#double chapter post!!!

[strawberryfairi]

Synopsis🌹: After discovering a strange yet alluring red book in a boutique bookstore, you find yourself sucked into a strange world, where all of your inner most desires exist…

Pairings: Wakasa Imaushi X Musician! Black Fem 🤎 Reader (ANYONE CAN READ🧚🏾‍♀️) Content: Author AU, scifi, Musician! reader, reader is a talented nerd, smutty (slow burn) romance, tiny doses of angst, adventure, futuristic city, magic?, !!sexual tension!!, etc (just find out the rest, lol)

w.c: 4.1k💠 Released: November 23

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A/N🧚🏾‍♀️: Ok soooo, PLEASE forgive me for the long ahh wait for the next chapter I am SOOO sorry!!! Like I said in a post earlier tonight's gonna be DOUBLE CHAPTER night ok so buckle up! (The smut comes in chapter 8 which is coming out right after this one).

C.W: None

Tags: @nixalozt @lilthana @wakasaishot

↳ (Let me know via inbox or the comment section if you would also like to be tagged here for this story🩵). Enjoy guys!!

𝟕 || 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞

The night buzzes with excitement, and the faint hum of engines revving fills the air as a crowd unlike anything you've ever seen gathers at the underground race venue. It didn't take a genius to see this is no ordinary street race—not like the ones you'd ever see on Earth. This is Neon City's race circuit. Practically a battleground where the streets themselves became part of the danger.

A massive holographic screen hovers in the air, announcing the event along, and casting ghostly lights across the spacious subway landscape. Discreet drone cameras hover all throughout the "track" around the city. Some even hover by some of the racers, giving a sort of "behind the scenes" feel before the race starts.

"There's no rules here, no safety regulations. The only thing that matters is winning." You hear Benkei's voice snap you out of your awestruck daze as you gawk at the surroundings. You honestly can't even form a response, too busy being overstimulated and anxious to really hold any sort of conversation. Everyone and everything is so colorful and captivating. Like Times Square in New York City.

The vehicles that line up for these races are decked out with enhancements that would be literally impossible on Earth—gravity-defying jumps, reinforced vehicles built to survive brutal collisions, and offensive systems to sabotage their competition. Every racer knows the risks, but none of them seem to care. They're each addicted to the thrill, to the rush of speed, the danger, and most importantly, to the glory of being the one who comes out on top.

You stand off to the side with Wakasa's crew, your heart racing. The neon lights reflect off your eyes as you take it all in, the sights, the sounds, the intensity of it all. Honestly, it's like something out of Mario kart, minus the cute playfulness and ability to pause or retry the races. This is real life and there's absolutely no room for any of the racers to make a mistake, as it would mean risking their life.

"Hey! Love your outfit!"

You turn, surprised by the sudden compliment, and are greeted by a bright, bubbly girl with striking pink hair that cascades down her shoulders like water waves. Her eyes are an equally vibrant shade of pink, sparkling like candy gems beneath the neon lights. She literally looks like a movie character or something.

You blink, taken aback for a moment by the sheer beauty of the girl. "Thanks but...," You trail off, a smile curling your lips. "This pink going on? It's giving Valentine's Day; it's giving Barbie." You compliment.

The pink-haired girl's face lights up even more, her eyes twinkling as she giggles. "Valentine's Day? What's that?"

You laugh softly. "It's a holiday where I'm from. It's like a day of love. Pink, red, and purple. It's the colors we associate with love."

"Aww, thank you! I love it." The girl beams. "I'm Astra."

Before you can introduce yourself, another voice joins the conversation. "Don't hog all the spotlight," The second girl teases lightly, stepping forward with a playful grin. She has midnight blue hair cut into a sharp bob that frames her delicate face perfectly, her eyes an equally deep shade of blue that shimmer under the city's lights.

"I'm Nafré," She adds, flicking a strand of hair out of her face. "Love the vibe you're giving off, by the way."

You feel warmth rush through you as you smile at her. "Thanks! You look amazing too! That hair color is so pretty."

Astra grins, giving a mock bow. "Why, thank you."

The three of you share a moment of laughter, compliments bouncing back and forth like old friends as you drift away from Benkei and the others. It's actually refreshing. You hadn't really expected to make friends so quickly (or at all) in this world, let alone ones so sweet and welcoming.

"So, what brings y'all to the race?" You ask curiously, glancing between them.

"Oh, my boyfriend's racing tonight," Astra explains with a smile. "He's been readying up for this big gig for weeks, so of course, I had to come and cheer him on. I dragged Nafré along because—well, she's my best friend and all."

Nafré grinned. "Not like I had a choice. But hey, the races are fun! It's an adrenaline rush."

"I've never seen you before. Is this your first time at a race?" Astra asks.

You nod. Technically it is since you didn't really get to see the race between Jaxon and Zero. Though that was probably for the best. "Yeah actually. I'm here for Wakasa. He's racing too."

The two girls exchange a quick look at each other.

"What?" Nafré gawks, her brow raised in disbelief.

Astra adds, "Here for him as in a fan or....?"

"Here with him?" Nafré finishes.

"Uhhh, with." You chuckle awkwardly, watching as their expressions morph into a look of awe.

"Stop! Are you serious?!", Astra gawks, "Are you his girlfriend?!"

"Huh?! No no no," You shake your head, "I'm literally just here for the ride."

Nafré raises a brow, her smirk growing playful. "Ohh, here for the ride, huh?" She teases, winking suggestively.

You burst into laughter, covering your face with your hands for a moment. "Wait no! Not like that!"

Astra wasn't about to let you off the hook so easily. "Uh-huh, right," She teases, crossing her arms and giving you a knowing look. "I've literally never seen Wakasa bring a girl along to his races before, like ever. But you wanna sit here and tell me it's not like that? Yeah ok."

"Yeah I can't lie, that was a nice try. Everyone knows what it means when a guy brings a girl along to watch one of his races. Especially when he brings her to "the pit" (The Pit: The closest you can be towards the starting and finishing line in a Neon City race)." Astra chimes in, gesturing around to where you all are.

"Well...I mean—"

"It's alright girl, you don't have to make up anything. I kept things lowkey with Shin in the beginning too. I only went to one race, and it was just a beginner one." Astra grins.

"Oh yeah, by the way, which one is Shin?" You ask, your eyes scanning out towards all the racers. The girls keep on walking to get a closer look at all the racers.

"That one. He's six away from your man." She replies.

Your heart does a little unnecessary flutter when she calls Waka your man, but you quickly brush it off. You follow her pointed finger, eyes landing on a particularly tall guy with dark hair and a silver chain around his neck. He's pretty good looking, dressed fairly casual with black jeans and a white t-shirt, and he also rides a motorcycle just like Waka does.

"Okkkk! Girl, he's not bad!" You compliment, giving her an approving nod.

"Right! And to think I used to date—

"Don't even say it." Nafré cuts in, face palming.

"....Who?!" You ask cautiously. It's not like you'd even know, seeing as you're quite literally not from here.

"...Zero." She chokes out, looking down and to the side shamefully.

"Noooo! Stop!" You gasp, hovering your hands over your mouth. Of all people....

"Yeah. It-...it wasn't my best era." She chuckles awkwardly.

"Girl...." You trail off, not even sure what to say since you actually do know who that is thanks to Jaxon's race with him. "Well, you know what, you've leveled up now! Shin seems like a really nice guy!"

"He is." She gushes, her cheeks turning a light shade of pink. "Hey Shin!" She calls out, waving her arm to get his attention. He actually notices, instantly turning around with a wide smile, waving at her then blowing a kiss her way.

"Aaaaaw!" You and Nafré gush. It's so crazy how calm and even happy these guys seem even though they're all just moments away from engaging in a life threatening race.

You look over at Wakasa, who's standing by his bike talking to Benkei, Jaxon, and some other guy you've never seen before with a scar along his face. The reality starts to sink back in, having been swept away in the breeze of conversation between Nafré and Astra, that this is still a dangerous and potentially life threatening event. A frown replaces the previous warm smile, and your heart begins to sink with worry.

"Hey. Why don't you go talk to your man?" Nafré asks, with almost scarily perfect timing to negate the oncoming rush of anxious thoughts towards this race.

"Definitely not my man...but I was actually just thinkin' about going over to talk to him real quick before the race starts." You tell her in a low tone, then shoot her a quick "I'll be right back", breaking away from the two and heading over to where Waka and his friends are.

He notices you instantly, and you catch a glimpse of a faint softness in his eyes as you approach. "Came to see me off?" He grins.

"Yeah" You begin, nervously fiddling with your hands in front of you, "I know you've done this a lot and stuff but...this whole thing looks really dangerous, you know? So, you better be careful, ok? For real, I don't wanna see you—

"Oh Waka, please be careful!" Benkei suddenly mimics loudly, pitching his voice higher and fluttering his hands dramatically in the air, much to Jaxon's amusement.

