#go back to being a plot device
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the way that the newest malevolent episode is objectively the tamest we've had in a while but still managed to cause such deep emotional damage that I felt physically sick is honestly impressive
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stagefoureddiediaz · 2 months ago
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Eddie being shown hugging Ravi rather than buck in this scene has me up in my feels actually.
Especially in combination with the conversation about Eddie being in the army and having been to a lot of funerals like this.
Because Ravi is a physical embodiment of bucks abandonment issues and Buck is watching on when the hug happens but not when the army stuff is talked about and that’s significant. It’s Eddie embracing bucks fear of abandonment when he’s feeling abandoned by his pseudo father and trying to live up to his last words - that the others are going to need him. So Eddie embracing Ravi is Eddie embracing Buck - having bucks back as he always has done and which we get a further representation of when they are carrying the coffin.
#it’s great use of narrative devices actually - Ravi as a plot device is being utilised really well - once we’re in hiatus I’ll explore it a#bit more#the thing about it is that it only helps further set up buddie - because buck is in this space where he won’t actually look at the true#nature of his feelings for Eddie because of his fear of abandonment - especially as he already feels abandoned by Eddie moving back to Texas#(which is not about Eddie per say but about bucks upbringing and his trauma pile he hasn’t dealt with)#Eddie is showing him that he has his back (through Ravi as the representative of abandonment) and doing what Eddie always does - shows buck#that he’s got his back and giving him a source of strength at a moment when he needs it. it’s about showing buck he hasn’t been abandoned#and that Eddie will always be there for him when he needs him - and that is positive reinforcement for buck which will in turn give him#the capacity to actually start looking at his feelings - because Eddie hasn’t abandoned him - has in fact recognised his feelings around#abandonment and has repeatedly embraced them - in all their guises#bucks comment that he’s here now is just showing us that the message is getting through - that Eddie’s here when buck does need him#it’s all a set up for further development of buddie going forward#and the army funerals thing is a play on the fact Eddie didn’t know his army team had all died and therefore hadn’t been at their funerals -#it’s about setting up his return to LA - because he wasn’t there again and he’s going to feel like he abandoned his team before and when he#abandoned this one they started dying - so he’ll want to return to stop history from repeating itself - so his having that conversation with#Ravi - abandonment rep - is about Eddie’s own reckoning with being an abandoner - his feelings that he keeps abandoning his teams and it#leads to their deaths.#I have a lot of thoughts about Ravi as a plot device and I really love what they’re doing#it also plays into the idea of lying to one’s self or others which fits the theme for the season#911 spoilers#911 abc#eddie diaz#evan buckley#ravi panikkar
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queenvsbarton · 4 months ago
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on today's edition of "stupid batfam(-adjacent) fic ideas": in the early days of the justice league and/or before the biggest identity reveals (batman's quietly figured out almost everyone but doesn't want to show his cards, superman is lightly stalking several of them with his super-hearing but hasn't started seriously investigating, wonder woman has decided that it's none of her damn business unless someone starts causing problems, everyone else likes to toss around silly theories like "i think flash daylights as a middle school track coach" but doesn't really care), brucie wayne, aka gotham's favourite slut, knocks up diana prince, and it becomes a huge tabloid story.
diana's suspicions that batman's got secret dossiers on all of them are all but confirmed when he starts subtly mother henning her long before she's planning to tell the justice league she's pregnant, but initially she chalks it up to him letting the dark-and-broody mask slip a little because no matter how much he denies it, he does care about the people in the league and considers them his friends. then at some point while he's tagging along robin lets slip that he's excited because he's going to get a new baby sister soon, which is a weird coincidence, but then they have to deal with something disastrous and potentially world-ending so she doesn't have time to think about it too hard.
then something happens, maybe jason's death, that finally necessitates bruce letting the justice league in on his personal life. and diana is torn between being angry at him for keeping this very important information from her, being angry at herself for not putting the pieces together before this, and being thoroughly impressed that he managed to pull off the whole thing for as long as he did.
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waitineedaname · 8 months ago
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you know, considering that shen yuan first became obsessed with luo binghe as the scary intimidating demon emperor, and that the extras show that bingqiu's way of flirting involves playfighting and chasing each other around, I have a feeling that at some point, sqq is going to look back on their reunion in jin lan city and find it hot
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tojisbbg · 4 months ago
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gang baby
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❝she told you she celibate, but she told me i can nail her shit!❞
♡ sylus, caleb, rafayel, zayne, xavier ♡
sypnosis: you're just a girl. yeah, you can't decide between five hot LI's presented to you in the popular otome game, love and deepspace, but that's okay. who said you can't have them all? literally.
wc: 11k (lots of smut beware)
a/n: valentines day special!! guys, don't question it, ok? i wrote this with my whole pussy. ok bai. (⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝)
reblogs, comments and likes are always appreciated <3
content: all lads LI's x fem!reader (yes, you read right), gangbang, slight plot, reader gets transported in lads universe, smut (no details, find out hehe), all acts are consensual, not edited. disclaimer: not based off tomorrow's catch-22!!
⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪
"fuck!" you yelled out in frustration, chucking your phone off your bed as the poor device fell on the floor with a loud thud. you could hear your best friend giggling from your laptop, making you shoot her a sharp glare.
"shut up." you sneer, but it only fueled her laughter more.
"damn, infold really hates you, bro." she pokes further at your miserable failure, making your shoulders slump in defeat as you grumble.
"i can't believe it. i've been grinding for two months straight to save up fifteen thousand diamonds for the valentines day banner! i was sure i'd pull them all, and you're telling me i only got two out of the five?? this is a fucking joke." you ranted, making your friend hum as she understood your anger.
"yeah, i'd be mad as hell too. but hey, at least you got sylus and caleb. just watch the rest on twitter or something." your best friend tried to comfort you, but it only made you pout.
"but i want them all." you sulked, making her roll her eyes.
"you're such a whore." she sighed, making you grin.
"duh, why choose one when i can have them all." you nonchalantly responded.
"yeah, yeah, forgot you had no shame." she shook her head in disbelief.
"man, i don't know what else to do. i literally milked the game dry, there's no other way i can get more diamonds for more pulls before the event ends. this is so unfair." you whined, fingers tangled in your hair.
"you can always-"
"no. i'm not giving those greedy hoes my money." you cut off her suggestion, your tone stern.
you were a poor college student who worked part-time at a stationery supply store (living the aesthetic life while crying over classes and fictional men); money's tight, and you're not about to spend hundreds on this because you know it'd become a horrible habit sooner or later.
despite being broke, your spending habits were outrageous.
"yeah girl, then i don't know what to tell ya. i'm chilling with my rafayel card. oh shit, it's almost three in the morning, bitch. we have class tomorrow, go to sleep." she yawned tiredly.
"you're leaving me just like that? after i went through so much pain and trauma? is this how deep our ten years of friendship runs? just say you hate me and want me to die a slow painful death." you dramatically rambled, making your best friend rub her temple in faux annoyance as she groaned at your stupidity.
"when i see you tomorrow, i'm gonna slap you. goodnight, hoe." with that, she hung up.
you closed the lid of your laptop and placed it on charge, stretching before standing up to go pick up your phone. you noticed the small cracks on your screen as you walked back to your bed.
you unlocked your phone, noticing how the lads server kicked you out. you exited the app, clicking on it again as you were met with caleb's face.
so l-long for longe-ge-... before fa-fa...dust
so long for-for-.... fading-fa..-dus..
so-so...lo...ng-..fading...
your eyebrows furrowed as you watched the app glitch horribly, the audio was choppy and produced crackling noises. the graphics were disoriented and there was a pop-up notification saying you needed to upgrade your memory.
you could feel your irritation rise once again, getting tired of this shit as you decided to deal with it tomorrow or something. however, every time you tried to exit the app, it wouldn't let you.
your phone literally froze.
"great. just fucking great." you sarcastically murmured.
not only did you not get the limited cards you wanted, you were broke (in the real world and in lads), you're screwed for your morning classes and your phone is currently on its last breath.
also, you were hungry as fuck right now, craving for some five guys.
"fuck this." you sighed in defeat, settling your phone next to you before laying down to sleep. you figured that eventually your phone would turn off once the battery died, so until then you just turned to the other side and ignored the device.
soon enough, fatigue took over your body as you were slipping away into a deep slumber.
unaware, your phone screen turned off momentarily, before flickering on once again as the screen crackled and glitched before stopping.
data retrieval complete, memory upgrade...
successful.
⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪
you stirred in your sleep, eyebrows pinched together as you felt a cold breeze run across the bare skin of your thighs and arms.
nonetheless, you don't remember leaving your window open, it was the middle of february. you groaned, eyes still shut tight as your hand reached down, trying to locate your blanket.
"comfortable, sweetie?" you heard an oddly familiar, deep voice suddenly speak.
did someone break into your house? and why the hell did your mattress feel so hard and cold?
your eyes shot open, adjusting your blurry vision as you realized you were not in your bedroom. you were laying on the cold, dirt ground and it made you panic.
you helplessly sat up and noticed the long pair of legs in front of your body, making you look up as you saw the towering figure of a man. the night sky was dark, making it hard for you to make out his face.
"who are you? and what the hell am i doing out here?" you asked, but your voice barely came out as a whisper.
a deep chuckle rumbled from his chest, before he bent down to come eye-level with you. as soon as you met the bright, ruby red orbs of his foxy eyes; your jaw dropped in horror.
no. fucking. way.
"shouldn't i be the one asking you those questions, sweetie?" sylus smirked, head tilting as he keenly watched your facial expressions.
"you're not real. i'm dreaming, yeah, just a dream that feels too real." you blurt out, a breathy laugh scratching your dry throat, trying to calm yourself from freaking out as your heart leaped to your chest when he directly looked at you.
"a dream, you say? hmph, you're a strange one." he shook his head before grabbing your wrist, bringing your palm to his lips. the warmth of his rough hands, which were definitely double the size of yours, made you shiver due to the contrast of your cold ones. he bit the side of your palm before gently sucking on it, making you jolt from the sudden sensation.
sylus watched you with pure amusement glinting in his eyes.
"you're like a scared little kitten, so expressive." sylus commented, making you swallow harshly.
well, this definitely was not a dream, thanks to sylus's help for that confirmation.
but the question was.... how the hell did you end up here?
suddenly, there was rustling in the distance, making his eyes twitch as he became alert. sylus slightly shifted closer to you, now scanning the area for the intruder.
"miss bodyguard?" with a dramatic gasp, you heard rushed footsteps approach you. it was hard to miss the hues of indigo, pinks and blues in his eyes along with the striking dusky purple hair that was a little more visible thanks to the moonlight.
"r...rafayel?" it felt odd saying his name out loud, it almost made you feel a little schizophrenic.
just a bit.
"duh, who else would it be? what are you doing here in the N-109 zone at this hour. also, the hell are you wearing? so not creative or fashionable." rafayel questioned, of course, not forgetting to throw in his snarky little insults along with it.
"what's wrong with what i'm wearing?" you glared at him.
"it's the middle of february and you're dressed like it's a hundred degrees outside." the lemurian smirked down at you.
you cursed at yourself for going to bed in shorts and a thin shirt. well, to be fair, it's a cute snoopy set. also, who in the hell could've predicted this to happen!?
"she wanted to have a little sleepover with the wanderers that lurk around here." the dragon teased, making your face heat up.
"i did not." you mumbled under your breath.
"uh-huh, you're not really in the position to defend that claim." rafayel egged further.
"whatever, what are you doing here? you usually don't go out of your way to come to the N-109 zone." you tried to change the subject, remembering from his anecdotes that he usually has third party people as his "networks" to gain intel.
"just some business you shouldn't sweat your pretty little head over, cutie. but, you know, we should really talk about what your business is with the leader of onychinus." he cocked an eyebrow, his eyes flickering between you and sylus.
"it's nothing, uh, i don't even know him." you chuckled nervously, making sylus look at you with a sharp look.
"is that so, kitten? you wound me. and here i thought we had something more than just... acquaintances. i guess those nights of naughty touches, kisses and naked glances mean nothing to you, right?" sylus shamelessly bullet-pointed, his tone dropping an octave lower as your cheeks grew warm.
on the other hand, rafayel's eyes widened at the revelation.
"you fucked the leader of onychinus?! woah, woah, woah, pause. what about everything that happened between us?? we had sex in my bathtub, the hotel and don't forget-" he was flabbergasted, only to be cut off by sylus.
"you were messing around with this half-baked fish, sweetie? i'm disappointed in your taste. if you planned on two-timing, you could've selected a better opponent for me. this is just... offensive." he snarked, his red eyes beaming with irritation as he looked at rafayel, who's face grew dark from his brash words.
"what did you say to me, you fucking crow? half-baked fish? i'm the god of tides, a majestic lemurian. you dare to speak to me like that?" rafayel's voice became husky, languid footsteps towards the other man.
"h-hey, hey, let's all calm down. there's a very logical and reasonable explanation, i swear." you tried to mediate between them, but it didn't seem like they planned on giving a flying shit about what you had to say any time soon.
"y/n? there you are. i've been blowin' up your phone for hours. thought a wanderer got to you and i got worried about how i'd pay the rent by myself." xavier walked from the shadows, his words laced with a gentle joke as he approached you and the other two men.
holy fuck, this was not good.
"and who are you guys?" the ash-blonde male asked, eyes narrowing before looking down at you.
"xavier." you meeked, not even knowing what to say anymore.
"why are you seeing other guys, y/n? am i not enough? you know i don't like it when you hide things from me. i thought you learned your lesson after i punished you for choosing lumiere over me." xavier now towered over you, his voice laced with envy as you gulped.
fuck, fuck, fuck.
"xavier, i promise i can explain. this is all just a-" you tried to somehow pull an excuse out of your ass, but your brain was fogging up.
"pipsqueak?"
"y/n? what an odd place to be at during such an odd hour, you left your patient copy in my office."
two other figures emerged from the sides, making your eyes close in disbelief, wishing that you could somehow disappear from the face of earth right now.
why the fuck are they all here.
at the same time.
"you've got to be kidding me." you covered your face with the palm of your hands.
"caleb? i thought you were dead." zayne spoke in a monotone, glancing at his childhood friend.
"wow, i missed you too, zayne." caleb rolled his eyes, sarcasm dripping from his words. however, the small spark of tension barely lasted before caleb looked back at you.
"care to explain why you're in such a dangerous zone at this time? you know you can't hide from me, pipsqueak. what connections do you have here? who are you seeing? was locking you up in the attic not enough for you?" caleb lectured, his voice gruff before zayne decided to add on to the fire.
"you're utterly reckless, your heart condition isn't getting any better." zayned pushed the frame of his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
all five on them now circled you, bickering and arguing with each other along with bombarding you with questions. you balled your fists in annoyance and frustration.
"shut up! oh my fucking god, i don't know, okay?! i don't know how i ended up here, so stop asking me. fuckin' hell, i can't even get a moment to breathe or think because all of you little shits won't shut up for a second!" you snapped as you stood up, making all of them look at you with surprised eyes.
you gulped, feeling a little cornered as you have five insanely tall, broad and buff men look down at you; like helpless prey.
caleb was the first person to break the momentary silence, grabbing your arm to pull you towards him.
"let's go home, pipsqueak. i'll cook your favorite tonight since it's valentines day." he smiled, only for your other arm to be tugged backwards as you yelped.
"home? her home is with me, we're roommates. i think you got the wrong person." xavier calmly replied, but his words were laced with venom.
"she's going nowhere with either of you. she's my bodyguard and i need her to come back with me to my studio. y'know, in case some scary wanderers are lurkin' around." rafayel pushed xavier to the side, intertwining his fingers with yours before giving you a charming smile as he attempted to walk off; only to bump into someone.
"i don't think so. she's been out here for so long, i might need to give her an exam to make sure she's okay." zayne cleared his throat, pinching the bridge of his nose.
you felt like you were the rope being tugged in tug-of-war. sylus deeply sighed at the situation and before you knew it; in one smooth swoop you were now in the strong arms of the leader of onychinus.
"what fools. she's in the N-109 zone for a reason. for me, of course. come on, sweetie, you must be freezing. let's go inside." sylus look down at you with a gentle smile playing on his lips.
you groaned, squirming out of his hold as sylus let you, watching you get back on your feet.
"this is ridiculous! you all are acting like a bunch of kids, fighting over me like i'm some kind of toy. none of you own me!" you stood your ground.
"fine, then why don't you choose?" sylus scoffed, crossing his arms. you grew quiet, looking at each of them before averting your gaze to the ground.
"i... i can't." you whispered.
"you can't? or you don't want to?" xavier snickered.
"you're the one who's been toying with us. we deserve an explanation, no?" rafayel grinned.
"explanations are too time-consuming, actions speak louder than words. so, how are you gonna fix it, y/n?" hazel eyes peered at you with intensity through the glass lenses.
oh, you're so fucked.
⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪
everything happened so fast, you didn't know who swiped your panties off or unclasped your bra.
you felt betrayed at how they evilly plotted against you, telepathically agreeing to punish you for your unfaithfulness. what happened to hating each other? so, here you were now, splayed on the soft mattress in sylus's room; like art on a display.
they drank in the sight of you, perky tits spilled out as the smooth glaze of your skin glimmered under the dim lighting of the room. their eyes were full of hunger, eye-fucking you as you grew shy under their intense gazes.
"s-stop staring at me like that." you whined, looking away as your face reddened at the attention.
you felt someone stroking your thighs, making you shudder as you looked in front of you, seeing caleb gripping the supple fat of your plush thighs.
"never knew you were such a dirty little slut, princess. all these years of knowing you... and to think you were capable of this? how naughty." caleb smirked, prying your thighs open as you gasped.
but, your lips would soon be sealed with zaynes as he kissed you roughly. his pillow-soft lips molded with yours, the smacking sound of saliva filled the room. a big, veiny hand came up to cup your cheek gently as he slid his tongue inside your mouth, licking the wet muscle before sucking it.
caleb used his thumb to spread your soaked folds apart, watching the lewd string of your arousal connect them both. your clit was puffy from being neglected, a sheen of wetness covering your cunt; making his mouth salivate. he leaned down, mouth hovering above your pussy.
"fuckin' beautiful." caleb swore under his breath, the warm air fanning above your aching cunt, giving you goosebumps. you moaned into zayne's mouth, feeling caleb's warm and wet tongue lick a fat stripe up your cunt.
"hope you didn't forget about us, cutie." rafayel pouted, licking at your nipple before wrapping his lips on the swollen pebble. sylus soon followed his footsteps, greedily kneading at your other tit before leaning down and pressing open-mouthed kisses on the soft mound.
meanwhile, xavier's lips were buried in your neck as he punished you with licks and bites on the expanse of your unmarked flesh.
"ngh~ xavier!" you whimpered against zayne's lips, the doctor now nibbling on your bottom lip.
he licked the side of your neck before softly clamping his teeth down, suckling and leaving a purplish bruise. as a soothing apology, xavier kitten-licked the fresh mark before moving down to your collarbone with wet kisses.
caleb continued to lap at your wet cunt, his saliva mixed with your juices dripped down his chin. the tip of his tongue circled your clit before suckling on it, making your legs tremble as a moan ripped out of your throat as you tried to close your legs.
"f-fuck.. hnghh.." you cried out, feeling him plant his palms on your inner thighs, forcing you to keep them open. caleb peered up at you from between your thighs, amethyst eyes glaring at you as his lips were glossy.
"don't interrupt me when i'm eating." he huskily spoke before slapping your dripping pussy, producing a wet 'pap!' noise. you yelped because of your increased sensitivity, not having enough time to recover before he dove back in.
with one last wet smooch, zayne released your lips before crawling down right next to his childhood friend. they exchanged a quick look, a mischievous smirk dancing on the colonel's lips.
"oh? was my tongue not enough for you, princess?" he lowly spoke, pinching your inner thigh as you bit your bottom lips.
"ahh... need z-zayne to help... please?" you begged, making him scoff. zayne couldn't help but grin with pride, your words stroking his ego a little.
"you heard her, move." zayne pushed caleb a little to squeeze himself between your legs, taking off his glasses before throwing them to the side. caleb, utterly betrayed, seethed with jealousy.
"so that's how you wanna play? fine." caleb accepted it as a challenge, but of course, he won't let neither of you get the last word.
zayne ignored his little childish outburst, digging in as his scarred hands rested on your lower stomach before his fingers stroked the expanse of it, gently moving to the side to hold your hips; caressing your smooth skin while tracing the faint stretch marks decorating it.
your puffy clit peaked out of your wet slit, making zayne lean down to press a wet smooch on it. you shuddered, mouth gaping open as your breathing quickened. zayne dragged his tongue up your sopping folds slow and languidly, the tip of his tongue digging into your wet pussy. the difference in how zayne and caleb ate you out was clear. caleb liked to eat your honeyed cunt like a starved dog, as if it was his last meal; unlike zayne, who liked to take his time and savor the taste of your sweet cunt.
"mhmmm.... zaynee~" you slurred his name, drunk in pleasure as he took his time to lap at your pussy, suckling and nibbling on your clit. amethyst eyes bore into the back of zayne's head, fuming with anger and envy.
caleb's fingers dug into your thighs, making you wince in pain but soon it deliciously simmered into the pleasure you were getting from zayne's tongue. the colonel snickered, watching how slick your pussy was from saliva and your juices, deciding to toy with you as revenge.
you felt the pads of caleb's middle and ring finger brush against your hole, probing the tight opening. you groan, feeling him push in both fingers at once.
"c-caleb!" you stuttered out, feeling him scissor his fingers in and out of your tight hole; the thickness and length of his digits rubbing you in all the right places.
suddenly, xavier roughly grabbed your jaw, squishing your chubby cheeks in his hands; forcing you to look at him. the expression on his face was dark, eyes clouded with lust and possessiveness.
"you seem to be enjoying yourself, dirty girl. you like having four other guys touch you, hm? this mouth is fucking filthy, maybe i should clean it, yeah?" he smirked, blue eyes sharply peering down at you.
"x-xav.." you were cut off by his grip tightening just a little more, making you wince.
"shhh... not another word, my dumb little girl. now i just wanna hear you gagging on my cock, 'kay?" xavier unbuckled his belt before unzipping his pants. he pulled the waistband of his boxers down, making his hard cock spring against his abs, your eyes widening at the sight.
his dick didn't have a lot of girth, but fuck it was long. xavier tapped the blush pink tip of his leaky cock on your lips, spreading his precum all over them like it was your own personal gloss. his thumb rested on your chin before pulling it down, forcing your mouth to open as he slid his cock in; the ash-blonde male let out a shaky sigh.
both sylus and rafayel continued to paw at your tits, biting and sucking on your nipples. with a lewd 'pop!', they released your swollen bud, eyeing their shared masterpiece as your tits were littered with hickies and trails of saliva.
"why don't you return the favor, sweetie? these cute little hands of yours seem empty." sylus gives you a toothy grin, bringing your hand to the tent forming on his pants, making you palm him through them. a deep groan escaped his lips as your hand stroked him through the rough fabric of his leather pants.
rafayel now sat on his knees by your other side, grabbing your wrist before bringing it up to his lips. he kissed the soft, warm flesh of your wrist; inhaling the scent of your skin as he let out a moan.
"you smell so fucking good. god, it's driving me insane." he breathed out, licking your pulse point before gently biting down on it. rafayel continued to sniff and kiss your wrist, using his other free hand to undo his pants and pull his aching cock out; stroking it as it throbbed in his palms. he teased his slit, spreading the sticky precum all over the tip.
your eager hands fumbled with sylus's belt as you tried to undo it, a little difficult because your mouth was still full of xavier's cock and forced you to maintain eye contact with him; as if looking at anyone else in this room would make his existence perish. but, sylus decided to be kind enough and help you because who is he to deny you?
you dug your hand inside his boxers, eyes widening as you realized that you couldn't even fully grasp his dick. he was fucking hung, thick and long, not lacking in any area. a guttural moan escaped his lips, feeling your soft fingers caressing his balls.
you took out his cock from the confinement of his boxers, stroking the shaft of it as your fingers teased the throbbing vein that ran on the underside curve of his dick. sylus threw his head back in pleasure, a soft whimper heard as his chest heaved.
"feels so fuckin' good, sweetie." he praised, your hand still lazily moving up and down his thick meat.
you felt the tip of zayne's nose nudging your clit, providing more stimulation as he continued his assault on your sopping wet cunt; his tongue flicking at a leisurely pace between your folds. caleb matched the rhythm of zayne's tongue, finger-fucking you with deep and hard strokes.
your moans were muffled by xavier's cock as he drove his hips into your mouth; your cheeks hollowing as you tried to not graze the skin of his dick with your teeth. you could hear the soft grunts and whimpers falling from his lips, eyes closed in bliss as he still had your cheeks firmly squished between his fingers.
"fuck yeah... you were made for this, takin' my cock so well." xavier breathed out, slender fingers tangling in your hair as he pulled your head closer.
you could feel the pressure of zaynes tongue slurping your clit along with caleb's fingers abusing your cervix collide. the familiar knot began to settle in your lower stomach, making your thighs tremble as your eyes screwed shut, toes curling in pleasure.
caleb could feel your walls contracting, you were definitely close and as much as he would love to see you cream all over his fingers; you've been cruelly unfair to him.
xavier lazily opened his eyes, cerulean orbs looking down at you half-lidded. he scoffed, watching your face flush as saliva trickled down the corner of your mouth. you opened your eyes briefly, he watched as they rolled back from the pleasure you were recieving from your childhood friends.
he pulled his cock out of your mouth, glaring down at you.
"nghhh~ p-please..!" you mumbled against his tip, crying out in pleasure as you tried to kick your leg forward to get away from the two men ravaging your pussy. however, both caleb and zayne pinned your legs down.
"focus on me." xavier scowled, and in one swift and hard thrust, his cock slid down your throat as far as you could take him. your eyes blew wide open, as you gagged on his dick. he was being nice earlier, but now you really pissed him off.
you had the nerve to think about those two when he was being kind enough to rinse that dirty mouth of yours with his cock?
"fuckin' ungrateful brat, ignoring me when i'm stuffing this filthy mouth full of my dick." he panted, fucking your face as tears streamed down your face and drool dripped down your chin.
zayne and caleb continued their combined attack, making you scream as your felt zayne sucking on your clit harder while caleb's fingers continued to rub against your walls at a faster pace.
suddenly, all sensation was lost as caleb pulled out his fingers while simultaneously grabbing onto the back of zayne's head with his free hand; yanking his hair back to unlatch his mouth from your weeping cunt. your eyes widened as tears streamed down your face, your hole pulsating at the feeling of nothing.
"only good girls get to cum." caleb darkly chuckled, zayne wincing in slight pain as he swatted the hand that yanked his hair.
"do that again and i'll fucking kill you." zayne murmured, making caleb roll his eyes.
"mmphh...!" your cries were muffled as xavier continued to use your throat as his personal fuckhole. he continued to shove his dick deeper, a small bulge forming on your throat as he pressed against it.
"there we go." xavier grinned sadistically, continuing to chase his high.
"h-hahhh... fuck, gonna cum." he panted, face flushing as he threw his head back, driving his hips forward. you could feel his cock twitch in your mouth, before he grabbed the back of your head and pulled you towards his lower stomach; shoving his cock deep in your throat one last time as your nose was buried in his soft pubes.
"shit.. shit- hnghh... take it- fuck, take it all." xavier moaned, his thick cum painting your throat as he came so much. your mouth became overloaded with his cum, leaking through the corner of your lips as you tried to swallow as much as you could. he pulled out, watching your gasp for air as you coughed.
"what do you say, slut?" he darkly asked.
"t-thank you." you breathed out, voice croaking.
"good girl." xavier smiled wickedly, stroking your bottom lip with his thumb, your tongue peeking out to lick it.
with the intense throat-fucking session with xavier and the cruel denial of your orgasm, you forgot about sylus who was still painfully hard in your hand.
"come on, sweetie, i know you could do better. want some help? yes, no, maybe so?" sylus whispered huskily, leaning down to bite your ear before kissing your temple.
"s-sorry.." you sniffled, still extremely sensitive.
"poor baby, don't cry. i'll help you." he cooed, grabbing your hand before spitting on it. the warm feeling of his spit made you shiver, he brought your hand to his cock; guiding you as you used your spit coated hand to grab his dick again.
this time, his hand firmly stayed on yours, tightening the grip. the silver haired male moaned, moving your joined hands up and down his throbbing cock; fucking your wet fist.
"hnghh... yeah, f-fuck..." sylus panted, thrusting his hips into the makeshift hole he made using your hand. his foxy eyes narrowed, bright ruby orbs rolling back as he rasped out swears from the absolute pleasure he was feeling.
rafayel hovered above your naked torso, his pretty cock resting on the valley between your tits. he grabbed his dick, giving it a few strokes, whimpering at his own touch before looking down at you.
"you're so beautiful." the lemurian whispered through labored breaths, face flushed as his mixed indigo eyes peeked at you through a half-lidded lust-filled stare.
rafayel swallowed harshly, guiding the tip of his leaky cock to your nipple; circling the hard bud as his precum coated it. your breath hitched, watching him use his hard cock to paint streaks of his precum all over the expanse of your hickey-littered chest.
he then spat on his hand, rubbing his spit all over his dick to lubricate it before settling it between your soft tits. using both of his hands, he squished your tits together to squeeze his warm cock between them. the whimper leaving his mouth was almost embarrassing from how loud and needy it was.
without a second more of hesitation, rafayel began to rut his hips forward, thrusting between your tits. he stroked your nipples before using his thumb and index finger, pinching the swollen buds and rolling them between his fingers.
"ahhh~ rafayel! f-feels good...!" you moaned, watching the blush pink tip of his cock peek through your cleavage every time he motioned his hips forward.
"hnghh... love your tits so much, cutie. so soft... so tasty and cute." he breathes out a small chuckled, eyebrows pinched in pleasure as he continued to thrust his cock between your boobs. his precum coated the valley of your tits, making it easier for him to slide between them.
while he continued his ministrations of using your titties to fuck himself, you focused on making sylus cum. you increased the pace of your hands, feeling his hand tightening the grip on yours, the vein on his cock pulsating as frequent deep whimpers left his lips. your thumb caught his slit, teasing it as he could feel his balls tighten.
"hmm... gonna make me cum, kitten." he groans, continuing to pump his cock using your hand until you felt the warm, thick wads of his cum dribble down your fingers. his hands slightly trembled, chest heaving as he tried to compose himself.
"fuck, that was... so hot." sylus chuckled, releasing your hand as he watched you bring your cum covered fingers to your mouth; licking his release as you hummed in approval.
he could feel himself get instantly hard again from such an erotic sight.
"you're mean, darling." he shook his head, making you grin.
you broke away your gaze from sylus, watching rafayel fall apart as he desperately groped your tits.
"h-hahhh... need y..-your help, cutie! please?" he pathetically begged, swallowing harshly as his hips stuttered. rafayel grabbed your wrist once more, smelling your scent and licking your flesh; groaning at how intoxicated you made him feel. the tip of his tongue traced your fingers before encasing them with his soft lips, sucking and biting on your digits; indigo eyes looking at you with a pleading look.
you smirked, knowing that it'd be easy to tease him. you were basically at all of their mercy, but knowing you still had just a little bit of power against him at least; it made your heart beat in your pussy.
"you poor thing, need my help?" you pouted, faux sympathy written all over your face. the others watched in amusement and rafayel's horny-fucked brain couldn't even have the dignity to feel embarrassed.
"p-please... promise i'll be good, so good." he breathed out and you smiled in satisfaction, sitting up before pushing him back. rafayel now sat on the mattress, hungry eyes watching you sit back on your knees.
you leaned down, squishing his cock between your tits before sliding them up and down. rafayel's eyes screwed shut in pleasure, countless of goans and whimpers slipping out of his tongue; showering you endlessly with praise.
"y-yeah cutie, just like that... nghhh~ gonna make me cum." rafayel shamelessly moaned, mouth gape open as his breathing was uneven. you stuck your tongue out, lapping at his tip before wrapping your lips around it; suckling on it as if it was a lollipop.
you rubbed your tits together on his shaft, using your mouth to suck the rest. your drool trickled down from his swollen tip to the squishy tight slit created by your tits; making his cock slide with ease. the sounds produced was obscene, shlick shlick shlick. rafayel could feel his body tremble in pleasure, stroking your hair as his balls twitched.
"gonna cum! h-hahhh... p-please, cutie!" his lips were swollen from how much he bit them. soon enough, his hot cum was painting your tits, dripping down your nipples as his cock throbbed.
"fuck.." rafayel sighed, stroking your cheek as he glanced at what he did.
mentally clicking a picture to remember for the rest of his life when he fucks his fist to the thought of you.
"better?" you innocently batted your eyelashes, looking up at him with a dazed expression.
"you little minx." his breath hitched as you turned your face to the side, catching his thumb between your lips to give it a small suck before biting it playfully.
"you seem to be enjoying yourself a little too much, brat." you heard a daring voice break the moment, looking up to see a mean caleb glowering down at you.
you swallowed harshly, looking at rafayel for some help, but the cheeky lemurian only grinned at you; eyes twinkling with trouble as he moved away.
"you like being used like this, don't you? have you forgotten who's in control here?" now, xavier came into view as he scoffed, taking in your pitiful state.
"i think it's time that you learn your place." caleb suddenly pushed you towards the ash-blonde haired male, making you gasp as you were now sitting on his waist; hands pressed against his bare chest. you could feel the curve of xavier's hard cock press against your ass, making you unknowingly grind against the throbbing length of it to seek for some friction.
