapons, shaped them with causes, purposes, a believed-martyr for those abandoned to darkness.

Blood-pressure accelerating, chest-heaved, padded-black boots now stained red, drew inward... Shriveling plead came, "...Now Rozan; Hoku... We can talk about this. You're unaware the ramifications you'll spill, how deep our cause goes. We're good-guys, our obligation is to carry out-the-will for those incapable to wield." The ploy was to sow further manipulation. Byproduct of damages were written in an almost soulless set of eyes. Seeker vocalized, "I'm not directionless. I'll fight for peace for The Far-East until victory-roars throughout Ruby City-State." Another step came, "But I'm of choice where I'm wielded. You attempted to extinguish that little-bit of light peeking through the crevices; it revealing chain's of deceit were on my hilt." Truth-peered intensely from those glowing-orbs. Star's collapsing on their victims, before certain annihilation. Don of Black Miracle's back-peddled, thoughts of scheme forming in desperation. Word's surely could disarm his renegade-weapon until reaching his trap-room. "I tried to rescue you by sending Hydo after the girl. She'll rust steel; relation's serve corrosive. Haven't I been the perfect-handler for you? What's-she possibly able to offer, I'm unable?!" Expressively trying to instill reason. The Assassin paused, grasping blade-hilt, almost at range. He contemplated from aroma of the contract-flower in-between his coat; sworn to protect, memory's rebooting of tongue tasting that divine liquid of tea that carried weary-travelers heaven, revitalizing senses, subtle movements the Shaman offered in mending. "Soft-Hands. Brightness... Importantly, discovery of my peace." Words conveyed like poetry. Sensations should've been exterminated, tempered from wrathful flames, torture inflicted to soul-crushed discipline. Angered-teeth grated his Manufacturer shouted furiously "Soft-Hands?! Kidding me?! ...That's all!? We could've thrown koban towards any Red-Light District shameless harlot for that. They'd provided all-that aforementioned, gobbling ravenously!" Taking a larger-gap step with a dark motive. Black-maned Lion cornering this bossing rodent squealing, unknowingly didn't desire fleeting reprieve. He slew in that manner. He yearned, more... Wait, when did his identity reveal? A luster-string internally showing a path. ...To Existence of a Heart. Sudden-shifts came as Don Honzo took a leap behind into a room where a detected motion-sensor sealed-up gate of wards offered salvation. The trap-room revealed itself, an insurmountable set of paper scrolls for an inferno spell revealed, all primed upon Hoku's approach soon inevitable detonation. Gloating with maniacal cackling, "Be incinerated you traitorous-tool! Know her weakness; caused your death!" Hand's on hip, proudly. The cowardice-demeanor was just a front of mastered shadow-orchestration. With peerless-composure, Rozan the Star withdrew sword, in instant a magnificent-strike slash of skilled. The preach of weakness foiled wrong, in that desperation moment, he grew stronger... considering that flower needed preservation; life greater than thought. Momentarily becoming weightless... His Don's expression engraved to dumbfounded. Almost worth-tearing to admirable beauty, genuine-fear creeping... The trap scrolls fused-sparks were left blown out like a series of candles, the protective barrier between them; sliced apart. Right as Hoku exhaled, utilizing that perfect technique; his back was unexpectedly smashed from a swinging-secondary trap of a wrecking-ball. He disarmed to instant, hand's in his fall reached out, cradling something from confines; to shield something fragile, collapsing directly in a heap before his Maker. The Don viciously kicked and stomped, "I TOLD YOU, Rust! Reason I'm in-charge, you disobedient, Trash! Ingrate! Vermin!" Kicking continuously, dirt piling amongst garb to slaved-belonging, rib's were being heard rattling cracks, air and spit chucking out of lungs. The twist unseen... seems he needed a miracle.

[Prev:Chapter]: Burned ~ ♪"Renegades"♪

[fire-in-my-woods]

"I shouldn't have left." From the angsty writing prompts , for my sweet boy vrai ♡♡♡♡

I shouldn't have left.

Pairings: Vrai Fike (M!V) / Gloria Abarcía-LaFaive (OC)

Content Warnings: Discussions of Religion & Suicide

Summary: After two years of radio silence, Vrai returns to Night City injured and unannounced. Gloria takes him to a ripper, and the two have a difficult - but much needed - heart-to-heart.

He would've known the tune from anywhere. No crowd this late, just the ones passing through. And Vrai, 'course, looking as much the sopping wet cat as he feels deep in those titanium bones.

Guitar strings taper off into a vibrating hum as Gloria stands. Two years in Atlanta felt like an eternity; it's bizarre how easy it was to forget how comforting her presence is.

"I, uh..." Vrai forces out a weak laugh, hugging his arms tighter around his aching, trembling body. "Think you're gettin' a lil' rusty, Glor. Bit out of tune..."

Of all times, why he comes back with his tail between his legs now... shit, he couldn't tell ya. Could've went anywhere - straight to a ripper would've been the smarter choice.

Gloria wacks him upside the head before yanking him into a smothering hug... and he's too sick of all the bullshit to do anything but lean into it.

"Stupid, stupid boy..."

"I..."

"Come. Not far from here, Gatito."

*

"Zip?" The doc nods towards the curtain. A scav made of more rust than chrome hobbles across the alley right as a patched up runner slips out, leaving Vrai and Gloria alone in the... 'waiting area'.

"I do not suppose you will tell me a thing without prodding, hm?" Gloria sighs.

"Was kinda hopin' I'd skeeze outta an explanation...'

"Vrai. Be serious, please."

"...Atlanta."

"So I have heard."

"Thought I'd find sum better."

"...Hm."

Vrai swallows, glancing sideways at Gloria. "You mad at me?"

"I am heartbroken," She whispers.