"Nah, don't worry about me, baby. I got this." Jaxon chimes in, the two of them chuckling like idiots behind you both.

Your eyes narrow, cheeks burning up with embarrassment as the guys go on playing around. They continue their back and forth but walk away to you guys some space. You hear the other man with the scar on his face briefly ask who you are, before they completely fade out of earshot.

Waka chuckles softly, shaking his head. "See? Now you've got them goin'. But for real, don't worry. I got this."

His smirk deepens. "Besides"—he leans in slightly, lowering his voice—"I've got an undefeated record I gotta keep up. Can't let 'em ruin my streak. Not with a pretty doll like you watchin'." He hums, lightly tapping under your chin.

You shake your head, a small smile draping across your lips. "You really think racing in front of me's gonna be enough to keep you from losing?"

"Absolutely," He replies, his voice a little lower, yet equally as playful. He straightens up, leaning just close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from him. "And actually...I was thinkin' we should make this interesting."

"How could this possibly get more interesting?" You raise a brow, curiosity piqued.

"It ain't a real racing experience if you don't make a bet. That's how it goes around here. So how 'bout this", He says, holding your gaze with a bold intensity that sends a shiver of excitement down your spine, "If I win, you're comin' home with me to celebrate."

Your cheeks warm immediately, and you try to ignore the quickening of your pulse, as well as the multitude of very unfriendly-like imaginations of going home with him. You don't back down from his challenge though. Keeping your tone light, you raise a brow as if unaffected. "Hmm..ok, and if you lose?"

Wakasa's eyes sparkle, a dangerous glint in his lilac gaze. "I won't."

The simple, confident reply makes your heart skip, but you feign indifference once again, giving a dismissive wave. "How 'bout you just focus on winning first, before thinkin' about what's going down after, ok? Now that's a deal."

"Believe it or not I like to plan ahead." He muses playfully.

The announcer calls for all of the racers to start heading out to the starting line, and it makes your anxiety spike once again.

"Alright, make sure you keep you're eyes open." He says.

"I'll try..." You murmur nervously, giving him a small wave goodbye, watching as he heads off to his bike at the starting line.

You chew on your lip till it hurts, trying to hold back the unease gnawing at you. You want to be fully excited, you really do, but this isn't at all what you were initially expecting of a street race. This one is even crazier looking than the last one you caught a glimpse of at Sector 9. Your fingers subconsciously grip tightly around Benkei's muscular arm, holding on as if the contact would somehow ground you.

Benkei glances down, noticing your grip, and chuckles. "You're really worked up, huh?" His tone lightly teasing. "I'm tellin' you, Waka's got this. He always does."

"I know, I know." You reply, trying to sound confident, but your voice wavers heavily. You don't pull away from him, though. "It's just...this is really different, you know, from races I'm used to. The track, the traps...I don't know. We don't do races like this where I'm from."

The other friend with the scar, who's standing on the other side of Benkei chimed in. "Don't stress yourself out. He's undefeated for a reason. I'm Takeomi by the way. Me and Waka go way back."

"I'm Y/N. We kinda just met." You tell him with a shy yet pleasant smile.

"I can tell..." He says, giving Jaxon and Benkei a look. You could tell what he was silently asking them.

Is this his girl or something? What's he doing bringing her here?

Though the guys mean well, their casual confidence makes you want to scream. You know they're probably right—Wakasa's been u defeated for who knows how long, and he likely isn't about to lose his streak now—but still, the pit of dread in your stomach refuses to settle. The thought of something going wrong, of one of those other racers playing dirty, makes your chest tighten. You aren't used to feeling this way, so utterly out of control, so scared.

And then, the countdown begins.

The huge holographic screen above everyone lights up, displaying a massive number 10 in glowing neon blue. The crowd starts chanting, voices rising in unison, the excitement in the air nearly palpable.

9

Your heart starts racing, thrumming in your ears as you glance over at Wakasa. He's laser focused, his gaze locked on the track ahead, hands gripping the handlebars of his bike like he's already one with the machine.

8

The other racers revved their engines, taunting him, trying to get in his head. But Wakasa doesn't flinch even a little. His eyes remain sharp, his jaw set. He was ready.

7

"Please be careful..." You whisper, barely aware of the words leaving your own lips. Your grip on Benkei tightens, and this time, he doesn't tease you about it. He simply gives you a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

6. 5. 4.

Your hands start to tremble slightly, and you force yourself to take a deep breath, eyes never leaving Wakasa.

3

The racers all continue revving their engines loudly, like a bunch of bulls knocking and banging against the wooden gate, eager to be freed into the ring.

2

You can feel it, the tension, the anticipation, the quiet before the storm.

1...GO!

The racers shoot forward, a rush of sound and motion that blurred into streaks of neon. Wakasa's bike left a trail of purple light as it surged ahead, weaving through the tightly packed starting line with effortless precision.

The track started deep in the subway system, a labyrinth of tunnels barely wide enough to contain the speeding vehicles. The first turn came quickly, a sharp curve to the right that forced the racers to swerve hard. Taking a turn at that speed has to be physically impossible.

You wince, squeezing your eyes closed as your breath catches. On the holographic screen above, you watch as Wakasa leans into the turn with full confidence, the purple streak behind him carving a perfect arc through the chaos.

The other racers aren't as graceful though. One clips the wall, sparks flying as their bike scrapes against the steel. Another misjudges the angle entirely, spinning out and slamming directly into a support pillar. The pit crowd roared, half cheering, half jeering.

You can't even begin to cheer. Your breath catches every time the camera cuts back to Wakasa, terrified to see a shot of him crashing or even worse. He maneuvers through the wreckage with nearly surgical precision, tilting his bike at impossible angles to dodge debris and weaving seamlessly through the narrow spaces.

"I can't, I can't, I can't...." You repeat under your breath, your eyes glued to the screen as your foot taps the ground anxiously where you stand.

The track twists again, plunging deeper into the tunnels before reaching the opening to the city. The racers were now jockeying for position, their vehicles packed tightly together as they vied for dominance. One rider, a hulking figure on a chrome-plated bike, edged closer to Wakasa, trying to box him in against the wall.

Your stomach twists in anxiety as she saw the narrow gap Wakasa had to navigate. The chrome racer leaned in aggressively, but Wakasa didn't flinch. Instead, he braked sharply, his bike tilting back slightly as he let the other racer overshoot the angle. In a flash, Wakasa swerves left, slipping past the gap and accelerating ahead, his purple streak cutting through the maze like a lightning bolt.

The pit erupted in cheers, but her hands were still trembling.

Your heart pounds as the race transitions aboveground, the vehicles bursting onto the neon-lit streets of the city. The holographic display adjusts to follow the racers as they all speed through tight alleyways and open highways, the city’s towering structures a vibrant blur in the background.

The race aboveground is even more chaotic than underground. The racers now have to contend with the unpredictable layout of the city, weaving through alleyways, highways, and pedestrian walkways. Wakasa remains ahead of most of the pack, his bike darting through tight spaces with unerring precision.

Your heart nearly stops as the screen shows one of the racers behind him deploying some kind of medium sized drone. The device zips forward, its spiked appendages whirring menacingly as it closes in on Wakasa's rear tire.

"He's cheating!" You outburst.

"Unfortunately, it's legal." Jaxon says with a huff.

But Wakasa must have sensed what was going on behind him. Without looking back, he veers sharply to the right, cutting onto another street entirely, filled with pedestrians and other drivers simply heading from home from work. The drone follows him, its mechanical limbs scraping against the walls as it tries to keep up.

The street suddenly opens up into a plaza, and Waka seizes the moment. He tilted his bike sharply, skidding in a controlled slide that sent the drone hurtling past him. It smashes into a streetlight, exploding in a shower of sparks.

The crowd erupts into cheers once again, but at this point you're barely remembering to breathe.

The race plunges back underground, this time into an abandoned maintenance tunnel that's barely wide enough for the racers. The camera switches to an overhead view, showing how the racers have to line up single file to avoid colliding with the walls.

Wakasa, now in second place, uses the tight space to his advantage. He edges closer to the lead racer, his bike nearly grazing the wall as he closed the gap. Just as the tunnel began to widen, Waka makes his move. He accelerates sharply, leaning forward until his body was almost parallel to the bike. The purple streak flares brighter as he shoots past the lead racer, his bike slipping through the narrowing gap with millimeters to spare.

Your breath hitches. He's pushing so hard, taking so many risks and doing all these crazy tricks. 

The holographic screen cut to another angle, showing the cyber-police drones beginning to close in on the racers at the back of the pack. Their blue lights flicker ominously as they hone in on their targets. One drone shoots forward, deploying a neon red energy net that ensnares a struggling racer and sends him spinning completely out of control.