"tch, look at you. you're like a fuckin' bitch in heat." xavier snickers, holding down your hips with a bruising grip, making you wince. you felt the tip of his dick slip between your wet folds, his hands maneuvering your hips to help you glide on him. a breathy whimper leaves your lips, feeling his sticky tip caress your achy clit.
you hear the clinking sound of caleb's belt being undone and in what felt like mere seconds; you could feel his warm body heat radiating behind you. his lips grazed your nape, the tip of his nose gliding on your skin. he left wet kisses all over your neck and shoulder, trailing down the deep passage of your spine; making you arch forwards from your increased sensitivity.
xavier on the other hand fondled your tits, pinching and twisting your nipples. his fingers moved down, brushing against your hips. suddenly, you felt his tip prodding your tight hole, making you gulp.
they were all so fucking big and thick, you were wondering how you'd take them all. god, you couldn't even use process of elimination to figure out who'd be less painful to take in.
however, all that thinking flew straight out of your ears as xavier planted his feet on the mattress; harshly thrusting upwards into you. a croaky moan ripped out of your throat, your head lolling back to caleb's chest as you breathed heavy.
although xavier wasn't that thick, he was long as fuck; he couldn't even bottom out fully inside your cunt. you could feel his tip kissing your cervix. while caleb continued to place bite marks and lick at his work, xavier paid no mind to his counterpart; fucking you at a brutal pace.
"hnghh~ a-aahh... xav! w-wait!" you tried to slow him down, but that only made him go faster. he grabbed your hands which were resting on his lower stomach, pulling you forwards as you fell on his chest; away from caleb's touch.
the colonel scowled at the loss of your skin, glaring at the ash-blonde male in front of him. xavier didn't care, his hand finding purchase to the supple fatty flesh on your ass, spanking you hard as you yelped in pain and pleasure. your eyes squeezed shut, trying to form coherent words.
"you know i hate it when you don't look at me while i'm fucking you. open your eyes, y/n." he tapped your face, forcing you to look down at him. you bit your lips, trying to prevent another moan from flying out of your mouth, feeling xavier's cock rub your wet velvety walls just right.
his tip continued to bruise your cervix, his thrusts were deep and hard as he made sure you felt every inch of him in you. a ring of cream began to form at the base of his shaft, your juices dripping down to coat his heavy balls as you felt your thighs burning.
"hope you didn't forget about me, princess." caleb whispered, hovering behind you as you felt him grope your ass cheek. your eyes widened as you felt him spread them, his index finger gently grazing your other untouched tight hole.
"nghh.. wait, caleb! h-hahhh, never did it there before." you confessed, making him chuckle.
"well then, i'm glad to be your first here. don't worry, i'll make sure you're ready for me." caleb's words did seem genuine but rather because of the fact that he was about to touch you and feel you somewhere no one ever has.
you nodded at his words, too fucked out to even care about anything else. you were more focused on cumming, your cunt puffy and weeping from being neglected the last time your orgasm was denied; thanks to caleb.
so, you definitely didn't wanna get on his bad side again.
caleb spat on his fingers, bring it down to your ass before spreading the sticky spit on your hole. you soon felt his wet digit push through the tight ring of muscle, making you wince in pain as you breathed heavily.
"f-fuck... hurts.." you whined, but it would soon dissipate as xavier continued to drill into your pussy, distracting you from the pain of having caleb's finger in your ass.
it took some time but eventually the colonel was able to finger-fuck your ass with two of his fingers, meanwhile, xavier thrusted up into your leaky pussy that sheathed his throbbing cock. the ash-blonde haired male rubbed your clit to provide some more stimulation, your body trembling once you felt caleb withdrawing his fingers from inside you.
caleb sat on his knees, spreading your ass once more before leaning in, the tip of his tongue dragging from where you and xavier were connected; all the way up to your ass hole.
"ah! caleb!" you cried out, feeling him land a glob of spit on the tight hole before pulling away. caleb grabbed the base of his cock, his tip was a reddish-purple; angrily weeping precum as he stroked himself a few times. you could hear him groan behind you before feeling his wet tip squish against your hole.
"c'mere." caleb commanded, a hand coming down to gently grab your jaw, pulling you back to him. he tilts your head up, making you look into his eyes; leaning down to press his lips on yours in a searing kiss.
that's when you felt the burning stretch of his fat tip pushing past the tight ring of muscle in your ass, a pained cry leaving your lips, only to be muffled as he swallowed it; not letting go of your lips. tears pricked your eyes, feeling him slowly feed his cock into your tight ass, inch by inch.
the kiss with caleb was rough and messy, full of tongue and spit. the wet smacking sound of his lips clashing with yours as he drinks in your moans was so erotic. as his cock was now thrusted deep in your ass, he was kind enough to let you adjust to his size. his hand still firmly grabbing your jaw in place to not break away from the kiss while the other played with your tits.
meanwhile, xavier continued to give you nice slow and soft thrusts in your cunt, paying close attention to stimulate your clit. you were so full of both of their cocks, your mind was blank.
all you thought of was dick, dick, dick.
it was embarrassing and greedy, how full they made you feel, how good the burn felt as they both stretched out your holes.
it was definitely a pornographic sight.
as you grew used to having both of them inside you, caleb was the first to quicken his pace, pistoning his hips into you as his cock began to rub your walls. following in suit, xavier tried to match his rhythm, fucking your cunt with more rigor. your mouth gaped wide open, unable to respond to caleb's kiss anymore as you were too cock drunk.
"a-a..ahh! nghh~ feels so good!" you cried out in pleasure, feeling them both rub against the thin barrier that separated the two. you could feel your lower stomach churn in pleasure, your eyes rolling back as you began to drool from the corner of your mouth.
"what a dumb little slut, fucked your brains out already?" you heard xavier darkly chuckle, pinching your clit as you yelped at the sudden sharp sensation.
"p-please... wanna cum so bad! x..-xav.." your throat was parched as you tried to control your breathing, your lower stomach tightening as you could feel the familiar build-up of your orgasm.
"tch, you're moaning his name when i'm stuffing you full of my dick? where are your manners, pipsqueak?" caleb's tone was gravely, glaring at you with a look that could only make your knees grow weak, his grip on your jaw tightening just a little to remind you he was still here; balls deep in you.
"s-sor.. hgnhh.. sorry! please, c..caleb.." you stammered out, feeling the alternating push and withdraw of their cocks syncing together; turning your brain into mush.
displeased with your switch up, xavier yanked you forwards by your arm, squishing your cheeks together.
"you deceitful vixen, running to him when you don't get what you want? i'm the one taking care of this slutty pussy and you have the nerve to beg him? the fuck is wrong with you." xavier seethed with anger, his hips bucking into yours with more intensity; making you wail out in pleasure.
"i'm sor-" you tried to helplessy apologize again, only to be pulled back by caleb; the start of a tug-of-war as if you were a toy.
"don't fucking apologize to him, princess. you're mine, so when i say that you can cum, then you cum." caleb whispered, making you shiver as you sniffled out a cry.
"please.. fuck, please- i can't! t..too much.." you whimpered, making them both scoff.
"you can take it." both caleb and xavier sneered, making you whine.
"ungrateful brat, wanting us both and now you're saying it's too much?" xavier slapped your clit, making you jolt. you felt caleb bite down on your shoulder, the cold metal of his dog tag pressed against your warm, flushed skin.
you felt them twitch inside you, throbbing thick cocks rubbing against your insides. caleb and xavier continued to slide in and out of you, making your body grow hot.
"fuck, fuck, please! s-so close..!" you breathed out, feeling xavier's thrusts grow sloppy as with one final hard thrust; he emptied his balls inside you. his thick, warm cum filled your cunt as you quivered, his hips still rolling back in you.
your head was spinning, both of their scents were intoxicating. their hands were groping, slapping and stroking every bit of skin exposed to their lustful eyes. both caleb and xavier's thrusts held no mercy, battering your cunt and ass as your thighs felt like jelly. you squealed, feeling your walls tightening as you desperately squirmed, trying to lift yourself off and escape.
"where are you going? don't run away, i'm not done yet." caleb yanked you back to him. caleb's grunts and groans got louder by your ear, his arm wrapping around your stomach to hold you down in place; his cock fully in your ass as he shot fat wads of his sticky cum.
before you could process anything, they sadistically exchanged a cruel smirk, pulling out of you as your holes gushed out an obscene amount of their mixed cum.
"n-no! no! hnghh.. w-why.." you sobbed at the loss of contact, the fullness of their cocks gone as your orgasm was destroyed for the second time.
"since we weren't enough, why don't you go ask the others." caleb pushed you to the side, making you collapse on the mattress as tears ran down your cheek.
you looked up and noticed sylus and rafayel looking down at you, an unwavering glint pinned on your ruined form as they waited for your next move. it was humiliating, how you were begging them to let you cum; but it was too much.
you were going insane, needing some relief.
you weakly crawled to sylus and rafayel, sniffling as your body began to shake. your thighs were dripping with xavier and caleb's cum, your messy holes pulsing and aching.
"sy.. raf.. please, make me cum. i-i... i promise i'll be a good girl." you desperately pleaded, fat teardrops running down your flushed cheeks; making them both groan as your pathetic state only made their cocks harden.
"poor little kitten, they were so mean to you, weren't they?" sylus cooed as he wiped your tears away, tone honeyed with gentleness but with an undertone of mischief.
you nodded helplessly, leaning into his touch as you nuzzled your cheeks into his palm. you kissed the inside of his hand, licking the warm and rough skin.
just like a kitten.
sylus grinned at your antics, amused at how compliant you were. however, he wasn't that mean; he'd humor you.
"need us to make her feel better, cutie?" rafayel teasingly spoke, long fingers running across your slit as you whimpered; the tip of his digits circling your clit.
"mmphh, y-yes... please.." you bit down on your lip, tasting the metallic taste of blood.
"alright, sweetie. we'll help you." sylus chortled, leaning against the headboard. he grabbed your hips, spinning you around in one fluid motion, your back now facing him. he then lifted you up before placing you on his waist, as if you weighed nothing.
you yelped as sylus hooked his beefy arms under your thighs, pulling them up to your head; putting you in a mean full nelson. the sudden pressure and stretch made your cunt gush out more of the cum that was fucked into you earlier, soaked pussy lips spread apart as you were now exposed and on display in a very vulnerable position.
"s-sylus!" you shyly meeked, making him hum.
"what? don't be selfish, sweetie. you know the fish is an artist, let him see this masterpiece." sylus bit your earlobe.
rafayel settled between sylus's legs, now in front of you as he shamelessly stared at your messy folds. he salivated as it took everything in him to not just lean down and makeout with your tempting cunt.
"stop lookin'." you whined, feeling how intense his gaze was. however, rafayel just gave you a breathy chuckle.
"why not? she's sooooo pretty." he licked his lips, flashing you a boyish grin, making your heart leap into your throat.
the lemurian lowered his head, pressing gentle kisses on your soft stomach, dragging his lips up your navel until he reached your tits. he sighed in bliss, smoothering his face between your boobs as he kissed and licked the mounds of flesh.
his dick rested on top of your pussy, sticky tip parting your folds as he rutted his hips; sliding the length of his cock against your slick covered cunt. his tip repeatedly nudged your clit, rubbing it as you moaned in bliss from the heavenly contact.
your hand found purchase in his dusky, purple hair; carding your fingers through his soft locks. you tugged on his hair, making him moan as the vibration rumbling from his lips were felt on your nipple as he sucked; making you choke out a moan.
the silver haired male kissed your temple, smiling.
"come on, sweetie, need you to hold your legs up for me so i can take care of you." his voice was groggy, releasing your legs before grabbing your hands to help you lift them as you obeyed.
"there you go, good girl." sylus praised, grabbing the base of his cock, swiping it a few times between your messy folds, nudging his tip on your hole. you moaned at the feel of his cock deliciously rubbing against your aching pussy.
"p-please... nghh- no more teasing." you were breathless, feeling rafayel once again capture your nipple in his mouth, suckling as if his purpose in life was to worship your tits.
"if you say so, sweetie." sylus compliantly shoved his inches in you, feeding your greedy hole his hard dick. your jaw dropped, eyes rolling back as his fat girth stretched your cunt; sliding in with ease because of your arousal along with xavier and caleb's shared cum.
rafayel watched your hole eagerly swallow up sylus's cock, gulping at the sight as his dick was painfully hard; globs of precum dripping onto your clit.
"so tight even after all that? how cute." sylus lets out a huff, slowly moving his hips upwards to give you some slow and deep strokes; tip squishing against your cervix.
"h-hnghh... fuck... feels so good, sy." you moaned, turning your head to the side to capture his lips in a sweet kiss. he happily accepted, sucking on your bottom lip before swiping his tongue against it for permission to explore your mouth.
his hands firmly grabbed your hips before planting his feet on the mattress, grounding both himself and you before pounding upwards into your dripping cunt. your mouth flew open from his sudden shift in pace, and he took that chance to shove his tongue in your mouth; exploring every cavern and crevice. both of your tongues mingled and tangled, sucking and licking as drool trickled down your chin.
"fuck, cutie... you look so hot like this; it's tempting. i can't let the crow have all the fun now, can i?" rafayel's fingers stroked your thigh, leaning down to kiss your plush thighs, gently biting the soft skin.
"ahhh... raf.." you whimpered, biting your lip as you feel his tip poke your ass hole. you released one of your legs, pressing your foot on his chest to stop him.
"hm?" the lemurian tilts his head in confusion at your sudden action, stopping his advances.
"n-not there... need you and sy at the same time.." you licked your dry lips, words barely coming out as a whisper. rafayel's eyes widened at your request, sylus's ruby orbs mirroring the same bewilderment.
"naughty girl, you want us both in this sweet cunt of yours? you think you can handle it?" sylus teased, a cocky smirk painted on his lips.
you nodded frantically, your foot running down rafayel's chest as you looked up at him with a cheeky smile; eyes barely open as you gazed at him with a dazed look.
"i can handle it, p-promise." you assured, making rafayel grin.
"well you heard her, crow. make some space." he grabbed the base of his shaft, now aligning his cock with your hole that was already occupied with sylus's thick cock. the silver haired male scoffed, rolling his eyes before momentarily stopping his thrusts; letting rafayel ease into you.
a screamish-moan ripped out of your throat, your walls clamping instinctively on both of their cocks; both men grunting in response as the space became tighter. your eyes swelled with tears, the salty warm fluid streaming down your cheeks as you tried to adjust to the painful stretch of having two giant cocks lodged in your cunt at the same time.
"shh... there, there, pretty girl. it's okay." rafayel tried to console you, his words barely making it to a full sentence before his voice betrayed him; a strangled whimper slipping off his tongue.
"i gotcha, sweetie." sylus mumbled against the skin of your nape, his hand snaking around your waist, fingers finding your clit as he began to rub soothing circles on the bundle of nerves to distract you.
the both of them allowed you to adjust to their cocks, providing additional stimulation to help you relax so that your walls aren't as tense. rafayel's teeth grazed your nipples, teasing and flicking the pebbled buds while sylus's fingers worked their magic to affectionately pinch and stroke your clit.
"nghh~ feels good... hnnghh- need more." you whined, moving your hips on your own accord, wincing as you could feel both of their dicks rubbing against your velvety wet walls.
"ya sure you're ready, cutie? we have all night." rafayel let out a shaky laugh, half-joking.
"moveee." you bucked your hips, making sylus chuckle.
"someone's impatient, not that i mind." with that being said, sylus once again began to slowly thrust into your pussy. he grunted, feeling his cock graze against rafayel's, the sensation feeling a little weird but he ignored that fact.
rafayel moaned at the sudden friction, his hand wrapping around your calf to push it by your head; mirroring your other leg which you still held up obediently. rafayel leaned closer, pressing against you before latching his lips onto your; kissing you senselessly.
you moaned into his mouth, feeling the both of them pistoning into your tight, dripping hole. rafayel hissed as he felt your fingers tug his hair, angling your jaw to deepend the kiss.
the room was full of wet skin slapping followed by the lewd sound of your pussy gushing out your juices; coating their cocks in your arousal as it dribbled down to their balls. rafayel's lips continued to suck and kiss at your swollen and bitten once; his tongue suckling with yours before pulling away as a string of saliva connected you two.
he pushed himself off of you, bringing the leg he held for you towards him. he kissed your ankle, running the tip of his tongue down to your calf before kitten-biting the flesh of it.
"mmphh... you taste so fucking sweet." rafayel swore under his breath, thrusting his cock deeper into your weeping hole. sylus followed in suit, both of their tips bruising your cervix.
"shit... you're taking us both so well, sweetie." sylus praised, now matching the movement of his fingers that were once leisurely rubbing your clit to the pace of his thrusts.
in seconds, everything shifted.
their gazes darkened, clouded with need and hunger. you squealed, feeling both sylus and rafayel thrusting in and out of your cunt with no mercy as their movement didn't falter.
not once.
they were so perfectly synced together, as if they were one.
"a-ahhhh~... f-fuck! please, please, please! so close... god! i'm gonna cum!" you choked on your tears as you sobbed, the pleasure you were feeling was intense.
your eyes rolled back, toes curled as you were gasping for air. both men grunted and moaned; focusing on chasing their high.
"how bad you want it, kitten?" sylus groaned, fucking his hips upward as you whimpered.
"so bad, fuck, need it so bad!" you desperately answered, convinced that you wouldn't survive another ruined orgasm.
"yeah? ask nicely, where are your manners, cutie?" rafayel snickered, driving his hips into your; pelvis meeting yours with brutal thrusts that made your body jerk.
"h-hahhhh... oh my god...- please, please, please. let me cum? i promise i'll be good, so fuckin' good. please raf... sy... need it so bad." you threw out every last ounce of dignity within yourself to beg them with your last bit of voice.
both men, clearly satisfied with your answer, feed your cunt with their cocks using an unforgiving pace of thrusts. rafayel's hips were a bit sloppier, but they were fast and needy, like he was scared that you'd disappear. in contrast, sylus's pace was slow but his thrusts were hard and deep; making sure his tip met your cervix with every movement of his hips.
"fuck, fuck, fuck..." the silver haired male let out a guttural moan, eyes screwed shut as he could feel his cock pulsate; vein twitching as blood flowed with adrenaline.
rafayel shamelessly moaned on top of you, panting like a dog as he continued to fuck his dick into your wet hole.
"open your mouth." he demanded and too fucked out to even decipher his intentions, you obeyed. rafayel spat into your mouth, the thick glob of spit coating your tongue before you swallowed it.
"good girl." rafayel grunted, feeling his balls tightening as he was close to cumming as well.
your stomach knotted, the build-up of your orgasm even more stronger as your gummy walls clamped down on their cocks viciously.
"auughh~ i'm cumming! fuck.. hnghh..." you choked out a moan, eyes screwed shut as hot liquid squirted out of your cunt; coating rafayel's lower abdomen. you creamed on their cocks, body twitching as you feel both of them creampie you; shoving their sticky and gooey cum deep into your womb.
your juices and their cum dripped down your thigh, coating sylus's balls as you could hear his breathing become uneven from the aftermath of such intense pleasure. rafayel collapsed on top of you, still mindful to not crush you with his entire weight.
"so tired..." he childishly whined, biting your nipple playfully as you huffed.
"you're heavy, raf, get off." you grumbled, making him pout as he smoothered his face between your boobs once again.
"nah, you're too soft." he argued, making you roll your eyes.
"i feel sticky and gross.." you mumbled, noticing how the room was a bit more quieter. xavier was passed out on the couch and caleb left the room a few minutes ago for whatever reason; zayne watching the whole scene intently from the edge of the bed.
you locked eyes with him, noticing the slight blush on his face. he cleared his throat, looking away.
"perhaps a hot shower might be nice." he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"yeah, it does sound tempting." you hummed.
"need some help, sweetie?" sylus offered, but his tone had a hint of mischief.
"i got it." zayne suddenly spoke up, walking over to where you were sandwhiched between rafayel and sylus. he pushed the groggy lemurian over, making him groan.
"hey! i was comfy." rafayel complained, making the doctor roll his eyes.
"it's my place, surely i know my bathroom better." sylus snickered, making zayne narrow his eyes.
"if i could perfom hundreds of heart surgeries, i'm sure i can figure out how to work your damn shower." zayne snarked back with an equal amount of bite, making the silver haired male smirk.
"touche, she's all yours, doc." sylus chuckled.
zayne sighed, scooping you up in his arms before heading into the bathroom; locking the door behind him.
"you look... fucked." he blurted out, making you laugh at his dry comment.
"wow, thanks, i didn't know." you playfully rolled your eyes, making him crack a small smile.
"that was... intense. after you shower, i could get you some painkillers to help with any soreness. can you stand?" zayne asked with a flicker of concern in his hazel orbs, settling you on your legs and lightly loosening his grip; only for your knees to wobble as you held onto his bicep for support.
"i guess not." he answered his own question, making you chuckle.
"mind helping me out, doc?" you asked, peering up at him with a girly smile. zayne felt his heart skip a beat, heat creeping up to his neck.
it's not like this would be his first time being intimate with you, but you still made him feel incredibly nervous.
"if you insist, then i don't mind." his tone was soft and gentle. you smiled at his agreement, taking off his glasses. you leaned onto the sink for support, watching him undo his tie before unbuttoning his shirt; revealing his chiseled chest.
fuck, his physique was like a greek god.
he undid his belt, zipping down his pants before kicking them off together with his boxers; his cock springing to life as his pinkish tip was a little swollen while dripping with precum. you leaned forwards, now pressed against him as your bare chest rubbed against his.
zayne groaned at the intimate skinship, his cock rubbing against your soft thighs. your hand reached down, grabbing the shaft as you experimentally gave it a few strokes.
"let me take care of you." your voice was a bare whisper, making him shudder. but, to your surprise, he shook his head.
"no, you don't have to do this for me, i'll get myself off or something. just ignore it, okay?" zayne tried to convince you, but it only made you frown.
"but i want to... i've been wanting to feel you the whole night." you pressed soft kisses along his jawline, making him swallow harshly as you saw his adam's apple bob.
"then let me make it up to you since that bastard pulled me away from you. i'll make you feel good, baby." he lifted your hips, your legs automatically wrapping around his waist as his cock was now nestled between your folds.
he walked inside the shower, pulling the glass doors to close it before turning on the water; adjusting the temperature. you cupped his face, pulling him closer to yours to seal his lips with yours.
zayne moaned into your mouth, molding his lips with yours as he softly kneaded your ass. your tongue poked his bottom lip, seeking for entry which he happily granted. you kissed him with a needy vigor, sucking his tongue as you stroked his wet jet black hair.
pulling away breathlessly, zayne looked down at you with swollen lips. he attacked your neck with kisses, making your whimper as you felt his tongue graze your flesh, softly tracing the hickies left on your skin with the tip of his tongue. he moved down to your tits, sucking your nipples as your hand held the back of his head; pushing him closer as you moaned.
"mhmm... feels so good, zayne." you praised, watching him tug your nipple between his teeth before giving it a deserving suck. he soon lets go of your swollen bud, hazel eyes meeting yours.
"i'll be gentle, okay?" he assured, making your chest feel warm and fuzzy as you nodded; wrapping your arms around his neck.
zayne grabbed the base of his cock, tapping your clit a few times, making you jolt. he smirked at how responsive your body was, aligning his tip with your hole. with a firm grip on your hips, he begin to sink you down on his hard cock, slowly shoving his inches inside you.
your mouth formed an 'o' shape as your eyes shut tight, feeling full as he bottomed out.
"s-so full.." you moaned, feeling him slowly thrust inside of you as the curve of his dick molded so perfectly in your wet walls. you clenched down on him, making him grunt at the sudden tightness.
"you feel so good, babygirl." zayne whispered, pressing a gentle kiss on your cheek and temple before sliding you up and down his dick. you rested your head on his shoulder, inhaling his scent as you kissed his neck.
this felt so new compared to what happened just minutes ago. the others fought over you like you were some piece of meat to claim; but zayne treated you like you were made of glass.
he was so gentle with his touches and strokes, you could almost cry.
zayne's tip nudged your cervix with every push of his hips, now having you pressed against the wall to have a better hold of you so that he can drive his hips into yours faster. your cunt weeped with arousal, gummy walls coated with his precum.
his thrusts were sharp yet slow, making sure it applied the right amount of pressure and friction to make you feel like you were seeing stars. his balls slapped against your ass, your nipple between his lips.
"hnghh.. love your cock, zyane. g-gonna cum.." you let out a shaky breath, clenching down on him as your increased sensitivity betrayed your body, not allowing you to hold onto your orgasm for too long.
"it's okay, baby. you can cum." he grunted against the wet skin of your tits and you didn't realize how intimate and erotic the whole sight was.
a choked out whimper escaped your throat, your cunt clamping down on him as you squirted all over his cock. your body twitched and trembled at your orgasm, panting as you leaned against his chest.
"shit, please... i need you to fill me up." you begged and that's all it took him to bust a fat load of his thick, hot cum inside your hole.
"fuck.." he swore and god it sounded so hot coming from his mouth.
the bathroom was filled with the sounds of uneven breathing and the running showerhead.
⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪
you stirred awake, groaning as you now laid on your back. sunlight beamed into your room, making your eyes burn as you tried to crack one of them.
"fuckin' hell.." you cursed under your breath, adjusting your vision as you sat up on your bed. your head was swirling as you held it in pain, wincing.
it was all a dream.
you slapped yourself, not believing how delusional you became to believe that whatever the hell that was could be reality.
"yeah, i'm losing it." you sighed deeply, scratching your head. you tapped your phone screen, reading the time as your eyes blew wide open.
fuck, it was well past noon, meaning you missed your morning classes already.
"you're kidding me." you huffed out in annoyance, leaning back on the headboard as you unlocked your phone.
you saw the many, many, many missed calls from your best friend; making you snort.
as you swiped through your applications, your eyes fell on the love and deepspace icon. memories of your strange dream replayed fresh in your memory, your body weirdly aching.
you brushed off those thoughts, clicking the icon as you wondered if infold fixed those weird bugs and glitches by now. you were surprised to see the app back into shape, running in good quality as you logged in with ease.
"huh, weird." you mumbled to yourself, calmly collecting your daily’s.
until you realized you had five unread messages.
hey pipsqueak, hope you're not still mad at me for being a bit mean to ya. i'll cook for you when you come back :p
hope you're not missing me too much, sweetie. come back and i'll take you for a joyride.
cutieeee! i miss you already :C come back soon, okay? need my personal pillow back.
if your throat is still sore, come back so we can have hotpot together. it'll be my treat.
have you taken those painkillers like i told you to?
your jaw was wide open, not believing your eyes. these texts seemed way too real to be automated.
"what the fuck." you quickly opened your front camera, only to see the faint purplish marks decorating your neck.
holy shit, all of that was real.
a smirk etched on your face as you quickly tapped the facetime app, ringing the only person you knew could stand this news and have a silver of faith in you to be convinced.
"finally decided to call me back? thought you died in your sleep or something." your best friend nagged at you, making you chuckle.
"you won't believe what happened last night." you giggle, making her roll her eyes at you.
"let me guess, you had a dream about all the lads guys fucking your brains out." she responded with a bored voice.
"even better."
---
a/n: hehe, if you made it to the end, kuddos to you cuz rereading through this was a pain the ass. if you couldn't tell by now, this was very self-indulgent, so i got carried away. hope you guys enjoyed it tho!!
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phyrexian-lesbian · 2 years ago
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*sigh*
people being all 'regeneration doesn't work that way!' always amuse me because like
it's made up fake sci-fi nonsense to justify changing actors
other time lords have abilities we never see the doctor use, like choosing their body and changing it immediately after regenerating
the doctor canonically failed time lord school and is just Bad At This
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fabiansociety · 10 months ago
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da2 isn't the best dragon age game *because* it's openly a tragedy, but being a tragedy forces a level of narrative coherence that the other games in the series don't have, and *that's* what makes it a better game.
okay, so. dragon age 2 runs on nested foreshadowing and a limited set of themes that almost every character and plot beat fall into: love is not enough, wealth is not enough, power is not enough, good intent is not enough. the problems you run into are structural, rather than individual, and your ability to resolve them as one person is strictly limited. the arishok is a central figure for this, because he prefigures every other tragedy and makes the game's thesis statement as clear as possible. he doesn't want to be in kirkwall, but he is compelled to remain until he gets back what was stolen. he doesn't want to lead a coup attempt, but he is compelled by qunari codes of justice to act. he does not want to die and fail his duty, but but he is compelled to by the other two impossible demands. every tragedy in kirkwall is the result of too many people with wildly different definitions of justice crammed into one place specifically designed to maximize human misery and suffering, and so you get a wonderfully nested narrative onion where each quest reinforces that idea, where there are no good options, just positions you can take — even the affinity system plays into that, where constantly gassing up your friends or constantly pushing them to change are equally correct ways to go, but ones that won't ultimately make a huge difference in their lives or characters, because no matter how much they like you, they're not under your control.
this coherence is even justified by the framing device. of *course* the moral of the game is "insisting on a dogmatic, narrow idea of justice destroys individuals and societies," it's a yarn being spun by varric the con artist to a chantry cop!
neither origins or inquisition play with that sort of narrative complexity. origins is a jaundiced hero's quest, certainly, but it's still basically a hero's quest; inquisition has a number of characters who question what you're doing and why, but the multitude of voices pulls the game in too many potential directions. DA2 was so constrained in its production that it pulled on decidedly ancient theatrical traditions, and it worked so, so well
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wingfleur · 28 days ago
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# — calling mark grayson "small."
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got fried as fuck and this shit came to me like a prophecy. a dream. i know i have my to-do list, but it’s hard for me to write stuff i’m no longer in the exact headspace for. like, i need to wait until i can get into it enough to feel it the way i did when i first thought of it. anyways, this is set in a universe that’s pretty canon-compliant: mark and amber broke up, but he hasn’t dropped out of college (yet) or ended up with eve. you also have no clue he’s invincible, just that he’s had a glow up and your cute, dorky friend from high school is now fine as shit. i also listened to “party favors” by leon thomas and big sean the entire time i worked on this.
lastly, i'd like to give a humongous shoutout to @omniphilic for beta-reading this monster for me! much love, sunshine, and godspeed, my children. enjoy! | wc: 7.9k words.
cw: nsfw mdni (18+), afab!reader, a lot of porn with a lot of plot, light angst, confessions, banter, friends-to-lovers, mentions of amber (i love you girl but it’s so easy to use you as a plot device </3), oral sex (f!recieving), explicit sex (p in v), missionary, squirting, dirty talk, praise, soft!dom mark, consider this my apology for the hurt/very little comfort v!card mark x reader fic <3
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thinking about you joking around with mark grayson and calling him… small. you know where.
it sounds like such a silly scenario, but walk w/ me: you and mark have an… odd friendship. looking back on it, you two were an unlikelier pair than winning the lottery. you’re from completely different worlds– you were more on the straight and narrow: the academic side of things. all you did was bust your ass, and you had plenty to show for it– friends, awards, this air of recognition that followed you from classroom to classroom.
and mark? well, he fell more into the category of incredibly average. average grades, average social life, even an average reputation amongst the student body– the kind that makes you easy to remember and always gets you labeled as a “pretty cool guy,” but keeps you out of any real trouble. maybe that’s part of his charm– the fact that everything about him is initially so unassuming, so run of the mill that you don’t even think twice. not until you start to get to know him.
there’s plenty that sticks out once you get to know him.
then, somehow, at the start of your senior year, you two ended up partnered together for a project in the same upper-level english class. y’know, the college freshman one everyone takes because it’s a cheap credit, regardless of if they’re going to harvard to study law, or to the local community college to save a bit of money. neither of you had many expectations, but you and mark became fast friends. mark’s awkward charm grew on you, and he already had a decent opinion of you from seeing you around, but finally being in a situation where he could talk to you and not feel like a nuisance only made him think of you more highly than before. you were cool as shit; he has no idea how you two hadn’t spoken sooner.
but it’s no surprise that you two absolutely nailed the project. with your smarts and mark’s willingness to learn, the grade on it ended up being so good that it made you jump into mark’s arms out of pure excitement. mark caught you effortlessly, spinning you around and giggling alongside you without a second thought. the intimacy of such a reaction didn’t dawn on you two until long after he set you down, you grinning giddily in his face, while he could do nothing but grin back.
that’s how you ended up here– lying in mark’s bed, long after graduation, and visiting home from campus on a long weekend. you’re wearing one of his t-shirts and reading one of his copies of seance dog as he works on a paper. when you found out you two would be attending the same university, you were more than stoked. mark was stoked too, but he was so sure you could’ve gotten into one of chicago’s finest, or, better yet, move away from illinois entirely, rather than attend upstate university. he gave you a hesitant look when you said you were more than content with your choice, saying that a degree is a degree no matter where you went and that as long as you could be with mark, it would be worth it. deep down, though, mark swore something bloomed in his chest that day. he doesn’t really know what that feeling was– is, to be more accurate, because he still feels it sometimes– but that’s the least of his worries. 
his main worry is getting this paper in by 11:59 pm tonight. 
and just like that, the rhythmic clacking of mark’s fingers against the keyboard fills the silence and leaves you to bask in this comforting sensation of warmth. you’re so relaxed that you can’t bring yourself to move. not that you would have wanted to, anyway.
it’s peaceful. so, of course, you have to ruin it. 
“you ever want to fuck a cartoon character?” you suddenly say, the copy of seance dog in your hand and your foot crossed over your knee. you hear the way mark’s typing pauses for a moment, and imagining his reaction forces you to bite back a snicker. a pregnant silence fills the room before the typing begins again, just as rhythmic and hypnotic as before.
“i know you’re not saying that about seance dog,” mark finally quips back, his voice dripping with an absurd amount of mirth. you can hear his smile in his voice– you always can, because mark rarely doesn’t smile. it’s one of your favorite things about him.
you can’t help but take the bait.