"...Oh."

Suddenly the cokehead rummaging through street litter is a lot more interesting to look at than Gloria's face - where he damn well knows he'll find that look. He grips his own arms tighter, hoping like hell she can't see the way he's trying to hide the tears in his eyes. He wills the tremble in his lips to steady, swallows down the lump of grief sawing at his vocal chords.

"...'M sorry," He manages to rasp out.

"I know, Gatito."

He focuses on the wound in his side now, pretending to check if the bleeding stopped. Fuck, maybe bleeding out right now wouldn't be the worst thing. Least an asshole like himself deserves.

"Ofelia?" Gloria's voice is much, much softer now.

"...What?"

"That is why you left?"

Vrai grits his teeth, applies more pressure to his abdomen.

"Padre and I held the Ofrenda."

"...Don't wanna talk 'bout that."

"That is why you left."

"Fuck, I - yeah, yes. Ran away like a lil' bitch 'cause mi mamá offed herself. Happy?"

"No. Of course not."

Vrai sighs, glancing at the curtain, catching glimpses of silhouettes and muffled voices. "Christ, how much fuckin' longer..."

"I gathered her things from the motel. Most is in storage, waiting. For you."

Gloria tugs a rosary necklace from her inner jacket pocket, faded cross dangling right in front of Vrai's weary eyes. That small part where the color fades on each bead, he swears he can see the lines of his mother's fingerprints, and... He doesn't have it in him to try and change the topic anymore. The blood on his fingers muddies the muted gem colors as he finally takes it into both hands and just - stares. For a long, long time.

"You think..." Vrai clutches the beads to his aching heart. "Big Man... heaven... all tha' shit - think any of it got truth?"

Gloria's lips thin, brown eyes flicking to meet his. "You worry for her?"

"...No," he lies. God knows everyone in Night City isn't exactly on first class to the pearly gates.

"She is at peace. Peace she... could not find here."

He wants to go beserk, lash out and break something as if it hasn't been two whole fucking years since it all went down. Wouldn't do him any good, wouldn't make him feel better. Underneath it all, he's just... fuck. Not a word in any language for how damn low it feels inside.

"Never shoulda left like that," He finally says, voice fried to hell and hardly holding it together at this point. "I'm... I... 'M sorry, Glor."

She presses a kiss to his forehead and lingers there, each passing second making the already wavering facade crumble a little more.

"I know," She murmurs.

"I'm sorry..."

"I know."

"S-"

"Shh, sh..."

The curtain slides back, doc finally peeking out to look down the alley again. "V?"

[shroudandsands]

Prompt #13: Butte

He watched as lightning pooled overhead; as it dripped down towards the earth in craters and rumbles as if it had decided that the rain could no longer do without its accompaniment. As if the dark night that wrapped the ever-bright light of Everkeep could not do without its competition. His breath fogged his mask for a moment before he continued to trudge on towards the hill.

In his broad, but admittedly shallow, knowledge of Alexandria’s history he’d taken a lot of interest in the varying creations of peoples past. The small. The mundane. The fantastic. The elaborate. Everything from the most basic of tool to the greatest warping of electrope. Only recently had he decided to fill a hole in that knowledge that he had long since ignored. Footsteps that tracked their way up an abandoned hill; a place left behind by all but a few of the newest reforgers in their midst. The people of Xak Tural, the newcomers, who still held onto their old ways. As he rested his hand on the fence gate he corrected himself. It wasn’t just theirs. His, now, too. He swung the rusted gate open, its squeal almost hidden by the downpour that continued to roll through the sky and down the hill. But it couldn't dampen the sound of footsteps as he plodded his way past each and every headstone. Each grave. Each memory.

He’d sifted through archives for quite a few nights looking for this place. Sleepless. Tireless. Endlessly flipping through what physical records still existed where digital records had long since been wiped, corrupted, or misplaced. So little was there to find even in something that could be held in his own two hands. He’d had to get involved with a few others, good friends now, who specialized in the preservation of what little physical history Alexandria still had. But they’d never been able to find much, if anything, for what spoke of the old kingdom. Those memories, perhaps, were left only to the Queen. To Sphene. He stopped to kneel before a makeshift marker. A recent addition. The graveyard had been left to rot not long after Everkeep had finished its construction. Names were still visible on some of the stones. Old, unremarkable from anything he could glean. The persons entombed under could have been kings or paupers and he would have no way to guess- And less to imagine. Little else was known about it. Even its name had been all but scrubbed from history… much like all other aspects of death had been. The Cloud, for all the surety it had given him before, could only conjure to mind the wrenching gut that came as lightning continued to stretch spindly fingers down from the dark heavens above. He pulled off his gloves to expose calloused hands. His thumb wiped away oxidation and grime that had begun to plague the metal plate he’d nestled in a pile of stones. He’d made a point to ask some of the older Shetona of their home. Their rituals. Their place. What was appropriate? Alexandria had gone so long forgetting its dead. He had gone so long forgetting the dead. What do you do? What helps? The cairn was a sad sight in the midst of it. But it was a sight. You could still hear footsteps through the rain.

“Galena…” Came that practiced voice. Footsteps that had continued through the rain. He didn’t turn. He continued to carve through the grime with nothing but his fingertips until the steel of it was clean once again. Until it dimly showed the reflection of the rumbling sky above. He placed it back amidst the stones stacked high. Then he produced another stone from his pocket. He placed it with the others. His breath fogged his mask as he knelt there for a long moment. Two moments. Three. He waited to feel something. Anything. Either the heart-stopping weight of grief or the soul-lightened relief of forgiveness from… something. Certainly anything other than the pale green concern that stood politely behind him and off to the right. Waiting for him to speak up. To respond. Anything. He couldn’t anymore.

He turned left. He trudged down the hill.