Wakasa, far ahead of the chaos, seems unfazed. He maintains his lead as the track transitioned back to the streets. The camera followed him closely as he navigates a series of hairpin turns, the purple streak behind him tracing impossible angles.

Just then, a group of seven cyber-police drones turn out from between skyscrapers, attempting to cut him off from the front as two other bots catch up to him from behind, weaving through the other racers. 

"Gosh this is too much...!" You groan, chewing anxiously on your bottom lip as you clasp your now sweaty hands together. Your mind races, as if trying to think for him for a way to somehow get out of this situation. But there's no need. 

Suddenly, Waka pulls to an abrupt stop, three other racers and two cyber-police drones zooming in front of him. He immediately pulls into a quick reverse, driving backwards and sharply turning into an alleyway that he uses as a shortcut. The audience goes absolutely wild, everyone screaming and hollering in awe at the insane move he just pulled. 

"WHAT?! WAIT, HOW THE HELL?" You outburst, your jaw on the floor. The other racers all crash into the cyber-police, causing a multi-vehicle collision, including poor non-racing drivers. 

"That's Waka for you. Crazy bastard." Both Takeomi and Benkei mutter at the same time. Jaxon's expression is the same as your, completely blown away with his eyes glued to the big screen.

The final stretch of the race is a straightaway leading to a glowing finish line. Behind him, the other racers left are still jostling for his position, though all they can hope for at this point is second place. They all reenter the subway, the scenery on the big screen looking familiar as they make their way back. The sounds of their engines becoming louder with each second.

Wakasa crosses the "finish line" first, his bike slowing as the crowd erupts into roaring cheers. The purple streak fades, leaving only the faint glow of the underground lights reflecting off his bike.

You exhale a shaky breath, your body starting to relax as you realize it's finally over.

The racers who made it back all cut off their engines, instantly getting surrounded by their friends, girlfriends, and others as they dismount from their bikes or hop out of their cars.

Without thinking, your legs pull you into action, weaving through people as you run towards him. He notices you just as he dismounts from his bike, his lilac eyes lighting up at the sight of you once again.

The corners of his mouth curve into an easygoing, satisfied grin just as you barrel into him, throwing your arms around his shoulders in a tight hug. The drones all zoom in on the two of you, catching all kinds of angles as the holographic screen displays it for everyone to see.

But the both of you are too preoccupied to notice.

“You won, oh my gosh!” You beam, clinging to him. “That was insane—I can't even believe you! You're giving..." You trail off, struggling to find the right descriptive words, "You were out there giving...just like straight up—

Without warning, he crouches down slightly, wrapping an arm firmly around the backs of your thighs. In one swift motion, he lifts you off the ground and slings you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes or something with a mischievous looking grin on his lips.

"Hey! Wait, my skirt!" You holler, quickly using a hand to hold the back of your skirt in place just in case. Nonchalantly he heads back over to his bike parked across the finish line.

"What're you doing?! Put me down!" You laugh. The drones are all still locked in on the two of you, playing out what's happening on that jumbo screen.

"Not a chance. Bet's a bet. I won, so I'm cashin' in. " He says, smirking as he straightens up, holding you securely. He turns to face his crew, Jaxon and Benkei already bubbling up with laughter, and Takeomi simply shaking his head with a knowing smirk.

"Alright, I'm gettin' outta here, boys." He calls out, "I gotta handle somethin'."

"Take it easy on her, Waka. She's still new to your crazy lifestyle." Benkei teases, crossing his arms and grinning from ear to ear. 

"Yeah man, don't scare her off." Takeomi adds, though his teasing tone suggests he isn't at all worried about that.

"Bruh, this is so embarrassing. There's literally cameras everywhere; we're on the big screen!" You protest between laughs, though that laughter and the sparkle in your eyes betray just how much fun you're actually having.

"There's nothin' embarrassing about it. Everybody can see how pretty you are." He replies playfully, setting you down just to help you onto his bike. Then, he swings his leg over the bike and settles in front of you, the sleek black machine rumbling to life beneath you once again. You barely have time to process what's happening before Waka revvs the engine. "Hold on tight." He says, glancing back at you with a smirk.

"You and this crazy bike..." You groan, memories form your first time riding with him resurfacing as you tightening your grip around him. 

He pulls off and out of the scene, leaving the erupting cheers and drone cameras behind. 

A/N🧚🏾‍♀️: Yaaaasss! It always feels so good putting out another chapter😌anyways stayed tuned for chapter 8! I should have it out in like an hour or so teeheee!!

[eowynstwin]

peristalsis - v

selkie!soap x reader. depression. strangers to "lovers." shower sex. cunnilingus. smut. manipulative soap. oysters as an aphrodisiac. unstable narrator. . Running away from life to the Scottish Hebrides, you meet a man who won't leave you alone. . Masterlist. Ao3.

previous

You watch him over an open book.

It’s an old romance, something from the eighties. Classic bodice ripper, billowing sleeves, tight corsets, mullets and heaving bosoms and all. Naturally, it’s set on a pirate ship, the heroine as the unlucky spoils of a merchant ship raid and the hero a lusty captain able to pierce her virgin’s desire for sexual depravity.

It could only have been more pointed at you if it had been set in the North Atlantic—it isn’t—but you glare at Soap’s back anyway.

He must be able to feel it, because he stands straight at the wheel, shoulders thrown back, occasionally flexing.

The freak.

You’d realized the joke he’d been making, once your heartbeat had slowed. Hiding the pelt somewhere obvious enough for you to see it. You live in the age of the internet—you know what it’s supposed to mean.

And you kind of hate him for it. Now, post-coitus, you can’t shove it away into a box—he is the most attractive man you’ve ever encountered. Rugged and handsome, competent at everything you’ve seen him do, seemingly at home wherever he finds himself. Everything makes him smile. Nothing seems to disconcert him.

And a nice big cock he actually knows how to use. Certainly the best lay you’ve ever had.

What every woman traveling solo, you think, longs to encounter on a solo trip across the world, but will never acknowledge looking for. An answer to an unaddressed desire; proof that satisfaction is out there to find, if it’s searched for.

A lover with no conditions. Someone willing to strip your inhibitions away, knowing your protests are only token.

You had not been searching. You’d given up searching.

And now he mocks you—with every satisfied glance he throws over his shoulder.

“Good book?” he asks, all casual and pleased. “S’ one a’my favorites. Tell me when you get to the naval battle.”

You frown. “You haven’t read this.”

He gives a little huff of amusement. “Read all of ‘em, bonnie.”

No, this is where you draw the line. A good cook, a good fuck, and a romance reader? No. No, you absolutely will not take this.

“Sure you have, Johnny,” you grouse, “you read every single stupid book on that shelf. Sure. Hell, you’ve read books that aren’t on that shelf. You’ve read every new release from the last six months, even. Why not.”

He looks at you again over his shoulder, mouth curled. “Aye. Needed ideas, once a’knew you were comin.’”

He says it matter-of-factly, with only a little bit of pride. As if it was a natural step in the process of getting ready for your arrival—renovate the croft. Stock the fridge and pantry. Plan some island excursions.

Study the erotic mind of the average woman to divine how best to seduce her.

Your frown deepens, and you lift the book higher, making it a barrier between you and him. Loser. Couldn’t he just go to the mainland for a few days if he wanted pussy? Not like it would be hard to find, for him.

You resolve to ignore him for the rest of the trip. A petty endeavor, maybe, but it’s the only one you can make.

But six hours is six hours, and you can’t read the whole time. Periodically you have to get up to stretch your legs, and the windows wrapping around the bridge draw your attention to the sea outside.

Johnny drives the trawler at a remove along the coastline, keeping close enough to the islands for easy viewing. The denizens of the Hebrides are out en masse, enjoying the clear weather, joyfully populating the land- and seascape in the absence of human interlopers.

Porpoises, so much smaller than you might have expected, periodically catch the wake of the boat, swimming alongside, playful and curious. Gulls loop in the air above the dunes, fronds of grass fluttering in the breeze. Gannets, stark white, arrow down into the waves, wings folded back pin-straight as they spear their quarry—silvery fish that boil the surface of the water in their frenzy.

Some removed part of you enjoys their pleasure secondhand. The normally-grey ocean is vibrant in the sunlight, crystalline and sparkling and as blue as Johnny’s eyes.

He seems to be in a good mood, too, although that could just be because you let him fuck you. You feel his eyes on you even as you refuse to look at him, dancing along the curves of your body the same way his fingertips might.

At one point—“Bonnie, I know you’re sulking an’ all, but c’mere.”

He gestures you over to the cockpit, and—embarrassed at being called out—you join him. He brings a hand to the small of your back, stepping behind you and pointing over your shoulder.

A gray wall of passing cliffs, and crags of rock jutting up from the churn at their base. You see ten or twelve grey-and-white seals lounging across every available flat surface, some cuddled in groups of three or four, apparently unbothered by the periodic spray of breaking waves.