“you think i could be?” you ask, tone scandalized and brows raised. neither of you move to face each other just yet– you don’t need to. you can tell exactly what face mark’s making from the sound of his voice, and mark can do the same for you. it’s how he knows that you’ve stopped biting back that smug smile of yours– the one that creeps across your face when you’re clearly up to something, but he doesn’t know what. you’re a troublemaker; it’s one of his favorite things about you.
“yeah,” he replies without missing a beat, “i clearly know nothing about you. i was once dumb enough to think you were intimidating.”
“i’m still intimidating!”
“yeah, maybe on occasion,” mark teases, his typing ceasing completely so that he can spin around in his chair. he leans against it with his head tossed back and his arms on the armrests, eying you gleefully as you put the comic face down on the bed. “most of the time i forget because you’re too busy saying shit that’s uncomfortably close to ‘i wanna fuck seance dog.’”
“eat shit and die, mark.”
“i don’t wanna.”
“then shut the fuck up and answer the question!”
“fine, fine!” mark laughs and lifts his hands up lazily off the chair in mock-surrender. “‘course i’ve wanted to fuck a cartoon character. who hasn’t? i’m not a nun.”
something flashes in your eyes, and you shift to lean forward towards where mark’s sitting, propping up on your elbows on the bed. you grin mischievously; it’s clear you’re up to nothing remotely good. 
“who?” you ask.
mark replies immediately. “koriand’r.”
“wha– from the titans?”
“no, from the avengers. yes, from the titans. who else would i be talking about?”
“alright, down, boy,” you say amusedly, making mark roll his eyes. “i was just checking. but you obviously can’t handle that.”
mark raises an eyebrow. “says who?”
“uhh, says me?"
the two of you are still for a moment, and you start to fear you said something wrong until you see mark’s eyes darken in that telltale way they do when he starts to feel challenged. then, as if that wasn’t enough to give you goosebumps, he does that stupid, mindless thing he does with his tongue, where he runs it along the inside of his cheek. your breath stills in your chest when mark pushes up off the back of his chair and leans forward towards where you lie on the bed, elbows resting on his knees and hands clasped between his thighs. 
it’s hard to keep your gaze from dropping to the veins in his hands.
“oh yeah?” mark asks incredulously, tilting his head. you were joking about being the intimidating one earlier, but the real intimidator is mark. when he gets serious, you swear you can feel something in the air shift. maybe that’s why it feels like the hairs on the back of your neck are standing up right now.
“why not?”
the question, in its simple nature, catches you off guard, and in a brief moment of confusion, you tilt your head. “why not what?” “why couldn’t i handle her?”
you stare at mark as if he’s joking, but instead of him laughing and waving you off, mark stares back at you expectantly, brow arched and lips quirked up at the corners. it’s like he wants to smile, but he can’t. won’t. 
this dickhead must have a death wish.
“what do you mean ‘why couldn’t you handle her?’” you say casually– like what you’re saying is most obvious thing in the world. “it’s koriand’r, mark. she’d chew you up and spit you out before you even had time to undo your belt.”
you swipe up your copy of seance dog and busy yourself with trying to find where on the page you last left off. honestly, it doesn’t matter where you start reading. you’re willing to do anything to help get your mind off the weight of mark’s eyes boring into you.
“besides,” you huff, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, “koriand’r has standards, and you probably have a small dick, anyway.”
the second those words leave your mouth, the room falls deathly silent, and you swear it’s as if the air has been sucked out of the room. you fall still where you’re at, hoping that somehow, someway, you not moving will make mark want to kill you less. you really don’t know what possessed you to say that– it was a poor attempt at deflection, considering the growing amount of tension you began feeling in that room– but you don’t mean it. didn’t mean it. not one bit. 
you’re doing mental gymnastics to figure out how you can take it back without sounding like a total loser before mark starts laughing, and the joyous and boisterous sound gives you pause.
he couldn’t have found that funny… could he? 
okay, yeah, after a little bit of consideration, he very well could have. this is mark grayson, you’re talking about– not one of the insecure guys you were used to dealing with, who were more likely to blow a blood vessel than a load at the idea of being perceived as “unmanly.” mark’s the type of guy to wear one of your crop tops because he knows you’ll whine about him stretching them out, or wear a maid dress as a punishment for losing a bet, masking his embarrassment with quips about how good his legs look. you also know mark enough to know he’s not a virgin, nor is he a prude, but not well enough to know intimate details about his sex life. sure, jokes are fine, but a play-by-play on how he screwed his ex feels… invasive. beyond the scope of your shared comfort. it was just something you never thought of asking.
well, more like something you could never bring yourself to ask.
you set the comic back down on the bed just in time to watch mark wipe some tears from his eyes, twisting around to face his laptop with a smile on his face. he resumes typing like nothing happened, like you didn’t just obliterate his manhood and leave it in pieces for him to pick up off the floor. it’s hard not to gawk at him in disbelief, blinking rapidly for a few moments before speaking.
“that– didn’t upset you?” you say tentatively, voice a lot meeker than initially intended. mark huffs out a laugh and spins around, hands back to resting on the armrests.
“why would it have?” he says bemusedly, still smiling from before. “we joke like that all the time. honestly, i’m surprised you hadn’t said something like that sooner.”
you can only stare at him blankly, brows knitting in confusion as mark continues to regard you patiently. then, you sit up, pushing up off your elbows to swing around and upright, one leg dangling off the bed while the other stays bent in front of you. 
“why didn’t you get mad?”
mark pauses, eyes narrowing as he tilts his head. “...is this a trick question? why would i? you were joking around.”
“most guys would’ve gotten mad about me saying something like that.”
“yeah, well, most guys aren’t exactly confident about what they’re packing downstairs.”
“and you are?”
mark’s lips part for a second, but no words come out. he quickly shuts his mouth and stares at you, but you stare back, ignoring the way your cheeks start to burn with red-hot embarrassment. 
“well, yeah,” mark finally says, eyes flickering nervously to the side. he looks everywhere– the alarm clock on the dresser, his posters on the wall, everywhere but where you are, sitting prettily on his bed– but his eyes have no choice but to finally lock back onto yours, teeth gnawing at the inside of his cheek. “‘course i’m confident about it.”
“...‘cause it’s not small.”
he pauses. “yeah. ‘cause it’s not small.”
your brain short-circuits right then and there.
you aren’t sure why you’re so surprised by this. it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to arrive to this conclusion. you were around when mark started dating his ex-girlfriend, amber– around long enough to have seen the exact point in their relationship where they shed the last of their inhibitions and began interacting with each other much more comfortably. you were also around long enough to watch mark come into himself– to lose that dweebish, unsure aura around him and become more confident. muscled. tall. even if he was still pretty dorky most of the time.
perhaps that’s when the thoughts started: when you started to think of mark less as a boy, and more as a man. when you began wondering things about him that you desperately wanted to know, but were much too scared to ask.
at least you have an answer to one of them now.
“hey,” mark says suddenly, voice sharp enough to cut through all your overthinking and analyses. mark’s closer to you now– right next to you, actually, the scent of his cologne filling your nose– and he has your hand in his, thumb rubbing soothing circles into the back. “you okay? should i not have said that–?”
you frantically shake your head. “no–! i mean, yes– god, fuck, no, mark, it’s okay.” you take a deep breath, letting your eyes fall shut. “i’m the one who asked. you just answered.”
you take in a shaky breath and let your eyes flutter open to find mark watching you adeptly, his eyes trained on your face. the expression he’s wearing is one of worry, those dark brows of his pinched in the middle to form a wrinkle you so desperately want to smooth out with your thumb. his plush, pink lips are parted, and in an attempt not to stare at them, your eyes fall to the floor, but not before momentarily catching on how his biceps strain against his sleeves.
for fuck’s sake, this is not the time to be focusing on how attractive you find your best friend.
“i wanted to know,” you finally say, voice soft and a little frayed around the edges. your eyes flutter shut again– something to give you a bit of extra courage to say what you need to say, and not cave under the pressure of your nerves. “i wanted the answer to that question. it sounds weird as fuck, and i totally understand if you want me to leave and never show my face around here again, but i’d be lying if i said i didn’t want to know.”
you open your eyes again to find mark still staring at you, eyes jumping all over your face, while sporting an unreadable expression. you find yourself swallowing hard as you steel yourself for what you want to say next, adjusting to sit and face mark completely. “i wanna know a lot of things about you, actually. and none of them are all that appropriate for two people who are supposed to be ‘best friends.’”
it’s mark’s turn to short-circuit.
“w–what?” mark stutters out, staring at you with a dumbfounded expression as his eyebrows shoot up in suprise. his mouth falls agape, opening and closing fruitlessly as he tries to figure out what to say. “i– jesus christ, i don’t think you understand what you’re saying–”
“i know exactly what i’m saying.” your interjection is quick and firm, your expression void of your previous nervousness and now completely serious. “and you know it. don’t insult me like that again.”
mark’s protests die in his throat.
“i want to know you,” you start. “honestly. intimately. fuck, to be honest, i want to see you– naked, in my bed– but i didn’t wanna make things weird, and then you had that whole thing with amber, and then i thought you were gonna date eve, so i kinda just kept it to myself, but–”
“you can know me.” 
you freeze. “what–?”
“you can know me,” mark says again, his hand squeezing the one that he has wrapped in his. “you can know me. and see me. and i’ll answer every other question you’ve had about me, ‘cause i wanna know you too.”
you can’t help but stare at mark , absolutely and completely dumbfounded. if he notices, he doesn’t judge. doesn’t acknowledge it at all, actually. he just continues to steamroll ahead.
“god, fuck, i really wanna know you like that, too,” he sighs. “always have– like, all the way back in high school. i’d see you in the halls with your friends and think, ‘man, they’re hot,’ then move on with my life because i thought there was no way i’d ever have a chance with you. then, we got partnered up for that project, and i learned that you were so much cooler and more approachable than i had ever imagined, and i wanted to make a move on you so bad, but i still thought there was no way you could ever like me. william can testify to this– i was talking his ear off about you 24/7. still do. he is seriously getting sick of it.” 
the way mark talks is fast– so much so that all his words bleed together, voice full of excitement and sincerity. it make your eyes sting. after he finishes, his quick way of talking tapers off into a hefty bout of silence, his beautiful brown eyes flickering down to your joint hands. 
“and then came amber.”
the quiet that follows drapes over the two of you like a blanket, heavy with the weight of everything you two are thinking, but ultimately remains unsaid. the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t need to be said. you and mark just… know– understand– that amber was the first person, aside from you, to treat mark as less of an expendable, and more like somebody worth knowing. she took the opportunities you were too afraid to– penciled her name in where yours was meant to be and slipped right on into that “partner” position, wearing it as if it was custom-fitted. it may as well have been, because it sure looked good on her. 
he looked good on her. that’s why you couldn’t bring yourself to be mad.
“i never would’ve gone out with her if i knew you wanted me even half as much as i wanted you,” mark says quietly, reaching up to rub a tear from your cheek that you didn’t even know you shed. “but i didn’t. and we dated, and i slept with her, and i loved her, but i feel all of that for you too, y’know.” he cradles your face delicately as he climbs up onto his knees, his movements slow, as if moving too quickly would scare you off. moving too quickly would remind you that this is real; remind you that you probably shouldn’t be doing this, causing you to hop off the bed and run down the hall, flying down the stairs, past debbie, and out the front door.
but you don’t have to worry. never have, actually, because the way mark treats you is careful. cautious. he’s kneeling on the bed and easing you onto your back with such rapt attention that it makes your cheeks warm, head turning to the side to shield it from him before he turns your head right back to where it was.
“i want you to ask your questions,” mark says slowly, large hands pushing your knees apart to make room for him between your legs. you can’t help but stare at him helplessly, any and all words dying in your throat, but mark moves with a confidence that makes it clear you don’t need to speak. not when he’s hovering over you like this. 
“i want to answer your questions, and i want you to do the same for mine. ‘cause i’ve thought about you. a lot. and not all of it was decent. actually, most of it probably wasn’t.”
mark lets himself laugh softly at the admission, but you can only look up at him in awe, the muscles of your brows twitching from the urge to knit in confusion. mark’s eyes catch this, and he reaches down to smooth his thumb over the spot right between your eyebrows– the same way you wanted to do for him earlier.
“so tell me that this is okay.”
mark trails his fingers across your skin, skimming over your cheek, then your neck, then your shoulder, and all the way down your arm until reaching your hand. he tangles your fingers together and brings your wrist to his lips, a soft kiss being pressed to your pulse, which makes your heart stutter in your chest. mark doesn’t tease you for how vulnerably you stare at him, or for how red his actions make your face. he only looks down at you with a soft smile, peppering kisses to your palm.
“holy shit, mark, this is more than okay.”
mark’s grin is blinding when you surge forward to kiss him.
the thing that surprises you most about it isn’t how good of a kisser mark is, or how nice it feels for his big hands to come up and cradle your jaw. it’s how easy all of this is– how uncomplicated it is to be making out with mark, how your lips slot together as if it’s always meant to be this way, how raw his groan is when you tangle your fingers into his hair and tug. he has you pressed against the bed in seconds, one hand slowly slipping beneath your t-shirt as the other squeezes at your outer thigh. you feel dizzy when your lips part and he ducks his head down into your neck, sucking bruises into the skin with a fervor that makes you squirm.
“i– fuck, mark, not where people can see–!”
“does it matter if it’s visible? ‘s not like you’re fucking anyone else right now besides me.”
you hit mark hard against his back, but it only makes him chuckle, sitting up to look at you with messy hair and blown pupils. “what? you haven’t slept with anybody in a while, and you’re about to sleep with me. i didn’t say anything wrong.”
“how do you even know that, asshole?”
mark grins, sitting back on his haunches as he hooks the hem of your shirt on his index finger. he tugs it up enough to reveal your stomach. “‘cause you’re lying here in my bed, wearing my shirt, with me sitting between your legs. if i was the person you’ve been fucking, i’d definitely feel some type of way about that.”
you scoff, moving one of your legs to try and kick at mark’s chest. like the little shit he is, he catches it easily and presses a kiss to your ankle, setting it on one of his shoulders. “that doesn’t mean anything. i could have casual sex if i wanted to.”
“yeah,” mark agrees, both hands coming to smooth his shirt up the expanse of your body, “you could. if you wanted to. but you don’t, ‘cause you’re not like that.”
“bullshit.”
“is not. here, open your mouth for me.”
“wh–?”
“shut up and open it for a second, would you?”
you shoot mark a withering glare, but he just grins back, pushing your shirt up under your chin and offering the hem for you to bite down on.
“thank you,” he says gleefully, his words a little too airy and sing-songy for you to let slide. you try and kick him again, but he blocks your leg without much of a second thought, eyes laser focused on the sight of your tits in front of him.
“wow, you are so fucking pretty.”
the way he says it is so full of awe– so genuine– that it makes your mouth fall open. the t-shirt in your mouth gets stuck on your bottom lip in the process, and the sight makes mark chuckle, a boyish grin settling on his face. he reaches up to adjust it and pulls it back up so you can bite down on it again.
“i didn’t even say anything crazy yet,” he teases, laughing as you do your best to swear at him from around the fabric. mark ignores it to focus on the sight in front of him instead, though, fingers tracing up your rib cage before cupping the underside of each of your breasts.
your mind goes blank when he takes one of your nipples into his mouth.
“oh, fuck,” you gasp out, back arching off the bed and into his mouth. the t-shirt slips from between your teeth again, and you can feel mark grin around where his tongue swirls around your skin, popping off to look at you and chastise you softly.
“jeez, you really suck at following instructions,” mark playfully says. “and did you forget that my mom is downstairs? i’ve had her knock on the door during sex before, and trust me, it does not help to sustain the mood.”
“god, you sound like such a dork. ‘it does not help to sustain–’”
mark cuts you off with a groan, fingers curling into the waistband of your shorts and panties. “shut up and lift your hips already.”
you giggle. “fine, fine.”
you plant your feet and lift your hips off the bed enough for mark to tug your clothes off, separating your shorts from your underwear so he can tuck the garment into his pocket. You look at him with a flustered expression, mouth dropping open in bewilderment, but mark simply sticks his tongue out at you and flings your shorts to the floor, panties nowhere in sight. you hardly have enough time to process him keeping them for himself before he’s wrapping his hands around your thighs and tugging them onto his shoulders, putting him face to face with your cunt and lifting your lower back completely off the bed.
you knew mark was strong, but you never thought of him using his strength like this.
mark holds you firmly as he busies himself with eating you out like a man starved. those big, brown doe eyes of his look down at you, sometimes lingering on the rise and fall of your chest, and sometimes taking in the sight of your knitted brows and parted lips, both your hands tangled in the pillow behind your head. his eyes do fall shut every once in a while as if he’s savoring the taste of you on his tongue, and he probably is, knowing mark, but you don’t have the wherewithal to tease him. not now, at least. not when he’s got his lips wrapped around your clit, sucking in these sporadic little bursts that make your stomach burn with molten need.
“oh, f-uck,” you gasp, voice cracking on the expletive. in your defense, it’s the only word you currently feel like you know how to say, but mark doesn’t laugh or tease you for it. he just presses a messy kiss to your clit, then slides his tongue down through your folds to circle your hole, slowly and messily pressing inside of you. he pumps it in and out for a few moments, as if he’s trying to fuck you with his tongue, then flattens the muscle and drags it back up to your clit to press into it firmly. you untangle your fingers from the sheets and reach up to swat at mark’s thigh, twisting and turning frantically in his hold.
“oh my fucking god, mark, let go!” your whines are urgent, thighs beginning to quiver on either side of mark’s head. his eyes flutter open enough to look at you through his long, thick lashes, but his firm grip on your waist doesn’t let up in the slightest. his arms tighten around you, keeping your pussy to his lips and your body off the bed as he continues to ravage you like it’s the one thing he was born to do. “mark! ‘m fuckin’ serious– i’m gonna squirt if you don’t let go of m– oh, fuck!”
you realize your warning is a bit late as you feel that knot tighten and snap in your belly, but it would’ve fallen on deaf ears regardless of whether you said it earlier or not. your cunt gushes all over mark’s nose, lips, and chin, soaking the top of his t-shirt and dribbling a bit down onto the bed below. you’d think he’d have a concern of drowning, but mark’s tongue keeps moving as you cum, legs squeezing against his ears so tight that you’re sure he can hear absolutely nothing but his own heartbeat. you know you sure can’t– all you can hear is the distant sound of your own voice, and the way your breathing stutters in your chest, a series of tremors wracking your body so brutally that you’d liken them to an earthquake. 
“shit,” you gasp softly, limbs tingling once they regain sensation. you wriggle in mark’s grasp and he pulls back from your pussy with a pop!, lowering your hips down to the bed as he runs his tongue along his lower lip.
“you said you were about to squirt as if that was going to deter me,” mark says breathlessly, a soft laugh punctuating his sentence. his face is covered with your slick all over his lips and chin, the sun from the window catching on it in a way that makes it glisten. you’re embarrassed by his nonchalance, but it’s hard to be mad when mark looks this good. you did this to him– made his perfectly slicked-back hair disheveled, and soaked his lower face and chest in your cum. normally, you would reply to his quip right away, but right now, you don’t. you’re much too focused on watching how mark leans down to reach behind his head and grab at his shirt, shucking it off in one smooth motion to join your discarded shorts on the floor.
“it was supposed to,” you finally say, voice sounding just as breathless as mark’s. his lips quirk up at the corners, but he doesn’t meet your eyes. instead, he leans over you to open his bedside drawer, and you take that as an opportunity to continue. “didn’t realize i was sleeping with superfreak, over here.”
mark snorts. “i’m just a guy who prioritizes my partner’s pleasure over mine.”
“that’s a roundabout way to say you like to eat pussy. and ass. oh god, mark, you don’t eat ass, do you?”
mark wiggles his eyebrows in response, and you look at him with such a horrified expression that a giggle can’t help but escape from his chest. he shuts the bedside table with a soft thud and leans back over you with a strip of two condoms hanging from his mouth. your brows shoot up at the sight, but mark doesn’t see it. he’s much too focused on pushing his sweatpants and boxers down to his thighs, cock slapping lightly against his abs.
oh. you always knew mark looked good, but this? this is something else entirely.
“you’re staring,” mark says wryly, tearing one of the condoms from the strip, then opening up the wrapper with his teeth. you watch as he pinches the tip and rolls the condom onto himself with a level of precision that screams of practice. if you hadn’t just cum your brains out, you might’ve found yourself feeling a little bit jealous.
“‘course i am.” your reply is shameless, and it makes mark bark out a startled laugh. “you said it was big, not that you were carrying a weapon. now here you are, looking like asian adonis with my jizz on your face, rolling a condom on with the ease of a common whore. not to mention that you grabbed two of them.”
a giddy smile spreads across mark’s face in reply, but it’s not one of his usual ones: it’s bashful. it’s the kind of smile where he bites his lip to force it down, but it doesn’t work, so his bottom lip slowly unfurls from between his teeth. your ears burn bright red at the sight, but mark doesn’t comment on it. mark’s never been good at multitasking, and he’s much too focused on tossing the unopened condom to the side, then tugging you against him by your thighs.
“we don’t have to use them both,” mark says softly, the sweetness of his smile bleeding into his voice. it’s a bit jarring for him to be acting so adorably, like he’s not running his cock along the seam of your folds. the tip catches on your clit every so often, making your breath catch in the back of your throat.
“i like how that’s what you chose to comment on.” 
he shrugs. “didn’t have much else to say.”
“you’re a dog, you know that, mark?”
mark grins at you wickedly, leaning down to lick a stripe up your cheek.
“mm, yeah. ‘m guilty as charged.”
and just like that, he sinks into you, bottoming out in one smooth thrust that knocks the air from your lungs. your eyes screw shut, but you latch onto him immediately, hand shooting out in search of his. he takes it wordlessly, bringing your hand up so he can kiss your knuckles.
“you okay?” he asks tenderly, lips pressed to the back of your hand. you open your eyes, tears pricking at the corners, then nod slowly as a deep breath leaves your nose.
“yeah,” you say shakily. “just been a while. warn me next time.”
mark nods, doing his best not to get caught up on the fact that you want there to be a next time. “sure,” he answers. “sorry. here– put your legs on my shoulder.”
you lift your legs for mark to take, and he settles both of your feet on one of his shoulders like they belong there. then, he shifts forward, shuffling up so that his thighs bracket your hips, which slots him deeper into you than he has any business being.
it makes you feel crazy. you fucking love it.
once mark feels stable in his position, and any remnants of discomfort bleed from your expression, he starts rocking his hips in and out of you at a pace too quick to be languid, but too slow to be considered harsh. whatever rhythm he’s fallen into, it feels good. you’re clawing at the sheets at your sides and behind your head like a madman, that copy of seance dog he lent you long forgotten on the floor, along with everything else you two have taken off. 
“does this answer one of your questions?” mark asks lowly, eyes half-lidded and jaw tight. he’s got your legs pressed to his chest with one hand, the other splayed across your stomach to hold you in place. you can tell it’s not that simple, though; the firmness with which he presses down against your stomach is as if he’s feeling for something, and the realization makes you clench, cunt squelching lewdly around his cock inside you. “did you wonder how i fuck? if i liked it fast? or did it slow?”
in your day-to-day conversations, mark doesn’t swear all that often– at least, not compared to you– but the mouth he’s got on him in bed is a surprise that makes you flush down to your chest. you look up to see mark gazing at you with eyes that are almost black, a bright blush fanning across his freckled cheeks and nose. when he sees you struggle to answer, the gears clearly turning, but no words coming out, he grips your legs tighter and quickens the snap of his hips. mark’s lips fall open with a breathy moan as he watches the way your eyes roll back, and his abdomen clenches with the need to keep his own pleasure at bay. “c’mon, baby. tell me. tell me how you want it, ‘n’ i promise i’ll do whatever you say.”
“i– god, fuck, mark, yes, i wondered how you fucked!” your reply comes out breathy, whiny, and and rushed– a result of you making an actual effort to focus so it didn’t come out as a jumbled, inaudible mess. “i w-wondered if you’d treat me like glass, or fuck me like i had no self-respect. i don’t care what you do right now– swear t’god i don’t– ‘cause i just wanna cum. don’t fucking stop.”
mark huffs out a laugh at how desperate you sound, lips quirking up in a lopsided smile that shows off the cute little fangs he has in the corners of his mouth. he turns his head to kiss one of your ankles, then takes one to put it on the opposite side, making it so you have one leg on each of his shoulders. large, calloused hands slide down your legs and smooth over your thighs before taking your hands into each of his. you’re about to ask what he’s doing, but there’s no time for the words to come out. he’s already gripping both your wrists and tugging you forward, forcing your ass to smack against his thighs with every brutal snap of his hips.
your brain is about to melt out of your fucking ears.
“did you touch yourself?” mark’s asks breathlessly, dark eyes focused on your face. you try desperately to free your hands from his grasp, but your attempts are pathetically uncoordinated. the way his cock is rearranging your guts makes it impossibly difficult to focus. but despite your lack of success, your writhing makes mark tut at you disapprovingly, and he leans forward to keep you in place by resting a fraction of his body weight on your chest. “quit trying to run ‘n’ tell me. did you touch yourself thinking about me fucking you? imagining how it would be?”
mark leans down to lick a stripe up the side of your neck, voice dropping to a filthy, sultry whisper. “‘cause i did. thought about this all the time, what you’d feel like around me. it’s so much fuckin’ better than i imagined.”
you nod your head frantically, hands clenched into fists, and your nails dig so roughly into your palms that it’s a miracle it hasn’t drawn blood. mark isn’t completely satisfied with your response, but he takes it for what it is and releases both of your wrists in favor of grabbing onto your hips.
“if you touched yourself while thinking of me, then show me. play with it for me, hm?”
you don’t need much more coaxing than that.
your fingers fly to your clit at lightening speed, middle and ring finger rubbing in quick, tight circles that mark finds absolutely hypnotizing. your other hand comes up to palm at your breasts, pinching and tweaking at your nipples in a way that makes you whine. mark damn near growls at the sight, a string of expletives you’ve never heard from him before being let out into the ether as he doubles his efforts to fuck you into the mattress.
“open your eyes,” mark demands, his words oozing with a tone you’re very much not used to being addressed with. his voice is low, gravely, and deeply affected by the way your walls squeeze around him, and you find that you quite like having him like this: wrapped around your finger, barely hanging on, lost in everything pertaining to you. the sentiment is definitely shared, because as you force your eyes open, you feel your features pinch the way they do when you’re trying not to cry. it’s nothing bad– far from it, actually. it’s just that mark is fucking you so good that you feel like you’re losing your mind, and the pleasure is so mindboggling that it makes you wanna sob. 
“there y’go, baby,” mark sighs, “just keep lookin’ at me. i wanna see your face when you cum.”
his honest admission shoots straight through you and right to your core, pussy clenching around him tightly, your clit throbbing beneath your fingers. mark moans low and long at the feeling, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallows hard.
“fuck, i like when y’do that– when you like what i say and you get all tight around me. just– keep touching yourself, pretty. look at me and let it happen.”
all you can do is nod helplessly. mark ducks down to press a kiss to your cheek, fingers pressing what will definitely be bruises tomorrow morning into the skin of your hips. his cock splits you open in a mindbending way, your fingers flicking at your clit so frantically that your hand has become nothing but a blur. 
then, the bubble bursts. your orgasm hits you like a truck, your head flying back, and the muscles in your jaw and neck pulling taut. the same goes for your legs– your knees lock up and your thighs pull tight, shaking with violent tremors as you gush again, this time, around mark’s cock. you do your best to keep your eyes open as you cum, but it’s hard. from what you can see, though, mark’s mouth drops open and his eyes flash with something bright– yellow, even– as he takes in the sight of you falling apart. whatever it is, you don’t give it much thought. your brain is much too fried to be trusting everything you see right now.
“you’re a fucking dream like this,” mark mutters, his tone oozing with awe and disbelief. dutifully, he fucks you through your second orgasm– all the squirming, pulsing, and wetness that’s stained his sheets twice in one night– and holds your unfocused gaze all throughout it before he feels you coming down and abruptly pulls out. your twitching legs drop unceremoniously to the bed, and mark swings his thighs over you to settle over your chest, fingers peeling off the condom and tossing it lamely to the side. all you can see past your wet lashes and teary eyes is mark’s fist moving in an urgent blur before he cums all over your chest, the orgasm hitting him so hard that he has to grip the headboard to stabilize himself. his super strength causes it to splinter just slightly as his legs shake, so much so that he can hardly hold himself up.
his cum paints your tits in hot, thick, pearly white strands, and mark clambers up from over you to lay down on the other side of the bed. you find it unfair, the way that he’s panting and shaking much less than you, but you don’t comment. you just stare up at the ceiling, the sound of your breathing filling the air.
“i hope that was good,” mark says earnestly, rolling lazily onto his side to look at you. you take another deep, grounding breath, then turn your head to look at him. your arm comes out too weakly to swat at his chest.
“there’s no way you just asked me that when your cum is drying on my chest.”
mark stares at you for a moment, then busts out into a fit of laughter, reaching behind his head to take the pillow so he can drop it casually onto your face. you can’t help but laugh too, arms coming up to shield yourself from the pillow, and you toss it back to mark where he catches it, then tucks it back under his head. “fuck me for trying to make sure you’re okay, i guess,” he says dramatically, rolling his eyes.
you flip over onto your stomach and bunch the pillow up under your chin, careful to ignore the wet parts of your chest as you widely grin and quip back. “i just did.”
“more like the other way around. this was me fucking you. into the mattress, might i add.” mark grins mischievously and reaches out to place his hand on your lower back, smoothing over your ass before dipping between your legs to find your folds. he trails his fingers up and down your wet and puffy slit, tongue darting out to wet his lips when he feels you shiver in reply. “but we can go again with you on top if you wanna fuck me. not like i’d ever say no to that. plus, it’d answer one of my questions.”
you’re part your lips to reply, but the sound of feet padding up the stairs, partnered with a soft call of mark’s name, makes you both freeze exactly where you’re at. you look at each other in panic, then scramble to get rid of the proof of what you two just did. mark leaps off the bed and onto his feet with impressive athleticism, tossing you your discarded copy of seance dog that you catch effortlessly with one hand. you tug your t-shirt down over your chest, ignoring the fact that there’s still cum on it you’ve hardly wiped off, and he busies himself with pulling his pants back up and slipping his t-shirt on. the fact that it’s still damp around the collar doesn’t matter– not when there’s much more incriminating evidence like his used condom on the bed, alongside the wrapper and the new one he was about to use on you again ten seconds ago.
you barely manage to get under the covers to hide your lower half by the time debbie opens the door, your shorts haphazardly kicked under the bed, and your panties in mark’s pocket. you double-check to make sure your comic isn’t upside down and open it to a random page, holding it as inconspicuously as possible, right in front of your face. mark’s hands are stuffed into his pants, the condoms and the wrapper fisted tightly in his hands.
“hey, you two,” debbie says sweetly, eyes flickering back and forth between the two of you. you swear, even if you two didn’t look suspicious as hell, debbie would still be looking at you two like she knows you did something wrong. “just came to let you know that dinner is ready. and that you two shouldn’t stay up too late tonight. i’m driving you two back to campus early, so i can get to work on time.”
mark smiles tightly. “okay, mom, thanks,” he says, pulling a hand out of his pocket to wave at her goodbye. debbie eyes him amusedly, taking in both of your disheveled appearances one more time before nodding and moving to close the door.
“oh, and mark? it’s been a long time coming, so i don’t mind if you two are having sex, as long as it’s safe and i don’t have to worry about becoming a grandma.”
the color drains from both of your faces, but debbie only laughs, a smile as sweet as her son’s spreading across her face. “but next time, if you’re gonna try and hide it, make sure the panties are tucked all the way into your pocket. i’m not judging what you’re into, but it’s kind of a dead giveaway when blue lace is halfway hanging out of your sweatpants.”
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stagefoureddiediaz · 10 months ago
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We’re totally getting Tommy saying something about Eddie ‘being around all the time’ aren’t we!
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robinavich · 16 days ago
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godlight
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jack abbot x f!attorney!reader ao3 content: 18+ mdni, sexually explicit content, age gap, swearing, brief mention of alcohol, co-opting christianity for my benefit (sex), being mean to robby but like lovingly. like ur brother, gingko trees as a plot device, tom cruise mention words: 16.7k sry i <3 dialogue and write it before the rest of the plot a/n: the backpack thing actually happened to me before and also idk how to write synopsis: It’s routine. The first Friday of every month you make your way down to the emergency department with a stack of insurance claims in hand to harass Robby with, and you leave through the door with Jack Abbot, fresh off his shift and half a step behind you, muttering something lowly in your ear that makes you laugh. You’ll both stop off at your office just long enough to haphazardly toss the paperwork on your desk. And then you’ll go to the roof. You’ll pretend not to notice the hand hovering over the small of your back, and he’ll pretend not to notice the way your shoulder brushes his. Routine.
You’ve never seen a grown-ass man leap, but when you materialize beside Michael Robinavitch, ready to take advantage of his daily five minutes of quiet and drink his rapidly cooling coffee before he got down to business, with a stack of papers in hand, you think his skeleton might break from the violent flinch that racks his frame.
“God, what are you, a kamikaze lawyer? Are you heat seeking?”
“Why, you offering?”
It’s routine.
The first Friday of every month you make your way down to the emergency department with a stack of insurance claims in hand to harass Robby with, and you leave through the stairs with Jack Abbot, fresh off his shift and half a step behind you, muttering something lowly in your ear that makes you laugh. You’ll both stop off at your office just long enough to haphazardly toss the paperwork on your desk. And then you’ll go to the roof. You’ll pretend not to notice the hand hovering over the small of your back, and he’ll pretend not to notice the way your shoulder brushes his.
Routine.
So, like clockwork, the first Friday of the month rolls around, and with it comes you, metaphorical sunglasses on, sauntering off the elevator like you love the emergency department. Like you can’t wait to run around roleplaying Bolt from the titular Bolt to beg for signatures. Like this is exactly where you were hoping to be.
You click your pen, the sharp sound a tiny gavel sealing his fate.
“Come down to reject another insurance claim?” comes from your left.
“God forbid a woman have hobbies, Dana,” you scoff.
“Jack’s busy, ain't around for you to longingly gaze at.” 
“I do not gaze at Jack,” you say defensively, hands abandoning the file they were holding on the desk to fly between your eyes and hers as you try to stress your point. “I look.”
She lets out an unimpressed mhm, her unconvinced eyebrows twitching in doubt at your self-proclaimed non-gazing status.
And you know that you really need to get these papers signed, but Dana sprang this on you out of nowhere, so now you have no choice but to pivot to a time-sensitive Gazegate investigation. Your mind begins to sift through all the evidence. You don’t gaze. You are totally in control of your physiological reactions to Jack.
Your face drops marginally. It’s not your fucking fault that you want him. As if it’s your fault that all you can think about some nights is his voice gasping out your name.
Minor desperation overtakes your frame and bleeds through your hushed words as you imagine Jack Abbot clocking you gazing at him.
Just embarrassing. Your lust is sickening.
“I don't gaze," you insist before dropping your voice and glancing at the attending. "Do I gaze?”
Robby’s eyebrows involuntarily shoot up, transforming his frozen, resigned face into one of are you fucking kidding me?, the statement making him consider whether he needed another cup of coffee or, maybe, a different career altogether.
Perhaps one without insurance claims.
His lips part around a question he doesn’t quite ask—words rising, then retreating as his throat bobs with the effort of swallowing them back down. Robby glances at Dana for a lifeline, but she's bloodthirsty for drama.
Robby finally exhales a short, incredulous laugh, shaking his head. "Do you... do you want me to answer that?" he asks, his voice laced with cautious amusement, hesitant to step in the trap you lay at his feet.
You’re silent.
His head drops into a single solemn, affirmative nod—your judge and jury. “You gaze.”    
And there’s something on the tip of your tongue, locked, and loaded, and ready to fire—something connecting the word gaze to Myrna’s little nickname for him.
It doesn’t make it out.
Instead, you pick up the cup sitting to his side—the one patiently saying drink me, Robby! before it totally becomes cold—and silently reclaim it as your own, drinking the burnt coffee in one long, resigned sip.
Robby doesn’t speak.
It’s at that moment, of course, that Abbot appears—steady footsteps cutting through the low hum of the floor.
Jesus Christ. His hair was disheveled, curls sticking up at odd angles from running his hands through them all night and his black shirt, lacking any scrubs censoring the offending article, clings to his biceps like it was divinely tasked with ruining your concentration.
Your eyes catch there, unwilling to move, like staring is involuntary. A distraction you feel in your teeth. One you’d like to feel in your teeth.
As he approaches the desk you’re situated at, his eyes flicker up from the tablet in his hands just long enough to take in the scene: Robby’s flat stare, and your glare as you stand there, empty cup in hand.
“Robby,” Abbot drawls, loaded with the kind of dry amusement that suggests he’s made peace with your brand of destruction long ago.
His gaze slides pointedly to the cup, then back to Robby’s face.
Your victim looks up at him, forlorn, and mutters, “Can you just…?” His voice is flat, resigned—tinged with a special kind of despair reserved for the aftermath of you. Morosely, he half-heartedly gesticulates in your direction, trying to tell the man to control his animal. 
Robby sets the cup down on the counter and picks up your pen, scrunching the sleeves of his hoodie at his elbows, wanting to end this.
Aforementioned animal owner has the audacity to smirk—half-awake and still deciding if he should be charming or infuriating—rolling his shoulders and then sighing before moving toward the desk, his movements slow and deliberate. He watches Robby for a moment, then shifts his attention to you.
“Any chance you’ll let him live to see tomorrow?” Voice dry but not quite masking the very real curiosity beneath it.
You shrug and slowly narrow your eyes as though the thought hadn’t even crossed your mind. “Depends.”
Typical lawyer.
“Get to him before that coffee does,” Jack advises like he’s giving medical advice, and Robby levels him with a flat stare because he knows that with you around, he is never going to get coffee, let alone have coffee get to him.
Jack huffs in amusement, shaking his head as he moves to join the taller man, tablet tucked under one arm.
“Still have a couple things to do,” Jack grunts to you lowly, and you glance down at your watch because surely you have the time right.
His shift should be ending.
And yet.
“What idiot starts his little tasks at shift-change?” you laugh, enjoying the unamused glance thrown your way from still-on-the-clock doctor—unimpressed, deeply earned.
“Wait for me?” Jack asks, already knowing the answer.
A small smile teases the edge of your lips in response. “Was going to anyway.”
With a low, reluctant breath, he straightens up, scraping a hand through his hair. He turns on his heel and strides through the department.
Dana looks up from behind the desk. Her gaze briefly meets yours, right eyebrow perched slightly above the left, as if to say not gazing, huh?, before she turns her attention back to the task at hand.
Jack’s off doing end-of-shift stuff, Robby is signing his life away, Dana is doing what Dana does, presumably—Christ, you would think these people were employed.
Floundering, you look around. So, no banter? 
You’re already bored. You glance down at your watch, hand exasperatedly waving in the air as the numbers register. You'll have to act like you're employed soon, too. Your carefully structured morning—insurance claims, harassment, fifteen-minute break—crumbles before you.
God, so bored.
Eyes drifting around the department, your fingers start drumming an erratic rhythm on the surface of the desk, rebelling against the feeling of being out of place. Fingers dance along, down the length, adjusting a stack of papers, nudging them at an odd angle just to see if anyone will notice. You move on to your next victim, Dana’s hand quickly behind yours, returning the papers to their rightful place without so much as a glance in your direction.
Fluorescent lights glare down overhead, highlighting everything in a blinding white that dulls your senses.
You let out a low sigh, turning a tablet upside down in its dock. It’s not even fun.
Purposeful activity swirls around you in a slow tempoed symphony, a rare lull settling into the emergency department. To your left, Robby curses the claims in front of him in a hushed voice—and it’s a nasty, personal beef between him and that paper—pen scratching along the documents with resigned effort.
“You always act like I’m asking you to sign a voluntary execution agreement,” you sigh, a note of exasperation creeping into your voice. “I just need your signature, not someone to rewrite the Ten Commandments.”
That poor pen, you think, watching his reluctant grip tighten around it, the pen enduring its fate like a prisoner of war. Nowhere for it to run.
You lean on the counter and your head tilts, arms giving way and your body sliding an inch closer, observing with interest that his signature is essentially just a line. M——. You so could have done these yourself, if you really wanted.
You force yourself to choke back a laugh as expression tightens with each flick of the pen, the simmering annoyance contained just beneath the surface begging to be released.
Fingers beat slower this time, cadence matching the melody around you, watching as the charge nurse moves to undo your minor disruptions.
A smirk tugs at the corner of your mouth.
Time passes slowly.
This hospital should have more legal issues. You wonder who you have to talk to about that.
Robby flips the page.
And from across the room, you hear it. It’s soft, and warm, and, honestly, you have no idea how you hear it over the clamor of the emergency department, but it always lands on your ears deafening, like a clap of thunder.
And you have no reason to be jealous. Jack is, by all relevant and up-to-date nomenclature, your friend.
You trace the sound to the origin, and there he is, emerging from South 19, the smallest of smiles gracing his lips.
And, sorry, but that is your laugh. That’s the one you hear low and throaty in your ear when you’re walking too close, and you say something that catches him off guard. The one that haunts your dreams and wakes you up, the sound echoing in your ears. The one you would make a homily of, listening to it day in and day out, saying amen with devout obedience at every pause.
You blink, zeroed in and always devastatingly dramatic.
Maybe this is it.
Maybe the whoring out of his laugh—because apparently everyone gets it these days, because apparently, he feels magnanimous in the same way Oprah does—is his way of politely rejecting you.
Maybe it’s time to dedicate yourself to some religion somewhere and spend the rest of your life on your knees, lest another man tempt you.
Feigning nonchalance, your hand comes off the desk, very chalant eyes still fixed on Jack as you lean towards the blonde opposite you.
“Dana, you’ve lived here a while, right? What’s the convent scene like?” Robby lets out a snort at your question and the tip of your index finger firmly taps the papers beneath his palm three times to refocus him. “Sign the fucking documents, Michael.”
He obediently turns to the next page where you had so painstakingly and lovingly flagged exactly where his signature was required, and a mix of amusement and mild exasperation creeps across your cheeks, pulling the corners of your mouth into a small smile as he scrawls his indignant line across the pages.
“How about you go tell someone their insurance doesn’t care about their life. You’ll see how easy it is to sign these things then,” he says, turning to the next page.
“Are you kidding? I know you heard what happened to that UnitedHealthcare guy,” you click your tongue. “I ain’t doin’ all that.”
Robby doesn’t dignify your callus comment with a response, attention fixed firmly on the paper, willing it to absorb his frustration. The scratch of his pen dissolves into the steady drone heart monitors and residents trying their hand at cheating death. He flips the page, and his broad shoulders raise with his frustrated inhale, posture betraying his mounting irritation as he methodically—mechanically—works through the stack of forms.
The muted scuffle of boots against the ground alerts you of his presence as Abbot settles behind you, close enough his body heat warms yours.
“Free Luig, man,” he gruffly throws his two cents in.
“Luig?” you twist around, words laced with faint incredulity. “Y’all on a nickname basis?”
“Always have been,” he shrugs with such nonchalance that, for a second, you’re almost convinced they have always been.
You nod. Free Luig.
Caught in the crossfire, Robby closes his eyes momentarily and chokes back a groan. The headache was coming on already. It was way too early in the morning, and he was accosted before you even let him get his coffee, and now he has to listen to the two of you engage in what he and Dana and the rest of the staff with money in the pool could only assume was foreplay.
His pen etches into the paper one last time, a reluctant sigh escaping his lips as he finishes the final signature, his annoyance pooling into a little storm cloud over his head. He shoves the pages toward you with a motion that could rival a cat knocking a glass off the counter, his expression tortured, and you reverently accept the signed stack with flourish, a holy scripture freshly inscribed by a weary messenger of God. 
“Thank you, sir,” you chirp, gingerly shuffling the papers and bowing your head.
“You’re too good to him,” Jack says, as if he genuinely expected better from you, nodding toward the older man, already rubbing his temples and back to pretending the two of you didn’t exist.
“He deserves a treat.”
He can’t take it anymore. Robby bolts—bolts—into the chaos of the department like a petty villain in the night.
You don’t even get a chance to double-check that his ridiculous little M—— is scrawled on every line it’s legally required to be on. He knows exactly what he’s doing, too—that smug twitch of his mouth giving him away as he disappears behind a random curtain.
What in the hell.
You tuck the files under your arm and slip a hand into your front pocket. Just as you’re about to let the let’s fly, Abbot roll off your tongue, your hand freezes, strangely empty.
You’re missing your pen.
That bastard still has your pen.
You inhale, long and tempered, because you don't want to be overly dramatic.
You don’t want to be overly dramatic because, okay, you get it, it’s a pen.
But pens don’t last down here in the emergency department, and every time you materialize, you end up giving Robby a pen, and you never get that pen back. And then Jack comes complaining to you because every time they work together, despite the growing number of pens you’ve surrendered to his cause, Robby never has a pen and then expects a pen from him. But the pen that Jack gives him is also your pen. So, then he’s asking you for a pen—which, really, no biggie, you’ve already looked up how much it would cost to buy Pilot so you could give him unlimited pens—and then you’re giving Jack a pen and then you’re also giving Robby a pen and then Jack is giving Robby a pen and you’re freaking hemorrhaging pens on three fronts.
You’ve Pavloved the poor men into carnal pen desire.
So, you stop yourself in your tracks, glancing towards your companion just enough to catch the angle of his head and smirk playing at the corner of his lips. Your shoulders shake as a huff of laughter leaves you.
There is no pen in his pocket, either.
Routine, you suppose.
“Anyone know where Robby went?” you ask, eyebrow arched, back to surveying the faces around you.
Jack nods over your shoulder, once again directing your attention across the room and you follow his line of sight, eyes landing on Robby’s stiff frame, hiding in plain sight. Two steps from him, a woman is standing way too close for his comfort, hand on his arm, the recipient of a very intense one-way conversation.
You’re so going to make fun of him for this later. Maybe even in the emergency department group chat that you’ve weaseled your way into.
“Explain,” you demand, ravenous for the gossip.
“Guy came in last night, not doing great. Advance directive on file, medical POA too—directive was signed after. The kids are pissed.” 
He lowers his voice, conspiratorial, and you reflexively shift closer to hear him.
“Now they’re trying to bribe half the staff with Daddy’s things for comfort treatment.”
The word daddy leaving Jack’s lips makes your eyes freeze in place, the only visible crack in your armor. This is really not what you need to be thinking about this early in the morning. You give a sharp shake with your head, trying to physically eject the thought.
Man, that family is totally legal’s problem.
You deflate. Which means that’s your problem, really, and you know as soon as you get back to your office, you’ll be losing a game of rock-paper-scissors for who has to be on the way back down here, and you hate ancillary document infighting.
“Okay, well that’s…” Your eyes narrow slightly, contemplating. “…awful?”
“Was that a question mark?”
You shrug. Maybe.
“Any chance you think I can get his attention?” you question, acceptance of the fact that a new pen is about to be classified as missing in action settling in your pocket.
And then Jack forces you to look at him, hand slowly curling around your bicep, and you’re struck by the inexplicable, primal urge to flex to show him, hey, I could hunt and gather. I could do anything you need me to do. 
And then you have to fight the other urge to check your watch, because God forbid you give the impression that there’s anywhere else you’d rather be, but you are positive now that it’s barely seven in the morning and you stomp that primal urge down because you cannot start your yearning and lusting this early. Especially with this new legal problem on your radar.
“Looking for something?” he says, and somehow it sounds like an insult. 
“Theft charges,” you reply dryly.
His mouth twitches.
“If I am ever in that position,” he commands, voice gentle but unmistakably pointed as he tugs your focus back from Robby. Selfishly, Jack wants all your attention on himself. “Just put the pillow over my face, and press—”
You blink, drawing back. “Goddamn.” 
“—create an airtight seal—”
“Just sign the POA, girl.”
“Bet you used to charge a premium for those.”
“Just, like, two thousand. That’s, like,” you expel a dramatic breath from your lungs, feigning introspective mathematical precision, and rock back on your heels. “Twenty beaver pelts back in your day.”
“Twenty?” His head reels back, his voice fading out at the end in an octave that you’re not quite sure he possesses, and the commitment to the bit makes your chest tighten. He leans forward again. “Real proud of those autogenerated documents, huh?”
“No one used to copy-and-paste like me, baby.” You bite your lip.
A beat passes.
He demands your gaze, insistent, possessive.
You suck your teeth and lower your voice, a teasing lilt rising to suffocate the longing that tries to break through. “So, I’m in your deathbed fantasy, huh?”
Enraptured by the way the left side of your mouth starts to smile before the right follows suit, he allows his eyes to flicker to your lips, too quick for you to catch. 
He doesn’t even blink. The hand on your arm tugs you forward, gentle but certain, and you stumble closer to his body. Your tongue, usually razor sharp and biding time until the next joke, dulls.
You blue screen.
Why is his hand big enough to wrap around your arm like that? Dear Lord, has he always been this warm? You can’t remember. Whatever used to be where your brain was immediately betrayed you and fucked off, leaving in its place a panting dog. Does he need you to bark? You could bark. You have no qualms with barking.
He leans in close, voice fighting to be heard over the crackling PA system probably calling for an attending in some fucking room, and then you were no longer in the emergency department. Ringing overtakes your ears and you imagine the hand on your bicep somewhere a little higher.
“Sweetheart,” his drawls, sinfully wrapping around each letter, like he knows exactly what it does to you. The word drips from his lips with maddening ease, dragging down your spine like molten lava. “You’re in my every fantasy. Welcome to the conversation.” 
You blink again. The PA system calls out another pleading demand for whoever was listening at this point, effectively eliminating you and Jack, and his voice—steady, warm, smug—fills your brain with cotton, making it hard to ration, or think, or breathe. 
You’re what?
His eyes dance around your face reverently while the slightest ghost of a smile takes residence on his lips, memorizing the subtle flush traveling across your cheeks and your wide eyes—no longer the color you were born with—blinking uncomprehendingly up at him. He tucks some things away for later, too—the way your breath hitches in a shallow, uneven burst, and how your lashes flutter like they can’t decide to stay open or not while you process his words. In the back of his mind, he decides he likes making you speechless. He tucks that away for later, too.
Then the corners of your lips twitch, your voice slipping out before you could stop it, soft but teasing, “Careful, old man, lest someone label you a poet.”
His responding laugh is quiet, low, self-satisfied—just for you, as it should be, thank you. And when his hand loosens its grip on your bicep and trails down to brush his fingers against yours, your breath stalls.
For the first time, you realize that you’re not in control of anything here at all, let alone your physiological reactions to his proximity. Jack Abbot holds all the cards in a perfectly imbalanced stack against his chest, and, despite your best efforts, you’ve never been good at poker.
And then you feel it.
You are fucking gazing.
You very explicitly recall your job description reading: Hours: 7am-5pm, Mon-Fri.
So why, then, do you find yourself swiping your security card back into the stairwell, beginning your ascent just as the numbers on your watch creep to 6:48am on a Sunday. 
Actually, you know why. A text.
You were tucked in bed, comforter woven from warm springtime sunbeams, thoroughly enjoying the walk on the fuzzy line between waking and slumber. And then, without warning or pause, your body was violently ripped from the veil like a loose tooth at a little kid’s freaking birthday party, phone buzzing, SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D. plastered across your screen and, below it, a text.
Roof, it read.
Well, yeah, Jack, you thought blearily. Roof. Of course, roof. 
You say bark, I bark.
Your comforter was off, and shoes were being tugged on before the screen even dimmed from inactivity, the rational thought of changing out of your sad excuse of pajamas nowhere in sight. Heading into work on a Sunday before the sun was even up.
Nothing wrong with getting a head start on next week, you hum to yourself as you wait for the elevator to ding at the twelfth floor, and then you pause, disgusted with the stray thought. Since when did you want to willingly participate in capitalism more than required?
All because of a man?
Mental You takes the cookies out of the oven and giggles and twirls her hair and dreamily sighs out a yeah.
You step off the elevator and immediately cross the hall, shoving the door to the stairwell open, feet trudging up the steps.
At least you’re also getting paid for it. Not that you need to be paid to see Jack.
I’d pay to see Doctor Abbot, Mental You giggles.
You finally get to the roof, thighs burning, though not as much as they used to—shoutout to Andrea at the gym—and push open the door.
Or you would. 
The door jams, halting your hand mid-motion, and you sigh. 
Without thinking, you wind back and slam your shoulder into the damned thing. It flies open with a dramatic groan and you’re all but launched forward, right shoe catching awkwardly on the ledge. Gravity seizes the opportunity with enthusiasm, zealously pulling at your body, and you guess that your bag must want in on the action too, because it shifts the weight of everything inside, throwing you off balance, the momentum carrying you in a parabolic arc directly into the path of the bloodthirsty door, who vengefully desires nothing more than to claim your life and perhaps its rightful resting position in the frame.
And then time is slowing down in that unique and humiliating way it does when you realize with horror that you’re doing something that would land you on TikTok. 
And then there’s another moment, fleeting but vivid, where you register how ridiculous you must look: clad in pajamas, bag swinging, your body a perfect picture of chaos. 
And then it happens.
You collide with the door in a graceless, full-bodied tackle that rattles the hinges and might as well announce your presence to the entire city.
By the time you stumble away from the ring, vehemently declining another round with the door, your legs stinging where the exposed skin met the cold metal, you notice Jack already leaning against the far side of the railing, figure outlined by the slowly rising light of the sun.
At first, you think he hasn’t noticed your grand entrance, but Jack has always had the uncanny ability to see everything you don’t want him to see, and also you would have to have been dead to not have heard all that. It’s the single shake of his tense shoulders that betrays him, and, really, you have to give him credit where credit’s due, because he’s trying.
He’s trying so hard to not make fun of you right now.
You can feel it.
You straighten up, and you’re of half a mind to try and salvage the scraps of dignity you still have left, but, ultimately, you find that you just don’t care that much. You also find that it was so much colder than you thought it would be, given your current attire.
A coat, you think miserably. Anything. Anything at all would have been better.
“I swear it wasn’t like that a couple days ago,” you huff, brushing invisible dust off your sleeve as you lick your wounds.
Abbot finally allows a single soldier through the front lines in his battle against laughter, letting out a sharp chuckle that cuts through the cold morning air.
“You always know how to make an entrance,” he observes, similar to the way he’s observed cloud cover.
His eyes drag down to your legs and his brow subtly creases, trying to conceal the way his brain short-circuited for half a second.
“Shorts,” he mutters, blinking slowly, shoulders rising in a steep inhale. “That’s…a choice.”
"Yeah, well, you know..." you wave a hand in the air dismissively. "Sleeping."
And you realize, fuck, you really don’t care about your wounded dignity and stupid outfit if it makes Jack Abbot look at you like that.
A comfortable ease settles over you while something warm settles in the pit of your stomach, one that only he seems capable of conjuring. You take a deep breath, the cool air biting at your lungs, the tension from your stairwell match melting away as Jack’s presence steadies you.
“Wait, you come up here without me?” He clarifies, voice a little rougher than he means it to be, unwavering stare locked on you. “But it’s—this is mine.”
“I really don’t think you can have, like, a monopoly on the roof, Jack.”
“I was hired first,” he argues, like that alone justifies his claim to the space. 
“Jack, how is it a monopoly if you let me in?”
He doesn’t answer, just stares at you flatly like that answers it.
“I literally work, like, eight feet below where we’re standing right now,” you stress, foot tapping against the ground in emphasis. “You understand that, right?”
He shrugs, corner of his lips creeping up. “You don’t have to beg, kid. I’ll let you use it,” he says, smug. “I’m magnanimous like that.”
You don’t even know where to begin tearing apart the words that just exited his mouth. But your mouth, your traitorous mouth, does. “I’m not begging.”
He leans in then.
“Do you want to?”
He knows it’s the only way he can throw you off the same way you so unknowingly do to him.
Sure enough, you lag behind his response, mouth parting as power is diverted from mandibular control to turn the gears in your brain, each one creaking with effort as they try to process what the fuck just came out of his mouth.
And he says it to keep your blinders on, to distract you from the way he almost said ours instead of mine, and to distract you from the way his fingers twitch at his sides, like they want to reach for you but are stuck in purgatory, unsure if they’d be welcomed.
But Jack notices it too much.
He notices his twitching hands, and the way your laughter lingers in his chest longer than it should, and the way your voice threads through the spaces of his day and ties his heart in knots in ways he doesn’t even know where to begin untangling. He doesn’t say anything, but he feels it, thick and unyielding, curling around his ribs and threatening to suffocate him whenever you’re near.
So, his arms fold over his chest, absently creating a protective barrier, his eyes falling somewhere distant.
And then cut to you sideways, softening despite himself, cracking through the flimsy pretense of just-friends banter you both cling to like it might protect you from the inevitable. It’s a game you keep playing, tossing a live grenade back and forth.
But he won’t drop it.
If there is one thing that Jack Abbot has in abundance, it’s patience. He is patient—he learned it long ago under the blanket of gunfire and the oppressive heat of the sun, and mastered it with bodies bleeding out beneath his hands. And he is tenacious. He is so fucking tenacious it would make your head spin. And he would toss that live grenade days, months, decades until you reacted too slowly and it went off.
And then the moment is gone and you’re dancing back over the line to friends. He punches your arm lightly, the movement too calculated to be casual, his fist moving forward unaccompanied by the fluidity and self-assuredness you’ve seen him possess with florescent lights above him and a body below. His knuckles burn your arm where they glance across it, and your eyes whip between the afflicted site and him, mind already curating a scathing retort.
He waits, daring you to notice how long he lingers in moments like this, how he drags out conversations just to keep you tethered here next to him, close enough to pretend you’re his.
But you step closer, eyes taking in the way his shoulders seem to be pressed down by an invisible weight—one that you wish you could become Atlas to alleviate, if just for a moment.
Bad night, you observe.
Bad night, indeed, Jack’s body screams in reply.
When the shrill alarm alerting him of 5pm pierced the fragile fog that had settled on his brain, it felt as though the world was gunning for his sanity. The weight of exhaustion pressed heavily on his chest, and his body, tangled in sheets that seem to have turned into chains and a sweat-soaked shirt plastered to his body, drags heavily, joints creaking as he began to extract himself from his fabric prison.
Thirty-three minutes of deep sleep, Jack’s watch spat in his face.
Kill yourself, watch, he grunted back.
But time, relentless and indifferent and, in the back of his mind, named Gloria Underwood (no relation, you tried to convince him during one of your rooftop meetings once. It’s a common name, Abbot.), marches forward, dragging him along with its cruel cadence and another hellish shift in the books.
And presently, you see his tense body standing—like the soldier he’ll probably always be—at attention, shoulders rigid, chin tilted defiantly as if daring the universe to shove him just a little further, just until the ground beneath his feet disappears, and hands clenched so tightly at his side that you think you should take him downstairs to check for open wounds.  
The thing about the veteran that you clocked long before the start of soft smiles, and the banter, and the myriad rooftop rendezvous is this: when he has a bad night, he gets philosophical.
“Do you think God cares?” he deadpans—which is insane to you, because who opens like that?
You gently lean your demon-possessed bag against the AC unit and walk forward to settle beside him where he leans heavily against the opposite side of the rail. “Like, in general, or…?”
“The death,” he lists, ticking it off like it’s a mildly interesting footnote. “The helplessness.”
“I don’t know. Kinda used to want to ask God that,” you admit, your energy shifting to match his vaguely existential one. You try kicking at a rock to diffuse some of the tension and somehow miss entirely. “‘If you’re so loving, why do you allow so much suffering and injustice.’”
“Don’t question it anymore?”
The question makes you pause. You guess you didn’t question it anymore. You were surrounded by it every day, as was he—the predatory insurance companies and the maladjusted American healthcare system. It wasn’t as though you’d been exposed to the trademarked horrors, but the past six years were taxing enough. Year after year, case after case, you internalized the knowledge that the things meant to help you weren’t really there just to help. And that knowledge takes its toll.
So, no, you don’t really question it anymore.
But you do let it steal parts of you. It isn’t outright draining—more like a faucet that didn’t shut off completely, allowing a single drip to escape at a time, every couple seconds, every day, for years. Not something someone immediately identifies and fixes, but something that, when you do notice it, you kind of throw your hands up in the air like, well what the fuck now?
That’s where you’re at. Well, what the fuck now, indeed.
You laugh, the sound unbidden and a touch more bitter than you want it to be. “No, it just became a pride thing.” 
And then the soft confession escapes you before you could beat it back with a bat and send forth some retort that would get you a huff of air through the nose at worst, and a scoff and shake of the head at best. The words cross your unspoken boundary of keeping it light and ambiguously sexual—they toe the line of being vulnerable. “I guess now I’m afraid that he might ask me the same question.”
Part of you really hopes he ignores the words. Part of you hopes that the words would fall on deaf ears and any response would die on mute lips. Part of you hopes that the world would open up and pluck those drifting words right out of the air before they could reach him.
But Jack is there. Jack is always there, and Jack always fucking saw you before you saw you, and he always heard what you said before you knew what you said.
And he would always be there throwing you a life-preserver, a way out.
He tries to salvage what’s left of the levity from your grand entrance and nudges your shoulder with his.
“It’s a really stupid question, anyway,” he utters softly, gently, the understanding of a man who has seen worse draping over the words.
A life-preserver that you would enthusiastically grab like you’ve asked for one every Christmas for the past thirty years. His eyes head turns, and his eyes lock on to yours, inviting and warm, and you realize you’re so fucked.
You swallow, the familiar teasing expression reappearing on command, the left side of your mouth coming up in a smirk and your right eyebrow raising fractionally.
“Yeah. We should really be focusing on big picture stuff,” you agree. “Like, ‘How does Tom Cruise do all that?’”
“That’ll blow God’s freaking mind,” he grumbles.
You nudge his shoulder back.
Cold wind nips at your skin, and you shudder, your arms drawing in to aid your body in retaining heat. Your eyes dart to the side hoping you were as subtle doing that as you thought you were.
Definitely not, you assume. The troubled man’s fingers tighten on the railing as he wordlessly swings himself under to the other side, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over your shoulders. 
You begin offering up a weak protest, barely more than a whisper, until Jack’s eyes snap to you, cool and amused. 
“Don’t get used to charity,” he murmurs, voice like velvet on steel. “Just say thank you, Jack.”
A meek thank you, Jack takes its place. A hum, noncommittal—casual—fills the space between you in reply.
The weight of it presses down, swallowing you whole. It’s warm from his own body, and it smells vaguely of the antiseptic you’ve come to accept as his cologne, and God, and it’s heavy. Not because of the fabric itself—that’s actually rather light, it’s still early in the season-change—but because it’s his. An ever-present fixture that emerges as soon as the temperature drops.
A constant.
And now it’s on you and it feels almost too personal, and you shift slightly trying to shake the intimate feeling off and just enjoy the moment as a girl with a crush on a man fifteen years older than her, but the bastard clings to you and settles into your heart.
“We should get you a new cologne, by the way.”
You said we. You had said we and Jack’s brain immediately latches onto the promise of something so domestic with you.
“Are you saying I smell?” he asks, expression unreadable but amused.
“Every day I sit in my office and pray you’ll take a shower.”
“You don’t have better things to pray for?”
You open your mouth to respond, but he’s on a roll.
“World peace,” he supplies, like it was the obvious office prayer.
It’s a good office prayer, you have to admit.
“I can’t wear cologne down there. Liability or something,” he continues dryly, and the next words seek out your pride with surgical precision, making a single, tiny cut. “You of all people should know that.”
He got you there again—you should know that—and that’s like three times in the span of ten minutes that he’s got you. You’re not quite sure what’s happening right now.
Deafening silence concedes the argument.
But as far as you’re concerned, you’ll let him have it. You have Jack on one side of you and the warmth of his jacket protecting you against the cold creeping in. You’re content.
And you thought Jack was content, too.
But apparently, he isn’t.
Can’t let the silence just freaking do its thing.
“Can I ask you something else?” he says, like the answer to that has ever stopped him before, “Why do you care?”
And the parallel between this question and the one about God makes your eyebrows furrow a little because, what does that mean? What does ‘why do you care about the suffering of human beings,’ mean?
“About suffering?” you say slowly, trying to find your footing.
“No.”
Your mouth opens a fraction, perhaps wide enough for a fly to be caught, while you work to follow what path his mind went down.
What, like, The Yankees? Yeah, you care about them. Obviously, because you love them. Any team that happens to be playing against Jack’s beloved Pirates, of course care about them, because you hate whatever team Jack loves. Annoying Robby? Sure. About Jack himself, absolutely. Fucking definitely, even. 
You tick the entries off in your mind: career, first and foremost; your friends; Jack; your family that hasn’t talked to you in years; Dr. Abbot down in the ED; crippling debt payments from law school; that matcha place Samira showed you; the socio-political landscape of the world; former army medic, Jack Abbot. 
You can’t imagine that Jack’s unprompted and vague question was about any of these things.
Your eyes squint not of your own volition. “What?”
“Yesterday,” he clarifies, tone clipped, ever a man of many words. 
“What?” you try again.
“About that woman.”
You’ll shove this fool off the roof yourself, you decide. “What?”
He leans back, knuckles white from gripping the rail to anchor him, sighing that you’re the crazy one right now sigh—like he can’t believe he has to spell it out for you, word for word. “The one that was flirting with Robby.”
You actually look over at Jack then, confused. He’s not looking at you, his back now ramrod straight and jaw reflecting his fists, clenched so tightly you're surprised his teeth aren’t shattering from the pressure.
The woman that you had a very long, very tense, conversation with—brother’s presence intruding like a serpent in the garden, begging you to sin—about pulling her father off life support?
A laugh almost escapes you. You’re not sure he realizes how stupid he sounds thinking you cared about anything in that moment other than the way his hand wrapped around your bicep and the way he laughed, low and ruinous and lethal, and called you sweetheart.
Light and sexual, you chant to yourself.
“The one that wants her dad dead?” you bluntly ask—whatever, who needs light, anyway?
His shoulder draws up in a half-shrug, mouth opening in a wordless response. Finally, he settles on, “I’m just saying you seemed… very interested—”
“What, in my job?” your confused tone betrays the half-smile on your face.
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
"I mean, it sounds like what you're saying—"
"No, you looked upset at her—"
"—and it's definitely what I'm hearing—"
"Well, get your fucking hearing checked—"
“Are you jealous, Jack?” you press, cutting him off, pointed and a little smug.
“Yes.”
He says it so simply, and his voice is so soft, so confident, and it lands with decimating impact. 
What happened to light and sexual, Jack?
It just swan dove straight over the ledge, Jack.
What the fuck is wrong with this guy?
Your next thought slams through you, so loud and so out of pocket, and you’re a little pissed because last time you had this thought, you told it to at least give you, like, an ETA next time. Your heart jumps a little in your chest. Maybe you don’t have to call that convent, you think. Maybe he isn’t a fan of polite rejection.