“No’ where I’d choose to have a kip, personally,” Johnny says, sounding amused.

You turn your head to look at him, hard. His eyes soften when they meet yours, and he tilts his head to kiss you, undeterred even when you flinch away from it.

His hand tightens across your back, fingers digging in. He sucks your bottom lip between his and caresses it with his tongue, as he edges beneath the hem of your shirt to spread his hand across the warming skin of your back.

“I’m mad for ya,” he murmurs when he pulls away, blush high on his cheeks.

“It’s been two days,” you deadpan.

He presses up behind you, open hand sliding around to press into the low part of your belly, right at the sensitive crest of your mons; you can’t help your gasp when, at the same time, his erection nestles into the cleft of your ass.

“No’ to this,” he purrs in your ear. “Feels like it’s been forever, for this.”

When his fingers start making their way beneath the waistband of your pants, you grab his hand and wrench it away, scoffing.

“You’re just a fucking horndog,” you sneer, betrayed by the heat spilling through your core.

“Aw, you break my heart, bonnie,” Johnny simpers, but there’s a mocking edge to it. As if he knows exactly what you’re hiding.

You step away from him, folding your arms across your chest and staring out at the basking seals instead. Then—

“There’s one in the water,” you say.

A few meters away from the rocks, a round head pokes up from the surface, bobbing with the rise and fall of the waves. Its eyes are slitted closed, nostrils dilating.

“Aw, he’s bottling,” Johnny says affectionately, when he comes over to look. “Look at his wee face.”

You remember suddenly your encounter of the previous day—another lone seal, resting apart from its fellows.

“I saw one on the beach,” you say, “yesterday, after you dropped me off. A big one. You didn’t say they might show up.”

“Male?” he asks, and you nod. “Peripheral male, then. I’m no’ surprised.”

You sigh. “And that is…”

As if magnetized, his hands find you again, this time settling on your waist. It seems that Johnny’s touch is something impossible to escape, in his vicinity. He drags them down over your hips and back up almost idly, as if he’s not even thinking about doing it.

“There’s dominant males, and then there’s the rest of ‘em. Only the dominant ones get to breed at the rookeries, see? And the rest of ‘em have to wait around for the females to leave to have their chance.”

He leans into you from behind, nose in your hair, and you hear him inhale as his hands tighten.

“Once a peripheral male finds a female alone, separated from the colony, ready to go back out to sea—well, that’s his chance to pounce.”

You frown, mostly to yourself. “No matter how the female feels about it.”

“We’ve been over this,” he chides.

He brings his lips to the curve of one ear, then the soft spot behind it. His nose finds the juncture of your neck and shoulder, where the capillaries that he broke with his teeth still throb whenever you press your fingers to them. He inhales again, deeply.

“Why do you do that?” you grouse, unwilling to give him the win.

“Like how you smell,” he says, doing it again.

His tongue caresses the bruise before he closes his mouth over it—but he goes no further than to kiss your neck twice more before returning to the wheel. It leaves you reeling, half-dizzy with arousal, and when you stomp back to your seat with a frustrated growl, he only glances over at you, smirking, and laughs.

He finds a berth in the early evening to park the trawler, and at that point you’re thankful for any kind of solid ground to set your feet on, as well as enough open air to disperse whatever pheromones have saturated the enclosed space of the bridge.

You’ve been half-tempted the whole time to make him drop anchor and drag him belowdeck toward the nearest flat surface big enough for the two of you to share; as it is, you’ve simply stewed in your own juices instead, hot with angry arousal and ignoring the slick pooling in the gusset of your underwear.

Johnny steps out into the cooling air in his usual kilt and sweater, and you once again huddle in his jacket, aromatic with his musk, as he leads you onward. This time, unlike the last excursion, he insists upon holding your hand the whole way, callused fingers worming their way between yours, the captured air hot and humid between your palms.

Callanish turns out to be a henge of standing stones.

Meters-tall megaliths, squarish and narrow like broken teeth, surrounding a burial site and extending in two directions as if lining a road. Inevitably evocative of its cousin Stonehenge, with the notable exception that you are allowed to go up and touch the stones with your bare hands.

“They used ‘em for that TV show,” Johnny informs you as the two of you circuit the main ring. “Well, no’ these, they probably had styrofoam for that, but they got the idea from these.”

You lay your free hand on the nearest stone; it’s cold, and rough to the touch, a day’s worth of sunlight evidently not sufficient to warm it. Tiny spots of moss and lichen cling to the old stone, green and eggshell white.

“Why are we allowed to touch them?” you say. You think of bronze statues, rubbed to a golden gleam by millions of tourist hands.

“That’s Lewisian gneiss, bonnie,” says Johnny, laying his hand, much larger, next to yours. His thumb teases the side of your pinky. “Doubt you could make much of a mark on it. This rock here? Three billion years old.”

You look at him, seeing his profile. The expression on his face is soft—not unlike the way he looked at you earlier, on the way here. He spreads his fingers over the stone, tendons furrowing down the back of his sun-weathered hand.

“No’ just older than us,” he continues. “Older than what we used to be, a’fore we were us. Was there when we first made fire. Was there when we came down th’ trees. Was there all the way back when we left the ocean for the first time—”

He looks at you, then. The setting sun catches in the dips of his irises, setting jewel blue aflame.

“An’ it’ll be there, bonnie, when we go back.”

The wind curls around the stones with the chill of the oncoming night. Even despite the jacket, despite the walk up to the site—you feel it penetrate beneath your skin, deep into your bones.

You choose derision, to reject the shiver.

“And you have this all memorized,” you say.

Johnny doesn’t respond. He continues to stare at you, mouth in a relaxed, but inscrutable line.

You suddenly remember that you do not know this man; though he’s told you enough about himself to fill out his background—you don’t know him. You don’t know how he feels about most things, what’s important to him, why he may find one thing or another meaningful. Not the way you’d have to, in order to understand why the gaze he fixes on you feels so significant.

Whatever you’re supposed to understand in the way he looks at you now, you don’t have the ability to discern. The only thing that occurs to you is that, perhaps, you’ve finally managed to offend him.

It does not satisfy you as much as you might have imagined—

In fact, the thought drops through your belly like a rock.

Again. You did it again.

In the one place you thought you’d never have to face this—you did it again. Here is someone who seems to like even the worst of you, and you somehow found an even uglier side of yourself to show him, a squirming thing that cannot help but sling itself around with no heed for the damage it can cause.

But when you open your mouth to say something reparatory, something that certainly won’t fix what you’ve broken no matter what he might say, his expression softens into something thoughtful.

“Visited when I first came here,” he says. Completely unbothered. “After the discharge an’ all.”

You blink. Sharp heat and the numbness of cold, warring across your face.

“Why?” you ask.

“Dunno.” He shrugs, and lifts his hand from the stone, smiling ruefully. “I was a bastard back then. Didnae wan’ anything’ to do with anyone anymore. Mad at the world, a’was.”

Shucked like an oyster; scaled like a fish. Heat wins out, even in the growing chill. Tender skin scalding itself.

“And what,” you say, reflexively nasty, panic whirring up behind your breastbone, “you thought—you’d get some sort of, magical insight here?”

Johnny laughs. “Naw, a’was just pissing my money away, bonnie. Thought I’d come up here an’ try t’ knock one over.”

Tight chest. Can’t breathe. You step away from him, far away, hide it like you’re looking at another of the standing stones, but a stabbing pain spears upward through your diaphragm.

In—count—hold—out—

“Could you?” you ask, wringing something like a normal tone out of your voice.

“Nope. Paid for it later, though.”

He says it casually. He hasn’t noticed. You reach out to the new stone, drag your fingers overtop of the rough surface, imagine every little bump flipping the friction ridges of each print like pages of a book. Cold—the rock is cold. The wind is cold, and sharp with the smell of rain. The jacket is heavy on your shoulders.

The jacket smells like Johnny.

“I’m sure the park wardens weren’t happy,” you say, feeling your heart slow in your chest.

“No,” he says, and—with the silence of a lightning strike—“I drowned, afterwords, first time I went to sea.”

You look back at him. The wind picks up, ruffling the ends of his mohawk; on the horizon, a rind of darkness splits the clouds from the earth.

“You drowned?” you repeat.

The hem of his kilt flutters and dances. His gaze is intense—the angle of his brow unreadable.

“Aye, bonnie. I did.”

Your ears begin ringing—as you stare at him, you get the sense of dreaming. There’s a distinction to Johnny that contrasts the landscape framing him, a sharpness so focused that everything else lenses around him.

“Why—why are you here?” you find yourself asking, though you’re not entirely sure why. The question leaves you as if surfacing on its own power.

The corners of his mouth quirk—although for once, he doesn’t smirk at you, the way he always does.

“You tell me,” he murmurs.

He holds you in the tilt of his head; in the depths of his eyes, currents pulling you downward. You inhale, and expect, for some reason, water to pour into your lungs.