And then the third thing you cared about in yesterday’s interaction strikes you. Obviously.
“Jack,” you enunciate. You want your next words to be explicitly clear. “The only reason I was even looking for Robby was because he still had my pen.”
His jaw twitches. “What?”
“Holy shit, can we stop with the whats?”
“Okay, look, sorry if I need to make sure that my friend,” he spits out the word, duplicity-soaked label coating his mouth with a bitter aftertaste. “Isn’t pining over my- my fellow attending.”
“First of all, I would never pine,” you note. “I’m a maple, and I want that on record.”
For a turbulent second, Jack wants to grab you by the scruff of the neck and manhandle you like a misbehaved chihuahua because he’s serious and you make jokes when you’re feeling defensive—something that he usually finds endearing but simply can’t find it in him to do right now.
He doesn’t want you pining over Robby, he wants you pining over him.
And so maybe his response is fueled by jealousy, okay, sue him. He’ll bring it up to his therapist and then apologize to you, and you’ll say something like, I should invoice your therapist myself for emotional labor.
So, he digs in, tone sharp but surgical, and says something that he knows will get a rise out of you because he knows you—he knows everything about you.
“Maple? You’re so obviously an oak—you’ll never be a maple,” he fires back, voice incredulous, volume subdued, eyes narrowed in outrage. “You’re not even close to maple-level, be fucking for real.” 
A strangled sound makes its way out of you, shocked that he would even think such a thing. “Of course you would say that you fucking ginkgo,” you snap.
“Gingko?”
You inhale sharply and force yourself to rein in your next sentence because there’s a feeling in your chest—one slowly rising, and it suspiciously feels like anger. Why the hell is Jack acting like this at seven in the morning on a Sunday, especially about someone that the hospital would sell out in a heartbeat over a wrongful prolongation of life lawsuit?
Pining over Robby? Is he fucking stupid?
Well, two can play this game.
You can be fucking stupid, too.
You can be fucking stupid, and—you want it known, labelled, and presented before the new J.D. recipient, prosecution attorney Jack Abbott, M.D., as Exhibit A—you’re not remotely capable of even pretending to be normal in a competitive situation.
“Sorry, Abbot, I didn’t realize you could even clock my pining over the volume of your giggles,” you counter hotly, throwing a trembling finger in his face at the scandalized look that crosses it. “Yeah. Giggles.”
“So, you were pining over Robby?” he confirms, and it lodges itself under your skin. 
You’re sure if you looked down at your watch it would tell you that you have a heart rate of at least one hundred and eighty.
“Why the fuck do you care who I’m pining over?” you hiss, your voice dripping with frustration.
Jack opens his mouth, thinks better of it, then tries again—lighter, a silent prayer that maybe the joke can diffuse the mounting tension.
“I don’t care, but Robby is built like one of those car-dealership inflatables, and—” he shifts his weight to the left, leg aching.
But it’s too late. Your eyes narrow.
“Built like a car-dealership inflatable?” you echo in disbelief, hoping the words will help Jack realize the incredulousness of the statement. “What the hell does that even mean?”
That’s a great question, the prosecution thinks. He doesn’t even really know, but it’s out now and he has to roll with it.
“That’s your friend and now you’re being fucking mean,” the words press out through gritted teeth, humor long gone. “You’re just saying stuff.” 
He agrees with you, he is just saying stuff, and Jack will apologize to his friend for the stray when his mind is clearer and blood pressure lower, even though the other man won’t have any idea what he’s talking about.
“Yeah,” he bites out, stepping closer. “But you kicked this shit off with your stupid maple thing, and now I’m stuck defending myself against a guy who walks like life’s spine-optional and he’s not sure how gravity works—”
“Shut up about Robby’s walk!” you yell in a rush, your voice shrill and piercing, the sheer absurdity of the argument making your hands fly into the air. “This isn’t about him! Or his- his saunter. This is about your—”
“This is not about me,” he cuts you off, too loud to be convincing. “I just think you deserve better spine-to-surface ratio, is all—”
“Because your body has such a perfect there-to-not ratio, right?”
“Ohhhhh, you wanna go there—?”
“No, actually, I don’t,” you snap back. Then, sharper, “Listen, Abbot—”
“No, you listen,” he grounds out, your name a heated whisper snapping against its leash. “You’re the one who made this weird. You got all defensive and—” Jack gestures around like it personally offended him, “And then you’re calling me a gingko. A gingko. Like that’s a thing regular people do in arguments.”
“Oh, I’m sooo sorry, Doctor,” you draw out the syllables in mock-sympathy. “Would you prefer that I use military metaphors? Would that make baby feel more emotionally validated?”
“Yes, it would!” the doctor hisses back, mouth a breath away from yours. “Maybe at least then I would know where the hell I stand in your metaphor jungle!”
There’s a beat—one that coils the tension tighter, and tighter, and tighter—and Jack’s eyes, always attuned to your body, snap to the frustrated pinch of your mouth. Then back up. Your breath comes in sharp, uneven bursts, a wild fire burning behind your glassy eyes, gravity giving up on strands of hair where you ran your rands through them.
Not for the first time, he thinks that you’re beautiful. Your beauty was noted and neatly filed away long ago at your first meeting, shelved next to other invariably true things like death, and taxes, and a subscription he forgot about charging his bank account.
Eyes snap back down again. 
And fuck he wants nothing more than to slam his lips against yours, to win, to derail the argument—to get you to stop arguing for maybe the first time in your life.
You clench your jaw, and you take a deep breath. 
Neither of you move.
Don’t even shift your weight.
Almost nose to nose.
Of course, you weren’t pining over Robby, he knows that.
Because in Jack’s mind, it’s simple.
You’re his.
And sometimes he forgets that this thing between you has never been verbalized and linguists and English majors around the world are probably still scrambling and conspiring to combine words and build syntax trees that won’t even scratch the surface of explaining how deeply you’re seared into his soul.
And he certainly forgets that in your mind, he’s not yours.
Then, of course, there’s also the fact that he hasn’t done this in years, not since his wife—so, admittedly, he’s a little rusty. He tried practicing, but this conversation isn’t going at all how he painstakingly and methodically rehearsed with Robby in the breakroom.
And then somehow trees were pulled into it, and he doesn’t know anything about trees—he could name maybe four types. He can’t even tell you what a gingko is. He honestly thought it was a lizard. He probably would have put money on it.
And also he loves your metaphors, you know that.
“There was a woman in South 19,” he starts slowly, forcefully controlled. The first words in an unspoken sorry. His hands twitch by his side. “She was eighty-two years old and told me I was too handsome to be a doctor. That I should be on the cover of Vogue.”
Your brain, which has been running on pure spite and cortisol, fumbles.
Silence presses down over you once more.
The roof is too quiet now.
Too stupid.
You’re angry and a little hurt. Jack’s angry and, you think, probably a little hurt, too—at the very least by the body-ratio comment and definitely by the gingko comment.
And you feel even more stupid because, through it all, you’re still swimming in his fucking jacket.
Unfortunately for you, you agree with the eighty-two-year-old woman in South 19. He should be on the cover of Vogue.
It’s your turn. You press your hands into your eyes hard enough you see stars, taking a small step back.
“Robby had my pen,” you mutter, reprising the explanation you started before the argument spiraled out of control.
Abbot blinks. “What?”
You sigh, loud and theatrical, hands dropping. “Robby had my pen, okay? And it’s—just—it’s always like this. I show up. He needs to sign. He never has a pen. I give him one, then you give him one, but it’s also mine, because you got it from me, and then I give him another, and it’s like—I’m hemorrhaging pens. I am singlehandedly keeping Pilot in business because of this freaking guy.”
He just stares at you.
You gesture helplessly. “So, yeah. I was looking for Robby. To get my pen back.”
Another beat.
Then Jack, flatly, “You picked a fight with me because of a pen pyramid scheme.”
“Okay, um, actually, you picked a fight with me,” you object, your mind scrunching up its sleeves and waving its fists in the air, ready to go again. Ballpoint trauma massages its shoulders, egging it on.
He watches you and shakes his head imperceptibly.
He’s in love with someone who’s bleeding office supplies.
The man runs a hand over his face, palm dragging slow, and when it drops, there’s something soft and aching behind his eyes. Not pity. Not amusement. Just this quiet, stunned affection like, God, it’s you. Even when you’re arguing over trees and tube men, it’s you.
Your shoulders start to slump, and you scuffle your shoe against the gravel, eyes fixed on the ground like you’re trying to disappear. All the fire from earlier is gone, and somehow that’s worse. He watches you there, wrapped in his jacket like it belongs on your shoulders, drowning in the sleeves, collar brushing your cheek a little every time you move. It’s recklessly easy to forget what started this fight—to forget that he can’t do anything in this moment but watch you shrink before him.
He wants to take your face in his hands, thumb the curve of your cheekbones and tilt your head up. He wants to bend down and let his lips press into the corners of your eyes, catching the unshed tears. He wants to press kisses to every inch of your skin—your temples, the tip of your nose, the crease between your brows—murmuring I’m sorry between each one like a prayer, drunk on adoration of you. 
In a pathetic attempt at casualness, your voice breaks through his fantasy, “I’m ‘friend’ and Michael’s relegated to ‘fellow attending,’huh?”
Jack exhales, controlled and slow, not meant for your ears.
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” the veteran says quietly.
“I would argue what he doesn't know appears to hurt him the most,” you breathe a laugh, eyes still downcast.
He inclines his head and forces a gruff chuckle quietly to escape, the sound landing gently on your ears. Your traitorous heart stutters in your chest at the sound. And then his laugh pauses, and eyes narrow. He nods because, actually, you’re right about Robby. He should really ask him about that tomorrow.
All at once, in the back of your mind, you start to feel guilty.
You know that your friend had such a bad night and, presumably, a bad shift, that he asked you to come to the roof on a Sunday. And then you just called him a gingko and that was so fucking far from cool. The lump swelling in your tightening throat starts to teeter on impossible to swallow around. The tears you never learned how to suppress in an argument burn the back of your eyes.
But the sound has already burrowed into your heart once more and you can’t even remember why you were having a hissing match with Jack Abbot about trees and car-dealership inflatables. His stupid fucking laugh took your composure by the ear and shot it point blank in the back alley of a Wendy’s all within the span of three seconds.
You can’t help it.
“Hey, Jack,” you begin, your voice floating out and dying in the air as the sounds of the street rise to battle them.
You’re silent for a second.
You know you should quit while you’re ahead and leave down the stairs with a thumbs up and one last joke about returning to the door for seconds, but the words hey, Jack are already out, and true to the name, this is Jack, and now he’s looking at you with such affection in those confusingly beautiful eyes that all you want to do is tell him how, most days, he is the only thing keeping you sane, and how when you imagine your future, you imagine the calluses on his hands and arms wrapped around you from behind. And you want to tell him that you want nothing more than to see him every day, hell, you’ll take seeing him off hospital grounds. And, God, you want to text him the stupid updates throughout your day—that your matcha sucks today and you think the barista wants to set you on fire.
You want this nearing ancient, active suicide risk in your life beyond insurance claims, and Rooftop Club, and stupid fucking fights about pens and eighty-two-year-old women in South 19—even ones that are now confusingly flora based.
I think I love you, you want to tell him.
And for a moment you’re genuinely worried that you might say something conveying anything of a remotely similar sentiment—something definitely not light and sexual.
But then you hear yourself softly admitting, “For the record, you’re my best friend.” 
The vulnerability makes you feel like you’ve been cut open, heart on display for the medic’s steady hands. The guilt gnaws at you, and you resign yourself to feeling like a fool, a lumbering joker standing in Jack Abbot’s jacket and your pajamas.
You start picking at the loose threads on his jacket sleeve.
His hand moves, slowly, the same way a cowboy would approach a skittish horse, and settles over yours, gently stopping the movement.
 You drift your gaze up, just enough to catch his eyes with yours.
“You’re not a gingko, by the way,” you mumble, words barely making it past your lips.
His hand tightens on yours. It’s so marginal that you’re sure you’ve imagined it. His eyes stay locked on yours.
“Kid,” Jack says, and when he leans in, his voice drops, soft and steady and sacred. “Maples wish they had what you do.”
He angles his head just as the morning sun—surely a paid actor—breaks from behind the skyline and cascades over his face, bathing him in gold. For a fleeting second, the words of your mother ring in your ears and you think you finally understand what she spoke of when said that human beings are made in the image of God.
Slowly, your eyes begin to wander over the gentle slope of his nose, cataloguing the constellations of freckles across his cheeks, finding respite at the corner of his eye where his crow’s feet deepen as he squints, lashes battling the intruding light.
You agree. Surely something so beautiful couldn’t be anything short of divine.
The newborn light catches on what’s left of the copper stands in his salt and pepper curls and dances on the unshaven stubble dusting his face, and you decide that God was taking his job as Artist very seriously right now, pouring gold down from heaven and letting it mend every chip and heal every break, sculpting a kinutsigi statue before your very eyes. 
The gravel crunches as he shifts, the sound effectively restarting your brain, your head whipping towards the skyline before he could comment on your very clearly and pathetically waxing poetic gaze.
What the fuck was that?
But you know exactly what that was, and it was not something that fell under the umbrella of keeping it light and ambiguously sexual.
You shift your weight anxiously.
“And you know Robby can’t help that he’s built like a broad scarecrow,” your quiet voice drifts into the air.
“I know, sweetheart,” and God his voice is so soft, somehow so steady, that you’re not sure how it has the ability to cut through you with such sharpness. “Still wouldn’t trust the integrity of his core.”
You nod. You could get behind that.
“I like your body ratio the way it is, Jack.”
He brings your hands clasped in his to his lips.
You had the first Friday of every month circled multiple times on your calendar. It was routine, one that Gloria knew and that Gloria respected. Which is why, you couldn’t for the life of you discern the reason you were thrown into the lion’s den of not routine when she decided that, actually, these insurance claims needed to be signed at this exact moment on some random ass Monday or, as far as you could gather, the entire hospital would crash down to the ground with everyone inside it and then the rubble would catch fire, too. 
But you don’t argue. A trip down to the emergency department was always a joyous occasion in your book, and so you hoped it would stay.
And you stumble into the elevator, cup of coffee in a mug that reads soy milk on the front and hola milk, soy tu padre on the back in one hand, and a bundle of papers flagged for signature in the other. Your hips angle towards the paneling on the wall and you all but ragdoll your body into the buttons, aiming for the bottom floor and, regrettably, hitting the bottom three.
God forbid you have an easy start.
The elevator doors open with a groan, and the controlled chaos of the emergency department whirls around you, and you duck and weave around rogue employees, making your way through the halls, sniffing the air like a bloodhound in search of Robby.
“Jesus Christ,” vibrates out of his chest, eyes landing on you as you turn the corner. “Once a month isn’t enough for you people?”
“You people? Do you mean women?”
His hands come up and pull at his hair.
You take pity on him.
“Hey, Robby, don’t shoot the messenger.” You shrug, eyes already wandering around the floor looking for their natural target. You slide the cup of coffee in his direction, a silent peace treaty. “You don’t like it? Sue.”
Robby sighs and takes off his glasses as he watches your pathetic scan of the department. After the conversation he and Jack had after he came down from the roof yesterday—which was essentially Robby asking if he finally asked you out and Jack just grunting at him and leaving—he knows he should handle this with kid-gloves.
And he tries. He swears he tries. He would testify, hand on the bible, that he tried.
“He’s gone.”
And for a moment, the doctor almost feels bad because your head whips towards him and you resemble an abandoned shelter dog, eyes sad and brows furrowed. He makes the split-second decision to grab the cup of coffee and place it under his protection before you can do something drastic.
“What?”
“He’s gone. Day off. Today and tomorrow,” Robby declares, using his free hand to make grabby motions at the file he sees tucked in your arms.
His eyes squint in thought. “Yesterday and today, I guess, technically,” he revises.
You try to process the words, wondering why it didn’t occur to you that Jack might, like, not only exist in this building when it coincides with you.
You pull out your phone, eyes pausing momentarily on the coffee that Robby’s safeguarding before deciding it isn’t worth it. The screen reflecting your sad expression, you scroll to Jack’s number, thumbs tapping out a message, short and sweet.
And then you pause before hitting send, your gaze flickering up to Robby, who seems to be the poster child for enjoying himself, mouth greedily sipping coffee and lanky frame folded back in his chair. You tip your head to the side at the odd angle of his spine. Jack was right, he should do more core work.
“Are you lying to me right now?”
Robby looks up, head moving in a tight, rapid shake that screams exasperation with you. "Yeah, Jack’s actually fishing over in Trauma 1 right now.”
Jack hates fishing. Checkmate.
Ignoring him, you return to your phone, the message awaiting your command to go forth.
Jack was so going to hear about this.
Stunning O-Neg Attorney: so u hate me now?
You pause for a second, wondering if the two of you were at harassment level.
The way his lips seared into your hand flashes through your mind.
You decide to full send.
Stunning O-Neg Attorney: u hate me so much u quit ur job so u never had to see me again
Stunning O-Neg Attorney: is that it
And you don’t expect an immediate response, you just want him to know you know about the self-conjured hatred and you’re not happy about it. It was 8am on a Monday—a Monday that Jack freaking has off, apparently—and by all accounts, he should be in bed, snug as a bug. 
But your phone vibrates in your hand. You look down.
SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D: If you wanted to see me all you had to do was ask
What the—? The audacity stops your thumbs in their tracks.
Stunning O-Neg Attorney: im a very busy woman abbot
Stunning O-Neg Attorney: u dont even know what my calendar looks like abbot
And then before you know what you’re doing, you’re sending another text reply.
Stunning O-Neg Attorney: can i see u
Was that too desperate?
Stunning O-Neg Attorney: im waiting for u to return from way
Deliberate typo.
Stunning O-Neg Attorney: war
Nailed it.
SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D: Way
Stunning O-Neg Attorney: kill your self
Three dots appear and then disappear as you see him try to formulate a response. They appear once more.
SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D: I want to see you too kid
SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D: Not on the roof I mean
You have to fight the smile that tries to overtake your face, eyes glued to the words on your screen, not even looking up when Robby’s hand enters your sight, snapping in an attempt to bring you back to earth. 
But you, with days that start when Jack’s ends, and Jack, who seems to spend most of his free time in the emergency department whether he’s supposed to be there or not, have schedules that rarely align. As lamentable as it is, you both settle for a professional backdrop for your interactions.
Maybe God heard your plea from the rooftop and decided to have mercy.
I want to see you too, kid.
And so that night you find yourself at Jack Abbot’s fucking apartment, perched on his couch with his legs stretched long in front of him, ankles crossed, prim and proper, and yours tucked neatly to the side, body twisted towards his. Every once in a while, his knee brushes against your thigh. You have a Coke Zero in your hand—taken from his fridge after you showed up with a case that he immediately scoffed at—and a very manly beer is in his. The Pirates game plays forgotten on the TV. There is a pizza on its way with your name on it, which, really, should have been here, like, an hour ago, but neither of you really remember or care.
You’re mentally planning which route you’re going to take home—God forbid he lets you go home—so you could stop off at whatever church you pass first and throw up a thanks, Christ, owe you one also sorry for not visiting in a while.
“Why don’t we do this?”
“What do you mean?” you question. “We hang out all the time.”
“No, you asked me to come over once because you burnt yourself making cookies and you said that your arm resembled raw chicken.”
“Didn’t it though?”
He cocks his head to the side, bringing his beer to his lips, and his eyebrows move up in agreement. It did look like raw chicken.
“And wasn’t it the sexiest piece of raw chicken you’ve ever seen?” you press.
The natural banter presses deep and steady beneath his ribs. Silver curls tip back and his body shifts forward after it, a little closer to yours, as he laughs, and you catch a whiff of something unfamiliar, brief and blinding. 
It’s going to be a good night, you decide.
Jack’s stare softens, tender and warm.
“You’re staring,” you tease.
“I’m gazing,” he stresses.
And you knew that son of a bitch Robinavitch wouldn’t keep his mouth shut.
You’re going to kill Robby. And maybe Dana, you’re sure she was in on that. And you’ll include Princess and Perlah, too, just to cover your ass.
You made it this far into the night, you suppose. Nice while that lasted.
The beer rests forgotten in the attending’s hand, condensation slipping down the glass. The game on the TV recedes into static. Your silence echoes in his ear and his arm shifts along the back of the couch behind you, fingers flexing.
“You don’t have to get defensive about it, you know. Whatever… looking. Gazing,” he shakes his head, while he sets his beer on the table, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I don’t mind.”
That smell enters your senses again, there and gone before you could focus on it, and you start to think that maybe you’re having a stroke. It’s the only logical explanation—it licks up your spine slowly, spreading over you and burning through your body, and holy shit how is he completely unaffected by this?
The crowd cheering quietly on the TV from a home run—which you’ll be pissed about later—the condensation from your can pooling in a puddle on the coaster, the older man’s body pressed to yours enough to throw you off balance. His arm, strategically placed behind you, is close enough for you to feel, and his legs, once prim and proper, have separated, thigh pressing against yours.
You’re about to lose your fucking mind.
And like always, Jack notices. He notices everything about you.
You press the cold can against your cheek as you groan, trying to ground yourself, but the metal does nothing to cool the heat building low in your spine.
And then that scent teases you again, barely enough and gone before you get a chance to pin it down to anything beyond Jack Abbot’s Natural Pheromones, and you can’t take it anymore.
“Okay, what is that?” you demand. “Is that you?”
Before he has a chance to respond, and before your brain can tell your carnal desire to, like, chill, you’re in motion.
Your first movement is sharp, and deliberate, and probably warranting the intervention of a priest, head snapping towards his as you push off the couch cushion and lean over him, trying to identify the scent invading your brain. Your left knee leverages you by his leg as your right moves behind you for balance.
And you pause.
Your second movement is slow, and hypnotic, and cautious, head dipping to allow your nose to hover above the column of his neck. Belatedly, it occurs to you that you might be crossing the boundary into territory you hadn't realized existed until now, one beyond banter and jokes loaded with yearning. Which is also a crazy thought to have when you’re almost straddling your friend, because obviously that crosses a boundary.
But the heat radiating off the body in front of you is searing.
You know you’re too close, the space between the two of you thinning to a thread, but you don’t think that even God himself could pull you from your place.
His body is firm under you as you trail your nose down, following the flow of blood from his jugular, so close you’re not sure if you’re hearing his heartbeat or yours. You tilt your head slightly, tracking the faint whisper of finally identified sandalwood and tobacco that lingers in the dip where his shoulder comes to meet his collarbone. The scent is intoxicating, earthy and bold, and mixes with underlying sting of antiseptic and of something so fundamentally Jack Abbot. 
It clings to him like an omen, sealing your downfall. Head swimming, you decide you would go to war for that combination—you were ready to lay your life down, to become a faithful martyr to his cause.
Jack freezes so imperceptibly that someone less attuned to him might not notice. But you do. You notice the subtle, sharp exhale, the way his shoulders tense and slowly fall just a fraction more sharply than before. His head turns towards you marginally, one hand twitching where it rests on the couch, but not saying a word, and you freeze too because what the fuck has possessed you?
But then you catch the scent again and it feels like stepping directly into the fire, the tension surrounding you, poised and ready to suffocate given the order.
“I’m serious,” you murmur, your voice quieter now. “What is that?”
You’re close now enough to feel the rasp of his unshaven jaw against the soft curve of your cheek.
Jack finally turns his head fully and his piercing gaze drops, catching yours, demanding and unreadable, pinning you in place. And then, with the faintest of smirks tugging at his lips, his reply cuts through the tension like that stupid-ass tactical knife he keeps in his pocket, sharp and teasing, his voice gravelly and steady and casual, “Cologne.”
And fuck him because cologne? 
But the way he says it, words low and rough, and the way his body coils, daring you to break first—something that you were more than willing to do, you would do anything he said right now, anything to ensure that not a millimeter of space came between the two of you—robs you of any oxygen that probably at some point surrounded you and feeds it to the embers, leaving none for your taking.
Your lungs constrict, desperately seeking out the air that seems to be in short supply, and a soft gasp is all you can manage. Pathetic, you think.
In front of you, you feel Jack’s muscles tense, pause in measured contemplation. 
All at once, he pushes you backwards, crowding you couch, his body closing in like it belongs there. One hand clamps around your waist, dragging you tighter against him, the heat of it searing straight through your clothes and skin and bones and sinew to directly brand your soul. The other trails up your side, singeing sensitive skin, until his thumb hooks beneath your jaw and his fingers tangle in your hair, anchoring you there.
He slowly and cautiously leans in, his grip on you tightening. The distance—which you suspect he somehow invented, just to steal it back—shrinks. It could no longer be designated as platonic in any meaning of the word, though you’re starting to wonder if anything was ever platonic between the two of you.
Your voice sounds far away and foreign to your ears, lips barely moving and lungs barely containing enough air to get the word out, “Cologne?”
He hums and leans down further. His nose barely brushes yours and you’re certain the skin melts off of your bones in his wake, “It’s sandalwood and tobacco and called Cowboy,” he whispers, breath intermingling with yours.
And while the space around your bodies seems suspiciously devoid of any breathable air, every breath leaving his lips enters into yours, leaving you lightheaded. Jack’s unwavering eyes drop from where they burn into yours down to your lips.
Your tongue darts out to wet your lips and, Jesus Christ, his eyes are sliding shut and he honest to God groans, the talons of desperation clawing up his throat and shredding him from the inside. It escapes low and taut, as if only the only thing holding it together from crumbling under the weight of longing are the last vestiges of his frayed restraint which, admittedly, don’t seem to be faring much better. And then it travels, and it might be the lethal combination of lack of oxygen and too much anticipation and most importantly of Jack, but you think you can see the soundwaves vibrating the air as it advances towards you.
You’ve never heard an angel, but you have never heard a sound so holy.
A traitorous synapse fires and a rogue thought populates in your mind. You gasp as you try to catch your breath, “I thought you weren’t allowed to wear cologne?”
Jack’s eyes stay closed while he releases a slow, resigned sigh. “There is something deeply wrong with you.” 
You don’t move.
Neither does he.
The world outside drops away, and all that’s left is the two of you, suspended in a moment so thick with tension, you’re briefly reminded of that Steve Spangler cornstarch experiment.
But the heat between you sharpens, hovers, coils tight in your gut. Your skin prickles, your breath catches, and you can feel him watching you—his gaze heavy, unapologetic, dark with intent. Every brush of fabric against your skin feels louder, every breath sharper.
That the only thing left is to decide who breaks first.
You’ll be damned if it’s you.
Jack just looks at you, eyes dark, jaw tight, like he’s barely holding himself together.
One hand comes to grasp your hip, firm and possessive, and he leans in close enough that his breath ghosts across your cheek, stealing the oxygen back from your lungs and returning it to his own. His mouth doesn’t find yours right away. It just hovers, lips brushing but never meeting. 
His half-lidded eyes flick to your mouth, then back.
You try to breathe, try to say something, anything, but your body betrays you—something it seems to do a lot when it comes to the veteran, and maybe you should talk to a medical professional about that—hips shift without thought, chest rising with a quiet desperation to meet him.
And then, slowly, deliberately, he presses forward—his body flush against yours, the unmistakable growing hardness at your stomach drawing a sharp breath from your throat. A thigh between your legs like it has every right to be there. 
His mouth finds your jaw, barely skimming it as he pulls the pin on the grenade you toss between one another, “Cat got your tongue?”
You don’t answer.
You can’t.
Because your pulse is pounding, and if he doesn’t touch you properly in the next five seconds, you’re literally going to set his apartment on fire.
And Jack knows it.
He’s the proud policy owner of renter’s insurance and he’s savoring every fucking second of it.
Throwing up a quick sorry, God, damnation it is, you fumble. You move a second too slowly, and that grenade, square in your hands, goes off. You break first.
Your lips brush his and time stops.
His eyes find yours, heavy and half-lidded, and somehow miraculously refocus on you, and you’re looking up at him and the words kiss me for real? drip like honey from your lips and when has he ever been able to deny you anything?
A large palm comes up to cradle the back of your head while he pushes you into the cushions, boxing you in, and then he’s kissing you—fucking finally—trying to make up for every second he had to keep his hands to himself, making up for every minute that he held himself back with the restraint he’s been choking on for months.
And, like everything Jack Abbot does, you’ve come to find out, he crashes over you like a wave. Movements clumsy, he moves to balance one knee between your legs, the other moving to the floor so he can put both hands on you. Without hesitation, his other hand comes up to cup your face, the movement surprisingly gentle compared to the way his lips move over yours, desperate and raw. 
He doesn’t even give you a chance.
Another thing you’ve learned about Jack Abbot tonight was there are no such thing as half measures.
His tongue darts out and he swallows the soft moan of surprise that escapes you, and you feel Jack’s grip tighten, his fingers pressing into your skin, anchoring himself to you. The sound seems to rip whatever restraint he had left to shreds, a hunger that was so carefully veiled now spilling forth like the first crack in a dam. His lips trail down and find the hollow between your collarbone and neck, and every sound that you make in response to the deliberate press and drag of his mouth against your skin urges him on, nipping and biting, stealing the taste of a forbidden fruit.
“So responsive,” he murmurs, almost to himself, his lips ghosting along the column of your neck. “How much more can I pull out of you?”
His hands shake as they move from your waist, the small of your back, your neck—searching, anchoring, pressing in and testing the limits of the physical world because he thinks that whatever close this is is not close enough.
And then demonic, disgusting, monkey-brained Mental You whispers in your mind, he should never be pulling out, and you’re batting her away. But it doesn’t help that you agree.
You gasp, and he swallows it whole, palm skating down to grip your thigh as he presses you hard into his couch, his own between your legs flexing, shooting sparks dancing up your spine, the aching between your legs growing unbearable.
None of it is enough.
Not after the way you just fucking sniffed him like a freak.
Not after the way you said his name like a sin he should feel lucky to commit.
When he pulls back, you’re breathless, dazed, lips parted and swollen. He stays close, eyes burning, and brings his thumb to trace your lips.
“I’ve been trying,” he says, breath ragged, “so fucking hard to be patient with you.”
You fuzzily blink, no thoughts, head only full of anticipation and him. “Huh?”
You really try to make sense of what the man above of you is saying, but all he’s done is kiss you, and it’s so unfair because you can feel you soaking wet, and you’re over here in sensory overload and he’s over here trying to speak full sentences.
The response almost makes him laugh, and he probably would have, had the situation been any different. But you’re looking up at him with blown-pupils and shiny lips, and the last of his control shatters.
Warm hands smooth around the sides of your neck, gently yanking you up to him. His mouth descends to yours. Teeth nip at your lips, sharp and possessive, and you can’t help the desperate moan that escapes. He slowly thrusts against you, the motion making you lightheaded.
Suddenly, he’s pulling you off the couch and pushing you toward the bedroom like the demon in you left and entered him, barely keeping it together, and Jesus Christ who designed the floor-plan for this apartment? You’re going to sue the fuck out of them because the space between rooms is offensive.
He finally kicks the door open, half-collapsing onto the bed with you beneath him, and the second the mattress dips beneath your weight, his mouth is on your neck, your chest, your collarbone—biting, licking, tasting everything he’s been fantasizing about. His hands push under your shirt like he’s starving, dragging the fabric up your body with a kind of reverence that borders on desperation.
“You have no idea,” he rasps against your skin, voice shaking, “how many times I’ve pictured this.”
You arch into him, breath catching. “Who are you, Picasso?”
That’s all it takes.
He tears the shirt over your head, mouth following the trail of skin like a man on his knees in prayer—hungry and grateful and, honestly, a little bit unhinged.
When he settles, Jack blinks up at you and freezes.
It’s not lace, just solid black cotton. It shouldn’t punch the air out of his lungs.
But it nearly destroys him.
The way it clings to your skin, simple and unpretentious, it’s so you. If medicine doesn’t work for him, maybe he would go into art, just so he could paint strokes on canvases, not one coming close to capturing your beauty. It makes his heart clench in a way that he doesn’t quite understand. His hands twitch, desperate.
He bites back a groan, head dropping to your hip as if grounding himself, but the ache in his chest only deepens. 
“You know,” Jack grunts, voice low and rough, struggling to hold himself together as he unbuttons and yanks your pants, blindly throwing them. “I’m oddly surprised by the amount of muscle you have.” A kiss is pressed right above your knee in emphasis, his tongue slowly moving over the small patch.
His hands don’t hesitate. Fingers slipping beneath the waistband of your underwear, he peels the fabric down your hips with forced, deliberate slowness, savoring every second. The cool air rushes to kiss your skin, and the contrast against his heated touch makes your breath hitch.
“Are you kidding?” you stutter out, almost insulted, and then you pull together whatever composure remains in your trembling body. “You know I go to the gym—I can’t be embarrassing myself.”
He drops the fabric somewhere forgotten and leans down, lips grazing along the curve of your thigh, sending electricity lancing through your body. His eyes flick up to meet yours. Too much composure remains in your body for his liking.
His left hand pins your thigh to the mattress, spreading you out, his thumb pressing so close to where you need him.
Slowly, keeping his eyes on yours, he leans in a breath away from your slick heat. 
His lips curl into a slow, wicked smile.
“No, you embarrass yourself in other ways,” he agrees, eyes shining up at you.
He finally has you where he wants you.
Laid bare at an altar for his worship.
He closes the distance, licking a broad stripe. Slow. Deliberate.
Holy shit, his mouth is a slick furnace between your folds, it has to be because that’s the only way molten iron could be flowing through your veins, and his tongue comes out and flicks your sensitive nub, humming as he feels you clench.
Your back arches, hands fisting in the sheets or his hair—whatever in your reach, really—breath coming in shuddering waves, every nerve ending lighting up like a struck match. You reach for him—fingers in his hair, nails grazing his scalp—and he groans against you, the vibration rocking down your body.
“Jack—” you gasp.
He glances up, mouth slick. “Something you want?”
He ceases all movement, eyebrows raising in mock question.
You blink, not quite comprehending. “You bastard—”
“What happened to please?” he interrupts smoothly, hands flexing against your thighs. 
“What happened to don’t get used to charity?” you snap, or try to, but it lands breathless and woefully unconvincing.
His thumb dips down, and his eyes follow, glued to the sight. The thick digit slowly sinks into your wet heat, before unhurriedly pulling back out. And again. And again, and you think that his degree is actually in ending lives.
Dark eyes flash back up. “Say please.”
You bite down on a moan, retort dying on your lips. Hips thrust, chasing the pressure, shame long gone.
Burned up by the way he’s looking at you like you’re the only thing that’s ever mattered.
And his stupid fucking hands. You used to love those hands.
Silence stretches between you, taut and breathless.
Then you cave—because you were always going to. Because he knows exactly how to break you apart and make you beg for it.
“…Please.”
His mouth curves, satisfied.
“That’s better,” he murmurs.
His head dips back down, tongue skimming over your pussy, and his eyes slide shut. Groaning, he flexes his arms around your legs, opening you wider, pushing closer, and taking everything your body gives him. A holy communion for his taking.
Your back arches, tension drawing tighter and tighter. 
Drawing your clit into his mouth, Jack sucks softly. Blinding pleasure rushes through your veins and your hips buck upwards, seeking out his tongue, clenching on nothing. A soft moan leaves your lips, desperately begging this piece of heaven to never leave your body.
Without mercy, he sinks two fingers into your cunt, draws them back, and slams them in.
“Jack—fuck,” you breathe. “Jack, I-I’m gonna come—”
A gentle encouraging hum fills your ears and you clench down on his hand, fingers curling, pressing against something absolutely fucking devastating deep inside you, and all you can do is gasp his name as burning ecstasy washes over you. You took some science classes back in school, but nothing could have prepared you for the nuclear fission—or, maybe fusion, the classes weren’t that good—that washes through your veins.
You can’t even fucking see. Or hear. The only sense you have is touch, specifically where Jack’s mouth continues, tongue gently flicking your swollen clit, working you through your orgasm.
Dude, what the fuck? you think as he kindly returns your eyesight to you.
He crawls over you, suspiciously absent of clothing, your soft thighs moving to bracket his hips.
“That was a lot of exertion,” your mouth says of its own volition. “Sure you don’t need a break, old man?”
“You’re the one coming apart, sweetheart,” Jack raises a brow, his voice low, the thick head of his cock catching against your entrance and pulling back, teasing. “A challenge, or you just stalling?"
“No idea, can I,” you gasp, breath hitching as the sensation sets off every nerve ending like a chain reaction, “Ph—fuck, phone a friend?”
Jack pauses just long enough to smirk, his breath hot against your jaw, his voice dropping to a rough whisper in your ear. “You really think anyone can help you right now?” 
And before you can respond, he shifts his head slightly, his breath dipping lower, and then he bites down. A gasp breaks loose from your lips, sharp and involuntary, as he takes the skin between his teeth, and you whine, high and needy. The arm not supporting his weight snakes around and presses into your lower back, lifting you slightly off of his bed, smearing his precum on your stomach. He wants to hear that sound again, and again, and again.
He wants to see the way your sharp tongue stalls and your words falter and crumble beneath his touch.
It doesn’t matter if it takes all week, he has sixty days of unused PTO and willpower.
But your lips are moving, loaded with a different one. “I’m starting to think you’re stalling.”
“Can’t you just let me enjoy the moment?” he huffs out, already sucking a new blemish into your neck.
“Pretty sure you’re enjoying it enough for both of us.”
“Damn right I am.” Teeth graze the mark he’s just made, tongue following like an apology he has no intention of meaning.
“I’m gonna need an alibi, at this rate.”
He groans against your skin, begging you to stop talking.
Nipping the cord of muscle where your neck meets your shoulder, he mumbles, “I’ll write your statement.”
Your fingers thread in his hair and tug, hard enough to remind him you’re not completely helpless under him and it takes everything in him not to snap. He finally retreats from your neck, lips trailing up and capturing your lips with his.
You push him back with a soft grin. “Just make sure you spell vampire right this time.”
Jesus Christ.
He flashes his teeth at you and drops his head back down. Seeking out an unblemished spot on your neck, he bites down. The pain blooms hot, chased immediately by a wave of heat that pulses low in your body.
He slowly pushes into you with a broken groan, burying his head in your neck. Inch by inch, he sinks into you, sparks shooting up and down your spine. Your hands scrabble at his back, gripping hard, needing more—needing him. He holds you there, slowly stretching you open, and you seize in his grip, mouth open in a soundless cry as the all-consuming feeling of fucking finally crashes over you both.
He’s trembling. You feel it in the tight line of his body, the way his breath stutters against your neck, and then he exhales, guttural and wrecked.
“Jesus,” he whispers. “You feel—fuck—you feel like heaven.”
He doesn’t move at first. Just leans in, pressing his forehead to yours, his breath ragged and hot between you. The cool drag of his dog-tags skims your chest with every sharp exhale. He wants to take his time—to drag this out until it’s unbearable. He wants you below him and moaning until your vocal cords don’t have anything left. He wants to burn every second of this in his memory.
“Jack, please,” you whisper, voice already frayed at the edges. You’ll be angry at yourself about this later, about Abbot making you so needy that you can’t even speak. You need him to fucking move, to do something, anything. “God, please.”
You say it again, and again, each repetition thinner, rawer. Like the word alone might crack him open, might finally tip the scale in your favor. “I need—” You break off with a gasp, hips shifting in a silent, wordless demand, but he still doesn’t budge.
“Please,” you try again, throat tight, lips brushing his. “I can’t… I need you to move. I need you.” It tumbles out now, shameless and urgent. “I want you. I’ve been good, I’ve waited—”
He stills like he’s savoring every syllable you offer up like prayer—like penance—his body tensing against yours, hand tightening its grip on you. He hears you.
He just wants to hear more.
“Please.” It’s broken now. Desperate. “Don’t make me beg—” but you already are, and you’d do it again, if that’s what it took to get him to fucking move.
“It’s okay, sweet girl,” he breathes into your lips. “I’m magnanimous, remember?”
And then his hips snap forward, rough, and your broken moan ricochets off the walls of his apartment. He’d be very, very shocked if there weren’t a noise complaint tomorrow, but he couldn’t care less. He wants fifty noise complaints by sunrise, minimum.
You gasp, sharp and shuddering, clawing at his shoulders like the only way to stay grounded is to anchor yourself in him. Your thighs tighten around his waist without thinking, dragging him closer, and the new angle presses him deeper, stars dancing behind your eyes. Every thrust knocks the air from your lungs, each one more brutal than the last, making up for the torturous stillness that came before.
Your back arches, trying to take more, begging him to give more, and he meets you there—half-growling into your neck, hands mapping, afraid if he stops, you’ll vanish. Like this is the last time he’ll ever get to touch you, and he’s determined to make it count.
He drags a hand down your body, teeth scraping against your shoulder as he mutters, “You asked me to move, sweetheart.” But he’s already unraveling too, eyes dark and unfocused, pace punishing. You don’t know where you end and he begins—all you know is the burn, the ache, the obscene need spiraling tighter and tighter between you.
There’s nothing careful left in him. Just possession. Just hunger.
“Fuck,” he grunts. “That’s really all you needed to stop talking, huh? Just needed me to fuck you?”
Your answer is a gasp, his name falling from your lips like a prayer—cracked and corrupt. He drinks it in like it’s holy, like the sound of it is sacred when it’s coming from you in this state—wrecked, open, begging. He groans, deep and guttural, like the name alone nearly breaks him. “Say it again.”
“Jack—” breathless, sobbed, nearly swallowed by the slap of skin and the scrape of his breath at your ear.
He could die like this. Right here. Right now. Buried in you, name on your tongue, legs locked tight around him like you’d never let him leave. He’d march into hell for you.
“God—fuck,” he pants, losing rhythm for a moment, hips stuttering. “L-like you were made for me.”
You tighten around him at that, a pulse he feels in every nerve, and he shudders like it’s too much, like your body’s trying to drag the soul from his chest. And maybe you are. You probably will.
He brings your wrist clasped in his hand by your head, the other slipping between your bodies to find your clit, rough fingers moving in tight circles, aching to push you closer to the edge with him.
“You feel that?” he growls, almost desperate now, voice roughened by strain. “You ruin me.”
“Jack—” you cry out, high and trembling, and that’s all it takes.
He’s relentless now—driving into you like he’s chasing something only your body can give him. Each thrust lands deeper, harder, pulling broken sounds from your throat before you can even catch them.
You try to focus on anything—the iron grip of his hands on your wrist, the cool scrape of his dog tags between your breasts, the hot press of his mouth at your neck—but it’s all a blur. Nothing anchors you. Not when your body’s burning up from the inside out, tightening around him with every punishing roll of his hips.
“Look at me,” he grits out, voice ragged, pleading. “Come on, baby—look at me.”
You do, barely, your vision swimming, and the second your eyes meet his—dark and wild and so fucking gone—you snap. Your body seizes under him, climax crashing over you like a wave with no warning, no mercy. You cry out, shattered and gasping, every nerve ending alight and pulsing.
“That’s my girl,” he pants.
Your responding Jack is high and needy and he didn’t think his cock could get any harder but he swears to fucking God he almost blacks out.
He growls your name like a curse, and then he’s gone—hips snapping forward one final time as he buries himself deep, spilling into you with a sharp, strangled moan. His whole body seizes against yours, trembling with the force of it, and you cling to him like he’s the only thing holding you to earth. His whole body trembles, breath tearing from his throat like he’s breaking apart inside you.
He stays buried deep, gripping you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go.
Like if he moves too fast, it’ll all come undone.
His weight presses down on top of you. The furthest thing from holy, your muscles still twitching from the aftershocks, his softening cock still in you, and you think you might start begging again, this time to never move from you. He inhales in your neck, slowly his lips find yours once more to press a kiss—slow, reverent—to the corner of your mouth.
It must be holy to feel so pure.
Your hand finds the back of his neck, fingers threading into sweat-damp hair. 
He sighs, low and wrecked. “Jesus Christ, kid.” 
You’re still trying to find your fucking lungs and tell them get it together, we have work to do, as you scratch your nails on his scalp. 
Eventually, you whisper, lips barely parting, “Jack, where is that fucking pizza we ordered?”
1K notes · View notes
thecreelhouse · 5 months ago
Text
stuck
Paring: Steve Harrington x Fem!reader
Summary: Yes, it’s exactly what you think it is. MDNI
WC: 4.6k+
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Includes: no plot all filth, unrealistic “stuck��� porn trope, friends to horny idiots, dirty talk, pet names/name calling, unprotected PiV sex, oral (f receiving), briefest mention of monsterfucking, brief anal play, a smidge of humiliation kink with a healthy side of a praise kink, d/s dynamic, etc.
A/N: Literally got this idea from a certain filthy piece of DBD fanart that I can’t find, but if you know the one I’m talking about, please lmk so I can properly credit for the inspo!! Is this ridiculous? Yes. Was this originally for Halloween? Also yes. We hate rules here (and deadlines). Hope y’all enjoy it <3 (dividers from @/saradika-graphics)
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Everyone told Steve he was insane to venture back into the Upside Down, but he couldn’t leave you there alone. 
He felt sick for even leaving you behind at all. Quite honestly, no one felt good about evacuating without you, but it was smarter to go home, gear up, grab another working walkie, before wandering back into hell to find you.
See, among the chaos of trying to help Eddie, trying to keep Max alive, he worried about you and your unusual absence from the group, but you were strong enough to handle nearly anything— that much, he was confident on. You had fought side by side with him over the years, protecting everyone in the group, and one another; through demodogs, a shit summer job gone awry, and anything in between, you could hold your own with a bravery he wished he didn’t need to front at times.
That didn’t quell his anxiety one bit, though. When and where you had disappeared to, he wasn’t sure.
It wasn’t until your voice broke through over the airwaves, when Steve, Eddie, Nancy, and Robin were on the lake, that he felt relief you were at least alive. Your voice was tinny through the static.
“Guys?”
The only reason a signal existed at all was because the group floated just above the gate at the bottom of the lake— they just didn’t know it yet.
Steve had just thrown his sweater off, ready to dive in, when the sound of your voice made his eyes widen. 
“Holy shit, give me the—“ He rocked the tiny boat a little too much for anyone’s comfort as he fell to his knees, grabbing the walkie from the floor. “Where the fuck are you?!”
“Hi to you too, Harrington.”
Robin yanked the device from Steve’s grip, “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Long fuckin’ story, but—“ Your voice cut out, static filling the dead air for a few seconds. “And that’s—“ Cut off again. “Upside Down, but I- I don’t know where I am, exactly. Why didn’t any of y’all tell me how bad this place sucks?”
Steve laughed to himself, unaware his eyes became glassy, hearing the familiar attitude and sailor’s mouth you carried; the other three noticed just how relieved and emotional he was right away. He grabbed the walkie back from Robin with shaky hands.
“We’re gonna come find you, we think we found a gate,” He rushed out. “Are you safe at least?”
“For now, but these—“ Signal cutting out, Steve hit the walkie a few times, as if that’d fix the disconnect between literal dimensions. “— Th- they’re everywhere. I don’t know where to hi— oh, shit—“ Your end fell dead again, leaving the four on edge, waiting for you to speak. White noise droned on for less than a minute; you weren’t coming back. 
Wasting not a second longer, Steve dove into the dark, chilled waters of the lake. He found the gate they suspected of, and broke the surface to alert his friends. As he relayed the information, rushed and panicked, wanting to find you as soon as possible, something tugged on his leg. Only startling the group at first, Steve was caught off guard, pulled under, back down to the bottom. He kicked, struggled, lungs burning as he fought off the urge to gasp for a breath he couldn’t dare to take.
It was all a blur, being dragged through the gate and tossed around like a rag doll; the bats diving towards him, finding an oar to defend himself with among the Upside Down’s mirrored decay of the lake, only to be bombarded by the gnarly creatures. They tore at his flesh as he was being strangled to death; brain growing fuzzy as he put up a good fight, he began to accept this fate. He wasn’t sure when his friends came through the gate, but one by one they retaliated against the bats, leaving just the one still strangling Steve.
“Get fucked!”
Unexpectedly, you appeared, slamming an ax— one you always left in your trunk, just in case— down onto one of its wings, chopping through completely, yet it still tried to flee as Steve bit down on its tail. Stunned, you all watched as Steve swung it around, slamming it down into the ground before violently ripping its spine out, fueled by pure rage.
Blood dripped from his mouth while he glanced up at you, rage and fear fading as relief flooded every inch of his heart. Despite your ragged appearance— covered in grime, soot, and blood— he was just happy to see you alive; a sight for sore eyes.
“I fuckin’ hate those things.” You wanted to run and hug him, but restrained yourself at the sight of his wounds. Taking in the sight of all four friends, you sighed, “Y’all okay?”
Another screech in the sky tore everyone’s attention away, “C’mon!” Where everyone ran off to the rocks, you made the mistake of running off in the opposite direction. The group of bats split off, heading towards both you and the others; when you looked over your shoulder, you watched Steve do the same, panic fueling you both to run for your lives.
You sprinted off towards the woods, hoping you’d find each other again soon, and alive.
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Steve climbed back through the gate in Eddie’s trailer, and had searched for what felt like hours; he was losing hope of finding you by the minute. He knows you; you wouldn’t give up without a fight. You had to be alive, but dread was still building within him.
At least he caught a signal over the walkies.
“What do you mean you’re stuck?”
Your voice warbles through the speaker of Steve’s walkie, barely coherent through the sharp static. 
“Okay, okay, where are you?”
“The— g—“ Feedback rips through your words, shrill and sharp. “I’m tr—“
“You’re cutting out—“
“Gate! I’m—“ A drone of white noise floods the speaker, and you’re gone.
“Shit. Fuck. God-fucking-dammit!” He hits the device with his free hand, slams the buttons and messes with the knobs and antenna— if only he actually paid attention when Dustin tried showing him how to work this fucking thing.
He did hear you say ‘gate’ at least, but which one? You clearly weren’t at the one he just entered, and the one at the lake had closed up by now. 
This would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
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Steve’s exhausted, searching high and low for you, at every possible spot that crosses his mind. It had to have been another hour since he last heard from you, and he’s running out of ideas of where you could be.
“Checked around town,” He begins murmuring to himself, listing and eliminating options out loud. “No luck there… but— shit, didn’t check the library…” Could a gate even open in there? Anywhere was possible, right? And if that was the case, he’d have to tear through every room of every building, circle each structure, check any cars, houses, sheds, backyards, parks, the woods—
Christ, at this rate, he’ll never find you—
“Oof!” Steve loses his footing, tumbling over something in the stretch of woods he was combing through. Colliding with the ground, he groans on impact.
“What the fuck?”
Steve rolls over quickly, sitting up to find he had tripped over you.
“Oh, thank fuck.” He scrambles to his feet, brushing debris off his body as he finally glances your way.
When you said you were stuck, Steve didn’t picture the sight before him now; you, halfway through a gate found in a tree trunk, unable to move because it began to close up around your waist. Your upper half is on the other side, but your bottom half is still stuck in the Upside Down.
“Oh…. You’re��� wow, okay.” He snickers, “Yeah. You’re stuck, alright.”
Steve’s muffled cackling echoes through the slimy gate. You huff and roll your eyes; not like he can see.
“Just help me out of here, would ya’?!”
“Okay, okay… Jesus.” He drops to his knees, still towering over you— well, your back half, at least. “Does it hurt?”
“No, it’s just fucking annoying. Maybe try, I dunno, pulling at the edges of it, or something?”
“I don’t think that’s how these things work—“
“Steve!”
“Okay, right, yeah, sorry.” He bites his bottom lip, stifling more laughter. It’s certainly an… awkward position, leaning over you from behind, but it’s the only way he can pull at the edges with both hands at once. He gives the gate’s edge a tug, but it’s stone solid. He tries again, this time with a grunt that has your mind wandering elsewhere. “Yeah, this is, uh… that’s not gonna work.”
“Oh my god, I’m stuck here forever,” You groan, kicking your feet. “I’m gonna die here.”
“Calm down, drama queen. Gimme a second, I’ll try again.” Steve keeps himself balanced on one knee, while the other leg plants a steady foot into the ground. Again, he attempts to pry open the gate, hoping to free you; his foot slips, causing him to rub against your backside.
Okay, ‘rub’ is a generous term— more like roughly falling against your ass, then whining over the pressure on his bulge.
“Steve, what the fuck?” You crane your neck, only able to see where the tree bark opens up into the gate, snug around your waist. “Did you just—“
“I didn’t mean to, I swear! M- my foot slipped!”
“Oh, bullshit.”
“Look, it’s not exactly the easiest to move around you without touching you right now,” He argues. “You really think I’m trying to make a move on you in a situation like this?!”
“Well, I can’t see shit, Harrington. I don’t know what the hell’s going on back there.”
Ignoring you, Steve murmurs, more to himself but loud enough for you to still hear, “The hell are you wearing these tiny shorts for, anyway?” He tugs at the hem around your thigh, elastic snapping back against your skin. You bite back whatever pathetic noise threatens to escape your lips.
“It was warm out earlier!”
“It’s March—“
“And unreasonably warm for March, y- you jerk.”
“That why you’re shivering?”
“Considering the sun set, uh, yeah?”
You grumble, annoyed how wet this easily has made you. You need out, and Steve needs out, too, and the two of you need to just forget about all of this.
“Okay, just—“ You can’t think straight, mind clouded with dirty thoughts— how embarrassing. “Push me through.”
“You… want me to push you… how?”
“With your hands, St—“
“I know with my h— I meant, like, where?”
You can’t see the way he licks his lips, staring at your ass, but you sure can hear the strangled moan he miserably tries to hide in his throat. 
“Wherever works— I don’t know, I’ve never been stuck between dimensions before!”
He shudders a breath before calling through the gate, “I’m gonna— if I touch anything I shouldn’t, I swear to god I’m not trying to—“
“Okay, yeah, I get it, Steve— just push me out of here!”
“Christ, you’re fucking bossy…”
His hands grip the plush of your hips, first, hoping he can grip hard enough and push this way— it’s useless; his hands lose grip, sliding up your body. His knuckles run into the tree, and he’s grateful for that barrier; who knows how far his hands could’ve slipped. He yelps and recoils away. “Sorry!”
“Dude, I don’t care, just do whatever works.” You sound exhausted, and who wouldn’t be in a situation like this? You had to have been here at least an hour, and even if it doesn’t hurt, it can’t be very comfortable. 
Steve shakes his nerves off, hands reaching for the back of your thighs; his fingers splay apart, pushing as hard as he can, and you finally begin to budge. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
Until you cry out for him to stop. “Shit, that fuckin’ hurts— It’s— ow, fuck! My hips—”
He immediately backs off, hands releasing pressure, but still resting gently on your thighs. It’s automatic, the way his thumbs rub slow circles into your exposed skin to try comforting you; the shorts you’re wearing are not helping either of you. It was warm out earlier, like you said, but did you have to wear these now?
Goosebumps prickle up under his fingers, and it’s hard to miss the way you clench your thighs together. 
“You, uh…” Steve gulps, fingers gently kneading at the meat of your thighs. “You okay over there?”
“Uh-huh,” Your answer isn’t very convincing, with a trembling voice. “Everything okay back there? W- with you, I mean.”
“Sure, yeah, it’s… I’m good.” He feels like such a pervert, fantasizing about taking you right here, like this. It’s wrong when you’re trapped like this. “Honey, I- I don’t know what else to do.”
The pet name twists at a coil deep within you, building up a pressure of some kind. 
“This is gonna sound fucked up, but just— push my ass— Steve, that better not be you laughing!”
He can’t hold back his immature giggling, but he’d rather this than moan.
“You sure? I don’t want you to get mad or anything.” He tries to settle down, focus on getting you unstuck. “Tell me to stop if it hurts again, alright?”
You imagine hearing those words of sweet consent in a different circumstance, biting back a whimper. “Ye- yeah, I will.”
Steve slides his hands up to the curve of your ass, unable to restrain himself before digging his fingers into your soft, plushy body. “Gonna count down, sweetheart, okay?”
This time a whimper does beat you to the punch before you can actually reply. He squeezes a little harder.
“Three… two… one—“ Steve shoves his hands against you, pushing as hard as he can. Again, your hips shove up against the tree trunk, and you cry out from the pinch. He pulls you back an inch, wincing with guilt. “M’sorry, I—“
“Again,” You boldly call back to him.
“… You sure?”
“Just do it, please,” His hands are so warm, touch so soft; you wish the fabric of your shorts would just disappear. There’s an extra whine to your voice, “Don’t hold back, I can take it.”
“Oh, fuck…” He mumbles, sucking in a sharp breath. “Go— I’m gonna try again, ready?” He hears a faint noise of consent, shoving himself into you; this time, his hips rut into you, too. You still can’t get through the gate, but you’re not sure that’s either of your concern at this moment. His bulge, rock-hard now, brushes up against your ass, and you both moan out. This is bad.
The way you push back against him isn’t helping much, either.
Both of you still, falling silent while trying to steady your breaths. Are you really about to do this here? Now?
Steve makes the decision for you both, muttering, “I can’t fuckin’ take it anymore.” He’s purposefully grinding against you, head lolling back with a groan as you push into him in return. From either end, both of you are shuddering out sinful noises. “Always wanted to kiss you first, but—“
“As soon as you rescue me, y’can kiss me all ya’ want.”
“Shit, princess, never took you for the damsel in distress type.” He tugs your shorts down, choking on air when he discovers you’re completely nude underneath. “Jesus, did you think at all about your outfit today?”
“Uh, considering I don’t have a bra on… no.”
“You don’t have a—“ Steve comically pouts that part of you is through the other side of the gate; he’s grateful you can’t see the pathetic expression. “What, did you just roll outta bed and stroll down here?”
“Steve, the longer we talk about the logistics of my outfit, the dryer I’m becoming.”
“Good thing I can help with that.”
“Okay, that was goofy to s— oh…” His thumbs spread your folds apart; despite your failed quip, you’re soaked as sin. 
“So fuckin’ pretty…” He leans down, kissing the swell of your ass, trailing his lips down your backside until he’s level with your heat. There’s no warning, just his tongue gliding along your folds, lapping up your arousal. A feral sounding groan vibrates through your core as he loses himself tasting you. It’s not rushed— not on purpose, at least— but any restraint is long gone now.
“Oh m’god,” You shudder while his tongue swirls around your clit, sucking it softly. His arms wrap around your thighs from behind, hooking you in place. You twitch back, like you’re desperate to grind on his face, but worried to freak him out.
Steve’s far from freaked out; in fact, he’s delving his tongue deeper, nearly incoherent when he mirrors your earlier words, “Don’t hold back. I can take it.”
That’s all the permission you need, rolling your body back as far as the gate allows, trembling as he sloppily makes out with your cunt. If only you could see the glistening mess on his pretty features. “Steve…”
He angles his nose against your clit just right, making you squeal into the empty forest around you. His tongue laps away, eventually tapering to fuck into you with it.
“Fuck, more, ple- please,” You pant, grateful Steve’s holding you upright, or you’d go limp against the tree. “Please— god!”
He slides a finger into you, curling it just right as he kisses and sucks back to your clit. He’s rougher this time when he suckles on the sensitive bud, rolling your eyes back and tensing your body up. You chant his name in whimpers, like a desperate prayer, only urging him to finger fuck you harder.
“Jesus, sweetheart, you’re gripping me so hard.” He groans into you, adding another finger. “Taste so good, I could be here all night—“
An orgasm startles you, going 0 to 100 without warning; lewd noises floating back through the gate toward Steve only challenge him to keep going.
“S- Steve, ha- hang on—“
“You want me to stop?” He slows his pace, but you ram yourself back into his hand and lips.
“No! Please, god, no—“
“Then what is it?” His tongue flits out, teasing around your sensitive nub.
“M- move your fingers up, back where you had it— ohhhmyfuckinggod—“
“C’mon, come for me, y’can do it again,” he coaxes, spitting onto your folds while relentlessly ruining you with his thick, long fingers. Your legs tremble wildly. “I can tell you’re close, angel. Make a mess, come for me again—“
This time, you cry out, praying whatever woods you found yourself in was deep enough, away from the public. Your hips twitch and convulse, while you flutter around his digits, soaking his face while he continues to delve deeper, as if that’s even possible.
The pumping pace of his fingers never relents, despite how overstimulated you feel already.
“St- Steve…”
“Got one more in ya’?” You feel his hot breath fanning over your folds again. It’s not long before he’s flicking his tongue back out, teasing your clit while adding another finger. “Christ… yeah… yeah, angel, that’s it…” He laps at the nectar dribbling from your centre, grunting as his free hand pulls you by your thigh, guiding you to bounce against his face. The fingers buried in you curl just right, earning a broken, breathy noise from the other side; he hits the right spot, and under a minute in, you’re gushing against his pretty face.
You can hear how drenched he is when he speaks, licking his lips between his words, “That was… oh, fuck, that… that was so… can we do that every day?”
Winded, you manage to laugh weakly, “If you can figure out how to get me un-stuck, I’ll let you do that as much as you fuckin’ want.”
You’d kill to see his face right now, dripping with your release, but until then you’ll just need to use your imagination.
“…. Can we—“
“Please.”
The head of his cock slides along your folds, teasing as it runs over your sensitive clit. You jolt back, and he grips you by the hip, holding you in place with one hand.
“Be patient for me, angel. I don’t wanna hurt you,” he slides in, taking his time, paying attention to your gasps. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh, ju- just go slow.”
Like earlier, when Steve tried pushing you through the gate, he soothes you with his touch, thumbs rubbing soft circles against your skin. He sinks a bit further, feeling you clench around him with anticipation. “Angel, gotta relax to let me in…”
“I- I know, m’trying, you’re just— you’re so… so…”
“Shhh, it’s okay, I have you. You’re okay…” He slides deeper, hips almost flush against your backside. “Just relax… that’s it, that’s my girl.”
The praise elicits a pornographic moan out of you, only triggering his cock to twitch against your walls.
“God, wish I could see your face right now,” his mumbling fades into a gravelly groan, sinking deep into you. 
“Y’can if you fuck me when we’re outta here,” you strain out, taking him to the hilt. His cock twitches again, making you both shudder.
“I dunno, what if we can’t get you out, sweetheart?” The tides turn with his tone. He pulls out slowly, teasing your clit with the head of his cock. You twitch and clench around nothing, making him smirk. “What if you’re stuck here forever?” Slamming back into you, your walls clamp down on him, tighter than before. “Oh, what, you like that idea?”
“Steve…”
“You wanna be left here? Where anyone can walk by, use you however they want?” He draws back, snapping his hips back into your ass, relishing in the way you cry out. “Anyone can find you in the woods over there, use that pretty mouth of yours…” Gripping your hips, he pulls back slowly, thrusting in with everything he’s got. It’s becoming a torturous pattern, but he can tell you’re enjoying it with the way you’re soaking his cock. 
“Oh my— fuck…” You gasp from the other side, throwing yourself back into him as far as the gate allows you. He grunts as you meet his thrusts.
“You’d be up for grabs over here too, y’know…” Hands trailing back to your ass, he spreads your cheeks, spitting lewdly on your pretty, puckered hole. “But maybe you’re not that much of a freak—“ You don’t hold back the sinful sound building in your throat over his unfinished concept. “Oh. Oh. You’d like gettin’ fucked by some monsters too, huh? That’s so fuckin’ gross, babe.”
“That ain’t even the half of it,” you manage to reveal through panting and whimpering.
His mind races over the possibilities, slamming into you a little faster.
Steve circles the tight entrance with the pad of his thumb, throbbing deep inside you as he tests the waters, sinking in just a bit. You squirm and whine, relaxing as he continues on, eventually making it past his knuckle— which, wouldn’t be too much, but with the size of his hands, you feel so full off that alone.
“You’re so fuckin’ tight, I don’t think I’ll l- last long,” he murmurs while he pistons his hips into you, growing sloppier by the minute. 
“S’okay… m’not…” You can’t grasp onto the words you need, not when he’s fucking you absolutely brainless between dimensions. “God, Steve, you’re so deep.”
His thumb slips out of you, leaving you emptier than before, making desperate, pathetic mewls and cries. Ignoring you, his hand slides underneath, pressing down onto the peak of your mound. “Where do you feel me? Here?”
“N- no, deeper…”
Steve splays his hand wide, fingers blanketing over your skin; he inches his touch up, just where your belly and pelvis begin to meet. The further he stretches his touch, the more he leans over you, kissing along any bare skin on your back he can reach.
“Here?”
You shake your head, but he can’t see. Your lapse in verbal response earns a smack on your ass, causing you to cry out into the expanse of the woods. 
“Where, babe? Tell me.”
“Up,” whimpering, you push back into him. Hand gliding up to your belly button, he stops.
“Here?”
Eyes rolling back, you let out a broken sob, “Yes!”
Steve pushes down on your belly, just enough for the pressure to meet his thrusts.
“You’re takin’ me like a slut… sound like one, too.” He grunts while bucking wildly into you. His hand disappears, only to join the other in grabbing you by the thighs, nearly lifting your lower half off the ground against him.
The sound is absolutely what you’d expect from two, hopelessly horny idiots, fucking in a circumstance like this one right here. Skin on skin slapping roughly, echoing out into the woods of the Upside Down, in time with his near-feral grunts and throaty groans. On your side, in your world, you can only imagine how close to an injured animal you might sound like, or someone in actual distress, unable to cover your mouth as you hold yourself up while he fucks into you relentlessly.
“M’pretty close, angel,” Steve pants through the gate, hips stuttering while he still gives his all, thrusting mercilessly into you. “Where—  where can I—“
“‘Side…” You groan out, lost in a lust-driven delirium.
Attitude softening, he manages to ask, “In— you mean inside?”
“Uh-huh, wanna be full,” you murmur, just loud enough for him to hear. “Make me yours—“
“Oh, fuck,” Steve’s hips freeze over your words, finally reaching his high. One final cry tears out of you as your fourth and final orgasm trembles through your body, rolling into his. The delicious squeeze and fluttering around him helps milk his release, doing just as you asked, filling you up with his spend. 
Involuntarily, his entire lower half twitches violently into you, and finally, finally, the gate gives, allowing him to tumble through to the other side, shoving you out first. He lands on top of you, rolling over onto the forest floor while you both groan. The woods are quiet, aside from occasional crickets and your loud, ragged breaths, weaving through the branches above.
Though the two of you are ready to fully collapse, the squelching sound of the gate constricting catches your attention; the damn thing closes completely.
Steve chuckles weakly, while you push past any shame that might still linger, shyly smiling over at him.
“Hey…” You attempt to greet him, now that you’re face to face— which, speaking of, his features are still glistening from sweat and your multiple releases. 
“Hi,” he breathes, eyes trailing over your figure, landing and pausing on your exposed core, dripping a lewd mixture of fluids. “Fuck…” He leans forward, but stops himself, mumbling, “If we weren’t in the woods, I’d, uh, help clean you up, but…”
Your eyes widen, taking in his words; neither of you are in a state to fuck around any further, but you make a mental note of the suggestion for the future. “I’m— I’ll remember that.”
Surging towards him with an ounce of renewed energy, you capture his lips in a long-awaited kiss. He makes the cutest noise of surprise, melding against you. Pausing, he murmurs against your lips, “Sorry we couldn’t do that first.” It’s a wild shift in his demeanor post-sex, from a dominant, feral wreck, to this soft, precious person before you.