Then a gust of wind buffets the two of you. Johnny turns, surveying the sky. Breaking the spell, he says, “Come on, let’s get back. I don’ like the look a’that storm.”

Halfway back down the path, the front overtakes you; rain begins sheeting down, ice cold, needle-precise into your hair and down your collar. Johnny grabs your hand again even as you start worrying about slipping, and though the torrent veils the way, the both of you make it back to the trawler in one piece.

Back on the bridge, a red light blinks on the panel by the wheel. While Johnny attends to it, flipping a switch and bringing a microphone on a curly wire to his mouth, you squeeze your hair out over the sink nearby.

“This is Soap on the vessel Sea Ghost,” he says, and waits for a response.

“Soap. Drop anchor somewhere. Looks like a storm’s coming in,” a gruff voice comes in.

“Yeah, Cap, we noticed,” Johnny says with a laugh, turning and smiling at you. “We’re moored, dinna fash.”

“Good. Looks like it’s just for the night. Clear enough in the morning.”

“Barry. You got everything? Shops’ closed tomorrow.”

“Never will understand why. But yes.”

“It’s a holy day, Captain,” Johnny says pleasantly.

Price grumbles something about damn Catholics and their damn rules, which just makes Johnny laugh.

Then, “Gaz is here. Made it in after you left.”

Johnny’s posture shifts. Similar to a dog hearing the turning of a doorknob; amorphous attention coalescing, finding a target to point at. Anticipatory. Tail twitching, winding up to wag.

It’s a new reaction, to you—you’ve never seen it before.

Johnny lifts the transmitter to his mouth. He holds it there for a silent moment, before saying, “And Simon?”

No response from the other end of the line, pulled taut, as if snagged. Then Price responds “Haven’t heard yet.”

Something passes over Johnny’s face. Some flex of the muscle in his jaw. An expression held in check.

That’s—

That’s familiar.

“Alright. Back tomorrow then.”

“See you.”

He replaces the mic on its hook.

Thunder claps somewhere over the distant, open ocean. The trawler creaks and groans as the wind swirls around it. Yellow lamps illuminate the warm, wooden space, but are unable to penetrate the lowering blackness outside.

Tension—you can feel it drawing tight, see his shoulder blades shifting closer together. It aches in the muscles of your own back. He faces away from you, like you’re not there—

He turns to look at you. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t look quite real. As if he’s forcing the expression on his face.

“Poor bonnie,” he croons, looking you up and down. The tenor of his voice is saccharin-sweet and thick. “How’s a hot shower sound to warm up, hmm?”

Your belly pinches. “Sure.”

He leads you down a steep flight of stairs into the stomach of the boat, showing you into a single bedroom. The space is cramped, wedge-shaped—barely enough room for the double bed shoved into the middle of it, sheets and blankets gathered in rumples across the top. The unique musk of its occupant wars with the smell of lacquer; the walls are lined with orangey planks, evoking the sailing ships of old.

Directly to the left of the entrance, an open door leads into a small bathroom, into which Johnny guides you, hands on your hips.

“Go’ plenty a’ drinking water stored upstairs so take all the time you like,” he says. “Here, lemme show you how the taps work.”

You half-expect him, after the instruction, to stand there and watch, waiting until you undress. And he does hesitate for a moment, hovering in the threshold, before giving you a practiced grin, telling you to enjoy yourself, a closing the door behind him.

You stand in the middle of the tiny room for an uncertain heartbeat. Assumptions lurching. Almost—hoping.

His heavy footsteps climb back up the stairs.

So, you peel off your damp clothes and drop them into a pile on the floor, stepping naked into the shower. It’s far less mildewed than you might have worried of a single man living alone. Hot water chases cold out of your hair, streaming with pressure far superior to the cottage’s installment.

You realize your toiletries are still above deck, in your bag, beneath the two paperbacks Johnny packed that you haven’t gotten to just yet. You could step out after him—

You don’t do that anymore. You promised yourself.

The floor sways as the shifting sea rocks the trawler in its berth. You reach for the bar on the wall to steady yourself.

One version of yourself is sometimes able to fool the other. The truth is, you could have told him to stop at any time. Put your foot down, hard. Just because he owns the house you’re staying in doesn’t mean he gets to decide what your entire vacation is going to look like.

You scoff at yourself, without any humor. Vacation. Like you’d ever believed this was anything more than self-imposed exile.

The truth is, water takes the shape of the container it fills.

There’s a chill still present in your hair follicles. Impossible for you to identify until now; live with an ache long enough and it stops registering, until it’s balmed with a moment of relief. This is where the addicts begin; experiencing, for the first time, a complete absence of pain, as if it had never been there in the first place, and, once that pain is restored, the ruthless pursuit of its elimination.

Cold rain outside, warm rain within. You stand in the flow, listless. Steam rapidly clouds the empty spaces around you, gathering in droplets on the wall, drizzling down again.

That’s where the mistake is. Pain is never defeated—only deferred. Its panacea provides only diminishing returns, until it’s useless. Until you might as well be swallowing sugar pills or drinking seawater to assuage your thirst.

But you keep doing it. You remember too well how it felt. You chase it down because now you know how it feels.

At some point you have to understand that it always ends poorly.

The bathroom door opens again, and then the shower door, spilling yellow light into the shadowed recess—

Johnny.

The expression on his face is inscrutable; mysterious, as his gaze moves down your body, following the streaming water. Your arms curl around your chest in a perfunctory attempt to conceal yourself, even despite the futility of the effort.

He’s naked, and half-hard, a refrain on the previous night. One hand holds the travel-size soaps and gels that he must have dug out from your bag. He steps in behind you—enclosing the two of you in together.

“Sorry, bonnie,” he murmurs soothingly in your ear. “Had t’make sure we were tied up for the storm.”

The space is not even suggestive of being big enough for two people. You hear the squeak of the shower wall against his shifting back, hot skin slipping against yours as his hands draw you back against him by the hips.

“Dinnae want you t’slip an’ hit your head,” he murmurs, massaging the fat of your pelvis, as if there’s any reason to make excuses for what he’s doing.

Half-raised hackles petted down too easily. You relax into his touch, even as you disdain it. Your heart tremors in your chest.

“What’s going on tomorrow?” you finally ask. “Who’s Simon?”

Pathetic. A jealous lover, after less than forty-eight hours.

“Old task force,” he answers, kissing the back of your head. “Little reunion, food an’ beer, mostly.”

You half-expect him to go immediately for your breasts, or maybe your pussy. His cock is stiffening against the small of your back. But instead, he opens one of your bottles, squirts some pearly body wash into the palm of his hand. Rubbing a little to lather it, he puts his hands back on your hips, and begins massaging it into your skin.

Inward, up your stomach. Pressing into the soft parts of it, with the water slicking his way. His mouth touches the back of your neck—softly. Tenderly. With all of the languor you rejected the previous night, and not enough space for you to slap it away again.

His lips press inward, looking for the bite he left, which he lays his tongue on as if in contrition, licking it like a dog with a wound. The comfortable warmth of the shower swelters with his added body heat; the steam pulses in time with the heavy beats of your heart.

One hand slides up your body, fording your thoracic arch, the wedge of his hand ascending the length of your breastbone. He cups your jaw, bubbles between his fingers, one of your breasts nestling between his bicep and forearm.

He tilts your head to the side as he cranes his head further into your neck, lipping at the space behind your ear, kissing delicate, sensitive skin, as his other hand drags soap around your ribs, beneath and over both breasts, up into your pits and back down again.

A doll in his hands, bent along the shape of his will. He shifts his hips, frotting his erection against you.

“Johnny,” you breathe. “Johnny, this isn’t anything. This doesn’t mean anything.”

“Aye, bonnie,” he hums. “Whatever you say.”

He licks a hollow in your throat.

His other hand dips lower, sweeping down into the crease of one thigh to round the lower swell of your hip; then back up again, fingers spreading.

The stall compresses your arms close against you; the only space you have available to lay your useless hands is on his arms. The dark hair you find with your fingertips is coarse, wiry, plastered to hot skin with water. The spray seeps between the both of you, streams in the runnels of flesh pressed together.

Between your legs, your clitoris heats, awakening even though untouched. You give a small whine, and Johnny huffs a little chuckle in your ear, suckling your neck as his fingers make the descent back, rinsed in the falling water, teasing your pubic hair before nudging your folds apart.

He finds you slick and aching. He only dips lower briefly to wet his fingers, and then, as he settles a light touch over where you’re most desperate for it, relief razes through your nerves in a sudden wash.

You search for the back of his head, slotting your fingers into the ends of his mohawk at the nape of his neck. He hums against you, hand dropping down from your jaw to cup one breast in his palm, weighing it, thumb flicking around the pert nipple in the same tight circle he draws around your clitoris.