“We can make up for it though.”
“After a super long fuckin’ nap.” Then he cringes, “And the— y’know, the whole—“ He waves his hand around, rolling his eyes, “the Vecna thing.”
“Right. Yeah. Priorities.” You’re looking forward to all of this coming to an end. All you want is to curl up in bed with Steve, and sleep a whole day away, but that’ll have to wait. 
As clarity brings you back down to earth, you realize you’re still naked from the waist down… which means— 
“Um… Steve?”
“Yeah, angel?”
“… Where’s my shorts?”
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fangirlingpuggle · 3 months ago
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SVSSS AU/fic prompt where LBH in the abyss finds artifact/plot device that will show the future...only it shows the 'planned' future aka PIDW future so LBH asks to see his and Shizun's future and sees Shizun in water prison...
Cue LBH terrified freak out and going the kill that future with fire route.... so basically setting Huan Hua palace on future and then going into a little hidden depression cave near the peak because now he's scared to be near SQQ.
The result of Huan Hua palace being destroyed is 'oh no....anyway' no ones that upset. Plus they're trying to deal with SQQ who is in full grieving mode and is just getting worse.
Cue them finding out about LBH because Meng Mo contacted them in dreams because 'COME FIX THIS BRAT HE WILL NOT COME OF HIS DEPRESSION CAVE OR LISTEN TO ME'
Thus nearly all the peak lords chasing LBH to get him to go the fuck home so SQQ will snap out of it.
SQQ is so confused to one day come out and see LBH wrapped in immortal binding cables being dragged towards like here he's back talk to each other and get better.
Bonus Mobei Jun uses same mirror sees SQH fate and is locked up in his palace staying away form him because he's terrified after seeing himself kill him...
SQH can't ask peak lords for help so basically drags Sha Hualing into helping him break in and figure out whats up with Mobei Jun
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hypewinter · 1 year ago
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Hear me out! Danny finds his human form slowly getting more eldrich as he gets older (and more powerful) and ends up going to Gotham where people are way less likely to ask questions!
Sadly when the people of Gotham see Danny, oops my shadow has eyes now, Fenton they just assume he's gonna be a new Rouge!
Que the bat fam watching Danny waiting for him to make his move, over-analyzing everything he does. Mans can't even buy a new laptop without Bruce breathing down his neck about it
This would be an issue if Danny wasn't such a little troll, and he starts buying more obviously ominous things only to openly use them in improperly boring and normal ways. Like buys a death lazer and can be seen using it to make toast, buys a cursed box full of death themed artifacts and uses it as a coffee table, that kinda stuff.
Every time the bat's assume 'this is it!' And gets ready to take him down, only to see Danny setting up a new 'coat rack' made of kriptonite
Even better when they see him tinkering on some kind of doomsday device, the kind that looks super evil and dangerous and even has a red count down timer on the front and- it's a fucking air frier again! He already has three! Why does he keep making air friers?! Obviously this must be some kind of scheme
I raise you: Danny starts selling his things out to random citizens (they've all been intensely screened). The bats panic thinking this is an attempt to cripple Gotham in one fell swoop. Nope. Ms. Randall just really needed a new air purifier and Danny had a toxin dispenser that was just collecting dust.
I imagine though that he might start to notice that the bats are focusing on him a little too much which is a problem considering there are things going down in Gotham that actually need their attention. But at the same time, our resident ghost boy isn't ready to stop being a menace just yet. So what does he do? Kill too birds with one stone.
Whenever Danny catches wind of a new plot going down, he does something to draw the bats's attention to it. Two Face planning a robbery? Suddenly Danny is showing up to the bank everyday to work on the vault (he offered to reinforce it for free). The bats get so suspicious they focus hard on the bank and discover Two Face's plot before he can do anything.
The bats pat themselves on the back while Danny giggles in the background. Wonder how long it will take for them to figure out what's going on.
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ireverie · 5 months ago
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indulgence
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pairing ↠ serial killer!sunghoon x (f) professor!reader
genre .. warnings ↠ smut, graphic depictions of murder, graphic depictions of violence, noncon, mentions of pregnancy, sunghoon is 43 (set in 2023)
summary ↠ you're an accomplished detective in the detroit area and park sunghoon is a prolific serial killer. when your department sends you on its behalf to pull back his layers, you attempt to convince sunghoon to recount his experiences and unravel the mystery once and for all.
wc ↠ 10.3k
a/n ↠ originally posted on my blog revehae, i am not plagiarizing myself. sunghoon’s american for the plot. part 3/3 of the in my blood series. as always, feedback is appreciated!
don’t like it, don’t read.
the deepest prick of unease settled through you and you shuddered from its nipping cold. 
killers were your forte, but none like this. never in your life had you ever met a killer who’d been at their craft for over a decade. they typically got sloppy after the first half, which insinuated that this sunghoon park guy, whoever he was, was far from an ameteur. 
“gate twelve,” came the guard’s voice, speaking into a transmitter. he was to escort you to sunghoon’s holding room.
the gate lifted. behind it, you clocked the riveting face of detroit’s worst nightmare, hands cuffed at his back as he sat facing you. there was a sort of twisted grin on his face, not as if he was excited to have a visitor, but excited his visitor had been you.
“good luck with this guy. officers tried to get him to budge. he didn’t take the fifth, but the bastard’s damn good at talking in circles,” the guard whispered in your ear.
“duly noted,” you replied quietly, stepping further and taking the seat across from sunghoon. 
the guard left you to your devices, shutting the door behind you and leaving through the passage that led to the gate. complete and total privacy was the only way sunghoon agreed to talk. your department initially refused, insisting there should at least be one or two other officers monitoring the interview, but you let him have his way.
if you wanted to get this man to talk, that was your only option.
“hello, sunghoon. i’m detective ___ from the detroit police department,” you introduced yourself coolly, cloaking your nerves with confidence. never would you show a guy like this any fear.
sunghoon hadn’t stopped grinning since he made eye contact with you. you’d seen pictures at most and he was devilishly handsome, even more so in person, but it didn’t compensate for his unsettling aura. “that’s a beautiful name, detective.”
“flattery will get you nowhere, park.”
“it’s gotten me here,” sunghoon quipped. 
“yes, it has. and i suppose you already know why i’m here.”
“yes, i do,” sunghoon said, pleasant thus far. “you want me to tell you about the murders.”
you bobbed your head. “i do. you see, you’re an enigma to me, sunghoon. you turn yourself in, get fingerprinted, and all of the sudden our datsbase’s going off because your prints are connected to three other crimes over the past twenty-five years.”
sunghoon feigned surprise. “wow, it’s been that long?”
“it has,” you replied, in spite of knowing he couldn’t have not been aware. “martina mortes in 1998, sabrina lee in 2005, christine dalton in 2013, and dr. lee this year.”
sunghoon leaned back in his chair. “i’m familiar with those names.”
“you should be. you sexually assaulted and murdered these women,” you spat, none too tender. “except for martina mortes. you only strangled her. do you want to tell me why that it is?”
“what’s the weather like today? i haven’t been outside, but summer has been kind to detroit.”
ignoring him, you persisted, “let me guess. she was your first victim and that kill, unlike the others, was spontaneous. her being dead defeated the purpose of the sex act, didn’t it?”
“well, do you like your partners warm or cold, detective?” sunghoon asked, deflecting. 
you were heeding the guard’s warning. it seemed this guy liked to answer questions with questions, your least favorite type of offender. “that’s why when you subsequently added the sex act to part of your crimes, you kept your victims much longer, because you like to see them suffer. until you got bored. then, you killed them and dumped their bodies like trash.”
as if he was disinterested, sunghoon glanced to the side and yawned. 
the audacity on this guy was astounding. “am i boring you, park?”
sunghoon replied with total indifference, “if you think you know everything, then why are we here?”
you answered without hesitation, “because i think you’ve wanted to tell someone about what you’ve done for a long time, sunghoon. but you realize that you’re not like other people. i’m giving you the opportunity to get it all off of your chest.”
sunghoon cocked his head to the side, as if he was contemplating your offer. his face was borderline inscrutable. it was difficult, if not impossible, to decipher what he was thinking.
you restrained from heaving a breath. there was a crushing weight on your shoulders, the expectation to get this guy to crack. if you couldn’t do it, nobody would - ever. “how many victims do you have?”
“four.” sunghoon’s answer was quick, automatic. like he didn’t even have to think about it for a second.
folding your arms on the table, you shook your head. “no, i just don’t think that’s true. see, we’re pretty sure martina mortes, your high school girlfriend, was your first victim, and the college professor was your last.”
sunghoon cocked a brow. “but?”
“but there’s no way someone like you could’ve resisted your urges between four kills over the past two decades and then some.”
there was no point in denying the four victims, because you already had substantial proof. nor did sunghoon deny that martina was his first victim, because given the decomposition of the bodies, she died long before the other three. admitting that she wasn’t would be admitting that there were unfound others.
and sunghoon had no intention of implicating himself more than he already had. the only reason he turned himself in was because he didn’t want to prolong the inevitable, for whatever reason. he pulled his lips into a mock frown. “your assumptions about my self-restraint are hurtful,” he replied.
whatever, moron, you thought irritability. “i think they’re more than just assumptions.”
sunghoon teased, “then, let me know when you know something.”
you narrowed your eyes, groaning, “oh, come on. i know and you know that you can’t ignore your desires for a month, let alone over ten years. you have a compulsion. killing makes you feel powerful, it makes you feel in control, and you can’t live without the high it gives you.”
“you make me sound like an addict,” sunghoon remarked, pretending to be offended.
“it wouldn’t be so far from the truth,” you said, glancing over the file at your end of the table. “the first two kills were seven years apart. the second two kills were ten. full offense, i don’t see how you could control yourself for so long.”
“you can believe what you want, detective. i didn’t kill anyone else,” sunghoon lied, not that you ever needed to know. 
of course, he couldn’t control himself. the second he took someone’s life, it became a part of him, and his purpose in this world became clear to him. for the first time in his life, he felt as if he had something that made living worthwhile.
you surrendered. it was obvious sunghoon was intelligent and he wouldn’t be easily tricked into confessing. “okay, fine. let’s talk about the victims we know of. tell me about martina mortes.”
“what is there to tell?” sunghoon asked, brow cocked. “we met in junior high. then, in eleventh grade, we got together.”
“tell me about why you killed her,” you insisted, painfully curious. “it happened in chicago, before you moved to detroit over the summer. you killed her in the heat of the moment.”
sunghoon gave the impression that he would take a minute to crack, so you were surprised when he said in response to your prodding, “we got into a wrangle, if you will.”
that much was obvious. “what kind of wrangle?”
the garage was hot and the air was stuffy, making it difficult to breathe. to say nothing of the frustration scorching sunghoon’s skin, his face tensed into an irritated glower.
there was something about women he never liked, the seemingly inherent ability to blow almost anything out of proportion, as exhibited now as his girlfriend screamed in his face. his stepmother was the same, never not coming up with a reason to fuss at him. he was always walking on eggshells around that woman. 
martina was bristling. “you always fucking do this, sunghoon.”
sunghoon heaved a breath, sighing, “what - what do i always do, martina?”
“you trivialize everything i go through. you make me feel like i’m overreacting when i’m not, you just refuse to hold yourself accountable,” she spat. 
“martina, we’re about to go to college, for fuck’s sake! you can’t focus on your academics and a goddamn child. i don’t get why you won’t just have an abortion and call it a day,” sunghoon roared, heating up a thousand degrees.
“god, do you listen to a word that comes out of my mouth? my parents will kill me, sunghoon. if not for being pregnant at eighteen, then for killing it.”
sunghoon sighed. “i don’t see the part where that’s my problem.”
tears blurred martina’s eyes. she came up to him, shattered by his carelessness and embraced by isolation, and bellowed, “you want to know what your problem is? your problem is that you’re an incompetent bastard with no regard for other people!”
sunghoon’s body was engulfed in flames but his shoulders were cold, and he lost control of his emotions, grabbing martina by the throat. he effortlessly lifted her with a single hand and smashed her against the closest wall none too gently, watching her eyes wince closed.
“you wanna say that again?” sunghoon asked, nothing short of belligerent.
ache spread out through the back of martina’s head, a ceaseless throbbing worse than any hungover. her feet dangled off of the ground, waving and kicking, fingers weakly prying at the ones pressing down on her windpipe. until she was completely still, legs dropping, hands going limp at her sides.
“i didn’t even realize how long i spent standing there, until she felt… empty, and i knew she was gone,” sunghoon confessed, but his tone was far from sympathetic. “she scratched me. you know, when she was trying to pry my hands off. i didn’t know until hours later.”
you shook your head, disdainful. “you killed your pregnant girlfriend?”
sunghoon groaned, “oh, please. i was eighteen. i would’ve been a terrible father.”
“i would be slightly more inclined to accept that as an excuse if it weren’t for the fact that you had a son by sabrina lee only two years later,” you said viciously.
“a lot can change in two years.”
“i’m sure it did.” your eyes flickered over the file again, but nothing would allow you to familiarize yourself with this killer more than talking to him yourself. “for example, you realized just how much you liked killing.”
if sunghoon could’ve raised his hands, he would’ve. “your words, not mine.”
you leaned over the table, unrelenting. “tell me about it, sunghoon. how did it feel when you strangled her with your bare hands? what was it like?”
sunghoon chuckled. “is that what you wanna hear?”
you nodded. 
sunghoon leaned in too, getting closer to you, and whispered in your ear, “i squeezed every last breath out of her, one by one, until there was nothing left for her brain and she went slack in my arms. and when i was done, i felt elated. i felt free. it woke up this dormant sensation inside of me that i swore to never repress again, because it made me feel alive.”
your lungs started to feel shallower, like no breath could reach the bottom, and you sensed your heart come to a halt for a minute. sunghoon pulled back, grinning from ear to ear, as if he was proud of himself. 
“detective, did i startle you?” sunghoon asked, tilting his head ever so slightly. 
your face hardened. “why would you ever think that?”
“you’re not as good at feigning indifference as you think you are, detective. full offense,” he mimicked, mocking.
he’s just a fragile man that kills women to make him feel better about himself, because he needs to be in control. don’t give him power over you. that’s what he wants, you said to yourself, shutting any and all other thoughts. “so, you killed martina, nobody could connect her disappearance to you, and by the time they discovered her body you were already studying for college two states over.”
sunghoon ignored you, at least for a little. he was taking a liking to making you feel uneasy around him. “has anyone ever told you how gorgeous you are?” he asked out of nowhere.
“you aren’t my type. i don’t fool around with serial killers,” you replied sharply.
sunghoon didn’t seem to be offended, but you didn’t expect him to. “really now? it feels like we’re on a date right now. after all, we are getting to know each other.”
you asked, “have you always had such a distorted perception of normal human interaction?”
sunghoon shot with no hesitation, “have you always had such a sharp mouth?”
you pulled yourself together. the only way you would get anywhere with this guy was by establishing that you were the one in control. “okay, enough. this is my interview, park. you answer my questions, not vice versa.”
“that’s not any fair,” sunghoon told you, that unnerving smile still on his lips. “i don’t have to tell you anything, you know. and without me, you lose the only key to those answers you want so badly.”
“you shutting up doesn’t make much of a difference, considering you’re already dodging my questions,” you replied.
“let’s play a game,” sunghoon suggested.
you weren’t in the mood for any games, but that was sunghoon’s method of operation. “i don’t like games.”
“you’ll like this one,” sunghoon insisted, laughing. “twenty questions.”
your shoulders dropped. “am i supposed to be guessing something?”
sunghoon shook his head, something sinister about him. “no, it’s much easier than that. we take turns asking each other questions until i’ve answered ten and you’ve unanswered ten.”
you stared into his eyes, willing yourself not to break contact. he was just as relentless, silently cocking a brow at you, as if to challenge. and you weren’t an idiot. that’s exactly what it was. you asserted, “i go first, you can only ask me yes or no questions, and if i don’t like your final answer i get to press you for another.”
sunghoon slightly lifted his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. “yes, ma’am.”
“okay,” you started. “what made you move from illinois to michigan?”
“i was kicked out of the house. didn’t have anywhere else to go. but i had a buddy here whose family took me in,” sunghoon answered frankly.
you pondered those words, wondering if his aforementioned buddy knew about his secret indulgences. or if he asked why sunghoon’s parents kicked him out of their home. it would’ve been the question scratching at your mind, itching to be answered.
sunghoon’s lips parted. “what kind of perfume are you wearing - honey lavender?”
“yes,” you said, focusing your attention on anything but the possibilities of how he could’ve known that. he’d been with so many people to the point where he just knew. “why did you get kicked out of the house?”
“my dad always thought there was something different about me, ever since i was a child. he was a nasty piece of work. he found my journal, read a couple of things i wrote, and decided there was no hope for me in the house,” sunghoon ranted.
that piqued your curiosity. “what did you write about?”
“wait your turn,” sunghoon sang. “your hair smells just as lovely as the rest of you. do you match scents all the time?”
you were mildly uncomfortable, but given the type of dude he was, you stifled it. “yes. you don’t have to be such a pervert all the time, you know?”
again, sunghoon rolled his shoulders, chirping, “you call it perverse. i call it amusing.”
you almost cursed under your breath when you realize you’d asked him a question. “wait, i didn’t mean to ask…”
sunghoon cut you off, “that’s too bad. it’s my turn again. do you like necklaces?”
“not ones made out of fingers,” you retorted. it was meant to be a joke to hide how unsettled you were, hyper aware of the necklace dangling around your neck. you could feel invisible pressure on your throat.
sunghoon snickered. “i’ll admit that was funny.”
you pressed, “what did you write about in the journal?”
“my dreams,” he admitted vaguely, though in reality, he wrote endlessly about his corrupt fantasies of abusing women. some pages were about his stepsister, and there was a few about what he’d done to martina, though not explicitly. “you have the most beautiful eyes. they’re the perfect shade.”
you were certain he had told many other girls those same words and were not flattered in the slightest. the glare you were giving him was ferocious. “i’m not sure if there’s a question in there somewhere.”
“do you think your eyes are pretty?”
“i haven’t really thought about it,” you told him, quick to change the topic. you’d encountered your fair share of stranglers and it was no secret why he was so interested in your eyes. “was your relationship with your father estranged?”
“nothing was enough for that man. i had the top grades in my class and the highest gpa, and he took my door off its hinges and seized my privacy,” sunghoon told you, words harsh, but his tone plain. “he was obsessed with being the perfect family, something that was ruined the second my mother destroyed everything, and rather than embrace me, he turned me away.”
your eyes flickered. there was something about his language that stood out to you. courtesy of the research you’d done on him beforehand, you were aware that his father was divorced then remarried his stepmother, who already had a daughter sunghoon’s age. but rather than describe his parent’s separation as a divorce, he said his mother destroyed everything.
what a hostile view towards women, you mused, repulsed. but given the nature of his crimes, it adds up. and it might’ve been the origin of his hatred.
his family was twisted. you couldn’t fathom how his father, aware of just how unwell his son was, clocked his abusive fantasies towards women, and instead of getting him the help he needed, he left him to his own devices to slaughter them as he pleased.
you blinked when sunghoon leaned, craning his face towards yours, and snapped out of your reverie when you jolted back. 
“there you are,” sunghoon said, chuckling at your surprise. it was all over your face. “i’ve been talking to myself all this time. you must’ve been thinking about me.”
“no, not really. i was wondering if i forgot to feed my dog last night.” it was an obvious lie, but you would never encourage this guy to feel more important than he was.
amusement gleamed in sunghoon’s eyes. he was having a wonderful time, truth be told. had you not been so pretty, he would’ve clamped up like a crab, but you were so pleasing to the eye that he didn’t mind confessing a couple of truths. “a dog. that’s interesting. i myself have always wanted a pet - a snake. the constricting kind are my favorite.”
“you don’t say,” you droned, voice dripping with crisp irony.
your sarcasm was chucklesome to sunghoon, but his words were the truth. he remembered, all those years ago, asking his father for a pet snake. and when he refused, sunghoon, in turn, killed the family dog. he added, “they don’t just suffocate their prey. they coil around them, almost like a straitjacket, and cut off its blood supply.”
you replied, “yeah, but animals hunt to survive. you hunted because you had nothing better to do with your life.”
“in my humble opinion, we’re all animals of nature, and creatures of sin,” sunghoon told you in a whisper, as if he were telling you a secret of some kind. “anyways, it’s my turn now.”
you resisted a disgruntled exhale. 
like his questions couldn’t get any more absurd and strangely perverse, sunghoon asked, “when you shower, what do you use - a washcloth or a loofah?”
“that’s not a yes or no question,” you replied with total disinterest. 
“it’s hardly any less simple.”
“a washcloth,” you replied, though only because you needed to ask him your questions and resisting an answer would only waste valuable time. “why did you wait so long before killing sabrina lee?”
sunghoon smiled at the mention of his son’s mother, but the grin on his lips was distinguishable from the others. like he didn’t even realize he was smiling. “she was special. i loved her.”
“no, you didn’t. you don’t hurt people that you love.”
“maybe that’s true for you, but you’ve called me everything but a child of god and it’s clear you don’t think you and i are alike,” sunghoon said. “i don’t miss her, though, because she left a better print on this world. a world that was never made for her in the first place.”
a better print on this world. your brows furrowed, until you remembered the child they shared together. “you know what i think? i think whatever you felt for your son’s mother was the closest thing to love you’ll ever be able to pull from your ugly black heart.”
“you’re very strongly opinionated,” sunghoon responded, ever so unbothered. maybe some decades ago, it would’ve irked him to the point of breaking, but he was much more in charge of his impulses now.
you lifted your shoulders, gazing at him with the most discerning of eyes. all he could think about was how nice it would’ve been to seize you by the throat and watch the light dull from them.
to your surprise, sunghoon’s next question was not as a deviant as you assumed it would be, asking, “what made you decide you wanted to become a detective?”
“because of the people i used to know that aren’t around to tell you why,” you answered distantly, before pressing, “how was sabrina different, sunghoon?”
sunghoon perched over the table again, an uncomfortable distance close to you, made worse by his whispers. “because unlike the others, she didn’t beg me to stop - she begged me to finish. for it to be over. and when i wouldn’t, she begged me to kill her.”
the mental picture you got was cruel. your heart hurt for these women that had no idea what hit them until it was too late. 
“i put these women out of their misery,” sunghoon continued. 
you spat in a heartbeat, “the misery that you forced them to endure.”
sunghoon winced. “no, these women were miserable long before they met me. they were just ignorant of it. impressionability is a weakness.”
“either you have one hell of a god complex or you are working overtime to justify your sick actions.”
sunghoon merely shrugged, vicious and ominous and everything in between. there was something so dark about his spirit. you could feel it just from sitting within a couple of feet of him. 
sunghoon’s memories were triggered. he was reminiscing about the times he shared with his son’s mother, how perfect she was. there were no other women like her. she was his favorite victim, someone he took his sweet time with, while the others were disposed of in a few months time. 
midnight loomed, riding on the tail of dusk. sunghoon was counting down the minutes until the clock struck twelve, a self-imposed rule to gauge his willpower. the second the hour came, he bolted from the crackling sound of the cabin’s fireplace to a bedroom, anticipation like a stimulant.
the wooden floorboards creaked the closer sunghoon crept to the door. save for himself and the woman chained to the bedpost, the cabin was void of life. it belonged to the parents of a close friend who ensured it was vacant whenever sunghoon needed a place to indulge his twisted fantasies.
which was basically all of the time.
he meandered inside with a crisp bottle of water in hand, droplets condensing at its sides. sabrina laid right where he left her, just as broken, dreading her next breath. tape adhered to the flesh over her mouth, muffling her whimpers. there was nobody around for miles, the cabin was totally isolated, but it was a safety measure.
the chains were used likewise. when sunghoon was not there, the restraints kept her prisoner. sunghoon, reckless as he could be back then, was many things and stupid was not one of them. the chains stretched long enough to reach the bathroom but no further and he had his loyal friend help him test it after each victim.
“can you go further?” sunghoon called out.
heeseung’s lower limbs were shackled, ceasing his footsteps just shy of the hallway as he came to a total standstill. “not if i want my legs to follow me,” he’d retorted.
sunghoon had snickered. “good.”
had sunghoon been there, though, he would take the chains off. none of this was fair, even sunghoon didn’t believe that, but not giving them the chance to fight was too unfair. he needed not to chain them when he had the gift of his big, burly arms.
sunghoon waltzed over with a lighthearted and carefree gait, as if this was just another wednesday afternoon to him. and in some sick, despicable way, that wasn’t too far from the truth. he ripped the tape from sabrina’s lips, watching her face tense with pain.
“sunghoon,” sabrina rasped, voice croaking. he could tell from her flushed face and misty eyes that she’d been crying. “i’m thirsty.”
sunghoon cocked a brow, glancing to his hand. he had an irritating knack for playing dumb. it used to be endearing. now, with everything she knew to be true torn from her bare hands, sabrina didn’t know what to think. “what - you want this?”
sabrina nodded.
“yeah?” he popped off the top, throwing back a few gulps just before releasing a satisfied, “ah.”
sabrina’s lips trembled. “please.”
had she been anybody else, sunghoon probably would’ve dangled the water in her face just to snatch it away, but there was something about sabrina that made him gravitate towards her. in a rare moment of benevolence, sunghoon handed her the water, letting her drink.
she didn’t drink in short sips, but in giant gulps as if she’d known for some time that they’d be her last. when her thirst was satiated, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, handing the bottle back, and whispered, “thank you.”
sunghoon set the drink aside before returning to her, unshackling her limbs. sabrina’s breath quickened the moment the chains clacked harshly against the floor and nearly stilled when he brought his hand to her flushed face, tracing her chapped lips with a calloused thumb.
his thoughts rushed with unbridled exhilaration, ablaze with suspense, but he slowed for a moment to marvel at her loveliness. sunghoon’s hand touched her hair, touch tender in ways it would never be again, because he would never again know a woman as great as her.
he brought his lips to her ear, nibbling at the shell before asking, “do you know what i want you to do?”
sabrina bobbed her head, starting to halfheartedly peel off her clothes without needing to be told. with so many days held prisoner in this hell hole, it became routine. like she’d already resigned herself to her fate and knew sunghoon getting his way was inevitable. he always got what he wanted.
to be frank, it came out of nowhere. she never saw this twisted side of him coming. all she knew was that she became suspicious of his lack of family presence and it was too late when she saw him for the monster that he was, and then she woke here.
it had to have been months ago, although sabrina couldn’t have been sure how many. everyday started to bleed into the static hopelessness of another. sometimes sunghoon wouldn’t show for days, leaving her to live antsily, dreading his unavoidable return. other times, he would spend a day or two in the cabin, fucking her into kingdom come. 
as if she couldn’t be any more faultless. sunghoon smirked. “smart girl,” he purred. he would never deny her wit, given that she’d caught onto him, but her lack of strength was her only vice.
sunghoon restlessly tossed his own shirt over his naked shoulder and came to step out of his boxers. there was mischief on his plush lips. he knew something sabrina only knew from the unkind churn of her gut.
the end was more than near. it loomed over her, relentless and remorseless, and all she could like it to was dark and leaden clouds in a somber sky. even then, there was almost nothing she wouldn’t give to see the world again, but she’d long kissed that hope goodbye.
“down,” sunghoon told her, tone dark and stern.
she pliantly did as told, bare back meeting the mattress. sunghoon crept over her, hard cock twitching at the sight of her so meek. typically, he liked when they put up a fight, but sabrina knew better.
sunghoon could tell she was fighting back tears, willing herself not to cry with a stabilized breath, but her endeavors were in vain the second he started to force his way inside her. they escaped her eyes and dampened her cheeks, unable to overlook the agony of the stretch. 
“shh, baby,” sunghoon crooned in her ear, the weight of his body bearing down onto hers. “what’s the matter? you used to beg me to fuck you.”
sabrina shook her head, silently pleading for a mercy she knew deep down that sunghoon wasn’t capable of. “please make it quick.”
sunghoon’s tone was almost sweet. “but baby, you told me you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, remember?” 
sunghoon knew that his words weren’t reassuring and he didn’t intend for them to be. there was a reason why he loved how she tried to hold herself together. he got to push her limits, find her breaking point. in the end, she would get her wish, and in a way, sunghoon thought that that was love.
her walls were just as tight and vice-like as they’d been all those times he’d taken her before. if sunghoon got close enough to her, let his hands wander and tease as they never not had done, sabrina would still involuntarily gush around his cock. like her body knew she was forever a slave to his touch. 
just looking at her face as she wept sent shock waves of pleasure rippling through his dick and chest. sabrina didn’t cry in noisy, gasping sobs. her tears dripped from her thick lashes quietly, mouth parting in the most silent of whimpers.
and she orgasmed the same way, sunghoon remembered. back when things were normal between them, when she begged for him to fuck her, as he called it, her release was marked by a volatile shudder, but a silent cry of ecstasy.
sunghoon pushed sabrina’s lips into an upward curling with his thumb and index finger. “smile for the camera, sabrina,” he whispered.
sabrina’s brows furrowed, painfully oblivious to the camera tracking her every emote. sunghoon couldn’t not document his deeds. there was something about being able to play them over, immersing himself back in that moment over and over, even when the life itself could not be so easily brought back.
but for sunghoon, they could be. when he rewatched these videos again and again, it was like he could feel their pulses thump in their neck, resuscitating.
sunghoon’s hands were everywhere, fingertips traipsing towards sabrina’s neck where marks lingered from all the times he’d strangled her, only to slacken his grip when she was just shy of passing out. the bruises were different colors, indicative of different healing stages. sabrina tensed, startled, and wondered when it would all be over.
“sunghoon.” sabrina was overcome with defeat. her voice cracked as she asked, “sunghoon, please just cum.”
sunghoon’s face tensed with pleasure. “fuck, babe, when you say it like that…”
he stood at the brink of climax, threatening to teeter over, and there was only one thing that could knock him over quicker than anything else. it wouldn’t be anything she said, anything she did, but only a weakness sunghoon had the power to wield against himself.
“you want me to finish?”
sabrina nodded. 
sunghoon chuckled darkly. “then, in that case, it’s time for you to get your wish, baby.”
he watched her shoulders slump, releasing all hope of ever knowing anything different again and accepting that this was where things ended. thinking about the feeling he remembered none too distantly, one that almost seemed to keep his blood pumping through him, in a way, sunghoon’s fingers itched.
sunghoon lifted his hands, bringing them to sabrina’s face, but before he could touch her, she exclaimed, “wait, sunghoon!”
his brow cocked. 
sabrina’s lips trembled. “can you tell me what today is? please?”
“wednesday,” sunghoon replied, holding his hands around her neck, but keeping his grip slack. for now.
“wednesday,” sabrina said, pulling her lips into the faintest of smiles as tears blurred her vision. “will you tell jake that i hope he has an amazing thursday?”
“that can be arranged,” sunghoon said, grinning.
sabrina nodded, setting her mind at ease. she’d already made peace with this day some months ago. she never knew when it come, but she saw it as something bound to happen. “thank you,” she whispered. 
those were her last words. because when sunghoon tightened his grip at her throat, almost like tightening a noose, he couldn’t bring himself to stop in spite of the agonized gleam in her stare. and then her stare was empty, and sunghoon had already emptied his load inside of her.
to describe the sensation he got from killing in a way that captured its essence would be impossible. it was more than feeling the life leave her. it was more than watching her eyes become soulless. it was a release, a way of relinquishing all of the vacantness he harbored, and knowing that his heart was still there.
it would always return, sometimes as soon as the next day, but for a minute, sunghoon was whole and no drug could replicate that kind of contentedness.
sunghoon did tell jake what sabrina said. he wasn’t all too sure why, maybe it was because she was his mother and jake was her son that they’d created together, and sunghoon would never have it any other way. for her to be the one to give him a child, he couldn’t imagine any other woman in her place.
it was almost unfortunate that she had to go so soon. even sunghoon thought that her demise was premature. had she not grown so suspicious of him, sunghoon could imagine making her his wife, maybe even spending the rest of his life with her.
their marriage wouldn’t have been without his secret dark life, but sabrina wouldn’t’ve been a victim. alas, loose ends needed to be tied. sunghoon couldn’t trust that she would’ve kept quiet, and even then, she was in a much more fitting place for an angel like herself.
there was much of this memory that would be abridged. never would sunghoon reveal anything about the cabin or the dear friend that helped him commit his indulgences, or even the existence of the tapes. if they found those videos, that was proof of murder with a grand total of 106 women.
the air around you was heavy and the words you’d just been fed weren’t easily take in. “what you’re just told me is really sad.”
but sunghoon didn’t look sad. whether or not he ever truly cared for sabrina would perpetually be a mystery. “maybe,” he started. “but tell me that you wouldn’t hurt the person you loved most if it was what was best for them.”
“i did. but what i had to do is different from what you were.”
sunghoon’s interest was piqued. “how come?”
“it was my responsibility to decide whether or not to take my sister off of the ventilator. there was no hope for her,” you confessed, though brushed over it quickly. “what happened to your ex-wife?”
“not that interesting of a story,” sunghoon said. “she wasn’t sabrina, i got tired of her, here we are.”
“and yet she wasn’t a one-off like martina mortes.”
“had she been a one-off, my body count would be one number higher. that was a favor,” sunghoon told you, grinning as if you actually had something to be grateful for.
you didn’t waste a second to accuse, “because you need to keep your victims to extract all the relief that you can from them, right?”
“i’m afraid it’s not your turn to ask questions,” sunghoon replied tauntingly. “what was your sister like - did she have long hair? what color were her eyes? how long were her lashes?”
sick son of a bitch, bellowed the voice in your head, though you willed yourself to remain composed. it was plain on his face that sunghoon didn’t want an answer - he wanted a reaction. and as furious as that made you, you couldn’t let him provoke you. “that’s none of your business,” you said, but there was a loophole. “but she was beloved.”
that qualified as an answer. sunghoon glanced at you in a way that made you feel see-through, as if he knew that you were threatening to come apart at the seams and didn’t buy your nonchalance for a minute. 
sated, he went on to feed you bullshit about his ex-wife’s death, though there were only four people who knew what truly happened to her and one of them was dead.
sunghoon remembered that day like it happened yesterday. it was a thursday evening when he’d come home from work. christine had picked jake up from school hours ago and sunghoon wholly expected to come home to her in the kitchen.
it was dark outside. the moon was a mere sliver and the stars were duller than they typically were, almost like they had witnessed something that drained their spirits. sunghoon remembered struggling to identify his house key, trying each of them until the door clicked open.
“i’m home,” sunghoon’s voice thundered as he turned to lock the door. 
there were quick footsteps from upstairs. jake, sunghoon thought, more than familiarized with the sound. but there was none of christine’s usual voice.
“dad, i’m hungry,” came jake’s voice from the stairs, coming down them one by one.
that in itself should’ve been suspicious, but instead, all sunghoon could think about was how sabrina would’ve already fed her son. “hasn’t christine made dinner by now?” sunghoon asked, irritated.
jake shook his head, though sunghoon couldn’t see. he was hanging his coat on the rack, like he always did after he locked the door. “she can’t right now.”
“why not?”
“because i think she’s dead,” jake replied, nonchalant as ever.
that was the very second that sunghoon turned around and noticed that jake was stained with blood. it was all over his face and the spots would probably never come out of his clothes, not that they would be kept.
for half a minute, sunghoon was genuinely stunned.
jake didn’t say what happened, and there was no need to. “the blood won’t come off,” was all he said, showing his father the pair of hands that he’d washed with vigor.
sunghoon heaved a breath. he should’ve seen this coming. jake took after his father and he never liked christine. to say the least, sunghoon couldn’t blame him. “where is she?”
“where they all go,” jake replied, as if it was the most normal and natural thing in the world to him. 
sunghoon headed for the basement with quick footsteps, jake following behind. if somebody were to come down there, they wouldn’t suspect a thing. not only was it decorated to look like one, but it was used as a man cave. behind a soundproof wall, though, was a dungeon for his prisoners. 
in this case, there was a trail of blood leading to the wall, proof that jake had somehow brought christine there after he hurt her. sunghoon entered the cell and saw her there behind the bars, coming to her side to check her pulse. 
pressing his thumb to her wrist and neck, sunghoon sensed a pulse, though it was weakening. “she’s not dead,” he said, wresting his phone out of his pocket.
jake didn’t look so relieved, but he didn’t voice his dissatisfaction. “are you mad?”
sunghoon glanced down at christine. jake had used a kitchen knife, attacking her in the heat of the moment. she was butchered and blood-splattered, on the verge of slaughter, and yet sunghoon couldn’t find it in him to offer any compassion. “that you hurt her? no. that you made a mess? a little.”
now that was a relief. to jake, at least back then, his dad was the coolest guy that he knew.
there was quite the scene in front of him and sunghoon didn’t have a thing for blood. he shook his head in reproach, chastising, “i’m going to teach you the right way to get rid of a woman when you’re sick of her.”
that piqued jake’s curiosity. 
sunghoon was quick to dial heeseung’s number. he had medical experience and that was what he needed right now. when the call connected, he said, “i’m in calling in a favor.”
heeseung patched her up again. at least for a few months, sunghoon still needed her breathing. they scrubbed the floors free of blood, burned jake’s bloodied clothes, and it was as if nothing ever happened.
what sunghoon had told you was only a fraction of the truth, but still enough to make you want to grimace. it bemused you how he got away with murdering his ex-wife and nobody thought to suspect her husband with a track record of disappearing partners.
“you want to know what’s really amazing?” you started, though it was more like disgusting. “how three of the women you’ve killed were your significant others, and somehow, you’ve only now been incriminated.”
sunghoon looked proud of himself. had it not been for jake, he probably would’ve never been caught. “sabrina never told anyone that we dated, or that she had a baby by me. her parents wanted her to focus on her education. if they knew she’d gotten pregnant, she would’ve been the black sheep.”
“and you took advantage of that,” you hissed. 
“so what if i did?” sunghoon asked, careless. “not to mention that dozens of teenage girls in chicago were going missing at the time. they added martina to that number and called it a day. is that sad? maybe. but that’s how it works.”
“and as for your co-worker?” you asked sharply. the boldness of his crimes astounded you. “her husband grieves her. were you having an affair?”
the thought of her made sunghoon chuckle. oh, were we, he reminisced. it was a misfortune that he didn’t get the chance to have his way with her the way that he wanted. and for that reason, he couldn’t regale you in a truthful account of her death.
what happened that day, the day his co-worker died, challenged his fate and was the reason that he only now knew the imprisonment he thrusted upon others.
sunghoon knew when he spotted her that he would revel in her vulnerability. married, but she hardly wore her ring. her kind was the most naive - the kind that believed ecstasy was without costly sin. one way or another, she had to reap what she sowed.
he worked his way inside her pants, but it was hardly any work; she was on a desperate pursuit for pleasure and when sunghoon promised it to her, offering content on a silver platter, she thought less with her brain and more with the throbbing between her legs.
for months, sunghoon slept with her, which was far from typical. if she were anybody else, sunghoon would have pursued her for a couple of weeks time, then banished her to the underground prison. though considering he already had a victim down there at the time, he had some time to spare.
it was no secret that she had grown fond of sunghoon in ways she hadn’t been of her husband in a very long time, and though sunghoon found her to be special, in a way, he could not reciprocate her feelings. when sunghoon saw her, all he felt was the overwhelming urge to use her with a lick of remorse, and squeeze those panting breaths out of her.
it was a shame that he never got the opportunity. sunghoon already tested the bounds of his self-restraint when it came to her, each of their encounters consensual with her oblivious to his deepest, darkest desires. sometimes, his fingers would wander to her neck, but even that was wanted.
what was not wanted was the tyranny over her body that preceded her death. it bemused sunghoon to learn that his son, along with two of his friends that he thought of like brothers and sunghoon thought of like sons, ravaged her to the brink of being unrecognizable.
had sunghoon held control over the situation, he wouldn’t have cared what happened to her and would have even permitted them to go to town. but what happened was somehow darker. when he got a call from the professor late that day, hearing her broken sobs over the phone, he told her to meet him at his house.
that was his first mistake. 
it wasn’t that she didn’t come. she made it there, hopeful to confide in sunghoon about the nightmare that tore her apart, but it was jake that opened the front door. and when she entered, there was no hope out of her coming out breathing.
jake had been a downward spiral ever since a month ago when he stumbled upon the tape of his mother. ever since he was a boy, jake watched every tape he could find of his father’s dark life, even sharing them with his friends as if they were movies and not snuff.
but this was not like those. this was his mother. and watching her suffer, listening to her final request before her untimely death, broke jake in ways which he would never recover.
jake had known since he was little that his mother was dead and his father was to blame, but his understanding of what happened to her was skewed. if he’d known eighteen years ago what he knew today, when sunghoon had his own son aid him in his mother’s demise, none of it would have ever happened.
to say nothing of the fact that what sunghoon had jake do was only a mere fraction of his mother’s suffering. jake would fetch things from the other side of the cabin he vaguely remembered visiting every now and then for three months. when he was not there, which was often, he would lie to his neighbors about her whereabouts.
even though when she died he was only a kid being taken advantage of, jake hated himself for letting it happen right under his nose. he wished he would’ve told his neighbors the truth. maybe if he had, his mother would still be alive and kicking, and he would know the only woman he ever cared for.
that was why he went after his professor that he knew his father had also been eyeing closely and having an affair with. her fate was obvious. sunghoon would entertain her for a while, somehow charm and woo his way into her pants like he did every other woman, kidnap her and keep her downstairs for three months, then kill her and identify the next victim.
but sunghoon’s liking of her was also hopelessly discernable. she was living too long. and that was a telltale sign that sunghoon took a special interest in his son’s professor, something that jake feared would rival the affection (if it existed) for his mother.
jake was not keen on having his mother replaced. the last time it happened, he snapped and maimed his stepmother. and he was not afraid of doing so again.
when jake exacted revenge, it felt like nothing he had ever done before. vengeance tasted like heaven. his professor tasted elysian. and he had never felt so good about himself, but then the high wore off, comparable to the fading release sunghoon got after strangling his victims, and familiar pain seared through him once further. 
vindictiveness was a lethal venom, festering quickly upon injection. after jake got what he wanted, there was a greed to replicate that feeling, in spite of the fact that nothing would compare to that first blow. in his own way, unlike his father’s but similar nonetheless, he was pivoting towards release.
jake was on the brink of something like psychosis when he heard those knocks on his front door. and when he peered outside, spotting the professor, his recklessness got the better of him.
she was dead before she even stepped inside the house. jake yanked her inside, brought her downstairs, and forced himself onto her for a second time that day. when she wept for sunghoon, wishing he would come home, jake almost pitied her naïveté.
if jake hadn’t killed her, wrapping his hands around her throat the way that he knew his father had been yearning to, sunghoon would have.
the look on his professor’s face was pitiful. “sorry,” jake said, though he clasped his hands around her throat harder. “but i have to make a statement.”
it was not particularly a difficult thing to do, at least not to stomach, but killing her was merely just a means to an end. he didn’t get off to it like his father would’ve, jake’s interest lay inflicting psychological damage, but he did it because he knew how much it pleasured sunghoon to squeeze the life out of his victims.
and if jake couldn’t have what he wanted, then as long as he lived, neither would his dad for tearing it away.
sunghoon came home moments too late. jake left his professor in the cellar for his father to find, eyes wide and face pale.
sunghoon glanced around. he saw her car parked outside, but no sign of her. when jake came from his bedroom on the upper floor, a creeping feeling of deja vu flooded sunghoon’s chest, but he asked, “where is she?”
jake’s face was expressionless. “she’s dead,” he replied, confident. “i mean it this time.”
sunghoon shook his head. “you killed her?”
“wasn’t it you that said you were going to teach me the proper way to dispose of a woman when i’m sick of her?” jake asked, approaching his father as he crept down the stairs.
though sunghoon wasn’t pleased, he willed himself to calm down. “did you strangle her?”
“yes.”
sunghoon figured, from the lack of blood staining his house this time around. “will you tell me about it?”
that caught jake off-guard. he expected his father to be angry, to let loose. he had to have been dreaming of choking her since the day he laid eyes on her. “you sick fuck,” jake sneered.
sunghoon snickered, unbothered. that’s rich. “who do you think you got it from?”
obviously, from the face jake was making, he didn’t like that. his nonchalant attitude dissipated. “i’m not like you!”
“keep telling yourself that. maybe one day you’ll delude yourself into believing it,” sunghoon replied, hanging his coat on the rack in spite of knowing he would be leaving again soon.
“i’m not like you - i mean that.”
sunghoon, miffed, rolled his eyes and said, “come on, son. you think i don’t know you and your friends have been watching my tapes for the past decade and then some like they’re cartoons?”
“but not mom’s,” jake spat, loathing fizzing in his stare. 
sunghoon froze, then spun around. “is that what this is all about?”
jake nodded, pleased his father was finally getting the picture. “i found it in your study. you hid it more carefully than the others, because she was special or you didn’t want me to find it, i don’t know.”
sunghoon heaved a breath. “you were never supposed to see that.”
“but i did,” jake replied. “and i’ve suffered every day for the past month because of that.”
sunghoon shot without hesitation, “a suffering you brought upon yourself. nobody asked you to go snooping around in my things.”
jake’s lips were twisted into the meanest snarl sunghoon had ever seen. emotion wrecked through him in its totality. “is that what’s important to you? i shouldn’t be surprised. you couldn’t even spare your own son’s mother from your heartlessness.”
sunghoon massaged his temple, summoning all of his willpower. “please,” he groaned, sensing an incoming headache. “women are weak, cheating whores. just look at your professor. maybe your mother wasn’t, but she was a liability.”
if that was supposed to console jake, it had the complete opposite effect. “are you saying she deserved it?”
“i’m saying that you’ve always been too soft,” sunghoon said, not bothering to sugarcoat his chastising. “just like your mother. even when you were a child. that’s why i had you help me, i hoped you would harden up a little.”
jake scoffed. “unbelievable.”
“your mother went quietly. she didn’t even fight it, jake. so, why are you?”
“because of that,” jake told him, vitriol in his voice. “she didn’t ask you to stop one time. she just asked you to get it over with.”
sunghoon tipped his head back. “ah, yes. she really was perfect, wasn’t she?”
that was all it took to kindle an unforgiving rage within jake and in a moment of fury, flickering through him in a flash, jake lifted his hand to smack his father.
sunghoon caught his wrist, as if this weren’t the first time this had happened and it was wholeheartedly expected. his voice lowered to a mere hiss, “i’ve never laid a hand on you. ever in your life. don’t make today be the day i start.”
jake glared, but wrested his way out of his father’s grip and backed away.
sunghoon smoothed down his shirt and headed for the kitchen, knowing jake would follow. this conversation was far from over. “now, if you excuse me, i have to clean up your mess,” he said, pulling a burner phone out of a drawer. “if you don’t mind.”
“i can clean up my own mess,” jake replied, scowling. 
setting the phone on the counter, sunghoon reached for a glass. “no, you can’t. not without digging your own grave. unless you want to go to prison, pack your shit, ask one of your buddies if you can stay with them for a few days, and take the tapes with you. hide them.”
jake made a face. “what are you talking about?”
sunghoon sighed. “we can’t get away with this one, son. her car’s parked outside. there’s too many loose ends.”
“we can get rid of the car. you don’t have to go to jail!” jake shouted.
“it’s either you or me. frankly, i’m doing you a favor. you wouldn’t last two seconds behind bars,” sunghoon hissed. he grabbed another glass, sliding it across the counter, then said, “now, wine? you know, to celebrate your old man going away? i believe that’s what you want.”
jake shook his head. never in his life had he been so conflicted. his father that he’d been so bent on despising until he the day he died was voluntarily confessing to a crime he didn’t commit, just so that his son wouldn’t have to suffer in prison.
“why are you doing this?” jake asked, bristling with emotion. 
sunghoon sighed. “because i love you, son. even if you don’t think so. and because your mother would be turning in her grave if she knew you were in prison.”
jake blew out a breath. then, after a moment of reluctance, he grabbed the glass on the counter and reached for the wine bottle. 
sunghoon snickered. “atta boy.”
“i wonder how your son reacted when he learned you were going to prison for murder,” you said, pondering. “you live in the same house. i wonder how he didn’t know.”
sunghoon lied, “he was at a friend’s house when i killed her. doesn’t like that it was his favorite professor.”
you nodded along, buying his lies. “that is a lot to take in. i mean, imagine your dad was having an affair with your favorite science professor. then, he kills her, like how he killed your mom.”
sunghoon shrugged his shoulders. “have you never heard the phrase ‘the heart wants what it wants?’”
“i have,” you replied. “and i guess your heart wanted to stop the function of others.”
sunghoon laughed at his own expense. “oh, please. you give me too much credit. you shouldn’t make me out to be more romantic than i am.”
you shook your head in disappointment. “you make these women want you, and then you undo everything. that has to be part of the amusement to you.”
“it gets a chuckle or two out of me.”
your lips were tempted to curl into a frown for the umpteenth time that day alone. “why?”
sunghoon leaned up in his chair, exclaiming, “because it’s fun!”
you were going to say something, but he didn’t give you the chance. 
sunghoon continued, “everyday, as adults, we do the same job for hours and come home. people want excitement in their lives. women get exhausted of coming home to their husbands or nobody at all.”
your stare was blank. “and your point is?”
“i didn’t just make those women want me, baby. i made them need me,” sunghoon told you smugly. “i brought a spark to their lives, and i took it away just as fast. and i do it… because i can.”
“because you could,” you corrected, confident he would never be free of this place for as long as he lived. “you’re going to be in here a very, very long time.”
sunghoon grinned. “i wouldn’t be so sure.”
you cocked your brow. “what’s that supposed to mean?”
“wouldn’t you like to know?” sunghoon teased. you hated the smugness in his tone. like he knew something that you didn’t.
the door opened, and the guard from earlier returned. “i hate to interrupt, but it’s time for the count,” he said, coming behind sunghoon to undo his cuffs.
it all happened in a blink. sunghoon’s weight was pressed flush against yours, roughly thrusting you into the table. your body screamed, agony spreading through your side, but your gun was in a lockbox outside the room.
sunghoon knew from your conversations alone that you weren’t the type to go quietly. your first instinct was to fight back. naturally, you struggled against his hold, refusing to bend to his will even as panic shot through your chest. your whole body was on guard, aiming for survival.
but to your misfortune, your might was no match for sunghoon’s. you glanced to the guard for assistance, but when he only stood there as if he was waiting for it to end, the most unsettling feeling of realization washed over you.
“don’t fight him,” the guard said, arms crossed. “you won’t win.”
sunghoon snickered when he noticed your eyes widen in shock. you hadn’t seen that coming. though you tried to resist, it was over once his slender fingers came to your throat, and you genuinely feared for your life. 
you didn’t realize how good you had it just being able to breathe until you couldn’t anymore. your breaths wouldn’t come. it felt as if your bones were being crushed. your whole body was on fight mode, but it was like sunghoon had the reins, shutting down your senses one by one.
“you put up a good fight, detective,” sunghoon whispered darkly in your ear, admiring your struggle.
your lips parted, but you couldn’t speak no matter how hard you tried. your self-preservation instincts were no match against him. all you could do was meet sunghoon’s stare. the pressure on your neck was too much to handle, and in seconds, you were out.
“lights out,” sunghoon said. he released your throat, having no intention of killing you and leading you for dead, but knowing that you would likely regain consciousness in a matter of seconds, he grabbed you by the hair, smashing your head flat against the table to subdue you.
heeseung winced, but he did nothing to step in. “poor girl,” he mumbled under his breath, pitying you. “had enough?”
“for now,” sunghoon replied. “let’s go.”
heeseung gave sunghoon a uniform to wear so that he would blend in amongst the uniforms like heeseung had and when he was ready, the two of them fled before they could be deterred.
when they had successfully gotten away, heeseung asked with his hand on a steering wheel, “you know that i don’t agree with this, right?”
sunghoon snickered. it had absolutely been said. “you haven’t agreed with my lifestyle for the past twenty-five years, yet you still help me. why?”
heeseung frowned. sometimes, he asked himself the same question, but deep down inside, he knew the answer. “because we may not share blood, but we’re brothers,” heeseung replied. “and for my brother, i’ll do anything you need.”
sunghoon quipped, “like smuggle me across the border?”
“like smuggle you across the border,” heeseung said, chuckling. “when we get there, there’s gonna be this dude named sunoo. he’s gonna help you out. i’ll be in touch.”
sunghoon nodded. “i can’t thank you enough, man.”
“just lay low and stay out of trouble,” heeseung said, shaking his head. 
sunghoon grinned with mischief. he was already thinking about all of the beautiful women he couldn’t wait to get his hands on. “no promises,” he answered, sighing contentedly.
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ghost-kings-court-jester · 2 months ago
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I find it so interesting that time and time again Jun Wu never considered other peoples kindness and how that foiled all his plans.
Like originally he wanted Xie Lian to fall apart and break like him but Wu Ming was there to be sure he wasn’t alone and to take on all that resentment.
The man with the bamboo hat was there making sure Xie Lian remember that people can be kind.
Like even 800 years later after Jun Wu failed he tries to cause rifts for Xie Lian so that he has no one and becomes isolated and hopefully insane like him.
Except Pei Ming who would have lied and manipulated the situation doesn’t blame Xie Lian for figuring everything out, he knows it wasn’t personal and he’s able to work with him later despite Jun Wu constantly pitting them against each other.
Shi Wudu is the strongest elemental master and while he didn’t ever warm to Xie Lian, Shi Qingxuan did and they loved him for who he was. They always came to Xie Lian defence to give him backing in heaven because they were friends. (Which honestly might be why the Shi Wudu plot was revealed starting the Black Water Arc.) then even after leaving heaven and Xie Lian losing a popular gods backing. Shi Qingxuan is kind and doesn’t hold a grudge and even when they have nothing and can’t be an ally in heaven they still care about Xie Lian and help him when they are literally crippled and mortal.
Ling Wen is shrewd and could have been a very strong antagonist against Xie Lian except he was always polite and kind to her and she respects that. She has no real desire to do him harm outside of protecting herself and doesn’t really consider him an enemy in any way.
Lang Qianqiu should have turned against him and all of the heavens against too except he only wants the truth. He hears the whole story and immediately clears Xie Lians name and makes sure the heavens know it was Qi Rong so Xie Lian can’t be banished again.
He pairs Xie Lian with Quan Yizhen a god known for being confrontational and picking fights except Xie Lian was kind to him and that makes him a for lifer in Quan Yizhen’s mind he literally wouldn’t turn against him or even think about it because Xie Lian proved himself to be a good person and that’s all Quan Yizhen needs to like you.
Yushi Huang happily tried to help Xie Lian with the drought and gives him her spiritual device as a show of kindness. Then she helps him hide Banyue, helps in Tonglu and helps Hua Cheng infiltrate Heaven because she’s a kind woman who gave up her life for her people and understands Xie Lian is the same.
Jun Wu assumes this whole time that Feng Xin and Mu Qing would be resentful because that’s what happened to him with his friends except Feng Xin and Mu Qing are insane and deranged and just want Xie Lian to be their friend again so they make little disguises to help all the time and take some of the scrutiny of Xie Lian because they were there too. Feng Xin pays of Xie Lians huge debt to smooth things over for him with the other Gods. When Xie Lian is “kidnapped” they follow him to get him back immediately because hey wait that’s our friend. Jun Wu tries to bring suspicion between them by making them assume the worst about each other but Mu Qing literally takes a shackle over betrayal. Then both of them go to Mount Tonglu to protect Xie Lian and begin to mend their friendship because that’s how they roll.
And of course we have Hua Cheng who is Wu Ming that constant loyal thorn in Jun Wu’s side because through all of these events he is with Xie Lian. He offers comfort and support and insures that Xie Lian never even begins to spiral down the same dark path by helping him in every situation, acting as a buffer and a confidant and reminding Xie Lian he isn’t alone and he will be there loving Xie Lian more than Jun Wu could ever hate him.
There’s probably more instances but I just love how this all kinda plays out like yes Xie Lian is truly kind and hopeful and that’s why he’ll never fully be Bai Wuxiang anyway but other people are kind too! There is so much more to people than Jun Wu expects and that’s why his plan is foiled over and over again. Not by smarts or by fighting but by simple human kindness and compassion.
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keirareidss · 2 months ago
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be mean to me - s.r
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♡ summary: maybe spencer wasn't so bothered by your meanness pairing: spencer reid x mean!reader warnings: 18+ MDNI,sub!spencer, smut with a hint of plot wc: 2.2k
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Spencer thought he had a pretty good grasp on what he liked. He knew what made him feel good and he knew what he didn't like. He knew he liked you. But there was one little thing. Minuscule, really. It didn't even matter all that much, it's just... sometimes, you happened to be a little...
mean.
"Spence get me a coffee while you're up would you?" You ordered asked, barely looking up from your file, when he had stood up to bring a file to Hotch.
"Sure." He nodded, heading up the stairs to drop off the file and then moving into the kitchen to make your coffee just the way you like. He was stirring a little bit of milk into your mug, black with a little cartoon of snoopy on it, when Derek sauntered into the kitchen.
"Hey, man. Why do you let her do that?"
"Do what?" Spencer asked.
"Order you around. Is there something in it for you?" Derek grins.
"No, I- I just like being helpful."
"Ohh, I get it. You like it. You naught boy." Morgan teased, making Spencer flush red in embarrassment.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Spencer stammered, grabbing your mug and pushing past Derek who wolf whistles after him. He sets the mug down on your desk next to you and you finally look up at him.
"What took so long?" You asked, picking up the mug and taking a sip, staring at him over the lip of the cup.
"I, uh- Derek was just teasing me."
"About what?" You asked and his blush deepened.
"Um, nothing really, it's not important." He said, sitting back at his desk and ducking into his work. You stared at him for a moment before shrugging and going back to your work.
-
You and Spencer were looking through files in the Florida police precinct. The rest of the team was out at crime scenes or talking to victims so the two of you were left to your own devices.
"Do you have the file in McKinley?" You asked.
"Um... uh, yeah right here." He said sifting through the pile of files around him before passing it to you. "Do you think he's a suspect?" Spencer asks.
"Come on, Spencer, don't be stupid." You chuckled sadistically. "You know he's not a suspect. I'm more concerned with his dating history." You said, flipping through the file.
"Why, what does that have to do with the case?" Spencer asked?
"Spence, come on." You stood up, moving to stand behind his chair and dropping the file in front of him. "Look, he was briefly married to Carla Finch before they divorced. Then he moved in with Betty Grey who pops up in The Jackson's file as their maid." You talked slowly as if you were talking to a child. Spencer blushed, feeling the tent in his trousers grow.
"Okay, I got it."
"Yeah?" You stood up, hands on your hips as you looked down at him. "You sure? Or should I really spell it out for you?" You sassed.
"N-no I get it." Spencer cursed himself for stammering, a blush rising on his cheeks.
"Good boy." You squeezed his shoulder before sitting back down with your file. Spencer shifted in his seat, adjusting his trousers as he avoided looking at you.
-
You and Spencer were having a little dinner with the BAU at your house. You were cooking a nice meal, a little celebration for the case you just finished. Spencer was in the kitchen helping you cook, or rather, trying.
"Spence are you even mixing it?" You asked, glancing into his bowl where the ingredients were messily combined.
"I'm trying." He defended.
"Okay, well, try harder, this has to be a meal, not a bunch of ingredients."
"Okay, I know." You continued flitting around the kitchen, checking oven timers, seasoning, glazing, perfecting, and Spencer did his piece.
"Spencer, get me the oven mitt." You said and he immediately abandoned his task to do what you asked.
"Here you go." He stood next to you, holding it out. You grabbed it, sliding it on your hand. You grabbed his jaw in your other hand, planting a kiss on his cheek before opening the oven. Spencer smiles, going back to his previous task.
~
The BAU arrives and everyone sits down to enjoy dinner. Around halfway through, Derek speaks up.
"Mm, what is in this chicken? It's so good."
"Thank you, I worked hard, so..." You trailed off with a grin and the team chuckled.
"Did you know that chickens are actually very intelligent. They can demonstrate complex cognitive abilities, including the ability to recognize faces, learn from experience, and even perform basic math. They can-" You cut him off, squeezing his thigh and leaning a bit closer to him.
"Later, babe." You murmured. Spencer gave a tight lipped smile and looked down at his food.
"Sorry."
"So, does anyone want dessert?" You asked, standing up. They all gave their agreements and you brought over the cake you made. Everyone had a slice and then the team all sat around the living room together. You were chatting with JJ and next to you on the couch sat Spencer who was debating with Morgan.
"Elle, can you-"
"Shh, hang on." You held up a finger in his direction, not even looking at him as you leaned a little closer to JJ to hear the end of your story. Once she finished you turned to Spencer and Derek. "What do you want?"
"We need you to settle this for us. Is almond milk milk?" Derek asked, completely serious. You stared at them, glancing between him and Spencer.
"What?"
"Simple question. Is almond milk considered milk?" Derek asked again.
"Are you kidding me?" You said.
"Of course it's not milk, it's just almonds, water, salt, emulsifier, sweetener, and vitamins." Spencer exclaimed.
"It's literally in the name! Almond milk! It's milk!" Derek defended.
"It isn't!"
"Oh my god, you're both idiots." You groaned.
"What?" Spencer asks.
"I don't fucking care. This is the stupidest argument I've ever heard."
"Well you don't have to be so mean about it." Morgan says but Spencer stays quiet, shifting in his seat as your hand brushes the side of his thigh.
"I'm not. Have you two heard yourselves? Is almond milk milk? You couldn't think of anything better to talk about?"
"Well..." Derek trailed off and you rolled your eyes, turning back to JJ.
-
Eventually, the night was coming to a close and the team made their way to the door.
"See you at work on Monday." Emily waved goodbye.
"See you guys. And it is milk." Derek said, pointing at Spencer.
"It isn't-"
"Don't. Do not start this again." You interjected.
"Meanie." Derek grinned before leaving and you pushed him out the door, shutting it behind him. Spencer moved to go to the bedroom and you followed.
"Hey, hey, hang on." You grabbed his arm before he could make it to the en-suite. "I'm sorry about earlier, Spence. I wasn't trying to be mean to you, or Morgan… I guess. I know I can be a little mean sometimes but it's out of love, I swear." You were about to apologize some more when you felt Spencer’s hands glide up under your shirt and rest on the dip of your waist. You looked up to see Spencer avoiding eye contact. 
"You can be a little mean." He said so softly you almost didn't catch it. "I don't mind." Oh. Oh. You grinned wickedly. 
"You kinky bastard." Spencer couldn't have gotten redder if he tried and pushed his face into your neck with a defeated groan.
"Shut up." He grumbled.
"Damn, all this time I thought you hated when I was being mean but... you're turned on aren't you?" You teased, pulling back to look at him.
"Maybe..." He was staring at the ground, avoiding eye contact. You reached up, hooking a knuckle under his chin and tilting his head up to look into your eyes.
"Spence."
"Yeah?"
"Get on the bed." His eyes widened and he scrambled to get on the bed, pushing himself back until his back was against the headboard. He watched you saunter to the foot of the bed. "Take your clothes off." You ordered and he quickly did so, yanking his clothes off until he sat in just his boxers, hands curling into the sheets by his sides nervously. You slowly stripped, tossing your clothes on the floor before crawling across the bed to him. He watched with wide, lust filled eyes as you made your way to him, pressing a kiss to his hip, moving up to his stomach. You kissed up his chest to his neck, pausing to suck on his pulse point. Spencer gasped as your teeth grazed his skin, biting down. You pull away, leaning in to brush your lips against his. He whines when you don't kiss him, making you grin.
"Do you want something Spencer?"
"Mhm." He whines.
"Well you have to tell me what you want, I can't read your mind." You teased.
"I want you to kiss me."
"Ask nicely."
"Please kiss me. Please." He begs you. You grinned, finally pressing your lips against his roughly. You swallowed the moan he let out, your legs straddling his hips. You started to grind your core over his clothed cock, feeling wetness pool between your thighs. Spencer whimpered your name. "Please, more, I need- I need more." He gasped in the middle of his sentence.
"More what, baby?"
"More- more... ah!" He bucked his hips when you reached down, gripping his cock through his boxers, beginning to slowly stroke him.
"Use your words, Spence, what do you want?"
"I- I want you to- to ride me." He says, his voice quieting in embarrassment as his face blushed red.
"Hmm... I don't think you're ready yet." You teased, continuing to stroke his length through fabric. Spencer whined letting his head fall back against the headboard as you slipped your fingertips under the waistband, pulling them down his legs. You took his cock in your hand again stroking up and down, painfully slow, taking your sweet times as you watched Spencer's chest heave up and down, sweat forming on his brow. After a torturous five minutes, Spencer whimpered out,
"Please, please, I need more."
"Yeah?" You couldn't help the grin on your face at his desperation. You sped up your movements and Spencer let out a breathy moan. You continued until he was teetering on the edge, his back arching as he rushed out, 'I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna cum!'
And then you stopped. Spencer whined loudly.
"Why'd you stop?" He slurred out in a pleasure drunken haze.
"Well you don't want to come now and ruin everything do you?" You said condescendingly, brushing the hair back from his flushed face.
"You're so mean." He grumbled.
"But you love it, don't you?" You said, kissing his pouty lips. He opened his mouth to retort when you grabbed his cock again. He gasped as you quickly brought him to the edge again, keeping him there with your slow strokes.
"Please, please, please." He changed, squirming with the need to release. His hips bucked up towards your hand and you pulled it away, making him whine once more.
"Am I being too mean?" You asked teasingly.
"No, no, just- please."
"So you're saying I could be meaner?"
"No! No, please, I can't- I can't take it."
"Okay, okay, I'll be nice. For once." You smirked, stripping yourself of your underwear and straddling his lap. You slowly lower yourself onto his length and he gasps. Once he's fully sheathed inside you, you start to move your hips back and forth, making him shudder. You plant your hands on his chest, rocking your hips in a circle. Spencer moans, his head dropping back once more, exposing his throat for you to kiss and suck on. His moans are music to your ears as you grind against him, his hands on your hips.
"Oh god, please, I'm so close, please."
"Do you wanna cum pretty boy?"
"Mhm, I wanna cum, please." He begs.
"How bad?" You asked, grinning.
"So bad, I- I wanna cum, please, I'm so close."
"Okay, baby, come for me." You rolled your hips harder, needing to feel his sweet release inside you. He moans as he finishes inside you, his hips bucking at the pleasurable feeling. You keep riding him, wanting to get yourself off. Spencer whines, feeling very overstimulated. "I'm almost there, I'm close." You moaned breathily. Spencer gripped the sheets in his hands as he whimpered, his chest heaving. You moaned, your head dropping back as you came on his twitching cock buried inside you. You collapsed against him, breathing in his scent combined with the scent of sex that filled the room. He wrapped his arms around you, because no matter how exhausted he was, he would always be delighted to hold you.
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a/n: I genuinely couldn't tell if I was writing the reader to be too mean or not mean enough but I think it works :]
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