Orgasm, usually so obvious on approach, sneaks up on you, quick and quiet, but when it takes you it floods you, rather than knocking you down. You tremble all over, the follicles on your scalp standing on end, the nerves down your back and sides bending like dune grass to a wind.

Your long, breathy cry reverberates against the shower walls, and you lean heavily back against Johnny’s body, grip tightening where you have your hands on him.

He twitches against your back, but he makes no move to chase his own climax. He only turns you carefully, when you recover, and lays his hot, open mouth on yours, tugging your hips close enough to trap his cock against your belly. This time, the wall is cool at your back, the crown of your head moving against it as Johnny angles himself deeper, sliding his tongue between your lips.

“C’mon,” he says, when he finally pulls away. His pupils are huge, black dilation swallowing the blue. The spray fills the empty spaces between the strands of his mohawk, fluffing the hair a little as it courses down the shaved sides of his scalp. “Need to get my mouth on you again, bonnie.”

This time, when he eats you out, he does it at his leisure. Licking honey off a spoon. So lightly that you whine at him, find the energy to bitch at him to do it like he means it, but tonight he does not indulge you.

No—he mouths at you, eyes closed, curly lashes against his cheek as you lay belly-up on the rumpled sheets of his bed. The heat of his tongue in your cleft is the only source of warmth you have as the rain lashes at the outside of the trawler, but the hot shower still lingers in your skin—

Humid. Sticky. Sweat gathering beneath Johnny’s palms where he holds your thighs to his ears, as if mimicking the way your sex will clutch around him when he enters you. Slick and tight and viscous.

When he crawls up your body—nosing at your belly, your breasts, inhaling as if your musk is something he’s trying to get drunk on—he fucks you slow and deep. You stop being able to tell if it’s the storm rocking the boat, or the weight of his hips rolling against yours, one of his hands on the headboard for leverage and the other on your mons, pressing down with the heel of his hand to feel the head of his cock moving in you.

Tacky skin catching on the grind; heart speeding up as he grins at you from above, thumb tapping your clitoris. Enough to wind you up. You reach for his hips with your clawed hands, digging your nails into the meat of his ass—firm, muscle tensed, twitching every time he bottoms out.

“Johnny,” you finally beg, on the edge of a sob, “please, Johnny, please—”

Breath leaves him like a steam valve turned, pressure carrying an uninhibited moan. He ignores your plea, hips rolling slow, forcing you to feel every inch of him in and out of you, every ridge—every vein pulsing on the surface of his cock.

His eyes are closed still; when the widest part of him catches the rim of you around him again, his mouth drops open, lips pink and bitten.

Lost—he’s lost in pleasure, in the feeling of you around him, pulling him in. You watch his chest as it heaves, the flex of his stomach as it tightens—the twitch in the muscles of his arms as the impact of each thrust ripples up his body.

Look at me, you want to say. Look at me. I’m right here. Look at me.

“Again,” he groans, choked, restrained, hands gripping your hips. “Say it again, bonnie—”

“Please—” you whine, on the edge of a sob, “please, please, please—”

Thumb metronoming at a quick tempo where you need it—you seize, back arching, tightening around him so narrowly you could force him out—

He snarls, sharp and hard, thrusting into the resistance, hands falling to fist in the mattress. Breath coming rough and fast, sweat dripping from his forehead into the cups of your collarbones and down between your breasts. Hard and fast now, pushing in as far as your body will let him, and a final, long moan tears from his parted lips, liquid heat flooding you as Johnny goes rigid with a climax following only moments after your own.

Pelvis flush with your thighs. He doesn’t let a drop escape, pushing against you, lifting your hips from the bed.

“Tha’s right,” he slurs, eyes hazy when they open. “Tha’s right, that’s where it belongs.”

He collapses on top of you, almost crushing you with his weight, as he seeks your mouth out with his. He moves his hips against yours with shallow thrusts, whining in his throat.

“Didn’t you—” you pull your lips away, too hot, too cold, buzzing and exhausted, “didn’t you just finish?”

He tongues at your cheek instead, and then down your neck. “Doesnae matter, is no’ enough. C’mon, bonnie, wrap your legs aroun’ me, please…”

After he is finally spent—long after you’ve had enough energy to do more than lay beneath him and let him use you as he pleases—Johnny diverts briefly to the galley, bringing back with him a plate of oysters and a pry knife. It’s his bed, so you don’t complain about shell fragments, but you resolve to make him change the sheets anyway, shifting uncomfortably to find a spot that isn’t soaked.

“Was on this boat,” Johnny says, as if picking up the thread of a conversation only recently dropped. He picks up one of the oysters and shucks it open. “When I drowned.”

The way he says it, you’d think it was a casual thing, something he barely thought about anymore, but the line of his brow is low and serious.

He hands you one half; you bring the shell to your lips and tip it upward. Brine slides across your tongue, flesh smooth and buttery. Johnny watches you with soft eyes before having his own.

“Price was with me. I told him to fuck off, but he said he wasnae gonna let me take it out alone the first time ever. I was a bastard back then, I told ya. We went out in a storm, like this one, even though any eedjit could take a look outside and know it’d kill him.”

You flick at the edge of the shell with your fingernail, looking down at your hands. “Why’d you do it?”

“Dunno. Had somethin’ to prove, I guess.”

“That you could still do stuff like that?”

He doesn’t respond, so you look back up at him. He angles his gaze toward the mess of your hair—the new hickies he’s left on your neck—the bead of your nipples in the cold. The hard angles of his face soften.

“All my life,” he says, measuredly, “all I wanted to be was a soldier. An’ I couldnae anymore. Even though I was better. Hell, I was better than better. But I couldnae go back. That was it. It all wen’ on withou’ me.”

He breaks open more oysters as he talks, hands steady and deft around shells and knife. When he finishes, he slides the plate into your lap, and reclines to face you on his side, propping his head up with his hand.

“We wen’ out when the waves were as tall as a man, an’ us hangin’ onto the railing for dear fuckin’ life,” he continues. There’s a faraway quality to the tone of his voice. “Only life wasnae so fuckin’ dear, was it? I could’ve held on tighter, I think. I fell off.”

“And Price pulled you out?”

That feeling again, meeting his gaze; caught in the arms of a whirlpool, being dragged down. A vial in a centrifuge, constituent parts separating.

“No,” he says, “he didnae.”

“Then…”

“Eat, bonnie.”

There’s a stillness to him that feels unnatural. Johnny is a man who should be constantly in motion, gesturing with his hands, bouncing on the balls of his feet, tapping any available surface with rolling fingertips. Instead, here in front of you, he’s still as a statue. Chest softly rising and falling, but otherwise completely placid.

He gazes steadily at you, down at the plate, and then back up. You sigh, and pick up another shell.

“I don’t remember exactly what happened. I remember getting pushed down deep, real deep, then getting forced up again, on a current or something. Not far enough to get any air, mind. I thought, I’m gonna die out here, an’ I didnae want to.”

He shifts then, a little forward toward you.

“That seemed important, you know? I didnae want to die. Dinna think the sea would’ve given me up f’ I did. It knows. Sometimes it doesnae care. But I guess that time, it did, ‘cause after I blacked out, next thing I know I’m wakin’ up on the shore.”

Something hard shifts in your belly.

“Cap found me a bit later, bringin’ the boat in. Gave him a real scare. Think it turned some of his hair gray overnight. After that…a’was no’ the same. How could y’be, after that?”

You—you don’t want to know any of this. You don’t care. You didn’t ask. His story drops expectation on your shoulders, heavy, custom-tailored, laden with understanding that sands your abraded nerves.

All of this is too much. The damp sheets beneath you, the food, the sex. The fact that you picked the last place in the world thought you could ever meet anyone, let alone someone who—

“And now you have a seal fetish,” you sneer.

Who understands.

Indulgent. This is indulgent, reckless, idiotic in the extreme.

Soap reaches out, and wraps a large, sun-brown hand around your wrist, the one still holding the oyster. Pulling it towards him, he opens his mouth and then tips the flesh from the shell. He slurps it down, noisily, mimicking the sound of his mouth and tongue on your pussy.

“Something like that,” he says, with a sharp, cocky grin.

He changes the sheets. Dims the lights. Plasters himself around you as the storm blows itself out, arm heavy over your waist, thigh and knee nested inside yours.

He’s warm at your back, musky with the mingling aroma of dried sex and sweat.

Sturdy. More real than anything that’s ever put its hands on you.

Johnny, who the sea loved so much it spat him back out. So treasured by the world that a bullet to the brain couldn’t even take him away from it.

Who, by the sound of it, means so much to the people in his life that they would follow him to the middle of nowhere just to keep an eye on him.

Bile churns in your stomach.

next chapter early access

a/n: two chapters left!

[kyoukamybeloved]

their courting rituals include aggravated assault, battery, treason and planning the violent murder of their ennemies

tagging some moots and others on taglist:

@philzokman @dinosaur-mayonnaise @vivid-vices @lotus-reblogs @liyv @whiteapplesandblackblood @pendragonstar @thesunshinebard @ricelover888 @autistic-ranpo @sigskk

[midnightsdarkangel]

I don't think Ive seen anyone breakdown this scene, but hi I really wanted to talk about Grian's characterization so far in volume 2 starting with his scene with HG in the latest chapter and where I think they're going with his character in DDVAU.

To star this off I want to talk about how Grian views HG (save for Valentines) Its always met with disdain or irritation, and I think its because of how HG presents himself to Grian, a cop, a threat. This means there's always a level of caution met with him and mild irritation.

So when Grian wakes up to HG in his room in ch18 its cold. There's this wall already up between the two because of how HG treated him in chapter 15. He was threatened. So already the second he's awake he's on the defense, he wont let HG get to him, hes in control of his emotions.

Or well, this WOULD'VE worked until he realizes HotGuy has interrupted the one thing Grian could distract himself with. Grian went for the DS to avoid dealing with Hotguy and i'm going to assume Grian's done this before when he visited. So being cut off is something Grian wasn't expecting, being forced to confront Hotguy in his space-

Hes genuinely mad.

(the fact that Grian has this red hue over him, the expression turns from this casual oh you annoy me to oh you have actually genuinely pissed me off is so clear in the way Doody draws Grian that I wanted to point out because LORD THE CHILLS I HAD)

But Grian lashes out, his reaction is explosive because he was thrown off, its such a quick moment also, something as simple as his DS being covered and being forced to deal with Hotguy was the breaking point and LORD WAS HIS REACTION INTENSE.

He's genuinely upset.

He's frozen, hes curled up faced down with fists punching the bed because that man has been pushed too far. Hotguy has repeatedly since the incident, been in Grian's space whether he's wanted it or not and its not letting Grian breathe. They do note a few times Grian didn't ask Hotguy before this to leave but I think that this was brewing over time and again its an impulsive reaction- the DS being obstructed isnt the issue here and it seems random for him to be so angry over it but I think this was built up over time from the stress Grian's been experiencing. Hotguy reminds Grian of the school, of Mother Spore and the trauma that he was left with. Its no wonder he just wants a break from it.

And I think Hotguy in that moment realized he went too far.

( I want to note as well that Grian doesnt actually move until Hotguy speaks, he's braced and tense. He's waiting for a bad reaction for his lash out)

But Hotguy calmly agrees and offers to leave leaving Grian stunned because he was listened to. Hotguy understood him.

Now here's where i'm going to pull up a comparison I realized about Grian in chapter 14. This is not the first time he has impulsively pushed someone away, because don't forget he's done this to Jimmy.

He cuts the conversation off before it can get anywhere, its abrupt.

Something I've noticed with Grian is when he pushes both of them away theres this moment of pause, where he wont look at them. He doesnt want to see what their reaction is. Between the two scenes I find it interesting that with Jimmy, Grian manages to gather the strength to carry on his point, he looks to Jimmy after a moment of composing himself and is firm if not emotionally tired. He's scared of Jimmy's reaction but he needed to put that line down. With Hotguy like i've said, his reaction was unexpected, its abrupt and its scary for him. He's just yelled at an emerald solider (heck, the HEAD of the emerald soliders) to leave him alone quite aggressively, I think Grian kept his head down because he was waiting for the aftermath.

Its so interesting to me because in both these scenes, Jimmy and Hotguy were unintentionally pushing themselves into Grian's space, both were made from good intentions, but it wasn't what Grian wanted and the fallout afterwards leaves them at a loss for words before composing themselves and trying to make the situation light once more.

Now, Im about to throw you all a curveball and say that I genuinely think that DDVAU is trying to hint to us that Grian has BPD (borderline personality disorder)

Why do I think this? We're only a couple chapters in Volume 2 you must be asking me.

And well, I think already there are some foundations being put down in front of us starting with: Attachment Issues.

Have you all wondered WHY Grian pushed Jimmy away in chapter 14 when we have seen time and time again how protective Grian is over Jimmy? He snapped at Hotguy at the mear mention of Jimmy being accused, He freaks out when he sees Jimmy got hurt in the hospital. Both are very visiral and panicked reactions:

And yet, when he sees Jimmy was hurt and Jimmy offers to be beside Grain to preen his wings, he outright refuses, and lord you can TELL Grian wasn't happy doing that.

When he gets what he wants and Jimmy backs off? He's devastated.

I think Grian is afraid of letting Jimmy be that close to him. For what reason? Im not too sure yet but this seemed very much a spur of the moment reaction- a moment of fear from Grian.

I believe that Grian is a very emotive person and at rapid paces, its quite subtle but in chapter 17 theres a moment where Grian pulls away for just a page, the second Jimmy offers again to take care of him Grian is back to that defensive wall, but its not for too long either because Grian is instantly back to being relaxed.

Grian isnt as subtle with his emotions like Scar is, he is very much an open book and while hes better at withholding them when he feels in control of a situation it shows more when he isnt:

And I think its so important to stress why this is a thing in volume 2 and not in volume 1. Because Grian seemed to be perfectly fine right?There was no issues.

This is because Grian has been majorly thrown back.

He got possessed by the spore creature, trapped Jimmy and the school and tried to kill Hotguy which he doesn't even remember, he just has brief moments of paranoia over not remembering what he did but hearing about it from everyone else. His wings are out, Hotguy KNOWS he's an avian, he's seen Jimmy hurt by what he thinks is his actions and has had Hotguy accuse Jimmy infront of him.

He's being pressured to comply with Hotguy lest he wants everyone to know hes a mutant or worse a witch which can change everything.

This man is STRESSED. Majorly so, both being pushed to his limits body wise since he was shot at and also thrown against walls numerous of times and had the spores literally eat away his insides causing his wings to be in a state of distress. But also he is under intense emotional stress seen from the feathers on Grian's face in chapter 14, he doesnt like not knowing what happened to him and Hotguy again has pushed him past his brink.

again why do I think its BPD? I just said that Grians under a lot of stress, its understandable that hes going to lash out. But i heavily think its within the context of him pushing away Jimmy and the newest scene of chapter 1 8 thats really making me lean towards something is going on. That reaction was intense and I think we're going to be getting more insight into Grian as the chapter comes.

Because, he's successfully pushed away Hotguy.

I wonder where thats going to lead us.

[styxxsyringe]

yeah boy and doll face

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

The Folio Society presents an illustrated collector’s edition of Fire & Blood

George R. R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, the prequel to A Game of Thrones, joins the Folio series. Explore the Targaryen dynasty with beautiful illustrations, detailed maps, sigils and family trees. A must-have for Westeros fans. ​ Coming 28 January 2025. What’s that in the distance? Is it the brush of dragon’s wings against the clouds? Queen Daenerys’s family tree is a rich one, filled with over 300 years-worth of rulers of the seven kingdoms. In Fire and Blood, George R.R. Martin dissects the Targaryen family’s history through the eyes of Archmaester Gyldayn. ​ This is the ultimate book for fans of the original series; it provides rich context of the family responsible for the world of Westeros as we know it. Plus, there are dragons, and lots of them! Artist Audrey Benjaminsen has captured the Targaryen family like no one else. Her illustrations jump from the page – the absentness in Area’s eyes upon returning with Balerion, the madness in Rhaenyra as she sits on the Iron Throne. This is the definitive edition of a definitive story, one that would surely sit in the library of the Citadel for centuries to come.  ​ PRODUCTION DETAILS Bound in three-quarter blocked cloth with a printed and blocked cloth front board ​ Set in Vendetta with Esmeralda as display ​ 616 pages  ​ 4 full-page and 1 double-page spread colour illustrations ​ Prints 2 colour throughout in black and gold with illustrated chapter openings ​ Printed endpapers ​ Coloured tops ​ Blocked and printed slipcase ​ Additional colour illustration inside slipcase ​ Sized at 10˝ x 6¾˝  ​ Printed in Italy​ UK £110, US/Canada $150, elsewhere £125

[gaylactic-fire]

I get Spamtenna, I really do. Yet I simply cannot resist the allure of Mettaton teaching that old man to be cunty.

[lwlegal]

★𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙫𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙖☆

[pin-yao]

[aquaquadrant]

that epic gamer moment when you wait until you've finished writing an entire +100k word fic before posting the first chapter on A03 (AKA i finally got over my grudge against bots ruining the fun for everyone)

uploading these chapters, and all my other MCYT works, will be slow going. so if you've read it already, you're more than welcome to leave comments (and i'd absolutely love that) but PLS DON'T SPOIL IT for any new A03 readers. not even in a cheeky little 'i know something you don't know' kinda way. k thx ✌️

[psink]

A count of all the times Christmas happened:

1. Chapter 33

2. Chapter 80

3. Chapter 129

3.5. Chapters 178 and 225/226 show the New Years' but Christmases were skipped

4. Mission 22 from the 3ds game

5. Event 11 of psi battle

[lunarharp]

the scrabblers and their bored boyfriends

[kyoukamybeloved]

i mean at this point I don’t see how asagiri could possibly make them any gayer

[ruegarding]

we do not have five entire books full of percy's philosophical thoughts for rick to pull this shit. if annabeth was in character, she would be looking at this architecture and consider what she'd do different (and since she's redesigning olympus, she'd maybe also consider if she'd use any designs there). her fatal flaw is hubris and it should be a staple characteristic of hers.

[anamelessfool]

Time to block another tag

I hate Judith like....I cannot explain why I hate it. She brings out the hater nature in me. It's like in any lifetime I'm supposed to dislike her. Like a shitty version of Highlander or something

[miniscule-meow]

Borrowed Time (3)

Masterpost Wordcount: ~1.6k First Part | Last Part | Next Part (eventually)

---

The plan is simple. Start in the kitchen, because that’s more time sensitive. Then, since the other bean is away- or rather, since the other bean is him, and he isn’t really sure he counts as a bean anymore- they don’t have to worry about him showing up and ruining their borrowing excursion. So, they’ll tackle that last.

Dante follows Vi through the dark passages of the walls. There’s an entrance near the kitchen, the one they used yesterday. Then, there’s apparently another entrance into Dante’s room- which he’s trying very hard to not think about. Knowing that at any point she could have just been wandering through his room, and he’s never noticed her. It’s unsettling.

Judging from her demeanor, she really doesn’t seem like the type to waste time people-watching. She certainly didn’t recognize him as the other human. So, she either hasn’t paid enough attention to him to clock what he looks like, or if she saw the similarities she wrote them off. Which would make sense because of the whole extreme height shift thing.

You look a lot like this human, except the human is six-foot and you’re six inches or whatever. Is he even six inches tall? He doesn’t want to think about it.

Before he knows it, his eyes are adjusting as they step out of walls into the brightness of the apartment. Another long, arduous climb later and he’s standing on the counter, his limbs feeling like jelly.

Looking around makes his head spin. This is a space he’s lived in, somewhere he knows like the back of his hand, now it seems entirely alien. Is he going to resign himself to this being his life now? He could handle that, right? Vivienne is weird, and interesting. He likes her… well, maybe. He doesn’t really know her. But he’d like to! She seems to… tolerate him. The hardest thing about the arrangement would probably just be convincing her to agree to team up with him.

He takes a breath, trying to steady himself. But the dizziness increases ten-fold, sending him to his knees.

“Hey, don’t freak out on me again, we need to move,” Vi turns to him, and seems to notice that something is wrong. This is beyond a panic attack. This is something else entirely. Her brow furrows, and she steps toward him. She kneels beside him and places a hand on his back. “What’s going on?” her voice is softer now, slightly more concerned than annoyed. Definitely still annoyed though.

“I don’t- I’m not sure.” He’s gasping for air, trying to piece together what’s going on.

Then he feels it.

All at once, he realizes what’s about to happen. It’s a deep feeling, rooted in the very marrow of his bones. From the core of his being, an insistent pressure. Pushing outward. Expanding.

He’s going to grow.

He doesn’t know how to stop it, how to slow it, or control it at all. This is happening, and it’s happening now.

“Vi, get back,” his voice is strained. Throwing his arm out, he pushes her aside and scrambles towards the edge of the counter, trying to build some distance between them. She stumbles back, shouting a frustrated curse in his direction. He’s certain she’s about to punch him for doing that, but something stops her dead in her tracks. It’s him.

Just as quickly as he shrank, he’s expanded back to his regular size. Dark spots dot his vision, his head swims. His hands feel sweaty, clammy. He blinks heavily, finding himself pressed against the cool laminate floor of the kitchen. With a groan, he pushes himself to his knees. Placing a hand on the counter, he helps himself to his feet. He rubs his eye with the heel of his hand, in an attempt to clear his vision. Squinting down at the counter, his eyes zero in on her immediately. Vivienne, on her back, slowly scooting away from him. Her expression is nothing short of horrified, he doesn’t blame her. He can’t imagine how catastrophic this transformation must have seemed to her.  He’s trying to find his voice to explain, or apologize, or say anything. When the front door clicks, and swings open. Tyler is home.

Dante jolts, Vi is out in the open. He can’t let her get caught. Without thinking, he reaches forward, scooping her into his palm, and shoving her unceremoniously into his hoodie pocket. The feeling of her frantically squirming, kicking desperately against his unmoving fingers is a nauseating sensation in its own right. He’s never thought about what it might be like to be inside of a pocket before. Dark, stuffy, uncomfortably warm. He doesn’t imagine it’s terribly pleasant, she certainly doesn’t seem thrilled to be in there.

He flattens his hand, firmly pressing her flat against his stomach to keep her still. He can feel her pulse hammering into him as she thrashes, but there is no competition. She’s stuck. He’s disgusted by his own display of strength, exerting his will so solidly over her own. But now is not the time. His roommate is here. So, his choices are, hide her, or let her get discovered by another bean. Either way, he knows that she’s never going to forgive him. He needs to get this over with as quickly as possible.

“What’s up, man?” Tyler asks casually, though he’s obviously surprised to see him.

“Not much, dude,” he forces his voice calm. Even though he is about as far away from calm as he could get. His heart is slamming in his chest, he can hear the blood roaring through his ears, only drowned out by the thoughts screaming through his mind, ‘what am I?’ And, ‘I’m holding a girl in my hand. A girl who very much does not want to be there’. Then circling back to, ‘WHAT AM I?’

“Whatchya got there?” Tyler asks curiously.

For a split second, Dante is convinced he just knows about the little stowaway he’s holding captive in his pocket. Then he looks down. Vivienne’s borrowing hook was left behind, coiled on the counter next to his free hand. He plucks it up- the tool he used to scale the very counter he’s standing in front of, the rope he clung to, and let support his weight. Another wave of panic seeps through him. Reality has been sufficiently shattered for him, and he is going to need a moment to recover. Of course, that moment is not awarded to him.

“Uh, I don’t know. Just a little piece of string I’ve been messing with.”

Tyler shrugs, stepping into the kitchen, pulling a drink from the fridge. Dante manages to navigate a short conversation with him, before managing to retreat to his room.

The second his door shuts behind him, he sinks down to his knees, pulling Vivienne free from her temporary prison.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispers on repeat, struggling to catch his breath. He looks her over, she’s so small. Impossibly small. He’s holding her, right in the palm of his trembling hand. For a moment she seems dazed, flushed from the warmth of him surrounding her, containing her in his pocket. “Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I? I don’t know what’s happening, you have to believe me, I—” his breathing grows shallower. This is too much for him.

He's so wrapped up in his own panic, he’s surprised when Vi suddenly vaults out of his hand. She takes off running across the carpet.

“Wait! Don’t go—" He lurches forwards, his hand flying out to block her path, when suddenly pain shoots through him. He hisses a sharp intake of breath. She stabbed him. He’s lucky she didn’t stab him earlier.

Dante jolts, yanking his hand back. Thin beads of red bloom in a line at the base of his thumb. The pain grounds him back in reality- as twisted as it may be. His movement away is enough to give her the opening she needs to continue her escape.

She’s running at full speed away from him. He watches her abscond, he could easily catch her, though it might get him stabbed again. He doesn’t move.

“At least let me give you the batteries,” his voice sounds pathetic on his ears.

She whirls to face him, sword raised in his direction.

“I’m not taking a handout from a fucking bean,” she snarls. Her words are full of anger, betrayal and fear. Mostly fear, though she’s attempting to look fierce. He can see the tremble in her hands as she holds her sword in front of her. The tension in her limbs, ready to bolt at the first sign of movement from him.

“It’s- think of it like… like payment. You helped me, so… seriously, I owe you a lot more than just a couple of batteries.”

She glares at him suspiciously but gives him one sharp nod. The sword stays raised.

He stands, unable to take his eyes off her. He watches as her neck cranes back, following his face as he rises. She flinches, as if her legs are caught between stumbling away from him and standing their ground. Seeing her from this angle is unreal. She comes up to his ankle, it’s harder to see the details of her expression from here. He gets that dizzy feeling again, like his grasp on reality is slipping.

Swallowing hard, he steps away, over to his desk. He pulls open the drawer and grabs three fresh AAA batteries for her. When he turns around, she’s gone. Honestly, he should have expected that. Her absence stings. He’s left with the hollow memory of her terrified expression, and the weight of her in his hand. The only thing telling him he didn’t hallucinate the whole thing is the thin line of blood on his palm. A fitting souvenir.

“I’ll just leave them by the wall,” he announces to the empty room. He figures she can hear him; she can’t have gone that far.